RADIOACTIVE WASTE INVENTORY FORECASTING AND CHARACTERISATION IMPLICATIONS FOR PACKAGING AND TRANSPORT

A large variety of process wastes arise in the nuclear fuel cycle industry, from mining, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication, reactor operations, reprocessing and more recently from decommissioning of a wide variety of nuclear facilities. These wastes vary greatly in their chemical, physical and radioactive properties and the degree of homogeneity is sometimes difficult to assess. Traditionally, waste management has been mainly focused on the need to ensure safe storage of waste, either interim or long term, in the raw or conditioned state. The assessment of waste against the best practical environmental options for disposal; namely, saving valuable space in national repositories, is also important. However, it is important to note that all these waste streams will have to be transported eventually in some form or another and the IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material, TS-R-1 [1], must be able to cater for these materials without imposing unjustified constraints which could result in significant operational difficulties and economic penalties. The World Nuclear Transport Institute (WNTI) has, therefore, formed an industry working group to share experiences amongst its members in the interest of focusing on the various issues affecting the future packaging and transport of radioactive wastes. This paper is concerned with one important issue - the forecasting of the inventory and the characterisation of low and intermediate level radioactive wastes which are essential precursors for packaging and transport operations for these materials. The current transport regulatory position is discussed for characterising and classifying low and intermediate activity radioactive wastes for transport and the potential challenges the current regulations imply. Radioactive assay methods are also covered for characterising low activity and some intermediate activity radioactive wastes for transport and disposal. In addition, the implications of waste inventory forecasting and its importance on transport are considered.