NUCLEAR NOTES

2) The California fruit crop could still be saved by strong gamma irradiation as done in other countries (South Africa, AtE Apr 79), now that FDA regulations approve of foods irradiated by gamma rays below 100 kilorads as wholesome and safe for human consumption. (Gamma rays cannot induce radioactivity in other matter.) Isomedix, Inc. of N.C. is already in the business of preserving food and sterilizing products by radiation (Fortune, 4 May 81, pp.201-207). Prof. Leona Marshall-Libby (Manhattan Project, Uranium People, see AtE Dec 79), widow of Nobel Prize winner Willard Libby, suggests passing fruit on conveyors through steel shells housing a source of cobalt-60, borrowed from hospitals and National Labs, killing the medfly's eggs and larvae. She estimates the cost at 2.5 cents/lb and proposed the method in a telegram to the governor in Sacramento. No reply from Jerry Medfly Brown-out.

3) Most antinukes simply evade the safety comparison of coal and nuclear, but three have (sort of) mentioned it. Nader, in the opus advertised on p.2, weasels round the point with lawyer's tricks. Gofman is opposed to "random murder" by coal just as he is opposed to "random murder" by nuclear; what he apparently is not opposed to is the use of electricity. ("The NRC has decided that people in this area [of Diablo Canyon] are expendable," said the bodily remains of this ex-scientist last month.) John Holdren, who with his mentor Paul Ehrlich recently performed an outstanding feat in ideological data reduction [AtE Jan 81], has now counted the ways in which energy risks can be befuddled (Amer. J. Publ. Health, Sept. 81), supplying a superb example of how energy risks can be befuddled... Typically, he alleges that modern nuclear plants are being compared with older coal facilities (poor pollution control), and elsewhere he is more specific, alleging that the Brookhaven Natl. Lab. Report on coal was mostly based on plants operating in 1975, whereas new plants, with 80% sulfur control, produce so many fewer deaths per quad that the total hardly increases from 1975 to 1985. A footnote referring to the OTA's Direct Use of Coal (GPO 1979) is provided by this scholar, evidently in the hope that nobody will look it up. For the BNL report assumed 80% sulfur control for existing sources, and 85% for new ones; and it is this very study that gives Holdren's "whereas" data: The annual deaths do indeed increase only slightly from 1975 to 1985 -- from 48,100 to 49,500. If you can't beat the rebuttal, hide it in the reference "supporting" your argument.

4) The good news: Bradford is quitting as NRC Commissioner; the bad news: not until late winter.