“I see you have reverted to your cut and paste postings again without links or context, and the few I do recognize I recall came with caveats that you conveniently omitted.”

Shadow Minister – “Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins.” (Native American proverb.)

You would do well to heed that advice SM for I note that for one who constantly monopolises these threads, you have provided very few links to support your own blatherings. A cursory glance reveals some sixteen posts in total for this thread!

Furthermore, I prefaced my previous post by advising that the information I provided was from COMARE. In addition, I have a set of ethical guidelines to which I adhere and on no occasion, do I provide information which cannot be substantiated.

You state that you “only recognize a few of the links or context(?)” yet all the information I provided was obtained from the website YOU provided - proof of your falsehoods and your cherry picking!:

http://www.comare.org.uk/press_releases/comare_pr10.htm
http://www.comare.org.uk/press_releases/comare_pr03.htm

I would also suggest to other posters not to go to the trouble of providing links for your convenience.

At no time do you acknowledge or refer to the information provided on uranium mining, leaks, spills, accidents, explosions, fires, shabby or non-existent regulatory standards, a global epidemic of thyroid and breast cancer, radiation plumes in air, soil, rivers and groundwater, atomic blasts and its legacy of global illnesses including the ongoing environmental contamination by the military – particularly the more recent depleted uranium arsenals used in the Gulf regions where civilians have been used as cannon fodder.

The time has come Shadow Minister when those who have a licence to kill (and their sycophants) can no longer avoid difficult questions by artful subterfuge, tricky manoeuvres, deceptions and a reliance on red herrings. I would imagine the pro-nuclear camp has become increasingly embarrassed by your disgraceful and evasive tactics though I daresay every forum needs a comedian.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/02/eveningnews/main3447744.shtml - Quality Assured? Hilarious!

Note: Protagoras has one “s” - not two!

Shadow Minister, you claim (4 October 7:47p.m.) there is a major flaw in a Green Audit analysis. Like COMARE, you fail to understand the study you refer to. Read the paper; you haven't, have you.
Bear in mind that a large mudbank offshore Burnham on Sea exposes citizens to resuspended radioactivity originally discharged from Hinkley Point NPP. A group of Burnham citizens, concerned that this exposure might be causing observed health detriment, and concerned that the cancer registry was mishandling data, set out to collect their own data in a door-to-door survey. The prior hypothesis (a requisite of good epidemiology) was that living closer to the beach might be associated with a greater cancer risk. The results showed that it was. Even greater risks were found in people who visited the beach frequently. However, the COMARE press release you cite suggests that the prior hypothesis was required to demonstrate cancer rates for the entire ward. The cancer registry appears to be complicit in this misrepresentation.
While we're on the subject, you almost certainly don't know that your COMARE press release was their second attempt. In the first they made a stupid error, assuming that the Burnham citizens' survey had achieved a 30% return on a 100% canvass of households. This would have meant the study was fatally flawed by "reporting bias" and consequent over-reporting of cancer. In fact they had achieved a near 100% return on a 30% canvass. The missing returns were for households where someone had recently died of cancer, so if anything the study under-reported the prevalence of cancer. So much for COMARE.
Your analogy with throwing a die 1 million times and the nonsense presented by Geoff Russell (thanks for accepting that it's simplistic) are irrelevant. I'm not the nit picker nor the fraudster; you must by now have realised that "the base logic" is "What are the health effects of exposure to internalised radioactivity from nuclear processes?". It's time to get real.

Protagoras,

Congratulations for your first attempt at substantiating your posts. Such a pity that the conclusions drawn differ so dramatically from your shrill claims.

"We examined the incidence of childhood cancer in the vicinity of all
nuclear power stations in Great Britain. We found no evidence of excess numbers of cases in any local 25 km area, which would include either primary exposure to radioactive discharges or secondary exposure from re suspended material."

The call for others not to provide links for my "convenience" where as I thought they did it to provide credibility for their posts which obviously is not important for you.

All the claims I have made are supported by links. However perhaps I should repeat them further down the thread.

Similarly the 3 particles that you mention would have to be swallowed to be toxic, so while this is a serious breach, it it unlikely to have impacted the health of the local population.

Similarly your cut and paste comments on uranium mining need to be substantiated as my reading does not concur with your conclusions.

In the news recently was that there have been about 250 000 deaths in Chinese coal mines in the past several decades. This is higher than the entire body count of the nuclear endeavor incl Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl etc.

I have never claimed that nuclear energy isn't perfect only that it is safer than what we have presently.

Well done Herr Minister - finally you spell my name correctly.

"Similarly the 3 particles that you mention would have to be swallowed to be toxic, so while this is a serious breach, it it unlikely to have impacted the health of the local population."

SM - For one who boasts expertise knowledge on power plants, your ignorance on radioactive particles is profound.

PM 2.5 is considered by the scientific community as the most lethal of the particulates. The very fine PM 2.5 particulates can be composed of such things as dioxin or radioactive particles. Ambient aerosol particles of PM 2.5 pass beyond the larynx and reach the thorax or chest during inhalation and they remain there. The victim remains oblivious to the fact that he/she has inhaled the hazard. Naturally, this is of no concern to the blood sucking vampire bats in the nuclear industry.

Your silly post has no relevance to the officially documented and elevated morbidity figures caused by anthropogenic radioactive emissions.

"Similarly your cut and paste comments on uranium mining need to be substantiated as my reading does not concur with your conclusions."

The information I have provided on uranium mining has long been substantiated and the links I have provided on this forum far outweigh yours. Odd that an energy "expert" consultant on power plants has resorted to bludging on OLO - peddling nuclear propaganda during working hours.

Protagoras,

I could not find any reference to them being falling into the PM2.5 classification (usually used for air emmissions). Also as they were discharged as liquid effluent, the chance of inhalation is extremely improbable. As per the in depth study of the issue:

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0952-4746/27/3A/S02/jrp7_3A_S02.pdf?request-id=889f0330-af89-43c9-b46b-2fd168633698

http://www.sepa.org.uk/radioactive_substances/decommissioning/dounreay/idoc.ashx?docid=cad6ea68-48c4-444e-9237-1c606cb17a05&version=-1

"The probability of contact for a number of critical groups has been assessed in several recent reports (e.g. Pellet 2004, Smith and Bedwell 2005) Inhalation is not considered a possible contact route as Particles are much larger than the respirable size fraction. The probabilities of contact with the skin or via ingestion may be as high as 8 × 10^-6 (lobster potters) or 4 × 10^-7 (bait digger at Sandside Beach). However, more typical activities have contact frequencies that are well below 1 × 10^-7.

Recent work by the Health Protection Agency (Harrison et al 2005) has concluded that doses resulting from contact with even the most active of the Particles found at Sandside would be below the threshold for deterministic effects to human health."

To sum it up,

- The chances of ingestion or inhalation are infinitesimal,
- and even if it does happen, the probability of death or serious illness is also extremely small.
- No further emissions have occurred.
- The chicken little horror approach from your post appears to be fabricated.

Considering the sparsity of your links, refering to links from weeks and months ago not related to this post is ridiculous.

I have yet to see anything that indicates that existing uranium mining operations are any worse for human health or the environment than mining coal, gold, nickel etc. And considering the small relative quantities even more so. (about 250 000 coal miners in China have died in the past few decades)

Odd that a self confessed energy dunce has chosen to pontificate so poorly during his working hours. But from the quality of the information you provide there was very little time or effort taken to verify anything.

“Also as they were discharged as liquid effluent, the chance of inhalation is extremely improbable.”

SM – Solid waste is NOT liquid effluent. Further, as a result of “regulation,” solid waste materials produced during reprocessing operations were to be disposed of to the licensed disposal and storage facilities on the site, however, they were “inadvertently” released into the site’s low active drainage system and discharged into the sea.

So why not cease your whitewashing and tell it how it is? That the particles are specks of irradiated fuel some hotter than others? Furthermore, the blood sucking vampire bats from whom you take your propaganda – in this case, the UKAEA advised:

”The assumption then was there might be hundreds of thousands of particles but, based on current knowledge, we now believe the actual number discharged may have been in the order of tens of thousands. We have acknowledged that the number is likely to be substantial.”

Current knowledge eh? Are we to believe then that an inventory for discharges was unavailable for illegal, radioactive particle discharges – "tens of thousands" of them?

“Recent work by the Health Protection Agency (Harrison et al 2005) has concluded that doses resulting from contact with even the most active of the Particles found at Sandside would be below the threshold for deterministic effects to human health."

Well perhaps you should get out and about more and read the report from SEPA, somehow “overlooked” by the UKAEA:

“Radioactive particles present a novel exposure pathway for members of the public. For typical assessments of potential doses received by members of the public, habit surveys and environmental monitoring combine to allow the assessment to occur. In these circumstances it is believed that the probability of encounter/consumption is certain.”

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VB2-4T2RYYR1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1036065896&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=1a4d2fbee33e56e6375a866a44441d20

While the pro nuke camp boasts of futuristic Gen 1V you beaut reactors – which Spindoc once advised “there had never been an accident,” never mind that they don’t exist, the blunders continue so do the coverups from the nuclear industry.

Government regulatory agencies in Australia are culpable by collusion for the worst environmental catastrophes this decade.

contd……