Re: Request for suggestion

[Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>]

Bernie,

You are essentially correct.  Your argument is valid, although too narrow,
"pollution" from coal goes beyond just "cancer incidence," into current
"mountaintop removal and valley-filling" coal mining methods, etc. etc., and
it effectively works with the public.  

That was proven when Senator Byrd et al. required the AIF/industry to STOP
comparing nuclear to coal in the mid-'70s, along with breaking up the AEC and
the JCAE.  They argued that "the utilities and the vendors provide coal
power."  Of course it was the coal industry and the railroads/rail car
manufacturers etc. who saw that we would be quickly generating 50%+ of US
electricity from nuclear at the greatest expense of coal, and the trains that
haul 1000 tons of coal a day/plant.  By stimulating the coal miners to
"protect" their (death-dealing) jobs, they had strong political influence. 
(Since then about 7 of 10 coal mining jobs have been lost to advanced
technology, including mountaintop removal.)  There is no "uranium industry" to
provide a counter force.  (When there's no call for U, they mine tin, or
whatever; and USEC is only a recent "interest" group that is still largely a
political handmaiden of DOE.)

Real people make decisions on "alternatives" (and benefits, but the benefit of
having sufficient, and economic, electricity is intrinsic to most people). 
But nuclear has a fundamental flaw of being "uneconomic," and "unsafe," along
with "unnecessary" because we can get economic energy from "renewables."  Of
course nuclear is getting more economic as gas prices rise,  but coal is its
actual competitor.  It's largely uneconomic because the vendors and utilities
could pass all the costs, at substantial profit, to the ratepayer by just
putting any capital cost in the ratebase, until the system rose up to kill
them.  All it took was convincing uninformed PUC regulators that such massive
costs were warranted due to massive fears of any radiation.  We engineers and
operators who went along with that scam are the ones who got hurt.  Our
companies did quite well, thank you very much.  

The problem is not your argument.  The problem is that it is not being made. 
You can't do it yourself.  I told you a couple of years ago that if I were you
I would have told ANS to shove its award to you for your many years of doing
the hard work to document nuclear benefits.  And the reason is that they did
not effectively acknowledge or apply your work!  When we were working on waste
management in the '70s, your case was not taken to the AEC/DOE/NRC about the
lack of potential effects (although the American Physical Society report and
other substantial sources were making that case better than the industry and
we would have thought that would have gotten through to the more responsible
policy-makers, but we, at least I, underestimated the extent to which the
"system" would be blind to economic and union, etc. interests.) 

But in the final analysis, the industry and us minions could make more money
doing extreme, wasteful, analyses, and technology development, and "public
policy analyses" (program plans and EIRs and hiring all the geologists in the
country), etc., etc., than by just putting this insignificant stuff below
ground, or in the ocean.  And today we still have DOE and NEI (and NRC and
EPA, etc.) pushing/spending billions/year to prove to the public that we can
not easily and safely handle radiation and radioactive contamination.  This
includes the DOE worker compensation scam - there are no workers harmed by
radiation!  It includes getting access to enormous D&D funds, etc., etc.

There are a number of additional significant elements that apply to this; but
the real issue is that it is not so important to do the work as to get it
communicated!  If there were organizations that were communicating your work
in the halls of power and influence, to anyone (if they could find anyone)
that cared.  

But today we can have some hope.  Nuclear power is making $$ based on the
(low) cost of the product, instead of just getting return-on-capital by
screwing the customer.  As these companies and organizations sort out their
acquisition planning, and as people think about the next generation in cost
terms, the "price" of nuclear is coming down.  A recent conference showed that
$2000/kW estimates of a few years ago were down by a third.  

The Japanese are both "improving" and "evolving" the ABWR design that they
built at the K-site (2 1356 MWe plants, built in < 48 months).  The improved
design should improve costs, perhaps at 1500 MWe; and the evolved design
should substantially reduce costs, and should be ready in 8-10 years.  Other
"advanced" designs do not yet seem to be being designed to optimize
economics.  That's ok for traditional "prototypes" that will lead to advances,
but nuclear will be justified in large part on the documented potential
economics.  This is less important for an "advanced" small plant, although the
"cost-reduction" potential must be demonstrated.  

As US electric industry interests that operate nuclear plants get serious
about the future, the costs can come down further.  But we need to fix some of
the fundamental design requirements deficiencies to have more intelligence
about nuclear power risks and costs.  

As we have observed for several years, HPs must become more important to
reducing costs, instead of creating costs, in programs and operations.  Costs
for radwastes, etc. need to be severely cut.  The abomination of reducing
man-rem at any cost has to be trashed.  Your work on comparing radon sources
to sources from radiation technologies must be applied, not just used by
industry as public relations fodder!  You should insist that this work not be
ignored by the agencies and industry in setting standards.  

"Science" itself will make no difference without strong communication to
outside interests, just as hundreds of other scientists have had their science
ignored by the "establishment" that is the handmaiden of the funding agencies
to produce just what they are told to. (Just as radiation health effects data
was suppressed by the Nat Acad of Sciences in the 1930s after FDA got
regulatory authority from Congress following Eben Byers death from radium
poisoning, but never studied the people who had ingested radium, other than
some very limited documentation of the effects to the very-high-dose dial
painters.)  When Robley Evans and Lauriston Taylor and other
science-identified paragons of an era of greater scientific integrity could
have no effect, and its getting worse each year - see BEIR V, BEIR VI, UNSCEAR
2000 (except Chernobyl), in the face of voluminous, unambiguous, materials
from Jaworowski and Rossi and others at the heart of the establishment, and
now EPA and DOE and NRC, etc., then there's no potential of having an effect
from inside the establishment, as Harald Rossi said he was committed to.  Data
is water off a duck's back to these people.  

Ultimately we have to acknowledge that "we met the enemy, and it is not the
anti-nukes, it is us."  Our effort must be to reach people who communicate,
and can influence the people who are failing to tell the truth in the public
policy process.  That is to the industry, at high levels, and to other
affected/interested institutions, especially certain political interests.  

But this situation is not very far from resolution.  Like the "Berlin wall,"
dramatic change normally happens suddenly, not over a long time.  The "whole
public" does not have to be "convinced," we find most of them understand the
scam quite well when it's explained - they are not unaware that gov't and it's
feeders at the trough manipulate policies to keep the $$ flowing.  The real
public wouldn't give the anti-nukes more than a second glance if the anti's
weren't being simply echoed and echoing the NCRP, ICRP, DOE, EPA, and NRC. 
They are the problem.  We need to get the message to people who will see that
they must be held accountable.  

I look for your contribution to challenging EPA's fraudulent LNT case to
support the 'radionuclides in water' rule issued December 8.  Let me know if
you need a copy of the extract of the health effects section of the
rulemaking.

Thanks.

(I may go back and read this later to see where I misspoke :-)

Regards, Jim
muckerheide@mediaone.net
========================

Bernard L Cohen wrote:
> 
>         For the last 27 years, the principal focus of my life has been to
> do research related to societal impacts of nuclear power, and since that
> research has consistently led to my favoring that technology, to try to
> convince the public to support it. In these endeavors, I have authored
> four books plus chapters in several other books, I have published about
> 200 papers in various journals, and I have presented about 500 public
> talks for various audiences. In these and in my research, I have addressed
> every issue in the nuclear power debate.
> 
>         However, in my view there is one over-riding issue that is
> preventing general public acceptance of nuclear power -- the public thinks
> that nuclear power can cause cancer which kills people, and is therefore
> too dangerous for expanded use. I firmly believe that the future of
> nuclear power depends almost entirely on countering that misconception.
> 
>         My approach to countering it has been to point out that coal
> burning, our principal source of electricity generation, is estimated to
> kill 10,000 or more Americans every year with its air pollution, whereas
> nuclear power is estimated to kill less than 10 (including accidents and
> buried radioactive waste treated probabilistically, and accepting
> linear-no threshold theory). There is extensive scientific documentation
> supporting both of these estimates, 10,000 vs 10, and I believe they are
> generally accepted in the scientific community and by governmental
> agencies in U.S. and internationally. To me, this is a rational method for
> countering the public's misconception.
> 
>         However, I have recently been heavily attacked on RADSAFE for
> using this approach. In my responses to these attacks, I have asked for an
> alternative approach to countering the public's misconception about the
> dangers of nuclear power. However no suggestions that I can recognize as
> such have been offered. I am therefore left sorely in need of an
> alternative approach. Can someone please help me on this?
> 
> Bernard L. Cohen
> Physics Dept.
> University of Pittsburgh
> Pittsburgh, PA 15260
>  Tel: (412)624-9245
>  Fax: (412)624-9163
>  e-mail: blc@pitt.edu
> 
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