Monitored Retrievable Storage Facility Research Articles

Voluntary siting and equity: the MRS facility experience in Native America.

This article focuses on aspects of intragenerational and intergenerational equity in the context of a unique policy experiment: the effort of the U.S. government to site a monitored, retrievable storage (MRS) facility for high-level civilian nuclear waste. This process and its outcomes are examined from both normative and subjective perspectives. While the MRS siting process was designed to be equitable, its eventual focus on Native American communities raises profound questions about environmental justice, as well as procedural, outcome, and intergenerational equity in cross-cultural contexts. The diverse reactions among Native American tribes demonstrate that translating theoretical concepts of equity into practice is an extraordinarily complex exercise. The MRS siting process, instead of being a bold policy experiment that promoted equity, emerges substantially flawed after its implementation in the Native American context.

A preferred RAPD-based strategy for permanent disposal of commercial LWR, spent nuclear fuel

Disposal of spent nuclear fuel is a controversial subject with both political and technical issues. The current U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) strategy of direct disposal of unprocessed light-water reactor (LWR) spent fuel poses significant long-term proliferation risks and may result in poor long-term containment of radionuclides. An alternative strategy based on the RAPD (Reactor/Accelerator Plutonium Destruction) system produces a final waste form that is highly resistant to proliferation and contained effectively by ceramic coatings for very long time periods, and shows great potential for generating net revenues from the sale of electricity. The RAPD system utilizes modular helium reactors (MHRs), which can be used also for effective destruction and degradation of weapons-grade plutonium, production of tritium for national defense purposes, and demonstration of an advanced reactor technology for low-cost production of electricity with high thermal efficiency. The growing shortage of storage space i spent-fuel pools at commercial LWR sites and the lack of a centralized facility for monitored retrievable storage (MRS) of spent fuel has already adversely affected one utility, and many reactors face possible premature shutdown unless an MRS facility becomes available in the near term. The RAPD-based strategy would utilize an MRS facility to alleviate this near-term, spent-fuel burden for many nuclear utilities.

The Mescalero option

The troubled state of the nations`s nuclear waste program is now more apparent than ever from the heated controversy that has emerged over a joint storage venture between some 30 utilities and the Mescalero Apache tribe of New Mexico. Tired of waiting for the government to make good on its promise to store nuclear waste, the utilities have struck out on their own. A monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility for nuclear waste would give the utilities a place to store upto to 10,000 metric tons of spent fuels. Fees could run as high as $25 million per year. The Mescalero MRS facility would be developed and operated by a corporate entity owned in part by the utilities, with the Mescalero tribe holding the majority share. For this joint venture to succeed the utilities and Mescaleros must prevail over strong opposition by New Mexico officials and environmental and nuclear activists, all of whom want spent reactor fuel kept out. Spent fuel would be shipped to the reservation by rail. Sealed canisters containing the fuel would then be removed from the transport casks and inserted in fixed storage modeus providing massive shielding. Ownership of the fuel would remain with the utilities, andmore » the license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to be based on extensive environmental and safety studies, would initially be for 20 years. By law the Department of Energy (DOE) is supposed to begin accepting spent fuel from the utilities on January 321, 1998. But nothing has been accomplished to this end - despite nearly 12 years since the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The most obvious and most likely, solution to the utilities problems is a congressional mandate for DOE to build an MRS at the Nevada Test Site either at or near Yucca Mountain.« less

Debate sharpens over nuclear waste storage

A report just delivered to Congress is likely to rekindle debate over how to deal with the growing amounts of radioactive waste accumulating at U.S. nuclear power plants. Two years ago, Congress created a panel, the Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) Review Commission, and asked it to study what to do with spent nuclear fuel until opening of a permanent underground repository, slated for Yucca Mountain, Nev., which may be delayed well into the next century. The panel was to recommend whether to store spent fuel temporarily at a central, federal MRS facility, as proposed by the Department of Energy, or continue storage at the more than 70 nuclear power sites. The spent fuel rods contain depleted uranium-235. The highly radioactive spent fuel produces heat and remains hazardous for more than 10,000 years. Most is now stored in water-filled pools at reactor sites, but dry storage in casks and bunkers will increase as pool space ...