In the early years of nuclear defense and nuclear power programs, the very long-term management and disposition of radioactive wastes was not considered a high priority. More recently, however, most nations with nuclear programs have focused on developing plans to ensure over the very long term that these wastes do not endanger public health and safety or damage the environment. Especially with the last 15 years, those efforts have benefited from increasingly fruitful international cooperation and coordination. The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board uses the experiences of the United States and other countries to enhance its evaluation of activities that are undertaken by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982, and to provide useful technical and scientific information to the Congress and the Secretary.
Under the NWPA, as amended, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board is charged with evaluating the technical and scientific validity of activities undertaken by DOE under the NWPA related to managing and disposing of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
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Examples of Board activities related to international experience in managing and disposing of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste:
- BOARD REPORT - Six Overarching Recommendations for How to Move the Nation's Nuclear Waste Management Program Forward, April 2021
- BOARD REPORT - Geologic Repositories: Performance Monitoring and Retrievability of Emplaced High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel, May 2018
- BOARD REPORT - Designing a Process for Selecting a Site for a Deep-Mined, Geologic Repository for High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel: An Overview and Summary, November 2015.
- PUBLIC MEETING/WORKSHOP - Workshop on Recent Advances in Repository Science and Operations from International Underground Research Laboratory Collections, April 24-25, 2019.
To see a full listing of the Board's activities, please visit OUR WORK on the menu.