@rhosty: biogas? From pigs perhaps? Pig meat is carcinogenic and causes far more cancers than multiple regular triple-meltdowns like Fukushima could ever cause. Not to mention swine flu. Remember swine flu? It killed 284,000 people in its first 12 months (http://bit.ly/QBjx5q ) and the REALLY big thing about it that was worse than seasonal flu was that 80% of the deaths were in people younger than 65. How can anybody who claims to care about health and risk possibly think about eating or using pigs to produce biogas?

"Guarapari It's a tourist destination. Anybody can stroll down to the beach with their Geiger counter and measure far more radiation than around Fukushima."

And the people strolling around on the beach are there for months or years?
And there is of course a study of their health way down the track has been done?

"Anti-nukes and climate change deniers are cut from the same cloth .".
Unlike denialists who are so open minded that they would be willing to change their point of view even when confronted with concrete evidence........

There is no answer from the nuke denialists about storage and disposal of nuke waste.

It was a sad day that the atom was split.

Why not check out the prophetic warning given by Lao Russell in his book Atomic Suicide?

Please also check out the references on the nuclear industry propaganda (misinformation) machine and its relation to the "culture" of death that rules this planet: http://globalcooperative.wordpress.com

I must say I'm glad we're having this sensible debate on OLO with Geoff making the point that coal power has and is causing many millions of premature deaths (not to mention its role in global warming) and that we have to decide what alternatives to choose.

But I'm not going to lie down and accept all he is saying for nuclear and against renewables. Some of of the figures are quoted are over the top. From my own research as co-author of a 100% renewables study for WA:
Firstly solar thermal with molten salt storage (CST) would not be used for all electricity, only 20-30% of generation, which together with biomass would be used to back up wind and solar PV.
To do this for WA would take about eighteen 110 MW plants covering about 12,600 ha (about 4 wheat belt farms). To achieve the same for Australia the figure would be no more than 8 times this - say 30-40 wheat belt farms or 100 -120,000 has of semi arid or dry agricultural land, which is not much.
Also CST employs several times more people over its construction and life-time than nuclear - a big plus for villages in India.
Yes, a lot of construction would be required to transform the world's electricity generation to renewables, but this could be a 'third industrial revolution' that would stimulate economic growth.
As for your thousands of trucks, Geoff I'm not even going to go there as it would be many more truckloads of overburden, ore and radioactive waste to supply the nuclear fuel over the working life of the reactors and also trucking of radioactive concrete and materials after decommissioning.
The actual levelized cost of energy (LCOE) figures I linked to before take transport (but not decommissioning) into account. Many renewable technologies are cheaper and all are safer than nuclear.
Finally it comes down to 'which would you rather live next to - a solar/ wind farm or a nuclear reactor?' I'd take the former any day.

You are wildly off-topic, Roses1.

>>Firstly solar thermal with molten salt storage (CST) would not be used for all electricity, only 20-30% of generation<<

Mr Russell was observing the issues related to energy production in India. It seems that you are commenting on our domestic situation...

>>To do this for WA would take about eighteen 110 MW plants covering about 12,600 ha (about 4 wheat belt farms). To achieve the same for Australia the figure would be no more than 8 times this<<

This is, surely, avoiding the concerns raised by the article. Sadly, you have performed precisely as I predicted, when I said...

"I shall watch with interest to see whether there are any responses that actually engage with the arguments you have put forward - particularly those that show the callous disregard of human life involved in the abstract decisions of taxpayer-funded jobsworths"

You have avoided engaging with the discussion at all. Sometimes I hate being right.

>>As for your thousands of trucks, Geoff I'm not even going to go there<<

Presumably because trying to visualize what might be the logistics of building your solar-plus-salt facility in India, would tax your imagination to the point of meltdown. It certainly would do that to me.

So, we have heard your prepared speech on power alternatives for Australia. Would it be too much to ask you to address the topic at hand also? You certainly seem to have been involved in the basic research needed, so your views might actually help the discussion along, instead of derailing it into the siding of your pet project.