This is an interesting topic, back in 2006 Horizon on BBC released the documentary "Nuclear Nightmares", it digs into our fear of radiation and weather or not the current safety guidelines are warranted. Here is a link to the documentary on Dailymotion:
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This is strangely a good thing. Current regulations are based on atomic bomb explosions and don't correctly account for natural and background radiation.
The old reg used a cumulative model which is Obama since all life on earth evolved with radiation exposure. The new regulation should reduce construction and operation costs while making no difference in cancer or radiation related deaths.
A trans Atlantic or Pacific flight already exposes average people to more than the nrc is talking about here and we don't even think twice about that exposure.
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TL;DR from the article for anyone wondering why.
President Trump wants four times as much domestic nuclear energy production to satisfy the growing electricity demand from new data centers powering artificial intelligence. He issued four executive orders in May last year to boost government funding for nuclear power and overhaul nuclear regulations. In doing so, though, the president may get rid of some guardrails that protect Americans from the downsides of nuclear energy.
This isn't a rule that promotes safety. It's a rule that assuages the fears of anti-nuclear activists with no meaningful difference between this and other standards in terms of danger. "As low as reasonably achievable" means that even if there is seemingly no return from a safety perspective, you still need to reduce not just radiation emission, but exposure time. It assumes that radiation is lifetime accumulating and that there is no safe level of radiation exposure, even though that doesn't match the science.
Say, for instance, you have a nuclear reactor that exposes employees to the same amount of radiation from having a banana in their pocket during work hours would. There is a new type of radiation shielding that can be retrofitted to the reactor to reduce that by 10x. There is already no danger due to radiation exposure. ALARA states that you should undergo the retrofit, since it is possible to reduce the level of exposure, even though there is no difference in danger between now and that hypothetical future where you have the new shielding.
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Safety actually is their priority. The safety of their bank accounts
The old rule depends on all radiation being harmful. The science is that low levels of radiation are harmless and perhaps even beneficial. The new rule recognizes the science.
There are cities, Tehran is an example, where the background radiation is higher than what workers are allowed to be exposed to. These locations do not have elevated cancer rates.
The old standard causes harm. There are many cases of elderly Japanese people who suffered greatly, even died, because they were evacuated from their homes to protect them from developing cancer in 40 years.
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People praising this don't read "as reasonablly" clause. There's already wiggle room and political/economic climate involved in how to implement (also, ALARA is not only covering sub microSv/yr realm where background Radiation is about). Moving away from it can certainly loosen the grip in the future, likely at the expence of onsite workers.
It's incredible to witness a country devolving at the speed of light entirely due to a few dozen madmen, and everybody is quietly waiting for the next election, thinking they're gonna win it and reverse the damage, when (1) the damage is already irreversible and (2) the election most likely won't happen.
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