Site restoration: Estimation of attributable costs from plutonium-dispersal accidents
- Technadyne Engineering Consultants, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
A nuclear weapons accident is extremely unlikely because of the extensive care taken during weapons operations. Over the past decades, safety provisions in the nuclear weapons program have been made more stringent, and a large number of safety-related changes have been made to the stockpile. As a result, the risk of an accident has been successively reduced. Nonetheless, if a nuclear weapon became involved in an accident, radioactive materials might be dispersed to the environment as a result of fire or the nonnuclear detonation of a high explosive. Such accidents are routinely analyzed for the purpose of minimizing the risks of operations. Almost all of the prior U.S. work on costs associated with potential nuclear accidents focused on technical considerations, such as the costs and effectiveness of various decontamination operations. In contrast, this work is based on the premise that technical operations need to be considered within the context of the legal and social/political environment surrounding an accident and its site of contamination. In assessing accident costs, the authors believe it is necessary to consider both the action-forcing requirements of federal law, as well as the potential legal impediments to prompt action.
- OSTI ID:
- 426574
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-961103--
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 75; ISSN TANSAO; ISSN 0003-018X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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