Both of my parents died from cancer and neither of them worked in nuclear plants. In fact when they got cancer neither of them were given special insights to the cause of their conditions.
Many people die each year from automobiles, but there is no movement afoot to ban automobiles, even though I personally know many people personally who have definitively and unambiguously been killed by automobiles.
Moreover, there are many people who are definitively and unambiguously been killed by fossil fuel processing plants and fossil fuel waste.
I am more inclined than most to call for limits on automobiles and bans on fossil fuel wastes.
I have a term for the claim that only nuclear energy must be perfect to be acceptable. I call it "nuclear exceptionalism."
No form of energy is risk free. Some energy is risk minimized. That energy is nuclear energy.
The risks minimized for nuclear are only those well-known and quantified beforehand, and not even all of them (those that would make nuclear much more expensive, like retrofitting protection hulls, are ignored). Yet several incidents show up risks that weren't realised by the risk calculators. The appearance of such is more likely in more complex systems. Thus your risk calculations cover always only a fraction of the actual risks. *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
So if other things could have caused cancer, we just can't establish whether the nuclear industry caused it, and we should just assume it is not there? *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
If people did zillions of epidemiological studies of coal plants - and they don't - one would find cancers as well.
If we did studies of people who work with silicon, we might find something there.
I don't understand why only nuclear energy gets an "assumption" of cancer. I'll bet that the number of cancers of the lung resulting from air pollution number in the millions each year.
People are studying the effects of silicon, and in the Netherlands working with sandstone (cutting, polishing) is classed as dangerous (or higher?) than removing asbestos.
We should ban sand!! No, wait...
