Re: Request for suggestion

[Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>]

Bernard L Cohen wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 14 Dec 2000, Jim Muckerheide wrote:
> 
> > Bernard L Cohen wrote:
> 
> > >         --For my argument, no trust is required. Just consider the record
> > > for the past 30 years. Even if they say we have been lucky, we would have
> > > to have several melt-downs every year to cause as many deaths as coal
> > > burning air pollution. Let the anti-nukes say what they think may happen
> > > with nuclear plants -- still the number of deaths would be many times less
> > > than the number from coal burning.
> >
> > OTOH, you need more than a few meltdowns if TMI killed <1 (and would actually
> > be +<1 based on hormetic dose-response); and though Chernobyl is NOT a
> > "meltdown," by exploding and dispersing the core directly to the environment,
> > even it killed 1-3 from thyroid cancer (due to treatment failure), with about
> > 1800 (treatable) thyroid cancers - and then only because of no evacuation nor
> > interdiction of ingestion pathways? (comparing the 31 workers to coal miners).
> 
>         --I am using the entire spectrum of meltdown accidents, with their
> probabilities, as given by the Probabilistic Risk Analyses like WASH-1400

But then the consequence analysis is fiction, and part of fear-mongering about
radiation effects.  How do releases compare to hourly radon release,
integrated with decay products?  Except iodines, but we couldn't pump iodines
out of a slot in 1970 at Hanford, it plated out everywhere, much less have a
significant fraction go out a "crack," in a wet containment, except to diffuse
with the moisture plugging the slot to dribble down the outside of the
containment (and resuspend when it dried? :-)

Also, how do releases compare with Chernobyl - the health effects standard? 

Regards, Jim
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