Transcript 14th Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference Hawaii, March 21

Canadian Nuclear Society
Sheridan Park Branch
March 17, 2004
What to do with used CANDU fuel?
Is it really waste?
Jerry M. Cuttler
Cuttler & Associates Inc.
Mississauga, ON Canada
Background to Nuclear Fuel Waste Act
• Environmentalists created “issue of used fuel”
• Don’t build/refurbish nuclear plants until “the
problem of used fuel" is solved – a “burden”
of radioactive waste for future generations
• It’s really strategy for “nuclear phase-out”
• We accepted the concept of this anti-nuclear
“problem”, and we fell into their trap
• Seaborn Environmental Assessment Panel ‘98
agreed AECL demonstrated deep geological
disposal solution is “technically acceptable”
• New requirement: Show “socially acceptable”
The Nuclear Fuel Waste Act
• We did not solve “the (social) problem”
• So in Nov 2002, Government of Canada
enacted Nuclear Fuel Waste Act
• To provide a framework that will enable
Governor in Council, on advice of Minister
of Natural Resources, to make a decision on
the management of nuclear fuel waste that
is based on a comprehensive, integrated and
economically sound approach for Canada.
Nuclear Fuel Waste Act (cont’d)
• The Act defines “nuclear fuel waste” as
irradiated fuel removed from a commercial
or research nuclear fission reactor
• The Act compels corporations who produce
the waste to create and fully fund a not-forprofit corporation (NWMO) to study and
propose to Government approaches for the
management of used nuclear fuel, and to
implement the approach that Govt. selects
Nuclear Waste Management
Organization (NWMO)
• Mission: to develop collaboratively with
Canadians a management approach for the
long-term care of Canada’s used nuclear
fuel that is socially acceptable, technically
sound, environmentally responsible and
economically feasible
• Web site: www.nwmo.ca
• Office address: 49 Jackes Ave. Toronto
NWMO to engage with Canadians
• Undertake research and reflection that will lead
to recommendations on how Canada should
proceed with managing used fuel over long term
• Must submit study by Nov 15, 2005 setting out:
– Proposed approaches with comments of advisors
– Recommendations on which approach to adopt
• Each of following methods must be considered:
– Deep geological disposal in Canadian Shield
– Storage at nuclear reactor site
– Centralized storage, either above or below ground
NWMO Study
• For each approach, the Act requires:
– detailed technical description, specify an
economic region (not site) for implementation
– A comparison of benefits, risks and costs with
those of the other approaches, taking into
account economic region, as well as the ethical,
social and economic considerations
– An implementation plan: activities description;
timetable; means to minimize socio-economic
effects on community’s way of life or its social,
cultural or economic aspirations; program for
public consultation
3 NWMO Discussion Documents
• DD1: “Asking the Right Questions?”
– Issued Nov 2003 to invite public comment on
the issues to be raised and the questions to be
asked by NWMO on different approaches
• DD2: to be issued in 2004 to share early
results of NWMO assessment of approaches
• DD3: to be issued in 2005 to present NWMO
draft recommendations and implementation
plans for further public comment and advice
Are you interested?
• You should be
• Future of all nuclear technologies is tied up in
resolving this environmental waste issue
• Visit web site, read submissions, provide input
• Americans spending many billions of dollars
• A ‘meal ticket’ for geologists, safety analysts,
project managers, lawyers, environmentalists,
social activists, studies, conferences, etc.
• They have an interest to keep it going forever
My Submission on NWMO web site
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We entered atomic age ~60 years ago
Peaceful applications started in 1953
Electricity generation common; 440 reactors
Keep hazards in perspective, other fuels are
very dangerous too (propane, LNG, etc.)
• Used fuel concern about potential exposures
to very low dose rate radiation from gradual
leakage of small amounts of radioactivity
after centuries of storage or disposal
Hazards due to low doses of
radiation are grossly exaggerated
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Excess congenital malformations?
Excess cancer deaths?
There is no scientific basis for any of this!
Low radiation doses are actually beneficial!
The incidences of congenital malformations
and cancer mortality are lower!
• Why special the attention for nuclear waste?
DD1 has questionable assumptions
• Used CANDU fuel is not “nuclear waste”
• Only 1% fissioned, remaining 99% is for our
grandchildren to fission using advanced
reactors when mined uranium is scarce
• Used fuel is enormous energy resource for
many future generations of Canadians
• Store it at existing or new nuclear sites
• Redefine waste as the residue after recycling
My recommendations
• Don’t be naïve about capabilities of future
generations; think of what grandfathers knew
• Don’t use precious funds and energy to bury
used fuel in granite (a recovery burden)
• Use NWMO funds for R&D on technologies
to recycle fuel and isolate the real waste
• Recycling cost to be covered by energy sales
• R&D programs ⇒ positive socio-economic
effects on communities hosting the programs
We have been creating negative
images of nuclear technologies
• The ALARA requirement reinforces the
radiation scare:
– “Any amount of radiation is dangerous!”
– “We need to improve nuclear safety.”
• Nuclear safety is good enough
• Public is making adverse judgments about the
acceptability of all nuclear technologies
• Pogo: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Complex ethical policy issues?
• Policy issues not complex or difficult
• Just present the facts; identify stakeholders;
identify the myths; compare real benefits vs
potential hazards people are concerned about
• Risks of radiation has been greatly exaggerated
• Low doses are actually beneficial
• Potential exposures many orders of magnitude
below threshold of harmful effects
Complex policy issues (cont’d)
• Number of bundles large, but this is not a
storage problem because volume is small
• One bundle ⇒ home’s electricity for ~100 y
• Compare with volume of fossil fuel burned
and the products released to environment
• Don’t label AECL and CANDU owners as
“nuclear waste producers”
• Fossil fuel burning releases radioactivity to
the environment; CANDU owners store it
Complex policy issues (cont’d)
• NWMO should identify all the stakeholders in
the used fuel management debate:
– Organizations advocating nuclear phase-out
– Those advocating extreme conservation
– Those advocating competing technologies, etc.
• Their concerns create barriers to our access to
enormous supply of low-cost, pollution-free
energy
• We need to separate the myths from the facts;
the ideology from the science
Timetable for proposed approach
• No great urgency to recycle fuel in Canada
• Transfer Pickering fuel containers to Bruce;
new site of advanced fuel recycling reactor
• Need publicly accepted solution now to
answer questions raised by stakeholders, to
remove barrier to Canada’s nuclear program
• Need to answer public’s radiation concerns
• Need to point out that LNTH is invalid
• Additional exposures from radioactive waste
will be well below harmful level; no issue!
Evolution of radiation protection
• Early on:
- Beneficial effects after low doses
- Harmful effects after high doses
- Protection based on safe limits
• In 1950s:
- Threshold concept rejected by ICRP
- Adopted concept of cancer and genetic risk kept
small in comparison with other hazards using
atom bomb survivor excess cancer mortality data
- linear extrapolation from high dose to low dose
Is linear no-threshold hypothesis valid?
• No human data supports excess cancer deaths
for acute doses below 0.1 Gy (or 10 rad)
• In 0.1 to 0.5 Gy range, effects are debatable
• Chronic exposure to 70 Gy/y occur in nature
• Human data in low dose range contradicts
LNTH predictions – beneficial health effects
are observed: less cancer; less genetic effects
• French Academy Sciences, HPS, ANS reject
Quotation
“The tragedy of science is the
slaying of a beautiful hypothesis
by an ugly fact.”
Huxley TH (1825-95), “Collected Essays
1893-94 Biogenesis and Abiogenesis.”
Why were the beneficial effects ignored?
Concerns about research on low doses
• Apparent political and/or economic agendas
• Junk science
• Research programs focus on adverse effects
at high dose and extrapolation to low dose
• Observations of beneficial effects seem to
be ignored or suppressed
• Experiments do not seem to be designed to
observe beneficial health effects
Alternate biological model
• Oxidative DNA damage occurs naturally to
cells at a very high rate
• Survival depends on very capable damagecontrol biosystem that prevents, repairs or
removes DNA alterations
• DNA alterations not removed → mutations
• Very small fraction of mutations → cancers
Effect of radiation on damage control
• High doses decrease biosystem activity
resulting in higher cancer incidence
• Low doses stimulate biosystem activity
resulting in lower cancer incidence
• Low doses stimulate the immune system to
attack and destroy metastases
• Chronic exposure reduces both cancer
mortality and incidence of genetic defects
• Biphasic response called radiation hormesis
Radiation Hormesis
An adaptive response of biological
organisms to low level radiation stress or
damage – a modest overcompensation to
a disruption, resulting in improved fitness
“The hormetic model is not the exception
to the rule – it is the rule.”
Dose-response curve – chronic exposure
T.D. Luckey, Radiation Hormesis, CRC 1991, Fig. 9.1
Hypothesis: I-131 causes thyroid cancer mortality
• Is it true? To determine the truth of this hypothesis, it must be tested.
• Franklyn JA et al did a population-based cohort study of cancer incidence
and mortality after radioiodine treatment for hyperthyroidism. (Published in
The Lancet 353:2111-2115, June 19, 1999)
• Method: Compared cancer incidence and death, 1971-1991, of cohort of
7417 hyperthyroidism patients, Birmingham UK, I-131 treated 1950-1991,
with data for England and Wales specific for age, sex and period.
• Results: During 72,073 person-years of follow-up
• 634 cancer diagnoses vs 761 expected  SIR = 0.83 [95% CI = 0.77 - 0.90]
• 448 cancer deaths vs 499 expected  SMR = 0.90 [95% CI = 0.82 – 0.98]
• Thyroid cancer: 9 diagnoses (2 - 8 expected); 5 deaths (1 - 8 expected)
• No discussion about examinations for occult thyroid cancers
I-131 causes thyroid cancer mortality (cont’d)?
• Assumption: Hyperthyroidism is not related to cancer.
• Total I-131 dose: mean = 308 MBq;
SD = 232 MBq
• Radiation dose for 300 MBq* = 50,000 rad to thyroid gland
= 28 rad to whole body
• Conclusions:
The hypothesis that I-131 causes thyroid cancer mortality is not true.
It seems that radioiodine treatment for hyperthyroidism decreases
overall cancer incidence and mortality.
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* Eisenbud M, “Environmental Radioactivity”, 2nd Edition, Academic Press, NY
1973, pp 421-425
What about the Chernobyl disaster?
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Worst imaginable nuclear accident
40% of the reactor core expelled
Most of the radioactivity released
Nearby population evacuated
Their average dose = 0.015 Gy or 1.5 rad
1800 cases operable thyroid cancer, possibly
spontaneous occult thyroid cancer (dormant)
• No excess leukemia or other cancers
Real hazards of Chernobyl
• Psychological stress due to fear of potential
health consequences that were predicted
(but did not happen)
• Permanent relocations were very stressful
• Strong social and political reactions
• Severe economic consequences for Ukraine
• World nuclear industry damaged
Quotation
“You can fool some of the people all of
the time,
And all of the people some of the time,
But you cannot fool all of the people all
of the time.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) - attributed