[Closed] The Long Shadow of Chernobyl

If radiation was cumulative (which it's not, unless you ingest it in a form which your body does not get rid of, like mercury), and if there was no safe threshold to which I can be exposed to without risk of harm, then I wouldn't be allowed to work with radioisotopes.

call yourself a scientist? Have a look at the logical fallacy in this sattement.

You take as proof there is no risk of harm the fact that there is a safe limit that you have been given. Rigghhht!

fukoshima workers had their afe limits increased when it was realised they could not actually do anything without increasing them.

TJ if you drink enough water you will die.

Clearly many things are safe in small doses and fatal in large enough doses, medication for example. alcohol ,paracetamol

Is this also a logical fallacy to say that they are safe in small doses?
Could you explain Chemotherapy as well whilst you are at it?

The logical fallacy is " it must be safe in small doses as I have been given a safe limit"

That is not what i asked - I did not say why is that a logical fallacy but that is what you appear to have answered but what the hell i will run with it

If you drink enough water you will die
If you dont drink water you will die.

There is a safe level of water to drink [ and an unsafe level]

is this a logical fallacy ?
Is this?
It is safe to drink water as I have been given a limit of water i can drink

There is no logical fallacy

you can explain your answer in relation to water or to the actual question I posed I dont mind which

Clearly you can have safe levels of something dangerous[ say drugs like paracetamol] and dangerous levels of something safe [ water for example]
there is no fallacy

TJ if you drink enough water you will die.

Clearly many things are safe in small doses and fatal in large enough doses, medication for example. alcohol ,paracetamol

Is this also a logical fallacy to say that they are safe in small doses?
Could you explain Chemotherapy as well whilst you are at it?

Posted 17 minutes ago #

is not a fallacy you can have a safe level of something dangerous [alcohol say] anda dangerous level of something safe [ say water] and i have given you many examples for you to ignore as you engage in argumentum ad nauseam

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15288975

I reckon the BED is useful for several
reasons. First, it reminds us that radiation is
commonplace. You can't get much more
ordinary than a banana.

Second, we know eating one banana won't kill
us. Not even nearly. Not without extreme
violence. This affirms an age-old point about
toxicity - that danger is in the dose. In other
words most things, radiation included, are only
dangerous in sufficient quantities. The distinction
between toxic and safe is not really a distinction
of kind, but of quantity. That goes for just about
everything from water and vitamins to arsenic.

Of course you can have a safe level of something.

However Zokes is claiming that there is a safe level of radiation expose and [b]the proof of this is[/b] that he has been given a safe limit to work to.

The logical fallacy is " it must be safe in small doses as I have been given a safe limit"

Turn it on its head. It's damnededly more stupid to draw the contrary from that same statement.

Never mind questioning my ability as a scientist, you as a nurse presumably administer drugs to patients, which have been prescribed as safe doses.

If you were a radiologist, you would administer safe doses of radiation to patients. (even ultrasound - the stuff they use to look at foetuses is a type of radiation).

If you're not in radiology but deal with patients who are receiving radiotherapy, I can safely say the most radioactive thing I've measured was the head-of-college's crotch (for a laugh I might add) when he walked in to say hi whilst he was being treated for prostate cancer. Ironically, he was being treated for cancer with radiation. He thought it might be interesting to point the Geiger down there 😯

Of course you can have a safe level of something.

Even radiation? 😉

If radiation was cumulative (which it's not, unless you ingest it in a form which your body does not get rid of, like mercury), and if there was no safe threshold to which I can be exposed to without risk of harm, then I wouldn't be allowed to work with radioisotopes.

Zokes - just reread that staement.

Its circular reasoning

I did not turn it on its head. I simply point out the flaw in your logic.

if its not cumulative why are there annual safe limits as well as daily?

TandemJeremy - Member

any answer to this?

zokes
In fact, then, why did you try to defend the LNT model as fact, rather than as one particular hypothesis (which it is)?

TJ One aspect to be considered is that is there a threshold below which radiation does not cause deaths? Some say there is, some say there isn't. Makes a big difference to the numbers of predicted deaths.

I think that rather shows that I understand LNT is a hypothesis. One that is generally accepted worldwide but sufficient doubt that I believe its worth mentioning. If yo wnt to atttack me then actually read what I wrote

Now how about some intellectual honesty and rigour from you

An opinion piece in New Scientist (17 March 2012) by Don Higson:

[url= http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328566.500-dont-compare-fukushima-to-chernobyl.html ]Don't compare Fukushima to Chernobyl[/url]

"...[i]237 Chernobyl workers were taken to hospital with suspected acute radiation sickness; 134 of these cases were confirmed; 28 were fatal; about 20 other workers have since died from illnesses considered to have been caused or aggravated by radiation exposure; two workers died from other causes at the time of the accident and another disappeared - presumed dead.

On top of that, it has been estimated that about 4000 people will die (or may already have died) from radiation-induced cancer, including workers exposed directly to radiation, and members of the public exposed to the huge release of radioactive material from the reactor. About 4000 cases of thyroid cancer, which typically kills about 5 per cent of people who get it, have been attributed to inhalation and ingestion of radioactive iodine by children.[/i]"

I think that rather shows that I understand LNT is a hypothesis. One that is generally accepted worldwide but sufficient doubt that I believe its worth mentioning. If yo wnt to atttack me then actually read what I wrote

Yes, but you only changed to that position recently, after being completley and utterley Pwned on the issue by Hilldoger on the Fukushima thread, prior to that you had been a complete LNT advocate, expressing it repeatedly as TJ-FACT

so, essentially, you've got a pretty good history of talking bollocks on the issue, and if you can be wrong about one thing, its possible that you're wrong on a myriad of other things that you've expressed as facts, true?

wow, is this still going on!

i only comment because the logical fallacy thing had me spraying coffe over my laptop. keep going tho - the wasted energy might heat a small greenhouse....

However Zokes is claiming that there is a safe level of radiation expose and the proof of this is that he has been given a safe limit to work to.

Kona -

Zokes
and [b]if[/b] there was no safe threshold to which I can be exposed to without risk of harm, [b]then[/b] I wouldn't be allowed to work with radioisotopes.

[b]If[/b] this was not so [b]then [/b] this would not be allowed.

and your point is what - do you want the rationale for how they work out this method in the middle

if there was not a safe dosage for paracetamol then the package would not give me advice on a safe dosage
if there was no safe dosage for paracetamol then they would not sell it

I can do this all day -

do you prefer
if there was not dangerous levels of radiation I would not have to wear a meter and be restriced to safer levels - same thing different words

Its a weak point you are pin dancing about.

he is not strictly saying it is safe because i have a safe level and you know this. He explained the rationale in ana earlier post as welll you know - No you re read and cut and paste it 🙄

Paracetamol. You do realise "paracetamol toxicity is the most common cause of acute liver failure" don't you, Junkyard. It was reported on the radio recently (Europe 1) that the maximum dose given on the packaging can be dangerous, deadly in fact.

[url= http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Paracetamol.htm ]The advice is 4 x 1000mg per day for adults with tooth ache.[/url] There is no weight guide for what constitutes an adult and some 12 year olds don't weigh much at all I'm sure you'll agree. Alcohol isn't mentioned.

Do some of your own Googling but [url= http://howto.yellow.co.nz/health-nutrition/medical-concerns/paracetamol-%E2%80%93-facts-you-should-know/ ]here's something in English.[/url] Read the first comment.

Madame is now home so I've checked on the French paracetamol packaging, the maximum daily dose is now 3g/day. 1g less than the English maximum unless that has been reduced too. So what is a safe dose? Exactly the same question we are asking about radiation.

yes I do know that [ not the french UK difference that is the point it is dangerous -almost everything is if the dose is large enough but there is still a safe limit. I agree that with either we [or experts ] could debate where this limit is - I think TJ's point is there is no safe limit for radiation and I was trying to counter that by showing that nothing was safe in the sense he meant [ anything can kill you] but you could still have a safe limit of say paracetamol or water or radiation

Edukator

Exactly the same question we are asking about radiation

No, its not the same question

LNT theory says there's NO safe dose. That radiation is always considered harmful with no safety threshold, and that this can be plotted in a strict linear fashion - [b]if[/b] we applied this to the parecetamol example, then it would work like this:

If I give 100 people 40 paracetamol each in a single dose, then they all die
if I give 100 people 4 paracetamol each, ten will die
if I give 100 people 0.4 paracetamol each, one will die.

Worse than this, LNT says the sum of several very small exposures are considered to have the same effect as one larger exposure.

so, if I give one person 40 paracetamol in a single dose, they die, however if I give them 4 per day for ten days, then it has the same effect, they still die

Clearly, thats not how toxicology works.

And what if the safe limit for radiation is the background dose or below? I think there's good evidence it is. Lots of people get cancer and we don't know why. It's not like liver failure where the causes have been easily clinically identified, the causes of cancer are many and varied but known to include radiation because of the clear link at high doses.

The radiation related cancer clusters that are related to radiation have to be really high to be statistically significant. They first have to climb above the statistical variation and "noise" from other causes of cancer. If there were no other causes of cancer we'd be able to identify the sort of correlation we can for paracetamol and liver failure, and I'm convinced we'd find a small number of radiation mortalities at background levels.

Edit: Radiation is different, you don't have to poisson the whole body, you only have to cause one cell to mutate to start a cancer.

And what if the safe limit for radiation is the background dose or below? I think there's good evidence it is. Lots of people get cancer and we don't know why

Then under the LNT theory the incidence of cancer in people who received twice, three or four times the background dose of another community could be plotted in a predictable linear fashion.

someone in Cornwall would or Edinburgh would have an X percentage increase in cancer rates due to naturally occurring Radon exposure, Nuclear workers getting ten times that dose would have a proportional increaese in their rates.

So far, we've been unable to reliably detect that increase, let alone plot it.

No we haven't, Zulu, because it's masked by all the other causes of cancer. Doesn't mean it's not there.

Remember to get cancer you just need a tiny amount of a radioative substance in your body to release a little burst of ionising radiation that hits the DNA in one of your cells and damages it. The next time the cell divides the genetic code is slightly altered and that could be the start of a cancer. Do you really want any radioacitve stuff in or near your body at all?

. Do you really want any radioacitve stuff in or near your body at all?

Yes - or do you think I should stop eating banana's, because they are inherently dangerous, and every time I eat one, I increase my risk of Cancer.

Eat bananas if you want, I do, if I get a cancer then I accept those bananas might be the cause, along with the numerous other sources of ionising radiation in my environment.

or nothing to do with ionising radiation at all.

I eat bananas until my armpits are itchy, I had no idea that you could overdose on them. What's the maximum daily dose then ?

hyperkalemia - I think that will get you before the radiation

Ps rather bourgeois to be eating that many bananas 😉

See, I like not being irradiated, but I also like not having to sit in the dark waiting for the wind to blow, but which ones best...

[img] [/img]

'cmon windpower, nut him!

rather bourgeois to be eating that many bananas

Well I hadn't realised that either. Tesco sells them you know.

Although to fair, my rather strict father, from whom I inherited my love of bananas (bit of a cultural thing) always forced me to eat them in what I considered to be a rather bourgeois manner. According to him it was imperative that all the skin be removed before starting to eat the banana, because apparently only monkeys peel them a bit at a time whilst eating them. Although it always struck me as absurd, bourgeois, and rather unhygienic, I still do it this day, 20 years after his death. I'm haunted by my father and his banana-eating etiquette 😐

the only fruit in my house [ growing up] came in a can and got topped with carnation cream....I wish I was joking.

I had fresh fruit every day throughout my childhood (one piece maximum per meal) And I know this is going to sound like a cliche but there was a time when we were so poor (my childhood varied from pretty poor to extremely poor) that during the school holidays me and my siblings had to go to a special centre (a school specially opened for the purpose) so that we could receive a free meal. But as I suggested previously, the fresh fruit thing was largely cultural. Although fruit such as apples and pears would have worked out cheaper than canned fruit/carnation cream, I'm sure.

if we has done that ernie how would we have afforded the fry ups 😉
again true

TBH my mum was a rubbish cook and I loved my [ free] school dinners as they were so well cooked and lovely.
I eat worse now I have more money so I get your point

I didn't like my (free) school meals at all - beans in tomato jam ? WTF ?

I preferred the posh foreign food at home........only there wasn't much of it 🙂

I didn't like the stuff like sheep's brains and tripe though 😐

Potatoes are the main thing I remember haivng on my plate as a child, a never more than half a banana. To the point that when I started buying my own food I didn't buy a potato for years. They now get consumed in moderation. Blonde d'Aquitaine, carrots and roast spuds tonight in fact.

This thread has made me want a:

TJ: Answer the question...

[b]Of course you can have a safe level of something.
[/b]
Even radiation?

Because your entire argument is based around your assumption that the answer to that question is no, which I think by now we've demonstrated to be incorrect.

I appreciate your concern about nuclear power is based primarily around this issue, so it'll be very important you answer that question. Because, if you accept that there is a safe minimum, no matter how small that safe minimum is, then the LNT hypothesis fails. So too, then, do the very high estimates of deaths based upon following a straight line back down to zero.

Which takes us back to 57 deaths directly attributable to Chernobyl, and 4-5000 expected to have occurred or to occur. And don't forget, unlike Fukushima, the Russians weren't very forthcoming with iodine tablets, which would have prevented most cases of thyroid cancer.

So, if only 4-5000 were killed or will die as a result of a very poor design that would never have been allowed by western H&S even back then, and the Soviet attempt to cover-up rather than act, I call that pretty astounding for something you brand as so inherently dangerous.

As regards the waste, sure, vitrification and deep burial isn't perfect, it seems, but again, unless you want the lights to go out, the alternative is releasing far more radiation into the atmosphere as a result of burning coal. Even if the question is radiation buried vs radiation emitted, I'm sure you'll agree that burying it is probably better.

If you're still sticking with the line that there is no safe dose of radiation however, then I'd suggest you campaign to get the coal fired power stations closed instead. They emit far more radiation by design to the environment than any nuclear powered station.

No we haven't, Zulu, because it's masked by all the other causes of cancer. Doesn't mean it's not there.

But, Edukator, it doesn't mean that it is there either. This is the point. All these predictions of deaths related to radiation are based upon acceptance or not of the LNT model - this is why there is such a difference between different estimates. (And they are estimates, not FACTS, not even TJ-FACTS...)

So, who won? 😀

No we haven't, Zulu, because it's masked by all the other causes of cancer. Doesn't mean it's not there.

So we are worrying about a risk factor that is so small, it's lost in the noise of all the other risk factors that are actually worth considering? If that's how the LNT model comes up with thousands of deaths, I can't bring myself to give it much credence. Are we suggesting that we should be concered about levels of radiation that are low enough to cause an increased risk that is so small, it can't be directly measured, and only calculated by assuming the risk exists in the first place?

If the 4000 deaths figure for Chernobyl is arrived at by this approach (which it might not be, I haven't read up on it), it's the consequence of multiplying a very tiny and uncertain number by a very big number, then claiming the result is significant. I think there is an argument to say when the risk factor is so small it can't be directly measured, one might consider ignoring it.

Maybe it's possible to identify a comparable risk factor that resulted in 4000 deaths in the same population over the same period - that might give some perspective on the matter? I reckon the figure might be dwarfed by things that we don't traditionally consider terribly risky, yet people have a massive fear factor over radiation.

So, who won?

Looks like it wasn't TJ

Remember to get cancer you just need a tiny amount of a radioative substance in your body to release a little burst of ionising radiation that hits the DNA in one of your cells and damages it. The next time the cell divides the genetic code is slightly altered and that could be the start of a cancer. [b]Do you really want any radioacitve stuff in or near your body at all?[/b]

Eat bananas if you want, I do, if I get a cancer then I accept those bananas might be the cause, along with the numerous other sources of ionising radiation in my environment.

advising people that any radiation in or on their bodies was undesirable, while being happy to accept the same risk through eating a naturally radioactive fruit. If you are so accepting of it yourself, why be advising others not to follow your example?

Zokes is claiming that there is a safe level of radiation expose and the proof of this is that he has been given a safe limit to work to.

if there was no safe threshold to which I can be exposed to without risk of harm, then I wouldn't be allowed to work with radioisotopes.

No, you still have it backwards. The existence of a safe working level is not proof of the safety of working with radioisotopes, it's a precondition to it. For someone that's so big on identifying logical fallacies, I think that's a weird thing for you to misrepresent.

No, you still have it backwards. The existence of a safe working level is not proof of the safety of working with radioisotopes, it's a precondition to it. For someone that's so big on identifying logical fallacies, I think that's a weird thing for you to misrepresent.

This.

My work with radioactive isotopes is to trace carbon and nitrogen through soils and plants. This can instead be done with stable isotopes (i.e. non-radioactive), but it's much more expensive, much more time consuming, and not as sensitive. [b]However[/b], I work for a government science organisation, and in today's HSE environment, working in a lab at all entails far too much paperwork. Do you really think that given the fact that there are viable, albeit more difficult, alternatives that I would be allowed (or asked, for that matter) to work with radiation if the levels to which I am exposed to during my work were remotely dangerous? [i]Really?[/i]

Anyway, answer the question:

[b]Of course you can have a safe level of something.
[/b]
Even radiation?

It has taken me three days to read all of this ( I do have a life ) I have now moved from convinced anti nuclear power to confused agnostic . Thanks for that .

I've just discovered that eating 500 million bananas will give you the same radiation levels as standing for ten minutes next to the Chernobyl reactor core after explosion and meltdown 😐

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15288975

It's Brazil nuts you really want to be careful of 😉

I've just discovered that eating 500 million bananas will give you the same radiation levels as standing for ten minutes next to the Chernobyl reactor core after explosion and meltdown

....and lord only knows what that would do to one's digestive routine!

The goverment organisation you work for doesn't care if you get a cancer from the work you do or not, Zokes. They can employ a lawyer to argue exactly as you have to "prove" they aren't responsoble (even if they are). Just as the tobacco giants did for years in the face much more damning evidence.

Edukator

We'll follow your example of Tobacco.

I worked with a fair number of the team who in their earlier careers did the animal research work on Tobacco, so we're on an area I know a little about the history of...

The scientific literature and evidence, more than supports the theory that repeated exposure to tobacco smoke increases the risk of cancer, over and above that in control groups, in both human demographic studies and animal models. This scientific 'evidence' is where Tobacco research diverts from LNT Radiation studies.

Do you think that smoking one cigarette, once in your life, increases your risk of Cancer?

Indeed, do you think that inhaling a single lungful of passive smoke exposure raises your risk of Cancer?

Thats before we even look at the evidence for a Hormetic effect from low level radiation exposure,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2564764/

The problem with your position Edukator, is that its based on presumption and scaremongering - its no better than the "science" of Homeopathy, Powerbands and MMR/Autism.

It's based on extrapolation et "le pricipe de précaution" whatever Google translator says that is but I'm too lazy to look.

Ok, so, you choose to rely on Extrapolation.

Do you accept that your downward extrapolation does not reflect our knowledge of how almost every other environmental exposure or toxin effects the body.

I'll offer you (mainly non-ionizing) radiation in the form of exposure to sunlight as an example. High doses cause skin cancer, low doses are absolutely vital for health.

If we applied your principle of precaution to almost anything and everything else that is potentially dangerous in our environment, it would have severe negative affects on our heath .

We're going in circles now, Zulu. Refer to previous pages. Ionising radiation can't be considered like other poisons because it does not act in the same way. Ionising radiation damages the DNA inside the cells and it only takes one damaged DNA string to start a cancer.

Well, you're the one who tried to take us down the line of comparing it with Tobacco, you can't now have it both ways when the evidence starts to undermine your position, and yes, both Sunlight and Tobacco exposure lead to mutations within the DNA that can lead to cancers, so really your defence isn't the strongest.

OK, lets turn to a population that we know received significant doses of radiation, Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors - if we exclude the ones who died in the short period after the attack, and look at the population who we believe received a smaller dose - what are their survival and cancer rates?

You're pretty much accepting that there's no scientific basis for your position Edukator - which means we're in the Homeopathy sphere "we can't actually prove it, but it definitely works"

I was comparing the tabacco and nuclear industires defending their right to poison us on the basis a link cannot be proven in individual cases. I was not comparing how tobacco and ionising radiation act on cells.

On Hiroshima:

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki tumour registries, which have been in operation since 1958, are among the few population-based cancer registries in Japan. This analysis evaluated cancer incidence in Hiroshima and Nagasaki between 1958 and 1987. The overall age-adjusted (World Population Standard) cancer incidence has increased from 217 to 301 per 100,000 among males, and from 176 to 197 per 100,000 among females during the first 30 years of cancer registration

But that figure includes people who received a huge, huge dose in comparison with the figures we're talking about for even the highest exposure of radiation workers, You have to compare like with like, rather than including people who received an estimated dose in excess of 1 sievert

You're making the mistake of conflating the figures of the effects on those who received low doses with those who received higher ones.

Where does your 1 sievert come from please, Zulu (méfie-toi des chiffres trop ronds 😉 ). Most of the victims that survived the initial blast got much less than that. They've worked out a cancer correlation though:

The rate so far experienced by Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors is about 0.08 fatal cancers per sievert of dose, as estimated by the the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation.

The rate so far experienced by Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors is about 0.08 fatal cancers [b]per sievert [/b]of dose,

The permitted annual dose for a nuclear worker is 20 [b]milli[/b] Sieverts per year

So, even if you [b]did[/b] believe the LNT theory, you do the sums...

0.02 of the dose that gives you an increased chance of fatal cancer of 0.08

I'll be adding your 20 milli sieverts to background, x-rays etc and multiplying by the number of years in the industry. A bit of perspective:

For example, an exposure of 50,000 microsieverts (µSv)-- a unit that measures the biological effects of radiation -- can lead to nausea and fatigue within hours. A dose of 50,000 µSv causes hair loss within two or three weeks while a dose of 1 million µSv will cause hemorrhage. Death usually occurs at a dose of 4 million µSv.

A milli sievert being 1000 micro siverts.

Dunno your source - but I reckon the claim of 50,000 µSv causing hair loss is out by a factor of at least ten 😕

Which sort of reflect how well we can rely on your ability to assess the risk....

I asked you for a source for your 1 sievert and you didn't provide one, Zulu.

If you copy any quote into Google it'll give you the source so I reckon I've already given you the means to check my source. In this case the Los Angeles Times.

No need to get insulting and personal because you don't like what I quote but didn't write.

and multiplying by the number of years in the industry

Why would you need to multiply anything? Radiation exposure is not cumulative. Your body may chemically accumulate some elements (iodine, for example) which may be radioactive, but that's not the same as accumulating the radiation. As we know for the example of iodine, the lighter, non-radioactive isotopes are actually accumulated in preference to the heavy radioisotopes, hence the reason iodine tablets work.

So, unless you inhale or ingest radiation, it isn't cumulative in the slightest, and even then, it's only as cumulative as the element which is emitting said radiation.

So, unless you inhale or ingest radiation, it isn't cumulative in the slightest.........

Like eating bananas ? 😐

Is nuclear power safe or not, then?

Multiply by the number of years doesn't give a cumulative dose it increase the chances that one of those bits of ionising radiation will damage the DNA in a cell and start a cancer. Throw a dice once and you might get a six, keep throwing it and you will get a six.

Yeah, but this dice hasn't got six sides has it?

On the basis of the doses you're talking about its one of them comedy wargaming ones, but with something like forty seven million sides.

keep rolling!

Could you provide a link for your "47 million sides" please, Zulu. Only one and a half cancers from all types of ionising radiation in the UK per year seems a little low.

Governments won't admit a link because [url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/23/newsid_4521000/4521673.stm ]they'd have to pay compensation[/url] even when reserchers demonstrate a link.

Indeed - it's simply a stochastic event, and with such low levels of probability at the lower end (Z11's forty seven million sides) vs setting up camp for a few weeks inside the sarcophagus at Chernobyl (a 6-sided dice), you can't extrapolate back due to all the other noise.

Like eating bananas ?

Actually, no - potassium flows cycles quite quickly through the body, so the levels of potassium-40 actually stay relatively constant, no matter how many bananas you eat. Cadmium on the other hand... (but I suspect its acute toxicity would kill you before you had a chance to catch cancer from its radiation)

Clusters of cancers are useful things because even if governments and courts keep deciding that individual case can't be proved they demonstrate that low doses do lead to cancers. Radon rich areas, the Chernoble cloud in the east of France and Sellafield are all associated with clusters governments conveniently dismiss. You have a choice either you say the clusters don't exist and there is no low dose effect and no background radiation cancers whatsoever (the red on the chart) or you accept the green levels and do everything possible to keep radiation levels in the environment down. I know you don't like it but the clusters are there.

[img] [/img]

or you accept the green levels and do everything possible to keep radiation levels in the environment down

Like shutting down all coal-fired power stations?
[b]
Natural radionuclide emission from a coal power plant and the population exposure to external radiation in its vicinity[/b]

[i]Environment International[/i], Volume 22, Supplement 1, 1996, Pages 227-235

Ranko Kljaji?, Zoran Maši?, Zora Z?uni?, Snez?ana Pavlovi?, Mom?ilo Toši?, Miodrag Mandi?, Vojin Gordani?, Predrag Poli?

Investigations carried out in the vicinity of four coal-fired power plants showed that the average annual emission of natural radionuclides for each MWe of produced electric power is an average of 0.200 MBq for each component of 238U chain, and of 0.130 MBq for each component of 232Th chain, respectively, and of 1.027 MBq for 40K. The average annual absorbed dose of about 1 mGy was found on five locations studied. The results of specific activity measurements on the samples taken from several locations studied showed that there is a concentration of natural radionuclides in ash and slag of up to about five times. The absorbed dose levels found on depots of ash and slag were close to the values recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

I suggest a massive insulation and energy saving programme, developping alternative energy sources and then progressively shutting down both coal and nuclear when they are no longer needed. Personally I'd shut down some of the ageing nuclear stations first then the coal stations leaving the latest generation of nuclear stations running.

I suggest a massive insulation and energy saving programme, developping alternative energy sources and then progressively shutting down both coal and nuclear when they are no longer needed. Personally I'd shut down some of the ageing nuclear stations first then the coal stations leaving the latest generation of nuclear stations running.

This sounds perfectly reasonable to me!

I've been reading this thread with interest, and the thing which stands out for me (other than TJ's usual myopic and irrational dogma) is this:

The chernobyl incident occurred nearly 30 years ago to a badly designed, badly maintained and badly run plant using very out of date (even at the time) technology. It was covered up by the state, so insufficient medical help was given to those who needed it. Yet still fewer people died than have died extracting and burning fossil fuels in the meantime.

So why is this still used as a reason not to use nuclear power with modern well designed, well run reactors?

(I appreciate there are other reasons which as this thread has shown, may or may not be valid, but lets leave those for a moment).

I think you've covered it here, boriselbrus:

TJ's usual myopic and irrational dogma

The LNT model is simplifying the risks of radiation because it can't accurately scale it for certain. The LNT model interprets radiation dose as if you put your hand in water that is 100 degrees Celsius you will get a bad burn and if you put your hand in water that is 10 degrees Celsius you'll get burned but less so. LNT is used to prove that if a million people put their hands in 10 degree Celsius water at least 500 will get third degree burns.

The most radioactive place in the world is in a town called Ramsar in northern Iran (due to Radium-226 in several hot springs in the area, see image of Ramsar to the right). It has a background radiation 200 times greater than the average radiation level and the residents receive a yearly radiation dose of between 100-260mSv. This is several times higher than the radiation level at the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Food grown in the area also has a radiation level approximately 3 times higher than the average background level. Not only is there no adverse affects but the residents have longer and healthier lives and there is a possibility they have built a resistance to radioactivity. There are also similar areas to this in China, Norway, Sweden, Brazil and India. Radiation at Chernobyl after the disaster is 4.9mSv and Grand Central Station in New York is 5.4mSv or Guarapari in Brazil is 37mSv. Finland has radiation levels 3 times higher than the Chernobyl exclusion zone, and this has been true even before the Chernobyl accident.

Some scientists believe small doses of radiation actually stimulate the activation of repair mechanisms in the human body that protect against disease. Studies were done shielding one group of mice from natural background radiation and another group exposed to natural background radiation. The group that were shielded from natural radiation died sooner than the other group.

There were apartments constructed in Taiwan in 1983 that accidently contained increased amounts of cobolt-60 which is radioactive. Occupants recieved a dose of 75mSv/y which is 5 times over the US recommended radiation dose. Over 16 years there were only 5 cases of cancer out of the 10,000 occupants of the apartments. According to the Taiwanese average cancer rate (with age considered) there should have been 170 cases of cancer, thats a 96% decrease in cancer rates.

Got the info from http://nuclearradiophobia.blogspot.it/p/linear-no-threshold-model-lnt-is.html . Interesting read and othe rlinks to studies ie http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1299203/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10696785

Interesting conversation though.

boriselbrus

If you want some more recent incidents, in the UK, then

http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/quarterly-stat/index.htm

Echos of the Chernobyl incident. Operator error, safety systems disabled etc

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Safety_culture_questions_after_loss_of_power_at_Kori_1_2203121.html

These incidents are fairly recent and make interesting reading.

Loss of Electrical Power at the Forsmark 1 BWR, Sweden, July 2006.

Degradation of the Reactor Vessel head of the Davis-Besse PWR 92.

Circumferential Break of Essential Service Water Pipe at Vandellós 2 NPP.

boriselbrus

If you want some more recent incidents, in the UK, then

Blimey - some text to go with your links - are you feeling OK?

Though you do make up for it by providing a completely useless link.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=41647&Cr=Nuclear&Cr1=

"Addressing delegates at a working lunch, the Secretary-General recalled his visits last year to the site of the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima, Japan, and to Chernobyl, in Ukraine. “Those tragedies sent a clear and urgent message: A nuclear accident can have consequences similar to a nuclear attack,” Mr. Ban said. "

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/03/27/nuclear-safety-summit-harper-obama.html

Macavity - Are you serious? I don't think Chernobyl or Fukushima have shared any similarity to a nuclear attack at all. I am sure a A-bomb survivor from Hiroshima or Nagasaki would agree. How many have died at Fukushima from the nuclear plant meltdown, I think its zero. I think people blame the 20,000 killed and 500,000 left homeless by the earthquake and Tsunami on the radiation and forget it was a massive natural disaster that triggered it. Apparently the Ukraine is increasing its nuclear plants from 15 to 22 and I'm sure they would have better memories of what happened rather than Mr Ban.

Well, if we're doing tenuous links with only tangential relevance....

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-17522086 ]"Fortunately we have dealt with the human side of it, but the potential exists for catastrophic devastation.

"If it somehow finds an ignition source we could be looking at complete destruction."[/url]

So, the dash for gas (apart from being flawed by the fact we don't have much of it any more) isn't exactly safe.

165 killed by Piper Alpha, and that could have quite easily have been what happened in the North Sea in the Elgin platform

This is a nice list of fatal and non fatal accidents caused by wind turbines. Did you know they can accumulate ice on the blades and throw it 300 meters away 🙂

CAITHNESSWINDFARMS.CO.UK "http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/fullaccidents.pdf"