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SRP2 (05) - Press release

Embargoed until 00.01 Monday 13 June 2005

Spending to save lives – the radiation dilemma

Most members of the public affected by radioactive discharges from nuclear plants receive an extremely small radiation dose – one that carries a correspondingly small risk of harm. Schemes put in place on the nuclear sites to further reduce the affects on the public may however be at expense of some increased dose to workers at these facilities. Decision making on how much to spend to protect both public and workers can be helped by placing a monetary value on radiation doses. The relative values that may be used are the subject of a keynote address today (13 June 2005) to the Society for Radiological Protection’s Seventh International Symposium at City Hall, Cardiff, by Professor Gregg Butler of the University of Manchester and a director of Integrated Decision Making (IDM), a consortium of independent leading thinkers from industry and the environmental field.

“In the past there has been a clear acceptance that higher doses, and hence higher risks, should attract multiplication factors when considering the value of spending to reduce discharges,” explains Butler. “Collective doses are dominated by large populations receiving very low doses. Intuitively, at lower doses, lower monetary valuations apply.”

Butler, and his co-worker Duncan Jackson of Enviros Consulting Limited, have reviewed a comparison of future worker and public doses made for the Sellafield site. The collective dose to the workforce has been compared to that of the world public over 500 years. According to Prof Butler the total public dose (at low doses to many people) will be nearly 8 times larger than the workforce dose, which is received as a relatively high dose to few people. Existing valuation methods favour public dose reduction over that to the workforce. “Clearly, no regulator would stipulate authorisation requirements leading to grossly disproportionate doses to the workforce,” says Butler “but the method employed to derive equivalence in monetary valuations on options does not assist, in a transparent fashion, in reaching a balanced decision.”

Butler and Jackson propose that when the valuation of the workforce dose exceeds that of the public dose, some account is taken of it. Any such process would need to recognise that the public dose is imposed while the workforce dose is voluntary, received as part of their occupation. Guidance from the Health and Safety Executive on tolerable risk levels recommends one in a thousand for occupational risks and one in ten thousand for the public. If this factor of 10 were considered to be a reasonable representation of the factor between imposed and voluntary exposure, this would give very similar valuations of the Sellafield public and workforce doses.

“The calculations are based on a defined programme of ongoing production and waste treatment at Sellafield,” adds Butler, “and do not examine the effects of cleanup. We have used it for illustrative purposes only. Nevertheless, the treatment here is enough to point out that if a discharge reduction scheme were proposed which cut Sellafield site discharges by 10%, but raised the site workforce dose by a similar percentage, then testing against a risk-based valuation of dose must be warranted. Similar conclusions would apply for any site or operation seeking to balance protection of the public and the workforce.”

Butler and Jackson believe that further development of this methodology, with full stakeholder involvement, would make a significant contribution to the process of prioritisation of cleanup on nuclear sites
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Notes for editors

1. This release is based on Prof Butler’s paper, 'Valuation of Public and Worker Dose’ which will be presented at 2.30 pm on 13 June 2005 at the Society for Radiological Protection's seventh International Symposium 'Change and Continuity in Radiation Protection’. Held at City Hall, Cardiff between 12 and 17 June, around 250 delegates from 16 countries will address changes in the approach to radiation protection, particularly those arising from the inclusion of stakeholders in decision making about radioactive discharge management. It is co-sponsored by sister societies from Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland and Spain.
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2. Prof Butler’s study builds on previous work funded by British Nuclear Fuels plc. The views expressed are those of the authors. Further information on this paper is available from co-author Duncan Jackson who is contactable on email duncan.jackson@enviros.com

3. Accredited journalists are welcome to free registration to attend the symposium. Please contact Tessa Harris, SRP Administrative Officer Tel. +44 (0)1364 644487, fax. +44 (0)1364 644492, email: admin@srp-uk.org if you would like to attend. A full programme can be downloaded from the Society for Radiological Protection's web site at http://www.srp-uk.org/events/cardiff2005/prog050526.pdf

4. During the symposium Duncan Jackson may be contacted via the help desk, Tel: +44(0)2920 871137 or directly on mobile +44(0) 776 688 6312. Alternatively, contact the Society's media representative, Brian Gornall, mobile +44(0)7836 667163. Please call between 9.00am and 5.00pm.

5. Founded in 1963, the Society for Radiological Protection now has nearly 2000 national and international members. It is the leading Scientific Society in the UK for all who are professionally concerned with safety aspects of the use of ionising and non-ionising radiation in education, central and local government, industry, medicine and research.

6. The Society has the following objectives:-

to promote and advance the science of radiological protection and allied fields;
to promote, advance and disseminate to the public advantage, knowledge of radiological protection and allied fields;
to encourage, support, promote and advance education and learning in radiological protection and allied fields;
to promote and encourage high scientific, educational, regulatory and professional standards in radiological protection and allied fields.

7. This press release was researched and written for the Society for Radiological Protection by Brian Gornall and distributed for the SRP by the Institute of Physics Press Office.

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