Nuclear emissions LEGALLY can DOUBLE your exposure to radiation (as compared to natural background, excluding radon)
The energy bill discussions are heating up again and Barbara Boxer (D- California) has stated that she supports nuclear power subsidies in the energy bill.
I have, thanks to being challenged by the pronuclear industry contingent here (or should I say shills, without naming names?) been compelled to do MORE research on the actual amounts which we are currently PERMITTED legally to be exposed to by a commercial nuclear plant. EACH PLANT can expose us EVERY YEAR to radiation pollution, effluents and emissions and waste which are EQUAL to the total average background radiation from cosmic and terrestrial sources (not man made or produced and excluding exposure to radon which varies from place to place).
Does the fact that our government ALREADY PERMITS us to be exposed to TWICE the level of radiation than what we get from the sun and the stars and the earth concern us?
We KNOW that such radiation is ALREADY mutagenic and cancer causing and debilitating and harmful. Yet the NUCLEAR LOBBY (including Cheney and Halliburton which have or have had control of huge sectors of construction and operation of nuclear opertions globally) CONTINUES to subvert our government and get DEMOCRATS to go along with subsidies to these larely right wing ontrolled industries (which also produce nuclear weapons thus making them the most powerful industries on the face of the panet and EVER in history)
I hesitate to take them on because they are dangerous. But the facts need to be addressed. The energy bill wil include subsidies for nuclear power UNLESS the progressive community becomes aware of the problems and issues and fights to keep these subsidies out. BTW I oppose coal and believe renewables are the ONLY long term solution. Nuclear is deadly to ALL of us.
Yet they can legally expose us at EVERY NUCLEAR PLANT BUILT to as much radiation as we ALREADY get from the sun and the stars and the earth EVERY YEAR. It is a far deadlier radiation as well because we consume it and eat it and drink it and absorb it into our skin and bones and teeth and bone marrow and internal organs where it mutates our cells and causes cancer and death and it does not just "bounce off" us when it "shines". It floats down in little particles and gets into the sandboxes where our children play and into the beach sand and surf where the waves vaporize it so we breathe it in. HELP stop this insanity and death by mutation caused by the right wing industrialists who run the nuclear arsenal and all its deadly poisons and voluminous death machines.
SO : here is the law that says what you can be exposed to every year (by EVERY plant in operation):
Subpart D--Radiation Dose Limits for Individual Members of the Public
Source: 56 FR 23398, May 21, 1991, unless otherwise noted.
§ 20.1301 Dose limits for individual members of the public.
(a) Each licensee shall conduct operations so that —
(1) The total effective dose equivalent to individual members of the public from the licensed operation does not exceed 0.1 rem (1 mSv) in a year, exclusive of the dose contributions from background radiation... http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collecti... ...
(.01 rem = 100 millirems or 100 thousandths of a rem. 1 mSv (one thousandth of a Sievert) = 100 millirems (mrems). a Sievert equals 100 rems.
Rem means Roentgen equivalent man. Roentgen and Sievert are the scientists who figured out how to measure the dose we receive when exposed to radiation and are just fancy naes given to the units of measurement for how mauch radiation we absorb when exposed. One critical distinction is that internal and external exposures have different impacts even with these measurements and units so that if you breathe in or eat or drink radiation from these plants it wil be absorbed into your blood and bones and organs and begin to mutate these as they decay and irradiate the cells in your bodies.
"Background" radiation from ALL sources is currently approximately 350 millirems a year (this includes all sources from radon, cosmic, sun, soil, xrays, medical procedures, tv, etc.
Cosmic and terrestrial (excluding radon and other sources) is approximately, on average, 100mrems per year. (See link below)
The current nuclear regulations permit the public to be exposed to up to 100 mrems PER YEAR PER PLANT. Workers in plants can get exposed many times that amount legally.
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So we can get an additional 100 mrems increasing our total exposure to 450 mrems a year (unless one is downwind of more than one plant, as where i grew up) where this number may be multiplied by several factors of multiples of 100mrems).
That means we can legally be exposed to MORE than 100% MORE radiation per year by nuclear power plant operations than from cosmic/terrestrial sources (excluding radon which accounts for on average another 100 or more mrems per year).
That is because in order to operate nuclear plants create and must vent and spew effluents and emissions of radiationuclides into our lives and gardens and water and air and communities.
Natural background radiation causes genetic mutations as it is.
Do you even understand that INCREASING a mutagenic substance in the environment by these amounts will INCREASE mutations?
Also, these are doses which we ingest when we breathe, eat and drink and bathe. The half life is often decades if not hundreds or thousands of years. So it is CUMULATIVE in your organs and bones and then in your bone marrow and blood. It stays in the body and continues mutating the cells of your internal organs and dna and reproductive genes. And it is passed on to future generations (if they survive the onslaught of radiation exposure to procreate).
It affects ALL future generations with mutated genes and perished genetic lines.
You support THAT?
Background radiation from natural i.e. cosmic/terrestrial sources (excluding radon, which is variable depending on where you live) is about 100 mrems (millirems) SO the nuclear industry is actually DOUBLING out exposure from natural background radiation. if you live in a high radon area you will increase this by another 100% or more).
http://www.rerf.or.jp/glossary_e/backgrou.... BTW one Sievert equals 100 rems so one mSievert (one thousandth of a Sievert) equals 100 mrems.
The reason it is so easy to obfuscate and confuse and mislead people is that the terminology and the technology is difficult to grasp without studying it carefully and really focussing on it.
Once you become aware that the nuke indstry can LEGALLY DOUBLE the dose of radiation you would otherwise get from natural background radiation (which we know already causes cancer and mutations) then folks begin to grasp WHY ingesting effluents and emissite particles from radiation spewing into our homes nd lives and water and air and soil and food is SO deadly and why we have so many cancers and brth defects and spontaneous abortions and thyroid diseases.
I have been studying this problem for more than thirty years in college, in graduate school, in the industry and with whistleblowers (as well as a staffer on the Hill which working for a Congressman whose committee had jurisdiction over nuclear safety issues) I also worked in litigation on these issues (on both sides of the industry).
