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WIPP: Lessons in transportation safety
As part of a future consent-based approach by the federal government to site new deep geologic repositories for nuclear waste, local communities and states that are considering hosting such facilities are sure to have many questions. Currently, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the only example of such a repository in operation, and it offers the opportunity for state and local officials to visit and judge for themselves the risks and benefits of hosting a similar facility. But its history can also provide lessons for these officials, particularly the political process leading up to the opening of WIPP, the safety of WIPP operations and transportation of waste from generator facilities to the site, and the economic impacts the project has had on the local area of Carlsbad, as well as the rest of the state of New Mexico.
Joseph A. Christensen, R. A. Borrelli
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 11 | November 2022 | Pages 1333-1348
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2087832
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This work uses evaluated criticality safety benchmarks to examine the effect of heterogeneity in high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) systems. A subset of benchmarks selected based on their composition parameters is slightly modified to artificially introduce heterogeneity, and the difference in the effective multiplication factor between the homogeneous benchmark and the modified model is determined. The difference in the multiplication factor is evaluated for correlations against both the moderator ratio and the enrichment of the benchmarks, and the correlations are examined using established statistical methods. In several cases, statistically significant correlations are observed and discussed, and the lack of expected correlations is also discussed.