TABLE 2—Fission-Product Activities at Discharge from Reactor 
Curie/watt reactor power for operating times of: 
Nuclide ne Ys 80 days 160 days 320 days 400 days 
Ba!40(La'4°) 0.0541 0.063 0.052 0.053 0.053 0.053 
Nb*® 0.0198 0.064 0.042 0.051 0.054 0.054 
Zr 0.0107 0.064 0.031 0.044 0.052 0.053 
Ce!44(Pri44) 0.00239 0.061 0.0087 0.016 0.027 0.031 
Cs187 5.75 X 10-5 0.059 2.5 X 10-4 4.5 KX 10-4 8.9 K 10-4 1.1 X 107? 
Ru?!6(Rh1%) 0.0019 0.0038 4.5 X 10-4 8.3 X 10-4 1.5 XK 10? 1.7 K 10-3 
TABLE 3—Activity in Liquid Waste for Various Cooling Times* 
y curies/gal for cooling time of: 
Gamma 
yenergy yield 100 500 1,000 3,000 10,000 30,000 
Nuclide (Mev) (%)t days days days days days days 
La!0 3.0 1 0.068 
2.5 5.4 0.37 
1.5 94 6.4 
Nb*® 0.75 100 240 0.084 
Zr® 0.73 100 560 7.4 0.035 
Pri44 2.2 1 7.7 3.1 1.0 1.4 X 10-4 
1.5 2 15.4 6.2 2.0 2.8 X 10-4 
0.7 4 30.8 12 4.0 5.6 X 10-4 
Csi37 0.66 92 31 31 29 23 18 6.2 
Rh 2.4 0.25 0.11 0.053 0.020 
1.6 0.5 0.22 0.11 0.041 
1.0 2 0.86 0.41 0.16 
0.9 1 0.43 0.21 0.08 
0.6 12 5.2 2.5 0.97 
* Based on 400-day irradiation, 25 Mw/ton, and 800 gal/ton waste. 
+ Percentage of decays of nuclide yielding gammas of stated energy. 
ing-cost variables into consideration. 
Figure 8 gives the allowable disposal 
cost per initial gallon of waste as a func- 
tion of the burnup of the spent reactor 
fuel that is being processed. These 
calculations are based on an electrical 
power cost of 8 mills/kwh. The curves 
were derived using values representa- 
tive of the reactor and processing char- 
acteristics now being proposed for an 
economic (low-enrichment) nuclear 
powereconomy. A similar curve using 
values of the variables representative of 
a premium power (high-enrichment) 
economy is plotted in Fig. 9. 
Allowable costs for waste disposal 
can vary from $0.80 to $80 per gallon 
for a low-enrichment economic nuclear 
power economy and from $0.08 to $4.80 
for a high-enrichment power economy, 
depending on the reactor and process 
characteristics and on the fraction of 
the total cost of power allocated to 
waste disposal. 
Although both high-activity and low- 
activity wastes result from processing 
reactor fuels, and low-activity wastes 
will presumably be cheaper to dispose 
of, no differentiation was made in Fig. 8. 
Therefore, on the assumption that one- 
fourth of the allocated portion of the 
total power cost went for low-activity 
disposal, another series of curves shown 
in Fig. 10 was determined to indicate 
the allowable cost of disposing of low- 
activity wastes. 
The shaded area in Fig. 8 probably 
well represents an average of the oper- 
ating characteristics of reactors and 
chemical processes that will exist in an 
economic low-enrichment nuclear 
power economy. From this area, it 
can be shown that as the allocated por- 
tion of the total power cost varies from 
1% to 10% (i.e., 0.08-0.80 mill/kwh,), 
the allowable cost for waste disposal 
will vary between $1.60 and $64 per 
gallon. 
Since there are many areas in the 
economic picture of nuclear power that 
may be in error to 3% or more, an 
allocated cost for waste disposal of 3% 
does not appear unreasonable. There- 
fore, a cost range of $5-$20 per gallon 
of initial high-activity waste may be a 
better basis to use in determining the 
direction that waste-disposal research 
and development should follow. 
It is obvious that to reduce the 
stringent economic requirements dic- 
tated to the disposers of radioactive 
wastes (i.e., geologists, biologists, 
oceanographers, sanitary engineers, de- 
signers of tanks, pits, and fancy gadgets 
for treatment of wastes, etc.) it is nec- 
essary to design reactors with even in- 
creasing processing-cycle times and de- 
sign chemical processes with ever 
decreasing volumes of wastes per unit 
weight of reactor fuel processed. 
Storage and Shipping Costs 
One of the potentially attractive 
schemes for the ultimate disposal of 
radioactive waste is simply to pour the 
waste into pits. The best geological 
location for these pits may not coincide 
with the optimum location for a proc- 
essing plant and transport will be 
required. 
It may be necessary or desirable to 
remove some fission products from the 
waste, particularly the long-lived ac- 
600 gal/ton 
\ 
on. 
* 
1,200 gal/ton 
\ 
f 
Allowable Disposat Cost ($/goi) 
bb 
Z 
N 
1,800 gal/ton 
: 2,400 gal/ton 
be 00 n 8.0000 7.8000 
s eee Burnup (Mwd heat /ton) 
FIG. 8. Allowable waste disposal cost 
as function of burnup and process- 
waste volume—0.08 mill/kwhe (1% 
power cost) allocated to disposal 
SA SIE EN SE SSS cate Gers 
131 
