From Forbes
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Energy I write about energy and the environment
After a tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan eight years ago today, triggering the meltdowns of three reactors, many believed it would result in a public health catastrophe.
“By now close to one million people have died of causes linked to the Chernobyl disaster,” wrote Helen Caldicott, an Australian medical doctor, in The New York Times. Fukushima could “far exceed Chernobyl in terms of the effects on public health.”
Many pro-nuclear people came to believe that the accident was proof that the dominant form of nuclear reactor, which is cooled by water, is fatally flawed. They called for radically different kinds of reactors to make the technology “inherently safe.”
But now, eight years after Fukushima, the best-available science clearly shows that Caldicott’s estimate of the number of people killed by nuclear accidents was off by one million. Radiation from Chernobyl will kill, at most, 200 people, while the radiation from Fukushima and Three Mile Island will kill zero people.
In other words, the main lesson that should be drawn from the worst nuclear accidents is that nuclear energy has always been inherently safe.
The truth about nuclear power’s safety is so shocking that it’s worth taking a closer look at the worst accidents, starting with the worst of the worst: Chernobyl.
The nuclear plant is in Ukraine which, in 1986, the year of the accident, was a Soviet Republic. Operators lost control of an unauthorized experiment that resulted in the reactor catching fire.
There was no containment dome, and the fire spewed out radioactive particulate matter, which went all over the world, leading many to conclude that Chernobyl is not just the worst nuclear accident in history but is also the worst nuclear accident possible.
Twenty-eight firefighters died after putting out the Chernobyl fire. While the death of any firefighter is tragic, it’s worth putting that number in perspective. Eighty-six firefighters died in the U.S. in 2018, and 343 firefighters died during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Since the Chernobyl accident, 19 first responders have died, according to the United Nations, for ”various reasons” including tuberculosis, cirrhosis of the liver, heart attacks, and trauma. The U.N. concluded that “the assignment of radiation as the cause of death has become less clear.”
What about cancer? By 2065 there may be 16,000 thyroid cancers; to date there have been 6,000. Since thyroid cancer has a mortality rate of just one percent — it is an easy cancer to treat — expected deaths may be 160.
The World Health Organization claims on its web site that Chernobyl could result in the premature deaths of 4,000 people, but according to Dr. Geraldine Thomas, who started and runs the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, that number is based on a disproven methodology.
“That WHO number is based on LNT,” she explained, using the acronym for the “linear no-threshold” method of extrapolating deaths from radiation.
LNT assumes that there is no threshold below which radiation is safe, but that assumption has been discredited over recent decades by multiple sources of data.
Support for the idea that radiation is harmless at low levels comes from the fact that people who live in places with higher background radiation, like Colorado, do not suffer elevated rates of cancer.
In fact, residents of Colorado, where radiation is higher because of high concentrations of uranium in the ground, enjoy some of the lowest cancer rates in the U.S.
Even relatively high doses of radiation cause far less harm than most people think. Careful, large, and long-term studies of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki offer compelling demonstration.
Cancer rates were just 10 percent higher among atomic blast survivors, most of whom never got cancer. Even those who received a dose 1,000 times higher than today’s safety limit saw their lives cut short by an average of 16 months.
But didn’t the Japanese government recently award a financial settlement to the family of a Fukushima worker who claimed his cancer was from the accident?
It did, but for reasons that were clearly political, and having to do with the Japanese government’s consensus-based, conflict-averse style, as well as lingering guilt felt by elite policymakers toward Fukushima workers and residents, who felt doubly aggrieved by the tsunami and meltdowns.
The worker’s cancer was highly unlikely to have come from Fukushima because, once again, the level of radiation workers received was far lower than the ones received by the Hiroshima/Nagasaki cohort that saw (modestly) higher cancer rates.
What about Three Mile Island? After the accident in 1979, Time Magazine ran a cover story that superimposed a glowing headline, “Nuclear Nightmare,” over an image of the plant. Nightmare? More like a dream. What other major industrial technology can suffer a catastrophic failure and not kill anyone?
Remember when the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig caught on fire and killed 11 people? Four months later, a Pacific Gas & Electric natural gas pipeline exploded just south of San Francisco and killed eight people sleeping in their beds. And that was just one year, 2010.
The worst energy accident of all time was the 1975 collapse of the Banqiao hydroelectric dam in China. It collapsed and killed between 170,000 and 230,000 people.
Nuclear’s worst accidents show that the technology has always been safe for the same, inherent reason that it has always had such a small environmental impact: the high energy density of its fuel.
Splitting atoms to create heat, rather than than splitting chemical bonds through fire, requires tiny amounts of fuel. A single Coke can of uranium can provide enough energy for an entire high-energy life.
When the worst occurs, and the fuel melts, the amount of particulate matter that escapes from the plant is insignificant in contrast to both the fiery explosions of fossil fuels and the daily emission of particulate matter from fossil- and biomass-burning homes, cars, and power plants, which kill seven million people a year.
Thanks to nuclear’s inherent safety, the best-available science shows that nuclear has saved at least two million lives to date by preventing the burning of biomass and fossil fuels. Replacing, or not building, nuclear plants, thus results in more death.
In that sense, Fukushima did result in a public health catastrophe. Only it wasn’t one created by the tiny amounts of radiation that escaped from the plant.
Anxiety Displacement and Panic
The Japanese government, in the view of Chernobyl expert Geraldine Thomas and other radiation experts, contributed to the widespread view of radiation as a super-potent toxin by failing to return residents to the Fukushima province after the accident, and for reducing radiation in soil and water to unnecessarily low levels.
The problem started with an over-evacuation. Sixty-thousand people were evacuated but only 30,000 have returned. While some amount of temporary evacuation might have been justified, there was simply never any reason for such a large, and long-term, evacuation.
About 2,000 people died from the evacuation, while others who were displaced suffered from loneliness, depression, suicide, bullying at school, and anxiety.
“With hindsight, we can say the evacuation was a mistake,” said Philip Thomas, a professor of risk management at the University of Bristol and leader of a recent research project on nuclear accidents. “We would have recommended that nobody be evacuated.”
Beyond the evacuation was the government’s massively exaggerated clean-up of the soil. To give you a sense of how exaggerated the clean-up was, consider that the Colorado plateau was and is more (naturally) radioactive than most of Fukushima after the accident.
“There are areas of the world that are more radioactive than Colorado and the inhabitants there do not show increased rates of cancer,” notes Dr. Thomas. And whereas radiation levels at Fukushima decline rapidly, “those areas stay high over a lifetime as the radiation is not the result of contamination but of natural background radiation.”
Even residents living in the areas with the highest levels of soil contamination were unaffected by the radiation, according to a major study of nearly 8,000 residents in the two to three years since the accident.
In 2017, while visiting Fukushima for the second time, I lost my cool over this issue. Jet-lagged and hungry, and witnessing the ridiculous and expensive bull-dozing of the region’s fertile topsoil into green plastic bags, I started grilling a scientist with the ministry of the environment.
Why were they destroying Fukushima’s precious topsoil in order to reduce radiation levels that were already at levels far lower than posed a danger? Why was the government spending billions trying to do the same thing with water near the plant itself? Was nobody in Japan familiar with mainstream radiation health science?
At first the government scientist responded by simply repeating the official line — they were remediating the top soil to remove the radiation from the accident.
I decided to force the issue. I repeated my question. My translator told me that the expert didn’t understand my question. I started arguing with my translator.
Then, at that moment, the government scientist started talking again. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was saying something different.
“Every scientist and radiation expert in the world who comes here says the same thing,” he said. “We know we don’t need to reduce radiation levels for public health. We’re doing it because the people want us to.”
The truth of the matter had been acknowledged, and the tension that had hung between us had finally broken. “Arigato gozaimasu!” I said, genuinely grateful for the man’s honesty.
The man’s face was sad when he explained the situation, but he was also calmer. The mania behind his insistence that the “contaminated” topsoil had required “cleaning” had evaporated.
And I wasn’t mad anymore either, just relieved. I understood his dilemma. He had only been the repeating official dogma because his job, and the larger culture and politics, required him to.
Such has been the treatment of radiation fears by scientists and government officials, not just in Japan, for over 60 years.
There is no evidence that low levels of radiation hurt people, but rather than be blunt about that, scientists have, in the past, shaded the truth often out of a misguided sense of erring on the side of caution, but thereby allowing widespread misunderstanding of radiation to persist.
We also now know that when societies don’t use nuclear, they mostly use fossil fuels, not renewables. After Fukushima, Japan closed its nuclear plants and saw deadly air pollution skyrocket.
The biggest losers, as per usual, are the most vulnerable: those with respiratory diseases, such as emphysema and asthma, children, the elderly, the sick, and the poor, who tend to live in the most polluted areas of cities.
It’s also clear that people displace anxieties about other things onto nuclear accidents. We know from in-depth qualitative research conducted in the 1970s that young people in the early part of that decade were displacing fears of nuclear bombs onto nuclear plants.
Nuclear plants are viewed as little bombs and nuclear accidents are viewed as little atomic explosions, complete with fall-out and the dread of contamination.
It is impossible to view the Japanese public’s panicked overreaction to Fukushima and not see it as partly motivated by the horror of having seen 15,897 citizens instantly killed, and another 2,533 gone missing, after a tsunami hammered the region.
The sociologist Kyle Cleveland argues persuasively that Fukushima was a “moral panic,” in that the panic was motivated by a desire by the Japanese news media and public for revenge against an industrial and technical elite viewed as uncaring, arrogant, and corrupt.
Michael Shellenberger, President, Environmental Progress. Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment.”
HT/Peter T
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One madman screaming “The sky is falling” can cause a crowd to panic and follow him over a cliff.
Al Gore?
True.
There’s a very saying that perfectly sums up these often unfounded fears about nuclear power – and climate change.
“You have nothing to fear but fear itself”.
Chris
But the sky (atmosphere) is falling. If it wasn’t falling it would drift off into space and then we would be in real trouble… 🙂
Well said.
Shellenberger’s estimate of 200 may be exaggerated. I think the most authoritative source is the UN report from 2008, which is here: http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2008/11-80076_Report_2008_Annex_D.pdf .
According to that document there were:
28 deaths resulting from Chernobyl radiation (Page 64)
15 from thyroid cancer over the ensuing years (Page 65)
4 deaths from a helicopter crash
2 from the explosion
Total is 43 deaths from radiation, I think. Certainly too many deaths, but far less than many other disasters.
The same propaganda fear campaign that has been perpetrated against fossil fuels making CO2 the villain was conducted against nuclear power plants making an irrational fear of radiation the villain.
This article represents a rational presentation of the reality of the benefits that nuclear power offered to the world.
+42×1042
The problem with Fukushima was in the planning of the construction of the plant. The meltdown could have been prevented if the backup diesel generators (and their fuel) for the cooling pumps had been protected to the same level as the control room was. Some idiots in the government put the backup generators in the basement (which flooded) instead of the same elevated level of the control room.
I’m not anti nuke, but I’m definitely agnostic.
You may have trivialized Chernobyl into insignificance, but what if over a period of 250 years, the world accumulated 100 Chernobyls? These facilities don’t just fade away. I suppose you could do the math and show a minimal number were killed in any year; however, the footprint of off-limit contamination would continually grow (at least for thousands of years).
The black swans here could be massive killers, and there’s no way to put that genie back in the bottle with smooth talk about “we’ve learned from our mistakes, and it’ll be different next time”.
At a minimum, finally completing & implementing a viable “permanent” nuclear storage facility (AKA Yucca Mt) is required before even attempting to rebuild public trust.
Put another way, it’s not just how many are killed, but how they die. Automobiles kill 40,000 Americans each year; if half that many died in airplane crashes, thre’d be no airline industry.
Shellenberger made a convincing case. He has the facts right about the overblown danger of radiation from a meltdown especially as contrasted with the far greater number of deaths from other forms of energy generation. You can see for yourself how minimal the lingering radiation is around the Fukushima Daiichi plant here:
https://jciv.iidj.net/map/
The 3 places limited to very small geographical areas still in purple are at 75, 70 and 62 mSv/yr, exceeding the U.S. occupational exposure safety limit of 50 mSv/year. All the rest are far below that amount. The safety limit was extrapolated from the intense, deadly radiation exposure in the first seconds of a nuclear explosion (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and has been the standard for 75 years. It wasn’t until 2012 that the method to determine the safe dose limit was seriously challenged. That year a MIT study showed that mice exposed continuously to 400 times the amount of background radiation (more than 10 times the highest amount around Fukushima) for 5 weeks showed no DNA damage. That’s 20 times the occupational exposure safety limit. Here’s the study:
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.1104294
And all that high-level nuclear waste from reactor cores that you’re worried about? Uranium is extremely dense. If you do the math you will find that all the high-level nuclear waste from all U.S. reactors since the first reactor came online in 1958, roughly 80,000 metric tonnes, would cover a football field 31 inches deep. Nuclear fission is extremely efficient. That spent fuel could be reprocessed so that more than 90% of it can be re-used rather than buried, which is what France and Japan have done.
And note well that the US safety limit is easily exceeded by eating just two bananas a day. This is one of the reasons for the recurring internet meme “banana for scale”.
I like to eat a cut-up banana with my Cherrios cereal in the morning.
What’s a safe dose of bananas per week? 🙂
Also exceeded by eating 1/2 an Avocado.
the US safety limit is easily exceeded by eating just two bananas a day
But they’re SO ap-pealing.
“Shellenberger made a convincing case.”
Yes, he did, and your follow-up post was also very informative, stinkerp. Thanks for the additional information.
Yes, the Greens and the Alarmists have a solution to their various problems of reducing CO2 and reducing pollution staring them right in the face. What does it say about them that they won’t take it?
It tells you that they either do not seriously consider CO2 to be a problem, or that they do not consider several degrees of warming to be a problem.
If they truly thought that CO2 and/or warming was an existential threat, they would back nuclear since this is the only realistic form of energy production that is essentially CO2 free.
What does it say about them that they won’t take it?
It says about them what Forrest Gump said — “Stupid is what stupid does”.
The parts that can’t be reprocessed have short half lives and are pretty much gone in a decade or less.
The figure I learned in my health physics classes is 500 years to decay away to background. Obviously the really energetic and dangerous stuff also has really short half-lives and is gone even more quickly.
As for 100 Chernobyls at the start of the thread, that won’t happen because Russia didn’t even build 100 of the stupid RBMK reactors. A reactor with a positive void coefficient cannot be built in the West, and the remaining RBMK operators won’t do stupid tests, so there will never be more than the 1 Chernobyl. Stupid combination, running dumb tests on a reactor designed to increase reactivity when it loses coolant and moderation.
1/. That type of reactor was never and will never be produced in that quantity. It was inherently unstable and had no secondary containment. We had that sort of level of radioactive release in the 1950s and 60s in terms of atomic tests.
2/. Reactors with secondary containment – 3MI/Fukushima contain radiation even when core meltdowns occur. Neither has ,or will, kill anyone from radiation.
3/. Comparisons with other industries including renewables show it is not only cheaper but has a lower mortality rate.
4/. Ergo the case against nuclear is emotional, not rational, as the man at Fukushima said.
you might as well say – in fact with higher probability – What if an asteroid hits New York?
What if an asteroid hits New York?
Don’t toy with me, Leo Smith.
An Chicxulub-size asteroid would kill 7 billion people. On average such a collision is estimated to occur about every 200 million years. So on average that is 35 people/year. If we add in smaller but much more frequent hits which would only kill a few hundred million people the total annual kill rate would probably be at least double that.
So asteroids are way more dangerous than nuclear powerplants.
100 Chernobyls are nothing compared to the chemical pollution already out there. Also today after 30 years, most of the radiation from the zone is gone. So it would have not effect.
“…The black swans here could be massive killers, and there’s no way to put that genie back in the bottle with smooth talk about “we’ve learned from our mistakes, and it’ll be different next time”…..”
We have HAD the ‘black swans. The worst conceivable nuclear accident was an uncontained reactor exploding. We believed that it might kill millions. It killed 28, with expected total possible deaths at 160.
It’s as safe as a technology can be.
“You may have trivialized Chernobyl into insignificance, but what if over a period of 250 years, the world accumulated 100 Chernobyls? These facilities don’t just fade away. I suppose you could do the math and show a minimal number were killed in any year; however, the footprint of off-limit contamination would continually grow (at least for thousands of years).”
Chernobyl was old technology and had no containment structures around the reactor. The ‘accident’ involved the willful disconnection of safety systems. We do not have 100 Chernobyls around and 100 sets of idiots to perform stupid experiments while ignoring safety protocols. And even if you did, you are still looking at very few deaths when compared to wind, solar, coal, or gas facilities that will produce electricity instead of nuclear. And the 200 figure is total, not per year.
The true disaster for these 3 sites is financial in nature. The cost has been extremely high. The fear of 1,000 Chernobyls is unfounded because there would be no financial support to build the last 950 after the cost of a few meltdowns. The requirement for inherently safe nuclear energy reduces the odds of a financial disaster. Nuclear will go nowhere until these threats are reduced and the nuclear engineers of the world learn to construct reactors within budget and on time – a skill seemingly out of their reach even with current construction projects.
It’s hard to build something on time and within budget when the legals system stops construction half way through, then the regulatory system demands a complete redesign before construction can be resumed.
Most of the schedule delays and budget overruns are caused by lawsuits brought by anti-nuclear activists. They almost always get dismissed, however the purpose of filing them is purely to delay the projects and force them to give up. In this regard, they have been much too successful.
If you use bad data in an effort to demonize nuclear power, then you are anti-nuke, regardless of the lies you tell to yourself.
Radiation decays away. The more radioactive, the faster it decays away. After a few dozen years, the area around Chernobyl is safe to move back into. Further away, there never was any danger. So 100 accidents in 200 years don’t accumulate as you wish to believe. Beyond that, there has been 3 accidents in over 50 years. Where do you get this 100 in 250 year nonsense from?
Chernobyl was pretty much the worst case. In many ways, it was beyond worst case. Yet it wasn’t the massive killer that you keep hoping for.
There is no need to store nuclear waste. Reprocess it instead.
See Ken Irwin’s post below for death statistics from various sources. Nuclear power is the clear winner – fewest number of deaths per kWhr. Beats wind and solar by an order of magnitude.
Helps to look at data instead of screaming at the sky and pulling out all your hair. And you might avoid funny looks from people who know better.
Clear thinking. There does not need to be any black swans.
No one is buying the argument that we should install more pressure water reactors, as the nuclear industry does not kill very many people, per installed reactor.
What is needed is a fission reactor that does not have any catastrophic failure modes, that is as cheap as coal, and can be mass produced.
The pressure water fuel rod reactors are expensive, inherently dangerous, and can only be built in one factory in the world.
If the ‘nuclear’ industry was a competitive industry we would not be building a water cooled, fuel rod reactors, that operate at 150 atmospheres as that design has in the past catastrophically failed. It will:
1) Melt down if there is a loss of flow,
2) Melt down if the flow is too low
3) Melt down if there is a loss of pressure
4) Will exploded if there is an overpressure
5) Will create hydrogen gas and exploded if the water level in the reactor is too low exposing the core
There is better design (the theoretically best possible fission reactor design) that was built and tested 50 years ago by the designer of the PWR .
The molten salt reactor has no fuel rods, is six times more fuel efficient, operates at atmospheric pressure, and produces 1/9th the amount of long lived transuranic elements. It can be mass produced is roughly 1/3 to 1/6 the cost of a PWR, as it does not have any of the PWR catastrophic failure modes to protect against.
The fuel rod, water reactors are inherently dangerous because they have fuel rods and use water for a coolant.Radiation in the reactor cause water to separate into hydrogen and oxygen. Water reacts with zircon cladding of the fuel rods to produce hydrogen if the core is exposed which will exploded.
Shellenberger has been an environmental activist-writer all of his career.
I have not taken the time to review his earlier articles.
But this one makes sense.
Is the tide of promoting anxiety beginning to change?
Shellenberger is an environmentalist who can handle arithmetic, not unlike Bjorn Lomborg.
But isn’t afraid to go back to the scare tactics when needed. Don’t forget that he’s just as worried about CO2 as real pollutants.
I read somewhere (I’m sure someone here has a link) that more people have died installing solar and wind power than have ever died from nuclear. I’d be interested to see the stats of deaths/KHW by source. But facts or dead people don’t matter to environmentalists or socialists (same thing).
It’s a proven fact that more people died at Chappaquiddick than at Three Mile Island.
David, lol.
I love your humor
Lions (of the senate) are predator beasts.
That’s funny, but very true.
LOL. This is a common joke in the nuclear industry. (Well, for values of “common”.)
rip
Here’s a link
https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/
Nuclear is safest of all – deaths per Terrawatt Hour :-
Nuclear 0.04
Hydro 0.1
Wind 0.15
Photovoltaic 0.44
Natural Gas 4.0
Biomass 12
Oil 36
Coal 161
Including the death occuring during extraction, collection, mining, erection etc. etc.
I was wondering why this data was not in the article. Good comment Mr. Irwin.
The low death figures attributed to nuclear are totally unrealistic. How does one attribute cancer deaths to nuclear? The statistics are completely bogus.
Personally know two people that received the NRC once in a lifetime dose in 1979. Both are in good health, do not have cancer and are enjoying their retirement.
Use YOUR brain. The data is out there.
I do use my brain. There is a difference between natural radiation and man-made isotopes that get incorporated into cellular structure.
Please take a course on radiation protection.
You are repeating anti nuke propaganda.
That’s the whole point. As long as you can contain it and control exposure there are no problems. You can’t protect a population from severe particulate contamination during an accident.
If you have knowledge on your statement, then explain to me how the body defierentatres between a beta particle (β−, an electron) with a maximum energy of 1.31 MeV coming from the decay of potassium 40 in a banana and a beta particle (β−, an electron) with a maximum energy of 1.31 MeV coming from the decay of any fission product coming from a nuclear reaction. OR, from the “Natural” radiation coming from the tramp uranium all over the hills , valleys and land of Colorado and the radiation coming from the same radiation in a nuclear power plant.
Over 50 years experience as a Nuclear engineer, and have never seen radiation effects divided into “Natural” and “Manmade.” Sounds like the CC meme of “Manmade” CO2 is worse.
When I was at school ( a long while ago) my physics notes from the time reveal that alpha particles “could not fight their way out of a paper bag” according to our teacher. Yet when the source is ingested they are the weapon of choice for Russian state sponsored assassination.
I’m not sure what you mean precisely by “incorporated into cellular structure”, but what’s typically understood is that the body will eventually eliminate foreign particles through natural bodily processes, whether or not the particle is radioactive.
Now, if the particle is radioactive, you’ll receive dose for the time it’s in your body. (If I remember correctly, alpha particles are the type we’re concerned with internally.) Uptake is the term used, and is monitored. And, I’m not sure whether man-made isotopes really has any meaning in this context. Ionizing radiation is what we care about, whether man-made or not. In the end, it’s alpha (particle), beta (particle), neutron (particle) or gamma/x-ray (wave). (I mean, these are the standard types of radiation that we come across. I’m sure there’s some other, exotic, type that’ll turn you into a super hero or something, but I don’t know what it is off the top of my head. 🙂 )
rip
“I’m not sure what you mean precisely by “incorporated into cellular structure””
When radioactive isotopes replace normal elements in cells. For example, cesium-137 replaces potassium in heart muscle, strontium-90 replaces calcium in bone, etc.
“potassium 40 in a banana”
As I understand it, virtually all K-40 is excreted by the body. On the other hand, cesium-137 and strontium-90 mimic potassium and calcium, respectively, and are metabolized.
Do you think that natural radioactive isotopes like e. g. C14 or K40 don’t get incorporated into cellular structure? You are all isotopes, every gram of you my dear icisil.
“As I understand it, virtually all K-40 is excreted by the body. On the other hand, cesium-137 and strontium-90 mimic potassium and calcium, respectively, and are metabolized”
Would you mind explaining the mechanism by which K40 which is potassium, is excreted while cesium that “mimics” potassium is metabolized.
Or are you simply unaware that “K” is the chemical symbol for potassium (german Kalium)
icisil March 13, 2019 at 8:44 am
“potassium 40 in a banana”
Then why does my annual whole body scan show the presence/absence of the radiation.
Please learn something about radiation. This is not the place to fill in your gaps. You have been brainwashed with propaganda and falsehoods. Anti nuke pages are filled with false information. Go to the local library. Even eBay and Amazon has some decent books for a very low price.
They are both sources of radiation. Man made isotopes produce the same types of radiation that natural sources do.
The number of man-made isotopes in nature is miniscule and decay away to nothing in months to years.
icisil, we’ve had accidents, we know what gets released. The fact that nobody died from Fukushima and Three-mile Island less than 28 died from the beyond worst case Chernobyl is proof that your fears are completely ungrounded.
Unfortunately there are some people who just aren’t happy, unless they are afraid of something.
Mark, those are just the official CYA numbers. They are meaningless.
That’s your comeback to any data that goes against what you want to believe.
I also blackened a 5 REM film badge in 1964. Back then, Roentgen Equivalent Man was the standard and by blackened, it means at least 5 REM and possibly much more. Caused me to research radiation for years. Here is an interesting thought. Our DNA has been building for hundreds of millions of years starting when the earth was much more radioactive then now. Our DNA is actually very resistant to radiation; much more so than to a number of chemicals to which we have been exposed very recently.
“The low death figures attributed to nuclear are totally unrealistic. How does one attribute cancer deaths to nuclear? The statistics are completely bogus.”
It is the linear-no-threshold model that is bogus. We know what happened to the survivors of Hiroshima. If a person did not die from acute exposure, his life expectancy would be higher than that of the average Japanese citizen. Do people who live near the ocean die at higher rates because of the exposure that comes from the Potassium-40 decay? How about pilots who get more exposure to cosmic radiation? You need to be rational and educate yourself. Leave the emotional baggage behind and see things as they are.
You haven’t yet made (or are incapable of making) the distinction between natural radiation and man-made isotopes that become metabolized into cellular structure (e.g., bones/marrow, heart muscle. thyroids). The former at natural doses is not a problem. The latter at even small doses can be deadly.
icisil,
“You haven’t yet made (or are incapable of making) the distinction between natural radiation and man-made isotopes that become metabolized into cellular structure (e.g., bones/marrow, heart muscle. thyroids).”
In one sense that is true. That is simply because very little radiation exposure is about materials absorbed into your body. Gamma radiation from materials such as concrete, rock and dirt, high energy particles from space, and naturally occurring low level quantities of radio active isotopes in the food we eat are the primary contributors to total body radiation dose. Differentiating that dose from artificial sources is impractical.
Now, in the case of bio-active radioactive isotopes of iodine, potassium, and such, it is possible to note an increase in them in a full body scan since their half life is so short there are essentially no natural sources for them. Iodine 131, for instance, has a half life of about 8 days. Long term accumulation in the ground or your body not possible.
Cs-137 has a biological half life of about 70 days.
Sr-90’s biological half life is about 18 years, if it gets incorporated into the bones. But 80-90% is excreted rapidly if it is ingested.
Detrimental effects on the body, if any, are dependent on the dose.
Oh boy, another one who actually believes that there is no safe level of radiation.
Some people refuse to let reality sway their belief system.
Helen Caldicott is bat shite crazy. Hadn’t heard her name in a long time. She keeps coming back, like a bad penny. A real drama queen, employs studied histrionics when she speaks about the horrors of nuclear. Some people just have to be saving the children from mankind or their life is meaningless.
Back in my general aviation days, I flew Dr Caldicott from Moline to some place in Iowa where she was giving a speech. We had an interesting discussion, my being a former B-52 pilot. Nice lady.
Yes, many activists are nice people, but they often have deep personality flaws. Combine this with a few of them occasionally being very charismatic, possibly quite narcissistic, then viewed by others as possessing wisdom, and you have a person with the tools to make the world a worse place.
Caldicott is certainly a recurring bad penny…and not worth not a penny.
But every penny is bad.
Not worth the time and effort to pick one up if dropped:
– 5 seconds to pick up a penny
– equals 12 pennies per minute
– equals $7.20 an hour
– equals $57.60 a day with no breaks
– equals $14,400 a year without vacations.
Almost nobody values their time less than this.
Plus pennies cost A PENNY AND A HALF to make !!
So, it’s time to get rid of ALL the bad pennies…and I’m OK if we start with Caldicott.
Please remember that Shillenberger isn’t just shilling for the nuclear industry, he’s also shilling for the anti fossil fuel global warming fantasy.
At least he’s logically shilling. If CO2 were actually a serious problem, requiring urgent attention, natural gas to nuclear (N2N) is the most cost-effective pathway to low carbon energy production.
Shellenberger has the ideal solution to a 97% mythical problem. On the plus side, more nuclear power is a good thing. It improves grid resilience.
True, Eric, but at least he’s shilling for a “solution” (Nuclear) that is greatly beneficial even though the fantasy (CAGW) that lead him to shill for it isn’t real.
Presenting factual data is now “shilling”?
Regardless, please inform us how exactly being wrong on global warming proves that he’s wrong regarding nuclear power?
PS: From your post, can I assume that you can’t actually refute anything written here?
Well he’s pushing nuclear over gas, so yes, he’s shilling. He’s also advocating we stay with Gen III+ designs which, while they do work safely, are more expensive and less safe than they need to be.
Presenting factual data is now “shilling”?
factual (or otherwise) data has nothing to do with it.
notice what is missing from that definition? any reference to whether or not the data that the shill is using is factual or not. All it takes for someone to be shilling is for them to be “publicizing or praising something or someone”. So yes, it can be said that he’s shilling for nuclear. That there is factual data that he can use in doing so is a bonus.
please inform us how exactly being wrong on global warming proves that he’s wrong regarding nuclear power
It doesn’t.
The madness of social media crowds, combined with the precautionary principle, kills any chance of a sensible discussion of serious issues. Going full nuclear power is a no-brainer, if it were not for scare-mongering by the anti-development crowd.
The risk of nuclear power should not be understated. However, all forms of energy production have their own inherent risk. The Chernobyl reactor was (and remains) and unsafe design. The Boiling Water Reactors at Fukushima (IIRC) also had design flaws. By contrast, the pressurized water reactor’s safety measures at Three Mile Island worked almost perfectly as designed. The only releases of radiation were minor and did not enter the food chain.
Phil: the major design flaw at Fukushima was in the placement of the backup generators in the basement of the reactor buildings. If they had been placed on the hillside above the plant they would have been able to provide the power to safely shut down the reactors.
The company wanted to do that but the government forbade them to.
And now the government won’t admit it was at fault. Typical.
Why would the government forbid them to do that? That doesn’t make nearly as much sense as the corporation deciding not to do it because of cost.
The reactors did shut down safely Gilbert, the trouble is you have to continuously cool the pile to remove the residual heat once fission ends. Running the pumps depends on battery power and the standby generators. The batteries did there job for a time, but as noted the generators were crippled by the tsunami and could not take over. Expensive mistake.
There’s more to it than that; TEPCo (Tokyo Electric Power Co) shoulda’ had a couple directors jailed over Fukushima. To see why, read-up about Onagawa power plant, which was significantly closer to the epicenter than Fukushima. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant
To summarize, Onagawa benefitted from a real hero; Hirai Yanosuke. He insisted on a 14-meter seawall for the plant, and intakes going far-enough out to sea that the reactors could get cooling water even in the event of a massive tidal wave – and he had enough oomph with the planning committee that it was done. The plant shut-down in an orderly manner, was not inundated by the tsunami (although it was close), and indeed, residents of nearby villages flattened by the tsunami, were sheltered in the building. Onagawa was one of the first plants to apply to re-open.
Fukushima Daiichi (“First Fukushima” – the “Second Fukushima” plant, Fukushima Daiini, had its own harrowing tale from the tsunami) was built atop a natural cliff that had prevented historical tsunamis from causing damage ashore – but TEPCo engineers had the cliff bulldozed so reactor components would be easier to land from the sea. Several reports had suggested the seawall did not provide adequate protection to the plant. Fukushima is a very old reactor complex, with first-generation reactors; more modern plants had learned from other disasters, and none of them have their diesel generators in the basement.
I really wish we’d replace PWR’s with LFTR’s, but while I’m dreaming……
I read that engineers built the Onagawa plant at least 50% above the modeled max tsunami height. The tsunami supposedly came within 1.8 meters of that height. Good job!
Also, in addition to the reason you mentioned for lowering the Daiichi site, Tepco writings document that TEPCO engineers lowered it to save on water pumping costs.
LFTR technology sadly will never make it until the regulatory authorities recognize it is completely different from PWR, and the regulations need to be completely different. The things that happened at Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island simply can’t happen to a LFTR due to the differences in how they operate.
It does look as though Moltex Energy are making some headway with the Canadian regulator, but their design differs from most others in having the liquid crystal coolant separated from the fuel (also in liquid crystal form) by the fuel rod structure.
Physically, Fukoshima was built to handle a 25m tsunami, got hit with a 45m mammoth wave.
Politically, that wave actually spread the whole way to Berlin which cynically used it to announced its nuclear exit, which had been signed in secret 5 months before!
That decision actually started with Chernobyl, but other realities set that on the back burner until Fukushima brought the matter back into focus.
Gilbert: Unfortunately, putting the generators in the basement was only one of many “holes in the swiss cheese.” The batteries (IIRC) were also flooded. Valves that were supposed to be opened were closed and so on. As with many accidents, there are a number of things that could have prevented the meltdowns. There was a landslide that took out a power pole and so the plant was cut off from the grid, etc. To me, the biggest thing is that there is only one design where the cooling system can survive a partial or complete meltdown of the core and that is a pressurized water reactor. The cooling system at TMI survived intact and was used to cool the core until it could be removed. Every single other design that I have looked at has the flaw that even a partial meltdown will damage the cooling system. TMI points is a success story. Fukushima and Chernobyl are not. TMI is the equivalent of a car that is destroyed in a wreck but the occupants can walk away with just cuts and bruises.
For nuclear power to be part of our future, we need to build power plants that can have accidents and not contaminate the surrounding area: i.e. TMI. There was no need to evacuate the surrounding area when the meltdown happened. The containment system, with a couple of minor exceptions, successfully contained the accident. Accidents cannot be completely prevented so having a design that can successfully contain one is essential. That is the success of TMI and the failure of Fukushima and Chernobyl. I don’t think it helps to conflate TMI with Fukushima and Chernobyl. To do so misses the point of successful containment made by TMI. We build cars nowadays that have greatly increased survivability in accidents, as car accidents cannot be eliminated. The same mindset needs to be applied to nuclear power and in TMI we have a success story that points the way. Unfortunately, many still consider TMI to be a failure, when it isn’t.
Phil, the design flaw at Three Mile Island was in Human Factors Engineering. The facility was not designed for the operators but rather just to pass inspection.
So, here’s what happened at TMI. The cooling system indeed did fail. Because of that failure, the backup cooling system kicked in automatically, as it was designed to do. To show the operator that the backup cooling system was operating, a FLASHING RED LIGHT started to blink.
For most Americans, a flashing red light tends to make us think there is a big problem – and that’s what the operator thought. So, to handle the big problem with the backup cooling system that the operator knew was happening, because of the flashing red light, the operator shut down the backup cooling system – which as it turned out was working properly.
moderator
How long is it gong to take to get my post out of moderation?
( When a Moderator come check the board, now approved) MOD
The anti-nuclear movement ironically contributes to both reduced nuclear safety and increase CO2 through their continued and extreme opposition. In the case of Fukushima the regulatory hurdles erected over the years caused the power company to delay retiring the plant because it was proving difficult and expensive to get a replacement approved. So, they were operating a 1960s era plant when they should have been running a modern 2000s era design. Just compare cars between these eras as a proxy and you see that you can drive a circa 2010 compact car into a brick wall at 35MPH and walk away uninsured, while such an event would be 100% fatal in a any mid 60s car. New tech and computerized controls especially make a world of difference.
The saddest part of Fukushima is that geriatric design or not, the event would have been a non issue had the emergency backup power system been designed to withstand a 20 meter tsunami instead of just 10 meters. The nuclear system worked exactly as designed, but once it scrammed they had no means to continue cooling the beasties without backup diesel power, and that was destroyed. But even in that case, a more modern generation III reactor would have survived, as those are engineered to sustain coolant circulation by convection alone, so wouldn’t even need the diesel backup.
Wrt to CO2 anti nukers have similarly dissuaded PG&E from trying to re-license Diablo Canyon, so come 2025-2026 we’re going to lose 3200MWHr of 100% carbon free peak baseload generating capacity that utopian renewables will not replace. That includes the two 1000MW nuclear reactors and the 1200MW Helms pumped storage hydro plant in the central Sierras West of Fresno. Helms is 75% efficient (pump 4KW in and get 3KW out on demand) GW class battery that actually works. It was designed in conjunction with Diablo to operate as a system, where the nukes continue to run at high power and efficiency at night, with the power used to pump water uphill at Helms, banking that overnight capacity when grid demand is low to enable 1200MW of reliable, on-demand, 100% carbon free, peak load capacity the next day. It is a brilliant and elegant architecture now condemned to the ash heap of history by scientific morons. MHO anyway.
Spent fuel rods are a serious problem which is not being addressed. Most of the problems at Fukashima were in the spent fuel rod ponds – our insistence in keeping this stuff in little better than swimming pools while the International Atomic Agency steadfastly refuses to authorise high level containment and disposal sites. As Fukashima demonstrated (but no one took any notice), “storage at source” is a very bad idea ! The comedian John Oliver described this as building a house without a toilet and accumulating the crap on site.
We do have a simple solution – vitrify the waste into glass “hockey pucks” which are quite safe – to store or dispose of them in the Marianas Trench subduction zone where they will be dragged back into the Earth’s crust (from which it came) not to be seen again for millions if not billions of years. The Greens oppose this idea with every fibre of their scientifically ignorant being.
““storage at source” is a very bad idea !”
Especially when the pools are 100 ft above ground, as is the case in Fukushima. There are still around 1500 rods between reactor buildings 1, 2 and 3, that they haven’t had time to remove yet because they are so busy with other things. It took 3.5 years to remove 1535 rods from building 4.
Most of the problem in the US is due to Jimmy Carter’s forbidding the use of reprocessing, with the belief that it would set a “good example” for foreigners inclined to proliferation of nuclear weapons. Having to use a “once through” fuel cycle is responsible for the bulk of the “waste”.
Why no one has undone Carter’s virtue signalling is beyond me.
“It is a brilliant and elegant architecture now condemned to the ash heap of history by scientific morons. MHO anyway.”
If the Greens and Alarmists can’t see the sense in continuing to use this nuclear reactor, then they are hopelessly lost in delusion.
Indeed, it sounds crazy.
I think most people are worried about a nuclear plant in Chad, or Sudan, or Congo etc, getting stormed by religious extremists….or simply bribing low paid workers for some excess material….
This may surprise you (it surprised me) is that Nuclear power generation is the safest form of power generation there is on a deaths per TerraWatt-Hour basis (0.04) even allowing for actual deaths and projected mortality increases for those exposed at Chernobyl and Fukashima the next safest is Hydro (0.15) – ignoring the 171 000 persons that died in the China Banquio dam burst – August 8th 1975 (there have been many others.)
http://www.cfact.org/2015/02/16/the-lesson-of-fukushima-is-that-nuclear-energy-is-safe/
Fukashima survived a major blow from Mother Nature in the form of the largest Tsunami ever experienced – it was 15m high at the Fukashima facility which had protection for “only” 5.6m.
This occurred on March 11th 2011 and killed 16000 people with a further 4000 still unaccounted for – yet no one was killed or life threateningly exposed in the disaster that ensued at the nuclear power plants – sure it could have been a lot worse and we have learned a lot from the experience that we can be better in future – but nuclear power is safe even on the basis of past performance.
One worker died at Fukashima in a Hydrogen gas explosion – not from radiation or contamination. A further Fukashima worker died in 2015 from cancer which was probably as a result of exposure. In 2018 it was announced that a worker had died from lung cancer caused by radiation exposure during the disaster.
About 56 people died in the Chernobyl disaster (26th April 1986) and it’s immediate aftermath. Probably a further 90 or so from thyroid and other cancers since and a further 300000 were subject to excessive radiation.
A 2018 documentary on Chernobyl had the reporters standing in the hardened radioactive sludge in Chernobyl’s defunct coolant ponds adjacent to the wrecked reactor (in its sarcophagus) and found the radiation level was a third of the radiation they had measured on the plane flight over to Russia.
A recent medical study of the persons affected by Chernobyl has found that the psychological damage has proven more damaging and debilitating then the actual effects (people have become withdrawn because they fear they or their children are going to die, are not having children for fear of birth defects etc. etc.).
The study finds that these people’s health has been more adversely affected by false information, lack of information and fearmongering than by the actual incident.
I am not trying to minimise how bad Chernobyl was – it was the stuff nightmares are made of (and still is) – but since fear and alarm sell copy it was hyped out of all proportion by the media – the various TV news programme estimated future mortalities from 300 000 to 3 000 000 persons.
Greenpeace persistently claim that 9000 people died at Chernobyl. The UN report states 50.
Incidentally being irradiated is not the same thing as being contaminated. The engineer responsible for Chernobyl – Anatoly Dytalov suffered an 80 lifetime dose exposure but survived and died of a heart attack nine years later at the age of 64 in 1995 – he had previously suffered a 50 lifetime dose while working on nuclear submarines many years before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Dyatlov
His survival was due to his donning a radiation suit (which does little to protect you from radiation but is vital to avoiding contamination) – you can survive massive radiation but a microgram of Plutonium or Polonium in your lungs will kill you.
The press persistently fail to distinguish between being irradiated and being contaminated – typically lumping it all under “Radioactive Poisoning” (the scientifically illiterate press once again).
Even a 10% reduction in life expectancy (in those “affected” at Chenobyl & Fukashima) still does not bring the statistics close to the next safest – hydroelectric power.
Future nuclear plants will be considerably safer still.
To date the total number of people actually killed in nuclear accidents (including accidental criticality at processing plants and nuclear medicine incidents) is about 83 persons of which 56 were at Chernobyl alone. Perhaps 100 to 200 persons have died subsequently from cancers caused by exposure – again half of this at Chernobyl alone.
This is almost insignificant if you consider that one study suggests that an additional 1595 US citizens died in car accidents after changing their travel plans to road transport instead of flying in the following 12 months after the 9/11 attacks.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/05/september-11-road-deaths
The world has accumulated over 20000 reactor years of operational experience (by 2018).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident
US Federal data shows that working in the nuclear industry is one of the safest occupations in the country – safer than working in finance, insurance and real estate – the so called “FIRE” group – the lowest risk for insurance premiums.
The US average is 33 deaths per million per annum for all forms of employment (between 4000 and 5000 deaths per annum in the US alone.)
“I’d be happy to live inside a nuclear power station. It’s one of the safest places you can be !”
Dr. Patrick Moore Co-founder & past President of Greenpeace.
I think I can quite easily assert that there is no field of human endeavour which has a lower death toll per number of active persons, than nuclear power.
Like it or not Nuclear power is extremely safe.
I am a registered radiation worker and even spent a short time working in a “Hot” “Corecatcher” Vault beneath an active reactor – was I concerned at the time ? – No ! – actual exposure turned out to be insignificant but I still considered it an adventure at the time – fun even. The drive to work was probably a million times more dangerous.
The other facts the press leaves out is that the isotope of radiation exposure is important as well. If the isotope is one the body metabolizes such as iodine, it will cause significant damage to the organ which metabolizes the isotope/mineral. In the case of Chernobyl, there are lots of wild animals such as boars which have a build up of Cesium in their body (either bone or muscle accumulation) but do not have cases of random tumors or other outward problems.
Animal and plant wildlife around Chernobyl is thriving.
Why would humans be affected differently ?
How do you define thriving? Numbers are only part of the picture. You don’t hear about shortened lives and deformities. Beware, these pictures from areas affected by Chernobyl are shocking.
https://chernobylguide.com/chernobyl_mutations/
1) A declaration that all deformities are caused by radiation from the power plant.
2) Pictures taken in the immediate aftermath being used to frighten the clueless 20+ years later.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/wildlife-returns-to-radioactive-wasteland-of-chernobyl/
“You may have trivialized Chernobyl into insignificance, but what if over a period of 250 years, the world accumulated 100 Chernobyls?”
–
I have a film at home on nuclear program testing in the world, a little old.
There have been about 3000 nuclear explosions.
A lot more radioactivity than 3000 Chernobyl’s.
Guess where most were?
Mainland USA.
Greater than 2,500.
If the radioactivity from so many explosions most bigger than Hiroshima have not led to any problems yet, why should they in future.
True many underground but not all.
And aquifers should have carried the radioactivity a long way.
There was even one test to do a form of fracking but it was an little radioactive.
Went to Las Vegas for my birthday 8 years ago.
Americans did not even glow.
A lot less radioactivity than Chernobyl. In a radioactive explosion most radioactive material gets consumed whereas in a meltdown it is spread.
No so – most of the fissile fuel gets splashed – only about 15% changes state – so all bombs are very messy.
In the early days of atmospheric nuclear testing humankind stupidly blasted something like 50 tonnes of Plutonium into the atmosphere.
And we are still here……
Nuclear should be the compromise scepetics and alarmists can do, as it does not mean we have to change society or our way of living.
Which is why alarmists, in general, aren’t interested in it. Their real goal has nothing to do with climate, the goal *is* to change society and our way of living.
Figueres did not dare say – we are going to depopulate. Thank AOC for blurting that out all over Twitter, and Patrick Moore for taking up exactly this issue, praising Trump’s commission.
“Socialism” is a Red Herring – Dr. Schellnhuber, CBE, not a Socialist, rather a Commander of the British Empire, clearly stated the objective – 1 billion “optimal” decarbonized rabble led by his favorites of course.
sure, few if any people have died…
That’s not the problem…
The problem is you have to move people out of an area perhaps of hundreds of square miles – rehouse them, lose the agriculture and industry there for decades.
If you only lose 160 out of 6,000 thyroid cancers – well consider the cost and impact of treating an additional 6,000 cancer cases.
After Chernobyl farms across the whole of northern Europe had to have livestock sales restricted… deeply damaging to farmers.
Then there’s the other huge cost of nuclear: decommissioning. This has in effect bankrupt France’s EDF and is spiralling out of control in the UK.
nuclear is expensive, can take years to build, has a really serious economic effect on failure, never properly accounts for the decommissioning costs.
Put up solar and wind instead: balance that with gas.
Griff, I will blame any birds and bats that are beaten to death by wind turbines and/or friend by solar farms on you.
There are NO empty, abandoned homes around TMI. Some homes are close enough to hit a golf ball onto the site. And no one died from TMI.
That you know of. It’s impossible to track cancer deaths due to nuclear accidents. Nevertheless, there is an anomalously high cancer cluster around TMI.
And the area around TMI has a VERY high level of Radon being released from the ground. After the portal monitors were installed at TMI workers that lived nearby could no longer wear wool clothes or other material that Radon gas would cling to, e.g. fleece. Problem solved when they installed Radon mitigation systems at home. Enough the any home that does not have Radon mitigation system exceeds the acceptable level. FHA and most mortgage loans require analysis and mitigation before approval. There is also significant areas of Granite in the area, AND, just three miles south is a Three Plant Coal burning power station dumping the Radon from the coal burnt into the atmosphere and polluting the area with even more Radon. That Radon is STILL there, the insignificant amount of radiation from the TMI event was gone ~40 years ago a few days after 3/28/79. Radon is taken in with each breath and constantly replenishes the quantity in the body. Is in direct contact with the lobes in the lungs transferring it to your blood and simultaneously affecting the lungs.
Again you provide poorly researched half truths, omitting significant relevant facts.
Forgot, That Radon is “Natural” therefore, according to your meme, it does not hurt you.
There was never any reason to evacuate anyone from Fukushima.
6000 thyroid cancers was absolute worst case. Realistic data shows the number was much smaller.
The restriction on livestock sales was for political reasons, not health reasons.
Decommissioning is built into the cost of electricity produced by the plant. There is no extra cost unless foolish politicians force the plant to be closed before it’s time.
Here is a list of radiation exposures. People in Cornwall (UK) have three times the UK national average dose, at 6 mSv (due to radon from granite). Odly all of America has this higher exposure rate. I don’t see Americans dropping like flies, because of their higher radio
ation doses…..
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ionising-radiation-dose-comparisons/ionising-radiation-dose-comparisons
Ralph
There is a tendency amongst the ignorant to say that there is no such thing as a “safe” level of radiation.
Wrong ! There is not only a safe level there is in fact a desirable level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis
This was discovered by researchers trying to determine if there was a “safe” level – and it has been confirmed several times since.
Medically Hormesis is “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.
Humans have evolved in a mildly radioactive environment (just take a look up at that almighty great nuclear fireball in the sky) and unsurprisingly a slightly larger than normal background radiation is beneficial – probably indicates that the background was slightly greater during our evolution than it is now.
Just like a weak or dead virus can protect you from a large dose of the virus.
I was just poking through a new very thick Toxicology book that said hormesis is still controversial. They did acknowledge that “Alle Dinge sind Gift.” This is an interesting paper, as the idea looks complex but worthy. Calabrese, E. J. 2008. Hormesis: why it is important to toxicology and toxicologists. Environmental Toxicology Chem. 27(7):1451-1474.
Water is a killer in the wrong dose. O2 too, even CO2 at the levels of Apollo 13 was beginning to be toxic. What would that level be?
Their dismissal of Hormesis does NOT explain why there is less cancer in Colorado and the other areas with high natural radiation levels.
Part of it could have to do with differing populations.
A lot of young people who are hyper concerned regarding health issues move to Colorado. Whereas old people tend to move to places like Florida.
Ramsar, a northern coastal city in Iran, has areas with some of the highest levels of natural radiation measured to date. … Inhabitants who live in some houses in this area receive annual doses as high as 132 mSv…
In Guarapari, Brazil, a city of 80 000 inhabitants built on the seaside, peak measurements made by EFN on the thorium-rich beach were as high as 40 microSv/hour (about 200 times higher than the average natural background radiation in other areas of the world).
Search “High Background Radiation Areas of Ramsar, Iran” for more.
Here in the south west of England we have granite and it produces a lot of radon gas, which is radioactive. My fathers x-ray machine was checked for leaks regularly, he is a chiropractor, and his clinic is in the house. The readings are totally swamped by radon gas, can’t see the x-ray machine at all.
And yet we all have long and healthy lives in this part of the world.
The USA governments are predominantly opposed to wide spread nuclear out of fear for terrorism and proliferation to politically unstable states, it is only the greens that are opposed to nuclear per se. I believe that nuclear fission is only really attractive if a safe and reliable fast breeder reactor can be build and this would require significant development cost for which I see no funding. Maybe Bill Gates and his buddy Waren Buffet can raise the funds to crank start the process?
Gates is supposedly a fan of standing wave fission technology.
Bill Gates founded a nuclear company, TerraPower, in 2008. It will build a 600 MWe nuclear fast reactor in China starting 2018 (delayed due to US-China trade war)
https://terrapower.com/about
Chernobyl was a “safety exercise” gone wrong. Safety measures cause lots of accidents, like, say, the first Boing Max accident. Similarly, life insurance causes lots of death and crime — unintended consequences again. Without all the safety measures, we could build thousands of nuclear power reactors cheaply, like the Navy already does.
When I was exploring for copper in sandstone deposits in the Neuquen Basin of Argentina I noticed a lot of Uranium oxide, so we started a Uranium Exploration Company. I officially represented Argentina in an IAEA RedBook uranium conference in Vienna, Austria, and took that opportunity to question Radiation Risk Doctors about safety issues. They all said 1. don’t let smokers into heavy radon gas environments, 2. put a personal dosimeter into the pocket of every employee in the field, and 3. you will have far more problems with public perception than actual safety issues. All turned out to be true. We had the dosimeters go off for over exposure alerts three times, twice standing on outcrops of very high-grade uranium mineralization and once in a commercial airplane flight from southern Argentina (the stewardess asked us to turn it off but you can’t-it’s a safety issue, so we wrapped it up in coats until you couldn’t hear the alarm anymore). Mr. Shellenberger, whatever all of his motives, has written an excellent review of the issue of Radiation Safety.
I was unable to find anything in the reference link supporting the assertions of 6,000 cases of papillary thryroid cancer so far and 65,000 cases possible by 2065.
I am aware of studies that found up to 1,500 cases of papillary thyroid cancer in Belarus and said incidence declined to negligible levels after 2002.
I haven’t seen good data on cases of childhood or adolescent papillary thyroid cancer in Ukraine. I’ve seen numbers in the hundreds, not thousands.
The epoidemiology suggests that thyroid cancer caused by Chernobyl is minimal.
So how do we get from 2,000 to 6,000, and from little incidence after 2002 to 65,000 cases by 2065?