RADIOACTIVE WASTE potx

RADIOACTIVE WASTE Edited by Rehab Abdel Rahman Radioactive Waste Edited by Rehab Abdel Rahman Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2012 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. As for readers, this license allows users to download, copy and build upon published chapters even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. Notice Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Sasa Leporic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer InTech Design Team First published April, 2012 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechopen.com Radioactive Waste, Edited by Rehab Abdel Rahman p. cm. ISBN 978-953-51-0551-0 Contents Preface IX Section 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Planning and Implementation of Radioactive Waste Management System 3 R. O. Abdel Rahman Chapter 2 A Controversial Management Process: From the Remnants of the Uranium Mining Industry to Their Qualification as Radioactive Waste – The Case of France 19 Philippe Brunet Chapter 3 Problems of Uranium Waste and Radioecology in Mountainous Kyrgyzstan Conditions 39 B. M. Djenbaev, B. K. Kaldybaev and B. T. Zholboldiev Chapter 4 Environmental Migration of Radionuclides ( 90 Sr, 137 Cs, 239 Pu) in Accidentally Contaminated Areas of the Southern Urals 65 V. V. Kostyuchenko, A. V. Akleyev, L. M. Peremyslova, I. Ya. Popova, N. N. Kazachonok and V. S. Melnikov Section 2 Pre-Disposal Activities 99 Chapter 5 Radioactive Waste Assay for Reclassification 101 Timothy Miller Chapter 6 Estimation of Induced Activity in an ADSS Facility 117 Nandy Maitreyee and C. Sunil Chapter 7 Low-Waste and Proliferation-Free Production of Medical Radioisotopes in Solution and Molten-Salt Reactors 139 D. Yu. Chuvilin, V. E. Khvostionov, D. V. Markovskij, V. A. Pavshouk and V. A. Zagryadsky VI Contents Chapter 8 Substantial Reduction of High Level Radioactive Waste by Effective Transmutation of Minor Actinides in Fast Reactors Using Innovative Targets 163 Michio Yamawaki, Kenji Konashi, Koji Fujimura and Toshikazu Takeda Chapter 9 Clean-Up and Decontamination of Hot-Cells From the IFIN-HH VVR-S Research Reactor 197 A. O. Pavelescu and M. Dragusin Chapter 10 Decontamination of Radioactive Contaminants Using Liquid and Supercritical CO 2 219 Kwangheon Park, Jinhyun Sung, Moonsung Koh, Hongdu Kim and Hakwon Kim Chapter 11 Radionuclide and Contaminant Immobilization in the Fluidized Bed Steam Reforming Waste Product 239 James J. Neeway, Nikolla P. Qafoku, Joseph H. Westsik Jr., Christopher F. Brown, Carol M. Jantzen and Eric M. Pierce Chapter 12 Experimental Verification of Solidification Stress Theory 263 Charles Solbrig, Matthew Morrison and Kenneth Bateman Chapter 13 Cadmium Personnel Doses in an Electrorefiner Tipping Accident 283 Clinton Wilson, Chad Pope and Charles Solbrig Chapter 14 Radioactive Waste Management of Fusion Power Plants 303 Luigi Di Pace, Laila El-Guebaly, Boris Kolbasov, Vincent Massaut and Massimo Zucchetti Section 3 Disposal Activities 329 Chapter 15 Diffusion of Radionuclides in Concrete and Soil 331 Shas V. Mattigod, Dawn M. Wellman, Chase C. Bovaird, Kent E. Parker, Kurtis P. Recknagle, Libby Clayton and Marc I. Wood Chapter 16 Hydrogeologic Characterization of Fractured Rock Masses Intended for Disposal of Radioactive Waste 351 Donald M. Reeves, Rishi Parashar and Yong Zhang Contents VII Chapter 17 Statistical Analyses of Pore Pressure Signals in Claystone During Excavation Works at the Mont Terri Underground Research Laboratory 373 Rachid Ababou, Hassane Fatmi, Jean-Michel Matray, Christophe Nussbaum and David Bailly Chapter 18 Particulate Phases Possibly Conveyed from Nuclear Waste Repositories by Groundwater 431 Constantin Marin Chapter 19 Modelling Groundwater Contamination Above High-Level Nuclear-Waste Repositories in Salt, Granitoid and Clay 459 Michal O. Schwartz Chapter 20 An Assessment of the Impact of Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles on Geological Disposal 487 Jan Marivoet and Eef Weetjens Preface The safe management of nuclear and radioactive wastes is a subject that has recently received considerable recognition from public and different governmental, regional and international bodies. This recognition has not only stem from the huge volume of cumulative wastes from previous practice in both peaceful and military fields, but also because the public relate their acceptance for new nuclear power programs to their confidence in the waste management practice. These points impose new burdens on the workers in the waste management field, since they have to understand and deal with technical difficulties beside their reactions to non-technical issues. This book aims to cover the practice and research efforts that are currently conducted to deal with the technical difficulties in different radioactive waste management activities and to introduce to the non-technical factors that can affect the management practice. International experts have cooperated to summarize their practical experience and present advances in managing different types of radioactive wastes and their long- term behavior. The book is targeting professional people in the radioactive waste management industry and reader with technical background such as graduate and postgraduate students undertaking courses in Environmental Science and Environmental, Civil, Chemical and Nuclear Engineering. The book consists of 20 chapters, organized into three sections that cover important topics in the radioactive waste management field. The first four chapters are introductory, that introduces to the waste management system, explain the interference between technical and non-technical factors, and illustrate how old management practices and radioactive accident can affect the environment. The opening chapter By Dr. R. O. Abdel Rahman, introduces the radioactive waste management system and refer to the technical and non-technical aspects for planning and implementing this system. Dr. P. Brunet presents the historical interference between the technical, social and political factors and summarizes the controversial management process for uranium mine in France. Prof. Dejenbeav et al. present methods and results of the recent identification of uranium tailings in Kyrgyzstan. And finally, the long-term environmental migration from accidentally contaminated site in southern urals in Russian federation was summarized by Prof. Kostyuchenko et al. The second section is concerned with pre-disposal activities, it summarizes the knowledge gained from current radioactive waste management practice and results of X Preface research efforts for using some innovative technologies. The presented activities include reclassification, reduction of generated wastes, decontamination practice and advances, assessment of the performance of different solidified wastes and waste management facilities. The section is beginning with the presentation of a new analytical technique that is used in U.K. for the reclassification of the wastes at the Atomic Weapon Establishment (AWE) by Dr. Miller. The reduction of the amount of generated radioactive wastes is one of the most important topics in radioactive waste management. Three chapters are presenting this topic, the first deals with the reduction of radioactive wastes in the design phase of Accelerator Driven Subcritical System. This chapter, by Prof. Nandy et al., was directed to estimate the induced activity in the two windows types, which separate between the target and beam pipe in Accelerator Driven Subcritical System. A method for reducing the radioactive wastes associated by medical isotope production is presented by Dr. Yu et al. This new low waste technology for the production of medical isotopes (Mo99 and Sr89) using a homogenous liquid nuclear fuel that were conducted in Kurchatov Institute Russian Federation. Where the third chapter is related to the transmutation of minor actinides in fast reactors as a technique to reduce the half life of these actinides and consequently reduce the requirements for managing these wastes. Prof. Yamawaki Michio et al. are presenting in this chapter the results of actinide-hydride target transmutation research. The decontamination of contaminated facilities is one of the phases that led to the generation of radioactive wastes, as secondary wastes, good planning and implementation of this phase can led to the minimization of the generated secondary radioactive wastes. Two chapters in this section deals with this topic, Dr. Pavelescu Alexandru Octavian et al. addressed the practice of the clean up and decontamination of hot cells in IFIN-HH VVR-S research reactor, Romania. The second chapter by Prof. Park Kwangheon et al. introduces innovative technique to reduce the amount of generated secondary wastes. Producing a stable radioactive waste form is an important activity in the management practice, three chapters were devoted to present the recent research effort in this activity. The utilization of fluidized bed steam reforming process to immobilize radioactive wastes is discussed by Dr. Neeway et al. The aim of this chapter is to assess the performance of this technique in immobilizing the radioactive wastes. The second chapter was directed to study the solidification stress induced in ceramic waste form produced from the immobilization of actinides and fission products by Dr. Solbrig Charles et al. The third chapter, by Dr. Clinton Wilson et al, aimed to assess the impact of accidental release of cadmium from immobilization facility. That assessment was conducting by estimating the airborne cadmium concentration caused by facility design base earthquake which damages the electrorefiner vessel. The last chapter in this section is summarizing the waste management practice in fusion technology. By Dr. Luigi Di Pace et al. [...]... utilize nuclear and radioactive materials did not have any radioactive waste policy or strategy To address the radioactive waste issue, some countries had developed and implemented permanent disposal repositories for radioactive wastes and other countries placed radioactive wastes into on-site or off-site storage facilities without the development of national policy for dealing with these wastes Preventing... facility for conditioned 12 Radioactive Waste radioactive waste are to provide safe custody of the waste packages and to protect both operators and the general public from any radiological hazards associated with radioactive wastes The design of storage facilities should be capable of (IAEA 1998) 1 2 3 4 5 Maintain the “as-received” integrity of the waste package, Protect the waste from environmental... minimize the generation of radioactive waste at the design Identify the export/import of option for radioactive wastes Decide whether the spent fuel is considered as resource or as waste, or returned to supplier Identify the main sources of radioactive waste and the intended technical management arrangements Identify whether the nuclear regulations are applied to naturally occurring radioactive material... be taken into account during the development of waste management strategy Those 6 Radioactive Waste include the estimation of existing and anticipated waste inventory and waste management facilities, the existence of acceptable waste classification system and regulation, the evaluation of waste characteristics and available resources, the knowledge of waste management strategies in other countries and... national radioactive waste management policy These prerequisites and elements are summarized in Table 1 (IAEA 2009) As indicated above, some countries started to build and operate radioactive waste disposal without the existence of national waste management policy Nowadays, these countries started to develop national radioactive waste management policy principals On the other hand, some existing national radioactive. .. in managing radioactive waste are schematically given in Fig 1 This section is focused on introducing different waste management activities with special emphasizes on new waste minimization strategies, importance of quality assurance, risk and performance assessment 4.1 Minimization of waste generation The objectives of waste minimization strategy are to limit the generation and spread of radioactive. .. Radioactive Waste Management System The last element in the waste minimization strategies is the optimization waste management program that can reduce the volume of the secondary characterization of the generated wastes helps in sorting and segregation according to its physical, chemical and radiological characteristics and optimization of the treatment option of radioactive waste Proper of the wastes facilitates... achieved through the effective development and implementation of radioactive waste management system Recently, some trends that influence the practice of radioactive waste management have emerged worldwide These trends include planning and application of radioactive waste policy and strategy, issue of new legislation and regulations, new waste minimization strategies, strengthen the quality assurance... of Radioactive Waste Management System 15 and approved to assure that the impact of a change is carefully assessed before updating the baseline (USDOE 2003) 4.8 Waste acceptance criteria and quality assurance programs The waste acceptance is defined as "Quantitative or qualitative criteria specified by the regulatory body or by waste operator and approved by the regulatory body, for radioactive waste. .. Waste Management System in Egypt”, 16 Radioactive Waste International Conference on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Disposal, Tokyo, Japan,, IAEA-CN-135/81, p.p 317-324 Abdel Rahman, R.O., El-Kamash, A.M, Zaki, A.A., & Abdel-Raouf, M.W (2005 b) Planning closure safety assessment for the egyptian near surface disposal facility, Presented at the International Conference on the Safety of Radioactive Waste . have any radioactive waste policy or strategy. To address the radioactive waste issue, some countries had developed and implemented permanent disposal repositories for radioactive wastes and. of waste management strategy. Those Radioactive Waste 6 include the estimation of existing and anticipated waste inventory and waste management facilities, the existence of acceptable waste. of radioactive wastes could be achieved through the effective development and implementation of radioactive waste management system. Recently, some trends that influence the practice of radioactive