Comprehensive report on Chernobyl – 30 years on

TORCH, Ian Fairlea, March 10, 2016 First of all, apologies to the many readers who have written complaining about the lack of new blogs/information on this website.

The explanation is that I’ve been busy for the past 5 months writing a new report on the health effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster -TORCH-2016. This is an update of the 2006 TORCH report. (TORCH means The Other Report on Chernobyl.)

The report (120 pages) was commissioned by Global 2000/Friends of the Earth Austria and funded by the Vienna City Council Environmental Ombuds Office.

The report updates the new health evidence which has been published in peer-reviewed journals during the 10 year period 2006-2016.

In a nutshell, the report finds

5 million people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia still live in highly contaminated areas
400 million people in less contaminated areas
37% of Chernobyl’s fallout deposited on western Europe; 42% of western Europe contaminated
40,000 fatal cancers predicted
6,000 thyroid cancer cases to date, 16,000 more expected
increased radiogenic thyroid cancers now seen in Austria
increased radiogenic leukemia, cardiovascular disease, breast cancers confirmed
new evidence of radiogenic birth defects, mental health effects and diabetes
new evidence that children in contaminated areas suffer radiogenic illnesses https://www.global2000.at/sites/global/files/TORCH%20-%20The%20other%20Report%20of%20Chernobyl.pdf

1.This Month

PETITION

Free Julian Assange, before it’s too late. Sign to STOP the USA Extradition

United Nations: demasking the Torture of Julian Assange. Rico Brouwer and Nils Melzer

Three Mile Island (& Fukushima) Lies & Cover-Ups w/ Gundersen & Wasserman

Energy efficiency – theme for July 2019

Energy efficiency represents the single largest potential contributor to global emissions reduction, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA 2017). It should be a key part of the global energy strategy, for several reasons:

It could reduce global electric demand by more than 20 per cent, based on current rates in the U.S. power sector, while maintaining high levels of services such as heating and lighting.
It avoids the need for increased energy, capacity and grid services, making it the least expensive way to decarbonise at scale.
It can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by billions of tonnes.

A dramatic example of the power of energy efficiency is lighting. In 2017 the United States passed the milestone of 1 billion LED and CFL lights installed, avoiding 142 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions, at a cost of about $7 per ton of avoided carbon dioxide. In contrast, the cumulative installed capacity of rooftop solar reached 8,000 MW in 2017, saving 8 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, at a cost of $360 per ton. Lighting efficiency thus yielded almost 18 times the avoided carbon dioxide, at about 2 per cent the cost per ton of rooftop solar.

Google provides another example of the power of energy efficiency. Its data centers now use 50 per cent less energy than the average data center, according to the company. Google also developed an improved chip, the TPU, which performs 83 times better than standard CPUs. The new chip allowed Google to reduce power consumption at its data centers by a factor of 30—far exceeding the effect on Google’s carbon footprint of all of the company’s renewable energy purchases. ” – John Woolard, Eco Business, 10 June 2019

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope