Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

It's been over a year since an earthquake and tsunami devastated Northern Japan and killed 20,000 people.  However, you would never know it, considering the sensationalist coverage of the reactors and radiation at Fukushima, which have killed exactly no one.

Two excellent articles that describe this perverse phenomenon, here and here.

We, the believers in nuclear power, need to help others to overcome their fear of all things nuclear.  Unless we do, what future does nuclear have?  I don't have any idea how to do this, but I am willing to try.  Perhaps a good first step is to clearly identify those companies and organizations that obscenely profit from coal and oil and use their resources to fear monger against nuclear power?
 

Rational Risk Assessments

I owe my readers a frank discussion of risk in relation to commercial nuclear power generation.  I would like to start this discussion with a picture that is worth 10,000 words. 

Why worry about unknown risks while engaging in significant, known risks?

The photo shows an obviously pregnant woman smoking while wondering about the effect of the noise from jackhammers on her unborn child.  Now, I don't fault this lady for worrying about her unborn child.  I fault her for engaging in a significant and known risk - smoking- while worrying about noise from jackhammers. 

This is the camel and gnat analogy that I have written about before.  She is smoking "camels" (pun intended) while worrying about gnats (noise from jackhammers).

She is directly inhaling carcinogens, mutagens, tar, and carbon monoxide, which she probably does multiple times everyday, while the jackhammers are probably intermittent for 5 days a week until the construction job is done.  One is concentrated, known, and volitional (smoking), while the other is diffuse. non-volitional, and more distant from her baby (noise from jackhammers).

I believe this photo captures the quintessence of the average American response to risks posed by commercial nuclear power generation - straining at gnats while swallowing camels.  By this I mean, that Americans engage in known and significant risks, which they think nothing of, while having Fonda-esque epileptic fits over the much, much, much smaller riks posed by commercial nuclear power generation.

The next installment on this topic will discuss common, everyday risks and how they compare to those from commercial nuclear power generation.

Gnats and Camels

In Matthew 23:24 Jesus upbraids the scribes and pharisees for omitting the important matters in the law while insisting on fanatical observance of their own rules, "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel."

I immediately thought of that saying in Matthew when I read this blog about radioactivity.   A gentleman who works at a nuclear power plant underwent a medical procedure where he was given, by his doctor, 18.5 billion picocuries of radiation in the form of iodine 131 and allowed to walk out of the hospital 5 minutes later.   The guy couldn't return to work at the nuclear power plant for weeks because he was too radioactive!

Contrast that to the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the Vermont House and anti-nuke types over the few thousand picocuries of radiation in the form of tritium released by the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.  Many in Vermont actually want to shut down the power plant even though the release endangers no one.

18.5 billion picocuries versus 2,000 picocuries.  That is what I call the camel and the gnat.  Literally, swallow one and strain at the other.

PS.  I am not suggesting that associated gummint worthies increase their regulation of medical procedures, but that some rational risk assessment finally come to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Radiation Hormesis by T. D. Luckey

Radiation Hormesis is a wonderful book that has profound implications regarding the linear, no-threshold hypothesis of safe levels of radiation. In short, chronic exposure to radiation is not the same as acute exposure to radiation. Paracelsus said it this way, "The dose makes the poison." Consider vitamin C, not enough causes scurvy, but too much can be toxic. This book is filled with technical studies that show that Paracelsus' dictum applies to ionizing radiation; the dose is what counts! This book dispels the irrational fear and hysteria of radiation. That's why I like it!