2017 October 31 « nuclear-news

At least 200 dead in North Korea nuclear tunnel collapse, report says

Image source; https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earthquakes-north-korea-nuclear-testing (12:00pm, July 25, 2017)

1st November 2017

At least 200 people have been killed at a nuclear test site in North Korea after a tunnel collapsed, according to an unverified Japanese media report.

The collapse is said to have happened during the construction of an underground facility at the Punggye-ri site in northeastern North Korea, the report says.

But there has been no official confirmation of the claims, apparently made by an unnamed North Korean “source”.

According to Japan’s TV Asahi, up to 100 people had been trapped in the tunnels and a further collapse happened during attempts to rescue them, raising the death toll to at least 200.

The collapse is believed to have happened on October 10, but South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, said it was still unclear when the disaster happened.

The network claimed the tunnel collapse the ground around the site was weakened by North Korea’s sixth nuclear test, which was carried out at the same site.

It comes a day after Seoul warned that one more North Korean nuclear detonation could destroy its mountain test site and trigger a radiation leak.

South Korea says any future nuclear test by Kim Jong-Un risks collapsing the location set aside for launching missiles.

Seoul detected several earthquakes near the hermit nation’s nuclear test site in the country’s northeast after its sixth and most powerful bomb explosion in September.

Experts say the quakes suggest the area is now too unstable to conduct more tests there.

South Korea’s weather agency chief Nam Jae-Cheol made the comments Monday during a parliament committee meeting.

Last month US experts issued a similar warning, stating a second nuclear test site in North Korea’s northwest could cave in but that it won’t be abandoned.

Five of Pyongyang’s recent tests have been carried out under Mt Mantap at the Punggye-ri military base, in North Korea’s northwest.

But now the base is said to be suffering from “Tired Mountain Syndrome” after three small earthquakes after the blasts. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11939172

October 31, 2017 Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fukushima-derived radiocesium fallout in Hawaiian soils

Highlights

•: FDNPP-derived radiocesium was analyzed in soils along rainfall gradients in Hawai’i.
•: FDNPP-derived Cs was found in amounts larger than suggested by atmospheric models.
•: FDNPP-derived Cs was lower than historic fallout.
•: Detection of ¹³⁴Cs was limited to areas that received >200 mm rainfall.
•: Areas with detectable ¹³⁴Cs did not overlap with densely populated areas.

Trista McKenzie ^,,
Henrietta Dulai

Department of Geology & Geophysics, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, 1680 East-West Road, POST 701, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA

Received 18 August 2017, Revised 2 October 2017, Accepted 7 October 2017, Available online 31 October 2017

Abstract

Several reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant suffered damage on March 11, 2011, resulting in the release of radiocesium (¹³⁴Cs and ¹³⁷Cs), as well as other radionuclides, into the atmosphere. A week later, these isotopes were detected in aerosols over the state of Hawai’i and in milk samples analyzed on the island of Hawai’i. This study estimated the magnitude of cesium deposition in soil, collected in 2015–2016, resulting from atmospheric fallout. It also examined the patterns of cesium wet deposition with precipitation observed on O’ahu and the island of Hawai’i following the disaster. Fukushima-derived fallout was differentiated from historic nuclear weapons testing fallout by the presence of ¹³⁴Cs and the assumption that the ¹³⁴Cs to ¹³⁷Cs ratio was 1:1. Detectable, Fukushima-derived ¹³⁴Cs inventories ranged from 30 to 630 Bq m⁻² and ¹³⁷Cs inventories ranged from 20 to 2200 Bq m⁻². Fukushima-derived cesium inventories in soils were related to precipitation gradients, particularly in areas where rainfall exceeded 200 mm between March 19 and April 4, 2011. This research confirmed and quantified the presence of Fukushima-derived fallout in the state of Hawai’i in amounts higher than predicted by models and observed in the United States mainland, however the activities detected were an order of magnitude lower than fallout associated with historic sources such as the nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. In addition, this study showed that areas of highest cesium deposition do not overlap with densely populated or agriculturally used areas. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X17306896

October 31, 2017 Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fukushima radiation damages monkeys but not humans?

I’ve asked radiation specialists to take on this research, but they have never been willing to take this on because they say we don’t have any resources or time to spare because humans are much more important.

no-safe-dose

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2017/10/30/three-ways-radiation-has-changed-the-monkeys-of-fukushima-a-warning-for-humans/#4d6d87b165ea

This year the evacuated residents of Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture began returning home, and as they resume their lives, the monkeys who have lived there all along have some cautions for them—in the form of medical records.

The Japanese macaques show effects associated with radiation exposure—especially youngsters born since the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, according to a wildlife veterinarian who has studied the population since 2008.

Dr. Shin-ichi Hayama detailed his findings Saturday in Chicago as part of the University of Chicago’s commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the first man-made controlled nuclear reaction, which took place under the university’s football stadium in 1942 and birthed the technologies of nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

Hayama appeared alongside documentary filmmaker Masanori Iwasaki, who has featured Hayama’s work in a series of annual documentaries exploring the impact of fallout from the reactor meltdowns on wildlife. The fallout led the Japanese government to evacuate residents from a highly contaminated area surrounding the plant and extending to the northwest. The plume crossed the Pacific Ocean and left much diluted quantities of fallout across the United States, an event closely monitored on this page.

Since 2008, Hayama has studied the bodies of monkeys killed in Fukushima City’s effort to control the monkey population and protect agricultural crops (about 20,000 monkeys are “culled” annually in Japan). Because he was already studying the monkeys, he was ideally positioned to notice changes affected by radiation exposure.

“I’m not a radiation specialist,” Hayama said Saturday in Chicago, “but because I’ve been gathering data since 2008—remember, the disaster took place in 2011—it seems obvious to me that this is very important research. I’ve asked radiation specialists to take on this research, but they have never been willing to take this on because they say we don’t have any resources or time to spare because humans are much more important.

“So I had to conclude that there was no choice but for me to take this on, even though I’m not a specialist in radiation,” Hayama said, his remarks translated by University of Chicago Professor Norma Field. “If we don’t keep records, there will be no evidence and it will be as if nothing happened. That’s why I’m hoping to continue this research and create a record.”

Fukushima City is 50 miles northeast of the Fukushima-Daiichi Power Plant, so the radiation levels have been lower there than in the restricted areas, now reopening, that are closer to the plant. Hayama was unable to test monkeys in the most-contaminated areas, but even 50 miles from the plant, he has documented effects in monkeys that are associated with radiation. He compared his findings to monkeys in the same area before 2011 and to a control population of monkeys in Shimokita Peninsula, 500 miles to the north.

Hayama’s findings have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports, published by Nature. Among his findings:

Smaller Bodies — Japanese monkeys born in the path of fallout from the Fukushima meltdown weigh less for their height than monkeys born in the same area before the March, 2011 disaster, Hayama said.

“We can see that the monkeys born from mothers who were exposed are showing low body weight in relation to their height, so they are smaller,” he said.

Monkey-Body-Weight-300x214

Red circles represent the body weight and height (CRL=crown-to-rump length) of monkeys born post-Fukushima. Blue triangles represent monkeys born before.

Smaller Heads And Brains — The exposed monkeys have smaller bodies overall, and their heads and brains are smaller still.

“We know from the example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that embryos and fetuses exposed in utero resulted in low birth weight and also in microcephaly, where the brain failed to develop adequately and head size was small, so we are trying to confirm whether this also is happening with the monkeys in Fukushima,” Hayama said.

And it appears that it is:

Monkey-Head-Size-300x218

Blue triangles represent the head size of pre-disaster monkey fetuses relative to their height (CRL=crown-to-rump length). Red circles represent post-disaster monkey fetuses.

Anemia — The monkeys show a reduction in all blood components: red blood cells, white blood cells, hemoglobin, and the cells in bone marrow that produce blood components.

“There’s clearly a depression of blood components in the Fukushima monkeys,” said Hayama. “We can see that in these monkeys, that there is a correlation between white blood cell counts and the radio-cesium concentrations in their muscles. This actually is comparable to what’s been reported with children of Chernobyl.”

Monkey-Blood-Cell-Count-300x213

Monkeys with higher concentrations of radioactive cesium in their muscles, to the right on the graph, have lower white blood cell counts.

“We have taken these tests from 2012 through 2017, and the levels have not recovered. So we have to say this is not an acute phenomenon. It has become chronic, and we would have to consider radiation exposure as a possible cause,” Hayama said.

Hayama has appeared in several documentaries by Masanori Isawaki, who was 70 years old in 2011 and ready to retire from a thirty-year career making wildlife documentaries—he is best known for his portrait of “Mozu: The Snow Monkey“—when the Fukushima reactors melted down.

“Having turned 70 I thought, I’ve done enough, I can sit back. And then the nuclear disaster struck,” he said, his remarks also translated by Field. “I watched TV shows and read the newspaper for a year and kept asking myself, is there something left in me that I can do? A year later in 2012, with a cameraman and a sound engineer, the three of us just decided: In any case let’s just go to Fukushima, see what’s there.”

Since then he has made five films, one each year, documenting radiation impacts on wildlife, grouping them under the title “Fukushima: A Record of Living Things.” Two episodes were screened Saturday in Chicago, their first screenings in the United States.

At first Iwasaki documented white spots and deformed tails on the reduced number of barn swallows who survived after the disaster.

“It’s something we haven’t seen anywhere else but Chernobyl and Fukushima,” says the narrator of Iwasaki’s 2013 film, “so it’s clearly related to radiation. It probably doesn’t hurt the bird to have some white feathers, but it’s a marker of exposure to radiation.

“The barn swallows in Fukushima are responding in the same way as what we’ve seen in Chernobyl. The young birds are not surviving. They are not fledging very well.”

The white spots also turned up on black cows. Some types of marine snails vanished, then gradually returned. Fir trees stemmed differently, and the flower stalks of some dandelions grew thick and deformed. Dandelion stalks are a favorite food of Japanese monkeys, but the monkeys showed no obvious deformities, so Isawaki turned to Hayama to find out how radiation was affecting them.

Iwasaki’s 2017 film, just completed, is his first to investigate effects in the monkeys’ primate cousins, the humans: an unusually large number of children with thyroid cancer.

By Jeff McMahon, based in Chicago.

October 31, 2017 Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

October 31 Energy News

geoharvey

Opinion:

¶ “Trump Admin. Desperate To Keep Coal Power Plant Alive With Taxpayer Dollars” • Trump supporters have repeated often, “government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers.” Now, the administration is trying to prop up the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona with taxpayer dollars, perfectly illustrating the depth of the lie. [CleanTechnica]

Navajo Generating Station

¶ “Why More Flexible Operation Won’t Save US Nuclear Power Plants” • Flexible nuclear operation is happening in Europe. But for nuclear plants that depend purely on power sales, as is the case with US merchant plants, operating flexibly just reduces the total amount of energy sold, and thereby reduces the profits. [Greentech Media]

¶ “If we don’t talk about water, are we really talking about resiliency?” • Depending on the type of technology, generating just one megawatt-hour of electricity could use anywhere from 500 to 50,000 gallons of water. Solar…

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October 31, 2017 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Big Thanks to Scisco Media for Publishing Article on the Cumbrian Coal Mine

There is almost universal silence on this coal mine plan from the national media apart from the occasionally parroted press release from the developers. So BIG THANKS to Scisco Media for publishing the following! The China Connection: First Deep Coal Mine in The UK for 30 Years Follow the Cumbrian Coal Mine money….all the way […] […]

via Big Thanks to Scisco Media for Publishing Article on the Cumbrian Coal Mine —

October 31, 2017 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Whitefish Puerto Rico Contract Cancelled, Now How About Letting Renewable Industry Leaders Step in?

robertscribbler

At this blog I often cover how climate change is worsening the global weather situation. How fossil fuel burning is the primary cause of climate change. How renewable energy adoption is the primary means for removing global carbon emissions. And how bad, on our present track, climate change outcomes could become.

What I often do not talk about in main posts (though we see quite a bit in the comments section) is how underlying factors such as political corruption and the ideologies supportiing that corruption can harm effective responses to climate change.

Who would you rather have rebuild PR grid? US clean energy leader #Tesla. Or #Whitefish, a firm that has more investors than employees?
— Robert Fanney 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@robertscribbler) October 29, 2017

Witness Puerto Rico. A U.S. territory that has suffered a very severe blow from one of the worst hurricanes ever to make landfall in the…

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October 31, 2017 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

October 30 Energy News

geoharvey

Opinion:

¶ “A sustainable energy future is within our grasp … if we take action now” • The world is in a major energy transition, underpinned by renewable energy. A new study from the International Renewable Energy Agency finds that an energy transition in line with Paris Agreement is both technically feasible and economically attractive. [The National]

Shams 1 power station (Christopher Pike | The National)

¶ “Productivity Commission pulls no punches on ‘appalling’ energy crisis, calls for carbon price” • The Productivity Commission report contains some blunt assessments on the nature of Australia’s energy problems and how to fix them. Dealing a blow to the Coalition, the primary recommendation is to adopt a carbon price. [ABC Online]