Guest essay by Roger Graves
Whether or not one accepts the need to reduce CO2 emissions, a power source capable of providing reliable base load power with minimal fuel requirements should not be dismissed lightly. Yet nuclear power is commonly dismissed by many people, including journalists and public intellectuals, as too dangerous to be considered. This essay is an attempt to look at the dangers of nuclear power in a dispassionate manner. There will be two parts to it. The present essay is an examination of the facts regarding nuclear power, and nuclear accidents in particular, while a second essay will examine the theoretical aspects, particularly of radiation effects.
First, a few definitions. The energy associated with electromagnetic radiation, or more specifically with each quantum of radiation, is proportional to its frequency. If the frequency is high enough, and here we are talking of X-rays and gamma rays, the associated energy will be sufficient to strip electrons from atoms when the radiation interacts with matter. Such radiation is known for obvious reasons as ionizing radiation. Lower energy radiation, such as visible light and microwaves, has insufficient energy to strip electrons and is known as non-ionizing radiation.
Stripping electrons from complex organic molecules will presumably disrupt those molecules in some fashion, so it is reasonable to expect biological effects from exposure to ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation exposure is measured in units of sieverts, named after the Swedish medical physicist Rolf Sievert. More specifically, the sievert is based upon the effect that ionizing radiation will have on human bodies. One seivert represents a very large dose, so exposure levels are usually expressed in millisieverts (mSv).
There are two schools of thought on ionizing radiation. The first is that the human species has evolved in a background of ionizing radiation, and is well adapted to it. Sources of natural background radiation include cosmic radiation, radioactive elements in the Earth’s crust, radon gas in the atmosphere, and radioactive isotopes in our food. The average dose we receive, on a worldwide basis, is 2.4 mSv per year, although this can vary significantly from place to place [1]. Humans, according to this school of thought, are insensitive to radiation doses of this magnitude. Only when radiation levels are a couple of orders of magnitude or more higher do we have any cause for concern.
The second school of thought holds that all ionizing radiation is harmful, and that any exposure to it, down to the smallest detectable amount, carries a risk of cancer with it. This is the viewpoint espoused by the US National Academies’ seventh report on the biological effects of ionizing radiation, commonly known as BEIR VII [2]. However, in my opinion there are some serious problems with this report, which I shall deal with in a later essay. Its overall finding that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and that the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans” is not altogether credible, considering the evolutionary background of the human race.
Notwithstanding theoretical arguments on the effects of radiation, it is instructive to look at the observed effects of radiation, with regard to the normal operation of nuclear power plants and with regard to nuclear accidents.
RADIATION LEVELS NEAR NUCLEAR PLANTS
Nuclear power stations contain large amounts of radioactive material, and it would be unrealistic to expect that there would not be at least some detectable radiation near them. A typical figure for the additional exposure caused by living near a normally-operating nuclear power station is 0.02 mSv/year [3], which is roughly 1% of the natural background radiation dose. Living near a nuclear power station for a year is equivalent to living in Denver (altitude 5000 feet) for two days, or taking a single US coast-to-coast flight, since higher altitude results in less shielding from cosmic rays.
A study published by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in 2013 concluded that there was no evidence of increased cancer rates due to radiation effects on populations living within 25 km of Ontario’s Pickering, Darlington and Bruce nuclear power plants [4]. The study found that while some cancer rates were higher than the general population, others were lower, without any consistent pattern, which is perhaps as good a definition of statistical variation as any.
NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS
While radiation levels from normally-operating nuclear plants are negligible, what would be the result of a major accident in a nuclear power station? To answer this question we can look at three such accidents, at Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl.
Three Mile Island
In 1979 a meltdown occurred in one of the reactors at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Very little radiation was released. The average dose from the incident was less than one per cent of the natural background radiation. To quote the US Senate report on the accident: “The Special Investigation … found no persuasive evidence that releases during the accident resulted in adverse near-term physical health effects or will result in statistically significant long-term physical health effects” [5]. A variety of epidemiology studies, e.g. [6], have since concluded that the accident had no observable long term health effects.
Fukushima
In March 2011 the Fukushima nuclear power station was hit by two major natural disasters in quick succession, first a massive earthquake, then a huge tsunami. As a result, over the next several days three of the six reactors at the site started overheating and went into meltdown.
While there were about 18,000 fatalities directly attributable to the earthquake and tsunami, there were no fatalities linked to short‑term over‑exposure to radiation at Fukushima, nor are any long-term health effects expected. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a report in 2013 on radiation effects from the accident [7]. The Committee found that:
· “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.”
· “No acute health effects (i.e. acute radiation syndrome or other deterministic effects) had been observed among the workers and the general public that could be attributed to radiation exposure from the accident.”
With regard to nuclear workers, the report goes on to say that 170 workers at the site received doses in excess of 100 mSv, averaging about 140 mSv. “No discernible increase in cancer in this group is expected, because its magnitude would be small in comparison with normal statistical fluctuations”.
Correlation of these predictions with actual long-term observed health effects will have to wait for many years yet, since the accident happened only a few years ago. However, data in this respect exists with regard to the Chernobyl accident, which is discussed below.
Over-reaction by authorities who initiated unnecessary mass evacuations may have resulted in some deaths. According to one report, “The psychological trauma of evacuation was a bigger health risk for most than any likely exposure from early return to homes” [8].
Chernobyl
The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the largest non-military radiological event ever to have occurred. The Soviet reactors in use at the time were designed without much thought for safety. The catastrophe occurred because some tests being conducted on a reactor went out of control; descriptions of the way the operators made ad hoc changes and overrode automatic safety features during the tests are hair-raising [9]. According to a 1992 International Atomic Energy Agency report, “The accident can be said to have flowed from a deficient safety culture, not only at the Chernobyl plant, but throughout the Soviet design, operating and regulatory organizations for nuclear power that existed at that time” [10].
Chernobyl Deaths
A 2008 UNSCEAR report confirmed that there were 28 deaths from massive radiation exposure in the days and weeks following the incident, and a further 19 deaths occurred during the period 1987-2004 in those who had received high doses, although not all of the latter were attributable to radiation exposure [11]. The real death toll, however, is predicted to occur from cancers induced by long-term radiation exposure, although we must be cautious about this. Various environmental NGOs have produced what are generally recognized to be grossly inflated figures [9]. A more realistic figure is contained in a paper published in the International Journal of Cancer (IJC) by an international team in 2006, some twenty years after the event [12]. It put the number of cases caused by Chernobyl at 0.01% of all incident cancers in Europe since the accident, with the bulk of this increase occurring in the most affected regions (Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation) . To quote this paper: “It is unlikely that the cancer burden from the largest radiological accident to date could be detected by monitoring national cancer statistics. Indeed, results of analyses of time trends in cancer incidence and mortality in Europe do not, at present, indicate any increase in cancer rates – other than of thyroid cancer in the most contaminated regions – that can be clearly attributed to radiation from the Chernobyl accident”.
Thyroid cancers following nuclear accidents are caused by ingestion of radioactive isotopes of iodine. These isotopes are typically airborne after a major nuclear accident, and can be ingested into the lungs. Iodine ingested in this way is normally excreted from the body within a day or two, except from the thyroid gland in which it tends to concentrate. Since the most important isotope, 131I, has a half-life of only eight days, the conditions leading to thyroid cancer constitute a fairly short-term problem. It is worth noting that radiation-caused thyroid cancers can largely be avoided by the simple expedient of issuing iodine tablets to the affected population immediately after an accident [13].
As reported in the IJC paper, the investigators looked for evidence from existing cancer statistics of increases in non-thyroid cancer rates, but found none (“… results of analyses of time trends in cancer incidence and mortality in Europe do not, at present, indicate any increase in cancer rates …”). They then applied the BEIR VII model to calculate the cancer rates that ought to have occurred according to the model, to arrive at their 0.01% estimate of all incident cancers. However, since this is a suspect model, it is quite likely that the actual number of non-thyroid cancer cases was much lower than this, possibly even zero, because no evidence of increased cancer rates had in fact been found. The figure of 16,000 or more cancer cases caused by Chernobyl that is frequently used by anti-nuclear groups is simply a mathematical projection based on this 0.01% figure without any relationship to real world data.
Some will claim that cancers can take considerably longer than 20 years to develop, and that we should be prepared for spikes in cancer rates up to 60 years after the event. As it happens, there is direct evidence to refute this. Two very large radiological events occurred over 70 years ago at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the surviving population’s health has been closely studied ever since. According to the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), jointly funded by the US and Japan to study radiation effects with regard to the atomic bomb, “The excess risk of leukemia, seen especially among those exposed as children, was highest during the first ten years after exposure, but has decreased over time and has now virtually disappeared. In contrast, excess risk for cancers other than leukemia (solid cancers) has stayed constant and seems likely to persist throughout the lifetime of the survivors” [14]. This would imply that, whatever the Chernobyl-related cancer incidence rate might be now, it will probably stay more or less that way without any future spikes.
Radiation and Genetic Effects
One of the areas of concern about radiation exposure is the possibility that genetic mutations may occur in children as yet unborn. Again quoting the RERF, “Efforts to detect genetic effects began in the late 1940s and continue. Thus far, no evidence of increased genetic effects has been found” [14].
SUMMARY
The three largest nuclear accidents to date, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl, have produced no physical evidence, as opposed to predictions based on mathematical models, of increased non-thyroid cancer rates among the general population.
Thyroid cancers can occur with a major nuclear accident such as Chernobyl, but there is a simple mitigation method available, namely issuing iodine tablets to the affected population as soon as possible after the accident. This is not too much different from issuing a boiled-water advisory in the event of a water supply system problem.
Deaths from massive radiation exposure can occur in a major nuclear accident, but this is no different in principle from any other major industrial accident. Chernobyl caused less than 50 such deaths; for comparison, the 2009 Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric accident in Russia caused 75 deaths [15], and the Bhopal disaster caused several thousand [16].
Apart from a few instances of deaths from massive radiation exposure, and easily avoidable thyroid cancers, there is no physical evidence, as opposed to theoretical projections, of long-term health effects from any nuclear accident to date. While nuclear accidents are to be deplored, there is no justification for singling out nuclear power as being especially dangerous. The fear of nuclear espoused by much of the media is vastly exaggerated.
Roger Graves is a physicist and risk management specialist who, much to his chagrin, is not associated with big nuclear, big oil, or big anything else.
REFERENCES
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation
- http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/beir_vii_final.pdf
- http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/related-info/faq.html#24
- http://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/pdfs/Reading-Room/healthstudies/Radiation-Incidence-Cancer-Around-Ontario-NPP.pdf
- https://ia902609.us.archive.org/15/items/nuclearaccidentr00unitrich/nuclearaccidentr00unitrich_bw.pdf
- http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/132/3/397.abstract
- http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2013/14-06336_Report_2013_Annex_A_Ebook_website.pdf
- http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of- /Appendices/Fukushima–Radiation-Exposure/
- 9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
- http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub913e_web.pdf
- http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.22037/epdf
- http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/thyroid-cancer/basics/prevention/CON-20043551
- http://www.rerf.or.jp/general/qa_e/qa4.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station_accident
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
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‘Nuff said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor
Agreed. 100% agreed. Nuclear safety is a largely imaginary issue. The US NRC has implemented safety regulations that make nuclear energy in the US about 4x more expensive than it is in China or South Korea. The right solution is to fix the regulations. The more fun solution is to talk about next generation passively safe technologies.
The Electric Power Research Institute put together a good summary of the advanced reactor technology landscape. Unlike most of their work, it is publicly available.
https://membercenter.epri.com/abstracts/Pages/ProductAbstract.aspx?ProductId=000000003002009413
For me, the most compelling part of some of the advanced reactors is how small they are. Coal boilers are 15 stories tall. It is the size of a pretty big hotel. Terrestrial Energy’s and Thorcon Power’s molten salt reactor designs that put out the same amount of thermal energy at the same steam conditions as a modern coal boiler could fit in a pretty normal suburban house.
http://terrestrialenergy.com/imsr-technology/
http://thorconpower.com/library/presentations
In anything like a rational world, the smaller plant generally wins – so long as it isn’t made out of or fueled by unobtainium. These plants use uranium (which is cheap today and reasonably plentiful), but have the ability to be converted into thorium breeder reactors. There is an unlimited supply of thorium.
Nuclear is a great “no regrets” technology. Even if CO2 concerns are proven to be nonsense, you’ll still be happy you made nuclear investments because of low, stable electricity prices, high reliability, high safety, and the lack of criteria emissions (methane, CO, NOx, SOx, mercury, particulate matter, etc. emitted in varying amounts by coal and natural gas plants). You might not feel the same way about wind and solar.
HEY!!! LOOK — AT — THIS!!!
I think we’re going to make it — TODAY!!! 🙂
THREE HUNDRED MILLION VIEWS!!!
(gotta be, by now)
Wheeeeeeeee!
(youtube)
Atta boy, Anthony. Atta boy!
#(:))
(and it’s my birthday today — yay, what a neat present!!!)
🙂
🙂
🙂
Janice, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (and many, many more)
Oh, Pop. Dear old Pop. THANK YOU, so much. I thought maybe my comments were invisible.
Janice ! Happy birthday to you!
This report should be blared of the roof tops, I grew up for 19 years within a block of a reactor inside a city. I am now 45 years older and not a sign of a problem. Due to various injuries I have had many more X rays than the average person by far. not a sign of radiation related problems.
The Nuclear industry has been regulated and made into a boogie man for generations in North America, while France relies for 85% of its grid on it. The Chinese are advancing faster than a bullet train with their development. Sadly we are falling behind . I sincerely hope Trump will address this as fast as he has addressed his agenda these past few days. Don’t give up hope , I think he will!
Thank you, Sybot! Thank you for taking the time to wish me a happy end to my birthday. I hope that all is well with you two up there.
And, yes! HIGH HOPES that Yucca will be fast-tracked for opening. High time.
Good things are ahead for us all!
Congratulations Anthony… and… Happy Birthday, dear Janice 🙂
An egregious article in many respects: had the wind been blowing toward Kiev and not over two hundred miles of largely empty marshes (Chernobyl), or out to sea (as at Fukushima), then Kiev and Tokyo would have had to be evacuated to avoid hundreds of thousands of long-term casualties.
Does Roger Graves not know the history of low-level radiation risk? There was thought to be no risk until one woman – Dr Alice Stewart, a medical epidemiologist at Oxford, examined the rate of leukaemia in children whose mothers had been x-rayed during pregnancy. That practice is now banned (And Alice Stewart was never recognised by the British establishment – indeed, they knighted her chief opponent Sir Edward Pochin for ‘services to risk assessment’).
A major loss of containment accident (TMI did not lose containment), can leave vast swathes of land uninhabitable (I have published scientific papers on this issue at a time when nuclear proponents knew the risk but kept it secret during crucial parliamentary approval of the first reactors). Take a 50 mile radius of any nuclear station and look at towns, cities, agricultural production…etc., – that is the nature of the risk.
Then there is the problem of nuclear waste.
The ‘answer’ is not to take such risks – many countries have forgone that risk after detailed intelligent debate. Fossil fuels will eventually run out or prove too expensive and renewables have limited availability and their own impacts. The intelligent answer is not this mindless pursuit of dangerous technology, but using LESS energy in less energy-intensive lifestyles. And before anyone tells me this deprives the undeveloped world – that world remains as undeveloped as ever with 2 billion without clean water and sanitation. I have watched for the trickle-down effect for 30 years – it does not happen. Nobody produces electricity for free – and of course, the poor have no money to pay for electricity! Better that development aid teaches sustainable building and housing, soil conservation and maintains, security, community and culture.
Why is it that climate scepticism – which requires a well developed critical faculty, seems to suspend that faculty with regard to nuclear power?
Thank you, Luc! 🙂
Well, Peter Taylor, all you managed to say of any substance in that screed against the most rational form of power generation for much of the world is:
if the winds had been blowing differently, there would have been a different pattern of radiation contamination from the Chernobyl incident. And you provided only conjecture, no evidence (in fact, Nagasaki and HIroshima provide counter-evidence on many points) as to the potential damage from even that hypothetical situaion.
Mr. Graves’ article and the comments on this thread soundly refute your anti-U.S. (and like nations) use of nuclear power. So, I will just direct you to them.
All you have is conjecture.
Just like the AGWers.
Peter, it’s well known that many things that are perfectly fine for adults, are bad for kids. It’s also well known that many things that are good for adults and kids are bad for developing fetuses.
Beyond that, the amount of radiation you get from an x-ray is orders of magnitude greater than the low levels that we are talking about here.
Belated Happy Birthday, Janice. Always like reading your posts – common sense and true science, with a dose of dry to sarcastic humor thrown in, always make my day!
And many more Birthdays!!!!
: )
It’s not quite as you make it out to be, as if there is not any issue with safety at all with nuclear reactors. Of course there is an issue with safety, and safety-related engineering has always been the driving design imperative in developing nuclear power plants.
While nobody can point to acute cancer deaths resulting from the three big commercial reactor meltdowns to date, the cost of recovery in each case was vast. The most minor of the three accidents – Three Mile Island – cost about $1B to cleanup, vs. the original reactor construction cost of about $400M. The most recent, and still climbing, estimated cost of cleanup and recovery from the Fukushima plant disaster is around $58B. again, many multiples of the original cost of reactor construction. These costs have to be accounted for in funding future power plants, so they are clearly a hindrance to building new plants of the last generation designs.
What is relevant today is the development of inherently safe reactor designs that, unlike the the predominant prior reactor designs, are effectively fail safe. Meaning, no external power source or pumps are required to prevent a core meltdown in the event of a reactor malfunction or external disaster (like the tsunami that hit Fukushima). You mentioned a couple of these alternative plants in your comment, and there is another system also being developed and licensed now by an Oregon based company, “NuScale” that uses small modular self-contained reactor units that sit within a large pool of water with no need for external electrical power or pumps, again being fail safe. It will take several years to complete the licensing process, and then after that the onsite construction process for these modular reactors is expected to be significantly shorter than for traditional site built reactor plants.
Thank you, Darrell Demick! 🙂 How very kind.
There are lots of good nuclear options now but the Green Meanies won-t countenance any of them. In their alternative universe, nuclear also contributes to global warming.
I always wondered why the left was against the “nuclear family!”
It takes a village, ie government, to indoctrinate children against their parents.
havent read a word above of the story but want to express my opinion, nuclear is the SAFEST, CLEANEST, and by far most economical method of producing electricity……..more people die using natural gas and mining coal than have ever been harmed by nuclear power generation……..and that was with the OLD designs, the newest designs are far safer and can use what we are calling nuclear waste as FUEL.
+1!!!
I’m afraid I have to disagree.
Safety worries appear to be no basis for not building Nuclear Power Stations. A far bigger problem in present circumstances is the theft, or otherwise unlawful possession, of radio-active materials by states such as North Korea for weapons or by terrorists for dirty bombs. In addition, the record of modern day nuclear plant projects shows quite clearly that project implementation from design to commissioning is excessively long and uncertain and, far more importantly, the total costs of Nuclear Plants – including nuclear waste management and eventual de-commissioning, is massively far too expensive compared to available alternative base load power generation systems.
What I can never understand is that the USA built proven prototype Thorium Reactors in the 1970’s which have never been developed for commercial use. They are far simpler, far safer, far cheaper and with comparatively little by way of toxic wastes and are far easier to de-commission. Why, in a supposedly open and competitive free market have they never been developed in the West, particularly as the Chinese and possibly the Indians have instigated such a development programme on a fast track basis?
No macawber, you’re wrong. The North Korean nuclear weapons program has nothing to do with the nuclear power programs either in North Korea (it doesn’t have one) or of those in any other country. Whatever technology or knowledge it acquired from other countries, it did so from their unsafeguarded nuclear weapons programs.
As for thorium, there’s no need for thorium reactors at this time. There’s still large amounts of cheap uranium available before having to move to a new fuel cycle. Thorium was demonstrated back in the 1970s as a commercial fuel for existing nuclear reactors without modification. But you can’t readily do it with existing PWRs. You have to use CANDUs.
No, nc, hydro-electric is not necessarily the cheapest. It’s entirely dependent upon site characteristics. And nearly all of the world’s economic large hydro has already been developed.
Macawber: if you are concerned about a dirty bomb, you might read this – http://atomicinsights.com/dirty-bomb-advice-from-larry-grimm/
Hello Janice….I am far from anti-US……I have visited many times, worked with several of your top scientists – Vaughan Bowen and Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst. (specialist in radio-ecology of plutonium) ; EP Radford at Penn State (chair of former US National Academy of Sciences Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation Committee), and Prof Jackson Davis, University of California, specialist advisor to various states and UN on ocean and atmospheric pollution, including nuclear risks. I actually love America!
Jackson Davis co-authored the Kyoto Protocol and helped set up the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As a personal friend, he could not believe I had found fault with the science (he had never thought to check it!). I spent several weeks convincing him with real-world data – that the warming was a result of lower levels of cloud cover and we needed to find out what caused cloud cover to diminish.
And my nuclear opinions are not based on conjecture – I just don’t have time to provide the necessary references. At one time I sat on the UK government’s Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee, lectured occasionally at Harwell, and gave seminars on nuclear risk to the European Commission. Some of my work is summarised in a chapter in ‘Radiation and Health’ by Prof Richard Southwood and Russell-Jones (Wiley, 1990); and in ‘The Fast Breeder Reactor: needs, costs and risks’ by Prof. Colin Sweet (1988). I have researched in detail the potential consequences of major loss of containment accidents as at Chernobyl and Fukushima – and the huge impact to economies of land contamination and evacuation to avoid long-term health damage.
Incidentally – the two nuclear weapons exploded by the USA over those two centres of civilian populations were both ‘air burst’ and left relatively little long-term ground contamination. A reactor melt-down spews enormous quantities of radioactive gases and particulates at 200m height which fall-out quickly to ground level, producing large amounts of long-lived ground contaminants. You might be able to track my paper in Land Use Policy (1988) – it formed the basis of evidence to the Irish Government and Parliament, who eventually decided against the risk of installing a nuclear power station.
So please – I have some experience, not conjecture, and I get annoyed when pro-nuclear people pull the wool over the eyes of the general public – as they have done in virtually every parliament that had to consider nuclear stations in the 1960s. {And actually it was the US National Academy of Sciences – independent of government, that produced the first public information on such risks – in 1976 – the Rasmussen Report. In the UK, such material was kept secret and we had to use the US work as reference to inform our own parliament}.
Hydro electric maybe the cheapest.
Bill, like you I’m aware of the safety record for US and international nuclear power plants, but that isn’t the record people who protest nuclear go by. Like so many activist driven policy, apples aren’t compared to apples in that debate and folks who ignore that fact will end up having their butts kicked if they aren’t careful.
The safety of military nuclear facilities during the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s was atrocious. Untold thousands died of radiation exposure in the US alone, their deaths resulting from the accidental release of radionuclides. The deaths of those people weren’t acknowledged by the US government for the most part, with the most egregious examples being dismissed as “exigencies of war” without reparations. Entire fisheries in the Pacific Northwest were contaminated by the Hanford facility (for example) during the time it was used to breed plutonium. Hanford releases are pretty much the entire reason the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in Seattle exists. My father and his sister were both killed by Hanford releases.
That hasn’t had much of an effect on my personal feelings about the safety of commercial nuclear plants, but I have spent more time investigating the subject than most too. I’m convinced commercial nuclear has an acceptable safety record as compared with alternatives like coal, natural gas and even hydroelectric. I recently moved to a town that’s only 20 miles from a nuclear power plant so I’m not one of those folks who supports nuclear in other people’s backyards.
But I will say that, if we’re to discuss safety with people, it’s important to differentiate military installations like Hanford from the civilian type or you’re almost bound to get walloped. You’ll run into folks like me who have friends or relatives that have died from radiation poisoning. How will you do that?
I blame Putin.
Has Putin replaced Bush as the all purpose scapegoat?
Bush? That was Putin’s fault too. All both of them.
http://www.sott.net/image/s16/327359/full/Putin_did_it.jpg
If you are going to go to such detail in talking about “radiation” It would be nice if you were a bit more specific in distinguishing “Electromagnetic Radiation (E =h nu) from other radiations more appropriately described as charged or uncharged particles.
So gamma rays should be separated out from say alpha or beta radiation and other more exotic particles including neutrons.
We shouldn’t be worried about getting hit by a whacking great Higgs boson.
Not complaining, or even critical; just a suggestion to clarify that distinction.
When people read about “power line radiation”, they shouldn’t be imagining horrors from outer space.
G
I remember one young socialist I knew many years ago who was convinced that food put in a microwave oven would become radioactive.
Why, the slang at the time for microwaving something was to, nuke it.
MarkW
Not to many kitchen apps are as “exciting” as the microwave .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7lfzA7WzVI
and making plasma with grapes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwTjsRt0Fzo
It would be nice if you were a bit more specific in distinguishing “Electromagnetic Radiation (E =h nu) from other radiations more appropriately described as charged or uncharged particles.
I always thought that gamma rays were also uncharged particles too (photons).
I think the key thing is that it is ionising radiation that is the concern, whether it is gamma rays or the other stuff.
Gray is the unit of energy deposition due to radiation of any type. Sievert used above is the measure of biological damage due to radiation. Sievert is therefore a unit of radiation already corrected for the type of radiation involved.
Martin A: you and I understand the physics of radiation and the terminology – the average person without physics does not. Early on in my hundreds of presentations to the public concerning radiation issues, I discovered that when I used scientific terminology, their eyes instantly glazed over and the knowledge I hoped to pass on was lost. I had the same problem with many university students. I trained thousands of university students in the safe use of radioactive materials. The better percentage were biology students with no physics. It is important to find the right words to describe what is going on with radiation without turning them off. Roger does a good job of that here. Here is an example that regular folks would quickly grasp. Instead of using the term ionizing radiation, I would show a water molecule and say, ‘when radiation strikes this water molecule it busts it apart like a bullet busting apart an apple.’ Everyone understands the effects of a bullet. Follow up with a picture of the O+ and OH- molecules and proceed with how those may recombine (no harm, no foul) or how they may interact with other molecules in the organism. In this fashion, the concepts of ionization, energy deposition and the effects of radiation are very quickly grasped. Once the concepts are grasped, it is easy to lead the more ambitious into the weeds of radiation and its effects. I see Roger’s article as a very good primer that will hopefully lead the more ambitious to listen to him more when he starts getting deeper into the subjects.
Martin A, a grimm
Mobile phones and wifi are classed as nonionizing radiation (microwaves) and bad for your health . The same deception used by the tobacco industry is now used by the wireless electronic industry. Why should they be allowed to use the atmosphere as part of their infrastructure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOIdVt5FE-A
If you added up all the man made microwaves emitted through the atmosphere you would understand what is driving the change in climate and weather patterns . CO2 has a more violent reaction then H2o to microwaves as can be seen from the videos above. The by-product of using nonionizing microwaves is heat.
URA, Uranium ETF has been on run since the day after the election, though a little profit taking today.
See stockcharts.com, ura, for details if the link below does not come through.
http://www.stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=URA&p=D&b=5&g=0&i=t53985050308&r=1485381060933
Going from Miami to Denver can more than triple the amount of radiation a person receives over a year.
Yet there is no detectable increase in cancer rates in Denver.
But sadly there is definite sharp rise in blue “particles”.
Last time I checked, Denver had lower than average cancer rates. For the radiophobic types, it is fun to drop this factoid on them, along with Denver’s higher background radiation factoid, as a correlation, but in reality it is a weak correlation. When I do drop this correlation on the radiophobics, I tell myself that the devil made me do it. : )
I can see the dust of the wild eyed “No Nuke” Gang’s horses (well, how else are they going to get around without electricity to run the gas pumps? — at least they are planning ahead, lol) on the horizon, so,
to head ’em off at the pass (no doubt, they will ignore this and plunge down, down, doooooown, into the ravine of misinformation, shrieking all the way)
here (re: their favorite canard, Fukushima)
https://www.cfact.org/2013/10/12/physicist-there-was-no-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/
I understand that Fukushima was not a nuclear disaster. In response to the earthquake the nuclear safety shutdown procedures worked. There was, however, a non-nuclear design flaw in that the cooling water pump system was located outside the core nuclear building and relatively unprotected and consequently was exposed to massive inundation and failure by the tsunami. Without cooling water the nuclear core over-heated generating hydrogen gas which eventually exploded, destroyed the closed nuclear containment structure and threw out radioactive material.
Actually, the diesel generators kicked in as designed, but the switch room (power distribution) was inundated by the tsunami, leaving only distribution to units 5 & 6. It was the that which led to an inability to pump water into the reactor cores in units 1-3. My recollection is that Unit 4’s core had been completely off-loaded to the spent fuel pool (SPF) for maintenance, then leading to concerns (in light of the hydrogen explosions) about SPF 4.
Mac, did you READ the article I linked to?
If so, why are you still worried about Fukushima and why are you pointing out that it threw out radioactive material? Do you realize just how little radioactive material was “thrown out?”
(from the above-linked article)
(Source: Ibid.)
There was radioactive material put into the sea from the accident – some long lived. What most people do not understand about radioactive materials is that dilution IS a solution, particularly with long-lived radionuclides (long half-life). I am using a relatively small number of atoms in the following to explain this concept for ease of conceptualization.
We’ll start with 1 billion atoms of Uranium-238 with its 4.47 billion year half-life. Whew! That is a long half-life and sounds scary. So how many of those atoms are emitting radiation right now? It is not the 1 billion. In fact, 1 billion atoms of U-238 will only give off 0.0000000048 disintegrations per second. In other words we need roughly a billion seconds just to see one disintegration. What are all those atoms of U-238 doing the rest of the time? Not emitting radiation, but they will behave as the chemical uranium likes to behave.
Dilution of any long-lived radionuclide is to our advantage. As the number of atoms decrease per volume of water or air as the result of dilution, then the chances of a molecule being ingested is less and due to the long half-life the chances of a disintegration interacting with us decreases.
Some idiot group was doing a crowd sourced sampling of water along the Pacific Coast, ostensibly to measure radioactive material that crossed the Pacific from Fukishima. Good grief, the transit time precluded any short-lived nuclide and the dilution factor of the Pacific is so enormous that there is zero chance that this group picked up any measurable activity of long-lived nuclides.
lived 7 miles from TMI. I’m OK if you care. But you don’t. Any how, I am all for more Nuke Power.
“more power Scotty!”
I care. Glad you are okay. Figured you were, though (smile).
My father Worked at TMI. And Indian Point, which is being closed. And a dozen other sites. He wasn’t worried.
Yah, sure, nuclear reactors to generate electricity has the watermelons shivering under their blankets, but they seem to think helping the absolutist Muslin theocracy of Iran in their nearly 2 decades and counting program to develop nuclear weapons and delivery systems is peachy.
That’s just one of many conflicts with reality which vex the progressive ideology.
Some related WUWT threads:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/14/nuclear-power-perspective/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/02/james-hansen-pushes-nuclear-power-as-saving-more-lives-than-it-has-harmed-with-new-study/
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EXCELLENT ARTICLE, ROGER GRAVES!
Thank you, so much, for so generously sharing your superbly thorough, well-written, powerfully supported, research paper with us.
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!***!***!***!***!***!GO, NUCLEAR POWER!***!***!***!***!***!
ditto…..+1
HI, LATITUDE! 🙂
LOW LATITUDE
GROAN, Mark that was bad, really really bad. 🙂
Changes in Latitude, changes in attitude.
Roger Graves, did you forget about this aspect of the nuclear industry? https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pgms/worknotify/uranium.html
Seems similar to the relationship of asbestos miners to mesothelioma, as opposed to general population exposures.
This report compares miners to other people living in the surrounding mining area. It does not discuss or compare mortality rates and causes in other types of miners. Having had experience of a local coal mining facility, there were many more deaths there among the miners than among the rest of the population. A comparison of miners from various types of mines would have been useful. As it is, it still doesn’t appear to be as dangerous as mere logging, except that most of those deaths are immediate.
The study in your link also confesses to its principal weakness. It conflated smokers with non-smokers. It’s also outdated and irrelevant as it relied on data starting in the 1950s and has no relevance to modern underground uranium mining today.
cgh, nothing has changed between underground mining for uranium in 1950 and today. Oh, unless the owners of the mines have found it in their hearts not to profit so much from their mines and give more of the money they get to the guys that work the mines.
.
https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/825/accident-kills-three-workers-uranium-mine-indias-nuclear-dream-adivasis
The type of system used in Chernobyl would not have been licensed in the West as it had high pressure water in a primary circuit with graphite as a moderator. The reaction between the two giving carbon oxides and hydrogen, ( used during WW2 to power buses in London), gases produced from a liquid and a solid.
It is a pity that nuclear power was in the first instance strategic, and so went the Uranium/Plutonium route. The development of Thorium reactors at the beginning would have made them much more acceptable to the impressionable people.
You are correct Noix, the pesky , governmental regulations that require a containment structure in USA facilities would have kept the Chernobyl contamination contained.
It really is sad the way trolls actually think that any reduction in regulations is equivalent to no regulations.
Regardless, insurance companies would have forced the adoption of containment vessels even if the government didn’t require it.
Again MARKW displays his ignorance of the issues at hand. Insurance companies do not insure nuclear reactors. I suggest MARKW investigate the Price-Anderson Act to understand the problem. If private sector insurance companies refuse to write a policy for a nuclear power plant, it tells one that the risks are not quantifiable, or acceptable to private capital.
As always, Steve confuses government action with evidence economic failure.
First I am very pro nuclear. However, this post does not address the contamination that could make places unusable. It is my understanding that areas around Chernobyl are still too hot for human life. And that is what most people are afraid of.
Tom, if you think the Chernobyl area is problematic, you should look into Hanford Washington.
You should read about the HISTORY of Hanford, WA, ignoramus. Hasn’t changed significantly in millenia.
Steve is our latest far left troll who believes the only reason why the sun rises and sets on schedule is because regulations require it to.
Okay, okay, I’m back to apologize. I’m sorry I called you a name, Mr. Heins. Please forgive me.
LMAO @ur momisugly Janice, hopefully you don’t get your drinking water from or live downstream on the Columbia River. The tanks are leaking.
Mr. Heins, You have again cited an inapposite example.
1. The situation at Hanford, WA was not rationally comparable to the Chernobyl situation.
2. The leak residue at Hanford was completely eliminated by the end of 2007. Over 9 years ago. Further, there was NO imminent danger (only a remote, never realized, danger of water contamination) to anyone from the spent fuel rods. No one was injured — at all.
(Source: http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/K-Basins )
Note: 47 cubic yards is not much — about 5 regular dump truck loads:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tt_RPjkmV48/Uebl5_xL-LI/AAAAAAAAAnA/yC5N1iYiHd0/s1600/10yardsofdirt.jpg
Big deal.
Steve, you seem to have no understanding that Hanford was a MILITARY program from the 1940s that had nothing to do with nuclear power production. Can you possibly imagine that any nuclear plant operator runs a nuclear power operation today under such conditions? What leaks at Hanford is not nuclear fuel but waste products from weapons production. And you’ve avoided the issue of mentioning exactly what the radiation levels in the Columbia River are.
Mr. Heins: I worked for the State of Washington Radiation Control Division in the latter 70’s and took/analyzed water samples from the Columbia both downstream and upstream of Hanford. Nary a sample came back where the sample demonstrated any contamination from Hanford reaching the Columbia. I’ve followed the studies in subsequent years, and as Janice Moore points out, there is no evidence any Hanford radionuclides made it to the Columbia. I have and would continue to drink Columbia River water. I have also been to the Nevada Test Site and stood on the exact spots where bombs were detonated. I got no radiation exposure. There were a few small patches around the entire area where there is some contamination, but it is all alpha emitters from which the alpha particle travels at most 7 mm in air and wouldn’t penetrate even bedroom slippers. With all due respect, you are way out of your league in discussing radiation matters.
Steve,
I live right next to the Hanford site,at Kennewick.
There is little chance of the leaks reaching the Columbia River,this has been addressed for a long time now:
Frequently Asked Questions: Leaking underground tanks at Hanford
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/nwp/sections/tankwaste/closure/pages/tank_leak_FAQ.html
You are another person who are ignorant about the true situation at the site.
Sunsettommy, aGrimm and Janice Moore, please see page 6 of: http://columbiariverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/hanford_and_the_river_final2.pdf
..
Note reference 18,20 and 21 on that particular page.
Martin: I could not find links to the following references you cite from the Columbia Riverkeeper organization PDF: 1) ref #21 the Oregon report; and 2) ref #18 which references #17 – a US DOE report. The title of the latter reference, “DOE Environmental Site Report”, is unspecific and worthless for finding anything of relevance. If you have links or clarification for the references, they would be appreciated.
I found the GAO-06-1018 report and noted this: “The extent to which contamination from the Hanford site has threatened, or will threaten, the Columbia River, is not fully understood. While some contamination has already reached the river, DOE has found that it is barely detectable because the high volume of water dilutes it. DOE routinely monitors the river’s water quality, which currently meets federal drinking water standards at sampling locations immediately down river from the Hanford site..”
The GAO report does not specify the contamination but I will assume it is radionuclides. As it does not specify the radionuclides or quantity, I can only provide limited comment which echoes the above quote; the down river Columbia water meets Federal drinking water standards. Radiological water standards have a very high margin of safety. I would stand corrected and say that some contamination has been found in the river but I need to find some info that actually details what contamination they have found. Natural contamination is often attributed to human activities in environmental studies. I would need to see if human made radionuclides have been identified. I have used ultra-low level detectors (which filter out natural radiation) and when analyzing for radioactive material quantities below the drinking water standards, it is extremely difficult to identify and separate human made nuclides from natural nuclides.
Mr. Grimm, if anyone is “out of his league” it’s you. I can’t tell if you ignorant or simply lying to benefit your argument.
Contamination of the Columbia River, along with the Oregon and Washington coastlines during the 50’s and 60’s was well documented. People died Mr. Grimm. Real people. Show some respect.
Though there may not be any currently detectable contamination 50 years later, please don’t assume all of the folks reading your rant are so stupid they don’t know the difference between 2017 and 1957?
It’s exactly that sort of response that will get you laughed out of the room in any real public safety review. I advise against attempting it again.
Mr. Graves addresses this fear here:
That is, under the safety standards used for decades, now, in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France, Australia, and all the other first-world, responsible, countries to which Mr. Graves is addressing his remarks, a Chernobyl cannot happen.
One interesting thing is that the style of government that they had in the Soviet Union is the same time our government loving trolls would impose on the US if they could.
one problem for your premise a few people NEVER LEFT the area and are ALIVE today……the animal life is THRIVING………we are told nuclear destroys an area for thousands of years yet TODAY both nagasaki and hiroshima are large thriving cities.
Tom….Bill’s right….some people never left…they are still there
TY, i have seen videos of them being interviewed, one lady is near 90 by now i would guess, their greatest fear is the large packs of wolves in the area.
Hunting is permitted in the area around Chernybl. The only requirement is that the take be run past a geiger counter before it is consumed.
I guess if you have a geiger-counter, you can safely go about in the zone, even in Pripyat. They have located the new sarcophagus construction crew there and tours are available of the exclusion zone which take you around Pripyat and to the viewing area by the plant. Even the anti-nuke activists prance around making videos to denounce nuclear power (when they should be denouncing stupidity in nuclear designs and the use of a civilian reactor for test purposes).
No, Pop that was not the problem. The test program was to enhance safety performance. The critical problem was the design of a reactor that was inherently unstable and without a reliable, fast acting shutdown system. It was in fact the shutting down of the reactor which triggered the power surge and the resulting steam explosion.
Lattitude… It took 30 years for a 1957 exposure to kill my dad. The folks should start dying in Chernobyl any time now.
the area around Chernobyl is perfectly safe. only the reactor building itself is still dangerous, and a very few ‘hotspots’ where a large lump of something nasty landed.
some people never left.
the sister reactor was kept running adjacent to it for many years after the accident.
Thanks for the updates. But still, the biggest fear that people have with nuclear is the fear of a radioactive Earth, whether those fears have any foundation in truth or not. So in order to move the discussion along, there must be a concerted effort to enlighten the average person about this.
Sites like this one do just that. The Earth is naturally radioactive. There are spots on Earth where specified forms exceed a safe enough threshold. Leftists have successfully made radiation and chemical and toxic words that don’t mean what they used to mean.
cd, can you tell us exactly what the mass of a lethal dose of plutonium is? LD50 will do. Heck, the unit of measure will be adequate.
If you actually expect to win your arguments, the first thing you’ll need to do is be painfully honest. Don’t obfuscate or try to downplay the damage done by military breeder reactors, you will lose using that technique.
Of course, fear is enhanced by ignorance, which is available in media outlets in large measure when it comes to nuclear power. While I agree with everything said here, I will point out that
there is a nuclear power revolution about to happen, courtesy of molten salt reactor technology. It is inherently safe and can burn up our nuclear wastes as fuel (which can provide all the power this country needs for the next 1000 years). It cannot experience core meltdown, and there is very little pressure in the system to spew radiaoactiuve material into the environment – only enough to keep the molten salt solution flowing around the moderator and the transfer radiators, which contain a heat transfer liquid which cannot be made radioactive, and which transfer heat to a water radiator and the turbines. Thus none of the high pressure side of the system is radioactive – a burst in the pipes would merely spray non-radioactive water. Substantial leaks of radioactive material are simply not physically possible. It is also walk away safe – requires no human intervention should the molten salt heat up (due to a broken circulating pump) – the hotter the molten salt, the less the fission, until it gets hot enough to melt the freeze plug, allowing the molten salt solution to drain out of the reactor, which stops fission due to the absence of a moderator and when the molten salt solution drops below 450 degrees, or so, it turns back into a solid, incapable of nuclear fission. Does not require shutdown for refueling – simply add more uranium (or Thorium) to the solution. Build costs are roughly 1/3rd of a current typical light water nuclear reactor, at less than $2 per watt, as cheap as just about any fossil fuel generator. and fuel costs are completely insignificant. Also proliferation resistant. Can also act as a mid and peak load generator – power can be ramped up and down quickly. Levelized cost of power estimated to be less than 3.6 cents per kWhr, cheapest power around. It’s not the low carbon or complete safety that will drive this technology, but its outstanding economics.
Peter Thiel, Trump’s advisor has invested in one of the several companies developing this new technology (Transatomic Power, begun by two former MIT nuclear professors)
There are two pieces of evidence which need to be considered before the ‘linear dose’ approach is accepted.
1 – Natural variation. There are many places in the world which have high natural radiation levels. I believe that there are studies showing that people in these areas, and people moving into them, do not have higher rates of cancer.
2 – Complete lack of radiation. There have been some studies done of plants under radiation-free conditions.. I understand that these studies show that plants do not thrive under such conditions.
It would have been nice to see some mention of these…
Hot Spots: Earth’s 5 Most Naturally Radioactive Places
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2013/01/22/hot-spots-earths-5-most-naturally-radioactive-places
Statists like the linear model for two reasons.
It’s simple, and so are they.
It means that there is no such thing as clean enough, so their jobs are never done, no matter how much it costs.
This will be my second post on the subject. The current post deals with the physical evidence of harm (none), the second will deal with the competing schools of thought on radiation effects (linear dose or theshhold effect).
Roger: FYI. The better percentage of Health Physicists have swung to the Threshold Dose Theory – at least in private. HP jobs often rely on the Linear Dose Theory, especially those HP jobs in the regulatory world, thus the Linear Dose Theory remains ascendant. However, I’m a strong proponent of the Threshold Theory. There are strong studies that show low doses improve cellular function and extends life on the average. However, there are plenty of competing studies that show the effects can be deleterious to any one individual. This leads to the philosophical question of whether it is better to extend lots of people’s lives at the expense of a few or to shorten a lot of lives at the benefit of the few. Personally, I’ll go with the statistics that show a longer life is likely from getting low doses and risk that I’ll be one of the few unlucky ones.
As long as it is matter that we are talking about, chemistry’s rules still apply. Chemistry runs on laws of mass action. Insufficient mass yields no action. What that amount will be is determined by what form and what location and what desired chemical reactions are affected.
How Nuclear Power Causes Global Warming: http://progressive.org/dispatches/nuclear-power-causes-global-warming/
in summary: “nukes create HOT water”
or…
Tom Nelson @tan123 Sep 16
“no terrorist will ever threaten one of our cities by blowing up a solar panel” /s https://twitter.com/tan123/status/778680063814344705
Re: “blowing up a solar panel”
And they won’t threaten a city by dropping a nuclear bomb on it, either. What a RIDICULOUS statement.
*************
Re: “hot water” — Have them check out —> a globe. Notice something, anti-nukers? Oh, you didn’t know. Sorry. All the blue is: water.
Poor Stevie. Back to the 3rd grade with you.
They have flown commercial sized airplanes into test containment vessels and they have survived.
Nothing a terrorist is likely to be able to get his hands on is going to damage a nuke to the point where it would release radiation.
No commercial sized airplane flown into a containment vessel would survive. Prove to me that one has.
Steve Heins,
The issue has been studied. Read about it here:
https://www.nei.org/Master-Document-Folder/Backgrounders/Reports-And-Studies/Deterring-Terrorism-Aircraft-Crash-Impact-Analyses
blcjr, obviously you did not catch the error in MarkW’s grammar. The plane did not survive.
Steve Heins,
Obviously you didn’t either. “They” in this context could be the original “they” as in the people who flew the airplanes, or it could refer to the airplanes, or it could refer to the containment vessels. All three, the subject, object and prepositional object are plural and so match the ambiguous “they.” Or you could be less of a pedantic !@ur momisugly#$ and understand the context of the preceding postings which were clearly talking about the vulnerability of the reactors.
MarkW obviously means the containment vessel survived.
Tsk, Tsk, says: ” Or you could be less of a pedantic !@ur momisugly#$”
…
LMAO @ur momisugly Tsk, Tsk, maybe both you, and MARKW should attend a remedial English 101 class.
…
Context does not resolve who “they” refers to in the original post.
…
Thanks for playing.
Poor Stevie. Back to the 3rd grade with you.
Tsk, Tsk, if you have a point to make, please make it.
Stevie, I made my point. Just get it.
The only “point” you’ve made is to engage in name calling (i.e. pedantic !@ur momisugly#$ )
…
Grow up son.
I simply responded to your pedantry with even more pedantry to demonstrate how silly it was. Now about that growing up, pops…
MarkW, they’ve done far more than that. You should look at the test Sandia did in 1987 with a combat aircraft. Far more dangerous than a commercial airliner because of much higher density. Containment penetration at just over Mach 1 was 3/4 of an inch. In short, it barely scratched the paint.
Steve Heins, It’s very dangerous to play grammar police on the internet. Invariably, the grammar police will make his own mistake and prove himself an idiot. MarkW’s post contained no error in grammar. The fact that the antecedent could have been more clear (not a grammatical error) was a golden opportunity for some humor, but you chose the douchebag path.
When you have nothing else, argue grammar.
Thanks for admitting that you have lost Steve.
“MarkW, they’ve done far more than that. You should look at the test Sandia did in 1987 with a combat aircraft.”
I think MarkW used to work at Sandia, so he is probably familiar with that.
“Grow up son.”
Foolish little child…
The family of a guy in my car pool lived near TMI (his Father was near 90 and Mom near 100 at death). His solution to using nuclear generated electric was – if you live very near the plant electric is free and escalated in price as distance from the plant increases. With that program everyone wants a nuclear plant nearby! I am doubtful that nuke power plants are anymore dangerous that other plants. But the non-technical population remembers WW2 and what the media hyperventilates about. Note I grew up in coalmining country my earliest memory is the man next door being killed in a mining accident and my father being hurt in mining accidents. I worked in the oil and gas industry and experienced death and injury on rigs and on construction projects.
I can’t locate the paper unfortunately; but it did demonstrate that if the same US nuclear regulations were applied “across the board” then every coal-fired plant in the country would have to be shut down due to hazardous radiation “breaches”. The crazy regulatory regime does, indeed, appear to be the major impediment to the advancement of the nuclear power industry.
I have read that due to the naturally occurring levels of uranium in coal, that the fly ash from your average power plant is radioactive enough to be considered nuclear waste.
I was CEO, President, Director, etc of a multi-national uranium exploration company. I went to the IAEA annual review meeting for uranium in Vienna and sought out safety and health experts. Thereafter we not only formulated a Radiation Safety Protocol report and put it on our website, we put dosimeters in the pockets of all employees in contact with uranium (ionizing radiation) At no time did we ever exceed ten percent of the permitted monthly dose and that was for a really hot prospect you would not want to sit down on. Modern techniques make the entire mining, refining, fabricating, and utilization sectors remarkably safe. The problem is not being permitted to construct modern reactors with state-of-the-art safety features. Go Nuclear!
It was the communists that launched a propaganda war against nuclear power in past decades similar to the propaganda war globalists have launched against CO2. Unfortunately, an uninformed and gullible public has bought into both lies to the detriment of the United States.
Absolutely dead on the mark, Rockey!
I spent 30 yrs in commercial nuclear power. This is one of the best articles I’ve read on radiation effects during operation and after the major accidents we’ve had. Thank you.
It is all about energy control because with affordable energy, people have time for independent thought. Keeping people in the dark, cold and hungry is keeping them under (despotic) control. OBEY.
Graves ==> Very nicely done.
Chernobyl – Life in the Dead Zone is worth watching (1/5)
I have a friend who went on a fact-finding expedition there a few years ago. There where some differences due to the wind at the time with some genetic adaptation. The accompanying press did not want to hear about it. Rocky Flats in Denver has a beautiful wildlife refuge around it. Best I recall Australia irradiates its oysters, so doesn’t have the disease problems we deal with. At least I ate some raw there not worrying like I might here. Press seems stuck in the past?
Nuclear electricity would allow us to maintain our prosperous lifestyles. We would be able to live comfortably into our old age and enjoy the grandkids. The environmentalists don’t want that. They want us to die quickly to reduce the burden we place on the planet.
All but the stupidest environmentalists realize that with renewable energy, we won’t be able to live a comfortable lifestyle. In fact, renewable energy is a much greater, by orders of magnitude, health hazard than nuclear energy if you count the number of people who will die earlier because of poverty.
My favorite line is that “thorium is every bit as renewable as the rare earth metals that go into wind turbines”.
Why has thyroid cancer rate increased in Australia?
See figure 2.3 at http://www.aihw.gov.au/cancer/cancer-in-australia-overview-2012/ch2/
The only radiological source of thyroid cancer is exposure to Iodine 131 taken internally. I-131 is only produced by nuclear reactors as a fission product, and it has a half-life of only 8 days. Australia has no nuclear power reactors, so whatever the reason, it’s not nuclear.
Indeed, when contaminated milk is made into cheese the risk has decayed away prior to consumption. The real problem isotopes are those with half lives of tens to hundreds of years. Short half-life gives high radiation for a short time, long half-lives have very low activity.