REPORTS
Errata for The Use of Reference Man in Radiation Protection Standards and Guidance with Recommendations for Change (2008):
For clarification, IEER issued Revision 1 (April 2009) with the following changes:
- On page 8 and page 27, as part of Recommendation 2, the second bulleted point was changed to: “EPA’s limit
s to the whole body (25 millirem per year), thyroid (75 millirem per year), and any other organ (25 millirem per year) under of 25 millirem from nuclear fuel cycle operations (40 CFR 190)”
- On page 9-10 and page 30, Recommendation 11 was changed and now reads:
“Reduce maximum allowable exposure to 25 millirem per year from 100 millirem per year: Tighten NRC and DOE rules for maximum allowable exposure from nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear weapons facilities: The EPA is currently considering how the conclusions of BEIR VII should be incorporated in its regulatory framework. We do not agree with the EPA’s position that “current standards and guidance are protective” even in light of BEIR VII.2 For instance, tThe present radiation protection standard for the general public of 100 millirem per year in 10 CFR 20.1301(a), issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is inadequate and obsolete, especially in light of the BEIR VII report’s conclusions. According to BEIR VII risk values, females have a lifetime risk of one in a hundred of getting cancer at this level of annual exposure. And this excludes the cancer risks during fetal exposure. This is unacceptably high. We recommend that the NRC should revise 10 CFR 20 to reduce it to 25 millirem per year, which is currently the EPA standard for the maximum for nuclear fuel cycle facilities and limit the dose from these combined to conform with the EPA limits in 40 CFR 190, which specifies the EPA standard for dose from a single nuclear fuel cycle facility. The DOE should similarly modify DOE Order 5400.5 to reduce the maximum dose to the general public from 100 millirem per year from nuclear weapons facilities to conform with 40 CFR 190. The EPA should also revise its standard for a single fuel cycle facility to make provision for tightening the dose limit from single facilities in cases where the public is exposed to more than one nuclear fuel cycle source (including any nuclear weapons-related facilities). Among other things, a A considerable tightening of drinking water standards for transuranic radionuclides is also in order.
New or amended footnotes to Recommendation 11 (footnotes 2, 3, 5, and 6 or footnotes 56, 57, 59 and 60. Footnotes 2 and 53 were replaced with 2 & 56; 3, 5, and 6 are all new) now read:
2 or 56 This report is focused on members of the general public (with the exception of pregnant women in the workplace). Its recommendations are focused on nuclear fuel cycle facilities. They do not concern workers in any workplaces, such as industrial or medical workplaces, where there may be radiation producing devices or radionuclides, whether or not workers in such facilities are radiation workers or members of the general public at present.
3 or 57 Doses in this report are total effective dose equivalent, unless otherwise specified. It should be noted that we only address nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear weapons facilities in this report. Specifically, we are not addressing medical, academic and other similar facilities in this report.
5 or 59 This regulation limits the annual dose equivalent to “25 millirems to the whole body, 75 millirems to the thyroid, and 25 millirems to any other organ of any member of the public….” with the exception of doses from radon and its decay products (“daughters”).
6 or 60 See Makhijani 2005.
- On page 10 and page 30, one sentence of Recommendation 12 was changed as follows:
We recommend that the EPA publish a White Paper on risk-based or risk-informed radiation standards where both doses and risks are calculated on a gender- and age-specific basis and where the lifetime risk to a maximally exposed individual is kept much lower than that implied by 40 CFR 190the current single fuel cycle facility limit of 25 millirem per year. Corrected version of the report.
Errata for Science for the Vulnerable: Setting Radiation and Multiple Exposure Environmental Health Standards to Protect Those Most at Risk (2006):
- On page 60, in the box, a correction was made to a sentence in the third paragraph as follows: "For instance, one gram (about one-thirtieth of an ounce) of tritium in tritiated water will contaminate almost 500 billion
gallons liters of water up to the drinking water limit of 20,000 picocuries per liter."
- On page 38, in Table 6, a correction was made to the number of "All cancers" for five year old females. That number was changed from 2277 to the now correct 3377.
- On page 73, footnote 214 was changed from ICRP 88 p. 20 to ICRP 88 p. 24
Corrected version of the report. (Also in PDF.)
Errata for Bad to the Bone: Analysis of the Federal Maximum Contaminant Levels for Plutonium-239 and Other Alpha-Emitting Transuranic Radionuclides in Drinking Water (2005):
Errata for Uranium Enrichment: Just Plain Facts to Fuel an Informed Debate on Nuclear Proliferation and Nuclear Power (2004):
- On page 10, following Figure 5 and its caption, corrections to the third and fourth sentences are as follows: "Such a facility would consume
460 580 to 680 816 thousand kWh of electricity, which could be supplied by less than a 100 kilowatt power plant. The use of modern weapon designs would reduce those numbers to just one to three thousand stages and 150 193 to 280 340 thousand kWh." These corrections were made to the report on the IEER web site on March 11, 2005. The corrected sentences appear on page 13 of the corrected version of the report.
Errata for Poison in the Vadose Zone (2001):
- Page 15. Last sentence under point 7, should read: "Despite the fact that there is a known plume of iodine-129, DOE rates its own monitoring of iodine-129 as 'poor'."
Footnote addition is DOE, July 2000. Book 1, page 4-77.
- Page 17. Add the following two-paragraph footnote after the sentence, "Hazardous organic materials, such as carbon tetrachloride and trichloroethylene (TCE), are highly toxic pollutants that could mobilize faster transport of radionuclides through the vadose zone.":
"Laboratory experiments show that iodine is very soluble in carbon tetrachloride (Bender, 2002) and that the addition of carbon tetrachloride to tributyl phosphate enhances the ability of the latter to extract plutonium from an aqueous solution. (Wick, 1980, p. 464). Observations in the field have found that transuranics are transported by colloids (Kersting, et al., January 1999) or natural organic matter (McCarthy, et al., 1998) and can migrate much faster than previously believed. At INEEL, organic materials, including tributyl phosphate and carbon tetrachloride as well as radionuclides, including transuranics radionuclides, were dumped in the shallow pits and trenches of the RWMC (Lockheed, August 1995, Vol. 1, pp. 3-36 to 3-39).
"Although the transport of radionuclides in the environment is a question that involves many parameters and, in some cases, is not very well understood, it is reasonable to conclude, based on the laboratory and field evidence cited above, that organic materials could enhance the migration of a variety of radionuclides through the vadose zone."
- Page 45. First sentence in the third paragraph under 1. Radionuclides should read: "Despite the fact that there is a known plume of iodine-129, DOE rates its own monitoring of iodine-129 as 'poor'."
Footnote addition is DOE, July 2000. Book 1, page 4-77.
- Page 65. Replace the first sentence of the final paragraph of Chapter II, with these two sentences: "The failure to monitor crucial hazardous materials and to sufficiently and accurately monitor iodine-129 in the aquifer is especially troubling, particularly because extensive contamination of the perched water bodies as well as the Snake River Plain aquifer is already recognized. These problems take on even greater significance when the long half-life of iodine-129 and the fact that the concentration of this radionuclide already exceeds the safe drinking water standard in parts of the Snake River Plain aquifer under the site are taken into account."
- Page 119+. Add the following to the References section:
Bender, 2002 
Bender, Hal. Examples [class notes for Chemistry 105, Lesson 3]. Oregon City, OR: Clackamas Community College. Distance Learning, 2002. http://dl.clackamas.cc.or.us/ch105-03/examples1.htm. (Viewed December 9, 2002).
Wick, 1980 Wick, O.J., ed. Plutonium Handbook, A Guide to the Technology. La Grange Park, IL: American Nuclear Society, 1980.
Errata for Wind Power Versus Plutonium: An Examination of Wind Energy Potential and a Comparison of Offshore Wind Energy to Plutonium Use in Japan (1999):
- In table 22 on page 47, the costs for fuel and reprocessing should be, respectively, 0.9 and 1.0 cents per kilowatt-hour. As a result, the estimated cost of electricity from breeder reactors should be 11.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, not 11 cents. Also, the total cost of offshore wind should be 5.54 cents per kilowatt-hour. (This figure is provided to two significant decimal places because the cost of decommissioning, which it includes, is provided in this was.) The table in SDA vol. 8 no. 1 reflects these corrections.
Errata for Containing the Cold War Mess: Restructuring the Environmental Management of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex (1997):
- On page 123, paragraph 2, corrections to the sentence on lines 7 through 9 is as follows: Preliminary estimates indicate that transuranic radionuclides appear to travel
100 to 1,000 times orders of magnitude faster "than predicted from batch adsorption studies in the literature." These corrections were made to the report on the IEER web site in September 2003. Corrected version of the report.
Errata for Draft Power in South Asian Food Grain Production: Analysis of the Problem and Suggestions for Policy (1990):
Errata for Deadly Crop in the Tank Farm: An Assessment of the Management of High-Level Radioactive Waste in the Savannah River Plant Tank Farm Based on Official Documents (Published by the Environmental Policy Institute in 1986):
BOOKS
Errata for Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free (2007):
The following corrected text appears in the second (2008) and subsequent printings.
- Page 42. In the first paragraph below the numbered list, the sentence spanning lines 6-8 has been changed to read as follows:
At 15 percent conversion efficiency, available today, parking lot PV installations could supply more than much of the electricity generated in the United States today.
- Page 43. The top paragraph has been replaced. It now reads:
Solar electric systems can also be used in more centralized installations. At 15 percent efficiency, a 1,000 MW plant in the Southwest (that is, in a favorable area for solar) would occupy about 20 square kilometers for a flat plate, non-tracking system. Tracking systems need more land area because the arrays require more space between elements to avoid shading as they rotate. Rotation on two axes increases area further. However, tracking systems generate more electricity per unit of installed capacity, creating a trade-off between land area and installed capacity. Figure 3-6 (see color insert) is a map of the continental United States, published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, showing annual average incident solar radiation on a device that turns to face the sun. Figure 3-6 shows that there are large areas in the Southwest which are favorable to solar energy (more than 6 kWh per square meter per day). Much of the rest of the United States has an insolation rate of 4 to 5 kWh per square meter per day. The insolation values have been averaged day and night, over the entire year. The semi-arid and desert areas in the Southwest and West not only have the greatest incident energy, but also the greatest number of cloudless days. Those regions are therefore excellent candidates for central station solar PV, especially since this technology, unlike fossil fuel and nuclear plants, does not require cooling water. At 15 percent efficiency, the area requirements in the Southwest for generating one-fourth of the 2007 U.S. electricity output would be on the order of 3,000 to 4,000 square miles, for non-tracking systems. The area for tracking systems would be considerably larger.
- Page 108. Some numbers in the three paragraphs on land-area requirements for solar energy have been changed to read as follows:
Solar photovoltaic cells also do not take up much land. In fact, installations on rooftops and parking lots take up no additional land. Assuming that half of the large- and intermediate-scale installations are associated with commercial parking lots and rooftops, the land-area requirements for solar PV in the reference scenario are rather modest - about 860 1,800 square miles, which is equal to a square about 29 42 miles on the side, assuming the central station installations are in sunny areas. This includes a 30 percent allowance for roads, space between the PV arrays, and infrastructure.
We estimate solar thermal electric power production land requirements would be about 210 1,150 square miles. The trough or parabolic reflectors that track the sun in such power plants capture solar energy much more efficiently than solar PV, though much of that advantage is lost in the thermal electricity production cycle as waste heat.
Overall, the total land-area requirements in the reference scenario for wind and solar energy (other than parking lots and rooftops) would be about 1,560 3,440 square miles, which is a square almost 40 59 miles to the side.
- Page 111. Some numbers in the table on land-area requirements have been changed:
Table 5-1: Land-Area Requirements for the IEER Reference Scenario (rounded)
|
Energy source |
Land area, square miles |
Side of a square, miles |
Comments |
|
Wind |
490 |
22 |
Mainly infrastructure, including roads |
|
Centralized Solar PV |
1,800 |
42 |
See note 2 |
|
Solar thermal (central station) |
1,150 |
34 |
See note 3 |
|
Biofuels (solid and liquid) |
184,000 |
429 |
About five-sixths of the area is harvested area for biomass; rest is microalgae and aquatic plants |
Total |
187,440 |
443 |
About 5.3 percent of U.S. land area |
Notes:
1. Wind capacity factor = 30% and land footprint per megawatt = 0.6 hectares
2. Solar PV efficiency = 15%; generation rate = 120 kWh/m2/yr.
3. Solar thermal: generation rate = 75 kWh/m2/yr.
Errata for The Nuclear Power Deception (1999):
- Page 153. The last row, second column of Table 7, should read: Narora, Uttar Pradesh, India
- Page 216-217. Figure B-1. The Uranium Decay Chain should appear as follows (most printed copies contain this correction):
URANIUM DECAY CHAIN -- Main Branch
Read from left to right. Arrows indicate decay.
|
Uranium-238 ==>
(half-life: 4.46 billion years)
alpha decay | Thorium-234 ==>
(half-life: 24.1 days)
beta decay | Protactinium-234m ==>
(half-life: 1.17 minutes)
beta decay |
Uranium-234 ==>
(half-life: 245,000 years)
alpha decay | Thorium-230 ==>
(half-life: 75,400 years)
alpha decay |
Radium-226 ==>
(half-life: 1,600 years)
alpha decay |
Radon-222 ==>
(half-life: 3.82 days)
alpha decay |
Polonium-218 ==>
(half-life: 3.11 minutes)
alpha decay |
Lead-214 ==>
(half-life: 26.8 minutes)
beta decay |
Bismuth-214 ==>
(half-life: 19.9 minutes)
beta decay |
Polonium-214 ==>
(half-life: 163 microseconds)
alpha decay |
Lead-210 ==>
(half-life: 22.3 years)
beta decay |
Bismuth-210 ==>
(half-life: 5.01 days)
beta decay |
Polonium-210 ==>
(half-life: 138 days)
alpha decay |
Lead-206
(stable) |
Errata for Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects (1995 and 2000):
- Page 368. Table 7.5. The text in center of the table that says ">5 sieverts" should be corrected to read ">0.05 sieverts" (in both columns).
Errata for Plutonium: Deadly Gold of the Nuclear Age (1992):
- Page 54. Table 3.2. Volume of LOW-LEVEL LIQUIDS should read 2.2 x 109 gallons. Under LOW-LEVEL LIQUIDS, Tritium radioactivity (in Curies) should read 4.0 x 104, Strontium-90 radioactivity (in Curies) should read 2.9, and Cesium-137 radioactivity (in Curies) should read 5.1. Volume of LOW-LEVEL SOLIDS should read 213 cubic meters
Radioactive Heaven and Earth (1991)
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research