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Posted on 02/10/2012 11:39:25 AM PST by ransomnote
What if you were promoting an industry that had the potential to kill and injure enormous numbers of people as well as contaminate large areas of land for tens of thousands of years? What if this industry created vast stockpiles of deadly waste but nevertheless required massive amounts of public funding to keep it going? My guess is that you might want to hide that information.
From the heyday of the environmental movement in the late 1960s through the late 1970s, many people were openly skeptical about the destructive potential of the nuclear power industry. After the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in central Pennsylvania in March 1979 and the explosion of Chernobyl’s unit four reactor in the Ukraine in April 1986, few would have predicted that nuclear power could ever shake off its global pariah status.
Yet, thanks to diligent lobbying efforts, strong government support, and a full public-relations blitz over the past decade, the once-reviled nuclear industry succeeded in recasting itself in the public mind as an essential, affordable, clean (low carbon emission), and safe energy option in a warming world. In fact, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has just cleared the way for granting the first two licenses for any new reactors in more than 30 years. The new reactors will be built at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, southeast of Augusta.
SNIP
In response, the nuclear industry and its supporters have employed sophisticated press manipulation to move the public conversation away from these thorny issues. One example is PBS’s recent Frontline documentary, Nuclear Aftershocks, which examines the viability of nuclear power in a post-Fukushima world.
What follows is a detailed critique of many of the issues raised in the program, which initially aired January 17, 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Wow, I recall that the Japanese government made it illegal for doctors to examine citizens of Fukushima without first obtaining authorization to do so from the government. I am glad so many members of the Japanese public are buying radiation detection devices and sharing information with each other. This just keeps getting worse.
I think you have a short attention span so you’ll want to skip to the bottom and read below the line.
I just pointed out that fatalities and illnesses don’t happen immediately. History shows that. The research I linked to proves it. That’s why you are demanding to know NOW - because the toll on human health is not yet known. That was the sickening game nuke pimps played in Chernobyl, that’s the sick game you are playing now. YOU KNOW that cancers, leukemias etc. take time to develop. You keep isolating the ‘death toll’ to those suffering from Acute Radiation Sickness (ARS) because the IAEA used this method starting with Chernobyl and you people just can’t let go of a ‘good thing’, right? I just told you there is medical, scientific proof. That comprehensive medical report re Chernobyl identifies mind boggling levels of illness and death- regions of the Ukraine where ‘most children are too ill to attend school’, it documents cancers, leukemias etc. The report also traces upsurges in still births, trisomy, etc. across the globe and it does it well. And when it is done, the death toll for Chernobyl is presently estimated at around 1 million people and it is still continuing. Don’t like that estimate? OK, just for your benefit, let’s cut it by 75% for no reason at all other than your need for denial. So the death toll would be at around 250,000 and climbing for hundreds of years - so it’ll get back over 1 million anyway.
Those who read John Gofman will discover that the NRC began stripping researchers of funds when researchers reveal that radiation causes cancer. It’s been a long hard haul for the BEIR VI to get out the door - many other scientists never survive the onslaught of our government and nuke industry’s suppression. Oh but the medical community knows that radiation causes cancer and some intrepid soul actually plotted all the breast cancer in the United States geographically for a span of several years and, what do you know, 2/3 of these cases were located within a few miles of nuclear power plants! Surprise! But not really that surprising because there are people like a researcher known as ‘the mouse lady’ (because she creates breast cancer in mice for laboratories studying breast cancer). Wanna know her motto? “There is no breast cancer without radiation!” She says that because she had never found any other way to create breast cancer in mice in the lab other than radiation. Oh, Gofman was a nuclear physicist AND a medical physician and he proved that radiation causes breast cancer back in the 70’s. People die from that, ya know? What about the Downwinders who post on FR that ‘my wife’s entire high school class is dead’ as a result of being downwind of above ground testing? The hazards of radiation are known but are but denied heartily by the nuke industry.
So the long, sordid history of nuclear power in the US is bullying of scientists and suppression of research. There is a report out now studying nuke workers in Europe and what do you know, they are finding higher incidence of cancer at low exposure levels! SURPRISE! It shouldn’t really be a surprise because in 2000, the US congress enacted a worker protection act to compensate nuke workers employed by the defense. These workers were being declined compensation for their medical illnesses because they were technically below their legal exposure limit acquired while working on nuke defense projects. In fact, the defense department litigated against workers who tried to collect. But in 2000, congress passed a law to protect workers and noted that there was medical evidence that demonstrated that radiation causes cancer at levels below the limits set by the defense department. Ever hear about that? Why not? The government supports the nuke industry in bullying and stripping research funds from those whose research sheds an unpleasant light on the nuke industry. And then the nuke industry sneers that there’s no proof. But proof is leaking out anyway. Oh people have been injured and died in the US and the US, as the insurer of nuclear power, has the ability to deny, deny, deny and harass.
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Oh, and while research shows that x exposure of radiation causes x increased amount of cancer/death, there are other causes for cancer as well - that’s why you keep wanting a name, one name from me. You ask for ONE NAME because you know medically we can prove radiation kills and sickens but on a ONE NAME basis, we cannot find a medical marker that says THIS specific person died from nuclear radiation induced cancer and THAT person died from genetic sensitivity to other environmental toxins. So your entire ‘test’ of my veracity is just one more pathetic game the amoral, conscience-free, unpatriotic parasites in the nuke industry play in order to refuse their responsibility.
Keep your dose or choke on it, it doesn’t matter to me.
You also know nothing of nuclear technology. Chornobil is not a valid example because its design and physics is totally different from anything used in Western countries. In fact, it is more of a plutonium production design, which has a dual purpose for electricity production. It has no containment structure. It has a positive reactivity feedback over part of its operating regime. LWR designs are completely different. There is always containment, and there is always negative power-reactivity feedback over the entire operating range.
John Gofman, eh? Now I see the problem. You're using debunked sources. Gofman has been thoroughly discredited in the radiation science community. Depending on Gofman for factual information is like going to Bill Clinton for guidance on sexual morality.
Latest info is that the temperature has started to increase again. If it reaches 80 C, cold shutdown is officially over. This is because the gages have a 20 C error margin. At 100 C, no cold shutdown. It is currently 78 C and Tepco as usual has failed to report their latest failure. And the cold shutdown was nothing but a lie to begin with, since about 2/3 of the total cores in three reactors have left the RPV. So we are about to enter the hot stage of the middle of this crisis.
Oops. Actually some of those make shift tanks were not even welded. Held together with bolts. And many have already leaked.
You have fallen back on nuke pimp strategy - once again you limit death and illness to ARS. Deaths and illness from ARS occur rapidly - massive amounts of death and debility set in slowly as a result of exposure to radiation. Oh how the nuke industry wishes the public would forget about the slow, grinding debility and death, still births, early dementia, genetic damage resulting from radiation contamination that doesn’t happen right away. Note the further attempts you use to limit the scope of damage - you specify ‘member of the public’ to avoid including people like the military guy who was pinned to the ceiling (oh yeah that was a fatality) by an rod ejected from the core) and again narrow it to LWR technology. So Downwinders are out, eh? Radiation has and will continue to cause fatalities in this country and others. There is no basis other than public relations for you to attempt to limit this discussion to a specific sub category of person (public - not military), speed of illness/fatality onset (ARS) or specific technology (LWR).
You just haven’t been paying attention to your peer nuke pimps regarding Chernobyl. They were on FR insisting that there could be no comparison between Fukushima and Chernobyl because *GASP* Chernobyl didn’t have a containment structure. These pimps therefore declared that melt through was impossible in Fukushima and called anyone concerned by events unfolding there ‘hysterical’ and ‘fear monger’. Your peer pimps went silent about the ‘can’t happen in Japan (because Japan uses containment structure, more modern design etc.) when it was FINALLY revealed that melt-through had occurred on all three reactors. So this idea that newer design and containment structures create safety is a joke because the Soviets had many reactors without containment structures and they lost ONE. Fukushima lost at least three and there are rumors about others that the Japanese would rather we not think about. It’s not the technology - it’s the hubris, incompetent management and the use of radioactive fuel to boil water.
I LOVE how John Gofman still can make a nuke pimp cry! He has never been discredited - for his nuclear work (discovering radioactive isotopes), his breast cancer work, or his pioneering work in LDL cholesterol and it’s effects on human health. The National Academy of Sciences reviewed his work and...to the dismay of the bullying nuke industry...supported it, even at a time when the NRC and US government was stripping researchers of labs and funds. No - his valid research will never go away. Comparing ‘the father of plutonium’ to Bill Clinton - you really are hurtin’! Bwahahahaha!!!
Great update - I didn’t realize it was gettin’ so bad so fast. Thanks.
Bringing up the SL-1 event is really reaching for them. First, that was a military reactor, not a commercial design. No one designs reactors that have such a high individual control rod worth, much less one that can be manually moved. Show me one commercial design that has that feature.
There is no comparison between Chornobil and Fukushima. Chornobil was one core. There were three damaged at Fukushima and the total release is in the range of a few percent of the Chornobil release.
You're reaching far back into the past for any credible work by Gofman. His latest "work" and "pronouncements" have been completely discredited. He's just one more sad case of a one-time credible researcher going over to the fearmongering side.
On an flight with a nuke engineer, Gofman did some back of the envelope calculations. He knew from all his years in the lab (as a physicist) that human limitations contribute to the release of samples no matter how careful they were. As he sat contemplating how toxic plutonium was, based on his research, he then did some calculations to see how much radioactive material nuclear plants would be expected to release based on known laboratory experience. He was horrified - the toll on human health was shocking and unacceptable. So he then calculated the maximum percentage a power plant could release without damaging the human population - this value was quite low. Concerned about his research and the impact radiation could have on humans, he turned the the nuke engineer next to him and asked him how much containment engineering limitations would allow him to build into a plant (how tight could they build a plant). The engineer breezily said that plants could be built to whatever specification John gave them ‘you give us the specification, we build it’. And John smiled and basically said “I’ve been working in labs for many many years and I can tell you that there’s a limit, it’s impossible to guarantee ANY specification given.’ As the nuke engineer reiterated that they’d build whatever was specified, John, a highly accomplished nuclear physicist and medical physician, was horrified to recognize the degree of hubris the man displayed. THIS was the turning point. John was dismayed that his research revealed that radiation was far more damaging to human health than anyone had previously realized. He started to share his work and they tried to destroy him and others in his lab for it. John and his peers plotted how to get their research to the public - they shouldn’t have to of course but that was the birth of the nuke industry: suppression, lies, intimidation. THIS is when the nuclear people stopped praising his work (He had previously done Oppenheim a great service by refining fuel samples faster than previously possible) and started to sneer that he was a nut. That’s all it takes to alienate the nuke industry - the truth.
I already posted upthread research demonstrating the death toll resulting from Chernobyl and the the state of the art BEIR VI that even small amounts of radiation increase the risk of developing cancer. Did you know cancer can kill? I have already explained what you know - that on a NAME ONE PERSON basis, the nuke industry hopes we’ll forget the plain, obvious, undeniable fact that radiation causes cancer and that cancer causes fatalities. The comprehensive report that I linked to: It tracked jumps in cancer and leukemia in Belarus and across the globe along with jumps in birth defects and still births. Do I know the names of still born babies in the US that can be tagged to a nuke plant? Uh no - that’s not how research works. A research sample has to be large (tens of thousands) and the names are not published. But you know that. That’s why you keep ignoring documented research and asking for ONE NAME. Time for your next dose.
So, if you can't give me a name, and there is all this harm being done out there, how about a citation for a successful case brought by class action lawsuit that demonstrates harm to a group of people that is causally linked to radiation from a power plant? No individual names, just an example of case law that shows a group of people was awarded a judgment based on harm proved to be caused by radiation from a nuclear plant. Don't say it isn't possible to prove a case on this basis. There is tons of case law on the very same thing, for effects of things like pesticides, chemicals, tobacco use, pharmaceuticals, etc. You can't, because there is no such proof.
Those are horseshit calculations. I don't care who did them. During normal operation no plutonium is released from an LWR. In the most pessimistic accident scenario you are going to get local contamination and nothing else. Even if someone ingests a significant amount of plutonium, it is far from the 100% death sentence you fearmongers push. There is an ongoing study of plutonium workers at Los Alamos who have probably ingested more plutonium than could ever be emitted from a nuclear plant. The cohort group consist of 26 white males. Of that group, seven have died, compared with an expected death rate of 16 for US mortality at the age of these individuals. That means on average they are living longer than non-exposed individuals. (Interestingly, the "hot particle" plutonium "theory" pushed by fearmongers would predict a 99.5% mortality in this group, all from lung cancers induced by plutonium This has not happened.) Of the seven fatalities, three were from cancer (bone, prostate, and lung). That is not statistically elevated. Of the others, they show physical changes and illnesses consist with unexposed groups of this age. Of the 26 total, eight have been diagnosed with one or more cancers, which is within the expected range for a unexposed cohort group. It is worth noting that these individuals received far higher exposures to plutonium (from a laboratory, not a power plant) than any member of the public ever would from a nuclear plant even under the worst circumstances, and no demonstrable harm was caused them that can be causally linked to their exposure.
OK, so you can’t give me a name. Fine, we’ll leave it at that. I ll count that round as a win by default.
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I stopped reading here because you are claiming to win by default when in fact you are refuting the scientific method used to gather medical data. Nuke pimps know that an individual one to one basis does not reveal direct causal factor for cancer but large, blind studies with thousands of people reveal mortality caused by radiation. You want to deny the basis for scientific research and then declare a win by default? Go waste someone else’s time.
You went off on the plutonium trail using an anecdotal story of a person whose recent work has been thoroughly discredited. Just an anecdote, no chance for peer review, no independent verification of his purported "calculations", just a fear-driven agenda (i.e., "horror"). I countered with a scientific study of actual plutonium ingestion in humans, conducted by reputable scientists at a national laboratory (not back-of-the-envelope calculations on a plane flight), published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal (Health Physics). I'll leave it to the more reasonable readers of the thread to decide which argument is more credible. The fact remains that to this day not a single human fatality has been demonstrably linked to plutonium ingestion. Yet you and your "Dr. Gofman" keep bringing up that boogieman to scare us.
Sorry, leave the scare stories to the kiddies. I got over those a long time ago in my 60+ years on this Earth. Until you can do better than scare mongering, I'm not going to bother.
Your response is a mess so I’ll try to pick through the swamp for a moment....
I’ve already pointed out that you deny the basis of scientific research and then declare yourself the winner - wasting my time again.
You are trying to conflate John Gofman with a study on Plutonium ingestion? Well I guess you had to try something because he proved that LOW LEVEL exposure to ionizing radiation causes cancer; there is no safe threshold below which exposure is safe. The National Academy of Sciences latest, state of the art research specifically states in it’s report that despite what the nuclear industry wants to believe ‘there is no safe threshold’ for exposure to ionizing radiation.
You consider Dr. Gofman a boogieman, the nuke industry does, because he had credentials, access, credibility and integrity and it scared them and scarred them and they still haven’t stopped attacking him. Yes - I think it is excellent that we just leave the credibility decision to those reading our posts.
Oh Chimera - scientists and medical people already know that radiation causes cancer and damages cells - that’s why they limit x-rays to necessity etc.
You post an anecdotal story about someone doing calculations on the back of an envelope and then you have the nerve to criticize me for "denying" scientific method? The fact that you'd try to pass off an anecdotal tale as something relevant in a technical discussion proves you wouldn't know scientific method if it came up and whapped you upside the head.
You are trying to conflate John Gofman with a study on Plutonium ingestion? Well I guess you had to try something because he proved that LOW LEVEL exposure to ionizing radiation causes cancer; there is no safe threshold below which exposure is safe. The National Academy of Sciences latest, state of the art research specifically states in it’s report that despite what the nuclear industry wants to believe ‘there is no safe threshold’ for exposure to ionizing radiation.
Hey, you brought up Gofman and the plutonium crap. I swatted it down with a reference to a verifiable study published in the open literature, not some unverifiable tale of someone scratching out calculations and then getting scared talking to someone on an airplane flight. What kind of crap is that?
It's pure, unadulterated horseshit. In fact, the BEIR-VII study effectively threw the LNT under the bus with the introduction of the dose rate effectiveness factor (DREF). The original development of the LNT concept was NEVER intended to imply that there is "no safe dose", and doing so is an example of junk science at its worst. And LNT was NEVER intended to be a vehicle for developing public policy regarding the use of nuclear energy. Doing so is even worse junk science, and I don't have time to dispute your junk science, it disputes itself.
You consider Dr. Gofman a boogieman, the nuke industry does, because he had credentials, access, credibility and integrity and it scared them and scarred them and they still haven’t stopped attacking him. Yes - I think it is excellent that we just leave the credibility decision to those reading our posts.
All you do is post conspiracy theories, that "they" are out to "get him", that "they" are afraid of him so "they" cut his (and others') funding. Tinfoil hat material, man, nothing more. Sure, let the readers decide. I'll take the word of reputable people over crackpot tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists anytime.
Oh Chimera - scientists and medical people already know that radiation causes cancer and damages cells - that’s why they limit x-rays to necessity etc.
You totally ignore the fact that there is absolutely no data at low does that proves a demonstrable harm to an organism receiving the dose, and that is the basis of the BEIR studies. Radiation protection paradigms use the LNT as a basis for developing protection strategies, because it gives a conservative result. That is the only purpose of LNT, to present an overly conservative protection regime. If there was any indication of harm at low doses then there would be NO prescriptions for diagnostic procedures using ionizing radiation, nor would there be radiation therapy protocols, no evidence of curative effects of radiation exposure, no ability of multicellular systems to resist and repair damage, exactly as they do in other instances.
So keep on posting your crap, I don't care, I don't have time anymore for your baloney. You couldn't answer my very simple challenges presented earlier. Until you do, you have no credibility, just technobabble.
Fukushima Reactor 2 RPV Temperature: 79.1 Degrees Celsius as of Noon, February 12, 2012
Well they invented the term ‘cold shutdown’ as it applies to unknown location of corium blobs thought to be heading toward the water table - I guess they feel entitled to then make up the parameters as they keep changing.
I really appreciate the update - I didn’t know the temp was climbing back up out of fictional fake cold shutdown.
It galls me that it isn’t just the Japanese who are keeping the lie alive. Notice how the US nuclear industry doesn’t seem to have a problem with this? Or the European nuclear industries? I suppose if the US nuclear industry said “Hey, there’s no such thing as cold shutdown for a corium blob!” then the Japanese could respond by airing the dirty laundry the US nuclear industry is hiding so...they support each other.
Ex-skf has a link now that says 82 degrees C.
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/02/just-in-fukushima-reactor-2-rpv-bottom.html
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