I learned about ALARA from this post, so I wanted to note this here—Reading List 01/17/2026 by Brian Potter at Construction Physics notes that ALARA may be taken down, maybe, not sure, can’t find the memo to confirm:
Now it looks like the US Department of Energy is removing ALARA. Via E&E News:
Energy Secretary Chris Wright killed the Department of Energy’s decades-old radiation safety standard Friday.
Wright ended the department’s use of the As Low As Reasonably Achievable — or “ALARA” — principle, which has long been a staple of nuclear regulation. ALARA is rooted in the idea that any radiation exposure carries risks, but low doses can be justified by practical considerations. Critics in the nuclear power and health fields argue that the standard is overly burdensome with no real safety benefits.
The move could lower operational costs and accelerate projects using nuclear material, but it will alter an established safety-first culture. The change in safety standards may impact DOE’s ongoing advanced nuclear reactor pilot program and high-stakes radiation cleanups, like the Hanford site in Washington state that has been dubbed the most contaminated place in the Western Hemisphere.
I looked for the DOE memo that initiated this change but wasn’t able to find it, and no one other than E&E news seems to have picked up the story yet, so it’s not clear to me how “real” this is.
I learned about ALARA from this post, so I wanted to note this here—Reading List 01/17/2026 by Brian Potter at Construction Physics notes that ALARA may be taken down, maybe, not sure, can’t find the memo to confirm: