This chapter addresses waste package components, emplacement environment, design, and status of research and development that support the Nevada Nuclear Waste Storage Investigation Project. The Site Characterization Plan discussion of waste package components is contained entirely within this chapter and Chapter 8. The discussion of emplacement environment in this chapter is limited to considerations of the environment that influence, or which may influence if perturbed, the waste packages and their performance. This discussion considers the near-field environment as described in previous chapters but does not address overall site environment. For an understanding of the overall environment, the reader is referred to those chapters. The basis for conceptual waste package design as well as description of the design is included in this chapter. The complete design will be reported in the Advanced Conceptual Design report and is not duplicated in the SCP. The focus of the design discussions is the SCP is on those aspects of the design that are dependent on site characterization information. The relationship between this chapter and other design-related documents is shown in Figure 7-1.