The possibility of obtaining power from nuclear sources rests on two atomic properties: First the atoms of certain isotopes near the heavy end of the atomic scale are instable and when struck by neutrons are capable of fissioning — that is, of dividing into two roughly equal parts consisting of the nuclei of atoms in the midrange of the atomic scale. Second, atoms at the light end of the atomic scale, particularly hydrogen and its heavier isotopes deuterium and tritium, are capable of being fused under extreme temperature conditions into the heavier element helium.

In each case, a very large amount of energy is released. The energy released by a single fission of 236U amounts on the average to 3.20 X 10_1J thermal joules. The fissioning of 1 gram of this isotope releases 8.19 x 1010 joules of thermal energy, which is equivalent to the heat of combus­tion of 2.7 metric tons of coal, or to 13.7 barrels of crude oil. The energy released per fission of other heavy isotopes is substantially the same as that for 235U.

For fusion, several different reactions are possible, with slightly dif­fering amounts of energy released. For the fusion of deuterium to helium, the energy released per deuterium atom amounts to 7.94 x 10 13 joules.

At present, large power plants based on controlled fission are already in operation, and a number of others with capacities up to 1,000 mega­

watts are under construction. As yet, however, controlled steady-state fu­sion has not been achieved.

The nuclear industry developing today is based on well-established and fully understood technologies.

The reactors we are designing are inherently safe. They perform stably and are easily controlled. We have provided extensive design safety features and engineered safeguards.

Multiple searching and critical studies of reactor safety are made by completely independent teams of experts in both industry and govern­ment. Approval procedures for power reactors are stringent.

The systems provided for waste disposal are based on extremely conservative design criteria, and all existing regulations with respect to release are complied with by large margins.

In summary, we stand at the threshold of the nuclear industry. Be­cause the nuclear industry involves the use of radioactive materials and because Americans are increasingly interested in environmental consid­erations, we all turn a questioning eye toward the nuclear industry, asking, Has it been developed to be safe? I say it has.

There is an important ethical responsibility being directed to the nu­clear industry today — determining the proper design basis for nuclear power plants with respect to safety, keeping in mind proper and balanced use of the national economy and proper and ethical attention to the safety and well-being of the public. The industry has accepted that re­sponsibility.

Notwithstanding the elaborate and stringent safety regulation, the rush to nuclear power involves substantial risks to the health and safety of the public. This is so primarily because the rate of technological advance in this area is so rapid, with the result that successive generations of nu­clear power plants are being authorized before adequate experience is in hand with respect to earlier generations. Leapfrogging experience in itself involves risk because there is no substitute for experience. In the absence of an adequate base of experience,* we must entrust health and safety of the public to the hardly infallible predictive judgments of scientists and engineers and to their hardly infallible engineered gadgetry. I am not pre­dicting catastrophe; I am stating only that there are substantial risks which must be weighed more carefully and more explicitly than is the case today. That substantial risks exist is scarcely even debatable so long as the Price — Anderson Act is law and industry requires its protection, f We could all feel much more comfortable about the risk if the Price-Anderson Act were repealed, since then industry would have to reckon explicitly with the costs of potential liability in making its nuclear power decisions, assuming the same risks it forces the public to assume.

Some critics of the aec have suggested that the vice in the present nu­clear power licensing process lies in the fact that the aec has a conflict of interest: it has a mandate simultaneously to promote nuclear technology and to regulate that technology in the interest of the health and safety of * When the Price-Anderson Act was originally enacted in 1957, it applied to only a 10-year period in the hope that by 1967 “there will be enough experience gained so that the problems of reactor safety will be to a great extent solved. . .” (H. R. Rep. No. 435, 85tb Cong., 1st Sess., 9 [1957]). In 1965, the Act was extended for a second 10-year period because “the potential threat of public liability. . . based as it is on a lack of sufficient operating experience to form an adequate judgment of risk” was as great a deterrent to private investment in nuclear power as it was in 1957 (H. R. Rep. No. 883, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. 11 [1965]).

t Even though we are told that “expert opinion holds that this indemnity [Price-An­derson] will never be utilized” because of the exceedingly remote possibility of an accident (ibid., at 8), the fact remains that countless hours and untold energy are expended by the aec, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, and the nuclear in­dustry in amending the Price-Anderson Act to add elaborate and exquisite devices for enhancing the financial protection of the public against the contingency of such an accident.

the public. The conflict of interest is surely present, but my own opinion is that the aec regulatory staff calls the shots as it sees them and is not un­duly influenced by any promotional considerations. In my view, the prob­lems I have been discussing would exist even if the aec regulatory and li­censing program were completely separated by transfer to a wholly inde­pendent agency. The real vice, as I see it, lies in the assumption that scien­tists and engineers are omniscient and possess almost infinite capacity to solve problems and to permanently fix leaky faucets. Our society has per­mitted these experts to play God: to assess benefits, to define risks, and to determine what risks the public must assume, cheerfully, just as it pays taxes, in exchange for benefits which the experts think the public should have. What is more, under the carefully nurtured myth that judgments about nuclear safety can be soundly made only by these experts, we have permitted these experts to decide these risk/benefit questions largely be­hind closed doors and in the esoteric, obfuscatory jargon of their disci­plines. Almost forty years ago, Harold J. Laski discussed the limitations of the expert in the formulation of policy in an increasingly complex world. In Laski’s view, it is indispensable for wise resolution of social problems that the content of these problems be formulated by experts and that experts be consulted at every stage of the policy-making process. He argued, however, against making the expert’s judgment final because: “. . . special knowledge and the highly trained mind produce their own limitations which, in the realm of statesmanship, are of decisive impor­tance. Expertise, it may be argued, sacrifices the insight of common sense to intensity of experience. It breeds an inability to accept new views from the very depth of its preoccupation with its own conclusions. It too often fails to see round its subject. It sees its results out of perspective by mak­ing them the center of relevance to which all other results must be related. Too often, also, it lacks humility; and this breeds in its possessors a failure in proportion which makes them fail to see the obvious which is before their very noses. It has, also, a certain caste-spirit about it, so that experts tend to neglect all evidence which does not come from those who belong to their own ranks. Above all, perhaps, and this most urgently where hu­man problems are concerned, the expert fails to see that every judgment he makes not purely factual in nature brings with it a scheme of values which has no special validity about it. He tends to confuse the importance of his facts with the importance of what he proposes to do about them.” (“The Limitations of the Expert,” Harper’s Magazine, 132 [December 1930], 47.)

Perhaps this is an appropriate role for experts to play in our complex society. My concern is not so much that experts make these determina­tions, but rather that the public does not know enough about the problems with which they deal or their processes of making the judgments to know whether or not what they are doing is really in the public interest. What is needed is to drag the entire process out into the open so that the public will have a full opportunity to comprehend the risks and the benefits. The establishment tells us that the licensing process takes place today in a goldfish bowl. Perhaps this is true, but the bowl is opaque, with vision per­mitted only through the opening at the top. Somehow the means must be found to compel the experts to deal with these problems in a more com­mon, less rarefied atmosphere and in a vocabulary more easily translated into the language of ordinary political discourse. This can be accom­plished by injecting into the aec licensing process a healthy dose of con­troversy and adverseness. This is easy enough to state, but it is more diffi­cult to state where the adversaries may be found. This might be done by having the aec regulatory staff assume more of an adversary role and/or by making meaningful interventions more feasible. In addition, perhaps state governments ought to play a more critical, skeptical, and active role in aec licensing cases than they have in the past. In this connection, the present litigation involving the newly established Minnesota radiation standards applicable to the Northern States Power Company’s proposed Monticello nuclear power plant is a healthy and constructive development in that it focuses attention on a problem heretofore largely ignored.

Finally, it is worth noting that a new technology normally develops in response to market forces. The market provides a system of incentives and restraints which governs the rate of technological development. Where a technology involves health and safety risks, these risks are translated in­to costs by the firm, and the technology will not be developed and intro­duced unless there is a demand for the technology’s products at a price which fully covers the costs. In effect, the public votes with its dollars whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Nuclear power technology is not developing within the market system, but in spite of it. The technology came into being as a result of governmental investment and is growing as a consequence of governmental support. Its hazards to the health and safety of the public are not reflected in its costs because of the exculpatory effect of the Price-Anderson Act. Since the absence of market restraints deprives the public of the opportunity to vote with its dollars on the ques­tion of risks versus benefits, the public can participate in the risk/benefit determination only through its vote at the polls. The public is entitled to this vote and to the maximum feasible articulation of the risk/benefit problem in the political arena. This can come about only when and if nu­clear power ceases to be a noncontroversial, nonpartisan sacred preserve in which the risk/benefit calculus is regarded as a scientific exercise rather than as the sociopolitical issue which it in fact is. I readily concede that this may well lead to “unfounded” public apprehension and may retard nu­clear power development. But why, in a democracy, should the public not have the full opportunity to decide for itself, rationally or irrationally, what benefits it wants and what price it is willing to pay?

One of the environmental aspects of steam electric plants that is now receiving considerable attention is thermal effects — a term describing the impact that heated water from power plants can have on rivers, lakes, es­tuaries, or other bodies of water. Perhaps because today’s nuclear plants have to dispose of somewhat more heat to the environment than modem fossil fuel plants of the same generating capacity, there is a tendency to associate thermal effects with nuclear plants only. This is an erroneous impression, however, since both types of plants must reject sizable por­tions of the heat they produce to the environment.

Contrary to many statements which have been made, thermal effects are not necessarily bad in all situations. The effects may be detrimental, beneficial, or insignificant, depending on many factors — such as the man­ner in which the heated water is returned to the source water, the amount of source water available, the ecology of the source water, and its desired use. Certainly, warm water should not be considered a pollutant in the same sense as industrial wastes and municipal sewage.

The method of disposing of the heat rejected by the power plant will depend on both economic and environmental factors. In some situations, cooling methods other than the usual once-through method may be em­ployed in disposing of the waste heat. Artificial ponds can be constructed to provide a source of cooling water for continuous recirculation through the plant. Cooling towers can be used in other instances. Combinations of cooling methods can also be used effectively in many situations. For example, Virginia Electric and Power Company plans to use a manmade cooling lake of some 15 square miles at its North Anna Nuclear Power Station. The lake is expected to be a prime recreational area. This plan has been well received and approved by the Commonwealth of Virginia Water Control Board.

Although we have no legal authority to regulate utilities with respect to thermal effects, we do take positive measures to help control them. We have a cooperative agreement with the Department of Interior under which the Department reviews each application to build a nuclear power plant. Its recommendations on thermal effects are sent to the applicant, and we urge the applicant to cooperate with appropriate state and federal agencies. We have also testified in support of legislation now before Con­gress which would provide for the state certification to the aec of utility compliance with state water quality standards.

The large increase in the number of nuclear power plants has resulted in the location of more than one reactor at several sites. In addition, some reactor sites are planned to be sufficiently close together so that many will share the same air, water, and terrestrial environment. This trend could create a potential environmental problem for an area or region. These fac­tors must now be considered in establishing both Bureau and state health agency environmental surveillance activities, so that the radioactivity that might result from nuclear power sources can be evaluated over relatively large geographical areas. Such evaluations must consider the long-term buildup of radioactivity in the aquatic environment, including the recon­centration phenomena in biological media that might result in population exposure. Multiple reactor sites also present regulatory problems relative to the establishment of radioactive effluent discharge limits. These limits will have to be developed carefully from the best available information on the many environmental aspects that influence possible population expo­sure to assure that the total dose to the population from multiple reactor sources is within acceptable limits based on Federal Radiation Council guidance.

Summary

An analysis of data from operating nuclear plants has shown that discharges of radioactive wastes have been small percentages of AEC regu­latory limits and have resulted in minimal or undetectable radiation ex­posure for the population. Studies carried out to date by the Bureau of Radiological Health have tended to confirm this to be the case. If good waste management practices are carefully followed by reactor plant oper­ators, the resulting radiation exposures for the public should continue to be extremely low. However, the existence of multiple reactor sites and areas containing several sites will require that monitoring programs be de­signed to consider the possibility of radiation effects from a large number of nuclear power sources.

Because of the large number of nuclear plants which will ultimately require surveillance programs, efforts are being made by the Bureau to re­evaluate recommendations for environmental surveillance programs for maximum effectiveness. Results of field studies conducted thus far indi­cate that a minimum surveillance program as previously described will satisfy public health requirements if the effluents are well defined and if the critical radionuclides in the effluents and pathways to the population are clearly identified. There is a need to consider the development of a co­ordinated nationwide surveillance program that will provide data based on specific radionuclide identification which can be used to periodically evaluate the public’s exposure to radiation. This exposure forms the basis for all radiation standards that have been developed by the world’s knowl­edgeable scientific community.

The Bureau of Radiological Health will continue to carry out its re­sponsibility for evaluating the environmental levels of radioactivity through nationwide surveillance programs, technical assistance to states, research and development activities, and the analysis of environmental ra­diation data from all sources. This function is currently being strengthened to ensure an adequate evaluation of the impact of the growing nuclear power industry on radiation levels in the environment and the continued protection of public health.

REFERENCES

Blomeke, J. O., & F. E. Harrington. Management of radioactive wastes at nuclear power stations, aec Report ORNL-4070, 1968.

Brinck, W. L., E. D. Harward, & R. I. Chissler. Programs for environmental sur­veillance around nuclear power plants. Proceedings of Health Physics Society Symposium on Environmental Surveillance in the Vicinity of Nuclear Facili­ties, Augusta, Georgia, January 24-26, 1968.

Nuclear Facilities Branch, Division of Environmental Radiation, Bureau of Ra­diological Health, Public Health Service. Summary of state and facility con­ducted environmental surveillance programs around selected nuclear facilities in the United States. NFB-69-16, September 1969.

Peterson, H. T., J. E. Martin, C. L. Weaver, & E. D. Harward. Environmental tritium contamination from increasing utilization of nuclear energy sources. Proceedings of iaea—fao Seminar on Agricultural and Public Health Aspects of Environmental Contamination by Radioactive Materials, Vienna, Austria, March 24-28, 1969.

Radiological Engineering Laboratory, Division of Environmental Radiation, Bu­reau of Radiological Health, Public Health Service. Radioactivity studies at a boiling water reactor. BRH/DER-69-2, Fall 1969.

——- . Radioactivity studies at a pressurized water reactor. Fall 1970.

Ray, J. W. Tritium in power reactors. Reactor and Fuel-Processing Technology, 1968-1969, 12, No. 1 (Winter).

Terrill, J. G., Jr., C. L. Weaver, E. D. Harward, & D. R. Smith. Environmental surveillance of nuclear facilities. Nuclear Safety, 1968, 9, No. 2 (March — April).

Weaver, C. L., & E. D. Harward. Surveillance of nuclear power reactors. Public Health Reports, 1967, 82, No. 10 (October).

——- & H. T. Peterson. Tritium in the environment from nuclear power plants.

Public Health Reports, 1969, 84, No. 4 (April).

The fossil fuels comprise the coal family — coal, lignite, and peat — and the petroleum family — crude oil, natural-gas liquids, natural gas, tar — sand deposits, and oil shales (see Figs. 1-16).

Coal is reported to have been used to a limited extent by the ancient Chinese, and by the Romans during their occupation of the British Isles. It was not until about the twelfth century, however, that the mining of coal as a continuous enterprise was begun near Newcastle in northeast England. Until the beginning of the eighteenth century, coal was used al­most exclusively for heating. Then, shortly after 1700, the use of coal was extended to the production of power by the development of the steam en­gine. The first use of steam power was for the pumping of water. Then fol­lowed the use of the steam engine to drive industrial machinery, by steam locomotives and steam-driven ships, and eventually, about 1880, by steam-powered central electric power plants.

Also, about the middle of the eighteenth century it was found possi­ble to use coal to supplant charcoal for the smelting of metals, particularly iron. Subsequently, this use of coal has become so large that during the last century in the heavily industrialized areas the curves of coal consump­tion and of iron production are barely distinguishable from each other.

In Romania in 1857 and in the United States in 1859, the use of the second major class of fossil fuels, petroleum, was initiated. Since that time, owing in large measure to the development of the internal-combus­tion engine, the production and consumption of oil and gas have increased spectacularly. In fact, half a century ago only a small fraction of the total industrial energy was supplied by oil and gas, whereas now the fraction has risen to about three-quarters in the United States, and to somewhat more than half for the world as a whole.

There are various basic power reactor concepts under consideration in the United States today. There are the light water moderated reactors, the high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, and the sodium-cooled reactors, to name just three. Of these, only the water reactors have reached the

stage where many units are being built and operated. For this reason, I shall confine my examples to this concept, although many of my com­ments will apply equally well to the other reactor concepts.

Within the light water reactor concept, there are two major design approaches — pressurized water reactors (pwr) and boiling water reac­tors (bwr). Since most of the considerations relevant to this volume are, in general, applicable to both design approaches and since I have spent the last ten years associated with bwr’s (although the four years before that were with pwr’s), I shall speak about the bwr; most of my remarks will be equally applicable to the pwr design and, for that matter, to all the principal reactor types.

Doses of 5-100 rads are conceivable in the event of an accidental and large release of fission products or reactor fuel because of failure of fuel element cladding, stack effluent filter systems, liquid effluent release and treatment systems, and so forth. Prevention of such events is the stock in trade of the reactor engineer.

Biological effects of such exposures would not ordinarily result in acute illness, but long-term sequelae such as those described above must be considered. Only a few of the fission products will actually remain for long in the environment because of the short half-lives of many. Also the dispersal will be rapid. Thus, the numbers of individuals potentially ex­posed is much smaller than in a major catastrophic event. However, the probability of these lower level releases is somewhat higher than the major release in a catastrophic event.

The probability of biological effects at doses in the range 5-100 rads is dependent on the system involved. Reference to the summary on page 93 shows that effects are almost certain at the upper end of this range. They become less likely at the lower end of the range, almost zero for any early changes but finite for longer-term delayed effects. Interest here centers on the possibility of the induction of leukemia, thyroid cancer if there were deposition of iodine isotopes in the thyroid, other cancers, and nonspecific shortening of the life-span. (Incidence rates per rad are given below.)

In this kind of exposure new factors enter. The primary source of exposure is unlikely to be cloud passage or even an external radiation dose. The primary sources of radiation dose will be radioisotopes ingested or inhaled which deposit in the tissues of the body according to their chemical properties and are eliminated from the body by excretion in urine and/or feces and in rare instances by the breath. Also, the trans­mission to man may be in part indirect, in that the nuclides frequently pass through one or many steps in the ecosystem before reaching man. The estimate of dose to man from a given release thus requires much more information than in the first type of exposure. It requires knowledge of environmental vectors of the physical and chemical state of the element and its compounds, and much information on metabolism of radio­nuclides. For much of this we rely on data from animals and from model systems.

LOW-LEVEL EXPOSURES IN ROUTINE OPERATIONS
OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

Here the radiation doses, if received at all, are very low indeed. Standards should assure that any risk to the individual would be an acceptable one. The potential somatic injuries are leukemia, other ma­lignancies, nonspecific shortening of the life-span, cataracts, and so on. These are entirely statistical matters, in that the radiation-induced cases are in addition to and also usually many fewer than the normal incidence rate. However, they may fall in the category of nonthreshold in incidence as related to dose, and the dose-response relation may be linear. Because of this, the assumption is made that any radiation dose above ambient background produces some effect statistically.

To avoid repetition of other papers in this volume, I shall now turn directly to the matter of risk estimates. For this I shall follow primarily the figures arrived at in icrp Publication 8 (1966) with some modifica­tions prompted by more recent considerations. These risks can be put as numbers of additional cases of a given biological effect in a million ex­posed individuals from a dose averaging 1 rad. Thus, a risk is assumed of about one additional case of leukemia per rad dose received per year per million individuals exposed, with total additional incidence per rad in 10-20 years at about 20 additional cases per million of population; the normal incidence is from 60 to about 120 cases per million per year. The addition per rad per year is thus about 1 per cent (0.83-1.7 per cent) and of the same order but with a wider range over 10-20 years. Note that this implies that every individual of the million receives 1 rad — or that the population dose averages to this.*

Since all population doses are limited to an average of 0.17 rad (icrp standard), the mean risk is 0.17 additional cases of leukemia per million persons exposed per year or 0.17/120 = 0.0014, about a 0.15 per cent increase per year. This comes to about 7-10 new cases during the usual life-span (c. 70 years) of the exposed million individuals. There is no way this addition could be specifically identified as arising from radia­tion exposure, of course. This may be small comfort for the individual who happens to be an “extra” case, but it means that specific identification of causality in a given case is not possible.

Thyroid neoplasia is known to increase at the rate of about one extra *Note also that the eventual number of cases is from the million receiving 1 rad/yr, not from those receiving continuing exposure.

case per million exposed individuals per rad dose per year. Since this is much less likely to be fatal in its outcome than is leukemia, the total risk is less serious even though the incidence rates are about the same as those for increased leukemia incidence. Other forms of cancer may likewise be increased at incidence rates about the same as those noted, but the data are not yet fully evaluated. Because of differences in normal incidence rates, the calculated percentages change per rad may vary rather widely and be as much as 50-100 per cent for a rare disease such as bone sar­coma. This will be considered further below.

Nonspecific life-span shortening in man has not been proved to occur under the circumstances of this discussion, although possibly life short­ening is a “no-threshold” response.

It would be well here to consider one or two specifics concerning the potential effects of small amounts of radioisotopes entering the environ­ment around a reactor. These are the fission products and radioisotopes produced by neutron activation of nuclides in cooling water, air, and so on. Some of them localize specifically in certain tissues as strontium does in bone. Given the deposition of this radionuclide and its long-term retention in bone, there is a chance of induction of bone sarcoma. On the basis of experience with radium, the incidence might increase on the order of 4 cases per year per million exposures per rad dose to the cells lining the bone surfaces. This is against a background of about 4-7 cases arising per year per million population.

The likelihood of strontium’s entering the environment from reactors of the type currently employed for power generation is much lower than that of some other nuclides which are not bone seekers. For this reason and because the small likelihood of having a million individuals carrying strontium burdens sufficient to produce a dose of 1 rad per year to the cells lining bone, I believe that the risk of bone sarcoma from operations of nuclear power plants is smaller than that for some other nuclides where increased risk of soft tissue tumors is at issue.

In considering population exposures we must recognize, even for somatic effects, the greater sensitivity to radiation of the very young, in­cluding the developing embryo. Radiation received in utero is probably about five times as likely to produce leukemia per rad sis in the adult. Other malignancies may be similarly related to age. This probably does more to set a minimum in the population dose than any other somatic risk.

Of the several hundred isotopes of the naturally occurring ninety-two chemical elements, only one, 235U, is capable of being fissioned. However, when 23SU or 232Th is subjected to neutron bombardment inside a nuclear reactor fired by 235U, these, after several nuclear transformations, end up as 289Pu and 233U, respectively. Both of the latter are fissionable. The iso­topes 235U, 289Pu, and 23SU are known accordingly as fissile isotopes. 238U and 232Th, which are not themselves fissile but are capable of being trans­formed into fissile isotopes, are said to be fertile materials.

Since the isotope 235U is the only naturally occurring fissile material, it follows that this isotope must be the initial fuel for any fission-power de­velopment. The source of 235U is natural uranium, which consists of the three isotopes, 23SU, 235U, and 234U, occurring in the fixed abundances of 99.238, 0.711, and 0.006 per cent, respectively. Since the abundance of 234U is negligible, natural uranium may be considered to consist of 238U and 236U in the ratio of 140 to 1.

In reactor technology, varying amounts of 238U or of 232Th may be converted into fissile isotopes which can be added to the initial fuel supply of 235U. The amount of this conversion is expressed by the conversion factor К defined by K — Q/Qo, where Q„ is the initial amount of fissile material contained in the reactor and its auxiliary equipment, and Q is the amount of fissile material remaining after the amount Q0 has been consumed. When К = 0, the reactor is said to be a burner; when 0 <K< 1, it is a con­verter; finally, when jK> 1, the reactor is a breeder.

Of these three types of reactors, the first two eventually exhaust any given initial amount of fissile material, and are capable of consuming only a fraction of the available fertile material. The breeder, however, is capa­ble of increasing the initial supply of fissile material at the expense of the fertile materials, and so is capable of completely consuming the latter. For this reason, only breeder reactors merit serious consideration in any long­term program of nuclear-fission power.

Historically, the first controlled fission reaction was that achieved at the University of Chicago on December 2, 1945. The first nuclear electric power was produced in 1951, and the first large-size nuclear power plant — that at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, with an initial capacity of 60 mega­watts—began operation in 1957. Since that time, nuclear power plants have been built in increasing sizes and numbers until by 1966 their total power capacity in the United States amounted to 1,800 megawatts. Re­cently it has been estimated by the Atomic Energy Commission that nu­clear power will reach 145,000 megawatts by 1980.

This would correspond to growth rate of 31 per cent per year, with a doubling period of but 2.4 years. For comparison, the total installed electric-power capacity in the United States in 1966 amounted to 233,000 megawatts, and this is estimated to increase at a rate of 6.5 per cent per year, to a figure of 579,000 megawatts by 1980.

isbin. A number of written questions have been submitted to me by members of the audience; I shall draw them randomly.

audience. Would you like to estimate how much the nuclear in­dustry should pay for public safety, knowing that very few other industries pay anything at all?

bray. Well, I can attempt a partial response from my experience, taking as an example a power reactor. There are millions of dollars in­vested in the construction of a power plant. In addition, the amount paid for safety is definitely in the millions of dollars per plant. Many millions are spent providing accident preventatives such as selection of inherent safeguards; selection of applied safety, preventative systems; provision of safeguards; and provision of containment.

The second category in which payment for safety is quite large is, of course, in the normal release area. Again, millions of dollars have been spent on systems not only to meet regulations, but to bring the releases below regulations in the interest of safety. Just how that cost converts to rates, of course, depends upon the finances of a particular utility.

audience. What are the additional costs for more stringent control devices to reduce radioactivity in the water emission and for complete radiator cooling power systems in nuclear plants, both in additional capital investment and kilowatt-hour costs to the consumers? Are these additional capital inputs sufficient to make nuclear power more costly than fossil fuel power?

bray. There are techniques for more stringent control, similar to those used today to bring the liquid and gaseous releases below limits. For instance, in the holdup system the long pipes might be made longer — increasing the cost of the initial system. The main question one asks is, What is the goal? Every one of us is receiving anywhere from 200 to 500 or more mrem per year (see list on p. 20). From a nuclear power plant there would be some 5 mrem per year in gaseous wastes. Does it make sense to concentrate on bringing 410 mrem per year down to 400? Might it not be a more fruitful and more effective use of the national economy to attempt to diminish some of the other contributory sources of radiation—such as the 45 mrem in newly constructed houses, the amount and strength of medical X rays, or some other areas? Large sums might be spent in those areas to better effect. At this point in the nuclear industry, large sums and much effort are directed at the last minor radia­tion released; the effectiveness of such expenditures becomes questionable. For instance, when an engineer sizes a holdup system for protection from radiation, he makes the duration long enough to allow some of the active isotopes to die; doubling the length of time for holdup of the gaseous release doubles the cost.

The use of radiator cooling calls for towers or other such devices. These certainly would increase the cost of a power plant — any of these large structures always ends up in the millions column of a cost sheet. Whether this makes nuclear power more expensive than fossil power depends on many other factors. Across the country today, there are areas where fossil fuel plants are less, equally, or more expensive than nuclear plants. When the cost of a nuclear power plant is increased in the millions columns, it could easily become more expensive than fossil fuel plants in certain areas and still be less expensive in others.

audience. You did not deal at all with the question of ultimate dis­posal of high activity wastes — what happens to them in, say, 100 years. Also, how can you justify the problem of multiple consecutive reuse of the same water for numerous plants on a particular river?

bray. I mentioned briefly in my paper that the solid wastes are drawn out of the liquid gaseous wastes and stored on site in barrels and then, under very strict regulations, are transported to aec disposal facilities. These facilities, of course, meet stringent requirements, as do the power reactors. With respect to multiple reuse, the important point is that any power plant, independent of where it is and what its water sources are, must meet the same stringent requirements as any other power plant, be it upstream, downstream, or on another river. Again, our attitude toward it is one of proper concern about safety.

isbin. Would this mean that multiple reactors at stations nearby would have no effect on a particular plant?

bray. No. If there were an effect at all, the system would have to be designed to comply with all the appropriate existing regulations, whether there were one plant or two plants or many plants nearby, whether they were 200-megawatt plants or 800-megawatt plants.

audience. How are aec long-range standards actually determined? zabel. It is always difficult to answer a question about standards because there are standards and codes; sometimes these two are mixed up, so I’m not sure which you are talking about. A standard is often referred to as an element for maintaining conformity or compatibility; it sets some­thing that is interchangeable. A code is that which is designed, something to be acceptable. I don’t know which one you mean here. If it’s a code, the code is determined primarily by a “codes group,” which represents the nuclear industry in the aec and standard code groups within the country. The group works at the aec, sometimes with the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, in an attempt to take a rational approach to a code. If you’re speaking of a standard — a radiation standard, for instance — there are international groups that deliberate the problem and make a judgment. They collect data accumulated over many years, evaluate it, and set what they believe to be a standard of radioactive material con­centration. The decision is followed up over the years to determine its validity. Setting standards is a lifetime work and a professional occupation.

audience. What specific attention is given to the possibility that a senior operator or supervisor might become mentally unbalanced and use his knowledge and accessibility to vital components to bypass engineered safety features and create an accident endangering public safety?

bray. Utilities have an excellent screening system for the selection of operators, especially in nuclear power plants. Secondly, no operator is alone. He works with senior operators, shift superintendents, or whatever the particular utility would call them. Also, the continuity of the design of these systems makes it unlikely that any operator could make all these automatic safety systems not work at the same time. There are so many automatic systems set to shut the reactor down that an operator generally finds himself busy keeping the reactor going.