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Maximum Individual Dose and Vicinity-Average Dose for a Geologic Repository

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2012

T. H. Pigford  and
E. D. Zwahlen
T. H. Pigford
Affiliation:
Nuclear Engineering Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, [email protected]
E. D. Zwahlen
Affiliation:
Nuclear Engineering Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, [email protected]
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Abstract

Recent proposals for a new U.S. standard for high-level waste disposal would limit the average dose to individuals in the vicinity surrounding a geologic repository. This would be a new approach to protecting the public from environmental releases of radioactivity. Heretofore, criteria adopted for geologic disposal have limited the reasonable maximum exposure to a future hypothetical individual. Here we present quantitative analyses of the relation between maximum exposure and vicinity-average exposure, resulting from future human use of ground water contaminated by radioactive releases from a repository.

Estimating the vicinity-average exposure would require postulates and guesses of location and habits of future people. Exposure probabilities postulated by others show that proposed dose limit to the vicinity-average individual would be a far more lenient standard than the traditional dose limit to reasonably maximally exposed individuals. The proposed vicinity-average dose limit would allow far greater concentrations of contaminants in ground water than would be allowed by normal standards of ground water protection. A safety standard that limits vicinity-average exposure should also include limits on maximum exposure.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 465: Symposium II – Scienfific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XX , 1996 , 1099
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1997

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