[Fwd: Re: [ RadSafe ] Some Australian Articles.]

[Maury Siskel]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [ RadSafe ] Some Australian Articles.
Date: 	Wed, 13 Apr 2005 01:14:02 -0500
From: 	Maury Siskel <maurysis at ev1.net>
To: 	Ivor Surveyor <isurveyor at vianet.net.au>
CC: 	radsafe at radlab.nl;, Know_Nukes at yahoogroups.com
References: 	<6.0.3.0.2.20050413080629.01bd5ae0 at mail.vianet.net.au>



Thanks Ivor. You have provided a timely reminder of an approaching 
milestone day -- in just 13 more days, we will note another anniversary 
of the Chernobyl accident. There should soon appear a new onslaught of 
press releases, pleas for funds, near demands by "harmed" nations for 
remediation funding for all of the generations of radiation damage to 
their citizens.  There will be much clucking of tongues over the 
hundreds of thousands of deaths, the unfathomable damage to the unborn, 
and the horrible health damages inflicted on the world by the radiation 
released from Chernobyl. Terrible, terrible ... send money, send more 
money, and then some more! Untold financial benefits will inure to 
nations, charity organizations, and outright anti-nuclear zealot 
individuals and organizations.   

Never mind the careful assessments by UNSCEAR showing a total of about 
100 deaths attributable to Chernobyl. Never mind the finding  a couple 
years ago of perhaps 2,000 cases of thyroid cancer in persons who were 
very young on 26 April 1986 -- perhaps more by now. This has become an 
annual financially rewarding ritual -- except for UNSCEAR which by now 
may have been emasculated of its funding. I wonder how long ....

Ivor's comments are signifcant and incisive; thus I've left them uncut 
below.
Cheers,
Maury&Dog   (Maury Siskel  maurysis at ev1.net)
____________
An ounce of fear and passion is worth a ton of fact and logic. Jerry Cohen
==============================
Ivor Surveyor wrote:

> to Know-Nukes,
>
> One has to have a sneaky admiration for the clever and ingenious 
> verbal tricks used by some anti-nuclear activists to advance there 
> arguments.  The modest epidemiological evidence of radiological harm 
> resulting from the Chernobyl accident and described in detail by 
> UNSCEAR 2000 annex J is dismissed in these terms by Dr. Jim Green 
> writing in the "Green Left Weekly (1).
>
> "Nuclear power proponents deny the likelihood that the 1986 Chernobyl 
> disaster has killed thousands and will kill thousands more. They do 
> this by hiding behind the complexities of epidemiological studies and 
> using those complexities to obfuscate. However, using the standard 
> risk estimates applied the world over, the likely toll from Chernobyl 
> will be some tens of thousands of deaths."
> In the Australian (13th April) (2) Dr Helen Caldicot writes: "Contrary 
> to the nuclear industry's propaganda, nuclear power is therefore not 
> green and it is certainly not clean. Nuclear reactors consistently 
> release millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the air and 
> water each year. These releases are unregulated because the nuclear 
> industry considers these particular radioactive elements to be 
> biologically inconsequential. This is not so.
> These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases krypton, xenon and 
> argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a 
> nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs, migrating to the 
> fatty tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper 
> thighs, near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements, 
> which emit high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in the 
> eggs and sperm and cause genetic disease.
>
> Tritium, another biologically significant gas, is also routinely 
> emitted from nuclear reactors. Tritium is composed of three atoms of 
> hydrogen, which combine with oxygen, forming radioactive water, which 
> is absorbed through the skin, lungs and digestive system. It is 
> incorporated into the DNA molecule, where it is mutagenic."
> Reference to UNSCEAR 2000 annex C.   The section C and tables 31-36 
> provide detailed information.
> on the release of radioactive gases from nuclear power stations.   In 
> para 143 page 186 we read,
>  " the concentration of the released radionuclides in the environment 
> are generally too low to be measured except close to the facility. 
> Therefore, the  dose estimates for the population (individual and 
> collective doses) are generally based on modelling the atmospheric and 
> aquatic transport and environmental transfer of the released 
> radioactive materials and then applying a dosimetric model."
>
> I leave it to others to judge if Dr. Caldicot's writing is in accord 
> with UNSCEAR 2000.   The articles cover other aspects of nuclear power 
> including; reprocessing, waste storage, economic costs, greenhouse gas 
> emission, risk of plant malfunction, nuclear terrorism, limited 
> availability of uranium fuel and much more.  Perhaps those with 
> appropriate expertise in these areas could comment.   Some background 
> information to the articles by Green and Caldicot is to be found  in 
> references 3 and 4.
>
> 1.      http://www.greenleft.org.au/
>
> 2. 
> http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12835747%255E12332,00.html 
>
>
>
> 3.      http://www.antenna.nl/wise/621-22/621-22_en.pdf
>
> 4.      http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/nuclear_power_climate.pdf
>
> Ivor Surveyor [ isurveyor at vianet.net.au ]