(02-07-2010 07:45 PM)RobertN Wrote: Because the "official" answer is the same as as your answer. THe unofficial answer is many more but unknown. I found a number but it comes from what might be a biased source(he says at least 333 from cancer using a mathematical equation) and it is also noted that pregnancies ending in miscarriages was up considerably shortly after the accident. Of course, since it is difficult if not impossible to really determine, so the official stance is "0" and nuclear reactors are safe.
No deaths linked directly to the accident... the WORST in US history. Pregnancies ending in miscarriages are certainly not good, but I'm sure SOME attorney tried to link them and failed. No, not proof it wasn't, but obviously not proof it was... and I believe the government has established that a "miscarriage" doesn't end a life... so while it is unfortunate, it is nothing to place "responsibility" upon. A mathematical formula is worse than perhaps "biased"... It is meaningless. For all we know, the miscarriages were caused by stress related to the news reports of the accidents... more below on that.
The official stance is zero because according to any reasonable/legal definition the number is zero. If you choose to disbelieve it, fine... but nobody has manipulated the number. It's not difficult/impossible to determine because by the legal definition, nobody died... and this is the worst accident EVER in the US. In a similar vein, we don't know how many mothers miscarried as a result of the stress of the explosion or by inhaling smoke fumes or whatever. All we know is what the evidence shows... and the evidence shows zero. I'm in Houston... we get chemical/gas/electric explosions/accidents pretty regularly (about 1 a year)... most with a death or more... Don't recall one single Nuclear event.
In other words... you are against something that the only reasonable, accepted, scientific method of calculating risk says is more safe than its alternatives, and you IMPLY that the data is misleading somehow and the actual number is higher.... so we are to believe that the NUKE lobby is somehow stronger, more evil than the Gas or oil lobbies who wouldn't manipulate data... and that some mathemetician's "educated guess" on something not legally classified as a "loss" is not only more accurate, but wouldn't equally apply to other disasters.
Bottom line... you're against something because you don't choose to believe it is safe... not because you have any proof it is not safe... yet the current alternatives are all clearly more dangerous. While I support alternatives, why would you NOT be in favor of safer/cleaner technology that already exists until we figure out how to make these other things work?
FTR, we take nuclear reactors into war zones every day (our ships)... something DESIGNED to be hit by bombs... how's our record there?
BTW, though the OFFICIAL position is that the Saints won, a mathematician friend of mine says that he has a formula showing the Colts actually did and the score is misleading.