CRESP III: National nuclear waste issues to be tackled by multi-university team

CRESP, a multi-university consortium of engineers and scientists, have learned a lot during the last ten years about how to handle nuclear waste. By helping the nation through the U.S. Department of Energy find the best ways to clean up nuclear weapons production sites and to dispose of nuclear wastes safely, these nuclear waste experts hope to leverage their knowledge to help the U.S. find safe ways to effectively manage nuclear waste from civilian nuclear power as well as defense sources, which they see as an critical component if the  nation is to accept expanded nuclear power generating capacities.

But the first step is to continue to clean up the “legacy wastes” of the Cold War, the Vanderbilt leaders of the consortium say. The CRESP Consortium partners include faculty members from Rutgers University, University of Pittsburgh, New York University, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Howard University, University of Arizona, and Oregon State University.

The multi-university Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation will be funded by a DOE cooperative agreement for the next five years (2006 - 2011) to continue to work with  DOE and its stakeholders on how to clean up legacy wastes from the nuclear arms race and to contribute to the technical foundation for safe management of  nuclear waste from a wide range of sources.

Although CRESP has focused on site remediation, its work has required engineers and scientists to understand the complete life cycle of nuclear power generation, weapons production and environmental impacts from nuclear weapons tests. 

CRESP has since 1995 been researching ways to advance cost-effective clean up of the nation’s nuclear weapons production waste sites and test facilities. CRESP III will work to improve technical clarity based on experience developed earlier by CRESP to help guide both nuclear weapons sites remediation and safe management of wastes produced by nuclear power plants.

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Introduction to Nuclear Fuel Cycle Chemistry

 

August 4 - 6, 2009

Marriot Crystal City at Reagan National Airport
1999 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202

Course Objective:  To provide an introduction to the chemistry and separations processes of radionuclides important to nuclear fuel cycles including: Fuel cycle overview; Nuclear fuel cycle fundamentals; Mining, milling and enrichment; Nuclear radiation; Reactors and fuels; Spent fuel reprocessing; Non-aqueous processes; Chemical properties of radionuclides including precipitation, crystallization, complexation; Ion exchange and sorption; Separations equipment; Waste forms; Environmental performance; Role of modeling; Nuclear proliferation and safeguards; Transportation; Role of risk assessments; Geologic repositories; and A view to the future.

Targeted Audience: Professionals in management, oversight, policy and regulation of nuclear separations processes and facilities. Also appropriate for graduate students in engineering and sciences planning a career focused on nuclear processes and as an introduction for professionals that will be engaged in nuclear separations processes and facility design.

Organizing Committee: Raymond G. Wymer, Chair; David S. Kosson, Vice-Chair, Vanderbilt University; Cynthia Atkins-Duffin, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; David dePaoli, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Kathryn Higley, Oregon State University; Terry Todd, Idaho National Laboratory.

Course Presentations

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Course Presentations and Videos Now Available

Introduction to Nuclear Chemistry and Fuel Cycle Separations

December 16-18, 2008

Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Agenda // Presentations // Videos

 

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PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE TECHNICAL EXCHANGE MEETING

Modeling the Performance of Engineered Systems for Closure and Near-Surface Disposal

Objective:  The purpose of this technical exchange is to understand the current state-of-practice, state of evolving science and opportunities to improve fidelity and reduce uncertainty in models used to estimate the performance of the engineered systems for environmental assessments.  The engineered system is defined to include the waste form(s), engineered barriers to contaminant release such as vaults, tanks, caps, and the near field physical-chemical interactions of these systems  with the immediate surroundings that impact contaminant release. For each topic, the presentations and discussions are intended to provide (i) state of practice, and (ii) state of science, with discussion focused on opportunities, near-term and longer-term directions.

Date: July 13-14, 2009

Location: Salt Lake City Marriott University Park

Participants:  DOE, NRC, EPA, State Regulators, National Laboratories, Academia, DOE Contractors, International

Complete agenda, powerpoint presentations and video available here.

 

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The Participatory Process on Risk at Hanford: A CRESP Status Report – March 2008

As part of its Cooperative Agreement, CRESP is assessing public participation and communication processes at Hanford where the Department of Energy’s risk evaluations are involved. The very nature of the questions we were asked to address tended to bring out areas of concern. CRESP initiated this process through a series of two types of “Listenings”. The first was with tribal environmental leaders, regulators, Hanford Advisory Board members and their relevant committees, DOE officials in the Tri-Cities and others. CRESP had completed an initial round of such listening in the late Fall and began a two pronged effort to follow up its initial findings. We went back to the tribes to make sure that what we had heard had been accurately represented and to see if, in follow-up sessions, we could better learn the significance of the points which differed among the tribes. The discussion of tribal issues that constitutes Part II of this document is the result of those discussions that took place on or near the tribal reservations.

CRESP accelerated its efforts to review the publicly-available written exchanges among the several parties and to attend (either physically or by phone) key meetings identified on the site’s public involvement calendar where public verbal exchanges are occurring among the parties. While one of the main topics has been the Draft Risk Assessment Report for the 100 Area and 300 Area Component of the River Corridor Baseline Risk Assessment(RCBRA) , other stakeholder concerns about the risk assessment and evaluation processes, the health of the Columbia River, and the health of Hanford overall were typically discussed. In Part III, we discuss issues that arose over the winter and early spring about the redrafting of the RCBRA Draft A, and the definitiion of the river component among the several Hanford risk assessment processes.
View Report

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“Best in Class” and Root Causes:
A CRESP Perspective on DOE‐EM’s Programs

The Office of Environmental Management currently seeks to become “best in class”. In fact, the Office is in a class by itself – and is, therefore, by definition both the best and the worst in that class. Accordingly, EM’s leaders and others often rightly describe the Office’s work as being unique for several reasons: (i) the nature, quantity and diversity of the wastes to which its remediation program is devoted, (ii) the complexity of the tasks EM faces, (iii) where some wastes are found and problems (risks) involved in their handling and (iv) the fact that its remediation program’s requires first-of-akind projects involving processes and construction projects that are simply found nowhere else. In reality, the EM program faces several distinct forms of challenges: (i) radioactive waste processing, (ii) remediation of contaminated geologic media (e.g., soil, sediments) and water from land surface to deep subsurface, (iii) decommissioning, including decontamination and demolition, of complex contaminated structures and, (iv) establishment, operation and closure of near surface disposal and deep geologic repositories. In this paper we seek to relate “best in class” concepts to earlier CRESP work on roots causes of EM problems. We look back to see how EM has or has not been able to use prior advice as a guide to what kind of effort is needed to make an initiative on “best in class” effective. We then propose a four-part approach to a comprehensive EM effort to drive for the quality and qualities that will make it “best in class”. View Report

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CRESP SPONSORED SYMPOSIA ON NUCLEAR WASTE MANAGEMENT

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Vanderbilt University Roundtable:

Waste, Waste Forms and Disposition Pathways: Current and Future for Spent Nuclear Fuel, High Level Waste, and Future Reprocessing/Recycling Wastes

September 28, 2007

The roundtable focused on an overview of nuclear waste managment challenges including presentations on current activities at:

• Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials
• U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
• National Academies

Other topics presented and discussed included:

• Case Studies on Waste Form Definition and Current Waste Pathways
• Future Wastes & Possible Future Fuel Cycles
• WIPP, Yucca And Other Potential Repositories
• Approaches To Integrating the Management of the "Back-End" of of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle
• Nuclear Facilities Emphasizing Nuclear Facilities including Nuclear Waste Facilities in Construction Management
  

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Uncertainty in Long-Term Planning
Nuclear Waste Management, a Case Study
A Symposium and Celebration Honoring
Frank L. Parker
January 7-8, 2008

The conditions of nuclear waste management today were examined as a basis for exploring the potential paths forward over the mandated time period of 1 million years. Technical, programmatic, social, financial and natural risks over these time periods, as well as inter- and intra-generational responsibilities were considered. The possible changes, both positive and negative, in medical knowledge, technology, society and environmental conditions were discussed. Speakers and additional participants with diverse technical, social, political, philosophical and national backgrounds proposed potentially societally acceptable paths forward and the advantages and disadvantages of each of the paths.

View Meeting Program

Watch video and listen to podcasts from Uncertainty in Long Term Planning-Nuclear Waste Management, A Case Study.

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Nuclear Integration Project (NIP) Workshop: “The Back-end: Healing the Achilles Heel of the Nuclear Renaissance?” March 3-4, 2008

Abstract A technically and publicly credible integrated nuclear waste management program that provides for safe disposal of all wastes generated from the current and potential future energy fuel cycles, as well as other defense and civilian nuclear wastes, is needed. Currently, the country’s nuclear waste management system is challenged to provide adequate pathways for management of defense wastes, low level wastes, spent nuclear fuel and potentially new waste streams from advanced fuel cycles. This was the third meeting in an on-going dialogue hosted by CRESP and Vanderbilt University exploring options for the future of nuclear waste management. Past meetings have focused on an overview of nuclear waste management challenges (Oct. 2007) and long-term disposition of spent nuclear fuel from the current fuel cycle (Jan. 2008). This meeting (Mar. 2008) focused on the challenges and potential benefits posed by different approaches to cradle to grave management of wastes generated by several potential fuel cycle options.

View Meeting program and presentations

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Peer Review Literature

Burger, J., The Effect on Ecological Systems of Remediation to Protect Human Health. Am J Public Health, 2007. 97(9): p. 1572-1578. Abstract

Greenberg, M., Lowrie, K., Burger, J., Powers, C., Gochfeld, M., & Mayer, H. (2007). Preferences for alternative risk management policies at the United States major nuclear weapons legacy sites. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 50(2), 187 - 209. Abstract

Burger, J., Gochfeld, M., Powers, C. W., & Greenberg, M. (2007). Defining an ecological baseline for restoration and natural resource damage assessment of contaminated sites: The case of the Department of Energy. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 50(4), 553 - 566. Abstract

Greenberg, M., Lowrie, K., Burger, J., Powers, C. W., Gochfeld, M., & Mayer, H. (2007). Nuclear Waste and Public Worries: Public Perceptions of the United States' Major Nuclear Weapons Legacy. Human Ecology Review, 14(1), 1-12. Abstract

Kostelnik, K. M., Clarke, J. H., Harbour, J. L., Sanchez, F., & Parker, F. L. (2006). A Sustainable Environmental Protection System for the Management of Residual Contaminants. Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, 13, 117-137. Abstract

Burger, J., Gochfeld, M., & Jewett, S. (2006). Selecting species for marine assessment of radionuclides around Amchitka: Planning for diverse goals and interests. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 123(1-3), 371-391. Abstract

Burger, J., Gochfeld, M., Powers, C. W., Kosson, D. S., Halverson, J., Siekaniec, G., Morkill, A., Patrick, R., and L.K. Duffy. (2006). Stakeholder driven, collaborative research with risks from consumption of marine fish and shellfish, Society of Risk Analysis Annual Meeting. San Antonio, Texas. Abstract

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