What you need to know about Darlington’s reactors Greenpeace – August 31, 2012 These are the frequently asked questions about Darlington Ontario’s nuclear reactors. If this information leaves you concerned and you want the government to re-consider their plan, sign up below. Why “Stop Darlington”?
The biggest threat to building a green energy sector in Ontario is the $36 billion earmarked to build two new, and re-build four outdated, risky nuclear reactors at Darlington, 60 kilometers east of Toronto.
Spending billions to rebuild old reactors and to build new ones at Darlington comes with unnecessary accident risks, damages Lake Ontario, and burdens future generations with stockpiles of radioactive waste. Continue reading →
Critics on all sides as Australia leads way on Antarctic protection BY: MATTHEW DENHOLM, TASMANIA CORRESPONDENT The Australian October 18, 2012AUSTRALIA and France have developed a plan to protect 1.9 million square kilometres of east Antarctica as new marine parks, although a report today will call for an even larger reserve.
A radiographer went in a bunker where industrial radiography operations were made. The ionising source was a X-ray machine (225kV – 4mA). The radiographer thought that the irradiation was finished but this was not the case and he was exposed.
According to the biological dosimetry, the radiographer received a whole body dose below 200mSv.
At the moment, the licencee is making a reconstitution of the incident to better determine the dose
“It’s such an odd situation because private companies just don’t have this material,” Miles Pomper, a senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, D.C., told the Democrat and Chronicle.
No kidding. A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the Los Angeles Times that the company had enriched 1,582 grams of uranium-235 up to 93.4%, a level considered weapons-grade. Good thing Kodak isn’t in Iran; that’s the kind of thing Israel’s been threatening to go to war over.
For Kodak, nuclear reactor and weapons-grade uranium proved useful
Posted on October 18, 2012
From
An Eastman Kodak facility had a small nuclear reactor and 3½ pounds of weapons-grade uranium for more than 30 years. (Associated Press / May 14, 2012)
By Matt PearceMay 14, 2012, 3:01 p.m.
Kodak has the bomb.
… OK, not really. But according to a report from the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat and Chronicle, an EastmanKodak facility had a small nuclear reactor and 3 ½ pounds of weapons-grade uranium for more than 30 years.
Kodak. The company that makes cameras and printers.
“It’s such an odd situation because private companies just don’t have this material,” Miles Pomper, a senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, D.C., told the Democrat and Chronicle.
No kidding. A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the Los Angeles Times that the company had enriched 1,582 grams of uranium-235 up to 93.4%, a level considered weapons-grade. Good thing Kodak isn’t in Iran; that’s the kind of thing Israel’s been threatening to go to war over.
The company was using the reactor to check its chemicals and perform radiography tests, the commission said, and had upgraded to its in-house system after using one at Cornell University, according to the Democrat and Chronicle. It was reportedly guarded and monitored carefully.
Kodak, not known as one of the world’s nuclear powers, filed for bankruptcy protection in January and has been shedding some of its holdings.
MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed …. When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.”
The REAL Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan (It Was Not To End the War Or Save Lives)
Posted on October 14, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog
Atomic Weapons Were Not Needed to End the War or Save Lives
Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives.
But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise.
The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded (52-56):
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
General (and later president) Dwight Eisenhower – then Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces, and the officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for Europe and Japan – said:
The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.
Newsweek, 11/11/63, Ike on Ike
Eisenhower also noted (pg. 380):
In [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.
During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whoseemployment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude….
Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):
It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
“Nuclear energy policy is connected with economic growth, employment and national security, among other concerns. It is not a matter that should be settled by referendums.
On the reactivation of reactors at nuclear power plants where safety has been confirmed, the government needs to be responsible for making decisions while taking local opinions into consideration.”
Tokyo’s Nikkiso moves manufacturing plant to avoid predicted earthquake on Pacific coast
A major Japanese precision equipment maker plans to relocate its plant to the Sea of Japan coast to avoid the negative impact of a predicted major earthquake along the country’s Pacific coast.
Tokyo’s Nikkiso Company manufactures medical equipment and aircraft parts at its plant in Makinohara City on the Pacific coast of Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan.
But the Japanese government released projections in August suggesting more than 300,000 people could be killed in a massive earthquake and tsunami that could possibly occur near the Nankai Trough along the country’s Pacific coast.
The manufacturer decided to move the plant to the Sea of Japan coast city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture.
The company’s CEO Toshihiko Kai visited Ishikawa prefectural office on Thursday. He reported the relocation plan to Ishikawa Governor Masanori Tanimoto and Kanazawa Mayor Yukiyoshi Yamano.
Kai said it would be difficult for a medical equipment maker in Shizuoka to fulfill its heavy social responsibility in the event of major disaster.
Referendums no way to decide restarts of nuclear reactors -say Shizuoka Prefectural Assembly
Nuclear energy policy is connected with economic growth, employment and national security, among other concerns. It is not a matter that should be settled by referendums.
On the reactivation of reactors at nuclear power plants where safety has been confirmed, the government needs to be responsible for making decisions while taking local opinions into consideration.
The Shizuoka Prefectural Assembly has rejected a draft ordinance on holding a referendum to ask residents whether they would support the restart of reactors at Chubu Electric Power Co.’s Hamaoka nuclear plant in the prefecture.
The draft ordinance was requested of the prefectural government by a citizens organisation that collected the signatures of more than 160,000 residents in the prefecture.
Far-reaching ramifications
Even if such a referendum were held, the result would not be legally binding. But it would likely affect decisions made by the central government, concerned local governments and the utility company. We praise the prefectural assembly for its sound judgment in rejecting it and preventing unnecessary confusion.
The problem is that Shizuoka Gov. Heita Kawakatsu expressed support for holding a referendum on the grounds that there were a large number of signatures in favor of submitting a draft ordinance.
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