nuclear-news

Tepco’s Fukushima Daichi (Fukushima No. 1) Nuclear Disaster, started in March of 2011 and is ongoing. It continues to belch radiation into the air and into the Pacific Ocean.

The below Japanese scandal, which came to light almost one decade before Tepco’s Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, sounds eerily similar to the ongoing Areva-Le Creusot nuclear parts scandal. Some of the suspect Areva-Le Creusot Forge (formerly Schneider Forge) parts are of reactor pressure vessels. One reactor pressure vessel which Schneider Forge made for Beznau I (in Switzerland) reportedly has almost 1000 defects due to what may be a combination of aging and substandard quality. The US NRC demonstrates its usual devil may care attitude. Potentially defective parts include the reactor pressure vessels made by Schneider Forge for Prairie Island Nuclear Power Station, at the headwaters of the Mississippi River, and within yards of an American Indian Reservation. Is this why they don’t…

From DemocracyNow.org:

“Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers, MARCH 20, 2013

In part two of our interview, Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail discusses how the U.S. invasion of Iraq has left behind a legacy of cancer and birth defects suspected of being caused by the U.S. military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus. Noting the birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, Jamail says: “They’re extremely hard to bear witness to. But it’s something that we all need to pay attention to … What this has generated is, from 2004 up to this day, we are seeing a rate of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah that has surpassed even that in the wake of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that nuclear bombs were dropped on at the end of World War…

From Human Rights Watch:
“Draconian Law Rammed Through Russian Parliament: Outrageous Provisions to Curb Speech, Privacy, Freedom of Conscience, by Tanya Lokshina Russia Program Director, JUNE 23, 2016

UPDATE (June 24, 2016): The revised bill was finally published on the morning of June 24, the day of the voting. The lawmakers did eliminate the provisions on stripping Russian nationals of their citizenship. The other deeply problematic draft amendments described below remained practically unchanged. At around 12.30 pm the State Duma of the Russian Federation passed the “Yarovaya Law.”

On June 24, its very last day in session before the summer break and the September parliamentary election, the lower chamber of Russia’s parliament is planning a final vote – without any meaningful debate or scrutiny – on a set of legislative amendments that severely undermine freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and the right to privacy – all allegedly…

In another potential blow to the South Australian government, which had pinned the state’s economic future on the original expansion plan, Olympic Dam asset president Jacqui McGill categorically rejected siting a high-level international nuclear waste repository on any land covered by its indenture agreement.

We’re not a waste repository company, so that’s not in our business model and it’s not in our plans,” she said. BHP had no moral responsibility to manage waste

BHP: Fukushima set uranium industry back for years THE AUSTRALIAN JUNE 27, 2016 Michael Owen  SA Bureau Chief Adelaide A key reason for BHP Billiton’s decision four years ago to indefinitely mothball a $30 billion plan to turn Olympic Dam into the world’s biggest uranium mine was the Fukushima nuclear plant explosion rather than cost concerns, it has been revealed.

This doesn’t tell why it failed. Substandard materials? Substandard design? To err is human.

And, you trust them to be responsible for nuclear power stations? Or nuclear anything? They blew up their own hypersonic weapon! “We had to terminate,” a spokesperson for the US Defence Department said. “The weapon exploded during takeoff and fell back down in the range complex.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/experimental-us-hypersonic-weapon-explodes-four-seconds-after-test-launch-in-alaska-9690586.html

Oh, wait, could have been nuclear: “… non-nuclear hypersonic weapons could well be targeting nuclear weapons and supporting facilities, possibly in preparation for a follow-on nuclear strike. Furthermore, there is no physical reason why hypersonic missiles could not deliver nuclear warheads.” http://fpif.org/missile-defense-isnt-weapons-system-undermines-nuclear-deterrence/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_Global_Strike

PEOPLE NEED TO RETURN TO BASICS: NO WAR OR ATTACKS AT ALL UNLESS SOMEONE ACTUALLY CROSSES THE BOUNDARY OF YOUR COUNTRY! REVIVE SURROGATE WAR SUCH AS TRADITIONAL AMERICAN INDIAN STICKBALL.

From the US Army:
“Launch vehicle support equipment causes test failure

Opinion:

¶ “Diablo Canyon’s closure is good news for energy and the
earth” • The nuclear plant’s closure is important for the future of energy generation and for the health of the earth. The agreement to close the plant could also serve as a positive example for other states. [The San Luis Obispo Tribune]

Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Joe Johnston jjohnston@thetribunenews.com

Science and Technology:

¶ Four years ago, Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge University, said the Arctic Ocean could well be free of sea ice within only a few years. Some considered his statement controversial. Now, it appears that he may have been right. [CleanTechnica]

World:

¶ Scotland’s carbon emission level in 2014 was around 46% lower than its emission levels in 1990, meaning that the country has managed to achieve its 2020 target of 42% lower emissions…