Book Review: Dirty Secrets of Nuclear Power in an Era of Climate Change by Brugge and Datesman

Book Review: Dirty Secrets of Nuclear Power in an Era of Climate Change by Doug Brugge and Aaron Datesman (copyright 2024). Forward by Dr. Helen Caldicott

Reviewed by Sharon and Ace Hoffman

Dirty Secrets of Nuclear Power in an Era of Climate Change summarizes a wide range of evidence regarding the dangers of nuclear power. The authors (Doug Brugge and Aaron Datesman) explain why nuclear power is not a solution to climate change, why it has never been cost-effective (and will never be), why more -- and possibly worse -- nuclear accidents are inevitable, and why the continued accumulation of nuclear waste is foolhardy and irresponsible.

"Dirty Secrets" also examines the social impacts of nuclear power and nuclear weapons proliferation, including exploitation of indigenous communities throughout the nuclear fuel cycle – from uranium mining to nuclear waste storage.

Both authors are scientists, and their rigorous evaluation of evidence highlights the flaws in various pro-nuclear arguments. Each chapter concludes with summary points of the more detailed analysis in the chapter, and includes references for readers interested in learning more.

A recurring theme in Dirty Secrets is that "science" and "regulations" are not the same thing. For example, Linear No Threshold (LNT) is a well-established scientific assumption that there is no safe level of radiation. However, regulations that purport to be based on LNT invariably allow some level of radiation to be added to the environment. Making matters worse, the standard definition of “background radiation” has expanded to include fallout from nuclear testing, emissions from nuclear power plants, and medical radiation exposures.

Dirty Secrets makes a distinction between the environmental and medical concerns regarding background radiation in order to clarify an important point: The environmental portion of background radiation is unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean it's harmless. For example, none of us can avoid naturally-occurring radioactive Potassium-40 (about 0.012 percent of total Potassium), because our bodies require Potassium. But as the authors explain, the unavoidable Potassium-40 doesn’t mean regulations should allow comparable releases of other radioactive isotopes such as Strontium-90.

Readers will find clear information in every chapter of Dirty Secrets. For example, chapter 6 (Three Mile Island:An Unresolved Paradox) reexamines data collected in the wake of the Three Mile Island (TMI) meltdown.

Dirty Secrets points out that if official estimates of radiation releases are accurate, two additional cancer deaths would be expected from TMI. Residents near TMI tell a different story – people getting cancer at an early age, miscarriages and birth defects for humans and animals, and deformed plants. The book explicitly considers the official position that any excess health effects to humans were caused by panic and asks the obvious question: how could panic impact plants?

In the wake of TMI, two groups of respected epidemiologists looked at the same data and drew completely different conclusions. One group was headed by Dr. Mervyn Susser from Columbia University, and found excess cancer deaths, but did not attribute those deaths to radiation from TMI.

The other group was headed by the late Dr. Steven Wing from the University of North Carolina (to whom Dirty Secrets is dedicated). Dr. Wing’s team analyzed Dr. Susser’s data and came to a completely different conclusion: that TMI might have been responsible for observed increases in lung cancer.

Dirty Secrets suggests several reasons for the different conclusions, including the willingness of Dr. Wing’s team to consider anecdotal evidence of individual radiation exposure. For example, some residents reported symptoms such as sunburn-like skin damage, a metallic taste in their mouth, and/or nausea in the immediate aftermath of the accident (these are well-known effects of exposure to high radiation doses).

In attempting to resolve the paradox of the different epidemiology conclusions, the authors of Dirty Secrets became interested in cytogenic studies (examination of chromosomes for failed DNA repairs). Cytogenic studies of people potentially exposed to radiation from TMI were proposed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health in 1979, but the authors found no evidence the studies were ever done.

Some cytogenic analysis was done in the mid-1990s by a group headed by a Russian scientist, Dr. Vladimir Shevchenko. Because chromosome aberrations are stable over time, the authors of Dirty Secrets are currently (2024) participating in an investigation that looks at cytogenic results for people who lived near TMI in 1979.

Delving even deeper into potential causes for observed medical effects from radiation exposure, Chapter 7 (Protracted Exposures May Be Misunderstood) proposes the “shot-noise” hypothesis. This hypothesis offers a possible mechanism for the observed supra-linear response to low-level radiation (see below).

The shot-noise hypothesis focuses on the timing of radioactive decays from internal (inhaled or ingested) beta-emitters and how that timing may impact the resulting biological response. Aaron Datesman, who is the primary author of Chapter 7, provided additional context in his excellent talk for Nuclear Energy Information Service’s (NEIS: https://neis.org/) “Night With the Experts” on November 21, 2024. (We’ve summarized our own understanding of the shot-noise hypothesis below.)

Brugge and Datesman make it clear that the shot-noise hypothesis for low-level radiation is currently unproven. In his NEIS talk (which will be made available at the NEIS website), Datesman suggested an experiment that could disprove the shot-noise hypothesis. In doing so, Datesman is adhering to the standard scientific method of attempting to disprove a hypothesis as a tool for determining whether it deserves additional study.

The authors applied similar scientific reasoning to their analysis of other aspects of nuclear power. Throughout the book they made rigorous attempts to evaluate all of the evidence even if it did not support their conclusions.

Dirty Secrets contains a lot of information that can be used to counter people who promote nuclear power as a solution to the climate crisis. In addition, it presents new theories that might explain some of the biological impacts of radiation, and provides important information about lesser-known studies concerning radiation damage in the wake of the TMI accident.

We highly recommend reading Dirty Secrets and using the book’s information to counter arguments from people who believe nuclear power has a role in slowing climate change.

The digital version of Dirty Secrets of Nuclear Power in an Era of Climate Change is available at no charge through Springer:

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-59595-0

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Shot-noise Hypothesis (as interpreted by Sharon and Ace Hoffman)

The shot-noise hypothesis proposes that the supra-linear response to low doses of radiation from internal beta-emitters occurs because of several related factors:

Each beta decay is a high-energy event that lasts for approximately 1 nanosecond. The length and energy of beta emissions can help explain the mechanism for the shot-noise hypothesis.

OH radicals (aka HO or hydroxyl radicals) are one of the primary mechanisms for damage from internal beta emissions.

The shot-noise hypothesis theorizes that timing ("temporal effects") might account for the supra-linear response at very low levels of radiation exposure. According to Dirty Secrets, it takes the human body about two hours to repair a double-strand DNA break. If multiple beta decays occur in a small area during this period (which can occur when radionuclides are inhaled or ingested) the damage might not be repaired before another beta decay causes more damage.

The phrase “shot-noise,” used to describe this hypothesis, is based on the concept of shot-noise in electronics, where it describes random fluctuations in electrical flow that are observed in Direct Current (DC) circuits. These fluctuations result because electrons are actually discrete charges, and therefore, DC does not produce a continuous flow of electricity. Shot noise was discovered by Walter Schottky in 1918. Beta particles are high-energy electrons or positrons.

The shot-noise hypothesis relies on data from studies done immediately after the TMI accident, as well as the biological response to OH radicals, and specifics concerning how Xenon concentrates in the body.

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Background on the Supra-Linear Response to Low-Level Radiation

A single radioactive decay can destroy or damage cells, which indicates there is no lower threshold for radiation damage. The supra-linear response to radiation at very low dose levels does not negate LNT at higher levels. Early researchers disagreed about whether there was a supra-linear response at low levels of radiation. Most notably, in 1969 former Manhattan Project scientist Dr. John W. Gofman disagreed with Dr. Ernest Sternglass about the extent of low-level radiation damage. (One of the authors of this review (Ace) spoke extensively with Gofman and also with Sternglass (and many other radiation experts) beginning in the 1970s.)

In 1969, Sternglass wrote an article asserting that fallout from bomb tests was responsible for 400,000 excess infant deaths in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. When asked to review Sternglass’s results, Gofman and his colleague Dr. Arthur Tamplin calculated 4,000 excess infant deaths from fallout. The Atomic Energy Commission tried to convince Gofman and Tamplin to refute Sternglass’s results without publishing their own estimate, which Gofman and Tamplin refused to do.

Over the next few decades, as more and more evidence about low-level radiation exposures became available, Gofman changed his mind about the supra-linear response. In an interview, he said: “I’ll say today—ten years later—the new evidence coming out suggests to me that Sternglass may have been right.” (https://ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/nwJWG.html)

In his 1990 book, “Radiation-Induced Cancer From Low-Dose Exposure” Gofman wrote: “The new A-bomb evidence shows, when all ages are considered together, that the cancer-hazard per dose-unit is more severe at LOW doses than at intermediate and high doses; the dose-response curve is supra-linear.” (https://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/RIC/chp3F.html)

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San Onofre's ongoing tritium issues: Are they a significant health risk?

The nuclear industry refuses to understand the risks from radiation. This is, of course, intentional. The reality is that there is no such thing as a "trivial" release, all radiation damage is cumulative. Extremely low doses are almost certainly MORE dangerous relative to higher doses on a per-dose basis. This is known as a "supralinear" effect (see page 6 of my Code Killers book (free pdfs online, this is not a sales pitch!)). Supralinearity hasn't been proven beyond a reasonable doubt yet because the effects of extremely low doses are hidden by all the other "assaults" on life from chemicals, diet, variations in people's health to begin with, and nobody has been able to design a proper test for it yet. However, the thing that convinces me it's correct is that the "minimum" radiation dose from any radioactive release (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron) is massive compared to the strength of any chemical bond in the body.

One emission from Tritium, which the industry (in the attached article, for example) ALWAYS describes as an "extremely low-dose beta emitter" (or words to that effect) will destroy thousands of chemical bonds when it occurs. When that tritium atom was originally part of a water molecule, it leaves behind an OH free radical, which does even more damage to the body and actually probably causes more damage than the beta emission itself. (But I'll talk more about the beta emission here anyway.)

First of all: The whole idea of calling ANY beta emission "low energy" just because its energy level might be a thousand times lower than a "high energy" beta emission is PURE PROPAGANDA. Why is this so? Let me explain:

A beta particle is a CHARGED PARTICLE. It's basically just an electron, with a negative charge of -1 like all electrons. That's enough charge when it passes by other electrons at high speed ("high speed" being a relative term, as I'll explain) to knock those other electrons out of their orbits. Thousands of electrons can be knocked away by a single beta emission. ANY beta emission, whether it's a low-energy emission or a high-energy emission. How does that work?

Here's how:

When ANY beta particle is emitted, whether a so-called low energy emission or a high one, that particle is traveling at about 99.7% the speed of light -- far faster than an alpha particle emission, for example, which "only" is about 98% the speed of light.

The beta particle (or "ray" if you prefer) is a charged particle, extremely small, and traveling very fast when first emitted. So it PASSES BY other atoms so fast that it's not near other atoms for very long, and DOESN'T have much or ANY effect on things it passes UNTIL it slows down. That's when virtually ALL the damage occurs. It would still be going very fast by "terrestrial" standards, but nothing like the 99.7% the speed of light.

Imagine passing a magnet over a bunch of nails. If you do it very, very quickly, the magnet won't pick up ANY of the nails or even move them around at all. But if you pass the magnet slowly over the nail, it will affect them all. It's basically the same thing for charged particles passing other charged particles. At nearly the speed of light, the beta particle (or "ray" as some prefer to call it) passes other atoms so quickly that nothing significant happens.

So both high and low-energy beta particles do more or less the same amount of damage because virtually ALL the damage is done at the end of the track, when the particle has slowed down significantly.

The nuclear industry NEVER mentions tritium without calling it a Low Energy Beta Emitter. And that's BS. Nuclear propaganda. The vast majority of workers in the nuclear industry have no idea what I'm talking about, but of course, this comes from experts I've talked to many times, including three Manhattan Project scientists. (At least two of them, specifically about Tritium, and the third founded the Health Physics Society.)

The small creatures of the world -- that our lives depend on (plankton, bees, everything in the food chain) are far more at risk from tritium than larger animals, and diluting the releases does nothing to prevent tritium from harming something or someone, it just spreads the danger out, as with all radiation releases that they "dilute" to "safe" levels. There are no safe levels of any radioactive substance. That said, I've had half a dozen CTs and PETs, mostly in the last five years. The doses were tens of thousands of times higher than anything I'll absorb from SanO. If there were no other safer, cheaper, better ways to generate electricity, society might choose to use nuclear power IF the operating releases were the only problem. But there ARE safer, cheaper, better ways to generate electricity, and the "spent" fuel that is left over is millions of times more hazardous that the "fresh" fuel that went into the reactor. In other words, SanO operated as a manufacturer of the most deadly poisons on earth for many decades, but fortunately, SO FAR, has only released what they call "trivial" amounts over the years. It's all the other stuff, in those canisters by the beach, that scares me the most.

One small fraction of one canister contains more radiation -- that can be released into the environment at any moment -- than all the continuous releases from SanO add up to, starting from Day One, Unit 1, the first day Unit 1 operated for the first time.

Lastly, let me address the question: Is your individual risk from SanO's tritium releases worth worrying about? Basically no.

If you smoke tobacco, that's far more likely to kill you than all the tritium releases from SanO, diluted as they are before they get to anyone. If you drive regularly any great distance, that risk of death or injury is far higher. If you are significantly overweight or don't exercise, your risk is far higher than whatever you've recieved or will recieve from all the tritium that SanO has ever released. Dilution as a solution to pollution does have its benefits (for locals, anyway)!

Is the radiation from a single cross-country airplane flight more dangerous than the cumulative effects of SanO's releases to local residents? Probably -- although exploding packages put on planes by terrorists is probably an even greater risk these days. Suicidal pilots have crashed several planes as well in the past few decades (not just on 9-11).

I worry about the spent fuel, and the possibility of an airplane crashing into it, a terrorist attack on it, or tsunamis and earthquakes far more than about the tritium releases -- but there is no EXCUSE for the lies the nuclear industry propagates about tritium or about "low level" radiation dangers generally.

I hope these comments help and I apologize for the length of this response. It's not a simple topic -- nothing about radiation damage is simple, that's why they've gotten away with releasing so much from bomb tests, and from the nuclear industry. Dilution has always been their solution to pollution, and it just doesn't work. We need the plankton and the bees to survive, too. Only a tiny amount of tritium is produced naturally.

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA
November 25, 2024

Review of Arjun Makhijani's 2023 book Exploring Tritium Dangers:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2024/11/book-review-exploring-tritium-dangers.html

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Tritium exit sign (from NRC web site)

My 2007 essay on tritium:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environment/tritium/2007/ItsAllAboutTheDNA.htm
My 2006 essay (includes a glossary and some background):
http://animatedsoftware.com/environment/tritium/2006/EPATritiumStandard.htm
My first tritium essay (2004):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/2004/TritiumComments%2020041223.htm

Book review: Exploring Tritium Dangers by Arjun Makhijani reviewed by Sharon and Ace Hoffman

"Exploring Tritium Dangers: Health and Ecosystem Risks of Internally Incorporated Radionuclides" by Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. is a concise book packed with facts and figures.

Tritium is a radioactive form of Hydrogen with a half-life of 12.3 years. Tritium is easily absorbed and ingested as Tritiated water which is created when Tritium replaces one or, very rarely, both of the Hydrogen atoms in water (H2O) creating HTO/TTO. "Exploring Tritium Dangers" focuses on Tritium in the bodies of pregnant women, embryos, and fetuses.

Tritium decays by emitting a beta particle with an average charge of about 5.7KeV (5.7 thousand electron-volts (maximum about 18.6KeV)). Because it is a charged particle, a beta particle can disrupt other charged particles, such as electrons. The resulting damage can ionize atoms (i.e., knock an electron completely away from its atom), rearrange molecular structures, and/or break chemical bonds. A single Tritium decay can destroy thousands of chemical bonds.

The nuclear industry describes Tritium as a "weak" beta emitter, meaning Tritium's energy level is low compared to the energy level of most other beta emitters. For example, a Plutonium-239 beta particle has an average energy level of about 5.245 MeV -- nearly 1,000 times the average energy of a Tritium beta particle.

However, the idea that a "weak" beta-emitter causes proportionately less damage than a "strong" beta emitter is false, as described to this author by a retired scientist from Lawrence Livermore Labs. Here's how that happens: The affect of a beta particle on other charged particles is similar to the affect of a magnet passing quickly beneath a piece of paper covered with iron filings, but on an atomic scale. If the magnet is moved very very quickly, the filings on the piece of paper will hardly be disrupted at all. Similarly, the faster a beta particle is moving, the LESS likely it is to disrupt other charged particles.

The initial speed of a beta particle, around 99.7% the speed of light, is directly related to its energy level. But for both a high-energy beta particle and low-energy beta particle, most of their damage is done after they have slowed down, near the end of their track.

Because of this, when a Radiation Absorbed Dose ("RAD") is measured by total amount of energy released, Tritium actually causes MORE damage than a "stronger" beta-emitter! For one plutonium beta particle emitted, about a thousand tritium beta particles are emitted for the same total energy released.

According to the US EPA (https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radiation-basics) "Beta particles ... can be stopped by a layer of clothing or by a thin layer of a substance such as aluminum. ...beta-emitters are most hazardous when they are inhaled or swallowed...".

As Exploring Tritium Dangers explains "Tritiated water...is chemically indistinguishable from ordinary (non-radioactive) water, which is the majority of the mass of animals and plants." Animals can consume Tritiated water in food and liquids. They can breath in Tritium gas and Tritiated water vapor, and absorb Tritium gas, Tritiated water, and Tritiated water vapor through their skin. Animals may also be exposed to beta particles emitted by organically-bound Tritium. For example, a person's bicep muscle or a vegetable that a person eats might contain organically-bound Tritium.

Exploring Tritium Dangers points out that "Tritium has a long enough half-life, 12.3 years, that it persists in the environment for decades (in diminishing amounts as it decays); yet its half-life is short enough that it is extremely radioactive. For a given mass, it is, for instance, about 150,000 times as radioactive, in terms of disintegrations per unit time, as Plutonium-239."

Exploring Tritium Dangers also warns about other types of damage Tritium can cause: "One of the ways that ionizing radiation ... damage living cells is by creating an excess of oxidants....In the specific case of Tritium, its beta particle emissions ionize molecules, including water, [which results in] the “hydroxyl radical” (OH), which is the most reactive of reactive oxygen species [ROS].... The 2006 National Academies report, BEIR VII, notes the potential for ROS to damage mitochondria ...".

All of these factors make Tritium one of the most dangerous radioactive elements. Therefore, controlling Tritium in the environment is an important public health issue. Exploring Tritium Dangers makes these concerns, and especially their impacts during pregnancy, frighteningly apparent.

As Exploring Tritium Dangers explains, one of the particular dangers of radionuclides during pregnancy is that the concentration of a radionuclide in the fetus may be significantly different than the concentration in the mother's body. These concentrations vary by radionuclide and by when the radionuclide is ingested by the mother. Different concentrations of specific elements in the mother and the fetus are impacted by multiple factors, including the highly selective transfer of elements across the placenta.

For Tritium, the concentration in the fetus is approximately 1.6 times the concentration in the mother's body regardless of whether the Tritium was ingested before or during pregnancy. The most obvious reason for this difference is that a fetus can be up to 90% water (depending on the stage of the pregnancy) while an adult human is approximately 60% water. In addition, the concentration of Hydrogen ions (some of which may be Tritium) differs between maternal blood and fetal blood.

Another factor impacting the potential damage from Tritium during pregnancy is that heavy metals such as lead and mercury can cross the placenta. Exploring Tritium Dangers points out that radioactive damage may interact with other types of damage and that "...precautionary standards ... for chemicals and radiation combined is a critical and urgent matter for public and environmental health."

Exploring Tritium Dangers includes an analysis of the damage that can occur when an embryo or a fetus is exposed to Tritium, and how the potential impacts, such as miscarriages, birth defects, future disease, and multi-generational damage, vary at different times during a pregnancy.

The nuclear industry likes to emphasize that Tritium is a naturally occurring radioactive substance. However, as Exploring Tritium Dangers explains, the vast majority of Tritium on Earth is the result of nuclear bomb tests and nuclear reactor emissions:

“The equilibrium natural inventory is about 3 kilograms, that is roughly 30 million curies.”

“The Tritium remaining from atmospheric testing is about 20 kilograms – or roughly 200 million curies ...”

“...the inventory of Tritium in the nuclear weapons ... is likely to be much larger than the natural and weapons testing amounts combined. ...some of this Tritium may leak into the environment.”

“...for U.S. reactors, Argonne National Laboratory estimates the annual production in a typical reactor to be 2 grams or about 20,000 curies.”

Whenever nuclear power plants release water -- in any form -- some Hydrogen atoms will be radioactive Tritium. As Exploring Tritium Dangers points out "a tightening of drinking water standards is urgently needed, especially for Tritium, which is ... routinely emitted and discharged ... from commercial nuclear facilities ... a tightening of the drinking water standard ... is all the more needed in view of the long neglect of protection of pregnant women and the embryo and fetus.".

Exploring Tritium Dangers is highly recommended.

Review by Sharon & Ace Hoffman
July 6, 2023

(Quotes are from Exploring Tritium Dangers unless specifically attributed to a different source.)

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