AntiGreen; Contrary to what you say, CERRIE voted twice to include the dissenting material. Only one member voted against. Those decisions were reversed at the final meeting, after the Chair, Dudley Goodhead, produced legal opinions from two Government departments - vaguely threatening woffle laced with unspecified suggestions of libel. The wimps caved in. This is the way a flawed paradigm is defended.
I already said how "A million dead after Chernobyl” is derived. No confounders have been proposed for the infant leukaemia. You know that individual dosimetry is impossible; the suggestion that it's needed is a familiar pro-nuclear ploy because dose is a false consideration. One has to ask "Dose to what target? - what does it mean in terms of ionisation density?" Similarly no-one can provide details for all confounders and interaction. Be rational please.
Your leukaemia quotes are familiar territory. Most of the uncertainty derives from the difficulties of dose reconstruction and the wrong assumption that incidence has to conform with a linear dose response. This, as I already said, is the Chernobyl Forum view of the upsurge in ill-health which they admit is real. On the same grounds ICRP totally ignores Chernobyl and the chance it offers of learning something new.
Your point about cancer registries not reporting a spike in radiation induced cancers is incomprehensible. Radiation induced cancers look no different to cancers induced by other factors; nothing could be learnt about the increase in medical exposures unless one did a prospective study. CERRIE reported that in principle there is no difference between nuclear industry fallout and many nuclides used medically. The ECRR also is concerned - see http://www.euradcom.org/2009/lesvosdeclaration.htm (points 8 and 9).
There is a global cancer epidemic. It began with the nuclear era and shows variations in incidence with variations in fallout. It doesn't conform with the ICRP model which, for internal exposures, all sides now admit has a wrong basis in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A bomb survivors. Flatly contradicting your conclusion, the evidence implies a 300 - 1000-fold error in ICRP standards.

Posted on behalf of Richard Clapp:

There is so much misinformation (or disinformation) on some of the posts vilifying Dr. Caldicott that one hardly knows where to start. Let me say that she has been and continues to be an internationally recognized medical leader in the effort to raise key issues regarding nuclear weapons and nuclear power generation. I would like to associate myself with previous responses by my compatriots Dave Kraft and Mary Olson and not repeat the points they have made. Also, several people have noted that the exposures to people living near a normally operating nuclear plant are typically small - like “eating a banana” was one analogy I had never seen before. This misses the point. The issue is the fuel cycle, and in fact the highest exposures are in mining and milling operations, both to the workers and the surrounding community residents. The full fuel cycle needs to be taken into account when talking about human exposures. I have written about this in an editorial in Environmental Health Perspectives (see http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2005/113-11/editorial.html)
There were several references to alternative energy and the health and environmental impacts of fuel generation methods besides nuclear fission. The most effective “no regrets” alternatives, including conservation, wind and solar generation are readily available. A recent report by the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment called “Healthy Solutions for the low Carbon Economy” discusses these issues (see http://chge.med.harvard.edu/programs/ccf/healthysolutions.html).
Let’s get on with these alternatives and stop the name-calling.

There are many who intuitively feel that the more socially complex the “explanation”, the less likely it is to be true.

We have reached an impasse in nuclear energy debate for the same reason; the anti-nuclear “explanations” have become so obtuse and complex that the age old principle of “bull dust baffles brains” has kicked in.

It is curious that the debate has been diverted to areas of speculation and complex explanations when we have a real life example of what is being achieved. Yet for some reason, the Green lobby refuses to engage with this reality.

We have in France, a modern developed nation, with little in the way of natural carbon based resources, with the largest per capita source of nuclear power generation (74 x nuclear power stations) and a combined Hydro/Nuclear contribution of 80% of its power needs.

So why one might ask, do the “Caldicotts” of this world not offer comparison of all things nuclear, negative and nasty with what has already exists? Where are the comparisons of health, waste, cost and carbon emissions with a real life working example?

If there is anywhere in the world where it makes real sense to compare these critical issues, it is where what we seek to achieve in a low carbon economy, has already been done!

Similar comparisons must also be offered in relation to renewable energy. Why is it so unreasonable to ask the questions, where in the world is any nation achieving more than 10% of its energy needs for any combination of renewable sources? How are they doing it? And how might we improve on that?

Spindoc,

you say:
"There are many who intuitively feel that the more socially complex the “explanation”, the less likely it is to be true.

We have reached an impasse in nuclear energy debate for the same reason; the anti-nuclear “explanations” have become so obtuse and complex that the age old principle of “bull dust baffles brains” has kicked in."

Did you mean "abstruse", rather than "obtuse"? Just clarifying. Even so, I'm not sure what you mean.

Let's look at something simple, then.
Atom 1 recalls Helen Caldicott saying elsewherre "that the sensible use of clothes lines in place of electric laundry dryers where possible in the US alone would negate the nation's "need" for nuclear power."

Ah, if only it were so, everyone. The USA's "need" for nuclear electricity is inextricably woven into its "need" for nuclear weapons, and the sensible use of a cloths lines will not produce highly enriched uranium, plutonium or tritium.

I have such a difficult time understanding how the risk of nuclear holocaust or other state or non-state use of nuclear weapons factors in to your opinion of the safety of nuclear electricity.

I repeat, simply and non-abstrusely:
nuclear fuel is a proliferation threat

nuclear reactors are glowing, pulsing nuclear targets
and
while the risk of a national nuclear nuclear catastrophe may be low, the consequences are extremely damaging to the population health and the economy of the affected nation (and maybe its neighbours).

If you expect to be taken serously by anyone other than the choir you are singing to, you need to come up with authoritative estimates regarding these risks.

Spindoc,
perhaps you could strike a blow for peace and non-proliferation by organising the shipment of 1 million Hills Hoists to Iran, along with a volunteer corps to help erect them and explain to the Iranians how useful, energy efficient and non-proliferative they are.

You could go along yourself, and engage in some enlightened social exchange with people from a different culture and mindset.
Doesn't that sound interesting?

Richard Bramhall

We will just have to agree to disagree.

Lead the way John Loretz (Richard Clapp?) whatever. You lead the way and get stuck into working out renewables and whilst you are about it disconnect gas electric and water from your house. You and the greens can then collectively achieve an instant, and a long term fix eventually. Do not forget to tell your hero Al Gore to scrap the executive jet and disconnect utilities from his mansions there's a good chap, OK?