Helen,

“There is nothing I’m afraid of like scared people”

Robert Frost

I have to agree with JBowyer. Your contributions have been obtuse, over complicated, emotional and full of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. There are many in our societies who are vulnerable to this sort of rhetoric. You are full of problems; you exclude any practical alternatives and offer no solutions. In the real world your rantings would attract a response such as; go check your facts, stop using the opinion of others, select sources that offer a non prejudicial view and finally, if you can’t do that, visit the Human Resources Office on your way out and collect your long brown envelope.

I have to wonder what marvel of human excellence might have been achieved were it not for such as yourself.

Sir Vivor, thank you for your measured response. You may be right about Denmark producing 11% of its energy needs from renewable sources. Given that we have not developed clean coal (without of course burning even more coal). The best that has been achieved from renewables is 11%, Australia has not produced any analysis of what we “might” achieve from renewable sources (either from a technical or economic perspective), no nuclear, no dirty coal and no destructive dams. If we look towards 2020, I think we are left with only one alternative that is to reduce consumption.

This leaves us with no technological solutions and a socio-economic problem. The answer it seems is to impose a carbon tax that will compound the residual socio-economic problems.

It is indeed true that “what we humans seek to avoid, we create.”

Dear Shadow Minister,
The paper on comparative risks which you cited appeared in an IAEA publication - given the IAEA's long track record of denying the health effects of Chernobyl there is no possibility that it was accurate. It contains no information on how the risks of nuclear were calculated. It is 18 years old. It is certain that, even if the health effects of routine discharges were taken into account, out-dated estimates based on ICRP were used. There is no point in debating this topic without considering the most recent information. ICRP has said its risk estimates cannot be used for post-accident exposures, which inevitably means that they cannot be used for exposures to routine emissions either

Richard Bramhall,

Your out of hand rejection of the independent study because the results were published in an IEAE paper are typical of the knee jerk reaction of the green movement to any information that does not support their cause. No independent study of this nature will ever be published in an anti nuke paper because it completely undermines the anti nuke rhetoric.

I challenge you to provide an independent study on the issue that significantly differs significantly from this.

The study was done independently in the UK, and whilst being 20 yrs old, the epidemiology of radiation has not changed significantly, and the fuzzy unknowns to which you refer are unlikely to alter the orders of magnitude difference between the safety of nuclear and all other technologies.

This means that if all coal fired generation was replaced today with nuclear there would be hundreds of thousands of lives saved, not including the loss due to climate change.

More information can be found here:

http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/Storage/82/7798_J2.3_Att_2_PSI_Comparison_of_Fossil_Nuclear_and_Hydro_Severe_Accidents_2001.pdf

Here is a link to a summary of another big study (from 1991) from the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It compares cancer deaths from 16 cancers, including childhood leukemia, between US counties that did or did not have a nuclear power plant

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/nuclear-facilities

" 'From the data at hand, there was no convincing evidence of any increased risk of death from any of the cancers we surveyed due to living near nuclear facilities,' said John Boice, Sc.D., who was chief of NCI's Radiation Epidemiology Branch at the time of the survey."

It is hard to believe that this result could occur if nuclear power were as dangerous as Dr. Caldicott and her supporters claim. If I had to choose between living near a coal fired power plant and living near a nuclear plant, I would certainly pick nuclear.

Shadow Minister,

Richard Bramhall stated in his email above is that the (1) IAEA has denied the health effects of the Chernobyl accident and (2) that the ICRP has said that its risk estimates cannot be used for post-accident exposures. He has also made an inference that seems quite reasonable to to me: that since post-accident exposure risk cannot be estimated using ICRP estimates, then neither can other low-level exposure risks be reliably estimated.

While you ask for an independent study comparable to the one done 18 years ago, that you cite, I wonder if you are aware (I expect you are) of the cost of duplicating such a study. Where, kind sir, is any independent researcher going to get the funds for a comparable study?

It seems obvious to me that big science is funded by big business, big governments or big international agencies. The big boys have the spondulics to design and carry out the studies, and the big boys can afford to publicise their results.

Unfortunately, this does not falsify the theories of the little guys; nor does challenging them to throw your kind of stone at Goliath, because no other stone will do.

Can any one of you people who are so vehemently opposed to modern nuclear power please tell me how YOU propose we get rid of the world's current nuclear waste?

Reality check: The ONLY way we can permanently rid the world of the highly radioactive actinides which we now term "nuclear waste" is through transmutation. Luckily enough, this can be achieved in an Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), which also happens to be able to provide us with LOADS of power for hundreds of years to come. The current volume of waste we have NOW will be reduced by two orders of magnitude and will be less radioactive than naturally occuring uranium-238 in less than 300 years, not 20,000.

By opposing IFRs you are essentially, pro highly radioactive "waste".

Also, the energy efficiency argument is utter rubbish. In a perfect world, maybe. It is utter fantasy to suggest that even Australia (one of the largest per capita GHG emitters in the world) will REALISTICALLY cut electricity consumption to the point where a 100% renewable energy based economy becomes viable.

To put into perspective the type of society we're trying to transform here I'll just mention this: I live with a guy who works for Greenpeace. He'll happily talk to me about "energy efficiency" and the evils of nuclear power, and then go and turn on an electric blow-heater in his bedroom, every day and night, all winter. We just got a $700 power bill because of it. And you're telling me that the rest of society is going to somehow miraculously become "energy efficient"? You have to be kidding me.

And let's not even start the discussion on the likelihood of developing nations such as India and China suddenly using less energy...

I respect Professor Diesendorf's enthusiasm for renewables, but honestly, I think it's the height of ignorance to suggest that the entire planet is going to become energy efficient enough to be powered 100% by renewables anytime in the foreseeable future.

As for Dr. Caldicott...the arguments made sense 30 years ago. Time to reevaluate.