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Radioactive water leak reported from Fukushima’s No 2 nuclear reactor

Fresh Radioactive Water Leakage Reported at Fukushima Nuke Plant, MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti) About two liters of radioactive water leaked from the turbine building of the second reactor at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday.
TEPCO, which operates the nuclear plant, issued a statement on Saturday saying the leak was from a pipe there that transfers highly radioactive water in the basement of the No. 2 reactor’s turbine building to the plant’s waste disposal facility……http://en.ria.ru/world/20120122/170887389.html

January 24, 2012 Posted by | incidents, Japan | Leave a comment

Kuwait would be first victim of Iranian nuclear disaster

Kuwait, GCC not ready to face nuclear crisis’ – Government playing politics, Kuwait Times, By Ben Garcia, 23 Jan 12 KUWAIT: Neither Kuwait nor the Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] countries are prepared for any incident of nuclear disaster in the Middle East, says environment activist Dr Khaled Al-Hajery.  Speaking with the Kuwait Times, Al-Hajery, Greenline chairman, said his group had advised and urged the Kuwaiti authorities and other GCC countries many years ago to act and be ready for any nuclear disaster but still
no one seems to listen. “The nuclear problem has started way back from the beginning of the Bushehr nuclear operation in September 2011.

Since then, there had been nuclear waste coming out from the nuclear facility but do we really care? We are dealing and have been talking about nuclear issue since the operation of the Bushehr Plant, but the government didn’t do anything,” he said.  Yesterday reports from
several Arabic dailies mentioned the GCC’s  ‘rapid deployment team’ to face repercussions of a possible accident at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant which is located just across the Gulf water, or around 236 km from Ras Al Zour in Kuwait.

Aleqtisadia Arabic language daily said, quoting Tariq Al-Obaid, secretary general of the Geneva-based Euro-Arab Environment Organization (EAEO), GCC countries could be the
first victims of any nuclear radiation from the Iranian plant….. Continue reading →

January 24, 2012 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, safety | Leave a comment

TEPCO nuclear company to be nationalised, saved from bankruptcy

TEPCO ‘to be nationalised’ for 10 years, SKY News,  January 21, 2012 The operator of Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant will be effectively nationalised for at least 10 years under a plan to provide it with money to fund compensation payouts, a report said Saturday.

The funding from a public body is expected to inject Y1 trillion yen ($A12.48 billion) into Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), effectively putting it under state control, Kyodo reported quoting sources close to the matter.

The scheme is expected to be included in a comprehensive business plan to be finalised in March by TEPCO and the fund, named the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund, the report said.

Under the plan TEPCO will remain as a listed company, it added.

The funding body will receive money from special government bonds and contributions from other utilities which have nuclear power plants in Japan.

The business plan is aimed at preventing TEPCO from becoming insolvent due to the heavy costs stemming from the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster…..
A government panel has estimated claims from victims affected by the Fukushima crisis could reach 4.5 trillion yen by 2013…..
(TEPCO) will aim to get into the black in the year to March 2014 by raising household electricity charges and reactivate its idle nuclear reactors from early 2013, the news agency added. It is hoped that TEPCO would be able to exit effective state control
as early as in March 2022.

Commenting on the report, TEPCO spokeswoman Megumi Iwashita said: “Nothing has been decided up to date.” http://www.skynews.com.au/businessnews/article.aspx?id=709835&vId=

January 24, 2012 Posted by | Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Davis-Besse nuclear plant an issue in USA election

Ohio nuclear plant woes in middle of US House race  CBS News January 22,  PORT CLINTON, Ohio — The debate over a nuclear plant where small cracks were discovered in a concrete shell is revealing another split between two Democrats who are veteran members of Congress and opponents in the March 6 primary.

It’s one of the first noticeable divides to surface in the race since Ohio’s new congressional map lumped Reps. Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich into the same northern Ohio district that stretches from Cleveland to Toledo.

Kucinich, who’s long been a critic of nuclear power, is calling for shutting down the Davis-Besse nuclear plant if major repairs aren’t made……. Both Kucinich and Kaptur have been highly critical of the plant’s operator and regulators in the past. Kaptur suggested Davis-Besse should be shut down, and Kucinich asked that its operating license be pulled about 10 years ago when an acid leak resulted in the most extensive corrosion found at a U.S. nuclear reactor…..
He agreed that the jobs are important, but also said that the workers’ “lives are important as well.”  “This is about the safety of millions of people and our drinking
water,” he said……..http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57363543/ohio-nuclear-plant-woes-in-middle-of-us-house-race/

January 24, 2012 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Continuation of Vermont Yankee Nuclear facility is far from certain

In fact, Vermont has the authority to make the standards even stricter if it so desires, which could prove to be a serious monkey wrench in Entergy’s plan to continue operation of Yankee.

The fat lady, Brattleboro Reformer, January 21, 2012 http://www.reformer.com/ci_19788006?source=most_viewed Though Federal District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha came down emphatically on the side of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, we don’t expect to be hearing the song of the fat lady any time too soon.

Murtha threw out Act 160, in which the Vermont Legislature gave itself the authority to forbid the Public Service Board from issuing a certificate of public good, which Yankee needs to continue operation past March 21.

By removing the Legislature from the equation, he remanded the case back to the PSB, which now will have the opportunity to reinitiate its deliberations over whether the CPG should be issued.
In another setback to the state, Judge Murtha also ruled that the reliability audit required by the Legislature to inform its decision on whether to allow the PSB to issue a CPG, was actually a radiological safety report. Therefore, the PSB can’t consider the audit in its review.

So while the PSB can’t base its decision on radiological health and safety, it has the authority to deny the CPG based on economics, land use and trustworthiness of the plant’s owner. Continue reading →

January 24, 2012 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons and the race between cooperation and catastrophe

Sam Nunn tackling ‘global problem’ of nuclear weapons Former senator also discusses military, current politics, midstate Macon.com By JIM GAINES, 22 Jan 12 Nunn, a Democratic senator for 24 years, is one subject of a new book by former New York Times reporter and editor Philip Taubman.

“The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and their Quest to Ban the Bomb” chronicles the effort to control nuclear materials worldwide. Nunn joined former secretaries of state Henry
Kissinger and George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and Stanford University physicist Sidney Drell to write a 2007 Wall Street Journal article calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons,and they’ve traveled the world in quest of that goal ever since….

“He says if there’s a 10 percent chance of having a nuclear catastrophe — a city goes up — in a given year, and that persists for 50 years … there’s only one-half of a 1 percent chance of
avoidance,” Nunn said. “In other words, 99 and one-half percent chance it’s going to happen over 50 years, somewhere. If you can move that 10 percent to one percent … then over 50 years, you’ve got a 60 percent chance of avoidance. That’s what threat reduction’s all about. It’s a global problem, but as I say often — and it’s true — we’re in a race
between cooperation and catastrophe.”…..
“It’s not simply weapons. You’ve got to control nuclear material, and you’ve got to stop producing the stuff. You could get rid of every nuclear weapon in the world, and the world would still be a very dangerous place if a terrorist could make a weapon. Nobody’s saying
this is going to be easy. But the other way to go is to say ‘We’re going to have them forever.’….. http://www.macon.com/2012/01/22/1873859/former-senator-also-discusses.html

January 24, 2012 Posted by | resources - print | Leave a comment

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