Re: lochbaum's bio - yo susan g

[Steven Dapra <sjd@swcp.com>]

Feb. 21



	If, as you say, Norm, Lochbaum is a nuclear engineer, why does the first

sentence of his biography -- that you, Norm, posted -- call Lochbaum a

nuclear "safety" engineer?  Am I splitting hairs?  I don't know.  Am I?



	This is from a transcript of some testimony Lochbaum delivered before a

Senate subcommittee on May 8, 2001:



	"Conclusions and Recommendations 



	"Nuclear power plants are inherently dangerous. If nuclear power is to

play an expanded role in the future, it is imperative that the Nuclear

Regulatory Commission become a consistently effective regulator. [edit]



	"Failing to reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could have tragic

consequences. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the 1986 accident at

the Chernobyl nuclear plant cost the former Soviet Union several times the

net benefits from all Soviet reactors ever operated. The price tag for the

accident was placed at 170 to 215 billion rubles while the net benefits

from every Soviet nuclear power plant was only 10 to 50 billion rubles.

With the price of failure so very high, it is absolutely imperative that

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission be a consistently -- rather than

occasionally -- effective regulator." 



	(From testimony given by David Lochbaum before the Clean Air, Wetlands,

Private Property, and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee of the United States

Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, May 8, 2001.) 



	The link is <http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/4342>.



	Inherent means "existing in someone or something as a permanent

characteristic or quality."  I suppose that in a very narrow sense power

reactors are "inherently dangerous", but that proves nothing.  Automobiles,

airplanes, electricity, and wind turbines are all inherently dangerous.

The turbines are certainly inherently dangerous to the birds that fly into

them and get killed.  As you have heard many times on RADSAFE, Norm, there

is no such thing as a risk-free society.  Non-industrialized societies

aren't free of risk either -- just try drinking the un-treated water.



	Placing the Chernobyl accident alongside any accident in the West is

nonsensical in the extreme.  For starters, the Chernobyl operators were

deliberately and knowingly violating operating protocols.  Western reactors

don't have graphite moderators, and they have much better containment

buildings.  Any well-informed layman knows this, but David Lochbaum the

nuclear engineer apparently doesn't.  (In his account of the Chernobyl

accident Gollnick describes events leading up to the explosion in some

detail.  I can't remember Gollnick's first name, or the title of his book.) 



	After the Tokaimura accident Lochbaum was interviewed on PBS. When asked

if there would be global consequences to this accident, as there were with

Chernobyl, he said, "No, because the amount of radiation released isn't

going to circle the globe as occurred after Chernobyl. We won't see a

reactor cloud passing the United States. There wasn't enough material

released fortunately."



	The link is:

<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/july-dec99/nuclear_japan_10-1.html>.



	The interview was broadcast Oct. 1, 1999.



	Lochbaum is a little vague here, but what about the "reactor cloud" that

he either says or strongly insinuates passed the United States after

Chernobyl?  "The inhalation doses due to direct cloud exposure were

estimated . . . to be generally less that 0.00001 mGy within the United

States" (Gudiksen, et. al., 1989).  What is that in millirems?  0.001

millirem?  That is, one microrem?  (Someone please correct my arithmetic if

I am wrong.)



	I don't know about you, Norm, but that doesn't sound like much of a

reactor cloud to me.



	Nuclear engineer, indeed.



Steven Dapra

sjd@swcp.com



REFERENCES



Gudiksen, P. H., et. al.  Chernobyl Source Term, Atmospheric Dispersion,

and Dose Estimation.  Health Physics.  57(5):697-706; November 1989.  (The

quoted material is from the Abstract.)







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