23.04.2013 Views

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

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

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

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

79<br />

CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS<br />

No specific cost-benefit has been done at this time, but if a repository were to be<br />

constructed in salt, such an analysis could be expected.<br />

Draft p. 3.1.125<br />

Issue<br />

One commenter noted that the first paragraph should acknowledge redundancy <strong>of</strong> safety<br />

devices for such an obvious hazard as a "drop" accident in a vertical shaft. (58)<br />

Response<br />

Page 3.1.125 <strong>of</strong> the draft Statement was intended to communicate environmental impacts<br />

due to releases <strong>of</strong> radionuclides in accidents. See DOE/ET-0028 for a complete discussion<br />

<strong>of</strong> accident scenarios.<br />

Draft p. 3.1.125<br />

Issue<br />

Uncertainties in doses predicted by models are misleading. The discussion should indi-<br />

cate the uncertainty to be expected when a critical parameter has a range <strong>of</strong> values such as<br />

the magnitude <strong>of</strong> earthquake, floods, etc. (208-NRC)<br />

Response<br />

The Statement calculates the dose caused by a natural phenomenon capable <strong>of</strong> producing<br />

the given effect. The range <strong>of</strong> possible phenomenon intensity is not included.<br />

Draft pp. 3.1.136-172<br />

Issue<br />

In this section several scenarios resulting in the release to the biosphere <strong>of</strong> large<br />

amounts <strong>of</strong> radioactivity are postulated. Because <strong>of</strong> the generic nature <strong>of</strong> the repositories<br />

and the lack <strong>of</strong> specific data needed in the calculation, many <strong>of</strong> the parameters controlling<br />

the physical transport <strong>of</strong> the radionuclides are not even known to order <strong>of</strong> magnitude cer-<br />

tainty. The resulting dilutions that are used in the dose models have even larger bands.<br />

Therefore, breaking down the resulting doses by reprocessing procedure and rock type makes<br />

little sense, when the differences between them are much less than the error band due to<br />

transport-dose modeling. (208-NRC)<br />

Response<br />

The DOE agrees with the issue statement. One useful purpose <strong>of</strong> the analysis as pre-<br />

sented is to show differences between alternatives for "all else being equal". It also

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!