One of the gripes that pro-nukes have about SNT is that it accepts the no-perfectly-harmless-dose hypothesis. These people think the public is too stupid to understand that there is no practical difference between negligible risk and zero risk. They are wrong. All of us accept negligible risks every time we walk out the door.
Jack, you're doing it again. I've already forgotten what "NLT" means exactly, although I realize it's basically the anti-nuclear view that the only safe dose is zero, which, as you point out, is a ridiculous position, since we're all exposed to some radiation all the time. Then you use "20 mGy/day" and I don't know what the letters mean, although I realize it's a measure of dose per day. By not explaining these terms, you're preaching to the choir - a handful of fellow experts. What we desperately need is communication that will educate the public; not just other scientists. All you have to do is take a moment with each post to explain your terms so anyone can have a chance of understanding. Then lay people like me will be better able to use the info to help you spread the word.
I do have a physics degree, which included a course on nuclear physics, but just at the undergraduate (AB) level, and that was 50 years ago, before Chernobyl. If I have trouble with some of your terms, the more general public with no science background will be turned off and not even finish reading your posts. But those are the very people that need to be reached. We need more nuclear power plants!
There are people who will point out that even a single decay may be capable of causing cancer, and they are not wrong. Instead of insisting on zero harm, it is probably better to decouple the harm and benefit, which doesn't preclude pointing out that there is an unspecified net benefit at low dose rates. This is evidently true for potassium, and even accepted by visitors of radon spas, so there is precedent that people can understand.
Moreover, if a threshold is set, it will hinder research into low dose (rate) radiation to explore and quantify benefits; with SNT, people could still assent to research for the specified amount of compensation. For the concerned, it would also be straightforward to estimate "harm" from radon in spas or homes, which could help inform people about the absurdly small risk, and there will be no legal battles over compensation at those levels.
The threshold isn't nearly as important as the ability to easily compute potential harm using a reasonably accurate model, where even erring on the conservative side will have negligible cost.
Thanks Jack, You are definitely on the right track.
One calculation I like make for people is what the Grant RERF report on cancer incidence in H/N survivors says about the most highly exposed workers at Fukushima. Grant says 1% cancer incidence increase for males at 100 mGy. This would be about half as much for adult males. 100 mGy to 1000 adult males describes the most exposed Fukushima workers fairly well. If we assume a 30% cancer incidence in the next 60 years without the accident, then there would be 1-2 additional cancers to the background number of 300 +/- 30. Far from detectable even for this huge accident.
I hear you and understand your viewpoint, I will talk about Kerala, Radium dial painters, and Goiania Brazil. However, I am talking to workers in a regulated environment, specifically industrial radiographers and ultrasonic techs. The radiographers deal with sources every day and the ultrasonic techs work at reactors often. These people actually do get dose and some radiographers have gotten hurt. On the one hand I have to correct the wild exaggerations of radiation risk that these techs learned as students in NDT college. On the other hand I have to make sure that I am not contradicting the NCRP/CNSC/ICRP/NRC. The ICRP/NCRP reject cumulative dose calculations, because even they agree that the dose response is unknown in the range where it usually gets applied. Moreover, people start estimating what the dose will be years from now and are likely high by orders of magnitude. At least with the Fukushima workers, there is a defined group, with carefully measured doses and similar doses, a constrained time period of one year, and significant dose rates. Some 100 mGy workers got almost all of their dose in a few hours. SARI and I obviously disagree with LNT/cumulative dose, but it is instructive to see that these worse case estimations arrived at for the 1000 workers with about 100 mGy. That is 0 or 1 additional solid cancer diagnosis. I then make the point that other models produce lower estimates.
"It's the nuclear plant that isn't built that kills."
That is a large part of the message that needs to get out there.
A form of Frédéric Bastiat's commentary about seeking to understand the unseen aspects, as well as the more obvious aspects, of an issue.
Jack, you're doing it again. I've already forgotten what "NLT" means exactly, although I realize it's basically the anti-nuclear view that the only safe dose is zero, which, as you point out, is a ridiculous position, since we're all exposed to some radiation all the time. Then you use "20 mGy/day" and I don't know what the letters mean, although I realize it's a measure of dose per day. By not explaining these terms, you're preaching to the choir - a handful of fellow experts. What we desperately need is communication that will educate the public; not just other scientists. All you have to do is take a moment with each post to explain your terms so anyone can have a chance of understanding. Then lay people like me will be better able to use the info to help you spread the word.
I do have a physics degree, which included a course on nuclear physics, but just at the undergraduate (AB) level, and that was 50 years ago, before Chernobyl. If I have trouble with some of your terms, the more general public with no science background will be turned off and not even finish reading your posts. But those are the very people that need to be reached. We need more nuclear power plants!
There are people who will point out that even a single decay may be capable of causing cancer, and they are not wrong. Instead of insisting on zero harm, it is probably better to decouple the harm and benefit, which doesn't preclude pointing out that there is an unspecified net benefit at low dose rates. This is evidently true for potassium, and even accepted by visitors of radon spas, so there is precedent that people can understand.
Moreover, if a threshold is set, it will hinder research into low dose (rate) radiation to explore and quantify benefits; with SNT, people could still assent to research for the specified amount of compensation. For the concerned, it would also be straightforward to estimate "harm" from radon in spas or homes, which could help inform people about the absurdly small risk, and there will be no legal battles over compensation at those levels.
The threshold isn't nearly as important as the ability to easily compute potential harm using a reasonably accurate model, where even erring on the conservative side will have negligible cost.
Thanks Jack, You are definitely on the right track.
One calculation I like make for people is what the Grant RERF report on cancer incidence in H/N survivors says about the most highly exposed workers at Fukushima. Grant says 1% cancer incidence increase for males at 100 mGy. This would be about half as much for adult males. 100 mGy to 1000 adult males describes the most exposed Fukushima workers fairly well. If we assume a 30% cancer incidence in the next 60 years without the accident, then there would be 1-2 additional cancers to the background number of 300 +/- 30. Far from detectable even for this huge accident.
I hear you and understand your viewpoint, I will talk about Kerala, Radium dial painters, and Goiania Brazil. However, I am talking to workers in a regulated environment, specifically industrial radiographers and ultrasonic techs. The radiographers deal with sources every day and the ultrasonic techs work at reactors often. These people actually do get dose and some radiographers have gotten hurt. On the one hand I have to correct the wild exaggerations of radiation risk that these techs learned as students in NDT college. On the other hand I have to make sure that I am not contradicting the NCRP/CNSC/ICRP/NRC. The ICRP/NCRP reject cumulative dose calculations, because even they agree that the dose response is unknown in the range where it usually gets applied. Moreover, people start estimating what the dose will be years from now and are likely high by orders of magnitude. At least with the Fukushima workers, there is a defined group, with carefully measured doses and similar doses, a constrained time period of one year, and significant dose rates. Some 100 mGy workers got almost all of their dose in a few hours. SARI and I obviously disagree with LNT/cumulative dose, but it is instructive to see that these worse case estimations arrived at for the 1000 workers with about 100 mGy. That is 0 or 1 additional solid cancer diagnosis. I then make the point that other models produce lower estimates.