RE: $/man-rem

["Scott, Arthur (MOL)" <Arthur.Scott@MOL.GOV.ON.CA>]

Jerry Cohen wrote:

I really hope you (or anyone) can dig up the

rationale, if any, behind the outrageous $10K/man-rem guidance. The reason

for my curiosity is that perhaps I was the first to offer such guidance. My

recommendation was $250 $/man-rem ( see HPJ 19:633  (1970), & HPJ

25:527 (1973).

    The $10K/man-rem figure seems to convey a total lack of understanding of

the concept of Optimization (cost-effectiveness). The $1000/man-rem in

Appendix I was bad enough!



Arthur Scott replies:



In the 1970's I was involved in power reactor design, and our group used a

$10k/man-rem/year figure.

 

In brief we estimated the minimum manpower "m" needed to carry out the

needed operations, inspections and repairs on the entire station in the

absence of any radiation fields, and then estimated the likely total dose

that would be incurred from nuclear side operations. If the total doses were

more than "5m" man-rem per year (the Station Radiation Budget), then

additional nuclear workers would be needed to operate the station. 



The cost of a worker was estimated at $50K per year and each worker brought

in 5 rem per year. The incremental cost of one rem/year was therefore $10K

per year, which could be capitalized to indicate the maximum amount of money

that could be spent to change equipment design or layout to eliminate the

need for an additional radiation worker.



Of course, until the Budget was exceeded, the value of 1 man-rem was $0. 



We did not use an average man-rem cost as it did not drive design

optimization as efffectively as incremental cost.

 



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