Radioactive pollution

The widely published claims that the public health effects resulting from routine emissions are between 0.01 and 0.1 serious health effects per gigawattyear, and hence are at least a thousand times smaller than those resulting from air pollution by the burning of coal, cannot be true, for two reasons. The authors of these claims have ignored at least two of the more important isotopes, radon-222 and carbon-14, which are presently released to the environment, and thus contribute greatly to the health impact of nuclear energy. The health effects calculated in the earlier work cover only those which occur during the year in which the energy is generated. This means, figuratively speaking, that the authors have confused an annual installment payment with the full cost. This is unacceptable. The contribution to the health impact of nuclear energy arising from the single isotopic species radon-222 emanating from the mill tailings is estimated to 400 lung cancer deaths/GW(e)y, larger even than the most pessimistic estimates of the health impact of energy from coal through atmospheric pollution. We have no assurance that other long-lived isotopes do not contribute comparable amounts to the health impact of nuclear energy. The discussion of the health impact of radon-222 raises the fundamental moral question--how far into the future our responsibility extends. If such a long-termresponsibility is rejected, then we must at least try to predict the environmental buildup of radioactive pollutants, in order to avoid unacceptable and irreversible levels of radiation dose rate. The potential health consequences from long-lived radioisotopes seem to have been largely ignored so far, and should be explored in detail