Letter to the editor

[Ruth Weiner <rfweine@sandia.gov>]

---------------------------- Forwarded with Changes ---------------------------
From: Ruth Weiner at po821cc2
Date: 12/12/97 2:03PM
To: letters@latimes.com at Internet
Receipt Requested
Subject: Letter to the editor
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     CORRECTION PLEASE NOTE CORRECTED LETTER BELOW VERY IMPORTANT -- please 
     discard preceding letter.
     
     Thanks
     
     Ruth Weiner


______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________
Subject: Letter to the editor
Author:  Ruth Weiner at po821cc2
Date:    12/12/97 2:03 PM


     I sent an attached letter.  In case it was illegible, here is  in text 
     only form.  Thanks for your consideration.
     
     
     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-lives, the lower the 
     radioactivity.  Most isotopes of plutonium (like plutonium-239 that  
     Caldicott is so vituperative about) are not in fact"HIGHLY 
     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.  
     
     
     Ruth F. Weiner
     7336 Lew Wallace NE
     Albuquerque, NM 87109
     Home phone: 505-856-5011
     Work phone: 505-844-4791
     
     All opinions expressed herein are my own, and do not in any way 
     represent those of my employer  or anyone else.
     
     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.