Spindoc,
You appear to have missed my point entirely. I expect you and I will also have to agree to disagree.

Deaths per gigawatt-year may suit your requirements for comparing electricity generation technologies. Your measure provides a comparison based on results which are currently being gathered: they are part of an ever-lengthening track record.

The difficulty is that any one of a number of disasters could dramatically skew the figures. Nuclear war, civil disorder, plant malfunction and waste stream incidents could result in catastrophic release of ionising radiation from a nuclear reactor. Wouldn't that change your figures? It may be that as a result, the deaths per year attributable to nuclear electricity would totally eclipse any of the other figures you cite (however genuinely dreary they may be).

Richard Bramhall has been persistent in his efforts to clarify the impact of the Chernobyl disaster. Perhaps there will never be another "Chernobyl", in the sense that an obsolete type of facility is drastically mismanaged and the immediate results are then hidden by the contolling authorities. But is "perhaps" good enough for you?

I'm hoping that none of the risks I enumerated are realised on a catastrophic scale, but if you believe I should feel silly for listing them, then you are mistaken.

Hydroelectric dams are about the most directly comparable to nuclear electricity, in that failures there may also result in massive devastation and loss of life. Of course with hydroelectricity, there is no radiation likely to be involved (above the natural background levels) and no legacy of radioactive contamination, and no tritium or plutonium produced for use in nuclear weapons.

It is this indestructible nexus between energy and war that only this week had international leaders applauding themselves for agreeing to reduce their nuclear weapons stockpiles and work toward nuclear disarmament, then in the next breath threatening to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

I would not care to be living close downwind of Iran these days.

You are welcome to your table of deaths per GWy. I will hold by my precautionary principal

Could Spindoc tell us whether the source quoted provides any detail of how the risk figures are built? May we know what fraction of the 0.2 deaths per GWy for nuclear power is attributed to mining the Uranium, fabricating the fuel, routine discharges, decommissioning, recycling and reusing the fuel and other materials arising from decommissioning, and disposing of the waste? May we know what population is assumed to be at risk and what the time-frame is? If not, then the figure cannot inform a scientific evaluation, neither from Sir Vivor's point of view nor from mine.

Sir Vivor, I don’t have a need to “suit my requirements for comparison” at all, I cannot challenge the data therefore I accept it. If, and only “if”, I were an expert or professional in the field, I might question how the data was derived. Since the data was research by a Pro-AGW professor, The Paul Scherrer Institute and the EU project ExternE, I am prepared to accept the data. The most important thing to remember about these figures is, as stated in the research, it is pure, raw data and not opinion. It lays to rest, permanently, all the related “mythology” presented by the anti-nuclear power lobby.

Your response seems to accept this data, primarily because you have little choice however; you then try to link a whole raft of “possible disasters” that have the potential to skew the data at some point in the future, you accept the current data but suggest “Ah! but that will all change if my worst prophesies comes true” No one can argue that your doom possibilities won’t come true. Fortunately scientists and engineers work with “probabilities” and “contingencies”.

Your next assertion will no doubt be that coal, oil and minerals should be banned because they make steel, fuel and explosives which could be used by terrorists to make truck bombs.

Just to illustrate the point further, motor vehicles are 15,000 times more deadly to humans than any threat posed by nuclear power generation. This is a measure of just how far your irrational and emotive dogma has taken you away from reality.

Richard Bramhall, you ask, does the source I quoted provide <<any detail of how the risk figures are built? >>. Yes of course it does, the entire cycle is analyzed in detail. It is data Richard, not opinion.

As to the risk and time frame assumptions you need before you accept this data as “informed scientific evaluation”. What can I say? If you’re a scientist, get the reports yourself and start picking at the methodology. If you’re not a scientist you will have to accept the data. (www.withouthotair.com

1. No significant confounding was found in the KiKK analysis. Minor confounding can only reduce the relative risk (within 5 km) of 2.2(!) insignificantly.
2. The statistical power of all ecological studies, published before and after the KiKK study, is so low that they are inconclusive w.r. to the leukemia-proximity association . Within their confidence intervals, they are consistent with KiKK! There exists no valid challenge to the KiKK findings. The assertion that there exists a real scientific controversy about the leukaemia-nuclear-power-plant (NPP)-proximity is patently false. The only true controversy is about the public policy ramifications of the KiKK findings. And if this discussion would honestly raise the question: how many destroyed lives of children and their families who live close to NPPs is an acceptable price to pay per year and per power plant for running nuclear reactors, it could lead to a meaningful debate in the context of other "accepted" risks. However, authors of ecological studies that phrase their results something like “there is no evidence that acute leukaemia in children aged under five has a higher incidence close to nuclear power plants" (Bithell, GB) instead of honestly stating "our analysis finds no evidence . . ." are deliberately misleading. None of these studies are sensitive enough to detect the strong-gradient leukaemia effect.
3. A leukaemia-proximity association must be related to an environmental risk factor. The German government and its scientific team claim, "it cannot be radiation". However, a review of all data on risk factors of acute leukaemia in children in the January 2007 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) by members of the US Centers for Disease Control finds that the only established environmental risk factor is ionizing radiation! What, if neither the assumed emissions, nor the environmental distribution, nor the risk models of the current canon of radiobiology reliably describe the KiKK exposure conditions? Read:
1. Nussbaum RH. Int J Occup Environ Health 2009;15:318-323.
2. Fairli I. Med Conflict Surviv 2009;197-220.
3. October issue of EHP in Forum-News section.

Rudi H. Nussbaum
Prof. emeritus of physics and environmental sciences
Portland State University
Portland, Oregon
USA

Gee Helen Caldicote and her cohorts always load every bit of their nonsense with Acronyms and lots of big words and convoluted phrases and think that it makes them appear intelligent.
No Helen it lets us know that you are full of it!
Another poster castigated me for not believing all the AGW, sorry climate change nonsense. I was told would all these clever clog scientists lie and cheat? No of course not, they are all doing this completely honestly so why are we questioning the same scientists when they say nuclear is safe?
This is all a power trip and I hope Helen tries in the political field again so she can be shown what people think of her views.

Dear Helen, if you insist on giving us so much "information",(gobbledegook) can you please compare all the nasty, dreadful, things that have and will go wrong with nuclear power generation, by comparing it with a real life example?

France will do nicely thanks, they have some 75 x nuclear power stations and generate 80% of their power from nuclear and hydro.

You also need to write to them and let their population know just how wrong they've got it.

So if you are going to predict a dreadful outcome, can you tell the French because we don't have nuclear power, thanks to people like you.

Can you also comment on the fact that power generation by biomass is seven times more leathal than nuclear, not to mention that vehicles are 15,000 time more deadly than nuclear. Or perhaps we should avoid letting facts get in your way?