Re:White House eyes subsidies for nuclear plants to help mee...
by pfdietz on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @09:18PM
(#27058061)
It's also possible that repair mechanisms can be induced, with the body making more repair enzymes under higher damage load. If so, this would imply the danger from a single particle would be higher at low doses where less induction has occurred. This is radiation hormesis, but of a kind that means LNT could be underestimating the danger of very low doses of radiation.
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Re:White House eyes subsidies for nuclear plants to help mee...
by c1ccccc1 on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @11:27PM
(#27058847)
You could be right, maybe there's a hormetic valley somewhere in the risk curve. I think it still has to be linear close to the background radiation level, and grow faster than linear as one approaches the lethal level, though.
Isn't it true that the proportionality coefficient for LNT was calculated using cancer rates for atomic bomb survivors? The dose for them would be very rapid, and there would be little time for enzymes to be produced. This would explain why such a valley didn't show up in that particular set of data.
Re:White House eyes subsidies for nuclear plants to help mee...
by pfdietz on Thursday May 06, 2021 @07:33AM
(#27061696)
LNT has been checked as far down as the statistics lets it be checked (including with animal experiments). Those doses are much higher than the doses I was talking about, the doses that actually matter for nuclear accidents. It's conceivable that the slope of the effect/dose curve at very low doses could be very steep. The results at those higher doses wouldn't be able to tell.