Management of Commercially Generated Radioactive Waste - U.S. ...

3.19
quencies, source terms can be grouped by release severity for environmental consequence
analyses. Releases were classified based on similar release pathways, chemical form, acci-
dent severity category, and isotope types released (fission products, activation products,
and actinides). The largest release from any of the accidents in a similar release group
was selected as the umbrella source term for that group. A summary description of impacts
from the umbrella source terms for each waste management step is presented in Sections 4.8
and 5.4.
Releases of radioactive material to the environment result from both accidents and nor-
mal operational releases. Operational releases result from routine handling or processing
of radioactive materials and are limited by the containment system design and performance.
They are expected to occur at a relatively uniform rate over the life of the plant. Acci-
dental releases occur intermittently because of operational error or because of system com-
ponent or containment failures. Severity of releases is generally inversely proportional
to their frequency. The small-release, moderate-frequency minor accidents were character-
ized for impact analysis in two ways: 1) as short-term intermittent release to describe
their accidental nature and 2) as integrated releases averaged over one year to describe
their moderate frequencies of occurrence. Integrated annual releases caused by minor acci-
dents were added to facility releases from normal operations in determining environmental
impacts for normal operation. Because of their low frequency, releases from moderate and
severe accidents are described as separate impacts and are not included in consequences of
routine operation.
3.2.8 Cost Analysis Bases
Estimates of capital and operating costs for waste management predisposal operations
and disposal in geologic repositories were developed for this Statement. This section sum-
marizes the assumptions and methodology used to derive these cost estimates, as well as the
bases for estimating uncertainty ranges. A complete discussion of cost bases and assumptions
is given in DOE/ET-0028, Vol. 1, Section 3.8.
The cost estimates themselves are summarized in Sections 4.9 and 5.6 for predisposal
and geologic-isolation operations, respectively. Additional cost information on other dis-
posal alternatives where the data base is generally more limited, is presented in the indi-
vidual discussions of these alternatives in Chapter 6. An analysis of the overall systems
costs of waste management and their impact on the cost of electric power is given in
Chapter 7. The costs presented in Chapter 7 represent a full cost recovery of all identi-
fiable costs including R&D costs and government overheads.
3.2.8.1 Bases for Capital, Operating and Decommissioning Cost Estimates
A constant dollar method of analysis is employed in which all costs, both present and
future, are expressed in terms of the buying power of the dollar in mid-1978.(a) This is
(a) The costs from DOE/ET-0028 were originally derived in terms of 1976 dollars and have
been escalated here to 1978 dollars by multiplying by 1.17. 1980 dollar costs can be
approximated by multiplying by 1.20.