Safety and Cost Assessments for Disposal in a Prototype Shallow Land Burial Facility

Abstract

The current objective of the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories (CRNL) waste disposal program for low- and intermediate-level waste is to build a full-size, intrusion-resistant, shallow land burial facility (SLB-P1). Even though the estimated cost of waste disposal in SLB-P1 is about the same as current waste storage costs, disposal becomes much more cost effective when the deferred cost of waste recovery and disposal is added to the storage cost. The safety assessment shows radionuclides released via groundwater to the critical population will be well below regulatory guidelines, but analysis of an intrusion scenario using conservative assumptions suggests that an institutional control period of between 50 and 100 years may be required.