23 Comments

  1. Stone has been good at 2 more things:

    a) He has openly made accessible all of his funding sources, as opposed to many ‘green’ organisations

    b) Has refused funding or help in any way shape or form from pro nuclear sources

    He made one big mistake. Not to put Rod Adams for 5 or so minutes somewhere in the film. There is nothing wrong from having a live long believer in the movie.

    1. Yes, Rod should be in the movie. He could be on the beach at San Onofre with the meter that shows the low dose on the beach even though there is a nuclear plant there. And Rod, you should wear a yellow Speedo that matches the color of the meter!

      1. @BobinPgh

        Sometimes I suspect that some commenters have done some deep research on my personal history. I was a competitive swimmer; I did wear the old fashioned Speedos. I even once had a deeply embarrassing experience in a yellow Speedo that was made of what was – at the time – a revolutionary fabric called Lycra.

        One of my coaches was a marketer for a swim suit company and was asked to have some of us test some new suits. The only one he had in my size was yellow, which was not our team color. However, I was willing to try anything that might be a “go fast”, and besides, I respected Vince; he was a fellow butterflyer.

        Can you imagine what a wet, yellow, pre-introductory Lycra Speedo might look like and how it might make a 14 year boy feel to have one of the parents of his teammates hand him a towel while turning her head away?

        In other words, NO on the yellow Speedo for me. It was bad enough when I was young and in competitive condition.

        1. Actually, It’s not all just a joke. A scene like that can really make a statement because people will remember you in a yellow Speedo with the confidence to stand in front on San Onofre and know you will not be harmed. Meanwhile, your friend Arnie made a video in front of the place. He used visual aids (plastic pipes and a couple of home depot buckets) to explain about the vibration issue. He was wearing a sportsjacket and tie and he was on the beach. In other words, he looked like an old man. Now, who are people more likely to remember, someone dressed like an old man or you in a Speedo. I mean, you don’t want to see your friend Arnie in one, do you?

  2. There are openings this weekend in the following cities: … Berkeley

    Can they do that? After all, Berkeley (like Takoma Park, MD) is an official “Nuclear Free Zone.”

    1. I don’t see why not. It’s not like the opening will have a bunch of demo samples of the stuff that Rod has been working on sitting there right outside the theatre, providing power to the place while the movie is playing or anything. Right?

  3. Dr. Lyman uses UNSCEAR numbers to estimate a number of cancers caused by Fukushima. But this is what UNSCEAR actually says:

    “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,” concluded the 60th session of the Vienna-based United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effect of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).

    And also:

    The additional exposures received by most Japanese people in the first year and subsequent years due to the radioactive releases from the accident are less than the doses received from natural background radiation (which is about 2.1 mSv per year).

    UNSCEAR said in its 2012 interim report,

    the Scientific Committee does not recommend multiplying very low doses by large numbers of individuals to estimate numbers of radiation-induced health effects within a population exposed to incremental doses at levels equivalent to or lower than natural background levels

    Dr. Lyman uses a counting method that UNSCEAR recommends against.

    UNSCEAR says evacuation and sheltering of Fukushima residents reduced their long term risks to undetectable levels. The report also calls for long-term health monitoring. The report says the actual long-term problems will be the psychological effects of relocation and worrying about health. The report also says plants and animals in the Fukushima area will have no adverse effects, with the possible exception of water plants near the power plant.

    The press release is at http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/pressrels/2013/unisinf475.html

    The Interim Report is at http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/V12/553/85/PDF/V1255385.pdf?OpenElement

    1. There is a good one liner of that can be applied to Dr Lyman:

      “It is also true that the less competent a person is in a given domain, the more he will tend to overestimate his abilities. This often produces an ugly marriage of confidence and ignorance that is very difficult to correct for.”
      ― Sam Harris

  4. Re: “This is the biggest cover-up in the history of medicine!” Caldicott bellows, but she throws up her hands when asked for the reason.

    Thanks to the aftermath of “Pandora’s Promise” we’ve seen the Swiss Cheese holes of credibility and perception nuclear has in the general public, not to speak of the media, and they are gaping. I know we have a chance when I hear of just one pol or major media personality or celeb whose head was turned by the film — I mean head TURNED, not just “musing over it”. Imus, are you listening? This is where a “Pandora’s Promise” part 2 type film should carry the torch beyond. Total take-down and deconstruction of the arguments of every major anti-nuke personality and top green movement in the world and plaster it all over the web. Ten minutes apiece can do the job. If they don’t wanna volunteer for the grill-down then do it by proxy as quotes. No more Mr. Nice Guy facing serial murderers. No more wasting the super talents of young and upcoming nuclear engineers/scientists on donuts over atom chat teach-in parties. Mass media is where the ONLY action is. The antis sure learned that well enough ages ago. Take down the opposition like literally your career and livelihood and energy security of the nation depended on it. More boldly, pass the hat around to nuclear companies and organizations to freely feature this on cable and webcasting. This is one of the top three issues that nuclear professional organizations were virtually made for. DO IT! What good are you if you can’t promote your own cause?

    On this issue, it’s long due that the zoo of assorted nuclear types get their act and heads together and start getting on the same page hawking the records of currents nukes instead of singing about projects that don’t exist and will never see light of day if the public doesn’t trust today’s nuclear. A pox and a half on any molten-salt/Thorium/fusion folks sitting back and letting current plants take all the PR and political hits totally unrebuffed. Why aren’t we hearing more than peeps from the supposed nuke-advocacy likes of Bill Gates and Paul Allen? It’s no good if they’re just preaching in closets. Gotta knock on their doors and spoke OUT — not in cloistered meetings but on the stomp! Also time to start feeling out top pop celebs who support nukes — and race cars don’t sing at the Grammys. Whip up a contest to find that nuclear Carl Sagan to enlighten the public and challenge Arnie and Helen and Doc Kaku (Rod Adams, Steve Aplin or Gareth Fairclough would be good but aren’t sponsored for the massive required free time).

    How about it, nuclear professional organizations? Are you all up to it — or are motley rag-tag mobs of antis even effective than all your degrees and coffers and gilded convention awards?

    James Greenidge
    Queens NY

    1. And we now know for sure that Robert Kennedy Jr believes in such a cover up between WHO and IEAE.

      You can kiss his credibility goodbye on all things nuclear.

    2. If this film generates real momentum on the issue, it would surely be sad and disappointing to just let that momentum fissile out. You can bet the antis will be pushing hard against that momentum from here forward, and if there isn’t anyone pushing back we’ll end up right where we were a month ago.

      So who can push back against the antis? We can try, but most of us have jobs and lives and can’t afford to make a full time job of this. This is a job which in the real world needs funding and professional handling of the media. That ought to come from the NEI.

      But I’m starting to wonder what the NEI sees as their mission.

      Do they see the promotion and expansion of nuclear electricity generation as their mission? Or do they just see the preservation of current reactors until wind adn solar take over as their mission?

      I realize that the bloggers do not necessarily represent the views of the NEI, but their continued support of “all of the above” even against all sense, makes me wonder. Additionally, my brief interaction with MarK Flanagan in the comments of the article “What Gets Sacrificed in a Nuclear Energy Shutdown” at NEI Nuclear Notes also makes me wonder if the NEI isn’t actually supporting wind and solar to the detriment of nuclear.

      Where is nuclear going to get an ongoing and professional voice to advance its interests?

      1. Jeff Walther has legitimate questions about NEI. Indeed, I have often wondered if NEI is so interested in ingratiating itself with the current Administration and staying in the NRC’s good graces that it has simply forsaken any real public advocacy program.

        BTW, this movie would be a good thing for certain politicians in Washington, DC to watch, starting with the President. I will leave my comment at that.

      2. @Jeff Walther

        The Nuclear Energy Institute is a trade/lobbying organization whose mission is to further the interest of its corporate members. If you obtain a list of the members and you then do some due diligence to find out how those members make their money and what they are telling their shareholders about the future vectors for growing that revenue, you will begin to understand more about the actions and positions taken by the NEI.

        There are many fine people who are employed by that organization and they produce a lot of valuable information, but it is important to understand that they are not fundamentally motivated to increase the use of nuclear technology. They are, by charter, motivated to serve the interests of their paying members.

        1. Thank you, Rod. That clarifies matters. So there really isn’t an organization with a media relations group to beat the drum for nuclear power. It’s not a case of an organization doing its job badly, there’s just no such animal.

          That makes it a really tough situation. My admiration for the work you do grows, given the challenge you face. I try to help a little by arguing the nuclear side in various forums, but that’s such small audiences.

          I talked to one of my news contacts and his advice boiled down to somehow you have to get to know reporters and build a relationship with them, but that initial meeting is difficult. They get a lot of calls from crazy people and sorting out the crazy from the informative is an issue, especially since the reporters are dumb as dirt. I keep forgetting to ask the other one.

  5. Playing hooky from work this afternoon to see a matinee showing here in Seattle, been waiting a long time to see this movie. From the small snippets and trailers, I’m looking forward to a well crafted film. My hope is that its success will bring many more filmmakers to the subject.

    1. About the only thing I would have liked to see that could have been crammed into this fast-moving 87 minutes would have been a split-screen at the end that synopsizes the eight micro sievert readings taken from around the world.

      Even standing near the Chernobyl sarcophagus, or next to the hottest weed in Fukoshima, didn’t compare to the guy burying himself in the hormetic monazite beach sand of Brazil.

  6. In general, very impressed by this film and believe it will have a positive impact.

    Some may be disappointed at Stone’s limited coverage of molten salt reactors and the thorium fuel cycle – almost as if he wanted to avoid any discussion of the relative safety merits of different technologies. I get that, I also get the concept that for many people even bringing up safety in a discussion of nuclear power is a tacit admission it’s unsafe.

    If you have to dumb down a complex discussion to the point where you risk being inaccurate, it may be better left unsaid.

    1. Stone is very well aware of the potential of MSRs, and LFTR in particular. When I asked him what his next project was going to be (hoping it would be Oak Ridge and LFTR) he said he wasn’t sure. Too focused on promoting the possibilities implied by this one.

      He said the intent of this film was to open the eyes of the general public, not get into a geekophillic comparison of Gen IV technologies (my words, not his). Maybe later, after the generic curse of public radiophobia has been conquered, a deeper dive into the relative merits of different designs might be suitable.

  7. kpbs in San Diego has a surprisingly neutral (and correct) announcement of the film. [ http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/jun/14/environmentalists-case-mourning-san-onofre/ ]

    I thought it would be a bit more biased considering the area. Also something interesting regarding the San Onofre shutdown: [ http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/jun/14/nrc-considers-voiding-key-ruling-san-onofre/ ]. ” NRC Considers Voiding Key Ruling On San Onofre ”

    “Friends of the Earth” – lol – should be sued for false advertising!

  8. Another thing that Lyman reveals is that he is way behind in his health physics reading. He has apparently missed the recommendations of virtually all organizations that specialize in understanding the health effects of low level radiation to avoid using “collective dose” to compute hypothetical event consequences.

    Not strictly correct. Many organizations (such as the HPS source you provide) suggest health impacts of a hypothetical collective dose of less than 100 mSv over a lifetime is “speculative and uncertain,” but not unwarranted. In Fukushima, the evacuation standard is above 20 mSv/year. As high as 200 mSv/year in some locations inside the evacuation zone (“according to IRSN report and maps published by MEXT“). Presumably, this does place some hypothetical exposures over a lifetime above the level at which collective doses are more certain and reliable. Lyman, UNSCEAR, and others appear to be a little sloppy in this regard (but the “recommendation” is not a firm or absolute one).

    In addition, where many organization see such assessments as speculative or uncertain, this does not rule out the methodology for other purposes (on hypothetical doses or otherwise). From NRC assessment of the French Academy Study, it is still seen as useful in a regulatory and management context for work planning and ALARA guidelines.

    From this, I take it we are to conclude that the most accurate and reliable assessments of cancer impacts from event consequences will come from actual radiation dose measurements and samples, and not collective doses estimated in the less than 10 mSv or less than 100 mSv lifetime range for hypothetical exposures.

    1. @EL

      There is a difference between using collective dose for computing predicted health consequences and using dose rates as a basis for regulations or evacuation actions.

      The warning against collective dose is simply a warning against applying a tiny risk to a very large number of people and coming up with what sounds like a significant number.

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