nuclear-news

Al Gore Urges Obama to Dispense With Non-Renewable Energy
eFuxMedia By Jenny Huntington17:10, November 9th 2008

During his speech at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Al Gore urged president-elect of the United States Barack Obama to take more measures in order to protect the environment from global warming, deeming the current actions aimed at solving this issues as not being drastic enough.

Moreover, Gore stated he believed that Obama should put forward a national plan entailing to get rid of non-renewable energy over the following ten years, thus rendering Americans to get 100 percent of their electricity from renewable and non-carbon sources.

Hospitals faced with radioactive problem

Nuclear waste facility is no longer accepting radioactive waste

tv6 November 08, 2008

MARQUETTE — Low-level radioactive waste is piling up at hospitals.

The Barnwell South Carolina Landfill that served 36 states stopped accepting radioactive waste material in July.

It was one of the places Marquette General Hospital sent trash from its Nuclear Medicine Program.

Police crackdown on German nuclear waste train protests
BERLIN (AFP) 10 Nov 08 — Police wielding truncheons beat back environmentalists Sunday trying to block a train carrying highly radioactive nuclear waste from western France to a dump in Germany, authorities said.In the largest and most violent anti-nuclear protests since 2001 in Germany, activists set fire to barricades on the tracks in the north of the country, which police extinguished with water cannon.Several protesters and police were injured in the confrontation, police said, without giving any numbers of victims.Railroad crews scrambled to repair the damage overnight to allow the shipment of the 23 tonnes of treated, but still extremely toxic, nuclear waste to continue on to the Gorleben disposal centre.The train had resumed its journey after being stopped for nearly 12 hours Saturday near the Franco-German border by three protesters, German police said.About 15,000 demonstrators rallied along the tracks, most of them in the Gorleben region, joined by a caravan of 300 tractors festooned with anti-nuclear banners.Some 16,000 police were deployed across Germany to ensure the load reached the dump safely.Anti-nuclear group x-tausendmal quer, which organised the demonstrations, argues that the shipments are dangerous and that Germany has not found any permanent solution for what to do with the waste from its nuclear reactors.”This is a strong sign of the renaissance of the anti-nuclear movement,” group spokesman Jochen Stay said of the weekend protests.The organisation calls for the quick phase-out of the country’s nuclear power plants.By late Sunday, at least 200 anti-nuclear protesters continued to block access to the dump, having decided to keep up their sit-in until Monday, the earliest the convoy could arrive at the site, according to police.The German government has approved plans to mothball the last of its 17 reactors by about 2020.But Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for slowing down the process over fears it will be impossible to slash greenhouse gas emissions without nuclear energy, which emits no carbon dioxide and produces a quarter of the country’s electricity.The opposition Greens and the far-left Die Linke party called on their members to join the protests.Polls show most Germans oppose nuclear power but skyrocketing energy costs have sparked the calls to reconsider the phase-out.The waste’s odyssey began Friday at the nuclear waste retreatment plant at La Hague in Normandy. The trainload is the 11th of its kind to date.The cargo was halted Saturday for half the day on the French side of the frontier at the station in Lauterbourg when three German militants, two men and a woman, jammed their arms into a block of concrete hidden under the track.Police eventually managed to dislodge them.About 500 demonstrators took part in a sit-in Saturday night at the site. Police reported finding fire accelerant and damage at signal stations which hindered other rail traffic.The shipment was to reach the northern city of Lueneburg late Sunday, 12 hours behind schedule.The cargo will be offloaded onto trucks in the town of Dannenberg 50 kilometre (30 miles) away and is expected to finish the last 20 kilometres of the journey to Gorleben Monday

Thousands in Germany protest against nuclear waste train1 day ago
BERLIN (AFP) 9 Nov 08 — Thousands of protesters took part Saturday in a demonstration at a nuclear waste disposal centre in northern Germany where a trainload of treated waste is due to arrive from France next week.Police put the number at the Gorleben site at 14,000 with the organisers claiming 16,000 environmentalists had turned out, twice the number at a similar protest at the site two years ago.The train, transporting 123 tonnes of waste, left western France Friday and made its way Saturday through the east of the country, where two demonstrations greeted its passage.It is the 11th such trainload of waste to be taken from the retreatment plant at La Hague in Normandy to Germany and is due to arrive Monday.At the border between the two countries three German demonstrators blocked the train by chaining themselves to the track, police said.The high turnout at Gorleben signalled the “rebirth of the anti-nuclear movement in Germany,” said Jochen Stay, spokesman for the organisers of the demonstration.About 10,000 German police officers have been mobilised to protect the train. The waste will be taken by road for the final 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Dannenberg to Gorleben, about 200 kilometres (120) northwest of Berlin.

TIMELINE – Major Russian naval accidents since 1991
Putin, now prime minister, was criticized for his slow response to the Kursk disaster.

In 2003, 11 people also died when a Russian submarine that was being taken out of service sank in the Barents Sea.

Reuters – Twenty people were killed and 21 injured in an accident aboard a Russian nuclear submarine, the navy said on Sunday.

It is the worst accident on a nuclear submarine since the 2000 sinking of the Kursk.

Below is a timeline of Russia’s main naval accidents since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991:

* Aug 12, 2000 – The Russian Oscar-II class submarine Kursk with 118 crew members sinks to the bottom of the Barents Sea after possibly a collision and two explosions on board.

* June 16, 2000 Toxic fuel leaked from a ballistic missile and poisoned several servicemen at a naval base in Russia’s Far East.

* Aug. 28, 2003 – Russia’s K-159 nuclear submarine sank while being towed to a shipyard. Nine crew were killed……………………Sept. 6, 2006 – Fire on board the Viktor-3 class Russian navy submarine St. Daniel of Moscow, moored near the Finnish border, kills two crew members. A few hours later a missile launch failed.

* Nov. 8, 2008 – Twenty people died and 21 were injured on board the Nerpa, classified by NATO as an Akula-class attack submarine, when its fire extinguishing systems unexpectedly went off during sea trials in the Pacific.

Tsunami Hazard Assessment at Nuclear Power Plant Sites in the United States of America; Availability of Draft Report for Comment
tmcnet.com Nov 08, 2008 (FIND, Inc. via COMTEX) –SUMMARY: The NRC is soliciting public comment on its draft report titled “Tsunami Hazard Assessment at Nuclear Power Plant Sites in the United States of America,” (NUREG/CR-6966) (ADAMS Accession No. ML082810348). This draft report describes the tsunami phenomenon with the focus on its relevance for hazard assessment at nuclear power plant sites. Any interested party may submit comments

Accident on Russian nuclear sub suffocates
20By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV – MOSCOW (AP) — The fire safety system on a brand-new Russian nuclear submarine accidentally turned on as the sub was being tested in the Sea of Japan, spewing a gas that suffocated 20 people and sent 21 others to the hospital, officials said Sunday…………………”Such a catastrophic accident calls into question the way the Russian navy has sustained its institutional knowledge in terms of design expertise, not to mention issues of quality control, both in fabrication and inspection,” Stratfor said.
Saturday’s accident came as the Kremlin is seeking to restore Russia’s naval reach, part of a drive to show off the nuclear-armed country’s clout amid strained ties with the West…………..Despite a major boost in military spending during Vladimir Putin’s eight years as president, Russia’s military is still hampered by decrepit infrastructure, aging weapons and problems with corruption and incompetence……………………Putin, now prime minister, was criticized for his slow response to the (previous) Kursk disaster.

In 2003, 11 people also died when a Russian submarine that was being taken out of service sank in the Barents Sea.

We’ll go solo on solar:  Sydney morning Herald  Cubby and Marian Wilkinson November 8, 2008

SOLAR panels will soon be earning their keep. The State Government is moving to introduce feed-in tariffs – where people generating renewable electricity will get paid extra for it – if the Federal Government does not introduce a national scheme.

The NSW Environment Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, told the Herald the state “can’t wait forever” for a national tariff and would follow other states by kick-starting a local solar industry.

“If we don’t see any movement on a national approach within the next couple of months we will put something in place in NSW because we can’t wait forever,” Ms Tebbutt said. “We want to see some pretty clear signals of a national approach. We haven’t seen those yet.”……………….

Victoria, Queensland and South Australia have introduced feed-in tariff legislation this year, with homes and some small businesses that send power back into the grid being paid at above the market rate.

In the ACT a more generous gross feed-in tariff will pay people who generate solar or wind power at home for the electricity they put back into the grid and for the energy they use. The rate is expected to be about 65 cents a kilowatt hour, with payment guaranteed for 20 years.

The Federal Government promised before last year’s election to consider a nationwide tariff to boost the solar photovoltaic industry.

Unsynchronised Elections and New Zealand –US Relations.*

Paul G. Buchanan
11-9-08- “…………………….it is possible that the US will formally abandon its opposition to New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance and relax its “neither confirm or deny” policy with regards to the presence of nuclear material aboard US naval vessels in order to allow port visits and increased military-to-military cooperation………Above all, the US under president Obama will see its relations with New Zealand as an interlocking web of commitments rather than as a disaggregated set of agreements on different policy issues (which is how the Bush administration tended to treat them).

New evidence on nuclear bomb tests points to cover upServiceman’s blood showed ‘hallmarks of radiation’
sunday herald 9 Nov 08 By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor

THE MINISTRY of Defence (MoD) has been accused of “a cover-up of a cock-up” in the wake of new evidence that it failed to investigate genetic damage among the veterans of Britain’s nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s.

Confidential correspondence from 1984 reveals that the Medical Research Council (MRC) discovered DNA defects in a test veteran that were characteristic of radiation damage. But the council was never asked to look for similar problems in other veterans.

The revelation is seen as the “smoking gun” that could bring justice for the veterans, who have been campaigning for compensation for illnesses they blame on radiation for decades. They recently launched legal action against the MoD, which has promised an inquiry.

Between 1952 and 1962 Britain exploded 46 nuclear bombs in the atmosphere around Australia and Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean. The explosions were witnessed by more than 21,000 British servicemen, many dressed only in shorts and sandals.

A series of government investigations since the 1980s has failed to find conclusive proof that the servicemen suffered as a result. But now documents released to the national archives and obtained by the Sunday Herald suggest that this was because they were looking in the wrong place…………………………….Sue Roff, an expert from the Centre for Medical Education at Dundee University, has been researching the health problems of the test veterans since 1995. “The scientists and military leaders who conducted the tests knew there were hazards. But few safety measures were put in place and no proper blood studies were done after the men returned,” she said.”It has always seemed to me to be a cover-up of a cock-up. And that’s the kinder interpretation.”…………………………..

The type of chromosome damage found by Evans had “all the hallmarks of radiation”, according to Dudley Goodhead, the former director of the MRC’s radiation unit at Harwell, Oxfordshire. The under-secretary of state for defence, Kevan Jones, met with test veterans two weeks ago, and agreed to investigate the health of their children and grandchildren.

Dennis Hayden, of the Combined Veterans’ Forum International, accused the MoD of making a “politically-motivated” decision to bypass chromosome studies. “Any advanced technology showing the mark of the bomb in the DNA of veterans does not suit the government’s agenda,” he said.