Radiation

[John Little]

I posted a link to this article on the Nuclear power thread, but given the nature of a large section of the Highlands community I thought that it deserved a better airing. It's also appeared in New Scientist in a longer form.

Viewpoint: We should stop running away from radiation
By Wade Allison
University of Oxford
More than 10,000 people have died in the Japanese tsunami and the survivors are cold and hungry. But the media concentrate on nuclear radiation from which no-one has died - and is unlikely to.


Modern reactors are better designed than those at Fukushima - tomorrow's may be better still
Nuclear radiation at very high levels is dangerous, but the scale of concern that it evokes is misplaced. Nuclear technology cures countless cancer patients every day - and a radiation dose given for radiotherapy in hospital is no different in principle to a similar dose received in the environment.

What of Three Mile Island? There were no known deaths there.

And Chernobyl? The latest UN report published on 28 February confirms the known death toll - 28 fatalities among emergency workers, plus 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer - which would have been avoided if iodine tablets had been taken (as they have now in Japan). And in each case the numbers are minute compared with the 3,800 at Bhopal in 1984, who died as a result of a leak of chemicals from the Union Carbide pesticide plant.

Becquerels and Sieverts

A becquerel (Bq), named after French physicist Henri Becquerel, is a measure of radioactivity
A quantity of radioactive material has an activity of 1Bq if one nucleus decays per second - and 1kBq if 1,000 nuclei decay per second
A sievert (Sv) is a measure of radiation absorbed by a person, named after Swedish medical physicist Rolf Sievert
A milli-sievert (mSv) is a 1,000th of a Sievert


Energy solution or evil curse?
So what of the radioactivity released at Fukushima? How does it compare with that at Chernobyl? Let's look at the measured count rates. The highest rate reported, at 1900 on 22 March, for any Japanese prefecture was 12 kBq per sq m (for the radioactive isotope of caesium, caesium-137).

A map of Chernobyl in the UN report shows regions shaded according to rate, up to 3,700 kBq per sq m - areas with less than 37 kBq per sq m are not shaded at all. In round terms, this suggests that the radioactive fallout at Fukushima is less than 1% of that at Chernobyl.

The other important radioisotope in fallout is iodine, which can cause child thyroid cancer.

This is only produced when the reactor is on and quickly decays once the reactor shuts down (it has a half life of eight days). The old fuel rods in storage at Fukushima, though radioactive, contain no iodine.

But at Chernobyl the full inventory of iodine and caesium was released in the initial explosion, so that at Fukushima any release of iodine should be much less than 1% of that at Chernobyl - with an effect reduced still further by iodine tablets.

Unfortunately, public authorities react by providing over-cautious guidance - and this simply escalates public concern.

Over-reaction

On the 16th anniversary of Chernobyl, the Swedish radiation authorities, writing in the Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter, admitted over-reacting by setting the safety level too low and condemning 78% of all reindeer meat unnecessarily, and at great cost.


Bottled water was handed out in Tokyo this week to mothers of young babies
Unfortunately, the Japanese seem to be repeating the mistake. On 23 March they advised that children should not drink tap water in Tokyo, where an activity of 200 Bq per litre had been measured the day before. Let's put this in perspective. The natural radioactivity in every human body is 50 Bq per litre - 200 Bq per litre is really not going to do much harm.

In the Cold War era most people were led to believe that nuclear radiation presents a quite exceptional danger understood only by "eggheads" working in secret military establishments.

To cope with the friendly fire of such nuclear propaganda on the home front, ever tighter radiation regulations were enacted in order to keep all contact with radiation As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA), as the principle became known.

This attempt at reassurance is the basis of international radiation safety regulations today, which suggest an upper limit for the general public of 1 mSv per year above natural levels.

This very low figure is not a danger level, rather it's a small addition to the levels found in nature - a British person is exposed to 2.7 mSv per year, on average. My book Radiation and Reason argues that a responsible danger level based on current science would be 100 mSv per month, with a lifelong limit of 5,000 mSv, not 1 mSv per year.

New attitude

People worry about radiation because they cannot feel it. However, nature has a solution - in recent years it has been found that living cells replace and mend themselves in various ways to recover from a dose of radiation.

These clever mechanisms kick in within hours and rarely fail, except when they are overloaded - as at Chernobyl, where most of the emergency workers who received a dose greater than 4,000 mSv over a few hours died within weeks.


Some might ask whether I would accept radioactive waste buried 100 metres under my own house?”

However, patients receiving a course of radiotherapy usually get a dose of more than 20,000 mSv to vital healthy tissue close to the treated tumour. This tissue survives only because the treatment is spread over many days giving healthy cells time for repair or replacement.

In this way, many patients get to enjoy further rewarding years of life, even after many vital organs have received the equivalent of more than 20,000 years' dose at the above internationally recommended annual limit - which makes this limit unreasonable.

A sea-change is needed in our attitude to radiation, starting with education and public information.

Then fresh safety standards should be drawn up, based not on how radiation can be excluded from our lives, but on how much we can receive without harm - mindful of the other dangers that beset us, such as climate change and loss of electric power. Perhaps a new acronym is needed to guide radiation safety - how about As High As Relatively Safe (AHARS)?

Modern reactors are better designed than those at Fukushima - tomorrow's may be better still, but we should not wait. Radioactive waste is nasty but the quantity is small, especially if re-processed. Anyway, it is not the intractable problem that many suppose.

Some might ask whether I would accept it if it were buried 100 metres under my own house? My answer would be: "Yes, why not?" More generally, we should stop running away from radiation.

Wade Allison is a nuclear and medical physicist at the University of Oxford, the author of Radiation and Reason (2009) and Fundamental Physics for Probing and Imaging (2006).


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842

[sids]

Sounds great!

Can I have some radiation now please?

[John Little]

You are getting some right now...

[Carole]

Really pleased to read this John. Only yesterday I was wondering what the latest figures were for 'clusters' around reactor sites - our friendly neighbourhood one in particular. Have you any relevant links?

[John Little]

Really pleased to read this John. Only yesterday I was wondering what the latest figures were for 'clusters' around reactor sites - our friendly neighbourhood one in particular. Have you any relevant links?

Fraid not- I just posted this to see what people think. I'm sure there are plenty of experts up there who could find you something though.

[roadbowler]

Reeks of nuclear apologist rubbish and New Scientist propaganda. A fine display of cognitive dissonance. If radiation is so damn good for you why is Chernobyl no mans land to this day? And Fukushima? And why might the UKAE post big yellow signs all over sandside beach warning me not to pick up anything off the beach?? :eek: Does anybody actually swallow that rubbish written in the New Scientist? My guess is very few. Judging by your avatar, you sir, might do. Do you hold Dounreay as a "success" for modern technology? I see it as a folly and icon of mans arrogance and ignorance.

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the resulting nuclear catastrophe are two separate issues of the same event. People can not speak about the nuclear catastrophe without being constantly reminded we should be concentrating on only the tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami which is simply a flimsy and transparent tactic and defence mechanism of the narcissistically injured nuclear apologist crowd. When that doesna work for them they proclaim we are ignorant of the nuclear industry and its health and environmental effects. Frankly, the psychology is easy to read and makes their plight all the more pathetic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation

by Helen Caldicott

Soon after the Fukushima accident last month (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/11/japan-declares-nuclear-emergency-quake), I stated publicly that a nuclear event of this size and catastrophic potential could present a medical problem (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/25/caldicott.nuclear.health/index.html) of very large dimensions. Events have proven this observation to be true despite the nuclear industry's campaign about the "minimal" health effects of so-called low-level radiation. That billions of its dollars are at stake if the Fukushima event causes the "nuclear renaissance" to slow down appears to be evident from the industry's attacks on its critics, even in the face of an unresolved and escalating disaster at the reactor complex at Fukushima.Proponents of nuclear power (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/nuclearpower) – including George Monbiot, who has had a mysterious road-to-Damascus conversion to its supposedly benign effects (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima) – accuse me and others who call attention to the potential serious medical consequences of the accident of "cherry-picking" data and overstating the health effects of radiation (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/05/anti-nuclear-lobby-misled-world) from the radioactive fuel in the destroyed reactors and their cooling pools. Yet by reassuring the public that things aren't too bad, Monbiot and others at best misinform, and at worst misrepresent or distort, the scientific evidence of the harmful effects of radiation exposure – and they play a predictable shoot-the-messenger game in the process.
To wit:
1) Mr Monbiot, who is a journalist not a scientist, appears unaware of the difference between external and internal radiation
Let me educate him.
The former is what populations were exposed to when the atomic bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; their profound and on-going medical effects are well documented. [1]
Internal radiation, on the other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter the body by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides such as iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in the sea and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food chains (for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow's meat and milk, then humans). [2] After they enter the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously irradiate small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that is, cancer. Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the environment for generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of cancer and genetic diseases over time.
The grave effects of internal emitters are of the most profound concern at Fukushima. It is inaccurate and misleading to use the term "acceptable levels of external radiation" in assessing internal radiation exposures. To do so, as Monbiot has done, is to propagate inaccuracies and to mislead the public worldwide (not to mention other journalists) who are seeking the truth about radiation's hazards.
2) Nuclear industry proponents often assert that low doses of radiation (eg below 100mSV) produce no ill effects and are therefore safe. But , as the US National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII report (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11340) has concluded, no dose of radiation is safe, however small, including background radiation; exposure is cumulative and adds to an individual's risk of developing cancer.
3) Now let's turn to Chernobyl. Various seemingly reputable groups have issued differing reports on the morbidity and mortalities resulting from the 1986 radiation catastrophe. The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2005 issued a report attributing only 43 human deaths directly to the Chernobyl disaster and estimating an additional 4,000 fatal cancers. In contrast, the 2009 report, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" (http://books.google.com/books?id=g34tNlYOB3AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=chernobyl+consequences+of+the+catastrophe+for+p eople+and+the+environment&hl=en&src=bmrr&ei=Q5-dTfadJc-2tgfCtvThBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false), published by the New York Academy of Sciences, comes to a very different conclusion. The three scientist authors – Alexey V Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V Nesterenko – provide in its pages a translated synthesis and compilation of hundreds of scientific articles on the effects of the Chernobyl disaster that have appeared in Slavic language publications over the past 20 years. They estimate the number of deaths attributable to the Chernobyl meltdown at about 980,000.
Monbiot dismisses the report as worthless (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/05/anti-nuclear-lobby-misled-world), but to do so – to ignore and denigrate an entire body of literature, collectively hundreds of studies that provide evidence of large and significant impacts on human health and the environment – is arrogant and irresponsible. Scientists can and should argue over such things, for example, as confidence intervals around individual estimates (which signal the reliability of estimates), but to consign out of hand the entire report into a metaphorical dustbin is shameful.
Further, as Prof Dimitro Godzinsky, of the Ukranian National Academy of Sciences, states in his introduction to the report: "Against this background of such persuasive data some defenders of atomic energy (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/energy) look specious as they deny the obvious negative effects of radiation upon populations. In fact, their reactions include almost complete refusal to fund medical and biological studies, even liquidating government bodies that were in charge of the 'affairs of Chernobyl'. Under pressure from the nuclear lobby, officials have also diverted scientific personnel away from studying the problems caused by Chernobyl."
4) Monbiot expresses surprise that a UN-affiliated body such as WHOmight be under the influence of the nuclear power industry, causing its reporting on nuclear power matters to be biased. And yet that is precisely the case.
In the early days of nuclear power, WHO issued forthright statements on radiation risks such as its 1956 warning: "Genetic heritage is the most precious property for human beings. It determines the lives of our progeny, health and harmonious development of future generations. As experts, we affirm that the health of future generations is threatened by increasing development of the atomic industry and sources of radiation … We also believe that new mutations that occur in humans are harmful to them and their offspring."
After 1959, WHO made no more statements on health and radioactivity. What happened? On 28 May 1959, at the 12th World Health Assembly, WHO drew up an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); clause 12.40 of this agreement says: "Whenever either organisation [the WHO or the IAEA] proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organisation has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement." In other words, the WHO grants the right of prior approval over any research it might undertake or report on to the IAEA – a group that many people, including journalists, think is a neutral watchdog, but which is, in fact, an advocate for the nuclear power industry.. ...............

[John Little]

My avatar is more to do with the architecture of the DFR Sphere than with radiation. It is plain that you have a view and it is plain that you pretty much reflect the anti-nuclear canon which has been pretty evident these last 40 years and more. You have your truths and orthodoxies, and once, like everyone else apparently, I accepted them.

Now I question them.

I know who Wade Allison is, his background and qualifications. I occasionally read the New Scientist, but have never thought of it as having a political axe to grind - I do not read it often enough for that. The New Scientist has a disclaimer for Allison which states that he has no connection with the nuclear industry.

Let me give you an analogy- global warming.

For years I have accepted the arguments about global warming. The green lobby holds its hands up to using certain forms of energy and FORBIDS. No to nuclear. No to oil and coal. These are bad.

Pity really since Britain sits on 600 years reserves of coal.
Be that as it may.

Where you live right now there was an ice sheet a mile thick, 10,000 years ago. It covered the whole of the northern hemisphere.
Then it melted.

What melted it?

It was not factories.

So all of a sudden the orthodoxies and PC-ness of being green, which I have never questioned, I begin to question.

Asking questions, imho, is cool.

It is immediately apparent that if you do this, you find yourself in the middle of a propaganda war and that both sides are right.

Your zeal is apparent.

Who holds the truth?

I posted the article because I wanted to see reaction to it and learn. I know little of radiation but what Allison says appears to make sense.

But no-one shall have my vote on this matter for reasons of politics. This issue shapes our national energy policy.

I would wish to see the Science debated.

[John Little]

Maybe you are in a position to give a bit more information on Sandside?

Like everyone else my information comes from the media and I know that alien looking machines trawl for radioactive particles on the beach and in the water. That there are hundreds of thousands of them.

But, as an ignoramus, I do not know what danger they represent and what level.

So how radioactive are these particles? Are they a bit above the level of natural background radiation or are we talking something incredibly lethal?

And how long would you have to stand near one before you sustained significant damage?

And would your body recover?

And are the international risk levels on radiation set far too low because of artificially inspired fears of radiation caused by the destruction wrought by a nuclear bomb?

In other words, and since we react as a public to 'radiation' in pretty much the same way as we do to 'paedophile'. how much of it is justified and how much of it is hysteria?

I am not particularly challenging you. I am no scientist. I just want to know.

[ducati]

It is a pitty, but there will be no debate in Scotland for the next five years.

[John Little]

But the Org is in Scotland and can have its own debates...

[pmcd]

And if those debates result in strong public opinion, then the politicians will have to listen to the people, otherwise they will be sent to the land of resignation and failure, which we've just seen in action these last few days. Why do you think the recent uprising in the 'ot countries came about? Internet, twitter, and other platforms which governments cannot jam or control. Pandora is well out of her box, and she ain't going back!

We now have at our disposal the tools for both research and revolution. Governments are no longer unassailable. If they wish to direct us to or from nuclear energy, they will have to give us the facts, and let us decide.

And we (as they) must learn not to be self-selecting in our research - i.e. pulling down only those views on the web which support our own hobby horse/pet theory/point of view/tin-foil hat paranoia.

[John Little]

LOL! I agree.
This line of thought was not sparked by the web though - there happened to be a copy of New Scientist lying round at work yesterday and it was open at a chapter which challenged orthodoxies and also public perception; it happened to have a particular relevance and resonance with a forum I enjoy. In addition it's an area I know not a lot about.

But yes - no tin foil hats should be necessary.

[pmcd]

Not having a pop at you, John! I know you think things through, and have the intelligence required to ASK questions where you don't know, rather than pretend to know it all!

[ducati]

mmm.. I thought the way our democracy worked was the party that got elected on a platform, didn't change it's mind no matter what anyone says or thinks.

[Colin Manson]

Really pleased to read this John. Only yesterday I was wondering what the latest figures were for 'clusters' around reactor sites - our friendly neighbourhood one in particular. Have you any relevant links?

Link to the latest report is on Dounreay.com

http://www.dounreay.com/news/2011-05-06/childhood-leukaemia--comare-issues-14th-report

[John Little]

In theory the best democracy adopts a scientific approach to its shaping of policy.

In office they commission groups of experts to provide them with state of the art information on which to base policy and change in society. There are three ways of doing this; Civil Service Commissions, Royal Commissions, and House Commissions. Each ends the same way - with a Command Report which comes with recommendations.

In the 1980s Mrs Thatcher commissioned less command reports than any previous C20th government and governments since have followed her pattern.

Policy is more driven by political considerations and prejudice these days rather than on advice.

Perhaps we should go back to the old system....

[orkneycadian]

I still think it best to flatten the dome, just in case!

[roadbowler]

John, it is apparent to me that any peace loving person would have a anti-nuclear stance as its risks to health and environment as an energy source are far greater than its benefits. Other uses of nuclear material and byproducts of the nuclear energy industry are used mainly for war and political posturing, need I say more. The truth of the matter as far as how dangerous radiation is, is that there is NO safe level of ionising radiation. Period.

I can appreciate your analogy. Yes, I am aware that this part of the Northern Hemisphere was covered in ice. I am certain it will be again at some point as well. What melted it? IMO, it's a natural result of a cycle - the precession of the equinoxes. Man has nothing to do with it. The fallacy of the green lobby is the fact that the answer is not more power from more "renewable" and "green" sources. The answer is less power, less consumerism, less capitalism. That's the big embarassing hole in their argument in my view.

[secrets in symmetry]

You have your truths and orthodoxies, and once, like everyone else apparently, I accepted them.Her truths? That's a bit postmodernist - not something I would have expected from you.

She cannot think rationally, as the second paragraph of her post above shows. Her first paragraph is merely childish and stupid and doesn't prove anything.

[roadbowler]

As for Sandside, mebbe someone could fill us in on that. I think the short version is they were dumping nuclear rubbish carelessly which caused a deflagration and spat radioactive material all over the place including into the sea which is still there.

I don't think people do react to radiation the way they should. Fairly jaunty with it if you ask me. We've been taught chest x-rays are ok. They are not. Notably when you get one, naebody else is standing in the room, are they? Now, they are upping the legal allowable dosages in light of Fukushima, yet, currently cancer rates are higher than they've ever been. I reckon in future it will become a normal human expectation that everyone will have cancer at some point in their life instead of the 1 in 4 figure they give now. The new normal.

[roadbowler]

Her truths? That's a bit postmodernist - not something I would have expected from you.

She cannot think rationally, as the second paragraph of her post above shows. Her first paragraph is merely childish and stupid and doesn't prove anything.

Do fill us in with your rational truths then.

[John Little]

John, it is apparent to me that any peace loving person would have a anti-nuclear stance as its risks to health and environment as an energy source are far greater than its benefits. Other uses of nuclear material and byproducts of the nuclear energy industry are used mainly for war and political posturing, need I say more. The truth of the matter as far as how dangerous radiation is, is that there is NO safe level of ionising radiation. Period.


Peace is neither here nor there to me for we are speaking of civil nuclear power. As to how it may be perverted I have little interest. I agree with Omar Bradley's view that nuclear bombs are not weapons for they have no military use - they are instruments of genocide. If one bunch of man-apes want to wave their assets at each other whilst screeching that they've each got a big one then they get nothing but contempt from me.

But when David Lilienthal held up the lump of coal in 1947 and said that a lump of uranium that size could power a city for a year he spoke the truth did he not?
Now that's the bit that I am interested in.

I was brought up in the Cold war and I also had that Quatermass fear of 'radiation' without understanding what it was- and all my life, busy and involved with other things, I have accepted that. Now comes a guy who questions the orthodox and he's high up in his field, well qualified, and- from Oxford uni, one of the top schools in the world. Is he just an axe- grinding nutter or is he a serious scientist?

If he's a serious scientist, which I think he is, then I have to give his views consideration.

You say that there is no safe dose of ionising radiation. Yet we live surrounded by it.

Why do you think what you think?

Instead of what he thinks?

[John Little]

Her truths? That's a bit postmodernist - not something I would have expected from you.

She cannot think rationally, as the second paragraph of her post above shows. Her first paragraph is merely childish and stupid and doesn't prove anything.

LOL! What is truth?

Everyone has their 'truths'.

I take it that you mean Helen Caldicott cannot think rationally?

That is as may be - what matters is that she thinks what she says.

But why does she think that?

Nuclear is much out of fashion in this country - why is that? Is it a question of its track record? Certainly that does not help.

'Radiation leaks' at Dounreay are an emotional issue - and for good reason given our perceptions of the dangers of radiation.

I certainly have a perception of those dangers and it's akin to finding a tarantula in your bed.

But what if my perceptions are wrong? What if a jobbie of disinformation and obfuscation has been done on my perceptions by a fashionable and plausible lobby. What if our national energy policy has been led astray by sophistries?

Because if what Allison says is true then we have all had the wool pulled over our eyes and need to look outside the shouting tribes of pro and anti and ask who is actually, in cold scientific fact, correct?

[Colin Manson]

Other uses of nuclear material and byproducts of the nuclear energy industry are used mainly for war and political posturing, need I say more.

You could mention all of the medical uses that the material is used for.


The truth of the matter as far as how dangerous radiation is, is that there is NO safe level of ionising radiation.

So no air travel, start building shielded housing to limit exposure from background radiation and under no circumstances should anyone go outside when it's sunny?

[roadbowler]

Nikola Tesla figured out free energy well before your Lilienthal. That's the problem, coal and uranium are big business as is the booming green energy industry, free energy is not.

I think the way I do because I do not see any benefits of messing about with nuclear energy when the risks as they stand are so great. I mean that is why they stuck Dounreay reactor up here in Caithness, in case it blew up. It was an experiment. Apparently, Caithness/Sutherland was expendable - a bit like Gruinard Island. It's maniacal and unnecessary in my opinion. So far, nobody can prove nuclear energy is necessary or that the benefits if any outweigh the risks. Do you believe it is necessary, do the benefits outweigh the risks?

I know we are surrounded by radiation, we don't survive it either do we? Allison is not the first to attempt to mitigate the effects of radiation and won't be the last and as far as I can make out it doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

[John Little]

You mean that if there were no background radiation we would be immortal?

Interesting thought...

Necessary?

We need power. The nuclear stock is reaching the end of its life. Coal is out. Oil is on the way out.

Can renewables supply the energy needs of 6 billion people? And rising?

Without some form of reliable energy we simply cannot sustain such a number of people- it is industrialisation which means that so many can exist.

Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

If you mean in the same of cheap, reliable and efficient supply of energy for homes, schools, hospitals etc and to sustain a comfortable way of life for our population, then yes they probably do.

As to the risks - what are the risks? Follow Allison's line then modern management of radiation 60 odd years after Hiroshima makes the risks negligible. Fossil fuels have increased the carbon dioxide on our atmosphere astonishingly since 1860-

http://www.open.ac.uk/T206/illustrations/figure1_18a.htm

To make windfarms and sea turbines on the scale needed a vast amount of energy must first be used.

Nuclear adds nothing to the atmosphere unless things go wrong.

And when they go wrong either little happens or a lot happens, depending on who you read.

And I do not know who is right.

How do you know who is right when I do not?

[roadbowler]

You could mention all of the medical uses that the material is used for.

Except that I do not believe most of the medical uses are beneficial either!



So no air travel, start building shielded housing to limit exposure from background radiation and under no circumstances should anyone go outside when it's sunny?

Don't breathe either, cause oxygen kills ye too? This verges on a strawman argument. You're failing to recognise the issue that there is a huge exclusion zone around Fukushima right now that people are banned from entering. The sea there is getting contaminatd by thousands of tons of radioactive water. That is the result of one of the risks of nuclear energy. Japan is closing down another plant because the risks and Germany plans to shut down all of their nuclear reactors in the next 15 years. They seem to see the dangers. Why haven't people moved back to Chernobyl if it is so safe? It is fairly plain to see.

[John Little]

Well yes - but again that ain't so cut and dry either. There's over 400 people living in the Chernobyl zone who refused to move out and over 3000 people actually work in it every day.

And the Fukoshima one is not a mandatory exclusion zone - there's also people going in and out every day with no prohibition.

Once again it depends on who you read.

Who do I believe and why?

[Colin Manson]

Believe the people that quote facts and figures and compare dose rates to those received naturally.

The IAEA page http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html will show you the decreasing trend that is being seen with detected radiation & contamination levels.

Don't believe sources that compare radiation and contamination doses of atomic bombs to those of a power plant leak.

[John Little]

Thanks Colin. From the little I know, and from the view of a total amateur those dose rates look very small.

"Gamma dose rates are measured daily in all 47 prefectures. On 10 May the value of gamma dose rate reported for Fukushima prefecture was 1.7 µSv/h. In all other prefectures, reported gamma dose rates were below 0.1 µSv/h with a general decreasing trend."

Am I reading it right? With what Allison was saying those figures are little more than naturally occurring background radiation?

[bekisman]

Get all the hysteria out of the way and a few Q&A's

Is it safe to visit the Chernobyl area now?
"One may certainly visit the Chernobyl area, including even the exclusion zone, which is a 30 kilometre radius surrounding the plant, all of whose reactors are now closed. Although some of the radioactive isotopes released into the atmosphere still linger (such as Strontium-90 and Caesium-137), they are at tolerable exposure levels for limited periods of time. Some residents of the exclusion zone have returned to their homes at their own free will, and they live in areas with higher than normal environmental radiation levels. However, these levels are not fatal. Exposure to low but unusual levels of radiation over a period of time is less dangerous than exposure to a huge amount at once, and studies have been unable to link any direct increase in cancer risks to chronic low-level exposure."

How does Chernobyl’s effect measure up to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
The accident at Chernobyl was approximately 400 times more potent than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. However, the atomic bomb testing conducted by several countries around the world during the 1960s and 1970s contributed 100 to 1,000 times more radioactive material to the environment than Chernobyl.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/features/chernobyl-15/cherno-faq.shtml

[Colin Manson]

John,

The dose rates aren't excessive, the main problem is the contamination of the food chain but even that doesn't appear to be too bad.

Public exposure limits tend to be set at a very low level and that sometimes makes the news reports more 'exciting' than they really are.

Lets put it in some context : taken from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation

Radon Gas
"People in affected localities can receive up to 10 mSv per year background radiation. Radon is thus the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking, and accounts for 15,000 to 22,000 cancer deaths per year in the US alone."

[oldmarine]

I posted a link to this article on the Nuclear power thread, but given the nature of a large section of the Highlands community I thought that it deserved a better airing. It's also appeared in New Scientist in a longer form.

Viewpoint: We should stop running away from radiation
By Wade Allison
University of Oxford
More than 10,000 people have died in the Japanese tsunami and the survivors are cold and hungry. But the media concentrate on nuclear radiation from which no-one has died - and is unlikely to.


Modern reactors are better designed than those at Fukushima - tomorrow's may be better still
Nuclear radiation at very high levels is dangerous, but the scale of concern that it evokes is misplaced. Nuclear technology cures countless cancer patients every day - and a radiation dose given for radiotherapy in hospital is no different in principle to a similar dose received in the environment.

What of Three Mile Island? There were no known deaths there.

And Chernobyl? The latest UN report published on 28 February confirms the known death toll - 28 fatalities among emergency workers, plus 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer - which would have been avoided if iodine tablets had been taken (as they have now in Japan). And in each case the numbers are minute compared with the 3,800 at Bhopal in 1984, who died as a result of a leak of chemicals from the Union Carbide pesticide plant.

Becquerels and Sieverts

A becquerel (Bq), named after French physicist Henri Becquerel, is a measure of radioactivity
A quantity of radioactive material has an activity of 1Bq if one nucleus decays per second - and 1kBq if 1,000 nuclei decay per second
A sievert (Sv) is a measure of radiation absorbed by a person, named after Swedish medical physicist Rolf Sievert
A milli-sievert (mSv) is a 1,000th of a Sievert


Energy solution or evil curse?
So what of the radioactivity released at Fukushima? How does it compare with that at Chernobyl? Let's look at the measured count rates. The highest rate reported, at 1900 on 22 March, for any Japanese prefecture was 12 kBq per sq m (for the radioactive isotope of caesium, caesium-137).

A map of Chernobyl in the UN report shows regions shaded according to rate, up to 3,700 kBq per sq m - areas with less than 37 kBq per sq m are not shaded at all. In round terms, this suggests that the radioactive fallout at Fukushima is less than 1% of that at Chernobyl.

The other important radioisotope in fallout is iodine, which can cause child thyroid cancer.

This is only produced when the reactor is on and quickly decays once the reactor shuts down (it has a half life of eight days). The old fuel rods in storage at Fukushima, though radioactive, contain no iodine.

But at Chernobyl the full inventory of iodine and caesium was released in the initial explosion, so that at Fukushima any release of iodine should be much less than 1% of that at Chernobyl - with an effect reduced still further by iodine tablets.

Unfortunately, public authorities react by providing over-cautious guidance - and this simply escalates public concern.

Over-reaction

On the 16th anniversary of Chernobyl, the Swedish radiation authorities, writing in the Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter, admitted over-reacting by setting the safety level too low and condemning 78% of all reindeer meat unnecessarily, and at great cost.


Bottled water was handed out in Tokyo this week to mothers of young babies
Unfortunately, the Japanese seem to be repeating the mistake. On 23 March they advised that children should not drink tap water in Tokyo, where an activity of 200 Bq per litre had been measured the day before. Let's put this in perspective. The natural radioactivity in every human body is 50 Bq per litre - 200 Bq per litre is really not going to do much harm.

In the Cold War era most people were led to believe that nuclear radiation presents a quite exceptional danger understood only by "eggheads" working in secret military establishments.

To cope with the friendly fire of such nuclear propaganda on the home front, ever tighter radiation regulations were enacted in order to keep all contact with radiation As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA), as the principle became known.

This attempt at reassurance is the basis of international radiation safety regulations today, which suggest an upper limit for the general public of 1 mSv per year above natural levels.

This very low figure is not a danger level, rather it's a small addition to the levels found in nature - a British person is exposed to 2.7 mSv per year, on average. My book Radiation and Reason argues that a responsible danger level based on current science would be 100 mSv per month, with a lifelong limit of 5,000 mSv, not 1 mSv per year.

New attitude

People worry about radiation because they cannot feel it. However, nature has a solution - in recent years it has been found that living cells replace and mend themselves in various ways to recover from a dose of radiation.

These clever mechanisms kick in within hours and rarely fail, except when they are overloaded - as at Chernobyl, where most of the emergency workers who received a dose greater than 4,000 mSv over a few hours died within weeks.


Some might ask whether I would accept radioactive waste buried 100 metres under my own house?”

However, patients receiving a course of radiotherapy usually get a dose of more than 20,000 mSv to vital healthy tissue close to the treated tumour. This tissue survives only because the treatment is spread over many days giving healthy cells time for repair or replacement.

In this way, many patients get to enjoy further rewarding years of life, even after many vital organs have received the equivalent of more than 20,000 years' dose at the above internationally recommended annual limit - which makes this limit unreasonable.

A sea-change is needed in our attitude to radiation, starting with education and public information.

Then fresh safety standards should be drawn up, based not on how radiation can be excluded from our lives, but on how much we can receive without harm - mindful of the other dangers that beset us, such as climate change and loss of electric power. Perhaps a new acronym is needed to guide radiation safety - how about As High As Relatively Safe (AHARS)?

Modern reactors are better designed than those at Fukushima - tomorrow's may be better still, but we should not wait. Radioactive waste is nasty but the quantity is small, especially if re-processed. Anyway, it is not the intractable problem that many suppose.

Some might ask whether I would accept it if it were buried 100 metres under my own house? My answer would be: "Yes, why not?" More generally, we should stop running away from radiation.

Wade Allison is a nuclear and medical physicist at the University of Oxford, the author of Radiation and Reason (2009) and Fundamental Physics for Probing and Imaging (2006).


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842

Nuclear radiation is a serious problem A WW2 Navy buddy of mine suffered from radiation when his ship's captain pulled in too close to atomic testing in the Pacific following WW2. He is now registered with the Vets Admin to get medical help.

[secrets in symmetry]

LOL! What is truth?

Everyone has their 'truths'.

I take it that you mean Helen Caldicott cannot think rationally?
Not her lol! The American hippy chick.

[gleeber]

My avatar is more to do with the architecture of the DFR Sphere than with radiation. It is plain that you have a view and it is plain that you pretty much reflect the anti-nuclear canon which has been pretty evident these last 40 years and more. You have your truths and orthodoxies, and once, like everyone else apparently, I accepted them.

Now I question them.

I know who Wade Allison is, his background and qualifications. I occasionally read the New Scientist, but have never thought of it as having a political axe to grind - I do not read it often enough for that. The New Scientist has a disclaimer for Allison which states that he has no connection with the nuclear industry.

Let me give you an analogy- global warming.

For years I have accepted the arguments about global warming. The green lobby holds its hands up to using certain forms of energy and FORBIDS. No to nuclear. No to oil and coal. These are bad.

Pity really since Britain sits on 600 years reserves of coal.
Be that as it may.

Where you live right now there was an ice sheet a mile thick, 10,000 years ago. It covered the whole of the northern hemisphere.
Then it melted.

What melted it?

It was not factories.

So all of a sudden the orthodoxies and PC-ness of being green, which I have never questioned, I begin to question.

Asking questions, imho, is cool.

It is immediately apparent that if you do this, you find yourself in the middle of a propaganda war and that both sides are right.

Your zeal is apparent.

Who holds the truth?

I posted the article because I wanted to see reaction to it and learn. I know little of radiation but what Allison says appears to make sense.

But no-one shall have my vote on this matter for reasons of politics. This issue shapes our national energy policy.

I would wish to see the Science debated.
Thats an excellent post and gets to the heart of what debates about and thankfully those who make those decisions are aware of the good inherant in nuclear energy whithout being totally dismissive of the case against. Britains made a committment to building a number of nuclear reactors over the next 15 years because we need reliable clean energy.
Humans have shown that they have the technology to make nuclear energy as safe as possible but like suger or alcohol too much is not very good for you. :lol: That shouldnt be a reason for banning it and if that's the only reason someone may have against nuclear power then it's very weak when you consider the good nuclear can do for mankind.
Weve got pretty used to flicking switches and as power cuts have shown were not used to roughing it. Our energy needs have to be met. At it's most benign radiation can be handled like a pet rabbit. Like anything complex we have to learn to handle it.

[gleeber]

Nikola Tesla figured out free energy well before your Lilienthal. That's the problem, coal and uranium are big business as is the booming green energy industry, free energy is not.

I think the way I do because I do not see any benefits of messing about with nuclear energy when the risks as they stand are so great. I mean that is why they stuck Dounreay reactor up here in Caithness, in case it blew up. It was an experiment. Apparently, Caithness/Sutherland was expendable - a bit like Gruinard Island. It's maniacal and unnecessary in my opinion. So far, nobody can prove nuclear energy is necessary or that the benefits if any outweigh the risks. Do you believe it is necessary, do the benefits outweigh the risks?

I know we are surrounded by radiation, we don't survive it either do we? Allison is not the first to attempt to mitigate the effects of radiation and won't be the last and as far as I can make out it doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.
Good points there too but you have to consider the progress science has made since Dounreay was built. It wasnt an experiment to see if they could do it, they knew they could do it, but it was an experimental establishment. A subtle difference. They didnt expect it to blow up but if anything happened, for sure the isolation would have been considered. "What a few go through so more may do" Anon.2011.
I believe it's necessary considering our energy needs but I'm prepared to be convinced otherwise.

[Rheghead]

Assessing the risks of exposure to radiation is much the same as with epidemiological studies of those risks in association with smoking and other toxic agents. Because there is no obvious suspect and weapon in the library then things get trivialised by those most wanting to quote statistics to support their agenda.

[Dadie]

If there was no radiation, would we be here at all?
The radiation levels when the Earth was created would have been a lot higher, and if the primeval biological soup of matter didnt have the genetic mutations that radiation must have helped create..would there be life on the planet?

[secrets in symmetry]

That's an interesting question Dadie, and I must admit I don't know the answer. Does anyone know, or will it be necessary to consult Big G?

[Rheghead]

Drowning is also a must do activity since life couldn't exist without water. lol

[neilsermk1]

Really pleased to read this John. Only yesterday I was wondering what the latest figures were for 'clusters' around reactor sites - our friendly neighbourhood one in particular. Have you any relevant links?

The COMARE report has just been issued on the subject, but I havent read it yet. Try google search COMARE

[John Little]

The COMARE report has just been issued on the subject, but I havent read it yet. Try google search COMARE

Better yet-
http://www.dounreaystakeholdergroup.org/

[neilsermk1]

Thanks John I forgot about that link. So quoting from the Comare report
"In conclusion, COMARE’s primary analysis of the latest British data has revealed no significant evidence of an association between risk of childhood leukaemia (in under 5 year olds) and living in proximity to an NPP (Nuclear Power Plant).
That just about finishes it then.

[Better Out Than In]

Sandside Particles.

Based on public information the risk can be explained as below:

The particles found on the near surface beach tend to be very small in size with a specific activity that ranges from low to high. Because of their size (like a small garin of salt) their total activity is not likely in reallity to pose much of a health risk. Walking around the beach, or even playing on the beach, as long as this radiation remains external then I personally would not worry. The risk increases if you get a particle embedded in your skin or worse if you swallow it. Quite possibly an ingested particle would simply be excreted and the risks would still be quite low. The worst case scenario is a particle getting lodged internally and not being excreted and this is what the official risk is based on - worst case. Then it becomes a probability issue. Again there is a probability that this particle still would not cause harm but no-one can be certain - and as the site remain responsible then they have no option but to take reasonable steps to minimise that risk. Compared to many other risks we face in life it is not significant - say risk from traffic. In my view you are far more likely to be injured getting to Sandside than from any particles on the beach.

So saying that they can only detect particles to a fairly shallow depth in the sand and there seem to be hundreds offshore on the sea bed.

Like all answers to risks there is no Yes or No. You have to assess any benefits and decide yourself if you want to take that risk. I have no problems visiting sandside but I probbaly would not have a picnic there

[John Little]

You are allowed to visit then?? Thanks for that - fascinating and, seemngly, not much to get in a froth about.

[ducati]

You are allowed to visit then?? Thanks for that - fascinating and, seemngly, not much to get in a froth about.

Hi John, no restrictions, just a couple of signs warning not to pick up anything and take it away. The same signs used to be on Dunnet beach but they seem to have gone. Probably taken away. :eek:[lol]

[John Little]

Well I had a good stroll on Dunnet 3 years ago and shall have a walk on Sandside next time we are up. Maybe later this year - we shall see.

Might find a few nice shells... cowries perhaps?

[ducati]

Well I had a good stroll on Dunnet 3 years ago and shall have a walk on Sandside next time we are up. Maybe later this year - we shall see.

Might find a few nice shells... cowries perhaps?

Shells? More likely to be 8 inch. :eek:

[Neil Howie]

John, just don't go building your own reactor and you'll be alright....

Radioactive Boy Scout (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn)