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Re: 60th criticality accident



For better or worse, the nuclear industry is seen as one entity by the
public.  When we screw up this badly, we lose credibility.  Being defensive
only makes it worse.

Comparative body counts do NOT reassure the public.

Instead, we should wait until more information is available.  Then we should
be sure that appropriate lessons learned are developed and implemented, and
think about how to assure the public that this will not happen again.

In the meantime, let's go back to discussing somethin semi-useful; eg., man
rem versus person rem.

The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com

Bernard L Cohen wrote:

> On Fri, 1 Oct 1999, Philip Hypes wrote:
>
> > Now, anyone care to hazard a guess as to how many workers have died
> > in accidents at oil refineries or non-nuclear power plants since 1945?
>
>         --Much more relevant is the number of workers killed in producing
> electric power by mining coal. Early in this century. about 1400 miners
> died each year in coal mining accidents, and there are still about 100
> deaths each year. But this is just the tip of the iceberg -- many mine
> related diseases kill coal miners, causing their life expectancy to be
> about 3 years less than that of others of the same socioeconomic class.
>         One could go further and discuss all industrial accidents which
> kill many thousands of workers each year. All of the above numbers refer
> to the U.S. only.
>
> >
> Bernard L. Cohen
> Physics Dept.
> University of Pittsburgh
> Pittsburgh, PA 15260
> Tel: (412)624-9245
> Fax: (412)624-9163
> e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu
>
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