Decision Analysis for the Evaluation of Risk in Nuclear Waste Management

The implementation of a nuclear waste management technology raises several issues concerning the regulation of social risk. The most basic of those issues are how to regulate a technology when the uncertainties in social consequences are important, and how to incorporate the relevant social values in the regulations. This paper presents a decision analytic approach to resolving these issues, based on the development of radiological risk evaluation indices. While it is essentially a case study, describing work carried out for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, this case is used to discuss the more general issues involved.We begin by discussing the need for risk evaluation to provide a clear and defensible basis for regulating technologies involving social risk. We then present a development of risk evaluation indices for the regulation of nuclear waste management. The indices developed are expected utilities, based on preferences elicited from groups of people. The use of the indices developed is illustrated in a hypothetical example, and the usefulness of the methodology evaluated.