Fukushima Watch: Former PM Kan Sets Out Vision for Nuclear-Free Japan, WSJ, August 1, 2012, By Eleanor Warnock Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, whose term was marked by the earthquake and tsunami last year, furthered his reinvention as an anti-nuclear activist on Tuesday with a press conference to call for an end to nuclear power in Japan . “After March 11, it’s fair to say I changed my thinking [on nuclear energy] 180 degrees,” he told reporters in Tokyo.
“When I saw that the country was in such a precarious situation, I thought, ‘What is a safe nuclear plant anyway?’ My conclusion was that safety is only possible in a society that doesn’t rely on nuclear power,” the 65-year-old former leader said…… He said that his goal is to get parliament to pass a proposal — drafted by Mr. Kan and other lawmakers — to phase out nuclear power and increase Japan’s share of renewable energy from 10% in 2010 to 38% by 2025 ….. That goes further than three scenarios currently being considered under the government’s new long-term energy strategy: phase out nuclear power by 2030 , cut it to 15% of the country’s energy supply or maintain current levels around 20-25%…. “What I have to do now is steer the DPJ…in the direction of abandoning nuclear power,” he said. “How to react to the accident that happened in Japan is something that transcends party lines.”… http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/08/01/fukushima-watch-former-pm-kan-sets-out-vision-for-nuclear-free-japan/
Smith rejects proposal for US carrier base ABC Radio AM By Naomi Woodley August 02, 2012 Defence Minister Stephen Smith has flatly rejected a proposal to expand a naval base in Perth to accommodate US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier groups.
The idea for a $7 billion US carrier base on Australia’s Indian Ocean seaboard is one of many canvassed in a report commissioned by the US Defence Department from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
Mr Smith says while increased US access to the HMAS Stirling base is on the cards in the long term, American aircraft carriers will not be based in Australia. ”The report is an independent report to the United States government. It’s not a United States government document,” he said.
“We don’t have United States military bases in Australia and we are not proposing to. What we have talked about in terms of either increased aerial access or naval access is precisely that – greater access to our facilities.” The West Australian Premier and Opposition Leader have also ruled out the aircraft carrier base idea………….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-02/smith-rejects-us-base-proposal/4171086
Uranium mining offers less grand legacy, Star Tribune, Richard Dixon, 1 Aug 12 “……By all accounts, the uranium industry’s presence here would not even match that of Dan River Mills. It might last 50 years with some luck. And during that time it might just provide a few jobs – mining and milling dangerous ore – which just might give the county enough tax money to clean up the mess the industry makes.
But the legacy of the uranium industry would be far less grand than that of Dan River Mills. There would be no stately buildings to renovate, no White Mill or red-bricked buildings along the river to turn into shops, medical offices or museums.
Instead, the landscape of this county would be pock-marked with tailings ponds, to be tended at tax-payer expense for a long, long time.
Would agriculture return and flourish after the 50 years are over? Would the area attract positive growth, or would the industries here long established be gone forever?
These are deep, serious questions for all…..
http://www.wpcva.com/opinion/article_6d0fb8b2-dbfe-11e1-a249-001a4bcf887a.html
Mystery still shrouds uranium tailings storage
It is presently unknown what type of containment system —if any — would offer any degree of protection to groundwater or for how long at Coles Hill.
Mystery still shrouds uranium tailings storage, Star Tribune, Karen B. Maute August 1, 2012 Virginia Uranium Inc.’ website states: “Much of the tailings will be mixed with a cement-like substance and put back into the mine shafts and drifts, and the rest will be stored in heavily-monitored and regulated below-grade storage facilities.” Continue reading
The unnecessary atrocity of Hiroshima nuclear bombing
Ham’s conclusion to his very well documented and stringently argued book is that for 70 years the world has accepted an American myth – that the atomic bombs ended the war by shocking Japan into surrender. In fact it was ‘a planned massacre of innocent civilians – an unwarranted, American atrocity’.
Hiroshima: A stain on human history , HIROSHIMA NAGASAKI BY PAUL HAM(Bantam Press £25) By PETER LEWIS, PUBLISHED, 26 July 2012 This controversial book delivers a double-whammy in the way of shocks. First, it argues that the Atomic Bombing of two Japanese cities in August, 1945, was militarily unnecessary and politically unjustified.
Second, by interviewing many survivors while he was living in the two cities, Paul Ham, an Australian journalist and expert on the Pacific war, gives an eye-witness picture that leaves Dante’s Inferno looking pale.
Let me start with the inferno, so that we realise just what we are considering. Tomiko Nakamura was a schoolgirl of 13 at Shintaku High School in Hiroshima when the Bomb exploded, killing almost all her 300 schoolmates in the playground. Although over a mile from the blast, the flash, she remembers, ‘felt like the sun had fallen out of the sky and landed right in front of us’.
She regained consciousness in darkness. The mushroom cloud had turned dirty brown and cut off the sun. Flashes like ‘sunrises’ were coming from it in all directions. She examined her scalp covered in glass splinters. ‘My skin rolled off my legs like stockings’. Her shirt and trousers had been burnt onto her flesh. ‘I felt very sick and sat down but the flames were coming closer’. She started to walk over the rubble. ‘Voices beneath the timbers cried “Help! Help! It’s so hot!” I just kept walking’.
She reached a bridge where people with black or red faces were jumping into the river. ‘I couldn’t tell men from women. Some were holding their insides in their hands, staring at them. Everywhere dehydrated people were crying for water but when they drank some they died. A girl screamed: ‘The faster I die the better!’ as she jumped into the river. Continue reading
Genetic damage from ionising radiation
Researchers have been surprised to find that genetic damage, and above all perigenetic damage, which is responsible for genomic instability, to descendants is far worse than to parents; and this risk increases from one generation to the next.
In equal doses, external radiation is ten to a hundred times less damaging than chronic internal radiation, which essentially results from the oral absorption of radionuclides. These concentrate in organs like the thymus, the endocrine glands, the spleen, the bone surfaces and the heart.
Genetic mutations from radiation exposure are up to 100 times higher than anything we have encountered in the animal kingdom -Dr. Fernex, Former WHO Consultant http://enenews.com/genetic-mutations-from-radiation-exposure-are-up-to-100-times-higher-than-anything-we-have-encountered-in-the-animal-kingdom-dr-fernex-former-who-consultant July 31st, 2012 By ENENews : Fukushima: precious time has been lost
Author: Michel Fernex Date: June 7, 2012 Dr. Michel Fernex Emeritus Professor, Basel Faculty of Medecine Former Consultant, World Health Organization
“What should WHO have done after Chernobyl ?” asked Dr Nabarro in 2002 when he was Acting Director-General of the World Health Organization. I replied immediately, and then confirmed it in writing: “Convene a Scientific Working Group on Ionising Radiation and Genetics” like the one in 1956, and add the words “and Genomic Instability”…..
Since 1959, an agreement signed between WHO and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and then a number of additional legal texts, prohibit WHO from intervening in nuclear accidents….. Continue reading
USA’s B61 nuclear warhead – useless but oh so costly!
A Golden Mistakehttp://www.ploughshares.org/blog/2012-07-30/golden-mistake BY BENJAMIN LOEHRKE JULY 30, 2012 The B61 life extension program gets a gold medal for setting records as the most expensive nuclear warhead in U.S. history. It also gets another ignominious recognition – costing more than its weight in solid gold.
The B61 bombs are the oldest bombs in the operational arsenal – first deployed in the 1960s. The Life Extension Program is intended to update and overhaul the warheads to keep them in the arsenal for decades to come, allowing the B61 to continue serving as the last remaining tactical nuclear warhead in the arsenal. The bombs remain deployed in Europe, despite broad recognition that they have no military utility. Continue reading
Nuclear company’s financial burden, trying to sell to UK
EDF open to partners on UK nuclear scheme, Ft.com, July 31, 2012 By James Boxell in Paris EDF of France is seeking partners to share the financial burden of its project to build four atomic reactors in the UK, sparking fresh concerns about whether nuclear energy is becoming too expensive.
The cost of atomic power was called into question this week by Jeff Immelt, chief executive of General Electric , who said it had become “really hard” to justify compared with cheap shale gas.
The UK wants to replace ageing nuclear reactors but it is locked in negotiations with EDF – the world’s largest supplier of atomic energy by kilowatt hours – over setting a price for electricity that would justify the heavy investment.
EDF said on Tuesday it would decide this year whether to push on with the first UK facility in Somerset. But Thomas Piquemal, finance director, said it was looking at cutting its 80 per cent share of the project to spread the risk. The UK’s Centrica owns the other 20 per cent of the four-reactor consortium.
“We are thinking about the best ways of financing this and attracting new partners,” Mr Piquemal said.
EDF is 84 per cent-owned by the French state, but private shareholders are worried about spiralling costs in the UK unless favourable terms are offered. The company is planning to build next-generation EPR reactors, which have suffered big cost overruns in France and Finland.
RWE and EON of Germany abandoned plans to build reactors in the UK because of increasing industry costs, which have jumped since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in Japan last year http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/49b4ef00-daea-11e1-8074-00144feab49a.html#axzz22Kejy7Ba
USA’s Pentagon curse of costly nuclear weapons
The Midas Touch of Nuclear Weapons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-cirincione/the-midas-touch-of-nuclea_b_1726028.html 07/31/2012 The United States is about to buy a nuclear bomb that costs 1.5 times its weight in solid gold. It would make even King Midas blush. Nuclear weapons programs now cost so much they are actually more expensive than if they were made of gold.
The defense budget is famous for waste . The Pentagon has bought a $640 toilet seat, a $7,600 coffee maker , and a $436 hammer.
Now, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the agency in charge of the United State’s nuclear warheads, wants to pay $10 billion to overhaul its B-61 nuclear bombs — at $28 million per bomb . This is a bomb designed to fight a nuclear war in Europe, and still kept in our inventory.
Today on the Ploughshares Fund blog, we’ve presented an infographic depicting the B-61 bomb’s current cost versus its cost in solid gold. Even with the record gold prices, the real bomb is more expensive than its hypothetical golden cousin by roughly $10 million per bomb.
The solid gold nuclear bomb is only one example, but the Midas touch does not stop there. Across the board, nuclear costs are exploding.
A few years ago, NNSA told Congress it wanted to build a new plutonium plant for its nuclear bombs (called the CMRR) for an estimated $660 million . The cost for the plant has now skyrocketed to over $6 billion .
The Navy wants to build 12 new nuclear-armed submarines for an estimated $350 billion over the life of the program. When these boats go into production, they will eat up to 25 percent of theNavy’s entire shipbuilding budget .
There’s a smarter approach. Former officials like Gen. James Cartwright and Amb. Thomas Pickering say the U.S. should get rid of its excess Cold War weapons, not waste money on them. With almost 5,000 nuclear bombs in our active stockpile, we have plenty of room to cut.
At the end of the myth, King Midas was starving and begging to be relieved of his terrible golden touch. Isn’t it time for the Pentagon to get rid of its own golden curse, before it starves our military of the resources they truly need?
AP: Link between nuclear weapons and nuclear power is “becoming increasingly clear” says Japan professor — Nuclear power industry not thrilled people are talking about it July 31st, 2012 By ENENews Title: Japan pro-bomb voices grow louder amid nuke debateSource: Associated Press Date: July 31, 2012 “.. as Japan weighs whether to phase out nuclear power, some conservatives, including some influential politicians and thinkers, are becoming more vocal about their belief that Japan should have at least the ability to make nuclear weapons.
The two issues are intertwined because nuclear plants can develop the technology and produce the fuel needed for weaponry, as highlighted by concerns that nuclear power programs in Iran and North Korea are masking bomb development.
Shigeru Ishiba, former Defense Minister and current lawmaker told The Associated Press
- “Having nuclear plants shows to other nations that Japan can make nuclear weapons”
Hitoshi Yoshioka, professor of social and cultural studies at Kyushu University
- “The recognition that both nuclear issues must be addressed is heightening in Japan”
- The link between the two is “becoming increasingly clear”
Tatsujiro Suzuki, vice chairman at the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, a government panel that shapes nuclear policy
- “If people keep saying (nuclear energy) is for having nuclear weapons capability, that is not good”
- “Technically it may be true, but it sends a very bad message to the international community” http://enenews.com/ap-link-between-nuclear-weapons-and-nuclear-power-is-becoming-increasingly-clear-says-japan-professor-nuclear-power-industry-not-thrilled-people-are-talking-about-it
Close nuclear and coal plants early, says clean air alliance
The Star July 31, 2012 Closing Ontario’s coal burning power plants and the Pickering nuclear station ahead of schedule could save Ontario $720 million a year, says the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.
In a new paper , the alliance says the plants could be closed early without threatening the province’s energy security…. http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1234876–close-nuclear-and-coal-plants-early-says-clean-air-alliance
That naughty 82 year old anti nuclear nun!
Aging protesters paint nuclear arsenal in Tenn. Knox News Associated Press July 31, 2012 OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) — Emerging details about a security alert at the federal government’s Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge reveal three aging activists staged the protest.uranium.
offered to share a Bible, candles and white roses with the guards.
Rice is from Nevada; Boertje-Obed is from Duluth, Minn.; and Walli is from Washington, D.C. They were arrested on federal trespassing charges.
The protesters called themselves “Transform Now Plowshares.” There is no known Plowshares national protest group, but there is a philosophical practice of using high-profile demonstrations to draw attention to nuclear disarmament and related causes.
Details about how they got into the high-security area aren’t known….. http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/jul/31/aging-protesters-paint-nuclear-arsenal-in-02/
Catholic nun and two workers breach top security nuclear weapons complex
Catholic activists breach Tennessee nuclear weapons plant in protest National Catholic Reporter, Jul. 31, 2012 By Joshua J. McElwee Michael Walli, Sr. Megan Rice and Greg Boertje-Obed. The three were arrested Saturday at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Three Catholics broke into a guarded nuclear weapons complex in Tennessee on Saturday in an act of civil disobedience and made their way into one of its most secure facilities before they were arrested.
The three, an 82-year-old religious sister and two middle-aged men connected with the Catholic Worker movement, were able to enter the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge early Saturday before a guard found them inside the complex’s storage facility for bomb-grade uranium.
The three call themselves the Transform Now Plowshares and said they wished to “indict the U.S. government” for its nuclear weapons modernization program and for planning to build a new facility at the Y-12 site, according to friends of the activists….
The activists’ next hearing has been set for Thursday. They are currently being held
in the Blount County Detention Facility in Maryville, Tenn.
In the documents explaining their action, the activists said the continued use of the facility is an “ongoing criminal endeavor in violation of international treaty law.”
“The ongoing building and maintenance of Oak Ridge Y-12 constitute war crimes that can and should be investigated and prosecuted by judicial authorities at all levels,” the activists wrote. “We are required by International Law to denounce and resist known crimes.” …
http://ncronline.org/news/peace/catholic-activists-breachtennessee-nuclear-weapons-plant-protest
Fukushima Film: It’s murder not allowing children to escape http://enenews.com/local-official-fukushima-allowing-children-escape-murder-will-be-late-when-second-chernobyl-video — It will be too late when we are the 2nd Chernobyl -Local Japanese Official (VIDEO) July 31st, 2012 By ENENews
Two workers fall ill while at Reactor 3, transported to hospital in ambulance — Both had altered consciousness »
Fukushima Film: It’s murder not allowing children to escape — It will be too late when we are the 2nd Chernobyl -Local Japanese Official (VIDEO)
Transcript Excerpt Surviving Japan (2012) Filmmaker: Chris Noland
Minamisoma city council member Koichi Oyama: I would like to explain something historical to better your understanding. Japan used to be ruled by a king, the emperor…..
Parents and teacher tell children the best thing you can do was die for your country.
Kamikaze pilots in the war embodied this spirit.
In World War II they always told us we were winning every battle.
No one knew about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The same thing is happening now. The current government not telling people what is happening is the same we have had since World War II.
Keep your country alive by killing yourself.
I think the way to save the children at Fukushima is to get the world involved. If we don’t protect our children now, it will be too late when we are the second Chernobyl.
Not allowing the children to escape is murder.
$73 billion for fixing and restarting San Onofre nuclear plant
Ailing California Nuclear Plant Has $48 Million Repair Bill
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2012/07/31/ailing-california-nuclear-plant-has-48-million-repair-bill/ July 31, 2012 LOS ANGELES (AP) — The operator of the ailing San Onofre nuclear power plant in California says the company has been saddled with $48 million in inspection and repair costs related to damage to tubes that carry radioactive water.
Financial records released Tuesday by Edison International — the parent company of Southern California Edison — also estimate that it will cost $25 million to begin to restart the Unit 2 reactor at reduced power.
The company has not submitted a request to federal regulators to restart either of the twin reactors that have been shut down since January. The figures were included in a report on Edison’s operations betweenApril and June.
The plant is located between Los Angeles and San Diego.
1 This Month
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Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
12 February – Webinar The Big Push: New Nuclear Projects in Canada
Thursday, February 12, 7 pm Eastern | 2nd of 4 sessions in the 2026 Nuclear Waste Online webinar series.
Join a webinar on the push for new nuclear generation in Canada. Go to Northwatch.org to register or use the registration link https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZfWOf1GITqSRIZX8CB-A9w
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