Keep Virginia free of the stigma of uranium mining, say legislators
River commission wants uranium ban to remain http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/27/4761642/river-commission-wants-uranium.html#storylink=cpy The Associated Press, Aug. 27, 2012, BOYDTON, Va. –– A commission composed of legislators from Virginia and North Carolina is urging Virginia to keep a 30-year ban on uranium mining in place.
The resolution was approved Monday by the Roanoke River Basin Bi-State Commission, an advisory panel that makes recommendations to government officials on the use and stewardship of the Roanoke River Basin.
Andrew Lester of the Roanoke River Basin Association praised the commission, saying the “stigma” of uranium mining would be harmful to the region’s agricultural and tourism industry in Southside Virginia.
Virginia Uranium Inc. is seeking to end the ban so it can mine one of the richest deposits of the radioactive ore in the world. ..
Another big loss for Australian uranium miner Paladin
Uranium group Paladin’s loss widens, Business Report August 30 2012 Australian-listed Paladin Energy‚ a uranium producer with projects in Australia and two operating mines in Africa‚ delivered a net loss for the year to June 30 of US$172.8m‚ an increase of 110% from the previous year’s US$82.3m loss. This translates into a loss per share of US21.1 cents form a loss of US11.1 cents the previous year. No dividend was declared.
Canada’s Liberal Party being secretive about plans for uranium mining in Quebec
Uranium, asbestos, metros and a boat colour campaign quarrels http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/uranium-asbestos-metros-and-a-boat-colour-campaign-quarrels-1.934969#ixzz259lPPD00 Aug. 29, 2012 MONTREAL – The three major parties were out hustling for votes on day 29 of the election campaign, but it was one of the smaller groups that was on the attack Wednesday.
The tiny Quebec Solidaire was on the offensive against the Liberals’ Northern Plan, which, it says, involves inadequately disclosed plans to mine uranium.
QS co-spokesman and Mercier MNA Amir Khadir said that the extension of Highway 167, financed mostly by the province, is aimed at helping extract and transport uranium, as is a railroad to Kuujjuaq, partially funded by the Caisse de depot.
Khadir argued that the Liberals have presented the Northern Plan as a method to mine gold and diamonds as well as other safer goods…..
Iran’s leader says Iran committed to nuclear weapons free Middle East
Iran committed to Mideast free of nuclear weapons, Leader tells NAM, Tehran Times, 30 Aug 12, TEHRAN – Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei insisted on Thursday that Iran has never been seeking to produce nuclear weapons. However, the Leader said Iran “will never give up” its right to a peaceful use of nuclear energy.
“I stress that the Islamic Republic has never been after nuclear weapons and that it will never give up the right of its people to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” the Leader said in an inaugural speech to the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran.
The Leader added, “The Islamic Republic of Iran considers the use of nuclear, chemical and similar weapons as a great and unforgivable sin. We proposed the idea of ‘Middle East free of nuclear weapons’ and we are committed to it.”
Elsewhere in his speech the Leader advised the United States to stop supporting Israel, saying “this regime has created countless problems” for the U.S….
http://tehrantimes.com/politics/101048-iran-committed-to-mideast-free-of-nuclear-weapons-leader-tells-nam
Residents struggle with nuclear past in Siberian village (2 VIDEOS)
29-08-2012
[…]
Sixty years after radioactive waste was dumped in a river in southwest Siberia, local residents are still suffering.
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford has the second of his special reports from the Chelyabinsk region.
As Russia heads to Rio+20, Bellona to spotlight Mayak as it did at the original Earth Summit in Brazil
[…]
Video from radioactive river Techa filmed by Bellona in 1992.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdRIoHYLxek&feature=player_embedded
[…]
Muslymovo resettlement
In 2005 the federal government finally set in motion a plan to resettle Muslyumovo’s remaining residents, and the Chelyabinsk Administration in 2006 picked a spot – three kilometers away and on the opposite bank of the river Techa. The other option was to take 1 million roubles (about $37,000) on offer from the federal government to buy new homes.
Irresponsibility of military “experts” and a childish plan for hand held nuclear weapons
Handheld nuclear weapons? The Army was once working on them http://perspectivesonthenews.blogs.deseretnews.com/2012/08/29/handheld-nuclear-weapons-the-army-was-once-working-on-them/ By Jay Evensen, August 29, 2012 If you check the Internet, you will find some discussion on the possibility of developing a handheld or shoulder-holstered nuclear weapon launcher. More recently, the discussion has centered on a so-called briefcase bomb that terrorists might be able to deliver undetected to a major U.S. city.
But I was amused recently to come across a very matter-of-fact discussion about the imminent development of a handheld nuclear launcher on a “Meet the Press” program broadcast Jan. 4, 1959. The guest that day was Gen. James M. Gavin , who had just resigned as chief of the Army Division of Research and Development. The questioner is John W. Finney of the New York Times. (Thanks to otrcat.com , where I purchased an archive of these shows.)
Gen. Gavin was no crackpot. He was a highly respected military man who had served with distinction during World War II and was a leading advocate for racially integrating the armed forces.
More than anything, what this clip illustrates to me is the incredible naivety the military had about nuclear bombs in the 1950s. Remember, this was the period during which above-ground tests were contaminating wide swaths of the American West and sickening its people — something the government has belatedly, and reluctantly, admitted .
Click the link below to listen to the clip, then feel thankful the general’s predictions didn’t come true. Otherwise, U.S. troops may be training Afghan soldiers today in the use of such weapons, while hoping they don’t end up in the hands of terrorists or, in any case, that soldiers could run away faster than the fallout from such a bomb could come back to get them. Meet the Press, Jan. 4, 1959
Space exploration’s radioactive mess
In Russia, the situation is even grimmer. In true Soviet fashion, the bomb makers secretly dumped unknown quantities of liquid waste into giant reservoirs around the plant. Nobody knows how much radioactive contamination is out there, but a single accident – the explosion of a waste tank in 1957 – is thought to have been Chernobyl-like in scale.
remember this, too: That little rover on Mars has left a big mess back here on Earth.
Curiosity’s dirty little secret http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/curiositys-dirty-little-secret-20120828-24xvn.html#ixzz255PEGe79 August 29, 2012 I’m as happy as anyone that the Curiosity rover got to Mars; it’s hard not to barrack for all those NASA geeks in their blue polo shirts. But before you get all apple pie about the achievement, there’s something you should know: Curiosity runs on plutonium from a Soviet-era nuclear weapons plant.
Take a look at the back of Curiosity. Other rovers have solar panels, but Curiosity doesn’t. Instead, there’s a little white thing that looks cute, almost like a tail. Inside are eight boxes filled with pellets of nuclear fuel. This stuff is hot, so hot that the boxes glow bright red, and will glow for years to come. Think of it as nuclear charcoal. The fuel will keep the rover toasty on cold Martian nights and supply it with electricity.
It’s a neat trick, and one that NASA has used before. Since the 1960s, the US has been launching nuclear-powered spacecraft. The first were military satellites. That worked swell, except that when the mission ended, you had a radioactive pile of junk orbiting the planet. And every now and then, one would fail to launch or fall back to Earth. That was bad for PR.
Murdoch news paints nuclear disasters as “not too bad, really”
Murdoch’s Journal pushes tragic Fukushima flim-flam 
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2012/1941#.UD6F7tkjq2c.twitter August 29, 2012 With every atomic reactor disaster comes the inevitable whitewash.
And Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has just painted a tragic new coat over the radioactive wasteland of atomic flim-flam. Its “Panic at Fukushima” speaks volumes to a nuclear power industry now crumbling at the core. It fits an historic pattern:
When yet another radioactive leak emits from the local nuke—no matter how serious—the official response is hard-wired to include the phrase “no danger to the public.”
When serious structural cracks surface at reactors like Ohio’s Davis-Besse or Crystal River, Florida, safety concerns are invariably dismissed with well-funded contempt.
As with fatally flawed steam generators at California’s San Onofre, if it can make an extra buck, the industry will run these reactors into the ground, safety-be-damned. Protected by federal taxpayer insurance and the bankruptcy laws, they know even a catastrophic disaster need not trouble their bottom line. Continue reading
Ban Ki-moon speaks on International Day against Nuclear Tests, August 29
Global Ban on Nuclear Tests Vital for Achieving More Secure World: UN Chief http://thesop.org/story/20120829/global-ban-on-nuclear-tests-vital-for-achieving-more-secure-world-un-chief.html By SOP newswire3 Ban Ki-moon today stressed the importance of a global ban on nuclear tests to achieve a safer and more secure world, calling on all States that have not yet done so to sign and ratify the international treaty that seeks to achieve this goal. Nuclear tests remain a threat to human health and global stability, ” Mr. Ban said in his message for the third annual International Day against Nuclear Tests, observed on 29 August.
The Day highlights the efforts of the UN and a growing community of advocates, including Member States, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, youth networks and media in informing and educating on the importance of the
nuclear-test-ban.
The General Assembly chose 29 August as the annual commemoration date since it marks the day in 1991 when Semipalatinsk, one of the largest test sites in the world and located in north-eastern Kazakhstan, was closed for good. Continue reading
Youtube: flaws in Sweden’s nuclear waste plan
Chris Busby: the Forsmark nuclear waste Repository plan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oliHTaHhDYc&feature=shareThe future of nuclear energy depends on the industry finding somewhere to put the high level waste. This is radioactive for millions of years and must be isolated from the environment. The hitherto intractable problem was apparently solved by the Swedish nuclear industry who proposed a plan to encapsulate it in copper canisters and bury it in tunnels 500m underneath the Baltic sea at Forsmark.
The full environmental impact report was released last year; the government requirements are that the company SKB show that the waste will not emerge from the canisters between 100,000 years and 1 million years.
After studying the report in detail it became clear that the design was flawed because it did not include consideration of the Helium gas produced from the alpha emitters. The volume of gas in each canister would cause it to explode long before 100,000 years resulting in the contamination of the Baltic Sea by the equivalent of 2000 Chernobyl accidents. Back to the drawing Board guys!
Paper is at
http://www.bsrrw.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/forsmark_ecrr_busby20120531.pdf
Leaked memo shows incompetence of company doing Hanford nuclear waste cleanup
“This memo details exhaustive and disturbing evidence of why Bechtel should be terminated from this project and subject to an independent investigation.”
Bechtel Incompetent To Complete Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup: DOE Memo, Forbes, Jeff McMahon, 29 Aug 12, More than 10 years into the job, Bechtel National Inc. has been described as incompetent to complete the $12.2 billion nuclear waste treatment plant at Hanford, Wa., the nation’s largest radioactive waste site, according to an internal Department of Energy memo.
In the Aug. 23 memo, the DOE official responsible for supervising engineering at the facility, Gary Brunson, calls for Bechtel to be immediately removed as the design agent for the novel Waste Treatment Plant (WTP), which was supposed to begin operation last year. Continue reading
Notorious A Q Khan to enter Pakistan politics
Pakistani scientist accused of leaking nuclear secrets starts political movement MUNIR AHMED ISLAMABAD, Globe and Mail, Pakistan — The Associated Press , Aug. 29 2012 The man who made Pakistan into a nuclear power and later admitted to leaking atomic secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya is going into politics, aiming to shake up the country ahead of national elections. Continue reading
Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s unsatisfactory handling of Davis Besse nuclear safety issuear
Congressman Kucinich Demands Investigation of Nuclear Safety Agency
http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/congressman-kucinich-demands-investigation-of-nuclear-safety-agency/
http://kucinich.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=306494 Washington, Aug 15 – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is today demanding the Inspector General of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees safety at our nation’s nuclear power plants, investigate the agency’s handling of the reopening of Davis-Besse in northern Ohio after cracks were discovered in the shield building. Continue reading
Utah’s Governor stacks Radiation Control Board with a pro nuker
Herbert’s pick has no place on radiation board http://www.tooeletranscript.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Herbert%E2%80%99s+pick+has+no+place+on+radiation+board%20&id=19956313 by Mike Abdo Aug 28, 2012 Once again, Gov. Herbert has stacked the deck against a healthier, cleaner, safer Utah. Herbert’s appointment of EnergySolutions’ Dan Shrum to the Radiation Control Board is yet another in a series of
moves to ensure that Utah becomes an international dumping ground for thousands of tons of nuclear waste.
Shrum oversees regulatory compliance for his employer. It would be a great convenience for EnergySolutions to have a voice on the board that creates the regulations with which they have to comply. Instead of having to make a reasonable case to the Radiation Control Board for their self-serving actions, EnergySolutions can now simply have rules written that favor whatever they please. Continue reading
Report from Japan’s nuclear inquiry panel avoids policy recommendations
Panel avoids tough nuclear power questions / Report refrains from policy suggestions; some members say they needed more time for discussions Daily Yomuiri, Ryosuke Yamauchi and Hironori Kanashima / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers, 30 Aug 12,
A summary report by a government panel of experts that analyzed recent public polls on future nuclear power dependency refrained from making concrete suggestions on a future energy policy, but said most people want to move away from nuclear power. Continue reading
1 This Month.
5 January -Webinar-What is Trump’s Golden Dome?
REGISTER AT Massachusetts Peace Action Education
New book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923372157?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
-
Archives
- December 2025 (249)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (377)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
- February 2025 (234)
- January 2025 (250)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 