Nuclear is Our Future

Nuclear is Our Future Monthly Newsletter

September 2005 Issue

Vote Nuclear Mini Button

In This Issue:

1. Introduction
2. September 2005 Archive

1. Introduction

Welcome to our newsletter! Contained here is the September 2005 Nuclear is Our Future weblog archive. Given that it is in plain text format, the HTML has been removed and thus many posts do not look the same as when they were posted. If you want more information, please check the September 2005 online archive at niof.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_niof_archive.html.

Link: http://www.niof.org/

2. September 2005 Archive

Friday, September 30, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Help us track the effects of radiation in your community by simply donating one of your child's baby teeth."


-Radiation and Public Health Project (aka Tooth Fairy Study)

1. This is not scientific. There is no set sample, no control group or control data, not even a certainty that the teeth in question came from the community from which they were sent. There is no assurance that the teeth (and materials therein) came from people who had lived in the community their entire lives; for example, they might drink milk from cows hundreds of miles away.
2. The radiation levels are not necessarily due to fallout from weapons testing or (even more unlikely) from nuclear power plants. Any radioactive materials in the teeth, depending on where the teeth came from, would probably have come from radioactive mineral deposits (even granite) or coal plants.
3. Who is going to respond to this? Anti-nuclear activists reading that page. We all know that anti-nuclear activists are unbiased and wouldn't send in 28 teeth from people who grew up next to whichever coal plant feeds nuclear weapons test blockhouses in Nevada and silently throw away ones from Vermont.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:10 AM | 4 comments

Thursday, September 29, 2005
NIOF.org Update #18

Nuclear Safety will be down for some editing for a few days.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:01 AM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"LCNP provides legal arguments opposing the claim in the Non Proliferation Treaty to an "inalienable right" to nuclear energy."


-Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy

Ugh.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:58 AM | 1 comments

Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The decision today by the NRC commissioners to approve a private nuclear waste site on the Goshute Indian reservation in Utah is the latest example of environmental racism on the part of the federal government. The commissioners, who voted 3-1, have now condemned a tiny impoverished tribe in Skull Valley to generations of environmental and health risks by approving a plan to ship 44,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste and park it in plain site on Indian land."


-Michael Mariotte

The racism is not in using land suitable only for things like nuclear waste storage for nuclear waste storage but in forcing Native Americans onto land suitable only for nuclear waste storage. What is difficult about this? Why do you think they're poor?

I bet NIRS wouldn't be complaining if a coal mine was opened there instead.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:36 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"But even the smallest amounts of man-made radioactivity can cause genetic damage leading to cancer, leukaemia, still birth, birth defects and other health problems which may only become apparent in future generations."


-Low-Level Radiation Campaign

Then why doesn't natural radiation cause cancer? Humans don't have any magic powers to make new kinds of radiation; animals (and more recently humans) have been exposed to much higher radiation levels since the beginning of life on Earth. All of a sudden, it causes cancer? The industrial revolution comes along, people start smoking, life expectancy increases dramatically, and cancer rates concurrently skyrocket with no changes in radiation levels (if anything, a decrease)--and radiation is at fault?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:42 AM | 1 comments

Monday, September 26, 2005
NIOF.org Update #17

New Uploads:
Contact Us
History
Legal
Policies
Updates
Admins
401 Authorization Failed (not very interesting)

posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:12 PM | 1 comments

GN Global Protest Week

Remember, October 1-8 is the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space's global protest week. If you are aware of anything in your area, please try to get something together or tell someone else who can.

I suggest the discussion board as a good medium in this instance.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:44 AM | 2 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Inherently safe should mean inherently insurable; therefore, nuclear operators should be able to privately insure them."


-CMEP

No. If there are thousands of lawyers lining up to sue anyone who does anything with nuclear energy in any form, a private insurance company will not insure a nuclear power plant. Safety has nothing to do with it. The number and quantity of claims is what an insurance company pays attention to.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:11 AM | 0 comments

Sunday, September 25, 2005
NIOF.org Update #16

New uploads:
NIOF in the Press
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day Archives
Press Release: NIOF Online

Updates:
Press Release Archives
About NIOF.org
New Press Release Directory

posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:26 PM | 1 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"June 29 - A NAS report concludes that there is no such thing as safe levels of radiation; NEIS believes that this could spell the end of the Nuclear Industry."


-NEIS

Three things:
1. Too late. Nuclear energy is dead.
2. The NAS report, if you actually read it, basically says that there isn't a whole lot of evidence either way (something I disagree with) but that a conservative policy would be to keep assuming no threshold.
3. Replacing a coal-fired power plant with a nuclear reactor reduces radiation exposure by over a factor of 100. Replacing a nuclear power plant with hundreds of acres of solar panels and/or wind turbines solves the radiation problem but then we have dead birds and fish and expensive, intermittent electricity that requires backup diesel generators. Where do you get the diesel? Radioactive coal or unstable dictatorships? Running the generators on ethanol would mean conversion of arable land to fuel production, causing rising food prices, meaning some people can't afford it and starve. Natural gas can come from radioactive coal, unstable dictatorships, or fabulous-for-the-environment offshore drilling. Natural gas, diesel, and coal all contribute to global warming. Diesel exhaust is one of the worst industrial carcinogens. Getting rid of nuclear energy as an attempt to stop cancer obviously could work--but we'd have to take a pre-industrial standard of living, which is not worth it. Cancer rates will plummet, though, if people don't live long enough to get it. I hope this isn't most people's idea of a public health strategy.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:09 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, September 24, 2005
NIOF.org Update #15

New Uploads:
Anti-Nuclear Links
Pro-Nuclear Links
Neutral Nuclear Links

Updates:
Links

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:16 PM | 1 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Where Science and Democracy Meet"


-IEER

Why is it seen as less of a conflict with the scientific method to have the current fad dominate policy about what unbiased acquisition of facts is acceptable (I want to puke) than to have one person dictate policy?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:37 PM | 1 comments

Friday, September 23, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day

In the "not comparing nuclear energy to the alternatives but rather simply looking at absolutes" department...


"In addition, an expansion of nuclear power throughout Africa and parts of Asia would require the construction of an expansive transmission and distribution network."


-Benjamin K. Sovacool

posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:13 AM | 0 comments

Thursday, September 22, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"[A] study using the standard method of accounting for radiation damage (the “linear no-threshold” method) among the entire affected population would be expected to find far greater casualties."


-NIRS

Duh. If you assume that any level of radiation is toxic, using their "standard method," you would get 19,000 cancer deaths every year before the industrial revolution, whereas the largest pre-industrial cancer rate was around 260, if I remember correctly.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:04 AM | 0 comments

Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Happy Birthday, Dr. Gofman

I googled "Gofman obituary" and got nothing. I guess he's not dead, so here goes.

Today, if the web is correct and Dr. John Gofman is still alive, he is 87.

If anyone knows where he lives, a good birthday present might be some coal, since he apparently likes it so much. Plus, it can be reused at Christmas.

Nobody would be so tacky as to stage a die-in for the million or so people whose lives have been shortened by coal emissions since his LNT hypothesis became public, would they? Of course not.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:44 AM | 1 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Further, radiation standards are set by such organizations as the International Commission on Radiological Protection and those standards are usually applied here. Why, Mr. [Norm] Rubin [of Energy Probe] asks, would Ontario and Canada not set their own limits?"


-The News Advertiser

Oh, I don't know, maybe the ICRP knows what it's doing as opposed to a committee of lawyers? Or, perhaps, that committee came up with the same number?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:43 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Interesting Discussion

See http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=15292856&postID=112612018036055655.

Warning: Do Not Eat the Skeptics (i.e., there may be a glimmer of hope here, this person is not Amory Lovins and should not be attacked as such.)

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:20 PM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"First let me agree that certain building materials do give off enough radiation doses to deserve consideration."


-Dr. John Gofman

Some nuclear waste is less radioactive than certain building materials. So what does this genius want to do? Not, say, handle the "nuclear waste" like the building materials, but rather treat some of the most common building materials in the world as nuclear waste.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:49 PM | 0 comments

Monday, September 19, 2005
NIOF.org Update #14

Updates:
FAQ Index (javascript is a wonderful thing)

posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:23 PM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Greenpeace is campaigning to end nuclear power, reprocessing and waste dumping."


-Greenpeace

So what do they propose to do with it?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:53 AM | 1 comments

Sunday, September 18, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The quality of our air, water, soil, and food are rapidly deteriorating. Animal extinctions and loss of plant life escalate, while cancer rates and other immune system related diseases soar. Many scientists believe that there is a strong correlation between these anomalies and the increasing levels of radiation in the environment."


-Mothers' Alert

1. Nuclear energy adds 0.02% more radiation to the background. Radiation, being energy, disappears from an area after you stop adding it. It boils water and that steam is allowed to enter the natural water cycle. Yet, they blame it for air and water pollution, soil degradation, chemicals in food (and the fact that organics are of lower quality), extinctions, cancer, and AIDS. Where's the data?
2. Cancer is not an immune system disease.
3. Ionizing radiation levels in the environment are not increasing. As radioisotopes decay, radiation levels decrease because there's less radioactive material.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 8:46 AM | 0 comments

Saturday, September 17, 2005
You Can't Shield Your Child From Fossil Fuels

In this post, I refer to an ad which is found here.

In December 1991, a new mother in Chicago sat in front of her television, holding her infant son and crying. The USSR was finally gone, taking with it the Cold War and her perpetual fear that her son would be drafted to fight the Russians. Now she isn't so sure. Not that he would fight the Russians--that is over--but with the possibility of a draft to fight the war in Iraq, her fear is renewed. The US government's energy policies seem to consist of fighting for new oil supplies, not in changing the source of energy. If you live near a coal-fired power plant, your children will suffer from asthma and other respiratory problems, and die a premature death. Even if you don't, your children could be drafted to fight for more oil and gas. Look into your child's eyes. Nothing can protect them but a change in energy policy in the US.

See? I can write emotional crap about motherhood just as well as NIRS.

If the coal-fired power plant near you operates normally, what would you do? Support a nuclear world. Join local community organizations and get involved. NIOF: 5719 N. Markham Ave., Suite 4, Chicago IL 60646: Tel--773-763-3861: Fax--773-763-3861: Email--webmaster@niof.org: Website--www.niof.org

posted by Stewart Peterson at 2:54 PM | 1 comments

Public Interest Groups Attack Each Other

Isn't it hilarious to watch groups that say that only they operate in the interests of the public (as if they get to decide what that is) attack each other in explicitly their own interests?

This is only hilarious if it works. For example, environmentalists attacking consumer groups over packaging or product safety is only funny if it results in progress, like a recyclable package that is easy to open and people actually bother to recycle. Something that obviously isn't funny is the continuous bickering over whether cars should be made featherlight to the point of airworthiness or heavy to prevent rollovers, which hasn't resulted in anything.

Or, say, nuclear energy. Environmentalists and unions, to name two groups, constantly fight over various aspects of nuclear energy. However, neither fully opposes nor fully supports nuclear energy and use it as a tool to further their power. For example, a supposedly pro-nuclear union will not come out in favor of an expansion in uranium mining because it may drive down wages. Likewise, environmentalists in general who fight nuclear energy are not fighting the nonpolluting, efficient energy source, but the concept of industry and civilization. If they can win on nuclear energy, they can attack more established industries and practices that they also hate. In the late 1960s and early 1970s they beat DDT on largely overblown and very limited preliminary studies. This got them enough power and money to squash nuclear energy. They now simply defend their power. They do not revise their positions based on the science that they claim to defend.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 2:46 PM | 0 comments

Quote of the Day Corrections

I have used two Quotes of the Day (9/9/05, 9/10/05) mentioning the British nuclear weapons facility Aldermaston without explaining that it is a nuclear weapons facility and the 9/6/05 Quote of the Day was referring to TMI.

The quotes were accurate; my explanations of the context were incomplete. As always, I encourage you to read the materials from which the quotes came. If it came off the internet I'll always post a link. If it came out of a book I have a bibliographic citation on my hard drive which I'll be happy to post.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:28 AM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Although the material [that NRDC decided to have smuggled through customs just to prove they could do it] is relatively harmless depleted uranium, weapon-grade uranium also would have passed through U.S. Customs without being detected."

Then, later on down the page,


"The specific activity (the radioactivity per unit mass) of the uranium isotopes in depleted uranium is about 15 million Becquerel per kilogram (15 x 106 Bq/kg).2 This is approximately 40 percent lower than that of naturally occurring uranium (25 x 106 Bq/kg) and about 150 times less than that of enriched uranium (approximately 2.3 x 109 Bq/kg)."


-NRDC

So, something that is 150 times more radioactive than the item they sent through wouldn't have been detected?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:05 AM | 0 comments

Friday, September 16, 2005
Private Fuel Storage Operating License Approved

I've always said that nuclear waste dumps are the biggest missed point since post-9/11 American flag doormats (unfortunately, both have appeared).

Or, as Rod Adams says, it's the right answer to the wrong question.

The first thing we can do is stop making it in its current form by upgrading our outdated reactors. The second thing we can do is use an advanced reactor, quietly built in Canada while we in the US podium-pounded--the CANDU--to process the waste and complete the fuel cycle.

There are a number of major technical differences from the 1950s- and 1960s-era American reactors, but the main points are that:


It can use spent fuel from the reactors currently in use in the US.
It can use natural uranium, meaning no enrichment and minimal processing.
It produces fissile plutonium when fully configured.
What does this mean? This reactor can turn either natural uranium or nuclear waste into plutonium, which of course can be used in other reactors. This slows down the process of depletion of accessible uranium from three years with a full nuclear energy program to on the order of three million years. It also solves the problem of nuclear waste and tight budgeting, the construction of both types (CANDU and conventional PWR) at one site with the simple recycling facilities onsite, and basic security measures would solve the (practically nonexistent already) problem of proliferation.

Of course, I know better than to say that it will happen. No amount of NEI rose-tinted-glasses construction outlooks will change the fact that the US has more than enough coal. Literally thousands of lawyers are lining up to sue whoever starts a new project. Currently, the only energy crisis is environmentalists who apparently like to kill fish and birds, pollute bodies of water, fell rainforest, and use arable land for solar panels vs. the market forces and smart businesspeople in favor of coal, which massively pollutes the environment in almost every way possible (including radiologically) and kills 30,000 people per year. I have mixed feelings about the possibility of being alive in 100 years, when the energy debate will really start, when we have no alternative to coal, when we can't ignore the problem any longer. As it is now, if I had to come up with 1,000 megawatts for a project, I would love to build a nuke but would have to build a coal plant if I wanted to get through the project with anything but the shirt on my back. As a person with ethics, the only way I could look at myself in the mirror every morning would be to sequester the stack gases and ash at enormous cost. The existing nuclear power plants will run until they lose their licenses or seriously malfunction due to age. Usable nuclear fuel will be labeled "waste" and turned into glass bricks to rot in the ground.

What tragedy. What waste.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:48 PM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"The Mothers for Peace is a non-profit organization. Its active members include young mothers, grandmothers and non-parents. Its membership is predominantly, but not exclusively, women."


-Mothers for Peace

Right up there with the Union of Concerned Scientists, I guess.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:52 AM | 0 comments

Thursday, September 15, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"January 1988--The State [California]-wide office discovers that 90% of the East-Bay's drinking water is in the evacuation zone of Rancho Seco. A two step campaign is set in motion to notify East-Bay cities of this, forcing local emergency planners to notify the public of this danger as required by law."


-Abalone Alliance

Evacuate the water supply! Quick! Bus out the aquifer!

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:48 AM | 0 comments

Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"...a federal nuclear agency found taped-up cracks in the ventilation system and "hot boxes" without adequate seismic restraints..."


-Tri-Valley CAREs

So...they used duct tape on their ducts and didn't have a strap connecting their gloveboxes to the wall in case an earthquake hit? With safety concerns like these, we're lucky we don't have something worse, like an industry which does not even attempt to contain the radioactive materials in the fuel it burns, sends workers home contaminated with radiation levels that would get a class-action lawsuit filed if they happened at nuclear facilities, causes thousands of deaths per year, and somehow is not opposed by these assorted No Nukes groups.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:29 PM | 4 comments

Tuesday, September 13, 2005
NIOF.org Update #13

New Uploads:
No Natural Gas Top 10

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:58 PM | 1 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


“Such cases [of employee cancer deaths], as well as the case of the Windscale worker Malcolm Pattinson, whose widow was awarded £67,000 damages by BNFL when he died of leukemia after eight years’ work in radiation areas, suggest that the CEGB’s use of averages in measuring and setting limits for workers [sic] exposure is worse than inadequate.”


-Hilary Bacon and John Valentine, activists

???

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:00 AM | 0 comments

Monday, September 12, 2005
NIOF.org Update #12

Updates:
The home page should look a little less strange.

New uploads:

Top 10 Dr. John Gofman Peer Review Responses
No Biomass Top 10
No Coal Top 10
Top 10 List Index

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:41 PM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"As Texas commissioner of agriculture for eight years, I regularly encountered PhD-flaunting scientists from ag colleges and industry who absolutely insisted that each of the thousands of insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides on the market was there because humankind could not survive without it and because each one had been so rigorously tested for human safety that they would gladly swig a cocktail of pesticides in front of the Alamo at high noon. It was a level of true belief rarely seen outside cults, and I finally came to the conclusion that they had, indeed, been sniffing too much of the stuff in the lab."


-Jim Hightower

For the unaware, this is a knock on Bernard Cohen, who offered to drink as much plutonium as Ralph Nader would caffeine.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:42 AM | 0 comments

Sunday, September 11, 2005
September 11

On this day, I wish to respectfully put nuclear energy in some sociopolitical perspective.

Could nuclear energy have prevented the attacks? No.
Can nuclear energy reduce dependence on foreign oil? Only to the extent we use it to generate electricity. It cannot solve problems caused by cars, the chemical industry, consumption of plastic, or anything else other than electricity generation. The 1973 oil crisis basically was the end of oil-fired generation in the US. Natural gas is another matter--natural gas used to generate electricity could be replaced with nuclear energy. However, OPEC nations basically flare their natural gas, so this is not an area in which much improvement could be made if we wanted to reduce dependence on foreign oil. Coal can be processed into chemicals that are traditionally petroleum products--Nazi Germany was chronically short on oil and used this method extensively--and such a system would use so much coal that a conversion of coal-fired plants to nuclear plants would substantially reduce prices.
Are nuclear power plants terrorist targets? Obviously. So are many other things that we need. Quoting myself seems a bit imperious, but:


One day, a customer walks into a major retail chain and asks where a product is. The salesperson's response was that the item had been discontinued because it was a target for theft. The customer walked out, wondering what the purpose was of discontinuing the only item in the store worth stealing.
The lesson is: we can't let terrorism intimidate us into abandoning nuclear power. Why shouldn't we stand our ground on energy—and its effects on society—while we protect everything else? We have to do what's right, and I don't care what Osama bin Laden says about that.


-Nuclear Safety
Nuclear power plant fuel cannot be used in a nuclear weapon. Obtaining nuclear fuel for a dirty bomb would be much harder than obtaining, say, a chlorine tank or 50 gallons of gasoline and five pounds of assorted nails, both of which would kill far more people than a dirty bomb. However, in the public's mind, anti-nuclear groups have successfully associated radiation levels equivalent to a vacation in Denver with cancer, and a terrorist's only aim in setting off a dirty bomb would be to exploit that fear.

Expect spin and disinformation from anti-nuclear groups in the coming days. I'll post when I find something.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:52 PM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Controversial studies have been made on workers in the huge fuel reprocessing plant at Hanford, Washington and the nuclear shipyards at Portsmouth, New Hampshire—controversial because the US Navy withheld information on its Portsmouth workers from investigators, and because funds were withdrawn from the scientists studying the Hanford workers before the study had been completed."



-Hilary Bacon and John Valentine, activists

What information? Personal medical information or work histories, which sometimes cannot legally be disclosed? Irrelevant information? Classified information?

What was the actual result of the study or studies?

You can always say that a study wasn't completed (i.e., "We just need 5 more years and $600,000 to get more defined results").

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:58 AM | 0 comments

Saturday, September 10, 2005
Discussion board

Should I create a new category (Technical, Activism&Politics, News, etc.) for discussion of info on NIOF.org pages (sort of like how this example allows discussion of page content except not on the page itself, but with a link to the discussion)?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:28 PM | 0 comments

Inconsequential Site Stuff

If you've noticed, I pared down the UNIX rant on the sidebar and added a counter that Justin Feng recommends (thank you very much), after the Amazing Counters code pooped out after only 124 hits.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 7:17 PM | 2 comments

NIOF.org Update #11

The News page now contains a link to the September 2005 blog archive.

Any ideas on how to move the sidebar text leftwards over the gray part on the home page?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 6:06 PM | 2 comments

Groups

My recent NIOF.org update reminded me that I set up a nuclear energy email (usenet) group and neglected to announce it. Please sign up here and start a discussion or two.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 3:28 AM | 2 comments

NIOF.org Update #10

I have recently updated the site; the following pages are now up and have content:

Home page
Archives Index
A/V Library
Awards
News
Articles Index
External Articles
Contribute an Article
Contributed Articles
Nuclear Safety
July Newsletter
August Newsletter
Community
Mailing lists
Newsletter
Newsletter confirmation page (not very interesting)
Ban the Banana!
Humor Index
The Go Nuclear Top 10
Introduction to Nuclear Issues
FAQ homepage (links don't work)
External Links
Nuclear Issues (links don't work)
Recent News (mirror of News)
About NIOF.org

posted by Stewart Peterson at 2:55 AM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"Nor is cancer the only fatal illness connected with radiation exposure. Another nuclear worker from Aldermaston, Mr. Higgins, inhaled 300 times the permitted dose of ruthenium-106 in 1973, with resultant damage to liver and lungs. He was later found to have suffered serious damage to his thyroid and parathyroid glands, symptomatic of serious exposure to radioactive iodines, which suggests a separate, unpublished accident."



-Hilary Bacon and John Valentine, activists

Note that they're condemning the radiation standards (implying nuclear energy) using a dose that the radiation standards say is 300 times what is hazardous.
I would also like to remind you that the thyroid damage does not require certain radioisotopes and the fact that iodine collects there is irrelevant.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 2:26 AM | 0 comments

Friday, September 09, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


"A particularly hotly debated case [of nuclear employee death] is that of a 49-year-old Aldermaston worker, Mr. Cummins, who died of a rare form of cancer two years after being exposed to an excess of the 'permitted' radiation dose. The foreman said that Cummins had obeyed all safety regulations very carefully; Dr. Mole, of the Medical Council and the National Radiological Protection Board [UK] (NRPB), claimed that 'natural background radiation' was a greater source of danger to Mr. Cummins than overexposure at work, and that it would take far longer than two years for such a rare cancer to develop. However, Professor Patricia Lindop (who holds the Chair of Radiation Biology at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London) disagreed, feeling that such a cancer could have no other clear cause, and that it was much more likely to be radiation-induced than to occur naturally. What is particularly disturbing about this death is that the British Nuclear Fuels Limited doctor at Windscale, Dr. Schofield, said that an autopsy revealed that Cummins had only 1 percent of the 'permitted body burden' of radioactive material (Guardian, 30 November 1979)."



-Hilary Bacon and John Valentine, activists

Several things.
1. Science is not "your PhD against my PhD." It is a way of processing external information and making decisions. I would strongly suggest that the people who make statements like this learn to make decisions on their own. This requires science education, meaning a knowledge of the scientific method and a passing knowledge of the research and known information.
2. Likewise, "Dr. Mole" probably made a comparison of the doses one would receive from background radiation vs. this incident. If they are the same (or the occupational exposure is lower) then this cancer was not caused by occupational radiation exposure. I do not need any background in health physics to know that if someone has been getting a 200 millirem dose for 49 years and gets a sudden 100 millirem dose blaming a cancer on the 100 millirem dose is irrational. Also interesting is the fact that the words "background radiation" are in quotation marks in the original, as if it doesn't exist.
3. They could very well be deceptively quoting Professor Lindop; someone may have asked her a theoretical question without giving her all the information about the received dose.
4. He was exposed to an excessive dose. In reviewing their allegations, I have not found one incident so far that resulted in an actual health effect that can be documented that did not exceed standards. This would suggest that the regulations work.
5. What is "troubling" about a person who received an excessive dose, did not retain most of it, probably would have gotten it from somewhere else anyway, and died long before any cancer could have possibly developed (even if the 10,000 millirem threshold was met)? These people are inclined to connect those dots and come to the conclusion that the radiation exposure standards should be tightened, not that the person didn't die from radiation exposure. It's a foregone conclusion.
6. This quote could have been completely fabricated. I don't know without looking at the Guardian archives and their sources and properly documenting the entire incident, which I do not have time to do. I am simply pointing out the internal inconsistencies in their statement.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:26 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, September 08, 2005
Hit Counter

I should have known better. I just should have known better.

I should have stayed as far away from www.power-counter.com as possible when I read that their systems run UNIX. Instead, I waited for the catch. Of course, it showed up.

The counter on www.niof.org went up to 145 and stopped. The counter on this page went up to 1060 and stopped. Now they are reset and won't advance. On their page, they said not to tamper with the code or remove the advertisements. I didn't; I added a disclaimer, and I will be enraged if this is the reason. However, it's probably just that UNIX is the worst operating system in the history of computer science and has a well-known tendency to destroy every file it can get its hands on at the first sign of any unexpected results.

Grrr.

Update: www.amazingcounters.com provided a new counter for this page and allowed me to transfer the hit count from before. Let's see if this works. I have added an anti-UNIX rant on the side of the page where the counter used to be; please tell me if this overly disturbs the flow of the page (then again, waiting five minutes for a page to load because of some moronic teenage hacker who thinks he knows how to do everything and if anything happens you're stupid is sort of a disruption in page flow).

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:39 AM | 3 comments

Discussion Board

I have been informed that some topics are no longer visible in the discussion board when clicking on each forum. This is largely because nobody has posted since August 21st (hint, hint).

There are definitely things to discuss in the world of nuclear energy. The discussion board in question is built specifically for that purpose, and it's available for people to use and has been for almost a month.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:22 AM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


“Dr. Dolphin of the National Radiological Protection Board has pointed out that radiation exposure levels in this country [UK] are set by the average population, not by sensitive sub-groups such as children or pregnant mothers.”


-Hilary Bacon and John Valentine, activists

Yes, because if Dr. John Gofman's LNT hypothesis and toxicity levels were applied to children, background radiation would suddenly "cause" thousands of pediatric cancer deaths every year that don't exist or that are known to be caused by other carcinogens. It is important to remember at this point that cancer was nonexistent before the Industrial Revolution.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:11 AM | 0 comments

Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


“After working for 18 years in a uranium enrichment plant in Kentucky, Joe Harding died of a combination of radiation-induced cancers and a hitherto unknown form of pneumonia. Before he died ‘in 1970, nail like growths began developing from the finger-print side of Joe’s fingers and thumbs. Somewhat later they started growing also from his knuckles and finger joints. ‘Now I have fingernails growing even from my wrists, elbows, and shoulders,’ Joe says. ‘And something like toenails are growing from my ankles and kneecaps. Various doctors have said it is mutations, cell changes caused by radiation.’”


-Hilary Bacon and John Valentine, activists

Mutations happen on the genetic level, not the anatomical level. Mutations that occur only in parts of the body do not spread to other parts, or acquire the characteristics of other parts of the body.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:14 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Another Chernobyl Report

Apparently, another report has been issued about Chernobyl, and the usual suspects are playing it up as if it's (a) news or (b) means something. The following is a group of quotes from Greenpeace.



Often, research has been omitted and where scientific uncertainty exists, the conclusion is simply that there is no impact.



The scientific method relies on theorists to prove their hypotheses. It is not the job of others to prove that something isn't true; the theorist must provide evidence and the lack of proof otherwise when an allegation is presented does not constitute evidence. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but absence of evidence is also not evidence.



WHO refers to a study on 72,000 Russian workers of which 212 died as the result of radiation. The total number of 'liquidators' (in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine) is estimated at some 600,000



Presumably, the dose varied from worker to worker. Simply multiplying the numbers wouldn't work if there was any difference.



The number of 4,000 deaths of the IAEA only relates to a studied population of 600,000, whereas radiation was spread over most of Europe.



Again, they do not specify how much radiation was spread. I would use almost-universally-accepted numbers to try to refute this statement; however, they fit into the "almost" and are known to use different sets of data from everyone else.



The IAEA tries to make strict distinction between health impacts attributable to radiation and other health impacts attributable to stress, social situation etc. However, the WHO is referring to numerous reports which indicate an impact of radiation on the immune system, causing a wide range of health effects;



Huh? This would cover disease attributable to immune deficiency, which is a 'health effect,' and not an increase in diseases occurring in those without immune deficiency. By the way, this is not AIDS, as snake-oil peddlers will inevitably tell you.



The IAEA states today that previous researchers who have estimated the number of deaths in the range of 10 to hundreds of thousands have exaggerated the impacts. This is not correct.



First, 120,000 people have died in the area around Chernobyl since April 1986. For that population size, such a number is not unusual at all. However, they will have you believe that every single person who has died since 1986 died from radiation. Strangely, the long-term impact that they suggest assumes that radioactive materials don't decay; obviously they do or they wouldn't be radioactive.



This approach [Non-linear plus threshold] is valuable in well controlled situations, but can become very problematic in complex situations such as in Europe, where were it will be absolutely impossible to relate individual cases cancer e.g. in Belgium or France to the Chernobyl fallout.



Hallelujah! They finally admitted it! Seriously, though, a threshold approach ("based on epidemiology" as they said) doesn't try to pick this cancer versus that cancer as radiation-induced, but states that a certain number of cancers were radiation-induced.



The Chernobyl explosion occurred April 26, 1986, when an out-of-control nuclear reaction blew off the roof of the steel building and spewed tons of radioactive material into the air. It was the worst nuclear accident in history.



Well, almost. The operators were instructed to run a loss-of-coolant test to prove the safety of the reactor design. Translation: they drained all the coolant to see what would happen. The Chernobyl reactor, possibly the worst-designed reactor in history, predictably overheated. A steam explosion followed, releasing fuel and waste from the reactor. That is no accident.



"It is appalling that the IAEA is whitewashing the impacts of the most serious industrial accident in human history," said Jan Vande Putte, Greenpeace International nuclear campaigner. "Denying the real implications is not only insulting the thousands of victims - who are told to be sick because of stress and irrational fear - but is also leads to dangerous recommendations, to relocated people in contaminated areas."



No, blaming every single death and illness in the area on radiation, thereby preventing real medical care, is an insult to the population. Bowing to pressure groups who apparently can't read and don't know anything about epidemiology is irresponsible. I could probably find five coal accidents that killed more than 4,000 people. As for industrial accidents in general, Bhopal comes to mind as a fairly serious accident.

See news-nuclear.blogspot.com/2005/09/review-of-chernobil-report.html and news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/4216102.stm

posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:33 PM | 2 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


“Other figures have shown thyroid abnormalities in babies born near the site since the accident to be one in 925, compared with a national average of one in 5,000.”


-The Times [?], April 2, 1980

Notice how they don't mention the rate before or after the accident, so who knows what they're comparing it to, if anything. Plus, what exactly is an 'abnormality?'

Edit: 'the accident' is TMI, sorry.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:31 PM | 0 comments

Monday, September 05, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


“One couple is already suing the owners and designers of the plant [TMI] for damages, claiming that their baby was stillborn because of the radioactivity released during the accident.”


-The Times [?], April 2, 1980

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:30 PM | 0 comments

Sunday, September 04, 2005
Gofman Award

Now is the time to nominate an individual or group for the first annual Dr. John Gofman Nuclear Pseudoscience Award. To quote the NIOF Awards page,


The Dr. John Gofman Nuclear Pseudoscience Award is handed out annually to the anti-nuclear person or group that has shown exemplary performance in the areas of statistical fiddling, misrepresentation, bad editing, dimensional inconsistency, crankiness, quotability, misuse or misunderstanding of the scientific method, conspiracy speculation, politicization of science, and general inanity.


posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:11 PM | 0 comments

NIOF Store

The Vote Nuclear buttons and www.niof.org rectangular magnets are now available for purchase. I have changed the 2.25" single button to read "Nuclear is Our Future" since "Vote Nuclear" is now separately available, and I have made an attempt to standardize prices.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 5:04 PM | 0 comments

So Much for a New Nuke at Grand Gulf

Somehow, I don't think that a new power plant of any type to serve demand that is no longer there is going to be high on the list of priorities, especially now that Entergy has to rebuild their distribution system.

The only way I see a new nuclear power plant in Mississippi is if all other power plants are totally destroyed. Since that did not happen, any plans for an increase in capacity or a replacement of some fossil-fuel-fired plants with nuclear plants are almost certainly dead.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 4:25 PM | 0 comments

Hurricane Effects on Nuclear Power Plants

Here's the Obligatory Hurricane Post (OHP).

Isn't it interesting that the only three undamaged and operable industrial facilities in the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast area are the three nuclear power plants? So much for nuclear power plants being unable to cope with hurricanes.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:29 AM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


“Big rise in baby deaths near nuclear power plant”


-Hilary Bacon and John Valentine, activists

...and everywhere else

posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:00 AM | 0 comments

Saturday, September 03, 2005
Financial Connections to Industry: Gotcha!

Much has been made about scientists who are corrupted by research funding from industry. It's much more complicated than it initially seems to most outsiders, and I'd like to provide a small hypothetical example:

ACME Welding Products sells a line of oxy-acetylene torches for welders. They have had to replace thousands of a certain type of torch because the steel alloy used in the nozzle was deforming after a certain number of hours. Needless to say, this costs quite a lot of money and they want to find a new alloy to use in their torches. Since they do not have an expert on steel alloys on hand (who would only be used for these types of things anyway), they pay a university materials scientist to find a high-temperature alloy that works for their purposes. Initially, everything works fine.
Six years later, after millions of welds have been performed using their tools, a pseudoscientific lawsuit is filed accusing the company of causing a local cancer outbreak. Theoretically, the nozzles were eroded and metal from the nozzles got into the joint and into the air. The deformation of the previous type of nozzle is used as evidence that this is happening, and the company faces a six-figure penalty if they can't prove the nozzles didn't erode. So, of course, they ask the researcher who gave them the formula to testify. On the stand, he is asked by the plaintiff's attorney for his credentials. Predictably, the attorney says, "Didn't you receive money from ACME Welding for this research?"
Gotcha.

That said, I would like to add two comments.

I do not defend bribery in any way. Zero-tolerance policies against anything anywhere are always counterproductive, and a zero-tolerance-for-industry-scientists policy is incredibly irresponsible and destructive.

It is absolutely ludicrous to imagine that only scientists from these "public-interest groups" are unbiased. University researchers are basically guaranteed a job no matter what they say in published papers. Scientific procedures allow people to say things in refereed journals that are incredibly wrong--because they'll get corrected by another paper in a professional discussion. Even though the researcher in the example above received money from the company, he never was forced to tell them anything and was free to use his professional judgment in finding a suitable alloy.
Scientists from "public-interest groups," on the other hand, would lose their jobs immediately if they said anything that contradicted the group's line. They have a real financial incentive to make certain statements, and usually (case in point: Dr. John Gofman) would have a hard time getting another job due to their reputations being in the toilet. Tell me there's no conflict-of-interest there (to quote a Maryland state representative, "I don't see how it conflicts with my interests.").

posted by Stewart Peterson at 1:04 AM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


Wind, energy efficiency and other clean energy sources also avoid all of the other problems with nuclear power:
*Nuclear power does not work well in warming climates. The summer of 2004’s heat wave across Europe not only killed thousands of people, but because of dwindling river levels caused many reactors to reduce power levels and even shut down entirely. Reactors require vast quantities of water to keep the core cool; changes in water levels, and even water temperatures, can greatly affect reactor operations. Reactors in the U.S. have similarly been forced to close during heat waves.


-p.5 of NIRS Comments on California Energy Hearings

Sure. Nuclear energy should be avoided because global warming makes nuclear power plants less reliable. On top of that, warmer intake water is easier to boil, resulting in marginal efficiency improvements. Plus, isn't global warming supposed to result in higher water levels?

posted by Stewart Peterson at 12:05 AM | 0 comments

Friday, September 02, 2005
Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


“In our country [UK], Dr. Geary of the University of Manchester has recorded an outbreak of myeloid leukemia in North Lancashire—over the last ten years the incidence rate has nearly doubled. North Lancashire is an area covered by the prevailing wind from Windscale, and is also an area where a great deal of locally-caught fish is eaten.”


-Hilary Bacon and John Valentine, activists

Hint: locally-caught fish. They could contain a lot of things besides short-lived radioisotopes.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 11:49 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, September 01, 2005
August 2005 Newsletter

I have just sent it. Subscribe using the box on the right or at www.niof.org. I will get it online and post a link as soon as I can.

Update: It's now available here.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 10:24 AM | 0 comments

NIOF Store

When they said that new products will be available in early September, I guess they really meant early September. New products which you will find here are:

'Cap' (which turns out to be a white or khaki baseball cap with 'Go Nuclear' on it)
Framed tile coaster--should someone have the desire to hang one on the wall, I have made them available. Please note that they aren't as durable as the standard coasters.
1"-wide 'Vote Nuclear' buttons for canvassing etc. Available in 1, 10, and 100 packs.
3.125"x2.125" rectangular magnets with www.niof.org on them. Available in 1, 10 and 100 packs.
Custom postage is not available yet. I have submitted the above products to CafePress (store hosts); they may not yet all be online.


posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:58 AM | 0 comments

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day


“On 30 November 1979, the Guardian reported that child leukemia is double the normal rate among the population of Utah and Nevada exposed to low-level radiation from the 1953 test blasts.”


-Hilary Bacon and John Valentine, activists

This was presented during a long list of unsubstantiated allegations about nuclear power plants. How, exactly, does this condemn nuclear energy? People in the vicinity of nuclear weapons when they go off die. That's the entire point.

posted by Stewart Peterson at 9:19 AM | 0 comments

Link: http://niof.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_niof_archive.html.