USA’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission in crisis
Exit Jackzo: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Free Fall
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-brodsky/nuclear-regulatory-commission_b_1539797.html by Richard Brodsky, 25 May 12, The resignation of NRC Chairman Gregory Jackzo puts the issue of nuclear safety smack on the middle of Obama’s desk, and then into the presidential race.
That’s a good thing. The NRC is not doing the job that the law and common sense require it to do. It is a captive of the nuclear industry, operates in secret and without due regard for the public health and safety. The NRC’s relationship to the nuclear industry today is just what the SEC’s relationship was to Wall Street four years ago. We are skating on very thin ice. Read more »
Without waiting for safety solutions, NRC approves relicense for Pilgrim nuclear plant
“When the regulator does not follow its own rules, don’t expect that
it will require the nuclear industry to do so either. Fukushima showed
what happen,”
Nuclear Regulatory Commission OKs new 20-year license for Pilgrim nuke plant, 
Boston Herald, By Associated Press, May 25, 2012 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the renewal of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s operating license for another 20 years, the agency announced Friday, despite objections from Gov. Deval Patrick and other Massachusetts officials. The commission voted 3-1 to
authorize staff to renew the license before June 8, when the original
40-year license of the Plymouth, Mass., facility was set to expire.
Patrick called the NRC’s decision “extremely troubling.” He and other
officials, including Attorney General Martha Coakley and U.S. Reps.
Edward Markey and William Keating, had called on the NRC hold off on
renewal until all safety and environmental contentions had been
resolved. Read more »
Radiation released right after Fukushima accident was much more than first estimated
Fukushima radiation higher than first estimated, By Kevin Krolicki TOKYO May 24 (Reuters) – The radiation released in the first days of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was almost 2-1/2 times the amount first estimated by Japanese safety regulators, the operator of the crippled plant said in a report released on Thursday. Read more »
USA losing a strong advocate for nuclear safety, Gregory Jaczcko
Nuclear Power After Fukushima, May 25, 2012 The resignation of Gregory Jaczko, the embattled chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, means the country is losing a strong advocate for public safety who was always willing to challenge the nuclear industry and its political backers in Congress.
The White House’s choice to replace him, Allison Macfarlane, has strong credentials as an expert on nuclear waste and weapons. She will need to be as independent and aggressive as Dr. Jaczko. Both industry and her fellow commissioners will have to be pushed to implement necessary improvements highlighted by the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan…..
Another radioactive spill at Point Lepreau nuclear power plant
N.B. nuclear plant reports second spill in 6 months The Canadian Press 24, 2012 LEPREAU, N.B. — About 300 litres of radioactive heavy water spilled during a test at a New Brunswick nuclear power plant, making it the second spill at the site in less than six months.
NB Power said in a statement that the water spilled Monday at the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant, Atlantic Canada’s only nuclear facility…… In December, four to six lit res of radioactive heavy water spilled because of a leak at the plant, which prompted an evacuation. ….
….Point Lepreau has been out of service since March 2008 for a major refurbishment that’s meant to extend the life of the reactor by 25 years.
The project is about three years behind schedule and $1 billion over
the original $1.4-billion budget.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20120524/nuclear-power-plant-spill-120524/#ixzz1vsdrt7z3
Theft of uranium 235
Moldova: 3 Sentenced in Nuclear Case http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/world/europe/moldova-3-sentenced-in-nuclear-case.html By REUTERS May 24, 2012 A Moldovan court sentenced three people on Thursday for their part in illegal trafficking of uranium-235, which can be used in making nuclear weapons. The three were part of a five-member group seized by the police in June during what was said to be an exchange of a cylinder containing the radioactive material for cash. Intelligence services from several other countries, principally the United States, Germany and Ukraine, were involved in the case, the justice authorities in Moldova said. According to the general prosecutor’s office, a Russian woman was sentenced to three years in prison, and her accomplice got five years. A third person was fined $1,200. The group had been trying to sell about two pounds of uranium-235 for $38 million, the prosecution said. It was not clear to what degree the uranium was enriched.
Nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima’s reactor no. 4 – highly dangerous
The workers are like Samurai warriors, they’re like suicide workers. They know they are getting huge amounts of radiation going to the site. They can only go in, seconds to minutes, at a time doing work and then the next batch has to come in.
Chernobyl had a half a million workers who worked minutes at a time. Here we have a situation much worse than Chernobyl simply because we have basically five reactors that could go up. One reactor setting off the next reactor, that’s a huge amount of radiation, over ten times the radiation inventory found in Chernobyl.
“People don’t realize that the Fukushima reactor (Number 4) is on a knife’s edge; it’s near the tipping point.
includes videos and audio http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2012/05/large-crack-on-south-wall-of-fukushima-nuclear-reactor-number-four-photo/ Large 
Crack on South Wall of Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Number Four? DBKP. May 20, 2012 By LBG1 We could have adisaster much worse, many times worse than Chernobyl.” Dr. Michio Kaku on the precarious state of the spent fuel rods in the severely damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor Unit Number Four building Read more »
Severe radiation risk at Fukushima’s nuclear reactor Unit 4
Concerns focus on Fukushima unit stability TOKYO, May 23 (UPI) – Whether a pool where spent fuel is stored at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant could withstand another strong earthquake has become a source of growing concern.
The concerns among activists, experts and politicians focus on Unit 4, which contains most of the plant’s spent fuel not stored in dry, hardened storage casks, Stars and Stripes reported Wednesday.
After the 9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, an investigative report by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, an independent think tank started to investigate the causes of the plant disaster, cited among risks a loss of cooling water in Unit 4.
If left exposed, the spent fuel could heat and melt, releasing a huge amount of radiation.
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has said on its Web site Unit 4 is sound and the building could withstand an earthquake of the magnitude of the March 11, 2011, temblor.
But public trust in Tepco remains low, Stars and Stripes said, and calls for more efforts to empty and secure Unit 4 continue in Japan and beyond…… http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/05/23/Concerns-focus-on-Fukushima-unit-stability/UPI-67051337797686/#ixzz1vpwgvulJ
Fort Calhoun, just one of America’s problem nuclear reactors
In each of the last two years, at nuclear plants across the country, the NRC has uncovered about a dozen incidents that outside safety experts consider serious, from faulty plans to protect against floods to inadvertent reactor shutdowns to problems with cooling systems.
The NRC has traced many of them back to specific problems that the plant operators and the regulatory agency were aware of but never fixed.
Focus Grows on Nuclear Plant, WSJ 23 May 12,, Nebraska Reactor Illustrates Problem That Vexed Departing Federal Regulator At 9:27 a.m. on June 7, 2011, operators of the Fort Calhoun nuclear-power plant near Omaha noticed flickering lights on their control panels. A couple of minutes later, they heard the fire-extinguishing system kick in.
The fire cut off power for 90 minutes to a pool where radioactive spent-fuel rods are stored, and the pool’s temperature rose by several degrees. In the end, the fire didn’t release any radioactivity or cause major damage to the plant, which was already shut down at the
time because of flooding.
But Fort Calhoun is a prime example of a problem that has vexed departing Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko and, by his account, that never was fully resolved, Read more »
Fire on nuclear submarine
Nuclear sub catches fire in Maine Naval shipyard By Ros Krasny BOSTON May 23, 2012 (Reuters) – Fire broke out on Wednesday evening on a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarine docked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, injuring four firefighters, officials said.
The cause of the fire is not yet known, but the vessel’s nuclear reactor was not involved. There were no weapons aboard the sub, which is at the shipyard for system upgrades and maintenance.
The fire started in the “forward compartment” of the U.S.S. Miami, an attack submarine docked at the Kittery, Maine, shipyard shortly before 6 p.m. ET Firefighters were still battling the blaze after 10 p.m., with equipment brought in from as far away as Boston’s Logan International Airport, about 60 miles away…..
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/24/us-usa-submarine-fire-idUSBRE84N04I20120524
Probability of severe nuclear accidents every 10 – 20 years
The computer simulations revealed that, on average, only eight percent of the 137Cs particles are expected to deposit within an area of 50 kilometres around the nuclear accident site. Around 50 percent of the particles would be deposited outside a radius of 1,000 kilometres, and around 25 percent would spread even further than 2,000 kilometres.
These results underscore that reactor accidents are likely to cause radioactive contamination well beyond national borders.
If a single nuclear meltdown were to occur in Western Europe, around 28 million people on average would be affected by contamination of more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter. This figure is even higher in southern Asia, due to the dense populations. A major nuclear accident there would affect around 34 million people, while in the eastern USA and in East Asia this would be 14 to 21 million people.
Severe Nuclear Reactor Accidents Likely Every 10 to 20 Years, European StudySuggestshttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120522134942.htm ScienceDaily (May 22, 2012)— Western Europe has the worldwide highest risk of radioactive contamination caused by major reactor accident. Catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima are more likely to happen than previously assumed.
Based on the operating hours of all civil nuclear reactors and the number of nuclear meltdowns that have occurred, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years (based on the current number of reactors) — some 200 times more often than estimated in the past.
The researchers also determined that, in the event of such a major accident, half of the radioactive caesium-137 would be spread over an area of more than 1,000 kilometres away from the nuclear reactor. Their results show that Western Europe is likely to be contaminated about once in 50 years by more than 40 kilobecquerel of caesium-137
per square meter. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, an area is defined as being contaminated with radiation from this amount onwards. In view of their findings, the researchers call for an in-depth analysis and reassessment of the risks associated with nuclear power plants. Read more »
Shocked reaction to USA quietly watering down nuclear emergency plans
A mandate that local responders always run practice exercises for a radiation release has been eliminated – a move viewed as downright bizarre by some emergency planners. ….
These changes, while documented in obscure federal publications, went into effect with hardly any notice by the general public.
These changes, while documented in obscure federal publications, went into effect with hardly any notice by the general public.
Powering down nuclear exercises Utility Products, 20 May 12, Without fanfare, the nation’s nuclear power regulators have overhauled community emergency planning for the first time in more than three decades, requiring fewer exercises for major accidents and
recommending that fewer people be evacuated right away.
Nuclear watchdogs voiced surprise and dismay over the quietly adopted revamp – the first since the program began after Three Mile Island in 1979. Several said they were unaware of the changes until now, though they took effect in December. At least four years in the
works, the changes appear to clash with more recent lessons of last year’s reactor crisis in Japan. Read more »
Nuclear plant shut down because of jelly-fish like salps
Salps force California nuclear plant to shut down Lorianna De Giorgio Toronto Star 20 May 12, A swarm of jellyfish-like creatures called salps forced a California nuclear plant to shut down one of its reactors last month after the odd organisms clogged up the plant’s water intake system….
Salps usually live in the open ocean — far from shore. Unlike jellyfish, they don’t sting and aren’t poisonous. But a large influx of them can clog up cooling water intake systems,
which poses a threat to nuclear reactors, say experts…. The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo, Calif., temporarily shut down its unit-two reactor April 26 to May 1 because of a large number of salps in the surrounding water. The salps were getting caught in the plant’s travelling screens, clogging the intake structure where ocean water comes into cool the plant.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1179969–salps-force-california-nuclear-plant-to-shut-down
Bomb threat to Kudankulam Nuclear plant
One held in connection with Kudankulam Nuclear plant bomb threat letters DNA, May 20, 2012 One person has been arrested on charges of sending letters stating that bombs would explode inside the controversial Kudankulam Nuclear plant on May 21, police said on Sunday….. Leaders of People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, spearheading the stir
against KNPP, had said it has no role in the threat letters. http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_one-held-in-connection-with-kudankulam-nuclear-plant-bomb-threat-letters_1691454
USA makes nuclear emergency rules weaker, downplays radiation risk
local officials will no longer be accountable to train for a radiation release.
U.S. nuclear disaster preparedness relaxed with minimal disclosure Smart Planet, By David Worthington | May 17, 2012, “…. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have relaxed requirements for emergency preparedness in the first major revision of emergency planning guidelines since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979.
Revisions were published without any announcement in the Federal Register during the December 2011 holiday season. Read more »
1 THIS MONTH
- http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/?p=5755 Mary Olson on how women are more vulnerable to atomic radiation
http://soundcloud.com/flashpoints/flashpoints-daily-newsmag-05-6Fukushima reactor 4 still threatens the world Dr. Micio Kaku
of the week http://www.youtube.com/user/GoddardsJournal
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San Onofre: Bad Vibrations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP7e83MErWw&feature=share - Low-Dose Radiation ☢ NEW A-Bomb Study http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VAncqK6bl0&feature=share
“Pay-to-print”: How Media Corruption Undermines Indian Democracy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbjsQ_dYuJQ&feature=share
- VIDEO http://vimeo.com/35212151 Cancer Risk To Young Children Near Fukushima Daiichi Underestimated
- and this VIDEO Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Legacy http://www.euronews.com/2010/04/14/kazakhstan-s-nuclear-legacy/
ACTION
USA EMERGENCY PLANNING PETITION NOW OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENT
PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS IN FAVOR OF EXPANDING EMERGENCY PLANNING ZONES; IMPROVING REGULATIONS The deadline for public comments is July 16, 2012. You can submit your comments here. more information at http://nuclear-news.net/action/
- Shut down the nuclear restart. Sign now!! http://www.avaaz.org/en/japan_no_to_nuclear_restart_ms/
- Stop Kudankulam - Please sign http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=10090 –
EVENTS – USA
- May 31 - Portland, Maine, Bonnie Raitt benefit concert for New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution
The Nuclear Industry and WOMEN- theme for May 2012
Although women have rarely been part of decision-making about nuclear power, they have been at the forefront in opposing it.Women in organisations Strongly present in anti-nuclear activities in peace, environmental, religious and civil liberties, women have also formed their own anti-nuclear organisations . e.g. Women’s International League For Peace and Freedom, Women For Peace. Women Against Nuclear Power, Women Against Nuclear Energy,
“When it comes to opposing nuclear power in Finland, the toughest and most active and conspicuous resistance has been among women. A rather small group of women working as teachers, freelance editors, authors and in rather alternative professions. Women who perfectly well are aware of the fact that they are far too radical to be promoted for high posts within traditional parties or getting well-paying jobs in some big companies. Women who are not trying to reach equality on male values. These women have kept the resistance alive, have invited foreign speakers getting through in the mass media, have arranged post-card campaigns aiming at parliamentarians, have written inserts in daily newspapers, have collected signatures from organizations worldwide against nuclear power, etc.
If women had been asked if nuclear power should be used for energy production or if nuclear weapons should be produced there would hardly be any nuclear power stations in the world and no nuclear weapons. Women represent half of humanity. Our voice must be heard! “- Ulla Klötzer WISE – Nuclear issues information service service
Below, a note on some of the courageous women who have stood out against the nuclear forces and apologies for the thousands of such women who are not mentioned here
Dr Helen Caldicott. - Australia and The World. The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Dr Helen Caldicott, has devoted the last 38 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction. Helen Caldicott – About
Jean McSorley. – UK. A prolific writer and activist, Jean McSorley has advised government and environmental organisations, in the UK and abroad, for many years revealing the facts about Sellafield, and other UK nuclear facilities.
Her MajestyQueen Noor ofJordan is an international humanitarian activist and an outspoken voice on issues of world peace and justice. Today Her Majesty Queen Noor plays a major role in promoting international exchange and understanding of Arab and Muslim culture and politics, Arab-Western relations, and conflict prevention. Queen Noor | Global Zero
Ulla Klötzer - Finland. A powerful speaker and writer, Ulla Klötzer continues to oppose uranium mining, nuclear proliferation, and to expose the construction of Finlands reactor, Olkiluto OL 3 – the biggest nuclear reactor in the world.
Satomi Oba –Japan. Another leading voice for non-proliferation and disarmament was Japan’s Satomi Oba, former president of Plutonium Action Hiroshima and chair member of the international non-proliferation movement Abolition 2000. For decades before her untimely death in February 2005, Oba organized grassroots events, spoke to international groups and broke ground for other activists
Dianne Stokes – Australia An Aboriginal elder of the Yapa Yapa clan, which owns land at Muckaty in the Northern Territory, has for years continued the fight against the Australian government’s plan to put a nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land, – resisting enormous pressure from powerful interests and politicians Toxic feelings at proposed nuclear dump – National – smh.com.au
Jean Grossholtz – (USA) Professor emeritus at the Dept. of Women’s Studies, Mt. Holyoke College, Jean helped organize the Women’s Pentagon Action (1980-82) and has long been active in peace and social justice work.
Ellen Diederich –Germany A peace activist for more than three decades, Ellen Diederich is Director of the German-based International Fasia Jansen Women’s Peace Archive, an extensive collection of books, print, audio-visual and artistic resources on women and militarism and women’s action for peace, world-wide, collected over 25 years.
Corazon Valdez Fabros - Philippines A lawyer by profession, Corazon Fabros is Chairperson of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (the Secretariat of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement) and Secretary General of the Nuclear Free Philippines Coalition, which led the successful campaign to stop the nuclear power plant projects in the Philippines . Currently Philippine Coordinator of the No Nukes Asia Forum and the International Network on Military Activities and Environmental Justice.
Karen Silkwood remembered In 1974, US anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood was killed in a car crash many suspect was deliberately caused by the Kerr McGee nuclear company.Karen Silkwood will be remembered as someone who fought an uphill and often unpopular battle against the ruthless nuclear industry. She is an inspiration to all who believe in environmental justice and workers’ rights BY SHARYN JENKINS. Karen Silkwood remembered | Green Left Weekly
Much of the material here was obtained from Women and Life on Earth: English by Anna Gyorgy, Women & Life on Earth Network coordinator, English website editor. Contact: info(at)wloe.org
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