We have been fed two lies about nuclear electricity by the nuclear power establishment. The Negligible Probability Lie The probability of a sizable release of radioactive material from a nuclear power plant is so low that we can just assume it won't happen.
I really think you are overemphasizing the importance of the linear no threshold assumption. It seems to me that LNT just doesn't have that much impact on actual regulation.
Everyone knows that realistically there must be some threshold below which the cancer risk due to radiation is insignificant, but unless we can actually demonstrate an upper bound on that threshold, there's no way to write it into the regulations. This is why essentially every country in the world uses LNT: they have no specific defensible alternative. But even using the LNT model, the health consequences to the public of a reactor accident are minor. We already know that Fukushima caused zero fatalities due to acute radiation poisoning, and based on the doses received by the public, the number of expected fatal cancers under the LNT hypothesis would be less than 100 (possible far less), compared with about 2200 who died due to the evacuation.
Finally, I think the suggestion that ALARA is used as a regulatory ratchet is also misleading. It refers to exposure levels, rather than risk, and so is relevant mainly to nuclear workers, not the public (since dose to the public is zero during normal operation). Plants comply with ALARA by monitoring doses and showing that they have considered reasonable ways to reduce worker exposure to radiation. Whether the plant is profitable is irrelevant. To the extent there is a regulatory ratchet at work, it is primarily in the form of new deterministic safety requirements, demands for more detailed safety analyses, licensing fees, environmental impact statements, and bureaucracy surrounding license renewals.
"...able to produce electricity at 0.27 cents per kWh in 1970. That's less than 3 cents/kWh in 2020 money."
These numbers make no sense - 27 cents in 1970 money would be worth a lot more today. Thought maybe you had switched them around but 27 cents per kWh today is pretty far from cheap as well so something is fishy here.
I just found you*. And this post is the best so far... (I'm reading chronologically, earliest to latest)
OK so LNT has to go! The facts seem overwhelming. Is there other data that's not so good? (Sorry to doubt your story, it seems right and I want to believe it, so I need to ask.)
*playing substack random walk, where you follow a trail of recommendations, to some new writer.
I'm a bit puzzled why you cite TMI as a evidence that the Teeny Weeny Lie is false? There was no significant release of radioactive material outside of the facility itself. At the time, my mother worked right across the river at Harrisburg International Airport and I was in college in Philly. Not long after, I took an unpopular position: TMI demonstrated that even if just about everything that could go or be done wrong did/was, the problem would remain contained.
Chernobyl: OK, that was a mess, but it was a piss-poor reactor design in a plant with no effective containment. We don't do that here.
Fukushima: Yeah. Obviously we need to re-asses where we put the emergency backup generators., and maybe water-cooled, solid-fueled reactors that require active cooling even after they're shut down aren't totally optimal when it comes to safety.
Thing is, these days are designs that re literally walk-away safe, and the Teeny Weeny Lie might not be false with them, even if we built 25,000 such plants?
Given that the Rockefeller family made their millions from oil, how likely is it that the Rockefeller Foundation's campaign for LNT was intended to protect oil interests by strangling civilian nuclear power in its cradle, rather than just to stop nuclear weapons testing?
Thank you for a brilliant article.
Excellent article. Could you provide citations for the references?
I really think you are overemphasizing the importance of the linear no threshold assumption. It seems to me that LNT just doesn't have that much impact on actual regulation.
Everyone knows that realistically there must be some threshold below which the cancer risk due to radiation is insignificant, but unless we can actually demonstrate an upper bound on that threshold, there's no way to write it into the regulations. This is why essentially every country in the world uses LNT: they have no specific defensible alternative. But even using the LNT model, the health consequences to the public of a reactor accident are minor. We already know that Fukushima caused zero fatalities due to acute radiation poisoning, and based on the doses received by the public, the number of expected fatal cancers under the LNT hypothesis would be less than 100 (possible far less), compared with about 2200 who died due to the evacuation.
Finally, I think the suggestion that ALARA is used as a regulatory ratchet is also misleading. It refers to exposure levels, rather than risk, and so is relevant mainly to nuclear workers, not the public (since dose to the public is zero during normal operation). Plants comply with ALARA by monitoring doses and showing that they have considered reasonable ways to reduce worker exposure to radiation. Whether the plant is profitable is irrelevant. To the extent there is a regulatory ratchet at work, it is primarily in the form of new deterministic safety requirements, demands for more detailed safety analyses, licensing fees, environmental impact statements, and bureaucracy surrounding license renewals.
"...able to produce electricity at 0.27 cents per kWh in 1970. That's less than 3 cents/kWh in 2020 money."
These numbers make no sense - 27 cents in 1970 money would be worth a lot more today. Thought maybe you had switched them around but 27 cents per kWh today is pretty far from cheap as well so something is fishy here.
I just found you*. And this post is the best so far... (I'm reading chronologically, earliest to latest)
OK so LNT has to go! The facts seem overwhelming. Is there other data that's not so good? (Sorry to doubt your story, it seems right and I want to believe it, so I need to ask.)
*playing substack random walk, where you follow a trail of recommendations, to some new writer.
I'm a bit puzzled why you cite TMI as a evidence that the Teeny Weeny Lie is false? There was no significant release of radioactive material outside of the facility itself. At the time, my mother worked right across the river at Harrisburg International Airport and I was in college in Philly. Not long after, I took an unpopular position: TMI demonstrated that even if just about everything that could go or be done wrong did/was, the problem would remain contained.
Chernobyl: OK, that was a mess, but it was a piss-poor reactor design in a plant with no effective containment. We don't do that here.
Fukushima: Yeah. Obviously we need to re-asses where we put the emergency backup generators., and maybe water-cooled, solid-fueled reactors that require active cooling even after they're shut down aren't totally optimal when it comes to safety.
Thing is, these days are designs that re literally walk-away safe, and the Teeny Weeny Lie might not be false with them, even if we built 25,000 such plants?
Given that the Rockefeller family made their millions from oil, how likely is it that the Rockefeller Foundation's campaign for LNT was intended to protect oil interests by strangling civilian nuclear power in its cradle, rather than just to stop nuclear weapons testing?