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
Hormesis.
written from the best hot-spot in England (the Granite Tors of Dartmoor).
I fear lots of things down here like hypothermia, Bogs & Mires, broken ankles, getting lost, no phone signal but a few bits of ionizing radiation ? never !
(the Radon count in the tunnel is slightly above the action limit of 200Bq/m3 but I`ll sort that in due course)
ITS THE BANANAS THAT SCARE THE WITS OUT OF ME ! I mean those things should be banned outright, I got hit with 1 full `Bed` only yesterday, they even sell them in bulk to unsuspecting people, were all doomed !
Depending on how you classify them, actual deaths in civilian nuclear reactor accidents from 1957 to the present total 60, including some that are from causes other than radiation such as steam ruptures, etc. Most of these are from the Soviet Union and almost all of those are from Chernobyl. Actual deaths from military reactor and research accidents total 34. Again most are from the USSR (Submarines K-19, K-27 and K-431). Almost all of these deaths were from people exposed at the reactor itself; only a relative handful of excess cancer deaths attributed to radiation releases occurred in the nearby population.
In contrast, deaths in the same period due to Cobalt-60 exposure from radiography and radiotherapy devices which either malfunctioned or were improperly dismantled total 89.
These figures are from List of nuclear and radiation accidents by death toll. I’ve corrected the numbers listed there for Chernobyl to match the actual UNSCEAR report Roger references (the Wikipedia article has higher numbers). This reference contains no data for China or North Korea, so the actual totals are certainly higher.
Contrast this with over 1,700 deaths from a single steam boiler explosion aboard the Sultana in 1865. In the 19th century there were multiple steam boiler explosions which killed more people each than all the civilian reactor radiation deaths we’ve logged in the past 60 years.
Now it must be admitted that nuclear accidents when they occur are hugely expensive to clean up — vastly more than a comparable accident at a coal or gas generating facility. But in terms of directly attributable deaths, nuclear power has a safety record significantly better than what we’ve come to expect for much of the last 150 years.
In practical terms, your mortality risk from a civilian reactor is slightly less than that of drowning in a bowl of chicken soup your neighbor brings over as a cold remedy.
Linear no threshold (LNT) is false. Here is yet another study proving this:
http://www.auntminnie.com/index.aspx?sec=ser&sub=def&pag=dis&ItemID=114689
The Molten Salt Reactor can’t blow up, melt down and is walk away safe and adds extreme, none of these accidents could have occurred with the MSR. http://www.egeneration.org
The problem with MSR’s is that as of today they have not produced a single kilowatt hour’s worth of electricity, and we don’t know if they are economically viable.
Should be able to model that 🙂
They did run one for 5 years in the late 60s and got all the measurements for heat produced, fuel use etc. I’m pretty sure we know how to use heat to generate electricity.
The economic viability will be sorted out shortly. The Chinese have ramped up their LFTR program. No more 30 year time frame. They are talking 10 now. So by 2025 we’ll have an answer to that question.
Yes TRM, they did run one for 5 years in the late 60s, but they did not produce a single kilowatt of electricity from it. 2025 is a long wait for a simple feasibility demonstration.
Stevie,
You do understand the difference between the thermal output of a reactor and the electrical output of said reactor is simply the engineering and cost of a turbine generator, don’t you?
“Maximum power, which was limited to 7.4 MW(t) by the capability of the heat-rejection system, was reached in May 1966.”
Given the known operator temperature of the reactor, exchanges, and cold sink the thermal efficiency of said secondary electrical generation is also known. Or has Carnot not been discovered in your corner of the universe?
MSR’s [sic] should be written without the apostrophe. English 101
The biggest danger to present nuclear plants is grid failure, naturally or purposely induced. The Molten salt reactor eliminates the threat.
Sorry, should be “prolonged grid failure” aka loss of auxiliary power.
Pop Piasa, since there is not a single operational MSR on the planet, how do you know that they eliminate any threat/danger?
Stevie,
He knows this because he understand physics. The only reason that grid connection (or backup power) is needed is to cool down the existing solid fuel assemblies. Molten salts cannot “melt down” because they are already molten, their rate of reaction decreases with temperature (nice, stable negative feedback), and if they were to somehow get to0 hot they would melt through the freeze plug and drain into subcritical dump tanks where they would passively cool and solidify. So the failure mode is not present by design.
You question is akin to asking how do you know that a rock will roll down a hill.
Tsk Tsk says: ” their rate of reaction decreases with temperature ”
..
..
..
Mr Tsk Tsk does not know much about nuclear reactions. None are dependent on temperature.
PS Tsk Tsk, all of your statements are “hypothetical” and not based on real world experience with MSR’s, so I would advise you to stop making unsubstantiated claims.
Stevie,
I’m sorry that you require a more remedial explanation. I was referring to reactivity. As the salt heats up the fuel density decreases which reduces the rate of reaction. But wait, there’s more!
“MSRs have large negative temperature and void coefficients of reactivity, and are designed to shut down due to expansion of the fuel salt as temperature increases beyond design limits. The negative temperature and void reactivity coefficients passively reduce the rate of power increase in the case of an inadvertent control rod withdrawal (technically known as a ‘reactivity insertion’). When tests were made on the MSRE, a control rod was intentionally withdrawn during normal reactor operations at full power (8 MWt) to observe the dynamic response of core power. Such was the rate of fuel salt thermal expansion that reactor power levelled off at 9 MWt without any operator intervention.”
Keep digging, Stevie.
Second link got borked. Here it is again:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/molten-salt-reactors.aspx
Steve Heins, “None are dependent” [sic] should read, “None is dependent.” English 101
Published studies showing reduced cancer rates and increased longevity in mice from low level ionising radiation (a few seconds on Google scholar):
Luckey TD. Physiological benefits from low levels of ionizing radiation. Health Physics. 1982 Dec 1;43(6):771-89.
Liu SZ. Biological effects of low level exposures to ionizing radiation: theory and practice. Human & experimental toxicology. 2010 Apr;29(4):275-81.
Caratero A, Courtade M, Bonnet L, Planel H, Caratero C. Effect of a continuous gamma irradiation at a very low dose on the life span of mice. Gerontology. 1998 Aug 14;44(5):272-6.
Calabrese EJ, Baldwin LA. The effects of gamma rays on longevity. Biogerontology. 2000 Dec 1;1(4):309-19.
Pollycove M, Feinendegen LE. Biologic responses to low doses of ionizing radiation: Detriment versus hormesis–Part 2. Dose responses of organisms. The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. 2001 Sep 1;42(9):N26.
Mitchel RE. Low doses of radiation are protective in vitro and in vivo: evolutionary origins. Dose-response. 2006 Apr 1;4(2):dose-response.
Takahashi M, Kojima S, Yamaoka K, Niki E. Prevention of type I diabetes by low-dose gamma irradiation in NOD mice. Radiation research. 2000 Dec;154(6):680-5.
So solar minima are biological health boosters?
Would like to add another and not just because he is Polish!
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/chernobyl.html
Written by Dr Zbigniew Jaworowski this is the short version of his report. He was working in Warsaw at the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection as a nuclear scientist on that April day in 1986. He goes on to describe the day, weeks, months and years after the accident. Terrific reading and that’s not just because I’m Polish
Forgot to add that he studied glaciers for 40 years and doesn’t believe deep ice core CO2 measurements are accurate.
http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Calen5/JawoCO2-Eng.html
Yes Jaworowski was one of the last of the true radiation biologists for whom I have much respect. Up there with Patricia Durbin, Janet Vaughan, Webster Jee and Nick Priest.
Chernobyl happened because of the reasons explained here. There was and probably still is a more general problem for the Russians that on orders/pressures from above the operators effectively ignored procedures and safety simply to maintain power supplies. The safest base load power generation plants are hydro-electric plants, yet a few years ago one of their hydro plants in Southern Siberia – one of the biggest, if not the biggest in the world, was totally destroyed and 70 operators/engineers were killed through similar circumstances.
There had been major problems elsewhere on the Grid and this plant was ordered to run all turbo-generators available, including standbys at full output to maintain supplies despite totally inadequate maintenance and some significant vibration on some turbo units. With all the units running at full bore this vibration got even more severe and eventually the first in line turbo-generator’s holding down bolts sheared due to this vibration and the lateral load of 200 or more hundred metres head of water. The turbo weighed over 1000 tonnes, yet it was flung down the plant room impacting and breaking loose the next turbo and generating a cascade failure of other turbos. Those sections of the building not damaged/destroyed and those engineers/operators not killed by the turbo impact, were damaged/destroyed and killed by the following surge of a massive water surge through the building.
Chernobyl and this later disaster only demonstrate that using similar plants, particularly uranium nuclear plants under such regimes and in less developed countries should be no basis for condemning nuclear plants except that others may build them and any radio-active fall out will affect other countries, even globally. Remember also, the effects of Chernobyl were minimised by some individuals’ heroic actions which killed them almost immediately. Others, elsewhere may not be so heroic leading to far, far more serious contamination and pollution.
Most of what you’ve stated here is simply propaganda from the Soviet press conference in Vienna in September 1986. The accident cause had nothing to do with vibration.
Nonsense. How do you otherwise explain the catastrophic shear failure of the holding down bolts. Severe vibration in rotating equipment generates what’s known as fretting of the holding down bolts leading to an incremental weakening of the bolts.
Vibration was associated with the Siberia hydro disaster, not Charnobyl.
Here is a good timeline of the Chernobyl explosion and what led to it:
http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline/
For more than a decade before his demise, I corresponded with retired engineering professor Petr Beckmann, author of The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear (1977) and publisher of the Access to Energy newsletter. In 1981, he sent me a packet of photocopied scientific articles pertaining to the premise of global warming caused by mensurable anthropogenic atmospheric carbon dioxide. Though he knew that I’m simply a physician, he wanted me to look over this half-dozen papers and give the authors’ contentions something of a “sniff test.”
My response? .
“Well, they’re full of crap. Their observations are shot full of holes, their methods are garbage, their conclusions are unsupported, and none of them present their contentions and recommendations to any degree of reliability. What do you think?.“To Dr. Beckmann’s response: (more or less) .
“Yeah, they’re crap.“By the time Dr. Beckmann succumbed to his terminal cancer, we’d had continuing correspondence about the subject of both the public health aspects of nuclear power and the economics pertaining thereunto. I continue resorting to his observations and conclusions in The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear, which I recommend to everyone reading here.
The fear of nuclear power is irrational. So what. Environmentalism and Warmism are not rational, they are religions. Their acolytes hope to convert the unwashed by scaring them. It is one of the oldest tactics in the books. So why not scare people with nuclear reactors, how else are you going to get them to live in the poverty and degradation that the destruction of industrial civilization will cause. The whole hope of the environmentalists and warmunists is that people will sit in their mud huts in the cold and dark and say to each other: “Well, thank Gaia that we don’t have to worry about warmth or nuclear power anymore.”
And how are you going to put it on the highways and bi-ways? Microwaves from space?
Electric autos or use the electricity to make a liquid gasoline replacement called butanol. No changes to engine or distribution required. Not perfect but it works. Just the cost of electricity to make it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanol_fuel
In your dreams.
Time again to promote a switch to Thorium – U233 based nuclear power and scrap the present reactors after their service life. https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/nuclear-power-why-we-chose-uranium-over-thorium-and-ended-up-in-this-mess-time-to-clean-up/
https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/eleven-reasons-to-switch-to-thorium-based-nuclear-power-generation/
https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/eleven-more-reasons-to-switch-to-thorium-as-nuclear-fuel/
https://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/nuclear-power-and-earthquakes-how-to-make-it-safer-and-better/
Nuclear pover plants are simply too dangerous, because if they fail, and they do this from time to time, theres a hole landscape uninhabitable. Nobody knows where to go with the waist, and so there are easier ways to boil some water!
Migawd. I’m recovering from a left middle cerebral artery embolic stroke impairing my speech function and language (Broca’s area lesion), and you’re less capable of expression and intellectual presentation. How the hell does ANYBODY get to be as astonishingly stupid as you’re demonstrating in this venue?
Very sincere wishes for your complete and swift recovery, Dr. Tucci. I’ll be praying for you! So glad that you are still here; you have been missed. We need your
around here.
Janice
#(:))
Touche’, Tucci!
I pray you make a full and speedy recovery!
Mac
That isn’t entirely true.
– Three Mile Island never made any landscape uninhabitable.
– Fukushima was a total over-reaction. It should not have been evacuated except as a precaution during the actual emergency. People should be back and living there by now except for the Japanese’s pathological fear of all things nuclear.
– Chernobyl did release a large amount of radiation and evacuation was a very sensible measure. But there are a lot of areas evacuated that should now be considered for repopulation. As noted by the old people still living there, the danger has largely passed.
marty,
Please do show us a picture of a hole left when a nuclear plant failed.
Or did you actually mean a “whole landscape?
http://hearinghealthmatters.org/hearingviews/files/2014/09/wind-turbines2.png
Now that is one god awful picture and the main reason they want to put hundreds of acres of these things out of sight offshore in the EU.
“Now that is one god awful picture”
That’s what I was thinking, too.
I cringe every time I see these windmill pictures. I don’t know how someone who actually cares about the environment, could justify putting them in place. Happily for me, there aren’t any windmill farms near me, so at least I don’t have to look at them every day and wonder how many birds have died that day because of them. Windmills are an unbelievably bad choice, when there are much better alternatives available.
Here is the only image I know of regarding a hole from a failed Nuclear Facility
http://colintalcroft.com/Sonoma_County_Bird_Watching_Spots/Bodega_Bay__The_Hole_in_the_Head_files/droppedImage_2.jpg
Bodega Bay’s Hole in the Head
http://colintalcroft.com/Sonoma_County_Bird_Watching_Spots/Bodega_Bay__The_Hole_in_the_Head.html
Sure Marty,
Uninhabitable like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I’ve stood at ground zero. So sign that there was huge nuclear damage 50 years before.
Geoff
marty, turn off auto complete.
Second, of all the nuclear accidents that have occurred, only one has resulted in the need for an exclusion zone. And even that one the exclusion zone is rapidly being reduced/elimated after a mere 30 years.
The solution to the waste is to reprocess it, something you anti-nuke idiots won’t let us do.
I love to give that one to people opposed to nuclear power. It changes minds quickly. They just can’t believe it but once they check it out they are hooked.
Don’t need thorium. Stick with the molten salt part. Thorium just adds cost and complexity and actually either makes the proliferation risk worse or requires the system to run less efficiently. There’s plenty of uranium around for hundreds/thousands of years and one of these in-50-years we will have fusion.
Not necessarily. CANDU reactors can use thorium fuel without any modification. The Indians are developing their entire fuel cycle to eventually be based on thorium fuel through a combination of breeder reactors, some conventional PWRs, and their main power reactor based on CANDU.
CANDU requires $1B in heavy water. It’s a nice design, but not very good economically. And it can burn 238U just as well as 232Th, so still not an argument in favor.
There are hundreds of published papers that are challenging the LNT(linear, no threshold) method of risk assessment. The reason is that there are multiple examples of low dose radiation REDUCING cancer rates. (say doses of 150 times the natural background levels)
First, those thousands of residents of radioactive apartment blocks in Taiwan. Here is an article:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/07/forbidden_science_low_level_radiation_and_cancer.html
How about a published paper:
http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/low-dose-Cobalt-taiw-06.pdf
another:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477708/
:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/ip-rfh061708.php
:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13752-016-0244-4
ECB you nailed it. LNT is bogus. I happen to have some expertise in this area, having been a “Radiation Worker” for many years. The medical imaging industry always has followed the ALARA principle based on the assumed risk of LNT.
When looking at the available data for modern exposure levels “To date, there is no clear evidence of an increased cancer risk in medical radiation workers exposed to current levels of radiation doses.” http://pubs.rsna.org/doi/abs/10.1148/radiol.2332031119?journalCode=radiology
Among other findings, the study showed that between 1983 and 1998, cancers in U.S. radiologic technologists were about the same as in the general population. Some cancer types, such as lung, rectum and oral cavity cancers, were significantly lower than expected in both male and female technologists. Some cancer types, such as breast cancer in women, and melanoma and thyroid cancer in both men and women, were slightly higher than expected. The study said that the elevated risks could be related to the occupation, or it could be because they work in medicine, R.T.s were able to have better access to healthcare and early detection. https://www.healthecareers.com/article/career/does-low-dose-radiation-pose-a-threat-to-radiologic-technologists
I happened to have published a peer reviewed article on ALARA and Pediatric Imaging.
Too much fear generated around a non-problem.
The Birth of the Illegitimate LNT Model – just like Climate Models – they got it wrong. Real world trumps models everyday.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26535990
ECB
Here’s another you might have missed:
“Radiologists show no radiation-related mortality risk”:
http://www.auntminnie.com/index.aspx?sec=ser&sub=def&pag=dis&ItemID=114689
The Taiwan Apartments incident is worth mentioning … http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1338&context=dose_response
Most folk are unaware of the Santa Susana meltdown in Los Angeles: it barely rates a mention
If anybody is interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_Reactor_Experiment
Nucs are currently the safest way to generate electricity. http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
MSR would make it even safer.
I have one quibble with this article… Mr. Graves did not use the proper units, Roentgen (R), Roentgen Absorbed Dose (RAD) or Roentgen Equivalent Man (REM). We don’t need no fancy SI units. 😄 (<- please note the smiley face, for the sarcastically challenged)
I highly recommend Robert Zubrin’s book, Merchants of Despair.
Details the antihumanist Malthusian/Darwinian background of those who have hijacked the worthy environmentalist movement to pursue their (UN Agenda 21) aims of a 95%? depopulation, de-industrialisation toward a brutish feudal future, & a One World Totalitarian Govt.
Also details how safe & clean nuclear power is being suppressed.
Zubrin is a Ph.D. nuclear engineer with 9 patents to his name or pending.
Thanks for a top article & comments.
John Doran.
I’m keeping an eye on http://brilliantlightpower.com/, and http://lppfusion.com/. I think both have potential to make any fission reactors old hat.
The only valid fear associated with nuclear power is the excursion of radioactive material. This is a solvable problem from an engineering standpoint, and leaves only the question of how to prevent them from being purposely damaged to cause an excursion.
Does this facility storing the remains of a decommissioned nuclear power plant need an armed guard for 100,000 years?
..
http://www.connyankee.com/assets/images/43_vccs02.jpg
No.
Yucca Mountain is not open for business Tsk Tsk,
.
.
.
Strike one.
And by the laws of physics it can never be, right, Stevie? You question made assumptions. Different assumptions yield different answers.
Strike pi.
The laws of physics have nothing to do with the fact that Yucca Mountain is not being used. Meanwhile, the rate payers of the utility that operated the decommissioned nuclear power plant has to pay for an armed guard at the pictured storage facility.
And you assumed that will be the case for the next 100,000 years. Until Barry paid off Reid, Yucca Mountain was the law of the land (actually it still is and the courts have ruled such). Remember what happens when you assume, Stevie.
In much less than 100,000 years, Mr. Heins, Yucca Mountain will be open for business:
(Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-14/trump-advisers-eye-reviving-nevada-s-yucca-nuclear-waste-dump )
Tsk Tsk & Janice
…
As of today Yucca Mountain is not accepting waste.
…
Science triumphs against the politics, as they’ve determined that the site is prone to water infiltration. But, I’m sure both of you know that science overrides politics.
..
And the goal posts go whoooooosh! Your entire argument was predicated on a political decision and now you want to claim it was based on science. Cool story, bro.
In rather less than 100,000 years, the radioactivity of the post-reactor material has been diluted and decayed so that after a hundred or few years (depending on how it was managed) it is similar to the radioactivity of the ore from which it was made.
Ores are handled now without significant risk to people and with no need for a 100,000 year guard.
That is reality as opposed to your use of 100,000 years, which activists seems to have derived from the half life of a plutonium isotope in an exercise that is not related to the disposal of routine spent fuel. For that there are known knowns. The problems were solved while I was still in short pants.
Geoff.
Just build a 30′ wall structure around it and fill it with alternating layers of concrete and molten lead similar to an onion. Then put 24 hour video surveillance at and around the site with constantly rotating and varying monitor staff shifts
Steve Heins, “The rate payers…has [sic] to pay” English 101
The solution is reprocessing. To bad you morons won’t permit that. You would rather have the problem so that you can use it to condemn nuclear power.
reprocessing will take care of some of it,…where can I buy Depleted Uranium rounds. Nice hole punches
Uh, it’s called Intermediate Spent Fuel Storage for a reason…and, honestly, screw Yucca. What you’ve pictured is the next generation of nuclear fuel.
rip
It is not radiation outside your body that you have to most worry about, but radioactive particles that you ingest into your body. There they often stay and can radiate you from the inside for a significant time.
Yes, “hot particles” which might be ingested, with similar probabilities to getting struck by lightning.
Which makes the very^10 small number of radioactive potassium atoms in a banana more risky than nuclear power plants.
How come the anti-nuke crowd doesn’t march around the Oklo reactor?
Roger Graves:
As a retired Health Physicist, I applaud your article. The constant barrage of fear stories about radiation makes it extremely difficult for those of us with the knowledge of radiation effects to get our voice heard. Additionally I know in my profession that there are few who can translate the knowledge into laymen’s terms. You have done a good job of this. I could add many other facts to your article, but I’ve been delighted to see so many other commenters who are doing a great job of adding to your article, thus I will leave my comments to praise of you and them. Times are changing and folks are getting smarter about radiation effects. After years and years of fighting the battle, it warms my heart to see this happening.
Dear AGrimm,
I just want to commend you and wholeheartedly THANK YOU for those long, often lonely, years of persevering to get the truth out about nuclear power. The nations owes you and your fellow soldiers for truth.
If you’re in your home stomping grounds, keep warm! And enjoy that lovely family of yours.
Very gratefully,
Janice
Janice: back at you! I have always enjoyed your posts here at WUWT.
COOL! (thanks, AG)
i seem to recall reading somewhere that eating bananas exposes one to more radiation than what many consider to be a harmful dose……….care to elaborate feel free please
You likely read it …… at WUWT! 🙂
(from pp. 1,044 – 45 of the WUWT 10th Anniv. anthology)
ty Janice, i never write stuff down and dont do “links” i enjoy depending on my minds ability to remember what i read, mostly the “gist” of the thing read and almost never its source….unless it is a topic i really dig into and want to recall details thereof……65 years around this earth and still able to recall quite a bit of the vast amount of reading i have done…..
If you have access to a Geiger counter with what is called a pancake probe, you can easily measure the K-40 beta emissions in substitute salt (potassium chloride). Morton Salt makes it and you can find it on any grocery store shelf. Put some KCl in a small dish and place the detector on top of the salt. A typical G-M counter gives about 40-60 counts per minute from background. In the KCl experiment the counts typically are in the 600-800 counts per minute range. It is fun to point out that most foods contain some K-40 especially many vegetables. Vegetarians probably ingest more K-40. If you leave it there, some get a little panicky, however if you are kind, let them know that potassium is homeostatic in our bodies – in other words it remains at a steady level with no major storage areas (muscle has greater levels than other areas.) Background radiation – it’s what’s for dinner, or the breakfast of chompians. Bananas do have lots of K-40 but it requires a more sophisticated technique to measure because most of the beta particles are easily stopped by the banana’s matrix.
Roger Graves,
Excellent article!
Here is a compelling TED talk about the need for nuke power- by a committed green. He also happens to document the cynical and deceptive tactics Big Green used to make people afraid of nuclear power.
It is fascinating and well worth watching all the way through.
CO2 is rising fast, but using all the fossile fuel available will have insignificant impact on temperature, well within the beneficial range. The principal negative trend is the rise of AGW activism, leading to much inefficiency, and impoverishment of the poorest.
The AGW activists are the true source of man-made climate change”, if you think about it. The cliamte activist community have created climate change in the same way as a community of artists create art.