2012 March 20 « nuclear-news

Wind energy in full sail in China

Winds of change blow through China as spending on renewable energy soars World’s biggest polluter spends £4bn a year on wind and solar power generation in single region as it aims to cut fossil fuel use Jonathan Watts in Jiuquan Guardian UK, 19 March 2012 “….. the landscape has started to undergo a transformation as Gansu has moved to the frontline of government efforts to reinvent China’s economy with a massive investment in renewable energy. Continue reading →

March 20, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, renewable | Leave a comment

Deomocracy teeters in India, as government cracks down on anti nuclear protest

India government responds bluntly to anti-nuclear push In response to villagers’ concerns about the Kudankulam nuclear plant project, Indian officials have deported a sympathizer and cracked down on charities they accuse of aiding anti-nuclear efforts. By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times March 18, 2012 Continue reading →

March 20, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, India | Leave a comment

Most South Koreans against nuclear power – a growing election issue

Nuclear issue creeps up agenda for April election The Korea Herald, 2012-03-18 In an increasingly volatile race for parliament, nuclear power is creeping up the political agenda as opposition lawmakers seek to exploit growing safety jitters to retake power in next month’s vote.

Concerns about the safety of the nuclear industry are rife after news broke last week that plant operators had attempted to cover up a power cut at a reactor in Busan for over a month. Continue reading →

March 20, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, South Korea | Leave a comment

Fukushima cancer toll – years later, especially for nuclear clean-up workers

One group particularly at risk of health harm is the large and growing number of workers required to help control, shut down and clean up the damaged nuclear plants.

On average, the contracted day labourers receive two- to three-times the radiation dose of a regular worker but are not included in utility statistics. And there is no compulsory, centralised system for tracking cumulative radiation exposure or health outcomes of these workers.

Fukushima radiation toll will continue for generations Despite claims that Japan’s Fukushima meltdown caused no deaths, in fact the true health costs of Fukushima’s radiation leaks won’t be known for decades. Independent Australia 18 March 12, Professor Tilman Ruff reports. A year can be a long time in politics. But for the radioactive particles released from Fukushima’s damaged nuclear reactor, a year is just a moment in their life of hundreds or thousands of years.

So, what is the radiological situation at Fukushima one year after the disaster? the extensively damaged plants are still unstable and highly radioactive. This has restricted access and clean-up efforts, which will need to go on for many decades.

Though Japanese authorities declared they’d achieved a “cold shutdown” in December, an arbitrary definition was used: coolant water temperature was less than boiling, pressure inside the reactors was not raised, and the release of radioactive materials from the first layer of containment was below a specified level. But it didn’t mean the nuclear reaction inside the reactors had been stably shut down…. Continue reading →

March 20, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Japan | Leave a comment

Mapping Fukushima radiation as it moves across the Pacific Ocean

http://www.straight.com/article-638451/vancouver/fukushima-radiation-moving-seawater-across-pacific-ocean-according-consulting-company Maps show movement of radiation, and of debris across Pacific Fukushima radiation moving in seawater across Pacific Ocean, according to consulting company, Straight.com By Charlie Smith, March 18, 2012 Oceanic radiation from last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster is approaching northern Hawaii, according to the latest tracking by ASR Limited .

The coastal-management consulting company has created a map that follows the movement of radiation in seawater since the Japanese earthquake on March 11, 2011. ASR Limited suggests radiation is crossing the Pacific Ocean.

Last April, Japanese officials claimed that they had halted the release of radioactive radiation from the crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima.

On December 5, however, the Los Angeles Times revealed that “45 tons of highly radioactive water” had been released from the plant on the previous weekend.

Greenpeace has also reported finding highly radioactive sea life off the Japanese coast. Meanwhile, ASR Limited has also released a map showing how far the floating island of Japanese debris has travelled since last year’s earthquake.

It’s expected to reach the British Columbia Coast in 2013. A huge amount of debris is headed toward British Columbia.

March 20, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

Spain’s Andalusia solar power station produces electricity day and night

Solar power station in Spain works at night Yahoo Finance 19 Mar 12, A unique thermosolar power station in southern Spain can shrug off cloudy days: energy stored when the sun shines lets it produce electricity even during the night.

The Gemasolar station, up and running since last May, stands out in the plains of Andalusia.

From the road between Seville and Cordoba, one can see its central tower lit up like a beacon by 2,600 solar mirrors, each 120 square metres (28,500 square feet), that surround it in an immense 195-hectare (480-acre) circle.

“It is the first station in the world that works 24 hours a day, a solar power station that works day and night!” said Santago Arias, technical director of Torresol Energy, which runs the station. The mechanism is “very easy to explain,” he said: the panels reflect the suns rays on to the tower, transmitting energy at an intensity 1,000 times higher than that of the sun’s rays reaching the earth.

Energy is stored in a vat filled with molten salts at a temperature of more than 500 degrees C (930 F). Those salts are used to produce steam to turn the turbines and produce electricity.

It is the station’s capacity to store energy that makes Gemasolar so different because it allows the plant to transmit power during the night, relying on energy it has accumulated during the day.

“I use that energy as I see fit, and not as the sun dictates,” Arias explained.

As a result, the plant produces 60 percent more energy than a station without storage capacity because it can work 6,400 hours a year compared to 1,200-2,000 hours for other solar power stations, he said.

“The amount of energy we produce a year is equal to the consumption of 30,000 Spanish households,” Arias said, an annual saving of 30,000 tonnes of CO2.

Helped by generous state aid, renewable energies have enjoyed a boom in Spain, the world number two in solar energy and the biggest wind power producer in Europe, ahead of Germany. … http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/solar-power-station-spain-works-020347254.html

March 20, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, Spain | Leave a comment

The sanity of cutting $100 billion from USA’s Cold War nuclear arsenal

Try a Little Nuclear Sanity Lawrence S. Wittner, March 19, 2012 On February 8, 2012, Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act (H.R.
3974).

This SANE Act would cut $100 billion from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget over the next ten years by reducing the current fleet of U.S. nuclear submarines, delaying the purchase of new nuclear submarines, reducing the number of ICBMs, delaying a new bomber
program, and ending the nuclear mission of air bombers.

“America’s nuclear weapons budget is locked in a Cold War time machine,” noted Markey, the senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “It doesn’t reflect our twenty-first-century security needs. It makes no sense…….Since its introduction, the
SANE Act has picked up significant support. Not surprisingly, it is backed by major peace and disarmament organizations, such as Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and the
Ploughshares Foundation. But it has also attracted the support of the National Council of Churches, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Indeed, the SANE Act now has 45 Congressional co-sponsors…. http://hnn.us/articles/145156.html

March 20, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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