Halfway into this book I realized the breadth of issues at stake. Helen delineates and demonstrates the many faces of the issues posed by a deadly toxic to generate electricity. As you got into the book, I also found much of work carefully referenced.
What prompted me to write this review is what I found to be the horrid science used by the negative reviewers, who offer no references while arguing Caldicott's work. Also, while dicing her excellent work, none of negative reviews I read take up most significant fact that Helen points out. Nuclear waste is not just toxic for 50,000 year, but Caldicott's respected sources say that it is a dangerous poison for hundreds of thousands of years.
While I have a MS degree, which trained me to understand the scientific process, I also stake my opinions on my experiences. Before I trained in cyber security I had been a trained mechanic and then a carpenter and builder. My analytical skills were first honed through trouble shooting system and structural problems. This book is consistent and systematically outlines the issues at stake.
Helen Caldicott's book also raises significant questions that seem common sense to me. How do you keep a deadly toxic material safe for hundreds of thousand of years? What has history, archeology, and the science o f corrosion resistance and structural building materials, as well as the shifting plates of the earth's crust tell us? Caldicott's book has led me to think of such things. It also addresses what it is that you need to keep stored nuclear waste safe from. Further more it covers "how are we doing right now"? How safe is our current stock pile of nuclear waste? What are the current threats to our stock? How have our short term waste facilities been designed and what are the ramification considering it current state?
Helen Caldicott's book suggests that any long term solution needs be a reasonable consensus of the recognized experts in the fields in question. Experts need to be in fields of where we put the stuff, i.e. the earth's crust. Who can say where is a guaranteed, beyond a reasonable doubt, stable - for hundreds of thousands of years - place is? Other experts needed are in the fields of how we build the containers. What kind of engineering is qualified to make a 100,000s of years determination?
After reading the negative reviews of Helen's work, it becomes apparent that the toxicity of nuclear waste is the elephant in the room. It seemed to me that Helen's research indicates that proponents of nuclear power simply do not demonstrate a conscience regarding the threat. Please, look into this; it is not just the human race, right?
While the book looks at the issues through scientific and socialistic prisms, the content can easily apply to a meaningful consider of the religious point of view. If mankind was given the dominion (responsibility for) over all the rest (animals and plants, say), are we doing a conscientious job? Also one could consider the spiritual; are we acting with responsibility unto 10 generations forward? Does that responsibility need a "beyond-a-reasonable-doubt" set of actions?
A good argument can be made that because of fear of changing the status quo it more than 30 years for the established science community to accept that the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the level of pollution we are generating - creating status quo electricity - is not sustainable (accolades to Al Gore) i.e. we may kill ourselves and the planet doing it. It is evident that some of the educated community feels so threatened by these facts that they are blind to science when it comes to where they have committed their hopes in maintaining the status quo.
I have even heard public proponents of nuclear dismiss the reasonable fear of toxicity, saying it is just 300 years! And how does that happen? Most of us know that you don't need to be scientist or a priest to answer that. Most lobbyists find there livelihood in promoting their agenda. With a few exceptions, Helen does a thorough job of providing references for the information her book provides. The detractors have much to say of what is wrong and what they think is right information. Unlike most of Helens work, they offer no references that we can follow through on. This kind of work is never accepted in science journals. So how is it that people claiming to be well versed in science and knock Helen's research, do not follow with the scientific method, as she does, for their detractions?
Please read the book, check the science for yourself. We need an informed democracy. Check the sources that Helen uses. Are they respected scientists in their fields? This is an important issue, so if you doubt the science, check out that resource before taking a stand.
Cheers
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Roark
Nuclear Power is Not the Answer -- The Title Says it All !
Reviewed in Canada on September 18, 2006
