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Modern electricity generation technology based on the use of fissioning materials does not make it possible to eliminate the possibility of substantial accidental emission of radionuclides into the environment and irradiation of the population. The general trend of increasing the generation efficiency objectively leads to more power-generating units at a single industrial site and higher nuclear-reactor power. In turn, this increases the individual and collective risk in regions where nuclear power plants are located. The public, apparently reconciled to the inevitability of coexisting with potentially radiation-hazardous plants, has the right to demand substantiation of the fact that the risk from the operation of such plants is socially acceptable.The fundamental principle of limiting individual irradiation is to keep the radiation level below the threshold for deterministic effects and to decrease the irradiation to a low, reasonably achievable level that takes account of economic and social factors (the ALARA principle). The latter should refer not only to the irradiation level but also the number of irradiated individuals and even the probability of possible irradiation. A logical consequence of such an approach to limiting individual and collective irradiation is a limit on the scale of admissible radiation consequences resulting from an accident at a nuclear plant (admissible accident) above which the consequences are deemed to be socially unacceptable (socially unacceptable accident). An example of a socially unacceptable accident with respect to radiation consequences was the Chernobyl catastrophe. As noted, such accidents must be completely excluded by means of physical principles and technical solutions incorporated in the design. The quantitative criteria for determining socially unacceptable radiation consequences obviously depend on the type and location of the plant, the value for the country, the possibility of substituting nonnuclear production capacity, and so on. For example, relocating a town of more than 100,000 inhabitants, which may be necessary as a result of an accident at a nuclear power plant, contamination of large territories with long-lived radionuclides in a densely populated part of the country as a result of the emission of a high level of activity during an accident at a nuclear power plant, and for other reasons, is socially unacceptable. It is obvious that these criteria must be determined and substantiated in each specific case in the analysis of plant safety. Special plants, for example, military plants, which must be subject to the same principles as nonmilitary plants but for which other safety criteria may be admitted because of the lack of other alternative means of production and because of their importance for the country as a whole, have a special significance. We have in mind the fact that governmental agencies decrease the dangers of such plants and their production (for example, atomic bombs) as part of international efforts to implement international agreements on ...
Modern electricity generation technology based on the use of fissioning materials does not make it possible to eliminate the possibility of substantial accidental emission of radionuclides into the environment and irradiation of the population. The general trend of increasing the generation efficiency objectively leads to more power-generating units at a single industrial site and higher nuclear-reactor power. In turn, this increases the individual and collective risk in regions where nuclear power plants are located. The public, apparently reconciled to the inevitability of coexisting with potentially radiation-hazardous plants, has the right to demand substantiation of the fact that the risk from the operation of such plants is socially acceptable.The fundamental principle of limiting individual irradiation is to keep the radiation level below the threshold for deterministic effects and to decrease the irradiation to a low, reasonably achievable level that takes account of economic and social factors (the ALARA principle). The latter should refer not only to the irradiation level but also the number of irradiated individuals and even the probability of possible irradiation. A logical consequence of such an approach to limiting individual and collective irradiation is a limit on the scale of admissible radiation consequences resulting from an accident at a nuclear plant (admissible accident) above which the consequences are deemed to be socially unacceptable (socially unacceptable accident). An example of a socially unacceptable accident with respect to radiation consequences was the Chernobyl catastrophe. As noted, such accidents must be completely excluded by means of physical principles and technical solutions incorporated in the design. The quantitative criteria for determining socially unacceptable radiation consequences obviously depend on the type and location of the plant, the value for the country, the possibility of substituting nonnuclear production capacity, and so on. For example, relocating a town of more than 100,000 inhabitants, which may be necessary as a result of an accident at a nuclear power plant, contamination of large territories with long-lived radionuclides in a densely populated part of the country as a result of the emission of a high level of activity during an accident at a nuclear power plant, and for other reasons, is socially unacceptable. It is obvious that these criteria must be determined and substantiated in each specific case in the analysis of plant safety. Special plants, for example, military plants, which must be subject to the same principles as nonmilitary plants but for which other safety criteria may be admitted because of the lack of other alternative means of production and because of their importance for the country as a whole, have a special significance. We have in mind the fact that governmental agencies decrease the dangers of such plants and their production (for example, atomic bombs) as part of international efforts to implement international agreements on ...
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