----- Original Message ----- From: "Deborah Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 4:53 PM Subject: "Nukular" L3 (was: cars, air L3er)
> Chipping in with my selective .02$ worth, mostly from > a medical perspective (since my environmental > engineering days were limited to a > summer-and-a-semester of graduate school -- before I > thought I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up ;D > ). Articles about Chernobyl, the problems of uranium > mining, and radioactive waste storage are cited. As I > was living in Louisiana at the time when a salt dome > "stable for thousands of years" collapsed, the problem > of safely containing waste was particularly > illuminated. - Of course, it was humans drilling and > mining that caused the collapse: (true story, told > humorously)http://members.tripod.com/~earthdude1/texaco/texaco.html > > --- Dan Minette wrote: > <snippage> > > > >We do have a very environmentally friendly > > alternative, but it is not PC, > > > >so it is being phased out, alas. No global > > warming, a strong safety record in the West. > > > > > > True. The *potential* disaster is why most people > > fear it. > > > > But, they use different criterion for evaluating the > > potential disaster for > > nuclear power than anything else. With Chernobyl, > > they did almost > > everything about as badly as possible, and still > > killed only 200... > > I realize that this plant was poorly designed and > operated, but since it was mentioned, I picked out > several points. > Late sequelae will not be tabulated for years > (particularly with regard to solid-tumor cancers). One > of the things I found unsettling about this incident > is the number of discrepancies I found in reading; one > following article is based on an official Registry, > listing 170 cases of thyroid cancer in Bryansk, yet > failing to mention the total of 1800 (see next > article). I think part of the problem is that there is a natural background of thyroid cancer, and the total attributable to Chenobyl is only a fraction of that number. But, in the highly contaminated area, its a bigger fraction. > > The possible suppression of the full extent of medical > consequences, in the case of Dr. Yury Bandazhevsky, > prompted a letter from the AAAS (excerpt below). I looked at your source, it corresponds to my main source in discussing this over the years. Part of that source is at http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/c05.html I also saw a 2000 follow up, which did not report any real addition to the mortality rates. Indeed, I just found it at http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/chernounscear.htm "Apart from the substantial increase in thyroid cancer after childhood exposure observed in Belarus, in the Russian Federation and in Ukraine, there is no evidence of a major public health impact related to ionizing radiation 14 years after the Chernobyl accident. No increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality that could be associated with radiation exposure have been observed. For some cancers no increase would have been anticipated as yet, given the latency period of around 10 years for solid tumours. The risk of leukaemia, one of the most sensitive indicators of radiation exposure, has not been found to be elevated even in the accident recovery operation workers or in children. There is no scientific proof of an increase in other non-malignant disorders related to ionizing radiation." This is certainly a site which is not netural, but at the same time, it actually seems to quote your source. So, your source is through 2000, which is good. Lets continue to look at the two reports together, if we could. I'm sure I could find info at my website in your pdf file, but I hope you don't mind if I take the first place I found info. >From that website, I obtained the following information: 31 people died in the first week after the accident About 10 years later, three children died of thyroid cancer in the area. Childhood leukemia has not increased in the exposed area And, both of the official sites show no evidence of increased birth defects. Although, your site indicates, on page 512, that there were reported increases in birth defects observed in aborted fetuses. But, similar increases were reported in Minsk, which received a far lower dose. Indeed, you cite the exact same verbage that I do. Why would a minimally exposed area have the same increase as a highly exposed area? I see a simple explaination Docs looked at aborted fetuses a lot more carefully after Chenobyl. That is why they conclude that there is no evidence for a real increase, because the increase was the same in the control sample. > > BACKGROUND: Numerous investigations have been carried > out concerning the possible impact of the Chernobyl > accident, in April 1986, on the prevalence of > anomalies at birth and on perinatal mortality. The > accident has contaminated Eastern Europe more heavily > than Western Europe. If there was an effect of the > radioactive contamination on perinatal mortality or > stillbirth proportions one would expect to find it > more pronounced in Eastern Europe as compared to > Western Europe. We therefore studied long-term time > trends in European stillbirth proportions...RESULTS: > There is a marked differential effect in the long-term > stillbirth time trends between Western Europe > (Belgium, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, > Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain), Central Europe (Austria, > Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland), and > Eastern Europe represented by four countries (Greece, > Hungary, Poland, Sweden). In contrast to the western > and central European trends, the eastern European > trend exhibits an absolute increase of the stillbirth > proportion in 1986 as compared with 1985 and an > apparent upward shift of the whole trend line from > 1986 on. CONCLUSION: Our results are in contrast to > those of many analyses of the health consequences of > the Chernobyl accident and contradict the present > radiobiological knowledge. As we are dealing with > highly aggregated data, other causes or artefacts may > explain the observed effects. Hence, the findings > should be interpreted with caution and further > independent evidence should be sought. > Int J Epidemiol 1999 Oct;28(5):932-40 But, there are overwhelming problems with this type of evidence. There is no measureable increase in birth defects or still births, or deformaties in the highly contaminated area above the control. So, people cast a wider net, to include all of Eastern Europe. The only way for the increase to be attributed to radiation is to assume that much of what we've learned in the last 50 years of study is all wrong. Part of that is the fact that we've been able to establish limits on the effects by looking at health as a function of the significant variation in natural radiation. For example, the natural radiation level in Denver is close to twice what it is in St. Louis. I know that the radiation in Aberdeen is extremely high compared with Texas or Louisiana, because I have had to deal with the calibration problems associated with it. If radiation exposure on the level seem in East Europe (IIRC doubling the natural radiation for that year on average, or perhaps a bit less) causes still births, why doesn't the year in year out radiation level in Aberdeen Scotland cause an even greater increase in still births? > > Uranium Mining - I have to disagree with "very > environmentally friendly" wrt nuclear power; ditto for > waste disposal. > None of the sites you quoted gave any quantitiave information on the levels of radon present in the homes. Why? If they had a good quantitative case, why didn't they show it was X times the national average? Since we have statistics for areas that have significantly different background radiations (as much as 4x IIRC, my source for this no longer exists on the web, unfortunately) and have seen no correlation between morbidity and the variation in background radiation. > I include two sites about environmental contamination > in the former USSR from a weapons production site; the > morbidity and mortality in the Chelyabinsk region > secondary to very significant amounts of radioactive > material is fairly well documented (considering it was > (continues to be?) covered up by the government). > http://www.wedo.org/ehealth/forty.htm > http://hjem.get2net.dk/muslumovo/tekst1.htm It could very well be that the USSR has done this. But, they also killed 50 million directly. Given their flagrent disregard for human lives, why does this indicate a problem with nuclear power? > > > Waste Disposal > > The above Russian sites demonstrate what happens when > there is extensive local environmental contamination; > I think this is pertinent because of the extremely > long time-frame needed to contain radioactive waste > while it decays But, that's only sorta true. Its the short lived stuff that puts out the high flux. Think about it, a half life of 1 day means that have the radiation is released in 1 day; a half life of 1 billion years means half the radiation is released in 1 billion years. With Chenobyl, most of the damage was done by stuff with a half life of a month or less. > how can one guarantee safe > containment for so long, when we find houses built on > wastage from a mere 50 years ago? Tailing are quite different from concentrated wastes. >Would putting it in a huge structure akin to a Great Pyramid ensure that > no 'tomb thieves' a thousand years hence won't try to > plunder it? (Although that would result in a true > 'curse of the dead, wouldn't it? ;P ) No, the radiation level would be rather low in 1000 years. Yes, someone who went to the radiation storage place for the entire US 1000 years later, broke open the casks, and ate the stuff would probably suffer, but that's about it. For most of the hot stuff, that will be a number of half lives. > > Plant Safety > > There is an extensive timeline of incidents involving > transportation and storage of nuclear material, > operation of commercial plants, worker deaths, some > military incidents and missing material at this > Physicians for Social Responsibility site. > http://www.psratlanta.org/1980s.htm How many people have died in the nuclear power industy over the last 50 years? How many have died in coal mines during the same time? IIRC, the number of deaths due to nuclear power in the US is 1 over the last 50 years. This probably doesn't include construction accidents, but almost any major building has a death associated with its construction, alas. > While 'died of radiation poisoning' is more > emotionally loaded than 'died in a gas explosion,' the > real problem that I have with the nuclear bandwagon is the extensive length of time that > waste/fuel/contaminated material remains hazardous. Well, lets quantify this. In the first 10 years, the radioactivity of spent fuel goes dow2n a factor of 100. After 100 years, its down a factor of 1000. After 1000 years, its down a factor of 1 million. So, the real problem is not 1000 years from now, its now. The funny thing about radiation is that it is both unseen, and easy to measure. Indeed, nuclear waste effects that are 0.1% of natural background can be measured because each isotope produces gamma rays at unique energies. I've been associated with tests on material containing nuclear sources, and know of tests where the corrosion rate is so low it cannot be measured. I've also bought nuclear sources off the shelf in my local super market for other tests. For a nation that accepts tens of thousands of deaths to keep our transportation going, its amazing that the risk of a few deaths for power is totally unacceptble if it is nuclear, but quite acceptable if it is wind, solar, coal, or oil. As 9-11 has shown, the airline industry represent a much greater risk of catastorphic deaths than does nuclear power. (I argued this before 9-11). Thank God the > > If one ought to consider beforehand what one is going > to do with Iraq after offing Saddam, shouldn't one > have a viable plan for what to do with deadly matter > before mining/refining/concentrating it? But, we had several viable plans. One was reprocessing into new fuel. They are just not PC. Let me conclude. 1) Chernobyl: We can attribute about 35 deaths so far to this accident. While 35 deaths are 35 too many, this is still a smaller number than 1 days worth of deaths on US highways. Yet, Chernobyl is legendary, and we ignore the highway deaths. Even if the death rate rises 5 fold, it is still less than 200. Evidence from the A-bomb attacks on Japan indicates that the death rate will not be that high. 2) The sites that quote problems with uranium tailings quote no radiation levels. Indeed, since the whole point of the exercise is to separate the radioactive material from the ore, the pilings are going to be significantly lower in radiation than the ore. The uranium that's left in in is depleted uranium, which is not high in radioactivity. 3) Nuclear wastes decay fairly quickly, so storage is not the problem that the opponents of nuclear power make it out to be. Yes, due care must be taken, but if you compare apples to apples, the risk is low in comparison to other areas of industry. Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
