Management of Commercially Generated Radioactive Waste - U.S. ...

3.30
TABLE 3.3.2. Nominal Whole-Body Dose Equivalents from
Naturally Occurring Radiation
Annual Dose 70-Year Accumulated Dose
Individual 0.1 rem 7 rem
Regional Population (2 million) 2 x 105 man-rem(a) 1.4 x 107 man-rem
World-Wide Population (6 billion) 6 x 108 man-rem 4 x 1010 man-rem
(a) Man-rem: the sum of the product of the dose received and the number of individuals
receiving that dose.
Using the foregoing population doses from naturally occurring radiation and the rela-
tionship between population dose and health effects as described in Appendix E (50 to
500 fatal cancers plus 50 to 300 serious genetic defects per million man-rem),(a) the number
of health effects that might be associated with naturally occurring radiation were calcu-
lated and are presented in Table 3.3.3.
TABLE 3.3.3. Health Effects Calculated for 70-yr Accumulated Dose from
Naturally Occurring Radioactive Sources
Serious Total
Fatal Cancers Genetic Defects Health Effects
Regional Population 700 to 700 to 1,400 to
(2 million) 7,000 4,000 11,000
World-Wide Population 2,000,000 to 2,000,000 to 4,000,000 to
(6 billion) 20,000,000 10,000,000 30,000,000
3.3.2 Applicable Standards for Radiation Exposure Control
A number of existing standards provide for administrative control of potential radio-
logical impacts from waste management operations. These are embodied either in the Code
of Federal Regulations (CFR) or comparable codes of state and local governments. Some of
these standards are presented here and a more extensive treatment is given in Appendix C.
3.3.2.1 Basic Radiation Standards
The basic radiation standards that apply to all NRC licensees are given in Title 10
(a) Other suggested conversion factors would indicate more effects and others less, not
excluding zero effects. The Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation
(BEIR), National Academy of Sciences, released in July of 1980 an updated report, the
BEIR III report, that indicates risk estimates of cancer death from low levels of
radiation are only half what they were thought to be eight years ago (as reported in
the BEIR I report, 1972). The range of conversion factors used in this statement
encompass the values suggested in both the BEIR I (1972) and BEIR III (1980) reports.