To be honest I was expecting a little more replys to my taunting...

To be honest I was expecting a little more replys to my taunting questions. Thanks for your reply Beng, I feel we are very much on the same page. Don't get me started............. BTW am happy to redirect this post to the general Uranium forum if I'm getting too general here.
The argument about coal and uranium has been screwed by non science nonsense. But more significantly, the whole nuclear industry has been trashed by gross and willing ignornace. I want to make it clear, this post is about the peaceful use of nuclear energy and materials. I totally oppose nuclear weapons but such weapons do not equate with, or emanate from, the peaceful uses of nuclear. Sadly, the weapons, by and large, came first.
I would love a rational argument in return but let’s stay rational, logical and factual.
All the uranium on Earth existed as the Earth was initially forming and subject to uranium U235’s half life of approximately 704 millions years, it has been decaying from the usable radioactive uranium U235 to the far less radioactive uranium U238 , (which has a half life of over 4 billion years) and other elements, ever since. The percentage of uranium U235 on Earth today is substantially less than 4 billion years ago. U235 makes up about 0.72% of all uranium. When we mine uranium we are after U235.
Today mining grades typically average under 2,000ppm (Forget Cigar Lake and the like). What uranium miners do is dig up a radioactive U235 area, remove the uranium and leave the total mine area far less radioactive. The uranium U235 is then purified and run through the reactor process to generate electricity. In a Generation 3 reactor the final end product is the far less radioactive mix of primarily U238, sometimes referred to as ‘spent’. What is left is a comparatively small amount of waste. A typical reactor produces less than a few cubic metres a year. The waste is so dilute, in radioactive terms, that it is basically useless, not a threat.
What the uranium industry has done, in effect, is clean up the radioactive mineral deposit, extracted energy and produced a safe end product, with no CO2 pollution!
However, the story for coal is not so cheery. Coal was laid down extensively after about 360 million years ago. The coal industry digs up comparatively vast areas of land, vast when compared to uranium mining, burns the coal in electricity generating systems and produces, Carbon Dioxide, plus a lot, I mean a lot, of fairly useless ash, millions of tonnes each year. In addition to the CO2, 100,000s of tonnes of particulate pollutants stream into the air and cause a number of respiratory diseases and annually a lot of premature deaths. Then there are some other nasties, in small percentages, like nitrogen and sulphur oxides which contribute to the smogs common in industrial cities. So the coal industry digs up more land, produces electricity, pumps very large amounts of CO2 in to the atmosphere, along with particulates and other nasties; then leaves huge amounts of ash as trash.
But for coal it gets worse, seriously worse.
Direct coal mining deaths by accident per year in China in 2006 were 4,749 workers. The statistics for all countries are available on the web but a rough guide is China has about 80% of world fatalities so we can approximate worldwide numbers to 5,900 per year.
Direct deaths from uranium accidents since 1945 (Since, NOT PER YEAR) Total 216. This figure includes 'cancer fatalities' subsequent to the Windscale fire in 1957.
There were no direct deaths from the Fukushima accident and only 56 direct deaths at Chernobyl.
What the anti-uranium lobby has to do in order to get any traction in the public mind is include subsequent cancer related illnesses and deaths. Chernobyl was by far the worst with the most scientific estimates suggesting that eventually there will be 50,000 excess cancer cases resulting in 25,000 cancer deaths by 2065. Those figures are for the whole of the affected areas of Europe and Asia. Those number are ugly but must be put in perspective; an average of 313 per year about 0.01% of all cancer deaths.
If we want to include long term death rates from nuclear sources, we logically have to include long term deaths from burning coal. The United Nations estimates 1.3 million premature deaths occur EVERY year due to outdoor air pollution. Burning coal is the major contributor to air pollution.
To put this in perspective, let's look at deaths another way.
In Australia, according to Safe Work Australia, about 200 industrial deaths occur each year. In 2012 the total was 212.
Australia has had almost 11,000 deaths from mesothelioma since the 1980s, roughly averaged at 360 per year. More than the average deaths expected from Chernobyl.
Every year approximately 10 million people die of mosquito borne diseases.
And the nuclear industry WORLD WIDE has resulted in a TOTAL of 216 direct deaths since 1945. An average of less than 3.4 per year; dare I say it, far safer to work in the nuclear industry than work in Australia.
The total anticipated deaths are way below homicide, car accidents or mosquito borne diseases.
A far more pertinent question is, how many lives has the nuclear industry saved since 1950. X-Rays, radiotherapy, brachytherapy and daily, at least in the affluent world, we think little of the CAT Scan procedure. There is approximately 1 chance in 300 of the common CAT Scan contributing to cancer. What is the sense of objecting to the nuclear industry and then submitting to a branch of it. An x-ray for some trauma, or for dental work is less of a risk but the majority of our society has willingly had one. And who amongst us does not know of someone who has had radiotherapy for cancer. I suggest very few.
Logical, scientifically based, factual discussions of the above are most welcome. If you need to shout or scream irrational non science, forget it. Perhaps do as they did 1,000 years ago - throw a couple of virgins into the erupting volcano to appease the gods. Or perhaps, just cower in ignorant fear like pre-historic apes, as darkness fell, in Kubrick's, 2001: a Space Odyssey.
But always remember, he who asserts must prove. I am willing to provide all my sources, if you don't have the time to use a common search engine.