nuclear-news

solar installer certification programme for West Africa.

IRENA, ASU To Develop Solar Installer Certification For West Africa  http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4216The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and Arizona State University (ASU) have partnered to develop a solar installer certification programme for West Africa.

The need to accelerate renewable energy uptake is particularly pressing in West Africa; which is comprised of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

With much of the population having unreliable access to electricity; fossil fuels are king – particularly in the form of dangerous and polluting kerosene used for lighting.

While renewable energy technologies have rapidly reduced in price; a challenge for these nations is having a suitably qualified workforce capable of installing them.

The IRENA/ASU programmes will certify technicians for off-grid and grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems. Workshops in selected countries will occur to engage key stakeholders in order to gain political and policy level support for the initiative.

“ASU is a worldwide leader in PV solar research, power-grid management and sustainability,” said Paul Johnson, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU. “We are excited to be collaborating with IRENA to share our expertise and help build the local technical capacity in West Africa.” IRENA is an intergovernmental organisation working to promote the acceleration of renewable energy uptake worldwide. More than 124 states and the European Union are members; Australia among them.

A report from IRENA in January says employment in renewable energy worldwide in 2012 reached 5.7 million; with  the largest number of jobs found in the biofuel and solar photovoltaic sectors. IRENA sees potential for adding 11 million jobs in the years to 2030, with many of these new jobs to be created in developing nations.

However, the body says a shortage of necessary skills in the renewable energy sector could become a major barrier to this level being achieved.

March 12, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Need to upgrade USA’s nuclear emergency response

GAO: Emergency Nuclear Response System Needs Upgrade WSJ, By RACHAEL KING , 11 Mar 14, A government report issued Tuesday says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s communication technology may not work in a severe crisis.

The technology is used to transmit data from operators of reactors to regulators and technical experts. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which issued the report on the third anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown, says that unless the emergency data communications system operated by the NRC is upgraded to a more reliable communications system such as satellite, it “may not be available when the need for it is greatest, such as during a severe accident.”

The NRC has rejected calls to make this upgrade a priority. In the event the system fails, telephone communications are adequate, the agency said in its response to the report, which was included in the GAO’s report. The system, known as the Emergency Response Data System, uses a virtual private network to create a secure point-to-point data pathway from each operator site to NRC headquarters. The ERDS lets operators communicate nuclear power plant performance data such as radiation monitoring and containment or the status of reactor coolant and containment systems to NRC control centers.

During the Fukushima disaster, the prolonged loss of power largely disabled Japan’s automated data system, according to the report. Radiation levels afterward prevented direct assessment by plant personnel, making remote monitoring a more valuable tool.
After several fact-finding missions to Japan starting in May 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that greater consideration should be given to implementing systems, communications and sources of monitoring equipment that are able to withstand difficult conditions in order to provide essential information during severe accidents. The agency specifically urged operators to upgrade to satellite communications equipment.

The GAO concurs with those recommendations and is urging the NRC to upgrade ERDS.  …….http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2014/03/11/gao-emergency-nuclear-response-system-needs-upgrade/

March 12, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

For Japanese citizens and the world trust in nuclear industry is banrupt

Deadly Fukushima Crisis Further Corrodes Viability of Nuclear Energy,Tuesday, 11 March 2014   By H Patricia Hynes, Truthout | Op-Ed At the three-year anniversary of the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear power plant reactor meltdowns, the disaster’s consequences continue to unfold. One should be a global switch from nuclear power to renewable energy sources.

The mainstream media moved on some time ago from Fukushima – and left most of us in the dark about this worsening nuclear tragedy, as if there were nothing more to mourn and no lessons to learn……..

A few thousand residents who have been allowed to return to their town Odaka find themselves alive in a dying region: “People don’t believe it is safe to visit here. They won’t believe our produce, our livestock, our fish are safe,” reported one rueful resident.

So difficult has been their fate that, by late 2013, 1,600 nuclear refugees had died of insufficient medical services, the exhaustion of relocating, suicide and, likely, heartbreak. More than 35 percent of some 38,000 Fukushima children examined have cysts or nodules on their thyroids, as compared with 1 percent of a control group of Japanese children. In a callous move to keep schools open in Fukushima, the Japanese government raised the “permissible” level of radiation for children. Japanese children now can be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously allowed, a level comparable to the yearly limit for German workers.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive water from the site have emptied and continue to leak via groundwater into the Pacific Ocean at the rate of 400 tons per day. Radioactive cesium, a carcinogen that bioaccumulates in animal, fish and human tissue, has been found throughout mainland Japan, in fish off the coast of Fukushima (thus closing that industry) and in large migratory fish such as Bluefin tuna off the coast of California. A plume of radioactive water from Fukushima is expected to reach the West Coast of the United States in early 2014. Tragically, there is no solution in sight to trapping and treating the cesium-, tritium- and strontium-contaminated groundwater before it reaches the Pacific Ocean. “The situation at the reactor site is progressively deteriorating, not stabilizing,” stated an international group of experts in their urgent appeal for international action to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

In the wake of this $250 billion disaster, Japan closed all of its 54 nuclear power plants. An extraordinary (and embattled) act in a country that is dependent on nuclear energy for one-third of its electricity and is planning to achieve 50 percent nuclear-powered electricity by 2030. Japan had lulled its citizens into complacency with nuclear safety myths. Naoto Kan, prime minister at the time of the Fukushima meltdown, has since rejected nuclear power, saying ‘”there is no [other industrial] accident or disaster that would affect 50 million people”‘ like a nuclear accident. An unprecedented anti-nuclear citizen movement ignited in Japan after Fukushima and has persisted, with a strong majority of the population opposing nuclear power in the face of the current conservative and militaristic government’s determination to restart the offline nuclear power plants.

Radioactive waste is the nuclear industry’s nightmare, most currently so in Fukushima Dai’ichi, where intensely radioactive spent fuel rods lie in a warped and sinking structure and at risk of a catastrophic fire if another (and potentially likely) earthquake strikes the region. For this reason, the US State Department advised Americans soon after March 11 to evacuate to at least 50 miles from the plant.

TEPCO, the plant operator responsible for the cleanup of Fukushima nuclear power plants, has bankrupted the trust of Japanese citizens and the world,,,,,,,,,. http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21551-deadly-fukushima-crisis-further-corrodes-viability-of-nuclear-energy

March 12, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New Mexico nuclear facility has 4 more workers positive for radiation

Four more workers test positive for radiation from New Mexico site BY LAURA ZUCKERMAN Mar 11, 2014   (Reuters) – Four more workers have tested positive for exposure tied to an accidental release of radiation from an underground nuclear waste site in New Mexico, but tests have shown no further contamination in two sections of the site, officials said on Monday.

March 12, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

High level of thyroid and breast cancers in Fukushima victims

Fukushima’s radiation victims, DW 11 Mar 14, The residents of the evacuated Japanese town of Namie near the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima were contaminated with radiation. They have now taken the responsibility for their health into their own hands. When Minako Fujiwara tells the story of her dog which died last June, she still gets sad.

“Hair around the dog’s neck came off and its skin turned black,” the 56-year-old told DW. Similar symptoms were also detected in animals in Chernobyl following the nuclear catastrophe there in 1986. Fujiwara’s family had to leave the dog behind when they were ordered to leave the town of Namie, located nine kilometres (5.6 miles) north of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The pet probably died of high radiation.

Fujiwara has so far not experienced any health problems except for high blood pressure. But Shunji Sekine, a physician in Namie, believes the radiation will eventually have a negative impact on public health.

In his medical practice in the city of Nihonmatsu, where around 230 relocated families are situated in a settlement, Sekine has been examining the thyroid glands of Namie citizens on a daily basis ever since the nuclear incident three years ago.

“Children and young people are particularly vulnerable to the uptake in radioactive iodine in their thyroid,” the 71-year-old doctor told DW.

High number of cancer cases

“Although comprehensive studies are missing, I see a connection between nuclear accidents and the occurrence of cancer,” said the retired physician who specializes in thyroid and breast cancer, adding that there are simply too many cases. According to official figures, 33 cancer cases have been identified in about a quarter of a million children and teenagers since the beginning of February.

This translates into 13 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants, a figure almost four times higher than the world average for all age groups. Nevertheless, the government of the Prefecture of Fukushima refuses to publish any relevant details about the prevalence of cancer. Information requests made by Sekine pertaining to previous cancer cases among children and the degree of contamination remain unanswered, with authorities citing data protection laws.

But Shunichi Yamashita, Japan’s top thyroid expert and health advisor to the prefectural government, plays down the issue. “We still need to conduct further investigations, and the time is not yet ripe for making any statement on this issue,” he said……http://www.dw.de/fukushimas-radiation-victims/a-17488269

March 12, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Taiwanese anxiety about government inaction on nuclear safety

Activists slam government inaction on nuclear safety, Taipei Times, 11 Mar 14, By Tang Chia-ling and Stacy Hsu Several anti-nuclear civic groups yesterday expressed disappointment over what they called the government’s continued disregard of public concerns over the safety of nuclear power as Japan marked the third anniversary of the worst nuclear accident in its history.

Green Citizens’ Action Alliance secretary-general Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣) said the Japanese government had taken several steps to prevent the recurrence of such a catastrophe, including introducing a regulation that prohibits nuclear power plants from being built on top of active fault lines and separating the regulatory body from the administrative body in charge of promoting nuclear power in its Nuclear Regulation Authority.

“The first [Jinshan] and the second [Guosheng] nuclear power plants in New Taipei City are located only 7km and 5km respectively from the active Shanchiao fault (山腳斷層), yet our government has done nothing about that,” Tsuei said.

Alliance deputy secretary-general Hung Shen-han (洪申翰) said the only aspect the government had tried to improve over the past three years was its skill at promoting nuclear power.

That was evidenced by the government’s efforts to purchase keywords from several search engines in August last year based on the names of prominent anti-nuclear activists to link to a pro-nuclear Web site run by the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Bureau of Energy, and its screening at movie theaters nationwide a commercial trumpeting its plan for a gradual move toward a nuclear-free homeland, Hung said…….“The government is perfectly aware of the possibility of a nuclear disaster occurring in Taiwan, but it has chosen to bury its head in the sand rather than acknowledging and dealing head-on with its inability to evacuate people in the event of a nuclear disaster,” Chih said. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/03/12/2003585463

March 12, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Scotland demands ability to inspect secretive MoD nuclear faciulity

Bid to lift Sepa nuclear exemption, The Extra 11 Mar 14,   The Scottish Government will try to lift the exemption which prevents its environment officials from inspecting military nuclear facilities following what it described as a recent “cover-up” at Dounreay.

March 12, 2014 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment