Olkiluoto geology

[Blind groper]

The reason I know John Cameron was the lead researcher is because I first read of this test several decades back, long before the report you posted. In fact, so much time has passed that John Cameron has now died of old age.

The problem with the no-threshold hypothesis (which I admit is still believed by a lot of health professionals) is that the error bars in cancer rates far exceed any radiation influence even at ten times background radiation. So we get an observation showing that the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to a calculated level less than 100 millisieverts had no more cancer and lived as long on average as people from the rest of Japan. Seems conclusive, but many people argue that this is just because the random variable favors this group. Perhaps.

What ever the result, it is very clear that low levels of radiation can have little effect on cancer rates. Even if the no-threshold hypothesis turns out to be correct, the actual number of extra cancers from radiation levels lower than 100 millisieverts are going to be less than what we can measure. Without any supporting evidence, the no-threshold hypothesis continues to be a very, very weak model.

We also need to remember that natural background exposures are incredibly variable. While the global average is less than 3 millisieverts per year, simply living in mountains increases it to 20 millisieverts per year, and there are those Indians living close to hydrothermal waters who are exposed to over 200 millisieverts per year. A simple understanding of evolution leads to an expectation that the human body will evolve resistance to radiation within this range.

[MiM]

So could you please give a reference to a study about "that area in India"? Are you referring to Kerala? If, than I found this fairly recent study

As you say, they found no increase in cancer rates, but as you also note, the power of these kind of studies are usually simply not high enough. The possible extra cancers hide in the background. In this case the authors conclude (in the abstract): "Although the statistical power of the study might not be adequate due to the low dose, our cancer incidence study, together with previously reported cancer mortality studies in the HBR area of Yangjiang, China, suggests it is unlikely that estimates of risk at low doses are substantially greater than currently believed.

You say the NTH theory is rather weak, but so is the threshold theory. We simple don't have the evidence we need to make a certain conclusion. There is also evidence of radiation induced cancer from very low doses, eg. the result of this large pooled European study was that inhouse radon as low as 200 Bq/m3 (equivalent to a 3-4 mSv/y) can be seen to heighten lung cancer frequencies, and radon in houses is the cause of 9% of European lung cancers (the rest is more or less from smoking).

I do not think you can use evolution to argue things like that, and even if you could, most (solid) cancers take very long to develop, and they kill middle aged or elderly people. With the life spans of the hunter-gatherer human, resistance to these kind of cancers wasn't an issue that would give any evolutive benefit to talk about.

[Blind groper]

MiM

My reference to India was from wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background ... _radiation

I quote :

"Some of the highest levels of natural background radiation recorded in the world are from areas around Ramsar, particularly at Talesh-Mahalleh which is a very high background radiation area (VHBRA) having an effective dose equivalent several times in excess of ICRP-recommended radiation dose limits for radiation workers and up to 200 times greater than normal background levels. Annual exposures of people living in Ramsar range from 1 to 26 rem, which is 10 to 260 mSv (compared with 0.06 mSv of a chest radiograph or up to 20 mSv of a CT scan).[15][16] Most of the radiation in the area is due to dissolved radium-226 in water of hot springs along with smaller amounts of uranium and thorium due to travertine deposits. There are more than nine hot springs in the area with different concentrations of radioisotopes, and these are used as spas by locals and tourists.[17] This high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area and even possibly has made them slightly more radioresistant, which is puzzling and has been called "radiation paradox". It has also been reported that residents have healthier and longer lives.[16]"

Even if the studies of health effects are not as good as they could be, the fact that does up to 260 millisieverts per year show no excess cancers (indeed, the result is healthier than average people) must be taken as strongly indicative.

On evolution, developing resistance to relatively high levels of radiation would confer benefits other than cancer resistance, if we assume that lack of evolution leaves the organism vulnerable. Radiation causes a lot of damage other than cancer, and the primary mechanism of adaptation is DNA repair. Evolution enhancing DNA repair is obviously beneficial, if it stops radiation damage to tissues and organs.

[MiM]

Ramsar is in Iran, not India . I'll see if I can find time to dig up anything on that. Very busy week coming up.

- Yes, and we know that dna repair is a viable mechanism, but it still can leave holes for slow growing cancer.

[Svartalf]

A pox on Old Persian being so close to Prakrit that both countries have near identical place names, eh?

[Blind groper]

Ramsar is in Iran, not India .

Fair enough.
That does not alter my point, though.

There is still a lot of evidence for a threshold, and no evidence for the no threshold model. There is one exception. I do not count localised high concentrations of radiation as being low. For example : it is possible that a single particle of plutonium lodged in a person's lungs will cause lung cancer, while the total exposure is less than 1 millisievert. However, the localised exposure to lung tissue touching that particle may be at the equivalent of 10 sieverts.

My argument was centered on the dissolving of waste and discharge at sea in solution form, meaning no localised concentrations. So radioactive particles or other local high radiation sources should not be listed.

[MiM]

Ramsar is in Iran, not India .

Fair enough.
That does not alter my point, though.

It actually might, as I believe it might be even more difficult to get accurate demographic, health et.c. data out of Iran than India, so it might affect the quality of any studies that has been made, but as I said, I have no time to dig into that now.

There is still a lot of evidence for a threshold, and no evidence for the no threshold model. There is one exception. I do not count localised high concentrations of radiation as being low. For example : it is possible that a single particle of plutonium lodged in a person's lungs will cause lung cancer, while the total exposure is less than 1 millisievert. However, the localised exposure to lung tissue touching that particle may be at the equivalent of 10 sieverts.

My argument was centered on the dissolving of waste and discharge at sea in solution form, meaning no localised concentrations. So radioactive
particles or other local high radiation sources should not be listed.

Was that was an attempt to discredit the applicability of my last post on the effects of radon? The "radon dust particles" are generally not particularly hot. But this reminds me that you have never given a satisfactory answer about how you could reliably mix the waste in the full ocean volume, in a way that plutonium (or other isotopes) does not conglomerate and form exactly the kind of hot particles you believe are more dangerous?

[Blind groper]

MiM

In case you had not noticed. Radon is a gas and does not form "radon dust particles". Radon concentrates, however, because it is a heavy gas, and it settles in places like mines and basements.

How to mix waste and stop it forming particles?
For a start, as I said several times, you begin by dissolving the waste in strong acid, and then massively diluting the solution in water. Since we are dealing with a solution, there are no hot particles, any more than dissolved salt in the ocean forms particles.

As to mixing.
The easiest way is to run a pipeline into a strong oceanic current. There are several places, for example, where the Gulf Stream narrows and moves faster. So that is an appropriate place to pump the solutions. The oceanic circulation pattern then slowly moves literally all around the world. I cannot remember exactly how long it takes. Something over 100 years. But at that stage mixing is pretty damn thorough. However, even from the very beginning, there is enough dilution to avoid any of the problems you seem concerned about.

[MiM]

Sorry for my use of sloppy language. Yes, radon is a gas, but the stuff that is dangerous to humans is its decay products. These decay products are charged atoms (they get charged because of the decay), and quickly settles on dust particles in the air, due to electric forces. These dust particles, with attached radon daughters is what is sometimes (sloppily) called "radon dust particles). But we agree then, that the effect I referred to above (measurable effect on cancer rates, from only a few mSv/a exposure), is not from any hot particle effect? (BTW, radon does not concentrate in basements and mines, because of its weight. Gravity has preciously little effect on anything as small as a single atom. It gets trapped in those places because of poor ventilation.)
...
Can you find one strong acid, that works well will all chemical compounds that are radioactive in the waste, What happens when you dilute that strong acid in water? Very soon it will not be a strong acid anymore. Is there a point where some of the chemical elements start to solidify? At what concentrations? There are no practical ways to mix into a large enough volume, so that the activity will not be comparatively high at your pipe outlet. There it will be immediately available to plankton and fish, how high will the activity of fish living close to the outlet be...

There are much more questions about your scheme, than I can even think up.

[Blind groper]

MiM

Couple of points.
First, radon and gravity. In fact, gravity does affect radon, because it is a very heavy gas. But you are correct about ventilation. Adequate ventilation prevents radon build up. The gravity effect, though, happens in the absence of sufficient ventilation. And that effect does not work on lighter gases, which stay mixed with air in roughly the same concentration. But radon can accumulate in poorly ventilated places which are low, due to a slow settling effect.

Your suggestion of radioisotopes settling out of solution.
The answer is no, for the simple reason that the operators use vast amounts of dilution water. A mix of powerful acids, like aqua regia, at high temperatures, will dissolve AFAIK, all radioisotopes. Diluting with water does not cause water soluble materials to settle, even if the solubility is very low. The place you get settling is the reverse, when water is removed, as by evaporation. I suggested earlier that 200 tonnes of radioisotopes per year diluted with a million tonnes of water. That dilution will prevent any settling, just as salt in sufficient water will never settle. After all, there is some billions of tonnes of uranium dissolved in the ocean (with 50 million tonnes being U235), and that metal is very, very insoluble. The dilution effect is so massive that the uranium does not settle out, and nor will the radioisotopes we are talking of.

[MiM]

I still believe you are way too optimistic about that, but maybe we have reached a point where it is good to let this discussion slumber?

[Tero]

A famous Finnish conspiracy theorist and antinuclear activist, plus all around village idiot, Atro Laurila is finally on to something. He got a Swedish geologist to come and look at rock near Olkiluoto. This is to be the nuclear waste storage site. It has had lots of earthquake activity since the last ice age.

For those who read Finnish, the ice age piles of rocks are explained well in this link. So basically, the "earthquakes" were the ice age.

http://www.pori.fi/asuminen/asukastoimi ... npesa.html