UK government trashing environmnental policies, promoting nuclear power and fracked gas
[The new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Amber Rudd,] will try to meet the UK’s carbon reduction commitments with nuclear power and fracked gas.
(Of course, this is the same Amber Rudd who said that if nuclear reactors were just prettier, everyone would like them. ed.)
commentators from industry, politics and the financial sector have been lining up to condemn the Government’s plans to subsidize the first new reactors proposed at Hinkley.
What is happening in the UK? The new government makes a sharp move away from clean energy in favor of costly polluting sources. Greenworld, 14 Aug 15 The headlines flash daily about major changes in energy policy in the UK; none of them good news. The slashing of support for solar, energy efficiency and other clean energy programs and at the same time an apparent intent to spend absolutely mind-blowing amounts of money on new, untried, and highly risky nuclear power reactors. From the point of view of an America where, haltingly but steadily, clean energy is gaining a true foothold and is moving ahead, it seems incomprehensible that our closest ally would move in the opposite direction of most of the world’s industrial economies. Could that really be true?
So we asked veteran UK activist Pete Roche to explain what is happening in the UK. And no, the news really is not good.
David Cameron’s Conservative Government has now been in power in the UK, without the constraining influence of the Liberal Democrats, for 100 days. From the point-of-view of the environment his new government has been an unmitigated disaster; marked by a sharp embrace of dirty energy sources in a fashion most advanced nations, even including the U.S., are stepping away from.
From the moment the new Government was elected it set about burning the green policies of the previous coalition government. Subsidies for new onshore wind farms, paid for through consumers’ bills, are to end from April next year as are subsidies for solar farms. There will be a review of the feed-in tariff threatening subsidies for solar panels on domestic and commercial roof tops. And other proposed changes will make it much harder for community renewable projects to obtain finance.
The Government has also killed off the Green Deal scheme which provided loans to households for energy efficiency improvements. The scheme was a damp squib but what’s striking is there are no proposals to replace it. And a decade-long plan to force all new homes to be ‘zero carbon’ from 2016 has been dumped. On top of all this the exemption for renewables from the Climate Change Levy–a kind of carbon tax–has been removed, effectively imposing cuts to the income of renewable projects already up and running retrospectively.
The new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Amber Rudd, told Members of Parliament (MPs) that carbon reduction targets are a bigger priority than meeting renewable energy targets, signalling that she is prepared to miss the UK’s European Union Renewable Target of meeting 15% of our energy needs (not just electricity) from renewable sources by 2020. Continue reading
Nuclear plant Vogtle – another cost increase approved – now up to $2.97 billion
Georgia energy regulators approve 12th Plant Vogtle construction update http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/capitol_vision/2015/08/georgia-energy-regulators-approve-12th-plant.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202015-08-19%20Utility%20Dive%20Newsletter&utm_term=Utility%20Dive
Commissioners voted unanimously to approve $169 million the utility reported spending on the project during the last half of last year. That brings Georgia Power’s cumulative construction and capital costs to date to $2.97 billion.
In approving the 12th semi-annual update Georgia Power has submitted to the PSC since the construction of two additional nuclear reactors at the plant south of Augusta, Ga., was authorized in 2009, the commission rejected requests from environmental and consumer advocacy groups concerned that a 39-month delay in the project’s scheduled completion is driving up customer costs.
Commissioner Stan Wise argued Atlanta-based Georgia Watch’s request that the PSC consider the costs of achieving the same additional electric generating capacity with wind and solar projects as an alternative to nuclear expansion was inappropriate.
“It’s not going to change anything we do at Vogtle,” he said. “Wind and solar are going to run their own course, like any product does.”
The commission voted in 2013 to postpone consideration of who should pay for cost overruns at Plant Vogtle – Georgia Power’s shareholders or its customers – until after the first of the two new nuclear reactors goes into service. Under a revised timetable Georgia Power submitted last winter, that won’t come until 2019.
South Carolina court blasts state’s environmental protection agency over poor oversight of leaking nuclear waste dump
For the second year in a row, the S.C. Court of Appeals has ripped the state’s environmental protection agency for failing to properly oversee a leak-prone nuclear waste dump in Barnwell County.
But this time, the appeals court isn’t telling regulators when to resolve problems at the 44-year-old site.
In an Aug. 12 ruling that disappointed landfill critics, the court backed away from requiring a specific timetable to improve conditions at Chem-Nuclear’s dump near the Savannah River.
Last year, the appeals court ordered the Department of Health and Environmental Control and site operator Chem-Nuclear to develop a written plan for correcting problems within 90 days. Both then appealed for a rehearing, which delayed the 90-day requirement and ultimately resulted in last week’s decision.
Sierra Club lawyer Bob Guild said this year’s decision leaves DHEC — the agency that has failed to properly manage the site — the discretion to react to the court ruling at its own leisure.
“We have an agency that has been lawless for years in not enforcing its own regulations, and now, the court is giving it another open-ended opportunity to review itself,’’ Guild said. “That is unfortunate. We are going to monitor this very carefully.’
Guild’s group filed suit 10 years ago in an attempt to force tougher disposal practices at the unlined landfill, where radioactive tritium leaks first were detected in the 1970s. A plume of tritium extends downhill from the site and has for years trickled into a creek that flows toward the nearby Savannah River.
Sierra Club officials say DHEC has been lax in making Chem-Nuclear follow rules at the disposal site through the years.
The appeals court acknowledged problems, saying that DHEC “failed to enforce the law of South Carolina’’ in monitoring the 235-acre landfill outside the town of Snelling.
The court said DHEC, as the agency overseeing Chem-Nuclear’s activities, did not enforce a handful of specific regulations established to protect the environment. It also said Chem-Nuclear had failed to follow some of the rules on nuclear waste disposal. Except for the timetable, the court’s decision last week was similar to last year’s ruling that took DHEC and Chem-Nuclear to task.
“It is important that DHEC enforce its own regulations and require Chem-Nuclear to take action to comply with the technical requirements,’’ the ruling said in sending the matter back to DHEC for consideration……….
An array of critics, however, say tritium is still toxic and often is a forerunner of other, more dangerous pollutants that will one day wash into groundwater. Leaks were discovered within a decade of the Barnwell County site’s opening in 1971, despite initial assurances from state regulators.
The disposal site once took low-level nuclear waste from atomic power plants, hospitals and other places from across the country. Today, the landfill is open only to South Carolina, Connecticut and New Jersey, and waste volumes have dropped sharply. But the Sierra Club has pressed ahead with its 2005 lawsuit, saying better disposal practices will prevent tritium leaks from getting any worse.
One of the major concerns centers on rain that falls into open burial trenches. Environmentalists for years have pushed the state to require the placement of tents or roofs atop the burial trenches. That would cut down on the amount of rain that pours in, picks up radioactive pollutants from the waste and leaks through the bottom of the landfill and into groundwater, they say.
The court said Chem-Nuclear had done nothing to keep rain out of the burial pits, even though a state regulation says it is supposed to minimize movement of water in the pits. And the court said DHEC had not forced the company to comply with the rule intended to keep rain out of the pits — or acted to prevent rain from leaking through the bottom and into groundwater………http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article31585892.html
Japan’s highly dangerous plutonium stockpile
Japan’s plutonium stockpile worries Oxford specialist, Global Post, Xinhua News Agency Aug 17, 2015 NEW YORK, — The handling of Japan’s huge plutonium stockpile remains a challenge for the whole world, an Oxford environmental expert has warned.
When Japan marked the 70th anniversary of Nagasaki’s obliteration by a plutonium bomb on Aug. 9, its own cache of weapons-usable plutonium was more than 47 metric tons, enough to make nearly 6,000 warheads like the one that flattened the Japanese city, Dr. Peter Wynn Kirby of University of Oxford wrote in an op-ed on Monday’s New York Times……..
Japan’s 48 standard reactors burn uranium fuel, a process that yields plutonium, a highly radioactive and extremely toxic substance.
Although these reactors were shut down after the Fukushima tragedy, Japan still stores nearly 11 tons of plutonium on its territory, with the rest in Britain and France. Stockpiling plutonium in Japan remains hazardous given seismic instability in the country and the risk of theft by terrorists, warned Kirby…..
As a byproduct of burning uranium, plutonium itself can be processed in so-called fast-breeder reactors to produce more energy. That step also yields more plutonium, and so in theory this production chain is self-sustaining — a kind of virtuous nuclear-energy cycle, noted Kirby.
“In practice, however, fast-breeder technology has been extremely difficult to implement. It is notoriously faulty and astronomically expensive, and it creates more hazardous waste,” wrote Kirby.
Many other countries that experimented with fast-breeder reactors, including the United States, had phased them out by the 1990s. But Japan continued to invest heavily in the technology, noted Kirby.
While Japan’s record with nuclear waste is abysmal, no other country has found a safe or economically sustainable way to reuse such substances, especially not plutonium, he noted. Given Japan’s many vulnerabilities, particularly seismic activity, nuclear waste should no longer be stored in the country, he argued. “The Japanese government should pay its closest allies to take its plutonium away, permanently.”
Britain and France respectively holds 20 tons and 16 tons of Japan’s plutonium under contracts to reprocess it into usable fuel. Under current arrangements, this fuel, plus all byproducts, including plutonium, are to be sent back to Japan by 2020.
“Japan should pay, and generously, for that plutonium to stay where it is, in secure interim storage. And it should help fund the construction of secure permanent storage in Britain and France,” he said.
The Japanese government should also pay the United States to remove the nearly 11 tons of plutonium currently in Japan, he argued.
“Handling Japan’s plutonium would be a great burden for receiver countries, and Japan should pay heftily for the service. But even then the expense would likely amount to a fraction of what Japan spends on its ineffectual plutonium-energy infrastructure,” wrote the specialist.
Making Japan free of plutonium stockpile, thus preventing nuclear catastrophe as a result of earthquakes, would be in the whole world’s interest, he concluded.http://www.globalpost.com/article/6632161/2015/08/17/japans-plutonium-stockpile-worries-oxford-specialist
Swutzerland’s Beznau plants to be focus of legal action against nuclear inspectorate
After the disaster at Fukushima, Japan, in March 2011, the government demanded Axpo, the Beznau plant operator, and other nuclear companies to step up their safety margins to make sure they were adequately flood and earthquake-proof. ………
Four of the country’s five reactors are temporarily offline for different reasons. Since August 14 block 2 at the nuclear power plant Beznau in canton Aargau has been offline. It will be out of service for four months while maintenance is carried out. Among the planned tasks is the replacement of the reactor pressure vessel cover. Block 1 at the plant has been out of service since March due to irregularities in the pressure vessel. Weak spots were found in the 15cm steel covering of the vessel.
Nuclear power plants in Leibstadt and Mühleberg are also currently not producing any energy due to annual maintenance service.
After the Fukushima disaster, the Swiss government decided to decommission all five of Switzerland’s nuclear power plants, starting in 2019 and ending by 2034. However, no exact dates were given for the individual reactors to be shut down. http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/nuclear-power_nuclear-critics-threaten-legal-action-over-beznau-plant/41614406
Most churches support the Iran nuclear deal
American Churches and the Iran Nuclear Deal, Weekly Standard, AUG 20, 2015 • BY MARK TOOLEY Most church groups and prominent religious voices speaking to the Iran nuclear deal are supportive. Most notable among them is the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops. n April, Bishop Oscar Cantú of Las Cruces, who leads the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, wrote members of Congress to hail the accord as an “important step in advancing a peaceful resolution.” He quoted Pope Francis, who prayed that, “the framework…may be a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world.”………
In July, Bishop Cantú again wrote Congress to commend the “remarkable step with Iran in reaching this agreement” and urging Congress to “support these efforts to build bridges that foster peace and greater understanding.”
Liberal Evangelical activist Jim Wallis of Sojourners similarly hailed the accord for pursuing options that will “prevent further war with more dangerous weapons,” which is the “right course of action in a highly imperfect world.” He warned that “those who oppose deals like this often proclaim a binary world of simple good and evil, which we don’t have — and believing so is a dangerous illusion.”………https://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/american-churches-and-iran-nuclear-deal_1015151.html
Savannah River Site’s MOX project needs $800 million a year
Review: MOX needs $800M a year http://www.aikenstandard.com/article/20150820/AIK0101/150829974/1121
Earlier this year, the Department of Energy commissioned the Red Team, a group led by Thom Mason, the director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to evaluate cost projections and alternatives to the MOX method of plutonium disposition. The method includes the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at SRS.
The project is part of a nonproliferation agreement with Russia to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium.
“The Red Team concluded that if the MOX pathway is to be successful, then annual funding for the whole program would have to increase from the current $400 million per year to $700 to 800 million per year over the next 2-3 years, and then remain at $700 to $800 million until all 34 metric tons are dispositioned,” officials wrote.
The Aiken Standard will have more on the MOX review in Friday’s paper.
Sendai’s cooling tubes already leaking! But the pro #nuclear hubris goes on!
Japan Sendai Nuclear Restart — The Hubris Alone Is Killing Me, Let Alone the Volcano and Salt Water Leaks, Nuke Pro 21 Aug 15
I would drop a comment at the link, but I have been banned from Japan Times, so many TIMES that I can’t count. They have no interest in the truth.
————————————————————————————————————–
Kyushu Electric checked the water quality and confirmed an increase in salt content.
Each condenser has some 26,000 tubes inside that are used to pipe seawater around for cooling. Kyushu Electric suspects that holes have opened on such tubes, causing seawater to enter into the condenser. [diagram below by the author of this article]
And this is very dangerous way to think. Perhaps they have 2 sets of heat exchangers, so they can run at 50% whilst one set is completely shut down and worked on. Regardless, this is a stop gap measure, just like at San Onofre if some tubes are already going, there are many more right behind it. So these stories will slip out at the weeks go on.
Heat exchangers that can handle salt water are going to be stainless steel at least and ideally titanium. Industry has gotten a lot better at working with titanium in the last few decades. So those 40 year old heat exchangers at Sendai are probably stainless steel, not at good as titanium.
But in Typical japan Times Fashion, they try to downplay the incident by stating
In Japan, similar problems have occurred about 50 times in the past, but the latest case was the first at the Sendai power plant. In the past, Kyushu Electric experienced two cases at the No. 1 reactor at its Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture in 1997 and 1999.
Classic “don’t worry” it happens all the time. So the pimps of nuke will do anything to keep this plant running. Including putting your life and livelihood at risk………. http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/japan-sendai-nuclear-restart-hubris.html?showComment=1440185210724#c7323011781148838576
Kyushu delays increasing output at Sendai nuclear plant after cooling system problems detected
KAGOSHIMA – Kyushu Electric Power Co. said Friday it will delay planned increases in electrical output from the No. 1 reactor at its Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture as seawater is believed to have entered into a reactor cooling system.
The company planned to bring the recently reactivated reactor up to full capacity on Tuesday. But this will now be delayed as it will take about a week to fix the problem, officials from the utility said.
A small amount of seawater is believed to have flowed into one of the three condensers in the reactor’s secondary cooling system, the officials said. Condensers turn steam into water by cooling it, after the steam runs power generation turbines.
But there should be no problem in continuing the reactor’s operations as the salt can be removed with the aid of desalination equipment, the officials added.
The level of electric conductivity, which is monitored to check water conditions, rose Thursday afternoon at an outlet of a condensate pump used to circulate secondary coolant water.
Kyushu Electric checked the water quality and confirmed an increase in salt content.
Each condenser has some 26,000 tubes inside that are used to pipe seawater around for cooling. Kyushu Electric suspects that holes have opened on such tubes, causing seawater to enter into the condenser.
The company will seal any tubes found to have holes, the officials said.
In Japan, similar problems have occurred about 50 times in the past, but the latest case was the first at the Sendai power plant. In the past, Kyushu Electric experienced two cases at the No. 1 reactor at its Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture in 1997 and 1999.
The output at the Sendai plant’s No. 1 reactor, restarted on Aug. 11, reached 50 percent of capacity last Sunday and 75 percent on Wednesday. The company had planned to raise output to 95 percent Friday.
The reactor is the first in Japan to run under strict new safety standards introduced in July 2013 following the meltdown accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant, which was wrecked in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The reactor’s restart also brought to an end the total absence of active reactors in Japan that had become a feature since September 2013, when Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi plant in Fukui Prefecture suspended operations for routine safety checks.
Some nuclear experts have said reactors could face severe safety problems because they have been mothballed for such a long period of time.
Source: Japan Times
Unspoken Death Toll of Fukushima: Nuclear Disaster Killing Japanese Slowly
The Japanese government is still in denial and refuses to recognize the disastrous consequences of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, London-based independent consultant on radioactivity Dr. Ian Fairlie states, adding that while thousands of victims have already died, thousands more will soon pass away.
Embarrassingly, “[t]he Japanese Government, its advisors, and most radiation scientists in Japan (with some honorable exceptions) minimize the risks of radiation. The official widely-observed policy is that small amounts of radiation are harmless: scientifically speaking this is untenable,” Dr. Fairlie pointed out.
The Japanese government even goes so far as to increase the public limit for radiation in Japan from 1 mSv to 20 mSv per year, while its scientists are making efforts to convince the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) to accept this enormous increase.
“This is not only unscientific, it is also unconscionable,” Dr. Fairlie stressed, adding that “there is never a safe dose, except zero dose.”
However, while the Japanese government is turning a blind eye to radiogenic late effects, the evidence “is solid”: the RERF Foundation which is based in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is observing the Japanese atomic bomb survivors and still registering nuclear radiation’s long-term effects.
“From the UNSCEAR estimate of 48,000 person Sv [the collective dose to the Japanese population from Fukushima], it can be reliably estimated (using a fatal cancer risk factor of 10% per Sv) that about 5,000 fatal cancers will occur in Japan in the future from Fukushima’s fallout,” he noted.
“It is impossible not to be moved by the scale of Fukushima’s toll in terms of deaths, suicides, mental ill-health and human suffering,” the expert said.
http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20150820/1025992771.html#ixzz3jSVAPg9L
Underground temperature never go down regardless of frozen wall beside common fuel pool
The underground temperature beside common fuel storage pool has not been decreased since the end of April from Tepco’s report released on 8/20/2015.
Tepco is testing the frozen underground wall to circulate the coolant material in the frozen duct.
They have been monitoring the temperature at 18 points around the crippled reactor buildings.
From their data, the temperature of the monitoring point “No.12″ is showing almost no decrease from the beginning.
This is located between Reactor 4 building and the common pool, where is stocking the fuel assemblies removed from SFP 4 (Spent Fuel Pool in Reactor 4). At the moment of 8/20/2015, it is still over 10 ℃.
For some reason, Tepco stopped sending the coolant material to 4 of the monitoring points.
Among the rest of the points, the temperature is still above 0 ℃ at 8 of 14 monitoring points.
Japan asks for WTO panel to rule on S.Korea’s Fukushima-related food import restrictions
Aug 20 Japan on Thursday asked the World Trade Organization to set up a panel to rule on South Korea’s import bans and testing requirements for Japanese food after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, since the restrictions show no signs of being eased.
Japan launched a trade complaint at the WTO in May, saying the South Korean measures violated a WTO agreement and that Seoul had failed to justify the measures as required.
“We held two days of bilateral discussions on this on June 24 and 25, but there was no expression from the Korean side of when the restrictions might be lifted,” Japan’s Agriculture Ministry said on its website.
“Since more than 60 days have passed since the complaint was lodged, and there is no sign of when the restrictions might be repealed, we have asked today, in accordance with WTO rules, for the establishment of a panel.”
South Korea in May expressed regret at Japan’s move and said then that the ban on some Japanese seafood was necessary and reflected safety concerns.
Japan countered by saying levels were safe and that a number of other nations, including the United States and Australia, had lifted or eased Fukushima-related restrictions.
The average annual value of South Korean imports of Japanese fish and seafood was $96 million in 2012-2014, less than half the average of $213 million in 2006-2010, according to data from the International Trade Centre in Geneva.
Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/20/japan-southkorea-wto-idUSL3
Editorial: Use wisdom in drawing curtain on nuclear fuel cycle
With the recent reactivation of the No. 1 reactor at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture, the government has moved a step ahead with a policy for maintaining nuclear power. To keep in tandem with that move, a working group of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in July began looking into measures to maintain the nuclear fuel cycle. While the move is aimed at improving the environment for nuclear power businesses amid liberalization of the electricity market, it is posing serious problems.
Under the nuclear fuel cycle, spent fuel from nuclear plants is reprocessed to extract plutonium for reuse as fuel. While the project is promoted as part of Japan’s national policy, the actual reprocessing of spent fuel is undertaken by Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd., a company jointly invested in by power companies. If free competition progresses in the electricity market, utilities would not be able to secure as much profit as before and some might no longer be able to support Japan Nuclear Fuel.
The ministry’s working group is considering intensifying government involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle to keep the project afloat. The group is also mulling more secure ways to raise a total of 12.6 trillion yen in operating costs for the project.
Currently, the cost for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is tacked on to electricity bills. If the government is to step up its involvement in the project, it will need to seek public consensus over its relevance, including the additional public financial burden.
The nuclear fuel cycle has been riddled with major problems in terms of technology, safety and costs. The completion of Japan Nuclear Fuel’s reprocessing plant under construction in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, has been postponed 22 times following regular trouble. The construction cost has already tripled from the initial estimate of 760 billion yen, and could further snowball for safety and other necessary measures. The development of a fast-breeder reactor, which is supposed to act as “wheels on a car” for the nuclear fuel cycle along with the reprocessing project, has been stalled at the stage of operating the Monju prototype reactor, with no prospects for putting it into practical use. The so-called “pluthermal” project using plutonium in conventional light-water reactors is not making as much progress as expected.
There also lies a serious problem in plutonium extracted in the reprocessing of spent fuel from the viewpoint of nuclear non-proliferation. Japan currently possesses more than 47 metric tons of plutonium at home and abroad, and if the country is to produce additional plutonium that could be diverted to military use with no destination for consumption amid lowering dependence on nuclear power, the international community would only grow suspicious about such possession.
In the wake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant disaster, the Japan Atomic Energy Commission released an assessment showing that the direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel over the next 20 to 30 years would be equal to or more beneficial than reprocessing such fuel in terms of economic efficiency, nuclear non-proliferation and other effects. Given such estimates, the government should focus its efforts not on measures to prolong the nuclear fuel cycle but on putting forth steps to draw a curtain on the project.
If the reprocessing of spent fuel is to be terminated, Aomori Prefecture would demand that such fuel it has thus far accommodated should be brought back to where it was originally generated. Such a project termination would also cause problems to local employment and the disposal of existing plutonium. The government should rather rack its brain over how to resolve these issues.
Source: Mainichi
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20150820p2a00m0na016000c.html
WHOI Study Shows Fukushima Contaminated Sediment Moving Offshore
Researchers deployed time-series sediment traps 115 kilometers (approximately 70 miles) southeast of the nuclear power plant at depths of 500 meters (1,640 feet) and 1,000 meters (3,280 feet). The two traps began collecting samples on July 19, 2011—130 days after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami—and were recovered and reset annually.
WOODS HOLE – Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have been studying the effects the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 2011 has had in the Pacific Ocean.
WHOI has recently released the results of a three-year study of sediment samples collected offshore in the American Chemical Society’s journal, Environmental Science and Technology.
The purpose of the study is to understand what happens to the Fukushima contaminants after they are buried on the seafloor off of coastal Japan.
The team, led by senior scientist and marine chemist Ken Buesseler, found that a small fraction of contaminated sea floor sediments off Fukushima are moved offshore by typhoons that resuspend radioactive particles in the water, which then travel laterally with Southeasterly currents into the Pacific Ocean.
Researchers used funnel-shaped traps to collect the data at depths of 500 meters and 1,000 meters starting 130 days after the disaster.
The research found radiocesium from the plant along with sediment with a high fraction of clay material in the samples. The clay material is characteristic of shelf and slope sediments and suggest a near shore source.
Buesseler says that more than 99 percent of the contaminated material from the plant moved with the water offshore and that less than 1 percent ended up on the sea floor as buried sediment.
Source: CapeCod.com
WHOI Study Shows Fukushima Contaminated Sediment Moving Offshore
The week that was, in nuclear and climate news
Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs
WORLD. Ionising radiation:
- Concerted Uranium Research Europe (CURE) to conduct independent research on ionising radiation.
- International Research Team studies Fukushima contaminants in seafloor sediments.
- Nuclear bomb testing has resulted in radioactive polonium in seafoods.
- Unusual Pro nuclear search for making ionising radiation look good.
Iran nuclear agreement is endorsed by Nuclear Nonproliferation Experts. Over 300 US rabbis urge Congress to support Iran nuclear deal. Obama can still do the Iran nuclear deal, despite Congress opposition. Iran has compliedon key condition of the nuclear deal – submitting documents to IAEA.
CLIMATE CHANGE. Islamic leaders call on the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to embrace climate change action. Dangerous Heat Sets Sights on Southern United States.
CHINA. Tianjin explosion highlights need to prioritise environment over economic growth. China censors Internet on Tianjin explosion news. France worried that China’s hasty nuclear power programme is unsafe.
JAPAN. Japanese environment groups protest against Restart of Sendai Nuclear Power. Volcano alert issued just miles from newly reopened nuclear reactor. Japan nuclear utility says no special precautions over volcano. Utilities spent ¥1.4 trillion last year to maintain idled reactors. Japan’s Plutonium Problem.
Fukushima. Extra high radiation level in atmosphere above Melted slag storage facility of Fukushima sewage plant. Fukushima operator’s mounting legal woes. Earthquake M5.0 offshore of Fukushima prefecture.
USA. Momentum growing in campaign to shut down Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant. Questions on safety, and silencing of critics – HUMBOLDT BAY POWER PLANT. America feared that Israel would deploy nuclear weapons.
UK. Bristol Nuclear Protestors Fined...instead…shouldn’t they be awarded Medals?!
CANADA ‘s radioactive trash dump plan, all too close to USA border. Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission called upon to disclose study on nuclear disaster.
SOUTH AFRICA. African National Congress calls for transparency on nuclear tender process.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. Tax-payer money going to nuclear related companies in UAE.
NORTH KOREA. Concern over North Korea’s uranium enrichment.
NORWAY‘s dangerous plan to dump nuclear trash on island
AUSTRALIA: Nuclear stooge Senator Bob Day not able to dismantle Australia’s law against establishing nuclear facilities.
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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