ENVIRONMENTAL RISK ASSESSMENT FOR AN KOREAN INTERMEDIATE AND LOW- LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE VITRIFICATION FACILITY

Vitrification is emerging as one of the most promising options for treatment of intermediate and low level radioactive wastes due to high volume reduction, and its excellent characteristics of final waste form. The technology even considered being economically competitive nowadays when we compare with treatment cost of other volume reduction technology. Korea Electric Power Research Institute(KEPRI) has been developing a vitrification process, which combines both a Cold Crucible Induction Melter and a Plasma Torch System. The former is designed to destruct organic combustible wastes and incorporate contained metal oxides into the glass whereas the latter is devised to melt non-combustible wastes at high temperature with production of high leach-resistant slag. During normal operation and accident conditions, small amounts of radionuclides and toxic gases can be released to the environment. Therefore, it is required to assess environmental risk resulting from operation of the vitrification facility. In this study, the environmental risk caused by the operation of the Korean vitrification facility is estimated. The risk is calculated in terms of individual dose for public at 80km from the facility. Since the facility is still under development, spent ion exchange resin generated from the Korea nuclear power plant is considered as a main target material to be vitrified with glass. Accidental gas or radioactive material release based on the abnormal operation of the vitrification facility is utilized as a source term for the public exposure evaluation. The environmental risk of the facility is estimated with the simulation code named as VERAS(Vitrification Facility’s Environmental Risk Assessmen