Gentilly 2, quelques informations et analyse

La centrale nucléaire Gentilly 2 doit être rénovée.

Plusieurs débat sur la place publique sont en cours sur les coûts réel d'une telle rénovation.  Le plus récent du devoir, place le coût à 4,3 milliards.  J'ai bien hâte de lire le rapport pour connaitre la raison qui à fait que le coût passe de 1,8 milliard à 4,3 milliard en quelque années.

À 4,3 milliard, selon le devoir, ceci revient à 9,7 ¢/kWh produit. Selon l'article, ce coût est:

C’est encore trop pour assurer la rentabilité de la centrale nucléaire.

À titre de comparaison, le coût prévu par kilowattheure du complexe de La Romaine, présentement en construction, est de 6,2cents. D’aucuns estiment d’ailleurs que ce coût unitaire est trop élevé pour assurer la rentabilité de ce projet.

Il est intéressant de noter que les projets de parcs éoliens privés, ont une garantie d'achat de leur électricité à 10,55  ¢/kWh ou plus. Voici l'extrait du site du projet éolien de Kruger en Montérégie.

Quel est le prix du kWh vendu à Hydro-Québec Distribution?

Le prix d’électricité fixé au contrat est de 105,50 $/MWh, ce qui équivaut à 10,55 ¢/kWh. Il s’agit d’une valeur établie au 1er janvier 2007 qui sera indexée pour l’essentiel à l’inflation (la formule de prix peut être consultée dans le contrat d’achat d’électricité disponible dans la section Contrats du présent site Web).

Donc pour Hydro-Québec et la classe politique, il est OK de financer le privé à 10,55 ¢/kWh, mais pas la création d'emploi publique à 9,7 ¢/kWh?  Est-ce du favoritisme privé?  Des réponses s’imposent.

De plus les parc d'éoliennes ont un facteur de charge variant de 28% à 35% selon les compagnies privées. Les chiffres réels sont plus proches du 25%.  Ceci se compare à plus de 90% pour les centrales nucléaires.  Ceci veut dire qu'Hydro-Québec, doit compenser pour 75% de cette puissance intermittente.  Ceci de façon intermittente et aléatoire.  La capacité du réseaux à compenser pour des sources intermittentes est limitée et à surement de coût pour l'opérateur.

Le nucléaire est très bon pour fournir une énergie stable et forte durant les pointes de consommation. Au contraire, les parcs d'éoliennes, sont souvent au ralenti ou arrêté quand le vent ne souffle pas pendant les vagues de froid hivernal ou pendant les canicules estivales.


Donc pourquoi fermer une centrale qui peut fournir une meilleur énergie à plus faible coût que l'éolien tout en créant des emplois stables et payants pour une région?

Quels sont les arguments le plus vocaux contre le nucléaire?

#1 Le nucléaire est dangereux.
Cet argument est souvent utilisé de plusieurs façons, les accidents majeurs sont utilisés pour démontrer les danger du nucléaire, mais laissons les chiffres réels parler par eux-même.  Ce site web a compilé le nombre de mort par TWh produit (mille milliards de watts). J'en ai fait un petit graphique qui montre que le nucléaire se place très bien par rapport au autres sources d'énergie.

#2 Les radiations relâchées sont une cause de cancer dans les populations environnantes.
Cet argument revient souvent.  Comme nous l'avons vu dans le récent documentaire "Gentilly or not to be", ce point revient souvent.  Comme la écrite la commission canadienne de sûreté nucléaire ce n'est peut-être pas la meilleure référence scientifique: Allez lire l'article pour avoir les détails. Ils y énoncent six faussetés propagées durant ce reportage.

Gentilly or Not To Be : remettons les pendules à l’heure!

- Contre argument: Les radiations à faibles rayonnements sont bonnes pour vous! 
Contrairement à la croyance populaire, les rayonnements faibles de source radio-active sont bons pour vous, dans une certaine plage. Il est certain que n'importe quoi à trop forte dose est fatale pour l'humain, ceci s'applique à beaucoup d'éléments, pas juste les radiations.   Un bel exemple est la mort en buvant trop d'eau!

Depuis plusieurs années, je documente et recherche ce phénomène qui ce nomme: L'effet Hormésis - Ce qui ne nous tue pas, nous rend plus fort" .

Je vous recommande la lecture de mon article publié en septembre 2011 sur le sujet:

Low level radiation and Linear no threshold (LNT) theory.

We should revisit our exposure regulations because our regulatory history is founded on a deception.

#3 Le nucléaire est trop dispendieux.
Cette argument revient souvent du fait que les chiffres sont gros, on parle de milliard de dollars comparé aux parc d'éolienne en millions de dollar. Mais quand l'on fait ce type de comparatif, on ne compare pas des pommes avec des pommes!  Il faut plutôt comparer la production, l'efficacité, le facteur de charge et la durée de vie et aussi le territoire couvert.

Exemple, voici un petit calcul très simple:

• Gentilly produit 625MW d'électricité à une moyenne de 75%
• Ceci donne 468MW
• Cout de l'électricité, 2 scénarios, un a 7 ¢/kWh et l'autre à 10,55 ¢/kWh comme le parc d'éolienne mentionné ci-haut.
• Donc je calcule sur la durée de vie de 30 ans, un profit de 4,3 milliard à 7 ¢/kWh et 8,6 milliard à 10,55 ¢/kWh. 

Donc si c'était un projet privé... Ça serait très très profitable!

Vous cherchez plus d'information?

• New research in low dose radiation disprove LNT
• Nuclear power is EXTREMELY dangerous, but compare to others, EXTREMELY safe!
• Nuclear risk management - Testimony by John D. Boice
• Dr. Edward Calabrese: The Fraud of LNT and Future of Radiation
• The more energy you have, the longer you live and the richer you are
• Normal Radiation exposure... Are we ok?
• Are our fears about nuclear power irrational?
• Pourquoi Hydro Québec, payera pratiquement 6x plus pour son électricité?

Radio-Adaptive Response to Environmental Exposures at Chernobyl

Here's an Interesting research pointing to the possibility of an hormesis effect of low level radiation. Basically, this means that low level radiation (up to 1000x normal level) for 45 days, can protect you from high intensity radiation and protect you from future damages.

The genetic consequences resulting from environmental exposure to ionizing radiation have a significant impact on both radiation regulatory policies and the comprehension of the human health risks associated with radiation exposure. The primary objectives of the study were to assess 1) genotoxicity of exposure to radiation as a function of absorbed dose and dose rate, and 2) induction of a radio-adaptive response following a priming dose at varying dose rates. Results demonstrated that sub-acute environmental exposures of 10cGy gamma radiation resulted in indistinguishable levels of chromosomal damage as compared to controls. A radio-adaptive response was observed in all experimental groups, exposed to a subsequent acute challenge dose of 1.5 Gy, demonstrating that low dose rates of low energy transfer (LET) radiation are effective in reducing genetic damage from a subsequent acute low-LET radiation exposure. Furthermore, the data presented herein demonstrate a potential beneficial effect of sub-chronic exposure to low levels of low-LET radiation in an environmental setting and do not support the Linear No Threshold (LNT) hypothesis.

Here's a video (in french) explaining this research.


Another study show the same conclusion: MIT study suggests that at low dose-rate, radiation poses little risk to DNA

it’s believed that all radiation is bad for you, and any time you get a little bit of radiation, it adds up and your risk of cancer goes up,” says Boreham, who was not involved in this study. “There’s now evidence building that that is not the case.”

LNT from the point of view of the academy of medicine of France.

Statement by the Academy of Medicine of France, December 4, 2001  source

4 December 2001 Medical Irradiation, Radioactivity Releases, and Disinformation: An opinion by the Academy of Medicine The Academy of Medicine, preoccupied by the problems that arose in the public about medical exposure to X rays and radioactive releases in the environment, and erroneous information that these subjects give rise to, wishes to give an opinion on this subject. Humanity is exposed to ionizing radiation Since the beginning, life developed in a bath of ionizing radiation to which it is adapted. These radiations have a cosmic origin or originate in the earthly crust where, since the creation of the earth, the unstable isotopes of the elements of very long physical half-lives remain: thorium, uranium, potassium, and rubidium. Natural exposure results therefore from internal and external sources, both characterized by various physical properties and different effects on human body. The presence of radionuclides in the environment results in an average radioactivity of 10,000 Bq in the human body, essentially from carbon-14 and from potassium-40 whose concentration is regulated by homeostatic control of intracellular potassium content. Average exposure of humans to natural sources is evaluated to 2.4 mSv per year expressed as effective dose. It exists nevertheless with important variations according to the altitude and nature of the rock and soils in the ground, generally varying from 1 to 10 mSv, and attaining more than 100 mSv in wide regions such as Kerala in India, or the city of Ramsar in Iran (1). These natural variations involve different target tissues for the dose being delivered, such as lung for radon, kidney for uranium, bones for radium, and bones, hepatic and systemic phagocytes for thorium, of which the behavior and the radiological characteristics are similar to those of plutonium. To natural background irradiation is added, since the end of the 19th century, a diagnostic medical irradiation which delivers an average of about 1 mSv per year, but with variations from less than 1 mSv to more than 20 mSv per year. And last, since 1950, it is necessary to add irradiations of industrial origin - notably the one from producing electricity by nuclear energy (extraction and treatment of uranium, functioning of reactors, etc.) corresponding to an exposure of the order 0.01 to 0.02 mSv per year - and one of the other natural sources, from coal extraction and burning to 0.01 mSv per year. In addition, radioactivity releases to the atmosphere contribute to an average exposure of 0.005 mSv/yr, and the Tchernobyl accident to about 0.002 mSv/yr (1). In measuring dose effectiveness, the biological effects of the different types of ionizing radiation are identical whether their origin is natural or artificial. Exposure of workers to ionizing radiation (200,000 in France, of which more of than half are in the medical sector) results, in France, in an average exposure of 2 mSv per year (OPRI annual report) with less then 1% surpassing the average statutory limit of 20 mSv per year. Except for diagnostic irradiations, these exposures are characterized by low dose rate, chronic irradiation doses. This aspect distinguishes them clearly from accidental and therapeutic irradiations that are performed at high dose-rate, causing instantaneous accumulation of damaged molecules that perturb components of cellular repair mechanisms, with as little as a few absorbed mGy in a few minutes (2). Dismantling of nuclear power plants and nuclear waste storage are activities that make small dose increases to the populations at very low dose rates (about 0.005 µSv per year for iodine-129 for example) (1), essentially by transfer in the food chain of various man-made radionuclides of long half-lives leading to either: –homogenous exposure of the whole body (as in the case of natural potassium-40), or to –selective organ exposure, e.g., to the large intestine, bone, liver and kidney, as in the case of the natural isotopes of uranium and thorium. It is therefore legitimate to infer their possible effects on human health from those known to result from natural sources which expose populations of many millions of residents. The health consequences of the exposure of humans to a few mSv. There exists data (3) establishing that high natural exposure is associated in adults to an increased rate of chromosome aberrations of the circulating lymphocytes, a biological indicator of exposure. It cannot be concluded, however, that this is an index of harm since there are detected no global increase of cancer risk (4), increase of congenital malformations (5), or abnormalities induced by cytogenetic effects with newborns (6), in the well-studied population of the particular highly-exposed region of Kerala India to external irradiation and to internal contamination. Identical conclusions are obtained in the exposed Chinese populations (7-8). And last, as stated by the NCRP in the United States (9): «It is important to notice that the incidence of cancers in most of the exposed populations to low-dose radiation has not been found to be increased, and that in most of the cases this incidence seems to have been reduced».

The hypothesis of the risks of cancer induced by low doses and dose-rates is founded on the extrapolation of data of highly-exposed human groups, applying the risk as being constantly proportional to the received dose without being limited by a threshold, the linear no-threshold (LNT) assumption. This hypothesis conflicts with itself and has many scientific objections (10); and it is contradicted by experimental data (11) and epidemiology. In the groups having received more than 200 mSv as adults, and 100 mSv as infants, excesses of cancer have been observed: in e.g., Japanese atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, irradiated medical patients, nuclear workers, and residents of the former-USSR contaminated by nuclear wastes. No excess of cancers has been observed for doses lower than 100 mSv. A doubt remains nevertheless in the case of irradiation for x-ray in utero from 10 mSv because the epidemiological data are contradictory (12). Having not observed excess cancer does not allow an effect for low doses to be excluded because of statistical limitations. Nevertheless it is necessary to recall that the linear theory with no threshold (LNT): -is contradicted by the observation of thresholds for bone cancers induced by radium-226, and cancers of the liver induced by Thorotrast; -is not compatible with induced leukemias in Hiroshima, nor with the patients treated by radioactive iodine (1,10,13). Besides, the historic epidemiological study of the British radiologists for the period 1897-1997 (14) showed that for the registered radiologists after 1954 these practitioners have no excess of cancers in comparison with their non-radiologist colleagues, with a tendency to a lower cancer rate, as in the case of populations described by the NCRP (9). Similar deficits were observed for many groups of exposed professional workers to ionizing radiation, notably radiologic technicians: while the frequency of cancers increased in their jobs during the period when there was limited radiation protection, the excesses of cancers disappeared when regulatory limits were reduced to 50 mSv/yr, as enforceable up to 1990 (12). These observations, associated with the recent biological data, showing complexity and the variety of molecular and cellular mechanisms that control cell survival and mutagenesis according to the dose and dose-rate (1,2,11,13), remove all scientific rationale to a linear extrapolation that overestimates very widely the effects of low doses and dose-rates. One cannot add the exposures of a few mSv/yr, and a fortiori lower than 0.02 mSv/yr, delivered to a large number of individuals (as done with the use of collective doses) to estimate the risk of excess cancers (15). The Academy of Medicine, joining the position of the large international institutions, strongly affirms that such calculations have no scientific validity, notably to evaluate the associated risks to radiation, such as the effects claimed outside the former-USSR from the fallout from Tchernobyl. The UNSCEAR 2000 report and the controversy with the OCHA. The Tchernobyl catastrophe has caused to this day about 2,000 cancers of the thyroid in children, essentially from exposure to iodine-131 and the short-lived iodine isotopes. The delivered doses to the thyroid were on average of the order of 1 Gy, and of 3 Gy on average in the most exposed regions (16). This carcinogenic effect is therefore in keeping with the sum total of our knowledge of radiation risks. In 2000, UNSCEAR concluded that there is an absence of excess leukemias and of cancer other than thyroid cancer in the population around Tchernobyl. It also did not find a relationship between the exposures to radiation and congenital malformations in these populations (1). This conclusion was questioned in 2001 by the OCHA, the humanitarian organization of the UN, but the OCHA publication was refuted in a response by the UNSCEAR committee, which alone has the medical and scientific competence to speak with the name the UN and of the WHO on this subject (17). A conference was therefore held in Kiev in June 2001, with the WHO, OCHA, UNSCEAR, ICRP and IAEA, and the conclusions have been published (annex). These conclusions find that the health conditions are alarming because of the general deterioration of the health and social conditions, notably in Belarus, but do not contradict the UNSCEAR conclusions. In fact, this deterioration is probably caused by the living conditions of the relocated populations, associated with psycho-sociological factors. Different questions have been raised that do appear to necessitate epidemiological research of the conditions of the catastrophe consisting of multiple susceptible factors that altered the health of populations: this is the recommendation of the Kiev conference. It is possible to reduce human exposure to ionizing radiation, in particular of radiation medical origin, with the necessary means. Radiological examinations represent, by very far, the principal cause of irradiation of human origin (effective average dose of about 1 mSv/yr in France). The recent direction of the European Union introduces two notions to this subject: -cost-optimization (to reduce as much as possible the dose per examination), -and justification (to evaluate the benefit and the risk of each examination, and to not practice it unless it is advantageous). These principles necessitate therefore the evaluation of effective doses received by the examined subject and the relevant risks. Now, according to the examinations and the techniques used, the effective doses vary from a fraction of a mSv to several tens of mSv (examinations by x-ray scanners or radiological interventions) and the risks vary widely according to age. An over-evaluation of risks could deprive a child of a useful examination; inversely, an under-evaluation could favor the multiplication of medical X ray examinations that are not useful. The Academy counsels therefore, in a first step: 1) to focus on the study and evaluation of examinations from which the potential risks are the largest: x-ray scans with young subjects, multiple radiological examinations with premature interventional angiography; 2) to promote the likely techniques to reduce or to eliminate irradiation without harm to the quality of clinical information and to stimulate the technical and basic research in this area; 3) to conduct epidemiological studies on groups of patients, notably infants, which have received the most important doses from radiological examinations; and 4) to favor the initial and continuing training of clinicians in matters of radiation protection. It is unacceptable, while irradiation of medical origin represents, in France, 95% of the irradiation added to the natural background, that there is little benefit to affect reduction in the industrial environment by applying radiation protection at very high costs. It is necessary to define health priorities in the matter of releases. Outside of this context, some recommendations can be undertaken concerning the problem of radiation releases in the matter of health. It appears essential to support epidemiological studies concerning the populations exposed naturally to high-level background radiation, and even concerning the populations of the ex-USSR that were massively exposed to radioactivity releases and to other pollution. In the framework of studies dealing with potential health effects of nuclear waste management, the priority isotopes should not be selected according to the collective dose that some would use, but according to the potential doses to individuals because the calculated collective doses from low individual doses to a few microSieverts cannot have any effect on health. A significant national effort should be undertaken, as the one undertaken in the framework of the programs of the U.S. DOE, on the biological mechanisms in the cellular response to doses below 100 mSv, in particular, health effects from DNA repair, cell signaling, and the hereditary transmission in DNA sequence encoding of parental DNA modified by irradiation.

– Recommendations – The Academy of Medicine: 1 – recommends increased effort for radiation protection in the area of radiological examinations, on the one hand to reduce received doses from certain types of examinations (x-ray scans with infants, interventional angiography, lung X ray examinations with premature treatments, etc…), and on the other hand, to allow radiology services, notably in radio-pediatrics, to obtain benefits of well-educated physicists for dosimetry and quality control of the devices, in a way similar to that previously undertaken with mammography in breast cancer surveys. It recommends to this end to support clinical and technical research in this area. 2 – recommends an effort of basic research: on the biological mechanisms activated by the repair of DNA damage after low doses up to 100 mSv; and on the effects of these doses on the exchanges of intra- and inter-cellular molecular signals. 3 – denounces utilization of the linear no-threshold (LNT) relation to estimate the effect of low doses to a few mSv (of the order of magnitude of variations of natural radiation in France) and a fortiori of doses hundreds of times lower, such as those caused by radioactive releases, or 20 times lower, such as those resulting in France from the fallout of radioactive materials from the Tchernobyl accident. It associates with many international institutions to denounce improper utilization of the concept of the collective dose to this end. These procedures are without any scientific validity, even if they appear be convenient to administrative ends. 4 – subscribes to the conclusions of the 2000 Report of the Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation of the United Nations (UNSCEAR) concerning the analysis of health consequences of the Tchernobyl accident, and denounces the propagation of allegations concerning excesses of other cancers than the thyroid cancer, and excesses of congenital malformations. 5 – recommends introduction of the ADIR (Annual Dose of Incorporated Radioactivity, being equivalent to 0.2 mSv, resulting from homogeneous exposure of the human body to natural potassium-40 and carbon-14) as this dose equivalent is almost constant whatever the size of the individual and the geographic region. 6 – The Academy of Medicine, in accordance with its October 3rd 2000 statement, continues to recommended maintaining without modification the European directive concerning regulatory limits (to 100 mSv/5yr). To substitute dose limits of 20 mSv/yr would reduce the flexibility of the European norm, all without any health advantage, and would harm the functioning of medical radiology services while making the improvement of applicable techniques more difficult. Glossary -Bq or becquerel, the radioactivity characterized by a disintegration per second. In the human body 10,000 Bq of the natural sources represent 1 ADRI that is equivalent by convention to a dose equivalent of 0.2 mSv -Gy or gray, the absorbed dose corresponding to 1 joule per kg. -Sv or sievert, the unit of equivalent dose obtained from the product of the dose absorbed by the weighting factor for radiation quality (1 for X, beta and gamma radiations … 20 for alpha radiation). The effective dose, also expressed in Sv, is the product of the dose equivalent by the weighting factor for organs (0.05 for the thyroid… 1 for the entire body). IAEA: International Atomic Energy Agency ADRI: Annual Dose of Incorporated Radioactivity, recommendation G. Charpak. DOE: Department of Energy, U.S. ICRP: International Commission on Radiation Protection NCRP: National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (USA) OCHA: Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs WHO: World Health Organization UNSCEAR: United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation References: UNSCEAR: Sources and effects of ionizing radiation, Report to the General Assembly, with annexes, United Nations, 2000. Feinendegen L, Pollycove M, Biologic Responses to Low Doses of Ionizing Radiation: Detriment Versus Hormesis, J Nuclear Medicine, 42, 7, 17N-27N and 26N – 37N, 2001. BEIR V: Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation. Health effects of exposure to low levels of ionizing radiations. National US Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Washington 1990. Nair MK, Nambi KS, Amma NS, Gangadharan P, Jayalekshmi P, Jayadevan S, Cherian V, Reghuram KN Population study in the high natural background radiation area of Kerala, India. Radiat Res. 152, 145-148S, 1999 Jaikrishnan J'S and al, Genetic monitoring of the human population from high-level natural radiation areas of Kerala on the southwest coast of India. Prevalence of congenital malformations in newborns. Radiat Res 152, 149-153S, 1999. Cheryan VD et al. Genetic monitoring of the human population from high level natural radiation areas of Kerala on the southwest coast of India incidence of numerical structural and chromosomal aberrations in the lymphocytes of newborns. Radiat Res. 152, 154-158S, 1999. Tao Z J Radiat Res (Tokyo) 41 Suppl:31-4, 2000. Wei LX, Sugahara T. High background radiation area in china. J Rad. Research (Tokyo) 41, Suppl. 1-76, 2000. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements – Evaluation of the linear non-threshold model for ionizing radiation – NCRP-136, Bethesda MD, USA, 2001. Academy of Sciences – secured Problems of the effects of the low doses of ionizing radiations. Report 34, Oct 1995. Tanooka H. Threshold dose-response in radiation carcinogenesis: an approach from chronic alpha-irradiation experiments and a review of non-tumour doses. Int. J Radiat. Biol., 77, 541-551, 2001 IARC 2000 – Monographs on the evaluation of carcinogenic risks to humans, Vol. 75, Ionizing radiation - IARC, Lyon, France Academy of Sciences – Symposium on risk due to carcinogens from ionizing radiation – Report, Academy of Sciences, Series III, 322, 81-256, 1999 Berrington HAS. Darby SC, Weiss HA., Doll R. – 100 years of observation on British radiologists mortality from cancer and other causes 1897-1997. British Journal of Radiology, 74, 507-519, 2001 BRPS Symposium, Warrenton: Bridging radiation policy and science (K.L. Mossman et al. Ed.) 2000 IAEA, Final Report, Belarus, Ukrainian and Russian 2001: Health effects of the Tchernobyl accident. Holm LE (UNSCEAR Chairman) Chernobyl effects. Lancet, 356, 344, 2000 European Directive 97/43 on radiological examinations, 1997

Remember cold fusion... Now LENR, Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

There have been lots of new development following Pons & Fleischmann Cold Fusion.

Now we are talking about LENR or Low Energy Nuclear Reactions.

Here's 3 presentations that occured at NASA on sept 22nd and some interesting slides extracted. More information and discussion here.

Zawodny Slides

Nelson Slides

Bushnell Slides

In Short, LENR , depending upon the TBD performance, appears to be capable of Revolutionizing Aerospace across the board. No other single technology even comes close to the potential impacts of LENR upon Agency Missions.

Some good video on the technology:

Low Energy Nuclear Revolution (English Version)


Cold Fusion More than Junk Science 60minutes 9-4-19 2 of 2


Dr. Robert Duncan on Cold Fusion at the Missouri Energy Summit 2009 Part 1-3 playlist

Interview: Clinton Bastin - Iran Has a Nuclear Power Program, Not a Weapons Program

Full text of the interview

Interview #1/2

Interview: Clinton Bastin #1/2
by: Astr0o0o0o

Iran Has a Nuclear Power Program, Not a Weapons Program

Interview #2/2
Interview: Clinton Bastin #2/2
by: Astr0o0o0o

Iran Has a Nuclear Power Program, Not a Weapons Program

Nuclear power is EXTREMELY dangerous, but compare to others, EXTREMELY safe!

Source: http://www.learningaboutenergy.com/2011/11/the-nuclear-power-safety-record.html

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As of March 2011, Naval Reactors have run 6300 reactor-years, driving 528 reactor cores on 220 ships over 145,000,000 miles without a single radiological incident  or injurious radiation exposure to crew or public.  Because of the shielding from the hull and the seawater, crews at sea generally get less radiation, living within 100 meters of an operating nuclear reactor, than their families at home.  All of the radiological information about the ships and associated shore facilities is released to the public in documents in which the detailed data are accumulated without a break since 1954.

With respect to the international nuclear power industry at large, John Ritch, the Director-General of the World Nuclear Association, made the following statement to the science editor of station NDTV on 24 October 2011:  “Perhaps I would think this problem is more serious if we had been besieged by many large fatality accidents in nuclear power. But I think I am correct in saying that in fourteen thousand five hundred reactor-years of civil nuclear power production we have not seen a fatality apart from the limited number of deaths that occurred as a result of the Chernobyl accident...Very few industries have produced such beneficial results with such an extremely low toll of damage to the environment or the public.  This industry has an amazing record of safe performance and beneficial contribution. That basic fact is much too little appreciated by the public.”

During the same period, the following non-nuclear accidents occurred:

Banqiao Dam Failure:  One of 62 hydroelectric dams in Zhumadian Prefecture in China that failed catastrophically or were intentionally destroyed in 1975 during Typhoon Nina.  An estimated 172,000 people were killed, 11 million people lost their homes, and about one-third of the electric power capacity of the national grid was destroyed.  The resulting damage to the farmland is not reported.

Bhopal Pesticide Factory Release:  A leak of methyl isocyonate gas from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India in 1984 led to 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary and partial, and 3900 severely and permanently injured.  An estimated 3000 died within weeks and another 8000 have since died from the incident.  Some believe these official estimates grossly understate the situation.

Deaths from Coal:  From coal’s air pollution alone, there have been 30,000 deaths per year in the US, 500,000 per year in China.  These figures do not include deaths of coals miners, the destruction of stream beds destroyed by pushing mountain-tops into stream beds, the effect of mercury and other toxins on fish, etc.

BP Oil Spill:  The environmental and health impact of this event has not been estimated.  And there are many other spills that have received little attention. The fact is that it is simply not true that nuclear radiation is uniquely hazardous, even when totally uncontrolled releases occasionally occur.

Another fact is that unwarranted fear of harmless levels of radiation has caused unprecedented damage.  People are afraid to return to their homes and businesses.  They’ve terrified themselves, their friends and their children.  The health effect of such widely enforced terrorism is itself devastating.  The effect on the economy is paralyzing.  

In Fukushima, amid thousands of non-nuclear deaths, international investigation under IAEA concluded: "To date no health effects have been reported in any person as a result of radiation exposure from the nuclear accident" But the Government is concerned about letting people return to their homes.

There is no defensible scientific basis for discouraging people from living where radiation levels are “high,” when they are still lower than the highest natural radiation levels in Iran, Brazil, Norway, India, China and other regions where people have dwelt healthfully for countless generations with backgrounds hundreds of times higher than deemed “permissible.” 

More fundamentally, why should radiation level be the prime consideration as to where and how one chooses to live?  Many people make decisions that increase their radiation dose many-fold by moving to mountainous regions, or by cladding their houses in brick or stone, or by visiting radioactive health spas.  By what authority do the radiation protection police have their particular concern outrank all others?  Are we going to let them strip the natural soil off the ground in Japan, to lower the radiation background to some arbitrary number?

Why should we fear “nuclear waste”?  The only way it can harm anyone is if it is eaten.  It is not in soluble form, so we store it in shielded cans until it is needed to be recycled as fuel in a reactor designed for that purpose.  This is not difficult; the process has been demonstrated, but it Is currently cheaper to just store the used fuel until needed.  Non-nuclear industry produces millions of times more lethal doses of other poisons.  The main difference is that the nuclear material gets less toxic every day, and after a few hundred years, becomes no more toxic than some natural ores.  But the non-nuclear wastes maintain full toxicity forever.  Fukushima and 9/11 have shown that we should design the plants to perform under even more extremes of conditions, and these improvements have been underway in America since immediately after 9/11.

Putting radiation numbers in perspective:

Marshall Brucer, “the father of nuclear medicine,” in his canonical Chronology of Nuclear Medicine,shows how widely radiation backgrounds vary.  On page 323, he lists various radiation background levels (with cosmic ray contribution removed) from New York City at 0.62 mSv/year to SW France up to 876; to the potash fertilizer area in Florida up to 1750.  He notes, “If you live in one place on earth, your background may vary from day to day by a factor of ten, or even 100…The inside exposure rate can change by a factor of 10 within hours, just by opening windows.”  He notes that building with brick, rather than wood, can nearly double your daily radiation dose, but that the radioactivity of  bricks and concrete is also highly variable: from 0.05 to 4.93 mSv/yr for bricks, and from 0.29 to 25.4 for concretes.  “A factor of 10 daily variation [in radiation dose] marks the diets of most people.”  [mR in original, converted here to mSv]

People have lived healthily for millennia with natural radiation up to following mSv/yr:

Ramsar, Iran (260), Kerala, India (35), Guaripari, Brazil (35), Yangiang, China (5.4)

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Other article on nuclear power and radiation:

• Dr. Edward Calabrese: The Fraud of LNT and Future of Radiation
• Nuclear risk management - Testimony by John D. Boice
• Low level radiation and Linear no threshold (LNT) theory. We should revisit our regulation.

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Building a modular nuclear power plant in a 11 weeks!

Looking at what we accomplish in the 1960's, we wonder why today it takes 10 years and billions to build a nuclear power plant?

In seventy-seven days, the Army team assembled the prefabricated reactor. Just nine hours after fuel elements containing forty-three pounds of enriched Uranium-235 were inserted into the reactor, electricity was produced.

WARNING: STRONG POLITICAL VIEW IN THIS VIDEO.


More info:
The US Army Nuclear Power Program was created to develop small nuclear power reactors for use at remote sites. Most were based on existing US Naval reactor designs. Eight reactors were built in all, and six of the eight produced useful power. The nuclear reactor at Camp Century was the first of the US Army's portable reactors to actually produce power.

The portable nuclear power plant at Camp Century was designated PM-2A. Its designation indicates: “P” for Portable; “M” for Medium Power; “2” for the sequence number; and the letter “A” indicates field installation. The PM-2A was rated two megawatts for electrical power and also supplied steam to operate the water well. The PM-2A was built by Alco Products, Inc. of Schenectady, New York. The USNS Marine Fiddler transported the reactor from Buffalo, New York to Thule Air Base in Greenland, arriving on July 10, 1960. Up to this time, it was the most valuable cargo ever shipped out of the port of Buffalo. In addition, the Army flew one of the three blast coolers to Thule on a C-124 Globemaster to demonstrate the practicality of air transport. Four hundred tons of pipes, machinery, and components were then carefully transported over the ice in twenty-seven packages. Special care was taken not to damage the parts, since intensely cold metal can become dangerously brittle. As a credit to superb packaging, a ceramic top to a lab cabinet was the only item damaged during transport.

In seventy-seven days, the Army team assembled the prefabricated reactor. Just nine hours after fuel elements containing forty-three pounds of enriched Uranium-235 were inserted into the reactor, electricity was produced. It was soon discovered that additional shielding would be necessary. This shielding was accomplished by adding a layer of two inch thick lead bricks to the primary shield tank. Except for downtime for routine maintenance and repairs, the reactor operated for thirty-three months, until July 9, 1963, when it was deactivated pending a decision to remove it. This decision stemmed from plans to discontinue year-round operations at Camp Century to reduce costs. In addition, the tunnel support structure sheltering the reactor was suffering from reoccurring damage due to compacting snow. A conventional diesel powered plant would have consumed over one million gallons of fuel over the same period. While the power plant was designed to provide 1560 kilowatts of power, Camp Century's power needs peaked at 500 kilowatts, and gradually declined from there. During the reactors operational life, a total of 47,078 gallons of radioactive liquid waste was discharged into the icecap. The PM-2A was removed in the summer of 1964 by the 46th Engineers based at Fort Polk, Louisiana. No military service was willing to accept the plant at another location so the PM-2A's components were put into storage. The reactor vessel was subjected to destructive testing in order to study neutron embrittlement of carbon steel. Phillips Petroleum Company conducted the testing for the US Atomic Energy Commission in 1966. After extreme testing, it was found to be much more durable than expected. Failure of the vessel finally occurred at minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit and 4,475 pounds per square inch pressure after hydrochloric acid was added to a machined defect.

Dr. Edward Calabrese: The Fraud of LNT and Future of Radiation

Like I explained before, the LNT or Linear No Threshold seems to be based on fraudulent science.  Dr. Calabrese explain the history of the LNT and the future of radiation if our policies would be based on science.

Low level radiation and Linear no threshold (LNT) theory. We should revisit our regulation.

We should revisit our exposure regulations because our regulatory history is founded on a deception.

Some background first.
What is radiation? According to wikipedia:

In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energy or waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing. The word radiation is commonly used in reference to ionizing radiation only (i.e., having sufficient energy to ionize an atom), but it may also refer to non-ionizing radiation (e.g., radio waves, heat or visible light).

So what concerns this article will be about ionizing radiation. Again from wikipedia:

Ionizing (or ionising) radiation is radiation with sufficient energy to remove an electron from an atom or molecule. This ionization produces free radicals, atoms or molecules containing unpaired electrons, which tend to be especially chemically reactive.

Low level radiation.
We know for sure that high level radiation will kill and we know fore sure that low level radiation does not. High level radiation from a nuclear bomb or exposure to high level of radioactivity from a close source of radiation will kill you from anywhere from an instant to a few days, depending on the amount you receive.

The not so clear debate is with low level radiation. Some argue that there is no safe limit where radiation is safe. Those are the advocate of the Linear no threshold theory or LNT.

There is another school of thought that understand that low level radiation under a certain level is safe and even goes further to say that it can also be beneficial. This is called Hormesis. The theory say:

Low levels radiation, activate the body's DNA repair mechanisms, causing higher levels of cellular DNA-repair proteins to be present in the body, improving the body's ability to repair DNA damage.

Sources of radiation in our day to day life
Radiation is everywhere. From the beginning of the earth to now, we are surrounded in radiation 24 hours per day. Here's the distribution of radiation we absorb every day for different sources.

Source of the information, copy here.

We even have natural radioactivity inside our body in the form of Pottassium-40, from wikipedia:

Potassium-40 is the largest source of natural radioactivity in animals and humans. An adult human body contains about 160 grams of potassium, hence about 0.000117 x 160 = 0.0187 grams of 40K; whose decay produces about 5,000 disintegrations per second (becquerels) continuously throughout the life of the body.

Basic conclusion:
So we are ourselves radioactive and we live in a natural environment immersed in radio-activity.  looking only at those obvious natural sources, we could conclude that humans and animals evolved with radioactivity and "learned" to adapt to it.  We could say that radioactivity is helping our immune system to better cope with external influence and keep our body functioning. We could also conclude that without a minimum level of radioactivity, we would be missing the benefits of keeping the immune system "in shape" and have negative consequences from it.  The same way that to be healthy we need to exercise, our immune system need the exercise provided by this low level radiation.

What level of radiation is OK?
I documented in August 2011 that within a certain range, there is a bio positive impact from radiation and outside that range, the impact is negative, since the immune system is either "sleeping" or overwhelmed.

From the conclusion we saw in the previous sections, this graph seems logical. We live in a radioactive environment, therefore we are between point 2 and 5 of this graph, but according to my investigation, we are closer to point 2 than point 4 (optimum), thus we do not have enough radiation to have the full "benefit" of it.  There are events that happened in the past, where we saw that higher than the "normal - closer to point2" level of radiation, where beneficial.

1984 - Taiwan cobalt-contaminated steel

An extraordinary incident occurred 20 years ago in Taiwan. Recycled steel, accidentally contaminated with cobalt-60 (half-life: 5.3 y), was formed into construction steel for more than 180 buildings, which 10,000 persons occupied for 9 to 20 years. They unknowingly received radiation doses that averaged 0.4 Sv—a “collective dose” of 4,000 person-Sv

Studies 20 years later showed that the cancer rates of this population was lower than the unexposed population in the same region.

This shows that this population, exposed to higher level of radiation, but within a limit that the immune system could cope with, got a long term benefit of having an immune system more in "shape" and able to kill off cancer cells as they grew old.

Today's regulation on low level nuclear radiation.
We now have evidence that the "linear no threshold" (LNT) of low level radiation as no scientific proof and all regulation that we have now are not based on sound science.

Here's a copy of an article published in Science News on Sept 20, 2011. Highlights added

No Safe Level of Radiation Exposure? Researcher Points to Suppression of Evidence On Radiation Effects by Nobel Laureate:

University of Massachusetts Amherst environmental toxicologist Edward Calabrese, whose career research shows that low doses of some chemicals and radiation are benign or even helpful, says he has uncovered evidence that one of the fathers of radiation genetics, Nobel Prize winner Hermann Muller, knowingly lied when he claimed in 1946 that there is no safe level of radiation exposure.

Calabrese's interpretation of this history is supported by letters and other materials he has retrieved, many from formerly classified files. He published key excerpts this month in Archives of Toxicology and Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis.

Muller was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery that X-rays induce genetic mutations. This helped him call attention to his long-time concern over the dangers of atomic testing. Muller's intentions were good, Calabrese points out, but his decision not to mention key scientific evidence against his position has had a far-reaching impact on our approach to regulating radiation and chemical exposure. 

Calabrese uncovered correspondence from November 1946 between Muller and Curt Stern at the University of Rochester about a major experiment that had recently evaluated fruit fly germ cell mutations in Stern's laboratory. It failed to support the linear dose-response model at low exposure levels, but in Muller's speech in Oslo a few weeks later he insisted there was "no escape from the conclusion that there is no threshold." To Calabrese, this amounts to deliberate concealment and he says Stern raised no objection. 

Calabrese adds, "This isn't an academic debate, it's really practical, because all of our rules about chemical and low-level radiation are based on the premises that Muller and the National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) committee adopted at that time. Now, after all these years, it's very hard when people have been frightened to death by this dogma to persuade them that we don't need to be scared by certain low-dose exposures." 

Within a year after Muller and his group persuaded the NAS to accept the linear model for gonadal mutations, the practice was extrapolated to somatic cells and cancer. Twenty years later, NAS adopted the linear approach for chemicals. Soon thereafter, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it would use the linear model for risk assessment, Calabrese points out. 

Some can accept that even the most distinguished scientists have human failings, he acknowledges. But his view is that "the regulatory research community needs to hear about this. The implications of my findings are that we should revisit our exposure regulations because our regulatory history is founded on a deception. We have seen literally hundreds of thousands of cleanup decisions based on a model that was fraudulently derived. I think we should probably have drastically different exposure standards today, and far less fear."
Calabrese believes, "The die was cast by Muller and regulations adopted since then have gone unchallenged. I think he got his beliefs and his science confused, and he couldn't admit that the science was unresolved. So he went ahead and expressed an opinion about how to handle the public health situation." 

Geneticists in the 1950s came to embrace the "linear dose-response model" of risk because at the high exposures they tested, there was no level below which DNA damage did not occur. They felt medical doctors didn't grasp how significant were the dangers. As the smartest and brightest, Muller anticipated the risk of atmospheric atomic testing and became passionately committed to protecting society, Calabrese explains. 

Muller and Curt Stern had done many of the key experiments. Muller himself served on the NAS's Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation (BEAR) committee, through which the linear dose-response approach to risk assessment became firmly entrenched. The two successfully suppressed last-minute evidence from the fruit fly experiment conducted in Stern's lab by postdoctoral researcher Ernst Caspari, and the rest is history, Calabrese says. It marked the "transformation of a threshold-guided risk assessment to one now centered on a linear dose-response." 

"To me this all raises the question, what happens when a scientific field lies to the public, to federal agencies and the president? It's a very scary situation that the radiation genetics community in the 1950s assumed that something was correct without requiring the necessary documentation to support it," the UMass Amherst toxicologist says.
Stern's group published a paper in 1947 not long after Muller's Nobel Prize acceptance speech in which they tried to discredit their own study, further evidence of a deliberate cover-up, Calabrese says. "It's been hidden in the bowels of the Atomic Energy Commission for decades until I found it. They revised it to remove the one sentence suggesting this experiment might provide evidence for the threshold model." 

"One could argue that Muller single-handedly undermined above-ground atomic testing, which is a good thing," Calabrese says. "But after uncovering this lie, I'm starting to contemplate what society would have looked like if the regulatory community had felt free to use a threshold model. Members of that 1956 NAS BEAR committee didn't see the domino effect of their actions on our society. Muller's impact on the world of today is almost incalculable. He couldn't have imagined it. But we shouldn't have to live with it."

What are the impact of this regulation, not based on real impact of low does radiation?
The impacts are too numerous to count, but some come to mind.

• Fukushima nuclear plant fear and exclusion zone
• Many thousands have been forced out of their homes in the exclusion zones.  This could probably be avoided. Here's a report on this situation.
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• Nuclear power plants regulations that cost billions and slow down projects
• Today, we impose so many regulations on nuclear power that in the end, projects are abandoned or take 15 years to complete and cost billions more. 
• Today's coal plants release more radio activity than nuclear power!
• Going to the doctor for an x-ray, will expose you to higher doses of radiation than working in a nuclear power plant for a year.
• Countries that shutdown nuclear power plants or stop new projects based on fear alone
• We see that now with Germany, Japan and other countries.
• The impact is that they will burn more fossil fuels and have a greater impact on the environment.
• Possible benefits of low radiation preventive therapy that could save millions from cancers.
• We now see some cancer researchers using low does, whole body exposure to boast the immune system before a radio therapy treatments.  This help the body recover faster and give better chances to the patients.

The list goes on, like Calabrese said:

Muller's impact on the world of today is almost incalculable

Related links and documents

• Take Two Rads And Call Me In The Morning
• Radiation's bad rep a beat-up, controversial new research claims
• Many LNT and other nuclear related documents

Normal Radiation exposure... Are we ok?

According to this study, we need to be in a range of radiation exposure daily to have the "BioPositive" effect of radiation.  Read the article to understand why.

Since one uGy (migro Gray unit) is equivalent to 1 uSv (on micro Sievert). We can say that we need to be in the range of roughly 10 to 5000 uGy/year radiation level or 0.02 to 13.6 uSv/day to get the optimal effect.

According to health Canada data, the major Canadian cities are in average, in that range for uSv/day dose.

• Montreal : 0.44
• Ottawa: 0.40
• Toronto: 0.28
• St. John's : 0.68

Actually, we are a little bit on the low end of the graph. So we would need a bit more radiation to have an optimal effect.

What is the optimal effect ? LESS CANCER...

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