Estimated collective exposures from US Department of Energy Operations

Nuclear research, development, and production activities are currently conducted at 27 major US Department of Energy (DOE) installations. All of the operating nuclear facilities are required to report the findings of their environmental surveillance programs to DOE annually. The DOE has summarized the information from the site annual reports and provided an overview of DOE operations and their potential impact on the public. The total collective doses resulting from the operation of DOE nuclear facilities are very small compared to the doses that the same population receives from natural sources. The total collective effective dose equivalent from natural sources for the 80-km population around all DOE sites (using a conservatively low population estimate of 20 million persons) is estimated to be {approximately}60,000 person-Sv (6,000,000 person-rem). This estimate is based on an average effective dose equivalent to any member of the population from natural background sources of 3 mSv (300 mrem), which is much larger than the total estimated from all DOE nuclear facilities for recent years.