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The Forum > Article Comments > Lies, damned lies, and radiation statistics > Comments

Lies, damned lies, and radiation statistics : Comments

By Geoff Russell, published 2/10/2009

Let's evaluate Dr Helen Caldicott's claims that nuclear power plants can increase the incidence of childhood leukemia.

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Protagorass,

Also from the links you posted:

"The environment watchdog said the radiological consequences were minor. - An MoD spokesman said: "The discharges into the Gare Loch had no environmental consequences."

“The safety record of British nuclear powered submarines is excellent and there has never been a nuclear accident in the 40 years since they have been in service. As a result of the measures we have put in place the likelihood of such an accident is extremely remote.”

"Because there was no firm evidence that the leak (Hunterston nuclear power station) had harmed human health,"

"Ingvar Berglund, head of safety at Forsmark, said there wasn’t a risk of a Chernobyl-like accident. "We know exactly what happened and it was an incident that could have been serious … but that it could have been the most serious incident since the nuclear power incident at Chernobyl is totally wrong,” he said."

Finally,

The Rocky flats site was first operated in the early 1950s long before the dangers of radioactivity were known, and to compare its operation with modern plants is facile.

You can now go back to playing with your imaginary friends.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 5 October 2009 8:36:59 AM
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One of the commenters agreed that fossil fuels are lucrative to government, and that coal-fired power plants irradiate their neighbours much more than nuclear plants do.

Since coal is a fossil fuel, it is understandable, although not excusable, when governments say, or cause it to be said, that the public has an irrational fear of radiation -- but not just any radiation. We are supposedly very specifically nuts about radiation that is a side effect of activities that deprive government, and other fossil fuel rent-takers, of that rent. Cosmic rays, when we fly in planes? Radon in natural gas, lead-210 and polonium-210 in LPG? Um ... we don't know anything about that.

This same conflict of interest would motivate peculiarly stringent regulation of radiation emissions from nuclear powerplants and fuel mines.

I don't know if any government inspectors are permanently stationed at natural gas plants or on large oil tankers or in coal mines (it seems unlikely). They *are* so stationed at nuclear plants. I believe their financial conflict of interest will end, but their on-siteness at nuclear sites will continue.

(How fire can be domesticated: http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/ )
Posted by GRLCowan, Monday, 5 October 2009 10:18:42 PM
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>> 1. 2009: An MP has called for an investigation after it emerged
>> that the Faslane naval base has suffered a series of safety
>> breaches:

So, how much radioactivity, if any, was released? What elevation in dose above background, if any, could the public have experienced as a result of this? This type of quantitative information is important if we're to draw any meaningful conclusions.

Furthermore, what relevance, if any, does a nuclear submarine discharging some primary coolant water containing trace radioactivity have to nuclear power plants?

>> 2. 2009: Ministry of Defence figures show that there have been a >> total of 235 fires on nuclear submarines since 1987:

A fire on board a boat has got no relevance to nuclear power. It has got nothing to do with the radiological safety of the boat's nuclear power systems, either - non-nuclear boats can experience fires, too.

>> 3. 2009: Thousands of litres of radioactive waste have
>> accidentally leaked into the Firth of Clyde from the Hunterston
>> nuclear power station in breach of pollution law

Again, extremely small amounts of radioactivity. Mostly water from radiation worker's showers. How much radioactivity was released, quantitatively, and what possible dose to the public could have resulted?

These critical details are always absent from tabloid media scare stories.
Posted by Luke Weston, Monday, 5 October 2009 11:08:48 PM
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Pesky length limit on posts. Continuing from the above:

>> ...the most dangerous international nuclear
>> incident since the destruction of the Russian Chernobyl plant 20 >> year ago, said nuclear expert and former boss at Forsmark
>> Lars-Olov Höglund in Uppsala Nya Tidning on Tuesday.

In July 2006, one reactor at Forsmark tripped after an electrical fault in the connectivity to the electrical grid, which in and of itself has got absolutely nothing significant to do with nuclear or radiological safety.

In reality, "former boss" and "nuclear expert" Hoeglund was never employed by the Forsmark nuclear power plant. He was construction manager for some years at a Vattenfall mechanical engineering department - keep in mind that Vattenfall works with all kinds of energy generation, not exclusively nuclear. He did spend some years at the Forsmark site as a contractor, but only at the waste storage and disposal facility, unconnected with the nuclear power plant.

More interestingly, Hoeglund has for years been locked in legal conflict with the Forsmark nuclear power plant as well as the Ringhals nuclear plant regarding some jobs that his consultancy tendered on but did not get selected for. Apart from this he has, through legal appeals in environmental courts, delayed a number of projects at both Ringhals and Forsmark. His claims regarding the shutdown at Forsmark in 2006 have never been substantiated by any credible source.

Finally, regarding Rocky Flats.

Do you know what a picocurie (pCi) is? It's an extremely, infinitesimally small amount of radioactivity, 1x10^-12 of a curie.

An average, healthy human has over 200,000 pCi of radioactivity in their body, mostly potassium-40 and carbon-14.

0.05 pCi/g is an unbelievably tiny amount of radioactivity.

The background radioactivity of an average sample of soil taken from Turkey is approximately 15 pCi/g. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17906302)

There's no evidence that plutonium at those concentrations at Rocky Flats could be harmful to anyone.

But in any case, it's irrelevant anyway, since nuclear weapons production decades ago during the Cold War, during the arms race, is absolutely, completely irrelevant to a discussion of nuclear power plants.
Posted by Luke Weston, Monday, 5 October 2009 11:13:49 PM
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