Around 250 Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot protesters on April 26 linked arms across a 250-foot (75-meter) stretch of the United Nations controlled buffer zone splitting the capital Nicosia to protest against the plant they say could pose a grave threat to Cyprus and the region because it will be built in a seismic region, the Associated Press reported.
The Greek Cyprus government should have the EU take up the issue with Turkey, which aims to join the bloc, Greek Cypriot Charalambos Theopemptou said.
Many Turkish Cypriots know the risks and oppose the plant, but their leaders must end their silence and speak out, Şener Elçil, General Secretary of KTOS, the Turkish Cypriot Primary Teachers Trade Union said.
A human chain was formed on Thursday night in a bicommunal demonstration at the Ledra Street checkpoint against the opening of a nuclear power plant in Akkuyu, Turkey.
Greek and Turkish Cypriots from more than 40 parties, organisations, movements, trade unions and professional groups held candles and wore gas masks to honour Chernobyl victims with a minute`s silence. Banners wrote ‘Nuclear Free Mediterranean’ and ‘Not in Nuclear’.
A joint statement read in Greek and Turkish said nuclear power plants are not only a threat to the environment but affect the health and safety of people of the surrounding areas. A possible leak could pose a huge risk to both workers and residents. “Pollution of the environment (air, soil, subsoil, water) in the unfortunate case of an accident, would affect not only the area itself, since radioactivity travels by affecting large geographic areas”, it said.
Akkuyu is a highly seismic area and radiation from the ‘normal’ operation of the plant as well as any serious leak would gradually destroy the quality of life of nearby living beings, including humans, the statement said. “The eastern Mediterranean basin is a huge and interconnected ecosystem. In the instance of a radiation leak, this will harm hundreds of kilometres around the nuclear plants”.
The Chernobyl accident, which occurred 32 years ago, is still creating problems to people and the environment all around the Black Sea basin, it added.
“Nuclear waste by itself is an environmental disaster that will last for centuries and no one can claim that there is a safe way for its disposal, since the danger of a leak is always there. The cost of the disposal of nuclear waste is very high and this negates the theory that nuclear power is a cheap source of energy”. It also asked if there is anybody who wishes to keep nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years buried on their land.
Τhe power plant is only 90 kilometres off the northern coast of Cyprus.
In an article published in PLOS ONE, Brazilian researchers describe the first retrospective dosimetric study by electron spin resonance spectroscopy using human tissue from nuclear attack victimsFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO
The bombing of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in 1945 was the first and only use of nuclear weapons against civilian targets. A series of studies began in its aftermath to measure the impact of the fallout, in terms of both the radiation dose to which the victims were exposed and the effects of this exposure on DNA and health in general.
Continuing research that started in the 1980s under the leadership of physicist Sérgio Mascarenhas, Full Professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazilian scientists have published an article in the journal PLOS ONE describing a method of precise measurement of the radiation dose absorbed by the bones of victims of the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan.
The investigation was conducted during the postdoctoral research of Angela Kinoshita, currently a professor at Universidade do Sagrado Coração in Bauru, São Paulo State. Her supervisor was then Oswaldo Baffa, Full Professor at the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto School of Philosophy, Science & Letters (FFCLRP-USP).
“We used a technique known as electron spin resonance spectroscopy to perform retrospective dosimetry. Currently, there’s renewed interest in this kind of methodology due to the risk of terrorist attacks in countries like the United States,” Baffa said.
“Imagine someone in New York planting an ordinary bomb with a small amount of radioactive material stuck to the explosive. Techniques like this can help identify who has been exposed to radioactive fallout and needs treatment.”
As Kinoshita explained, the study is unique insofar as it used samples of human tissue from victims of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
“There were serious doubts about the feasibility of using this methodology to determine the radiation dose deposited in these samples, because of the processes involved in the episode,” she said. “The results confirm its feasibility and open up various possibilities for future research that may clarify details of the nuclear attack.”
The equipment used in the investigation was purchased during a project coordinated by Baffa and supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP.
Origins
In the 1970s, when he was teaching at the University of São Paulo’s São Carlos Physics Institute (IFSC-USP), Mascarenhas discovered that X-ray and gamma-ray irradiation made human bones weakly magnetic. The phenomenon, known as paramagnetism, occurs because the hydroxyapatite (crystalline calcium phosphate) in the mineral portion of bone tissue absorbs carbon dioxide ions, and when the sample is irradiated, the CO2 loses electrons and becomes CO2-. This free radical serves as a marker of the radiation dose received by the material.
“I discovered that we could use this property to perform radiation dosimetry and began using the method in archeological dating,” Mascarenhas recalled.
His aim at the time was to calculate the age of bones found in sambaquis (middens created by Brazil’s original inhabitants as mounds of shellfish debris, skeletons of prehistoric animals, human bones, stone or bone utensils, and other refuse) based on the natural radiation absorbed over centuries via contact with elements such as thorium that are present in the sand on the seashore.
On the strength of this research, he was invited to teach at Harvard University in the United States. Before leaving for the US, however, he decided to go to Japan to try to obtain samples of bones from victims of the nuclear bombs and test his method on them.
“They gave me a jawbone, and I decided to measure the radiation right there, at Hiroshima University,” he said. “I needed to prove experimentally that my discovery was genuine.”
Mascarenhas succeeded in demonstrating that a dosimetric signal could be obtained from the sample even though the technology was still rudimentary and there were no computers to help process the results. The research was presented at the American Physical Society’s annual March Meeting, where it made a strong impression. Mascarenhas brought the samples to Brazil, where they remain.
“There have been major improvements in the instrumentation to make it more sensitive in the last 40 years,” Baffa said. “Now, you see digitally processed data in tables and graphs on the computer screen. Basic physics has also evolved to the extent that you can simulate and manipulate the signal from the sample using computational techniques.”
Thanks to these advances, he added, in the new study, it was possible to separate the signal corresponding to the radiation dose absorbed during the nuclear attack from the so-called background signal, a kind of noise scientists suspect may have resulted from superheating of the material during the explosion.
“The background signal is a broad line that may be produced by various different things and lacks a specific signature,” Baffa said. “The dosimetric signal is spectral. Each free radical resonates at a certain point on the spectrum when exposed to a magnetic field.”
Methodology
To make the measurements, the researchers removed millimeter-scale pieces of the jawbone used in the previous study. The samples were again irradiated in the laboratory using a technique called the additive dose method.
“We added radiation to the material and measured the rise in the dosimetric signal,” Baffa explained. “We then constructed a curve and extrapolated from that the initial dose, when the signal was presumably zero. This calibration method enabled us to measure different samples, as each bone and each part of the same bone has a different sensitivity to radiation, depending on its composition.”
Thanks to this combination of techniques, they were able to measure a dose of approximately 9.46 grays (Gy), which is high in Baffa’s view. “About half that dose, or 5 Gy, is fatal if the entire body is exposed to it,” he said.
The value was comparable with the doses obtained by other techniques applied to non-biological samples, such as measurement of the luminescence of quartz grains present in brick and roof tile fragments found at the bomb sites. According to the authors, it was also close to the results of biological measurement techniques applied in long-term studies using alterations in survivors’ DNA as a parameter.
“The measurement we obtained in this latest study is more reliable and up to date than the preliminary finding, but I’m currently evaluating a methodology that’s about a thousand times more sensitive than spin resonance. We’ll have news in a few months,” Mascarenhas predicted.
About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)
The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. For more information: http://www.fapesp.br/en.
Hiroshima hibakusha call for nuclear abolition https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20180426_04/Atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima have appealed for speeding up the effort to eliminate nuclear weapons. They gave a speech to state representatives at a preparatory meeting in Geneva on Wednesday for the 2020 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.
80-year-old Michiko Kodama told the audience about her war-time experience. Then she said when the United Nations adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons last year, survivors were elated that the door to abolishing nuclear arms has opened at long last.
But she noted that a long and winding road lies ahead as nuclear powers and their allies have not joined the treaty.
Kodama said mankind has come to a fork in the road: Will we protect this blue planet Earth, or choose the path of destruction?
She called on nations that have signed the NPT to swiftly and completely destroy their nuclear weapons.
Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui also took the podium. He said promoting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will be an important guidepost for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue stressed that the nuclear weapons ban treaty and the NPT go hand in hand. He said cities that have endured an atomic bombing are fully convinced that the nuclear ban treaty is a global norm.
N.L. government seeking input for radiation health and safety review, Northern Pen Canada, ST. JOHN’S, NL , 27 Apr 18– The provincial government wants to hear from owners, users, sellers and maintainers of equipment that produces ionizing radiation.
The input will help inform potential changes to the Radiation Health and Safety Act and Regulations, which governs the inspection, installation, use, maintenance and registration of equipment capable of producing ionizing radiation such as X-ray machines and CT scanners.
The legislation has only received minor amendments since it was introduced in 1977. “I encourage anyone with an interest in this matter to participate in the consultation,” ServiceNL Minister Sherry Gambin-Walsh said in a news release today, April 27.
A comprehensive review of the Radiation Health and Safety Act and Regulations was one of the commitments identified in the joint five-year injury prevention strategy launched by WorkplaceNL and the Occupational Health and Safety Division of Service NL in February of this year.
The strategy is called “Advancing a Strong Safety Culture in Newfoundland and Labrador.” There are several ways people and organizations can share their feedback on the proposed legislative changes. Anyone wishing to meet with government officials should contact the Occupational Health and Safety Division of Service NL. A questionnaire can be completed online at EngageNL.ca. Emails can be sent to NLRadiationLegislationReview@gov.nl.ca.
Participants can also send feedback by mail to: NL Radiation Legislation Review, Occupational Health and Safety Division, Service NL, 28 Pippy Place, St. John’s, NL, A1B 3X4.
From Greenpeace.org:
“Stand in solidarity with Chernobyl survivors!
Today five million people in the Ukraine, Russia and Belarus live in areas contaminated by Chernobyl’s radioactive fallout.
Every day these survivors must make decisions on how to reduce or limit their exposure to radiation. Shopping, cooking, eating, working outside or heating their homes are daily choices that can put their families at risk.
They are being abandoned by their governments who are not taking adequate care of their citizens. Their governments scramble to cut protection programs that ensure needed monitoring, health treatments and uncontaminated food. This is so they can save money.
Worse still, these same governments want to spend billions on extremely risky nuclear energy while ignoring their responsibility to support those who still live in the shadow of Chernobyl’s radioactive legacy.
It is unjust to cut programs to protect Chernobyl survivors.
It’s a critical time for human and other species, as the threats from climate change and nuclear power are now merging. Climatologist Paul Beckwith explains this in his latest podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRu-Xs4U2r4&feature=push-u&attr_tag=jW6Jq2IuMN0E13lZ-6 Carbon in the Atmosphere is Regularly Exceeding 410 Parts Per Million for First Time in Human History.
This crisis in the global ecosystem is manifested in other ways, notably in loss of biodiversity.
IRAN. The ‘demonising’ of Iran, by USA and other Western powers, despite Iran’s good record on the nuclear deal. Investigative journalist Gareth Porter refutes the spin and deception in claims that Iran is a nuclear threat. Iran’s warnings if Donald Trump tears up 2015 nuclear deal.
OCEANIA.Sea level rise will force evacuation of communities from low-lying islands. Many low-lying atoll islands could be uninhabitable by mid-21st century .
JAPAN. Japan ‘covering up’ Fukushima nuclear danger-zone radiation levels and blackmailing evacuees to return to radiated areas swarming with radioactive pigs and monkeys. Japanese trading house Itochu ‘pulls out of nuclear plant project in Turkey’.
Thirty two years ago the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine melted down. Huge radiation releases occurred; estimates are 10x higher than Fukushima. Official deaths are ridiculously low (9,000 people). New analysis recently by Russian scientists assesses the death toll range as 1 to 1.5 million people. Fukushima deaths: 200,000 people within 10 years and 400,000 people within 50 years. Given that we in early stages of abrupt climate change, with huge increases in frequency, severity and duration of extreme weather, how resilient are nuclear reactors?
On the 32nd anniversary of the most destructive man-caused disasters in history, the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, Sputnik discussed the liquidation of nuclear incidents throughout the world with Majia H. Nadesan, Risk Innovation Fellow in the Graduate Faculty of Hugh Downs.
Sputnik: In your view, how do politics affect such disasters as the Fukushima incident?
Majia H. Nadesan: Politics is an inevitable dimension of social life. Unfortunately, consolidated political power over critical decision-making can have catastrophic consequences, particularly when decision-makers are driven by singular logics that are intolerant of dissent.
We see in the case of nuclear energy how centralization of decision making power legitimized by symbolic appeals to national and economic security have produced never-ending catastrophes, illustrated best by Hanford in the US, Chernobyl in the Ukraine, Mayak in Russia, and Fukushima Daiichi in Japan.
Each of these catastrophes poisons air, soil, and water as toxic radionuclides migrate, bio-accumulate, and bio-magnify in biological life.
Although no authority will deny the hazards of radioactive activity and the challenges of nuclear waste management, the institutionally vested logic of nuclear, what Gabrielle Hecht referred to as “nuclearity,” routinely seeks to contain and trivialize representations of radiation risk. We saw this tendency toward trivialization in the WHO’s rush during the early stages of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster to declare no long-term health risks.
It is relatively easy to contain and trivialize representations of radiation risk because effects for all but the most extreme exposures are protracted and do not manifest equivalently across exposed populations because of variations across exposure forms and conditions and the contingencies of biological vulnerabilities. Most troubling, the transgenerational genetic and epigenetic effects of elevated exposure to chemically toxic and radioactive elements are studied least frequently of all and yet may pose the greatest risk to biological life.
Containment and trivialization of radiation risk are foundational to the symbolic logic of nuclear security, yet blind us to the hazards we’ve engineered into our infrastructures, as observed by Ulrich Beck.
Sputnik: What measures need to be taken to prevent these catastrophes from happening?
Majia H. Nadesan: Efforts to redress catastrophic risks must first and foremost acknowledge the scope and severity of hazards. Powerful governmental and corporate organizations vested in the nuclear industry and its symbolic logic of national security are often unwilling to take this first step and so we see efforts in the US to extend the operations of antiquated reactors and in Japan efforts to return Fukushima refugees to areas with still-elevated radiation levels.
Failure to acknowledge infrastructural hazards across the nuclear supply, utilization, and waste cycles promises more disasters and each one will contribute to the genotoxic load of radionuclides circulating and concentrating in the biological life upon which we depend.
Sputnik: What are your thoughts on the way the previous catastrophes were handled?
Majia H. Nadesan: It is quite instructive to compare how Chernobyl was managed as compared to Fukushima. There is little doubt that the Soviet deployment of hundreds of thousands of liquidators was on a scale that has not yet been surpassed. The Soviets also set the exposure level at a fraction (5 millisieverts) of the up-to-twenty millisieverts of annualized exposure now allowed by Japan’s government. However, many observers note that the autocratic nature of the Soviet system and the availability of space for relocating refugees contributed to the more aggressive mitigation and evacuation in Chernobyl as compared to Japan.
Containment and trivialization of radiation risk are foundational to the symbolic logic of nuclear security, yet blind us to the hazards we’ve engineered into our infrastructures, as observed by Ulrich Beck.
Sputnik: What measures need to be taken to prevent these catastrophes from happening?
Majia H. Nadesan: Efforts to redress catastrophic risks must first and foremost acknowledge the scope and severity of hazards. Powerful governmental and corporate organizations vested in the nuclear industry and its symbolic logic of national security are often unwilling to take this first step and so we see efforts in the US to extend the operations of antiquated reactors and in Japan efforts to return Fukushima refugees to areas with still-elevated radiation levels.
Failure to acknowledge infrastructural hazards across the nuclear supply, utilization, and waste cycles promises more disasters and each one will contribute to the genotoxic load of radionuclides circulating and concentrating in the biological life upon which we depend.
Sputnik: What are your thoughts on the way the previous catastrophes were handled?
Majia H. Nadesan: It is quite instructive to compare how Chernobyl was managed as compared to Fukushima. There is little doubt that the Soviet deployment of hundreds of thousands of liquidators was on a scale that has not yet been surpassed. The Soviets also set the exposure level at a fraction (5 millisieverts) of the up-to-twenty millisieverts of annualized exposure now allowed by Japan’s government. However, many observers note that the autocratic nature of the Soviet system and the availability of space for relocating refugees contributed to the more aggressive mitigation and evacuation in Chernobyl as compared to Japan.
suspect that although the incidents of severe accidents will increase, the public will hear less about these accidents. Driven by the logic of adaptation, governments across the globe are re-thinking allowable exposure levels. In addition to increasing exposures standards, governments may censor or otherwise limit access to data on measured pollutants. For example, we see in the US how the EPA’s Radnet System shutdown monitors and limited access to beta data in the months and years following the Fukushima disaster. The public’s right to know appears to be faltering.
Since radiation detection requires access to specialized equipment, controlling perceptions of radiation risk may be easier to achieve than controlling actual exposures.
Last weekend, North Korea suspended its nuclear tests and shut down the site where the last six detonations took place: underneath Mount Mantap, in the country’s northeast.
The reasons are ostensibly diplomatic, pointing to a thaw in relations between Kim Jong-un’s regime and South Korea and the West, but some noted that Pyongyang might have also been worried that the mountain was at risk of collapsing, as it visibly shifted during the last nuclear test. However, two separate groups of Chinese scientists now say Mount Mantap did in fact collapse after that detonation.
That means there’s a risk of radioactive contamination spreading not only within North Korea, but to other countries in the region. The site is not far from North Korea’s borders with China and Russia.
The test of the 100-kiloton bomb, which led Chinese seismologists to register a 6.3 magnitude earthquake, apparently opened up a hole of up to 656 feet in diameter. Part of the mountain then fell into the hole.
The findings of the team, led by renowned seismologist Wen Lianxing, are set to be published next month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
According to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, another team from the China Earthquake Administration reckons the collapse created a “chimney” that could allow the escape of fallout. The publication quoted researcher Zhao Lianfeng from the Chinese Academy of Sciences as saying the site was “wrecked” beyond repair.
So Pyongyang’s renouncement of land-based nuclear tests, for now, appears to be motivated by more than mere diplomatic concerns.
Donald Trump likely to scrap Iran deal amid ‘insane’ changes of stance, says Macron, Guardian, Julian Borger 27 Apr 18
French president’s frank comments come after Congress address in which he stood up for policies his US counterpart has sought to destroy
Emmanuel Macron conceded he had probably failed in his attempt during a three-day trip to Washington to persuade Donald Trump to stay in the Iran nuclear deal, describing US flip-flopping on international agreements as “insane”.
The French president had hoped to convince Trump to continue to waive sanctions on Iran, as agreed by the 2015 nuclear deal, in which Iran agreed to accept strict curbs on its nuclear activities. Macron offered Trump the prospect of negotiations on a new complementary deal that would address Iranian missile development and Tehran’s military intervention in the Middle East.
But speaking to US reporters before leaving Washington, Macron said: “My view – I don’t know what your president will decide – is that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons.”
Noting that Trump had also pulled the US out of the Paris climate change accord – another commitment of the Obama administration – Macron said such frequent changes in the US position on global issues “can work in the short term but it’s very insane in the medium to long term”.
For his part, Trump implied in a phone interview on Thursday morning with the TV show Fox and Friends, which mainly focused on matters involving his attorney Michael Cohen, that he thought he had swayed Macron closer to his way of thinking on the Iran deal………
Over the course of a 50-minute address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, the French president said he was “sure” the US would one day return to the Paris climate change accord, and vowed that France would not abandon the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA).
More broadly, Macron presented himself to the US legislature as an unabashed advocate of the liberal world order of global institutions and free trade – the very opposite of the America First nationalism that fuelled Trump’s rise to the White House. The speech – delivered in English – was interrupted by frequent standing ovations, many from both sides of the aisle.
“We will not let the rampaging work of extreme nationalism shake a world full of hopes for greater prosperity,” Macron said. “It is a critical moment. If we do not act with urgency as a global community, I am convinced that the international institutions, including the United Nations and Nato, will no longer be able to exercise a mandate and stabilising influence.”
……..
Macron also made a full-throated argument for global action to combat climate change, built around the 2015 Paris accord, which Trump announced in June he was walking away from.
Since the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Soviet Chernobyl reactor, one in four thyroid cancer cases has been caused by radiation in the region, UN scientists report in their first such estimate.
After reviewing various statistics and existing studies, the Vienna-based UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation said around 20,000 such cancers were registered between 1991 and 2015 in the area surrounding the reactor, which takes in all of Ukraine and Belarus, as well parts of Russia.
This figure covers people who were younger than 18 years at the time of the nuclear accident.
“Thyroid cancer is a major problem after the Chernobyl accident and needs further investigation to better understand the long-term consequences,” UNSCEAR chairman Hans Vanmarcke said in a statement on Wednesday.
Based on limited data covering only the 1991-2005 period, UNSCEAR had previously put the total number of registered thyroid cancers in the region at 7000, but had not estimated the share that can be linked to radiation exposure.
The overall number of cases has increased nearly threefold to 20,000, not only because of radiation effects, but also because the group of people being monitored has been getting older, which has increased their natural risk of getting cancer.
In addition, the high awareness about thyroid cancer in the region and improved diagnostic methods have allowed doctors to detect a higher number of cases, UNSCEAR says in its paper.
NORTH Korea’s main nuclear test site has collapsed after multiple explosions and could be vulnerable to radiation leaks, according to a team of Chinese geologists.By SIMON OSBORNE
Scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China said the partial collapse of a mountain containing test tunnels, as well as the risk of radiation leaks, have potentially rendered the site unusable. Their study was published soon after Kim said his country would stop testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and close down Punggye-ri before his meeting with Moon.
The Chinese scientists collected data after the most powerful of the North’s six nuclear tests last September.
The controlled explosion, which caused a magnitude 6.3 tremor, is believed to have triggered four more earthquakes over the following weeks.
The study found there was “a near-vertical on-site collapse towards the nuclear test centre” about eight minutes after the test.
The report said: “In view of the research finding that the North Korea nuclear test site at Mount Mantap has collapsed, it is necessary to continue to monitor any leakage of radioactive materials that may have been caused by the collapse.”
North Korean nuclear tests have caused seismic events in Chinese border towns and cities, forcing evacuations of schools and offices, sparking fears of wind-borne radiation and leading to a backlash among some Chinese against their country’s unpredictable traditional ally.
On Saturday, Kim announced North Korea would close its nuclear testing facility and suspend nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests – a move welcomed by US president Donald Trump as “big progress” – and which comes ahead of a planned summit between the leaders in late May or early June.
But Kim stopped short of promising to give up his nuclear weapons, and the missile test ban does not include shorter-range weapons capable of reaching Japan and South Korea.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2018 , Search to find nuclear waste storage site is ‘flawed’, Cumbria council chiefs claim. Cash incentives are being offered to communities that step forward to host an underground waste bunker.
A NEW search to find a community willing to host an underground nuclear waste storage bunker is based on ‘fundamentally flawed’ government policy, council officials in Cumbria have said.
The nationwide scheme to identify a location for a £12 billion geological disposal facility buried at least 200 metres below the surface was relaunched by the government in January and is expected to take
20 years to secure. It promises incentives including £1m per year for five
years for the five communities that volunteer to be on the shortlist – with
£2.5m a year for the two that go forward to the testing stage, which would
see deep boreholes dug underground.
But experts within Cumbria County Council have instead called for more clarity on how the high level waste -the majority of which is currently kept in storage vessels in west Cumbria
– will be kept safe if a suitable location is not identified within the time frame.
They also state the right of willing communities to withdraw from the process is not clear enough within the proposal.
The authority’s official response, expected to be adopted by members of its cabinet
committee in Carlisle today, states: “The county council believes the
policy on which this consultation is based is fundamentally flawed.
The LA Times reported last month that when workers tried to move spent fuel from a cooling tank to dry storage tanks–that are kept a mere 100-feet from the shoreline–broken bolts were found in the long-term storage tanks. Those tanks are meant to hold and stabilize the spent fuel rods indefinitely.
Work stopped for ten days after the bolts were found, but has since resumed, angering nearby residents and people opposed to the plan to store waste at San Onofre, who were already worried about the safety of keeping nuclear waste so near the ocean and major population centers.
Now that broken bolts have been found, those fears are heightening.
The broken bolts are part of a system that helps keep the rods balanced in the storage tanks. They’re apparently a new design, and four of them have already been filled with radioactive waste. Unfortunately, there’s no way for Southern California Edison to test the already-filled containers for the same issue.
Edison is trying to assuage fears and insists there’s no threat to the public. And they’ve resumed filling more storage tanks, but not the newly-designed tanks with bolt issues.
But for watchdog groups who were already warning that unforeseen problems made storing this waste highly dangerous, malfunctioning tanks so early in the relocation process isn’t sitting very well.
“We warned them that this was going to happen, and nobody listened to us,” Donna Gilmore of SanOnofreSafety.org told the LA Times. “Now they are trying to tell us: ‘Everything is OK. Don’t worry.’ This is insane. Edison has proven they can’t keep us safe.”
As part of a lawsuit settlement, Edison has agreed to look into options to store the spent fuel permanently in New Mexico or Arizona, far from millions of Orange County and San Diego County residents.
For now though, the waste is still headed to San Onofre, busted bolts and all. All 3.6 million pounds of it.
nuclear-news 