LOW LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE -HIGH TECH SOLUTION?

摘要

The first low level radioactive waste disposal site in the USA was established in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 1944. It was a surface facility with the characteristics of a municipal waste dump: it had no lining, no solidification and no engineered cover. The location, although convenient, was one of many later characterized as not "geologically suited for disposal of any manner of radioactive wastes other than very dilute, very low level liquids, with the probable exception of grout injection into fractured shale at Oak Ridge". Now we have moved to total immobilization in highly engineered waste packages and burial in deep geologic formations with performance assessments out to 10 000 years using fuzzy logic. We have moved from location of sites for convenience to nationwide searches for the least objectionable sites that meet extensive and stringent technical standards. We have moved from siting with no public and little technical participation to a point where public acceptance may be the most important consideration in establishing a LLW disposal site. Potential sites have been abandoned because of public opposition. Trust, risk and justice have become more important than the technical details of the facility or the calculated dose arising from its existence. The IAEA considers the management of L/ILW 'proven' and 'matured'. The objective then should be to regain public trust by fulfilling the requirements outlined by English: gaining acceptance of the authority embodied in the process and trust in the competence of those in charge, and achieving congruent evaluations of risk and of what constitutes justice. One way to do this is to expand the role of the public in all phases of risk assessments. Another is to provide such technologically and environmentally superior facilities and sites that technical doubts will not be a factor in the decision.