It helps to put the 1 mSv/year safe limit for radioactivity in perspective.
The lowest level of radioactivity shown to cause detectable harm is 100 mSv.
This causes 1% increase in the risk of cancer.
This is based on exposure to the nuclear weapons in Japan where this dose was received at an exceptionally high dose rate (a fraction of a second).
The lowest dose shown to cause detectable harm when spread over an entire year is 500 mSv.
This is should be compared with the ‘safe’ levels set for the most dangerous component in air pollution, PM2.5 particles. At the WHO approved safe level for PM2.5 already causes a 2% increase in mortality.
So a life lost to radioactivity is valued at least 500 times more than a life lost to air pollution. They should be valued the same.
This regulatory flaw is why nuclear power did not replace fossil fuel power, and is one of the causes of climate change.
I would just like to add that tritium has never been shown to harm laboratory animals, even at the highest achievable doses. The reason is simple. It releases such a weak form of radioactivity. So any DNA damage that it could produce is trivial compared with the background DNA damage sustained by oxygen free radicals that we produce in all our cells. Our DNA repair system don’t even notice this tiny bit of extra work. The notion that any DNA damage is harmful and must be avoided is wrong. If that were the case we would never expose ourselves to sunlight as this always causes damage.
Your comments are well reflected. Without diminishing the atavistic fear, largely fanned by activists of different or even corrupt purpose, of nuclear energy, nations as the USA, the UK, and Europe are doomed to a cold, unlighted future, a "selbstmord" as the Germans might say. You bring light, Zion.
A cold, dark future? Unlikely. They will do as the Germans are doing; burn as much natural gas as necessary to keep the lights on. Germany is a peculiar case for being specifically targeted for support for antinuclear activism by the former USSR in the 1970s. So hatred of nuclear power is not baked into North American political culture the way it was in Western Europe.
1. Tritium is a naturally occurring substance. It's in all water everywhere on our planet. It's produced by the bombardment of water in our environment by cosmic radiation. Some water will absorb a neutron and become deuterium, DHO. On very rare occasions, some of the deuterium atoms will absorb another neutron and become Tritium, THO. The natural background level of all water on our planet is about 15 Becquerels/Litre. (Please note that Wikipedia lies wildly by claiming that tritium is a very rare substance.) So, tritium can be found in all water everywhere, including every living thing.
Tritium is a very low energy beta-emitter. It has no power to penetrate anything before being absorbed. Tritium has a very short half-life of just 12.3 years. All of the tritiated water at Fukushima has already been in storage for a decade, so about half of it has already decayed away to stable hydrogen or deuterium.
2. The only commercial use tritium has is to be used to illuminate watch and instrument dials. You've passed such tritium lighing every time you've boarded an aircraft.
3. As for this, "China and Japan have had a fractious relationship for a long time, and it is not uncommon for Chinese people to call for bans on Japanese products when the opportunity arises. "
No kidding. China and Japan were in essentially a state of non-stop genocidal war from 1894 to 1945. In one infamous incident alone, the massacre of Nanjing in 1937, the Japanese army murdered at least 300,000 civilians. Only the atomic bomb and the American victory over Japan put a stop to a war which in half a century killed many, many millions.
And unlike the Nazi murderers in Germany, not one single Japanese official was ever punished for their butchery of millions of Chinese.
About your point 3, while true present day events have source in present day issues, notably the alignment of Japan with the US and the Chinese claims of territorial waters in southern sea of China which increase pressure on Taiwan.
The rivalry goes back further than that. PRC and the Republic have hated each other since they emerged as the two principal factions out of the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty of imperial China in 1912. China's long civil war started in 1927 and continues to this day. The Communists won in 1949 when they drove the Republic out of China, but there has never been a peace treaty ending the war. This all long predates US influence on Japan after WW2.
I think you may be correct regarding some European countries, certainly not all. France has 80% of her power from nuclear since decades; Sweden is going nuclear and Finland also; Hungary and the Netherlands too. Germany, as the U.S. and the UK, has its head in the sand, or somewhere even less elegant.
It helps to put the 1 mSv/year safe limit for radioactivity in perspective.
The lowest level of radioactivity shown to cause detectable harm is 100 mSv.
This causes 1% increase in the risk of cancer.
This is based on exposure to the nuclear weapons in Japan where this dose was received at an exceptionally high dose rate (a fraction of a second).
The lowest dose shown to cause detectable harm when spread over an entire year is 500 mSv.
This is should be compared with the ‘safe’ levels set for the most dangerous component in air pollution, PM2.5 particles. At the WHO approved safe level for PM2.5 already causes a 2% increase in mortality.
So a life lost to radioactivity is valued at least 500 times more than a life lost to air pollution. They should be valued the same.
This regulatory flaw is why nuclear power did not replace fossil fuel power, and is one of the causes of climate change.
Excellent comment, which should be communicated far and wide.
Really appreciate your work. Thanks
I would just like to add that tritium has never been shown to harm laboratory animals, even at the highest achievable doses. The reason is simple. It releases such a weak form of radioactivity. So any DNA damage that it could produce is trivial compared with the background DNA damage sustained by oxygen free radicals that we produce in all our cells. Our DNA repair system don’t even notice this tiny bit of extra work. The notion that any DNA damage is harmful and must be avoided is wrong. If that were the case we would never expose ourselves to sunlight as this always causes damage.
Your comments are well reflected. Without diminishing the atavistic fear, largely fanned by activists of different or even corrupt purpose, of nuclear energy, nations as the USA, the UK, and Europe are doomed to a cold, unlighted future, a "selbstmord" as the Germans might say. You bring light, Zion.
A cold, dark future? Unlikely. They will do as the Germans are doing; burn as much natural gas as necessary to keep the lights on. Germany is a peculiar case for being specifically targeted for support for antinuclear activism by the former USSR in the 1970s. So hatred of nuclear power is not baked into North American political culture the way it was in Western Europe.
A good article. Only a few comments from me.
1. Tritium is a naturally occurring substance. It's in all water everywhere on our planet. It's produced by the bombardment of water in our environment by cosmic radiation. Some water will absorb a neutron and become deuterium, DHO. On very rare occasions, some of the deuterium atoms will absorb another neutron and become Tritium, THO. The natural background level of all water on our planet is about 15 Becquerels/Litre. (Please note that Wikipedia lies wildly by claiming that tritium is a very rare substance.) So, tritium can be found in all water everywhere, including every living thing.
Tritium is a very low energy beta-emitter. It has no power to penetrate anything before being absorbed. Tritium has a very short half-life of just 12.3 years. All of the tritiated water at Fukushima has already been in storage for a decade, so about half of it has already decayed away to stable hydrogen or deuterium.
2. The only commercial use tritium has is to be used to illuminate watch and instrument dials. You've passed such tritium lighing every time you've boarded an aircraft.
3. As for this, "China and Japan have had a fractious relationship for a long time, and it is not uncommon for Chinese people to call for bans on Japanese products when the opportunity arises. "
No kidding. China and Japan were in essentially a state of non-stop genocidal war from 1894 to 1945. In one infamous incident alone, the massacre of Nanjing in 1937, the Japanese army murdered at least 300,000 civilians. Only the atomic bomb and the American victory over Japan put a stop to a war which in half a century killed many, many millions.
And unlike the Nazi murderers in Germany, not one single Japanese official was ever punished for their butchery of millions of Chinese.
About your point 3, while true present day events have source in present day issues, notably the alignment of Japan with the US and the Chinese claims of territorial waters in southern sea of China which increase pressure on Taiwan.
The rivalry goes back further than that. PRC and the Republic have hated each other since they emerged as the two principal factions out of the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty of imperial China in 1912. China's long civil war started in 1927 and continues to this day. The Communists won in 1949 when they drove the Republic out of China, but there has never been a peace treaty ending the war. This all long predates US influence on Japan after WW2.
I think you may be correct regarding some European countries, certainly not all. France has 80% of her power from nuclear since decades; Sweden is going nuclear and Finland also; Hungary and the Netherlands too. Germany, as the U.S. and the UK, has its head in the sand, or somewhere even less elegant.