Some years ago I was surprised to recieve an uninterested reply from Mr Lynas about devastating uranium mining effects in India - now I know why.

Mark Lynas nukespeak is well honed to impress the 'intellectual' argument for nuclear as a 'solution' to climate change - despite the truth that nuclear is a fossil fuel sink - last year Sellafield spent £30 million on gas alone.

Here is an honest poem from a Sellafield forman who - died last year before receiving 'compensation' from the industry's own Compensation Scheme for Radiation Linked Diseases ( or the 'put up and shut up scheme')

Ticking boxes.

The boxes are ticked by those men who’ve been picked, from the keenest of yes men there,
for checks done each day so the bosses can say, that their workforce takes extra care.
But the bosses were tricked by some men that they picked for a job that all liars can do
composing old fiction that begs a conviction for writing what still isn’t true.

But on they run with boxes ticked, while welding’s cracked and something’s dripped,
inside the cell where Foremen looked: for hours on end in ‘Logs and books recording all the names of crooks who wouldn’t see and didn’t look,
behind those windows two foot thick, where fell a steady drip of ticks.

Soon crystals formed as crystals do, from tiny holes where pressure grew,
a mist of droplets spewing out, a sight that should have brought a shout from foremen ticking thrice each day when signing names for easy pay:
the country paying bigger lumps to lazy men for growing dumps.

Some columns formed with lost control, as Foremen ticked and shirkers stole five minutes here then hours there forsaking safety's measured stare
for extra tea and flashy things, that overtime some boxes bring with elements whose mass can change the genes of everything in range.
Trapped outside their ticking box where spillage flows like molten rocks with dangers left to grow unseen until one idle Chargehand's scream said “Shut it down and do it quick before we’re all in deepest shit
there’s been another situation, critical to every nation.”

"To meet our growing energy needs, and to prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we'll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It's that simple". - Barack Obama.

The IPCC AR4 cites nuclear power as a low carbon energy source, as low as renewables. Look it up.

If radiation coming from nuclear power plants is so horrible, why do all the people who are so concerned about radiation not protest the RADIATION that comes from coal fired electricity generation, or the mere use of natural gas?

A typical coal fired plant in the US emits tons of uranium and thorium as fly ash and captured ash every year, TONS, whereas the anti nukes in the US focus on trillionths of curies of tritium they say is the end of the world as they try to shut down the existing reactor fleet starting with Vermont Yankee.

Less tritium than was once packaged up in key fobs to make them glow in the dark leaked in Vermont, none reached any drinking water well, and people are up in arms about it. Meanwhile just down the road, literally, coal fired plants dump tons of radioactive elements into the air and onto the land. People buy into the argument that the radiation from coal use is not that great of a hazard, especially when compared to other threats from coal, hence you don't hear about it.

It is insanity. Radiation from nuclear plants has been blown out of all proportion. When you use natural gas in your home to cook with the radon gas it contains enters your room air where you inhale it. Using gas exposes everyone in the home to a 10 - 15 times more radiation dose than living right next to a nuclear plant using nuclear generated electricity to cook with.

The fastest growing source of radiation exposure in the US is the medical imaging doctors who fear lawsuits order that is medically NOT NECESSARY. The total of medical imagery in the US now exposes the average citizen to more radiation than background, this is new, having increased 600% since 1980. This is the big threat, if there can be said to be one, as the data on radiation is hard to interpret. A naturally occurring experiment is going on, as radiation exposure varies quite considerably depending on where a person lives. People are naturally exposed to orders of magnitude more radiation than average and there are no measurable effects.

The wastes from fossil fuel use are the horror we have been conned into believing the wastes from nuclear plants were, and it is far past time for us to wake up and change.

Low carbon?

The kind of propaganda above should not con us into trashing the climate with nuclear and trashing our DNA with routine and accidental emissions from new nuclear plants (which rely on profligate use of fossil fuel, chemicals etc)

Finnish Lapland is being coerced into mining for uranium on peat bogs - which would release tens of millions of tons of CO2

I agree with Mark Lynas - nuclear energy is a low impact way to generate the power that developed societies require. The people who continue to insist otherwise have either not read the technical literature on the tiny health effects that come from tiny doses of radiation OR they are actually more interested in continuing to sell coal, oil and natural gas. Considering the wealth and power associated with the business of selling those competitors to nuclear energy, it is pretty easy to understand why they have such vociferous defenders.

Rod Adams

We may be in trouble with climate chaos but nuclear should be discounted.

Too dangerous, dirty, risky and long-lasting - to health, environment, economics, societies and people worldwide.

I expect a better quality of discussion when reading the New Statesman. Mr Lyans sounds testy, hasty and uninformed. If I want to listen to such stuff my local pub can provide any number of people who want to pass on their misinformation. Reading the comments from those concerned about the safety and need for nuclear power it is easy to see who is bothered and why. Mr Lyans is using this as a vehicle to attack Lib Dems.

Is it really necessary to drag the debate about nuclear power, a highly contentious and complex subject, into the flippin' election campaign, and just to score a few points against the Lib Dems? Isn't this carrying this tawdry, New Labour, tribal, sectarian, chest beating a bit far?

The quality of Mark's article makes one dispair. It's so glaringly partisan and ignores so many issues about, safety, health risks, and real costs, that one hardly knows where to start. Producing effective propaganda requires real skill if it isn't to backfire. Try again Mark.

Here's a simple question for Mark. What is the projected cost of storing high-grade radioactive waste for two hundred thousand years? Just do the maths on the back of an envelope, a ballpark figure will do for now. Good luck with that.

Why can no pary afford to be anti-nuclear? No, I mean really, the real reason nuclear is firmly back on the energy table, or maybe that should be scaffold?

It's because successive UK governments over the last forty years have had a staggeringly, short-sighted national energy policy; in reality no energy policy worth the name, only a blind leading the blind policy of leaving it up to the "market" to steer the country in the wrong direction, and of course now the whole cardhouse is falling down.

Nuclear is going to be pushed to the front of the energy agenda whether we like it or not, because we now, arguably don't have a choice or real alternatives, especially as the precious bounty of the North Sea has been criminally squandered by unrealistic and irresponsibly governments all in a row.

Was this stupidity ever thought through and planned? That is a conspiracy, of a kind, by a group of people who actually agree on the fundamentals of society and the economy, and they decided to simply ignore the tough decisions on energy policy until most possible, alternative options, became "unrealistic" and only nuclear was left? And before Mark shouts "conspiracy theory" let's get one thing straight, anyone who thinks that conspiracies don't exist, simply has been paying attention sufficiently, and knows zero about politics, economics, or history, and the way the powerful have always functioned, and still do.

No Nuclear Generation System in the world runs without almost total taxpayer support from scoping to decommissioning.

US nuclear reactor development was part of the USN nuclear submarine programme under Eisenhower. Those that became involved were told that nuclear generated power would be so cheap there would be no need to meter it!

Nuclear power is one of the greatest consumers of government largesse, really the tax payer’s. Christopher Crane, Senior Vice President of Exelon, April 2007 in address to the US Congress said that loan guarantees for new power plants must cover 100% of project debt, as otherwise financing of new power plants would be extremely difficult. So nuclear power is competitive only if the financial risks are largely taken over by the public.

Also the insurance costs have to be underwritten by the public. Why?

Actuaries make their living by working with numbers, to ascertain risk. No insurance would be available for nuclear reactor sites in the US if not for the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act which covers all non-military nuclear facilities constructed in the United States before 2026. The Act establishes a no fault insurance-type system in which the first $10 billion is industry-funded according to a scheme described in the Act (any claims above the $10 billion would be covered by the US Federal government, in fact the tax payer as that is from where "government money" comes.) Initially the Act was considered necessary as an incentive for the private production of nuclear power, because investors were unwilling to accept the then-unknown risks of nuclear energy without limitations on their liability. And it seems that that are still unwilling to accept the KNOWN risks. So the taxpayer will cough up again!

TCO including energy, environmental, infrastructure and finance for the materials, construction, maintenance of the plant/s and the decommissioning. All are blue sky figures loved by contractors and infrastructure vultures. True ROI costs from start up to shut down and decommissioning? Will a plant be energy positive within its payback period?

Water for cooling, given lack of fresh water for the foreseeable future. Sea water can be used, a plus in desalination BUT it is more corrosive and would require more expense in the technology to use and monitor.

Extraction of more uranium ore/enrichment for fuel. Energy, environmental. infrastructure and financial costs for more mines which also need vast quantities of fresh water. Costs to rise as ore grades decrease. Whole of life energy, environmental and financial costs?.

And the big onestill is waste disposal. Whose backyard? How long? Energy, environmental. infrastructure and financial costs and shipping/maintenance/security costs while in storage?

The grid is a big problem with only c.25% of the energy input providing consumable energy ito the end user. This coupled with badly designed commercial buildings and private dwellings means we still have a 19th century supply and consumer model running in the 21st. C.

Mark Lynas has failed to take into account the most insidious effects of exposure to radiation from nuclear installations - namely the damage to the reproductive tissue of unborn embryos. Like most pro-nuclear lobbyists he take a very short term view, considering that it takes 2-3 generations to reveal genetic damage to the ova of female foetuses, i.e. about 50-70 years.
He ignores the evidence from Dr Ian Fairlie (above)
More sinister evidence has been provided by research into radiation damage to the genes of mammals who reproduce far more rapidly than humans. This has shown that progessive mutations occur in subsequent generations resulting not only in cancers and leukaemia but in damage to immune systems.
If he were really seriously intent on being informed about nuclear issues he could do no better than by starting at the beginning and reading Rosalie Bertell's book "No Immediate Danger"

The anti-nuclear comments on this thread are the standard fare. A lot of ad hominem, very little numbers.

Please propose a mechanism by which less than 0.1% of total radiation exposure becomes crucial to public health, even though there are variations in natural background that are hundreds of times larger than that and don't lead to ANY measurable health effects.

Someone suggested that ICRP didn't consider the health effects of Chernobyl. That's because none of those effects can be attributed to radiation. Alcoholism, depression, unnecessary abortions, and many other such effects are not caused by radiation; they are caused by radiophobia.

There were other people who suggested other misguided criticisms:

- Price-Anderson act. This act says that nuclear installations must be insured against the worst possible accident, unlike any other industrial installation in the world.

- German leukemia study. The referenced study itself says that radiation cannot be the reason, because the level of radiation near nuclear facilities was the same as in control areas. Ir even says so in the post. But Ian Fairlie keeps second guessing the researchers. The rest of Fairlie's counterpoints to HPA's position are an exercise in distraction and essentially say "HPA says X, but we know that (Y, completely unrelated to X), so we know that X is wrong". Fairlie also suggests that a non-significant increase in leukemia is actually significant. Maybe he should learn more about statistics? If something is not statistically significant, it means his "increase" might very likely just be noise.

- Nuclear being expensive. This is just an assertion and most real analyses show it is slightly more expensive than coal and gas, but far less expensive than renewables. If there was an $30/ton carbon tax, it would be the cheapest.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

- "Evidence from Ian Fairlie". Most of his listed publications are in "Medicine, Conflict and Survival" which is a non-peer-reviewed publication of a dogmatically anti-nuclear group.

- Unfair subsidy to nuclear. In fact, nuclear in the US received only 2x more money than renewables over the period 1950-2003 despite generating hundreds of times more energy.
http://www.issues.org/22.3/realnumbers.html

- Nuclear waste. Dr Lowry cited from MacKay's book without any context or giving a link as a weak attempt at an ad hominem. The book is available online so Lowry purposefully did not provide a link. You can learn why MacKay believes nuclear waste to be a minor worry here:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_169.shtml
In a nutshell: each UK citizen's share of high level waste is 1/2 of a shot glass per year.

- Costs of waste disposal. All analyses of levelised cost of electricity from nuclear power include the waste disposal costs. They are an insignificant fraction of total cost of electricity.

- ICRP conspiracy. I agree that ICRP is unscientific but in the oppositet direction. For example, they disregard the evidence on high natural background radiation areas which would appear to contradict the linear no-threshold hypothesis, and Cohen's study of radon exposures vs lung cancer in the US.

- The usual "nuclear industry lobbyist" accusations. Are we free to call renewable advocates "renewable industry lobbysits", "natural gas industry lobbysits" or "agents of Putin" in return? Ad hominem fallacy again. Same can be said about the political attacks on the author.

- Uranium mining in India. Environmental impacts of mining are not unique to uranium; mining operations in developing countries tend to be dirty and harmful to employees. The solution is to improve the conditions at the mine.

How would the Lib Dems even know if they were right about nuclear anyway. Anti-nuclear LibDems like Simon Hughes have essentially no science education so if they were right it would only be by chance. MPs need to be informed by science not inventing it. This problem will only get worse until we increase the proportion of MPs with a hard science background, this is more important than increasing the number of black or women MPs as scientific literacy affects ones outlook more than skin colour or gender can ever do.

Love nature, love nuclear

Mark Lynas has written some admirable reports on the reality of climate change across our planet. He has also credibly attacked the climate change sceptics for misinformation and anti-science.
In light of this, it is all the more surprising to see him using the very anti-science argument he decries coming from climate change naysayers to marshall spurious arguments for nuclear power as a technology that might help in combating climate change.
I have written to Mark before via his web site after similar misinformed articles and blogs, but he has declined to engage in debate or respond.
David Mackay, one of the authors he cites in support, is not just a Cambridge University Physics Professor, but now is Energy secretary Ed Miliband's chief scientific advisor. The misguided book by Mackay cited by Lynas includes the following piece of bizarre assessment: "
“I feel nuclear waste is only a minor worry, compared with all the other forms of waste we are
inflicting on future generations”
from ‘Sustainable Energy - without the hot air'

I would recommend Mark Lynas widen his reading list to include some authers who actually understand nuclear power, rather than its ignorant cheerleaders. One such scientist is my colleague, Dr Ian Fairlie,formerly a Government advisor on radiation risks. Mark should start with this short analysis recently submitted to the Energy & Climate Change select committee inquiry into the national nuclear policy statements.

fraternally
Dr David Lowry
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmenergy/memo...

Memorandum submitted by Dr Ian Farlie (NPS 82)

I am an independent consultant on radiation matters. Between 2000 and 2004, I served as scientific Secretary to the Government's CERRIE Committee on internal radiation hazards. I wish to submit evidence to the Committee on one aspect: the recent evidence that living near nuclear reactors carries grave health risks for infants and children - more than doubling their risk of leukemia. I have written extensively on this matter in scientific journals: a list of my published articles in recent years in contained in the box below.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several studies revealed increased incidences of childhood leukemia near UK nuclear facilities. However official estimated doses from released nuclides were too low, by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude, to explain the increased leukemias.

Recent epidemiological studies have reopened the childhood leukemia debate. Baker and Hoel (2007) carried out a meta-analysis of 136 nuclear sites in the UK, Canada, France, US, Germany, Japan and Spain and found cancer death rates for children were elevated by 5 to 24 per cent depending on proximity to nuclear facilities. Hoffmann et al (2007) found 14 leukemia cases between 1990 and 2005 in children living within 5 km of the Krümmel nuclear plant in Germany, significantly exceeding the 0.45 predicted cases.

Most important, however, is the KiKK study (Kinderkrebs in der Umgebung von Kernkraftwerken = Childhood Cancer in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants) Spix et al (2007) and Kaatsch et al (2008). The main findings were a 160% increase in solid cancer risk and a 220% increase in leukemia risk among young children living within 5 km of all German nuclear reactors. These are big increases in risk.

The KiKK report is significant because it is a large and well-conducted study; because it is scientifically rigorous; because its evidence is particularly strong; and because the German Government, which commissioned the study, has confirmed its findings. Over 60 other studies world-wide (Körblein and Fairlie, 2009) have investigated child leukemias near nuclear facilities. The large majority of these studies have found increased incidences of leukemia: this lends considerable support to the KiKK findings.

The KiKK observations are presently the subject of intense research and discussion throughout the world, including at least three studies in the UK. Last November, the Department of Health requested the Government's Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) to examine the German study and report back.

[Also last November, in a case of unfortunate timing, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) published a Consultation paper justifying the radiation exposures from its proposed new nuclear stations. The problem is that COMARE's report will not be finished until after the Consultation's February 22 deadline, and DECC has refused public requests to extend its deadline until the COMARE report is finished. This is unfortunate and, in my view, it is an unreasonable position for DECC to take. It is clearly important that we get to grips with the KiKK evidence before decisions are made on building more nuclear power stations.]

In 2009, the Health Protection Agency submitted a memorandum (Mobbs et al, 2009) on health risks from radiation to the Government's Consultations. This seeks to diminish the KiKK study and devotes only half a page to the lengthy KiKK report. The HPA's criticisms are cursory, poorly argued and misleading. For example, the HPA memorandum seeks to argue that the KiKK study merely found an association between NPP (nuclear power plant) proximity and risk, ie and not between dose and risk - implying that radiation exposures were not a causative factor. This is unpersuasive: childhood leukemia is well known to be closely associated with radiation exposures. The HPA memorandum also states that a UK study and a French study "have not replicated" the KiKK findings. This is misleading as the two studies actually did find small leukemia increases in children near NPPs. Their data were not statistically significant but this was due to the smallness of the studies and not the absence of effect. The HPA's view remains that official estimated doses from NPP releases are much too small to result in the observed levels of leukemia. But the CERRIE (2004) report showed that there could be very large uncertainties in official dose estimates from inhaled and ingested radionuclides.

It is too early to provide an explanation for these increased cancers, although radiation exposures are clearly implicated. I have put forward the hypothesis (Fairlie, 2009) that these infant leukemias are a teratogenic effect resulting from in utero exposures to radiation from intakes of radionuclides during pregnancy. It suggests that (a) doses from environmental emissions from nuclear reactors to embryos/foetuses near reactors may be much larger than currently estimated, and (b) that haematopoietic tissues may be considerably more radiosensitive in embryos/foetuses than in babies. Whatever the explanation(s), the recent epidemiological evidence provides strong evidence that living near nuclear reactors carries grave health risks for babies and children - more than doubling their risk of leukemia.

Fairlie I. Childhood Cancer Near German Nuclear Power Stations. Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part C. In press. 2010

Fairlie I and Körblein A. Review of epidemiology studies of childhood leukaemia near nuclear facilities: Commentary on Laurier et al. Radiation Protection Dosimetry (2009) Vol 137, Number 3-4 doi:10.1093/rpd/ncp246.

Körblein A and Fairlie I. Commentary on J. F. Bithell, et al Childhood Leukaemia near British Nuclear Installations: Methodological Issues and Recent Results. Radiation Protection Dosimetry (2009) Vol 137, Number 3-4 doi:10.1093/rpd/ncp206

Fairlie I. Commentary: childhood cancer near nuclear power stations. Environmental Health 2009, 8:43. 12 pages. http://www.ehjournal.net/content/pdf/1476-069X-8-43.pdf

Fairlie I. Childhood Cancers Near German Nuclear Power Stations: the ongoing debate. Medicine, Conflict and Survival Vol 25, No 3. 2009, pp 197-205

Fairlie I. Childhood Cancers Near German Nuclear Power Stations: hypothesis to explain the cancer increases. Medicine, Conflict and Survival Vol 25, No 3. 2009, pp 206-220

Fairlie I. New evidence of childhood leukaemias near nuclear power stations. Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Vol 24:3, pp 219 - 227. August 2008.

Fairlie I. Reasonable doubt. Child Leukemias near German Nuclear Power Stations. New Scientist. 26 April 2008. Page 19. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826535.300-comment-lets-take-can...

REFERENCES

Baker P and Hoel D (2007) Meta-analysis of standardized incidence and mortality rates of childhood leukaemias in proximity to nuclear facilities. Eur J Cancer Care. 2007;16:355-363.

CERRIE (2004) Report of the Committee Examining the Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters. www.cerrie.org

Fairlie I (2009) Childhood Cancers near German Nuclear Power Stations: Hypothesis to Explain the Cancer Increases. Medicine, Conflict and Survival Vol 25, No 3. 2009, pp 206-220.

Hoffmann W et al (2007) Childhood Leukemia in the Vicinity of the Geesthacht Nuclear Establishments near Hamburg, Germany. Environmental Health Perspectives. Vol 115, No 6, June 2007.

Kaatsch P et al (2008) Leukaemia in young children living in the vicinity of German nuclear power plants. Int J Cancer. 2008; 122(4) pp 721-6.

Fairlie I and Körblein A (2009) Review of epidemiology studies of childhood leukaemia near nuclear facilities: Commentary on Laurier et al. Radiation Protection Dosimetry (2009) Vol 137, Number 3-4 doi:10.1093/rpd/ncp246.

Mobbs et al (2009) An introduction to the estimation of risks arising from the exposure to low doses of ionising radiation. HPA-RPD-055. Health Protection Agency. Oxford.

Spix C et al (2008) Case-control study on childhood cancer in the vicinity of nuclear power plants in Germany 1980 - 2003. Eur J Cancer. 2008 Jan; 44(2) pp 275-84.

January 2010

I have never seen such a distortion of facts in a New Statesman article. Even the most conservative estimates, made by the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) indicate at least 4,000 deaths attributable to Chernobyl (see http://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/index.htm and http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html).

Greenpeace believe that this figure is seriously underestimated as a result of poor quality of data about deaths from diseases, including those from compromised immune systems as a result of radiation (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/chernobyl-deaths-180406).

David Lowry has written about low level radiation and more details can be found at the low level radiation web site (http://www.llrc.org/). It is extremely dangerous to compare radiation effects with the current "background" levels, which have been strongly influenced by the second world war bombs, air burst nuclear tests and releases of radiation from nuclear facilities, both civil and military have already increased exposure to nuclear radiation, but this is not an excuse to accept more.

Mark Lynas has asked the Liberal Democrats "to base their energy policy on science, rather than conjecture." I suggest he does more to examine the evidence and aim that criticism at the parties in favour of nuclear power.