Protagorass,

If you look at Caldicott's lofty introduction on the site:

Author's website: Nuclear Policy Research Institute

http://www.nuclearpolicy.org/

You get adverts for cars etc.

Contrary to your assertions I also don't find any reference to physics or chemistry quoted in her bio.

http://www.helencaldicott.com/cv.htm

If she is so knowledgable then some of the things she stated in her post are deliberate falsehoods and not due to ignorance such as:

"and the high grade reserves will last only one or two decades if nuclear energy production were to be expanded"

and

"Consumption of fossil fuels to mine, mill and enrich low grade ore become so large that nuclear energy will emit comparable quantities of CO2 from an equivalent combined cycle gas-fired plant."

These are only true if one considers the older 1960s type reactor designs and not the designs presently being built.

As for the "Bulletin of the Atomic scientists"

Their articles include:

Hiroshima, (re)visited
Still surviving Hiroshima
Hiroshima and the power of pictures
Reprocessing isn't the answer
The safety inadequacies of India's fast breeder reactor
It is 5 Minutes to Midnight
etc

Need I say more?

Getting lots of famous people to sign on does not mean that it does not have a specific political agenda.

Some links you should read:
http://www.candu.org/candu_reactors.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_CANDU_Reactor
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2006/uranium_resources.html

Something that is a great source of amusement is your comment "since you never flinch from an opportunity to scheme and plot (no matter how sordid)". I get a distinct whiff of paranoia :)

I assume from your personal attacks you don't have the technical know how to grasp the science and need to rely on emotion.

From your statement "He who knows nothing is closer to the truth" You must a god.

DU is a heavy metal 160% more dense than lead and can remain within the body for many years and slowly solubilize. High levels of urinary uranium have been measured in PGW veterans 10 years after exposure to DU fragments and vapors. In rats, there is strong evidence of DU accumulation in tissues including testes, bone, kidneys, and brain. In vitro tests indicate that DU alloy may be both genotoxic and mutagenic, whereas a recent in vivo study suggests that tissue-embedded DU alloy may be carcinogenic in rats. There is limited available data for reproductive and teratological deficits from exposure to uranium per se, typically from oral, respiratory, or dermal exposure routes. This paper reviews published studies of reproductive toxicity in humans and animals from uranium or DU exposure, and discusses ongoing animal research to evaluate reproductive effects in male and female rats embedded with DU fragments, and possible consequences in F1 and F2 generations.”

US weapons makers very concerned [8]

Oak Ridge Y-12 weapons Plant, Tennessee.

The study also found elevated death rates for brain cancer, several lymphopoetic (immune system) cancers, as well as cancers of the prostate, kidney and pancreas. Excess death from breast cancer among women was found. The authors found excess lung cancer as their main finding and urged that this disease warrants continued surveillance An earlier study found similar risks, with a marginal dose-response trend for lung cancer only. (Dana P. Loomis and Susanne H. Wolfe, Mortality of Workers at a Nuclear Materials Production Plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1947-1990, American Journal of Medicine, 1996, 29:131-141,Harvey Checkoway, Neil Pierce, Douglas J. Crawford-Brown, and Donna Cragle, Radiation Doses and Cause-Specific Mortality Among Workers at a Nuclear Materials Fabrication Plant, American Journal of Epidemiology, 1998, 127:2:255-266.)”

The K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Tennessee.

“Excess risks of dying found for white males when compared to general population rates. Other statistically significant increases among white males were for cancers of the respiratory system, bone cancer, mental disorders and all respiratory diseases including pneumonia. Increased risks of dying from kidney cancer and chronic nephritis (kidney disease) was found. The latter condition was more than 600 percent higher when deaths from the last decade of follow-up was observed.(Elizabeth A. Dupree, Susan M. Wells, Janice P. Watkins, Phillip W. Wallace, Nancy C. Davis, Mortality Among Workers Employed between 1945 and 1984 at a Uranium Gaseous Diffusion Facility, Draft Report, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.”

Fernald Uranium Processing Plant, Ohio.

“Significant increased risks of dying from stomach cancer were found among salaried workers (261 percent higher than expected). Hourly workers increased death risks were found for all cancers (21 percent higher) and lung cancer (26 percent higher). (Donna L. Cragle, Janice P. Watkins, J. Nicholas Ingle, Kathryn Robertson-Demers, William G.. Tankersley, Charles M. West, Mortality Among a Cohort of White Male Workers at a Uranium Processing Plant: Fernald Feed Materials Production Center [FMPC], Radiation Research
Linde Air Products Co., NY. Statistically significant increased risks of dying from all causes (18 percent higher), laryngeal cancer (447 percent higher), all circulatory diseases (18 percent higher), arteriosclerotic heart disease (19 percent higher), all respiratory diseases (52 percent higher) and pneumonia (217 percent higher) were found among workers who processed uranium at this facility between 1943 and 1949. (Elizabeth A. DuPree, Donna Cragle, Richard, W. McLain, Douglas Crawford-Brown, M. Jane Teta, Mortality among workers at a uranium processing facility, the Linde Air Products Company Ceramics Plant, 1943- 49, Scandinavian Journal of Worker and Environmental Health, 1987, 13:100- 107.)

If she is so knowledgable then some of the things she stated in her post are deliberate falsehoods and not due to ignorance such as:

"and the high grade reserves will last only one or two decades if nuclear energy production were to be expanded"

and

"Consumption of fossil fuels to mine, mill and enrich low grade ore become so large that nuclear energy will emit comparable quantities of CO2 from an equivalent combined cycle gas-fired plant."

"These are only true if one considers the older 1960s type reactor designs and not the designs presently being built."

Isn’t stupidity and malignant egophrenia peculiar maladies Shadow Minister?

Only Canada has high grade uranium ore. With your "designs presently being built" (though presently failing) high grade ore will be exhausted in the near future.

Permit me to provide the most recent emissions' report, from the Olympic Dam low-grade uranium mine, where comprehension of the scientific measurements, I trust, will not be beyond your "itellectual" capacities.

The following emissions, where the majority of chemicals oxidize to CO2, form tropospheric ozone or acid rain, are but part of the report. Alas, I am aware of your ignorance on environmental toxicology and as a result, one cannot give some people more than they're prepared to receive:

C0:...................................410,000kg..... up from last report
Oxides of Nitrogen.....1,600,000......... up from last report
PMs:..............................2,500,000
SO2:..............................1,100,000........ up from last report
VOCs:...............................92,000.......... up from last report
PAH:.................................49,000........... up from last report

Protagorass,

Clearly you feel real facts are an impediment to your pontifications.

If you bothered to look at
http://aua.org.au/Content/Resources.aspx or
http://www.ga.gov.au/about/corporate/ga_authors/uranium_resources.jsp or
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2006/uranium_resources.html or
http://www.thundelarra.com/documents/10%20February%202009%20High%20Grade%20Uranium%20Results%20Extend%20Thunderball.pdf

You would see that Australia has 40% of the worlds uranium that can be mined for less than US$40 /kg, and that Canada is one of many countries with high grade ore.

At present consumption rates, without further exploration, there is enough to feed present consumption for > 200 years or 100% of the worlds electricity for 30 years.

If improved reactors are used this extends to 2500 years
With further exploration and the use of lower grades this extends to 25 000 years, and with thorium this extends even further to > 200 000 years.

Having designed and installed emission monitoring systems with EPA consultation my first reaction to your statement on emissions is gales of laughter.

"The following emissions, where the majority of chemicals oxidize to CO2, form tropospheric ozone or acid rain"

These are all emissions typical from power generation and transportation, which if they had nuclear would not exist.

Talk about a home goal.

I see that a labor MP has just had the balls to stand up and admit that the emission targets are not possible without nuclear. Maybe the light is starting to filter through that reality differs significantly from the political rhetoric.

fyi: Storing nuclear waste a $24-billion problem

"There are two million high-level radioactive fuel bundles sitting at temporary storage sites in Canada, as the Nuclear Waste Management Organization wrestles with the mandate of finding a community to host a central storage facility for the waste for perhaps tens of thousands of years."

"The cost of a facility based on the concept, estimated by AECL in 1991 dollars, would range from $8.7 billion for five million fuel bundles to $13.3 billion for 10 million bundles, excluding financing costs, taxes, non-routine activities (such as waste retrieval), transportation and any extended monitoring stages," according to the report."
More: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/18/f-nuclear-waste-storage.html

Furthermore, however, even IF nuclear was insurable and had no emissions (GHG or radioactive) from the mining, milling, processing, enrichment, reprocessing, waste management and all construction and related transports; even IF it posed no repeatedly demonstrated WMD proliferation concerns (safeguards don't even apply to military facilities or guarantee inspections of civil facilties); even IF there was a radioactive waste management solution for the immense periods required.... nuclear still only attempts to address approx ONE THIRD of the global source of greenhouse emissions – generating electricity (International Energy Agency).