Impact of major nuclear accident less than smoking, obesity

[Dogmudgeon]

Before the ranting (especially the über-cliché "I call bullshit") starts, you should keep a few things in mind:

1. This is a peer-reviewed journal article.
   
   
2. BioMed Central is an open publication and its use is governed by the Creative Commons Attribution License.
   
   
3. ISI has reviewed the quality and impact of BioMed Central and has given it good marks. BioMed Central has participated in bringing peer-reviewed scientific work to the web for public study. Also see a review here.
   
   
4. The author is not making the point than nuclear irradiation is "safe". This is an epidemiological survey called meta-analysis that compares relative morbidity and mortality in differing peer cohorts. It includes analysis based on several methods, including models favored by critics of nuclear energy.
   
   
5. There is a non-trivial section detailing the uncertainties and possible sources of error in the study.
   
   
6. All conclusions and assertions may be scrutinized in full. The author, Jim Smith, invites correspondence from qualified critics. ("Qualified" means NO WANKERS.)
   
   
7. I received NO money for posting this by either the author or by the nuclear industry. And if you say so, I will flame you mercilessly.
   
   Otherwise, I will be my usual sweet self. O8)
   

Are passive smoking, air pollution and obesity a greater mortality risk than major radiation incidents?

Jim T Smith
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Winfrith Technology Centre, Dorchester (UK)
BMC Public Health 2007, 7:49 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-7-49
This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/49

Abstract

Background: Following a nuclear incident, the communication and perception of radiation risk becomes a (perhaps the) major public health issue. In response to such incidents it is therefore crucial to communicate radiation health risks in the context of other more common environmental and lifestyle risk factors. This study compares the risk of mortality from past radiation exposures (to people who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs and those exposed after the Chernobyl accident) with risks arising from air pollution, obesity and passive and active smoking.

Methods: A comparative assessment of mortality risks from ionising radiation was carried out by estimating radiation risks for realistic exposure scenarios and assessing those risks in comparison with risks from air pollution, obesity and passive and active smoking.

Results: The mortality risk to populations exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl accident may be no higher than that for other more common risk factors such as air pollution or passive smoking. Radiation exposures experienced by the most exposed group of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to an average loss of life expectancy significantly lower than that caused by severe obesity or active smoking.

Conclusion: Population-averaged risks from exposures following major radiation incidents are clearly significant, but may be no greater than those from other much more common environmental and lifestyle factors. This comparative analysis, whilst highlighting inevitable uncertainties in risk quantification and comparison, helps place the potential consequences of radiation exposures in the context of other public health risks. (Format color mine --p!)

Although this report may be posted in full, DU is not well-suited to the academic journal format. But I will post more extensively from the report than I ordinarily would.

It is clear from Table 1 that current exposures from the Chernobyl accident are not greater (and are in some cases much smaller) than some exposures to natural background radiation (e.g. long-haul air crew or some residents of relatively high natural background areas). Doses to the population of approximately 200,000 emergency workers who worked in the Chernobyl 30-km exclusion zone in 1986–87 averaged approximately 100 mSv and doses to residents of the "strict control zones" were on average lower, but of the same order <37>. A group of people living unofficially in the 30-km exclusion zone around Chernobyl were found to receive annual doses of 1–6 mSv yr-1 in the late 1990s <2>. A lifetime's exposure to high natural background radiation in some parts of the world can result in an accumulated dose of 700 mSv or more (Table 1). More than 100,000 people in Finland, for example, receive natural radiation doses > 10 mSv yr-1 <10>.

...

There are significant uncertainties in risks in all the cases shown in Table 2, however, this comparison of time- and population-averaged risks can help to put radiation risks in context. The radiation exposures to emergency workers and to the most exposed populations following Chernobyl represented a potentially significant increase in fatal cancers in the exposed populations. But, the risk (from the evidence analysed here) appears to be no greater than potential mortality risks from air pollution, passive smoking, or high natural background radiation exposures. Table 3 compares risks from acute, high dose radiation with active smoking and high BMI, in terms of expected average reduction in lifespan. Both of these latter risk factors are to a large extent determined by individual choice, though both are also influenced by cultural and socio-economic conditions. Active smoking and BMI therefore provide quantitative risk comparators for acute high dose radiation exposure. However, there is no intention here to make an ethical comparison between an imposed risk (radiation exposure in an extreme event) and a (to an extent) voluntary risk such as smoking or high BMI. (Format mine --p!) The comparison for extreme radiation risks in Table 3 may be of limited value since such exposures are, fortunately, rare. In addition, the comparison does not account for the deterministic (i.e. ARS) effects of acute exposures in the range 1–5 Gy which (by definition) does not influence the YOLL of these A-bomb survivors. However, Table 3 does put the health risks of active smoking and obesity into a novel perspective.

...

Exposure to low level radiation can potentially result in hereditary effects on subsequent generations. Evidence of effects on offspring has been observed in studies on laboratory animals <40>. Studies on the children of the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs have, however, found no evidence of hereditary effects of radiation <41>.

...

Conclusion

Whilst acknowledging the inevitable uncertainties in risk assessment, the communication and mitigation of public health risks must be based on the best available scientific evidence. Nuclear incidents clearly have many serious consequences, a full review of which is beyond the scope of this paper. But the assessment of "best estimate" risk scenarios presented here provides a context within which to communicate the long-term mortality risk to those exposed to radiation following such incidents. Such risk communication could help to mitigate some of the serious social, economic and psychological impacts of incidents involving radiation. When considered in the context of other more common public health risk factors, the long-term mortality risks from radiation exposures following major incidents, whilst very serious, appear to be less serious than is commonly perceived. For example:

• The radiation exposures to the populations most affected by the Chernobyl accident (emergency workers and people continuing to live in contaminated areas) results in an average additional mortality risk no greater than that caused by (relatively common) elevated exposures to natural background radiation either at home or through occupation.

• The increased mortality rate of the populations most affected by the Chernobyl accident may be comparable to (and possibly lower than) risks from elevated exposure to air pollution or environmental tobacco smoke. It is probably surprising to many (not least the affected populations themselves) that people still living unofficially in the abandoned lands around Chernobyl may actually have a lower health risk from radiation than they would have if they were exposed to the air pollution health risk in a large city such as nearby Kiev. (Format mine --p!)

• The immediate effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs led to approximately 210,000 deaths in the two cities. However, radiation exposures experienced by the most exposed group of survivors led to an average loss of life expectancy significantly lower than that caused by severe obesity or active smoking.

There is plenty to "chew" on in this paper. While it supports the contentions of pro-nuclearists, it certainly does not declare it to be "safe". Nor should a scientific-minded person take this study to be The Very Last Word On The Subject Forever.

On the other hand, it should help put some of those stories of "nukular mutant monsters" to rest.

So have at it, ya bastids. }(

--p!

[ShortnFiery]

1. Sure, I could live through an highway accident without wearing my seat belt but I won't risk it.

The same analogy applies to Nuclear Power. :shrug:

IMO if there is any other way besides continuing to occupy the Middle Eastern Oil Rich (or pipeline) countries, let's do THAT? ;)

[GliderGuider]

2. War vs. nuclear power

IMO if there is any other way besides continuing to occupy the Middle Eastern Oil Rich (or pipeline) countries, let's do THAT?

And if there isn't?

[bananas]

4. But there is.

This is annoying.

[GliderGuider]

10. You're wrong

Not about this being annoying. It certainly is annoying to have your most cherished assumptions challenged.
And you're also not wrong about there being alternatives to war. There certainly are, and we need to pursue them.

You're wrong about your underlying premise: that there are substitutes for oil that are scalable to an effective level within the time we have remaining. Aside from nuclear power and coal, I haven't found any. And I've looked in good faith.

[bananas]

16. Me, Al Gore, IPCC, CMI, PWC, Palast, we're all wrong.

Who's right: Kunstler, who thought y2k would end civilization.
:eyes:

[jpak]

18. Yup - that's why T. Boone Pickens is investing $6 billion to build 4 GW of wind power in TX

and that's why industry leaders like Applied Materials, Kyocera, United Solar, Sharp, Mitsubishi, REC and others are now investing tens of billions of dollars in PV manufacturing...

[Dogmudgeon]

24. It is getting difficult to follow your arguments

Two days ago, you were calling down the thunder on the Big Corporations. You insinuated that I was being paid as a ghostwriter.

Today, you are praising a list of corporate giants that includes several well-known "bad guys".

Angels or Devils? What will it be?

Although Kyocera has a good reputation for greenness (which it paid for with its hard-earned money), I am surprised that you mentioned Mitsubishi at all. It has been a major corporate heavy for decades. Mitsubishi kills whales. Mitsubishi lies about its record. Mitsubishi has long been in bed with the Komeito Party and the quasi-fascist "Nichiren" Shoshu Soka Gakkai sect, which was involved in stealing French nuclear secrets (possibly in the name of anti-nuclearism, which they espouse). Mitsubishi also has a major nuclear technology program. Also note that I have referenced sources that are friendly to your point of view but not necessarily mine.

If you want to turn this into an absurdist argument, that is your prerogative. But if you think this is an argument that you must "win", then you might as well proclaim yourself to be the winner and do the happy dance. All of this point-counter-point over who favors what is irrelevant. If we, as a civilization, fail to maintain an energy production growth of approximately 2% per year, our proverbial goose is cooked; yet if we can't reduce greenhouse gas emissions or toxic waste, we will likewise suffer tenancy in a fresh hell. Nuclear waste is singled out as an unbearable burden, but its quantity and pathogenicity is collectively far smaller than the industrial vomitus from either semiconductor manufacture or coal/petroleum/firewood burning.

In the last five years that I have been hearing from the "green energy" movement, neither solar nor wind power have doubled their total output; only biofuel has done well, and that has been the result of a destructive but fantastically profitable game played in the corn commodity markets. So, I argue for nuclear energy. I have searched long and hard for flaws in my case, but have come up empty. Until zero-point energy from the abyss, tachyon ray energy, or the orgone can be harnessed, nuclear fission appears to be the method with the greatest return and lowest risk.

--p!

[Dead_Parrot]

3. Interesting analogy...

The presence or absence of a seatbelt isn't what makes your car dangerous. But the fossil fuels come and go without so much as a passing thought, don't they?

[bananas]

5. LOL - from the same people who said "smoking is good for you"

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1994Q3/smoke.html
http://www.prwatch.org/taxonomy/term/75
etc etc

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Nihil]

8. I vote for option 4 ...

... though it should always be remembered that past behaviour
does not necessarily indicate future performance ... still, his
recent responses are definitely option 4 so I'll stick with my
original choice.
:-)

[Dogmudgeon]

7. LOL, part deux: more banana pudding

I posted a peer-reviewed scientific study and survey of previous studies, not PR.

PR can be found anywhere; there is plenty of anti-nuclear PR.

First article: Nothing about the study in question. A 13-year-old broadside about the tobacco lobby.

Second article: Nothing about the study in question. Anti-nuclear PR.

Simply because someone has an opinion that differs from yours doesn't mean that they are corrupt, immoral, evil, or criminals.

Abusive personal arguments

"Dead Agenting"

It's also a false analogy, strawman argument, and a few others, but I'll leave it at that.

Can you argue on the basis of evidence?

--p!

[bananas]

17. I wasn't accusing you of being a paid shill

Al Franken was taken in by Colin Powell's UN presentation for Gulf War II.
It was all bullshit.
A lot of people were taken in by "Nurse Nariyah" testifying before Congress for Gulf War I.
It was all bullshit.
A lot of people were taken in by "EPA Chief" Whitman when she said the air in NY was safe.
It was all bullshit.
A lot of people were taken in by the propoganda from the cigarette industry.
It was all bullshit.

The same players are now catapulting the nuclear propoganda.
Some intelligent progressive people are being taken in by the bullshit, just as Al Franken was.

Here's some science for you: the IPCC has concluded that global warming will be solved primarily through efficiency and renewables, that nuclear won't be much more of a percentage than it is now.

[Dead_Parrot]

19. The same "players"?

So, Jim Smith is part of a huge nuclear conspiracy that includes the Bush admin and the tobacco companies?

I'll bet they're the same reptillian illuminati who blew up the WTC with HARRP's alien death-ray, too.

Scary.

Out of interest, has anyone ever mentioned how much you sound like a creationist? You've got that global-conspiracy-of-scientists-trying-to-persecute-your-beliefs-with-thier-evil-data groove going down. It's quite cute.

[Dogmudgeon]

26. The Policy Recommendations of the Fourth Report of the IPCC

You cite the IPCC quite often.

Your main point in the past has been drawn from one paragraph in the 4th IPCC report:

Given costs relative to other supply options, nuclear power, which accounted for 16% of the electricity supply in 2005, can have an 18% share of the total electricity supply in 2030 at carbon prices up to 50 US$/tCO2-eq, but safety, weapons proliferation and waste remain as constraints.

You seem to only see "nuclear power ... 16% ... in 2005 ... 18% ... in 2030". That may be an unfair amount of redaction on my part, but you wrote "Here's some science for you: the IPCC has concluded that global warming will be solved primarily through efficiency and renewables, that nuclear won't be much more of a percentage than it is now."

Here is the part you forgot: "at carbon prices up to 50 US$/tCO2-eq". Or simply, "below fifty bucks a ton".

Since you are intent on schooling me in science, perhaps you can explain to me what happens when the price of carbon dioxide increases over fifty bucks a ton. It's under $12/tCO2-eq now, and it has doubled in price in the last two years (and see below).

Why, at that rate, in 2030, carbon will be trading at $24,000 per ton, not fifty. As if!

And why are they projecting such meager growth for nuclear energy in the same context they project vigorous growth for other low-carbon technologies? It's an economic model, not a political one, and it's primary independent variable appears to be the price of carbon, not the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. I have yet to find the reasoning in the main body of the report, but I will post what I find.

Commoditizing and trading in carbon -- "carbon credits" in its most popularly-acceptable form -- has been widely criticized as a scam. The IPCC report depends on commodity carbon trading as its econometric foundation. All of the economic reasoning in the report is rationalized in the context of a carbon commodity market. Although most of the criticism of the report has been aimed at their climate change models, their economic models are the ones that are the least persuasive, whether they concern nuclear energy or not.

Establishing carbon markets in anticipation of public panic is a financially "wise" decision. After the first few climate disasters, the price of commodity carbon will skyrocket in response to sudden governmental and treaty restrictions. And the "green" entrepreneurs -- Mitsubishi, GE, Toko, Mitsui, Royal Dutch Shell -- will clean up! Buy it low (<$12/t) and sell it high (>$500/t).

Cheneyan genius!

But let's move on.

Here is what you characterize as "global warming will be solved":

In 2030 macro-economic costs for multi-gas mitigation, consistent with emissions trajectories toward stabilization between 445 and 710 ppm CO2-eq, are estimated at between a 3% decrease of global GDP and a small increase, compared to the baseline (see Table SPM.4).

The oft-discussed climate "tipping point" has been cited at around 500 ppm CO2. Above that point, we have to go back to the Miocene (55 MYA) to find comparable numbers.

I will also assume that the IPCC authors mean that there will be a 3% decrease in global GDP relative to projected growth. Their term "the baseline" is ambiguous in this context. Otherwise, they are saying that economic growth will come to an inglorious end and plunge the world into a global superdepression in the next 23 years.

Even that is still not encouraging. Solving global warming (in your words) is going to be expensive and not real effective. And we're still on target for twice the greenhouse gas. "Global warming will be solved" this way -- not.

That's for a plan that the IPCC thinks is realistic, and will hold construction of those dreaded nuclear demonboxes to 18% overall, which is still a greater-than-doubling in total numbers by 2030, requiring a construction program bringing a new nuclear reactor online every 17 days. (Assuming about 500 reactors over 23 years.)

I appreciate the work of the IPCC, too, but there is only so much they could do. Their policy recommendations are tepid, arbitrary, and certainly skewed by politics. Nuclear development figures only fractionally into that weakness. That's the heartbreak of the UN -- it just can't win for losing. It is the voice of reason and principled debate, but a paragon of scientific authority it ain't. We should be thrilled that they hit a home run with the greenhouse gas assessments. But the policy implications are up to the rest of us.

And none of this has a thing to do with the tobacco lobby, GW1 baby-killer propaganda stories, or the administration's lies. Your assertions sound more like opposition to vaccination than opposition to smoking. So you'd better start praying that Al Gore makes a big anti-nuclear speech soon.

--p!

[blueworld]

9. Why do I feel cider in my ear?

It's really a coincidence how many so-called respectable studies are pointing out that nuclear anything & radiation in particular are either not as harmful as originally thought, or less likely statistically to endanger anyone. Nuclear power is the new neocon savior - it's green & renewable, right?

I also find it sad but hysterical, that all we have to do to cement respectability anymore is point out that smoking is worse. We already know every horrible thing associated with tobacco. Nuclear is worse. Radiation is worse. From mining the ore to transporting it to processing it to using it to disposing of it. :thumbsdown:

[phantom power]

13. Remind me again why it's worse.

If {smoking, obesity, fossil-fuel pollution, traffic, etc...} kill millions more people every year than the nuclear industry, why is the nuclear industry worse?

Why?

[Nihil]

15. Damn you Phantom Power ...

... You just can't stop bringing facts into it!

Don't you realise that righteous indignation, blind hatred and
years of trained ignorance are far more powerful than mere facts?

When *will* you learn?

Repeat after me:
1) "Deaths caused by fossil fuels don't count."
2) "Waste from any source other than nuclear doesn't count."
3) "Numbers that highlight the scale of the problem don't count."

When you've got the hang of that we can go to the more advanced version!
:hi:

[NNadir]

11. So what?

The question is whether a major nuclear accident is worse than the normal operations of a fossil fuel plant. This answer has been well understood for quite some time.

Nuclear accidents are extremely rare whereas all plants that use dangerous fossil fuel and dump dangerous fossil fuel waste indiscrimately in the atmosphere are used regularly.

Living near a dangerous fossil fuel plant is a very risky thing to do, even if the plant operates forever exactly as it is designed to do.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. Most people have no point of reference

They know approximately how dangerous smoking or morbid obesity is. But most people -- myself included, until relatively recently -- are clueless about the relative risks of nuclear and/or fossil fuel.

I have seldom seen a relative comparison made between the risks of nuclear energy, vis-à-vis other methods of energy production, in the mainstream media. Such comparisons are usually made in small print text-only sidebars. Whenever even a minimally positive item about nuclear energy is published, anti-nuclearists flood the media with scaremongering and baseless accusations of Aggravated Republicanism With Intent To Cheney. A lot of people think nuclear power is Beelzebub In A Can instead of the controlled fission of the nuclei of a metal.

But a peer-reviewed paper -- from a scientist who authored several papers and at least one book on Chernobyl -- provides something concrete. If the author makes an assertion, it's backed up. Dishonesty is severely punished. Crying "Cheney!" in a crowded theater won't do -- evidence is demanded.

Smith's paper may not settle the question, but it's something that at least opens the discussion. The risks of nuclear energy can be compared to better-known risks. You can read the paper and say, "Fred's morbid obesity is worse for him than if he had been living near Chernobyl" or "the Hiroshima survivors lost an average of 70 days of life, but Sally's smoking could cut five years off of hers -- that's 25 times as much!"

The comparison between nuclear energy and fossil fuels is likewise new to most people. If nuclear energy is the worst thing there is, how can something (like coal) be a thousand times worse? And furthermore, cui bono? The fossil fuel corporate establishment has gotten a real freebie with the anti-nuclearists' campaign of exaggeration.

"This answer has been well understood for quite some time." Sadly, this is only the case among those who have made the effort to understand. Intense emotions (like fear) -- and the popularity of a tribally-approved idea -- are always more powerful.

--p!

[Vogon_Glory]

12. The TMI Fatalities...

Notwithstanding the hundreds who died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, I'd long suspected that the alleged death toll from the Three Mile Island accident was way, way overblown by fanatical anti-nuclear activists who were more than willing to overlook other factors for mortality in the area (higher background radiation from the igneous rock in the area) in order to cook their statistics to make their case.

The nice thing about nuclear plants in Canada and the USA is that we DON'T use Soviet-design nuclear power plants.

[philb]

20. Biggest risk from nuclear is nuclear proliferation, terrorism, dirty bombs,disposal,etc.

Its unlikely that the nuclear cycle can be protected from terrorist who could easily get access to nuclear material to use in dirty bombs, etc. Also the more nuclear here, the more elsewhere and the more proliferation and nuclear bombs in the wrong hands (which might be any hands).
Also its not clear that nuclear material can be stored safely or cost effectively for 50,000 years.
Or that it could be transported safely to a storage facility if one existed. The materials have have levels of radiation,
so how could it be transported safely? And its easy to cause an accident to rail or trucks carrying such. Is it obvious no one would?

[Dead_Parrot]

21. Ummm...

Nuclear materials have been transported for the last 60 years or so. The number or people killed by moving them - AFAIK - is 1: Sébastien Briat from Sortir du Nucléaire, who chained himself in front of a 2200-ton freight train, presumably on the grounds that 850 MJ of kinetic energy could easily be deflected by grim determination and a small pamphlet.

It can't.

The moral of this story, BTW, is that nuclear material is not nearly as dangerous as stupidity. Sébastien learned this lesson late in life: We would do well to be a little smarter.

[philb]

22. It would appear you don't have much background on some of this.

I worked in the nuclear industry, and got out. Based on my experience I don't think its possible
to deal with these issues. Transportation is a lot bigger problem than you realize, and some people in
the industry think its not feasible, it would expose people both to radiation and a strong likelihood of terrorism; that the waste from reactors will have to be stored on site at the plants.
But thats not the biggest problem.

[Dead_Parrot]

23. What, exactly, is "not feasible"?

Transportation of nuclear material? Clarify this, please.

[philb]

27. Nuclear waste has high radiation levels; transportation by either rail or truck

exposes those along the way to radiation; I've seen this discussed in papers but its not something I follow now.
I used to work in the nuclear industry and also on the regulatory side, but don't follow it closely now.
But there are lots of studies and discussions of the potential risks of transporting nuclear waste by train or truck.
And there is agreement that there would be some exposure risk, and also risk from accidents or terrorism. Doing a web search would likely find some of this discussion and papers.

In general, the more nuclear materials around and the more nuclear activity, the more likely that terrorists or diversion of materials for profit could result in fairly easy availability of materials for use in dirty bombs, etc. Which could cause widespread devastation. It doesn't appear possible to me to avoid this problem if nuclear materials are widespread, on both ends of the nuclear cycle.

[Dogmudgeon]

25. This is true. But it can be quantified. And the numbers are favorable.

The actual history of nuclear materials transport seems to have been quite a bit safer than the anti-nuclearists would lead us to believe. Proliferation has been found, in practice, to be extremely difficult for any group outside of a nation/state, though this is not something that anyone treats lightly. The Soviet stockpile is poorly secured, Pakistan is vulnerable to political upheaval, and there are even a few Israelis with itchy trigger fingers.

And then there is the USA's stockpile of bombs. This stuff would be better burned off in energy-producing reactors.

The need to store nuclear waste material for 50,000 years is subject to a LOT of qualification. Nearly all the "radwaste" we now produce can, and should, be recycled; most of what remains has a half-life on the order of decades, not millennia; the proportion of super-long-lived isotopic material in practice (viz. the nuclear waste programs in France and Japan) is extremely small.

If you want to argue that the American nuclear program needs some changes, I'll be glad to add my voice to it, but our program has been very, very good so far. Not 100%, but quite close. I'm all for improvement, but I don't think there has been too much to fault us. All of our direct nuclear deaths have been lab accidents. And if you want to count "indirect" deaths, then you need to consider coal and tobacco (often contaminated with Polonium, IIRC) as major confounding variables.

You mention that you have worked in the field of nuclear materials transport. What have you found?

--p!