Risk assessment for the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository site: Estimation of volcanic disruption. Final report (open access)

Risk assessment for the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository site: Estimation of volcanic disruption. Final report

In this article, we model the volcanism near the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, U.S.A. by estimating the instantaneous recurrence rate using a nonhomogeneous Poisson process with Weibull intensity and by using a homogeneous Poisson process to predict future eruptions. We then quantify the probability that any single eruption is disruptive in terms of a (prior) probability distribution, since not every eruption would result in disruption of the repository. Bayesian analysis is performed to evaluate the volcanic risk. Based on the Quaternary data, a 90% confidence interval for the instantaneous recurrence rate near the Yucca Mountain site is (1.85 x 10{sup -6}/yr, 1.26 x 10{sup -5}/yr). Also, using these confidence bounds, the corresponding 90% confidence interval for the risk (probability of at least one disruptive eruption) for an isolation time of 10{sup 4} years is (1.0 x 10{sup -3}, 6.7 x 10{sup -3}), if it is assumed that the intensity remains constant during the projected time frame.
Date: September 30, 1992
Creator: Ho, Chih-Hsiang
System: The UNT Digital Library