No. Let me correct that bit of foolishness on your part.

And allow me to educate you a bit.

While nuclear isn't perfect, the paranoia about potential nuclear accidents means it isn't commercially viable.

In the US the Nuclear industry requires legislative constructs, like the Price Anderson Act and provisions in the 2005 Energy act to cover its liability, as insurance companies won't touch it. Coupled with decommissioning costs, the very ones all of these reactors in the actual topic of this discussion refers to, further lessens its commercially viable.

The peer reviewed science regarding the net energy return of the entire nuclear industry using industrial standard measurements for industrial activity shows a net loss. This is because the current nuclear industry extracts, at best, in operational commercial reactors, 0.3% of the energy contained in nuclear fuel before reactors can no longer use them as fuel. Wall street knows this and knows it is a poor investment.

Of course there are there out there who will pipe up with the 'but breeders argument' when they actually mean to talk about burners, then IFR blah blah. To which I will answer that materials technology for those reactors do not exist and whilst I support development for, it isn't viable for the same reasons, and more, that makes existing reactor technology not commercially viable. Decommissioning the reactor after a paltry 40-60 years service for a fuel whose fissile ash is radioactive, and highly toxic for 600years*20 half lives.

In fact, coal processing has killed more humans from radioactivity than nuclear power in the United States and also in the world.

Well as the IAEA has interdiction rights over WHO publications in all matter nuclear, worldwide, that claim has very little credibility.

I'd be happy to review any credible data you have to link cancer to the natural radioisotopes from the coal industry. So which radio isotopes does the coal industry emit and what micro-nutrients they analogue? The coal industry should be controlling their effluents as much as the nuclear industry should be controlling theirs however it is a simple matter of physics that a chemical fire from coal cannot create enriched radioisotopes.

No one can link the enriched radioisotopes from the nuclear industry to cancer deaths because funding for the science to know what to look for was cut. An absence of data on how many deaths the nuclear industry has caused simply means the data wasn't collected. The *fact* is we don't know how many deaths the nuclear industry is causing. The fact is radioisotopes are in the environment. The fact is radio isotopes present as micro nutrients to metabolisms. The fact is they bio-accumulate. The fact is they cause cancer. The fact is they do genetic damage. The fact is the decay in geological timeframes.

This constant attempt to maneuver the argument to deflect criticism of the nuclear industry "because coal is so bad" is so old and tired now. Coal *is* bad, coal sux, coal kills coal blah blah - I completely agree - Nuclear is still worse because the decay rate of radioisotopes, bio-accumulation, cancer, genetic damage over decades to thousands of years is poorly understood by our I want everything now! modern man mentality.

Also, hydro electric dams destroy and threaten to destroy a greater ecological area than nuclear power plants do.

Chernobyl made approximately 3650sqKm uninhabitable, I suppose Fukushimas destruction of ocean biology doesn't count. We get it Hydro bad, forests drowned, wild life displaced, villages immersed - Nuclear is STILL worse. Dams don't cause thousands of years of genetic damage to the environment, they cause stoned fools in boats to go fishing and skiing on an artificial lake.

The problem with nuclear power is simple ignorance. Most people don't understand it, and basically just think: Nuclear? as in the bombs? I don't want that in my back yard.

As in NIMBY, is that what you are saying? The 2005 Energy act *specifically* prevents local resident from having a say in the placement of Nuclear reactors. This whole NIMBY accusation, as if people who don't actually want a nuclear reactor in their communities are the blame for a lack of progress in the nuclear industry is a complete fallacy because, by law NIMBYS have no say in where nuclear reactors are located. BY LAW!

Offsetting the responsibility for our energy expenditure with a radioisotope legacy onto a future generations, the way we inherited a carbon legacy from previous generations, is about as selfish as we can be. What right do we have to force a radioisotope legacy onto future generations? There is a solution to the Fermi paradox if I ever saw one.

Coal is a far worse fuel. But it's deaths are spread out over the entire world and over decades, rather than all together in one lump sum. Moreover, when we have a coal accident, it kills the wildlife, while when we have a nuclear accident, it creates a wildlife preserve that the animals love: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...

Those are anecdotal reports you are referring to. Just because humans aren't in a nuclear fall out zone, doesn't mean animals love it, it just means there is no competition to deal with. The reality is, they are animals, they don't understand the effect of radionuclides like pu-239. If you read the article you will find that Dr Mousseau also found that these animals suffered increased levels of tumors and genetic damage. Indicating bio-accumulation on its large slow scale moving through the foodchain.

What the article doesn't discuss is that trees aren't rotting which indicates something very serious indeed is happening to the biota in the soil that matters much more to life than all the fluffy wolves and humans put together.

These disasters unfold at a very slow pace, making them difficult to comprehend indeed.

The reason this is done is because the reactor core is extremely radioactive and some isotopes are also activated. Furthermore it's not possible to recycle the core because of neutron enbrittlement of the reactor vessel. This is why they are left in place, so the radio-isotopes can decay.

Totally informative, the mod you deserve, but I see the nuclear mod trolls are out in force suppressing information to push their fanboi barrow.

If the story was about how some machine wears out over time would you call that 'negative'? A nuclear power plant is a machine, it doesn't work forever and is quite a valid topic for discussion. The only negative characterization is the one that you have made.

Thyroid cancer is also a consequence of ingesting radio cesium. Obviously I'm not saying this is how your wife got cancer however nuclear medicine to cure cancer is a whole lot different from nuclear industry that causes cancer and, I think that is the OP's actual point.

Also - I'm very happy for you and your wife to have beaten cancer, I watched someone very close to me suffer and die from brain cancer because the family was suspicious of nuclear medicine, it's a horrible way to go.

This user AC makes a lot of ad hom attacks and defensive comments about nuclear power. Isn't that an interesting pattern?

I've looked at the findings at Chernobyl and it is not clear proof of that at all.

It is clear proof that exposure to radionuclides prevents basic biological functions of things like fungi and bacteria that may appear insignificant at the top of the food chain, but not at the bottom of it where life is very active.

Trees are not rotting at Chernobyl, this is very bad. Apart from the accumulating fire danger that threatens to spread the fall-out elsewhere around Europe and the Northern Hemisphere it indicates that some very basic biological functions have been halted at Chernobyl and aren't likely to restart any time soon. If you are going to talk about bio-diversity then you can't just point to all the fluffy creatures and say "see, they're fine" you also have to look at the slimy creatures that live in the dirt because they are the ones that are important to us beyond sentimental reasons.

That is because we are talking about radionuclide effect vs raditation effect, not a natural effect. It is clear that there is a mutagenic process at work here that is above normal rate of natural mutations. Coupled with mutagenic effects recorded in species of farm vegetables and flowers this is an indication that bio-accumulation of radionuclides is occurring and that there is an increasing rate of uptake because more and more mutations are being recorded. Additionally more radionuclides are being released everyday.

It takes years for these radio isotopes to move through the food chain, however they are there now and remain until they completely decay. I would expect the next species affected are lizards and birds. The gestation rate of cancer in humans is roughly 6 years, so we should unfortunately see the first cases of disease from direct exposure to radionuclides start appearing in humans (probably children) around 2017.

After that, the random time factor introduced by the process of bio-accumulation becomes a factor and I would expect a statistical increase of other types of cancers in humans to gestate some years after that followed by genomic effects decades after that. Funding for collecting this data at Chernobyl was cut after 10 years, iirc, so there is no hard data to understand what will happen in the human population after that. I'm not stating an opinion for or against nuclear power, I'm just pointing out this is how these radio analogues work in the foodchain and that this is what happened.

Ignoring the politics of this discussion for a moment, what we are seeing here is the process of bio-accumulation expressed in nature. These are the radiological effects on small species at the bottom of the foodchain and what we are observing is the amount of time it takes these radionuclides to be moved through the food chain whilst affecting these creatures.

This is because radio isotopes present to a metabolism like a micro-nutrient that can be utilized in the body, for example pu-239 analogues iron so to a metabolism, it is used like iron would be. The creatures that consume it are themselves consumed by their predators.

Once ingested, radiation emitters are move somewhere in the body where that nutrient (analogue) is required. Alpha, beta and gamma radiation is emitted at various energetic levels as the radionuclide decays inside the body. The surrounding tissue absorbs the radiation and the gestation period for cancer, lasting roughly six years in humans, begins as a direct effect of exposure to the radio isotope. The indirect effect is on the genome and the DNA which is what I suspect we are observing now.

The affect of radionuclide contamination on humans is inevitable and the simple fact here is that the longer the radionuclides are release into the environment, the more there will be increasing the effects and variation.

At least for Thallium 208, it looks like it decays directly to Lead 208 [periodictable.com], also known, historically as Thorium D.

A little more research points to the spent fuel component of this fuel cycle actually Thaillium 233. I'd still like to learn more, however I thank you for the links.

I wanted to write a more detailed response however I'm tied up with things - I really appreciate your civility!

Are you sure you want to shoot this target?

Indeed, they are the people who represent the company and the company is legally bound to the agreement, not the people who sign it so the OP's point remains a strawman.

You do not live here. You do not understand what we deal with. You do not know our history. You do not know what we are talking about.

Well your corporations operate in Australia and engage in union breaking activities that interfere with the functioning of democracy, probably based on the experiences that made unions the way they are in America today. Beleive it or not, Australia views unions as a functioning expression of democracy - and they work, so no one is lecturing you, but maybe there is something here for you to learn. After all your financial regulators were in Australia recently to learn about the checks and balaces in the Australian economy during the GFC. Perhaps the kangaroo riding, crock wrestling upside down folk may have something other than decent beer to offer.

In the United States, we have unions. They have a history. We know them better then you ever will.

It's unlikely though that you know the history of how your corporation behave outside your borders, especially when they control all of the media that influences the very opinions that you share. Australia however, continues to resist the type of corporate media ownership that limits our access to information.

They have earned a bad reputation for certain types of behavior.

I think that's unfortunate as it really illustrates that people in the US aren't participating in democracy any more than voting, which, iirc is around 17%. Now is the information you got about those unions from personal experiences or from the media outlets that are owned by the corporations that the unions are fighting against. I'm not invaldating what you are saying but I am wondering where the opinion came from.

Speaking of reputations, right now your pharmaceutical companies are lobbing to change the Australain healthcare system so that they can derive further profit from the population, including those who can least afford it. They also lobby to change labour laws in the country and have also been attempting to implement free-trade conditions that by-pass the High-court of our country. Guess which entities are fighting those activities?

The point is that in the US, we have a lot of unions that have done bad things. So many people are not going to be very receptive to expanding their power.

People are scared of the power American corporations yeild and the relentless way they pursue more power at the expense of ordinary people whose opinion of success is that 'they have enough'. This re-inforces that. Americans deserve to be treated a lot better by your corporations because it seems to me that you've lost sight of the things that made your country great in the pursuit of the dollar and, the despotism Franklin predicted is very close indeed.