Nuclear radiation and water pollution – theme for February 2012
What you are not supposed to know:It doesn’t take an accident for a nuclear power plant to release radioactivity into our air, water and soil. All it takes is the plant’s everyday routine operation, and federal regulations permit these radioactive releases…
.Government regulations allow radioactive water to be released to the environment containing “permissible” levels of contamination. Permissible does not mean safe.Detectors at reactors are set to allow contaminated water to be released, unfiltered, if below “permissible” legal levels.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission relies upon self-reporting and computer modeling from reactor operators to track radioactive releases and their projected dispersion. A significant portion of the environmental monitoring data is extrapolated – virtual, not real.Accurate accounting of all radioactive wastes released to the air, water and soil from the entire reactor fuel production system is simply not available. http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/routineradioactivereleases.htm
Nuclear disaster and fresh water : The risk of radioactive releases into fresh water water through a nuclear accident is an ever present danger. Drinking water for millions of people could be contaminated.
Sea water From Fukushima huge amounts of contaminated water accumulated during efforts to cool the reactors, with much of it reaching the sea, and radiation has been found in fish, seaweed and other seafood.
“At least 462 trillion becquerels of radioactive strontium have leaked to the Pacific Ocean since the March disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, making it one of the world’s most severe such cases of marine pollution, according to calculations by The Asahi Shimbun newspaper. http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/over-462-trillion-becquerels-fukushima-strontium-pacific-ocean-seafood-risk?CID=examiner_alerts_article
Nuclear power and WATER – theme for February 2012
Effects of uranium mining and nuclear power on water.
Overuse of precious fresh water.One of the greatest dangers of the nuclear/uranium industry is in its use of water. Both uranium mining and nuclear reactors require enormous amounts of water. This is a threat to the world’s scarce resources of fresh water.
Pollution. Both uranium mining and nuclear reactors also pollute water. In uranium mining, water is often used to pour over radioactive dust tailings: radioactive water can leach down into groundwater. In the “in situ leach” process, radioactive water is disposed of into the aquifer.
Nuclear reactors use water for cooling – the resulting hot water is released into the source, river, or coastal sea, to thermally pollute the area, damaging plants and fish.
Effects of water scarcity, and hot water on nuclear reactors.. In heat waves, nuclear reactors often will need to be shut down, as their river sources of cooling water become too warm to function as a coolant.
As global warming brings about a rise in average temperatures and ocean levels, inland reactors will increasingly contribute to, and be affected by, water shortages. During the record-breaking 2003 heat wave in France, operations at 17 commercial nuclear reactors had to be scaled back or stopped because of rapidly rising temperatures in rivers and lake. Spain’s reactor at Santa María de Garoña was shut for a week in July 2006 after high temperatures were recorded in the Ebro River.
Paradoxically, then, the very conditions that made it impossible for the nuclear industry to deliver full power in Europe in 2003 and 2006 created peak demand for electricity, owing to the increased use of air conditioning. http://chellaney.net/2011/03/14/paradox-of-nuclear-power-water-guzzler-yet-vulnerable-to-water/
Seawater can be used to cool reactors, but it has to be purified. Corrosive elements in the seawater would otherwise ruin the reactors – so seawater is a last resort for cooling. As in the case of the Fukushima emergency – seawater was used, as ruining the reactors was preferable to a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.
NUCLEAR LIES – theme for January 2012
In 2012 the world is on the cusp of a move to rid the world of nuclear dangers, or a move to cover up these dangers and prolong or expand the nuclear threat.
The positive, and truthful move will mean a huge program to close down the nuclear industry, to get rid of nuclear weapons, and to deal with the huge problem of the existing nuclear wastes.
The other way, the negative move will be to allow nuclear lies to prevail. It will mean getting the world to:
- forget Fukushima,
- deny and abandon those damaged by ionising radiation
- push on with ever more consumption of energy and material products
- accept the lying nuclear “experts” as respectable authorities
- accept that nuclear weapons are “safety”
And, how do we answer our grandchildren, when they ask “What did you do when there was a chance to stop it?”
Nuclear lies – theme for January 2012
In 2012 in their desperate struggle to keep the nuclear industry alive, corporations, governments, academia and media will trot out the same old lies, plus a few newer ones.
The new ones will be:
1. to downplay the prospects for renewable energy and energy efficiency – lies about costs, about “base load” power.
2. to tout the safety of new nuclear technology, such as “small modular thorium nuclear reactors”.
3. More subtly than lies – the nuclear lobby uses OMISSIONS – watch how in 2012 the topics of Fukushima, and nuclear waste, fade from mention in the media, even though they are still topics of critical importance.
Peace – nuclear disarmament – theme for December 2011
Nuclear disarmament would be a long-overdue step towards a more peaceful and secure future. It would also liberate a wealth of national treasure and scientific expertise that could be redirected toward the promotion of smart and sustainable carbon-free energy technologies.
However, as long as the U.S. continues to plan for “winning” a nuclear war, maintains plans for pre-emptive nuclear strikes, and works to expand its nuclear arsenal, other countries will have an incentive to pursue their own nuclear options. -excerpt from Nuclear Roulette: The Case Against a “Nuclear Renaissance”http://ifg.org/pdf/Nuclear_Roulette_book.pdf
Peace on a Nuclear Free Earth – theme for December 2011
Peace on Earth to people of good will
But what is good will? How is it shown? The 
answer is in respect for one another. Respect means listening to the other’s point of view, and clearly saying your own point of view. It means discussion, argument – communication.
It can be difficult and time consuming. It often seems easier to just hit someone, show them who’s boss, as we have seen in countless Hollywood films – where might is right.
Communication is the alternative to war - and people use communication to get along, and resolve differences – at home, in the community, the region – and nationally and internationally.
The world is pretty much at the crossroads now. Some Israeli and USA politicians threaten military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran threatens retaliation. North Korea continues to be a nuclear weapons worry and China, India, USA, Russia, UK ramp up their nuclear weapons. Threats, decisions for violent action – it all seems simpler quicker, easier – easier than communication, negotiation, diplomacy.
The global movement for clean, non nuclear energy – theme for November 2011
There is a global zeitgeist, or widespread feeling of enthusiasm for clean energy, and of rejection of the dirty, dangerous, nuclear industry. This can’t be measured, but it does exist. In country after country, while governments are beholden to the nuclear lobby, the people are not fooled.
People are appreciating the value of renewable energy systems, centralised ones, coming through the grid, and decentralised, local, ones, with solar or wind energy coming straight to the user.. Households, businesses, farms benefit also in selling energy back to the grid, through their small local solar or wind technologies. Such small decentralised technologies are being taken up in developing countries, where there is no grid, bringing energy with the FREE fuel of sun and wind.
Even more importantly, energy efficiency and energy conservation are being taken up, as people find that this saves money, too. The culture of endless consumption is now questioned.
World-wide, the public becomes more distrustful of the nuclear industry. Private investment shuns it. People are waking up to the lies of the nuclear lobby: the lie that nuclear power is “clean”, that it’s “safe”, that it’s “renewable”, that it has “no connection” with nuclear weapons.
People are increasingly waking up to nuclear cover-ups, nuclear corruption, and nuclear bribery of politicians. Governments that are beholden to the nuclear lobby are increasingly distrusted. The current wave of opposition to the big corporations includes opposition to the power of nuclear corporations over governments.
The Fukushima nuclear catastrophe continues to influence people away from nuclear power. This , and the global economic problems make the nuclear industry look more and more like a colossal waste of tax-payers’ money. And, underlying this, the continued work of anti- nuclear groups, over decades has pushed on this groundswell of public feeling.
Success of the anti nuclear, clean energy movement – theme for November 2011
The worldwide nuclear mafia now faces the rising economic success of 21st Century renewable energy technologies, alongside the plummeting economic failure of nuclear energy.
The corporate power system that dominates the world economy, and world politics still promotes nuclear power and nuclear weapons – but they know they are up against the unaffordable financial costs. Money is what matters to them.
But money is not the whole story. The nuclear lobby consists of relatively few individuals – middle aged (mainly white) men, in business suits, in love with their own careers and monetary gain.
They don’t know who they’re up against – people in their millions who oppose the nuclear industry- people who “don’t matter” – women, young people, poor indigenous people
These millions include the poorly educated, and the highly educated, people of all colours, languages and religions -but all having respect for their precious land and water, and for the future of the world’s children. They matter, and they will prevail.
Plutonium – the most toxic radioactive nuclear substance – theme for October 2011
Plutonium is a manmade element created in nuclear reactors. Plutonium is fiendishly toxic. A speck of it the size of a pollen grain, if caught in the lungs after inhalation or in bone after ingestion, can cause cancer. A severe reactor accident with plutonium-based MOX fuel in one-third of the core will result in 100% more latent cancer fatalities than if the core was made up entirely of conventional uranium fuel. Such an accident with an all-MOX core would kill 300% more people than with an all-uranium core……Pu Threat
Nuclear Power – the battle for hearts and minds – public opinion, Sept 11
So far, the nuclear lobby has bought the hearts and minds of governments, but has not won the hearts and minds of the people. In a propaganda war, as in all wars, truth is the first victim. But there are many journalists and others out there who will counter the lies of the nuclear industry.
Today, across the world, the nuclear industry is unpopular. It is particularly unpopular with women, and with indigenous peoples. It’s unpopular with those who have suffered from it, such as the veterans who attended nuclear bomb tests, and the ‘downwinders’ who suffered from those same tests. It’s unpopular with families afflicted with cancer from uranium mining. It’s unpopular with Ukrainians and Japanese whose lives have been disrupted by nuclear disasters.
The nuclear industry is also unpopular higher up in the social food chain. Many academics, economists, scientists, and doctors are concerned about the dangers of all kinds that are intrinsic to the nuclear industry.
So who does like the nuclear industry? – careerists in the nuclear industry, careerists in politics, academia, careerists in the Murdoch media, highly paid uranium workers, communities that exist only because of mining, - (the latter can’t really afford not to support it).
The nuclear industry, following in the footsteps of the tobacco and asbestos industries will now blanket its servant mass media, and any other possible avenues – such as education, and politics, - with propaganda.
The main focus of the nuclear lobby’s propaganda? This will be RADIATION. Right from 1945 onwards, the nuclear lobby has obscured the truth about the health effects of ionising radiation. Now they are stepping this up -even funding dodgy research to portray “low level radiation” as “good for you”
They’re spending an awful lot of money on this. Despite this huge investment in deception, the nuclear lobby is not winning.
Nuclear Power and PUBLIC OPINION – theme for September 2011
The nuclear industry is in top gear, trying to win the hearts and minds of people. But, it’s not succeeding. Sadly, it is winning (through expensive lobbying and funding) the hearts and minds of politicians - and of course, all those whose career depends on nuclear power.
The nuclear lobby is not keen on public opinion polling. And for good reason. The most recent global polling comes up with 62% of people worldwide. opposed to nuclear power.
Of course, this poll is not totally accurate, in every detail. And there are gaps – what do the people think, in totalitarian China, or Iran?
But, it must be a worry to the nuclear industry, that so many scientists, from so many disciplines – medical, climate, environmental, radiological, now oppose nuclear power. Not to mention the economists, who point out the costs of the total nuclear fuel cycle.
In the coming months, the nuclear lobby will go all out to change public opinion. Their biggest push will be to downplay the health effects of ionising radiation, and to push the continuing Fukushima radiation disaster onto the back burner – or preferably get the mass media to forget Fukushima.
The nuclear lobby will even push the idea that nuclear radiation is beneficial – even is a prevention and a treatment for various illnesses.
But it will be an uphill fight, for the global trend is now to distrust the nuclear industry, and for good reason.
NUCLEAR POWER and NUCLEAR WEAPONS – theme for August 2011
2011 marks the 15th anniversary of the International Court of Justice’s landmark advisory opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The court unanimously held that nations have a legal obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control…..
The recent nuclear power crisis in Fukushima has alerted governments and public across the world to the inherent dangers of nuclear technology for electricity production. ICAN points out that the starting material is the same and the effects of radiation are completely indiscriminate and identical whether it is radiation from a nuclear reactor or a nuclear bomb. …http://www.indepthnews.net/news/news.php?key1=2011-07-15%2015:26:30&key2=1
NUCLEAR POWER – WEAPONS AND WAR – theme for August 2011
“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” - J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientist and “father of the bomb”
On the morning of 6 August 1945, the first atomic bomb, code-named “Little Boy” was dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later the United States dropped a plutonium bomb code-named “Fat Man” on the city of Nagasaki. 140,000 people (almost all civilians) died in Hiroshima either immediately or within a few days. Deaths in Nagasaki were about 74,000. The survivors lived on, some with horrifying burns scars, some to die of radiation-induced illnesses
Following the war, many scientists involved in the atomic bomb project, turned to the “atoms for peace” program – nuclear power. They did this partly out of guilt, partly to continue to be employed. (Where would a nuclear physicist get a job, otherwise? Well, some were happy to continue with nuclear weapons development)
Nuclear weapons are an inevitable by-product of the nuclear power industry
Nuclear power and climate change – theme for July 2011
As well as radioactive wastes, the uranium/nuclear industry releases greenhouse gases, increasing global warming.
At successive steps in the uranium/nuclear cycle, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. This is shown above, with black dots as the carbon rising. The industry also uses enormous amounts of fuel – as electricity and in the huge amounts of oil in transporting uranium, nuclear fuel and wastes.
Nuclear Power and Climate Change – theme for July 2011
Nuclear power and sea level rise – All reactors on sea coasts endangered by sea level rise Over the next hundred years there will be significant sea rises, one meter or more, and many closed nuclear reactor sites could be flooded, including the stored nuclear waste. That could contaminate much of the coast lines for decades.
1 THIS MONTH
profile of all three Fukushima documentaries.
of the week: http://sanonofresafety.org/blog/
A website to watch: http://hormesishistory.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/radiation-hormesis-and-adaptive-response-definitions/ Here’s a brand new website. It’s for anyone who wants background knowledge on ionising radiation. It will bust the spin of the current propaganda campaign promoting bodgie pseudoscience. – “radiation hormesis” and “adaptive response” are the latest spin designed by the nuclear industry to reassure us that low level ionising radiation is OK.
EVENTS
March 2012 is “March Against Nuclear Madness” and Beyond Nuclear has created a new March Against Nuclear Madness Facebook page.
March 8th & 9th – Cape Town, South Africa - The Global Conference: Nuclear Power For Africa? http://koebergalert.org/npfree/
March 11 _ UK – Protest at Hinkley nuclear site
May 31 USA - Portland, Maine, Bonnie Raitt benefit concert for New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution
Nuclear power and water – theme for February 2012
Effects of uranium mining and nuclear power on water.
Overuse of precious fresh water.One of the greatest dangers of the nuclear/uranium industry is in its use of water. Both uranium mining and nuclear reactors require enormous amounts of water. This is a threat to the world’s scarce resources of fresh water.
Pollution. Both uranium mining and nuclear reactors also pollute water. In uranium mining, water is often used to pour over radioactive dust tailings: radioactive water can leach down into groundwater. In the “in situ leach” process, radioactive water is disposed of into the aquifer.
Flooding rain can cause overflow and radioactive pollution of waterways.
Nuclear reactors use water for cooling – the resulting hot water is released into the source, river, or coastal sea, to thermally pollute the area, damaging plants and fish.
Effects of water (too little or too much) on nuclear reactors.
Water scarcity, and hot water.. In heat waves, nuclear reactors often will need to be shut down, as their river sources of cooling water become too warm to function as a coolant.
As global warming brings about a rise in average temperatures and ocean levels, inland reactors will increasingly contribute to, and be affected by, water shortages. During the record-breaking 2003 heat wave in France, operations at 17 commercial nuclear reactors had to be scaled back or stopped because of rapidly rising temperatures in rivers and lake. Spain’s reactor at Santa María de Garoña was shut for a week in July 2006 after high temperatures were recorded in the Ebro River.
Paradoxically, then, the very conditions that made it impossible for the nuclear industry to deliver full power in Europe in 2003 and 2006 created peak demand for electricity, owing to the increased use of air conditioning. http://chellaney.net/2011/03/14/paradox-of-nuclear-power-water-guzzler-yet-vulnerable-to-water/
Seawater can be used to cool reactors, but it has to be purified. Corrosive elements in the seawater would otherwise ruin the reactors – so seawater is a last resort for cooling. As in the case of the Fukushima emergency – seawater was used, as ruining the reactors was preferable to a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.
Too much water. It is a laugh that nuclear power is touted as a solution to global warming More likely, global warming is the death knell for nuclear power.
Very many nuclear reactors are located along coastlines, where they are vulnerable to storms, hurricanes, and tsunamis. With climate change and rising sea levels, these events are becoming more frequent and more extreme.
So far, we have considered water only as it relates to only the normal operations of nuclear reactors. Even then, nuclear reactors have leaks, especially as they age, allowing radioactive substances to disperse into water systems.
Uranium mines are vulnerable to flooding. When this happens, the disaster is an economic one, as well as environmental. Canada’s Cameco company and Energy Resources of Australia have found this out to their cost. Both uranium companies are still in financial plight due to the Cigar Lake (Canada) floods of 2006, and 2008, and the Ranger mine (Australia) floods of 2011.
But Fukushima has shown the world how a natural climate event can disrupt nuclear power. In the event of a nuclear accident the effects of nuclear power on water are hugely damaging, catastrophic.
Some figures and facts on nuclear/uranium and water.
URANIUM MINING Water use in a typical uranium mine is approximately 200 to 300 gallons per minute, In water-short Australia, BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine has been for years taking 35 million litres of water each day from the underground aquifer, at no cost whatever. When BHP digs its new biggest hole in the world, it will pay a small fixed price for removing even greater amounts, exceeding 42 million litres.
A typical 1000-megawatt pressurized-water reactor (with a cooling tower) takes in 20,000 gallons of river, lake or ocean water per minute for cooling, circulates it through a 50-mile maze of pipes, returns 5,000 gallons per minute to the same body of water, and releases the remainder to the atmosphere as vapor. A 1000-megawatt reactor without a cooling tower takes in even more water–as much as one-half million gallons per minute. The discharge water is contaminated with radioactive elements in amounts that are not precisely known or knowable, but are biologically active.
Some radioactive fission gases, stripped from the reactor cooling water, are contained in decay tanks for days before being released into the atmosphere through filtered rooftop vents. Some gases leak into the power plant buildings’ interiors and are released during periodic “purges” and “ventings.” These airborne gases contaminate not only the air, but also soil and water.
200 billion gallons of water withdrawn from America’s water supply each day for every terawatt of electricity produced by nuclear reactors,
At least 20 USA nuclear plants have admitted leakage of radioactive tritium into the groundwater.
Spills and leaks are common at In Situ Leach mines. The South Australian Department of Primary Industry and Resources lists 59 spills at Beverley mine from 1998 to 2007.
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