Hazards of Buried Radioactive Wastes from Electricity Generation

We consider the risk of high level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, once buried in the ground, being released by ground water intrusion and eventually being ingested by a human to cause cancer. A probabilistic risk analysis is given for an average United States burial site—it seems reasonable to assume that a particular carefully selected site would be at least as secure. If the effects are summed indefinitely into the future, the result is $0.02\text{deaths}\text{per}\text{gigawatt}\text{electric}\text{year}(\mathrm{GWe}$-y). It is shown that this is thousands of times less than the deaths per GWe-y now being caused by coal burning electricity generation. Compelling arguments are given that only effects over the next $\mathrm{1,000}\text{years}$ should be considered, and these are very much smaller. A probabilistic risk analysis is given for an average low level waste burial site, adding up effects indefinitely into the future; the result is $0.0005\text{deaths}\text{per}\mathrm{GWe-y}$. The reasons why the public perceives the dangers from radioactive waste to be so much greater than indicated by these analyses are enumerated, and simple countering responses are suggested.