Evaluation of Disposal, Recycling, and Clearance Scenarios for Managing ARIES Radwaste after Plant Decommissioning

The wealth of experience accumulated over the past 30-40 years of fusion power plant studies must be forged into a new strategy to reshape all aspects of handling the continual stream of radioactive materials during operation and after power plant decommissioning. With tighter environmental controls and the political difficulty of building new repositories worldwide, the disposal option could be replaced with more environmentally attractive scenarios, such as recycling and clearance. We applied the three scenarios to the most recent ARIES compact stellarator power plant. All ARIES-CS components qualify as Class A or C low-level waste, according to the U.S. guidelines, and can potentially be recycled using conventional and advanced remote handling equipment. Approximately 80% of the total waste can be cleared for reuse within the nuclear industry or, preferably, release to the commercial market. This paper documents the recent developments in radwaste management of nuclear facilities and highlights the benefits and challenges of disposal, recycling, and clearance.