Review of the Department of Energy's Plans for Disposal of Surplus Plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued an Interim Report evaluating the general viability of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration's (DOE-NNSA's) conceptual plans for disposing of 34 metric tons (MT) of surplus plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a deep geologic repository near Carlsbad, New Mexico. It provided a preliminary assessment of the general viability of DOE-NNSA's conceptual plans, focused on some of the barriers to their implementation. This final report addresses the remaining issues and echoes the recommendations from the interim study.

Table of Contents

• Front Matter
• Summary
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Background
• 3 Plans to Dilute and Dispose
• 4 Implementation Challenges
• 5 System Vulnerabilities
• References
• Appendix A: Committee and Staff Biographies
• Appendix B: Meetings
• Appendix C: How Salt Repositories Work
• Appendix D: Legal and Regulatory Requirements for Transportation
• Appendix E: States' Active Partnership Role in Safe Transportation
• Appendix F: High-Risk Items Within the Risk and Opportunity Analysis Report
• Appendix G: Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Appendix H: Interim Report
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