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- 1369 - 
THE ROLE OF REMOTE SENSING IN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT SITING 
Bernhard Archer, Joseph A. Fischer and Robert J. Reed 
Dames and Moore, Cranford, New Jersey - U.S.A. 
Introduction 
The idea for this paper was developed as a consequence 
of the authors' involvement in siting cr site evaluation 
studies for numerous nuclear generating stations throughout 
the world. The remote sensing methods discussed nave all 
been used, to some degree, in the performance of these 
studies. 
With the possible exception of major dam projects and 
more recently oil or gas pipeline projects, such as the 
Alaska Pipeline, the siting of nuclear power plants prob- 
ably utilizes more of the planning, earth and environmental 
Science disciplines than any other construction project. 
In siting the plants, planning and investigation on a re- 
gional and sub-regional scale is required. In this paper, 
"Regional" is defined as the area within a 50 to 200 mile 
radius of the plant site, "Sub-regional" is defined, de- 
pending on the discipline involved, as a distance of from 
5 to 50 miles from the site. These distances are identi- 
fied in various regulations and guidelines issued by the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the regulatory agency 
in the United States for plant safety. In the area of en- 
vironmental concerns, the NRC also has the responsibility 
for implementing the national goals expressed by the 
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. 
Since the area of concern can extend as far as 200 
miles from a site, the gathering, analysis and integration 
of data for this area is usually a time consuming and costly 
undertaking. Any method for gathering the data which 
would reduce both time and cost without sacrificing reli- 
ability would therefore be highly desirable. In quantita- 
tive terms a site qualification study may take from one to 
two years to complete and may cost from one to eight million 
dollars (U.S.) depending on location. 
The time required for site validation, licensing anc 
actual construction in the U.S. can be as long as 12 years. 
The cost of typical power plants, currently under con- 
Struction, is approaching one billion dcllars. It can 
cost 500,000 dollars for every day lost beyond a scheduled 
start-up date. Since construction delays have resulted 
from the need to resolve hitherto undetected anomalous 
geologic/tectonic features encountered after excavation has 
started; identification of such features prior to the con- 
struction stage nas become increasingly important. The 
synoptic overview offered by remote sensing platforms makes 
them ideal for detecting such features.