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Risk of cancer death after exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation underestimated, suggests nuclear industry study

by British Medical Journal,  16 Aug 23,   https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08-cancer-death-exposure-low-dose-ionizing.html

Prolonged exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation is associated with a higher risk of death from cancer than previously thought, suggests research tracking the deaths of workers in the nuclear industry, published in The BMJ.

The findings should inform current rules on workplace protection from low-dose radiation, say the researchers.

To date, estimates of the effects of radiation on the risk of dying from cancer have been based primarily on studies of survivors of atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of the Second World War.

These estimates are used to set the level of protection required for workers regularly exposed to much lower doses of radiation in the nuclear industry and other sectors such as health care.

But the latest data from the International Nuclear Workers Study (INWORKS) suggest that risk estimates, based on the acute exposures among atomic bomb survivors to an extremely high dose of radiation, may underestimate the cancer risks from exposure to much lower doses of ionizing radiation delivered over a prolonged period in the workplace.

The researchers therefore tracked and analyzed deaths among 309,932 workers in the nuclear industry in the UK, France, and the US (INWORKS) for whom individual monitoring data for external exposure to ionizing radiation were available.

During a monitoring period spanning 1944 to 2016, 103,553 workers died: 28,089 of these deaths were due to solid cancers, which include most cancers other than leukemia.

The researchers then used this information to estimate the risk of death from solid cancers based on workers’ exposure to radiation 10 years previously.

They estimated that this risk increased by 52% for every unit of radiation (Gray; Gy) workers had absorbed. A dose of one Gray is equivalent to a unit of one Joule of energy deposited in a kilogram of a substance.

But when the analysis was restricted to workers who had been exposed to the lowest cumulative doses of radiation (0-100 mGy), this approximately doubled the risk of death from solid cancers per unit Gy absorbed.

Similarly, restricting the analysis only to workers hired in more recent years when estimates of occupational external penetrating radiation dose were more accurate also increased the risk of death from solid cancer per unit Gy absorbed.

Excluding deaths from cancers of the lung and lung cavity, which might be linked to smoking or occupational exposure to asbestos, had little effect on the strength of the association.

The researchers acknowledge some limitations to their findings, including that exposures for workers employed in the early years of the nuclear industry may have been poorly estimated, despite their efforts to account for subsequent improvements in dosimeter technology—a device for measuring exposure to radiation.

They also point out that the separate analysis of deaths restricted to workers hired in more recent years found an even higher risk of death from solid cancer per unit Gy absorbed, meaning that the increased risk observed in the full cohort wasn’t driven by workers employed in the earliest years of the industry. There were also no individual level data on several potentially influential factors, including smoking.


“People often assume that low dose rate exposures pose less carcinogenic hazard than the high dose rate exposures experienced by the Japanese atomic bomb survivors,” write the researchers. “Our study does not find evidence of reduced risk per unit dose for solid cancer among workers typically exposed to radiation at low dose rates.”

They hope that organizations such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection will use their results to inform their assessment of the risks of low dose, and low dose rate, radiation and ultimately in an update of the system of radiological protection.

More information: Cancer mortality after low dose exposure to ionising radiation in workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States (INWORKS): cohort study, The BMJ (2023). DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2022-074520

Journal information: British Medical Journal (BMJ) 

August 20, 2023 Posted by | radiation, Reference | 3 Comments

Japan’s nuclear plants are short of storage for spent fuel. A remote town could have the solution.

Chugoku Electric’s plan to build a nuclear power plant in Kaminoseki has been stalled for more than a decade since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, delaying subsidies for the remote town, whose population is aging and shrinking.

“The town will only get poorer if we just keep waiting,” Kaminoseki Mayor Tetsuo Nishi – “We should do whatever is available now.”

ByMARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press,  https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/japans-nuclear-plants-short-storage-spent-fuel-remote-102373016 August 19, 2023

TOKYO — A Japanese town said Friday it has agreed to a geological study to determine its suitability as an interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel.

Kaminoseki, a small town in the southwestern prefecture of Yamaguchi, said it would accept the offer of a survey by Chugoku Electric Power Co., one of two major utility operators, along with Kansai Electric Power Co., whose spent fuel storage pools are almost full.

The Japanese government is promoting the greater use of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy source, but the country’s nuclear plants are running out of storage capacity.

The problem stems from Japan’s stalled nuclear fuel recycling program to reprocess plutonium from spent fuel for reuse. The government has continued to pursue the program, despite serious technical setbacks. A plutonium-burning Monju reactor failed and is being decommissioned, while the launch of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in northern Japan has been delayed for almost 30 years.

After the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, many reactors were temporarily taken offline and their restarts delayed, helping to reduce the spent fuel stockpile.

However, when Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government decided to reverse a phaseout and maximize nuclear power as clean energy, concerns over the lack of storage space were rekindled.

Earlier this month, Chugoku put forward a proposal to build a storage facility jointly with Kansai Electric, but the plan was met by angry protests from residents, who surrounded the mayor and yelled at him.

Chugoku Electric’s plan to build a nuclear power plant in Kaminoseki has been stalled for more than a decade since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, delaying subsidies for the remote town, whose population is aging and shrinking.

“The town will only get poorer if we just keep waiting,” Kaminoseki Mayor Tetsuo Nishi told a televised news conference Friday. “We should do whatever is available now.”

Kansai Electric, Japan’s largest nuclear plant operator, is urgently seeking additional storage for spent fuel: the cooling pools at its plants are more than 80% full. The company pledged to find a potential interim storage site by the end of this year.

About 19,000 tons of spent fuel, a byproduct of nuclear power generation, is stored at power plants across Japan, taking up about 80% of their storage capacity, according to the economy and industry ministry.

The continuation of spent fuel reprocessing program and the delay have only added to Japan’s already large plutonium stockpile, raising international concern. Japan also lacks a final repository for high-level nuclear waste.

An intermediate facility is designed to keep nuclear spent fuel in dry casks for decades until it is moved to a reprocessing or to a final repository. Experts say it is a much safer option than keeping it in uncovered cooling pools at their plants.

If the storage is actually built, it will be the second such facility in Japan. The only other one is in Mutsu, near Rokkasho, which is reserved for Tokyo Electric Power Co. and a smaller utility.

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

Lukashenko shares thoughts on future of Ukraine

 https://www.rt.com/russia/581437-lukashenko-ukraine-interview-recap/— 18 Aug 23

Kiev should sue for peace before it loses the remnants of its sovereignty, the leader of Belarus said in an interview

Ukraine needs to stop the war and start rebuilding its statehood on a healthier foundation before it ceases to exist completely, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko on Thursday.

1 Ukraine could lose everything

Ukraine could lose all of its territory if it chooses to continue fighting, Lukashenko said, insisting that Kiev should first “end the war” in order to preserve its statehood. “Yes, you can continue to struggle for these territories,” he said, pointing to Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye on the map. “I’m not telling you to give them up or anything. But choose another method. If you fight for these territories, you will lose those,” he added, pointing to the areas further west.
2 Conflict was avoidable

“The war was avoidable… at any point in time. It can be stopped now and it could have been avoided then,” Lukashenko said, noting that in 2015, he was at the heart of events and facilitated communication between then-President of Ukraine Pyotr Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The Minsk agreements should have been implemented. We agreed on everything… But they were ignored,” he said, adding that Putin was “100% ready” to implement the agreements, but Poroshenko was “afraid that the wrong people would have been elected” if Donbass returned to Ukraine as an autonomous region.

3 Belarus will go to war if Ukrainians cross the border

Lukashenko stated that Minsk will “keep helping our ally Russia,” but if “Ukrainians do not cross our border, we will never get involved in this hot war.” He went on to say that dozens of NATO and other countries are backing Ukraine with military coordination, intelligence, and training, as well as ammunition and weapons supplies, while “only Belarus is openly helping Russia.”

4 Russia has enough firepower

Lukashenko also rejected as “complete nonsense” the notion that Putin is pressing him to become more involved in the conflict. He observed that Russia has more than enough manpower and firepower to reach its goals, saying, “an additional 70,000 troops will change nothing.”

5 Putin withdrew troops from Kiev to avoid civilian casualties

The Belarusian leader dismissed suggestions that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky protected Kiev and that the Ukrainian army repulsed the early Russian invasion, calling the idea a “fairy tale… cooked up by mass media and Zelensky himself, in order to present him as a hero.” Lukashenko claimed that, at the time, Putin told him Kiev could be captured “right away, instantaneously, but a huge number of people will die.”

Lukashenko noted that Ukrainian forces had deployed not only tanks but multiple-launch rocket systems in the streets of Kiev, near “kindergartens, schools, hospitals,” and other public buildings. “You probably know that the Russian troops, who were on the outskirts of Kiev, withdrew from there. Did [Zelensky] destroy the Russian army there? No… He was sitting in a root cellar at the time,” Lukashenko said.

6 Main Russian objective already achieved

Moscow has already reached the principal aim of its military operation in Ukraine, the Belarusian president continued, explaining that “Ukraine will never be so aggressive towards Russia after this war ends, as it was before. Ukraine will be different. People in power [there] will be more cautious, smart – more cunning if you will.”

7 Zelensky ready to surrender western Ukraine to Poland

Lukashenko believes that in order to get Ukraine into NATO, Zelensky might go as far as to surrender part of the country’s territory under a Polish protectorate. However, he said “Ukrainians themselves will not let it happen.” 

If they come in, they will not go away, because Americans are standing behind Poland. Well, this will be Polish territory. Why would NATO not accept them in this case? It will already be Polish territory,” Lukashenko said.

“This is unacceptable for us and for Russians. It is necessary to preserve Ukraine’s integrity, so that the country will not be sliced up and divided by other countries. Negotiations come next,” he added.

8 Ukraine is not Zelensky, and Zelensky is not Ukraine

Lukashenko claimed that Ukrainians are increasingly disenchanted with Zelensky, who is not a “national hero,” but an image created for international audiences by the Western propaganda machine, drawing parallels to how, before the Soviet Union’s collapse, the West “went into raptures about Gorbachev” in a similar fashion.

“People in Ukraine are beginning to see things clearly. And millions of people who fled the country are raising their voices saying that they want to return home and asking why the war is still going on,” he said. “There is a growing understanding that Zelensky should find a way out of this situation, to put it mildly.”

9 Only the United States benefits from the war

The Belarusian leader said the US-led forces seek to weaken Russia with the help of Ukraine. “It does not bother them that the Slavic peoples are fighting with each other, and killing each other. It is beneficial for them. Thus, having weakened Russia, they will get closer to China from this side. That’s their rationale. Zelensky is playing along. But in the end, Ukraine – a flourishing, beautiful country blessed with natural resources – will cease to exist.”

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Belarus, politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

‘The Greatest Fighting Force in Human History’ – The Perpetual Wars You Aren’t Supposed to Notice

byEDITOR August 17, 2023

By William J. Astore / TomDispatch.com

In his message to the troops prior to the July 4th weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered high praise indeed. “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,” he tweeted, connecting that claim to the U.S. having patriots of all colors, creeds, and backgrounds “who bravely volunteer to defend our country and our values.”

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The nuclear industry needs to show it can deliver economically viable big reactors in time and on budget.

Power projects in the west are too often delayed and over budget

Ft.com THE EDITORIAL BOARD 18 Aug 23

A UK parliamentary committee recently urged the government to come up with a strategy, rather than vague targets, to more than triple nuclear generating capacity by 2050. In the US, the Vogtle 3 unit began delivering electricity to Georgia’s power grid — the first reactor the country has built from scratch in more than three decades. Yet the fact that Vogtle 3 and the coming unit 4 might also be among the last big US reactors to be built is a sign of the questions over such plants, despite their promise……………………………….

nuclear is much more expensive than renewables, whose cost has come down sharply, even when everything runs smoothly, which it rarely does. The challenge of safely storing nuclear waste has not been entirely resolved. And recent experience in Europe and the US is almost entirely of projects being completed late and over budget. That has put off private investors, too.

France’s EDF now says Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first new nuclear power station for almost 30 years, is likely to cost more than envisaged. EDF’s Flamanville-3 reactor in France is over a decade behind schedule. In the US, the $14bn original cost of Vogtle 3 and 4 has blown past $30bn.

Japan and South Korea have a better record, but Japan is not building overseas. South Korea’s Kepco, though it successfully built Abu Dhabi’s first nuclear plant, is facing a copyright lawsuit from America’s Westinghouse over using the same design elsewhere. China and Russia have completed multiple reactors largely on time, but few western nations want to buy from them.

Small modular reactors — cheaper and quicker to build — may start to play a role, but are still in development. So if nuclear power is to play the part many western governments envisage, the industry needs to improve financing, construction and supply chains, and demonstrate it can build big reactors within the time and resources allotted………………………………………………..

Many of the things engineers say are needed to keep nuclear costs down — better planning and communications, applying best practice — sound humdrum, but seem hard to achieve in real life. If “gigawatt-scale” reactors are to play their part in the west’s climate transition, the nuclear industry must be better at planning and execution.  https://www.ft.com/content/2b5e0a50-dcf7-4932-a293-6fa82cebc027—

August 20, 2023 Posted by | business and costs | 1 Comment

Back in another quagmire – in Biden’s relentless “Big Muddy” of Ukraine.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalitioin. Glen Ellyn IL 18 Aug 23

Biden to Zelensky: ‘Here’s another $24 billion to further destroy your country.’ 

Ignoring US public opinion, President Biden wants and will get another $24 billion in weapons and other aid to keep the Russo Ukraine war bleeding out Ukraine in perpetuity.  

That will ratchet up US aid to a gargantuan $137 billion, about half of which are weapons that have proved nearly worthless in Ukraine’s failed war and counteroffensive. Most honest military and administration officials admit Ukraine wasn’t ready for a counteroffensive and has suffered staggering death and disability of his forces thrown against nearly overwhelming Russian defenses.  

While there is only darkness ahead in the tunnel of America’s proxy war against Russia, the Commander in Chief says ‘more, more, more weapons, but not one negotiation.’ He’s requested a supplemental emergency spending bill of $40 billion. Fearing recent polling showing 55% of voters oppose more Ukraine aid, Biden packaged the $24 billion for Ukraine with $16 billion for the Homeland. Congress wouldn’t dare vote down that needed domestic dough, ensuring passage of the endless waste of our treasure to ensure more death and destruction in Ukraine.  

Back in ’68, protest song maestro Pete Seeger penned ‘Waste Deep In The Big Muddy’. It was an allegory of an Army squad leader, The Big Fool’, who forced his troops to wade The Big Muddy, a stream too deep to cross. It was a perfect take on the Big Fool LBJ, who keep pouring troops into the meat grinder of Vietnam with no chance of victory.

Here we are 55 years on with another quagmire in The Big Muddy…and the current Big Fool in the White House says to push on. 

August 20, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Finland’s OL2 nuclear reactor off grid; power prices rise

Reuters, August 18, 2023

OSLO, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Finland’s OL2 nuclear power reactor was shut down early on Friday and will remain offline until Aug. 28 due to problems caused by increased moisture in the facility’s turbine, operator TVO said, helping to pushing up electricity prices.

There was no impact on nuclear safety, TVO added.

The outage comes at a time of low wind power generation that has already lifted Finnish prices, according to Refinitiv analyst Petter Engblom Nordby.

Electricity prices for Friday soared up to 270 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) for hours where demand is typically highest, far exceeding prices in other parts of the Nordics and continental Europe, data from power exchange Nord Pool showed……………….. Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo and Louise Rasmussen in Copenhagen, editing by Terje Solsvik   https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/finlands-ol2-nuclear-reactor-off-grid-power-prices-rise-2023-08-18/

August 20, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, Finland | Leave a comment