Radioactivity in the Environment

374 Pages·2013·5.814 MB·1-390\374

by  Deborah Oughton and Sven Ove Hansson (Eds.)

A companion series to the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity
Series Editor
M.S. Baxter
Ampfield House
Clachan Seil
Argyll, Scotland, UK
Volume 1: Plutonium in the Environment
(A. Kudo, Editor)
Volume 2: Interactions of Microorganisms with Radionuclides
(F.R. Livens and M. Keith-Roach, Editors)
Volume 3: Radioactive Fallout after Nuclear Explosions and Accidents
(Yu.A. Izrael, Author)
Volume 4: Modelling Radioactivity in the Environment
(E.M. Scott, Editor)
Volume 5: Sedimentary Processes: Quantification Using Radionuclides
(J. Carroll and I. Lerche, Authors)
Volume 6: Marine Radioactivity
(H.D. Livingston, Editor)
Volume 7: The Natural Radiation Environment VII
(J.P. Mclaughlin, S.E. Simopoulos and F. Steinhäusler, Editors)
Volume 8: International Conference on Isotopes and Environmental Studies
(P.P. Povinec and J.A. Sanchez-Cabeza, Editors)
Volume 9: Deep Geological Disposal of Radioactive Waste
(W.R. Alexander and L.E. Mckinley, Editors)
Volume 10: Radioactivity in the Terrestrial Environment
(G. Shaw, Editor)
Volume 11: Analysis of Environment Radionuclides
(P.P. Povinec, Editor)
Volume 12: Radioactive Aerosols
(C. Papastefanou, Author)
Volume 13: U-Th Series Nuclides in Aquatic Systems
(S. Krishnaswami and J. Kirk Cochran, Editors)
Volume 14: Remediation of Contaminated Environments
(G. Voigt and S. Fesenko, Editors)
Volume 15: Airborne Radioactive Contamination in Inhabited Areas
(K.G. Andersson, Editor)
Volume 16: Environmental Radionuclides: Tracers and Timers of Terrestrial
Processes
(K. Froehlich, Editor)
Volume 17: Technologically Enhanced Natural Radiation
(A.S. Paschoa and F. Steinhäusler, Authors)
Volume 18: Tropical Radioecology
(John R. Twining, Editor)
Radioactivity in the
Environment
Volume 19
Social and Ethical Aspects of Radiation
Risk Management
Edited by
Deborah Oughton
Centre for Environmental Radioactivity,
Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway
Sven Ove Hansson
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH),
Division of Philosophy, Stockholm, Sweden
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Preface
This cooperation began in an elevator in Prague in late August, 2011. As partici-
pants in Friedo Zölzer’s symposium Ethics of Environmental Health, we were
both impressed by the quality of many of the contributions. In the time required
for the elevator to take us from the first to the fourth floor, we decided to jointly
edit a volume on social and ethical aspects of radiation protection. Everything
was in place to give the book project a flying start. In addition to the semi-
nar presentations, we both had ideas on other potential contributors. Deborah
already had contacts with a publisher who was actively looking for such a book.
We would like to thank all the authors for their devotion to the project, their
hard work, and their forbearance with our editorial deadlines and directions.
Thanks are also due to Murdoch S. Baxter for his patience and support and for
including the book in his series, and to Jill Cetel and her colleagues at Elsevier
for all their help. It has been a pleasurable experience to cooperate with you all
in making this book. Let us hope that our joint efforts will contribute to more
ethical and socially responsible practices in the radiation protection in the years
to come.
Stockholm and Oslo, March 30, 2013
Sven Ove Hansson, Deborah Oughton
xiii

Contributors
Kazbek Apsalikov, M.D., Ph.D. (Radiation Hygiene), is Director of the Research
Institute for Radiation Medicine and Ecology in Semei, Kazakhstan. He has
conducted large-scale clinical and epidemiological research projects among
the population in the Semipalatinsk region, including INCO-COPERNICUS
project “Semipalatinsk Follow-up”, a UNFPA-supported project on reproductive
health in relation to radiation exposure due to nuclear testing near S emipalatinsk, and
collaborative projects with Japanese scientists.
Susanne Bauer, MSc (Environmental Sciences), Ph.D. (Public Health), is associate
professor at the Department of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, G ermany.
She has gained extensive research experience as an environmental epidemiologist, before
she moved on to the social studies of science.
Tatyana Belikhina holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Hygiene. She has been head of
the department of research management at the Research Institute for Radiation Medi-
cine and Ecology Semei, Kazakhstan, for five years. Her research experience includes
radiation epidemiology, clinical investigations and coordination of different research
directions in the field of radiation medicine.
Carl F. Cranor is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and member of the Envi-
ronmental Toxicology Graduate Program at the University of California, Riverside. His
research focuses on philosophic issues concerning risks, science and the law. He has
written Regulating Toxic Substances (Oxford, 1993), Toxic Torts: Science, Law and the
Possibility of Justice (Cambridge, 2006), and Legally Poisoned: How the Law Puts Us
at Risk from Toxicant (Harvard, 2011) and served on numerous science advisory panels.
Boris Gusev, M.D., Ph.D. (Radiation Biology), has long-standing experience in
researching the radiation-hygienic, medical, and demographic consequences of nuclear
bomb testing in Kazakhstan and participated in joint investigations with scientists from
Hiroshima University (Japan), NCI (USA), and the Federal Office for Radiation Protec-
tion (Germany). He was Chief physician of the Dispensary № 4 from 1962 to 1990 and
director of the Research Institute for Radiation Medicine and Ecology from 1991 to
1997.
Mike Hannis holds an honorary research fellowship in environmental politics and
philosophy at Keele University (UK), and an associate lectureship at the Open Univer-
sity. He is also an editor of The Land magazine.
Sven Ove Hansson is professor in philosophy at the Royal Institute of Technology
(KTH) in Stockholm. He is editor-in-chief of Theoria and was president of the Soci-
ety for Philosophy and Technology in 2011-2013. He has written extensively on the
xv
xvi Contributors
philosophy of risk, and his book The Ethics of Risk, is scheduled for publication in late
2013.
Christopher J. Kalman is a career occupational physician, currently employed as
Director of Occupational Health and Safety for NHS Lothian, a large integrated health-
care provider within the state owned National Health Service in Scotland. He has a
specialist interest in ionising radiation, with postgraduate qualifications in radiobiology.
He filled senior medical roles in the support of the UK’s Royal Navy nuclear propulsion
programme, and also as a Chief Medical Officer for a nuclear power utility in Scotland.
He is an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in Public Health at both the Universities of
Edinburgh and Glasgow, and sat on the UK Government’s Expert Radioactive Waste
Advisory Committee.
Astrid Liland is a nuclear chemist who has thirteen years’ experience in research
and research management in radiation protection, radioecology and emergency pre-
paredness and recovery. She has worked on the wider consequences of nuclear accidents
in Norway, Belarus and Japan. She is currently leading the section for radiation research
at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority.
Jacques Lochard is director of the Nuclear Protection Evaluation Centre (CEPN) in
Fontenay-aux-Roses, France. He was educated as economist and has a long experience in
practical radiation protection particularly in relation with the protection of people in the
areas contaminated by the Chernobyl accident in Belarus. He is currently member of the
Main Commission of the International Commission of Radiological Protection and Chair
of the Committee 4 in charge of the application of the Commission’s Recommendations.
Jim Malone is Professor (Emeritus) of Medical Physics, Trinity College, Dublin,
Consultant with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, regular con-
tributor at the European School of Medical Physics in Geneva and Director of the Robert
Boyle Foundation. He was Dean of Medical School/Faculty of Health Sciences and
Director of Graduate Studies at Trinity College and a board member of about ten corpo-
rate bodies. He has wide interests in the humanities.
Michio Miyasaka is professor of health care ethics at School of Health Sciences,
Niigata University. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1998. He has
published three books in Japanese, which include Methods in Health Care Ethics:
Principles, Procedures, and Narratives (in Japanese, Tokyo, 2005) and The Records of
Hansen’s Disease Prison (in Japanese, Tokyo, 2006). He has published more than 60
journal articles and book chapters in Japanese and English.
Timur Moldagaliev is a Ph.D.candidate in public health at the Medical University
of Semei, Kazakhstan. His research interests include the psychosocial aspects of living
with nuclear legacies in areas adjacent to the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site.
Deborah Oughton is professor in nuclear and environmental chemistry, and
research director of the Centre of Environmental Radioactivity, at the Norwegian Uni-
versity of Life Sciences (UMB). She currently holds a professorship in Research Ethics
Contributors xvii
at the University of Oslo and is deputy head of the National Committee on Research
Ethics in Science and Technology. She has published widely in both science and eth-
ics, and has been a strong advocate of putting ethics into practice in radiation risk
management.
Kate Rawles has a background in environmental philosophy and ethics. She has
worked as an independent consultant for Nirex UK on ethical questions in relation to
radioactive waste management. She currently works half-time as a senior lecturer in
Outdoor Studies at the University of Cumbria and half-time as a writer, campaigner and
outdoor philosopher. Her book, The Carbon Cycle; crossing the great divide was pub-
lished in the UK by Two Ravens Press in 2012 and is forthcoming in North America with
Rocky Mountain Books in 2013.
Carl Rollenhagen is adjunct professor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).
He has worked extensively with safety management and human factors in the nuclear
industry and published books and articles about event investigation and safety culture.
Kristin Shrader-Frechette is O’Neill Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
and Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame. Her research, translated into
thirteen languages, focuses on methodological/ethical problems in radiobiology, quan-
titative risk assessment, and public health. The US National Science Foundation has
funded her research for 28 years. Her 16 books include Taking Action, Saving Lives
(Oxford UP, 2007), and What Will Work: Fighting Climate Change with Renewable
Energy, Not Nuclear Power (Oxford UP, 2011). Practical Philosophy of Science will
appear in 2014.
Lavrans Skuterud is biophysicist and environmental chemist at the Norwegian
Radiation Protection Authority. He has twenty years’ experience in studies of radioactiv-
ity in the environment, in population groups in Norway, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus,
and in management of the Chernobyl consequences in Norway. He is also a consultant
for the Norwegian Reindeer Husbandry Administration, and served as a consultant for
UN/FAO during the Fukushima crisis.
Behnam Taebi is assistant professor in ethics of technology at Delft University of
Technology. With a Master’s degree in material science and a Ph.D. in philosophy of
technology, he has worked and published on the social and ethical aspects of nuclear
power production. He is currently working on a monograph on nuclear justice. He is also
the coordinating editor of a special issue of Journal of Risk Research on “Socio-technical
challenges of nuclear power production and waste management after Fukushima”
(co-editor Prof. Ibo van de Poel).
Jack Valentin, an Honorary Fellow of the Society for Radiological Protection and a
Fellow of the Institute of Physics, has a Ph.D. degree in genetics. He used to be a senior
regulator at the then Swedish Radiation Protection Authority, then became the Scientific
Secretary of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). Being
retired, he now enjoys life as an aviation and classic car buff, but continues to do radio-
logical protection work as a private consultant.
xviii Contributors
Brian Wynne is professor of science studies at Lancaster University, where he is a
founder-member and ex-Director of the Centre for Science Studies, and the Centre for
the Study of Environmental Change. With a Masters degree and Ph.D. in materials sci-
ence, he retrained in history, philosophy and sociology of science, and has worked and
published on the sociology and culture of scientific knowledge in public arenas, such as
risk assessment and environmental policy, as well as on public experiences of scientific
expertise.
Friedo Zölzer is professor of radiation biology at the University of South Bohemia
in Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic. He is head of the Department of Radiology,
Toxicology and Civil Protection. While his main research interest is in the effects of low
doses of radiation, he has become involved with related ethical issues more recently,
organizing an International Symposium on Ethics of Environmental Health in Prague
2011 and in Ceske Budejovice in 2014.
Chapter 1
Introduction
Sven Ove Hansson,1,* and Deborah Oughton,2,*
1Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Division of Philosophy, Stockholm, Sweden
2Centre for Environmental Radioactivity, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, ÅS, Norway
*Corresponding authors: E-mails: [email protected], [email protected]
Chapter Outline
1.1 Part I. Ethical Principles 1.4 Part IV. Proliferation
for Radiation Protection 4 and the Nuclear
1.2 Part II. Putting Fuel Cycle 10
Protection to Practice 6 1.5 Part V. Public
1.3 Part III. Nuclear Participation 11
Accidents 8
There was a time when radiation protection was believed to be an issue for
natural science alone. Scientific experts could determine radiation levels below
which there would be no adverse health effects. These limits could be used in
combination with dosimetry to make sure that no one was exposed to dangerous
levels of radiation.
But three parallel developments have made this approach hopelessly inad-
equate. First, developments in science have given us strong reasons to assume
that exposure limits alone cannot provide a guarantee against radiation health
effects. The probability of getting cancer decreases with reduced exposure, but
we have no way to identify a limit below which they disappear completely. The
consensus view is that we had better assume that no excess exposure is free of
risk.
Secondly, a series of technological failures in nuclear facilities have made
radiological safety a public issue. Although the radioactive releases from the
Three Mile Island accident in 1979 were limited, it had a worldwide impact on
the public opinion. The accidents in Chernobyl in 1986 and in the F ukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011 demonstrated the potential damaging
effects of radiation accidents and showed that these could go far beyond the
direct radiological impacts.
Radioactivity in the Environment, Volume 19
ISSN 1569-4860, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-045015-5.00001-0 3
Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.