How Fast Will Nuke Power Collapse? Atomic experts Jim Green, Paul Gunter and Kevin Kamps explain how a dying reactor industry is clamping on to bought state legislatures for gargantuan handouts
Belarus: Nuclear Power Police State – Critique by Ian Goddard
Image source credit JADWIGA BRONTE Source; http://www.photoawards.com/winner/zoom.php?eid=8-130313-16
In this video Ian Goddard looks at the story where an AP reporter was taken to court for reporting on contaminated milk. He breaks down the scientific evidence available and is not happy with what he finds..
Published on 3 Jan 2017
Belarusian kangaroo court finds AP reporter guilty: https://www.ap.org/ap-in-the-news/201…
Original AP milk report: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2c7552…
Background on Belarus: https://youtu.be/-psimPf1fM8
“According to official post-Soviet data about 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.” https://wiseinternational.org/chernob…
@ 2:46 Belarusian Association of Journalists: “The outcome of the trial dramatically narrows free expression in the country, as it casts doubts on the very possibility to hold journalistic investigations in Belarus.” https://baj.by/en/content/court-decla…
@ 3:08 https://charter97.org/en/news/2011/4/…
@ 3:11 https://www.indexoncensorship.org/201…
@ 3:15 https://en.eurobelarus.info/news/soci…
@ 3:19 https://www.indexoncensorship.org/201…
@ 3:38, http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/la…
@ 3:45, NAS statement on Bandazhevsky
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hum…
@ 4:54, Novikau (2016): https://pubmed.gov/27154754
@ 7:37, the Ukrainian Government’s Chernobyl research program: http://nrcrm.gov.ua/en/
@ 8:06 http://www.tschernobylkongress.de/fil…
@ 8:14: http://elib.bsu.by/handle/123456789/1…
@ 8:30 graph used: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat…
@ 8:40 fallout-dose overlay from: https://pubmed.gov/21906781 (the location in Russia from which shown doses were estimated received less fallout than the most affected parts of Belarus)
@ 9:06 Grigoriev et al (2013): https://pubmed.gov/23057689
@ 9:57 https://www.researchgate.net/publicat…
@ 10:04 http://enfants-tchernobyl-belarus.org…
@ 10:30 Graph shows cattle receiving Prussian Blue in Belarus. http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publicat… PB binds to Cs137 and prevents its absorption, but has no effect on Sr90. So PB-fed cattle should have a skewed Cs/Sr ratio.
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Landscapes I saw
A short poem at the beginning of the year.
Accumulated dust can make mountains.
Here are the pictures that show reality.
Taken on January 2nd 2017.
These black bags are full of soil and fallen leaves gathered in the course of the decontamination work.
These bags last from 3 to 5 years.
What do we do now?
Over the mountain of black bags lies Odaka station.
Now anybody can get on and off the train.
Source: Akiyoshi Imazeki, Odaka Station, Minamisoma-shi, Fukushima Prefecture
Gov’t mulls ’roundtable’ meetings to spur power industry reorganization
The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry is considering holding “roundtable” discussions with top executives of major power companies on measures to restructure their business ties with beleaguered Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and set up operations overseas, it has been learned.
The industry ministry wants to help pave the way for the power industry to restructure and consolidate by setting up a forum in which major utilities can exchange views on the realities of domestic and overseas markets as well as management reforms. The move will effectively have the government play mediator in the reorganization of the power industry.
The move comes after a ministry expert committee on reforming TEPCO and issues related to the tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant proposed on Dec. 20 that the government play a “catalytic” role in the realignment of the power industry. In response, TEPCO plans to hash out a new management restructuring plan this month or later. The roundtable is expected to be set up around the time that TEPCO comes up with its new restructuring scheme.
One of the expert panel’s proposals is for TEPCO to establish a “consortium” with other utilities on its power transmission and nuclear power projects at an early date. The proposal is intended to facilitate the realignment and consolidation of the power industry as part of moves to rationalize TEPCO’s measures to cover the costs of dealing with the Fukushima nuclear accident. The expert panel projected that these costs would swell to 21.5 trillion yen from an earlier estimate of 11 trillion yen. The proposal also draws on TEPCO’s plan to move its thermal power business to JERA Co., a joint venture with Chubu Electric Power Co.
The industry ministry is considering plans including publicly soliciting prospective partners for TEPCO. However, major power companies remain cautious, with a senior official at one major utility saying, “Our own company’s profits will be used to deal with the nuclear accident.” The utility roundtable meeting is the industry ministry’s attempt to help resolve this and other issue. The roundtable idea is also in line with the TEPCO’s opinion that “as long as TEPCO is aiming to reorganize at a national level, we want to have an opportunity for all companies to meet and discuss things,” as a TEPCO executive said.
While domestic power demand has stagnated due to energy-saving efforts and the declining birthrate, the industry is faced with a shifting market overseas, where demand continues to rise. According to an International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast, while Japan’s domestic electricity consumption will rise only slightly from 950 billion kilowatt-hours in 2014 to 980 billion kilowatt-hours in 2030, overall global consumption will rise from 19.8 trillion kilowatt-hours to 27.9 trillion kilowatt-hours.
Through the roundtable, the industry ministry is keen to help boost utilities’ entry into overseas markets by facilitating industry rationalization to strengthen their businesses at home. However, as the power industry may not respond well to having reorganization foisted on it by the government, the ministry plans to flesh out the scheme carefully. As a senior utility official said, “It is essential to set up a contact point for private entities first and leave the matter to them thereafter.”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170103/p2a/00m/0na/012000c
Fate of Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant remains unknown
The government is struggling to decide the future of Tepco’s Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant, which has been suspended since the March 2011 disaster.
There have been increasing calls for decommissioning the power plant located just a few kilometers south of the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 installation.
The government has been finding it difficult to reach a clear conclusion on Fukushima No. 2’s fate, as it and Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings have been busy dealing with its older counterpart that suffered three reactor meltdowns following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
On Dec. 21, the Fukushima Prefectural Assembly voted unanimously to adopt a resolution calling on the central government to decommission the No. 2 plant “at an early date,” arguing that the facility is an obstacle to the prefecture’s recovery from the 3/11 disasters.
A temporary halt to the cooling system for a spent fuel pool at the No. 2 plant caused by an earthquake in November rekindled fears of another meltdown crisis.
In 2011, the prefectural assembly adopted a petition calling for decommissioning all reactors in Fukushima.
The assembly has also adopted a series of written opinions demanding the decommissioning of the No. 2 plant, which is located in the towns of Naraha and Tomioka.
Demands from local communities “have been ignored by the central government,” one person said.
The central government’s official position is that whether to decommission the plant is up to Tepco.
As the government has already lifted the state of emergency for the No. 2 plant, it has no authority to decide the decommissioning under current regulations.
If an exception were made, the central government could receive a barrage of requests for decommissioning reactors all over the country, sources familiar with the situation said.
“Such a situation would destroy Japan’s whole nuclear policy,” a senior official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.
Some people have called for creating a special law on decommissioning Fukushima No. 2, but others have raised concerns that such a step could infringe on Tepco’s property rights, the sources said.
Some officials in the central government have said that no one believes the No. 2 plant can continue to exist.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet have left room for making a political decision on dismantling the facility, saying that the plant can’t be treated in the same way as other nuclear plants due to fear among Fukushima residents of another nuclear accident.
Since the government effectively holds a stake of more than 50 percent in Tepco, it can influence the company’s policy as a major shareholder.
But Tepco now needs to focus on dealing with the No. 1 plant. A senior company official said that it “cannot afford to decide on decommissioning, which would require a huge workforce.”
The main opposition Democratic Party plans to pursue a suprapartisan law that would urge Tepco to decide to decommission the plant at an early date.
“While understanding calls for early decommissioning, we have no choice but to wait for the No. 2 plant’s four reactors to reach the end of their 40-year lifetimes,” a lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said.
The four reactors launched operations between April 1982 and August 1987.
Ex-Leader of Japan Turns Nuclear Foe
TOKYO–William Zeller, a petty officer second class in the U.S. Navy, was one of hundreds of sailors who rushed to provide assistance to Japan after a giant earthquake and tsunami set off a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011. Not long after returning home, he began to feel sick.
Today, he has nerve damage and abnormal bone growths, and blames exposure to radiation during the humanitarian operation conducted by crew members of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan. Neither his doctors nor the U.S. government has endorsed his claim or those of about 400 other sailors who attribute ailments including leukemia and thyroid disease to Fukushima and are suing Tokyo Electric, the operator of the plant.
But one prominent figure is supporting the U.S. sailors: Junichiro Koizumi, former prime minister of Japan.
Koizumi, 74, visited a group of the sailors, including Zeller, in San Diego in May, breaking down in tears at a news conference. Over the past several months, he has barnstormed Japan to raise money to help defray some of their medical costs.
The unusual campaign is just the latest example of Koizumi’s transformation in retirement into Japan’s most outspoken opponent of nuclear power. Though he supported nuclear power when he served as prime minister from 2001-06, he is now dead set against it and calling for the permanent shutdown of all 54 of Japan’s nuclear reactors, which were taken offline after the Fukushima disaster.
“I want to work hard toward my goal that there will be zero nuclear power generation,” Koizumi said in an interview in a Tokyo conference room.
The reversal means going up against his old colleagues in the governing Liberal Democratic Party as well as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who are pushing to get Japan, once dependent for about one third of its energy on nuclear plants, back into the nuclear power business.
That Koizumi would take a contrarian view is perhaps not surprising. He was once known as “the Destroyer” because he tangled with his own party to push through difficult policy proposals like privatization of the national postal service.
Koizumi first declared his about-face on nuclear power three years ago, calling for Japan to switch to renewable sources of energy like solar power and arguing that “there is nothing more costly than nuclear power.”
After spending the first few years of his retirement out of the public eye, in recent months Koizumi has become much more vocal about his shift, saying he was moved to do more by the emotional appeal of the sailors he met in San Diego.
Scientists are divided about whether radiation exposure contributed to the sailors’ illnesses. The Defense Department, in a report commissioned by Congress, concluded that it was “implausible” that the service members’ ailments were related to radiation exposure from Fukushima.
To many political observers, Koizumi’s cause in retirement is in keeping with his unorthodox approach in office, when he captivated Japanese and international audiences with his blunt talk, opposition to the entrenched bureaucracy and passion for Elvis Presley.
Some wonder how much traction he can get with his anti-nuclear campaign, given the Abe administration’s determination to restart the atomic plants and the Liberal Democratic Party’s commanding majority in parliament.
Two reactors are back online; to meet Abe’s goal of producing one-fifth of the country’s electricity from nuclear power within the next 15 years, about 30 of the existing 43 reactors would need to restart. (Eleven reactors have been permanently decommissioned.)
A year after the Fukushima disaster, anti-nuclear fervor led tens of thousands of demonstrators to take to the streets of Tokyo near the prime minister’s residence to register their anger at the government’s decision to restart the Ohi power station in western Japan. Public activism has dissipated since then, though polls consistently show that about 60 percent of Japanese voters oppose restarting the plants.
“The average Japanese is not that interested in issues of energy,” said Daniel P. Aldrich, professor of political science at Northeastern University. “They are anti-nuclear, but they are not willing to vote the LDP out of office because of its pronuclear stance.”
Sustained political protest is rare in Japan, but some analysts say that does not mean the anti-nuclear movement is doomed to wither.
“People have to carry on with their lives, so only so much direct action can take place,” said Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo.
Anti-nuclear activism “may look dormant from appearances, but it’s there, like magma,” he said. “It’s still brewing, and the next trigger might be another big protest or political change.”
Some recent signs suggest the movement has gone local. In October, Ryuichi Yoneyama was elected governor in Niigata, the prefecture in central Japan that is home to the world’s largest nuclear plant, after campaigning on a promise to fight efforts by Tokyo Electric to restart reactors there.
Like Koizumi, he is an example of how the anti-nuclear movement has blurred political allegiances in Japan. Before running for governor, Yoneyama had run as a Liberal Democratic candidate for parliament.
Koizumi, a conservative and former leader of the Liberal Democrats, may have led the way.
“Originally, the nuclear issue was a point of dispute between conservatives and liberals,” said Yuichi Kaido, a lawyer and leading anti-nuclear activist. “But after Mr. Koizumi showed up and said he opposed nuclear power, other conservatives realized they could be against nuclear power.”
Since he visited the sailors in San Diego, Koizumi has traveled around Japan in hopes of raising about $1 million for a foundation he established with another former prime minister, Morihiro Hosokawa, an independent who has previously been backed by the opposition Democratic Party, to help pay some of the sailors’ medical costs.
Koizumi is not involved in the sailors’ lawsuit, now before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Tokyo Electric is working to have the case moved to Japan.
Aimee L. Tsujimoto, a Japanese-American freelance journalist, and her husband, Brian Victoria, an American Buddhist priest now living in Kyoto, introduced Koizumi to the plaintiffs. Zeller, who said he took painkillers and had tried acupuncture and lymph node massages to treat his conditions, said the meeting with Koizumi was the first time that someone in power had listened to him.
“This is a man where I saw emotion in his face that I have not seen from my own doctors or staff that I work with, or from my own personal government,” said Zeller, who works at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. “Nobody has put the amount of attention that I saw in his eyes listening to each word, not just from me, but from the other sailors who have gone through such severe things healthwise.”
Koizumi, whose signature leonine hairstyle has gone white since his retirement, said that after meeting the sailors in San Diego, he had become convinced of a connection between their health problems and the radiation exposure.
“These sailors are supposed to be very healthy,” he said. “It’s not a normal situation. It is unbelievable that just in four or five years that these healthy sailors would become so sick.”
“I think that both the U.S. and Japanese government have something to hide,” he added.
Many engineers, who argue that Japan needs to reboot its nuclear power network to lower carbon emissions and reduce the country’s dependence on foreign fossil fuels, say Koizumi’s position is not based on science.
“He is a very dramatic person,” said Takao Kashiwagi, a professor at the International Research Center for Advanced Energy Systems for Sustainability at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. “He does not have so much basic knowledge about nuclear power, only feelings.”
That emotion is evident when Koizumi speaks about the sailors. Wearing a pale blue gabardine jacket despite Japan’s black-and-gray suit culture, he choked up as he recounted how they had told him that they loved Japan despite what they had gone through since leaving.
“They gave their utmost efforts to help the Japanese people,” he said, pausing to take a deep breath as tears filled his eyes. “I am no longer in government, but I couldn’t just let nothing be done.”
Debris Removal at Reactor # 3 Delayed, but Arrival of the First Elements of the New Building for its Spent Fuel Removal
Transportation of the supporting part of a new roof for the Unit 3 fuel removal at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
The clearing of debris from reactor # 3 is delayed, delaying the construction of the new building to remove spent fuel from the pool. The debris removal was to be done in order to build a new workshop to remove the fuels from the pool.
The removal of the spent fuel should have started in January 2018. In the beginning, TEPCo was to start in 2015. We do not know their new schedule yet.
On the other hand, TEPCO communicated on the arrival of the first elements of the new building, with photos and video.
The dose rates on the site are here. There is up to 2.6 mSv / h in the vicinity of reactor No.3.
Links from TEPCO:
Photos of the new building
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2016/images/handouts_161220_01-e.pdf
Video
http://photo.tepco.co.jp/en/date/2016/201612-e/161220-01e.html
Dose rates in Reactor 3 vicinity
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/surveymap/images/f1-sv-20161219-e.pdf
WNN could get their facts right! but are peace loving journalists really!
To our dear friends and colleagues over at the very pro nuclear World Nuclear news (WNN). A happy new year to you all and the fight continues! 🙂 I still say our headline versions and pictures are better than yours, but thanks for your hard work in getting nuclear information out to the Russians (According to Alexia they are your biggest fans). Your efforts at bridging the cold war gap are noticed and appreciated by us all here at nuclear-news.net. Good job Na Zdorovie!
JAIF president urges reactor restarts to fight climate change LOL
30 December 2016 WNN
Japan needs to work towards bringing its reactors back online if the country is to meet its climate goals, Akio Takahashi, president of the Japan Atomic Industry Forum, said last week. Nuclear energy currently accounts for just 1.1% of Japan’s electricity production and commercial operation has been resumed at only three of the country’s nuclear power plants – Sendai 1, Sendai 2 and Ikata 3.
But are all three actually in operation currently?
From Nuclear Insider:
Dec. 15, 2016—Kyushu Electric Power Co. on Dec. 8 began the process of restarting Sendai 1. The 846-megawatt reactor was initially restarted in August 2015 followed by Sendai 2 in October 2015. Sendai 1 was taken off-line in October for a two-month routine outage. It is the first reactor to undergo a periodic inspection following its restart after meeting new Japanese regulatory standards. Kyushu Electric said it expects the facility to resume commercial operations the first week of January. The company also said it expects to take Sendai 2 off-line for maintenance and refueling on Dec. 16.
Of Japan’s 42 operable reactors, only Shikoku Electric Power Co.’s Ikata 3 and the Sendai reactors are in commercial operation. Takahama 3 and 4 were restarted but have been idled after a court injunction lodged by anti-nuclear activists. Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics said Dec. 13 it estimates seven reactors will be restarted by the end of March 2017 and another 19 by March 2018.
From this it appears that Sendai 1 is supposed to be re-opening sometime this week (and so was presumably not operating on Dec. 30th and Sendai 2 was due to be taken offline on December 16th and may or may not have re-opened.
As for Ikata 3: “Ikata 3 had been idle since being taken offline for a periodic inspection in April 2011. However, Shikoku began the process to restart Ikata 3 on 12 August [2016] and the reactor attained criticality the following day. The 846 MWe pressurized water reactor resumed power generation on 15 August and since then output from the unit has been gradually increased.” So as far as I know it is continuing to operate.
As a U.S. Business, Nuclear Power Stinks
01/01/2017 | Kennedy Maize
http://www.powermag.com/blog/as-a-u-s-business-nuclear-power-stinks/#.WGtBqz_Cxyo.facebook
Regardless of one’s views of the social values of nuclear power — compelling cases can be made all around — as a business proposition nuclear stinks.
The latest evidence comes from the giant Japanese conglomerate Toshiba, which saw a third of its market value vanish in two days of trading (20% in one day, a free-fall stopped only by a limit to trading losses imposed by the Japanese stock market). Credit rating agencies promptly downgraded the company’s debt.
Toshiba’s stock crash was a result of billions in reported losses from its Westinghouse Electric subsidiary and Westinghouse’s ruinous investment last year in nuclear engineering and construction behemoth CB&I Stone & Webster, itself the product of an ill-fated merger. Toshiba’s nuclear business has been hemorrhaging money at its U.S. construction projects in Georgia and South Carolina. Westinghouse is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget at its two construction projects: Southern’s Vogtle and Scana Corp.’s Summer units, a total of four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors under construction. Toshiba faces the possibility that its nuclear troubles will lead the company to a negative net worth.
My colleague Aaron Larson describes the gory business details well. The bottom line is that Westinghouse threatens to bring Toshiba to its financial knees, although the firm is too large to fail entirely. It may well require a Japanese government bailout.
Then there is France’s Areva, which has been bleeding red ink for more than a decade and would have expired but for its French government owners, and a recent bailout. The company is far behind schedule and vastly over budget on construction projects in Finland and France. Late last year, discovery of quality control problems in carbon steel forgings from Areva’s Le Creusot Forge shocked the company. The allegations closed 20 of France’s 58 operating reactors, which also could jeopardize regulatory approval for extended operation at the aging plants.
In late December reports surfaced that Areva employees for decades hid problems in reactor parts it manufactured at Le Creusot Forge. Inspectors from the U.S., France,
China, and the U.K. descended on Areva to examine records and investigate the allegations. “I’m concerned that there keep being more and more problems unveiled,” Kerri Kavanagh, who leads the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s unit inspecting Le Creusot, told the Wall Street Journal.
The business case for existing nukes in the U.S. is also ominous. Just last week, an Ohio newspaper reported that Akron-based FirstEnergy will close or sell its long-troubled, 900-MW Davis-Besse nuclear unit this year or next, without counting on a state bailout. “We have made our decision that over the next 12 to 18 months we’re going to exit competitive generation and become a fully regulated company,” CEO Chuck Jones said. “We are not going to wait on those states to decide what they are going to do there.” This comes on top of multiple closings of U.S. nukes unable to compete in competitive markets in recent years, state subsidies in Illinois and New York to keep uneconomic plants open, and threats of even more shutdowns.
At the same time as the Davis-Besse warning, Environmental Progress, a pro-nuclear group, released an analysis that concluded that a quarter to two-thirds of operating U.S. nuclear plants could face premature closure. If it weren’t for actions by state governments in Illinois and New York, the picture would look worse.
The Environmental Progress analysis counts 35 GW of nuclear capacity as at “triple risk” because “they are in deregulated markets, uneconomical (according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance) and up for relicensing before the end of 2030.” Facing greatest jeopardy for early closure? D.C. Cook in Michigan, Seabrook in New Hampshire, Millstone in Connecticut, and Davis-Besse in Ohio.
Grassy Narrows chief urges Trudeau to cleanup mercury in river
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Jan. 01, 2017
The chief of a small Northern Ontario First Nation whose people are being poisoned by mercury from a defunct paper mill is urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to engage the federal government in the cleanup of the river that is the source of the community’s fish.
Simon Fobister, the Chief of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, has written twice to Mr. Trudeau – in May and in September – and Mr. Fobister’s predecessor, Roger Fobister, wrote to the Prime Minister in March. All of the letters told Mr. Trudeau: “We invite you to visit our community to announce alongside us that the mercury in our river system, our source of life, will finally be cleaned up.”
The chief says he has received no response to those invitations, though the Prime Minister’s Office acknowledged to The Globe and Mail that it had received them. A spokeswoman for Mr. Trudeau pointed out that a representative of the Indigenous Affairs department visited the community in June along with provincial ministers.
Many First Nations in Canada are coping with the negative environmental consequences of development on or near their territories, but few have endured hardships like those suffered in Grassy Narrows, where 90 per cent of residents are showing signs of mercury poisoning.
The current chief said in his most recent letter that Mr. Trudeau’s silence on the matter of Grassy Narrows is troubling.
“You have made important election promises to repair Canada’s relationship with First Nations and to right many of the wrongs that have been done to First Nations people,” wrote Mr. Fobister. “We consider those promises to be sacred and we are hopeful that you will honour your word.”
Responsibility for the mercury problems straddles provincial and federal jurisdictions and, so far, the province of Ontario has borne much of the blame for the fact that the contamination has persisted in the Wabigoon River for six decades. But David Sone of Earthroots, a conservation advocacy group, says there are at least three reasons for the federal government to get involved.
“There is at least still some [federal] responsibility for fisheries where they are part of a cultural fishery” like the one at Grassy Narrows, said Mr. Sone. “There is a responsibility for the health of First Nations. And there is the broader treaty and fiduciary responsibility for the well-being of First Nations.”
The federal government counters that the zone of contamination does not include federal lands, so its own Contaminated Site Action Plan does not apply and, it says, responsibility for addressing the contamination belongs to Ontario. It also points out that Health Canada has been monitoring the mercury levels in the people of Grassy Narrows for decades.
From 1962 to 1970, mercury from Reed Paper’s chemical plant in Dryden, Ont., upstream from Grassy Narrows, was dumped into the English-Wabigoon River system. A former worker at the paper mill has also confessed to participating in the 1972 burial of salt and liquid mercury in a pit behind the facility.
A report commissioned by the Grassy Narrows First Nation and released earlier this year says remediation of at least some parts of the river is feasible. The first step, the report says, would be to stop any further release of mercury from its source. After that, it says, there are several options for cleaning the water, the best of which would be to add low-mercury solids to the water, allowing them to settle on the bottom and dilute the mercury into the sediment.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has not acted on those recommendations, saying she is concerned that moving sediment on the bottom of the river could cause further problems.
But John Rudd, one of the world’s foremost experts on mercury remediation and the lead author of the report, says he believes the Ontario government misread what he wrote. “The top-rated options were two very benign approaches that we don’t think would cause any damage at all,” said Dr. Rudd in a telephone interview. “They also happen to be the least expensive.”
Dr. Rudd headed the first federal-provincial studies of Grassy Narrows in the 1980s and says there is much the federal government could do to assist in the river’s cleanup. “We would like to have their input,” he said, “and if their people are busy, we could do with funding, for sure.”
Japanese researchers have been studying the effects of mercury on the human population in Grassy Narrows for four decades and say symptoms of poisoning can be seen even in those who were not yet born when the plant was operational.
In 1985, the federal and provincial governments, along with Reed and Great Lakes Forest Products, which had bought the plant, agreed to pay nearly $17-million to the people of the First Nation to compensate them for their health problems. But the contamination remains.
Mercury concentrations in the walleye in Clay Lake, which is part of the Wabigoon River watershed, are still two to 10 times higher that normal, according to Dr. Rudd and his colleagues.
“Imagine a community anywhere in this country where it was reported that 90 per cent of the population had been exposed to mercury poisoning. There would be officials on the ground immediately and there would be an action plan,” said Charlie Angus, the indigenous-affairs critic for the federal New Democrats.
Instead, said Mr. Angus, “We have a Prime Minister who hasn’t even bothered to return letters to the community. The disinterest of federal officials over this catastrophe is absolutely astounding.”
NUCLEAR INDUSTRY WANTS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR REACTOR ACCIDENTS
The nuclear reactor industry is pushing hard for global indemnification against financial risk from nuclear accidents and is, in the case of GE-Hitachi, holding back from building 6 new ESBWR reactors (a new, untested design) in India without that indemnification. For its part, India does not want to commit to the project without an operating ESBWR “reference” reactor. Enter DTE (Detroit Edison) and its license to build and operate Fermi 3 a GE-Hitachi ESBWR reactor; the future of which is uncertain and we hope will not be built.
January 2, 2017 Source link; http://www.athf3.org/nuclear-industry-wants-no-responsibility-for-reactor-accidents/#comment-636
If the nuclear reactor industry does not think its product is safe and recognizes that the financial loss it would incur in an accident is unsustainable, why should we the public, the victims accept the consequent illness, morbidity, genetic mutations, financial loss, and permanent displacement?
The U.S. nuclear power industry would not exist and no commercial nuclear reactors would have been built without the indemnification, of the reactor suppliers and owners, provided by the Price-Anderson Act of 1957, as renewed in 2005. Private money would not provide adequate insurance to reactor suppliers and owners, recognizing the level of risk posed by nuclear reactors, and the catastrophic damage to the public that occurs in nuclear accidents.
The moral hazard of U.S. Government financed indemnification of the commercial nuclear industry against liability for catastrophic public injury and loss is that it results in less safe design and operation of reactors.
The Price-Anderson Act is a singular protection of the nuclear industry; something not available to other industries. It protects the most dangerous commercial activity in the world——nuclear reactor suppliers and operators——and allows them to continue making profit in the midst of permanently poisoning people and the biosphere. It leaves the public unprotected. It is a sinister and unparalleled failure of government—-outside of the awareness of most of the public——to protect its citizens.
DTE (Detroit Edison) has been granted a license to build and operate a new nuclear reactor, Fermi 3, a GE-Hitachi “Economically Simplified Boiling Water Reactor” (ESBWR). However, the issuance of that license by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is being challenged in the Court of Appeals in Washington, DC by a coalition — including Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizen Environmental Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don’t Waste MI, and Sierra Club MI Chapter —that has resisted Fermi 3 since 2008. It has been joined by additional allies, such as the Alliance to Halt Fermi 3, as well as Citizens Resistance at Fermi Two, and others.
This, in turn, has implications for GE-Hitachi’s plans being held up in India where it wants to build 6 ESBWR reactors. India wants an operating “reference reactor” before committing to building 6 in India. And on its part GE-Hitachi wants expanded global indemnification before building the reactors in India. See the article in the India news paper, The Tribune “GE concern over ‘lack’ of sustainable N-regulatory environ” http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/ge-concerned-over-lack-of-sustainable-n-regulatory-environ/341612.html
This is occurring in the context of a strong effort by the nuclear industry and governments to ratify a global indemnification of nuclear reactor suppliers and operators in a Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC). That effort is documented in “Running from Responsibility-How the nuclear industry evades responsibility” http://www.greenpeace.org/korea/Global/korea/publications/reports/climate-energy/2014/mar-2014-running-from-responsibility-eng.pdf
Quoting from that document: “Nuclear suppliers have exerted major pressure since the beginning of the industry to be exempt from liability. They want this protection because they fear the enormous costs of a nuclear accident and don’t want to pay for the risks their products create.
At present, they don’t have the level of protection they want, so they are now in a desperate scramble since the Fukushima disaster to fill in any gaps in their protections. They want to prevent anything that might allow the nuclear operator or nuclear victims to seek compensation from them in the event of a nuclear disaster.
The companies that supply reactors and other nuclear equipment, such as GE, Hitachi and Toshiba, clearly care for their company assets first, and have little regard for the victims of accidents that could be caused by their products.
These nuclear supplier companies do not believe their reactors are safe, in sharp contrast to their sales pitches, or else they wouldn’t lobby so hard for national liability indemnification and the protections offered by the CSC….”
The public is left with the need to speak clearly and effectively on its behalf and recognize that its own government is, along with reactor suppliers and operators, a serious threat to public safety and survival.
Written by Vic Macks, member Alliance to Halt Fermi 3 http://www.athf3.org
20318 Edmunton St.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
586-779-1782
Posted here by Art Myatt
2.46μSv/h Hot Spot in Misato, Saitama Prefecture, at Tokyo’s door
Hot Spot (2.46μSv/h at ground level, 0.64μSv/h at 50cm from the ground) in Misato, Saitama Prefecture.
The sign says in Japanese “We will keep the river clean”.
Misato, Saitama Prefecture is at 32km from Tokyo’s center and 223km from Fukushima Daiichi.
Misato, Saitama Prefecture is at 223km from Fukushima Daiichi.
Misato, Saitama Prefecture is at 32km from Tokyo’s center
Source: Sugar Nat https://www.facebook.com/shinpei.tn
0.72μSv in Nasunagahara Park, Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture
People when thinking about the nuclear disaster of Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi often are misled by the mainstream media to think that only Fukushima Prefecture is affected by the radiation. That is so untrue.
Actually the Fukushima Daiichi ‘s radioactive plume has contaminated many other prefectures of Eastern Japan, prefectures of Tohoku region and prefectures of Kanto region (Tokyo area), radiation having being spread unevenly as a leopard skin, with hot spots everywhere, needing to be identified, indicated for public protection, and decontaminated..
This measurement was taken in the public park of Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, 122km from Fukushima Daiichi and 188km from Tokyo.
Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, 122km from Fukushima Daiichi
Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, 188km from Tokyo
The children playing there will be exposed to radiation if it is not decontaminated nor indicated by a warning sign.
Source: http://ameblo.jp/kienaiyoru/entry-12234453760.html
Chernobyl Heart, Have a heart and donate to support CCI heart operations
Nikita was just 18 months old when his mother took him in her arms and brought him to a clinic in Eastern Ukraine in the hope that the “Irish doctors” would soon return to fix her son’s little heart. Nikita was born with a congenital defect that surgeons call “Chernobyl Heart”.
Little Nikita’s grandfather, Alexander, was just one of the 700,000 volunteers known as the “liquidators” who entered the contamination zone in the days and weeks after the disaster in an effort to contain the radiation pouring from the exploded reactor. Alexander’s daughter was born with a heart defect, and now his grandson was also born with a heart defect known as “Chernobyl Heart”.
Sadly, Nikita and his family have paid the price for his grandfather courage and bravery, which potentially saved the lives of thousands.
Nikita is now recovering from his open heart surgery, and his future is bright and full of hope, thanks to the generosity of the Irish public. To donate to our Cardiac “Flying Doctors” Programme, follow the link below
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/donate/
NUCLEAR PLANT WARNING More than 450 safety lapses have occurred at Sellafield nuclear plant
Radiation and contamination episodes, spillages of active materials and fires in the Sellafield facility happen regularly
31st December 2016, 9:16 pm
MORE than 450 safety blunders have occurred at the Sellafield nuclear plant — just 170km from Ireland — since 2001.
Radiation and contamination episodes, spillages of active materials and fires in the facility happen regularly, a UK report claims.
The British government insists Sellafield is safe but admitted it was a “uniquely challenging” place to work.
It follows a recent BBC Panoroma documentary which contained allegations of problems from past and present employees. A report from the Office for Nuclear Regulation, seen by the Irish Sun on Sunday, shows issues are routinely documented that are of concern to Ireland — if a disaster similar to Chernobyl or Fukushima occurs.
It cites 12 lifting events which had “nuclear safety implications” and notes that “smouldering, smoking material or fire” was discovered five times up to March 2012. In September 2014, a “lagging blanket on high-pressure steam pipework ignited” at the plant while in July 2013, smoke was seen coming from a gas turbine.
There were 24 cases of “radiation or contamination” events affecting personnel and 33 incidents involving the “unplanned leak or spillage of active or potentially active process liquor or material”, up to March 2012.
Calling for the closure of Sellafield, Sinn Fein MEP Matt Carthy told the Irish Sun on Sunday: “One EU member state is putting the lives and the environment of another at risk. There is no evidence the Irish Government has ever taken this issue seriously, and it is beyond time for them to start.
“It must be closed and there should be a halt to construction of any further nuclear power plants near the Irish Sea.”
Documents, released under the 30-year rule this week, reveal Ireland attempted to use the horror of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in the former Soviet Union to press for a halt to all Sellafield discharges.
1.This Month
Collateral Murder’: 10 years on from infamous US airstrike
Solartopia Green Power and Wellness Hour
of the week
Can the UK rely on nuclear power?
State of the Climate: Not a Pretty Picture
Earth Focus Episode 55 – Nuclear Insurance: America Goes Naked
EVENTS
22 April – Monday – Earth Day
PETITION
Defend the Grand Canyon From New Uranium Mines http://grandcanyontrust.nonprofitsoapbox.com/canyonuraniumban
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