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Nuclear ballistic missile submarine almost hit cargo vessel

Nuclear sub narrowly avoided collision in Strait of Juan de Fuca, newspaper reports By Tom Callis, 25 Dec 1 Peninsula Daily News PORT ANGELES — A nuclear-powered submarine narrowly avoided colliding with a cargo ship in the Strait of Juan de Fuca in October, according to the Navy Times.

The newspaper reported Wednesday that the USS Kentucky, a ballistic-missile sub based at Bangor, was traveling at periscope depth when it came within 900 yards of a 839-foot-long cargo ship on Oct. 12. The officer of the deck had failed to check for other vessels while
making a course change, the Navy Times said. Both ships turned to avoid colliding…

…The newspaper did not say where in the Strait the incident occurred. In an email, a Navy spokesman declined to provide the location or additional information, adding “it is U.S. Navy policy not to discuss specific submarine operations.”

Coast Guard spokespeople could not be reached for comment Saturday. Nosse was relieved of his position in October after the incident and reassigned to Submarine Group 9, the newspaper said……. The newspaper said the control room had a made series of accumulating
errors, including confusing the inbound cargo ship as an outgoing vessel, and the commanding officer, concerned about a trawler, ordering a change of course but not saying in which direction…..  http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20111225/news/312259992/nuclear-sub-narrowly-avoided-collision-in-strait-of-juan-de-fuca

December 26, 2011 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

New cancer concerns over airport radiation scanners

the cosmic radiation that infiltrates airliners is absorbed by the whole body and is thus less dangerous than the low-level radiation of the scanners, which permeates only the skin and underlying tissues. In addition ….. blood and male testicles could be endangered.


Cancer concerns mount over TSA body scanners, Sun Sentinel   By Ken Kaye and Brittany Wallman,  December 25, 2011 Because the scanners’ lose dose of radiation penetrates just below skin level, it could imperil the lens of the eye, the thyroid and a woman’s breasts, said Dr. Edward Dauer, head of radiology at Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.

“I think it’s potentially a real danger to the public,” he said, noting that even a small dose could be risky for people predisposed to cancer. “This is an additional exposure.” Continue reading →

December 26, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Cancer from Fukushima radiation – the Japanese are the guinea pigs

 The bottom line is that no one really knows how much this ongoing exposure is going to raise our risk of cancer. The true impact is still unknown, yet to be learned as the world watches. The legacy of 3/11 is to turn us all into a nation of guinea pigs.

  . http://www.npr.org/2011/12/24/144194589/in-japan-radiation-fears-reshape-lives Radio In Japan, Radiation Fears Reshape Lives NPR.by LUCY CRAFT, December 24, 2011 Nine months after Japan’s nuclear accident, life in Tokyo seems to have snapped back to normal, with a vengeance. The talk shows are back to their usual mindless trivia about pop stars and baseball contracts. The date of the tsunami and nuclear accident, March 11 — known here as just 3/11 — has faded into the background.

But while the horror has receded, for many of us, particularly women with families, things will never be the same.

There’s no getting past the fact that the nuclear accident dumped radioactive particles into the atmosphere, soil and sea. Continue reading →

December 26, 2011 Posted by | general, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

UK’s nuclear industry not viable: taxpayers will cop the bill

Greenpeace said the latest cost overrun proved that the nuclear power industry’s financial viability was fundamentally flawed. Doug Parr, chief scientific officer at Greenpeace, said: “For all the claims of the government that it will be the power giants like EDF that will foot the cost of the next generation of nuclear, the reality yet again is that the hard-pressed taxpayer will end up footing the bill.”
UK taxpayers face extra £250m bill for nuclear waste clean-up Nuclear Decommissioning Authority faces 17.5% fall in income after asset sales drop by £150m and spending rises by £80m , guardian.co.uk,   25 December 2011  Sellafield nuclear power station in Cumbria –  The site’s mixed-oxide reprocessing plant, which will shut after Japan decided to end its atomic programme, has cost upwards of £1.2bn so far

The taxpayer will have to stump up almost £250m more to bail out the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in the next financial year after falling asset sales and rising expenditure cut its income by 17.5%. Continue reading →

December 26, 2011 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

India’s Nuclear Liability law now discriminates against women and the poor

India’s low liability cap was seen as a capitulation by the government to the interests of US nuclear suppliers,

the law is also controversial over discriminatory compensation to be awarded to the poor or female victims of any nuclear disaster. As currently written, it allows the government’s claims committee to withhold compensation payments from women, the disabled, the illiterate, the low-caste and the ”fiscal backword” and give their money instead to relatives, quarantine it in bank accounts, or to pay it out in instalments.

Fear over India’s nuclear embrace, Narromine News  BEN DOHERTY With SOM PATIDAR 23 Dec, 2011“…….While farmers and villagers protested against the creation of nuclear parks, which they argue will displace them and rob their livelihoods, India’s political class are angered by the government’s decision to limit the liability of nuclear plant operators and suppliers to just 15 billion rupees ($A270 million). Continue reading →

December 26, 2011 Posted by | India, Legal | Leave a comment

Nuclear industry might not have a future

“Right now, just the plain economics of nuclear power are underwater,”…over the past decade, construction costs have skyrocketed and natural gas got more plentiful and cheaper.

If Germany comes along and figures out how to power a very big economy, including baseload
needs, without nuclear, then that to me becomes a real, if not a death blow, a real challenge to nuclear, because it breaks the whole nuclear story that this is the only environmentally friendly way to provide baseload.”

After Fukushima: A Changing Climate For Nuclear NPR by CHRISTOPHER JOYCE December 24, 2011 This year has something unpleasant in common with the years 1979 and
1986. In 1979, a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania melted down. In 1986, the Soviet reactor at Chernobyl blew up and burned.

This year’s meltdown occurred in Fukushima in Japan, and nuclear power isn’t likely to be the same as a result. Nuclear power had enjoyed 25 years of relative quiet, but the
Fukushima accident reminded people that despite improvements isafety, nuclear plants could still go horribly wrong….. Continue reading →

December 26, 2011 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Ionizing radiation a possibility as cause of seal deaths

Some wonder if radiation could be causing the skin sores and related problems, including ulcers on internal organs and abnormal growths on brains

Is it possible that the ringed seals traveled to a contaminated area?

Or did they eat prey contaminated by radiation?

Is radiation causing Arctic Alaska ringed-seal deaths? Alaska Dispatch  Alex DeMarban | Dec 23, 2011 The University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Institute of Marine Sciences is launching an investigation into whether radiation, including possibly from the Fukoshima Daiichi nuclear power-plant disaster in Japan, has harmed or killed more than 100 ringed seals off Alaska’s coasts. Continue reading →

December 26, 2011 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

America no closer to finding a tomb for its accumulating nuclear wastes

In July, with little fanfare, the Obama administration’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future released a draft report to the Secretary of Energy on a post-Yucca Mountain solution. The report calls for development of “one or more geologic disposal facilities.”

So far, federal officials say they haven’t even started looking for a specific state or single site.

Northland rock considered for nuclear waste storage With Nevada’s Yucca Mountain out of the running as the permanent graveyard for U.S. nuclear waste, scientists now are looking for other places to entomb the stuff, including rock formations common in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. That’s the message from a 114-page study from the Sandia National Laboratory that surfaced last week. By: John Myers, Duluth News Tribune, 25 Dec 11, Continue reading →

December 26, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Australian Senator taking up the cause for Julian Assange’s human rights

Senator on mission for Assange Andrew Drummond The Age, December 26, 2011 SWEDISH officials have met an Australian senator to discuss the future of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. As extradition proceedings against the 40-year-old Australian continue in London, West Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlam has embarked on a European mission to secure guarantees about Assange’s human rights, should he be extradited to Sweden.

Swedish prosecutors want Assange in Stockholm for questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women in the capital in August 2010. Assange denies the claims and is refusing to return to Sweden, fearing that the country will hand him over to the United States, where his secret-leaking website is the subject of an investigation. During the time he spent in Sweden, Senator Ludlam met justice officials and discussed the process faced by people being
extradited to Sweden…..Assange still wore an electronic tracking device and had to report daily to police as part of his bail conditions.
From February 1, Assange will face a panel of seven British Supreme Court judges for a two-day hearing during which he will appeal against the rulings of lower courts that he should be extradited to Stockholm. Senator Ludlam plans to take the information he has gathered in
Stockholm to the Australian Parliament and seek cross-party support to do ”everything possible to prevent this extradition”.  http://www.theage.com.au/national/senator-on-mission-for-assange-20111225-1p9ko.html#ixzz1hgmWKON5

December 26, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

Scottish renewable energy’s record successes

‘Scottish renewable electricity on track for ‘record year  Figures reveal country is likely to produce its highest ever levels of electricity from renewable sources,     Guardian UK, 23 Dec 11 Scotland is set to generate a third of its electricity from renewable sources in 2011. Scotland looks set for its highest ever renewables output, and could produce almost a third of its electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2011.The latest Energy Statistics (PDF) from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) show that, over the first three quarters of 2011, Scotland delivered 94 per cent of last year’s totals and 83 per cent of the previous record year.

The Scottish government said that, if the trend continues over the fourth quarter, 2011 will be a record year for renewable electricity in Scotland.

It added that the country’s goal of 100 per cent green energy by 2020 is also on track, as the statistics reveal sufficient capacity in Scotland to meet its interim target of 31 per cent of electricity demand from renewables in 2011. Installed capacity reached a record high of 4.3GW over the year, while Scotland continued to be a net exporter of electricity in 2010, exporting 21 per cent of electricity generated.

Scottish energy minister Fergus Ewing said that £750m worth of renewables projects were switched on in 2011, while another £46bn worth are in the pipeline.

“2011 has been an exceptional year for renewable energy in Scotland,”
he said in a statement. “These figures show that it is on course to be truly the best year yet.”….

December 26, 2011 Posted by | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Turkish govt asks Russian nuclear firm to ‘educate’ Turkey’s anti nuclear residents

Turkey surprises Russian nuclear firm with new conditions, Today’s Zaman,  ERCAN BAYSAL , ANKARA, 26 Dec 11 Russian firm Atomstroy export received two additional conditions from the Turkish Ministry of Environment and Forestry on their contract for Turkey’s first nuclear power plant in Akkuyu, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.
The ministry announced the additional conditions to the Russian firm in its response to Atomstroyexport’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) report. One of the additional conditions placed by the ministry asks the firm to persuade the residents of Akkuyu and be sensible to their objections regarding the nuclear plant. Continue reading →

December 26, 2011 Posted by | marketing, Turkey | Leave a comment

Big money pushing for Virginia uranium, rather than water safety

Virginia. election, uranium’s future among the top political, government stories of 2012, Washingtn Post, 25 Dec 11 RICHMOND, Va. — The list of top stories includes whether money can speak loudly enough to open Virginia to uranium mining despite serious environmental concerns and whether the Republican right rules all of Virginia policymaking…..

A long-awaited independent study by the National Academy of Sciences in December raised serious concerns about whether a massive uranium ore deposit can be safely mined and milled in Pittsylvania County…..
It’s up to the Virginia General Assembly to weigh the appeal of an economic boom in Southside Virginia — an area hit hard by declines in the textile, furniture and tobacco industries — against the prospect of contaminating water supplies for huge areas of Virginia and North Carolina.

The deep-pockets consortium of investors and corporations eager to recover the 119-million-pound deposit has hired Capitol Square’s most expensive and influential lobbyists to shepherd legislation to end a 30-year uranium mining ban through a deeply divided House and Senate.

This is one of those issues more likely to create geographic divisions than partisan ones…..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-at-elections-forefront-can-republicans-really-rule-uraniums-future-the-stories-of-2012/2011/12/25/gIQA9RjEHP_story.html

December 26, 2011 Posted by | politics, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Amid safety risks, India’s ambitious nuclear plan gets a sham safety regulator

Fear over India’s nuclear embrace, Narromine News  BEN DOHERTY With SOM PATIDAR 23 Dec, 2011 “…..The Indian government is seeking to dismantle the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, proposing to abandon the long-standing independent regulator in favour of a new body directly controlled by the central government.

Critics have condemned the move, arguing the new regulator will be captive to government and unable to properly pursue safety concerns. Although the law is expected to pass the national Parliament without significant alteration, a former head of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Dr A Gopalakrishnan, has labelled the proposed replacement body
as a sham. Continue reading →

December 26, 2011 Posted by | India, safety | Leave a comment