Word: gofman
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Given its acknowledged toxicity, Gofman says that the crucial assumption of nuclear proponents is that we will be able to isolate radiation from the population. The industry customarily excludes its own employees from the "population by a deft act of definition. Undoubtedly injury will be concentrated among the workers handling radioactive materials--in the mines, in transport, and in the plants. But unless the workers are themselves isolated from members of the opposite sex, they will soon pass on their damaged genes to the general population--not a trivial factor, since the industry uses large numbers of people, sometimes called...
Those who never set foot in a nuclear facility are not safe from direct exposure, either. Gofman makes the simple calculation that a full-fledged nuclear economy of 1000 large plants would produce an extra 1980 cancer deaths annually if only 0.001 per cent of the radiation leaked into the environment. And Gofman considers 99,999 per cent containment perfection to as far be human capability as the nuclear industry considers Gofman to be "beyond the pale of reasonable communication...
...industry must find Gofman's credentials no less shocking than his message. For his Ph.D. dissertation he discovered four chemical isotopes, including uranium 232 and 233, and patented the fissionability of the latter. Next he served as a Group Leader with the Manhattan Project team that isolated the first milligram of plutonium. Then he picked up an M.D. and was appointed Professor of Medical Physics at Berkeley. In the 1960s he was associate Director of the Lawrence Livermore Lab, one of two research centers where all U.S. nuclear weapons are developed...
Despite his own professional standing, Gofman scorns America's "professional class" of "apologists" who care "cut in for a modest share of the spoils" in return for serving the "privilege-elite" in power. He cites the Director of the Livermore Lab who conceded it was Gofman's duty to calculate that 32,000 would die if everyone were exposed to the legally allowed dose of radiation. "What" the director, asked, "makes you think that 32,000 would be too many?" Gofman marshals many such illustrations to answer those who ask how scientists could endorse nuclear technology if it is really...
...real question, though, is why those in power are bent on deploying such a lethal energy source. Gofman says the promise of permanent centralized control allures the elite to nuclear energy...