NUKES, FROM GREEN GLOW TO GREEN LIGHT (via Richard Compton):

Study Depicts a Less Dire Chernobyl: U.N. researchers find lower radiation levels than earlier reports had and project far fewer deaths will result from the '86 nuclear accident. (Charles Piller and Alissa J. Rubin, September 6, 2005, LA Times)

Nearly two decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster spread radioactive fallout across much of Europe, a United Nations study has concluded that the health effects have been far smaller than feared.

The researchers confirmed 56 deaths — nine children from thyroid cancer and 47 emergency workers from acute radiation poisoning or radiation-induced cancer. They projected that 3,940 more people would eventually die of cancer, according to the report released Monday.

Virtually all the deaths are expected to come from among the 200,000 emergency and recovery workers or the nearly 400,000 people who lived in the immediate area. The death estimate is about half of what several recent studies found and a small fraction of the up to 150,000 deaths estimated shortly after the 1986 accident in Ukraine.

If even the Soviets couldn't kill more than that there's no reason not to switch to nuclear power.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 6, 2005 12:00 AM