Regulatory and operating experience

Regulatory and operating experience in the disposal of radioactive waste can be divided into three time periods, World War II and its aftermath, Post World War II till the end of the cold war, and crystal ball gazing into the future. In the first period, there was little regulatory guidance and operating practices, all conducted under wartime secrecy conditions, sometimes were not even up to the norms of the times. Environmental releases resulted in some seriously contaminated sites and high dosages to some offsite populations. Failure to consider even the storage of wastes in a systems context resulted in some stocks that were difficult to recover, treat and dispose of in a final manner. In the second period, increasing civilian uses of nuclear power and isotopes for medical, research, and industrial purposes and military pressure for increased production of Pu-239 resulted in large and more dispersed disposal of radioactive wastes. Regulatory regimes, following growing environmental consciousness, came into existence that minimized exposure to environmental contamination. Practices, in most instances, increasingly conformed to these regulatory demands. The future is unknowable. However, for high level wastes, except for thermodynamically stable forms, no technology can guarantee safety and present methodologies are calculated to produce doses orders of magnitude lower than regulatory limits. Therefore, it is possible that research will be limited to no higher technology than is reasonably achievable. Whereas for low level waste, where proof is practicably possible, as high technology as is reasonably achievable will be best in the long run. (author). 24 refs, 5 figs, 3 tabs