Re: More on St Lucie incident

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@attbi.com>]

An industry that's nuclear power's worst enemy - seemingly committed to

ignorance in its inability to :



on 10/14/02 11:09 AM, Norman Cohen at ncohen12@comcast.net wrote:



> what FPL called "very low" levels of radiation, in the 1- to 2-millirem range.

Radiation is measured in rems; the annual exposure limit for nuclear workers,

according to the NRC, is 5 rems. It takes 1,000 millirems to equal 1 rem.

> 

> "It is not unusual or unexpected to have some exposure to the workers in the

containment building during every refueling outage," said Rachel Scott, FPL

spokeswoman.



Do you believe anyone would say this?  Instead, something like: 'Radiation

workers are exposed to radiation, with a regulatory limit of 5000 mr. A few

mr is insignificant."

 

> No one was injured or had any negative health impact, Scott said.



Would anyone without a death wish ever say this? Could say: It takes more

than 100,000 mr to cause an injury or health impact. (Unless someone thinks

a change in white count is an "injury or health impact!" :-)



> Everyone on Earth is exposed to about 300 millirems of radiation every year

from natural sources, she said.



Not true (not just that the "on Earth" average is 240 mr; the U.S. is 300).



It's misleading. Should be something like: 'Everyone on Earth is exposed to

a dose between less than 60 to more than 6000 millirems of radiation every

year from natural sources.'



Could add that the avg is 240, or 300. But its an irrelevant and meaningless

number as a basis for comparison.



Could add that there's no evidence of adverse health effects even at maximum

background doses of more than 20,000 mr.



(Of course, could also say that adverse health effects are indicated at the

lowest background doses, e.g., below about 150 mr/yr.)



Regards, Jim



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