Economic Values for Radiation Exposure Reduction

[TSNKW@ccmail.ceco.com]

     Pertaining to $ per person-rem values, here is some feedback:
     
     1)  NCRP Report No. 120, "Dose Control at Nuclear Power Plants,"       
         devotes considerable discussion to the topic of $ per 
         person-rem values.
     
     2)  (Note:  As I was writing this, some messages were coming
          through on RadSafe mentioning the NUREG below.  I will
          leave this in my message, however, because it appeared most 
          people were "just" saying the NRC $1,000 value was changed to
          $2,000 -- It is not quite that simple, as you will see below.)
     
         The NRC recently issued NUREG/BR-0058, Revision 2, entitled
         Regulatory Analysis Guidelines of the Nuclear Regulatory 
         Commission."  In the Federal Register Notice announcing 
         availability of the NUREG on December 20, 1995, the NRC 
         stated, "The staff's reevaluation has now been completed 
         and the Commission has decided to implement a $ 2,000 per 
         person-rem conversion factor, subject it to present worth 
         considerations, and limit its scope solely to health effects. This 
         is in contrast to the previous policy and staff practice of using 
         an undiscounted $ 1,000 per person-rem conversion factor which 
         served as a surrogate for all offsite consequences (health and 
         offsite property)."  The notice indicates that the net effect of 
         the revised factor is "mixed."  "In most regulatory applications 
         ... The doubling of the conversion factor and the discounting tend 
         to cancel each other."
     
     3)  I prefer not to publish my company's $ per person-rem value on the 
         Internet, but I will say that ComEd uses a value that correlates 
         well to the results of a survey performed of other nuclear         
         utilities.  Typical values are 10,000 to 15,000 dollars per 
         person-rem.  The usage of a $ per person-rem value, however, seems 
         to vary widely.  ComEd uses its value strictly for "screening" 
         purposes to determine the relative merit of a project's potential 
         contribution to the goal of further reducing radiation exposures.  
         It must be recognized that the use of a screening value does not 
         represent actual cash flows.  In addition, this screening value is 
         not intended to have any broader implications such as the value of 
         life itself, etc.
         
         Kit Weaver
         Principal Technical Expert
         Nuclear Support
         ComEd
         
         tsnkw@ccmail.ceco.com