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Re: RADSAFE digest 2753
The bottom line for the public is whether the nuclear industry can be trusted to safely
operate the technology. Not only have there been enough incidents to convince them
otherwise, but also the industry makes it worse by going into denial. The argument that
no one was hurt, so why the fuss is equivalent to running a stop sign and saying that
since there was no accident, you shouldn't get a citation. The concern is not this
time, but what will happen the next time you run a stop sign.
The one success story in this business, the Nuclear Navy, got that way by convincing the
public that they take every photon and every mrem seriously, and that they have zero
tolerance for error.
The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.
Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com
antatnsu@pacbell.net wrote:
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> To be sure, it is about trust. Much about wars is about trust. But, what has the
> nuclear industry done to destroy trust in it? I submit that one of the things is:
> it has spoken too many "mea culpas" when no member of the US public has ever been
> injured by radiation or radioactive material from nuclear industry activities in this
> country. It is only a few mrem, so why the fuss? The truth is a few mrem has never
> been demonstrated to hurt anyone. We need to say that over and over again.
>
> The nuclear industry has not countered each statement that "one photon can cause
> cancer" with the statement that we don't know that such is the truth and challenged
> each person who made such statements to demonstrate the veracity of the statment.
> The nuclear industry has not gone to the journalist's colleges and convinced the
> students that nuclear power is good as the anti nuclear people did 20 years ago to
> convince the students that nuclear power is bad. We now have an anti nuclear media
> as a result of the anti's work.
> The nuclear industry has not influenced the writing of school books (as the antis
> have to show nuclear power in a bad light) to show the benefits of things nuclear.
> The nuclear industry has not spent millions of dollars to show the public be benefits
> of things nuclear as the antis have to show all of the bad things they can say about
> it.
>
> Only one side is fighting!
>
> ALARA, collective dose and the anti nuclear people are the nuclear industries'
> enemies.
...
>
> Al Tschaeche antatnsu@pacbell.net
>
> William V Lipton wrote:
>
> > I am baffled as to why some health physicists whom I know to be intelligent and
> > educated persons are so eager to be victims, always blaming the omnipresent and
> > all powerful "antinukes" for everything that goes wrong. Besides being childish,
> > it diverts us from identifying and correcting our own weaknesses.
> >
> > Unfortunately, most of RADSAFE seems to have become:
> >
> > 1. attacking the opposition's credentials
> >
> > 2. comparative body counts, i.e. (coal, cars, you name it) is more dangerous
> >
> > 3. It's only a few mrem, why the fuss?
> >
> > 4. "It's not fair."
> >
> > This does not reflect well on us as a profession.
> >
> > The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
> > It's not about dose, it's about trust.
> >
> > Bill Lipton
> > liptonw@dteenergy.com
> >
>
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