[MarkPawelek (OP)]

I heard BBC UK national radio allowing an interviewee to tell lies about nuclear power today. If they were interviewing me, and I told a whopper I'd be cut off straight away with no retort nor explanation But this green campaigner was not even challenged on the false statement he made.  He implied that nuclear waste containing plutonium is being dumped off the coast of Wales.  At GMT: 8:54" 20', he said "This mud could have plutonium particles". On UK National Radio (BBC Radio 4 Today). Our premier news & politics radio show.

BBC Radio 4. Presented by Martha Kearney & Michelle Hussain. Listen to last 10 minutes of show here :

At the very least it demands a complaint to the media regulator, BBC regulator, my MP, ...

This is a typical green ploy. They make something up. Tell it to the media. Then they quote the lie reported to their followers as evidence that plutonium is being dumped off the coast of Wales. The interviewing journalists are but stooges; too ignorant to know that it is impossible for that mud to contain any plutonium.

[evan_au]

This mud could have plutonium particles

it is impossible for that mud to contain any plutonium

The problem with both statements is that neither of them have any evidence to back them up, so neither could be considered "scientific"
- The first one could have said "At location Z, we found plutonium in the mud at level X, which is above the standards defined by Y"
- The second one is an absolute statement which is provably false, because there is still plutonium floating around from atmospheric nuclear explosions decades ago.
- The second statement could have said "Procedures are in place to ensure that waste contains plutonium at greater than the standards defined by Y"
- In either case the reporter would have yawned and cut out the whole statement

It's part of living in a post-factual world...

Any clod can have the facts; having opinions is an art.

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/charles_mccabe_109312

[MarkPawelek (OP)]

Plutonium is an unnatural element because the longest lived isotope has a half-life too short to have survived these past 4.3 billion years since earth was created.  Unnatural plutonium is made inside nuclear reactors. Inside fuel assembies, inside a reactor, covered by a containment dome. It can only escape via a major accident. There have not been any major accidents there.

So it is impossible for the mud to contain any plutonium particles. In much the same way it is impossible for my front garden to contain any plutonium particles.  Because this stuff is regulated in the most severe manner. There are no reprocessing plants there. No way any fuel can go astray.

My expertise on nuclear power far out-weights yours and all of your anti-nuke green friends.  Because I've studied the subject.

[chiralSPO]

I don't have any expertise in this particular subject, or any direct knowledge... but I do know how well my government controls their nuclear waste (it's not great at it). And a quick google search reveals that it might be an issue:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/apr/23/paulbrown

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/sellafield-blamed-for-radioactivity-at-33-hot-spots-1556026.html (this one claims that there was a plutonium nitrate leak in the '90s, which is quite recent compared to the half-life of ²³⁹Pu, which contradicts your claim that "It can only escape via a major accident. There have not been any major accidents there")

If I google plutonium nitrate spill 1992, it seems that such a leak DID occur:
 http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22plutonium+nitrate%22+spill+1992

[MarkPawelek (OP)]

It's depressing to read so-called scientists defend epistemological relativism, the speculative fallacy, and sloppy journalism.

I guess you are either sloppy thinkers, 6th-form smart alecs, or loony greens. You are certainly not responsible people.

[chiralSPO]

It's depressing to read so-called scientists defend epistemological relativism, the speculative fallacy, and sloppy journalism.

I guess you are either sloppy thinkers, 6th-form smart alecs, or loony greens. You are certainly not responsible people.

Thanks for your guesses. Very informative, really.

[chiralSPO]

*Please note that I am a proponent of nuclear power. It is far safer than coal, both in terms CO₂ emission, and radiological pollution (coal ash contains a fair amount of radioactive isotopes, and isn't always treated as carefully as similarly radioactive wastes from nuclear or medical sources.)

But that doesn't mean that nuclear waste is harmless, or that attempts to track it are unwarranted attacks against the industry. Let's be realists for a second here: it is expensive to clean up radiological waste, and those in the industry are not exactly incentivized to be more cautious than the laws demand. Accidents happen (and most of them are not Chernobyl), but unless watchdogs keep pressure on those who produce, transport, and store the waste, there is a good chance that a big problem can be written off as a little one, and a little one might not be recorded at all.

Are there politically-motivated smears orchestrated by ignorant activists? Yes. Is the incident you are referring to one of these? Maybe, I don't know. Does this mean that anyone talking about plutonium waste off the coast of Wales is a ignorant activist? No, absolutely not.

[MarkPawelek (OP)]

1) The nuclear waste here is all imaginary.

2) If I went on Radio and said "Mr ......, and his friends are child rapists and ISIS supporters, something should be done about it". How long before they kick me off. Quite right too. We do not want racists, psychopaths, vigilantes on the radio.  OK lets tone that down. Suppose I go on radio merely inciting shop-lifting or burglary. Will the interviewer continue to give me a voice after I incite? No.

Yet this interviewee was boasting of how he will support criminal behaviour to stop nuclear waste which does not exist. You seem to support his point of view. Should we really act according to what we believe rather than what's true? If that is not practical epistemological relativism, then what is?

Once a person can invoke speculative evidence to support their criminal actions, all bets are off for something we can call society.

[Bored chemist]

So it is impossible for the mud to contain any plutonium particles. In much the same way it is impossible for my front garden to contain any plutonium particles.  Because this stuff is regulated in the most severe manner. There are no reprocessing plants there. No way any fuel can go astray.

My expertise on nuclear power far out-weights yours and all of your anti-nuke green friends.  Because I've studied the subject.

It seems you didn't study the subject very carefully.
If you had you would know that  bombs (the Nagasaki one and the tests) launched plutonium into the air and it went round the world.
More recently Fukushima did much the same.

And, in spite of your quaint belief that "this stuff is regulated in the most severe manner." reprocessing plants have been spilling plutonium into the world's seas  etc.

So, you are wrong in every major regard.
And this "My expertise on nuclear power far out-weights yours " is laughable (and misspelled).

[alancalverd]

I'm very pro-nuke and  pathologically anti-bullshit.

There have indeed been measurable quantities of plutonium found in Irish Sea shellfish, traceable to the Sellafield reprocessing plant. The statistical correlations with childhood leukemia clusters in the Black Report (1984) have not, to my mind, been adequately explained to date. What concerned me  was the statement some time later by the Sellafield CEO that the levels were "not significantly above the natural occurence" which, as a fellow expert and one-time colleague, he knew perfectly well is zero - every atom of plutonium on this planet is man-made.

No idea what "mud" was being discussed on R4,but it's quite likely that anything dredged from the vicinity of Sellafield will contain the residue of previous cockups and miscalculations, of which there have been a few.

[teragram]

This is a typical green ploy....

I understand your frustration.
A "typical GREEN Ploy" also used frequently by anti-green propagandists. For example a few years ago when the Fracking controversy started in the UK, I heard on Radio 4 a very senior Member of the House of Lords, trying to defend the industry, stating with absolute conviction that the fracking process in the USA was completely free of leaks. The question was whether leakage of natural gas was almost as much a threat to the environment as the burning of coal. The same individual (as have others) has on other occasions made statements on the media to the effect that climate change either is a hoax, or is not a threat. It seems that these statements are never challenged. I think reporters generally don't swot up on subjects which the public are unlikely to be interested in. Sadly climate change is not a threat to most people (perhaps because of shoddy reporting, viscious circle?).   

[alancalverd]

I worry about the anti-fracking lobby. Do they really want their lives to depend on the whims of Saudi Arabia and Russia?

[teragram]

Sadly climate change is not a threat to most people (perhaps because of shoddy reporting, viscious circle?).   

Correction:- I meant of course that climate change is not SEEN as a threat BY most people...

[Bored chemist]

I worry about the anti-fracking lobby. Do they really want their lives to depend on the whims of Saudi Arabia and Russia?

No. That's part of the reason we want to see the use of fossil fuels reduced.
Pretending that we can maintain "business as usual" is what keeps us dependent on the Russians etc.
Ditching oil and gas would set us free from them.
Do you want us to do that, or do you want us to keep fracking?


There are a few other minor perks- not causing earthquakes, not adding vastly to global warming, not  polluting the environment.

[alancalverd]

If you like your present standard of living and don't believe in  magic, your grandchildren  are going to need liquid fuels. If their children are going to enjoy life too, they will need a sustainable human population (about one fifth of the present numbers) and either the means of using pure biofuel, or of synthesising heavier alkanes from atmospheric CO2.

This scenario is entirely feasible and desirable, but politically unacceptable at present. What can be done in the meantime is to make the UK economically independent of distasteful regimes.

[Bored chemist]

What can be done in the meantime is to make the UK economically independent of distasteful regimes.

That could be done.
And the reason for doing it would be the presence in the UK of a distasteful regimen who make it politically impossible to do what's actually the right thing.

It may well be the case that we prefer home-grown ****s as our political masters, rather than foreign ones- but that's the decision we are talking about unless we actually change UK politics.

[alancalverd]

And the reason for doing it would be the presence in the UK of a distasteful regimen who make it politically impossible to do what's actually the right thing.

I think we would agree that spraying nerve agents on foreign soil or dismembering your critics in an embassy, are unacceptable means of pursuing political ends - definitely wrong things. But you imply a knowledge of "the right thing". Would you care to elucidate?

[Bored chemist]

And the reason for doing it would be the presence in the UK of a distasteful regimen who make it politically impossible to do what's actually the right thing.

I think we would agree that spraying nerve agents on foreign soil or dismembering your critics in an embassy, are unacceptable means of pursuing political ends - definitely wrong things. But you imply a knowledge of "the right thing". Would you care to elucidate?

I strongly suspect that you, I,  and our mothers/ fathers/ teachers who said "what would happen if everybody did that?" would probably agree on the difference between "right" and "wrong" in the great majority of circumstances.
For example, we both agree that it's "right" to want to not to rely on energy imports from places like Russia.
We both agree that replacement of fossil fuels and the reduction of the human population are "right".

The problem is how wrong is it right to be to address a different wrong?

[evan_au]

This scenario is entirely feasible and desirable, but politically unacceptable at present.

I heard a European minister said something like "We don't know how to do what needs to be done and get re-elected!".

It's not a lack of knowledge or ability - it's voter backlash that determines what gets done in a democracy.

[Bored chemist]

"We don't know how to do what needs to be done and get re-elected!".

Teach the electorate  to recognise what needs to be done.