Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists PUBLIC INTEREST REPORT Volume 69, Number 2

STAFF TABLE OF CONTENTS CHARLES D. FERGUSON Humanitarian Consequences of Editor-in-Chief Nuclear Accidents and Detonations 1 by Charles D. Ferguson FRANKIE GUARINI Managing Editor, Layout Designer FAS in 2016: Year in Review 2 PIA ULRICH Copy Editor Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — U.S. Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies 4 CONTRIBUTORS by Steven Starr CHARLES D. FERGUSON pp. 1, 16 President, Federation of American Scientists Chernobyl and Trinity —Counting STEVEN STARR p. 4 the Curies 12 Director, Clinical Laboratory Science Program, by B. Cameron Reed University of Missouri-Columbia Revisiting Chernobyl 16 B. CAMERON REED p. 12 Chair and Professor of Physics, Alma College by Charles D. Ferguson

EDWARD A. FRIEDMAN p. 17 Calculating the Uncountable Deaths Professor Emeritus, Stevens Institute of from Chernobyl 17 Technology by Edward A. Friedman

LETTER TO THE EDITOR Cover Photo The Federation of American Scientists “Third Angel Statue” in Pripyat, Ukraine, a nuclear welcomes letters to the editor for the PIR. city that served the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant until its evacuation following the Chernobyl disaster Letters should not exceed 500 words and may on April 26, 1986. It is now part of an exclusion zone be edited for clarity, length, and compliance formed after the Chernobyl accident in response to with FAS’s editorial standards before the resulting radiation. It is based on the Bible verse: publication on fas.org (pending the author’s “The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, approval and at FAS’s discretion). blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water—the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many To submit a letter, email it to [email protected] or people died from the waters that had become bitter.” send it by mail to: Revelation 8:10-11

Attn: Public Interest Report A complete archive of the PIR is available at: Federation of American Scientists fas.org/publications/public-interest-reports. 1725 DeSales Street NW, Suite 600 © 2016 Federation of American Scientists. Washington, DC 20036 All rights reserved.

i Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

level of less than a few dozen. Above this threshold, nu- President’s Message clear winter could be triggered if these warheads were detonated on targets that could result in massive amounts of soot and particulate matter being lofted into the upper Humanitarian atmosphere. Political and military leaders could dismiss this concern by believing that there is too much uncertainty in the calculations or by convincing themselves that a relatively large number of weapons is still necessary for Consequences political and military power projection.

The increasing global attention about the humanitarian of Nuclear consequences of nuclear war has paralleled the ongoing massive cleanup of contamination around the Fukushi- ma Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. Several tens of Accidents and thousands of people are still displaced from their homes, though no one has died in the past near-six years since the Fukushima accident as a result of radiation exposure. The Detonations long-term health effects from radiation, however, have yet  Charles D. Ferguson to be seen, but arguably the number of cancers developed  President, Federation of American Scientists from this exposure should be small because of the relatively quick evacuation of the population from the affected n the past three years, more and more nations have ex- region. pressed a growing concern about the humanitarian impact of the use of nuclear weapons. Since spring 2013, Chernobyl’s radiation effects dwarf Fukushima’s because a few international conferences and forums have brought of the roughly ten times greater land contamination in I Belarus, Ukraine, and some other parts of Europe as com- together experts to examine the potential impacts. For example, Hans Kristensen, Director of the FAS Nuclear pared to Japan, and because the evacuation of most of the Information Project, presented at a Vienna conference in population affected by this Chernobyl-caused contami- December 2014. As negotiations on a proposed treaty to nation was delayed by days due to the Soviet authorities ban nuclear weapons are set to start in spring 2017, FAS hiding the fact of the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear will continue to analyze the science of nuclear effects and Power Station on April 26, 1986. In this Public Interest Re- policy implications of a world without nuclear weapons. port, professor emeritus Edward Friedman tries to find an answer to the question: What is the order of magnitude In this issue of the Public Interest Report, Steven Starr calls number of deaths in the past 30 years due to radiation for national and global leadership in taking action to avert exposure? He is not even asking for the exact number of the potential triggering of nuclear winter by even a “small- deaths from this exposure, which we will never know. The scale” nuclear war, which would be a major humanitari- order of magnitude effect is still important to know from an consequence on agriculture as well as the huge blast a policy perspective. But the answer is not so easy to find effects. As Mr. Starr argues, political and military leaders out as explained in his essay. Dr. Friedman calls for an in- should not ignore the non-blast effects of nuclear weap- dependent body of experts to study this question. ons. As Lynn Eden has examined in her path-breaking book, Whole World on Fire (2004), the military has not Dr. Cameron Reed’s article examines a scientific question taken into account the massive firestorms that would be in the middle ground between the issues addressed by Dr. created by detonation of nuclear weapons on cities. The Friedman and Mr. Starr. That is, Dr. Reed estimates, via cal- military was only giving “credit” to blast damage; thus, in culations and a literature survey, the radioactivity released effect, thinking of nuclear weapons as just very big con- by the first fission bomb, which was named Trinity. Like ventional weapons and thereby dismissing the tremen- the other two articles, Dr. Reed’s article is relevant for bet- dous harm from firestorms on buildings and other urban ter public policy in consideration of the effects of even just infrastructure. Mr. Starr cites relatively recent computer one nuclear explosion. Fortunately, it has been more than simulation studies of “small” nuclear wars involving dozens 71 years since nuclear weapons were detonated in war. of nuclear detonations in India and Pakistan. These simu- lations indicate that potentially one billion or more people Almost all people alive today have no memory of those in and outside these countries could starve to death due to events and thus might discount their reality. However, sci- the massive cooling effects on food production. entists must not allow any of us to forget the effects by educating the public and political leaders through scien- Highly competent scientists have performed these calcu- tific analysis. As FAS ventures into its next 71 years, we will lations, which sound the alarm of potentially catastrophic work diligently to bring people with diverse expertise to- damage, while non-scientists in leadership positions have gether to apply the best scientific, political, social, and le- chosen not to act on this warning. Of course, the implica- gal thinking, as appropriate, to make the world safer from tion for the leaders is that they should drastically reduce catastrophic risks, such as nuclear war or severe nuclear the number of nuclear warheads to under the threshold accidents.

1 Lynn Eden, Whole World on Fire (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

1 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

Federation of American Scientists 70 YEARS OF SCIENCE In September, FAS hosted its 70th an- niversary symposium and awards cere- mony on Capitol Hill to discuss issues of science and policy and honor three scientists who have contributed significantly to the world at large: M. Granger Morgan, Maxine Singer, and Ted Pos- tol. Other guests included: Congress- man Bill Foster, Senator Ed Markey, and President Obama’s senior science and technology advisor, John Holdren.

SCIENTISTS’ NETWORK Throughout 2016, FAS has engaged dozens of expert scientists and policymakers to write original content for FAS publications, to become members of FAS task forces, and even to provide a platform for young to mid-career scientists to showcase their exempla- ry work and start a dialogue with the hundreds of FAS-affiliated scientists, policymakers, and thinkers alike.

60 MINUTES ADVISORY Hans Kristensen, Director of the FAS Nuclear Information Project, appeared on two episodes of 60 Minutes, including the episode, “Risk of nuclear attack rises.” Kristensen also advised CBS News journalists who produced the 60 Minutes episodes and provided an on-air demonstration to 60 Minutes correspondent David Martin detailing Russian bomber travel routes.

2 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

2016: Year in Review IRAN DEAL EXPERTISE Christopher A. Bidwell, Senior Fellow for Nonproliferation Policy and Law at FAS, appeared on both Voice of Ameri- ca and Sky News Arabia as a key expert to discuss the ramifications and out- look of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — the Iran nuclear agreement. Bidwell also is a member of the FAS task force on Iran and has published an analysis on the future of the deal, available on fas.org.

TASK FORCE REPORT Through the FAS Task Force Mod- el, which unites several scientists and policymakers with FAS experts to provide an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems, Alain Tournyol du Clos, a lead architect of France’s naval nuclear propulsion program, authored an FAS-sponsored special report ad- dressing France’s decision to use low-enriched uranium in its naval nuclear propulsion program.

OVERSIGHT TESTIMONY Steven Aftergood, Director of the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, testi- fied at the House Oversight Commit- tee’s hearing on government overclas- sification and its effect on transparency and security. Author of Secrecy News, an online blog dedicated to promoting government transparency, Aftergood proposed a concrete roadmap and solutions for reducing overclassifica- tion and measuring future progress.

3 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UCLA, these scientists used state-of-the-art com- Turning a Blind puter modeling to evaluate the consequences of a range of possible nuclear conflicts. They began with a hypothetical war in Southeast Eye Towards Asia, in which a total of 100 Hiroshima-size Armageddon — U.S. Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies  Steven Starr  Director of Clinical Laboratory Science Program, Before. Photo/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum University of Missouri-Columbia atomic bombs were detonated in the cities of ow 10 years ago, several of the world’s India and Pakistan. Please consider the fol- leading climatologists and physicists lowing images of Hiroshima, before and after chose to reinvestigate the long-term the detonation of the atomic bomb, which had Nenvironmental impacts of nuclear war. The an explosive power of 15,000 tons of TNT. peer-reviewed studies they produced are considered to be the most authoritative type The detonation of an atomic bomb with this of scientific research, which is subjected to explosive power will instantly ignite fires over criticism by the international scientific com- a surface area of three to five square miles. munity before final publication in scholar- In the recent studies, the scientists calcu- ly journals. No serious errors were found in lated that the blast, fire, and radiation from these studies and their findings remain un- a war fought with 100 atomic bombs could challenged.1 2 3 4 5 produce direct fatalities comparable to all of those worldwide in World War II, or to those Working at the Laboratory for Atmospheric once estimated for a “counterforce” nuclear and Space Physics at the University of Colora- war between the superpowers.6 However, the do-Boulder, the Department of Environmental long-term environmental effects of the war Sciences at Rutgers, and the Department of could significantly disrupt the global weather

1 Alan Robock et al., “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 112 (2007), http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockNW2006JD008235.pdf. 2 Owen Brian Toon et al., “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 7 (2007), http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-1973-2007.pdf. 3 Michael Mills et al., “Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict,”Proceedings of the Na- tional Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105, no. 14 (2008), http://pnas.org/content/105/14/5307.full. 4 Michael Mills et al., “Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a regional nuclear conflict,” Earth’s Future 2, http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/MillsNWeft224.pdf. 5 Alan Robock et al., “Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts,”Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 7 (2007), http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-2003-2007.pdf. 6 Toon et al., “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism,” 1973.

4 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

for at least a decade, which would likely result As the smoke layer blocked warming sunlight in a vast global famine.7 from reaching the Earth’s surface, it would produce the coldest average surface tempera- The scientists predicted that nuclear tures in the last 1,000 years.12 The scientists firestorms in the burning cities would cause calculated that global food production would at least five million tons of black carbon decrease by 20 to 40 percent during a five-

After. Photo/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum smoke to quickly rise above cloud level into year period following such a war.13 Medical the stratosphere, where it could not be rained experts have predicted that the shortening of out.8 The smoke would circle the Earth in growing seasons and corresponding decreas- less than two weeks and would form a global es in agricultural production could cause up stratospheric smoke layer that would remain to two billion people to perish from famine.14 for more than a decade.9 The smoke would absorb warming sunlight, which would heat the The climatologists also investigated the ef- smoke to temperatures near the boiling point fects of a nuclear war fought with the vastly of water, producing ozone losses of 20 to 50 more powerful modern thermonuclear weap- percent over populated areas.10 This would al- ons possessed by the United States, Russia, most double the amount of UV-B reaching the China, France, and England. Some of the ther- most populated regions of the mid-latitudes, monuclear weapons constructed during the and it would create UV-B indices unprece- 1950s and 1960s were 1,000 times more pow- dented in human history. In North America erful than an atomic bomb.15 and Central Europe, the time required to get a painful sunburn at mid-day in June could During the last 30 years, the average size of decrease to as little as six minutes for fair- thermonuclear or “strategic” nuclear weapons skinned individuals.11 has decreased. Yet today, each of the approx-

7 Ira Helfand, “Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People At Risk?,” http://psr.org/assets/pdfs/two-billion-at-risk.pdf. 8 Toon et al., “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism,” 1998-1999. 9 “5 million tons of smoke created by 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons,” Nuclear Darkness, n.d., http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/fivemilliontonsofsmoke/. 10 Mills et al., “Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict,” http://pnas.org/content/105/14/5307.full. 11 Mills et al., “Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a regional nuclear conflict,” 170. 12 Ibid. 13 Ariel Conn, “The experts on nuclear winter,” Future of Life Institute, Podcast audio, November 3, 2016, http://thebulletin.org/multimedia/experts-nuclear-winter. 14 Helfand, “Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People At Risk?,” 13. 15 “Cold War: A Brief History,” Atomic Archive, n.d., http://atomicarchive.com/History/coldwar/page06.shtml.

5 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

ering land surface areas of many thousands or tens of thousands of square miles. The scientists calculated that these fires would produce up to 180 million tons of black carbon soot and smoke,17 which would form a dense, global stratospheric smoke layer.18 The smoke would remain in the stratosphere for 10 to 20 years, and it would block as much as 70 percent of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Northern Hemisphere and 35 percent from the Southern Hemisphere. So much sunlight would be blocked by the smoke that the noonday sun would resemble a full moon at midnight.19

Under such conditions, it would only require a matter of days or weeks for daily minimum temperatures to fall below freezing in the Image/Steven Starr largest agricultural areas of the Northern imately 3,540 strategic weapons deployed by Hemisphere, where freezing temperatures the United States and Russia is seven to 80 would occur every day for a period of between 20 times more powerful than the atomic bombs one to more than two years. Average sur- modeled in the India-Pakistan study. The face temperatures would become colder than smallest strategic nuclear weapon has an ex- those experienced 18,000 years ago at the plosive power of 100,000 tons of TNT, com- height of the last Ice Age, and the prolonged pared to an atomic bomb with an average ex- cold would cause average rainfall to decrease plosive power of 15,000 tons of TNT. by up to 90%. Growing seasons would be completely eliminated for more than a de- Strategic nuclear weapons produce much cade; it would be too cold and dark to grow larger nuclear firestorms than do atom- food crops, which would doom the majority of 21 ic bombs. For example, a standard Russian the human population. 800-kiloton warhead, on an average day, will ignite fires covering a surface area of 90 to 152 square miles.16 NUCLEAR WINTER IN BRIEF The profound cold and darkness following nu- 22 A war fought with hundreds or thousands of clear war became known as nuclear winter U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons and was first predicted in 1983 by a group of 23 would ignite immense nuclear firestorms cov- NASA scientists led by Carl Sagan. During the

16 Steven Starr et al., “What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated above midtown Manhattan?,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 25, 2015, http://thebulletin.org/what-would-happen-if-800-kiloton-nuclear-warhead-detonated-above-midtown-manhattan8023. 17 Owen Brian Toon et al., “Environmental consequences of nuclear war,” Physics Today (2008), http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/ToonRobockTurcoPhysicsToday.pdf, 38. 18 “Consequences of a large nuclear war,” Nuclear Darkness, n.d., http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/hundredfiftytonessmoke/. 19 Steven Starr, “Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter, and Human Extinction,” Federation of American Scientists, October 14, 2015, http://fas.org/pir-pubs/nuclear-war-nuclear-winter-and-human-extinction. 20 Robock et al., “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences,” 6. 21 Toon et al., “Environmental consequences of nuclear war,” 40. 22 Robock et al., “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences.” 23 Paul R. Ehrlich et al., The Cold and the Dark (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985).

6 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

mid-1980s, a large body of research was done general public, and even most anti-nuclear by such groups as the Scientific Committee activists, were left with the idea that nuclear on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE),24 winter had been scientifically disproved. the World Meteorological Organization, and the U.S. National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences; their work es- REJECTION BY LEADERS sentially supported the initial findings of the Yet the scientists did not give up. In 2006, 1983 studies. they returned to their labs to perform the research I have previously described. Their new The idea of nuclear winter, published and research not only upheld the previous find- supported by prominent scientists, generated ings but also found that the earlier studies extensive public alarm and put political pres- actually underestimated the environmental sure on the United States and Soviet Union to effects of nuclear war. reverse a runaway nuclear arms race, which, by 1986, had created a global nuclear arsenal Dr. Robock of Rutgers and Dr. Toon of the of more than 65,000 nuclear weapons.25 Un- University of Colorado have spent years at- fortunately, this created a backlash among tempting to bring official attention to their many powerful military and industrial inter- work and get follow-up research studies done ests, who undertook an extensive media cam- by appropriate agencies in the federal gov- paign to brand nuclear winter as “bad science” ernment. In a recent (2016) interview,27 Dr. and the scientists who discovered it as “irre- Toon stated: sponsible.” The Department of Energy and the Critics used various uncertainties in the stud- Department of Defense, which should ies and the first climate models (which are be investigating this problem, have primitive by today’s standards) as a basis to done absolutely nothing. They have criticize and reject the concept of nuclear not published a single paper, in the winter. In 1986, the Council on Foreign Rela- open literature, analyzing this prob- tions published an article by scientists from lem ... We have made a list of where the National Center for Atmospheric Re- we think the important issues are, and search, who predicted drops in global cooling we have gone to every [federal] agency about half as large as those first predicted by we can think of with these lists, and the 1983 studies and described this as a “nu- said “Don’t you think someone should clear autumn.” The nuclear autumn studies study this?” Basically, everyone we were later shown to be deeply flawed,26 but have tried so far has said, “Well that’s the proof came too late to stop a massive not my job.” smear campaign that effectively discredited the initial studies. In the same interview, Dr. Robock also noted:

Nuclear winter was subject to criticism and The Department of Homeland Secu- damning articles in the Wall Street Journal and rity really should fund this. They will Time magazine. In 1987, the National Review fund you to study one terrorist bomb called nuclear winter a “fraud.” In 2000, Dis- in New York City. When you explain cover Magazine published an article that de- to them that a war between India and scribed nuclear winter as one of “The Twenty Pakistan is a much greater threat to Greatest Scientific Blunders in History.” The the U.S. homeland than one terrorist endless smear campaign was successful; the bomb, as horrible as that is, they re-

24 Mark A. Harwell and Thomas C. Hutchinson, “Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War,” SCOPE 2, no. 28 (1985), http://dge.stanford.edu/SCOPE/SCOPE_28_2/SCOPE_28-2_0.1_titlepages.pdf. 25 Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Federation of American Scientists, n.d., https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces. 26 Robock et al., “Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts.” 27 Conn, “The experts on nuclear winter.”

7 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

spond with “Oh, well that’s not my job, tion, Technology, and Logistics go talk to some other program manag- • Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff er” — who, of course, doesn’t exist. • Under Secretary for Nuclear Security of the Department of Energy After the more recent series of studies were • Under Secretary of Defense for Policy published in 2007 and 2008, Drs. Robock and • Commander of the United States Strategic Toon also made a number of requests to meet Command with members of the Obama administration. The scientists offered to brief Cabinet mem- It is important to understand that some members and the White House staff about their bers of this group — especially the Command- findings, which they assumed would have a er of the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRAT- great impact upon nuclear weapons policy. COM)31 — also develop the policies that guide Their offers were met with indifference. the use of nuclear weapons.

Finally, after several years of trying, Drs. Perhaps General John Hyten, Head of Robock and Toon were allowed an audience USSTRATCOM, who is in charge of the U.S. with John Holdren, Senior Advisor to Presi- nuclear triad, and General Paul Selva, Vice dent Barack Obama on Science and Technol- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the ogy. Dr. Robock also eventually met with Rose second highest ranking officer in the United Gottemoeller, then Under Secretary of State States, have never seen or heard of the 21st for Arms Control and International Security. century nuclear winter studies. Perhaps when Dr. Robock has written to me that, after these they hear a question about “nuclear winter,” meetings, he and Dr. Toon were left with the they only remember the smear campaigns impression that neither Holdren nor Gotte- done against the early studies. Or, maybe, moeller think the nuclear winter research “is they just choose not to accept the new scien- correct.” tific research on nuclear winter, despite the fact that it has withstood the criticism of the But it is not only Holdren and Gottemoeller global scientific community. who reject the nuclear winter research. Greg Mello, of the Los Alamos Study Group,28 cites Regardless, the rejection of nuclear winter re- a source who confirms that the group that search by the top leaders of the United States determines the “full range of activities relat- raises some profoundly important questions: ed to the development, production, mainte- Do U.S. military and political leaders fully un- nance (upkeep) and elimination (retirement, derstand the consequences of nuclear war? disassembly and disposal) of all United States Do they realize that even a “successful” nucle- nuclear weapons — the members of the U.S. ar first-strike against Russia could cause most Nuclear Weapons Council29 — have stated that Americans to die from nuclear famine?32 “the predictions of nuclear winter were disproved years ago.”30 In 2010, Drs. Toon and Robock wrote in Phys- ics Today: The members of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Council include: We estimate that the direct effects of using the 2012 arsenals would lead to • Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisi- hundreds of millions of fatalities. The

28 Los Alamos Study Group, n.d., http://www.lasg.org. 29 “Nuclear Matters Handbook 2016,” Office of the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters (2016), http://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/NMHB/chapters/Appendix_A.htm. 30 “Nuclear Matters: A Practical Guide,” Office of the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters (2008), https://cryptome.org/2013/04/nuclear-matters.pdf, 87. 31 “About,” U.S. Strategic Command, last modified November 2016, http://www.stratcom.mil/About. 32 Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon, “Self-assured destruction: The climate impacts of nuclear war,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 68, no. 5 (2012), http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSAD.pdf, 72. 33 Toon et al., “Environmental consequences of nuclear war,” 37.

8 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

indirect effects would likely eliminate heavy artillery. NATO troops stationed in Es- the majority of the human population.33 tonia are within artillery range of St. Peters- In 2013, Drs. Toon and Robock wrote in the burg, the second largest city of Russia. Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that: The United States has deployed its Aegis A nuclear war between Russia and the Ashore Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system United States, even after the arsenal in Romania and is constructing another such reductions planned under New START, BMD system in Poland.37 The Mark 41 launch could produce a nuclear winter. system used in the Aegis Ashore systems can Hence, an attack by either side could be used to launch a variety of missiles, includ- be suicidal, resulting in Self-Assured ing long-range nuclear-armed cruise missiles. Destruction.34 In other words, the United States has built and is building launch sites for nuclear missiles on the Russian border.38 This fact has been wide- RENEWED COLD WAR ly reported on Russian TV and has infuriated Although president-elect Trump appears to the Russian public. In June, Russian President favor a return to the policy of détente with Putin specifically warned that Russia would Russia, many if not most U.S. political leaders be forced to retaliate against this threat.39 appear to support the Obama administration’s policies of direct confrontation with Putin’s While Russian officials maintain that its ac- Russia. Mainstream corporate media, includ- tions are normal and routine, Russia now ap- ing the editorial boards of The New York Times pears to be preparing for war. On October 5, and The Washington Post, routinely engage in 2016, Russia conducted a nation-wide civil anti-Russian and anti-Putin rhetoric that sur- defense drill that included 40 million of its passes the hate speech of the McCarthy era.35 people being directed to fallout shelters.40 Re- Under President Obama, the United States has uters reported two days later that Russia had renewed the Cold War with Russia, with little moved its Iskander nuclear-capable missiles or no debate or protest, and has subsequently to Kaliningrad, which borders Poland.41 engaged in proxy wars with Russia in Ukraine and Syria, as well as threatening military ac- While the United States ignores the danger of tion against China in the South China Sea. nuclear war, Russian scholar Stephen Cohen reports that the danger of war with the Unit- In response to what NATO leaders describe as ed States is the leading news story in Russia.42 Russia’s “dangerous and aggressive actions,” Cohen states: NATO has built up a “rapid-response force” of 40,000 troops on the Russian border in the Just as there is no discussion of the Baltic States and Poland.36 This force includes most existential question of our time, hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, and in the American political class — the

34 Robock and Toon, “Self-assured destruction: The climate impacts of nuclear war,” 66. 35 Stephen F. Cohen, “Neo-McCarthyism and Olympic Politics as More Evidence of a New Cold War,” The Nation, July 27, 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/neo-mccarthyism-and-olympic-politics-as-more-evidence-of-a-new-cold-war. 36 Leo Cendrowicz, “Syria conflict: Nato raises response force to 40,000 troops in face of Russia’s ‘aggressive and dangerous’ actions,“ Independent, October 8, 2015, http://ind.pn/2h2gOD9. 37 Sam LaGrone, “Aegis Ashore Site in Romania Declared Operational,” USNI News, May 12, 2016, https://news.usni.org/2016/05/12/aegis-ashore-site-in-romania-declared-operational. 38 “MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS),” Lockheed Martin (2013), http://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed/data/ms2/documents/launchers/MK41_VLS_factsheet.pdf. 39 Inessa S, “Putin’s Warning: Full Speech 2016,” YouTube video, July 24, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8ldIMRo. 40 Matt Payton, “Russia launches massive nuclear war training exercise with ‘40 million people’,” Independent, October 5, 2016, http://ind.pn/2h2i7C4. 41 “Russia moves nuclear-capable missiles into Kaliningrad,” Reuters, October 8, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-missiles-confirm-idUSKCN1280IV. 42 “The John Batchelor Show,” Westwood One Talk, October 2016, http://bit.ly/2h2ifl6.

9 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

possibility of war with Russia — it is the Russia in Ukraine and Syria, as well as increas- only thing being discussed in the Rus- ingly militarized confrontation with China in sian political class . . . These are two the South China Sea. different political universes. In Russia, all the discussion in the newspapers, My own personal assessment of the state of and there is plenty of free discussion the nuclear danger today is that it is profound. on talk show TV, which echoes what The United States is sleepwalking towards nu- the Kremlin is thinking, online, in the clear war. Our leaders have turned a blind eye elite newspapers, and in the popular to the scientifically predicted consequences broadcasts, the number 1, 2, 3, and 4 of nuclear war, and our military appears to be topics of the day are the possibility of intent on making “Russia back down.” This is a war with the United States. recipe for unlimited human disaster.

Cohen goes on to say: It is still not too late to seek dialogue, diploma- cy, and détente with Russia and China, and to I conclude from this that the leader- create a global dialogue about the existential ship of Russia actually believes now, dangers of nuclear war. We must return to the in reaction to what the United States understanding that nuclear war cannot be won and NATO have said and done over the and must not be fought. This can be achieved if last two years, and particularly in reac- our political and military leaders listen to the tion to the breakdown of the proposed warnings from the scientific community about cooperation in Syria, and the rhetoric the long-term global environmental conse- coming out of Washington, that war is a quences of nuclear war. real possibility. I can’t remember when, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the President-elect Trump and President Putin Moscow leadership came to this con- must publically acknowledge and discuss the clusion in its collective head. peer-reviewed studies that predict a U.S.-Rus- sian nuclear war will likely wipe out most of Perhaps this narrative will change under pres- the human race. All nations and peoples have a ident-elect Trump. However, he is inheriting vested interest in eliminating the nuclear arse- a situation fraught with danger, which retains nals that continue to threaten their existence. the possibility of direct military conflict with

10 Renowned geologist Ruth A. M. Schmidt left a generous contribution from her estate to FAS for a lasting legacy of a safer world through science. So can you. Visit fas.org/planned-giving to leave a legacy of peace.

Together, we can make the world a safer place to live in for all.

With a new presidential administration, it is more important than ever to support a safer world through science. Visit fas.org/donate to be a part of the mission. Questions? Email [email protected]. Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

test occurred in 1980. In contrast to today’s challenges, the difficulties of securing and Chernobyl dismantling decades-old weapons seem a simpler problem from a simpler time. In only a generation, fear of nuclear winter has been and Trinity — replaced by the prospect of long-term global warming, a situation which could ironically lead to a renaissance of nuclear power — how Counting the quickly we forget. This general lack of awareness was recently brought home to me very strikingly when I gave a lecture to some very Curies bright and engaged students on the Manhat-  B. Cameron Reed tan Project and the use of nuclear weapons in  Chair and Professor of Physics, Alma College World War II. At the end of the lecture I asked them to estimate how many warheads the dward Friedman’s article in this edition United States currently possesses. Only one of the Public Interest Report on the con- student spoke up, offering a very tentative es- tinuing legacy of radioactivity released in timate of “At least one, I presume?” They were Ethe Chernobyl disaster is a sobering reminder shocked to learn that their generation will in- of the need to responsibly manage complex herit thousands of warheads, many of which technological systems, which can generate are still actively deployed. catastrophic consequences when they run out of control. 30 years later, the world is very Professor Friedman’s article motivated me different and faces many new problems, but to return to a calculation and a comparison Professor Friedman properly reminds us that that I had intended to carry out some time credible coverage of nuclear issues is just as ago. While researching the Manhattan Proj- important now as it was when the Chernobyl ect, I came across a quote in David Hawkins’s story first broke. wartime history of Los Alamos drawn from an eyewitness description of the July 1945 “Trin- Reading Professor Friedman’s analysis caused ity” test: “At that moment the cloud had about me to reflect on a serious lack of public 1000 [sic] billions of curies of radioactivi- awareness of the possibility of another form ty whose radiation must have produced the of radiological disaster: the accidental or de- blue glow.”1 When I first read this passage I liberate atmospheric detonation of even a was taken aback: Could a nuclear weapon of a modest-yield nuclear weapon, or, even worse, yield considered modest by the standards of the outbreak of a “limited” nuclear war. Me- present-day arsenals really generate a trillion dia coverage of Chernobyl and Fukushima is curies of prompt radioactivity? A curie (Ci) is sometimes sensationalist, but at least it keeps defined as the activity of one gram of fresh- people aware of the issue of reactor safety. ly-isolated radium, 37 billion decays per sec- With nuclear weapons, the problem is not ond. A trillion curies are equivalent to a mil- so much that people are unaware of how de- lion metric tonnes of radium, more than twice structive they can be, but rather the general as much as the estimated natural radioactivity level of ignorance of just how many are still in of all of the oceans of the world (about 0.4 tril- the possession of the world’s nuclear powers. lion Ci).2 This is, admittedly, a very misleading comparison in that I am contrasting an essen- It is not difficult to understand how this situ- tially immediate phenomenon to one of cos- ation has arisen. The Cold War ended a gener- mological timescale, but it does drive home ation ago, and the last above-ground nuclear the magnitude involved.

1 David Hawkins, “Manhattan District History – Project Y: The Los Alamos Project,” LAMS-2532 1 (1946–1947), 276, http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?LAMS-2532.htm. 2 “Radioactivity in Nature,” Idaho State University, n.d., http://physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm. Oceanic radioactivity is due mostly to cosmogenic long-lived potassium-40, half-life ~ 1.25 billion years. Potassium-40 is not a fallout product.

12 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

lists 776 product nuclides of 46 elements from While it is true that the residual radioactiv- chromium (atomic number Z = 24) to thulium ity from a nuclear explosion dies off quickly (Z = 69), with mass numbers ranging from 66 because the half-lives of many fission prod- to 172. Because fissions typically produce two ucts are so short (see below), a trillion curies products, the tabulated yields should sum to is a staggering amount of radioactivity to be 200; they actually sum to 197.4 (there is prob- deposited into the open environment in one ably some round-off error, and some fissions event. are ternary).

Numerous references offer much information The Los Alamos report lists half-lives for most on the quantities of residual radiation from but not all of the fission products. For consis- nuclear explosions and how such radioactivity 3 4 5 tency, I adopted half-lives and decay mecha- declines with time, but the Hawkins quote nisms for all products from the Nuclear Wallet was the first time I had seen the immediate Cards (2011 edition) published by the Nation- activity estimated. The immensity of the fig- al Nuclear Data Center.7 Of the 776 products, ure made a substantial impression on me, and 64 are stable (total fraction 0.12%) and do not I wanted to understand it further. I also won- contribute any radioactivity. For a further dered how the bombs dropped on Hiroshima 90 very short-lived products (total fraction and Nagasaki compared to Chernobyl in their 0.75%), half-lives are unknown or so poorly radiological impacts. (Spoiler Alert: A trillion determined that accurate decay rates cannot is probably a substantial underestimation.) be computed for them; I discarded them from further consideration. This means that my re- Fission leads to hundreds of product nuclides sults likely underestimate the prompt radioac- representing isotopes of dozens of different tivity. Of the 622 species for which decay rates elements. To estimate the activity produced, can be calculated, 576 decay predominantly it is necessary to know the detailed distri- by beta-decay, as would be expected for neu- bution of products; that is, the numbers of tron-rich fission products; the remainder de- each nuclide produced and their half-lives. cay by isomeric transitions (39) and electron This information is readily obtainable from capture (7). The vast majority of half-lives are various sources. A Los Alamos publication less than about a day, but a handful are as conveniently lists the product yields per 100 great as several millions of years. fissions of slow-neutron induced fission of uranium-235 — that is, of fissions which occur 6 Prompt decay rates were computed by as- in reactors. Nuclear explosions are fast-neu- suming the fission of one kilogram of U-235, tron phenomena; while the distribution of fis- equivalent to splitting 2.56 x 1024 nuclei; this sion products is different than for slow-neu- corresponds to an energy release of about 17 tron fission, there should not be much harm kilotons. (The Trinity test involved a plutoni- in adopting the slow-neutron data, as my um bomb, but the distribution of fission prod- goal here is an order-of-magnitude estimate. ucts of uranium and plutonium are very sim- (For obvious reasons, it is difficult to come by detailed information on the distribution of ilar.) The number of nuclei N of each species fast-fission products.) The Los Alamos report was computed, and prompt decay rates were calculated according as the usual formula:

3 “Nuclear Weapon Radiation Effects,” Federation of American Scientists, last updated October 21, 1998, https://web.archive.org/web/20160614202507/http://fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/radiation.htm. 4 A. A. Broyles, “Nuclear explosions,” American Journal of Physics 50, no. 7 (1982), 586-594, http://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1.12783. 5 Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons,” United States Department of Defense and Energy Research and Development Agency, 1977, http://deepspace.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Effects-of-Nuclear-Weapons-1977-3rd-edition-complete.pdf. 6 T.R. England and B.F. Rider, “Evaluation and Compilation of Fission Product Yields 1993,” Los Alamos National Labora- tory, Report LA-UR-94-3106, http://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lareport/LA-UR-94-3106. A machine-readable version is available at www.dbserv.pnpi.spb.ru/elbib/tablisot/toi98/www/fission/235Ut.txt. 7 Jagdish K. Tuli, “Nuclear Wallet Cards,” Brookhave National Laboratory, 2011, http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/wallet/wall35.pdf.

13 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

and those which are the decay products of fission products of intermediate half-lives. In R = N(ln 2)/t1/2 the case of the Chernobyl disaster, both im- The total prompt decay rate evaluated to 11.2 mediate and long-term consequences were trillion curies, an order of magnitude great- of concern. One fission product is iodine-131, er than estimated by Hawkins’s source. Given which can lodge in the thyroid gland and in- that the Trinity explosion liberated an esti- duce cancers. The eight-day half-life of this mated 21 kilotons (instead of the 17 kilotons isotope means that it will decay relatively equivalent I have assumed), a more refined quickly, but at the cost of being a vigorous estimate would be about 13.8 trillion Ci. It is beta-emitter in the few weeks following its worth remarking that this activity does not release. In the longer term and as Professor include the immense flux of prompt gamma Friedman points out, long-lived nuclides can and X-rays emitted in a nuclear explosion, become widely dispersed and settle over ag- both of which comprise further sources of ra- ricultural and animal-feeding areas and thus diation exposure. enter the food chain; with its 30-year half- life, cesium-137 is of particular concern in this This prompt activity declines very precipi- regard. tously in the immediate aftermath of a nuclear explosion. In their volume The Effects of Nu- One authoritative analysis estimates that the clear Weapons, Glasstone and Dolan estimate Chernobyl event released about 100 pBq of ce- 9 the radioactivity of the fission products of a sium-137. This can be compared to the Trinity 1-kt explosion to be on the order of 30 billion explosion by estimating Trinity’s Cs-137 yield. curies one minute after the explosion.8 Scal- The fractional cumulative fission yield of Cs- 10 ing to Trinity’s 21 kt gives 0.63 trillion Ci, a 137 is about 0.0087. If fissions are all binary, 24 decline by a factor of about 22 from the imme- the 2.56 x 10 uranium nuclei in 1 kg of U-235 diate activity estimated above. After this time would create twice as many product nuclei, 22 the residual radioactivity declines roughly as or a cumulative generation of some 4.5 x 10 time to the power –1.2; by this rule, after two Cs-137 nuclei. With a half-life of 30.1 years and weeks (20,160 minutes) the residual Trinity scaling to Trinity’s 21-kiloton yield, this cor- activity would have declined to responds to an activity of about 0.04 pBq — a tiny fraction of the Chernobyl Cs-137 release. 1.2 While this may in some way seem reassur- ≈(0.63 trillion)(1/20,160) ing in that one or a few nuclear detonations would not create a radiological catastrophe, This equals ≈4.3 million Ci; or, in units now in bear in mind that today’s nuclear weapons more common use, about 160 petabecquerels can easily have yields tens of times those used (pBq; 1 Bq = 1 decay/sec; the prefix peta des- in 1945, and that many thousands of them ignates 1015). are stockpiled. An intermediate-scale nuclear war could leave as much long-term fallout A strict comparison of Hiroshima and Naga- as Chernobyl, let alone dozens of obliterated saki to Chernobyl will necessarily be rough cities and millions of casualties. In their book at best. Trinity and the bombs were one-shot on radiation, Gale and Lax estimate that at- injections of fission products into the atmo- mospheric weapons tests released some 200 sphere (with the bombs at high altitude), while times as much radioactive materials as did the fission products in a reactor which has Chernobyl.11 been operating continuously will be a mixture of those recently generated, those generated The graph above shows the distribution of some time ago but which have long half-lives, prompt activities of U-235 fission products

8 Glasstone and Dolan, “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.” 9 L. R. Anspaugh et al., “The global impact of the Chernobyl reactor accident,” Science 242, no. 4885 (December 16, 1988), http://science.sciencemag.org/content/242/4885/1513. 10 England and Rider, “Evaluation and Compilation of Fission Product Yields 1993.” 11 Robert Peter Gale and Eric Lax, Radiation: What It Is, What You Need to Know (New York, NY: Vintage, 2013).

14 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

Image/B. Cameron Reed

per kilogram of material fissioned as a func- clined very quickly and the residual long-term tion of atomic number and neutron number radioactivity created was much less than that — energy equivalent to approximately 17 ki- of Chernobyl. With respect to the latter, hu- lotons. 33 fission products were determined manity can reap the benefits of nuclear en- to have immediate decay rates exceeding 1011 ergy provided that reactors are carefully de- Ci; the total of these rates is 8.2 trillion Ci, signed, properly constructed, and responsibly or nearly three-quarters of the overall total operated; equally important will be reassuring of 11.2 trillion Ci. The most active individual policy makers and the public that the technol- species is strontium-97, which has a half-life ogy can be made safe — and investing in truly of about 0.43 seconds. As is well-known to making it so. At the same time, we must not nuclear physicists, fission is rarely symmet- allow the next generation’s inheritance of nu- ric; rather, there tends to be one light prod- clear weapons to be seen as an irrelevant issue uct around mass number A≈95 and one heavy of a bygone era; they are still a very present product with A≈140; the figure makes clear danger. Superpowers can reduce stockpiles the great activity contributed by the relatively while retaining nuclear forces adequate to neutron-richer lighter fission products. provide deterrence for themselves and their allies, and aspirant nuclear powers need to be In summary, the Trinity explosion did indeed dissuaded from their pursuits. We will likely release trillions of Curies, but this activity de- never “get to zero” (or even my student’s one), but we can get much closer than we are.

15 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

timates that Dr. Friedman assesses to be most reliable Editor’s Note are based on the linear no-threshold (LNT) model, such that there is no threshold below which radiation exposure will not adversely affect health, and that the effects increase linearly with radiation dose. While many Revisiting health physicists have questioned the LNT model, it is the basis for public policy as practiced by the U.S. En- vironmental Protection Agency. Prominent scientific Chernobyl bodies such as the International Commission on Ra-  Charles D. Ferguson diological Protection and the National Academy of Sci-  Editor-in-Chief, Public Interest Report ences have endorsed the LNT model. I underscore here that the order of magnitude estimate of the number of rofessor Edward Friedman was very kind to take radiation-induced fatalities hinges on the LNT model. on a tough task. About a year ago, Dr. Friedman However, as Dr. Friedman points out, another import- and I were talking about the upcoming 30th an- ant consideration is whether some previous studies Pniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant acci- have adequately taken into account a large enough dent, which occurred on April 26, 1986 in Ukraine. We population of exposed people given the fact that ra- were perplexed that some 30 years after this disaster, dioactive materials have been deposited in countries the world still does not know even the order of magni- outside of Belarus and Ukraine. tude of the number of fatalities due to radiation exposure. As Dr. Friedman documents in his essay, in which One reviewer mentioned that, while it is important he has diligently surveyed the literature pertaining to to understand the effects of Chernobyl, the Cher- the Chernobyl accident, the estimates range over about nobyl-type reactor accident could never happen four orders of magnitude. While we do not expect to again because of safety improvements. While 11 Cher- ever know exactly how many people will have died nobyl-type reactors, known by the acronym “RBMK,” from radiation exposure because of this accident, we are still in operation in Russia, safety improvements believe that further study by independent experts can have indeed been made. However, these reactors still shed light on this still murky subject. I note that Dr. do not have strong containment structures, which Friedman is not trained as a health physicist or epi- could help prevent the release of radioactive materials demiologist; he has a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia to the environment. For example, the 1979 Three Mile University and is a professor emeritus at Stevens In- Island accident in Pennsylvania released only a very stitute of Technology. Because of his technical back- small amount of radioactive gas and, despite a par- ground, though not directly in this field, Dr. Friedman tial core meltdown, the strong containment structure and I believed that he would be able to look at this around the reactor withstood the effects of the acci- controversial issue from a fresh perspective. I applaud dent and prevented the melted nuclear fuel from en- him for writing this thought-provoking essay. We invite tering the environment. readers who have relevant expertise to email FAS their perspectives ([email protected]). Of course, the most recent relevant examples of catastrophic accidents are the three reactor meltdowns I note that several experts have already reviewed and that happened in March 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi commented on a next-to-final draft. Overall, reviewers Nuclear Power Station. These reactors had relative- remarked that Dr. Friedman covers the literature well ly weak containment buildings that were ruptured by and clearly explains the controversial issues. Notably, hydrogen gas explosions. Because the prevailing winds one expert who has more than 40 years of experience were mostly blowing out to the Pacific Ocean, much of in these issues stated: “This is well-written and in- the released radioactive materials were not deposited cludes the most significant studies. The most involved on land. Nonetheless, there was still significant land and ardent supporters of radiation damage will not ac- contamination, and more than 100,000 people were cept the conclusions but this article is a good contribu- evacuated. As of this writing, several tens of thousands tion.” One expert declined to comment because he will of people are still displaced from their homes. While no be involved in the next study on Biological Effects of one died in the immediate aftermath or in the past five Ionizing Radiation (BEIR). Dr. Friedman and I encour- years from radiation exposure, several hundred people age the BEIR study group to take a closer examination are estimated to have died due to the disruption of the of the radiation effects of Chernobyl. A couple of re- evacuation. It is likely that more people will have died viewers underscored that the people affected by the as a result of this disruption as compared to the latent evacuations, as well as the many people who remained cancer deaths from radiation exposure. But if these in nearby areas of Belarus and Ukraine, have experi- people had not been evacuated, the long-term fatalities enced high levels of stress, depression, alcoholism, and from radiation exposure could have been much higher. drug abuse; thus, the life expectancy in this region has The ongoing investigation of the consequences of the declined as compared to other parts of the former So- Fukushima accidents will have far reaching impact on viet Union. Consequently, many people who have died how to assess the societal risks from nuclear power. from these contributing causes might have eventually succumbed to radiation-induced cancers, but we will Dr. Friedman and I do not intend for the following es- never know. say to be the final words on this important subject. As mentioned above, we invite readers with knowledge Additionally, a couple of reviewers noted that the es- and relevant expertise to offer their perspectives.

16 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

consequences of Chernobyl could result in as many as 4,000 excess cancer deaths.1 (“Cher- Calculating the nobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and So- cio-economic Impacts,” September 5, 2005). Their analyses were confined to the contaminat- Uncountable ed regions of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. While recognizing that there were increased radiation exposures throughout Europe, the Chernobyl Deaths from Forum experts asserted that these levels were too small to cause an observable impact on the number of deaths due to cancer. Their logic was Chernobyl based on the fact that, with approximately 20  Edward A. Friedman percent of the population dying from cancer, ex-  Professor Emeritus, Stevens Institute of Technol- cess deaths in the hundreds or thousands could ogy not be distinguished from the steady state deaths that occurred numbering in the millions. n April 26, 1986, the day of the catastrophic explosion at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl While additional deaths due to radiation may not nuclear power plant complex, Valery Ily- be directly observable, it does not mean that they Oich Khodemchuk, pump operator, and Nikolae- have not and will not continue to occur. During vich Vladimir Sashenok, systems operator, were the past 30 years, many scientists, government dead before the end of the day from the radiation organizations, public interest groups, members and trauma of the explosion. By the end of May of the press, and others have made predictions, 1986, 23 other workers from the plant, as well as speculated upon, and debated this issue. The firefighters, died of acute radiation syndrome. number of immediate and long-term excess deaths in the world resulting from the Chernobyl While these deaths from the immediate after- disaster encapsulates — in a single number — a math of the explosion are well documented, the summary of the total devastating impact of the question of how many subsequent deaths from world’s most catastrophic nuclear power plant radiation are attributable to the release of ra- accident in history. As such, Chernobyl acts as a dioactivity from that disaster remains — more reference point that deeply influences attitudes than 30 years later — a matter of controversy and toward nuclear power. One might argue that the debate. Given the centrality of nuclear power in single greatest factor influencing the decision by strategies that might ameliorate global warming, Germany to eschew nuclear power is the prodi- it is the thesis of this essay that clarity on this gious number of deaths from Chernobyl claimed number, that is so central to thinking about nu- by Greenpeace as possibly exceeding 200,000.2 clear safety, is a major public policy issue that deserves scrutiny using the best available and most Other published figures include a value of 26,000 relevant scientific understanding. by a scientist with the Union of Concerned Sci- entists,3 a figure of 280,000 in a published paper A team of more than 100 experts assembled by by a respected nuclear engineer,4 and the high- eight UN-related agencies, known as the Cher- ly unlikely number of 985,000 that appears in a nobyl Forum, asserted in 2005 that long-term book by Russian scientists,5 which was published

1 “Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts and Recommendations to the Govern- ments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine,” Chernobyl Forum: 2003-2005, 2006, http://iaea.org/sites/default/files/chernobyl.pdf. 2 “Chernobyl death toll grossly underestimated,” Greenpeace International, April 18, 2016, http://greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/chernobyl-deaths-180406. 3 Lisbeth Gronlund, “How Many Cancers Did Chernobyl Really Cause?—Updated Version,” All Things Nuclear, April 17, 2011, http://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlund/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-really-cause-updated. 4 Richard E. Webb, “The Health Consequences of Chernobyl,” The Ecologist 16, No. 4/5, 169-170. 5 Karl Grossman, “Chernobyl Death Toll: 985,000, Mostly from Cancer,” Global Research, March 13, 2013, http://globalresearch.ca/new-book-concludes-chernobyl-death-toll-985-000-mostly-from-cancer/20908.

17 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

in English by the New York Academy of Sciences. tion varies from location to location, depending upon altitude and materials in the ground, there Not surprisingly, those who support nuclear is an average number6 that is used for those who power development are more likely to quote the live in the affected areas of Europe, including the lower figures, while advocates seeking the elimi- former U.S.S.R. (It should be noted that the aver- nation of nuclear power focus on the larger ones. age background figures for the United States are higher than the world wide averages.) While the technical value for this world wide average is 2 RADIATION: THE BASICS millisieverts per year, simply refer to this as B for The conflicting points of view that arise are due background radiation and consider other radia- to differing assessments of the radiation that re- tion relative to that amount. sulted from the Chernobyl explosion and the impact of that radiation on the health of the exposed The next relevant number is the radiation that populations. Discussion of these issues requires the average person receives from medical X-Rays, some understanding of the physical origin of that CT scans, etc. This turns out to be about equal to radiation, as well as the biological consequences the amount of background radiation.7 Therefore, of radiation exposure. inescapable human exposure is 2B (or two times the background radiation dose) during one year. The radiation that spread throughout the North- ern Hemisphere as a result of the Chernobyl ex- For workers who are normally exposed to radi- plosion began from the nuclear fission process ation, the limit for an acceptable dose in a five- that produced the reactor’s energy. As the ura- year period is 50B. The United Nations Scientific nium nuclei split, lighter atoms are produced, in- Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation cluding many that are unstable. That instability (UNSCEAR) has estimated that the additional leads to the emission of gamma rays (which are chance of dying of cancer due to radiation expo- electromagnetic radiation with higher energy sure above 50B is about 4 percent per sievert.8 than x-rays), electrons, neutrons, and alpha particles (which are made up of two neutrons and On the high end, a dose of 2,500B would kill half two protons). An alpha particle is identical to of those exposed within a month. the nucleus of the most common type of helium atom. These various emissions can damage biological cells. The questions that arise then are: CHERNOBYL FALLOUT How much radiation was produced? And what are its consequences? In order to discuss radioactivity and fission, it is necessary to recognize the different forms of A baseline for discussion of radiation is the chemical elements according to the composi- amount of radiation that people are exposed to all tion of their nuclei. Every element has a distinct the time. This so-called “background” radiation is chemistry and gains its identity by the number due to low levels of radiation present in the world of protons in its nucleus. Hence, all forms of hy- around us. Everything from bananas and marble drogen have one proton and all forms of uranium to radon gas, which enters basements from the have 92 protons. The chemistry of elements is ground, adds to this background radiation. The determined by the number of electrons that sur- universe itself has particles travelling through round the nucleus, which is equal to the number space at high velocities which strike the earth’s of protons in the nucleus. However, elements can atmosphere. The resulting radiation is referred have varying numbers of neutrons. Hydrogen, for to as cosmic radiation, which also contributes to example, can have zero neutrons, one neutron, background radiation. While background radia- or two neutrons. Chemically, these forms of hy-

6 “Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation,” United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes I (2008), 32, http://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2008/UNSCEAR_2008_Annex-A-CORR.pdf 7 “Radiation Effects and Sources,” United Nations Environment Programme, 2016, http://apps.unep.org/publications/index.php?option=com_pub&task=download&file=012202_en. 8 Ibid.

18 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

Abandoned bus in Pripyat, Ukraine. drogen are identical because their atoms all have The health consequences of the Chernobyl di- one electron. However, their nuclear properties saster are primarily due to exposure to and in- differ. The form with one neutron is called deute- halation or ingestion of radioactive substances. rium, while the form with two neutrons is called These radioactive materials were created in the tritium. In the case of uranium, its most common nuclear reactor as a byproduct of the fission or form has 146 neutrons, while the uranium used in breakup of uranium-235 that produced the elec- atomic weapons has 243 neutrons. trical energy used in homes and factories. The radioactivity of the original uranium-235 fuel is A convenient way to account for these different fairly benign. However, when fission takes place, forms of nuclei for the same chemical element is new radioactive atoms are created. Many differ- to add the number of neutrons to the number of ent outcomes are possible. protons and identify the resultant using the total. Thus, deuterium can be called “hydrogen-2” These outcomes of the splitting of uranium-235 and tritium “hydrogen-3.” These total numbers have a statistical distribution that is predictable. are designated as the isotope number. While the Some combinations resulting from the fission word “isotope” can be intimidating to a lay person process are more likely than others. Of these with limited knowledge of science, it should be many possible outcomes, only around a dozen kept in mind that it is a bookkeeping number that have significant consequences concerning radi- is no more esoteric than labeling a bag of grocer- ation exposure. All of these fission products are ies as “fruit-15” if it has 10 oranges and five apples. accompanied by radiation — gamma rays (which are like X-rays but with higher energy), alpha Using this nomenclature, adding the 92 protons particles (which are the nuclei of helium atoms), and 143 neutrons in an atomic bomb’s uranium beta particles (which are high-energy electrons), will result in an isotope number of 235, while the and neutrons. most common natural uranium has an isotope number of 238. Among the fission products, there are a few that present a danger to human beings through en-

19 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

and emit their gamma rays, electrons, neutrons, or alpha particles inside the body, rather than from an external location. However, whether or not radioactive material enters the food chain, it still emits radiation that adds to the potentially harmful dose received by inhabitants of a contaminated region.

ANIMAL INDICATORS Given that the Chernobyl Forum includes pres- tigious organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Atom- ic Energy Agency (IAEA), the assertion that the Chernobyl Forum should not have neglected deaths outside of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus9 needs to be substantiated. Incontrovertible evidence for life-impairing levels of radioactive fallout at distances of more than 1,500 miles from the explosion site has been documented in mea- surements of contaminated meat from sheep in Scotland10 and reindeer in Lapland.11

In 1986, the Scottish government placed restrictions on 2,900 farms, stocking 1.5 million sheep. In 1987, additional restrictions were imposed when it was discovered that the season’s new lambs were highly contaminated. Significant restrictions were not lifted until 1991. As of 2008, Ferris wheel in abandoned amusement park in Pripyat. five farms were still designated as restricted and all monitoring was not ended until June 21, 2010. trance into the digestive system via ingestion of milk and other foods. The most dangerous In July 1993, the United Kingdom Parliamentary of these are iodine-131, cesium-137, and stron- Office of Science and Technology issued Briefing tium-90. Iodine is absorbed by the thyroid gland Note 45, a report that provided information for and can cause thyroid cancer if sufficient quan- members of Parliament concerning Chernobyl tities of radioactive iodine are retained. Cesium fallout.12 Briefing Note 45 shows that the most and strontium enter the food chain and cause significant levels of fallout from Chernobyl were other types of cancers if large enough amounts in northern Scotland, with additional levels of of the radioactive forms of these elements are concern in west-central Scotland, Cumberland present in the body. The chemistry of cesium is (England), Wales, and Northern Ireland. The re- similar to that of potassium, which is actively ab- port also documents the number of sheep that sorbed by the human body, while the chemistry were subject to inspection. The largest numbers of strontium leads to similar biological absorp- were in Wales (2.1 million), Scotland (1.36 million), tion by humans as that of calcium. The health and England (0.87 million). Briefing Note 45 fur- consequences of radioactive materials are most ther identifies the percentage of those sheep ex- severe when the active elements are ingested amined whose meat needed to be removed from

9 Gronlund, “How Many Cancers Did Chernobyl Really Cause?—Updated Version.” 10 “Chernobyl Fallout,” Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Briefing Note 45, July 24, 1993, http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/POST-PN-45. 11 Emma Jarratt, “Norway’s radioactive reindeer,” Barents Observer, October 8, 2014, http://barentsobserver.com/en/nature/2014/10/norways-radioactive-reindeer-08-10. 12 “Chernobyl Fallout.”

20 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

market; these percentages were 22 percent in mistic religious practices. Saami use the entirety 1987, 10 percent in 1988, and 7 percent in 1989, of the reindeer body, from the entrails to organs, with lower levels in subsequent years. These fig- antlers, hooves, and blood. ures lead to the conclusion that meat from more than one million sheep were removed from mar- Nearly 80% of the reindeer meat in Sweden was ket in the UK as a result of Chernobyl fallout. destroyed in the 1986 slaughter season.16 This severe economic loss led to the governments of The impact of fallout from Chernobyl on the Sweden and Norway providing compensation to sheep of the UK is masked in later years by the the affected communities. However, the cultural occurrence of a huge outbreak of foot and mouth uses of reindeer carcasses could not be replaced disease in 2001,13 which resulted in the slaughter with monetary payments. A member of the Saami of between seven and 10 million sheep and cattle. community summed up this loss as follows: “This is not just a matter of economics but of who we Cesium-137, which can relatively easily enter the are, how we live, how we are connected to our food chain, emits harmful gamma rays as well as deer and each other.”17 electrons (called beta radiation). In nature, cesium has a half-life of about 30 years. That means The impact of Chernobyl in this region has been that after 30 years, half of the original deposit of long-lasting. The severity of the contamination cesium-137 will have undergone radioactive de- was exacerbated by the fact that the Scandi- cay. After 60 years, the level will be 25 percent of navian reindeer consume lichen as their main the original and after 90 years, the level would be winter staple. Lichen do not have a root system one-eighth of the original and so on. and absorb nutrients directly from the air, thus soaking up large concentrations of radioactive Given the long half-life of cesium-137, it is not cesium. As recently as 2014, there were regions in surprising that restrictions and examinations of Lapland where radiation levels in reindeer meat sheep in the UK lasted for 26 years, until 2010, still exceeded safe levels.18 This resulted from the when the controls were finally lifted.14 long term stability of the lichen food stock and the 30-year half-life of cesium-137. In 2016, the While sheep farming was severely affected in fallout that remains in the environment still em- Scotland, fallout from Chernobyl not only con- anates one half of the radiation intensity that it taminated thousands of Reindeer in Lapland did 30 years earlier at the time of the Chernobyl but, by doing so, upset longstanding social and explosion. cultural patterns of the Saami people of that northern Scandinavian region. The Saami people Given that the distances from Chernobyl to Lon- were deeply affected by the contamination of the don and Paris are less than the distances to the reindeer herds. As one observer put it, the Cher- highlands of Scotland and the fields of Lapland, nobyl disaster, “scarred” their way of life.15 There it is arguable that significant amounts of harmful are about 80,000 Saami, with 50,000 in Norway, radioactive material were deposited in areas of 20,000 in Sweden, 8,000 in Finland, and 2,000 in Western Europe in April and May 1986. Radioac- Russia. Reindeer meat is not only a staple of the tive materials were emitted from Chernobyl for Saami diet but the meat, organs, and other com- approximately a week, during which time chang- ponents of the reindeer play roles in their ani- ing wind patterns carried them over a wide geo-

13 “2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak,” Wikipedia, last updated December 10, 2016, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_United_Kingdom_foot-and-mouth_outbreak. 14 “Post-Chernobyl disaster sheep controls lifted on last UK farms,” BBC News, June 1, 2012, http://bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-18299228. 15 Melanie Blackwell, “Effects of the Chernobyl Disaster on Sami Life,” December 2, 2003, http://laits.utexas.edu/sami/dieda/socio/chernobyl.htm. 16 Ibid. 17 Sharon Stephens, “Physical and Cultural Reproduction in a Post-Chernobyl Norwegian Sami Community,” Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995). 18 Alan Taylor, “Norway’s Radioactive Reindeer,” The Atlantic, March 1, 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/03/norways-radioactive-reindeer/471705.

21 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

graphic region. Fallout was then concentrated in affected areas. It is assumed that the increased specific locations by rainfall. In some of these lo- levels of radiation are due mainly to the fallout cations, there was careful monitoring of the fall- of cesium-137, the same isotope that caused such out19 while in other regions, most notably France, havoc with the sheep and reindeer herds. This little attention was paid to this hazard. While cumulative dose is then multiplied by the prob- most countries issued warnings about food that ability of cancer deaths due to the received dose. might be contaminated, such action was not taken immediately in France.20 Following the Cher- In this essay I have equated a dose of 2 mil- nobyl accident the Service Central de Protection lisieverts to be equal to the average background Contre les Radiations Ionisantes (SCPRI) initial- radiation or B. Because a millisievert is one thou- ly denied that the radioactive cloud had passed sandth of a sievert, a one sievert dose is equal to over France. This lack of action became a highly 500 background doses. The probability of cancer contentious issue in French politics.21 Warnings death per sievert of received dose used by Gron- were not issued to the public in France about the lund is 5.7 percent. potential hazards of consuming milk and produce that might be contaminated, thus adding to the Gronlund’s calculations result in an estimate of difficulty of evaluating the long term health im- 4,000 deaths in the contaminated areas. To this pacts resulting from Chernobyl. total, that is consistent with the Chernobyl Fo- rum’s evaluation, she estimates another 4,000 deaths among recovery operation workers, 5,000 GRONLUND’S ANALYSIS deaths from less contaminated areas of the for- Of the many analyses of the cancer deaths from mer Soviet Union, 9,000 deaths from other Eu- Chernobyl, that of Lisbeth Gronlund, a senior ropean countries, and 4,000 deaths from other scientist of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Northern Hemisphere locations outside of Eu- stands out as particularly well-reasoned and rope. The total of these deaths is equal to 26,000. comprehensive. The data and scientific concepts on which her April 2011 report is based have prov- Given that there is considerable uncertainty in en to be consistent with later studies and scien- the 5.7 percent death rate figure, Gronlund iden- tific research.22 tifies the range of deaths that would result from using a 95% confidence interval rather than a Gronlund specifically rejects the assertion of the specific rate. Her calculation for the upper and Chernobyl Forum that the impact in regions be- lower bounds that fall within that confidence in- yond the high radiation fallout locations of Rus- terval is 12,000 to 57,000. sia, Ukraine, and Belarus are too small to take into account. She states: “…by limiting its analysis to These excess deaths do not include excess thy- people with the greatest exposure to released ra- roid cancer deaths. While there were large num- diation, the report seriously underestimates the bers of thyroid cancers, the condition is treatable number of cancers and cancer deaths attribut- and the number of deaths is certainly small when able to Chernobyl. The effects of the radiation compared to the figures for solid cancer and leu- were not limited to the contaminated areas but kemia. would be felt in Europe and beyond.” Gronlund explicitly notes that areas of Asia, Africa, and the While Gronlund takes into account the uncer- Americas were contaminated by the Chernobyl tainties inherent in the calculation of excess accident. deaths due to low-level radiation, there are other uncertainties that are more difficult to assess. Gronlund uses results of international studies to For example, the extent to which flocks of sheep estimate the radiation doses received in all of the or agricultural produce in France were contami-

19 “Chernobyl Plume: Country-by-Country Summary,” RADNET, http://davistownmuseum.org/cbm/Rad7b.html. 20 P. Coles, “French suspect information on radiation levels,” Nature 329, no. 96 (1987), 475. 21 “France hid info on effects of Chernobyl cloud,” Expatica, December 15, 2005, http://expatica.com/fr/news/France-hid-info-on-effects-of-Chernobyl-cloud_134486.html. 22 Gronlund, “How Many Cancers Did Chernobyl Really Cause?—Updated Version.”

22 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

nated is not known; these are known unknowns. leading expert on nuclear issues, and M.V. Rama- It may also be the case that water resources, par- na26 of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton ticularly in Ukraine, were contaminated and nev- University. er documented. These can truly be said to be unknown unknowns. Radioactive elements that are These scientists, and others who have adopted ingested are far more dangerous than those that this approach, calculate the probability of excess only increase exposure. This occurs through el- cancer deaths due to radiation according to a lin- ements that enter food and water supplies. Such ear relationship between exposure and impact. events have undoubtedly taken place throughout This linear relationship is assumed to apply to all the Northern Hemisphere. levels of radiation from very high down to zero. This dose to impact model is known as the Linear Another increase in the projected numbers of No Threshold (LNT) model. deaths would be the impact of radioactive fallout from Chernobyl on unborn fetuses. Children There have been many criticisms of this ap- who are developing in the womb are particularly proach.27 It has been stated that detailed scientific sensitive to radiation.23 While Chernobyl-related studies are not possible below 100 millisieverts,28 in utero exposure studies have found deleterious which is equal to 50 times the background radi- radiation induced effects,24 the number of likely ation level; others have asserted that there is a deaths is small compared to the totals in Gron- radiation threshold value below which there is no lund’s analysis. damage done by radiation; and yet others have claimed that at low levels of radiation the effect These additional factors of ingested radioactivity is actually helpful rather than harmful. This last and prenatal exposure, if known, would increase hypothesis is known as the hormesis model.29 the figure of 26,000 stated by Gronlund, but are not likely to result in the estimated excess cancer Up until 2006, the most definitive study of the deaths exceeding the upper confidence interval health risks from exposure to low levels of ion- of 57,000. izing radiation was a study by the National Re- search Council known as BEIR VII – Phase 2.30 BEIR VII – Phase 2 could not definitely conclude OTHER PERSPECTIVES that the LNT was correct, but did promote the Others have adopted the approach taken by LNT model as the most plausible hypothesis Gronlund in analyzing excess cancer deaths from when considering public health issues. However, Chernobyl. Most notable are Richard Garwin,25 a BEIR VII – Phase 2 did not find support for either 2002 National Medal of Science recipient, 2016 a threshold or hormesis. Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and

23 R. H. Mole, “Childhood cancer after prenatal exposure to diagnostic X-ray examinations in Britain,” British Journal of Cancer 62 (1990), http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1971756/pdf/brjcancer00215-0160.pdf. 24 Maureen Hatch, “Health Effects of In Utero Exposure,” National Cancer Institute, National Academy of Sciences, Gil- bert W. Beebe Symposium on 30 Years After the Chernobyl Accident, November 1, 2016. 25 Richard L. Garwin, “Outside View: Chernobyl’s real toll,” UPI, April 20, 2006, http://upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2006/04/20/Outside-View-Chernobyls-real-toll/72371145562307. 26 M. V. Ramana, “Nuclear Power: Economic, Safety, Health, and Environmental Issues of Near-Term Technologies,” An- nual Review of Environment and Resources 34 (2009), http://princeton.edu/~ramana/annurev.environ.033108.092057.pdf. 27 Bill Sacks et al., “Epidemiology Without Biology: False Paradigms, Unfounded Assumptions, and Specious Statistics in Radiation Science (with Commentaries by Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake and Christopher Busby and a Reply by the Au- thors),” Biological Theory 11 (2016), http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4917595. 28 John D. Boice, “LNT 101,” Health Physics News (2015), http://remm.nlm.gov/BOICE_REPORT_No_40_LNT_FINAL_Sept_2015.pdf. 29 Rod Adams, “Dr. Edward Calabrese explains hormetic dose response model to Cato Institute,” Atomic Insights, March 21, 2013, http://atomicinsights.com/calabrese-explains-hormetic-dose-response-model-to-cato-institute. 30 “Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII – Phase 2,” National Research Council, (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2006), http://cirms.org/pdf/NAS%20BEIR%20VII%20Low%20Dose%20Exposure%20-%202006.pdf.

23 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

Edwards went on to quote BEIR VII and to note that, since it was published in 2006, there have been a number of studies that reinforce its conclusions about the correctness of the non-threshold model. Edwards endorsed the LNT model and explicitly rejected the possibility for hormesis.

While there are strong advocates for the hormesis model, with Professor Edward Calabrese33 of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst being the most prominent, there is little support in the wider scientific community for this hypothesis. It is significant that Edwards’s response posits a physical model for the efficacy of a single track of ionizing radiation in damaging critical cells in a manner that could lead to the development of cancer.

Arguments have also been put forward that the A stray dog photographed near Pripyat. effects of radiation levels below 100 millisieverts 34 During the decade that has elapsed since the are too small to measure directly and, therefore, publication of BEIR VII – Phase 2, there has been should be ignored. This notion is at odds with much discussion of these conclusions as well how other areas of science, most notably general as important new research. Of particular inter- relativity, view the reality of small disturbances est has been a review by the Nuclear Regulato- in nature. ry Commission (NRC), which has used LNT for some time as their guideline in evaluating radi- Such a counter example emerged recently when ation risks. The NRC considered changing from Einstein’s general theory of gravity was validated the LNT model to a hormesis model31 and invited through the observation of gravitational waves. public commentary on that issue. The gravitational waves were detected by an ex- traordinary optical apparatus known as the Laser In response, Jonathan D. Edwards, Director of the Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory 35 Radiation Protection Division of the U.S. Environ- (LIGO). The waves that were observed in Feb- mental Protection Agency, wrote the following ruary 2016 originated in the collision and merger (dated October 28, 2015): of two black holes in deep space. The observation of this collision proved the existence of gravita- Biophysical calculations and experiments tional waves. However, LIGO is only able to ob- demonstrate that a single track of ion- serve gravitational waves caused by the most izing radiation passing through a cell massive and energetic of the gravitational events produces complex damage sites in DNA, in the universe. In addition to black holes, events unique to radiation, the repair of which is involving neutron stars can also be observed by error-prone. Thus, no threshold for radi- LIGO. The fact that neither LIGO, nor any other ation induced mutations is expected and apparatus, can observe small gravitational waves indeed none has been observed.32 does not imply that the small gravitational waves do not exist. On the contrary, the observation of

31 “Linear No-Threshold Model and Standards for Protection Against Radiation,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission, June 16, 2015, http://nrc.gov/docs/ML1511/ML15114A292.pdf. 32 “U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Comments on Linear No-Threshold Model and Standards for Protection against Radiation,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission, October 7, 2015, http://nrc.gov/docs/ML1530/ML15301A820.pdf. 33 Adams, “Dr. Edward Calabrese explains hormetic dose response model to Cato Institute.” 34 Boice, “LNT 101.” 35 “Gravitational Waves Detected 100 Years After Einstein’s Prediction,” Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Obser- vatory, February 11, 2016, http://ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211.

24 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

the large gravitational waves, together with the people who have never smoked.36 37 In addition, it conceptual framework of Einstein’s theory, so- is a contributing factor in the deaths of anoth- lidifies belief in the existence of all gravitational er 18,000 people who are smokers. Radon is the waves. leading cause of lung cancer for nonsmokers. Its impact on deaths exceeds that caused by drunk The approach taken by Gronlund, Garwin, Ra- driving, which amounts to about 10,000 deaths mana, and others has also been criticized on the per year in the United States. While background grounds that the radiation levels to which they radiation may not cause obvious health problems are imputing such deleterious effects are of the due to irradiation to the body, background radia- order of magnitude of background radiation. The tion is clearly not benign. notion that background radiation is itself benign is without foundation. Given that about 40 per- Radon is but one of the contributing sources in cent of the population acquires some form of natural background radiation. Others include po- cancer and that 20 percent of the population dies tassium-40 and carbon-14. Low levels of potas- of cancer, it is plausible that background radia- sium-40 are found in bananas.38 Bombardment tion contributes to acquisition of these cancers. from outer space by cosmic rays are another source of natural background radiation. It is this high prevalence of cancer in public health that prevents observation of additional With the exception of lung cancer from radon ex- cancers due to specific sources such as low lev- posure, it is not possible to associate individual els of radiation from cesium-137 fallout. Howev- cancers with causal links to components of back- er, when radiation becomes internal to the body, ground radiation, but given the LNT relationship such as through ingestion from the food supply, of radiation to cancer, these links await further its effects are greatly magnified and radioactive investigation. isotopes become manifest as dangers to health.

It is worth providing perspective on enhanced THE CASE FOR LNT danger in the case of background radiation. It is In the BEIR VII – Phase 2 report it states (on page commonplace to consider background radiation 290): as inconsequential, but there is at least one man- ifestation of background radiation that has a sig- … the most promising studies for the di- nificant impact on public health: radon, a radio- rect assessment of risk at low doses and active element that occurs in nature as an inert low dose rates are those of nuclear work- gas. Radon is produced by the radioactive decay ers who have been monitored for radia- of radium and is found in rocky soil containing tion exposure through the use of person- shale, granite, uranium ore, schist, and limestone. al dosimeters. It is quite common and can accumulate in basements. As a gas, it can be inhaled and absorbed in While there have been a number of such studies, the lungs, where it undergoes radioactive decay a definitive report was published on September in which an alpha particle consisting of two pro- 9, 2015 by a team of researchers from the Unit- tons and two neutrons, is emitted. These alpha ed States and Europe, with Professor David B. particles damage cells and set the stage for lung Richardson of the University of North Carolina cancer. Radon causes about 2,900 deaths per as the lead author.39 In this cohort study, 308,297 year in the United States from lung cancer among workers in the nuclear industry from France, the

36 “Radon and Cancer,” National Cancer Institute, last modified December 6, 2011, http://cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/substances/radon/radon-fact-sheet#q4. 37 “Health Risk of Radon,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, n.d., http://epa.gov/radon/health-risk-radon. 38 “How Radioactive (In Bananas) is the Room You’re Sitting in Right Now?,” Physics Central, January 27, 2014, http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/search?q=radioactive+bananas. Radiation from bananas is miniscule. In order to cause the risk of harmful cancer by one percent, it would be necessary to eat 27 bananas every day for 100 years. 39 David B. Richardson, et al., “Risk of Cancer from occupational exposure to ionizing radiation retrospective cohort study of workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States (INWORKS),” BMJ 2015, no. 351 (October 20, 2015), http://bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h5359.

25 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists

United Kingdom, and the United States detailed monitoring data for external exposure to ion- SUMMATION izing radiation were linked to death certificate It is the thesis of this analysis that the Gronlund data. This data was acquired through 1968-2004 estimates, taken together with the recent studies in France, 1946-2001 in the United Kingdom, and of low-level radiation impact on nuclear workers, 1944-2005 in the United States. The report notes: provide a strong case for a conclusion that approximately 26,000 cancer deaths are attribut- Follow-up encompassed 8.2 million per- able to the Chernobyl accident. This is more than son years. Of 66,632 known deaths by the six times the figure quoted by UN agencies and end of the follow-up 17,957 excess solid less than 10 times that quoted by Greenpeace. cancer deaths were attributed to radia- These order of magnitude discrepancies cry out tion. for further clarification.

Excess relative rate per Gy (dose) of radiation for More than 30 years have passed since the ac- mortality from cancer was estimated. cident and Chernobyl remains the most catastrophic nuclear power event that the world has The results of this study support a Linear No experienced. As such, it is a reference that is used Threshold relationship between radiation expo- to frame ongoing discussions about energy pol- sure and excess cancer including low levels of icy. Given that nuclear power could potentially radiation. This result answered one of the major provide a path away from global warming, the objections to the BEIR VII – Phase 2 study, which consequences of how Chernobyl is perceived are was that it posited that low level doses over a formidable. The number of deaths from the acci- long period of time could be extrapolated from dent tends to short circuit thinking and provide the high level dose data from Hiroshima and Na- an oversimplified surrogate for detailed analysis. gasaki. Questions had been raised about the use of data from high-energy gamma rays from the We only need to look to Germany to find a ma- atomic explosions and their short exposure du- jor country that has eschewed the use of nuclear ration being used to predict health impact of low power. Green Party influence was significant in energy radiation exposures over long time spans. bringing about that development with their use This nuclear workers’ analysis supports the gen- of hundreds of thousands of deaths from Cher- eralizability of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki data. nobyl included in their discourse. In contrast to It is demonstrated in this nuclear workers study such claims, UN agencies of the Chernobyl Fo- that low doses over long time periods had the rum continue to cite numbers in the range of same impact as equivalent high doses over short 4,000 as the likely fatal casualties arising from time periods. the accident.41

The use of personal dosimeters to measure ex- Given that the most scientifically valid analysis posure and access to death records buttress the is approximately 10 times larger than that of the conclusion that the linear non-threshold theory Chernobyl Forum and ten times smaller than that is valid. The very large numbers of workers in- of Greenpeace, the public is placed in a quandary. volved in this study provide conclusions that have Rational decision-making in democratic societies strong statistical validity. deserves better.

While I am emphasizing the results of this French, At the time that the Chernobyl Forum published U.K., and U.S. research, 10 other studies have test- its conclusions, the press spread that point of ed the LNT theory during the decade since the view as being authoritative. On September 8, publication of BEIR VII – Phase 2.40 While none of 2005, The New York Times published an editori- the other studies are as compelling as this, they al titled, “Chernobyl’s Reduced Impact,” in which all provide support for the LNT theory. they stated that the Forum had presented, “the consensus of eight United Nations agencies, in-

40 GoddardsJournal, “Radiation Risk: LNT Model Tested,“ YouTube video, December 22, 2105, http://youtube.com/watch?v=5xYRvnCBZOM. 41 “Radiation Effects and Sources.”

26 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org

The New Safe Confinement “sarcophagus” during earlier construction. It will encase the Chernobyl nuclear reactor complex. cluding those responsible for health, the environ- Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Neth- ment and nuclear power…” The editorial went on erlands, and France. An analysis of deaths arising to say: from Chernobyl would not be complete without representation from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. In the long run, the experts predict, some 4,000 emergency workers and residents Given the biases that have been impugned to var- of the most contaminated areas may die ious international organizations, such an under- from radiation-induced cancer. That taking would enjoy maximum credibility if it were qualifies Chernobyl as a very serious acci- done under the aegis of a foundation, rather than dent but not a catastrophe.42 a governmental organization.

With wildly divergent views being expressed by 30 years is also an opportune moment to assess groups that have made up their minds both for the many other ways in which the Chernobyl di- and against nuclear power, public interest is not saster affected those regions in which radioac- served by having this 2005 editorial from The New tive fallout was deposited. Illnesses other than York Times stand alone as the guidepost for a con- cancer were activated and large swathes of land ceptual framework about Chernobyl. were made uninhabitable. Significant psycholog- ical clouds also engulfed the region. As The New The public would be well served by having a group York Times commented on the mental health con- of independent scientists review the history of sequences of Chernobyl, “People from the region the past 30 years along with the latest research are anxious and fatalistic, based upon a greatly on the impact of long-term low-level radiation exaggerated view of the risks that they face. The exposure. Issuance of an informed perspective on result can be drug and alcohol abuse, unemploy- this subject would be most welcome. Such a re- ment, and an inability to function.” view might be best done in a manner similar to the committee that was assembled by the Nation- While the history and consequences of Chernobyl al Research Council of the National Academies to are multidimensional and complex, the core num- prepare the BEIR VII – Phase 2 report, which was ber of likely deaths remains a focus of attention. an assessment of the health risks from exposure Just as the number of 2,996 has become associat- to low levels of ionizing radiation.43 That group ed with the events of 9/11, the public still awaits consisted of 18 scientists from the United States, an appropriate reference number for Chernobyl.

42 “Chernobyl’s Reduced Impact,” The New York Times, September 8, 2005, http:// nytimes.com/2005/09/08/opinion/chernobyls-reduced-impact.html. 43 “Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII – Phase 2.”

27 SUPPORT A SAFER WORLD THROUGH SCIENCE To learn how you can support FAS and future publications like the Public Interest Report, visit:

fas.org/donate

To stay up-to-date with FAS news, research, and publications, visit:

fas.org