Guidebook on Spent Fuel Storage [antikvár]

FOREWORD In 1976 spent fuel storage was identified as an important independent step within the nuclear fuel cycle. Before this time fuel storage had been seen by the IAEA as a problem of waste management. The plans and policies relating to the storage and transport of spent fuel or its eventual disposition, either to a reprocessing plant or to a high-level waste burial ground, are part of what is now called spent fuel management. The fuel assemblies which have been used in a nuclear reactor are initially stored to allow for radioactive decay of shortlived radioisotopes. Storage must be provided either at the reactor site or away from the reactor, regardless of the management option chosen. The length of the storage time depends upon many technical, economic and political factors. Because of the delay in some countries in taking decisions regarding the ultimate disposition of the spent fuel assemblies, an ever-increasing amount of spent fuel is accumulating in storage. This accumulation affects both the advanced nuclear energy producing states and those in the early stages of development. In answer to needs expressed by Member States, the IAEA has produced this Guidebook on Spent Fuel Storage. The intention is to summarize the extensive information which has been published in the past few years. The Guidebook is the product of the efforts of a Working Group composed of lead consultants J. Colton (United States of America) and C. Ospina (Switzerland), and panel members B. Gustafsson (Sweden), H. Konvicka (Austria), H. Spilker (Federal Republic of Germany), and S. Ermakov, I. Rybalchenko, A. Hanson, V. Galkin and V. Onufriev (IAEA). The IAEA wishes to thank these contributors and express its confidence that the Guidebook will contribute to the solution of many problems relating to the storage of spent nuclear fuel in the future.