nuclear-news

The week in nuclear news

Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs

United Nations  Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) has just released publicly a statement that Infants and children can be more at risk than adults of developing  cancers when exposed to radiation, for example from nuclear accidents,  UNSCEAR said children and adults should be considered separately following exposure in order to predict risk more accurately.  The full report was presented to the UN General Assembly.   This is more important than it might at first sound, as it follows all that publiciity in May 2013, that UNSCEAR supposedly did not expect health harm from the Fukushima nuclear accident.

UK Government has finalised its deal with China, and EDF, for new untested nuclear reactors with a guaranteed price for these providers, of double the market price. The government has also already committed itself to providing financial guarantees of £10bn to cover the building of Hinkley Point, something not available to builders of solar or wind arrays.  The European Union is studying this deal in view of the EU’s rules against subsidising new nuclear power. Even pro nuclear George Monbiot condemns the deal as a farce. and says of the nuclear waste problem”No one should commission a mess without a plan for clearing it up”

Japan. The Fukushima radiation leaks continue. All observers anxiously await the operation, planned for November, of removing the spent nuclear fuel rods from their precarious pool above reactor No 4. It will be a very dangerous and difficult task, with the potential for a radiation catastrophe.  Meanwhile the Japanese government has drafted a new law about state secrets, which may inhibit press freedom, and allow for the gaoling of whistleblowers for up to 10 years.

October 26, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes