The environmental crisis which faces us today is well known to anyone who reads the papers, watches television, or listens to the radio. We hear of dying Lake Erie, a threatened Everglades Swamp, Los Angeles smog, polluted rivers, dying forests, and growing mountains of man’s garbage. And we as a nation are becoming concerned — properly concerned — with these things. After decades of apathy Americans are beginning to take more positive actions on environmental problems.

Visible national concern and action on these problems began early in the Kennedy administration. At that time they focused on such pollu­tants as chemical wastes and sewage in streams, and smog and smoke in the air. Indeed, it was the problem of smoke pollution which gave a boost to nuclear power in the 1962-1965 era. Thus, it is more than a little ironi­cal to find nuclear power the current target of adverse criticism as we strive to apply it in the struggle for a cleaner environment.

It is unfortunate that in our new-found concern for the environment we frequently overlook another crisis which is almost upon us — that of meeting this nation’s accelerating needs for energy. The warning signals are readily discernible: the great Northeast blackout of 1965, power shortages in New York during this past summer of 1969, and requests in our nation’s capital for voluntary curtailment of power usage. Those close to the problems of power generation believe we may have only seen a por­tion of the iceberg.

Energy is among man’s most important needs. Without it industrial society would be impossible. Although abundant and low-cost energy is not the only key to a nation’s progress and well-being, it certainly plays an important part. This is particularly true today, when almost every facet of modern life involves increasing energy demands. This nation’s ever-in-

creasing dependence on energy is illustrated by the fact that energy con­sumption in the United States in the year 2000 will be almost 2Vi times the 1965 level. The consumption of electricity is expected to increase over sixfold between now and the end of the century.

This means, quite simply, that more generating plants must be built. In the Midwest alone, a report recently submitted to the Federal Power Commission projected that electric utilities in eight West Central states (including Minnesota) must expand their generating capacity almost 5Vz times over 1965 levels to meet 1990 demands (West Central Regional Advisory Committee, 1969). To meet the mounting power need there is no choice but to rely almost entirely on plants which use steam to drive the turbine-electric generators. We can no longer look to hydroelectric power for much additional help, except for some pumped storage projects, because most of the good hydro sites have already been developed. More­over, steam-electric power plants, whether nuclear — or fossil-fired (that is coal-, oil-, or gas-fueled), are the most effective devices for producing electricity in the large blocks that are needed. Yet the utility companies, whether privately or publicly owned, are encountering increasing opposi­tion on environmental grounds in many areas where they seek to build the needed additional capacity. The opposition is not confined to nuclear plants.

Our vital dependence on energy and on electric power appears to be minimized or forgotten in too many of the discussions of environmental problems. The preoccupation of many is to resist any changes or develop­ments that would alter the natural environment. And this brings the two crises — environmental and energy — together and brings me to my theme: in matters related to the environment, we must consider both the risks in­volved and the benefits to be gained.

This must be done in an orderly way, balancing the benefits and risks early in the planning process, so as to avoid conflicts and crises at a later stage. As I said in testimony before the Muskie Subcommittee in the Senate: “It seems to me that the public interest requires a balancing of all of the factors associated with the establishment of large power plants of whatever type: nuclear, coal, oil, gas, or hydro. While the impact of such plants on our waters is a significant aspect of the total picture, the prob­lem of thermal effects is, of course, an energy problem, and not one which is unique to nuclear power. Other aspects of the picture deserve consid­eration too. I have in mind such matters as air pollution, aesthetics, eco­nomic development and the need for electric power, and, of special impor­tance with regard to nuclear plants, radiological safety.” (Ramey, March 3,1969.)

In developing a balanced approach to meeting power needs, the benefits of nuclear power must be taken into account. The economic ad­vantages are becoming known; they include the following: Nuclear power provides competition to other energy sources — competition which bene­fits the consumer by keeping power costs and rates down. Nuclear power costs do not vary appreciably with location — a fact of considerable con­sequence to regions which are distant from fuel sources. The use of nu­clear power will decrease the burden on the nation’s transportation sys­tems. The unit costs of nuclear plants decrease more rapidly with in­creased size than unit costs of other plants. This characteristic is impor­tant since the general trend is toward larger and larger electric power plants. Nuclear energy has considerable potential for improved operating economics.

In addition to those economic advantages, nuclear power has envi­ronmental and conservation advantages which are less well known. These include: Nuclear power is produced without releasing combustion prod­ucts to the atmosphere and thus contributes substantially in the fight for clean air. Nuclear plants have an aesthetically attractive appearance and in many instances provide opportunities for recreational activities in areas surrounding them. The use of nuclear power will help conserve fossil fuels for purposes for which they are especially suited — such as raw materials for producing chemicals, rubber, and plastics.

This country has been blessed with abundant energy resources. We still possess substantial amounts of fossil fuels, particularly coal. Never­theless, our supplies of fossil fuels are not unlimited and future genera­tions wifi need them even more than we do. The amount of energy in nu­clear fuel resources is many hundreds of times that of the most optimistic estimates of fossil fuel reserves. By using advanced reactors — the breeders — we can use essentially all of the uranium and thorium in nature and thus supply as much energy as this country can use for many centuries to come. This is due to the relative insensitivity of breeders to the price of raw ma­terials. In fact, uranium and thorium in only trace amounts, as in granite rocks, can be considered part of economical ore reserves, which thus be­come almost limitless (“Energy R&D and National Progress: Findings and Conclusions,” September 1966).

The energy of the atom also can be devoted to other purposes such as desalting seawater. The conjunction of two new technologies — nuclear power and desalting — adds a vast new dimension to man’s search for en­ergy and water. Large dual-purpose nuclear plants will enable us to take

advantage of both the atom as a resource for energy and the ocean as a re­source from which to obtain fresh water.

We also can envision nuclear energy centers surrounded by industrial or agro-industrial complexes utilizing the cheap energy. Such a grouping might include interrelated industrial processes for the production of fer­tilizers, aluminum, phosphorus, caustic-chlorine, and ammonia. The com­plex could also include large-scale desalting of seawater for highly intensi­fied irrigated agriculture. The availability of cheap energy would also make attractive the benefication of low-grade ores, such as some of the iron ores in Minnesota.

The growing use of nuclear power for electrical generating plants has re­sulted in both state and federal public health agencies’ increasing their program efforts in the surveillance of nuclear power plants and other nu­clear facilities. Health agencies must take such measures in order to carry out radiological health programs needed to assure the continued protec­tion of the public and to respond to public inquiries concerning possible radiological hazards associated with the operation of these facilities. Cur­rent state and operator surveillance programs for nuclear power plants are described in two reports (Brinck et al., 1968; Nuclear Facilities Branch, Division of Environmental Radiation, 1969).

The Environmental Health Service (ehs), as one of the principal health agencies within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, has the responsibility of providing assistance and guidance to state health agencies on matters pertaining to environmental health, including radio­logical health. It also conducts extensive research and development pro­grams in order to advance the level of scientific knowledge of the physi­cal, chemical, and biological aspects of the interaction between man and his environment, ehs comprises three operating bureaus and the National Air Pollution Control Administration.

The Bureau of Radiological Health has been established within the ehs as the focal point for radiological health activities within the Public Health Service. The Bureau’s Division of Environmental Radiation has been assigned the responsibility for the technical review and evaluation of the public health factors of all kinds of nuclear facilities; in addition, the Division provides technical assistance to state health departments respon­sible for assessing radiation levels in the environment. This technical re­

view procedure was initiated in 1961, based on an interagency agreement between the Atomic Energy Commission (aec) and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. This agreement established the mecha­nism whereby the aec’s Division of Reactor Licensing provides to the Di­vision of Environmental Radiation copies of the design safety analysis re­ports, and amendments thereto, submitted by the various applicants pro­posing to build and operate nuclear facilities. The Nuclear Facilities Branch within the Division of Environmental Radiation evaluates these reports from a public health viewpoint, and submits findings and recom­mendations to the state health agency responsible for the environmental health aspects of the plant. This evaluation procedure closely follows the aec licensing timetable throughout. Emphasis is placed on delineating the state health departments’ radiological health program requirements rela­tive to the facility and providing information and technical assistance to assist the departments in meeting their responsibilities. During the course of these evaluations, specific environmental problems may be identified that require field investigations in order to answer more fully questions significant to a radiological health program. These areas of study normally relate either to the concentration and distribution of radioactivity in the environment or to an evaluation of population exposure resulting from operation of nuclear power reactors.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (mpca) permit in the case of the Monticello nuclear generating station issued to Northern States Power Company was prepared by the mpca’s consultant, Dr. E. C. Tsivoglou, pur­suant to a long report on Monticello previously submitted by him to the mpca.

Dr. Tsivoglou sent a copy of his report to the International Commission on Radiological Protection (see p. 148 above for a description of icrp), the publications of which were referred to extensively in the report. Dr. F. D. Sowby, secretary of the icrp, sent Tsivoglou’s report to Mr. H. J. Dunster for review. Mr. Dunster is Deputy Division Head of the Radiological Protection Division, Health and Safety Branch, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Au­thority at Harwell, England. He is a member of the icrp’s Committee 4, on ap­plication of icrp recommendations, and chaired the icrp task group that pre­pared icrp Publication 7, Principles of Environmental Monitoring Related to the Handling of Radioactive Materials.

Mr. Dunster commented on the report in a letter to Dr. Tsivoglou. In a separate letter to Dr. Lester R. Rogers, Deputy Director of the AEC’s Division of Radiation Protection Standards, dated August 20, 1969, Mr. Dunster indi­cated that he expressed his views to Dr. Tsivoglou in his capacity as chairman of the task group for icrp Publication 7 and added with respect to his letter to Tsivoglou: “Lest you should think that some of this criticism might equally be aimed at the aec, particularly in respect of concentration limits, I should add that I recognise the legislative difficulties of establishing discharge rate limits in individual cases in a country as large as the United States, and par­ticularly having a federal organisation. . . The problem of Minnesota on the other hand, seems to me of a different character and I cannot see why, if they are to depart from common standards with the aec, they should not adopt a more logical approach. On a state scale, there seems no problem in setting dis­charge rate limits, which are at least reasonably closely related, if one takes the trouble, to human exposure.”

Mr. Dunster’s comments are to the effect that the environmental moni­toring requirements recommended by Dr. Tsivoglou are extreme and not in ac­cord with icrp Publication 7. In fact, it is indicated that Dr. Tsivoglou was working, partly at least, from “seriously out of date” icrp publications which have been replaced. He also expresses the view that the radiation standards recommended in Dr. Tsivoglou’s report misinterpret icrp recommendations. Mr. Dunster came to the conclusion that there are “some special political dif­ficulties” in Minnesota with respect to radiation control “which would make a logical programme limited to genuine needs unlikely to be acceptable.”

The Dunster letter, to which italics have been added, follows:

20th August 1969

Dr. E. C. Tsivoglou,

1974 Starfire Drive, N. E.,

Atlanta, Georgia 30329, U. S.A.

Dear Dr. Tsivoglou,

Dr. Sowby has sent me a copy of your final report on “Radioactive Pollu­tion Control in Minnesota” because I was chairman of the icrp Task Group that prepared icrp Publication 7.1 regret the delay in writing to you, but I had some difficulty in finding time to study the report in adequate detail.

Prompted by Science, 7th March 1969, and reading between the lines of your report, I came to the conclusion that there are some special political dif­ficulties associated with pollution control or the introduction of nuclear power into Minnesota, which would make a logical programme limited to genuine needs unlikely to be acceptable to the legislators. I thus read your report in the context of an attempt to get as close to a logical solution in the face of difficul­ties of this character. Even so, your proposals seem somewhat extreme and could certainly not be related to the recommendations of icrp.

The following comments are of a more detailed nature and the references are to your page numbers.

16. The central paragraph on this page struck me as being an excellent statement of policy, as did the remark about question and answer on page 20. It did not seem to me, however, that the recommendations of the report were based on these excellent principles.

27.1 do not think I agree with the last three lines of this page, in particu­lar with the reference to effluent concentration. I do not think standards for human radiation protection can in principle be related to effluent concentra­tion in any but the most unusual circumstances, when members of the public are directly exposed to undiluted effluent. In all other situations, it seems to me it is the rate of discharge in units of activity per unit time that is related to hu­man protection. A concentration in waste can be halved by doubling the flow of diluent but the dose to people in the environment will usually not be signifi­cantly affected by this change.

31 & 34. Both of these pages contain references to the complexity of con­

trolling environmental situations, but I am satisfied that a programme of en­vironmental measurements based on the recommendations of icrp Publication 7 would require less routine effort and expense than the programme you have suggested and would give a genuine assurance of safety. It would, however, re­quire more effort at the design stage. Nevertheless, I do not necessarily dis­agree with your argument that the primary standards should be those of efflu­ent discharge. If these are properly assessed and based on discharge rate rather than concentration, they can, and in your circumstances would, give complete control of safety. The monitoring could then be confined to the effluent dis­charges, apart from some confirmatory checks on possible critical pathways during the first year or so.

42. The icrp quotations on this and subsequent pages are seriously out of date. In my view, they were never particularly sound and the replacement ma­terial in icrp Publication 9 (paragraphs 44 and 74) and icrp Publication 7 (paragraphs 14-17) express the policy much more clearly. The earlier ap­proach and your material fail to take into account the effect of critical path­ways other than those through air and water. Further, the individual limit of 1/10 was always, in practice, the limiting case. If individuals, including chil­dren, are limited to 1/10, then the average population dose is always much less than 1/30 of the relevant dose limits. I think from your text that you are suggesting applying the 1/30 figure to the concentration in the air and water, expressed as an average over a local population, and not over a national popu­lation. You are then apparently hoping that this will protect the individual within the distribution of exposures in the local population. This has never been the way icrp intended these numbers to be used. They were intended as separate limits, both of which had to be considered, and, at the time, the Com­mission believed that there might be circumstances in which the average popu­lation dose was the limiting one rather than the dose to individuals. The situa­tion has been further confused by the use of the same factor of 1/ 3 for provid­ing protection to individuals when monitoring was done by sampling over broad averages, e. g. over whole milk sheds. It is now clear that the figures of 1/10 and 1/30 used for individual and population limits are not both neces­sary. In any event they can only be applied to genuinely critical pathways, and if applied to air when inhalation is not the critical pathway, as with iodine, they are demonstrably dangerous.

57.1 like the second and third lines of this page and can only regret that you have not achieved your intentions. I can say categorically that the radio­activity standards you have recommended are not based on icrp recommenda­tions.

59.1 must take exception on behalf of icrp to the first sentence of your item (5). ICRP limits for continuous occupational exposure are expressed in terms of concentrations in air which is breathed or water which is to be con­sumed or, more fundamentally, in dose to individual organs of the body. It is a travesty to use these as a basis for limiting the concentration in an effluent, unless the effluent is directly consumed or directly breathed and these are gen­uinely the critical pathways concerned.

This is not to say that discharge limits cannot be derived from icrp rec­ommendations. They can and should, but the methods involve assessing a re­lationship between the discharge or discharges and the doses to critical and other groups. The dose level selected as a basis for control can then be the icrp dose limit or a lower figure chosen as a compromise based on keeping doses “as low as is readily achievable, economic and social conditions being taken into account” (icrp Publication 9, paragraph 52). The needs of the operator and his economic pressures can be considered also at this stage. The final doses to people and the concentrations in air, water, foods, etc., in the environment will not then be directly related to any numerical recommenda­tions of icrp, but the control structure will be in accord with the general pol­icy expressed in the Commission’s recommendations. These methods have the additional advantage of flexibility, in that the numerical limits applied to one operator can logically be made different from those applying to another whose discharges behave differently in the environment. The basic standards are the same, the practical standards can take into account the different environ­mental situations, and the different compositions of the wastes. Indeed, this flexibility can even be carried to the lengths of expressing the discharge limits in terms of concentration in circumstances where the total volumes discharged are known to be limited and where the quantity to be discharged is very small. A typical example might be a concentration limit applying to hospitals other than those using radioisotopes for therapy. The appropriate limit would be de­rived on the principles outlined above and would not necessarily bear any re­lationship to the mpc’j for drinking water recommended by the Commission.

61. In your item (c) there seems no justification for discussing concentra­tions. If an individual assessment is being made in a claim for a variance, there is surely no reason why the basis of the claim should not be expressed in terms of dose to individual members of the public rather than in terms of concen­tration. In any event, you should surely specify concentration in what.

89.1 find it difficult to agree with the last few lines of this page because it seems extremely unlikely that an offsite monitoring programme of the type you recommend will contribute anything to elucidating the remaining areas of uncertainty.

112. The first sentence of the paragraph starting in the middle of this page is not convincing to me in regard to the proposed reactor and is demonstrably false in respect of the final few words. There are gaseous wastes from hospitals and other licensed users of small amounts of radioactivity but it is certainly unnecessary to conduct environmental monitoring programmes in relation to these wastes. They are too small for this to be required. Even for the liquid wastes from these users environmental monitoring is usually unnecessary though may be adopted in areas of high concentrations of licencees. icrp Pub­lication 7, paragraph 1 makes it clear that the Commission does not expect environmental monitoring programmes round the majority of installations.

135. The recommended programme in this summary table is not con­sistent with icrp recommendations. If it is adopted, it will involve the citizens of Minnesota in higher taxes and higher charges for nuclear electricity than necessary. They may wish to incur this additional expense and this is of course their inalienable right. However, I am not convinced that they will be getting value for money and am certain that the expense cannot be laid at the door of ICRP.

I am sorry to have expressed these criticisms at such length, but a con­siderable amount of effort and discussion went into the formulating of Pub­
lication 7. It has subsequently been criticised as doing little more than state the obvious, but I am now convinced even more of its importance. I am sorry to see that it has not had the expected impact in Minnesota.

cc. Dr. F. D. Sowby, icrp

Air pollution, a source of major national concern, is a consequence of many factors — population growth, technology development, increased urban­ization, and rising energy demands. The need to curb such pollution was deemed so urgent that it was cited as one of three pressing problems which will be given immediate priority attention by the Presidents’ Environmental Quality Council, established by executive order on May 29, 1969 (Executive Order No. 11472).

Although the majority of these pollutants come from automobiles and other internal combustion engines, substantial amounts result from fossil fueled power plants. The principal pollutants from fossil fueled power plants are: fly-ash, smoke, soot, and the gaseous oxides of sulfur, carbon, and nitro­gen. These pollutants have the potential of impairing public health, creating annoyance, and causing significant property damage.

Sulfur oxides are the most troublesome pollutants of the atmosphere from fossil fueled plants at the present time. Sulfur dioxide may convert to sulfuric acid mist, which can cause extensive damage to humans, vegetation, and property. A modern coal-fired plant with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts electrical could discharge through the stack about 250 tons of sulfur dioxide per day when operating at full capacity.

Nitrogen oxides produced by coal-fired plants, when inhaled by man, can combine with the water in his body to form nitric acid. This acid damages cell tissues, particularly in the lungs. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has put nitrogen oxide among the first five pollutants for which it is developing air quality control criteria. It has been estimated that a 1,000- megawatt coal-fired plant dumps 80 tons of nitrogen oxides into the atmos­phere every day.

Carbon dioxide is being added to the atmosphere at the rate of 6 billion tons a year by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. It has been estimated that by the year 2000 the carbon dioxide content could increase by 25 per cent, resulting in a “greenhouse effect” which could modify the heat balance of the atmosphere sufficiently to cause marked changes in climate (see Report of the Environmental Pollution Panel, President’s Science Advisory Commit­tee, “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment.” November 1965).

Carbon monoxide is also being added to atmosphere by combustion of fossil fuels. It combines with hemoglobin in the red blood corpuscles and thus interferes with their normal functions of supplying oxygen to the body tissues. The amount of carbon monoxide produced annually by power plants, though small in comparison to that from cars, is about 1 million tons.

There may also be unknown risks — genetic damage, life shortening, can­cer — from environmental contamination with nonradioactive materials and organic products from fossil plants.

A discussion of the organization and methods used in efforts to control air pollution can be found in Chapter IV of the report “Considerations Affect­ing Steam Power Plant Site Selection.”

REFERENCES

aec Internal Study Group. Report to the Atomic Energy Commission on the reactor licensing program, aec Public Announcement M-149. June 1969.

aec Press Release M-132. aec seeks comment on proposed policy on siting of fuel reprocessing and disposal of wastes. June 2,1969.

frc. Radiation protection guidance for federal agencies. Memorandum for the President, Federal Register, May 18,1960.

Interdepartmental Study. Energy R&D and national progress: Findings and conclu­sions. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, September 1966.

National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences. The biological effects of atomic radiation. Summary Reports, 1956.

President’s Office of Science and Technology. Considerations affecting steam power plant site selection. Report, January 1969.

Ramey, James T. Statement before Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, Sen­ate Committee on Public Works, on S. 7, March 3,1969.

—— . Providing for public safety in the nuclear industry — the engineering ap­proach. aec Press Release S-16-69. Remarks before the National Academy of Engineering, Washington, D. C., May 1,1969.

—— . Nuclear power —facts instead of fiction, aec Press Release S-19-69. Re­marks at news briefing, Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, Haddam Neck, Connecticut, June 2,1969.

—— . Radiation protection — past, present and future, aec Press Release S-25-69.

Remarks at the Conference on Universities, National Laboratories, and Man’s Environment, Chicago, July 28,1969.

—— . Understanding nuclear power, aec Press Release S-28-69. Remarks at Con­ference on Nuclear Power and the Environment, Burlington, Vermont, Septem­ber 11,1969.

Seaborg, Glenn T. The environment — and what to do about it. aec Press Release S-14-69. Remarks at National Research Council Solid State Sciences Panel, National Academy of Sciences, Argonne, Illinois, May 5,1969.

—— . Nuclear power and the environment — a perspective. Remarks at Confer­ence on Nuclear Power and the Environment, Burlington, Vermont, September 11,1969.

Starr, Chauncey. Social benefit versus technological risk. Science, 1969, 165, 1232­1238.

The general population’s actual external radiation exposure from nuclear power plants does not approach the so-called permissible dose rates, because of certain inherent factors. For example, the heavy shield­ing required to protect the utility employees in the normal course of their activities gives assurance that the external radiation dose to the public will be undetectable. I know of no case in which radiation from the plant proper has caused a perceptible change in the levels of radiation exposure beyond the property boundary. This means that the dose to people at the property boundary from direct radiation from the plant is less than 10 mrem/yr, which is the approximate lower limit of measurement.

In the case of a boiling water reactor (bwr), the principal way in which the general population would be exposed to external radiation would be by direct irradiation from the cloud of passing radioactive gases discharged from the plant. For example, consider a hypothetical situation in which a bwr stack is located 100 meters from a 360° fence at which the dose is assumed to be 500 mrads/yr. Thus, people living right on the fence would receive the aec maximum permissible dose to individuals. From known rates of diffusion of gaseous effluents from point sources, it can be calculated that the dose rate beyond the fence would on the average diminish inversely with the 1.8 power of distance from the stack. The per capita doses have been calculated for populations of 105, 10e, and 107 people uniformly distributed around the fence at a density of 1,000 people per square kilometer. The annual per capita doses for the three popula­tions turns out to be 1.9 mrad, 0.28 mrad, and 0.04 mrad. This, in fact, overestimates the per capita dose because a dose of 500 mrad would be occurring only in the direction of maximum wind direction which would perhaps be one-eighth of the plant circumference. For seven-eighths of the plant circumference, the dose would be much less than 500 mrad/yr. It should also be noted that the radioactive gases emit mostly beta radia­tion, which will not penetrate to the blood-forming bone marrow or to the gonads. This illustrates the kind of built-in conservatism that exists in the aec regulations — even under the worst conceivable conditions, 10 million people distributed around a boiling water reactor would receive a total of 400 man rads instead of the 1.7 million man rads permitted under a literal interpretation of current regulations.

We have seen earlier that 106 man rads may produce 20 cases of leukemia in the lifetime of an exposed population of a million; 400 man rads may on this basis cause 0.008 cases per million exposed people. Assuming the mean sensitive life span to be 60 years, 400 man rad/yr could produce 0.5 cases per million people per generation. As explained earlier, this is an upper limit of risk, and the true risk will be somewhere between zero and this probability. Since the normal incidence of leukemia in the general population is about 70 cases per million per year, the 0.5 cases in 60 years would occur against a normal background of 4,200 cases.

With respect to genetic effects, if the doubling dose for spontaneous mutations is a per capita exposure of 2 rad/yr, 0.17 rad/yr delivered over many generations would result in about an 8 per cent increase in the spon­taneous mutation rate. However, since the man at the fence can receive no more than.5 rad, the external radiation dose from the plume would, at the limit of permissible exposure, result in a per capita annual dose of 0.04 mrad in a population of 10 million people, as previously shown. On the improbable assumption that these 10 million people constitute a closed breeding population for as many generations as it takes to reach equilibrium, the spontaneous mutation rate would eventually be raised by about 0.05 per cent. This is equivalent to the change in radiation ex­posure that might be expected from living at a difference in altitude of about 10 feet.

To place all of this in further perspective, it should be noted that temperature, like ionizing radiation, can cause genetic mutations and that as much as 50 per cent of the mutations that occur normally in con­temporary man might be due to the increase in testicular temperature caused by the male practice of wearing trousers. Although this observa­tion appeared in the literature in 1957 (Ehrenberg et al., 1957), I am unaware of any subsequent popular movement to prescribe kilts in place of the more mutagenic habit of dress of the American male.

A final member of the petroleum group of fuels is oil shale. Oil shales differ from other forms of petroleum in that the hydrocarbon occurs in the form of a solid, rather than as a viscous liquid. It also differs chemically from crude oil and tar-like oils, a fact which poses more difficult problems of refining.

The best-known, and among the largest of oil shale deposits are those of the Green River shale which occur in four separate localities in western

Colorado, northern Utah, and southwestern Wyoming. Of these, the larg­est and richest is in the Piceance Basin in Colorado.

In hydrocarbon content these shales vary in richness from about 100 gallons to less than 10 gallons of shale oil per ton of rock. The total amounts of oil represented by these shale deposits in the range of 10 to 25 gallons per ton have recently been estimated by Duncan and Swanson (1966, p. 13) as follows:

Basin Oil (1CP bbls)

Piceance Basin, Colorado………………………………….. 800

Uintah Basin, Utah……………………………………………. 230

Green River and Washakie Basins, Wyoming…. 400

Total ………………………………………………………….. 1,430

These figures tend to be misleading, however, since the same authors (Table 2, p. 2) list only 80 billion barrels as being “recoverable under present conditions.”

The same authors have also compiled a summary of major oil shale deposits throughout the world. They give an estimate of 2 x 1015 barrels for the total oil content of these shales, but only 190 billion barrels (in­cluding 80 for the Green River shales in the United States) are said to be recoverable under present conditions.

When the low oil content per ton of rock in the oil shales is consid­ered, it is evident that the mining problem required to extract significant quantities of this oil becomes formidable. Accordingly, it may well be con­sidered preferable to obtain liquid fuels from coal, or to produce them eventually synthetically using other sources of energy, rather than to de-

stroy large sections of scenic country during oil shale mining and extrac­tion.

CONCLUSIONS REGARDING THE FOSSIL FUELS

From this brief review, it is clear that although the fossil fuels have been in use for about 800 years, and may continue to be exploited for a comparable length of time in the future, these fuels can serve as major sources of energy for a period no longer than about three centuries. The brevity of this episode in a context of human history extending from 5,000 years in the past to 5,000 years into the future is shown in Figure 16. Nev­ertheless, this episode represents a unique event of the first order of im­portance not only in human history, but of geological history as well.

Power from Current Energy Flux

In addition to the large supplies of energy available from the fossil fuels, the various channels of the continuous energy flux through the earth’s surface environment are conventional sources of power.

The inherent safety features such as the basic fuel design are those used in reactor plant design to limit accident possibilities. In addition, a number of design safety features limit accident probabilities. A number of

these applied safety features are common to most of today’s power reac­tors. By way of example, I shall describe a few.

Monitoring of Reactor Neutron Flux. A prime measurement used to achieve safe reactor operation is the monitoring of reactor neutron flux within the reactor core itself. This is done by a number of independent monitoring systems which measure at various locations in the reactor core exactly what the power level is at any time. These instruments are directly connected to a rapid reactor shutdown system, which operates whenever a predetermined safe upper limit has been detected by the instruments. Therefore, a definite protection system is provided automatically, and secondly, reactor operators have an excellent set of indications of the power level throughout the reactor core.

Reactor Control Systems. The power level of the reactor is controlled and adjusted by means of materials such as boron which are capable of absorbing neutrons. To achieve reactor shutdown such materials are in­troduced into the reactor core. Common methods of introduction include the use of mechanical control rods or of liquid solutions which can enter the reactor water moderator. To optimize the assurance of achieving safe shutdown when required, most of today’s nuclear power reactors have both methods of reactor control available — another example of applied safety systems.

Reactor Safety Circuit Instrumentation. Instruments are provided to monitor all of those plant characteristics where proper performance is im­portant for overall safety, and such systems are connected to the auto­matic rapid reactor shutdown devices. To ensure highly reliable signals in the event of difficulties at any important point, the instrumentation sys­tems include many independent signals so that failure of individual com­ponents or even complete failure of electric power to the whole safety sys­tem will not interfere with rapid reactor shutdown.

Electric Power Requirements. The reactor designer presumes that at some time all of the normal electric power available to the plant will be suddenly cut off. Thus, wherever possible the reactor systems are designed so that they require no electric power to achieve safe reactor shutdown. In those cases where some amount of power is required for safe shutdown, this is achieved by providing emergency backup power sources which normally include diesel-driven generators at the plant and station storage battery systems. These are themselves redundant. More than enough are provided, so if one should fail another would be ready and waiting to per­form the function.

Reactor Process System Integrity. Although improbable, the manner in which coolant could be lost is through a small system leak, which would become progressively worse. Proper material selection of ductile steels eliminates this possibility. In spite of that fact, the safety objectives call for monitoring systems which can detect even minor leakages in the reactor process system; hence, safe shutdown and repairs may be completed be­fore any situation important to safety could develop.

The above five examples indicate the types of applied safety features which have been added to boiling water reactors. Although some aspects of these applied safety features are used for normal operation — that is, the generation of electricity — their primary function is to provide addi­tional safety to the large power reactors. There are many other examples which could have been given, such as the high quality of the design and construction of the primary coolant boundary itself and the inspection procedures used. However, the above five examples are adequate to dem­onstrate that numerous applied safety features are incorporated in the de­sign of today’s nuclear power reactors.

I start this paper by stating a number of facts which I believe are axio­matic. First, although the atomic energy establishment is prone to dismiss those who are concerned about the health and safety implications of nu­clear power plants licensed by the aec as ignorant of the facts, overly fear­ful, or in cahoots with the coal interests, the fact of the matter is that there is a legitimate basis for apprehension. Normal operation of a nuclear power plant results in the discharge of radioactive effluents into the en­vironment. Although there is no basis for believing that such effluents, in­volving very low levels of radiation, are harmful to plant, animal, or hu­man life, there is also no assurance that they will not result in harm. (It is worth noting that only long after the electric power producing and auto­motive industries came to maturity did anyone begin to understand that discharges from fossil-fueled power plants and motor vehicles pollute the environment in a manner detrimental to life.) However small the result­ant radiation exposure may be, I doubt that anyone would seriously con­test the proposition that it would be better if the exposure were even smaller. As stated by the frc in 1960: “There are insufficient data to pro­vide a firm basis for evaluating radiation effects for all types and levels of irradiation. There is particular uncertainty with respect to the biological effects at very low doses and low-dose rates. It is not prudent therefore to assume that there is a level of radiation exposure below which there is ab­solute certainty that no effect may occur.” (Radiation Protection Guid­ance for Federal Agencies, Memorandum for the President, May 13, 1960).

Recommendation 1 in this memorandum states the basic principle underlying radiation protection standards as enunciated by the frc:

“There should not be any man-made radiation exposure without the ex­pectation of benefit resulting from such exposure.” True, the frc goes on to establish Radiation Protection Guides within which man-made radia­tion exposure may be authorized, but it cautions in Recommendation 2 that “every effort should be made to encourage the maintenance of ra­diation doses as far below this guide as practicable.”

The frc’s guides are essentially the same as the aec’s Radiation Pro­tection Standards — the famous Part 20 of aec’s regulations — and activi­ties licensed by the aec result in radiation exposures far below the limits set in the guides and standards. Nevertheless, as the frc stated, it is not prudent to assume that no harm will result. (Indeed, the numbers set forth in the frc radiation guides and in Part 20 themselves represent the strik­ing of a balance between risks and anticipated benefits.)

There is another and more frightening hazard of nuclear power plants, the possibility of a serious accident in the course of operation of the plant. In 1957, a Brookhaven National Laboratory study commis­sioned by the aec concluded, under quite pessimistic assumptions, that a single serious accident could result in 3,400 deaths at distances up to 15 miles; 43,000 injuries at distances up to 45 miles; land contamination at even greater distances; and $7 billion in property damage. Four years ago, the aec chairman told the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy that, because of advances in the technology, the consequences could now be even greater.* The potential destructive impact of a nuclear power plant catastrophe dwarfs by many orders of magnitude any other catastrophe which could be imagined as resulting from a man-made artifact. The Price-Anderson Act of 1957 explicitly recognizes the possibility that at least $560 million in damages might result from such an accident, since it establishes a requirement for insurance protection plus an aec indemnity agreement in that aggregate amount, f The probability of such an acci­dent is extremely low because of the great care taken by industry in de-

* Hearings before the Subcommittee on Legislation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy on Proposed Extension of AEC Indemnity Legislation, 89th Cong., IstSess. 347-348 (1965).

t The Price-Anderson Act requires every nuclear power plant operator to carry $82 million in liability insurance, the maximum available from the insurance industry. Over and above this, there is a government indemnity of $478 million which pro­tects anyone who may have liability. When these sums are exhausted at the level of $560 million of liability, the Act explicitly cuts off any further liability. For exam­ple, if a nuclear power plant accident were to result in public liability of a billion dollars, liability claims would be settled on the basis of somewhat more than fifty cents on the dollar. The effect of this is that there is zero possibility that anyone in the nuclear industry would have to pay one penny’s worth of liability claims out of his own pocket.

signing and building nuclear power plants, the stringency of aec safety regulations and requirements, and the multiple levels of safety review within the aec. Nevertheless, utilities would not buy and operate nuclear power plants and equipment manufacturers would not build and deliver such plants and their major components without the protection of the Price-Anderson Act, which relieves them of any possibility of liability out of their own pockets for the consequences of such an accident. However infinitesimally small may be the probability of a serious accident causing damage of enormously high proportions, industry will not assume the very same infinitesimally small risk which must be assumed by the public which lives in the shadow of nuclear power plants.

The second fact is that the aec regulatory program is more compre­hensive and stringent than any other in the history of this nation. It is, moreover, administered by a dedicated and competent group of public servants, and provides for thorough, multiple safety reviews. It is under­written by an equally dedicated and competent congressional committee, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.

Third, whatever the risks of nuclear power may be, they could be reduced if more money were spent by the utilities. If greater costs were incurred, discharge of radioactive effluents could be reduced. At greater cost, nuclear power plants could be built in more isolated locations, put underground, or otherwise made safer. Of course, forcing such greater costs on nuclear power plant operators would make nuclear power less attractive from the economic standpoint.

Fourth, there has to date been a truly remarkable health and safety record in all phases of the atomic energy industry.

Finally, the fact that nuclear power plants involve hazards does not mean that we should not have nuclear power. Nuclear power brings with it benefits (aesthetics, freedom from sulfur-dioxide pollution, and per­haps cheaper power, among others) against which the risks must be weighed. If the benefits outweigh the costs and risks, obviously nuclear power plants should be built. My principal objective in this paper is to ex­plore the manner in which the aec nuclear power licensing procedures re­late to the balancing of benefits against risk.

The potential benefits of nuclear power are great, but their achieve­ment involves accepting certain risks. These benefits and risks must be balanced. Evaluations of benefits and risks are made in many ways. One is through the preferences of the public — for example, in choosing among rail, air, and automobile travel. Another is through the governmental processes for determining our goals and the means of achieving them.

Nearly everyone appreciates the difficulty of making such evalua­tions of benefits and risks. There is often disagreement even among rea­sonable individuals about what is beneficial and what is harmful. Even when agreement can be achieved, the difficulty remains of assigning a value to indicate the degree of benefit or harm. For example, how does one assign relative values to the aesthetically pleasing appearance of nu­clear plants and the less attractive features of a fossil plant?

A further problem is how to take account of the statistical probabili­ties involved. For instance, how is account taken of the probabilities asso­ciated with more than fifty thousand deaths a year in automobile acci­dents, and about two thousand deaths a year in aircraft accidents? Then too, how does one balance the health hazards attributable to the coal min­ing industry and to air pollution from fossil fuel stations, with the bene­fits? (See Appendix, p. 221 below.)

In the nuclear power field, we are constantly seeking ways of better evaluating both benefits and risks. We have considered whether an even more quantitative approach than the present one could be used to evaluate the safety of nuclear power plants. We requested a study group appointed by the aec to consider this matter as part of a study of the regulatory proc­ess. The group concluded that with existing techniques and knowledge, the total risks to the public from nuclear power plants, although very small, cannot now be meaningfully expressed in numerical terms. But the group also said that quantification techniques do show promise as a tool in corn —

parative safety evaluation and that efforts should be made to improve the collection of data. (“Report to the Atomic Energy Commission on the Reactor Licensing Program,” June 1969.)

One reason for not being able to express total risks in numerical terms is the excellent safety experience of nuclear power plants, where no meaningful risk experience has been accumulated. The fact is that no deaths or accidents affecting the general public have occurred in any civil­ian nuclear power plants in the United States. There has been only one re­actor accident in the United States reactor program which resulted in fa­talities. It occurred in an experimental Army reactor, the SL-1, at our testing station in Idaho and involved the deaths of three operators.

A growing body of literature reflects the efforts being made to devel­op methods for evaluating benefits and risks more analytically. Such ef­forts were reflected in the proceedings of a recent symposium of the Na­tional Academy of Engineering (Ramey, May 1, 1969). Also worth not­ing in this connection is an article in Science, “Social Benefit versus Tech­nological Risk,” by Chauncey Starr, dean of the engineering school at ucla (Starr, 1969).

Experience gained over the past years by the Bureau of Radiological Health and by various states has provided the technical basis for the es­tablishment of surveillance programs in the environs of nuclear plants. The guidance for environmental surveillance of nuclear facilities provided by the Bureau of Radiological Health is applicable to those areas external to the facility’s site perimeter or fenced area, which is normally considered as the plant environs or off-site area. Accomplishment of the objectives of these programs assures continuing examination and evaluation of the en­vironment needed for the continued health and safety of the public. To ensure compatability of the surveillance data from both federal and state programs, an analytical quality control service is available through the Bureau’s area laboratories. The prime objectives of environmental surveil­lance programs for nuclear power stations are to verify the adequacy of source control, to provide data to estimate population exposure, and to provide a source of data for public information. An environmental sur­veillance program should be conducted by the facility operator. As a mini­mum, surveillance activities by the health agency should provide adequate verification of the facility’s data. This procedure allows both the health agency and the operator to have confidence in the accuracy of the re­sults.

The materials to be sampled, the frequency of sampling, and the type of analysis needed are all dependent upon the specific program ob­jectives that have been established for the facility. The extent of surveil­lance required is dependent on the nuclear facility’s location (population density, meteorology, and other environmental factors), and the quanti­ties and kinds of radioactive materials discharged. A review of the plant environment and the facility’s radioactive waste system should include an evaluation of the critical radionuclides anticipated in the normal dis­charges and the pathways through which they may disperse in the envi­ronment and thus expose the population to radiation. Because air and wa­ter are pathways through which radioactive contaminants are carried to other segments of the environment, analysis of radioactivity in these me­dia is a basic requirement in the establishment of a surveillance program. Further, an investigation of the site environs is necessary to identify mem­bers of the public most likely to be exposed and the pathways of exposure. Exposure of this critical population group can result from direct external radiation and from intake of radioactive material into the body through ingestion and inhalation.

In initiating an environmental surveillance program, it is important that radiological measurements be made and data obtained through a pre­operational survey of the plant environs. This survey will provide infor­mation related to the critical nuclides, pathways, and population groups that can be used to design the operational program. Additional informa­tion will be obtained that is useful for other purposes, among which are: (a) to provide a data base to be used in delineating any radioactive ma­terial released to the environment by the plant after initial start-up, (b) to demonstrate that the proposed surveillance system is adequate, (c) to give training and experience to the personnel conducting the survey, and (d) to provide a mechanism for gathering data for public information. Because waste discharges from a nuclear power plant operating under normal conditions should influence environmental radioactivity levels in only a limited area, preoperational samples should be taken beyond the plant’s influence for comparison with those taken near the site. This prac­tice can be continued into the operating phase and a statistical compari­son made in order to delineate possible contributions by the plant to en­vironmental radioactivity levels. It has been normal practice for preopera­tional surveys to be conducted for a period of one year before the initial start-up of a nuclear installation. In those cases where personnel are inex­perienced in surveillance operations and laboratory analysis of samples or special requirements are indicated, a longer period of time may be neces­sary in order to obtain reliable data for at least one year.

The data gathered by the environmental surveillance program during plant operation must provide the basis for source control and estimation of population dose. Complete liquid and gaseous radioactivity discharge data should be routinely provided to the health agency by the operator so that the relation between radioactive discharges and the environmental surveillance data can be established. Experience to date with nuclear power plants has shown that careful waste management, engineered safe­guards, and proper operating procedures generally result in a radionuclide concentration in waste effluents ranging from 1 to 3 per cent of the aec’s licensed discharge limits (Blomeke & Harrington, 1968).

Detection of individual accidental releases in time to take protective action is not an objective of a routine operational environmental surveil­lance program. Although protective actions can appreciably reduce the dose received if initiated quickly, the indication of a need for such actions must come from the facility in question immediately following any acci­dental release and not several days or weeks later from routine environ­mental sampling. For this reason, adequate source monitoring and control must be in effect to detect immediately significant nonroutine releases of radioactivity. In the event of such a release, it is imperative that agencies responsible for public health be promptly notified so they can initiate emergency monitoring programs with the objective of ascertaining wheth­er or not there is a need for protective actions. A special preplanned doc­umented emergency monitoring system is required in order to be able to assess adequately any public health hazard in the event of a major acci­dental release of radioactivity to the off-site area.

The surveillance described here pertains to the operation of nuclear installations under normal operating conditions and is not intended to ap­ply to an accident situation. The recommended general program shown on page 64 (Terrill et al., 1968; Weaver & Harward, 1967) serves as a guide for the development of an environmental monitoring program and is considered adequate from a public health standpoint. However, with the rapid expansion of the nuclear power industry, the number of individ­ual facility monitoring programs will increase. Therefore, the Bureau of Radiological Health is updating these surveillance recommendations, on the basis of field studies which are being carried out through the Bureau’s area laboratories to obtain basic data needed to define upgraded surveil­lance requirements. Because of the planned increase in the nuclear power industry, it is important to develop a coordinated nationwide surveillance

program to meet public health responsibilities for estimating population exposure. This type of program must be developed with participation by industry, states, and federal agencies in order to meet national objectives of protection of the public health and preservation of environmental qual­ity.