I would imagine that far more people die today due to this pagan religion than needs to. People who have suitable heating and cooling (especially the aged) are no doubt better off and live longer. Helen's religion in the name of pseudo science is really hypocritical considering the great benefits nearly all Australians have because of coal.

Contd...

4. 2009: "Pakistan's military has strenuously rejected allegations by a British academic that al-Qaida is targeting the country's nuclear facilities in an attempt to obtain weapons for use against the west. In an article for a US military journal, Professor Shaun Gregory, of the University of Bradford, said al-Qaida and the Taliban had targeted the country's nuclear infrastructure three times in the last two years."

5. 2009: "Britain’s nuclear power and weapons plants have been plagued by more than 1,700 leaks, breakdowns and other mishaps over the past seven years, according to a secret report by the government’s chief nuclear inspector, Mike Weightman. The report, released under freedom of information legislation, reveals the catalogue of incidents and accidents that have confronted the UK safety watchdog, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), Six fires and nine leaks have happened in the last six months."

6. 2009: "ITER — a multi-billion-euro international experiment boldly aiming to prove atomic fusion as a power source — will initially be far less ambitious than physicists had hoped, Nature has learned. Faced with ballooning costs and growing delays, ITER's seven partners are likely to build only a skeletal version of the device at first. Nature poster stated: “Scientists who keep promising results to government leaders and the public taxpayers are fundamentally dishonest.... The proposed ITER is not even being designed to actually work as anything more than a test and certainly never as a prototype working reactor. Let's end this program now and find a better approach."

7. 2009: "It’s one of the world’s dirtiest jobs and it’s going to cost at least £70 billion - and it’s already going wrong. The mammoth task of cleaning up the radioactive mess created by more than half a century of nuclear power and weapons is running into problems across the UK, according to a report from the government’s nuclear watchdog. In Scotland, technical cock-ups, maintenance oversights and bureaucratic delays have been dogging the decommissioning of old nuclear plants around the country."

Vietnam ChrisPer? But of course ignorance is as ignorance does and exemplified by your ad homs.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-02/05/content_303315.htm

Protagoras,

You are a bit full of yourself.

"To construct a logical argument, they would need to acknowledge the documented information I have provided in their assessments."

Your fluffy collection of snippets from anti nuke websites hardly constitute documented information. The same or more could be provided for any industy.

The existing nuclear industry is far more regulated than any other base load power industry, has far less fatalities per unit of energy and a far lower environmental impact.

The CANDU reactors which produce a fraction of the waste and can be used to burn up fissile material, have been running for decades and as such have 6 more under construction.

A thorium prototype is due for commissioning next year and if successful will reduce the dependance on uranium drastically.

Even with the programmes in place, electricity generation from nuclear reactors is likely to increase substantially from the 15% presently to about 30% by 2030.

Australia will probably stil generate 90% from fossil fuels.

Why be concerned about a nuclear weapon.
Machetes and guns are more likely to be the cause of violent death.
Cast your mind back to 1994 in Rwanda.
A 100 days and between a 800,000 to 1,000,000 people were hacked and shot to death.
The Khmer Rouge had a fair whack at genocide as well amongst many others.
Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki there has been no use of nuclear weapon in a war situation.
Life is full of risk even without nuclear power so I cant see why we should deny ourselves the benefit that nuclear power may bring.
The worlds population is about 6.75 billion people today and 1/4 do not have access to electrcity leaving them with an appalling standard of living.
By the time 2050 rolls around with 9 billion plus people we will need every source of energy we can muster to provide even a basic standard of living for all.

Helen Caldicott is a person who is just so full of herself. I watched her condescending description of "comforting" President Reagan which made her an absolute laughing stock. Every time I see her there is some other committee or organisation she is running. Spanish Prime Ministers Science committee, really? truly? Wow!
I am amazed she didn't tell us about her being a child medical specialist. I honestly believe she is a typical fantasist who makes up stuff and just bluffs her way through. The admiral Andrew Denton certainly gave her so many free kicks on his program but I am sure the truth will come out eventually.

My Parents were a support to me not only when I was growing up, but right up to the day they died. I can't imagine not supporting and helping my children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren if I should live so long, and I don't believe I am Robinson Crusoe.
So how is it that we believe so strongly in supporting our children as individuals, yet we are so uncaring collectively?
We take out loans at compound interest for short term gains, which inevitably push up prices for real commodities, we pollute the environment, we use up irreplaceable resources like oil, coal and uranium, we cut down forests and destroy ecologies that have taken thousands of years to form, we cause untold extinctions, we create toxic wastes that will be hazardous for millennia, and we trust our children to clean up the mess we leave.
As a baby boomer, this is not how I want history to remember me.