Value chain · CLM-1285
In plain terms
In 1981 the Soviet limit for workers was a thousand times stricter than the US one, and the US had no public limit at all. Congress's technology office expected US limits to tighten and said the design should be checked against that.
The claim as recorded
OTA's 1981 report states that the US occupational microwave guideline is 10 mW/cm2 (ANSI 1966, averaged over any 6 minutes). It was set at one tenth of the roughly 100 mW/cm2 at which acute exposure had caused injuries such as cataracts and burns. OSHA adopted it in 1971, and in 1975 it was ruled advisory. The US had no official recommendation for general population exposure. Table 42 lists occupational and public limits in mW/cm2: US 10.0 and none; USSR 0.01 and 0.001; Canada 5.0 and 1.0; Czechoslovakia 0.01 and 0.0001; Poland 0.2 and 0.01; Sweden 1.0 and 1.0. The report says the Soviet standard is three orders of magnitude below the US guideline. It reports the argument that Soviet levels rest on the occurrence of a biological effect, while the US guideline rests on known damage with a safety margin. It says 5 mW/cm2 was being considered as the occupational maximum at 2.45 GHz, and that future US public standards of 1.0 mW/cm2 or below were conceivable. It says the impact of more stringent standards on SPS design and viability should be addressed.
Evidence behind this: T3, a published congressional assessment; it permits "OTA states Y". Table 42 is adapted from a 1980 DOE federal standards study that the report cites; the national instruments are not held.
Scope and limits
OTA reports the effect-versus-damage explanation as others' argument ("It has also been argued") and does not adopt it as its own finding. The ANSI frequency range in the text reads "1 O to 100 GHz" in the text layer and is not used. Table 42 frequency ranges differ by country: US 0.01-100 GHz, Canada 1-300 GHz, others 0.3-300 GHz. The 5 mW/cm2 is a level under consideration, not an adopted limit. These are historical limits, since superseded; compare CLM-1006 for the DOE 1980 account of the same national limits.
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
PDF p.216 / printed 214: occupational guidelines "were based on biological injuries (e.g., cataracts, burns) from acute exposure to microwaves on the order of 100 mW/cm2"; ANSI "in 1966 recommended a maximum permissible exposure of 10 mW/cm2, averaged over any 6-minute period"; "in 1975 was ruled advisory rather than a mandatory standard"; OSHA "adopted the ANSI recommendation in 1971"; "there is no official recommendation for general population exposures in this country". PDF p.214 / printed 212, Table 42, with the values as in the claim. Note a: "This is a guideline only and is not enforceable"; UK, West Germany, Netherlands and France "similar"; "ANSI will probably recommend 5 mW/cm2 as a new occupational exposure limit". PDF p.217 / printed 215: "the Soviet standard is three orders of magnitude lower than the U.S. guideline"; Soviet levels "based on the occurrence of a biological effect whereas the U.S. guideline reflects levels of known biological damage (with a safety margin)"; at 2.45 GHz "the maximum occupational exposure that is now being considered is 5 mW/cm2". PDF p.218 / printed 216: "future public standards could be established at 1.0 mW/cm2 or below"; "The impact of more stringent standards on SPS design and concept viability should be addressed." PDF p.50 / printed 45: designing the reference system to below 1.0 mW/cm2 at the rectenna boundary means stricter standards have no "immediate impact on SPS land use", but more stringent population standards "could mean more land for each buffer zone".
Basis: mW/cm2 by exposure group and duration
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-001 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1285
CLM-1285, Energy Aperture, as of 1981-08.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-601
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