NRC ISSUES SECOND OF THREE TECHNICAL EVALUATION REPORTS ON DOE’S YUCCA MOUNTAIN LICENSE APPLICATIONThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published the second of three technicalevaluation reports (TERs) detailing the agency staff’s review of the Department of Energy’slicense application for a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.Publication of the report provides the staff’s technical review of the pre-closure information in the Yucca Mountain application. This TER does not include findings as to whether NRC’s regulatory requirements have been satisfied. “Technical Evaluation Report on the Content of the U.S. Department of Energy’s YuccaMountain Repository License Application; Preclosure Volume: Repository Safety BeforePermanent Closure,” is part of the agency’s orderly closeout of the Yucca Mountain licensereview process and is intended as a public record of the staff’s scientific and technical work in preparing for and reviewing the application. It was developed using the draft Volume 2 of thestaff’s Safety Evaluation Report (SER) on the application. A TER on postclosure safety, based on what would have been Volume 3 of the SER, wasissued publicly on July 21. (Volume 1 of the SER was published in August 2010, before thelicensing review was stopped.) The TERs were prepared as part of the agency’s knowledgemanagement activities during the closeout of the Yucca Mountain licensing review. Thecloseout, including publication of the third TER, is expected to be complete by Sept. 30. The TER is available on the NRC website’s Yucca Mountain page.###