NASA just doesn’t get it – that ionising radiation is a killer
Cosmic ray radiation could prevent humans from travelling to Mars, Herald Sun, STAFF WRITERS NEWS.COM.AU APRIL 25, 2014
A NEW report has exposed one of the big problems confronting our ambition to send humans to Mars – galactic cosmic ray radiation.
Cosmic rays consist of high energy particles. When humans leave the earth’s atmosphere, these rays can kill cells and even cause cancer. They’re also extremely difficult to shield against, Wired reports.
The new study, published in the scientific journal PLOS One, says astronauts could receive doses of cosmic ray radiation exceeding their lifetime limit after just 18 months (for women) or two years (for men) on the International Space Station.
“The type of tumours that cosmic ray ions make are more aggressive than what we get from other radiation,” says radiation expert Francis Cucinotta, who wrote the report.
That conclusion obviously has wider repercussions for extended space travel. If we’re going to send anyone to Mars, we’d better be able to protect them against the effects of this radiation. Cucinotta estimates that, as technology currently stands, an astronaut’s lifespan would be shortened by 15-24 years by a trip to the red planet.
NASA does take steps to ensure its astronauts don’t vastly increase their chances of dying from cancer. Once an astronaut has spent too much time accumulating radiation in space, they’re grounded, Wired reports……..http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/science/cosmic-ray-radiation-could-prevent-humans-from-travelling-to-mars/story-fnjwlbuf-1226895669558
NASA Chief: Mars Mission Necessary For Human Survival Http://Www.Abc22now.Com/Shared/News/Top-Stories/Stories/Wkef_vid_19784.Shtml
Ultimately, Bolden said, the human race will need to become colonists.
“If this species is to survive indefinitely we need to become a multiplanet species,” Yahoo quotes Bolden as saying. “We need to go to Mars, and Mars is a stepping stone to other solar systems.”
Bolden said a journey to Mars should be possible by the 2030s, with modest increases to NASA’s budget.
George Monbiot- the nuclear lobby’s poster boy
Arrest Monbiot website launched on the eve of Chernobyl’s 28th anniversary By mariannewildart on April 25, 2014
A website has been set up on the eve of the 28th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. http://wildar4.wix.com/arrest-monbiot
The website calls for the Arrest of the Guardian newspaper’s columnist and “leading environmentalist” George Monbiot.
Monbiot has been a key player in persuading government ministers, many environmentalists and those who have been groomed to trust his judgement, that new nuclear is to be embraced and “loved” as a solution to climate change. Far from being a “solution” nuclear contributes to climate change with thermal heating of the oceans, profligate use of fossil fuel and fresh water – and diversion of resources from renewables. Even if it were a “solution” it would be the final solution making large tracts of land uninhabitable, farmland unusable, the bounty of the sea uneatable, and the air unbreathable………….
The aim of this website is to encourage repeated attempts to arrest George Monbiot:
- To remind people that nuclear power is the most vicious and extreme way of boiling a kettle.
- To put pressure on the UK government to rethink its disastrous nuclear agenda
- To discourage others from repeating this crime of promoting nuclear as a benign “solution”….
Canadian Council calling for transparency on plans for nuclear power
Pickering council calls for more transparency on nuclear plans Politicians ask for release of all reports, annual public meetings DurhamRegion.com By Jillian Follert PICKERING — Pickering politicians want more transparency around plans to operate the local nuclear facility beyond its design life.
On April 22, Pickering council unanimously passed a motion from Councillor Jennifer O’Connell that calls on Ontario Power 
Generation to release all studies and documents that support the case for extending operations, as well as hold annual public meetings to report on the safety of the facility and answer questions from the public.
Coun. O’Connell compared the nuclear plant to city bridges, which require increased scrutiny as they age.
“They’re designed for a lifespan for a very specific reason, they can’t last forever,” she said.
OPG wants to operate the Pickering nuclear plant until 2020, which is beyond its design life of 210,000 hours.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission will be holding a hearing on the request May 7 in Ottawa. http://www.durhamregion.com/news-story/4485458-pickering-council-calls-for-more-transparency-on-nuclear-plans/
Renewable energy financing deal for home-owners
Google, SunPower announce joint renewable energy financing deal Renewable Energy Focus 24 April 2014 Pair teams up to finance $250 million in residential solar lease projects
According to the agreement, Google will commit up to $100 million, with SunPower committing approximately $150 million. Thousands of homeowners are expected to finance solar power systems through SunPower solar leases as a result of this program, joining approximately 20,000 Americans already leasing from SunPower……
…..This agreement represents Google’s 16th renewable energy investment and its third residential rooftop solar investment. Overall, Google has invested more than $1 billion in renewable energy projects on three continents and across a range of technologies. Together, these projects can generate more than 2GW — enough electricity each year to power approximately 500,000 U.S. homes. http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/38121/google-sunpower-announce-joint-renewable-energy-financing-deal/
Scotland shows the way to community cash from renewable energy
Scotland helps communities earn cash from onshore wind turbines by ClickGreen staff. Published Fri 25 Apr 2014 Scotland’s Energy Minister Fergus Ewing has announced a fresh set of principles designed to maximise community benefit from onshore renewable energy developments.
These principles will help the Scottish Government deliver the 500 megawatts of community and locally owned renewables target by 2020.
The finalised Good Practice Principles for Community Benefit from Onshore Renewable Developments have now been published, following a period of consultation.
The key principle is the promotion of a national community benefits package
rate equivalent to at least £5,000 per Megawatt per year, index linked to inflation for the operational lifetime of the development. So for example, a 20 Megawatt windfarm of eight turbines will generate at least £100,000 a year for the local community.
Another key component of the guidance encourages renewable energy developers to submit information on potential community benefits as early in the development process as possible. This is considered a vital step in allowing time for the community to consider properly and to develop ideas for implementation of the community benefit package.
In addition, as part of the principles Mr Ewing has announced that Government will work in partnership with Scottish Renewables to set up a short-term industry working group to develop guidance to encourage community investment in commercial renewables schemes. This is with a view to maximising the opportunity for communities to invest directly in local commercial schemes. To date communities involved in benefit schemes have reaped over £5.6 million for local projects and developments…….http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/news/national-news/124523-scotland-helps-communities-cash-in-with-onshore-wind-turbines.html
Koch brothers wage war on solar energy
Koch Brothers And ALEC Expand Fight On Clean Energy Users CLIMATE PROGRESS, BY ARI PHILLIPS
APRIL 25, 2014 THE RIGHT-WING AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL (ALEC), AN INFLUENTIAL LOBBYING GROUP COMPOSED OF REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS AND BIG BUSINESSES, IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STATE- AND LOCAL-LEVEL CLEAN ENERGY DISPUTES THAT ARE CURRENTLY EVOLVING ALMOST AS QUICKLY AS THE SOLAR AND WIND TECHNOLOGIES THEMSELVES. ALEC, KNOWN FOR ADVANCING CORPORATE INTERESTS, IS ALIGNED WITH THE KOCH BROTHERS IN THE CURRENT HEATED EXCHANGE — HOW TO MAKE DISTRIBUTED SOLAR POWER LOOK BAD.
Solar power is growing rapidly across the U.S., with capacity up an astounding418 percent in the last four years alone. This has given rise to two primary policy-level debates: how much renewable power utilities are required to use, known as Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), and figuring out the logistics of net metering, which guarantees homeowners or businesses with solar panels on their roofs the right to sell any excess electricity back into the power grid.
The Los Angeles times has recently been reporting out a story about how the Koch brothers are trying to roll back these solar initiatives across the country:
“The Koch brothers, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and some of the nation’s largest power companies have backed efforts in recent months to roll back state policies that favor green energy. The conservative luminaries have pushed campaigns in Kansas, North Carolina and Arizona, with the battle rapidly spreading to other states.”
ALEC, which has referred to homeowners with their own solar panels as “freeriders on the system,” is deeply involved in both combating renewable energy mandates and modeling legislation that targets net metering…………
While ALEC might be doing the dirty work on clean energy, the fossil fuel industry is the one calling the shots, and filling the coffers. This is what makes it so cynical for ALEC to claim to be defending the free market while at the same time trying to punish solar users who have found a way to economically generate clean energy and provide some of it back to the market…..http://tinyurl.com/p868jlb
Corruption in Lavalin – company that promotes Small Modular Nuclear Reactors & Thorium
Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan compares BC to living in a banana Republi chttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OWoWOS69Zs “…..Mayor Derek Corrigan spoke passionately about the corrupt business practices of SNC Lavalin, the heavy handedness of the Federal government and the sorry state of communities rights vs multinational corporations……
comment by cheena1ca
1,500 Children likely to develop heart problems on a yearly basis- Effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster – banned by Face Book?
This is a defect in the heart of children caused by radiation from Chernobyl, and it causes physical holes in the heart of the child, along with a host of other issues.
Image and quote source; http://www.chernobyl-international.com/programmes/medical-programmes-projects/cardiac-mission
Op Ed Arlight2011part2
Posted to nuclear-news.net
15th April 2012
In an attempt to work out the possible figures of children that will be born annually in Japan with birth defects, I have used the figures below to make an estimation of the likely impact. Based on figures from Chernobyl from Yablakov (2010) of 8, 300, 000 against a similar area in Fukushima Prefecture and the NW Myiagi prefecture (ACRO France) with a population living in contaminated areas of under 2, 500, 000. The figures seem to point to 1,500 children a year are likely to be born in future years with birth defects.
There is obviously some dispute as to the figures and areas of contamination. Also, the contamination in the mountains is likely to hit cities like Koriyama that are downhill of this unknown and untested for contamination. there are also some small issues with the population statistics though they seem about right to me.
Japan has no free health services and I would recommend that people not conceive in such a a place and subject their unborn Fetus to the high levels of Gamma radiation. Thanks to local initiatives food contamination is presently being contained mainly but as time goes on, like in Belarus etc, testing becomes lax. So evacuation is a good idea for young people wanting to raise a family. The issue of contaminated food is an international one that needs independent analysis to ascertain the depths of the problem and the IAEA and WHO are not up to the job because they have a nuclear bias. The quotes and links follow for you to decide if I am right or not;
From Chernobyl Children International
Today in Belarus, over 7000 children await treatment for cardiac conditions that would be practically routine matters in the United States or Europe. The country’s health services are already stretched to the breaking point, and the waiting list grows by an estimated 800 to 1000 children every year.
[..]
Since its establishment, Chernobyl Children’s Project International has built and maintained a fleet of over 140 ambulances in Belarus and Western Russian
http://www.chernobyl-international.org/programs.html
Quote from the Irish Independent newspaper – April 2014
“The €3m spent so far on establishing and maintaining the program has been raised entirely in Ireland by CCI donors and volunteer fund raising activities.
[..]
For the past 10 years, the program has been treating a significant portion of the 6,000 Ukrainian children born with genetic heart diseases every year. Many of these conditions, known as the ‘Chernobyl heart’, have been linked to the radiation leaks from the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident in 1986.”
[..]
Quotes from Chernobyl Children International CEO Adi Roche 2014
Wiki Information
According to reports from Soviet scientists, 28,000 square kilometers (km ², or 10,800 square miles, mi²) were contaminated by caesium-137 to levels greater than 185 kBq per square meter. Roughly 830,000 people lived in this area. About 10,500 km ² (4,000 mi²) were contaminated by caesium-137 to levels greater than 555 kBq/m². Of this total, roughly 7,000 km² (2,700 mi²) lie in Belarus, 2,000 km² (800 mi²) in the Russian Federation and 1,500 km² (580 mi²) in Ukraine. About 250,000 people lived in this area. These reported data were corroborated by the International Chernobyl Project.[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster
Ratical website information
Populations which were particularly exposed to radiation by the Chernobyl catastrophe
- Clean-up workers (liquidators):
830,000 (Yablokov 2010) - Evacuees from the 30 km zone and other highly contaminated zones:
350,400 (Yablokov, 2010) - The population of the heavily irradiated zones in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine:
8,300,000 (Yablokov, 2010) - European population in zones with minor exposure to radiation:
600,000,000 (Fairlie, 2007)
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/Chernobyl/HEofC25yrsAC.html
Saved information from Christina Mac Phearson`s Blog with links
Dr Wertelecki reminds us that there are many causes of birth abnormalities. One well recognised cause is foetal alcohol syndrome, due to alcoholism in the mother. However, the program did in fact research this question. 6 universities joined it in a very well funded and thorough study of pregnant women. It showed that in this Northern area, alcohol use among pregnant women is statistically less than in the Ukraine in general. . Alcohol does not explain the birth abnormalities. Radiation is the obvious major cause.
Asahi.com
According to the prefectural government’s statistics division, the population of the prefecture as of May 1 was 1,950,341, a drop of about 18,000 from the previous year and of about 74,000 from the pre-quake figure in March 2011.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/recovery/AJ201305250033
More Asahi.com
2,569 402 people were counted in the census before the disaster
2,525 023 in 1st February 2013
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/recovery/AJ201302260076
More information on population statistics here;
http://www.citypopulation.de/Japan-Fukushima.html
Fukushima University
This is another figure from Fukushima University with no date attached showing about 160, 000 more people than Asahi figures
Fukushimaprefecture:
Total population: 2,121,682
male: 1,034,680
female: 1,087,002
area: 13,781 km2
Safecast citizen radiation monitoring
Alternative radiation mapping posted by EXSKF ;
ACRO France radiation monitoring
The contamination is very large and comparable to the environment of Chernobyl.
The Maeda field of Iitate-mura is the most contaminated place.
Iodine contamination is the largest and it is better to evacuate the population.
On the long time range, cesium 137 is the most worrying element because it has a half-life of 30 years.
Regarding the results expressed in Bq/kg of soil, most of them are higher than the limit fixed by the Japanese authorities at 5 000 Bq/kg for agriculture. Rice cannot be cultivated.
The data expressed in Bq/m² can be compared to the definition of the zones in Belorussia after the Chernobyl disaster (law of 1991) :
185 000 – 555 000 Bq/m²: migration allowed
555 000 – 1 480 000 Bq/m²: right to rehousing
Most of the results are higher than one of these limits.
http://www.acro.eu.org/OCJ_en.html
Final note from Arclight2011part2
Food contamination is likely to be the adding to the heart problems of radiation causing heart defects as UNSCEAR has claimed that 50 percent of the food is likely to be contaminated and that is why they set 100 bq/Kg limit as opposed the the European standard of 1250 Bq/Kg (Codex Alimentarius food “safety” standards). As an aside, food and beverage from Japan is NOT checked at USA and European Ports as it is presumed to be checked by the Japanese Authorities.
Maksim Viniarski goes on hunger strike-Chernobyl remembrance march – Because of World Hockey match
April 24, 2014
Two activists of the Alternatyva opposition movement, Aliaksandr Stsepanenka and Uladzimir Siarheyeu, were detained last evening in Minsk. They were charged with disorderly conduct and sentenced to five days of arrest by the Minsk Tsentralny District Court.
According to Alternatyva leader Aleh Korban, the detentions are primarily related to the forthcoming Chernobyl Way demonstration.
Opposition activist Maksim Viniarski goes on hunger strike to protest sentencing
http://freeales.fidh.net/2014/04/activist-viniarski-goes-on-hunger-strike-protest-sentencing/
The King
: . . . He has chosen death:
Refusing to eat or drink, that he may bring
Disgrace upon me; for there is a custom,
An old and foolish custom, that if a man
Be wronged, or think that he is wronged, and starve
Upon another’s threshold till he die,
The Common People, for all time to come,
Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold,
Even though it be the King’s.
– W.B. Yeats, The King’s Threshold
April 23, 2014
Maksim Viniarski, activist of the European Belarus opposition movement, was sentenced last evening to 12 days of arrest by the Court of Minsk’s Frunzenski district.
During the trial, an ambulance was called, who said Maksim had to go to hospital because of tonsillitis. However, the police opposed and said he would go to the detention center in Akrestsin Street. In response, Maksim Viniarski declared a dry hunger strike.
Maksim Viniarski was detained by police when leaving the Korona shopping mall in Minsk. The police officers said the activist looked like a criminal.
At the police station he was charged with disobeying police officers.
Coordinator of the European Belarus movement, Maksim Viniarski, who was recently released after a 15-day arrest, said that before the release a police officer offered him to leave the city during the forthcoming Ice Hockey World Championship.
In response to this warning, Viniarski told human rights defenders that he might be detained to be preventively isolated because of his socio-political beliefs.
Chernobyl pickets banned in Vitsebsk, Navapolatsk and Hrodna
http://freeales.fidh.net/2014/04/chernobyl-pickets-banned-in-vitsebsk-navapolatsk-and-hrodna/
April 22, 2014
Local authorities in Vitsebsk, Navapolatsk and Hrodan have banned a number of awareness-raising pickets, scheduled for April 26 to mark the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. According to the officials, the organizers failed to submit an appropriate application.
Four representatives of the political party Belarusian Popular Front in Vitsebsk sent a request to the administration of the Chyhunachny district to hold a picket in the local park. However, the bid was rejected, as the applicants failed to attach copies of the contracts as required by the City Executive Committee’s decision. It says that the organizers must sign contracts with the police, public utilities and health care departments. But these services refuse to enter into contracts with the activists. So the activists requested that the authorities did not pay attention to the decision of the Vitsebsk City Executive Committee, but were directly guided by the Law “On Mass Events” and the Constitution. They say that the decision actually makes it impossible to exercise people’s rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Over the past five years, not a single opposition activist has managed to sign agreements required by the Vitsebsk executive officials.
In Hrodna, members of the local Belarusian Popular Front’s office have also received from the executive committee official bans on conducting awareness-raising pickets, scheduled for April 26 to mark the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
Activists threatened with preventive detention ahead of Hockey World Championship
http://freeales.fidh.net/2014/04/activists-threatened-arrests-ahead-hockey-world-champ/
April 16, 2014
Human rights defenders have received information about possible provocations against opposition activists and their preventive detention ahead of the forthcoming Ice Hockey World Championship, due to open on 9 May. This was confirmed by the coordinator of the European Belarus movement Maksim Viniarski, who was recently released after a 15-day arrest.
According to HRC “Viasna” website, he said that before his release he was offered to temporarily leave the capital. A police officer told him that if he considered himself a reasonable person, he should realize that he had but two options: either to leave Belarus or to go to the country for some time (referring to the time of the Ice Hockey World Championship). Because “the issue with everyone” will be resolved anyway, the detention center employee warned the activist.
In response to this warning, Viniarski said that he did not use drugs, used foul language, was not prone to misbehavior, and so his possible arrest should be regarded as preventive isolation because of his political beliefs.
Maksim Viniarski also says that many administrative detainees held under Articles 17.1 (hooliganism) and 17.3 (appearing drunk in a public place) of the Administrative Code will be sent to active therapy centers.
Thus, the authorities of Minsk are preparing a total cleansing of unwanted persons who may in any way mar the image of Belarus among numerous foreign guests expected during the event.
The past week in nuclear news
Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs
Ukraine crisis is highlighting the fact that nuclear reactors are a military TARGET
Japan. Health officials censored on the health problems and deaths due to Fukushima radiation.
Continued campaign of hate against anti nuclear activist Mari Takenouchi
USA.. Rare birth defects occurring at an unusually high rate in the region of Hanford nuclear facility, one of the most radioactively polluted places on the planet
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) Warren Buffett joins the flight of investors away from these new toys, and goes for investment in solar energy. But now there are yet more new nuclear toys – Small Nuclear Reactors floating on the ocean
US government band Navy back the nuclear industry, and not the 79 sailors sick from Fukushima radiation. Suing TEPCO is their only chance.
NASA considers weakening radiation allowance standards for astronauts travelling to Mars, seeing that space rdaiation is such a health obstacle to tthis project
Taiwan: opposition to nuclear power, and prominent former opposition leader Lin Yi-hsiung begins hunger strikeon this issue
UK. Government agency warns that a nuclear waste dump will be washed away by rising sea levels due to climate change.
Rio Tinto’s Annual General Meeting confronted with the facts on the scandalous health and environmental impacts of their Rossing uranium mine in Namibia
Increased danger at New Mexico Nuclear Waste Facility
Paper: WIPP workers “not permitted to speak” — “Their jobs won’t ever be the same… will face new paradigm” — Concerns plutonium contaminated surrounding salt — Preparing for radiation levels so high, only robots can be used (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/paper-wipp-workers-not-permitted-to-
speak-their-jobs-wont-ever-be-the-same-will-face-new-paradigm-concerns-plutonium-penetrated-surrounding-salt-preparing-for-radiation-l
Albuquerque Journal News, Apr. 22, 2014:WIPP workers face big changes, Their jobs won’t ever be the same — Now that contamination has been discovered underground – although the extent is still unknown – the contractor that runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant says workers will face a new paradigm when they return to the site: more formality, tougher rules and more protective gear. […] those working underground will likely be doing their jobs in a more hazardous environment – or one where the risks have been made more evident – with new rules of engagement to protect them from exposure to radiation. […] plutonium and americium may have contaminated rock salt walls, mixed into dust on the floor,and clung to machinery and other equipment underground. If stirred or scuffed up, the radiation can become airborne and inhaled. […] NWP workers are not permitted to speak to the press, according to a spokesman.
- Bob McQuinn, new president/project manager of WIPP operator: “The place […] now has, not more than the rest of the sites, but similar radiation protection hazards […] Now we’re going to have to wear protective equipment – coveralls, shoe covers and gloves – to make sure contamination doesn’t get on us and respirators so it doesn’t get in us. People who haven’t had to wear protective equipment will have to.”
- Dr. Fred Mettler, radiologist and US representative to the United Nations World Health and Atomic Energy Agency: “The first rule of thumb is nobody thinks any of this is good for you. So you want to keep doses as low as possible. Medically, it’s very, very difficult to get the stuff out of you.”
- Jim Frederick, United Steel Workers assistant director of health, safety and environment: “Is this place going to be safe for our folks to go back to? […] What was not in place that might have kept this from happening? And what do we need to do to keep the workers safe and make sure the public health risks are kept at zero or very, very close to zero?”
KOAT, Apr. 20, 2014: “The more they went into panel 7, the more it started becoming more widespread,” said WIPP deputy recovery manager Tammy Reynolds. […] Inspectors plan to go back down and explore things further, but in case the radiation levels pose too much of a threat, robots will go underground instead. “Robot operators have already been to the WIPP site, received all of the training to go to the underground,” said Reynolds.
Carlsbad Current-Argus, Apr. 22, 2014: robots are on standby to support the recovery operations
A continuing danger – at best, Chernobyl is merely dormant
Tourism, Construction and an Ongoing Nuclear Crisis at Chernobyl NewsWeek, By Alexander Nazaryan / April 17, 2014 “……..For the most part, the defunct station of reactors (the first went live in 1977; the last, the one that blew, in 1983) looks like a tidy industrial park in central Ohio: shorn green lawns, a smattering of abstract art, half-empty parking lots, a canal rife with fish. Nothing indicates that this is the site of the worst nuclear disaster in human history.
Yet as tourists Instagram away at Pripyat’s ruins, Chernobyl is undergoing one of the most challenging engineering feats in the world, as a French consortium called Novarka tries to replace the aging sarcophagus that contains the reactor, a concrete shell hastily and heroically built in the direct aftermath of the meltdown. The place remains a half-opened tinderbox of potential nuclear horrors, and just because much of the world has forgotten about Chernobyl doesn’t mean catastrophe won’t visit here again……..
“It wouldn’t take much of a seismic event to knock it down,” a civil engineer recently explained to Scientific American. The Federation of American Scientists says, “If the sarcophagus were to collapse due to decay or geologic disturbance, the resulting radioactive dust storm would cause an international catastrophe on par with or worse than the 1986 accident……
Nor is the land surrounding the reactor quite the pristine preserve that some have celebrated in nature-has-triumphed-over-our-thoughtlessness-and-incompetence fashion. Earlier this year, a study by University of South Carolina biologist Timothy Mousseau and others indicated that fallen trees weren’t decomposing because, in Mousseau’s words, “the radiation inhibited microbial decomposition of the leaf litter on the top layer of the soil,” turning the ground into a vast firetrap at whose center sits the aged sarcophagus.
So, at best, Chernobyl is merely dormant. To extend that dormancy for a lot longer, Novarka was contracted in 2007 to build the New Safe Confinement. Though sometimes described as a gigantic hangar, having seen the NSC, I see it as something more elegant, its hopeful parabolic curves recalling the smooth grace of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. In cross section, it is two layers of steel with a 39-foot layer of latticework in between. Its combined shapes and angles are so fluid and simple, you want to put them on a ninth grade geometry quiz.
Currently being built in two pieces, it will rise 30 stories and weigh 30,000 tons-and cost perhaps as much as $2 billion. When completed, the steel contraption will slide along Teflon rails on top of Reactor No. 4 (a process that will take several days). It is believed to be the largest movable structure on Earth. The NSC will be so enormous that, according to the British technology journal The Engineer, it “is one of a handful of buildings that will enclose a volume of air large enough to create its own weather.”……http://www.newsweek.com/2014/04/25/tourism-construction-and-ongoing-nuclear-crisis-chernobyl-248163.htmlNewsWeek,
Lin Yi-xiong: the Power of One very influential anti nuclear Taiwanese
In Taiwan, an Anti-Nuclear Activist With Unusual Pull WSJ China Real Time, 23 April 14 Jenny W. Hsu.A high-profile Taiwanese anti-nuclear activist began a hunger strike on Tuesday to protest construction of the island’s fourth nuclear power plant, in what could become another challenge for the already beleaguered President Ma Ying-jeou.
Lin Yi-xiong, the former chairman of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party and a longtime anti-nuclear activist, vowed to sustain on only water until the government suspends construction of the northern Taipei plant.
Less than 24 hours after Mr. Lin began his strike, both Mr. Ma and Premier Jiang Yi-hua tried to visit him, only to be turned away. Hunger strikes aren’t uncommon in the oft-fractious island, but Mr. Lin is the first striker who has received personal attention from the president and the cabinet leader…….
Analysts say that given his clout and the public’s already-ballooning opposition to nuclear power, Mr. Ma’s ruling Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, would face more arduous battles ahead of local elections later this year if Mr. Lin dies as a result of his hunger strike.
Mr. Ma—whose approval rating is currently 14%, according to a poll by Taiwan Indicator Survey Research—relied on his accommodative China policies to win re-election in 2012. But these same policies have also become his Achilles heels recently, with more people questioning whether the warmer trade ties with China have benefited Taiwan’s average workers……At 73, Mr. Lin is regarded across party lines as one of the most influential political figures in Taiwan since the 1970s. As a dissident, he was jailed multiple times during the island’s martial law era (1949-87).
In 1980, while Mr. Lin was imprisoned as a dissident, his mother and his seven-year old twin daughters were found stabbed to death in the basement of their home. His oldest daughter survived the attack with severe injuries. The case remain unsolved, and the house, which has been turned into a church, is where Mr. Lin is staging his fast…….Other anti-nuclear activists plan to join Mr. Lin in protest by staging a demonstration in front the Presidential Office on Saturday.http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/04/23/in-taiwan-an-anti-nuclear-activist-with-unusual-pull/
The Mixed Oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel stuff-up
A Botched Plan to Turn Nuclear Warheads Into Fuel Bloomberg, By Matthew Philips April 24, 2014 As the Soviet Union was unraveling and the Cold War was winding down in the early 1990s, negotiators in Washington and Moscow began talking about how best to dispose of the plutonium inside thousands of nuclear warheads the two nations had agreed to dismantle. The cheapest and easiest method was to immobilize the radioactive material by encasing it in molten glass and burying it. But the Russians balked at that, likening it to flushing gold down the toilet. Ultimately, it was decided that the plutonium would be converted into fuel for nuclear power plants. In September 2000, the U.S. and Russia signed an agreement under which each side would turn 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, that could be combined with uranium for use in commercial reactors.
In the U.S., that huge task would take place at an aging plutonium factory in South Carolina called the Savannah River Site. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the 310-square-mile facility had churned out about 36 tons of weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear warheads. Now, the plant would turn those same warheads into fuel rods. The Department of Energy initially estimated it would cost about $1 billion to convert the plant. Construction began in August 2007, with an expected completion date of 2016.
The U.S. government even had a ready customer for the rods. Charlotte-based Duke Energy (DUK), one of the largest nuclear power companies in the U.S., signed on as a buyer. From 2005 to 2008, the company ran tests of MOX fuel the Department of Energy got from France. The fuel worked fine. Everything was going according to plan.
Almost seven years after construction began, the MOX plant is now 60 percent built. But it’s looking increasingly likely that it won’t ever be completed….The MOX plant in South Carolina requires 85 miles of pipe, 23,000 instruments, and 3.6 million linear feet of power cables. The project is vastly over budget: The Department of Energy has sunk about $5 billion into it so far and estimates it will cost an additional $6 billion to $7 billion to finish the plant, plus an additional $20 billion or so to turn the plutonium into fuel over 15 years. In its 2015 budget request released in March, the Department of Energy announced it will place the MOX project on “cold standby,” effectively mothballing the project for the foreseeable future. “It’s a major fiasco,” says Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted. It’s a classic boondoggle.”
The MOX plant is the latest blunder for the Department of Energy, which has a reputation for mismanaging big, complicated projects, particularly those related to nuclear energy. Costs for a nuclear waste treatment plant in Washington State have nearly tripled to $13 billion. A uranium processing facility in Tennessee once estimated to cost around $1 billion is now tipping the scales at around $11 billion, according to an Army Corps of Engineers study. It’s also running about 20 years behind schedule. A Department of Energy spokesman declined to comment for this article…….http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-24/u-dot-s-dot-botches-plan-to-turn-nuclear-warheads-into-fuel
Quiet optimism over deal between Iran and the West
Iran nuclear talks: Quiet optimism over deal between Islamic State and the West on weapons programme The INdependent 24 April 14 All sides in the effort to resolve the stand-off between the West and Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons ambitions have agreed to hold a new round of expert-level negotiations in New York beginning 5 May amid tentative indications that so far, at 
least, positive progress is being made. Keeping its side of an interim bargain struck last November and implemented in January, the Joint Plan of Action, the White House has this month released $1bn-worth of Iranian assets in two instalments, the last on 15 April. And last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran has so far fulfilled its part of what was agreed, dramatically reducing its stockpile of 20 per cent enriched uranium.
While significant hurdles remain before a final and comprehensive deal can be reached ahead of an informal deadline of 20 July, quiet optimism is gathering around the talks. That assessment stands in sharp contrast with almost every other foreign affairs dossier currently on President Barack Obama’s desk, be it concerning Syria, Russia, Ukraine or the faltering Middle East peace process.
The talks in New York, to be held at the UN on the fringes of a Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting, will be followed up by high-level talks between foreign ministers of Iran as well as the so-called P5+1 – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US, plus Germany – in Vienna on 13 May.
If the negotiations are still on track it is in spite of loud opposition from hard-line critics of the putative deal both in Iran, on Capitol Hill and, as ever, from inside Israel. Yet those at the negotiating table, including the Iranians, have so far seemed determined to ignore those pressures.
“There is the political will to get an answer,” Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, remarked during a visit to Abu Dhabi last week. “The domestic audience will be satisfied if we have a good deal. Of course some people will never be satisfied but that is fine because we have a pluralistic society.” He crucially has the support of the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, as well as the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei……..
Meanwhile, in Washington the White House continues to resist calls from some in Congress to stall the release of Iranian assets that had been frozen by sanctions as well as Israeli exhortations to take a stronger line with Tehran. Further encouragement has been drawn by an Iranian concession announced last week radically to reduce the amount of plutonium that could be made at a new heavy-water reactor at Arak. There had been fears that its scientists could switch to plutonium from enriched uranium to build a bomb.
“I’m actually starting to believe that an agreement is possible,” David Petraeus, the former CIA director, told an audience at Harvard University this month. He went on: “It could be that it’s possible before this particular six-month deadline expires,” referring to the target of concluding an agreement by 20 July…….http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/iran-nuclear-talks-quiet-optimism-over-deal-between-islamic-state-and-the-west-on-weapons-programme-9275504.html
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