Radiation danger forces delay to inspection of Fukushima Unit 2 Containment
Fukushima Unit 2 Containment Inspection Delayed To January, Simply Info, October 2nd, 2015 TEPCO announced that the problems created by the stuck shielding blocks and high radiation in the work area will require the containment inspection to be delayed until January 2016. Rusted shielding blocks caused ongoing delays as they tried to determine a way to remove them. The area also has radiation levels as high as 1 sievert/hour. This has prevented workers from being in the area for any extended time………..The long delay is due to the need to decontaminate the work area before human workers can enter. ……http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=15080
Nuclear contamination case against TEPCO is sent by police to prosecutors
Fukushima police sends nuclear contamination case against TEPCO execs to prosecutors, Rt.com 3 Oct, 2015 Fukushima police have finally reacted to a criminal complaint filed against TEPCO and 32 of its top officials two years ago over the contamination caused by the 2011 nuclear disaster. They have referred the case to prosecutors.
The criminal complaint alleges that the company and its executives failed to manage storage tanks of contaminated water or build underground walls to block the flow of radioactive material into the sea at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Notable people on the list include TEPCO’s President Naomi Hirose, former Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and former President Masataka Shimizu.
Police have reviewed claims filed by local residents after 300 tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from TEPCO tanks……..https://www.rt.com/news/317474-fukushima-tepco-contamination-prosecution/
Bill Gates to export ‘new nuclear’ reactors to China, where the safety regulations are slacker
Bill Gates Making Progress On Next Generation Of Nuclear Power — In China, Forbes James Conca, 2 Oct 15 , “…….Washington State exports more stuff to China than to any other nation. ……Now nuclear reactors will enter that list. Bill Gates’ nuclear power company, TerraPower, signed an agreement with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) allowing the two companies to collaborate on advanced nuclear technologies that address safety, environmental and cost issues. The MOU was signed by TerraPower CEO Lee McIntire and CNNC President Qian Zhimin, as Washington’s Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen and Bill Gates looked on……..
TerraPower’s version of this reactor is called the Traveling Wave Reactor (TWR), a liquid sodium-cooled fast reactor that uses depleted or natural uranium as fuel, and can even burn spent fuel from our old reactors.
UK PM David Cameron willing to make a nuclear attack if ‘justified’
David Cameron says that he would use nuclear weapons The PM described nuclear bombs as ‘the ultimate insurance policy’ and said the attack could be ‘justified’, The Independent, Jon stone Sunday 4 October 2015 David Cameron has said there are circumstances in which he would launch a nuclear attack on another country.
The PM described nuclear bombs as “the ultimate insurance policy” and said the attack could be “justified”.
Mr Cameron’s statement comes after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would not use nuclear bombs on another country’s population.
“If you … believe like me that Britain should keep the ultimate insurance policy of an independent nuclear deterrent, you have to accept there are circumstances in which its use would be justified,” Mr Cameron told BBC One’s Andrew Marr show on 4 October…….Warheads carried on Britain’s nuclear submarines are eight times more powerful than the atomic bombs used in 1945.
Parliament is set to vote during this parliamentar on whether to renew the Trident nuclear weapons system.
Mr Corbyn opposes renewal, but some Labour MPs have said they disagree with him.
The Opposition’s official policy remains in support of Trident after the party’s leadership failed to secure a policy vote to change it at annual conference last week.
The SNP and Green Party oppose Trident. The Liberal Democrats want a small nuclear weapons system which they say would be less costly. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-says-that-he-would-use-nuclear-weapons-a6679256.html
USA nuclear weapons department helping China develop thorium reactors, despite their military uses
The U.S. government lab behind China’s nuclear power push HONG KONG |REUTERS Dec 20, 2013 Scientists in Shanghai are attempting a breakthrough in nuclear energy: reactors powered by thorium, an alternative to uranium.
The project is run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a government body with close military ties that coordinates the country’s science-and-technology strategy. The academy has designated thorium as a priority for China’s top laboratories. The program has a budget of $350 million. And it’s being spearheaded by the influential son of a former Chinese president.
But even as China bulks up its military muscle through means ranging from espionage to heavy spending, it is pursuing this aspect of its technology game plan with the blessing – and the help – of the United States. China has enlisted a storied partner for its thorium push: Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The U.S. government institute produced the plutonium used for the Manhattan Project and laid important groundwork for the commercial and military use of nuclear power.
The Tennessee lab, as it happens, helped pioneer thorium reactors. The Pentagon and the energy industry later sidelined this technology in favor of uranium……..
Thorium’s chief allure is that it is a potentially far safer fuel for civilian power plants than is uranium. But the element also has possible military applications as an energy source in naval vessels. A U.S. congressman unsuccessfully sought to push the Pentagon to embrace the technology in 2009, and British naval officers are recommending a design for a thorium-fueled ship.
In a further twist, despite the mounting strategic rivalry with China, there has been little or no protest in the United States over Oak Ridge’s nuclear-energy cooperation with China……..
Although it does not yield byproducts that can be readily used to make weapons, thorium does have military applications.
The fuel could be used to power Chinese navy surface warships, including a planned fleet of aircraft carriers. China’s nuclear submarine fleet has struggled with reactor reliability and safety, according to naval commentators, and thorium could eventually become an alternative.
Top British naval engineers last year proposed a design for a thorium reactor to power warships. Compact thorium power plants could also be used to supply reliable power to military bases and expeditionary forces.
Thorium also has military potential for the United States, experts say……..
Japn’s PM Abe keen to sell nuclear technology to India
Japan eyes nuclear deal with India October 5, 2015 Clearing the way for exports Nikkei Asian Review,
TOKYO –– Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to visit India around the end of this year to sign an atomic energy agreement with counterpart Narendra Modi, laying the groundwork for exports by Japanese corporations in that field.
India holds nuclear weapons but is not a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), so a focal point of negotiations between Japan and India was how to prevent the spread of nuclear technologies. The two sides are expected to agree on tight management of nuclear technologies on a par with the NPT.
Another obstacle to an agreement had been Indian laws that hold nuclear plant manufacturers partly liable in the event of nuclear accidents. In January, the U.S. and India agreed that an insurance framework created by India would cover damages related to accidents. Japan and India are seen reaching an agreement with conditions similar to the deal that Washington signed for such matters as the management of nuclear technologies and liability for damages………http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/Japan-eyes-nuclear-deal-with-India
Critical problem of Fukushima nuclear reactor No2 – where is molten core?
“Long-lived radionuclides such as Cesium-137 are something new to us as a species. They did not exist on Earth in any appreciable quantities during the entire evolution of complex life. Although they are invisible to our senses they are millions of times more poisonous than most of the common poisons we are familiar with. They cause cancer, leukemia, genetic mutations, birth defects, malformations, and abortions at concentrations almost below human recognition and comprehension. They are lethal at the atomic or molecular level,”
Fukushima: The World’s Never Seen Anything Like This Popular Resistance By Robert Hunziker, www.counterpunch.org October 2nd, 2015 The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant No. 2 nuclear reactor fuel is missing from the core containment vessel. (Source: Up to 100% of No. 2 Reactor Fuel May Have Melted, NHK World News, Sept. 25, 2015.)
Where did it go? Nobody knows.
Not only that but the “learning curve” for a nuclear meltdown is as fresh as the event itself because “the world has never seen anything like this,” never.
Utilizing cosmic ray muon radiography with nuclear emulsion, researchers from Nagoya University peered inside the reactors at Fukushima. The nuclear fuel in reactor core No. 5 was clearly visible via the muon process. However, at No. 2 reactor, which released a very large amount of radioactive substances coincident with the 2011 explosion, little, if any, signs of nuclear fuel appear in the containment vessel. A serious meltdown is underway.
“The researchers say further analyses are needed to determine whether molten fuel penetrated the reactor and fell down,” Ibid. In short, researchers do not yet know if the molten hot stuff has penetrated the steel/concrete base beyond the containment vessel, thus entering Mother Earth.
The Nagoya University research team, in coordination with Toshiba Corporation, reported their findings at a meeting of the Physical Society of Japan on Sept. 26th.
Thus, therefore, and furthermore, it is advisable to review what’s at stake:
“High-level nuclear waste is almost unimaginably poisonous. Take for example cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years, which makes up the largest fraction of long-lived radionuclides residing in spent nuclear fuel. One gram of radioactive cesium-137 (about half the size of a dime) contains 88 Curies of radioactivity. 104 Curies of radioactive cesium-137, spread evenly over one square mile of land, will make it uninhabitable for more than a century,” Comments on Draft of Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2013, Physicians for Social Responsibility, May 23, 2013.
As for example, there are 1,090 square miles of land surrounding the destroyed Chernobyl reactor that Ukraine classifies as an uninhabitable radioactive exclusion zone because radioactive fallout left more than 104 Curies of cesium- 137 per square mile on the land that makes up the zone. Scientists believe it will be 180 to 320 years before Cesium-137 around Chernobyl disappears from the environment.
Here’s the big, or rather biggest, problem: Cesium is water-soluble and makes its way into soils and waters as it quickly becomes ubiquitous in a contaminated ecosystem…… Continue reading
Troubled nuclear corporation AREVA wooing Japanese company Mitsubishi
French PM Valls discusses nuclear, China, culture on Japan visit, 2 Oct 15 Reuters/Toru Hanai/Files
By RFI French Prime Minister Manuel Valls met Japanese PM Shinzo Abe on Saturday during a three-day visit to the country that is Asia’s biggest investor in France. The Mitsubishi conglomerate could buy into troubled French nuclear power company, Areva, he said as his trip started……..
Nuclear power – French nuclear giant Areva is in trouble and its reactor branch is currently being bought by the EDF power company. Valls indicated that he was not opposed to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries investing in the branch in an interview with Asahi Shimbun newspaper and sources travelling with him said it could invest in Areva’s other activities, uranium mining for example. While 47 Japanese nuclear reactors remain closed following the Fukushima disaster, one reopened in August and another should be soon. Japan’s nuclear industry has always been an important client for Areva and EDF……http://www.english.rfi.fr/asia-pacific/20151003-french-pm-valls-discusses-nuclear-china-culture-japan-visit
Iran’s opportunity – energy efficiency and renewables, leaving nuclear power behind
Iran’s invisible opportunity, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Amory B. Lovins, 30 Sept 15, “……….the areas that could do the most to keep Iran from drifting back towards the nuclear path? Energy efficiency and renewables.
Legendary possibilities. At the eye of the storm over the Iran agreement is a zone of silence—an almost unnoticed opportunity to raise the odds of success. On the Iranian side, wisely using the period of restrictions on potential military nuclear activities could help Iran shift its domestic electricity priorities from a failed nuclear power program to a world-class, faster-to-implement, and vastly cheaper program that combines energy efficiency, modern renewables, and advances in the electrical grid. By weakening the domestic case for nuclear power, this approach could help remove uncertainty about Iran’s continuing domestic nuclear activities (however benign they may allegedly be, such as the creation of medical radioisotopes for radiation therapy). Importantly, that would clear some of the fog around Iran’s nuclear program. This in turn would isolate bomb-seekers and allow outside intelligence and monitoring efforts to focus on needles instead of haystacks.
Modernizing Iran’s electricity investments could also reduce the risk of renewed sanctions, reward and reinforce political moderation, enhance Iran’s prosperity and energy independence, bolster national pride, and—since the same logic applies to neighboring countries already making similar energy shifts for economic reasons—help stabilize the region by reversing an incipient Gulf nuclear arms race. More broadly, it could even help guard the global nonproliferation regime from dangerously permissive interpretations by updating the purpose of the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s (NPT’s) Article IV, which enshrines signatories’ “inalienable right” to the exclusively peaceful use of nuclear energy. Thus, a speedy alignment of Iranian domestic electricity investments with new economic realities could advance the security and economic interests of Iran, Israel, the Arab Gulf states, America and its P5+1 partners, and the world. It could strengthen Iran’s global integration, political evolution, and national stature without compromising others’ similar goals.
Key Iranian officials already publicly favor this approach to their nation’s energy needs, and the technologies are ready and the vendors eager. Continue reading
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton must face to USA’s dangerous nuclear industry
Why Bernie and Hillary Must Address America’s Dying Nuke Reactors http://ecowatch.com/2015/10/03/sanders-clinton-nuclear-power/ Harvey Wasserman | October 3, 2015 As the first Democrat presidential debate finally approaches (on Oct. 13), America’s nuke power industry is in accelerated collapse.
The few remaining construction projects in the U.S. and Europe are engineering and economic disasters.
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders may address this in broad terms. But as a nation we must now focus on the 99 dying U.S. reactors that threaten us all every day. In terms of our national survival, this is what Sanders and Clinton really must discuss.
In the biggest picture, Fukushima and Germany‘s transition to renewables have escalated the energy debate to a whole new level.
Fukushima still dumps huge quantities of radioactive water into the Pacific every day. The site is out of control. The myth that U.S.-made reactors can’t explode has been buried forever. Three melted cores are still missing. Especially among young children, health impacts in the region are devastating. Two dozen General Electric clones of Fukushima Unit 1 now operate in the U.S. They all need to shut.
Meanwhile the extreme success of Germany’s Solartopian Energiewende makes it clear the world can indeed run entirely on renewables. The central electric grid is no longer sustainable. All German nukes will be done by 2022. Germany’s great green community-based assault on King CONG (coal, oil, nukes and gas) is ahead of schedule and under budget. Clean energy prices are plummeting along with climate impacts.
Worldwide reactor construction has sunk into economic chaos. Russia, China, India and several smaller countries are still talking about building new reactors. This is an issue of grave concern for all of us.
But the radioactive road signs bode badly for them all.
France’s Areva, once the industry flagship, is in shambles. Reactor projects in Finland and at Flamanville, France, are billions over budget and years behind schedule. So are the two each in South Carolina and Georgia, where the local economies stand to be devastated by gargantuan cost overruns. Detroit Edison wants to stick the people of Michigan with the enormous up-front costs of a proposed new construction fiasco at Fermi 3, which could bankrupt an already shaky state economy.
It will take years more of dedicated activism to make sure the lessons of these failed projects are understood everywhere.
But in the meantime, above all, we fear the 99 U.S. reactors that crumble as we speak:
1. The infamously lax Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) warns that Pilgrim, south of Boston, can’t meet even the NRC’s absurdly loose safety standards. Entergy may shut it down rather than pay to fix it up. The two candidates should demand they do it now.
2. Indian Point Unit 2, near New York City, has been operating without a license. The Unit 3 permit expires in December. Both must shut immediately.
3. The shield building at Ohio’s Davis-Besse is literally crumbling. FirstEnergy wants Ohio’s Public Utilities Commission to hand it a $3 billion bailout. This may be the world’s most decrepit nuke. It should have shut a very long time ago.
4. Exelon is begging the Illinois legislature for massive bailouts at five money-losing, increasingly dangerous reactors. That should be denied.
5. Entergy’s FitzPatrick in New York is losing millions, as is nearby Ginna. Both must go.
6. California’s Diablo Canyon reactors sit atop an interconnected web of 12 known fault-lines. They are 45 miles from the San Andreas, less than half the distance of Fukushima from the seismic trench that destroyed it. They are in violation of state and federal water quality laws. They’re being propped up by a corrupt Public Utilities Commission. They need to close.
… and that’s just for starters.
Through the rest of this presidential campaign, we can expect the Democrats to broadly endorse a green-powered future, and question the sanity of nuke power.
Thanks to decades of hard campaigning by the global grassroots No Nukes movement, that’s no longer hard to do. Even Donald Trump has made rumblings about shutting Indian Point. Even Ohio’s Gov. John Kasich is posturing as a friend of renewables, an industry he’s done his best to decimate.
What we really need now are focused, persistent campaigns to bring these rogue nukes down before they blow up. Every one of them has the power to kill millions, irradiate entire sections of the globe and bankrupt us all.
In the big picture, Clinton and Sanders could start with a demand to remove the federal insurance that protects these radioactive relics from liability when the inevitable melt-downs arrive.
But they can help us most by addressing these dying nukes by name, and by joining us in court and on the barricades to get them buried before they kill again.
Secret deals to fleece ratepayers over costs of closing the San Onofre nuclear plant
STATE UTILITY REGULATOR RE-EXAMINES SECRET MEETINGS Don’t expect big changes yet By Don Bauder, San Diego Reader, Sept. 30, 2015 By now, savvy folks know that the California Public Utilities Commission has to clean up its act — thoroughly. Commissioners and staff members used illegal, back-channel communications with Southern California Edison to fleece ratepayers over costs of closing the San Onofre nuclear plant. Similarly, commission members were secretly helping Pacific Gas and Electric in its attempt to get a light penalty for its negligence leading to the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people and incinerated a neighborhood.
But the commission is not giving itself a thorough bath. It’s taking a cowboy bath at best.
Example: at the same time that the utility regulator was not turning over documents requested in a search warrant from the state’s attorney general, it was gathering legal opinions on how it could restore public confidence. Hmmm…
Strumwasser report
The utilities commission paid the law firm of Strumwasser & Woocher to make recommendations on the ex parte (one-sided) meetings between regulatory officials and utilities that led to the anticonsumer actions over San Onofre and San Bruno. It also had a staff lawyer, Ed O’Neill, prepare a report on both the secrecy and necessity of bringing efficiency to the decision-making process. O’Neill, who had worked for the commission before representing energy and telecom firms, was hired to “modernize” the commission’s decision-making process.
This “modernizing” involved suggested changes in the California Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, even though the original purpose of that act was to sacrifice efficiency in favor of the public’s knowledge of and participation in commission decisions.
Generally speaking, the Strumwasser recommendations are considered sound. …….. http://m.sandiegoreader.com/news/2015/sep/30/citylights-california-utility-drop-secret-meetings/
A warning to Canadians about the Trans Pacific Partnership
Our Trade Minister, Ed Fast, has just flown to Atlanta, Georgia with the goal of completing secret negotiations with all 12 countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): the biggest and most secretive agreement in the history of the world.
We know that the Conservative government hopes to lock us into this binding agreement before we can vote in the upcoming election, so we need to take the opportunity now to make as much noise as possible. Can you help us draw a TPP-sized line in the sand?
Make sure Minister Ed Fast hears our call: do not overwrite our laws and censor the Internet.
Canadians are sick of being kept in the dark about the TPP. And what little we do know about this plan comes from leaked documents.2 Here are some of the worst parts:
- The binding plan will make our Internet more censored, expensive, and policed on a global scale3
- It gives the U.S. Trade Representative special powers to challenge any Canadian laws they deem unacceptable through the so-called ‘certification’ process4
- Over 600 lobbyists have had full access to the text, but not even our opposition parties are allowed to see it.
No more stalling: it’s time for all of our leaders to come clean on the TPP. We deserve to know what kind of decisions will be made on our behalf, BEFORE we go to the polls.
Finally, here’s the icing on the cake: parties negotiating the TPP have just appointed a “transparency officer”. His name is Tim Reif, he’s a long-time TPP bureaucrat and USTR lawyer.6 We like to call him “Transparency Tim.”
If Transparency Tim and the TPP Ministers are serious about transparency, then they’ll show us the text – not ram this deal through without our consent. That means we need you to send “Transparency Tim” and Minister Ed Fast a message today.
Coolant leak at Millstone Nuclear Power Station
CT nuclear plant suffers minor coolant leak http://wpri.com/2015/10/04/ct-nuclear-plant-suffers-minor-coolant-leak/
The Associated PressPublished: October 4, 2015, WATERFORD, Conn. (AP) — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says a leaking relief valve has caused an “unusual event” declaration at Millstone Power Station.
The NRC says the incident occurred at about 9:30 a.m. Sunday at the Waterford, Connecticut plant. There were no injuries or release of radioactivity into the environment.
The incident met the criteria for the lowest of four levels of emergency classifications because the reactor coolant system leaked at a rate of greater than 25 gallons per minute. The NRC says the problem was traced to a relief valve on the shutdown cooling system.
The plant was in the process of being shut down for a planned refueling and maintenance outage. The NRC says the system has been isolated. Repairs will begin after the leak is stopped and a repair plan is developed.
1.This Month
Small Nuclear Reactors Education Task Force: https://stop-smrs.weebly.com/bulletins.ht
24 May. The Vow from Hiroshima film is coming on PBS, this month https://www.thevowfromhiroshima.com/
6-7 July A summit and a rally in Washington D.C. https://nonatoyespeace.org/
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