RESULTS OF THE SCREENING RADIOLOGICAL

ASSESSMENT OF ALL THE SPANISH COAL-FIRED POWER

PLANTS.
J.C. Mora1, B. Robles1, C. Trueba1, A. Baeza2, J.A. Corbacho2, J. Guillen2, J. Rodriguez1
1Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment Unit. Department of Environment.
CIEMAT. Avda. Complutense, 40. 28040. Madrid (Spain)
2Environmental Radioactivity Laboratory, University of Extremadura, Avda de la Universidad s/n,
10071 Cceres (Spain)
The design and results of the R&D project where the radiological impact of all the 17 Spanish
operating coal-fired power plants have been assessed are presented in this paper.
The project was the response of that industry to the publication of a recently published Spanish
law: the Royal Decree 1439/2010, which amends the Spanish Regulation on Protection against
Ionizing Radiation of 2001 (RD 783/2001). This law force to the owners of the radiological activities,
where natural radiation sources exist, to conduct every study needed to determine whether exist a
significant increase to the exposure of the workers or to the members of the public, which cannot be
disregarded from the point of view of radiation protection.
For that reason, all the Spanish coal-fired power plants decided to assess the radiological impact to
their workers and to the members of the public, following the newly published regulatory guidances.
The studies were performed following the document "NORM Industries Action Protocol:
Electricity generation by burning coal", developed by the authors, where the graded approach was
used to determine the basis for carrying out screening assessments in this kind of installations, based
on the experience from a former project where the 4 major Spanish coal power plants were evaluated
in detail.
The assessments were carried out based on the calculation of total effective dose received by
workers and the public as a result of the range of operation of the plants, including the range of
activity concentrations which could be found internationally in the coal. The radiological criteria to
determine whether the work activity is exempt from regulatory control or not, was defined by the
Spanish regulatory body (Nuclear Safety Council or CSN), being 1 mSv a-1 for workers and 0.3 mSv
a-1 for members of the public, which are expressed in terms of effective dose over the natural
radioactive background. Also the activity concentrations in materials were compared with the levels
of exemption and clearance established in Spain, Europe and by the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) for large amounts of materials for the natural decay chains of 238U, 235U and 232Th
and 10 Bq g-1 for 40K.