RE:"Too Cheap to meter"

["Ted Rockwell" <tedrock@cpcug.org>]

We should note that the statement was made nearly fifty years ago, by a

lawyer (Strauss) to science writers, musing about the future, when disease

and war would be a thing of the past, etc.  It was an impromptu remark, not

in his written presentation.  But it has been used to damn the whole

industry, as if it were a legal commitment made under oath and sealed with a

signed contract.



That said, let me again say that I think the public's fear of radiation is

nearly all our fault.  Step back outside the nuclear beltway and assume you

are a reporter, a non-nuclear scientist, or a policy-maker.  You don't go to

ANS or NEI rallies or read nuclear news or radsafe.  So you find out about

nuclear matters from the media.  Where do reporters get their info?  From

nuclear people who write WASH-740 and send tables of immediate and long-term

deaths to every paper in the country.  102,000 immediate deaths from one

plant, if I recall.  And we invented the China Syndrome, Price-Anderson

insurance, multi-state evacuation plans, potassium iodide distribution, 1

million-year integrity requirements, and multi-billion dollar programs to

handle waste.



Top this with a Secretary of Energy who says we're killing people with

low-level radiation, and LNT reports saying there is no safe level of

radiation and radon in the home kills tens of thousands each year.  We still

can't get anyone to deny public statements that a spent fuel cask can spread

death and destruction and that a plane can fly through a containment wall.



How could any reasonable person help but conclude that nuclear activities

pose an unprecedented hazard to the race?  All the antis have to do is to

point to statements by nuclear "proponents."



We kill nuclear power every day, then blame the maggots for damaging the

corpse.



Ted