My short question is -

We have the Ziggy report. I want to see the Trujillo report !

The critics of Dr. Williams will really have to do better than the above. Dr Williams' has set out a measured argument on the health hazards of the nuclear industry, and with authoritative sources quoted.
Contrast Dr Williams’ writing with that of these commentators.
We have the argument that “fossil fuel burning” is bad – (so does that make ionising radiation OK?) – and the comforting? knowledge that Taswegian has “kept a tube of yellowcake for 20 years”.
We have antigreen’s accusations of “unbalance and exaggeration” – and the argument that other things are toxic (alcohol, diet etc – does this make ionising radiation OK?)
We have pierdisus’s “millions of lives saved by the atomic bomb”. Apart from this being a dubious reading of the history of the end of the war in the Pacific – I do fail to see how that makes ionising radiation safe.
Then Sylvia puts up an argument for “poverty” as the alternative and worse health hazard. That’s an interesting one. The nuclear industry is entirely uneconomic, particularly in the costs of waste disposal and security, so future generations are likely to have both poverty (massive public debt), as well as their radiation – wherever nuclear power goes ahead.
Even white wombat thinks that all will be well – confident that there will never be accidents, spills, security risks related to nuclear power. I doubt that any risk assessment expert would agree.
Pro nuclear writers - you're going to need to do better than this - to convince anybody that the nuclear power industry is safe! Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

Let's look at how we got here.

It's not so long ago that the existence of "gases" was the dream of spiritualists. Once we got the hang of the idea that matter could be invisible yet exist all around us, we used that knowlege to crank up the industrial revolution.

Unfortunately, we hung on to the idea that if something was invisible, it was of no consequence. We have been using our terribly thin shroud of gases as a rubbish tip ever since.

If you can't see it, it's not there - right? WRONG!

We are just savages in suits.

Now we are set to repeat the same mistakes with fission energy. If you can't see it, surely it can't be much of a problem - right?

We will create intractible "badlands" - off limits to human life, because the energy inputs to remediate the problem will be in ever shortening supply. Those energy sources will fall into the hands of whoever has the power to command them.

If the present political and economic jumble is anything to go by, I would not trust the words of the captains of industry, who always profit by "externalising" the costs.

The quasi-religious utterances by the savages in suits will be the death of us.

It's time for a revolution in human attitudes.

Nuclear power is moderately less economic than coal fired power in Australia. It is not by any measure "entirely" uneconomic. Nor is it true that it creates massive public debt. The costs of waste disposal (or rather storage) and security are included in the price of electricity produced by nuclear power, as indeed are the costs of decomissioning. These costs are routinely covered by a levy on the electricity, with the levy being paid into a fund that pays for the required work when it needs to be done.

Sylvia.

Christine,

Have you ever come across the principle of hormesis? Sometimes called the adaptive response. Hormesis states that a small dose of a toxin may be beneficial. This is not to be confused with homoeopathy. In hormesis the exposure dose is small, but measurable. As with all low dose effects, the response is also small and there are statistical errors, the response may also be variable and vary for different members of the same species. If you type hormesis into Google, Google Scholar, or Pub Med you will find a plethora of papers on hormesis due to either chemical or radiation exposures. Alternatively, you could look up UNSCEAR 1994, Annex B pages 185-172 deals with human epidemiology. Other authors in this field include Myron Pollycove, Edward Calabrese, TD Luckey and many others.

The point I make is that hormesis is one of several other factors and mechanisms ensuring that the low dose response curve is not linear.

Just one example. Sponsler R and Cameron JR. summarised the findings in the 1991 report of the nuclear shipyard study in USA.* The late Professor Cameron was a member of the study team headed by Dr. Matanoski.

Study group 1. Cumulative exposure greater then 5 mGY mainly derived from CO-60 in coolant water in nuclear propelled vessels. 27,872 workers; death rate 6.4 per 1000; SMR =0.76

Study Group 2 Lower cumulative exposure less then 5 mGy. 10,348 workers;
death rate 7.1 per 1000; SMR= 0.81.

Controls, workers doing identical shipyard work, same exposure to asbestosis, and other chemical hazards. 32,510 workers; death rate 9 per 1000. SMR= 1.

Of course I do not use one example to make the leap from a correlation to a cause. Yet, these findings are none the less very impressive.

• Int J. Low Radiat; 2005; 1:463-468.
• SMR= Standardised mortality rate.

Fabulous article which is supported by some very eminent scientists:

Albert Einstein a short time after the two nuclear fission bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaski stated: "The splitting of the atom has changed everything, save our mode of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe".

Theodore B Taylor, a former nuclear weapons designer and former Deputy Director of the Defence Nuclear Agency in the USA stated:

"Increasing alarm about global climatic instabilities caused by continued release of greenhouse gases particularly CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels, has stimulated many advocates of nuclear energy to propose widescale displacement of fossil fuels by nuclear power."

"Such proposals would require building thousands of new nuclear reactors to achieve substantial global reduction in combustion of fossil fuels. This would greatly compound the dangers of destructive abuse of nuclear energy."

He said: "I have found it necessary to call for phasing out all nuclear power worldwide. To accomplish this while being responsive to the environmental disruption caused by continued large-scale use of fossil fuels, I also find it necessary to call for intense, global response to opportunities for saving energy and producing what is needed from renewable sources directly or indirectly derived from solar radiation."

Theodore Taylor's advice on solar radiation has been ignored by greedy governments since he wrote the above passages in 1996, which to me, reveals a man of wisdom and foresight and his forecasts are fitting for the mess we are in today.

Perhaps the proponents of all things nuked would be wise to access the writings of Rosalie Bertell. She has a doctorate in biometrics and has worked in the field of environmental health since 1969. She also led the Bhopal and Chernobyl Medical Commissions.

She has written a book titled: "No immediate Danger". Why the title? Because this is the "cover-up" phrase usually expounded by those with vested interests after a nuclear leak or accident occurs.

The uranium/nuke energy cycle is dirty and dangerous. Check out the increase in thyroid cancers in the USA - 103 nuke reactors yet the largest polluters on the planet!