Fear of radiation and nuclear weapons

Use of a nuclear weapon would release vast quantities of energy and radiation. Although the blast and fire would destroy buildings and life within a few miles, the radioactivity and radiation would have a much smaller and limited effect. This is confirmed by all available evidence and popular experience. However, it is not what has been supposed for the past 70 years. Today, faced with international nuclear threats, the world deserves to be reassured that a nuclear holocaust is not the danger generally feared.

Nuclear weapons are the source of legendary fear, energy and radiation. In prospect the fear can be decisive. President Putin wants to frighten us by threatening to use the nuclear option. It is the radiation as much as the energy that frightens people. They are not wrong about the energy but misunderstand the effect of the radiation¹. This outlook was a product of the Cold War period and has persisted ever since.

A nuclear explosion releases a million times more energy per kg of explosive than a conventional bomb². However, in both cases the energy is released as a wave of blast and fire that causes huge physical damage and loss of life. The result of either may be equally disastrous. The death toll in the conventional bombing of Tokyo on 10 March 1945, or Dresden or Hamburg, was similar to that of the nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Today, destruction and loss of life are delivered by conventional explosives in Gaza, Syria and elsewhere.

The difference is the radiation – a conventional bomb releases no radiation. Some of the radiation released by a nuclear explosion comes immediately from the centre of the explosion itself and some from the radioactive embers left behind. It may come as a surprise that life is naturally protected against the effects of this radiation and radioactivity. This happens in two ways.

Unlike a conventional flame or a viral infection that can grow by contagion, neither radioactivity nor its radiation can “catch” like that. Without the short-lived neutrons, exclusive to the heart of the fission explosion itself, neither radioactivity nor its radiation can multiply or explode.

The second way that life is protected from the effects of nuclear radiation is biological. Since there are radioactive atoms all around us in the environment, even within our own bodies, over millions of years biology has evolved many overlapping defence strategies to protect life from harm by moderate exposures to radiation. If it had not done so successfully, we should not be here!

These physical and biological mechanisms have been studied intensively since the work of Marie Curie 120 years ago. With this knowledge doctors successfully diagnose and treat cancers around the world every day. In 1934 an international team agreed the level of radiation exposure that was safe, specifically 2 milli-gray per day. The added evidence and improved understanding available today broadly confirm that level. Put in perspective, the level is like having about two whole body CT scans, every week, year after year. Radiotherapy patients receive significantly higher localised exposures from which they recover. They then return home thankful for the exposure.

Yet even those who have benefitted from radiation may be terrified by the thought of radiation from a nuclear weapon. Further facts provide reassurance of the relative insignificance of a radiation exposure.

The health of the 100,000 survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their descendants have been monitored for over 50 years. There is no evidence for any inheritable variants of the kind depicted in ghoulish science fiction stories. Extra cases of cancer and leukaemia have occurred over the years since, but not among those who received an exposure less than the level described in 1934, 100 milli-gray in two months. Overall, radiation added less than half a percent to the mortality from the blast and fire. A northwest view of the Atomic Bomb Dome and Motoyasu River, Hiroshima.

Separate evidence is provided by the effect of radiation released in various well-known accidents. In fact, there have been remarkably few such accidents worldwide in 70 years, itself a mark of safety compared to chemical and fossil fuel accidents. Nonetheless, the media excitement attracted by the Fukushima Daiichi incident was maintained for over a decade despite the lack of a single radiation health casualty. At the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 there was no radiation casualty either, although the excitement was enhanced by the coincidental release of ”The China Syndrome”, a movie with a fictional nuclear plot and starring Jane Fonda. Even in the Chornobyl accident where a badly designed reactor self-destructed in the hands of an inexperienced crew, 28 firemen died from radiation, but the predictions of many thousands of deaths and an uninhabitable wasteland have proved utterly wrong. The surrounding area has become a natural wildlife park, and recent plans suggest siting new reactors and re-establishing agriculture there.

All the evidence backed by a century of laboratory experiments confirms that the fear of radiation spread by nuclear weapons is simply mistaken. Stirring up fears of a radiation holocaust could cause unnecessary instability. The widespread fear caused at Fukushima showed how ignorance of radiation causes serious social and economic harm obstructing economic growth³. The blast and fire, the real consequences of a nuclear explosion, are tightly confined within a few miles of the detonation and have no lasting legacy. The radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion is simple to detect, but that does not make it dangerous. There are many places in the world where the natural radiation levels are much higher than normal, and the inhabitants there enjoy typical healthy lives. Furthermore there is a well-established worldwide cultural tradition of visiting radioactive spas for their therapeutic benefits.

There is no evidence with which to reassure opinion about the blast and fire from a nuclear weapon, but the danger from its radiation should be far less of a concern. Greater public resilience to nuclear threats from Russia and North Korea would be justified and in the general interest.

Further material with extensive third party links:

• “Radiation and Reason The Impact of Science on a Culture of Fear” 2009/2011. ISBN: 978-0-9562756-1-5. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234037551_Radiation_and_Reason_The_Impact_of_Science_on_a_Culture_of_Fear.

• “Nuclear is for Life. A Cultural Revolution” DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3990.1843
  1. ISBN: 9780956275646
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339629356_Nature_Energy_and_Society_A_scientific_study_of_the_options_facing_civilisation_today.

Wade Allison,
Prof Emeritus and Fellow of
Keble College, Oxford University
December 2024

Footnotes

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