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Page added on August 28, 2018
Energy: Missing from the Nuclear Story
One of my first memories of watching TV during the early 1950s was ads promoting leaded gasoline for reducing engine knock. Little did I suspect the strange history of that gas. By the beginning of World War I, it became clear that the internal combustion automobile was edging out its rival steam cars and electric cars. Shortly afterwards, Thomas Midgley began researching how to remove the knocking “ping” sound from gasoline-powered cars.
Midgley devoted no fewer than six years of his life searching for a fuel additive that would have a “no-knock” effect. He found that corn alcohol would be too expensive. Benzene would also be effective, but it would be impossible to manufacture enough. Both oxygen and chlorine increased knock. Aniline, selenium oxychloride and tellerium worked, but produced an awful smell. Examining one element after another in a periodic table of the time, he finally found a gasoline additive: tetraethyl lead. Since poisonous effects of lead were well known, the product was labeled “ethyl gasoline.”
Multiple states banned sale of ethyl gasoline, prompting a retort from Midgley that car exhaust contained far too little lead to cause concern. A vice-president of a new gas company proclaimed that leaded motor fuel was a “gift of God” as Midgley told his partner that they could make 3¢ from each gallon of leaded gasoline in the 20% of the market they could corner. During the next few decades, leaded gasoline caused immeasurable damage to human organ systems as well as causing violent behavior from neurological impairment.
This is the most dramatic story from Richard Rhodes’ (2018) Energy: A Human History. Much of Energy is a hodgepodge of personality sketches of those having a role in scientific discoveries. Some of the anecdotes are fascinating. When the power of steam was being harnessed to move people and things, a contest determined that a steam locomotive attached to the object it was pulling was more efficient than the then popular method of having a stationary engine pull freight uphill with a rope.
Other accounts illustrate how technological changes affected workers. James Watt used nitrous oxide to rid natural gas of its smoke and smell so it could be employed for night-time lighting. Mill owners then lengthened the working day to 14 hours.
The shock of the book comes after the author completes 18 of his 20 chapters. As Rhodes delves into the most recent of technologies, nuclear power, the reader finds Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader, and Helen Caldicott being compared to misanthropes such as Thomas Malthus, Paul Ehrlich and followers of Adolf Hitler. This bizarre connection is based on the writings of one obscure author who predated Carson with a description of destruction caused by the over-reproduction of “undesirable people.”
Rhodes claims that the environmental movement unknowingly brought “anti-humanist” ideology into its visions of a simpler world. By advocating a society less dependent on complex technology, environmentalists are ostensibly condemning untold millions of impoverished humans to disease and starvation.
The author insists that only nuclear power can save humanity from energy poverty and, thus, rejection of nuclear power is elitist. What about nuclear radiation poisoning, which is critical to nuclear dangers? Rhodes presents a case which may well become the next generation of pro-nuclear apologies. Reviewing theories of 1926, he accuses Herman Muller of committing the original sin of radiation theory after his discovery that low doses of radiation caused genetic mutation in fruit flies. Muller developed the critically important “linear no-threshold” (LNT) model which postulates a “linear” relationship between the quantity of radiation received and the likelihood of cell damage, or, that there is no dose of radiation so small that it is without negative effects.
Rhodes’ attempts to discredit Muller have three disturbing characteristics. First, he bases his arguments on character attacks against scientists and environmentalists. Next, he minimizes or ignores large bodies of data.
Third, his arguments lack internal consistency as he repeatedly contradicts information from different parts of the book. For example, on p. 324 he claims nuclear power is “carbon-free energy” but on p. 332 says nuclear power creates greenhouse gases during “construction, mining, fuel-processing, maintenance, and decommissioning.”
Rhodes borrows his denunciations of Muller from an article by Edward Calabrese, who brags to have unearthed evidence that Muller suppressed research in 1946. During his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Muller did not acknowledge that he had received a paper that Calabrese thinks contradicted the LNT theory. Calabrese’ charge, repeated by Rhodes, is absurd, both because it is ridiculous to think that a Nobel Prize speech would be changed due to one unreplicated finding and because Muller was later instrumental in ensuring the publication of that paper.
It is currently Calabrese, rather than Muller, who is discredited, largely due to his increasingly weird assertions that acceptance of the LNT theory was due to “falsifying and fabricating the research record.” Calabrese’s objectivity is also called into question by his funding from the nuclear industry and companies such as ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, and General Electric.
Calabrese’s hostility could also be due to the near-universal rejection of his “hormesis” theory that small levels of radiation benefit human health. In 2006, Calabrese made arguments for hormesis to the international Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation which rejected them in favor of the LNT model. The LNT model is accepted by a long list of agencies and health organizations.
Many researchers have documented effects of low level radiation (LLR) from the various stages of nuclear power production, background radiation, X-rays and CT scans. Since Muller’s first experiments on fruit flies, other studies show these insects being susceptible to radiation levels 50 times lower than found then. As fruit fly research faded away, by the 1970s it was replicated with mice.
Recent research on over 110,000 workers cleaning up after the Chernobyl disaster found significant leukemia increases, even at low doses. Another study of 300,000 nuclear workers in the US, UK and France< also showed leukemia increases with extremely low radiation exposure. Parallel investigations in the UK, France, Switzerland and Germany demonstrated 30% to 40% increases of childhood leukemia for those living close to nuclear power plants. An estimated 20% of childhood leukemia in Great Britain is due to background radiation.
Children are particularly susceptible to radiation damage because their tissue is growing rapidly. Chronic exposure to radiation is also linked to multiple myeloma, lung cancer, thyroid cancer, skin cancer, and cancer of the breast and stomach.
The many agencies and scientific societies scrutinizing these and vastly more studies are well aware that accepting Rhodes’ belief that LLR causes no harm or Calabrese’s belief that it is good for you could be very bad for humanity and particularly disastrous for children and nuclear industry workers. It could lead to the elimination of regulations that many argue are already too weak and irregularly enforced. One point rarely addressed is that each study tends to focus on a single source of radiation. Relaxing rules could result in increased poisoning from multiple sources.
This brings up the “Precautionary Principle.” It says that if there is doubt about the safety of a substance, the burden of proof that it is safe lies with those who advocate it, rather than burdening those who question it with the responsibility to prove its harm. In other words, “Better safe than sorry.” The phrase “Precautionary Principle” is not even included in the index of Energy, much less discussed. Rhodes’ approach suggests a “Throw-caution-to-the-wind Principle.”
Rhodes glibly dismisses Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima as accidents that need not have happened had people been more careful. In other words, if humans did not behave as humans, there would be no nuclear disasters.
The author is either ignorant of the Price-Anderson Act of 1957 or deliberately chose to sidestep it. That legislation was passed to encourage private companies to build nuclear power plants by limiting total liability. Many currently worry that a plant near them might melt down, causing damage far into the billions, with the company not having to fully compensate its victims. If Rhodes truly believed his own claims regarding the safety of nuclear plants, he would advocate the repeal of Price-Anderson as unnecessary. “Price-Anderson” also does not appear the book’s index.
Rhodes belittles concerns regarding nuclear waste, proposing to bury it for 1000 years and let our descendants cope with it. Rational people do not want to encumber their grandchildren with the legacy of leukemia. Again, the author forgets what he wrote in a previous chapter, that the half life of U238 is 4.5 billion years. Most people who made it through middle school realize that this time periods exceeds 1000 years.
Rhodes seems unaware that some types of radwaste can actually become more radioactive with the passage of time, due to the production of daughter atoms with short half lives. Radioactivity can initially increase for thousands of years before activity declines – the dangerous interval can persist much longer than the lapse between the building of Egypt’s pyramids and today.
Nor does he seem aware that every nuclear plant must discharge enormous quantities of hot water into an adjacent river or ocean, whose aquatic life is seriously harmed. Nor does he recognize that earth itself is unstable, subject to earthquakes, floods and other calamities, which is a problematic issue for St. Louis dumps that house some of the original wastes from the Manhattan Project. That waste, and waste from a conventional dump which is now smoldering, are inching their way towards each other, which is a burning issue for those living nearby.
Many, many people for many different reasons and living in different times (including the future) do and will take issue with the irresponsible claim that nuclear waste is not dangerous.
It never occurs to Rhodes to contrast the potential horror from someone dropping a bomb on a nuclear power plant to bombing a solar panel or wind installation. Worse, he advocates global proliferation of nuclear power to states vastly less capable of protecting themselves than are the current nuclear powers. Rhodes seems to forget what he wrote in earlier chapters directly linking the Atoms for Peace program of the Eisenhower era to the expansion of nuclear weapons. Nor does he remember his earlier discussion of the need to use a form of uranium fuel at that time which would “reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation.”
The difference between Rhodes’ early warning against nuclear proliferation and his ringing endorsement of the same in the last two chapters is just one of the ways he contradicts himself. More serious is the contrast in tone, style and conceptualization in the two portions of the book. In the major portion of his work, Rhodes repeatedly describes government agencies’ covering up evidence that threatens corporate profits. But in the final portions of the book, government agencies are recast as an interlocking conspiracy to block the nuclear industry from completing its humanitarian goal of providing cheap, clean energy to the world’s poor.
More subtle is the way Rhodes hints at energy conservation before ditching the idea in his conclusion. He describes the way that James Watt improved the steam engine by moving the condensation process in order to save energy. Later, he seems about to expand the idea of conserving energy when he notes that many “began to question if growth was good.”
This question would challenge the corporate assumption that a quality life comes from possessing an increasing number of objects and propose that energy abundance best be resolved by using energy more efficiently to produce goods (including housing) that endure. Rhodes never follows this dream and, instead, concludes his book by swallowing the “Happiness = More Stuff” model hook, line and sinker.
Failing to explore the potential of conserving energy, Rhodes accepts that increasing energy can only be provided with nuclear power and follows in the footsteps, not only of Edward Calabrese but also of those he criticizes. Like Thomas Midgley’s portrayal of “fanatical health cranks,” he describes icons of the environmental movement as “extremists.” Mimicking Calabrese’ characterization of consensus on the LNT radiation theory as “not real but faked,” he describes the “disingenuosness” of antinuclear activists. Rather than pointing to a solution for climate change, his radiation denial mirrors Donald Trump’s climate denial in its derogation of scientific research and its personality attacks.
The great environmental challenge of our time it to understand that the many sources of biodestruction are all interconnected and must be confronted simultaneously, rather than disparaging one danger to focus on another. Addressing species extinction could not move forward by ridiculing concern with toxic pollution. The extreme threat of climate change will not move closer to resolution by trivializing the menace of nuclear power. Rhodes’ book on Energy epitomizes what environmentalists should avoid – it does not chart the path that humanity should tread.
10 Comments on "Energy: Missing from the Nuclear Story"
Antius on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 9:14 am
The author of this article completely misses the point and makes a lot of assertions, most of which are completely wrong and misleading. I will try and frame my response generally. The general tone of the article appears to be that nuclear energy is a bad idea because it is not completely safe, i.e. not perfect. Things could go wrong that would kill people. There are risks. Hence we should avoid using it at all costs.
Most people would notice something wrong if they were told that they could never use motorised transport because of the non-zero risk of accidents; could never fly on holiday because the plane might crash; could never eat sugar or drink alcohol because of the increased risk of cancer; could never eat fat because of the risk of heart disease; could never go outside in day time because of the risk of skin cancer. Whilst we are aware of these risks, we know that a completely safe life is impossible and trying to push it at all costs means having no life at all. The solution adopted by most people is one of balance and compromise. We attempt to balance risks and benefits and we try to weigh the extra risk against the benefits in each case, even if this is subconscious. So we might do some things that appear to impose risks upon us, because the benefits outweigh the risks in our estimation. That doesn’t mean that things will never go wrong.
Let us extend that line of thought to nuclear power. We know that if a nuclear meltdown occurs and containment systems fail, the radioactive pollution could result in thousands of fatalities in the contaminated area over the following decades. But the risk is small and cheap energy not only improves and extends our lives but also allows us to avoid other risks. More prosperity means better food, warmer and more comfortable houses, safer transport – generally better everything. The small risk of nuclear accidents for those living around a plant also needs to be balanced against the risks that everyone would face from pollution if fossil fuel energy were to replace it.
This is the sort of balanced reasoning that the green movement completely lacks. The thoughts of the green movement are a microcosm of the thoughts of the Marxist Left more generally. This is essentially, that there is a perfect idealistic solution awaiting us and that anything ‘imperfect’ or ‘impure’ in their thoughts, can have no place in the future. This is a line of thought that makes compromise impossible and leads to moral absolutism, which in turn, leads naturally to totalitarianism. Hence, they are extremists in every sense. They naturally tend towards utopian solutions that are ultimately unachievable and result in endless human wreckage as they try to force humanity into the idealistic mould that they have created for them. This is why Marxism tends to be associated with mass graves, poverty, deprivation and oppressive control of speech. An idealist will always assume that their plans are not working because they don’t have enough power and control.
Jef on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 9:31 am
The threat is real and happening. How many square miles of the planet are off limits, most likely for ever, due to nuclear “accidents”? How many have been negatively effected by radiation? How is the waste storage problem coming along? How many plants need to be decommissioned and who pays for that?
You can answer all of these with a wave of your magic wand but the truth is it is really bad and only getting worse.
Antius on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 10:16 am
“The threat is real and happening. How many square miles of the planet are off limits, most likely for ever, due to nuclear “accidents”? How many have been negatively effected by radiation? How is the waste storage problem coming along? How many plants need to be decommissioned and who pays for that?
You can answer all of these with a wave of your magic wand but the truth is it is really bad and only getting worse.”
Jef, all of these problems are ‘real and happening’, but you imagine them to be much bigger than they really are. A bit of context will help demonstrate this.
The Chernobyl accident was estimated to have resulted in 4,000 early mortalities due to radioactive pollution in the 50 years following the accident. Had they not evacuated the heavily contaminated areas, the toll would have at least doubled. That sounds really horrific doesn’t it?
Take a look at what the Chinese are enduring right now:
https://www.medicaldaily.com/china-cancer-statistics-today-371444
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/world/asia/china-coal-health-smog-pollution.html
‘Researchers estimate China endured 2.8 million cancer deaths during 2015 and 4.3 million new cancer cases, with lung cancer the most common of all’
‘Burning coal has the worst health impact of any source of air pollution in China and caused 366,000 premature deaths in 2013, Chinese and American researchers said on Thursday.’
‘The study was a follow-up to a Global Burden of Disease study examining deaths in 2013, which estimated that PM 2.5 contributed to 2.9 million premature deaths worldwide, with 64 percent of those in China, India and other developing countries in Asia.’
Fossil fuel air pollution results in so many mortalities that its effects are like having a Chernobyl every single day somewhere in the world. What is crazy is that even with pollution loads like this, the Chinese still come out ahead, as increased energy consumption reduces deprivation leading to lower mortality overall. This is the balance of risks that I was talking about. Real life is not about finding perfect solutions.
Like I said, nuclear accidents are a problem, but in a global context, they are likely to be a very small problem compared to other problems we have. Likewise, high level nuclear waste is toxic. But the average reactor produces just a few cubic metres of it each year. In the context of the enormous volume of toxic waste we produce, it is a very small problem.
JuanP on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 10:35 am
Jef “How many square miles of the planet are off limits, most likely for ever, due to nuclear “accidents”? How many have been negatively effected by radiation? How is the waste storage problem coming along? How many plants need to be decommissioned and who pays for that?
You can answer all of these with a wave of your magic wand but the truth is it is really bad and only getting worse.”
I am not an expert on this by far, but I don’t need a magic wand to answer those questions either. How many square miles off limits due to accidents? An insignificant amount. How many negatively affected by radiation? To one degree or another, the whole planet. How is the waste storage problem? At this point it has essentially become a predicament. Most of the waste is likely to be left where it is or thrown anywhere without any consideration to the consequences. How many plants need to be decommissioned? All of them eventually. Who pays for that? Everyone knows this one. We, the tax paying suckers, of course!
Sissyfuss on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 11:02 am
We are entering the bottleneck and all forms of energy will be exploited. Our arguments of pro and con will become irrelevant as desperation and panic make themselves manifest. Obamas “All the Above will be one of his legacies that Trump dare not obliterate.
Antius on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 12:29 pm
This article deserves to have a bit more piss taken out of it.
“Recent research on over 110,000 workers cleaning up after the Chernobyl disaster found significant leukemia increases, even at low doses. Another study of 300,000 nuclear workers in the US, UK and France< also showed leukemia increases with extremely low radiation exposure."
I wonder how much my risk of cancer and heart disease increase from having a job that keeps me sitting in a chair all day? I might as well be a brain plugged into a machine. Seriously, I don't doubt that radiation workers have a slightly increased risk of cancer. All jobs have occupational hazards. If the risks these people are exposed to be excessive compared to other jobs, then we should rightly be concerned. If we are talking about small extra risks that are only just distinguishable from statistical noise, then such is life.
"Parallel investigations in the UK, France, Switzerland and Germany demonstrated 30% to 40% increases of childhood leukemia for those living close to nuclear power plants."
Why only childhood leukaemia? If nuclear plants were leaking enough radiation to cause a 40% spike in childhood leukaemia rates, then you would see a big increase in cancer rates of all kinds in all age groups of the surrounding population. And if people were accruing high enough radiation dose to push up cancer rates by 40%, you wouldn't need a Geiger counter to detect the radiation. Just look for the people with no hair or teeth and with bleeding sores all over their skin. At those sorts of prolonged doses, a lot of people would start dying from infections and premature heart failure. There is no chance whatever that it could happen without being detected. This leads me to believe that something else is causing this, if it is true at all.
"An estimated 20% of childhood leukemia in Great Britain is due to background radiation."
Childhood leukemia is caused overwhelmingly by infections.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-05-uk-scientist-reveals-childhood-leukaemia.html
If nuclear power plants bring in a lot of people from outside the area, some of them carrying infections that children pick up, this would certainly account for an increase in leukaemia rate. Some of the increase could indeed come from radiation. But it is unlikely to be a major contributor, because even small doses of radiation are very detectable.
There are 450 cases of childhood leukaemia diagnosed in the UK each year.
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/childrens-cancers/incidence#heading-Three
Could 90 of those cases by attributed to background radiation? It is indeed possible. Everyone is exposed to radiation from cosmic rays, radon, rocks, carbon-14 in our bodies and medical x-rays. Even a very small risk carried by over 10million people, will result in a non-trivial number of new cancers each year. Individually, most of us don't worry about getting struck by lightning. But it does kill 10 people a year in the UK and injures many more. This is what is known as the facts of life.
" Rhodes belittles concerns regarding nuclear waste, proposing to bury it for 1000 years and let our descendants cope with it. Rational people do not want to encumber their grandchildren with the legacy of leukemia. Again, the author forgets what he wrote in a previous chapter, that the half life of U238 is 4.5 billion years. Most people who made it through middle school realize that this time periods exceeds 1000 years."
I like this one. Exactly where does this man think that U238 comes from? Could it perhaps, come from rocks that we have dug out the Earth? If this is a problem, then surely so are the other billions of tonnes radioactive thorium, uranium and radium that are buried in rocks in the ground. How can we allow our children to live with that intolerable burden? Are we not handing them a legacy of leukaemia?
After about 300 years, the toxicity of fission product wastes has declined to less than that of the ores that were originally mined. That doesn't mean they aren't radioactive at all. Everything about this discussion is about context. You wouldn't feed radioactive waste to your children, but then again; you wouldn't feed pitchblende uranium ore to your children.
There is a chance that if we bury long-lived actinide wastes underground, then after many millennia, some of the longer lived actinides could enter the ground water. If you drink that ground water, then some dissolved actinides could lead to higher than natural doses. But again, we are talking about small doses to people drinking ground water from the vicinity of the waste store any thousands of years into the future. Not a non-issue, but quite a small one in the grand scheme of things.
The biggest burden that we are leaving future generations is the enormous scale of resource depletion that we are handing them. Resources that we have taken for granted will be gone for our grandchildren. An abundant energy source might make that burden more tolerable for them.
anon on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 2:50 pm
all the people in favor of nuke power should go live in fukushima. After 50 years we can ask them if they are still in favor. perhaps then we might revisit the subject.
Antius on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 3:24 pm
Tell you what Anon. I will agree to live within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant if you agree to live within 10 miles of a coal plant. Who do you think would be getting the better deal?
Joe Clarkson on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 10:35 pm
if we bury long-lived actinide wastes underground
Yes Antius, but we are not doing it. Only Finland has a reasonable start on waste disposal.
My main beef with nuclear power is that the waste generated is mostly still sitting in cooling tanks and dry cask storage, neither of which would last for long without intensive maintenance.
When nuclear power solves it’s waste disposal issues, people might be more receptive to it.
anon on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 5:35 am
antius: a false dichotomy. and no, i dont mean ‘renewables’ fluff. How about i live within 10 miles of a farm and a woodlot? oh, wait, i already do, and i work that land myself.
when you people of the industrial age have disappeared (in a major clusterfuck already whirling around our heads) , my descendants will still have to struggle to deal with the damage the industrial age did.