Radiation protection criteria for cases of probabilistic disruptive events

The individual risk limitation for the case of probabilistic disruptive events is studied, when the radiation effects cease to be only stochastic; the proposed criterion is applied for the case of high level waste repositories. The protection's optimization results from the differential cost-benefit. More general procedures of decision theory that use probabilistically defined utility functions are considered for its calculation. These more general procedures can be applied also in cases where radiation exposures are only potential, to optimize the required level of safety features. It is shown that for disruptive events of low probability and large resulting consequences, the concept of 'expectation' of consequence can not be used in decision making, but that the use of probabilistically based utility functions can conceptually assure a consistent approach in deciding the required level of safety. The use of utility functions of logaritmic form to assign weights to consequences involving different loss of life is explored (M.E.L.)