Radiation Protection Standards: What stands between you and radiation

Last post, we talked about a source of radiation over which you have some control of your exposure: radon, through keeping good ventilation in your homes and letting the air change out now and again (and if you're really concerned, buying a radon test kit). You can control your exposure to a lot of potentially dangerous sources of radiation: don't seal your house/basement if you want to avoid radon, don't be out in the sun all day every day if you want to avoid skin cancer, don't let your doctor give you a dozen chest x-rays in short order unless you want an easy malpractice lawsuit, etc.
    But what about radiation exposure that you can't control? Say you live next to a nuclear power plant: what guarantees do you have that they aren't venting radioactive gasses into your local atmosphere, or leaking radiation out of the trains and trucks that deliver nuclear material and take away nuclear waste, or even the workers in and around the plant being irradiated and then spreading that radiation into the community spaces that you share with them? Are any of these things a danger to you?
     Spoiler alert: they aren't. Not even a little bit. In fact, a nuclear plants net effect on your personal exposure level, even if you live right next door, is low enough to be entirely negligible. But how? What rules are in place to ensure that you and everyone associated with the plant are safe?
     Well if you didn't know, the American government has a big book of rules called the "Code of Federal Regulations" or CFR. And when I say big, I mean big. Relevant to us out of its 50 titles is title 10: Energy. Within the energy title (denoted in shorthand as 10CFR) are many, many more rules, regulations, and standards, with one in particular being of great interest to us for this post. CFR title 10, part 20 (or 10CFR20) is titled "Standards for Protection Against Radiation", and it's quite the daunting read. But hey, at least we know it exists. I won't list it all out here, because as you can see in the link even when its simplified into its subparts and subheadings it looks like more than you want to read through. But if you do read through it, you'll find that it denotes everything you could possibly think of in terms of radiation exposure and safety: how much radiation a nuclear facility can expose a worker to (very low), how much it can expose the public to (even lower!), even so far as denoting special radiation levels for pregnant women. If it somehow doesn't cover something of importance, then the slack is probably picked up somewhere else by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), who are also the guys who get people in serious trouble when they don't follow the standards set by 10CFR20.
    So rest easy if you live near a licensed nuclear facility of any kind. It's not a crapshoot, the nuclear engineers, scientists, and technicians aren't just making it up as they go along. They've got an honestly frustrating number of rules to adhere to to keep you and the rest of the public safe.