OldBoltonian

Hi,

I work in radiation protection, basically ensuring that doses received by professionals and the public are well below the requirements in legislation, so I share your frustrations regarding nuclear power - people misunderstanding a lot of the concepts of nuclear energy. Some of my colleagues actually worked on the UK's response to Chernobyl, so I've got a bit of a personal and professional interest in how it's being handled, and how it will be in the future.

My question is, without knowing your background, what did you base your book on (data, references, sources etc) to ensure that it is more accurate than others as you're implying? Sorry if it comes off as prickly, it's genuinely not, I'm just curious how you've tried to avoid inaccuracies as others articles and books have done, such as The Atlantic to take your example.

Sorry I don't mean to be pedantic but I work in RP and your answer is not quite correct. The lethality of a dose does not just depend on the effective dose received, but also the timespan in which it was received, basically if it is acute or not. You can receive doses into the Sv's if they are over a prolonged period of time. I think the current limit for Astronauts is 1 Sv for their entire career? And there's also curious exceptions, such as that Russian Physicist whose name currently avoids me who stuck his head into a particle accelerator and survived a more than lethal dose.

Your chance of developing cancer later in life increases by 7% for each Sievert you take.

This is not quite correct either. The current model (and it does have criticisms) as outlined in ICRP 103 suggests an increase of just over 5% per Sv. This is what various health protection and regulatory bodies around the world base their legislation and guidance on.

The biggest thing to take away from this is radiation is far less dangerous than the general population believes.

Spot on, depending on where you live you can receive background doses into the 10s of uSv just from naturally high radiation areas, like Ramsar in Iran. It also surprises most people to learn that they receive more artificial radiation (that is, non-background/natural) from the medical sector, not the energy production or even defence sectors. Often by quite a large margin.

Hey! That's very interesting, I'm jealous. I've wondered what it's like to work within the industry.

Hi mate, thanks for the reply! It can be very dull! On a boring day I'm looking at excel spreadsheets, on an interesting day I can be participating in the simulation of an emergency response!

Choosing sources has been one of the most difficult things about the process. Who do you believe? It's not that the others are consistently wrong, it's just that every book I read always contains a small handful of errors. I sympathise with them in some respects, because there's a crazy amount of conflicting information.

I completely agree, even working in the sector I find it hard to locate and read reliable and accurate sources about a wide range of nuclear topics. I'm still quite early on in my career so my colleagues who have been doing this work for, in some cases, decades have been absolutely invaluable to me. Yes the IAEA are often a good starting point. Most regulatory bodies are to be honest as they are held to a very high level of scrutiny. I don't think members of the public are quite aware of just how regulated the sector is now, especially in comparison to the early stages of nuclear. A lot of criticism is aimed towards the energy sector when people don't realise how lax and unregulated the medical sector is.

I have a folder with hundreds of technical documents about it. The IAEA have a lot that have been invaluable, and some are widely accepted as being correct. INSAG-7, for example. You have to be careful when they were written (basically everything written before 1991, for example, when s report by a Russian commission of experts to the USSR State Committee for the Supervision of Safety in Industry and Nuclear Power was written and finally revealed how the accident occurred, has to be treated as suspect). The short answer is a lot of double and triple checking. Who is a reliable source and who isn't, who can verify certain information and who contradicts it etc.

I'm glad to read that you have thought so much about sources and accuracy though. This is very encouraging to read from my perspective so I genuinely and thoroughly look forward to purchasing and reading it. Would you be open to further questions once I've read your book? Thanks again for the reply!

No worries at all mate, I'm still quite early on in my career and often find myself making slip ups - sometimes on reddit posts too when I get corrected! I'm not familiar with NCRP, is that an American RP body?

Ah so you do all of the useful stuff for the sector, whilst we're the thorn in your side!