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(last updated 12 Feb 2006)
See the respective calculators (and their Help files) for the assumptions and parameter settings made. Use the calculators with your own parameter settings to obtain charts for different assumptions and situations.
Health risk from inhalation of radon, radon progeny, uranium-238 and lead-210 in dust, and from external gamma radiation, using the historic exposure data for Wismut's uranium mines in Eastern Germany.
The risks are calculated using Jacobi's models; for lung cancer, the result using the BEIR IV model is shown for comparison.
Excess lifetime lung cancer risk is 4.5% (1 : 22), that is, 1 in 22 miners exposed under these conditions would have died from lung cancer due to just one year of occupational exposure during the early period of Wismut's uranium mining operations.
If the miner contracted lung cancer between 1951 and 1981, or liver cancer after 1962, then the occupational exposure would be regarded causative, with the excess relative risk being greater than one.
Excess lifetime lung cancer risk is 45% (1 : 2.2), that is, 10 in 22 miners exposed under these conditions would have died from lung cancer due to occupational exposure. Occupational exposure would be regarded causative also for any other of the cancer types listed, if contracted after some time in the mid-1950s, or early 1960s.
Excess lifetime lung cancer risk is 1.7% (1 : 59).
Even when employed exclusively in the later years of lower exposures, occupational exposure would be regarded causative for this miner, if a lung cancer developed between 1988 and 2010.
Dose from inhalation of radon progeny and of uranium in dust to an individual living 1 km downwind from a typical 1970s uranium mine and mill site in the Western U.S.
Mine and mill produce 1000 t U/a for 10 years. After shutdown, the tailings are either left bare, or are covered according to U.S. EPA 40 CFR 192 standards.
Excess lifetime risk of contracting cancer is 0.35% (1 : 283). The abandoned tailings contribute 55% to this risk.
Excess lifetime risk of contracting cancer is cut by half to 0.17% (1 : 605). 97% of the remaining risk originate from the active operation period of the mine and mill. The covered tailings contribute just 3% to this risk.
Global long-term collective dose from nuclear power use per Gigawatt-year electricity (GWae) produced, including the front and rear ends of the nuclear fuel cycle and the nuclear power plant. A linear no-threshold dose effect is assumed for these calculations.
1 GWae (= 8.76 TWhe) is the approximate annual electricity production of a large 1300 MWe nuclear power reactor.
91% of the global collective dose is caused from the abandoned tailings. With ICRP's dose-effect figure of 0.05 per Sv, each year of reactor operation is causative for 23.5 deaths from cancer in the long term.
The global collective dose is reduced by a factor of nine, supposed the tailings cover stays intact for thousands of years; 72% of the dose is now caused from the reactor operation, mainly from the release of C-14. Each year of reactor operation is causative for 2.7 deaths from cancer in the long term.
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