Reply #31: I hate to disagree, but Chernobyl is rarely discussed so dispassionately.

[NNadir]

I've been dealing with Chernobyl mythology for years, ever since I switched sides in the nuclear power debate.

There are certain mantras chanted by anti-nuclear power folks and the content of these chants are words like these: "Chernobyl! Chernobyl! Waste! Waste! Waste! Radiation! Radiation! Radiation! Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!" If you attempt to bring these mystic words out of the darkness and into the light of serious examination, well it's much like trying to persuade a fundementalist that it just is possible that Jesus was just an ordinary Jewish guy in Roman occupied Judea.

My own trek from anti-nuclear power activist to nuclear power promoter began, strangely enough, with Chernobyl. I, like most people on the planet, thought it prove to the worst environmental disaster ever to have happened. Seeking more information on some of the contaminating isotopes, I looked them up in the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and came upon the values for neutron capture cross sections, the variable most closely connected with nuclear transmutation. When I explored this conception a little more carefully, my odyssey began. I confess, I was so niave that I thought that the idea of transmutation of nuclear waste was original with me. Only later did I understand that it is a widely understood concept, one that is likely to play a serious role in reducing the health and safety risks of nuclear power very close to the vanishing point. After some time, I rather became obsessed with the idea and later took it upon myself to explore subjects like nuclear engineering, risk analysis, and nuclear chemistry.

Even you accepted the ludicrous claim that 2,000,000 people (or 4% of the Ukrainian population) were killed by Chernobyl, which neither you nor I do, you would still have a death rate for the entire history of nuclear power (40+ years) of 2,000,000/40 = 50,000 persons a year dying from nuclear power worldwide. This is a number easily dwarfed by the deaths per year from air pollution in some single cities, never mind the planet as a whole. There is no such thing as risk free energy and anyone who claims there is, is either deluded or a liar.

The questions of Chernobyl need to be studied; they need to be discussed and we need to learn the lessons that the tragedy has to teach us and spread them as widely as possible. I contend, and I know you agree, that one lesson that should NOT be taken is that nuclear power should be abandoned. The more carefully we look at the issues surrounding Chernobyl, the easier it will become to make intelligent decisions. If there's one thing that people need to do in times when the threat to the planet is as serious as it is, it is clear thinking. We ought to do everything to we can to make sure that our energy choices have the least possible environmental, health, and aesthetic consequences. The tragedy at Chernobyl is an important sign post in the road to accomplishing this difficult task.

Again, your posts to this thread have been very fine, and I thank you again for the time you invested in putting them together.