There's been plenty of talk in our comment strings the past few weeks of the discovery of elevated levels of Tritium, a byproduct of nuclear power generation, in groundwater in and around a number of nuclear power plants.
Recently, NEI issued a fact sheet on the incidents that provides some perspective and insight into the science involved:
Nobody welcomes an incident like this, and officials in the companies involved are taking the lead in communicating the facts to the public. In the case of Exelon, the company is doing it door-to-door in the neighborhoods involved. And that's how it should be.
For information on the situation from the NRC, click here.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Environment, Energy
Recently, NEI issued a fact sheet on the incidents that provides some perspective and insight into the science involved:
For perspective, the amount of tritium in the groundwater at the nuclear power plant with the highest and most extensive levels of tritium is far less than the amount of tritium in a single 'exit' sign. Many industrial-grade exit signs contain 10 to 20 curies of tritium gas. By comparison, the average concentration of tritium in groundwater at nuclear plants is at or below the EPA standard for tritium in drinking water -- 0.02 microcuries per liter.To read what other blogs are saying about the situation, click here.
Nobody welcomes an incident like this, and officials in the companies involved are taking the lead in communicating the facts to the public. In the case of Exelon, the company is doing it door-to-door in the neighborhoods involved. And that's how it should be.
For information on the situation from the NRC, click here.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Environment, Energy
Comments
Is that a lot, a little, or nothing at all? A teaspoon in a swiming pool, or enough to kill the population of Paris? How does it compare to natural background in various places?
I still think you need an FAQ.
what you're missing or perhaps still trying to obfuscate is the chronic exposure to low dose radiation (particularly through ingestion of tritiated water and organically bonded tritium (obt) in water and food as well as absorption through bathing and inhalation through showing.
This constant exposure then becomes part of an INTERNALIZED dose that cycles through the body. OBT in animal and plant tissue stays with the system for quite sometime.
Then that low energy beta gets to bang away at your DNA or after passing through the placenta developing cells.
Hey, now that we have BEIR VII, how about making the radiation standard
"Radiation Effective Pregnant Woman", guys.
Now there's a concept for making ALARA a little more "reasonable."
Anybody disagree with that?
Paul
This is the piece of the picture that has finally taken hold in the public consciousness.
Horse is out of the barn, fellas.
Paul
Additionally, the EPA's tritium standards are increasingly recognised as inadequate and should be no indicator of "safety". Indeed, as anyone who "knows the science" can tell you, there is no dose of radioactivity that does not carry risk - whether it's present in EXIT signs or the water you unsuspectingly drink.
Industries as destructive, wasteful and risky as nuclear and fossil fuels only seem to become more and more obsolete.
Sounds like something from the
1950' offered to downwinders of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. You didnt happen to work for them, too?
Aging and cell death are natural as well but that does not mean that its a smart thing to speed up the aging process or increase your exposure to cellular damage. To the contrary, reducing cellular damage and slowing the aging process as avoiding the flu are all wise health choices.
In light of BEIR VII, its increasingly difficult for you to argue that more radiation exposure is good for you.
Please post something on the shutdown of the brand new 1358 MWe Shika-2 reactor in Ishikawa.
As far as I am concerned it is an immense scandal, no matter who is right.
Either
1) The power company built an unsafe $3 billion reactor on top of a dangerous fault line
or
2) An uninformed partisan court ordered the shutdown of a perfectly safe $3 billion piece of machinery.
No matter which is true, it is an immense scandal!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4839970.stm
The problem with the Japanese cancer figures is that the people exposed to radiation are assumed to be selected randomly, but they are not. The people are all located in a relatively small number of apartment buildings (relative compared to how many apartment buildings are found in Taiwan). Differences between the inhabitants of the apartments and the average Taiwanese person could have resulted in a huge difference in the cancer death rate expected without radiation exposure. For example, one of the apartment buildings may have been populated by mostly young people because it had a modern design and/or was in an area with a lot of young people. Young people would be far more likely to have not died from cancer over the time period studied. Another apartment building may have been populated by people who take care of their health by eating well, not smoking and exercising. They would be less likely to die from cancer than the average person in Taiwan. Another apartment building may have been populated by wealthy people, which is a particularly likely scenario because of the different levels of luxury in apartment buildings. Wealthy people are able to see their doctors more often, which allows cancer to be caught sooner, which allows a much higher survival rate. Also, they are able to pay for insurance, and perhaps treatments not covered by insurance.
Other reasons for the difference include the apartments being in a cleaner area of Taiwan, with less pollution. Also, the type of people who live in apartments in Taiwan might be different from those who live in houses, further skewing the results.
Living in an apartment probably reduces the rate of lung cancer due to radon exposure. Modern apartment buildings have good ventilation, which would limit exposure (these were modern buildings, as they were built from 1982 to 1984). Also, even if the lower floors had some radon exposure, it would probably be greatly reduced with each additional floor.
However, given the ridiculously small number of cancer deaths, I suspect that something went seriously wrong with the study, such as deaths not being reported as cancer. The most likely problem is that the researchers just did not find the vast majority of people who died of cancer.
An even stronger reason for suspecting that the study is nonsense is the fact that the results of the study are not supported by other cases of radiation exposure. Some areas have very high levels of natural radiation, but they have not experienced greatly reduced cancer rates compared to a similar population with a low radiation level. Comparing to a similar population is very important because of the huge variation in cancer death rates depending on ethnicity, age, diet, amount of exercise, smoking and health care. Radiation accidents, such as the Chernobyl disaster, have not resulted in reduced cancer deaths, either. Also, thyroid cancer, increased greatly after the Chernobyl disaster.