Well done and well presented, Geoff.

As you state it takes a lot of time and effort to build a creditable defense against those that are fast and loose with the facts. That is why scientific facts and data, for the most part, should only be relied upon if it comes from a reputable and peer reviewed scientific journal.

But most folks (including media reporters) would rather listen to the much more flamboyant, arm waving emotional rant given by a person hanging a few letters after their name. Any letters will do since most tabloid readers don't have a clue about their meaning but are quite impressed.

And anyway, those journals are so dry and complicated with all those charts and tables. Besides those journals are hard to find and much more expensive than the tabloid press.

Excellent article Geoff.

It interesting that your forensic analysis of the meta-study was far less compelling than your (perhaps more anecdotal) comparison of French and Australian experience with leukemia. The later is clearly more easy to understand but probably much less scientific.

Readers do give extra weight to the commentary of an expert. You can assert that "as a statistician, allow me to point out that the data is not significant enough to support the conclusion". The professional vigilance of fellow statisticians would ensure that you are not just pulling the wool.

At last, someone who can see through the inventing of crisis by the numerically incompetent Green Audit and LLRC.

The author's vituperative attack on nuclear expert, Helen Caldicott’s integrity and his obfuscation of the toxic impacts of the whole nuclear cycle is disgraceful.

Articles are constantly written by nuclear proponents on the emissions from a nuclear plant (their only line of dubious defence) while information on the environmental devastation caused by uranium mining, the military and the expansion of hazardous waste is suppressed or censored. The nuclear industry would rather people remain ignorant of the documented evidence, which is aptly demonstrated by Russell’s amateurish endeavours at wholesale creative accounting.

In the wake of wide scale allegations (and counter allegations from the nuclear industry) of proliferation of nuclear and radioactive materials and simmering discontent among the comity of nations, scientists are earnestly sounding alarm bells regarding the catastrophic implications of radiation pollution on human health, environmental sustainability and the rapid extinction of biodiversity.

The social costs of radioactive cleanup are staggering in terms of economic destruction. The majority of radiation cleanups require excavation, transport, and disposal of hazardous material. The process destroys plant life, removes topsoil, and displaces or kills wildlife. Further, there are incidents of accidental displacement of pollutants from contaminated sites to distant sites due to excess wind/water erosion afforded by the cleanup process. One example of this is the wind-aided dispersion of plutonium-contaminated soil at the US's Rocky Flats production plant.

Official documentation acknowledges the ongoing legacy of uranium mining of radioactive contamination of Australia's workers, soils, rivers and groundwater and in 2008, groundwater specialist Dr Gavin Mudd examined data from CSIRO and called for it to be “independently verified by people not subservient to the mining industry.”

While the nuclear industry, with its licence to kill, crows about the "return" of wildlife to the Chernobyl area, Professor Timothy Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US, and Dr Anders Moller from the University of Paris-Sud’s team, who’ve worked for a decade in the exclusion zone, found a serious decline in insects and gross deformities in avian species.

Geoff Russell’s membership of Animal Liberation makes a mockery of AL’s brief to protect non-human species from human atrocities.

Protagoras,

What Geoff Russell has done is simply point out the deeply flawed nature of the "evidence" that Green Audit has manufactured and upon which Helen Caldicott and other nuke opponents rely.

If Helen had any integrity, she would have the honesty to review the BS that she is rehashing for the gullible public, who cannot grasp the fraudulent statistics used.

Unable to counter the factual nature of the post you resort to a personal attack, and an incoherent dummy spit. You again failed to provide any support or reference for your dummy spit and I seriously doubt you can.

I am reminded of one of the snippets the New Yorker used to quote from other publications -- before they changed editors and came to realize that such facetiousness was deeply inappropriate -- at column bottoms.

It was about Maggie Thatcher being on the campaign trail and, according to the other publication, stopping occasionally "to kill and embrace small children". This caused the New Yorker to say, "She'll always be the Iron Lady to us".

--- G.R.L. Cowan ('How fire can be domesticated')
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/

The forest plot Geoff Russell presents is for studies up to 16 kilometres from NPPs. In another place (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9422)
I have already said radial distributions are flawed because they don't take account of downwind effects nor where the radioactive emissions locate. Many authorities agree on this. The earliest I can recall was the UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit over 10 years ago. 16 km is too large a distance - far larger than the areas used by the recent German study -"KiKK", which all authorities agree cannot be ignored. The Baker and Hoel paper Russell relies on here concludes "it cannot be ignored that the majority of studies have found elevated rates".
NPPs themselves cause less than 5% of the external costs attributable to the nuclear fuel cycle, which is another reason for not seeing them as surrogates for exposure.
Third, leukaemia studies are difficult because of the rarity of the disease. We should be looking at other cancers and also at non-cancer diseases and I repeat that real-world exposure data should be used.
Russell states that comparing numbers for child leukaemia in France and Australia shows "any effect from nuclear plants is small or zero relative to whatever else is causing these cancers". You can't do radio-epidemiology like that - it is obviously ridiculous to draw such a simplistic conclusion from such widely separated and different populations and environments.
Russell's change of heart on nuclear is based on support for Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs). His present attack on the leukaemia data seems at odds with his opposition to Uranium mining. Perhaps he hasn't thought this through. In the Caldicott blog I have said I'd need to know about the nature of emissions from IFRs before they'd get my vote. No information has been offered.

Fossil fuels really do harm children, and are enormously lucrative, both to the producing industries and to government.

"You again failed to provide any support or reference for your dummy spit and I seriously doubt you can."

Wrong again Shadow Minister. Here's but a few links retrieved at random and I have hundreds more - but "Mums" the word!

1. 2009: An MP has called for an investigation after it emerged that the Faslane naval base has suffered a series of safety breaches:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8019406.stm

2. 2009: Ministry of Defence figures show that there have been a total of 235 fires on nuclear submarines since 1987:

http://www.robedwards.com/2009/09/exposed-22-serious-fires-on-nuclear-submarines.html

3. 2009: Thousands of litres of radioactive waste have accidentally leaked into the Firth of Clyde from the Hunterston nuclear power station in breach of pollution law

http://www.robedwards.com/2009/09/revealed-radioactive-waste-leak-from-hunterston.html

4. 2006: The sudden stop at the Forsmark nuclear power plant just north of Stockholm was the most dangerous international nuclear incident since the destruction of the Russian Chernobyl plant 20 year ago, said nuclear expert and former boss at Forsmark Lars-Olov Höglund in Uppsala Nya Tidning on Tuesday.

4:1 2009: Safety procedures at a nuclear power plant in eastern Sweden have been criticised by inspectors, according to reports.

4:2 2009: Following a wave of scandals surrounding Vattenfall, the Swedish government has demanded concrete measures be taken by the board of the state-owned nuclear operator.

4:3 2009: The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) has observed a series of shortcomings since 2005. These involve weaknesses in management and governance, a lack of traceability of internal decisions, and failure to adhere to routines and instructions," it said in a statement.

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=4487&date=20060801

5. Nuclear Reactor Accidents 1990 – 1995

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=cr81ZHY-6H0C&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=radiation+detected++nuclear+plant&source=bl&ots=VIcljgAvev&sig=KNHWS_uhzS1QCUKt8Zu6H-v078g&hl=en&ei=0lPDStOsCMuJkQWbtuS7BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#v=onepage&q=radiation%20detected%20%20nuclear%20plant&f=false

6. Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production site. The spatial distribution of plutonium in RFETS soils has been estimated with plutonium activities in surface soils ranging from 1,450 to 0.05 pCi/g, with the data showing a clear west-east trend away from an old drum storage site known as the 903 Pad. More than 90% of the Pu is contained within the upper 10-12 cm of soils downwind of the 903 Pad (Fig 2).

http://ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/research/highlights_archive/rockyflats.html

Don't give up your day job Shadow Minister - assuming you have one!

"Fossil fuels really do harm children, and are enormously lucrative, both to the producing industries and to government."
Posted by GRLCowan

Quite correct GRLCowan and it is not only children that FF emissions harm. Scientist Barry Brook advised that coal fired power plants emit between 100 to 300 times more radiation than nuclear plants.

Given that the radioactive emissions from coal fired plants are unregulated, guidelines for radiation measurements ignored and radioactive fly ash sold for use in other industries, do you truthfully believe that the "lower" emissions from nuclear plants would be more stringently regulated? And if you do believe that, what logic have you applied to arrive at that conclusion?

Good article Geoff, thanks.

I see the usual flat earthers and Luddites are desperately trying to stop progress as ever. Helen Caldicott will eventually be on a par with Ludd, when people realize the damage done to our environment by holding back a technology now we see we clearly need.

Instead of being generations ahead, it has been starved and we are left with hobby technologies like wind, solar and hot rocks.

It all seemed so innocent when we didn't think we needed an alternative power source, now that we do, in hindsight, it was stupid to nobble an emerging technology.

Nothing is perfect, and Nuclear Energy is not either, but we could have done a lot more by now to reduce the issues, if we had not tolerated such fearmongery and hysterics.

We'll eventually learn I guess, to be more suspicious of doomsayers and catastrophists. Now that we are getting to know the damage they can do and how devious and evil they can be to get their own way.

Protagorass,

Also from the links you posted:

"The environment watchdog said the radiological consequences were minor. - An MoD spokesman said: "The discharges into the Gare Loch had no environmental consequences."

“The safety record of British nuclear powered submarines is excellent and there has never been a nuclear accident in the 40 years since they have been in service. As a result of the measures we have put in place the likelihood of such an accident is extremely remote.”

"Because there was no firm evidence that the leak (Hunterston nuclear power station) had harmed human health,"

"Ingvar Berglund, head of safety at Forsmark, said there wasn’t a risk of a Chernobyl-like accident. "We know exactly what happened and it was an incident that could have been serious … but that it could have been the most serious incident since the nuclear power incident at Chernobyl is totally wrong,” he said."

Finally,

The Rocky flats site was first operated in the early 1950s long before the dangers of radioactivity were known, and to compare its operation with modern plants is facile.

You can now go back to playing with your imaginary friends.

One of the commenters agreed that fossil fuels are lucrative to government, and that coal-fired power plants irradiate their neighbours much more than nuclear plants do.

Since coal is a fossil fuel, it is understandable, although not excusable, when governments say, or cause it to be said, that the public has an irrational fear of radiation -- but not just any radiation. We are supposedly very specifically nuts about radiation that is a side effect of activities that deprive government, and other fossil fuel rent-takers, of that rent. Cosmic rays, when we fly in planes? Radon in natural gas, lead-210 and polonium-210 in LPG? Um ... we don't know anything about that.

This same conflict of interest would motivate peculiarly stringent regulation of radiation emissions from nuclear powerplants and fuel mines.

I don't know if any government inspectors are permanently stationed at natural gas plants or on large oil tankers or in coal mines (it seems unlikely). They *are* so stationed at nuclear plants. I believe their financial conflict of interest will end, but their on-siteness at nuclear sites will continue.

(How fire can be domesticated: http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/ )

>> 1. 2009: An MP has called for an investigation after it emerged
>> that the Faslane naval base has suffered a series of safety
>> breaches:

So, how much radioactivity, if any, was released? What elevation in dose above background, if any, could the public have experienced as a result of this? This type of quantitative information is important if we're to draw any meaningful conclusions.

Furthermore, what relevance, if any, does a nuclear submarine discharging some primary coolant water containing trace radioactivity have to nuclear power plants?

>> 2. 2009: Ministry of Defence figures show that there have been a >> total of 235 fires on nuclear submarines since 1987:

A fire on board a boat has got no relevance to nuclear power. It has got nothing to do with the radiological safety of the boat's nuclear power systems, either - non-nuclear boats can experience fires, too.

>> 3. 2009: Thousands of litres of radioactive waste have
>> accidentally leaked into the Firth of Clyde from the Hunterston
>> nuclear power station in breach of pollution law

Again, extremely small amounts of radioactivity. Mostly water from radiation worker's showers. How much radioactivity was released, quantitatively, and what possible dose to the public could have resulted?

These critical details are always absent from tabloid media scare stories.

Pesky length limit on posts. Continuing from the above:

>> ...the most dangerous international nuclear
>> incident since the destruction of the Russian Chernobyl plant 20 >> year ago, said nuclear expert and former boss at Forsmark
>> Lars-Olov Höglund in Uppsala Nya Tidning on Tuesday.

In July 2006, one reactor at Forsmark tripped after an electrical fault in the connectivity to the electrical grid, which in and of itself has got absolutely nothing significant to do with nuclear or radiological safety.

In reality, "former boss" and "nuclear expert" Hoeglund was never employed by the Forsmark nuclear power plant. He was construction manager for some years at a Vattenfall mechanical engineering department - keep in mind that Vattenfall works with all kinds of energy generation, not exclusively nuclear. He did spend some years at the Forsmark site as a contractor, but only at the waste storage and disposal facility, unconnected with the nuclear power plant.

More interestingly, Hoeglund has for years been locked in legal conflict with the Forsmark nuclear power plant as well as the Ringhals nuclear plant regarding some jobs that his consultancy tendered on but did not get selected for. Apart from this he has, through legal appeals in environmental courts, delayed a number of projects at both Ringhals and Forsmark. His claims regarding the shutdown at Forsmark in 2006 have never been substantiated by any credible source.

Finally, regarding Rocky Flats.

Do you know what a picocurie (pCi) is? It's an extremely, infinitesimally small amount of radioactivity, 1x10^-12 of a curie.

An average, healthy human has over 200,000 pCi of radioactivity in their body, mostly potassium-40 and carbon-14.

0.05 pCi/g is an unbelievably tiny amount of radioactivity.

The background radioactivity of an average sample of soil taken from Turkey is approximately 15 pCi/g. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17906302)

There's no evidence that plutonium at those concentrations at Rocky Flats could be harmful to anyone.

But in any case, it's irrelevant anyway, since nuclear weapons production decades ago during the Cold War, during the arms race, is absolutely, completely irrelevant to a discussion of nuclear power plants.