#Fukushima United Nations #OHCR report update 18th September 2018 #IDP
ink to exclusive to nuclear-news.net video testimony from Internally Displaced People from Japan. This is part of a series of videos upcoming to this blog over the next few weeks. In the first video we hear from a Decontamination worker and Mother about the working conditions she experienced and the health effects she obseved with her family.
The second video highlights an issue with the nuclear industries “Stay in Place” orders to civilians downwind of a nuclear disaster by showing the different health effects of 2 families who take different approaches. One family removes themselves from the prefecture within days (with few health effects noticed) and another family who stayed in Fukushima Prefecture for another year and a half and both mother and daughter was found to have Thyroid abnormalities effecting their well being.
The third video covers health effects and costs (Just released)
More videos to come including a family who moved to another part of Japan and the nosebleeds started again when the new Prefecture started burning nuclear waste from the Fukushima cleanup! No escape! Here are the links to the first two short video testimonies of the first three families.
Posted to nuclear-news.net
Posted by Shaun McGee aka arclight
Posted on 18 September 2018
Baskut Tuncuk has finished his report on workers (globally) who are exploited here
A vicious form of exploitation: workers poisoned by toxic substances, says UN expert
GENEVA (12 September 2018) – Exposure of workers to toxic substances can and should be considered a form of exploitation and is a global health crisis, says a UN expert.
On Wednesday, UN Special Rapporteur on hazardous substances and wastes, Baskut Tuncak, told the UN Human Rights Council that governments and companies must strengthen protection for workers, their families
“and their communities from any exposure to toxic chemicals”.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23543&LangID=E
Here is some background and upcoming reports with some recent activity;
SR on internally displaced persons due in first quarter of 2019 requested in first half of 2016 and confirmed in August 2017
Due on first quarter of 2019 https://spinternet.ohchr.org/_Layouts/SpecialProceduresInternet/ViewCountryVisits.aspx?Lang=en&country=JPN
SR…
View original post 989 more words
WELSH LABOUR GOVERNMENT BROKE LAW BY ALLOWING ‘NUCLEAR MUD’ DUMPING OFF PENARTH
The French energy company EDF – which is building the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station on the Somerset Coast – has now admitted that the dumping of Hinkley mud off Penarth is illegal .
Today a legal moves to obtain an injunction against EDF were halted in order to prevent the risk of potentially huge costs having to be met by the campaigners – even though they are in the right .
EDF is said to have admitted in court documents today that no Environmental Impact Assessment was made on Cardiff Grounds – the mud dumping site a mile offshore from Penarth now nicknamed the “Nuclear Triangle”.
EDF had initially claimed that no such Assessment was required because the Cardiff Grounds were already covered by the Hinkley Point Assessment in English Waters – but it’s now clear this doesn’t apply. Dumping so-called ‘nuclear mud’ in Welsh waters without an Environmental Impact Assessment is illegal.
The fault lies with the Welsh Labour Government – not with EDF . It was the Labour Welsh Government Minister Lesley Griffiths who wrongly issued a licence when she should not have done without first carrying out an Environmental Impact Assessment on the Cardiff Grounds dump site.
Barry Friends of the Earth say that the Welsh Labour Government is now faced with possible costs racking up at the rate of £118,000 a day because of their mistake. Under EIA-law, the licence is unlawful and the Welsh Government is likely to have no choice but to revoke it.
There is to be a debate in the Welsh Assembly next week on October 1oth to pressurise the Welsh Government to sort out its self-created mess .
The result is likely to be a huge embarrassment for the Welsh Labour Government and its beleaguered Environment Minister.
Tonight both MV Sloeber and MV Pagadder – along with the dredging vessel Peter the Great – are in Barry Docks awaiting further developments.
The UK nuclear industry has that sinking feeling!
October 4, 2018, by Paul Brown
Officially the UK nuclear industry is going ahead with building a new generation of power stations. But it can’t find anyone to pay for them.
LONDON, 4 October, 2018 – The future of the UK nuclear industry looks increasingly bleak, despite the Conservative government’s continued insistence that it wants to build up to 10 new nuclear power stations.
One of the flagship schemes, the £15 billion ($19.5bn) Moorside development in Cumbria in north-west England, made 70 of its 100 staff redundant in September because the current owners, Toshiba, are unable to finance it and cannot find a buyer.
Tom Samson, the managing director of NuGen, the company set up to construct the power station, said he was fighting “tooth and nail” to save it but that there was “a real danger” the whole idea would be abandoned.
With renewable electricity becoming much cheaper than new nuclear power in the UK, the proposed stations have the added disadvantage that they are remote from population centres and would need expensive new grid connections.
There seem to be two main reasons for the government’s continued enthusiasm for nuclear power – the need to keep the nation’s nuclear weapons properly maintained, and political considerations about providing new jobs in remote areas where there are already nuclear installations that are being run down or decommissioned.
Need for jobs
Martin Forwood, from Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment, said: “I have never thought that Moorside would go ahead. It was always about sustaining jobs at Sellafield where the nuclear reprocessing works are all being closed down. The place is the wrong end of the country from where the electricity is needed.”
Moorside was to be taken over by the Korean Electric Power Corp. (Kepco), “the preferred bidder”, and the company is still in talks with Toshiba, but has lost support from the South Korean government and is unlikely to proceed.
A similar affliction of lack of financial backers is affecting plans by another Japanese giant, Hitachi, to build an equally ambitious project at Wylfa on the isle of Anglesey in Wales. This is also a remote site with an existing but redundant nuclear station and, coincidentally, a marginal constituency where voters badly need new jobs.
Again, finding a company, or even a country, with deep enough pockets to help build this power station is proving difficult, even though the UK government has offered to underwrite part of the cost.
The only project that is going ahead so far is at Hinkley Point in Somerset in the west of England, where the French nuclear company EDF is set to build two of its new generation reactors.
Double problem
More than 3,000 people are already working on the site, but its future still remains in doubt. This is because of the difficulties both of building what appears to be a troublesome design, and of the French state-owned company’s own debts.
In France EDF has 58 ageing reactors in its fleet, most of which need upgrading to meet safety requirements, with others more than 40 years old due for closure. The costs of the upgrades plus the decommissioning will create an even bigger debt problem, making investment in new reactors virtually impossible.
This financial hurdle may yet halt construction of Hinkley Point’s twin reactors, effectively killing off nuclear new build in Britain. Officially, however, the Chinese are still hoping to build a reactor at Bradwell, east of London, and EDF two more reactors at Sizewell in Suffolk, further east on the coast of England.
Already there are doubts about these, and in any case they are years away from construction starting. Other proposed projects have disappeared from sight entirely.
At the heart of the problem is the immense amount of capital needed to finance the building of reactors, which typically double in cost during lengthy construction periods, with completion delays, in the case of the French design, stretching to ten years or more.
“The industrial capabilities and associated costs of military nuclear programmes are unsupportable without civil nuclear power”
Faced with the fact that even the largest companies with plenty of money are reluctant to invest in nuclear power, many countries have abandoned their nuclear power programmes. The exceptions are countries that have nuclear weapons, or perhaps aspire to have them in the future.
After 40 years of denials Western governments have openly admitted in the last two years that their ability to build and maintain their nuclear submarines and weapons depends on having a healthy civil reactor programme at the same time.
The military need highly skilled personnel to keep their submarines running and to constantly update their nuclear weapons, because the material they are made of is volatile and constantly needs renewing. Without a pool of “civilian” nuclear workers to draw on, the military programme would be in danger of crumbling.
Phil Johnstone, a research fellow at the University of Sussex, UK, who has researched the link between civil and nuclear power, said: “A factor in why the UK persists so intensely with an uneconomic and much-delayed new nuclear programme and rejects cheaper renewable alternatives, seems to be to maintain and cross-subsidise the already costly nuclear submarine industrial base.
“After a decade of the rhetorical separation of civil and military nuclear programmes by industry and governments, recent high-level statements in the USA, the UK, and France highlight that the industrial capabilities and associated costs of military nuclear programmes are unsupportable without civil nuclear power.”
Concern for democracy
Andy Stirling, professor of science and technology at the Science Policy Research Unit at the same university, added: “Given the remarkable lack of almost any discussion that a key driver for civil nuclear is supporting the costs of the defence nuclear programme – either in official UK energy policy or formal scrutiny by official bodies – this raises significant concerns about the state of UK democracy more broadly.”
Despite these setbacks the nuclear industry is still pushing the idea that new stations are needed if the world, and particularly the UK, are to meet their climate targets. The New Nuclear Watch Institute (NNWI), a British think tank funded by the nuclear industry, has produced a report saying that only with new nuclear stations could the UK hope to meet its greenhouse gas targets.
Tim Yeo, chairman of NNWI, said: “We often hear that new nuclear build is expensive. It turns out that, in fact, if all hidden costs are factored in, abandoning nuclear comes at an even higher price.
“Abandoning nuclear power leads unavoidably to a very big increase in carbon emissions which will prevent Britain from meeting its legally binding climate change commitments.
“If the UK is to successfully meet the challenges faced by its power sector, the world’s only source of low-carbon baseload power generation – nuclear – must feature strongly in its ambitions.” – Climate News Network
The most contaminated corner of Georgia? near to nuclear weapons complex and Vogtle nuclear power station
Environmental Leaders Kick Off Freedom to Breathe Tour in Georgia
The most contaminated corner of Georgia? September 30, 2018
Utilities just voted to continue Vogtle reactor construction; residents want cleanup, By Jeremy Deaton, Nexus Media
You could be forgiven for taking a Geiger counter on a visit to Shell Bluff, Georgia. The town lies just across the Savannah River from a nuclear weapons facility and just down the road from an aging nuclear power plant. The river is one of the most toxic waterways in the country. The weapons facility is one of the most contaminated places on the planet, and the power plant is about to double in size.
Locals are outraged.
“We believe that Plant Vogtle is going to exacerbate the existing contamination that’s already in the area and make things worse,” said Lindsay Harper, deputy director of Georgia WAND, a women-led advocacy group working to end nuclear proliferation and pollution. “We believe that more money should be put toward cleaning up the contamination instead of continuing to produce more.”
Organizers from Georgia WAND and other advocacy groups gathered in Atlanta recently to discuss Plant Vogtle and related environmental issues and to register voters. The town hall marked the first stop on a bus tour organized by environmental leaders from across the South.
The Freedom to Breathe Tour will highlight environmental hazards facing marginalized communities — starting with the expansion to Plant Vogtle, the only nuclear project under construction in the country.
In 2009, Southern Company began building two reactors, which are expected to go online in 2021 and 2022, respectively. The expansion has stoked fears of contamination in what is already a heavily polluted area, leading advocates to call for more testing.
“We need independent monitoring in the area that can help us to paint a larger, broader picture of what’s actually going on,” Harper said. “We need more information. We need more money for information.”
CNN Report – Plant Vogtle
Both the power plant and the weapons facility across the river produce a radioactive form of hydrogen called tritium that has been tentatively linked to Down syndrome in infants. Monitoring has found “elevated levels” of tritium in the groundwater near Plant Vogtle — too little to threaten public health, officials say, but enough to raise eyebrows.
Locals are also worried that pollution from the plant may be causing cancer. Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano found evidence of an uptick in infant mortality and cancer deaths in Burke County, seat of Plant Vogtle, after the facility went online in 1987. It is unclear if the power plant was responsible for the increase.Research has shown that children exposed to radiation are more susceptible to cancer — leukemia, in particular — but it is unclear if nuclear power plants produce enough radiation to threaten public health.
Studies in Germany and France found that the rate of childhood leukemia was significantly higher near power plants, and a study in the United States found that nuclear plant closures were followed by a decline in childhood cancer.
However, similar studies, including one undertaken by the National Cancer Institute, found no evidence of a link. To settle the matter, the federal government undertook a multi-year study on nuclear power and cancer in 2010, but it prematurely halted that effort in early 2017.
Adding to the uncertainty, the federal government stopped paying for monitoring of contamination near Plant Vogtle in 2003, believing the power plant posed little risk. To allay public concerns about radiation, the government is funding an outreach effort to reassure residents that the facilities are harmless, but locals remain unconvinced. Advocates want more rigorous testing and continued research into the risks of exposure to even low levels of radioactive waste……….
Some, however, believe that nuclear is simply too costly and have called for more investment in batteries that can store power generated by solar and wind for when it’s needed.
This is the outcome that locals are hoping for. Many Burke County residents are employed by Plant Vogtle, but they would rather work in wind or solar. “People are having to choose between feeding their families and taking a job that may contaminate their body,” Harper said, referring both to the power plant and the weapons facility. “We want to put our money towards civilians and people, clean economies and clean, sustainable jobs.” https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/09/30/the-most-contaminated-corner-of-georgia/
Climate change. It’s a critical time for the future of the planet
Why the next three months are crucial for the future of the planet
Two forthcoming major climate talks offer governments an opportunity to respond to this year’s extreme weather with decisive action https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/05/why-the-next-four-months-are-crucial-for-future-of-planet-climate-change Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent 5 Oct 2018 This week, scientists are gathering in South Korea to draw together the last five years of advances in climate science to answer key questions for policymakers. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) celebrates its 30th birthday this year with what is likely to be a landmark report to be released on Monday 8 October. What is expected to emerge will be the strongest warning yet that these unusual occurrences will add up to a pattern that can only be overcome with drastic action.
Thousands of the world’s leading climate experts collaborate on the periodic reports, released roughly every half-decade. They have grown clearer over the years in the certainty of their evidence that climate change is occurring as a result of human actions, and firmer in their warnings of the disruptive consequences.
This time, the scientists will attempt to answer whether and how the world can meet the “aspiration” set in the Paris agreement of 2015 to hold warming to no more than 1.5C, beyond which many low-lying states and islands are likely to face dangerous sea level rises.
When the scientists deliver their verdict, the onus will pass to politicians to translate their advice into concrete action. Already in recent weeks, global initiatives have begun aimed at doing so: the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last month spurred protests, and dozens of local governments and multinational companies to make pledges; the second One Planet Summit saw advances in climate finance; while at the UN General Assembly, secretary general António Guterres urged world leaders to step up, calling climate change “the defining issue of our time”.
The warning signals of climate change that have hit people around the world in the last few months must be heeded by national governments at key meetings later this year, political leaders and policy experts are urging, as the disruption from record-breaking weather continues in many regions.
Extreme weather events have struck around the world – from the drought and record temperatures in northern Europe, to forest fires in the US, to heatwaves and drought in China, to an unusually strong monsoon that has devastated large areas of southern India.
As the northern hemisphere summer closes, polar observations have just established that the Arctic sea ice narrowly missed a record low this year. The sea ice extent was tied for the sixth lowest on record with 2008 and 2010. Sea currents and wind conditions can have large effects on sea ice extent from year to year, but the trend is starkly evident.
“Put simply, in the last 10 years the Arctic is melting faster than it ever has previously since records began,” said Julienne Stroeve, professor at University College London. “We have lost over half of the summer sea ice coverage since the late 1970’s and it is realistic to expect an ice-free Arctic sea in summer in the next few decades.”
Of particular concern is the decline in thick ice which forms over several years. “The older ice has been replaced by more and more first-year ice, which is easier to melt out each summer,” she explained.
Not all of the effects of this year’s extraordinary weather, which has also seen the UK’s joint hottest summer on record, can be traced directly to climate change. However, scientists are clear that the background of a warming planet has made extremes of temperature, and accompanying droughts and floods, more likely.
This week, scientists are gathering in South Korea to draw together the last five years of advances in climate science to answer key questions for policymakers. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) celebrates its 30th birthday this year with what is likely to be a landmark report to be released on Monday 8 October. What is expected to emerge will be the strongest warning yet that these unusual occurrences will add up to a pattern that can only be overcome with drastic action.
Thousands of the world’s leading climate experts collaborate on the periodic reports, released roughly every half-decade. They have grown clearer over the years in the certainty of their evidence that climate change is occurring as a result of human actions, and firmer in their warnings of the disruptive consequences.
This time, the scientists will attempt to answer whether and how the world can meet the “aspiration” set in the Paris agreement of 2015 to hold warming to no more than 1.5C, beyond which many low-lying states and islands are likely to face dangerous sea level rises.
When the scientists deliver their verdict, the onus will pass to politicians to translate their advice into concrete action. Already in recent weeks, global initiatives have begun aimed at doing so: the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last month spurred protests, and dozens of local governments and multinational companies to make pledges; the second One Planet Summit saw advances in climate finance; while at the UN General Assembly, secretary general António Guterres urged world leaders to step up, calling climate change “the defining issue of our time”.
Nicholas Stern, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which produced the study, said: “Current economic models fail to capture both the powerful dynamics and very attractive qualities of new technologies and structures [that reduce carbon]. Thus we know that we are grossly underestimating the benefits of this new growth story. Further, it becomes ever clearer that the risks of the damage from climate change are immense, and tipping points and irreversibilities getting ever closer.”
The existence of tipping points – thresholds of temperature beyond which certain natural processes become irreversible, such as the melting of permafrost, which may release the greenhouse gas methane and create runaway warming effects – is a key concern of many climate scientists. The faster emissions rise, the sooner we may unwittingly pass some of these key points.
For all these reasons, the IPCC’s special report comes at a crucial point. Scientists and economists have warned that if the world cannot shift course within the next few years, the consequences will be dire, as new infrastructure built now – in energy generation, transport and the built environment – will be made either to low-emissions standards or in the high-emissions habits of the past. As the IPCC’s next comprehensive assessment of climate science will not be available until 2021, this year’s report will be vital in shaping policy.
Ted Chaiban, director of programmes at Unicef, urged governments to seize the opportunities for action offered by this year’s series of political meetings offers for action. “Over the past few months, we have seen a stark vision of the world we are creating for future generations,” he said. “As more extreme weather events increase the number of emergencies and humanitarian crises, it is children who will pay the highest price,” he said.
“It is vital that governments and the international community take concrete steps. The worst impacts of climate change are not inevitable, but the time for action is now.”
After the IPCC publication, the world will face a key test of faith in the 2015 Paris agreement, the only global pact stipulating action on temperature rises. This December in Poland, the UN’s climate change arm will hold a two-week meeting aimed at turning the political resolve reached in Paris three years ago into a set of rules for countries to follow on reducing emissions.
The political situation is more fraught than it was in the runup to Paris. The US is pulling out of the landmark climate agreement and is likely to play little part in the talks. Australia’s government is also in turmoil over climate actions. Now the challenger for Brazil’s presidency, Jair Bolsonaro, is threatening to withdraw its participation – a potential blow to the Paris consensus, as Brazil was a linchpin among rapidly developing nations.
All eyes will be on China, which has shown remarkable progress on renewable energy and emissions reduction, and India, where climate champions have found common cause with opponents of increasingly damaging air pollution. Patricia Espinsoa, the UN’s top climate official, warned that only “uneven progress” had been made so far on the 300-page rulebook for implementing the Paris targets, leaving the rest of the work for December.
While the dangerous weather of the first half of 2018 has raised concerns worldwide that we are seeing climate change in action, many leading experts told the Guardian they were optimistic that political and business leaders this year would help set the world on a different course to avoid the worse predictions of untrammelled warming.
Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme, said the past few years had seen “extraordinary progress” in areas such as renewable energy and the take-up of low-carbon technology: “This is real, not in the future but happening now. We are showing that we can do this, we can bring down emissions, it doesn’t need to be a disaster.”
Adopting low-carbon aims now would set developing countries on a course to a brighter future, added Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former economic minister of Nigeria and a member of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. “Now is the time to do this, before we lock in high-carbon infrastructure,” she said. “Now is the opportunity for real sustainable growth.”
Political leaders will find that global investors back them up in opting for low-carbon policies, predicted Frank Rijsberman of the Global Green Growth Institute. “I see this from investors, from businesses,” he said. “They are ready, and they see low-carbon as the future.”
Felipe Calderón, former president of Mexico, called on political leaders to take note: “We can turn better [economic] growth and a better climate into reality. It is time we decisively legislate, innovate, govern and invest our way to a fairer, safer, more sustainable world.”
Evidence showing that tackling climate change can be an economic boost rather than a brake has been growing. The recently published New Climate Economy report says more than 65m new low-carbon jobs could be created in just over a decade, and that 700,000 premature deaths from air pollution could be avoided every year by government action on climate change. A further $2.8tn could be added to government revenues by 2030 by reforming perverse incentives to burn fossil fuels.
Nicholas Stern, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which produced the study, said: “Current economic models fail to capture both the powerful dynamics and very attractive qualities of new technologies and structures [that reduce carbon]. Thus we know that we are grossly underestimating the benefits of this new growth story. Further, it becomes ever clearer that the risks of the damage from climate change are immense, and tipping points and irreversibilities getting ever closer.”
The existence of tipping points – thresholds of temperature beyond which certain natural processes become irreversible, such as the melting of permafrost, which may release the greenhouse gas methane and create runaway warming effects – is a key concern of many climate scientists. The faster emissions rise, the sooner we may unwittingly pass some of these key points.
For all these reasons, the IPCC’s special report comes at a crucial point.
Saudi Arabia subverting international climate change talks
International talks on how to present the science around 1.5C of global warming just ran into overtime in Incheon, South Korea. Climate Home News 5 Oct 18
National delegates are expected to argue well into Saturday about the feasibility of holding temperature rise to 1.5C – the stretch goal of the Paris Agreement – and its implications for sustainable development.
Saudi Arabia is leading the criticism of several elements of the draft summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report, sources told Climate Home News reporter Natalie Sauer in Incheon.
The country’s diplomats want to emphasise the costs of climate action and downplay the sustainable development benefits, a source said.
The version issued to governments before the meeting had some inconvenient conclusions for oil producers. For example, it said fossil fuel investment would fall by a quarter over the next two decades in a 1.5C-compatible scenario.
One observer described the Saudi delegation as “more aggressive and virulent – both in terms of issues and airtime – than any time in my memory”. Others confirmed the Saudis had been vocal, but did not see their behaviour as different to previous meetings.
The US is reportedly keeping a lower profile, but leaked pre-meeting comments from the Trump administration reveal some pro-fossil fuel talking points.
EU stance
Meanwhile, the EU is pushing for stronger warnings on the risks of exceeding 1.5C, according to documents seen by CHN…….http://www.climatechangenews.com/
Many UNPAID Australians speak out against nuclear plans of the PAID few nuclear industry proponents
I am always struck by the fact that opponents of the nuclear industry are very many unpaid people. Just people who care. Some are highly educated academically. Many are not – but then they take the trouble to find out, and speak with the authority of both their local knowledge and wider information.
As for nuclear proponents they’re a small number of paid individuals, with another small number of hangers-on who expect financial benefits from the nuclear industry.
ABC Radio Adelaide Evenings with Peter Goer. Talkback 4 Oct 18. This show was inundated with hundreds of South Australians phoning in and texting about the proposed nuclear waste dump. ALL SAID NO! Are you listening Department of Industry Innovation and Science and Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation !!!??…. IT’S A BIG NO FROM SOUTH AUSTRALIA!!!
Low carbon myth of nuclear power debunked (again)

At the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham this week, energy minister Richard Harrison asserted on a 100% pro-nuclear panel: “I still believe the whole base case with nuclear power that we do need this base of power production,” while widely praising new nuclear as reliable and increasingly cost-competitive.
(https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/energy/nuclear-power/opinion/nuclear-industry-association/98770/arguments-nuclear-power-have)
It makes you wonder who briefs him.
A week or so earlier, a pro-nuclear lobby group, New Nuclear Watch Institute, which masquerades as a think tank, issued a tendentiously inaccurate 34 page report, arguing that new nuclear is essential to meet carbon emission reduction targets. It was reported in The Guardian
In response I wrote this unpublished letter, below, correcting certain factual mistakes:
Here we go again! Your energy editor’s on line article (“Abandoning nuclear power plans ‘would push up carbon emissions,” 26 Sept) reports lobby group the New Nuclear Watch Institute as claiming nuclear power is both low carbon and its alternatives “ will raise the cost of electricity.
All the robust evidence demonstrates the opposite in both cases. Just over a year ago you published a letter from me challenging the low or even zero carbon claims of nuclear ( “Beware nuclear industry’s fake news on being emissions free,”17 Sept 2017;www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/17/beware-nuclear-industrys-fake-news-on-being-emissions-free)
In my letter from a year ago, I pointed out I had challenged this nuclear low carbon myth in your columns 12 years earlier. (“There is nothing green about Blair’s nuclear dream, “ 20 October 2005<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/oct/20/greenpolitics.world.
I said in my letter a year ago “It is about time this dangerous falsehood was confined to the dustbin of history.”
Sadly it seems, like Freddy, it seems it is going to be resurrected each mellow autumn!
Here are some of the more egregiously challengeable extracts from the report……..
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/2bb616_6657309359e9460f86801598980dc296.pdf
http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2018/10/low-carbon-myth-of-nuclear-power.html
London especially vulnerable to sea level rise, with climate change
Independent 5th Oct 2018 , The UK capital is increasingly vulnerable as a result of sea level rises
and will have to use its main flood defence, the Thames Barrier, more
frequently.
London is among the cities identified as being at risk of major
flooding, according to a new report. Sea levels are expected to rise by
over 40cm unless global warming is limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial
levels, the more ambitious target set by the Paris climate agreement.
An analysis released by Christian Aid as nations meet in Korea to finalise a
major UN climate change report concerning the 1.5C target looks at some of
the coastal cities most at risk. Climate change could act as a “threat
multiplier” to existing problems such as sinking ground and subsidence,
water extraction and bad planning.
London’s sinking problem is largely a vestige of the last ice age when glaciers that weighed Scotland down and
lifted up the south like a see-saw melted and reversed the effect,according to the study.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/london-sea-level-rise-sink-global-warming-climate-change-houston-bangkok-a8569276.html
David Attenborough on climate change – ridiculed Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris accord
The iNews 4th Oct 2018 David Attenborough ridiculed Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate change accords saying the US’s ‘outdated’ position would be ‘overcome’ eventually as there is a groundswell of support for action across the world. Talking to BBC’s Newsnight the biologist and TV presenter said the Paris agreement showed nations had ‘come to their senses’ and Donald Trump’s attempts to roll back on the fight on climate change would be unsuccessful. He said: “I suppose actually up to five years ago I was really very, very pessimistic. The Paris agreement, as you say, seemed at the time to be, at last, nations coming to their senses.”
https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/david-attenborough-paris-agreement-climate-change-bbc-newsnight-interview-video/
Beyond Nuclear explains why radioactivity harms us and no dose is “safe”
nations that rely on the use — and marketing — of nuclear technology, will do everything possible to suppressknowledge about its dangers. This has resulted in public relations campaigns endeavoring to persuade its citizens — as is happening in post-Fukushima Japan —that their “hysteria” and “radiophobia” are causing more illnesses than any radiation that might have gotten out.
This tactic is embedded in a strategy to “normalize” radiation exposures so that exposure limits can be raised. In Japan, the 1 millisievert a year “acceptable” level of exposure was raised to 20 mSv a year after the Fukushima disaster, simply because the Japanese government cannot ever hope to “clean up” areas contaminated with radioactivity back down to the 1 mSv level. Thus, an annual dose rate that is completely unacceptable, especially for children, becomes the new “normal.”
![]() A “small” dose can do immense damage; our new handbook explains how and why, By Cindy Folkers and Linda Pentz Gunter, 4 Oct 18All nuclear power plants routinely release radioactive gases and water contaminated with radioactive isotopes. When a nuclear plant has a serious accident — as occurred at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima — orders of magnitude more radioactivity is released into the environment. Uranium mining also releases harmful radioactive isotopes and leaves behind radioactive waste. The 1979 uranium tailings pond spill at Church Rock, NM — 90 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste and 1,100 tons of solid mill waste — was the largest accidental release of radioactive waste in US history and permanently contaminated the Puerco River. Radioactive releases occur all along the uranium fuel chain, beginning with uranium mining and culminating in radioactive waste “management.” All of these releases — whether large or small (because there is no “safe” dose) — impact human health with The fact remains, however, that both the immediate and long-term damage done to human health — which can last for generations — is the single, most compelling reason not to continue with the use of nuclear power and the extractive, polluting industries that must support it. The Radiation and Harm to Human Health chapter of the Beyond Nuclear anti-nuclear handbook, is available now for download and printing as a standalone booklet. In it, we endeavor to both explain and synthesize the many ways that radioactivity released through the nuclear power sector damages human health, especially the most vulnerable members of our population — women, pregnancy, babies and young children. We begin with some simple explanations about radiation and radioactive releases. When we make the case that nuclear power harms us, it’s necessary to understand the differences between types of radiation and exactly what is released by the different phases of the nuclear industry fuel chain.
We also break down the “natural” versus “man-made” argument. Too often, you may hear suggestions that exposures caused by nuclear plants are no worse than flying in an airplane. The sin of omission is a common tactic by the nuclear lobby. In this booklet, we describe why these arguments are deliberately misleading and unscientific. It is important to remember that the negative health effects caused by the uranium fuel chain are not restricted to radiation exposures. Uranium mining, for example, also releases heavy metals such as lead and even arsenic, just as harmful and in some cases even worse than radiation, depending on the dose. The whole issue of “dose,” of course, and what this means, is also used to cloud facts with mythology in order to suggest that some radioactive releases are not high enough to do real damage. But differentiating between high and low doses is very tricky, depending on whether the doses are delivered to a whole body, an individual organ, or a few cells. For example, even just a single alpha-emitting isotope — such as uranium, radon or thorium —when inhaled or ingested, can impart a huge dose to the cell or cells it travels through. The dose may sound small, but the damage is immense. Medical science is in agreement that women are more susceptible to damage from radiation exposure than men. Accidents such as Chernobyl have led to lasting and widespread health problems. But these have been hard to record and quantify. Many affected people were never registered, others moved away or have died. The “burden of proof” that Chernobyl harmed them remains on the victim rather than the obvious perpetrator. This has allowed authorities such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (whose mandate is to promote the use of nuclear power) to capitalize on uncertainty by spreading statistics that grossly underestimate the health impacts of nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl.
Similarly, nations that rely on the use — and marketing — of nuclear technology, will do everything possible to suppress knowledge about its dangers. This has resulted in public relations campaigns endeavoring to persuade its citizens — as is happening in post-Fukushima Japan —that their “hysteria” and “radiophobia” are causing more illnesses than any radiation that might have gotten out. This tactic is embedded in a strategy to “normalize” radiation exposures so that exposure limits can be raised. In Japan, the 1 millisievert a year “acceptable” level of exposure was raised to 20 mSv a year after the Fukushima disaster, simply because the Japanese government cannot ever hope to “clean up” areas contaminated with radioactivity back down to the 1 mSv level. Thus, an annual dose rate that is completely unacceptable, especially for children, becomes the new “normal.” Our handbook chapter on Radiation and Harm to Human Health endeavors to keep things concise and simple. We hope you will use it to help educate residents, politicians and the press about the true risks of accepting uranium mining operations, nuclear power plants or radioactive waste management schemes into your communities. We understand that a handbook should be something you can carry in your hand! To that end, we are raising funds to print copies of this booklet. If you would like to contribute, so that we can get this handbook out to the communities that most need it, please donate here. Choose “Handbook” from the pulldown menu to designate your gift. And thank you! Cindy Folkers is the radiation and health specialist at Beyond Nuclear and the primary author of the Radiation and Harm to Human Health handbook. Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear. If you’d like to be the first to read stories like these, sign up for our Monday email digest. We will send you a very brief synopsis of the new stories on our site, with links to read them and learn more. Sign up today! |
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North Korea could have 60 nuclear weapons- according to South Korea Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon


The National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s main spy agency, couldn’t immediately comment.
Cho may have unintentionally revealed the information. His ministry said Tuesday Cho’s comments didn’t mean that South Korea would accept North Korea as a nuclear state, suggesting Seoul’s diplomatic efforts to rid the North of its nuclear program would continue.
The South Korean assessment on the North’s arsenal is not much different from various outside civilian estimates largely based on the amount of nuclear materials that North is believed to have produced……….https://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-korea-kim-jong-un-60-nuclear-weapons-south-korea-minister-atomic-bombs/
Nuclear pollution: Spain’s six radioactively contaminated sites
Yet none of the areas are officially classified as contaminated ground due to a legal limbo MANUEL PLANELLES, English version by Susana Urra.Madrid 4 OCT 2018
Spain’s Nuclear Security Council (CSN) has admitted the existence of radioactive contamination in an area located between Madrid and Toledo, as EL PAÍS revealed a few weeks ago. The agency also lists five more contaminated sites whose existence was previously known.
However, none of the six zones listed by the CSN are officially classified as contaminated ground because Spain has yet to produce a formal inventory of sites affected by radioactive leaks, a full decade after a royal decree ordered one to be drafted.
The CSN said that the Nuclear Energy Law needs to be amended first in order for the inventory to go ahead. And since 2008, no government has made any moves in this direction. In this legal limbo, the agency in charge of Spain’s nuclear security is simultaneously stating that these contaminated sites exist, but that they are not officially listed as such.
On November 7, 1970, several dozen liters of highly radioactive liquid from a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing operation leaked from the Juan Vigón National Nuclear Energy Center, located inside Madrid’s university campus. The liquid spilled into the sewer system and reached the Manzanares river; from there it flowed to the Jarama River, to the adjoining irrigation canal, and to the Tagus River.
The Franco regime, which was busy developing an atomic bomb under the Islero Project, hushed up the accident and the existence of contaminated soil, which it collected after draining the Jarama canal. The sludge considered to be least contaminated was then buried in eight ditches alongside the waterway. The legacy is still there, covered with weeds and lacking warning signs of any kind.
In its release, the CSN said that the Ecological Transition Ministry is working on legal changes to facilitate the approval of an official list of contaminated sites in Spain. This, said the oversight body, will help determine the need for cleanup operations or access restrictions.
“There are several sites showing radioactivity originating from human activity,” says the release. However, the CSN says that “it is estimated that there is no significant radiological risk.”
Besides the eight ditches along the Jarama, which are contaminated with cesium-137 and strontium-90, the CSN lists five other areas whose existence was already known. At the top of the list is Palomares, in southeastern Spain, where a US B-52 bomber collided in midair with a refueling plane on January 17, 1966, dropping four hydrogen bombs. While the bombs did not explode and nobody was killed, two of them released plutonium across the land.
There are two more contaminated sites on the Tinto River in Huelva province. One is located in the marshes of Mendaña, on the Tinto’s estuary, where there are high levels of cesium-137; the other site is near the spot where the Tinto meets the Odiel, and it contains significant amounts of radium-226.
Also on the list is El Hondón, a rural area in Cartagena (Murcia), which contains phosphate sludge and uranium-238; the last site is in the Ebro reservoir in Flix (Tarragona), where there was also phosphate sludge and uranium-238, although the CSN said that the sludge has already been removed from the site.
On Wednesday, the environmental groups Ecologistas en Acción and Jarama Vivo staged a protest in one of the ditches along the Jarama, where they placed symbolic warning signs. “A mere visual inspection of the site clearly shows how easy it is to access,” said these groups in a release. This lack of oversight has meant that, over the years, some of the earth may have been moved around, “causing a possible risk of radioactive contamination to the local population.”
“Right now there is no guarantee whatsoever that this toxic waste hasn’t been moved and scattered,” said Raúl Urquiaga, of Jarama Vivo. “In fact, some of the sites are in the same spots as infrastructure such as the A-4 bypass, roads and transmission towers.”
The new U.N. climate report will contain very bad news
![]() A much-awaited report from the U.N.’s top climate science panel will show an enormous gap between where we are and where we need to be to prevent dangerous levels of warming. By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis October 3 2018 In Incheon, South Korea, this week, representatives of over 130 countries and about 50 scientists have packed into a large conference center going over every line of an all-important report: What chance does the planet have of keeping climate change to a moderate, controllable level? When they can’t agree, they form “contact groups” outside the hall, trying to strike an agreement and move the process along. They are trying to reach consensus on what it would mean — and what it would take — to limit the warming of the planet to just 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, when 1 degree Celsius has already occurred and greenhouse gas emissions remain at record highs. “It’s the biggest peer-review exercise there is,” said Jonathan Lynn, head of communications for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It involves hundreds or even thousands of people looking at it.” The IPCC, the world’s definitive scientific body when it comes to climate change, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a decade ago and has been given what may rank as its hardest task yet. It must not only tell governments what we know about climate change — but how close they have brought us to the edge. And by implication, how much those governments are failing to live up to their goals for the planet, set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. 1.5 degrees is the most stringent and ambitious goal in that agreement, originally put there at the behest of small island nations and other highly vulnerable countries. But it is increasingly being regarded by all as a key guardrail, as severe climate change effects have been felt in just the past five years — raising concerns about what a little bit more warming would bring. “Half a degree doesn’t sound like much til you put it in the right context,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “It’s 50 percent more than we have now.” The idea of letting warming approach 2 degrees Celsius increasingly seems disastrous in this context. Parts of the planet, like the Arctic, have already warmed beyond 1.5 degrees and are seeing alarming changes. Antarctica and Greenland, containing many feet of sea-level rise, are wobbling. Major die-offs have hit coral reefs around the globe, suggesting an irreplaceable planetary feature could soon be lost. It is universally recognized that the pledges made in Paris would lead to a warming far beyond 1.5 degrees — more like 2.5 or 3 degrees Celsius, or even more. And that was before the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter, decided to try to back out. “The pledges countries made during the Paris climate accord don’t get us anywhere close to what we have to do,” said Drew Shindell, a climate expert at Duke University and one of the authors of the IPCC report. “They haven’t really followed through with actions to reduce their emissions in any way commensurate with what they profess to be aiming for.” The new 1.5 C report will feed into a process called the “Talanoa Dialogue,” in which parties to the Paris agreement begin to consider the large gap between what they say they want to achieve and what they are actually doing. The dialogue will unfold in December at an annual United Nations climate meeting in Katowice, Poland. But it is unclear what concrete commitments may result. At issue is what scientists call the ‘carbon budget’: Because carbon dioxide lives in the atmosphere for so long, there’s only a limited amount that can be emitted before it becomes impossible to avoid a given temperature, like 1.5 degrees Celsius. And since the world emits about 41 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, if the remaining budget is 410 billion tons (for example), then scientists can say we have 10 years until the budget is gone and 1.5 C is locked in. Unless emissions start to decline — which gives more time. This is why scenarios for holding warming to 1.5 degrees C require rapid and deep changes to how we get energy. The window may now be as narrow as around 15 years of current emissions, but since we don’t know for sure, according to the researchers, that really depends on how much of a margin of error we’re willing to give ourselves. And if we can’t cut other gases — such as methane — or if the Arctic permafrost starts emitting large volumes of additional gases, then the budget gets even narrower. “It would be an enormous challenge to keep warming below a threshold” of 1.5 degrees Celsius, said Shindell, bluntly. “This would be a really enormous lift.” So enormous, he said, that it would require a monumental shift toward decarbonization. By 2030 — barely a decade away — the world’s emissions would need to drop by about 40 percent. By the middle of the century, societies would need to have zero net emissions. What might that look like? In part, it would include things such as no more gas-powered vehicles, a phaseout of coal-fired power plants and airplanes running on biofuels, he said. “It’s a drastic change,” he said. “These are huge, huge shifts … This would really be an unprecedented rate and magnitude of change.” And that’s just the point — 1.5 degrees is still possible, but only if the world goes through a staggering transformation. An early draft (leaked and published by the website Climate Home News) suggests that future scenarios of a 1.5 C warming limit would require the massive deployment of technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the air and bury it below the ground. Such technologies do not exist at anything close to the scale that would be required. “There are now very small number of pathways [to 1.5C] that don’t involve carbon removal,” said Jim Skea, chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III and a professor at Imperial College London. It’s not clear how scientists can best give the world’s governments this message — or to what extent governments are up for hearing it. An early leaked draft of the report said there was a “very high risk” that the world would warm more than 1.5 degrees. But a later draft, also leaked to Climate Home News, appeared to back off, instead saying that “there is no simple answer to the question of whether it is feasible to limit warming to 1.5 C . . . feasibility has multiple dimensions that need to be considered simultaneously and systematically.” None of this language is final. That’s what this week in Incheon — intended to get the report ready for an official release on Monday — is all about. “I think many people would be happy if we were further along than we are,” the IPCC’s Lynn said Wednesday morning in Incheon. “But in all the approval sessions that I’ve seen, I’ve seen five of them now, that has always been the case. It sort of gets there in the end.” |
Thorium Molten Salt Nuclear reactor (MSR) No Better Than Uranium Process
The safety issue is also not resolved, as stated above: pressurized water leaking from the steam generator into the hot, radioactive molten salt will explosively turn to steam and cause incredible damage. The chances are great that the radioactive molten salt would be discharged out of the reactor system and create more than havoc. Finally, controlling the reaction and power output, finding materials that last safely for 3 or 4 decades, and consuming vast quantities of cooling water are all serious problems.
The greatest problem, though, is likely the scale-up by a factor of 500 to 1, from the tiny project at ORNL to a full-scale commercial plant with 3500 MWth output. Perhaps these technical problems can be overcome, but why would anyone bother to try, knowing in advance that the MSR plant will be uneconomic due to huge construction costs and operating costs, plus will explode and rain radioactive molten salt when (not if) the steam generator tubes leak.
The Truth About Nuclear Power – Part 28, Sowells Law Blog , 14 July 2014 Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process,
It is interesting, though, that nuclear advocates must bring up the MSR process. If the uranium fission process was any good at all, there would be no need for research and development of any other type of process, such as MSR and fusion. Continue reading
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