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France quadruples carbon price, will move towards renewable energy

France Passes New Energy Law Quadruples Carbon Price, Bloomberg by  23 July 15, French lawmakers adopted a long-delayed energy law that will reduce the country’s reliance on nuclear reactors and raise carbon prices almost fourfold.

Lawmakers late Wednesday passed legislation that included a last-minute amendment initially rejected by the government to increase the target price of carbon to 56 euros ($61.48) a ton in 2020 and 100 euros a ton in 2030, according to the National Assemblywebsite. The rate, now 14.50 euros a ton, climbs to 22 euros a ton in 2016 and is integrated in a levy on fossil fuels.

The rise provides “visibility” to the business community on how carbon prices will evolve, Environment Minister Segolene Royal said. Higher taxes on fossil fuels will be offset by lower levies on other products, she also said.

 The new energy transition law, passed by a show of hands with no count to be published, reflects a campaign pledge three years ago by President Francois Hollande to cut France’s nuclear-energy reliance in favor of renewables………http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-23/france-passes-new-energy-law-quadruples-carbon-price

July 25, 2015 Posted by | France, politics | Leave a comment

France’s nuclear corporation AREVA going down the financial gurgler

As Areva Goes Belly Up, Modi’s French Nuclear Plans May Start Unravelling, DiaNuke.org, 24 July 15 “………..The signs of Areva’s irreparable decline if not imminent death have been on the horizon these past years. With its single product catalogue, Areva has struggled to complete two identical EPR reactors, the first at Olkiluoto for TVO in Finland (still not operational despite a nine-year delay and a trebling of costs) and the second in Flamanville, France, plagued by equally serious construction and security flaws, delays and outrageous cost over-runs. …….

Areva bankrupt

Reactor woes continue

The estimated price of the reactor continues to go up and up – it has nearly trebled from 3.3 billion euros eight years ago to around 9 billion euros at current estimates and could go higher if the EPR’s technical problems persist. The company has run up a deficit estimated at 4.8 billion euros for a turnover of 8.3 billion. Its recapitalisation requirements stand at 7 billion euros. The French government has stepped in to impose draconian solutions on the company that will see its design, construction and operations arm hacked off and handed over to its arch enemy, EDF. When the negotiations with EDF are completed – the haggling over price is currently underway – Areva, a company that has built and operated some 64 nuclear reactors will be reduced to a dwarf.

The French nuclear security watchdog, ASN, has issued a number of severe warnings to Areva on major security issues and manufacturing and construction flaws in the reactor being built in Flamanville, France, one of four EPRs under construction in the world. One of the latest warnings concerns the weakness of the reinforced steel core at the heart of the reactor where nuclear fission takes place. French papers have described fissures in the reactor’s innermost core as measuring as much as 42 centimetres. If the ASN’s suspicions about the poor quality of the forging done by Areva are proved right (the final test results will be available in October), the reactor dome will have to be removed. This can only mean one thing: the total abandonment of the EPR in France. A decision is not expected until 2016.

Several reports published in France on the woes of the EPR describe it as a product of “French technological hubris”. It is a gigantic reactor that looks good on paper. But as the adage goes, the proof of the pudding lies in the eating and India did not wait long enough to see the reactor’s performance before rushing in to buy an untried product.

“The EPR reactor whose problems are at the heart of the current crisis is an expensive failure,” writes energy analyst Nick Butler. “It has to be written off and replaced by a new generation of smaller, less complex reactors that can be built on time and on budget. The EPR was designed at a time when it was believed that energy costs would rise inexorably. That is no longer the case.”…………There is also the question of Areva’s massive debt.

Uncertain future

The Finnish nuclear operator TVO is suing Areva for billions of dollars for the delays, cost over-runs (estimated at 7 billion euros instead of the 3.3 billion originally projected) and technical flaws related to the EPR in Olkiluoto. The failure of the Finnish EPR has contributed vastly to Areva’s troubles.

Once hailed as the harbinger of a nuclear renaissance, the EPR is fast becoming one of the world’s most criticised and by far the most expensive nuclear white elephants. In France work began in 2007 and the reactor was to have gone on stream in 2012. This date has now been pushed forward to 2017 at three times the initial cost.

Leaving aside the problems linked to cost, safety and technological know-how, it is at this stage totally unclear if EDF would like to pursue the EPR programme at all. Last year the European Commission gave the go ahead for building another EPR reactor at Hinkley Point in Britain. But British authorities, which were to have signed in March 2015, now appear reluctant to go ahead. The Financial Times reported that the project might be completely abandoned. In the US, plans to build the EPR have currently been suspended. as World Nuclear News reported in March, Areva “has asked the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to suspend work on the design certification of the US EPR until further notice, prompting Unistar Nuclear Energy to request the suspension of the review of its construction and operation licence (COL) application for Calvert Cliffs 3.” http://www.dianuke.org/why-is-india-bent-on-joining-the-sinking-french-nuclear-ship/

July 25, 2015 Posted by | business and costs, France, Reference | Leave a comment

Safety concerns about the San Onofre site as a long-term waste-storage site

san-onofre-deadfNuke storage by the sea http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2015/jul/21/ticker-nuke-storage-plan-san-onofre/#   Aguirre equates Southern California Edison to “drunken frat boys” By July 21, 2015 Concerns over nuclear waste generated by the now-defunct San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station expressed by environmental activists for years took another turn in the spotlight on Monday (July 20), as local activist attorney Mike Aguirre called attention to what he terms “SCUD,” or Southern California Uranium Dump.

Today, July 21, county supervisors are considering a $1.6 million agreement with San Onofre operator Southern California Edison to provide offsite emergency planning in the event of an on-site catastrophe. The specter for such an event looms as long as spent nuclear fuel, which remains highly volatile for millions of years, remains stored at the former power-generating facility.

Concerns about the San Onofre site as a long-term waste-storage site include several nearby earthquake faults. Experts have called for the fuel to be stored in dry casks after an initial five years’ cooling-off period in open pools of water, which Edison officials say they’ll do. Still, the casks are only expected to safely contain radioactive waste for about 25 years, though no long-term waste-storage facility exists and, even if one were cleared for construction immediately, it could be decades before waste is ready to leave the seaside locale near a public beach and within a potential evacuation zone that could displace millions of residents in a worst-case scenario.

“It is ludicrous that the same company that created the disaster by skirting safety rules is now responsible for the cleanup,” decried Aguirre in a release Monday afternoon. “They have behaved like drunken frat boys, leaving a mess on the beach for the adults to clean up. Can we really trust them to do it properly?”

July 25, 2015 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

There are still about 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Terrorists only need to steal one

70 years after Hiroshima, nuclear weapons threaten us all, http://www.theguardian.com/news/defence-and-security-blog/2015/jul/23/70-years-after-hiroshima-nuclear-weapons-threaten-us-all       Nuclear weapons are an austerity-free zone Nearly 70 years ago, on 6 August 1945, the US dropped “Little Boy”, the first nuclear weapon used in warfare, on Hiroshima.

“Two thirds of the buildings in the city were destroyed and perhaps 80,000 civilians were killed”, observes Eric Schlosser, in Gods of Metal, a frightening yet moving account of how three Catholic pacifists, including an 82 year-old nun, broke into Y12, a top security nuclear weapons base in Tennessee, known as the Fort Knox of Uranium, where material used in the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was processed.

“The amount of weapons-grade uranium needed to build a terrorist bomb with a similar explosive force”, Schlosser adds in his extremely timely short book, “could fit inside a small gym bag”.

Though there are treaties banning biological and chemical weapons, cluster bombs, and landmines, there is no such ban on nuclear weapons, even though their use would breach international agreements, not least the Geneva Conventions.

70 years after Hiroshima, despite all the rhetoric and genuflection (and negotiations with Iran) moves towards global nuclear disarmament are further away than ever. Continue reading

July 25, 2015 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

The world faces many nuclear threats: these are the top 5

#TalkAboutIt: Top five nuclear threats the world faces, ABC News, 25 July 15  TalkAboutIt

By Steven Viney and Stephanie Juleff The fear of a nuclear war has decreased dramatically over the past 25 years since the end of the Cold War.

But several events — including 2011’s Fukushima meltdown, Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Islamic State’s pledge to obtain a nuclear weapon in 2015, and the recent Iran deal — have brought the nuclear-related threat back into public consciousness.

The diversity and unpredictability of these events only emphasise that the line between an intentional nuclear disaster and an atomic accident is blurry.

But is there still a real nuclear threat in 2015?

Here are five major modern-day nuclear threats according to the experts.

State vs state nuclear war (intentional)…….

State vs state nuclear war (unintentional)…

Nuclear terrorism……

Nuclear meltdown……

Nuclear waste storage……. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-24/talkaboutit-top-five-nuclear-threats-the-world-faces-2015/6646030

July 25, 2015 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Congo’s forgotten uranium mine

In Congo, silence surrounds forgotten mine that fuelled first atom bombs, Aljazeera America 
The US sourced uranium for the weapons used on Japan from Shinkolobwe; though the site is closed, locals mine illegally
 July 23, 2015 by Tom Zoellner One of the manifest ironies of the nuclear age is just how primitive it all is. A complicated war was brought to an end within a week by a pair of indiscriminate hammer blows. The logic behind the next 45 years of Cold War military strategy — hit us and we both die — was as simplistic as it was problematic. And driving everything was a bomb fashioned out of dirt.

A particular kind of dirt, of course, and one that required a lavish industrial process before it could be made into a fissile device. That dirt is uranium, and it lies all around the world in abundant quantities. A place where it was concentrated to levels of freakish purity is now just a curious footnote of the nuclear age, but at one time, it was treated with intense secrecy.

Shinkolobwe was a small settlement in the Katanga province of what was then the Belgian Congo……….

The mine produced uranium for U.S. nuclear weapons until 1960, when enough uranium mines had opened up in the American Southwest to meet the nuclear hunger, and Shinkolobwe was closed. The Belgians poured concrete down the mineshaft and closed off the pit.

I visited Shinkolobwe in 2007, 120 miles from the city of Lubumbashi over disintegrating roads through the rain forest. A permit to go there cost $80, payable to a member of the presidential staff. We had to walk the last several kilometers until we reached a decrepit fence overgrown with vines.

Sharp’s hill had given way to an immense pit, which had been chewed over for decades by local freelance miners. The mineshaft the Belgians built and then filled with concrete had been dug away to a depth of about 100 feet and fallen over. The scene was disquietingly peaceful. Though we had been told it was heavily guarded, no soldiers or police were there to challenge us.

The birthplace of the Bomb has been forgotten by the outside world but not by everyone. Teams of Congolese miners kept slipping inside the old pit to dig out residual supplies of copper and cobalt, which they sell on the black market. There have been persistent rumors — and some occasional instances — of local businessmen selling uranium to outside parties. There is also evidence that some of the Shinkolobwe uranium has found its way into Iranian centrifuges, though this remains publicly unconfirmed by Western intelligence agencies…….http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/7/23/in-congo-silence-surrounds-forgotten-mine-that-fueled-first-atomic-bombs.html

July 25, 2015 Posted by | AFRICA, climate change | Leave a comment

Control of electricity at the local level, with batteries for renewable energy

In the end, the solution might lie on a smaller scale: giving everyone the power to store their own power. Tesla is one company of several in this game: it recently announced a device called the Powerwall, designed for homes and businesses. It uses the same batteries as electric cars to store energy, either from renewables or cheap night-time electricity, ready to be used during the day.

If such systems become commonplace, we might all become a little more aware of where our energy is coming from, and how our own behaviour affects its use and production

batteries Terence Eduarte

The battery revolution that will let us all be power brokers, New Scientist 22 July 15 
Companies are racing to find better ways to store electricity – and so provide us with cheaper energy when and where we want it “……..
. Although they are still dwarfed in most respects by the bulky lead-acid batteries found in almost every car on the road today, in 2015, lithium-ion batteries will account for around a third of the money spent on rechargeable batteries globally (see “Turn it on”), and just under a sixth of the total energy stored, according to French research firm Avicenne.

At the same time, their performance has improved immensely: design tweaks have tripled the energy stored in a given volume since the technology was commercialised in 1991. Success has bred success, and lithium-ion batteries have found new and bigger applications, such as electric vehicles (see “Powered by Lithium”). For example, the Model S electric car designed by Tesla Motors, a company owned by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk, is powered by thousands of small lithium-ion batteries arrayed between the car’s axles. It can go from zero to 95 kilometres an hour in 3.1 seconds, and can travel about 430 kilometres on a single charge, although charging it can take many hours.
Tesla has no plans to stop there. Lithium-ion batteries are so important to the company that it has taken manufacturing into its own hands, building a “Gigafactory” just outside Reno, Nevada. By 2020, the company plans to produce as many lithium-ion batteries annually as the entire world produced in 2013 – enough for a fleet of 500,000 electric cars – and with a 30 per cent reduction in production cost per battery………

Continue reading

July 25, 2015 Posted by | business and costs, decentralised, energy storage, Reference | Leave a comment

Fukushima will likely go down in history as the biggest cover-up of the 21st Century

see-no-evilCover-up: Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown a Time Bomb Which Cannot be Defused, duanetilden, 21 July 15Four years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster which has caused incredible an ongoing destruction, in the meantime authorities have tried to cover up the serious consequences. Sourced through Scoop.it from: oilprice.com

>” […] Fukushima will likely go down in history as the biggest cover-up of the 21st Century. Governments and corporations are not leveling with citizens about the risks and dangers; similarly, truth itself, as an ethical standard, is at risk of going to shambles as the glue that holds together the trust and belief in society’s institutions. Ultimately, this is an example of how societies fail.

Tens of thousands of Fukushima residents remain in temporary housing more than four years after the horrific disaster of March 2011. Some areas on the outskirts of Fukushima have officially reopened to former residents, but many of those former residents are reluctant to return home because of widespread distrust of government claims that it is okay and safe. […]

According to Japan Times as of March 11, 2015: “There have been quite a few accidents and problems at the Fukushima plant in the past year, and we need to face the reality that they are causing anxiety and anger among people in Fukushima, as explained by Shunichi Tanaka at the Nuclear Regulation Authority. Furthermore, Mr. Tanaka said, there are numerous risks that could cause various accidents and problems.”

Even more ominously, Seiichi Mizuno, a former member of Japan’s House of Councillors (Upper House of Parliament, 1995-2001) in March 2015 said: “The biggest problem is the melt-through of reactor cores… We have groundwater contamination… The idea that the contaminated water is somehow blocked in the harbor is especially absurd. It is leaking directly into the ocean. There’s evidence of more than 40 known hotspot areas where extremely contaminated water is flowing directly into the ocean… We face huge problems with no prospect of solution.”……..

Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press (AP), June 12, 2015: “Four years after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, the road ahead remains riddled with unknowns… Experts have yet to pinpoint the exact location of the melted fuel inside the three reactors and study it, and still need to develop robots capable of working safely in such highly radioactive conditions. And then there’s the question of what to do with the waste… serious doubts about whether the cleanup can be completed within 40 years.” […]

According to the Smithsonian, April 30, 2015: “Birds Are in a Tailspin Four Years After Fukushima: Bird species are in sharp decline, and it is getting worse over time… Where it’s much, much hotter, it’s dead silent. You’ll see one or two birds if you’re lucky.” Developmental abnormalities of birds include cataracts, tumors, and asymmetries. Birds are spotted with strange white patches on their feathers.

Maya Moore, a former NHK news anchor, authored a book about the disaster:The Rose Garden of Fukushima (Tankobon, 2014), about the roses of Mr. Katsuhide Okada. Today, the garden has perished: “It’s just poisoned wasteland. The last time Mr. Okada actually went back there, he found baby crows that could not fly, that were blind. Mutations have begun with animals, with birds.” […] “< http://duanetilden.com/2015/07/22/cover-up-fukushima-nuclear-meltdown-a-time-bomb-which-cannot-be-defused/

 

July 25, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Stephen Harper, Canada’s PM blocking action on climate change

flag-canadaclimate-posterCanada’s PM blocking climate reform, says Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne, Guardian,  , 21 July 15  Leader of country’s biggest province condemns Stephen Harper ahead of elections: ‘There isn’t a collaborative process around any of this’ The leader of Canada’s biggest province has escalated her feud with the country’s prime minister, accusing Stephen Harper of obstructing efforts to fight climate change and calling on Canadians to make global warming a decisive issue in the coming elections.

In an interview with the Guardian, Kathleen Wynne, the Liberal premier of Ontario, brought long-simmering tensions with Harper over energy and economic policy to a rollicking boil, repeatedly calling out the Conservative prime minister for blocking efforts to cut carbon pollution.

When it came to fighting climate change, Harper was an obstruction rather than a help, she said……….

Wynne called on Canadians to vote on climate change in the October elections. “I hope that climate change and taking action on climate change is an election issue,” she said.

As premier, Wynne has championed the efforts of Ontario and other provinces to deal with climate change. Last week’s meeting of 22 states, provinces and territories called for setting a price on carbon.

Ontario won positive attention when it phased out the use of coal in its power plants last year.

But the environmental commissioner said on 7 July that theprovince would have to do much more to meet its 2020 target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Wynne’s advisers said she hoped to cut carbon pollution from transport by investing in public transit and easing congestion.

Climate change looms even larger over Harper, who faces increasing criticism at home and abroad tying Canada’s economic future to the development of the tar sands.

At international climate conferences, the Harper government now is routinely handed out mock “fossil” awards for its failure to deal with climate change. Campaigners have accused Harper of treading on the rights of government scientists……..

Wynne said Canada should have put forward a more ambitious climate pledge ahead of the UN negotiations in Paris.

Canada will not meet its 2020 target for cutting emissions because of the tar sands, and it has retreated still further from those earlier promises in its pledge ahead of the Paris climate talks……..http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/21/canada-climate-change-kathleen-wynne-stephen-harper-ontario

July 25, 2015 Posted by | Canada, climate change, politics | Leave a comment

US Military Industrial companies benefit greatly from aggravating US-Russian tensions

military-industrial-complexNuclear Buildup in EU: Who Benefits From Aggravating US-Russian Tensions? Sputnik News, 23 July 15 While beefing up NATO’s military presence in Europe Washington should refrain from deploying more US nuclear weapons in EU countries, senior fellow of the Brookings Institution Steven Pifer said.
ccording to Steven Pifer, a senior fellow and director of the Arms Control Initiative at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., the Pentagon is currently considering re-deployment of US nuclear weapons in Europe in order to counterbalance Russia’s “threat.”However, the expert considers such a move “not a good response,” claiming that it would be both useless and risky. According to Pifer, NATO should “maintain its lead in numbers of key conventional weapons” in Europe……….

what forces are playing the first fiddle in Washington, urging the White House to drag the country into new overseas conflicts and increase its military spending?  US investigative journalist Robert Parry is pointing the finger at US neocons, who “still dominate Official Washington’s inside-outside game.” The journalist underscored that wars have long become a profitable business for transnational corporations and their influential lobbyists in the White House.

“So, to understand the enduring influence of the neocons… you have to appreciate the money connections between the business of war and the business of selling war,” Parry remarked.

These wars cost trillions and trillions of dollars and multinational corporations including the US military-industrial complex benefit a lot from them. ……..: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150723/1024969193.html#ixzz3gkc7anUQ

July 25, 2015 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Jon Stewart demolishes US Republicans’ opposition to Iran nuclear deal

Jon Stewart Skewers GOP Over Iran Nuclear Deal Complaints (includes video) 

“Basically, you’re treating this critical international accord like some kind of bizarro iTunes user agreement.”

News Editor, The Huffington Post 23 July 15 “……..The Obama administration sent the nuclear agreement to Congress on Sunday, and as Stewart noted, many Republicans expressed their extreme unhappiness with it. Some, like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) even called it a “historically bad” deal.

But is it as awful as they claim?

Stewart skewered Graham and others for baselessly criticizing the agreement, and for not offering any viable alternatives despite their grousing.

“You didn’t even read the deal?” Stewart said of Graham, who admitted to not having read the agreement. “Basically, you’re treating this critical international accord like some kind of bizarro iTunes user agreement. Blah, blah, blah, blah, just skip all the details.”

Watch the video above to see if Stewart was really able to keep mum about Trump throughout the whole segment. The comedian also offers details of an alternative deal with Iran. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jon-stewart-gop-iran-nuclear-deal_55b0a51fe4b08f57d5d3b1d5

July 25, 2015 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Effects of Fukushima radiation on pale grass blue butterfly

The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue butterfly / 福島原子力発電所事故のヤマトシジミへの生物学的影響 http://csrp.jp/posts/654

Atsuki Hiyama, Chiyo Nohara, Seira Kinjo, Wataru Taira, Shinichi Gima, Akira Tanahara & Joji M. Otaki
AffiliationsContributionsCorresponding author
Scientific Reports 2, Article number: 570 doi:10.1038/srep00570
Received 06 June 2012 Accepted 24 July 2012 Published 09 August 2012 Updated online 06 August 2013
Corrigendum (August, 2013)

The collapse of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant caused a massive release of radioactive materials to the environment. A prompt and reliable system for evaluating the biological impacts of this accident on animals has not been available. Here we show that the accident caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha, a common lycaenid butterfly in Japan. We collected the first-voltine adults in the Fukushima area in May 2011, some of which showed relatively mild abnormalities. The F1 offspring from the first-voltine females showed more severe abnormalities, which were inherited by the F2 generation. Adult butterflies collected in September 2011 showed more severe abnormalities than those collected in May. Similar abnormalities were experimentally reproduced in individuals from a non-contaminated area by external and internal low-dose exposures. We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120809/srep00570/full/srep00570.html
Hiyama A, Nohara C, Kinjo S, Taira W, Gima S, Tanahara A, Otaki JM. (2012)
The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue
butterfly. Scientific Reports 2: 570. DOI: 10.1038/srep00570
Published on 9 August 2012


要旨

福島第一原子力発電所の崩壊は環境への放射性物質の大規模な放出を引き起こした。この事故の動物への生物学的影響を評価する迅速で信頼に足る実験系は現在のところ報告されていない。我々はここに、この事故が日本で普通に見られる鱗翅目シジミチョウ科ヤマトシジミへの生理的・遺伝的損傷の原因となっていることを示した。第一化の成虫を福島地域で 2011 年 5 月に採集したところ、そのうちいくつかは比較的軽度の異常を示した。第一化の雌から産まれた F1 には親世代より高い異常が観察された。この異常は次世代 F2 に遺伝した。2011 年 9 月に採集した成虫の蝶には 5 月に採集されたものに比べ、より過酷な異常が観察された。同様の異常は、非汚染地域の個体において、外部および内部の低線量被曝により、実験的に再現された。我々は、福島原子力発電所由来の人工放射性核種がこの生物種に生理的・遺伝的損傷を引き起こしたと結論する。

http://w3.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/bcphunit/Hiyama_et_al_2012_verJP.pdf

July 25, 2015 Posted by | environment, Japan, Reference | Leave a comment

Fukushima baby milk formula seized in central China

24-1437744781-japan

Beijing, Jul 24: Border quarantine authorities in central China’s Hunan Province have seized more than 400 kg of baby milk formula produced in areas close to the site of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant.
Although no excessive radioactive material was found in the formula, it was still sent back to Japan as China has banned imports of food and agricultural products from regions affected by the nuclear leak, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
 The quarantine authorities said today that they found the milk formula in parcels mailed to Hunan between July 1 and July 20. This was the province’s biggest seizure of banned Japanese food.

Source: OneIndia
 http://www.oneindia.com/international/fukushima-baby-milk-formula-seized-in-central-china-1816627.html

July 24, 2015 Posted by | China | | 6 Comments

Fukushima cattle producer’s beef with TEPCO, government leads to lawsuit

hkklKazuo Ueno points to a large pile of manure on his ranch in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 14.

KORIYAMA, Fukushima Prefecture–A local cattle producer has sued Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the government to recover 500 million yen ($4 million) in losses it says it suffered as a result of the 2011 nuclear disaster.
In the suit filed with the Koriyama branch of the Fukushima District Court on July 16, the plaintiff, Ueno Bokujo, cited a drop in beef cattle prices. It also contends that it has been forced to spend more on the disposal of manure produced by its herds due to declining sales following the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The company, which raises nearly 2,900 heads of cattle on its ranches in Koriyama and Tamura, is one of the largest such producers in Fukushima Prefecture.
Ueno Bokujo says TEPCO has failed to pay it the 200 million yen that it says it lost due to a drop in beef cattle prices in fiscal 2014.
According to an arrangement made after the accident, TEPCO was to compensate farmers for losses incurred if they made a claim.
The cattle producer estimates it will cost 2 billion yen to dispose of the 17,000 tons of manure that have accumulated on its farms.
The suit is the first to seek compensation for lost sales of compost, according to the Fukushima Prefectural Central Union Agricultural Cooperatives.
“We will respond sincerely after listening carefully to what the plaintiff has to say in court,” a TEPCO official said.
A government official declined to comment, saying a written complaint has not yet been delivered.
Source : Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201507240084

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Increasing low dose ionising radiation increases cancer risk in a linear way with no safe level

text ionisingThe prestigious Biological Effects of Ionising Radiatioan (BEIR) Report VII states: ‘A comprehensive review of available biological and biophysical data supports a “linear-no-threshold” (LNT) risk model—that the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and that the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans’ – http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/beir_vii_final.pdf

The BEIR report is based on huge epidemiological studies, especially on survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing.

By contrast, the USA Department of Energy has been funding poxy little studies such as one at Flinders University, South quackAustralia, on a small number of mice – to try to prove this quack science “hormesis” idea. http://antinuclear.net/2012/09/03/flinders-university-participates-in-usa-department-of-energys-pro-nuclear-propaganda/

July 24, 2015 Posted by | Christina's notes, radiation | Leave a comment