‘Science nerd’ who ordered radioactive materials to his parents’ Sydney home spared conviction.
A “science nerd” who ordered uranium and plutonium to his parents’ apartment has escaped conviction and been given a two-year good behaviour bond.
Emmanuel Lidden, 24, admitted breaching nuclear non-proliferation laws by ordering various radioactive samples through the internet.
The package’s delivery sparked a major hazmat incident as Australian Border Force officials, firefighters, police and paramedics all combed the scene in August 2023.
But almost two years on, a judge on Friday spared Lidden a conviction and allowed him to walk from Sydney’s Downing Centre district court on a two-year good behaviour bond.
While his actions were criminal, judge Leonie Flannery found that the 24-year-old had mental health issues and displayed no malicious intent.
Speaking outside court after the sentencing, defence lawyer John Sutton said his client was relieved.
But the solicitor criticised border force for the way it had gone after the young man.
“It was an awful investigation for a whole range of reasons,” Sutton said.
Officers overreacted by storming Lidden’s Sydney home in hazmat suits when the amounts ordered were minuscule and harmless, he said.
“We could eat [them] and we’d still be perfectly fine,” he said.
“I’ve been contacted from scientists all around the world saying this is ridiculous.”
Prosecutors should have also questioned whether pursuing the case against Lidden in court was really in the public interest, Sutton said.
In a statement, border force Supt James Ryan called the multi-agency investigation against Lidden “extremely complex and sensitive”.
“The ABF remains committed to protecting the Australian community from all threats which can cross the border,” he said.
“I hope this example can be used as an education tool for people to be aware of the regulatory frameworks around what can and cannot be imported into Australia.”
Lidden is the first person prosecuted under Australia’s non-proliferation laws, aimed at preventing weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.
He ordered the items from a US-based science website and they were delivered to his parents’ home.
He pleaded guilty to two charges – sending nuclear material into Australia and possessing nuclear material.
At a sentence hearing in March, the lawyer described Lidden as a “science nerd” who committed the offences out of pure naivety.
“It was a manifestation of self-soothing retreating into collection; it could have been anything but in this case he latched on to the collection of the periodic table,” Sutton said at the time.
Nuclear materials can be imported legally by contacting the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office for a permit first.
This is a copy of a Substack article by Robert Hargraves on April 6. The full essay will be posted in several parts. https://substack.com/@roberthargraves1
Abstract
The root cause of nuclear power cost and opposition is excessive fear of radiation. This essay explores true observed radiation, effects, harm, and benefits, summarized here, proven later.
Doesn’t radiation from nuclear power plants causes cancer?
No, its radiation damage rates are slower than biological repair rates.
Isn’t the nuclear waste harmful to future generations?
No, we can store used fuel in ground-level casks as penetrating radiation decays away. You’d then have to eat the waste to get sick.
Don’t nuclear power plants cost too much?
Yes, because regulators’ rules were written using the precautionary principle, not today’s scientific observations.
Full Essay
Radiation is a weak carcinogen. After the WW II atomic bombings of Japan we all feared globally destructive nuclear war. To intensify that fear NGOs and nations exaggerated geneticists’ idea that even trivial amounts of radiation constantly degraded human genes through generations, even to birthing three-eyed monsters. When that fiction was disproven, the radiation fear of choice became cancer.
Governments and regulators strove to protect voters from the vague harm of invisible radiation, creating rules and procedures to keep people away from any radiation from nuclear power. These rules constantly became more strict and cumbersome.
These radiation exposure rules from worldwide regulators such as the US Environmental Protection Agency and Nuclear Regulatory Commission created the problem of high cost and long build times, making new nuclear power too expensive. In reality, nuclear power can be the least expensive reliable energy source, at $0.03/kWh, if we educate the public, politicians, and regulators.
Fear can kill. Radiation from the triple Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown killed no one, but Japan’s fearful government killed over 1,600 people with hasty, unnecessary evacuations.
Nuclear power optimism is on the rise. Will people return to nuclear fear after the next failure leaks some radioactive material out? Perfection is impossible. Radiation releases will happen. Airplanes do crash. People still fly. They understand authentic risks and benefits.
Two Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power reactors has been powered up in Georgia. Will these be the last commercial US nuclear power plants?
Radiation fear
Wisdom of a woman awarded two Nobel prizes.
Ionizing radiation harms by displacing electrons, breaking molecular bonds in cells. Radiation dose is measured in Sieverts (Sv) or Grays, which are watt-seconds (joules) of energy absorbed, per kilogram of tissue. These are the effects of intensive, brief absorbed doses of radiation.
10 Sv is deadly,
1 Sv risks non-fatal acute radiation sickness,
0.1 Sv slightly increases future cancer risk.
Regulators mistakenly claim any radiation exposure is potentially harmful, so set unreasonably low limits, hoping to calm fearful people. Media headlines frighten people about any radiation leaks, no matter how small, in order to gain attention with headlines.
Nuclear power growth, now in vogue, will end with the next radiation release unless we replace today’s regulators with institutions that balance benefits against quantified radiation doses and observed effects.
The near century of concessions lowering 1934 radiation limits from 0.002 Sv per day to 0.001 Sv per year has not reduced harm. Lowered limits have increased public fear, along with evidence-free rulings that all radiation is potentially fatal.
Newspapers often highlight unsubstantiated claims of radiation harm, such as this New York Times fright about CT scans, “a 2009 study from the National Cancer Institute estimates that CT scans conducted in 2007 will cause a projected 29,000 excess cancer cases and 14,500 excess deaths over the lifetime of those exposed.” The correct number is likely zero.
Atomic bomb survivors
After the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people and nations became concerned about the destruction of possible world-wide nuclear war. In 1950 began a studies of the health of the atom bomb survivors. The work was undertaken to make people more aware of the possible long term effects of radiation on genetics, and to increase fear of nuclear warfare. The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) maintains the data and publishes papers that explore linkages between cancer and radiation exposure. Radiation doses, by individual, were estimated after asking people where they were at the time of the bomb explosions, five years before.
The US National Academies used REFR data to claim that the risk of solid cancer is directly proportional to absorbed radiation dose. They promote the LNT (linear no threshold) model of health effects of radiation, which maintains the chance of cancer is directly proportionate to radiation exposure, and thus there is no safe dose of radiation. They published this following chart of cancer risk for bomb survivors.
Excess cancer risk for people irradiated by the atomic bomb
However, the data point in the low dose range of exposures less than 0.1 Sv does not show evidence that such low doses case cancer. Few in the radiation science community endorse this LNT model of low dose radiation effects, but LNT remains the official policy of the US EPA, NRC, and many other organizations in the radiation protection industry.
National Council on Radiation Protection hides data refuting LNT.
A 2001 article by Jaworowski and Waligorski illustrated how many scientists were misinforming governments with information tailored to continue the simplistic LNT model. They misled people into fearing that even low level radiation was potentially deadly. The right side of their graphic shows the NCRP’s (National Council on Radiation Protection) seemingly linear relationship between leukemia mortality and radiation exposure for survivors of the atomic bombing, evidencing their support for LNT.
The left hand side shows the UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) with much more detailed information about the effects of low dose radiation. There is clearly no evidence of increased leukemia mortality from radiation doses under 0.1 Sv (100 mSv). Clearly the LNT model is wrong.
A-bomb survivors’ exposures < 0.1 Sv caused no excess cancers.
The chart above uses bomb survivor cancer data to display that cancer rate increases from radiation, if any, are unobservable at doses < 0 .1 Sv. The leftmost, blue bar represents residents who happened not to be in the cities when the two atomic bombs exploded.
Part 2 will discuss regulation of nuclear facilities
Many press stories were published onFri 21 Mar 2025 including this extract from Australian Associated Press.
“Homegrown scientist faces 10 years’ mail for importing plutonium. His package delivery locked down his street as special agents in hazmat suits swooped. Now he will be the first person ever to be sentenced under a decades-old law.
Sydney ‘science nerd’ may face jail for importing plutonium in bid to collect all elements of periodic table
Emmanuel Lidden, 24, to learn fate after breaching nuclear non-proliferation laws by shipping samples of radioactive material to parents’ suburban home.
A “science nerd” who wanted to collect all the elements of the periodic table could face jail time after ordering radioactive material over the internet.
But Emmanuel Lidden, 24, will have to wait to learn his sentence after breaching nuclear non-proliferation laws by shipping samples of plutonium to his parents’ suburban Sydney apartment.
Lidden pleaded guilty to offences under Australia’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act that carry a possible 10-year jail sentence and is due to receive his sentence from the judge Leonie Flannery on 11 April.
The importation sparked a major hazmat alert, with Australian Border Force (ABF) officials, firefighters, police and paramedics all attending the scene in August 2023.
Far from there being any intention of building something nefarious like a nuclear weapon, Lidden’s lawyer John Sutton described his client as an “innocent collector” and “science nerd” who had been left flipping burgers after being sacked from his job because of the investigation.
“He did not import or possess these items with any sinister intent … these were offences committed out of pure naivety,” Sutton told Sydney’s Downing Centre district court on Friday.
“It was a manifestation of self-soothing retreating into collection, it could have been anything but in this case, he latched on to the collection of the periodic table.”
Lidden had also been a keen collector of stamps, banknotes and coins.
But prosecutors said describing the young man as a simple collector and science nerd was a mischaracterisation.”
David Southwell’s article for the Daily Mail Australia was published on 15 December 2024.
“A science enthusiast is facing 10 years’ jail for importing nuclear material even though it was found to be harmless.
Emmanuel Steven Lidden, 24, was arrested in August 2023 when officers in full hazmat suits swooped on his parents’ Arncliffe unit in southern Sydney, blocking off the street and evacuating neighbours.
They confiscated plutonium and depleted uranium in decorative vials and polymer cubes that Lidden kept by his bedside after buying from a US science collectables website to complete a real-life periodic table.
Scientists found the samples were harmless, but Lidden pleaded guilty to importing nuclear material into Australia and possessing nuclear material without permission, which could land him in prison for over 10 years.
Lidden’s lawyer John Sutton said the anti-terror laws were clearly not aimed at people like Lidden.
‘These laws were created to protect society from terrorists and people who intend to cause mass destruction, not naive young science fans,’ he told the Daily Telegraph.
The laws were created in 1987 and Lidden is the only person to have been prosecuted under them.
Asked about the appropriateness of pursuing Lidden, a Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions spokeswoman said it ‘conducts all prosecutions in accordance with the Prosecution Policy of the Commonwealth’.
Lidden ordered the materials from an online store in the US. As the online store says Collecting elements is a fun way to learn about chemistry and nature in general. They have a range of display cases and element samples made to fit the different display cases. The cheapest one is shown below.
Originally, five radioactive elements were available for sale. The site warns – Don’t worry about their safety. Because of the small size samples their level of radioactivity is far too small to be hazardous to health so long as you keep these well out of the reach of children. Accidental ingestion, or particulates which are allowed to become airborne where they could be breathed in, do pose a serious health risk.
The more expensive kits use lucite cubes or glass vials. The containers used to hold the samples would have stopped any alpha rays. The uranium would have looked like this:
Many Elements are Radioactive
Most elements have one or more radioactive forms that occur naturally as a percentage of the whole. For example, potassium – 40 makes up about 0.012% or 120 parts per million of natural potassium. All our food is radioactive as are our bodies. Sleeping next to your spouse provides you with more background radiation. Potatoes are radioactive as are bananas. For more information on background radiation see my blog post. https://onewomanjourney.com.au/2024/12/30/background-radiation-how-much-radiation-do-we-experience-on-earth/
Interestingly, bismuth is not classified as radioactive and is sold as a treatment for travellers’ tummy wogs. Actually, it has no stable isotopes and a very, very long half-life.
Is Plutonium the Most Dangerous Substance on Earth?
As the late John Fremlin, professor of radioactivity at Birmingham University, famously advised a public inquiry, plutonium can be sat upon safely by someone wearing only a stout pair of jeans. At Harwell in the 1950s the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth was handed a lump of plutonium in a plastic bag and invited to feel how warm it was. https://www.neimagazine.com/uncategorized/the-drama-of-plutonium/?cf-view
Plutonium is radioactive, but it doesn’t seem that harmful at first glance. It looks like any other metal, with a silvery sheen that turns dull in contact with the air. Queen Elizabeth II held a piece during a visit to Britain’s Atomic Energy Research facility at Harwell in 1957. It was warm to the touch, but it didn’t hurt.
According to some references the incidence happened in 1956 at the opening of the Calder Hall UK. A young Queen Elizabeth was invited to handle a lump of plutonium and feel the warmth of the extraordinary material, which she did. The shielding was a plastic bag and I presume the royal gloves. The Queen outlived almost all her contemporaries. (D Fishlock. ‘The Last Retort.’ Chemistry World 99, March 2005.)
Galen Winsor worked with plutonium for over 3 decades in the US. In the video below he talks about his experiences. Then he talks about his utter dismay when the Hi-Level Waste Disposal Act of 1982 was passed as part of “The Nuclear Scare Scam”- (about 26minutes into the video). This is a fascinating video for those interested in plutonium.
It is time Australia dealt with real risks appropriately rather than over-reacting to trivial issues.Fear of radiation is both costly and ignorant of the science.
Germany has more radon baths than any other country. Yet they fear nuclear power plants. They closed them down and opened up coal mines knocking down ancient forests in the process. Medical benefit payments are paid out to people who attend the radon spas for relief of muscular-skeletal ailments. The medical fraternity warns of the dangers of radon yet people in pain still seek relief.
People have been using radon baths for thousands of years. Low dose radiation seems to lessen the pain and immobility of osteoarthritis. But not every patient benefits.
Many studies have shown that the more low dose radiation a population receives, the less cancer there is in the population. This effect is known as hormesis. I can also find studies that state that low dose radiation causes cancer.
Is anything black or white or just shades of grey? Is anybody totally truthful? We all have our biases. To get a message across about cognitive dissonance I wrote “Low Dose Radiation is not Harmful and May Even Be Good for Us!Nobody Died from Radiation at Fukushima”
But panic and fear of radiation caused the unnecessary deaths of over a thousand Japanese people following the evacuation.
Every decision we make in life rests on our perception of the risk involved versus the benefits. That balancing act changes with circumstances. For example, the amount of radiation used for cancer treatment is huge. None of us would want to receive that much in ordinary circumstances. A medical specialist tells us it is our best chance of beating deadly cancer and we accept the treatment for 2 reasons. Firstly, the radiation will be applied under very controlled conditions to a limited area. Secondly, the whole balance of the situation has changed.
A few years ago, I didn’t agree that Australia should have a nuclear power industry. Did we plan long term enough? Did we plan carefully? Were we just too Gung-ho?
I am now watching the destruction of Australia’s wonderful unique biodiversity as we lose forest and mountain ridges to wind turbine projects in Queensland in the “fight against climate change”. Is the balance, right? Do we have to destroy nature to save the planet?
Ecologists, Barry W. Brook and Corey J. A. Bradshaw ranked 7 major electricity-generation sources (coal, gas, nuclear, biomass, hydro, wind, and solar) based on costs and benefits. They published a paper in 2014 called: Key role for nuclear energy in global biodiversity conservation. https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.12433.
This study still stands out. It used multicriteria decision-making analysis and ranked 7 major electricity-generation sources based on costs and benefits. It then tested the sensitivity of the rankings to biases stemming from contrasting philosophical ideals. Irrespective of weightings, nuclear and wind energy had the highest benefit-to-cost ratio.
The Integrated Life-cycle Assessment of Electricity Sources undertaken by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe which concentrated on Carbon Neutrality in the UNECE Region has been extensively quoted by Oscar Martin on LinkedIn. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4020227?ln=en&v=pdf
Nuclear scored far better than wind power (and all other electricity generation types) on nearly all rankings with the exception of water use and of course radiation. Public and occupational exposures to radiation from electricity generation was far higher from coal and even geothermal systems than from conventional nuclear power plants. Likewise, every other of 22 assessed electricity generation types were more carcinogenic than conventional nuclear power.
Potential impacts such as specific biodiversity-related impacts, noise or aesthetic disturbance were not assessed under the land use analysis. Nuclear had the lowest lifecycle impacts on ecosystems, followed by various forms of wind and solar power. Under the land use assessment, renewable technologies were assumed to be readily built on various land types without heavy modifications such as land sealing, mountaintop removal, and flooding.
The assessment of land use which was used in the assessment of ecological impact for wind projects only considered the directly disturbed land (turbine pads, access roads) and assumed the surrounding land could be used for other purposes such as agriculture. For disturbed forests this leads to massive underestimation of the impact. Research in far northern Queensland is finding that impacts from wind turbines on some species in forests can extend 3 km or more from a turbine.
Nature is doing over half the work of reducing carbon dioxide levels worldwide. We can save nature and the planet. With a carefully planned mix of nuclear and other energy sources, we can preserve our biodiversity.
Yes, nuclear power is not 100% safe and clean. Nothing ever is. The benefits to humanity and nature are too great to ignore and far greater than the risk.
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake, centred to the east of Sendai caused a wave 10m high travelling at 800 kph . The highest wave hitting the coast of Japan was 23m. It travelled inland for 10 km in some places. The Hawaiian Islands had waves over 3 metres high. As many as 19,500 lives were lost from both the earthquake and tsunami.
Misinformation
The following figure, with the added title “FUKISHIMA RADIATION HAS CONTAMINATED THE ENTIRE PACIFIC OCEAN AND ITS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE!” was repeated over and over again on the web by various “green” groups.
Yes, the figure was produced by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the US Government). BUT it is a graph of WAVE HEIGHTS after the tsunami. NOAA does not measure radiation levels.
A similar graph has been used for years by Helen Caldicott including during a presentation to Teals before the last election. Helen’s graph had a logo from a company in Australia that does undertake radiological measurements. The company stated on their website that it was not their work and that their logo was falsely included. She must have known for nearly ten years that the graph was false. I am also horrified by nuclear war and nuclear bombs and admire her work in this area but not at the cost of truth about low dose radiation.
Nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs are very different. I hate nuclear weapons. However, the use of falsified information when advocating for the banning of nuclear weapons or nuclear power is not OK. It is particularly abhorrent when scientific data is used in a way that the author knows to be untrue. I was told to use this technique in an environmental campaigning course by a famous international “Green” organisation.
These types of fear peddling are totally unethical, particularly when they pretend to be scientific in nature.
Why Do the Media call the Tsunami, the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster?
How many deaths could have been avoided if suggestions for evacuation or shelter in place standards suggested by the IAEA had been used. But Fear and Panicked Evacuation of about 100,000 people was responsible for 2313 disaster-related deaths among evacuees from Fukushima prefecture.
An old nuclear power plant overdue for decommissioning was damaged at Fukushima Daiichi by a wave 13-15m high. The placing and tsunami protection of the Daiichi plant assumed a 3m wave.
Eleven reactors at four nuclear power plants in the region were operating at the time and all shut down automatically when the earthquake hit. Subsequent inspection showed no significant damage to any from the earthquake itself.
The residual heat cooling systems worked for 8 out of the 11 power plants. At Fukushima Daiichi, electrical power from all 6 external sources stopped and the generators turned on until the tsunami flooding disabled 12 0f 13 backup generators running the cooling systems. Switching gear was also damaged.
Heat built up causing steam in the cooling systems. Hydrogen was produced by the steam reacting with exposed Zircaloy cladding. The containments were filled with inert nitrogen, which prevented hydrogen from burning in the containment. However, the hydrogen leaked from the containment into the reactor buildings, where it mixed with air and exploded. 3 of the 4 reactor buildings were damaged by hydrogen explosions. This was not a nuclear explosion. It was simple chemistry. To prevent further explosions, vent holes were opened in the top of the remaining reactor buildings. All reactors were stable within 2 weeks.
Three Tepco employees at the Daiichi and Daini plants were killed directly by the earthquake and tsunami. There have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the nuclear power plant incident. One man from the plant died of cancer died soon afterwards but it is thought to be unrelated.
But in contrast there were 2,300 deaths caused by fear of radiation that triggered the evacuation.
Government nervousness to this day has delayed the return of many evacuees to their homes. Concerns about radiation in the sea caused panic even in the USA and some people made themselves sick with overdoses of iodine.
Tritium.
About 18 months ago, South Korea and China advised their citizens to stop eating seafood. Water used to cool the Fukushima reactors had been decontaminated and stored in large tanks and was finally to be released to the sea by Japan. The IAEA carefully monitored the releases. Korean fishermen were suffering loss of income as a result of the bans. After Korea monitored the sea water, they reversed their advice. China has only recently lifted their ban as they could not detect any contaminants. I followed the data for a while. Sometimes the tritium levels were so low in the discharge, the discharge water was diluting the tritium levels in the the sea water.
Tritium is created every day in our atmosphere and comes down in the rain, ending up in the sea. This natural process is the overwhelming source of tritium in the ocean.
In 2008, David presented a paper in the International Mine Water Association conference in Karlovy-Vary (Karlsbad, Czech Republic). As part of our conference trip, we included a field trip to Hamr-Stráž, an area where uranium deposits had been exploited by the USSR with little regard for the environment or the health of workers. As part of the field trip we learnt about one of the huge legacies left for the Czech people to clean up. Technical details of the current chemistry and radiology were presented along with technological details needed for the rehabilitation of the ground water. Following the presentation we visited the extensive site where I spotted wild strawberries.
I decided to eat some and bent down and picked a few. Suddenly, I was the centre of attention. “Do you think you should eat them. Aren’t you scared of the radiation in the strawberries?” I looked at the men around me and said “You have seen the data, yes I will eat them.” Once I ate one, suddenly the atmosphere changed and many others joined me. The strawberries were wonderful. We had been given much more data than appears in the reference below yet fear came first, not data and rational thinking.
The Chernobyl liquidators are the people who were called in to deal with the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. They lived in tents close to Reactor 4 and did so much work to keep the site safer and cleaner than it would have been. They are the firefighters, the men who cleaned off the burnt material on the roof of the reactor building. They built the sarcophagus, worked in the power stations, buried parts of the red forest and buried topsoil and nearby villages.
“An estimated 350 000 clean-up workers or “liquidators” from the army, power plant staff, local police and fire services were initially involved in containing and cleaning up the radioactive debris during 1986-1987. About 240 000 liquidators received the highest radiation doses while conducting major mitigation activities within the 30 km zone around the reactor. Later, the number of registered liquidators rose to 600 000, although only a small fraction of these were exposed to high levels of radiation.” https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/documents/publications/health-effects-of-the-chernobyl-accident.pdf
The majority still live in Russia, a few thousand still live in Estonia, many live in Slavutych and about 1500 moved to Israel. Chernobyl has been a Jewish enclave down through the centuries. The original liquidators were given little protection in very highly radioactive situations. My surprise is that some staff from Reactor 4 and some of the firefighters that crucial night are still alive. Depending on their country of residence, some of the liquidators receive pensions and/or have received compensation payments.
In the years before and after the Chernobyl Accident, the people of the USSR and later the independent states went through a period of poor nutrition and absent or very inadequate medical facilities. The average life span of men in these countries has increased dramatically as living conditions have improved. For example, people in Russia only had an average life span of 65 in 1993 and a life span of 73 in 2022. I saw one figure of only 53 years in the 1980s. In 2022, Ukrainians still only had a life span of 69 years. Smoking and drinking vodka were frequent pastimes during the hard years.
In 2006, Opinion was Divided over Chernobyl’s True Toll
The World Health Organisation and UNSCEAR (The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) both published reports in 2005. A fierce debate broke out fueled by scientists in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia as well as entities like Greenpeace that felt that the health impacts of Chernobyl were badly underestimated by WHO and UNSCEAR. The WHO and UNSCEAR reports claimed that fewer than 50 people died as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl Accident. Other estimates of the number of deaths so far in the former Soviet countries range as high as 50,000, reflecting deep splits in opinion over the appropriate way to evaluate the long-term effects of the tragedy. https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2806%2968559-0
There is no doubt that evacuation, dislocation and treatment of the liquidators led to severe mental illness in many people. Fear and stress can cause many illnesses. Claims by a Russian scientist of genomic instability is concerning. Genomic instability is only one of the many factors needed for cancer to manifest.
Unfortunately, many of the higher estimates from epidemiological modelling are based on the LNT Model formulated after WW2. It is now known to overestimate the potential impacts of low dose radiation.
Experts talk About the Health Effects of Chernobyl
“Being exposed to the sort of doses that come out of nuclear power plant accidents is far less dangerous than going sitting on a beach in Australia.” – Jerry Thomas
It was the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine that caught on fire on April 26, 1986 demolishing the reactor building and then releasing large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. The other 3 reactors kept operating, the last of them closing on December 15, 2000, and finally the decommissioning phase began.
Construction of the new city of Slavutych started in 1986, and the first inhabitants settled in October 1988. This new city was intended to replace the ghost city of Pripyat. Slavutych is sited on the left bank of the Dnieper River about 30 miles east of the Nuclear Power Plants (NPP). It is mostly home to survivors of the disaster who had to be relocated from Pripyat, among them about 8,000 people who were children when the disaster occurred. Many inhabitants still work at the site of the former plant for monitoring, maintenance, or scientific purposes. They commute to the zone on a regular basis. A rail line (twice crossing the international border with Belarus) runs directly from the city to the site of the NPP.
In 2021, of the approximately 7,000 people who came in and out of the CEZ to work, more than 4,000 had shifts of either 15 days a month or four days a week—schedules devised to minimize exposure to ionizing radiation. They are security guards, firefighters, scientists, decommissioning workers or those who maintain the infrastructure of this unique community. Many lived part-time in the ancient city of Chernobyl occupying some of the rooms and apartments that were evacuated in 1986. A few even lived in Pripyat.
About 70,00 tourists visited the inner zone of the CEZ prior to the war.
On 24 February, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine and took over the CEZ. Ukrainians were allowed to keep doing work essential to the safety of the site under Energoatom but the rotation system broke down. On March 20 roughly half of the staff who were on shift when the Russians took over, were allowed to return home to Slavutych for the first time. The second rotation was allowed on 11th April. The Russian military controlled the CEZ for five weeks until they withdrew on 31 March. But roads had been made impassable and workers had to be brought via boat down the Dnieper River. The CEZ has remained in Ukrainian control since.
It has been reported that the Russians looted and destroyed a lot of equipment including 1000 computers and firefighting equipment. They laid mines but I have just read that the Ukrainians say they have cleared these.
Tanks and Russian Armed Forces caused a lot of harm to infrastructure and to the Red Forest area. It was claimed that an enormous spike in radiation (even in Chernobyl city) measured at the time by the gamma dose rate monitoring network in the CEZ was caused by tank movements disturbing the soil.
Beresford et al think that the effect was temporary and the high readings may have been due to military electro-magnetic frequency interference causing reporting anomalies from the detectors. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37352719/ .
They have also published https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35196340/Current ionising radiation doses in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone do not directly impact on soil biological activity.
What is Happening to Slavutych and the City of Chernobyl?
Slavutych is often cut off from the rest of Ukraine, and Belarus is hostile now. Bombing occurs and many people have fled. Even so, civilians with children have settled in Chernobyl as the housing is cheap. Slavutych was seen as a wonderful place to live but the population is dropping, noting that parts of Eastern Ukraine have lost half their population due to the war. With time the well paid work at the NPP is becoming less.
Decommissioning the NPP
The work is being funded by the Ukrainian Government, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Other International Private Donors. (I ask why aren’t the Russians paying?)
The stages and actions are:
• Shut down: The last reactor at the plant was shut down in 2000. • Remove fuel: Nuclear fuel was moved to a storage facility in the first stage of the decommissioning process. • Deactivate reactors: All reactors will be deactivated in the second stage. • Maintain reactors: The reactors will be maintained until radiation levels drop to an acceptable level. • Dismantle reactors: The reactors will be dismantled and the site cleared. • Decontaminate: The plant and surrounding area will be decontaminated, including any radioactive soil and water. • Restore environment: The site will be restored to an environmentally safe state.
The first waste canister containing highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been successfully processed.
There was a sarcophagus rapidly put in place on Reactor 4 as an emergency solution. It was starting to disintegrate. Better containment has always been needed.
Chernobyl’s New Safe Confinement
Chernobyl’s New Safe Confinement (NSC) is a design and construction project unprecedented in the history of engineering. Never before has such a huge structure been constructed at a heavily contaminated site.
It was started at the site in late 2010 and the structure was moved into position on Reactor 4 in November 2016. Following systems installation, testing and commissioning the New Safe Confinement has now been handed over to the Ukrainian authorities and the Chernobyl Shelter Fund was closed in late 2020. https://www.ebrd.com/what-we-do/sectors/nuclear-safety/chernobyl-new-safe-confinement.html
The Health of Workers of Slavutych
City authorities for Slavutych have stated that there is less cancer and heart problems than in other cities in Ukraine. This is interesting as many of the “Liquidators” still live in Slavutych. There are also claims that fertility levels in Slavutych are higher than in similar cities in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately references I saved from a few years ago, even if they are still on the web, have become impossible to translate. I would love more data. The effects of the war will probably confuse health data. People are fleeing due to bombing and isolation from the rest of Ukraine.
Current Radiation levels in the CEZ
In 2022, the German entity, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) published the first area-wide radiological mapping of the exclusion zone in over 30 years at the request of the Ukrainian Government. BfS works for the safety and protection of man and the environment against damage due to ionising and non-ionising radiation.
In 1986, 115,000 people were forced to leave “for 3 days and no more” starting 36 hours after the Chernobyl explosion including the inhabitants of 81 villages. After 1986, another 200 000 people from Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine were relocated. If you really wish to visit this period again this website will bring you almost up-to-date. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident .
Some of the residents started to return to their villages within weeks. These waves continued for about 4 years despite efforts to stop them. “Samosely” or selfsettlers are still residents of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – mostly Babushkas. By 1987, 1200 people had returned to live in their old homes. Eventually women past child-bearing years were allowed to stay. That means that nearly 40 years later the surviving residents have to be at least 90.
Today, there are about a 100 still surviving. This number has dropped from about 250 only a few years ago. They live off the land, growing their own food and picking Cesium 137 laced mushrooms. They have foraging pigs and chickens.
Hanna Zavorotnya and a pig in front of her home in the CEZ. Photo: Rena Effendi
Hanna is one of the 3 stars in the 2015 documentary “The Babushkas of Chernobyl“. It can still be viewed or bought on the web from various sources.
The Samosely have lived hard lives and remember so much: the starvation of 1932 under Stalin when millions died, the brutality of Nazi occupation then forced eviction from their Motherland. Now they fight to keep their crops from wild animals. Finally, the Russians took over the area again for a time following years of Ukrainian independence. The war continues. For a time, landmines were in parts of the forests.
The Joy of Harvest: Photograph by Yuli Solsken
Photo by Jorick de Kruif in 2018: Ivan Semenyuk was 82 years old and lived in the house he built in the 1950s in the village of Paryshev.
When interviewed in 2018, Ivan was growing cabbages, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, shallots, potatoes and beans on his allotment. He loved to fish and gathered mushrooms, berries and medicinal herbs in the forest. A mobile shop, which was supposed to visit every Friday, brought food, household chemicals and basic necessities, which he could buy with his pension which is delivered to him and other elderly inhabitants of the zone. Ivan has mains electricity, and recalls that they did not have to pay for it for two years after he returned. He draws water from his own well on his land. He has a mobile phone, television and radio, and keeps in touch with the outside world between visits from his son.
Like other inhabitants Ivan had trouble with wild animals destroying vegetables growing in his garden. He respected radiation but greatly feared the packs of wolves and the snakes. He and his dogs had been attacked by large packs of wolves, 6 dogs being killed in one week. Eventually, the authorities permitted him to shoot wolves.
What of the radiation? Ivan explained how men with dosimeters checked levels in his well and land. He stated that there was now no radiation in the village. (Visitors are warned not to eat anything in the zone.)
There is no doubt that like the animals of the CEZ, the Samosely experienced higher levels of ionising radiation than the normally accepted levels for humans. However, I suspect that the levels were in the low dose range. Yet these people seem to have outlived those of similar age and background who left their “MotherLand” and lived elsewhere. I would like to have seen better radiological data.
Next time: thousands still work at the nuclear power stations. A few people live in the ancient city of Chernobyl.
In the first few years after the Chernobyl Catastrophe, most of the attention was focused on human health. The general impression was that any animals living nearby were either killed or badly maimed and the forest was quiet. Some farm animals were born malformed with extra limbs and a few forest creatures were also seen to be mutated. It is no surprise that in those early years very high levels of radiation either killed or maimed. Creatures in utero or in the period of rapid cell growth and organ differentiation were particularly vulnerable. Expectations for the future were very pessimistic.
Few researchers expected what then happened!
Ecologists have found the land surrounding the damaged nuclear power plant, which has been largely off limits to humans for three decades, has become a haven for wildlife, with lynx, bison, deer and other animals roaming through thick forests. This so-called Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), which covers 2,800 square km of northern Ukraine, now represents the third-largest nature reserve in mainland Europe and has become an iconic – if accidental – experiment in rewilding.
Contamination Levels in the CEZ
The contamination levels within CEZ vary considerably. The highest levels are in the “Red Forest”. Around the destroyed nuclear power plant and in the nearby city of Pripyat, the radiation caused the leaves of thousands of trees to turn a rust color, giving a new name to the surrounding woods. Workers eventually bulldozed and buried the radioactive trees. What these levels actually are vary from source to source but they are still very high.
The levels of contamination by iodine 131 dropped quickly in the first year as it has a half-life of 8 days. Similarly cesium 134, with a half-life of 2 years, has almost disappeared. The isotopes cesium 137 and strontium 90 remain mostly tied up by the clay in the soil. Fungi can have relatively high levels of cesium 137. Recent radiation levels in most of the CEZ vary from less than 1 to over 800 mSv /year.
Cesium 137 and strontium 90 have half-lives of about 30 years. Thus the radiation levels will have now halved since the disaster. In about 200-300 years there will be very little radiation left. Cesium is not easy to absorb. Clay binds to it strongly. The cesium that is absorbed has a biological half-life of 90 days. Similarly strontium is also bound to clay but once in a vertebrate, it is bound into bones and stays there for a long time as it is not excreted. It should also be remembered that both isotopes are toxic chemically as well as being radioactive.
The Animals of Chernobyl
Top predators like wolves that ate other contaminated animals were assumed to be particularly vulnerable.
The reality has been that larger mammals have thrived. These include Eurasian lynx, gray wolf, wild boar, brown bear, European bison, elk, red deer, red fox, roe deer, raccoon dog, and Przewalski’s horse. Thirty horses were introduced in the late 1990s. Cameras traps now indicate that there are over 100 of this special breed.
Top: European Lynx (U.K. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology), Brown Bear and Bison (Sergey Gaschack), then below Fox (AP PHOTO / Sergui Chuzavkov), Black Grouse (Nick Beresford), Raptor (REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko).
Other commonly observed animals include moose, black grouse, snakes, owls, raccoon dogs, foxes, pine martens, and badgers. There have been suggestions that foxes may not be reproducing as fast as other animals. Perhaps the lack of farmers’ chicken pens has reduced their feed source!
Domestic cats have now bred for many generations without the presence of farming families. There are lots of rodents as a food source. Dogs left behind vary in their quality of life with the situation being complicated by human activities.
The monitoring of animals has become much more sophisticated and some creatures are now being tagged. Recent work includes genetics, and biochemistry of blood and tissue samples.
I have included the following video. The story is great and the animals shown wonderful. Some of the ideas may be outdated but the video is fascinating. I loved watching it. There are lots of other videos on the web. They vary in quality and degree of bias. The pictures of mutated animals appear to have been taken prior to 2000.
Ecological Studies
Unfortunately no scientists or other visitors are allowed to enter the CEZ at the current time due to the war. So studies are on hold. Scientists tend to be very conservative and continue to ask each other difficult questions. Early studies did not examine the health of the animals seen.
Two evolutionary biologists teamed up to study the area’s birds. They were Anders Møller of University Paris-Saclay in France and Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina. Their early surveys showed that certain bird species tended to have more genetic mutations, smaller brains and less viable sperm in sites with higher radiation levels. And in 2007, they counted 66 percent fewer birds and 50 percent fewer bird species in highly radioactive places compared to background-level sites.
In dozens of studies, the pair also documented that, with higher radiation levels, there were significantly lower numbers of soil invertebrates and a lower abundance of certain insect species and such mammals as hares and foxes. Working with collaborators in Finland, they also documented a range of health effects in bank voles.
Over the last 10 to 15 years much more detailed studies have started and early pessimistic authors are now also finding that the creatures are adapting well to higher levels of radiation including Møller and Mousseau. By 2014, in a paper they published with others: Chronic exposure to low-dose radiation at Chernobyl favours adaptation to oxidative stress in birds.
We found a pattern radically different from previous studies in wild populations, showing that GSH levels and body condition increased, and oxidative stress and DNA damage decreased, with increasing background radiation. Thus, when several species are considered, the overall pattern indicates that birds are not negatively affected by chronic exposure to radiation and may even obtain beneficial hormetic effects following an adaptive response. Analysis of the phylogenetic signal supports the existence of adaptation in the studied traits, particularly in GSH levels and DNA damage. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2435.12283
Attitudes were changing.
When other scientists reanalyzed early data by Møller and Mousseau on a dozen mammal species, they found that radiation had indeed caused declines in abundance, but only at higher doses than the pair had originally reported. No account had been made of the radioisotopes already within the bodies of the mammals. This is Science in action.
Dr Ismael Galván, of the Spanish National Research Council said “Previous studies of wildlife at Chernobyl showed that chronic radiation exposure depleted antioxidants and increased oxidative damage. We found the opposite – that antioxidant levels increased and oxidative stress decreased with increasing background radiation.” The species surveyed were: Red-backed shrike, great tit, barn swallow, wood warbler, blackcap, whitethroat, barred warbler, tree pipit, chaffinch, hawfinch, mistle thrush, song thrush, blackbird, black redstart, robin and thrush nightingale. “Chronic exposure to low-dose radiation at Chernobyl favors adaptation to oxidative stress in birds.” https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12283
A Recent Study on Wolves
So far the findings from this important study are only available as an abstract from 2024. A full paper has not yet been published, probably because of the pause in research. Polygenic adaptation and co-regulatory dynamics in Chernobyl wolves: Unveiling immune and oncogenic stress interactions with implications for human cancer resilience. https://doi.org/10.1158/1538-7445.AM2024-7322
Gene signature variations in CEZ wolves reveal a distinct immune profile, likely shaped by prolonged radiation exposure. These findings, along with evidence of polygenic selection, suggest adaptation to multigenerational radiation exposure (an oncogenic stress). Notably, the enrichment of genes with positive prognosis in human cancer overexpressed in CEZ wolves present a valuable model to explore genetic underpinnings of cancer immunity and advance our understanding of cancer resilience in humans.
In other words, the wolves in the CEZ are a unique population of gray wolves that have adapted to survive levels of radiation six times higher than the legal limit for humans. They are the subject of scientific research that aims to understand how animals can survive in these conditions. The research so far suggests that the wolves have developed genetic mutations that make them resistant to cancer. The wolves are thriving. Their population in the CEZ is seven times denser than in low radiation protected areas in Belarus.
Next time: what has happened to the humans that live and work in the CEZ?
Some areas of the world have much higher background levels, some patches being one hundred times higher than the world average. In general terms, multiple studies have suggested that long term residents of these higher background areas do not suffer from higher rates of cancer or heart disease. They may even develop extra protective measures. I will provide more information on this topic some of which can be controversial, in later blogs.
Background Radiation Dose Rate in mSv/day. Graph by Jack Devaney
Not all background data is easily available in mSv. Some interesting facts may be shown in other units such as grays. For X-rays, gamma rays and beta emitters, the gray is numerically the same value when expressed in sieverts, but for alpha particles one gray is equivalent to 20 sieverts, as a radiation weighting factor is applied accordingly. Alpha particles are easy to stop but once in the body, they inflict more damage.
When radiation is measured using instruments like a geiger counter, the unit is becquerels (Bq). One becquerel is equal to one nuclear decay per second. Conversions from becquerels to mSv can be done accurately for a single radionuclide but mixtures are very complex. For reference to the figure below, there are one thousand trillion becquerels in a Petabequerel, an almost unimaginable number. The overall message is clear. Human influence on background levels is small. As large as the effect of the dreadful nuclear bomb testing was, it is relatively tiny fraction of the total and diminishes every year.
I first saw this posted by Robert Hargraves and again recently on a post by Oscar L Martin on LinkedIn.
Natural Uranium is More Hazardous as a Heavy Metal Than as a Radioactive Substance. This blog has had its titles rearranged to make the content clearer. It was posted over the Christmas period and deserves more scrutiny.
Why Do We Fear Radiation? 4
Based on health considerations, the concentration of uranium in drinking water should not exceed the health-based guideline value of 0.02 mg/L. This health-based guideline value is based on chemical toxicity. The chemical toxicity of uranium is more restrictive than its radiological toxicity. – Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG).
Uranium in the Environment
Uranium is naturally present in the environment as a result of leaching from soils, rocks and natural deposits. It can also be released from mining and mill tailings, from the combustion of coal and other fuels, and from the production or use of phosphate fertilizers (which can contain as much as 150 mg/kg uranium).
Food is the major source of uranium intake and the highest concentrations are typically found in shellfish (UNSCEAR 2000). Dietary intake of uranium through food is estimated between 0.001 and 0.004 mg/day (WHO 2004). Intake through drinking water is normally low; however, drinking water can contribute the majority of daily intake in circumstances where uranium is present at higher concentrations in drinking water (WHO 2004).
In most Australian drinking water supplies uranium concentrations are well below 0.02 mg /L. However, concentrations up to 0.12 mg/L have been measured in some groundwater supplies in remote areas. In humans and experimental animals, the main toxic effect of short-term exposure to high concentrations of uranium is inflammation of the kidney. Little information is available on the effects of long-term exposure to low concentrations. (AWQG).
Comparison of the Chemical and Radiological Standards for Uranium
The Radiological drinking water standard for uranium in Australia is incredibly conservative. It is calculated using a maximum addition of radiation of 0.1mSv/year. This is one tenth of the already very conservative allowable extra exposure limit of 1mSv/year.
The health-based guideline value of 0.02 mg/L is equivalent to an activity concentration of 0.2Bq/L. This indicates that the health-based guideline value based on chemical toxicity is considerably more restrictive than one based on radiological data. -(AWGL)
The chemical toxicity of uranium at least 15 times more hazardous than the radiation from uranium.
The Pine Creek Geosycline
Australia is rich in uranium deposits in a number of geological formations. The Pine Creek Geosyncline covers a large part of the Northern Territory and has many major uranium deposits. In the early part of this millenium, I managed a travelling monitoring team as a regulator for mining in the NT. Consequently, I saw data from rivers and streams all over the Pine Creek Geosyncline. Often the lowest levels of uranium measured were downstream of Ranger and Jabiluka uranium mines.
It is too easy to blame radiation from substances that do emit radiation for any “sickness”. I remember one instance when Aboriginals that lived not far downstream of Ranger mine were all becoming ill. Investigation showed the illness to result from faecal bacteria in the billabong. Work undertaken to prevent raw sewage entering the billabong led to a rapid cure.
Remote Community Sues NT Government for Compensation
In 2018, the government-owned utility company Power and Water Corporation (PWC) found that the drinking water in Laramba contained 0.046 milligrams of uranium per litre (mg/L), which was more than twice the recommended level. The community had known about problems with the water supply since at least 2008, but the scale of the issue was not revealed until 2018. A new water treatment plant using ion-exchange technology was opened in 2023, making the uranium almost undetectable. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-30/water-treatment-plant-opens-in-remote-laramba
The Laramba community celebrates their new water supply which ensures uranium levels are extremely low. (ABC Alice Springs: Charmayne Allison)
The Northern Territory’s Court of Appeal on Friday 29 November heard arguments from lawyers representing the Territory government and the residents of Laramba, a town of just more than 200 people 205km northwest of Alice Springs. It was the latest instalment in a five-year legal battle, which could continue beyond this court’s eventual decision. The court case centres on whether the NT government, as landlord to the Laramba residents, should be responsible for the quality of the drinking water.
“The case continues, because we say our clients were forced to drink that water for over 10 years so they should be entitled to some compensation,”
“But more importantly, we want to establish the point that the government in remote communities has an obligation to provide people with safe water.”
Nowhere in the press reports I read, was it clarified that the uranium level was a chemical toxicity issue and not a radiological one. This builds unnecessary fear of radiation in both Aboriginal communities and the general public.
How did you go with my question at the end of the last blog? I am about to hand you a kilogram of a radioactive substance. I have 2 choices. One has a very short half-life and one has an extremely long half-life. Which one is the safest?
The radioactive substance with the short half-life is very dangerous. It has a short half-life because it is decaying quickly and sending out a lot of energy and particles. The substance with a long half-life decays very slowly and may even be safe to hold with very little protection. As a teenager, I held a bar of uranium in my bare hands during a special visit to Lucas Heights. These days they would insist on gloves. In the fifties, Queen Elizabeth II was given a plastic bag containing a large amount of plutonium to hold during her visit to Sellafield.
What implications does this insight have when considering nuclear waste management?
Here is Dr Don Lincoln describing more about radiation.
When discussing the levels of radiation experienced on Earth except in exceptional circumstances, I find it easier to understand if the units are in millisieverts or a thousandth of a sievert.
Don’s Examples of Radiation Levels Expressed as mSv per Year
Woodchopper in woods USA 3 City Dweller with medical tests USA 6 Just from your own body 0.4 Plane trip across the Atlantic 0.025 Whole body CT Scan 10 Nuclear worker maximum allowed 50 Cancer risk starts 100 Radiation sickness 400 Severe radiation poisoning 2000 Usually kills but may survive with medical care 4000 Death certain 8000
The first 6 items in the table are all examples from the USA. Background radiation levels around the world vary enormously as my next blog illustrates.
How much do you know about nuclear radiation? Here is an opportunity to learn about it in an easy manner. Many of you will know far more about radiation than shown here. However, you too can enjoy these great video segments.
Yes, Earth is a radioactive planet. But just how radioactive is the zone in which we live? Is it dangerous and harmful? And if it is, when is it harmful? In order to really examine these questions, it is important to understand the basics.
There are lots of units used in the nuclear radiation field and it is important to understand what these units mean. Scientists have become very clever at measuring extremely low levels of everything from chemicals to radiation . Just because something can be measured does not tell us whether something is harmful to life or critical for its existence .
In order to illustrate some basic concepts and the language used, I am showing some parts of a few video presentations which describe these concepts in a clear manner in this blog and the next. Each video segment is about 6 minutes long. The full videos are available on YouTube
What is Radiation by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
Types of Radiation by Dr Don Lincoln of Fermilab 2017
Is Radiation Dangerous by Dr Don Lincoln of Fermilab 2017
Enough for today! Each new blog will provide more information such as the variability of background radiation on our planet.
But before you go, I would like you to consider the following question. I am about to hand you a kilogram of a radioactive substance. I have 2 choices. One has a very short half-life and one has an extremely long half-life. Which one is the safest?
Decades ago, I worked as an environmental scientist based in Hong Kong. I still stay in touch with some of my staff, who now are very experienced in their careers. I had heard that Hong Kong people were being warned about buying seafood, particularly seafood from Japan due to the release of water from Fukushima. I received an interesting article yesterday and quote from a section of it in the original Chinese together with the translation. I have omitted the first paragraphs. The references vary in their language but Note 2 is in English.
I jump to the last paragraphs examining the above 7:30 report.
“Of course, you can still argue that the Japanese figures are fake. Then you can also check out Korean news. According to Yonhap news yesterday, the South Korean government has conducted emergency radiation tests at 30 points in the sea after Japan discharged nuclear waste water last Thursday, all samples met safety standards, and so far no radiation has been detected in seafood or imported seafood in South Korea. (Note 2)
In fact, South Korea has never believed in Japan, or even the International Atomic Energy Agency, so since July, South Korea has done its own water quality monitoring at 200 ocean points, and Japan is not welcome. But strangely enough, China has not joined the monitoring ranks like South Korea, just insist on scaring ghosts and doing “big internal propaganda” in mainland China and Hong Kong, letting writers like “financial writers” spread false information, lest the world will cause panic.
“So we can assume” that the central government is playing a big game of chess, aimed at “teaching the Chinese people a lesson in popular science”, guiding the public to snatch up Geiger counters that test nuclear radiation, and then looking back to discover that their own home’s radiation is more than 900 times stronger than Tokyo (note 3) – perhaps China’s building materials problem – the reason behind it is too heartening.”
As expected, the South Koreans have not been able to find fault with seafood or seawater. One has to question the motives of countries who spread fear about radiation when these same countries build and sell nuclear power plants. Is it a question answered as it so often is “Just follow the money trail”?
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was created in 1957 in response to the deep fears and expectations generated by the discoveries and diverse uses of nuclear technology. The Agency was set up as the world’s “Atoms for Peace” organization within the United Nations family. From the beginning, it was given the mandate to work with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies.
The IAEA’s headquarters are in Vienna, Austria. It also has two regional offices located in Toronto, Canada (since 1979) and Tokyo, Japan (since 1984). The Agency runs laboratories specialized in nuclear technology in Vienna and Seibersdorf, Austria, and in Monaco.
Due to the involvement of both my husband and I in the regulation of uranium mining in Australia, we have a few friends who have worked for the IAEA in the laboratories and in the cleanup of mining areas in parts of the old Soviet Union. One of them had his office across the corridor from the man most responsible for the data on Chernobyl. David did a short consultancy in the Vienna offices. The scientists of the IAEA take their responsibility for nuclear safety very seriously and come from dozens of nations.
When Japan proposed the water discharge from the Fukushima nuclear plant, the IAEA examined the strategy very closely and gave its blessing but insisted that the discharge be monitored very carefully. Japan gave itself a tough standard of 1500 Bq/L knowing that the WHO standard for drinking water was 10,000Bq/L. A lot of data is available online which I have viewed. It is possible to see the data for every tank on site. Some of the tanks containing water cleaned up early in the process contain a fraction too much caesium isotopes. This water will be cleaned up again before release. The IAEA has a website that shows the monitoring data during the discharge in real time.
A snapshot in time (as I am writing) is shown below:
Green dots show that the data indicates that everything is OK. A red dot would indicate that the nuclear company, Tepco, should take action. A grey dot shows that a pump is not operating.
The water after dilution is shown as 207 Bq/L, way below the level Japan set for itself and only 2% of the WHO drinking water standard. It is about this amount each time I looked at the data.
What fascinated me was that seawater has slightly more radiation than the treated water as measured in cps. Although details are not given, Geiger type counters probably do not pick up tritium as the beta rays are so weak. These measurements are used to ensure other radioactive elements such as caesium are not being discharged. As the data shows, the levels in both the treated water and the seawater are very low.
In my last couple of posts, when trying to picture what enormous numbers mean, it was shown that 3 big teaspoons of natural rain falling on my head in Australia would contain about a million tritium atoms. This sounds really scary but as I will gradually show, it is of no concern. Washing our hair would increase the amount.
Tritium forms in our atmosphere every day when cosmic rays hit gases in the air, mostly nitrogen. It is washed down into rivers and streams to the ocean as well as falling directly into the ocean. Tritium forms a minute part of the background radiation that surrounds us always. Life evolved on Earth at a time when background radiation levels were 5, maybe even 10 times higher than today. All life with its complex biochemistry deals with low radiation levels so well, that there was never a need to be able to sense radiation and hence avoid it.
Tritium is even less dangerous than most sources of ionizing radiation. It gently sends out low energy beta rays. Too much of anything can kill us. High dose radiation is dangerous, and we need protection from it. The bigger the ray particle and/or the energy involved, determines just how harmful various forms of radiation are. Tritium’s beta rays are low energy electrons. It has a half life of about twelve and a half years. The rays are so weak, they cannot penetrate the skin. If swallowed most of it leaves as water in our urine within a day or so. If tritium water vapour is breathed in the World Health Organisation standard for drinking water is 10,00, it leaves again within minutes.
This is an ironic look at statements made out to be scientific fact. Most of the fear about radiation is not true and certainly not scientific fact.
I am still scared! A million sounds such a lot!
If you read my earlier posts on tritium, you may recall that 1 TU (Tritium Unit) is one tritium atom in 1018 hydrogen atoms. This is far smaller than one person among all the people on earth. You need to visualize one person only on as many planets as there are people on earth all with similar populations as Earth. Three big teaspoons of water contain 12*1023 hydrogen atoms. One million in 12*1023 is equivalent to 1 in 1018. It is mind boggling small.
Australia receives between 2 and 3 TU in rain falling on our land. 1TU is equivalent to 0.118 Bq /L of water. One becquerel (Bq)is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. The World Health Organization standard for drinking water is 10,000 Bq/L. To reach the same levels of radioactivity in 3 big teaspoons of our rainwater you would need to drink about a quarter of a million litres of water in one day. Whoops! A small fraction of that amount of water as just H2O would kill you.
The human body has 30 to 700*1012 cells. Another enormous number.
So single strand DNA breaks occur naturally in the whole human body over 1016 times a day. This is another enormous number. Our bodies repair this damage.
These slides have been taken from a talk I gave to a group of CSIRO alumni.
The message is that the radioactivity associated with the Fukushima discharge will not harm anything physically. Fear may cause damage to many livelihoods.
The final step: making sure to put numbers in their right context. Are we looking at the whole picture? What works for some people may not work so well for others.
There is a tremendous amount of excellent technical information about radioactivity on the web, but it is often hard for anyone without that specific training to understand. There are also a lot of misleading statements and conclusions on the web. These even appear in peer-reviewed scientific journal articles such as the Chinese paper given as a link in my blog Tritium Trivia. This paper showed the results of modelling various releases of tritium water from Fukushima. Unfortunately, the last step was forgotten. Showing great expanses of red all over the Pacific Ocean would lead nearly everybody to say “How terrible! Japan is polluting the Pacific Ocean with radioactive material.” However, at the end of the document the background levels of tritium in the Pacific Ocean are quoted and this puts the release data into perspective. But nowhere in the paper was the context of the data given, that is that the levels of tritium were so low compared to normal background levels that they would be impossible to distinguish from the background variability.
I have made the decision that I will try to make my blogs as easy to read as I can so that they are suitable for most users of the web. This is not easy with technical information and my background of writing technical reports. Word has an editor function that allows you to calculate the readability of the document. Yesterday, for the very first time I managed to achieve my goal.
I was so excited that I quickly finished the blog and published it only to realize within minutes that I had forgotten a crucial step. I had jumped to the conclusion too quickly and not fully put the information into context. I rapidly edited the post and republished it. However, my subscribers received a set of comments that were not quite right. In my joy of finding a way to explain just how low tritium levels can be, I forgot just how many hydrogen atoms are in a little water. 18 g of water (one mole for the technocrats) contains 6*1023 molecules of water, 12*1023 hydrogen atoms and about a million tritium atoms. This is still just as teeny in radiation terms but the numbers 1 and a million sound so different. 1TU is only 0.118 Bq/L. I will explain what this means in future blogs.
I apologize to my subscribers. At my age you are allowed to call it a senior moment. However, I suspect that in our current haste over climate change mitigation, we are all making similar mistakes. We do the first part of the work but then forget to really look at the big picture and put everything into context.
We all have trouble looking at very big or small numbers and understanding their size and importance. I am one of those lucky people who have less trouble than most. This has had its downsides too. As a child I loved mathematics and algebra. I saw the patterns in numbers easily and it was all a big game to me until I was bullied at a small country school for being different. I was tied to a post, day after day, mocked at, spat at, and even pummeled with food scraps.
Now I am a senior, maths is not so easy, but I will try and make some numbers about radiation levels easier to understand.
Tritium is a natural substance.
Tritium is formed in minute quantities every day in our atmosphere. Cosmic rays from space hit the gases in the air, mainly nitrogen, forming tritium. Tritium is a type of hydrogen atom with 2 extra neutrons in its nucleus. Tritium quickly becomes part of a water molecule. Instead of a water molecule with 2 atoms of ordinary common hydrogen with one atom of oxygen (H2O), a few molecules of water are HTO. The chemistry of both is virtually identical. The mixture comes down as rain.
Just how many water molecules have tritium in them? Well, this is where the big and little numbers come in, making the situation hard to visualize. A new unit was created to help scientists assess the meaning of various concentrations. 1 TU or tritium unit equals 1 tritium atom in 1018 atoms of hydrogen. 1018 is 1 followed by 18 zeros. I find that hard to visualize. Let’s try. There are 8 billion people on Earth, that is 8,000,000,000 people. That is only 8 with 9 zeros. So, we have to imagine the same number of planets as there are people on the earth, with populations similar to earth to be in the right ballpark. So TUs are like one tritium or one person out of all those people on all those planets put together. I still find that hard to visualize, but it does tell me that finding 1 tritium atom in all those ordinary hydrogen atoms looks impossible. Yet scientists around the world can and do measure tritium levels in rain, river and ocean water and ground water. In Australia, ANSTO publishes some of this data.
So how high are tritium levels in rain? It is seasonal and dependent on rainfall patterns. In Australia it is 2 to 3 TU. Most numbers vary from 1 to 10 TU. Nuclear bomb testing increased tritium levels in rain for a time but still at levels in the same sort of range, definitely measurable but extremely small.
So, what does this actually mean? What are the chances of one tritiated water molecule falling on your head? 18 g of water (3 big teaspoons) contain 6 *1023 molecules of water. There would be a million tritium atoms in this rainwater.
Yes, if it rains on your hair, you will get natural tritium in your hair.
Before I write about the mechanisms all life on Earth uses to repair itself from any harm caused by low dose radiation, I feel I must present some information about tritium and the current political uproar about release of water at Fukushima in Japan.
Japan’s biggest seafood customer, China, has decided to ban seafood from Japan, followed by South Korea. New Caledonia has decided to ban swimming in the ocean.
Japan has been storing treated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plants in large tanks. There are about a thousand tanks containing 1.2 million tonnes of water.
Japan has begun releasing treated wastewater used to cool down the nuclear reactors damaged by the tsunami in March 2011. The water has been treated to remove radioactive material, but small quantities remain. Tritium is hard to remove as it forms part of a few of the water molecules. There are very small quantities of carbon 14 and there may be even smaller quantities of strontium and iodine isotopes. Most of the latter were dispersed by May 2011.
Tritium is formed naturally every day in our atmosphere and added to the oceans and land as rainwater. Any taken into our bodies comes out fairly quickly in our urine. Radiation from tritium is weak beta rays. These rays do not travel far and are stopped by skin. Unless the dosage is extremely high, our bodies quickly repair any damage caused.
The release from Japan into the Pacific Ocean can be made to sound bad and scary. “But it actually isn’t. Similar releases have occurred around the world for six decades, and nothing bad has ever happened.
“The radioactivity in the Fukushima water is almost entirely tritium, a type of hydrogen. For scale, the Pacific Ocean contains 8,400 grams of pure tritium, while Japan will release 0.06 grams of tritium every year. The minuscule amount of extra radiation won’t make the tiniest jot of difference. A lifetime’s worth of seafood caught a few kilometres from the ocean outlet has the tritium radiation equivalent of one bite of a banana.” according to Nigel Marks is a Professor in Physics at Curtin University
Tony Hooker, Director of the Centre for Radiation Research, Education and Innovation at The University of Adelaide says: “I would like to reiterate that the release of tritium from nuclear facilities into waterways has and is undertaken world-wide with no evidence of environmental or human health implications. “
Tony Irwin, an Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University is also Technical Director of SMR Nuclear Technology Pty Ltd and Chair of Engineers Australia Sydney Division Nuclear Engineering Panel:“There is an understandable perception that all radioactive materials are always and everywhere dangerous, particularly liquid waste, but not all radioactive materials are dangerous. The Fukushima water discharge will contain only harmless tritium and is not a unique event. Nuclear power plants worldwide have routinely discharged water containing tritium for over 60 years without harm to people or the environment, most at higher levels than the 22 TBq per year planned for Fukushima.
“For comparison the Kori nuclear plant in South Korea discharged 91 TBq in 2019, more than four times the planned Fukushima discharge and the French reprocessing plant at La Hague discharged 11,400 TBq in 2018 into the English Channel, more than twelve times the total contents of all the tanks at Fukushima, again without harm to people or the environment.
“It is important that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has carried out an independent and transparent review of the procedures and equipment for discharges and its comprehensive report issued in July 2023 confirms that the release will have a negligible radiological effect on people and the environment. The IAEA will maintain a continuous on-site presence on site to independently monitor discharges.
“More tritium is created in the atmosphere than is produced by nuclear power reactors, and it then falls as rain. Ten times more tritium falls as rain on Japan every year than will be discharged. The discharge limit for release of radioactive water at Fukushima is 1/7th of the World Health Organisation standard for drinking water. The discharge is ultra-conservative.”
A paper was published in August 2021 by seven Chinese authors with assistance from authors in the Netherlands, Ukraine, South Korea, and Spain with scary looking figures of their modelling of potential release scenarios by Japan. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X2100549X
On closer examination problematic zones were about 0.1 Becquerel(Bq)/m3 of sea water. These scenarios were all assuming much faster dumping of the water than Japan actually plans. The paper itself gives the background concentration of tritium in the surface water of the North Pacific Ocean as around 50 Bq/m3 (0.2% increase, less than natural variation). Good luck monitoring any difference during the release except at the actual release point.
Japan plans to dilute the water in the tanks before release with a maximum concentration of tritium in the release of 1,500 Bq/l. The WHO drinking water standard is 10,000 Bq/l.
The IAEA will monitor the release at various points in the dilution and release system. The data is available at
As I write, the tritium concentration of the discharge is 207 Bq/l. This is way less than the tough standard Japan set itself of 1,500Bq/l. The gamma ray monitoring ensures the water does not contain other radioactive contaminants.
Sometimes I can hold two opposing viewpoints in my head about the same topic. I used to blame this on my birthdate as I am a Pisces. Some people believe Pisces people are best represented by two or even three fish with their tails tied together trying to swim in different directions. I now know the term for this phenomenon, and we can all suffer from it. It’s called Cognitive Dissonance and can arise when our behavior does not match our values or when fears generated in our primitive emotional brain argue with our rational brain.
We have all been fed false fears about low dose radiation since the 1950s. This is sad because these fears fight with the scientific knowledge we have now about ionizing radiation. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in Japan and Germany.
From a Japanese tourist brochure: Misasa Onsen is an old hot spring with a history of over 850 years. Its spring quality is one of the highest radon contents globally and has excellent healing effects on the body and mind. People have loved it for a long time, including those who come to the hot spring for medical treatment.
“Radon,” which is a weak form of radiation, is produced when radium is decomposed. The body’s metabolism becomes more active when exposed to radon, and the immune system and natural healing power are enhanced. In addition, when inhaled or drunk radon, it increases the antioxidant function and helps prevent aging and lifestyle-related diseases.
Misasakan Hotel pool in Misasa Onsen Japan
Radiation killed nobody at Fukushima, but the tsunami killed about 20,000 people. Yet the press keeps describing it as the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Germany has more radon baths than any other country. They are also particularly popular in Eastern Europe. There are an increasing number of scientific studies looking at doses and ailments treated. Pain relief from muscular skeletal diseases is well studied.
Despite all their spas which are being used more and more:
The German Solution – Close Nuclear Power Stations, Knock Down Ancient Forests to Mine Coal.
The figure below shows a proposed mechanism of action when radon is used to treat patients with chronic musculoskeletal diseases (mostly ankylosing spondylitis, osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis).
If you are interested in digging deeper, try this German 2020 review paper about Radon Spas: Radon Exposure—Therapeutic Effect and Cancer Riskhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33396815/
Low dose radiation has harmed few people, but the fear of radiation has killed thousands. I will back up this statement in future blogs.
Why do we fear radiation? Is it because we can’t see it, we can’t smell it, we can’t hear it? Yet many types of radiation are all around us and have been since the beginning of life on earth.
There are most types of radiation form a spectrum, yet evolution has only provided a very narrow window for our senses. We often call this window the visible spectrum, the colours of the rainbow, the light our eyes can see. Yet, if it was so important for our health that we needed to avoid all forms of radiation, why hasn’t evolution given us the tools to measure its intensity?
Advances in man’s technology have now provided the tools to measure the smallest amounts of low dose ionising radiation, tools such as Geiger counters and scintillation counters. I used scintillation counting extensively when I worked in biochemical and medical research.
We now know that our planet is bombarded from space by cosmic rays every day. The core of our planet is radioactive, and this helped to make life on earth possible by making the planet a little warmer. No matter where we live, radiation comes from the rocks below us. It is in the food we eat and the water we drink. The background levels in some places on earth are much higher than those in Australia.
Potassium is very important for the health of our bodies. All of this potassium contains a proportion of the radioactive form of potassium, potassium 40. So, every time we eat a banana or a potato or indeed get enough veggies or protein in our diet, we take in potassium 40.
Uranium, a word that puts fear in many people’s hearts, is absolutely ubiquitous in our world. It is everywhere. At one stage of my career, I had a team of people and a laboratory truck that travelled all over the Northern Territory sampling streams and ground water. The lowest concentrations of uranium we ever saw were in waters downstream of Ranger and Jabiluka mine sites. Our radiological standards in Australia are pretty tough but even so the drinking water standards are tougher still. Uranium is far more dangerous as a heavy metal then as a source of radiation. Heavy metals do damage to our kidneys.
Instead of protecting us by making ionising radiation visible to us, evolution has protected us with biochemical mechanisms that prevent, and repair damage created by low dose radiation. When life began on earth, the radiation levels were at least four times greater than they are now and may have even been even 10 times greater.
We now know far more about the effects of low dose radiation on people and other forms of life than we do about most chemicals in our environment. I will share some of that information in future blogs.
My Blog has become My Nuclear Journey 