94 TRANSURANIC ELEMENTS IN THE ENVIRONMENT 



TABLE 1 Nuclear Power Growth Estimates, GW(e) 



Year 



and a plant for fabricating fresh fuel elements containing the recycled plutonium. The 

 plants are commonly referred to as fuels reprocessing plants and mixed-oxide fuels 

 fabrication plants, respectively. In this chapter these two plants are considered to be the 

 only sources of transuranic-contaminated wastes for the reprocessing fuel-cycle mode. It 

 is assumed that the recovered uranium and plutonium are converted to UF^ and PUO2, 

 respectively, at the fuels reprocessing plant. The wastes from these conversion processes 

 are included with the fuels reprocessing plant wastes. 



Primary wastes are untreated initial wastes issuing from a fuel-cycle facility. The 

 primary wastes are processed to form treated wastes. Only treated wastes are allowed to 

 leave the confines of the originating plant and are always under careful control. Treated 

 wastes are of two types: (1) those which are treated to reduce their activity levels so that 

 they can be released to the environment without harm to man and (2) those which are 

 conditioned for long-term containment so that their radioactivity will remain confined 

 and out of contact with man's environment. The latter are covered in this chapter. 



Secondary wastes are generated in treating primary wastes and in the subsequent 

 handling of treated wastes. Thus secondary wastes are generated not only from the initial 

 waste-processing steps but also from the storage, transportation, and disposal steps. The 

 amount of secondary wastes is generally small compared with that of primary wastes. 

 Nevertheless, an assessment of waste management is not complete until the effects of 

 secondary wastes are included. Secondary wastes are of the same general classifications as 

 primary wastes and require the same treatments. Most can be recycled to incoming 

 primary-waste streams for treatment. In remote locations without primary-waste- 

 treatment facihties (for instance, isolation sites), special facilities must be provided for 

 treating the secondary wastes. 



Many methods of classifying radioactive wastes are in use, e.g., the kind of 

 radioactivity contained, the amount of radioactivity contained, the untreated physical 

 form, and the treated physical form. It is convenient to classify the primary and 

 secondary wastes into categories according to the treatment they require; i.e., all wastes 

 requiring a similar treatment are included in one category. The categories and a brief 

 generic description of each are given in Table 2. The first three waste categories listed in 

 Table 2 are generated to some degree in almost any facility in which radioactive materials 

 are processed, treated, or handled. Thus both primary and secondary wastes in these 

 categories are found throughout the postfission LWR fuel cycles. The remaining four 

 waste categories are specific to certain fuel cycles. Spent fuel as a waste is specific only to 

 the once-through cycle, and high-level liquid waste and hulls, only to the fuel cycles that 

 use fuels reprocessing. 



