Uniteo States Office of EPA 520/1-85-027
Environmental Protection Radiation Programs August 1985
Agency Washington, D.C. 20460
Radiation '
Final Regulatory Impact
Analysis
40 CFR Part 191
Environmental Standards for
the Management and
Disposal of Spent Nuclear
Fuel
High-Level and Transuranic
Radioactive Wastes
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EPA 520/1-85-027
FINAL
REGULATORY IMPACT ANALYSIS
40 CFR PART 191
ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS
FOR THE
MANAGEMENT AND DISPOSAL
OF
SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL, HIGH-LEVEL AND
TRANSURANIC RADIOACTIVE WASTES
AUGUST 1985
U. S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Office of Radiation Programs
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction and Summary 1-1
1.1 Analytical Framework 1-2
1.2 Containment Requirements 1-3
1.3 Individual and Ground Water Protection Requirements 1-6
1.4 Summary 1-9
Chapter 2: Regulatory Goals and Benefits 2-1
Chapter 3: Costs of Waste Disposal 3-1
3.1 Storage 3-4
3.2 Transportation 3-4
3.3 Encapsulation (Canister) 3-4
3.4 Waste Form 3-6
3.5 Repository Construction and Operation 3-6
3.6 Research and Development 3-10
3.7 Government Overhead and Decommissioning 3-10
Chapter 4: Different Levels of Protection for
the Containment Requirements 4-1
4.1 Long-Term Performance Assessments 4-1
4.2 Benefits of Different Levels of Protection 4-4
4.3 Engineered Control Costs and the Level of Protection 4-6
4.4 Economic Impacts of Different Levels of Protection 4-6
Chapter 5: Duration of the Individual and
Ground Water Protection Requirements 5-1
5.1 Long-Term Performance Assessments 5-1
5.2 Engineered Controls and Individual Protection 5-3
5.3 Engineered Control Costs and the
Duration of Individual Protection 5-3
References R-l
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Title
1-1 Waste disposal costs as a function of 1-4
various levels of protection assuming
non-compliance with 10 CFR 60
1-2 Waste disposal costs as a function of 1-5
various levels of protection assuming
compliance with 10 CFR 60
1-3 Waste disposal costs as a function of 1-7
the duration of the individual dose
standards assuming non-compliance
with 10 CFR 60
1-4 Waste disposal costs as a function of 1-8
the duration of the individual dose
standards assuming compliance with
10 CFR 60
4-1 Health effects as a function of waste form 4-3
leach rate
4-2 Relative incidence of residual risk for 4-5
model repositories
4-3 Relative incidence of increases in 4-7
residual risk up to 1,000 health effects
5-1 Individual doses from ground water use 5-2
at two kilometers
5-2 Annual individual dose from drinking ground 5-4
water as a function of canister lifetime
and waste form leach rate
11
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LIST OF TABLES
Table Title
3-1 Total costs of waste management 3-2
3-2 Total costs of waste disposal 3-3
3-3 Performance categories and assumed costs 3-5
for waste canisters
3-4 Performance categories and assumed costs 3-7
for waste forms
3-5 Cost information on waste forms 3-8
3-6 Repository construction costs 3-9
4-1 Engineered controls associated with 4-8
different levels of protection
4-2 Waste disposal costs associated with 4-9
different levels of protection
assuming non-compliance with 10 CFR 60
4-3 Waste disposal costs associated with 4-10
different levels of protection
assuming compliance with 10 CFR 60
4-4 Relationship of economic impacts to 4-12
increases in waste management and
disposal costs
5-1 Engineered controls associated with 5-6
different durations of individual and
ground water protection requirements
5-2 Waste disposal costs associated with 5-7
different durations of individual and
ground water protection requirements
assuming non-compliance with 10 CFR 60
5-3 Waste disposal costs associated with 5-8
different durations of individual and
ground water protection requirements
assuming compliance with 10 CFR 60
111
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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
This Final Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) addresses the requirements
of Section 2 of Executive Order No. 12291. It reviews the projected costs
associated with management and disposal of the high-level radioactive wastes
(or spent nuclear fuel) generated by nuclear power plants. It then evaluates
the potential effects on the program for mined geologic repositories, as
called for by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), of the Agency's
final environmental standards for disposal of these wastes. These standards
are located in Part 191 of Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations
(40 CFR 191). This Final RIA is based on the Draft RIA (EPA 82) that was
published with the version of these standards proposed for public review and
comment on December 29, 1982 (47 FR 58196). The Final RIA reflects changes in
the standards made after considering the comments received, and it also takes
into account several recommendations made by the subcommittee of the Agency's
Science Advisory Board (SAB) that reviewed the technical basis of the proposed
rule (SAB 84).
The situation regarding the disposal of high-level wastes is unusual from
a regulatory standpoint. In most cases, a regulation addresses an ongoing
activity. Any modifications that the regulation causes in the conduct of that
activity may be considered to be costs that should be outweighed by the
corresponding regulatory benefits. For high-level waste disposal, however,
the Executive branch has long assumed—and the Congress has now mandated—that
the appropriate environmental regulations must be developed well before the
activity to be regulated can even begin. Thus, the typical perspectives about
balancing regulatory costs and benefits do not apply. There is no ongoing
"baseline" program to consider.
Instead, this Final RIA uses the current and planned programs of the
Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to
provide a framework for investigating the potential regulatory impacts of
these environmental standards. The RIA evaluates how the costs of high-level
waste disposal might change: (1) due to alternative stringency levels for the
numerical containment requirements of the disposal standards, and (2) due to
alternative levels and durations for the individual and ground water
protection portions of the disposal standards. This evaluation uses
information about potential disposal sites that DOE has1already collected
through its site evaluation programs, and the evaluation reflects several
provisions of the technical criteria that the NRC has already promulgated for
geologic disposal of high-level wastes (10 CFR 60).
Like most environmental regulations, the benefits of these standards can
be discussed in terms of damages to public health and the environment that are
avoided (or allowed) at various levels of stringency. While the analyses
described in this RIA associate potential health impacts (in terms of
premature fatal cancers and serious genetic effects) with different levels of
the disposal standards, assessing the benefits of these standards in such
terms may be misleading because of the very long time frames considered.
1-1
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Calculations of the residual risks allowed by the standards are not reliable
as absolute values, since projections of population distributions, life
styles, and human behavior over 10,000 years can only be based on conjecture.
Instead, these calculations are valuable only for understanding the relative
residual risks from different sources of radiation exposure (such as risks
from different disposal designs or risks from natural uranium ore bodies).
However, the most important benefit of these standards does not depend
upon the absolute validity of these quantitative calculations. Instead, this
benefit consists of the general confidence these standards provide that
management and disposal of these wastes will be accomplished with exceptional
protection of the environment and with residual risks that are clearly very
small. This confidence should, in turn, facilitate the national program to
evaluate, select, and construct acceptable disposal methods that will reduce
the risks and costs of indefinite storage of the materials covered by these
standards. It may be argued that a further benefit would be the resolution of
a key issue that might lead to expanded commercial use of nuclear power. This
would be a benefit if nuclear power has advantages, economic and otherwise,
compared to alternative methods of generating electricity; however, this RIA
does not analyze the comparative benefits of nuclear power.
1.1 Analytical Framework
To investigate the potential effects of the standards on the costs of
waste disposal, the Agency assembled analytical models of three of the
disposal sites being considered by the Department of Energy: the site in
basalt flows on the Hanford reservation in Washington and two sites in bedded
salt formations, one in the Palo Duro Basin in Texas and the other in the
Paradox formation in Utah. These models evolved from much more generic models
that were used for the development of the proposed standards. Although the
Agency has not assembled models for all of the nine sites that the Department
is now evaluating in accordance with the site selection process established by
the NWPA, the three sites considered appear representative of the range of
performance that might be expected from any of the sites. The two models for
bedded salt sites should represent the performance of any of the seven sites
in salt formations, within the accuracy of these analyses. Other analyses
reported in the Background Information Document (EPA 85) for this rule
indicate that performance of the unsaturated tuff site in Nevada also appears
to be similar to that of the bedded salt models.
Furthermore, the Agency considered the effects of the engineered barriers
that are to be used in building disposal systems for high-level wastes. The
NRC has required that waste packages contain the wastes for 300 to 1,000 years
after disposal and that the release rate after that time be no more than one
part in 100,000 for important radionuclides (10 CFR 60). These requirements
are used as a baseline for the analyses in this RIA, although the effects of
alternative assumptions for package lifetimes and waste form release rates are
also examined.
1-2
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1.2 Containment Requirements
The containment requirements in the disposal standards consist of limits
on projected releases of radioactivity from a disposal system for 10,000 years
after disposal of the wastes. To evaluate the risks associated with these
release limits, generalized environmental pathway models were developed to
assess the potential health risks of such releases (SM 85). For the
containment requirements in the final rule, the residual risks projected by
these models would be less than 1,000 deaths from cancer over the 10,000-year
period, an average of one premature cancer death every 10 years. This is the
same residual risk that was associated with the proposed rule. To judge the
effects on disposal costs of changing this level of protection, the Agency
also considered containment requirements with residual risk values of 100 and
10,000 premature cancer deaths over the 10,000-year period. This range of
residual risks was chosen because it corresponds to the range of performance
expected of mined geologic repositories.
Two types of effects were investigated. First, long-term performance
assessments were used to evaluate the quality of engineered controls that
would be needed in each of the three model repositories to meet each of the
three different levels of protection. Assessing the costs of engineered
controls of different quality was difficult, however, because development of
specific technologies (canisters, waste forms, etc.) has not yet progressed
far enough to clearly associate the costs of manufacturing these engineered
barriers with their performance levels. Thus, rather tentative judgments had
to be made to associate engineered barrier costs with alternative stringency
levels.
Second, potential effects of the level of protection on the costs of
demonstrating compliance with the standards were considered. Reliable
perspectives on such costs cannot be developed until the national program has
proceeded to characterize potential sites and the implementing agencies have
had an opportunity to consider compliance with the types of data collected at
such sites. Accordingly, this RIA can only speculate on the effects of the
standards on such costs. To carry out this analysis, it has been assumed that
the costs of research and development at a site could be increased by
50 percent when the projected performance of the disposal system is less than
an order of magnitude below the residual risks allowed by the standards.
Thus, for the risk level of 1,000 cancer deaths over 10,000 years, it is
assumed that research and development costs increase when a disposal system
(site characteristics plus engineered barriers) projects risk levels above 100
cancer deaths over 10,000 years.
Figures 1-1 and 1-2 display the results of these analyses for the
basalt and bedded salt model sites considered. These figures show the
results with and without the assumption that the engineered barrier
requirements in 10 CFR 60 are met. These analyses demonstrate that the costs
of disposal are not very sensitive to different levels of protection. In
fact, if it is assumed that the requirements of 10 CFR 60 are met, there are
no additional costs for any of the model sites to meet the level of
protection called for by the containment requirements—compared with a level
of protection ten times less stringent. If the requirements of 10 CFR 60 are
1-3
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30CH
200-
I
100-
Salt Repositories
100 1,000 10,000
Basalt Repository
100
1,000 10,000
Health effects over 10,000 years
Figure 1-1. Waste disposal costs as a function of various levels of protection
assuming non-compliance with 10 CFR 60
1-4
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300-1
SaH Repositories
£ 200-
o>
100-
100
1,000 10,000
Basalt Repository
100
1,000 10,000
Health effects over 10,000 years
Figure 1 -2. Waste disposal costs as a function of various levels of protection
assuming compliance with 10 CFR 60
1-5
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not considered, there still appear to be no additional costs to meet_the
chosen level of protection at the bedded salt sites. However, additional
costs for engineered barriers would be projected for the basalt site at a
residual risk level of 1,000 deaths over 10,000 years, compared to a level of
10,000 deaths. These additional costs would be about 6 to 12 million (1984)
dollars per year. For comparison, the total costs of high-level waste
disposal (independent of this action) are estimated to be between 400 million
and 700 million (1984) dollars per year. Electrical utility revenues were
about 150 billion dollars in 1984, of which about 20 billion dollars were
generated by sales of electricity generated by nuclear power plants (DOE 85).
1.3 Individual and Ground Water Protection Requirements
These sections of the final rule, which were added in response to
comments received on the proposed standards, limit both concentrations of
radionuclides in certain ground waters and exposures of individuals for 1,000
years after disposal. Unlike the containment requirements, which apply to a
wide range of unlikely or unplanned releases, these provisions apply only to
undisturbed performance of the disposal system. The three models of geologic
repositories used to evaluate the containment requirements were also used to
assess the effects of setting these standards at different levels and for
different periods of time. As described in Chapter 5, there appear to be
virtually no practical effects due to varying the level of protection afforded
by these requirements over a reasonable range of protection and- considering
the expected range of engineered barrier performance. However, there can be
significant effects associated with different durations of these requirements.
These impacts were investigated by comparing individual and ground water
protection requirements established over durations of 100, 1,000, and 10,000
years.
Figures 1-3 and 1-4 illustrate the results of these analyses in terms of
potential cost impacts of different durations of the individual and ground
water protection requirements. Because engineered barrier performance appears
to be the most sensitive variable in determining compliance with these
provisions, only the costs of different qualities of waste packages and waste
forms were considered. From this perspective, there are significant
differences in the performance of the different types of geologic media.
Because the natural characteristics of the salt sites appear to prevent any
release of radioactivity due to normal ground water flow for tens of thousands
of years, there appear to be no cost effects associated with setting these
individual and ground water protection requirements at any point within the
range of durations considered. However, for the basalt site, there can be
major impacts. If compliance with 10 CFR 60 is assumed (particularly with a
1,000-year waste package lifetime), there do not appear to be differences in
cost between durations of 100 and 1,000 years. However, if 10 CFR 60 is not
considered, then it may cost up to 15 million dollars per year for these
provisions to extend for 1,000 years rather than 100 years at the basalt
site. Whether or not 10 CFR 60 is considered, the impacts of extending the
ground water and individual protection requirements to 10,000 years appear to
be quite large at the basalt site. Waste packages that assured containment
for almost all of the 10,000-year period would be needed, and these are
estimated to add almost 100 million dollars per year to the cost of disposal.
1-6
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300n
o>
200-
1
100-
Salt Repositories
100
1,000 10,000
Basalt Repository
100
1,000 10,000
Duration of individual dose standards (years)
Figure 1 -3. Waste disposal costs as a function of the duration of the
individual dose standards assuming non-compliance with
10CFR60
1-7
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3CXH
o>
200-
I
100-
Salt Repositories
Basalt Repository
100
1,000 10,000
100
1,000 10,000
Duration of individual dose standards (years)
Figure 1 -4. Waste disposal costs as a function of the duration of the individual
dose standards assuming compliance with 10 CFR 60
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1.4 Summary
These regulatory impact analyses indicate that the various disposal
standards in the final rule should not cause any increases in disposal cost
when compared to significantly less stringent levels of protection, assuming
that the existing requirements of 10 CFR 60 are met. For geologic
repositories at the two bedded salt sites considered, there appear to be no
potential increases in costs even if the engineered barrier provisions of
10 CFR 60 are not taken into account. Only for the basalt site do potential
cost impacts appear when neglecting 10 CFR 60, and these are relatively small:
about 6 to 12 million dollars per year, a value substantially smaller than the
uncertainty in the total costs for disposal of these wastes, which range
between 400 and 700 million dollars per year.
1-9
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Chapter 2
REGULATORY GOALS AND BENEFITS
The program to develop these environmental standards was begun as part
of President Ford's Nuclear Waste Management Plan, which was announced on
October 27, 1976. President Carter formed an Interagency Review Group (IRG)
on Nuclear Waste Management in March 1978 to review existing policies. This
group recommended that EPA maintain its responsibility to set standards for
nuclear waste management and disposal and that the Agency should accelerate
its programs to do so. In making its recommendations, the IRG emphasized the
public comments it had received on a draft of its report:
"Comment from both the industrial sector and the environmental community
urged the acceleration of EPA standards particularly to instill
confidence that proper protection of the public's health and safety is
being provided. They expressed the concern that early standards are
essential to permit the waste management program to proceed
expeditiously." (IRG 79)
Shortly after these standards were proposed for public review and comment
(on December 29, 1982), the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) was signed
by President Reagan on January 7, 1983. The NWPA reiterated EPA's
responsibilities to develop these standards and called for their promulgation
by January 7, 1984. The Agency did not meet this deadline, and the Natural
Resources Defense Council and four other environmental interest groups brought
suit in February 1985 to compel compliance with the NWPA mandate. This
litigation was resolved when the Agency and the plaintiffs agreed to a consent
order requiring promulgation not later than August 15, 1985.
This brief history illustrates the general consensus that creation of
appropriate environmental standards is a necessary preliminary step in the
national program to develop and demonstrate disposal systems for spent nuclear
fuel and high-level radioactive wastes. The Agency began its program to
develop these standards by planning a series of public workshops that were
conducted in 1977 and 1978 to better understand the technical issues and
public concerns surrounding disposal of these dangerous materials. Based on
the outcome of these workshops and its subsequent studies and interactions
with the public, the Agency has formulated the following interrelated
regulatory goals that are addressed by 40 CFR 191:
(1) To ensure very good long-term isolation of these wastes from present
and future populations. Although these wastes are produced in relatively
small quantities, they are much too dangerous to disperse in the environment.
Therefore, the primary disposal standards in 40 CFR 191 are quantitative
containment requirements that limit projected releases from these disposal
systems over 10,000 years to levels that appear reasonably achievable
2-1
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through the current program and that provide ample protection of public
health and the environment. The containment requirements apply to
potential releases from expected performance of the disposal system and
to a wide range of possible disruptive events as well.
(2) To limit the potential risks caused by the uncertainties^
inherent in designing disposal systems that must keep releases very small
for such a long time. The containment requirements in 40 CFR 191 are
complemented by six qualitative assurance requirements (and by
corresponding provisions in NRC and DOE regulations) that should
compensate for these uncertainties by calling for cautious procedures and
design principles to be used for disposing of these wastes. The Agency
believes that these qualitative requirements are important for developing
the necessary confidence that the long-term containment requirements will
be met.
(3) To accomplish these objectives through limited reliance on
institutional controls. Because these wastes will remain dangerous for
so long, the national program is based upon disposal systems that should
not require long-term maintenance and surveillance by future
generations. One of the assurance requirements in 40 CFR 191 limits
reliance on any contributions from active institutional controls to no
more than 100 years after disposal. In addition, although some potential
benefits of passive institutional controls (e.g., markers, records,
regulations, and other methods of passing on knowledge about these
wastes) may be considered, the Agency has based 40 CFR 191 on the
assumption that such passive institutional controls will periodically
fail to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the disposal systems.
(4) To provide protection for future individuals in the vicinity of
disposal systems that is compatible with the previous objectives.
Although several of the assurance requirements serve to reduce the
chances that individuals will inadvertently receive significant exposures
from these disposal systems, the proposed rule did not contain any
quantitative design requirements to limit individual exposures. After
evaluating the comments received on the proposed rule, the Agency has
supplemented the containment and assurance requirements with provisions
that limit individual exposures and radionuclide concentrations in
certain ground waters for 1,000 years after disposal. These new
requirements apply to the undisturbed performance of the disposal system
and not to potential releases from unplanned disruptions.
In the simplest sense, the benefits of these standards are the
health effects and radiation exposures that might be avoided if the
standards were set at less stringent levels. Such potential benefits can
be quantified by comparing the alternative levels of protection
considered in this RIA. For example, the benefits of containment
requirements that limit long-term health effects to 1,000 premature
deaths over 10,000 years—compared to requirements that would correspond
to 10,000 deaths over 10,000 years—would be the 9,000 deaths avoided.
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However, as explained in Chapter 4, the likely benefits from the chosen level
of protection could also consider the likelihood that relaxing the standards
would not actually lead to larger health risks—since many of the mined
repositories being considered appear to keep projected risks well below 1,000
premature deaths by virtue of their inherent characteristics.
A more important benefit of this rule, although it .cannot be quantified,
should be the confidence fostered by environmental standards that require
disposal of these wastes to be accomplished with very good protection of
public health and the environment for many thousands of years. In turn, this
confidence should enable the national high-level waste disposal program to
proceed with the key steps needed to develop and demonstrate a disposal
system. In the context of the program mandated by the NWPA, these steps
involve identification, characterization, and comparison of potential geologic
repository sites. This part of the program has been delayed for many years
(dating back well before the NWPA) by a variety of non-technical problems,
including State laws that restricted or prohibited disposal of high-level
wastes. Eventually, once acceptable disposal systems have been developed and
demonstrated, the long-term costs and potential risks of indefinite storage of
these materials can be avoided.
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Chapter 3
COSTS OF WASTE DISPOSAL
There have been many studies of the costs of high-level waste management
and disposal. However, there are still substantial uncertainties because
disposal sites have not been selected, operational facilities have not been
built, and some of the technologies for engineered barriers have not been
fully developed and tested. Further, none of these technologies has been
transferred to full-scale production. Table 3-1 shows the range of costs, in
units of dollars per kilogram of heavy metal (uranium or plutonium inserted as
fuel into a commercial reactor), for the various elements of waste disposal
considered in this analysis. This framework was assembled from three major
sources (LE 80, ADL 79, and DOE 80) for the Draft RIA, and the estimates have
been updated from a number of more recent studies (WA 82, EN 82, and SC 83)
for this Final RIA. To avoid understating any relative cost impacts that the
standards might have on the total costs of disposal, the cost estimates were
generally chosen so as to minimize (rather than maximize) the range of
estimates shown for each element of the total disposal cost. Unless otherwise
stated, all costs are in 1984 dollars and have been converted from earlier-
year dollars by using inflation factors based on the Department of Commerce
Composite Construction Cost Index (BU 85).
Table 3-2 shows the same information as Table 3-1, except that the costs
are now displayed as the present value discounted at two different discount
rates: 2 percent and 10 percent. These discounted costs have been included
in response to one of the comments of the SAB panel that reviewed the
technical basis for the proposed rule. The relative effect of different types
of disposal standards will vary for different discount rates because some of
the costs potentially affected by the standards occur at different times
during the process of selecting, building, and operating the high-level waste
disposal system. To assess this variation over time, it was assumed: (1) that
the earliest costs (for research and development) began to accrue in 1982;
(2) that two repositories are constructed and begin accepting waste by 1998;
(3) that these two repositories continue accepting waste until 2027—by which
time they will have accepted all the high-level waste projected to be
generated by 2014; and (4) that these repositories are decommissioned over the
years 2028 through 2032. This time line ignores the fact that one of the two
geologic repositories called for by the NWPA should start accepting wastes a
few years before the other, and it assumes that the national program will
overcome delays that have been encountered to date and will begin disposing of
waste by the 1998 deadline set by the NWPA. However, these simplifying
assumptions should not significantly affect the conclusions drawn from this
RIA.
The following paragraphs discuss the cost estimates for each element of
the waste disposal costs, with particular attention to the four elements that
might be affected by the disposal standards. In all cases, costs are stated
in terms of dollars per kilogram of heavy metal ($/kg HM). This is a commonly
used unit of cost for waste management and disposal, and it allows comparisons
3-1
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Table 3-1
TOTAL COSTS OF WASTE MANAGEMENT (1984 DOLLARS)
Cost element^
STORAGE
TRANSPORTATION
ENCAPSULATION (Canister)
WASTE FORM
REPOSITORY CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
GOVERNMENT OVERHEAD
DECOMMISSIONING
Probable*
range
($/kg HM)
—not considered in Final RIA
24 - 33
6 - 15 **
10 - 20 **
64 -120 **
28 - 34 **
3-11
4-6
TOTAL
139 -239
*Range of costs judged to be likely for the national program (excludes
parts of the ranges shown below that probably will not be incurred).
**Cost elements which might be affected by the standards:
$/kg HM (1984 dollars)
Assumptions about canister costs:
very good
good
minimum
20 - 40
10 - 15
6-10
Assumptions about waste form costs:
very good
good
minimum
14 - 20
12 - 18
10 - 16
Assumptions about repository
construction costs:
salt
basalt
64 - 80
71 -120
Assumed variation of research and
development costs with
alternative stringency levels:
baseline = 28-34
[if risks within
factor of 10 of
standards] = 42-51
3-2
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Table 3-2
TOTAL COSTS OF WASTE DISPOSAL (1984 DOLLARS)
Undiscounted Present value*
costs discounted at
Cost element ($/kg HM) 2%/yr 10%/yr
STORAGE — not included in Final RIA —
TRANSPORTATION 24-33 13-18 1.8-2.5
ENCAPSULATION (Canister) 6 - 15** 3- 8 0.5- 1.1
WASTE FORM 10 - 20** 5-11 0.8 - 1.5
REPOSITORY CONSTRUCTION & OPERATION 64 -120** 38-72 8.4-15.8
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 28 - 34** 24-29 14.6-17.7
GOVERNMENT OVERHEAD 3-11 2-6 0.2 - 0.8
DECOMMISSIONING 4-6 2-2 0.1 - 0.1
TOTAL 139 -239 87 -146 26.4 - 39.5
* Some ranges may be affected by rounding approximations.
** Cost elements which might be affected by the standards:
$/kg HM (1984 dollars) discounted at:
2%/yr 10%/yr
Assumptions about canister costs: very good = 11-22 1.5 - 3.0
good = 10-15 0.8 - 1.1
minimum = 6-10 0.5- 0.8
Assumptions about waste form costs: very good = 8-11 1.1 - 1.5
good = 7-10 0.9 - 1.4
minimum = 5- 9 0.8- 1.2
Assumptions about repository salt = 38-48 8.4-10.6
construction costs: basalt = 43-72 9.4-15.8
Assumed variation of research and baseline = 24-29 14.6-17.7
development costs with [if risks within
alternative stringency levels: factor of 10 of
standards] = 36-43 21.9 - 26.6
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of the cost of disposing of spent fuel or different forms of high-level waste
from reprocessing plants. When used to describe disposal after reprocessing,
the unit $/kg HM does not mean that the heavy metal itself is being disposed
—since the basic objective of reprocessing spent fuel is to recover and reuse
the unfissioned uranium and plutonium. Rather, the waste resulting from the
processing of the spent fuel containing the heavy metal is.disposed of. For
each cost element, the anticipated distribution of cost over time is also
shown to support the analyses of discounted costs.
3.1 Storage
The Draft RIA included waste storage as part of the costs of waste
management and disposal. The SAB panel recommended that storage costs not be
considered because they were not affected by the disposal standards and
because their inclusion tended to reduce the relative (i.e., percentage of
total cost) effects of different types of disposal standards. The Agency
agrees with this recommendation, and the Final RIA considers only waste
disposal costs, eliminating the costs of storage from consideration.
3.2 Transportation
For an average shipping distance of 1,500 miles, including security
precautions, Engel and White (EN 82) estimate $27/kg HM for transporting spent
fuel and $23/kg HM for reprocessed solidified wastes (in 1982 dollars). These
estimates were based on a blend of rail and truck shipments. Using the larger
of these figures (since transportation of spent fuel should predominate),
correcting for inflation up to 1984, and allowing for uncertainty in these
estimates, this RIA considers transportation costs to range from $24 to
$33/kg HM. These costs are assumed to be evenly distributed over the time
period that the repositories are accepting wastes for disposal (1998-2027).
3.3 Encapsulation (Canister)
The encapsulation cost element is the first of the four that may be
affected by the disposal standards. Unlike the transportation category, the
type of canister used to contain the wastes can affect the long-term
performance of a repository. Thus, the costs of using canisters of three
different qualities were estimated. These three categories are described in
Table 3-3.
Waddell, et al. (WA 82) assume the canisters for the standard, long-lived
"Westinghouse Package" (steel clad with TiCode-12) cost $8/kg HM for spent
fuel and $6/kg HM in 1982 dollars for solidified reprocessed waste. This RIA
conservatively assumes that these canisters correspond only to the minimum
performance category shown in Table 3-3. To meet the requirements of
10 CFR 60, it is assumed that the extra materials and fabrication costs needed
to make these canisters out of stainless steel and/or titanium would bring the
total canister cost to $10 to $15/kg HM. Finally, the RIA considers the costs
of canisters that might be likely to last up to 10,000 years. The thick
copper canisters considered in the Swedish "KBS" study (KBS 78) are assumed,
with materials costs that would raise the overall canister costs to at least
$20 to $40/kg HM. Even these canisters would not be likely to last for so
long in the relatively corrosive environment of a salt repository—but, as
3-4
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Table 3-3
PERFORMANCE CATEGORIES AND ASSUMED COSTS FOR WASTE CANISTERS
Very good = canister lifetime approaches 10,000 years;
KBS-style copper canisters are assumed to be required.
Estimated engineering cost = $20-$40/kg HM.
Good = canister that would last several hundred years in salt
repositories and 1,000 years or more in hard rock
repositories—stainless steel canisters would probably be
adequate.
Estimated engineering cost = $10-$15/kg HM
[NOTE: NRC's 10 CFR Part 60 requires a waste package lifetime of 300
to 1000 years. ]
Minimum = canister that would last a few hundred years in hard rock
repositories—might only last through operational lifetime
for salt repositories; carbon steel and overpack
construction assumed.
Estimated engineering cost = $6-$10/kg HM.
3-5
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will be seen in Chapter 4, such long-lived canisters do not appear to be
needed in a salt repository under any circumstances. It must be noted that
the association of canister performance with canister material (and cost) is
based upon quite limited information (ADL 79) and includes considerable
engineering judgment. The costs of the cansiters are assumed to be incurred
evenly over the period of waste acceptance (1998-2027).
3.4 Waste Form
The physical and chemical properties of the solidified high-level waste
from reprocessing also affect the long-term performance of a repository.
However, no published studies are available that relate the waste form
behavior (in terms of resistance to releasing radioactivity) to the production
costs of different waste forms. In this respect, the costs for different
waste forms are more uncertain than the costs for canisters.
Recent Rockwell Hanford projections (SC 83) provide a figure of $15/kg HM
(1984 dollars) for a defense-waste-to-glass operation in a new plant designed
for 180-day-cooled irradiated fuel. This estimate is used as a basis for the
Good waste form described in Table 3-4, although it is possible that this type
of glass waste form will meet the 10 CFR 60 requirements (which would then
categorize it as a Very Good form in Table 3-4). An Arthur D. Little study
(ADL 79), a DOE study (DOE 80), and another comparative study (JA 81) all
conclude that the costs of different waste forms do not vary substantially
from one type to another, and the variation that is expected will generally be
less than the overall uncertainty in the cost of any specific waste form. To
allow for the potential costs of requiring better waste forms in this RIA,
Table 3-4 shows the judgments made about the costs of waste forms better and
worse than those studied by Rockwell Hanford. The data available for
consideration is summarized in Table 3-5. The $2/kg HM gaps between these
three ranges probably overestimates the differences in the costs of various
waste forms. As for the canisters, the costs of the waste form are assumed to
be incurred evenly over the period of waste acceptance (1998-2027).
3.5 Repository Construction and Operation
This is the largest single category of costs for waste disposal. The
primary uncertainties in these estimates result from the various degrees of
uncertainty concerning costs of mining in the various geologic media. The
data of Engel and White (EN 82) have been used to arrive at the ranges of
repository construction and operation costs shown in Table 3-6 in 1982
dollars. The decommissioning costs included by Engel and White have been
subtracted for Table 3-6 because these costs are considered separately in this
RIA. About one-third of the costs shown in the table are assumed to be for
capital construction occurring over the period 1993 through 2001. The rest
are operating costs occurring more or less uniformly over the operational
period from 1998 through 2027- These costs were converted to 1984 dollars for
use in Table 3-1.
3-6
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Table 3-4
PERFORMANCE CATEGORIES AND ASSUMED COSTS FOR WASTE FORMS
Very good = 10~6 - 10~5 parts per year (ppy) leach rate;
attainable if ongoing technology development programs
are successful.
Estimated engineering cost = $14 to $20/kg HM.
[NOTE: NRC's 10 CFR Part 60 requires a long-term waste form
release rate no worse than 10~^ ppy. ]
Good = about 10~^ ppy leach rate; attainable by glass
technologies already developed and by spent fuel
without any special packaging.
Estimated engineering cost = $12 to $18/kg HM.
Minimum = about 10~3 ppy leach rate; clearly attainable by
glass technologies and spent fuel, might be attainable
by very simple waste forms, such as calcines.
Estimated engineering cost = $10 to $16/kg HM.
[NOTE: Available data indicates that cost variations between
the different waste forms now being developed is only about
$2 to $4/kg HM (less than one per cent of high-level waste
disposal costs). Relative values shown above are
assignments from the range of costs shown in Table 3-5. ]
3-7
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Table 3-5
COST INFORMATION OF WASTE FORMS
Cost
Source
Comment
to $15/kg HM
(1977 dollars)
ADL 79
Range excludes a
low value of $4/kg HM
$10 to $13/kg HM
(1978 dollars)
DOE 80
$16 to $18/kg HM
(1979 dollars)
JA 81
Considered some
relatively sophisticated
metal-matrix waste forms.
$15/kg HM
(1984 dollars)
SC 83
Based on defense waste-to-
glass conversion with
180-day-cooled fuel.
3-8
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Table 3-6
REPOSITORY CONSTRUCTION COSTS (EN 82)
$/kg HM (1982 dollars) for:
Geologic media Spent fuel Reprocessed waste
Salt 65 - 77 62 - 70
Basalt 68 -115 68 - 99
(taken to be
similar to tuff)
3-9
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3.6 Research and Development
Engel and White also summarize research and development cost estimates in
their report. These include costs of site identification, site
characterization, site approval, construction authorization, a testing
facility, technological development, and related programs. Stating their
estimate on an annual basis, correcting for inflation, and allowing for
uncertainties produces a range of $28 to $34/kg HM (1984 dollars). The
incidence of these costs over time is assumed to be as follows: 53 percent
from 1982 through 1989; 42 percent from 1990 through 2000; and the remaining
five percent from 2001 through 2006. As expected, this distributes the
research and development costs towards the earlier years of the program far
more than any other cost element.
Since the Draft RIA was prepared, DOE has identified nine potential sites
for the first high-level waste repository, and the Agency's performance
assessments offer no reason to think that more or better sites need to be
identified to meet the disposal standards. Thus, the possibility that
different disposal standards could cause more or less effort to identify sites
no longer seems relevant. However, the costs of demonstrating compliance with
the standards at a particular site might be significantly increased if there
did not appear to be a substantial margin between the standards and initial
estimates of projected performance. This RIA represents such costs by
assuming that the costs of research and development are increased- by
50 percent if the Agency's performance projections for a particular disposal
system are within an order of magnitude less than the standards of interest.
(For example, for standards based on 1,000 cancer deaths over 10,000 years,
this RIA assumes the increase in R&D costs if the performance assessments
indicate more than about 100 deaths—after appropriate adjustments for
engineered controls and other mitigating factors. This increase was not
assumed, however, if there appeared to be a cheaper way to accomplish the same
margin of compliance (by making the waste form better, for example).
3.7 Federal Government Overhead and Decommissioning
Government overhead is defined as all expenses to the Federal government
that are not related to research and development and are not directly
associated with another cost element. Decommissioning costs are those
associated with final sealing of a repository, decontaminating and dismantling
surface facilities, and permanently marking the site of the repository. The
estimated costs for government overhead were developed in the Agency's
earliest economic impact study (LE 80) and, corrected for inflation, now range
from $3 to $ll/kg HM. Government overhead costs are assumed to be evenly
distributed over the operational life of the repositories (1998-2027).
Decommissioning costs were estimated to be about four or five dollars per
kg HM (1982 dollars) by Engel and White. A range of $4 to $6/kg HM has been
used in this RIA, assumed to be spent from 2024 through 2032. Neither of
these cost elements is likely to be affected by the level of stringency chosen
for the disposal standards.
3-10
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Chapter 4
DIFFERENT LEVELS OF PROTECTION FOR THE CONTAINMENT REQUIREMENTS
A number of considerations are applicable to the selection of the level
of protection provided by the containment requirements (Section 191.13) of the
disposal standards. In this Chapter, several assessments relevant to this
selection are described, including: (a) the long-term performance of different
repository designs, using various sets of engineering controls and geologic
media; (b) the relative incidence over time of the residual risks associated
with repository performance; (c) the correlations between repository
performance and cost relative to three alternative levels of protection
(100, 1000, and 10,000 excess health effects over 10,000 years); and (d) the
economic impacts of variations in the cost of high-level waste management and
disposal. Throughout this Chapter, residual risks are often referred to in
terms of excess health effects over 10,000 years. However, the reader should
recall the caveats regarding these assessments discussed in Chapter 1.
4.1 Long-Term Performance Assessments
The long-term performance of mined geologic repositories was analyzed by
considering many combinations of waste canister lifetime, waste form release
rate, geologic media, groundwater geochemistry, and geologic factors that may
vary from site to site (EPA 85). To do this, the Agency used generic models
of repository sites and designs that are representative of conditions expected
in several of the areas now being evaluated by DOE as potential sites for the
first high-level waste repository. For this Final RIA, sites in three
different areas were considered: (1) basalt flows on the Hanford reservation
in Washington; (2) bedded salt formations in the Paradox formations in Utah;
and (3) bedded salt formations in the Palo Duro basin in Texas. These
analyses are intended to provide conservatively high estimates of the risks
from repositories in these areas; more precise estimates cannot be made until
specific sites have been selected and characterized in accordance with the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act. However, the Agency believes that these analyses:
(1) indicate the relative importance of the various parts of a repository
system, and (2) provide a general understanding of the protection achievable
by different combinations of engineered and natural barriers.
These performance assessments considered the excess premature cancer
deaths (health effects) that might occur during the first 10,000 years after
disposal. Ten thousand years was used as the assessment period for two
reasons:
1. It is long enough for releases through ground water to reach the
environment. If a shorter time (such as 1000 years) had been used,
these estimates of harm could be deceptively low, because ground water
would take at least 1,000 years to reach the environment at most
sites. Choosing 10,000 years for assessment encourages selection of
sites where the geochemical properties of the rock formations can
significantly retard movement of radionuclides through ground water.
4-1
-------
2. It is short enough that the likelihood and characteristics
of geologic events that might disrupt the repository are
reasonably predictable over the period. Major geologic
changes, such as development of a faulting system or a
volcanic region, take much longer than 10,000 years.
These assessments considered only two different geologic media:
bedded salt and basalt. Of the nine sites being considered by DOE
for the first repository, seven are in salt formations (four in salt
beds and three in salt domes), one is in basalt, and one is in
unsaturated volcanic tuff. The Agency believes that the performance
projected for the two bedded-salt models considered in this RIA is
probably representative of the approximate behavior to be expected
of any of the seven salt sites. Analyses that the Agency has
recently performed for the tuff site indicate that its projected
releases should be comparable to those associated with the salt
locations.
Figure 4-1 summarizes the projections of long-term population
risks obtained by varying canister lifetimes and waste form leach
rates while holding the other factors constant for the models of
bedded salt and basalt. In evaluating these results, it should be
remembered that 10 CFR 60 requires: (1) that waste packages
(canisters) have lifetimes of at least 300 to 1,000 years and
(2) that waste forms release radioactivity no more rapidly that one
part in 100,000 per year.
Several broad conclusions can be drawn from these performance
assessments. First, the geological, hydrological, and geochemical
characteristics of a site can affect long-term population risks more
than major changes in the engineered barriers. For example, the
risks associated with using no engineered controls in one of the
bedded-salt sites are approximately the same as the risks associated
with using the NRC-required engineered barriers (which are fairly
stringent) at the much wetter basalt site. Thus, it appears that
efforts to identify a repository site with appropriate character-
istics can have greater benefits than efforts to improve engineered
controls.
Second, comparing the two types of engineered controls,
variations of waste form leach rate tend to have more effect on
long-term population risks than variations of canister lifetime.
Improvements in waste form appear to provide more benefits than
improvements in waste canisters.
Third, good engineered controls, particularly better waste
forms, can overcome relatively poor site characteristics. The
generic model of a basalt repository assumes that relatively large
amounts of ground water are available to dissolve and transport
waste. In spite of this disadvantage, our basalt model can achieve
risks well below the limits set by the disposal standards if_ the
4-2
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10,000-,
1,000-
2
o
m
o>
100-
10-
1,000 Years
i
- Existing NRC Waste Form Requirement
10-6
T
10-5
10-4
Waste form leach rate (parts per year)
10-3
Figure 4-1. Health effects as a function of waste form leach rate
4-3
-------
waste form used with basalt meets the criteria set forth by 10 CFR 60.
Finally, sites with very good geologic and hydrologic characteristics
apparently do not need any engineered controls to meet very low risk levels.
For example, the projected impacts from our bedded-salt models—which include
very little ground water—do not exceed about 100 health effects even if the
waste form dissolves very quickly and the canisters have zero lifetime
(provided that the advantageous site geochemistry and hydrology perform as
expected).
4.2 Benefits of Different Levels of Protection
In the simplest sense, the benefits of any level of protection that is
more stringent than another level are the potential deaths averted by the more
stringent requirements. (For example, the difference between setting
standards with a residual risk of 1,000 health effects over 10,000 years,
versus setting standards ten times less stringent, can be considered to be the
9,000 health effects avoided over 10,000 years.) However, the benefits of one
level of protection compared to another—with regard to the regulatory goals
identified in Chapter 2—actually involve a variety of broader societal
perspectives.
One perspective that may be considered is how the risks allowed by the
standards might occur in the future. Figure 4-2 indicates the relative
incidence of the residual risks over time from the three model repositories
considered in this RIA, assuming compliance with the engineered barrier
requirements of 10 CFR 60 (a 300-year canister lifetime was assumed for the
salt media, a 1,000-year lifetime for the basalt repository model and a waste
form release rate of 10~^ per year). All three of these models would easily
meet the release limits associated with 1,000 health effects. In fact, the
expected health effects are only about 8 for the salt models and 140 for the
basalt model. For the basalt model, very little of the residual risk occurs
in the first 1,000 years.
Each of the models was then changed in different ways to allow the risks
to rise to approximately 1,000 health effects over 10,000 years. For the
model salt repositories, we assumed that the solubilities of all radionuclides
in ground water were unlimited. For the basalt repository, we assumed poorer
quality engineered barriers than those called for by 10 CFR 60. Figure 4-3
shows the relative incidence of the increases in the residual risks that occur
in going from the results of Figure 4-2 to the larger residual risk level of
1,000 health effects over 10,000 years.
In general, there is no consistent pattern in the way the residual risks
occur for the different models. Relaxing the isolation provided by different
aspects of our model repositories results in different fluctuations in the
overall performance of the models. However, one common feature can be noted.
In each case, the relative increase in the residual risk over the first 1,000
years is small. This illustrates a major reason for the choice of 10,000
years—rather than 1,000 years—as the time period for the disposal standards.
Some of the characteristics of the models used for Figure 4-3 are considerably
4-4
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ys
c
8
£
30i
Salt Repositories
20-
Total Risk - 8 Cancers
10-
30-i
20-
10-
Basalt Repository
Total Risk ~ 120 Cancers
CM
CO O"
CM
CO O
Time after disposal (years)
Figure 4-2. Relative incidence of residual risk for model repositories
4-5
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worse than those that the Agency is confident can be relatively easily
achieved. However, comparing the residual risks over the first 1,000 years
would not indicate these deficiencies. Only by extending the analysis to a
much longer time do the long-term performance ramifications of major
differences in site characteristics become apparent.
4.3 Engineered Control Costs and the Level of Protection
Using the analyses summarized in Section 4-1, the types of engineered
barriers needed to meet different levels of protection can be assessed.
Table 4-1 shows the categories of engineered controls needed to meet the
various levels of protection considered for the salt and basalt model
repositories. The different categories of waste forms and canisters are those
discussed in Chapter 3.
The information in Table 4-1 can, in turn, be combined with the cost data
in Chapter 3 to assign a range of waste disposal costs to each level of
protection for each of the two media. This has been done in two ways:
(1) assuming compliance with 10 CFR 60, and (2) neglecting the requirements of
10 CFR 60. Thus, any effects of the disposal standards on disposal costs can
be considered independently of the NRC regulations. For example, for basalt
at 1,000 health effects and ignoring 10 CFR 60, the total costs include the
costs of a "good" waste form and a "minimum" canister; for basalt at 1,000
health effects and assuming compliance with 10 CFR 60, the costs include a
"good" waste form and a "good" canister. (The "good" canister would be
required by 10 CFR 60.) Practical requirements of handling and transportation
will always require canisters and waste forms with some durability. Thus,
whenever the performance assessments indicates that no engineering controls
would be needed, the corresponding costs always include a "minimum" waste form
and canister. Wherever only one or the other type of engineered barrier is
needed, the lower cost one is selected.
Tables 4-2 and 4-3 display the variation in waste disposal costs with
different levels of protection for both the salt and basalt models, with
Table 4-2 ignoring the requirements of 10 CFR 60 and Table 4-3 assuming
compliance. The costs of waste forms and canisters are for those indicated as
necessary by the Agency's performance assessments, for those required by
10 CFR 60, or for the "minimum" canister and waste form needed for
transportation and handling—whichever costs are the least for each
situation. Also, extra research and development costs are included whenever
the projected risks of the disposal system being studied are within about an
order of magnitude of the level of protection being evaluated. These results
indicate that waste management and disposal costs are not very sensitive to
different levels of protection, particularly for the geologic media that are
better at reducing long-term risks. The variations in cost for different
levels of protection are considerably less than the overall uncertainties in
management and disposal costs.
4.4 Economic Impacts of Different Levels of Protection
To estimate the potential economic impacts of the different costs that
may be caused by these different levels of protection, the Agency first
4-6
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i
£
20-
10-
Salt Repositories
Total Risk ~ 1,000 Cancers
^ar" 10 to o
30
20'
10-
Basalt Repository
Total Risk -1,000 Cancers
CM"
«o
Time after disposal (years)
Figure 4-3. Relative incidence of increases in residual risk
up to 1,000 health effects
4-7
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Table 4-1
ENGINEERED CONTROLS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF PROTECTION
Level of Health Effects
(over 10,000 years)
100 1,000 10,000
"Good"
waste form No engineer- No engineer-
SALT or "good" ing controls ing controls
canister needed* needed*
needed
"Very good" "Good" to
waste form "v.g." waste No engineer-
BASALT needed form needed ing controls
(better than (as req. by needed*
10 CFR 60) 10 CFR 60)
*Complete "cost savings" cannot occur since the practical
requirements of waste transportation and handling will always
involve canisters and waste forms with some durability.
4-8
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Table 4-2
WASTE DISPOSAL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF PROTECTION
[$/kg HM assuming noncompliance with the requirements of 10 CFR 60]
100
Level of Health Effects
(over 10,000 years)
1,000
10,000
SALT
BASALT
RC&O
Encap.
W.Form
Balance
TOTAL
RC&O
Encap.
W.Form
ex R&D
Balance
TOTAL
64- 80
6- 10
12- 18
59- 84
141-192
71-120
6- 10
14- 20
14- 17
59- 84
164-251
64- 80
6- 10
10- 16
59- 84
139-190
71-120
6- 10
14- 20
59- 84
150-234
64- 80
6- 10
10- 16
59- 84
139-190
71-120
6- 10
10- 16
59- 84
146-230
RC&O = repository construction and operation costs
Encap. = costs for encapsulation of waste (canisters)
W.Form = costs for preparing waste form
ex R&D = extra research and development costs because projected
performance would be close to level of standards
Balance = other costs, including transportation, basic research and
development, decommissioning costs, and government
overhead.
4-9
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Table 4-3
WASTE DISPOSAL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF PROTECTION
[$/kg HM assuming compliance with 10 CFR 60]
Level of Health Effects
(over 10,000 years)
100 1,000 10,000
SALT
BASALT
RC&O
Encap.
W.Form
Balance
TOTAL
RC&O
Encap.
W.Form
ex R&D
Balance
TOTAL
64- 80
10- 15
14- 20
59- 84
147-199
71-120
10- 15
14- 20
14- 17
59- 84
168-256
64- 80
10- 15
14- 20
59- 84
147-199
71-120
10- 15
14- 20
59- 84
154-239
64- 80
10- 15
14- 20
59- 84
147-199
71-120
10- 15
14- 20
59- 84
154-239
RC&O = repository construction and operation costs
Encap. = costs for encapsulation of waste (canisters)
W.Form = costs for preparing waste form
ex R&D = extra research and development costs because projected
performance would be close to level of standards
Balance = other costs, including transportation, basic research and
development, decommissioning costs, and government
overhead.
4-10
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evaluated the impact of a 1-dollar increase in the cost per kilogram of heavy
metal, in its GEIS (DOE 80), DOE developed a relationship between the cost of
waste management and disposal (in $/kg HM) and the increased cost of
electricity generated by nuclear reactors (in mils per kilowatt-hour); this
conversion factor is 1 mil/kwh per $233/kg HM. This is slightly larger than
the conversion factor DOE used in formulating the Carter Administration's
spent-fuel policy, which was 1 mil/kwh per $250/kg HM (DOE 78). EPA's
earliest analysis (LE 80), in turn, developed estimates of the annual increase
in costs to electricity consumers caused by various increases in waste
management changes. There it was estimated that a charge of 1 mil/kwh would
increase costs to consumers in the year 1990 by $825 million/year, assuming
that nuclear power would provide 22 percent of the nation's electricity with
an installed nuclear capacity of about 150 GWe. Similar estimates, based on
the years 1980 through 1995, indicate that the average annual increase for a
1-mil/kwh charge would be $700 million/year. Combining these figures, an
increase of $l/kg HM in management and disposal costs corresponds to an
average annual cost increase to the nation's electricity consumers of about
$3 million per year for the years 1980 through 1995.
To provide some perspective on these costs, total electric utility
revenues for 1984 were about $150 billion (DOE 84). Thus, an increase in
waste management and disposal costs of $l/kg HM would represent about a
0.002 percent increase in average electricity rates. Electricity generated by
nuclear power plants accounted for about $20 billion of utility revenues in
1984. With respect to the costs of nuclear power—estimated by DOE to be
about 35-50 mils/kwh (1981 dollars) for new plants (DOE 80)— or with respect
to these gross revenues from nuclear-generated electricity, an increase of
$l/kg HM would represent about a 0.01 percent increase in the cost of nuclear
power. These various conversion factors to relate increases in waste
management and disposal costs to economic impacts are summarized in Table 4-4.
With these conversion factors, the economic impacts of choosing different
levels of protection can now be evaluated. This assessment will focus on the
changes in costs between the level of protection chosen for the final rule
(risks less than 1000 health effects over 10,000 years) and a level of
protection ten times less stringent. As Tables 4-2 and 4-3 show, there is
only one case in which disposal costs change at all between the risk levels of
1,000 and 10,000 health effects. This occurs for the basalt model when the
existing requirements of 10 CFR 60 are ignored. In this situation, the extra
costs for an improved waste form to meet the more stringent level with
confidence are about $4/kg HM, which translates to an economic impact of about
$12 million dollars per year. This same confidence could be achieved—in the
structure of this model—by spending more money for site characterization
(extra R&D in Table 4-2); however, this would be substantially more expensive
than using a better waste form. Therefore, the step corresponding to the
lesser economic impact has been assumed. This potential economic impact can
also be expressed as an increase in average electricity rates of no more than
0.01 percent and an increase in the costs of nuclear power of less than 0.05
percent. Again, it should be emphasized that this nonzero impact appears for
only one of the nine sites that DOE is currently considering, and then only if
there is noncompliance with the NRC's existing regulations.
4-11
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Table 4-4
RELATIONSHIP OF ECONOMIC IMPACTS (1984 DOLLARS) TO
INCREASES IN WASTE MANAGEMENT AND DISPOSAL COSTS
Average annual cost increase to
electricity consumers for the $3 million/year per $l/kg HM
years 1980 through 1995
Increase in average electricity
rates 0.002 percent per $l/kg HM
Increase in nuclear power costs 0.01 percent per $l/kg HM
4-12
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Chapter 5
DURATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND GROUND WATER PROTECTION REQUIREMENTS
The models of geologic repositories in bedded salt and basalt considered
in Chapter 4 were also used to assess the effects of choosing different types
of individual and ground water protection requirements (Sections 191.15 and
191.16) for the disposal standards. Individual exposures from use of ground
water at a distance of 2 kilometers from the edge of the repository were
projected for a variety of assumptions regarding waste package lifetime and
waste form release rate (EPA 85). It turns out that varying the level of
stringency of these requirements over a reasonable range appears to have no
effect on the costs of mined repositories. However, the duration over which
these requirements are applicable can have significant impacts on the choice
of geologic media and/or engineered controls. Therefore, this Chapter
develops estimates of the changes in waste disposal costs for establishing the
individual and ground water protection requirements over 100, 1,000, or 10,000
years after disposal.
5.1 Long-Term Performance Assessments
As in Chapter 4, sites in three different areas were considered:
(1) basalt flows on the Hanford reservation in Washington; (2) bedded-salt
formations in the Paradox formations in Utah; and (3) bedded-salt formations
in the Palo Duro basin in Texas. Individual exposures from using ground water
near the repository (at a distance of 2 kilometers) were projected for the
expected ground water flow patterns at the site after the repository was built
and filled with waste. Unlike the analyses used for the containment
requirements, no events that could disrupt the repository or its geologic
setting were considered. For the basalt repository, flow through the somewhat
permeable basalt flows and the surrounding aquifers was projected, taking into
account the thermal stress and temperature effects caused by the heat from the
emplaced wastes. For the bedded-salt repositories, where no normal ground
water flow through the salt formations is expected, ground water was assumed
to flow down one of the repository shafts, along the tunnels of the mine, and
then back up another shaft down-gradient from the first. Relatively
conservative assumptions were made in a number of areas (particularly
regarding the speed and likelihood of the ground water flow pathway for the
salt repositories), which probably overestimate the amount of exposure and
underestimate the time by which such exposures may begin to appear.
Figure 5-1 displays one set of results from these analyses, showing the
occurrence of individual doses over the first 100,000 years after disposal.
For these results, compliance with the NRC's engineered barrier requirements
in 10 CFR 60 was assumed (the waste package lifetime was taken to be 1,000
years). Even with the conservative assumptions made, individual exposures do
not begin to appear for the bedded salt models until well after 10,000 years.
(The results for the Paradox Basin model are shown as a dotted line because
the aquifer considered appears to be so small that it would not qualify for
protection under Section 191.15 as a "significant source of ground water.")
Therefore, setting the duration of the requirements in Sections 191.15 and
5-1
-------
100-1
10-
ra
o>
Basatt
8. 1-
0)
DC
0.1-
0.01-
Paradox Basin
0.001-
1,000
10,000
100,000
Time after disposal (years)
Figure 5-1. Individual doses from ground water use at two kilometers
5-2
-------
191.16 at any of the three alternatives considered would not cause any changes
in the design of these bedded-salt repositories and, hence, would not have any
effect on waste disposal cost.
The situation for the basalt model is quite different. For the baseline
analysis shown in Figure 5-1, individual doses begin to appear at about 1,500
years after disposal and quickly rise to about 2 rems per year due to
migration of iodine-129 and carbon-14. They remain at this level for about
8,000 years. They then start increasing, as long-lived alpha-emitters that
move more slowly through the ground water (due to geochemical retardation)
begin to appear at the 2-kilometer point used in the analyses. That point was
chosen because it probably will be typical of the average distance that will
be established between a repository and the boundary of the controlled area).
5.2 Engineered Controls and Individual Protection
To examine the potential effects of choosing different types of
individual protection requirements, the analyses for the basalt repository
were repeated with a variety of assumptions about the canister lifetime and
the waste form release rate. These analyses are summarized in Figure 5-2.
The initial dose rate can be seen to be roughly proportional to the waste form
release rate. Thus, for a release rate of no more than one part in 1,000,000
per year, the initial dose rate would be about 200 millirems per year. Since
the Agency believes that this is still much higher than any reasonable dose
limitation (and because this is about the best waste form performance the
Agency thinks it is reasonable to project—particuarly for a spent-fuel
repository), it does not appear that choosing different waste forms has any
effect on the achievability of reasonable dose rate limitations. Similarly,
the lifetime of the canister does not appear to have a significant effect on
the dose level that can be achieved after the time that the containment
provided by the canister is lost. On the other hand, the lifetime of the
waste package clearly has a direct influence on the amount of time that any
reasonable dose limitation can be achieved. Thus, the most sensitive variable
in formulating the individual protection requirements is not the level of
these standards, but the duration over which they apply. Achieving any
reasonable level of protection depends upon the amount of time over which
waste package integrity can be assumed. Thus, the analyses in Figure 5-2
indicate that—for the basalt model—a canister lifetime of many hundreds of
years would be needed to meet a 1,000-year duration, and a canister lifetime
of almost 10,000 years would be needed to meet a 10,000-year duration. (On
the other hand, no canister at all appears necessary to meet either duration
for the salt models.)
5.3 Engineered Control Costs and the Duration of Individual Protection
The same steps used in Chapter 4 have been used in this Chapter to assess
the costs of achieving different durations of individual protection for the
two media considered. Table 5-1 indicates the different engineered controls
needed to achieve the three durations studied. Using the assumptions about
engineered control costs developed in Chapter 3, Tables 5-2 and 5-3 display
the variation in waste disposal costs with different durations for both the
salt and basalt models, with Table 5-2 ignoring the requirements of 10 CFR 60
and Table 5-3 assuming compliance.
5-3
-------
1,000-1
100-
g.
0)
1-
0.1-
0.01-
^^^
300 Years
BASALT REPOSITORY
Canister
Lifetime
1,000 Years
100
I
1,000
Time after disposal (years)
10,000
Note: There are no doses associated with bedded salt repositories within this time period
Figure 5-2. Annual individual dose from drinking ground water as a
function of canister lifetime and waste form leach rate
5-4
-------
As expected, there is no variation for the salt media, since no
engineered controls of any kind appear necessary to prevent individual
exposures from undisturbed performance for well beyond 10,000 years. However,
there are substantial cost variations for different durations associated with
the basalt model, if the requirements of Part 60 are ignored, it would cost
about $5/kg HM to achieve a 1,000-year duration rather than one of 100 years
(or about $15 million per year, using the economic impact factors described in
Chapter 4). There are no expected additional costs for a 1,000-year duration
if 10 CFR 60 is followed. To achieve a 10,000-year duration, exceptionally
good canisters would be required. No such canisters have been considered in
the U.S. program, so the costs of such canisters can only be a subject of
speculation. However, based on the probable material costs to make the copper
canisters considered in the KBS study (KBS 78), an estimate of at least $20 to
i40/kg HM for these canisters has been used. This would add at least $10 to
lj>25/kg HM to the waste disposal costs, for an annualized cost increase of $30
to $75 million per year, with a good likelihood that the extra costs would be
even greater (because of quality control considerations in producing canisters
expected to last almost 10,000 years). In summary, a cost increase of up to
$100 million per year to achieve individual protection standards near a basalt
repository appears to be a reasonable approximation.
5-5
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Table 5-1
ENGINEERED CONTROLS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT DURATIONS
OF INDIVIDUAL AND GROUND WATER PROTECTION REQUIREMENTS
Duration of Requirements
(years)
100 1,000 10,000
No engineered No engineered No engineered
SALT controls controls controls
needed* needed* needed*
Good Very good
No engineered canister canister
BASALT controls needed needed
needed* (max req. of (better than
10 CFR 60) 10 CFR 60)
*Complete cost savings cannot occur since the practical
requirements of waste transportation and handling will always
involve canisters and waste forms with some durability.
5-6
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Table 5-2
WASTE DISPOSAL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT DURATIONS
OF INDIVIDUAL AND GROUND WATER PROTECTION REQUIREMENTS
[$/kg HM assuming non-compliance with the requirements of 10 CFR 60]
100
Duration of Requirements
(years)
1,000
10,000
SALT
BASALT
RC&O
Encap.
W.Form
Balance
TOTAL
RC&O
Encap .
W.Form
Balance
TOTAL
64-80
6-10
10-16
59-84
139-190
71-120
6- 10
10- 16
59- 84
146-230
64-80
6-10
10-16
59-84
139-190
71-120
10- 15
10- 16
59- 84
150-235
64-80
6-10
10-16
59-84
139-190
71-120
20- 40
10- 16
59- 84
160-260
RC&O = repository construction and operation costs
Encap. = costs for encapsulation of waste (canisters)
W.Form = costs for preparing waste form
Balance = other costs, including transportation, basic research and
development, decommissioning costs, and government
overhead.
5-7
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Table 5-3
WASTE DISPOSAL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFERENT DURATIONS
OF INDIVIDUAL AND GROUND WATER PROTECTION REQUIREMENTS
[$/kg HM assuming compliance with 10 CFR 60]
Duration of Requirements
(years)
100 1,000 10,000
SALT
BASALT
RC&O
Encap.
W.Form
Balance
TOTAL
RC&O
Encap.
W.Form
Balance
TOTAL
64-80
10-15
14-20
59-84
147-199
71-120
10- 15
14- 20
59- 84
154-239
64-80
10-15
14-20
59-84
147-199
71-120
10- 15
14- 20
59- 84
154-239
64-80
10-15
14-20
59-84
147-199
71-120
20- 40
14- 20
59- 84
164-264
RC&O = repository construction and operation costs
Encap. = costs for encapsulation of waste (canisters)
W.Form = costs for preparing waste form
Balance = other costs, including transportation, basic research and
development, decommissioning costs, and government
overhead.
5-E
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