Its time once again for Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. As usual, civilised discussion and no coarse language. Given that it’s the Queen’s Birthday holiday (actually that of some previous monarch, I think), feel free to offer your thoughts on an Australian republic.
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John Quiggin 
Anyone hear about Bob Brown being possibly bankrupted and hence kicked out of the Senate?
The connection between Bob Brown and nukes is that many people support much of Greens policy except their opposition to nuclear power. That’s why I for one won’t chip in towards his legal bills even though I sympathise with what he was trying to do. That was to restrain Forestry Tasmania from logging an area with endangered fauna like the wedge tailed eagle. The Greens are alienating a huge potential support base by clinging to fanciful notions like renewable energy largely displacing coal. If they had the numbers they could get whatever forestry legislation they wanted and put the squeeze on coal.
Yes the Greens must adopt a more realistic policy toward advanced nuclear technology particularly 4th generation reactors which need not be hugely expensive.
“the aboriginies knew it was dangerous for goodness sake…are we more backward now?”
Wow! Even ‘the aboriginies’ knew?! Jeez, when even backward ‘aboriginies’ know something then it really must be super-obvious.
…
That is some serious racism there, Alice.
“I reject nuclear as a solution out of hand but the world is ruled by people who just arent as smart as me…!!”
Oops, it was all satire. I take back the racism charge. Apologies.
BBB
Alaskan Glaciers are advancing in size,according to a website,at DavidIcke.com .I am disappointed by the attitude that seems common when it comes to Fielding,who I don’t know is a Republican or not.Some people are ready to snipe at him for his Christianity,whereas,a little bit of thinking would suggest ,that as he is a qualified electrical engineer,he may not be perverse at understanding more complex issues,with an attempt at being honest to the Party base.I dont think he wants even his underpants shared in childhood to end up baked on a power line because of Global Warming…whereas he may find the evidence Australian Scientists seem to marketing to a home audience,and from selling Cadbury Chocolates knows how that is done too.It may be better all round to understand there is Algae that can grow in CO2 and Americans have been working on that from emissions from Coal fired power stations,and there is some Australian influence and early innovative Science thought, long forgotten by many but was in an original Australian science magazine, that wasn’t supported very well.I get flustered by the coal ,wind,Nuke,gas,tidal fluorescent Light LED etc. boreonians, when simply playing around at home with ,say, steel wool and an incandescent,will certainly, maybe produce heat!? Safely ,that is!? So if you were thinking about cooling and had a fan and a light globe,and thought about the coolgardie safe principle…as I have… hanging a wet towel over the fan cage. I might simply get round to finding a use for the light globe,where the the heat increases the likelihood of cooling. Maybe Metho or something in the coolgardie water up take cycle,creating hot and cold blows.Difficult! Referenda!?
Rationalist:
If, as you suggest, Bob Brown was removed from the Senate, his replacement would be another Green. Mr Brown in Tasmania, unlike Mr Brown in Britain (who under pressure may be pursuing dangerous moves), would increase his political status and that of the Greens enormously.
@wmmbb
I was simply quoting an article saying that if he were to be declared bankrupt he can no longer serve in the Senate according to Senate rules.
I am not a Greens voter and a lot of their policies cannot be applied to the real world but I don’t mind Bob Brown, I hope he gets his finances sorted and stays in the Senate to serve his full term.
@Bingo Bango Boingo
Racist comment?? – Nonsense Bingo – thats a blatant misinterpretation of what I said – worthy of a bar room comment – if you cant argue the point throw some dirt instead?. You have excelled yourself in that argumentative tactic but its naive and obvious – the aboriginies knew about the dangers of uranium hundreds of years ago – its white Australia that is backward coming up with nuclear power as a solution.
andrew, it has been considered, over and over again,
so for the record i’ll state once again why it always, always comes up short,
1 – its dangerous to use
2 – its not renewable
3 – its not cheap
4 – its not environmentally friendly
5 – its got no workable, costable long-term waste management system
6 – it is a security risk wherever it is stored, processed or used
7 – it is uninsurable because of the RISK
8 – it requires long-term price agreements at the beginning making it inflexible
it has also undoubtedly led to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and possibly even worse, its byproduct – depleted uranium – is now a feature of war zones across the world, slowly poisoning air, water and soil, with an associated rise in cancer and leukemia
so i want to know, what possible reason could anyone have for supporting it?
oh, thats right, the basest reason of all, money
Of course Smiths but the rationalists will always support and “cost effectiveness” and “efficiency” (read money) as a motive over other concerns..(the extreme danger, the misuse for the ugliest weapons of any generation, the environment, future generations, etc etc). Money trumps all in their view but it doesnt go near trumping the negatives that dont ever get quantified.
on a different tack
the monbiot piece ”
For 300 years Britain has outsourced mayhem. Finally it’s coming home” is well worth reading
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/08/british-empire-colonies-banks-reform
as is the piece he quotes at the end
“It’s Finished”
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/lanc01_.html
smiths,
Thanks for actually engaging here. Alice seems content to try to throw what she thinks are hand grenades but are really misinformed stereotypes.
.
1. To me this difficulty can be overcome with an improved design – both of the reactor and fuel. If not, then we would be right to not use the technology. Of course, the danger (if any) of other options also needs to be considered.
2. Solar energy is not renewable in the sense that the sun will blow up in about 4 billion years. There is enough uranium on the planet to keep us going for quite some time – as there is enough coal to keep us going for centuries. If renewability were the only concern then I feel we can safely leave that concern to our great-great grandchildren who may well be much more technically able than we are.
3. Agreed – it is not when compared to coal. Compared to wind or solar the economics stack up quite well.
4. In comparison to what? Compared to coal (and ignoring your point 1 for the moment) it is positively wonderful. Compared to gallium arsenide solar it may well be better. Again, this is always a trade-off.
5. This is largely because of the political issue. There are good, long term storage options available. The Swedish system of vitrification and burying it in solid rock a couple of kilometres down is both technically feasible and, in Australia at least, likely to keep the waste stable for a billion or so years. If you run pipes around it you can also have what amounts to geothermal power.
6. True – the risks exist. I believe that they can be mitigated, but, if not, this would be a valid reason not to use it.
7. See 6.
8. This is due to the cost issue, so see point 3.
.
Nuclear power did not lead to nuclear weapons. The record here is clear: the causation is the other way around. Einstein’s letter to Roosevelt pointed out the possibilities of a nuclear weapon and funding was given. Fermi’s initial nuclear plant (on a basketball court) was intended to provide the raw material for the bomb.
As for DU – whatever we do it is going to be around for centuries now so we really should not (IMHO) base decisions on the power we use for the future on any mistakes we may have made in the past. That is not to say that this should not be part of the consideration – clearly as with other elements of security it should be – but it should not be a determinant.
The “money” you so deride, smiths, is merely information and, like any other information, it has a part to play. I would never say that it should be the sole determinant, any more than any other information should be.
Andrew Says “Nuclear power did not lead to nuclear weapons…The record here is clear: the causation is the other way around”
So why was is so much uranium smuggled out of Russia?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6297713.stm
To build energy or for more weapons in rogue nations Andrew? Chicken…egg? Doesnt matter which came first, its here and its ugly…and in the long term it will prove even more so. So much for nuclear non proliferation treaties when Russians are carrying enriched uranium in their pockets across borders.
another example from China
“The Australia-China safeguards agreements rely on monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the agency has little chance of keeping track of a system that even the Chinese Government cannot fully control. Brief visits to two large decommissioned mine sites, codenamed 711 and 712, and villages like Xinwuli, reveal a nuclear production system run by unaccountable officials and operated by naive peasants who will trade their lives to escape poverty.”
People who think this can be controlled (by eg as Andrew mentions above, storage solutions, vitrification, proper procedures and technology) are part of yet another form of delusionism. The delusion that short term solutions can be controlled in the long term. They cant. Its an acutely dangerous substance period. Why not look for genuinely sustainable energy solutions, not “cheap inputs, profits now solutions” because thats the real rationale – cheap, dig it up, sell it, use it and dont worry about the future.
The Reynold’s number seems to show some ability at intelligent responses,and,some rare elements of systems analysis.I certainly have wondered out aloud why it is that Australia’s waste nuke ,cannot be used whilst breaking down in half lifes.There doesn’t seem to be a tubular bells fan of high technical skills and patient explaining that reduces the risk for decent lifes.And the endless war against carbon dioxide seems to come with pipe mentionings only amongst those who would have it buried at sea.And my thoughts about the usefulness of CO2, cannot be attained for personal reasons…I dont own the companies,or more politely they own me,if what is happening to Bob Brown is some indicator.And no-one offered Fielding a chance to see the No Global warming lot,other than the magic carpet ride by ciggy interests!? I mean I can claim influence on the C.S.I.R.O with a use of a particular gas in wheat silos,and, maybe, how I warned of a potential fire risk in same usage of gas before a event that showed a very small volume of gases in a particular environment seemed to have implosive mass….that would continue to burn for some time.Cootamundra may never be the same…back to having a Neem Tea..the replacement for the gas, as Neem tree product except the bludging State Government wants GMO wheat..F them.And the local Council ,trust in amalgamated town halls,doesn’t come with deference to state governments for nothing.After all if you cannot gain status,you might as well go the tooth fairy road,but couldn’t they try getting a DIY plane kit together and talk to Men’sShed Movement before the great tooth fairy visit…to see if various skills etc.across the State cannot lighten the load by looking deeper into technical and real work functionalities..and have a piece of road in every town a landing site,with some pipes and other stuff to definitely let the rain find its memory a s water going into a pipe again.And has anyone tried,on a private road the placement of pipes of various circumference and distribution alongside a vehicle called generally a car.See you in the Choir when we all sing “Australian Government’s are uncreative and Piss Weak…so even if we were the Meek…it would take longer than a wet week to do something other than being the Sneak”
well i dont agree with you about costing Andrew,
when you commit to a 30 year deal with say for example, westinghouse to build and co-run reactors in a country like australia, you commit to a guaranteed price over that period,
in the meantime, with big effort and support great advances could be made in solar over the next ten years, you run the risk that in twenty years time there is technology available to provide very very cheap power but the government and the taxpayer have an expensive nuclear power network, an expensive thousand year waste problem and a giant multinational corporation whose interest does not align with the peoples, straddling this wide land
as far as the ingredients in photo-voltaics being dangerous and needing to be mined, thats true, but none of them are as dangerous as nukes
the real changes have to come from the way we live and work and use energy,
a new generation of nuclear plants will not help this at all
Absolutely, smiths – I would oppose any guarantee on costs between government and anyone at all. If someone chooses to build a nuke plant to supply power to me, they should be allowed to, subject to normal planning procedures. They then take the commercial risk and pay any insurance needed.
If you thin we need to change our use of energy, then you should have to make that case. Go ahead.
That is, to me, the whole point. The government should not be mandating a solution. Set any required carbon pricing system (if you want to go that way) and then let the people decide by making their own decisions on where they buy any power. If solar is the one they want to buy, solar will win. If it is wind – great. If they are willing to pay for stable, long term power then they may choose nuclear – or CCS if it ever becomes viable.
If Westinghouse want to take the risk of building one then it is their own risk.
Government measures to reflect external benefits of new nuclear generation might take one or more of several possible measures. These might be direct financial incentives, such as tax allowances, or direct grants, probably financed at least in part by electricity
consumers.
Such support might apply to construction, or to operation, or to the initial
costs associated with the planning inquiry or, much more substantially, the licensing. Or they might include less direct financial support such as government guarantees of some bank or bond financing.
The most important of possible government measures to adapt the regulatory regimes would be to reduce the market uncertainty, by, for example, underwriting or requiring some minimum level of procurement of electricity from the new station over a long period.
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=339
Interesting, smiths. Your point? My position on this is clear, I thought – and I would, with respect of course, disagree with that report. There should be no government incentives – nor any undue disincentives.
AR said “The government should not be mandating a solution”
That sounds wacky to me. Why not? If Govt sees a potential for a certain technology to fill a need why shouldn’t they mandate it? Any fool can see that solar power has huge potential for low fuss energy generation and major efficiency improvements and deserves to be mandated, along with wind and wave power.
If the Govt decides our economy or security depend on having nuclear power they have every right to mandate that as well.
You seem to think the ‘market’ should be governing us. That’s like having a computer running our lives. It’s dumb and so is the market. Some of our politicians aren’t too smart or ethical either but at least they have some commonsense.
According to Wikipedia, the Queen’s Birthday holiday in Australia celebrates the birthday of King George III (or at least, that’s how it seems—bad writing).
SG,
The history of the “any fool” argument is not a good one. Your second paragraph shows that – if the government decided (like the French did) that “any fool” knew that power should come from nuclear then it has the right to over-ride people like Alice just because they used the “any fool” argument? That is what sounds wacky to me.
my point andrew, is that although your position is clear it is like a phantasmagorical vision of how you would like things done,
i linked to the uk-sdc document because it is a real world analysis for possible use by Britain in enacting new nuclear power plants,
the history as far as it is publicly available shows that financiers and utility companies dont just say “hey we’ll build it, take the risks, and hope we can compete on an open market”
invvariably the state is involved or the private companies extract huge concessions from the state or simply wipe any semblence of a free market for energy away
but hey, thats capitalism … or is is socialism? its hard to tell the difference these days
Andrew
I also find your argument “AR said “The government should not be mandating a solution”
That implies that we should use nuclear energy simply because its there and the market knows that someone can dig it up and profit from it and if there are no controls then they will certainly do so, and the market will only supply the yellowcake to those willing to offer the highest price ipso facto if there is a market we dont need the government to mandate it and that justifies all?
False.
That is indeed a silly argument. Of course we need a government to mandate a solution here…preferably to leave the damn stuff in the ground everywhere. Not to build reactors when the market cant cover the risks adequately. Risks cannot be covered with nuclear use. Imagine if nuclear reactors and weapons were invented and built madly across every country 150 years ago? Not only would they be dilapidated but war has criss-crossed many continents since then, as have despot leaders whilst the uranium would have barely aged at all. Chances are we wouldnt be here now having this conversation.
Risks? No price can cover the risks of uranium and therefore no costing is efficient. Investigate the arlarmingly high child leakemia rates in Southern Iraq from depleted uranium. That alone should make you aware of the need for government mandates. Only a fool or an ideologue would suggest the market can handle this one.
OK – how do you lot get pictures in that square icon?
AR, you’re distorting my argument. Nothing new there.
Any fool can see the potential of solar. The value of Nuclear power is not so clear for many reasons already discussed but if Government wants it for reasons of it’s own, tied up with it’s own political goals, then of course it has the right to over-ride people who would run things differently like Alice who I’m sure would do a better job then you or either of the major parties.
Your ideology is telling you the govt shouldn’t do this or that but the reality is that it is the Government and it will govern according to it’s vision until it’s turfed out in an election. A government doesn’t need ‘any fool’ to ‘see’ before it has the right to do things. The French Govt wanted a nuclear weapon, no ‘any fool’ argument needed or wanted.
Andrew Reynolds wrote “Fermi’s initial nuclear plant (on a basketball court) was intended to provide the raw material for the bomb”.
No, it was intended for the early research for that.
Alice,
More bombast. Are you going to try to make an actual point or are you content to simply assert that you are right, anyone that says anything different is simply wrong. So there.
Not a very convincing argument.
To get the picture in you need to register a gravatar – http://en.gravatar.com/
.
smiths,
Why is this invariate at the moment? Simple – governments have been mandating solutions. Result – big coal plants burning cheap (high sulfur) coal. “Any fool” knows they are the best. Any fool knows that solar is expensive. any fool knows that wind is expensive and kills birds.
Problem is, of course, any fool may well be wrong.
.
SG,
Perhaps the vision should be to allow people to mandate their own solutions.
The constitutional monarchy is something that should be retained. Changing to a republic is dangerous. With a constitutional monarchy and the monarch’s representative, the monarch and representative have questionable authority which is good. It means that the monarch or representative can throw a government out and call for an election when there is a legitimate case to do so, and in this case they will be followed. If they try to do something illegitimate like launch a coup, they are unlikely to be followed. Under the republican model, the president or whomever has too much legitimacy and this has lead to problems in many countries where this model has been followed. The Australian constitutional monarchy could be improved by a modification to the Australian constitution to make it a crime punishable by death for the Monarch, his or her heirs or successors to set foot in Australian territory. This would protect Australia from having to pay for these bludgers. If the British Monarchy ceases then we should still have Governor-Generals and just go on pretending that they are being appointed by the British Monarch. Why tinker with something that is working so well? The only thing we need to fix is the leakage of public revenue due to Royal visits.
A message for Ian Gould:
– Yes GDP was positive in Q1, but largely due to a collapse in imports, export volumes holding up thanks to Chinese stockpiling of iron ore, a weak currency and pre-GFC contract prices. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese New Year.
– April trade data was ugly. May will be uglier. June uglier still, as the AUD appreciates and new contract (lower) prices kick in.
– As for the Baltic Dry Index, well I think you should read this.
testing gravatar (please ignore)
hey i am sorry andrew but i dont really understand what you are saying in your last response to me
It might be a nice little trick to get me to hand over my email address for one of these cute gravatars but what then? Does the gravatar then track where I visit and deluge my nice clean email account with bucket loads of spam?
Im not sure about this gravatar thingy but you do have a funny face Andrew.
@Andrew Reynolds
Andrew – if you think I am being bombastic about the risks of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons…here is a listing of convincingly ugly accidents.
http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html
Letting the market mandate its own solutions with uranium is a fools paradise.
How ugly and big a disaster do you need to convince you that not mandating govt control over yellowcake extraction or use is preferable, after reading this lot?
alice, anyone that wants to look at where you visit on the web, the insides of your computer, and all interrelated information already can,
not only does google track every search you make, but most sites tarck your presence and sell that back to google or someone like that,
the concept of privacy is not compatible with any kind of web presence
one more registration to have a cute pic will make zero difference
Smiths – ta for that. But Smiths….you need a better gravatar…LOL! That one is too grey, too ugly, and too hard to see!
Alice,
I have had agravatar on this account for some time and have received no more than the usual amount of spam – which has probably originated from other sources. I obviously cannot (and would not) guarantee that it is no problem, but it seems fine.
If you are worried and want to have one, then you could open a hotmail (or gmail) account and use that for any potential spammy stuff.
.
On the point with nukes – of course there is not zero risk. There is a risk involved in crossing the road or getting out of bed in the morning. The number of deaths through coal mining, for example, are huge compare the the number of deaths from the civilian use of nuclear power. The mining activities needed to produce the materials for solar panels are not risk free – nor is the process of putting up wind turbines, mining the iron or putting n wave generators.
The risk in all cases needs to be evaluated and assessed. The fact that someone could drown should not lead us to discard wave generators out of hand. Why do you argue the opposite for nuclear power?
Smiths #31, I think AR was responding to me going by the rhetoric but I don’t understand him either.
AR, here’s an example of a Govt mandating because it can and should.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/city-of-austin-mandates-home-energy-audits.php
The headline is ‘City Of Austin Mandates Home Energy Ausdits To Avoid Building New Power Plant.’ By your ideology of let the market decide, most people would not want to pay for the audit and subsquent upgrades which means that the state would incur a cost of several billion dollars for a new power station so that the people could continue to waste power and money. I think you can see a major problem with that ideology.
There is an article here that claims the real reason for teh GFC was teh oil price shock that was coincident with it:
Click to access 2009_spring_bpea_hamilton.pdf
I doubt this is true, but does anyone else have a view?
SG,
No – I just used your wording to show how rediculous the “any fool” line of argument is.
On your precise point in the most recent comment – I would not agree that it should be mandated. That does not mean I do not think it should occur. On the personal level I think it is a good idea to have an energy audit. When we recently built a new home I had the design checked for energy efficiency and that worked nicely. Should the governmen force me to do it? No. Should I do it? I believe so.
Can you see the difference?
i wouldnt touch gmail with a barge pole, google is the spider at the heart of the web, steer clear,
for searching try scroogle, like google except scrubbed of records
@Andrew Reynolds
Andrew – thanks for the ingo on aggravators – now I just have to find one that adequately reflects my inner (and outer naturally) beauty!
Re your comment “The fact that someone could drown should not lead us to discard wave generators out of hand. Why do you argue the opposite for nuclear power?”
Major reasons – mans incompetence (and man is fallible) can result in a) Chernobyl and b) three mile island and c)maralinga d) bikini atoll and then there are all those hideous spills into waterways including drinking water supplies and lost and dropped nuclear warheads and near meltdowns. Do we really know how many people are growing cancer right now as a result? No, we dont. How much productive land has been lost already? Thats reason enough for me. It cant be measured and it can take generations to get rid of the deformities and causes much suffering to people who had nothing to do with the production of nuclear. On the scale of things, one person drowning doesnt come anywhere near the horrors of nuclear, and thats just so far.
AR, any fool can see the difference but that’s not the issue. The issue is which works in the real world, mandating or letting the market decide. In the real world, mandating often works better. In Andrew Reynolds world, let the market decide always works because there is only Andrew and Andrew only does the right thing.
If there is a mandate for something you believe you should do, what’s the problem? If you don’t agree with the mandate that’s fine too. If you think the govt should not mandate something because you or others may not agree with it, then you have a problem with authority.
@Alice
a) Chernobyl – problem was Communistic incompetence and poor design.
b) Three Mile – wasn’t particularly serious, non issue.
c) Maralinga – what was the issue there? I don’t think there is an issue.
d) Bikini Atoll – unfortunate product of nuclear weapons testing. Shrug.
SG,
The problem is actually reversed. In the government’s world there is only the government and it always does the right thing. If they get it wrong then we, as taxpayers, pay for it – or we have to deal with the consequences. Good examples – Bikini, Maralinga, Chernobyl – all of which resulted in uncontrolled release of radioactive material. The best (worst) that Alice could come up with from private sources was Three Mile Island.
Even that list Alice kindly linked to – almost all of the serious issues were in (surprise) government facilities.
Given the record, who would you trust to run a nuclear plant? seriously – if we were to have a nuclear plant, and we had a choice on it being privately or government run, given the record, who would you trust? Surely, any fool would choose the government. A sensible person may look elsewhere.
.
Alice,
I appreciate that this is seperate from the issue of whether we should have them at all – one I am still uncertain about. You may well be right that going nuclear makes no sense – but I still think it should be considered and the risks analysed.
@Rationalist
rationalist – even though Chernobyl couldnt excatly be described as tip of iceberg – see link at #33.
Is that all you have to say..? No Chernobyl wasnt serious because it was due to communistic incompetence and poor design and you think the communists hada monopoly on incompetence or poor design or industrial accidents (it was a disaster on a monumental scale) and so was Three Mile Island and of course people got cancer from Maralinga. Try telling the servicemen posted there and the aboriginies they ignored that there was no problem with Maralinga.
Thats my point – no-one has a monopoly on man’s stupidity – let man be stupid, make poor designs, have accidents or be incompetent with something less dangerous.
Amazed at the shrug.
The Chernobyl experience was triggered unintentionally – and I sincerely hope that could have gone without saying – during a safety procedure check of number four. My memory is hazy on it now, but I’ll hazard a guess that the reactor design was one known as a “positive coefficient” design. To put it simply, a failure of coolant in the right set of circumstances could lead to a run, and when the engineers performed their test they inadvertently, if rather spectacularly, verified precisely what the correct circumstances were 😦
Those engineers without fatal radiation burns went on to learn about “negative coefficient” designs, highly motivated as they were.
While the death toll and human illness resultant from Chernobyl is hard to quantify, it certainly wasn’t zero. The inconvenience of having to leave their homes in Pripyat for good, and the fallout over a such a large area, is a high price to pay for a bit of electricity. The Welsh farmers weren’t too happy at having to destroy animals and discard milk produce; but given the radioactive particulate matter had made it that far from the Ukraine on the prevailing winds, the local government gave them little option. Sweden, IIRC, detected Chernobyl by having local nuclear workers tripping off the radiation alarms at their site. Nuclear particulate matter from Chernobyl had blown over and dusted the Swedish workers.
Nuclear reaction designs are much better now than 1986 in a communist state. However don’t be so complacent as to treat nuclear power as safe as houses. It isn’t.[The various accounts of the tragic lead-up to number four open-topping reveals just how complex the nuclear reactor power plant and distribution facilities are when considered as a system.]
BTW, many nuclear contingent events go largely unreported. The news stories are there if you look for them though. Check out Japan’s record, or the UK for example. One small-scale but quite revealing event occurred along a UK motorway; a truck carrying nuclear fissile material had the vessel improperly sealed. The radiation beam was, according to the report at least, pointed directly down at the road, and not into traffic. Human error was trumped only by dumb luck in this case.
In terms of realised risk though, for point of comparison I have been in five (nonfatal, so far) car accidents, only one as a driver. I haven’t knowingly been the victim of a nuclear power industry accident – yet. Then again there are cars everywhere I go…
Alice,
Any one that can claim the Three Mile Island was “a disaster on a monumental scale” clearly has not read anything other than – I don’t know what you could have read to get that impression. I take it that you are not claiming this, but I cannot read your comment any other way.
As you keep on about Maralinga I will look at this more deeply. Maralinga was a series of nuclear tests undertaken before there was a good knowledge of the persistent effects of radiation on living tissue. Yes – they should have taken more precautions, even based on what they knew then, but to use that to try to argue against a modern nuclear plant is really just (IMHO) silly. You might as well argue that the fact that a building can burn down means we should not use coal.
Good choice of gravatar, Andrew Reynolds. Must get an aggravatar…sorry, a gravatar.
Three Mile Island was a Level 5 nuclear event. Chernobyl was the highest, level 7.
Maralinga, 1953 or thereabouts, involved nuclear fission detonation, at ground, by the British. Australian – and presumably some British – soldiers were not only exposed, but were knowingly exposed. Radiation sickness from many cases had been documented before Maralinga tests. The DNA damage wasn’t known then (Crick, Watson and Rosalind Franklin had some work to do on X-Ray crystallography before figuring out DNA) as far as I am aware, although genetic damage definitely was. Some high profile examples are Madame Curie, Henry Dagnian, Louis Slotin (Robert Jungk, “Brighter than a thousand Suns”,Ch 12 (1987)), tens of thousands of Japanese, etc.
The British knew, as did our government, the fact that watching a nuclear explosion up close and personal is a dangerous sport. Nobody cared much for the Aboriginal occupants of the hot zone, although there is a placque at ground zero, IIRC. When the inevitable chronic illnesses and cancers started occurring, the government played dumb. Unfortunately demonstrating a causal relation b/n witnessing a detonation close-up, and cancers some years down the track, is only possible in a statistical sense. Any one individual might have developed illness or cancer anyway, or so the denialist-101 argument goes. [Sound familiar?]
@Donald Oats
Thankyou Donald.
And Andrew and Rationalist – Im fast getting the opinion that neither of you have done the important background material readings on any of these nuclear events. There is no other explanation for your lack of wariness.