A great article. This is the first time I have heard about the Taiwan aspect. Thanks for taking the time to explain it in terms than many people can understand.
Thanks Alex & Ben. Always happy to see a data-driven rebuttal of this massive hoax that is the bloated danger of radiation. And a really nice visualisation of daily vs total dose!
One food for thought -- instead of edge cases like chemical plant explosions (Bhopal) and catastrophic dam ruptures, why not focus the discussion on the deaths from everyday human activities such as driving or flying? This is in my view the most common decision-making process about costs and benefits that each adult person is able to execute, repeatedly.
In a typical developed country of 10M citizens, 400-500 people die from road accidents, or ~10x Chernobyl (assuming those those 28 original deaths). Yet we are not banning cars, since we love their benefits and can live with the costs. A typical plane crash kills 200-300 people and happen (perhaps) once per year, which is also ~10x Chernobyl. Yet we are not banning planes, and it does not even cross anyone's mind (unless there is a demonstrable flaw in the specific model, as was the case of MCAS on B737 Max 8).
I understand that this might be slightly off-topic vs the main thesis of the article, which is strictly pointing at flawed science and not public perception per se. But given (I presume) the larger aim of making nuclear buildable again, this might also be a direction.
Jack Devanney compiled a graph that sums it up nicely -- after 600 years, 99.9999% of penetrating radiation is gone. After that, you'd have to grind a pellet into a powder and snort it, to retain enough of it in your body for a long enough period of time, to come to any harm.
Re: "nuclear waste will have to be managed for tens of thousands of years" is an exaggeration. Holtec surface level cask storage is OK for 500 years. The fission products emit gammas that are cask-shielded. Repackaging a few times reduces the volume of much less gamma-emitting spent fuel, easily handled. After 500 years we are left with alpha and beta particle emissions from heavy metals Ac, U, Np; Pu, Am, etc which are radioactive but do not penetrate skin and clothes. You have to eat or breathe them to create harm, same as for Co, Pb, As, etc. I can be put in a land fill, like any heavy metal.
Thank you, great article. First I heard of the Taiwan case.
The claim that radiation is harmful even in small, spread-out doses ignores the fact that the DNA and RNA in our cells is capable of making repairs. That's good, because we're all exposed to many forms of radiation all around us every day.
We did an experiment in college physics that measured daily radiation from cosmic rays. I was surprised to see how many tics we registered on our lab type geiger counter.
I'm familiar with Jack and most of what he's written about LNT.
I don't believe in evolution as an explanation of all life. Order doesn't come out of chaos.
I believe we were created by God and thus our cells had all that potential for variety, accurate replication, adaptation, and almost infinite information already built in at the start.
I appreciate these thoughtful responses. Still, they strike me as overly optimistic; a solution technically possible but that has proven to be politically nonviable (and along the way there have been releases from woeful care for nuclear waste. It would be nice, too, if there were no more wars on earth, and that is technically feasible.
I don't agree with your starting premise: that the case against nuclear power rests upon concerns about low-dose radiation! My case against includes: the benefits of nuclear power must be offset against the burden imposed upon future generations: nuclear waste will have to be managed for tens of thousands of years. (And most every area in the world falls into a war zone at least every few centuries. We now hold our breath as Chernobyl is subject to attack.)
Presumably you are worried about nuclear waste because you think there's a risk it will be released, exposing people to lots of radiation? But if you discovered that low-dose-rate radiation exposure from that waste wasn't a big issue then you might change your mind. I'm hear to give you the good news: nuclear waste is fine after about 500 years, and can be reused. Until then you can put it in simple concrete casks. It's very cheap to store, and while we need to be careful, it's not a total disaster if the casks are bombed or whatever: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/a-tale-of-two-particles
Nuclear waste is not a problem that can't be managed. It is also a relatively small amount compared to other kinds of waste, like the massive landfills of wind turbine blades and solar panels, and certain toxic tailings from some kinds of mining. Used radioactive material is cooled for a few years and then contained in large, safe concrete containers.
The new, advanced nuclear reactors, which I hope will be successful, have the wonderful promise of re-using nuclear fuel, reducing the final waste by a factor of close to 10X.
Nuclear waste volumes are small, particularly high and intermediate level wastes, and their radioactivity lessens with time and so does their radiotoxicity.
The same isn’t true of many toxic or carcinogenic chemicals particularly inorganic ones which remain a hazard forever. Worldwide the volumes both of legacy wastes from mining, mineral extraction and chemical and other manufacturing processes are enormous.
It is also relatively easy to identify suitable deep disposal sites that will remain geologically stable for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. Ask any geologist.
Even then the risks of leakage and dispersal are extremely low considering how the wastes are immobilised and packaged (the most difficult to deal with UK HLW is vitrified and the glassy product sealed in stainless steel containers).
The main issue is that public misunderstanding of the relative risks has led to an irrational fear of anything labelled nuclear. Effectively this means that nothing gets done, politicians come and go without progress being made. The UK is a perfect example, NIREX was established in 1982 specifically to address deep geological disposal and yet here we are in 2026 with no firm plans to do so.
The thousand of years figure was computed using LNT principles. If it assumed that the body can cope with low doses of radiation the timescale is reduced to a few hundred years which though long is more manageable
If nuclear power is to become more prevalent its promotors must present a credible case for handling long term storage and governments need to commit to carrying it out and not continue kicking the can down the road.
I asked Fable 5 for help pulling published data on the Taiwan c60 cohort and attempting a replication of the statistical analysis (using a proper causal inferencing approach). Was pretty happy with the results, which largely support the argument made in this article: https://www.symmetrybroken.com/revisiting-the-taiwan-rebar-cohort-data/
It may be feasible for me to request the original data from Taiwan at some point between now and the end of the year and redo the analysis from that original data. I'll report back if I end up following through on that.
With all due respect: Bhopal is common knowledge to over one billion people. It's taught in school. It's not a subject only known by specialists.
Yes, that is an absolutely fair point. I might have said 'outside India'. But India is a lot of the world!
A great article. This is the first time I have heard about the Taiwan aspect. Thanks for taking the time to explain it in terms than many people can understand.
We worked very hard on trying to be clear.
Ditto.
Excellent analysis, thank you! I suspect the field of environmental toxicology is riddled with similar issues but my experience is limited.
Thanks Alex & Ben. Always happy to see a data-driven rebuttal of this massive hoax that is the bloated danger of radiation. And a really nice visualisation of daily vs total dose!
One food for thought -- instead of edge cases like chemical plant explosions (Bhopal) and catastrophic dam ruptures, why not focus the discussion on the deaths from everyday human activities such as driving or flying? This is in my view the most common decision-making process about costs and benefits that each adult person is able to execute, repeatedly.
In a typical developed country of 10M citizens, 400-500 people die from road accidents, or ~10x Chernobyl (assuming those those 28 original deaths). Yet we are not banning cars, since we love their benefits and can live with the costs. A typical plane crash kills 200-300 people and happen (perhaps) once per year, which is also ~10x Chernobyl. Yet we are not banning planes, and it does not even cross anyone's mind (unless there is a demonstrable flaw in the specific model, as was the case of MCAS on B737 Max 8).
I understand that this might be slightly off-topic vs the main thesis of the article, which is strictly pointing at flawed science and not public perception per se. But given (I presume) the larger aim of making nuclear buildable again, this might also be a direction.
Plane crashes are another good comparison, but I think that people will see Chernobyl, rightly, as an industrial disaster.
Jack Devanney compiled a graph that sums it up nicely -- after 600 years, 99.9999% of penetrating radiation is gone. After that, you'd have to grind a pellet into a powder and snort it, to retain enough of it in your body for a long enough period of time, to come to any harm.
https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/a-tale-of-two-particles#footnote-1-88731469
Re: "nuclear waste will have to be managed for tens of thousands of years" is an exaggeration. Holtec surface level cask storage is OK for 500 years. The fission products emit gammas that are cask-shielded. Repackaging a few times reduces the volume of much less gamma-emitting spent fuel, easily handled. After 500 years we are left with alpha and beta particle emissions from heavy metals Ac, U, Np; Pu, Am, etc which are radioactive but do not penetrate skin and clothes. You have to eat or breathe them to create harm, same as for Co, Pb, As, etc. I can be put in a land fill, like any heavy metal.
Yes, it's an extreme exaggeration. It need not even be expensive.
Thank you, great article. First I heard of the Taiwan case.
The claim that radiation is harmful even in small, spread-out doses ignores the fact that the DNA and RNA in our cells is capable of making repairs. That's good, because we're all exposed to many forms of radiation all around us every day.
We did an experiment in college physics that measured daily radiation from cosmic rays. I was surprised to see how many tics we registered on our lab type geiger counter.
Quite right. According to Jack Devanney, we should also consider how we evolved to deal with the damage created by our oxygen-based metabolisms.
I'm familiar with Jack and most of what he's written about LNT.
I don't believe in evolution as an explanation of all life. Order doesn't come out of chaos.
I believe we were created by God and thus our cells had all that potential for variety, accurate replication, adaptation, and almost infinite information already built in at the start.
I appreciate these thoughtful responses. Still, they strike me as overly optimistic; a solution technically possible but that has proven to be politically nonviable (and along the way there have been releases from woeful care for nuclear waste. It would be nice, too, if there were no more wars on earth, and that is technically feasible.
I don't agree with your starting premise: that the case against nuclear power rests upon concerns about low-dose radiation! My case against includes: the benefits of nuclear power must be offset against the burden imposed upon future generations: nuclear waste will have to be managed for tens of thousands of years. (And most every area in the world falls into a war zone at least every few centuries. We now hold our breath as Chernobyl is subject to attack.)
Presumably you are worried about nuclear waste because you think there's a risk it will be released, exposing people to lots of radiation? But if you discovered that low-dose-rate radiation exposure from that waste wasn't a big issue then you might change your mind. I'm hear to give you the good news: nuclear waste is fine after about 500 years, and can be reused. Until then you can put it in simple concrete casks. It's very cheap to store, and while we need to be careful, it's not a total disaster if the casks are bombed or whatever: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/a-tale-of-two-particles
Nuclear waste is not a problem that can't be managed. It is also a relatively small amount compared to other kinds of waste, like the massive landfills of wind turbine blades and solar panels, and certain toxic tailings from some kinds of mining. Used radioactive material is cooled for a few years and then contained in large, safe concrete containers.
The new, advanced nuclear reactors, which I hope will be successful, have the wonderful promise of re-using nuclear fuel, reducing the final waste by a factor of close to 10X.
Nuclear waste volumes are small, particularly high and intermediate level wastes, and their radioactivity lessens with time and so does their radiotoxicity.
The same isn’t true of many toxic or carcinogenic chemicals particularly inorganic ones which remain a hazard forever. Worldwide the volumes both of legacy wastes from mining, mineral extraction and chemical and other manufacturing processes are enormous.
It is also relatively easy to identify suitable deep disposal sites that will remain geologically stable for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. Ask any geologist.
Even then the risks of leakage and dispersal are extremely low considering how the wastes are immobilised and packaged (the most difficult to deal with UK HLW is vitrified and the glassy product sealed in stainless steel containers).
The main issue is that public misunderstanding of the relative risks has led to an irrational fear of anything labelled nuclear. Effectively this means that nothing gets done, politicians come and go without progress being made. The UK is a perfect example, NIREX was established in 1982 specifically to address deep geological disposal and yet here we are in 2026 with no firm plans to do so.
The thousand of years figure was computed using LNT principles. If it assumed that the body can cope with low doses of radiation the timescale is reduced to a few hundred years which though long is more manageable
If nuclear power is to become more prevalent its promotors must present a credible case for handling long term storage and governments need to commit to carrying it out and not continue kicking the can down the road.
Very interesting.
As someone who just went to Chernobyl, I’m very glad that this is true!
I'm delighted to inform you that the worst spots in Chernobyl are about 0.2msv/day right now, so almost certainly completely safe even under extremely extended exposure. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/976/cpsprodpb/15D32/production/_105649398_chernobyl_map_976v3-nc.png
Yeah we were in the Sarcophagus but we had meters and it all felt totally gravy.
Well said re radiation fears especially from reactors being built today.
I asked Fable 5 for help pulling published data on the Taiwan c60 cohort and attempting a replication of the statistical analysis (using a proper causal inferencing approach). Was pretty happy with the results, which largely support the argument made in this article: https://www.symmetrybroken.com/revisiting-the-taiwan-rebar-cohort-data/
It may be feasible for me to request the original data from Taiwan at some point between now and the end of the year and redo the analysis from that original data. I'll report back if I end up following through on that.
A bigger issue is nuclear waste disposal; and that needs to be addressed.
Not a big issue: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/a-tale-of-two-particles