Mit der Nähe zu Kernkraftwerken kann das Krebsrisiko steigen. In Massachusetts war die Nähe eines Wohngebiets zu einem Kernkraftwerk (KKW) mit einer deutlich erhöhten Krebsinzidenz verbunden, wobei das Risiko ab einer Entfernung von etwa 30 Kilometern von einer Anlage stark zurückging.
Cancer risk may increase with proximity to nuclear power plants
30 Kommentare
What mechanism would cause this, though? There’s no way direct exposure to ionizing radiation is it. 30 kilometers? You don’t even have to worry about unshielded sources from that kind of distance.
I would be curious to see it compared to other sources of power like methane and coal power plants.
Guess who has two thumbs and grew up within 30km of a nuclear power plant?
Oh, well, some people have all the luck.
‚While our findings cannot establish causality…‘.
Also, poorer folks would live in closer proximity so other factors could be at play here?
This just seems like correlation without identifying an actual mechanism of cause. There are a lot of other factors that might explain why people living close to industrialized parts of a town would get cancer at higher rates…
Is this mostly plant employees?
This is a “vaccines cause autism” situation, I have one study that says it does, and a thousand that says it doesn’t. Fear mongers are going to believe the one that says it does.
Cool! Means absolutely nothing, unfortunately.
The biggest risk from radiation for a nuclear power plant is either the X-rays from the machine when checking the reactors welds during build or the decommissioning. Everything else is just noise
> Proximity was calculated by summing the inverse-distance weights from all nuclear plants within 200 km of each county center.
I mean…
Basically not representative of actual geography at all.
So, feel free to ignore the rest of the paper. Congratulations on the successful p-hacking for the anti-nuclear agenda though.
>Meanwhile, the results of studies conducted internationally vary significantly.
This sentence in the article does a lot of heavy lifting. Why would this article even get a mention otherwise? If it varies so wildly then clearly there are more factors at play. This just seems irresponsible and there is no way anyone is unclear with the intent in declaring this.
Is the same cancer increase shown in long term nuclear plant workers who dont live within 30km?
Cancer risk may increase with proximity to nuclear power plants, but what about the people who work at the plants?
I have so many issues with the study, although it is disturbing if true.
So this conclusion kind of seems a bit… um, forced:
>Residential proximity to nuclear plants in Massachusetts is associated with elevated cancer risks, particularly among older adults, underscoring the need for continued epidemiologic monitoring amid renewed interest in nuclear energy.
Did these elder adults live near the plant for a long time? Did they research different plants? Maybe that one is run poorly and is dumping waste somewhere? So many questions, but the conclusion seems to be only that “all nuclear plants bad.”
This is not my area of expertise – please take your salt pills now.
EDIT: Walked away for 5 mintues and I am unhappy with my response.
I want to clarify: The paper is not bad. They have plotted the position data of cancers and it has shown there is a correlation between geographiocal locations and cancer. They have looked at these locations and have found that these locations seem to correlate to the lcoations of nearby nuclear power stations. This is good science, and should be published.
However, I feel my disappointment stems from what I guess is „marketing“. There are many reasons for increased cancer near nuclear power stations: People live there,I don’t know if it was checked but is this just another case of the map of population?; The closer to a power station, likely to poorer you are, socio-economic situations often show much higher rates of negative health across the board, and lving near industry is typically cheaper; geology – read my crossed out bit; and potentially many other issues. Where the „marketing“ part for me kicks in: as a physicist I think the paper leverages the correlation to make the paper hit harder. Imagine a new title with no mention of nuclear power stations. Would this have hit as hard? Not sure. I guess the paper just makes me uncomfortable, and I am after all a human who tries to be rational but might be acting irrationally in response to possibly being incorrect.
~~I am somewhat skeptical of this paper. I recall (although cannot find, so please take this with heafty amounts of salt) similar comparisons being made in the UK. But when the data was compared to geological features they found that nuclear powerstations are often built in areas that happen to naturally contains lots of radon gas. i.e. they were built near granite.~~
~~Now I may have missed it, but the discussion around geography in this paper seems to focus solely on proximity to power stations, not on the geology or background radiation.~~
~~I dunno, it seems odd that a paper comes out saying there is the possiblity of increased cancer risk, but self admits to having minimal confounding variable analysis.~~
I see that the oil companies are back in propaganda mode…
For those that were not aware, the whole opposition to nuclear power by environmentalist groups was orchestrated by oil companies through propaganda. Same with the entire concept of a „carbon footprint“ to shift blame to the consumer. If you think Russia is good at it, the oil companies invented it.
Can always take a look around Oswego NY, they have three nuclear plants.
There’s one town near the old nuke plant. It once produced paper and it is a browns field site.
Just what we needed, more fear and paranoia about nuclear energy.
The real question is, who is paying so much money to attack the nuclear energy industry? Could be the oil industry, but ‚green energy‘ supporters are also paradoxically against nuclear energy, despite it being one of the best, if not the best in most cases, alternatives to fossil fuels.
Study co-sponsored by Big Coal and Big Wind.
What is the socio-economic status of people who live within 30 miles of any power plant. And how might that impact cancer risk? Wealthy people with access to better food, exercise, and physically less demanding jobs do not usually live next to major industrial areas.
Any title with “may” in it makes the paper suspect.
This is bad science. Proximity to one power plant. That’s an observation of one. You cannot say proximity to power plants when only one power plant was used.
Would it be accurate to say that housing around the nuclear power plant would be cheaper to buy? Low income communities are more likely to get cancer.
Cancer risk also increases near coal power plants. And oil refineries.
Well tough nuts. We need fission energy for now and it will be less harmful than the alternatives. We need renewables and nuclear to break the need for fossil fuels.
This is not very good science, in more way than one tbh
Every single time this sub gets recommended to me at some point pointless article that has nothing to do with anything and does not actually prove whatever it is trying to prove. I am muting this sub and hiding it.
I did the same research my self when I was in my PhD, rates of cancer were LOWER closer to nuclear facilities.
(Canada for context).
So yeah… nah