nuclear-news

A-Cap Denies Connection to Nuclear Waste Project  (Botswana) Dec 01, 2008 (Mmegi/The Reporter/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX)   — Developers of uranium mines in Serule and Letlhakane, A-Cap Resources of Australia have distanced themselves from the nuclear waste facility that will be built at Pilikwe in Tswapong soon.

The nuclear waste facility is being mooted by the Department of Radiation in the Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology, and environmental impact assessment has already started with the various stakeholders including the villagers at Pilikwe and the surrounding areas.

A-Cap Resources CEO, Andrew Tunks based in Australia, says that although A-Cap plans to start mining in Serule and Letlhakane in 2011, they will not be using the Pilikwe facility but they will develop their own environmental plan.

“Of course we will have storage facilities for any dangerous waste, chemical or water.

The quantification of these hazards is an important part of the environmental study that A-Cap must undertake and submit to the government to get a license to develop the mine………………Botswana, unlike other countries who mine Uranium and produce radio active waste, does not have its own National Nuclear Agency to guide..in …. vital operations. .

Climate change fight could create many jobs: aid experts9 hours ago DOHA (AFP)  1 Dec 08 — Aid specialists support a claim by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that efforts to adapt to climate change could create “millions of jobs” if enough funding is available.”There is huge potential,” particularly in developing countries, according to Poonam Ahluwalia, president of Youth Employment Summit, a US-based group which specialises in the creation of sustainable employment for young people.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The YES campaign, funded by the US government aid programme, Microsoft and Levi Strauss, aims to create two million green employment opportunities by 2012.

“We can no longer view addressing the climate crisis, poverty eradication efforts, and providing employment opportunities for youth in developing countries as separate from each other,” Ahuwalia said.

Dan Timms, senior spokesman for Oxfam, said the organisation is already implementing many climate change adaptation projects which will maintain existing low-energy occupations or create sustainable new jobs.

Triumph Newspapers (Nigeria) ZHUL-HAJJ 4, 1429 A.H.
MONDAY  DECEMBER 1, 2008. The development of nuclear science introduced radioactive contamination, which can remain lethally radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Lake Karachay, named by the Worldwatch Institute as the “most polluted spot” on earth, served as a disposal site for the Soviet Union thoroughout the 1950s and 1960s. Second place may go to the to the area of Chelyabinsk U.S.S.R. (see reference below) as the “Most polluted place on the planet”.
Nuclear weapons continued to be tested in the Cold War, sometimes near inhabited areas, especially in the earlier stages of their development. The toll on the worst-affected populations and the growth since then in understanding about the critical threat to human health posed by radioactivity has also been a prohibitive complication associated with nuclear power. …………the potential for disaster suggested by incidents such as those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl pose a lingering specter of public mistrust. One legacy of nuclear testing before most forms were banned has been significantly raised levels of background radiation.

Area veterans’ benefits records were mishandledSunday, news-record.com November 30 (updated 7:13 am)By Lex Alexander Winston-Salem’s Department of Veterans Affairs regional office is among at least 41 VA offices nationwide that improperly placed papers in bins to be shredded, records show………………..The papers were described in an Oct. 23 VA conference call as “critical,” meaning the documents were necessary for veterans’ claims to be properly adjudicated. Improper adjudication could keep veterans or their survivors from getting money to which they are entitled……………………

If VA documents were destroyed improperly, it wouldn’t be the first time.

In 1987, a federal court fined the VA $115,000 for purging records of service members who had been exposed to radiation in Japan after World War II and in postwar nuclear tests.

Foes slam nuclear waste planOak Ridge is among recycling-site optionsBy Anne Paine • THE TENNESSEAN • November 27, 2008

A Bush administration project aimed at reprocessing nuclear waste in a global sharing arrangement is bringing opposition that’s not always from anti-nuclear advocates as public hearings come to Oak Ridge and Paducah next week.

Both of those locations are potential receiving sites for what could be domestic and foreign waste. In the case of Oak Ridge, at least part of the highly radioactive materials could travel through Nashville……………………….

“If you ‘recycle’ plutonium, it doesn’t help at all,” said Professor Frank von Hippel, of the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University.

“You still have huge amounts of plutonium in the spent fuel, and you’ve created a lot of new waste streams.”

Von Hippel, unlike some critics of what’s called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, is anti-reprocessing but not anti-nuclear.

Codes for Armageddon: A new president to hold nuclear launch ‘football’ Baltimore Sun 30 Nov 08 By David Wood November 30, 2008 “…………………………What awaits the new commander in chief is the weighty responsibility of defending the United States – and a nasty brew of nuclear weapons problems that range from the threat of terrorist attacks to potential new regional and superpower arms races. Iran and North Korea are rushing headlong toward building nuclear arsenals. And the main arms reduction treaty with Russia expires next year.
Those known challenges arise from an unruly world thrown into deeper turmoil by the global financial crisis, a world in which nuclear technology spreads like wildfire and almost 10,000 nuclear weapons could be on alert at any given time.

The risk of nuclear war will grow during the next 20 years, U.S. intelligence officers concluded last week…………….with Obama’s first peek inside the ever-present briefcase. The secure phone nestled inside will connect him to the nuclear command centers at the Pentagon, Colorado Springs and “Site R,” the bunkered emergency command center just over the Maryland border near Blue Ridge Summit, Pa. Through them, the president can reach the 1,300 U.S. strategic nuclear weapons always on alert……………. “The most sober and startling I ever heard,” Ronald Reagan said after his first briefing on the nuclear options – so disturbing that it helped launch him on a quest to abolish nuclear weapons altogether.

Obama has outlined an ambitious plan of tackling many of these issues…………………………The increased nuclear activity “naturally increases the risk that nuclear material could be diverted to make nuclear weapons,” IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations. This year alone, the IAEA has investigated 250 incidents involving the loss or theft of nuclear or radioactive material. Much of it is never recovered, he said.

Simmering nuclear pot awaits Obama UPI.com Nov. 30, 2008  WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 (UPI) — Analysts are warning that Barack Obama will take over controls of the U.S. nuclear arsenal at a time when the threat of a nuclear war is expected to increase.

Observers say that along with the current spike in tensions between India and Pakistan, the incoming president will have to deal with the expiration of a key arms reduction pact with the Russians next year along with the budding nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran………………..Obama, who has been getting regular intelligence briefings since his election this month, will take over the “football,” the codes that authenticate a nuclear launch order, as soon as he is sworn in on Jan. 20.

Nuclear reactor owners rush to extend licenses  November 29, 2008By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteIt took just 20 minutes at a motel in Moon this month for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to report approvingly on FirstEnergy Corp.’s plans to manage its two aging nuclear power reactors in Shippingport, Beaver County, and clear the way for the facility’s 20-year license renewals……………………no relicensing requests have been denied.

The two Beaver Valley reactors are part of a big wave of aging atomic reactors hurrying to grab license renewals from the NRC many years before the end of their original 40-year licenses………………….citizen groups and industry watchdogs have criticized the process as perfunctory and inadequate to ensure safe operation and public health as the plants age……………”The industry has made a great deal of nuclear renaissance noise, but it hasn’t added a single watt of electricity from new power plants,” said Ray Shadis, a nuclear safety advocate……………………

The relicensing process also has come under sharp criticism by the NRC’s own Office of Inspector General in a September 2007 audit report that found some safety evaluations lacked necessary documentation and provided little evidence that inspectors had confirmed the integrity of aging safety systems they approved.

Similar concerns have been expressed by state officials in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania.

Dry Utah isn’t the place for nuclear power Standard.net Candace Jacobson November 30, 2008 State lawmakers Mike Noel and Aaron Tilton are moving forward with their plans for a nuclear power plant in the desert of Eastern Utah, believing that only “extreme environmental groups” and those with “a no-growth agenda” object to nuclear power in Utah………………………..

Utah does not need a nuclear power plant. It wouldn’t be good for the state, it’s not healthy for people, the waste is eternally toxic, none of the resulting power would stay in Utah, and it’s a terrible use of our water resources.

We live in a desert. On so many levels, nuclear power is not a feasible option for Utah. If it’s necessary to sell nuclear power to Nevada and California, then build the power plants in their states and let them worry about the spent fuel rods.

The fact that these men advocate for legislation that makes it easier for nuclear power plants to be built in Utah is further proof of the need for ethics reform in our state Legislature. Our Legislature has become nothing more than a forum for business people to eliminate roadblocks to their plans to line their own pockets.

As a state, let’s all say no to nukes.

Coalminers call for no more coal, renewables now! Green Left Simon Cunich, Newcastle28 November 2008 – “………………………New mines and extensions approved by the NSW government for the Hunter region alone in the last 18 months include the $240 million Anvil Hill (now Mangoola) open-cut coalmine project, the Abel underground coalmine and major expansions at the Liddell coalmine, Bulga underground mine and Bengalla coalmine near Muswellbrook. These, and the other pending proposals, would add another 60 million tonnes a year to the 110 million tonnes of coal produced by Hunter Valley mines, according to the Anvil Hill Alliance. ……………………….Brown argues that the coal industry should begin to be phased out immediately and an expansion of renewable energy embarked upon. He explains to people “who want coal to go on forever” that the coal companies themselves will shut down mines as they begin to run out of coal: the coalmining industry provides no employment guarantee……………………..“If we’re going to get serious about global warming”, Brown continued, “it needs to happen straight away. It can happen virtually straight away. We have figures from researchers that say every power station on the East coast of Australia can be retrofitted with solar thermal over an eight-year period and that would tie in with our phasing out of the coal industry. There’d be an increase of jobs.”………………….A 2008 study conducted by the Centre of Full Employment and Equity in Newcastle found that a shift to a renewable energy economy in the Hunter/Wyong region would result in a net gain of between 3,900 and 10,700 jobs.

“I know from my time in the industry that the attitude of people is give them another job that isn’t in a coalmine and they’ll take it”, Graham Brown said.