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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Latest News
The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Sitakanta Mohanty, Richard Blake Codell
Nuclear Technology | Volume 148 | Number 2 | November 2004 | Pages 105-114
Technical Paper | High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3551
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The key findings from a suite of independent analyses of the performance of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, conducted by the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses (CNWRA) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), are summarized. The analyses are geared toward obtaining risk insights from deterministic and probabilistic calculations of potential exposure to people in a down-gradient community, determining the capability of barriers to reduce flow of water and prevent or delay radionuclide transport, and identifying models, parameters, and subsystems that have the most influence on repository performance through the use of sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. The analyses have allowed the CNWRA and NRC to focus on the most critical aspects of estimating postclosure repository performance.