Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Brian Sheron is the retired director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Regulatory research and a supporter of the study commissioned in 2010. He commented in 2017 that “Most people realize that all the evidence shows you’re not going to find anything. There are so many variables. The point was, even if you found something that looked like a relationship, you wouldn’t know what to attribute it to. Did the person live their whole life near the nuclear plant? Or did they live somewhere downwind of an asbestos factory for 20 years? In order to get all the facts, it was going to be prohibitively expensive.”
Ourania Kosti headed the aborted effort at the NAS. She said “You do not know whether the study will find something unless you do the study. The NRC asked us to do the study because of concerns of members of the public who live near the nuclear facilities it regulates. I think it is important to use the best information available to communicate with members of the public about risks.”
More recent studies on this issue in Europe have found that children living withing three miles of a nuclear power plant have twice the risk of developing acute leukemia as children living father away. The peak impact is on children between the ages of two and four.
The current theory of the effect of radioactivity on human health is called linear/no threshold. This means that the more radioactivity, the more danger to health. It also means that there is no minimum amount of radiation below which, the radioactivity is not a threat to health.
Operators of nuclear power plants often say that the radioactivity of their emissions are in the same range as the naturally occurring radioactivity. That does raise questions about just how much radioactivity they are adding to the environment during normal operations. Even if they are only adding five or ten percent to the background radioactivity that still means that increases danger to health.
The estimation of the release of radioactive emissions by nuclear power plants is based on an annual average. What is missing from this estimation is fact that nuclear power plants have to be refueled every eighteen to twenty four months. During refueling, the reactor has to be opened up which means there is a spike in emissions way above the annual average for as long as the reactor is open.
Some studies for individual nuclear power plants have shown that there is evidence of increased cancers in people living near the plant. There is also some evidence of people working at nuclear power plants developing cancer and other illnesses potentially caused by exposure to radiation.
It is true that this is a complex issue and there are many variables that have to be included. However, Considering the impact that cancer has on public health, it would seem that a few million dollars is a small price to pay to clarify this issue. Public health impact is a very important concern when power generation systems are being compared.