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Re: lochbaum's bio - yo susan g
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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