Login required to started new threads

Login required to post replies

Prev Next
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
GreenPlease wrote:
eb wrote:
GreenPlease wrote:

IMO, in another severe economic downturn a wise expenditure of public funds in any western country would be to fund the construction of SMRs for installation on large military bases.


I don't necessarily disagree, but feel compelled to say "Yeah, we tried that".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Nuclear_Power_Program


I drive past an entombed SM1A on a regular basis.


Right, but at no point in the time period was massive Keynesian stimulus in the forefront of policy maker's minds. In fact, the U.S. was shuttling along on one of the largest influxes of government stimulus in history (WW2). There will come a time in the not so distant future where policy makers will have to come up with stimulative projects they can sell to the public. SMRs for DOD facilities would be an easy sell IMO.

Frankly, I get a little nervous when you speak of economic stimulus and nuclear power. I would rather reactors be built carefuly and methodically rather than throwing money at the problem. I live within 25 miles of four coal-fired power plants; two at major DoD facilities. The local populace is rabidly pro-DoD; yet I'm not sure they would support SMRs. Maybe if you gave them unmetered electricity!
Quote Reply
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [eb] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
I think any place that has an INES 5 or higher would get nervous. 3 Mile Island was level 5, and it certainly left many in the US nervous about nuclear energy.
France has a huge nuclear program for the size of the country and population, and despite a couple of incidents, never got anything higher than 4, and that was in 1980.
Quote Reply
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [FishyJoe] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
FishyJoe wrote:
I have no problem with removing tax breaks and subsidies for energy, ALL energy.


I think this would be an interesting chart if it compared dollars to the number of joules of produced.
Quote Reply
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [eb] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Quote:
If you want a good example of how environmental regulation has failed the public, look at the PFAS issue.

Recent ATSDR Report may get things moving. I haven't gotten into the numbers at all nor have any idea how these new thresholds correspond to levels in Public Water Supplies.

Poorly written ABC News story.

If the administration tried to block this report from ATSDR, that is a disgrace.

________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev
Quote Reply
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [H-] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
H- wrote:
Quote:
If you want a good example of how environmental regulation has failed the public, look at the PFAS issue.


Recent ATSDR Report may get things moving. I haven't gotten into the numbers at all nor have any idea how these new thresholds correspond to levels in Public Water Supplies.

Poorly written ABC News story.

If the administration tried to block this report from ATSDR, that is a disgrace.

This whole rollout has been badly botched, and there's going to be a shitstorm. But if I had been part of the White House I might well have tried to delay or manage the rollout, too. And I am not one to miss an opportunity to bash this White House. Let me explain ...

The issue is that the ATSDR toxicity profile is suggesting that several of the PFAS (PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, and PFNA) are far more toxic than previously believed. Using PFOS as an example, if their suggestions are incorporated into an updated EPA Health Advisory level for drinking water, the HA would be lower by a factor of ten for PFOS - it would go from 70 ppt to 7 ppt. To give you an idea how low 7 parts per trillion is, even as recently as 2015 the top commercial laboratories would have struggled to meet 7 ppt as a detection limit.

So, (you ask, as I did) what is the basis for this ten-fold increase in the supposed toxicity of PFOS? You will probably imagine (as I did) that there were new studies, or a more careful analysis, or some other substantive increase in our knowledge of PFOS toxicology. You would be wrong (me too).

The new report uses a 2005 study (delayed ossification of rat phalanges) as the basis for the new MRL (Minimum Risk Level) for PFOS. This single study, and most of the other assumptions are exactly the same as those in the 2016 EPA Health Effects document for PFOS.

The only difference (the only goddamn difference), is that they add an additional uncertainty factor of 10, to allow for the supposition that "immunological endpoints may be more sensitive than developmental endpoints." (I may have the quote a little bit wrong, I'm going from memory.)

Now, I'm not a toxicologist, but I dabble, and this is the first time I've ever seen an uncertainty factor like this. It's bizarre, and I have to wonder if it was politically motivated. The assumptions and uncertainty factors in this document are literally an order of magnitude more conservative than most other similar tox profiles.

So I can appreciate the bewilderment on the part of the EPA, DoD, and the White House. And maybe these issues should have been worked out before the release of the report. But the White House completely botched things by doing things like writing emails that referred to a potential "public relations nightmare". Yeah, no shit, you didn't think that would get leaked?

Now that the report is out, there is a formal public comment period. The peer review for the report was done by four academics. Now the industry toxicologists and DoD policymakers will have their crack at it. It should prove interesting!
Quote Reply
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [eb] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
eb wrote:
It's bizarre, and I have to wonder if it was politically motivated. The assumptions and uncertainty factors in this document are literally an order of magnitude more conservative than most other similar tox profiles.

What would be the political motivation to make it *more* conservative? I assume some kind of environmental lobby?
Quote Reply
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [eb] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Wow. Such an informative and well crafted explanation. Thanks for that. I really enjoyed reading that. I once dabbled in toxicology as my career was in environmental regulation. Long time ago now and I don't really follow it anymore.

I'd guess that the immunological uncertainty factor has to date back to the Obama administration. Not saying that it was improperly political or anything, but that just sets the landscape. Trump administration was going to look bad countermanding anything that looks like hard science and probably more so since it originated in prior "environmentally friendly" administration. Providing that there is no reasoned science supporting the uncertainty factor, then it should not stand -- or the next thing will be a suit from NRDC asking for application of the uncertainty factor to a whole range of chemicals.

Aside from the stupid email, seems that the administration may have played this right. Even if they had good reason to quash the study, they would come under attack when it came out that they did so. So, let the study go to public comment, create a record of comments opposed to the uncertainty factor, then revise the study.

Oh, and regarding ppt, I'm old enough to remember my surprise, saying something like, "What? We're going to ppb now?"

Quote:
Now, I'm not a toxicologist, but I dabble, and this is the first time I've ever seen an uncertainty factor like this. It's bizarre, and I have to wonder if it was politically motivated. The assumptions and uncertainty factors in this document are literally an order of magnitude more conservative than most other similar tox profiles.

Toxicologists are in a tough spot. They have a desire to apply a precautionary principle type of thinking to ensure that they might not be hurting people. Could be that a few just got a little loose and injected their own desire for an extra safety factor.

________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev
Quote Reply
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [trail] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
trail wrote:
eb wrote:

It's bizarre, and I have to wonder if it was politically motivated. The assumptions and uncertainty factors in this document are literally an order of magnitude more conservative than most other similar tox profiles.


What would be the political motivation to make it *more* conservative? I assume some kind of environmental lobby?

Yes. There's a fairly strong environmental movement growing around PFAS. Groups like EWG have been pushing for single-digit action levels for PFAS in drinking water for several years. To be clear, I don't necessarily oppose that, if it's technically feasible at reasonable expense. But the scientific data currently available don't really support such drastic action.

To be fair to the authors and reviewers of the PFAS tox profile, I should point out that adding additional uncertainty factors is not necessarily a political act. For one thing, some toxicologist are by nature more cautious than others. The uncertainty factors included in all these evaluations are somewhat subjective and the judgment of experts will vary. For another thing, MRLs (Minimum Risk Levels) as developed by ATSDR are not the same thing as a "safe" level - an MRL is a level at which the experts feel there is minimal risk, but does not imply that a higher level is necessarily unsafe.

However, when the public sees a published MRL it is perceived as a number which, if exceeded, is unsafe. That's partially due to lack of understanding, and partially due to human nature and "anchoring". And the science behind the MRLs ends up feeding into MCLs, RSLs, CULs, and the rest of the acronym soup of action levels for various purposes.

Good background on MRLs here: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/...isklevels/index.html

And EWG has a decent article here including a map of PFAS sites: https://www.ewg.org/...xpanding-pfas-crisis
Quote Reply
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [Francois] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
There is a bit of irony in what you and GP are discussing:

https://www.cbc.ca/...al-imaging-1.4714130

IIRC C River used to produce 50% of the worlds medical isotopes.

Side note my brother was an electrician at Darlington, in the 80’s the largest construction project on the planet.

Maurice
Quote Reply
Re: Can we tackle a serious substantive issue: EPA Clean Power Plan [H-] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
H- wrote:
Oh, and regarding ppt, I'm old enough to remember my surprise, saying something like, "What? We're going to ppb now?"

Indeed! If you look through lists of Maximum Contaminant Levels for drinking water there are very few MCLs below 1 ppb.
http://www.health.state.mn.us/...ctsheet/com/ioc.html
http://www.health.state.mn.us/...eet/com/voc_soc.html

In fact, except for dioxins there are no MCLs at all below 0.2 ppb (200 ppt)

H- wrote:
Toxicologists are in a tough spot. They have a desire to apply a precautionary principle type of thinking to ensure that they might not be hurting people. Could be that a few just got a little loose and injected their own desire for an extra safety factor.

Yes, please see my reply to trail where I tried to be a little more generous to toxicologists.
Quote Reply

Prev Next