Anti nuclear protestors will target UK’s Hinkley nuclear site
EDF’s U.K. Hinkley Nuclear Power Site Faces Protests Next Month February 22, 2012, By Catherine Airlie Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — Electricite de France SA’s Hinkley Point nuclear power station in southwest England will next month be targeted by protestors against new reactors in the U.K.
The Stop New Nuclear Alliance, a grouping of campaigners who oppose nuclear power stations, plans to blockade the station for 24 hours from about 5 p.m. on March 11, Zoe Smith, a campaigner helping arrange the protest, said by telephone from Bristol today. Protesters will gather at the site from midday, she said.
“We aren’t intending to stop production but we are going to blockade the entrance,” preventing vehicles from entering the site. “We’re planning to surround the power station,” she said. The group is against EDF’s plans to build a new nuclear power station at the site,
next to the current one, which has capacity of 860 megawatts……
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-22/edf-s-u-k-hinkley-nuclear-power-site-faces-protests-next-month.html
Independent radiation monitoring – call adds to San Onofre’s woes
Both reactors at the Southern California Edison-run plant remain offline. Unit 3 was pulled from service January 31 after a radiation leak, prompting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week to call for a reactor inspection. Unit 2 was taken offline for scheduled maintenance and upgrades in January and has required the plugging of some of its steam generator tubes.
On January 27, a contract plant worker fell into a reactor pool and an ammonia leak November 1 forced SCE to issue an NRC-required alert. A “follow-up focused baseline inspection” must now be performed on Unit 3. San Clemente Times – Nuclear Critics Continue Pleas for Independent Radiation Monitors Cancer Studies
Okinawa snow event cancelled due to radiation fears
Radiation fears see Okinawa snow event cancelled Asia One News, , Feb 22, 2012 TOKYO – A Japanese city on subtropical Okinawa island was forced to cancel a traditional snow event for kids after parents said the snow shipped from the northeast may be radioactive, officials said Wednesday.
The city of Naha had planned the annual event on Thursday with the Maritime Self-Defence Force’s aircraft group, which carried more than 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds) of snow from northern Aomori prefecture.
But dozens of parents, who have fled from the disaster-hit region to the southern island in fear of radioactive contamination from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, demanded the event be cancelled…… http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20120222-329496.html
The economic benefits of renewable energy
Renewable energy has both environmental and business dividends, EPA administrator says at Stockton symposium Feb 22, 2012. Press of Atlantic City, By JOEL LANDAU, Staff Writer | GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP — Renewable energy is not only important for the country’s environmental future but the nation’s economic recovery as well, said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson… Read more »
Caution advised on international action about Iran’s nuclear plans
Russia warns against ‘hasty conclusions’ over Iran NewsDay February 22, 2012
GEORGE JAHN (Associated Press) VIENNA - – Russia said Wednesday the world should not draw “hasty conclusions” over Iran’s most recent rebuff of U.N. attempts to investigate allegations the Islamic Republic hid secret work on atomic arms, but the U.S. and its allies accused Tehran of nuclear defiance. Read more »
Chaos in information after the Fukushima nuclear accident
Fukushima Disaster Left U.S. NRC Confused, Documents Show Bloomberg, February 22, 2012, “…….More than 3,000 pages of transcripts released yesterday by the NRC show the agency was struggling to assess the severity of Japan’s nuclear disaster, even as it gave the White House a recommendation for U.S. citizens to evacuate within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the damaged reactors. Read more »
Nuclear energy unaffordable and unwise, for Kenya
Heed UN caution on nuclear energy quest, Business Daily, February 19 2012, The government may have stumbled in its quest for nuclear energy after the United Nations cautioned it last week against entering the venture.The government announced plans to start generating nuclear energy for her electricity needs by 2020. It plans to construct a plant along the Coast and is awaiting approval from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
While we believe it is prudent to look for other alternative and viable energy sources, given that the hydro-electric power that provides around 65 per cent of the country’s needs is not reliable especially during periods of drought, the government should adopt cheaper and renewable sources.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, Kenya has other sustainable sources of energy that can meet her needs. We believe that the agency has a point as what the government needs to do is to invest more in renewable energy sources like wind and geothermal.
It should also heed the caution from the UN that the cost of decommissioning a power plant is quite prohibitive and that there are no permanent disposal sites form nuclear waste.
The UN says that the cost of decommissioning a nuclear plant would currently cost close to a trillion shillings, which begs the question; can Kenya afford it?… http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion+++Analysis/Heed+UN+caution+on++nuclear+energy+quest++/-/539548/1330980/-/j8yg5z/-/
UK government disregards the danger of nuclear reactors
In the UK, the government is determined to push ahead with the development of a new fleet of nuclear reactors, as the partnership announced by David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy shows.
The orchestrated effort between coalition officials and the nuclear industry to create a pro-nuclear public information campaign in the days after Fukushima showed that not even a large-scale nuclear incident could halt ministers’ obsession with new nuclear. Officials did not even wait for the results of the government’s own safety review before rushing to assure the British people that a similar disaster is not possible in the UK.
Why we must phase out nuclear power The inherent risk in the use of nuclear energy can and does have disastrous consequences, Guardian UK, Caroline Lucas, Rebecca Harms, Dany Cohn-Bendt, 18 Feb While global attention has long since shifted elsewhere, the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima is far from over. This is the nature of nuclear accidents: they leave a long-lasting radioactive legacy.
One year on, the situation is not under control. The announcement by the Japanese government that the damaged reactors were in a state of “cold shutdown” was met with scepticism and anger from a concerned public – and with disbelief among nuclear experts. Read more »
Japan’s former Prime Minister an apostle for renewable energy, not nuclear
Nuclear crisis turns Japan ex-PM Kan into energy apostle By Linda Sieg and Yoko Kubota TOKYO | Fri Feb 17, 2012 (Reuters) - Nearly a year after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, then-premier Naoto Kan is haunted by the specter of an even bigger crisis forcing tens of millions of people to flee Tokyo and threatening the nation’s existence.
“Having experienced the 3/11 nuclear disaster, I changed my way of thinking. The biggest factor was how at one point, we faced a situation where there was a chance that people might not be able to live in the capital zone including Tokyo and would have to evacuate,” Kan told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
“If things had reached that level, not only would the public have had to face hardships but Japan’s very existence would have been in peril.”
That convinced Kan, in office for less than a year when the March 11 triple disaster struck, to declare the need for Japan to end its reliance on atomic power and promote renewable sources of energy such solar that have long taken a back seat in the resource-poor country’s
energy mix….. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/us-japan-kan-idUSTRE81G08P20120217
UK firm Centrica’s investors might not be happy about nuclear plans
Centrica faces big questions on nuclear despite Franco-British summit, Telegraph UK 18 Feb 12, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy invoked the spirit of entente cordiale on Friday in Paris, reaffirming their countries’ commitment to building Britain’s new fleet of nuclear power plants. By Damian Reece, Head of Business 17 Feb 2012
There were supporting statements from blue-chip corporate names such as Rolls-Royce on this side of the English Channel and EDF and Areva on their side of la Manche. All was fusion.
But behind the political smiles lies an increasingly tense reality which throws into question everything the Coalition is trying to achieve in its National Policy Statement on energy, approved by Parliament in July.
The are several risks, none of which Friday’s Franco-British summit addressed. Read more »
A non hysterical approach to the Iran nuclear issue
Old fears cloud Western views on Iran’s nuclear posturing, Sydney Morning Herald, John Mueller, February 18, 2012 Alarmism about nuclear proliferation is fairly common coin in the foreign policy establishment. And of late it has been boosted by the seeming efforts of Iran or its friends to answer covert
assassinations, apparently by Israel, with attacks and attempted attacks of their own in India, Georgia and Thailand.
A non-hysterical approach to the Iran nuclear issue is entirely possible. It should take several considerations into account. Read more »
The lives of Fukushima nuclear refugees on film
Read The Wall Street Journal’s profile of all three Fukushima documentaries.
‘Nuclear Nation’ Examines Lives of Fukushima Refugees WSJ, FEBRUARY 17, 2012, “Nuclear Nation” is one of three documentaries showing at the Berlin Film Festival tracing the fate of those affected by the Fukushima tsunami and subsequent nuclear meltdown on March 11, 2011. The lengthy, 145-minute documentary (soon available in a truncated version) follows several of the 1400 refugees from Futaba living in defunct Kisai High School, with interviews as recent as December. Speakeasy sat down with director Atushi Funahashi to discuss his film…..
There’s a scene in the documentary where Futaba citizens protest their situation, and politicians merely stand there, some even awkwardly clapping. You show a lot of politicians preoccupied with keeping up an appearance of calm, often remaining totally silent…..
I hope this shows the miserable situation these people have to go through. I thought Japan was a civilized country, but it’s not…The central capital is exploiting the rural area. The power generated in Fukushima has been almost all sent to Tokyo. The people in Fukushima were the ones working [so hard]. There are many people saying the people [in Fukushima] took these subsidies to build new [academic and athletic] centers and they got rich, that they’re now in this refugee camp, but it was their own risk and it’s their fault. But I want to question that. Read The Wall Street Journal’s profile of all three Fukushima documentaries. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/02/17/nuclear-nation-examines-lives-of-fukushima-refugees/
British and French govts getting together to promote the nuclear industry
Britain and France to sign nuclear power deal at summit Google News, By Dave Clark (AFP) –17 Feb 12 PARIS — Britain and France were to strike a landmark cooperation deal on civil nuclear energy at a summit between Prime Minister David Cameron and President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday, officials said. France and Britain have often clashed recently over economic policy in the eurozone, an area in which Paris is much closer to Berlin, but they are still close partners in defence and now plan to share nuclear expertise.
A nuclear Iran is not an act of war, is not the end of Israel
A nuclear Iran and Israel Acquiring nuclear weapons is not an act of war, Seattle Times, Dale McCracken, February 15, 2012 Israel has too much power over America. Israel should not be allowed to attack Iran
The United States should use its armed forces in the region to prevent an attack on Iran.
It is necessary to think the unthinkable in this situation. Even if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, Israel will have massive superiority for decades, if not permanently. In a nuclear conflict Israel would totally destroy Iran, while suffering minimal damage. For this reason
it will never happen.
A nuclear Iran is not the end of Israel. Madmen arguments are not valid. Adolf Hitler committed suicide and took his nation to defeat rather than use his massive nerve gas arsenal. The most likely outcome of a nuclear Iran will be a regional cold war between Iran and Israel.
Iran has suffered much from the duplicity of several nations. Acquiring nuclear weapons is not an act of war. An attack on Iran by Israel would be an evil act that could have a detrimental effect on Jews throughout the world. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/northwestvoices/2017512698_anucleariranandisrael.html
The mental scars for Fukushima radiation evacuees
Japan Earthquake Anniversary: Nuclear Evacuees Scarred By Disaster One Year Later Huffington Post: 2/13/12 “….Nearly a year has passed since a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit Japan, Okuma town, but the site of the reactors at the centre of the Fukushima nuclear crisis remains off limits for residents, save for short trips to hastily abandoned homes.
For the about 11,000 residents of Okuma, and the nearly 80,000 people across the prefecture who have been unable to return to their homes due to high radiation, the mental scars run deep even though many of their homes are physically intact.
Many do not know when, if ever, they can return to land that has been in their families for generations…….
The Japanese government declared the Daiichi nuclear plant to be in a state of “cold shutdown” late last year but the Environment Ministry has said about 2,400 square km (930 square miles) of land around the plant may need to be decontaminated — an area roughly the size of Luxembourg…. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/japan-earthquake-anniversary_n_1272447.html#254326
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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