Nuclear and Radiation Safety Issues
Letter of Dr. Otto G. Raabe
December 4, 1997
Letters to the Editor
Los Angeles Times
Dear Editor:
I was deeply distressed to read the opinion column by Helen
Caldicott,Times page M5, Sunday November 30, because it is
filled with serious errors and misinformation about imagined
risks associated with the operation of modern nuclear power
plants. The generation of electricity with nuclear power does
NOT involve emissions into the atmosphere of pollutants,
"greenhouse" gases, or dangerous levels of radioactive
materials. In fact, nuclear power is considerably safer than
burning coal. Dr. Caldicott is a pediatrician with no training
in radiation safety whose views about radiation risks are
inaccurate and misleading. This is an issue of importance to
the national Health Physics Society, of which I am President,
whose 6,500 members specialize in the field of radiation
safety.
Dr. Caldicott's claim of dire consequences from exposure to
radioactive isotopes of strontium, cesium, and plutonium are
truly ridiculous since these materials are not actually released
from modern nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power in the United States has an outstanding record
of radiation safety for workers and the public. No epidemic of
radiation-induced cancer or genetic damage has occurred from
the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Nor will it! Dr. Caldicott
has fabricated these consequences. The National Council on
Radiation Protection and Measurement has documented that
average annual exposures of the public to ionizing radiation are
about 84% natural, 11% medical X-rays, 4% nuclear medicine, 5%
from miscellaneous sources, with only a negligible one-tenth of
one percent from over 100 nuclear power plants. The horrible
radiation exposures and effects that Dr. Caldicott describes in
her article are fictional nonsense.
Dr. Caldicott is particularly confused about the risks of
plutonium, which she describes as if it were a living infectious
agent. Actually, plutonium is insoluble, inert, and biologically
immobile. In order to pose a significant risk to people, plutonium
must deposit within the human body by being breathed into the lungs
as tiny particles at high concentrations. This is not easy since
plutonium is not released from nuclear power plants!
She writes that "hypothetically, one pound evenly distributed
could cause cancer in every person on Earth." This statement is
false. It is like saying that there is enough water in the Great
Lakes to drown everybody on earth if evenly distributed. (It only
takes one or two gallons of water delivered to the lungs to drown a
person.) It is equally silly to visualize one pound of plutonium
being distributed into the lungs of everyone on earth. However,
if it were, the resulting radiation exposures would be too small
to pose any significant harm to anyone. One pound of plutonium-239
divided by 6,000,000,000 people yields a negligible amount per person.
The people of China or the world will not be subjected to dangerous
releases of plutonium, cesium, or strontium resulting from the
operation of new nuclear power plants.
The idea that it takes more energy to build a nuclear power plant
than it generates in 18 years is nonsense. Since nuclear fuel is
reusable and we have excess quantities of plutonium, there is
currently an excess of nuclear fuel in the world with immense energy
potential without the release of "greenhouse" gases!
Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D. (Certified Health Physicist)
President, Health Physics Society
Professor Emeritus, University of California, Davis
