“Nuclear plants emit less radiation than bananas.”
That’s the claim on billboards that are part of a $1.8 million education and public support campaign under Gov. Spencer Cox’s Operation Gigawatt, an initiative to double state energy production by 2034. It is eye-catching, but is it true?
It’s a reference to the so-called “banana equivalent dose,” an idea that has been around for decades.
Living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant exposes someone to 0.1 microsieverts of radiation over a year — about the same as eating one banana, said Supathorn Phongikaroon, director of the Utah Nuclear Engineering Program at the University of Utah. That’s because a small fraction of the potassium in bananas is radioactive.
But for Lexi Tuddenham, executive director of the environmental health nonprofit HEAL Utah, it’s an apples-to-oranges — or apples-to-bananas, in this case — comparison. The body regulates its potassium levels, she said, but byproducts of nuclear fission in nuclear waste can replace other elements in the body and cause disease.
“They stay in your bones and your muscles, and they irradiate people from inside,” she said.
But her concerns also come down to choice.
“People choose to eat bananas. They don't necessarily choose, in most cases, to live along a transportation route where nuclear fuel or nuclear waste is being transported, where there could be a spill,” Tuddenham said.
Billboards are ubiquitous along Utah’s major highways, as any Utahn who recognizes the name Julia Reagan would attest. As an advertising medium, they have to grab your attention, and the banana serves that function. Tim Kowalchik, research director at the Utah Office of Energy Development, said the goal of the banana billboards is to educate the public on a politically charged topic.
“That's a convoluted topic, but you've got to make a billboard that has a one-sentence statement on, so, like, how are you going to communicate that to the public in a method they understand?”
Kowalchik said particles from nuclear waste are unlikely to reach people, since spent fuel is stored in reinforced concrete casks.
“The idea that spent nuclear fuel particles are going to, like, get to you somehow would be exceptional,” he said.
Kowalchik said the nuclear energy industry does want to engage with local communities. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission can hold public meetings near proposed facilities if residents want, and outreach is part of Utah’s education campaign, he said.
“If it's a true concern to you, to your community, to your public, ask, and we would love to come talk and hear your concerns and do what we can to give you that information, to address them,” he said.
Then there’s the risk of an accident. Bananas can’t melt down, Tuddenham said. Nuclear plants can.
“There's this idea that nuclear plants and bananas should somehow be equal, and that makes a completely false assumption that there are never accidents at nuclear plants, which is patently untrue.”
Nuclear accidents do happen, but Kowalchik said they’re not always dangerous. While radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl explosion killed 28 plant workers within four months and is linked to an increase in thyroid cancer in the broader area, Kowalchik said that was an exceptional case.
“Three Mile Island, the worst commercial nuclear disaster in United States history, did not lead, as best as we can tell, to widespread radiation dose to the populace, to the workers that were there,” he said.
Along with wind and solar, nuclear causes fewer deaths per unit of electricity than fossil fuels when considering air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and accidents.
There’s not a lot of research on how low doses of radiation affect people over time. The Million Person Study looks at nuclear power plant workers and medical professionals who worked with radiation in the 1900s, among others. So far, it’s found some risk of leukemia and Parkinson’s disease, but little evidence of a connection between radiation exposure and heart damage. Evidence on whether exposure is linked to solid tumor cancers is inconsistent.
Separately, two recent studies found a correlation between living near power plants and increased cancer risk. The methodology has been criticized, and the authors acknowledged that other studies “found no consistent associations between residential proximity to nuclear power plants and overall or site-specific cancer incidence or mortality.”
Kowalchik sees the research as mixed, but Tuddenham is more convinced.
“The preponderance of evidence that I have seen, and that I've talked to a lot of public health professionals about, and with a lot of health professionals about, is that there is evidence of negative health impacts from long-term chronic exposure to low-level radiation,” she said.
At the same time, there are arguments, often from the nuclear science industry, that small doses of radiation are beneficial.
If it were up to him, Phongikaroon would expand the comparison on the billboard beyond just bananas and a nuclear plant. He’d add that a cross-country flight exposes travelers to 400 bananas’ worth of radiation, and a chest CT scan is about 100,000. Adding more examples would help people understand better, he said.
But they probably wouldn’t fit.
“It is too many words,” he said.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
Editor’s note: KUER is a licensee of the University of Utah but operates as an editorially independent news organization.
