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The Forum > Article Comments > Giving Green the red light > Comments

Giving Green the red light : Comments

By Ben Heard, published 12/4/2011

The United Nations is quite clear that deaths from Chernobyl were only in the tens.

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" it doesn't assert that the death toll from widespread radiation was zero". No of course not. Becauase they are professional enough to acknowledge that we will never, ever know. It goes just ever so slightly away from that, which is that whatever is possibly there is undetectable, and everyone should stop worrying and get on with their lives, and above all, don't use theoretical modelling to come up with deaths. Your propensity to distort this report seems boundless.

"But that's my point precisely - no-one would expect to be able to demonstrate statistically-significant increases after very low exposures, and any study that did demonstrate statistical-significance would rightly be treated with suspicion."

Jim, did you actually write that? If I have this straight, you are asking us to condemn an industry based on supposed deaths that are so small in number as to be impossible to detect despite looking for 20 years? And if anyone did detect it, we couldn't trust them? WTF?

"UNSCEAR doesn't come to any conclusions that would trouble anyone - it sits on the fence". If anyone out there is still listening, for heavens sake stop reading what Jim and I have to say and just read the 24 pages of the main section of the report. Should you need a quick summary of what "sitting on the fence" looks like, here it is:
• 28 fatal doses of radiation
• Skin injuries and cataracts for the other ARS survivors
• Over 6,000 additional thyroid cancers in children and adolescents, by 2005 15 cases had proved fatal. That’s roughly consistent for thyroid cancer which is normally 1% fatal.
• “To date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure”
• Psychological issues leading to risk taking behaviour in diet, drinking, smoking and other risk taking activity.

Jim, shame.
Posted by Ben Heard, Thursday, 14 April 2011 11:28:59 PM
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"I would be concerned about indefensible claims that the Chernobyl death toll was 30-60 if i thought that claim was widely believed. But i think it is generally regarded as spin from an industry which has little public credibility."

Well, if you are right about that last point Jim, we will know who to blame. UNSCEAR are quite obviously not spin doctors for the nuclear industry, yet have made just such a finding. Were you not working so tirelessly to discredit it and concoct your own inflated death toll, perhaps the work of UNSCEAR would have the opportunity to be a little better understood.
Posted by Ben Heard, Thursday, 14 April 2011 11:37:13 PM
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Ben thanks for the points you make.

Recent debate on nuclear safety has changed my views. The blatency of the efforts by anti-nuclear campaigners to capatilise on Fukushima has caused me to have another look at the evidence. I'd been mildly against nuclear previously because of an over inflated concern about the dangers of radiation. I'd not taken the time to try and understand the weight of evidence. When the Fukushima spin started it was so blatent that I decided I needed to have a closer look.

What became obvious is that nuclear power has been in operation for around 60 years with 3 major incidents. 2 of those have not so far resulted in any confirmed deaths and the impression of the death toll I had from the 3rd was based on wishful thinking by anti-nuclear campaigners, not on actual numbers.

All three incidents involved very old designs of reactors and the one with confirmed fatalities was a design that had been rejected in most of the world due to the safety flaws.

I found claims that newer designs of reactors are able to use a lot of the nuclear waste from older reactors as fuel (I've not looked into that further yet).

I found estimates that around 1.6 million people (mostly children) die every year from respitary illnesses resulting from the use of bio-mass fuel in stoves. I doubt that more nuclear reactors would fix that in the short term but longer term better access to electric power may help to break some of the factors leading to poverty which lead to the need to use those stoves. I found those deaths didn't seem to phase the anti-nuclear crowd.

I've seen that Australia has one of the highest cancer rates in the world despite being one of the most isolated from nuclear power locations in the world (Sydney has one reactor and Brisbane currently has a visiting one).

TBC

Robert
Posted by R0bert, Friday, 15 April 2011 8:00:38 AM
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If nuclear power was a big enough danger to dismiss it's benefits we would see elevated cancer rates in areas closer to nuclear power sites and that does not appear to be the case.

I've gained the impression that some anti-nuclear campaigners want to use AGW, peak oil etc as tool's to attack western lifestyles. They don't want us to solve those problems and carry on.

Anything which might allow key aspects to actually become sustainable are a threat. The use of carbon pricing/taxing as a tool for wealth redistribution being one example how that plays out.

Others are genuine in their opposition to nuclear believing that the risks outweigh the benefits but I've come to believe that the evidence is not supportable for that.

1.6 million deaths a year from crappy (pun intended) stoves, let alone all of those who live out their lives with damaged lungs being just part of the picture.

There are still issues to address regarding management of the waste, particularly the waste from the early day's of nuclear power. In the US the Hanford site will be an expensive cleanup and the graveyard for old ship/sub power plants is something I'd not want nearby.

Waste in the former USSR may be worse. They are largely problems resulting from the way things were done then, not with the concept of nuclear power.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Friday, 15 April 2011 8:06:34 AM
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Jim,

The single problem with the claim that 30 000 people died is the complete lack of bodies, or any significant change in the cancer rate.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 15 April 2011 9:22:41 AM
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RObert,
Thank you for posting your comments. You may not know, but I have been quite a vocal anti-nuclear person in my past. I then spent about three years reconsidering my position, and on the balance of evidence, had to change. Sounds like you may be on a similar path of exploration. I have told that story in a presentation which can be found at my website www.thinkclimateconsulting.com.au . You may find that interesting.

A seminal source for learning about the new generation of reactors is a great book called “Prescription for the Planet” by Tom Blees. Otherwise though, the amazing blog run by my friend Professor Barry Brook of Adelaide University is a wealth of information on the topic. Barry is also a big supporter of the sensible application of renewable energy technologies.

I hope those resources help you on the exploration
Posted by Ben Heard, Friday, 15 April 2011 12:18:52 PM
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