1984 Bhopal - Union Carbide Genocide - 20,000 dead

Pocari Sweat

Are disasters like the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak in India (causing the slaughter of 20,000 civilians), forgotten by the west because our media recycles fears about local minor disasters that turn out to be a lot less cause for concern when the indepth studies finally present clearer statistics.


Weigh up the Union Carbide gas leak and other disasters versus the perrenial hot potato Chernobyl.

On the 2nd of December 1984 in Bhopal in India, the American chemical / pesticide producer Union Carbide, leaked 27 tonnes of a killer gas - MIC or Methyl isocyanate into the immediate local community, instantly killing scores of thousands of residents, which has now been factored at 20,000 deaths.

Based on the simple premise of poor safety for this being allowed to occur and the record death toll, the firm's chairman Warren Anderson was taken into custardy and asked to stay in the country to attend the investigations into the disaster.

Five days later he fled India to the US and has since been comfortably living in the US and shielded by all the US authorities who are responsible for his extradition back to India to account for the disaster and help with questions to finally get some closure on the case.

For over 20 years, the money put aside by Union Carbide as compensation for the victims families has not been fully paid and a large chunk - 390 million is still sat in Indian Officials coffers, waiting to be paid.

Dow Chemical, another US giant, bought Union Carbide and the plant in Bhopal is still an ecological disaster, still not cleaned up and contaminating ground water supplies to the local populations causing possibly 100's of further deaths per year, over 20 years later.

Dow Chemical's approach to the disaster over 20 years on, is to pay top billing for a top level entry in google search engine for a terribly biased "fact" site that claims to dispute any wrong doing by Union Carbide or its awol chairman, saying he is now un-answerable to questions, having no intention to make him or other past directors of Union Carbide having to address issues the tribunals in India have desperately been wanting to sort out.

It makes Chernobyl look like a picnic in the park. Truly, the massive and ongoing fears and paranoias about Chernobyl actually are summed up by the simple matter that a total number of residents 20 years later in all countries affected by the Chernobyl disaster only add up to 9 deaths, mostly thyroid cancers, and the 47 deaths of poorly equipped workers that were sent to their death helping to to block up the reactor outer walls.

Many bank holidays in small countries such as Ireland often account for more deaths on the roads over a single weekend, than the deaths of residents of all the countries put together over 20 years by Chernobyl alone.

Coal mining, always a massive killer, decade after decade, has globally caused countless millions of deaths compared to a global count of possibly 100 deaths in the full history of nuclear power generation around the world.

US figures alone record an annual death toll of 25,100 citizens every year for using coal, and has a current total of 23,600 US deaths of coal miners.

China gets through the deaths of 10,000 to 20,000 coal miners per year.

Global deaths in the nuclear industry often remain at zero or single figures.

So what is more dangerous, using coal and chemicals with the odd 20,000 deaths by disasters in each of both industries or the world's worst nuclear disaster to date (previously run unsafely by an outdated autonomous communist government) which to date has, and of course unfortunately caused the deaths in single figures of 9 citizens close to the reactor. ?

SeanW

I would have to say coal. The stuff is filthy, its burning releases horrific and voluminous amounts of various types of pollutants into the atmosphere, including radioactive emissions, and mining it kills thosands annually if not tens of thosands.

I've said on another thread that Chernobyl happened not because it was a nuclear power plant, but because of the people who put it there. If the Soviets had tried to generate 6GW of power from Coal at the Chernobyl site instead of nuclear, no doubt they would have destroyed the health of everyone in a 100 mile radius and killed 20000+ miners annually to feed it. Some kind of ecological disaster was inevitable.

Nuclear power gets an very bad rap for no real reason IMO though the true death toll of Chernobyl will never be known. Even still, even the most extravagent estimates of the likes of Greenpeace likely pale in comparison to the horrific effects of coal.

Pocari Sweat

SeanW wrote:

I would have to say coal. The stuff is filthy, its burning releases horrific and voluminous amounts of various types of pollutants into the atmosphere, including radioactive emissions, and mining it kills thosands annually if not tens of thosands.

I've said on another thread that Chernobyl happened not because it was a nuclear power plant, but because of the people who put it there. If the Soviets had tried to generate 6GW of power from Coal at the Chernobyl site instead of nuclear, no doubt they would have destroyed the health of everyone in a 100 mile radius and killed 20000+ miners annually to feed it. Some kind of ecological disaster was inevitable.

Nuclear power gets an very bad rap for no real reason IMO though the true death toll of Chernobyl will never be known. Even still, even the most extravagent estimates of the likes of Greenpeace likely pale in comparison to the horrific effects of coal.

I thought generally here in Ireland the thinking would be horrifically anti-nuclear, but there are some fairly sharp, switched on people, looking at the facts and not forming the usual views of witchcraft and conspiracy.

Well time to re-evaluate it a little more, Tony Blair has just announced yesterday plans for a renewal of the nuclear programme in Britain to full steam ahead.

Will Ireland be buying, French or UK nuclear electric in the next 10 or 20 years?

Capt'n Midnight

The problem of nuclear waste is that you can't guarantee that someone will be there to stop misuse. I've posted before about much worse industrial disasters than 20,000. Approx 50 times as many as that were killed when troups blew up a dam in China. It's fair to say that the dam designers didn't count on that happening.

That one incident alone puts hydroelectric into the most dangerous form of large scale electicity generation in terms of lives lost per KWHr yet you don't have it in your "poll".

Please provide references for the US death rate. And compare to the death rate from traffic polution and also show that the death rate quoted takes into account the cleaning up of power plants recently.

Carbon Credits aren't worth as much as people in the UK thought they would be because the large businesses have reduced emissions.

I'd happily agree that the chances of a Chernobyl type accident happening here would be very unlikely. But the exclusion zone there is over 4,300 square kilometers. Same size as counties Dublin, Louth, Carlow AND Kildare. (or slightly bigger than Wexford + Waterford if you use Carnsore Point )
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernoten/facts.html


http://www.iaea.org/blog/Infolog/?page_id=25

A reasonable central estimate is about 4,000 fatal radiation induced cancers during the lifetime of the 600,000 most highly exposed individuals and perhaps another 5,000 in more peripheral populations.

so the International Atomic Energy Agency reckons about 9,000 extra deaths. And I can't see where they have extended that scope to the global population.

Where will France and the UK buy nuclear fuel in 20 years time ?
How will they dispose of it ?
At present Magnox/Breeder reactor spent fuel can't be used in weapons because the level of Pu240 is too high to easily assemble a critical mass. (lets ignore the fact that the yanks have tested a bomb made from Magnox composition) in a few hundred years time the level of Pu240 will be a lot lower and you be able to assemble a critical mass with a gun design. This means that atomic weapons would be within the reach of people who could chemically extract plutonium without having to worry about isotope separation.

Pocari Sweat

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

The problem of nuclear waste is that you can't guarantee that someone will be there to stop misuse. I've posted before about much worse industrial disasters than 20,000. Approx 50 times as many as that were killed when troups blew up a dam in China. It's fair to say that the dam designers didn't count on that happening.

Good evening Cap'n.

Okay in the next thousand years you can't guarantee the safety of what ever we get up to, but I'm sure we will look at the things that we can improve on.

A better early warning system to avoid the full effects of the Tsunami like the 226,000 dead on St Stevens day 2004, and bad communism like the Chinese famine where 40 million died during 1959 to 1961, yes 40 million - another communist cock up, which puts Stalin to shame with his 20 million deaths for a similar farming policy in the 20's / 30's and this puts well in the shade your example of a chinese dam disaster.

The point is bad management like the autocratic and corrupt regimes of antiquated communist states can wipe out vast swathes of huge populations but the best that the communists could do in USSR for nearly 50 years with their biggest nuke disaster is kill 9 civilians to date, and the Chinese also nuclear for a longer communist / corrupt period and vastly higher population aint done nowt to date to upset anyone with their safe nuke op.

The Chinese do have up to 20,000 miners die every year, digging coal. They like the Americans will have a proportionate amount of civilian deaths due to the use of coal. They will massively pollute the planet with CO2 emmissions, poisonous sulphurous emmissions and more radioactivity found and burn't in coal released to the atmosphere than anything that can be stored safely by nuclear means.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Please provide references for the US death rate. And compare to the death rate from traffic polution and also show that the death rate quoted takes into account the cleaning up of power plants recently.

A very simple, authentic and accessible site for the figures I mentioned about disasters and deaths is = the guinness book of records website.

If you require assistance for navigating the categories whether natural disasters or man made etc, please ask.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Carbon Credits aren't worth as much as people in the UK thought they would be because the large businesses have reduced emissions.

Burning turf on a commercial scale isn't exactly CO2 friendly or sustainable with the ecology of the bog lands needed, or any fossil fuel that cannot be replaced or that kills our ozone / atmosphere.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

I'd happily agree that the chances of a Chernobyl type accident happening here would be very unlikely. But the exclusion zone there is over 4,300 square kilometers. Same size as counties Dublin, Louth, Carlow AND Kildare. (or slightly bigger than Wexford + Waterford if you use Carnsore Point )

The exclusion zone you mention is in square kilometres which is actually only around 10 linear kilometres in the important measurement of distance from a nuclear epicentre. The exclusion distance for type depicted in the case of Chernobyl is only argued by scientists between the 30-40 km range.

Dublin is over 90 km from Sellafield and as this is put under a microscope for safety would you not worry about one other of the 15 or so UK installations say Wylfa in Anglesea, next time you drive off the ferry?

What about the 100 nuclear facilities in France, europes largest nuclear nation? Much nearer than the Ukraine, so more worrying ?

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

International Atomic Energy Agency[/B] reckons about 9,000 extra deaths. And I can't see where they have extended that scope to the global population.

Do the actual math. Logic now, 9 civilian deaths in over 20 years on a gradually reducing curve of risk from day one death level. So five times this length of time say a 100 years, a lower fatality rate on a reducing curve say 40 more thyroid based cancers tops. 9,000 as you know pure waffle. Thats nearly as many Chinese miners die in 6 months and thats a lot, too many.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Where will France and the UK buy nuclear fuel in 20 years time ? How will they dispose of it ? At present Magnox/Breeder reactor spent fuel can't be used in weapons because the level of Pu240 is too high to easily assemble a critical mass. (lets ignore the fact that the yanks have tested a bomb made from Magnox composition) in a few hundred years time the level of Pu240 will be a lot lower and you be able to assemble a critical mass with a gun design. This means that atomic weapons would be within the reach of people who could chemically extract plutonium without having to worry about isotope separation.

Fairy nonsense again. 500 years reserves across the world are conservative estimates. Fusion research in place already with a ten year trial in France. Remember the icy words Bush said after 9/11, if any country or terrorists even think about using chemical or nuke against US they would not hesitate to vaporise that country, (in so many words).

SeanW

Pocari Sweat wrote:

I thought generally here in Ireland the thinking would be horrifically anti-nuclear, but there are some fairly sharp, switched on people, looking at the facts and not forming the usual views of witchcraft and conspiracy.

Thanks Actually, for a long time (too long) I was in the "no nuclear ever" camp. However, once I concluded the research on the Chernobyl accident and Nuclear Power in particular, that lead me into the pro-nuclear camp, I posted a detailed 16 point list of the chain of mistakes that led to the Chernobyl accident, and more importantly its aftermath.

It can be seen here. If you read that I'm sure you'll agree that very little of this applies outside the USSR and that its impossible for Chernobyl to happen again in post-Soviet built reactors.

On the topic of nuclear waste, again I'd say do some research.
Once on Wikipedia
World Nuclear Association: Uranium, Electricity and Greenhouse

It is not outwidth human capability to dispose of (relatively small amounts of) nuclear waste in a safe and secure manner.

And as for nuclear proliferation in a couple of hundred years time: look if there still are people around in 400 years time and they want to kill each other that badly, they'll find a way, it won't really matter whether there's enough Pu-239 leftover from the 20/21st centuries to do the job as they'll likely have found - if I can use the term - "better" ways to kill each other en-masse like fusion bombs, neutron bombs, anti-matter, lasers, war satellites, different types of nuclear, Lord only knows what they will have come up with by then.

If we're really serious about this whole "reducing carbon dioxide emissions" lark we're either going to utilise everything at our disposal, including the atom, to reduce emissions, or we can keep giving in to FUD and Luddism.

Pocari Sweat

Monitor the poll results of dangers of coal versus nuclear.

Pocari Sweat

SeanW wrote:

Thanks Actually, for a long time (too long) I was in the "no nuclear ever" camp. However, once I concluded the research on the Chernobyl accident and Nuclear Power in particular, that lead me into the pro-nuclear camp, I posted a detailed 16 point list of the chain of mistakes that led to the Chernobyl accident, and more importantly its aftermath.

It can be seen here. If you read that I'm sure you'll agree that very little of this applies outside the USSR and that its impossible for Chernobyl to happen again in post-Soviet built reactors.

Good man Sean.

But there are so many watch cartoons like The Simpsons which suffuse into their imaginations or they read general tabloid waffle.

Another case in point is the day after news of Chernobyl. The Sun tabloid newspaper main headline stated " 100,000 REDS DEAD. "

I did not buy the sun, I should add. But the morons that did looked at the headline and quoted it verbatim.

Factor of lack of authenticity or bullsh*t factor by The Sun runs at a multiple of over 10,000 or in percentage terms is 1 million % bullsh*t.

People will still read The Sun however if they have 2 minutes of spare time.

Sun readers really do have a bad reputation in the UK, it has long been a standing joke.

bonkey

Pocari Sweat wrote:

Are disasters like the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak in India (causing the slaughter of 20,000 civilians), forgotten by the west because our media recycles fears about local minor disasters that turn out to be a lot less cause for concern when the indepth studies finally present clearer statistics.

Nope. They're fogotten because it was poor people in a neglected part of the world who suffered and continue to suffer. The developed world has a long-established tendency to be given "shock reminders" once in a while when something truly horrific happens, but all too quickly the aftermath of said horrific event just fades into the background poverty, suffering and deprivation that we ignore as a matter of course in our daily lives.

Weigh up the Union Carbide gas leak and other disasters versus the perrenial hot potato Chernobyl.

Why?

Its not a fair comparison.

Calculate what a Chernobyl-style event would have been like had it occurred in the same region as the UC leak, and/or what a UC-type leak in the comparative wilds of the Ukraine and you've something closer to compare.

As it is, comparing one event with the other directly would be like saying that a Tunguska-sized explosion wouldn't really be a problem if it reoccurred because so few people (if any?) were killed. Of course, if a Tunguska-type event occurred (say) centred on Beijing, Mumbai, New York, London or some other metropolis, the danger of it would be vastly, vastly more significant.

In short, location is as much a factor as anything.

Truly, the massive and ongoing fears and paranoias about Chernobyl actually are summed up by the simple matter that a total number of residents 20 years later in all countries affected by the Chernobyl disaster only add up to 9 deaths, mostly thyroid cancers, and the 47 deaths of poorly equipped workers that were sent to their death helping to to block up the reactor outer walls.

I guess that depends on who's figures you use.

Some Swiss health experts, for example, have estimated that the resultant increase in radioactivity in Switzerland has already led to up to 200 additional deaths through cancer.

The IAEAs report in 2005 put an estimation of up to 4,000 peopel overall would be so effected worldwide, but this figure has already been widely contested as being vastly underestimated to avoid putting nuclear in an excessively bad light.

Would you accept the figures that UC back, for example, with regard to how not-so-bad Bhopal really was? No, I didn't think so.

Many bank holidays in small countries such as Ireland often account for more deaths on the roads over a single weekend, than the deaths of residents of all the countries put together over 20 years by Chernobyl alone.
...
US figures alone record an annual death toll of 25,100 citizens every year for using coal, and has a current total of 23,600 US deaths of coal miners.

Now, this is just downrightly obvious disingenuity in the use of numbers.

With Chernobyl, you limit yoruself to counting the direct deaths of the event.

With coal, you go for a number of 25,000 per year dying because coal is used.

I'd also hazard a guess that within the total of 23,600 US deaths of coal miners, the number since the advent of nuclear and/or modern safety standards is but a drop in the bucket of that total.

So what is more dangerous,

In the absence of objectively-reported figures, I wouldn't say I could answer that question with anything more than a wild-assed guess.

My wild-assed guess, however, would have to consider the potential impact of water-table pollution from a nuclear and/or nuclear-waste leakage event, occurring in one of the more densely populated areas where the threat is possible.

using coal and chemicals with the odd 20,000 deaths by disasters in each of both industries

Look at where those industries are predominantly situated - particularly where the problems occur. You'll spot a trend that you haven't allowed for in your comparisons.

I'm also not sure of what the point is comparing Bhopal to Chernobyl in the first place. Are you saying we should make our chemicals out of nuclear power and/or uranium? Its not like there's a choice between one and the other - that we could close UC's plants and replace them with nuclear power stations and get our plastics and chemicals that way.

Or is this just yet another "nuclear is safe - because other things kill more people" line of reasoning?

I could easily show that malnutrition or AIDS kills more people daily than the chemical industry does, even allowing for yearly Bhopal-style events. Does this mean that the chemical industry isn't really a problem and that we should concentrate solely on dealing with malnutrition or AIDS? After all, the two are about as related as nuclear power and the manufacture of chemicals.

Whatever about comparisons to coal...and you've have to look long and hard to find someone who'd say mismanaged, non-modernised coal production or useage is a good thing...looking at Bhopal is nothing but misdirection to make nuclear power less threatening. Its an argument of misdirection.

jc

Capt'n Midnight

Pocari Sweat wrote:

The exclusion zone you mention is in square kilometres which is actually only around 10 linear kilometres in the important measurement of distance from a nuclear epicentre. The exclusion distance for type depicted in the case of Chernobyl is only argued by scientists between the 30-40 km range.

huh? 10x10=100.
The actual exclusion zone is 43 times larger.

Pocari Sweat wrote:

Do the actual math. Logic now, 9 civilian deaths in over 20 years on a gradually reducing curve of risk from day one death level. So five times this length of time say a 100 years, a lower fatality rate on a reducing curve say 40 more thyroid based cancers tops. 9,000 as you know pure waffle.

You do realise no one has ever died of Aids. The millions of deaths were indirect.
You choose to use casualty figures 1,000 times lower than the nuclear industry.


Where will France and the UK buy nuclear fuel in 20 years time ?
I should have made this point clearer.
Will it be economical in 20 years time ?
will there be political problems then ?



BTW:
Our air corps are not equiped to intercept a 9/11 attack on a power plant.

When the NPL in UK needed non-radioactive steel, can't remember what for, they got it from Scappa Flow because of all the radioactive contamination in the enviroment means that it's impossible to make such clean steel today.

Pocari Sweat

bonkey wrote:

Nope. They're fogotten because it was poor people in a neglected part of the world who suffered and continue to suffer.

I'm also not sure of what the point is comparing Bhopal to Chernobyl in the first place. Are you saying we should make our chemicals out of nuclear power and/or uranium? Its not like there's a choice between one and the other - that we could close UC's plants and replace them with nuclear power stations and get our plastics and chemicals that way.

Or is this just yet another "nuclear is safe - because other things kill more people" line of reasoning?

Whatever about comparisons to coal...and you've have to look long and hard to find someone who'd say mismanaged, non-modernised coal production or useage is a good thing...looking at Bhopal is nothing but misdirection to make nuclear power less threatening. Its an argument of misdirection.

jc

Bonkey, I like your style, and have no gripes. Sorry to paraphrase yer quote, just getting yer good points and reply on what is important.

In starting out about the less well developed nation's plights, I cannot agree more and I use the examples of both cases, Bhopal and Chernobyl as being third world as they were when both events happened compared to the the standards of the West at the time.

However, Union Carbide, were a US company doing their dirty deeds in a third world country with absolute disregard.

And the communist regime running Chernobyl, completely detached from the developed approach of the West were still evaluated alongside the West as if they were part and parcel of a Western based economy.

As for comparing chemical to nuclear in regard to the dangers involved in going about their business, I know you see the comparison as chalk and cheese, but with respect, and I appreciate your views, I cannot agree.

Nuclear fuel production is an entirely chemical process.

Mined Uranium ore, an oxide of isotopes U 235 and 238, extracted from countries like Namibia, is a low purity ore containing a fraction of 1% of the important stuff that does the job of powering light bulbs.

I have heard examples of 2lb of the stuff having the energy of 3,000 tonnes of coal with zero direct emmissions to the atmosphere, but in reality it is not used in its purest form, it is always used commercially in power production below the 3% enrichment level.

Generally a uranium rod the length and width of a sweeping brush handle in its natural form (a fraction of 1% 238) has the energy output of 300 tonnes of coal. Yeh a lot less handling and zero direct CO2 emmisssions.

But to get to this from the oxide ore form, either to enriched oxide pellets or the cast metal of natural uranium rods, involves a vast and complex chemical process, which is well beyond in all respects any process Union Carbide has come up with in the production of pesticides at Bhopal.

By dissolving U2 ore in rare and exotic acids and precipitating concentrates in an array of chemical and mechanical processes after a series of major chemical transformations, the end result is derived after multi-billion dollar development of know how and decades of experience to produce the quality and quantity required for commercial reactor use.

The nature of the safety and risk assessment of the chemical processes required in Union Carbide's plant in Bhopal compared to that in producing any form of processed nuclear fuel for commercial power production means that vastly more dangers and implications are required to pursue the chemical processing of the nuclear route, but... because of this, the respect and understanding of this process means that it is a very carefully understood and well managed route with impossibly high safety factors built into the structure of its process.

So if I have lost you at this stage, take it how you like, but the nuclear route is one of microscopic exactness and because of the irrational fears too many people have, it is because of this that it is so safe and so overly engineered that to operate on the saftey level of Bhopal, it would probably be so cheap to run that electric could be given away for free if people accepted that the rough level of danger so often seen in most chemical processes was applied in nuclear processes.

Comparing coal to nuclear is a fair comparison, because both are in the pursuit of producing energy that people need and only one of these two is so clearly catastrophic in the worst possible extrapolations of destruction to the environment, not only by imagination but in track record.

Pocari Sweat

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

huh? 10x10=100.
The actual exclusion zone is 43 times larger.

Cap'n, please look at the math.

Square area versus linear distance. Simple lesson :

A kilometre is one thousand metres long. A square kilometre is actually 1000 metres x 1000 metres to equal 1,000,000 square metres.

Stand inside the middle of a square kilometre and you are 500 metres or half a kilometre from the nearest edges but it contains 1 million square metres in area surface.

So, I will set you a excercise. If you stand inside the middle of 100 square kilometres as a uniform quadrilateral, are you standing :

A - 5 kilometres from the nearest edge?

B - 50 kilometres from the nearest edge?

C - 500 kilometres from the nearest edge?

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

You choose to use casualty figures 1,000 times lower than the nuclear industry.

No. Compare actual figures to estimated figures.

So far reported, 9 civilian deaths in 20 years amongst all the countries concerned.

So how many million years are you expecting 9,000 deaths to occur?

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Our air corps are not equiped to intercept a 9/11 attack on a power plant.

If a fully loaded jet liner was to make a direct impact into the reactor core of any nuclear reactor, the very fine proximity required to group fissile material together to produce criticality, means that it would be instantly dispersed. Just like smashing a finely engineered antique swiss watch with a hammer and expecting it to perform perfect timekeeping with 100th second accuracy.

If the US, after having their two tallest New York buildings turned to rubble and the Pentagon proper walloped on the same day, you would expect they might be worried about their 200 nuclear reactors getting hit, or stating a clear message that if a reactor was hit, then the host nation of terrorists would be receiving a nice few ICBMs for country folk vaporisation.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

When the NPL in UK needed non-radioactive steel, can't remember what for, they got it from Scappa Flow because of all the radioactive contamination in the enviroment means that it's impossible to make such clean steel today.

All radio-emmission free steel for such rare uses as ... radiation detecting body scanners, for accurate measurement of bodily intake of low level nuke isotopes, are housed in at least one or two inches of pre 1st world war battle ship hull plate, usually sunk prior to use of nuke bombs in 2nd world war and found at major low depths, as quite correct as you mention, Scappa Flow.

But what is new?

SeanW

I don't believe the figure of 9 to be honest, as it only covers those fatally injured in the immediate aftermath. It doesn't cover the unborn children of Pripyat, some of the liquidators, the continuing problems in Belarus as shown in "Chernobyl Heart" Chernobyl related suicides, entire classes of victims have to be ignored for that to make sense.

Why am I saying all this? After all, I've just spent the last 10 posts advocating nuclear power!

Look at it from the nuclear industry point of view. Here they are with a safe, almost totally emissions free, abundant source of energy. Yet their work is hampered by a populace scared senseless of Chernobyl and so called "environmentalists" spreading FUD and hyperbole, seeming to prefer burning more fossil fuels with all their attendant problems. The accident can be compared to Titanic, which itself took a 4 digit number of people to the bottom of the Atlantic. Which we remember to this day and was the subject of 2 blockbuster films the most recent in 1996. And there are a lot of eerie similarities between both accidents.

Question: Where is all the FUD about ships? Where were all people demanding closure of shipyards and screaming "NO MORE TITANICS!!?" Would the clown who wrote this like to make a petition showing the ruins of the Titanic against a German ICE train?
Answer: People saw that Titanic was a freak accident. Lessons were learned, maritime safety can not be compromised, carry enough lifeboats, don't speed through an ice sheet, remember to bring your binoculars, dont use cheap steel to build the ship, don't assume the object under your command is invincible etc. But life carried on and people continue to use ships and ferries. The ferry you take your car to France or Wales in could be the next Titanic and you could drown? Or Freeze to death! OR WORSE!!! SHIPS ARE EVIL!! RUN FOR YOU LIVES!!

There's an emotional aspect to all this. I mean, who watched Chernoybl Heart on RTE not long ago and didn't feel *something* looking at those poor kids with their cancers and deformities? We see shock images of broken people and abandoned cities, and emotion can take over.

The Nuclear industry is crippled by Chernobyl despite its irrelevance to most of their operations, so they're now trying to protect themselves by playing down the accident. What I think everyone needs, is to stop and realise that, Yes, nuclear power can make a serious mess if you run it like the Soviets did but they made a hames of everything, an inevitable freak accident in a failed nation with a failed ideology that cannot happen again. Nuclear is not perfect but we have a huge problem with fossil fuels including sustainability and runaway CO2 emissions and we don't have anything better.

I say all the above as semi-environmentalist who doesn't litter, buys CFL lightbulbs, recycles when possible, and advocates public transport developement as a member of Platform 11
(You might have seen me handing out leaflets for them last year if you use trains/trams in Dublin).

Do those opposing nuclear power think about the following?
Whether or not they smoke?
The effects of fossil fuels including radioactive emissions?
Checked their homes and workplaces for radon?
Spend too much time in front of a CRT screen?
Spend enough much time out in the sun/sunbed? Allow their children to do so?

The above are infinitely more of a cancer risk than Western nuclear power.

And the waste? If you'd read my links provided and done your research you'd know that it is manageable. Esp. with Vitrification, subduction-zone burial among other options, as for future nuclear weapons, well if the people of the future want to kill each other badly enough they will: our not going nuclear today won't stop them.

Pocari Sweat

SeanW wrote:

I don't believe the figure of 9 to be honest, as it only covers those fatally injured in the immediate aftermath. It doesn't cover the unborn children of Pripyat, some of the liquidators, the continuing problems in Belarus as shown in "Chernobyl Heart" Chernobyl related suicides, entire classes of victims have to be ignored for that to make sense.

Yeh, Sean, seems a bit low after 20 years of worlds worst nuke disaster.

But the figure for civilians deaths listed as directly accountable to Chernobyl, were by thyroid cancers, where there was ony 1 or 2% mortality (loose figures) of all the people that contracted thyroid cancers, mainly in the younger population, and mainly in Belarus, but nearly all those affected recovered.

Of course the workers ordered to shore up the reactor walls after the event were pushed past their safe working times without adequate protective clothing so these 47 poor souls were bound it feel the effects.

I would say myself if only 56 are officially listed then like anything else, there are probably hundreds more to follow and of course thousands having some debilitating effects caused by the disaster.

Well the exploson of the reactor was kept quiet as a wee mishap by the communist authorities for 4 days after the distaster which was the sort of thing you would expect during the cold war between the USSR and the US.

A similar comparison now is Chinese coal mines. China has, I am told 24,000 small coal mines many of which are illegal. Just when you consider the official figures of the Chinese Communist authorities and you can probably guess how honest they are, they estimate for example 6,343 miners were killed going about their business in the year 2003 and 4,570 of these were in small mines.

Okay, to push this debate as I have done I would consider Western estimates that more reasonably I think, estimate nearer 10 to 20,000 miner deaths per year.

So, there are probably more deaths than 56 at Chernobyl and maybe a load more in the future because of it.

But I like the reasoning of weighing up the risks and arguments that also show the ridiculous side of people's fears, like comparing the views of say heavy smokers who drink too much, possibly drive pissed up on the odd occasion, burn coal in their houses, have asbestos linings on old pipes, drink water of unknown or unchecked quality, import products that are made using the resources of nuclear generated electric supplies, use mobile phones whilst complaining against phone masts, worry about electric pylons but use electric like they can't get enough of it, and then are convinced that everything nuclear is an abomination, when every aspect of life on earth is driven by the thermonuclear energy from the sun and always has been.

Maybe the sun should be blocked out or some protest arranged to try and boycott it.

SeanW

5 coal miners just died today.

Even with the best possible international practice, coal mining kills a lot of people and it's burning causes major problems. It's a filthy, dangerous, destructive, mugs game. Do we really want that?

Pocari Sweat

SeanW wrote:

5 coal miners just died today.

Even with the best possible international practice, coal mining kills a lot of people and it's burning causes major problems. It's a filthy, dangerous, destructive, mugs game. Do we really want that?

I could go on, but in a word, no.

There is another thread about green house gases and a debate by Arthur B. Robinson and Jane M. Orient and I thought it offered some kick arse views against us anti-global warming sceptics.

I honestly think that the complicated science of weather forcasting alone on a day to day basis which includes some serious often occuring cumulo-nimbus clouds that have the energy totals of thousands of hiroshima style bombs in just the one cloud, means that exptrapolating the most diverse and complex scenario of decade by decade CO2 gas emmissions versus solar cycles and the earths natural way of going about things between ice ages makes me think again that the things we do on this planet, farting about with the various types of energy generation, maybe does not make much difference, I could be wrong. Probably am.

But the thought is there. The fact that coal use is seriously poor in terms of energy output versus the deaths required to use the stuff and the process of the "clean, safe science of nuclear fuel", are still things to be debated in human terms.

I reckon we don't have to worry too much, the better way of making energy will surely work itself out during the next 20 years, whatever cock ups we are likely to try out.

Capt'n Midnight

RTE Two - Sunday 21 May
20:00 One Night in Bhopal
The stories of people who lived and worked in Bhopal in India when an extremely poisonous gas leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in 1984 resulting in thousands of deaths.

Pocari Sweat

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

RTE Two - Sunday 21 May
20:00 One Night in Bhopal
The stories of people who lived and worked in Bhopal in India when an extremely poisonous gas leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in 1984 resulting in thousands of deaths.

OOh, Is that on tonight Cap'n? I can't get RTE 2, feck. I'll try adjusting me aerial.

Cheers for that Cap'n.

SeanW

Pocari Sweat wrote:

I could go on, but in a word, no.

With respect, this question was aimed at the environmentalists who hype up the evils of nuclear power, while happy that we go on slapping up one thermal fossil fuel generating station after another.

Because you can't be anti-everything and still have the lights come on.

Oh, and, if anyone wants to see what REALLY happened at Chernobyl, most of the facts can be got from a BBC doucmentary (Days That Shook The World) I was talking about earlier.

Much to my surprise, it is in fact, online.

Pocari Sweat

Cap'n can't argue with that.