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[energyi] 13/4/2004 12:28

a true life horror show?

[smoketrader] 04/4/2004 15:56

I have plenty of wind turbines in my "back yard" but don't get me started on them :-)

As for nuclear power, the main problem is not really the risk of a Chernobyl-like accident but more the dangerous waste products and the problem of what to do with them. Like fossil fuels, it also relies on finite resources. It's difficult to see what the solution is.

abcd, thanks for the link. I was never directly involved with the project, but from talking to people who were, it seems to me that the health effects from Chernobyl have been played down. This article from New Scientist c.2000 also suggests the same.



One thing that's for sure is that none of these problems are likely to go away soon.

[abcd1234] 04/4/2004 10:10

I know what u mean JonC

and I really don't want a debate on this, or to annoy anyone, .......

.....but knowing Adi personally all the way since she was a little girl, some of the things said on this board are just not right

the United Nations estimates 3-4 million children as affected by Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear disaster.

as Nike says, just do it....i.e. if u want to help in some way then do.....if not thats OK by me. I know a lot of kids who would be grateful.

Anyway, i gotta go out to Sunday lunch now, so I'll leave it there.

[aimraider] 04/4/2004 10:06

JonC - or perhaps they would all like to have a wind power generator in their backyards...

:@)

[jonc] 04/4/2004 09:50

It seems to me abcd that much of the work carried out by the Childrens Chernobyl Project has little to do with the nuclear disaster and more to do with the general poverty in Belarus.

Oh and the need by Westerners to "salve" their consciences

It is about time that we built another 20 or so Nuclear Reactors before the lights really do go out in the UK.

Alternatively those that are opposed to energy from fossil and nuclear fuels could of course volunteer to have their power supplies restricted as generating capacity falls below demand. I don't suppose they will though will they? They are do as I say not do as I do people.

[abcd1234] 04/4/2004 09:27

SmokeTrader......my links are to the original/main organisation set up about 15 years ago, and are more detailed than the subsidiary UK site if you (or anyone else) is interested. Thanks

[abcd1234] 04/4/2004 09:14

The media have pretty much forgotten about Chernobyl, or the kids

Recently though Chernobyle got coverage at the recent Oscars thanks to this

[aimraider] 04/4/2004 09:09

Powerwatch Power
the independent voice on EMF issues in the UK

The UK Childhood Cancer Study published 'proximity' paper in British Journal of Cancer in November 2000. "Childhood cancer and residential proximity to power lines" claims "no association" in the summary, but further reading of the paper reveals a 42% increase near to 275 kV and 400 kV high-voltage power lines. They were not able to check out the latest Bristol University findings.


PROFESSOR DENIS HENSHAW:
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

Excerpts:
We've been getting magnetic field levels at six times higher than those at which a doubling of childhood leukaemia has been seen. We're also getting a significant level of corona ions emission that's ionised particle emission, from these power lines.

Professor Henshaw has his own theory about the biological mechanism that may be causing cancer. He believes microscopic particles of pollution are attracted to the electromagnetic fields around power lines, and when those sticky particles, known as corona ions, are breathed in, they're more likely to cause damage. New research about to be published not only draws upon this theory, but has found a direct relationship with real power lines in the field. For the past four years, Alan Preece's team at Bristol University has been mapping overhead pylons in relation to 50,000 households in and around Avon. By adding further data from the cancer registry of deaths, he's found people living close to power lines to be 50% more likely to contract mouth cancer and up to 30% more likely to suffer from lung cancer.

We have to make the assumption that a large proportion of cancers must be due to pollution and items you inhale, whether it's cigarette smoke or anything else, and if the effect of these aerosols and the charging mechanism, the two mechanisms that have been suggested, are working, then they may well cause pollutant particles in the atmosphere to stick more closely as you inhale them. I think it's interesting that there is this rather larger excess in mouth cancer, which is relatively rare, but nevertheless we've found more of them than we expected downwind of these lines.


Sunday Times (London)
October 6, 2002, Sunday

Full Text:
OVERHEAD power cables and household electrical appliances have been linked to an increased of risk of developing cancer and to miscarriages and suicides.

The results of the most extensive research into the effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) will renew concerns about public health. It contradicts a British government study that last year dismissed the fears as alarmist.

Dr Raymond Neutra, of the California Department of Health Services, who led the Pounds 4.5m project, warned that hundreds of thousands of British homes are exposed to potentially dangerous levels of EMFs.

The study will increase the pressure on the government to ban the building of new homes within 150 yards of high-voltage overhead power lines. It also highlights possible risks from appliances such as hairdryers and electric shavers.

Professor Denis Henshaw, an expert in EMFs at Bristol University, said: "This is the most extensive research into the effects of electromagnetic fields. It has clearly identified the risks to human health."

The results of the eight-year project will be studied by lawyers acting for British families who are considering legal action against power firms. Campaigners argue that EMFs from overhead power lines and mobile phone masts are responsible for cancer and leukaemia clusters across Britain.

The study also suggests that EMFs may be linked to brain cancer as well as the degenerative motor neuron condition known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

The Electricity Association, which represents British generators and suppliers, has insisted that there is no major public health risk from exposure to EMFs.


Montreal Gazette
October 6, 2002 Sunday Final Edition

Overhead power lines and household electrical appliances increase the risk of developing cancer, according to the findings of an eight-year study into the effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs).

The Californian study, the largest held into the effects of EMFs on health and costing $11.2 million Canadian, suggests that hundreds of thousands of people, particularly children, are at risk from life-threatening illnesses linked to the emissions. Pregnant women are also at greater risk of miscarrying. The study was commissioned by the California Public Utilities Commission, which is expected to publish the full report in the next few months. Scientists reviewed scores of previous studies from all over the world and carried out new research.

The researchers told the Sunday Telegraph they believe that EMFs increase the risks of life-threatening illnesses including childhood leukemia, adult brain cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

Its findings will be seized on by campaigners who argue that EMFs from overhead power lines and mobile phone masts are responsible for cancer and leukemia "clusters."

The first suspected link between overhead power lines and cancer was made in the U.S. in 1979. Some reports, however, have dismissed a connection, while others have said that evidence is inconclusive. Until now, those considering long and costly legal action have been advised that it would probably fail because of lack of proof.

Among those who claim to have been affected are Ray and Denise Studholme, who believe that their son Simon would still be alive if he had not been subjected to a strong electromagnetic field in his bedroom.

As Simon slept, his head was less than a metre from an electricity meter and a burglar alarm in a hall cupboard. According to the family, tests after their son's death revealed that the two appliances gave off an EMF more than six times the recommended safe limit.

Simon was found to have with leukemia in November 1990, nearly two years after the family moved to their three-bedroom home near Bolton, Greater Manchester. He died in September 1992, age 13.

In North America, up to five per cent of homes have EMF levels considered potentially dangerous.

Roger Coghill, who runs an independent science laboratory in Pontypool, Gwent, Wales, and who has studied the effect of EMFs on people's health for more than a decade, said that he was impressed by the latest research project.

"This is a huge, well-conducted study and people must pay attention to its results."

Exactly how cancer could be caused by such exposure remains a mystery, however. The strength of the magnetic fields falls away rapidly from overhead power lines - just a few dozen metres from a pylon registers well below the natural magnetic field level of the Earth.

[abcd1234] 04/4/2004 09:04

Yes Chernobyl was.....and is ....devasting.

As a friend of Adi Roche (founder of Chernobyl Children's Project; etc etc), I know only too well the awful effetcs this has had on children etc....and it still continues

Since established, the Chernobyl Children's Project has delivered over £34m in direct and indirect humanitarian and medical aid to the Chernobyl region

Please see the link below, and the links on the problems in the area ......

[oldolie] 04/4/2004 08:31

jayus-03:04 A.M.??

[clem] 04/4/2004 02:04

Good one Energyi. Fantastic find.

[smoketrader] 03/4/2004 23:50

Well stop going on about them then

[aimraider] 03/4/2004 21:06

dave37 - I don't, and am not, concerned.. but neither do I pretend to be :@)

[dave37] 03/4/2004 20:06

aimraider, why dont you carry on about pylons then if you are so concerned.......


dave

chernobyl was a terrible accident, but you dont have to live near a pylon.

[gausie] 03/4/2004 19:52

Chernobyl was 18 years ago.

Babies fed on cows milk where cows grazed in the UK on pasteures affected by fallout are just starting to have babies of their own - NHS epedemiologists are now starting to study the hereditary effects of the disaster.

Re electricity pylons and other forms of 'electropollution' (ie substations, underground cables, radio and microwave transmitters) - no firm link has been established at this stage between tumour clusters and such devices, but studies *are* ongoing, and the various colleges of surgeons for each of the NHS specialties that deal with oncology have independant but cooperating ongoing studies.

Gausie
(at last - a subject I know a bit about!)

[smoketrader] 03/4/2004 18:52

AIMRaider, what on earth are you on about?

JonC posted a link on the health effects of Chernobyl and I recounted something from personal experience.

Where do pylons come into that? Maybe I'm wrong but I thought the purpose of the thread was to discuss the lingering devastation from Chernobyl. And it's not Russia, it's Belarus.

[aimraider] 03/4/2004 18:29

ST - would you be AS concerned with the incidence to childhood cancers related to the use of high density electric pylons in the UK????

Why do people make up pompous discussions of something, or place themselves in a position of righeousness over children in russia, and ignore the argument of the child in the next street, village, town... suffering from an identical disease..

And don't bother with the baaa humbug reply...

:@(

[smoketrader] 03/4/2004 18:09

JonC

So they're saying there HAS been a rise in cancer as a result of Chernobyl. This cancer has manifested itself in children, hence the Chernobyl Children's Project.

As you seem to be concerned about vested interests perhaps you should also question the motives of the Nuclear Energy Agency. Far be it from me to suggest an international agency with the aim of promoting nuclear energy may wish to play down the effects of the world's worst nuclear accident.

[jonc] 03/4/2004 17:29

That is a very emotive extract exec not necessarily based on fact.

[jonc] 03/4/2004 16:10

This is the foreword to the OECD report:

FOREWORD
Several years after the Three Mile Island accident in the United States, the Chernobyl accident in 1986 completely changed the public's perception of nuclear risk. While the first accident provided the impetus to develop new research programmes on nuclear safety, the second, with its human death toll and the dispersion of a large part of the reactor core into the environment, raised a large number of "management" problems, not only for the treatment of severely exposed persons, but also for the decisions that had to be taken in respect of the population. Clearly, not only the national authorities of the Soviet Union, but more broadly, authorities from many other affected countries were not ready to manage an accident whose consequences were not confined to their territory.

The way the accident was managed and the lack of information provoked a feeling of distrust in the minds of the public that was reinforced by the fact that radiation cannot be perceived by humans, although it can be easily identified with electronic detectors, even at a very low level. The prospect of contaminated food, aggravated by ambiguous, even contradictory recommendations by national authorities, gave rise to a variety of reactions, and sometimes overreactions, in the management of the accident consequences in several European countries. In the accident country itself, where political, social and economic conditions were worsening, the association of the Soviet regime with nuclear activities contributed to raise feelings of mistrust towards the public authorities.

More than sixteen years after the Chernobyl accident, public concern remains high in spite of the considerable amount of information disseminated by national authorities and large international organisations, the multitude of scientific papers in the specialised press, and the numerous symposia devoted to this accident. The same questions are still being asked and the general public, the media and sometimes the politicians concerned, still find it difficult to understand the information provided by the scientific community

Public opinion in the former Soviet Union and in many other countries affected by the accident remains convinced that certain cancers, such as those of the thyroid, can only have resulted from the Chernobyl accident. This view is partly driven by statistics showing that in European countries the incidence of such cancers has increased. Although this cannot be attributed to the accident, because this increase has been ongoing and was recorded long before the accident occurred, it remains difficult for doctors to reassure patients in this regard. As the increase in childhood thyroid cancer, which occurred primarily in Belarus, emerged in the early 1990s, many experts were surprised by this "early" appearance of thyroid cancer and by its geographic distribution within the affected territories. This further aggravated public scepticism of the scientific community.

The media have at times published pictures of human and animal deformities without investigating their veritable connection with the accident, and the public, struck by such images, has been allowed, unchallenged, to lay the blame on Chernobyl. Here again, the accident has given rise to numerous studies showing that such deformities and diseases are not linked to radiation exposure. These conclusions, however, have not been effectively transmitted to decision makers or the public. On the other hand, many feared a catastrophic contamination of the River Dnieper, extending to the Mediterranean, which never materialised. Radionuclide retention in the soil has been high, and any remaining contamination is well below initial projections. So much the better.

In this context of public concern, the NEA has found that by far the most
consulted document on its website is the one drafted in 1996 on the impact of
the Chernobyl accident. That is why, with more recent information now available, in particular the new United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) report published in 2000, it was timely to update the Chernobyl: Ten Years On report. Several figures have changed as a result of the numerous and increasingly detailed studies carried out over the last years. The list of bibliographical references has also been updated, with one quarter more bibliographical references than in the previous edition.

Furthermore, the NEA wished to address the questions raised by numerous other reports that have been issued, either on the tenth anniversary of the accident or immediately afterwards. Among these reports were those prepared by UNSCEAR, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the state of the environment, which had, to a large extent, served as a model for the
present report.

This report presents the knowledge gained since the accident, which has
evolved gradually. Environmental contamination, which seemed to be decreasing fairly quickly, has reached an ecological equilibrium and, in certain limited sectors, has even increased due to a reconcentration of 137Cs, the only radionuclide remaining in the different soil compartments involved in food chain transfers. This process has gone as far as it can, and now, in places where contamination persists, only the radioactive decay of caesium will reduce the mpact of the accident.

The huge effort by the international community to gain a better understanding of the real impact of Chernobyl continues, and should, in the next ten years, clarify the main consequences of the accident. The main trends described in 1996 continue to be valid in 2002: thyroid cancer in children remains the only striking manifestation of the accident as far as the public is concerned. The significant increase in cases of leukaemia, which had been so greatly feared, has not, on the other hand, materialised.

Many improvements in radiation protection and emergency preparedness have been made possible by the Chernobyl experience and we are also able to develop a more accurate assessment of the impact of this accident. Under the auspices of the NEA Committee on Radiation Protection and Public Health (CRPPH), supported by other international bodies, the most outstanding progress since the Chernobyl accident has been in learning about intergovernmental communications and co-operation in the case of nuclear emergencies. The International Nuclear Emergency Exercises (INEX) bear witness to this. Governments, initially reluctant to publicly discuss nuclear accident preparedness and management issues, now ask for such exercises to be carried out, operators are no longer reluctant to offer their sites for this purpose, and local authorities are pleased to invite the participants involved to appear before the media. This shows the progress achieved in terms of communication and involvement of all social partners. More impressive still is the progress made concerning the distribution of stable iodine near nuclear power plants, a subject that was more or less taboo before the accident. The NEA organised an international colloquium on this topic, and this issue is today openly debated.

Here again, the CRPPH played an experimental and innovative role, stressing how very important it is to involve all social partners. This idea, which originated in the context of accident management, has been taken up by many other disciplines, including the management of nuclear waste. This fundamental point is also one of the positive lessons learned from the accident.

The accident was followed by numerous assistance and research programmes supported by international organisations and bilateral agreements.
All these organisations are or will be publishing their results. This report differs from the others in that it is a synthetic consensus view aimed at those persons
who wish to know the salient points, without having to go into the technical details that can be found elsewhere.

We thank all those organisations (IAEA, UNSCEAR, FAO, WHO, EC
and others) that have provided information so that this report could be as up to
date as possible. The original report Chernobyl: Ten Years On was drafted by Dr. Peter Waight (Canada) under the direction of an editing committee chaired by Dr. Henri Métivier (France).

This edition was prepared by Dr. Henri Métivier on request of the
CRPPH.

[jonc] 03/4/2004 15:41

This is odd ST as the OECD report says:

The main trends described in 1996 continue to be valid in 2002: thyroid cancer in children remains the only striking manifestation of the accident as far as the public is concerned. The significant increase in cases of leukaemia, which had been so greatly feared, has not, on the other hand, materialised.

[smoketrader] 03/4/2004 14:37

Maybe you should tell that to the children with cancer.

Sadly that large pdf file crashed my computer but I'll try again.

[jonc] 03/4/2004 14:29

That does not concur with the OECD report(link above).

Now would the Chernobyl Childrens Project have a vested interest in painting a picture far worse than actually exists to obtain funding?

Did you read the link ST?