Enormous costs of the global fraud that is nuclear power
The world has since lost over $1,000 billion in subsidies, cash losses, abandoned projects and other damage from nuclear power. Decontaminating Fukushima alone is estimated to cost $623 billion, not counting treatment costs for thousands of likely cancers.
The end of the nuclear illusion, The Daily Star, Praful Bidwai, 20 March 12A year after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe began in Japan, the world has a historic chance to end one of the biggest-ever frauds played on the public to promote a patently unsafe, accident-prone, expensive and centralised form of energy generation based upon
splitting the atom to boil water and spin a turbine. Candidly, that’s what nuclear power generation is all about. Continue reading
India: the crackdown on protestors, the pro nuclear media ‘spin’
And Koodankulam is Being Hunted Down ! http://www.dianuke.org/and-koodankulam-is-being-hunted-down/ 6000 armed policemen, led by Tamil Nadu’s Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), 3 DIGs (Deputy Inspector Generals) and 20 SPs (Superintendents of Police) who are present themselves and are presiding over this operation that can turn up into a state-sanctioned carnage of its own civilians.
As drumbeats approached Idinthakarai, Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce and Industry hails the decision to start the Koodankulam reactor as it is necessary for the State’s “progress”.
A 5-page press statement from the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu ended the rituals of “engaging people”, “dialogue with the locals” and “allaying their fears” in the world’s largest democracy. Not surprisingly, the government crackdown on people’s movement waited for another mega-ritual to end: the elections in the neighbouring assembly constituency of Sankarankoil on March 18.
Since yesterday afternoon, the police squads have blocked every road leading to Koodankulam and Idinthikarai to prevent people from gathering there. Yet, more than 20,000 people have gathered at the gate of Koodankulam nuclear power project, with several hundreds getting detained on their way.
Learning from the democracies in the West, the corporate media here has also embedded itself to this ‘shock and awe’. Newspapers and TV channels are abuzz with the ‘green signal’ given to the nuclear project and the country’s progress. The titles say it all: …. http://www.dianuke.org/and-koodankulam-is-being-hunted-down/
Taipower poisons island with nuclear wastes, and islanders’ minds with money
“Taipower contaminates our island with nuclear waste and it also contaminates our minds with money,” “They are trying to make us think that we cannot live without nuclear waste.”…
a lot of Taos depend on Taipower for jobs and are afraid of losing their jobs if they tell people what they really think.
Lanyu’s residents grudgingly accept nuclear storage Taipei Times, By Loa Iok-sin 19 March 12, The Tao Aborigines of Lanyu (蘭嶼) — also known as Orchid Island — are once again taking to the streets to voice their opposition to a nuclear storage facility on their island, calling for its immediate removal.
While it may appear that the removal of nuclear waste is the only thing the Taos want, the
real situation is much more complicated, as Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) is exerting considerable effort on the resource-scarce island to minimize opposition. Continue reading
New evidence raises questions about the murder of anti nuclear campaigner
A high-profile campaigner against nuclear weapons, she had been due to present evidence to the public inquiry into the proposed Sizewell B nuclear reactor in East Anglia.
“The victim was consumed with anxiety that something was going to happen to her. A look at why that might be involves the evidence she was about to give to the Sizewell inquiry.”
Hilda Murrell murder: call to examine ‘MI5 link’ to murder of nuclear activist Michael Mansfield QC wants to know what intelligence services knew about killing of anti-nuclear activist Hilda Murrell in 1984 Mark Townsend, Guardian UK, The Observer , 18 March 2012 Campaigner Hilda Murrell, 78, who was murdered in March 1984, had been due to give evidence at the public inquiry into the Sizewell B nuclear reactor.
One of Britain’s leading human rights lawyers has demanded a fresh police inquiry to establish what the British intelligence services knew about the murder of a prominent anti-nuclear campaigner. Continue reading
Thousands of police surround India’s anti nuclear protestors
Indian Police Arrest 10 at Nuclear Power Plant Protest IDINTHAKARAI, Tamil Nadu, India, March 19, 2012 (ENS) – Thousands of police today surrounded thousands of anti-nuclear protestors demonstrating against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Idinthakarai.
Ten people have been arrested, including three protest leaders, Continue reading
India bumps up its nuclear arsenal
India to induct nuclear submarine early April Channel News Asia: 20 March 2012 NEW DELHI: In a major boost to its underwater strike capabilities, India will induct its Russian-built nuclear-powered submarine, Nerpa, in the first week of April. Nerpa, which will be rechristened INS Chakra, is scheduled to arrive at its home base of Visakhapatnam in the first week of April and is expected to be commissioned formally into the Indian Navy by Defence Minister A K Antony on April 5, Defence Ministry officials told Press Trust of India here Monday.
The submarine will be on a ten-year lease under a deal expected to be
worth over US$920 million, they said. …
.. The Navy will have three submarines of this class by the end of this decade. India already
possesses or is in the process of developing a family of nuclear-capable missiles including the Agni series, Prithvi variants, naval missile Dhanush, and submarine-launched Sagarika….. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1190063/1/.html
Obama scathing about critics of renewable energy
Obama Blasts Renewable Energy Critics United States President Barack Obama has blasted critics of renewable energy, referring to them as ‘professional politicians’ and comparing them to those who once believed the earth was flat.
“A lot of the folks who are running for a certain office who shall go unnamed, they’ve been talking down new sources of energy,” Obama told a crowd of students at Prince George’s Community College in Washington’s Maryland suburbs on Thursday, according to a report on Australian Associated Press (AAP).
“They dismiss wind power. They dismiss solar power. They make jokes about biofuels. They were against raising fuel standards. I guess they like gas-guzzlers.”…. http://designbuildsource.com.au/obama-blasts-renewable-critics
China’s secretive nuclear industry – more dangerous than Japan’s?
China’s nuclear power plant review: ‘problems in 14 areas’ found Christina Science Monitor, Should we be concerned? 18 March 12, A nuclear official said in passing this weekend that problems in 14 areas need to be resolved. In the wake of Fukushima, a shade more transparency would be welcome. By Peter Ford, “…. a press conference held on Saturday on the sidelines of the annual National People’s Congress meeting, at which a top nuclear-industry insider spoke:
Referring to a safety review of China’s nuclear power plants conducted in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan last year, he mentioned, in passing, that “problems in 14 areas have been found and need to be resolved.” Some of them will take up to three years to fix, he added.
That was all that Wang Binghua, chairman of the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp., said on the subject, and none of the journalists present pressed him further, according to an official transcript of his remarks. So all we, and the Chinese public, know is that among China’s 14 working nuclear reactors there are 14 “problems.” What they might be, where, how serious they are, and what can be done to rectify them remains secret…..
Mr. Wang said he expected that the current freeze on the examination and approval of new nuclear plants – in effect since Fukushima – would end this year. He promised that “the Chinese government will not approve any new nuclear project that does not contain necessary emergency measures before the problems identified in the review have been solved.”
But since nobody outside China’s nuclear industry knows what the problems are, nobody can know whether they have been solved or not. Suddenly, even Japan’s dangerously shadowy nuclear industry begins to look almost transparent…. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2012/0312/China-s-nuclear-power-plant-review-problems-in-14-areas-found
Critical nuclear data stolen, in Indian scientist’s lap-top
Laptop with India’s nuclear data still not found Pakistan Observer, March 18, 2012, Rabi-ul-Sani Islamabad—An Indian nuclear scientist’s laptop with classified nuclear data was stolen from a passenger rail car and is still missing raising serious alarm all over India.
Rare earths processing – a potent environmental polluter
China’s rare earths refineries…… have poisoned rivers with acid and piled up radioactive waste — an environmental cost that aroused little controversy in developed, consuming nations
Malaysian protesters blame an earlier rare earths plant, shut by Japan’s Mitsubishi Chemicals in 1992, for birth defects and a high number of leukemia cases……
Environmental campaigners point to studies done in both New Jersey and China showing that thorium radiation emitted during the refining process and by plant waste can cause cancer, leukemia, birth defects and chronic lung diseases.
Pollution the big barrier to freer trade in rare earths Al Arabiya News,, 19 March 2012 Environmental campaigners point to studies done in both New Jersey and China showing that thorium radiation emitted during the refining process and by plant waste can cause cancer, leukemia, birth defects and chronic lung diseases.
Tackling pollution, not freeing up trade, is regarded as the solution to a global shortage of rare earths, the metals that are the building blocks of the 21st century. Continue reading
Democracy and nuclear power just don’t go together
The end of the nuclear illusion, The Daily Star, Praful Bidwai, 20 March 12, “…….Nuclear power is now on the run globally. The number of reactors operating worldwide has fallen from the historic peak of 444 (2002) to 429. Their share in global electricity supply has shrunk from 17% to 13%. And it’s likely to fall further as some 180-plus 30 years-old or older reactors are retired. Just about 60 new ones are planned.
Post-Fukushima, nobody will build reactors without big subsidies or high state-guaranteed returns –or unless they are China or India. China’s rulers don’t have to bother about democracy, public opinion or safety standards.
Nor are India’s rulers moved by these. They are desperate to award the reactor contracts promised to the US, France and Russia for lobbying for the US-India nuclear deal in the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Dr. Manmohan Singh has even stooped to maligning Indian anti-nuclear protesters as foreign-funded, as if they had no minds of their own, and as if the government’s priority wasn’t to import reactors.
Nuclear power is bound up with secrecy, deception and opacity, which clash with democracy. It evokes fear and loathing and can only be promoted by force while violating civil liberties.
A recent BBC-GlobeScan poll shows that 69% of people in 23 countries oppose building new reactors, including 90% in Germany, 84% in Japan, 80% in Russia and 83% in France. This proportion has sharply risen since 2005. Only 22% of people in the 12 countries which operate nuclear plants favour building new ones.
The world has witnessed five core meltdowns in 15,000 reactor-years. At this rate, we can expect one core meltdown every eight years in the world’s 400-odd reactors. This is simply unacceptable. Yet, the nuclear industry behaves as if this couldn’t happen. It has a collusive relationship with regulators, Continue reading
Osaka’s mayor wants electricity utility to go nuclear free
Utility Faces Call to Halt Nuclear Power Use In Japan, WSJ, By TOKO SEKIGUCHI, 20 March 12, “…….Now, the brazen mayor of Japan’s western metropolis of Osaka is trying to get the country’s second largest utility to go nuclear-free—a challenge to the national government’s attempts to restart reactors that make up a third of Japan’s electricity-generation capacity amid public concerns over the safety of nuclear energy.
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto is considering a proposal to use the city’s standing as Kansai Electric Co.’s largest customer and stockholder to call on the regional power provider to abandon its use of nuclear power at a shareholders’ meeting in June….. Continue reading
The hidden danger of radioactive scrap metal
Chronic exposure to low doses of radiation can lead to cataracts, cancer and birth defects, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A 2005 study of more than 6,000 Taiwanese who lived in apartments built with radioactive reinforcing steel from 1983 to 2005 showed a statistically significant increase in leukemia and breast cancer….
Nuclear Risks at Bed, Bath & Beyond Show Hidden Danger of Scrap Bloomberg, By Jonathan Tirone and Andrew MacAskill – Mar 20, 2012 Going shopping? Don’t forget your wallet and credit card. Or Geiger counter.
The discovery of radioactive tissue boxes at Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) stores in January raised alarms among nuclear security officials and company executives over the growing global threat of contaminated scrap metal. Continue reading
Anti nuclear movement encouraged by Swiss court ruling to close Mühleberg nuclear power station
Mühleberg decision heartens foreign activists by Peter Siegenthaler and Samuel Jaberg, swissinfo.ch Mar 19, 2012 A ruling by the Swiss Administrative Court ordering the closure of the Mühleberg nuclear power station has galvanised anti-nuclear campaigners elsewhere in Europe too. If the plant, just outside Bern, really is closed down, this would step up pressure on old nuclear stations at home and abroad. Continue reading
The problem of secondary cancer after radiation therapy
Radiation treatments: Create worse cancer cells — 30 times more potent The Canadian : 19 MARCH 2012 BY TONY ISAACS (NaturalNews) — In a groundbreaking new study just published in the peer reviewed journal Stem Cells, researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center Department of Oncology found that, despite killing half of all tumor cells per treatment, radiation treatments on breast cancer transforms other cancer cells into cancer stem cells which are vastly more treatment-resistant than normal cancer cells.
The new study is yet another blow to the failed and favored mainstream treatment paradigm of trying to cut out, poison out or burn out cancer symptoms (tumors) instead of actually curing cancer.
Senior study author Dr. Frank Pajonk, associate professor of radiation oncology at the Jonsson Center, reported that induced breast cancer stem cells (iBCSC) “were generated by radiation-induced activation of the same cellular pathways used to reprogram normal cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) in regenerative medicine.” Pjonk, who is also a scientist with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine at UCLA, added “It was remarkable that these breast cancers used the same reprogramming pathways to fight back against the radiation treatment.”..
… Despite all the billions of dollars spent on cancer, the 40 year “war on cancer” has been a losing one by any honest evaluation. One hundred years ago, anywhere from 1 in 50 to
perhaps 1 in 100 people could be expected to develop cancer. Now it is estimated that 1 in every 2 men and 1 in every 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes. Despite more people around the world developing cancer and dying from cancer every year, mainstream medicine continues to cling to failed treatments which more often than not fail to eliminate the cancer and help cancer spread and return more aggressively than ever. Notably, two of the three major mainstream cancer treatments – radiation and chemo – are themselves highly carcinogenic……. http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/news/health/2012/03/19/3511.html
1 This Month.
5 January -Webinar-What is Trump’s Golden Dome?
REGISTER AT Massachusetts Peace Action Education
New book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923372157?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
-
Archives
- December 2025 (286)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (377)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
- February 2025 (234)
- January 2025 (250)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 