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

Comments

Study is right, but needs more..

[gurps_npc]

Basically, it should have compared it to coal, as coal releases more radioactivity than nuclear. Small bits of radioactive thorium are found in coal mines, and when you mine the coal, you release it from the entombed safety. Then when you burn the coal, you release even more into the atmosphere. The radioactivity risk in the immediate vicinity of a coal burning plant is significantly greater than that of all nuclear power plants. Coal miners and plant workers are more likely to die of cancer than uranium miners and nuclear power plant workers (note, this only applies to the US industry, other countries may have different rates due to different regulatory strengths.).

Re:Might want to read the fine print...

[Michael Woodhams]

This is fine - they're not pretending those impacts don't happen, they are just not what they're studying. They are asking "What does the fallout do to people some distance from the accident?"

The exposure people get early in the accident and very close to the reactors depends hugely on the nature of the accident. At Chernobyl, there were many firefighters within meters of an exposed critical core, resulting in a large toll from acute radiation sickness. At Fukushima, the cores ceased to be critical seconds after the quake and tens of minutes before the tsunami, and radiation was only released days later, so there was no acute radiation sickness.

By contrast, the effect of the fallout is much less dependent on the nature of the accident, just on how much radioactive material was released*. It can sensibly be studied without specifying details of how the accident happened.

* There is some dependence: the relative quantity of short lived isotopes such as Iodine-131 in the fallout depends somewhat on how long the radioactive material was contained prior to release.