Radiological impact of commercial nuclear power plant releases in the United States: a 12-year study

摘要

Commercial nuclear power plants release gaseous and liquid radiological effluents as a byproduct ofelectrical generation. These releases are monitored by agencies to ensure compliance of regulatory limits.Although these federal entities track effluent releases, they do not currently compile or analyze the entireindustry data. Because of this, international organizations, like the United Nations Scientific Committee on theEffects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), have not had a reliable source of U.S. effluent data for the last severalyears. These organizations require the data for evaluating trends and determining population dose. Acomprehensive evaluation and analysis of U.S. commercial nuclear power radiological effluents and radiologicalenvironmental monitoring programs was conducted for the 12 year period of 1995-2006. Effluent activities werecompiled and analyzed and trends were identified using the Mann-Kendall non-parametric test to show long-termU.S. nuclear industry effluent release patterns. Using UNSCEAR and U.S. NRC dose methodologies, theaverage collective effective doses and doses to maximally exposed individuals were calculated. Summary datafrom every plant’s radiological environmental monitoring programs were studied to identify the impact ofradiological releases. Results of this portion of the research led to an on-site evaluation at one nuclear powerplant. The research showed that the entire industry effluent releases have mostly remained level over the studyperiod. Both collective effective doses and doses to maximally exposed individuals were well below regulatorylimits. Analysis of the radiological environmental monitoring programs demonstrated that overall, the routineoperation of all facilities had no significant or measurable radiological impact to the environment or humanhealth for the study time period.