[ RadSafe ] Your letter of Jan. 6

[Muckerheide, James]

Bernie, All,

Does anyone have the quote from the Am Physical Soc report on HLW ca. 1977
something to the effect that: "Radioactivity in HLW disposed of in deep
geological formations can not return to the biosphere in concentrations to be
significant to human health and the environment"?

Regards, Jim 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
> Behalf Of Bernard Cohen
> Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 10:33 AM
> To: wilson at physics.harvard.edu; mbrexchange at list.ans.org; cstarr at epri.com;
> Ted Rockwell; RadiatSafety
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Your letter of Jan. 6
> 
>     I am writing in response to your letter of Jan. 6 bemoaning the fact
> that theYucca Mountain repository seems to be going nowhere, summarized
> in your sentences "Maybe the repository will be finished bo 2030. Maybe
> not."
>     I believe it is extremely important to educate the public to
> understand that buried radioactive waste is not an important potential
> threat to human health. I don't think the public can ever understand or
> become comfortable with the Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) approach
> used by DOE; It is vulnerable to criticism on many points and the
> critics are only too happy to take advantage of this, and the public
> cannot judge between "experts". I have long advocated doing a PRA for an
> average U.S. location (which I have shown is very easy to do and to be
> understood by the public, and which comes out quite acceptable), and
> relying on the public to believe that the experts can choose a site at
> least as good as an average site. My most recent presentation of this
> viewpoint is published in "Probabilistc risk analysis for a high level
> waste repository", Risk Analysis 23:909-915;2003
>      An improved approach to achieving public understanding was recently
> published in my paper  "Understanding the toxicity of buried radioactive
> waste and its impact", Health Phys 89;355-358;2005. It shows in easily
> understandable fashion that the buried waste from a continuous nuclear
> power program operating over thousands of years will cause about 1.0
> deaths per year in U.S. based on assuming LNT and no improvement in
> cancer cure rates.
>     If someone would figure out how to present these ideas to the mass
> public audience, I think it would do a lot of good. Any advice on how I
> might help in this would be greatly appreciated.
> 
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