Confidence bounds on risk assessments for underground nuclear waste repositories

The estimation of risk confidence bounds is an important element of a comprehensive probabilistic risk assessment for a radioactive waste repository. Normal distribution bounds may be used in the asymptotic limit of a very large number of Monte Carlo simulations, but sharp skewness of the risk distribution may severely retard the convergence process. The Tchebycheff bounds are parameter-free and may be applied regardless of distribution, save for the finiteness of variance. These bounds may be generally applicable, but they are invariably very broad. Better parameter-free bounds for mean risk are presented here, based on an inequality originally derived by Guttman.