TL;DR -> Here’s how they fuck the workers:
The proposed NRC rule doesn’t change its other regulatory limits, but it does create some carve-outs. In particular, the industry would now be able to ask for a “planned occupational dose limit extension,” which would allow workers to receive 10 rem instead of 5 in any given year, providing their overall exposure doesn’t pass 25 rem in a five-year period.
In its public meeting on the proposed change earlier this month, the NRC said it envisioned the dose limit extension would be used sparingly for things like reactor refueling and upgrades at nuclear power plants. Caffrey says that a 10 rem exposure in a given year is getting close to the level that experts know can elevate cancer risk.
So they’re doubling the acceptable exposure limits up to right below the level they know will cause cancer, and “envisioning” that this new limit would only be used “sparingly”.
If you haven’t watched it yet, go check out the Chernobyl miniseries from Netflix. It does an excellent job at showing the effects of radiation exposure, so consider this your gore warning. It also does an excellent job at showing the effects of political dumbfuckery like this when applied to nuclear technology.
In comparison the limit in Germany is at 20 mSv per year and 400 mSv per life for work related exposure.
10 mSv is equivalent to 1 rem (why do americans always insist on using other units than the rest of the world? We replaced rem with the Sievert in the 70s/80s)
This is why we aren’t ready for nuclear power. The tech is safe. Capitalist, and otherwise flawed, human society is just not capable of managing it safely. Not yet.
American society is just not capable of managing it safely*
France is doing fine with their nuclear reactors
nuke worker weighing in:
¯_(ツ)_/¯
also, to the dude saying “go educate yourself by watching HBO”
shut the fuck up, man
