Hr. Gordon's comments are specific to defense waste only. The research priorities center around:

1. Improvements in the technology for immobilizing high-level waste. For waste vitrification, these improvements include lower corrosiveness, less crystal formation, lower volatility, reduction in glass cracking, increased life of glass-melter, nondestructive testing methods, and remote handling techniques.

2. Better understanding of the performance of the waste package components in the repository environment. This requires additional research in the areas of repository characterization, the mechanisms of waste form corrosion, radionuclide migration in geologic media, predictive models for projecting waste system performance.. and synergistic effects of waste system components.

3. Confirmation of waste disposal risk assessments and their establishment as the technical basis for regulatory criteria.

4. Research priorities for transuranic (TRU) waste isolation are focused on the development of processing technologies for immobilization and of improved instrumentation for classification and nondestructive examination.