Carnival of Nuclear Energy 221

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The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 221 is up at ANS Nuclear Cafe

Atomic Insights – Why does conventional wisdom ignore hormesis?

Hormesis – the stimulation by some agent, such as radiation, of biological responses that are protective against damage done by that agent. It has the same etymological root as hormone, which is a molecule secreted by a gland to stimulate a response in some other part of the body.

In light of repeated assertions that all ionizing radiation is harmful no matter how high or how low the dose, the existence of a beneficial health effect may be surprising. But nearly a century of laboratory experimentation and epidemiological observation of both humans and animals supports the protective response region and contradicts the conventional wisdom. Why then does the concept that all ionizing radiation is harmful hang on with such tenacity, and how did it gain a foothold against all evidence to the contrary?

They rule out hormesis by fiat rather than by scientific evidence. They are forced to this maneuver since the evidence supports hormesis and contradicts LNT. The only reason that LNT is widely accepted is that virtually all political power stands behind LNT, so that it has long been the default position. This is not science.

Radiophobia produces government-sponsored forced evacuations of entire areas surrounding nuclear plants that experience accidents, as happened around Chernobyl (in Ukraine) in 1986 and around Fukushima in 2011. Only the accident at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, PA, in 1979 failed to produce such a reaction by the government, though entirely unwarranted fears were still fanned among nearby residents. The consequences of forced evacuations of hundreds of thousands of people have resulted in destruction of homes, communities, and jobs, and contributed to alcohol abuse, suicides, unwarranted abortions, and other pathways to early death. Children of families who were forced to relocate by the Japanese government have been shunned by their new schoolmates out of an unfounded fear that they are radioactive–-a stunning result of pronounced disinformation and misinformation by the media and government.

The latency period for the development of thyroid cancer is at least 4 years, any such finding around Fukushima must necessarily be part of the baseline and cannot possibly be the result of radiation from the nuclear plant, as anti-nuclear propagandists would like us to believe.

Nextbigfuture -India needs to expand nuclear; HTGR in works

India needs to both expand its power system to serve 300 million people, as well as move away from coal fired generation assets. Nuclear power would, potentially, grow 15 times faster here than other assets. Also, a piece on shared development of HTGR’s between Japan and Indonesia.

Nextbigfuture – Cameco on track to 8000 tons per year in 2018; Cameco’s production target not impacted by process changes.

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