“Chilling Testimony”: Expert says public was put in great danger because of errors at California nuclear plant — KPBS: NRC hearing was a Catch 22… Kafkaesque (AUDIO)
Published: January 18th, 2013 at 6:23 pm ET
By ENENews
See the presentation here
Title: CHILLING TESTIMONY: DESIGN FLAWS AT CALIFORNIA NUCLEAR PLANT PUT MILLIONS IN DANGER
Source: The Reno Dispatch
Date: January 17, 2013
The operator of the San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California made critical errors in the design of the plant’s replacement steam generatorsand, as a result, the public was put in great danger last year, according to expert testimony Wednesday by an internationally renowned nuclear engineer at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) hearing.
The chilling testimony, which was presented to the NRC Petitions Review Board, was accompanied by evidence showing that plant operator Southern California Edison should have been required to go through a license amendment process before installing the new steam generators in 2009 and 2010.
The nuclear expert, Arnie Gundersen, a consultant to Friends of the Earth, explained to the NRC that the design changes proposed by Edison created a dangerously high level of steam at the top of all four replacement steam generators. […]
Title: Nuclear Safety Groups Petition NRC
Source: KPBS
Author: Alison St John
Date: January 17, 2013
[…] In a question and answer session at the end of the hearing, Daniel Hirsch of the nuclear safety group, Committee to Bridge the Gap, told the NRC the hearings are Kafkaesque, because Edison won’t release some very pertinent documents.
“You are placing the burden on Friends of the Earth to tell you what’s wrong with a document you will not permit them so see,” he said. “So I’m asking you for the rationale behind a public agency keeping those documents secret from the public, and then demanding that the public critique something they do not have access to.” […]
KPBS broadcast here
Caldicott: Terribly alarming what’s happening in Japan — Signs of radiation sickness reported in children after 3/11 — Lies are being fed to the people (AUDIO)
Published: January 19th, 2013 at 12:30 pm ET
By ENENew
Title: Interview with Helen Caldicott
Source: KPFA 94.1 FM
Date: January 15, 2013
At 11:30 in
Dr. Helen Caldicott: It’s terribly alarming what’s happening, and the ignorance of the population, and the lies that are being fed to the people.
I’ve just been in Japan for 10 days doing a speaking tour and I had audiences of 400 people and I’d give them the medical data and statistics about radiation and then it’d turn into a medical consultation. […]
Indeed many children were reported to have had nose bleeds which means their platelets are low which is a sign of radiation sickness.
And there have been a lot of viral illnesses as well. Of course your immune system is depleted by radiation.
There’s little being done to collect the medical data.
From the comments, h/t Mack from Enenews
Some notes from interview:
–> 1/2 Japan contaminated with Cesium-137 which causes brain, muscle, reproductive cancers
–> Strontium-90 in some Tokyo soil so radioactive that in America it would be sent to radioactive waste sites
–> Children living in areas with radiation levels at which Russians were evacuated
–> Japanese didn’t announce there had been 3 meltdowns for 2 or 3 months
–> Japan knew where plume was going, but didn’t tell people because they didn’t want to cause panic
–> Japanese gov’t encouraging radiative rice sold and fed to children
–> They’re diluting radioactive rice with non-radioactive rice
–> Mushrooms so radioactive they’re forbidden to be eaten
–> 100,000 children tested and 40% have thyroid lesions
–> 2 have thyroid cancer which is really quick because it took 5 years after Chernobyl for thyroid cancer to show up
–> Children extremely sensitive to radiation, 10X more than adults, girls 2X more than boys
–> Doctors in Japan are hungry for information
–> Japan trying to gloss it over and even open reactors again
–> Fukushima will never end
–> No idea how to clean it up becase there have never been 3 meltdowns in histroy
–> Continuation of radioactive elements being put in ocean
–> 53% of fish caught there are radioactive
–> Hillary Clinton signed a deal so food would be imported from Japan
–> Musn’t eat food from Japan now because you don’t know what’s going to be radioactive–> 200 radioactive elements were released during the meltdowns – some last seconds, some last millions of years
–> NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS NEVER END
Dr. Caldicott also discusses the Fukushima symposium.
The guest list is impressive.
Link for symposium
http://www.helencaldicott.com/2012/12/helen-caldicott-foundations-fukushima-symposium/
November 2012 -Cattenom incident upgraded to INES level 1
LUXEMBOURG
Published on 11.01.13 15:19
WORT.LU
A systems failure which took place last year at the Cattenom nuclear power plant has been reclassified to a level 1 incident.
The incident, which took place on November 11, 2012 and was initially given a rating of 0 out of 7 (the lowest) on the INES safety scale.
However, it was upgraded to a level 1 incident in a meeting by management on January 10 because of the discovery of several anomalies on the clamp for the control rods clusters.
A blockage to the control cluster resposible for powering the reactor at production unit No. 2 was first discovered during the restart of reactor operations last year.
The source of the fault was traced to a faulty screw on the control rod cluster. The anomaly was reported to the Nuclear Safety Authority and 64 other clusters were reviewed and found to be fully functioning.
The Luxembourg government said that this incident had no impact on the safety of the plant located on the Luxembourg-France border.
http://www.wort.lu/en/view/cattenom-incident-upgraded-50f01f5ae4b034d98bfcd85e
72 microsieverts/hour spike -Cattenom France, during emergency response exercise -Not noticed?
3.00 am 4th Dec 2012
72 microsieverts/hour spike -Cattenom France, during emergency response exercise -Not noticed?
Human Rights Watch report on MALI Child labor in Gold exploitation
DECEMBER 6, 2011
UPDATE: For the report, “A Poisonous Mix: Child Labor, Mercury, and Artisanal Gold Mining in Mali,” Human Rights Watch reprinted a government list that named “Kaloute Hong Kong” as buying gold from Mali’s artisanal mines. However, Kaloti Jewellery International in Hong Kong has subsequently informed us that it does not buy such gold.
(Bamako)– At least 20,000 children work in Malian artisanal gold mines under extremely harsh and dangerous conditions, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Malian government and international donors should take action to end child labor in artisanal mines, Human Rights Watch said. Artisanal miners rely on low-tech methods and often organize informally.
The 108-page report, “A Poisonous Mix: Child Labor, Mercury, and Artisanal Gold Mining in Mali,” reveals that children as young as six dig mining shafts, work underground, pull up heavy weights of ore, and carry, crush, and pan ore. Many children also work with mercury, a toxic substance, to separate the gold from the ore. Mercury attacks the central nervous system and is particularly harmful to children.
“These children literally risk life and limb”, said Juliane Kippenberg, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They carry loads heavier than their own weight, climb into unstable shafts, and touch and inhale mercury, one of the most toxic substances on earth.”
Of 33 child laborers interviewed by Human Rights Watch, 21 said that they suffered from regular pain in the back, head, neck, arms, or joints. Childrenalso suffer from coughing and respiratory disease. One boy about six years old described the pain he felt when digging shafts with a pickaxe for hours on end. Another boy said that “everything hurts” when he comes home after a day’s work underground.
Most children work alongside their parents to supplement the little income adult miners get from selling gold to local traders. Other children migrate to the mines by themselves, and end up being exploited and abused by relatives or strangers who take their pay. Some girls are sexually abused or engage in sex work to survive. Children come to the mines from other parts of Mali, as well as from Guinea, Burkina Faso, and other neighboring countries.
Belgium to build ‘battery island’ to store wind farm energy
“…The Belgian island project is part of the country’s phase-out of nuclear energy and shift towards renewables. The country, which has for years received more than half of its electricity from its two nuclear power plants, Doel and Tihange, wants to shut down all its reactors by 2025; wind farms on the North Sea are an essential part of this strategy.
The country had just 1,078 megawatts of wind power connected to the grid in 2011, but the output is expected to expand to more than 4,000 megawatts by 2020, according to a European Wind Energy Association report.
The island will also double as a resting place for gulls and other sea birds, Minister Lanotte said. They will be fed there, and will be less inclined to bother people on the mainland, he explained….”
Published: 19 January, 2013, 12:43
RT
Belgium plans to build a horseshoe-shaped artificial island off its North Sea coast to store energy generated by its wind farms. The project will also double as attraction for sea birds (and possibly flocks of tourists).
The ambitious undertaking was unveiled this week by Belgian North Sea Minister Johan Vande Lanotte, as he reported on the implementation of marine special planning.
The island is planned to be built over the course of five years about three to four kilometers off the coast near the village of Wenduine in the province of West Flanders. It will be about three kilometers in diameter, and will have a giant water reservoir occupying most of its territory.
Energy will be stored by pumping seawater inside the reservoir. It is then recovered when needed by guiding the water back into the sea through a hydropower plant at the heel of the ‘horseshoe.’
Storing excess energy is a common problem for electric grid management. Consumption of electricity varies greatly between daytime and nighttime, so balancing the load often requires generating and storing extra energy overnight and releasing those reserves during peak hours. This is a particular issue for many forms of green energy; for example, the output of a wind farm depends on whether there is enough wind to spin its turbines.
Fish with 254,000 Bq/kg Cesium Was Caught Right at Fukushima I Nuke Plant, Not “Near Fukushima”
http://ex-skf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/fish-with-254000-bqkg-cesium-was-caught.html
SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 2013
EXSKF -Clarification of shoddy french journalism!
“Fish was caught near Fukushima” is how France’s Le Monde seems to portray the event, though I can only read the Google translation:
Radioactivity on a record fish caught near Fukushima
Fish, close rockfish was caught in the bay near the central Fukukshima Daiichi…
Le Monde’s article was sited at Zero Hedge also, calling the fish “Mike the Murasoi”.
As I posted, the bottom-dwelling fish was caught right inside the harbor for the nuclear power plant, not near the plant or not near Fukushima:
TEPCO plans to close off the harbor mouth with a net.
Fukushima fish – radiation levels 2500 times the legal limit
Record high radiation level found in fish http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/record-high-radiation-level-found-in-fish/story-e6frfkui-1226557111874#ixzz2IRxmSfvD January 19, 2013
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said caesium equivalent to 254,000 becquerels per kilogram – or 2540 times more than the government seafood limit – was detected in a “murasoi” fish.
The fish, similar to rockfish, was caught at a port inside the Fukushima plant, a TEPCO spokesman said.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was battered by a towering tsunami following a huge earthquake on March 11, 2011, causing reactor meltdowns which spewed radioactive contamination into the atmosphere.
Fishing around Fukushima was halted and the government banned beef, milk, mushrooms and vegetables from being produced in surrounding areas.
Today is USA’s National Gun Appreciation Day
GOP Leaders Criticize Obama on Tactical Nuclear Weapons, 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-clifford/gop-leaders-criticize-oba_b_2457682.html Huff Post COMEDY, 01/17/2013 Seeking bipartisan support, President Obama today called for tighter controls on individual purchasing tactical nuclear weapons. The president asked Congress to approve a three-day waiting period prior to purchase, during which the individual would need to present evidence that he is not Iran or North Korea.
The NRA reacted immediately labeling this “an outrageous attempt by socialist Big Brother and to destroy American liberties.”
“Tactical nuclear weapons don’t kill people,” NRA executive director Chris Cox stated. “People kill people. To be more specific, atheists, socialists, and pro-choice people kill people.” Continue reading
Taiwanese lead the way in cultural opposition to the nuclear industry
Directors seek to boost anti-nuclear bid http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/01/19/2003552898/2 CREATIVE PROTESTS:The directors called on artistic heavyweights to join their anti-nuclear bid, and said that art rather than rhetoric could best serve the cause By Tang Chia-ling and Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter, with Staff writer In a move to strengthen their anti-nuclear efforts, film directors Ko I-chen (柯一正) and Wu Yi-feng (吳乙峰) are considering inviting well-known people from the artistic and entertainment industries to endorse their petition against the construction of the nation’s controversy-plagued Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市).
In a statement jointly authored by Ko and Wu, which they said would be published on their Facebook pages in the near future, the pair called on heavyweights from the artistic and cultural sectors to weigh in on their anti-nuclear bid.
“We will spare no effort in inviting Taiwanese ‘living national treasures’ to join our cause, such as globally acclaimed director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) and Cloud Gate founder Lin Hwai-min (林懷民),” Ko said.
The statement also urged the government to scrap a budget proposal to invest several billion NT dollars more in the contentious plant, “for the sake of offering peace of mind to the many parents in the country and their offspring.” Continue reading
Good news: “backscatter” ionising radiation airport scanners to go
Bye-Bye to the Rapiscan Backscatter Machines The Atlantic, James Fallows, JAN 18 2013, Good news from our friends at TSA: they are getting rid of the hated (by me) Rapiscan “backscatter” screening machines like the one shown at right. These are the scanners in which you stand between two big, opaque boxes, raise your hands, and have X-rays shot at your body. The systems measure the “backscatter” radiation that reflects back from hard and soft surfaces on your body and clothing. Radiation in such backscatter systems is much weaker than medical X-rays, which are of course meant to go right through your body. Still, it is ionizing radiation, which is guilty until proven innocent in terms of possible health effects.
Missouri’s West Lake Landfill Superfund Site- a radioactive time bomb
“Our community can no longer tolerate delays—we’re sitting on a ticking toxic time bomb,”
Community, Environmentalists, Teamsters Tell EPA: Stop Nuclear Fires At Republic Landfill In Missouri, Daily Markets, ST. LOUIS, Jan. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Last night, more than 300 people from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Missouri Jobs with Justice, and the Teamsters Union attended a public meeting held by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). There, community leaders spoke out against the increasingly dangerous and volatile situation at West Lake Landfill Superfund Site in Bridgeton, Mo. The landfill is operated by Republic Services [NYSE: RSG], the nation’s second-largest trash company.
The site, located in the Missouri River floodplain, is home to radioactive wastes dumped there in 1973 following secret uranium processing in downtown St. Louis. In late October 2012, residents around the landfill began complaining of foul odors and burning eyes—and the Pattonville Fire Department expressed alarm at rising underground temperatures and the danger that the developing underground landfill fire could migrate toward the buried nuclear waste sites. Continue reading
Australian government kept secret on atomic bomb tests’ effects on Aborigines
a detailed description of how nuclear authorities denied diagnosis for decades, “lost” medical records, when diagnosis of survivors was made 3 decades after the event, the event which caused the symptoms was not referenced and specifically in relation to recurrent local radiation injury to skin, which can become a chronic and cyclic event, outbreaks of symptoms recurring in cycles over decades. This is diagnosed in at least some cases, one specifically known to me, not as local radiation injury (beta burn) but as psoriasis.
It is an easy thing to deny diagnosis, as was done – affected people asked for diagnosis in 1953 and later and doctors in Australia REFUSED to give a diagnosis.
Now, in 2013, British authorities claim nothing can be proven to show it is liable for the suffering and death it visited by its actions and in concert with Australian authorities upon Aboriginal people
Aboriginal Truth Buried Under Atomic Fudge, Paul Langley’s Nuclear history Blog, 19 Jan 13 The refusal of British authorities to acknowledge that British nuclear weapon testing in Australia in the 1950s and related “minor trials” which continued into the 1960s (including some which contravened the spirit if not the bones of the LTBT) and the Operation Brumby “cleanup” which resulted in a worsened situation of contamination on Aboriginal land.
For many years a sign on the road from Maralinga to Oak Valley warned people to stay in their vehicles.
On this same land Aboriginal people hunted and hunt and gather.
A Vulcan bomber fired a loaded but disarmed nuclear missile over the Maralinga Range. The missile overshot its target, resulting in the missile disintegrating and spreading plutonium dust over a wide area off of the Range.
In the 1980s the Adelaide Advertiser reported on the discovery of plutonium in the Oak Valley school yard and buildings. The white teachers refused to work and returned to Adelaide. The people of Oak Valley had to continue to live there. Continue reading
Renewable energy:192,000 acres of government-owned land in Arizona
U.S. Establishes Renewable-Energy Zone on Public Land in Arizona http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-18/u-s-establishes-renewable-energy-zone-on-public-land-in-arizona.html
By Justin Doom – Jan 18, 2013 6
The U.S. identified about 192,000 acres of government-
owned land in Arizona that are suitable for commercial-scale solar and wind farms.
The agency also established the Agua Caliente Solar Energy Zone, 2,550 acres in the state with strong sunlight and few resource conflicts that are well-suited for solar projects, according to a U.S. Interior Department statement today.
Agua Caliente is the third solar zone in Arizona and the 18th in the nation. Establishing such areas will facilitate development by identifying sites where projects are unlikely to face environmental hurdles and other potential problems.
Creating zones for renewable energy “lays a solid foundation for making sure it happens in the right way and the right places,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in the statement. The agency is working with environmentalists, local communities, American Indian tribes and other groups “to reduce potential resource conflicts and expedite appropriate projects.”
The U.S. is promoting wider use of renewable energy to reduce consumption of foreign oil and create clean-energy jobs, Salazar said. The agency has approved 34 utility-scale wind, solar and geothermal projects on public land since 2009 with more than 10,400 megawatts of capacity.
Uranium now the justification for invading Syria?
NOW IT’S SYRIA’S URANIUM??? Giza Death Star, JANUARY 17, 2013 BY JOSEPH P. FARRELL Really…it’s getting to be like a bit of theater isn’t it? It would be laughable, were it not for the loss of life and suffering involved. We’ve seen every excuse in the world trotted out, it seems, to justify an “intervention” by the West in Syria, with the usual “human rights” leading the charge. That, of course, didn’t pan out too well. So now, it seems, Syria has a lot of uranium we should all be worried about:
Now the West Is Worried About Syrian Uranium! Must Invade? This, it seems, is the latest scam….. The mention of Iraq in this article may recall, for some who remember the whole fiasco, what happened when we were all lied to about the necessity of the need to invade that country. First we were told that Saddam Hussein was sponsoring terrorism. That one quickly fell by the wayside to be replaced by the prospect of an immanent nuclear Iraq. He was building “weapons of mass destruction” (specifically atomic bombs), and had demonstrated his willingness to use such weapons by gassing the Kurds. No doubt, the man was evil, and may even have used a-bombs had he had them. Of course, Saddam was no fool either, and may not have used them, knowing that it may have called forth a similar response from the west. But in any case, he didn’t have them.
But you’ll recall there was story that was quickly circulated as the invasion was under way, and the evidence for such a program was not forthcoming: Saddam, we were informed, had dismantled his whole program and shipped it, lock, stock, and German-made centrifuge, to…
…Syria.
So in a certain sense, invading Syria would (follow the twisted logic here), be completing what we started in Iraq….. Watch this one carefully folks, because this seems to be what is happening here: a way to piggyback an Iranian project on a Syrian one. Same ole same ole. http://gizadeathstar.com/2013/01/now-its-syrias-uranium/
Films awaken Indian audiences to the dangers of the nuclear industry
Uranium Film Festival: Capturing Fallout Tehelka Blog, 17 Jan 13 Author: Ajachi Chakrabarti “I am now in this place where you should never come. We call it Onkalo. Onkalo means ‘hiding place’. In my time it is not yet finished, though work began in the 20th century, when I was just a child. Work will be completed in the 22nd century, long after my death. Onkalo must last 100,000 years. Nothing built by man has lasted even a tenth of that timespan.But we consider ourselves a very potent civilisation. If we succeed, Onkalo will most likely be the longest lasting remains of our civilisation. If you, sometime far in the future, find this, what would it tell you about us?”
Thus begins Into Eternity, Danish director Michael Madsen’s documentary about the Onkalo spent nuclear waste repository on the island of Oikiluoto in Finland. In 1994, the legislature amended the Finnish Nuclear Energy Act to specify that all nuclear waste produced in Finland must be disposed of in Finland. The solution was the repository, a deep cavern to be filled with radioactive waste that is designed to hold for ten half lives – in some cases, as long as 250,000 years – the accepted timespan for such waste to be considered safe.
Obvious geological fears aside, the fear that Madsen taps into in this film is that of communicating to future civilisations that the contents of this cavern they would find are very toxic Continue reading
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Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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