[PDF] High Level Radioactive Waste Legislation eBook

Author : National Research Council
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 37,23 MB
Release : 2006-04-24
Category : Science
ISBN : 0309164699

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The largest volumes of radioactive wastes in the United States contain only small amounts of radioactive material. These low-activity wastes (LAW) come from hospitals, utilities, research institutions, and defense installations where nuclear material is used. Millions of cubic feet of LAW also arise every year from non-nuclear enterprises such as mining and water treatment. While LAW present much less of a radiation hazard than spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive wastes, they can cause health risks if controlled improperly. Improving the Regulation and Management of Low-Activity Radioactive Wastes asserts that LAW should be regulated and managed according to the degree of risk they pose for treatment, storage, and disposal. Current regulations are based primarily on the type of industry that produced the waste-the waste's origin-rather than its risk. In this report, a risk-informed approach for regulating and managing all types of LAW in the United States is proposed. Implemented in a gradual or stepwise fashion, this approach combines scientific risk assessment with public values and perceptions. It focuses on the hazardous properties of the waste in question and how they compare with other waste materials. The approach is based on established principles for risk-informed decision making, current risk-informed initiatives by waste regulators in the United States and abroad, solutions available under current regulatory authorities, and remedies through new legislation when necessary.

Author : James Flynn
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 187 pages
File Size : 43,59 MB
Release : 2019-06-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1000307603

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Time is both the ally of high-level nuclear waste (HLNW) managers and the enemy. It is the ally because the radioactivity in elements and isotopes decreases with age, making the waste progressively less dangerous to human health and safety and the environment. This rate of radioactive decline varies, in some cases diminishing by half (the half life) in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years. In other cases the decay process takes centuries or hundreds of thousands of years before the wastes are safe for human contact. The problem as now conceptualized for HLNW managers is simple to state if not easy to achieve. The HLNW needs to be secured in some fashion until it decays, by virtue of its physical nature, to safe levels. Another possible future solution, not currently available, might be to change the ~~ructure of HLNW through high-technology processing and thus decompose the waste into units with different and less lengthy radioactivity. Learning whether this processing is a future option will require patience and generous amounts of time for research.