One of the greatest fears about nuclear power, is that radiation causes cancer. I am currently trying to get a copy of the book “Low Dose Radiation” by Antone Brooks. Dr Antone Brooks served as Chief Scientist for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) new Low Dose Radiation Research Program from 1999 to 2008. The slide below is taken from a presentation he gave in 2014 in Las Vegas. I have many references from other authorities that agree with his group’s research.
LNTH stands for Low-No-Threshold Hypothesis which is still used to set many radiation safety standards but is out of date. It was first proposed using high dose data when nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan at the end of the Second World War over 70 years ago. Dr Antone Brooks has also stated in another recent lecture that fear and excessive radiation protection kills people and is very expensive.
There have been over a dozen studies in Germany, trying to prove that nuclear power plants cause leukemia in children. I did not find the papers I could read very convincing. Then I came upon the study below published in 2007. The study tried to take into account confounding issues.
Something inside me said, this is Germany, and it manufactures many chemicals and plastics. A GP had noticed that a much higher level of leukemia was occurring in his young patients. With the help of Google, I discovered that a new chemical plant had been set up in the area the year before. Again, with the help of Google I found that most of the leukemia cases were much closer to this new chemical plant than to the nuclear power plant. This does not prove anything, but it is suggestive that much more work would need to be done to determine the cause of the leukemia cluster. It certainly left many unanswered questions.
This is not the first time that I have noted that blame is often quickly and incorrectly placed on radiation as the cause of illness. During my time as a regulator for Ranger Uranium Mine, Aboriginals that used a billabong downstream of the mine for food gathering and recreation became ill. The mine was blamed. Careful investigations measured almost non-existent levels of uranium or other contaminants in the water, except for very high levels of bacteria. The source, untreated sewage, was traced and treated and the illness disappeared.
I like the graph above as I can be sure it includes Chernobyl in its data.
The message is clear, nuclear is a very healthy way to generate power.
My Blog has become My Nuclear Journey 