Nuclear power plant health risks

Radiation at Nuclear Power Plants—What Do We Know About Health Risks EPRI, Palo Alto, Calif., Dec. 1994. 

Individual members of the public should be provided a level of proteciion I roni ihc consequences of nuclear power plant operation such that individuals bear no significimi additional risk to life and health,... 

Societal risks to life and health from nuclear power plant operation should be comparable to or less than the risks of generating electricity by viable competing technologies and should not be a significant addition to other societal risks. ... 

Nuclear energy avoids the mining and pollution problems of traditional fossil fuels, but it also poses contamination and health risks. Do you think governments should build nuclear power plants State your opinion and support it with convincing reasons. 

Three chapters in this volume describe expensive and extensive research efforts devoted to images of risk. Stephen Safe assesses the research that fails to find any health from endocrine disruptors in the environment. Bruce Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold review the collapse of the scientific underpinnings for the assertion that environmental chemicals are a major cause of cancer. Bernard L. Cohen contrasts the absence of data to show that nuclear power plants have caused death and disease with the near-total demise of the nuclear power industry because of assertions about cancer risks from the plants. 

Risk Estimation References Health and Safety Executive, Canvey—An Investigation of Potential Hazards from the Operations in the Canvey Island/ Thurrock Area, HMSO, London, 1978. Rasmussen, Reactor Safety Study An Assessment of Accident Risk in U. S. Commercial Nuclear Power Plants, WASH-... 

When large doses of radiation are released accidentally (nuclear power plant) or deliberately (terrorist act), there is an increased risk that adverse health conditions may develop (CDC, 2002b). Every agency should develop protocols for implementation during a radiological emergency. The PHN should be available to answer any questions about radiation that typically flood health department phone lines in this sort of crisis. The PHN should be aware of the following ... 

Havenaar JM, van den Brink W, van den Bout J, et al Mental health problems in the Gomel region (Belarus) an analysis of risk factors in an area affected by the Chernobyl disaster. Psychol Med 26 845-855,1996 Kolominsky Y, Igumnov S, Drozdovitch V The psychological development of children from Belarus exposed in the prenatal period to radiation from the Chernobyl atomic power plant. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 40 299-305, 1999 Koscheyev VS, Martens VK, Kosenkov AA, et al Psychological status of Chernobyl nuclear power plant operators after the nuclear disaster. J Trauma Stress 6 561-568, 1993... 

Current opinion is that there is a small risk to human health from even low levels of exposure to ionizing radiation, but there is also a known quantity of natural background radiation that the human species has always encountered. In 1984, an employee at a nuclear power plant began to set off radiation alarms while walking into the plant. An investigation found that his home contained high levels of radon gas from natural minerals. Radon tests are now routinely performed in many homes. 

The results of joint projects are reducing the risk of an accident at operating nuclear power plants in these host countries. These cooperative efforts help protect Europe s public, economic, and environmental health and support a stable business climate for international investments. These efforts also help the host countries avoid a crisis that could destabilize their democratic governments. 

Thus, the general health hazard ( risk ) offered by crossing the street of Karl Johan in Oslo may be in the same order as the risk offered by a nuclear power plant the likelihood of an accident happening on the street is far greater than the likelihood of the power plant blowing up, but the consequences of an incident are far greater in the latter case. 

Identifying potential health hazards requires knowledge of processes and the materials used. For example, it is safe to assume that petrochemical workers will probably be exposed to one or more of a variety of organic vapors, that sandblasters risk overexposure to respirable dusts (crystalline silica, etc.), and that radiation is a potential hazard affecting workers in nuclear power plants. 

The Atomic Energy Act commands the Commission to ensure that nuclear power plant operation provides adequate protection to the health and safety of the public. In defining, redefining or enforcing this statutory standard of adequate protection, the Commission will not consider economic costs. However, adequate protection is not absolute protection or zero risk. Hence safety improvements beyond the minimum needed for adequate protection are possible. The Commission is empowered under section 161 of the Act to impose additional safety requirements not needed for adequate protection and to consider economic costs in doing so. 

Potential health and economic consequences of nuclear power plant accidents include early fatalities, early injuries, latent cancers, population doses, various health effects, and onsite and offsite costs. For such consequence measures, application of the preceding deftnition of risk becomes more complicated, because frequencies must be estimated for accidents with varying degrees of severity. For example, the frequency of transportation accidents involving 100 or more early fatalities is substantially lower than the frequency of transportation accidents involving only 1 fatality. In risk assessments, frequencies of accidents with all possible consequence levels are estimated. It is desirable to combine the risks associated with high, moderate, and low consequence accidents into an overall risk measure. For this purpose, the concept of actuarial or consequence-weighted risk is used. 

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