Reference Material: Radiation Exposure Data for Nuclear Industry Workers (FY 2019)
By Kataoka Ryohei (CNIC)
The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) decided at a meeting last year not to produce its “Report on Radioactivity Management relating to Nuclear Power Facilities,” which it had been publishing each year. For this reason, since last year CNIC has been compiling the data based on the operators’ reports. Up till now, these have been published on the NRA website as independent content in the form of a “Report on Radioactivity Management, etc.” Despite this, this fiscal year’s data were nowhere to be found, and an inquiry with NRA revealed that the publication of the data had been moved to a totally different location. Opening the list of “Regulations and Ordinances by Nuclear Facility and Documents relating to Notifications,” data is given for each nuclear power plant (NPP) and nuclear fuel facility, and, moreover, it is then necessary to search for the document in question from among these, signifying that this has all been made extremely hard to understand.* Not only has NRA not summarized the data, but in making the location of the report extremely difficult to find, one begins to surmise that NRA has intentionally attempted to conceal the extent of worker exposure.
Looking at this fiscal year’s data for power generation nuclear reactor facilities, dose rates at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station have fallen slightly from last fiscal year. Other than this, dose rates at Takahama, Genkai, and Sendai NPPs, which were operating last fiscal year, are relatively high. The high maximum dose rate at Tokai No.2 NPP, which is not currently operating, is thought to be due to safety inspections and construction work related to the 20-year extension of operation. Overall, total exposure dose rate and maximum exposure dose rate have both fallen slightly compared with last fiscal year.
* The annual dose rate distributions are published in the sections for each NPP and nuclear fuel facility in “Acceptance of the Radioactivity Management Report from XX Operator on YY Facility for the Second Half of 2019 Fiscal Year” in the URL below (in Japanese).
Nuclear fuel facilities, etc.: www.nsr.go.jp/disclosure/law_new/nuclear_facilities/index.html
