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Finish nuclear power – says Japan’s potential next Prime Minister

Japan PM contender says ditch nuclear, FT.com, By Mure Dickie and Tom O’Sullivan in Tokyo 4 July 11,   A leading contender to replace Naoto Kan as Japan’s prime minister has called for the country to phase out nuclear power over the next two decades.

Seiji Maehara, one of the most popular figures in the ruling Democratic party, told the Financial Times in an interview that construction of new nuclear reactors should “basically be stopped” following the crisis at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant……A Japanese retreat from atomic power would have far-reaching implications for domestic utilities and companies such as Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which are seeking to sell nuclear technology overseas.….

Opinion polls suggest a majority of voters support a gradual reduction in the use of atomic energy. Mr Maehara said Japan should aim to phase out nuclear power completely. “That is what is going to happen and … what should happen, but given that we depend on nuclear power for 30 per cent of electricity generation, we can’t get rid of it right away,” he said. “While increasing the safety of nuclear power, we need to use preferential policies to reduce our dependence on it over 10 or 20 years.”

Mr Maehara’s relative popularity and status as a former leader of the DPJ mean his call for a nuclear phase-out could put the issue at the centre of any party election to replace Mr Kan.  Mr Maehara’s status as a possible successor to Mr Kan has been boosted by recent opinion polls. One survey by the Nikkei Shimbun suggested one-fifth of voters thought him the most suitable person to become DPJ leader and thus premier….   http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/caa106b6-a581-11e0-83b2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1R7kQ1HSH

July 4, 2011 Posted by | Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Fukushima: How the nuclear industry, governments and media went into PR damage control right from the start

The emails show that the Fukushima “PR campaign” cover-up planning started hours after the catastrophe, specifically targeted nuclear disarmament human rights defenders, and aimed to protect industry’s plans for more nuclear facilities rather than protect human life……..Major news networks are owned by energy corporations, as only days ago, investigative journalist Wayne Madsen explained during a June 24th Russia Today interview …..

Scandalous collusion’: Gov’t, nuclear industry planned Fukushima cover-up, Government, nuclear industry covert media blackout, Examiner.com , Human Rights Examiner, July 1, 2011, Human rights to health of children and pregnant women, the most vulnerable to radiation, have been violated in what Greenpeace called ”scandalous collusion,” a planned Fukushima nuclear cover-up conducted by government and the multi-national nuclear industry according to leaked emails to the Guardian that it exposed Thursday. The emails show that the Fukushima “PR campaign” cover-up planning started hours after the catastrophe, specifically targeted nuclear disarmament human rights defenders, and aimed to protect industry’s plans for more nuclear facilities rather than protect human life.

For over three months, Japanese and American outrage about Fukushima disinformation and lack of aid for people at risk of Fukushima fall-out, has seemingly fallen on deaf ears. Gulf of Mexico coastal residents find the Fukushima scenario all too familiar, having experienced a similar intensive media blackout andprotection of BP rather than humans suffering for over a year. (La emergency summit fisher wife slams media black-out (video), Examiner, June 20, 2010)

The Guardian‘s leaked emails indicate that British government and industry possibly have had a hand to play in both Fukushima and Gulf Coast survivors’ misery. One implication of media black-outs result is that survivors gain little or no support otherwise forthcoming from people of goodwill.

“Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the [Fukushima] accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK,” theGuardian reports in its article, “Revealed: British government’s plan to play down Fukushima.”

Major news networks are owned by energy corporations, as only days ago, investigative journalist Wayne Madsen explained during a June 24th Russia Today interview …..

http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/scandalous-collusion-gov-t-nuclear-industry-planned-fukushima-cover-up

July 4, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Britain drags out nuclear veterans compensation case, hoping they’ll all die off

Britain urged to settle nuclear payout for veterans, THE AUSTRALIAN , July 04, 2011 THE British government was under pressure last night to settle a multimillion-pound fight with more than 1000 veterans of nuclear tests in Australia and the Pacific or risk wasting even more money on a “morally unjustifiable” legal battle that could drag on for years.

Supporters of the pensioners, who participated in Britain’s atomic bomb trials in the Pacific in the 1950s, said that it was time for the Ministry of Defence to follow the world’s four other main nuclear powers and pay compensation. Continue reading →

July 4, 2011 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

Authorities are not giving a clear story on nuclear radiation and nuclear safety

Reporting from the scene of the disaster is hobbled. The only people with access are workers for the Tokyo Electric Power Co., owner of the reactors, and there is abundant evidence that they have downplayed the seriousness at every juncture, for obvious reasons…….

Nuclear plants a ‘plague’ , By Kevin Brooker, Calgary Herald,  July 4, 2011, “…….Earlier this decade, when nuclear power plants were being painted with a green brush by their promoters, Caldicott fired back with a 2006 book, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer. In it, she contends that nuclear power cannot sustain itself without many, often hidden, subsidies, and moreover, that its supply chain from mining to processing to reactor is itself a massive producer of greenhouse gases. Worse yet, one of the byproducts is plutonium, making them virtual nuclear weapons factories. Continue reading →

July 4, 2011 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

India not happy with restrictions on nuclear technology purchases

India offers veiled warning to nuclear suppliers, Google news, 4 July 11, NEW DELHI — India has suggested that countries refusing to match nuclear reactor sales with technology transfers could be frozen out of one of the world’s largest reactor markets.The veiled threat came in a television interview broadcast Sunday, in which Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao was asked about new Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines on sensitive uranium enrichment and reprocessing technology.

The guidelines restrict the sale of such technology to countries which, like nuclear-armed India, have not signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

India sees the move as a challenge to the waiver from NSG rules — negotiated by the United States — that the country was granted in 2008.

Companies from France, Russia, the United States and Japan are competing for a slice of the $175 billion India plans to spend on nuclear reactors, and Rao hinted that a willingness to provide technology transfers would be a factor in awarding contracts…….http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jkXesvZlAN_8w4o-iAseAmj42rUA?docId=CNG.a2927e2a2a9f66d6246282cccdc54dd8.651

July 4, 2011 Posted by | India, politics | Leave a comment

Nuclear and Uranium Policy – Western Australia Labor Party

Labor policy adopted- 25th June 2011, Chapter 4: Economics, Industry and Regional Development, Minerals and Energy, Uranium Mining and Nuclear Energy

241. Recognising the hazards and dangers of nuclear power, especially relating to:

a. The safety of the nuclear fuel cycle;

b. The unsolved problems pertaining to the reprocessing and storage of radioactive wastes and spent fuel;

c. The growing concern about the biomedical effects of even low radiation

d. The coupling of nuclear energy and nuclear weapon developments

e. The added danger of a future plutonium economy and the threats to civil liberties involved in a nuclear economy; and

f. The fact that Labor policy contained herein on fossil fuels, energy conservation and renewable resources will ensure Western Australia energy self sufficiency.

242. Labor will:

a. Reject nuclear power as an option for electricity generation in Western Australia;

b. Oppose the establishment of a nuclear enrichment facility in the State;

c. Reject the establishment of nuclear processing plants or the storage of nuclear wastes in the state;

d. allow no uranium mining or development in Western Australia; and

e. The platform recognises WA long and continuous opposition to uranium mining. The commencement and continuation of any uranium project is inconsistent with Labor Policy. Labor will accept no obligation to complete approval processes or honour contractual arrangements entered into by a previous government where such approvals or contracts are directed towards an outcome inconsistent with Labor s, restrictions and conditions applicable to the mining, processing, sale and transportation of uranium platform.

f. place thorium under the currently mines in Australia as outlines in the Resources and Energy section of the National Platform, so far as they relate to nuclear non-proliferation.

 

July 4, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics | Leave a comment