Atomic Insights

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

U.S. Shouldn’t Depend On Russian Reactors. Restore Our World Class Fast Flux Test Facility

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Photo credit: Wikipedia credited to U.S. DOE and in public domain.

Senator Carper (D-DE) asked each witness at a March 8 hearing about NEIMA – Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act – to give one suggestion for improving the bill. If asked, my answer would be to include findings that emphasize the importance of U.S. government-owned testing facilities that are capable of supporting the NRC licensing requirements for the types of reactors being developed by U.S. universities, the private sector and the National Laboratories.

If given the chance to make a second suggestion, I’d ask the Congress to include provisions that note the fact that there is a known gap in fast spectrum testing facilities and that there is a world class, lightly-used facility at the Hanford site in the state of Washington that is currently in a deactivated condition.

At least six entities in the United States or Canada (TerraPower, ARC, GE Prism, LeadCold, Oklo and Westinghouse) are investing significant sums of corporate or venture capital to pursue an elusive technical achievement; commercially viable nuclear power systems that achieve substantially greater fuel economy than conventional reactors. Though nuclear fuel is “cheap,” substantially better fuel use provides improved longevity and produces less waste material.

Efforts to achieve fuel economy objectives have reopened a discussion whose historical roots extend back more than 50 years into the middle of the 1960s. Given that there are United States entities that believe there is a need for advanced nuclear technology with fuel consumption characteristics that surpass those available from conventional reactors, those entities need a facility that can provide conditions for the fuel and materials testing required to support design, development and licensing.

Virtually all of the available facilities that can provide the necessary conditions are located in Russia. For obvious reasons, that fac adds an unnecessary level of cost and complication.

Conventional Light Water Reactors (LWR)

Conventional commercial nuclear reactors operate with slow [thermal] neutrons. They use materials like water, heavy water or highly purified graphite to moderate [slow] the high speed, high energy [fast] neutrons that are liberated when uranium or plutonium atoms are broken apart.

Thermal neutrons have a much higher probability of being absorbed and causing fission, thus they can work with fuel that is only slightly enriched to have a little more fissile material than natural uranium. The disadvantage of thermal spectrum reactors is that commercially proven configurations fission only 3-5% of the uranium in the fuel elements.

Thermal reactors obtain most of their heat from the 0.7% of natural uranium that is fissile U-235. Nearly all of the U-238 atoms that make up 99.3% of natural uranium are treated as if they were useless waste materials. In commercial fuel elements, natural uranium has been enriched so that 3-5% of the uranium is fissile U-235.

As the reactor operates, fissile U-235 is consumed. A small portion of the U-238 also fissions when nuclei are hit by neutrons with enough momentum. A portion of the U-238 that is smaller than the amount of consumed U-235 also absorbs a neutron and quickly decays into Pu-239, which is about as fissile as U-235.

In order for a reactor to be able to maintain heat producing operations, it much contain a certain amount of fissile material. Thus fuel elements removed from a core still contain a significant amount of fissile material; it cannot be consumed without separating the actinides from the rest of the material in the used fuel and adding enough fissile material to regain the 3-5% content needed in new fuel rods.

Towards the end of life for the loaded core, about a third of the produced power is coming from Pu-239. As a result, conventional reactors consume 3-5% of the loaded fuel, leaving 95-97% of the potential energy behind as waste if not recycled. To a reasonable level of provision, the process in a thermal reactor produces about as much energy from mined uranium as if the system only consumed U-235.

Inefficient? Yes. Is It A Major Cost Issue? Not Yet.

Many nuclear advocates or nuclear technology observers claim there is no immediate need to spend money to improve fuel cycle efficiency. Uranium is cheaper now in nominal dollars than it was in 1973 ($20-$24/lb versus $40/lb). The market is oversupplied to the point where mines are being closed for economic reasons, not because they have exhausted the known deposits. Storing used fuel [which some people insist on calling “nuclear waste”] is technically simple and not a major cost item, even though it can lead to heated political controversies.

Those objections do not prevent others from pursuing improvements because they seek other measures of effectiveness or have discovered ways to position their technology to compete in unique ways.

One of the many reasons that the U.S. has not reached any long term agreement resulting in a successful and sustained program of final disposal for used fuel is that a significant group of nuclear-knowledgable scientists and engineers are professionally offended by the idea of permanently placing a vast source of potential energy into a location where it is as inaccessible as possible.

We believe that “final” disposal deep underground is an unnecessary barrier. Future generations will be smarter than we have been about making full use of the Earth’s endowment of actinides. They will not thank us for putting valuable material in places where it is difficult to retrieve.

Beyond LWRs

LWR “waste” material is capable of split and releasing just as much energy for each fission as splitting U-235. Uranium-238 can fission either directly with energetic fast neutrons [about 1 MeV of energy] or it can fission after absorbing a neutron, undergoing two beta decays to become Pu-239 and then being split by a second neutron.

In a reactor that has no or little moderation [either zero or a small portion of light materials like graphite or water in the core] neutrons retain high enough energy to either directly fission or to convert U-238 to fissile Pu-239. Doing so improves fuel economy by a factor that might approach 140. With fast neutrons, a fuel resource expected to last for a century with thermal reactors could conceivably last 14,000 years.

One of the primary technological rainbows that might lead to this pot of gold is to use reactors that are cooled by liquid metal, with the common choices being limited to sodium, lead, or a eutectic mixture of sodium and potassium called NaK.

Using liquid metals and fast neutron spectra requires materials and fuels whose characteristics are considerably different from those in conventional reactors. Doing this safely – and within the bounds of regulations – requires adequately testing and computer model validation.

United States Fast Breeder Reactor Program

In the mid 1960s, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission shifted most of its nuclear technology investment expenditures away from projects that would improve on light water reactors. The general consensus was that those reactors had been commercialized to the point where private industry would invest the resources required for improvements.

In 1965, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), the President and the AEC determined that the time was right to apply available resources to serious research and development of liquid metal cooled fast breeder reactors. That effort included the recognized need for a large-capacity, highly capable testing reactor.

A group of scientists, technologists, economic boosters and elected officials in the state of Washington joined forces and put together a proposal for a fast neutron test facility. Similar people associated with the Idaho National Reactor Testing station and the closely aligned Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois assumed that their site was the logical location for such a facility. After all, they had already hosted so many experimental, test and demonstration reactors. Their site was the National Reactor Testing Station before it was renamed as the Idaho National Laboratory.

Those loosely aligned individuals and corporate entities did not take into account the well-organized group in Washington. They did not understand the national government’s desire to soften the economic blow that had been dealt to eastern Washington with the winding down of the plutonium production reactors. They also failed to recognize the importance of Milton Shaw’s personal animosity towards Albert Crewe, then serving as the director of Argonne National Laboratory. Shaw was then serving as the director of AEC-Headquarters’ Division of Reactor Development and Technology; his opinion carried a great deal of weight in the AEC decision process.
(Source: Proving the Principle – A History of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, 1949-1999 chapter 19)

The reactor that the Atomic Energy Commission designed, sited, built and operated at the Hanford Site in Eastern Washington to provide the proper environment for testing fast reactor fuels and materials operated from 1982-1992. That shutdown happened about 15 years after Presidents Ford and Carter had determined that the US would not pursue liquid metal breeder reactors.

The AEC took from 1967-1982 to move from conception to an operating test facility. Some of the delay was caused by the annual budget battles that questioned the need for the facility after the cancellation of the fast breeder reactor program. The design was reviewed and approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), though regulation of the facilities construction and operation was retained by DOE.

That facility – the 400 MWth Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) – remains the highest capacity, most modern and least used test reactor in the U.S. DOE’s possession. It is still intact with its internals filled with an inert argon gas purge.

Though final environmental impact assessments have been conducted and a decision has been made to entomb the facility, budgets and preparation of detailed engineering plans move slowly at DOE; no destruction has begun yet. There is a pervasive myth floating around the DOE that actions taken during the George W. Bush administration to more completely remove the sodium coolant from the system has made it impossible for the system to be restored.

According to a 2007 detailed study funded by DOE as part of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) the action taken was to drill a 3/4″ carefully engineered hole in a non pressure barrier. The study determined that adequate recovery from that action would add a little less than $1 M to the $500 M facility restoration cost estimate. (See pages 56-57 of the linked PDF)

What Kind Of Reputation Did The FFTF Earn?

During the 15 years following the 1976-77 turn away from developing fast breeder reactors as a national priority, the FFTF was completed, put through an extensive start-up testing program and used operationally for the next 10 years. Because FFTF’s primary mission of supporting an expansive breeder reactor program had been cancelled before the facility ever started up, its supporters were put into the position of existence justification before they even opened for business. The facility was used for materials testing, medical isotope production, and was proposed for use as a plutonium burner, a source for Pu-238 for space missions and as a prototype liquid metal power reactor.

One of the test series conducted at the FFTF validated the system’s passive safety claims. The unvalidated nature of those claims was a major objection raised by the project’s more vocal opponents, including Arthur Tamplin and Thomas Cochrane, both of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
(Source: Moore, T.G. Fast Breeder Reactors Fueling Controversy, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Aug 3, 1979)

During its operational life, the FFTF demonstrated the value of having been built with a view towards longevity and reliable operation. At times, it could run for many months without reducing power. That is valuable when operating to “burn up” fuel or highly irradiate materials with neutrons.

In 1990, President George H. W. Bush and his Secretary of Energy, James Watkins determined that the FFTF was no longer needed and could be sacrificed in the name of budget cutting. They justified the decision by claiming that the US was no longer pursuing fast reactor technology. Apparently, the staff people who supplied this budget cutting recommendation and justification ignored the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project in Idaho, which was then in its 18th year and still going strong.
(Source: Nation’s Most Modern Reactor Scheduled For Closing; DOE Cites Costs, Los Angeles Times Feb 11, 1990, Pg A28)

In 1993, the FFTF was ordered to be placed in standby by President Clinton and Hazel O’Leary, his first Secretary of Energy. On Jan 19, 2001, the last day of the Clinton Administration, Bill Richardson, then serving as the Secretary of Energy, signed the Record of Decision (ROD) on the Final Environmental Impact Statement for closing and decommissioning the facility. In December 2001, President George W. Bush and his Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham ordered that the facility be permanently shutdown by completing the sodium removal.

In 2007, as part of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the Department of Energy funded a study to determine if the facility could be economically restored on a usefully short schedule. With a 20% contingency and conservative schedule assumptions, that study indicated that restoration would take about 5-6 years and cost $500 million. The study ended up in a room known to insiders as the abandoned room, a place where all of the GNEP Environmental Impact Statement paperwork accumulated with no consideration given to reviewing the documents and making a final decision.

Mission And Requirements Justification For Fast Test Facility

At the end of the Obama Administration, DOE began identifying the mission need and requirements for a new fast reactor testing facility. Though the documents produced as part of that effort only mention the FFTF in passing, it now appears that the process for meeting user demands for fast neutron testing capability will include evaluating the option of restoring the FFTF.

With a more diverse and less politically vulnerable user base compared to the 1970s vintage fast breeder reactor program, the FFTF should finally get the chance to perform its primary mission for a lengthy period of time.

As the US DOE has found with the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), a 50 year-old facility initially built to serve a single customer, there is a wide range of potential customers and a sustainable demand for a well run neutron irradiation user facility that might last for numerous decades.

It’s time to move from repeated bipartisan efforts to permanently kill the FFTF to a broad-based effort to recognize value and restore the facility that our parents built and carefully put away in case we might need it.

Supporting advancements in nuclear energy seems to be an area of agreement in a sharply divided Congress. It is an improvement program where there are so many potential benefits that everyone – with the possible exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey, two relics who cannot seem to discard their 1960s point of view – in the House and Senate can find reasons to favor supportive legislation.

Low-Dose Total Body Irradiation for Systemic Treatment of Cancer

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Dr. Jerry Cuttler provided a copy of an open letter signed by 23 members or affiliate members of SARI – Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information that describes important information about the use of a specific regimen of whole (or half) body low dose radiation as a treatment in the continuing battle against cancer.

The organization has given Atomic Insights permission to republish the useful and informative document.

An Open Letter to Advisory Bodies Regarding
Low-Dose Total Body Irradiation for Systemic Treatment of Cancer

May 30, 2014

Dear Colleagues,

Though adjuvant chemotherapy has been a standard of practice in the systemic treatment of many cancers, its adverse side effects are of considerable concern. The possible side effects include anemia, fatigue, gastro-intestinal dysfunction, hair loss, infection, memory changes, etc. (1). These side effects diminish drastically the quality of life including long-term reduced physical functioning and overall general health (2). In addition, chemotherapy is associated with a life-long reduced rate of employment (3). Hence it is very important to seek alternative approaches for systemic therapy which have less harmful side effects.

One adjuvant treatment that has similar or better outcomes with no symptomatic adverse side effects is low-dose fractionated total body irradiation (LDTBI). In the 1970s, LDTBI at the rate of 15 cGy per fraction, and 10 fractions applied over 5 weeks, had been studied in clinical trials of lymphosarcoma (4) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients (5). The 4-year survival rates with adjuvant LDTBI were equivalent (4) or better (6) when compared to adjuvant chemotherapy, as seen in Figures 1 and 2 below. The main short-term side effects from LDTBI were hematological, with no observed long-term adverse side effects (5).

TBI vs COP_600

TBI vs CHOP_600

One of the reported concerns regarding total-body irradiation (TBI) is the increased risk of leukemias when high-dose TBI was followed with chemotherapy (7). However, all the observed increased leukemias in this study were in patients who had high cumulative TBI doses of 2 Gy or more and/or high radiation doses to the bone marrow. LDTBI using a cumulative dose of 1.5 Gy has been studied clinically (8). The hematological side effects were temporary, minimal, and well-tolerated and the efficacy of the systemic treatment was significantly advantageous. Successful results in further clinical trials should lead to its widespread acceptance as a standard effective systemic treatment of cancers without the severe side effects of the current standard-of-care chemotherapies.

A major obstacle in initiating any clinical trial of LDTBI is the current use of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for radiation risk assessment by regulatory agencies, based on recommendations of international and national advisory bodies. Because of the LNT model-based concerns, researchers may be reluctant to propose clinical trials of LDTBI. Thus, it is not surprising that LDTBI has been under-investigated and under-utilized in spite of its potential (9, 10). However, a considerable amount of evidence has accumulated clearly demonstrating that the LNT model is inconsistent with data (please see the compilation of evidence below).

In consideration of the above evidence, and in order to facilitate the study of this less deleterious systemic treatment of cancer, we ask you to make a declaration that you encourage the study of LDTBI for systemic cancer treatment, and that the LNT model, which is a conservative approach for calculating potential radiation risks, not be used to discourage the study of LDTBI.

We would be happy to discuss this matter with you or provide additional information for your consideration. Thank you for your kind attention to this important issue.

Sincerely,

Mohan Doss, Fox Chase Cancer Center, USA (mohan.doss@fccc.edu)
Allen Brodsky, Georgetown University, USA
Lu Cai, The University of Louisville, USA
Jerry Cuttler, Cuttler & Associates, Canada
Ludwik Dobrzynski, National Centre for Nuclear Research, Poland
Vincent J Esposito, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Ludwig E. Feinendegen, Heinrich-Heine University, Germany
Alan Fellman, Dade Moeller & Associates, Inc., USA
Krzysztof W. Fornalski, Polish Nuclear Society, Poland
Leo S. Gomez, Leo S. Gomez Consulting, USA
Marek K. Janiak, Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Poland.
Brenda Laster, Ben Gurion University, Israel
Patricia Lewis, Free Enterprise Radon Health Mine, USA
Jeffrey Mahn, Sandia National Laboratories (Retired), USA
Mark L. Miller, Sandia National Laboratories, USA
Charles W. Pennington, Executive Nuclear Energy Consultant, USA
Jeffrey S. Philbin, Sandia National Laboratories (Retired), USA
Chary Rangacharyulu, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Kanokporn Noy Rithidech, Stony Brook University, USA
Bobby R. Scott, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, USA (Retired)
Yehoshua Socol, Falcon Analytics, Israel
James S. Welsh, President-elect, American College of Radiation Oncology, USA
Ruth F. Weiner, Former Member of the NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and
Materials, USA

Note: All signers of this letter are members or associate members of SARI (Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information, http://radiationeffects.org/). The above letter represents the professional opinions of the signers, and does not necessarily represent the views of their affiliated institutions.

References:

1. NCI. Chemotherapy Side Effects Sheets. [cited 2014 May 6,]; Available from: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/coping/physicaleffects/chemo-side-effects.
2. Ganz PA, Desmond KA, Leedham B, Rowland JH, Meyerowitz BE, Belin TR. Quality of life in long-term, disease-free survivors of breast cancer: a follow-up study. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2002; 94:39-49. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11773281
3. Jagsi R, Hawley ST, Abrahamse P, Li Y, Janz NK, Griggs JJ, et al. Impact of adjuvant chemotherapy on long-term employment of survivors of early-stage breast cancer. Cancer. 2014. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24777606
4. Chaffey JT, Rosenthal DS, Moloney WC, Hellman S. Total body irradiation as treatment for lymphosarcoma. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 1976; 1:399-405. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/823140
5. Choi NC, Timothy AR, Kaufman SD, Carey RW, Aisenberg AC. Low dose fractionated whole body irradiation in the treatment of advanced non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Cancer. 1979; 43:1636-42. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/582159
6. Pollycove M. Radiobiological basis of low-dose irradiation in prevention and therapy of cancer. Dose Response. 2007; 5:26-38. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18648556
7. Travis LB, Weeks J, Curtis RE, Chaffey JT, Stovall M, Banks PM, et al. Leukemia following low-dose total body irradiation and chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. J Clin Oncol. 1996; 14:565-71. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8636772
8. Sakamoto K. Radiobiological basis for cancer therapy by total or half-body irradiation. Nonlinearity Biol Toxicol Med. 2004; 2:293-316. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19330149
9. Safwat A. The role of low-dose total body irradiation in treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma: a new look at an old method. Radiother Oncol. 2000; 56:1-8. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10869748
10. Welsh JS. Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia treated with fractionated low-dose total body irradiation. American Journal of Case Reports. 2004; 5:425-31. Available at: http://www.amjcaserep.com/abstract/index/idArt/12357

Note: The above Open Letter, including the compilation of ” Evidence for Threshold Dose-Response or for Radiation Hormesis in Human Studies” below, was e-mailed to the advisory bodies ICRP, NCRP, UNSCEAR, IAEA, WHO, and NAS on May 30, 2014.

After receiving the above letter, I made a special request to Dr. Cuttler. A couple of years ago, he told me a story that reinforced my understanding of his commitment to his research on the effects of low dose radiation and also demonstrated his high level of personal integrity.

You see, Dr. Cuttler not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk and advocates careful application of his research results to even his closest friends and family, including his wife, Vera. I asked if he and his wife would be willing to share their story about their own experience with low dose irradiation. He provided the following email.

From: Dr. Jerry Cuttler.

To: Rod Adams

Subj: Vera’s HB LDI treatment as prophylaxis

Vera agreed to share her story on Atomic Insights.
(This cost me my comfortable armchair, which will not move with us next month. She thinks the chair is ugly.)

Dr. Kiyohiko Sakamoto and Vera Cuttler at the Port Credit Yacht Club, Mississauga, June 2012

Dr. Kiyohiko Sakamoto and Vera Cuttler at the Port Credit Yacht Club, Mississauga, June 2012

Persistent bleeding after Vera’s annual PAP test, early in 2011, led to the discovery of a 1 inch tumor in her uterus. It was grade 3 (growing quickly), but at stage 1 (contained). After surgery in May, I asked about additional treatment to eliminate potential metastases. The radiation oncologist in Hamilton said this was unnecessary as a recurrence was unlikely. The options for follow-up treatment were chemo or high-dose irradiation in the abdomen, which would cause scarring. I asked about half-body low-dose irradiation (HB LDI) treatment. The oncologist hadn’t heard about this; she said it was not an accepted treatment. I asked for a referral to the cancer center in Mississauga, and I contacted Dr. Sakamoto. I described the case, and he recommended HB LDI treatment. He sent me an e-mail message that prescribed 15 cGy, twice a week for 5 weeks, a total of 150 cGy (150 rad). The hospital reviewed the case and agreed to provide this treatment because of the potential health benefit and the very low risk.

4amigosI first met Dr. Kiyohiko Sakamoto in June 1998 at an international symposium in Ottawa on health effects of low doses of ionizing radiation. He return in November 1999 for a meeting of the directors of the International Centre for Low Dose Radiation Research at the University of Ottawa (see attached photo). Dr Sakamoto later gave presentations at the Princess Margaret Hospital, at AECL (Mississauga) and at the Canadian Nuclear Society, Toronto Branch, along with Dr. Maurice Tubiana and Dr. Myron Pollycove. After the 2002 ASCO annual meeting in the USA, Dr. Sakamoto visited our home and met the family during our Thanksgiving Holiday dinner. And after participating in the International Symposium on Radiation Hormesis in Yokohama and Tokyo in November 2007, Vera and I visited Dr. Sakamoto and his lovely wife Keiko in their home in Sendai. We toured the lovely coastal area together, visiting charming villages and tourist attractions. Because of her familiarity with this subject, it didn’t take very much persuasion on my part to help Vera overcome her fear of this radiation treatment that Dr. Sakamoto had prescribed. The local radiation oncologist kept saying the risk is small, and I kept saying the benefit is very important.

HB LDI treatment was started in September. I asked that her blood variables be measuring periodically to collect data on its effect on her hemopoietic system. A blood sample was taken each week, just before the irradiation treatment. Vera was very apprehensive before the first treatment and was surprised by its short duration and the lack of any symptomatic side effects. She became less and less concerned at each visit. She said, “It’s nothing!” After each treatment, we went for breakfast and talked about any and everything. She told her worried girl friends all about her positive experiences. The only unpleasant part was the weekly blood samples. Their analysis showed no significant adverse changes to her blood cell concentrations. The depression in her platelet count was expected and temporary. However, the oncologist was very impressed to see the large boost in her immune system (NK cell) activity.

Jerry

Jerry Cuttler had many good reasons for recommending LDI therapy to his wife. He has been researching the topic professionally for more than a decade; one of the peer-reviewed papers he has published on the topic appeared in 2000 in the Canadian Nuclear Society Bulletin under the title of Application of Low Doses of Radiation for Curing Cancer.

One more personal note: One of my very best friends and former workout partners was diagnosed with ovarian cancer about ten years ago at age 35. She had surgery, chemotherapy and high-dose irradiation in the abdomen. The doctors informed her before conducting the treatment that she would never be able to have children. After a very difficult recovery from the painful, scar-causing treatment, she lived well for several years. Eventually, she had a recurrence that proved fatal.

Though I have no medical training, it seems so logical to think that a low dose regimen that worked to stimulate her immune system rather than destroying it would have provided better results.

Radiation, Pollution and Radiophobia

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While researching answers to comments made on the Atomic Insights post titled Healthy doses of radiation, I found a book titled Nuclear Shadowboxing: Legacies and Challenges. It includes a fascinating appendix titled Radiation, Pollution and Radiophobia that should be required reading for people who are interested in understanding more about the health effects of low […]

CT Scans Save Lives

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By Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI) We are writing to express our concerns with a January 30, 2014 article by Rita F. Redberg and Rebecca Smith-Bindman. The article is alarmingly titled, “We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer”, and is accompanied by a frightening cartoon that appears to be a doctor holding an X-ray film, and […]

Making art with radioactive materials – In memory of James Acord

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An alternative title for this piece might be – Seeing the art that already exists in radioactive materials. Until today, I had never heard of James Acord, a sculptor who devoted more than 20 years of his life to sustained efforts to create art from radioactive materials. The first part of that struggle involved 12 […]

The Atomic Show #041 – Food Irradiation

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Food irradiation can prevent food borne illness caused by microorganisms like eColi. Shane and Rod discuss the technology, motivation, and controversy surrounding the application. It is possible to almost completely eliminate a number of different pathogens from food by treating that food with exposure to electron or gamma radiation. The process is approved by the […]

Irradiation and Semantics

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Most high school projects are dim memories, but I will never forget an assignment given by Mrs. Page, my Semantics teacher. She required us to watch television at least two hours per day for a week, paying close attention to the commercials. We then had to write a paper about the ways that the advertisers […]