PLENTIFUL ENERGY

standard be assessed at the time of peak risk, which is tens to hundreds of thousands
of years—even further into the future than the EPA‘s ten thousand years.
Following these recommendations, the EPA promulgated standards for Yucca
Mountain in 2001 as 40CFR Part 197 [9], including the following:
―The DOE must demonstrate, using performance assessment, that there is a
reasonable expectation that, for 10,000 years following disposal, the reasonably
maximally exposed individual receives no more than an annual committed effective
dose equivalent of 150 microsieverts (15 millirem) from releases from the
undisturbed Yucca Mountain disposal system.‖
The NRC then followed, promulgating its regulation in 10CFR Part 63 [10],
consistent with the new EPA standards. It also had the following additional
provision to complement the individual protection standard:
―DOE must calculate the peak dose of the reasonably maximally exposed individual
that would occur after 10,000 years following disposal but within the period of
geologic stability. No regulatory standard applies to the results of this analysis;
however, DOE must include the results and their bases in the environmental impact
statement for Yucca Mountain as an indicator of long-term disposal system
performance.‖
Then, in response to a lawsuit filed by the State of Nevada, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled on July 9, 2004 that the EPA violated
federal law in issuing regulations that require the DOE to show that the facility can
meet ground protection requirements for at least ten thousand years. The court said
the agency was required by law to follow National Academy of Sciences
recommendations calling for a much longer compliance period. [11]
Based on this court ruling, EPA amended 40CFR Part 173 in October 2008,
incorporating compliance criteria applicable at two different time frames: 15 mrem
(0.15 mSv) per year for the first ten thousand years and 100 mrem (1 mSv) per year
at times after ten thousand years but within the period of geologic stability (up to a
million years). Subsequently, NRC amended 10CFR Part 63 in March 2009 to be
consistent with the EPA standards, adopting the criteria applicable at two different
time frames.
All this illustrates the tortuous path for licensing of a repository—Yucca
Mountain or any other. Now that the Yucca Mountain has been abandoned by the
government, the future course for spent fuel disposition is further in jeopardy.
Releases, tiny as they are, are difficult to specify with exactness many years into the
future; the times we are dealing with are all longer than any recorded human
history—incomprehensible, really. But one thing is both clear and very important: if
the source of the radiation is made small, such standards become moot. And the
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