I don't need to read the entire article to recognise that the author is one of the people he describes - i.e. the author is an ignorant, uninformed, anti-nuke activist.

>"Today's environmental and anti nuclear movement , we are told, consists of well-meaning, but ignorant and uninformed people who are denying science.

They are shown to have an irrational fear of ionising radiation. In this they are shown as the same as climate change denialists, denying the scientific consensus. But the scientific consensus, including the World Health Organisation, is that ionising radiation is dangerous to health, even at low levels."

Wrong. Low levels of ionisising radiation is not dangerous to health. You have misunderstood or you are ignorant or your are disingenuous.

Furthermore, nuclear power is the safest way to generate electricity - see the summary of many authoritative studies here: http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html

I agree the Greens and the anti-nuke activists are denialists (as are many climate doomsayers, including many climate scientists).

Hi Noel

A good article.

Nuclear disasters amount to a high variable risk.

Nuclear reactors involve high recurring costs for waste handling and disposal. Reactor industries rely on privatising profits while making taxpayers pay for the cost and risk (poisons, environmental risks, terrorists targets) of nuclear waste disposal.

Claims by the nuclear lobby that advanced reactors may in decades reduce costs and risks are about as useful as carbon capture claims (thin forecasts that technical advances will make coal fired power stations clean).

Regards

Pete

>The assumption is made, no scientifically qualified person is against climate change< Well that does cover a lot of ground doesn't it?
I don't believe Robert would have automatically assumed any such inference?
I mean fully qualified metallurgists, radiologists, geologists or any number of disciplines not immediately connected to the science of climate, wouldn't necessarily agree with that very broad brush assumption.
Which seems fairly typical of extremely recalcitrant Green acolytes and or, the endlessly obfuscating anti nuclear lobby?
That said, and given the recent advances in thermonuclear technology, Pebble reactors, cheaper than coal thorium, the latter more or less producing few if any waste problems! Why are we even having this conversation?
The greens always bang on about climate change, and suggest the only rational response is depopulation and using less.
So how do we depopulate? The Wermark's final solution perhaps?
Would we draw straws, with those getting the short straws exiting stage left?
Reduced to the green preferred agrarian society, this planet would only support around a billion?
What would you do with the rest?
Simply put, Robert is right, we can have (carbon free)nuclear power or climate change!
Just not both!
After all it is not nuclear waste threatening us all with an extinction level event, but man made carbon!
Moreover, the time for talking or debating is now behind us. What we need now is action and an ability to clean the wax out of our ears, and listen to the best science from our most knowledgeable climate scientists!
Those that can't or what help us achieve the transition need to, just get out of the way, preferably before its too late and the frozen tundra starts melting!
Rhrosty.

I expect to have a DVD of the film shortly but I agree with the the claim that the danger of nuclear is over stated.

I have a well worn copy of physicist Dr Robert Hargraves book, "Thorium, Energy Cheaper than Coal". Harvgraves presents evidence that, for safety, the best fossil fuel has a supply chain performance per unit of generation eight times worse than nuclear and that coal is forty times worse.

The only reactor failure that has resulted in short term deaths is Chernobyl and that was a reactor that went nowhere near meeting design requirements of France, The UK or the USA. The Fukushima event has resulted in about 37 site employees having a lifetime cancer risk increase of about 2%.

The USA submarine fleet has 5,400 reactor years of experience without any significantly dangerous events.

The last comment is quiet amusing, specially the link about the safeness of nuclear power-who decides whats the safest way? Which are the measurements and what is counted in this calculation? See, it's more complicated to see the whole picture then only quote one research. I am a German engineer and know about power plants and climate change, because i studied technical engineering in Germany. The movie is obviously manipulative by telling only one side, and these "facts" are often not even true. So it is a shame to mislead people like this and I hope more people get informed about these issues, read scientific research provided by independent researchers! And then build your own point of view about this movie, but please don"t promote it before you didn"t analyse the whole story around these issues.Thanks

Any risk-return analysis of thorium LFTR, especially if the the risk of continuing with fossil-fuels and AGW is included, is a no-brainer.

The sooner we build "lifters" the better.

Allen Sugar,

>"The last comment is quiet amusing, specially the link about the safeness of nuclear power-who decides whats the safest way? Which are the measurements and what is counted in this calculation?"

Your comment reveals you know near nothing about the subject. Furthermore, you didn't even bother to look at any of the cited studies. Try a bit harder, or remain one of the "well-meaning, but ignorant and uninformed people who are denying science".

You could start with ExternE: http://www.externe.info/externe_d7/

The most common way to compare safety of electricity generation systems is fatalities pert TWh of electricity supplied. This is on a life cycle analysis basis (i.e. for all components of the system throughout its life). Also used and incorporated are health effects (mortality and morbidity), work days lost, and categorised into immediate and delayed fatalities or health effects, for workers and for members of the public.

Thorium LFTRs have many claims - no testing in an industrial setting - all is decades in the future.

In the same sense cold fusion has equal merit and extravagant expectations - a no brainer indeed.

In reply to Peter Lang
The World Health Organisation’s comprehensive report (February 2013) concluded that an increased rate of breast cancer is to be expected in future years amongst women who were children when exposed to low level Fukushima radiation. It also predicted increased leukaemia amongst Fukushima clean-up workers.

Noel.Wauchope,

You are being cunningly selective and non quantitative. The real story is that the expected fatalities from Fukushima are negligible to none. That is both short term and long term.

Now, put that in perspective of the amount of electricity generated and compare it with any other electricity generation technology. Or, better still, open your mind and start being prepared to accept the facts. Nuclear is the safest way to generate electricity. We've known that for at least 40 years. What is preventing you from understanding it?
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html

Noel, the salient fact is that even if your representation of the WHO report is true (which I don't necessarily accept), any increase in breast cancers or leukaemias from Fukushima radiation will be indistinguishable above the normal background rates. Certainly far below the health effects of living in unreasoning fear of minuscule radiation levels like those poor Japanese kids cooped up indoors. Unfortunately you seem to have missed one of the key points of Pandora's Promise, that putting risks in proper perspective is critical.

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Plantaganet,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power :

"Research and development of thorium-based nuclear reactors, primarily the Liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), MSR design, has been or is now being done in India, China, Norway, U.S., Israel and Russia."

"India's government is developing up to 62, mostly thorium reactors, which it expects to be operational by 2025. It is the "only country in the world with a detailed, funded, government-approved plan" to focus on thorium-based nuclear power."

Cold fusion, is it real? At least a working thorium LFTR has been built "Molten salt reactors (MSRs, LFTRs), The Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed and built a demonstration MSR using U-233 as the main fissile fuel; it was operational from 1965 to 1969."

This is one of the most dishonest reviews I've seen. The human propensity to disregard the truth when we think that the means justifies the ends, knows no bounds. Does the strutting televangelist really believe what he spews? Does it matter? It isn't true in any case.

Go here if you want to see some honest, well-informed reviews:
http://pandoraspromise.com/#reviews

The film never claimed that nuclear power is "the" major solution.

The film is not a "soft sell for the nuclear industry." It informs and appeals to reason.

The film does not use "voices of people, mainly from the nuclear power lobby." Everyone is a staunch environmentalist. Nobody is a nuclear power lobbyist.

The film's spokespersons do not "all portray themselves as former anti nuclear activists"

It is not true that the "scientific consensus, including the World Health Organisation, is that ionising radiation is dangerous to health, even at low levels." Millions of people die from cancer due to solar radiation every year.

I could go on and on. Almost nothing in this review is true. Read

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/experts-foresee-no-detectable-health-impact-from-fukushima-radiation/?_r=0

Luciferase

Yes research on "Thorium-based reactors", which can't function without fissile Uranium or Plutonium inputs, have been conducted since the 1960s. This slow moving research process is just one indicator of how technically and economically problematic "Thorium-based reactors" are. Its all academic until Thorium reactors become economically viable energy producers in what 2060?

FUKUSHIMA

Concerning those who deny Fukushima indicates an inbuilt problem and risk of running reactors. Nuclear industries privatise the profits but when disasters happen the nuclear industry can't afford the clean-up costs. The Japanese Government is paying $Billions to clean up the mess left by Tepco's unsafe reactors.

Commenters haven't mentioned that the Fukushima complex continues to leak radioactive water - a problem too great even for the highly organised Japanese. Large populations around Fukushima have been advised to live elsewhere due to the radiation risk.

Pete

Another red herring?
If there was an earthquake tomorrow off Japan of similar size to the one that destroyed Fukushima, it would cut this argument short .
A lot of the population would be on their way to an early death solving the problem of overpopulation.
When I hear the proponents of nuclear power exclaiming about the "new" safety, I think of the way that even our politicians cannot be trusted to claim expenses without rorting the system. Could any other countries be trusted not to cut corners or cheat on reports?

2010 National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) report concluded the thorium fuel cycle ‘does not currently have a role to play in the UK context [and] is likely to have only a limited role internationally for some years ahead’ – in short, it concluded, the claims for thorium were ‘overstated’.
http://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/busting-the-spin-about-thorium-nuclear-reactors/
All other issues aside, thorium is still nuclear energy, say environmentalists, its reactors disgorging the same toxic by-products and fissile waste with the same millennial half-lives. Oliver Tick ell, author of Kyoto2, says the fission materials produced from thorium are of a different spectrum to those from uranium-235, but ‘include many dangerous-to-health alpha and beta emitters’.

Robert LePage,

You are an example of what "denier" really means. You and several others commenting here provide and example of closed minds - immune to facts.

This presents the case for nuclear in Australia well (although I don't agree with some of it): https://theconversation.com/pro-nuclear-greenies-thinking-outside-the-box-with-pandoras-promise-18941

I am prepared to bet the wind farm, if all subsidies were removed form nuclear, fossil, and renewable power sources, we would transition to a renewables quite quickly. Then if we were to include a penalty for all forms of harmful emissions and require all to take out full insurance, we would rapidly end up with adequate power, and minimal damage to the environment and climate.

Nuclear power would simply become too expensive and would not survive.
1 The insurance premiums for full cover would be just about kill it, even if there were no other problems.
2 The costs of high level waste disposal would further add to its problems.
3 The costs of decommission the plant at some point in the future would be the last nail in the coffin
4 They actually pay for all the fresh water they use.
5 The huge capitol cost means it takes too long to recover investment and introduces the risk of cheaper forms of power becoming available in the future.

Fossil fuels
Would all require a means of capturing and storing all co2 emissions which would be very expensive even if it is found to be practical.
Would also require more action on all the other emissions´s of pollutants.
More to be spent on cleaner production of fuels and rehabilitating the land after extraction.

Renewables
Geothermal, hydro, wind, solar thermal,solar photovoltaic, Tidal

Are currently close to competitive with fossil fuels and a long way ahead of nuclear when all the costs are taken into account. They do require suitable mix to achieve a reliable supply, for example when wind is at a peek solar is likely to low and vice versa, which means that with renewables it is entirely possible to produce power that is in the end cheaper and just as reliable as any other solution.

The green position is nuclear-bad but renewables are not this century going to impact on AGW in to providing base-load needs. Nuclear is the only option. There's a visual making this quite obvious at 1.24 minutes on http://pandoraspromise.com/#trailer.

Let's the debate in Australia begin so we can get the inevitable (nuclear) started. Here's a taster http://www.npr.org/2012/05/04/152026805/is-thorium-a-magic-bullet-for-our-energy-problems

Peter Lang:
From the link you provided,
"Today, wind turbines and solar panels combined deliver only around 3% of total electricity consumption in Australia, with coal providing 70%, and gas another 20% ."

And the reason for the high percentage of coal ?
Well Howard's subservience to big coal could be one reason. Lack of support for solar thermal for the same reason.
If solar thermal had the support of government , instead of the lip service it got, it could have been the main provider of power by now.
And once the infrastructure is in place it is basically fuelled for free, with no dangerous residue to dispose of.

It all comes back to politics and the donation (bribe) system.

Gas is of course controlled by the oil industry and they have been running the world for decades now as in invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Robert LePage,

>"Well Howard's subservience to big coal could be one reason. Lack of support for solar thermal for the same reason.

If solar thermal had the support of government , instead of the lip service it got, it could have been the main provider of power by now."

Clearly you haven't a clue what you are talking about. The economy needs least cost power. Coal is least cost by a long margin. That is why we use coal. Least cost gives us a stronger economy which in turn means faster improvement in human wellbeing and the environment. This is all so basic it is impossible to have any sensible or productive discussion with people who understand so little.

"Humanity Unbound: How Fossil Fuels Saved Humanity from Nature and Nature from Humanity"
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/humanity-unbound-how-fossil-fuels-saved-humanity-nature-nature-humanity

"Renewables or nuclear electricity for Australia - the cost"
http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

Anyone who quotes from the Cato inst ( i.e. the Koch bros) cannot be taken seriously.
They are of course main drivers in the anti alt energy and pro extreme right movement in the US and no doubt through intermediaries, here also.
*Clearly you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. This is all so basic it is impossible to have any sensible or productive discussion with people who understand so little.*
And you believe in belittling my intelligence instead of refuting my argument with facts.

As for costs of coal;
Federal coal subsidies;
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Federal_coal_subsidies
Energy policy of Australia;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_Australia
The truth about energy subsidies;
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/43376.html
The real cost of coal is quickly adding up;
http://sydney.edu.au/news/arts/2228.html?newsstoryid=9323
Origin wins as NSW coal subsidy scandal unwinds
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/origin-wins-as-nsw-coal-subsidy-scandal-unwinds-32814

Then to top it off you are vain enough to give a link to your own paper such as it is.

Robert, It would be a great world if renewables could meet our demands. I have no truck with Peter Lang's paper, it seems to have taken a balanced view. It quantifies the problem well and marries to the facts that renewables are far too limited in their ability to completely displace fossil fuels due to intermittency, scalability and the fact there is no way to store large-scale energy. All the sun and wind in the world won't mount these hurdles.

Only nuclear can succeed in displacing fossil fuels on a cost basis, at least, in a time-frame that can mitigate AGW. With renewables we are already hard up against their technical and cost limitations vs fossil-fuel generated power.

IMO, the aim for lifters is clear and achievable, with China, India, Russia and now the US leading the way. IMO, it is the time to jump onto the coat-tails of these endeavours. (Interesting link here about why the US did not take a thorium path earlier rather than the breeder path it did http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI )

Let's try to be pleasant in critiquing solutions in order to learn as much as we share of our own understanding. There is a lot we don't know yet.

Robert LePage

>"Anyone who quotes from the Cato inst ... cannot be taken seriously."

Anyone who makes a comment like that at makes no attempt to understand the paper and comment on it, cannot be taken seriously.

I did refute your arguments. You just didn't read/understand the refutations.

I do not see how a free-marketeer would choose any path other than that which maximizes gain. I am interested in why free-marketeers would wish to influence decisions that are taken in the best interests of society rather than responding to those decisions to maximum gain.

Why would the Cato Institute champion fossil-fuels over a path that mitigates global warming other than for the reason that gain is maximized by maintaining the status quo?

I think it's reasonable that Robert has a concern over the Cato Institute given its mission on energy and the environment http://www.cato.org/research/energy-environment :

"Cato’s energy and environment studies are devoted to explaining how energy markets work and promoting policies that leave questions regarding energy consumption, environmental standards, market structure, and technology to the market rather than government planners."

Peter, I think you should explain why the Cato Institute should be taken seriously on what is best for society given this amoral stance. How can the free market, which is amoral on what is best for society's survival, be relied upon to come to correct conclusions as to what is in those best interests in relation to the empirical evidence supporting the CO2 and AGW hypotheses?