From Brian Dudson
Three Japanese nuclear workers received fatal doses of radiation last year.
The incident was headlined in our papers for some days. But there was no such
coverage when a 1997 World Health Organization report revealed that 2.7 to 3
million deaths result each year from exposure to the particulate air pollution
from fossil fuels and, more especially, from indoor burning of biomass and coal
for cooking and heating in developing countries.
So is one nuclear death worse than a million carboniferous deaths? Not quite,
I suppose. But even allowing for such factors as the relative use of the two
energy sources, the difference in emphasis remains stark.
In commenting on the future for nuclear energy, you depicted a balance: 1500
tonnes of radioactive waste on one side of the scales, 250 million tonnes of
carbon dioxide on the other, as if the release of this greenhouse gas were the
only negative in our use of coal, oil and gas. Even allowing for Chernobyl, the
nuclear generation of electricity has been safer than that using fossil
fuels.
Brisbane, Queensland
