Radiation & Lack Of Reason

It's Wade Allison (author of a book called "Radiation and Reason") whining pontificating again (see his webite and read article dated January 3, 2013).

It's a bit ironic because he doesn't like ALARA, which stands for "As Low As Reasonably Achievable".

So both ALARA and his book have the word "reason" in it ("reasonably" is close enough).


Let's go with another concept called "consistent".  Are radiation regulations consistent with those associated with other industrial byproduct toxins?

Yes.

In the U.S., the EPA regulates other toxins to a chance of death to a member of an exposed population of around 1 in 10,000 (1E-4).  The NRC regulates the nuclear industry's dose to the general population to 100 mrem per year.

Let's do some math using scientific risk estimates:

(100 mrem/yr)(1% cancer risk increase/10,000 mrem) (30 years) (.5 chance of dying from cancer) = 1.5
E-3

We see that the NRC allows a higher risk than the EPA.  And Allison wants to raise the levels higher!

That's not reasonable nor is it consistent.