I may be in the military sector, but I did do a co-op in a plant owned/controlled by civillians(a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin). Civilian plants do have shielding.
Most of this radiative capture is in the poisons, fuel, and structural material before the neutrons even reach the shields. That is why we shift the brittle fraction prevention limit curves; we use the worst case end of life neutron embrittlement. Then, you have the moderator which thermalises the neutrons(slows them down to the temperature of the surrounding fuel/structural material/moderator/etc) and the reflector which send neutrons back into the core. Then we have the primary shield. Then there is a long distance (DR1=DR2(r1/r2)2) which greatly decreases the dose rate. If that isn't enough, we then have the secondary shield! In a year underway, I receive less radiation than you do(especially if you live in a valley and/or fly often).
I actually have no idea where you got this load of misinformation. The only thing I can even picture you talking about here is the cooling towers(often seen with steam coming out the top) which are for, surprise surprise, cooling. They're actually for the steam plant, not the reactor plant.
What?
I guess we should just stop using thermoluminescent dosimeters and doing routine radiation surveys.
When will you people ever actually learn something before you try to attack?
Merged post follows:
Consecutive posts mergedOut of curiosity, what happens to the radiation from cell phones, microwave ovens, television remotes, RC cars, GPS devices, etc?