Radioactive waste disposal criteria
This paper attempts to establish early a set of fundamental radioactive waste disposal criteria which will guide and constrain the more technical and narrowly defined criteria which will inevitably follow. Draft criteria are presented followed by a discussion of the rationale. Briefly stated the criteria are: (1) waste management or disposal scheme of choice should be just to future generations; (2) in assessing the adequacy of radioactive waste management or disposal schemes, or in comparing waste management of disposal alternatives, risk-benefit analysis is an inappropriate tool and should not be the principal basis for evaluating decisions; (3) safety to future generations is a primary concern, and should always take precedence over cost; (4) objective of geologic disposal of high-level radioactive waste should be the permanent isolation of the waste from any future possible contact with living organisms; (5) there should be high confidence that the cumulative risk to all future generations from radioactive waste should be less than, or comparable to, the cumulative risk to all future generations from the original uranium resources from which the radioactive wastes were derived; (6) there should be a high confidence that concentrations of radionuclides in waste materials should not be allowed to appear in the earth's biosphere before they have decayed to innocuous levels; (7) geologic medium and site selected for geologic disposal should be selected to minimize the possibility of future human intrusion during periods after which the permanence of records can no longer be relied upon; (8) radioactive waste should be stored in a retrievable manner for the period during which the repository is open, or until it can be assured with high confidence that all waste disposal criteria are met, whichever is the longer period. 11 references.
- Research Organization:
- Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Washington, DC (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC01-78ER10108
- OSTI ID:
- 5155561
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/ER/10108-T2; ON: DE84010219
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
SPECIFICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTES
052002* - Nuclear Fuels- Waste Disposal & Storage