You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
Coincidentally, nearly a week after I posted an analogy of the linear no-threshold radiation theory, a debate sparked up at the Climate Progress and Gristmill blogs on the health effects of radiation (it's the same post at both blogs but interesting and different comments at each site). The anti-nuclear side holds to the claim that any radiation is bad for you, whereas the pro-nuclear side says low doses of radiation are not harmful and could in fact be beneficial. Check out the discussions and also check out Charles Barton over at Nuclear Green who's been at the forefront of the debate.
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Joe introduced an irrational argument demanding to know how I would feel if a member of my family were exposed to low level radiation. This is an appeal to emotion, which confirmed my initial view, that Joe's whole line of argument was based on his own anti-nuclear hysteria. I pointed out that my 96 year old father, a retired nuclear chemist, had experienced low level radiation exposure with no adverse consequences. I also pointed out that I along with many other people had been contaminated by trace levels of radioactive materials, in the course of medical testing. What do you want to bet that Joe Romm has had such testing to? Romm deleted my comment.
This morning I posted on Nuclear Green a critic of a health study of nuclear workers. I pointed out that the study acknowledged that the data lacked crucial date which was required to determine if toxic materials or radiation was the predominate cause of workers health problems.
It never hurts to critique sources used in a debate.
That's not necessarily true. Google "healthy worker effect"
Healthy workers cannot be automatically assumed. Superior health care can contribute to a significantly longer life span. Nuclear workers typically had good insurance plans.
This occurred in the US nuclear power worker study (done as part of the IARC "15-country" study). It was done by a researcher who was known to manipulate data to produce straight lines. (He was also a world-expert in 1988 who concluded that the HWE is not significant effect for cancer.)
In a question in a meeting at the Nat Acad of Sciences, and another at Chalk River Labs (with the low-dose radiation researchers), participants reported that he said, in one: "They want straight lines." and at the other: "They prefer straight lines." This was about his "fixing" of data and results in the study of Canadian women with TB that had fluoroscopy (to monitor lung-collapse therapy). The data had clear non-linear breast cancer results, reduced by 30% at 15 to 25 rad.
This was known to NEI when he was hired to do the US nuclear power worker study, and he was not required/expected to compare the exposed workers with non-exposed workers. This is (could have been) done by comparing exposed workers to workers who wore badges with a record of no exposures, to unbadged workers who did not have access to radiation areas, and to workers in non-nuclear plants, etc.
It was a Rice University physics lab, we were using various shielded isotopes for calibration and internal designed 'particle guns' to generate beams and secondary emmissions.
This reminds me of an anti-nuke Greenpeace ad I saw on Youtube a while back. The commercial was a home-video-style first person view of a parent filming their young children enjoying a nice day on the beach. Then, the increasingly loud shriek of an encroaching airliner overwhelmed the children who began crying. The camera then pans to show the airliner's imminent impact with a containment building. The scren then goes blank and silent, then slowly displays some message like "Do we really need to risk the lives of our families with more nuclear power plants?"
What a bunch of sensationalist garbage. Not only do they expoit crying children, but also today's relevant fear of terrorists hijacking planes. All the while, they ignore the fact that nuclear power plants (especially new designs) are not prime targets for terrorists. It makes me sad to be human when these emotional ploys are more effective at forming a public opinion than cold hard science.
I guess it's only "exploiting" kids in ads if you disagree with the position espoused by the sponsor?
That's correct. But it's also not appropriate to assume there's no such effect, as Mr. Barton did when he posted this:
"even if on assumes the the LTH. studies of nuclear workers health reveal that they have significantly longer life expectancies, than members of the general population. Thus direct and indirect health benefits of being a nuclear worker far outweigh the health effect of low level radiation."
That's a textbook fallacy covered in first-year college logic courses.
In addition, The NRC ought also to encourage safety monitoring of nuclear facilities by individual workers, Unions, and by citizens groups.
I guess it's only "exploiting" kids in ads if you disagree with the position espoused by the sponsor?"
I'll be happy to volunteer my happy family and my happy kids for any NEI ad, as we are living proof of the benefits of "Clean Air Energy", which we enjoy each day from the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant some 20 miles directly upwind of us.
I'll be happy to do it for free. I'm a satisfied customer.
Personally, I think it has more to do with the tone of the ad. A positive usage of children is much more tasteful than a negative use. I'd rather see an ad of kids flying a kite in clear blue skies in front of a nuke plant with sunshine and rainbows than an ad with a crying child choking on coal ash, lol.
It reminds me of those pro-lifers displaying images of aborted fetuses... (I'm sorry I got off topic.)