TY - CHAP A1 - Wolff, Dietmar A1 - Bevilacqua, A. A1 - Carlsen, B. A1 - Chiguer, M. A1 - González-Espartero, A. A1 - Grahn, P. A1 - Saegusa, T. A1 - Sampson, M. A1 - Seelev, I. A1 - Wasinger, K. A1 - Waters, M. A2 - González-Espartero (IAEA), A. T1 - Storing spent fuel until transport to reprocessing or disposal T2 - IAEA NUCLEAR ENERGY SERIES No. NF-T-3.3 N2 - Spent fuel storage periods well beyond those originally foreseen are a reality. This publication offers several ideas and approaches that may be considered to address the increasingly longer storage times. The aim is to raise awareness, encourage dialogue and provide ideas on how to manage spent fuel. Key messages include the following: - Delays in reprocessing or disposal could result in spent fuel being stored for 100 years or longer. Safe, secure and effective storage of spent fuel manages fuel degradation while preserving future fuel cycle options. - Ageing management programmes apply engineering, operations and maintenance actions to ensure safety is maintained during storage, future handling and transport. - Site selection and facility and equipment design can significantly reduce the risks and costs of spent fuel storage over longer periods. - Spent fuel storage configurations can be selected to accommodate uncertain storage periods, to facilitate ageing management and to provide flexibility needed to accommodate the uncertainty of future end points, such as reprocessing or disposal. - By considering multiple licence renewals, regulatory frameworks can be designed to ensure safe storage until an acceptable end point is achieved. - Safety can be assured by maintaining shielding, containment, decay heat removal and criticality control. Navigating the complexity of societal beliefs and values, as well as political systems, has proven to be a greater challenge for the management of spent fuel than maintaining its safety and security or addressing the technical and economic aspects. - Sustainable spent fuel management requires policies and strategies to provide a clear, consistent and stable direction because they drive the need for spent fuel storage as well as the available options and timing for achieving an acceptable end point. Unless States address spent fuel reprocessing and disposal on a sufficient scale to accommodate their spent fuel discharges, then storage for longer and longer periods becomes the de facto end point — which is not considered to be consistent with the responsibility to protect human health and the environment. An effective, periodic licence renewal process can ensure effective ageing management and strong institutional control. Hence, spent fuel can be safely and securely stored for as long as it may be necessary until transport for reprocessing or disposal. However, the risks and costs of storing the growing inventory of spent fuel will continue to increase; and in the absence of an end point, it will eventually become a significant societal burden. PB - IAEA Publishing Section CY - Wien, Austria KW - Storing spent fuel KW - Extended storing KW - Unknown storage duration PY - 2019 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/47693 AN - OPUS4-47693 UR - https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/P1846_web.pdf SN - 978-92-0-100719-3 SN - 1995-7807 SP - 1 EP - 54 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany