ARPS

Following the success of the electronic subscription to the Annals of the ICRP last year, financial members of ARPS now have access to an additional journal, the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency is an Australian Government statutory agency that regulates the safe use of radiation and is the national centre for excellence in radiation protection and nuclear safety. This position is ongoing and full time.

Manager, Health Physics
Executive Level 2 $105318 to $119593 + 15.4% employer super
Yallambie, VIC

Your role:

Below is a link to a New York Times article regarding a couple of radiation accidents in radiotherapy. This is the first in a series of articles that deals with medical radiation accidents. The article includes videos and an interactive graphic for those unfamiliar with multi-leaf collimators on linear accelerators.

A timely article, given the upcoming Asia Region ALARA Network (ARAN) meeting in Adelaide which will be discussing medical exposures. The ARAN meeting is on just prior to the ARPS conference.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/health/24radiation.html?pagewanted=1&hp

The South Australian Branch is happy to annouce that an Oral Presentation Competition will be conducted in 2010. This competition is designed to encourage students and new researchers to present the results of their work to a scientific audience.

There are 2 classifications to the competition, enrolled students and recent graduates. All interested applicants should contact Kent Gregory by 28 February 2010 to express their interest. A written application must be submitted by 29 May 2010.

All applicants will present their work to the SA Branch.

Full details are attached.

It has been a long time, since my previous (first) blog entry. But I have returned to write more. I must start with an apology for a missing issue of Radiation Protection in Australasia. Those people who were at the conference in Perth, may recall that I promised a final issue for 2009. You may have noticed, by the lack of a copy of the journal in your letter box, that this final issue didn't eventuate. Creation of an issue of the journal is a process that involves a number of people who magically turn a number of documents and email into the final printed product that is posted to members. I didn't allow enough time for the creative publication process to take place before the end of 2009.

In order to minimise the severity of future radiation accidents, it is useful to look back at the mistakes made in the past to see what lessons there are to learn.

A fantastic review article of the last 60 years worth of radiation accidents has been published in the Journal of Radiological Protection, and is free to read.

Follow the link below...

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0952-4746/29/3/R01/jrp9_3_R01.pdf?request-id=4c6c759f-b5bf-4876-beb2-bd417a0745d0

Department of Mines and Petroleum
Resources Safety Division
Senior Scientific Officer
MP090234
SCL3, $84,358 - $93,413 per annum, PSGA

POSITION NUMBER MP090234, MP090237

A total remuneration package up to $107,517 is currently being offered to the successful applicant dependent on skills, experience and qualifications.

To be successful in this role you will have a tertiary qualification in a relevant engineering or science field, an understanding of the statutory requirements relating to health protection systems in the mining and processing of ores and sound knowledge of radiation measurement systems.

More information can be found here search.jobs.wa.gov.au/page.php

Mark Sonter's next Uranium Mining RSOs' course will be in Brisbane, at the Sebel Suites Hotel, from 22nd to 26th March.

The following course will be in Adelaide, 11th to 15th October (i.e., the week before the next ARPS Conference).

For more details, email Wendy on sonterw@tpg.com.au, or phone 07 3297 7653.

After it has been used as fuel for power plants, the thorium leaves behind minuscule amounts of waste. And that waste needs to be stored for only a few hundred years, not a few hundred thousand like other nuclear by-products. Because it’s so plentiful in nature, thorium is virtually inexhaustible. It’s also one of only a few substances that acts as a thermal breeder, in theory creating enough new fuel as it breaks down to sustain a high-temperature chain reaction indefinitely. And it would be virtually impossible for the by-products of a thorium reactor to be used by terrorists or anyone else to make nuclear weapons.

Read more at Wired Magazine at http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/