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DERIVATION OF WEIGHTING FACTORS FOR COST AND RADIOLOGICAL IMPACT FOR USE IN COMPARISON OF WASTE MANAGEMENT METHODS.

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METHODS OF ASSESSING THE RADIOLOGICAL IMPACT OF WASTE MANAGEMENT OPTIONS HAVE REACHED THE STAGE WHERE IT IS POSSIBLE TO MAKE DETAILED ESTIMATES OF THE DOSES AND RISKS TO WORKERS AND THE PUBLIC AND, IN PRINCIPLE, TO QUANTIFY THE UNCERTAINTIES IN THESE ESTIMATES. IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE TO QUANTIFY THE DIRECT FINANCIAL COSTS OF WASTE MANAGEMENT. HOWEVER, MUCH LESS PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE ON DEVISING WAYS OF WEIGHTING FINANCIAL COSTS, SOCIAL COSTS AND THE VARIOUS COMPONENTS OF RADIOLOGIACL IMPACT SO THAT COMPARISONS CAN BE MADE BETWEEN ALTERNATIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT OPTIONS, ON A RATIONAL AND WELL-DEFINED BASIS.

THE OBJECTIVES ARE TO DEVELOP A METHODOLOGY FOR DEVISING WEIGHTING FACTORS FOR THE VARIOUS COMPONENTS OF RADIOLOGICAL IMPACT, FINANCIAL COSTS AND SOCIAL COSTS OF WASTE MANAGEMENT METHODS AND TO DEMONSTRATE THE METHODOLOGY BY APPLYING IT IN AN EXAMPLE COMPARISON OF WASTE MANAGEMENT OPTIONS.

THE RESEARCH IS BEING CARRIED OUT JOINTLY BY THE NRPB AND THE UNIVERSITY OF SURREY PSYCHOLOGY DEPT, ACTING UNDER SUB-CONTRACT TO NRPB.
Radioactive waste management can require difficult decisions involving many complex and often competing factors. In order to make decisions, the relevant factors need to be compared with each other and balanced, so that the resulting actions produce the greatest net benefit. Decision aiding techniques may help to carry out this balancing. A public survey has been designed and analysed, which focused on the importance of social values and of the psychological processes likely to contribute to their formation. A method has been developed by which the preferences of the public concerning the consequences of waste management options may be obtained in a form suitable for use in multiattribute decision aiding techniques. It appears that this method is capable of producing useful, meaningful values for these weights, and therefore represents a major improvement on previous methods of obtaining weighting factors.

Nuclear waste management decisions are complex, and must include considerations of cost and social factors in addition to dose limitation. Decision aiding techniques, such as multiattribute analysis, can assist in structuring the problem and can incorporate as many factors, or attributes, as required. However, the relative weights of such attributes need to be established.
Techniques were devised which could be compared with one another. These were questionnaire based but, in order to examine the possible influence of the measurement procedures on the results, 2 of the techniques were combined in an experimental design. The 2 direct techniques for obtaining weights showed good agreement and yielded different values for separate social groups, such as industrial employees and the lay public.
The main conclusion is that the elicitation of weighting factors from the public is possible and that the resulting weights are meaningful and could have significant effects on the choice of waste management options.
2.1. IDENTIFICATION OF THE COMPONENTS OF FINANCIAL COSTS AND RADIOLOGIACL IMPACT FOR WHICH WEIGHTING FACTORS ARE TO BE DEVISED.
2.2. IDENTIFICATION OF TYPES OF SOCIAL COSTS WHICH NEED TO BE CONSIDERED VIA INVESTIGATION OF THE CRITERIA USED BY EXPERTS AND DECISION MAKERS, AND OF PUBLIC ATTITUDES, AND REVIEW OF METHODS OF TAKING THESE SOCIAL COSTS INTO ACCOUNT.
2.3. DEVELOPMENT OF A METHOD FOR DERIVING WEIGHTING FACTORS FOR THE COMPONENTS OF FINANCIAL COST, RADIOLOGICAL IM@ACT AND SOCIAL COST, AND DEMONSTRATION OF THE METHOD.

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CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

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NATIONAL RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION BOARD
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OX11 0RQ DIDCOT,HARWELL,CHILTON
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