The author has the story straight.

Dr Robert Hargraves has assessed the risk ratio for the various fuel chains in deaths per Gigawatt year as;
Coal 0.35
Oil 0.38
Natural Gas 0.08
LPG 2.9
Hydro 0.9
Nuclear 0.0085

There has not been any reduction in life expectancy for anyone involved in the Fukushima cooling water failure which led to partial melt downs. New AP1000 reactors can continue to be safe for seven days without external water and electricity supplies. An anti explosion catalyst was left out of the Fukushima plant.

In 2010 twenty two energy disasters killed 608 people not one of whom was in the nuclear area yet nuclear accounts for about 14% of the world total electricity generation.

The no threshold standards are ridiculous. In Taiwan the cancer rates were 4% of normal expectations (for a matched population) for occupants of a contaminated building that had been occupied for 20 years.

Risk isn't solely about likely incidence, it is also about the effects of failure, the consequences.

Maybe someone would like to talk about the consequences of the failure in Japan?

Over many years I have seen many, many promises that the safe long storage of waste is 'just around the corner'. But obviously that corner has never been reached, yet highly developed, technology savvy countries like the US continue to work on that next 'corner'. Why is it for example that President Obama is saddled with the huge expense of 'temporary' storage of waste?

Got to give it to the US State Department though, they found and ably massaged the visiting colonial drongo Prime Ministers visiting from Oz. The US and other countries all have land they can use for storage. What has prevented them from doing just that, storing their waste? Speaking of which, what about that land in Oz that is still fenced off after the Poms let nuclear bombs off. Maybe someone can say when that land will become available for use?

>"Risk isn't solely about likely incidence, it is also about the effects of failure, the consequences.
Maybe someone would like to talk about the consequences of the failure in Japan?"

Dead right! Good Question. No fatalities from radiation, unlikely to be any. On the other hand, 1000 fatalities as a direct result of the (mostly unnecessary) evacuation, and tens of thousands more as a result of the long term effects of the damage to Japan's economy (and the world economy) by the nonsensical act of shutting down all the nuclear power stations. Plus the many thousands of fatalities due to ramping up use of fossil fuels and taking decades to get back to where should have been if not for the ridiculous overreaction to the accident.

You asked about consequences: Read the short brochure to get a better understanding of the real consequences of low levels of radiation:
http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/RadiationSafety26SixPage.pdf

No mention either of the costs of decommissioning those nuke reactors either and where to store what is removed from site.

How many billions to decommission one?

Maybe Oz could become the new dumping ground for the world's nuke powered warships too. Just drive them onto an Aussie beach. Heck, 700kms of beaches on the Yorke Peninsula alone. Honestly now, how much beach does anyone really need with all of that harmful solar radiation?

Fair bet the US State Department has already thought of that. It was a clever idea that 'forever' ownership of toxic stuff mined for them. The US State Department is streets ahead of those drongo Aussie PMs. It only takes a bit of flattery and a good time while they are in the US and Oz is the US State Department's for the taking.

Facts certainly are limited.

Presenting an extremely complex issue also involves artfulness and persuasion.

About the only constant in the nuclear debate are that almost all nuclear advocates are MALE and from an ENGINEERING-applied science background. I wonder why?

Facts are viewpoints. Facts are relative - not irrefutable.

New things happen – things not even considered by engineers. For example 9/11 consisted of smashing full sized passenger jets into large buildings. The engineering design of the World Trade Centre did not consider large aircraft collisions likely.

Would a large passenger aircraft intentionally crashed into a nuclear reactor cause a problem?

Some facts can be less disputable than others. For example the residential area previously part of Lucas Heights in Sydney was renamed Barden Ridge in 1996 to increase the real estate value of housing in the area.

That is real estate agents had determined that housing in "Lucas Heights" had been harder to sell and at lower prices because of proximity to the reactor complex...

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_Heights,_New_South_Wales

Is "our house is harder to sell and at a below market price" a worry for home-owners near future reactor projects here in Australia?

Pete

There is allegedly 'peak-oil'? What about 'peak-uranium'?

As for all of that"Gosh, take the nuke waste, it could be worth something one day", as if the Yanks would be giving it away if it wasn't prohibitively expensive to store and its future an enduring pestilence?