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Are we satisfied to live with the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over our heads forever?

USA election 2016Imperial fascism and nuclear realities, delmarva now, MICHAEL O’LOUGHLIN December 31, 2015 Are we satisfied to live with the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over our heads forever? The rhetoric of the dominant Republican candidates for president has become imperial fascism.

Fascist because it expresses an enthusiastic embrace of violence as the central instrument of U.S. power in foreign policy. Fascist as well because this entails a cavalier dismissal of basic standards of morality associated with human rights and international law.

Trump, Cruz and Christie recently took turns giving voice to this rhetoric, talking about “carpet bombing,” “killing families of terrorists,” “shooting down Russian planes,” making “the desert glow” and closing our borders to desperate people fleeing war because they are Arab Muslims.

The smell of fascism also rises with Trump’s talk of “energy,” “strength” and “will.”Opponents are cast aside as “weak” and “low energy,” in contrast to Trump’s claims he embodies “strength” and the “will” to “make America Great Again.” Policy content? Irrelevant. Trump’s sheer “will” conquers all problems before him. All we need do is “believe” in our leader…….

The rhetoric is “imperial” because it embraces the idea that the United States alone, indeed the president alone, has a right to engage unilaterally in war without end and no need for Congressional authority, UN Security Council consent or multilateral involvement of European allies.

Arrogant claims become commonplace. The oil resources of Middle Eastern countries are now “ours” and we will just “take it,” according to Trump. Central to the imperial perspective, national sovereignty belongs only to the imperious state. Other nations have no such rights…..

As journalist Walter Pincus recently wrote: “After Sept. 11, 2001, a very wise intelligence officer told me in 2002, ‘we have turned 16 clever al-Qaeda terrorists into a worldwide movement, seemingly more dangerous to Americans than the communist Soviet Union with thousands of nuclear missiles.’”

As of this date, the world has a stockpile of some 15,695 nuclear weapons, with the US and Russia armed with 93% of that stockpile, 7,200 and 7,500, respectively. In this respect, though some nuclear disarmament has been achieved, it remains the case that the greatest danger to the survival of the US, indeed, the world, is the continued existence of Russian warheads and our own.

Much hot air has been expelled on the real and imagined threat of non-state terrorism. Yet, where in the debates thus far have we heard serious discussion of moving faster towards a “nuclear free” world? Or are we satisfied to live with the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over our heads forever?

Michael O’Loughlin is a member of the Peace Alliance of the Lower Shore http://www.delmarvanow.com/story/opinion/2015/12/31/column-oloughlin/78150212/

January 1, 2016 Posted by | USA elections 2016 | Leave a comment

Nuclear industry discounts the massive tax-payer future costs of radioactive wastes

Nuclear Energy Dangerous to Your Wallet, Not Only the Environment, CounterPunch, by PETE DOLACK , 1 JAN 16    “………There would at least be a small silver lining in this dark picture if the electricity produced were cheap. But that’s not the case. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, the cost of producing electricity from nuclear power in France tripled and in the United States the cost increased fivefold, according to the Vermont Law School paper [page 46].

wastes-1Then there are the costs of nuclear that are not imposed by any other energy source: What to do with all the radioactive waste? Regardless of who ultimately shoulders these costs, the environmental dangers will last for tens of thousands of years. In the United States, there is the fiasco of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada. The U.S. government has collected $35 billion from energy companies to finance the dump, which is the subject of fierce local opposition and appears to have no chance of being built.

Presumably, the energy companies have passed on these costs to their consumers but nonetheless are demanding the government take the radioactive waste they are storing at their plants or compensate them. As part of this deal, the U.S. government made itself legally responsible for finding a permanent nuclear-waste storage facility.

nuke-reactor-dead

And, eventually, plants come to the end of their lives and must be decommissioned, another big expense that energy companies would like to be borne by someone else. The Heinrich Böll Stiftung studysays:

“[T]here is a significant mismatch between the interests of commercial concerns and society in general. Huge costs that will only be incurred far in the future have little weight in commercial decisions because such costs are “discounted.” This means that waste disposal costs and decommissioning costs, which are at present no more than ill-supported guesses, are of little interest to commercial companies. From a moral point of view, the current generation should be extremely wary of leaving such an uncertain, expensive, and potentially dangerous legacy to a future generation to deal with when there are no ways of reliably ensuring that the current generation can bequeath the funds to deal with them, much less bear the physical risk. Similarly, the accident risk also plays no part in decision-making because the companies are absolved of this risk by international treaties that shift the risk to taxpayers.” [page 17]

The British government, for instance, currently foots more than three-quarters of the bill for radioactive waste management and decommissioning, and for nuclear legacy sites. A report prepared for Parliament estimates that total public liability to date just for this program is around £50 billion, with tens of billions more to come……….http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/01/nuclear-energy-dangerous-to-your-wallet-not-only-the-environment/

 

January 1, 2016 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, decommission reactor, Reference, wastes | Leave a comment

Kim Jong Un speaks on economy, no nuclear threats (unusual for him)

flag-N-KoreaKim Jong Un Focuses on Economy, Not Nukes, in New Year’s Speech VOA News January 01, 2016 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un used his New Year’s Day address Friday to focus primarily on the importance of economic development, avoiding any explicit threats or references to his country’s nuclear weapons program……..

“We will continue to actively try to improve the North Korea-South Korea relations and will discuss issues regarding the (Korean) people and unification in an open-minded manner with anyone who sincerely wishes for the (Korean) people’s reconciliation, unity, peace and unification,” he said.

Kim also warned that his country was open to war if provoked by “invasive” outsiders.

He also spoke positively of the high-level talks agreed to this year with South Korea, which have offered the prospect of improved inter-Korean relations but so far delivered little in the way of concrete results…….http://www.voanews.com/content/kim-jong-un-focuses-on-economy-in-new-year-speech/3127151.html

January 1, 2016 Posted by | North Korea, politics international | Leave a comment

Price Anderson Act and other gifts to nuclear industry make it APPEAR to be economic

Nuclear Energy Dangerous to Your Wallet, Not Only the Environment, CounterPunch, by PETE DOLACK , 1 JAN 16  “………Liability caps for accidents are also routine. In the U.S., the Price-Anderson Act, in force since 1957, caps the total liability of nuclear operators in the event of a serious accident or attack to $10.5 billion. If the total is higher, as it surely would be, taxpayers would be on the hook for the rest. As a further sweetener, the Bush II/Cheney administration, in 2005, signed into law new nuclear subsidies and tax breaks worth $13 billion. The Obama administration, attempting its own nuclear push, has offered an additional $36 billion in federal loan guarantees to underwrite new reactor construction, again putting the risk on taxpayers, not investors.

text-Price-Anderson-ActThe Vermont Law School paper aptly sums up this picture with this conclusion:

“If the owners and operators of nuclear reactors had to face the full liability of a nuclear accident and meet the alternatives in competition that is unfettered by subsidies, no one would have built a nuclear reactor in the past, no one would build a reactor today, and anyone who owned one would exit the nuclear business as quickly as they could.” [page 69]

If we had a rational economic system, they surely would.

Pete Dolack writes the Systemic Disorder blog. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/01/nuclear-energy-dangerous-to-your-wallet-not-only-the-environment/

January 1, 2016 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | 1 Comment

PG&E Corporation deliberately delaying decision on future of Diablo Nuclear Station

Diablo nuclear power plant

As long as PG&E keeps its options open, the state’s progress toward a sustainably carbon-free energy grid remains in suspended animation

PG&E plays coy on the future of Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, LA Times, Michael HiltzikContact Reporter, 1 Jan 16 The Economy Hub    “……..More than just the future of Diablo Canyon lies in limbo. The plant’s generating capacity of 2,160 megawatts affects the development of the state’s renewable electric resources. Although PG&E has asserted that the plant’s continued operation would save its customers as much as $16 billion during the additional 20 years, the cost of bringing Diablo Canyon into compliance with environmental and seismic mandates may in fact not be worth the effort. Continue reading

January 1, 2016 Posted by | business and costs, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Indonesia pulling the plug on nuclear power construction, for now, at least

text-NoIndonesia Vows No Nuclear Power Until 2050 http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/business/indonesia-vows-no-nuclear-power-2050/ Banda Aceh. Indonesia will not resort to nuclear energy to meet its target of 136.7 gigawatt of power capacity by 2025 and 430 gigawatt by 2050, a minister said on Saturday.

The move means a previous $8-billion plan to operate four nuclear plants with a total capacity of 6 gigawatt by 2025 will be canceled.

“We have arrived at the conclusion that this is not the time to build up nuclear power capacity. We still have many alternatives and we do not need to raise any controversies,” Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said said on Saturday in Banda Aceh.

The minister spoke after the National Energy Council, a presidential advisory body, completed its latest National Energy Plan, which is to be signed by President Joko Widodo to become a presidential regulation.

The plan, last revised in 2006, lays down the ground rules and guidelines for energy development in Indonesia, as well as the country’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The plan from 2006 still left room for nuclear energy, but the latest guidelines say Indonesia should increase the use of renewable energy sources to 23 percent of its total primary energy — from the current target of 5 percent — by 2025.

Energy from coal is slashed to 30 percent from 33 percent previously, but Indonesia will rely more on oil, which is set to account for 25 percent of energy in the next decade, from the previous target of 20 percent.

Natural gas will contribute the remaining 22 percent to reach the 2025 target, Sudirman said, without providing details on the energy mix target for 2050.

The minister added that Indonesia will continue to follow developments in the field of nuclear technology and that it would remain a last-resort option for possible use beyond 2050.

While having experimented with nuclear power since the 1950s, Indonesia currently only operates three small-scale reactors: a 100-kilowatt reactor in Yogyakarta, a 250-kW reactor in Bandung and a 30-MW reactor in Serpong, in Banten.

A previous proposal to build larger-scale plants on Central Java’s Muria peninsula and in Bangka-Belitung met with resistance from local residents who feared leaks on the scale of the Fukushima disaster in equally earthquake-prone Japan.

Another place that was under consideration to host a nuclear power plant was Kalimantan, where there are no volcanoes and the relatively large distance from tectonic fault lines means the chance of devastating earthquakes is limited.

January 1, 2016 Posted by | Indonesia, politics | Leave a comment

Litany of health problems in US sailors exposed to Fukushima nuclear radiation

the plaintiffs have suffered a litany of health problems including cancer, tumors, brain defects, birth defects, early death and a wide variety of undiagnosed conditions. These are “very serious illnesses for a very large population of very young people

Even though it cannot be legally liable, the Defense Department seems to have been actively obstructing the sailors’ quest for justice.

justiceFlag-USAFukushima radiation causes debilitating deformities in US Navy sailors Thursday, December 31, 2015 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer (NaturalNews) U.S. Navy sailors and Marines dispatched to provide aid to Japan following the massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 are now suffering a variety of rare and undiagnosed health problems, including many involving horrifying and visible changes to their bodies.

After the tsunami, the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, led by the USS Ronald Reagan, was diverted to the coast of Japan to provide relief work. The soldiers were not told that the disaster had triggered multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, or that a radioactive plume was spreading across the Pacific Ocean.

Aviation Bosun’s Mate Dagan Honda and Aviation Structural Mechanic Ron Wright say they spent all day nearly every day of the mission on the deck of the Reagan, loading supplies. For roughly the first week of the mission, the sailors were given no radiation protection.

“So these sailors literally were marinating in radioactive particles,” said Attorney Charles Bonner, who is representing more than 200 sailors and Marines in a class action lawsuit against Fukushima operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and several other defendants. Continue reading

January 1, 2016 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Cost overruns are the norm for building nuclear power plants, but investors don’t pay

scrutiny-on-costsNuclear Energy Dangerous to Your Wallet, Not Only the Environment, CounterPunch, by PETE DOLACK , 1 JAN 16  “……..Significant cost overruns are the norm in building nuclear power plants, and it isn’t investors who are on the hook for them.

Three nuclear projects are under construction in the United States and two in Western Europe, a group that features an assortment of cost overruns and generous guarantees:

*The two new Vogtle reactors in Georgia are already $3 billion over budget although their completion date is three and a half years away. The largest owner, Southern Company, has received $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees. Overruns at this plant are not unprecedented; the two existing reactors cost $8.7 billion instead of the promised $600 million, resulting in higher electricity rates.

*The Watts Bar 2 nuclear reactor in Tennessee, which received its license to operate in October, has seen its cost rise to $6.1 billion from $2.5 billion. (This is technically a restart of a unit on which construction was suspended in 1985.) The existing reactor at this site has a history of safety problems.

*The Summer 2 and 3 reactors being built in South Carolina have already caused rate payers there to endure a series of rate increases. Cost overruns just since 2012 have totaled almost $2 billion.

*In October 2013, British authorities approved a new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point, England, that features subsidies designed to give the owner, Électricité de France, aguaranteed 10 percent rate of return on the project. Power from the plant will be sold at a fixed price, indexed to the consumer inflation rate. In other words, The Independentreports, “should the market price fall below that [agreed-upon] levelthe Government would make up the difference.” The agreed-upon fixed price set by the Cameron government at the time was double the wholesale price for electricity.

*Olkiluoto-3 in Finland was supposed to have cost €3 billion, but is 10 years behind schedule and €5 billion over budget.

High costs despite high subsidies…….. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/01/nuclear-energy-dangerous-to-your-wallet-not-only-the-environment/

January 1, 2016 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

January 1 Energy News

geoharvey's avatargeoharvey

Opinion:

Paris Fails to Revive the Nuclear Dream • At COP21, nuclear advocates made pitches on climate change, but analysis of the plans of 195 governments that signed the Paris agreement, each with its own plans to reduce national carbon emissions, show that nearly all of them exclude nuclear power. [EcoWatch]

Reactor at Qinshan: Many experts doubt that China can go far to meeting its needs with nuclear power. Photo credit: Atomic Energy of Canada Limited Reactor at Qinshan: Many experts doubt that China can go far to meeting its needs with nuclear power. Photo credit: Atomic Energy of Canada Limited

Science and Technology:

¶ Dr Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, recently tweeted some charts about CO2 and global temperatures. They tell a compelling story. Climate change has not slowed down; it has been unrelenting. The result, unless we act vigorously, is disaster on many fronts. [CleanTechnica]

World:

¶ In normal times, a months-long slide in energy prices would be enough to rattle a man…

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January 1, 2016 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Work Involving Nuclear Materials OFTEN Requires High-Grade QA” Says Lockheed Martin Operated Sandia Labs – How About ALWAYS Requires High-Grade Quality Assurance?

miningawareness's avatarMining Awareness +

Work involving nuclear materials often requires high-grade QA” says Sandia Labs, operated by Lockheed Martin!

The difference between often and always, in this context, can be a nuclear-radiological accident. Is this why a Sandia-Lockheed Martin worker, Mark Miller, supported the recent proposal to raise radiation exposure to the general public by the nuclear industry to be 400 times greater than the maximum currently allowed by the US EPA – i.e. to raise it from 0.25 mSv (25 mrem) per year up to 100 mSv per year, i.e. 10,000 mrem? See: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NRC-2015-0057-0010

Sandia QA often not always

Click to access QA.pdf

Sandia grades the quality assurance rigor based on customer needs.” It needs to be based on worker and public safety not “customer needs” which may be to cut corners and costs to make more money-increase stock value.

Is this nit-picking? Maybe, but with nuclear-radiation safety, lack of linguistic rigor and lack…

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January 1, 2016 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

#DriggLockTheGate: letter to Cumbria County Council

mariannewildart's avatarRadiation Free Lakeland

DRIGG between the sea Irish and the river Irt Drigg Low Level Waste Repository (Nuclear Waste Dump) between the Irish Sea and the River Irt.

Please write to Cumbria County Council (see letter below for ideas, make it as short or long as you like) and oppose the expansion of Drigg – it is a uniquely vulnerable nuclear waste dump.

Write to: to Cumbria County Council at : developmentcontrol@cumbria.gov.uk

Application 4/11/9007 Low Level Waste Repository Site Optimisation and Closure Works.

There is also a petition here: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/lock-the-gate-on-drigg-the-uks-nuclear-waste-site
Sent Wednesday 30th December 2015 to Cumbria County Councillors

Dear Cumbria County Councillors,
Early in 2016 (date tbc) Cumbria County Council will be considering the
plan to extend Drigg nuclear waste site. “Planning Application 4/11/9007
Low Level Waste Repository Site Optimisation and Closure Works.” Below
are just a few of the many reasons why Cumbria County Council must
question the assumption that Drigg should continue to accept radioactive
waste.

1. CLOSURE: The…

View original post 1,324 more words

January 1, 2016 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Amidst Disasters Around the World, Top Scientists Declare Links Between Extreme Weather and Climate Change

GarryRogers's avatarGarryRogers Nature Conservation

But it is in the North Atlantic that the influences of human-forced climate change upon the weather are starting grow most starkly clear. There the impact of El Nino is far less obvious. During a typical strong El Nino year, storms tend to form more-so over Iceland. And we’ve seen that. But in the past, El Nino years have also tended to bring colder weather to Scandinavia as the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream strengthened and locked cold air into the higher Latitudes. However, this year, as in recent years, the Barents Sea has been freakishly warm. This region, which during the 20th Century featured much more sea ice than today, is now mostly ice free. And this broad section of open water vents heat into the atmosphere, warming Scandinavia and providing a weakness in the Jet Stream for warm air invasions of the Arctic.

“Today The New York Times is…

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January 1, 2016 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

2015 in Nuclear News

a-cat-CANImpossible 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:

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's notes | Leave a comment

Pro Nuclear Spin: denial of radiation effects, of Fukushima harm

Denial in the face of evidence has certainly been an effective tool to frustrate worldwide efforts to address Climate Change.  Why not attempt the same public relations makeover on radiation?

This new, bold initiative appears to be coming in a two-pronged attack:  the first is reviving an already disproved theory that radiation may be ‘good for you’: hormesis.

The second is changing the world’s perception of the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdown that released and deposited massive amounts of radioactivity in many areas of Japan.

The potential ramifications for public health are huge.

science-denial

Demystifying Nuclear Power: Problem: In a post-Fukushima-triple-meltdown world, do the numbers work for atomic power?  Fairewinds,November 17, 2015 by Sue Prent

With a giant blot still reading over the page of its public safety record, the multi-national, multi-billion dollar atomic power industry faces  the stark economic reality that without even more of the regulatory and financial support that it has long enjoyed, it cannot successfully compete financially with sustainable methods electrical generation.

Moreover, these preferential government regulations and incredible financial subsidies from countries around the world are more concerned with maintaining a nuclear energy fleet that in the US has long been tied-up with Defense Department interests, and throughout the world has also been an assured method of access to nuclear weapons.

During the early days of atomic reactors, decommissioning, clean-up and long-term radioactive waste storage were not even acknowledged or planned for, and now they crowd onto center stage as aged and leaking plants line up to speedily shutdown and abandon their overflowing nuclear waste cesspools.  In the US, people living near the plants and state governments without regulatory authority over this federal process are stunned to discover the financial burden of underfunded decommissioning funds and inadequate decommissioning procedures that will leave the public facing corporate waste abandonment.

That’s right, here’s the hook: if it weren’t for the scientific consensus view that radiation is harmful, and more radiation is even more harmful, nuclear plants might be a whole lot cheaper to operate.

Talk about your “inconvenient truth!”

Recent developments suggest that the atomic power industry, with cooperation from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), may have come up with a crafty way to make the financial numbers work once again: rehabilitate radiation. Continue reading

January 1, 2016 Posted by | Reference, spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

With UK floods now, a timely call to stop extending Cumbria nuclear waste dump

sign-thisLOCK THE GATE ON DRIGG – THE UKS NUCLEAR WASTE SITE https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/lock-the-gate-on-drigg-the-uks-nuclear-waste-site  Campaign created by

Marianne Birkby

Map Sellafield & Drigg wastesTO: CUMBRIA COUNTY COUNCIL

Early in 2016 Cumbria County Council will be considering the plan to extend the lifetime and capacity of Drigg Nuclear Dump on the West Coast of Cumbria. We the undersigned ask that you Lock the Gate on Drigg.

Why is this important?

To describe the UKs nuclear waste site as a “Repository” is putting a spin on the UKs main nuclear dump for “low level” waste. There is “controlled discharge direct to the Irish Sea” not to mention run off to the Drigg Stream and River Irt. Discharges to the air of radioactive gases are ongoing. According to the British Geological Society the Drigg site is above a regional aquifer. It is also “likely to be destroyed by coastal erosion” in 500 to 5000 years (computer modelling can be wrong either way) . Much of the waste is long lived and high risk.
Below are a few of the reasons why it is important that Cumbria County Council Lock the Gate on Drigg:

Cumbria Drigg waste site

“Planning Application 4/11/9007 Low Level Waste Repository Site Optimisation and Closure Works.”

1. CLOSURE: The statement “closure works” is hugely misleading. The date for “closure” is set at 2079. So Drigg would continue to accept nuclear waste until that time. The site would be “capped.” Again this is misleading and to “cap” a nuclear dump is akin to putting a cap on a fizzy lemonade bottle while there are holes in the bottom of the bottle. The site will continue to leach aqueous emissions to groundwater and gaseous emissions to air for thousands of years.

2. LOW LEVEL: This suggests that the waste at Drigg is low risk and short lived. Neither is true. As the University of Reading has pointed out: “The Drigg site uses two disposal systems: 1) An original system operated from 1959 to 1988 comprising a series of parallel trenches excavated into glacial clays, back filled with LLW and covered with an interim water resistant cap. 2) Current disposal of compacted waste placed in steel ISO-freight containers, with void space filled with highly fluid cement based grout. These containers are then disposed of in a series of open concrete vaults. Radionuclides with highest activities in the inventory include 3H, 241Pu, 137Cs, 234U and 90Sr, 238U and 232Th.

3. RADIOACTIVE FLY TIPPING: The chemical and nuclear dump site has moved on from the years 1940 to 1988 when chemical and radioactive waste was tumble tipped into trenches. Now the waste is compacted into steel shipping containers filled with cement. Incredibly the containers are stacked high. In 2013 the LLW management wrote: “in containers at the tops of stacks, the external capping grout has 
undergone extensive physical degradation and settlement; the lids are not full of grout, and the grout is generally heavily cracked. The state of the capping grout in underlying layers is better; most containers only show sparse cracking and typical settlement in the lid is approximately 15 mm. Standing water, sometimes contaminated with low levels of radioactivity, is present in approximately half of the containers at the tops of stacks. ..In containers at the tops of stacks, organic matter (principally leaf mould) has accumulated beneath many open grout ports, with vegetation growing from some grout ports. ..Corrosion, sometimes fully penetrating, is present in some container lids at the tops of stacks…”

4. FLOODWATER AND SEA INUNDATION: “The Environment Agency has given a formal view that “the potential for disruption of the site is an acceptable risk” By “disruption of the site” they mean inundation by sea and flood. This is a far cry from the Environment Agency’s previous criticism in 2005: “BNFL (Now the NDA) has not yet demonstrated that the wider benefits to the UK from continued LLW disposal on this site outweigh the potential future impacts” We would hope that Cumbria County Council agree with the Environment Agency’s 2005 findings that that the real and present threat of inundation of the Drigg site by flood or by sea is not an acceptable risk to the people of Cumbria or to our international neighbours.

5. THE COLLAPSE in 1985 of the largest black-headed gull breeding colony in Europe on the Drigg dunes has never been satisfactorily explained. The official explanation is that a fox did it!

6. CHILDHOOD LEUKEMIA is officially blamed on “population mixing” due to the influx of workers firstly to the 1940 explosives factory (Royal Ordnance Factory) at Drigg and then the ROF at Sellafield. The irony of this incredible argument is that the plan for 3 new nuclear reactors at ‘ Moorside’ a few miles from Drigg (‘Moorside’ is at the village of Beckermet) would involve a boom and bust influx of thousands of workers along with a further tsunami of nuclear wastes and ever more Driggs.

How it will be delivered

By hand to Cumbria County Council

January 1, 2016 Posted by | ACTION, UK, wastes | 2 Comments