ML12090A685
| ML12090A685 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 03/30/2012 |
| From: | Dennis M, Heames T, Osborn D, Weiner R Sandia |
| To: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| SECY RAS | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML12090A683 | List: |
| References | |
| RAS 22152, 50-247-LR, 50-286-LR, ASLBP 07-858-03-LR-BD01 | |
| Download: ML12090A685 (5) | |
Text
ECONOMIC COSTS FROM A RADIOLOGICAL TRANSPORTATION ACCIDENT Douglas M. Osborn, Ruth F. Weiner, Matthew L. Dennis, and Terence J. Heames Sandia National Laboratories: P.O. Box 5800, Mail Stop 0718, Albuquerque, NM 87185-0718 With the increased use of nuclear power and nuclear medicine, transportation of radioactive materials along highways and railways has become commonplace. In an accident involving a vehicle transporting radioactive materials, a release of radioactive materials may occur.
Following such a release, a need exists to decontaminate the affected areas and to evacuate persons. It is useful to know the post-accident costs in order to project the economic impact of a radiological transportation accident. The radiological transportation risk &
consequence program, RADTRAN, has recently added an updated economic costing model to it most recent version, RADTRAN 6.0. This paper discusses the analysis used in the RADTRAN economic model. An earlier version, RADTRAN 4.0, calculates a cost of post-accident cleanup, but the model was not scenario-specific. The paper is intended to better account for variations such as radioactive material cleanup level, type of cleanup, and land use.
I. INTRODUCTION An accidental release of radionuclides during transportation could require evacuation of the population and decontamination of the affected area. The economic model in RADTRAN 6 estimates the cost of evacuation and decontamination.
The cost of decontamination depends on the size of the release, the number of people and land area affected by the release, the activity of the released material, and the goal cleanup level. The values of these input parameters are either defined by the analyst or default values in RADTRAN using user-defined inputs. Lower limit and upper limit values and average values, based on data and observations, are provided for many user-defined variables.
The categories of parameter values are:
Building Cleanup o
Residential o
Commercial o
Industrial Road Cleanup Soil Cleanup Agricultural Damage o
Crops o
Livestock Evacuation and Emergency Post-accident costs considered are the cost of building and road cleanup, soil disposal, agricultural sequestration, and emergency evacuation, as financed by the federal government through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) loans and grants3. Political, social, and psychological costs are not included.
Buildings and roads are decontaminated by washing deposited radioactive compounds from contaminated surfaces. The contaminated water is collected on adsorption resins, which are disposed as low-level radioactive waste. It is assumed that all roads and other horizontal surfaces are contaminated. Building sides, however, are vertical and the entire vertical surface would not be contaminated. Depending on the location of the release, orientation of the building(s), and height of the building(s), different fractions of the buildings exposed surface area will be contaminated.
II. SCENARIO There has been concern since the 1970s that a spent fuel shipment could be attacked using a High Energy Density Device (HEDD). Recent studies suggest that the affected contamination area could be 10 square kilometers (3.9 square miles) or more with costs ranging from $668 million to $10 billion for cleanup costs1.
Using the assumption of 10 square kilometers for a contamination
- area, RADTRAN calculations were conducted using the default economic input values, and the following input data:
The curie content of a PWR fuel assembly from the Yucca Mountain EIS6 Table A-12 was adjusted according to the radionuclides mass fraction to account for the total mass swept out of the cask due to a HEDD attack on a truck transportation cask.
The HEDD swept mass was determined from Table 5-64 of the page 187 of the transportation health and safety calculation/analysis documentation5.
The swept mass per assembly was assumed to be the maximum, 9.6 kg.
The number of assemblies penetrated was determined from Table 5-645 to be two.
This analysis used the swept mass value 19.2 kg.
NRC000051 Submitted: March 30, 2012
Table 1 lists the chemical/physical group, activity in curies, swept mass in grams, and mass fraction for each radionuclide for the 19.2 kg swept mass. The radionuclides in Table 1 are listed in order of decreasing mass fraction. The radionuclides Se-79 and Nb-93m were not included in this analysis since they are not in the RADTRAN internal radionuclide library.
The radionuclide Ba-137m has been incorporated in the Cs-137 radionuclide in the RADTRAN radionuclide library.
TABLE 1: 19.2 kg Swept Mass Radionuclides List Nuclide Chem./Phys.
Group Activity (Ci)
Mass (g)
Mass Fraction U-238 Particulate 6.22E-03 1.85E+04 9.64E-01 U-235 Particulate 3.91E-04 1.81E+02 9.42E-03 U-236 Particulate 8.44E-03 1.30E+02 6.79E-03 Pu-239 Particulate 7.99E+00 1.29E+02 6.70E-03 Pu-240 Particulate 1.38E+01 6.04E+01 3.14E-03 Cs-137 Volatile 2.31E+03 2.65E+01 1.38E-03 Tc-99 Particulate 4.04E-01 2.38E+01 1.24E-03 Am-241 Particulate 6.66E+01 1.94E+01 1.01E-03 Zr-93 Particulate 4.35E-02 1.73E+01 9.03E-04 Pu-242 Particulate 6.66E-02 1.70E+01 8.85E-04 Pu-241 Particulate 1.73E+03 1.68E+01 8.76E-04 Np-237 Particulate 1.11E-02 1.57E+01 8.20E-04 Cs-135 Volatile 1.69E-02 1.47E+01 7.64E-04 Sr-90 Particulate 1.60E+03 1.17E+01 6.08E-04 Pu-238 Particulate 1.15E+02 6.75E+00 3.52E-04 Pd-107 Particulate 3.46E-03 6.74E+00 3.51E-04 I-129 Iodine 9.77E-04 5.52E+00 2.87E-04 U-234 Particulate 2.98E-02 4.76E+00 2.48E-04 Am-243 Particulate 8.88E-01 4.46E+00 2.32E-04 Sn-126 Particulate 1.64E-02 1.34E+00 6.96E-05 Ni-59 Particulate 8.44E-02 1.04E+00 5.43E-05 Cm-244 Particulate 7.99E+01 9.88E-01 5.15E-05 Sm-151 Particulate 1.07E+01 4.05E-01 2.11E-05 Eu-154 Particulate 6.66E+01 2.52E-01 1.31E-05 Kr-85 Gas 9.77E+01 2.49E-01 1.29E-05 Nb-94 Particulate 3.60E-02 1.91E-01 9.97E-06 Ni-63 Particulate 1.11E+01 1.88E-01 9.77E-06 Pm-147 Particulate 7.55E+01 8.14E-02 4.24E-06 Cm-245 Particulate 1.29E-02 7.49E-02 3.90E-06 Co-60 (Structure)
Crud 4.88E+01 4.32E-02 2.25E-06 Am-242m Particulate 3.20E-01 3.29E-02 1.71E-06 Cs-134 Volatile 3.20E+01 2.48E-02 1.29E-06 Eu-155 Particulate 9.77E+00 2.10E-02 1.09E-06 Cm-246 Particulate 4.04E-03 1.32E-02 6.86E-07 Cm-243 Particulate 5.77E-01 1.12E-02 5.83E-07 Cl-36 Volatile 2.80E-04 8.48E-03 4.42E-07 Sb-125 Particulate 5.33E+00 5.17E-03 2.69E-07 C-14 Particulate 1.33E-02 2.99E-03 1.56E-07 Y-90 Particulate 1.60E+03 2.93E-03 1.53E-07 Cd-113m Particulate 5.33E-01 2.29E-03 1.19E-07 H-3 Gas 8.88E+00 9.25E-04 4.82E-08 Fe-55 Particulate 1.78E+00 7.37E-04 3.84E-08 Co-60 (Crud)
Crud 3.91E-01 3.46E-04 1.80E-08 Th-230 Particulate 4.40E-06 2.18E-04 1.13E-08 U-233 Particulate 1.42E-06 1.47E-04 7.65E-09 Ru-106 Volatile 4.88E-01 1.46E-04 7.59E-09 Cm-242 Particulate 2.62E-01 7.92E-05 4.12E-09 U-232 Particulate 1.07E-03 4.98E-05 2.59E-09 Pa-231 Particulate 1.47E-06 3.10E-05 1.62E-09 Ac-227 Particulate 5.77E-07 7.98E-09 4.16E-13 For this analysis, it is assumed that all the Co-60 released will behave as one chemical/physical group, Crud, although most of the Co-60 mass is structural material. It is further assumed that the radionuclides in the chemical/physical groups Volatile, Gas, and Iodine will either have no deposition velocity (Gas) or such a small deposition velocity that they will not be included in the cleanup costs since they will be below the minimum cleanup levels. Thus the only radionuclides analyzed are those in the chemical/physical groups for Crud and Particulate.
The default value for cleanup level2 (0.2 Ci/m2) was kept constant for all radionuclides analyzed. To better understand this cleanup level, a beta/gamma or alpha contamination field instrument would determine this contamination level to be 4,400 dpm/100cm2.
Deposition velocities were determined using the following equation:
18 2
gd Vd =
(1)
Where:
Vd = deposition velocity (cm/s) g = gravity (cm/s2) d = aerodynamic particle diameter (cm)
= density (g/cm3)
= dynamic viscosity for 25 oC dry air (g/cm-s)
It was assumed that the mean aerodynamic particle diametera is 13.5 m. It was also assumed that all radionuclides in the chemical/physical group Particulate had the same density as uranium dioxide (10.96 g/cm3).
This results in a deposition velocity of 4.91 cm/s for the Chemical/Physical group Crud and a deposition velocity of 6.10 cm/s for the Chemical/Physical group Particulate.
a The mean aerodynamic particle diameter is the diameter that the particle would have if it were a sphere of density 1 gm/cm3.
The analysis determined the economic cleanup costs for three population zones: Rural, Suburban, and Urban.
The population densities within each of these zones were assumed to be the national averages as cited in the RadCat 2.3 User guide7:
Rural - 6 persons/km2 Suburban - 720 persons/km2 Urban - 3800 persons/km2 It is assumed that the entire swept volume is released, aerosolized, and respirable. The RADTRAN calculations were conducted for a ground level release using RADTRANs National Weather Average. This release provided a contamination area of 10.3 km2 in which the contamination level is greater than the cleanup level.
II.A. Economic Input Defaults The RADTRAN economic input defaults4 are provided in Table 2. The defaults were determined through experimentation, modeling, data analysis, and conservative estimates. These inputs can be varied by the RADTRAN user.
TABLE 2: Economic Model Input Default Values Description Average Value Units Footprint of commercial buildings 337 m2 Footprint of industrial buildings 6620 m2 Footprint of residential buildings 118 m2 Area of commercial lots 930 m2 Area of industrial lots 9700 m2 Area of residential lots 223 m2 External dose rate per drum of resin 5.0 mrem/hour External dose rate for 1 Ci of Co-60 in a drum 269.7 mrem/hour Annual crop profit 0.01303
$/m2 Cost of washing contaminated area 32.29
$/m2 Rural evacuation cost 7.88
$/person-km2 Suburban evacuation cost 13.61
$/person-km2 Urban evacuation cost 13.61
$/person-km2 Rural commercial land use fraction 0.01 Suburban commercial land use fraction 0.14 Urban commercial land use fraction 0.37 Rural industrial land use fraction 0.01 Suburban industrial land use fraction 0.09 Urban industrial land use fraction 0.11 Rural residential land use fraction 0.03 Suburban residential land use fraction 0.28 Urban residential land use fraction 0.24 Rural soil land use fraction 0.95 Suburban soil land use fraction 0.41 Urban soil land use fraction 0.09 Fraction of building surfaces contaminated 0.449 Rural soil land use fraction for crops 0.2 Rural soil land use fraction for livestock 0.28 Average commercial building outside height 16.40 m
Average industrial building outside height 6.05 m
Average residential building outside height 5.32 m
Rural road density 5.97E-04 m of road/m2 of land Suburban road density 8.11E-04 m of road/m2 of land urban road density 8.06E-02 m of road/m2 of land Resin density 1.28 g/cm3 Road width 8.84 m
Cost of soil removal 10
$/m3 Contaminated soil depth 0.03 m
Bi-annual profit from livestock 0.02499
$/m2 Volume of waste container 0.2167 m3 III. RESULTS The results for the scenario combined the following economic cleanup costs to calculate the total cost of cleanup:
The cost of decontaminating all buildings, roads and parking lots using a liquid wash down method and passing the liquid through resin columns to remove all contaminates.
The cost of resin disposal as Class-A waste.
The cost of agricultural and residential soil removal as Class-A waste.
The cost of crop and livestock sequestering for rural areas only.
The cost of evacuation for the affected population.
The RADTRAN results produced contamination levels greater than cleanup level out to about 11.1 km downwind of the event for a contaminated area a little larger than 10.3 km2 and thus comparable to the assumed 10 km2 contaminated area cited in Reference 1. Table 3 provides the total cost of cleanup for the swept mass for all three population areas.
TABLE 3: Economic Cleanup Cost Results (in millions of dollars)
Costs Rural Suburban Urban Resin Cost
$22.5
$219.5
$751.9 Decon Wash Down Cost
$15.7
$153.5
$526.7 Soil Removal Cost
$1.6
$1.7
$0.28 Crop/Livestock Cost
$0.094
$0.00
$0.00 Evacuation Cost
$0.002
$0.40
$2.1 Total Cost
$39.9
$375.1
$1,281.0 A second iteration of the RADTRAN Economic Model was conducted to try to determine the amount of swept material that would be needed to produce about $10 billion in clean up for an urban area. With the same assumptions listed in this paper, it would take about 160 kg (about 1/3 of a PWR fuel assembly) of swept material to produce a total cleanup cost of about $9.2 billion. With such a large amount of material released, the cleanup area was determined to be about 55.2 km2 with a downwind distance of ~21.3 km for a contamination area greater than the cleanup level.
III.A. Results for Elevated Releases The preceding RADTRAN simulations used a ground level release with National Weather Average Weather dilution factors. User-defined weather conditions allow analysis of an elevated release as well as a ground level release. The material reaching the ground from an elevated release is more dilute, but the area covered is larger, so elevated releases were also investigated. For comparison, User-Defined weather conditions simulating National Weather Average conditions as nearly as possible were investigated, as well as an elevated release.
The User-Defined weather inputs required to produce the ground level release results in Table 4 are the following:
Release Height = 1.5 m Heat Released = 0.0 cal/s Source Radius = 1.5 m Source Length = 3.0 m Wind Speed = 1.0 m/s Anemometer Height = 10.0 m Ambient Temperature = 298.0 K Atmospheric Mixing Height = 5,000 m Rain Fall Rate = 0.0 mm/s Dispersion Model - Pasquill Stability Class - D Release Location - Rural The rural release location was selected because it adds conservatism in the atmospheric modeling.
Table 4 provides the cleanup results and the contamination area greater than the cleanup level for a 19.2 kg swept mass release for the National Weather Average dilution factors and ground level User-Defined dilution factors.
TABLE 4: National Weather Average vs. User-Defined National Average Weather Results National Weather Average Rural Suburban Urban Total Cost
($106)
$39.9
$375.1
$1,281.0 Cleanup Area 10.3 km2 10.3 km2 10.3 km2 User-Defined Rural Suburban Urban Total Cost
($106)
$33.9
$317.6
$1,084.2 Cleanup Area 9.5 km2 9.5 km2 9.5 km2 Table 4 shows that the cleanup cost differences for the National Weather Average compared to the User-Defined inputs between population zones range from 8% in suburban areas to 7% in rural areas when adjusted for the difference in cleanup area.
Table 5 provides the RADTRAN economic cleanup costs with the same User-Defined weather but with physical release heights of 10.0 and 50.0 meters. The assumed physical release heights also include the thermal buoyancy that would be expected from an HEDD attack on a truck cask.
TABLE 5: Economic Cleanup Cost Results for an Elevated Release (in millions of dollars) 10 meter release height Rural Suburban Urban Resin Cost
$24.1
$235.2
$806.7 Decon Wash Down Cost
$29.1
$283.7
$973.4 Soil Removal Cost
$2.9
$3.1
$0.51 Crop/Livestock Cost
$0.17
$0.00
$0.00 Evacuation Cost
$0.003
$0.53
$2.8 Total Cost
$56.3
$522.5
$1,783.4 50 meter release height Rural Suburban Urban Resin Cost
$24.5
$238.9
$819.2 Decon Wash Down Cost
$103.1
$1,005.9
$3,451.2 Soil Removal Cost
$10.3
$11.0
$1.8 Crop/Livestock Cost
$0.62
$0.00
$0.00 Evacuation Cost
$0.03
$6.6
$35.1 Total Cost
$138.6
$1,262.4
$4,307.3 A comparison of Table 4 and 5 shows that the elevated releases cause the cleanup costs to increase and in the case of the 50 meter release height, markedly, because higher releases result in larger contaminated areas. A 19.0 km2 contaminated area with a downwind release of 12.3 km was calculated for the 10 meter release height. A 67.5 km2 contaminated area with a downwind release of 23.9 km was calculated for the 50 meter release height.
The increased cleanup area accounts for the increased costs for all the population zones.
IV. CONCLUSIONS Contamination from an elevated release is more widespread than that from a ground level release. Since the area to be decontaminated is the most important factor in the cleanup cost calculation, the highest release height in an urban area studied, 50 meters, results in a cost of
$4.31 billion. Cleanup costs depend on a number of factors in addition to meteorology including whether the contaminating event is in an urban, suburban, or rural area, the amount of material released, height of the release, the particular radionuclides being dispersed, and the activity of those radionuclides. The RADTRAN default input variables are also an integral part of such a calculation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to acknowledge the management support of Ken B. Sorenson and Jeffrey J.
Danneels, as well as the management support of the Offices of Environmental Management and Civilian Radioactive Waste Management of the U. S. Department of Energy.
REFERENCES
- 1. Ballard, J.D., R.J., Halstead, F., Dilger, and H.,
Collins, 2007, Yucca Mountain Transportation Security Issues: Overview and Update, Waste Management Conference Paper, February 25 - March 1, 2007, Tucson, AZ.
- 2. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), 1977, Proposed Guidance on Dose Limits for Persons Exposed to Transuranic Elements in the General Environment, EPA-520/4-77-016, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC.
- 3. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 7 March 2003, Storms 10th Anniversary Recalls Nearly $110 Million in Federal/State Disaster Assistance:
County-by-County Disaster Aid Breakdown, release number RIV-03-29.
- 4. Osborn, D.M., et al., 2007, An Economic Model for RADTRAN, SAND2007-7120, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM.
- 5. U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE),
- 2001, Calculation/Analysis
- Document, Transportation Health and Safety Calculation/Analysis Documentation in Support of the Final EIS for the Yucca Mountain Repository, CAL-HSS-ND-0000003, DOE/FEIS-0150, DOE, Washington D.C.
- 6. U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 2002, "Final Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada," DOE/EIS-0250F,
- DOE, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Washington D. C.
- 7. Weiner, R.F., et al., 2006, RadCat 2.3 User Guide, SAND2006-6315, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM.