[ RadSafe ] Risks of radiation - put into perspective

[Perle, Sandy]

I agree 100%. Dr Carl-Magnus Larsson, Chief Executive Officer of ARPANSA
in Australia, gave an excellent presentation this past week on risk
perception and showed nuclear facilities have a small probability of an
incident, but the ramifications of such an event could be significant. The
public focuses on the potential and not the probability. The public
accepts other type of accidents that have high probability and low
catastrophic consequences. Natural disasters can not be prevented in many
cases, such as earthquake, since there is no imminent warning.
Hurricanes/typhoons on the other hand can result in minimal deaths if the
public would heed government and scientific warnings. Dr. Larson concluded
that even though there have not been a significant number of nuclear
incidents, the fact that consequences can be great, this off-sets the
lower probability of such an accident. Proactive steps have to be
evaluated and where there is a cost/benefit as far as risk, these steps
should be initiated. The industry requires this for us to be successful in
the future as part of the energy mix. Fukushima effects were significantly
less that Chernobyl in all data collected. All of the talks from this past
week will be published on the ARPS website and there are many interesting
topics addressed. 

Regards,

Sandy
 
-----------------------------------
Sander C. Perle 
President
Mirion Technologies
Dosimetry Services Division
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614
 
+1 (949) 296-2306 (Office)
+1 (949) 296-1130 (Fax)
 
Mirion Technologies: http://www.mirion.com/





On 10/23/11 12:01 PM, "franz.schoenhofer at chello.at"
<franz.schoenhofer at chello.at> wrote:

>RADSAFErs,
>
>I take the opportunity of the most recent news in the Austrian mass media
>to urge you to consider risks relative to radiation. The latest news
>mention about more than 1000 deaths in an earth quake in Eastern Turkey.
>A map shown on Austrian TV shows sites in Turkey where earth quakes
>occurred during the recent years with a much higher death toll, not to
>talk about economical losses.
>
>We have read all the statements of anti-nuclear agitators, calculating
>hypothetical deaths from radiation. Please consider the word
>"hypothetical"! We all are aware of the terrible situation of health in
>developing countries, we see every day on TV pictures of refugee camps,
>of undernourished children and we hear about numbers of children dying
>every day in these camps. Furthermore we have reports of children killed
>by military actions and one of the most distainful action is the use of
>drones and then calling the victims
>- very often children - "collateral damage". This is not restricted to US
>force in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan. There are more places.
>
>So what about some hypothetical and calculated deaths, if the really dead
>people and children from other sóurces are known? What to think of the
>ridiculous claims of a Raman Spectroscopist on the effects of - depending
>on the shifting case of claims from DU, now even enriched uranium?
>Could we convince people to return to common sense, to put risks into
>perspective? 
>
>I do not expect that the Raman Spectroscopist will revise his attitude -
>the other "antis" do not follow RADSAFE.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Franz
>
>
>
>
>
>
>--
>Franz Schoenhofer, PhD, MinRat
>Habicherg. 31/7
>A-1160 Vienna
>Austria
>mobile: ++43 699 1706 1227
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