Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 2 of 9 · from the scan, no model involved
Scared To Death
Everyone is scared to death of nuclear radiation from power plants. In terms of radiation, the average American absorbs some 225250 millirem per year from background radiation, cosmic rays, x-rays.
Living continuously at the site boundary of a 1000 mw nuclear power plant would add about 7 millirems (3.1 per cent) to this level.
A person living in Colorado for one year absorbs 35 millirem extra radiation due to the altitude. And, apparently the cancer death rate in Denver is less than it is in Houston.
If you remain near the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance to Grand Central terminal in New York City, the radiation dose is 400-450 millirem per year from the granite rock of which the terminal is constructed. Granite rock is naturally radioactive.
If Grand Central Station were a nuclear reactor, it would not be licensable due to its high level of radiation.
Dr. Bernard Cohen at the University of Pittsburgh estimates that if the entire U.S. electric industry operated on breeders, the yearly plutonium produced could cause one trillion deaths if dispersed with maximum efficiency.
Annual US production of hydrogen cyanide is sufficient to cause six trillion deaths if effectively dispersed through the atmosphere.
We make enough ammonia to kill eight trillion people, enough phosgene to wipe out 18 trillion, and enough chlorene to annihilate 400-trillion men and women each year.
Obviously, without much thought to it, we are already routinely handling vast quantities of substances for more toxic than plutonium. The technology to store nuclear waste safely is at hand. The political consensus is not. Dr. Ralph Lapp points out that a gram of
95.5%