Scientists aim to limit Trump’s power to launch nuclear vweapons
A group of scientists is trying to limit Trump’s nuclear authority, CNBC 25 Jan 18
- A plan pushed by group of scientists would cut presidential authority to unilaterally order nuclear strikes.
- As commander in chief, the U.S. president currently has the authority to order the military to launch nuclear missiles.
- This proposal would require the vice president and speaker of the House to also approve any nuclear strike.
- “No one person should be able to order a nuclear attack,” wrote one of the scientists proposing the plan.
The plan would require that the president first obtain approval from the next two officials in the presidential succession chain — the vice president and speaker of the House, according to a paper in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a global disarmament advocacy.
As commander in chief, the U.S. president currently has the authority to order the U.S. military to launch nuclear missiles.
Back in November, there was discussion in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about limiting the president’s nuclear strike authority after some Democratic lawmakers cited Trump’s “unstable” behavior.
“No one person should be able to order a nuclear attack,” said paper co-author Lisbeth Gronlund, a senior scientist and co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). “There’s no reason to maintain this dangerous policy, since there are viable alternatives that would allow other officials to take part in any decision to use nuclear weapons, whether it’s a first use or a launch responding to a nuclear attack.”
According to the paper, “the risks are not hypothetical. During the Watergate scandal, President [Richard] Nixon was drinking heavily and many advisers considered him unstable. During the 1974 impeachment hearings, Nixon told reporters that ‘I can go back into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.'”
The paper was co-authored by David Wright, a UCS senior scientist, and University of Maryland professor Steve Fetter.
The authors of the paper said the “proposal applies to any use of nuclear weapons, regardless of whether it would be the first use of nuclear weapons or in response to a nuclear attack or warning of an attack.”………
military generals can essentially refuse to follow what they consider “illegal orders,” retired Gen. Robert Kehler testified at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in November. Kehler is the former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/24/scientists-seek-to-limit-trumps-power-in-ordering-a-nuclear-strike.html
Austria sues Commission over Hungary’s nuclear plant
EU Observer, By ESZTER ZALAN Austria decided on Wednesday (24 January) to sue the European Commission for allowing the expansion of Hungary’s controversial Paks nuclear plant, to be built and financed by Russia.
The project is viewed by critics as an example of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, cosying up to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Austrian sustainability minister Elisabeth Koestinger tweeted: “Austria will take action against the use of nuclear power plants at all levels. That is why today we have taken a decision in the council of ministers to sue Paks II at European level”.
“There are enough reasons to sue Paks II. We are optimistic to prevail. To protect our country and our children,” she added in a tweet. EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, whose services were responsible for scrutinising the state aid plans for the nuclear plant, told reporters on Wednesday that the EU executive takes Austria’s decision “very seriously”.
“We will of course defend our decision with the arguments that are in the decision,” she added.
Last March the Commission gave its final approval for the project, and that said Hungary’s state aid is not illegal after commitments Budapest had made to limit distortions in competition.
An earlier infringement procedure looking into whether the project was in line with EU procurement rules, as it was initiated without a tender, was closed in 2016 with the ruling that Hungary did not break EU rules.
The project, signed in 2014 in Moscow, would see Russian state-owned company and its international sub-contractors build two new reactors.
The Russian state has also loaned up to €10 billion to Hungary to finance 80 percent of the project.
On track
Austria, Hungary’s neighbour, has no nuclear power plants. Last October, then prime minister Christian Kern said Austria would challenge the Commission’s decision on Paks.
Vienna launched a similar legal action against the Commission in 2015 over its approval of the UK’s state aid support for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project.
“EU assistance is only permissible when it is built on common interest. For us, nuclear energy is neither a sustainable form of energy supply, nor is it an answer to climate change,” a spokesman for Koestinger, a member of right-wing Austrian People’s Party, was quoted by Reuters………
Green MEP Benedek Javor, who has challenged the commission’s decisions and shed light on shady dealings between commissioner Guenther Oettinger and German lobbyist of Russian interests Klaus Mangold with possible links to Paks , argued it is time to rethink the Euratom treaty.
“Is this possible to exempt a major energy generating sector, nuclear energy, from common competition or public procurement law, based on a 60 years old and never really updated regulation, the Euratom treaty? Without giving a clear negative answer to this question, any plans of the Energy Union or the single European energy market might remain a dream,” he said, arguing that the case is not only an Austro-Hungarian dispute.
“It is simply not true, that high amount of state subsidy for a nuclear power plant with 2400 MW of capacity does not distort the market. And it is simply misinterpretation of the Euratom treaty, that the paragraph saying that ‘the development of nuclear energy is a community interest’ means that unprofitable powerplants producing electricity for the market and built from Russian money, with Russian technology and using Russian fuel should be regarded as a community interest and heavily subsidised,” Javor argued………https://euobserver.com/energy/140690
New tactic in Small Modular Nuclear Reactor lobbying – claim to help electric cars
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Small modular reactors more versatile than conventional plants
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Battery storage still too pricey for large-scale use
Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) advise UK government to learn from Sweden’s court ruling on nuclear waste
NFLA 24th Jan 2018, As the UK Government plans yet another attempt to deliver a deep
underground radioactive waste repository, NFLA urges them and the
regulators to look carefully at a Swedish court ruling rejecting a
repository licence around real safety concerns.
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) has been made aware that the UK Government imminently
plans its latest attempt, which is the sixth attempt in the past 42 years,
to start a process to find a willing community to host a deep underground
radioactive waste repository.
This process now could be, and should be, completely reconsidered after a Swedish court ruling rejecting a licence
application on the waste capsules for a similar development, after many
years of planning.
For over 4 decades, several UK bodies – UKAEA, Nirex,
RWMD and now Radioactive Waste Management Ltd (RWM) – have been
established by the UK Government to deliver a deep underground radioactive
waste repository, often referred to in the industry as a geological
disposal facility (GDF).
Three consultations are expected to be issued
imminently – one on the definition of the community that would decide on
such a repository and how engaging with the public would take place, a
second on a National Policy Statement for a deep waste repository, and the
third the publication by RWM of a national geological screening of England,
Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland is pursuing a separate policy of
‘near site, near surface’ storage of its highly active radioactive
waste).
Throughout its 38 years of operation, NFLA has been heavily engaged
in this debate. It remains sceptical that a deep underground repository is
the most environmentally sound solution for managing the UK’s huge burden
of radioactive waste.
It notes that the Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates
have outlined over 100 key technical and scientific concerns around such
developments, and NFLA has seen no resolution to these issues from the
government or RWM.
Macron’s France weakening on plans to phase out nuclear power?
France crimps debate on reducing reliance on nuclear: activists say https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclearpower/france-crimps-debate-on-reducing-reliance-on-nuclear-activists-say-idUSKBN1FE2MU, 26 Jan 18, Geert De Clercq PARIS (Reuters) – The French government is hampering discussion about how to reduce the country’s reliance on nuclear energy by limiting debate about more radical alternatives, renewable energy advocates said on Thursday.
France’s previous socialist government pledged to reduce the share of nuclear in power generation to 50 percent by 2025, from 75 percent today. President Emmanuel Macron promised to respect that pledge during his election campaign last year, but since taking office he has pushed the target back by a decade.
Macron now wants to set new targets in a multi-year energy plan that will be debated this year and presented in early 2019.
But renewable energy activists say that at some workshops earlier this month, the government blocked discussion of scenarios under which France would radically reduce its nuclear power capacity, instead focusing on more pro-nuclear scenarios.
Energy and Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot has denied that the government favored the most pro-nuclear scenarios, saying it merely eliminated the two most extreme scenarios and kept the “median” scenarios. He did not specify which scenarios had been eliminated.
Late last year, French grid operator RTE published four 2035 scenarios under which nuclear capacity would be reduced to various degrees from the current 63 gigawatt (GW).
Under the “Volt” scenario, nuclear capacity would be cut to 55 GW by closing just nine of state-owned utility EDF’s 58 nuclear reactors and leaving the share of nuclear in power production at 56 percent. The “Ampere” scenario would close 16 reactors and leave the share of nuclear at 46 percent.
Two more radical scenarios, “Watt” and “Hertz”, would close as many as 52 and 25 reactors respectively, with the Watt scenario cutting the share of nuclear to as little as 11 percent. The remaining power would come from renewables (71 percent) and gas (18 percent).
“The Watt and Hertz scenarios were eliminated from the presentations at the government’s request,” said Yves Marignac of NegaWatt, a group which advocates higher renewables use.
NegaWatt took part in two workshops to prepare the public debate on the issue. It was joined by several energy-focused NGOs, EDF, nuclear firm Orano, and lobby groups. The debates are supposed to lead to a first draft of a multi-year energy plan by summer and a final plan in early 2019. Its conclusions will be crucial for European power markets as they will determine how much nuclear baseload capacity remains available.
· A source involved with organizing the workshops confirmed the government had instructed RTE to withdraw two scenarios.
· “All scenarios were mentioned, but only two were reviewed in detail,” he said.
· A ministry spokeswoman said two scenarios had indeed been removed from the presentation but declined to give details.
· “It is inconceivable that these two scenarios would be withheld from public debate,” NegaWatt’s Thierry Salomon said.
· France has withheld key information on nuclear before.
· In the months before the parliament vote on the 2015 energy law, Hulot’s predecessor Segolene Royal barred publication of an environment agency ADEME report showing France could switch to 100 percent renewables without extra costs.
· “At least this time the information is public. But it looks like the government is putting the interests of the nuclear industry ahead of the energy policy debate,” Salomon said.
· > Link to ADEME report story: tinyurl.com/y84ow838</a Reporting by Geert De Clercq. Editing by Jane Merriman
Lawsuit against Nuclear Subsidies headed for Court Trial
Challenge to N.Y. Nuclear Subsidies Will Go to Trial, Power, 01/25/2018 | Sonal Patel A lawsuit challenging subsidies for New York’s nuclear plants will head to trial after the state’s Supreme Court rejected motions to dismiss it.
The measure deals a small setback for Exelon Corp., whose subsidiaries own the R.E Ginna and Nine Mile Point nuclear plants in upstate New York. Defendants in the lawsuit also include Entergy Corp., which owns Indian Point 2 and 3, and the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC).
Exelon had successfully lobbied the state to approve the Clean Energy Standard in August 2016, a program that requires all six New York investor-owned utilities and other energy suppliers to pay for the intrinsic value of carbon-free emissions from nuclear power plants by purchasing “Zero-Emission Credits” (ZECs) between 2017 and 2029.
The measure has drawn strong opposition. The lawsuit filed by several citizens’ groups—including the Nuclear Information Research Service, Beyond Nuclear, New York Public Interest Research Group, Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, Promoting Health and Sustainable Energy, and Goshen Green Farms—charges that PSC failed to follow the law by giving up more than $7.6 billion in ratepayer funds over 12 years to the companies’ financially ailing nuclear plants.
Specifically, the groups argued that the PSC failed to follow requirements in the State Administrative Procedure Act, and that the PSC’s actions were arbitrary and capricious—both by misapplying the social cost of carbon metric as a legal basis to include nuclear reactors in the Clean Energy Standard, and by declaring the reactors “publicly necessary.” Other stated causes of action allege that the PSC violated pubic service law by setting rates that are “unjust, unreasonable, unjustly discriminatory, and unduly preferential.”
The state and nuclear plant owners sought to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that some claims are untimely because they were filed outside of the four-month statute of limitations after the Clean Energy Standard became final and binding. Respondents also argued that petitioners lack sufficient standing to pursue some claims, because alleged economic injuries were outside a defined zone of interests.
On Monday, Judge Roger D. McDonough dismissed claims by 56 of the 61 petitioners on the basis that they were time-barred. However, he denied five of the six objections posed by the respondents, ruling that the lawsuit should be fully heard rather than preempted by the respondents’ objections. “The Court declines to entertain such discussions without the benefit of answers and the full administrative record,” he wrote.
The ruling notes that at least three of the nuclear plants—James A. Fitzpatrick, R.E. Ginna, and Nine Mile Point Unit 1 and Unit 2—have received an estimated $360 million in subsidies over the past nine months. McDonough ruled, however, that while Indian Point was eligible for ZECs amounting to about $2 billion, contentions concerning that plant were not ripe for adjudication as the plant has not yet received them.
The citizens’ groups hailed the decision as a major victory for the rule of law. …….. http://www.powermag.com/challenge-to-n-y-nuclear-subsidies-will-go-to-trial/
UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) wants to raise permissable levels of radiation release
AWE bids for ‘more realistic’ nuclear terrorism tests licence, The UK’s nuclear warhead factory is bidding for a licence change to run “more realistic” tests in preparation for “nuclear terrorism”.
The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Berkshire wants to raise levels of radiation it can release from its site……..http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-42801822
UK new nuclear build would create an intolerable waste burden on communities into the far future
Exposing UK government folly of investment in new nuclear https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/24/exposing-uk-government-folly-of-investment-in-new-nuclear
In 1976, Lord Flowers pronounced that there should be no further commitment to nuclear energy unless it could be demonstrated that long-lived highly radioactive wastes could be safely contained for the indefinite future. Ever since, efforts to find a suitable site for a geological disposal facility have been rejected by communities (Wanted: community willing to host a highly radioactive waste dump in their district, 22 January).
There is, therefore, little evidence to support the government’s claim that “it is satisfied that effective arrangements will exist to manage and dispose of the waste that will be produced from new nuclear power stations”. Deep disposal may be the eventual long-term solution but demonstrating a safety case, finding suitable geology and a willing community are tough challenges and likely to take a long time. The search for a disposal site diverts attention from the real solution for the foreseeable future, which is to ensure the safe and secure management of the unavoidable legacy wastes that have to be managed. It is perverse to compound the problem by a new-build programme that will result in vastly increased radioactivity from spent fuel and other highly radioactive wastes which will have to be stored indefinitely at vulnerable sites scattered around our coasts.
The fact that the UK government is still going ahead with plans to construct new power stations, generating even more toxic radioactive waste, troubles and puzzles me immensely. Here, on the beautiful isle of Anglesey, where tidal, solar and wind energy production are all highly feasible alternatives and could also provide opportunities for well-paid employment, politicians appear to be happy for an area of outstanding natural beauty to be contaminated for further than the foreseeable future, not to mention the immense eyesore that will occupy acres of fertile land. It is an eye-wateringly costly venture that many fear will expose taxpayers to huge financial risk and will also leave future generations guarding the threat to their environment and health long after it ceases to function.
Future generations will doubtless wonder, when most of Europe is shutting down its nuclear power stations and not planning any more, why in the world the local population didn’t protest harder.
Rose Heaney
Holyhead, Gwynedd
A new-build programme would create an unmanageable and intolerable burden on communities into the far future. To suggest that a repository is the solution is in the realm of fantasy.
Prof Andrew Blowers
Member of the first Committee onRadioactive Waste Management
South Africa has no money for nuclear power: Ramaphosa
SA has no money for nuclear power: Ramaphosa, ENC.com, SOUTH AFRICA, JOHANNESBURG – “We have excess power right now and we have no money to go for major nuclear plant building.”
Swedish Environmental Court rejects plan for spent nuclear fuel repository
MKG 23rd Jan 2018, The Swedish Environmental Court says no to the power industry’s Nuclear
Waste Company SKB’s license application for a final repository for spent
nuclear fuel in Forsmark, Sweden.
This is a huge triumph for safety and environment – and for the Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review
(MKG), the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), and critical
scientists who have been presenting risks of the malfunction of the
selected method. Now it is up to the Swedish government to make the final
decision. This is a triumph for us.
From now on, the work on evaluating safer disposal solutions will continue. The decision that will be made
concerns waste that will be hazardous for thousands of years. Several
independent researchers have criticized both the applied method and the
selected site. There is a solid documentation as base for the Environmental
Court’s decision. It is hard to believe the Swedish Government’s
conclusions will be any different from that of the Court’s, says Johan
Swahn, Director at MKG.
http://www.mkg.se/en/the-swedish-environmental-court-s-no-to-the-final-repository-for-spent-nuclear-fuel-a-triumph-for-th
Public unaware of the massive size of planned Sizewell C nuclear station – shown in new film
East Anglian Daily Times 23rd Jan 2018, Drone footage shows off ‘huge impact’ Sizewell C could have on
landscape. Campaigners fighting proposals for a new nuclear power station
on the Suffolk coast claim drone footage of Hinkley Point shows what a
“massive, life-changing, countryside-destroying intrusion” Sizewell C
would be.
Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) says the film of work taking
place on the £19.6billion project to build Britain’s first new nuclear
plant for more than 20 years shows the dramatic scale and impact of the
project.
TASC chair Pete Wilkinson said: “The actual scale and impact of
the proposed development at Sizewell has never been fully explained to the
public and they have never been asked if they support it or oppose it.
“It has always been disingenuously described by politicians as an
inevitability which it is not: new nuclear is a choice not an imperative.
We can and should say ‘no’ and be given the opportunity to tell our
politicians that we reject this monstrous plan. “This footage gives us
the evidence on which to base an informed view about the Sizewell
development and shows the fate that awaits this area if EDF get their way.
This two minute film does what EDF and the government have been unwilling
to do for five years – to show us just how Sizewell C will utterly
devastate a huge area of Suffolk on a scale that we cannot even think about
tolerating.
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/drone-footage-shows-off-huge-impact-sizewell-c-could-have-on-landscape-1-5366719
The dangers of transporting nuclear waste – Las Vegas Mayor warns
In D.C., Goodman highlights dangers of transporting nuclear waste, https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/jan/25/in-dc-goodman-highlights-dangers-of-transporting-n/ By Yvonne Gonzalez (contact)Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018
Nuclear waste coming to Nevada from all corners of the country would be dangerous, Las Vegas’ mayor told bipartisan city leaders in Washington, D.C. Mayor Carolyn Goodman was in the capital for the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meetings. She spoke to fellow members about the nation’s aging infrastructure and other risks associated with bringing nuclear waste to Nevada, where a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain has been a political football for years. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the nation’s infrastructure an average D+ rating.
“Anywhere it’s transported is at risk because of the tunnels, the bridges, the railroads, the roads,” she said. “An accident … puts millions and millions of people around the country at risk for loss of life, cancer and everything else.”
The conference of mayors has expressed concern about the transportation of nuclear waste since as early as 2002, although the group has not explicitly come out against the dumpsite. Goodman said she is talking to mayors at this winter’s meetings and working to get a resolution passed.
“You have to tell them that this stuff is being transported through their city or 50 miles away and the spill-out from an accident” will impact them, she said.
The mothballed Yucca Mountain project could see movement under President Donald Trump, who has called for funding to prepare for the licensing process. The proposed project stalled years ago under President Barack Obama and then-Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.
Henderson Mayor Debra March and Bob Halstead, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, were among the Nevada contingent to hold the reception. Halstead and Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., spoke to the audience about concerns associated with the project. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., is the only member of Nevada’s delegation who has not signed onto legislation calling for consent-based siting for nuclear waste storage.
“The issues are very very concerning,” Goodman said. “It’s not so much about Nevada as it is about the people throughout the country who are placing their residents and their visitors at risk.”
The unpublicised un-safety problem – Ukraine’s nuclear industry
Bellona 24th Jan 2018, Bellona publishes groundbreaking report on the state of Ukraine’s nuclear
industry. It won’t come as a surprise that safety would be a critical
challenge still facing the nuclear industry in Ukraine, which inherited the
infamous Chernobyl plant when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Nearly as surprising has been the comparative lack of concise information on a
national industry that supplies more than half of its country’s
electricity in conditions of political and economic turmoil.
http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2018-01-bellona-publishes-groundbreaking-report-on-the-state-of-ukraines-nuclear-industry
Workers demolishing Hanford’s Plutonium Finishing Plant still vulnerable to airborne radiation
Hanford radioactive monitoring not protecting workers, By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald, January 25, 2018 New test results show that monitoring for airborne radioactive contamination has not protected Hanford nuclear reservation workers as the site’s highly contaminated Plutonium Finishing Plant is demolished.
Two more Hanford workers have inhaled or ingested small amounts of airborne radioactive material, with tests for 180 workers still pending, according to the Department of Energy.
The most recent results were for the first 91 workers who requested testing after a spread of radioactive material was discovered in mid-December.
In addition, air samples collected and analyzed at sites outside the demolition zone around the plant show that airborne radioactive contamination was not found in 2017 by other monitoring methods meant to more quickly warn of a potential danger to workers.
A memo with the latest results for both checks for radioactive contamination of workers and for air monitoring results was sent to Hanford workers Wednesday afternoon by Doug Shoop, manager of the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office.
In one case, airborne contamination that appeared to be linked to demolition of the plant was found about 10 miles away, near the K Reactors along the Columbia River, workers were told. The finding follows an earlier discovery of airborne contamination in June at the Rattlesnake Barricade, a secure entrance to Hanford just off public Highway 240…….. http://www.columbian.com/news/2018/jan/25/hanford-radioactive-monitoring-not-protecting-workers/
Victims of Fukushima nuclear radiation, on both sides of the Pacific
Fukushima heroes on both sides of the Pacific still fighting effects of radiation, stress and guilt, Following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami of 2011, selfless Japanese workers battled nuclear-reactor meltdown, and thousands of US troops provided disaster relief. Today, many are counting the cost to their mental and physical health, SCMP, BY ROB GILHOOLY, 25 JAN 2018 Christmas Day saw dozens of masked men descend on Futaba, in the northeast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. They moved deliberately along deserted streets, clearing triffid-like undergrowth and preparing to demolish derelict buildings. Their arrival marked the beginning of an estimated four-year government-led project to clean up Futaba, which has succumbed to nature since its residents deserted almost seven years ago.
Futaba is one of two towns (the other being neighbouring Okuma) on which sits the 350-hectare Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which experienced multiple reactor meltdowns and explosions in March 2011, contaminating huge swathes of land and forcing the evacuation of 160,000 residents – all the result of the magnitude-nine undersea Tohoku earthquake and the devastating mega-tsunami that hit on March 11, claiming up to 21,000 lives.
Despite 96 per cent of Futaba still being officially designated as uninhabitable due to high radiation levels, the government has set spring 2022 as the return date for its 6,000 or so residents. That the government has also built a 1,600-hectare facility to store up to 22 million cubic metres of nuclear waste in the town has led to doubts that many will return.
I find it difficult to believe anyone would want to go back,” says Ryuta Idogawa, 33, a former employee at Fukushima Daiichi operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), and one of the so-called “Fukushima 50” – a hardcore of station workers who remained on-site after 750 others had been evacuated, battling to bring the melting reactors under control at great risk to their own safety.
“They say time heals,” Idogawa adds, “but that depends how deep the wounds are.”
On the other side of the world, members of a different and larger group of people than the Fukushima 50 are suffering health problems, ostensibly as a result of the disaster. For more than seven weeks following the catastrophe, the United States mounted a massive disaster relief mission, dubbed Operation Tomodachi (the Japanese word means “friend”). The initiative directly or indirectly involved 24,000 US service personnel, 189 aircraft and 24 naval ships, at a total cost US$90 million.
While the mission was lauded a success by the US and Japanese governments, during Operation Tomodachi, thousands of US sailors were inadvertently exposed to a plume of radiation that passed over their ships, which were anchored off the Pacific coast of Japan. Since then, several hundred have developed life-changing illnesses, such as degenerative diseases, tumours and leukaemia, and defects have been detected in foetuses of some pregnant women. All are a result, they claim, of being irradiated by the plume.
According to one report, 24 sailors, who were in their late teens or 20s at the time, are living with a variety of cancers. At least six have died since 2011, while others suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“Unlike the nuclear plant workers, these sailors had no protective clothing, in fact some of them literally had no shirts on their backs because they had given all their clothing away to people they saved from the tsunami waves,” says Charles Bonner, a lawyer at one of three law offices representing 402 sailors who have filed a US$5 billion lawsuit against Tepco and General Electric Co, a suit that has been given the go-ahead to be heard in a US federal court. (Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactor No. 1 – the plant’s oldest reactor – was built by American manufacturer General Electric Co.)
“And because they had given away all their bottled water to tsunami survivors, they were drinking desalinated water that also had been contaminated,” Bonner continues. “I do not doubt the psychological impact of the disasters on the plant workers, but at least they had masks and protective clothing, as required by law. The sailors, however, knew nothing of their exposure and were literally marinated in the radiation.”……….
lawyer Bonner says that while his team represents more than 400 sailors, there were a further 69,600 American citizens – military and civilian – potentially affected by the radiation, and who have yet to join the class lawsuit.
He also expresses indignation at the Royal Society study and the viewpoint of cancer expert Thomas, insisting that the health of the young US service men and women aboard the ships was endangered and in many cases compromised by Operation Tomodachi. “[The sailors] were certified by the Navy as healthy and fit, so why are they getting cancer and other illnesses?” he asks. “That can only be because they were exposed to radiation. It can’t just be a coincidence.”…….. http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2130359/fukushima-heroes-both-sides-pacific-still
1 This Month
of the week – Shut Down Drone Warfare!
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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