Wow!
How to comment on this wide-ranging discussion on the un-wisdom of Australia supplying uranium to India.
We knew that it was a bad idea - for many reasons, but Melody Kemo gives an insight informed by knowledge of Indian culture and history.

What a pity that Australia, being a cultural suburb of Los Angeles, usually gets only brief sound-bites of news and information on current affairs.

So – we are so very vulnerable to “Lies, damned lies and nuclear salesmen”
Fortunately there are many in India who also view the nuclear hype with justifiable suspicion – as the US attempts to foist upon India the nuclear technology that US citizens don’t want.

So - the "nuclear renaissance" fairy tale is not yet factual. My bet is that it will indeed be a nuclear still-birth - not from any reasons of morality, health, war dangers etc, but just from the good old money factor - nuclear power's astronomic cost.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

Bravo!
It shows how complex the question of nuclear power really is, and yes how it very much associaed with the "culture" of death which now mis-rules this world---brought to the entire planet courtesy of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about over 50 years ago.

But I guess Mr Zippy had the last and best advice with his famous rallying call:
Are We Having Fun Yet? 1. http://www.zippythepinhead.com

And Mr Natural was also making fun of the deadly nuclear fathers years ago too: 2. http://www.rcrumb.com

It's a bit rich for people from wealthy countries to dispense wisdom on why poor people should not elevate themselves.

I suspect the sickness of the people near the mine site was chemical, not radiation induced. It seems to me India is in a dilemma with more people aspiring to the middle class at the same time as environmental problems such as reduced inflow to snow fed rivers. Somehow I don't think those who have upgraded from a threadbare lifestyle want to return to it. The thorium breeder reactor could be their best, perhaps only hope of sustaining a majority class which is frugal but with a few luxuries. If possible Australia should assist that goal.

In the third world hundreds of thousands of workers have died from work related illnesses as they used to do in the beginning of the industrial revolution in Europe. You could replace uranium with coal, steel, etc. By this logic all industry should be stopped in the third world, and they can return to their pre industrial serenity and destitution.

The rest of the article is an emotional / religious outburst without much substance.

Taswegian, “It's a bit rich for people from wealthy countries to dispense wisdom on why poor people should not elevate themselves.” About a decade ago there were some 16 million Indian nationals with $US millionaire status.

Millions - sixteen, out of eight hundred. With the wealthy sector of their society getting wealthier at a rate better than ten per cent per annum, it is reasonable to expect that there are now more millionaires in India as there are people in Australia.

Ah yes, heaven help the other seven hundred million plus – enormous numbers of whom are still desperately hoping for an upgrade from threadbare lifestyles. There is little likelihood that a thorium breeder reactor would be of much benefit to these within their own lifetimes. In another generation, after the spending of billions of Government rupees, those who are already affluent may gain some benefit from the exercise. But only if the optimistic designers achieve sufficient preferential funding, and all developments continuously run more smoothly than ever before.
“If possible Australia should assist that goal”.
By exporting re-processed “hot” beach-sand residue upon which Byron Bay holiday developments presently toast their feet? Recapture for the Indians that under-floor monazite which was concentrated and discarded while processing beach dunes for ilmenite, rutile, and zircon? Revisit and reprocess the old alluvial tin-mining tailings in north Queensland; or Start sand mining afresh?
Monazite varies in its thorium content, and Queensland’s north-east and north-west seem to have the best prospects. But India has no shortage of monazite-rich beach sands especially rich in thoria, even up to 14 per cent.
There is no pot of gold at the end of their, or anyone else's, nuclear rainbow. It is sad that so many are prepared to do a Faustian bargain in attempts to find it.

Its not often that I am tempted to respond to comments, but it seems like Taswegian and Shadow Minister, have parsed the article but missed the point.

No, the contamination is not caused by chemicals. Thank you for your condescention. For 20 years I have worked in OHS in Asia and know data's been collected over a period of 8 plus years. The failure to act was one reason prompting Sreedhar's resignation. He now heads up mines mineral and People (capitalisation deliberate to emphasise the importance of the community in policy and activities) (www.mmpindia.org).
The people effected are tribal farmers not industrial workers. Ethnic minorities are generally marginalised throughout the world-including in Australia. If it was chemicals, it still warrants investigation.

The majority of poor in the third world are rural farmers..they get energy from mini hydros, solar or simply stealing it from tapping into the cables supplying the affluent enclaves as they do outside my house in Vientiane.
They do not have appliances or aircondioners that warrant vast energy sources. The article points out that India will most likely use the uranium for war (let's drop the fig leaf of defence). If they had wanted to, they could have built reactors ages ago using domestic uranium.

Large energy programs benefit the already wealthy, not the poor who suffer the 'fallout' from land sequestration for development (aid-awareness@aidindia.org), and the taxation burden of having to pay for them, not having tax lawyers or cronies in high places.

Nukes divert attention from suitable alternatives, energy conservation or questioning the slavish obeisance to growth economics.

Shadow Minister, I am not sure what you are getting at. If you look at www.anroav.org (of which I am a member) you will see that Asians are organising against industrial illness and accidents with greater ferocity than in Australia.

As for emotions, that is a tired old furphy. Emotions are where we make our decisions and where out ethics are based. Australia has been increasingly stripped of passion in politics. Look what had happened.

Melody,

It is clear from your article you don’t have much of a clue about nuclear issues.

First uranium 238 which is 99.9% of the ore which is mined is not toxic. The radiation levels emitted are not harmful to humans so living near a uranium deposit isn’t harmful.

Tawegian was bang on when he suggested it is infinitely more likely to be chemical poisoning the local people are suffering from. This can occur at ANY mine site if proper environmental safeguards aren’t upheld.

You quote your sole source as saying they dump the waste in the ponds at Jagdunda, yet you didn’t make it clear whether you were talking about waste materials from the reactor, or, far more likely, waste from the mining operation. The difference between the two is night and day.

India already has nuclear weapons, so even in your worst case scenario the point is moot.

Cheap electricity benefits everyone, contrary to your anti-capitalist slogans. Access to TV, radio and the internet are sought after across the third world.

Your understanding of Fast breeder reactors is poor.

You have failed to recognize that all nuclear materials have a unique signature which allows the material to be traced. Since India already has a functioning nuclear program, by selling them Uranium to use in their civil programs we haven’t changed the status quo, except to provide cheaper electricity to the people of India. Whether the gov’t of India passes on the savings is up to them.

Fast breeders require far less fuel than ordinary PHWRs. Your contention that the world only has 30 years of uranium is totally false. Uranium is one of the more abundant minerals on earth and conservative estimates based upon current gen1 and gen2 usage is more like 100years. When gen4 reactors come on line in about 30 years time they will use 1/10 the uranium of current generators. That means that the uranium can increase in price 10 fold without increasing electricity prices. At that level, minable uranium will last 1000s of years. Then there is thorium, which we also have plenty of.

Paul, you may not be aware of the considerable research being done on internal radiation doses which underpins the debate over DU: which produces a respirable oxide on impact. Internal emitters have been found to cause DNA damage and thus terotogenesis or mutagenesis. Which is what is being seen in the tribal communities. The people eat the crops grown on contaminated land and drink the water. It is not the result of external whole body dosage.

Studies of soil chemistry as far as I jknow have not revealed anything that would cause the consistent defects that are found in the district. You may not agree with the Indian earth scientists but that does not mean they are wrong..

The big issue that I see at play behind all of this to-ing and fro-ing is the clash between western cartesian materialism and without wanting to sound like a new age flake, traditional cultures which value spirituality community and others ineffable factors. Most Indians do not want nukes..simple as that. They may want electricity,(from my years of field work enough to enable their kids to read and do homework) but that comes in many guises and all roads do not lead to nukes..

Anyone remember the Bhopal disaster, where a gas leak from a Union Carbide plant killed up to 10 000 and more are dying all the time from lingering contamination?

This is double the number of all nuclear accidents around the world ever, and this is only one incident. Because it was not nuclear most people have no idea that it even happened.

Melody seems very confident to make statements on behalf of the indian population. Articles I have read would very strongly contradict her statement that most Indians oppose nuclear energy.

Accessing Greenpeace's site, listed below, will reveal the names and institutes of the 52 eminent scientists who have made the following expose possible.

Is Shadow Minister suggesting that the nuclear industry is more responsible with their operations than Union Carbide and other chemical industries? Is this why, when there is a nuclear accident, their usual spiel is fed to the public - "There is no IMMEDIATE danger."

Proponents of the nuclear industry, continue to insist that nuclear is clean and emits no radioactive materials from nuclear reactors.

Please advise me then why all nuclear reactor operators must submit emissions reports to the regulators, to show that their radioactive emissions to air (outside the reactors) are within the thresholds considered "safe" for humans and the environment.

It has been reported many times, that natural background radiation levels have significantly increased due to the anthropogenic radioactive emissions from the nuclear industry. Cancers have now increased in every nation.

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2007/aug/science/rw_leukemia.html

"Chernobyl, Ukraine — A new Greenpeace report has revealed that the full consequences of the Chernobyl disaster could top a quarter of a million cancer cases and nearly 100,000 fatal cancers.

"Our report involved 52 respected scientists and includes information never before published in English. It challenges the UN International Atomic Energy Agency Chernobyl Forum report, which predicted 4,000 additional deaths attributable to the accident as a gross simplification of the real breadth of human suffering.

"The new data, based on Belarus national cancer statistics, predicts approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl. The report also concludes that on the basis of demographic data, during the last 15 years, 60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000.

"The report also looks into the ongoing health impacts of Chernobyl and concludes that radiation from the disaster has had a devastating effect on survivors; damaging immune and endocrine systems, leading to accelerated ageing, cardiovascular and blood illnesses, psychological illnesses, chromosomal aberrations and an increase in foetal deformations."

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/chernobyl-deaths-180406

Paul L - let’s examine your comments, that Melody doesn't "have much of a clue about nuclear issues.",
and that

"First uranium 238 which is 99.9% of the ore which is mined is not toxic. The radiation levels emitted are not harmful to humans so living near a uranium deposit isn’t harmful."

The Chemical Rubber Company Handbook of Physics and Chemistry states that:
"naturally occuring uranium nominally contains 99.2830% by weight U238, 0.7110% U235 and 0.0054% U234"

And there is ample evidence of uranium toxicity.

So, Paul L, you haven't checked your facts. Who gave them to you? You plainly didn't check their sources. Are you gullible or - what?

Melanie's reply, about DU toxicity is bolstered by comments at: http://www.mapw.org.au/nuclear/du/01ippnw.html

That policy statement notes:
" … The precautionary principle states that in the absence of convincing proof that a substance or process is harmless, the presumption must be risk. This principle applies clearly to the use of DU weapons. Furthermore, DU weapons indiscriminately contaminate the places in which they are used … [from] this perspective, DU weapons should be considered a form of ecological warfare prohibited by the Geneva Conventions [10]."

If we look at your discussion of "waste in the ponds at Jagdunda" (sic), and cut to the chase by Googling Jaduguda, the correct spelling, we find a history of "locals vs polluters", about Jaduguda uranium mine pollution, that is worth closer examination. See:

http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopjdg.html

One crucial point made on that page has to do with citizen demands, made in April, 2000; among them, that

"The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board AERB, should be made autonomous from the Department of Atomic Energy, according to International norms."

This struggle, between development and regulation, is at the rotten heart of the global nuclear industry. Furthermore, current US foreign policy towards Iran clearly suggests that a "peaceful" nuclear fuel cycle will always be an oxymoron.

Jaduguda is still a hot local issue: See:
http://www.nuclear-free.com/english/jaduguda3.htm

Is it the case, Paul L, that you don't have much of a clue about nuclear issues, beyond an eagerness to promote and/or invest in uranium mining?