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The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Atmosphere of gloom about the future of the uranium industry

[Cameco] now finds itself selling some of its output below the cost of production.

China continues to review approvals for new reactors amid concerns about safety

Uranium outlook bleak, Rebound two years off estimates BLOOMBERG NEWS SEPTEMBER 20, 2012 Uranium’s rebound from the Fukushima nuclear accident may take one or two years longer than analysts estimated, prolonging the languishing recovery of Cameco, whose stock price has lost half its value since the March 2011 tragedy.

Just a month before the tsunami struck, shares were trading at $42.39. Wednesday they closed at $21.01.

The price of uranium for immediate delivery declined to $47 a pound as of Sept. 17, its lowest in two years, according to Ux Consulting, a Roswell, Ga.-based uranium information provider.

BHP Billiton Ltd. and Paladin Energy Ltd. have slowed or deferred development this year of some projects to produce the raw material in nuclear reactor fuel…… Continue reading →

September 21, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Uranium | Leave a comment

Europe’s increase in Downs syndrome births due to Chernobyl radiation

Evidence for an increase in trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) in Europe after the Chernobyl reactor accident.http://push-zb.helmholtz-muenchen.de/frontdoor.php?source_opus=7180&la=de Genet. Epidemiol. 36, 48-55 (2012) The objective of this study is to investigate the prevalence of Down syndrome (DS) associated with Chernobyl fallout.

Maternal age-adjusted DS data and corresponding live birth data from the following seven European countries or regions were analyzed: Bavaria and West Berlin in Germany, Belarus, Hungary, the Lothian Region of Scotland, North West England, and Sweden from 1981 to 1992.

To assess the underlying time trends in the DS occurrence, and to investigate whether there have been significant changes in the trend functions after Chernobyl, we applied logistic regression allowing for peaks and jumps from January 1987 onward.

The majority of the trisomy 21 cases of the previously reported, highly significant January 1987 clusters in Belarus and West Berlin were conceived when the radioactive clouds with significant amounts of radionuclides with short physical
half-lives, especially (131) iodine, passed over these regions. Apart from this, we also observed a significant longer lasting effect in both areas.

Moreover, evidence for long-term changes in the DS prevalence in several other European regions is presented and
explained by exposure, especially to (137) Cs. In many areas, (137) Cs uptake reached its maximum one year after the Chernobyl accident. Thus, the highest increase in trisomy 21 should be observed in 1987/1988, which is indeed the case.

Based on the fact that maternal meiosis is an error prone process, the assumption of a causal relationship between low-dose irradiation and nondisjunction is the most likely explanation for the observed increase in DS after the Chernobyl reactor accident.

September 21, 2012 Posted by | EUROPE, health | Leave a comment

Nuclear tests’ radiation caused fewer girl births, world wide

The 1960s and ’70s increase is attributed in the study to the global dispersal of radioactive atoms from atmospheric atomic bomb tests. The tests lofted radioactive atoms high into the atmosphere, where air currents caught the atoms and then dispersed them around the planet.

The new study is “the most convincing documentation” to date that radiation can lead to sex bias in humans, according to geneticist Karl Sperling of the Institute of Medical Genetics and Human Genetics in Berlin.

The findings challenge the conventional belief that exposure to nuclear radiation has no, or negligible, genetic effects in humans,

Millions Fewer Girls Born Due to Nuclear Radiation? “Unexpected” findings suggest bomb tests, plant accidents boosted male births Ker Than National Geographic News  June 2, 2011 Nuclear radiation from bomb tests and power plant accidents causes slightly more boys than girls to be born, a new study suggests. While effects were seen to be regional for incidents on the ground, like Chernobyl, atmospheric blasts were found to affect birth rates on a global scale. Continue reading →

September 21, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health, women | Leave a comment

Caesium-137 – toxic decay products underground,a Chernobyl hazard

Chernobyl zone in Belarus reduced, Charter 97 Mirror,  “……….Meanwhile, according to the head of Kyiv coordination and analytical centre of Ecology and Health, Professor Yury Bandazheuski,
in case a radioactive counter do not trace radiocaesium on the surface of the ground, it simply means that radioactive elements had migrated into the earth stratum and are at the level of the root system. The expert says that transformation of radioactive elements into the ones more dangerous for human health occurs.

For instance, Caesium-137 decays into barium, and barium is very toxic for a human being. People at “conditionally clean” territories get it with plants and animals’ meat.
http://charter97.mirror.tengu.ch/en/news/2010/8/3/31033/index.html

September 21, 2012 Posted by | environment, Ukraine | Leave a comment

EDF attacks France’s plans to shut down Fessenheim nuclear power station

EDF nuclear execs protest Fessenheim closure plan PARIS, Sept 20  Sep 20, 2012   (Reuters) – EDF’s nuclear plant managers have assailed government plans to close the state-controlled company’s Fessenheim nuclear power station in a letter of support to the facility’s workers, French media reported…

. The facility, which went into service in 1977, is France’s oldest nuclear power plant and has been a frequent focus of safety concerns since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan that triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Last week, environmental groups called for its early closure after a steam leak at the plant triggered a brief fire alert.

September 21, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Ratepayers to pay over 10 years for Fort Calhoun nuclear plant repairs

Neb. utility pays nuclear rehab cost over 10 years http://fremonttribune.com/news/state-and-regional/neb-utility-pays-nuclear-rehab-cost-over-years/article_b49cd0e8-f4bc-5120-a170-2d7ea5ba652b.html 20 Sept 12, The Nebraska utility that owns the troubled Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant has decided to spread out the cost of repairs at the plant over 10 years to lessen the immediate impact on rates. Continue reading →

September 21, 2012 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

9th Circuit Hears Health Care Plea from Islanders Affected by Nuclear Bomb Testing (CN)  Opposing Views,  by Courthouse News   Sep 20, 2012 – An attorney for the the disease-prone residents of pacific island nations where the United States once tested nuclear bombs decried discrimination before the 9th Circuit.     Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau each were used by the U.S. military to test its developing nuclear arsenal in the 1940s and 1950s. Many residents claim that resulting health issues have lingered through the generations.

These countries have enjoyed a Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the United States since 1986, a relationship that allows their natives to live in Hawaii and other states as nonimmigrants, eligible for government assistance, including Medicaid.

In 1996, however, the Welfare Reform Act cut off Medicaid benefits for the islanders. States had the option to keep providing health care under their own programs, but Hawaii stopped giving COFA residents the benefits to which they were previously entitled in 2010.

That year marked the start of the Basic Health Hawaii (BHH) program, to which it switched most of the COFA residents. The move cut the care provided to the islanders quite severely, limiting patients to no more than 10 days of hospital care per year, 12 outpatient visits per year, six mental health visits and a maximum of four medication prescriptions per month.

A group of islanders, many of whom have persistent and serious health conditions, filed a class action against the state, alleging that the cut in benefits violated the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act.     Finding that Hawaii had “failed to identify any particular state interest that is advanced by their decision to exclude COFA Residents from the old programs,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright granted an injunction and ordered Hawaii to reinstate the former benefits.     Hawaii appealed to the 9th Circuit, a three-judge panel of which heard oral arguments in the case on Tuesday in San Francisco. …. http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/9th-circuit-hears-health-care-plea-islanders

September 21, 2012 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

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