With respect to storage, the inventory of radionuclides in a closed
system,-when added at a known rate, can be calculated from half-lives, but the
hazards, as indicated above, cannot.

Radioactive waste storage facilities

must resist corrosion and handle any heat generated within the wastes.

Their

design thus require inventories of the specific radionuclides and data on
the physical and chemical properties of the non-radioactive components of the
wastes.

An inventory categorization by half-lives would be neither essential

nor adequate.
Question 1B
Can the 1968 estimated total be subdivided also into categories of initial
,
location?

curies released into the rivers.

curies buried at sea (if any).
re]

n

ft

euries dribbled into the ground.
ecuries contained in tanks.
solidified and stored.

5

| bd bd DE be DE Dd DE be De Dd

X euries without location; decayed 100% in less than 1 day.
curies released into the air.

curies released directly into the oceans

euries trapped underground in cavity glass.

eurles in underground water.
curtes buried in land.

Every curies has to be somewhere initially, and isn't some idea of initial
disposition indispensable for ecological calculations?

Answer
The cited categories appear to be a mixture of places where radioactivity
is stored indefinitely and places from which activity is released or where
it is unconfined.

However,

in most AEC operations the initial location can

be considered to be a nuclear reactor or the point of nuclear detonation.
In reactors the radionuclide build-up over a period of time varies with the
type of fuel and the half-life of specific radionuclides produced.

Some

Select target paragraph3