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The Lack of Technical Basis for Requiring a Ten Thousand Year Prediction for Nuclear Waste Management*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2011

Lawrence D. Ramspott
Lawrence D. Ramspott*
Affiliation:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, CA 94551+
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Abstract

There is no technical basis for setting a time limit of 10,000 years on the regulated performance of a nuclear waste repository. First, accurate prediction of releases for such periods is not possible. Second, there is nothing unique about 10,000 years. Third, equally toxic materials, which never transform to non-toxic substances by radioactive decay, have less stringent requirements. And fourth, during a 10,000 year time frame, natural disasters will dwarf the worst possible outcomes of repository placement.

Analyses could be required to extend as long as doses above current radiation protection guidelines are possible (perhaps several million years), but these results should be recognized as qualitative information rather than evidence of quantitative compliance with exact numerical limits. Concern for what will happen over long times can be addressed for the next several hundred years by maintaining waste retrievability. At that time, uncertainty about future performance should have been reduced significantly.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 333: Symposium V – Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XVII , 1993 , 193
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1994

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References

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