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Protestors occupy Hinkley nuclear site, accuse EDF of pre-empting permission

Activists occupying new nuclear site accuse EDF of ‘ignoring democracy’ , environment editor guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 February 2012 The energy company has started work on the £10bn Hinkley Point C power station without permission to build   Environmental activists have occupied the site of what is planned to be Britain’s first new nuclear power station since 1995, and on Friday accused EDF of “ignoring democracy” and starting work on the £10bn project without permission to build the station….. Continue reading →

February 18, 2012 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Court action over radioactive waste faces Australian company Lynas

Lynas itself had admitted it had no prepared any such permanent waste storage facility 

 I cannot understand why Malaysia is prepared to tolerate the potential hazards to occur here from a plant which will give no substantial benefit of Malaysia because of the pioneer status granted to Lynas for 10 years

Lynas Corp failed to meet any of the conditions in its first proposals, according to the regulator.

Anti-Lynas groups are planning a mammoth rally in Kuantan on February 26 to pressure Putrajaya to terminate the project.

A year on, anti-Lynas campaign goes to court http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/a-year-on-anti-lynas-campaign-goes-to-court The Malaysian Insider By Debra Chong , February 17, 2012 KUALA LUMPUR,   — A nationwide campaign to stop Lynas heads into the courtroom with damaging allegations against the Australian rare earths producer and Malaysia’s regulators.

The court filing also accuses Lynas of economic imperialism and points out that until today it does not have a plan to permanently dispose of its waste, some which contain potentially harmful levels of radiation. Continue reading →

February 18, 2012 Posted by | ASIA, Legal, Uranium | Leave a comment

Japan’s former Prime Minister an apostle for renewable energy, not nuclear

Nuclear crisis turns Japan ex-PM Kan into energy apostle By Linda Sieg and Yoko Kubota TOKYO | Fri Feb 17, 2012   (Reuters) – Nearly a year after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, then-premier Naoto Kan is haunted by the specter of an even bigger crisis forcing tens of millions of people to flee Tokyo and threatening the nation’s existence.

“Having experienced the 3/11 nuclear disaster, I changed my way of thinking. The biggest factor was how at one point, we faced a situation where there was a chance that people might not be able to live in the capital zone including Tokyo and would have to evacuate,” Kan told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

“If things had reached that level, not only would the public have had to face hardships but Japan’s very existence would have been in peril.”

That convinced Kan, in office for less than a year when the March 11 triple disaster struck, to declare the need for Japan to end its reliance on atomic power and promote renewable sources of energy such solar that have long taken a back seat in the resource-poor country’s
energy mix….. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/us-japan-kan-idUSTRE81G08P20120217

February 18, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

UK firm Centrica’s investors might not be happy about nuclear plans

Centrica faces big questions on nuclear despite Franco-British summit, Telegraph UK 18 Feb 12, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy invoked the spirit of entente cordiale on Friday in Paris, reaffirming their countries’ commitment to building Britain’s new fleet of nuclear power plants. By Damian Reece, Head of Business  17 Feb 2012  
There were supporting statements from blue-chip corporate names such as Rolls-Royce on this side of the English Channel and EDF and Areva on their side of la Manche. All was fusion.

But behind the political smiles lies an increasingly tense reality which throws into question everything the Coalition is trying to achieve in its National Policy Statement on energy, approved by Parliament in July.
The are several risks, none of which Friday’s Franco-British summit addressed. Continue reading →

February 18, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

A non hysterical approach to the Iran nuclear issue

Old fears cloud Western views on Iran’s nuclear posturing, Sydney Morning Herald, John Mueller, February 18, 2012 Alarmism about nuclear proliferation is fairly common coin in the foreign policy establishment. And of late it has been boosted by the seeming efforts of Iran or its friends to answer covert
assassinations, apparently by Israel, with attacks and attempted attacks of their own in India, Georgia and Thailand.

A non-hysterical approach to the Iran nuclear issue is entirely possible. It should take several considerations into account. Continue reading →

February 18, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

USA’s worries about its nuclear reactors similar to Fukushima’s

U.S. nuclear plants similar to Fukushima spark concerns By Matt Smith, CNN
February 17, 2012   — As the United States prepares to build its first new nuclear power reactors in three decades, concerns about an early generation of plants have resurfaced since last year’s disaster in Japan.
The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant — the subject of a battle between state authorities and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over its continued operation — uses one of 23 U.S. reactors built with a General Electric-designed containment housing known as the Mark I.
It’s the same design that was used at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where three reactors melted down after the station was struck by the tsunami that followed Japan’s historic earthquake in March 2011. The disaster resulted in the widespread release of radioactive contamination that forced more than 100,000 people from their homes…..
Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear engineer and a leading critic of the Vermont Yankee plant, says the Japanese accident shows the Mark I containment system can’t prevent a release of radioactivity in a meltdown.

Watch an excerpt from this weekend’s CNN Special Investigations Unit report on Vermont Yankee
In an October hearing before the NRC’s Petition Review Board, he said the vents were a “Band-Aid fix” for the design that failed “not once, not twice, but three times” at Fukushima Daiichi.
“True wisdom means knowing when to modify something and knowing when to stop,” said Gundersen, who leads a state commission set up to monitor the Vermont Yankee plant.
Half of U.S. reactors are more than 30 years old…..    http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/17/us/us-nuclear-reactor-concerns/?hpt=us_c1

February 18, 2012 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

The lives of Fukushima nuclear refugees on film

Read The Wall Street Journal’s profile of all three Fukushima documentaries.    

‘Nuclear Nation’ Examines Lives of Fukushima Refugees WSJ,   FEBRUARY 17, 2012,  “Nuclear Nation” is one of three documentaries showing at the Berlin Film Festival tracing the fate of those affected by the Fukushima tsunami and subsequent nuclear meltdown on March 11, 2011. The lengthy, 145-minute documentary (soon available in a truncated version) follows several of the 1400 refugees from Futaba living in  defunct Kisai High School, with interviews as recent as December. Speakeasy sat down with director Atushi Funahashi to discuss his film…..
There’s a scene in the documentary where Futaba citizens protest their situation, and politicians merely stand there, some even awkwardly clapping. You show a lot of politicians preoccupied with keeping up an appearance of calm, often remaining totally silent…..
I hope this shows the miserable situation these people have to go through. I thought Japan was a civilized country, but it’s not…The central capital is exploiting the rural area. The power generated in Fukushima has been almost all sent to Tokyo. The people in Fukushima were the ones working [so hard]. There are many people saying the people [in Fukushima] took these subsidies to build new [academic and athletic] centers and they got rich, that they’re now in this refugee camp, but it was their own risk and it’s their fault. But I want to question that.    Read The Wall Street Journal’s profile of all three Fukushima documentaries.    http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/02/17/nuclear-nation-examines-lives-of-fukushima-refugees/

February 18, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

11 USA nuclear reactors may have unsafe cooling systems

Nuclear Regulatory Commission says accident models could be amiss, By Mike M. Ahlers, CNN February 18, 2012 — The models may underestimate how much nuclear fuel would heat up during system failures
The commission is asking 11 U.S. nuclear power plants for more information
There is no immediate threat to public safety
Washington  — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has asked 11 nuclear power plants for information about the computer models they use to test different accident scenarios, saying those models may underestimate how much nuclear fuel will heat up during cooling system
failures….
At issue is a phenomenon known as “thermal conductivity degradation,” or TCD, the NRC said. TCD refers to the fact that nuclear fuel loses its capacity to transfer heat as it ages.
The NRC said it is concerned that some computer models may not account for TCD. If the plants are not considering TCD, the possibility exists that fuel rods could heat up 100 degrees more than anticipated in an accident scenario, exceeding the 2,200-degree limit considered safe,the NRC said. That could damage the fuel rods’ outer layer, leading to
reactor damage, the NRC said……
The plants have until March 19 to provide the information to the NRC
staff. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/17/us/nuclear-accident-models/index.html

February 18, 2012 Posted by | Reference, safety, USA | Leave a comment

The 2 new Vogtle nuclear reactors will mean do or die for the nuclear industry

Analysis: U.S. nuclear industry’s fate rests with Southern Co By Scott DiSavino and Eileen O’Grady NEW YORK/HOUSTON Feb 16, 2012 (Reuters) – The future of U.S. nuclear power rests squarely on the shoulders of Atlanta-based Southern Co, which will lead the industry’s effort to prove the concept of new reactor construction after a 30-year hiatus. Continue reading →

February 17, 2012 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The problem of radiation treatment also causing breast cancer

Radiation generates cancer stem cells from less aggressive breast cancer cells UCLA Newsroom, By Kim Irwin February 14, 2012 Breast cancer stem cells, thought to be the sole source of tumor recurrence, are known to be resistant to radiation therapy and don’t respond well to chemotherapy.

Now, researchers with the UCLA Department of Radiation Oncology at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center report for the first time that radiation treatment, despite killing half of all tumor cells during every treatment, transforms other cancer cells into treatment-resistant breast cancer stem cells.

The generating of these breast cancer stem cells counteracts the otherwise highly efficient radiation treatment…… Continue reading →

February 17, 2012 Posted by | health, USA | 1 Comment

Spies and dodgy deals at France’s nuclear power giant AREVA

Anne Lauvergeon, former boss of AREVA,  claims that the spying scandal is part of a long-running plot against her, orchestrated by a small group of people who oversee France’s nuclear-energy industry

Nuclear energy in France Fallout A tale of spies, uranium and bad management, The Economist Feb 18th 2012 | PARIS FANS of the cock-up theory of events got a boost
this week when Areva, a French nuclear-energy one-stop shop, said there had been no fraud in its disastrous purchase of UraMin, a Canadian start-up firm with mining assets in Namibia, the Central African Republic and South Africa, in 2007 for $2.5 billion. The acquisition had simply been badly managed, it said, leading Areva to overpay. Last December the company took a €1.46 billion ($2 billion) charge against the acquisition, resulting in a huge operating loss for 2011.

Areva had suspected a plot. It ordered an external study of the UraMin deal in 2010, which suggested dodgy goings-on.     Then in 2011 it hired a Swiss private-detective agency, Alp Services, to investigate the circumstances of the transaction. Anne Lauvergeon, Areva’s boss at the time and France’s most prominent businesswoman, was not informed of the probe.

Last month she announced that her husband had been spied on by Alp Services, and on February 8th began a legal complaint against unidentified people… Continue reading →

February 17, 2012 Posted by | France, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Obama govt putting the brakes on nuclear loan guarantee program

Obama administration calls for no expansion to nuclear loan guarantee program in FY2013 budget!, Beyond Nuclear, 16 Feb 12,    As reported in the Huffington Post, for the first time in three years, the Obama administration has not called for a major expansion in the nuclear loan guarantee program. In fact, it has called for no expansion at all. Continue reading →

February 17, 2012 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Legal action to stop new reactors at Plant Vogtle

Groups file federal lawsuit to block construction of 2 nuclear reactors in eastern Georgia By Associated Press,  February 16 WASHINGTON — Environmental and watchdog groups are suing to block construction of two nuclear reactors in eastern Georgia that would be the nation’s first built-from-scratch nuclear power plant in a generation.

The groups say the plant should be blocked until federal regulators approve safety changes prompted by last year’s nuclear disaster in Japan. Twelve groups, including the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, filed suit Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 last week to issue a permit to Atlanta-based Southern Co. to build and operate two new reactors at its Plant Vogtle site south of Augusta.
The NRC last approved construction of a nuclear plant in 1978. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/industries/groups-file-lawsuit-to-block-georgia-nuclear-reactors/2012/02/16/gIQApbA9HR_story.html

February 17, 2012 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

For the 4th time, a failed attempt to overturn the ban on uranum mining near Grand Canyon

Fourth Legislative Attack On Grand Canyon Uranium Ban Fails ENews Park Forest,  16 FEBRUARY 2012  WASHINGTON–(ENEWSPF)  The fourth legislative attempt to block the Obama administration’s ban on new uranium development across 1 million acres of public land surrounding Grand Canyon National Park died Tuesday night when the House rules committee ruled it out of order. Continue reading →

February 17, 2012 Posted by | politics, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

British and French govts getting together to promote the nuclear industry

Britain and France to sign nuclear power deal at summit Google News, By Dave Clark (AFP) –17 Feb 12 PARIS — Britain and France were to strike a landmark cooperation deal on civil nuclear energy at a summit between Prime Minister David Cameron and President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday, officials said. France and Britain have often clashed recently over economic policy in the eurozone, an area in which Paris is much closer to Berlin, but they are still close partners in defence and now plan to share nuclear expertise.

February 17, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

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