Nuclear catastrophe - minuscule increased adult cancer risk

[Oscar]

Nuclear catastrophe would cause minuscule increased adult cancer risk

Gordon Edwards < ccnr@web.ca Jun 26 11:00AM -0400

Background:

In the 1974 Reactor Safety Study, commonly known as "The Rasmussen Report", a massive 12-volume undertaking commissioned and published by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the consequences of a nuclear catastrophe at a US nuclear reactor were estimated as follows:

45,000 cases of radiation sickness (requiring hospitalization)

3,300 prompt deaths (from acute radiation sickness)

45,000 fatal cancers (over 50 years)

250,000 non-fatal cancers (over 50 years)

190 defective children born (per year)

$14 billion in property damage (in 1974 dollars; not insurable)

See http://www.ccnr.org/rasmussen.html

Also see http://ccnr.org/crac.html

Canadians will be happy to learn that the staff of our own regulatory agency, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), has done their
own arithmetic and concluded that no such consequences would occur in the case of a nuclear catastrophe at a Canadian CANDU reactor.

It's all a matter of what assumptions you use. The CNSC study assumes the whole affair will be over in a relatively short time, and that contaminated land, buildings, food and water supplies are not an issue.

Reassuring?

Why is it then that in the same week that this CNSC study was released to the public, the Parliament of Canada was being asked to approve a government bill called the Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act, that would limit the liability of the nuclear owners and operators from any liability for offsite property damage or personal injuries beyond a maximum limit of one billion dollars?

See http://ccnr.org/Liability.pdf

Gordon Edwards.

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Ontario nuclear catastrophe would cause minuscule increased adult cancer risk: federal study

[ http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/ ... eral-study ]

by Ian MacLeod, Ottawa Citizen, June 25, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/p3cr375

A Greenpeace Canada nuclear analyst dismissed the study results based on a scenario at power plants such as Pickering, calling the report
'disingenuous'.

A catastrophic radiation leak at an Ontario nuclear power plant would result in a “minuscule” increased risk of cancer to nearby adult residents, according to a new federal study.

However, the research and computer projection modelling by Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), the country’s nuclear regulator, predicts the risk of childhood thyroid cancer would rise 30 per cent, to 1.3 per cent from the current one-per-cent risk in Canada and Ontario.

The CSNC says that finding needs to be considered in emergency planning, but cautions not to read too much into the statistical jump.

“It’s a 30-per-cent increase of something that’s very small,” Patsy Thompson, director-general of the CNSC’s directorate of environmental and radiation protection and assessment, said in an interview.

“Thyroid cancer is very treatable (and potassium iodide) is 100-per-cent effective in blocking uptake of radioactive iodine if you take (the pills) on time.”

Overall, “this work shows that even for something essentially catastrophic, the health consequences would not be catastrophic, that people can feel safe living around nuclear facilities,” she said.

This is the first time the federal nuclear watchdog has undertaken a scientific health study based on a Fukushima-like disaster. Under one scenario, four reactors at a single nuclear power station such as Darlington, Pickering or Bruce are presumed to have suffered a severe, simultaneous, common-cause accident. All plant safety features as well as actions by control-room operators and other mitigation measures fail.

The dome-shaped, concrete containment buildings shielding each reactor from the outside world breach, releasing large amounts of cesium-137 and other radioactive contaminants into the surrounding atmosphere and landscape.

Researchers considered varying wind speeds and directions, rates of radioactive release, plume dispersion and human radiological dose calculations as well as psycho-social and mental health impacts.
They also assumed emergency management measures under the Ontario nuclear emergency response plan — evacuation, sheltering in place and consumption of potassium iodide pills by those living closest to the accident site — to be effective.

CNSC staff were directed by the commission to undertake the study after Greenpeace and several other parties complained the agency and Ontario Power Generation low-balled radioactive release and other estimates in a severe accident scenario report submitted at a 2012 environmental assessment hearing for the proposed refurbishment of four reactors at Darlington.

Shawn-Patrick Stensil, a Greenpeace Canada nuclear analyst, dismissed the study results Wednesday, saying the radioactive release calculations, while larger, still do not approach the releases during the nuclear disasters at Fukushima and Chernobyl.

He called the report “disingenuous”.

“I think the CNSC still has a blind spot regarding the potential for major accidents in Canada. It overlooks Darlington’s known accident potential” and other potential effects of an accident, such as radioactive fallout contaminating Lake Ontario’s drinking water. “You’re going to have moms in Toronto refusing to drink water.”

Stensil said the study should also have examined the contamination cesium-137 causes to land and soil, and the need for policies and procedures to deal with reclamation.

Throughout the study report, the CNSC stresses the scenario is hypothetical and that pre- and post-Fukushima safety and other measures have “practically eliminated” the likelihood of such a severe accident.

The predicted risk of developing any type of adult cancer is currently 49 per cent or 49,114 chances per 100,000 people.

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[ http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/ ... eral-study ]