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

1.27
TABLE 1.7.4. Comparison of 70-Year Whole-Body Dose Accumulations fr9m Normal Operations for
the Program Alternatives Using the Reprocessing Cycle, a) 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 NA(b) NA NA NA NA NA
2 Present Capacity
and Normal Life NA NA NA NA NA NA
3 250 GWe System by
Year 2000 and 13,000 580,000 to 13,000 580,000 to
Normal Life to 33,000 970,000 to 33,000 970,000 NA NA
4 250 GWe System by
Year 200 and
Steady State 33,000 1,000,000 33,000 1,000,000 NA NA
5 500 GWe System by
Year 2040 46,000 1,500,000 46,000 1,500,000 NA NA
Dose Accumulation
from Natural 7
Radiation Sources 1 x 10 4.5 x 10 1 x 10 4.5 x 1010 1 x 10 4.5 x 10
(a) Assumed reprocessing startup dates range from 1990 to 2000.
(b) NA = not applicable.
In this Statement, 100 to 800 health effects (50 to 500 total cancers plus 50 to
300 serious genetic disorders) are postulated to occur in the exposed population per million
man-rem. Based on this criterion, the program alternatives are compared on the basis of
health effects in Table 1.7.5 for the once-through cycle and Table 1.7.6 for the reproces-
sing cycle.
For the once-through cycle, with the high nuclear growth assumption, the number of
health effects range from 0 to 2 on a regional basis and 0 to 3 on a worldwide basis. In
the reprocessing case, the number of health effects are larger. For the high nuclear
growth assumption, they range from 5 to 37 health effects on a regional basis and from 140
to 1100 on a worldwide basis. However, the health effects calculated to occur over the
same period from naturally occurring radioactive sources range from 1000 to 8000 health
effects to the regional population and 4 x 10 6 to 4 x 10 health effects to the worldwide
population.
1.7.2 System Resource Commitments
Estimates of major resource commitments for construction and operation of the entire
waste management system were developed for each of the nuclear growth assumptions and each
repository and reprocessing startup date. The resources considered include steel, cement,
diesel fuel, gasoline, propane, electricity and manpower.