2009 July 09 « nuclear-news

‘Let’s take steps to bring green choices within the reach of everyone’

From The Times (UK)

July 8, 2009

On day three of our series on the low-carbon economy, Conservative politician Zac Goldsmith tells Robin Pagnamenta that private enterprise has a key role to play

Which concrete measures can governments introduce to support the growth of a low-carbon economy in Britain?

Many green choices are still the preserve of the committed or the well-off. With the right incentives and signals, an intelligent government could make pollution and waste a liability and at the same time bring those green choices within reach of us all. Until that happens, green will always be a marginal niche.

Broadly, the Government needs to put a price on pollution, waste and the use of scarce resources, and to invest proceeds into the alternatives. For example, if a new tax is introduced – at the point of purchase – on the “dirtiest” cars, it should be used to bring down the cost of the “cleanest” cars.

That would clean up the car fleet very quickly, and without punishing people for decisions they’ve already taken.

We also need to make better use of subsidies. In my view they should exist to stimulate new technologies and to fund research not yet attractive to the market. The German system of feed-in tariffs is one way we could support green energy technologies, by shortening the payback time………

……………… Should nuclear energy play a role in the low-carbon economy?

If it was up to me, I wouldn’t block nuclear per se, but I would absolutely oppose any use of taxpayer funds to prop it up. That includes dealing with waste, security concerns and so on. I don’t believe it’s right for the Government to use taxpayer funds to support old technologies, no matter how powerful their lobby groups. The job of the Government is to provide energy solutions at the lowest cost and in the cleanest way. That will never, in my view, be nuclear.

Don’t forget there has never been a nuclear power plant that wasn’t constructed and run at the public’s expense. In a free market, nuclear wouldn’t exist. On that basis I would like to see subsidies diverted elsewhere, and, logically, that would mean nuclear has almost certainly had its day.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6665944.ece

July 9, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK | antinuclear, nuclear, renewableenergy, renewables | Leave a comment

Overweight Get More Radiation and Doctors Admit Ignorance to Damage Caused

NaturalNews.com July 08, 2009 by: Jane Jones “………………….Recently, it was uncovered that obese patients are receiving up to 4000 percent more exposure to radiation with each X-ray – and in the ambitious medical world, the number of X-rays people receive is also increasing. The increase of radiation exposure appears to be done on the basis of logic: more radiation is needed to get an accurate exposure due to the excess fat getting in the way.

While more radiation might actually help get a usable x-ray, the question of what damage it’s causing the patient is one an MIT doctor admits hasn’t even been looked at. The question of it being an acceptable risk has also been neglected.

We know that radiation is dangerous. We know that radiation even from X-rays is dangerous…………

……………..Resources:
Obese Get Higher Doses of Radiation for X-Rays
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/2009063…

Radiation Damage
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/…

http://www.naturalnews.com/026570_doctors_overweight_X-rays.html

July 9, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, environment | antinuclear, nuclear, radiation, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Vattenfall sacks head of defective nuclear plant

Deutsche Welle 08.07.2009

Four days after a technical failure shut down a nuclear power station in northern Germany, operator Vattenfall admitted to having made a mistake, while Social Democrats and Green are urging a boycott.

Vattenfall admitted that a mistake had been made at the Kruemmel nuclear power station and confirmed that it had fired the plant manager. The Swedish operators said the head of the reactor had broken an agreement with German authorities to install discharge detectors on a transformer.

It was a short-circuit on one of the transformers that caused the Kruemmel plant to shut down last weekend, thus restricting power supplies across much of the city of Hamburg.

Vattenfall has now said it will not repair the electrical transformers, responsible for the supply of power to on-site machinery, but will replace them entirely. As a result, the reactor will not resume operations for several months.

The latest incident at Kruemmel, just one of many problems that have dogged the plant over the past years, has sparked furious political debate over the security of nuclear fuel technology.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4464985,00.html

July 9, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, safety | antinuclear, nuclear, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment

Tactical Nuclear Weapons, the Menace No One Is Talking About

Politics Daily David Wood 8 July 07 “…………………………Presidents Obama and Medvedev, who agreed on the outlines of the treaty at their Moscow summit, seem to have overlooked thousands of nasty nuclear weapons bristling right under their noses in Europe: Russian and American tactical nukes. About 4,500 of these war-fighting weapons, mostly bombs and short-range missile warheads, are stored in Europe and in western Russia. They are not a subject of the strategic nuclear arms talks announced in Moscow. In fact, they are not part of any arms control treaty or negotiation.
The security of the facilities where they are stored, including underground U.S. bunkers across Western Europe, has come under question. The Russians have at least eight times as many of these weapons as the United States has deployed in Europe, an imbalance that a panel of senior American experts recently called “stark and worrisome.”
In the shifting geopolitics of post-Cold War Europe, tactical nuclear weapons play an increasingly important role in Russian military doctrine, a brute reminder of Russian power against the growing influence of the West along its borders. For instance, the Russians are working to fit tactical nuclear warheads onto submarine-launched cruise missiles, a weapon that “will play a key role” in Russian strategy, according to Vice Adm. Oleg Bursev of the Russian General Staff. “Their range and precision are gradually increasing,” he said this spring.

………………………….. These are bombs carried on ordinary jets, like F-16s, and mounted on short-range ballistic missiles. This class of weapons might still include the nuclear land mines and nuclear artillery shells that were deployed by the tens of thousands in Europe during the Cold War. The United States and Russia both say they’ve gotten rid of these weapons, but intelligence services on each side harbor doubts.
The U.S. tactical weapons, mostly B-61 thermonuclear bombs, are stored in underground vaults in Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy, and Turkey, where they are under the control of U.S. Air Force munitions support squadrons.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/08/tactical-nuclear-weapons-the-menace-no-one-is-talking-about/

July 9, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | antinuclear, nuclear, radiation, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment