Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire

Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Why Fukushima death toll projections are based on junk science

Why Fukushima death toll projections are based on junk science


http://www.marklynas.org/2012/07/fukushima-death-tolls-junk-science/


The media is abuzz this morning with the first study attempting to quantify expected cancer deaths which may result from Fukushima. Written by Ten Hoeve and Mark Jacobson from Stanford University, the paper ‘Worldwide health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident’ is published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science (free PDF copy).
I will say upfront that I think the study is worse than useless. Jacobson (Hoeve is a former PhD student of his) is a long-time anti-nuclear and pro-renewables advocate, and (as I show below) clearly has an agenda to raise further fears about the health impacts of Fukushima and nuclear power in general. However, in this deeply flawed paper he succeeds only in illustrating some of the absurdities in current radiological protection models, and that one thing we know for sure – even if those absurdities are ignored – is that the evacuation killed more people than the accident.

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