Nuclear veterans told: No case for compensation

Ministers tell servicemen who witnessed 1950s test explosions they should have claimed years ago THE INDEPENDENT By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor 11 January 2009

Ministers have been accused of blocking compensation claims brought by hundreds of nuclear test veterans who believe they developed cancers and other illnesses after being forced to witness atomic bomb experiments in the 1950s and ’60s.

Despite pay-outs to former servicemen in the US, France and China, Britain has told its veterans there is no case for offering compensation, and that there is no scientific justification for a full investigation into birth defects suffered by the veterans’ children and grandchildren……………….This refusal fully to investigate the human legacy of Britain’s nuclear weapons test programme has come as a blow to the airmen, soldiers and sailors who stood on Pacific island beaches in the late 1950s watching nuclear explosions while wearing little more than shorts and sandals.

Cheap nuclear power is faulty accounting
 Alberta Lea Tribune John E. Gibson, January 10, 2009Your utility bills have carried a surcharge of $27 billion for nuclear power. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 required nuclear power providers to contribute to the Nuclear Waste Fund, which funds were to build a Nuclear Waste Repository by 1998. This repository is yet to open, leaving our government open to lawsuits. Our government has spend $94 million defending itself against breach of contract resulting in a $420 million judgment for the plaintiffs.

Outstanding liabilities are in the billions. Should the repository at Yucca Mountain become operational it could hold existing and future wastes from the nukes already built. Yucca Mountain could not hold the wastes from an expanded nuclear power industry. Wait! That’s not all folks!

A railroad connection must be built to transport the wastes to the repository. Who will pay for that? How will the wastes be secured in transit? Who will pay for that?

What must we conclude? The argument for building more nukes is based on large increases in electricity consumption, which are suspect. “Cheap Nuclear Energy” is a product of faulty accounting……………………………….

Hudson River Lovers Fight to Shutter Aging Nuclear Power Plant by Mike Di Paola an. 9 (Bloomberg) — The Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, New York is showing its age. Patches of rust scar its gray concrete domes, and a derelict smokestack looms over the decades-old facility, which still commands a choice view of the Hudson River.

“There are very toxic, highly irradiated tanks partially buried on site,” says attorney Phillip Musegaas, who serves as Hudson River Program Director for Riverkeeper, the nonprofit guardian of the Hudson River and protector of 2,000 square miles of watershed that feed New York City’s water supply.

Plant owner Entergy Corp. is hoping to renew licenses for the two remaining reactor units here, which are set to expire by 2015. There has always been some opposition to Indian Point. Now, the forces aligned against it — from New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation to State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo — might be too formidable to withstand

Musegaas began preparing legal challenges to the license renewals in 2006, not long after it was revealed that radioactive contaminants strontium-90 and tritium were leaking into the Hudson from those very tanks. The leak was traced back to reactor Unit 1, which had been shut down in the 1970s. In November, Entergy said it had cleaned up the mess.

“We think these contaminants are getting into the soil and vegetation,” says Musegaas, “and are bio-accumulating in fish,” meaning that these noxious substances collect and concentrate as they travel up the food chain.

Dead Fish

Then there’s the plant’s cooling system, which uses river water as a coolant — to the peril of millions of fish, fish eggs and larvae that get sucked into the system.

“They use 2.2 billion gallons of water a day,” says Riverkeeper’s boat captain John Lipscomb. “All the life in that water gets cooked. It’s a massive impact.”

Michael Kanellos Nuclear Plant Powers Way Down After Water Leak Found

January 8, 2009 at 5:19 PMThe Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant has cut power production by 60 percent after a leak in the pipe that provides water to the steam generator was discovered, according to the AP.The leak is dripping about 60 drops a minute and the water is mildly radioactive.On Wednesday, the Vermont Yankee (which is my favorite nuclear power plant name) had a leak in the gasket.Better clean it up, lads. The nuclear industry is promoting itself as a clean and economical and large-scale alternative to coal and natural gas. It’s also not intermittent like solar or wind, and a few plants can provide large amounts of baseload power, say proponents………………

Debates rage over whether nuclear will be economical or not. See Joe Romm’s take on a new report that says new nuclear will cost 15 cents or more a kilowatt hour.

But — ugh — safety and leaks are tougher to argue over. If the safety and maintenance record gets murky, nuclear advocates are going to have a tough time mustering support.