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Re: Caldicott Letter
- To: hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov (IPM Return requested) (Receipt notification requested), radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu (IPM Return requested) (Receipt notification requested)
- Subject: Re: Caldicott Letter
- From: Ruth Weiner <rfweine@Sandia.gov>
- Date: 12 Dec 1997 13:54:21 -0700
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My error. I hope all you radsafers can read the letter now. Thanks
Andy.
Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
7336 Lew Wallace Drive NE
Albuquerque, NM 87109
(505) 856-5011
Letters to the Editor
Los Angeles Times
Dear Editor
On 11/30/97, your paper carried a commentary on nuclear power by Helen
Caldicott, which mixes a little factual information with a multitude
of distortions, half-truths, and misstatements. I cannot comment on
Caldicott's motives, but the distortions and misstatements need some
correction. As an introductory note: the term "very radioactive" (or
"highly radioactive") can be confusing. The radioactivity of a
substance is essentially inversely proportional to the half-life, so
that the shorter the half-life, the higher the radioactivity per gram
of radionuclide, and the longer the half-live, the lower the
radioactivity. Most isotopes of plutonium (like pltonium-239 that
Caldicott is so vituperative about) are not in fact radioactive, as is
reflected in their very long half lives (the most radioactive is
Pu-238, half-life 87 years).
While it is certainly true that irradiated (spent) nuclear fuel
contains radioactive fission products, including strontium-90 and
cesium-137 with 30-year half-lives, virtually all of the fission
products are inside the fuel elements. The vision of airborne clouds
of radioactive material that Caldicott conjures up is a gross
distortion. Nuclear power plants are not atmospheric bomb tests. Even
breaches like the Three Mile Island accident did not leak strontium-90
into the surrounding environment. Radioactive material which leaks
out of the fuel rods is trapped in a number of ways and does not
disperse randomly into the environment; the mass of material that
leaks during operation is in fact far less than that of the gasoline
vapors that you smell when you fill the tank of your car, and gasoline
vapor, besides being very flammable, isn't particularly healthy to
breathe.
Concentration of strontium-90 in bone occurs if the strontium-90 gets
into the food chain, because it's biochemistry is similar to that of
calcium. We know that ionizing radiation is carcinogenic, and we can
infer that strontium-90 incorporated into bone can greatly increase
the risk of cancer. Strontium-90 from atmospheric fallout did enter
the human food chain in milk and could have increased the cancer risk
in children who drank that milk, although there is no documented
correlation with increased cancers. However, operating nuclear power
plants do not produce atmospheric fallout!
Strontium-90 and cesium-137 are radioactive so that after 10
half-lives, or 300 years, 0.1% of the isotope is left, and after 20
half-lives, or 600 years, one-millionth of what one started with is
left. The amount of activity left after 300 or 600 years depends on
the amount one started with. The phrase ".remain radioactive for 600
years." is meaningless; the radioactivity doesn't magically go away
after 600 years. Uranium-238, which is found in virtually all
concrete block, is (to paraphrase Caldicott) radioactive for 49
billion years (10 half lives). So what?
The statements about plutonium are egregious distortions; the "even
distribution" is a ludicrously unrealistic scenario, much like saying
"if all the gasoline in the world were evenly distributed and everyone
drank their share." If this happened, indeed everyone would die,
quickly and very unpleasantly. On the other hand, if a pound of
plutonium-239 were evenly distributed throughout the human population
of the earth, each person would carry a body burden less than the
normal body burden of radiopotassium. We don't know what body burden
"causes" cancer, and we have considerable evidence that body burdens
more than 10 times this amount are not associated with excess cancer.
Caldicott's doomsday scenarios can be constructed with almost all
commonly used household substances (e.g., "if the world's supply of
detergent were evenly distributed in food people eat.") and ordinary
procedures ("if everyone in the world had a full dental x-ray every
week."). They amount to pointless hysteria. We use any number of
substances and procedures which, if misused, damage health and life:
hot stoves, gasoline and diesel engines, electric toothbrushes, oven
cleaner, dry-cleaning fluid ; the list goes on and on. We know how to
use these with reasonable safety, although accidents do happen. The
same is true of nuclear power, which is in fact better regulated than
most other activities, with consequently fewer accidents. Nuclear
power plants are not atomic bombs, just as gasoline engines are not
napalm bombs.
Nuclear power is a legitimate and useful component of the world's
energy conversion network; its benefits and hazards are comparable to,
though different from, those of any other large energy conversion
process. Moreover, nuclear science and engineering have made
considerable progress since the first controlled fission experiment in
1944. Nothing is gained, and no one is benefited, when their hazards
are exaggerated, distorted, and simply fabricated as in Caldicott's
letter.
Please note: I have been a professor of chemistry and researcher in
nuclear chemistry and risk assessment for 35 years, and am a co-author
of two environmental engineering textbook series.
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Caldicott Letter
Author: hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov at hubsmtp
Date: 12/12/97 1:41 PM
While your introductory preface to your letter to the LA Times re Caldicott
came through OK in the Radsafe transmittal, the body of the it was
gibberish in my file. I'm hardly a computer wonk, but could it be that it
was in Word 7?
At any rate, would you be good enough to send me a hard copy via either fax
or good old=fashioned US Mail?
Thanks,
Andy
(Fax 516-344-3105)