Spent Fuel & Radioactive Waste Management

Spent Fuel Licensing Precedent distinguishes whether the reactor’s spent fuel form has been licensed for disposal in any country. This indicator reflects the degree of regulatory familiarity with the spent fuel form and the availability of established disposal pathways, which can affect the complexity and timeliness of waste management.

The Waste Streams indicator counts the number of distinct radioactive waste streams generated by the reactor that require separate conditioning or management. This indicator reflects operational complexity in waste handling because multiple waste forms typically require different packaging, storage, transportation, and disposal approaches.

On-Site Storage estimates the facility area dedicated to spent fuel storage for a single reactor unit, based on fuel type, refueling cadence, and intended application. Storage could take the form of cooling ponds, drain tanks, or dry casks, depending on the design of the reactor and its fuel. The area dedicated for on-site spent fuel storage affects security, safety, and siting decisions.

Spent Fuel Volume measures the volume of spent fuel generated per GWe-year of electricity production. This indicator reflects transportation, interim storage, and disposal capacity requirements because larger waste volumes increase the physical scale and logistical demands of spent fuel management systems. A geologic repository, however, is largely driven by heat-load, rather than volumetric constraints.

Decay Heat measures the heat of spent fuel on a volumetric basis at approximately 50 years after discharge. This measurement reflects the thermal constraints on storage and disposal systems because higher heat density can limit packing density, storage configurations, and repository design options.

The Time to Interim Storage indicator measures the average cooling period before spent fuel can be transferred to interim storage. This time period also reflects packaging attributes that may be country-dependent. The RST does not consider those site-specific factors; instead, it examines the decay heat at discharge, which is consistent across deployment locations based on reactor design. This indicator reflects how quickly spent fuel can be moved into standardized, lower-maintenance storage systems, which affects security, storage logistics, facility design, and long-term management flexibility.