ALARA

["RON L. SHEPHERD" <SHEPHRL@GWSMTP.NU.COM>]

Al
Read your letter to Shirley....very interesting
I have a question for you though
In your letter you wrote

In addition, NRC documents should be examined for discussion of the
concepts of As Low As Reasonable Achievable (ALARA) and Collective
Dose.  ALARA should not be used below 5 rem per year or 10 rem short
term dose unless there is a clear benefit of the reduction based on
prior experience and measured benefits and the harm is not based on the
linear hypothesis.  Collective dose should not be used at all.

I have noticed this theme that ALARA is very expensive and not worth the
bother.

Initially, in the power industry, we thought the same until we realized that
ALARA could actually SAVE US MONEY!!  What some of us came to realize is that
dose is directly tied to money by a common factor.....time.  If we plan and
execute tasks with fewer/no glitches we save time which also saves dose and
money.

So I am unclear as to what portion of the rad world is adversely affected by
ALARA and thought you or others wouldn't mind letting us know what's going
on???

Thanks in advance

Ron Shepherd
SHEPHRL@GWSMTP.NU.COM