Radiological protection report 2014

In its 11^th Annual Report on Radiological Protection, the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI) provides the public with information on dose rates for individuals professionally exposed to radiation, releases of radioactive material and the monitoring of environmental radiation. ENSI, as the regulatory body for nuclear facilities in Switzerland, is continuing to expand its information provision over and above that contained in the Radiological Protection Report. At 0.6 mSv per year, the average individual dose for professionally exposed persons remains significantly below the annual limit of 20 mSv specified by the Swiss Federal Council. It is also less than the average annual rate of natural environmental exposure of 5.5 mSv for the population in Switzerland as a whole. The highest individual dose during the year was 12 mSv. The collective doses lie within the range of past years. There is a trend towards higher collective doses at KKL. As a general rule, planning by the licensees of nuclear facilities in the field of radiological protection is of a high standard. Actual collective doses in 2014 at Beznau 1, Goesgen and Leibstadt were within 10% of projected exposure rates and at Beznau 2 and Muehleberg the doses were about 30% lower. Demands in terms of radiological protection were particularly high at Leibstadt and Beznau 1; at Leibstadt mainly as a result of a fuel cladding defect and at Beznau 1 because of the continuing elevated ambient rate for components in the primary circuit. ENSI concluded that the Swiss nuclear facilities continue to operate a consistent approach to radiological protection. In 2014, licensees of nuclear facilities remained within official release limits, in some cases by a significant margin. Liquid releases from Muehleberg were below the target value of 1 GBq per year set by ENSI on the basis of international recommendations. At the Central Interim Storage Facility (ZWILAG) and at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) however ENSI notes increasing release values. Emissions from Swiss nuclear facilities in the immediate vicinity of nuclear facilities produced an annual dose rate of less than 0.01 mSv. ENSI conducts inspections and does comparative measurements in order to verify that the required measuring equipment for radiological protection is provided, properly adjusted and calibrated, used correctly and so capable of providing reliable data. The quarterly control measurements made by ENSI and the half-yearly comparative measurements of aerosol and iodine filters and wastewater sampling conducted in conjunction with the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) corroborated the data provided by the nuclear facilities. For this purpose, ENSI maintains a test laboratory accredited under ISO 17025. The annual comparative measurements for external personal dosimetry organised jointly by FOPH and ENSI provided evidence that the dosimetry sites approved by ENSI had the required accuracy. For the purpose of monitoring environmental radioactivity, ENSI has operated since 1994 a network for the automatic measurement of dose rates in the vicinity of nuclear power plants (MADUK). The dose rates are made available to the public and also transmitted to the Swiss National Emergency Operations Centre, the German Ministry of the Environment and the European Radiological Data Exchange Platform (EURDEP). In 2014, MADUK had an availability rate of 99.6%. Mobile probes are used to determine ambient dose rates or the Gamma spectrum. In the field of dispersion, hourly simulations are calculated for locations with a nuclear power plant. The calculations are based on data on current 3D wind speeds supplied by MeteoSwiss with a spatial resolution of 2 km. Together with the annual aero-radiometric test flights, they provide valuable and precise tools useable at any time to analyse the current situation and forecast the development of radiation