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From: throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci
Subject: Re: Nuclear power: Bernard Cohen, nuclear expert
Message-ID: <461@dg_rtp.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Jul-86 12:35:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: dg_rtp.461
Posted: Tue Jul 22 12:35:33 1986
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> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)

> [quoting the Ehrlichs]
>  Responsible analyses of the numbers of deaths attributable to
>  coal-fired and nuclear electricity generation -- some of which Cohen
>  cited but apparently did not understand -- indicate that the range of
>  possibilities for both sources extends from one or two deaths per
>  plant-year to several tens of deaths per plant-year, depending on
>  mining practices, power-plant location, pollution-control technology,
>  and highly uncertain assumptions about dose-response relations and
>  effects (of both sources) extending millennia into the future.

Right.  Safety of burning coal or fissioning uranium is questionable,
and, in reality, nobody knows the ultimate dangers of either path,
though it seems on the surface that they are comparable in terms of
predictable deaths.  (Isn't that how you read this paragraph?)

And yet, anti-nukes (in essence) use these facts to "prove" that nuclear
power is too unsafe to use, and at the same time squawk when pro-nukes
say that the same data shows that chemical power is too unsafe to use.
Lunacy.
-- 
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw