Posts by Sebmel

Wind power: Even worse than you thought

Misrepresentation of the Lewis Page ilk

Perhaps I don't read the same sites Lewis does but the most hysterical articles I saw on the Fukushima nuclear accident were his vainglorious 'everyone hysterical but me' rants.

S. Baggaley follows in kind with this sort of misrepresentation: "Countless more were injured. Millions are homeless. It's going to be a long, hard, slog to repair the damage. Did the news media give a shit? No: 99% of their coverage boiled down to, "OMFG! NUCLEAR EXPLOSION! CHERNOBYL! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!""

Perhaps you two are reading the same sites. I didn't see it at the BBC, or the broadsheets. What I saw was plenty of coverage of the tsunami, it's consequences, and some articles expressing concern about the Fukushima accident.

All the while Lewis was posting body count comparisons and saying: this is no disaster, it's a triumph... in his best Crimean Sgt. Major voice. At times I wondered if they weren't intended to be read in a Windsor Davis voice and that, perhaps, TheReg was laying on the comedy a little thick.

Lewis has written as an apologist for the nuclear industry and now he is turning his sights on renewables. The facts are these:

Fukushima:

Release of various radionuclides: ongoing. Full extent of clean-up as yet unknown. Current estimates being put at 30 years to sort it out.

Sea contaminated with various radionuclides. Full consequences still unknown: some fishing restricted and exports affected. Compensation to fishermen promised by government (not Tepco)

Large area evacuated: no time frame for return home. Tepco suggest some land will be permanently closed. No outline on compensation for farmers and home owners

Result for nuclear industry:

Increased insurance costs. Damage to reputation. Many projected generators being reassessed.

Results for consumer:

The costs will be passed onto the consumer. The level of begging for taxpayer bailout and its success as yet unknown.

Bloomberg gets it right regarding the cost and consequences:

"Japan’s taxpayer, not the nuclear industry or insurers, will cover most of the cleanup cost from the worst accident since Chernobyl, a financial rescue that may spur moves by nations to make companies assume more liability. Tokyo Electric Power Co., in its 13th day fighting to avert a meltdown at its Fukushima plant 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of Tokyo, at most is required to cover third-party damages of 120 billion yen ($2.1 billion) under Japanese law. "

So Lewis' triumph of an accident, that should cause all governments to build more nuclear power stations is this: a 30 year clean up that Tepco bill the taxpayer for, and a bill for compensation to farmers, industry, fishermen and evacuees that the taxpayer pays.

That's not a triumph, it's a disgrace... and that's why Lewis has played the health and hysteria card.

Now a summary of the actual news in Lewis' hatchet job in wind power:

Intermittent nature of wind power requires some form of buffering. Insufficient buffering in place. Industry currently receiving help in the form of price guarantees (like the nuclear industry).

That's all... but Lewis sets about it by ignoring that while wind generation tends to be at night, solar generation occurs during the day, providing some of the buffering required. Solar panels continue to drop in price and increase in efficiency. Recently I read that they break even in 5 years in Spain... so perhaps 10 in the UK. That creates an upper limit for electricity pricing (obviously not an absolute but a downward pressure) which Lewis ignores in his scaremongering about wind.

That's not the end of the story: there are decisions to be made about how, and which, renewables to plug into the national grid. My point is that Lewis writes like a cold war dinosaur. His ideological viewpoint is the one that caused Margaret Thatcher to hand the assessment of the nascent renewables industry to British Nuclear Fuels. They obviously dismissed it, and carried on demanding public funds for their 'too cheap to meter" electricity.

I don't come to TheReg to read that kind of junk.

To TheReg: I've read this site for it's insights for longer than I can remember and now I am seriously considering deleting it from the links I open daily because the misinformation in Lewis' articles call into question the site's journalistic integrity.

Fukushima scaremongers becoming increasingly desperate

This is beyond ignorance now: it plain vainglory

I note, Lewis, that the 'it's a triumph for the nuclear industry' claim is absent from this latest arrogant diatribe.

I'd like to register my displeasure at The Register's descent into tabloid, shock jock, journalism. Let me put it straight for all the pro-nuclear apologists high-fiving behind Lewis' lead.

Lewis, you shame true supporters of nuclear technology:

True supporters don't celebrate disasters.

True supporters don't publish apologist propaganda in attempts to mask mistakes.

True supporters don't wallow in gutter swill fights comparing kill rates of children.

True supporters don't provide 'comparison' and 'hysteria' smoke screens behind which bailouts are negotiated.

True scientists have the balls to face up to errors and correct them.

True capitalists compete of cost through competence and refinement.

The truth, which, Lewis' juvenilia doesn't touch on is that the bailout has already started:

BBC today:

"In a letter, the largest fisheries group accused the government of an "utterly outrageous" action that threatened livelihoods....

... The government has promised compensation for the fishing industry and Tepco has already unveiled plans to compensate residents and farmers around the nuclear plant."

I initially gave you the benefit of the doubt, Lewis. Subsequent constant red herrings have shown that to have been abused. You have set your stall out as an apologist for incompetence and you are offering no more than disaster mitigation industry PR. You are no friend if the industry. Industries supported by your type of denial descend into ripping off the tax payer.

Any US or UK citizens should watch out for this type of misdirection: this disingenuous neo-con pseudo-capitalism which favours monopolistic, corporate welfare. It is going on regularly now and is perverting the economies of both countries.

The latest UK example is the budget measures to prop up excessive property prices with publicly guaranteed part ownership deals... the bank will get it's money... and the risk will be taken by the gullible first time buyer and the taxpayer.

Fukushima fearmongers are stealing our Jetsons future

Straw man tactics

This is the standard apologist tactic, and Lewis' modus operandi. Attack a few hysterical responses to divert attention from the incompetence demonstrated by this accident.

Let's look at the basic commercial facts:

6 old reactors in close proximity out of action

4 old reactors unrecoverable

A lack of radiation gauges for workers

Tens of thousands of people evacuated from their homes

Contamination preventing search and rescue in the area

Probable caesium contamination of a sizeable area requiring permanent closure of some land

Contamination of some crops requiring monitoring of food

Damage to the reputation of the industry

Contamination of the sea requiring research/monitoring and fishing restrictions

All of these things will cause very considerable bills. These will have to be passed on to the consumer by an industry which is already on the brink of being commercially unviable.

Lewis would be doing a valiant PR job is it weren't for the fact that he writes for a small IT site in which his triumphalism adds up to no more than baiting for hits. But even if he had a more significant platform his Crimean War management style is doomed to failure by the unrelenting demands of the profit motive. This accident has holed the ship, and while Lewis stands on deck shouting: 'Rubbish: be man or I'll have you shot for mutiny', it's sinking.

The only result this type of apology can have is the ship limping into harbour to demand a publicly funded refit. If that happens I suspect apologists will not feel quite so clever... but then most of them don't pay Japanese electricity prices, nor resident compensation/relocation.

Listen to the experts on their subject

Yes, I am not an oncologist. They should be consulted on cancer risk: not me, and not an engineer such as Lewis.

I suggested you read about the Minamata Bay poisoning to understand that the movement of toxins through the ecosystem throws up surprises that not even experts on the scene always anticipate. Lewis' articles demonstrate the type of dismissive attitude that caused the Minamata Bay poisonings. I trust that the Japanese scientists on the scene have learnt the lessons and aren't being as cavalier as Lewis suggests they ought to be.

I think I was clear that I am pro research grants and anti industry subsidies. Do current green electricity payments add up to subsidising an industry? That's an arguable point. A decade of help to get a new industry up to scale can be argued as justifiable. Public subsidies for a 50-year-old industry clearly can't. My view of green energy help is that I would not support it were it not for concern over global warming. Since that is an issue I take a cautionary view and support a higher price for all electricity that doesn't produce CO2... until we have a solution. The nuclear industry should be offered the same price, since it's competitive in this regard.

As it is we are on the cusp of local solar generation taking off. Southern European panels on houses take just 5 years to pay for themselves at current prices. All they need is a grid-feed credit system.

The nuclear industry has been regulated as it has because it has constantly misrepresented its competence. It now rightly has a reputation as being untrustworthy. That's a shame. They have a stunning potential technology in their hands and they have let us and themselves down with their accidents, poor design, cover-ups and begging bowl antics.

Apologists for incompetence, and ideologues, breed more incompetence. That's my issue with Lewis. Calling a serious accident a triumph celebrates incompetence.

Having said that, Lewis could well be posturing. I suspect he thinks that TheReg could find a greater audience through importing some American 'Shock Jock' posturing... especially since about 50% of the site's traffic comes from the US.

Interesting as usual Andy, thanks

To simplify greatly you are saying that the nuclear industry can get a better price than the overnight one... because they know their needs and can order a sizeable amount. I understand that. But the overnight price must reflect the trend... and that is up.

That the price is trending up suggests that there is speculation that demand will become restricted. Knowing what we do about the number of plants that have been ordered worldwide, and that the industry itself still publishes 80 years supply 'at current rate of consumption', that speculation seems, at the very least, a reasonable bet.

Then there is the issue with ore quality. Canadian ore quality (20%) has never been found again. The next best is 2%. That's an enormous fall in quality and energy needed to crush ore. Not only that but that's not the whole picture. From what I've read the lower grades are often in harder rock... requiring even more energy to extract it.

Overall, I'd say that if the Japanese really can bioaccumulate it for $100/lb, I see that as an upper limit that may well soon be reached. Remember that demand is about to double... unless there are a lot of cancelations.

Add to this that the cost of solar power is falling every year... and that the US calculations already suggest that, there at least, it's cheaper than nuclear generation... and I see some serious issues for the nuclear industry... purely financial ones.

One aspect of public solar generation that is often ignored is the losses associated with the transmission of electricity and the value to the market. About 8% of electricity is lost on it's way to the consumer... so you have to add that to the centralised generation cost. Also add that the consumer pays the market price, not the generation price. Solar energy becomes commercially viable for the consumer long before it becomes commercially viable for industry.

Then there is the immense redundancy of small scale solar generation compared to 6 generators producing 3% of Japan's electricity in one spot.

Much as I am happy to see nuclear technology used competently when I see bills like the Fukushima hitting the market... and cost over-runs like the tardy decommissioning in Wales and the Finnish Olkiluoto plant that's over 3 years late and 50% over cost, in a market in which solar power is already outcompeting nuclear generation on price, really make the industry look like an investment not worth making... IF POSSIBLE.

Now consumer solar power generation obviously isn't popular with the energy industry so they'll play the, perfectly reasonable, 'what about nighttime use'... but shale gas exploitation has just knocked gas prices on the head for perhaps as long as 100 years... and that leaves nuclear power playing the CO2 card during a time of world recession.

I wouldn't bet on it winning more than a few bids... just for access to weapon grade plutonium.

Had the industry shown a better track record than 1 bad accident a decade, and much better ability to come in on time and on budget , the story would be different. The Germans are already betting on a nuclear free future. Now we Anglo-Saxons have always liked having a laugh at German staid conservatism... right up until the US and UK economies bombed. No one's feeling quite so smug about our choices now.

Thanks for the reply

To put the real world position then:

Anticipated:

Japanese firms claim $100/lb but this isn't market tested (it's above current market price)

Reprocessing is commercially viable at around $100/lb and has public acceptance issues

Thorium: this isn't fully mature tech yet

Functioning:

Tailings enrichment: this is happening at current prices?

New reserves: what I'd read about other reserves was that ore grades were substantially poorer than the Canadian mines that are close to end of term (Canadian ores 20% pure... the best of the rest 2%).

Correct me if I'm wrong with any details. Does this add up to uranium hitting $100/lb fairly soon? One must bear in mind that a lot of new nuclear plants are due to be built worldwide.

Today's price is $62.50/lb... highest recent price was $73/lb.

World-nuclear.org:

"Doubling the uranium price (say from $25 to $50 per lb U3O8) takes the fuel cost up from 0.50 to 0.62 US cents per kWh, an increase of one quarter, and the expected cost of generation of the best US plants from 1.3 US cents per kWh to 1.42 cents per kWh (an increase of almost 10%). So while there is some impact, it is comparatively minor, especially by comparison with the impact of gas prices on the economics of gas generating plants. In these, 90% of the marginal costs can be fuel. Only if uranium prices rise to above $100 per lb U3O8 ($260 /kgU) and stay there for a prolonged period (which seems very unlikely) will the impact on nuclear generating costs be considerable."

Well it seems to me that the World Nuclear Org. is saying that nuclear generation may well shortly be uneconomic. Don't you think?

So, I looked up what the US Gov. calculations are on energy production costs:

US Energy Information Administration: Updated Capital Cost Estimates for Electricity Generation Plants

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/beck_plantcosts/index.html

Table 2. Comparison of Updated Plant Costs to AEO2010 Plant Costs

Overnight Capital Cost ($/kW) (year: 2011)

Coal

Advanced PC w/o CCS $2,844

IGCC w/o CCS $3,221

IGCC CCS $5,348

Natural Gas

Conventional NGCC $978

Advanced NGCC $1,003

Advanced NGCC with CCS $2,060

Conventional CT $974

Advanced CT $665

Fuel Cells $6,835

Nuclear $5,339

Renewables

Biomass $3,860

Geothermal $4,141

MSW - Landfill Gas $8,232

Conventional Hydropower $3,078

Wind $2,438

Wind Offshore $5,975

Solar Thermal $4,692

Photovoltaic $4,755

Comparisons are a smoke screen

This nuclear accident killed this many: but the tsunami killed THIS many: oh but coal dust and soot has killed THIIISSSS many... ad nauseam.

The issue is price per kilowatt. Our very civilisation depends on cheap energy. For nuclear energy to be cheap it needs no clean-ups, because they're expensive.

Lewis has clouded the issue with this red herring 'who killed more'.

I'm pro-nuclear power generation: I am anti high energy costs though incompetence.

It is now being suggested that the evacuation around the plant may have to be long term... that means one thing to me: another bill... and either the nuclear industry will ask for the taxpayer to foot the bill, or they will ask for electricity price guarantees to pass it on to consumers and industry.

That's what's wrong with comparisons: they are the smoke screen that hides the begging bowl antics.

I'm a capitalist: welfare for corporations breeds incompetence and high prices.

Another informed post by Andydaws

I find myself scanning contributors names now looking for what this guy has to say. Thank you.

By the way, have you read anything recent on future uranium resources? The last time I searched there seemed to be quite a lot of speculation and propaganda, both positive (seawater's full of uranium - no commercial use of bioaccumulation yet) and negative (no new high grade mines, the price is going to soar with all the new nuclear plants in the pipeline).

Do you have a view on the next 20 years?

Lewis's triumphalism demonstrates low personal standards

I am pro-nuclear power but I consider this current accident at Fukushima a demonstration of more incompetence by the nuclear industry. It is an industry with a long record of saying:

"We didn't realise..."

... an earthquake of that size might occur here (Japan has 20% of the world's large earthquakes)

... a wave that big might occur (They can't have noticed the Aceh tsunami)

... the plant might take longer and cost more (constant begging to governments)

... the decommissioning would take so long and cost so much

... that we might lose nuclear material (Sellafield accounts show over 10 tons of nuclear material unaccounted for over the lifetime of the plant... this from Prof of toxicology, Heriot Watt Uni, Edinburgh back in 1988)

Chris D Rogers, you take the view that this all ads up to investment:

"This adds up to a lot of investment, a lot of skilled jobs and work for many for a century or so - ALL THIS I'D WELCOME."

While I might be happy to see those jobs, were I living in the Welsh ex-mining village of my Grandmother, I'd still not consider cost overruns and 75 year clean ups investment. Investment is spending with the intention of creating wealth... while that spending is taxpayers subsidisind the mistakes of the nuclear industry.

In my view it would not have taken so long to get its act together were it not being constantly bailed out by the taxpayer. I assume you are in the UK, or know what it currently happening there. I am surprised that your comment shows no recognition of the consequences of such carelessness with UK taxpayers money.

I think my point wasn't clear enough

I suggest that you underplayed the problems associated with uranium mines, not that you suggested it was safe.

Coal mines are larger scale but do not leave a legacy of toxic tailings. Coal's most widespread consequence is mercury raised levels in the oceans. Other than that it leaves a hole in the ground (which has occasionally caused subsidence) and large tailings heaps (that once buried a Welsh school).

Uranium mining's legacy is no go areas: millions of tons of radioactive tailings because of the low grade of the ore compared to relatively pure coal. These crushed rocks have been left lying around on the surface, leaching contaminants into ground water.

I suggest that comparisons are rather difficult and simply saying that coal mining produces a greater volume of pollutants, or is responsible for bigger holes, doesn't really add up to a satisfactory assessment of the environmental impact of the two processes.

Incidentally, the quantity of tailings, size of holes, cost of mineral and clean-up operations are all growing fast for uranium as the industry has failed to find ore of the grade of the Canadian mines which are coming to the end of their life.

The most hopeful source I've read of is suggested by Japanese research using algal bioabsorption to extract it from seawater. A nice process that cleans our planet a little. I'm not anti-nuclear power.

I see another bailout coming

This kind of post is common here: a pro-nuclear stance blinding someone to the cost to tax payers of this kind of disaster.

Myself, I'm pro-nuclear power, but I demand it gets it's act together commercially.

I'm not going to join this cheerleading: Ra Ra, Nobody Died! Down with the pansies who're scared of radiation! Only to get hoodwinked again as a large industry heads to government with a begging bowl because they screwed up.

A nuclear clean-up is a very big bill. I don't want to pay it monthly for an industry that once promised: "Too cheap to meter!"

"Lewis Strauss, Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, 1954:

"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter... It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age." "

So, let me suggest:

Four reactors dripping radionuclides is not a triumph, it's a bill. It's a bill to clean up. It's a bill in higher insurance premiums for nuclear plants, worldwide. It's a compensation bill to landowners. It's a bill from people evacuated from homes.

Forget the chorus of: Nobody died.

Let's see how big the bill is and voice the concern that there be: No more welfare for corporations.

I hope that isn't going provoke more examples of that other pseudo-logic Lewis has been offering these past few weeks: the COMPARISON.

This nuclear accident has killed no one compared to the tsunami. Even CHERNOBYL killed no one compared to this tsunami!

It's nonsense: a comparison between a commercial utility and a natural disaster. It's a red herring. The issue here is public safety in the short term and cost per kilowatt in the longterm.

I do believe I did understand the article

"Lewis can probably reply himself, but I can answer some of your points just by reading the article properly."

OK, the suggestion is that I didn't read the article correctly, I'm primed for the example:

"Read the article and other news items, you'll find that the three workers have been released from hospital."

Ah... I see you slipped in there: 'and other news items'... because it isn't in the article, is it? Lewis made a claim about the worker's health:

"Three workers who suffered noticeable but not dangerous radiation doses from standing ankle-deep in radioactive water – and possible minor burns equivalent to a mild case of sunburn – have been confirmed to have suffered no ill effects."

Having left hospital is an indication of no short term serious burns... but Lewis made a longterm claim: cancer does not appear immediately. So I asked: from whom had he heard that prognosis? Since he isn't an oncologist, and didn't examine the workers. I hope that's clear.

Now you make a claim:

"The hospitalisation was just precautionary - because of they hyped up fears about atomic power."

Based on what? Back this up, please. Or is it speculation founded on your own particular persuasions?

"Radioisotopes in the sea. Read the article. Then re-read it again."

No, that's not necessary. As someone with a background in marine toxicology I did understand it.

"The limits are deliberatly [sic] set low. Any the authorities publish even the smallest figures above these low limits as "URGENT" because if they didn't and it was found out the public would say that they are being secretative [sic]."

You may find it interesting to read up on another Japanese disaster: the Minamata Bay poisoning incident. It will give you an insight into bioabsorption, unexpected metabolic transformation, and accumulation. It will also throw light on the Japanese culture of management secrecy and cover-up.

Lewis made claims about the insignificance of this contamination of seawater. I asked him what research he has read that backs that up. Simple dilution and supposed biological inertness are no guarantees of safety... as the Minamata Bay incident will explain to you.

"Nuclear industry is safe. Re-read the article."

Reading this must make Lewis very proud!

"Subsidies. Have you checked out the calls for subsidies and such like from the eco fanstists for wind power and photovoltaics?"

This is a non sequitur. Let me be clearer: I am against large subsidies to any energy generation company. Funding research is one thing... even small scale funding to examine feasibility can be argued as reasonable... but constant, longterm funding to a 50-year-old industry is an unacceptable distortion of the market.

What is worse is that the subsidising of the nuclear industry has not been done with any reasonable goal in mind. It can't be argued as having been resource management. It hasn't been pilot studies. It has caused the industry to hobble along, lame, instead of evolving a profitable, clean business model... and it has been underhand: insurance guarantees, price fixing, cost overrun payouts, free clean-up, waste disposal subsidy, decommissioning costs borne by the taxpayer, a blind eye turned to environmental contamination by mining, the cover-up of indigenous people's health problems due to mining.

A salient example is Trawsfynydd nuclear power station.

Construction 1959 : Fully operational 1965 : Shut down 1991

Currently 620 people are at work on the site in 2011. That's more than when it was generating electricity (600 workers). It's due to be increased to 800 to speed up the current phase of decommissioning, to be completed in 2016.

Towers currently due to be lowered: 2025. Nuclear waste to be removed: 2065

Full operational: 25 years. Decommissioning will take: 74 years (if current predictions turn out to be more accurate than past ones).

All vastly over nuclear industry claimed cost and time.

RTFA again

I think you'll find that permitted levels are NOT lower than background levels. As a result the parent post, while it miss quotes, is not wrong but actually understates the level of contamination.

You underplay uranium mining issues

I agree with the balance of you post but if you research it only briefly you will find that the issues surrounding uranium mining are substantial. It results in a very large volume of toxic tailing and large areas of contamination. Early mines had poor safety... just as the early coal mines did.

This article gives some idea of some issues:

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

Note that the problems aren't restricted to the US. There has been poor practise worldwide:

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

Polemic adds to hysteria: honest reflection needed

Lewis, I've enjoyed the substance of all your articles but could we perhaps have less of the military style absolutism? The articles are rightly full of criticism of hysteria and sensationalism, but the correct response to that is calm consideration of the facts, and neither distain, nor contrarianism.

Your article throws up a number or questions I wonder if you'd be kind enough to address:

You report that the three workers burnt by radiation are fine: an oncologist commenting here says it's too soon to say such a thing and that the dose they received was localised, raising risk. What's the basis for your prognosis and (you having a physics/military background) which oncologists are you quoting?

You state that: "Elsewhere, emissions of radioisotopes into the sea are well above normal regulatory limits, though not such as to cause any health concerns", followed by: "According to Japan's nuclear safety authorities, the seaborne levels of radio-iodine near Fukushima Daiichi are not such as to necessitate any bans on fish or similar", and yet the BBC today say: "radioactive iodine levels in seawater near the plant reached a new record - 4,385 times the legal limit" and Nature published the following contradiction: ""We don't have enough data yet, and what we have are still patchy," says Jim Smith, an environmental physicist at the University of Portsmouth, UK. In the meantime, the Japanese authorities are taking many of the right precautions, such as quickly implementing an evacuation zone, and banning farming and fishing in the areas worst affected, he says.". So what is the case with this sea borne iodine? To understand the risk one needs to know what biomass uptake of this radioactive iodine will be over the 80 days it is extant. We also need to know what caesium uptake is, since it decays over a period of 300 years. Marine fauna, such as brine shrimp, are known to accumulate certain toxins many hundreds of times ambient levels. In stating that there are no risks which marine biologists/toxicologists are you quoting?

When you state: "Some bans on produce from the area around the plant have already been instituted, though these are likely to be of brief duration as iodine-131 has a half-life of only eight days – it will all be gone within weeks no matter where it has reached" would it not be more explicit to say that the radioactive iodine will have decayed in three months since you are writing for non-physicists? To use the half-life figure may give the impression that you are underplaying risk and, in so doing, are guilty of the reverse of the hysteria. The last thing we need is more misrepresentation, I'm sure you'd agree.

In mentioning the risk of farmland having to be abandoned due to radioactive caesium you do the same thing: "it has a lengthy half-life". What you mean is that the caesium would radiate for three centuries, isn't it? May I suggest that explicit declarations of this sort of fact would serve to strengthen the integrity of your reports.

"In one spot 25 miles from the plant an IAEA team has reportedly measured activity as high as 3.7 megabecquerels from caesium"… you state. While nature reports levels 50 times higher: "Soil samples taken on 20 March from a location 40 km northwest of the plant showed caesium-137 levels of 163,000 becquerels per kilogram (Bq kg−1) and iodine-131 levels of 1,170,000 Bq kg−1, according to Japan's science ministry." Does this not suggest that one cannot allay all concerns over land contamination as we appear not to have an accurate final picture of this issue?

A regular refrain in your articles is that the nuclear industry is safe: "nuclear power is far and away the safest form of energy generation and remains so in the wake of Fukushima". May I suggest that this over-simplifies the issue? Each technology has various issues: geothermal energy raises the issue of heavy metal contamination of ground water, earthquakes and cooling over time: wind power raises irregular supply, bird and bat kills, land/sea area use: solar power requires expensive components, large surface area and offers irregular supply and inconvenient hours: wave energy will suffer and incredibly hostile environment with consequent reliability problems. One cannot simplify nuclear generation down to: it hasn't killed anyone. Even that statement was misleading: it referred to this current incident and not all nuclear generation. I also note that people commenting in favour of nuclear generation vs. coal have regularly pointed out the danger of coal mining while ignoring the very real problems associated with uranium mining. Polemical simplifications do not do these subjects justice.

Here you misrepresent the toxicology: "Thus such things as radiation dose limits or permissible levels of iodine-131 are not set rationally, they are set to be as low as they can possibly be. For instance, absolutely no measurable health consequences at all result from radiation doses of 100 millisievert a year: if everyone in the UK were subjected to such doses for ever, nothing – no extra cases of cancer, nothing – would happen." No, Lewis, that isn't correct, it's polemical. You misrepresent a probability as an absolute. In consistently taking this approach you undermine your otherwise interesting article.

Finally, you state: "We here at the Reg are still glad we linked to his assessment in the first days of the crisis, and that we early on reported the truth about Fukushima – that on the facts of the case it has been a triumph for nuclear power, not a disaster" but I could not find your reasoning to support that. Power generation is a business, so your reasoning must be commercial. The nuclear industry has a reputation for asking for government subsidy: pricing guarantees, cost over-run subsidies, loans, policing, decommissioning costs, the right to ignore mining clean-up and no implemented longterm storage costing. Now some of that is not their fault (longterm storage has been inhibited though in-vitrification technology doesn't appear to have matured) but much of it is, and it doesn't suggest commercial viability… far less triumphant viability. For this disaster to be a triumph for the nuclear industry it is not simply a case that TEPCO should not have killed anyone, or contaminated a significant area, it would be necessary to show that the generation of nuclear power remains highly profitable WITHOUT taxpayer subsidies and yet I see no calculation for clean-up costs in your articles. Please offer us your reasoning and explain why this accident makes nuclear power significantly more commercially viable.

Without this reasoning some of these statements could be dismissed as baiting for hits and that lets the side down. Thanks again for your valuable alternative perspective on the issues.