Re: congressional testimony by Steve Wing

["ruth_weiner" <ruth_weiner@email.msn.com>]

As my grandfather-in-law used to say "If the shoe fits, it usually pinches a
little" and you can take that as you will.  For the inherent conflict of
interest within the AEC, I refer you to James Schlesinger's speech promoting
the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974.  I did not (and do not) believe that
it is any surprise to anyone that in the early days of nuclear power both
the utilities and the AEC played up the benefits and downplayed the adverse
effects. It was certainly no surprise to my first nuclear industry
consulting client.

You wrote:
"Actually, those who knew how to ask the right questions in the right manner
about the non-weapons-related nuclear endeavor have always received the
appropriate information, although not always without a bit of a struggle.  I
wonder what data you have that tells us the AEC looked "suspiciously" at
those
who asked questions about non weapons related nuclear items."

Without giving personal details on RADSAFE, the data I have is my own
experience.  If you really want to know, email me and I'll respond to you
personally.

The fact that there was distortion and overstatement and understatement does
not alter a fundamental:  nuclear power provides great benefits and results
in some environmental damage.  It's roughly like other methods of electrical
power conversion in that the damage is approximately proportional to the
amount of power produced.  Like most environmental damage, it can be
mitigated.  It produces less damage than some, more than others. and it's
different.   All one is saying is that nuclear power generation doesn't
violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  Roughly the same can be said for
any industry that provides benefits (including automobile manufacture and
operation).

What I referred to can be generally summed up as the unwillingness to allow,
at its inception, that every industrial endeavor has some adverse effect.

Ruth Weiner
ruth_weiner@msn.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Al Tschaeche <antatnsu@pacbell.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: congressional testimony by Steve Wing


>Please see comments below.
>
>ruth_weiner wrote:
>
>> Franz, I appreciate your message but will only comment on the part that
>> refers to Gofman.  Gofman was indeed a well-published and quite well
>> respected scientist (biochemist, I believe) and did work under AEC
auspices.
>> In the approximate period 1955-1970, a great deal of secrecy as well as
>> hyperbole surrounded the entire nuclear endeavor in the U. S. and various
>> pronuclear agencies and organizations, including the AEC, did overstate
the
>> benefits of nuclear power and publicly underestimate any adverse
>> environmental and health effects.
>
>I know of no significant overstatements by the AEC of the benefits of
nuclear
>power.  Could you please cite some?  Please don't use the "too cheap to
meter"
>one because that never was an official AEC statement.  It would be nice to
have
>some nuclear plants in San Diego right now.  Our electrical costs have more
than
>doubled since last year because of deregulation and the lack of new
electrical
>generating stations in California.  Some people have lost their jobs and
>businesses have gone bust because of the high electrical costs.  The
electrical
>generating companies' profits are rising.  The antis are getting what they
>wanted:  brownouts and blackouts.  But the majority of the rest of us sure
are
>hurting.  Even if new generating plants are proposed, the antis oppose
them,
>delay them, and make them more costly than needed.  I predict that
electrical
>reregulation is the only answer.
>
>Also, I know of no significant understatements by the AEC about adverse
>environmental and health effects of the "entire nuclear endeavor".  Again
would
>you please cite some.
>
>Taking all things into account, it is my experience that the "entire
nuclear
>endeavor" from bombs to medical radionuclides has had a net benefit for
humanity
>and a negligible effect on the environment compared to many other
technological
>"improvements" humans have concocted.  All in all, my experience tells me
that
>the "entire nuclear endeavor" has been safe, even given the, sometimes
large,
>off site releases of certain radionuclides such as I-131.
>
>> (I might point out that during this same
>> period automobile manufacturers claimed that there was nothing in car
>> exhaust because it was invisible.  They even put this on TV until the
>> Federal Trade Commission made them remove it.)
>
>I am not sure a comparison between cars that kill tens of thousands of
people a
>year and whose untreated until recently, exhaust  created smog that has
clearly
>injured many people.  The "entire nuclear endeavor" has never routinely
killed
>tens of thousands or even tens of people per year and its effluents from
normal
>operations have never been demonstrated to have killed anyone, or even
injured
>them.
>
>> The AEC was both regulator and promoter of nuclear power, and was also
the
>> agency responsible for nuclear weapons design and manufacture, so
>> inadvertently the whole business was surrounded by secrecy, and people
who
>> asked questions -- perfectly straightforward questions -- about reactors
and
>> safety and so on were looked at suspiciously.
>
>Actually, those who knew how to ask the right questions in the right manner
>about the non-weapons-related nuclear endeavor have always received the
>appropriate information, although not always without a bit of a struggle.
I
>wonder what data you have that tells us the AEC looked "suspiciously" at
those
>who asked questions about non weapons related nuclear items.
>
>> In that atmosphere, Gofman
>> was initially something of a one-man "truth squad."  Unfortunately, he
went
>> overboard in the other direction and even after the breakup of the AEC in
>> 1974 and the release of a great deal of monitoring data by DOE in 1985,
he
>> kept up the same old accusations against nuclear power, DOE, etc and
>> exaggerated the dangers of radiation increasingly to the point where his
>> books are, in places, pretty ridiculous.
>
>I couldn't agree more.  I was intimately involved with Gofman and Tamplin
in the
>late 60s and 70s, meaning I read their writings, listened to their
>presentations, discussed those writings and presentations with others in
the
>nuclear industry and saw his work for what it was:  an anti nuclear tirade.
All
>of his projected cancer deaths used the most pessimistic of assumptions
and, of
>course the LNTH or the super LNTH to extrapolate deaths.  He maintains
today
>that one "speck" of plutonium in ones lungs will, without question, kill
that
>person eventually, even though there are "specks" of plutonium in almost
>everyone's lungs from the fallout from weapons testing and the burnup of
one of
>the TRGs that used Pu238 as the heat source.  If his prediction were
correct
>most of us would be dead by now.
>
>> I have never understood how someone like Gofman who has a very
respectable
>> scientific background could distort as he does.
>
>How could K.Z. Morgan, who started the profession of health physics, and
many
>others, do the same thing?  It might be worth a PhD Thesis to do a
psychological
>study to find out why such things happen.
>
>I trust you can supply the citations requested.  I really would like to see
>them.  Al Tschaeche antatnsu@pacbell.net
>
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