What should Engineers know about Radiation?

Lecture by Dr. Wade Allison

The following lecture was given by Prof. Wade Allison, Emeritus Professor of Physics and Fellow of Keble College, University of Oxford, UK at the Institute of Civil Engineer’s French Chapter’s annual presentation in 2023.

Description: What should Engineers know about Radiation?

“Nuclear radiation at very high levels is dangerous, but the scale of concern that it evokes is misplaced. Nuclear technology cures countless cancer patients every day - and a radiation dose given for radiotherapy in hospital is no different in principle to a similar dose received in the environment.”

I also recommend the following article that Dr Allison wrote in the aftermath of Fukushima, titled “we should stop running away from radiation”. Dr Allison challenged the prevailing concerns about nuclear radiation and questioned perceived dangers in the aftermath of incidents like Three Mile Island and the Fukushima disaster. He has previously argued for a reassessment of radiation safety standards, pointing out the relatively low impact of radiation on human health in comparison to other threats.

During the Fukushima panic, Dr Allison made a statement that nobody is likely to die from radiation.

More than 10,000 people have died in the Japanese tsunami and the survivors are cold and hungry. But the media concentrate on nuclear radiation from which no-one has died - and is unlikely to.

After almost 13 years since the Fukushima event, with many people having returned to their homes, it is safe to say that he was correct.

As I uploaded this video, it's worth noting that Japan restarted an 8,212 GW Nuclear Power Station. It is evident from this action that Japanese society is looking ahead towards the future, because there is simply no reason to remain scared of a technology whose danger we misjudged on the basis of a flawed linear no threshold assumption.