Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wp2c8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-23T19:01:35.230Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Technical Challenges Facing Regulators–Assessment of Long-Term Materials Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2011

Kenneth W. Stephens
Kenneth W. Stephens*
Affiliation:
Stephens & Associates, 10424 Windfall Court, Damascus, MD 20872
Get access

Abstract

For a number of years, nuclear regulators have grappled with difficult questions such as: “How safe is safe enough?” Such issues take on new dimensions in the long time-frame of high-level waste disposal.

Many of the challenges facing regulators involve assessment of long-term materials performance. Because real-time experiments cannot be conducted, it is necessary to rely extensively on modeling. This raises issues regarding the extent to which long-term extrapolations of short-term data are justified, the question of how closely models must represent reality to be trusted, and practical matters such as methods for validating unique computer codes.

Issues such as these illustrate how regulators must make decisions in a climate of uncertainty. Methods used by non-technical disciplines to make decisions under uncertainty have been examined and offer solutions for regulators and licensees alike.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 112: Symposium P – Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XI , 1987 , 115
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Yung, S.C. and Terry, W.K., Waste Package Preliminary Reliability Analysis Report, SD-BWI-TI-287, 1985, Rockwell Hanford Operations, Richland, WA, pp. 21 and 76.Google Scholar
2. Jansen, G., Expected Waste Package Performance for Nuclear Waste Repositories in Three Salt Formations, BMI/ONWI-655, 1987, Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation, Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, OH, p. 3.Google Scholar
3. Haynes, W.W., Managerial Economics–Analysis and Cases (Dorsey Press, Homewood, IL, 1963), pp. 556–565.Google Scholar
4. Van Horne, J.C., Financial Management and Policy, 2nd ed. (Prentice-Hall, Inglewood Cliffs, NJ, 1971), p. 680.Google Scholar
5. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1983, “Disposal of High-Level Radioactive Wastes In Geologic Repositories; Technical Criteria” (10 CFR Part 60), Federal Register, Vol. 48, No. 120, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
6. U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Assessment: Yucca Mountain Site, DOE/RW-0073, 1986, Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation, Washington, DC, p. 6–371.Google Scholar