Critique of disposal models

Abstract

Model building, as described in chapter 4, gives comforting assurance that geologic disposal can indeed accomplish its purpose of isolating the radionuclides in HLW. But a skeptic may not be entirely convinced: he or she can ask many questions about details of the models, and until these questions are faced he or she can rightly claim that the models seem like mathematical abstractions with little relevance to the real world of rocks and underground water. In this chapter we consider some of the more embarrassing objections that a confirmed skeptic can raise to the assumptions implicit in our models.