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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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INL makes a case for eliminating ALARA and setting higher dose limits
A report just released by Idaho National Laboratory reviews decades of radiation protection standards and research on the health effects of low-dose radiation and recommends that the current U.S. annual occupational dose limit of 5,000 mrem be maintained without applying ALARA—the “as low as reasonably achievable” regulatory concept first introduced in 1971—below that threshold.
Noting that epidemiological studies “have consistently failed to demonstrate statistically significant health effects at doses below 10,000 mrem delivered at low dose rates,” the report also recommends “future consideration of increasing this limit to 10,000 mrem/year with appropriate cumulative-dose constraints.”
Antti Räty, Petri Kotiluoto
Nuclear Technology | Volume 194 | Number 1 | April 2016 | Pages 28-38
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-86
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The objective of the study has been to estimate the residual activity in the decommissioning waste of the TRIGA Mark II–type research reactor FiR 1 in Finland. Neutron flux distributions were calculated with the Monte Carlo code MCNP. These were used in the ORIGEN-S point-depletion code to calculate the neutron-induced activity of materials at different time points by modeling irradiation history and radioactive decay. Knowledge of the radioactive inventory of irradiated materials is important in the planning of the decommissioning activities and is essential for predicting the radiological impact to personnel and the environment. Decommissioning waste consists mainly of ordinary concrete, aluminum, steel, and graphite parts. Results include uncertainties due to assumptions on material compositions and lack of some detailed operational history data. Comparison to activity inventory estimates of two other decommissioned research reactors is also presented.
