理工类学术英语翻译Text 11 核电的危险

Text 11 核电的危险RISKS OF NUCLEAR POWERBernard L. Cohen, Sc.D.Professor at the University of PittsburghRadiationThe principal risks associated with nuclear power arise from health effects of radiation. This radiation consists of subatomic particles traveling at or near the velocity of light---186,000 miles per second. They can penetrate deep inside the human body where they can damage biological cells and thereby initiate a cancer. If they strike sex cells, they can cause genetic diseases in progeny.辐射与核电相联系的主要危险来自辐射对健康的影响。

这种辐射包括亚原子颗粒以光速或接近光速运行——每秒186000英里。

它们可以深深穿透到身体内部，在体内它们可以损伤生物细胞，然后引发癌症。

如果它们攻击性细胞，它们可以导致子孙后代的基因疾病。

Radiation occurs naturally in our environment; a typical person is, and always has been struck by 15,000 particles of radiation every second from natural sources, and an average medical X-ray involves being struck by 100 billion. While this may seem to be very dangerous, it is not, because the probability for a particle of radiation entering a human body to cause a cancer or a genetic disease is only one chance in 30 million billion (30 quintillion).辐射在我们环境中自然地发生；通常每个人每秒钟受到来自自然源的15000个粒子的辐射，而一次普通的医疗X光检查则带有1，000亿个粒子的辐射。

可能这看起来会非常危险，其实不会，因为一个辐射粒子进入人体引发癌症或基因疾病的可能性是三十拍分之一。

Nuclear power technology produces materials that are active in emitting radiation and are therefore called "radioactive". These materials can come into contact with people principally through small releases during routine plant operation, accidents in nuclear power plants, accidents in transporting radioactive materials, and escape of radioactive wastes from confinement systems. We will discuss these separately, but all of them taken together, with accidents treated probabilistically, will eventually expose the average American to about 0.2% of his exposure from natural radiation. Since natural radiation is estimated to cause about 1% of all cancers, radiation due to nuclear technology should eventually increase our cancer risk by 0.002% (one part in 50,000), reducing our life expectancy by less than one hour. By comparison, our loss of life expectancy from competitive electricity generation technologies, burning coal, oil, or gas, is estimated to range from 3 to 40 days.核电技术生产的材料可以非常活跃地释放辐射，所以被称为“放射性的”。

这些材料主要通过发电厂常规运行时的少量释放物，核电站事故，放射性材料运输事故、以及放射性废料从隔离系统中泄漏而与人体发生接触的。

我们将分开讨论这些问题，但是所有这些因素加在一起，从可能性的角度对待这些事故，最终会让普通美国人接触到来自天然辐射0.2%的辐射量。

因为自然辐射预计会引发1%的癌症，核技术产生的辐射最终会增加0.002%的患癌几率（5万分之一），减少预期寿命不到1小时。

相比之下，因为竞争性的发电技术、燃烧煤、油或气导致的预期寿命损失预计有3到40天。

There has been much misunderstanding on genetic diseases due to radiation. The risks are somewhat less than the cancer risks; for example, among the Japanese A-bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there have been about 400 extra cancer deaths among the 100,000 people in the follow-up group, but there have been no extra genetic diseases among their progeny. Since there is no possible way for the cells in ourbodies to distinguish between natural radiation and radiation from the nuclear industry, the latter cannot cause new types of genetic diseases or deformities (e.g., bionic man), or threaten the "human race". Other causes of genetic disease include delayed parenthood (children of older parents have higher incidence) and men wearing pants (this warms the gonads, increasing the frequency of spontaneous mutations). The genetic risks of nuclear power are equivalent to delaying parenthood by 2.5 days, or of men wearing pants an extra 8 hours per year. Much can be done to avert genetic diseases utilizing currently available technology; if 1% of the taxes paid by the nuclear industry were used to further implement this technology, 80 cases of genetic disease would be averted for each case caused by the nuclear industry因为辐射引发遗传病，对这一点人们一直有很多误解。

其风险略小于患癌症的风险；比如，在日本广岛和长崎原子弹爆炸中幸存的人，在随访病例中，10万人会多出400例癌症死亡病例。

但是在他们的后代中，并没有更多的遗传疾病。

既然我们人体内的细胞不能辨别自然辐射与来自核工业的辐射，后者则不会导致新型的遗传疾病或身体畸形（比如，生化人），或威胁“人类”。

其他遗传病的原因包括父母晚育（晚育父母所生孩子有更大风险）和穿裤子的男士（这让性腺受热，增加了自发突变的频率）。

而核电造成的基因风险等同于推迟生育2.5天，或者男士每年多穿8小时裤子。

在利用现有技术预防遗传性疾病方面还有很多事可以做；如果利用核工业纳税款的1%来进一步实施这项技术，那么每一种由核工业造成的疾病中有80例遗传疾病都将得到防止。

Reactor accidentsThe nuclear power plant design strategy for preventing accidents and mitigating their potential effects is "defense in depth"--- if something fails, there is a back-up system to limit the harm done, if that system should also fail there is another back-up system for it, etc., etc. Of course it is possible that each system in this series of back-ups might fail one after the other, but the probability for that is exceedingly small. The Media often publicize a failure of some particular system in some plant, implying that it was a close call" on disaster; they completely miss the point of defense in depth which easily takes care of such failures. Even in the Three Mile Island accident where at least two equipment failures were severely compounded by human errors, two lines of defense were still not breached--- essentially all of the radioactivity remained sealed in the thick steel reactor vessel, and that vessel was sealed inside the heavily reinforced concrete and steel lined "containment" building which was never even challenged. It was clearly not a close call on disaster to the surrounding population. The Soviet Chernobyl reactor, built on a much less safe design concept, did not have such a containment structure; if it did, that disaster would have been averted.反应堆事故为了防止事故和减缓事故的潜在影响，核电厂的设计策略是“深度防卫”——如果出现故障，有一个备份系统以限制故障带来的损伤，如果这个备份系统也出了问题，它也有另一个备份系统。