Paper

For practical purposes, used nuclear fuel remains radioactive forever. However, the penetrating form of radiation is essentially gone in about 500 years. After that, the used fuel must be swallowed to be harmful. But that would require eating rocks. Bacon is probably more dangerous than aged nuclear fuel. You are much more likely to swallow that carcinogen.

Our current nuclear regulatory system is resulting in millions of premature deaths and effectively halting any progress on global warming. It must be changed. But to what? The GKG proposes that nuclear power be regulated by a variant of the same system by which we regulate other hazardous but beneficial activities. We call that system Underwriter Certification (UCert). This slide deck is the second of two part presentation on UCert. It outlines how Underwriter Certification would be implemented; and explains why it is feasible. All it takes is the political will.

Our current nuclear regulatory system is resulting in millions of premature deaths and effectively halting any progress on global warming. It must be changed. But to what? The GKG proposes that nuclear power be regulated by a variant of the same system by which we regulate other hazardous but beneficial activities. We call that system Underwriter Certification (UCert). This slide deck is the first of two part presentation on UCert. It attempts to explain why we must scrap the current regulatory system in which there is an enormous chasm between an omnipotent regulator’s incentives and societal welfare.

This slide deck is an introduction to the Sigmoid No Threshold (SNT) radiation harm model. It depends on the Radiation Damage and Repair presentation. It dose not depend on the LNT slides.

This slide deck lays out the fundamentals of DNA damage and repair. It explains why we are so good at repairing radiation damage, and the importance of keeping the damage rate below the repair rate. The information in this deck is a prerequisite for all the other Gordian Knot Group slide shows.

This paper pulls together all the arguments against LNT that have been made in the GKG papers, focusing on the time dimension and repair. The intended audience is teachers, policy makers, and missionaries; but it requires no specialist background. The basics of radiation damage and repair are laid out in some detail.

Comparison of LNT and SNT. Makes some interesting points, but largely supplanted by SNT for Dummies.

This document describes the GKG (Gordian Knot Group) Grid Model. It is not a user’s manual. Rather it attempts to outline the model’s assumptions and limitations, and serve as a reference to which the GKG analyses based on this model can refer. This allows us to avoid repeating this description in each of those studies.

We live in a bipolar world. Some people focus on the possibility that greenhouse gases could make the planet unlivable for humans. Others focus on the manifest need to lift some three billion humans out of energy poverty and avoid civilization shattering impoverishment for the rest of us. Here’s the real problem. Both sides are right. Should-cost nuclear is the only way out of this dilemma.

No bank can finance nuclear power plants in an NRC-like regulatory system.