Skip to main content

BusinessWeek's False Impressions

Alongside this week's cover story, "The Next Big One," BusinessWeek ran a sidebar called "Sleepless Nights" that details the top 10 risks to America.

Take a look at the chart entry for a dirty bomb, which states that materials for a dirty bomb can be gathered from "power-plant wastes" and that such a threat would cause "immediate deaths in the hundreds [and] long-term cancer deaths in the thousands."

Then take a look at a fact sheet on NEI's Web site called "Used Fuel Secure at Nuclear Power Plants Could Not Be Used to Make a 'Dirty Bomb.'" In particular, this fact sheet notes:
The possibility of utilizing used nuclear fuel for a “dirty bomb” is fraught with practical and logistical obstacles that would render such a scenario essentially impossible. A “dirty bomb” is a bomb made of conventional explosives covered with radioactive material that would be used by terrorists to spread radiation. However, no nuclear reaction occurs. The most significant public health consequences would occur as a result of the explosion—not the radioactivity in the device.

The used fuel at nuclear power plants would be extremely difficult for an outsider to access. Moreover, it would also be extremely difficult to use.
You might also want to read the fact sheet titled "Steps for Public Safety Against a 'Dirty Bomb.'"

We also should point out the final chart entry, on the possibility of a radiation leak. BusinessWeek - relying on the Union of Concerned Scientists for data - states that "coolant loss at a nuclear power plant could send a radioactive cloud over nearby cities," causing "as many as 44,000 immediate deaths." In addition, the magazine claims, "upwards of 500,000 could eventually die from cancer."

Let's go back to the fact sheets. Nearly every one in the Safety and Security and the Radiation Control and Measurement sections will tell you the same thing:
In the unlikely event of a radiation release ... the likelihood of one fatality is less than one chance in 6,000 years—80 times lower than the NRC’s safety standard for nuclear plant operation.

The long-term cancer fatality risk is indistinguishable compared to cancer risks from other causes. The likelihood of one cancer-induced fatality is less than one chance in 3,000 years—1,000 times lower than the NRC safety standard.
The following fact sheets would have been particularly useful to BusinessWeek and the Union of Concerned Scientists as they constructed their chart:

- Nuclear Power Plant Security
- Public Health Risk Low in Unlikely Event of Terrorism at Nuclear Plant, EPRI Study Finds
- Emergency Preparedness Near Nuclear Power Plants
- Use of Potassium Iodide Secondary Measure in the Event of a Radioactive Release

UPDATE: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has already responded to BusinessWeek (thanks to AtomicMatt for pointing this out). Pointing specifically to the recent report on the effects of the Chernobyl accident, the NRC's letter to the editor scathingly reprimands the magazine for sloppy data collection:

Business Week's "Sleepless Nights" chart with the Sept. 19 "Next Big One" article shows unsupportable, misinformed "projections" of the possible effects of a nuclear power plant accident. The numbers quoted in the chart have no basis in reality and do not reflect the most recent information about the effects of the 1986 nuclear power plant accident in Chernobyl, the worst the world has seen.

...The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's regulations and ongoing oversight of U.S. nuclear plants focus on preventing accidents and protecting the public if an accident were to occur. Your readers are best served by numbers based on fact and deliberate study, not wildly inaccurate projections meant to grab attention.
UPDATE: BusinessWeek published part of the NRC's letter in its Oct. 17 edition.

Technorati tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments

Matthew66 said…
The NRC has already responded to the editor of Business Week on the matters raised in the article, see the
For the Record section of the NRC's website.

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin