>> What is statistics?

> I gave the link in my original post.


That was really a reference to a 2000 year or so old quote 
:-)
(John 18:37b - 18:38a)

>> There are no cancers in the residential areas of 
>> Sellafield
>> / Windscale caused by the nuclear facilities there.
>> It's true!
>> It's been statistically proven!
>> Utterly rigorous scientific investigations have shown 
>> that
>> the cancer clusters in Sellafield are/were unrelated in 
>> any
>> way to the adjacent nuclear facilities.

> That's not what the Wikipedia entry for Sellafield says. 
> The COMARE report
> http://www.comare.org.uk/press_releases/comare_pr10.htm
> Indicates that while no significance at commercial nuclear 
> power plants in
> England, that places like Sellafield did have an increased 
> incidence.

That is my point.
PEOPLE claimed it was happening.
COMARE investigated and agreed.
BUT scientific investigations subsequently found that there 
was no evidence that radiological issues were to blame. ie 
the clusters "just happened" in that area, but it had 
nothing to do with the radiation.

It would probably help their case long term if the 
proponents of nuclear power erred on the side of 
acknowledging that they may be due some of the doubt of the 
benefit in uncertain cases. Claiming squeaky cleanness in 
all events tend sto get non productive long term.

> Again Sellafield was used as a weapons grade plutonium 
> reprocessing plant
> and that nuclear waste were dumped into the Irish sea and 
> gaseous releases
> into the air.

Yes. But you get weapons grade plutonium from "residential 
grade" power plants. ie while this was not a direct reactor 
problem  it was utterly linked to reactors existing.

I personally would not be too too worried to live a few km 
downwind of a competently run nuclear power station operated 
in a non corrupt environment. Being certain of the 
competence and the non-corruption would be the major 
problem. Most of the time it all *seems* to work reasonably 
well inside the stations proper.

______

While I'm here, when I referred to DU and weapons before I 
was meaning "Depleted Uranium" used in "penetrators" in 
modern weapons systems. eg Abrams MBT and Warthog 'rounds'. 
It's generally accepted that a proportion of the Uranium is 
vaporised in transit or on arrival or deposited over wide 
areas as very fine dust. Any potential effects are made 
'somewhat worse' by the fact [tm][national security may 
preclude exact data being available] that rather than using 
only virgin U to D into DU (such as happens when natural U 
is gas centrifuged to separate U235 from its friends), 
much/some/unknown-fraction of the DU is derived as a weapons 
recovery program byproduct. It carries a small but 
interesting cocktail of 'other stuff' along with the U. The 
ratio is extremely small. The effects are debateable and 
debated. Playing (or living) on ex US battlefields in Iraq 
or the Balkans may not be a good idea. May beat standing in 
front of a Warthog or Abrams during initial delivery though.

Random factoid. An Abrams crewman receives about a maximum 
annual dose of radiation from his own DU during an otherwise 
uneventful tour of duty. YMMV depending on your location 
within the beast. [If Merkavas* used DU (and who can say) 
the problem would be reduced due to the enlightened crew 
placement.]




        Russell

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


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