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All member states of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association) recieve inspections. Optionally the UN may request that the IAEA inspect a country. this is all a part of thier charter which you can read on IAEA's website

All member states of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association) recieve inspections. Optionally the UN may request that the IAEA inspect a country. this is all a part of thier charter which you can read on IAEA's website

So it was a liberal who changed from 'We invaded Iraq because they had WMD that was a threat to the U.S.' and 'Iraq has ties with Al Qaeda' to 'We invaded Iraq to bring them the blessings of Democracy' and 'Human Rights', and then to 'It was an intellegence failure'? It was a liberal who moved the goal post from 'Mission Accomplished 5/2/03' to "it will require decades of patient effort"?

Geesh, who hired THAT liberal?

To the people paying attention, it was known that there was WMD inside the borders in Iarq. We knew because they were under seal and being monitored by organizations like the IAEA and UNMOVIC. Stuff like "tons of enriched uranium" (gee, I think I saw those words come up real recently on Slashdot!, where? where?) http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/MediaAdvisory/2003/ ma_iraq_0606.shtml http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A354 04-2004Jul7.html

Stuff like that shouldn't be counted as 'found' (as in validating WMD casus belli claims) because it wasn't lost until the monitor agencies were forced out of Iraq by the opening of hostilities. But that doesn't seem to stop Richard Miniter from doing it.

The Chernobyl Forum (IAEA, OMS...) did publish the ''4000'' figure. Please access to those documents: OMS and IAEA, then let's read:

-=-=-=-=-=
20 Years Later a UN Report Provides Definitive Answers and Ways to Repair Lives

5 SEPTEMBER 2005 | GENEVA -- A total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded.
=-=-=-=-=-

It was not UN-approved, it was not definitive (it was a draft, the definite one was published a few days ago, read below), the names of the scientists endorsing the ''A total of 4000 people could eventually die'' was not published, this very information (''total 4000 people'') was not in the draft report... In a word this abstract was pure BS.

Moreover they had a big press conference in order to announce this ''4000...'' thesis.

The the press relayed this ''4000, total'' thesis, and they did not publish a corrective document (from Sept, 2005 to April, 2006)

And now they discreetly publish the real definitive ONU-approved report, with a totally different info (''9000 in a small subset of the concerned population, and for a single illness'')

I know that the press is not always efficient but on this particular matter, well.. you decide. If you are a taxpayer don't forget that those IAEA/OMS/... people eat thanks to you in order to ''inform'' us, in order to decide.

Here is another funny excerpt (from the sharp'n good Nature):
-=-=-=-=-=
Melissa Fleming, a press officer working at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, who helped coordinate the report's publicity, says [ ... ] a decision was made to focus on the lower 4,000 figure [ ... ] "It was a bold action to put out a new figure that was much less than conventional wisdom." The figure has been removed from the final summary, however, published this month.
-=-=-=-=-=

Therefore, in a nutshell, "it is not true (this 4000 figure is not anymore a grand total in the definitive report) but we published it in order to lower other estimates, and it was a bold action. Is there a way to lie boldly?

--

Nat, rants

Moreover let's scrutinize all this Chernobyl 'material' because disinformation rulz.

Sept. 2005: the Chernobyl Forum (IAEA, in fact), during a press conference, publishes an abstract of its draft report stating that 4000 people have and will die. But the name of the authors abstract and report was not known, it did not state that those 4000 people are from a small subset of the human beings concerned, the report did not contain the key sentence of the abstract, the report was presented as an UN report albeit it was not (it is published by agencies, and not published by UN), it was only a draft...

The abstract (''4,000 people will die from the effects of the 1986 accident at Chernobyl'') was largely propagated (see for example this BBC's account). It was not definitive nor adopted by the UN, albeit presented as such.

April 2006; the very same Chernobyl Forum discreetly publishes the definitive version of the report, where this 4000 figure was replaced (see page 106) by ''9000'', which was stated only for a subset of the Soviet population and for solid cancers (numerous other illnesses are radiation-induced). It was then accepted by the UN. See http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060417/full/440982 a.html, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4922508.stm

Therefore those guys induced the whole media into spreading the ''Chernobyl: 4000 people will die globally'' during 7 months, albeit their ''best'' minimization is ''9000 people will die from from solids cancers amongst the approx 7 million who were in the vicinity''

Lies, damn lies... and the Atomic Guys

First, I was talking about Britain's electricity supply, but I'll bite and use the USA.

Wiki States that 2004 US wind capacity was 9,149 MW.
Nuclear Power's been stable for a while.
Nuclear power capacity is 99,210 MW

However, this doesn't show the whole figure. In the case of the wind turbines, this is the amount of power produced under ideal conditions. For nuclear power, this is it's maximum safe/standard power generation.

The term for what percentage of maximum the plant actually produces is called "Capacity Factor". For nuclear plants, this is 91%
Wind seems to be around 30%-35%
(Note: One of the sites quotes nuclear at 71%, that's for the UK, not USA)

This means that Nuclear power has an effective capacity of 90,281 MW, while Wind only has 2,745-3,202MW. That means that Nuclear is producing 28 times as much power as wind. That means that it'd take wind a decade of doubling every 2.3 years to even catch up with nuclear. It also assumes that construction ramps up evenly for the next decade. It also means, that at least for 2004, a mere 4% increase in nuclear capacity would equal the increase in wind.

A nuclear power plant, from time of groundbreaking, only takes 5-7 years to build. There's actually a few new generators, built on existing sites, as well as refurbished plants that had either been shut down or had construction stopped before they came online that should come up by 2010.

Either you're a troll or you are ignorant of a great human suffering. Why did thyroid cancers increased dramatically if there was no fallout? http://www.belarusembassy.org/humanitarian/rtc.htm http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/Chernobyl- 15/cherno-faq.shtml

Damn, beat me to the punch (and to the wikipedia link, was to be MY karma whoring :-P ). Well, on to the point:

It is interesting to note that recycling nuclear fuel, while increasing the points of failure (that is, relatively increased), does reduce nuclear waste dramatically, as an IAEA scientist explained to me.

This publicly available PDF from the IAEA offers an in-depth (maybe too in-depth) view of the progress so far in recycling, and its benefits, up to the 4th generation systems that will form a closed-cycle with full actinide recycling http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Meetings/PDFplus/2004 /gcsfSess2-Bernard.pdf

Notable point: "drastic minimization of ultimate waste :

- Very small volumes,
- Decrease the heat loading
- hundreds of years versus hundreds of thousands"

5. Are people naturally exposed to uranium?

Small amounts of natural uranium are ingested and inhaled by everyone every day. It has been estimated (UNSCEAR 2000) that the average person ingests 1.3 g (1 g = 1 microgram = 0.000001g) (0.033 Bq) of uranium per day, corresponding to an annual intake of 11.6 Bq. . It has also been estimated that the average person inhales 0.6 g (15 mBq) every year. Typically, the average person will receive a dose of less than 1 Sv per year from ingestion and inhalation of uranium. In addition, an average individual will receive a dose of about 120 Sv per year from ingestion and inhalation of decay products of uranium, such as Ra-226 and its progeny in water, Rn-222 in homes and Po-210 in cigarette smoke.

Is it a joke? Even very pro-nuke agencies think that it will kill approx 4000 persons, and this is based upon very very dubious data and methods (see below).

> Anyway, the site that you cite says that the 4000 people estimate is based on bad science.

Indeed. Official UN agencies try hard to let us think that the disaster will only kill 4000 persons, and the proposed site shows why it is not true, why the grand total is very probably way higher.

In France alone (2000 km from Chernobyl), a Nobel Prize (G. Charpak, physics, very pro-nuke) thinks that the disaster will kill approx 300 persons (French site). Many think that it will kill at least 100000 persons. Special bonus: don't neglect the teratogen and mutagen effects.

> you might want to consider other industrial disasters. When I was in college, 7
> people were killed in a collapse at a local coal fired plant

It did not irradiate an enormous area and did not release very dangerous stuff, some active during very long periods and some freely wandering around, flying with the wind. Is ther any possible comparison?

chemically the same @ wikipedia

the NRC also describes tritium as chemically identical. the iaea describes isotopes as "chemically identical but physically different".

maybe you should argue with them? i trust the iaea more than mr. random slashdotter aka you.

Is a nuclear reactor really worse? Or is that just the knee jerk reaction?

It's hard to say exactly, but in the short term, the reactor is probably not too bad. http://www-ns.iaea.org/appraisals/west-kara.htm
The problem with reactors is that while many of failure modes are relatively benign, there's not enough information available about the catastrophic failure modes to be able to predict their cost.

You have to consider that the source of these studies is the International Atomic Energy Agency. Wouldn't be in their very best interest to try to hide the consequences of the disaster? Just reading this article about Thyroid Cancer Effects in Children made me lough. They are biased. Just because thyroid cancer is curable (BTW, only if discovered in an early stage of the disease, as with all types pf cancer) doesn't mean that a lot of people are still dying because it is diagnosed to late and it has spread to other organs as well. There is no data in the article, other that they have been treating "hundreds of children". While this is laudable, the institute only existed for the last five years. How many people died before, and how many people are still dying from thyroid cancer? Remember that Ukraine is not US, and the medical services there far from optimal.

You have to consider that the source of these studies is the International Atomic Energy Agency. Wouldn't be in their very best interest to try to hide the consequences of the disaster? Just reading this article about Thyroid Cancer Effects in Children made me lough. They are biased. Just because thyroid cancer is curable (BTW, only if discovered in an early stage of the disease, as with all types pf cancer) doesn't mean that a lot of people are still dying because it is diagnosed to late and it has spread to other organs as well. There is no data in the article, other that they have been treating "hundreds of children". While this is laudable, the institute only existed for the last five years. How many people died before, and how many people are still dying from thyroid cancer? Remember that Ukraine is not US, and the medical services there far from optimal.

Firstly, childhood thyroid cancer has, without doubt, increased a lot. However, luckily, it's very treatable. Therefore, very few people die from it. Aside from that, no increase in cancers has been detected. However, statistical projections based on dose rates suggest that about 4000 people will ultimately die from cancer caused by Chernobyl - but it will be impossible to attribute individual cancer deaths to it; it will be quite difficult even to prove that there *was* an increase. Certainly, outside the relatively small group of people exposed to very large amounts of radiation, no increase in cancer has been detected. The report also didn't find any convincing evidence to support a claim of increased birth defects, despite what that crappy propaganda piece Chernobyl Heart claimed.

The parent poster is right. Chernobyl, horrible as it is, was not nearly as bad as Bhopal, and pales in comparison to the number of miners who die from coal dust inhalation annually, let alone the excess deaths caused by air pollution (estimated at about 200,000 worldwide, every single year).

Yeah. Because everyone wants a nuclear reactor that combines the wonderful properties of graphite (see "The graphite fire" subsection) as a moderator, with water (graphite generates explosive hydrogen with high temperature steam) often in the primary or secondary cooling loop (helium is the primary coolant), with safety features such as no containment structure (this list is just a start - there's many times more that didn't make the list)

Yes, PBMRs have a negative void coefficient (reaction slows as temperature increases); big deal, so does almost every reactor build in the west in the past three decades. Yes, helium is the primary coolant; that doesn't help when there's a jam or corrosion that leads to a rupture, in which case water and/or air enters the chamber (a much hotter chamber than PWRs) - and yes, this has already happened. Containment structures have saved our collective arses from the unexpected too many times to be omitted.

PBMR proponents talk about safety, but they're really about reactor cost. They're hardly the only innovative reactor design out there, but they're apparently the only one that your average slashdotter knows about. There are thorium breeders, reactors that run on unenriched fuel, and designs like my favorite, BREST - a lead-bismuth breeder which can cool itself with natural convection, uses the ground as shielding, has the fuel naturally encased in lead, and unlike most breeders, uses no liquid sodium.

As an aside, we really should move to safe breeder designs, either thorium or uranium based.
U-235 is only 0.7% of natural uranium, and natural uranium isn't incredibly plentiful in deposits concentrated enough to justify mining (I read once that known deposits would supply the world at current power consumption for only a few hundred years). It's a shame that most U-238 goes to waste (yes, some is used in things like armor, bullets, and weights, but we produce far more of it than is used for such tasks)

I've noticed something: throughout your posts, you keep mixing up the concepts of "unlikely existance" and "certain in the absense of". European governements, European populace, and much of the American antiwar populace seriously doubted the existance of such weapons. That's why we wanted the inspections: to *verify* and *certify* Iraq as WMD-free.

You seem to be hung up on the notion of certainty. Nothing in this world is ever certain - let alone when you're trying to verify quantities of objects destroyed in explosions a decade earlier. The European community and American antiwar community *seriously doubted* the existance, based on the available evidence.

The evidence *was* very dubious, and that's the reason for the aforementioned serious doubts and the insistance on inspections to verify Iraq's disarmament and certify it as weapons free.

My claim is that the notions that you advance are revisionist

What the heck? Did you not bloody well read the links that I gave you that I prepared *BEFORE THE WAR*? How can you call something that I prepared before the war "revisionist"?

If you were certain Iraq had no WMD

See, there you go with the word "certain". The proper phrase is "reasonable doubt". For example, if you check my Iraq FAQ from 2002, I described the case of Iraqi WMDs as "unlikely" - the stance taken by the majority of Europeans. You're the only one in this conversation talking about certainty.

who turned out to be correct not through analysis

Give me a frigging break. I've probably read more pages of IAEA, UNSCOM, and UNMOVIC documents in the past four years than you've read newspaper pages. I suggest you start reading. You'd probably be amazed at what they were saying, and what wasn't being reported in the US, in the months leading up to the invasion. For example, lets look at the four central conclusions of the IAEA's report right before we invaded, shall we?

* There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.

* There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.

* There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminium tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuges out of the aluminium tubes in question.

* Although we are still reviewing issues related to magnets and magnet production, there is no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in a centrifuge enrichment programme.

How *dare* you try and pretend like I was just pulling this out of my arse at the time? I was all but quoting the inspection teams with my views, as weas the majority of Europe. I suggest you bloody well better read before you reply again.

Again misrepresentation of my point

Quoting you is a misrepresentation of your point?

According to Robert Boyd (mirror), The Air Force's senior intelligence analyst:

Iraq had been suspected of trying to develop remotely piloted aircraft for more than a decade, starting with attempts to convert Soviet-made MiG-21 fighter planes. When that failed, Iraqi authorities began experimenting in the mid-1990s with transforming the Czech L-29, a trainer jet, into a UAV. That effort also went nowhere, ending in 2001, Boyd said.

The Iraqis then focused on developing several t

The term "ignition" refers to the point of intensity of a fusion reaction whereby the high (kinetic) energy He nuclei fusion product is sufficient in power to heat any remaining fuel to the point of fusing itself. ie. when the reaction is capable of sustaining itself provided you continue to feed it with fuel. It is called Q=1. The NIF should achieve >Q=10 on a full system DT shot and this is called thermonuclear ignition and burn with "high gain". NOTE! the NIF will almost certainly NOT achieve breakeven (total power in Nd:glass lasers are disgustingly inefficient (~1%). Diode pumped Nd:glass is another story however and if a power plant is ever to be constructed using laser fusion then that is likely what will be used. They are still too fantastically expensive today though.

but I must remind them that it wasn't all of Chenobyl which failed - just one unit, the other five kept running and are still running today

"The Chernobyl plant was closed in December 2000...."
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/Chernobyl- 15/timeline.shtml

The United Nations created and enforces these rules as part of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

We certainly have a right to speak up on the issue. Does free speech not exist if you're a super power?

It's not about Saddam, he has been out of power for a long time and the troops haven't left yet.

It's not have democracy, the people are powerless, living under curfew and with no elections in sight.

It's not about freedom, the US occupation has closed newspapers complaining about the occupation.

It's not about human rights - Abu Gharib, clusters bombs, depleted uranium, etc..

That's in direct contradiction to documented evidence. Do note that some wildly inflated figures have been circulating, for which there is absolutely no support. Note that it is very much in the interest of Ukraine to promote very high numbers of casualties in order to obtain increased compensation from Russia.

Some links include a summary of other published work, the report from the UN IAEA, and a summary from a nuclear power specialist.

Regarding this specific point: from the 'executive summary' report on a recent conference organised by the IAEA on Chernobyl,

16. The mortality of the clean-up workers and the inhabitants of the contaminated areas does not exceed average mortality in the three countries.

That's in direct contradiction to documented evidence. Do note that some wildly inflated figures have been circulating, for which there is absolutely no support. Note that it is very much in the interest of Ukraine to promote very high numbers of casualties in order to obtain increased compensation from Russia.

Some links include a summary of other published work, the report from the UN IAEA, and a summary from a nuclear power specialist.

Regarding this specific point: from the 'executive summary' report on a recent conference organised by the IAEA on Chernobyl,

16. The mortality of the clean-up workers and the inhabitants of the contaminated areas does not exceed average mortality in the three countries.

According to the 2000 UNSCEAR report, some 1800 cases of thyroid cancers have occurred in about 18 million individuals who were exposed as children during the Chernobyl accident.

From this article, there are about 12,000 cases per year in the USA. So that is 12,000 cases from a population of 300 million, or 0.004% of the total population. Children affected by Chernobyl have a rate of 0.01%, or 2.5 times the US figure. Note, those children have still not lived their whole lifetime, the figure will probably increase.

It is great that you came wuth that museum idea, I propose that you become the first exhibit there.

NK has tested missiles that could threaten any country in South Asia, they have a big and well trained army, perhaps as brainwashed as the Taliban (this people love their leaders, the incentive is to avoid torture and certain death, but who knows. In most dictatorships there are signs of a resistence movement, at least some Graffiti or clandestine literature. In NK theres is nothing, zero, zilch, nada), one of the few hard cash earners for this country is warfare technology, specially in the medium range missile field.

Also notice that the experts are concerned (in this site you can find names of the NK nuclear reactors and their capacity).

So do you want a glass box or a proper cage in the museum?

Wrong analogy, who knows the architect of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building, Ronald Reagan National Airport or Cape Kennedy launch site?

The person who commissions a project is far more likely to get recognition than anyone else, even if they use someone else's money.

Gore was asked what contribution he had made as a politician he gave a completely truthful answer. The Republican party deliberately distored that answer.

The same liars want to start a war and their argument is that we have to trust them. Unfortunately we simply cannot trust them because they have lied to us on the effect of their tax cut on the budget deficit, lied to us on nuclear wast storage in Nevada and lied to us about the case for war:

"I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied -- finally denied access [in 1998], a report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA -- that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need." George W Bush

Unfortunately that is not what the report says, as you can see for yourself here.

If you are a pathological liar the very best strategy is to go out and brand your opponent a liar.

Eradicating tsetse from the Southern Rift Valley of Ethiopia from the International Atomic Energy Agency is more informative than the stories links. It also gives you a few photos of the areas they will be released in.

For those with an interest in the scientific mainstream of Nuclear Fusion work internationally, check out the IAEA Nuclear Fusion journal at http://epub.iaea.or.at/fusion/
--
Paul Gillingwater

Just found an IAEA press release on the accident. Contains a few more details about what happened.
http://www. iaea.org/worldatom/Press/P_release/1999/japan_inci dent.shtml

imabug