nuclear-news

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

India’s nuclear power safety problems are getting worse

Admitting problems, the federal Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has said there could be a delay in the two projects.
Meanwhile, the state government of West Bengal state has refused permission to a proposed 6000 MW facility near the town of Haripur that intended to host six Russian reactors. ..

 activists and experts have called for an audit by an independent body. They say that given the non-transparent nature of India’s state-controlled nuclear energy sector – there is no way to estimate whether safety issues will be carefully followed

India’s Rising Nuclear safety Concerns , Asia Sentinel, Siddharth Srivastava, 27 Oct 11, Concerns about safety of nuclear power plants (NPPs) are threateningIndia’s massive investment plans in the sector..

Post the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan populations around proposed Indian NPP sites have launched protests that are now finding resonance around the country, raising questions about atomic energy as a clean and safe alternative to fossil fuels. Continue reading →

October 28, 2011 Posted by | India, safety | Leave a comment

Support for India’s Kudankulam anti nuclear protestors

Kudankulam anti-nuclear team hopeful of support of local bodies, Economic Times, 28 OCT, 2011,  JOE A SCARIA,   CHENNAI: The anti-nuclear protests at Kudankulam entered the tenth day on Thursday, with leaders of the rainbow organisations demanding scrapping of the nuclear plant in the village hopeful that the newly-elected local body representatives will support their cause.

AIADMK had scored an emphatic win last week in the local body elections in Tamil Nadu. The nuclear plant at Kudankulam was an election issue across Kanyakumari, Nagercoil and Tirunelveli districts. The polls have also thrown up a number of independent candidates in panchayats like Idinthakarai, where the protests are being staged, and at Kudankulam. “We are speaking to the newly-elected local body representatives and they are in support of our demand,” convenor of the Coastal People’s Federation M Pushparayan, one of the organisations fighting for closure of the Indo-Russian joint ventureKudankulam Nuclear Power Project, told ET.
The Centre had set up a 15-member expert committee to study the issue, but protest leaders say they want a halt to the work at the plant before they can hold discussions with the expert committee.

Roughly 500 people are taking turns each day for the relay fast at Idinthikarai village, close to the Kudankulam nuclear power plant. Pushparayan said villagers from Koottapanai and Kuttuthalai were on fast on Thursday. Among the prominent persons visiting the site on Thursday was the Church of South India’s bishop for Tuticorin, JAD Jebachandran.

Protestors have also expressed disappointment over the composition of the expert committee. “We are not against the committee, but the fact is that the committee was set up without our knowledge and also without taking the state government into confidence,” Pushparayan said.

The Tamil Nadu Cabinet had passed a resolution demanding halt to work at the project, and J Jayalalithaa had assured her support to the local people during the local body poll campaign. .. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/kudankulam-anti-nuclear-team-hopeful-of-support-of-local-bodies/articleshow/10514024.cms

October 28, 2011 Posted by | India, opposition to nuclear | 2 Comments

Dealing with wrecked Fukushima nuclear reactors will take decades

Three decades needed to make Fukushima safe, ABC News, By North Asia correspondent, October 28, 2011  30 years to decommission: Inside the Fukushima nuclear plant A draft report by Japan’s nuclear agency says it will take more than 30 years to decommission the shattered Fukushima nuclear plant.

Authorities hope to have the stricken reactors in a state of cold shutdown by the end of the year. The draft report from the cabinet’s nuclear agency estimates that reactors number one through to four at the Fukushima plant will not be fully decommissioned until 2042.

As well as achieving cold shutdown of the reactors, each reactor building has to be decontaminated, and then fuel from the spent fuel pools has to be collected.

The final stage involves collecting nuclear fuel from inside the four reactors. Reactors one, two and three all suffered meltdowns after a tsunami slammed into the plant in March… http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-28/fukushima-nuclear-decommission/3605094/?site=melbourne

October 28, 2011 Posted by | decommission reactor, Japan | Leave a comment

Russian nuclear experts have left India’s Kudankulam nuclear project site

Russian team leaves Kudankulam site,THE HINDU 28 Oct 11A team of experts from Atomstroyexports, the Russian firm that supplies technology and the equipment for the 2 X 1,000 MWe nuclear reactors of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project, who had camped at Kudankulam to inspect the quality of the work completed so far and witness the functioning of the equipment installed, have left the site. The Russians took this decision as they could not get permission to go to the KKNPP site from Anu Vijay Township, where they were staying in the wake of the ongoing protest against the nuclear power project…. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/article2574703.ece

October 28, 2011 Posted by | business and costs, India | Leave a comment

Radioactive cores of B53 nuclear bombers remain dangerous

 

 

 The announcement of the disassembly of the last B53 may seem to imply that everything has been taken apart and made safe. This is correct as far as the direct risk of a nuclear explosion is concerned; but the reality is that the highly radioactive cores of B53 and other dismantled weapons, known as “pits”, are simply being put into protected storage.  …..many have been dismantled, but the pits are still there and will remain so for many years to come…

learning the lessons of the cold war is a matter as much for the future as for the past.     

 

Mad Men: Nuclear Pasts, Human Futures The dismantling of a powerful nuclear bomb closes a chapter of the cold war. But the choices and responsibilities embedded in the story of the B53 make this a 21st-century story too.ISN By Paul Rogers for OpenDemocracy, 28 Oct 11 The last of the most powerful thermonuclear bombs in the United States arsenal – the B53 – was dismantled in Texas on 25 October 2011. Is this a significant moment, or is it scarcely relevant in a world of slow nuclear proliferation? Continue reading →

October 28, 2011 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A global program to rid the world of the nuclear power chain

FREE THE WORLD FROM THE NUCLEAR CHAIN By Xanthe Hall*  IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint  27 Oct 11 Nuclear Power and the Bomb are inextricably linked through an atomic chain. The nuclear era began in Germany, so we have a specific responsibility to end it sooner rather than later.

BERLIN (IDN) – We talk about abandoning nuclear energy or abolishing nuclear weapons. But this is not enough. They are only the visible products of a whole chain of production that binds us – the nuclear chain. This chain does much more damage than we are aware of. Continue reading →

October 28, 2011 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting – behind the scenes, India lobbies for Australian uranium

India lobbies for Australian uranium, THE HINDU PRISCILLA JEBARAJ, 28 Oct 11 “……Informal, behind-the-scenes diplomacy is a key part of the CHOGM summits, and India seemed to be using the opportunity to lobby for a change in Australia’s uranium exports policy banning sales to India, which is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The issue reportedly came up at Mr. Ansari’s meeting with Australian Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott on Thursday. Mr. Abbott heads the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia, which favours allowing Australia — which has the world’s largest reserves of uranium — to export the mineral to India…..

Mr. Ansari is also likely to discuss the issue at his bilateral meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard later this week. The ruling Labour party is split on the issue, which is expected to be a subject of hot debate at the party conference this December. Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd argued that India’s civil nuclear power programme was not dependent on Australian uranium.

“If you hear an argument from an Indian businessperson that the future of the nuclear industry in India depends exclusively on access to uranium, that is simply not sustainable as a proposition. Have a look at the data,” he said at a mining industry breakfast, according to a report by Australian news agency AAP. Both Indian officials and businessmen have been raising the issue on the sidelines of the CHOGM. “There is no problem in terms of global supply, let’s just be very, very blunt about this.”However, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson who supports uranium exports to India, said he was eager to debate the issue at the party conference, which could turn out to be pivotal for India’s hopes of accessing Australian uranium….http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2574653.ece

October 28, 2011 Posted by | India, politics international, Uranium | Leave a comment

TEPCO wants $12 billion from Japanese government to avoid bankruptcy

Tepco to Ask for $12 Billion From Government, Nikkei Reports, October 27, 2011,  By Tsuyoshi Inajima Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) –– Tokyo Electric Power Co. will ask the government for 900 billion yen ($12 billion) to avoid bankruptcy, the Nikkei newspaper said, the first state support since the Fukushima nuclear disaster almost eight months ago.

Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano may sign off on a finance plan for the company known as Tepco as early as next week, the Nikkei said. Tepco will commit to cutting costs by 240 billion yen and raising as much as 400 billion yen from asset sales by the end of March, the paper said. Executives of the company at the center of the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl will agree on the plan today, the Nikkei said.

The aid will be the first disbursement from the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund that was set up last month. Tepco and the fund have been drafting a business plan to pave the way for government support for the utility, which may have to pay 4.5 trillion yen in compensation to residents and businesses hurt by the disaster by March 2013.

Tokyo Electric’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic plant has been discharging radiation since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems, causing three meltdowns and explosions. The catastrophe forced 160,000 people to flee radiation and damaged fishing, farming and forestry businesses….Tepco may face 8.6 trillion yen in funding shortages during the next decade if none of its nuclear power plants come back online and electricity prices aren’t increased, a government panel said earlier this month after reviewing the company’s finances. ..http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-27/tepco-to-ask-for-12-billion-from-government-nikkei-reports.html

October 28, 2011 Posted by | Japan | Leave a comment

AREVA’s uranium mining revenues fall

Areva 9-month revenues fall 3.5 pct, 

* 9-month sales down 3.5 percent to 5.95 bln euros* Q3 sales down 2.9 percent to 1.95 bln euros* Backlog down 1 percent at 2.7 bln euros at Sept end 

By Caroline Jacobs and Christian Plumb PARIS, Oct 27 (Reuters) – French nuclear group Areva posted a 3.5 percent decline in nine-month sales on Thursday, squeezed by weakness in its uranium mining and waste-processing businesses.

Revenues reached 5.95 billion euros ($8.4 billion) and were down 1.5 percent on a like-for-like basis, state-owned Areva said in a statement. For the third-quarter alone, revenues fell 2.9 percent to 1.95 billion euros, Areva said, without providing details about specific business lines’ performance for the period…..

Since the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima power plant in March, order cancellations have been just 301 million euros, Areva said.

Countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Italy have shelved nuclear plans after the incident, but others such as Britain, Poland or the Czech Republic said they would go ahead with the construction of new plants.

Areva is assessing what consequences Fukushima will have on its business and will announce its five-year strategy plan in December….

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/aereva-revenue-idUSL5E7LR5BZ20111027

October 28, 2011 Posted by | France, Uranium | Leave a comment

Fukushima’s radiation pollution of the Pacific ocean

Fukushima’s nuclear pollution of Pacific the world’s greatest: nuclear monitor, The Vancouver Sun, Agence France-Presse October 27, 2011 The IRSN cites deep-water fish, fish at the top of the marine food chain and molluscs and other filtrating organisms as “the species that are the most sensitive” to caesium pollution.

PARIS – France’s nuclear monitor said on Thursday that the amount of caesium 137 that leaked into the Pacific from the Fukushima disaster was the greatest single nuclear contamination of the sea ever seen….. Continue reading →

October 28, 2011 Posted by | Japan, oceans | Leave a comment

Canada could be drawn into USA military operations

By participating in such a program, … there’s a risk of making Canada more likely to become involved in future U.S. military operations.

Ottawa to spend up to $477M on U.S. military satellites, NATIONAL POST Canada, By Lee Berthiaume, Oct 26, 2011 OTTAWA — The federal government is planning to spend as much as $477-million to participate in a U.S.-led military satellite program that has been subject to delays and cost overruns over the past decade, Postmedia News has learned.

The Wideband Global Satellite system has been advertised by the U.S. Defense Department as a communications system for “U.S. warfighters, allies and coalition partners during all levels of conflict, short of nuclear war.”

The idea is to have as many as nine military satellites hovering over different parts of the world, ready to provide high-frequency bandwidth for U.S. and allied forces wherever they may be operating….. Continue reading →

October 28, 2011 Posted by | Canada, weapons and war | Leave a comment