No. This is something quite different. It is responding to a nonsensical set of rules in a rational and in some ways responsible manner. Here's a quote from a NuScale employee.
“ My loyalty must be first to my employer. I wouldn’t be in this business if I didn’t believe we offer an opportunity to change the world and address climate change. However, we have spent $1.3B to get where we are. That money and time working on our technology and DCA puts us at an advantage to the competition. It would be unfair to our investors and employee owners to give up that advantage to others who have not made the same investment of time and money.”
These are good people. The fault lies with the idiots who set up this system. In other words, us.
Hi Jack. Thank you very much for this. I read your book. It is my best this year.
I am a young nuclear engineer from Kenya, the first in my country. I am trying to make as much a contribution to the local development of a coherent nuclear energy strategy. I never fully understood the extrapolation that made LNT a line through the origin when I first encountered it at undergrad level so many years ago in Korea.
Most of the nuclear establishment here are "seasoned" radiation protection professionals who took LNT and ALARA as a the gospel truth so you can imagine the drama having a random 33 year old questioning university professors and ICRP fellows.
Best of luck. In some ways, Africa may be the best hope for cheap nuclear. But only if has the guts to tell the IAEA, the ICRP, and all the other left overs from colonialism to get lost. We will decide for ourselves how we are going to regulate nuclear power.
1,009 views Sep 27, 2022 Episode 1: Who Is Dr. Edward Calabrese?
Video Series: The History of the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model
The views expressed in these videos are not an official position of the Health Physics Society (HPS). This series of videos represents one perspective on the history of the LNT model. There are differing views on the history of this model. The HPS will share additional videos as they are recorded. The HPS created this series of videos to examine the history of the most controversial question in our field: the LNT model.
JACK DEVANNEY An error occurred. Please try again later. (Playback ID: VgXoARXZyW32kGZd) Thanks for including Calabrese
All who believe nuclear power is the answer should be shouting from the rooftops “Watch the Calabrese videos”. Every pro-nuclear podcaster should interview Calabrese. Every pro-nuclear Substack writer should be discussing and linking to the video series. I just wish the series could be condensed to, say, a two hour documentary.
My short book "The LNT Report" is a guided tour through the Calabrese videos. It's a companion book to my larger work "Earth Is a Nuclear Planet." ENP will be available March 12 on Amazon, and LNT should be out shortly thereafter.
In reading bits and pieces (and sometimes whole) of several of your articles on LNT I did not notice any reference to Medical Exposures. Consider the following: back in the 70s NCRP list the contribution to the average collective from Medical Facilities as about 25 millirem (Nuclear stuff < 1 millirem). Fast forward to the early 2000s and you get Medical Facilities at about 300 millirem (Nuclear stuff still< 1 millirem). Major reason for this - CT scans. Today, a CT scan of the abdomen will run you about 3 Rem. Back in 2010, I had 10 of those suckers at about 6 Rem each - which dwarfed my lifetime exposure of 15 Rem.
Also your average Hospital with a Nuclear Medicine Department puts out about 100 Curies/yr versus a NPP which are limited to about 5 and typically do a lot less. (The hospital discharges end up in your local sewage treatment plant.)
So what exactly has ALARA done for us for personal exposures and radioactive releases?
I do not think it is useful to talk about annual exposures. Only an LNTer can do that. The repair period is far shorter, somewhere around a day. What counts is the daily dose rate profile. The interesting feature of medical exposures is that with few exceptions (radioiodine thyroid treatment) they are very spikey. like your 10 CT scans. A 60 rem (600 mSv) dose rate profile in an NPP release will almost always be spread out over years. Completely different harm.
Correct. My wording was sloppy, to put it politely. But Windscale is a release which teaches us a very important lesson. It was a large release, roughly 2000 times larger than Three Mile Island. But there was no panic. No evacuation. No costs, other than the loss of a poorly designed reactor and some milk. It's the way just about all releases should be handled.
"And once you somehow fight your way through the regulatory maze at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, you become its biggest defender."
This sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me.
Mike,
No. This is something quite different. It is responding to a nonsensical set of rules in a rational and in some ways responsible manner. Here's a quote from a NuScale employee.
“ My loyalty must be first to my employer. I wouldn’t be in this business if I didn’t believe we offer an opportunity to change the world and address climate change. However, we have spent $1.3B to get where we are. That money and time working on our technology and DCA puts us at an advantage to the competition. It would be unfair to our investors and employee owners to give up that advantage to others who have not made the same investment of time and money.”
These are good people. The fault lies with the idiots who set up this system. In other words, us.
You make a good point. Maybe add it to your article?
Maybe add it to your book? ;)
Just to be clear, I meant no disrespect to the people at NuScale, etc. The hostages who had Stockholm Syndrome were good people, too.
Hi Jack. Thank you very much for this. I read your book. It is my best this year.
I am a young nuclear engineer from Kenya, the first in my country. I am trying to make as much a contribution to the local development of a coherent nuclear energy strategy. I never fully understood the extrapolation that made LNT a line through the origin when I first encountered it at undergrad level so many years ago in Korea.
Most of the nuclear establishment here are "seasoned" radiation protection professionals who took LNT and ALARA as a the gospel truth so you can imagine the drama having a random 33 year old questioning university professors and ICRP fellows.
Agar,
Best of luck. In some ways, Africa may be the best hope for cheap nuclear. But only if has the guts to tell the IAEA, the ICRP, and all the other left overs from colonialism to get lost. We will decide for ourselves how we are going to regulate nuclear power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5FjhgcnMjU&list=PLtJturmrhWAGh3pL0vogzroAWjIEezuYT
1,009 views Sep 27, 2022 Episode 1: Who Is Dr. Edward Calabrese?
Video Series: The History of the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model
The views expressed in these videos are not an official position of the Health Physics Society (HPS). This series of videos represents one perspective on the history of the LNT model. There are differing views on the history of this model. The HPS will share additional videos as they are recorded. The HPS created this series of videos to examine the history of the most controversial question in our field: the LNT model.
JACK DEVANNEY An error occurred. Please try again later. (Playback ID: VgXoARXZyW32kGZd) Thanks for including Calabrese
All who believe nuclear power is the answer should be shouting from the rooftops “Watch the Calabrese videos”. Every pro-nuclear podcaster should interview Calabrese. Every pro-nuclear Substack writer should be discussing and linking to the video series. I just wish the series could be condensed to, say, a two hour documentary.
My short book "The LNT Report" is a guided tour through the Calabrese videos. It's a companion book to my larger work "Earth Is a Nuclear Planet." ENP will be available March 12 on Amazon, and LNT should be out shortly thereafter.
Jack,
In reading bits and pieces (and sometimes whole) of several of your articles on LNT I did not notice any reference to Medical Exposures. Consider the following: back in the 70s NCRP list the contribution to the average collective from Medical Facilities as about 25 millirem (Nuclear stuff < 1 millirem). Fast forward to the early 2000s and you get Medical Facilities at about 300 millirem (Nuclear stuff still< 1 millirem). Major reason for this - CT scans. Today, a CT scan of the abdomen will run you about 3 Rem. Back in 2010, I had 10 of those suckers at about 6 Rem each - which dwarfed my lifetime exposure of 15 Rem.
Also your average Hospital with a Nuclear Medicine Department puts out about 100 Curies/yr versus a NPP which are limited to about 5 and typically do a lot less. (The hospital discharges end up in your local sewage treatment plant.)
So what exactly has ALARA done for us for personal exposures and radioactive releases?
Roger,
I do not think it is useful to talk about annual exposures. Only an LNTer can do that. The repair period is far shorter, somewhere around a day. What counts is the daily dose rate profile. The interesting feature of medical exposures is that with few exceptions (radioiodine thyroid treatment) they are very spikey. like your 10 CT scans. A 60 rem (600 mSv) dose rate profile in an NPP release will almost always be spread out over years. Completely different harm.
The Windscale reactor was not a power plant: it was a plutonium-production reactor for the UK nuclear weapons programme.
Correct. My wording was sloppy, to put it politely. But Windscale is a release which teaches us a very important lesson. It was a large release, roughly 2000 times larger than Three Mile Island. But there was no panic. No evacuation. No costs, other than the loss of a poorly designed reactor and some milk. It's the way just about all releases should be handled.