White paper on the proposed design, development, and implementation of a monitored retrievable storage module and the siting criteria for spent nuclear fuel

Congress enacted the Nuclear Waste Policy (NWP) Act in 1982 as comprehensive legislation for the DOE to locate, build, and operate repositories to permanently dispose of spent nuclear fuel and other high-level wastes. In 1987, Congress amended the NWP Act and authorized the DOE to site, construct, and operate one Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) facility. The MRS facility was planned as a means to enhance the flexibility and reliability of the overall waste management system. This white paper presents a broad prospectus of the scientific and regulatory capabilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory and outlines the methodology to design and implement an MRS test module. This proposed module will incorporate the flexibility to store all types of spent nuclear fuel above or below ground level and will be fully monitored for the residence time of the spent fuel in the MRS module. The purpose of this test module is to define the parameters necessary to build a simple and economical MRS system. Demonstration of the proposed MRS test module will be important because it will form the basis for an integrated MRS site model