Christmas Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers at Atomic Power Review

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah. Happy Holidays and happy celebrations!

The 84th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at Atomic Power Review. Thank you to Will Davis for keeping the Carnival going in the middle of the holiday season.

I have to start with a direct link to a poem in the Carnival, from ANS Nuclear Cafe. A Priori wrote The Wait for the License. It starts:

‘Twas the wait for the license,

When all through the site,

Not a module was fitted,

No matter how light.

Work orders were logged

On the systems and boards

For the moment when workers

Would show up in hordes.

The owners and contractors

Eagerly waited

To pour some concrete

That is safety-related.

And I in my trailer,

Hearing no bosses’ words,

Had flipped out my smart phone

To play Angry Birds.

Hard to top that one! Well, on to the prose....

Jim Hopf at ANS News and Gail Marcus of Nuke Power Talk discuss Jaczko and the NRC, and Dan Yurman describes the progress on recent Areva projects. The Enrichment facility in Idaho is on hold, but the EPR reactors in China are doing well, taking far less time than the first reactor of that type, which is being built in Finland. It's the end of the year, so Gail Marcus and Jeff Madison of Cool Hand Nuke do a retrospective on 60 years of nuclear power, while Brian Wang of Next Big Future includes a roundup of nuclear news. Want also reviews the status of SMR reactor proposals, and even covers fusion and coal news.

Yes Vermont Yankee submitted a post about materials resources for nuclear education for high school students. From Atomic Power Review, Will Davis adds more resources to the High School list. It is in the spirit of the holidays to consider young people, and it is in the spirit of nuclear energy to consider nuclear education.

Once again, Will Davis starts his carnival with a tease picture from the nuclear archives "Guess this!" I couldn't guess, but may you can. Hint. It's a reactor...

Have happy, safe and joyful holidays! Have some fun at the Christmas Carnival!

-----------

About the picture. It reminded me of someone I knew well in high school, and of a situation that scared me half to death.

In high school, a fellow student invited me to come to her house for their traditional Christmas Eve party. Her parents were refugees from Vienna, fleeing Hitler. I knew this. What I didn't know was the German, Austrian, Danish (etc) custom of lighting the Christmas tree with real candles. As they got out the long tapers and started lighting the candles. I was terrified. At the end, it was okay. I mean, the house didn't burn down, which is my criteria for "lighting candles on the Christmas tree was okay." I wouldn't do it myself, and not just because I mostly celebrate Hanukkah!

I urge you to have safe and enjoyable holidays. Remember-- LED lights are quite attractive. They come in many colors, unlike candles. Much preferable, IMHO.

Photo from Wikipedia of a Danish Christmas tree with candles.

Will a Little Bit of Radiation Hurt You? Berkeley Scientists Break the Hold of Linear Non Threshold Reasoning.

Berkeley Scientists Watch Cells Repairing Themselves after Exposure to Low-Level Radiation

Lawrence Berkeley laboratory scientists recently announced results of innovative radiation experiments. The scientists watched cells repairing themselves after being exposed to low-level radiation. Here's the press release: New Take on Impacts of Low Dose Radiation: Berkeley Lab Researchers Find Evidence Suggesting Risk May Not Be Proportional to Dose at Low Dose Levels

Here's a quote from the press release:

“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, a world-renowned breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division. “This non-linear DNA damage response casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive.”

Mina Bissell is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and is known throughout the world for her breast cancer research. Her awards include being elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and further honors from the Curie Institute in France and the American Cancer Society. She has so many awards that Portugal has named an award FOR her: the Mina J Bissell award to a scientist who has transformed our perception of a topic.

Though the techniques were innovative, and the scientists very distinguished, these recent low-level radiation results are not actually surprising. From common sense, we would expect that a body could heal itself well from several low-dose radiation exposures, while having a harder time healing from a single high dose exposure. After all, we expect ourselves to heal after any number of skinned knees, but that says nothing about our ability to heal from stab wounds.

Why Is This A Big Deal? Well, The Official Theory of Radiation is Response is Strictly Linear

In other words, the official theory of radiation response is that a couple of skinned knees is the same as a stabbing.

Risks from low levels of radiation are generally assessed with the Linear No Threshold (LNT) theory. This theory states that the risks of cancer are in direct proportion to the amount of exposure, even for very small exposures. This methodology of risk assessment is supported by a series of reports called the BEIR reports: Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation. BEIR I through BEIR VII have been issued under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences. I include a link to the BEIR VII summary document from the National Academy.

Despite this heritage, the BEIR reports are controversial. For one thing, the assumption that there is no threshold for radiation damage is impossible to prove in a world where everyone is exposed to background radiation. For another thing, the linearity of damage at low levels always struck many scientists as unlikely. In general, small amounts of toxins are handled well by organisms, while large amounts can kill. The relationship between zero effect and lethal dose is not generally linear.

Or, as one of my friends put it: BEIR says that if 100 aspirins taken at once is lethal, and 100 men each take one aspirin apiece--one of those men is going to die. That would be a linear response to low dosage aspirin consumption.

Actually, BEIR VII waffles a bit at low dosages. Here's a quote from the summary:

There are two competing hypotheses to the linear no-threshold model. One is that low doses of radiation are more harmful than a linear, no-threshold model of effects would suggest. BEIR VII finds that the radiation health effects research, taken as a whole, does not support this hypothesis. The other hypothesis suggests that risks are smaller than predicted by the linear no-threshold model are nonexistent (sic), or that low doses of radiation may even be beneficial. The report concludes that the preponderance of information indicates that there will be some risk, even at low doses, although the risk is small.

Note that the report does not actually claim that the risks are linear at low doses, but merely that there is some risk though the risk is small.

If you would like to think about some painful consequences of LNT, I encourage you to listen to this podcast about Fukushima or read my blog post about it. Rod Adams invited me and Cal Abel to be on a podcast to discuss the very real question of when Fukushima evacuees could go home. I especially encourage you to read the comments on both the podcast and the blog post.

Following LNT Would Lead to Really Weird Cancer Therapies

"When all is said and done, there's a lot more said than done."

I have always followed the policy of attempting to look at what people do, rather than what they say. People still get dental x-rays. People move to Denver, where background radiation is high. More people move to Denver than move to the Mississippi delta, despite the low background radiation in Mississippi. But let's look at a stronger example.

Let's look at radiation therapy for cancer. Many people undergo radiation treatmentS. The plural is important.

Radiation oncologists know that the healthy flesh heals after a treatment, so treatments are spaced out: six weeks of three times a week, two months of twice a week, etc. I remember one man in my writing group who moved to Boston for two months to be treated. Why did he have to do this? Why didn't he just visit Boston, get one massive treatment, and come home to Vermont? Because, even at high doses, the body heals between treatments. There is a repair mechanism, as there is for everything else our body encounters.

Giving radiation therapy in one dose would hugely damage the surrounding tissues, compared to giving the same amount in smaller doses over a long time. Even at the relatively high doses of radiotherapy, response to one dose versus response to many doses is not linear. Wade Allison has an excellent description of the planning behind radiation therapy in his book, Radiation and Reason.

LNT and Small Doses

From low-level radiation exposure research at Berkeley to the standard methodologies of radiation oncology specialists to Fukushima...it seems to me that it is time to stop using LNT as the gold standard for assessing risk.

LNT is wrong and therefore will lead to incorrect results. Even BEIR doesn't really defend it, and yet it is the de facto law of the land.

A major tip of the hat to Rod Adams of Atomic Insights blog, for his post Lawrence Berkeley National Lab announces breakthrough study of low radiation dose effects

Aspirin Graphic from Wikimedia

Photo of Mina Bissell from her website.

Geiger Counter graphic from Wikimedia.

Carbon Dioxide and Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Plant Opponents and Climate Change

Let's talk a little about carbon dioxide.

1. Burning fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide leads to climate change.
2. Nuclear power produces only negligible amounts of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases.

Opponents of nuclear power are stuck with these facts about carbon dioxide, but they try to get around them. They want to have their cake (close nuclear!) and eat it as they wrap themselves in environmental nobility (stop climate change!) How do they do this?

• Few opponents will say carbon dioxide doesn't matter, because then they would be "climate change deniers" -- which is the wrong political party.
• Some opponents say that both nuclear and fossil should be and will be replaced very quicky by renewables, so the comparison is not important.
• Some say nuclear power cannot make much of a dent in the problem anyway, and the nuclear fuel cycle makes as much carbon dioxide as natural gas.

Gundersen: A Little Carbon Dioxide Doesn't Matter

At the January Janus Forum debate at UVM, Arnie Gundersen took a different approach than the ones I outlined above. He discussed nuclear plants (Vermont Yankee) and climate change. Here is what Gundersen said in January.

Gundersen's argument is that nuclear plants have poorer Carnot efficiency than fossil plants and therefore heat up the rivers more, which is bad for the fish. He claims that Vermont Yankee heated the river and decreased the shad in the Connecticut from 70,000 fish to 16 fish. Therefore, the little bit of global warming we would get if we replaced Vermont Yankee with fossil power does not matter very much. He claims we will save the river, even if we hurt the climate a tiny bit.

Actually, there are far more than 16 shad in the Connecticut River, but this post is not about refuting Gundersen. I did that in an earlier post, Hot Climate and Cold Fish. My aim in this post is to show the variety of complex, baffling, and ultimately false arguments nuclear opponents make about carbon dioxide and nuclear power.

France versus Denmark on Global Warming

Luckily for pro-nuclear people, we don't have to make complex arguments. We don't have to look at the future when (hopefully) renewables-do-it-all---and pretend that future is here right now. We don't have to tell lies about the nuclear fuel cycle being as bad for the climate as natural gas. We don't have to claim that warm water (not hydroelectric dams or imported bass) is killing the native fish.

Pro-nuclear people can be straightforward, because we have real facts and can make a real arguments. Pro-nuclear people can can look at actual countries (Denmark and France), actual carbon dioxide numbers, and cheerful videos to show that

Nuclear Energy is a major ally in the fight against carbon dioxide increase and changing climate.

-----------------

Video Note: Gundersen video is from the UVM debate in January. France/Denmark video by MyLiberationBaby for Brave New Climate.

Gundersen note: Gundersen made similar remarks about the river when he was on the panel discussing the Transparent Radiation film at University of Vermont about a week ago. (I don't have links to the panel itself, so I will link to my post on the UVM film.)

Climate Change Note: I am aware that a certain portion of my readers do not believe carbon dioxide is leading to climate change. I think carbon dioxide is leading to climate change, and that is a problem. However, I was pro-nuclear long before climate change was an issue. Whether you think carbon dioxide causes climate change or not, I hope you can agree that using up our fossil fuels for generating electricity is not a good idea, since nuclear power will do the job just as well.

83rd Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers at ANS Nuclear Cafe

The 83rd Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at ANS Nuclear Cafe. Thank you to Dan Yurman for once again putting together a great Carnival! Once again, the scope is world-wide.

However, starting in Washington, Nancy Roth of Fuel Cycle Week covers the dirty laundry on display at the Jaczko hearings. The Chairman doesn't act like a Chairman of a commission, a collegial and knowledgeable group of people who come to together to share information, reason, argue and decide. It sounds as if Jaczko's "chairman" model may be closer to "Chairman Mao." Meanwhile, at Nuclear Diner, Cheryl Rofer links to background documents and summary documents for the hearings, so you can read the dirty laundry for yourself. (I know. That was a really weird metaphor.) Gail Marcus of Nuke Power Talk also reviews the hearings, from the perspective of someone very knowledgeable about nuclear regulation, both here and in Japan.

At Atomic Power Review, Will Davis begins a series of summary reporting and opinion pieces, which will supplement his detailed and careful descriptions of events in the United States and Japan. Many of us have relied on his Japan posts, and we look forward to his more wide-ranging posts in the future.

New types of reactors make news in the Carnival. At ANS Nuclear Cafe, Dan Yurman describes recent events in the evolution of the Traveling Wave Reactor, which is supported and encouraged by Bill Gates. At Next Big Future, Brian Wang links to the very positive report on Small Modular Reactors SMRs by the Energy Policy Institute of the University of Chicago.

On the smash that incorrect-information front:

• Cheryl Rofer of Phronesisaical points out that you can't make a bomb with Na-22, even if you smuggle it to Iran.
• Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues wonders why we are not reprocessing.
• Victoria Barq of NEI Nuclear Notes shreds an article by Sovacool that gives the "dirt" on nuclear power.
• At Yes Vermont Yankee, I review an anti-nuclear film sponsored by University of Vermont. Among other things, the film notes with alarm that uranium 238 has a 4 billion year half-life. (You mean that fact didn't worry you?)
• Dan Yurman wonders whether the Fukushima reactors will truly be in cold shutdown.

In a grab-bag of other news, good, bad, and maybe ugly:

• At Idaho Samizdat, Dan Yurman notes that Areva is overextended and stopped work on the Eagle Rock Enrichment facility, despite a loan guarantee, an NRC license, and contracts in place to buy 70% of the plant output. (bad news)
• At Nuke Power Talk, Gail Marcus discusses energy and animals. Nuclear power plants are good for endangered crocodiles. Unfortunately, wind turbines aren't good for animals in general. (good news for nuclear)
• At Next Big Future, Brian Wang talks about Russia's plans to dominate the world uranium market (maybe ugly news? I mean, they already supply Europe with natural gas...)
• At Idaho Samizdat, Dan Yurman celebrates the fact that many in the Fukushima evacuation area are allowed to return home (GOOD news!)

That's all the news for now! Come to the Carnival, and enjoy yourself. Visit and tell your friends!

Howard Shaffer Testimony to VSNAP: Perspective on Vermont Yankee Errors

Errors at Vermont Yankee Reported to the NRC

Recently, Vermont Yankee announced that it had reported two personnel errors to the NRC. The first error occurred during the refueling outage in October. A worker flipped a circuit breaker on the shut-down cooling system, causing the water temperature to rise briefly and an alarm to sound. The plant was off-line at the time. The second error, in December, was taking both of the plants diesel generators out of service at the same time. This error (the generators were not in use) lasted for about 2 minutes before the mistake was noticed and corrected. As the NRC spokesman noted: Vermont Yankee has other backup systems as well (as the generators), including batteries and a tie to a nearby hydroelectric plant.

Naturally, the opponents have commented. In the Rutland Herald, Ray Shadis was quoted: “They were Homer Simpson moments...The two screw-ups are part of a continuum of ongoing, goofy, inexplicable stuff”. Shadis further noted that he expected the next three months to be the most dangerous in the plant's forty years of operation. In the same article, Arnie Gundersen said that the Public Oversight Panel (he was a member) identified similar issues three years ago.

Yesterday, the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel (VSNAP) met in Vernon, Vermont. The mission of this panel has never been clear to me. According the VSNAP web page, it "considers issues" and writes an annual report to the governor and the legislature. At VSNAP meetings, most of the meeting time is spent on public comments. Vermont Yankee opponents generally show up in force. One of the public comments about the plant was from George Harvey, as reported in the Brattleboro Reformer. "These people have a history of lying....They’re clearly operating out of self-interest. They’re not interested in our making informed decisions, they’re only interested in making money."

Neither Howard Shaffer nor I could attend the VSNAP meeting, due to other obligations. However, Howard sent VSNAP the testimony below, which I am very happy to share.

-----------

Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel

From: Howard Shaffer PE (nuclear) Vermont, NH, MA, IL
Startup Engineer and Support Engineer for Vermont Yankee


The two personnel errors at VY open the discussion to consideration of the initial design of the whole nuclear power program, and all our technologies.

In all my Navy Nuclear power and submarine training it was emphasized that the greatest care is required. You must communicate and double check before taking action. Yet it is acknowledged, and proven by experience, that people make mistakes. Therefore, designs must include backups and consideration of "what ifs."

Nuclear Power Plant Design

In nuclear reactor plant design, of all types, it seems to have been considered that there will be failures of hardware, and people. People include Operators, Managers, and Regulators. In addition, it was believed that in spite of all design, training, and precautions, some day, somewhere, a reactor core would be damaged and melt. The radioactive products were assumed to get out of the vessel and piping. Therefore, a backup was needed. It is the Containment. I call it the "garbage can over the tea kettle." It worked at Three Mile Island. At Fukushima the containments worked for a while, until the lack of cooling for the fuel caused melting and releases. It has been forgotten by the media that the Japanese government ordered an evacuation on the first day of the event, long before releases began.

We, the world nuclear power community, have organizations to communicate lessons learned, in addition to the regulatory agencies. These organizations are the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations in the US, and the World Association of Nuclear Operators. Airplane regulators communicate world wide too.

Human Interaction

Comparing nuclear power to perfection is a political ploy. What in human endeavor is perfect? Try comparing airplanes and cars to perfection. The certainty of error is no excuse. Every accident is investigated and lessons learned incorporated. This is true of the flooding after hurricane Irene, the fire in downtown Brattleboro, house fires, plane and train crashes, car accidents, and nuclear power plant accidents and errors. If you are against something politically, compare it to perfection, and demand zero errors.

In my Navy nuclear power training, I had to read the book containing reports of all the errors that had happened to date. By then, 1963, the book was thick. As years went by, the book got too thick to manage. Errors were being repeated. The book was replaced with a manageable volume of the "classic errors." Why were errors repeated? Errors are repeated in spit of all efforts, because people are human. There are always new people, people changing jobs, rules changes, design changes, and time and other pressures.

NRC licensees are required to have a formal program to document, report, investigate, learn from, and take corrective action on, Human Errors. It is always appropriate to ask if any events constitute a pattern.

Conclusion

The nuclear power program, and Vermont Yankee, should be compared to the available alternatives. On this basis, using the measures the EPA uses: deaths, injuries, accidents, and environmental degradation, it appears that in the 1950's Congress made a very wise decision in choosing nuclear power as a replacement for coal.


Footnote

In a recent press release on the Cross Border Air Pollution Regulations, the EPA stated that:

Pollution from Coal Burning is responsible EVERY YEAR for

34, 000 early deaths due to asthma
$280 billion in health costs
15,000 non fatal heart attacks
19,000 acute bronchitis cases
400,000 cases of aggravated asthma
1.8 million sick days

The UVM Film: Speaking for Themselves about Power Plants

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Hillary Archer of the Gund Institute at University of Vermont (UVM) directed a film about nuclear power, Transparent Radiation. It's a pretty negative film.

Actions speak louder than words. If the Gund Institute thought coal plants were a bigger problem than nuclear plants, they would have made a film about coal.

However, in my previous post about the film a lengthy comment stream made it clear that some people at Gund thought I was misquoting them or misrepresenting the film. So in this post, I am being extra-extra careful. In this post, I have one quote from the film....followed by my opinion. Then I have the two film trailers...followed by my opinion.

My opinions are clearly marked. Readers can read the quote, watch the trailers, read my opinions, and come to their own conclusions.

Energy Choices Quote

After I heard this quote in the film, I asked for the entire quote to put in my blog. I thank Hillary Archer for sending me the quote.

The quote describes a possible energy future.

"If we were able to reduce our per capita energy consumption in the United states from what it is, even to European levels, which is still a very developed society, we'd be cutting our energy demand generally in half, and doing about the same to our electricity demand. So if you envision this stack, we've taken 50% and made it unnecessary. It's easy to imagine that the 20% that we get from nuclear could be in the 50% that's rendered unnecessary, so this whole issue of you need nuclear power is rendered irrelevant." by Eric Garza, in the film Transparent Radiation, 2011

My opinion: I interpreted this quote as saying that shutting nuclear plants is a very high priority action. Since 50% of our electricity comes from coal, cutting back electricity use by 50% could mean that we didn't need any coal plants. As I read this quote, I think it implies that shutting nuclear plants is higher priority than shutting all the coal plants. The nuclear plants would be the first to go. That's how I interpreted this quote.

In several email exchanges with people at Gund, they have made it quite clear that they think my interpretation of this quote is completely incorrect.

However, my opinion of the quote remains the same. IMHO, the quote recommends shutting the nuclear plants first. Other people's opinions that my opinion is incorrect--doesn't change my opinion.

Trailers for the Film

Here are the two trailers for the film, Transparent Radiation. Each is less than two minutes long, so you can watch them both.

My Opinion:

Scare First: The first part of each trailer is basically attention-getting. It consists of rather frightening footage, usually with Geiger counter sounds in the background. Trailers include tsunami footage and (one trailer) atomic bomb footage.

In watching the early attention-getting frames, I am most puzzled by what happens about sixteen seconds into the trailers. It looks like workers at Fukushima, dressed in anti-c's (radiation protection clothes), are carrying a body bag. Indeed, two people drowned at the Fukushima plant during the tsunami and one person was killed when his crane toppled during the earthquake. (About 20,000 people in Japan died during the catastrophe. Most were drowned or crushed.) Deaths at the plant were caused by the natural catastrophe. Anyhow, the body-bag sequence is both puzzling and irrelevant to nuclear energy. That is my opinion.

(Someone is sure to point out that one man at the plant died of heat exhaustion later, while working. It doesn't look like these men are carrying him. First you see the men in a cluster outside the plant, then carrying the bag.)

Reform Later: Moving from the scare scenes at the beginning, the trailers then consist of many people making general statements. Most of these statements strike me as almost religious in tone: variations of the theme that "we have to rethink everything" or "it's a new age." We are also described as needing to curb our insatiable appetites for material goods, stop neglecting the limitations of the world, and so forth. These statements may be a call to personal action, but I don't see them as having much to do with nuclear.

There are a few statements about nuclear energy. These are also very general remarks, without much substance. For example, there is one statement that "nuclear is not a silver bullet." This is a straw man. Did some unknown person, not in the film, say nuclear is a silver bullet? I know that nuclear can be a great help in slowing global warming, but I don't know any nuclear supporter who would call it a silver bullet. There is also one statement in the trailer about renewables, claiming that we have lacked interest in renewables and are holding on to things we are used to.

I noticed only one number in these trailers: concern with U238 and its four billion year half-life. I described my opinion of this long-half-life statement in my previous post, so I won't repeat myself. (The 50% quote above was in the film, not the trailers.)

My concluding opinion

The trailers are very well done as advocacy pieces. They start with scary images, and move on to almost religious statements about how we can do better. This is a good sequence for convincing people. It is regularly used in advocacy (and propaganda and sermons and political speeches) of all kinds.

In my opinion, these are excellent trailers, but not trailers that encourage thought about energy choices. The images and words are visceral and direct: This is frightening! We must reform!

The problem with pro-nuclear people (like me) is that I load up my posts with numbers and comparisons. I can see by these trailers that a more direct approach works better.

And yet...somehow...this is not the sort of thing I expected to see as a university project about energy.

End Note: Ms. Archer is a lovely and gracious person, and I feel badly about having a low opinion of the film. I am grateful that she sent me any quote that I requested. I have decided that being a film critic must be a really really terrible job.

The UVM Film, Billion Year Half-Lives, and Coal is a Straw Man

Last week, I attended the film Transparent Radiation at University of Vermont. The film poster is to the left. The purpose of this film was to show the negative side of nuclear energy, echoing the viewpoint of the filmmakers.

After the film was shown, there was a panel discussion. Howard Shaffer was on the panel. Shaffer blogged about the film and his panel experience at the American Nuclear Society's ANS Nuclear Cafe: Transparent Radiation--A Film: The View from the Panel.

Howard and I thought that I might blog at ANS later this month, perhaps my post would be The View from the Audience. In preparation for writing the blog post, I contacted the film director, Hillary Archer, and also a faculty member at the Gund Institute, Gary Flomenhoft, for further information and quotes.

The email conversation didn't go all that well. This was at least partially my fault. I am grateful that Archer obtained all the quotes I wanted. She was very gracious.

The Quote I Wanted

I emailed Archer that I wanted to obtain the quote about the how some nuclear materials had a four billion year half-life, because I loved that quote and I wanted to use it in my blog. She sent me the quote, but she also was very interested in why I loved it. Would I share my opinion of the quote?

After a bit of back and forth, I wrote Archer an email about the quote. Later I thought: Why let a good rant go to waste? I'll put the email on my blog! So here it is. I have edited it a little by removing a short paragraph that referred to earlier emails. I also include the entire quote from the film, as sent to me by Archer.

My Email to Hillary Archer

Hello Hillary

Thank you for the quote. I appreciate you sharing this and helping me be more accurate!

-snip-

You wanted my opinion of the quote, and I said that my opinion would be in the blog. I don't have an obligation to share my opinions with you before I even write them. I DO have an obligation to get the quotes right, and I have been working at that..

However. I will share my opinion of this quote, since it seems to be important to you. This quote shows a completely backward understanding of radioactivity and its dangers. It's the most perfect misunderstanding of radioactivity: half-life as scare story. During the film, I giggled during this quote. This whole business about protecting ourselves from U 238, which has been here since the planet was formed! It was very funny. U 238 is all over the place: in rocks, in coal, in the ocean. But these guys are going to hide it away, because it has a long half-life so it must be very dangerous. And somehow, nuclear energy caused it! Nope, the supernova that exploded and made the earth 4 billion years ago...that caused the existence of U 238!

On to a little education about radioactivity. A long half life means an isotope is less dangerous. Think about it. Let's say you have a 100 atoms of an isotope with a half life of ten minutes. You can expect 50 radioactive decays in the first ten minutes. Short half-life, lots of radiation released quickly.

Let's say those 100 atoms are of an isotope with a half-life of ten years. The first ten years will have 50 decays, or one decay every couple of months. Long half-life, very little radiation released at a time.

This is why we can build a building of granite, which contains long-half-life radioactive materials. The long half-life means the granite isn't very radioactive. A 4 billion year half-life means very low radioactivity indeed!

It makes a good scare story, though. Be afraid. Be very afraid. It's gonna be radioactive for billions of years (as it has been already)! But to anyone with a bit of understanding of radioactivity, it's a giggle.

By the way, since you value honesty. Half of the electricity in this country comes from coal. Comparing coal and nuclear is not a "straw man," as Gary called it. You cannot dismiss facts by claiming: "that's a straw man." That is not honesty about energy.

By the way, I just found this today. Might be interesting...

http://nuclearaustralia.blogspot.com/2011/12/coal-1-fukushima-every-6-months.html

Thank you for sending me the exact quotes. I appreciate the quotes, and I appreciate the time you took to send them. I hope I have answered your questions. I have taken some time about it, and tried my best to answer.

Best,

Meredith

The Quote Itself

First, a note. The exact words in Gary Flomenhoft's email to me were: "I believe nuclear vs coal is a straw man argument." He likes neither nuclear nor coal.

Further, the quote I requested from the film Transparent Radiation. I thank Hillary Archer for providing the full text of the quote.

"Take a look at one of the most toxic wastes we produce: plutonium, one of the most toxic substances know to humans, half life of 23,400 years more or less. And that means half of it will be gone in that long, but it's so toxic we need to wait many many many half lives. There are other nuclear wastes that are extremely dangerous, with a half life of a million years; depleted uranium, a half life of four billion years- the life of the planet. So we have to keep track of these wastes, at the very minimum, many multiples of how long civilization has been around. Most likely for as long as the human species has been around or much longer." Joshua Farley from the film Transparent Radiation, 2011

---------------

Composite image of the Crab Nebula Supernova from Wikipedia

Coal image also from Wikipedia.