Graham Y, can I recommend you follow the link to the George Monbiot column from my article for a rebuttal of Calidcott's claim? I certaintly cannot do better than that.

First to respond to Shadow Minister who says:
To quote: "The [BEIR] committee recognises that its risk estimates become more uncertain at very low doses."
Here's the full quote:
"The committee recognizes that its risk estimates become more uncertain when applied to very low doses. Departures from a linear model at low doses, however, could either increase or decrease the risk per unit dose."
And indeed BEIR report (p.6) says the evidence is compatible with lower risks per unit exposure up to a doubling of risk.
Hence the Chernobyl death toll could be lower than 30,000 or it could be up to 60,000 if we take the IAEA's dose estimate and the ICRP risk estimate.
Ben
- The credible estimates of the death toll range from the IAEA/WHO figure of 9,000 (in the most contaminted areas) to 93,000 (across Europe) - references at:
http://newmatilda.com/2011/04/07/do-we-know-chernobyl-death-toll
- Beyond the plant employees and emergency workers, doses were in the microsievert range, i.e. millions of people exposed to very small radiation doses. No chance of detecting the expected cancer increase via epidemiological studies ... hence the use of IAEA's collective exposure estimate and the ICRP risk estimate.
- Nowhere does UNSCEAR claim that the death toll from that widespread exposure to low-level radiation was zero and it is disingenuous for you to claim otherwise.

Its easy!.....Dont Build on or near Fault sights. If you want my opinion......stick UNCLEAR up your arse. There are better ways to make power.............Listen to the good Dr.

http://tinyurl.com/3frhb45

http://tinyurl.com/3k5e8ze

http://tinyurl.com/3tv73re

The out date leaders on this planet are leading us into a future of No-where.

High Tec, and No brains to use it....lol....Well....Clap, clap, clap for the handy caps:)

Oh dear:)

LEAP

Hi Ben,

Like any good host I was trying to move the conversation along. Seems Helen is a few orders of magnitude larger than either of you in potential deaths. I think that's worth talking about.

I'm also wondering how much radiation I got when I had my X-Ray the other day, or my surf last weekend. What's the difference in background radiation between say the Granite Belt in Queensland and Sydney with its sandstone?

"Total collective radiation exposure from Chernobyl fallout is estimated by the IAEA at 600,000 Sieverts."

Wow, Jim. That equates to less than 3% of the total background dose received by all people on Earth in a year. What a ludicrously meaningless attempt to scare people with big numbers.

If I've reversed your calculation right you are saying that the background radiation is ~ 3mS
33.33 * 600,000/6,000,000,000 assuming a global population of 6 billion.

But the 600,000 S was not visited (equally) on the worlds population.

If 1,000,000 people received the bulk of that dose then they each received on average 0.6 S or 200 times background.

I'm sure my calculation is simplistic...