EPA/402/R-92/007
rotection
Air And Radiation
(6602J)
4O2-R-92-O07
September 1992
jlatory Impact Analysis
For EPA's High-level Waste
Standard (40 CFR Part 191)
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Regulatory Impact Analysis
For EPA's High-level Waste
Standard (40 CFR Part 191)
402-R-92-007
August 1992
Office of Radiation Programs
Office of Air and Radiation
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20460
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
Table of Contents i
List of Exhibits v
List of Abbreviations vii
Executive Summary ix
1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 OVERVIEW 1
1.2 SOURCES OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES 1
1.2.1 Origin and Current Locations of
High-Level and Transuranic Wastes .... 2
1.2.2 Current and Projected Quantities of
Wastes Generated by Commercial Nuclear
Power Plants 4
1.2.3 Current and Projected Quantities of
High-Level Wastes Generated by DOE
Non-Commercial Facilities 4
1.2.4 Current and Projected Quantities of
Transuranic Wastes 7
1.3 ANALYTICAL APPROACH 7
1.3.1 High-Level Wastes 10
1.3.1.1 Data Sources and Limitations .... 11
1.3.1.2 Discounting of Costs and
Health Effects 12
1.3.2 Transuranic Wastes 12
2 ANALYSIS OF COSTS AND EFFECTS OF OPTIONS FOR DISPOSING OF
WASTES 13
2.1 HIGH-LEVEL WASTES 13
2.1.1. Defining the Options 13
2.1.1.1. Geologic Media 13
2.1.1.2. Waste Form ." 14
2.1.1.3 Canister Life 14
2.1.1.4 An Array of Options 14
2.1.2 Population Risks and Individual
Exposures 15
2.1.2.1 Understanding the CCDF Measure of
Population Risks 15
2.1.2.2 Understanding the Individual Dose . 18
2.1.2.3. Measuring the Population Risks ... 18
2.1.2.4 Measuring the Individual Doses ... 24
2.1.3 Costs 24
2.1.3.1 Data Sources 25
2.1.3.2. Tuff 25
2.1.3.3 Salt and Basalt 27
2.1.3.4. Granite 28
2.1.3.5 Comparison of Costs of Repositories
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
by Medium 29
2.1.3.6 Canister and Waste Form Costs ... 29
2.1.3.7 Total Cost by Options 31
2.1.3.8 Summary of Costs, Population Risks,
and Individual Doses 31
2.2 TRANSURANIC WASTES 34
2.2.1. Defining the Option 34
2.2.2 Population and Individual Risks 35
2.2.3. Cost of Option 35
3 LEAST-COST OPTIONS AND COST-EFFECTIVENESS 37
3.1 HIGH-LEVEL WASTES 37
3.1.1. Least-Cost Options for Achieving Limits
on Health Effects 36
3.1.1.1 Costs and Effects of Varying the
Medium 40
3.1.1.2 Costs and Effects of Varying the
Leach Rate and Canister Life .... 43
3.1.2. Least-Cost Options for Achieving Limits
on Individual Doses 43
3.1.3 Conclusions 46
3.2 TRANSURANIC WASTES 46
4 40 CFR PART 191 AND RELATED REGULATIONS 47
4.1 REQUIREMENTS OF 40 CFR PART 191 47
4.1.1. The Containment Requirement 47
4.1.2 Assurance Requirements 48
4.1.3 Individual Protection Requirements ... 50
4.1.4 Options for Meeting the Proposed
Standard 50
4.1.4.1 High-Level Wastes 50
4.1.4.2 Transuranic Wastes 51
4.2 RELATIONSHIP OF 40 CFR PART 191 TO NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION RULES 51
5 THE IMPACTS OF GASEOUS RELEASES 55
6 THE IMPACTS OF 40 CFR PART 191 59
6.1 ASSESSING THE STRINGENCY OF 40 CFR PART 191 .... 59
6.2 PROFILES OF WASTE GENERATORS 62
6.2.1. Generators of High-Level Wastes 62
6.2.1.IThe Commercial Nuclear Power
Industry 62
6.2.1.2. DOE Non-Commercial Generators
of High-Level Wastes 66
6.2.2 Generators of Transuranic Wastes .... 66
ii
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
6.3 IMPACTS OF ALL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH OPTIONS ... 66
6.3.1 Cost to DOE of Demonstrating Compliance . 66
6.3.2 Costs to Generators of High-Level Wastes 70
6.3.2.1 Fees Charged to Commercial Waste
Generators 70
6.3.2 Impacts of Costs on Generators of Defense
High-Level and Transuranic Wastes .... 82
REFERENCES 84
Appendix A A-l
ill
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IV
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LIST OF EXHIBITS
Exhibit Page
1-1 Commercial Nuclear Power Reactors in the
United States 3
1-2 Projected Accumulation of Permanently
Discharged Spent Fuel 5
1-3 Projected High-Level Waste Inventories, 1990-2020 ... 6
1-4 Accumulated Volumes of Transuranic Wastes 8
1-5 Projected Transuranic Waste Inventories, 1990-2013 . . 9
2-1 Policy Options for a High-Level Waste Repository . . 16
2-2 Hypothetical Complementary Cumulative Distribution
Function (CCDF) 17
2-3 Complementary Cumulative Distribution Function by
Medium 19
2-4 Comparison of Complementary Cumulative Distribution
Functions 21
2-5 Total Expected Health Effects and Individual Doses for
Each Policy Option 22
2-6 Summary of Development and Evaluation Costs for DOE
Option Two 26
2-7 Present Value of Cost Elements by Medium 30
2-8 Costs by Medium, Leach Rate and Canister Life .... 32
2-9 Summary of Costs and Health Effects 33
3-1A Least-Cost Options for Meeting Six Hypothetical
Limits on Health Effects 38
3-1B Least-Cost Options for Meeting Six Hypothetical
Limits on Health Effects After Eliminating Disposal
in Tuff 39
3-1C Least-Cost Options for Meeting Six Hypothetical
Limits on Health Effects After Eliminating Disposal
in Tuff or Salt 41
3-2 Costs and Health Effects of Least-Cost Options
by Medium 42
3-3 Cost-Effectiveness of Salt Options 44
3-4 Costs and Individual Doses of Least-Cost Options by
Medium 45
4-1 The Containment Requirement 49
4-2 Effects of 40 CFR Part 191 and 10 CFR Part 60 on
the Options for Disposing of High-Level and
Transuranic Wastes 52
4-3 Options Meeting All Requirements of 40 CFR Part 191
and 10 CFR Part 60 54
5-1 Sensitivity of Health Effects to Changes in Leach Rate
and Canister Life 56
5-2 Sensitivity of Cost-Effectiveness to Performance of
Canister 58
v
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LIST OF EXHIBITS
Table Page
6-1 Nuclear Capacities and Market Shares for the Ten Largest
Nuclear Utilities 64
6-2 Comparisons of Projections of U.S. Commercial
Nuclear Capacity 65
6-3 1992 Budgets and Employment of Facilities Generating
Non-Commercial HLW and TRU Waste 67
6-4 Long Run Price Elasticity of Demand by Sector and Regiofl2
6-5 Commercial Generation of Electricity in the United States
73
6-6 Sales of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by Sector and
Region, 1990 74
6-7 Average Revenue by Sector and Region, 1990 75
6-8 The Economic Impact Model 77
6-9 Summary of Economic Impacts of Three Configurations and
Two Increments for High-Level Waste Facilities for the
United States 79
6-10 Incremental Cost of Regulation by Region 81
VI
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CCDF
CFR
c/kWh
Com
D&E
DOE
EPA
HLW
Ind
kWh
MGDS
MRS
MTHM
MWe
NRC
NWPA
R&D
Res
RIA
TRU
TSLCC
WIPP
Complementary Cumulative Distribution
Function
Code of Federal Regulations
Cents per kilowatt hour
Commercial
Development and Evaluation
U.S. Department of Energy
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
High-level wastes
Industrial
Kilowatts of electricity
Mined Geologic Disposal System
Monitored Retrievable Storage
Metric tons of heavy metal
Megawatts of electricity
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Nuclear Waste Policy Act
Research and Development
Residential
Regulatory Impact Analysis
Transuranic wastes
Total System Life-Cycle Costs
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
VII
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Vlll
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) weighs the costs and benefits
of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's standards for
disposing of spent nuclear fuel, high-level wastes, and transuranic
wastes, as proposed in 40 CFR Part 191, Subpart B. Subpart B has
three components: a containment requirements, an assurance
requirements, and an individual exposure requirement. The first
and the last of these are examined here.
*
«>
Two repositories are envisioned: one for spent fuel and high-level
wastes, and one for transuranic wastes. Data availability allows
the development of costs, population risks, and individual
exposures for 48 options for disposing of the former. Disposal in
four geologic media is examined: tuff, salt, basalt, and granite.
Two types of engineered barriers are also considered: waste form
and canister life. The rate at which the radioactive wastes are
released to the repository environment depends on the waste form.
Four of these release, or leach, rates are evaluated. Three
canister lives, ranging from 300 to 3,000 years are also examined.
Data limitation s preclude this type of analysis for a repository
for transuranic wastes. For transuranic wastes, only one option is
considered.
The results of the analysis are unusual. The least-cost options
for disposing of spent fuel and high-level wastes are also the most
effective in reducing health effects and limiting individual
exposures. These are the options based on a repository in tuff.
The lowest cost of the tuff option results in predicted statistical
health effect over 10,000 years and an individual dose of 0
millirem per year at a cost of $12.5 billion for a 100,000 MTHM
repository (discounted 1990 dollars).
Among the costs examined as part of the analysis are the costs DOE
may incur to demonstrate compliance with 40 CFR Part 191. Although
no firm data exist, costs of related activities are that include
all or portions of the cost of demonstration compliance. An
extreme upper bound of $7 billion is created by assuming that all
of the costs DOE will incur to develop and evaluate the facility
(D&E costs) are cost of demonstrating compliance. An alternative,
but still conservative, approach is to assume that the cost is
equal to the cost of various models that would be needed plus the
full cost of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing
proceedings, estimated at about $160 million. The actual costs of
demonstrating compliance are likely only a portion of this.
IX
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 OVERVIEW
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible
for developing generally applicable environmental standards for the
management and disposal of spent nuclear fuel, high-level waste,
and transuranic radioactive wastes. To this end, EPA promulgated
standards on August 15, 1985 (40 CFR Part 191). In 1987, however,
following a legal challenge, those parts of the standards dealing
with disposal (Subpart B) were remanded to the Agency for further
consideration by a U.S. Court of Appeals. Since then the Agency
has been in the process of reproposing these disposal standards,
and adapting them to respond to programmatic changes and
information that have become available since the 1985 proposal was
developed. The resulting revised Subpart B is the subject of this
Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA).
The RIA is divided into six chapters. The remainder of this
chapter briefly describes the processes by which the wastes are
generated, the volumes of waste that must be disposed of, the
assumptions on which the RIA is based, and the analytical approach
to the estimation of the impacts of the proposed regulation.
Chapter Two defines the options for disposing of wastes and
describes the health and cost effects associated with each option.
Chapter Three assesses the cost-effectiveness of the options.
Chapter Four contains further detail on the requirements of 40
CFR Part 191 and describes its relationship to U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
regulations. Chapter Five discusses special issues related to
gaseous releases such as carbon 14 from unsaturated, porous
material. Chapter Six concludes the report with an analysis of the
economic impacts of 40 CFR Part 191 on those who will bear its
cost, and includes a discussion of the cost of demonstrating
compliance.
1.2 SOURCES OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES
Radioactive wastes are the result of governmental and
commercial uses of nuclear fuel and material. For regulatory
purposes EPA defines five main categories of radioactive wastes:
spent nuclear fuel, high-level wastes other than spent fuel,
transuranic (TRU) wastes, uranium mill tailings, and low-level
wastes. Spent nuclear fuels, high-level wastes, and transuranic
wastes are the categories covered by the proposed 40 CFR Part 191.
Information on the sources and processes that produce these wastes,
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and on the current and projected quantities of the waste that must
be disposed of, is provided in the following sections.
1.2.1 Origin and Current Locations of High-Level
and Transuranic Wastes
Fissioning of nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors creates what is
known as "spent" or irradiated nuclear fuel. Sources of spent
nuclear fuel include fuel discharged from commercial nuclear power
plants; fuel elements generated by government-sponsored R&D
programs, universities, and industry; fuels from experimental
reactors (for example, liquid metal fast breeder reactors and high-
temperature gas-cooled reactors); U.S. Government-controlled
nuclear weapons production reactors; and naval reactor fuels and
other U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) reactor fuels. Fuel
discharged from commercial nuclear power plants accounts for
largest portion by far. Most spent fuel is currently being stored
in water pools at reactor sites where it is produced (EPA 92A) .
Exhibit 1-1 provides a map of the locations of commercial nuclear
reactors in the United States.
Spent nuclear fuel from defense reactors is routinely
reprocessed to recover unfissioned uranium and plutonium for use in
weapons programs. Most of the radioactive material goes into
acidic liquid wastes that will later be converted into various
types of solid materials. These highly radioactive liquid or solid
wastes from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel have traditionally been
called high-level wastes. No commercial spent fuel is being
reprocessed in the United States at this time. High-level wastes
derived from reprocessing activities are presently stored on
Federal reservations in South Carolina, Idaho, and Washington.
High-level wastes are also stored at the Nuclear Fuel Services
Plant in New York, a facility for reprocessing spent fuel that
closed in 1972 and is no longer accepting new shipments of spent
fuel or any other radioactive waste (EPA 92A).
Transuranic wastes, as defined in this rule, are materials
containing elements having atomic numbers greater than 92 in
concentrations greater than 100 nanocuries of alpha-emitting
transuranic isotopes, with half-lives greater than twenty years,
per gram of waste (EPA 92B) . Most transuranic wastes are items
that have become contaminated as a result of activities associated
with the production of nuclear weapons (for example, rags,
equipment, tools, and contaminated organic and inorganic sludges).
These wastes are currently being stored on Federal reservations in
Washington, Idaho, New Mexico, Tennessee, South Carolina, Nevada,
and Colorado (ORNL 91).
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1.2.2 Current and projected Quantities of Waste Generated bv
Commercial Nuclear Power Plants
The quantities of waste generated at commercial nuclear power
plants can be measured in several ways. The first is in terms of
size, including metric tons of initial heavy metal (MTHM), cubic
meters, and number of fuel rods. The MTHM measure is the most
commonly employed measure of spent fuel quantities, although the
cubic meters measure is useful in comparing volumes of spent fuel
with volumes of other types of radioactive waste. As of December
31, 1990, there were 21,868 MTHM of commercial spent fuel
assemblies. Converted to cubic meters and including the spacing
between the fuel rods, the quantity amounts to 9,895 cubic meters.
The quantities of wastes may also be measured in
radioactivity. While spent fuel accounts for only a small share of
the total volume of radioactive wastes, it accounts for most of the
radioactivity. For example, spent fuel in 1990 made up 2.4 percent
of the combined volume of spent fuel and high-level wastes in cubic
meters but accounted for 95.7 percent of the radioactivity.
A third measure of the quantities of radioactive wastes is
thermal power. Thermal power is a measure of the rate of heat
energy emission that results from the radioactive decay of a
material. Because facilities must be designed to manage the amount
of thermal power produced by the wastes the facilities contain,
this measure is an important parameter in building a nuclear waste
storage facility (ORNL 91).
Exhibit 1-2 provides information on the current and projected
mass, radioactivity, and thermal power of the cumulative
inventories of spent fuels generated by U.S. commercial nuclear
power plants between 1990 and 2020. The data provided are based on
a scenario prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for
nuclear power capacity in which there are no new orders of nuclear
power plants. Additional information on this and alternative
scenarios is provided in the discussion of the prospects for growth
in the nuclear power industry in Chapter Six.
1.2.3 Current and Projected Quantities of High-Level Waste
Generated by DOE Non-Commercial Facilities
DOE operates four sites that generate high-level waste. Two,
the Savannah River Site and the Hanford Reservation, manufacture
nuclear materials for weapons. Two others, the Idaho National
Engineering Laboratory and the West Valley Site, engage in nuclear
fuel reprocessing and research. Exhibit 1-3 lists the current and
projected quantities of high-level wastes accumulated at the four
sites in terms of their volume, radioactivity, and thermal power
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EXHIBIT 1-2
PROJECTED ACCUMULATION OF PERMANENTLY DISCHARGED
SPENT FUEL, 1990-2020
(by mass, radioactivity, and thermal power)
YEAR
19901
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
MASS
(metric tons of
heavy metal)
21,868
31,600
41,300
50,900
60,300
69,700
75,900
RADIOACTIVITY
(million curies)
23,351
26,700
30,600
35,300
39,300
39,000
35,200
THERMAL POWER
(million watts)
86.6
99.8
112.9
130.9
146.3
142.5
126.7
Source: DOE/Energy Information Administration projections for the
No New Orders Case as presented in ORNL 91, Table 1.3.
1
Data for 1990 are actual accumulations.
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EXHIBIT 1-3
PROJECTED HIGH-LEVEL WASTE INVENTORIES, 1990-2020
(by volume, radioactivity, and thermal power)
YEAR
19902
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
VOLUME1
(thousand cubic meters)
399.2
354.0
334.2
320.2
328.2
335.2
336.2
RADIOACTIVITY
(million curies)
1,045.3
1,227.5
1,355.0
1,487.0
1,213.4
1,185.5
1,138.8
THERMAL POWER
(thousand watts)
2,965
3,222
4,079
4,580
3,620
3,588
3,461
Source: DOE/Energy Information Administration projections as presented in
ORNL 91, Tables 2.7-2.9.
1 Volume decreases between 1990-2005 owing to the use of glass. This process allows the same
wastes to be stored in smaller volume. In 1990, no glass was used.
fj
Data for 1990 are actual accumulations.
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for five-year intervals from 1990 through 2020 (ORNL 91).
1.2.4 Current and Projected Quantities of Transuranic Wastes
Transuranic wastes are the result of reprocessing plutonium-
bearing fuel or fabricating nuclear weapons. Exhibit 1-4 lists the
11 facilities that generate transuranic wastes along with the
volume of wastes stored at each site as of December 1990. Two of
the facilities, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Argonne
National Laboratory East generate waste but ship it elsewhere for
storage. Two additional facilities, the Mound Plant and the Rocky
Flats Plant, have stored waste on site in the past, but will be
sending future wastes to one of the seven other facilities listed,
which have been designated by DOE as TRU waste storage sites
(ORNL 91).
Certain factors must be considered in interpreting Exhibit
1-4. First, early disposal practices did not include the current
reguirements for waste identification and categorization. As the
efforts to identify and characterize the wastes continue,
significant changes in estimates of the quantity of TRU waste are
anticipated. Second, prior to 1970, all DOE-generated TRU wastes
were disposed of in several landfill-type configurations at the
facilities. This is the "buried" waste shown in Exhibit 1-4.
After 1970, when the Atomic Energy Commission concluded that these
wastes should have greater confinement, TRU wastes began to be
placed in "retrievable" storage to enable eventual placement in a
long-term storage facility (ORNL 91) . At this time, only this
retrievable waste is intended to be removed eventually to a DOE-
designated storage site. Therefore, the projections in Exhibit 1-5
of wastes to be accumulated through 2013, which are intended to
indicate the magnitude of the disposal problem, include only
retrievably stored wastes. Total volumes of TRU waste, including
buried waste, may be calculated by adding the estimated 191,000
cubic meters of total buried waste as of 1990 to each of" the
volumes in Exhibit 1-5.
1.3 ANALYTICAL APPROACH
This RIA provides an economic analysis of alternatives for the
long-term disposal of the current and projected quantities of spent
fuel, high-level wastes, and transuranic wastes described in
section 1.2. For purposes of the discussion and analysis in the
remainder of the RIA, spent fuel and high-level wastes are combined
into a single group that will be referred to as high-level wastes
(HLW) as the disposal techniques for these wastes are similar, and
they are likely to be stored in the same facility. Transuranic
wastes will continue to be discussed separately.
7
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EXHIBIT 1-4
ACCUMULATED VOLUMES OF TRANSURANIC WASTES
December 31, 1990
FACILITY
Hanford Reservation
Idaho National Engineering
Laboratory
Los Alamos National
Laboratory
Oak Ridge National
Laboratory
Sandia National Laboratory
Savannah River Site
Mound Plant
Rock Flats Plant
Nevada Test Site
Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory1
Argonne National
Laboratory1
TOTAL
BURIED WASTES
(cubic meters)
109,000
57,100
14,000
6,200
3
4,530
190,833
RETRIEVABLY STORED WASTES
(cubic meters)
8,870
37,500
7,580
1,970
3,990
222
915
587
60,634
Source: ORNL 91
is facility generates transuranic wastes but ships them to other facilities for storage.
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EXHIBIT 1-5
PROJECTED TRANSURANIC WASTE INVENTORIES, 1990-2013
(by volume, radioactivity, and thermal power)
YEAR
19901
1995
2000
2005
2010
2013
VOLUME
(thousand cubic meters)
60,608
72,108
83,608
95,108
106,608
113,508
RADIOACTIVITY
(million curies)
4,779
7,863
9,774
11,581
13,291
14,276
THERMAL POWER
(thousand watts)
74.57
157.01
228.62
295.78
358.96
395.14
Source: DOE/Energy Information Administration projections as presented in
ORNL 91, Table 3.1.
*Data for 1990 are actual, not predicted, accumulations.
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The RIA takes a generic approach to the analysis of the costs,
population risks, and individual exposures associated with disposal
of high-level and transuranic wastes. As such, the options
described are not intended to characterize any particular planned
or existing facility. The general approach to the analysis, basic
assumptions, and data sources and limitations are discussed below.
1.3.1 High-Level Wastes
This RIA considers a variety of options for disposal of high-
level wastes. All are based on geologic disposal. Other options,
such as ocean disposal, are not considered.
Given geologic disposal, this RIA considers four media in
which the high-level wastes may be emplaced: tuff, salt, basalt,
and granite. Data, especially cost data, for other geologic media
are not available. For each of the four geologic media, the RIA
evaluates the costs and health effects associated with sets of
manmade, or "engineered", barriers. The engineered barriers, which
include any barrier devised by man that in some way retards the
release of radioactive materials, fall into two categories: those
associated with the longevity of the canisters that would be used
to store the wastes, and those associated with the rate at which
the waste would leak from the canister.
For the rate of leakage, called the leach rate, the RIA
considers four options: 1 part in 1,000 per year, 1 part in 10,000
per year, 1 part in 100,000 per year, and 1 part in 1,000,000 per
year. For the longevity of canisters, lifetimes of 300, 1,000 and
3,000 years are considered. Discussions are also included, as
Chapter Five, on a special canister that reduces the release of. a
highly radioactive gas, carbon 14, that can sometimes occur in
certain media. Since this canister is designed to last 10,000
years, it can in fact be used in any media to reduce releases to
near zero.
Costs, projected statistical health effects, and individual
exposures are then developed for each of the options for disposing
of high-level wastes created by the various combinations of
geologic media, canister life, and leach rate. These are based on
an assumption that the repository will contain the equivalent of
100,000 MTHM of spent fuel. The cost-effectiveness of each option
is next examined, with the least-cost option for meeting a variety
of limits on health effects and individual exposures within each
geologic medium identified and compared with the other options for
that medium. The lowest cost option of all media is compared
across media, completing the cost-effectiveness analysis.
10
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For the economic impact analysis, it is recognized that the
cost of disposal will be borne by both commercial generators of
nuclear power and the Federal government. Since the processes by
which the costs of a regulation are translated into impacts are
quite dissimilar for these two groups, the economic impacts on each
group are discussed separately. With appropriate assumptions, the
impacts of regulations on the private sector can be quantified;
however, the discussion of impacts of the cost of disposing of
defense high-level wastes is qualitative. Quantification of the
government impacts is not attempted because, given the small size
of the waste disposal expenditures relative to the Federal budget,
determination of the origin of the funds, their impacts, or their
opportunity costs is not possible.
For those impacts that are quantified, that is, for the
impacts of costs associated with disposal of nuclear waste from
commercial power plants, two methods are presented. The first
reflects the simplest assumptions possible. It compares annual
costs of the regulation with total industry revenue to determine
the change required in average electricity rates while assuming
that consumers do not change their purchasing patterns as a result
of the increased price. The second method incorporates an estimate
of the elasticity of demand to calculate the change in economic
welfare caused by the fees charged to commercial nuclear power
plants to pay for the high-level waste repository. The second
method also shows the economic burdens by state and type of
consumer.
1.3.1.1 Data Sources and Limitations
The cost data for high-level waste disposal used in this RIA
were obtained from the DOE. The data are not of uniform quality.
The most up-to-date and complete information is on the costs of the
limited number of engineered barriers and disposal techniques
currently being considered by DOE for implementation. For other
disposal techniques, cost studies were discontinued in the early
1980's and cost information is out of date. In these instances
ratios are developed on items for which both old and new cost data
are available and are used to adjust the dated costs.
Estimates of population risks and individual exposures are
based on an EPA model used by Rogers and Associates Engineering
Corporation to study the health-related effects of disposal of
radioactive wastes, referred to hereafter as the Rogers report
(Rogers 92). The assumptions and predictions of the model are,
like any model, subject to uncertainty. Details on the model are
provided in Chapter Two.
11
-------
1.3.1.2 Discounting of Costs and Health Effects
All costs are expressed in constant 1990 dollars to remove the
effects of anticipated inflation. After deflating the costs, a
discount rate of 2 percent is then applied to future costs to
obtain the present value. This 2 percent rate is intended to
reflect the real social cost of money.
Projected statistical health effects and individual exposures
are not discounted. This decision is in accordance with standard
practice in regulatory impact analysis. It is supported by the
fact that the rule itself uses a discount rate of zero by allowing
by inference a certain number of health effects over the 10,000
years for a given amount of wastes and not differentiating those
effects by the year in which they occur.
1.3.2 Transuranic Wastes
Along with the regulatory impact analysis for high-level
wastes, this RIA analyzes disposal of transuranic wastes. The
discussion of transuranic wastes, however, is not as detailed due
to data limitations. Cost data provided by DOE in 1990 are
available for just one geologic medium (Hunt 1). Although DOE was
asked for updated costs, none were provided. Data on population
risks and individual exposures, provided in the Rogers report
(Rogers 92) , are available for only one combination of geologic
medium, canister life, and leach rate. No other alternatives are
modeled by Rogers. Thus only one option for disposal of TRU wastes
could be evaluated by this RIA.
Costs are adjusted for inflation and converted to present
values using the same procedures as those applied to costs for
high-level waste disposal. As with high-level wastes, costs,
population risks, and individual doses of radiation are presented
assuming a repository containing the equivalent of 100,000 MTHM of
spent fuel.
12
-------
CHAPTER 2;
ANALYSIS OF COSTS AND EFFECTS OF OPTIONS
FOR DISPOSING OF WASTES
2.1 HIGH-LEVEL WASTES
The management system for high-level wastes consists of a
transportation system, a monitored retrievable storage (MRS)
facility, and a mined geologic disposal system (MGDS). Discussion
here is limited to the MGDS, and is organized as follows. The
first subsection defines the options for disposal. The second
examines the population risks and individual exposures for each
option, and explains how these estimates are developed. Next,
costs are developed for each option. The section concludes with a
summary of the costs, population risks, and individual exposures
for each option.
2.1.1. Defining the Options
The Department of Energy (DOE), the agency charged with
disposal of radioactive wastes, can choose, within limits, a
variety of parameters for the design of nuclear waste management.
This study focuses on three parameters: the geologic media in
which the facility will be located, the leach rate associated with
the waste form, and the life of the canister containing the waste
form.
2.1.1.1. Geologic Media
Four possible geologic media for the repository are tuff,
salt, basalt and granite. The tuff formation assumed for the study
hypothetically planned in Nevada, consists of airborne volcanic
debris fused into an unsaturated mass with high porosity and low
permeability" (Rogers 1992). Since the tuff is unsaturated, flow
of water through the rock formations is very slow. The unsaturated
character of this tuff also means, however, that there is a
potential for gaseous release of radioactivity. However, time
periods before this possible gaseous release can be quite long if
a canister with a long life is used.
Salt deposits, located in several regions of the country, are
viable candidates for a repository because their very existence
precludes groundwater flow. If, however, groundwater flow does
change in the future such that water contacts the salt deposits,
then the salt will dissolve and be carried away. Therefore,
stability of existing groundwater flows is essential, and candidate
13
-------
sites must be expected to remain intact for thousands of years.
One other problem more pronounced with salt than with the other
three media is the probability of inadvertent drilling into the
repository; probabilities are higher for salt because salt
formations are usually located in areas that contain commercially
valuable resources.
Located primarily in the Pacific Northwest, basalt "is a
dense, dark, fine-grained rock formed by the solidification of
volcanic lava" (Rogers 1992). All basalt formations have some
fractures even in their most dense parts, and these fractures
increase the probability of groundwater flows. This condition does
not make basalt unacceptable as a host rock, but it must be
considered in choosing a site.
The fourth host rock formation being considered for the high-
level waste repository is granite. Since fractures also occur in
granite formations, it is important that the sites considered be
very dense with fractures tightly closed. As is true with basalt,
groundwater migration through granite will almost certainly occur
over a long period. By itself, this does not make granite
unacceptable, but the possibility must be modeled.
2.1.1.2. Waste Form
Choice of the waste form determines the rate at which the
waste will leach into the surrounding environment. This study uses
the four waste forms considered in the Rogers report (Rogers 92).
These are: concrete, with an annual leach rate of 1 part in 1,000;
a hypothetical waste form with an annual leach rate of 1 part in
10,000; glass, with an annual leach rate of 1 part in 100,000; and
ceramic, with an annual leach rate of 1 part in 1,000,000.
2.1.1.3 Canister Life
An important option in the choice of engineered barriers for
a high-level waste repository is the choice of canister. The
Rogers report (Rogers 92) studied three canister designs on which
this RIA is based. Canister A contains the waste for 300 years,
canister B for 1,000 years, and Canister C for 3,000 years.
2.1.1.4 An Array of Options
The four geologic media, four leach rates, and three basic
canister designs constitute the policy variables that, when
considered in all possible combinations, provide DOE with 48
14
-------
choices for disposing of high level wastes. Exhibit 2-1 summarizes
these choices and also shows the three-character code used
throughout this document to represent each of the 48 choices. The
first part of the code consists of a letter to indicate the
geologic media. 'T' indicates tuff, 'S' indicates salt, 'B'
indicates basalt, and 'G' indicates granite. The second part of
the code is a numeral: 3 to indicate an annual leach rate of 1
part in 1,000 (10~-3), 4 to indicate an annual leach rate of 1 part
in 10,000 (10~-4) , 5 to indicate an annual leach rate of 1 part in
100,000 (10^-5), or 6 to indicate an annual leach rate of 1 part in
1,000,000 (10~-6). The third character is a letter indicating the
choice of canister. The code uses A for the 300-year canister A,
B for the 1,000-year canister B, and C for the 3,000-year canister
C. For example, a policy option coded B5C refers to a basalt
geologic medium, an annual leach rate of 1 part in 100,000 (10^-5),
and canister C.
2.1.2 Population Risks and Individual Exposures
Estimates of population risks and individual exposures for a
high-level waste repository are based in this RIA entirely on the
Rogers report (Rogers 92) . For the population risk estimates,
Rogers uses the concept of "complementary cumulative distribution
functions" (CCDF) to show projected health effects for a variety of
repository choices. For individual exposures, it estimates the
annual radiation dose, measured in millirems per year, from
consuming two liters per day of groundwater two kilometers from the
boundary of the repository. The CCDF concept and the individual
risk measure are discussed in the following sections.
2.1.2.1 Understanding the CCDF Measure of Population Risks
Exhibit 2-2 shows a hypothetical CCDF reproduced from" the
Rogers report (Rogers 92). It is presented here to illustrate the
concept of a CCDF. Basically, the CCDF technique constructs a
probability distribution from a set of paired probability and
consequence levels. The consequence levels (that is, number of
health effects) arise from the various scenarios modeled. These
scenarios include normal groundwater flow as well as events such as
exploratory drilling, seismic activity, or volcanic activity.
Probabilities are assigned based on the likelihood of the scenario.
Each consequence level is paired with a corresponding probability,
and the pairs are arranged in decreasing order of consequence
level. The result is a CCDF such as that depicted in Exhibit 2-2.
15
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EXHIBIT 2-1
POLICY OPTIONS FOR A HIGH-LEVEL WASTE REPOSITORY
Geological
Medium
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Basalt
Granite
Granite
Granite
Granite
Granite
Granite
Granite
Granite
Granite
Granite
Granite
Granite
Leach Rate
(parts per year)
10~-3
10^-3
10"-3
10^-4
1CT-4
icr-4
10^-5
10^-5
icr-5
10~-6
icr-6
10"-6
icr-3
10~-3
10"-3
10^-4
10^-4
10^-4
10"-5
10~-5
10~-5
icr-6
10"-6
10~-6
10~-3
10^-3
1CT-3
10^-4
10"-4
10^-4
10^-5
10^-5
10"-5
10^-6
10^-6
10"-6
1CT-3
10^-3
10"-3
10"-4
10"-4
10A-4
10^-5
10"-5
10^-5
10"-6
10^-6
10"-6
Canister Life
(years)
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
300
1000
3000
Code
T3A
T3B
T3C
T4A
T4B
T4C
T5A
T5B
T5C
T6A
T6B
T6C
S3A
S3B
S3C
S4A
S4B
S4C
S5A
S5B
S5C
S6A
S6B
S6C
B3A
B3B
B3C
B4A
B4B
B4C
B5A
B5B
B5C
B6A
B6B
B6C
G3A
G3B
G3C
G4A
G4B
G4C
G5A
G5B
G5C
G6A
G6B
G6C
16
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EXHIBIT 2-2
HYPOTHETICAL COMPLEMENTARY CUMULATIVE DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION(CCDF)
10
-1
O)
O) >
O o
10-
en
Q_
o 10-
10
-4
D
10
100
1000 10,000 100,000
Health Effects over 10,000 Years
Source: Rogers92
17
-------
Point A, the event with the largest consequence, has a
probability of 10"4 (0.0001). Point B pairs the consequence of
event B with the sum of the probabilities of events A and B (hence
the term cumulative).
Point C is the pair of the consequence of event C and the
summed probabilities of events A through C. Any point on the curve
can be interpreted as follows: the probability shown is the
probability of obtaining a consequence exceeding the value shown
(Rogers 92) .
Multiplying these same sets of paired probabilities and
consequence levels and summing their products yields another
measure of population risk total expected number of health
effects from all release scenarios. Note the two types of
information obtained by constructing a CCDF. Not only does a CCDF
describes an entire distribution of probability-consequence pairs,
but it also gives an expected value for that distribution.
2.1.2.2 Understanding the Individual Dose
Individual exposures are estimated as the annual radiation
dose an individual receives from consuming two liters of
groundwater per day at a distance of 2000 meters from the boundary
of the repository. Since the nuclear wastes will slowly migrate
from the repository after the canister fails, the primary
determinant of an individual's exposure is time. For a given waste
form and canister life, the longer the time after placement of the
HLW, the greater the number of radionuclides in the groundwater.
The low-probability events of drilling, seismic activity, and
volcanic activity are ignored for individual exposure measures.
2.1.2.3. Measuring the Population Risks
Exhibit 2-3 presents a CCDF with for one option within each
geologic medium. The point represented by the ordered pair
(100,10 ) should be interpreted as a 0.01 chance of an event
occurring that results in more than 100 health effects per 100,000
MTHM emplaced.
All four are first constructed assuming a leach rate of 10"*
and a canister life of 1,000 years. This is the base case in the
Rogers report (Rogers 92) . However, since uncertainty exists,
alternative scenarios are constructed by Rogers to illustrate the
range of outcomes. These are developed by randomly selecting
different leach rates between 1 part in 1,000 and 1 part in
1,000,000, and different canister lives (between 300 and 3,000
18
-------
EXHIBIT 2-3
COMPLEMENTARY CUMULATIVE DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION
BY MEDIUM
TUFF
SALT
Probability of Exceeding
Consequence Level
0 3 0 0
i* U Nt i
-^
S P^
V
^
Oasc
Case
\
^
«P~0.,
S
.a.
11
1
1 10
100 1.000 10.000 100,000
Health Effects over 10,000 Years
I S P«ro«
-------
years) to generate another 100 scenarios. The graphs in Exhibit 2-
3 therefore give the base case as well as the CCDFs corresponding
to the 5th and 95th percentiles. This places uncertainty bounds on
the base case. Any point on the graph (x,y) may be interpreted by
observing that the probability that the number of health effects
represented by x will be exceeded, is equal to y. For example,- the
point represented by the ordered pair (100, 10"2) should be
interpreted as a 0.01 chance of an event occurring that results in
more than 100 health effects per 100,000 MTHM emplaced. The
interpretation of the intervals (also shown on the graph) would be
that there is a 90 percent chance that the actual release would
fall within the limits marked by the 5th and 95th percentile.
Exhibit 2-4 combines the base case results for the four media
for comparison purposes. The exhibit indicates that tuff generally
has fewest health effects, followed by salt, granite and basalt.
For tuff, there is a 0.1 chance of a consequence with between 1 and
10 health effects or more per 100,000 MTHM. For salt, there is a
0.1 chance of health effects about 10 times greater than for tuff.
For granite and basalt, the same 0.1 chance corresponds to almost
1,000 health effects or more per 100,000 MTHM, with the basalt
having slightly more health effects. However, at low levels of
probability (approaching 0.0001) the consequence of an event is
greater for tuff than for any of the other media. Salt is the only
media to have less than a 100 percent chance that an event with a
consequence of at least 1 health effect per 100,000 metric tons of
heavy metal will occur.
The Rogers report (Rogers 92) also provides another measure of
population risk, total expected health effects over 10,000 years
for each of the 48 options if 100,000 MTHM are emplaced . The
first two columns of Exhibit 2-5 present these data. Two
conclusions emerge from the table. First, geologic medium is the
most important determinant of total expected health effects over
10,000 years. Tuff has the smallest number of expected health
effects; further, the tuff results are not sensitive to leach rate
or canister life. Salt provides the next smallest number of health
effects for each of the combinations of leach rate and canister
life. Health effects in salt range from 39 to 5. While canister
life has some influence on expected health effects, leach rate
exerts greater influence. Although granite performs somewhat
better than basalt, neither perform well compared with tuff or
salt. The best result for basalt, option B6C with 43 expected
health effects, has more health effects than any salt option or any
tuff option. For granite, only one option (G6C with 30 health
CCDFs for each of the 48 options are not constructed. They
are constructed for only the reference case for each of the media.
20
-------
EXHIBIT 2-4
COMPARISON OF COMPLEMENTARY CUMULATIVE DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS
CD <1>
CD >
O <>>
X '
UJ CD
«*- O
O C
£ I
1 |
J3 ^
25
0.
10-1
10-2
1O-3
10-4
10
100
1,000 10,000
100,000
Health Effects over 10,000 Years
21
-------
EXHIBIT 2-5
TOTAL EXPECTED HEALTH EFFECTS AND INDIVIDUAL DOSES
FOR EACH POLICY OPTION
Policy
Option
T3A
T3B
T3C
T4A
T4B
T4C
T5A
T5B**
T5C
T6A
T6B
T6C
S3A
S3B
S3C
S4A
S4B
S4C
S5A
S5B**
S5C
S6A
S6B
S6C
B3A
B3B
B3C
B4A
B4B
B4C
B5A
B5B**
B5C
B6A
B6B
B6C
Expected Health
Effects (over
10,000 years)
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
39
37
32
20
18
13
7
6
6
5
5
5
11,600
108,00
8,800
4,900
4,400
3,160
662
583
393
73
64
43
Individual Dose
(maximum dosage
during 10,000 years)*
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
***
***
***
***
*.**
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
100,000
100,000
100,000
10,000
10,000
10,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
100
100
100
22
-------
EXHIBIT 2-5
TOTAL EXPECTED HEALTH EFFECTS AND INDIVIDUAL DOSES
FOR EACH POLICY OPTION
Policy
Option
G3A
G3B
G3C
G4A
G4B
G4C
G5A
G5B**
G5C
G6A
G6B
G6C
Expected Health
Effects (over
10,000 years)
9,350
8,630
6,780
3,910
3,470
2,320
516
449
284
54
47
30
Individual Dose
(maximum dosage
during 10,000 years)*
100,000
100,000
100,000
10,000
10,000
10,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
100
100
100
**
Individual dose is measured as maximum exposure during the
10,000 year period. The Rogers report presents individual
doses in graphical form only. These numbers are estimated
from those graphs.
Used as a base case in the Rogers report.
*** The Rogers report did not calculate individual doses from salt
because of the absence of a groundwater pathway under
undisturbed conditions. Essentially, the dose is 0.
Source: Rogers 92
23
-------
effects) has fewer health effects than the worst of the salt
results (S3S with 39 health effects) . All tuff options have fewer
health effects than any granite option.
The second conclusion is that for any geologic medium except
tuff, leach rate is the primary determinant of expected health
effects. Canister life has a relatively smaller impact. For
example, assuming disposal in basalt in a waste form with a leach
rate of 10 , a change from a 1,000-year canister (option B5B) to
a 3,000-year canister (option B5C) yields 190 fewer expected health
effects. However, improving the leach fate rather than the
canister life, from 10"5" (option B5B) to 10"6 (option B6B) , yields
519 fewer health effects.
2.1.2.4 Measuring the Individual Doses
The third column of Exhibit 2-5 lists individual doses of
radiation for each option. The doses shown do not take into
account low-probability events, such as drilling, volcanic
eruptions, and seismic activity. Again, tuff and salt greatly
outperform basalt and granite. During the 10,000 years both tuff
and salt yield a maximum dosage of zero. Basalt yields the same
dosage for the various disposal methods as granite. Canister life
has no effect on individual dose of either medium; only the leach
rate of the waste form influences individual dosage.
2.1.3 Costs
There are two major cost components of building a repository
(DOE 90) . The first is the repository itself, which consists of
surface and underground facilities at the mined geologic disposal
site. Surface facilities include excavated material-handling
facilities, the waste handling building, support buildings, and so
on, while the underground facilities consist of shafts, ramps,
support facilities, and access and waste emplacement tunnels.
Repository costs cover engineering, construction, operation,
closure and decommissioning.
The second major cost component of repository construction is
development and evaluation (D&E) costs. The D&E category, as
developed by DOE, covers all the siting, preliminary design
development, testing, regulatory and institutional activities
associated with the repository, the facility for monitored
retrievable storage (MRS), and the transportation system. The D&E
category also includes administration activities by the Federal
government and Nuclear Regulatory Commission activities related to
licensing the waste management facilities and certifying the
24
-------
transportation containers. For this analysis, however, only that
part of D&E costs attributable to the repository itself is
considered.
2.1.3.1 Data Sources
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) as amended requires DOE to
submit a report to Congress each year which assesses the adequacy
of the fee charged to utilities to cover the entire cost of the
waste management program (GAO 89) . To support this effort, DOE
publishes detailed life-cycle cost estimates for an assumed set of
reference systems. This analysis, referred to as the Total System
Life-Cycle Cost (TSLCC) Analysis, represents the official long-term
financial plan for the program and reflects the most up-to-date
program plans, policies, designs, and data available. The most
recent TSLCC document is a preliminary estimate dated December 1990
that serves as an addendum to the most recent complete TSLCC
analysis, which is dated May 1989 (DOE 1990). This addendum is a
primary source of costs for the high-level waste management system
in this RIA.
The addendum considers three repository options: (1) one
repository in tuff designed to store 96,300 MTHM; (2) two
repositories, with the first storing 70,000 MTHM in tuff and the
second storing 26,300 MTHM in a generic medium; and (3) two
repositories, with the first storing 70,000 MTHM in tuff and the
second storing 36,400 MTHM in a generic medium (DOE 90). For this
RIA, costs associated with a first repository of 70,000 MTHM as
noted in option two above, referred to hereafter as DOE Option Two,
were chosen and then scaled to approximate a 100,000 MTHM
repository. The choice of DOE Option Two over the alternatives
allows a better comparison with cost data for the other media, as
explained in subsequent sections.
Costs in the TSLCC addendum focus on tuff because of a
decision by Congress in 1987 to restrict future study to the tuff
formations in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Thus, data on costs for
repositories in other media are developed using other sources and
approaches. Costs of repositories in salt and basalt are based on
older DOE studies. Costs of repositories in granite are based on
a variety of approaches and sources, as little information is
available that is specific to this medium. Details are provided in
the following sections.
2.1.3.2. Tuff
Consider tuff formations first. Exhibit 2-6 displays each
component of the D&E costs in 1990 dollars for DOE Option Two.
25
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EXHIBIT 2-6
Summary of Development and Evaluation Costs for DOE Option Two
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Cost Category
Cost
(millions of 1990
dollars)
First Repository
Second Repository
MRS Facility
Transportation
Systems Integration
NRC Fees
Program Management
Total D&E Costs
7,014
3,315
326
1,329
327
937
3,087
16,335
Source:
DOE 90
26
-------
Since this RIA analyzes only the costs of the repository itself,
only those elements of D&E expense explicitly attributable to the
repository are considered. D&E costs for a 70,000 MTHM repository
are estimated as 43 percent of total D&E costs for the two
repository case ($7,014 divided by $16,335) (DOE 90).
The second component of costs is the cost of the repository
itself. This cost, plus the relevant D&E costs, are provided in
Exhibit A-l of Appendix A. The costs in Exhibit A-l are the total
life-cycle costs of the 70,000 MTHM repository, from the most
recent TSLCC (the addendum dated December 1990). The costs are
inflated to 1990 dollars using the gross domestic product (GDP)
implicit price deflator. Transportation and MRS costs are not
included.
The next step in developing the total cost of the repository
is the scaling of costs for a 70,000 MTHM repository to estimate
costs for a 100,000 MTHM repository. The scaling was done by
assuming a linear relationship and simply multiplying by 1.43 (that
is, 100/70). There are undoubtedly both fixed and variable costs
for the 70,000 MTHM repository, and the cost of expanding the
repository by 30,000 MTHM would probably not cost as much as
implied by this technique. D&E costs, for example, are not likely
to be much affected by this increase in capacity. However, no
better method for estimation is possible with the data provided.
The last step is the discounting of the costs to find the net
present value of the cost stream. The discount rate applied is 2
percent. Summing these yields a net present value of $11,225
million.
2.1.3.3 Salt and Basalt
Although DOE does not currently estimate costs for
repositories located in salt or basalt, it did so in analyses
before 1988. Previous volumes of TLSCC analysis provide cost'data
on tuff, basalt and salt repositories. These data are used as the
basis of our basalt and salt cost estimates. However, these data
must be adjusted to make them comparable to the tuff estimates in
the most recent TLSCC analysis. Emphasis is on providing data that
allow a valid comparison.
The June 1987 TSLCC (DOE 87) presents cost estimates for tuff,
salt and basalt. In each case, it gives repository costs for a
two-repository case with the first repository holding 70,000 MTHM.
The same method of cost analysis is used for both salt and basalt.
Development of estimates of costs for repositories in these media
begins with the calculation of D&E costs. Total D&E costs are
given in the June 1987 TSLCC for salt and basalt, but these are not
separated by component. Instead, to exclude costs not directly
related to the repositories themselves, the 43 percent ratio of
27
-------
repository D&E to total D&E for tuff in 1990 (Exhibit 2-6) is
applied to the DOE's estimates of total D&E for each type of
repository. These are then added to the cost of each repository
and scaled to convert to a 100,000 MTHM repository by multiplying
by 1.43. Finally, yearly costs are inflated to 1990 dollars, and
the total cost stream is discounted at two percent.
Exhibits A-2 and A-3 of Appendix A present life-cycle costs
for salt and basalt respectively. These are comparable to life-
cycle costs for tuff as presented in Exhibit A-l. Total
undiscounted life-cycle costs in 1990 for a 100,000 MTHM repository
built in salt are $23,461 million. Discounting this stream of
future costs at 2 percent yields a net present value of $14,254
million. Total undiscounted-life cycle costs for a 100,000 MTHM
repository built in basalt are $27,763 million; discounting this
stream of future costs at 2 percent yields a net present value of
$16,727 million.
2.1.3.4. Granite
Costs for a granite repository are also estimated with data
from the latest TSLCC analysis (again, this is from the addendum
dated December 1990). Since granite is the medium for which the
least cost information exists, necessary assumptions make the
granite cost estimates the most tenuous. No particular information
about D&E costs for granite are available; hence D&E costs for tuff
are used as a proxy. The fact that the TSLCC gives two cases for
a two-repository system allows the approximation of costs for the
repository itself in granite. In each of the two cases, the TSLCC
models the second repository as a generic medium; the costs of this
generic medium are used as the costs for granite. Also, in one
case the second repository has a capacity of 26,300 MTHM with a
total undiscounted 1988 dollar cost of $6,551 million while in the
second case the second repository has a capacity of 36,400 MTHM
with a total undiscounted 1988 dollar cost of $7,299 million.
Straight-line extrapolation from these two points gives a total
undiscounted life cycle cost of $12,009 million for a 100,000 MTHM
repository. The size of the repository is assumed not to influence
the relative expenditures per year. Each year's repository cost
can then be scaled by the ratio of the incremental cost for a
100,000 MTHM repository to the cost of a 26,300 MTHM repository, or
1.8 (12,009 divided by 6,551).
Exhibit A-4 of Appendix A presents an estimate of the costs
for a 100,000 MTHM repository built in granite. D&E costs are
assumed to be the same as tuff D&E costs but are scaled to 100,000
MTHM. Repository costs are estimated for each year as the TSLCC-
reported repository costs for the 26,300 MTHM repository multiplied
by 1.8 (as explained in the preceding paragraph). All costs are
inflated to 1990 dollars. Total undiscounted life-cycle costs for
28
-------
a 100,000 MTHM repository built in granite are $30,379 million
(1990 dollars); discounting this stream of future costs at 2
percent yields a net present value of $19,504 million.
2.1.3.5 Comparison of Costs of Repositories by Medium
One adjustment to the total discounted repository costs is
needed before costs by medium can be compared. Estimates of costs
of repositories in salt and basalt are based on 1986 data. The
tuff and granite estimates are based on 1988 data and incorporate
more recent information and program changes, such as improvements
in technology. Tuff cost estimates decreased by 6 percent from
1986 to 1988, and it is assumed that salt and basalt costs would
have done the same. After applying the 6 percent decline to costs
for repositories in salt and basalt, costs for each medium are as
follows: tuff, $11,225 million; salt, $13,450 million; basalt,
$15,784 million; and granite, $19504 million. The costs used in
this RIA for a 100,000 MTHM repository built in basalt, salt, tuff,
and granite are $15,784 million, $13,450 million, $11,225 million
and $19,504 million respectively (Exhibit 2-7).
2.1.3.6 Canister and Waste Form Costs
Total cost estimation requires calculating canister and waste
form costs, in addition to the repository costs. The 1985 RIA (EPA
85) provides the basis for estimating costs of the canister and
waste form. Nominal dollar costs are assumed to be the same
regardless of the choice of geologic media even though, for
example, a stainless steel container will not last as long in salt
as in basalt. However, the present values of the costs do vary
across media over the life cycle of a repository because the
emplacements of wastes are assumed to proceed at differing rates.
These rates were obtained by calculating the transportation costs
per year as a percentage of total transportation costs for the
repository (DOE 90). The volume of heavy metal emplaced per year
is estimated by applying this percentage to total volume of heavy
metal; the waste form and canister cost of emplacing that volume
for each year is then calculated. Finally, present values over the
life cycle of the repository are calculated using a 2 percent
discount rate.
Included in Exhibit 2-7 is the present value of the total cost
of achieving various leach rates. In the 1985 RIA, a leach rate of
1 part in 100,000 (10~5) corresponds to the lower limit of the "very
good" category while 1 part in 1,000,000 (10~^) corresponds to the
upper limit. These are assumed to cost $14 and $20 per kilogram of
heavy metal in the original substance. In addition, leach rate
29
-------
EXHIBIT 2-7
PRESENT VALUE OF COST ELEMENTS BY MEDIUM
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Cost Element
REPOSITORY
LEACH RATE
10"-3
10~-4
10"-5
1CT-6
CANISTER LIFE
300
1,000
3,000
Geologic Medium
Tuff
11,225
649
779
923
1,318
659
989
2,596
Salt
13,450
677
813
964
1,377
688
1,033
2,710
Basalt
15,784
694
832
987
1,409
705
1,057
2,774
Granite
19,504
649
779
923
1,318
659
989
2,596
30
-------
costs of 1 part in 1,000 (10*3) and 1 part in 10,000 (10"4) are
assumed to be $10 and $12 per kilogram of heavy metal. Costs are
inflated to 1990 dollars. Caution should be used with these
estimates, however. Though almost all the high-level waste to be
emplaced is in the form of intact spent fuel rods, the costs
developed are based on DOE high-level wastes. Telephone
conversations with DOE officials (WAL 92) indicate that waste form
costs for spent fuel rods are generally expected to be higher than
for DOE high-level wastes; however, no specific estimates exist.
Therefore, these waste form costs should be considered lower bound
estimates.
Exhibit 2-7 also gives the present value of the total cost of
various canister lives. Again, the 1985 RIA serves as the basis
for current estimates. The 300 year canister corresponds to the
"minimum" category described in the 1985 RIA, where it is assumed
to cost $10 per kilogram of heavy metal in the original substance.
The 1,000 year canister corresponds to the 1985 RIA's "good"
category and is assumed to cost $15 per kilogram of heavy metal in
the original substance. The 10,000 year canister corresponds to
the 1985 RIA's "very good" canister and is assumed to cost $40 per
kilogram of heavy metal in the original substance. The 1985 RIA
gave no cost for a 3,000 year canister. Recent information
indicates that a 1,000 year canister now costs $31 per kilogram of
heavy metal in the original substance while a 10,000 year canister
costs $77 per kilogram of heavy metal in the original substance
(SAIC 92) . These two points allow an approximation of $20 per
kilogram for a 300 year canister and $48 per kilogram for a 3,000
year canister. Applying these new dollar costs to the time stream
of heavy metal emplacement yields the canister cost estimates in
Exhibit 2-7. Since no information was given for granite, costs
associated with tuff were used to approximate granite cost.
2.1.3.7 Total Cost by Options
Costs for each of the 48 options are presented in Exhibit 2-8.
Total cost is the present value of the cost stream over the life of
the repository. It is the sum of repository costs, waste form
costs and canister costs.
2.1.3.8 Summary of Costs, Population Risks,
and Individual Doses
Exhibit 2-9 summarizes the population risks (health effects),
individual doses, and costs for each option. The second column
lists expected health effects, the third column contains individual
doses in millirems per year, and the fourth column provides the
31
-------
EXHIBIT 2-8. COSTS BY MEDIUM. LEACH RATE AND CANISTER LIFE
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Option
T3A
T3B
T3C
T4A
T4B
T4C
T5A
T5B
T5C
T6A
T6B
T6C
S3A
S3B
S3C
S4A
S4B
S4C
S5A
S5B
S5C
S6A
S6B
S6C
B3A
B3B
B3C
B4A
B4B
B4C
B5A
B5B
B5C
B6A
B6B
B6C
G3A
G3B
G3C
G4A
G4B
G4C
G5A
G5B
G5C
G6A
G6B
G6C
Repository
Cost
11225
11225
11225
11225
11225
11225
11225
11225
11225
11225
11225
11225
13450
13450
13450
13450
13450
13450
13450
13450
13450
13450
13450
13450
15784
15784
15784
15784
15784
15784
15784
15784
15784
15784
15784
15784
19504
19504
19504
19504
19504
19504
19504
19504
19504
19504
19504
19504
Leach
Rate
Cost
649
649
649
779
779
779
923
923
923
1318
1318
1318
677
677
677
813
813
813
964
964
964
1377
1377
1377
694
694
694
832
832
832
987
987
987
1409
1409
1409
649
649
649
779
779
779
923
923
923
1318
1318
1318
32
Canister
Cost
659
989
2596
659
989
2596
659
989
2596
659
989
2596
688
1033
2710
688
1033
2710
688
1033
2710
688
1033
2710
705
1057
2774
705
1057
2774
705
1057
2774
705
1057
2774
659
989
2596
659
989
2596
659
989
2596
659
989
2569
Total
Cost
12533
12863
14470
12663
12993
14600
12807
13137
14744
13202
13532
15139
14815
15160
16837
14951
15296
16973
15102
15447
17124
15515
15860
17537
17183
17535
19252
17321
17673
19390
17476
17828
19545
17898
18250
19967
20812
21142
22749
20942
21272
22879
21086
21416
23023
21481
21811
23418
-------
EXHIBIT 2-9
SUMMARY OF COSTS AND HEALTH
Option
T3A
T3B
T3C
T4A
T4B
T4C
T5A
T5B
T5C
T6A
T6B
T6C
S3A
S3B
S3C
S4A
S4B
S4C
S5A
S5B
S5C
S6A
S6B
S6C
B3A
B3B
B3C
B4A
B4B
B4C
B5A
B5B
B5C
B6A
B6B
B6C
G3A
G3B
G3C
G4A
G4B
G4C
G5A
G5B
G5C
G6A
G6B
G6C
Number of
Health Effects
in 10,000
Years
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
39
37
32
20
18
13
7
6
6
5
5
5
11,600
10,800
8,800
4,900
4,400
3,160
662
583
393
73
64
43
9,350
8,630
6,780
3,910
3,470
2, 320
516
449
284
54
47
30
EFFECTS
Indi- Present Value
vidual of Cost
Doses for Option
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
100000
100000
100000
10000
10000
10000
1000
1000
1000
100
100
100
100000
100000
100000
10000
10000
10000
1000
1000
1000
100
100
100
12533
12863
14470
12663
12993
14600
12807
13137
14744
13202
13532
15139
14815
15160
16837
14951
15296
16973
15102
15447
17124
15515
15860
17537
17183
17535
19252
17321
17673
19390
17476
17828
19545
17898
18250
19967
20812
21142
22749
20942
21272
22879
21086
21416
23023
21481
21811
23418
33
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present value of the total life-cycle cost. Exhibit 2-9 summarizes
all pertinent information on high-level waste used for the
remainder of this RIA. These values can be used to identify which
options meet any standard, to determine the least-cost method of
meeting any standard, to calculate cost-effectiveness in changing
from one standard to another, and to estimate who bears the costs
of any option. Applying these data to Yucca Mountain, a 70,000
MTHM repository in tuff with 300 year canisters and a proposed
leach rate limit of 1 part in 100,000, the cost of the repository
alone is $9.0 billion, or $12.3 billion for the whole system. The
number of predicted statistical health effects is less than one and
the individual dose is zero.
2.2 TRANSURANIC WASTES
The transuranic waste management system consists of two major
elements transportation system and the repository. The
transportation will use trucks to ship transuranic wastes to the
repository via pre-approved routes. However, as was the case with
the high-level waste management system, this RIA does not consider
the transportation system but only analyzes the repository itself.
Although this RIA presents a generic analysis, cost and health
effects estimates are based on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
(WIPP) currently being constructed in Eddy County, New Mexico. The
previous estimation technique used by EPA calculated an equivalent
of 5.42 MTHM of TRU wastes were to be emplaced; a newer technique
estimates them instead at 0.7 MTHM (RUS 92).
The repository for transuranic wastes is designed to receive,
inspect, and dispose of contact-handled and remote-handled
transuranic wastes. (Contact-handled wastes are those that can be
handled directly since the shielding provided by the waste package
prevents exposure. Remote-handled wastes are those that have
enough contamination for beta, gamma, or neutron activity to
require remote handling.) The repository is to be mined "in a
suitable geologic formation. The surface facilities at the
transuranic waste repository include the waste handling building,
shaft filter building, and warehouses. The underground facilities
include the shafts that connect the surface to the underground
repository horizon, the waste-disposal area, an experimental area,
and an equipment and maintenance support area. All transuranic
wastes are to be received at the waste handling building where they
will be inspected, inventoried, and prepared for disposal. From
the waste handling building, the transuranic wastes are transported
via the waste shaft to the underground facilities for disposal.
2.2.1. Defining the Option
34
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The Rogers report to EPA analyzes only one option for
transuranic waste disposal (Rogers 92) . It assumes that the waste
forms will have unlimited leach rates, the wastes will be placed in
canisters with zero-year lives and the repository will be
constructed in salt. No alternative medium, canister life, or
waste form leach rate is modeled. Costs are available for only
this option also. Since health effects, individual exposures, and
cost information exists only for one option, this RIA must limit
its analysis to that option. The option is referred to hereafter
as TRU1.
2.2.2 Population and Individual Risks
The presentation and analysis of health risks for the
transuranic waste repository by Rogers parallels the presentation
and analysis for the high-level waste repository, except that there
is only one option presented for the transuranic facility.
Population risks are measured as projected statistical health
effects while individual exposures (that is, millirem doses) are
measured as the maximum annual dosage during 10,000 years.
The expected number of health effects for a repository with
the characteristics of option TRU1 is 27 over 10,000 years for
every 100,000 MTHM emplaced (Rogers 92). There is an expectation
of some health effects due to the nature of the modeling. Low
probability events of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and
inadvertent drilling are considered. Since there are non-zero
probabilities for these events, there is an expectation of some
health effects over the time frame modeled.
Since the repository is assumed to be mined in bedded salt, no
individual exposures are predicted over 10,000 years. Gaseous
release is not possible from bedded salt because of the saturated
condition of the surrounding rock; further, no groundwater pathways
exist in bedded salt under undisturbed conditions. The maximum
individual millirem dose over 10,000 years will be zero.
2.2.3. Cost of Option
Exhibit A-5 of Appendix A presents the costs of the
transuranic waste repository. Information is given for each year
over the projected 44-year life of the facility. Original
estimates were for a repository designed to emplace the equivalent
of .7 MTHM in 1988 dollars. To make the analysis generic, the
dollar amounts are scaled to reflect a 100,000 MTHM repository by
assuming a linear cost relationship. A 100,000 MTHM repository is
thus assumed to cost about 143 (100/0.7) times as much as a . 7 MTHM
repository. Undoubtedly, costs for the smaller repository include
35
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some fixed costs that would not increase To any extent as
repository size increases. This technique therefore overestimates
the cost of a larger repository. However, data limitations prevent
any other approach.
Exhibit A-5 of Appendix A presents total costs over the life
cycle of the transuranic waste repository. Costs are given in
undiscounted 1990 dollars. Total undiscounted costs of a 100,000
MTHM repository constructed in salt are $558 billion; discounting
the cost stream at 2 percent yields a total discounted cost of $352
billion. These costs are likely inflated because fixed costs
costs that would not change with volume stored are scaled up
along with variable costs. This was done because no breakdowns of
costs were provided.
Costs for canisters and waste forms are assumed to be zero.
Generally, the waste form is simply the form of the wastes as they
leave the site where they were generated and/or stored. No
particular engineered waste form will be considered. Similarly, no
particular engineered canister will be considered the transuranic
wastes will be emplaced in the repository in the packages in which
they arrive from the transuranic waste generators and/or storage
facilities.
Thus total discounted cost for long-term disposal of
transuranic wastes consists only of the cost for the repository.
The $352 billion costs of the repository is used throughout the
rest of this RIA as a measure of cost of a generic disposal site
for transuranic wastes. The actual cost of WIPP is about $2.3
billion in 1990 dollars discounted at 2 percent.
36
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CHAPTER THREE
LEAST-COST OPTIONS AND COST-EFFECTIVENESS
3.1 HIGH-LEVEL WASTES
Chapter Two presented the costs of 48 options for long-term
geologic disposal of high-level wastes, and the health effects
associated with each. Chapter Three uses this information to study
two questions: (1) for any given health effect limit, what is the
least-cost option available and (2) for any given limit to the
individual dose, what is the least cost option available.
3.1.1. Least-Cost Options for Achieving Limits on Health Effects
In order to examine the first question, a set of six
hypothetical limits on the health effects caused by a high-level
waste repository is proposed. These range from 100,000 to 1,
accumulated over a 10,000 year period. Exhibit 3-1A lists the six
limits, the least-cost option that can achieve each limit, and the
health effects and costs of the least-cost options. The exhibit
demonstrates that for any limit greater than 1, the least cost
option is disposal in tuff in a 300 year canister with an annual
leach rate of 1 part in 1,000 (option T3A) . In other words, the
option of choice does not change regardless of the limit set on
health effects. The least stringent limit costs the same as the
most stringent. It should be noted that none of the 48 options can
meet a limit of only one health effect during the 10,000 year
period. Only an option where less than one health effect was
predicted would have been accepted to meet the health effect limit
of one. Therefore, although option T3A is associated with only one
health effect, it is not an acceptable option in this case.
The analysis continues by examining what choice would be" made
if no tuff site were available for the repository. The result is
shown in Exhibit 3-1B. The option of choice in this case for any
limit of 100 or more health effects would be S3A disposal in salt
in a 300 year canister in a waste form with a leach rate of 1 part
in 1,000 per year. The exhibit shows for this example too that no
additional costs are incurred as the limit is reduced from 100,000
to 100 health effects. To achieve a limit of 10 health effects,
the least cost option would shift to S6A, disposal in salt in a 300
year canister in a waste form with an annual leach rate of 1 part
in 1,000,000. The result would be a reduction in health effects
from 39 to 5, at an incremental cost of $20.6 million per health
effect avoided. Both total costs and the number of expected health
effects are higher in this scenario for any given limit than they
are when tuff is used as the geologic media. Again, no option is
available that can meet a limit of one health effect during the
37
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EXHIBIT 3-1A
LEAST-COST OPTIONS FOR MEETING SIX HYPOTHETICAL LIMITS ON HEALTH EFFECTS
Limit on
Health Effects
100.000
10,000
1.000
100
10
1
Least Cost
Option
T3A
T3A
T3A
T3A
T3A
NA
Description of Least-Cost Option
Expected
Individual Dose
0
0
0
0
0
NA
Expected
Health
Effects
1
1
1
1
1
NA
Expected
Cost
(in millions of
1990 dollars)
12,533
12,533
12.533
12.533
12.533
NA
NA=Not available. None of the 48 options can meet this limit.
Source: Exhibit 2-9.
38
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EXHIBITS-IB
LEAST-COST OPTIONS FOR MEETING SIX HYPOTHETICAL LIMITS ON HEALTH EFFECTS
AFTER ELIMINATING DISPOSAL IN TUFF
Limit on
Health Effects
100.000
10.000
1.000
100
10
1
Least Cost
Option
S3A
S3A
S3A
S3A
S6A
NA
Description of Least-Cost Option
Expected
Individual Dose
0
0
0
0
0
NA
Expected
Health
Effects
39
39
39
39
39
NA
Expected
Cost
(in millions of
1990 dollars)
14.815
14.815
14.815
14.815
15.515
NA
NA=Not available
39
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10,000 year period.
The analysis concludes by examining what options would be
chosen if both tuff and salt were eliminated from consideration.
The results are shown in Exhibit 3-1C. The exhibit shows that when
disposal in tuff and salt is eliminated from consideration, no
options remain that can satisfy a limit of 10 or less health
effects. The options that can satisfy a standard of 100 or more
are all based on disposal in basalt in 300 year canisters, with
decreasing leach rates as the limit becomes more stringent.
Decreasing the leach rate, however, adds a relatively small amount
to the cost of achieving the limit. A reduction in health effects
from 11,600 to 73 can be achieved with an increase of only 4.8
percent in the total cost of the repository. Thus, it may again be
seen that the stringency of the limit has little effect on costs.
3.1.1.1 Costs and Effects of Varying the Medium
As shown in Exhibit 3-2, choice of a medium makes the greatest
difference in both cost and health effects. The exhibit highlights
the fact that, regardless of the limit set, tuff is both the lowest
cost medium and the most effective at minimizing health effects.
The second choice is salt. However, to achieve a limit of 10
or fewer health effects in salt for a medium costs $2.6 billion
more than for tuff. (For 100 or more health effects, the
difference in costs drops to $2.3 billion.) Nevertheless, any salt
option costs less than any granite or basalt option. Furthermore,
referring also to Exhibit 2-9, the highest number of health effects
associated with any salt option (39 under option S3A) is less than
the lowest number associated with any basalt or granite-based
option (43 under option B6C).
For limits on health effects of 100 or more, basalt and
granite become options, though their costs are clearly higher'than
those for salt or tuff. Achieving a limit of 100 health effects,
for example, in basalt would cost $3.1 billion more than to achieve
this limit in salt, while health effects would almost double.
Achieving a limit of 100 health effects in granite would cost $6.7
billion more than in salt, while health effects would increase from
39 to 54. In comparing granite and basalt, it can be seen in
Exhibit 2-9 that the highest cost basalt option costs less than the
lowest cost granite option. Some granite options however, as in
the example, have lower health effects than some basalt options.
However, as Exhibit 3-2 shows, in comparing granite and basalt for
any given limit, the lowest cost option will be one based in
basalt.
40
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EXHIBIT 3-1C
LEAST-COST OPTIONS FOR MEETING SIX HYPOTHETICAL LIMITS ON HEALTH EFFECTS
AFTER ELIMINATING DISPOSAL IN TUFF OR SALT
Limit on
Health Effects
100,000
10.000
1.000
100
10
1
Least Cost
Option
B3A
B3A
B3A
B3A
NA
NA
Description of Least-Cost Option
Expected
Individual Dose
100.000
10,000
1,000
100
NA
NA
Expected
Health
Effects
11.600
4.900
662
73
NA
NA
Expected
Cost
(in millions of
1990 dollars)
17,183
17,321
17.476
17,898
NA
NA
NA=Not available
41
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EXHIBIT 3-2
COSTS AND HEALTH EFFECTS OF LEAST-COST OPTIONS
BY MEDIUM
Limit on
Health Effects
100,000
10,000
1.000
100
10
1
Tuff
Cost of
Lowest
Cost
Option
(millions of
1990 dollars
12,533
12.533
12,533
12,533
12.533
NA
Projected
Health
Effects
1
1
1
1
1
NA
Salt
Cost of
Lowest
Cost
Option
(millions of
1990 dollars
14.815
14,815
14.815
14.815
15,515
NA
Projected
Health
Effects
39
39
39
39
5
NA
Basalt
Cost of
Lowest
Cost
Option
(millions of
1990 dollars
17.183
17.321
17.476
17.898
NA
NA
Projected
Health
Effects
11.600
4,900
662
73
NA
NA
Granite
Cost of
Lowest
Cost
Option
(millions of
1990 dollars
20,812
20,812
21.086
21,481
NA
NA
Projected
Health
Effects
9,350
9,350
516
54
NA
NA
NA= Not applicable. No option satisfies the proposed limit.
Source: Exhibit 2-9
42
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3.1.1.2 Cost and Effects of Varying the Leach Rate
and Canister Life
As noted above, the choice of leach rate and canister life
makes no significant difference with respect to health effects
where the repository is in tuff. The costs increase if the life of
the canister is lengthened or the leach rate is decreased.
However, no benefits in the form of reduced health effects are
realized by doing so.
With salt, however, a pattern is apparent. Exhibit 3-3
compares each of the 12 salt options to all other salt options and
presents the cost per health effect avoided of moving between the
two. Comparing options S3A and S3B shows that lengthening the
canister life from 300 to 1,000 years reduces health effects from
39 to 37 at a cost of $172.50 million per health effect avoided.
As a second example, decreasing the leach rate of 1 part in 1,000
in option S3A to 1 part in 10,000 (option S4A) reduces health
effects from 39 to 20 at an incremental cost of $7.2 million per
health effect avoided. Close examination of Exhibit 3-3 reveals a
general rule: reducing leach rates is more cost-effective than
increasing canister life.
3.1.2. Least-Cost Options for Achieving Limits
on Individual Doses
In order to examine which are the least-cost options for
achieving limits on individual doses, a set of seven hypothetical
limits is proposed on individual exposures to radiation due to a
high-level waste repository. These range from an annual committed
effective dose of 200 to an annual committed effective dose of 5.
Exhibit 3-4 lists each of the seven limits and, for each medium,
the least-cost option that can achieve the limit and the health
effects of each option.
Constructing a repository in granite or basalt will clearly
lead to a greater number of health effects, a large maximum
individual dose, and higher cost than choosing salt or tuff. The
exhibit also demonstrates that a maximum annual committed effective
dose of 100 millirem or less is available only in salt or tuff. No
basalt or granite option can achieve, among the limits proposed, a
more stringent limit than 200 millirem. Any tuff or salt option,
on the other hand, can achieve any limit; the annual committed
effective dose associated with all tuff and salt options is zero.
Of the two media, tuff is preferable as it has the lower cost, $2.3
billion less than for salt. It is clear that for salt and tuff the
choice of canister and leach rate is not important to the
individual dose.
43
-------
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EXHIBIT 3-4
COSTS AND INDIVIDUAL DOSES OF LEAST-COST OPTIONS
BY MEDIUM
Limit on
Individual
Dose
(annual
committed
effective
dose in
millirem)
200
100
50
25
15
10
5
Tuff
Cost of
Least
Cost
Option
(millions of
1990 dollars)
12,533
12,533
12,533
12,533
12,533
12,533
12,533
Projected
Individual
Dose
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Salt
Cost of
Least
Cost
Option
(millions of
1990 dollars)
14,815
14,815
14,815
14,815
14,815
14,815
14,815
Projected
Individual
Dose
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Basalt
Cost of
Least
Cost
Option
(millions of
1990 dollars)
17,898
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
Projected
Individual
Dose
100
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
Granite
Cost of
Least
Cost
Option
(millions of
1890 dollars)
21,481
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
Projected
Individual
Dose
100
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA= Not applicable. No option satisfies the proposed limit.
Source: Exhibit 2-
45
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3.1.3 Conclusions
Constructing a repository in tuff or salt will lead to a
smaller number of health effects, lower maximum individual dose,
and lower costs than choosing basalt or granite. Likewise, tuff is
clearly preferable to salt in all three measures. Performance in
tuff is not improved either by reducing leach rate or lengthening
the canister life. The most cost-effective means of improving
performance in other media is to reduce the leach rate.
3.2 TRANSURANIC WASTES
Because the health effects and individual doses were computed
for only one configuration of a TRU repository, a detailed cost-
effectiveness analysis cannot be developed. However, the small
number of health effects and the zero individual doses indicate
that so long as the model for the TRU repository established in
salt is valid, more stringent measures for reducing leach rates and
increasing canister life are not likely to be necessary.
46
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CHAPTER FOUR
40 CFR PART 191 AND RELATED REGULATIONS
Chapter Two of this report identified the various combinations
of geologic media, leach rates, and canister lives that could be
used for long-term disposal of high-level and transuranic wastes
and examined the costs, and health effects, and individual
exposures associated with each. Chapter Three compared the costs
and effects of the various options and determined which are the
most cost-effective. In this chapter, the findings of these
previous chapters are examined in light of the requirements of the
proposed 40 CFR Part 191 and the options that can meet the
standards are identified.
This chapter also compares 40 CFR Part 191 to a Nuclear
Regulatory Commission rule that imposes related and to some
extent overlapping requirements on repositories for the long-term
disposal of high-level wastes. Since any repository for high-level
wastes would also have to meet the requirements of the NRC
regulation, 10 CFR Part 60, the options for disposal are examined
for their ability to satisfy both regulations.
4.1 REQUIREMENTS OF 40 CFR PART 191
The following sections describe the requirements of Subpart B
of 40 CFR Part 191, as proposed on August 14, 1992 (EPA 92B) .
Subpart B addresses environmental needs by mandating that long-term
disposal of high-level and transuranic wastes satisfy three types
of requirements: a containment requirement, an assurance
requirement, and an individual dose requirement. The limitations
imposed by each are discussed below.
4.1.1. The Containment Requirement
The containment requirement of 40 CFR Part 191 states that
"the cumulative releases of radionuclides to the accessible
environment for 10,000 years after disposal . . . shall (1) have a
likelihood of less than 1 chance in 10" of exceeding the quantities
calculated according to the procedure described below and presented
in Appendix A, Table 1 of the proposed rule; "and (2) have a
likelihood of less than 1 chance in 1,000 of exceeding ten times
those quantities." It is further required that the standard be met
despite any human-initiated or natural event that may affect the
disposal system, such as human intrusions, volcanic activity, and
seismic events (EPA 92B).
47
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The rule was set by assuming that no more than 1,000 health
effects attributable to the facility should be allowed during the
10,000-year period commencing with its opening, and "back
calculating" to determine the allowable release of each of 22
radionuclides based on the assumption that the equivalent of
100,000 MTHM is to be stored in the repository. The release limits
are expressed in curies "per 1,000 MTHM or other unit of waste."
In other words, for each 1,000 metric tons of spent fuel stored,
compliance with the limits would lead to no more than 10 health
effects over 10,000 years owing to all expected and unexpected
occurrences. Thus, for the high-level waste facility, the
containment requirement may be restated as follows, assuming the
facility is storing the equivalent of 100,000 metric tons of spent
fuel: over the 10,000-year period, there must be a likelihood of
less than 1 chance in 10 of exceeding 1,000 health effects and a
likelihood of less than 1 chance in 1,000 of exceeding 10,000
health effects. The rule may also be described graphically, using
the concept of the CCDF introduced in Chapter Two, Exhibit 4-1
presents the CCDF for the proposed containment requirement.
For transuranic wastes, the rule must be restated differently
when expressing it in terms of allowable health effects. The 40
CFR Part 191 release limits are based on 1,000 cumulative health
effects from a 100,000 MTHM spent fuel inventory. Since the waste
unit is 1,000 MTHM, this is equivalent to ten health effects per
unit. This factor can be applied to the TRU waste inventory to
determine the acceptable number of health effects over 10,000
years. Under the waste unit definition used in the 1985 version of
40 CFR Part 191, the TRU inventory is 5.42 waste units, and the
allowed number of health effects would be about 54 (5.42 waste
units x 10 health effects per waste unit). Under the definition of
waste units currently used by EPA, the TRU inventory is only 0.7
waste units and the allowable number of health effects would be
seven (Rogers 92).
4.1.2 Assurance Requirements
The assurance requirements proposed in 40 CFR Part 191
describe methods for ensuring that the containment requirements are
met. These requirements, which are stated in general terms, seek
to reduce the likelihood of intrusion and forbid reliance on
institutional and physical mechanisms that require active
intervention by humans for long-term security. The assurance
provisions also require that a combination of geologic and
engineered barriers be used to isolate the wastes, that the site be
monitored until it is clear that it is performing as predicted,
that truly long-term considerations be used in selecting the site,
and that recovery of wastes from the sites be feasible (EPA 92B) .
Since all options considered in Chapter Two are assumed to be able
meet the assurance requirement, this requirement is not discussed
48
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further in this chapter.
4.1.3 Individual Protection Requirements
The individual protection requirements, in contrast to the
containment requirements, refer to deleterious effects of
radioactive wastes on individuals as opposed to populations. The
limits proposed by EPA result from an analysis of the expected
performance of the disposal system over time and consider all types
of radioactive material. The standard also deals with how long the
requirements would apply and sets the appropriate dose level. The
duration for the standard is set at 10,000 years. The standard for
individual exposures, referred to in 40 CFR Part 191 as "the annual
committed effective dose," is 15 millirem, representing "an
acceptable level of risk for a multi-pathway exposure limit (EPA
92) ."
4.1.4 Options for Meeting the Proposed Standard
The data presented in Chapter Two indicate the number of
health effects and the individual doses attributable to each
option, first for high-level wastes and then for transuranic
wastes. In the following sections, these data are compared to the
requirements of 40 CFR Part 191.
4.1.4.1 High-Level Wastes
As discussed in Chapter Two, this study considers 48 options
for the long-term disposal of high-level wastes. Comparing the
standard with the health effects associated with each of these
options reveals that some meet the requirements and some do not.
Using the data on health effects in Exhibit 2-9 and applying the
containment requirement that the number of health effects caused
over 10,000 years must not exceed 1,000, options B3A-B4C, as well
as G3A-G4C, must be eliminated. All other options for high-level
waste disposal, however, satisfy this portion of the standard.
This includes the least costly option, T3A, discussed in Chapter
Three.
The individual protection requirements of 40 CFR Part 191 hold
that the annual committed effective dose shall not exceed 15
millirems at any time during the 10,000-year period. Applying this
standard to all options for high-level wastes yields the result
that no option that uses granite or basalt as the geologic medium
(B3A-B6C and G3A-G6C) satisfies the requirement. Although large
numbers of options are eliminated by this rule, the least costly
50
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ones are not. Results of the comparison of options to the
containment requirement and the individual dose requirement of 40
CFR Part 191 are summarized in the first three columns of Exhibit
4-2.
4.1.4.2 Transuranic Wastes
The number of health effects expected under the sole option
evaluated for disposing of TRU wastes is less than one. Thus,
whether the TRU waste inventory is defined as 5.4 waste units as in
past practice or as 0.7 waste units as in the current definition,
option TRU1 results in less than the allowed number of health
effects and satisfies the standard. As shown in Exhibit 2-9, given
the individual exposures for TRU1 described in Chapter Two, this
option also satisfies the individual dose requirements (Rogers 92).
4.2 RELATIONSHIP OF 40 CFR PART 191
TO NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION RULES
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and its amendments
authorize the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to promulgate technical
requirements and criteria to apply to repositories for high-level
wastes (NWPA 83a, NWPA 83b, and NWPA 87) . The requirements set
forth by the NRC are delineated in 10 CFR Part 60 (Disposal of
High-Level Radioactive Wastes in Geologic Repositories), which
prescribes rules governing the DOE licensing of geologic
repositories (NRC 82) . Some of these rules are related to those in
40 CFR Part 191. Any disposal system will need to be able to meet
the requirements of both. One requirement of 10 CFR Part 60 is
that the leach rate shall not exceed 1 part in 100,000.
Consequently, high-level waste options T3A-T4C, S4A-S4C, B3A-B4C,
and G3A-G4C can be rejected, as these are based on leach rates of
I part in 1,000, or 1 part in 10,000. This list includes the
least-cost option, T3A, which would result in 1 predicted
statistical health effect and an individual dose of 0 mrems per
year.
A second portion of 10 CFR Part 60 relating to canister life
further reduces the number of options available by requiring a
canister life of at least 300 to 1000 years (NRC 82). Thus any
options with a canister life of 300 years (represented in the list
of options as those with an "A" as the third character) are
presumed to be unacceptable. This eliminates options B3-B6(A), G3-
G6(A), S3-S6(A), and T3-T6(A).
Exhibit 4-2 summarizes the effects of 10 CFR Part 60 on the
list of options that can be used to satisfy 40 CFR Part 191 for
high-level wastes. Only eight options out of a possible 48
51
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EXHIBIT 4-2
EFFECTS OF 40 CFR 191 AND 10 CFR 60 ON THE OPTIONS FOR DISPOSING OF HIGH-LEVEL AND TRANSURANIC WASTES
OPTION
High-Levef Wastes
T3A
T3B
T3C
T4A
T4B
T4C
TSA
T5B
TSC
T6A
T6B
T6C
S3A
S3B
S3C
S4A
S4B
S4C
S5A
S5B
SSC
S6A
S6B
sec
B3A
B3B
B3C
B4A
B4B
B4C
B5A
BSB
B5C
B6A
B6B
B6C
G3A
G3B
G3C
G4A
G4B
G4C
G5A
G5B
G5C
G6A
G6B
G6C
Transuranic Wastes
TRIM
40 CFR 191
Options
Eliminated
By Containment
Requirement
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Options
Eliminated
By Individual
Dose Requirement
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
10 CFR 60
Options
Eliminated
By Leach Rate
Requirement
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
NA
Options
Eliminated
By Canister
Requirement
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
NA
NA=Not Applicable-10 CFR 60 does not apply to disposal of transuranic wastes.
52
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simultaneously meet all requirements. These are options that
dispose of waste in either tuff or salt, have leach rates of 1 part
in 100,000 or less, and have canister lives of greater than 300
years (Exhibit 4-3). In a comparison of the eight final options,
tuff appears to be the medium of choice. All tuff options have
fewer expected health effects than any of those for salt, and have
considerably lower costs.
53
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EXHIBIT 4-3
OPTIONS MEETING ALL REQUIREMENTS OF 40 CFR 191 AND 10 CFR 60
High-level Wastes
Option Code
T5B
T5C
T6B
T6C
S5B
S5C
S6B
S6C
Description
Media
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Tuff
Salt
Salt
Salt
Salt
Leach Rate
(parts per year)
10A-5
10~-5
10~-6
10^-6
10~-5
10~-5
10~-6
10~-6
Canister Life
1000
3000
1000
3000
1000
3000
1000
3000
Transuranic Wastes
TRU1
Salt
Unlimited
0
54
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CHAPTER FIVE
THE IMPACTS OF GASEOUS RELEASES
The information presented in Chapter Two on the effects and
costs associated with the 48 options does not account for gaseous
releases. Such gaseous releases can occur under certain conditions
in which the medium is porous and unsaturated. Other factors such
as airflow patterns combine to create a circumstance in which
substantial radioactive releases may occur. The gas that, due to
its nature and its quantity in the waste stream, has the potential
to cause the greatest number of health effects is carbon 14.
The modeling for gaseous releases is based on a repository in
tuff (Rogers 92). It is only an example since the conditions of
unsaturated porous rock could possibly occur in another medium.
Two modes of gaseous releases are modeled in tuff: diffusion
and advection. For 100,000 MTHM of wastes stored in tuff, in a
1,000 year canister and with a leach rate of 1 part in 100,000 per
year (option T5B) , the number of health effects is 470 for the
advection model and less than 1 for the diffusion model.
The advection model is considered further by performing
sensitivity analyses with respect to canister life and leach rate.
The leach rate has the strongest impact on the number of health
effects as indicated in Exhibit 5-1. Decreasing the leach rate to
1 part in 1,000,000 (option T6B) reduces the number of health
effects to 7. Increasing it again to 1 part in 10,000 (T4B) per
year raises health effects to 4,700; increasing it to 1 part in
1,000 per year (option T3B) raises them to 8,300. Costs for these
options are included in Exhibit 5-1.
Canister life has a much smaller impact on the number of
health effects, at least for the range of canister lives
considered. Increasing canister life from 1,000 years to 3,000
years (option T5C) reduces the number of health effects to 305, a
much smaller decrease than results from changing the leach"rate
variable. However, it should be noted that introducing a super
canister with a 10,000-year life can reduce the number of health
effects to near zero.
There are several reasons to consider a super canister. Other
modeling shows that if engineered barriers fail and all carbon 14
stored in the systems is released, the number of health effects
from a 100,000 MTHM repository in tuff will reach 12,400 (Rogers
92) . If a 10,000 year canister is successfully employed the number
of health effects will drop to one.
In anticipation of the availability of a 10,000-year canister,
its costs and benefits of technological barriers are briefly
examined. Two studies have been performed to estimate the cost of
engineered barriers to prevent the release of carbon 14 within the
55
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EXHIBIT 5-1
SENSITIVITY OF HEALTH EFFECTS TO CHANGES
IN LEACH RATE AND CANISTER LIFE
Net Present Value
Health Effects of Total
of Gaseous Other Total Cost
Option Advection Health Effects Health Effects (millions of 1990 dollars)
T3B 8830 1 8831 12,863
T4B 4700 1 4701 12,993
T5A 538 1 539 12,807
T5B 470 1 471 13,137
T5C 304 1 . 305 14,744
T6B 47 1 48 13,532
Sources: Rogers 92, and Exhibit 2-9
56
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10,000 year period proscribed by 40 CFR Part 191. It must be noted
however that a large amount of uncertainty is associated with the
cost and health effect estimates of both.
The DOE, in a June 17, 1992 presentation to the EPA Science
Advisory Board Subcommittee on carbon 14, presented results based
on DOE assumptions of carbon 14 inventories and release (SAIC 92) .
The posited engineered barrier was a ceramic metal canister that
remained airtight for 10,000 years. An estimated 25,000 of these
would be required for a 100,000 MTHM repository. The total system
cost for this is estimated to be $3.25 billion (undiscounted) .
This cost is in addition to the original cost of a canister to meet
10 CFR Part 60. After applying a 2 percent discount rate, the net
present value of the cost is $2.1 billion.
The EPA, in a similar study using a 10,000 year super
canister, estimated the incremental total life-cycle cost as $2.1
billion (SCA 92). Discounted over the 50-year operating period of
the repository at 2 percent the present value would be $1.4
billion.
Health effect projections for a super canister have a high
degree of uncertainty because the canisters are untested. To
address this a range of assumptions is made: from perfect
performance for the technology to total failure. No health effects
would occur from gaseous releases if the canister lasted the full
10,000 years. In the worst case, approximately 12,400 health
effects will result from total failure of the canisters to contain
the gaseous releases (SCA 92).
These outcomes suggest a range for the cost-effectiveness
ratio of reducing emissions of carbon 14 (Exhibit 5-2). Combining
high cost assumptions ($2.1 billion) with poorest performance of
the barrier (reduction of 1 health effect) leads to a cost-
effectiveness ratio of $2.1 billion per statistical health effect
averted. Combining low cost assumptions ($1.4 billion) with best
performance (12,400 statistical health effects averted) for the
other end of the range gives a bound of $117,000 per statistical
health effect averted. A midpoint between the two estimates gives
a value of $289,000 per health effect averted.
57
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EXHIBIT 5-2
SENSITIVITY OF COST-EFFECTIVENESS
TO PERFORMANCE OF CANISTER
Worst Case
Intermediate Case
Best Case
Net Present Value
of Incremental
Costs
(billions of 1990 dollars)
2.1
1.8
1.4
Incremental
Health
Effects
Averted
1
6,201
12,400
Cost-
Effectiveness
(millions of 1 990 dollars)
2142.534
0.289
0.117
Note: All dollar values are in 1990 dollars discounted over 50
years at 2 percent
Sources: Rogers 92, SAIC 92, and SCA 92.
58
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CHAPTER SIX
THE IMPACTS OF 40 CFR PART 191
The previous five chapters have discussed the costs expended
on repository development, waste forms, and canisters for various
options for disposing of high-level and transuranic wastes; and the
health effects, and individual exposures to radiation for each
option. The focus was on the cost-effectiveness of each option and
on the extent to which 40 CFR Part 191 and 10 CFR Part 60 limited
the available options.
This chapter takes a broader view. It first assesses the
stringency of 40 CFR Part 191, reviewing the cost-effectiveness
results of previous chapters and anticipating the discussion of
distributional impacts that follows. The generators of the high-
level and transuranic wastes are then profiled, as they will bear
the direct costs of any increased stringency in the specification
of waste forms and canisters. Next, the distributions of the cost
burdens borne by the various generators of radioactive wastes are
considered. Finally, conclusions are drawn regarding the
stringency of 40 CFR Part 191 and the magnitude of its impact on
those directly affected.
6.1 ASSESSING THE STRINGENCY OF 40 CFR PART 191
In this discussion five criteria are proposed to judge the
stringency of a standard. Those criteria offered are the
implementational flexibility allowed by the rule; the tightness of
the standard, that is, the reguired reduction of contaminants from
current or baseline levels; the cost-effectiveness of and cost per
averted health effect implied by the standard; the ability of
current engineering and technology to meet the standard; and the
impact of the standard on consumers and producers. It is argued
below that 40 CFR Part 191 is not stringent in terms of its effects
on the choice of available options for disposal of high-level and
transuranic wastes.
Criterion 1, flexibility, considers how much the rule
constrains the choice among options by eliminating easier options
that would have been acceptable otherwise. That is, the more
flexible the rule, in terms of allowing options for meeting it, the
less binding it is, and the less costly it should be on average to
implement. In this regard, note that 40 CFR Part 191 relies on
performance standards rather than technological reguirements. The
rule does not eliminate any category of geological formation a
priori. It does not require any specific engineered barrier, only
that some form of engineered barrier be used. Hence the rule
allows flexibility to choose the most cost-effective alternative
and allows the use of new techniques developed after the rule is in
59
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place. In contrast 10 CFR Part 60 requires that leach rates be
less than 1 part in 100,000 (10~5) and canisters last at least 300
to 1,000 years. This observation is not to suggest a defect with
10 CFR Part 60. But from a purely economic standpoint, the less
explicit the form of the technology and the more freedom given for
implementation of a rule, the more cost-effective on average the
rule will be. In this respect, 40 CFR Part 191 allows an option
that costs $604 million less than the least-cost option under 10
CFR Part 60.
Criterion 2, the tightness of the rule, is frequently
described by its requirements for the reduction of pollution,
emissions, releases, and so on, from current levels. A rule that
requires pollution to be reduced by 99 percent is more demanding
than one that stipulates only a 95 percent reduction. The question
then becomes, "What reduction from current levels is EPA
requiring?" In considering this question it is noted that NRC has
promulgated and DOE has formulated and undertaken containment
strategies that, according to EPA's modeling efforts, can more than
meet the requirements of 40 CFR Part 191. The minimum acceptable
disposal scenario (acceptable to the scientific community, many in
the disposal community, and the general public) appears to be
geologic. Therefore, for large volumes of radioactive wastes the
listing of possible disposal media would start with geologic media
and become increasingly stringent from there. To buttress this
argument we note the following: geologic disposal has been
recommended by several scientific bodies, including the National
Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (NAS-NRC) Advisory
Committee in 1957, the NAS-NNRC Advisory Committee on Radioactive
Waste Management (CRWM) in 1968, the Federal Energy Resources
Council (FERC) in 1976, the Interagency Review Group in 1980, and
the Bureau on Radioactive Waste Management (BRWM 90). For both
high-level waste and transuranic wastes, Congress has decreed that
geologic repositories be evaluated and has specified locations for
those repositories (NWPA 87). And lastly tuff, while being the
cheapest disposal medium, is also the most protective of the four
examined here. In short, high-level waste disposal in saturated
tuff or salt with only minor engineered barriers meets the standard
for containment required by 40 CFR Part 191.
Criterion 3, the cost per averted health effect is, in
general, related to the effects of the first two criteria. The
cost per averted health effect generally increases and the rule
becomes less cost-effective as a rule's flexibility is decreased
and as the standard it implies is tightened. Cost per averted
health effect has an advantage over the first two criteria in that
it can typically be stated in more concrete terms. Comparing the
cost per averted health effect of the possible options to a base
case or to each other allows for a discussion of the cost-
effectiveness of the options. This is the basic approach
economists use: to compare the incremental cost of moving to the
60
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next most stringent option with the incremental benefits realized
from such a move.
This cost-effectiveness comparison is used here rather than
the more familiar cost-benefit analysis for several reasons. It
allows a comparison of several different disposal options so that
the cost-effectiveness and stringency of the preferred standard may
be placed in context. Cost-effectiveness analysis is also
appropriate when the costs and benefits are measured in different
ways. In the high-level waste analysis two factors prohibit the
direct comparison of costs and benefits in a formal cost-benefit
framework. One, the costs are discounted, but the benefits are
not. Discounting of benefits over the long periods involved
(10,000 years for the health effects in this case) or even over a
relatively short period, such as several hundred years, will give
a present value of zero, for any reasonable discount rate. Two,
the costs and benefits are expressed in different terms, costs in
dollars, benefits in averted health effects. There is no
monetization of health effects that would be lost or saved with the
choice of options. And lastly the costs and benefits of the least
stringent option, tuff with no canisters, are not known. The
absolute costs of such a repository are known, but the costs
incremental to what may have occurred in the absence of 10 CFR Part
60 or 40 CFR Part 191 are not known. The same applies for the
health effects. To confront this problem, the various options are
compared to suggest what the most cost-effective level of
stringency might be. As demonstrated in Chapter Three, the most
cost-effective option examined is T3A constructing the repository
in tuff, using a 300 year canister and a waste form with a leach
rate of 1 part per 1,000. This is also the least-cost option and
has the lowest number of predicted statistical health effects and
the lowest individual dose of any option.
Criterion 4 is the ability of current engineering and
technology to meet the standard. According to EPA's generic
modeling all geologic media, saturated tuff, salt, basalt, and
granite, meet EPA's containment standard. Geologic vaults are not
technologically daunting. EPA modeling shows that a more
sophisticated approach such as canisters or engineered barriers,
while offering additional assurance of containment, are not
necessary to meet the reguirements of the standard. Only if the
preferred media of tuff and salt are unavailable, or a porous,
unsaturated medium is selected such that gaseous emissions may
escape, are advanced canister technologies reguired.
Criterion 5, the last criterion to be applied in this
stringency assessment, is the impact the rulemaking has on
producers and consumers. In other words, what is the impact on the
economy itself and on the standard of living, and what burden does
it place on those who must pay for it? This is not a measure of
efficiency and simply by virtue of its size does not justify an
action. However, in the face of uncertain benefits it is important
61
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to be aware of the relative size of the impact being imposed by a
regulation in relation to the economy or a sector of the economy.
As will be seen below, the economic impacts of the rule on any
single individual are likely to be small.
6.2 PROFILES OF WASTE GENERATORS
Nuclear waste generators, as defined in Chapter One, include
producers of both high-level wastes and transuranic wastes. This
section discusses characteristics of these generators relevant to
an economic analysis of the impact of 40 CFR Part 191.
6.2.1. Generators of High-Level Waste
Generators of high-level wastes are divided again into two
types for purposes of the discussion in Section 6.2.1: commercial
nuclear power plants that generate spent fuel and DOE non-
commercial generators of high-level waste.
6.2.1.1 The Commercial Nuclear Power Industry
In 1988, the commercial nuclear power industry's 108 operating
plants provided approximately 95 gigawatts of generating
capability, about 14 percent of the U.S. total generating
capability of 678 gigawatts. In actual output, nuclear plants
accounted for approximately 19 percent of the U.S. total. The high
percentage of output relative to capacity is due to the lower
variable operating costs of nuclear power plants and the resulting
use of nuclear plants as baseload generating capacity (EIA 88A) .
Financial Characteristics of the Industry
Two aspects of industry finance and ownership are important in
understanding and analyzing impacts of 40 CFR Part 191 on the
commercial nuclear power industry. The first concerns the
ownership and market shares of the individual utilities. The
concentration of nuclear power plant ownership is an important
policy factor because the costs of regulatory policy may fall most
heavily on the owners of these utilities and their customers.
According to information provided by DOE, 56 utilities held the 108
commercial nuclear power plants that were operable as of the end of
1988 (EIA 89).
This is only part of the picture, however, as some plants vary
in size, and some utilities own more than one plant. In fact, the
ownership of nuclear power industry capacity is relatively
62
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concentrated, as only 10 utilities hold approximately 50 percent of
the capacity. The nuclear capacities and market shares for these
10 utilities are shown in Exhibit 6-1. Commonwealth Edison of
Illinois is by far the largest with just over 12 percent of total
industry capacity. The next largest utility has only about half as
much market share. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which currently
has four plants in the construction pipeline, will be almost as
large as Commonwealth when and if these plants become operable. At
that time over 20 percent of the nuclear capacity will be held by
two utilities (EIA 89).
A second topic of financial interest concerns the cost of
nuclear plants compared with other baseload generating plants.
Since nuclear power plants are relied on for baseload capacity, as
opposed to peaking capacity, such comparisons are generally
established in comparison with large coal plants which are the main
alternative for baseload power. One study of this issue by G.R.
Corey (Corey 84), based on comparisons of six large coal and six
large nuclear baseload power plants in 1979, found that the nuclear
plants provided power for only 16.9 mils per kWh compared with 30.2
mils per kWh for coal plants. Even when the figures were adjusted
to a 60 percent capacity factor, as the nuclear units were more
heavily used because of their cost-efficiency, the nuclear plants
still cost only 16.8 mils per kWh compared with 27.3 mils per kWh
for the coal plants. The study concludes that nuclear power would
most probably enjoy a 15 to 20 percent cost advantage in the
future.
Prospects for Growth
The commercial nuclear power industry is currently in a period
of stagnant growth. Of the 14 plants ordered since 1974, 10 were
canceled, 2 were rejected by state governments, and the remaining
2 have not yet entered the construction phase. While the long lead
times associated with new construction make clear the short-term
prospects for the nuclear power industry, long-term prospects are
less predictable. Accordingly, DOE has constructed three different
forecasts of future generating capacities through 2020. The first
case assumes no new orders, and the second (called the lower
reference case) that only a limited amount of newly ordered nuclear
capacity will become operable between 2005 and 2020. The third
case (called the upper reference case) assumes a higher growth rate
in newly ordered capacity brought about by factors such as strong
growth in electric demand and environmental concerns related to
coal.
DOE forecasts based on the three scenarios are illustrated in
Exhibit 6-2. Under the no new orders case, capacity will decrease
to 52 gigawatts of electricity (gWe) in. 2020. Capacity under the
lower reference case will be 123 net gWe, and under the third
scenario will be 182 net gWe. The no new orders scenario and the
lower reference are considered the most likely to occur.
63
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EXHIBIT 6-1
NUCLEAR CAPACITIES AND MARKET SHARES FOR THE TEN LARGEST NUCLEAR UTILITIES
Utilities
Commonwealth Edison
Public Service E&G
and Philadelphia Electric
Tennessee Valley Authority
Duke Power
Arizona Public Service
Virginia Electric and Power
Connecticut L&P
Carolina P&L
Florida P&L
Georgia Power
Total for Top Ten Utilities
Total for All Utilities
Capacity
(Net Megawatts
of Electricity)
11,713
6,426
5,497
4,880
3.799
3.392
3,196
3.105
3,010
2,603
47,621
95,901
Percent
of Total
Nuclear
Industry
Capacity
12.21
6.70
5.73
5.09
3.96
3.54
3.33
3.24
3.14
2.71
49.66
100
Source: EIA 89
64
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EXHIBIT 6-2
COMPARISONS OF PROJECTIONS OF U.S. COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR CAPACITY. 1990-2000
(Net Gigawatts)
Growth Scenario
No New Orders Case
Lower Reference Case
Upper Reference Case
Projected Capacity
1990
99
100
101
1995
101
103
105
2000
102
104
105
2010
97
101
136
2020
52
123
182
Source: El A 89
65
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6.2.1.2. DOE Non-Commercial Generators of High-Level Waste
DOE operates four sites that generate high-level waste. Two,
the Savannah River Site and the Hanford Reservation, produce
nuclear materials for weapons and two others, the Idaho National
Engineering Laboratory and the West Valley Site, perform nuclear
fuel reprocessing and research. Annual budgets and employment for
each of the sites are provided in Exhibit 6-3.
6.2.2 Generators of Transuranic Wastes
Transuranic wastes are generated at 11 sites, all government
owned. Four of the sites also generate high-level wastes. Budgets
and employment at each of the sites for 1992 are listed in Exhibit
6-3.
6.3 IMPACTS OF ALL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH OPTIONS
The costs of implementing 40 CFR Part 191 will fall on DOE, as
well as the generators of high-level and transuranic wastes
described above. The following sections consider the distribution
of those costs, and, where possible, their magnitudes.
6.3.1 Cost to DOE of Demonstrating Compliance
In accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR Part 60, DOE
must demonstrate to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that any DOE
high-level waste repository will comply with all applicable
regulations, including EPA's (NRC 82). EPA recognizes that" the
requirements to demonstrate compliance with 40 CFR Part 191 may
impose some costs on DOE and add to the cost of high-level waste
disposal. However, it should be noted that this is just one of
many regulations for which compliance must be demonstrated.
Components of the cost to DOE of demonstrating compliance with
40 CFR Part 191 include the following:
Modeling to predict the expected release of each
constituent of the stored wastes;
Modeling to predict the number of projected statistical
health effects;
66
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EXHIBIT 6-3
1992 BUDGETS AND EMPLOYMENT OF FACILITIES
GENERATING NON-COMMERCIAL HLW AND TRU WASTE
FACILITY
West Valley, NY
Los Alamos, NM
Oak Ridge, TN
Mound Plant, OH
Savannah River, SC
Idaho National, ID
Rocky Flats, CO
Nevada Test Site, NV
Lawrence Livermore, CA
Argonne, IL
Hanford, WA
BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 1992
(million dollars)
Operating
Capital
104
1,024
370
183
1,440
NA
700
NA
1,008
NA
1,430
Capital
NA
121
30
11
460
NA
NA
NA
109
NA
61
Total
104
1,145
400
194
1,900
1,200
700
996
1,117
350
1,491
TOTAL
EMPLOYMENT
963
11,200
5,000
1,600
24,024
12,175
8,100
10,312
11,500
4500
16,200
NA: not available
Source: Corporate communications, September 1992.
67
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Modeling to predict the releases of radionuclides through
groundwater flows;
Modeling to predict the expected dose to nearby
individuals;
* Developing and presenting DOE-'s testimony;
Developing rebuttals to arguments against DOE's case; and
Interest on the cost of fixed investments that have been
developed in advance of the hearing but may not be used
until after the license is granted.
Probably many, if not all, of these costs will have been
incurred in the development of the facility itself or as an
unavoidable part of the licensing hearing. The remainder of this
discussion focuses on those aspects of demonstrating compliance
that may be affected by decisions EPA made when developing its
rule.
Throughout this document the stringency of 40 CFR Part 191 is
discussed. The conclusion is reached that the rule is not
stringent in terms of setting standards difficult to meet. This is
because the excavation of a repository in tuff or salt is
sufficient with little additional effort needed for the
construction of engineered barriers to meet both the containment
standard and the individual dose requirement of 40 CFR Part 191
with a wide margin of safety. Appropriate engineered barriers are
not technically hard to design or fabricate.
Two aspects of the design of the waste disposal system,
however, pose some challenges to DOE's ability to demonstrate
compliance. First, predicting how a geologic barrier will perform
over 10,000 years is difficult. Such prediction requires assessing
the normal rates of release of radionuclides and analyzing the
nature and probability of events such as volcanic eruptions,
earthquakes, and intrusion by humans. Second, predicting how
engineered barriers will perform over long periods is also
difficult. The forms of the wastes and the canisters into which
they will be placed must be analyzed. In most circumstances,
however, owing to the lack of stringency of 40 CFR Part 191, the
canister is not required to last more than 300 years.
Demonstrating that a canister will last 300 years is much easier
than proving that it will last 3,000 or 10,000 years. Also, the
rule does not demand extremely low leach rates. Demonstrating that
the leach rate of a waste form is less than 1 part in 1,000 per
year is again simpler than demonstrating that it is less than 1
part in 1,000,000 per year.
Hence the biggest difficulty in predicting compliance with the
rule is predicting the performance of geologic media over a long
68
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period and predicting the probabilities of low probability events.
The fact that EPA states the containment rule in probabilistic
terms does not complicate the demonstration of compliance so long
as the probabilities and consequences of these events have been
studied. Such considerations should be part of the design of a
repository in any event. If a site is subject to very high
probabilities of volcanic or seismic activity, it should not be
proposed for a high-level waste repository.
Two approaches to estimating costs are included here. The
most simplistic is to assume that all of DOE's D&E costs for
repositories are attributed to demonstrating compliance with 40 CFR
Part 191. This amount is estimated in Chapter Two for a 100,000
MTHM repository at about $7 billion (undiscounted) (Exhibit 2-6).
This represents an extreme outer boundary on the cost of
demonstrating compliance with 40 CFR Part 191.
Second, it could be argued that most of the D&E costs will have to
be spent regardless of what the standard is. Under this assumption
the cost of demonstrating compliance would be the cost of preparing
geologic models of the proposed system, plus a portion of the costs
of the NRC licensing procedure. The EPA has spent $1 million to $2
million on minimal geologic modeling in the course of developing 40
CFR Part 191. The DOE's cost for modeling will be more than EPA's
however, because DOE will have to model a particular site while
EPA's models can be generic (FEHR).
The total cost of the NRC licensing procedure depends on the length
of the process, number of persons committed to this effort, and
associated support costs. The total cost is estimated here at $160
million, based on a 4-year process involving a large number of
employees and contractors, plus costs for transportation,
equipment, and support. While this estimate is not a rigorous one,
it reflects the view of NRC staff that the licensing of the high-
level waste repository will be the largest such hearing ever held
and that DOE typically brings a large staff to hearings and employs
numerous contractors in its support (FEHR). However, only a
fraction of these costs will be for demonstration of compliance
with 40 CFR Part 191, and only a fraction of that amount will be
determined by the form and stringency of the rule.
For disposal of transuranic wastes, DOE does not incur costs
of demonstrating compliance to either EPA or NRC. If, at some
future time, DOE is required to demonstrate compliance to EPA, the
costs would be expected to be similar to those for high-level
wastes.
69
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6.3.2 Costs to Generators of High-Level Wastes
DOE bears the burden of constructing the repository for high-
level wastes. However, the generators of those wastes will
reimburse DOE. The costs to these parties are discussed next.
6.3.2.1 Fees Charged to Commercial Waste Generators
Two methods of measuring the impact of waste disposal fees on
the industry and the private sector are examined. Both are rather
rudimentary owing on one hand to the fairly small cost of high-
level waste disposal in comparison with the much larger size of the
electric generation industry and on the other hand to the
difficulties in modeling the impact of increases in energy costs as
they are incorporated as inputs to intermediate and final goods and
eventually passed, in varying degrees, along to the consumer.
The first method employed reflects the simplest possible
assumptions and is identical to the methods utilized in the 1985
high-level waste RIA. In this method it is assumed that impacts
can be determined by comparing annual costs of the regulation with
total industry revenues to determine the change in average
electricity rates. Consumers are assumed not to change their
purchasing patterns as a result of the increased price, and the
impact for a given consumer is merely the product of the change in
average rates times the number of units purchased.
The second method makes use of more complex economic concepts
to derive a more accurate portrayal of the changes in welfare
resulting from the imposition of disposal fees. Specifically,
empirical estimates of elasticity of demand are employed to model
the impact of the fee on the quantity of electricity demanded.
This also allows calculation of the impact of the fee on consumer
surplus and thus on economic welfare.
Comparison of Annual Costs of 40 CFR Part 191
with Total Industry Revenue
The exact costs of the HLW storage facility that DOE will
select are not known. As described in Chapter Two, the costs
depend on the geologic medium selected, canister life, and leach
rate. Thus, three sets of costs for the repository are presented
here to provide a range. The first represents the lowest possible
cost and is based on a repository in tuff with no restriction on
canister life or leach rate. The net present value of the cost of
this configuration is $11,225 million, or $257 million per year for
105 years (Exhibit 2-8). The second set of repository costs are
those for the least-cost alternative for meeting the requirements
of both 40 CFR Part 191 and 10 CFR Part 60. This repository is
70
-------
located in tuff and uses 1,000 year canisters and a leach rate of
1 part in 100,000 per year. The net present value of this
repository is $13,137 million (Exhibit 2-9), or $200 million per
year. The third repository evaluated is the most costly option
that meets the standard. In this option, wastes are stored in a
salt formation, in a waste form with a leach rate of 1 part in
1,000,000 per year and a canister lasting 3,000 years. The net
present value of this third repository is $17,537 million, or $401
million per year (Exhibit 2-9). All three configurations meet the
requirements of 40 CFR Part 191. Health effects in the first two
options are limited to 1 in 10,000 years. Health effects in the
third, more costly option equal 5 in 10,000 years.
Total revenues of the electric utility industry in the United
States were approximately $179 billion in 1990 (EIA 90) . The $257
million annualized cost of the least stringent option in tuff is
0.14 percent of those total revenues. The annualized costs of the
more stringent configurations are, respectively, $300 million, or
0.17 percent, and $401 million, or 0.22 percent of total revenue.
Incremental increases in cost are, from the first configuration to
the second, $43.7 million, or 0.024 percent, from the second to the
third, $100.6 million, or 0.056 percent of the total revenue, and
from the first to the third, $144.3 million or 0.08 percent of the
total revenue.
Application of a Model Based on
Elasticity of Demand for Electricity
This section discusses the second approach to analyzing the
effects of 40 CFR Part 191 on electric utilities: modeling consumer
surplus, welfare cost, and changes in total revenue associated with
the regulation. The model uses as inputs estimates of the price
elasticity of demand for residential, commercial, industrial, and
other consumers of electricity (Exhibit 6-4); the amounts of
electricity generated by nuclear and non-nuclear generators
(Exhibit 6-5); quantities of electricity sold (Exhibit 6-6); and
average revenues (Exhibit 6-7). These data are shown for"each
state. The model provides all of its results at the state,
regional, and national levels. The primary calculations are at the
state level.
Measuring changes in consumer and producer surpluses is a
widely accepted operational method of evaluating welfare losses
because of changes in the price or availability of a product.
There are theoretical and practical considerations in the
application of this technique. One theoretical issue in the
measurement of consumer surplus concerns the implicit change of the
consumer's income as the price of the commodity is changed. In the
case of this regulation, the imposition of the waste disposal fee
will raise the price of electricity and thus reduce income of
electric power consumers. Although the impact of this income
change on consumer surplus is an interesting conceptual issue, its
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EXHIBIT 6-4
LONG RUN PRICE ELASTICITY OF DEMAND BY SECTOR AND REGION
Total U.S.
New England
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
Middle Atlantic
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
East North Central
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Ohio
Wisconsin
West North Central
Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
South Atlantic
Delaware
D.C.
Florida
Georgia
Maryland
North Carolina
South Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
East South Central
Alabama
Kentucky
Mississippi
Tennessee
West South Central
Arkansas
Louisiana
Oklahoma
Texas
fountain
Arizona
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Nevada
New Mexico
Utah
Wyoming
Dacific ' "
California
Oregon
Washington
Pacific Noncontiguous
Alaska
Hawaii
Total
-1.05
-0.99
-0.97
-1.04
XJ.88
-1.01
-0.97
-1.00
-1.02
-1.00
-1.01
-1.05
-1.16
-1.13
-1.18
-1.17
-1.18
-1.14
-1.12
-1.14
-1.11
-1.18
-1.09
-1.09
-1.10
-1.08
-O.98
-1.04
-1.09
-0.88
-1.01
-1.01
-1.01
-1.07
-O.96
-1.06
-1.06
-1.07
-1.09
-1.00
-1.05
-1.07
-1.05
-1.08
-1.03
-1.07
-0.99
-0.93
-0.95
-1.01
-1.08
-0.97
-1.01
-1.02
-1.18
-0.98
-0.97
-0.97
-1.03
-0.91
-1.05
-1.06
Res.
-0.69
-0.62
-O.62
-0.62
-0.62
0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.93
-0.93
-0.93
-0.93
-0.93
-0.93
-0.93
-0.93
-0.93
-0.93
0.93
-0.93
-0.93
-0.93
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
0.62
0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.62
-0.74
0.74
-0.74
-0.74
-0.74
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.50
-0.22
-0.93
-0.50
Comm.
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.O5
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.O5
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
Ind.
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.4O
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
-1.40
Other
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.O5
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.O5
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.O5
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
-1.05
Source: RFF 84
72
-------
EXHIBIT 6-5
COMMERCIAL GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1890
Nation and Region
Total United States
New England
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
Middle Atlantic
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
East North Central
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Ohio
Wisconsin
West North Central
Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
South Atlantic
Delaware
D.C.
Florida
Georgia
Maryland
North Carolina
South Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
East South Central
Alabama
Kentucky
Mississippi
Tennessee
West South Central
Arkansas
Louisiana
Oklahoma
Texas
Mountain
Arizona
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Nevada
New Mexico
Utah
Wyoming
Pacific
California
Oregon
Washington
Pacific Noncontiguous
Alaska
Hawaii
Total
Generation
(gigawatt
hours)
2,808,151
94,092
32.156
9,064
36,479
10,810
592
4,993
330,827
36,489
128,655
165,683
485,835
126,977
97,738
89,059
126,510
45,551
218,360
29,048
33,869
41,550
59,01 1
21,631
26,824
6,427
533,816
7,100
361
123,624
97,565
31 ,497
79,845
69,260
47,200
77,364
246,866
76,262
73,807
22,924
73,903
374,332
37,053
58,168
45,063
234,047
247,355
62,289
31,313
8,618
25,719
19,286
28.491
32.260
39,378
264,179
114,526
49,172
100,479
12,489
4,493
7,996
Nuclear
Generation
(gigawatt
hours)
576,862
37,404
19,776
4,861
5,070
4,081
0
3,616
105,181
23,770
23,623
57,787
115,388
71,887
0
21,610
10,664
11,226
38,535
3,012
7,874
12,139
7,998
7,511
0
0
140,434
0
0
21,780
24,797
1,251
25,905
42,881
23,820
0
33,477
12,052
0
7,422
14,003
41,338
1 1 ,282
14,197
0
15,859
20,598
20,598
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
44.509
32,693
6,074
5,742
0
0
0
Nuclear
Generation
(%)
20.5
39.8
61.5
53.6
13.9
37.8
0.0
72.4
31.8
65.1
18.4
34.9
23.8
56.6
0.0
24.3
8.4
24.6
17.6
10.4
23.2
29.2
13.6
34.7
0.0
0.0
26.3
0.0
0.0
17.6
25.4
4.0
32.4
61.9
50.5
0.0
13.6
15.8
0.0
32.4
18.9
11.0
30.4
24.4
0.0
6.8
8.3
33.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
16.8
28.5
12.4
5.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
Source: EEI 89
73
-------
EXHIBIT 6-6
SALES OF ELECTRICITY TO ULTIMATE CUSTOMERS BY SECTOR AND REGION, 1990
Nation and Region
Total United States
New England
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
Middle Atlantic
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
East North Central
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Ohio
Wisconsin
West North Central
Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
South Atlantic
Delaware
D.C.
Florida
Georgia
Maryland
North Carolina
South Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
East South Central
Alabama
Kentucky
Mississippi
Tennessee
West South Central
Arkansas
Louisiana
Oklahoma
Texas
Mountain
Arizona
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Nevada
New Mexico
Utah
Wyoming
Pacific
California
Oregon
Washington
Pacific Noncontiguous
Alaska
Hawaii
Total
(gigawatt
hours)
2,712,555
104,273
27,187
11,529
45,442
8,980
6,419
4,716
306,932
62,857
129,324
114,751
459,589
111,577
73,982
82,367
142,465
49,198
188,894
29,437
27,149
47,167
53,925
17,868
7,014
6,334
533,046
8,284
9,848
143,535
80,440
49,534
89,924
55,652
72,696
23,132
230,294
59,926
61,097
32,127
77,145
371,111
27,365
63,826
42,504
237,415
160,735
41,470
30,795
18,003
13,125
16,352
13,821
15,402
11,769
345,117
21 1 ,093
42.977
91,046
12,564
4,254
8,311
Res.
(gigawatt
hours)
924,019
37,518
10,376
3,932
15,581
3,444
2,376
1,809
97,236
20,498
38,574
38,164
134,576
32,871
22,111
25,319
37,889
16,385
69,158
10,513
9,515
14,858
21,652
6,800
2,954
2,866
211,390
2,651
1,480
71,115
29,933
19,102
33,144
18,258
28,130
7,578
78,555
20,719
16,814
12,266
28,757
131,616
10,558
21,434
17,077
82,548
49,221
15,378
9.787
5,626
3,358
5,540
3,566
4,246
1,720
110,763
66.575
15,380
28,809
3,985
1,661
2,324
Comm.
(gigawatt
hours)
751,027
37.567
10,342
2,673
18,565
2,010
2,492
1,484
102,919
26,839
46,921
29,159
111,085
31,734
15,502
20,610
30,541
12,698
60,782
6,727
9,169
8,086
18,469
5,086
1,795
1,450
153,011
2,311
5,073
51,342
22,868
10,452
23,835
11,927
20,213
4,991
39,105
10,979
9,252
6,746
12,128
93,761
6,075
13,814
11,634
62,238
49,936
13,731
13,553
4,894
2.738
3,866
4,464
4,515
2,176
108,693
79,691
11.319
17,683
4,167
1,972
2,194
Ind.
(gigawatt
hours)
945,522
27,161
6,100
4.750
10,157
3,418
1,354
1,381
92,962
15,041
31,929
45,992
199,190
39,299
35,743
35,062
69,682
19,405
63,949
11,392
8,087
23,497
12,937
4,618
1,760
1,657
151,712
3,272
2,976
16,605
26,717
19,308
31,265
24,701
16,399
10,469
107,928
27,618
32,543
12.454
35.313
131,839
10,126
25,862
11,764
84,087
54,487
10,034
6,587
7,165
6,529
6,263
4,413
5,766
7,729
112.102
55,892
15,498
40,712
4,193
459
3,734
Other
(gigawatt
hours)
91.988
2,026
369
174
1,138
107
196
42
13,814
479
11,900
1,435
14.739
7,672
626
1,376
4,354
710
5,005
804
378
727
866
1,364
506
361
16,932
50
319
4,473
922
672
1,681
766
7,955
94
4,707
610
2,488
661
947
13,894
606
2,716
2,029
8,542
7,092
2,327
867
318
499
684
1,378
875
144
13,558
8,935
780
3,842
220
161
58
Note: In the United States, electric generation is significantly greater than sales since just over 8 percent of
total electric energy generation is lost or unaccounted for(EEI 90).
Source: EEI 89
74
-------
EXHIBIT 6-7
AVERAGE REVENUE BY SECTOR AND REGION, 1990
Nation and Region
Total United States
New England
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
Middle Atlantic
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
East North Central
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Ohio
Wisconsin
West North Central
Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
South Atlantic
Delaware
D.C.
Florida
Georgia
Maryland
North Carolina
South Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
East South Central
Alabama
Kentucky
Mississippi
Tennessee
West South Central
Arkansas
Louisiana
Oklahoma
Texas
Mountain
Arizona
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Nevada
New Mexico
Utah
Wyoming
Pacific
California
Oregon
Washington
Pacific Noncontiguous
Alaska
Hawaii
Total
(cents per
kilowatt hour)
6.60
8.80
9.20
7.60
8.80
9.10
9.10
8.30
8.70
9.10
9.40
7.70
6.40
7.50
5.40
7.10
5.80
5.40
6.00
5.90
6.60
5.30
6.50
5.60
5.70
6.10
6.40
6.50
5.90
7.00
6.60
6.30
6.40
5.60
6.00
4.70
5.30
5.60
4.50
6.10
5.30
5.80
6.70
6.00
5.50
5.80
5.90
7.80
5.90
3.80
4.00
5.40
7.10
5.50
4.20
6.80
8.80
4.20
3.40
9.20
9.50
9.00
Res.
(cents per
kilowatt hour)
7.80
9.80
10.00
9.30
9.70
10.30
9.50
9.30
10.30
10.40
11.40
9.20
8.10
9.90
6.90
7.80
8.00
6.60
7.20
7.80
7.80
6.80
7.40
6.20
6.30
6.90
7.50
8.40
6.10
7.80
7.50
7.20
7.80
7.10
7.20
5.90
6.10
6.60
5.70
6.90
5.70
7.20
8.10
7.40
6.60
7.20
7.30
9.00
7.00
4.90
5.40
5.70
8.90
7.10
6.00
7.80
10.00
4.70
4.40
10.20
10.10
10.30
Comm.
(cents per
kilowatt hour)
7.30
8.70
9.10
8.00
8.50
9.50
8.90
8.50
9.40
8.90
10.50
8.10
7.30
7.80
6.00
8.10
7.40
5.80
6.30
6.30
6.60
6.00
6.50
5.70
6.40
6.70
6.60
6.90
6.30
6.70
7.30
6.70
6.40
6.20
6.10
5.40
6.30
6.70
5.40
7.20
6.10
6.30
6.90
7.00
5.70
6.20
6.50
8.30
5.70
4.20
4.70
6.20
8.10
6.30
5.20
8.10
9.50
4.80
4.10
9.60
9.00
10.20
Ind.
(cents per
kilowatt hour)
4.70
7.40
4.60
6.00
7.90
7.50
8.30
8.60
6.10
7.40
5.80
6.00
4.60
5,40
4.10
5.90
4.00
4.00
4.40
4.00
4.90
4.10
4.90
4.20
4.80
4.70
4.60
4.50
5.20
5.10
4.80
5.10
4.80
4.20
4.30
3.60
4.30
4.30
3.60
4.60
4.70
4.10
5.10
4.20
3.60
4.00
4.10
5.60
4.50
2.60
2.90
4.70
5.00
3.80
3.50
4.90
7.30
3.20
2.40
7.60
7.90
7.60
Other
(cents per
kilowatt hour)
6.40
11.20
12.80
10.90
10.90
12.70
9.10
12.10
8.50
16.00
8.00
10.80
6.90
6.70
8.10
10.00
6.10
6.50
6.10
6.00
8.20
6.70
6.80
6.40
3.70
45.10
6.20
10.30
5.80
6.80
8.10
8.30
7.00
5.50
5.30
8.20
5.70
5.60
4.70
8.00
6.90
6.30
7.10
6.90
5.30
6.20
5.40
5.40
7.30
4.70
4.30
4.50
5.80
4.20
7.90
4.10
4.50
4.80
3.10
12.20
13.20
9.40
Source: EEI 89
75
-------
impact on the measurement of consumer surplus is negligible.
Therefore, implicit changes in consumer income are ignored in this
analysis.
A second theoretical issue that is less easily ignored is
whether to approach the measurement of consumer surplus in a
partial or general equilibrium framework. The partial equilibrium
framework assumes that the prices of goods and services remain
constant even though there is a second-order shift in the demand
for them. General equilibrium analysis is more complex because the
effects of the initial shift must be traced through the entire
economy. Only a partial equilibrium model is considered here owing
to the small size of the fees compared with the electric power
industry and the difficulties in tracing such a widely used
intermediate input through the economy.
A third theoretical issue concerns the shape of the demand
curve, which raises the issue of the size of a perturbation for
which the empirical measures of elasticity can be expected to
remain valid. Two specifications of the demand curves that might
be derived are constant elasticity demand curves and linear demand
curves. Constant elasticity demand curves have the same elasticity
at all points on the demand curve, and thus, as the quantity
demanded gets smaller, the downward slope of these curves gets
steeper. On the other hand, linear demand curves have constant
slope, but the elasticity of demand is different at each point on
the curve. Regardless of the nature of the curve, it must be
assumed that the empirically estimated elasticities hold over the
area under consideration. Given the small changes in demand to be
caused by the imposition of the waste disposal fees, the
assumptions on the shape of the demand curves are not likely to
cause inaccuracies in the measurements of welfare loss. Constant
elasticity demand curves are used in this study.
Perhaps the most crucial assumption utilized in the economic
impact model is that of a horizontal supply curve. This assumption
is based on two considerations. One, the change in the quantity
demanded caused by the imposition of waste disposal fees is so
small that it will not cause a significant change in the average
costs of producing electricity. Two, a fair amount of evidence in
the economic literature shows that long-run average cost curves
have relatively large flat sections on their bottoms. That is, the
marginal cost of production is constant and equal to long-run
average cost through a relatively wide range.
A graphical representation of the economic impact model is
provided in Exhibit 6-8. S|S] is the supply curve and DjDj is the
demand curve for electricity. An increase of the fee charged to
electric utilities for the storage of high-level waste causes an
upward shift in the horizontal supply curve to S2S2. PI is the
initial price and Qj is the initial quantity. The upward shift of
76
-------
LJJ
O
o
CD
eg o
x ^
xo
o
o
LJJ
LU
X
h-
0)
o
CM
co
CVJ
CO
CO
CO
CO
CO
O)
O
CM
O
CM T-
CL Q.
77
-------
the supply curve from S^Sj to S2S2 causes the price of electricity
to increase to P2 and the quantity demanded to decrease to Q2« The
points G, H, I, J, K, L, M, and N will be used below in discussing
other concepts related to the model, including consumer surplus,
producer surplus, change in total revenue, and deadweight welfare
loss.
Consumer surplus is defined as the total expenditure that
consumers would have been willing and able to make in excess of the
total expenditure they did in fact make to obtain a given amount of
electricity. Graphically the consumer surplus is the area under
the demand curve and above the price paid. This area is undefined
given that we are assuming constant elasticity of demand. That is,
for the consumer surplus to be well-defined, point N would have to
be placed where the demand curve crosses the vertical axis, but
with constant elasticity demand curves, the demand curve does not
intersect the axes. In Exhibit 6-8 the magnitude of consumer
surplus is initially approximated by area LIN. When price
increases to P2, consumer surplus becomes MKN. Although consumer
surplus is poorly defined, the change in consumer surplus is well-
defined as LIKM. This area is composed of two other areas: JLMK
and UK. Consumer surplus is decreased by this amount when supply
shifts upward from SjSj to S2S2.
Producer surplus is defined as the difference between the
lowest total revenue for which the firm would have produced a given
quantity of the electricity and the total revenue the firm actually
received. Graphically it is represented by the area between the
price and the supply curve. Because the supply curve is horizontal
there is no producer surplus in this model. However, there is a
change of revenues that just equals the change in costs. The
change in revenues is because of the decrease of revenue attributed
to reduced production (GHIJ) and the increase of revenue because of
increased price (JLMK). The amount JLMK is transferred from
consumers to producers. However the amount IJK is just lost. It
is referred to as the deadweight welfare loss.
Exhibit 6-9 summarizes the economic impacts of the three
configurations and the incremental differences between the first
configuration and the second and between the second and the third.
There are five categories of impact evaluators. Costs of
regulation are presented in millions of dollars and are the same
values that were discussed above. These are the initial costs of
the regulation that induce the other effects shown in Exhibit 6-9.
Costs to nuclear power generators are computed under the assumption
that they alone bear all costs of high-level waste disposal. The
incremental impact on rates charged to users of nuclear power of
going from configuration 1 to 2 is .00000758 cent/kWh while
proceeding to the most stringent option adds another .0000174
cent/kWh. The impact on rates is smaller if spread over all
electric power regardless of its source. For the first increment,
78
-------
EXHIBIT 6-0
SUMMARY OF ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF THREE CONFIGURATIONS AND TWO INCREMENTS
FOR HIGH-LEVEL WASTE FACILITIES FOR THE UNITED STATES
Impact Evaluators
Annual Cost of Regulation
($, mil.)
Nuclear(cents/kwh)
All Fuels(cents/kwh)
Sales
Before Regulation(gwh)
After Regulation(gwh)
Percent Change
Average Revenue
Before Regulation(cents/kwh)
After Regulation(cents/kwh)
Percent Change
Welfare Measurements
Deadweight loss($, mil.)
Change in Consumer Surplus($, mil.)
Change in Producer Revenue($, mil.)
Other
Number of Customers(OOO)
Cost of Regulation Per Customer($)
Configuration
1
(See Note 1.)
256.6
0.00004448
0.00000946
2712555
2712551
-0.000150
6.600000
6.600009
0.000143
-0.000193
-256.577
-1 2.2230
1 1 0561
2.32
2
(See Note 2.)
300.3
0.00005205
0.00001107
2712555
2712550
-0.0001 76
6.600000
6.60001 1
0.000168
-0.000264
-300.281
-14.3050
1 1 0561
2.72
3
(See Note 3.)
400.9
0.00006949
0.00001478
2712555
2712549
-0.000235
6.600000
6.60001 5
0.000224
-0.000470
-400.855
-19.0961
110561
3.63
Increment
2-1
43.7
0.00000758
0.00000161
2712555
271 2554
-0.000026
6.600000
6.600002
0.000024
-0.000006
-43.704
-2.0820
110561
0.40
3-2
100.6
0.00001743
0.00000371
2712555
271 2553
-0.000059
6.600000
6.600004
0.000056
-0.000030
-100.574
-4.7912
110561
0.91
3-1
144.3
0.00002501
0.00000532
2712555
2712553
-0.000084
6.600000
6.600005
0.000081
-O.000061
-144.278
-6.8732
110561
1.30
Note 1: Zero year canister, leach rate of 10 ~ -3, repository in tuff.
Note 2: 300 year canister, leach rate of 10 ~ -5, repository in tuff.
Note 3: 1000 year canister, leach rate of 10 " -6, repository in salt.
79
-------
the electric rate would increase by .00000161 cent/kWh and for the
second by .00000371 cent/kWh.
The effects on sales and average revenues are also very small.
The most stringent option would cost the 110 million consumers
(including industrial, residential, commercial, and other
consumers) each only $3.63 per year on average. The annual
incremental cost per customer of advancing from the least stringent
to the most stringent of these options is about $1.31. The
customer is unlikely to notice costs of these magnitudes.
Regarding the welfare measures, the annual deadweight loss,
which measures inefficiencies to the economy, is $470 for the most
stringent option. The other welfare measures show that consumers
are assumed to shoulder the entire burden. The loss in consumer
surplus is just equal to the cost of each configuration. Because
producer profits are unchanged, the changes in producer revenues
just equal the changes in producer costs.
The impacts of expenditures to implement 40 CFR Part 191 are
not uniform across the various regions of the United States. Since
the costs are borne only by utilities that have nuclear capacity,
18 states will not be directly affected because they have no
nuclear capacity (Exhibit 6-5). The region with the highest
percentage of electric generation provided by nuclear power is New
England, with 39.8 percent. The region of the contiguous states
with the lowest percentage of generation provided by nuclear power
is the mountain region with 8.3 percent.
Exhibit 6-10 shows how these considerations translate into
regulatory costs by state. The case shown in Exhibit 6-10 is for
an increase from configuration 2 to configuration 3, the total U.S.
cost of which is shown to be $43.7 million in Exhibit 6-9. As
shown in Exhibit 6-10, the annual direct cost of the regulation in
states with no nuclear power is zero. There will be no direct
economic impact on those states. Annual impacts to other states
will vary depending on the proportion of electricity they produce
using nuclear power. The highest cost, $1.79 million, is borne by
Illinois and the lowest for states with nuclear generation, $312
thousand, by Maryland. When costs are spread over all consumers of
electricity generated by all fuels in a state, the highest cost in
cents per kilowatt hour (c/kWh) is .00002. This rate increase
would apply to Connecticut, Vermont, and South Carolina.
80
-------
EXHIBIT 6-10
INCREMENTAL COST OF REGULATION BY REGION
Nation and Region
Total United States
New England
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
Middle Atlantic
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
East North Central
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Ohio
Wisconsin
West North Central
Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
South Atlantic
Delaware
D.C.
Florida
Georgia
Maryland
North Carolina
South Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
East South Central
Alabama
Kentucky
Mississippi
Tennessee
West South Central
Arkansas
Louisiana
Oklahoma
Texas
fountain
Arizona
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Nevada
New Mexico
Utah
Wyoming
Pacific
California
Oregon
Washington
sacific Noncontiguous
Alaska
Hawaii
Cost of
Regulation
($)
144,277,701
9,355,033
4,946,132
1,215,774
1 ,268,047
1 ,020,690
0
904,390
26,306,591
5,945,063
5,908,297
14,452,981
28,859,442
17,979,501
0
5,404,830
2,667,150
2,807,710
9,637,905
753,325
1 ,969,349
3,036,059
2,000,362
1 ,878.560
0
0
35,123,642
0
0
5,447,348
6,201.924
312,885
6,479,043
10,724,874
5,957,568
0
8,372,860
3,014,300
0
1,856,300
3,502,260
10,338,957
2,821,716
3,550,781
0
3,966,460
5,151,721
5,151,721
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
11,132,049
8,176,775
1,519,155
1,436,119
0
0
0
Cost of
Regulation
Nuclear
(cents per kilowatt hour)
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
no nuclear
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
no nuclear
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
no nuclear
no nuclear
0.000025
no nuclear
no nuclear
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
no nuclear
0.000025
0.000025
no nuclear
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
no nuclear
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
no nuclear
no nuclear
no nuclear
no nuclear
no nuclear
no nuclear
no nuclear
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
0.000025
no nuclear
no nuclear
no nuclear
Cost of
Regulation
all Fuels
(cents per kilowatt hour)
0.000005
0.000009
O.OOO018
0.000011
0.000003
0.000011
0.000000
0.000019
0.000009
0.000009
0.000005
O.OOOO13
O.OOOO06
0.000016
o.oooooo
0.000007
0.000002
0.000006
0.000005
0.000003
0.000007
0.000006
O.OOOO04
O.O00011
0.000000
0.000000
0.000007
o.oooooo
0.000000
0.000004
0.000008
0.000001
O.OOOO07
0.000019
0.000008
0.000000
0.000004
O.OOOO05
o.oooooo
O.O00006
0.000005
O.O00003
O.OOOO10
0.000006
0.000000
0.000002
0.000003
0.000012
o.oooooo
o.oooooo
0.000000
0.000000
o.oooooo
o.oooooo
o.oooooo
0.000003
0.000004
0.000004
0.000002
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
Source: Exhibits 6-5, 6-6, 6-7, 6-8, 6-9.
81
-------
6.3.2 Impacts of Costs on Generators of
Defense High-Level and Transuranic Wastes
The evaluation of the economic impacts of Federal government
expenditures to comply with waste disposal are not developed
through the use of a quantitative model. Instead a qualitative
discussion is provided. A quantitative model is not analytically
useful because, given the small size of the waste disposal
expenditures relative to the Federal budget, determining the origin
of the funds, their impacts, or their opportunity costs is not
possible.
Perhaps funds would be raised by increased taxation or
government borrowing. In the absence of a direct tax or bond
issuance to fund this specific program, as is the case with the fee
charged to utilities to cover their share of waste disposal, it
will be impossible to trace the impact of increased funding in
anything more than the most general terms. Consequently, it will
also be impossible to identify the alternative uses to which these
funds would have been put in the private sector. Thus the impact
as well as the opportunity cost of diverting the funds to public
use cannot be accurately quantified. Conversely, there seems to be
no reason to assume that the impacts will fall disproportionately
on any particular group in society.
Perhaps funds would be raised at the expense of other
government programs. There could be a slight change in funding
over an unspecified group of programs or a larger change in
specific programs. It might be argued that DOE nuclear programs
would be the most likely victims of such cuts. Again, it will be
impossible to determine the exact origin of funds and thus the
impacts or opportunity costs.
Regardless of the origin of the funds, the most useful way of
analyzing the expenditures are as transfer payments in that the
expenditures are generated through taxation or some other means and
are spent on the waste disposal program. This transfer of funds by
the Federal government is likely to have a positive impact on
certain regions and industries. The impacts are the result of
fiscal injections and could be measured in costs for particular
goods and services, which are specified in Chapter Two. These
costs could also be converted to associated impacts on employment
(which may increase) and income although this is not done in
Chapter Three. The local area chosen for the waste disposal site
will most certainly receive increased infusions of Federal dollars.
There should be no disproportionate increase, however, in Federal
taxes paid by the affected localities or industries involved.
Beyond the positive benefits accruing to certain localities
and industries, no discernible patterns of economic impacts should
occur. Since expenditures will be derived from general revenues,
-------
no negative impacts on particular industry segments or small
businesses should occur.
83
-------
REFERENCES
BRWM 90 Rethinking High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal. Board on Radioactive Waste
Management, Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources, National
Research Council, 1990.
Corey 84 Corey, G.R., "The Comparative Costs of Nuclear and Fossil Fuelled Power Plants
in An American Electricity Utility," in The Economics of Nuclear Energy. Edited
by Leonard G. Brookes and Homa Motamen, Chapman and Hall, New York, 1984.
DOE 87 U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management,
Analysis of the Total System Life Cycle. Cost for the Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management Program. DOE/RW-0047, June 1987.
DOE 89 U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management,
Analysis of the Total System Life Cycle. Cost for the Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management Program. DOE/RW-0236, May 1989.
DOE 89 U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management,
Transportation System Data Base. Reference Transportation Data for the Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management Program. Washington D.C., December 1989.
DOE 90 U.S. Department of Energy. Preliminary Estimates of the Total-System Cost for
the Restructured Program: An Addendum to the May 1989 Analysis of the Total-
System Life Cycle Cost for the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program.
DOE/RW-0295P, December 1990.
EEI 89 Edison Electric Institute. Statistical Yearbook of the Electric Utility Industry.
1989
EIA 88a Energy Information Administration. Electric Power Annual. 1988.
EIA 89 Energy Information Administration. Commercial Nuclear Power 1989: Prospects
for the United States and the World. DOE/EIA-0438(89), September 1989.
EIA 90 Energy Information Administration. Commercial Nuclear Power 1990: Prospects
for the United States and the World. DOE/EIA-0438(90), September, 1990. "
EPA 85 Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Radiation Programs. "Final
Regulatory Impact Analysis". 40 CFR Part 191Environmental Standards for the
Management and Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel. High-Level and Transuranic
Radioactive Waste. EPA 520/1-85-027, August 15, 1985.
EPA 92A Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental Standards for the Management
and Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel. High-Level and Transuranic Radioactive
Wastes. Draft preamble to the proposed rule. August 14, 1992.
EPA 92B Environmental Protection Agency. Draft Federal Register Notice for 40 CFR Part
191. August 14, 1992.
FEHR 92 Telephone conversation with Mr. Don Fehringer of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, September 25, 1992.
84
-------
GAO 89 United States Government Accounting Office. "DOE's Program to Prepare High-
Level Radioactive Waste for Final Disposal." GAO/RCED-90-46FS, November
1989.
HUNT 1 Letter from Mr. Arlen Hunt, Acting Project Manager of the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant Project Office, Albuquerque Operations Office, Department of Energy, to
Mr. Elliott Foutes, Environmental Protection Agency, March 15, 1990.
NWPA 83a Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Public Law 97-425, January 7, 1983.
NWPA 83b Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Amendments. Public Law 100-507. Senate
Report No. 100-517 (Legislative History).
NWPA 87 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1987. Public Law 100-203, December
22, 1987.
ORNL 91 Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Integrated Data Base for 1991: Spent Fuel and
Radioactive Waste Inventories. Projections and Characteristics. DOE/RW-0006,
Rev.5, October 1991.
RFF 84 Bohi, Douglas R. and Mary Beth Zimmerman. Resources For The Future. "An
Update on Econometric Studies of Energy Demand Behavior." Ann. Rev. Energy
1984.
Rogers 92 Rogers and Associates Engineering Corporation. Unpublished report to EPA on
the health effects and individual exposures associated with options for disposing of
radioactive wastes, September 1992.
SAIC 92 "The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Position on Carbon-14 Releases from a
Geologic Repository." Presented to EPA Science Advisory Board Subcommittee on
Carbon-14, 1992.
SCA 92 Sanford Cohen and Associates, "Issues Associated with Gaseous Releases of
Radionuclides for a Repository in the Unsaturated Zone," July 20, 1992.
WAL 92 Telephone conversation with Mr. Henry Walter of the Department of Energy,
September 15, 1992.
85
-------
-------
Appendix A
-------
-------
EXHIBIT A-1
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN TUFF
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
97
145
162
200
228
179
164
175
160
264
286
252
210
190
176
177
171
158
133
121
115
115
113
107
107
106
101
57
23
22
21
21
21
21
26
33
45
57
68
68
83
114
148
171
137
Repository
Cost
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
7
13
27
40
27
23
17
23
21
120
203
244
243
208
136
146
154
164
197
242
242
240
240
242
238
237
243
240
243
237
238
235
Total
Cost for
70,000
MTHM
Repository
97
145
162
200
228
179
164
175
160
264
286
252
210
196
189
204
211
185
156
139
138
136
232
310
351
349
309
192
169
177
186
218
264
264
266
273
287
295
305
312
323
357
385
409
372
Total
Cost for
100.000
MTHM
Repository
138
207
231
286
326
256
235
250
229
376
409
360
300
280
270
292
301
264
223
198
197
194
332
442
501
499
441
275
241
252
265
312
377
377
380
390
410
421
436
445
461
510
550
585
532
-------
EXHIBIT A-1(CONTD)
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN TUFF
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
46
47
48
49
SO
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
Total
Net Present Value
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
117
104
94
91
91
87
87
86
83
84
46
27
14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14
14
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
6,867
4,420
Repository
Cost
233
237
229
215
202
193
160
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
38
39
39
39
39
39
39
39
39
21
21
21
21
21
7,598
3,438
Total
Cost for
70,000
MTHM
Repository
349
341
324
306
293
281
247
108
104
105
68
49
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
46
47
47
47
47
47
47
47
47
29
29
29
29
29
14,465
7,858
Total
Cost for
100,000
MTHM
Repository
499
487
462
437
419
401
353
154
149
151
97
70
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
42
42
42
42
42
42
42
42
42
42
42
66
67
67
67
67
67
67
67
67
41
41
41
41
41
20,664
11,225
Source: DOE 90
-------
EXHIBIT A-2
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN SALT
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
117
146
162
200
255
301
333
319
332
338
370
319
131
109
106
126
119
115
117
144
119
78
76
75
74
94
208
259
266
318
302
194
86
69
60
78
73
71
Repository
Cost
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
12
52
52
196
386
486
489
403
168
174
162
169
195
276
278
277
278
270
271
268
269
275
274
247
244
241
Total
Cost for
70.000
MTHM
Repository
117
146
162
200
255
301
333
319
332
338
370
319
143
162
159
321
505
601
607
547
287
251
238
244
268
370
486
536
544
588
574
462
355
344
333
325
317
312
Total
Cost for
100,000
MTHM
Repository
167
209
232
286
364
429
475
456
475
483
528
456
204
231
227
459
721
859
867
781
410
359
339
348
383
529
695
766
778
840
819
660
507
492
476
464
452
446
-------
EXHIBIT A-2(CONTD)
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN SALT
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
Total
Net Present Value
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
70
70
50
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
8
8
8
8
14
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
7.188
5,057
Repository
Cost
241
244
244
227
226
213
213
169
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
50
80
80
80
80
30
9.235
4,922
Total
Cost for
70,000
MTHM
Repository
311
314
294
240
239
226
226
181
39
39
39
39
39
39
39
39
39
34
34
34
34
41
34
34
34
34
34
34
34
34
34
34
58
88
88
88
88
38
16,423
9,978
Total
Cost for
100.000
MTHM
Repository
445
448
419
342
341
322
322
259
56
56
56
56
56
56
56
56
56
49
49
49
49
58
49
49
49
49
49
49
49
49
49
49
82
126
126
126
126
54
23,461
14,254
Source: DOE 87
-------
EXHIBIT A-3
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN BASALT
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
117
146
162
200
255
301
333
319
332
338
370
319
131
109
106
126
119
115
117
144
119
78
76
75
74
94
208
259
266
318
302
194
86
69
60
78
73
71
70
70
50
13
13
Repository
Cost
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
9
84
84
365
656
818
828
694
142
141
146
189
249
352
352
352
352
351
353
353
355
355
345
311
305
302
302
299
299
291
291
Total
Cost for
70.000
MTHM
Repository
117
146
162
200
255
301
333
319
332
338
370
319
141
193
190
490
775
933
946
838
261
219
221
263
323
446
560
611
618
668
655
547
441
424
404
389
378
373
372
370
350
304
304
Total
Cost for
100,000
MTHM
Repository
167
209
232
286
364
429
475
456
475
483
528
456
201
276
272
701
1107
1333
1351
1197
373
312
316
376
461
637
800
873
883
955
936
781
630
606
578
555
541
533
531
528
499
434
434
-------
EXHIBIT A-3(CONTD)
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN BASALT
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
Total
Net Present Value
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
8
8
8
8
14
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
7,263
5.071
Repository
Cost
274
246
167
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
23
40
40
40
40
40
40
40
40
40
40
40
33
33
33
33
33
12.171
6.638
Total
Cost for
70.000
MTHM
Repository
286
258
179
36
36
36
36
36
36
36
36
36
31
31
31
31
37
31
31
31
31
31
31
31
31
31
31
47
47
47
47
47
47
47
47
47
47
47
40
40
40
40
40
19.434
11.709
Total
Cost for
100.000
MTHM
Repository
409
369
256
51
51
51
51
51
51
51
51
51
44
44
44
44
53
44
44
44
44
44
44
44
44
44
44
67
67
67
67
67
67
67
67
67
67
67
57
57
57
57
57
27.763
16.727
Source: DOE 87
-------
EXHIBIT A-4
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN GRANITE
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
225
337
376
465
530
416
382
406
373
613
666
587
488
442
410
412
398
367
310
283
268
267
262
248
248
246
236
202
160
158
85
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
Repository
Cost
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
41
160
160
84
98
98
340
505
563
728
786
645
552
471
655
657
651
651
657
624
536
286
76
68
68
53
53
Total
Cost for
100,000
MTHM
Repository
321
481
537
664
758
595
546
581
532
876
952
838
697
673
746
749
652
622
540
744
888
945
1102
1140
999
902
808
944
885
876
772
712
678
590
340
131
123
123
107
107
-------
EXHIBIT A-4(CONTD)
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN GRANITE
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
Total
Net Present Value
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
35
35
35
35
30
30
30
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
12.296
8,905
Repository
Cost
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
92
151
151
121
121
61
12.813
6,783
Total
Cost for
100.000
MTHM
Repository
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
102
102
102
102
96
96
96
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
117
175
175
146
146
85
30,379
19,504
Source: DOE 90
-------
EXHIBIT A-4
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN GRANITE
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
225
337
376
465
530
416
382
406
373
613
666
587
488
442
410
412
398
367
310
283
268
267
262
248
248
246
236
202
160
158
85
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
Repository
Cost
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
41
160
160
84
98
98
340
505
563
728
786
645
552
471
655
657
651
651
657
624
536
286
76
68
68
53
53
Total
Cost for
100.000
MTHM
Repository
321
481
537
664
758
595
546
581
532
876
952
838
697
673
746
749
652
622
540
744
888
945
1102
1140
999
902
808
944
885
876
772
712
678
590
340
131
123
123
107
107
-------
EXHIBIT A-4(CONTD)
ANNUAL TOTAL-SYSTEM COSTS FOR THE SINGLE-REPOSITORY SYSTEM
WITH INTACT DISPOSAL IN GRANITE
(millions of 1990 dollars)
Year
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
Total
Net Present Value
Repository
Portion of
Development
and
Evaluation
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
38
35
35
35
35
30
30
30
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
17
12,296
8.905
Repository
Cost
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
92
151
151
121
121
61
12,813
6.783
Total
Cost for
100.000
MTHM
Repository
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
107
102
102
102
102
96
96
96
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
78
117
175
175
146
146
85
30,379
19.504
Source: DOE 90
-------
EXHIBIT A-5
LIFE CYCLE COSTS FOR TRANSURANIC WASTES
Year
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
Total
Net Present Value
Cost for a
5.6 MTHM
Repository
(1988 dollars)
6.700
11,547
29.431
31.461
24.986
16,928
38,845
110,296
121,000
67.945
13.773
35,566
115,302
127,424
106,504
1 1 1 .460
107,461
101,369
95,188
89.981
98.333
98,801
98,801
98.801
98.801
98.801
98.801
98.801
98.801
98,801
98,801
98,801
98,608
98.124
97.641
97.157
96,481
84,590
76,566
64,868
65.694
60.641
53.566
42,449
Cost for a
100.000
MTHM
Repository
(1988 dollars)
119,643
206.196
525,554
561.804
446,179
302,286
693,661
1.969,571
2,160,714
1.213,304
245,946
635.107
2.058,964
2.275.429
1,901,857
1.990.357
1.918,946
1,810,161
1 .699.786
1 ,606,804
1,755,946
1 ,764.304
1,764,304
1 .764,304
1 .764,304
1 .764,304
1,764,304
1,764,304
1,764,304
1,764,304
1,764.304
1.764.304
1 .760,857
1,752,214
1 ,743,589
1,734,946
1 .722,875
1,510,536
1,367,250
1,158,357
1,173,107
1.082.875
956,536
758,018
Cost for a
100,000
MTHM
Repository
(1990 dollars)
130,007
224,058
571 .078
610,468
484.827
328.470
753.747
2.140,179
2.347,879
1.318,402
267.251
690,121
2,237.315
2,472,530
2,066,599
2,162,765
2,085,169
1 ,966,960
1 ,847,024
1 .745,988
1 ,908,050
1.917,131
1,917,131
1,917.131
1.917.131
1.917,131
1,917,131
1,917.131
1,917,131
1.917,131
1,917,131
1.917.131
1,913.386
1.903,994
1.894,622
1,885,231
1,872.113
1,641,381
1,485,684
1 ,258,696
1,274.724
1,176,676
1 ,039.393
823,679
67.616.901
42.759.323
Source: Rogers92 for cost for 5.6 MTHM Repository in 1988 dollars.
------- |