Interesting/cogent discussion of radioactivity from TMI -
Three Mile Island was the only nuclear accident that occurred inside the boundaries of the USA.
Or maybe I should say that it was the only incident preposterous enough that our Mainstream Media actually covered it. This coverage let us know that several things happened:
1) A partial nuclear meltdown occurred at the plant.
2) Due to the accident, there was a release of unknown amounts of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment.
3) It could have been much worse. Although three separate explosions occurred, even the most serious did not compromise the safety of the reactor as a whole, and so there was no "China Syndrome." Had the facility not had containment chambers that strictly adhered to code, the outcome might have been far different.
The accident was caused by human error coupled with design flaws relating to the status of a stuck valve and how the control panel's lights let operators working the night shift think things were one way when they were actually another.)
I recently came across a discussion I had downloaded from TinyRevolution.com, and this presents some things to think about.
URL link to article:
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003679.html
April 02, 2013
Sure, This One Goes To 11; But Can You Turn It Down To 0.11?
By: Aaron Datesman
From Datesman's article
I've previously written that our regulatory standards for exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation are based upon extrapolations downward from high doses. The framework is called the "linear dose model". You could say that I'm not fond of it. Perhaps my fundamental complaint (among the very many there are to choose from) is that the regulatory and scientific advisory bodies that utilize this model seem willfully blind to the idea that a "model" is a guess, rather than a law.
Since the linear dose model in reality is a guess, for its predictions to be credible it is absolutely necessary continually to audit the model to verify its accuracy. In the world we inhabit, unfortunately, this does not ordinarily happen. Instead, government and industry point to the predictions of the linear dose model to argue against any possibility of harm, forestalling meaningful audits of the model's validity. The circularity of the logic is perfect.
Nevertheless, the 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island was severe enough that a meaningful audit (albeit incomplete and not comprehensive) was actually performed. The data uncovered by that audit demonstrate convincingly that, for at least one type of exposure to ionizing radiation and one deleterious health outcome, the linear dose model is incontrovertibly incorrect.
In 1997, Steve Wing at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill published a re-analysis of health effects due to the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, covering just the population in a ten-mile radius around the plant through the year 1985. The article, "A Reevaluation of Cancer Incidence Near the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant: The Collision of Evidence and Assumptions", appeared in Environmental Health
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The rest of the article should be read to take in the full implications of the audit.
The tales and graphs presented in this information can all be found at the Link above.
= new reply since forum marked as read
