Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs

Low level radiation research  Studies of the Mortality of Atomic Bomb Survivors, Report 14 finds that the linear theory of radiation holds good, –  as low doses increase, cancer risk increases.

Japan The Oi municipal assembly passed a new resolution Monday to restart Unit 3 and 4 reactors. Anti nuclear activists determined to continue their struggle. Japan still may get through summer without nuclear power –  this would be a blow to nuclear and uranium industries.   Radiation levels continue to increase in Tokyo Bay.

UK  Controversy over what to do with Britain’s huge amount of highly radioactive wastes. Govt offering incentives to counties to ‘welcome’ a waste dump.  Shepway District Council  wants the community to accept a waste dump on the wetlands of Romney Marsh in Kent – but is meeting much opposition.     UK government trying to give French nuclear company EDF a subsidy, but make it look like not a subsidy. UK govt wary about France’s new somewhat anti nuclear President.

USA. The ORC International survey find that the majority of Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, want renewable energy, and the phasing out of coal and nuclear.  Military experts call for reduction in spending on nuclear weapons .   USA quietly weakens its nuclear emergency procedures New Vogtle nuclear power project runs into trouble – huge cost overrun and delay.

India. A Member of Parliament calls for the scrapping of the nuclear power programme.

Africa. Uranium miners striking for better conditions and wages in Malawi, Namibia and Niger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VAncqK6bl0&feature=share

 Low-Dose Radiation ☢ NEW A-Bomb Study

The most important finding regarding the late effects of A-bomb radiation exposure on mortality is an increased risk of cancer mortality throughout life

Significant radiation-associated increases in risk have been seen for most sites of solid cancer. The dose–response relationship for these sites has tended to show an approximately linear increase with radiation dose. The relative risks for many cancer sites were higher in those exposed as children. 

Studies of the Mortality of Atomic Bomb Survivors, Report 14, 1950–2003: http://www rrjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.1667/RR2629.1 An Overview of Cancer and Noncancer Diseases

Kotaro Ozasa, a,1 Yukiko Shimizu, a Akihiko Suyama, a Fumiyoshi Kasagi, a,b Midori Soda, a Eric J. Grant, a Ritsu Sakata, a Hiromi Sugiyama a and Kazunori Kodama c a Department of Epidemiology and c Chief Scientist, Radiation Effects Research Foundation, 5-2 Hijiyama-koen, Minami-ku, Hiroshima, 732-0815, Japan; and b Institute of Radiation Epidemiology, Radiation Effects Association 1-9-16, Kaji-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 101-0044, Japan

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Evacs and drills pared near nuke plants, Bloomberg, By JEFF DONN, 17 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.

The revamp, the first since the program began after Three Mile Island in 1979, also eliminates a requirement that local responders always practice for a release of radiation.
At least four years in the works, the changes appear to clash with more recent lessons of last year’s reactor crisis in Japan.

Under the new rules, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, which run the program together, have
added one new exercise: More than a decade after the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, state and community police will now take part in exercises
that prepare for a possible assault on their local plant.
Still, some emergency officials say this new exercise doesn’t go far enough.

And some view as downright bizarre the idea that communities will now
periodically run emergency scenarios without practicing for any
significant release of radiation.

These changes, while documented in obscure federal publications, went
into effect in December with hardly any notice by the general public.

An Associated Press investigative series in June exposed weaknesses in
the U.S. emergency planning program. The stories detailed how many
nuclear reactors are now operating beyond their design life under
rules that have been relaxed to account for deteriorating safety
margins. The series also documented considerable population growth
around nuclear power plants and limitations in the scope of exercises.
For example, local authorities assemble at command centers where they
test communications, but they do not deploy around the community,
reroute traffic or evacuate anyone as in a real emergency.

The latest changes, especially relaxed exercise plans for 50-mile emergency zones, are being flayed by some local planners and activists who say the widespread contamination in Japan from last year’s Fukushima nuclear accident screams out for stronger planning in the
United States, not weaker rules……
The Japanese disaster reinforced such worries when officials told some
towns beyond 12 miles from the disabled plant to evacuate. The U.S.
government recommended that Americans stay at least 50 miles from the
plant. Soil and crops were contaminated for scores of miles around. At
one point, health authorities in Tokyo, 140 miles away, advised
families not to give children the local water, which was contaminated
by fallout to twice the government limit for infants….
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-05/D9UPSAI00.htm

Who will bury Britain’s nuclear waste in their backyard? The Telegraph, 17 May 12, 

More than 60 years after the dawn of the nuclear age, no civil nuclear waste has yet been disposed of permanently underground anywhere in the world. Governments have struggled to find any local population willing to risk the dangers of radioactivity …..

The Department for Energy and Climate Change asked councils to “volunteer” to store nuclear waste four years ago, following the “Managing Radioactive Waste Safely” White Paper. The request was met with silence, until three West Cumbrian councils suggested that they might be willing to store more waste around the existing Sellafield power station.

Now Shepway district council has also expressed an interest in the £12 billion project. But first the local community must be persuaded, before a formal expression of interest can be put forward this September; this would be followed by a lengthy consultation and
investigations into the geological viability of the area. The sweetener for the locals would be jobs: Romney Marsh has double the levels of unemployment of the rest of rural Kent….
Energy companies say that nuclear waste transported by train would be
stored in special flasks that would protect it in an accident.
However, protesters fear terrorist attacks, natural disasters or even simple human mistakes still risk a leak of radioactive waste…..

1,000 years of climate data confirms Australia’s warming  http://phys.org/news/2012-05-years-climate-australia.html  May 17, 2012 By Alvin Stone In the first study of its kind in Australasia, scientists used 27 natural climate records to create the first large-scale temperature reconstruction for the region over the past 1,000 years. The study led by researchers at the University of Melbourne, used a range of natural indicators including tree rings, corals and ice cores to study Australasian temperatures over the past millennium. They then compared these with climate model simulations.

Dr. Stephen Phipps, a researcher with UNSW’s Climate Change Research Centre and the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science led the climate model simulation research. He said the results showed there were no other warm periods in the past 1,000 years that match the warming experienced in Australasia since 1950.

“Our study revealed that recent warming in a 1,000-year context is highly unusual and cannot be explained by natural factors alone, suggesting a strong influence of human-caused climate change in the Australasian region,” Dr. Phipps said.

The study published in the Journal of Climate will form the Australasian region’s contribution to the 5th IPCC climate change assessment report chapter on past climate.

Lead researcher, Dr. Joelle Gergis from the University of Melbourne said using  ‘palaeoclimate’ or natural records, such as tree rings, corals and ice cores, are fundamental in evaluating regional and global climate variability over centuries before direct temperature records started in 1910.

Dr. Gergis collated these natural records provided by decades of work by more than 30 researchers from Australia, New Zealand and around the world.

The reconstruction was developed using 27 natural climate records calculated in 3,000 different ways to ensure that the results were robust.

She said reconstructions of regional temperature not only provide a climate picture of the past but also a significant platform to reduce uncertainties associated with future climate variability.

The study is part of a global collaboration, PAGES, Past Global Changes Regional 2K initiative, which is working to reconstruct the past 2,000 years of climate across every region in the world in order to reduce uncertainties associated with future climate change projections.

Collaborators include the Climate Change Research Centre and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales where the climate modelling was conducted.

Activists Brace for Long War Against Nuclear Power, By Suvendrini Kakuchi TOKYO, May 17, 2012 (IPS) – For the past two decades Masao Ishiji (59), has been fighting tooth and nail to ban the operation of four nuclear reactors that dot the western coastline of Oi in the Fukui prefecture facing the Japan Sea.

Earlier this week, that desperate battle reached a critical front. When the Oi municipal assembly passed a new resolution Monday to restart Unit 3 and 4 reactors that had been closed for a year for stress tests, anti-nuclear activists knew they had reached a crucial juncture in their fight to eradicate nuclear power from the country. 

“The new Oi decision is a blow to the anti-nuclear movement,” explained Yuki Sekimoto of Greenpeace, Japan. ” It is also a stark reminder of the excruciating position faced by the local residents. They have to chose between their jobs or stopping nuclear power, a very unfair situation.” ….
Local surveys conducted by Ishiji and his supporters from Wakasa, a town of 9000 people sandwiched between the Oi reactors, indicate residents are torn between loosing their jobs and facing a possible accident similar to the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe caused by a massive earthquake and tsunami last March.

More than 90 percent of the 400 people polled said they were concerned about the lack of a safe evacuation plan in the face of another earthquake severe enough to damage reactors.

But the risk of ordinary people like local shopkeepers and innkeepers, who cater to the nuclear industry, loosing their jobs, also remains a grave threat.

“These are their biggest concerns. The Oi decision to restart the reactors has created a tense situation in the surrounding areas,” Ishiji reported at a large meeting of anti-nuclear NGOs in Tokyo on Tuesday. ….
The building of reactors was accompanied by generous subsidies from the central government for the construction of roads, schools and other infrastructure that brought jobs and revitalised the local economy….

76% of Americans Want Clean Energy Instead of Nuclear, Natural Gas, & Coal Clean Technica MAY 15, 2012 BY ZACHARY SHAHAN  Yet another recent poll showed that Americans really support clean energy, across political affiliations (though, there’s clearly more support on the left).

The ORC International survey, conducted for the nonprofit and nonpartisan Civil Society Institute (CSI), found that 76% of Americans (58% of Republicans, 83% of Independents, and 88% of Democrats) want to see ”a reduction in our reliance on nuclear power, natural gas and coal, and instead, launch a national initiative to boost renewable energy and energy efficiency.” (And who knows what the remaining 24% are smoking?)

Not only that, the public has clearly picked up on the fact that corrupt politics is a key reason we don’t have more of that. 82% of Americans (69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 95% of Democrats) agree with this statement: “The time is now for a new, grassroots-driven politics to realize a renewable energy future.
Congress is debating large public investments in energy and we need to
take action to ensure that our taxpayer dollars support renewable
energy– one that protects public health, promotes energy independence
and the economic well being of all Americans.”

Wow. I’m shocked that such a high percentage of Americans is behind a
“grassroots-driven politics.”

“Our survey is a call to action:  Americans across the political
spectrum think that it is time for decisive action toward a renewable
energy future that will protect public health and provide reliable and
cost effective energy,” Pam Solo, founder and president, Civil Society
Institute, said….
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/05/15/76-of-americans-want-clean-energy-instead-of-nuclear-natural-gas-coal/

Washington says diplomacy and economic sanctions must be given a
chance to run its course, and is taking the lead in the ongoing talks
between six global powers and Iran.

Israel, while saying it would prefer a diplomatic solution, has
expressed scepticism about these talks and says time is running out
for military action to be effective.

President Barack Obama has assured Israel that the US is prepared to
take military action if necessary, and it is standard procedure for
armies to draw up plans for a broad range of possible scenarios. But
Shapiro’s comments were the most explicit sign yet that preparations
have been stepped up.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany are
gearing up to for a May 23 meeting with Iran in Baghdad. Shortly after
the meeting, the UN atomic agency is to release its latest report card
on Iran’s nuclear efforts.

In Tehran on Thursday, top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili warned
against Western pressure at next week’s talks, which are a follow-up
to negotiations in Istanbul last month that all sides praised as
positive…. http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/us-ready-to-strike-iran-says-envoy-20120518-1yu1l.html

Row over nuclear waste dump proposal in Kent

Romney Marshes is being mooted as a site for Britain’s first store for high-level radioactive materials by members of Shepway district council but the move has infuriated the leader of Kent county council and a local MP.

“Let’s not sell Romney Marsh short; I believe it has and deserves a better future than being the dumping ground for all of Britain’s high level nuclear waste,” said Damian Collins, MP for Folkestone and Hythe, on his own website.

“Shepway council has started a consultation to ask whether residents want to find out more about building this underground storage facility here and my view, and that of the Marsh’s county councillor Carole Waters, is that the answer should be ‘no’.”

Paul Carter, leader of Kent council, told a local website, thisiskent, it would be “utter madness” to even consider building such a facility in an area which he said was “both an earthquake zone and one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world”…. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/17/row-nuclear-waste-dump-proposal