Materials disposition plutonium acceptance specifications for the immobilization project

The Department of Energy (DOE) has declared approximately 38.2 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium to be excess to the needs of national security, 14.3 tonnes of fuel- and reactor-grade plutonium excess to DOE needs, and anticipates an additional 7 tonnes to be declared excess to national security needs. Of this 59.5 tonnes, DOE anticipates that ~ 7.5 tonnes will be dispositioned as spent fuel at the Geologic Repository and ~ 2 tonnes will be declared below the safeguards termination limit and be discarded as TRU waste at WIPP. The remaining 50 tonnes of excess plutonium exists in many forms and locations around the country, and is under the control of several DOE Offices. The Materials Disposition Program (MD) will be receiving materials packaged by these other Programs to disposition in a manor that meets the �spent fuel standard.� For disposition by immobilization, the planned facilities will have only limited capabilities to remove impurities prior to blending the plutonium feedstocks to prepare feed for the plutonium immobilization ceramic formation process, Technical specifications are described here that allow potential feedstocks to be categorized as either acceptable for transfer into the MD Immobilization Process, or unacceptable without additional processing prior to transfer to MD. Understanding the requirements should allow cost benefit analyses to be performed to determine if a specific material should be processed sufficiently shipment to WIPP. Preliminary analyses suggest that about 45 tonnes of this material have impurity concentrations much lower than the immobilization acceptance specifications. In addition, approximately another 3 tonnes can easily be blended with the higher purity feeds to meet the immobilization specifications. Another 1 tonne or so can be processed in the immobilization plutonium conversion area to yield materials that can be blended to provide acceptable feed for immobilization. The remaining 3 tonnes must be excluded in their present form. However, approximately 2 tonnes of this remaining material could be processed in existing DOE facilities to make them acceptable to the immobilization process. This leaves about a tonne that probably should be declared waste and shipped to WIPP. These specifications are written primarily for large lots of material, for example, 100 kg or more of plutonium in the lot. Small lots of material, such as is common for Central Scrap Management Office (CSMO) materials, will have to be handled on a case by case basis

(02.2) Scoping experiments; (02.3) long-term corrosion testing and properties evaluation of candidate waste package basket material

The work described in this activity plan addresses Information Need 2.7.3 of the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Plan (l), which reads Determination that the design criteria in lOCFR60.130 through 60.133 and any appropriate additional design objectives pertaining to criticality control have been met. This work falls under section WBS 1.2.2.5 2 (Basket Materials) of WBS 1.2.2.5 (Waste Package Materials) in the Work Breakdown Structure of the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project

The blending strategy for the plutonium immobilization program

The Department of Energy (DOE) has declared approximately 38.2 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium to be excess to the needs of national security, 14.3 tonnes of fuel- and reactor-grade plutonium excess to DOE needs, and anticipates an additional 7 tonnes to be declared excess to national security needs. Of this 59.5 tonnes, DOE anticipates that {approximately} 7.5 tonnes will be dispositioned as spent fuel at the Geologic Repository and {approximately} 2 tonnes will be declared below the safeguards termination limit and be discard3ed as TRU waste at WIPP. The remaining 50 tonnes of excess plutonium exists in many forms and locations around the country, and is under the control of several DOE offices. In addition to the plutonium, the feed stock also contains about 17 tonnes of depleted uranium, about 600 kg of highly enriched uranium, and many kilograms of neptunium and thorium and about 8 to 10 tonnes of tramp impurities. The Materials Disposition Program (MD) will be received materials packaged by these other Programs to disposition in a manor that meets the spent fuel standard. To minimize the cost of characterization of the feedstock and to minimize purification processes, a blending strategy will be followed. The levelization of the impurities, the plutonium isotopics, and the actinide impurities will also provide some benefits in the area of proliferation resistance. The overall strategy will be outlined and the benefits of following a blending instead of a purification program will be discussed