Radiation Hazards

See also: Nuclear_power_reconsidered

Fig.1 Handy chart from xkcd.com compares radiation doses.

Abstract

One of the primary obstacles to nuclear power is the public's fear of radiation. While ionizing radiation can certainly be dangerous at high doses, because most people have difficulty distinguishing between a little and a lot, this has often been oversimplified to, "The only acceptable amount of radiation is zero!" That goal can never be met, since (for example) all living things are radioactive. A sensible criterion must be based on an understanding of where radiation comes from, what sorts of damage radiation does, and how much radiation it takes to do it.

Figure 1 compares a range of radiation exposures, from the dose received from sleeping next to another human (0.05 $\mu$Sv) to the usually fatal dose of 4 Sv, a hundred million times greater.