Emergency Planning for Nuclear Power Plants

This book provides a history of emergency planning with respect to nuclear power plant accidents from the 1950?s to the 2000?s. It gives an overview of essential concepts that a working emergency planner should know, including brief overviews of the health physics and plant engineering that applies to emergency planning. Each chapter covers topics unique to radiological planning that distinguish it from planning for natural disasters. Some of the topics include processes that damage fuel, reactor source terms, basic dispersion theory, protective measures for the public and emergency worker, environmental surveys, and the essential elements of a drill and exercise program.

Emergency Planning for Nuclear Power Plants is not intended as a guide to meeting regulatory requirements but provides an understanding of the essential concepts and language of radiological planning, so the planner can apply those concepts to their particular situation.

Chapter 1: Overview and History

Chapter 2: Protective Response

Chapter 3: Core Damage and Related Concepts

Chapter 4: The Basics of Dispersion

Chapter 5: Environmental Monitoring

Chapter 6: ERO’s and ERF’s

Chapter 7: Drill and Exercise Programs

Chapter 8: The Regulatory Environment

Mr. Elkmann has 32 years of experience in environmental and nuclear plant health physics, beginning as a Health Physics Technician supporting the remediation of sites contaminated with radioactive material. He has managed an environmental analytical radiochemistry laboratory which gave him practical experience in collecting and analyzing environmental samples (air, water, soil, etc.) for radioactive material, as well as experience in instrument calibration, radiation surveys, shipping low level radioactive waste, whole body counting (internal radioactive material), quality control, and managing a radiation protection program for employees.

In his 30 years of experience in radiological emergency preparedness, beginning as Team Leader for a State Radiological Emergency Response Team in the mid 1980’s, he worked in emergency response in the nuclear industry, in state government, and in federal government, primarily as the senior health physicist in charge of assessing the radiological consequences of accidents. Mr. Elkmann is also an expert in the environmental transport of radioactive material and in radiation dose consequence assessment and has written emergency plans and procedures, done training needs assessments, written lesson plans for training emergency responders, conducted health physics training, evaluated performance in more than 350 drills and exercises, been the lead scenario developer for numerous exercises, and contributed to regulatory documents. He currently leads assessment teams in evaluating industry performance in radiological emergency preparedness.