nuclear-news

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

Anti nuclear nun in gaol for “crimes of violence”

OakRidge-activistsFeds Say Peace Activists Who Trespassed Onto Nuclear Facility Are A National Security Threat http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/peace-activists-nuclear_n_3306170.html  Radley Balko, 20 May 13, 

05/20/2013 11:13  In another case of possible overreach by federal prosecutors, an 82-year-old nun and two anti-nuclear activists face long prison terms after being convicted of “sabotage against the U.S. government” and other serious felonies. In truth, the three trespassed onto a nuclear facility, and damaged and vandalized some government property. Their most serious offense may have been to expose lapses in federal security at a nuclear weapons production facility.

In June of last year, peace activists Sister Megan Rice, 82, Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, and Michael Walli, 63, were able to access the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., simply by cutting through a series of chain-link fences. The three then unfurled banners, spray-painted on the building, sang hymns and prayed until security finally arrived to arrest them.

As the activist site Common Dreams reports, over the next several months federal prosecutors applied increasingly serious charges to the activists, and this monthultimately convicted them of serious felonies that could carry long prison sentences. The three were convicted of “crimes of violence,” and will remain incarcerated until their sentencing in September, though the group didn’t harm anyone and carried with them messages of peace and nonviolence.

The severity of the charges may be more of a response to the public embarrassment the break-in caused for the Obama administration than to actual criminal culpability. In reporting on the case last August, for example, The New York Times reported that nuclear experts were calling the protest “the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex.” The paper called the fiasco a “huge embarrassment for President Obama,” and said that the three protesters had “made nuclear theft seem only a little more challenging than a romp in the Tennessee woods.”

The case is the latest of several — including the January suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz – to demonstrate the immense charging power of prosecutors. Some critics say these cases show an out-of-control federal justice system that allows politically motivated prosecutors to use criminal sanctions to target critics, make examples of protesters, or discourage those who seek to expose government lapses, abuses, and oversights.

May 21, 2013 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

San Onofre at the Brink: Nuclear Free Action now Ready to WIN

sun-championIt’s common in the nuke blackmail business for a utility to threaten to shut a reactor where jobs and power are desperately needed. 

But Edison now has a more desperate theme.  The spread of solar throughout southern California will bring far more jobs than San Onofre can begin to promise.  A new feed-in tariff in Los Angeles has helped spread solar panels throughout the region (http://prn.fm/2013/04/08/green-power-and-wellness-040813/#axzz2TW6S1BP3 ).

San Onofre at the No Nukes Brink: It’s Time to Take Action & WIN!!! By Harvey Wasserman, editor  www.nukefree.org

In January, it seemed the restart of San Onofre Unit 2 would be a corporate cake walk.

With its massive money and clout, Southern California Edison was ready to ram through a license exception for a reactor whose botched $770 million steam generator fix had kept it shut for a year.

But a funny thing has happened on the way to the restart:  a No Nukes groundswell has turned this routine rubber stamping into an epic battle the grassroots just might win.

Indeed, if ever there was a time when individual activism could have a magnified impact, this is it.

To take action, go to: 
http://www.nukefree.org/stop-san-onofre-re-start-call-petition-now and call, write, and help keep these dangerous, unneeded reactors permanently shut.

This comes as the nuclear industry is in nearly full retreat.  Two US reactors are already down this year.  Yet another proposed project has just been cancelled in North Carolina.  And powerful grassroots campaigns have pushed numerous operating reactors to the brink of extinction throughout the US, Europe and Japan, where all but two reactors remain shut since Fukushima.

In California, it’s San Onofre that’s perched at the brink. Continue reading →

May 21, 2013 Posted by | opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Fire alert at Pilgrim nuke plant – “further details not available”

safety-symbol-SmFirefighters called in to U.S. nuclear plant after alert — Overheating in turbine room — “Further details not immediately available”http://enenews.com/developing-firefighters-called-in-to-u-s-nuclear-plant-overheating-in-turbine-room-further-details-not-immediately-available

WXTK,, May 20th, 2013: Firefighters called to Pilgrim nuke plant […] after 4 a.m. According to reports, a motor overheated in the turbine room. That is in a non-nuclear section of the plant. Further details were not immediately available.

The Patriot Ledger: Twelve hours after the protest, at 4:20 a.m. Monday, Plymouth firefighters went inside the plant to check an overheated turbine lubrication pump. Fire Chief Edward Bradley said an electrical overload tripped a plant circuit breaker, automatically sending an alert to the fire department. Bradley said the pump is one of a number of pumps that keep turbine bearings lubricated during production. The pumps are located in a building adjacent to the reactor building.

Excerpt from anonymous tip: “fire in turbine bldg of pilgrim nuclear plant….4 fire trucks respond”

May 21, 2013 Posted by | incidents | Leave a comment

Perpetual water needed to nuclear reactors – will end up in Pacific Ocean

water-radiationJapan Times: Discharges of Fukushima nuclear material into Pacific “have effectively contaminated the sea” — Melted reactor cores will burn again if water not perpetually poured in — “Tepco proposing some of it be dumped into ocean” http://enenews.com/japan-times-discharges-of-nuclear-material-into-the-pacific-from-fukushima-have-effectively-contaminated-the-sea-melted-reactor-cores-will-burn-again-if-water-not-perpetually-poured-in-t
 Title: Fukushima No. 1 can’t keep its head above tainted water
Source: The Japan Times
Author: Reiji Yoshida
Date: May 21, 2013

[…] Tepco must perpetually pour water over the melted cores of reactors 1, 2, and 3 via makeshift systems to prevent the fuel from melting and burning again. […]

Tepco is proposing some of the water be dumped into the sea after processing it to remove most, but not all, radioactive isotopes. […]

Previous discharges into the Pacific have effectively contaminated the sea. Failure to store it means it will probably flood the whole compound and end up in the ocean anyway. […]

Will the processed water pose health or environmental risks?

According to Tepco, the processed water could theoretically be safe […]

Tritium is the exception, however. Tepco says the tritium level in the contaminated water is between 1 million and 5 million becquerels per liter. The legal limit is 60,000. […]
See also: Gundersen: “Liquid releases” of nuclear material into ocean will continue for years and years at Fukushima Daiichi — Already 10 times Chernobyl (VIDEO)

May 21, 2013 Posted by | Fukushima 2013, Japan, oceans | Leave a comment

The Aarhus Convention is our last, best hope! – Russias NGOs after Putin crackdown

“….Popravko said that in 2013, environmental organizations adopted a decision to conduct a one day action so that during this year, which has been designated by Russia as the Year of the Environment, they could draw the attention of authorities to the necessity of ratifying the international Convention.

The one day actions will take place in many regions of Russia on

June 25 2013

To coincide with the date the Aarhus Conventions was signed in 1998…..”

 

See also, https://nuclear-news.net/2013/05/20/activists-bristle-as-india-cracks-down-on-foreign-funding-of-ngos/

After Kremlin wrecking balls have levelled environmental legislation, the Aarhus Convention is our last, best hope!

Image source ; http://www.demdigest.net/blog/2013/05/operation-total-eradication-russia-ngo-crackdown-threatens-leading-pollster/

Anna Kireeva, 16/05-2013 –

Translated by Charles Digges

http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2013/Aarhus_needed

MOSCOW – Fifteen years ago, Russian NGOs were still urging against Russia joining the Aarhus Convention because the environmental legislation of the 90s according them wide berth to receive ecological information and the right to take part in decision-making processes. 

In the interceding years of the first two terms of the Administration of Vladimir Putin, and his handpicked successor Dmitry Medvedev, who kept the presidential throne warm for Putin’s return to power last year, these rights have been contorted beyond recognition, leaving the Russian public disenfranchised from its environmental rights.

Public interest groups and environmental NGOs have had to change tack, and  Today, the Aarhus Convention is more essential to the Russian public than ever.

The Aarhus Convention on access to information, public participation in the process of adopting decisions and access to legal recourse on issues concerning the environment was adopted in 1998 in Aarhus, Denmark.

For the first time, NGOs had the same level of access as governments to the development of the Convention. The Convention’s aim is to support the right to favorable environmental conditions, access to information, participation of the public in decision making processes as well as affording it legal redress.

Each participant country in the Convention was therefore obliged to create the necessary conditions for creating and supporting clear, open and coherent structures for implementing the conditions of the Convention.

Since 1998, more than 40 countries in Western and Eastern Europe as well as Central Asia (with the exception of Uzbekistan) have signed and ratified the convention.

Russia has signed the Convention, but still has yet to ratify it, though officials repeatedly speak of how work towards ratification is still progressing..

Continue reading →

May 21, 2013 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant – shut since Jan 2012, and now – indefinitely!

reactor-San-Onofre-1Feds again delay San Onofre nuclear plant restart decision   89.3 KPCC, AP | May 20th, 2013, Federal regulators have indefinitely delayed a decision on the proposed restart of the offline San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California, raising new questions Monday about whether the twin reactors will produce electricity again.

The plant, on the seaside border of San Diego and Orange counties, has been dark since January 2012, after a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.

Operator Southern California Edison wants permission to restart the Unit 2 reactor and run it at reduced power in hopes of stopping vibration and friction that was blamed for damaging tubing.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission delayed several earlier target dates for a ruling, with officials recently projecting a June announcement. But its website on Monday listed no date for a restart decision – only “to be determined.”

Agency spokesman Victor Dricks had no comment.  Last week, the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board sided with environmentalists who have called for lengthy hearings on the restart plan after concluding that firing up the plant would allow Edison “to operate beyond the scope of its existing license.”…. http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/05/20/37332/feds-again-delay-san-onofre-nuclear-plant-restart/

May 21, 2013 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Prepare for nuclear war: good business for fallout shelter salesmen

A Look Inside Nuclear Fallout Shelters http://abcnews.go.com/US/slideshow/inside-nuclear-fallout-shelters-19185600

diagram-fallout-shelter

These Shelters Will Prepare You For Nuclear War  (but don’t those safe inhabitants look bored out of their brains?)

May 21, 2013 Posted by | business and costs, USA | 1 Comment

Super expensive nuclear fusion project cancelled

nuclear-fusion-pie-Sm

 

MIT to cut nuclear fusion program, Boston Business Journal, 20 May 13,   A program that explores nuclear fusion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyis shutting down, after its U.S. funding was cut….. it will leave only two fusion experiments in the U.S. – one at Princeton University, the other at General Atomics, a San Diego firm, according to the Globe. Nuclear fusion is seen as a potential clean alternative to nuclear fission, which is used in today’s nuclear reactors. http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2013/05/mit-to-cut-nuclear-fusion-program.html

May 21, 2013 Posted by | technology, USA | 2 Comments

The long haul for cleaning up Germany’s radioactive trash

Klaus-Günter Warnecke, the mayor of Remlingen, has been monitoring progress at the Asse nuclear waste site for nearly 20 years. Recent local media reports say he may have to wait another 20 years before the clearance of the site begins.

flag_germanyLiving above Germany’s old nuclear waste, DW, 20 May 13,   A German law has recently come into effect ordering the cleanup of 126,000 barrels of radioactive waste at the Asse nuclear dump site. But it seems the process could take a lot longer than locals initially hoped for….. Heike Wiegel is not just a resident here, she’s also a member of the citizen group ‘aufpASSEn’ – meaning ‘watch out’ in German – which helps raise awareness about issues from the Asse nuclear waste site.

wastes-Gorleben-salt-mine

Wiegel has been putting big ‘A’ signs around Remlingen to help highlight the Asse issue

There are a number of other anti-Asse groups in the region. Now, with the law ordering the removal of waste from the site, they want to make sure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.

“What happened back then at the Asse site should never have happened,” Wiegel says after a long pause. “That such an old, unstable salt mine would be used for nuclear waste, which, in the end, was just thrown in barrel by barrel.” Continue reading →

May 21, 2013 Posted by | Germany, wastes | Leave a comment

Germany continues move to clean energy, though it is not easy

flag_germanyhighly-recommendedGermany grapples with nuclear energy phaseout The Local Germany’s energy transition project – in which nuclear power will be phased out and replaced with energy from renewable sources – is facing the challenges of cheap coal, unresolved energy storage and an out-of-date electricity grid. 20 May 13 “…The hard-to-predict flow of renewable energies compared to fossil or nuclear power is one of the many challenges of the energy transition which Chancellor Angela Merkel rang in following Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

It is a grand project that Environment Minister Peter Altmaier once labelled “open-heart surgery on the national economy” of Europe’s export-driven industrial powerhouse.
The goal is to be nuclear-free by 2022 and to combat pollution and climate change by boosting the share of clean and safe renewables to 80 percent by 2050.
Across Germany, solar panels, made popular by state subsidies and falling unit prices, now cover many home roofs and stretches of farmland.
New laws have allowed home owners to sell excess power back into the grid, while other incentives promote home insulation and other efficiency gains.
Germany’s solar power capacity has risen exponentially to reach a current level of about 30 gigawatts. Another 25 to 30 gigawatts come from wind farms across vast
stretches of Germany’s flat, coastal north and offshore parks in the North and Baltic seas.

Merkel, a physicist by training, said last week that, under optimal conditions, the total now falls just shy of Germany’s usual demand of 65 to 70 gigawatts Continue reading →

May 21, 2013 Posted by | Germany, renewable | Leave a comment

Japan set to become a top solar energy market in 2013

solar-panels-and-moneyGoldman Sachs eyes Japan renewable energy investments http://www.eco-business.com/news/goldman-sachs-eyes-japan-renewable-energy-investments/  20 May 13, 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) plans to invest as much as 50 billion yen ($487 million) in renewable energy projects in Japan in the next five years, tapping demand for electricity produced from solar and wind-power generators.

The Wall Street firm also plans to take as much as 250 billion yen of bank loans and project-financing over the same period to move ahead with projects that would cost a total of 300 billion yen, Hiroko Matsumoto, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman for Goldman, said by telephone. The Nikkei newspaper reported the plan earlier today.

Japan began offering incentives in July through feed-in tariffs to encourage renewables after the Fukushima nuclear-plant crisis stemming from the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Japan has been forced to slash its reliance on atomic power generation since Fukushima.

“We believe that we can leverage our global expertise in investing in renewable energy in places such as the US and India, to help expand Japan’s renewable power capabilities,” Ankur Sahu, co-head of the merchant banking division in the Asia-Pacific, said by e-mail.

Goldman Sachs formed the Japan Renewable Energy Co. unit in August to plan, design and operate power plants run on sun, wind, fuel cells and biomass fuels, it said on its website.

Investor attraction

Renewable energy has attracted interest from investors ranging from billionaire Masayoshi Son’s Softbank Corp. and financial-services company Orix Corp. to the country’s biggest banks led by Mizuho Financial Group Inc.

Japan will probably become the largest solar market in the world after China this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Commercial and utility-scale projects will boost solar installations to a range of 6.1 gigawatts to 9.4 gigawatts in 2013, exceeding an earlier forecast of 3.2 gigawatts to 4 gigawatts, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said in April.

Companies that stand to benefit include Kyocera Corp., Sharp Corp. and Suntech Power Japan Corp., all of which make and sell solar panels for residential and industrial use.

May 21, 2013 Posted by | Japan, renewable | Leave a comment