I have an important request for Atomic Insights readers. Our old friend, Arnie Gundersen, has once again violated the admonition that it is better to remain silent and thought to be a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. In this recent video, he describes how he was commissioned by a group [...]
A Plea for Common Sense – Radiation Protection Rules Need Amendment
This post was written by Ted Rockwell. A Plea for Common Sense New lessons are beginning to emerge from Fukushima. Each new problem leads to heaping on additional safety requirements. But some contradictions are beginning to raise questions: Amid tens of thousands of deaths from non-nuclear causes, not a single life-shortening radiation injury has occurred. [...]
Fukushima media visit – USA Today slants positive news into source of worry
On November 12, 2011, USA Today published an article titled Media allowed in tsunami-hit nuke plant that contained some classic elements of slant by selectively highlighting certain facts while ignoring others. The situation was a good news story. Tepco, the electric power utility company that owns the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station has reached a [...]
What should “Radioactive Wolves” teach critical thinkers?
Radioactive Wolves, the first episode of the 30th season of PBS’s Nature, documents current conditions in the area that was forcibly evacuated following the uncontrolled radioactive material releases caused when the operators at the Chernobyl nuclear power station conducted a poorly planned experiment and blew up their power plant. In the absence of human beings, [...]
Devastating review of Yablokov’s Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment
Sometime before December 2009, someone at the New York Academy of Sciences decided to print a Greenpeace sponsored book titled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment in a publication called the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. The roots of the decision remain murky. Within a few months after [...]
“Radiation is not a big threat to mankind” – Dr. Wade Allison addressing ACCJ
Dr. Wade Allison, the author of Radiation and Reason addressed the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) Food Safety meeting on October 3, 2011. Unlike Arnie Gundersen (sometimes misspelled as Gunderson), an unlicensed nuclear engineer from Vermont who has been working hard for several months to encourage an unreasonable fear of radiation, even at [...]
What Does San Bruno Pipeline Catastrophe Tell Us About Gas Transportation Infrastructure?
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is the responsible federal regulator for natural gas pipelines, has issued the report of its year long investigation of the San Bruno pipeline explosion and fire. That September 9, 2010 event, involving a pipeline located directly underneath a residential area, killed 8 members of the public, injured dozens [...]
Radioactive Wolves – Coming to PBS Nature on October 19, 2011
One of the persistent propaganda myths about using nuclear energy is that hypothetical accidents that release radioactive material will have dire consequences that render vast areas of land uninhabitable for centuries. It is a good thing for wolves, deer, and boars that they cannot read antinuclear propaganda or watch television. You see, we have done [...]
Backlash Against Nuclear Power Adds to the Top Line of Oil and Gas Companies
An article titled Backlash Against Nuclear Power Hits the Bottom Line provides some interesting food for thought about the intricate connections associated with the world’s $6 trillion per year energy market. Here is the first quote I want you to ponder. The combination of earthquake, tsunami and human ineptitude produced a fiasco at Japan’s Fukushima [...]
If fear of radiation is the most serious health risk, the cure is simple
On September 14, 2011, the BBC aired a documentary titled Fukushima Disaster: Is Nuclear Power Safe?. Near the end of the video, the host makes the statement that it is quite likely that the main health impacts of the event (leaving aside the direct effects of the initiating earthquake and tsunami) will be traceable to [...]
Nuclear professionals spent decades on seismic (earthquake) risk evaluations – effort continues
The six months since Fukushima has brought out a certain class of professional worriers who ignore history to fret about topics that have already been the source of concern for many years. In this particular case, the worriers want to assert that nuclear power plants are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of earthquakes, which are [...]
Shoreham Chapter 7 – Lying about Three Mile Island
In this chapter of the Shoreham saga, Ray has made some clever cuts between assertions about the effects of the Three Mile Island accident from the professional opponents to nuclear energy and to assertions from people who have read the massive quantities of scientific and technical research about the details of the accident and its [...]