Atoms for power; Safety and health

A transcribed program produced by Purdue University under a grant from the Educational Television Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcast days program written and produced by Bob McMahon. There's the title health and safety and the atom. Here's the latest news from the WBA news room through the wires of the United Press. After a yearlong study of radiation dangers from all sources the National Academy of Sciences announced today that accumulated waste from industrial plants in the coming Atomic Power age may contain more latent lethal radioactivity and will be turned loose in a nuclear war. As scientist said in the 62000 World Report and the news conference that steps should be taken now to guard man against radiation danger from all sources. Dr. Warren Weaver chairman of the Academy's genetics Committee said he thinks people are spending unnecessarily too

much of the slight tolerance to radiation that nature allows them. He called stupid the use of x rays well-fitting shoes and spoke out against X-ray snapshots of infants just so the mother can see that the skeleton of her baby is beautifully formed. At one point the report forecast when an atomic power industry's been developed on a worldwide basis the accumulation of its radioactive waste products may represent more radiation and will be released in an atomic war. The scientists have worked out a table on radiation exposure. On today's program we would like to pinpoint the relationship between atoms for power and you as the consumer of the products of atomic power in one form or another as they

become available. As the resident of a locality where an atomic energy plant a may be built one day as a possible future employee of an atomic power plant a good many things have been written and said about the atom that are mere fantasy. Many facts about it that should become common knowledge. I'm known only by a few. More often than not the stories which make headline copy are more sensational than they are complete. We're going to try to make our story of the health and safety aspects of atomic power as complete as we can in the short space of time we have to talk about them. We are not going to try to hide from you the fact that they wired us of the atom as a power source does pose important problems. What kind of problems. Well there are problems posed by radiation hazards. Estimates have been made which indicate that by year two thousand seven hundred fifty million kilowatts of electricity from nuclear reactors will be produced in the United States. This amounts to a production of one ton of fission products per

day. Tripling this figure for world production. And assuming that the rate is maintained for 50 years the accumulation of long lived fission products Strontium 90 would be great enough to exceed permissible concentrations in a volume one twentieth of the entire ocean. Problem is entailing the necessity of atomic waste disposal. I have always present difficult disposal problems to date no satisfactory or economical method for disposing or getting rid of these where ice has been found. Problems dealing with the possibility of damage to homes and outlying communities is a hazardous materials present in a single reactor should be released. It is probable that they would contaminate a large area. The order of several hundred square miles making a portion of this area temporarily or possibly permanently having problems posed by the possible effect of continued exposure to even small amounts of atomic radiation or extensive animal

experimentation has shown that repeated small doses of radiation reduce the life expectancy. I mean radiated by an amount directly proportional to the total dose. And finally problems posed by the legal aspects of a new and growing industry. Radiation injuries are different from other injuries. You know as much as the sensory organs of my own are not adapted to detecting the presence of overexposure to radiation. The injured person may not in fact know that he has been injured until years after the date of the wrongful act which constitutes the legal cause of action. The Atomic Energy Commission as well as our universities and histories has been working on these and other problems for a number of years. There are still a great many questions to which no final answer has been found but already there is some indication of what the answers will be.

One thing we can be sure of never in the history of our civilization has any new industry been as closely watched as that of atomic power. And it has already paid off and the complete absence of fatalities in atomic reactor construction operation and maintenance. Nowhere has more responsibility been shown by government education and industry than in this field of the atom. But to get back to our story let's first of all take a look at the problem of waste disposal. It arises from two very concrete and unavoidable facts of atomic power. No matter how many improvements are made in atomic reactors in the coming years no matter how efficient the use of atomic fuel may become fission products will continue to be produced by the fission process and they will require disposal independent of reactor design. They waste disposal problem is one that is permanently tied to the atomic energy industry. The second fact is that atomic wastes are and will continue to be

radioactive and the radioactivity varies with the type of waste involved. Some are definitely capable of long lasting or fatal damage to man and his environment and must be permanently controlled. Others are fairly easily diluted and can be released without further control. All can be dangerous unless properly treated. Man was created in a radioactive world. We are bombarded constantly by cosmic rays from outer space and by radiation is originating with in the earth and ocean. The food we eat and the air we breathe are laden with minute but measurable amounts of radioactive isotopes. We ourselves contain naturally radioactive atoms in our bodies. What has protected the human race up to now is that the total exposure to natural radioactivity during a life time is very small. In a sense then our present concern about radioactive poisoning arises from the fact that the age of manmade radioactivity has raised the exposure to a higher level.

Unfortunately radioactive poisons are far more difficult to cope with than the ordinary chemical poisons we have known. They are incomparably more potent the toxic dose is usually so small it cannot even be weighed and they may produce a slow insidious disease of which the victim is not aware until many years after the exposure. Man can learn to live even with the tremendous amounts of radioactivity that have been released by the discovery of nuclear fission. The best evidence of this is the excellent safety record of the US atomic energy enterprise. There has not been a single radiation injury at Hanford where some 9000 men and women have worked on the production of plutonium perhaps the most dangerous of all the new radioactive poison. But as time goes on and radioactive materials accumulate on our planet the problem will become less and less simple safety so far has been bought at the price of the strictest possible precautions against exposure and it has been achieved

only because we have been extremely careful. The disposal of atomic reactor waste really boils down to two problems instead of one atomic wastes can be divided into two classes. High level waste or those that remain highly radioactive over long periods of time even centuries and low level waste or those that degenerate quickly into stable elements low level atomic waste pose no serious problem to the public. If they are looked after properly. But what about the other guy and the high level variety. How much greater is the problem here Mr JM ward of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory at Oak Ridge Tennessee made the following statements at the Nuclear Engineering and Science Congress in Cleveland Ohio last year in regard to high level waste. The safe and economical disposal of high level radioactive waste poses a major problem in the future development of the nation's nuclear energy program. It may well be that the competitive position of atomic power will be dependent upon the cost of

getting rid of such ways radioactive waste present a particularly difficult disposal problem because unlike other industrial waste material they cannot be disposed of by burning evaporation or filtering and the transfer of radioactive material from one physical or chemical state to another is not a complete answer since only time diminishes radioactivity. The half lives of some of the isotopes present in the high level ways are from the order of 25 years for Strontium 90 and 33 years for cesium 137. It would take around 600 years for these isotopes to decay to permissible concentration because of the serious perpetual hazards involved. It's imperative that the safety. Any suggested high level waste disposal method be well established before it can be practiced. After his opening remarks to the Nuclear Engineering Science Congress Mr. Ward went on to describe the present methods used in the disposal of high level radioactive wastes.

The permanent disposal of high level waste by ocean disposal or disposal in the ground is receiving considerable study. The transport of radioactive waste is costly since a great deal of shielding is required to permit safe handling of such material. For this reason it's desirable to dispose of them as near as possible to the source of the waste. The most favorable situation would be storage at the processing site and attention is being given to the development of concentration and fixation techniques which will permit safe and economical handling of high level waste by on site burial in the earth. The discharge of radioactive material into the ground is a potential hazard to drinking water supplies and the safety and effectiveness of such disposal methods are dependent upon the existence of favorable geologic and hydrologic conditions which will restrict migration of the dangerous isotopes. In any underground disposal method the possible unfavorable consequences of earth

movement has to be recognized and further consideration in the case of high level waste disposal is the probable dissipates you know of the heat generated in the waste by radioactive decay. In the case of ocean burial this heat could produce circulating currents which would cause a spread of activity. In the case of deep well or underground cavity disposal the possibility exists that such hot waste coming in contact with water could produce a geyser effect. In any scheme a waste disposal it's highly desirable to package the waste in solid form for convenience and handling prior to disposal of the possibility of fixing the radioactive isotopes contained in a high level waste solution in a ceramic mass before permanent disposal is attractive and this concept has been the basis of several efforts by independent workers. It would appear that the treatment of waste by mixing with clay followed by

drying and firing off was a practical solution to the packaging problem but much further work is needed to properly evaluate the factors controlling fixation by this technique and the development of economic and safe handling of this for such proposed procedures. So much for the handling of present day waste products from atomic reactors. That is one problem. The final answer to which has not yet been reached. Let's turn now to the next point in our program. What is the possibility of damage as a result of atomic plant operation to homes and outlying communities account of an atomic reactor gone out of control for any reason. Have the effect of an atomic bomb on a nuclear reactor will not act like an atom bomb under any circumstances. As it is very difficult to produce a bomb type reaction the rate of power rise in a water reactor can be such that the moderator can be vaporized fast enough to form a steam explosion. That is the steam pressure can be high enough that the contents of the reactor core are rejected with considerable

force but the rate of energy released is always less than would occur with an explosion of TNT. In any case such an explosion would be expected to severely damage the reactor core and possibly break open the pressure vessel. This could release the fission products and 233 or put Tony into the reactor building. But there is no reason to expect and scape of an appreciable amount of hazardous materials from a properly designed building. In other words atomic power reactors are as safe as any oil refinery or chemical plant as long as proper precautions are taken. The person giving us this information in this last instance was Stuart McLean of the Argonne National Laboratory in Lamont Illinois. What effect can even small amounts of atomic radiation have on the people who work in atomic plants day and day out through all of their lives and even the very small amounts of permissible ready Asian exposure to employees of atomic reactors today affect their health and wellbeing and connection with this problem. Jihad

Whipple of the University of Rochester can report on the experiments that have been carried out up to the present time. Extensive animal experimentation has shown that repeated small doses of radiation reduced the life expectancy. I mean radiated animal by an amount directly proportional to the total dose. It is important to note that individuals in the Arabia did group die from the same causes as do the individuals in the control group. The only difference is that they die a little sooner. Thus it is impossible to assign radiation as the cause of death in any individual case. The recommended maximum permissible occupational exposure as you all know all is three tenths rent guns per week.

This exposure does not preclude the possibility of radiation injury to the exposed individual are to succeeding generations. It is the intent however that the probability of such injury should be so low. That the risk will be generally acceptable. In other words a radiation dose of three tenths rent per week received week after week throughout a working life time is not without some risk. The question then How great is this risk and how does it compare with the ordinary risks of life. A person who receives the maximum permissible exposure of three tenths rent can per week for 30 years will accumulate a total goals of four hundred fifty round cans.

The available lifespan shortening data of the kind that I have mentioned suggest that this dose will reduce the life expectancy of about three years. Life insurance statistics showing that the life expectancy of that statistical figment of the average 30 year old white male in the United States is reduced nine tenths of a year by accidents of all kinds. And one and a tense few years by cancer. Thus the risk involved in a working life time at an exposure rate of three tenths rent per week is great enough to warrant some effort to reduce it.

If the occupational exposure can be reduced to one tenth of the recommended value that is just three hundredths rent per week for example the life expectancy reduction from a life time of work will be about four months. A risk which I think is acceptable to most people. A number of installations have adopted one tenth the recommended maximum permissible exposure as a working criterion and as an example of the results of this policy. One can look at the average weekly exposure for all Hanford and Oakridge workers which for example during the year 1949 was for thousands of our rent per week. We might mention here that this amounts to little more than double the dose received from cosmic radiation and natural radioactive materials. They weekly average

the 10 highest exposures of Oak Ridge workers for one thousand forty nine was about eight hundredth of a rent and per week. Roughly one quarter of the maximum permissible weekly exposure. Another important aspect of this problem which as yet remains to be solved deals with the effect that prolonged radiation even in small amounts could possibly have on future generations of the human race. It's the genetic mutations caused by radiation have given rise in recent years to considerable interest and to some bitter controversy. The following statements however I think will find general acceptance among geneticists. First radiation applied to the reproductive cells will induce changes in the genetic material in these cells. Second the number of these changes is in direct proportion to the total Dollops third genetic

changes of this sort are usually detrimental. And fourth It is estimated and this is only an estimate. You must understand for humans that a dose of between 50 and 100 rent guns to every individual in one generation will double the mutation burden in the next generation. You notice that the risk of genetic mutations is not to the person who receives the radiation but to his children and to the succeeding generations. The genetic effects of occupational radiation exposure present a problem in conservation conservation of the human race if you will. Man was slow to realize the hazard of radioactivity. Probably the first

human death from acute radioactive poisoning was reported at a meeting of the Berlin medical society in one thousand twelve. A 58 year old woman suffering from arthritis had been treated for the disease with frequent injections for 16 days of Thore m x a short lived isotope of radium. Within a month afterwards you died showing symptoms now recognizes those of radiation sickness including haemorrhages and diarrhea. Eight years earlier PR career had observed the laboratory's animals died within hours after breathing the radioactive gas radon emitted from radium during its decay. But these danger signals were heated between 1915 and 1930 thousands of people in the US actually ate or drank radium patients wealthy enough to afford this cure took radium water or injections of radium salts for all sorts of diseases. One physician alone administered radium salts to about 5000 patients. And I'm a seated 52 year old patient admitted to a hospital related that he had drunk a two ounce bottle of water

containing two micrograms of radium each day for about five years. All in all he had consumed one thousand four hundred bottles. Post-mortem examination disclosed that his skeleton contained 74 micrograms of radium. Few persons anywhere had any notion of the deadliness of this novel substance and Europa candy for a market of radium containing chocolate bars. You may laugh at that age of innocence but we cannot be too smug even today as late as 1953. A company in the US sold a contraceptive jelly incorporating nearly a micro gram of radium in each to cue the tragic case of the New Jersey watch dial painters finally around the world to the necessity of examining the biological effects of radioactivity. For eight years girls in a New Jersey factory painting luminous dials with radium had followed the practice of pointing their brushes with their lips. The first indication that they had been poisoned by the radium was discovered in one thousand twenty four by a dentist. Theodore Blom

who treated many of the girls for severe jaw infections caused by bone destruction by nine hundred twenty nine fifteen of the girls had died. Meanwhile they had been subject of the first intensive and systematic study of chronic radioactive poisoning in human beings carried out by Harrison marshland. They medical examiner of Essex County. My assignment is to present you with a catalogue of the unique legal problems and countered and likely to be encountered in connection with peaceful development of atomic energy. There will be new problems. There will be new problems of civil liability for radiation injuries notwithstanding the fact that atomic enterprise will doubtless evolve into an industrial effort which will be at least as safe to live with. As certain other well-known industrial activity

is such as the chemical manufacturing industry the oil refining industry and so forth. Nevertheless it is inevitable that as time goes on nuclear accidents will take place and it is equally certain that they will give rise to some unique legal problems even if there are no greater in number. And in severity than those found elsewhere in industrial. And commercial life. At least they will be new problems requiring new knowledge and new skills for their solution. Radiation injuries are different from other injuries in as much as the sensory organs of my own are not adapted to detecting the presence of overexposure to radiation. The injured person may not in fact know that he has been injured until years after the date of the wrongful act which constitutes the legal cause of action. That is after the date

of overexposure. This will be true in many cases of injuries resulting in cancer and leukemia and cataract and possibly genetic damage. In view of the fact that the period of limitations starts running from the date find undue exposure to radiation takes place we shall either have to extend the period of limitations promoting actions to be brought many years later or in the alternative make special make a special case out of radiation injuries in which the manifestation of the damage ensues long after the initial wrongful act and accept them by providing that actions. In such cases may be brought within a prescribed period after the injury becomes actually known to the victim manufactures will be brought into court for the payment of. Damages for injuries resulting from devices making use of radioactive by products sold on the market for various types of industrial

medical and other uses. Today under current court decisions which include adoption of limited areas of absolute liability in case of food drugs and similar articles and again because of the ever widening duty to warn of dangers inherent in manufactures product no manufacturer likes to warn of the dangers inherent in his product. The manufacture just doesn't stand much of a chance in the atomic field. These juristic developments are surely going to make themselves felt and manufactures of nuclear devices are going to be required to exercise extraordinary care to insure themselves against the possibilities of having to pay out of their own treasuries for losses suffered by remote purchasers and users of their products. And then there are other features of atomic energy which will also be productive of new legal problems. We must anticipate new and unusual

contract problems insurance problems problems connected with rate regulation license granting and revocation of health and safety regulations patent problems and a host of. Other new and interesting legal entanglements. The atomic age will not be a lawyer less age. That was Dr Eve blind Stace and dean of the College of Law at the University of Michigan. Before we bring this program to and today there is one more very important point that we should mention in regard to the health and safety aspects of atomic power. And that point has to do with you yourself one of the more important factors of this whole atomic energy picture has to do with how you the voter and the legislatures that you will elect will create the problems that atomic energy will bring. Up to the present time very little local and state legislation has been passed that in any way affects atomic energy installation. Almost all control has come from federal

organizations such as the Atomic Energy Commission or the armed forces. Soon however as private enterprise develops increasing numbers of atomic power installations local and state legislatures will be called upon to pass laws and ordinances affecting their use and operational. It is important that a well-informed public be able to pass good laws laws that will not stand in the way of atomic power development. But laws that at the same time will afford protection to the public in order for this to happen. The public at large must be told the facts of the situation and false notions of the horrors of the atom must be gotten rid of. We hope we've been able to perform part of that task here today. Adams for power was written and produced by Bob McMahon for radio station WABE AA at Purdue University under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center. This program is distributed by the National Association of

educational broadcasters. This is B and E.B. Radio Network.