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1256 cows likely to be radioactive,says Japan’s govt

Japan’s ‘Major Problem’ With Radioactive Cattle Gets Even Bigger, SF Gate, July 21 (Bloomberg) –– Japan’s government said the number of cattle fed with hay contaminated by radiation has doubled, two days after shipments of beef from cows raised near the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant were banned.

As of yesterday there were 1,256 potentially contaminated cows from 637 two days earlier, said Kazutoshi Nobuto, a spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

“This is a major, major problem,” Goshi Hosono, Japan’s food safety minister, said yesterday at a press conference in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. Hosono is also in charge of the response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster…. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/21/bloomberg1376-LONZP86S972801-3CL2GT5F8SH7TVV2BED2RK9I63.DTL

July 21, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011 | Leave a comment

Nukes in Space – a Recipe for Disaster

an accident in which plutonium is released by a space device as tiny particles falling to Earth maximizes its lethality. A millionth of a gram of plutonium can be a fatal dose. The pathway of greatest concern is the breathing in plutonium particle..

  As the NASA Environmental Impact Statement puts it: “Particles smaller than about 5 microns would be transported to and remain in the trachea, bronchi, or deep lung regions.” The plutonium particles “would continuously irradiate lung tissue.”

“A small fraction would be transported over time directly to the blood or to lymph nodes and then to the blood,” it continues. Once plutonium “has entered the blood via ingestion or inhalation, it would circulate and be deposited primarily in the liver and skeletal system.” Also, says the document, some of the plutonium would migrate to the testes or ovaries.

What Could Truly End the Space Program: A Nuclear Disaster Overhead , OpED News, By Karl Grossman 21 July 11, Between November 25 and December 15 NASA plans to launch for use on Mars a rover fueled with 10.6 pounds of plutonium, more plutonium than ever used on a rover. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

High radiation levels 150 km from Fukushima nuclear plant

High levels of radioactivity found extensively, NHK World, 21 July 11, Japan’s science ministry says air above the ground about 150 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is as radioactive as areas 50 kilometers from the source of radioactivity.

The ministry on Wednesday released a map showing radiation levels at locations one meter above the ground in Miyagi Prefecture, north of Fukushima, based on the results of an aerial survey from June 22nd through 30th.
Radioactivity levels are highlighted in different colors.Some parts of Kurihara City, about 150 kilometers north of the plant are light blue, indicating that the air there was 0.2 to 0.5 microsieverts per hour.

That’s similar to areas close to the crippled plant, such as Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture, about 50 kilometers from the radioactive source.

July 21, 2011 Posted by | environment, Japan | 1 Comment

Watts Bar nuclear plants – a history of safety flaws

Guity’s reports showed that hundreds of cables had been installed incorrectly at Watts Bar. They demonstrate that the TVA cared very little about regulations…

 A fact-finding commission in the US Congress eventually investigated the entire process…..
The chairman of the congressional committee spoke of crass mismanagement and a “quagmire” of monumental proportions. The “historic disaster” consisted in the fact that the TVA, for cost reasons, had allegedly planned its nuclear plants incorrectly and built them in a defective manner.

Safety Concerns Cloud US Nuclear Renaissance, Spiegel Online, By Ullrich Fichtner,  21 July 11, Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan “…….. A nuclear engineer who was born in Iran in 1942, Guity is a disappointed American today. “Time bombs,” he says, sounding very bitter. “We are sitting on a bunch of ticking time bombs.”……. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Four more radiation evacuation areas named by Japanese govt

Radiation experts agree that children are at highest risk because they are still growing and will have more time to develop cancers and other health defects…..

Japan names more Fukushima evacuation areas, Asia One News, Jul 21, 2011, TOKYO – Japan on Thursday recommended 59 more households should evacuate from four areas considered radiation “hot spots” near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, officials said.

The voluntary guidance, in areas where higher levels of radiation have been detected sporadically beyond the 20 kilometre (12 mile) no-go zone around the plant, will affect households in Fukushima prefecture’s city of Minamisoma. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011 | Leave a comment

Mismanagement in nuclear decommissioning industry

IG reports question management of contractors at nuclear sites, I Watch News, By Corbin Hiar, 21 July 11, The Center for Public Integrity   Serious contractor-related problems at facilities that handle nuclear material have been disclosed by two new audits.

The most serious issues were raised in a report by the Department of Energy’s inspector general on the decontamination and decommissioning of K-25 , a massive World War II-era nuclear enrichment facility that is a part of the East Tennessee Technical Park (ETTP) in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | decommission reactor, USA | Leave a comment

Military Industrial Complex makes sure NASA uses nuclear, not solar, technology

There’s more to it. For many decades there has been a marriage of nuclear power and space at NASA.   The use of nuclear power on space missions has been heavily promoted by the U.S. Department of Energy and its predecessor agency, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, and the many DOE (previously AEC) national laboratories including Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. This provides work for these government entities. Also, the manufacturers of nuclear-powered space devices–General Electric was a pioneers in this–have pushed their products. Further, NAS has sought to coordinate its activities with the U.S. military. The military for decades has planned for the deployment of nuclear-powered weapons in space.

What Could Truly End the Space Program: A Nuclear Disaster Overhead , OpED News, By Karl Grossman 21 July 11,“…..As to why the use of a plutonium-powered rover on Mars–considering that NASA has successfully used solar-powered rovers on Mars–the NASA Environmental Impact Statement says that a “solar-powered rover”would not be capable of operating over the full range of scientifically desirable landing site latitudes” on this mission. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Radiation exposure to be estimated for 61,000 US personnel in Japan

Military to Calculate Radiation Exposure in Japan, Military.com July 20, 2011, by Seth Robson , YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The U.S. military plans to calculate radiation doses received by each of the approximately 61,000 U.S. personnel living and working in Japan during this year’s nuclear disaster, according to the U.S. Pacific Command’s top surgeon. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear Regulatory Commission rubber-stamps another nuclear plant re-licence

Hope Creek nuclear plant’s license extended to 2046, Newsworks, By Monika Zaleska, July 20, 2011  The Hope Creek nuclear plant in South Jersey’s Salem County can now operate until 2046. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed the 1,060-megawatt plant’s license Wednesday.

A watchdog group, Unplug Salem, which is campaigning to close Hope Creek and the two nearby Salem plants, is not happy about the decision.

Norm Cohen, a group coordinator, claims the 25-year-old plant is out of date and unsafe. He says the state should move toward wind and solar energy instead of renewing nuclear licenses.

The Hope Creek reactor is the same model as the plant that melted down in Japan following the catastrophic tsunami and earthquake in the spring…….http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/23437

July 21, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Will the Nuclear Regulatory Commission relicense Fermi plant until 2045?

DTE seeks license extension for Fermi 2 nuke plant, DTE Energy has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to allow the company to operate the Fermi 2 nuclear plant until 2045, Michigan Messenger, By Eartha Jane Melzer | 07.21.11 

Fermi 2, located in Monroe County on Lake Erie, is a 1,140 megawatt plant that has the same GE Mark 1 design as the Fukushima, Japan power plant that melted down this spring following an earthquake and tsunami. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

China touts ‘fast breeder’ nuclear reactor, but it’s an unlikely energy solution

the process hasn’t proved workable on a large scale elsewhere. Fast-breeder programs have been abandoned in a number of countries, including the U.S., and the plants that remain are small.

China’s Nuclear Scientists Unveil Latest ‘Breakthrough, WSJ, James T. Areddy, 21 July 11, “…..The China Institute of Atomic Energy said Thursday that a small, experimental “fast breeder” reactor outside Beijing had been hooked to the grid to produce electricity. …. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | China, technology | Leave a comment

Squabble dividing Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners along partisan lines

Split Within Nuclear Regulatory Agency, NYT, By   21 July 11, WASHINGTON — A majority of the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission is signaling that it wants to move slowly on at least some new recommendations from its staff on how to reduce the chance of a Fukushima-type accident at an American reactor despite calls by its chairman for swift action.Three commissioners are resisting a proposal by the chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, that the commission act promptly on all the recommendations, which were issued last week by a team of six senior staff members…… Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Thorium nuclear reactors not effective, not a viable technology

‘Even if thorium technology does progress to the point where it might be commercially viable, it will face the same problems as conventional nuclear: it is not renewable or sustainable and cannot effectively connect to smart grids. The technology is not tried and tested, and none of the main players is interested. Thorium reactors are no more than a distraction.’

Don’t believe the spin on thorium being a ‘greener’ nuclear option, The Ecologist, Eifion Rees,  23rd June, 2011 “………China, Russia, France and the US are also pursuing the technology, while India’s department of atomic energy and the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council are jointly funding five UK research programmes into it.

There is a significant sticking point to the promotion of thorium as the ‘great green hope’ of clean energy production: it remains unproven on a commercial scale. While it has been around since the 1950s (and an experimental 10MW LFTR did run for five years during the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US, though using uranium and plutonium as fuel) it is still a next generation nuclear technology – theoretical. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, spinbuster, technology, Uranium | 5 Comments

Typhoon hazard to Japan’s nuclear power

a typhoon like Ma-On could be a huge blow to Japan……. also through the looming threat, again, to the country’s nuclear infrastructure…..What’s more, the shattered Fukushima plant may be so far gone that “insulating the facilities from the typhoon will be impossible,” ….If nothing else, the one-two punch of a tsunami and a typhoon may hasten Japan’s much called-for abandonment of nuclear power,….

Typhoon Tests Japan’s Nuclear Resolve, TIME, by , July 19, 2011 “…The typhoon is moving quickly north- and eastward, with sustained winds and gusts speeding along at 87 and 100 mph respectively. And quite a lot of that predicted rain – over 50mm, or 2 inches – has already hit Shikoku and Honshu islands. It’s still anyone’s guess whether or not the typhoon will lead to another national disaster — the most intense rainfall and strongest convection is still over the open ocean, and convection may be weakening because of warming cloud top temperatures and the movement of dry air

But that doesn’t mean the country shouldn’t be taking precautions: Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

More delays, more cost blowouts for France’s “new generation” nuclear plant

The reactor has already faced repeated delays and run billions of euros over budget…….

France delays new generation nuclear plant, News Tribune, July 21, 2011 – Tacoma, WA, PARIS — France’s electricity giant announced Wednesday it is delaying its new generation nuclear reactor for two years after a pair of deadly accidents and safety reviews prompted by the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

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