Mining Awareness +
It has never been more clear that the US Federal government does little to protect the US public, and appears to do more harm than good. The problem is more than gridlock, as readers of this blog now know, if they never knew it before.
It has fallen to local and state governments to protect the people and if they are corrupted and unwilling, or unable, then the people are in trouble. The TPP would apparently undermine the ability of state and local governments to protect citizens. No one knows for certain, because few are allowed to read it, and those who are, are not supposed to report upon the contents.
One of the most frightening things is that the TPP will allow Japan to dump its radioactive food on the US (and Australia, New Zealand and Canada), and reportedly there will be no labels to identify its origin as…
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June 11, 2015
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geoharvey
World:
¶ Lekela Power, a joint venture between Actis and Mainstream Renewable Power, is on track to achieve its goal of installing 1 GW of wind and solar parks across Africa in the next five years. The company already has 860 MW of African projects under construction or due to start construction next year. [SeeNews Renewables]
Wind turbine foundation in South Africa. Courtesy of Mainstream Renewable Power – http://www.mainstreamrp.com
¶ A new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency shows that 164 countries have now adopted at least one type of renewable energy target, compared to just 43 ten years ago. There are two other countries, Canada and the UAE, with renewable energy targets at the sub-national level only. [SeeNews Renewables]
¶ In Australia, Alinta Energy has revealed it will close its Port Augusta power stations and the Leigh Creek mine as early as March next…
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June 11, 2015
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Mining Awareness +
Robert Reich, Economist, former US Secretary of Labor
Trans Pacific Trickle-Down Economics, by Robert Reich,
Published on Monday, May 04, 2015 by RobertReich.org and Common Dreams
Giant corporations initiated the deal in the first place, their lobbyists helped craft it behind closed doors, and they’re the ones who have been pushing hard for it in Congress. Make no mistake, TPP is no trade deal. It’s a corporate takeover.
(Image: DonkeyHotey/flickr/cc)
Have we learned nothing from thirty years of failed trickle-down economics?
By now we should know that when big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy get special goodies, the rest of us get shafted.
The Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts of 1981, 2001, and 2003, respectively, were sold to America as ways to boost the economy and create jobs.
They ended up boosting the take-home pay of those at the top. Most Americans saw no gains.
In…
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June 11, 2015
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Mining Awareness +
From Common Dreams:
“With Corporate Deals Shrouded In Secrecy, Lawmakers Call for ‘Sunlight’ Representatives introduce legislation to force clandestine agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership into the open, Published on Wednesday, June 10, 2015 by Common Dreams-Sarah Lazare, staff writer
Civil society organizations across the globe have vigorously opposed efforts to ram through closed-door pacts. (Photo: Canadians.org, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
A bipartisan group of lawmakers unleashed a last-ditch effort on Wednesday to, at the very least, force the administration of President Barack Obama to publicly reveal the contents of corporate-friendly trade deals before attempting to ram them through Congress via controversial Fast Track legislation.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) introduced the Trade Review Accountability Needs Sunlight and Preview of Any Regulations and Exact Negotiated Components Resolution on Wednesday. The legislation, which has 16 co-sponsors, “requires any proposed trade deal to be made publicly available for a minimum of 60 days before…
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June 11, 2015
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conspiracyoz
“After any agreement is achieved between high-level criminals, there are two basic phases. First, conflicts arise, and the settlements are crude and sometimes painful. Second, the criminal parties realize, like the ‘gentlemen’ they are, that the jackpot they are sharing is big enough for everyone. So they unify their stance. They focus in on their real target: the public.” —The Underground, Jon Rappoport
Question: “Who said that drug was safe? Where did that assessment come from? People are dropping like flies.”
Answer: “We all said it was safe. Remember? All twelve members of the TPP. We all agreed. So now we have to stick to our guns. Admit nothing. Keep your mouth shut.”
This “trade treaty,” the TPP, will, if passed, eventually morph into a close-knit international collective of government agencies…
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June 11, 2015
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Radiation Free Lakeland
BOYCOTT TOSHIBA
If you are going along to FESTIVALS over the summer or just sitting out in the garden with the children why not have fun making a GIANT POSTCARD. Anything from A4 size upwards. It could be images of the beautiful green fields and river Ehen which the developers plan to trash, or even of Thirlmere which NuGen (Toshiba.Westinghouse.Gdf Suez. Engie) are planning to use as a freshwater resource. Or you could go for something more gritty such as our poster image by Stew Art, brilliantly depicting nuclear waste and the insane eternal treadmill use of fresh water to cool that waste.
The CONsultation taking place now is a sham designed to “shape the plans” but you can write with your OPPOSITION – On the back of your POSTCARD tell Toshiba (NuGen) that you will boycott their products over this diabolic Moorside plan and ask them what are the reasons…
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June 11, 2015
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geoharvey
World:
¶ A record 40 GW of new solar power was connected in 2014 according to a new report from SolarPower Europe, formerly the European Photovoltaic Industry Association. The group said that 2014 was a “tipping point.” Its executive advisor pointed out that in 2014, renewables produced more power than nuclear. [reNews]
Photo by Rama. Wikimedia Commons.
¶ Essel Group and the state government of Rajasthan announced that the two have entered into an agreement to set up a joint venture company that will oversee development of 5 GW of solar power capacity over the next few years. They will build at least two separate solar parks, at Bikaner and Jaisalmer. [CleanTechnica]
¶ The top seven industrialized countries (G7), whose carbon dioxide emissions total 25% of the world’s output, decided at a meeting in Germany today to phase out their use of fossil fuels by the…
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June 11, 2015
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Mining Awareness +
We are to be Good Stewards, Not Destroyers of the Environment: The World is Endangered by Nuclear Energy (and weapons)
There is nothing clean or good about nuclear energy. It legally and illegally leaks deadly radionuclides into the environment along the entire fuel chain from uranium mining to nuclear energy production to the unsolved problem of nuclear waste. Many radionuclides are deadly for hundreds and thousands of years. Some are deadly for even longer than humans have walked on the earth.
The threatened Mexican Spotted Owl and almost 100 other animal and plant “species of concern” are endangered by proposed uranium mining in the Grand Canyon area. Unknown numbers are endangered by active and proposed uranium mines in the US and elsewhere.
Concerns with Uranium Mining in the Grand Canyon Region USGS
Click to access pg_spgi2.pdf
Even ISL (In Situ Leach Uranium Mining) has a big ecological footprint, as can be…
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June 11, 2015
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Mining Awareness +
NB: Usually updated daily. Most recent updates on top, after top images, so that daily readers will not have to scroll-down far. Time is UTC-GMT. This is a continuation of:
The Ongoing Saga 55: News, Updates, Tidbits & Trivia
Call-up to Clean-up Nuclear Sites
These images or something similar will probably stay on top until a) pro-nuclear people volunteer to work at nuclear waste sites (WIPP, Fukushima, Hanford, etc.) in droves, and b) the nuclear industry is shut down. Then, after b), there will still be the problem of a) the nuclear waste to be secured. We live on borrowed time. Let’s shut the nuclear industry down now!
Let’s hurry up people!
Thursday, 11 June 2015
TPP means Radioactive Food Dumping by Japan: Unlabeled Fukushima Food Coming your way if TPP isn’t stopped!
(Unless, of course, you are in Japan, in which case you will be rid of some radioactive food!)
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June 11, 2015
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GreenWorld
Graphic from Yale Project on Climate Change Communications.
We’ve pointed it out here before, but it bears saying again: Americans love renewable energy. There’s just no ifs, ands or buts about it.
The map above from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communications, which breaks down support for renewable energy at the county level, shows clearly that a majority of Americans in every county in the U.S. support funding for renewable energy. Well, perhaps except for one lone county in southeast Texas–the heart of oil refining country.
And in most places, it’s not just mere majority support, it’s landslide-level support for renewable energy.
So why is it so hard to get production tax credits–a proven mechanism for renewable energy development–renewed through Congress every time they expire? And why does Congress even continue to force them to expire every couple of years, setting up new battles over their continuation? After all…
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June 11, 2015
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Radiation Free Lakeland
Alfred Wainwright famously called Calder Hall an “atomic carbuncle.” That was in the halcyon days when the nuclear sprawl at Sellafield was so much smaller.
Now Amber Rudd, the Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change is urging “beautiful” new nuclear build. When I see Sellafield I see:
*uranium mines in Kazakhstan annihilating the Saiga antelope’s habitat, in Australia polluting water, in America causing damaged immune systems
*transports of uranium hexaflouride to Ellesmere Port and then manufacture of fuel at Springfields in Preston spewing radioactive wastes to the River Ribble
*the ditching of renewables to make way for nuclear
*increases in leukaemia and other radiation linked diseases
*spent nuclear fuel transports i.e. nuclear waste by train arriving at Sellafield for reprocessing
*spent fuel being dunked in gallons of nitric acid making yet more high level liquid radioactive wastes
*open ponds of hot radioactive wastes
*animals being…
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June 11, 2015
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A professor from Japan’s Fukushima University Institute of Environmental Radioactivity (Michio Aoyama) told Kyodo in April that the West Coast of North America will be hit with around 800 terabecquerels of Cesium- 137 by 2016.
EneNews notes that this is 80% of the cesium-137 deposited in Japan by Fukushima, according to the company which runs Fukushima, Tepco:
(a petabequeral or “PBq” equals 1,000 terabecquerels.)
This is not news for those who have been paying attention. For example, we noted 2 days after the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami that the West Coast of North America could be slammed with radiation from Fukushima.
We pointed out the next year that a previously-secret 1955 U.S. government report concluded that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents, and there could be “pockets” and “streams” of highly-concentrated radiation.
The same year, we noted that 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna tested in California waters were contaminated with Fukushima radiation.
In 2013, we warned that the West Coast of North America would be hit hard by Fukushima radiation.
And we’ve noted for years that there is no real testing of Fukushima radiation by any government agency.
Indeed, scientists say that the amount of the West Coast of North America could end up exceeding that off the Japanese coast.
What’s the worst case scenario? That the mass die-off of sealife off the West Coast of North America – which may have started only a couple of months after the Fukushima melt-down – is being caused by radiation from Fukushima.
Source: Washington’s blog
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/06/west-coast-of-north-america-to-be-slammed-by-2016-with-80-as-much-fukushima-radiation-as-japan.html
June 11, 2015
Posted by dunrenard |
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The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. are planning to push back the start of removing spent fuel at the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex by two to three years from the current schedule, according to government sources.
Under an envisioned revised road map for decommissioning reactors 1 to 4 at the plant, which was ravaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, work to begin removing the spent fuel from the No. 3 pool is expected to be delayed until fiscal 2017, the sources said Tuesday. Originally that work was to begin in the first half of fiscal 2015.
Removal work on the Nos. 1 and 2 pools, which was supposed to begin in fiscal 2017, is now expected to start in fiscal 2020.
There is no change to the overall timeline for decommissioning the plant within 30 to 40 years after the nuclear calamity, according to the sources.
The government is expected to hold a Cabinet meeting as early as Friday to officially reflect the changes in the road map.
The government and Tepco, the plant operator are moving to revise the road map for the first time since June 2013. They apparently believe the existing plan has placed too much priority on speeding up decommissioning efforts and put a heavy burden on workers at the complex.
Source: Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/10/national/start-reactor-fuel-removal-stricken-fukushima-1-may-delayed-three-years/#.VXg_rkZZNBR
June 11, 2015
Posted by dunrenard |
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This is what passes for good news from Fukushima Daiichi, the Japanese nuclear power plant devastated by meltdowns and explosions after a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami in 2011: By the end of last month, workers had succeeded in filtering most of the 620,000 tons of toxic water stored at the site, removing almost all of the radioactive materials.
After numerous false starts and technical glitches, most of the stored water has been run through filtration systems to remove dangerous strontium-90, as well as many other radionuclides. TEPCO, the Japanese utility that operates the power plant, trumpeted the achievement: “This is a significant milestone for improving the environment for our surrounding communities and for our workers,” said Naohiro Masuda, TEPCO’s chief decommissioning officer, in a press release.
But it’s not quite so easy to bounce back from a nuclear disaster of this scale. For one thing, don’t take TEPCO’s statement too literally: No one is living in the “surrounding communities”—they’re far too contaminated for human habitation. Furthermore, the filtered water is still full of tritium, a radioactive version of hydrogen. (When two neutrons are added to the element, it becomes unstable, prone to emitting electrons.) Tritium bonds with oxygen just like normal hydrogen does, to produce radioactive “tritiated water.” It’s impractical—or at least extremely difficult and expensive—to separate tritiated water from normal water.
Hence TEPCO’s dilemma—which gets bigger by the day. The enormous volume of water comes from the ongoing need to keep the three melted-down reactor cores cool. More than four years after the disaster, pumps still must pour a constant stream of water into the pressure vessels that contain the radioactive cores. But the meltdowns and explosions rendered those vessels leaky, so TEPCO collects the water that seeps out, as well as rainwater that flows down the hills and through the shattered buildings.
TEPCO has been filling fields with vast arrays of storage tanks to cope with the accumulating water. The company’s 40-year plan for decommissioning the plant calls for the construction of an underground “ice wall” to freeze the soil around the reactor buildings and divert rainwater, and for plugging the leaks in the buildings. But TEPCO has run into problems with the ice wall—the underground tunnels carrying coolant haven’t gotten cold enough to sufficiently freeze the surrounding ground—and the more long-term solution of plugging the reactor buildings’ leaks is still a distant goal. In the meantime, TEPCO keeps building tanks.
Some experts, including the eminently respectable IAEA, have suggested that TEPCO may have to simply dump the tritium-contaminated water into the ocean. Tritium traditionally hasn’t been considered very dangerous to human health. Although tritiated water can reach all parts of the body, like normal water, it’s also expelled quickly from the body, like normal water. If released into the ocean, the contaminated water would quickly be diluted, and it wouldn’t bioaccumulate in fish (unlike strontium-90, for example, which is taken up by bones).
But is tritiated water really so harmless? It’s currently getting a second look from regulators in the United States. Last year, the EPA announced plans to review safety standards for tritiated water, which has leaked from many a nuclear plant. As this excellent Scientific American article explains, there’s considerable uncertainty over whether the stuff is more dangerous than we previously thought.
The amount of tritium in Fukushima Daiichi’s water is not negligible. The World Health Organization’s standard for tritium in drinking water is 10,000 becquerels per liter (34 ounces). According to Mayumi Yoshida, a TEPCO communications officer, Fukushima’s stored water contains between 1 and 5 million becquerels per liter. Yet Yoshida noted that operational nuclear power plants around the world discharge water with a much higher level of tritium than that.
Does that imply that the company is considering discharging its water into the sea, I asked? “Nothing has been decided but to keep storing at the site,” Yoshida said. “We will discuss thoroughly with the government, the oversea and domestic experts, the fishermen, and the surrounding residents, which way would be the safest and the best for everyone, before deciding anything.”
It’s hard to imagine that those discussions will be productive. Releasing the water into the ocean sounds like a non-starter in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, where fishermen are already furious with TEPCO. Fishing has been suspended around the coastal Fukushima Daiichi plant since the accident, and repeated leaks of radioactive water have angered the fishing associations still further.
If the water can’t be released as-is for political reasons, TEPCO’s only options are to keep building tanks or to accept its extremely difficult and expensive fate, and figure out how to remove the last bit of nuclear taint from its enormous holdings of problematic water.
Source: Nautilus
http://nautil.us/blog/no-one-knows-what-to-do-with-fukushimas-endless-tanks-of-radioactive-water
June 11, 2015
Posted by dunrenard |
Japan | Fukushima Daiichi |
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nuclear-news 