Australian uranium company does some deceptive spinning about nuclear power
Any increase on safety or design regulations for reactors developed in response to Fukushima will of course increase the already enormous cost of new reactors, which typically require government subsidies or loan guarantees to fund the on-average nine year-long construction phase.
BHP and the new maths of nuclear reactors, by Bernard Keane, Crikey,17 may 11, Yesterday Robert Gottliebsen of Business Spectator spruiked the glories of BHP’s Olympic Dam uranium mine, including BHP’s claim that within 20 years the number of nuclear reactors around the world would nearly double from 439 to 793. BHP got the 439 right. It’s 793 appears to be rather more mysterious. The number of operational reactors has actually fallen since 2002 Continue reading
World Health Organisation director comes clean about nuclear radiation
Chan distanced herself from the recent statements made by the WHO on the consequences of Chernobyl.
W.H.O. Secretary General “Margaret Chan” admits for the first time: RADIATION IS ALWAYS DANGEROUS, Jan Hemmer Blog, May 12, 2011 by Mikkai “…..There is no safe low level of radiation, ” said WHO Director General Margaret Chan on Wednesday during a short meeting scheduled with members of the critical “initiative for an independent WHO “. Continue reading
“Independent WHO” challenges World Health Organisation’s ties to Nuclear Agency
The group, “Independent WHO” has been campaigning doggedly to raise attention for people affected by the massive radiation leak after the nuclear accident at Chernobyl 25 years ago……While tens of thousands were evacuated, fears remain about the scale of the damage to human health, especially for more than half a million rescue workers, known as liquidators, who were sent to secure the power station and decontaminate the area.
The group says a large proportion of then have died or are seriously ill, and underlines that growing children are acutely vulnerable to radiation.
UN health agency upholds research on nuclear radiation, Google News, 5 May 11, GENEVA — The World Health Organisation said Wednesday that independent research on the health impact of radiation must be pursued without being influenced by the nuclear industry. Continue reading
Physicians, not nuclear physicists, know the facts about radiation
There’s no group better prepared than doctors to stand up to the physicists of the nuclear industry….Physicists had the knowledge to begin the nuclear age. Physicians have the knowledge, credibility and legitimacy to end it.
Unsafe at Any Dose, New York Times, By HELEN CALDICOTT, April 30, 2011 “………There’s great debate about the number of fatalities following Chernobyl; theInternational Atomic Energy Agency has predicted that there will be only about 4,000 deaths from cancer, but a 2009 report published by the New York Academy of Sciencessays that almost one million people have already perished from cancer and other diseases. The high doses of radiation caused so many miscarriages that we will never know the number of genetically damaged fetuses that did not come to term. (And both Belarus and Ukraine have group homes full of deformed children.) Continue reading
Desperate spinning by nuclear lobby to resuscitate the industry
proponents of reactors have spent some $645 million in the last decade lobbying Congress for more subsidies. ….A critical moment is coming soon, when Obama goes to Congress to request an additional $36 billion in loan guarantees for new nukes in his 2012 budget.With them, America’s atomic industry has a chance to build a few more reactors. Without them, a green-powered Earth is within our grasp Developing the myths of nuclear power as cheap and safe
The myth of radiation being very interesting but not dangerous was however firmly debunked by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, but not without a last ditch attempt by the occupying Allied Powers to protect it – by arresting and deporting any journalist who talked about radiation deaths.
The Nuclear Power Mercantilist Myth :: The Market Oracle :: By Andrew McKillop, 19 April 11, “…..COSTS DIDNT MATTERThe atom scientists of the 1930s with names we still know today, for example Fermi and Einstein, argued about those subjects but, being scientists, were not specially concerned what it would all cost. Only later, with the founding of the UN’s atomic energy agency in 1956 – a promotional agency for nuclear power – were the key subjects of entrepreneurial effort and the obligatorily linked need for government subsidies brought into the fray. This was sold as creating a future world where atomic arms will be changed to power plant ploughshares. While atomic weapons were expensive, the ploughshares would be cheap if we spent enough investing in them. Continue reading
Pulling apart George Monbiot’s pro nuclear statements
In all this prolific writing in support of nuclear power, Monbiot never quite answers the most difficult questions regarding cost, liability for accidents, nuclear waste disposal and link with nuclear bomb manufacturing. Instead, he chooses to attack his previous allies in the environmental NGOs and movements, ridiculing their struggles as resulting from delusions of ignorant people. No matter how cool he thinks he might look with his supposedly highly rational approach to environmentalism, I’d like to know what exactly is his stance on this critical issue. Is that asking too much?
Why George Monbiot is STILL wrong on nuclear power | Links, By Ricardo Sequeiros Coelho, 11 April 11, “……...Double standard 1: deaths and injuries. According to Monbiot, anti-nuclear campaigners cry in despair over the deaths and injuries caused by nuclear accidents, yet don’t say a word about the victims of the coal industry. …….The game goes on by playing with statistics from Chernobyl. Monbiot again quotes the highly disputed number of 43 deaths from the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, taken from the Chernobyl Forum report. Not only does he uncritically follow the statistics given by an international body that incorporates one of the strongest pro-nuclear lobbies in the world, he is dishonest enough not to quote it correctly, as Joe Giambrone neatly exposes (see Counterpunch). Continue reading
How George Monbiot misleads the world on nuclear radiation
by reassuring the public that things aren’t too bad, Monbiot and others at best misinform, and at worst misrepresent or distort, the scientific evidence of the harmful effects of radiation exposure – and they play a predictable shoot-the-messenger game in the process.
How nuclear apologists mislead the world over radiation George Monbiot and others at best misinform and at worst distort evidence of the dangers of atomic energy Helen Caldicott * guardian.co.uk, 11 April 2011 Soon after the Fukushima accident last month, I stated publicly that a nuclear event of this size and catastrophic potential could present a medical problem of very large dimensions. Events have proven this observation to be true despite the nuclear industry’s campaign about the “minimal” health effects of so-called low-level radiation. Continue reading
Fukushima stimulating new burst of nuclear energy “spin”
As nuclear energy markets feel the squeeze, we can expect to see the industry going into PR overdrive to promote the safety of nuclear technology in the coming months, often air-brushing existential threat dimensions from the nuclear equation out of the public’s consciousness…..
Fukushima sets faithful to spin mode James Norman The Australian April 11, 2011 EVEN as the steam was still rising from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was busy personally signing a $US9 billion ($8.5bn) deal with Belarus for a new nuclear-powered reactor.
That deal was the result of lengthy prior negotiations, but the reality is that the industry now faces a spectacular global image problem. Continue reading
Nuclear establishment’s bogus talk of “safe” radiation
radiation from a meltdown in the reactor core of reactor No. 2 is leaking out into the water and soil, with other reactors continuing to experience problems. Yet scientists and activists question these government and nuclear industry “safe” limits of radiation exposure….all this talk about what a worker or the public can withstand on a yearly basis is bogus. There is no safe level of radiation exposure. These so-called safe levels are coming from within the nuclear establishment.”
‘No safe levels’ of radiation in Japan, Al Jazeera 5 April 11, Experts warn that any detectable level of radiation is “too much”. “…..water that is vastly more radioactive continues to gush into the ocean through a large crack in a six-foot deep pit at the nuclear plant. Over the weekend, workers at the plant used sawdust, shredded newspaper and diaper chemicals in a desperate attempt to plug the area, which failed. Water leaking from the pit is about 10,000 times more radioactive than water normally found at a nuclear plant Continue reading
People power can once again stop the nuclear industry
Society’s energy “needs” (“wants” being the more operative word) exist on one side of the scales, and society’s concern for preventing the fouling of the only nest we have is on the other. It is up to us, the people, to educate ourselves and ensure rational protections. If we leave it to the money people, the profiteers — well, we’ve seen what Wall Street’s greed can do to our economy. Short-sighted greed and arrogance will also wreck our living planet, if left to run free……..The energy-consuming public will continue to hear from industry promoters and the scientists and engineers whose work is funded by them that the latest designs are foolproof
Right back on the nuclear fool cycle Stay informed about nuclear dangers because the lessons are always lost on politicians and the industry By Vip Short The Register-Guard 4 Aprl 11 Ah, lesson learned — until repeated. Here we are again at the next climactic moment of what may someday be called the nuclear fool cycle. While President Obama has recently renewed his call for more nuclear power plants, The Register-Guard wisely points to the many inherent and unsolved dangers in a March 15 editorial, “Nuclear failure in Japan.” Continue reading
Whom to believe about Fukushima – nuclear industry or doctors?
Nuclear’s green cheerleaders forget Chernobyl at our peril Pundits who downplay the risks of radiation are ignoring the casualities of the past. Fukushima’s meltdown may be worse John Vidal guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 April 2011
“……So who can we trust when the estimates swing so wildly? Should we believe the empirical evidence of the doctors; or governments and industrialists backed by their PR companies? So politicised has nuclear energy become, that you can now pick and choose your data, rubbish your opponents, and ignore anything you do not like. The fact is we may never know the truth about Chernobyl because the records are lost, thousands of people from 24 countries who cleaned up the site have dispersed across the vast former Soviet Union, and many people have died.Fukushima is not Chernobyl, but it is potentially worse. It is a multiple reactor catastrophe happening within 150 miles of a metropolis of 30 million people. If it happened at Sellafield, there would be panic in every major city in Britain. We still don’t know the final outcome but to hear experts claiming that nuclear radiation is not that serious, or that this accident proves the need for nuclear power, is nothing short of disgraceful…..
Nuclear’s green cheerleaders forget Chernobyl at our peril | John Vidal | Comment is free | The Guardian
No safe level for ionising radiation as cancer cause
there may be a threshold for some effects of radiation, but not for cancer…….There is unfortunately a continuing tirade of statements by self-interested parties and some official agencies … implying a threshold for radiation exposure below which there are no adverse consequences,”
No ‘safe’ threshold for radiation: experts, Analysis (ABC Science)31 March 2011 Anna Salleh,As Japanese authorities work to contain radiation at Fukushima, concerns have been raised about public communication on radiation risk. The US advocacy group, Physicians for Social Responsiblity, recently criticised press reports implying there is a safe threshold for ionizing radiation exposure. Continue reading
George Monbiot does not understand the public health effects of nuclear radiation
workers have received high doses and it’s anyone’s guess how many thousands (or millions) of people have received very small doses. Monbiot seems not to understand that the weight of scientific opinion holds that there is no safe dose of radiation.For a tiny, unlucky percentage of the many people who have received small radiation doses as a result of Fukushima, that radiation exposure will prove to be fatal.
George Monbiot’s nuclear mistakes | Green Left Weekly, Jim Green, 26 March 11, Prominent British columnist George Monbiot announced in the British Guardian on March 21 that he now supports nuclear power………….Monbiot is understating the radiological impacts of Fukushima and ignoring the other impacts. Continue reading
Mayor of London says don’t worry: nuclear power is safe, clean and green
Disaster as divine retribution The Age Boris Johnson March 15, 2011 To take Japan’s quake and tsunami as a sign we should abandon nuclear power would be a further catastrophe……
First off the blocks, I see, is the anti-nuke lobby. These are the atomkraft-nein-danke brigade, ……….They will now do everything they can to exploit the Fukushima explosions and the difficulties being experienced in bringing a couple of nuclear plants under control……
. I just doubt that there is any real read-across between the difficulties of nuclear reactors in a well-known earthquake zone, and the proposed nuclear programs elsewhere…..WE don’t have to make amends by sacrificing a hetacomb to Poseidon. We don’t hAZve to lead a hundred garlanded men and maidens to the top of the pyramid and then cut out their beating hearts. ….. we don’t have to sacrifice our efforts to provide safe clean and green nuclear power....http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/
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