At last something I can agree with Geoff about. David Stockwell has been looking at this process and has many posts on it; here is one:

http://landshape.org/enm/rossi-opens-10-kw-expression-of-interest-list-and-sets-10-kw-price/

Rossi is the Italian inventor of the process and has even interested Dick Smith:

http://landshape.org/enm/dick-smith-offers-1m-for-proof-of-lenr/

Noel Wauchope presents yet another anti-nuclear rant. The safety of nuclear energy is shown in the following information has been extracted from a table entitled “Fatal Accidents worldwide 1969-2000” chapter 6 of Dr Switkowski’s report.

Coal excluding China: 177 Accidents, 7090 Direct fatalities ; Direct fatalities 0.876 GWe/y.

Hydro: 11 Accidents, 29,938 Direct fatalities ; Direct fatalities 4.265 GWe/y.

Nuclear: 1 Accident, 31 Direct fatalities; Direct fatalities 0.006 GWe/y.

The full table includes data from oil, natural gas LPG, as fuels for power generation. The data for coal and hydro generation excluding China is also stated. The message is clear the nuclear industry has a sterling health and safety record for power generation.

The hazards of wind turbines can be found at http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/index.htm

The Caithness data is updated to 31March 2012 and suggest an increasing trend as more and more wind turbines are constructed. They also make the following point regarding their table and data.

“Data in the detailed table attached is by no means fully comprehensive - CWIF believe that what is attached may only be the "tip of the iceberg" in terms of numbers of accidents and their frequency.”

The question of determining the long term risks to health are subject to a belief in the mathematical shape of exposure v effect curves. The Linear non threshold hypothesis is great for setting radiation limits. However, from the point of view of radiation biology it is over cautious (no problem in a regulatory setting); but as a predictor of harm after say from the Chernobyl accident grossly inaccurate.

Overall ionising radiation is a weak carcinogen at low levels of exposure say 50 mSv or less, it is difficult to prove by epidemiological studies that there is actual harm. Indeed there is a strong possibility from the literature that some exposure may be beneficial to health (Hormesis).

In what postmodern, parallel universe, does Ms Wauchope ( with several post-graduate qualifications, in health informatics, medical terminology and clinical coding) become a credible expert in the nuclear power industry?

Or is nuclear physics now a component of some form of postnormal science discipline in medical science?

Hey! why not broaden the base even more. Someone could do a shopping centre survey to see what the public thinks about which elements should be allowed to be radioactive.

Same old same old tired argument? Sure thorium reactors need a little kick start with other fissile material. Perhaps they could get all they need, if we but collected all the uranium emanating from coal-fired smoke stacks?
New technology like that inherent in the pebble reactor, all but prevent any possible nuclear melt down. Sure there is heat in any nuclear reaction.
It's the transfer of that heat that produces the steam that turns the turbines.
Remember, fusion reaction produces heat greater than the centre of the sun, and given we can safely contain a fusion reaction, then there are not too many probs containing the heat of a controlled fission reaction.
In the pebble reactor, its helium and even if the coolant is somehow completely cut off, there is no melt down, given the design features of the fuel, simply prevent critical mass from ever being reached.
It's not just uranium that comes from some coal fired power stations smoke stacks that are a health concern, but a range of other heavy metals as well.
I live downwind from a large coal-fired facility and if offered a choice, would plainly prefer that that power generating facility was a pebble reactor nuclear facility.
Thorium power ditto. Moreover there is 4 times more thorium than uranium, we have lots of it and there are no weapons spin-off.
And though it might well be a close run thing, we still have some time yet to start seriously addressing man-made climate change.
Simply producing the power onsite where it is needed, will halve the amount of pollution currently being produced by the power generation companies. Centralised power and the grid are a least half the problem?
The author seems ready to give up on addressing climate change if any part of the solution includes nuclear?
That seems almost as sane as Nero fiddling while Rome burned down around him? I wonder if it is just nuclear or the re-industrialisation of the economy that really bothers the author? Rhrosty.

What a lot of negative feedback!
To reply to just a few of these comments:

RENEWABLE ENERGY. Pro nuclear advocates don’t seem to keep up with the rapidly developing advances in solar and wind energy. I recommend REneweconomy’s analyses - for example Solar insights why solar will win the energy wars http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/solar-insights-why-solar-will-win-the-energy-wars-80365
Renewable energy is fast approaching the situation where it needs no subsidy , in Germany, where it has been developed in a purposeful way. Nuclear power, on the other hand, since its inception in the 1950s has continually needed huge tax-payer funding - and not only for the build, but also for the perpetual cleanup of toxic wastes. Solar and wind have no cleanup problems, and the fuel is free, unlike uranium or thorium.

SAFETY. I am kind of speechless that Peter Lang claims that nuclear power is unsafe because of “excessive regulation” I wonder how many Chernobyls, Fukushimas, Three Mile Islands there would be , with less regulation.

REPROCESSING, SECURITY, INSPECTION. Thorium, not being fissile, must have plutonium or uranium to start and sustain the nuclear chain reaction. Thorium reactors still require reprocessing close by, because to function efficiently, they have to separate the fuel from the fission products. Protactinium 233 (highly radioactive) builds up in the blanket of thorium - needs to be extracted, takes time (months) to be stored and reprocessed to uranium 233 – which can then be put back into the reactor. Spent fuel is reprocessed with U232 to get out U 233

HEALTH AND DEATHS FROM NUCLEAR POWER, anti green’s comments “Nuclear: 1 Accident, 31 Direct fatalities; Direct fatalities 0.006 GWe/y. “ Anti green also puts up the theory of “hormesis” – that low level radiation is good for you. This has been discredited very recently in a landmark report ‘Studies of the Mortality of Atomic Bomb Survivors, Report 14, 1950–2003: An Overview of Cancer and Noncancer Diseases’. I have discussed this at length in http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/life/health/low-dose-ionising-radiation-is-harmful-to-health/

Just 3 more comments on comments:

EXPERTISE As to Carfax’s righteous indignation about expertise, I’ve never claimed to be an expert on nuclear science. Does he mean that only nuclear engineers can have an opinion about nuclear power?

DEATHS FROM NUCLEAR POWER AS to Anti green’s statement on deaths from nuclear power. That is similar to stating that only a few people have died from cigarette smoking , for example in a fire started by smoking.

CLIMATE CHANGE. Well, it’s looking as if climate change will be the solution to nuclear power – seeing that extremes of weather, excessive heat, floods, sea level rise, more earthquakes and tsunamis look like making nuclear power at best, less reliable, and at worst downright critically dangerous.