Award Date

5-2003

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Environmental Science

Advisor 1

David Hassenzahl. Professor, Environmental Studies

Advisor 2

Helen Neill, Chair and Assoc. Professor, Environmental Studies

Advisor 3

Krystyna Stave, Assoc. Professor, Environmental Studies

Number of Pages

38

Abstract

Transportation of high-level nuclear waste poses a potential risk of exposure from radiation to people of Las Vegas and the surrounding environment. 77,000 metric tons of waste is scheduled to start arriving at Yucca Mountain in 2010. For 24 years legal weight trucks will transport high-level nuclear waste through 109 cities with populations over 100,000. The population of Las Vegas is over 400,000 people. In all, legal weight trucks will cross 43 states traveling millions of highway miles (see appendix B). The U. S. Department of Energy estimates expected radiological risk from accidents would be no higher than 0.003 latent cancer fatalities in Clark County. In its analysis state specific data was used in RADTRAN to estimate transport risk to Nevada. The study looked at how route specific data has been applied in other studies using RADTRAN. A Lincoln County case study suggest national and state data underestimates risk of transportation of high-level nuclear waste.

Keywords

Lincoln county (Nev.); Nevada; Radiation safety measures; Radioactive wastes transportation risk assessment; Yucca Mountain (Nev.)

Disciplines

Environmental Sciences | Oil, Gas, and Energy | Transportation

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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