The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear, Reviews by Amazon (Petr Beckmann) USofA

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The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear byPetr Beckmann Format: Paperback

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This article presents positive reviews. For negative reviews see link above.

5.0 out of 5 stars The safest way to get the power we need

By John Richard Boren on June 23, 2014 All concentrated energy is dangerous, but we need lots of energy to improve the quality of life worldwide. This book demonstrates that of all the options, nuclear is by far the safest. I have owned the book for over 30 years, and bought this copy for a friend.

Although many years have passed since it was written, the laws of physics haven't changed one bit.

5.0 out of 5 stars Compare the Cost in Lives

By John Francis Russo on August 7, 2017 Excellent approach to evaluating the desirability of nuclear power for generating electricity.

5.0 out of 5 stars Nuclear Energy is the Best

By James R. Walborn on October 18, 2009 This book is the most sensible and most valuable written on the energy crisis and a way to really make a difference. Many countries are already doing this, but the U.S.A. has been stuck in neutral for several decades and not adding any new nuclear capability. If you want to read great arguments as to why Nuclear Power is the SAFEST and the best way out of the energy crisis, you can't miss this one!

5.0 out of 5 stars Still a very important and level headed book.

By Donald N. Anderson on November 18, 2007 Dr. Beckman's energy book is still the most concise comparison of health hazards across multiple electrical generating technologies of which I am aware.

He makes clear that no technique for generating electricity is absolutely safe. Each has its risks. However some are much more dangerous to human safety and health than others. His energy book carefully makes comparisons and shows that our failure to use 2

nuclear as the primary heat source for electrical power generation has sentenced many people to premature death. Nuclear power generation using U.S. technology is not only safer in some aspects, but in all significant aspects.

In his first chapter he discusses the fear mongering campaign that eventually halted construction of nuclear power reactors in the United States. He examines some of the lies, half-truths, and true statements of the type "I see you have not raped any under-age girls in the last two weeks." As usual fear sells, and journalists who did not wish to investigate the facts contributed heavily to the destruction of the U.S. lead in the use of the safest form of power yet discovered.

Dr. Beckman disposes of the canard about the possibility of nuclear power stations exploding as part of his description of how nuclear power is used to generate electricity.

We know more about the safety aspects of nuclear energy than any other form of power generation. Dr. Beckman pulls together enough of the fuzzy data available on the other forms to show that they are significantly more dangerous.

Since Dr. Beckman's book was published it has been shown that coal plants release enough uranium and thorium in their stack gases and scrubber sludge to power a nuclear power plant larger than the coal powered plant.

One of the few significant hazards of nuclear power is the release of radioactivity. Most coal plants release too much radioactivity to operate if they were regulated by the NRC. U.S. background radiation is about 250 millirems per year (some locations in other countries have levels 20 times higher). To this, nuclear power plants add about 0.003 millirems. Living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant adds about 1/100 as much radiation as 1 old color TV. Grand Central station in NY could not be licensed as a nuclear reactor even without any fuel because its granite blocks emit too much radiation.

Dr. Bechman discusses loss of coolant accidents and events leading to a meltdown and shows that even in this type of extreme event, loss of life is unlikely. He shows that loss of life events for nuclear power generation are the result of worst case computer simulations while deaths associated with fossil fuel generation are frequent occurrences.

He discusses the many parts of the power generation cycle. For example coal mining kills about 100 times as many miners per unit of power as do fatal accidents in uranium mining. Black Lung disease causes about 50 excess lung cancer deaths for every excess case of lung cancer among uranium miners.

About 100 people a year are killed in the process of transporting coal to power plants. At the time of his publication none had been reported killed transporting fuel for nuclear power plants.

Storage disasters for nuclear fuel are a small calculated theoretical disaster, but storage 3

disasters for other fuels kill actual people - a 1976 storage fire in Brooklyn killed only a few people because the wind was blowing in a favorable direction, but a 1944 LNG tank explosion in Cleveland killed 133, and in 1973 an empty LNG tank exploded killing 33.

Minor accidents with gas kill about 100 people a year.

In 1973 calculations show that a small change in radiation levels at nuclear plants would cost 800 million per saved life. The NRC mandated the change. A similar calculation showed that moving LNG tanks out of crowded areas would cost 0.001 million per life saved, but that has not been done.

Non-fossil fuel generation also has risks. In 1928 a dam collapse in Santa Paula, California killed 450, and in 1959 a French dam collapse killed 412. A landslide into a reservoir (1963 in Italy) killed 2,000 people and left 50,000 homeless.

Even solar, because of its very dilute nature, is more hazardous than nuclear. Nonnuclear waste is again far more dangerous. Dr. Beckmann has very competent explanations.

He estimates that replacing a 1,000 MW coal plant with a nuclear plant will save very roughly between 20 and 100 lives a year.

Dr. Beckman even discusses environmental impacts, terrorism, sabotage. reliability, and economy. Quite a bit for 177 pages of text including a 5 page preface on Three Mile Island.

This book is still incredibly informative and pertinent to our resumption of nuclear plant construction. Hopefully this time the lies will not be accepted so uncritically.

5.0 out of 5 stars Solar energy is 10,000 times more dangerous than nuclear power

By Joyce on April 22, 2016 Which is a safer mode of travel, walking or flying? Most people would say walking but they would be dead wrong. Why? Because the best way to evaluate the health hazard of an activity is to express it as a ratio. In this case, the ratio would compare the miles traveled per person per number of deaths from a particular mode of travel. The same idea is true with large scale energy generation. In that case, the ratio is units of energy produced per death involved in the entire process including exploration, mining, hauling, refining, generation, waste disposal, etc. Here is the clincher: using this perfectly reasonable approach, solar energy generation is 10,000 times more dangerous than nuclear power. The main reason is that it is relatively LABOR INTENSIVE. More labor means more accidents (per unit of energy generated), a leading cause of death in virtually every industry.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A voice of sanity regarding electrical power gene ratio

By Hill Country Bob on October 23, 2014 This book should be of interest to anyone who is interested in civilization and having adequate electrical power.

I believe that I am like essentially everyone in the world, and wish to live in a world with plentiful and cheap electrical power. I have been fortunate to be born in the USA, where electrical power has been plentiful and cheap during my lifetime. Nuclear power is the safest way to generate electrical power based on deaths per terawatt hour of power. It is much safer than coal. Nuclear power is also competitive in price per unit of electrical power for on demand power systems. The major cost is building the plant, where the regulators and the environmental types have been working hard and very successfully at doing everything possible to delay plant construction, and raise everyone's bill for electrical power.

The author does an excellent job of pointing out that there are health hazards of not using nuclear power due to the impact of other systems on people's health, including death. Coal mining deaths and the hazards of the particulate matter in the air from coal are the prime examples.

5.0 out of 5 stars A tremendous scientific response to the anti-nuclear view.

By A customer on March 14, 1999 Petr Beckmann stands up and answers the anti-nuclear attacks. He is very scientific in his answers. This book was written in a way that those without nuclear scientific knowhow could understand. Most enjoyable was the voice and attitude Petr Beckmann used.

He was tired of the stupid reasons used against nuclear power, and he explains why these reasons were stupid.

4.0 out of 5 starsA must read if you think Nuclear Energy dangerous

By A customer on June 6, 1998 I am a student attending the University of Phoenix Online University. In one of my classes this question was posed: In what ways can a company be legally but not socially responsible? What are examples of this?

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I used the opportunity to quote from The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear by Dr. Petr Beckmann.

The paper requirements were fairly informal and we are encouraged to chose subjects that stimulate discussion so I wrote the following: (hopefully I didn't corrupt the intent of Dr. Beckmann's work) Typically legally imposed responsibilities represent the minimum, socially acceptable standard. (In my opinion, laws are the social/cultural norms that have been legislated into law.) Always taking the minimum route, while possibly more profitable, does not translate into socially responsible.

One example that comes to mind is the activities of the press/media. Often, the media's quest for ratings and to "inform the people" ahead of one of their competitors, results in releasing information about a crime in such a way that the defendant cannot be assured a fair trial. This can lead to a couple of possibilities. The first being that the guilty party gets away. The other extreme, of course, is an innocent party gets convicted because of public pressure rather than evidence. Is it legal? Yes. Is it even close to being socially responsible? Absolutely not.

Now, what if a company/industry, in light of unquestionable scientific evidence, chose a technology for production of its product that was less subject to government regulations and had popular appeal with media? And this course of action ultimately reduced the stockholder's return on investment and took a much higher toll in human lives and damage to the environment? The actions of this industry brings with it an incredible social cost in terms of higher government expenditures. Would you say this company was socially irresponsible? Naturally, there is no question. Right?

Well this is exactly what ! happens every time a power generating company chooses not to use nuclear power. (Assuming they could start up a plant in this ridiculously over regulated industry.) I won't labor the issue but here are some undisputable facts listed in the 1985 book, The Health Hazards of NOT going Nuclear, by Dr. Petr Beckmann. It is important to note that Dr. Beckmann's thesis is not that nuclear power generation is safe. On the contrary, he simply points out that all methods of converting energy are inherently dangerous. Nuclear is simply the least dangerous, most efficient method of doing so. This is just one example of socially irresponsible management responding to criticisms of the biased and uninformed media.

First of all Dr. Beckmann dispels the myth of a nuclear explosion. The technology used to convert energy via nuclear fission is entirely different from that used to create nuclear bombs and an explosion is impossible.

However, an oil fired power plant with a of capacity 1000 MW capacity usually stores 6 weeks worth of fuel or roughly 2 Million barrels of oil. What happens if the fuel catches on fire? In December 1952 3,900 human lives were lost due to such an accident and the ensuing black cloud that engulfed London. 24 years later another similar accident 6

happened in Brooklyn NY when a 90,000 barrel oil storage complex caught fire. The fire could not be brought under control and burned for 4 days. Had the weather not been favorable, thousands of lives would have been lost (Beckmann, pp.88-89.) Now, think about the fact that there is a place (undisclosed) on the east cost that stores 151 million gallons of oil literally on top of a town of 37,000 people (Beckmann p.92).

The potential energy of a 200,000 ton oil tanker is roughly equivalent to that of a two megaton hydrogen bomb. Naturally if one caught fire and exploded it would not release all the energy at once so you can sleep well knowing the resultant blast would probably not exceed that of a couple of nuclear bombs like the ones d! ropped on Hiroshima (Beckmann p. 93).

Another example. Liquid natural gas (LNG) is far more dangerous than oil. In Cleveland, in October 1944 a LNG tank exploded taking 133 lives. The quantity of LNG stored in highly populated areas is 20 times that of the tank that exploded in Cleveland.

An empty tank exploded in February 73, but since it was empty, it only took 33 lives.

Minor accidents with natural gas claim about 100 lives/year. Not hypothetical lives of a computer simulation but actual lives counted by coroners. (Beckmann, p. 93). [ "Professor Richard Wilson of Harvard University has made an interesting comparison on the money spent to save human life from LNG tank explosions versus the money spent to save a human life from the radioactive emissions of nuclear power plants. [13] When in 1973, the maximum possible radiation dose at the property line of a nuclear power plant was reduced from 170 mrems/ year to 10 mrems/year, the effect was to reduce the incidence of cancer from 4 to 1 per year (out of a total of 300,000 cancers in the US). The cost of this step was $800,000,000 per saved life.

On the other hand, there are 75 LNG tanks located in US cities. The cost of moving these tanks out of the cities (calculated in the same way as the example above) would amount to only $1,000 per saved life; but this cost has not been paid and the LNG tanks remain in the cities.

Now who is it (and here we are no longer quoting Prof. Wilson) that decides to pay $800,000,000 for saving a human life from one danger, but refuses to pay $1,000 to save it from another?" [13]R. Wilson, paper given at Energy Conference, Center for Technology and Political Thought, Denver, Colo., June 1974. . . ] (Beckmann pp. 9394,183) I submit this is a powerful example of an industry or company staying well within the letter of the law and ! being completely, socially irresponsible.

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