nuclear-news

The US government’s lawsuit alleged that Lockheed Martin failed to identify and report hazardous waste produced and stored at the facility, and failed to properly handle and dispose of the waste.  The US “government further alleged that this conduct resulted in false claims for payment under Lockheed Martin’s contracts with the Department of Energy…“ (USDOJ, Feb. 29, 2016 – See entire Press Release at Bottom of this Blog Post.)

This is a Civil Suit settlement and excludes criminal and other charges:
“Notwithstanding Paragraphs 5 and 6 above, or any other term of this Agreement, the following claims of the United States are specifically reserved and are not released:
a. Any liability arising under Title 26, U.S. Code (Internal Revenue Code);
9 b. Any criminal liability;
c. Except as explicitly stated in this Agreement, any administrative liability, including the suspension and debarment rights

From DemocracyNow.org:
“The Price of Nuclear Weapons: The Case of Paducah, Kentucky
SEPTEMBER 01, 1999

As the US Congress prepares for a battle over nuclear testing, in Paducah, Kentucky, workers at a uranium plant are battling its former operators after they recently discovered radioactive black ooze seeping from the ground close to the plant.

The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, operated for years by the nuclear weapons manufacturing companies Martin-Marietta and Lockheed Martin, produced enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, Navy submarines and commercial power plants for 47 years. The plant is owned by the Department of Energy, which subcontracted it to Martin Marietta in 1984, and then to Lockheed-Martin in 1995 when Martin-Marietta and Lockheed merged.

The chance discovery of the ooze by plant workers in July led to the uncovering of a burial ground for radioactive debris just north of the plant. The waste was barely hidden…

Centralized location makes these old nuclear reactors, from the 1970s, a major hazard for much of North America, as is known from Chernobyl. The official outer – food growing exclusion – zone of 50 miles reaches to the edge of the wealthy Little Rock suburb of Maumelle – per capita and per household one of the wealthiest in America, and includes the suburb of Conway, as well as WinRock farms, and Hot Springs Village. See: http://www.psr.org/resources/evacuation-zone-nuclear-reactors.html

If Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One is under high level scrutiny by the nuclear lackey US NRC, vassal to the nuclear industry, then it must be in terrible shape indeed! It is very old. Unfortunately, Arkansas Nuclear One has two nuclear reactors.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2016/16-001.iv.pdf A MAN WAS KILLED DURING THE “HEAVY EQUIPMENT HANDLING INCIDENT”.
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/ANO1/ano1_chart.html
This nuclear reactor is probably what killed Win Rockefeller, though it cannot be “proved”. He died of Myeloproliferative neoplasm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winthrop_Paul_Rockefeller Unlike…

Science and Technology:

¶ After seven months, Solar Impulse 2 has returned to the sky as it prepares to resume its record-setting round-the-world flight. The huge, sun-powered plane, which smashed the longest solo record last summer from Japan to Hawaii, flew a 90-minute maintenance and equipment-checking flight. [ABC 57 News]

After seven months, Solar Impulse 2 has returned to the sky as it prepares to resume its record-setting round-the-world flight.

Opinion:

¶ “Base load” power: a myth used to defend the fossil fuel
industry • At a conference in Houston, leaders of the global fossil power industry were shocked to hear the chairman of the biggest network owner in China dismiss the importance of coal, oil, and “base load” power. [RenewEconomy]

World:

¶ The Government of Western Australia will commit $300,000 to investigate building a micro-grid powered by renewables for the coastal town of Kalbarri. The…

Fukushima today, with hundreds of tanks holding radioactive water. Asahi Shimbun file photo.

As the fifth anniversary of the onset of the continuing Fukushima nuclear disaster approaches, Mary Olson, director of NIRS Southeast office in Asheville, NC and Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates are on a five-week speaking/listening tour of Japan. We will be posting Olson’s “tour diary” beginning today and continuing with new posts through March 11, the day the disaster began.

I have been to speak at the global Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons in Vienna (December 2014) and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review at the United Nations in 2015. Now, finally I am here in Japan for a five-week speaking tour during February and March 2016. Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates is here too.

In 2011, in the week that this nuclear disaster began, I became consumed by a question that women (3 or 4 of them…

Radiation Free Lakeland have just sent off this ‘submission’ (how we hate that word) to the Welsh Affairs Committee.

We urge others to write opposing plans for new nuclear in Wales (or anywhere!).  The “high burn” waste from new build would be many times hotter than from existing nuclear plants.

Please feel free to use any of the ideas in the letter below. The deadline is 6pm Friday March 4th.  No need to cover all the “Terms of Reference” the main thing is to object to the whole shebang and you can do that here:  http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/welsh-affairs-committee/inquiries/parliament-2015/nuclear-power-15-16/

RADIATION FREE LAKELAND   27^th February 2016

To the Welsh Affairs Committee: “Inquiry into the future of nuclear power in Wales. The inquiry will examine the decommissioning of nuclear plants at Wylfa and Trawsfynydd, and the development of a new plant, Wylfa Newydd”.

Radiation Free Lakeland does not recognize the terms of this inquiry…