No answer on nuclear waste issue
No answer on waste issue Rutland Herald KATHLEEN KREVETSKI 29 June 09 “……………………. the Areva nuclear fuel processing plant — La Hague in France where spent nuclear fuel rods are refined for weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium. La Hague acknowledges that it is intentionally dumping thousands of gallons of radioactive waste into the ocean while the incidence of childhood cancer is rampant in the area surrounding that plant.
Before George Bush left office, the U.S. EPA had radically increased permissible public exposure to radiation in drinking water, including a nearly 1,000-fold increase in permissible concentrations of strontium-90, 3,000- to 100,000-fold for iodine-131, and a nearly 25,000 increase for nickel-63. The relaxation of these radiation protection regulations had been sought for years by the nuclear industry and its allies in the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission .
In the most extreme case, the new standards permit radionuclide concentrations seven million times more lax than permitted under the Safe Drinking Water Act and would permit public exposure to radiation levels vastly higher than EPA had previously deemed unacceptably dangerous. The public did not get to comment on these changes. What exactly is the radioactive waste that is now being discharged into the Connecticut River. When will our Vermont Department of Public Health start reporting on the trends of cancer incidence rising in Vermont? And Entergy and the NRC thinks its OK to continue to build up the stockpile of the radioactive waste here in Vermont because no one else will accept it
Nuclear power is well-disguised fossil fuel
Nuclear power is well-disguised fossil fuel1 Mail and Guardian 30 June 09 …by Roger DiamondAs global warming gets hotter on the international political agenda, and with recent oil price volatility, the nuclear power proponents have jumped on a bandwagon to promote “the peaceful atom” as a means to power our society………………….. Carbon free? When uranium, or any other fissionable material, reacts, indeed, it does not give off any carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gases. However, almost every other aspect of the production of nuclear power does. Let’s start with mining uranium…………………All of this mining, processing and transporting activity uses energy — fossil fuels to be precise. But that’s not even the big energy user in nuclear power. The biggest factor is probably the building of the power stations that have to be over-engineered for terrorist strikes, earthquakes, careless operators………………………..the energy consumed in earth moving, making thousands of tons of cement and building a nuclear power station, is very significant. Maintenance of the power station also consumes energy, as does the transport and disposal of the low and medium-level radioactive waste, but the big unknowns in nuclear power are decommissioning and disposal of high-level nuclear waste.
All of this activity is driven by fossil fuels and so to say that nuclear power is carbon free is to pretend that nuclear power stations descend from the heavens and that fuel rods grow on trees, neither of which are particularly believable. It is also to ignore the challenge that decommissioning and high-level waste disposal pose………………………….he clincher is that all of this adds up to make nuclear power rather expensive and uncertain, and so the predicted boom in nuclear power has not materialised and in fact, the construction of new nuclear power stations is only keeping pace with the decommissioning of old ones built in the 1960s. This is even without the years of expense that we look forward to in guarding and maintaining radioactive hulks of concrete for the rest of civilisation so that they don’t crumble and leak radiation or demolishing the monstrosities and finding a hole to bury them in.
Thought Leader » Peak Oil Perspectives » Nuclear power is well-disguised fossil fuel
Reactor design puts safety into question
Reactor design puts safety of nuclear plants into question Globe and Mai Jun. 29, 2009 Feature speeds up rate of atomic reactions in event of a coolant leak; regulators say they misjudged size of the problem
Martin Mittelstaedt
If reactors are not shut down quickly, their ability to keep radioactivity from escaping would be put to the test, according to an internal commission document.
The document says Canada’s seven nuclear stations, which all use Candu technology, have a feature known as “positive reactivity feedback,” in which their atomic chain reactions automatically speed up if the water pumped into the reactors to cool them leaks, one of the worst accidents possible at a nuclear station. If reactors aren’t immediately shut down during this type of incident, positive reactivity leads to a quick snowballing in the pace of nuclear reactions, which in turn could cause potentially damaging overheating.
The fear is that with a large loss of coolant, such overheating could put the nuclear facilities’ containment features – the concrete domes and other protective mechanisms around reactors that are the last-ditch defences to stop the spread of radioactivity into the environment – to a dangerous test.
Reactor design puts safety into question – The Globe and Mail
Group offers plan to eliminate nukes by 2030
Group offers plan to eliminate nukes by 2030 Google News By ROBERT BURNS 30 June 09 WASHINGTON (AP) — A group committed to eliminating nuclear weapons presented on Monday a four-step plan to achieve that goal by 2030, while acknowledging that Iran could be a “show stopper.”The plan by the nonpartisan Global Zero Commission calls for the United States and Russia — the world’s largest nuclear powers — to agree to reduce first to 1,000 warheads each, then to 500 each by 2021.The U.S. is believed to have about 2,200 active strategic nuclear warheads and Russia about 2,800. Each has thousands more in reserve as well as large numbers of non-strategic, or tactical, nuclear arms.During the second phase of cuts to 500, all other nuclear weapons countries would have to agree to freeze and then reduce their warhead totals. Those other countries are China, Britain, France, India, Pakistan and Israel but not North Korea, which has conducted nuclear tests but may not have a useable weapon.In a third phase, from 2019 to 2023, a “global zero accord” would be negotiated to include a schedule for the phased, verified reduction of all nuclear arsenals to zero total warheads. In the last period, from 2024 to 2030, the reductions would be completed and a verification system would remain in place.The Global Zero Commission includes former and current senior officials from all existing nuclear powers.
The Associated Press: Group offers plan to eliminate nukes by 2030
High-level forum stresses need to tackle radioactive waste in Central Asia
High-level forum stresses need to tackle radioactive waste in Central Asia UN News Centre 29 June 2009 – A high-level forum organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) wrapped up in Geneva today with the adoption of a joint declaration stressing the need to tackle the challenge of radioactive waste in Central Asia.The meeting brought together over 100 representatives from the region, international organizations, donors and others to discuss the problems associated with the uranium tailing deposits – left over from mining during the Cold War in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – which contain more than 800 million tons of radioactive and toxic waste.
These countries have not been able to deal with the problem adequately due to lack of resources and capacity.
UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said the legacy of nuclear waste and related environmental management issues has a direct impact on human development in the region.
“As most of the uranium tailing sites are located in densely populated and natural-disaster prone areas of Central Asia’s largest river basins, they represent a major potential risk to the region’s water supply and the health of millions of people,” she said in a statement to the forum.
“Many more are likely to suffer if uranium contamination moves downstream to other areas,” she added.
High-level forum stresses need to tackle radioactive waste in Central Asia
“Being able to make nuclear arms doesn’t mean having them” – expert
Being able to make nuclear arms doesn’t mean having them” – expert
Russia Today 29 June, 2009, 11:08
Russia and the US have about 27,000 nuclear warheads – enough to destroy the planet several times over. Nuclear disarmament specialist Gareth Evans says reducing stockpiles should be the main priority of global powers. Australia’s former nuclear research and foreign minister Gareth Evans is the president of the International Crisis Group. Evans also coaches International Commission for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament which held its third meeting in Moscow on June 20-21……………………Gareth Evans: “………………At least by the end of this year we can get an agreement on the continuation of the basic treaty between Russia and the United States, we can get some significant reduction in the number of strategic weapons that are actually deployed. And that this, in turn, will create a further momentum not only for further US-Russia negotiations, but for everybody else………………………. a particular threat is we know that the North Koreans are being only too keen to sell their missile technology and hardware to other countries……………………….The truth of the matter is that the problem of nuclear proliferation and disarmament is right up there as one of the Big Three global problems……………………………. the risk that more and more countries will go on acquiring nuclear weapons for misguided reasons about their own security, if we don’t turn around our system as it now is. And remember that with nuclear weapons we are talking about a class of weapons that are perfectly capable of wiping out the planet, and wiping out the planet in a space of just a few weeks, compared with the fifty hundred centuries of climate change.”
“Being able to make nuclear arms doesn’t mean having them” – expert | Politics from 2009-06-29 | RT
Dennis Kucinich Lays Out Why He Voted Against Clean Energy Act
Dennis Kucinich Lays Out Why He Voted Against Clean Energy Act THE CLEVELAND LEADER June 27, 2009 -Cleveland area Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) laid out the reasons he opposed and voted against H.R. 2454, The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The vast majority of fellow Democrats voted in favor of the measure which passed the House and is on the way to the Senate for a vote. Kucinich stated in a press release:
“I oppose H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The reason is simple. It won’t address the problem. In fact, it might make the problem worse.
“It sets targets that are too weak, especially in the short term, and sets about meeting those targets through Enron-style accounting methods. It gives new life to one of the primary sources of the problem that should be on its way out– coal – by giving it record subsidies…………………….Nuclear power is given a lifeline instead of phasing it out. Nuclear power is far more expensive, has major safety issues including a near release in my own home state in 2002, and there is still no resolution to the waste problem. A recent study by Dr. Mark Cooper showed that it would cost $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion more over the life of 100 new nuclear reactors than to generate the same amount of electricity from energy efficiency and renewables.
Dennis Kucinich Lays Out Why He Voted Against Clean Energy Act | Cleveland Leader
As Al Qaeda Says it Would Use Pak Nukes, GAO Reports Problems With Radiation Detectors
As Al Qaeda Says it Would Use Pak Nukes, GAO Reports Problems With Radiation Detectors HS Today by Anthony L. Kimery Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Coinciding with a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit report on border and port radiological detectors that concluded the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) development and testing of advanced spectroscopic portals (ASP), a senior Al Qaeda leader declared the terrorist group would use Pakistani nuclear weapons against the US if it ever got its hands on these weapons.
“By God’s will, the Americans will not seize the Muslims’ nuclear weapons and we pray that the Muslims will have these weapons and they will be used against the Americans,” Mustafa Abul Yazeed, Al Qaeda’s leader in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera broadcast Sunday.
Al Qaeda continues to plan “large-scale operations against the enemy” Abul Yazeed said.
Navajo homes razed – uranium contamination
Navajo homes razed – uranium contaminationFelicia Fonseca, Associated PressS San Francisco Chronicle June 21, 2009 The federal government plans to spend as much as $3 million a year to demolish and rebuild uranium-contaminated structures across the Navajo Nation, where Cold War-era mining of the radioactive substance left a legacy of disease and death………………………….The effort is part of a five-year plan that expires in 2012 in which a number of federal agencies joined together to address uranium contamination and its effects on the Navajo people. Navajos who toiled in the mines and their dependents have suffered or died from cancer, lung and kidney disease, and other health problems caused by exposure to low levels of radiation over time…………………………..With more than 500 abandoned uranium mines across the vast reservation, EPA officials acknowledge that the issue of uranium contamination is bigger than assessing and rebuilding structures.
A global nuclear disorder
A global nuclear disorder The Jakarta Post Gita Wirjawan , Jakarta
June 29, 2009
OpinionThe world is edging precariously toward nuclear anarchy. The warning signs of the collapse of the global nuclear order are clear. The emergence of a dangerous axis of nations with nuclear ambitions – North Korea, Iran and Pakistan – is a very real threat…………………….The brute facts emanating from these three states suggest an irreversible bottom line: trends toward nuclear powers in the world are worsening…………………….. Pyongyang might well attempt to sell nuclear technology to Tehran.
Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is unlikely to cave in to international pressure to stop Tehran from achieving this objective. Surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons – Pakistan to their east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west, and the US in the Persian Gulf – it is Iran’s attempt at securing a deterrent that could ultimately be the single most destabilizing factor in the Middle East…………………
In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy predicted that, if left unchecked, 15 to 20 states could join the nuclear club within a decade. His warning saw several initiatives to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, culminating in the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
Today, 189 countries, many of which have the technical capability to build nuclear arsenals, have denounced nuclear weapons. Only three additional countries – Israel, India and Pakistan – have acquired such weapons in the last 40 years.
But the NPT architecture is now shaking at the core, and could well open the floodgates for others like North Korea and Iran to enter.
Nuclear weapons pose a clear and present danger……………………..n the end, North Korea, Iran and Pakistan might not even fire a single nuke. But they might well allow these weapons to slip into the hands of al-Qaeda, who would not hesitate pressing the button on New York, London or Tokyo. The global nuclear regime is weakening dramatically. The major powers – the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France – need to fashion a strategy that will stem further proliferation.
German-RP chamber to focus on renewable-energy projects in RP
German- RP chamber to focus on reneweable energy projects in RP
Business Mirror 28 June 2009 THE one-year-old German-Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GPCCI) expects a lot of joint ventures happening between companies of the two countries in the development of renewable energy here, particularly geothermal, wind and solar.Klaus Schroeder, president of the GPCCI, said this “green partnerships” will now be the trend because Germany is the leader in renewable-energy technology, while the Philippines has just passed its Renewable Energy Act.The Philippines is the first to put that into law in Asia, so it’s a great opportunity, and that is why going green is our focus. It [partnership] has already started, and more are coming,” he told the BusinessMirror.
German-RP chamber to focus on renewable-energy projects in RP
Greener borders
Greener Borders
The Morung Express 29 June 09 Last month, the World Customs Organisation — a relatively unknown inter-governmental body seeking to harmonise rules and regulations across countries — launched the Protect the Environment global campaign and organised a five-day Green Customs workshop at the National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics (NACEN) at its sprawling campus in Faridabad……………….the Basel Ban (under the UN Environment Programme, or UNEP) that regulates the generation, trade and disposal of hazardous waste. Under the Basel Ban, implemented into legally-binding EU law, exports of hazardous waste from the EU to non-OECD countries are prohibited…………………For reasons best known to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, radioactive waste has been exempted from the Basel Convention, providing a loophole for unscrupulous exporters. Again, if the receiving country’s laws permit the disposal of such waste, it becomes difficult for any international intervention to implement laws to the contrary. The complexity of this trade is apparent in the fact that secondary products like recycled steel imported into Germany and Sweden have been found to contain traces of radioactivity.Under the Basel Convention, however, the secretariat can inform all countries about shipments of hazwaste so that it can at least alert everyone concerned about the potential dangers of accepting and handling such waste. But the secretariat has rules governing private and naval ships, not those belonging to the government. One has only to remember the fate of several Soviet nuclear submarines that were dumped in the oceans and lakes by former Soviet bloc countries after the break-up of the Union simply because they couldn’t maintain them any longer.
Current News | Latest News | Breaking News | Nagaland News – MorungExpress.com – Greener borders
Saying one thing and doing another
Saying one thing and doing another. Steve Blizard’s Blog 29 June 09 It is not widely known that deep within the bowels of the Federal Labor Government, an investigation has commenced for using uranium as a domestic future energy source…………………… The Uranium Systems Project is one of the national projects within the Onshore Energy Security Program.
The primary purpose of the Uranium Systems Project is to provide advice to the Australian Government on Australia’s uranium resource potential as well as deliver new pre-competitive datasets and concepts to the minerals industry which will promote new search areas and reduce risk in the discovery of Australia’s uranium resources.”Putting it simply, the Federal bureaucrats are ‘assessing the potential of uranium as one of Australia’s future energy sources’………………The Federal Labor government is seriously looking at nuclear energy as a possible means of ensuring Australia’s energy security over the long term……………………….
Most are well aware of their political campaigns against nuclear energy, attacking those that say we have to keep an open mind; yet quietly behind the scenes are doing all the home work required to prepare for a nuclear energy future in Australia!
Will this be the new “three more uranium mines” policy?
Fears for safety as nuclear watchdog hires staff from firms pitching to build reactors
Fears for safety as nuclear watchdog hires staff from firms pitching to build reactors The Guardian Tim Webb 26 June 2009
The Nuclear Installations Inspec
torate is recruiting more than a dozen project managers to speed up its review of new reactor designs – even though they work for the companies hoping to build them.
The Guardian has learnt that the government has approached companies including the US groups Bechtel and CH2M Hill, as well as the UK’s Amec, to fill the senior posts. The companies involved are eager to secure lucrative contracts to help build the UK’s first new reactors for decades.
Government and industry sources admitted the secondments posed potential conflict of interest problems.
It is also understood that the inspectorate has recruited technical staff from Areva,…………………………There are concerns that the potential conflicts of interest could compromise the safety of the new nuclear reactors if the companies helping the inspectorate have a vested interest in approving their design.
Asse nuclear dump contains explosives
Asse nuclear dump contains explosives The Local 26 Jun 09 CETOnline: The controversial salt-mine nuclear waste storage facility in Asse, Lower Saxony is not only crumbling but also contains unknown amounts of explosive, it has emerged………………………………The DDP report said an explosives storage chamber still containing a variety of dynamite-related substances, can be found near the area where the radioactive waste is being kept.
Files from the Research Centre for the Environment and Health (GSF), which used to run the storage facility, show that over the last few years a bog of radioactive salt water has built up by the entrance to the explosive chamber.
1 This Month
10 June – Assessing Canada’s Investments in Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – https://zoom.us/meeting/register/IiqHA5feRhaEBycOLNTJlA#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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