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Canadian Nuclear Accident Study Puts Risks Into Perspective
An anonymous reader writes: A Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) study has concluded that there would be no detectable increase in cancer risk for most of the population from radiation released in a hypothetical severe nuclear accident. The CNSC's study is the result of a collaborative effort of research and analysis undertaken to address concerns raised during public hearings on the environmental assessment for the refurbishment of Ontario Power Generation's (OPG's) Darlington nuclear power plant in 2012. The draft study was released for public consultation in June 2014. Feedback from the Commission itself and comments from over 500 submissions from the public, government and other organizations have been incorporated in the final version. The study involved identifying and modelling a large atmospheric release of radionuclides from a hypothetical severe nuclear accident at the four-unit Darlington plant
From the study: "The radiological exposure to people (beyond the first seven days) and its resulting short and long-term health impacts are not assessed in this study."
In other words, the flow of radionuclides through the environment, and expected specific dispersal and concentration pathways resulting in human exposure and the resulting cancers risks were not studied.
Damn, I knew we forgot something!
Back to the drawing board guys, we completely forgot the part where the entire population of the country is required to march single-file through ground zero!
But seriously: there's absolutely no question that being at ground zero is going to ruin your day, month, and probably even your year. But if you aren't right there or immediately downwind where the worst of the toxic heavy metals settle out of the air, the radiation becomes just slightly-above-background-level pretty quick.
>There have been people living at Chernobyl for will over 25 years; no ill effects
Liar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_necklace
Chernobyl necklace is a term applied to the horizontal scar left on the base of the neck after a surgery to remove a thyroid cancer caused by fallout from a nuclear accident.[1] The scar has come to be seen as one of the most graphic demonstrations of the impact of the Chernobyl disaster.
Funny, since the sun is actually nuclear energy.
how they could come to such a conclusion defies logic. As accidents, by their very nature are unpredictable.
Actually they aren't as unpredictable as you think. Predicting accidents and fallout scenarios underpins the entire process safety movement of modern process plants. The nuclear industry has some 50 years of experience and data on exactly how often every abnormal operating condition happens. They simple extrapolate as to what would happen if the abnormal operating condition is unable to be corrected (the hazard).
Have they factored in the lid of the containment vessel blowing off
Why would they? Primary containment explosion is an incredibly rare event. The only time an event has ever escalated to that level was with a 50 year old reactor design which had it's safety features disabled on purpose and was then run at an operating point that was known to be unstable on purpose. It was also done on a graphite moderated reactor with a huge positive power co-efficient which caused a runaway reaction. By comparison the reactor being talked about is a CANDU reactor which has a really low and only slightly positive power co-efficient making an explosion from within the containment vessel very unlikely. And that's before taking into account that the reactor commissioned in the 90s has very different and way better safety systems than one in the 70s.
And for perspective, up to 2011only about 15 people had actually died of their thyroid cancer, out of a possible 10,000 affected. In fact, more people died in the initial explosion.
For even more perspective, twice as many people killed by guns in the US every day than died to thyroid cancer caused by Chernobyl in the entire time since the disaster.