IMHO there is one important criterion missing from George Monbiot's 
current list of 5:

6. That the routine emissions to the environment of radionuclides 
arising from conduct of the nuclear fuel cycle are kept at very low 
levels, such that no greater additional radioactive load to the 
environment is caused by nuclear power, than by the burning of coal; and 
that no person should be exposed to levels of radiation from nuclear 
releases concentrated by biological and mechanical actions in the 
environment that will lead to a significant (5%) increase in cancer 
rates to exposed persons.

Oliver Tickell.

On 17/03/2011 07:13, Jon Barrett wrote:
> George Monbiot, no fan of nuclear power, puts the case for a rethink of
> how we use it in an article in the Guardian today
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/mar/16/japan-nuclear-crisis-atomic-energy>.
> He writes:
>
>     /“I despise and fear the nuclear industry as much as any other
>     green: all experience hath shown that, in most countries, the
>     companies running it are a corner-cutting bunch of scumbags, whose
>     business originated as a by-product of nuclear weapons manufacture.
>     But, sound as the roots of the anti-nuclear movement are, we cannot
>     allow historical sentiment to shield us from the bigger picture.
>     Even when nuclear power
>     <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/nuclearpower> plants go
>     horribly wrong, they do less damage to the planet and its people
>     than coal-burning stations operating normally…”/
>
>     and
>
>     /“But, as long as the following four conditions are met, I will no
>     longer oppose atomic energy
>     <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/energy>./
>
>     /*1.* Its total emissions – from mine to dump – are taken into
>     account, and demonstrate that it is a genuinely low-carbon option/
>
>     /*2.* We know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried/
>
>     /*3.* We know how much this will cost and who will pay/
>
>     /*4.* There is a legal guarantee that no civil nuclear materials
>     will be diverted for military purposes/
>
>     /To these I’ll belatedly add a fifth, which should have been there
>     all along: no plants should be built in fault zones, on
>     tsunami-prone coasts, on eroding seashores or those likely to be
>     inundated before the plant has been decommissioned or any other
>     places which are geologically unsafe. This should have been so
>     obvious that it didn’t need spelling out.”/
>
> Such a 'rethink' would involve much more stringent regulation of the
> global nuclear industry - maybe even state nationalisation in
> the West - in the context of the common good rather than the
> profitability of corporations. Of course the same is said of the need to
> rethink the banking industry, but stringent regulation does not seem to
> be happening there despite the 'opportunity' provided by the recent
> past. Perhaps Fukishima presents an 'opportunity' that may now be acted
> upon...
> Best wishes, Jon
>
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:47 PM, Alastair McIntosh
> <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
>     Folks …
>
>     Being a Crisis Forum list concerned with world crisis situations, I
>     presume we should be thinking some “what if?” questions about Japan.
>
>     According to Google Earth, the distance from the most north-easterly
>     town in the UK, Lerwick on Shetland, to Tokyo, is in round figures
>     5,000 miles (8,000 km).
>
>     The distance from Chernobyl to the north-west of Scotland is 1,500
>     miles – again using Google Earth, because the figures for all these
>     long distances vary on different websites.
>
>     It was less than a year ago, in July 2010, that the last of Scottish
>     sheep farms affected by Chernobyl had the ban lifted on human
>     consumption of their meat – see Rob Edwards’ report here
>     <http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/health/two-decades-after-chernobyl-scottish-sheep-get-all-clear-1.1039073>
>     (probably our best Scottish environmental journalist). I believe a
>     similar duration of unacceptable contamination persisted in parts of
>     Wales.
>
>     Of course, a pollutant in air will, all else being equal, disperse
>     according to the distance squared (pie times the radius squared,
>     being the circumference of a circle). But with meteorology, not all
>     is equal. We saw that with the Icelandic ash cloud, and we saw it
>     with Chernobyl, where a shaft of the stuff came over this way and
>     hit Scotland just on a day when there was heavy rain to dump it on us.
>
>     My question, then, is what thinking is going on right now as to the
>     public health risk and the PR perceived scare if nuclear fires
>     intensify in Japan? Frankly, I doubt the risk would be very great at
>     this distance. But that is an uninformed guess. So, what could be
>     the probability of another Chernobyl type situation for farmers in
>     the UK? Are there any public health measures that we should be
>     considering now? In short, how bad could it theoretically get, and
>     where might all that stuff end up and according to what
>     meteorological dynamics at this time of year or for however long
>     such fires might rage?
>
>     These question about our own neck of the woods are puny in relation
>     to what the Japanese are facing. But remember how worried people
>     were at the time of Chernobyl. So far, Japan has felt like a very
>     long way away. Most people think of it as being “on the other side
>     of the world” – i.e. some 12,000 miles away. But it’s not. It’s less
>     than half that distance as the crow flies … because the latitudes
>     put it on the circumpolar route.
>
>     Give Japan a few more days until tiny but detectable traces of
>     radionuclides turn up in the airstream over here, and then there’ll
>     be public demand for answers to these questions. Do the likes of us
>     have answers? If not, do we know who’s thinking about them?
>
>     Just asking.
>
>     Alastair.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Jon Barrett
> Le projet pour une vie durable
> Goastelliou
> 29620 Guimaec
> France
> Tel: 00 33 (0)2 98 67 68 87
> Converging Crises blog: www.jontybarrett.wordpress.com
> <http://www.jontybarrett.wordpress.com/>
> Goastelliou website: www.goastelliou.wordpress.com
> <http://www.goastelliou.wordpress.com/>
>

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Oliver Tickell
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