The Ecolocist Vol. 16 No. 4/5 1986

T h i s S p e c i a l i s s u e o f T h e E c o l o g i s t h a s b e e n p r e p a r e d i n c o n j u n c t i o n w i t h F r i e n d s o f t h e E a r t h , UK. Edward Goldsmith Obituary Denis de Rougement 138

E d i t o r i a l The Editors Facing Facts—Now or Never 139

P o l i t i c a l S t a t e m e n t s o n N u c l e a r P o w e r Rob Edwards Chernobyl: The Political Fall-out 140 Malcolm Bruce Liberal Policy on Nuclear Energy 142

Tony Benn Towards the End of Nuclear Power 143

F e a t u r e A r t i c l e s Jim Jeffery The Unique Dangers of Nuclear Power: An Overview 147

Nuclear power is wrought with inherent dangers and technical problems that have not been resolved.

Richard E. Webb Western Reactors: How they compare with Chernobyl 164

PWRs and BWRs, the ones most used in the West, are more rather than less dangerous than Chernobyl. The breeder reactor can explode like an atom bomb.

Richard E. Webb Chernobyl, What could have happened 167

I n slightly different circumstances, the accident could have been very much worse.

Richard E. Webb The Health Consequences of Chernobyl 169

As many as 280,000 people could die of cancer as a result of the Chernobyl accident?

Peter Bunyard The Effects of Low-Dose Radiation 171 and Graham Searle Evidence given at the Sizewell Public Inquiry suggests that the effects of radiation on human health have been underestimated by a factor of ten or more.

Peter Bunyard The Sellafield Discharges 182

Sellafield has seriously and irreversibly contaminated the Cumbrian coastline and the Irish Sea with radionuclides. Hence the cluster of childhood cancers in the area.

Jean Emery The Victims of Radiation 189

A leading local environmentalist tells of the fate of many of her friends who worked on the Sellafield site.

Peter Bunyard Ignoring the True Cost of Nuclear Power 192

One of the supposed advantages of nuclear power is that i t is cheap. This is a myth based on all sorts of false assumptions.

Monique Sene Superphenix: The Reality behind the Myth 198

France's Superphenix has no economic justification; its main use is the production of plutonium for the French nuclear defence programme.

Nick Kollerstrom The Export of Weapons-Grade Plutonium to the USA 201

Britain's civil nuclear programme, despite continual government denials has been used to provide the US with plutonium for its weapons stockpile.

Ivan Tolstoy High Level Waste: No Technical Solution 205

There is no truly safe method of disposing of these lethal substances.

Stewart Boyle Nuclear Waste—The Unsolved Problem 208

The British Government has not proposed a satisfactory solution nor is i t likely to.

Contents page continued overleaf

Cover Design: Nigel Rae Lay-out: Nick McBreen, John Mclntyre

137