Technical bases for Yucca Mountain standards / Committee on Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards, Board on Radioactive Waste Management, Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources, National Research Council.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Radioactive waste disposal in the ground--Standards--Nevada--Yucca Mountain.

Radioactive waste disposal in the ground.

Radioactive waste disposal in the ground--Nevada--Yucca Mountain--Safety measures.

Radioactive waste disposal in the ground--Health aspects--Nevada--Yucca Mountain.

Radioactive waste disposal in the ground--Environmental aspects--Nevada--Yucca Mountain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (222 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : National Academy Press, 1995.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The United States currently has no place to dispose of the high-level radioactive waste resulting from the production of the nuclear weapons and the operation of nuclear electronic power plants. The only option under formal consideration at this time is to place the waste in an underground geologic repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. However, there is strong public debate about whether such a repository could protect humans from the radioactive waste that will be dangerous for many thousands of years. This book shows the extent to which our scientific knowledge can guide the federal government in developing a standard to protect the health of the public from wastes in such a repository at Yucca Mountain. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is required to use the recommendations presented in this book as it develops its standard.

Contents:

""Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards""; ""Copyright""; ""PREFACE""; ""Contents""; ""EXECUTIVE SUMMARY""; ""PROTECTING HUMAN HEALTH""; ""Elements of the Standard""; ""Protection of the General Public""; ""ASSESSING COMPLIANCE""; ""Physical and Geologic Processes""; ""Exposure Scenarios""; ""HUMAN INTRUSION""; ""IMPLICATIONS OF OUR CONCLUSIONS""; ""Limits of the Scientific Basis""; ""Technology-Based Standards""; ""Administrative Consequences""; ""1 INTRODUCTION ""; ""SCOPE OF THE STUDY""; ""BACKGROUND AND APPROACH""; ""The Repository System""

""Issues to Be Considered in Approaching the Study""""Large but improbable doses""; ""Demonstration of compliance""; ""Fundamental vs. derived standards""; ""Time scale""; ""Choices Affecting the Bases of the Standard""; ""2 PROTECTING HUMAN HEALTH ""; ""THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF IONIZING RADIATION""; ""DEVELOPMENT OF RADIATION PROTECTION STANDARDS""; ""General Consensus in Radiation Protection Principles and Standards""; ""THE FORM OF THE STANDARD""; ""ELEMENTS OF AN INDIVIDUAL-RISK STANDARD""; ""What Level of Protection?""; ""Who Is Protected?""; ""For How Long?""

""PROTECTING THE GENERAL PUBLIC""""PROTECTING THE GLOBAL POPULATION""; ""NEGLIGIBLE INCREMENTAL RISK""; ""PROTECTING LOCAL POPULATIONS""; ""Population-Risk Standard""; ""Spatial Gradient in Risk""; ""PREFERRED FORM OF THE STANDARD""; ""3 ASSESSING COMPLIANCE ""; ""INTRODUCTION""; ""PART I: OVERVIEW OF PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT""; ""Reasonable Confidence""; ""Time scale""; ""Probabilistic Analysis of Risk""; ""QUANTITATIVE CALCULATION OF REPOSITORY PERFORMANCE""; ""Elements of Performance Assessment""; ""Conceptual model""; ""Mathematical model""; ""Numerical analysis""; ""Model parameters""

""Boundary conditions""""Treatment of Uncertainty""; ""Probabilistic modeling""; ""Bounding estimates""; ""Alternative conceptual models""; ""Summary""; ""PATHWAYS AND PROCESSES FOR PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN""; ""PART II: EARTH SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING FACTORS IN PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN""; ""Transport Among Reservoirs""; ""Release from the waste form""; ""Transport from canisters to the near-field unsaturated zone""; ""Gas phase transport from the unsaturated zone to the atmosphere above Yucca Mountain""

""Atmospheric circulation leading to dispersal of gaseous radionuclides in the world atmosphere""""Aqueous phase transport from the unsaturated zone to the water table""; ""Gradual and Episodic Natural Modifiers""; ""Climate change""; ""Seismicity""; ""Volcanism""; ""PART III: EXPOSURE SCENARIOS IN PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT""; ""Selection of Exposure Scenarios for Performance Assessment Calculations""; ""Exclusion Zone""; ""4 HUMAN INTRUSION AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS ""; ""INTRODUCTION""; ""The Consequences of Intrusion""; ""Technical basis""; ""Consequence-based analysis""

""ADDITIONAL BASES FOR OUR RECOMMENDATION""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-205).

ISBN:

9786610193059

9780309176330

0309176336

9781280193057

1280193050

9780309588188

0309588189

9780585020204

0585020205

OCLC:

923261737