Radiological impact of radioactive waste management

Abstract

The radiological impacts from the management of wastes from the nuclear fuel cycle have been estimated for several alternative fuel cycle strategies. The impacts are expressed as collective effective doce equivalent commitments, and therefore all qualifications attached to this quantity (section 2) should be kept in mind when evaluating the results, which are summarized in Table 9. The uncertainties qualifying the values shown in Table 9 imply that they even could not differ between themselves. Mill tailings make an important contribution, which depends on the uranium requirements for each reference fuel cycle, being the largest for once-through cycles. Disposal of high level wastes or spent fuel is also an important contribution, usually larger for once-through cycles where the entire actinide inventory is disposed off. Although at present conversion and enrichment tails are not considered wastes, they have been assumed to be wastes in the reference cycles. In this case, their relative contribution is significant, for fuel cycles using enriched uranium.