Cover of Fukushima reactor 1 building to be removed
The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has decided to resume work to dismantle the cover of the No.1 reactor building later this month.
The work is part of efforts to decommission the facility, which suffered a meltdown after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
A hydrogen explosion damaged the No.1 reactor building. Tokyo Electric Power Company installed the cover to prevent radioactive material from dispersing.
The utility initially planned to start dismantling the cover last year to clear away radioactive rubble and remove spent nuclear fuel stored at a pool inside the building.
The plan was postponed several times after people expressed concern about the dispersal of radioactive substances.
Engineers also found a problem with a device that controls the air flow in the building when dismantling work was set to begin in May.
The engineers say they have addressed the problem. TEPCO decided to resume the dismantling work on July 28th as long as weather conditions permit.
As part of the plan, chemical agents will be sprayed to prevent radioactive dust from being released into the air.
Engineers plan to remove the six roof panels in about 4-months’ time.
Source : NHK
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150716_01.html
Despite pressing need, Japan continues to grope for nuclear waste site
Welcome to Japan, land of cherry blossoms, sushi and sake, and 17,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste.
That’s what the country has in temporary storage from nuclear plants. Supporters of nuclear power say it’s cleaner than fossil fuels for generating electricity. Detractors say there’s nothing clean about what’s left behind, some of which remains a deadly environmental toxin for thousands of years.
Since nuclear power was first harnessed more than 70 years ago, the industry has been trying to solve the problem of safe disposal of the waste. Japan has been thrown into the center of the conundrum by the decision in recent months to retire five reactors after the Fukushima disaster started in 2011, while the restart process for one reactor was recently approved despite public opposition.
“It’s part of the price of nuclear energy,” Allison Macfarlane, a former chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in Tokyo during an interview on waste. “Now, especially with the decommissioning of sites, there will be more pressure to do something with this material. Because you have to.”
For more than half a century, nuclear plants in more than 30 countries have been humming away — lighting up Tokyo’s Ginza, putting the twinkle into New York’s Broadway and keeping the elevators running up the Eiffel Tower. Plus powering appliances in countless households, factories and offices around the world.
In the process, the world’s 437 operating reactors now produce about 12,000 tons of high-level waste a year, or the equivalent of 100 double-decker buses, according to the World Nuclear Association.
Most countries now agree burying atomic waste deep underground is the best option. Other ideas like firing it into space or tossing it inside a volcano came and went.
The U.S., with the most reactors, spent an estimated $15 billion on a site for nuclear refuse in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Local opposition derailed the plan, meaning about 49,000 tons of spent fuel sits in cooling pools at nuclear plants around the country.
Japan faces another challenge. The crisis at Fukushima No. 1 that started four years ago completely changed the equation.
It will take trillions of yen and technology not yet invented to clean up the shattered facility. How long that will take is disputed. Tokyo Electric Power Co. estimates 40 years. Greenpeace says it could take twice that time.
All 43 operational reactors in Japan have been offline since September 2013 for safety checks after the disaster started. The government has said nuclear power is essential to energy supply and reactors that meet safety standards will be allowed to restart.
The first in line belongs to Kyushu Electric Power Co., which last week said it has finished refueling one of its units in Kagoshima Prefecture. It plans to restart the reactor in August, which means generation of more nuclear waste.
It will be a “failure in our ethical responsibility to future generations” to restart reactors without a clear plan for waste storage, the Science Council of Japan said in April.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, known as NUMO, has been searching for a permanent storage site for years, initially inviting districts to apply as a host.
In 2007, it got one when the mayor of Toyo, Kochi Prefecture, submitted interest. Like the residents near Yucca Mountain, the town’s citizens didn’t like the idea and voted him out of office. His successor canceled the plan.
Now facing the accelerated shutdown of some reactors post-Fukushima, NUMO in May ditched the idea of waiting for a volunteer. Instead, scientists will nominate suitable areas.
“We’d like all citizens to be aware and feel ownership of this situation,” said Takao Kinoshita, a NUMO official. “We should feel grateful for the community that’s doing something for the benefit of the whole country and respect their bravery.”
NUMO’s plan for a final underground repository was drawn up in 2007 and would cost ¥3.5 trillion.
It would contain about 40,000 canisters, each weighing half a ton and holding waste at temperatures above 200 degrees. The contents would give off 1,500 sieverts of radiation an hour, a level that would instantly kill a human being.
The canisters need to cool in interim storage for as long as 50 years before heading 300 meters below ground. Their stainless steel inner layer is wrapped in bentonite clay to make sure water can’t leak inside.
“That’s the biggest risk we see, water leaking through,” said Kinoshita.
Finland and Sweden are the only two countries so far to have selected and reached a public agreement on a final site and storage technology for high-level nuclear waste. Finland’s is expected to open in 2020.
Taking apart a reactor, known as decommissioning, produces a few tons of highly radioactive material, usually the used fuel and coolant. The buildings and equipment account for thousands of tons of so-called low-level waste.
In Japan, the central government is responsible for dealing with the most radioactive waste. Each plant operator handles the rest.
“Even in the low-level category there is the relatively higher-level waste and the nation’s technical solutions are not ready,” Makoto Yagi, the president of Kansai Electric Power Co., said at a June briefing in Tokyo.
Shaun Bernie, senior nuclear specialist with Greenpeace Germany, said this shows Japan’s reactor program and high-level nuclear waste policy are “in a state of crisis.”
Without a clear disposal strategy, costs to take apart the reactors can end up being double original estimates, said Colin Austin, senior vice president at Energy Solutions, which has worked on every decommissioning project in the U.S.
Another wrinkle in Japan for finding a final disposal site is that the country sits on a mesh of colliding tectonic plates that make it one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.
Former NRC chief Macfarlane, who is also a seismologist, said that doesn’t make it impossible to bury the waste. A repository hundreds of meters underground is partly protected against quakes in the same way submarines are during high storms, she said.
Leaving nuclear waste on the surface indefinitely means it will get into the environment, so Japan has to solve this, she said.
“An adequate place underground is better than waiting for the best possible place.”
Source: Japan Times
Tokyo urges Manila to accept Fukushima farm produce
Tokyo is pressing Manila to relax its import restrictions on farm products from the Fukushima prefecture in exchange for more trade concessions under the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), the Department of Agriculture (DA) revealed on Wednesday.
Agriculture Undersecretary Segfredo Serrano said that Japanese negotiators want to resume exports of Fukushima-grown produce —including dairy, rice and fresh vegetables—to the Philippines after these were suspended amid concerns about radiation contamination following the nuclear crisis in March 2011.
“They want us to lower our food safety requirements based on the fact that Canada and other countries have already accepted their farm products. But I don’t see any reason why [we should],” Serrano told reporters.
The DA official said that if exports from Fukushima were to resume, all products coming from the prefecture should first undergo tests at the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) to ensure that they are radiation-free.
“Even if Mars already accepted their produce, it still has to undergo study by our own experts. We have to be careful since it’s their own technical report, which may differ from our own study,” Serrano said.
It can be recalled that by January 24, New Zealand, Australia and Canada had lifted import restrictions on products from Fukushima Prefecture based on measurements of radioactive material. Britain allows imports as long as a government-issued radioactive material inspection certificate is submitted.
However, agricultural products from Fukushima prefecture are still widely shunned in other overseas markets, putting more pressure on the Japanese government revive its export market.
“It’s not a matter of volume. Even if [the shipment] is just one gram, if it has radioactive content, it will not pass the requirements under the Food Safety Act,” Serrano added.
“It’s very political for them to show that they have already addressed the problem. It’s what they want to project. There’s pressure. But I don’t see any reason to give in to their demand,” Serrano stressed.
For its part, Manila wants Tokyo to lower import duties on all possible agricultural products—mainly agricultural and marine products for which the Philippines has competitive advantage—that are viable for export to Japan.
“Our main interest is in our traditional exports—like sugar, coconut oil, tropical fruits, fishery and processed food,” Serrano said.
“We want them [Japan] to bring down to zero all their agricultural tariffs to reciprocate our own reduction of tariffs,” Serrano said, stressing that the Philippines has been ahead in reducing its tariff wall compared to Japan.
The DA official, however, said that Japan has appealed to Philippine negotiators, led by the Department of Trade and Industry, to further cut the number of tariff lines to a more “manageable” level.
“If they want to be true to their commitment to help Philippine agriculture and rural development, [they should] put their money where their mouth is,” he said, stressing that the DA wants to keep the number of tariff lines close to their earlier proposal to give the Philippines more elbowroom in the negotiations.
The JPEPA is a bilateral agreement that is intended to liberalize trade, investments and labor relations between the two countries. The Philippine government is seeking for a review of the JPEPA due to Japan’s failure to fulfill its own commitments under the agreement.
Source: The Manila Times
http://www.manilatimes.net/tokyo-urges-manila-to-accept-fukushima-farm-produce/200631/
More residents joining lawsuits seeking damages from South Korean nuclear plants
Hwang Bun-hui, a plaintiff in nationwide lawsuits against the government-owned operator of nuclear power plants in South Korea, stands in front of the Wolseong nuclear power plant in Gyeongju.
GYEONGJU, South Korea–For three decades after a nuclear power plant near her home became operational, Hwang Bun-hui believed that nuclear power was no different from other energy sources in terms of safety and health effects.
But after the Fukushima nuclear disaster unfurled in Japan in March 2011, she came to harbor a growing concern over the effects that nuclear power generation has on human health as she had long suffered from a feeling of listlessness.
After a medical checkup, Hwang, 67, a resident of Gyeongju, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had to have immediate surgery to remove the tumor. Several other people from her village, which is the closest human settlement to the Wolseong nuclear power plant, were also diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Hwang is among an increasing number of South Koreans who live near the country’s four nuclear power plants and are joining civil suits against the operator of the plants, demanding compensation for cancer and other adverse health effects.
The citizen’s legal actions were prompted by a landmark ruling by a district court last October, which ordered Korea Electric Power Corp., the government-owned operator of the nuclear plants, to pay 15 million won (1.68 million yen, or $13,500) in damages to a thyroid cancer patient.
The number of plaintiffs seeking compensation from KEPCO for health damages incurred by radioactive emissions from the plants has now swelled to more than 2,500.
Hwang joined the lawsuit late last year, encouraged by the landmark ruling by the Busan District Court.
In demanding compensation from KEPCO, she argues that radioactive emissions from the Wolseong nuclear power plant in Gyeongju, with its five reactors, have caused her thyroid cancer.
Hwang’s residence is located just 915 meters from the nuclear plant. The country’s nuclear watchdog authorized the extension of the operational life of the plant’s No. 1 reactor beyond 30 years in February.
While seeking damages through a civil trial, Hwang has also joined a local residents’ protest to demand the immediate decommissioning of aging reactors at the plant.
After she read the headlines of the landmark ruling in favor of the resident of Busan, Hwang realized that, “I’m equally a victim of a nuclear power plant.”
The 48-year-old plaintiff lived at a site located 7.7 kilometers from the Kori nuclear power plant in Busan for about two decades, and had her thyroid cancer surgically removed three years ago.
Citing a judicial precedent set by the Supreme Court in a pollution case, the Busan District Court held KEPCO responsible to pay damages unless it could prove that a nuclear power plant is safe for local residents.
The ruling brought similar civil actions among residents who live near four nuclear power plants in South Korea.
Between December and April, 545 residents living near the nuclear plants, who have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, joined lawsuits. Most of the plaintiffs live in areas within a 10-km radius from a nuclear power plant.
The total number of plaintiffs, including the family members of cancer patients, has already exceeded 2,500.
Lawyer Kim Yeong-hui, who has encouraged residents living near nuclear plants to join the litigation, said that epidemiological surveys in South Korea have shown that residents living 5 to 30 km from nuclear power plants have 1.8 times a higher incidence of thyroid cancer than people from other areas.
“The district court made the decision based on the survey results, and Japan should also conduct surveys covering residents living near all domestic reactors (to determine the health effect of nuclear energy),” the lawyer said.
At a gathering of anti-nuclear citizens in Osaka in January, Lee Jin-seop, the husband of the plaintiff who won the lawsuit at the Busan court, said that citizens from the two countries and elsewhere need to join hands in legal efforts against nuclear power.
“Even after the Fukushima disaster, South Korea has increased its number of nuclear reactors, while Japan is pushing for the restart of idled reactors,” said Lee, 51. “We need to expand the network of citizens seeking legal justice to protect our safety and health.”
Source: Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/korean_peninsula/AJ201507150007
Cesium-134/137 measured over 200 percent of safety level from Fukushima rice
“To not be distributed”: unfortunately nothing can stop unscrupulous merchants to distribute it under false labeling of the origin, or to “dilute” its radiation level by mixing it with another rice to lower its radiation level below the safety level, to be sold then on the national market or to be exported to other countries…
According to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, excessive amount of Cs-134/137 was detected from two unpolished rice samples produced in Fukushima city.
The rice was experimentally produced but not distributed, the farmer states. The highest reading was 220 Bq/Kg in total of Cs-134/137. The safety limit is supposed to be 100 Bq/Kg.
The sample was brought to Fukushima Agricultural Technology Centre this July.
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/04-Houdouhappyou-11135000-Shokuhinanzenbu-Kanshianzenka/0000091483.pdf
http://jishin-yogen.com/blog-entry-7178.html
Source: Fukushima Diary
Cesium-134/137 measured over 200 percent of safety level from Fukushima rice
Language of USA’s Republicans give away their desire to bomb Iran
Who cares if no Republican has read the full text of the deal, which won’t be given to Congress for days?
Many of the Republicans’ statements on Iran in the past few months have just a word salad of insults – “evil”, “malevolent”, “corrupt”, “terrorists”, “the devil” – as though there were a contest to see how many despicable adjectives they could fit into one paragraph.
Republicans hate the Iran nuclear deal because it means we won’t bomb Iran Trevor Timm,
Guardian 14 July 2015
The Administration’s agreement with Iran would curtail the latter’s nuclear program. The only people who can hate that are the kind who just love war As soon as President Obama announced the historic nuclear agreement between the US and Iran on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidates raced to see who could get out the most hyperbolic, foaming-at-the-mouth condemnation of the potential for peace.
Republicans frontrunner Jeb Bush was first out of the gate, more than 24 hours before the deal was actually signed. He boasted on his YouTube channel: “History is full of examples of when you enable people or regimes who don’t embrace democratic values you get a bad result…it’s called appeasement.” Continue reading
The staggeringly huge problem of Los Alamos’ radioactive contamination
‘Los Alamos will never be clean’, Local News, Santa Fe New Mexican, By Staci Matlock 13 July 15 “……….The scientists knew this canyon was contaminated back in the 1950s and ’60s,” said Greg Mello, a former inspector with the state Environment Department and now a partner in the nuclear watchdog Los Alamos Study Group with his wife, Trish. “Their children played here.”
As people this year commemorate the 70th anniversary of the first atomic bomb, which helped lead to the end of World War II, often left out of the conversation is the legacy of environmental waste left behind from the making of that bomb and the thousands that followed.
Acid Canyon is among more than 2,000 dumpsites around the lab’s 43-square-mile property and thousands of other dumpsites at 108 locations in 29 states around the nation where waste from the Manhattan Project and subsequent nuclear weapons research was discharged, tossed or buried.
Efforts to clean up the contamination have taken decades and billions of dollars. The work isn’t finished yet, and it may never be complete in some places. Millions of cubic meters of hazardous waste still await cleanup, along with hundreds of contaminated buildings demolished or awaiting demolition at Savannah River in South Carolina, the Hanford plutonium processing plant along Washington’s Columbia River, Los Alamos and a dozen other sites.
A legacy of waste
Air, land, water and people all were exposed to hazardous and radioactive waste products while scientists and engineers were producing the Trinity test bomb and subsequent nuclear weapons.
Uranium miners, scientists, lab technicians and people living near research facilities or test sites around the United States during the heyday of the Manhattan Project were exposed to the highest immediate levels of radiation. They’ve sought compensation from the federal government for a litany of maladies and cancers related to their work on nuclear weapons.
The waste dumped in canyons, buried in unlined trenches or discarded in out-of-the-way places has represented longer-term hazards to people living in or near places where the components of nuclear weapons were processed. In the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Army Corps of Engineers began cleaning up the waste sites around the country.
The danger from the waste depends on its radioactivity and how much of it people or animals are exposed to. People regularly are exposed to some level of radiation, which occurs naturally in the environment, such as uranium in soil and radon gas. The legacy waste adds to natural radiation levels in the environment and, left untreated, can increase the risks of cancers and other health problems.
At Los Alamos, lab workers dumped waste in trenches and pits, including those at Area G, a 63-acre dumpsite that opened in 1957. This includes thousands of cubic feet of low-level and mixed transuranic waste such as old lab coats, tools and other debris.
Nuclear waste is exempt from many federal environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act. The New Mexico Environment Department, after a court battle, gained some measure of regulatory control over the lab’s legacy waste only because it is mixed with other hazardous chemical waste. Under an agreement with the state, the lab in 2014 was on track to remove 3,706 cubic meters of hazardous and radioactive waste stored in above-ground containers and ship it to the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad when a lab container ruptured at the underground facility, halting operations.
A lab official said last year LANL still had thousands of cubic feet of contaminated waste left in 35 pits and 200 shafts at Area G. “The main concern is that Area G is smack dab over the regional aquifer,” said Scott Kovac, of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, noting the groundwater table is between 900 and 1,000 feet below the surface.
The Department of Energy and state environment officials are grappling with whether the increasing costs of cleanup at the lab and at other legacy waste sites outweighs the health risks of leaving waste where it is and capping it. Mello, who issued the first notice of violation to the lab for noncompliance with federal hazardous waste regulations in 1984, contemplated the trade-off: “Los Alamos will never be clean. It will always have tons of buried waste. Whether the waste is a health hazard is debatable.”
Costs of nuclear cleanup
The legacy costs of the Trinity Site test and the Cold War can be counted in human and environmental price tags……….
“It is costing a lot of money, taking a lot of time, and we’re leaving behind a lot of workers who have suffered,” Alvarez said.
Uranium miners and millers developed lung cancer and kidney cancers, among other illnesses. Scientists and other workers exposed to radiation from above-ground tests developed cancers of the lung, thyroid, esophagus, stomach and pancreas, as well as leukemia and other maladies.
More than 107,141 nuclear research workers and their families have received some of more than $11.6 billion in compensation and medical coverage as of July 5, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. More than a fourth of workers filing claims have cancer types recognized by the federal government as ones that can be caused by exposure to radioactive materials.
More than 4,900 former Los Alamos National Laboratory workers from World War II to the present have received $566 million for health problems related to their work at the lab……..
The costs of cleaning up legacy waste continue to climb. The Department of Energy’s life-cycle environmental liability for thousands of contaminated facilities and management of massive quantities of radioactive waste rose to $427 billion in 2014 from $297 billion in 2006, according to the agency’s fiscal report. The life cycle includes all of the department’s liabilities until the waste is finally cleaned up to federal standards — a process still years away in some locations.
The estimated liability for the legacy waste is higher than the combined state budgets of New Mexico, Texas, California, Arizona and Colorado.
The total life-cycle costs of managing environmental cleanup of legacy waste at Los Alamos were estimated at $2.9 billion in the Department of Energy’s fiscal year 2016 budget request to Congress. For Hanford, it is $63 billion, and for the Savannah River site, it is $71 billion.
“We keep on spending and yet the estimated environmental liability keeps growing,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico…………. Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com. Follow her on Twitter @StaciMatlock. http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/los-alamos-will-never-be-clean/article_a3cc7ce1-8af0-5113-8f38-5d4aa673fd7a.html
Nuclear fuel core melted through bottom of Fukushima reactor – documents show
Document shows nuclear fuel burned through bottom of containment vessel under Fukushima reactor — Official: Leakage we observed indicates melt-through by ‘shell attack’ — “This is a very big problem… fuel debris in the PCV is doing something bad” (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/official-document-shows-molten-nuclear-fuel-burned-bottom-containment-vessel-fukushima-tepco-leaks-coming-reactor-indicate-melt-shell-attack-very-big-problem-fuel-debris-pcv-doing-bad-video?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
[Good diagrams]
Shunichi Suzuki, Tokyo Electric Power Co., 2014 IRID Symposium (emphasis added):
• Part 30 – “This is the current situation… This is Unit No. 1, this shows the the lower part of the PCV [primary containment vessel]… Based on the results of research so far… the ‘sand cushion drain’… water is leaking here, which means that this section above there is damaged — so that is highly possible. Therefore, this is a very big problem, because if this is damaged, then one possibility is that shell attackhas happened [see drawing by General Electric at bottom right]. So the debris in the PCV is doing something bad to this, so we have to take that into consideration for investigation.”
• Part 31 – “Unit 2… the water level [in the suppression chamber] and the water level in the torus room is about the same . What that means is that at the bottom [of the S/C], there could be a hole. Not only there, but also there is a pump room and there are other pipings here, so that needs needs to be considered as well when they conduct the investigation.”
• Part 42 – “Unit 1… there is little fuel remaining in the core… Fuel debris exists even outside the pedestal. Therefore we give priority to outside pedestal investigation. I talked about suppressionchamber earlier, shell attack has happened perhaps— I said that — shell attack in Unit 1 is something like this. Debris may exist around here so… there is some fuel that has penetrated outside the pedestal… If debris is outside the pedestal we can’t reach it, therefore we have to consider opening a side area – it’s very unique… Regarding Unit 2 and 3… in Unit 3 we presume that more fuel than we expected has fallen down to the PCV… we cannot deny the possibility that fuel has gone outside the pedestal.”
• Part 55 – “This is a MAAP example [computer code used for estimating fuel debris position]. Improvement points… the height is increasing, we had a single transfer path [for the molten fuel], but it is going to be multiple paths. And also debris, a uniform debris deposit was the assumption, now however asymmetrical distribution has to be considered. And alsodebris below the PCV bottom [see TEPCO drawing at middle right], the behavior has to be considered.”
• Part 95 – “The level of damage is high so it may not be able to stop water… and it may not be possible to fully cover the fuel debris. In such a case innovative approaches could be considered.”
And: Image published by embassy in Japan shows Fukushima melted fuel deep underground
World a little safer as deal agreed on with Iran – Obama
Obama praises diplomacy of Iran nuclear deal, Sky News, , 15 July 2015 US President Barack Obama has lauded a landmark nuclear agreement with Iran as vindication of his diplomatic approach and a chance for a ‘new direction’ in decades of vexed relations with Tehran.
Obama said the deal – which would curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for substantial international sanctions relief – cut off ‘every pathway’ to an Iranian atomic weapon. ‘Today, because America negotiated from a position of strength and principle, we have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in this region,’ he said in a White House address on Tuesday.
Describing a ‘difficult history’ between Iran and the United States that ‘cannot be ignored,’ Obama shaped it as a diplomatic victory that showed ‘it is possible to change.’ ‘This deal offers an opportunity to move in a new direction. We should seize it,’ he said……..
Obama came to office vowing to talk directly to Tehran and to try to reach a negotiated deescalation – a marked shift from his predecessor, who rejected a similar deal struck by European countries. ‘This deal demonstrates that American diplomacy can bring real and meaningful change,’ he said.
But, he warned, if Iran steps back from measures agreed in the lengthy agreement, all sanctions ‘will snap back into place.’ Obama insisted the alternative to diplomacy was more violence in a region already beset by instability. ‘Put simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East,’ he said………
Obama said the deal was based on verification, not trust, and noted that differences between the two countries were ‘real.’
Analysts have also warned that Iran’s leaders may need to toughen anti-American rhetoric to ensure the backing of regime hardliners angered at the prospect of a deal with a power they view as the ‘Great Satan.’http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2015/07/15/obama-lauds-diplomacy-of-iran-nuclear-deal.html#sthash.xM86hsdW.dpuf
Nuclear agreement finally reached between Iran and world powers
Iran nuclear agreement: powerful diplomats reach a deal,news.com.au. JULY 15, 2015 THE world’s major powers have struck a long-awaited nuclear deal with Iran after more than two weeks of intense talks in Vienna.Iranian state television has broadcast US President Barack Obama’s statement on the deal live, only the second such occasion since the Islamic revolution of 1979.
The state broadcaster had also aired Obama’s comments on an April 2 framework accord that led to Tuesday’s historic agreement, paving the way for an easing of crippling Western sanctions and for Iran to come in from the cold…….Iranians have poured onto the streets of Tehran after the Ramadan fast ended at sundown to celebrate the historic nuclear deal…….
- What the deal meansAfter 18 days of intense and often fractious negotiation, diplomats declared that world powers and Iran had struck a landmark deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions.
The agreement was designed to avert the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and another US military intervention in the Muslim world.
The accord will keep Iran from producing enough material for a nuclear weapon for at least 10 years and impose new provisions for inspections of Iranian facilities, including military sites.
The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was reached after more than two weeks of furious diplomacy, during which negotiators blew through three self-imposed deadlines.
Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry, who conducted most of the negotiations, both threatened to walk away while trading accusations of intransigence.
- Breakthrough came after several key compromisesDiplomats said Iran agreed to the continuation of a UN arms embargo on the country for up to five more years, though it could end earlier if the International Atomic Energy Agency definitively clears Iran of any current work on nuclear weapons. A similar condition was put on UN restrictions on the transfer of ballistic missile technology to Tehran, which could last for up to eight more years…….
- Another significant agreement will allow UN inspectors to press for visits to Iranian military sites as part of their monitoring duties, something the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had long vowed to oppose………http://www.news.com.au/world/iran-nuclear-agreement-powerful-diplomats-reach-a-deal/story-fndir2ev-1227442050742
Residents unhappy with inadequate radiation decontamination in city of Date, Fukushima
伊達市- みんなの声 Voices of the Residents in Date, Fukushima, Evacuate Fukushima, Jul 13, 2015Nelson Surjo 子どもの未来を守る会inだて kodomonomiraiwomamorukai by Kurumi Sugita Nos Voisins Lointains 311
The City of Date has divided its territory into three zones to program decontamination work: Zone A where the measurement of ambient radioactivity exceeds 20 mSv/yr, the area adjacent to the B zone A and zone C where radioactivity does not exceed 5 mSv/yr.
In zone C, instead of decontaminating entire areas, the municipality only cleans hot spots that exceed 3μSv/h measured at 1cm off the ground. For example, if a measurement exceeds this limit on a rooftop, it won’t be decontaminated.
During the election campaign of January 2014, the incumbent Mayor Shôji NISHIDA promised to work on decontaminating the entire specified C areas. However, since his re-election, he did not fulfill his promise.
Frustrated by the lack of response from the mayor on their repeated requests for him to fulfill his promise, some residents of Date city gathered to found the “Association to Protect the Future of Children in the Date city” (Kodomo no Mirai wo kai mamoru in Date). They began installing flags and signs across town, calling for effective decontamination work. The association brings together their voices and publish on their website and Facebook page.
The following is a sample of these voices trying to pierce the ongoing deafening silence.
みんなの声 Voices of the Residents………. http://www.evacuate-fukushima.com/2015/07/voices-residents-date-fukushima/
Confusing that Republicans support uneconomic thorium nuclear reactors
Why GOP support for subsidized nuclear energy is confounding Bangor Daily News, By Peter Bradford, July 11, 2015,
Two unusual bills promoting nuclear power were introduced in the Maine Legislature this session. One, from Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, would have fast tracked Maine’s path to a reactor using thorium to create a uranium isotope different from those that fuel nearly all of today’s power reactors. The other, from the office of Gov. Paul LePage, would have exempted “small modular reactors” from the referendum process Maine requires for other nuclear power plants.
Neither bill passed as proposed.
Still, what on earth is going on here? No license applications for these designs have ever been filed at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. No one knows what they would cost or how reliably they would operate.
New, conventional reactors being built at customer expense in South Carolina and Georgia will have to charge well over twice the prevailing and projected market price of electricity in New England. No private company wants to build or finance a reactor under anything resembling New England power market rules. Large subsidies will be essential to the development of new reactors, including thorium and small modular reactors.
When it comes to much smaller subsidies for solar energy, LePage has vetoed legislation that would have added a surcharge amounting to less than one-tenth of a percent to Maine electric bills. He asserted that the legislation “unilaterally selects solar above other solutions that have proven to be more cost effective.” He is equally dismissive of support for wind energy or energy efficiency.
What is it about taxpayer subsidy and big government cronyism that pose such an irresistible attraction for conservatives only when directed to nuclear power? Like a reverend preaching temperance from a barstool, LePage vetoes and disparages government support for proven technologies while embracing an unproven and subsidy-addicted reactor technology as a solution to Maine’s electricity needs.
Subsidies for today’s reactors pale beside past nuclear largesse. Reactors — including thorium reactors — and nuclear fuel enrichment facilities were invented in government laboratories and given to private industry in combination with massive incentives to build power plants. The federal government made unique commitments to own and dispose of the waste fuel while limiting liability for serious accidents. States were preempted from any safety judgements about nuclear power. When electric industry restructuring threatened nuclear profitability in the 1990s, a multibillion-dollar surcharge was added to customer electric bills to cushion the impact on investors. A Congressional Research Service Report estimates that half of all federal energy expenditures on energy research and development have gone to nuclear power………….
given Maine’s experience with past nuclear mirages, the state should not anoint any single technology without an even-handed evaluation of the alternatives.
Peter Bradford chaired the Maine and New York utility regulatory commissions and was a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He is an adjunct professor at Vermont Law School. http://bangordailynews.com/2015/07/11/the-point/why-gop-support-for-subsidized-nuclear-energy-is-confounding/
12 miles from Fukushima’s shattered nuclear reactors, World’s Largest Offshore Wind Turbine gives hope
World’s Largest Offshore Wind Turbine Comes Online Near Fukushima Daiichi -bureau EnviroNews World News by Emerson Urry on June 28, 2015 – http://environews.tv/world-news/worlds-largest-offshore-wind-turbine-comes-online-near-fukushima-daiichi/ Fukushima Prefecture, Japan — A mere 12 miles from the full-blown triple nuclear reactor “melt-through” at Fukushima Daiichi on the eastern coast of Japan, sits a bafflingly huge, 620-foot-tall, 1,500-ton bladed beast — floating on a 5,000 ton platform in the water. The world’s largest floating wind turbine has three 270 foot long blades, can withstand 200 mile-per-hour winds, and will be able to generate “up to 7 megawatts of electricity,” making it the biggest offshore wind turbine on earth, according to Gizmodo, a popular science and technology blog.
Additionally, the downright lies and coverup perpetrated by both TEPCO and the Japanese Government surrounding the Fukushima crisis, have left a bad taste in the mouth of the population, leaving trust in the government at an all time low. Perhaps more government-backed, non-lethal energy innovations like the one just activated in Fukushima can start to rebuild the people’s trust in the government. Time will tell. – http://environews.tv/world-news/worlds-largest-offshore-wind-turbine-comes-online-near-fukushima-daiichi
Surprising countries where solar and wind are booming.
Renewable energy is taking off in both wealthy and developing economies.
Across the globe, renewable energy is expanding faster than fossil fuels. It’s even taking off in countries that may surprise you.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/07/150714-surprising-countries-leading-way-solar-wind/ &http://www.dailyclimate.org/t/7717466609608186573
Nuclear deal in South Africa – briefing reveals nothing much about this multi-trillion Rand nuclear project.
South Africa: Nuclear Deal Briefing Offers No Answers, Just Tired Rhetoric http://allafrica.com/stories/201507141432.html By Gordon Mackay, democratic Allianc, Capetown, 15 July 15
The DA notes that today’s media briefing by the Energy Department (DoE) and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) on a so-called “status update” on the Nuclear New Build Programme contained no new answers to pressing questions on a multi-trillion Rand nuclear project.
While this briefing was a perfect opportunity for government to dispel widely held public opinion that South Africa’s largest-ever procurement deal is tainted with secrecy and unfolding behind closed doors, today saw nothing more than restatements of the same old rhetoric with nothing new to add.
That being said, it was plainly put that the State cannot divulge how much has been budgeted for this programme, nor can it disclose the exact cost of the anticipated programme.
The DA believes that any action taken by government ought to be conducted in an honest and transparent manner. Until all vital information regarding the nuclear deal is disclosed, we cannot be assured of this.
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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