A containment failure: How American nuclear regulators undercut power plant safety from the beginning

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 4th May 2018 , In 1965, the US Atomic Energy Commission made a fateful decision to license
nuclear power plants that, top safety experts believed, had containment structures that were inadequate to contain dangerous releases of
radioactivity in the case of core-melting accidents.

It was a critical turning point in reactor safety. The AEC’s downgrading of the containment’s role opened the door to smaller, cheaper, “dynamic”
containments, which offered significantly less protection in case of a fuel melt accident. Buyers of nearly four dozen large US power reactors opted
for the most vulnerable of such containments, of which 30 remain in
operation.

Because of their inadequate containments, they should all be retired. All but one have exceeded their original 40-year license
durations. New plants shouldn’t be licensed unless they include containments that actually do what they were originally supposed to do –
contain all radioactive material, even in a worst-case melt-down of a nuclear reactor core.

https://thebulletin.org/2018/may/containment-failure-how-american-nuclear-regulators-undercut-power-plant-safety-beginning11770

1.This Month

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Changing climate change“2040” paints an optimistic picture of the future of the environment

The film focuses on technological and agricultural solutions that are already being implemented to help combat climate change, The Economist Feb 19th 2019

by C.G. | BERLIN ……….In “2040”, a documentary which premiered at the Berlinale, Mr Gameau seeks to wrest hope from the bleak reports of climate change. He was inspired by Project Drawdown, the first comprehensive plan to reverse global warming, and the film is intended as a “virtual letter to his four-year-old daughter to show her an alternative future”. “Many films,” Mr Gameau thinks, are too dystopian, and “paint a future that is really hard to engage and to connect with”. “2040” acknowledges that the Earth has set off down a hazardous path, but focuses on the work that is being done now to steer the right course. What, the film asks, could make 2040 a time worth living in?…. (subscribers only) https://www.economist.com/prospero/2019/02/19/2040-paints-an-optimistic-picture-of-the-future-of-the-environment

of the week

Join Red Cross and say no to nuclear weapons

Radiation concerns at Grand Canyon

Pr Busby on children’s heart attacks caused by radiation in Fukushima

Radiation sickness in Japan from Fukushima exposure after disaster 2-6-2019

Arctic Blue-Ocean-Event Consequences for Greenland: 1 of 2

WOW Fukushima may be MUCH worse than they are telling us

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope