The myth

"Nuclear energy is dangerous radiation. Living near a nuclear power plant is a health risk. The cooling water is radioactively contaminated. Nuclear energy is inherently unsafe because of the radiation it produces."

This narrative has been deployed for decades to sow fear. It works, because radiation is invisible, unfamiliar and therefore frightening. But the facts are so overwhelmingly in favour of nuclear energy that it becomes almost comical. We shall attempt to keep things serious.

The facts

Borssele: the immeasurably small threat

The Borssele nuclear power plant, the Netherlands' only operational reactor, adds 0.00001 millisievert per year to the radiation dose of nearby residents. The natural background radiation in the Netherlands averages 2.4 mSv per year — from radon in the soil, cosmic radiation, and natural radioactivity in our food and bodies.

This means that background radiation is 240,000 times higher than the contribution from Borssele. To accumulate the same dose as natural background radiation, you would need to live next to Borssele for 240,000 years. Homo sapiens has only existed for 300,000 years.

The radiation scale of absurdity

Some perspective.

! Source Dose Factor relative to Borssele Living next to Borssele (1 year) 0.00001 mSv 1x Eating one banana 0.0001 mSv 10x more Transatlantic flight 0.08 mSv 8,000x more Natural background radiation (1 year) 2.4 mSv 240,000x more Medical CT scan 1-10 mSv 100,000-1,000,000x more Standing on a granite square in Luxembourg City ~0.001 mSv/hour 100x more per hour Ski instructor (annual cosmic radiation at altitude) ~1 mSv extra 100,000x more

You read that correctly: a single banana delivers ten times as much radiation as living next to Borssele for an entire year. A transatlantic flight gives you the radiation equivalent of eight thousand years next to the power plant. And that CT scan your GP requests so casually? A million times Borssele.

The Banana Equivalent Dose

!

Living next to Borssele for an entire year is equivalent to eating one tenth of a banana. You face more radiation risk from a fruit bowl in your kitchen than from a nuclear power plant in your back garden.

The logical consequence: if WISE Netherlands were consistent in its fear of radiation, it would campaign against supermarkets. It does not. We wonder why.

Cooling water: not radioactive, not green, not glowing

A persistent misconception is that the cooling water from a nuclear power plant is radioactively contaminated. This is incorrect. The Borssele nuclear power plant uses a closed primary cooling circuit. The water that flows back to the Western Scheldt is exclusively secondary cooling water that has never been in contact with the reactor or fuel.

The only difference from ordinary seawater: it is slightly warmer.

The water is not radioactive. It is not green. It does not glow in the dark. Pro-nuclear activists — including Gijs Zwartsenberg and Emil — have literally swum in the cooling water outlet of Borssele to demonstrate this. They are still alive, without superpowers but also without health problems.

Coal plants emit MORE radiation than nuclear plants

!The LNT model: the scientific basis falters

The fear of any amount of radiation — however small — is based on the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model. This model assumes that no safe threshold exists: any dose of radiation, however minuscule, increases cancer risk.

This model is increasingly being challenged. The reason is simple: nature has been conducting the experiment that should validate the LNT model for millions of years, and the results contradict it.

Ramsar, Iran: In this city on the Caspian Sea, natural background radiation reaches up to 260 mSv per year — more than a hundred times the global average. Studies by Ghiassi-nejad et al. (2002) found no increased cancer incidence among the residents. Moreover, there are indications that the residents of Ramsar display a slightly improved DNA repair capacity — a phenomenon known as radiation hormesis.

If the LNT model were correct, the population of Ramsar should have been decimated. It has not. They have been living there for generations.

Background radiation varies enormously worldwide:

Location Background radiation (mSv/year)
The Netherlands (average) 2.4
Kerala, India 15-75
Guarapari, Brazil 40
Ramsar, Iran up to 260

Nowhere in the world has a measurably increased health risk been demonstrated at these elevated natural background radiation levels. The LNT model is a mathematical model, not a law of nature — and nature does not abide by it.

That is not to say LNT is useless. As a conservative calculation model, it is useful for radiation protection: it helps establish safe working limits and the ALARA principle (As Low As Reasonably Achievable). But it is a precautionary tool, not a predictive model — and it was never intended for risk estimates at the ultra-low doses that a nuclear power plant emits.

Conclusion

The radiation that a nuclear power plant adds to the living environment is not merely negligible — it is so microscopically small as to be virtually unmeasurable. You receive more radiation from a banana, from a granite worktop, from a holiday flight, and yes, from the coal plant that the anti-nuclear movement tolerated for years.

The cooling water is just water. Background radiation is 240,000 times higher than the contribution from Borssele. Coal plants emit more radiation than nuclear plants. And in Ramsar, Iran, people have been living for generations at a radiation level a hundred times higher than the global average, without measurable health effects.

If radiation is the argument against nuclear energy, then that argument is worth one tenth of a banana.

Sources

  1. EPZ, "How much radiation do you receive from a nuclear power plant?" (link)
  2. McBride, J.P. et al. (1978), "Radiological Impact of Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants," Science, 202(4372), 1045-1050 (link)
  3. UNSCEAR (2008), Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation (link)
  4. Ghiassi-nejad, M. et al. (2002), "Very high background radiation areas of Ramsar, Iran," Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, 60(1-2), 49-59 (link)
  5. ICRP Publication 103 (2007), The 2007 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (link)