nuclear-news

2015 in Nuclear News

Impossible to encompass all the nuclear news for 2015, even in just headlines. So, I single out some themes that I found most interesting.

The survival of investigative journalism, even in this troubled time for print media, and for the shrinking of journalists’ employment. The two stories revealed were:

• McClatchy News Service’s At least 33,480 American nuclear workers dead from radiation-caused illness
• The Center For Public Integrity’s  – India’s nuclear industry pours its wastes into a river of death and disease, and also India’s repression of activists who protest about its poor safety record.

Also: Ionising Radiation & Risk of Death from Leukaemia & Lymphoma in Radiation-Monitored Workers (INWORKS): an International Cohort Study

The Paris climate agreement –  the nuclear lobby failed its goal of getting nations to adopt nuclear power as a government subsidised method of addressing climate change.

USA. Because America was the great pioneer country for nuclear power, and still the land with the most nuclear reactors, and nuclear weaponry, nuclear issues in USA are particularly important. Through 2015 the industry has grappled with the reality that it is not now economic, (if indeed it ever really was), and with the new imperative of what to do with its mounting dangerous radioactive trash. Once again, I marvel that none of the nuclear authorities have contemplating shutting down the industry, and stopping production of this toxic trash.

The global nuclear lobby came up with two survival tactics – pretending that nuclear is needed to solve climate change, and trying to overturn the science that ionising radiation is harmful to health and ecology. They went all out to get the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s radiation safety standards weakened, and to promote the quack science of “hormesis” . “Hormesis” Advocates Dodge Scientific Rigor with “Special Pleadings” – Ties to Tobacco Industry & Koch Brother Exposed. Bill Gates, Peter Thiel, Breakthrough Institute, in Paris, resembled  snake oil salesmen for new small nuclear reactors. 

Bill Gates to export ‘new nuclear’ reactors to China, where the safety regulations are slacker.

St Louis residents demanding answers on underground fire near nuclear waste. Residents of St Louis County get cancer from long-term exposure to low level radiation. Decades of bungling over radioactive landfill in St Louis County.

Repeating a few of of the many significant headlines 

Independent assessment of the state of the nuclear industry. Bleak outlook for Generation IV nuclear reactors, asGeneration III look like failing.  Nuclear lobby promotes a new ‘health disorder’ – radiophobia.

JAPAN. Declassified report shows Fukushima nuclear situation much worse than we were told.

UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke out against using nuclear weapons, and  opposes renewal of Trident nuclear weapons programme.

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.

FRANCE. Gloomy financial situation for AREVA in so many ways. Safety problems may mean the end for AREVA’s EPR nuclear reactor.

AUSTRALIA. South Australia runs a shonky pro nuclear Royal Commission .

January 1, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes