Impact objectives as presented in EoI

1. Impact objectives as presented in EoI • The objective of the ImPacT integrated project: • to evaluate the source term contained on each waste stream of several characteristic nuclear fuel cycle concepts, and to make with these source terms Performance Assessment studies of existing Geological Repositories designs • Performance Assessment studies of innovative concepts for nuclear waste disposal. • The assessment of the secondary waste streams related to the selected fuel cycle strategy

2. Impact objectives as presented in EoI Scheme of the research topics. Two phases were proposed: • The 1st phase will be based on the existing designs of Geological Repositories. The evaluation of P&T will include the following aspects: • Evaluation of the nuclear wastes source term and the distribution on different streams for fuel cycles including P&T. • Performance assessment of the Geological Repository for the new waste source term. This will include any aspect considered as a critical design parameter - heat, source term, volume, diversion risk, retrievability etc. • Possible simplifications of the geological repository within the same repository concepts - volume reduction, heat handling etc. • Sensitivity study of the evaluation of the geological repository performances (transport and risk assessment).

3. Impact objectives as presented in EoI • The 2nd phase • exploration the possibility of innovative concepts for the nuclear waste disposal to optimize the possible benefits from P&T • the splitting of the waste management streams with different specific disposal for each stream. For example an instrumented interim repository with surveillance could be considered for short/medium lived high level wastes, HLW, and deep repositories could be reoptimized to receive only long lived HLW (mainly including actinides).

4. Impact objectives as presented in EoI • In both phases: • the element by element contribution to the cost of the final disposal, • the impact of the secondary wastes • assessment of the proliferation resistance Sooner or later all advantages and disadvantages of different nuclear waste management options have to be assessed. The IP sketched in this EOI will develop a framework of tools and methods necessary to perform quantitative comparisons. The research performed in this IP might also point out new optimization criteria both for the P&T fuel cycle elements and for the final disposal solutions to be applied to this type of nuclear waste management.

5. Suggested guidlines • The idea with this project is to assess the impact of transmutation technology on the geological repository and on secondary waste management using the technical criteria commonly used for evaluation of existing waste management technologies. The ambition is that this project will be conducted in close cooperation between research and waste management agencies/companies.

6. Suggested guidelines • Ambition is to limit our study to well defined scenarios anchored in national programs of the participants. • Every institution (country) will work within its presently adopted geological formation and deep geological repository concept.

7. Topics for discussion: • The direct disposal and the different P&T scenarios will be compared without redesign of the repository (can we really keep this condition?) • every storage capsule will be filled with the corresponding final HLW of the scenario until one design parameter of the capsule reaches its maximum value. The limiting parameters to be considered probably include: • The total heat production, the volume, • the radioactivity or radiotoxicity • the criticality constant (keff) (with some degree of water ingression?). • A detailed analysis of the waste streams associated with transmutation technology will be done • In the phase 1, all the HLW from the cycle are sent to the deep geological repository. • In the phase 2, the Sr and Cs are first separated from the HLW, to be sent to a different specific storage, and the rest are sent to the deep geological repository.