Since I’ve been incautious enough to mention the N-word in the previous post, I’ll open another sandpit specifically devoted to discussions of the merits, and otherwise, of nuclear power. Any mention of this topic on other threads will be deleted and will risk bans or restrictions on the offender
Update Since it’s still going, I’ve moved it up, which should reopen comments
John Quiggin 
@Dingo
How, pray tell, can a “superannuation contributions growth formula” be involved in this? You would need a negative interest rate.
@Dingo
If you had paid attention to the discussion you would have noticed that this is the net present cost of the second waste storage facility relative to the first one in a series of such facilities that are hypothetically built at year 0, year 30, year 60, year 90 etc. The net present cost of all these facilities sums in a geometric progression as I did earlier. It’s probably a good idea to pay attention to what’s going on before you start saying someone is out of their depth. You won’t provide such a staggering demonstration of irony if you do.
Luke Western,
In case anyone else is reading this debate, I should make explicit Luke’s citation convention. Whenever Luke replaced a letter for ? or whenever Luke breaks to new a paragraph mid sentence, please read that as Luke’s convention for attributing those words for the work of another. The older convention of quotation marks (not used by Luke in this case) is preferable as it shows more clearly where the work of oneself and that of another start and stop.
Now Luke, given the large quantity of material pasted into your reply I will ration my response, and focus on the points of key relevance.
Most of your reply Luke does not address the point of my citation of Caldicot. Please go back and read why a linked to HC for. It was cited solely to detail more of the sources of radiation [in addition to tritium] that are routinely released from NPP.
So Luke, What in the sources you use do you believe overturn the claims of HC on this point?
@jakerman
Your alert to Luke Western’s citation convention is useful for all who, like me, are interested in studying the message management techniques of the spin industry. The trouble is that it is not easy to distinguish between errors (or lack of writing skills) and deliberate obfuscation mechanisms.
@jakerman
I had a look at Luke’s post and I simply do not know what you are talking about in respect to new paragraph or quotation convention. It looks to me that the character sequence “fi” has for some reason been translated to “?” in multiple instances for example in the words “fission”, “first” and “specific”. I checked the page HTML source for oddities and couldn’t see anything. My guess it that this is some artifact of the editor used to compose the post which was then copied and pasted. It’s possible that the server side software encountered a character sequence it objected to and made a translation.
With respect to tritium, I already told you that I was responding to the commentary you originally linked to which focused on tritium and C14, and that tritium has been a focus of anti-nuke campaigners in NA.
I have read through Caldicott pp 53-60 and nowhere does she quantify the radiation dose that could be expected from tiny release of any the radioisotopes she mentioned from NPPs into the environment. This of course, is the sixty four dollar question. If you were writing a high school science assignment on radiation safety and did not once quantify dose, you would almost certainly fail. Anybody can go and lookup a table of radioisotopes and their half lives and parrot them off.
There is a very large number of substances for which there are regulatory limits for environmental contamination. Quite a few are very dangerous in large quantities, but are considered safe below certain levels. Sources of ionizing radiation are amongst those regulated substances and are not magically different.
The whole notion of no safe limit for exposure to ionizing radiation is simply unsupportable in a world where all life exists in a bath of background radiation. There MUST be an effectively safe limit to dose due to human activities. It is anti-science innumerate nonsense to suggest otherwise.
@Chris O’Neill
Your achievement so far has been to try to obfuscate your errors or general ignorance about a subject matter within a cloud of insults directed at several people, including me.
Enough is enough, Chris O’Neill. Here is the history of your achievements:
1. @36, p 7, you wrote to Chris Warren: “Someone has to teach you what ‘net present value’ means.
2. @40, p7, Chris Warren wrote to you, “Chris O’Neill: Maybe Chris O’Neill might like to work out the net present value of today’s nuclear energy proposal given the cost of one additional Yucca mountain sized depository every 30 years where each depository has increased costs compared to the previous, plus relatively higher decommissioning costs and frequency (compared to renewables).”
3. @41, p7, I wrote to you: “@Chris O’Neill
You refer to ‘net present value’. Please provide a representative reference which contains your understanding of ‘net present value’.”
4. @19, p8, you, Chris O’Neill, replied to Chris Warren’s question @40, p7 [ie 2 above]:
“Even if such additional depositories were needed (and they’re only needed in the US now because of stupid US anti-reprocessing regulations), the net present cost of all depositories now and in the future would be 1.14 times the cost of the first one at a discount rate of 7% per annum.”
5. @21, p8, I wrote to you: “Chris O’Neill, I’ve asked you for a reference which contains your understanding of ‘net present value’. I haven’t received it as yet. If you don’t wish to supply a reference then this is fine with me but I need to ask you to list the theoretical assumptions underlying the formula you use. Once you have done that then we can discuss these assumptions with the aim of arriving at a conclusion on whether or not your NPV formula is relevant for the actual problem.”
6. @33, p8, Chris Warren: “Yes, O’Neill needs to provide his formula and theoretical assumptions. Personally I would use a growing annuity with compounding as this is what waste management requires over time. You need to build a waste repository, maintain it, wait some years build the next depository, then maintain it and the previous and so on.”
7. @5 ,p9 you, Chris O’Neill wrote to me: “Adding a new facility every 30 years at a discount rate of 7% per annum increases the net present cost by a factor of 1.14 compared with the cost of the first facility on its own.”
8. @8, p9, I wrote to you, Chris O’Neill, saying your statement, reproduced at 7. above, ” (This) is exactly your statement which made me ask you to reference a text which contains your understanding of net present value.
I don’t believe you have an understanding of the theoretical conditions underlying the idea of ‘net present value’.
By theoretical conditions I mean a fully specified theoretical model of an economy.”
9. @8, p 9 Chris O’Neill wrote:
“The net present cost of the second facility is 1/(1.07)^30 or 0.13 times the first (I used a mental arithmetic approximate value of 1/8 or 1/(three doublings)). The net present cost of the third is 0.13^2 etc. The total net present cost of all facilities stretching to infinity comes to 1.15 (my approximation was 1.14) times the cost of the first one.”
You refused to provide a reference which contains your understanding of ‘net present value’ and you refused to provide your assumptions underlying your calculations.
I am now telling you the assumption you have made.
Your calculation, Chris O’Neill, as reproduced at 9 above, is known as ‘constant replacement’ This means you assume:
a) The current cost calculation is ‘accurate’.
But it cannot be accurate because the life cycle of a current nuclear power plant is not completed as yet (decay time of all nuclear elements in the waste is longer than 30 years; the health effects of leakages, accidents contamination of natural resources – water, land are not known as yet)
b) The current technology remains the same until infinity.
This assumption makes a mockery of the nuke propaganda on this thread of improvements to come!
c) The discount rate remains 7% (well after the first 3 replications the present value would not be recorded by cost accountants because they only work with 2 decimal places).
What a silly assumption. How would you know that ‘finance’ as introduced in the 15th century in Europe will be around in 1000 years in the future?
The indigenous population of Australia survived for many thousands of years without ‘finance’.
And why pick on 7%? The best estimate of a ‘real discount rate’ I know of for contemporary economies is about 2%
But all of the above is only what one can expect someone who has studied Finance in a Commerce faculty. It is still superficial.
Lets look deeper. I asked for evidence that there is any nuclear power plant in the western world (do not ask me or comment on this term because I have made it precise!) where all risk to life and property is privately ensured. I also said I could not find one. Jarah does not know of one either.
You see, Mr Chris O’Neill, a theoretical condition under which the net present value approach is justified is known as ‘complete spanning’. The complete spanning condition corresponds to ‘complete insurance’ being possible. The absence of insurance for nuclear power plants in an economy where people try to apply the net present value method of project evaluation means that the net present value method cannot be applied for nuclear power plant. (Jarah, you might want to review your comment on this point too, unless you were also trying to figure out what the hell Chris O’Neill is on about).
Your insults of other people and your verbal fog is recorded already. It is now time to tell you my conclusion.
I conclude that the irony is that it is you, Chris O’Neill who is arrogant and ignorant.
How about cutting out the conspiracy theory nonsense? It does you no credit.
Read what I posted above about the technical issues with Luke’s post after looking at the evidence. You should too.
@quokka
Well, don’t introduce the allegation of conspiracy theory nonsense, then it doesn’t need to be cut out.
No, quokka, you are off my reading list. I acknowledged the one good reference you provided. I am still waiting for your acknowledgement of an item I queried. Until I receive your acknowledgeent, you are off my reading list on this thread.
quakka writes:
Read Luke’s post again, the break to a new line mid sentence (which you over looked), and the change of characters to “?” are consistent with copy and pasting from a pdf document. You can see the same result in the text I extracted and cited in earlier discussion with you.
Ernestine,
I think that you have to read this
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39128.html
It is pretty clear that these guys (well you never know, they could be anybody) work as a team to discredit renewables. It is also totally obvious that their arguments are empty. The whole purpose of it is to wear you down along with any thing green around you so that the only thing left standing is the Nuclear Weed.
So focus on the positive. Focus on renewables, there is so much more there and is so much more to discuss.
quakka writes:
Quakka, in the context of our political situation, the industrial congressional lobby complex and the government industry revolving door, need I point out the industry have asymmetrical access to the data.
Perhap to address my concerns you can put your mind to critiquing Caldicotts claims such as:
If the NPP industry don’t report the noble gaes released (which after release decay to radioactive isotopes) how can Caldicott?
The point I take from this claim of HC is that there are routes not adequately controlled for radiation consequent form NPP to effect people. Can you disabuse me of this notion.
If you can address that concern, we might return to the problem of a exposure model that does not appropriately differentiate between children and adults, and the conclusion from the French NAS that the data on in utero exposure is not robust enough to establish a safe exposure limit near the current thresholds.
You implication is quite offensive and you should be ashamed of attempting to make an equivalence between a debate on energy and the trash perpetrated by the likes of Andrew Bolt.
I have been shocked, and I would guess some other readers may also have been, by some of the recent comments on this thread.
There is some merit in what you say as a general observation. But in some cases, and especially nuclear power, there is also a political context of intense public scrutiny. Probably no other industrial or commercial activity has ever come under such intense scrutiny. In this context, the risk of whistle blowers is very high and the consequences could be very damaging in the event of public exposure of misdeeds. I think it is fairly obvious that as a whole, it is in the interests of the nuclear industry to uphold high standards and conform to regulatory requirements.
Of course it is inevitable that there will be some breeches and they should be dealt with severely but overall in the US for example, the safety record of nuclear power has been excellent. We can never have perfection in safety, but excellent is good enough.
There is also some risk from cowboy operators, but these are much more likely to be in the form of small contractors, not directly responsible for NPP operation. One such example was the dumping of waste off the African coast. What can I say, other than jail them?
It’s your choice Quokka to feel offended. Without the vulgarities there are similarities. The similarity for my thinking is the endless round of trivial, negative, singular focus content. The only real reason why the “discussion” continues is that the last word appears to carry something of a victory status.
Quakka, I can’t read the legends to the tables, can you show me if the tables account for the resultant decay products (daughter isotopes) that Caldicott highlights?
Where are the current quantitative reports of all radiation sources released? And what are standards against which they are compared?
@Chris O’Neill
Well I am not sure but;
if I have a kg of waste then in the next year its activity may fall, but I add in another kg of waste, which then falls a bit so I endup with more than 1 kg in year 2.
This continues at some rate, which is positive and negative, with the positive easily the biggest.
I don’t know what forumla is for this, but the O’Neill one doesn’t suit, and the net present value formula is not relevant.
But you don’t have to be rude about it.
IMHO that is.
@BilB
You suggest I focus on renewables. Well, there isn’t all that much to do for me (economist) because the renewables technologies don’t throw up problems which can’t be handled by more or less standard methods used in project development, project evaluation, planning legislation.
For example, consider the Whyalla SolarOasis, which you referenced. Given the information I have (which may be incomplete and I would appreciate getting corrections), I understand that:
a) The project has developed from the conceptual stage (application of science) to the experimental stage and now to the commercial stage.
b) The commercialisation involves a staged plan of expansion. This means one allows for future decision points, depending on the results obtained. This is a useful aspect in the real world because it segments the ‘big uncertainty’ (due to the theoretical condition of complete futures markets being not met in reality for rather well known reasons) into manageable time intervals (planning horizons) which are comprehensible to people (relative to their life span). This also means the present generation does not commit all future generations to its decisions.
c) The project is ‘small’ relative to the total energy market at present. Hence its adoption is not having a non-trivial impact on all other prices (not only energy but also input prices such as wages and matrials).
d) Due to (b) and (c), the discounted cash flow approach to evaluating a project is feasible, including calculating electricity output prices for break-even points.
e) Projects like Wyalla are unbiased regarding foreign trade; there is no requirement that all inputs are to be sourced locally nor is there a long term commitment to service foreign direct investment.
d) To the best of my knowledge, the technology is such that no special zoning or site selection is required.
e) I assume that dismantlement of such a plant would not be as difficult as demolishig a 50 storey high rise building in the middle of the CBD in Sydney. If I am not totally wrong, it means disposal costs can be estimated.
f) Private insurance for damage to life and property is possible.
Unless you can tell me an assumption is totally wrong, there is nothing of special interest to a financial economist.
PS: It is a barely hidden secret that Australia is one of the few countries which isn’t under financial distress. This means it is a target for people to sell their technologies. While I am not categorically against buying ‘foreign technolgies’, I believe it is sensible to not confuse economic sustainable development with dollar values.
Quakka:
Your make a reasoned argument, however how much scrutiny can non-industry people provide? The limited nature of possibilities is important to this context.
An ill equipped public or an odd whistleblower are no substitute for an empowered, vigorously independent and even aggressive regulator. And such a regulator seem quite implausible under our current co-opted systems of governance.
However this is a structural problem, and I recognize that structural problems are distinct from factual answers. So I keep looking for the evidence in an imperfect world to aid my personal verification/dismissal of competing claims.
Well then Ernestine, as a Financial Economist as you are I would like to see your workthorough on the use of 9% compulsory superannuation being applied to personal real estate for young families. If you believe as I do that the world is heading at speed towards a wall of economic tradgedy pinched between a steady pace of ever more devastating environmental impacts with the consequent insurance losses, and peak oil’s steadily rising oil prices impacting with the $A oscilations, then you will appreciate that many Australian mortgages written today may never be paid out in a regular manner. I know that GenIIPV is going make it possible for families to have total energy security, but optimal security comes with paid up residential ownership, and for my thinking utilising ones own superannuation funds to accelerate the process of paying down realestate debt. This then gives families more discretion with the manner of accumulating their retirement income investment. I doubt that any body starting out today is going to have a “normal” retirement. And further I’m sure that this reality has yet to occur to many people.
You may well think that the above is ludicrous. But assuming that you had to make it work how would you go about it, and what pitfalls do you see?
While I think about your renewables perceptions.
@quokka
Why ????
@Ernestine Gross
It’s accurate enough. What difference does it make if the total net present cost of all future disposal facilities including the first one comes to twice the cost of the first one? It still doesn’t add up to a cost that will make a difference. Even then, it’s assuming that the US will continue with stupid anti-reprocessing laws (that Europe doesn’t have) that were put in place by anti-nuclear zealots.
I was asked about the cost of future waste depositories and I gave an estimate relative to the cost of the first one. What you’re saying does not contradict my estimate relative to the cost of the first one. The ongoing costs of one depository is a separate point.
Yes, that is a pessimistic assumption.
As you imply, it’s been around for more than 500 years. It hardly seems overoptimistic to assume it will last for as long as they need to keep building more facilities, which would be somewhat less then 500 years because they could be reused as material decays. And again, this assumes they keep the stupid anti-reprocessing laws.
Whoopee doo.
I won’t be going to you for investment advice.
By the way, why do you make red herring statements about power station design that may or may not be used in any type of condenser-based thermal power station?
@Chris O’Neill
I have not received new information from you. Please go back to my post @6, p 10.
@Ernestine Gross
I don’t receive any information from you, apart from red herrings that is.
@quokka
Have a look at something she says:
“Fuel fabrication workers are once again exposed to gamma radiation emanating from the uranium, as well as to radon gas and uranium dust.”
There is virtually zero radon gas associated with nuclear fuel rods. Once the Uranium oxide is separated from ore, there is virtually zero radon gas in it because the decay series from U238 virtually stops at U234 in any practical nuclear energy lifetime (U234 half-life = 245,500 years).
What credibility would you give someone who says things that are just plain wrong?
@Chris O’Neill
Yes Chris, but radon gas sounds really scary, and frankly, what proportion of the populace is going to know that? Hardly anyone.
So really, it’s a pretty good line in FUD. It ought to be called Elmer.
@BilB
Good one. Too good for the nuclear sandpit.
To simplify communication, I’ll split your question into 3 parts:
1. Expectations about a future ‘wall of economic tragedy’
2. Financial economics without detailed information about superannuation legislation.
3. Superannuation legislation.
I’ll take out number 1, without loss of generality. That is, the question you posed can be discussed without going into the many possible interpretations of ‘wall of economic tragedy’ and associated discussions about the plausibility of each one of them. Alternatively put, even if there is no ‘economic tragedy’, however defined, the problem is still interesting from a micro-economic perspective.
To indicate how I use terminology, Financial Economics includes Finance but not vice versa. For example, borrowing and lending in physical objects is conceivable in Financial Economics but not in Finance.
I interpret your statement: “I know that GenIIPV is going make it possible for families to have total energy security, but optimal security comes with paid up residential ownership” as: A technology, named GenIIPV, provides complete energy self-sufficiency for residential houses. So far so good. I am not sure about the ‘optimal security’ bit because my best guess at this stage is that part of the problem is to check for optimality conditions from an individual’s (household) perspective. That is, at present I pursue the following question:
Suppose an individual has the choice between paying 9% p.a. superannuation into a superfund or paying 9% into a self-managed superfund which allows returns being taken in kind rather than in monetary terms (ie imputed rents and energy self-sufficiency), determine the conditions under which an individual would choose the latter.
If my formulation of the problem corresponds to what you have in mind, then there are 2 things left to be done. Firstly to find an analytical solution to the problem as I have described it. Second to check out the details of the current superannuation legislation for its compatibility with my assumption about a self-managed superfund. Then there is the market research aspect regarding actual versus assumed conditions in the optimisation problem.
I am happy to work on the analytical problem, assuming my description is adequate. But I am not prepared to put the solution on the nuclear sandpit.
That’s the result of copying and pasting a sentence or paragraph from a pdfLaTeX-generated PDF file back into an ASCII text editor. Because LaTeX renders “fi” and “ff” and so forth as single-character ligatures, and those ligatures are special characters, you stuff them up when the text goes back into the ASCII editor. It’s either that, or copy the text out of the LaTeX source file, which is plain ASCII, but then you’ve got to go and edit out all the LaTeX markup.
That’s what jakerman is referring to, of course, although he finds it necessary to spin-doctor it up into some kind of accusation that I’ve done something dishonest, instead of addressing the actual factual content – which would be what it is irrespective of when or by whom it was written.
The files in question are of course written entirely by me and are sitting here on my desktop. Some of you may be familiar with my work debunking Caldicott’s book, which is a worthwhile exercise, since by debunking everything in Caldicott’s book, you’re basically debunking all the rubbish arguments you see repeated over, and over, and over again.
Since anti-nuclear activists say the same things over, and over, and over again, it’s much more efficient to simply write down the answers and then open the archive and copy-and-paste the responses the next time they’re needed. As Richard Feynman put it, it’s worth remembering that the same equations always have the same solutions, as it saves a lot of time. There’s certainly nothing unprofessional or dishonest about that, of course. If an anti-nuclear activist actually comes up with something novel, of course they deserve a novel consideration and response.
Anyway… we’ve spent quite a few posts, over the last couple of pages here, contemplating the question of how an amount of radioactivity will change mathematically over time, when you’re adding radioactive material to a system as radioactive decay is constantly occurring. -(dN/dt) is proportional to N, since the probability of radioactive decay of a radioactive nucleus is always constant in any given window of time. That’s why radioactive decay is exponential decay – but if you suddenly add more radioactivity, you’re increasing N, and therefore the rate of decay goes back up.
If you’re adding radioactivity to the system at a certain rate, then you can easily reach a point where you have equilibrium, and the amount of radioactivity stays constant.
Exploring these kinds of systems certainly can lead you to a set of interesting differential equations… the equations that describe these systems are called the Bateman equations, after the English mathematician John Bateman who expanded the work that was done by Rutherford and Soddy and drew up these equations as a detailed quantitative description of radioactive decay series, about 100 years ago.
@Dingo
Because at sufficiently low doses, any harm that may be postulated to occur will be utterly swamped by vastly higher doses due to natural background radiation.
It should be noted that natural background radiation varies significantly by geographical location. It is higher in mountainous regions and in locations with concentrations of radioactive minerals. In Ramsar in Iran, it is so high as to be regarded as a serious public health risk but there are no obvious consequences for public health. See this: http://www.probeinternational.org/Ramsar.pdf
There are other studies that have also failed to find adverse health consequences for populations living with high background radiation levels. More research is probably needed, but the point is fairly clear. If double or more than double the typical natural dose rate is not showing readily detectable ill health effects, what is the chance that increasing natural exposure by say a factor of x 1.001 will cause detectable harm going to be?
Ernestine,
Commenting in prior sandpit.
@quokka
@quokka
This makes sense.
Many years ago I visited the Australian museum, and there was a display on evolution using the Drosfillia(?) Fly (?). It showd how it was possible to follow a change in species if a single gene switched.
The suggestion was that natural radiation caused random gene switches or changes to minute parts of DNA.
I felt than, that the whole basis of species evolution was driven via such a mechanism.
So background, natural radiation is there, and chnages (minutely) all dna, genes and etc. providing the driver for evolution.
So I researched this issue on the US Nuclear regulators Commissioin website and found that mundane use of radiatioin (industry, medical, research etc) has doubled the level of background radiation in America.
So even though each extra may be swamped as “quokka” notes, the actual effect is that it all accumulates.
US Doubles background radiation
So maybe “double the natural” produces no health effects, but my concern is what happens if this increase accelerates, becomes permanent, and how long can humanity permit it.
I note that Luke Weston has said:
If you add radioactivity to [the earth] at a certain rate, then you can easily reach equilibrium, so radioactivity stays constant.”
I am not maths-based, but is this the case? I will google bateman later.
Until this is sorted out, and given all the nuclear leaks (small but repetitive), I oppose the rapid expansion of nuclear technology presently occurring and i am totally opposed to any boost obtained by some posters who want ot promote it as the solution to climate chnage (when renewables can serve).
I agree with the waste piles up on itself theory.
But we are measuring radiation in ways that may undermine our understanding. I.e. we combine alpha, beta, gamma particles, and more, and call it all the same thing Sv. We don’t know that the effects of these are equivalent in conversion factors we use. We loose information by treating different forms of radiation as the same thing.
This is important in the context I have described where our current data is not robust enough to establish safe exposure limits for in utero. And important for the now established significant association between raised childhood cancers as a function of distance from NNP.
@jakerman
This is what the CDC says about measuring biological risk:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/measurement.asp
The Sv is a measure of effective biological risk and therefore it is valid to compare natural background dose measured in Sv to dose in Sv from other sources.
Quakka show me how this is not the fallacy of the circular argument. How do they quantify biological risk?
@jakerman
Why don’t you go and find out how they quantify biological risk? I am not an authority on health physics, but I will accept what authoritative sources such as CDC, Health Physics Society, UNSCEAR etc etc have to say. In the absence of anything authoritative to the contrary, what else can you go on? It’s not as if the subject has not been extensively studied.
This is not a question of circular arguments. If you have something substantive to suggest that that Sv is a flawed measure of biological risk then offer it. Is it in fact a contentious issue in the science? I’m not aware that it is, but as I said I’m not an expert. If you want to suggest it is, then produce something – preferably peer reviewed.
From the statement of the American Health Physics society “RADIATION RISK IN PERSPECTIVE”:
Average background dose in the US is about 0.3 rem per year.
Click to access risk_ps010-2.pdf
The way you quantify biological risk, Quokka, is you ask people if they want to take any risk, at all, with their health. Almost certainly the answer is no. That is the only quantity that matters.
The moment you start saying that the body can take a certain amount of radiation, from what ever source, it becomes a matter of choice for the public, not some company that wants to operate machinery that may increase exposure. The problem with nuclear is that if the operating company can get away with incidental radioactive gas leaks, they will. And no-one is the wiser. So when some people get Leukemia or some other ailment there is no way of linking it to some midnight radiation release. Of course there filters and sensors. There are also instances of these not performing.
Quakka it is a fallacy of circular argument, you are claiming Sv is a measure of efffective biological risk to address my concern that:
To a significant degree the convention was developed by observing effect from the impact of atomic bombs on Japan with its mix of radiation. This has differences and with differences to the longer term release from NNP.
You’ve failed to address my substantive point; we loose information when we combine different types of radiation when we cannot demonstrate that x alpha particles produces the same biological effect as y beta parcels or z gamma particles.
What do they say about this question? Do they just relay the old convention used or do they explain how they can demonstrate the biological response (long and short term) to x alpha = y beta = z gamma?
Quakka this quote will provide guidance to my query in my previous post.
http://www.ntanet.net/publicinfo.html
@Dingo
Note that the vast majority of this increase is for medical purposes
Perhaps ironically, it is intended to produce beneficial health effects. But it does demonstrate that people will accept exposure to radiation for a benefit.
That is very specific risk, Chris Oneill, any consequences can be pinpointed to the moment of damage. That is “I cut myself” versus “you stabbed me”.
@BilB
Strawman
Strawmen don’t die from radiation exposure.
People take risks with their health all the time. If you get in a car, you take risk. The same for a train, a bike, a plane, taking a walk to the park. If you put clothes in your washing machine you gladly accept a small risk of electrocution if the appliance is dangerously defective. The list of risks is enormous – you cannot live life without taking some risk. If you exercise you take risk. If you don’t exercise you take risk.
In short, Bilb, you have no comprehension of the nature of risk. There is no such thing as zero risk. It is a matter of taking an educated, informed view of risk.
The body does take a certain amount of radiation – it’s utterly impossible to prevent this. That’s the physical world. Nearly everybody is already exposed to radiation from non natural sources through for example dental X-rays. Who has not had a dental X-ray? Do dentists make a great song and dance about X-rays? No. Do you have to sign a consent form? No. Are the public being hoodwinked by dentists? No – because it is the best scientific evidence that in moderation, they cause no appreciable harm. So why are you not campaigning against dentists? Or smoke detectors or bananas? Because it’s a matter of dose – which everybody accepts unless the source is a NPP in which case all concept of dose flies out the door and the most minuscule exposure becomes magically incredibly dangerous.
And neither have members of the public from NPPs in the US.
@jakerman
You are making assumptions and assertions from the basis of ignorance as to what is or is not studied in assessing radiation safety – and then demanding I fill in the holes in your knowledge.
In particular issues of what tissues are mostly affected by uptake of particular isotopes have been extensively studied (eg isotopes of Iodine, Strontium etc). As have issues of the rate of exposure.
You are trying to pull the same trick as climate deniers in ascribing an extraordinarily simplistic approach to practitioners that does not in fact exist.
If you have a specific issue then out with it. At the moment you are just making vague noises about the concept of an effective biological dose.
Not true Quokka
On the contrary, I am asking pertinent questions, and highlighting the gaps in our knowledge. Which of my question in these post do you think are not pertinent to the association of child cancer found in relation to proximity to NPP. The KiKK study show an association, that is not arguing from ignorance. It is arguing from ignorance to claim the Sv standard is valid without being able to report how the standard addresses issues raised. It would be arguing from ignorance to claim the association between NPP and childhood cancer is spurious without being able to show how.
And which are not relevant to the issue of our lack of robust data around effects of radiation in utero.
@Chris O’Neill
Do these people who “will accept exposure to radiation for a benefit.” actually know what they are accepting and for what benefit?
Or is this a rationalisation of an ongoing tendency to increase background levels?
@Chris O’Neill
Chris says “But it does demonstrate that people will accept exposure to radiation for a benefit.”
Like who Chris? Care to elaborate on such a careless comment?