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

New book, ‘FUKUSHIMA: THE DEATH KNELL FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY?’

Fukushima should warn us off nuclear power, says eco-theologian http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=21443 By: Ellen Teague, November 15, 2012 Columban priest Sean McDonagh takes the view that nuclear power should not be seen as the solution to global warming. He will be saying as much next Thursday when he launches his latest book, ‘FUKUSHIMA: THE DEATH KNELL FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY?’ at Heythrop College in London. More emphasis on energy efficiency and the promotion of green energy is preferable to any expansion of nuclear power, says the eco-theologian. Continue reading →

November 16, 2012 Posted by | resources - print | Leave a comment

Plan to cover Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3

Tepco to construct bulbous cover over Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 (PHOTO) http://enenews.com/tepco-construct-bulbous-cover-fukushima-unit-3-photo    Enformable, Nov. 14, 2012: TEPCO has released designs for a cover to construct around the crippled Unit 3 reactor building in order to allow the utility to remove fuel rods from the spent fuel pool by crane.

[…] The building will also house ventilation to reduce the radioactive materials being released into the atmosphere.

November 16, 2012 Posted by | Fukushima 2012 | Leave a comment

Japan had massive tornadoes, November 15

AP: Massive tornados sweep through Japan — Filmed hovering along coastline — Warnings issued (VIDEOS) http://enenews.com/ap-massive-tornados-sweep-through-japan-filmed-hovering-along-coastline-warnings-issued-videos
Title:  Dramatic tornados sweep through Japan
Source: AP
Date: 15 Nov 2012
h/t Aonymous tip

Two massive tornados have swept through the western region of Japan. […]

Tornadoes are relatively rare in Japan and the agency has issued further warnings of strong winds, lightning and tornados. […]

Strong winds are expected to persist and the flow from western Japan is expected to continue pushing cool air into the northern regions, causing unstable weather.

Title: Rare tornado caught on tape in Japan
Source: NBC
Date: Nov. 14, 2012

A Japanese television crew captured a rare tornado hovering over a city along the country’s coast on Wednesday. […]

Japan’s meteorological agency has issued warnings of similar tornados across the country following freak hail storms and weather patterns, especially on the coast bordering the sea  of Japan.

Watch CBS video here

November 16, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

USA had 2 projects to use nuclear bombs for fracking natural gas

U.S. tried fracking for gas using nuclear bombs — Engineer: “I think it’s awesome” — Drilling to now be allowed within half-mile of blast site? (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/fracking-natural-gas-nuclear-bombs-radioactive-engineer-awesome-drilling-be-allowed-half-mile-blast-site-video-video
November 14th, 2012
NSFW* Watch the full Nov. 14, 2012 broadcast of the Joe Rogan Experience with best selling author, television host and robotics engineer Daniel Wilson on here   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbdXyC9To0

 Title: Operation Plowshare: The Plan to Bomb America With Kindness

Source: IO9
Author: Esther Inglis-Arkell
Date: July 27, 2012

The Plowshare program was both a public relations ploy and a serious scientific study. It was an attempt to see if nuclear bombs could be used in peaceful constructive ways. If it had been successful, America would pretty much be humming by now.

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, the entire focus of the atomic program was to create the weapon to end any war, even one as all-consuming as World War II. After the war, the makers of the bomb saw its power, and their own uneasy public, and tried to think of ways to both soothe the American people, and put the bombs to good use. Some of their minds drifted to the Bible verse in Isiah 2:4, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

[…]  Project Rulison and Project Gasbuggy were an attempt to free natural gas with nuclear explosions.  […]

Post Independent, Sept. 29, 2012: Project Rulison […] released 10 times the amount of natural gas as compared to traditional methods. However, the natural gas was contaminated with radioactivity, rendering it unmarketable. […] Recently, there has been much debate over whether it is now safe to drill in the buffer zone. In December of 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved drilling within the three-mile buffer zone, although permission has not yet been given to drill within a half-mile of the blast site.

November 16, 2012 Posted by | history, USA | Leave a comment

Low level radiation increased leukaemia risk for nuclear cleanup workers

Chernobyl study shows need for caution in Fukushima
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121114f2.html# UKO27Xhzxqg.twitter Kyodo A study released Thursday by a U.S. research team links protracted exposure to low-level radiation to a higher risk of leukemia among workers engaged in the cleanup of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and points to the need to protect those involved in dealing with the Fukushima crisis.
Continue reading →

November 16, 2012 Posted by | employment, health, Japan, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Earthquake study in Japan may bring all its nuclear reactors to a close

 seismic experts in the pay of the nuclear power industry have drawn severe criticism for playing down the risk of massive quakes and tsunami before the catastrophic breakdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

The expert panel’s judgment on the Oi plant is likely to have a significant impact on the fate of many other nuclear plants and probably the future of national energy policy as well

Fault study at Oi nuke plant may impact all offline reactors Noted geologist worries warning signs will continue to go unheeded Japan Times, By REIJI YOSHIDA. 15 Nov 12 Toyo University professor Mitsuhisa Watanabe, a polemicist on active faults, has fought a long losing battle against Japan’s nuclear industrial complex. His research, ringing the alarm bell about active faults under and near nuclear power plants, has always fallen on deaf ears.

According to Watanabe, nuclear regulators and power companies have a long history of willfully underestimating the danger posed by active faults near a number of reactors.

But now the Fukushima nuclear crisis may have finally changed the rules of the game. Continue reading →

November 16, 2012 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

UK’s Conservative Party driven by climate denialism, and anti wind power fervour

Anti-wind zeal already runs through the party…… the objections of many Tories suggest a deeper animus, fuelled by Euroscepticism, climate-change denial

Mr Cameron made a windpower sceptic, John Hayes, energy minister, and appointed yet another, Owen Paterson, as environment secretary.

as turbines get bigger and more efficient, the costs for operating and maintaining them are falling

Wind farms and renewable energy A lot of hot air The government’s energy policy gets mired in politics
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21566680-governments-energy-policy-gets-mired-politics-lot-hot-air Nov 17th 2012  THE hatred some Conservative MPs feel for windmills is  amazing.On November 14th Chris Heaton-Harris, a Tory MP charged with running his party’s campaign for a by-election in Corby, was secretly taped bragging that he had supported a rival, James Delingpole. A climate-change sceptic, Mr Delingpole had briefly stood as an independent on an anti-wind platform. Mr Heaton-Harris suggested this was a put-up job, designed to implant the issue into the “DNA of the Tory party”. Continue reading →

November 16, 2012 Posted by | climate change, renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Sellafield nuclear waste site owners charged with illegal dumping

British government files charges against nuclear waste plant owners PlanetArk 16-Nov-12  UK   John McGarrity British regulators filed charges against the owners of the Sellafield nuclear waste site on Thursday on allegations of illegal dumping of radioactive waste, adding to the plant’s history of controversy and complaints.

The nine charges relate to the dumping of low-level waste in a landfill in 2010, the latest in a string of issues involving Sellafield, which for the last 60 years has handled Britain’s spent
nuclear fuel.

“The regulators’ joint action follows an extensive investigation,” Britain’s Environment Agency and the Office for Nuclear Safety said in a statement.

The regulators alleged that Sellafield Ltd, which runs the plant, had breached permits by dumping four bags of nuclear waste material at the nearby Lillyhall landfill without authorisation.

The penalties for such a breach are expected to be relatively small, but the prosecution comes at an inopportune time for Sellafield following a highly critical report earlier this month, said Paul Dorfman, a nuclear waste expert at Warwick University. “It’s another suggestion of laissez faire management,” he said.,,,, http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/67145

November 16, 2012 Posted by | Legal, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Britain’s jinxed nuclear-killer submarines

it was unacceptable for the MoD to spend £10bn of taxpayers’ money on the submarines, and still produce a boat with potentially fundamental design flaws that could, in theory, threaten the UK’s ability to defend itself.

“Even though they know some things are wrong, they keep on building them.

Britain’s nuclear hunter-killer submarines were doomed from the start The flawed thinking and design behind the fleet at the heart of Britain’s navy is now coming to the fore Nick Hopkins The Guardian,   15 Nov The problems with the cost and delivery of Britain’s new nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines were set out in uncompromising detail in a report published by the National Audit Office  this time last year.

But the performance and safety problems of HMS Astute and its sister boats are only now coming to the fore, and that is only because people who know about submarines have been prepared to express their concerns. Continue reading →

November 16, 2012 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Canada gives up on nuclear non proliferation, in deal with India

Canada joined the queue of nuclear suitors by concluding its own bilateral cooperation agreement with India in June 2010. Article V of this agreement formalized Canada’s turning a blind eye to India’s nuclear weapon programs,

India and the meltdown of Canada’s nuclear non-proliferation policy  http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1288649–india-and-the-meltdown-of-canada-s-nuclear-non-proliferation-policy  Paul Meyer   15 Nov 12,    Canada and India both want to start a new chapter in the history of our bilateral nuclear relations. This new chapter is meant to put behind us the bitterness of the past, when a Canadian-supplied research reactor was exploited to produce India’s first “peaceful” nuclear explosion in 1974 and subsequently to help create India’s nuclear weapon arsenal that was made overt through a series of nuclear tests in May 1998.

Also to be erased in this revisionist history is reference to UN Security Council Resolution 1172 of June 1998, which demanded that India and Pakistan foreswear further tests and reverse their nuclear weapon ambitions. Despite the resolution’s unanimous adoption and threat of sanctions, states led by most of the Security Council’s Permanent Five were soon privileging their own bilateral relations with India over any effort at maintaining a united front to counter this blatant act of nuclear proliferation. Continue reading →

November 16, 2012 Posted by | Canada, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Google’s Investment in Renewable Energy Approaches $1 Billion http://mashable.com/2012/11/15/googles-renewable-energy-1-billion/
 November 15, 2012 by Todd Wasserman Google announced a $75 million equity stake in an Iowa wind farm on Thursday, bringing the company’s total investment in renewable energy to “more than $990 million.” Continue reading →

November 16, 2012 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

UK’s nuclear decommissioning problems

What’s the future of nuclear decommissioning? Building.co.uk, 16 November 2012 | By Will Hurst Last week’s devastating National Audit Office report on decommissioning facilities at Sellafield has led many to question whether the UK has the skills needed to deal with nuclear waste. But does the problem really lie with a Nuclear Decommissioning Authority overly occupied with cutting costs? Will Hurst investigates. Continue reading →

November 16, 2012 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Qatar moving ahead on renewable energy

Qatar puts focus on renewable energy initiatives, AMEinfo.com Qatar: November 14 – 2012“………as part of its commitment to reducing carbon emissions and increasing sustainable energy production, Qatar has overseen a range of internal initiatives
as part of its Vision 2030.

In this, Qatar is one of the region’s leading proponents of energy diversification. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook report shows that this is in line with a
global shift in attitudes towards energy generation and consumption. Continue reading →

November 16, 2012 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, renewable | Leave a comment

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