Modeling for Comparison of Leukemia Incidence Risk between Nuclear and Coal Power Industries

Abstract

The leukemia incidence risk for a single coal plant, a single nuclear plant, and a single nuclear accident is used to compute the total industry leukemia incidence risk. In the absence of a nuclear power plant accident, the leukemia incidence risk is normally lower for a nuclear industry than for a coal industry of equivalent size. The nuclear industry risk with accidents was compared to the coal industry risk for six proposed dose response curves. Simplifying assumptions about the negligible effect of the cell-killing term and the linear nature of the linear quadratic curve allowed derivation of risk models for the assumption of both linear and quadratic dose response. These derived models, representing leukemia incidence risk bounds, are used to estimate the total industry risk comparison. Evaluation of an accident's impact on the leukemia incidence risk comparison is done with the risk bounds and compared to the risk evaluations calculated during all six dose response curves. The overlapping plot of the number of nuclear accidents required for equivalent industry environment risks versus the accident fraction allows the conservative function to be defined.