Nuclear Radiation: Do We Know the Truth?
posted by: Scott P. 357 days ago
As you may recall, in my last blog I ended by raising the question of how do we want to spend our money when it comes to a new energy infrastructure. Nuclear power will no doubt be part of that debate, if not the necessarily the final solution. Currently the government provides significant subsidies for the nuclear industry which receives billions in tax credits, loan guarantees and insurance to cover licensing delays. In the face of the current economic crisis, convincing the American people to increase spending on the spread of nuclear power across the states will be difficult on its own, but when coupled with the publics' concerns over safety it will only be that much harder. These concerns will need to be assuaged if the pronuclear groups expect to roll out a new nuclear power program. This will not be an easy task. According to John Ahearn, author of the Intergenerational Issues Regarding Nuclear Power, NuclearWaste, "Controversy over nuclear energy has historically been exceptionally durable and violent, exciting more emotion and public protest than any other technology." The publics' concern over general safety will be the first issue that pronuclear groups must address if they are to have any prayer of recommitting the U.S. to nuclear power.
In response to these fears, the aforementioned World Nuclear Association, a pronuclear group whose finances are intrinsically tied to the production cycle of nuclear energy, states that "despite 12,000 cumulative reactor years in over thirty countries, only two major accidents have occurred" i.e. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl (both accidents will be shortly addressed going forward). Fair enough. It is a valid point of sorts. After all, both of those disasters occurred nearly three decades ago. If nuclear power plants are so dangerous why haven’t there been further large scale accidents? What are the safety concerns of today?
The last 30 years has obviously seen no further disasters but it has seen consistent leakages and near misses, although the rates of occurrence for such incidents are apparently falling. According to a recent report from the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, a peer-to-peer monitoring group established after Three Mile Island, the average number of unplanned shutdowns has fallen considerably since the 1980s. Previously, during the 1970s and 1980s plants regularly shut down four times a year due to safety concerns (four times a year x 104 plants in the U.S.=over 400 situations resulting in a need to forestall potential disaster).
According to Matthew Wald’s article entitled, Getting Power to the People, which appeared in a 2007 issue of Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, some experts claim that shutting down reactors occasionally due to security concerns demonstrates properly implemented safety standards. But Ferenc Toth and Hans-Holger Rogner, authors of Oil and Nuclear Power: Past, Present and Future from a 2006 issue of Energy Econmics find that "if shutdown inducing problems occur it certainly points more to the ever present danger and less to our ever growing safety." In other words, it is nice that we have fail safes but it might be better to have a production system that does not require the fail safes to begin with.
Imagine if the government had to regulate and enforce the safety standards of the 200-300 hundred new plants spread across the U.S.? Knowing the governments history of underfunding and understaffing regulatory agencies (see financial regulation, recent disaster in TN with coal ash, etc.). Once something becomes a profitable business, that entity will do whatever it can to lessen their regulatory burden in the name of short-term higher profits.
One of the most ubiquitous concerns, aside from out and out nuclear meltdowns, centers on radiation leaks. I am sure we have all heard the stories of cancer clusters forming around nuclear power plants. What the public has yet to hear is conclusive evidence that nuclear power bears all or none of the responsibility for the cancer rates. The possible victims of nuclear radiation face a strong opposition which has managed to split public and scientific opinion on the matter.
For example, pronuclear groups state that no strong correlation between cancer deaths, including childhood leukemia has, been attributable to nuclear power plants. This claim is supported by, Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize winning author of 1986’s Making of the Atomic Bomb, who contends that "coal generated electricity produces more radiation per megawatt than nuclear power." Rhodes also cites a Harvard study which claims that air pollution produced from coal burning power plants kills upwards of 15,000 people per year. According to Richard L. Garwin, author of Megawatts and Megatons: The Future of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons, the Ford MITRE Study: Nuclear Power Yes, Plutonium No concluded that each reactor-year of normal operation would involve only "one to two deaths on average." General safety concerns from normal reactor activity seemingly pose no significant threat and may in fact pose less of a threat than coal powered plants. If these pronuclear spokesmen are to be believed than the public should feel pretty good that normal reactor activity will cause them no harm—but what about the abnormal?
On the other hand, the specters of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl still loom in the minds of many. Chernobyl has indisputably killed people even if the exact numbers are moderately debated. For example, Paul Leventhal, author of Nuclear Power and The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: Can We Have One Without the Other?, claims that Chernobyl will "ultimately be responsible for some 24,000 cancer deaths." While, a 2006 article in The Guardian entitled, UN accused of ignoring Chernobyl deaths, claimed upwards of 500,000 related deaths. With that being said, it should be noted that the type of plant which produced this catastrophe is not used in the United States. If plant design is the sole culprit than perhaps we could rest easy. But is plant design the only issue? Or was it operational and regulatory as well? How many things need to fail for such an accident to occur?
In response to these fears, the aforementioned World Nuclear Association, a pronuclear group whose finances are intrinsically tied to the production cycle of nuclear energy, states that "despite 12,000 cumulative reactor years in over thirty countries, only two major accidents have occurred" i.e. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl (both accidents will be shortly addressed going forward). Fair enough. It is a valid point of sorts. After all, both of those disasters occurred nearly three decades ago. If nuclear power plants are so dangerous why haven’t there been further large scale accidents? What are the safety concerns of today?
The last 30 years has obviously seen no further disasters but it has seen consistent leakages and near misses, although the rates of occurrence for such incidents are apparently falling. According to a recent report from the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, a peer-to-peer monitoring group established after Three Mile Island, the average number of unplanned shutdowns has fallen considerably since the 1980s. Previously, during the 1970s and 1980s plants regularly shut down four times a year due to safety concerns (four times a year x 104 plants in the U.S.=over 400 situations resulting in a need to forestall potential disaster).
According to Matthew Wald’s article entitled, Getting Power to the People, which appeared in a 2007 issue of Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, some experts claim that shutting down reactors occasionally due to security concerns demonstrates properly implemented safety standards. But Ferenc Toth and Hans-Holger Rogner, authors of Oil and Nuclear Power: Past, Present and Future from a 2006 issue of Energy Econmics find that "if shutdown inducing problems occur it certainly points more to the ever present danger and less to our ever growing safety." In other words, it is nice that we have fail safes but it might be better to have a production system that does not require the fail safes to begin with.
Imagine if the government had to regulate and enforce the safety standards of the 200-300 hundred new plants spread across the U.S.? Knowing the governments history of underfunding and understaffing regulatory agencies (see financial regulation, recent disaster in TN with coal ash, etc.). Once something becomes a profitable business, that entity will do whatever it can to lessen their regulatory burden in the name of short-term higher profits.
One of the most ubiquitous concerns, aside from out and out nuclear meltdowns, centers on radiation leaks. I am sure we have all heard the stories of cancer clusters forming around nuclear power plants. What the public has yet to hear is conclusive evidence that nuclear power bears all or none of the responsibility for the cancer rates. The possible victims of nuclear radiation face a strong opposition which has managed to split public and scientific opinion on the matter.
For example, pronuclear groups state that no strong correlation between cancer deaths, including childhood leukemia has, been attributable to nuclear power plants. This claim is supported by, Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize winning author of 1986’s Making of the Atomic Bomb, who contends that "coal generated electricity produces more radiation per megawatt than nuclear power." Rhodes also cites a Harvard study which claims that air pollution produced from coal burning power plants kills upwards of 15,000 people per year. According to Richard L. Garwin, author of Megawatts and Megatons: The Future of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons, the Ford MITRE Study: Nuclear Power Yes, Plutonium No concluded that each reactor-year of normal operation would involve only "one to two deaths on average." General safety concerns from normal reactor activity seemingly pose no significant threat and may in fact pose less of a threat than coal powered plants. If these pronuclear spokesmen are to be believed than the public should feel pretty good that normal reactor activity will cause them no harm—but what about the abnormal?
On the other hand, the specters of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl still loom in the minds of many. Chernobyl has indisputably killed people even if the exact numbers are moderately debated. For example, Paul Leventhal, author of Nuclear Power and The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: Can We Have One Without the Other?, claims that Chernobyl will "ultimately be responsible for some 24,000 cancer deaths." While, a 2006 article in The Guardian entitled, UN accused of ignoring Chernobyl deaths, claimed upwards of 500,000 related deaths. With that being said, it should be noted that the type of plant which produced this catastrophe is not used in the United States. If plant design is the sole culprit than perhaps we could rest easy. But is plant design the only issue? Or was it operational and regulatory as well? How many things need to fail for such an accident to occur?
Read more: cancer, radiation, global warming, energy conservation, energy independence, nuclear power
comments
If we are causing global warming from the garbage our factories pollute the air with, how can we not think that burying nuclear waste in the ground will not cause repercussions in our future?
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Oh that's a great idea! I think it's wonderfully safe to put nuclear waste deep into the earth since we=re so sure we know what happens! Wow...
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Oh, “meltdown”. It’s one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an “unrequested fission surplus”.
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A lifetime of working with nuclear power has left me with a healthy green glow? And left me as impotent as a Nevada boxing commissioner.
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Woah, slow down there maestro. There's a "New" Mexico?
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I must say I am a little bit bias. I am a Nuclear Medicine Technologist. That's right...most people don't know about Nuclear Medicine. It is used to diagnose and treat a variety of human pathologies, including cancer and heart disease. Many of these highly useful isotopes are derived from...you guessed it...highly enriched uranium. Check our this website: www.snm.org for more information about the BENEFITS nuclear power has given our society.
I grant you, there have been some concerns with Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, but this was back when the technology was just being developed. Now they engineer it so that there ARE failsafes in place to stave off disaster.
I am an environmentally conscious person, I even majored in environmental science for a time at Sam Houston State. But given the track record and benefit that nuclear power has had, I would feel comfortable living near a plant.
As for national security, I think we should have the National Guard handling security, instead of letting the power companies use private contractors. It would be more useful to have them here protecting us, instead of Iraqis!
As for the nuclear waste, I think that we should engineer a way to drop it down into the spent oil wells. Just think, these reservoirs were self contained for millions of years until we thought to tap them! While we're at it maybe we could do the same with the liquid CO2 from existing powerplants. http://www.nma.org/ccs/carboncapture.asp
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Great piece Scott!
I guess having gone through the Cuban Missile Crisis while in 2nd grade where we had to practice going into the hallway, kneeling down toward the wall and covering our heads in case there was a nuclear attack, I developed the mind set at an early age that if DC was ever nuked, I wouldn't know what hit me, I'd just melt and to honest it's been a great comfort. In fact I kind of miss hearing the monthly air raid siren tests.
I have to tell you though that, as an adult, when I would visit my mom in California, both before and after I had children, we were basically sandwiched between 2 nuclear plants, both used ocean water for cooling. Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo and San Onofre, which was located halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. I only saw San Onofre, but every time we would pass it I wondered what would happen if one of the training jets from El Toro Marine Base were to crash into it. I was very uneasy, but the rest of the world around me seemed just fine with it.
Here, I live 10 minutes from both NIH and The Walter Reed Annex. NIH spews all kinds of toxic crap into the air, and Walter Reed may still be storing fun stuff like Anthrax and Small Pox.
That said, I'd still prefer to live near a solar, water or wind collection plant!
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If we in the "West" want to enjoy the fruits of modern life - comuters, internet, cancer treatments (other than leeches), running hot water, cheep and abundant food then we had better remeber that nothing is free.
There is a cost that must be the paid for ANY action we take, (from harvesting game to tearing up the forests to using nitrogen fertiliser to poping a ringpul on a can of bud)
Personaly I guess that most folks dont want to shave their heads and live on buttered tea while chanting to Gaia. On the other hand most dont want thier kids born retarded to findout what all the oceanic dead zones could mean. Sadly most folks dont think both sides out- its all about "evil corpates" and "Greenie weiners" rather then asking
WHAT ARE WE WILLING to pay for electricity?
HOW MUCH do we need it?
WHAT are we willing to do without?
Everyone wants cheep gas AND good air- cheep electricty but NO polution - a Moral forign policy AND control of the world oil.
I an not hopful that the current generation of lazy spoilt tecno-brats or the overindulged boomers that preceeded them will have the gumption to actualy think about What they actualy want and what they are willing to pay.
Now think of the Billion or so Chinese and Indians who want to live the good life they see on TV and your looking at one hell of a human disaster in the next 10-20 yrs.
However, lemings learn that when a species cant control itself the job is done for it- just not in a plesant way.
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I agree, nuclear energy doesn't sound so great. If you aren't willing to live anywhere near one, then maybe that is a good indicator, eh?
That said, coal, oil, solar, hydroelectric and hydrothermal will have to do the trick. Luckily they don't cause any environmental impacts...oh, wait a second.
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You did mention living in Arizona and you do not care about the initial cost of the solar or wind energy. Could I ask you something? To you power your house by solar panels? If no, why?
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