It was in the first 5 min that he mentioned it and it’s a clear example of available data that clearly shows a cancer correlation with radiation. I don’t see how this could be a case of people handling it well.

Let’s be very clear. I’m not saying this LNT wrong and I’m also not saying it’s right, but that we don’t have enough info to know one way or the other what the effects are in the low dose case. It’s an area of active research where it is almost impossible to get good data.

There is very clear data showing people do not handle radiation well. Plenty of data from Japan that shows a clear correlation of increased cancer rates with increased radiation exposure rates. This data is statistically significant as there were a lot more people than usual getting cancer.

Getting statistical significant data at lower radiation levels is very hard, as the shot noise goes way up as cancer rate deltas go down to near zero. We just don’t have enough data to know for sure what the correlations are, and no ethical way to get it.

In the case where you are trying to distinguish a shift in cancer rates at the 1 in 1000 level it is statistically insignificant, because your now measuring hit rates in the single digits and trying to distinguish that from other cancer causing factors that are probably at the 1 in 100 level or less (i.e, old people get breast and prostate cancer).

It is about safety limits in the sense that we should not be changing them to solve a PR issue. The accepted principle is ALARA. Governments do allow radiation generating devices and infrastructure usually in that framework. The PR issue is not a result of this safety framework, really it’s more of an education problem. Most people will never understand radiation or statistics well enough to have a good grasp on this. But I think it is getting better. Most people I talk to take issue with the cost of nuclear more than the radiation, especially here in Aus where we have no existing industry. My understanding is even the French are struggling to keep it economically viable, especially when it’s dry.

Energy density should have little to do with cost. We have a lot of empty space, and we really don’t need to capture all that much sunlight even with 20% efficiency. 20% is just fine when photons from the sun are free. The true cost savings with solar is not in the panel cost, it’s that a dozen people with a TAFE degree can build a 500 MW generator in a paddock in 3 months, that operates with minimal maintenance. Nothing can beat this.

Economically viable superconducting links are indeed a long way off but I would bet we see them before commercial fusion. In fact, we already have, they exist in a number of grids, mostly as tests and demonstrations. In east coast Aus, we lose close to 50% of our generated power to transmission lines. You take away transmission loss, and you can build a global grid. Aus can power the EU and NA in their nights with solar. It’s never cloudy everywhere at the same time.

Yes, and it’s a statistically insignificant amount of data with a strong genetic correlation that can’t be taken out. The scientific result is we still don’t know, more data is required. But how do we ever get such data?

I mean what’s the hypothetical other option here? We increase the background rate in a city of 10 million people to say, 200 mSv/year for five decades and do the experiment to see if their genetics can handel it to get statically meaningful data? For all we know right now it could be fine, or thousands of people get cancer that otherwise would not have, no one has the data to know. It’s a pretty unethical study.

Even if you removed all safety requirements from the nuclear industry (never going to happen) it will still be expensive, there is too much infrastructure, too many systems, control loops and moving parts. The reality is solar just wins in cost and it is probably only going to keep making headway over the rest of the generation tech out there. Given the development rate of batteries I expect solar/batteries will become the power generation standard simply though economic drivers more than anything else. I doubt it’s possible to beat that gravity contained fusion, and if we ever get cheaper superconducting links, then it’s basically game over for everything else.

But we will always have reactors. We need the medical isotopes, and let’s be real, they will keep breeder reactors for bomb fuel.