A new study from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health shows that living near a nuclear power plant significantly increases a person’s risk of cancer. The study was published this month in Environmental Health. CAI’s Jennette Barnes has this interview with senior author Petros Koutrakis, professor of environmental sciences at Harvard.
JENNETTE BARNES: In your study, you used data from the Massachusetts Cancer Registry to investigate whether living near a nuclear power plant affected a person's risk of cancer. I do want to talk about how you did it, but first tell us, what did you find?
PETROS KOUTRAKIS: Well, first of all, Massachusetts is a small state which is impacted by several nuclear power plants. So the amount of exposure per individual is higher than many other states. … And we found that living near a nuclear power plant increases the risk for cancer. We studied about four different … age intervals. ... And we studied separately for women and men. … And in general, we found [bigger] impacts on older people.
BARNES: Help us understand, how much of an increased risk is it?
KOUTRAKIS: In terms of the entire state, this represents between 3 and 4 percent of the total cancer incidence. But we need to understand that these disproportionately affect people who live very close. So the increases near power plants for people living within two kilometers can be … 100 percent or 50 percent or 30 percent … We expect that these effects … they are higher for people who are very close to these power plants, especially one kilometer, two kilometers.
BARNES: Could you share a little bit more about how you went about comparing the cancer rates to the proximity to a nuclear plant?
KOUTRAKIS: First of all, we selected all nuclear power plants, which are within 120 kilometers of any Massachusetts zip code. And that included seven, eight nuclear power plants, two in Connecticut, one in New York, one in Vermont, one New Hampshire, and the three nuclear power plants we have in Massachusetts. Now two of them are retired. So we estimated the distance for a given zip code. We estimated the distance from nuclear power plants, and especially the inverse of the distance, and we summed them. So we estimate the exposure to all nuclear power plants for a given zip, not just one specifically. And when the power plants were retired, the exposure was set to zero.
BARNES: What do you mean by the exposure was set to zero for a retired plant? Because we do a lot of reporting about Pilgrim, and that's been closed for several years.
KOUTRAKIS: It’s an assumption we made that after a nuclear power plant is retired, the exposure is zero. That might not be true, because we still have spent fuel stored in — specifically in Pilgrim, they start evaporating radioactive water. They have stored the spent fuel on site. And definitely there are emissions. But for this investigation, we assume that the emissions stop when the power plant retires. … What we think is that the way that humans are affected is we breathe these radioactive particles which stay inside our body and they can radiate for years and they cause different effects. So that's the reason we assume that after the power plant is retired these emissions stop.
BARNES: What would you say to people who live near the Pilgrim nuclear plant, maybe within the 25 kilometers that — you said in your paper the risk would drop off to negligible beyond 25 kilometers. But what about the people who live inside that line at Pilgrim? What would you say to them about their own risk?
KOUTRAKIS: Well, Pilgrim is retired, so I don't know if people can do much. … I suppose that the exposure is much less, but that's also an assumption. I don't know about Pilgrim, but in general, personally, I would not live close to a nuclear power plant. Now different people have different tolerance to risks. … Some people don't mind, you know, [having] a higher risk. Living on a busy road, it's also higher risk … for cardiovascular diseases, for lung cancers. … In general, I think people should try not to live very closely, especially if you have younger children, who are more susceptible to radiation.
BARNES: What are the implications for new nuclear? There's growing interest in using the latest technology to develop new nuclear power facilities.
KOUTRAKIS: I'm not an expert. Everybody talks about small modular reactors. … I wouldn't call this new technology. I still think that they would use uranium mining, enrichment of uranium. They will use fission nuclear reactors the same way. They will produce the same type of waste.
BARNES: Dr. Koutrakis, thank you so much.
KOUTRAKIS: You're welcome. My pleasure.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Harvard paper is available via this link.
