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Canada Earth Power

Canadian Nuclear Accident Study Puts Risks Into Perspective 166

Posted by samzenpus from the avoid-the-glowing-water dept.
An anonymous reader writes: A Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) study has concluded that there would be no detectable increase in cancer risk for most of the population from radiation released in a hypothetical severe nuclear accident. The CNSC's study is the result of a collaborative effort of research and analysis undertaken to address concerns raised during public hearings on the environmental assessment for the refurbishment of Ontario Power Generation's (OPG's) Darlington nuclear power plant in 2012. The draft study was released for public consultation in June 2014. Feedback from the Commission itself and comments from over 500 submissions from the public, government and other organizations have been incorporated in the final version. The study involved identifying and modelling a large atmospheric release of radionuclides from a hypothetical severe nuclear accident at the four-unit Darlington plant
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Canadian Nuclear Accident Study Puts Risks Into Perspective More

Canadian Nuclear Accident Study Puts Risks Into Perspective

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  • the riskiest thing i do everyday (Score:5, Insightful)

    by turkeydance ( 1266624 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @05:33PM (#50405621)
    is grab the car key

    • Motorcycle for me. Even riskier. Perspective is a good thing.

      • But so so so worth it! What do you ride?

        Not to mention that moving furniture is damn deadly too! Apparently 15 Americans are crushed to death moving their furniture every year! BAN THE COUCH!

        • But so so so worth it! What do you ride?

          Not to mention that moving furniture is damn deadly too! Apparently 15 Americans are crushed to death moving their furniture every year! BAN THE COUCH!

          I absolutely agree. I used to ride sport bikes (mostly Suzuki) but I'm old now and my knees and back are shot (product of a few ill-advised get-offs) and I have to wear a bracelet that warns EMTs that I'm missing an internal organ. (In case they need to know, I guess.) These days I ride a Harley touring model. I figure I'll keep riding for as long as my body lets me.

          When daughter was still in daycare, I had to rush home from work to switch over to the truck so I could pick her up. The logistics were co

          • I'm currently riding a 2013 Honda CBR1000RR. Always been on the Japanese sports bikes. was a Kawasaki man for a long time until I bought the abortion that was the '07 ZX-10R. Hated it from day one and should have just got rid of it but I kept thinking I'm sure I can get it to handle.... In the end I had an encounter with diesel which led to an encounter with the road and I now have a steel collar bone and one slightly second hand right wrist.

            I also have daughters but I haven't had to convince them why I r

        • Apparently 15 Americans are crushed to death moving their furniture every year! BAN THE COUCH!

          The source [cpsc.gov] of that information is really interesting. Almost all (84%) people killed by furniture are under 8, killed when a TV (60%) or chest/bureau falls on them.

          There are zero fatalities in the 10-year study involving people between 9-30 years old. I'm not sure what protects this age group from malicious TVs, unless the broadcasters somehow allow the TVs to distinguish members of the target demographic. It does seem that, if you're over 30, you should put on a college student costume before trying to

        • Apparently 15 Americans are crushed to death moving their furniture every year!

          That's nothing compared to the number of couches crushed each year by Americans.

    • Re:the riskiest thing i do everyday (Score:4, Funny)

      by MouseR ( 3264 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @05:58PM (#50405767) Homepage

      Masturbation. By all means, the very worse thing for me as a developer would be going blind.

  • Might want to read the fine print... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lexible ( 1038928 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @05:51PM (#50405735)
    From the study: "The radiological exposure to people (beyond the first seven days) and its resulting short and long-term health impacts are not assessed in this study."
    In other words, the flow of radionuclides through the environment, and expected specific dispersal and concentration pathways resulting in human exposure and the resulting cancers risks were not studied.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So apparently they just studied the most dangerous time and most acute doses directly after the event.

      • I smell a rat. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Wow. I'll guarantee you there was a lot of politcking that went on behind this *COUGH* *COUGH* study. No way it was going to warn people of a potential for disaster. That would have been nipped at the bud from the outset.

        PRO-TIP: The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission wants people to use nuclear power. Just "safely."

    • Re:Might want to read the fine print... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Michael Woodhams ( 112247 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @07:37PM (#50406271) Journal

      This is fine - they're not pretending those impacts don't happen, they are just not what they're studying. They are asking "What does the fallout do to people some distance from the accident?"

      The exposure people get early in the accident and very close to the reactors depends hugely on the nature of the accident. At Chernobyl, there were many firefighters within meters of an exposed critical core, resulting in a large toll from acute radiation sickness. At Fukushima, the cores ceased to be critical seconds after the quake and tens of minutes before the tsunami, and radiation was only released days later, so there was no acute radiation sickness.

      By contrast, the effect of the fallout is much less dependent on the nature of the accident, just on how much radioactive material was released*. It can sensibly be studied without specifying details of how the accident happened.

      * There is some dependence: the relative quantity of short lived isotopes such as Iodine-131 in the fallout depends somewhat on how long the radioactive material was contained prior to release.

      • Re:Might want to read the fine print... (Score:4, Informative)

        by fnj ( 64210 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @09:07PM (#50406695)

        At Chernobyl, there were many firefighters within meters of an exposed critical core, resulting in a large toll from acute radiation sickness.

        For some definition of "large". There were a total of 28 acute radiation exposure deaths, most of them emergency personnel on the premises and emergency responders from outside, at Chernobyl. To put that in perspective, there were 414 deaths of emergency responders at the World Trade Center when 4 assholes crashed two planes into the twin towers.

        The following is definitely nitpicking. I rather doubt the Chernobyl core was still critical when most of those people were exposed. Criticality probably terminated promptly at the moment of explosion.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The problem is that when an accident happens it is often difficult to get reliable information. Either there will have been some major kinetic event or emergency backup power will have been lost, or both as was the case with Fukushima. So given that reliable information is hard to come by what do you do? Tell people it's okay and don't evacuate, or evacuate them slowly in an orderly fashion over a few days (good luck with that) or just evacuate everyone ASAP. Often, the last option is the only option, given

    • Re:Might want to read the fine print... (Score:5, Informative)

      by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Thursday August 27, 2015 @07:44PM (#50406311)

      Even if they were studied, it's worth keeping in mind that the current Canadian government appears (according to many Canadian scientists) to have a habit of suppressing or even altering scientific research that doesn't support its political goals. And it's election season; take any Canadian government PR with an extra large dose of sodium chloride.

  • how they could come to such a conclusion defies logic. As accidents, by their very nature are unpredictable. Have they factored in the lid of the containment vessel blowing off.

    • Re:Effects of hypothetical severe nuclear accident (Score:5, Informative)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @06:33PM (#50405941)

      how they could come to such a conclusion defies logic. As accidents, by their very nature are unpredictable.

      Actually they aren't as unpredictable as you think. Predicting accidents and fallout scenarios underpins the entire process safety movement of modern process plants. The nuclear industry has some 50 years of experience and data on exactly how often every abnormal operating condition happens. They simple extrapolate as to what would happen if the abnormal operating condition is unable to be corrected (the hazard).

      Have they factored in the lid of the containment vessel blowing off

      Why would they? Primary containment explosion is an incredibly rare event. The only time an event has ever escalated to that level was with a 50 year old reactor design which had it's safety features disabled on purpose and was then run at an operating point that was known to be unstable on purpose. It was also done on a graphite moderated reactor with a huge positive power co-efficient which caused a runaway reaction. By comparison the reactor being talked about is a CANDU reactor which has a really low and only slightly positive power co-efficient making an explosion from within the containment vessel very unlikely. And that's before taking into account that the reactor commissioned in the 90s has very different and way better safety systems than one in the 70s.

      • its, please its! It's = it is!!!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ken D ( 100098 )

        Perhaps you might want to read _Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster_ and find out just how well their accident modelling works.

        Many "can't happen" failures happened one after another. Entire failure modes totally ignored for not being "realistic" but that actually happened.

        Failure analysis needs to be done by pessimists. The nuclear industry apparently doesn't like pessimists.

        • No, actually if you postulate the plant is put underwater, which it was not designed for, the outcome is quite easy to accurately predict. The problem was they placed the plant where it would wind up underwater.

        • There's no such thing as a can't happen failure. There's only decreasingly likelihoods of occurrences. If a failure can happen by any way even if it something like terrorism or mass murder suicide then is not in the realm of can't happen. But you are right you need the correct people to come up with the correct answers when doing risk analysis which is why in many cases in the process industry they outsource it. In any case my answer to the original question stands. Fukushima did not have an explosion of th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        >9 magnitude earthquakes followed by once-in-1000 year giant tsunamis are incredibly rare events. That's why settlements that had been there for hundreds of years were wiped out too.

        Sorry, but however unlikely you think it you have to consider the worst case scenario. We do in other industries, nuclear doesn't get an exception from the rule.

        • And what has that got to do with primary containment failure?

          The problems at Fukushima weren't that they didn't consider the risks, it's that they under-engineered the solutions. There was a tsunami wall, and the building was designed to withstand an earthquake. The up front risk assessment was not the problem.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            You said they didn't consider the case of the lid blowing off. You said the chance of it happening was remote.

            • And back to my point there has been a single case of such a failure. Fukushima was not one of them, and in a CANDU reactor it's borderline impossible to occur with even the great brains behind the Chernobyl disaster running a reactor out of spec while disabling safety systems at the same time wouldn't be able to achieve it.

              But I agree my response was tongue in cheek. The correct answer is to consider it and then at the end of the hazard study write "Not a credible scenario".

  • Four types of arguement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aberglas ( 991072 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @06:03PM (#50405793)

    There are four the types of arguments, of increasing power:-

    1. Detailed technical arguments.

    2. Simplistic factual arguments.

    3. Emotional arguments.

    4. Authoratative arguments.

    Mugs like me tend to rely on detailed technical arguments. Simplistic factual arguments are much more powerful, but will always be trumped by an argument that appeals to people emotionally. And arguments from respected people in authority (like film stars) trump everything else.

    So Nuclear = Nuclear Bombs = Satan. No amount of geeky statistical analysis can change that.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You've presented an emotional argument in disguise.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        And yet I feel compelled to accept GP's argument over your simplistic factual argument.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The report doesn't say what you think it says. It makes a detailed technical argument, just not the one you think it makes. Instead of appealed to emotion, people's outrage at how stupid everyone else is.

      At least you take your own advice I guess.

    • I think most of the fear associated with nuclear has to do with the nature of radiation in that you can't really sense it killing you without some sort of detector. It is like magic to most people, so they fear something they can't see, hear, smell, or understand really. A good analogy might be natural gas. Also used for power, and it just happens in its natural form, invisible and odorless. However in that case, we're able to artificially add a smell to it, so as to make it safer to work with. Not really p

  • A counter-example already exists: Chernobyl (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    In Chernobyl, a large nuclear disaster, not only did people die from acute exposure, but hundreds if not thousands of children had thyroid surgery (the "Chernobyl necklace"), and many downwind developed cancer as a result. Remembering that this paper states exposure beyond SEVEN DAYS is not considered, we already know that large nuclear disasters have both acute and long-term health effects. Claiming that they don't flies in the face of history.

    • In Chernobyl, a large nuclear disaster, not only did people die from acute exposure, but hundreds if not thousands of children had thyroid surgery (the "Chernobyl necklace"), and many downwind developed cancer as a result. Remembering that this paper states exposure beyond SEVEN DAYS is not considered, we already know that large nuclear disasters have both acute and long-term health effects. Claiming that they don't flies in the face of history.

      That's right. And most of those that didn't die turned in to glowing mongoloids. We can't ignore that history.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      True, but then again I live about 60mi from one of the largest nuclear generating stations in the world. [wikipedia.org] The amount of worry I have over it? Pretty much zero. Most people around here also have zero worry, hell the biggest problem most people are concerned about has to do with the mega dump they want to put at the old caramuse lime pits.

      If for some reason bruce nuclear goes tits up, there are going to be a lot of other things to worry about. Especially in terms of food production, especially since we exp

    • First, Chernobyl isn't happening again. We need to consider Fukushima as the base disaster, and scale up and down from there.

      Second, there are treatments for exposure to radioactive iodine. I don't believe they were used well after Chernobyl.

      Third, the half-life of the radioactive iodine you refer to is approximately eight days. After seven, it would be down to not that much more than half its initial amount. There are isotopes that last longer and are dangerous, but you're talking about thyroid ac

  • Study is right, but needs more.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @06:29PM (#50405921) Homepage
    Basically, it should have compared it to coal, as coal releases more radioactivity than nuclear. Small bits of radioactive thorium are found in coal mines, and when you mine the coal, you release it from the entombed safety. Then when you burn the coal, you release even more into the atmosphere. The radioactivity risk in the immediate vicinity of a coal burning plant is significantly greater than that of all nuclear power plants. Coal miners and plant workers are more likely to die of cancer than uranium miners and nuclear power plant workers (note, this only applies to the US industry, other countries may have different rates due to different regulatory strengths.).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spitzak ( 4019 )

      A nuclear accident could easily release a lot more radiation than a coal plant. You are confused by the often-quoted fact that when operating normally, a coal plant can release more radiation. An accident though means the plant is not operating normally.

      This may mean that the risk from the radiation from either type of plant when operating normally is pretty low. It's fun to point out that more radiation comes from a coal plant, but I'm pretty certain the danger from breathing the other crap that comes out

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jez9999 ( 618189 )

        Depends on the design of the nuclear plant. Pretty much no accident at a generation IV reactor could release any radiation into the environment.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by khallow ( 566160 )

        A nuclear accident could easily release a lot more radiation than a coal plant.

        Sure, if we don't do anything about it. But coal burning plants operating normally are far more common than nuclear plants in the throes of meltdown.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Except Ontario shut down its last coal plants last year.

  • Canadian nuclear accidents are polite (Score:4, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @07:22PM (#50406197)
    Canadian nuclear accidents are polite and civilized. There is no way one would be so obnoxious as to actually cause anyone cancer.

  • You know, like spending 100 years to clean up the mess, large areas that become inhabitable, and people that have to relocate under emergency conditions? Cancer is just one thing here, there is a ton of other problems.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jack Griffin ( 3459907 )
      Nuclear accident = uninhabitable area
      Coal under normal use = uninhabitable planet
      I'm not pretending Nuclear is perfect but given the choice, I vote for Nuclear.

  • Compared to what the Killers at DuPont do to the p (Score:3, Insightful)

    by VTBlue ( 600055 ) on Friday August 28, 2015 @12:07AM (#50407263)

    Nuclear energy is the last thing the public needs to worry about. The world pretty much has been poisoned over the last 100 years with toxic chemicals made by DuPont and 3M. Cancer, high cholesterol, endocrine disruption, diabetes, mental health....death. Poorly regulated chemicals are orders of magnitude more dangerous than the highly regulated nuclear industry.

  • Having fired former Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission head Linda Keen for refusing to compromise on safety, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper replaced her with one of his seemingly-inexhaustible supply of conscienceless, obedient drones.

    I'd be entirely unsurprised if the commission concluded the most important consequence of brushing one's teeth with plutonium dust would be a whiter smile.

  • If there is no detectable increase in cancer risk, then how exactly is this a "severe" accident?
    • "Severe Accident" is a defined category of nuclear accidents where there is fuel melt and release of radioactive material to the environment.
  • This study was done by scientists who aren't allowed to say anything bad about the Canadian government, especially during an election. And it was done for an agency (Ontario Power Generation) that the government of Ontario wants to sell to private investors. Highly suspect.

  • This is a wonderful example of misdirection. As someone that lives within the exclusion zone of Pickering, it's not the radiation that worries me, it's the fact that I will be forced from my home never to return, rendering the largest investment I have worthless. Losing most of my life's capitalization, yeah, that worries me. And it worries me more that the other end of that exclusion zone is well within Toronto, which means that the collective savings of about a million other people will be similarly effec

  • Chernobyl was estimated to cause millions of deaths.
    So far including all past and future expected deaths its down to 10 thousand.
    Fukushima killed 10 people (2 drowned, 8 industrial accidents in the cleanup), while the Tsunami killed 20 thousand. And most anti nuclear lunatics were sure Tokyo would be contaminated.
    My conclusion is even disregarding the utter lunatics, all radiation models lead to at least an order of magnitude in people affected, in the case of Chernobyl two orders of magnitude.
    People insist

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