NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES - NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 



DIVISION OF EARTH SCIENCES 

 COMMITTEE ON WASTE DISPOSAL 



REPORT ON DISPOSAL OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE ON LAND 



Abstract 



A committee of geologists and geophysicists was established 

 by the National Academy of Sciences -National Research Council at 

 the request of the Atomic Energy Commission to consider the possi- 

 bilities of disposing of high level radioactive wastes in quantity 

 within the continental limits of the United States. The group was 

 charged with assembling the existing geologic information pertinent 

 to disposal, delineating the unanswered problems associated with the 

 disposal schemes proposed, and point out areas of research and de- 

 velopment meriting first attention; the committee is to serve as con- 

 tinuing adviser on the geological and geophysical aspects of disposal 

 and the research and development program. 



The Committee with the cooperation of the Johns Hopkins 

 University organized a conference at Princeton in September 1955. 

 After the Princeton Conference members of the committee inspected 

 disposal installations and made individual studies. Two years' con- 

 sideration of the disposal problems leads to certain general conclu- 

 sions . Wastes may be disposed of safely at many sites in the United 

 States but, conversely, there are many large areas in which it is 

 unlikely that disposal sites can be found, for example, the Atlantic 

 Seaboard. The research to ascertain feasibility of disposal has for 

 the most part not yet been done. Disposal in cavities mined in salt 

 beds and salt domes is suggested as the possibility promising the 

 most practical immediate solution of the problem. Disposal could 

 be greatly simplified if the waste could be gotten into solid form of 

 relatively insoluble character. In the future the injection of large 

 volumes of dilute liquid waste into porous rock strata at depths in 

 excess of 5,000 feet may become feasible but means of rendering the 

 waste solutions compatible with the mineral and fluid components of 

 the rock must first be developed. The main difficulties to the injec- 

 tion method recognized at present are to prevent clogging of pore 

 space as the solutions are pumped into the rock and the prediction or 

 control of the rate and direction of movement. 



This initial report is presented in advance of research and 

 development having been done to determine many scientific, engi- 

 neering and economic factors, and, in the absence of essential data, 

 represents considered judgments subject to verification. 



