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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
J. F. Proctor, I. W. Marine
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 22 | Number 3 | July 1965 | Pages 350-365
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE65-A20939
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A recent investigation established the technical feasibility and indicated the high degree of safety that could be afforded by the storage of high-level radioactive wastes in unlined vaults excavated in crystalline rock 1500 ft beneath the surface of the Savannah River Plant near Aiken, S. C. The crystalline rock at the proposed site is covered by 1000 ft of unconsolidated sediments conSisting predominantly of sand and clay. A virtually impermeable layer of clay separates the rock from the overlying sediments in which several prolific water-bearing zones occur. The separation of the waters above and below this clay layer is confirmed by their different chemical composition and by the presence of dissolved helium-bearing gas only in the water in the rocks beneath the clay. Based on geologic and hydrologic information obtained in an intensive drilling and testing program, upper limits on the rates of water movement through the crystalline rock are calculated to be 1.5 to 7 ft/year, depending upon the degree of fracturing of the rock. Comparable data on the unconsolidated sediments lead to a calculated maximum rate of water movement of 350 ft/year. The most significant driving force for the migration of radionuclides from the storage site is derived from the natural water movement, coupled with effects due to dispersion and ion exchange. Characteristics of the waste, heat generation, and radiolysis have, by contrast, only small effects on migration. Three barriers prevent migration of the radionuclides: the very low permeability of the rock in which the storage vault is located, the virtually impermeable clay layer separating the rock and sediments, and the ion exchange properties of the sediments. Anyone of these barriers is capable of confining the radionuclides well within the plant boundaries for a time much greater than the 600-year period required to render the wastes innocuous.