Deregulation: Why ALARA and Yesterday’s Regulations are Holding Back Tomorrow’s Nuclear Renaissance.

Look around the nuclear industry, and you will see a nuclear renaissance unfolding. Experts are realizing that the old ways of thinking about nuclear are going to hold back future development. Deregulation that does not sacrifice the industry’s gold-standard safety will empower today and tomorrow’s industry advancements. 

Nuclear power used to be mysterious – at least to most of the public. Fear of the unknown influenced how public policy began As Low As Reasonably Achievable’s (ALARA) oppressive rule. When we first faced unknown and scary “radiation,” as little as possible of it sounded reasonable. However, small amounts of radiation are not new or dangerous. In fact, we encounter it everyday and have been for thousands of years. 

ALARA is both a regulation and a work culture in the nuclear industry, and the latter is extremely important. This culture encourages workers to limit, distance, and shield themselves from radiation exposure as much as possible. The challenges arise when the already effective work culture becomes a regulatory component. ALARA has meant that the public, not just workers, must be limited to as little radiation as achievable. As little radiation exposure as possible means, in practice, no radiation at all. 

With ALARA, regulators have also conflated plant radiation with the natural world’s background radiation, an everpresent force which comes from the ground, from space, from the sun, from rocks and from the air. Every living thing on Earth has evolved molecular machinery to handle radiation as part of everyday cell function. DNA, RNA, cell walls, and proteins are constantly repaired as radiation makes “pin pricks” to them. By confusing a power plant’s radiation with background radiation, ALARA has created a crippling new reality: the lowest achievable radiation possible is having as little nuclear power as possible.

ALARA and maximum dosage limits define the current regulatory scene: while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) restricts annual worker radiation exposure to 5,000 mrem and public exposure limits to 100 mrem, ALARA mandates that facilities keep radiation exposure to far below the industry threshold.

In response to the Federal Government’s call for new science-based regulations, Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has recommended a rehaul of today’s regulatory framework. They want to eliminate ALARA, double the maximum radiation exposure limit, and increase public exposure limits. 

INL maintains that no conclusive evidence has demonstrated negative health consequences to annual radiation exposure below 10,000 mrem and that ALARA presents a significant challenge to new nuclear companies. By increasing public exposure limits from 100 mrem to 500 mrem (the equivalent of 50,000 bananas), regulation will no longer hold nuclear companies accountable to background radiation–therefore not at all sacrificing public safety. For companies like Earthineering, these regulations will offer clarity that will ultimately enable future progress. 

ALARA and the current regulatory framework also demonstrate an obsessive level of safety not found in other industries. By contrast, petroleum industry workers and people who live nearby oil refineries have a far higher risk of developing cancer. Safety in the nuclear industry does not have to be treated the same as oil, but these differences show that the current approach to safety in the two industries is disproportionate.

On top of that, the NRC seeks to streamline environmental regulations to ensure that projects have an optimistic public perception. Today, the NRC held a forum about a  proposed rule that streamlines National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews for license renewals, which would speed up the process and reduce costs. Amending dosage limit regulations are part of a wider NRC regulatory overhaul tailored to today’s nuclear renaissance.

These regulatory overhauls signify the Federal Government’s strong support for new nuclear reactor development and show that there has never been a better time to innovate nuclear technology. This accompanies presidential support behind new nuclear tech for the moon as well as the Four Reactors by the Fourth initiative that saw Aalo, Antares, Valar, and Deployable Energy reach zero power criticality by America’s 250th Fourth of July. As The Earthineering Company seeks to expand upon these current industry advancements, federal support makes the pathway to success that much smoother.