I have no strong feelings either way. However I would question why the previous limit was put in place if the bew higher limitnis still safe. There must have been a reason for the lower limit so what has changed to make that no longer necessary?
Radiation, media and the public
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Well, one of her notebooks was recently found to be slightly contaminated with radium 226 and now has to be kept in a small metal box in the Wellcome Trusts archive in London.
If you actually work around radiation sources, your allowed limit is half that of the general public.
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Yup, I was right, the Fellside Gas power station as the radioactive carbon emissions would exceed the maximum allowable emissions for nuclear licensed site.
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That's not true.
Its likely that the reason is a change in their processes or a new plant means they need to increase their emissions slightly.
Oh I work with RF and that's what I was told, probably different rules for nuclear submarines to be fair
Workers are allowed more
https://www.nde-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/RadiationSafety/safe_use/exposure.htm
The reason is, stupidly safe limit wants to be changed to overly safe limit.
I can't believe nobody has posted a relevant XKCD yet.
0.11 microsieverts is about the same exposure as you'd get from radioactive potassium after eating a bananna.
0.11 microsieverts is about the same exposure as you'd get from radioactive potassium after eating a bananna.
It wasn't a limit as such, more like a discharge permit. It's just them saying "we're going to emit 0.08, it's that ok?" and then later "we're going to emit 0.11 now, is that still OK?" so it can be met with a yes and all documented nicely.
Nobody had previously said "you can't emit more than 0.08 or else"
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Oh I work with RF and that's what I was told, probably different rules for nuclear submarines to be fair
IRR99 applies to all nuclear facilities.
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I've got a degree in physics and I'm very pro-nuclear power. However, I can understand why people are so scared of radiation. It's an invisible threat and dying from radiation (poisoning/cancer) is a nasty way to go.
If the change is communicated in the right way, I'd hope that the vast majority of local residents would understand how ridiculously low the risks are.
If the change is communicated in the right way, I'd hope that the vast majority of local residents would understand how ridiculously low the risks are.
It's more about the increased chance of a problem though. I.e. The more radiation that goes through your body the more likely one of the particles is to hit a cell/dna and it to mutate into a cancer. Hence in a extreme example you could work in chenobyl and not get any health issues, whereas people beside you may end up dead in weeks. The severe limits are based on the highest possible acceptable risk, not that if you are exposed to 21 mSV you'll instantly become a mutant.
In a similar vein the misconception between the public and radiation is alive and well in the Oil and gas industry. I once worked out that you could shower daily in the "radioactive" flow back water from the cuadrilla fracking well for a year and you still wouldn't reach the maximum yearly dosage... Yet people are in uproar about it...
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Yeah. I know a few deluded crusty types who're always marching or camped out somewhere protesting against nuclear power. They seem to think that nuclear power plants are still the same as they were back in the 50s and 60s, and no matter what amount of evidence you show them to the contrary they still won't budge. In short, they're ****ing morons.
It also doesn't help when you have countries like Japan make an absolute mess of what should have been a much simpler cleanup operation of Fukushima. (Yet Joe Bloggs won't realise that plant was an older 70s design and even then it still got absolutely hammered before it went down).