Desperate for public support, UK govt plans to make nuclear reactors look pretty!
‘Beautiful’ nuclear power stations can win over sceptics, says Energy Secretary Amber Rudd The Independent 7 June 15 Britain’s new nuclear power stations and other energy infrastructure projects must be designed to look beautiful to garner essential public support, the Energy Secretary, Amber Rudd, has said…..flood defences will need to be built to protect buildings, along with weather-resistant transport, waste and water services, as climate change makes weather conditions increasingly extreme.
Ann Robinson, of the uSwitch price comparison website, welcomed Ms Rudd’s call to visual arms. “I think she’s absolutely right. We’re a small island and it’s important to do things in a sensitive way. Public acceptability is important and the key to that is making the infrastructure as attractive as possible.”
Ms Robinson added: “A lot of these projects can be controversial and Amber Rudd is proposing to give people more say in local developments. Against this backdrop, it’s increasingly important that projects fit in with their surroundings.”……..http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/beautiful-nuclear-power-stations-can-win-over-sceptics-says-energy-secretary-amber-rudd-10301365.html
in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan’s govt to nationalise private site for nuclear waste dump
Ministry to nationalize Fukushima site to bury radioactive waste, Asahia Shimbun June 06, 2015 By YU KOTSUBO/ Staff Writer FUKUSHIMA--The Environment Ministry said it will nationalize a privately owned site in Fukushima Prefecture to dispose of radioactive waste generated by the 2011 nuclear disaster there.
The decision effectively makes the government responsible for safety of the site.
Environment Minister Yoshio Mochizuki met with Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori, Tomioka Mayor Koichi Miyamoto and Naraha Mayor Yukiei Matsumoto on June 5, and told them that the government will purchase a site in Tomioka to bury the radioactive waste. A transportation route to the site runs through Naraha.
The material to be buried includes “designated waste,” whose concentration of radioactive materials exceeds 8,000 becquerels per kilogram.
“We made the decision to secure the safety of the project,” Mochizuki said during the meeting held at a Fukushima prefectural government office.
Mochizuki sweetened the deal by pledging to take measures to promote the local economy, including a provision of grants that can be used freely by local governments. The nationalization and the economic promotion measures had been requested by the local governments………
The government is also facing difficulties in determining disposal sites in other prefectures because of strong opposition from local residents……http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506060036
Gov’t Officials: Fukushima should be declared uninhabitable
Gov’t Officials: Fukushima should be declared uninhabitable — “Conditions are getting worse, we have to move people away… we can’t wait” — “Someone has to do something” — “Just like evacuation of children in WWII” — Newspaper: “Fukushima youths ready to desert irradiated hometowns” (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/govt-officials-fukushima-be-declared-uninhabitable-wait-around-conditions-getting-worse-move-people-away-like-evacuation-children-during-world-war-ii-japan-newspaper-fukushima-youths-ready?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
Jiji Press, Jun 5, 2015 (emphasis added): Fukushima youths ready to desert irradiated hometowns, survey finds… a majority of the young people living in 12 radiation-contaminated municipalities in Fukushima do not plan to be living in the same place… The survey, conducted in February and March, covered members of some 13,000 households randomly selected from the 77,600 still remaining in the 12 municipalities… “The results are very shocking,” said Satoshi Endo, mayor of the town of Hirono… Fukushima Prefectural Government will present a clear vision so young people can have hope about their hometowns, a senior official said..
The Asia-Pacific Journal, May 25, 2015:
- Murakami Tatsuya, former mayor of Tōkaimura (“Birthplace of nuclear power in Japan”): There are 14 reactors on [Japan’s Pacific coast] and I wouldn’t have been surprised if all these reactors had ended up failing in some way or another… It tells you how catastrophic it could be for a country like Japan to house nuclear power plants… It is crazy. Right now about 130,000 people in Fukushima have been evacuated from the exclusion areas, although it would be 80,000 or 90,000 people if we do not count voluntary evacuees… Speaking from the examples of Chernobyl, Fukushima should have been declared uninhabitable, especially to raise children.
- Prof. Katsuya Hirano, UCLA: I agree… families with small children should have been given new land somewhere safe to start their lives again. The government should have provided them with a new village and community to live…
- Murakami: I thought about the possibility of relocating the entire Tōkaimura myself. The news about the Fukushima crisis chilled me to the bone. As I mentioned, we were so close to having a similar situation, so I started thinking about relocating the entire village and in fact found a place in Hokkaido… and have them start dairy farming and cultivating new land in Hokkaido… I even visited the area. If it doesn’t work, I thought, other alternatives would be Australia or our sister state, Idaho.
Press Conference for Dr. Akira Sugenoya, Mayor of Matsumoto, Japan (AP: Sugenoya is a surgeon and thyroid specialist who left a prestigious Japanese hospital to perform lifesaving cancer surgeries in Chernobyl for several years): “It is clear that a significant amount of radioactive iodine was released from Fukushima Daiichi. It was a huge mistake not to take any measures immediately… There are children in Fukushima diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and the number of cases is increasing… I have said “children and pregnant women will suffer negative health effects in the future, as a result of external — and especially internal — exposure… In order to protect their lives, the government must, as a matter of national policy, move the children out of contaminated regions… The people are being exposed to radiation on a daily basis. Someone has to do something… A good part of Japan has been contaminated with nuclear fallout. This is just like the evacuation of children that took place en masse during the World War II.”
Taro Yamamoto, member of Japan’s Upper House of Parliament: “We have to grasp the real situation of which our children are in… we cannot wait around, because the conditions are getting worse. We have to move people away from the affected areas.”
Dr. Sugenoya’s press conference here | Interview with Yamamoto here
Marshall Islands is suing nine countries that possess nuclear weapons
Marshall Islands, site of largest-ever U.S. nuclear weapons test, sues 9 superpowers including USA, Boing Boing.net By Xeni Jardin , Jun 6, 2015 “The tiny nation of the Republic of the Marshall Islands is once again at the center of international activism, filing two lawsuits, one in US federal court against the United States, and one in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against all nine countries that possess nuclear weapons,” writes Robert Alvarez at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
The Pacific island nation is suing the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China for failure to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, as called for by theNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and also names India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel as defendants.
The Marshall Islands site known as Bikini Atoll was the site of the fabled Castle Bravo test, the USA’s first experiment of a dry fuel hydrogen bomb. Detonated on March 1, 1954, it was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States.
For many Marshall Islanders, this history remains part of personal and family memory.
Tony DeBrum, Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), asked attendees at the recent Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference how many of them had personally witnessed nuclear weapon detonations. He and his family had vivid memories………
Between 1946 and 1958, the Marshall Islands, then a trust territory of the United States, sustained significant damage and radiological contamination from 67 US atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. The US government exiled hundreds of Marshallese people so the Bikini and Enewetak atolls could be used to host ever more powerful nuclear weapons explosions. Residents of other islands, who were not relocated, suffered serious harm from radioactive fallout. By 1963, outrage originating with the Bravo explosion led to a global campaign that compelled the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom to ratify the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which outlaws nuclear weapons explosions in the oceans, atmosphere, and outer space. http://boingboing.net/2015/06/06/marshall-islands-sues-9-superp.html
Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s ruling on radioactive waste dump delayed till December
AUDIO: Nuclear Waste Repository Decision Delayed http://blackburnnews.com/sarnia/sarnia-news/2015/06/05/nuclear-waste-repository-decision-delayed/ Reporter Email Josh Boyce Residents now have until September 1 to offer their input into Ontario Power Generation’s proposed nuclear waste repository 1 km from the Lake Huron shoreline.
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s timeline for a final ruling has been pushed back to December, two months after the October federal election.
Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley is pleased to have another public input period. A Joint Review Panel has said disposing of the waste in a deep underground bunker at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is the best way to deal with the material and is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.
It’s now up to the federal environment minister on whether to agree with the panel’s ruling.
Still 960,000Bq Cs-134/137 and 2,336,000,000Bq noble gas discharged from reactors to the air every single hour
On 5/25/2015, Tepco reported still 960,000 Bq / hour of Cesium-134 and 137 is assumed to be discharged from Reactor 1 -4 to the air this April.
This is 2.7 times much as their provisional figure published in the end of April.
Tepco states the difference is caused by the change of calculation method. It strongly suggests the entire historical discharged volume of Cs-134/137 has been underestimated since 311 however they did not disclose the recalculated discharged volume before April of 2014.
Comparing to May of 2014, the discharged volume of Cs-134/137 increased to 180% this April. Tepco however states this is lower than 10% of the set point of “discharge control”, and they haven’t made any explanation on this increase.
Especially in Reactor 3, the discharged volume increased 78 times much as May. 2014. Also, 95,000 Bq / hour of Cs-134/137 is discharged from Reactor 4 building though it does not contain nuclear fuel.
Regarding noble gas (such as Kr-85), PCV (Primary Containment Vessel) gas control system detected 2,336,000,000 Bq of gas discharged from Reactor 1-3 every hour this April. Tepco states noble gas passes by as radioactive cloud to cause only external exposure so the exposure dose caused by the discharged noble gas should be significantly small.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2015/images/additional_amount_150525-j.pdf
http://www.tepco.co.jp/life/custom/faq/images/d150430_08-j.pdf
Source: Fukushima Diary
Nuclear test fallout caused, and still causes, cancers in Hollywood and the ‘downwinders’
Government denials about any cancer-causing fallout unravelled in the 1980s, when lawsuits uncovered internal AEC reports showing scientists and bureaucrats downplayed and distorted evidence. Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990, establishing a fund for downwinders with cancer and serious illnesses apparently linked to above-ground nuclear weapons testing. Compensation is capped at $50,000 per person.
The fund has disbursed about $2bn and is set to continue until first-generation downwinders have died out.
Hollywood and the downwinders still grapple with nuclear fallout,Guardian, Rory Carroll , 6 June 15 The US turned swathes of desert radioactive during the cold war and denied it, bequeathing a medical mystery that still haunts Hollywood and rural Mormon communities and raises the question: how much do you trust the government? “…………….Last week, half a century later, Rebecca Barlow, a nurse practitioner at theRadiation Exposure Screening and Education Program (RESEP), which operates from the Dixie Regional Medical Center in St George, now a prosperous little city with an airport, leafed through her patient records. “More than 60% of this year’s patients are new,” she said. “Mostly breast and thyroid, also some leukaemia, colon, lung.”
This is a story about cancer. About how the United States turned swathes of the desert radioactive during the cold war and denied it, bequeathing a medical mystery which to this day haunts Hollywood and rural Mormon communities and raises a thorny question: how much should you trust the government? Continue reading
Security benefits to Israel in Iran nuclear deal – say Israeli military
Israeli Military Sees ‘Security Benefits’ To Iran Nuclear Deal http://www.mintpressnews.com/israeli-military-sees-security-benefits-to-iran-nuclear-deal/206312/ The Israeli military says that the deal, and increased inspections, would provide increased clarity on Iran’s civilian nuclear program and the risks of a “breakout” to military use. By Jason Ditz for Antiwar.com | June 6, 2015 Once again underscoring the profound disconnect between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his nation’s security apparatus, the Israeli military has held a “closed door” briefing in which they seemed to praise the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, saying it provided “security benefits” for Israel.
Though the details of the briefing were not supposed to be fully made public, some details got out, including the military saying that the deal, and increased inspections, would provide increased clarity on Iran’s civilian nuclear program and the risks of a “breakout” to military use.
Netanyahu has repeatedly and loudly condemned the talks, claiming any deal with Iran on any terms would be a threat to Israel’s existence. The military, however, said it believed the threat from Iran was waning, and would more so with a nuclear deal.
Netanyahu has struggled to keep military and intelligence officials backing his public narrative, and earlier this year Israeli intelligence briefed the US Congress against imposing sanctions demanded by Netanyahu on the grounds it would sabotage diplomacy. Netanyahu’s pre-election visit to the US Congress was the result of efforts by him and hawkish Congressional leaders to try to undo the “damage” done by the briefing.
Missile Envy: Pentagon might site nuclear-capable missiles in Britain
Nuclear missiles could be sited again on British soil in new ‘Cold War’ with Russia Foreign
Secretary Philip Hammond says there are ‘worrying signs’ about the increased activity of Russian forces and the UK would consider the pros and cons of taking US intermediate-range weapons By Christopher Hope, Chief Political Correspondent Telegraph, 07 Jun 2015 The UK could site American new nuclear missiles on British soil amid heightened tensions with Russia, Philip Hammond has indicated.
The comments raise the prospect of a return to a Cold War-type arms race with Russia over the use of nuclear missiles
The Foreign Secretary said there were “worrying signs” about the increased activity of Russian forces and the UK would consider the pros and cons of taking US intermediate-range weapons. Mr Hammond said there was “no clear sign” of an imminent attack on Ukraine but Vladimir Putin is “keeping his options open”.
But he warned against making “unnecessary provocations” against Russia, which has a “sense of being surrounded and under attack”.
Mr Hammond told BBC1’s Andrew Marr programme that Mr Putin “has not ruled out a military option”. He said: “As we go into the G7 meeting and then to the European Council later this month renewing sanctions, we have got to send very clear signals to the Russians that we will not tolerate any breach of their obligations under Minsk.”
The UK is thought to retain a stockpile of around 225 thermonuclear warheads, of which 160 are operational, but has refused to declare the exact size of its arsenal. Since 1998, the submarine based Trident programme has been the only operational nuclear weapons system in British service.
The Pentagon is reportedly considering axing a Cold War-era treaty and deploying nuclear-capable missiles in Europe in response to Russia’s breaches of international law……..http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11657690/Nuclear-missiles-could-be-sited-again-on-British-soil-in-new-Cold-War-with-Russia.html
At long last USA law now in line with nuclear terrorism treaties
Surveillance law lets US ratify nuclear terrorism treaties, NORTHJERSEY.COM : NEWS JUNE 7, 2015, BY DEB RIECHMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Tucked into the surveillance bill that became law was a little-noticed section that will let the United States complete ratification of two long-stalled treaties aimed at stopping a frightening scenario: terrorists wielding radioactive bombs.
“Today, nearly 2,000 metric tons of weapons-usable nuclear materials remain spread across hundreds of sites around the globe — some of it poorly secured,” said former Sen. Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an organization in Washington that works on the issue. “We know that to get the materials needed to build a bomb, terrorists will not necessarily go where there is the most material. They will go where the material is most vulnerable.”
When President Barack Obama signed the surveillance law last Tuesday, attention focused on how it ends the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records. The last drafts of that legislation, however, included 15 paragraphs permitting the U.S. to formally endorse two nuclear terrorism treaties after years of delay. Continue reading
Wikileaks reveals another corporate friendly global trade plan – Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)
WikiLeaks Strikes Again: Leaked TISA Docs Expose Corporate Plan For Reshaping Global Economy,FDL, CTUTTLE JUNE 3, 2015 Leaked Docs reveal that little-known corporate treaty poised to privatize and deregulate public services across globe. By Sarah Lazare
An enormous corporate-friendly treaty that many people haven’t heard of was thrust into the public limelight Wednesday when famed publisher of government and corporate secrets, WikiLeaks, released 17 documents from closed-door negotiations between countries that together comprise two-thirds of the word’s economy.
Analysts warn that preliminary review shows that the pact, known as the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), is aimed at further privatizing and deregulating vital services, from transportation to healthcare, with a potentially devastating impact for people of the countries involved in the deal, and the world more broadly. Continue reading
Report: Nuclear fallout is Japan’s top environmental problem
A Japanese government report says the release of massive amounts of radioactive materials is still the country’s top environmental problem 4 years after the nuclear accident in Fukushima Prefecture.
This year’s white paper on the environment says high levels of radiation are still detected in some areas. It says affected areas face a number of problems, such as depopulation and ungrounded rumors.
The report calls for the introduction of renewable energy in such areas. It proposes using part of earnings from green energy generation to help residents to return to their communities http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.html
Filipino people against startup of Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP)
Petilla: PHL still not ready for nuclear power June 1, 2015 LINGAYEN, Pangasinan—The operation of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) and the putting up of a similar one in any part of the country is next to impossible considering the mind-set of the Filipino people.
This in essence, is the opinion of Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla in reaction to the report that former Pangasinan Fifth District Rep. Mark Cojuangco, who is eyeing to run for governor of the province, has not abandoned his earlier call for the operation of the BNPP.
There was also a report that in order to prove that a nuclear plant is safe, he is willing to let one nuclear plant built next to his house in Sison, Pangasinan. http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/petilla-phl-still-not-ready-for-nuclear-power/
Effects of ionising radiation on the brains of space travellers
What happens to your brain on the way to Mars? Science Advances, 1 May 2015 Burnout and stress in Fukushima’s 7,000 nuclear cleanup workers
Stress on The Front Lines of Fukushima Cleanup, NHK, 12 March 2015 Four years ago, crews at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan were racing to keep the nuclear plant from spiraling out of control following the earthquake and tsunami. Today, that sense of urgency has dissipated. But the situation remains serious as workers juggle a host of problems as they decommission the facility. Given the risks involved, health concerns and other worries weigh heavily on their minds……Every day about 7,000 workers help decommission the reactors. In heavy protective clothing, they carry out such tasks as collecting and storing contaminated water. However, the decommissioning work is expected to take up to 40 years to complete. Keeping stress levels down and morale up is proving difficult.
Maeda says a change of mood has definitely come over his staff. He also says it’s getting harder to find new skilled workers. His company now has only one-third the number of experienced workers it had before the accident. “If it carries on like this, we’ll go out of business,” he says.
Four years after the disaster, the decontamination of land around the plant continues. But it is hard to predict when places like Maeda’s hometown of Namie will be habitable again. He says many residents are losing hope of returning home……… http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclearwatch/20150312.html
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