nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Doubts on viability of Latest Fukushima cleanup plan

the presence of highly radioactive water at Unit 2 posed a particular challenge. There and at other units, workers have been cooling nuclear fuel at the reactor’s core and in storage pools by pumping in hundreds of tons of water a day, producing dangerous amounts of runoff.

  Radiation Poses Barrier To Repair Work at Plant NYTimes.com By HIROKO TABUCHI April 18, 2011TOKYO — Robots deployed inside two reactors at the Japanese nuclear plant overrun by last month’s devastating tsunami have detected radiation levels too high for workers to enter, posing immediate challenges for a new plan to bring the ravaged complex under control by year’s end…. Continue reading →

April 19, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011 | Leave a comment

Radiation in seafoods

“[People] should not venture into the ocean [where the radioactive materials are being released]; they should not eat any fish or seaweed from the ocean.

“The living species likely to be most affected are shellfish because they are stationary whereas fish that swim may pass through the area and out again. The shellfish such as mussels, oysters and clams certainly accumulate high levels of radioactivity….

Japanese earthquake | what Japan’s new nuclear crisis rating means, Sydney Morning Herald, Glenda Kwek April 12, 2011 As Japan raised the severity level of its nuclear crisis to match Chernobyl’s seven, an Australian scientist explained what that meant. Continue reading →

April 19, 2011 Posted by | environment, Japan | Leave a comment

Developing the myths of nuclear power as cheap and safe

The myth of radiation being very interesting but not dangerous was however firmly debunked by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, but not without a last ditch attempt by the occupying Allied Powers to protect it – by arresting and deporting any journalist who talked about radiation deaths.

The Nuclear Power Mercantilist Myth :: The Market Oracle :: By Andrew McKillop, 19 April 11, “…..COSTS DIDNT MATTERThe atom scientists of the 1930s with names we still know today, for example Fermi and Einstein, argued about those subjects but, being scientists, were not specially concerned what it would all cost. Only later, with the founding of the UN’s atomic energy agency in 1956 – a promotional agency for nuclear power – were the key subjects of entrepreneurial effort and the obligatorily linked need for government subsidies brought into the fray. This was sold as creating a future world where atomic arms will be changed to power plant ploughshares. While atomic weapons were expensive, the ploughshares would be cheap if we spent enough investing in them. Continue reading →

April 19, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, history, spinbuster | Leave a comment

32 Asian nuclear plants at risk from earthquakes

.Like Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant they lie within a few hundred miles of the type of fault known to unleash the largest tsunami-spawning earthquakes…..At least 32 plants in operation or under construction in Asia are at risk of one day being hit by a tsunami, nuclear experts and geologists warn…..

Asia nuclear reactors face tsunami risk, Google News (AP)  19 April 11, JAKARTA, Indonesia — The skeleton of what will soon be one of the world’s biggest nuclear plants is slowly taking shape along China’s southeastern coast — right on the doorstep of Hong Kong’s bustling metropolis. Three other facilities nearby are up and running or under construction. Continue reading →

April 19, 2011 Posted by | ASIA, safety | Leave a comment

Fukushima the last chapter in dying nuclear industry

“The nuclear industry was arguably on life support before Fukushima. When the history of this industry is written, Fukushima is likely to introduce its final chapter,”New Worldwatch Report Previewed in Berlin    

To obtain a free copy of the draft report, click here

http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/NuclearStatusReport2011_prel.pdf

Berlin, Germany—The future of nuclear power was bleak even before the Fukushima disaster, said energy expert Mycle Schneider Wednesday at a press conference in Berlin, where he previewed an upcoming Worldwatch Institute report on the outlook of nuclear power.

“The industry was arguably on life support before Fukushima. When the history of this industry is written, Fukushima is likely to introduce its final chapter,” said Schneider, lead author of the new report, which was previewed in Berlin today at an event hosted by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Continue reading →

April 19, 2011 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Desperate marketing tactics of Nuclear Suppliers Group

Trying desperately to keep itself alive at whatever cost and whatever risk to present and future human and other life on the planet, the nuclear industry has retreated into its laager mentality with technology gimmicks ranging from thorium and other non-uranium fuelled reactors, fusion reactors, and fast breeder reactors. Although no commercial – that is non subsidized and large scale – versions of these quick fixes exist, the high tech sheen on these claimed alternatives is enough to beguile some weak minded, uninformed and gullible persons. Nuclear power should be given another try, they say !

The Nuclear Power Mercantilist Myth :: The Market Oracle :: By Andrew McKillop, 19 April 11,“…The now 46-nation NSG-Nuclear Suppliers Group is mainly OECD membership but also includes Argentina, Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Turkey and Ukraine, as well as some other small non-OECD countries but specifically does not include India. This traces to the 1975 founding of the NSG, in the wake of India’s 1974 test explosion of an atom bomb, and the alarmed but confused attempt by leaderships of the old nuclear nations to lock down nuclear technology but also promote nuclear power. The permanent and basic linkage between nuclear weapons, and nuclear power had been made clear for all to see by the Indian test, but business had to go on as usual. Continue reading →

April 19, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, marketing | Leave a comment

Anti nuclear protestor killed by police

Anti-nuclear activists were planning further protests this weekend in Maharahstra to demand that the Jaitapur and other nuclear power plant schemes be scrapped,

Indian police kill protester in anti-nuclear demo, Google News, (AFP) – 19 April 11, MUMBAI — Indian police opened fire on hundreds of protesters — killing one — at a demonstration against the proposed construction of a nuclear power station, police and the government said Monday… Continue reading →

April 19, 2011 Posted by | India, safety | Leave a comment