[ RadSafe ] James Salsman, the radiation protection professional

[Franz Schönhofer]

RADSAFErs,

There is a certain James Salsman on Radsafe since some time, who keeps
some of you busy by answering again and again to his clearly
non-professional utterance which shows to any real professional, that he
has not the slightest idea about what he is writing about. There is a
famous saying (I even believe, that it is attributed to a long-time ago
US-president), "You can fool all people for some time, you can fool some
people all the time, but you cannot fool all people all the time." 

James Salsman has to my knowledge never given any information about
himself, his profession or his affiliation. This is extremely bad
behaviour on this list - Marcel, do you agree? You have demanded, that
persons on RADSAFE should identify themselves, which moreover is in my
opinion a self-evident requirement on a professional list like this one.


Am I the only one, who finally used Google on "James Salsman" and
"bovik", or links the said person provided? He seems to be involved in
some business dealing or trying to deal with software to help learn
English as a second language. His (?) homepage at "bovik" contains links
to information on wind energy as well as an interesting link to the
"Quakers". There is nothing there about radioactivity or radiation
protection matters. His contributions to other discussion groups
documented do not deal with anything discussed on this list. The word
"bovik" reminds me to a Scandinavian term (in Swedish it would be "bay
to live in" and according to Google such areas with that name exist in
Sweden and Norway), but not to any radiation protection matter. 

One or the other of you RADSAFErs have already commented, that he
twists, whenever it is pointed out that he makes a wrong statement. He
twists, when a paper he cites to support his queer opinions, in fact has
a clearly written conclusion which is 100 % contrary to his. He cites
Britt Salbu, whom I happen to know personally as a highly reputed
scientists completely wrong. His equation for the formation of uranyl
nitrate from metallic uranium, molecular nitrogen and molecular oxygen
is an unexcusable insult for any chemist (I am one) or a matter of
laughing about a layman who wants to produce himself as an expert. As
mentioned by another RADSAFEr, uranyl nitrate will decompose at elevated
temperature - so how should it form at even higher temperatures? I know
- and a lot of other RADSAFErs should know, that transport of uranyl
nitrate is highly restricted, simply because of the possibility to
decompose and even sustain and enhance fire. I know of a European
institute which wanted to get rid of a large amount of uranyl nitrate
and another US-one which was very eager to receive it - and the problem
was, that transport containers had to be used with one of the highest
safety level, which made transport extremely expensive. 

Interesting that he (yes "he") proposes deep ocean burial for waste, but
he obviously cannot distinguish between "waste" and "burnt nuclear
fuel". He even offered to write a petition to the government on that
issue!!! Anybody backing this person to put himself in the front of
radiation protection professionals after having read the web-sites from
Google research? The concept of nuclear waste burial in the oceans is
decades old, has to some extent even been used. The London convention is
as to my information, which need not necessarily be the newest one, only
directed to low- and intermediate waste. On the other hand high level
waste (nuclear reactors) seems to have been buried only in the Barent
Sea by the former Sovjetunion. I do not believe that it would have been
politically possible for any Western country to dispose of high-level
nuclear waste in the oceans. At least not during the last few decades.
The concept of reprocessing is really not dead, I believe not even in
the USA, which might be a reason why no government - besides of
political reasons - would favour this option.

The comment to involve Greenpeace is absolutely not acceptable.
Greenpeace is an international commercial organisation which sells
"feelings of revolts against the worlds mighty", "You can be present in
our anti-whaling boats by sending us money" etc. It is a deeply
undemocratic company, using all kind of psychological tricks and
especially the latest marketing tricks for collecting money, which is
not controlled and they should absolutely never be included in any
decision making. 

One sincere final comment: We radiation protection professionals acquire
a lot of knowledge, we have training, we do research etc. and then
somebody like James Salsman, who has not the slightest idea of the
issues discussed on RADSAFE, comes, takes some words from the debates,
pretends to be "interested", receives polite answers, poses the next
questions (still being "interested") and finally keeps the whole RADSAFE
community busy with commenting by pretending to be a scientists who
would even write a petition to the government. This might be positive
for a career in antinuclear business, but not for RADSAFE. 

O.k., a very final comment: In my opinion it is amazing that whenever I
send a critical comment on radioactivity issues (DU, dirty bombs, etc.)
in connection with US politics I receive a lot of flames on RADSAFE (and
BTW  more positive replies to my private address) and when somebody like
James Salsman fools the whole RADSAFE community everybody stays polite. 

James, it seems that your comments on RADSAFE are not well received, my
opinion only being one among so many. Probably you should use the exit
option from this list, you can always claim that the experts did not
appreciate your well funded comments, that they are behaving like
elitists and do not want to have a critical voice on this list.


Food for thought!

Franz


Franz Schoenhofer
PhD, MR iR
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
AUSTRIA
phone -43-0699-1168-1319