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Report on Waste Burial Charges (NUREG-1307, Rev. 12)

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NUREG-1307, Rev. 12 (PDF - 5.65 KB)

Publication Information

Manuscript Completed: February 2007
Date Published:

Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection
Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

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Abstract

A requirement placed upon nuclear power reactor licensees by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is that licensees must annually adjust the estimate of the cost of decommissioning their plants, in dollars of the current year, as part of the process to provide reasonable assurance that adequate funds for decommissioning will be available when needed. This report, which is revised periodically, explains the formula that is acceptable to the NRC for determining the minimum decommissioning fund requirements for nuclear power plants. The sources of information used in the formula are identified, and the values developed for the estimation of radioactive waste burial/disposition costs, by site and by year, are given. Licensees may use the formula, coefficients, and burial/disposition adjustment factors from this report in their cost analyses, or they may use adjustment factors derived from any methodology that results in a total cost estimate of no less than the amount estimated by using the parameters presented in this report.

This report includes an alternative low-level waste (LLW) disposition option other than direct disposal at the two remaining operating LLW burial sites. This option, which is accepted as a valid approach for consideration by licensees, allows contracting with waste vendors to provide for the disposition of certain LLW generated during decommissioning.

This twelfth revision of NUREG-1307 contains updated disposal costs for the reference pressurized water reactor (PWR) and the reference boiling water reactor (BWR) and the ratios of disposal costs at the two remaining burial sites in Washington and South Carolina for the year 2006. In addition, disposal costs for the reference reactors and ratios of disposal costs at the Washington and South Carolina sites for the years 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004 are provided for historical purposes. This report also provides costs for dispositioning a portion of the total LLW volume using waste vendors, including the ratios of these costs relative to the original 1986 disposal cost estimates. Several sample calculations for estimating the burial/disposition cost for both the old and new options are presented, demonstrating the use of the data contained in this report.

Estimated disposal costs at the Washington site for 2006 are about 27% higher for the reference PWR and about 11% lower for the reference BWR over corresponding estimates for 2004. The reason for this disparity in disposal costs between the two reactor types is that the BWR has a considerably larger inventory of high dose rate material than the PWR. Thus, for the BWR, the 33% decrease in dose rate charges in 2006 more than compensated for increases in other charges. For the Washington site in 2006, LLW disposition using a waste vendor provides a savings of about 44% for a PWR and about 23% for a BWR.

Estimated disposal costs for Atlantic Compact users at the South Carolina site for 2006 are about 18% higher than the 2004 estimates, for both the PWR and BWR. For non-Atlantic Compact users, disposal costs are about 5% higher than the 2004 estimates for the PWR and about 16% higher for the BWR. For Atlantic Compact users, the cost of LLW disposition using waste vendors is about 62% less for a PWR and about 54% less for a BWR than direct disposal at the South Carolina burial site. For non-Atlantic Compact users, the corresponding costs are about 62% (PWR) and 51% (BWR) less than direct disposal.