Bananas are radioactive, and it's potassium 40 that makes them radioactive. And more radioactive than, you guessed it, thorium! An
anti development green, Green tries to make readers conclude that some radiation is more benign than other forms,i.e., background radiation!

If you get exposed to gamma radiation be it from a nuclear explosion or you chest xray, or an unshielded reactor, or NORMAL BACKGROUND RADIATION it's still rads! And there are upper limits to your exposure from any form! Be it Xrays or air travel! Even sunburn is a radiation burn! And the body has a unique ability to repair itself from of quite severe radiation burns or damage.

Nuclear medicine exposes you deliberately to radiation, mostly as less harmful beta decay, And Bismuth 2/13 is an alpha particle that is attached to an antibody which then targets death sentence cancers, to remove/destroy them!

I've seen scans of a liver with three tumours that in the past would have be a death sentence in just months and 66 hours later after treatment, with the aforementioned Bismuth 2/13, completely clear.

Lets put a few fact down here. The shorter the half life the more intense dose of radiation you get if exposed, the longer the half life the less exposure you are subjected to as a radiation dose.

Moreover, some increased levels of normal background radiation might even be beneficial ( Hormesis) given recent studies would seem to indicate a lower level of cancer in those cohorts.

Uranium has a half life of around 5 billion years, around the age of the planet? And thorium which is at least three times more abundant, has a half life of around 15 billion years the age of the universe? And consequently is less radioactive, than Jim Green's banana!

The nuclear industry is subject to some extraordinarily severe restrictions, to limit stray or rogue radiation leaks. Which if applied to either coal of fracked gas would see both those industries shut down for exceeding those limit by at least a factor of three, and regularly!? TBC.
Alan B.

The international BANANA conference? A stunt by folk obsessed by an agenda to prevent further development or population growth? Opposed by folk, who want that development and based on a flawed economic paradigm that one must have one to get the other? And fundamentally flawed on several grounds.

Simply put, we will lose so many jobs and occupations in the next several decades to all manner of automation! We must limit our growth to natural growth. Then grow the economy by, #1/ attacking and removing poverty in all its forms and guises, #2/ by embracing clean green carbon free base load energy!

And that is at the present. Passive safety designed and built in, walk away safe, molten salt, thorium reactors.

[Lets be clear, if these were all the go and they could've been, but for a fork in the road of nuclear development! There would have been no Chernobyl or Fukushima!]

And any and all energy dependant, high tech manufacture. Particularly if rolled out as Government facilitated and funded cooperative enterprise, i.e., co-ops and or small family firms.

Co-ops were the only free market, private enterprise models that mostly survived the Great depression largely intact!

And stand almost alone as the most efficient and productive. Have never been known to grow to big to fail and or be infested by the destructive British disease, rambunctious, (rebels without a cause) counterproductive unions.

We have just two choices proceed, with business as usual, as somebody else's largely foreign owned, captive market and follow the Philippines, Vietnam?

Or chart a new bold course, based on sound fundamentals! i.e., It's the economy stupid! Coupled to change we cannot avoid! But would be far better served by embracing it,starting without further delay, as cheap energy and all that that allows.

Be it affordable housing, affordable water affordable, profitable recycling or actual, self reliant security/an aerospace industry!

We've always had fifth columnists/treasonous traitors/Benedict Arnold Quislings? And they are not here to HELP!
Alan B.

..' But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.'_ Scientific American.
This ash gives about 3 times nuclear plant radiation and is yet another horrific menace from the planet endangering Thorium. Do not eat bananas grown in Thorium .

Bloody tough banana if it can grow in a metal.

Hey Alan B, Queensland doesn't need to go with Adani ? if we could convince Malcolm to convince them to convert from coal and grow enough bananas we could harvest the the Thorium and get a dozen or so...maybe a whole 'bunch' of them reactors up and running ?

They used to say the sun shone out of Sergio Bjelke - Petersen, so it may come to fruition that the Sunshine state will be again.

Yeah, like we'll ditch the fossils and their fossil fuelled mentalities any time soon.

The climate-change, anti-nuclear mob are bananas. They don't like coal, but they like nuclear even less.

These tragic castropharians don't have the brains to realise that the only alternative to coal for reliable power is nuclear. And, in the banana state, Adani has decided to go it alone.

Yeah we don't need Adani or coal or fracked Gas! Most of our background (normal) radiation exposure comes from Radon and around 40% of that is produced when we burn fracked gas.

And why, when we can make all the gas we'd ever possibly need from the proper processing of wasted waste!

The fly in the ointment is the amount of steel we'd need for the onsite methane producing digestors! Moreover that steel industry needs cheap affordable base load, carbon free, reliable 24/7 energy!

Wind farms connected to pumped hydro perhaps?

Why not? After all we have history producing steel far too expensive for not only the world, but our own domestic market! Something only somebody as demonstrably clever as NNN could devise?

Parenthetically, wind turbines would need to turn for 30 years to offset the carbon created in their manufacture and solar panels have allegedly created mountains of toxic waste that'll be in the environment for centuries

As far as I know there's no thorium in bananas, but ask nick?

If there's even traces too small to measure, he'll find it then come running back tail wagging with excitement, waiting for a whipping? The usual exchange, after successfully herding feral cats?
Alan B.

Perhaps I'm alone in the world in believing that nuclear plants in the future shouldn't use 1950s technology like Chernobyl, nor be sited right on a Tsunami-prone beach, and in an earthquake zone like Fukushima.

In the future, nuclear power plants should be constructed using the latest technology, and located in geologically-stable areas. Just a suggestion.

Anybody need their shoe-laces tied ? Or an egg sucked ? No, that's alright, don't thank me, all part of my community service.

Joe

The clever Poms found that re-cycled Thorium gas costs twice the natural product which seems good economics to Alan . He buys Nigerian Thorium bank-funds off the plan and re-sells at rubbish discount.

"They don't like coal, but they like nuclear even less."
Thorium is in heavy sands along the Qld Banana coast and it gives that strange greenish tinge with yellow bananas above danger levels deforming into a curved shape. Banana power costs about $285 kwh on a good day.

Banana coast Electrical has been established in Coffs Harbour since 1977 and is a family owned and operated business.

Bananacoast Electrical are authorised service agents for many brands including Thoriumotec , Banana Turds and Molten Beach Salts.

The business has since grown to now employ a staff of 12 . We service and repair electrical installations, small and white good appliances, stoves, solar and electrical hot water systems, Thermo nuclear Reactors and Weapons Enrichment to mention a few throughout the mid north coast region.
We all strive to give friendly, prompt, reliable service.
OPEN MONDAY TO SATURDAY(AM).

The problem with activists like Jim Green is that in order to try and scare people, they have to either lie through their teeth or deliberately misrepresent the data.

The radiation that a person living next to a nuclear plant would get in a year is roughly equivalent to the background radiation he experiences in 1 hour in a normal day. And the so called levels of child hood leukemia are statistically identical 10 miles from a plant as right next to it.

As for global radiation, the world wide cumulative exposure over 40 years from the world's worst nuclear accident is 648,000 person-Sieverts, which if you compare the world wide cumulative background exposure over the same time is about 600,000,000 person-Sieverts or 1000 times the amount.

Add to this the fact that the Chernobyl reactor was built in the 50s with little to regard to safety, with no confinement chambers etc. Comparing this to the modern day reactors is like comparing a flying boat to airbus A380.

Airbus flies. Just five years after the Wrights' first flight, Orville Wright was in the first fatal airplane crash, which left Orville severely injured and his passenger dead. Thorium is not flying.

Shadow Minister: Hear,hear and well said Sir!

Moreover, timely sanity and informed comment added to the debate. If folk would like to be more fully informed?

Read Ivy league Professor (ret) Robert Hargreaves's, Thorium cheaper than coal, or sit through former NASA scientist Kirk Sorensen's short eye opening introductory, thorium in four minutes, and available free on U tube and google tech talks.

Failing that, read prize winning investigative Journalist, Richard Martin's book, Super fuel, subtitled green energy. Or also listen on google tech talks, where he gives a short informative encapsulation.

Lastly know this, the sun waxes and wanes. When it waxes the joint warms up and ice melts/retreats. When it wanes as now and since the mid seventies. (NASA) What you normally get in normal cyclical weather, is a cooling period that could even usher in an ice age. Not record after record breaking heat waves and wild fires of hitherto unknown ferocity! And myriad other extreme weather events!

Just As Big tobacco and Asbestos knew and hid the truth from the public! So also the fossil fuel industry. And for the same myopically focused reason, profits and the profit curve!

I'd advise anyone currently investing in coal mining to cut their losses and sell their shares, reinvest their money in Australian lithium mining.

We have three mines currently on the go and feverishly prospecting looking for more now that the Tesla Giga battery plant has been switched on by Musk!

NNN. There are just three kinds of folk commenting here, those that can count and those that can't! Even a two year old Granddaughter knows 2+2 = 4!

You'll have a nice day now y'hear.
Alan B.

Trump's Climate policy?

"Yes we have no bananas"

Drooled the Tweeting Toupee!

The IAEA source cited in this article for the figures on collective dose states:

'Some perspective on these estimated doses from human activities can be gained by
comparison with those from natural sources. An estimated 13,000,000 man-sievert due to natural sources (e.g., cosmic rays, potassium-40 in the body, and radon gas) is delivered each year to the world population (2400 micro-sievert x 5.4 x 109 persons).'

Natural radiation is about 20 times greater *per year* than the *collective* dose cited by Green relating to *the worst* nuclear accident ever - which no one is advocating. This is entirely typical of the way Green cherry picks sources to suit a pre-determined argument.

For a 2014 meta-review on the evidence pertaining purported health impacts from NPPs , try
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF CHILDHOOD LEUKAEMIA AROUND NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS by Janiak (55 published papers, h-index 12, 536 citations) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4146329/pdf/drp-12-349.pdf .

Otherwise, this is just padded with fearmongering misdirection relating to stolen medical sources and nuclear weapons, which no one is advocating.

Ben Heard: Heard you Ben.

Hear, hear and well said Ben!

To the rest, and the editor in Chief, Graham Young. Best wishes for the festive season and merry Christmas to all who comment here.

Good will to all Men and all the Ladies too, especially the Ladies, i.e., Foxy and her Mum.
Alan B.

2+2=4 . Does 0=1 ? There are experiments but no Thorium reactor .
Santa Claus recommends Thorium .

Readers have a right to know that:
* Ben Heard's 'environment' group accepts secret corporate donations. In his words, he "will respect the company’s right to privacy"!
* Heard's last gig was for the coal mining funded, grotesquely racist Minerals Council of Australia.
* Before that, he took money from General Atomics ‒ a US corporation which is up to its neck in drone warfare and thus in the slaughter of innocents.
* Heard rarely disclosed his General Atomics funding when spruiking for nukes ... disclosure isn't his strong point.
* Heard is possibly the first and hopefully the last person to ask for donations when speaking to small, unfunded community groups.
#followthemoney
This is what the stridently pro-nuclear South Australian Royal Commission said about Heard's Gen IV nuclear power plans: "[A]dvanced fast reactors and other innovative reactor designs are unlikely to be feasible or viable in the foreseeable future. The development of such a first-of-a-kind project in South Australia would have high commercial and technical risk. Although prototype and demonstration reactors are operating, there is no licensed, commercially proven design. Development to that point would require substantial capital investment."
Heard got a $55,000 government grant to come up with his eccentric Gen IV proposal and, needless to say, he refused to repay one cent of that money. #followthemoney
And that neatly sums up his nuclear lobbying business ‒ lots of money, not much sense, can't even win over nuclear advocates to his crackpot ideas.
http://www.archive.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/ben-heard-decarbonisesa

The critique of anybody from the "baseload is dead and storage is licked society" must be taken with the smallest grain of salt. Also, it's ingenuous to lump hydro into claims supporting renewables. Hydro was here before solar, wind and friends and will be so long as climatic conditions allow (ask Tasmania, BTW). It's what's beyond hydro that is at question.

If anyone lives in Lalaland it's you, Max. Your approach is entirely built upon the edifice of burning gas, which will oftentimes be needed to produce nearly all main-grid electricity, so full infrastructure must be built to do so.

Doesn't Germany's failure with renewables inform your thoughts a jot? It's spent billions upon billions while being connected to Nordic hydro and French nuclear but still builds coal and has growing emissions. It's a dead-end as far as the main-grid is concerned.

FOE does go very, very hard at Mr Heard! He must be onto something.

Dear readers,

I thank Jim for his response. In particular, his pointed inability to address the substance of the argument, and instead launch a fully blown personal attack, is telling as to the quality of his original piece.

I and the board and members are incredibly proud of our organisation Bright New World. www.brightnewworld.org . Our donations policy is publicly available and posted here https://www.brightnewworld.org/how-to-give-our-donations-policy/ . Our policy is consistent with NGO practice.

I am also very proud of this well-researched piece on the history and current practices of uranium mining industry of Australia. Readers can enjoy learning more about the previously substandard practices and how these have evolved over time . http://www.minerals.org.au/file_upload/files/publications/Environmental_impacts_of_uranium_mining_in_Australia_May_2017_WEB.pdf

I am very proud to have delivered the *mandatory* greenhouse gas and energy reporting for the Beverley mining operations for several year under the National Greenhouse And Energy Reporting Scheme, all of which is then lodged publicly. A few thousand Australian corporations are captured by this legislation. They were a smaller client but it was good honest work. Not funding; work.

I am very proud of the investigation we undertook, in response to a brief, into opportunities in the nuclear fuel cycle which preceded the Royal Commission. The work became the submission to that process for the Department of State Development, and is also publicly available. Our findings were replicated nearly entirely by the Royal Commission report, which did indeed take a different view as to the readiness of advanced reactor technology. Some agree with that decision, some (including I) don't.

I am also proud to have, on occasion, passed a hat around after providing and professional and informative session, free of charge. People seem delighted to thank me in this way when given the opportunity.

In summary *I don't do* work that I am not proud of, and willing to discuss. To the contrary, I *want* to discuss it. Jim has, for years, wanted me to be something I simply am not.

My email address is ben@brightnewworld.org. I'm happy to take any questions at anytime.

A happy holiday season to all.

Some are very keen to tell us what we should not use to generate
electricity, but not too keen on explaining what we can use now that
solar & wind are off menu.

It appears we cannot divert the energy available to build solar & wind
in the time before the first ones are worn out.
Read Ugo Bardi's article;

http://tinyurl.com/yakte33o

Now that the required amount of batteries are too expensive pumped
hydro seems the only backup if we want to defy logic and use Solar & Wind.

http://tinyurl.com/yb85rk8o

It seems we are between a rock & a hard place.

Jim,

Ben Heard doesn't have squeaky green credentials, so what, you labelling the Minerals Council grotesquely racist simply indicates how far you have left the reservation. By your own logic, you are so biased that your postings cannot be taken without a large pinch of salt, and your polemic "friends of the earth" article reeks of desperation.

That there are several fast breeder reactors running commercially and more being built clearly shows that this technology is in its ascendancy, mainly due to its ability to consume the U238 as well as the U235 which makes its use of uranium orders of magnitude more efficient than most existing reactors, and not only does it produce a tiny fraction of the waste, but can burn the waste products of other reactors and the byproducts of the enrichment process. In short the existing waste from these older reactors could fuel the world's power needs for generations.

However, the restrictions the RC put on fast breeder reactors meant that Aus would only adopt them decades after other countries.

What a disgraceful and irrelevant personal reply by Jim Green to Ben Heard. It only illustrates the poor intellectual standard of his argument.