Russia Unveils Detailed Plans To Build 21 New Nuclear Power Units By 2030

[PamW]

93. Do you realize...

darkangel218,

Do you realize that report to which you refer has been DISCREDITED by the scientific community.

The only people who cite that report are the professional anti-nukes.

You might want to catch the documentary "Pandora's Promise" in which environmentalists that now support nuclear power take up this issue of the Belarus report and show that it has been DISCREDITED

Why not cite a more reliable source such as the United Nation's UNSCEAR panel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

Thirty one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers.[13] An UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. The Chernobyl Forum predicts the eventual death toll could reach 4,000 among those exposed to the highest levels of radiation (200,000 emergency workers, 116,000 evacuees and 270,000 residents of the most contaminated areas); this figure is a total causal death toll prediction, combining the deaths of approximately 50 emergency workers who died soon after the accident from acute radiation syndrome, nine children who have died of thyroid cancer and a future predicted total of 3940 deaths from radiation-induced cancer and leukemia.[14]

In a peer reviewed publication in the International Journal of Cancer in 2006, the authors of which, following a different conclusion methodology to the Chernobyl forum study, which arrived at the total predicted, 4000, death toll after cancer survival rates were factored in, the paper stated, without entering into a discussion on deaths, that in terms of total excess cancers attributed to the accident

Of course, even the figure of 4,000 is highly speculative

In any case, it really shouldn't matter. Chernobyl was a FLAWED REACTOR and is analogous to the Hindenburg disaster of the aviation industry.

Does it really make ANY difference how many people died in the crash / fire of the Hindenburg? Instead of the 98 people that were killed by the Hindenburg crash; suppose 4,000 died due to the Hindenburg.

How is that pertinent to modern air travel. We aren't building any more hydrogen-filled Hindenburg zeppelins; so it is ILLOGICAL and IMMATERIAL to discredit modern aviation travel because of how many people died on the Hindenburg, be it 98 or 4,000.

Likewise; NOBODY is contemplating building or operating any more Soviet-era RBMK reactors like Chernobyl Unit 4. So it is ILLOGICAL and IMMATERIAL to ascribe the 4,000 deaths as in any way predictive of the risks of future nuclear power plants.

What would you say if someone said that the Hindenburg was predicative of the risks of flying in a Boeing 777; "because both are flying vehicles".

Wouldn't you say that such a comparison would be foolish and downright stupid?

A Boeing 777 is NOT the Hindenburg; so the deaths in the Hindenburg crash are not predictive of the safety, or lack thereof, in a Boeing 777.

Likewise; the Chernobyl RBMK reactor was NOTHING LIKE a US-style light water reactor; nor anything that anybody has on the drawing boards.

The Chernobyl RBMK had a whole series of TECHNICAL FLAWS that US-style light water reactors don't have. Therefore, the light water reactors just plain CAN NOT HAVE a Chernobyl-style or Chernobyl-degree accident. So why even bring Chernobyl into the picture? It doesn't tell us anything useful.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW