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The uranium industry’s role in causing cancer in Namibia

cancer_cellsCancer Locks a Deadly Grip on Africa, Yet It’s Barely Noticed,  By Jeffrey Moyo HARARE, Feb 13 2015 (IPS) – Hidden by the struggles to defeat Ebola, malaria and drug-resistant tuberculosis, a silent killer has been moving across the African continent, superseding infections of HIV and AIDS.

World Cancer Day commemorated on Feb. 4 may have come and gone, but the spread of cancer in Africa has been worrying global health organisations and experts year round. The continent, they fear, is ill-prepared for another health crisis of enormous proportions.

By 2020, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 16 million new cases of cancer are anticipated worldwide, with 70 percent of them in developing countries. Africa and Asia are not spared………

in Namibia, uranium workers were reported to have elevated rates of cancers and other illnesses after working in one of Africa’s largest mines.

Rio Tinto’s Rössing uranium mine extracts millions of tonnes of rock a year for the mineral. “Most workers stated that they are not informed about their health conditions and do not know if they have been exposed to radiation or not. Some workers said they consulted a private doctor to get a second opinion,” say researchers at Earthlife Namibia and the Labour Resource and Research Institute who collaborated in a study.

“The older workers all said they know miners dying of cancers and other illnesses. Many of these are now retired and many have already died of cancers,” says the study report……..http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/02/cancer-locks-a-deadly-grip-on-africa-yet-its-barely-noticed/

February 14, 2015 Posted by | Uncatego

February 14, 2015 Posted by | health, Namibia, Uranium | Leave a comment

Google’s big investment in renewable energy, $US1.5 billion and more

piggy-ban-renewablesGoogle joins Apple in turning to renewable energy, SMH  February 12, 2015 Matt O’Brien Google has spent $US1.5 billion ($1.95 billion) around the world on clean energy projects cutting the pollution from millions of users clicking on search links, watching YouTube videos and sending emails, but now it’s found a powerful electricity source close to home. The company will announce Wednesday that it is buying power from the Altamont Pass, one of the nation’s oldest, largest and most iconic wind farms that is about to get a Google-funded makeover.

The tech giant has no plans to brand the blades with its multicolored logo, but its 20-year power purchase agreement with Florida-based NextEra Energy will dramatically transform the rolling, treeless landscape that connects the Bay Area with the Central Valley here. About 770 old turbines from the 1980s will be replaced this year by 48 new machines producing twice as much energy, enough to power Google’s corporate campus in Mountain View with 100 percent renewable power.

It’ll be majestic,” said Sam Arons, an energy strategist at Google. “Today there are many small turbines of all different sizes, all different vintages. It’s kind of a hodgepodge out there. Once this project is done, you’ll see a lot of tall, sleek, majestic turbines that will really de-clutter the landscape.”

Google’s involvement is the latest green power play from a company that has spent a decade dropping money on wind, solar and geothermal projects from West Texas to South Africa and the Netherlands, and is an investor in Ivanpah, the massive solar thermal power plant built by BrightSource Energy in the Mojave Desert. Google says it operates with 35 percent renewable power worldwide.

Last year, it spent $US3.2 billion to acquire Nest Labs, maker of the slick “learning thermostat.” It also quietly named John Woolard, the former CEO of Brightsource, as a vice president for energy. It has several previous deals with NextEra – for wind farms in Iowa, North Dakota and Oklahoma – and recently invested in Utah’s largest solar plant.

But unlike most of those projects, Google’s Altamont venture is more than a capital investment. Just 50 miles from Mountain View, it will do more to reduce the Googleplex’s carbon footprint than any of the quirky projects on the corporate campus, from the 1.9-megawatt solar array to the plant fueled by landfill gas.

Google is the second Silicon Valley tech giant this week to announce a major local green energy project. On Tuesday, Apple announced an $US850 million agreement to buy power and help build a 280-megawatt solar farm in Monterey County……..

The price of wind has declined very, very substantially over the past couple of years and the technology has improved,” said Ryan Wiser, a staff scientist who studies electricity markets at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “The cost of wind energy is so low that it’s not as if these companies are taking an enormous financial risk in locking into these agreements. The price is stable.” http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/google-joins-apple-in-turning-to-renewable-energy-20150211-13cdge.html

February 14, 2015 Posted by | business and costs, renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Exploring molten cores of Fukushima nuclear reactors by means of cosmic ray particles

Cosmic Ray Particles Will Reveal the Molten Hearts of Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactors  http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/energy/nuclear/cosmic-ray-particles-will-reveal-the-molten-hearts-of-fukushima-daiichis-reactors By Eliza Strickland 13 Feb 2015 In the radioactive ruins of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, engineers are testing a new sensor technology. The goal is to see through layers of steel and concrete to determine the location of nuclear fuel at the hearts of three melted-down reactors.

The sensor technology makes use of muons, subatomic particles generated when cosmic rays collide with molecules in Earth’s upper atmosphere. About 10,000 muons reach every square meter of our planet each minute, and they whiz through most substances largely unimpeded. However, their progress can be blocked by heavy elements like uranium and plutonium.

Based on this discrepancy, several research teams around the world are developing systems that use muons the same way your dentist uses x-rays. By placing muon detectors near a Fukushima reactor building and determining where the particles’ progress is being blocked, researchers can produce a map of the globs of melted uranium fuel inside the reactor.

There’s a critical need for such maps. The 40-year decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is well underway: Robots are busily surveying and decontaminating the shattered reactor buildings, and workers are removing spent fuel rods from pools. But the hardest step is yet to come. Someday, TEPCO workers will have to remove the melted nuclear fuel that glooped at the bottom of the three reactors’ pressure vessels, leaked through fissures and weak spots, and pooled in unknown nooks and crannies.

Before TEPCO can remove this highly radioactive fuel, the company must first figure out its exact location inside the melted-down reactors. That’s a big challenge, as it will be many years before robots or heavily protected humans are able to remove the tops of the reactor vessels to drop down radiation-shielded cameras. What’s more, those cameras still won’t be able to locate the fuel that seeped out through the bottoms of the presure vessels.

That’s where the muons come in. TEPCO is first testing a system developed by Japan’s High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, putting the device near the heavily damaged Reactor 1. This system uses a “muon permeation” method; essentially just determining where muons are blocked in their progress by uranium. According to an email from TEPCO, this first test is just to serve as a proof of principle, and won’t produce detailed maps of the melted fuel’s location.

Another system is under development by the U.S. company Decision Sciences, using a “muon scattering” method invented at Los Alamos National Lab in the early 2000s. This method places muon detectors on two sides of an object of interest, and tracks the trajectory of muons as they enter and leave the object. Because some muons interact with uranium nuclei and ping away in new directions, mapping this scattering can create a more precise map of a uranium blob’s location and contours.  Toshiba, a contractor for TEPCO, has enlisted Decision Sciences to develop its system for Fukushima Daiichi. That device will be tested later this year at Reactor 2.

February 14, 2015 Posted by | Fukushima 2015, Reference, technology | Leave a comment

The negative effects of more nuclear developments in Cumbria

lake_district_cumbriaTourism, Milk and Cheese or Nuclear? 13 Friday Feb 2015 by   “…..proximity to Moorside means that the issues are still essentially the same, as described below by the Braystones Concerns Group in their memorandum to Parliament:  “Memorandum from Braystones Concerns Group (NWN 15)”

“Job opportunities, economy and economic diversity in West Cumbria.”

“1. Whilst jobs are welcome in West Cumbria, the overall effects of multiple nuclear developments would have many negative effects. What is frequently referred to as an area of outstanding natural beauty, would be greatly defaced by such extensive nuclear industrial sprawl. This would have a detrimental effect on the visitors perception of West Cumbria as a tourist destination. At a time when the area is desperately trying to diversify its economy, tourism jobs would simply be displaced by more ‘nuclear’ jobs, thus not actually increasing real jobs with the numbers being promised.It would greatly increase the economic stranglehold that the nuclear industry has on the area and would discourage many other discerning businesses that might otherwise have chosen West Cumbria. (A £45m cheese factory planned for Workington in West Cumbria did not go ahead in 2007, because of plans by Studsvik to build a radioactive waste processing plant at Lillyhall.) There are already a number of nuclear developments proliferating in West Cumbria, with Copeland and Allerdale councils trying to coax the public into accepting even more.”

“Economic/infrastructure viability of West Cumbria for nuclear power generation.”

“2. West Cumbria is not an economically suitable region for multiple reactor builds, as grid connectivity would prove particularly difficult and costly in such a remote area. West Cumbria is not where energy production is most needed.Any multiple reactor builds should be sited close to centres of high energy demand, where more suitable infrastructures and grid systems already exist. The recent devastation from flooding in West Cumbria has highlighted the wholly inadequate infrastructure throughout the region, which already struggles to service existing industrial demand. Repair and replacement of crucial bridges is currently estimated to take years. The southern sector of the main arterial route through Copeland has been de-trunked and is literally the width of a single vehicle in places. Road closures due to accident or maintenance can require alternative diversion routes 120 miles long. Major road improvements take at least 10 years to provide. If the Braystones site was developed, it would seriously compromise the existing Emergency Arrangements for the Sellafield site.” https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/tourism-milk-and-cheese-or-nuclear/

February 14, 2015 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Solar Powering your home, and perhaps the grid, too, with new Tesla battery

solar-feed-inThis new Tesla battery will power your home, and maybe the electric grid too, WP, By Brian Fung February 12 Tesla is working on a battery that can power your home and even help large-scale utilities store energy more efficiently, according to company chief executive Elon Musk.

On an investor call Wednesday, Musk said the designs for a home or business battery are already complete and will likely be unveiled to the public “in the next month or two.” Production could be as little as six months away, he added…..

Tesla’s battery and charging technology could ultimately wind up saving you money on your electric bill. Although many of today’s homes draw energy directly from the electricity grid, the spread of cheap solar panels means it’s never been easier to generate some of your own energy. Storing renewables efficiently has been a big bottleneck for consumers and for utilities alike, but if Tesla’s stationary battery takes off, it could change the way electricity is priced and traded on a market scale…….http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/12/this-new-tesla-battery-will-power-your-home-and-maybe-the-electric-grid-too/?tid=pm_business_pop

February 14, 2015 Posted by | energy storage, USA | Leave a comment

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