Dollars per Man Rem (a mixture of information and opinio - labeled below)

[xat@inel.gov (Al Tschaeche)]

This is in response to the current thread about how much one should cost a
man rem.
The $1000 per man rem that the NRC had used in 10 CFR 50 up to a short time
ago (it's $2000 now) was originally developed for dose to the public from
effluents from licensed commercial nuclear power plants.  It was never
intended to be a value to be used for radiation workers.  (information,
unless someone in the NRC knows better).
The old Atomic Industrial Forum (AIF), now the Nuclear Energy Institute
(NEI) did a quite reputable study on dollars per man rem for ALARA programs
for radiation workers during outages in nuclear power plants.  The basis for
the values (the magnitude of which I don't remember) was very practical and
took into account things like extra training costs, hiring costs, etc.
However, the AIF values only applied to outages for nuclear power plants.
(information)  One might be able to get a copy (for a price) of that
analysis from NEI. (opinion)  They maintain the old AIF documents.
(information unless NEI has changed its policy recently)
Hanford contractors to DOE developed an ALARA rationale and procedure for
radiation workers that said, (I think):  "If a protective measure costs less
than $2000 per man rem saved, do it without any further analysis.  If it
costs more than $60,000 per man rem saved, don't even think of doing it and
don't do any further analysis.  In between do an ALARA evaluation to see if
the benefit outweighs the risk." (information maybe tinged with a bad memory
for figures)  Maybe someone at Hanford can provide the reference.  (opinion)
At INEL we use $10000 per person rem saved in our ALARA analyses for
radiation workers.  (information)
But, now that the HPS' position paper states that there most likely is no
known or measurable risk below 5 rem per year or 10 rem per lifetime, all of
the ALARA work can now go away below those doses.  (most definitely opinion)
Al Tschaeche xat@inel.gov