The End of Nuclear

[emordnilap]

Butterfly mutations

[RenewableCandy]

Most of the countries involved were, and remain (for different reasons now) not in a position to supply reliable records.

RC, that is sounding dangerously close to the kind of fringe-group conspiraloon type of rhetoric that, in any other context, we would take apart.

Are you really suggesting that there is a concerted worldwide and fully effective conspiracy to hide the numbers...

Far from it. I'm saying that the numbers are simply very difficult to ascertain, for the same reason that (for example) most of the Chinese people I know who were born anywhere near the dates of the Cultural Revolution simply do not know their exact dates of birth: the data is (are) absent. Destroyed.

[Little John]

Most of the countries involved were, and remain (for different reasons now) not in a position to supply reliable records.

RC, that is sounding dangerously close to the kind of fringe-group conspiraloon type of rhetoric that, in any other context, we would take apart.

Are you really suggesting that there is a concerted worldwide and fully effective conspiracy to hide the numbers...

Far from it. I'm saying that the numbers are simply very difficult to ascertain, for the same reason that (for example) most of the Chinese people I know who were born anywhere near the dates of the Cultural Revolution simply do not know their exact dates of birth: the data is (are) absent. Destroyed.

That's one country, one regime, one single administration potentially involved in a cover up. Consequently, that is a wholly specious comparison to make RC.

[RenewableCandy]

I don't think I've put this clearly enough: "cover-up" implies some degree of competence in that the data exist/ed (were competently gathered) but are hidden or subsequently destroyed deliberately and, yes, competently.

What I'm describing is a situation in which the data (numbers and locations of sick people, deaths, etc) were simply never gathered. Death certificates lost, hospital records misplaced when institutes relocated, temporarily-shut buildings looted and papers scattered by looters in search of drugs/metal/cash, paperwork burned to keep warm when the heating didn't work and the boss stayed at home, that kind of thing. I know that at least some of the above happened in Russia in the early 90s: it's not unreasonable to suppose that Belarus, Ukraine etc suffered similarly.

[Little John]

I don't think I've put this clearly enough: "cover-up" implies some degree of competence in that the data exist/ed (were competently gathered) but are hidden or subsequently destroyed deliberately and, yes, competently.

What I'm describing is a situation in which the data (numbers and locations of sick people, deaths, etc) were simply never gathered. Death certificates lost, hospital records misplaced when institutes relocated, temporarily-shut buildings looted and papers scattered by looters in search of drugs/metal/cash, paperwork burned to keep warm when the heating didn't work and the boss stayed at home, that kind of thing. I know that at least some of the above happened in Russia in the early 90s: it's not unreasonable to suppose that Belarus, Ukraine etc suffered similarly.

That may or may not be the case in the areas and Soviet countries immediately in the vicinity of the Chernobyl accident. However, as I have already pointed out, the no-threshold model of exposure clearly predicts that there should be a measurable effect in countries that were not soviet and who kept more reliable public records. Their records show no such relationship between morbidity rates and Chernobyl. That leads one to assume, at least plausibly, the the lack of data for any significant morbidity in the soviet countries, is also because here is no significant relationship and certainly not one based on the no-threshold model. Indeed, the lack of any relationship as we move out from the soviet countries immediately surrounding Chernobyl and enter countries who kept reliable records basically trashes the no threshold model.

I am not saying there can be no relationship at all. I am saying that it appears to be relatively tiny if it exists at all and also that even if it did exist at all, it was extremely short lived.

There is one final thing that also occurs to me as well. Since the introduction of compensation schemes to anyone who may have been injured as a result of Chernobyl, huge number of people in the areas surrounding Chernobyl, from what I have read, have persuaded their medical authorities to report that their illness may have resulted from radiation poisoning. Thus, one might assume that, if anything, there is an over reporting occurring rather than the opposite. If we take all of those suspected radiation caused illnesses and compare them against the record of such illnesses prior to Chernobyl it has been found that they are more or less the same.

You’re obviously a clever woman RC. What does that tell you?

[biffvernon]

However, as I have already pointed out, the no-threshold model of exposure clearly predicts that there should be a measurable effect

Wrong. It's in the nature of the beast that this is the area of high noise to signal ratio.

[clv101]

http://euobserver.com/environment/117721

Meanwhile, a preview into the content by French daily Le Figaro and
German daily Die Welt suggests none of France’s 58 nuclear power
plants meet, to varying degrees, the international security standards
outlined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“For the very first time in history, we know for all the nuclear power
plants in Europe whether these very high standards are actually used
or not used,” said Holzner.

Nineteen French reactors have no seismic measuring instruments, says
Le Figaro. The paper also notes that safety and rescue equipment in
case of disaster is not adequately protected unlike at German, British
and Swedish reactors.

The report does not recommend shutting down any one EU nuclear power
plant, say the papers, but notes that getting them up to standard
would cost some €25 billion.