Linear-No Threshold Theory (LNT) - What does it take to kill it off?

The sad death this year, of Dr. Bernard L. Cohen.

A couple of tasters from a man of conviction:

In a 1989 article titled “The Myth of Plutonium Toxicity,” Cohen famously challenged activist Ralph Nader: “I offered to eat as much plutonium as he would eat of caffeine, which my paper shows is comparably dangerous, or given reasonable TV coverage, to  personally  inhale  1,000  times  as much plutonium as he says would be fatal.”

Nader did not take up the challenge.


In a 2005 interview with RSO (Radiation Safety Officer) Magazine, Cohen recommended to the scientific community: “Don’t be enslaved to the linear-no threshold theory of radiation-induced cancer; it is almost certainly not valid and over-estimates the risks from low-level radiation. … As a nation, we are wasting tens of billions of dollars cleaning up little bits of radiation. The worst thing is that we are largely giving up on nuclear energy because of this.”

NUCLEAR POWER IS RENEWABLE - MATHEMATICS AND LOGIC PROVE IT!

Breeder reactors: A renewable energy source  (Am. J. Phys. 51(1), Jan. 1983)

Bernard L. Cohen

Department of Physics. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260

     Since energy sources derived from the sun are called “renewable,” that adjective apparently means that they will be available in undiminished quantity at present costs for as long as the current relationship between the sun and Earth persists, about 5 billion years. It is the purpose of this note to show that breeder reactors using nuclear fission fulfil this definition of a renewable energy source, and in fact can supply all the world’s energy needs at present costs for that time period......

.....We thus conclude that all the world’s energy requirements for the remaining 5 [billion] yr of existence of life on Earth could be provided by breeder reactors without the cost of electricity rising by as much as 1% due to fuel costs. This is consistent with the definition of a “renewable” energy source in the sense in which that  term is generally used.

     Nuclear fusion has been advertised as a method for “burning the seas.” We see that nuclear fission with breeder reactors is an alternative method for “burning the seas,” and it has the considerable advantage that the technology for doing it is in hand.

So, 29 years ago the calculations were done, to prove we had enough fertile isotopes of thorium and uranium to last 'forever'. All we need is a breeder reactor to deliver it safely and cheaply and everyone on Earth can have a decent standard of living, from a source which does not pollute the environment and degrade the chemistry of the atmosphere any further. 

  Foot-soldier-members of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth:For goodness sake,use your common sense! You must stop listening to the deluded siren calls of your 'experts' and their  Energy [R]evolution wish-list.

If you get behind LFTRs you have the experience and wherewithall to make it happen, and make it happen quickly!