Jenkins on Nuclear risks
It is extremely important that nuclear facilities should be built and operated with due concern for all safety issues including radition. Nuclear Management Partners who operate Sellafield are proud of their policy that safety is of great importance and they don't compromise on it. Much more attention is paid now to safety issues than was the case in the past and this is a good thing.
However, analysis of risks should be based on a level headed view of what risks actually exist, and not on irrational panic. Simon Jenkins had an interesting article in the Guardian this week which you can read here in which he reviews two books about "the irrational fear of radiation."
His article is called "The proliferation of nuclear panic is politics at its most ghoulish." and it pulls no punches.
The first book reviewed is called "Radiation and Reason," by an Oxford professor of physics, Wade Allison. It narrates the history and nature of nuclear radiation, and criticises the "obsessive safety levels" governing nuclear energy. These overstate the true risk, in Allison's view, by up to 500 times.
The second book, "Atomic Obsession" by John Mueller, professor of political science at Ohio State University, is a similar analysis of the fear associated with radiation from nuclear weapons.
Radiation, says Allison, is nothing like as dangerous as the anti-nuclear lobby claims. The permitted radiation level in the waste storage hall at Sellafield is so low (1 mSv per hour) as to be negligible. This compares with the 100 mSv threshold for even remote cancer risk and 5,500 for radiation sickness. According to Allison, someone would have to live for a million hours in Sellafield to absorb the same radiation as is administered in a hospital radiotherapy suite. Higher doses are permitted in food processing and even in medicinal resorts, with supposed beneficial or at least harmless effects.
This side of the argument rarely gets enough attention and these books are a welcome counterbalance.
However, analysis of risks should be based on a level headed view of what risks actually exist, and not on irrational panic. Simon Jenkins had an interesting article in the Guardian this week which you can read here in which he reviews two books about "the irrational fear of radiation."
His article is called "The proliferation of nuclear panic is politics at its most ghoulish." and it pulls no punches.
The first book reviewed is called "Radiation and Reason," by an Oxford professor of physics, Wade Allison. It narrates the history and nature of nuclear radiation, and criticises the "obsessive safety levels" governing nuclear energy. These overstate the true risk, in Allison's view, by up to 500 times.
The second book, "Atomic Obsession" by John Mueller, professor of political science at Ohio State University, is a similar analysis of the fear associated with radiation from nuclear weapons.
Radiation, says Allison, is nothing like as dangerous as the anti-nuclear lobby claims. The permitted radiation level in the waste storage hall at Sellafield is so low (1 mSv per hour) as to be negligible. This compares with the 100 mSv threshold for even remote cancer risk and 5,500 for radiation sickness. According to Allison, someone would have to live for a million hours in Sellafield to absorb the same radiation as is administered in a hospital radiotherapy suite. Higher doses are permitted in food processing and even in medicinal resorts, with supposed beneficial or at least harmless effects.
This side of the argument rarely gets enough attention and these books are a welcome counterbalance.
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