Reasonableness of human intrusion provisions in EPA's HLW standard
The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) environmental standards for the management and disposal of spent nuclear fuel are in the process of being repromulgated. The containment requirements of subpart B of the standard will prescribe limits for the amounts of radionuclides that will be permitted to reach the accessible environment during the first 10,000 yr after repository closure. The containment requirements are to be applied probabilistically, and this will require a significant computational effort to determine probabilities and to deal with the variations and uncertainties of the numerous parameters that affect radionuclide transport. This computational procedure is called performance assessment. The containment requirements specify that the consequences of inadvertent human intrusion into the repository after closure be evaluated, and guidance on appropriate assumptions is specified in Appendix C of the standard. When these assumptions are applied to preliminary performance assessment calculations, it is found that human intrusion effects are dominant at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and are very significant at Yucca Mountain. Furthermore, it appears that calculated releases from human intrusion could exceed the standard. These findings have led some to question whether human intrusion should even be included in the standard or should be considered differently from natural events. This paper examines separately the reasonableness of including human intrusion and of the guidance assumptions.
- OSTI ID:
- 7117431
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-911107-; CODEN: TANSA
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Vol. 64; Conference: 1991 Winter meeting of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) session on fundamentals of fusion reactor thermal hydraulics, San Francisco, CA (United States), 10-15 Nov 1991; ISSN 0003-018X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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