I am sorry I must be wrong. I relied on an Indian engineer who had worked on a breeder reactor. I think he said that bombs required U238, but of course I took it for granted that he was an expert giving a lecture to Engineers Australia (Institute of Engineers).

We can't trust those with expertise and experience can we. What did you say your qualifications and experience are?

Anti-green

You've really hit the bottom of the barrel when you attempt to separate the "anti-nuclear camp" from the "nuclear physicists, engineers and health experts."

Only last year an open letter was sent to Tony Blair over his proposal to return to nuclear energy.

The 40 signatories objecting to nuclear power, included nuclear security scientists, engineers, health experts, professors of physics etc. Their accreditations are too numerous to list here. These are eminent professionals with science degrees.

Your inane endeavours to separate Dr Caldicott from the sciences reduces your credibility. Entry into the medical faculty requires proficient levels in physics, chemistry, maths and biology.

You claim we see conspiracies in everything. Incorrect, we see conspiracies when there is one.

An example is the Uranium Information Centre in Australia where they play down the Chernobyl disaster by stating that only 56 people have died. However, Nikola Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine said at least 500,000 have already died out of the 2 million officially classed as victims in Ukraine.

Why are American medical teams still visiting Belarus, the worst affected area, to treat victims in 2006 and 2007? Statistics reveal a 250% increase in congenital birth deformities and a 2,400% increase in thyroid cancers.

Professor Edmund Lengfelder, who has conducted a clinic in Belarus since 1991, wrote, 15 years after the explosion, that he has witnessed a "massive increase in non-malignant diseases."

The Soviet government has been exposed for conducting an enormous cover-up and a criminal neglect of its people. The West, including the IAEA are equally guilty by their spin, in an endeavour to dupe the masses, by concealing the lingering horrors of radioactive releases over communities.

Many of us have witnessed the continual incompetence of Australian governments and their regulators, in their failure to protect public health.

You will have to do better than condescendingly suggesting that opponents to the nuclear industry are radiophobics or hysterical eco-warriors, Anti-green.

Thank you for delighting on nuke bomb/energy issue, Atom1,however, producing a nuke bomb for Nazi Germany rather than fulfilling a demand on power supply was an initial engine of accelereting an applied nuclear science/engineering.

What vessel, LOGIC? It could be in a case of Chernobyl as useful as drainage in the NYC subway recently.

Problem with Chernobyl is much more internationally complicated than simple disaster-related lies by Gorbachev & Co those days, DICKIE. And a bunch of well-connected international bureaucrats with supposedly-imaginable particular knowledge in engineering / medicine / bio-ecology, leashed with short-term contracts by demanding the particular "international reporting" context, had presented the UN Report on Chernobyl more recently, neither consequences of an event nor recommendations reflected a shadow of reality but subversive-ness to bosses extending the contracts at the UN.

Dickie,

Your latest hysterical rant is noted.

You should be aware that unverified statements by “so called” experts are valueless. The opinions that you are voicing are not published in the open scientific literature, and so can not be objectively analysed.

If you want to be taken seriously then provide the published evidence for your claim.

Like it or not the membership of UNSCEAR and similar organisations have solid scientific credentials. A little reflection should make it clear to you that scientists and engineers employed by the nuclear energy industries also have credibility. Since charlatan characters would soon put their company out of business.

[If the cap fits wear it.]

Logic, ("What did you say your qualifications and experience are?") just 7 1/2 years of unpaid, non vested interest research, with experts, stemming from a dire awareness of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

I could argue how is it that you learnt seemingly all you need to know about reactors from one lecture, but instead point out that I think you mean neutrons in the fission chain reaction, not electrons (though electrons tend to be somewhat involved in the transfer of charge along a conductor - ie electrical current).

You also said "the ultimate problem with Chernobyl was that it didn't have a containment vessel, something which all reactors built outside of Russia have." This is not the case with the ever-present risks posed by nuclear powered sea vessels.

And if you "relied on an Indian engineer who had worked on a breeder reactor" then he should have told you how unsuccessful they have proven to be.

Again, I encourage proponents and those lead astray by the trojan horse of a climate "debate" to read up on the many hidden truths about the nuclear industry from those with no vested financial interests before assuming all's ok via someone within the very industry. It's like asking the mining-funded Uranium Information Centre for objectivity.

Randwick, it's disingenuous to attempt to simplify that to be anti-nuclear is to be pro-coal. As for Dr Helen Caldicott (whom I have met), she would clarify that to be anti nuclear is to be pro-DNA.

Demonstrating a prime issue of concern by Dr Caldicott such as with the Indian Point nuclear plant, NY, the premise still stands: had nuclear power existed in WW2 it is highly likely that much of Europe and the UK would have been rendered totally uninhabitable from conventional bombing alone.

http://www.icanw.org

logic

You are in the denial business.

I gave the example of a preventable accident at a toxic waste chemical treatment plant in Queensland that is coincidentally located near a large metropolitan population and an endangered environment.

That plant imports toxic waste to treat and is claimed by technocrats to be leading edge and absolutely safe.

In return you criticised Dr Caldicott and called for faith in technocrats.

My example proved that Where profits are concerned (and that is the name of the game, isn't it?) management controls will be circumvented, it is only a question of when. It was proof that government bureaucrats cannot always be relied upon not to go asleep at the wheel. It was proof that private industry can always be trusted to 'lean' on politicians to remove pesky controls and inspections. After all, what industry doesn't argue that self-regulation by its 'informed' managers and technocrats is superior to government 'red tape'?

The chemical plant near Brisbane is real as was the toxic plume from the fire. You would think they would be embarrassed enough to clean up quickly. But no, that is never the case unless a big stick is applied and government is reluctant to do that. Politics!

In trying to draw a poor analogy with medical doctors you omit to say that many scientists are opposed to nuclear energy and even those for it have not solved the twin problems of: 1) safe waste disposal; and 2) nuclear arms escalation.

The most foremost country in nuke technology, the good old US of A is looking for somewhere to dump waste and our PM wants to help. It is about dollars. They will have to hurry because he is about to find another job.

I note that the nuke industry has come back to the idea of dumping the most poisonous waste in the ocean. Some things never change.

I also note that New York is presently in lock down in fear of a dirty bomb being exploded. Some things never change.