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

1.26
1.7.1 System Radiological Impacts
Both the regional (reference environment of 2 million persons) and worldwide 70-year
whole-body dose accumulations for the proposed program, the alternative program, and the no-
action alternative are compared for the once-through cycle in Table 1.7.3. Somewhat higher
dose accumulations are indicated for the alternative program than for the proposed program.
However, the differences are not large enough to be significant.(a ) The dose accumulation
for the no-action alternative is somewhat less than for the other alternatives, but consider-
ing the time period involved, the differences are not significant. As would be expected, the
dose increases with increasing size of the nuclear systems served.
TABLE 1.7.3. Comparison of 70-Year Whole-Body Dose Accumulations from Normal Operations
for the Program Alternatives Using the Once-Through Cycle, man-rem
Proposed Program Alternative Program
(Geologic Disposal (Disposal Starting
Nuclear Power Starting 1990 - 2010) 2010 - 2030) No-Action Alternative
Case Growth Assumption Regional Worldwide Regional Worldwide Regional Worldwide
1 Present Inventory
Only 36 48 36 48 0.2 4
2 Present Capacity 200 to 290 to 250 to 370 to
Normal Life 250 370 260 380 90 160
3 250 GWe System by
Year 2000 and 940 to 1400 to 1200 to 1800 to
Normal Life 1200 1800 1300 1900 480 800
4 250 GWe System by
Year 2000 and
Steady State 1400 2100 1800 2600 NA(a) NA
5 500 GWe system by
Year 2040 1900 2800 2400 3400 NA NA
Dose Accumulation
from Natural 7 10 7 10 7 10
Radiation Sources 1 x 10 4. 10 1 x 10 4.5 x 10 1 x 10 4.5 x 10
(a) NA = not applicable.
The regional and worldwide 70-year whole-body dose accumulations for the proposed and
alternative programs are compared for the reprocessing case in Table 1.7.4. The doses are
much larger here than in the once-through cycle. However, the dose from reprocessing is
only a small fraction of the naturally occurring dose even in the highest nuclear growth
case examined here; i.e., 0.5% of the regional dose and 0.003% of the worldwide dose. The
doses from either the proposed program or the alternative program are the same. The re-
gional and worldwide dose is accumulated principally (about 95%) from the waste treatment
operations and the same quantities of waste are treated in either alternative--the only
difference is that waste production and treatment occur at different times.
(a) Result in less than one additional health effect as will be shown in following tables.