Of Nuclear Energy and Sidewalks

On March 16, 2011 Ann Coulter published an interesting article entitled A Glowing Report on Radiation at www.anncoulter.com. If you have to look it up later in the archive, that should give you enough to go on.

Earlier this week, Mrs. PolyKahr and I had a "discussion" concerning a woman who called into a radio station saying that she didn't want cancer and therefore she didn't want any nuclear reactors built within a thousand miles of her location. Mrs. PolyKahr kept saying that she had "valid" concerns while I noted that the risks may be valid, but her concerns were irrational. As it turns out, Mrs. PolyKahr was more right than I was. The validity of something has nothing to do with the truth of it, and more to do with what you can document. Perhaps this is why the alarmists are always emphasizing the validity of peoples concerns. If they can keep you focused on people's valid concerns, they can keep you from discussing the fact that valid or not, these people are crazy.

As for the rationality of these concerns, Ann Coulter does a wonderful service for us all by pointing out the many fallacies and myths associated with radiation, and nuclear power.  Early in my career as an environmental engineer, I was tasked with overseeing the radon program for the Navy.  While the Federal Government could not directly force everyone to test their homes (we were not far enough along on the progressive timescale yet) they could make the Department of Defense test all of its housing for both bachelors and married couples. Without getting into the details of the program, let me just say that some of the "reasoning" behind the EPA's "action level" caused me to begin to wonder about the motives of the EPA.  In any case, at one meeting involving all of the agencies working on the program, a man from the U. S. Geological Service pointed out that based on the EPA "action level," several counties in Iowa would have nobody left alive.  He reasoned that they would all be dead of lung cancer.  He must have seen Bernard L. Cohen's study:

Bernard L. Cohen, a physics professor at the University of Pittsburgh, compared radon exposure and lung cancer rates in 1,729 counties covering 90 percent of the U.S. population. His study in the 1990s found far fewer cases of lung cancer in those counties with the highest amounts of radon -- a correlation that could not be explained by smoking rates.

Nor could it be explained by the EPA.  There is a general principle of toxicology that says "the dose makes the poison." Any substance taken in small enough doses is probably safe, and any substance taken in large enough doses will kill you. Water, if ingested in high enough amounts will kill, though I would not recommend it as a way to commit suicide.  Alcohol is the classic case. In small doses it does no harm, either short term, or long term, and it may even do some good. In bigger doses, the ingester loses coordination and judgement is inhibited. In massive doses, it can kill. Caffeine is another such substance, as is nicotine. Many trace minerals are necessary, but too large a dose will kill. Knowing this, I have always found EPA's warning that there is no safe level of radon to be misguided, if not downright deceptive.

Then there is this study:

A $10 million Department of Energy study from 1991 examined 10 years of epidemiological research by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health on 700,000 shipyard workers, some of whom had been exposed to 10 times more radiation than the others from their work on the ships' nuclear reactors. The workers exposed to excess radiation had a 24 percent lower death rate and a 25 percent lower cancer mortality than the non-irradiated workers.

Isn't that just incredible? I mean, that the Department of Energy spent $10 million doing something useful? Amazing, right?

That study was news to me, but it certainly fits in with the idea that some substances may be necessary, while too much is toxic. Keep in mind that correlation does not indicate causation, and there may be confounding reasons yet to be found that may explain the study.  But I still have to ask, why does EPA ignore these studies, and instead scares people out of their gourds? I don't say that these are the definitive studies, but as things stand, we can't even have a rational conversation. Which may be the point. If people are as frightened as the woman calling into the radio show at the beginning of this post, we are never going to have significant nuclear power in this country. It means continued reliance on burning fossil fuel, which if the goofball wormenists are to be believed, is even worse.

Meanwhile, over at the New York Times, where every silver lining has a dark cloud, John Tierney has an opinion piece bemoaning the fact that many things are now done with greater energy efficiency. The net result is that the same amount of energy is used to produce more stuff. That in turn, tends to foil our betters, who wanted us using less energy. Cars, for example, get around twice the miles per gallon that they did in the 60s, but now we apparently drive twice as much. It's enough to make a member of the elite want to raise taxes.

Instead, they ought to seriously consider nuclear. I had a professor who taught transportation engineering. He was a commonsensical old coot. He was also the man responsible for sidewalks and parking lots at the University. He said one time to us students "You can put sidewalks where it is aesthetically pleasing, but if you wait, you will soon see paths through the grass. Put your sidewalk there. Works every time.