We now have had three nuclear disasters, with, for the most part, little effect on people from radiation.
The latest report from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effect of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) says that radiation from the Fukushima disaster had little effect on people. UNSCEAR’s May 31, press release said:
“Radiation exposure following the nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi did not cause any immediate health effects. It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers.”
So, once again the radiation bugaboo has been refuted.
Only Chernobyl had any health consequences whatever, and UNSCEAR has shown them to be minimal. Certainly not the horrendous consequences claimed by extremists, such as Greenpeace, or the Union of Concerned Scientists, or the Aspen Institute, or the Natural Resource Defense Council.
In addition, Chernobyl was of a design prone to being unstable at low power, with a test conducted under low load conditions that led to the meltdown and subsequent graphite fire, where there was no containment vessel.
No U.S. reactor, and no modern reactor in the world, has conditions similar to those that created the Chernobyl disaster, which precludes this type of accident from happening again with modern reactors.
And, the Three Mile Island incident had no radiation consequences … period.
In spite of the hugely successful safety record of nuclear power, extremists have created unwarranted fear among people.
It’s ironic, that, if CO2 was actually the cause of global warming, the same fear mongers claiming a worldwide calamity from global warming are the ones condemning nuclear power.
They are discrediting the only method for generating electricity that can provide base load power without emitting CO2, i.e., nuclear, which, if they were right about CO2 causing global warming, is the only method for preventing the calamity they predict from global warming.
Let there be no illusions about what these extremists say.
The leader of Greenpeace U.S.A., said:
“Greenpeace is working to end the expansion of nuclear power. … If a meltdown was to occur, the accident could kill and injure tens of thousands of people and leave large regions uninhabitable.”
Such rhetoric is unsupportable, yet extremists are willing to say or do anything to create fear among the public.
Here we have extremists creating fear about CO2 causing global warming, and also creating fear about nuclear power, when neither CO2 nor nuclear power should cause any concern whatsoever.
UNSCEAR makes this clear with respect to nuclear power, as they once again provide facts about radiation, this time from the Fukushima disaster, where radiation had little, if any, effect on people’s health.
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