Data and Documents

REALISM -

In Engineering and Analysis

of Radioactivity Sources and Consequences

 in Using Nuclear Technologies

Statement on Realism

Overview

Nuclear technology has been repeatedly characterized in widely circulated public statements as posing public hazards so extensive and unprecedented as to outweigh any possible benefits. The record of several hundred plants operating reliably for decades without any public harm is countered with the fear that a casualty, of a type not yet considered, might some day release radioactivity causing thousands of deaths and injuries over great distances. Underlying this fear is a feeling that nuclear radiation is somehow in a class by itself, not fully controllable by conventional means.

In this situation, informed professionals have an obligation to state the laws of nature and the physical properties of materials that limit the consequences that could result from any casualty to a nuclear power plant or its fuel. Nuclear materials and processes are not mysterious or unpredictable; they are governed by the same kinds of familiar physical laws that are the basis of all science and engineering.

Apocalyptic descriptions of nuclear casualties are based on speculation, sometimes aided by simplified computer models, of what might happen under certain extreme premises. Such computer models do not produce real-world data. They produce hypotheticals in numerical disguise. The large numbers of deaths they “predict” rest on false premises. If the premises are wrong, then the calculated deaths based on them will not occur.

But we don’t have to speculate about those premises. We have a great deal of credible scientific data on each of them. Engineering analysis and tests show that nothing could be done to a water-type nuclear power plant or its fuel that could lead to a serious public health hazard. (See Annex 1.)

Let us look at the scientific evidence for this conclusion:

1. Studying various possible accident scenarios or terrorist acts enables us to design systems to minimize the possibility of fuel meltdown. We cannot foresee every possibility. But for casualty evaluation, we need only to assume the worst realistic consequence of any such scenario, which is melting of much of the fuel and compromise of the containment structure. If we can deal with that situation, no other realistic situation could have worse public health consequences.

2. Nuclear fuel is a zirconium-clad very-high-melting ceramic. Even when molten, it does not readily release much of its fission products. This is known from theory, from laboratory studies, and from large-scale tests over a period of decades.

3. Harmful quantities of hot fission products do not stay suspended in respirable form for long. So they cannot affect people far away. The particles rapidly clump, fall out, or plate onto cold structures or dissolve in on-site water. The noble gases disperse. We have good confirmation of our test data on this from the Three Mile Island accident and other casualties to nuclear reactors or their fuel.

4. Few, if any, credible scientists claim there is any evidence to show that low-dose radiation is harmful. They concede as much in official documents. But they argue that we should assume such harm anyway, “just to be prudent.” (Annex 2)

5. Even advocates of extreme scenarios concede that radiation doses to an individual from a nuclear casualty would be very small. But they argue that exposing millions of individuals to small doses will result in thousands of deaths. This is scientifically indefensible. Groups don’t get cancer, only individuals do. If no individual gets a harmful dose, then no individual is harmed. (Annex 3)

6. But promoting unwarranted fear of radiation and wildly overstating hazards from minor spills or the potential of a “dirty bomb” is not prudence. It is fear-mongering. The public is scared away from life-saving nuclear medical procedures, from irradiated food, from non-polluting nuclear power plants, and many other benefits. (Annex 4)