Recently, @malacodeed (aerospace engineer based in Denmark) asked me to post a thread covering the risks posed by radioactive wastes in the context of chemical wastes and such: Here’s my attempt. I apologize for the length but the topic deserves quite a lot of context. I’ve spent my nearly 30-year legal career working through risk and regulatory issues in both EPA and NRC programs. Usually these fields are highly compartmentalized. This thread breaks down the compartments.
As to your question about those yellow barrels, it's the same tactic used to vilify other sectors like Round-Up, GMOs, farming, etc. The organizations spouting this garbage are not beholden to rules or regulations, so they can lie as much as they want with no repercussions. The visceral images, usually directed initially at women, get burned into our collective culture and no amount of actual facts will ever deter people in their beliefs. As per normal, follow the money and see who is pulling the strings and getting rich.
Nuclear is a paradox because it is too good at what it does. Yes, nuclear power is (absent regulatory constructs which artificially raise costs) the cheapest and most abundant power source on earth. "$48 to power your lifetime electrical costs" sounds great... but its actually terrible business
So over the years, industries such as oil&gas (where I work) and renewables have teamed up to lobby to create insane artificial regulatory hurdles and imposed costs on nuclear, so that the business case never ever makes sense again + the public are $hit scared of it. And, at the utility level, they have succeeded.
At the societal level, nuclear is a no-brainer, clearly. But it will be mostly impossible to "build a business case" unless there is unity in political circles at the state and federal level.
So... smaller reactors? SMR? Whats the smallest nuke plant out there? Then there's an argument to be made at the industrial level - if I'm a major alumimum smelter, I need 2 GW or so of power. There's certainly an argument now for on-site nuke power generation, as my 1-time investment will in theory cost me nothing but depreciation over the life of the unit...
I wrote a book that covers this risk among other things, because after the first edition, I got inquiries about the level of danger from innocuous sources, from x-rays to CT scans and going to the beach. So, I addressed those concerns in new chapters after initially trying to avoid the whole nuclear issue.
How many people know that post-Chernobyl no increase in leukemia or lymphoma was found anywhere over a 25 year period? This was after more than 50 tons of core material vaporized and burned into the atmosphere, and was blasted as high as 6 miles up. The prediction was 4,000 to 8,000 leukemias and lymphomas based on the linear no threshold (LNT) model which is the official model allowed for radiation assessment. The only cancer increase was in people, mostly young girls, who consumed milk in the first few weeks. (Girls tend to be low in iodine because as breast tissue has iodine gathering cells and the demand is high in puberty.) In terms of deaths, that caused 9 excess deaths in 25 years. (No effect at all on gestating infants, by the way.)
That problem of I-131 is easily solved several ways. A. Take iodine supplement. B. Only eat cheese aged over 90 days, because I-131 has a half-life of ~8 days. C. Don't eat dairy for a couple of months after an accident.
Oncologists are one of the few physician groups that know what the real risk is, and it's very low even for patients that get 60 Sv doses. Oncology knows without doubt that the official LNT story that radiation dose is cumulative is nonsense. Radiation treatment depends on delivering ~1.5-2.0 Sievert doses per day, when the whole cumulative dose would often kill the patient. Cancer is all but missing post radiation treatment.
In other words the radiation danger story is virtually all hogwash.
There is significant evidence that continuous low-level radiation exposure improves health and longevity. And even McCluskey, who had a lethal dose of Americium blasted into his body from an accident, was fine for years afterward, dying of heart disease. He was kept healthy by giving him chelating agents so the heavy metal would get chelated as it was released into his bloodstream and excreted instead of going into his bone marrow.
Here's the book. If someone wants a pdf of the 4th edition of the book, contact me.
As to your question about those yellow barrels, it's the same tactic used to vilify other sectors like Round-Up, GMOs, farming, etc. The organizations spouting this garbage are not beholden to rules or regulations, so they can lie as much as they want with no repercussions. The visceral images, usually directed initially at women, get burned into our collective culture and no amount of actual facts will ever deter people in their beliefs. As per normal, follow the money and see who is pulling the strings and getting rich.
Randall,
Nuclear is a paradox because it is too good at what it does. Yes, nuclear power is (absent regulatory constructs which artificially raise costs) the cheapest and most abundant power source on earth. "$48 to power your lifetime electrical costs" sounds great... but its actually terrible business
So over the years, industries such as oil&gas (where I work) and renewables have teamed up to lobby to create insane artificial regulatory hurdles and imposed costs on nuclear, so that the business case never ever makes sense again + the public are $hit scared of it. And, at the utility level, they have succeeded.
At the societal level, nuclear is a no-brainer, clearly. But it will be mostly impossible to "build a business case" unless there is unity in political circles at the state and federal level.
So... smaller reactors? SMR? Whats the smallest nuke plant out there? Then there's an argument to be made at the industrial level - if I'm a major alumimum smelter, I need 2 GW or so of power. There's certainly an argument now for on-site nuke power generation, as my 1-time investment will in theory cost me nothing but depreciation over the life of the unit...
It's a travesty of humanity
I wrote a book that covers this risk among other things, because after the first edition, I got inquiries about the level of danger from innocuous sources, from x-rays to CT scans and going to the beach. So, I addressed those concerns in new chapters after initially trying to avoid the whole nuclear issue.
How many people know that post-Chernobyl no increase in leukemia or lymphoma was found anywhere over a 25 year period? This was after more than 50 tons of core material vaporized and burned into the atmosphere, and was blasted as high as 6 miles up. The prediction was 4,000 to 8,000 leukemias and lymphomas based on the linear no threshold (LNT) model which is the official model allowed for radiation assessment. The only cancer increase was in people, mostly young girls, who consumed milk in the first few weeks. (Girls tend to be low in iodine because as breast tissue has iodine gathering cells and the demand is high in puberty.) In terms of deaths, that caused 9 excess deaths in 25 years. (No effect at all on gestating infants, by the way.)
That problem of I-131 is easily solved several ways. A. Take iodine supplement. B. Only eat cheese aged over 90 days, because I-131 has a half-life of ~8 days. C. Don't eat dairy for a couple of months after an accident.
Oncologists are one of the few physician groups that know what the real risk is, and it's very low even for patients that get 60 Sv doses. Oncology knows without doubt that the official LNT story that radiation dose is cumulative is nonsense. Radiation treatment depends on delivering ~1.5-2.0 Sievert doses per day, when the whole cumulative dose would often kill the patient. Cancer is all but missing post radiation treatment.
In other words the radiation danger story is virtually all hogwash.
There is significant evidence that continuous low-level radiation exposure improves health and longevity. And even McCluskey, who had a lethal dose of Americium blasted into his body from an accident, was fine for years afterward, dying of heart disease. He was kept healthy by giving him chelating agents so the heavy metal would get chelated as it was released into his bloodstream and excreted instead of going into his bone marrow.
Here's the book. If someone wants a pdf of the 4th edition of the book, contact me.
https://www.amazon.com/Radiation-Exposure-treatment-modern-handbook-ebook/dp/B00D7KLQYY
(BTW - The response of some anti-nuclear activists was to threaten me and castigate me online. That included death threats and threats of assault.)
The yellow barrel picture you posted appears to be quite popular.
If it makes any difference you may want to know that it's a fake.
The field appears to a real photograph but all the barrels are really only a
single CGI barrel rendered with shadows in various orientations.
It's actually pretty obvious, especially if you download the full resolution original here:
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/601428