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EPA Mulling Relaxed Radiation Protections For Nuclear Power
mdsolar sends this news from Forbes:
Both proponents and opponents of nuclear power expect the Environmental Protection Agency in coming months to relax its rules restricting radiation emissions from reactors and other nuclear facilities. EPA officials say they have no such intention, but they are willing to reconsider the method they use to limit public exposure—and the public's level of risk.
At issue is a 1977 rule that limits the total whole-body radiation dose to any member of the public from the normal operation of the uranium fuel cycle—fuel processing, reactors, storage, reprocessing or disposal—to 0.25 millisieverts per year. (This rule, known as 40 CFR part 190, is different from other EPA regulations that restrict radionuclides in drinking water and that limit public exposure during emergencies. Those are also due for revision.) "We have not made any decisions or determined any specifics on how to move forward with any of these issues. We do, however, believe the regulation uses outdated science, and we are thinking about how to bring the regulation more in line with current thinking," said Brian Littleton, a chemical engineer with EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air."
At issue is a 1977 rule that limits the total whole-body radiation dose to any member of the public from the normal operation of the uranium fuel cycle—fuel processing, reactors, storage, reprocessing or disposal—to 0.25 millisieverts per year. (This rule, known as 40 CFR part 190, is different from other EPA regulations that restrict radionuclides in drinking water and that limit public exposure during emergencies. Those are also due for revision.) "We have not made any decisions or determined any specifics on how to move forward with any of these issues. We do, however, believe the regulation uses outdated science, and we are thinking about how to bring the regulation more in line with current thinking," said Brian Littleton, a chemical engineer with EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air."
It's good to see the EPA finally considering relaxing some of its uptight, business-hostile regulations. No wonder the US is losing ground to the developing world when for a few decades it has pushed this regulatory regime that holds industry back and has really harmed wider adoption of nuclear energy. As the case of China shows, the population is willing to accept an increase in pollution as long as the country sees strong economic growth and (something to think of after the "Obamacare" wrangling) advanced and affordable health services are available to somewhat make up for the possible decrease in life expectancy that said pollution might entail.
it is the common view of medical and general science during the century-odd that we have discovered and been able to document radiation and its effects... that no amount is "generally recognized as safe" and standards need to be tightened.
What makes your "common view" any more valid than any other "common view"? Especially given that "generally recognized as safe" is a completely non-scientific quantity. In the end, you need evidence to back up such assertions not alleged consensus of vague groups of people.
so a comprehensive review based on science would move the decimal point to the left, at least to .025 mS/year, and perhaps .0025 mS.
Background levels are around 1 mS/year. So why advocate thresholds more than two orders of magnitude lower than what people normally get in a year? I just don't think science has much to do with your choice of thresholds.
I'm sick and tired of the notion that it's OK to pollute, as long as you don't pollute "too much."
It's pretty straightforward actually. We do valuable things and sometimes they cause pollution, sometimes minor sometimes massive. Instead of being "sick and tired" about the non problem of minute pollution (especially given that there is actual large scale, heavy, life-threatening pollution out there), do a cost/benefits analysis instead.
While the EPA is thinking about raising limits on how much radioactive material nuclear power plants can release into the environment there are no limits on what coal plants can release. The radioactive material in coal is considered "naturally occurring" since it was dug out of the ground. However thorium is not naturally occurring radioactive material because it is... also dug out of the ground.
The federal regulations on radioactive materials and pollution have little relation to reason. This nonsense is holding up research in nuclear power. If our "carbon footprint" is an issue then it does not look to me like the government cares a whole lot. They'll toss money at coal powered "electric" cars but not allow a nuclear power plant to get built in four decades.
What happens to our carbon footprint with all those electric cars powered from coal and natural gas? Oh, we power our cars from wind and solar? That's laughable. No one has yet made a solar panel that can make a profit. Wind power might make a profit but it relies on natural gas turbines to make up for when the wind does not blow. Wind power actually increases carbon output because instead of using efficient boilers they have to use inefficient turbines.
Getting back to the radiation aspect the burning of natural gas releases radon into the air. Is there any regulations on that? No, because that is "naturally occurring", as if because it's "natural" radiation it does us no harm. What we need to do is hold up fossil fuels to the same standard as nuclear power. We'd switch over to nuclear power on that aspect alone.
All power sources release radiation into the environment. We're disturbing the earth as we dig for coal, uranium, silicon, or hydro electric basins. Even bio-fuels release radiation because we dig up the earth to plant the crops.
Nuclear power has the lowest carbon footprint of any power source we know of. Solar and wind cannot even compete because of all the concrete needed to hold up the structures. I'd suspect that if anyone did an honest assessment of the radiation released then it'd probably do better than the rest there as well.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Yep, I think we can all agree that it's worth a few punkin' headed babies and/or a couple of deaths so the rest of us can have brighter colors and whiter whites.
I know you're trying to be sarcastic, but yes, that is right. A small or even non-existent harm for vast benefit to many people justifies the harm. Given that we know there are far more serious problems, not just environmental, but of the human condition, this is a strong indication that we should be bothering with those big problems rather than obsessing over the small or non-existent ones.
I am not impressed with the state of coal fired emissions regulation (sulfur compounds are down; but fly ash certainly isn't something that cures what ails you, and the general 'Eh, old stuff just gets grandfathered because we can't fight the incumbents' model of regulation is broken); but your snarking about the poor reactors being treated as unnatural is rather flawed.
The further your coal gets from being pure carbon, the more dire some of the potential aerosolized-and-spread-hither-and-yon materials are; but the process is just conventional chemistry, you aren't going to emit anything you didn't dig up(except the added oxygen). A nuclear reactor; shockingly enough, is not subject to this limitation, and fairly aggressively shoves assorted fissionables down the decay chain.
Aside from the one (known) incident at Oklo, the crust isn't seeing much in the way of activity above background decay rates, and it follows that anything with a short half life is going to be extremely scarce. Something that's been dug up, concentrated, and carefully stewed in its own neutrons, by contrast, will have a very different collection of isotopes, some remarkably scarce anywhere else.
This doesn't mean that coal power is good for you, or restricted in what it contributes to our air supply; because that is very unlikely; but it's just silly to pretend that reactor products are isotopically similar to what you'll find in the ground; the 'power' in 'nuclear power' is only there because they aren't.
I have no opinion about the threshold, but there are two things to correct in your post:
it is the common view of medical and general science during the century-odd that we have discovered and been able to document radiation and its effects... that no amount is "generally recognized as safe" and standards need to be tightened.
What makes your "common view" any more valid than any other "common view"? Especially given that "generally recognized as safe" is a completely non-scientific quantity. In the end, you need evidence to back up such assertions not alleged consensus of vague groups of people.
He is absolutely right though. It is the common view of the scientific community that no amount of ionizing radiation is safe. This is also the basis of all radiation protection regulation everywhere (ALARA principle). The reason is simple: Ionizing radiation creates DNA damage with a small probability which then causes cancer with a small probability (which has then a certain probability of killing you). So even a single particle has a very small probability of causing cancer. There is a minority of people that believe that there are other effects (e.g. radiation at low doses activates the immune system) which dominate at low doses, but this is a minority view point and the data we have does not support this. From atomic bomb survivors see a linear correspondence between dose and risk down to about 50 mSv. For example, from this it was predictated that CT scans cause cancer with a very low probability and this has recently been confirmed.
so a comprehensive review based on science would move the decimal point to the left, at least to .025 mS/year, and perhaps .0025 mS.
Background levels are around 1 mS/year. So why advocate thresholds more than two orders of magnitude lower than what people normally get in a year? I just don't think science has much to do with your choice of thresholds.
This is a fallacy. The threshold should be set on the estimated benefits of a higher threshold vs the estimated harm from the additional radiation. The background radiation has nothing to with it.
so a comprehensive review based on science would move the decimal point to the left, at least to .025 mS/year, and perhaps .0025 mS.
Quite the opposite actually. A comprehensive review based on your assumptions might, but based on science they would use real world data with real people. Even with the decades of medical data we have today, exposure from numerous CT Scans, regional radon exposures, and other sources, there is still no evidence in the real population that there are any negative effects from low dose radiation, and it is increasingly clear that the existing safety limits are ultra conservative. Those limits are based on decades old war era studies that observed effects of huge radiation doses which dropped off at lower rates to non-observable percentages. In the interest of being conservatively safe in a world where nuclear fear was at an all time high, they simply drew an almost linear correlation from the high does cases down to zero. But it is quite clear that once you get down into ranges even several times higher than safety limits, no actual increase in cancers or similar are found.
The problem is the old issue of proving the negative combined with a societal mus-perception of radiation exposure risk. There is little incentive in society to improve on the outdated basis we are using.
Never mind that, even were all nuclear power stations (and their accumulated waste waste), and the effects of every nuclear test in history to disappear from the planet TODAY, you'd STILL be living in an environment FILLED with radiation.
And how do you explain places like Guarapari Brazil, with its naturally radioactive beaches? Where the average exposure a year is 175 mS? Yet they don't have higher instances of cancer and radiation-related disease?
I'm sorry, your views of radiation, and its place in nature are uneducated, fear-driven and have no real basis in "science".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Sorry, but YES.
This isn't about "brighter colors" and "whiter whites".
It's about providing for the world's energy needs WITHOUT massive greenhouse gas pollution, whose effects could kill off significant chunks of life on this planet.
Unless YOU want to be one of the unlucky 99% who is volunteering to go shiver and starve in a cave someplace.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I'm sick and tired of the notion that it's OK to pollute, as long as you don't pollute "too much."
If it isn't "too much", it isn't pollution.
In a sense, breathing and pissing are polluting but as long as the ecosystem can handle it you are in a sustainable pattern.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
The other deaths are simply irrelevant to this consideration.
No, they indicate that society accepts a certain level of harm from automobiles. The "minor cost savings" is capped from above before it is just not worth doing.
The overall harm society accepts for mobility is unrelated to the question whether a couple of lifes are worth the cost of an improved ignitation key.
I see your point, but I do not agree to the idea that society, by tolerating fatalities from traffic accidents, has accepted a universal trade-off between risk of death and cost. (There are many problems with this idea: how would you quantify the total value of mobility? Also society is not one single entity but consits of many different people with different interests. Cost and risks are also not equally distributed, e.g.. why should society trade a cost to GM with a risk of death to others?). But this is also irrelevant to the original question: The natural background radiation is nothing society has voluntarily accepted.
(Pretty pointless to have a 1mSv/year limit when you have had a population of millions living in twice that for a couple of millennium without any measurable problems.)
Indeed, this is even measurable. 1mSv/year is average, if variations caused significant differences in cancer rates you'd expect it to readily show in in areas like Colorado vs Mississippi.
I don't read AC A human right
That's the tradeoff we make with vaccination programs. A small percentage of kids who are vaccinated get sick, and a few of them die every year. But we still vaccinate everyone because the benefits far outweigh those costs.
The flaw in your reasoning (it's a pretty common flawed line of reasoning, not just yours, so I'm not picking on you) is that you're trying to compare against a nonexistent zero state. Radiation can cause death. If there were no radiation, there would be no deaths. Therefore we must avoid radiation. Likewise, if we didn't vaccinate, those kids who died from vaccination wouldn't die. Therefore we shouldn't vaccinate.
To do a correct comparison, you can't compare to a zero state. You must take into account opportunity costs; you have to compare with alternative equivalent states. Without vaccination, far more people would die from the diseases we're vaccinating against. Without nuclear power, the world loses 13% of its electricity. The harm from that far exceeds the few deaths from even Fukushima-level accidents. Or if you replaced that nuclear generation with the next most-viable alternative (coal/gas), the emissions from those are far more harmful than the radiation hazards from nuclear. Even if you managed to replace them with wind and solar, the number of deaths installing and maintaining all those turbines and rooftop panels (roughly 11,000 turbines for a Fukushima-level plant, or 4.8 million homes with 40 m^2 of panels installed on each of their roofs) far exceeds the number that nuclear has killed.*
* Math for the wind/solar comparison:
Which is to say, forever. By definition precisely one half of the population live with background radiation above the median level. That can be stated without any knowledge whatsoever of what that median level is or what the distribution is. It is a truism. I'm not aware of the precise statisic for percentage living with above average background radiation, but for example we do know that the natural background radiation in Finland is about three times that in the UK.