Challenges in Uncertainty and the Science of Nuclear Waste Disposal (Invited)
Abstract
Disposal of high-level nuclear waste is a first-of-a-kind endeavor, further saddled by the ambitious goal to achieve containment over periods well beyond human experience. In the United States, as well as other countries, the time period for performance assessment to provide a safety case for deep geologic repositories has gone from 10,000 years in the 1990s to one million years today. Even when the standard was established for 10,000 years, the National Academy of Sciences Board on Radioactive Waste Management warned of the 'scientific trap' set by encouraging the public to expect certainty about repository safety well beyond what science can provide. Paradoxically, the emphasis on predicting repository behavior thousands of centuries into the future stands in stark contrast to a lack of risk assessment of indefinite aboveground storage for the next several generations. We review the uncertainties and technical basis for a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain compared to extended onsite and interim storage. In order to make progress with geologic disposal of nuclear waste, it is important to evaluate any option in the context of the relative merits and limitations of alternative geologic settings, interim storage, and the status quo of extended onsite storage.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFM.U21A..03A
- Keywords:
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- 6620 PUBLIC ISSUES Science policy;
- 1899 HYDROLOGY General or miscellaneous