Radiation protection at nuclear power facilities

It is known that radiation can cause harm. Many people believe that the radiation risk from nuclear power stations is considerably high. This may be partly due to the confusion between hazard and risk. Hazard is a set of circumstances which may have harmful consequences and the probability of the hazard causing some effect is the risk of the event or the effect occurring. High doses of radiation may cause immediate deterministic effects, while low doses may bring some risk of stochastic effects, like cancers and perhaps hereditary effects. The role of radiation protection is to prevent the occurrence of deterministic effects of radiation and to restrict the likelihood of occurrence of stochastic effects to acceptable level. The paper discusses basic rules of radiation protection, the system of quantities and units used for the assessment of risk for humans, and main radiation sources at nuclear power plants, which may be potentially hazardous for workers or general public. (author)