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Seattle a target for Kim’s nuclear missiles, says local politician

By Michael Havis For Mailonline, 13 September 2017. Seattle is a target for Kim’s nuclear missiles warns local politician who says Washington State must be ready for North Korean attack

State senator Mark Miloscia said danger to Washington State was now ‘starting to become imminent’
The senator warned that the threat was now growing with each weapons test
He has urged American lawmakers to back a bid for an emergency response plan
US could not rely on safeguards that prevented hostilities with Soviets, he said, ……http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4875824/Washington-prepare-nuclear-attack-state-senator.html

September 16, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Rdioactive particles detected in soils from Northern Japan

Science Direct (accessed) 11th Sept 2017, Arnie Gundersen & Marco Kaltofen: Radioactively-hot particles detected in dusts and soils from Northern Japan by combination of gamma spectrometry,
autoradiography, and SEM/EDS analysis and implications in radiation risk
assessment. After the March 11, 2011, nuclear reactor meltdowns at
Fukushima Dai-ichi, 180 samples of Japanese particulate matter (dusts and
surface soils) and 235 similar U.S. and Canadian samples were collected and
analyzed sequentially by gamma spectrometry, autoradiography, and scanning
electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray analysis.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969717317953

September 16, 2017 Posted by | environment, Japan | Leave a comment

Investigation of radiation contaminated Dalgety Beach

Dundee Courier 8th Oct 2017, Radiation remediation work at Dalgety Bay has edged closer with the start
of ground surveys at the contaminated beach. Investigations into ground
conditions began on Monday,before the long-awaited clean-up of dumped
radioactive debris from the Second World War, which is due to begin in
spring 2019.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed this week engineers are now
on site, having secured access. Stephen Ritchie, of the MoD’s Defence
Infrastructure Organisation, said: “Work started on site on Monday on a
ground investigation survey which has been the subject of ongoing
negotiations with the landowner.“That’s likely to take six weeks,
depending on the weather.” Updating south and west Fife councillors on
progress, Mr Ritchie also said it was hoped planning consent would be
issued soon for the remediation works.
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/fife/504987/surveys-begin-of-radium-contaminated-fife-beach-ahead-of-mod-clean-up/

September 16, 2017 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Activist posts billboard warning about Seabrook nuclear plant

 By Bryan McGonigle bmcgonigle@wickedlocal.com , 14 Sept 17

  Rowley activist and  presidential candidate and nuclear safety activist Steve Comley Sr. has spent decades challenging the Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power plant about safety concerns, and now he has upped his effort in big, bold letters.

Comley and his non-profit group We The People have put a massive electronic sign up along Route 1 in Salisbury warning President Donald Trump that the region has no clear evacuation plan in the event of a nuclear catastrophe at the plant.

“CAUTION PRESIDENT TRUMP; SEABROOK NUCLEAR ZONE NO EVACUATION POSSIBLE; INVESTIGATE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION,” the sign reads.

It also includes a quote from Albert Einstein: “To the Village Square We Must Take the Facts Of Atomic Energy, From There Must Come America’s Voice.”…….Comley ran for president as a Republican in the New Hampshire primary in 2016, garnering just 31 votes statewide, and he says he’s running for president again in 2020. http://ipswich.wickedlocal.com/news/201

September 16, 2017 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

UK government being strongly lobbied by makers of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

City AM 10th Sept 2017 ,A consortium developing small modular reactors is expected to urge the
government to push forward with a plan to develop so-called baby reactors
to secure the UK’s energy needs after the decommissioning of older
nuclear power stations. The government launched a competition to find the
best value SMR reactor design for the UK in 2016, and this week a
consortium led by Rolls-Royce will publish a report in Westminster which
claims it can generate electricity at £60 per megawatt hour, which is
two-thirds the price of recent large-scale nuclear plants.
http://www.cityam.com/271732/mps-review-baby-nuclear-reactor-plans-cheaper-source-secure

September 16, 2017 Posted by | politics, technology, UK | Leave a comment

Elon Musk thinks that World War 3 will be started by Artificial Intelligence attack

Elon Musk: World War 3 Will Be Started by a Preemptive AI Nuclear Attack http://theantimedia.org/elon-musk-world-war-3-ai-nuclear-attack/  by Jake Anderson, (ANTIMEDIA) — Stating in a tweet this week that artificial intelligence would be the most likely cause of World War 3, entrepreneur and tech mogul Elon Musk added a new chapter to his crusade against unregulated AI. Coming on the heels of Vladimir Putin’s pronouncement that the best innovator in AI technology would be the next global leader — as well as Musk’s own statement that AI is more dangerous than North Korea — the new tweet comes amid a peak of global tensions regarding nuclear ICBMs.

Musk’s tweet, which was a response to Putin’s fairly obvious statement last week, made it clear that the SpaceX and Tesla founder believes the next nuclear strike is more likely to come from a preemptive AI attack than from a nation-state. With all three major superpowers — the United States, China, and Russia — pursuing militarized AI, Musk also asserted that governments, not corporations, would be the ones to control the existential risk presented by AI.

Musk has positioned himself as a neo-Luddite in the AI race but has also made the controversial claim that the best way for us to safeguard human civilization against runaway AI is to essentially merge our minds symbiotically with AI technology. This is why his company, OpenAI, is working on the creation of a “neural lace” that will act as a transhumanist brain-machine interface (BMI) capable of merging the human mind with AI in a cloud-type environment.

Is Musk’s posturing a brilliant marketing move meant to permanently nestle his brand into the next generation of tech development? Or does he legitimately fear a preemptive nuclear strike by an advanced artificial intelligence that sees the human race — not killer robots — as the greatest threat to life on Earth?

September 16, 2017 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Danger of nuclear wastes parked on the edge of the Pacific

There’s no great answer for nuclear waste, but almost anything is better than perching it on the Pacific, LA Times. 12 Sept 17 One of the great failures in U.S. energy policy was that we’ve never figured out what to do with the lethally radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants. That’s why the owners of the decommissioned San Onofre nuclear plant have had little choice but to keep their spent fuel rods on site, bundled up in concrete bunkers at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, dangerously close to an earthquake fault and millions of people — and hope for the best until the federal government finds a good place to put the deadly waste.The feds don’t have one yet, but developments in court and in the marketplace could help move San Onofre’s waste somewhere considerably less risky. As part of a legal settlement earlier this month, Southern California Edison, which is the majority owner of the shuttered nuclear power plant, promised to make a good-faith effort to find a safer home for the 3.55 million pounds of nuclear waste at the plant. That’s a welcome shift for the company, which has been focused on moving its spent fuel rods into safer containers on-site.

And unlike in the past, it may have several choices for where to send the waste. Although there still are no federally licensed nuclear waste dumps, despite the billions of dollars ratepayers have paid to fund them, as of this year there are two proposals for temporary storage sites that could conceivably be ready for business by the early 2020s……..

Granted, when it comes to waste that’s going to remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years, there are no great solutions. But there are certainly better ones than continuing to hold more than 70,000 tons of nuclear fuel at about 120 operating and decommissioned nuclear plants across the country in facilities never intended for long-term storage, then hoping for the best.http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-nuclear-waste-storage-20170911-story.html

September 16, 2017 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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