World class ALARA performance at Darlington Nuclear

In January 2008, Darlington Nuclear was selected by Information System on Occupational Exposure (ISOE) North American Technical Center to receive the 2007 World Class ALARA Performance Award for setting and achieving high standards in radiation protection. The purpose of this presentation is to share some of the station's successes and challenges in reducing dose to operation and maintenance personnel. In particular, the following dose reduction initiatives will be discussed: - Innovative shielding design including the use of water shielding walls for on-line airlock maintenance, tungsten shielding blocks for feeder replacement, and exposure reduction for horizontal flux detectors - Use of remote monitoring array to scan reactor face for hot spots to reduce dose and save critical path time - Tritium reduction through improvements in human performance, outage scheduling and introduction of new technology With increasing work scope associated with maintenance, refurbishment and retro-fit activities, there is an upward pressure on collective dose making it a critical resource for many inspection and maintenance work groups. There is a need to reduce radiation source terms as a lasting solution to address ever-increasing collective dose. Darlington's long term strategic goals to reduce tritium and gamma source terms and a bold vision for the future will be discussed. (author)