skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Environmental Impact From Accelerator Operation at SLAC

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/10029· OSTI ID:10029

Environmental impacts from electron accelerator operations at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, which is located near populated areas, are illustrated by using examples of three different accelerator facilities: the low power (a few watts) SSRL, the high power (a few kilowatts) PEP-II, and the 50-kW SLC. Three types of major impacts are discussed: (1) off-site doses from skyshine radiation, mainly neutrons, (2) off-site doses from radioactive air emission, mainly {sup 13}N, and (3) radioactivities, mainly {sup 3}H, produced in the groundwater. It was found that, from SSRL operation, the skyshine radiation result in a MEI (Maximum Exposed Individual) of 0.3 {mu}Sv/y while a conservative calculation using CAP88 showed a MEI of 0.36 {mu}Sv/y from radioactive air releases. The calculated MEI doses due to future PEP-II operation are 30 {mu}Sv/y from skyshine radiation and 2 {mu}Sv/y from air releases. The population doses due to radioactive air emission are 0.5 person-mSv from SSRL and 12 person-mSv from PEP-II. Because of the stronger decrease of skyshine dose as the distance increases, the population dose from skyshine radiation are smaller than that from air release. The third environmental impact, tritium activity produced in the groundwater, was also demonstrated to be acceptable from both the well water measurements and the FLUKA calculations for the worst case of the SLC high-power dump.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER) (US)
DOE Contract Number:
AC03-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
10029
Report Number(s):
SLAC-PUB-8085; TRN: US0103307
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: 22 Mar 1999
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English