Education is one of the most challenging issues
Gary YoungMarch 31, 2022
Education is one of the most challenging issues there is. It was during the early 1980’s when I needed to start hiring production operators making integrated circuits after many years of not hiring. Most of my existing production operators had graduated from high school in the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s. I have always believed in lifelong learning and indeed, my people did just that. The hiring process included interviews with supervisors as well as line operators who would have a say in hiring peers. It came as a shock to all of us how little recent high school graduates actually knew that they needed to know for the jobs we had! Had I and all my people progressed in constant learning to the point we had forgotten what little we knew when we were fresh high school graduates? Unfortunately the answer was the recent graduates actually knew less. We ended up filling our job openings with college graduates who had at least some of the science and math skills needed. Perhaps more telling is by the 1980’s it took college level reading to comprehend and follow the documentation.
If anything, newer graduates know less and less and subsequently have less and less in the way of the critical thinking skills I believe are necessary to be truly constructive members of society . One student did very well in high school but nearly flunked out in college. It took dogged determination but eventually he earned a PhD and a professorship. Youth in the last thirty years and in grade school today seem to be following the trend of being less and less prepared. Time and the school of hard knocks are improving the critical thinking skills of the older ones. Unfortunately, many of the uneducated populace will vote devoid of critically processing the issues.
Energy policy suffers from nearly complete ignorance on the part of the voting public. The stupid 1979 movie “The China Syndrome” is an example on how to misinform the public about scientific realities. The movie greatly damaged the credibility of nuclear power. Yet it is nuclear power that has the ability to provide cheap and abundant power. Cheap and abundant power is the key to prosperity everywhere on earth. The problem is to educate and sell nuclear power. To do that myths and outright lies have to be overcome and put to rest. Appended below is a piece I wrote some years ago to dispel some of the myths and lies about nuclear power.
In the way of a little background is that in 1964 I was an officer on a nuclear submarine. One evening while in overhaul in a dry dock, I dropped into the reactor department. I noticed water in the bilge and it should not have been there. I grabbed a dosimeter just in time to see it go off scale. I got out of there with considerable dispatch! That is how I turned the film badge black. Naturally I had the personal experience to understand all I could on the “health physics” involved. The attached are explanations that radiation is not nearly dangerous as most think. Somewhere down the line I intend an article on why current reactor designs are actually very safe.
Radiation damage to people:
It is very hard to re-educate the populace that what they know and fear about radiation is virtually all wrong. That is where Environmentalists for Nuclear Power comes in as a conduit and role model of education.
I once turned a 5 REM (Roentgen Equivalent Man) film badge black. That means I received at least 5 REMs which was then considered a ‘lifetime dose.’ I had been through the “Health Physics” courses but I really didn’t understand what it all meant. Lurking in the back of my mind was would I have normal children. So for years I went about learning all I could about radiation and what it could do to me. The following is lifted from Wikipedia:
One of the two standard units used to measure the dose equivalent (or effective dose), which combines the amount of energy (from any type of ionizing radiation that is deposited in human tissue), along with the medical effects of the given type of radiation. For beta and gamma radiation, the dose equivalent is the same as the absorbed dose. By contrast, the dose equivalent is larger than the absorbed dose for alpha and neutron radiation, because these types of radiation are more damaging to the human body. Thus, the dose equivalent (in rems) is equal to the absorbed dose (in rads) multiplied by the quality factor of the type of radiation [see Title 10, Section 20.1004, of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR 20.1004), "Units of Radiation Dose"]. The related international system unit is the Sievert (Sv), where 100 rem is equivalent to 1 Sv. For additional information, see Doses in Our Daily Lives and Measuring Radiation
There is a lot of information available in the above so I will start with what I found out about my film badge. What I received was likely all gamma radiation (photons of higher energy than X-rays) and possibly some neutrons. This is because I was wearing clean room garb with a mask which would have intercepted the alpha particles (Helium nucleus) and beta (higher energy electrons which can be stopped by a piece of paper). Note the Wikipedia part of depositing in human tissue. Since it does not take much to stop Alpha and Beta and my film badge was under the garb measuring in REM the measurement does not tell the whole story. Seen most in the literature is measurements of radiation in Sieverts (Sv). Just to keep you confused, absorbed radiation is measured in Gray (Gy) (or RAD) and the dose equivalent radiation is measured in Sieverts (Sv) (or REM), and the conversion is 100 REM to a Sv and 100 RAD to a Gy.
Ionization is the most damaging thing that radiation can do to atoms. The radiation kicks an electron out of the atom’s orbit leaving a positively charged atom. The now
ionized atom has sufficient energy to break chemical bonds. A lot of radiation ionizes a lot of atoms which in turn disassemble a lot of chemical bonds. Break enough chemical bonds in the components of human cells and the cell dies.
High to very high radiation doses only happen with nuclear weapons and with the single exception of the Chernobyl accident where people were very close to a reactor that was wide open. There are now no operating reactor designs in the world that could release such high radioactivity with any sort of accident. Still we should look at the effects of high radiation doses.
High doses of radiation beginning at one Gray (Gy) can start to be fatal three ways from acute radiation syndrome. There is about a 50% chance of death from whole body exposure to 4 Gy and 8 Gy or more results in virtually a 100 % death rate. However with medical treatment people may survive doses up to 7 Gy.
- Death of the stem cells in the bone marrow so the person dies when they basically run out of red blood cells.
- The gastrointestinal (GI) syndrome where the GI tissues can no longer absorb food and become leaky. Secondary infections, electrolyte imbalance and shock results in death.
- Cerebrovascular syndrome from very high doses causes the blood vessels in the brain to rupture like many mini strokes.
All radiations do not behave the same in the body. Photons such as X and gamma rays have a weighting factor of 1. Beta particles are electrons which have a weighting factor of 1. Protons have a factor of 2. The wrecking balls are alpha particles with a weighting factor of 20, and neutrons vary from a factor of 5 to 20 depending on their energy.
Body tissues also have sensitivity weighting factors. The whole human body has a weighting factor of 1.0. Bone marrow, stomach, colon, lung, and breast have a factor of 0.12 each so all combined is 0.60. The esophagus, liver, thyroid, bladder and gonads have a factor of 0.05 each or 0.25 total. The brain, the hard part of bone, kidneys, skin and salivary glands, have a factor of 0.01 each or a total of 0.05. All the remaining tissue of the body totals 0.10. An observation: the testicles seem to account for five times more than the male brain! This probably explains why Stupid Young Males (SYM’s) do the ‘shallow end of the gene pool’ things they do.
The “linear no threshold” (LNT) dose risk theory of radiation effects originated from a 1927 Hermann Muller study of fruit flies. The Japanese atomic bomb survivors have been subject to the most extensive human population studies ever done. The conclusion of those studies is that there have been no hereditary effects from human exposure to
radiation. The linear no threshold theory is just not valid with respect to gamma, beta, proton and low energy neutron radiation. There is a “collective dose corollary” discussed later that is just as wrong.
Cancer from radiation and cell self-repair:
We humans love to scare ourselves silly with the drama of real or imagined catastrophes. Zombie Apocalypse anyone? Just the “C” word (cancer) gets many people unreasonably scared. Ionizing radiation can break chemical bonds in the DNA within human cells and that is where the false drama of bad things and real issues of cancer could be initiated.
What the drama addicted don’t tell you is that human cells and even their contained DNA have remarkably resilient ways to repair themselves! This should not be surprising in that our DNA and cell structures have been evolving for literally billions of years from a time when the earth was much more radioactive than it is now. If cells and particularly DNA were not able to repair themselves, no long-living higher life forms such as humans would exist now.
In general, gamma ray and beta particle radiation from anything to do with reactor operations can either pass through cells and DNA with no effect at all or perhaps cause only minor damage such as a single strand break (SSB). DNA can easily repair itself in that the undamaged strand holds the helix together while the chemical bonds in the broken strand re-establish.
Previously mentioned is that alpha particles and higher energy neutrons are “wrecking balls” in that they are capable of breaking both strands of the DNA in what is called a double strand break (DSB). Even then, the two ends of DNA have remarkable ways of recombining, or the cell simply duplicates an undamaged DNA strand as a replacement. Relatively rarely, the DNA does not get reassembled just right and even then there is a low probability that it could lead to a cancer (The body also has great defenses against cancer cells). However the not quite right DNA gets faithfully replicated when replacement cells are regenerated with age. This faithfully replication of the not right DNA is the basis of the linear no threshold theory being in play by those opposed to nuclear power. To better understand that the LNT theory really is not valid was best explained in a November 2016 paper; Radon, lung cancer and the LNT model. By: Research and review BMF group, UiO.
It turns out that the lowest dose of radiation used in the fruit fly experiment was 800 REM and went up to 6000 REM and then nearly linearly, extrapolated back to zero. As a reminder, 800 REM of radiation over the relatively short period of the fruit fly experiment has a near 100% lethality for humans. A human receiving 6000 REM at the rate of the fruit flies would be dead before they could say “Oh Sh**.” The experiment is
just not relevant to the low doses that we are concerned about for operation of nuclear generating plants.
In 1948 Ernst Capari and Curt Stern re did the fruit fly experiment with low doses and found that there at low doses did not follow the LNT hypothesis and that there was indeed a low dose threshold. While DNA was probably known about as far back as 1860, it was not until 1953 when Watson and Crick brought forth the double helix structure that resulted in modern understanding. These subsequent understandings clearly indicate that there is a threshold and possibly a “hormetic” benefit at low doses. Unfortunately, there have not been many studies of the possible “hormetic” effect.
It should be noted that simply growing old where replacement cells and DNA don’t quite get accurately replicated is at least ten but more likely a hundred time more probable than radiation damage which can naturally can also lead to cancer. In short, far more likely sources of DNA damage is from chemicals such as found in smoking, solvents, byproducts of bacteria etc.
Sources and amounts of natural and medical radiation:
We get irradiated nearly constantly from natural, not natural radiation, and medical sources. The Natural sources of radiation are cosmic, terrestrial and internal. Cosmic radiation originates from space including the sun. The atmosphere shields the vast majority of cosmic radiation. Living as I do in Colorado, there is less atmosphere above me so my body gets greater cosmic radiation than if I lived at sea level. Terrestrial radiation comes from radioactive elements in the earth’s crust and can vary considerably depending on the presence of these elements where you live. Radon gas is one of the most prevalent. Internal radiation comes from potassium 40 and carbon 14 that our bodies are made of and has been with us since conception. The amount present depends on what is eaten and from where the food was grown. Of interest is that there is actually a radiation measure called a banana which is about 1 millionth Sv! It takes about 1.16 million ‘standard’ bananas to release one Sievert of radiation.
The not natural sources of radiation come from atmospheric bomb testing, nuclear accidents, reactor fuel cycle, and various occupations. The worldwide average is only about 12 to 15 banana equivalents per year from these sources. The nuclear reactor fuel cycle is less than half a banana.
People in the world average 2.4 millisievert (mSv) or 2400 bananas of natural radiation per year. The US average is about 3.2 mSv in major part because of radon, and Japan averages about 1.5 mSv. There are also hundreds of millions worldwide who receive 10 to 20 mSv primarily due to nuclides in the ground where they live.
Medical radiation dosage is highly variable. The US population averages just over 3.0 mSv primarily because of the availability of diagnostic instruments and nuclear medicine. Japan averages 2.3 mSv, but the rest of the world averages less than 1 mSv because billions of people have no access to diagnostic tools like CT scans or nuclear medicine. Another variable is that it is an average. Some individuals may have no medical radiation for years and others like me have approached 50 mSv in 2015 for just diagnostics. Note: the 50 mSv matches my blackened 5 REM film badge from years ago. Others under treatment with nuclear medicine may experience much more.
The fact that human cells and DNA have remarkable abilities to repair themselves just does not fit the narrative. The linear no threshold theory is just wrong. There is also a “collective dose corollary.” If one dose kills one person, 1/100th of the dose will kill 1 in 100 people. While there is some basis for thinking alpha particle radiation does have some characteristics that support the linear no threshold theory, the collective dose corollary is just pure scare mongering.
Chemicals and even mechanical damage from things like asbestos crystals are a far greater threat than radiation. Large statistical studies do not present a clear picture if any induced cancers are radiation related or were actually caused by chemical or mechanical means. Just the same, we want to avoid exposure to radiation. The conclusion is that if you survive the initial dose, your body will repair the damage, your body will recover and you and your descendants will be just fine. The nuclear fuel cycle of the proposed super sites may add a banana (uSv) a year.
What to avoid:
In general we really want to avoid alpha and neutron emitters. Also, we want to avoid those nuclides with very short half-lives because they emit much more radiation over short times and likely include beta and gamma.
You will be surprised to learn that plutonium is not the terrible toxic substance we have been conditioned to accept. While it does emit alpha particles, the half-life is 24,100 years which means that it does not emit many in a human lifetime. We will not breathe in vaporized plutonium because the boiling point is 5,842 F (3,228 C). Only 0.05% of ingested plutonium is absorbed by the GI tract and what is absorbed ends up half in the liver and half in the bones so the whole body sensitivity factor is just 0.03. Plutonium is a heavy metal which as a class is bad for the body but as a heavy metal, Plutonium is much less toxic than equal amounts of mercury or lead.
When reactor fuel rods are spent, there is still quite a lot of radioactivity going on with the very short half-life transuranic elements decaying into other elements. That is why
fuel rods are placed in a cooling pool for years. After 10 half-lives of the element, the amount of radiation is 1/1000 the original.
“There are four transuranic elements in spent nuclear fuel that we want to avoid contact with humans because they pose the most biological hazard. Ironically, they all decay by beta or Gamma radiation and not alpha. They are:
- Iodine 131 which has only an 8 day half-life but is very readily absorbed by the body and concentrates in the thyroid. Children are especially at risk and cancers are measurable.
- Strontium 90, while human absorption is only about 20%, it is a bone seeker in that its electrochemistry behaves like calcium. Being right next to the marrow is not good.
- Cesium 137 is very soluble in water, readily forms salts and electrochemistry behaves like potassium. It ends up in nearly all tissues. Fortunately the “biological half-life” is only about 70 days. Biological half-life means the body gets rid of half the Cesium 137 every 70 days by replacing it with potassium.
- Plutonium 241 isotope has a half-life of 14 years but it beta decays into Americium 241 which is an Alpha emitter with a half-life of 439 years. Chernobyl showed Plutonium 241 is created in far more abundance than 239. Remember that the Soviets created Chernobyl for both power generation and making Plutonium for weapons. Like 239, 241 does not have electrochemistry properties of particular threat to humans, but if inhaled as dust, the eventual Americium alpha particles are hazardous to the lungs. I think that 241 is on the “official” list in part because of the erroneous classification of Plutonium as being erroneously labeled the “most poisonous substance on earth.”
Shameless Plug:
For years I researched a lot of information but recently I found Why We Need Nuclear Power by Michael H. Fox. Turns out that he lives nearby and we had occasion to talk. His students must have loved him because the book is clear, concise and I found it very interesting how he explained radiation biological effects considering I understand little biology. How DNA is self-repairing is particularly interesting. My copy came through Amazon. I recommend you get a copy just to have a single source to really understand radiation effects, cell issues and DNA repair.
