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[Marko Vojinovic]

On Saturday 24 December 2011 00:13:34 jdow wrote:
> On 2011/12/23 23:34, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
> > I'd say that uncontrolled nuclear pollution is the single most
> > irresponsible thing that humans could ever do to this planet (bar a
> > global thermonuclear war). Oil spills, CO2 emmision and other
> > "environmental" stuff that people are talking about these days are a
> > complete childsplay compared to this.
> 
> Marko, look up Ramsar, Iran. It has a background radiation that would
> probably leave you panicked if you found yourself there. On the average the
> people there live longer and healthier than average for human beings.

Did you look at the references in the wikipedia article on Ramsar? There is a 
reported 11% infertility rate in women living in VHBRA, as compared to the 3% 
in the nearby control group with normal background radiation level. There are 
also chromosomal abberations etc. studied by the Iranian scientists there. It 
is anything but a healthy environment.

But regardless of that, Ramsar is a high *natural* background radiation area. 
This means that the radiation sources are typically underground and 
distributed more or less evenly around the area. This is in sharp contrast 
with nuclear reactor *fuel*, which can be distributed (in the uncontrolled 
natural environment) very heterogenously.

The difference between natural radiation sources and nuclear fuel is mainly in 
the fact that fuel is "enriched", ie. it has rather higher concentration per 
unit volume than any natural piece of radioactive rock sitting around in 
Ramsar. This has consequences, and it can also be life-threatening if one 
comes close to such a source itself without protection (Marie Curie being the 
most famous first victim of radiation exposure). If it cannot be cleaned away, 
it becomes a life-threatening and environment-polluting "back-yard" 
neighborhood for everyone, in the course of a dozen thousands of years or 
more. What would you do with such places? Put a red tape and a "don't come any 
closer" sign? Such things don't exist naturally, not in Ramsar nor anywhere 
else on the planet.

> The dangers of radiation are vastly overplayed by people who do not have
> YOUR best interests in mind.

No conspiracy theories, please! :-) I am quite familiar myself with the 
properties of interaction between radiation and matter (it's a part of my 
profession), and I have a (very rough) idea what kind of stuff happens in a 
human body exposed to radiation. There is *no* *way* I'm going to be convinced 
that such a thing can actually be considered healthy. And I'm not basing my 
opinion on what I was told by some random group of people on TV or elsewhere 
(in this matter at least).

Best, :-)
Marko