[en] This paper briefly describes the Health Physics and ALARA programs, practices and experience at Duke Power Company, particularly at the Oconee Nuclear Station. It consists of three PWR units and has been operating for more than 10 years now. In the beginning, the Corporate System Health Physics staff established the Health Physics Program and later the ALARA Program for the station and an independent station Health Physics organization has conducted the program. The corporate Health Physics organization also provides technical guidance and direction to the station in conducting the program and reviews its effectiveness, modifying it as necessary based on experience and new regulations

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[en] Our visions of the future are often very optimistic and hopeful, representing the best imaginings of the human mind. The authors are inclined to think of the future as filled with new and better things. Some people even visualize the future as a science fiction perfection, but, in reality, it will also contain elements of the past and the present, both good and bad. With respect to radiation protection, a guess would tell us that the future holds the implementation of some version of ICRP-26 in one revision or another of the NRC 10 CFR20 regulations. But many of the technical problems of today may likely be ''solved'' by the public, the politicians, the sociologists and the bureaucrats of the future. For example, two such ''solutions'' may possibly appear in such grotesque forms as drastically lowered allowable annual doses or as engineered facilities for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste above ground on seismic stilts. All of these aspects - the good, the bad, the new, the old, and the indifferent - are all touched upon in this vision of the future

[en] Decontamination and decommissioning of the Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 1 (EBR-I) requires processing of the primary coolant, an eutectic solution of sodium and potassium (NaK), remaining in the EBR-I primary and secondary coolant systems. While developing design criteria for the NaK processing system, reasonable justification was provided for the development of a pilot test plant for field testing some of the process concepts and proposed hardware. The objective of this activity was to prove the process concept on a low-cost, small-scale test bed. The pilot test plant criteria provided a general description of the test including: the purpose, location, description of test equipment available, waste disposal requirements, and a flow diagram and conceptual equipment layout. The pilot plant test operations procedure provided a detailed step-by-step procedure for operation of the pilot plant to obtain the desired test data and operational experience. It also spelled out the safety precautions to be used by operating personnel, including the requirement for alkali metals training certification, use of protective clothing, availability of fire protection equipment, and caustic handling procedures. The pilot plant test was performed on May 16, 1974. During the test, 32.5 gallons or 240 lb of NaK was successfully converted to caustic by reaction with water in a caustic solution. (auth)

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[en] Intact decommissioning of nuclear power plants is a technically viable alternative to the other decommissioning options. It appears possible, with a high degree of confidence, to establish boundaries that would remain impregnable and therefore prevent the escape of residual radioactivity for at least 100 years (based on very conservative assumptions) following the active phase of decommissioning. By that time, most of the radionuclides would have decayed to insignificant levels leaving, primarily, activity from a few radionuclides remaining in the activated reactor vessel stainless steel internals. Following a postulated breach of the boundary at 100 years, potential public exposures estimated out to 10,000 years would be within regulatory limits, and comparable to those for the other decommissioning scenarios. This study considers a 660 Mw(e) Mark I containment BWR, and a 1,175 MW(e) PWR located in generic environments with characteristics similar to the northeastern and midwestern parts of the United States, respectively. The primary containment boundaries are established as the intact decommissioning boundaries for both plants, and occupational and public doses are calculated

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[en] The history and development of the health physics and as-low-as-reasonably-achievable (ALARA) program at Duke Power Company's Oconee Nuclear Station is described as are the fundamental elements of the program and how the program works. The benefits of this health physics/ALARA program have been determined to be (a) improved quality of manpower planning and scheduling, (b) increased efficiency of shutdown activities, (c) reduced cost of shutdown, (d) immediate awareness of adverse job exposure trends, (e) better management information on exposure-related problems, (f) improved accuracy of personnel and job dose records, and (g) in general, improved outage performance and subsequent plant operation. Experience with the health physics/ALARA program is discussed in terms of (a) savings of critical path time, (b) maintaining ALARA personnel doses, and (c) record capacity factors