Public Interest Report – Winter 2016/2017 (Volume 69, Number 3) by Federation of American Scientists

PIR WINTER 2016/2017 VOL. 69, NO. 3

Public Interest Report (PIR) Volume 69, Number 3. Published by the Federation of American Scientists.

Public Interest Report

Federation of American Scientists

PUBLIC INTEREST REPORT

Volume 69, Number 3

STAFF

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHARLES D. FERGUSON

Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Accidents and Detonations 1

Editor-in-Chief

by Charles D. Ferguson

FRANKIE GUARINI

Managing Editor, Layout Designer

FAS in 2016: Year in Review 2

PIA ULRICH

Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — U.S. Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies 4

Copy Editor

CONTRIBUTORS

by Steven Starr

CHARLES D. FERGUSON pp. 1, 16

President, Federation of American Scientists

Chernobyl and Trinity —Counting the Curies 12

STEVEN STARR p. 4 Director, Clinical Laboratory Science Program, University of Missouri-Columbia

by B. Cameron Reed

B. CAMERON REED p. 12

Revisiting Chernobyl 16

Chair and Professor of Physics, Alma College

by Charles D. Ferguson

EDWARD A. FRIEDMAN p. 17

Calculating the Uncountable Deaths from Chernobyl 17

Professor Emeritus, Stevens Institute of Technology

by Edward A. Friedman

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Cover Photo “Third Angel Statue” in Pripyat, Ukraine, a nuclear city that served the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant until its evacuation following the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986. It is now part of an exclusion zone formed after the Chernobyl accident in response to the resulting radiation. It is based on the Bible verse:

The Federation of American Scientists welcomes letters to the editor for the PIR.

Letters should not exceed 500 words and may be edited for clarity, length, and compliance with FAS’s editorial standards before publication on fas.org (pending the author’s approval and at FAS’s discretion).

“The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water—the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.” Revelation 8:10-11

To submit a letter, email it to fas@fas.org or send it by mail to: Attn: Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists 1725 DeSales Street NW, Suite 600 Washington, DC 20036

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President’s Message

level of less than a few dozen. Above this threshold, nuclear winter could be triggered if these warheads were detonated on targets that could result in massive amounts of soot and particulate matter being lofted into the upper atmosphere. Political and military leaders could dismiss this concern by believing that there is too much uncertainty in the calculations or by convincing themselves that a relatively large number of weapons is still necessary for political and military power projection.

Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Accidents and Detonations

The increasing global attention about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war has paralleled the ongoing massive cleanup of contamination around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. Several tens of thousands of people are still displaced from their homes, though no one has died in the past near-six years since the Fukushima accident as a result of radiation exposure. The long-term health effects from radiation, however, have yet to be seen, but arguably the number of cancers developed from this exposure should be small because of the relatively quick evacuation of the population from the affected region.

 Charles D. Ferguson

 President, Federation of American Scientists

n the past three years, more and more nations have expressed a growing concern about the humanitarian impact of the use of nuclear weapons. Since spring 2013, a few international conferences and forums have brought together experts to examine the potential impacts. For example, Hans Kristensen, Director of the FAS Nuclear Information Project, presented at a Vienna conference in December 2014. As negotiations on a proposed treaty to ban nuclear weapons are set to start in spring 2017, FAS will continue to analyze the science of nuclear effects and policy implications of a world without nuclear weapons.

Chernobyl’s radiation effects dwarf Fukushima’s because of the roughly ten times greater land contamination in Belarus, Ukraine, and some other parts of Europe as compared to Japan, and because the evacuation of most of the population affected by this Chernobyl-caused contamination was delayed by days due to the Soviet authorities hiding the fact of the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station on April 26, 1986. In this Public Interest Report, professor emeritus Edward Friedman tries to find an answer to the question: What is the order of magnitude number of deaths in the past 30 years due to radiation exposure? He is not even asking for the exact number of deaths from this exposure, which we will never know. The order of magnitude effect is still important to know from a policy perspective. But the answer is not so easy to find out as explained in his essay. Dr. Friedman calls for an independent body of experts to study this question.

In this issue of the Public Interest Report, Steven Starr calls for national and global leadership in taking action to avert the potential triggering of nuclear winter by even a “smallscale” nuclear war, which would be a major humanitarian consequence on agriculture as well as the huge blast effects. As Mr. Starr argues, political and military leaders should not ignore the non-blast effects of nuclear weapons. As Lynn Eden has examined in her path-breaking book, Whole World on Fire (2004), the military has not taken into account the massive firestorms that would be created by detonation of nuclear weapons on cities. The military was only giving “credit” to blast damage; thus, in effect, thinking of nuclear weapons as just very big conventional weapons and thereby dismissing the tremendous harm from firestorms on buildings and other urban infrastructure. Mr. Starr cites relatively recent computer simulation studies of “small” nuclear wars involving dozens of nuclear detonations in India and Pakistan. These simulations indicate that potentially one billion or more people in and outside these countries could starve to death due to the massive cooling effects on food production.

Dr. Cameron Reed’s article examines a scientific question in the middle ground between the issues addressed by Dr. Friedman and Mr. Starr. That is, Dr. Reed estimates, via calculations and a literature survey, the radioactivity released by the first fission bomb, which was named Trinity. Like the other two articles, Dr. Reed’s article is relevant for better public policy in consideration of the effects of even just one nuclear explosion. Fortunately, it has been more than 71 years since nuclear weapons were detonated in war. Almost all people alive today have no memory of those events and thus might discount their reality. However, scientists must not allow any of us to forget the effects by educating the public and political leaders through scientific analysis. As FAS ventures into its next 71 years, we will work diligently to bring people with diverse expertise together to apply the best scientific, political, social, and legal thinking, as appropriate, to make the world safer from catastrophic risks, such as nuclear war or severe nuclear accidents.

Highly competent scientists have performed these calculations, which sound the alarm of potentially catastrophic damage, while non-scientists in leadership positions have chosen not to act on this warning. Of course, the implication for the leaders is that they should drastically reduce the number of nuclear warheads to under the threshold

Lynn Eden, Whole World on Fire (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

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70 YEARS OF SCIENCE

In September, FAS hosted its 70th anniversary symposium and awards ceremony on Capitol Hill to discuss issues of science and policy and honor three scientists who have contributed significantly to the world at large: M. Granger Morgan, Maxine Singer, and Ted Postol. Other guests included: Congressman Bill Foster, Senator Ed Markey, and President Obama’s senior science and technology advisor, John Holdren.

SCIENTISTS’ NETWORK

Throughout 2016, FAS has engaged dozens of expert scientists and policymakers to write original content for FAS publications, to become members of FAS task forces, and even to provide a platform for young to mid-career scientists to showcase their exemplary work and start a dialogue with the hundreds of FAS-affiliated scientists, policymakers, and thinkers alike.

60 MINUTES ADVISORY Hans Kristensen, Director of the FAS Nuclear Information Project, appeared on two episodes of 60 Minutes, including the episode, “Risk of nuclear attack rises.” Kristensen also advised CBS News journalists who produced the 60 Minutes episodes and provided an on-air demonstration to 60 Minutes correspondent David Martin detailing Russian bomber travel routes.

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2016: Year in Review

IRAN DEAL EXPERTISE

Christopher A. Bidwell, Senior Fellow for Nonproliferation Policy and Law at FAS, appeared on both Voice of America and Sky News Arabia as a key expert to discuss the ramifications and outlook of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — the Iran nuclear agreement. Bidwell also is a member of the FAS task force on Iran and has published an analysis on the future of the deal, available on fas.org.

TASK FORCE REPORT

Through the FAS Task Force Model, which unites several scientists and policymakers with FAS experts to provide an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems, Alain Tournyol du Clos, a lead architect of France’s naval nuclear propulsion program, authored an FAS-sponsored special report addressing France’s decision to use low-enriched uranium in its naval nuclear propulsion program.

OVERSIGHT TESTIMONY

Steven Aftergood, Director of the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, testified at the House Oversight Committee’s hearing on government overclassification and its effect on transparency and security. Author of Secrecy News, an online blog dedicated to promoting government transparency, Aftergood proposed a concrete roadmap and solutions for reducing overclassification and measuring future progress. 3

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Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — U.S. Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies

Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UCLA, these scientists used state-of-the-art computer modeling to evaluate the consequences of a range of possible nuclear conflicts. They began with a hypothetical war in Southeast Asia, in which a total of 100 Hiroshima-size

 Steven Starr  Director of Clinical Laboratory Science Program,

Before.

University of Missouri-Columbia

Photo/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

atomic bombs were detonated in the cities of India and Pakistan. Please consider the following images of Hiroshima, before and after the detonation of the atomic bomb, which had an explosive power of 15,000 tons of TNT.

ow 10 years ago, several of the world’s leading climatologists and physicists chose to reinvestigate the long-term environmental impacts of nuclear war. The peer-reviewed studies they produced are considered to be the most authoritative type of scientific research, which is subjected to criticism by the international scientific community before final publication in scholarly journals. No serious errors were found in these studies and their findings remain unchallenged. 1 2 3 4 5

The detonation of an atomic bomb with this explosive power will instantly ignite fires over a surface area of three to five square miles. In the recent studies, the scientists calculated that the blast, fire, and radiation from a war fought with 100 atomic bombs could produce direct fatalities comparable to all of those worldwide in World War II, or to those once estimated for a “counterforce” nuclear war between the superpowers. 6 However, the long-term environmental effects of the war could significantly disrupt the global weather

Working at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers, and the Department of

1 Alan Robock et al., “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 112 (2007), http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockNW2006JD008235.pdf. 2 Owen Brian Toon et al., “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 7 (2007), http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-1973-2007.pdf. 3 Michael Mills et al., “Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict,” Proceedings of the Na tional Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105, no. 14 (2008), http://pnas.org/content/105/14/5307.full. 4

Michael Mills et al., “Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a regional nuclear conflict,” Earth’s Future 2, http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/MillsNWeft224.pdf.

5 Alan Robock et al., “Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 7 (2007), http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-2003-2007.pdf. 6

Toon et al., “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism,” 1973.

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for at least a decade, which would likely result in a vast global famine. 7

As the smoke layer blocked warming sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface, it would produce the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1,000 years.12 The scientists calculated that global food production would decrease by 20 to 40 percent during a five-

The scientists predicted that nuclear firestorms in the burning cities would cause at least five million tons of black carbon

After.

Photo/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

year period following such a war. 13 Medical experts have predicted that the shortening of growing seasons and corresponding decreases in agricultural production could cause up to two billion people to perish from famine. 14

smoke to quickly rise above cloud level into the stratosphere, where it could not be rained out. 8 The smoke would circle the Earth in less than two weeks and would form a global stratospheric smoke layer that would remain for more than a decade. 9 The smoke would absorb warming sunlight, which would heat the smoke to temperatures near the boiling point of water, producing ozone losses of 20 to 50 percent over populated areas. 10 This would almost double the amount of UV-B reaching the most populated regions of the mid-latitudes, and it would create UV-B indices unprecedented in human history. In North America and Central Europe, the time required to get a painful sunburn at mid-day in June could decrease to as little as six minutes for fairskinned individuals.11

The climatologists also investigated the effects of a nuclear war fought with the vastly more powerful modern thermonuclear weapons possessed by the United States, Russia, China, France, and England. Some of the thermonuclear weapons constructed during the 1950s and 1960s were 1,000 times more powerful than an atomic bomb. 15 During the last 30 years, the average size of thermonuclear or “strategic” nuclear weapons has decreased. Yet today, each of the approx-

Ira Helfand, “Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People At Risk?,” http://psr.org/assets/pdfs/two-billion-at-risk.pdf.

Toon et al., “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism,” 1998-1999.

“5 million tons of smoke created by 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons,” Nuclear Darkness, n.d., http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/fivemilliontonsofsmoke/.

10 Mills et al., “Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict,” http://pnas.org/content/105/14/5307.full. 11

Mills et al., “Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a regional nuclear conflict,” 170.

Ibid.

13 Ariel Conn, “The experts on nuclear winter,” Future of Life Institute, Podcast audio, November 3, 2016, http://thebulletin.org/multimedia/experts-nuclear-winter. 14

Helfand, “Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People At Risk?,” 13.

“Cold War: A Brief History,” Atomic Archive, n.d., http://atomicarchive.com/History/coldwar/page06.shtml.

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ering land surface areas of many thousands or tens of thousands of square miles. The scientists calculated that these fires would produce up to 180 million tons of black carbon soot and smoke,17 which would form a dense, global stratospheric smoke layer. 18 The smoke would remain in the stratosphere for 10 to 20 years, and it would block as much as 70 percent of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Northern Hemisphere and 35 percent from the Southern Hemisphere. So much sunlight would be blocked by the smoke that the noonday sun would resemble a full moon at midnight.19

Under such conditions, it would only require a matter of days or weeks for daily minimum temperatures to fall below freezing in the largest agricultural areas of the Northern Hemisphere, where freezing temperatures would occur every day for a period of between one to more than two years. 20 Average surface temperatures would become colder than those experienced 18,000 years ago at the height of the last Ice Age, and the prolonged cold would cause average rainfall to decrease by up to 90%. Growing seasons would be completely eliminated for more than a decade; it would be too cold and dark to grow food crops, which would doom the majority of the human population. 21

Image/Steven Starr

imately 3,540 strategic weapons deployed by the United States and Russia is seven to 80 times more powerful than the atomic bombs modeled in the India-Pakistan study. The smallest strategic nuclear weapon has an explosive power of 100,000 tons of TNT, compared to an atomic bomb with an average explosive power of 15,000 tons of TNT. Strategic nuclear weapons produce much larger nuclear firestorms than do atomic bombs. For example, a standard Russian 800-kiloton warhead, on an average day, will ignite fires covering a surface area of 90 to 152 square miles. 16

NUCLEAR WINTER IN BRIEF The profound cold and darkness following nuclear war became known as nuclear winter 22 and was first predicted in 1983 by a group of NASA scientists led by Carl Sagan. 23 During the

A war fought with hundreds or thousands of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons would ignite immense nuclear firestorms cov-

16 Steven Starr et al., “What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated above midtown Manhattan?,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 25, 2015, http://thebulletin.org/what-would-happen-if-800-kiloton-nuclear-warhead-detonated-above-midtown-manhattan8023. 17

Owen Brian Toon et al., “Environmental consequences of nuclear war,” Physics Today (2008),

http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/ToonRobockTurcoPhysicsToday.pdf, 38.

“Consequences of a large nuclear war,” Nuclear Darkness, n.d., http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/hundredfiftytonessmoke/.

Steven Starr, “Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter, and Human Extinction,” Federation of American Scientists, October 14, 2015, http://fas.org/pir-pubs/nuclear-war-nuclear-winter-and-human-extinction.

Robock et al., “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences,” 6.

Toon et al., “Environmental consequences of nuclear war,” 40.

Robock et al., “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences.”

Paul R. Ehrlich et al., The Cold and the Dark (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985).

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general public, and even most anti-nuclear activists, were left with the idea that nuclear winter had been scientifically disproved.

mid-1980s, a large body of research was done by such groups as the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), 24 the World Meteorological Organization, and the U.S. National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences; their work essentially supported the initial findings of the 1983 studies.

REJECTION BY LEADERS Yet the scientists did not give up. In 2006, they returned to their labs to perform the research I have previously described. Their new research not only upheld the previous findings but also found that the earlier studies actually underestimated the environmental effects of nuclear war.

The idea of nuclear winter, published and supported by prominent scientists, generated extensive public alarm and put political pressure on the United States and Soviet Union to reverse a runaway nuclear arms race, which, by 1986, had created a global nuclear arsenal of more than 65,000 nuclear weapons. 25 Unfortunately, this created a backlash among many powerful military and industrial interests, who undertook an extensive media campaign to brand nuclear winter as “bad science” and the scientists who discovered it as “irresponsible.”

Dr. Robock of Rutgers and Dr. Toon of the University of Colorado have spent years attempting to bring official attention to their work and get follow-up research studies done by appropriate agencies in the federal government. In a recent (2016) interview,27 Dr. Toon stated: The Department of Energy and the Department of Defense, which should be investigating this problem, have done absolutely nothing. They have not published a single paper, in the open literature, analyzing this problem ... We have made a list of where we think the important issues are, and we have gone to every [federal] agency we can think of with these lists, and said “Don’t you think someone should study this?” Basically, everyone we have tried so far has said, “Well that’s not my job.”

Critics used various uncertainties in the studies and the first climate models (which are primitive by today’s standards) as a basis to criticize and reject the concept of nuclear winter. In 1986, the Council on Foreign Relations published an article by scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who predicted drops in global cooling about half as large as those first predicted by the 1983 studies and described this as a “nuclear autumn.” The nuclear autumn studies were later shown to be deeply flawed, 26 but the proof came too late to stop a massive smear campaign that effectively discredited the initial studies.

In the same interview, Dr. Robock also noted:

Nuclear winter was subject to criticism and damning articles in the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine. In 1987, the National Review called nuclear winter a “fraud.” In 2000, Discover Magazine published an article that described nuclear winter as one of “The Twenty Greatest Scientific Blunders in History.” The endless smear campaign was successful; the

The Department of Homeland Security really should fund this. They will fund you to study one terrorist bomb in New York City. When you explain to them that a war between India and Pakistan is a much greater threat to the U.S. homeland than one terrorist bomb, as horrible as that is, they re-

24 Mark A. Harwell and Thomas C. Hutchinson, “Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War,” SCOPE 2, no. 28 (1985), http://dge.stanford.edu/SCOPE/SCOPE_28_2/SCOPE_28-2_0.1_titlepages.pdf. 25 Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Federation of American Scientists, n.d., https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces. 26

Robock et al., “Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts.”

Conn, “The experts on nuclear winter.”

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spond with “Oh, well that’s not my job, go talk to some other program manager” — who, of course, doesn’t exist.

• •

tion, Technology, and Logistics Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Under Secretary for Nuclear Security of the Department of Energy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Commander of the United States Strategic Command

After the more recent series of studies were published in 2007 and 2008, Drs. Robock and Toon also made a number of requests to meet with members of the Obama administration. The scientists offered to brief Cabinet members and the White House staff about their findings, which they assumed would have a great impact upon nuclear weapons policy. Their offers were met with indifference.

• •

Finally, after several years of trying, Drs. Robock and Toon were allowed an audience with John Holdren, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama on Science and Technology. Dr. Robock also eventually met with Rose Gottemoeller, then Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Dr. Robock has written to me that, after these meetings, he and Dr. Toon were left with the impression that neither Holdren nor Gottemoeller think the nuclear winter research “is correct.”

Perhaps General John Hyten, Head of USSTRATCOM, who is in charge of the U.S. nuclear triad, and General Paul Selva, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the second highest ranking officer in the United States, have never seen or heard of the 21st century nuclear winter studies. Perhaps when they hear a question about “nuclear winter,” they only remember the smear campaigns done against the early studies. Or, maybe, they just choose not to accept the new scientific research on nuclear winter, despite the fact that it has withstood the criticism of the global scientific community.

It is important to understand that some members of this group — especially the Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) 31 — also develop the policies that guide the use of nuclear weapons.

But it is not only Holdren and Gottemoeller who reject the nuclear winter research. Greg Mello, of the Los Alamos Study Group,28 cites a source who confirms that the group that determines the “full range of activities related to the development, production, maintenance (upkeep) and elimination (retirement, disassembly and disposal) of all United States nuclear weapons — the members of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Council 29 — have stated that “the predictions of nuclear winter were disproved years ago.” 30

Regardless, the rejection of nuclear winter research by the top leaders of the United States raises some profoundly important questions: Do U.S. military and political leaders fully understand the consequences of nuclear war? Do they realize that even a “successful” nuclear first-strike against Russia could cause most Americans to die from nuclear famine? 32 In 2010, Drs. Toon and Robock wrote in Physics Today:

The members of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Council include: •

We estimate that the direct effects of using the 2012 arsenals would lead to hundreds of millions of fatalities. The

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisi-

Los Alamos Study Group, n.d., http://www.lasg.org.

“Nuclear Matters Handbook 2016,” Office of the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters (2016), http://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/NMHB/chapters/Appendix_A.htm.

“Nuclear Matters: A Practical Guide,” Office of the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters (2008), https://cryptome.org/2013/04/nuclear-matters.pdf, 87.

“About,” U.S. Strategic Command, last modified November 2016, http://www.stratcom.mil/About.

Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon, “Self-assured destruction: The climate impacts of nuclear war,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 68, no. 5 (2012), http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSAD.pdf, 72.

Toon et al., “Environmental consequences of nuclear war,” 37.

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heavy artillery. NATO troops stationed in Estonia are within artillery range of St. Petersburg, the second largest city of Russia.

indirect effects would likely eliminate the majority of the human population.33 In 2013, Drs. Toon and Robock wrote in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that:

The United States has deployed its Aegis Ashore Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system in Romania and is constructing another such BMD system in Poland.37 The Mark 41 launch system used in the Aegis Ashore systems can be used to launch a variety of missiles, including long-range nuclear-armed cruise missiles. In other words, the United States has built and is building launch sites for nuclear missiles on the Russian border.38 This fact has been widely reported on Russian TV and has infuriated the Russian public. In June, Russian President Putin specifically warned that Russia would be forced to retaliate against this threat. 39

A nuclear war between Russia and the United States, even after the arsenal reductions planned under New START, could produce a nuclear winter. Hence, an attack by either side could be suicidal, resulting in Self-Assured Destruction. 34

RENEWED COLD WAR Although president-elect Trump appears to favor a return to the policy of détente with Russia, many if not most U.S. political leaders appear to support the Obama administration’s policies of direct confrontation with Putin’s Russia. Mainstream corporate media, including the editorial boards of The New York Times and The Washington Post, routinely engage in anti-Russian and anti-Putin rhetoric that surpasses the hate speech of the McCarthy era. 35 Under President Obama, the United States has renewed the Cold War with Russia, with little or no debate or protest, and has subsequently engaged in proxy wars with Russia in Ukraine and Syria, as well as threatening military action against China in the South China Sea.

While Russian officials maintain that its actions are normal and routine, Russia now appears to be preparing for war. On October 5, 2016, Russia conducted a nation-wide civil defense drill that included 40 million of its people being directed to fallout shelters.40 Reuters reported two days later that Russia had moved its Iskander nuclear-capable missiles to Kaliningrad, which borders Poland. 41 While the United States ignores the danger of nuclear war, Russian scholar Stephen Cohen reports that the danger of war with the United States is the leading news story in Russia. 42 Cohen states:

In response to what NATO leaders describe as Russia’s “dangerous and aggressive actions,” NATO has built up a “rapid-response force” of 40,000 troops on the Russian border in the Baltic States and Poland. 36 This force includes hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, and

Just as there is no discussion of the most existential question of our time, in the American political class — the

Robock and Toon, “Self-assured destruction: The climate impacts of nuclear war,” 66.

Stephen F. Cohen, “Neo-McCarthyism and Olympic Politics as More Evidence of a New Cold War,” The Nation, July 27, 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/neo-mccarthyism-and-olympic-politics-as-more-evidence-of-a-new-cold-war.

Leo Cendrowicz, “Syria conflict: Nato raises response force to 40,000 troops in face of Russia’s ‘aggressive and dangerous’ actions,“ Independent, October 8, 2015, http://ind.pn/2h2gOD9.

37 Sam LaGrone, “Aegis Ashore Site in Romania Declared Operational,” USNI News, May 12, 2016, https://news.usni.org/2016/05/12/aegis-ashore-site-in-romania-declared-operational. 38 “MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS),” Lockheed Martin (2013), http://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed/data/ms2/documents/launchers/MK41_VLS_factsheet.pdf. 39

Inessa S, “Putin’s Warning: Full Speech 2016,” YouTube video, July 24, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8ldIMRo.

Matt Payton, “Russia launches massive nuclear war training exercise with ‘40 million people’,” Independent, October 5, 2016, http://ind.pn/2h2i7C4.

“Russia moves nuclear-capable missiles into Kaliningrad,” Reuters, October 8, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-missiles-confirm-idUSKCN1280IV.

“The John Batchelor Show,” Westwood One Talk, October 2016, http://bit.ly/2h2ifl6.

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Russia in Ukraine and Syria, as well as increasingly militarized confrontation with China in the South China Sea.

possibility of war with Russia — it is the only thing being discussed in the Russian political class . . . These are two different political universes. In Russia, all the discussion in the newspapers, and there is plenty of free discussion on talk show TV, which echoes what the Kremlin is thinking, online, in the elite newspapers, and in the popular broadcasts, the number 1, 2, 3, and 4 topics of the day are the possibility of war with the United States.

My own personal assessment of the state of the nuclear danger today is that it is profound. The United States is sleepwalking towards nuclear war. Our leaders have turned a blind eye to the scientifically predicted consequences of nuclear war, and our military appears to be intent on making “Russia back down.” This is a recipe for unlimited human disaster. It is still not too late to seek dialogue, diplomacy, and détente with Russia and China, and to create a global dialogue about the existential dangers of nuclear war. We must return to the understanding that nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought. This can be achieved if our political and military leaders listen to the warnings from the scientific community about the long-term global environmental consequences of nuclear war.

Cohen goes on to say: I conclude from this that the leadership of Russia actually believes now, in reaction to what the United States and NATO have said and done over the last two years, and particularly in reaction to the breakdown of the proposed cooperation in Syria, and the rhetoric coming out of Washington, that war is a real possibility. I can’t remember when, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the Moscow leadership came to this conclusion in its collective head. Perhaps this narrative will change under president-elect Trump. However, he is inheriting a situation fraught with danger, which retains the possibility of direct military conflict with

President-elect Trump and President Putin must publically acknowledge and discuss the peer-reviewed studies that predict a U.S.-Russian nuclear war will likely wipe out most of the human race. All nations and peoples have a vested interest in eliminating the nuclear arsenals that continue to threaten their existence.

Renowned geologist Ruth A. M. Schmidt left a generous contribution from her estate to FAS for a lasting legacy of a safer world through science. So can you. Visit fas.org/planned-giving to leave a legacy of peace.

Together, we can make the world a safer place to live in for all. With a new presidential administration, it is more important than ever to support a safer world through science. Visit fas.org/donate to be a part of the mission. Questions? Email fas@fas.org.

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Chernobyl and Trinity — Counting the Curies

test occurred in 1980. In contrast to today’s challenges, the difficulties of securing and dismantling decades-old weapons seem a simpler problem from a simpler time. In only a generation, fear of nuclear winter has been replaced by the prospect of long-term global warming, a situation which could ironically lead to a renaissance of nuclear power — how quickly we forget. This general lack of awareness was recently brought home to me very strikingly when I gave a lecture to some very bright and engaged students on the Manhattan Project and the use of nuclear weapons in World War II. At the end of the lecture I asked them to estimate how many warheads the United States currently possesses. Only one student spoke up, offering a very tentative estimate of “At least one, I presume?” They were shocked to learn that their generation will inherit thousands of warheads, many of which are still actively deployed.

 B. Cameron Reed  Chair and Professor of Physics, Alma College

dward Friedman’s article in this edition of the Public Interest Report on the continuing legacy of radioactivity released in the Chernobyl disaster is a sobering reminder of the need to responsibly manage complex technological systems, which can generate catastrophic consequences when they run out of control. 30 years later, the world is very different and faces many new problems, but Professor Friedman properly reminds us that credible coverage of nuclear issues is just as important now as it was when the Chernobyl story first broke.

Professor Friedman’s article motivated me to return to a calculation and a comparison that I had intended to carry out some time ago. While researching the Manhattan Project, I came across a quote in David Hawkins’s wartime history of Los Alamos drawn from an eyewitness description of the July 1945 “Trinity” test: “At that moment the cloud had about 1000 [sic] billions of curies of radioactivity whose radiation must have produced the blue glow.” 1 When I first read this passage I was taken aback: Could a nuclear weapon of a yield considered modest by the standards of present-day arsenals really generate a trillion curies of prompt radioactivity? A curie (Ci) is defined as the activity of one gram of freshly-isolated radium, 37 billion decays per second. A trillion curies are equivalent to a million metric tonnes of radium, more than twice as much as the estimated natural radioactivity of all of the oceans of the world (about 0.4 trillion Ci).2 This is, admittedly, a very misleading comparison in that I am contrasting an essentially immediate phenomenon to one of cosmological timescale, but it does drive home the magnitude involved.

Reading Professor Friedman’s analysis caused me to reflect on a serious lack of public awareness of the possibility of another form of radiological disaster: the accidental or deliberate atmospheric detonation of even a modest-yield nuclear weapon, or, even worse, the outbreak of a “limited” nuclear war. Media coverage of Chernobyl and Fukushima is sometimes sensationalist, but at least it keeps people aware of the issue of reactor safety. With nuclear weapons, the problem is not so much that people are unaware of how destructive they can be, but rather the general level of ignorance of just how many are still in the possession of the world’s nuclear powers. It is not difficult to understand how this situation has arisen. The Cold War ended a generation ago, and the last above-ground nuclear

David Hawkins, “Manhattan District History – Project Y: The Los Alamos Project,” LAMS-2532 1 (1946–1947), 276, http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?LAMS-2532.htm.

“Radioactivity in Nature,” Idaho State University, n.d., http://physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm. Oceanic radioactivity is due mostly to cosmogenic long-lived potassium-40, half-life ~ 1.25 billion years. Potassium-40 is not a fallout product.

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lists 776 product nuclides of 46 elements from chromium (atomic number Z = 24) to thulium ( Z = 69), with mass numbers ranging from 66 to 172. Because fissions typically produce two products, the tabulated yields should sum to 200; they actually sum to 197.4 (there is probably some round-off error, and some fissions are ternary).

While it is true that the residual radioactivity from a nuclear explosion dies off quickly because the half-lives of many fission products are so short (see below), a trillion curies is a staggering amount of radioactivity to be deposited into the open environment in one event. Numerous references offer much information on the quantities of residual radiation from nuclear explosions and how such radioactivity declines with time,3 4 5 but the Hawkins quote was the first time I had seen the immediate activity estimated. The immensity of the figure made a substantial impression on me, and I wanted to understand it further. I also wondered how the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki compared to Chernobyl in their radiological impacts. (Spoiler Alert: A trillion is probably a substantial underestimation.)

The Los Alamos report lists half-lives for most but not all of the fission products. For consistency, I adopted half-lives and decay mechanisms for all products from the Nuclear Wallet Cards (2011 edition) published by the National Nuclear Data Center. 7 Of the 776 products, 64 are stable (total fraction 0.12%) and do not contribute any radioactivity. For a further 90 very short-lived products (total fraction 0.75%), half-lives are unknown or so poorly determined that accurate decay rates cannot be computed for them; I discarded them from further consideration. This means that my results likely underestimate the prompt radioactivity. Of the 622 species for which decay rates can be calculated, 576 decay predominantly by beta-decay, as would be expected for neutron-rich fission products; the remainder decay by isomeric transitions (39) and electron capture (7). The vast majority of half-lives are less than about a day, but a handful are as great as several millions of years.

Fission leads to hundreds of product nuclides representing isotopes of dozens of different elements. To estimate the activity produced, it is necessary to know the detailed distribution of products; that is, the numbers of each nuclide produced and their half-lives. This information is readily obtainable from various sources. A Los Alamos publication conveniently lists the product yields per 100 fissions of slow-neutron induced fission of uranium-235 — that is, of fissions which occur in reactors. 6 Nuclear explosions are fast-neutron phenomena; while the distribution of fission products is different than for slow-neutron fission, there should not be much harm in adopting the slow-neutron data, as my goal here is an order-of-magnitude estimate. (For obvious reasons, it is difficult to come by detailed information on the distribution of fast-fission products.) The Los Alamos report

Prompt decay rates were computed by assuming the fission of one kilogram of U-235, equivalent to splitting 2.56 x 1024 nuclei; this corresponds to an energy release of about 17 kilotons. (The Trinity test involved a plutonium bomb, but the distribution of fission products of uranium and plutonium are very similar.) The number of nuclei N of each species was computed, and prompt decay rates were calculated according as the usual formula:

3 “Nuclear Weapon Radiation Effects,” Federation of American Scientists, last updated October 21, 1998, https://web.archive.org/web/20160614202507/http://fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/radiation.htm. 4 A. A. Broyles, “Nuclear explosions,” American Journal of Physics 50, no. 7 (1982), 586-594, http://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1.12783. 5 Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons,” United States Department of Defense and Energy Research and Development Agency, 1977, http://deepspace.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Effects-of-Nuclear-Weapons-1977-3rd-edition-complete.pdf. 6

T.R. England and B.F. Rider, “Evaluation and Compilation of Fission Product Yields 1993,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, Report LA-UR-94-3106, http://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lareport/LA-UR-94-3106. A machine-readable version is available at www.dbserv.pnpi.spb.ru/elbib/tablisot/toi98/www/fission/235Ut.txt.

Jagdish K. Tuli, “Nuclear Wallet Cards,” Brookhave National Laboratory, 2011, http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/wallet/wall35.pdf.

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and those which are the decay products of fission products of intermediate half-lives. In the case of the Chernobyl disaster, both immediate and long-term consequences were of concern. One fission product is iodine-131, which can lodge in the thyroid gland and induce cancers. The eight-day half-life of this isotope means that it will decay relatively quickly, but at the cost of being a vigorous beta-emitter in the few weeks following its release. In the longer term and as Professor Friedman points out, long-lived nuclides can become widely dispersed and settle over agricultural and animal-feeding areas and thus enter the food chain; with its 30-year halflife, cesium-137 is of particular concern in this regard.

R = N(ln 2)/t1/2 The total prompt decay rate evaluated to 11.2 trillion curies, an order of magnitude greater than estimated by Hawkins’s source. Given that the Trinity explosion liberated an estimated 21 kilotons (instead of the 17 kilotons equivalent I have assumed), a more refined estimate would be about 13.8 trillion Ci. It is worth remarking that this activity does not include the immense flux of prompt gamma and X-rays emitted in a nuclear explosion, both of which comprise further sources of radiation exposure. This prompt activity declines very precipitously in the immediate aftermath of a nuclear explosion. In their volume The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Glasstone and Dolan estimate the radioactivity of the fission products of a 1-kt explosion to be on the order of 30 billion curies one minute after the explosion. 8 Scaling to Trinity’s 21 kt gives 0.63 trillion Ci, a decline by a factor of about 22 from the immediate activity estimated above. After this time the residual radioactivity declines roughly as time to the power –1.2; by this rule, after two weeks (20,160 minutes) the residual Trinity activity would have declined to

One authoritative analysis estimates that the Chernobyl event released about 100 pBq of cesium-137.9 This can be compared to the Trinity explosion by estimating Trinity’s Cs-137 yield. The fractional cumulative fission yield of Cs137 is about 0.0087.10 If fissions are all binary, the 2.56 x 1024 uranium nuclei in 1 kg of U-235 would create twice as many product nuclei, or a cumulative generation of some 4.5 x 1022 Cs-137 nuclei. With a half-life of 30.1 years and scaling to Trinity’s 21-kiloton yield, this corresponds to an activity of about 0.04 pBq — a tiny fraction of the Chernobyl Cs-137 release. While this may in some way seem reassuring in that one or a few nuclear detonations would not create a radiological catastrophe, bear in mind that today’s nuclear weapons can easily have yields tens of times those used in 1945, and that many thousands of them are stockpiled. An intermediate-scale nuclear war could leave as much long-term fallout as Chernobyl, let alone dozens of obliterated cities and millions of casualties. In their book on radiation, Gale and Lax estimate that atmospheric weapons tests released some 200 times as much radioactive materials as did Chernobyl. 11

≈(0.63 trillion)(1/20,160)1.2 This equals ≈4.3 million Ci; or, in units now in more common use, about 160 petabecquerels (pBq; 1 Bq = 1 decay/sec; the prefix peta designates 10 15). A strict comparison of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Chernobyl will necessarily be rough at best. Trinity and the bombs were one-shot injections of fission products into the atmosphere (with the bombs at high altitude), while the fission products in a reactor which has been operating continuously will be a mixture of those recently generated, those generated some time ago but which have long half-lives,

The graph above shows the distribution of prompt activities of U-235 fission products

Glasstone and Dolan, “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.”

9 L. R. Anspaugh et al., “The global impact of the Chernobyl reactor accident,” Science 242, no. 4885 (December 16, 1988), http://science.sciencemag.org/content/242/4885/1513. 10

England and Rider, “Evaluation and Compilation of Fission Product Yields 1993.”

Robert Peter Gale and Eric Lax, Radiation: What It Is, What You Need to Know (New York, NY: Vintage, 2013).

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Image/B. Cameron Reed

clined very quickly and the residual long-term radioactivity created was much less than that of Chernobyl. With respect to the latter, humanity can reap the benefits of nuclear energy provided that reactors are carefully designed, properly constructed, and responsibly operated; equally important will be reassuring policy makers and the public that the technology can be made safe — and investing in truly making it so. At the same time, we must not allow the next generation’s inheritance of nuclear weapons to be seen as an irrelevant issue of a bygone era; they are still a very present danger. Superpowers can reduce stockpiles while retaining nuclear forces adequate to provide deterrence for themselves and their allies, and aspirant nuclear powers need to be dissuaded from their pursuits. We will likely never “get to zero” (or even my student’s one), but we can get much closer than we are.

per kilogram of material fissioned as a function of atomic number and neutron number — energy equivalent to approximately 17 kilotons. 33 fission products were determined to have immediate decay rates exceeding 1011 Ci; the total of these rates is 8.2 trillion Ci, or nearly three-quarters of the overall total of 11.2 trillion Ci. The most active individual species is strontium-97, which has a half-life of about 0.43 seconds. As is well-known to nuclear physicists, fission is rarely symmetric; rather, there tends to be one light product around mass number A ≈95 and one heavy product with A ≈140; the figure makes clear the great activity contributed by the relatively neutron-richer lighter fission products. In summary, the Trinity explosion did indeed release trillions of Curies, but this activity de-

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Editor’s Note

timates that Dr. Friedman assesses to be most reliable are based on the linear no-threshold (LNT) model, such that there is no threshold below which radiation exposure will not adversely affect health, and that the effects increase linearly with radiation dose. While many health physicists have questioned the LNT model, it is the basis for public policy as practiced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Prominent scientific bodies such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection and the National Academy of Sciences have endorsed the LNT model. I underscore here that the order of magnitude estimate of the number of radiation-induced fatalities hinges on the LNT model. However, as Dr. Friedman points out, another important consideration is whether some previous studies have adequately taken into account a large enough population of exposed people given the fact that radioactive materials have been deposited in countries outside of Belarus and Ukraine.

Revisiting Chernobyl

 Charles D. Ferguson  Editor-in-Chief, Public Interest Report

rofessor Edward Friedman was very kind to take on a tough task. About a year ago, Dr. Friedman and I were talking about the upcoming 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident, which occurred on April 26, 1986 in Ukraine. We were perplexed that some 30 years after this disaster, the world still does not know even the order of magnitude of the number of fatalities due to radiation exposure. As Dr. Friedman documents in his essay, in which he has diligently surveyed the literature pertaining to the Chernobyl accident, the estimates range over about four orders of magnitude. While we do not expect to ever know exactly how many people will have died from radiation exposure because of this accident, we believe that further study by independent experts can shed light on this still murky subject. I note that Dr. Friedman is not trained as a health physicist or epidemiologist; he has a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University and is a professor emeritus at Stevens Institute of Technology. Because of his technical background, though not directly in this field, Dr. Friedman and I believed that he would be able to look at this controversial issue from a fresh perspective. I applaud him for writing this thought-provoking essay. We invite readers who have relevant expertise to email FAS their perspectives (fas@fas.org).

One reviewer mentioned that, while it is important to understand the effects of Chernobyl, the Chernobyl-type reactor accident could never happen again because of safety improvements. While 11 Chernobyl-type reactors, known by the acronym “RBMK,” are still in operation in Russia, safety improvements have indeed been made. However, these reactors still do not have strong containment structures, which could help prevent the release of radioactive materials to the environment. For example, the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania released only a very small amount of radioactive gas and, despite a partial core meltdown, the strong containment structure around the reactor withstood the effects of the accident and prevented the melted nuclear fuel from entering the environment. Of course, the most recent relevant examples of catastrophic accidents are the three reactor meltdowns that happened in March 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. These reactors had relatively weak containment buildings that were ruptured by hydrogen gas explosions. Because the prevailing winds were mostly blowing out to the Pacific Ocean, much of the released radioactive materials were not deposited on land. Nonetheless, there was still significant land contamination, and more than 100,000 people were evacuated. As of this writing, several tens of thousands of people are still displaced from their homes. While no one died in the immediate aftermath or in the past five years from radiation exposure, several hundred people are estimated to have died due to the disruption of the evacuation. It is likely that more people will have died as a result of this disruption as compared to the latent cancer deaths from radiation exposure. But if these people had not been evacuated, the long-term fatalities from radiation exposure could have been much higher. The ongoing investigation of the consequences of the Fukushima accidents will have far reaching impact on how to assess the societal risks from nuclear power.

I note that several experts have already reviewed and commented on a next-to-final draft. Overall, reviewers remarked that Dr. Friedman covers the literature well and clearly explains the controversial issues. Notably, one expert who has more than 40 years of experience in these issues stated: “This is well-written and includes the most significant studies. The most involved and ardent supporters of radiation damage will not accept the conclusions but this article is a good contribution.” One expert declined to comment because he will be involved in the next study on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR). Dr. Friedman and I encourage the BEIR study group to take a closer examination of the radiation effects of Chernobyl. A couple of reviewers underscored that the people affected by the evacuations, as well as the many people who remained in nearby areas of Belarus and Ukraine, have experienced high levels of stress, depression, alcoholism, and drug abuse; thus, the life expectancy in this region has declined as compared to other parts of the former Soviet Union. Consequently, many people who have died from these contributing causes might have eventually succumbed to radiation-induced cancers, but we will never know.

Dr. Friedman and I do not intend for the following essay to be the final words on this important subject. As mentioned above, we invite readers with knowledge and relevant expertise to offer their perspectives.

Additionally, a couple of reviewers noted that the es-

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Calculating the Uncountable Deaths from Chernobyl

many as 4,000 excess cancer deaths.1 (“Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-economic Impacts,” September 5, 2005). Their analyses were confined to the contaminated regions of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. While recognizing that there were increased radiation exposures throughout Europe, the Chernobyl Forum experts asserted that these levels were too small to cause an observable impact on the number of deaths due to cancer. Their logic was based on the fact that, with approximately 20 percent of the population dying from cancer, excess deaths in the hundreds or thousands could not be distinguished from the steady state deaths that occurred numbering in the millions.

 Edward A. Friedman  Professor Emeritus, Stevens Institute of Technology

n April 26, 1986, the day of the catastrophic explosion at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant complex, Valery Ilyich Khodemchuk, pump operator, and Nikolaevich Vladimir Sashenok, systems operator, were dead before the end of the day from the radiation and trauma of the explosion. By the end of May 1986, 23 other workers from the plant, as well as firefighters, died of acute radiation syndrome.

While additional deaths due to radiation may not be directly observable, it does not mean that they have not and will not continue to occur. During the past 30 years, many scientists, government organizations, public interest groups, members of the press, and others have made predictions, speculated upon, and debated this issue. The number of immediate and long-term excess deaths in the world resulting from the Chernobyl disaster encapsulates — in a single number — a summary of the total devastating impact of the world’s most catastrophic nuclear power plant accident in history. As such, Chernobyl acts as a reference point that deeply influences attitudes toward nuclear power. One might argue that the single greatest factor influencing the decision by Germany to eschew nuclear power is the prodigious number of deaths from Chernobyl claimed by Greenpeace as possibly exceeding 200,000.2

While these deaths from the immediate aftermath of the explosion are well documented, the question of how many subsequent deaths from radiation are attributable to the release of radioactivity from that disaster remains — more than 30 years later — a matter of controversy and debate. Given the centrality of nuclear power in strategies that might ameliorate global warming, it is the thesis of this essay that clarity on this number, that is so central to thinking about nuclear safety, is a major public policy issue that deserves scrutiny using the best available and most relevant scientific understanding.

Other published figures include a value of 26,000 by a scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists,3 a figure of 280,000 in a published paper by a respected nuclear engineer,4 and the highly unlikely number of 985,000 that appears in a book by Russian scientists,5 which was published in English by the New York Academy of Sciences.

A team of more than 100 experts assembled by eight UN-related agencies, known as the Chernobyl Forum, asserted in 2005 that long-term consequences of Chernobyl could result in as

“Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts and Recommendations to the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine,” Chernobyl Forum: 2003-2005, 2006, http://iaea.org/sites/default/files/chernobyl.pdf.

2 “Chernobyl death toll grossly underestimated,” Greenpeace International, April 18, 2016, http://greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/chernobyl-deaths-180406. 3

Lisbeth Gronlund, “How Many Cancers Did Chernobyl Really Cause?—Updated Version,” All Things Nuclear, April 17, 2011, http://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlund/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-really-cause-updated.

Richard E. Webb, “The Health Consequences of Chernobyl,” The Ecologist 16, No. 4/5, 169-170.

5 Karl Grossman, “Chernobyl Death Toll: 985,000, Mostly from Cancer,” Global Research, March 13, 2013, http://globalresearch.ca/new-book-concludes-chernobyl-death-toll-985-000-mostly-from-cancer/20908.

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upon altitude and materials in the ground, there is an average number6 that is used for those who live in the affected areas of Europe, including the former U.S.S.R. (It should be noted that the average background figures for the United States are higher than the world wide averages.) While the technical value for this world wide average is 2 millisieverts per year, simply refer to this as B for background radiation and consider other radiation relative to that amount.

Not surprisingly, those who support nuclear power development are more likely to quote the lower figures, while advocates seeking the elimination of nuclear power focus on the larger ones.

RADIATION: THE BASICS The conflicting points of view that arise are due to differing assessments of the radiation that resulted from the Chernobyl explosion and the impact of that radiation on the health of the exposed populations. Discussion of these issues requires some understanding of the physical origin of that radiation, as well as the biological consequences of radiation exposure.

The next relevant number is the radiation that the average person receives from medical X-Rays, CT scans, etc. This turns out to be about equal to the amount of background radiation.7 Therefore, inescapable human exposure is 2B (or two times the background radiation dose) during one year.

The radiation that spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere as a result of the Chernobyl explosion began from the nuclear fission process that produced the reactor’s energy. As the uranium nuclei split, lighter atoms are produced, including many that are unstable. That instability leads to the emission of gamma rays (which are electromagnetic radiation with higher energy than x-rays), electrons, neutrons, and alpha particles (which are made up of two neutrons and two protons). An alpha particle is identical to the nucleus of the most common type of helium atom. These various emissions can damage biological cells. The questions that arise then are: How much radiation was produced? And what are its consequences?

For workers who are normally exposed to radiation, the limit for an acceptable dose in a fiveyear period is 50B. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) has estimated that the additional chance of dying of cancer due to radiation exposure above 50B is about 4 percent per sievert.8 On the high end, a dose of 2,500B would kill half of those exposed within a month.

CHERNOBYL FALLOUT In order to discuss radioactivity and fission, it is necessary to recognize the different forms of chemical elements according to the composition of their nuclei. Every element has a distinct chemistry and gains its identity by the number of protons in its nucleus. Hence, all forms of hydrogen have one proton and all forms of uranium have 92 protons. The chemistry of elements is determined by the number of electrons that surround the nucleus, which is equal to the number of protons in the nucleus. However, elements can have varying numbers of neutrons. Hydrogen, for example, can have zero neutrons, one neutron, or two neutrons. Chemically, these forms of hydrogen are identical because their atoms all have

A baseline for discussion of radiation is the amount of radiation that people are exposed to all the time. This so-called “background” radiation is due to low levels of radiation present in the world around us. Everything from bananas and marble to radon gas, which enters basements from the ground, adds to this background radiation. The universe itself has particles travelling through space at high velocities which strike the earth’s atmosphere. The resulting radiation is referred to as cosmic radiation, which also contributes to background radiation. While background radiation varies from location to location, depending

6 “Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation,” United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes I (2008), 32, http://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2008/UNSCEAR_2008_Annex-A-CORR.pdf 7

“Radiation Effects and Sources,” United Nations Environment Programme, 2016, http://apps.unep.org/publications/index.php?option=com_pub&task=download&file=012202_en.

8 Ibid.

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Abandoned bus in Pripyat, Ukraine.

saster are primarily due to exposure to and inhalation or ingestion of radioactive substances. These radioactive materials were created in the nuclear reactor as a byproduct of the fission or breakup of uranium-235 that produced the electrical energy used in homes and factories. The radioactivity of the original uranium-235 fuel is fairly benign. However, when fission takes place, new radioactive atoms are created. Many different outcomes are possible.

one electron. However, their nuclear properties differ. The form with one neutron is called deuterium, while the form with two neutrons is called tritium. In the case of uranium, its most common form has 146 neutrons, while the uranium used in atomic weapons has 243 neutrons. A convenient way to account for these different forms of nuclei for the same chemical element is to add the number of neutrons to the number of protons and identify the resultant using the total. Thus, deuterium can be called “hydrogen-2” and tritium “hydrogen-3.” These total numbers are designated as the isotope number. While the word “isotope” can be intimidating to a lay person with limited knowledge of science, it should be kept in mind that it is a bookkeeping number that is no more esoteric than labeling a bag of groceries as “fruit-15” if it has 10 oranges and five apples.

These outcomes of the splitting of uranium-235 have a statistical distribution that is predictable. Some combinations resulting from the fission process are more likely than others. Of these many possible outcomes, only around a dozen have significant consequences concerning radiation exposure. All of these fission products are accompanied by radiation — gamma rays (which are like X-rays but with higher energy), alpha particles (which are the nuclei of helium atoms), beta particles (which are high-energy electrons), and neutrons.

Using this nomenclature, adding the 92 protons and 143 neutrons in an atomic bomb’s uranium will result in an isotope number of 235, while the most common natural uranium has an isotope number of 238.

Among the fission products, there are a few that present a danger to human beings through entrance into the digestive system via ingestion

The health consequences of the Chernobyl di-

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or alpha particles inside the body, rather than from an external location. However, whether or not radioactive material enters the food chain, it still emits radiation that adds to the potentially harmful dose received by inhabitants of a contaminated region.

ANIMAL INDICATORS Given that the Chernobyl Forum includes prestigious organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the assertion that the Chernobyl Forum should not have neglected deaths outside of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus9 needs to be substantiated. Incontrovertible evidence for life-impairing levels of radioactive fallout at distances of more than 1,500 miles from the explosion site has been documented in measurements of contaminated meat from sheep in Scotland10 and reindeer in Lapland.11 In 1986, the Scottish government placed restrictions on 2,900 farms, stocking 1.5 million sheep. In 1987, additional restrictions were imposed when it was discovered that the season’s new lambs were highly contaminated. Significant restrictions were not lifted until 1991. As of 2008, five farms were still designated as restricted and all monitoring was not ended until June 21, 2010.

Ferris wheel in abandoned amusement park in Pripyat.

of milk and other foods. The most dangerous of these are iodine-131, cesium-137, and strontium-90. Iodine is absorbed by the thyroid gland and can cause thyroid cancer if sufficient quantities of radioactive iodine are retained. Cesium and strontium enter the food chain and cause other types of cancers if large enough amounts of the radioactive forms of these elements are present in the body. The chemistry of cesium is similar to that of potassium, which is actively absorbed by the human body, while the chemistry of strontium leads to similar biological absorption by humans as that of calcium. The health consequences of radioactive materials are most severe when the active elements are ingested and emit their gamma rays, electrons, neutrons,

In July 1993, the United Kingdom Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology issued Briefing Note 45, a report that provided information for members of Parliament concerning Chernobyl fallout.12 Briefing Note 45 shows that the most significant levels of fallout from Chernobyl were in northern Scotland, with additional levels of concern in west-central Scotland, Cumberland (England), Wales, and Northern Ireland. The report also documents the number of sheep that were subject to inspection. The largest numbers were in Wales (2.1 million), Scotland (1.36 million), and England (0.87 million). Briefing Note 45 further identifies the percentage of those sheep examined whose meat needed to be removed from market; these percentages were 22 percent in

Gronlund, “How Many Cancers Did Chernobyl Really Cause?—Updated Version.”

“Chernobyl Fallout,” Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Briefing Note 45, July 24, 1993, http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/POST-PN-45.

11 Emma Jarratt, “Norway’s radioactive reindeer,” Barents Observer, October 8, 2014, http://barentsobserver.com/en/nature/2014/10/norways-radioactive-reindeer-08-10. 12

“Chernobyl Fallout.”

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of the reindeer body, from the entrails to organs, antlers, hooves, and blood.

1987, 10 percent in 1988, and 7 percent in 1989, with lower levels in subsequent years. These figures lead to the conclusion that meat from more than one million sheep were removed from market in the UK as a result of Chernobyl fallout.

Nearly 80% of the reindeer meat in Sweden was destroyed in the 1986 slaughter season.16 This severe economic loss led to the governments of Sweden and Norway providing compensation to the affected communities. However, the cultural uses of reindeer carcasses could not be replaced with monetary payments. A member of the Saami community summed up this loss as follows: “This is not just a matter of economics but of who we are, how we live, how we are connected to our deer and each other.”17

The impact of fallout from Chernobyl on the sheep of the UK is masked in later years by the occurrence of a huge outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001,13 which resulted in the slaughter of between seven and 10 million sheep and cattle. Cesium-137, which can relatively easily enter the food chain, emits harmful gamma rays as well as electrons (called beta radiation). In nature, cesium has a half-life of about 30 years. That means that after 30 years, half of the original deposit of cesium-137 will have undergone radioactive decay. After 60 years, the level will be 25 percent of the original and after 90 years, the level would be one-eighth of the original and so on.

The impact of Chernobyl in this region has been long-lasting. The severity of the contamination was exacerbated by the fact that the Scandinavian reindeer consume lichen as their main winter staple. Lichen do not have a root system and absorb nutrients directly from the air, thus soaking up large concentrations of radioactive cesium. As recently as 2014, there were regions in Lapland where radiation levels in reindeer meat still exceeded safe levels.18 This resulted from the long term stability of the lichen food stock and the 30-year half-life of cesium-137. In 2016, the fallout that remains in the environment still emanates one half of the radiation intensity that it did 30 years earlier at the time of the Chernobyl explosion.

Given the long half-life of cesium-137, it is not surprising that restrictions and examinations of sheep in the UK lasted for 26 years, until 2010, when the controls were finally lifted.14 While sheep farming was severely affected in Scotland, fallout from Chernobyl not only contaminated thousands of Reindeer in Lapland but, by doing so, upset longstanding social and cultural patterns of the Saami people of that northern Scandinavian region. The Saami people were deeply affected by the contamination of the reindeer herds. As one observer put it, the Chernobyl disaster, “scarred” their way of life.15 There are about 80,000 Saami, with 50,000 in Norway, 20,000 in Sweden, 8,000 in Finland, and 2,000 in Russia. Reindeer meat is not only a staple of the Saami diet but the meat, organs, and other components of the reindeer play roles in their animistic religious practices. Saami use the entirety

Given that the distances from Chernobyl to London and Paris are less than the distances to the highlands of Scotland and the fields of Lapland, it is arguable that significant amounts of harmful radioactive material were deposited in areas of Western Europe in April and May 1986. Radioactive materials were emitted from Chernobyl for approximately a week, during which time changing wind patterns carried them over a wide geographic region. Fallout was then concentrated in

13 “2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak,” Wikipedia, last updated December 10, 2016, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_United_Kingdom_foot-and-mouth_outbreak. 14 “Post-Chernobyl disaster sheep controls lifted on last UK farms,” BBC News, June 1, 2012, http://bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-18299228. 15 Melanie Blackwell, “Effects of the Chernobyl Disaster on Sami Life,” December 2, 2003, http://laits.utexas.edu/sami/dieda/socio/chernobyl.htm. 16 Ibid. 17

Sharon Stephens, “Physical and Cultural Reproduction in a Post-Chernobyl Norwegian Sami Community,” Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995).

18 Alan Taylor, “Norway’s Radioactive Reindeer,” The Atlantic, March 1, 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/03/norways-radioactive-reindeer/471705.

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levels of radiation are due mainly to the fallout of cesium-137, the same isotope that caused such havoc with the sheep and reindeer herds. This cumulative dose is then multiplied by the probability of cancer deaths due to the received dose.

specific locations by rainfall. In some of these locations, there was careful monitoring of the fallout19 while in other regions, most notably France, little attention was paid to this hazard. While most countries issued warnings about food that might be contaminated, such action was not taken immediately in France.20 Following the Chernobyl accident the Service Central de Protection Contre les Radiations Ionisantes (SCPRI) initially denied that the radioactive cloud had passed over France. This lack of action became a highly contentious issue in French politics.21 Warnings were not issued to the public in France about the potential hazards of consuming milk and produce that might be contaminated, thus adding to the difficulty of evaluating the long term health impacts resulting from Chernobyl.

In this essay I have equated a dose of 2 millisieverts to be equal to the average background radiation or B. Because a millisievert is one thousandth of a sievert, a one sievert dose is equal to 500 background doses. The probability of cancer death per sievert of received dose used by Gronlund is 5.7 percent. Gronlund’s calculations result in an estimate of 4,000 deaths in the contaminated areas. To this total, that is consistent with the Chernobyl Forum’s evaluation, she estimates another 4,000 deaths among recovery operation workers, 5,000 deaths from less contaminated areas of the former Soviet Union, 9,000 deaths from other European countries, and 4,000 deaths from other Northern Hemisphere locations outside of Europe. The total of these deaths is equal to 26,000.

GRONLUND’S ANALYSIS Of the many analyses of the cancer deaths from Chernobyl, that of Lisbeth Gronlund, a senior scientist of the Union of Concerned Scientists, stands out as particularly well-reasoned and comprehensive. The data and scientific concepts on which her April 2011 report is based have proven to be consistent with later studies and scientific research.22

Given that there is considerable uncertainty in the 5.7 percent death rate figure, Gronlund identifies the range of deaths that would result from using a 95% confidence interval rather than a specific rate. Her calculation for the upper and lower bounds that fall within that confidence interval is 12,000 to 57,000.

Gronlund specifically rejects the assertion of the Chernobyl Forum that the impact in regions beyond the high radiation fallout locations of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are too small to take into account. She states: “…by limiting its analysis to people with the greatest exposure to released radiation, the report seriously underestimates the number of cancers and cancer deaths attributable to Chernobyl. The effects of the radiation were not limited to the contaminated areas but would be felt in Europe and beyond.” Gronlund explicitly notes that areas of Asia, Africa, and the Americas were contaminated by the Chernobyl accident.

These excess deaths do not include excess thyroid cancer deaths. While there were large numbers of thyroid cancers, the condition is treatable and the number of deaths is certainly small when compared to the figures for solid cancer and leukemia. While Gronlund takes into account the uncertainties inherent in the calculation of excess deaths due to low-level radiation, there are other uncertainties that are more difficult to assess. For example, the extent to which flocks of sheep or agricultural produce in France were contaminated is not known; these are known unknowns.

Gronlund uses results of international studies to estimate the radiation doses received in all of the affected areas. It is assumed that the increased

“Chernobyl Plume: Country-by-Country Summary,” RADNET, http://davistownmuseum.org/cbm/Rad7b.html.

P. Coles, “French suspect information on radiation levels,” Nature 329, no. 96 (1987), 475.

21 “France hid info on effects of Chernobyl cloud,” Expatica, December 15, 2005, http://expatica.com/fr/news/France-hid-info-on-effects-of-Chernobyl-cloud_134486.html. 22

Gronlund, “How Many Cancers Did Chernobyl Really Cause?—Updated Version.”

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It may also be the case that water resources, particularly in Ukraine, were contaminated and never documented. These can truly be said to be unknown unknowns. Radioactive elements that are ingested are far more dangerous than those that only increase exposure. This occurs through elements that enter food and water supplies. Such events have undoubtedly taken place throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

na26 of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. These scientists, and others who have adopted this approach, calculate the probability of excess cancer deaths due to radiation according to a linear relationship between exposure and impact. This linear relationship is assumed to apply to all levels of radiation from very high down to zero. This dose to impact model is known as the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model.

Another increase in the projected numbers of deaths would be the impact of radioactive fallout from Chernobyl on unborn fetuses. Children who are developing in the womb are particularly sensitive to radiation.23 While Chernobyl-related in utero exposure studies have found deleterious radiation induced effects,24 the number of likely deaths is small compared to the totals in Gronlund’s analysis.

There have been many criticisms of this approach.27 It has been stated that detailed scientific studies are not possible below 100 millisieverts,28 which is equal to 50 times the background radiation level; others have asserted that there is a radiation threshold value below which there is no damage done by radiation; and yet others have claimed that at low levels of radiation the effect is actually helpful rather than harmful. This last hypothesis is known as the hormesis model.29

These additional factors of ingested radioactivity and prenatal exposure, if known, would increase the figure of 26,000 stated by Gronlund, but are not likely to result in the estimated excess cancer deaths exceeding the upper confidence interval of 57,000.

Up until 2006, the most definitive study of the health risks from exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation was a study by the National Research Council known as BEIR VII – Phase 2.30 BEIR VII – Phase 2 could not definitely conclude that the LNT was correct, but did promote the LNT model as the most plausible hypothesis when considering public health issues. However, BEIR VII – Phase 2 did not find support for either a threshold or hormesis.

OTHER PERSPECTIVES Others have adopted the approach taken by Gronlund in analyzing excess cancer deaths from Chernobyl. Most notable are Richard Garwin,25 a 2002 National Medal of Science recipient, 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and leading expert on nuclear issues, and M.V. Rama-

During the decade that has elapsed since the

23 R. H. Mole, “Childhood cancer after prenatal exposure to diagnostic X-ray examinations in Britain,” British Journal of Cancer 62 (1990), http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1971756/pdf/brjcancer00215-0160.pdf. 24

Maureen Hatch, “Health Effects of In Utero Exposure,” National Cancer Institute, National Academy of Sciences, Gilbert W. Beebe Symposium on 30 Years After the Chernobyl Accident, November 1, 2016.

25 Richard L. Garwin, “Outside View: Chernobyl’s real toll,” UPI, April 20, 2006, http://upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2006/04/20/Outside-View-Chernobyls-real-toll/72371145562307. 26 M. V. Ramana, “Nuclear Power: Economic, Safety, Health, and Environmental Issues of Near-Term Technologies,” An nual Review of Environment and Resources 34 (2009), http://princeton.edu/~ramana/annurev.environ.033108.092057.pdf. 27 Bill Sacks et al., “Epidemiology Without Biology: False Paradigms, Unfounded Assumptions, and Specious Statistics in Radiation Science (with Commentaries by Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake and Christopher Busby and a Reply by the Au thors),” Biological Theory 11 (2016), http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4917595. 28 John D. Boice, “LNT 101,” Health Physics News (2015), http://remm.nlm.gov/BOICE_REPORT_No_40_LNT_FINAL_Sept_2015.pdf. 29

Rod Adams, “Dr. Edward Calabrese explains hormetic dose response model to Cato Institute,” Atomic Insights, March 21, 2013, http://atomicinsights.com/calabrese-explains-hormetic-dose-response-model-to-cato-institute.

30 “Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII – Phase 2,” National Research Council, (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2006), http://cirms.org/pdf/NAS%20BEIR%20VII%20Low%20Dose%20Exposure%20-%202006.pdf.

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that, since it was published in 2006, there have been a number of studies that reinforce its conclusions about the correctness of the non-threshold model. Edwards endorsed the LNT model and explicitly rejected the possibility for hormesis. While there are strong advocates for the hormesis model, with Professor Edward Calabrese33 of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst being the most prominent, there is little support in the wider scientific community for this hypothesis. It is significant that Edwards’s response posits a physical model for the efficacy of a single track of ionizing radiation in damaging critical cells in a manner that could lead to the development of cancer. Arguments have also been put forward that the effects of radiation levels below 100 millisieverts are too small to measure directly34 and, therefore, should be ignored. This notion is at odds with how other areas of science, most notably general relativity, view the reality of small disturbances in nature.

A stray dog photographed near Pripyat.

publication of BEIR VII – Phase 2, there has been much discussion of these conclusions as well as important new research. Of particular interest has been a review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which has used LNT for some time as their guideline in evaluating radiation risks. The NRC considered changing from the LNT model to a hormesis model31 and invited public commentary on that issue.

Such a counter example emerged recently when Einstein’s general theory of gravity was validated through the observation of gravitational waves. The gravitational waves were detected by an extraordinary optical apparatus known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO).35 The waves that were observed in February 2016 originated in the collision and merger of two black holes in deep space. The observation of this collision proved the existence of gravitational waves. However, LIGO is only able to observe gravitational waves caused by the most massive and energetic of the gravitational events in the universe. In addition to black holes, events involving neutron stars can also be observed by LIGO. The fact that neither LIGO, nor any other apparatus, can observe small gravitational waves does not imply that the small gravitational waves do not exist. On the contrary, the observation of the large gravitational waves, together with the

In response, Jonathan D. Edwards, Director of the Radiation Protection Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, wrote the following (dated October 28, 2015): Biophysical calculations and experiments demonstrate that a single track of ionizing radiation passing through a cell produces complex damage sites in DNA, unique to radiation, the repair of which is error-prone. Thus, no threshold for radiation induced mutations is expected and indeed none has been observed.32 Edwards went on to quote BEIR VII and to note

“Linear No-Threshold Model and Standards for Protection Against Radiation,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission, June 16, 2015, http://nrc.gov/docs/ML1511/ML15114A292.pdf.

“U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Comments on Linear No-Threshold Model and Standards for Protection against Radiation,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission, October 7, 2015, http://nrc.gov/docs/ML1530/ML15301A820.pdf.

Adams, “Dr. Edward Calabrese explains hormetic dose response model to Cato Institute.”

Boice, “LNT 101.”

“Gravitational Waves Detected 100 Years After Einstein’s Prediction,” Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, February 11, 2016, http://ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211.

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is a contributing factor in the deaths of another 18,000 people who are smokers. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer for nonsmokers. Its impact on deaths exceeds that caused by drunk driving, which amounts to about 10,000 deaths per year in the United States. While background radiation may not cause obvious health problems due to irradiation to the body, background radiation is clearly not benign.

conceptual framework of Einstein’s theory, solidifies belief in the existence of all gravitational waves. The approach taken by Gronlund, Garwin, Ramana, and others has also been criticized on the grounds that the radiation levels to which they are imputing such deleterious effects are of the order of magnitude of background radiation. The notion that background radiation is itself benign is without foundation. Given that about 40 percent of the population acquires some form of cancer and that 20 percent of the population dies of cancer, it is plausible that background radiation contributes to acquisition of these cancers.

Radon is but one of the contributing sources in natural background radiation. Others include potassium-40 and carbon-14. Low levels of potassium-40 are found in bananas.38 Bombardment from outer space by cosmic rays are another source of natural background radiation.

It is this high prevalence of cancer in public health that prevents observation of additional cancers due to specific sources such as low levels of radiation from cesium-137 fallout. However, when radiation becomes internal to the body, such as through ingestion from the food supply, its effects are greatly magnified and radioactive isotopes become manifest as dangers to health.

With the exception of lung cancer from radon exposure, it is not possible to associate individual cancers with causal links to components of background radiation, but given the LNT relationship of radiation to cancer, these links await further investigation.

THE CASE FOR LNT

It is worth providing perspective on enhanced danger in the case of background radiation. It is commonplace to consider background radiation as inconsequential, but there is at least one manifestation of background radiation that has a significant impact on public health: radon, a radioactive element that occurs in nature as an inert gas. Radon is produced by the radioactive decay of radium and is found in rocky soil containing shale, granite, uranium ore, schist, and limestone. It is quite common and can accumulate in basements. As a gas, it can be inhaled and absorbed in the lungs, where it undergoes radioactive decay in which an alpha particle consisting of two protons and two neutrons, is emitted. These alpha particles damage cells and set the stage for lung cancer. Radon causes about 2,900 deaths per year in the United States from lung cancer among people who have never smoked.36 37 In addition, it

In the BEIR VII – Phase 2 report it states (on page 290): … the most promising studies for the direct assessment of risk at low doses and low dose rates are those of nuclear workers who have been monitored for radiation exposure through the use of personal dosimeters. While there have been a number of such studies, a definitive report was published on September 9, 2015 by a team of researchers from the United States and Europe, with Professor David B. Richardson of the University of North Carolina as the lead author.39 In this cohort study, 308,297 workers in the nuclear industry from France, the United Kingdom, and the United States detailed

36 “Radon and Cancer,” National Cancer Institute, last modified December 6, 2011, http://cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/substances/radon/radon-fact-sheet#q4. 37

“Health Risk of Radon,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, n.d., http://epa.gov/radon/health-risk-radon.

“How Radioactive (In Bananas) is the Room You’re Sitting in Right Now?,” Physics Central, January 27, 2014, http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/search?q=radioactive+bananas. Radiation from bananas is miniscule. In order to cause the risk of harmful cancer by one percent, it would be necessary to eat 27 bananas every day for 100 years.

David B. Richardson, et al., “Risk of Cancer from occupational exposure to ionizing radiation retrospective cohort study of workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States (INWORKS),” BMJ 2015, no. 351 (October 20, 2015), http://bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h5359.

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SUMMATION

monitoring data for external exposure to ionizing radiation were linked to death certificate data. This data was acquired through 1968-2004 in France, 1946-2001 in the United Kingdom, and 1944-2005 in the United States. The report notes:

It is the thesis of this analysis that the Gronlund estimates, taken together with the recent studies of low-level radiation impact on nuclear workers, provide a strong case for a conclusion that approximately 26,000 cancer deaths are attributable to the Chernobyl accident. This is more than six times the figure quoted by UN agencies and less than 10 times that quoted by Greenpeace. These order of magnitude discrepancies cry out for further clarification.

Follow-up encompassed 8.2 million person years. Of 66,632 known deaths by the end of the follow-up 17,957 excess solid cancer deaths were attributed to radiation. Excess relative rate per Gy (dose) of radiation for mortality from cancer was estimated.

More than 30 years have passed since the accident and Chernobyl remains the most catastrophic nuclear power event that the world has experienced. As such, it is a reference that is used to frame ongoing discussions about energy policy. Given that nuclear power could potentially provide a path away from global warming, the consequences of how Chernobyl is perceived are formidable. The number of deaths from the accident tends to short circuit thinking and provide an oversimplified surrogate for detailed analysis.

The results of this study support a Linear No Threshold relationship between radiation exposure and excess cancer including low levels of radiation. This result answered one of the major objections to the BEIR VII – Phase 2 study, which was that it posited that low level doses over a long period of time could be extrapolated from the high level dose data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Questions had been raised about the use of data from high-energy gamma rays from the atomic explosions and their short exposure duration being used to predict health impact of low energy radiation exposures over long time spans. This nuclear workers’ analysis supports the generalizability of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki data. It is demonstrated in this nuclear workers study that low doses over long time periods had the same impact as equivalent high doses over short time periods.

We only need to look to Germany to find a major country that has eschewed the use of nuclear power. Green Party influence was significant in bringing about that development with their use of hundreds of thousands of deaths from Chernobyl included in their discourse. In contrast to such claims, UN agencies of the Chernobyl Forum continue to cite numbers in the range of 4,000 as the likely fatal casualties arising from the accident.41

The use of personal dosimeters to measure exposure and access to death records buttress the conclusion that the linear non-threshold theory is valid. The very large numbers of workers involved in this study provide conclusions that have strong statistical validity.

Given that the most scientifically valid analysis is approximately 10 times larger than that of the Chernobyl Forum and ten times smaller than that of Greenpeace, the public is placed in a quandary. Rational decision-making in democratic societies deserves better.

While I am emphasizing the results of this French, U.K., and U.S. research, 10 other studies have tested the LNT theory during the decade since the publication of BEIR VII – Phase 2.40 While none of the other studies are as compelling as this, they all provide support for the LNT theory.

At the time that the Chernobyl Forum published its conclusions, the press spread that point of view as being authoritative. On September 8, 2005, The New York Times published an editorial titled, “Chernobyl’s Reduced Impact,” in which they stated that the Forum had presented, “the consensus of eight United Nations agencies, in-

40 GoddardsJournal, “Radiation Risk: LNT Model Tested,“ YouTube video, December 22, 2105, http://youtube.com/watch?v=5xYRvnCBZOM. 41

“Radiation Effects and Sources.”

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The New Safe Confinement “sarcophagus” during earlier construction. It will encase the Chernobyl nuclear reactor complex.

cluding those responsible for health, the environment and nuclear power…” The editorial went on to say: In the long run, the experts predict, some 4,000 emergency workers and residents of the most contaminated areas may die from radiation-induced cancer. That qualifies Chernobyl as a very serious accident but not a catastrophe.42

Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France. An analysis of deaths arising from Chernobyl would not be complete without representation from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Given the biases that have been impugned to various international organizations, such an undertaking would enjoy maximum credibility if it were done under the aegis of a foundation, rather than a governmental organization.

With wildly divergent views being expressed by groups that have made up their minds both for and against nuclear power, public interest is not served by having this 2005 editorial from The New York Times stand alone as the guidepost for a conceptual framework about Chernobyl. The public would be well served by having a group of independent scientists review the history of the past 30 years along with the latest research on the impact of long-term low-level radiation exposure. Issuance of an informed perspective on this subject would be most welcome. Such a review might be best done in a manner similar to the committee that was assembled by the National Research Council of the National Academies to prepare the BEIR VII – Phase 2 report, which was an assessment of the health risks from exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation.43 That group consisted of 18 scientists from the United States,

30 years is also an opportune moment to assess the many other ways in which the Chernobyl disaster affected those regions in which radioactive fallout was deposited. Illnesses other than cancer were activated and large swathes of land were made uninhabitable. Significant psychological clouds also engulfed the region. As The New York Times commented on the mental health consequences of Chernobyl, “People from the region are anxious and fatalistic, based upon a greatly exaggerated view of the risks that they face. The result can be drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment, and an inability to function.” While the history and consequences of Chernobyl are multidimensional and complex, the core number of likely deaths remains a focus of attention. Just as the number of 2,996 has become associated with the events of 9/11, the public still awaits an appropriate reference number for Chernobyl.

“Chernobyl’s Reduced Impact,” The New York Times, September 8, 2005, http:// nytimes.com/2005/09/08/opinion/chernobyls-reduced-impact.html.

“Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII – Phase 2.”

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