EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
- In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
- Revealed: How US State Department 'Twists Arms' on Monsanto's Behalf
Popular content
Today's Top News
Activists Call for Renewable Energy at UN Meeting
BANGKOK — Citing the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, environmental activists at a U.N. meeting Sunday urged bolder steps to tap renewable energy so the world doesn't have to choose between the dangers of nuclear power and the ravages of climate change.
Members of various civic groups hold placards in Tokyo denouncing the use of nuclear power during a rally. Environmental activists also gathered outside an UN meeting Sunday and urged bolder steps to tap renewable energy so the world doesn't have to choose between the dangers of nuclear power and the ravages of climate change. (AFP/Getty) The call came at the opening of the six-day meeting aimed at implementing resolutions tabled at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, in December.
Senior officials from governments and international organizations will already be playing some catch-up as deadlines — including one for the formation of a multibillion fund to help developing nations obtain clean-energy technology — have been missed along a roadmap leading to another climate summit at the end of the year in Durban, South Africa.
Before the Bangkok meeting, the U.N.'s top climate change official warned that a very significant global effort would be required to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 F) above preindustrial levels — an agreement reached in Cancun between 193 countries, most of which are represented here.
Pledges to reduce emissions made by countries so far equal only 60 percent of what scientists say is required by 2020 to stay below the two-degrees threshold, Christiana Figueres said.
"We did the easy thing at Cancun and left the difficult ones for Durban. And the politics are getting more difficult this year than last," said Artur Runge-Metzger, a European Union climate change official, pointing to efforts by Republicans to block some of President Barack Obama's efforts to reduce emissions.
"We need to see big strides forward before we get to Durban. We have to speed up the pace of work," Runge-Metzger said.
One of the issues taken up in Bangkok will be the formation of the Green Climate Fund, which is to aid developing nations obtain clean-energy technology. Governments have agreed to mobilize $100 billion a year, starting in 2020, but a "transition committee" to design the fund, which was to have been formed last month, is still being discussed along with exactly how the money will be raised.
Technology committees and other institutions to implement resolutions are still on negotiating tables, and it was unclear how much the delegates could accomplish in Bangkok.
The World Wide Fund for Nature said the Bangkok talks needed to build on the "fragile compromise" at Cancun and "boost the overall ambition levels of the talks if we are to avert the worst consequences of climate change."
Greenpeace, another non-governmental organization, said that in light of the Japan disaster, governments represented in Bangkok were obliged to speed up changes in their energy sectors and promote green technologies.
"The world does not have to choose between climate disasters and disasters caused by dangerous energy like nuclear. We can choose a safe future where our societies are powered by renewable energy," it said.
As the conference began, activists from Asian and African countries began a weeklong protest outside the United Nations building, carrying an effigy of Uncle Sam to symbolize the role of the industrialized world in climate change. They said rich nations owed a huge climate debt to be repaid to developing ones by funding and technology transfer.
The global effort to avert climate change began with a 1992 U.N. treaty, when the world's nations promised to do their best to rein in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases emitted by industry, transportation and agriculture.
Progress, however, has been slow and many scientists warn that dramatic reductions in emissions will be needed to substantially slow the melting of the polar ice caps and glaciers, the rise of sea levels and other consequences of global warming.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
30 Comments so far
Show All"many scientists warn that dramatic reductions in emissions will be needed to substantially slow the melting of the polar ice caps and glaciers, the rise of sea levels and other consequences of global warming."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/apr/04/fear-nuclear-power-fukushima-risks
"...there were recommendations for restrictions on drinking water, which have now been lifted, but the radiation dose received by drinking Tokyo water for a year would have been less than that from moving to Cornwall and living there for a year."
"The threat of climate change is much greater than the threat of radiation, but no one is scared of carbon dioxide."
"...if we want to provide sufficient carbon-free energy we will have to use nuclear fission. I don't think this is incompatible with an environmentalist attitude. People working in nuclear power often care deeply about the environment and the energy problem."
http://knol.google.com/k/ethics-in-science-the-exaggeration-of-radiation-hazards#
"Radiophobia is the term used to describe abnormal, unjustified fear of radiation ... manifested specifically through individual and public reactions to radiation and aggravated by nonspecific anti-nuclear attitudes."
http://www.riskworld.com/nreports/1999/jaworowski/NR99aa01.htm
"What is the cause of radiophobia? ...some likely reasons:
· The psychological reaction to the devastation and loss of life caused by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
· Psychological warfare during the cold war that played on the public’s fear of nuclear weapons.
· Lobbying by fossil fuel industries.
· The interests of radiation researchers striving for recognition and budget.
· The interests of politicians for whom radiophobia has been a handy weapon in their power games (in the 1970s in the US, and in the 1980s and 1990s in eastern and western Europe and in the former Soviet Union).
· The interests of news media that profit by inducing public fear.
· The assumption of a linear, no-threshold relationship between radiation and biological effects.
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2008/07/best-analogy-for-linear-no-threshold.html
"If the LNT were applied to falling as it is to radiation, we might note that 100 percent of those falling onto concrete from 100 feet are killed, but only 50 percent of those falling from 50 feet die. With these data we would linearly extrapolate to say that 10 percent falling from 10 feet and one percent of those falling from one foot would die. Armed with this “linear no-threshold falling theory,” we could confidently assert that jumping rope should be banned on all school playgrounds since statistically anyone making 100 one-foot jumps would die."
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/12/02/lawrence-solomon-the-apples-and-oranges-of-radiation%C2%A0/
"The doctrine that radiation carries risk in direct proportion to the size of the dose delivered doesn’t square with the complex relationships seen in empirical scientific studies. The regulatory regime governing low levels of radiation may need to be scrapped, and replaced with one that reflects the real world."
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/chernobyl.html
The future will see what prevails: the diligent, objective, scientific judgment of UNSCEAR, which is the most competent scientific body worldwide on radiation matters, or the ideologically and politically motivated propaganda of fear."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/30/anti-nuclear-power-hysteria-and-it%E2%80%99s-significant-contribution-to-global-warming/
"if the US had simply built and operated the nuclear power plants it had planned and licensed, it would today be producing not only less carbon emissions than it did in 1972, but would in fact be emitting almost half the carbon emissions it is now."
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10368/
"The reaction to events in Japan shows that fear – of climate change or radiation – trumps old solidarities."
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10341/
"Eight years ago, as hostilities resumed in Iraq, there were many determined to uncover Saddam Hussein’s supposed stash of weapons of mass destruction there, despite the evidence consistently pointing to their absence. We were advised instead to focus on the unknown, or the ‘unknown unknowns’ as the US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously put it. Two years ago, once the director-general of WHO had identified H1N1 as ‘a threat to the whole of humanity’, nations everywhere cranked into pandemic prevention overdrive, convinced that only their precautionary actions could save humanity – this despite all the evidence pointing towards the outbreak of a mild version of influenza. We have to recognise that once a particular mindset is established it is very hard for people to accept that their model of the world may not be correct even if the facts are staring them in the face.
This is the pattern being repeated around the nuclear incident in Japan. Some newscasters seem determined to convey the worst that could happen, as if this were some public service. But surely at such times the role of the media is to report the facts rather than imagine a Hollywood script? The problem we now confront is that a significant number of cultural pessimists have staked their reputations on proving that there was a major problem and possibly that this was covered up. Such individuals seem to desire – if not need – the worst, to confirm their apocalyptic frameworks."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/25/fukushima_scaremongering_debunk/page2.html
"This is beyond ignorance now."
http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=16_17_69&products_id=211
If you've learned to stop worrying, ^ a source of uranium for educating others in personal show-and-tell.
http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/loveprefaceen.htm
http://www.ecolo.org/base/baseen.htm
We are experiencing a fateful and fleeting teachable moment, as the consequences of anthropogenic climate change accelerate. Rampant radiophobia is now threatening to severely impact the Earth's climate, because there is no cleaner source of base grid power available now, when it matters most concerning climate change.
Let's please take any point above that you dismiss as corporate-sponsored disinformation, and examine it here more closely.
It's all corporate-sponsored disinformation.
Shill, your sermon is a bit long.
Don't be so uptight about things.
Go out and play in the rain.
1(D) Please substantiate your allegation that US power companies (or any for that matter) have suppressed radiation data pertaining to the Fukushima-Daiichi accident. Please describe the means that US power companies have for suppressing public data & data collection pertaining to ionizing radiation levels anywhere.
2,3(D) Please explain your understanding of the Linear No-threshold Theory of physiological response to radiation.
4(D) Please substantiate your allegation that Fukushima-Daiichi presents any meaningful health risk in the USA.
5(D) Please address:
http://westernfrontonline.net/news/13245-epa-says-radiation-levels-unharmful-in-washington
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/18/957718/-CDPH-On-Japan-Radiation-Concerns:-No-Current-Risk
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/26/the-negligent-promotion-of-nuclear-panic/
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/8aca5fe3d1d30ebc852578630074eaff!OpenDocument
Why do you consider Fukushima-Daiichi an emergency requiring FEMA attention in the USA?
What emergency-response and emergency-preparedness institutions are most neglecting in the context of the F-1 emergency (in my opinion) is an important component of the duties that these organizations are are entrusted with: Educating the populations that they serve, with regard to risk perception. In certain emergencies, fear and panic can present far more public danger and harm than the actual events stimulating collective emotion.
"""fear and panic can present far more public danger and harm than the actual events stimulating collective emotion."""
hypewaders Assuming that is sincerely what you are wishing for, because everyone of us, must be ACCOUNTABLE, for words R more potent than bullets.
WILLFUL CALCULATED, PREMEDITATED & EXECUTED, it is precisely FEAR & PANIC that the WAR OF TERROR has brought upon US the MASSES also called PEOPLE, perceived as a HERD. THE SHOCK DOCTRINE repeated with a certain frequency has PARALYZED billions for exactly a decade. NOW CORPORATIONS, ARE RIPING THE FRUITS, dismantle the UNIONS, whatever remains of EDUCATION, destroy PRIVACY & DIGNITY, PRIVATIZE ALL, KILL DESCENT, INVADE & ESTABLISH A MILITARY BASE in every country,& bring all under one umbrella, EMPIRE.
Well it is without a shadow of a doubt, CORPORATIONS who so far have managed to use fear & panic by the book AS USUAL.
As for the nukes I want even start.
As the JAPANESE CATASTROPHE IS UNAVAILING IT IS USED AS AN ADVERTISING & MARKETING CAMPAIGN TO SELL MORE NUKES, INSTEAD OF RETHINKING THE HORRORS of the NO THROUGH ROADS we have built ourselves. Again the same doctrine is used in LIBYA, HUMANITARIAN mission hit them again, BP, MC DONALD, SHELL, HALLIBURTON & CITY BANK ARE WAITING IN THE BACKGROUND.
For forty years, almost every single Latin American nation was founded by the CIA/NSA.
As an other puppet is in the making, 'see Iraq war precious exp" yet again The CIA is used the same way Hitler used the SS, TO TENDER THE MEAT BEFORE THE BIG SLAYING.
No Shock Doctrine.
No Terror No Torture, Just Truth.
Many thanks for rational thinking, hype is gov't
EPA: U.S. rainwater perfectly safe, don't use it.
"Radiation from the Fukushima leak has been detected in at least 12 U.S. states and is believed it will reach more in the coming days as Japan is put on 'maximum' alert.
The Environment Protection Agency confirmed that radiation was found in air filters in Alabama and in rainwater in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
Though the trace levels are very low and not hazardous to health, residents have been warned not to use rainwater which has been collected in cisterns."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371236/Japan-nuclear-crisis-Fukushima-radiation-leak-reaches-AT-LEAST-12-US-states.html#ixzz1IZgWrTpy
There is always radiation from rainwater. These trace levels are not hazardous to your health (as your source also confirms).
Modern detection of ionizing radiation is extremely accurate. This does not mean that what is being measured is harmful. You are referring to levels of radiation that are far below background, and far below levels harmful to human health.
Radiation in Bay Area rainwater high, but weakening
By: Kamala Kelkar 04/04/11 4:00 AM
Examiner Staff Writer
Radioactive rain: Bay Area rainwater recently exceeded standards, but is not seen as a health risk.
Bay Area rainwater tested last month exceeded federal standards for radiation in drinking water by 46 times, but a federal agency downplayed the potential health effects because the radiation is weakening rapidly and short-term exposure brings minimal risks.
Results released Saturday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that rainwater tested in Richmond on March 22 contained 138 picocuries per liter of iodine-131, a radioisotope that can influence thyroid activity and cause cancerous cells. According to the EPA, drinking water is only permitted to contain 3 picocuries per liter.
But iodine-131 has a “half-life” of just eight days, which means it dissipates to half its initial radioactivity within that time frame.
The new results confirm similar data from UC Berkeley’s Department of Engineering, which recently found cases in which milk, creek water, potable water and spinach and mushrooms carried traces of the radioactive isotope.
The department’s test results showed on March 24, rooftop water exceeded federal drinking water iodine-131 thresholds by 181 times, a number that has been decreasing since.
Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/bay-area/2011/04/radiation-bay-area-rainwater-high-weakening#ixzz1IZm2cgkz
Thank you for including the summary of the meaning of the data:
"not seen as a health risk."
The temporary spike in I-131 is attributable to F-1 because of its short half-life and fission source- not because there are not equivalent and higher sources of beta and gamma emissions frequent in nature.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi26.html
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/radioactive-iodine-uptake-test
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/ramsar.html
http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q1254.html
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/mururoabook.html
Shill, either the standards are too stringent or the EPA is downplaying the risk.
Yes, your water is 81 times more radioactive than our standards allow. Drink up, it's perfectly safe.
You can see the inconsistency, right?
The standards are confusing, absent accompanying explanation or prior education. Many journalists and infotainment workers have been adding much to the confusion, inducement of fear, and politicizing surrounding events at Fukushima-Daiichi.
http://www.sciencemediacentre.ca/smc/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167
http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2011/03/18/1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nuclear-power-is-safest-way-to-make-electricity-according-to-2007-study/2011/03/22/AFQUbyQC_story.html?hpid=z4
Shill, I checked the first link and, while informative, it didn't address the point that either the standards are too stringent or the EPA is downplaying the risk. I checked the second link and it was about " Humans 'wired' for terror over remote radiation threats." I didn't bother with the third link based on the URL.
Let me simplify the issue.
The EPA standard says a gallon of drinking water should not contain more than a 16th of a teaspoon of rat poison. Now I have a gallon of water that has 81 times that amount but the EPA is telling me it's safe to drink.
See the problem?
Why is the current amount considered safe when the standard says it isn't?
Thanks VP. You need to keep at it too. Your multiple Choice Quiz really brings home the failures of all the agencies that are supposedly keeping us safe, Shill's response shows it hit home.
ctrl-z: "The EPA standard says a gallon of drinking water should not contain more than a 16th of a teaspoon of rat poison."
I am not aware of that standard, nor that strychnine (or other poison) is naturally present at such levels. I do know that in many locations, there are human populations thriving under much higher background levels of ionizing radiation than is presently sanctioned by regulators of the nuclear power and water treatment industries.
In many such places, there is no higher incidence of cancer, or any diseases attributable to background radiation. There is abundant evidence in biology for individual adaptation to elevated ionizing radiation, including heightened physiological countermeasures against abnormal cells and free radicals.
It's true that in the case of many toxins, biological systems often develop a resistance and higher tolerance due to limited exposure. I'm not sure about rat poison, though. If you have some information to share, we can compare it to the data available on human populations living under natural background ionizing radiation levels that are many times higher than public exposures due to the Fukushima emergency.
ctrl-z: "Now I have a gallon of water that has 81 times that amount but the EPA is telling me it's safe to drink."
There is an opportunity today for people concerned about ionizing radiation to learn about the levels that they are exposed to in nature, in proportional comparison to radiation due to nuclear power (also nuclear accidents).
ctrl-z: "See the problem?"
It's not a problem that the nuclear power industry has very stringent standards. It is a problem that many people become confused by strict regulatory limits. The airline industry has a very low tolerance for risk of injuries to passengers and crew due to accidents. This does not mean that the risks associated with vehicular motion are scandalous.
ctrl-z: "Why is the current amount considered safe when the standard says it isn't?"
The regulatory standards entail much lower thresholds than have been observed to cause health problems. The emissions that the public has been exposed to due to the accident at Fukushima-Daiichi are much lower than the natural doses that many thousands of people live with, with no higher incidence of cancer or other health problems apparent.
There are many regions where nuclear powerplants are out of the question under present regulations- Not because of local opposition to nuclear power, but because the naturally-occurring background radiation far exceeds the allowable limits of exposure for nuclear power workers.
In many industries, there are very stringent standards. As I mentioned with respect to air transport, the officially acceptable limits of traumatic injury is zero. However, this is not a reliable standard of assessing the actual risks to any particular passenger on any particular flight: When there is an aviation accident, there is elevated fear among those with scant understanding of aviation, but not a significant public agitation for the banishment of aircraft.
I think that this is because in our times, most people can understand the risks of kinetic motion much better than they understand radioecology and the actual health risks of emissions from Fukushima-Daiichi during this emergency.
Another factor in the distortion of public perception is the duration of the emergency in comparison with an air disaster (or other typical industrial disasters). It does take a comparatively long time to get a nuclear power complex under control after such tremendous damage.
The actual human casualties and health risks associated with ongoing events at Fukushima-Daiichi (after emotionally-charged and ill-informed representations of events have run their course) are not supportive of sensational headlines and radiophobia.
In rational comparison with other accidents involving energy-intensive industries (coal and airline industries for example) the real dangers of nuclear power are phenomenally low, and getting lower with the evolution of NP tech. Our informed confidence in the relative safety of nuclear power will be increased through this experience- that is, after the many dire predictions still in abundance.
I am dismayed that in many communities such as ours here at CD, positions and decisions are being taken that will have lasting consequences. Specifically, I am concerned that ignorance and misconceptions regarding radioecology are likely to result in much higher CO2 emissions in the years ahead.
The objections that I often read here to my voicing of my concern are not so troubling- except in the sense that they suggest to me a kind of of anti-intellectualism and mob mentality. To dismiss the heart-felt concern that advocates of nuclear power express as the behavior of "shills" is conspicuously facile, and most often introduced by participants who do not display a concerned interest in becoming informed on the subject. We're certainly not paid by the word here, but sometimes expressing our convictions takes more than a few words, when what we have in mind is more than the stigmatization and silencing of those with whom we differ in experience, outlook, and opinion.
Whatever the terms of disparagement flippantly given, there are many of us personally concerned about the environment and future life on our planet who also see nuclear power as an important part of correcting our dangerous modification of Earth's atmosphere during the age of coal, oil, and gas.
It is critical to our global climate and ecosystem that our greenhouse emissions be reduced before an increasingly-apparent ecological tipping-point, that will have many more dire consequences for all species (and by many orders of magnitude) than it is reasonable to expect from accidents at present-day nuclear power stations.
Nuclear power is an important component of our base grid power supply that is likely to mean the Difference (survival) for many, many species on Earth. The dangers of further acceleration of the burning of fossil fuels are far greater than the dangers presented by the nuclear accidents we are learning (sometimes, as at present- the hard way) to reliably prevent.
Visiting Prof: "If nuclear reactors are SO SAFE to human life, why is it that the companies that design and build them will not break ground on a nuclear project unless the government guarantees their lilability in the event of an accident will be limited to 12.6 billion dollars and the U.S. taxpayer will pay all claims above this amount?"
Insurers know that public perception of the hazards of ionizing radiation is uniquely irrational. Underwriters can't really quantify liability in a market that is popularly considered with ignorant, superstitious, and magical thought. The implications of fear and misinformation are significant, as every public nuclear emergency has shown.
If government regulators were to accept risk and responsibility for climate change, we might see a very different power industry, considering the liabilities becoming increasingly evident with respect to fossil-fuel burning.
It's unfortunate when the public doesn't know what's good for it- That's not a failure to impose policy, but a serious failure in education. In the USA, we have uniquely regular political events (wars, destruction of public health care, privatization of government, nuetralilzation of unions for example) where herd mentality and emotion overcome debate and rationality. People are not suffering from ill effects of nuclear power, in any way comparable to the effects of fossil-fuel-based energy. Yet the perceived dangers are far out of proportion with reality, and that's where insurance underwriters throw up their hands and chalk it up to government panic / disaster management in the worst potentialities.
In the USA the government is much more deeply involved in nuclear liability than it is in other countries. This is a product of the nuclear arms race of the last century, and the uniquely intensive weapons production and testing that went on in the middle of the last century.
"the Price-Anderson Act—the world's first comprehensive nuclear liability law—has, since 1957, been central to addressing the question of liability for nuclear accidents in the US. It now provides US$10 billion in coverage without cost to the public or government and without fault needing to be proven. It covers nuclear power reactors, nuclear research reactors, and all other nuclear facilities."
"The first layer is where each nuclear site is required to purchase US$300 million cover from private insurers. The second layer is jointly provided by all US reactor operators. It is funded through retrospective payments if required of up to US$96 million per reactor collected in annual installments of US$15 million (adjusted for inflation). Combined, the total provision comes to over US$10 billion paid for by the utilities... "
"More than US$200 million has been paid in claims and costs of litigation since the Price-Anderson Act came into effect, all of funded by insurance pools. Of this amount, some US$71 million was related to litigation following the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility."
"The Price-Anderson Act is a controversial policy. Opponents argue that the Act represents a massive taxpayer subsidy of the nuclear industry that substantially reduces the cost of doing business. Some opponents claim that without the cap on liability damages, the industry could not survive.Opponents note that the legislation was initially intended to provide investor confidence in what was viewed as a new and risky industry. But this is now a mature industry that should be fully accountable for nuclear accidents and should purchase risk insurance on the private market. However, over 40 years later, this mature industry still enjoys a subsidy that distorts the cost of nuclear power and potentially leaves taxpayers on the hook for damages from a severe nuclear accident."
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.html
Visiting Professor: "why do the companies that know the most about the dangers of nuclear plants refuse to operate them without a guarantee that they will not be held responsible for most of the damage claims if they spring a leak or melt down?"
They do so in Japan, and in many other countries. The USA is a unique example, and I think that US regulators have done much harm, in terms of faulty education and loss of public trust pertaining to nuclear power.
People who know the most about nuclear power know that public perception of risk is far out of proportion with reality. Projecting the liabilities of nuclear power is a unique challenge because public perceptions are uniquely driven by emotion and ignorance.
I think that it's time for an adjustment in the USA along with a high world standard of liability- the nuclear power industry should bear the costs of maintaining securities ensuring that all reasonable liabilities are covered by the utilities. Accidents on the scale of F-1 should not require a public bailout. The challenge is in assessing the actual risks of contemporary and future nuclear power facilities, and I will welcome the debate.
We don't project the reliability and fatality rates of the earliest airplanes in establishing reasonable coverage for airlines. Nor should we apply Chernobyl standards to powerplants where comparable danger is not present. There should also be reasonable consideration for the role of government/public response to major natural disasters and wars should they exceed reasonable precautions. F-1 will be an important benchmark for liability with respect to private nuclear power producers: Present and future nuclear powerplants should (shall) be required to survive comparable natural disasters without causing great harm (including panic) to the public- with liability a binding deterrent for negligence. The present emergency in Japan will be instructive to all concerned, regarding issues of actual public risk and harm. No doubt there will be adjustments worldwide, and I hope that these will be made responsibly and rationally.
"Japan is not party to any international liability convention, but its domestic law generally conforms to them. Plant operator liability is exclusive and absolute, and power plant operators must provide financial security of 60 billion yen (US$540 million). Beyond that, the situation is unclear, though liability is unlimited. In relation to the 1999 Tokai-mura fuel plant criticality accident, insurance covered 1 billion yen and the parent company (Sumitomo) paid the balance of 13.5 billion yen."
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Civil_liability_for_nuclear_damage
Shill sez : "To dismiss the heart-felt concern that advocates of nuclear power express as the behavior of "shills" is conspicuously facile, and most often introduced by participants who do not display a concerned interest in becoming informed on the subject."
Shill, every time I get past the fact that you're using an ongoing nuclear catastrophe to sell the safety of nuclear power plants, and begin to view you as a person, you post something like; the benefit of radioactive seawater is that it will cause a prohibition on fishing in the area and thus help with the over-fishing problem.
The benefit of radioactive poison in seawater? How much of a shill or fanatic do you have to be where you'd post something like that?
In one thread you posted a bunch of URL's supporting hormesis and opposing LNT. I replied with a wikipedia entry showing that LNT is still considered valid as a model for regulation by groups/agencies dealing with nuclear power and hormesis is still considered unproven. Without even admitting there is disagreement in the scientific community you blithely go about posting the same pro-hormesis, anti-LNT links.
To me that is disingenuous. You aren't even acknowledging that there's a debate and you are presenting the minority position.
As for, "The objections that I often read here to my voicing of my concern are not so troubling- except in the sense that they suggest to me a kind of of anti-intellectualism and mob mentality."
Look back over the responses to your postings. There are a whole range of responses, some more emotional, some more dispassionate. Some people, and I'm in this group, consider some of your postings offensive. You consistently minimize the effects of the nuclear disaster to advance your pro-nuke arguments. I think, considering the magnitude of this ongoing tragedy, you should expect some emotional opposition to your posts. But I think you will also find a lot of the responses show people are educating themselves (or have already done so) about nuclear power. That's not anti-intellectualism.
As for a mob mentality, you are on a progressive site posting things that read like nuclear industry press releases during a nuclear disaster. Of course the vast majority of responses to your posts are negative. Still, I don't think anybody has called for you to be tarred and feathered yet.
Hmmmm.
Could happen soon though.
BTW - The rat poison thing was just a hypothetical.
ctrl-z: "In one thread you posted a bunch of URL's supporting hormesis and opposing LNT."
There is an abundance of evidence for hormesis and contradicting LNT (an arbitrary extrapolation by definition). There is radiation treatment for cancer because in medicine it is understood that our bodies have defensive responses to radiation. It's inconsistent that government agencies approve cancer treatments and other radiological procedures that far exceed the maximum dosages allowable in nuclear industry, but that's because a) the nuclear power industry is not in the business of irradiating people and b) the government does not have to be consistent.
ctrl-z: "I replied with a wikipedia entry showing that LNT is still considered valid as a model for regulation by groups/agencies dealing with nuclear power and hormesis is still considered unproven."
Nuclear power regulators took up the most conservative scientific-ish standard available to them, on the assumption that such a policy would be safer for the public. The NLT regulatory standard was not scientifically derived. Instead, it ignores radioecology entirely. This is not a scientific disagreement- It's the establishment of a regulatory standard without scientific basis.
This is nothing unique in government standards, and in most cases conservative if unscientific safety standards do serve the public well. The problem here is that confusion of an unscientific regulatory standard for a measure of danger is leading to irrational behavior including irrational public policy decisions. Specifically, a crucial capability to mitigate global warming is being neglected, while the burning of fossil fuels accelerates.
ctrl-z: "Without even admitting there is disagreement in the scientific community you blithely go about posting the same pro-hormesis, anti-LNT links."
It's not a legitimate disagreement in the scientific community. NLT is just an arbitrary straight line drawn on the lower left side of acceptable radiation exposure charts, in the absence of corroborating data. Such a guide may be reasonable in certain regulatory contexts in limiting risks, but that does not make it a yardstick of actual danger.
There is ample empirical and objective evidence showing that humans and animals thrive in environments bathed in levels of ionizing radiation that are exponentially higher than what is officially prescribed for nuclear power industry emissions and working environments. Where background radiation is much higher than the limits allowed by nuclear regulations in most countries, there is no demonstrated concentration of cancer or other pathologies such as what consistently results from extreme doses of radiation.
By extreme doses, I mean levels of ionizing radiation far above what is present in the highest natural background radiation locations on Earth; levels higher than have been experienced by long-term nuclear attack and disaster survivors; higher than the doses received by long-endurance astronauts. Exposed to extreme radiation doses of 400 mSv and higher, there is a roughly linear progression apparent, of horrible effects on mammals and other life forms, ranging between acute illnesses and death. If at these extremes a linear progression of dosage and pathology leading up to mortality has considerable scientific validity, it doesn't prove that the relationship is proportional at low dosages, or (as NLT adherents are wont to say) that there is no safe dose of radiation.
In spite of the NLT model, at lower doses (including the everyday doses that we all receive of radiation in our daily lives) there is ample scientific evidence that we and most life forms have adapted through evolution to cope physiologically with the ionizing radiation aspects of our environment, in much the same way as we have evolved biological coping mechanisms for dealing with toxins and infections.
ctrl-z: "Some people, and I'm in this group, consider some of your postings offensive."
As I say, we have evolved an abundance of defence mechanisms. I'm not great at expressing myself, but I mean you no offense. I mean only to attack what I consider to be dangerous memes involving radiophobic hysteria, that are likely to result in an acceleration of climate change. I take no personal offense that you disagree with me. I am amused that you prefer to make disparaging assumptions about my motives, and about how I make my living, over addressing the substance of my opinion and the background I provide here for it.
ctrl-z: "You consistently minimize the effects of the nuclear disaster to advance your pro-nuke arguments."
The way I see it, I am debunking rampant exaggeration of the dangers presented by F-1, that are a mockery of the actual human tragedy that has resulted from Japan's recent quake and tsunami. The F-1 accident has ignited a frenzy of doom & gloom grandstanding on the part of nuclear power opponents that is far from scientific; that is patent fear-mongering propaganda.
I am confident that with time, a majority of readers here will come to understand this. The pessimism and mob-mentality presently on prominent display here is not going to be vindicated by real events, and as an optimist I am much encouraged by the educational potential of F1 turning out to be something considerably less frightening, less deadly, and less damaging than Chernobyl, (and far less horrific than the darker myths of Chernobyl). I fully understand why you may consider me arrogant in my confidence that I presently have a clearer view than you.
But I don't want to be arrogant, nor to be perceived as such. I want to know the truth, and I want for the truth to take hold of collective consciousness to the extent that we can save ourselves from the greatest challenges ahead- from the challenges to our survival, and to our worthiness to survive. I don't doubt that you share much the same sentiment, even as I understand that our different backgrounds govern our perceptions and expectations differently.
As we all know- Time will tell... I would like for this conversation to continue as the Fukushima story unfolds, and for us to agree to return here to review the unfolding of events and the evolution of our understanding several months from now, and share what we've learned- not to score any superficial personal points along the lines of "my motives are purer" or "I-told-you-so". Let's just take up the intellectual courage to find where this story leads.
ctrl-z: "BTW - The rat poison thing was just a hypothetical."
I see. o/
Shill, If you really want to get your point across because you think without nuclear energy everything goes to hell, back off. Your posts are alienating and polarizing people. Other pro-nuke people post here but don't get nearly the same amount of negative responses as you. Your posts come across like you're an evangelical for nukes and you've got to convert the sinners.
I once had to intercede in an interaction between an analyst/programmer and a user representative. The A/P brought the user to tears because the analyst, when he couldn't get the user to understand something, simply repeated the same explanation over and over, as if repetition would somehow get the user to understand. The A/P was brilliant but had no idea about how to communicate with people.
Think about it.
Agreed- let's do that.
Also let's consider the total emissions from F-1 in proportion with the radioecological background that we all are subjected to in nature...
Let's not shout at each other as if we're standing in a sawmill, and you're concerned that a car alarm across town is making you deaf. Be heard through the noise, ctrl-z- but also please listen.
http://www.rchoetzlein.com/theory/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/radiation.jpg
http://www.rchoetzlein.com/theory/?p=187
gonna have to drink it when it's all you have.
Sadly, the Chinese are preparing for a wind reversal while continuing to build nukes.
Question: The brand new Toshiba/Westinghouse AP1000 Generation III reactor is supposed to be "passive". It keeps its cool, even if the power fails. (But that doesn't include the spent rod pools??)
So what would have happened if these reactors were AP1000s? Billy_y4 ya out there?
(BTW, Congressman Markey is PO'd that Westinghouse wants to go cheap on the concrete reinforcement in the shields.)
bbr, long time no see.
I am channeling billy. He has become an unperson on CD (blacklisted 3X).
The AP-1000 has an overhead drip tank for backup cooling. I think it is good for a couple of days without power. Eventually, it too would need power to refill the tank. There shouldn't be any serious hazard in using seawater but it probably would be a scrap decision as it was with these BWRs.
The NRC has essentially blessed the composite containment building on the AP1000 and started the clock for the design certificate. I would not be surprised if this accident in Japan will delay the DC for both the AP1000 and the ESBWR while the NRC does some navel gazing.
The decision to use the composite containment was not so much money as schedular time on site. The containment building is modular and should go up wicked fast. I don't think the Chinese are using the modular containment because they committed to the AP1000 builds before they were reviewed by the NRC. They may use it in subsequent builds.
Bill