The Paydirt 2011 Uranium Conference was held at the Adelaide Hilton on Monday and Tuesday. Bad timing.
The image of uranium industry executives sipping cocktails at the Hilton as the Fukushima crisis entered its second week could hardly win the public’s hearts and minds.
Likewise, Paladin CEO John Borshoff’s description of the Fukushima crisis as a “sideshow” will do nothing to quell public concern.
Efforts to cool the nuclear reactor cores have met with mixed success; there have been deliberate and uncontrolled radiation releases and several explosions; 200,000 people were evacuated and the exclusion zone was repeatedly widened; a fire led to spent nuclear fuel releasing radiation directly to the environment; radiation monitors detected alarming jumps near the reactors and low levels of radiation have been detected in Tokyo and beyond; and food restrictions are being implemented because of radioactive contamination.
Some sideshow.
Nor will the public be reassured by the claim of Michael Angwin from the Australian Uranium Association that: “The rest of Japan’s nuclear fleet is safe and of course the global nuclear fleet is safe”.
Mr Angwin’s statement would have carried more weight if it was made before the Fukushima crisis began. Before Fukushima, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said:
All nuclear power plants are built to withstand environmental hazards, including earthquakes. Even those plants that are located outside of areas with extensive seismic activity are designed for safety in the event of such a natural disaster.
But is Australia in any way culpable? The uranium mining companies refuse to say whether or not they supply the scandal-plagued nuclear corporation TEPCO, operator of the stricken plant at Fukushima.
However, it is known that Australia exports large volumes of uranium to Japan − nearly 2500 tonnes in 2008 − and TEPCO is certainly one of the customers. One suspects that if any of the three companies operating uranium mines in Australia was not a supplier to TEPCO, they would be shouting that fact from the rooftops.
The uranium industry angrily rejects any suggestion of culpability. According to a March 18 statement from the Australian Uranium Association, the Australian uranium industry “has led the global nuclear industry’s efforts to create a framework of stewardship for the safe and responsible management of uranium throughout the nuclear fuel cycle”.
But ‘efforts to create a framework for stewardship’ is managerial jargon shrouding the inaction of the industry.
To its great shame, the Australian uranium industry sat on its hands and did nothing even as it was revealed that TEPCO had systematically and routinely falsified safety data and breached safety regulations for decades, even as a 2007 report detailed 97 incidents of ‘malpractice’ at Japan’s nuclear power plants, and even as the ability of Japan’s nuclear plants to withstand earthquakes came under criticism from industry insiders.
A big part of the spin surrounding the Fukushima crisis is the claim − or the unstated, implicit assumption − that low level radiation exposures are ‘safe’ or ‘harmless’. However there is no safe level of radiation − the risk of fatal cancer is proportional to the dose, even at the lowest levels of exposure.
The Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation of the US National Academy of Sciences comprehensively studied the issue and concluded that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and ... the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”
Instead of taking their responsibilities seriously, Australia’s uranium mining companies - as Toro Energy, Uranium One and Heathgate Resources - have been sponsoring visits to Australia by fringe scientists who claim that low level radiation exposure is not only harmless but actually good for you.
If they truly believe that, then let’s see the industry executives and the fringe scientists have a play-fight with yellowcake uranium powder.
For the uranium mining companies to promote such marginal views is self-serving and irresponsible and it may be time for governments to step in to provide that balance.
To estimate the death toll from Fukushima, it will be necessary to estimate the total human radiation exposure as a result of the accidents. The standard risk estimate for low level radiation can then be applied.
It is far too early to be attempting those calculations for Fukushima, but we can apply the logic to Chernobyl. Total radiation exposure from Chernobyl was 600,000 Sieverts according to the International Atomic Energy Agency and thus an estimated 24,000 people will die, nearly all of them because of cancers induced by low level radiation exposure.
Dr Peter Karamoskos is a Nuclear Radiologist, a member of the Medical Association for Prevention of War, and public representative on the Radiation Health Committee of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency. Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia.
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