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Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Archives for March 2011

George Monbiot debates Helen Caldicott, who says he is lying

March 31, 2011 By Rod Adams

There are times when a discussion turns from somewhat painful to entertaining theater. This conversation between George Monbiot and Helen Caldicott, featured on the March 31, 2011 edition of Democracy Now! entered that realm.

Update: (Posted at 0500 on April 1, 2011) After some overnight thought, I realized that I needed to add some more information to this post to give some context to the above video. Though long time Atomic Insights readers will recognize that I think that Dr. Caldicott is completely wrong and a bit unbalanced, new readers might be tempted to wonder who is right in debate posted.

Here are a few things to consider. Dr. Caldicott kept referring to a “study” that was published by the New York Academy of Science that supposedly documents previously unknown studies that were translated from Slavic language journals. The document that she is referring to is actually a book that was compiled by a Greenpeace activist and then published by the book publishing arm of the New York Academy of Science. I wrote about this farce in September 2010.

Ted Rockwell, a member of the New York Academy of Science, wrote a lengthy letter to the editor of Nuclear News after that American Nuclear Society publication had published a notice mentioning the availability of the book. The editor of Nuclear News, probably not understanding the background of the book, most likely accepted it as just another book published by a fellow professional society.

Ted explained that the book was not an NYAS work, that it actively denied the scientific method, and that it was initiated and edited by Greenpeace activists. I got permission and republished Ted’s letter with some commentary on Atomic Insights in November 2010. By that time, I had determined that the book was the opening salvo in a planned campaign to make a big deal about the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident.

If you watched the above video, you will hear Amy Goodman mentioning the fact that the anniversary is just 3 weeks away. The Chernobyl accident occurred on April 26, 1986.

One final note that should help explain just how unscientific Dr. Caldicott has become – if she ever was very scientific. The book to which she constantly refers, as full of nonsense as it is, stretches really far in order to calculate a scary sounding number of 985,000 deaths from Chernobyl related cancers. Apparently, even that number is not scary sounding enough for Dr. Caldicott, so she has, without any basis at all, more than doubled it to her most recent claim of more that 2 million deaths. Her loudly proclaimed source, published just last summer, has a number that is less than half of that.

Based on the demonstrated trend, I fully expect that next year, Dr. Caldicott will be emphatically interrupting people like George Monbiot and proclaiming that the real death toll is more than 4 million. If she lives very long, the exponential rise in her imaginary death tolls may eventually result in a claim that we are all dead already, that life on earth has already disappeared, and that she is the last remaining person on a planet simulated on a Star Trek-like holodeck.

For the record, the study that George Monbiot correctly cited as being from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) has been recently updated. That study, conducted with a cooperative effort by some of the world’s leading radiation effects scientists, states that 28 workers died during the accident response and that 19 additional workers died in the period from 1986-2004, some from causes not necessarily related to radiation exposure at Chernobyl.

There has been a noticeable increase in the rate of thyroid cancer, particularly among children from the area who were born between 1976-1986. Those children met two criteria that put them at high risk – they were alive and less than 10 years old at the time of the accident when the I-131 that was released by the accident was fresh and able to accumulate in milk, fresh vegetables and drinking water at a high enough concentration to cause damage to receptive thyroid glands.

Two actions that could have been taken, but were not taken, to protect those children would have been earlier evacuation orders and orders to avoid the specific products that are known to carry I-131 for the first 40-80 days after an accident. (I-131 decays away with an 8 day half life – it is down to about 3% of its initial value after 5 half lives and has essentially disappeared completely by the completion of 10 half lives – 80 days.)

The bottom line here is that George Monbiot was quoting real science while Helen Caldicott was spouting nonsense. If it is really possible, as she claimed, for a non practicing doctor who is found to be lying to be decertified, perhaps it is finally time for whatever organization that still accepts her pediatrician credentials to take that action. The woman’s elevator stops a few floors shy of the top deck.

Filed Under: Accidents, Health Effects, Radiation

Detectable radiation versus dangerous radiation

March 31, 2011 By Rod Adams

There is no doubt that ionizing radiation at high enough levels can cause illness or even death. It is, after all, a form of energy that has the ability to do work. Anything that can do work and move physical objects – including tiny physical objects like chromosomes – can also do damage.

However, since ionizing radiation is a part of our natural environment and always has been a part of that environment, there is a point at which the potential damage that it can do falls so low that it cannot be separated from the damage being done by all other influences. Because of the almost miraculous way that living organisms have evolved to be able to repair damage done by the normal external forces that affect them, it is very likely that there is a dose rate at which a certain amount of radiation is actually good because it stimulates those repair mechanisms. This notion of radiation hormesis flies in the face of conventionally accepted radiation protection assumptions, but it is actually quite logical and does not violate any validated scientific theories.

One challenge associated with understanding radiation is the confusing set of units used to answer the very important question of “how much” is there. Though I long ago served for about a year as a radiological controls officer and also reviewed a lot of radiological control logs during my time as an engineer officer, I have had to pay close attention, dig out some old text books and exchange a number of emails with trusted colleagues to bring myself back up to speed on the differences between a RAD and a REM, between a REM and a Sievert, between a Sievert and a Gray, and between a curie and a becquerel. Even among experts with decades of experience in the business of measuring radiation, the correspondence has included questions about decimal places and second (or third) checks to ensure that simple errors do not result in answers that are off by one or several orders of magnitude.

Aside: I have often been called to task by other nuclear communicators for using the phrase “orders of magnitude” because they think that “the general public” does not understand that term. I disagree – it is simple for everyone to understand that the term “order of magnitude” means multiplying (or dividing) by a factor of 10. The difference between a penny and a dime is one order of magnitude. A penny is 11 orders of magnitude smaller than a billion dollars. Anyone who does not understand that terminology should start now.End Aside.

The radiation readings that have been reported from the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are certainly something worth worrying about if you happen to be at the site where they have been measured. There is an accumulation of water in pipes and in the turbine building at unit 2 that has been measured at reading of 1000 millisieverts/hour on the surface.

That water is immediately dangerous to human health – a person who remains in a radiation area with that dose rate for just one hour will begin to get noticeably sick with a total dose of 1 Sv (100 REM). That is four times the one time emergency doses allowed for a radiation worker and 20 times the maximum legal annual dose limit for a radiation worker. It is 400 times more than a somewhat normal annual dose of 250 millirem – 2.5 mSv.

On the other hand, there have also been reports from various measuring stations around the United States of detectable levels of I-131. The levels detected in the US have been in the range of a few tens of picocuries. The prefix “pico” means 12 orders of magnitude smaller than 1, so a picocurie would be 0.000000000001 curies. 100 picocuries is equivalent to 3.7 becquerel, with a becquerel defined as one decay per second.

Just to put those tiny numbers into perspective, an acquaintance named Gary L. Troyer, Nuclear Chemist, Computer Scientist, Member: IEEE, ANS, HPS, AAAS, put together a chart that display the average radiation dose rates that come from routine exposures to common food items that contain minute amounts of potassium-40 (K-40) a naturally occurring isotope.

Potassium-40 per serving

In other words – worry about the effort to contain the highly radioactive water that is on the site at Fukushima Daiichi. Think about the difficulty of the effort that the workers are undertaking to prevent that material from leaking out into the environment before it has a chance to decay away. However, do not worry when your local news reporter tells you that sophisticated measuring devices have determined that there is a detectable level of radioactive isotopes in the air that you are breathing or in the water that you are drinking. Listen carefully to the reported numbers to find out if it is any more than what you would get from eating a banana or a bag of potato chips.

Filed Under: Health Effects, Radiation

Vermont Yankee’s MK I Containment – Upgrades and Mods

March 30, 2011 By Rod Adams

Vermont Yankee

One of the results of the accidents at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station has been a legitimate effort to seek answers to the question – “Can it happen here?” Responsible nuclear professionals would not stop there, they would proceed to a series of questions. If so, what should we do right now to reduce […]

Filed Under: Accidents, Guest Columns

Announcing the new and improved Atomic Insights

March 29, 2011 By Rod Adams

The Atomic Insights Blog has been published here on Blogger since March of 2005. It has been a great host at a terrific price. Who can beat free? However, there are some limitations to the format and the expandability. Some of my friends have also teased me about having an outdated, old fashioned looking lay […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Welcome to a Revived Atomic Insights

March 28, 2011 By Rod Adams

Atomic Insights has been on the web in one form or another since the fall of 1995. It started as a paper newsletter produced by a tiny team at Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. (AAE) that was designed to help potential customers learn more about the history and technology associated with using heat from fission to […]

Filed Under: Editorials, Technical History Stories

Shaken, flooded, stressed by power outages, Fukushima Daiichi moves into second place

March 26, 2011 By Rod Adams

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article titled Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries that attempted to provide a realistic prediction of the worst case consequences of the one-two punch from a very large earthquake and tsunami on a large nuclear power station on the coast of Japan. It has […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Atomic Show #164 – Fukushima Discussion by Pro Nuclear Communicators

March 21, 2011 By Rod Adams

On Sunday, March 20, a group of pro nuclear energy communicators gathered to chat about the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station following a devastating earthquake and tsunami that put the entire station into a blackout condition. As predicted at the very beginning of the casualty, there have been no releases of radioactive […]

Filed Under: Atomic politics, Podcast

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Public Meeting – Response to Fukushima Daiichi Events

March 21, 2011 By Rod Adams

***MEDIA ADVISORY*** NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING ON NRC RESPONSE TO RECENT JAPAN EVENT The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be briefed by its staff on the NRC’s response to the ongoing nuclear event in Japan in a public meeting on March 21 at 9 a.m. at NRC Headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Honor our Nuclear Workers

March 19, 2011 By Rod Adams

This simple graphic says more than I can hope to add. Please visit the original post at Honor Our Nuclear Workers. To donate directly to the Fukushima workers and their families please go to:

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan Fukushima Status Report – March 19, 2011 12:30 PM EDT

March 19, 2011 By Rod Adams

I am sharing this status report to provide wider distribution. The content is posted without edits other than minor formatting. Update to Information Sheet Regarding the Tohoku Earthquake The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC) Washington DC OfficeAs of 12:30PM (EST), March 19, 2011 Radiation Levels At 10:30PM (JST) on March 19, radiation […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

A few people are reading Atomic Insights

March 19, 2011 By Rod Adams

Vistors to Atomic Insights Every so often, I like to post a snapshot to show how many people are visiting and where they are coming from. It helps people feel like part of a growing community. Some of you are making amazing contributions to the discussions in the comments. Thank you.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Former NRC Commissioner Jeffery Merrifield Discusses Fukushima Lessons Learned and Those Already Implemented

March 18, 2011 By Rod Adams

Jefferey Merrifield served on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1998 – 2007. He was there when the Commission and the industry engaged in numerous “what if” discussions in the wake of 9-11 and major natural disasters like hurricanes Katrina and Isabella. As a result of those on going efforts, the US nuclear industry has […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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