[LINK] Still FUD - and still selling advertising.

[Tom Koltai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of 
> stephen at melbpc.org.au
> Sent: Friday, 1 April 2011 4:31 PM
> To: link at anu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Still FUD
> 
> 
> Eric writes,
> 
> >> As ANY radiation can cause cancer, isn't it wise to FUD any 
> >> radiation?
> > 
> > Then please start the campaign to stop eating bananas ..
> 
> Haha .. yes .. but the only campaign I would want to start is 
> one against the current official *secrecy* and obfuscation 
> regarding radiation around Japan's tragic plight. Both within 
> Japan, and, especially, in world terms.
> 
> Personally i have no particular bent against nuclear power 
> per-se, indeed I'm probably more against burning brown coal. 
> BUT, all along on Link I've been saying, regarding 
> officialdom, simply, tell us the facts!! Why do we and the 
> Japanese people have to have media guessing, (and sure, media 
> FUD) because very little factual information is being 
> released? That is unfair
> 

I agree totally.

Just what are the Coal Power plants doing with all of those tonnes of
extremely radioactive fly ash every day.

If you had ten tons of fly ash to get rid of every week Stephen, and it
was going to destroy the water table, cause two headed sheep and make
everyone sterile, what would you do about it ?

Would you tell the public ?

Would you move your electorate office from a nice cosy location downtown
CBD Sydney or Canberra to picturesque Lithgow ?

Hmm, I would guess that your answer to both of those would be a NO.

The reason the powers that be don't tell everyone is that the correct
procedures would cost so much that we couldn't then afford to pay for
Electricity.

Is it right ? Of course not.
Is it economically sensible. Possibly.

Stephen, with all due respect, I suggest that we not continue this
discussion.
Australia cannot afford the results of this argument to become public.
Really. 
And I don't really want to be banned for something I didn't do, again
(it wears a bit thin after a while and makes a man rather bitter.)

So how about we agree that all current base load power generating
systems have serious CO2 and radioactive problems and that if we did a
death cost benefit analysis, my guess is that is would be a very fine
line that probably favoured nuclear energy as being the less visible
"evil" of the two.

Visibility and four years is what politics is about.

Australians don't really care about their children's children's
children.
Our consumer society has managed to remove the concept of ethics from
both the commercial and political arenas.
Somehow we have also removed the concept of ethics from families and
communities.

> As yet another example .. yesterday we find out ..
> 
> "As radiation levels are rising at the nuclear plant, public 
> broadcaster 
> NHK said Thursday that many workers at the facility do not 
> have radiation 
> monitoring badges. Tokyo Electric Power Co. confirmed the 
> report, noting 
> that most of the devices were destroyed in the magnitude 9 
> earthquake and 
> subsequent tsunami.
> 
> Company officials said only 320 monitors remained of the 
> 5,000 devices 
> the company had before the disaster. But they said the 
> leaders of each 
> team of workers have a badge .." <http://www.latimes.com/news/science>
> 
> Sigh! NOW we discover that those poor sods don't have 
> radiation badges?
> 
> It would be hard to imagine a worse *incident management 
> capability* and response, even given the massive tsunami 
> environmental damage. All along that's what I've been saying. 
> Get your act together, and, tell the truth.
> 
> Both to the long suffering Japanese people and to 
> neighbouring countries.
> 
> Media FUD that has been raised, imho, is directly because 
> little factual information is being released by a company 

No Stephen, media FUD is to sell advertising - nothing else.

> more concerned with its share prices than with any concern 
> for humans. And, that will do nuclear power much more harm 
> than the truth.

Hmm, a company protecting it's share prices. Is that like a politician
protecting his/her electioneering chances ?

Did that company donate to a politicians election campaign ?

Then by gum, the public will never hear the truth unless Private someone
has another spare DVD to fill up with data to release to a, by now,
extremely reluctant Julian.
(In Japan, of course, "Face" would never permit a Wikileaks type
action.)

I personally believe that distributed sealed micro nuclear batteries are
good. (Unfortunately FUD about Breeder reactors may have poisoned this
possibility..)
Distributed Gas Turbines fed from bio sources are good.
Solar PV's and Wind farms are good.
Geothermal hotrocks are good.
At the rate of solar panel efficiency increases observed from 1986 till
the present day, I can safely say that we are not too far away from
living in a solar powered world in the burbs and solar assisted in the
cities.

We should as a nation hold a moratorium on turning off the coal plants
or - as per my quote yesterday:

Quote/ [From:
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html]
... the fact that large quantities of uranium and thorium are released
from coal-fired plants without restriction raises a paradoxical
question. Considering that the U.S. nuclear power industry has been
required to invest in expensive measures to greatly reduce releases of
radioactivity from nuclear fuel and fission products to the environment,
should coal-fired power plants be allowed to do so without constraints?
...
Because of increasing public concern about nuclear power and
radioactivity in the environment, reduction of releases of nuclear
materials from all sources has become a national priority known as "as
low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA). If increased regulation of
nuclear power plants is demanded, can we expect a significant
redirection of national policy so that radioactive emissions from coal
combustion are also regulated? 
/Quote