Richard Muller – Reckless schil for the nuclear industry
Okay, I’m sure all of my readers can guess that the Wall Street Journal is a publication that is likely to support corporate interests- that’s probably a given. But, one of their articles I found a couple of days ago has taken their corporate pandering to a whole new level. The writer Richard Muller, a professor at Berkeley, actually tries to convince the world that Fukushima “passed the test” in containing radiation after a nuclear accident. What a schmuck!
But, it gets worse- much worse. Muller begins his argument using a script straight from Ann Coulter’s understanding of science, trying to give the impression that ingesting radiation from a nuclear accident may be good for us. He explains how the city of Denver has a higher natural dose of radiation than the average American city, but the people of Denver have a statistically lower rate of cancer. Sounds good, right?
Well, it isn’t all that great. First, as Muller acknowledges himself, the people of Denver are also known to be a healthier lot- they exercise more and eat better. There’s another key difference that Muller omits. He explains how Denver’s higher radioactivity comes from uranium that is embedded in the local granite. What he doesn’t explain is the difference between external and internal exposure to radiation.
I covered this in a story I wrote a couple of weeks ago. In Denver, the radiation is being absorbed externally- there are not specks of uranium dust flying through the sky. In Fukushima, and Chernobyl, there were many tonnes of uranium (and other radioactive materials) shot into the air through a violent explosion. Our skin protects us from external radiation, so the people of Denver are quite safe from it. But, in Fukushima, people are breathing in specks of radioactive dust, and ingesting radiation in their food. Once ingested, even a dust-sized particle is quite likely to give you cancer.
And Muller calls himself a scientist?
Muller’s next dangerous statement is when he explains his opinion that when the Japanese evacuated areas near Fukushima their actions “were expressions of panic” and that “these well-intended measures did far more harm than good.” The Japanese made a 20km ‘exclusion zone’ after Fukushima- and many people felt this wasn’t enough. In fact, the US State Department gave a warning to Americans that they should not travel within 50 miles (80km) of Fukushima.
Then, Muller goes on to tell us that not even the workers at the Fukushima plant are very likely to get cancer. He explains how they are restricted in their hours of service so that they will only get 25 rem of exposure. First, they are not restricted by hours, they are given badges that measure their exposure. He also missed out on the stories that workers have not always been wearing their badges. It seems that, with a shortage of potential workers, TEPCO is bending the rules.
He then continues to explain how most areas in the exclusion zone have a lower level of radiation than what would give most people cancer. But, he’s still conveniently ignoring the difference between internal & external exposure. Then Muller states:
“Some locations recorded doses as high as 22 rem (total exposure before evacuation). Afterward, the levels of radiation dropped quickly; the largest component came from iodine, and its level dropped by 50% every eight days.”
Muller says that “the largest component” of the radiation came from radioactive iodine, and iodine disintegrates rather quickly. What he misses telling us is that there were many types of radioactive elements- including lots of uranium that was spewed into the air. Some of these elements take thousands of years to disintegrate. Muller is not telling us the whole truth in his story.
Next comes what is probably the most dangerous, and reckless, part of Muller’s story. He gets into a discussion about what, in engineering, is referred to as a ‘design basis’. When a nuclear plant is designed, it is built to withstand certain external forces. In the case of Fukushima, the plant was designed to resist a 6.0 earthquake, and a 5.7 meter tsunami. The disaster that hit Fukushima involved a 9.0 earthquake with a 14 meter tsunami.
Muller explains that “Nothing can be made absolutely safe” and implies that we can’t plan for every possibility. The truth about Fukushima is that the engineers knew before the accident that they faced the risk of a larger tsunami than the plan could take. There was discussion about improving the size of the seawall, but the decision was made not to- the cost of $2 billion was thought to be too expensive.
Ask the people of Japan if that $2 billion was too much to spend now that they face tens of billions of dollars in damage. Ask the parents of the children who are currently breathing-in radioactive dust. Ask the people who will never be able to go back to their homes again…
If Muller’s article wasn’t embarrassingly enough at this point, his closing statements completely destroy his credibility.
“Looking back more than a year after the event, it is clear that the Fukushima reactor complex, though nowhere close to state-of-the-art, was adequately designed to contain radiation. New reactors can be made even safer, of course, but the bottom line is that Fukushima passed the test.”
Once again, ask the people of Japan if Fukushima has ‘passed the test’. The hundreds of thousands of people who have been marching on Tokyo would seriously disagree with them. But, Muller didn’t write this article on-behalf of humanity, he wrote it to schil for the nuclear industry.
Mr. Muller- you’re a very sick, dirty, old man…
The new school year will be starting at Berkeley soon, and I’m sure some of Muller’s students will be Googling his name and trying to learn about their professors. Students, if you have the guts, you should challenge your professor on this shameful article. Call him out on his statements, ask him to account for this blatant piece of disinformation…
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We have not heard from the casseroles crowd in a while. Considering they like to protest “fascist” policies in Quebec do you think they will start protesting the PQ:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebecvotes2012/story/2012/08/21/parti-quebecois-non-french-speakers.html
The PQ wants to pass a law that will prevent certain minorities from running for political office in Quebec. So where is the black bloc, no one is illegal and anti-oppression on this one?
The info that’s being thrown around a lot in Vancouver at least among certain activists, is that they “fear the police” and they fear “Vancouverites”. Most people I know have completely backed off any “activism” because of criminal records, harsher laws, apathetic people, ect..
I think we can say with confidence, fear mongering is not present.
I am really not well educated enough about the effects and practices of the nuclear industry to offer any educated comment or opinion. However, i do have a question . Part of the article here suggests, at least according to the quoted source that the accident in Japan passed the test.
I wonder, can there be any actual accuracy in that comment in that , had it not passed the test, the devastation would have been far greater than what we saw ever take place as a result of nuclear accidents and / or nuclear weapons use of past years?
Once again,I ask because I really do not know enough to have an informed and educated opinion and would appreciate something more than what i know.
Author
The devastation is much worse than any nuclear accident we have seen before. Three nuclear reactors melted down through their protective shields. A large area in a small country is now uninhabitable. It will take up to 50 years to be able to stop radiation from being emitted from the plant. Radiated fish have been found as far away as California. The reactors have molten radioactive lava that is burning its way into the earth.
To have passed the test would mean that the reactors wouldn’t have blown up and they wouldn’t have melted through their cores. This disaster is many times worse than Chernobyl.
Greg
With a Japanese wife currently visiting Tokyo I have been looking around for believable information on the state of safety in Tokyo and the rest of Japan so was interested to read Muller’s article as well as your rebuttal.
I don’t believe what TEPCO say nor the Japanese government, but equally there is a lot of stuff online which seems to be baseless hysteria with at least one or two charlatans stoking some of it for their own benefit.
Your piece above is not hysterical at least, but as a rebuttal of Muller’s Wall Street article it has some holes that I would be grateful if you would address.
Your point about Muller making it seem that radiation can be good for you in the case of Denver doesn’t really have any mileage since in the article Muller only mentions that other scientists have put forward such a theory but specifically that he himself thinks the lower cancer rates in Denver are far more likely to be due to lifestyle choices. There may have been some mischeviousness in raising the idea at all (but if other people really have put this forward as a theory then what’s wrong with mentioning it?) but he does dismiss it immediately. So your criticism on that point is a bit of a dud.
Your one big contention is that Muller is silent on the difference between internal and external radiation – with Muller being silent on the far more serious effects of the internal radiation that people in Fukishima and in Tokyo may well be suffering.
However – you are also silent on the fact that Muller does not just compare Fukushima to Denver. He talks about Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and about Chernobyl. He maintains that radiation damage to human beings is measured in rem and that the surviving populations rem exposure was measurable or calculable in all of these incidents and he goes on to compare the known levels of cancers developed by those surviving populations as a result of known rem exposures. It’s from those figures he extrapolates the risk to people in Japan as a result of Fukushima.
All of that is a very different thing to comparing Fukushima to Denver.
Presumably in Chernobyl and certainly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, irradiated dust particles were also ingested by survivors – so any figures on resultant cancers would have been based on internal radiation too. So although Muller didn’t directly speak about internal radiation, he did quote figures from those incidents that would include internal radiation damage.
In fact he didn’t actually have to mention the difference between external and internal radiation at all because he was not in fact basing his assessment of risk in the case of Fukushima on the experience of Denver, as your piece above would seem to have us believe. He was basing his assessment on the documented experience of Chernobyl, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So where is your critique of that?
Now I’m all for pulling apart industry backed propaganda pieces but I’d like to know where Muller actually falls down in his analysis of the risk. Are his rem figures wrong? How do rem measurements relate to external v internal radiation? Is there something different about Fukushima dust compared to Chernobyl, Hiroshima or Nagasaki dust?
Or is Muller actually correct in his risk assessment?