§191.13. Containment requirements. — Inbound Citations

To provide the confidence needed for long-term compliance with the requirements of § 191.13, disposal of spent nuclear fuel or high-level or transuranic wastes shall be conducted in accordance with the following provisions, except that these provisions do not apply to facilities regulated by the Commission (see 10 CFR Part 60 for comparable provisions applicable to facilities regulated by the Commission):

(a) Unless otherwise specified in this part or in the disposal regulations, performance assessments and compliance assessments conducted pursuant the provisions of this part to demonstrate compliance with § 191.13, § 191.15 and part 191, subpart C shall assume that characteristics of the future remain what they are at the time the compliance application is prepared, provided that such characteristics are not related to hydrogeologic, geologic or climatic conditions.

(f) Any compliance application shall provide information which demonstrates that there is at least a 95 percent level of statistical confidence that the mean of the population of CCDFs meets the containment requirements of § 191.13 of this chapter.

(A) The containment requirements established pursuant to § 191.13 of this chapter have been or are expected to be exceeded;

Any compliance application shall include information that demonstrates that the favorable characteristics of the disposal system compensate for the presence of resources in the vicinity of the disposal system and the likelihood of the disposal system being disturbed as a result of the presence of those resources. If performance assessments predict that the disposal system meets the containment requirements of § 191.13 of this chapter, then the Agency will assume that the requirements of this section and § 191.14(e) of this chapter have been fulfilled.

(b) Performance assessments need not provide complete assurance that the requirements of § 191.13(a) will be met. Because of the long time period involved and the nature of the events and processes of interest, there will inevitably be substantial uncertainties in projecting disposal system performance. Proof of the future performance of a disposal system is not to be had in the ordinary sense of the word in situations that deal with much shorter time frames. Instead, what is required is a reasonable expectation, on the basis of the record before the implementing agency, that compliance with § 191.13 (a) will be achieved.