Radioactive caesium in beef from Fukushima prefecture
High levels of caesium found in Fukushima beef, ABC News, Jul 9, 2011. More than six times the legal limit of radioactive caesium has been found in beef from Fukushima prefecture, home to Japan’s crippled nuclear plant, an official statement said on Saturday.
The meat was taken from one of 11 cows shipped to Tokyo from a farmer in Minamisoma city, according to the statement by the Tokyo metropolitan government.
The 11 cows all showed high levels of radioactive caesium, ranging from 1,530 to 3,200 becquerels per kilogram, compared with the legal limit of 500 becquerels, the Tokyo statement said.
It was the first time excessive levels of radioactive caesium have been found in meat, according to a Tokyo official……http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/09/3265533.htm?section=justin
Nuclear Regulatory Commission keeps the public in the dark about radioactive leaks
NRC, nuke industry criticized for skirting public . The Sacramento Bee, 10 July 11, MONTPELIER, Vt. — When a nuclear watchdog group asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a study on leaks of radioactive water at the Vermont Yankee plant, it was told the NRC had seen the report but had never officially taken custody of it – so it wasn’t public. By DAVE GRAM, Associated Press
Critics say it’s a style of communication between regulator and regulated that cuts out the public and even state regulators – trying to track leaks of tritium, a radioactive form of water linked with cancer when ingested in high amounts.
An NRC spokeswoman confirmed the agency routinely sees industry reports that it does not share on its public web site. Raymond Shadis of the New England Coalition said the result is an agency making regulatory decisions based on information the public doesn’t get to see…..
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/10/3759812/nrc-nuke-industry-criticized-for.html
Long Branch Center refutes any need for USA nuclear reprocessing
Local environmental group submits comment on nuclear-fuel reprocessing facilities, Mountain Xpress, by Margaret Williams 10 July 11Secretary
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff
fax 301-415-1101
Rulemaking.Comments@nrc.gov
Re: Comment on Docket ID NRC–2010–0267, NRC “Draft Regulatory Basis for a Potential Rulemaking on Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facilities” Continue reading
France rejects compensatioin for its Pacific atomic test victims
France says no to Pacific compensation, VIDEO from Australia Network News, Nuclear veterans disappointed, Radio Australia News, Geraldine Coutts, 06 Jul 2011
French Polynesia’s nuclear test veterans say they are shocked and disappointed at France’s decision to reject their compensation claims.The rejection comes two years after Paris formally acknowledged that nuclear weapon tests in French Polynesia were not clean and there was an obligation to pay compensation.
There was legislation passed to allow for compensation, but now France has rejected seven out of eight compensation claims filed by veterans. In the 30 years to 1996, France carried out almost 200 nuclear tests in French Polynesia, including 42 atmospheric tests held despite opposition from residents.
President of French Polynesia’s nuclear test veterans organisation, Roland Oldham, has told Pacific Beat the rejections show France is not committed to compensating the veterans.
“As far as we’re concerned, it is clear that the French government does not [plan] to take any responsibility in compensation,” he said.
“[It] is only some sort of masquerade to make the world believe that France is making a big speech, that France is paying compensation for the victims.
“But the matter of fact is France is not really going to pay compensation – that’s a feeling we have from this result.”
Mr Oldham said the French Government was triying to “delay as much as we can to discourage first the victims, and secondly, to hope that in five or 10 years time there will be no former workers alive and it will be even harder for the family to get the paper together.”
“That’s what they’re trying to do.” http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/story.htm?id=41838
Japan to announce new “stress tests” for its idled nuclear reactors
Japan to detail nuclear plant “stress tests” Monday-minister, TOKYO, July 10, 2011 , (Reuters) – Japan will unveil on Monday details of “stress tests” idled nuclear power plants must undergo before they can be restarted, a senior official said on Sunday, as the government seeks to reassure the public over safety after the Fukushima disaster.
Gohsi Hosono, the minister appointed to oversee Japan’s response to the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, told Fuji TV in an interview the government would also announce on Monday a plan for electricity supply over the next “one or two years” to allay businesses’ fears over power shortages. “The results of the new stress tests and the decision on restarts cannot be treated separately,” Hosono said.
He said the tests, intended to assess whether Japan’s nuclear plants could withstand the kind of massive earthquake and tsunami that pushed Fukushima into crisis, would have different standards to those proposed by the European Union, adding: “This will be a Japanese-style test.”
In a sudden shift in policy, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said last week that Japan would administer stress tests for nuclear plants similar to those conducted by the European Union after the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant…..http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/10/idUSL3E7IA03G20110710
France’s new Ecology Minister quietly not too keen on nuclear power
Ms Kosciusko-Morizet appears to have been cannier than her predecessor, Jean-Louis Borloo, who antagonised the nuclear lobby with his renewables campaign. She is taking a tack that few French politicians or industrialists dare challenge…..
France aims to rebalance its energy mix, FT.com By Peggy Hollinger, 10 July 11“…….The ecology minister, Ms Kosciusko-Morizet ,one of a young generation of bright ambitious politicians brought into government by President Nicolas Sarkozy, is too aware of the highly sensitive nature of nuclear politics in France to say outright that she is against the construction of new reactors.
But she seems less than enthusiastic about the project to build a second new-generation European pressurised reactor (EPR) – which has been on hold since the Fukushima disaster – or the proposal to showcase new French technology by approving plans for a smaller prototype reactor, known as the Atmea.
“We are in a phase in which there are projects, and there are questions on existing reactors and on the development of renewable energy,” she says. “If we wanted to do only nuclear power, we would not have launched these offshore projects.”
Ms Kosciusko-Morizet appears to have been cannier than her predecessor, Jean-Louis Borloo, who antagonised the nuclear lobby with his renewables campaign. She is taking a tack that few French politicians or industrialists dare challenge…..
Ms Kosciusko-Morizet admits that France lags China and Germany in the race to build a solar power industry. But the government has now restructured incentives that might in the end favour French technology.
“We are reinvesting again in solar, but in very high quality,” she says, and France is now five years ahead on its 2020 objectives to have 5,400MW installed by 2020….
Entergy not to be charged over its lies about nuclear radioactive wastes
Vermont won’t charge Entergy over leak -Atty Gen
* State wants Vermont Yankee reactor to shut in 2012 * Entergy wants plant to run until 2032 By Scott DiSavino NEW YORK, July 6 (Reuters) - Vermont's attorney general decided not to charge Entergy Corp (ETR.N) or any of its current or past employees with perjury for misleading state officials during an investigation into a radioactive tritium leak at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in 2010. That leak, and misleading comments by Entergy employees that there were no underground pipes at the plant leaking tritium, helped convince state officials the reactor should be shut in March 2012, even though U.S. regulators renewed its original 40-year operating license for another 20 years. Unless state officials change their minds or New Orleans-based Entergy, the No. 2 U.S. nuclear power operator, wins a court case to block the state from shutting the reactor, Vermont Yankee will close in March 2012....... http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/06/utilities-entergy-vermont-idUSN1E76518U20110706
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Global warming poses unusual threats to nuclear power plants
Jellyfish Invasions Force Shutdowns at 3 Separate Nuclear Plants– MSNBC.com By Natalie Wolchover, 7 July 11, A nuclear power plant on the coast of Israel was forced to shut down this week when its seawater cooling system became clogged with jellyfish. A similar incident temporarily disabled two nuclear reactors at the Torness power station on the Scottish coast last week. A week before, a reactor in Shimane, Japan was crippled by yet another jellyfish infiltration.
Amid speculation that warm waters and ocean acidification — both driven by climate change — are boosting jellyfish populations, are these three incidents signs of a growing trend?…………
Some researchers do suspect that populations are rising, as jellyfish may thrive in warmer oceans. “Jellyfish populations spike and wane with climate variability, so it’s not hard to make the logical leap that if climate is changing long-term, we’ll likely see a population change,” Graham said. He is conducting research to investigate whether jellyfish populations are increasing globally, and if so, why.
Decades to clean up Fukushima nuclear plant. Cooling battle continues
Japan’s Kan says nuclear clean-up could take decades, Jul 9, 2011, (Reuters) (reporting by Kaori Kaneko and Kevin Krolicki, editing by Miral Fahmy and Sugita Katyal) – Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Saturday it will take decades to clean up and decommission the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant after the world’s worst atomic accident since Chernobyl.
Kan’s comments marked the first time that Japan’s government has offered a timeframe for the clean-up at Fukushima beyond the emergency measures now underway to shut down its reactors.
“It will take three, five, ten years, or eventually several decades to take care of the accident,” Kan told local officials from his Democratic Party ofJapan meeting in Tokyo…….
Efforts to cool the Fukushima reactors currently hinge on a complex and hastily constructed system to decontaminate thousands of tonnes of water being pumped into the reactors and then to circulate it back through the reactors……http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/09/us-japan-nuclear-hosono-idUSTRE7680Z520110709
Overview of nuclear problems – Britain, Japan ,France, USA
Nuclear Problems In Britain, Japan, France and the U.S. WASHINGTON’S BLOG, JULY 8, 2011
UK
The British government has finally admitted widespread contamination from the Sellafield plant.
The Guardian reports:
Radioactive pollution from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria has led to children’s teeth across Britain being contaminated with plutonium.
The Government has admitted for the first time that Sellafield ‘is a source of plutonium contamination’ across the country. Public Health Minister Melanie Johnson has revealed that a study funded by the Department of Health discovered that the closer a child lived to Sellafield, the higher the levels of plutonium found in their teeth…. Continue reading
Wildfires in Nevada nuclear bomb test areas
Lightning sparked blazes at nuclear test areas, BY TREVON MILLIARD, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, Jul. 9, 2011, Wildland firefighters battled more than just the usual Nevada brush blaze this week. They had to contend with the possibility of radiation.
Lightning sparked two fires Tuesday within the Nevada National Security Site, the former nuclear test site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. By Friday, the fires had consumed more than 6,000 acres, with the smaller blaze fully contained and the larger only 25 percent contained.
Crews have not only been watching winds and weather, but are monitoring radiation levels in the air, making certain the flames don’t stir up remnants of decades-old detonations. One of the fires is “several miles” from the location of an above-ground test, a safe distance according to Dante Pistone, a spokesman at the test site’s operations center…….
From 1951 until 1992, there were 928 nuclear tests involving 1,021 detonations at the test site. Of these, 100 were above ground and could be affected by disturbances such as wildfires…….http://www.lvrj.com/news/lightning-sparked-blazes-at-nuclear-test-areas-125260084.html?ref=084—
France’s tardy response to Pacific nuclear test victims
FRANCE RESPONDS TO TAHITI ON NUKE COMPENSATION
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The defence ministry in Paris says work has been started between the French state and the Fund in Tahiti on how those deemed eligible for compensation can be paid.
The ministry says France is yet to get a response to its initiative.
Two years ago, France recognised for the first time that its weapons tests weren’t clean but to date only one compensation claim has been recognised.
France tested nearly 200 nuclear weapons in French Polynesia before winding up its programme in 1996…..http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2011/July/07-08-14.htm
Japan’s nuclear reactors could be all shut down by May 2012
Japan May Have No Nukes Operating By 2012, Says Bloomberg, Barron’s, July 8 2011, By Tiernan Ray, Interesting article by Bloomberg’s Tsuyoshi Inajima and Chisaki Watanabe this morning about Japan perhaps dumping all nukes by May of next year.
Two thirds of Japan’s nuclear reactors have been shut down since the earthquake and resultant tsunami in March, the authors write. Now, stress tests ordered by the government this week on various reactors are causing delays to the resumption of operations at plants.
“The remaining operating units in Japan, the world’s third- biggest user of nuclear power, must be idled by May next year, according to schedules provided to Bloomberg by Kyushu Electric, Shikoku Electric, Tokyo Electric Power Co., Kansai Electric Power Co. and the other power companies,” write Inajima and Watanabe….http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2011/07/08/japan-may-have-no-nukes-operating-by-2012-says-bloomberg/?mod=google_news_blog
$1 Billion emergency response plan for USA nuclear industry ?
Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has faulted U.S. oversight of reactor safety. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both California Democrats, have called on the NRC to examine nuclear power plants located in areas of seismic activity. In June, rising waters of the Missouri River in Nebraska threatened to breach flood walls protecting two nuclear plants.
Nuke industry weighing $1B emergency response plan, Fuel Fix, By Brian Wingfield, 8 July 11 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. nuclear-power industry is considering a $1 billion plan that would create regional centers to store equipment for delivery to reactors within 24 hours of an emergency. Continue reading
Perry Nuclear Plant may not be operating safely
Perry Nuclear Plant facing possible safety violations, The investigation into an April incident at Perry Nuclear Power Plant in North Perry Village has the plant facing a possible safety violation., News Herald, July 09, 2011,
Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng said preliminary findings indicate numerous missteps were taken on April 21 when workers removed a neuron monitor from a reactor………Mitlyng said the potential violation follows a series of indications that the plant may not be operating as safely as possible.
“Perry has had issues with human performance which for 31⁄2 years they have not been able to resolve.”…http://news-herald.com/articles/2011/07/09/news/nh4230128.txt?viewmode=2
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