You "must" read Dr. Webb's letter on Three Mile Island (below in this file) and his March 2000 Revision !!

The Risks of Catastrophic Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants

The Nuclear Reactors used in United States, Europe, Britain, and Japan, are much more hazardous than the Chernobyl RBMK reactor type.

Proposals and Support Needed

Constitutional law analysis essays:

Analysis of U. S. Constitutional Law

Insights into the U. S. Constitution

Detailed Argument Against the Independent Counsel and the Impeachment of President Clinton

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Dr. Webb's Detailed Background and List of Writings

Richard E. Webb, Ph.D.

Present Address (as of July 2000):

Raiffeisenstrasse 1
86868 Mittelneufnach
Bavaria, Germany

 Telephone:  (49) 8262 - 960 236

Technidigm Note:  Dr. Richard Webb has been very successful in impacting nuclear safety issues in
Germany and in the UK.  In the United States, Dr. Webb has often taken on important nuclear safety and constitutional issues, applying great effort, dedication, and personal sacrifice.

Dr. Webb has yet to be proven wrong on any technical issue related to nuclear power plants as well as Constitutional Law.  Many have tried, but none have succeeded.  He has a passion for accuracy and detail at a level that few people have ever achieved.  If you really want to understand his technical developments and perspectives, you need to do your homework.  At this point, it is quite possible that Dr. Webb knows more about the U. S. Constitution and more about radiation effects than anyone else.  He has also proven to be quite insightful regarding nuclear accidents, an area where it is better to be extremely safe than extremely sorry.

An excellent example of this came to my attention while I was serving as a nuclear safety advisor to the U. S. Department of Energy.  Dr. Webb had calculated that, under certain conditions, a hydrogen gas explosion during a nuclear reactor accident could send the top of the containment building about 300 feet into the air.  Since I happened to be the Executive Secretary of the DOE Defense Programs Safety, Security, and Control Committee in the mid-1980s, I had made inquiries so I know that "nobody" believed this was possible.  It was only after a scaled test was done at Sandia National Laboratories that Dr. Webb was proven to be correct.  Up to that point even the tremendously gifted scientists and engineers at SNL were sure that Dr. Webb would be proven to be wrong.

During my 34 years of involvement with nuclear facilities and issues of all types, I have seldom observed anyone with as much technical awareness and dedication to the truth and to his country as I have seen in Dr. Webb.  I have two graduate engineering degrees from MIT and served 20 years in the U.S. military (U.S. Navy nuclear reactor propulsion and nuclear weapon facilities), and do not come close to him in either of these areas.  Indeed, it would take a major effort just to comprehend Dr. Webb's research, much less rise to the point of being able to dispute his conclusions that are based on that research.

I have also never seen anyone do so much with so few resources, so you are invited to send financial support to him and, where feasible, offer him facilities and accommodations that may be within your means.

-CR Jones
Germantown, MD, USA
July 2000

To the People of Area of the
Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant
near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Concerning the Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident of March 28, 1979:  The Impact of the Nuclear Radiation Emissions on the Health of the People in the Area of the Plant, and the Rights of the People in this Regard; and the recent Judgment of the U. S. District Court (Harrisburg) of a TMI Controversy which relates to this Matter, and which involves this Author.

This letter offers to inform the People of the area around the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant of the main results of this Author's scientific investigation of the TMI unit 2 reactor accident of March 28, 1979, as these results concern the health and safety of the people of this area - those who were exposed to nuclear radiation from the accident, and their rights in this regard, and those who continue to be exposed to the dangers of catastrophic nuclear accidents (reactor eruptions), not only from TMI, but from all of the other reactors in the United States and Canada. [See note no. 1 in the appendix.] This letter also offers this Author's perspective on the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, as it relates to the hazards of nuclear energy - a perspective which he believes is vitally important for our safety: for determining how to resolve the nuclear issue wisely.

In addition, this letter critically comments on certain recent pronouncements of the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg in the TMI Consolidation Litigations Proceedings (combined lawsuits on health injury complaints against the owners of TMI, General Public Utilities and associated companies) regarding, and affecting adversely, the credibility of this Author's scientific analysis of the TMI accident.  This Author was involved in these judicial proceedings as a scientific expert, with submissions of two affidavits and a detailed scientific report on the subjects of (a) radioactivity releases into the atmosphere in the accident; (b) radiation exposure levels in the area of the plant resulting from the releases; (c) radiation protection standards; and (d) the extent of harm to human health resulting from the radiation exposures. He also gave a deposition (June 27-29, 1995), taken by the counsel for the defendant nuclear companies in the litigation.
 

Summary

Footnotes

Appendix 1:

Refutation of the Memoranda and Judgment of the United States District Court in Harrisburg(Chief Judge S. Rambo) regarding the Credibility of this Author's Scientific Analysisof the Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident

Appendix 2:

Inventory of Documents given to the People of Middletown and other Villages and Towns surroundingthe Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant

I.  The Author's Background and Research [see also detailed background]

The Author of this letter is a nuclear reactor physicist and engineer (doctorate degree), who, among other experiences, was a naval officer in the former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission [See note no. 2 in the appendix.] in the years 1963 to 1967, with responsibilities, as a junior-level engineer, for the reactor part of the first civilian nuclear power plant in the United States, the Shippingport pressurized water reactor, located at Shippingport, Pennsylvania (on the Ohio River). Since 1970 he has been investigating in full time scientific research the accident hazards of nuclear power reactors. In parallel with this research he has also studied, and thoroughly so, the constitutional law of the United States concerning the question: Who should decide the nuclear "safety" issue? This parallel study of constitutional law is also concerned with most other major matters of the domestic life and foreign affairs of our Country that so seriously affect our health, safety, and happiness - matters which, he believes, are intertwined with the nuclear energy issue, and, therefore, require the full scope of his constitutional law studies be introduced in this letter for a vital perspective. A detailed description of this Author's background is among the collection of documents offered with this letter (see the attached list of items in the Collection).

In 1976 this Author's first comprehensive analysis of the nuclear reactor accident hazards was published - the book The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants (University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst). The book warned of catastrophic nuclear accident dangers. [See note no. 3 in the appendix.] In regards to the extent of the nuclear radiation danger of potential reactor accidents and the consequent radioactive fallout, I gave this assessment:

"The maximum conceivable consequences of the worst accident are as follows: (1) a lethal cloud of radiation with a range of seventy-five miles and a width of one mile; (2) evacuation or severe living restrictions for a land area the size of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio (120,000 square miles), lasting a year or possibly longer; and (3) severe long-term restrictions on agriculture due to strontium-90 fallout over a land area of the size of about one half of the land east of the Mississippi River (500,000 square miles), lasting one to several years, with dairying prohibited `for a very long time' over a 150,000 square mile area. ..."

There are other potential catastrophic consequences discussed in the book as well. As a basic introduction to the nuclear accident hazards, the book today is still valid in all details. However, as I have found in subsequent research since 1976, the nuclear accident dangers are far worse than I had estimated in the book, especially the potentials for reactor plant eruptions (spewing radioactive dust and vapor into the atmosphere), including spent fuel storage fire following a reactor eruption, and the potentials for catastrophic radiation consequences. A summary of his extended analysis of the nuclear accident hazards as of the year 1990 is given in his paper The Risks of Catastrophic Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants. [See note no. 4 in the appendix.] The summary analysis given in that paper also needs to be up-dated to include his subsequent and latest research findings. This present letter gives a very brief preview of his up-to-date analysis as it relates to the TMI accident, particularly concerning the harmful impact of nuclear radiation exposure (and x-rays) on human health; as his research in the last several years has been extended to include a thorough investigation and assessment of the health hazard of nuclear radiation. [See note no. 5 in the appendix.] It is found that nuclear radiation is far more harmful than generally assumed. This is discussed in Section V in this letter-essay.

The final chapter of this Author's book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, is on Constitutional Law, and is titled "Who Should Decide?" This chapter presents an analysis of the U.S. Constitution with respect to the question of the constitutionality of the Atomic Energy Act of the U.S. Congress - the law on which the promotion and licensing of nuclear power plants in the United States is based. This Author has determined that the Atomic Energy Act of the Congress is unconstitutional: that the Constitution does not vest in the federal Government an authority to promote and regulate industry or technology, nor any broader authority to govern the domestic affairs of the several States of the Union upon which an authority to promote and license nuclear power plants could be grounded.

A sufficient proof of the unconstitutionality of the Atomic Energy Act is given in the before mentioned chapter. An extended proof has been issued subsequently, to which I shall refer in the final section of this present letter-essay, which presents this Author's perspective on the United States Constitution with respect to the dangers of nuclear energy.
 

II.  The Author's 1976-79 Warnings of the Nuclear Accident Hazards. And then, the TMI Accident happened!

Before the TMI-2 accident in 1979, this Author, by the publication of his book, Accident Hazards (in 1976), and in public debates thereafter (the period 1976-1979), warned of the reactor accident possibilities which are worse than the specific, rather idealistic accident possibilities for which reactor safety equipment is provided (though not really experimentally proven), such as the emergency reactor cooling system and the reactor containment building, and that these accidents could be catastrophic on a geographic wide-spread scale. At the time of my book Accident Hazards (1976), the worse-than-designed-for reactor accident possibilities were judged by the U.S. Government to be "incredible," that is, a "remote probability." Yet, the TMI-2 reactor accident was one of these worse-than-designed-for, and un-designed-for, reactor accident possibilities. It was mostly a matter of LUCK that the reactor and its building did not explode - a near radiation catastrophe for our land.

I refer to an article which I wrote, "An Analysis of the Accident at Three Mile Island," contained in the book Nuclear Lessons, published by Stackpole Books, Harrisburg in 1980. This article is included in the Collection. [See note no. 6 in the appendix.] My subsequent research of the TMI-2 accident (discussed below) has uncovered even more serious facts of the accident, including several events that occurred, each of which almost ended in a reactor eruption. An example is given in Section VII of this letter, "Concluding Remarks," page 34-35. A full treatise on the TMI-2 accident is in preparation. An outline of this planned treatise is also included in the Collection.
 

III.  The Author's Involvement in the TMI Accident

Beginning right after the first news of the TMI-2 accident, this Author made intensive inquires of the reactor conditions, by means of the telephone, aided by news reports. On the basis of a simple physics calculation (suggested by a Dr. Earl Gulbranson of Pittsburgh, an expert in zirconium chemistry and metallurgy), I determined that the reactor core was destroyed (the overheated zirconium cladding of the uranium-dioxide fuel rods had undergone a metal-steam fire, producing an enormous quantity of hydrogen gas), and therefore, in a highly precarious and dangerous state - a fact which the Pennsylvania Government was apparently not apprised of, until I brought it to their attention. [See note no. 7 in the appendix.] During this critical condition (three days into the accident) the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) officials announced plans to initiate a process of attempting to cool down the reactor by natural circulation of water (coolant) in the reactor system, as a way to achieve what was called a "safe cold shutdown" of the reactor. Unbeknownst to the public, this plan meant switching off a powerful reactor coolant circulation pump!

However, I determined that this plan was unwise and extremely dangerous. For the reactor core of fuel material was destroyed; and so the performance of any cooling procedure could not be safely predicted. Instead, I reasoned that we ought to maintain the present mode of cooling - with the running of that large coolant circulation pump - since that process was so far working successfully to maintain enough cooling of the reactor materials (removing the heat of the residual nuclear reactions) and thereby preventing a reactor eruption, or a reactor building explosion. Therefore, I pressed certain officials of the NRC and the Pennsylvania Government to leave the pump running indefinitely, as long as we can, and not switch it off. That advice was soon carried into the Governor's office by certain caring officials of the Pennsylvania Government who consulted me. The matter was then discussed between the Governor and the NRC's director of the reactor accident management operations. In the end the coolant pump was left running; and because of this decision, a reactor eruption was probably averted. Certain facts which I have uncovered in the course of my investigations into the accident show up the importance of that decision to leave that pump running.

For instance, the reactor fuel core had disintegrated and about 50% of it had melted, according to published reports; and the reactor pressure vessel, which contained the core material, and which had to be maintained at high pressure during the accident for cooling purposes, was weakened by the thermal attack of the hot core material. (These facts had not been discovered until several years after the accident, when the reactor could be physically examined.) Leaving that coolant pump running, therefore, provided vital cooling to the destroyed reactor core material (the heat production of the residual atomic reactions), thereby preventing a further weakening of the reactor vessel and its rupture. The consequence of a rupture of the highly pressurized reactor vessel, weighing hundreds of tons, would have been catastrophic: a potential rocket blasting up through the reactor building, or otherwise a reactor building explosion, due to a flash hydrogen fire upon the release of immense quantities of hydrogen gas into the building atmosphere by the vessel rupture. (The hydrogen was bottled up inside the reactor vessel during the accident. Remember the hydrogen gas bubble?) During the accident, the NRC officials had not assumed that the reactor was so seriously damaged - an assessment which I disputed, when pressing my technical advice to leave that pump running!

I refer to the Transcript of the telephone discussions of my involvement in the TMI-2 accident (with radio and television reports interspersed), which is among the collection of material which I have offered to the People of the TMI area. Also included in the Collection are the two audio tape recording cassettes, from which the Transcript was made. [See note no. 8 in the appendix.]
 

IV.  The Author's Assessment of the Radioactivity Releases into the Atmosphere; and the Consequent Radiation Exposures suffered by the TMI Area Residents.

I have determined by extensive scientific research [See note no. 9 in the appendix.] that a serious amount of radioactivity in gas form (Xenon and Krypton), carried by hydrogen gas, leaked from the TMI plant during the accident, mostly on the first day. There is evidence that the reactor containment building did not break open in the accident, but remained leak tight; although there were a number of events in which a reactor eruption and a consequent rupture of the reactor building, or a reactor building explosion, came close to occurring, as before mentioned. The radioactive gas leakages in the accident occurred via a water pipe that was connected to the reactor system and passed through the Reactor Building and into the adjacent Auxiliary building. The pipe, known as the "letdown line," was not valved closed in the accident; although the written safety procedures for licensing required it to be automatically closed off. In fact, the pipe was in fact automatically closed off by electronic accident signals, but the operators defeated this action, believing they were acting to prevent a reactor system over-pressurization. (The reactor system and its safety equipment were not designed for the accident, and so nothing behaved as planned.)

As a consequence, radioactive gases (hydrogen mixed with radioactive Xenon and Krypton at least) were drawn from the reactor system via the letdown pipe, and traveled in the pipe to the Auxiliary Building, where most of the gas then leaked into the atmosphere, according to my calculations. The radioactive gas storage tanks in the Auxiliary Building were not designed to receive and hold the large volume of hydrogen gas which flowed out of the letdown pipe at its terminal end and into a small receiving tank in the Auxiliary Building. Consequently, the gas leaked (too much pressure build-up in the receiving systems; for example, a rupture in the auxiliary system was found), or the gas was deliberately vented, to avoid over-pressure in the tanks.

There is much scientific uncertainty as to the actual amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere in the TMI-2 accident. I presently estimate that between 25 to 106 million "curies" of noble gas radioactivity were released into the air - the larger figure includes the possibility of an especially intense radioactive gas leak, which I have termed a "hydrogen gas blowout." The significance of these figures in terms of the amount of radiation exposure (quantified as radiation "dose"), and the harmful effect on the health of those persons who were exposed to the radiation, will be discussed in the next section. At present, this range of estimates of the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere should be compared with the official estimate made by the well-known President's Commission on the Three Mile Island Accident (1979).

The President's Commission, and the TMI accident investigation commission of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Rogovin Report), both reported that 2.4 million curies of noble gas radioactivity were released into the atmosphere during the accident - an amount which is considerably less than my range of estimates. This official U.S. Government estimate, which has served as the basis for the official assurances to the public that they were not harmed by nuclear radiation from the accident, is stated in the reports of the President's Commission and the NRC to be based on a "chart recording" of a radiation monitoring instrument in the Auxiliary Building, where the radioactive gases were leaking into the air. [See note no. 10 in the appendix.] These official reports say that this chart recorder remained on-scale (hence recording properly) throughout the entire duration of the accident. (See the report of the Health Physics and Dosimetry Task Group for the President's Commission, page 18 and Appendix D, and the NRC's Rogovin Report, Vol. II, part 2, page 360.).

However, I have uncovered in the course of my investigation of the TMI accident that this radiation monitoring recorder was in fact not operating for a two hour period on the first day of the accident, during the period of evidently greatest radioactivity releases into the atmosphere; and furthermore, that during this same period the recorder in fact was "off scale," meaning that the radiation intensity was so high that the instrument could not record the magnitude of the radiation intensity in the Auxiliary Building. These facts contradict the reports of the President's Commission and the NRC, and deny the assurances which the U.S. Government gave to the public in 1979 and 1980 that the radiation levels to which the public were exposed by the accident were relatively low with insignificant health consequences. For the instrument recording which was officially claimed to be usable for determining the magnitude of the radioactivity released into the atmosphere around the plant, and consequently, the maximum radiation dose levels to which the TMI area residents were exposed, was in fact defective in failing to register and record the radiation intensity during the periods of greatest releases of radioactivity into the atmosphere!

This misrepresentation of plant data is so fundamental to the question of the impact of the accident on the health of the public - the question of the magnitude of the radioactivity releases into the atmosphere and the consequent public exposures to nuclear radiation by the accident - that it calls into question the reliability of all other published data and graphs about the accident, and all official analyses of the accident.

In an affidavit dated June 4, 1993, and an accompanying detailed scientific report of my original analysis and calculations of the radioactivity releases in the TMI accident, dated June 19, 1993, which was submitted to the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg in the judicial proceedings of the TMI Consolidated Litigations, I presented the evidence of this apparent misrepresentation of the radiation monitoring instrument recordings by the official investigatory commissions of the U.S. Government. (A copy of this affidavit, and the accompanying scientific report, along with a copy of the documentary evidence of the misrepresentation, are among the items of the Collection mentioned earlier.) However, the U.S. District Court, Chief Judge S. Rambo, adjudged (January 5, 1996) that my scientific "testimony" (a reference to my June 19, 1993 report of my analysis of the radioactivity releases in the accident, and my June 4, 1993 affidavit) is "unreliable," and ruled that this testimony shall be excluded from the jury trial proceedings, thus acting to suppress the fact of the Government's misrepresentation of the radiation monitoring instrument records of the TMI accident, and other important facts and findings of my scientific investigations of the accident which I have submitted to the Court. [See note no. 11 in the appendix [See note no. 12 in the appendix.]

The Judge's ruling (January 5, 1996) to exclude my scientific testimony came after the conclusion of the Court's pre-trial hearings on a motion by the defendant nuclear companies (filed on October 6, 1995) to exclude my testimony from the jury trial on the grounds that I am not a qualified expert, and that my analysis of the radioactivity releases is wholly erroneous. However, I was never informed of this motion, and the charges against me and my scientific works which accompanied the motion (given in an attached memorandum), nor was I informed of the Court's hearings on the motion, until after the Judge made and published her ruling and pronouncements against me. Thus, I was deprived of any opportunity to respond to the charges against my works in the Court's proceedings, including the hearings. I shall comment on this injustice done to me later in this letter.

For the present, the point I wish to make is that the public ought to disregard the official estimates of the magnitude of the release of radioactivity into the atmosphere during the TMI accident, and the resultant radiation doses, and also disregard the official assurances of an insignificant health impact of the radiation from the accident, as these official, Government assessments are ill-founded (based on misrepresentations of plant instrument recordings). Instead, the public ought to give attention to my estimates of the likely range of radioactivity released into the atmosphere in the TMI-2 accident (25 to 106 million curies), and the consequent radiation dose levels in the public domain, and the significance of these dose levels with respect to health, as discussed next.

The before-mentioned 106 million curies, upper-limit release estimate represents the results of my original analysis and assessment of the radioactivity releases in the accident that was submitted to the Court in June 1993, namely, my June 19, 1993 report. The lower-limit estimate (25 million curies) is the result of refined calculations which I made in August-November, 1995 (more than two years later), on the basis of an improved, "perfected" theoretical model of the reactor system behavior in the accident which I have developed. These refined calculations do not indicate that an intense gas blowout occurred in the accident, contrary to my original analysis; but this result does not represent my finished, final analysis of the accident. More analysis and calculations with the perfected model are still required; specifically, to take into account the scientific uncertainties in the amount of hydrogen gas produced in the reactor during the accident - this gas drove the releases (leakages) of gaseous radioactivity into the atmosphere during the accident. See the footnote below. [See note no. 13 in the appendix.] Therefore, at present the 106 million curies release with its gas blowout of my original analysis should be assumed as the upper limit of the range of possible releases of gaseous radioactivity into the atmosphere in the TMI accident.

The radiation doses suffered by persons in the TMI area (for instance, Middletown and Goldsboro) because of the accident could be as much as the order of 3 rads, more so in bone tissue (bone marrow hazards, leukemia and other cancer), according to my physics calculations. (The health impact significance of radiation dose values in rad units [See note no. 14 in the appendix.] will be discussed in the next section.) This 3 rads dose estimate applies to the "gas blowout" event that is associated with the 106 million curies upper-limit estimate of the total radioactivity release mentioned earlier. If no such gas blowout occurred in the accident, then my lower-limit estimate of 25 million curies released, before mentioned, applies.

For the case of the lower-limit release estimate, namely, 25 million curies, the maximum doses in the TMI area are calculated to be of the order of 30 to 300 millirads (0.03 to 0.3 rads) within about 2½ miles from the plant. Further, the doses would be confined to fairly narrow paths, say several hundred meters wide. Also, there were continuous as well as stronger intermittent releases throughout the first day of the accident, starting at about 7 a.m. in the morning, extending for several days thereafter, according to my calculations. As the wind direction and meteorological conditions varied over time, therefore, the radioactive "plumes" from the plant (the streams of radioactivity that issued from the vent stack) exposed the whole area to nuclear radiation. [See note no. 15 in the appendix.] Also, these dose estimates apply to out-of-doors. We may assume that a 40% reduction in dose occurs when in-doors. So, allowing for house shielding, the dose range might be 20 millirads to 2000 millirads (0.02 to 2.0 rads). One more note: Some of the bone tissue received about three times this dose in the more exposed portion of the skeleton.

The foregoing is just a sample of the results of the worst-case radiation doses of my analysis and calculations. The above whole body dose values - an uncertainty range of 20 millirads to 3000 millirads (0.02 rads to 3 rads) - should be compared with the rate of radiation dose from Nature (from natural radioactivity in the soil and in our bodies, and cosmic rays falling on the Earth), which is about 0.01 millirads per hour, or about 100 millirads per year, according to fairly credible scientific reports, though I have not been able to verify this figure by physical measurement.

The above dose estimates apply to the exposures to the gamma radiation emissions from the radioactive plumes in the atmosphere. Gamma radiation is like X-rays, only much more energetic. It penetrates large distances through the air (from a plume or "cloud" of radioactive gases in the atmosphere, for instance), and through house walls and into and through out one's body. Therefore, the exposure to the gamma rays resulted in all of the tissues and organs in one's body being irradiated. In addition to the gamma radiation, there was also the "beta" radiation emissions from the radioactive cloud passing through one's location. Beta rays are nuclear radiation in the form of highly energetic electrons emitted from the radioactive substances along with the gamma radiation. Skin tissue exposed to the contaminated air from the radioactivity releases in the TMI accident received a dose from the beta rays of about three times the whole body gamma radiation dose. So, the skin dose ranged from 80 millirads to 12,000 millirads (about).
 

V.  Damaging Action of Nuclear Radiation on Body Tissues (Health Harm); "Radiation Protection Standards;" and the Rights of the People to Protection from Radiation.

I find by my research into the damaging action of nuclear radiation in human tissue, that a "whole body" dose of gamma radiation of about one rad (1000 millirads) over a short time, say an hour, results in practically every cell nuclei in one's body (the living cells in our tissues) being hit with highly energetic electrons that are produced by the absorption of radiation energy - more so for bone tissue. In addition to the gamma radiation dose, the skin tissue receives the beta radiation dose as well - about three times the gamma dose, as before mentioned.

I find that the impact of an energetic electron on a cell is such as to break molecules in the cell, which alters or damages the molecular structure of the cell, especially the nucleus, where the life code script (our "genes"), or most of it, appears to reside, and thereby mutates the cell, that is, causing the cell to behave differently because its molecular structure is changed. Or the cell is killed, depending on which molecules are disrupted - a chance process. {Note: For those who may not know - I didn't, until I studied the biology - our "genes" are not only in the germ cells that are used to produce children, but in the nucleus of every cell in our body tissues; except the red blood cells, I am told.}

So, when every cell nucleus in our body practically is hit by an energetic electron, as with one rad dose, then our body would be turned into a mutant (that is, our body would no longer be the human being that we were), as there would be no conceivable possibility for the body tissues to replace the mutated (damaged) cells with perfect healthy cells - namely, replacement cells produced by the "cell division" process from healthy tissue cells having the exact code script that mother and father gave with the first fertilized cell of our body - since all of the cells in the tissue would be damaged, hence mutated, if not killed, at 1 rad dose. This is the core of the seriousness of a 0.3 rads to 3 rads TMI-2 accident dose level, according to my analysis.

The harmful consequences of such levels of radiation dose cannot be predicted, because of the obvious infinite complexity of the living organism. There must be infinite possibilities for varying kinds of health impairment and disease resulting from such universal and random damage to our body tissue cells. The body/organism must behave differently when the body tissue cells have all, or mostly, been damaged, hence mutated (changed) by the attack of energetic electrons of about 0.5 rad, or more, dose of nuclear radiation. Therefore, we could only observe and experience the harmful consequences of such levels of radiation exposure. Fortunately, a relative few people in the TMI area received doses of this order (500 millirads), if the actual radiation exposures may be represented by the lower limit of my radioactivity release estimates. However, the doses might have been much greater, if a gas blowout occurred, for instance.

According to my atomic physics calculations, the natural radiation level of about 100 millirads per year results in about one cell nucleus being hit with a highly energetic electron within a ten hour period for every 4000 cells in our body tissues - a very low fraction of cells in our tissue. The assumption of ten hours for assessing the radiation dose from natural radiation is based on the fact that the cell-division time is about ten hours for perhaps most of our cells; and ten hours is a kind of natural unit of time for body healing following an injury or sickness. Thus, I calculate that practically no cells are hit in their nucleus by energetic electrons from radiation exposure at the natural dose level. So, this explains to me why we do not feel that natural radiation is harmful to us: for hardly any of our cells are hit (directly damaged) by natural radiation in a day's time. (The hit ratio for the whole cell is calculated at about 1:500.) I assume that those cells, or cell nuclei, which are hit, hence damaged, are naturally eliminated from the body tissue by the action of the body's "immune system" - for instance, by the "monocytes" in the blood - and that replacement cells are readily produced by the life process of "cell division" from the healthy cells with the same, exact code script that mother and father gave.

On the basis of these considerations, it appears to me that our health may very well be a dynamic process of eliminating, or largely eliminating, cells that are damaged continually by natural radiation, and replacing them with perfect copies of healthy cells by the activity of the predominant healthy cells in the tissue: that wondrously active biological process of "cell division" which produces a fully developed human body of the order of 40,000,000,000,000 cells, starting with one fertilized cell, and maintains the body in a healthy state, even despite injuries and infections. [See note no. 16 in the appendix.] But for this tissue "repair" and maintenance process to be workable, the rate of cell damage must be kept low enough such that the healthy, undamaged (un-hit) cells must always predominate. And to ensure this, we ought to avoid any additional radiation exposure (dose), and certainly not tolerate a radiation dose in a day's time from man-made radiation that is more than a small fraction of the natural dose level of 0.1 millirad in ten hours. [See note no. 17 in the appendix.]

As before mentioned, the ten-hours period assumed in my calculations of the 1:4000 cell nuclei hit ratio is the time for one cell division for many types of cells in our bodies, according to the biology literature that I have read. As the natural radiation dose in 10 hours time is about 0.1 millirad, an additional dose of 0.1 millirad over the same length of time from man-made radiation, as from a nuclear reactor accident, must cause, I should think, the whole body to work twice as hard to eliminate and replace radiation-damaged cells, following such a dose. A dose of 0.1 millirads, therefore, say from a nuclear accident as TMI, should be considered a grave concern. We ought not to tolerate any dose of man-made radiation, for the reason that any additional radiation exposure works a damage, which could result, for instance, in cancer disease or defects in our off-spring. Compare this standard of 0.1 millirad with the uncertainty range of dose levels of the TMI-2 accident (20 to 3000 millirads)!

As is generally known by those who have studied the "radiation protection standards" issued by the federal Government, and supported by the opinion of the "radiation biology" and "radiation protection" establishments, is that 500 millirads dose in any year's time is officially considered a permissible level of radiation exposure for members of the public. [See note no. 18 in the appendix.] By this standard for "protection," the 500 millirads permissible dose could be absorbed in a short period, say, in one hour, or one minute even, provided only that the total dose for the year does not exceed 500 millirads. However, I find that there is no valid scientific justification for this 500 millirads permissible dose limit. In fact, the "Radiation Protection Standards" of the U.S. Government that were in effect at the time of the TMI accident (1979), specifically 10 C.F.R. 20.105, prescribed that the nuclear plant licensee shall conduct his reactor plant operations such that the radiation levels in any unrestricted area around the plant (outside the plant boundary) - that means Middletown and any other place of human residence, and even the highway running along the river by the plant - shall not exceed two (2) millirads in any one hour!

This limit of 2 millirad in any one hour that was in effect in 1979 is far less than the 500 millirad "permissible" limit of today. [See note no. 19 in the appendix.] (Have we not been told that the Radiation Protection Standards have always been made more and more restrictive with the passage of time since the discovery of X-rays and radioactivity?) Also, this 2 millirad limit is more in line with my assessment that a dose of 0.1 millirad should not be tolerated. Moreover, the regulations in effect in 1979 specified that this 2 millirad limit applies to a radiation dose "to any portion of the body," hence, any piece of body tissue, whether it be the brain, the muscle of the heart, a piece of bone on my head, or a piece of skin tissue on the tip of my ear. Bone receive much more dose than soft tissue (as much as three to six times more dose), when the body is exposed to Xenon-133 fission product gamma rays, as in the TMI accident, due to lower energy gamma ray photons compared to natural gamma rays from the soil, and the fact that the absorption of gamma rays by materials like calcium (which bones contain) is much greater than by the lighter materials in soft tissue. As for skin tissue, it suffers a dose by both the gamma radiation and beta rays; so these doses must be added.

There were reasons why the U.S. Government's Radiation Protection Standards in 1979 were such as to approach the protection standard of 0.1 millirad that I find is warranted by sound physical and biological principles. For when that earlier regulation was made (1955, and "promulgated" in 1957), there were imminent scientists, including the geneticist A. Sturtevant, and the chemist/physicist Linus Pauling, who were among those who first recognized and fully appreciated the seriousness of exposures to nuclear radiation, and x-rays, from the standpoint of preserving our genes, and who watched with a critical eye the making of the federal Government's "radiation protection standards."

Despite the plain wording of the 10 CFR 20.105 regulation that was in effect at the time of the TMI-2 accident, however, the defendant nuclear companies in the before-mentioned TMI Consolidated Litigation Proceedings maintained that the legal "licensed permissible" limit of radiation dose when exposing the public to nuclear radiation from their plant operations (the TMI-2 accident) was 500 millirads in any one year in the places were people live, and that this alleged yearly permissible dose of 500 millirads could be received in a short period during the accident (an hour, or five hours). In a second affidavit which was submitted to the Court, dated August 1, 1994, I presented what I believe is a sufficient proof (legal analysis) that this claim of a 500 millirad permissible dose is wrong. I refer to this proof. [See note no. 20 in the appendix.] However, the Court proceedings excluded this affidavit, thus suppressing this legal analysis, including the facts presented therein of the legal history of the making of the 10 CFR 20.105 regulation, which establishes the true meaning of that "radiation protection standard" regulation, namely, that the prescribed two (2) millirad dose limit (in any one hour of exposure) was the limiting legal standard for the TMI accident, [See note no. 21 in the appendix.] not some other regulation that the Court, and the Appeals Court, have proclaimed but without merit, I find.

Moreover, my August 1, 1994 affidavit points out that one of the environmental monitoring radiation dosimeters that was in place in the "unrestricted" area (the public domain) around the TMI plant before the start of the accident registered 908 millirads dose for the first day of the accident. The affidavit demonstrates that this fact establishes that the federal Government's Radiation Protection Standards were violated in the TMI accident. [See note no. 22 in the appendix.] My affidavit also reveals the fact that there were other dosimeter data which the Government investigators failed to report, and which, by one official account, registered much greater dose levels than reported in the TMI accident literature. However, by Judge Rambo ruling that my testimony is not admissible for a jury trial, she acted to suppress these important facts also, and to block my efforts to obtain a Court order to force the disclosure of the secret dosimeter data.

I have, therefore, determined that the people of the TMI area, including also any persons temporarily in the area during the accident, had rights to protection from nuclear radiation under the federal Government's regulations, namely the Radiation Protection Standards (10 CFR 20) which were in effect in 1979, and that these rights were infringed by the TMI accident; as the radiation dose levels in the public domain were in excess, and greatly in excess, of the 10 CFR 20.105 protection limit, and thus, the people were over-exposed to nuclear radiation by the criterion of 10 CFR 20.105 - a most serious matter. [See note no. 23 in the appendix.]

Moreover, the 10 CFR 20.105 limit itself was not a stringent criterion. For as discussed earlier, a value of 0.1 millirad dose is a more prudent and a more justifiable limit. On the basis of my analysis and studies, therefore, I conclude that the levels of radiation exposures in the TMI area during the accident (highly variable) were such that practically everyone around TMI was exposed to radiation from the accident, hence was harmed by the accident, and some persons, not just a few, were seriously, and very seriously, harmed by the radiation emissions of the accident.

This assessment is founded not only on theoretical considerations (radiation action on living cells causing molecular disruptions in the cells and their nuclei), but also on statistical analyses. For instance, I have determined by mathematical analysis of the official government statistics of Bavaria on births and infant deaths for the period 1980-1993 that there occurred after the Chernobyl accident (April 1986) a very significant increase in still-births and infant deaths in the part of Bavaria which was more seriously contaminated by the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl; and yet the radiation dose in this area of Bavaria has been officially estimated at about one half of the natural radiation level, or about 50 millirads (maximum) for the first whole year after the Chernobyl fallout, diminishing greatly in the succeeding years (which I have confirmed somewhat with my own geiger counter measurements). So it is clear from these statistics that nuclear radiation has deadly harmful effects even at the "low" dose levels of 50 millirads spread over one year! Some people around TMI probably got doses of this order, or more even, in an hour or so.

I have also analyzed the semi-official cancer mortality statistics of the atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who suffered varying degrees of nuclear radiation exposure from the bombs, and found by mathematical calculations that the cancer effect of nuclear radiation as indicated by these statistics is far greater than that officially assessed. [See note no. 24 in the appendix and the related "revision" of March 2000.] I am preparing a treatise on the health hazard of nuclear radiation which will contain my full scientific analysis of the health hazard of nuclear radiation, including my statistical analyses, and my physics analysis of the damaging action of radiation on the living cells of human body tissue.

Generally, I find that nuclear radiation, and X-rays as well, are far more harmful to humans (and other living things) than what the "radiation biology" and "radiation protection" establishments have reported over the years - establishments created and supported by unconstitutional funding. (I refer to my perspective on the Constitution in the final section of this essay, Section VIII.)

For instance, a report of the Federal Radiation Council on radiation effects, issued by the United States Government, which was presented to the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg by the defendant nuclear companies in the TMI Consolidated Litigation Proceedings, asserts that below 100 rads dose, there is no illness (100 rads, not 100 millirads), and that sickness ensues above this exposure level, more seriously, the greater the dose, until the lethal dose level of about 450 rads, more or less, again, according to the official assessment. [See note no. 25 in the appendix.] However, my "electron track" calculations predict that a dose of 25 rads should be lethal - the terrible phenomenon of "acute radiation sickness," where the body disintegrates over several days until final death. At 25 rads dose, I calculate that the nucleus of every cell in our body tissues is hit very hard by an especially damaging "secondary electron," besides being hit 25 times by the primary electrons produced by the absorption of gamma radiation energy, all of which suggest lethal consequences for the human organism. [See note no. 26 in the appendix.]

The method which I have devised for assessing the harmful impact of nuclear radiation (and X-rays) on human health at a specific dose level, namely, that of calculating the fraction of tissue cells, or cell nuclei, which are hit by energetic electrons, is plainly sensible, since energetic electrons impacting on a cell or its nucleus must cause a disruption of the molecular structure of the cell, and since the living cell is the unit of life - the most fundamental principle of biology. Yet, this plainly sensible method for evaluating the radiation hazard does not appear anywhere in the scientific literature on "radiation biology," "biophysics," "radiation protection," and "health physics" that I have been able to study or peruse; and I believe that I have examined the primary line of this literature, and the more important shoots of this literature having to do with the "action" of radiation on living cells, or "mechanisms of radiobiology."

There is virtually an infinity of complicated theoretical analyses in journal articles and books about "mechanisms of radiobiology" which are replete with theoretical speculations and opinions about theory of radiation produced "lesions," or cellular damage, and cell "repair" mechanisms, following radiation damage; but none of this literature is useful to establish the health effects of radiation exposure. The political/legal effect of all this mass of "scientific literature" is to give the appearance of an impressive scientific basis for dismissing any fears the public has about being exposed to radiation from nuclear accidents, or from normal releases of radioactivity into the environment, or from medical X-rays - fears, however, which are justifiably based on the common knowledge that X-rays have caused fatal skin cancer diseases of the earlier workers with X-rays for instance, and mutation in laboratory animals, and that nuclear radiation accidents have resulted in gruesome fatalities.

Aided by my theoretical electron-track calculations, I undertook a comprehensive investigation into the basis for the official statement that there is "no illness below 100 rads," and found that there is no reliable evidence and proof for this official contention. In fact, the solid evidence is to the contrary. For example, I found an obscured, but profoundly serious, medical journal article, published in 1958, of the "acute radiation syndrome" sickness observed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombings. This article reported two waves of deaths by the acute radiation syndrome in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the first occurring three days after each atomic bombing (dose estimated at 500 rads), and a second wave of deaths, delayed three weeks, with doses as low as 15 rads! The author of the report, H. B. Gerstner, was a medical doctor of the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, who was also associated with the prestigious Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies. [See note no. 27 in the appendix.] This medical report confirms my theoretical prediction of 25 rads lethal, made before discovering this medical journal article in the literature. Incredibly, this medical journal report is not mentioned in the entire scientific literature on "health physics," "radiation biology," and "radiation protection" that has been published since Gerstner's article. No basis for ignoring the article has every been given in the published literature, at least as far as I could find. [See note no. 28 in the appendix.] This shows up the bias and bent of this part of the scientific establishment toward promoting acceptance of the risks of nuclear accidents, and radiation exposures following an accident, such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and suppressing vitally important facts of the radiation dangers. [See note no. 29 in the appendix.]

In another example, I have obtained, finally after one year of waiting, documents of the Los Alamos laboratory (here-to-fore kept secret) reporting on two nuclear radiation accidents which resulted in the death of two persons, and injuries to seven or eight others. These documents reveal large uncertainty in the radiation doses suffered by the injured persons, contrary to the published assessment of the Government's "radiation biology" experts that large doses of radiation are necessary to cause sickness. For instance, one person in the accident was extremely sick (e.g., penicillin shots every three hours for several days), and his dose was crudely estimated at 25 rads; whereas the official assessment is that there is no illness below 100 rads. Moreover, that injured person's dose could have been as low as 2 rads or lower even, factoring in the uncertainty revealed by the Los Alamos document that gives the dose analysis. [See note no. 30 in the appendix.]

There is a legal principle, protected by our U.S. Constitution, that when ever there is a right, there is a legal remedy at law whenever that right is invaded. The people of the area around TMI at the time of the accident had been exposed to, hence harmed by, nuclear radiation from the TMI accident. They have been exposed to radiation even in excess of the radiation protection standards of the federal Government that were in effect at the time of the accident. [See note no. 31 in the appendix.] Therefore, there ought to be a full investigation into the matter of my analysis of the TMI accident, and the facts that I have developed, and an appropriate compensation and other remedies developed for the people of the area. [See note no. 32 in the appendix.]

And, most important, measures ought to be taken by the whole country to prevent any nuclear catastrophe (e.g., a reactor eruption), which I believe requires the closing down of all nuclear power plants. For instance, accordingly to my calculations, a reactor explosion, say in Illinois, could cause potentially the order of 30 million people in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and New England turned into mutants from the radiation doses from just the passage of the radioactive "cloud" released into the atmosphere by such a nuclear eruption, plus just the first day, or the first two days, of exposure to the radioactive fallout from the cloud - giving a combined radiation dose of about one rad or more. This is just one measure of the myriad of horrible potential consequences of a catastrophe nuclear accident. [See note no. 33 in the appendix.]

Furthermore, a catastrophe could be compounded by the eruption of one or more adjacent reactors at a nuclear power station, and also spent fuel storage fires, caused by the explosion of the first reactor or reactor building, and/or by the extremely intense radiation levels on the plant site from the first reactor eruption. Then there would be potentials for additional, consequential eruptions of nuclear reactors located in the down-wind region of the radioactive catastrophe, due to the social and economic disorder that would surely result from the radioactive fallout from first reactor plant eruption or eruptions, or as by electric power failures and consequent reactor system disturbances. In other words, a single reactor accident, caused by the mistake of a single worker, or a faulty component costing 25 cents, could initiate a nuclear cataclysm on our North American Continent. I must defer to my planned treatise on the TMI accident and my planned second book on the nuclear accident hazards for further elaboration.

[Up-date: 7/21/99: I have in January 1997 made an mathematical analysis of the Vital Statistics of the State of Pennsylvania, and found large, above-normal numbers of infant deaths in the county in which the TMI reactor is located in the five years following the March 28, 1979 accident at the Three Miles Island nuclear power plant. A summary of my statistical analysis is given in an appendix to this essay.]
 

Postscript for Section V.

Actually the real radiation "protection" standards of the U.S. Government are not the 500 millirem permissible annual dose limit, which is mentioned on page 17 of this essay, which, I neglected to mention, is for "normal" reactor operations, but the EPA's "Protection Action Guides" for nuclear "incidents," which specifies: (a) an acceptable dose for members of the public at 5 rems (5 rads), but which can be exceeded, as this figure is only a "guide;" (b) 25 rems for "emergency workers" (Guess who? National Guard troops, I think, just as the Soviet Government conscripted a reported 600,000 men, called soldiers, to work around the destroyed Chernobyl reactor for radiation work, to "liquidate the consequences" of the accident); and (c) 75 rems dose for "live saving activities." So, really the 75 rems "guide" is the "protection standard" for you in the event of the next nuclear accident. I refer to Section V. of this letter/essay for the seriousness of such high "acceptable" dose levels.

In my final version of this letter/essay I shall elaborate in a section of the essay to be added which will critically review the reports of the "Health and Safety Task Force" of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, namely, the reports of the "Health Physics and Dosimetry Task Group," the "Health Effects Task Group," and "Public Health etc. Task Group," and the "Emergency Response Task Group." Attached is an early typed outline of this additional, still-to-be-written section. My working outline has many pen-and-ink additions.

I should mention that my 1981 treatise, "The Potential Harmful Consequences of Catastrophic Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants," warned the conscription would be resorted to by Governments to perform radioactivity decontamination work following a nuclear accident; and such tragically has happened following the Chernobyl accident. A great many young men in the former Soviet states were forced to work around the highly radioactive disaster area of the Chernobyl plant, and take radiation doses - the levels of which are just not known, and the health consequences of which we cannot determined as this time. It has been reported that the 25 rem limit was used as a standard for "protecting" these conscripted workers. Recall that I find that at one rad dose (one rem dose, means practically the same) the human body is turned into a mutant. I refer to Section V. of this essay.

End of Postscript for Sec. V.  [Link back to note no. 18 reference text...]
 

VI.  The District Court's Ruling regarding the Credibility of this Author's TMI Accident Analysis.

As is fairly well known, the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg (Judge S. Rambo) has rendered a final judgment in the TMI Consolidated Litigations against the plaintiffs, and without a jury trial. See the Judge's Order and accompanying Memorandum dated June 7, 1996, and an Errata, dated June 12). As before mentioned, the Judge ruled on a preliminary motion in the proceeding, tendered by the defendant nuclear companies, to exclude my scientific testimony from the then-planned jury trial. In her decision memorandum, dated January 5, 1996, Judge Rambo pronounced that the "proposed testimony" of "Dr. Webb" is "unreliable," and that he "could not assist a jury in understanding the complex facts" of the TMI accident. In her memorandum, the Judge even implied by a clear innuendo, that I make reports which are "superficially impressive," but which are "riddled with factual inaccuracies and unproven assumptions. [See note no. 34 in the appendix.] I assert that the Judge's evaluation of my works is wrong. As the Court's judgment of my scientific works and qualifications must cast doubts, or raise questions at least, in the minds of the public as to the credibility of my analysis of the TMI accident and its harmful consequences, and my analyses of the nuclear accident hazards, and also of the constitutional law pertaining to nuclear energy, I take up this charge against my work in this letter, and refute it in this letter-essay.

Firstly, I wish the public to know that, although I had been involved in the Court proceedings with submissions of scientific analyses and reviews, I did not advise in the making out of those law suits, nor did I concur in the making of the plaintiffs' case. I was asked in February 1993, long after the suits had been commenced, to review the nuclear companies' technical analyses of the radioactivity released into the atmosphere in the accident - analyses which were proffered by the TMI defendants in that litigation (GPU and other companies) in January 1993. I refer to my Affidavit, dated June 4, 1993, which gives my critical review of the defendants' technical analyses. I also made my own analysis of the radioactivity release in the accident (scientific calculations), and submitted a detailed report of this analysis - my June 19, 1993 Report. The purpose of my analysis was to demonstrate the deficiencies of the nuclear companies' technical analyses, and not to provide the Court with a final analysis and assessment of the radioactivity releases in the accident. I also made an assessment of the radiation dose levels in the public area near the TMI plant, based on my (original) June 19, 1993 release estimates (about 3 rads dose, whole body), and submitted the results to the Court in a second Affidavit, dated August 1, 1994. However, that second affidavit declared that "[f]urther analysis and calculations need to be made to refine my analysis," meaning, in the context of the affidavit, my analysis of the radioactivity releases as well as my dose calculations based on my release estimates. And so, the Court was apprised in August 1994 that my June 19, 1993 report of my original analysis of the radioactivity releases was not my final analysis. Thus, my June 4, 1993 Affidavit and my June 19, 1993 Report were offered to assist the Court with the best scientific analysis that I could make in the time provided. [See note no. 35 in the appendix.]

The Plaintiffs' counsel, however, submitted to the Court for trial a case which claimed that the radiation doses to the whole body were of the order of 500 rads - a claim which I did not support; and in fact, I repeatedly advised the Plaintiffs' counsel (by phone and by letters, copies of which I have, that their high dose claim, hence their case, was not sound. Despite my advice and my declarations to them that I would not testify in the Court to support such a case, the plaintiffs' counsel "proffered" for the jury trial my June 4, 1993 affidavit and accompanying June 19, 1993 report on the topic of radioactivity releases as the testimony that I would give to the Court at the trial (and kept back my August 1, 1994 affidavit on dose assessment, radiation protection standards, and health harm), and they did so without my knowledge, and without my authorization. Thus, the plaintiffs' counsel acted to use part of my work (my 1993 submittals on the subject of radioactivity releases) to support their claimed high radiation doses that I have advised against. [See note no. 36 in the appendix.]

Now to the matter of the Judge's pronouncement about my work. The Judge made her judgment (January 5, 1996) that "Dr. Webb's" "proposed testimony" is "unreliable," as part of her decision on the defendants' motion, dated October 6, 1995, to exclude me from testifying before the jury trial. [See note no. 37 in the appendix.] In their memorandum which accompanied their motion, the attorneys for the defendant nuclear companies charged that I am not a qualified scientist, along with many specific damning charges against my works and person. However, I was never informed about this motion and the charges which the defendants (including General Public Utilities Corporation) and their attorneys made against me, nor was I informed of the hearings and conferences which the Court held on these matters, until after the Judge pronounced her ruling on the motion (on January 5, 1996), including her adverse judgment of my qualifications as an scientific expert and my original analysis of the radioactivity releases. And then I only learned of these proceedings, including the Judge's pronouncements against me, when a TMI area resident sent me via the post an article in a lawyers' magazine about the Judge's ruling. The plaintiffs' lawyers never even informed me of the defendant nuclear companies' motion and the special Court proceedings that were held regarding it - the Court's hearings, conferences, as well as the "briefs" of the parties.

I assert that is was wrong for the District Court Judge to have judged the credibility of my scientific work, and condemn this work and my scientific qualifications in a public pronouncement, without informing me, or seeing to it that I was informed, about the charges made against me and my works by the nuclear companies and their attorneys, and without offering and providing me the opportunity to respond to the charges, and considering the response that I would have made. Moreover, I assert that the charges are wrong. [See note no. 38 in the appendix.]

So, the Judge has made a public condemnation of me:  to the effect that I am not a qualified scientist: that my scientific work is not reliable: and that in effect I make fraudulent reports. The Judge's pronouncement has been published and printed in bound books (official reports of the U.S. Courts) that are now in every law library in the country, and in every main city library practically. This published Court pronouncement tends, thus, to destroy my reputation - all done in a court proceeding conducted without my knowledge, which is plainly a gross injustice that has been done to this person. A public court of law condemning a person, thereby destroying his professional reputation, without that person being informed of charges against him, without the Court giving him a hearing, and without providing him with a process to defend his works, and his person, hence his reputation, is plainly unjust. [See note no. 39 in the appendix.]

The injustice done is not only to me, but to the public as well, namely, my fellow citizens in general. By the judge of the Court and the counsel for the parties not conducting the court proceedings properly with respect to my person and my scientific works, the Court proceedings acted to quash an honest investigation of the TMI accident in that judicial proceeding - an investigation toward determining the truth about what happened in the accident. And also, by so doing, they acted to keep from the public the serious facts which I have uncovered about the accident and the serious defects of the official investigations of the accident. Moreover, the Judge's pronouncements taint, if not destroy, the credibility of my scientific analyses of the nuclear accident hazards in the eyes of the public, thereby keeping the public confused about the nuclear hazards and official safety assurances, thereby exposing the public to perpetual dangers of catastrophic nuclear accidents.

Furthermore, I contend that the judges of the U.S. Courts have not the constitutional authority to judge the credibility of scientific expert witnesses for litigants in a law suit in which one of the parties invokes the right of trial by jury under the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution, which expressly preserves the right of trial by jury in civil cases (more specifically, "in suits at common law). Under the Seventh Amendment the authority for judging the credibility of witnesses in a trial of the facts at issue is the jury, not the judge of the court. [See note no. 40 in the appendix.] Therefore, Judge Rambo has violated the Constitution in judging the credibility of my works in the TMI consolidated litigations proceedings, since the jury trial was demanded by one of the parties in that litigation. (The Judges of the United States Courts have not even taken an oath to support the Constitution, as is required by the Constitution, Article VII. See page 45 of the letter-essay.)

Furthermore, it is obvious, that a judge of a court of law would likely not be a nuclear engineering scientist/expert, nor an expert in nuclear reactor physics and engineering, nor atomic physics, and nor biology, and, therefore, would not be able to judge properly who is reliable, and who is not, about such complicated matters and issues of what happened in the TMI accident as to the releases of radioactivity, the consequent radiation doses to members of the public, and the extent of harm to health resulting from the radiation exposures.

Nor would a jury composed of citizens chosen at random be qualified to judge scientific issues/disputes about the amount of radioactivity released in the accident, the radiation doses to which the public suffered and their uncertainties, and the issue of the effect on health by such radiation exposures. For this reason I had recommended to the Plaintiffs' lawyers, and to the Defendants' lawyer, Mr. Wilcox, when he took a deposition of me here in Germany in June 27-29, 1995, that a special jury be struck to decide the complicated issues - a special jury of scientific experts, and moreover, a special jury for each type of scientific issue: a special jury for radioactivity releases analysis; a special jury for dose calculations, involving the science of meteorology and the physics of radiation; a special jury on statistical analysis for health effects of radiation; and so on. A common jury could then, and ought to, judge the overall fact issues of compensation due, and other common matters of fact at issue. The object of a jury trial is to get at the truth, and, therefore, justice; and this cannot be done for complex scientific facts in disputes by a panel of randomly chosen citizens, or the judge of the Court, but instead requires a panel of experts in the scientific disciplines involves. That ought to be plain.

The makers of our Constitution envisioned that the right of "trial by jury" means to embrace special juries for examining complex facts in controversy. (See The Federalists, No. 83, and see Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book I, Chapter on "Trial by Jury.")  We ought not to overlook the Preamble of the Constitution, setting forth the objects of the Constitution: among these is the object, "to establish Justice."

Now, as one should suppose, the Judge in the TMI Consolidated Litigations Proceedings has given grounds for her ruling that Webb's "proposed testimony" is "unreliable." These grounds are set down in her January 5, 1996 Memorandum. As her memorandum has been published, and read by many in the public, and also reported and quoted by the local news media, as well, I offer the public my refutation of the Judge's memorandum in a condensed form in the Appendix to this letter, reserving my full response and refutation for the formal claim that I shall present to the Government, including the Court.

To conclude, the public ought not to presume that the Court's adverse judgment of my scientific qualifications and my analysis of the TMI accident represents the result of a careful, thorough inquiry and investigation by the Court into the validity of my analysis of the TMI accident and the verdict of a panel of impartial experts. First of all, the process by which the judge arrived at her judgment of my works was improper: The entire Court proceedings on the defendant nuclear companies' motion to exclude my "testimony" from the jury trial was conducted without my knowledge!  The Judge never asked me for my response to the nuclear companies' charges against my work: nor did the Judge even see to it that I was informed of the charges: nor had the Judge ever presented to me her views of the defects of my report and deposition testimony which she perceives and allow me a response: nor is the Judge vested with the authority under the Constitution to judge the credibility of any witness in a suit in which the right of trial by jury is invoked by any of the parties. Moreover, a Judge, who ought to be learned in law, is not likely to be competent to judge complex scientific issues.

Secondly, I would not have agreed to submit to the Court any scientific analysis had I not been assured that a jury trial was demanded; for I wanted not, and want not, that any officer of the United States Government judge, and pronounce judgment on, the validity of my scientific analyses. I refer to my views on the Constitution with respect to the Government's licensing and promotion of nuclear power plants (see Section VIII of this letter-essay).

Overall, the public ought not to presume that the matter of the TMI accident and its impact on the health of the people of the area by the radiation emissions were adequately, or even seriously, investigated in the TMI Consolidated Litigations Proceedings in the Court in Harrisburg. For they were not, in my judgment. The Appendix of this letter-essay demonstrates this point more so.
 

VII.  Concluding Remarks

(The Perspective on the Constitution follows.)

The matter of the TMI accident is extremely serious for the health and safety of the public. For we need to learn the full lessons of the accident, in order to realize the dangers of catastrophic reactor accidents. The TMI-2 accident of March 28, 1979 was real, not hypothetical. We ought, therefore, to learn from it.
 

I find that the unit 2 reactor building nearly exploded several times in the accident, and it was just luck that it didn't explode. The force of the explosion would have been great, including the potential for immediately destroying the adjacent reactor (unit 1), and thereby cause a much greater release of radioactivity than the radioactive expulsions from a unit 2 reactor eruption, as the unit 1 reactor had been operating for a long time, with a large build-up of long lived radioactivity. My planned treatise will demonstrate these near-explosions with details.

For instance, during the period between 2.3 hours and 3 hours into the accident, the fuel rods in the reactor core, which had overheated due to loss of water cooling, were on fire - a metal-steam chemical reaction producing heat and hydrogen gas - and the core fuel material was probably then melting.  The reactor system pressure was spontaneously rising during this period from about 600 psi (pounds per square inch) to 1300 psi.  The normal operating pressure is about 2250 psi, and the design pressure for the reactor pressure vessel was about 2500 psi.  At 2 hours and 54 minutes into the accident, a reactor operator, just by whim, acted to try turning on a reactor coolant circulation pump (there are four such pumps) to see if the reactor conditions could some how come back to normal - for there were radiation alarms and many other alarms going off, and the reactor system was behaving completely in a strange way.  Earlier, the coolant pumps were all turned off because of excessive vibrations due to pumping froth instead of water.  The operators feared that the pumps would break apart by the vibrations.  So, there was really no clear reason to try turning on the pumps again.  But, by whim, an operator tried turning on a pump.

It happened that some water was in that pump, and so the pump forced a "slug" of water into the reactor vessel - a momentary flow of water into the reactor (for about ten seconds).  In this process, the in-coming water hit the extremely hot metal and fuel material in the reactor core (the operators did not know that the core was over-heated and damaged), and resulted in a surge of steam production and more hydrogen production, and a consequent surge in the reactor pressure from 1600 to about 2200 psi.  From the official graphs of the pressure transient, it appears that this surge in pressure was instantaneous - approaching something like a steam explosion, but not quite.  Furthermore, it appears that the pressure surge simply ran its course without exceeding the design pressure of the pressure vessel.  (So, it was just luck that the pressure did not exceed the design pressure and explode the reactor vessel.)  This sudden water injection into the reactor acted to quench the hot material, and thereby extinguished the metal fire, and consequently limited the hydrogen production and pressure excursion for the time being.  A few minutes afterwards, the operators injected more water into the system, by the emergency cooling system equipment, and re-covered the reactor core with water for cooling, which action limited the severity of the accident.

But had that operator come upon his idea to turn on a reactor coolant circulation pump a few minutes later, say five minutes, the metal fire in the reactor would have continued longer, and thereby produced more hydrogen gas, hence more pressure, besides more widespread high temperatures in the reactor fuel mass. Suppose that operator had then turned on that coolant pump. The slug of water entering the reactor and hitting that hot mass of material could then have occurred when the reactor pressure had climbed to say 2000 psi or 2300 psi. The surge of steam/hydrogen pressure that would then have occurred would then have taken the pressure well above the design pressure of the reactor vessel, and a reactor explosion would then have occurred. The violence of the reactor vessel explosion alone would have burst the reactor building.  Moreover, the sudden release of all that hydrogen gas into the reactor building atmosphere would have probably resulted in the hydrogen igniting and burning, and causing a severe over-pressure and bursting of the reactor building concurrent with the reactor vessel explosion and blast.  The end result would have been a radioactive catastrophe for the United States.  The adjacent Unit 1 reactor would have been destroyed as well, compounding the radioactive expulsions into the atmosphere.

This is just one of several examples of near catastrophe in the TMI-2 accident - near catastrophes which have not been revealed to the public in the official investigations of the accident.

In regard to the danger of catastrophic accidents, the people of America, and especially the TMI area residents, should be thankful for the heroic efforts of the TMI reactor operators and other plant workers, the GPU and B&W engineers, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission experts and officials at the site during the accident, the 1000 or so technical advisors and engineers who converged on the plant to assist in the engineering work of re-gaining control of the reactor, and the State of Pennsylvania Government officials, and others as well - all who stayed with the reactor crisis and labored to get it under control:  heroic efforts which averted a catastrophic reactor eruption.  Luck assisted in a great way also.  But had the TMI operators ran away, or let up, and had the engineers at GPU and B&W not worked hard to analyze the reactor crisis and pushed their technical advices, the reactor pressure vessel would have exploded, I am quite certain of this; and probably the reactor building would have ruptured as a consequence, or exploded.  Also, I believe that my technical advice on leaving the main coolant pump running materially helped the situation as well.  I refer to the Transcript of my telephone discussions with officials during the accident, interspersed with the pertinent radio and television reports of the accident, plus the tape recordings from which the transcript was made (two cassettes).  These materials are included in the Collection.

I should mentioned the matter of an evacuation.  The fact that the in-stack radioactivity monitor instrument rose off-scale very early in the accident (about 7:30 a.m. on the morning of the accident) ought to have caused the TMI-2 operators to recommend to the government authorities a public evacuation. Whether an evacuation could have been carried out without a panic and injury was a judgment that the police and the State Government would have then had to make. [See note no. 41 in the appendix.] But the Government did not have any sound basis for weighing the considerations for, and against, an evacuation. The Government officials could have had no real knowledge of the health harm of radiation, and could not correctly assess how likely a reactor eruption or otherwise a worsening of the releases of radioactivity was in any period in the accident, until many weeks later.

Such is our nuclear hazards predicament.  There is, of course, a great da>

Transfer interrupted!

Before closing, I would like to explain the reason for this offering of my nuclear hazards and constitutional law perspective (the final section which follows) to the people of the area around the TMI nuclear plant.  Firstly, the people of the TMI area ought to have my analysis of the accident, as it concerns their health and safety foremost.  I chose to distribute this letter-essay directly to citizens of the area, in order to cut through the screen of information censoring and suppression which the U.S. Government, their Courts, and their unconstitutionally supported scientific establishment operate to the disadvantage of the people generally, and make it possible that my analyses be known and studied by the people of the community, toward promoting our safety.  I regret having to be so critical of our Government; but the dangers are so serious that I must be candid about what I see.  I refer to the material in the Collection for a deeper study into the matter.

Secondly, I feel I ought to answer in Public the Court's pronouncement against my work - to defend my reputation.

Final Note: The report and affidavits which I submitted to the Court in 1993-94 constitute my first analysis of my full developing analysis of the TMI accident and its radiation consequences.  These works are included in the before mentioned Collection. However, I have greatly extended my investigations further, as discussed in this letter; and so these earlier reports are not complete. A full treatise on the accident is planned. An Outline of the planned treatise is also included in the Collection, though it is not up-dated with my extensive pen-and-ink amendments and additions.
 

VIII.  Constitutional Law and our Nuclear Hazards Predicament - a vital Perspective

As before stated, Section I, this Author has determined that the Atomic Energy Act - the law on which the promotion and licensing of nuclear power plants in the United States is based - is unconstitutional: that the Constitution does not vest in the federal Government an authority to promote and regulate industry or technology, nor any broader authority to govern the domestic affairs of the several States of the Union upon which an authority to promote and license nuclear power plants could be grounded. I referred to the last chapter of my book Accident Hazards, titled "Who Should Decide?" for a sufficient proof of the unconstitutionality of the Atomic Energy Act. This Author now presents his perspective on the United States Constitution with respect to our nuclear hazard predicament.
 

The People of the United States in 1787, who "ordained and established" the Constitution, intended for themselves and their Posterity (that's us) that the powers and duties of the federal Government be limited to the objects of protecting the several States of the Union from foreign attack, that is, "to provide for the common Defence of the United States;" of suppressing insurrections (internal commotion) - "to insure domestic Tranquility;"- and of promoting peaceful relations with foreign nations; plus a few specific powers of general utility for the internal order of the Country, namely, post offices, copyrights, patents, and uniform bankruptcy and naturalization laws, plus also the specific power, "to regulate Commerce" with foreign nations and between the several States of the Union - that is, the regulation of the coming and going of goods in and out of the States (at ports, and mainly duties laid on imports from abroad), not the regulation nor the promotion of industries.

The People of 1787 intended for themselves and their Posterity to have and enjoy a system of government in which the government for our domestic affairs is close to the people, namely our respective State governments: not a government governing an extensive territory: not a government remote from the People, as has been the case for many years now with the United States Government governing practically everything of prime importance domestically in the Country: but a government close to us (small states), so that we, the People, could practically govern ourselves, and thereby procure and develop that way of life we want for our safety and happiness. Accordingly, the People of 1787 limited the powers of the federal Government, as before mentioned, mainly the providing for the common defence of the United States, and reserved the governmental powers pertaining to the internal, domestic affairs of our Country to the State Governments, respectively, with the few specific exceptions before mentioned.

Even in respect to military and foreign affairs, which are not unrelated to our nuclear hazards predicament, the People of 1787 limited the powers of the United States Government, and its Executive, and also limited the objects of the Constitution, hence the objects of the exercise of the granted powers. Most importantly:

(1) The U.S. Government was assigned the duty, and was vested with the powers, to provide for the common defence of the United States, and that only, and not an authority to intervene in foreign wars, to defend certain foreign nations at war, or to assume the role of a world police, to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, or otherwise provide for the general welfare of other nations, such as providing for "offices of humanity."

(2) The U.S. Government was not granted the power to conscript men into the U.S. Army or Navy, and send them abroad to fight in foreign wars. America was to be a "land of liberty," not a land where the Government compels a man to enlist in armies and be sent abroad to engage in combat, and suffer injuries or "give" his life. [See note no. 42 in the appendix.]

(3) The Constitution vests in the Congress the power "to declare War," which means that only the Congress, and not the President, may take our Country out of a state of peace with a foreign nation, and into a state of war with that nation, should that dreadful resort ever be necessary for defending our national rights. Moreover, under the Constitution the President could not commence hostilities immediately upon a declaration of war by the Congress; but would have to allow the offending nation an opportunity to accede to the demands of the United States set down in the war declaration - a last resort process intended by the makers of the Constitution to avoid war! And further more, the Congress may not declare war for any object they please, such as for the acquisition of territory, world policing, or the defence of other nations, but only for the common defence of the United States, as the objects of the Constitution are specified in the Preamble of the Constitution, and are therein limited.

(4) The Constitution vest in the President and the Senate the power "to make Treaties." But the President and the Senate may not make any treaty they please, but only such treaties, the obligations of which could be fulfilled by the exercise of constitutionally granted powers. The power to make treaties, is not the power to execute treaties. For instance, treaties of commerce can be executed by the exercise of the granted power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. A treaty of alliance is authorized by the Constitution, provided that its purpose is for providing for the common defence of the United States - for defending the United States from attack - not for intervening in foreign conflicts. (In fact, the United States has never entered into any treaty of alliance for the defence of the United States, notwithstanding NATO; for the NATO treaty does not commit the United States to defend a member nation of the treaty when attacked, nor does the treaty commit any member nation NATO to defend the United States, should we be ever attacked.) This means that the United Nations treaty is unconstitutional - the United States Government not having been vested with the constitutional power to police the world (Korea, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and so on), or to provide "offices of humanity" for the world, a cover for intervention and war-making for the most part. [See note no. 43 in the appendix.]

[Up-date, 7/21/99: I have subsequently determined in research that the Constitution does not vested in the United States Government any power to enter into alliances -- that the power to make treaties which is provided for in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution does not include the power to contract alliances. An indication of this point is found in Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution: "No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation." This indicates that a treaty is one thing, an alliance is another. See also the Articles of Confederation, Article IX; and the English Translation of Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, published in 1738, Book I, Chapter III, Section VI. A treatise used in the Federal Convention of 1787. Therein it is stated that the "Civil Power" consists of:  "the Power of making War or Peace, of concluding or breaking Treaties and Alliances, of enacting or repealing Laws; ..."

(A treatise has been written to prove the point that the power to make treaties as provided for in the Constitution does not include the power to contract alliances, and that the Congress when exercising its power to declare war, cannot make war for any object they please, but only to "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States" -- not for the defence of other nations: not for the defence or assistance of allies, nor friends: not even to prosecute the rights of a number of United States citizens who may have been done wrong by a foreign country, such as owners of merchant ships that have been attacked and sunk when navigating in a war zone. The Congress may make war only to "provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, so they may make war only for the defence of the United States, or in case the general welfare of the United States is obstructed by a foreign power; and not, therefore, if individual citizens of the United States have suffered wrong by the government of a foreign nation or their subjects. If a foreign nation invades any State of the United States, that the whole State is attacked, not merely a citizen. But if a merchant ship owned by a United States citizen is attacked on the seas off the coast of a foreign nation, such attack is not an attack on the United States, according to the Constitution. The point will be proved in a forthcoming treatise, which is in preparation.]

Such are the limited powers vested in the United States Government by the Constitution pertaining to both the domestic and foreign affairs of our Country, according to my analysis of the Constitution.

Unfortunately for us, and tragically, however, the officers and legislators of the U.S. Government have violated the Constitution over the years, and on a gross scale. They have usurped the powers of our respective States, and now govern the country internally for most things that count. For instances: the promotion and licensing of nuclear power plants; the construction of highways and super highways everywhere; the promotion of air travel, and the construction of jet ports; the undertaking of grandiose and expensive outer space programs; the erection of Banks and the creation of money (inflation), to get the money, as well as by taxation, needed to pay for all which is unconstitutionally ordered, and so on ad infinitum. Also, the federal Government has wholly exceeded the bounds of its constitutional authority with respect to foreign affairs and the military: by intervening in foreign conflicts - one right after the other since 1917: by presidential war-making: by military conscription: by maintaining armies (standing armies in times of peace): by foreign assistance: and so on ad infinitum. [See note no. 44 in the appendix.]

One of the tragic consequences of unconstitutional government, and which relates more directly to our nuclear hazards predicament, has been the making of a highly industrialized way of life in America, with all of its harms (pollution, the spreading of poisonous chemicals and radioactive materials in the biosphere, noise, unhappy landscapes and environment, health impairments, cancer disease, genetic damage, etc.), and dangers - the dangers of nuclear accidents and catastrophe - an unhappy way of life which we, the People, as a whole have never said we wanted, for we never vested the United States Government with the powers which the Government has assumed to force this way of life on us.

This Author asserts that the real function of practically most of the industry in America has been to provide, directly and indirectly, the material and equipment for the unconstitutional ventures and ambitions of the United States Government since the Civil War, namely, the build-up and maintenance of an absolutely enormous military establishment, the interventions in foreign wars (one right after the other), and the making of wars, the outer space programs (for what?), and the nuclear and other hazardous technological programs (e.g., recombinant DNA technology). [See note no. 45 in the appendix.] The automobile industry, and all of the myriad of industries and factories that support the auto-making industry, from mining to the finished product, including the myriad of oil refineries for the production of gasoline and diesel fuel, are mostly for the purpose of providing for the to-and-from-work transportation of all of the workers of the factories and mines which produce, directly and indirectly, for the U.S. Government's unconstitutional military establishment, wars, outer-space programs, and so on, and also for the transportation of the officials and workers of the U.S. Government, and their armies, navies, air forces, numbering in the millions, as well as for the trucking of the materials and equipment from one factory to the next in this colossal system of factories, so that this infra-structure of factories and mines for the production of all of the military and space material can be supplied.

Besides the factories which produce the military and space material (weapons, ships, planes, tanks, helicopters, bombers, rockets, computers, nuclear reactors, and so on ad infinitum), and the automobiles and trucks, and so on, there are the factories that make the material and equipment for supplying and operating the factories which make the military and space materials, and the factories to make the material and equipment for supplying and operating these factories, and so on - in one layer after layer of mining and factory processing of materials - materials, by the way, that originated in the bowels of the Earth, including poisonous heavy metals and radioactive materials, and which end up being spread over the humus top soil to our general harm. [See note no. 46 in the appendix.]

In short, it is a colossal polluting industrial system to carry out the grandiose and adventurous policies of the unconstitutional Government, while a relative few reap the "profits" for procuring luxuries and plenty (and travel) for themselves. The house which I lived in happily for most of my boyhood and university education, and in which my father still lives (since 1950), was made from a few pieces of lumber, plaster board, some water pipes, a sewer pipe, a toilet, a gas heater, and stove, simple roofing shingles, and some electrical wiring for lighting, and the Christmas tree. For the material of this house, and for supplying the food on the table (okay, a radio to enjoy music and discussion), we needed all of the infinity of factories and mines, super highways and jet ports in America, ocean freighters on the Great Lakes, and so on, that have been built up, and to suffer the pollution and other foul consequences of this highly industrial system (with toxic wastes and the dangers of catastrophic nuclear accidents on an immense scale) that have so destroyed the once beautiful, natural ecology of the North American Continent?

Clearly No!  The evident reason for the highly industrialized way of life in America has been, and still is, to produce and serve the things ordered up by the unconstitutional Government, primarily, military, space, nuclear power plants, and jet ports.  None of these highly technological things (nuclear submarines, cruise missiles, bombers, nuclear warheads, nuclear reactors, for instance) grow on trees! It takes the hard labor of practically everyone in the Country (going to work five or six days a week, or in evenings, with just two skimpy weeks of vacation a year) to do all the work and produce everything in all the factories, including everything that goes into making the automobiles, so that everyone can get to and from work: the hard work of mining, of engineering design, drafting board work, machine shops, production line work, secretarial labor, janitorial labor, clerical labor, construction work, farming (to feed the military personnel and officers, and the federal government workers and executive officers, and all those others who are supported by unconstitutional spending), and so on ad infinitum.

This highly industrialized, and military/war-making, "way of life" is steadily polluting and destroying the natural biosphere, and thereby killing life on Earth. In the meantime, all the energy released in burning the combustible materials of the Earth, now also by atomic fissioning, for powering the whole industry of the country, and the automobiles, trucks, and airplanes, goes to heating up our congested living environment more and more, hence the rather desperate resort to "air conditioning" (cooling equipment), consequently more energy and noise released to the environment in which we live, thereby making the heat and humidity and noise worse, hence more air conditioning power, and so forth, besides also worsening the general pollution of the Earth and adverse climatic effects.

Also, the computer technology, developed and used primarily for the military and space purposes, and all of its supporting industry and businesses, now finds uses everywhere: practically every office and room have now computers running, including "personal computers." Computers are used more and more also for frills and pastime, as less and less of the living environment is enjoyable.) Like the automobile, the computers are machines to aid the workers of the high industrialized system of life in America to produce for the unconstitutional Government. So there are all of the factories and mines needed to make the computers. And the computers and their manufacture require electrical energy, hence, more and more releases of energy and pollution into the biosphere, and more and more nuclear power plants - a way of life brought about by the unconstitutional Government. Meanwhile, the risk of catastrophic nuclear accidents grows, with the aging of nuclear power plants, for instance, as also the accumulation of more and more enormous quantities of radioactive substances ("nuclear waste" and plutonium). We ought to ask ourselves: What are the reasons for our use of the computers? To make money? But are we making the way of life we want, or are we just supplying some contractor and not caring what he does with our work product?

Such are the causes and reasons for our 116 or so nuclear power plants in America and the plans for more development of nuclear energy in America and abroad. [See note no. 47 in the appendix.] It all stems from the unconstitutional assumptions of power by the United States Government.

The reasons for the nuclear power plants, thus, were not to provide electricity to light our living room and bathroom in the evening before retiring, or to power the wash machine on Monday morning, but to supply the enormous quantities of electric power to run the virtual infinite of factories and businesses for the production, directly or indirectly, of the material for the military and space establishment, and the war ventures of the U.S. Government (weapons, weapon systems, ships, aircraft tanks, vehicles, etc.), and the production of the equipment used in the factories to make these things, and the factories to make these equipments, and so on; just as the U.S. Government undertook the hydro-electric power projects in the 1940's, in order, quote, "to provide for the common defence" (so the statute reads); more specifically, to supply electric power to run the factories producing the war materials, to quote from one of President Roosevelt speeches when introducing the legislation.

The Constitution provides for the making of amendments, should we deem it necessary to extend or curtail the powers of the federal Government. But in so far as a governmental authority to promote industry and technology, no such grant of power to the federal Government was ever added to the Constitution by amendment. The United States Government instead just assumed such powers (bold usurpation); but not without protest and efforts of many citizens to try to bring the Government back to the bounds of the Constitution. This Author sued the so-called United States Atomic Energy Commission in 1972 on the ground that the Atomic Energy Act, and the Government's program to begin licensing the construction of large nuclear power plants, are unconstitutional, and that this nuclear construction program would deprive me and my family of our rights to safety. The United States Courts, however, refused to hear and decide the case. They merely "dismissed" my complaint on the motion of the Government, in violation of Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, which declares that "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases arising under this Constitution, ..."

Such in part is how the "federal" Government acts to maintain its unconstitutional power, by the U.S. Courts quashing the complaints of its citizens. The judges of the United States Courts have not even taken the oath to support the Constitution, as is required by Article VII of the Constitution. The Congress, bent on usurping power, ordered up and maintained an oath of office (28 U.S.C. 453) which allows the Judges to perform their "duties incumbent upon me as Judge according to the best of my abilities and understanding, agreeably to the Constitution and the laws of the United States" - a vague oath that gives the Judges a clear conscience to construe the Constitution in any way they please, especially the Supreme Court.  The "laws of the United States" can be unconstitutional; but nevertheless, the Judges, by their oath, are to perform their duties "agreeably" ... to the laws of the United States" - the laws made by the Congress. What ever are their "duties" (The Constitution prescribes their duty clearly: "to support this Constitution."), the oath prescribed by the law of Congress allows the Judges to follow only their "understanding" of what their duties are, and to do so "agreeably" to the Constitution, whatever that vague word means in this respect. (It means what the judge "understands" it to mean.)

The makers of the Constitution wrote the requirement in Article VII, to wit:

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; ..."

The Judges ought to regard their duty and office as the public authority for maintaining the legislative and executive departments within the bounds of the Constitution, when a citizen applies to the Courts for redress of injuries resulting from violations of the Constitution, in order to carry out the plan of government which the people intended for themselves and their posterity, and so ought to determine honestly what the Constitution means, and not regard their power as a license to hold whatever they think best to understand - to act in combination with the Congress and the federal Executive to enslave and exploit the people.

Yes, the Courts are vested with the judicial power - the power of judging disputes; but it is not an arbitrary power, or a power to support the Government, but the power to maintain the Constitution, as a check on the Congress and the executive Power. The Courts are for the day-to-day administration, affecting individuals and their applications for justice. It rests with us, the People, to supervise the behavior of the Judges - to judge whether or not the Judges are executing the Constitution. I find that the opinions of the Supreme Court are but a train of opinions construing the Constitution so as to gradually secure for the U.S. Government any power it wants. For example, McCullough v. Maryland, that the "necessary and proper clause" of Article I, Section 8, confers to the Congress "a vast mass of incidental powers"; and United States v. Curtiss-Wright, that the President controls foreign relations. I must defer to the full treatise on the Constitution which is in preparation.

Under the unconstitutional system of government which the U.S. Government has erected and operated for so long, the government is not only remote from the People, but it is undemocratically apportioned in its legislature - the Congress - where a very small State, as Rhode Island, or in population, as Idaho, North Dakota, or Wyoming, has the same number of votes in the Senate as a large State, as Pennsylvania, or New York, or California; and the Senate is a co-equal branch of the legislature in the making of the (unconstitutional) laws which govern our conduct as citizens domestically. The Senate also controls the appointment of the Judges of the U.S. Courts, including the Supreme Court, and it is the Supreme Court that "interprets" the Constitution so as to give the U.S. Government whatever powers it wants. I should add that Idaho is heavily reliant on the U.S. Government for nuclear energy development contracts, as is New Mexico (e.g., Los Alamos laboratory and Sandia Laboratories).

The reason for the equal suffrage rule for the Senate (each State having two votes) was that the United States is to be more in the nature of a confederation, and not a nation - specifically, its powers were limited to external affairs, not extending indefinitely to the domestic affairs of the States (with the specific exceptions noted earlier).

This Author recommends to his fellow citizens, therefore, a study of his analysis of the constitutional law of the United States. He believes that the root cause of our predicament with respect to the nuclear accident hazards, and the hazards of radioactive waste disposal, is the United States Government's abuse of power - their unconstitutional assumptions of authority to promote and license nuclear power plants. The official assurances of nuclear "safety" are based on the subjective opinions of an army of scientific "experts" and executive branch officers which has been raised and supported by unconstitutional funding for the promotion of nuclear energy. Generally, he finds that the official nuclear "safety" analyses and investigations issued by this army of experts and officers are either wrong, or grossly defectively, and at times based on misrepresentations and suppression of the facts. The people, individually, and local communities, and even large State governments presently, have not the scientific resources to review and properly evaluate the complicated scientific questions of the nuclear dangers - an extremely disadvantageous situation that is a consequence of the federal Government's usurpation of power.

Therefore, in order for us to be able to solve our predicament of the nuclear accident dangers and radioactive waste hazards, the harm being done to us by the releases of radioactivity into the environment with the regular operations of the reactors, the spent fuel "reprocessing" factories, and the radioactive waste storages, it is essential that we return to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and restore Constitutional Government for our Country. By means of Constitutional Government for our land, we shall have the power to make that way of life we want, and to form our country's foreign policies so as to live in peace with foreign nations: to get our United States Government back to the responsibility of providing for the common defence of the United States only, instead of the unconstitutional business of world policing and assisting foreign governments in their wars and quarrels (taking sides, as in the British Government's declarations of war against Germany in 1916 and 1939, and the war between China and Japan in the 1930's), and manage peaceful intercourse with foreign nations.

We can assign new or provisional powers to the United States Government by an amendment to the Constitution, should we decide that certain powers ought to be added to the constitutional authority of the U.S. Government. For instance, we may want to assign to the federal Government the authority and duty to manage and carry out, in concert with the State Governments, the cleaning up of America - to restore the land everywhere and every place, to its natural health and beauty: a happy living environment. I propose, and will push for, the elimination of most of the military of the United States: to re-order the business of the factories and laboratories, so that the military production is mostly stopped (and manned space flight promptly ended), and the business undertaken of developing class A hardware for demolishing most of the factories, and building and maintaining a high quality, class A, living environment and happy way of life. (By restoring constitutional Government, this change would take place naturally, not by any central dictator, as the people of each of the several States would act to effect the change, through the power of the state legislature primarily - the state legislature being their political power.) We need to re-order everything, so that our labor goes to making and maintaining that way of life we want, not for the objects of the unconstitutional Government.

We ought to consider the quality of life we could now have, and our parents and our grand parents could have enjoyed, had the U.S. Government faithfully executed the Constitution and not created the highly industrialized and war-making way of life on us. There could have been a natural development of technology, science, and industry, where our safety, liberty, and happiness is foremost - a happy, enjoyable culture and living environment: a life of peace. Think of all of the wasted oil consumption, the build-up of pollutants, the despoliation of our land that would have been avoided, had the U.S. Government faithfully performed their constitutional duties. Think of all of the great talents and human energy in America for design, creativity, architecture, construction, manufacture, agriculture, invention, education, and medicine, that have been wasted making military material, and participating in wars, and making the expensive buildings in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding cities - the expanded seat of the Government - because of the unconstitutional ambitions and ventures of the United States Government.

Thus, our nuclear energy hazards predicament is intertwined with most of the other unhappy predicaments, dangers, wars, and other tragedies of our Country's domestic and foreign affairs: industrial pollution, wars all the time, dangers of nuclear war, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, only by attending to the whole matter of the assumption and accumulation of unconstitutional power by the U.S. Government, can we solve our nuclear energy hazards predicament: to resolve the nuclear safety issue wisely and obtain real safety for us all. We cannot solve the nuclear energy problem in isolation as a single issue, and let the U.S. Government dispose of the issue, and think i