Update of Table S-3 Nonradiological Environmental Parameters for a Reference Light-Water Reactor: Uranium Mining, Milling, and Enrichment.

摘要

In 1974, Table S-3 of the report 'Environmental Survey of the Uranium Fuel Cycle' was published as a technical basis for consideration of the environmental effects of the uranium fuel cycle supporting operation of light-water reactors. A reference reactor cooled with light, or ordinary, water was established to reduce the burden on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff, reactor license applicants, and other interested persons by removing the necessity to relitigate the environmental effects attributable to the fuel cycle, effects that are not within an applicant's control, in every individual reactor licensing proceeding. In a 1984 evaluation of a license application, it was demonstrated that the Table S-3 estimate of annual effluent of coal particulates is larger, possibly by as much as a factor of 100, than actual current values. Partially as a result of this evaluation, the NRC initiated a study to update all of the major nonradiological values in Table S-3. The results of the study are documented in the update. The report evaluates only the mining, milling, and isotopic-enrichment components of the fuel cycle's environmental parameters since these are the areas in which the greatest changes from the original study could be anticipated.