Channelling Helen Caldicott again the author continues her crusade against nuclear power, the only viable alternative to the fossils in a post-AGW world.

Ionising radiation is dangerous but at the thresholds discussed in the article noone can safely have a CT scan or X-ray again.

In fact we had all better go underground because sunlight includes some ionising radiation.

Can the debate about nuclear power and AGW get any more stupid?

Geoff, while you make some reasonable points, and technically you are correct about gamma emitting potassium, I don't think you are being completely honest about the internal emitters issue.

Are you honestly conflating potassium (half-life 1.248x10^9 years) with other radioactive isotopes that can be released from nuclear incidents like iodine-131 (half life 8 days)that can accumulate in the thyroid?

Or strontium-90 (half-life 28 years) that can accumulate in bones?

I don't think you are doing your argument any favours by dismissing these legitimate sources of concern as the same as 'natural background'.

Fukushima is far worse than Cherbobyl.The Russians put 800,000 personell into containment and building a concrete tomb to envelope the radiation.Tepko has dragged its feet and done very little.

It is the hot particles like caesium, idodine,uranium that remain in our bodies for years causing cancers.

If you really want a scientific analysis see http://www.fairewinds.org/fukushima Prof Arnie Gunderson has had 40 yrs experience in the Nuke industry.He currently decomissions nuke reactors.

Nooooo, cohenite, underground is where the radon accumulates! If there were any truth to the thesis that low dose ionising radiation is harmful to health, there should be measurable spatial correlations between ill health and the bright spots on the Radiometric Map of Australia (https://www.ga.gov.au/products/servlet/controller?event=GEOCAT_DETAILS&catno=70791, http://www.ga.gov.au/image_cache/GA13928.pdf). Good luck finding them.

@Arjay, that's patently false, and a really irresponsible thing to say. At Chernobyl, an entire reactor, with no containment at all, exploded, caught fire, and the vapourised radioactive contents of a whole reactor were taken and spread by the wind. At Fukushima the reactors did not catch fire, remained in containment with controlled venting, the main problem being overheating spent fuel. The total release of radioactive material has been about 4.5% that of Chernobyl, and this is well documented http://decarbonisesa.com/2011/11/13/fukushima-minute-by-minute/ The residual cancer risk in the exclusion zone is, as @Geoff Russell discussed above, virtually undetectable.

I'll be reading the thread with interest because despite Wauchope's outrageously evident bias, the key reference is peer reviewed. If we could possibly keep the total junk to a minimum, that would be just dandy.

Ben Heard,that is a blatent falsehood.3 of the reactors have exploded and look like they are in meltdown.Reator 4 is very unstable and has enormous amounts of nuke waste stored above the reactor.see the scientific analysis.http://www.fairewinds.org/fukushima