How Fast Will Nuke Power Collapse? Atomic experts Jim Green, Paul Gunter and Kevin Kamps explain how a dying reactor industry is clamping on to bought state legislatures for gargantuan handouts
The Chernobyl Syndrome
With bountiful, devastating detail, Brown describes how scientists, doctors, and journalists—mainly in Ukraine and Belarus—went to great lengths and took substantial risks to collect information on the long-term effects of the Chernobyl explosion, which they believed to be extensive.
Other researchers have issued a much sunnier picture of post-Chernobyl ecology, but Brown argues persuasively that they are grossly underestimating the scale of the damage, in part because they rely too heavily on simplistic measurements of radioactivity levels.
Radiation has a special hold on our imagination: an invisible force out of science fiction, it can alter the very essence of our bodies, dissolve us from the inside out. But Manual for Survival asks a larger question about how humans will coexist with the ever-increasing quantities of toxins and pollutants that we introduce into our air, water, and soil. Brown’s careful mapping of the path isotopes take is highly relevant to other industrial toxins, and to plastic waste. When we put a substance into our environment, we have to understand that it will likely remain with us for a very long time, and that it may behave in ways we never anticipated. Chernobyl should not be seen as an isolated accident or as a unique disaster, Brown argues, but as an “exclamation point” that draws our attention to the new world we are creating.
The Chernobyl Syndrome, The New York Review of Books SophiePinkham, APRIL4, 2019
Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Futur
e
by Kate Brown
Norton, 420 pp., $27.95
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster
by Adam Higginbotham
Simon and Schuster, 538 pp., $29.95
Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe
by Serhii Plokhy
Basic Books, 404 pp., $32.00
“………As her book’s title, Manual for Survival, suggests, Kate Brown is interested in the aftermath of Chernobyl, not the disaster itself. Her heroes are not first responders but brave citizen-scientists, independent-minded doctors and health officials, journalists, and activists who fought doggedly to uncover the truth about the long-term damage caused by Chernobyl. Her villains include not only the lying, negligent Soviet authorities, but also the Western governments and international agencies that, in her account, have worked for decades to downplay or actually conceal the human and ecological cost of nuclear war, nuclear tests, and nuclear accidents. Rather than attributing Chernobyl to authoritarianism, she points to similarities in the willingness of Soviets and capitalists to sacrifice the health of workers, the public, and the environment to production goals and geopolitical rivalries. Continue reading
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Ionising radiation released from ice surface sediments, as climate change melts glaciers
Siren sounds on nuclear fallout embedded in melting glaciers https://phys.org/news/2019-04-siren-nuclear-fallout-embedded-glaciers.html, by Patrick Galey, 10 Apr 19, Radioactive fallout from nuclear meltdowns and weapons testing is nestled in glaciers across the world, scientists said Wednesday, warning of a potentially hazardous time bomb as rising temperatures melt the icy residue.
For the first time, an international team of scientists has studied the presence of nuclear fallout in ice surface sediments on glaciers across the Arctic, Iceland the Alps, Caucasus mountains, British Columbia and Antarctica.
It found manmade radioactive material at all 17 survey sites, often at concentrations at least 10 times higher than levels elsewhere.
“They are some of the highest levels you see in the environment outside nuclear exclusion zones,” said Caroline Clason, a lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth.
When radioactive material is released into the atmosphere, it falls to earth as acid rain, some of which is absorbed by plants and soil.
But when it falls as snow and settles in the ice, it forms heavier sediment which collects in glaciers, concentrating the levels of nuclear residue.
The Chernobyl disaster of 1986—by far the most devastating nuclear accident to date—released vast clouds of radioactive material including Caesium into the atmosphere, causing widespread contamination and acid rain across northern Europe for weeks afterwards.
“Radioactive particles are very light so when they are taken up into the atmosphere they can be transported a very long way,” she told AFP.
“When it falls as rain, like after Chernobyl, it washes away and it’s sort of a one-off event. But as snow, it stays in the ice for decades and as it melts in response to the climate it’s then washed downstream.”
The environmental impact of this has been shown in recent years, as wild boar meat in Sweden was found to contain more than 10 times the safe levels of Caesium.
Clason said her team had detected some fallout from the Fukushima meltdown in 2011, but stressed that much of the particles from that particular disaster had yet to collect on the ice sediment.
As well as disasters, radioactive material produced from weapons testing was also detected at several research sites.
“We’re talking about weapons testing from the 1950s and 1960s onwards, going right back in the development of the bomb,” she said. “If we take a sediment core you can see a clear spike where Chernobyl was, but you can also see quite a defined spike in around 1963 when there was a period of quite heavy weapons testing.”
One of the most potentially hazardous residues of human nuclear activity is Americium, which is produced when Plutonium decays.
Whereas Plutonium has a half-life of 14 years, Americium lasts 400. [Ed note: Most plutonium isotopes have very long half-lives, plutonium-239 being one of the shortest at over 24,000 years]
“Americium is more soluble in the environment and it is a stronger alpha (radiation) emitter. Both of those things are bad in terms of uptake into the food chain,” said Clason.
While there is little data available on how these materials can be passed down the food chain—even potentially to humans—Clason said there was no doubt that Americium is “particularly dangerous”.
As geologists look for markers of the epoch when mankind directly impacted the health of the planet—known as the Anthropocene—Clason and her team believe that radioactive particles in ice, soil and sediment could be an important indicator.
“These materials are a product of what we have put into the atmosphere. This is just showing that our nuclear legacy hasn’t disappeared yet, it’s still there,” Clason said.
“And it’s important to study that because ultimately it’s a mark of what we have left in the environment.”
Impossible at present to remove all fuel debris from stricken Fukushima nuclear reactors
Unclear debris map casts shadow over decommissioning of Fukushima plant https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190409/p2a/00m/0na/021000c April 9, 2019 (Mainichi Japan) TOKYO — The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) are set to launch full-scale probes of the inside of the No. 1 through No. 3 reactors at the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station this fiscal year, in an attempt to determine which reactor to work on first to remove fuel debris — a critical step for decommissioning the facility.
However, the interior of the No. 2 reactor, which is most likely to be the first to go through the debris removal process, has turned out to be different from what had originally been expected, underscoring the difficulties entailing the removal work. Since many companies are involved in the process, how to pass down the know-how acquired over the course of the more than 30 year-decommissioning process also poses a challenge.
“At present, it is difficult to clearly say we are going to remove all fuel debris,” said Akira Ono, who leads the decommissioning project, at a regular press conference by TEPCO on March 28, while noting that the utility will not back down from its ultimate goal of full debris removal.
If TEPCO fails to take out all debris from the nuclear plant, the very premise for dismantling the facility and returning the plot to its original state will be undermined. Such a scenario would adversely affect the disaster recovery plans envisaged by the national government and the Fukushima Prefectural Government. While awareness about the difficulty of debris removal has been shared among concerned parties, the actual dismal situation had not been recognized until TEPCO conducted the first debris survey at the No. 2 reactor on Feb. 13.
In that survey, a remotely controlled special device that was injected into the No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel succeeded in lifting portions of sediment accumulated at the bottom, which were believed to be fuel debris. Officials involved were relieved because they “had been worried the material would not move at all,” according to Ono.
The radiation level of the material, measured at a distance of some 30 centimeters, was 7.6 sieverts per hour, far less than anticipated. If the sediment contained a good portion of nuclear fuel, the radiation doses ought to have been several hundred sieverts per hour, even eight years after the 2011 nuclear meltdowns.
This finding suggested that the sediment that TEPCO came in contact with in the survey was not the main nuclear fuel debris it was looking for. Many speculate that the surface of the sediment may mainly consist of metals including cladding tubes that used to cover nuclear fuels.
The question now is whether fuel debris exists beneath the surface of the sediment or if nuclear fuel still remains within the reactor pressure vessel, or even somewhere else. There are currently no prospects for TEPCO to ascertain an accurate distributions of debris.
The material that was lifted in the survey mostly comprised pebble-like sediment, weighing less than 1 kilogram in total. Meanwhile, fuel debris generated in the core meltdowns is estimated to total 237 metric tons at the No. 2 reactor alone and a combined 880 tons at the No. 1 through No. 3 reactors.
At the No. 2 reactor, TEPCO will conduct a more detailed survey on debris possibly in the latter half of this fiscal year and attempt to collect small amounts of samples. At the No. 1 reactor, several apparatus including a robot submarine will be used to launch a full-scale survey inside the reactor to try to collect debris this fiscal year. As for the No. 3 reactor, the power company is apparently planning to prioritize removal of spent fuel, as related devices have gone through a series of glitches.
Unlike the other reactors, the No. 2 reactor did not suffer a hydrogen explosion in the 2011 disaster. Therefore, the No. 2 reactor remains the primary candidate for the first full-scale debris removal work, which is hoped to start in 2021.
With regard to the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors, the utility has yet to be able to reach materials appearing to be debris. The decommissioning of the nuclear plant is scheduled to be completed in 2051, a full 40 years after the triple meltdowns, but a concrete path toward that goal is not yet in sight.
“We have no choice but to remove whichever debris we can,” said a senior official with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
Naoyuki Takaki, professor of nuclear engineering at Tokyo City University, commented, “There could ultimately be a decision to stop debris removal after pulling out as much debris as possible. In that case, we would have no option but to consider building a sarcophagus like the one at the Chernobyl nuclear plant.”
(Japanese original by Toshiyuki Suzuki, Science & Environment News Department)
Japanese government partially lifts evacuation order in one Fukushima nuclear plant hometown
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Gov’t lifts evacuation order in parts of Fukushima nuclear plant hometown https://japantoday.com/category/national/japan-lifts-evacuation-in-parts-of-fukushima-plant-hometown By Mari Yamaguchi 10 Apr 19, TOKYO
The Japanese government partially lifted an evacuation order in one of the two hometowns of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant on Wednesday for the first time since the 2011 disaster. Decontamination efforts have lowered radiation levels significantly in the area about 7 kilometers southwest of the plant where three reactors had meltdowns due to the damage caused by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The action allows people to return to about 40 percent of Okuma. The other hometown, Futaba, remains off-limits, as are several other towns nearby. Many former residents are reluctant to return as the complicated process to safely decommission the plant continues. Opponents of lifting the evacuation orders in long-abandoned communities say the government is promoting residents’ return to showcase safety ahead of the Tokyo Olympics next summer. The government has pushed for an aggressive decontamination program by removing topsoil, chopping trees and washing down houses and roads in contaminated areas, though experts say the effort only caused the contamination to move from one place to another, creating massive amounts of radioactive waste and the need for its long-term storage. The meltdowns at three of Fukushima Dai-ichi’s six reactors caused massive radiation leaks that contaminated the plant’s surroundings, forcing at its peak some 160,000 people to evacuate their homes for areas elsewhere in Fukushima or outside the prefecture. Evacuation orders in most of the initial no-go zones have been lifted, but restrictions are still in place in several towns closest to the plant and to its northwest, which were contaminated by radioactive plumes from the plant soon after its meltdowns. More than 40,000 people were still unable to return home as of March, including Okuma’s population of 10,000. Town officials say the lifting of the evacuation order in the two districts would encourage the area’s recovery. “We are finally standing on a starting line of reconstruction,” Okuma mayor Toshitsuna Watanabe told reporters. A new town hall is opening in the Ogawara district in May and 50 new houses and a convenience store is underway. But the town center near a main train station remains closed due to radiation levels still exceeding the annual exposure limit and a hospital won’t be available for two more years, requiring returnees to drive or take a bus to a neighboring town in case of medical needs. Anti-nuclear sentiment and concerns about radiation exposures remain high in Japan since the disaster, leaving many people skeptical about the safety declaration by the government and utility operators, as risks of developing cancer and other illnesses from low-dose, long-term radiation exposures are still unknown. Critics also say that the annual exposure limit of 20 millisievert, the same as nuclear workers and up from 1 millisievert before the Fukushima meltdowns, is too high. Many people are reluctant to return home because of lingering concerns about radiation, and they have adapted to new jobs and homes after more than eight years away. Only 367 people, or less than 4 percent of Okuma’s population, registered as residents in the two districts where the order was lifted. A survey last year found only 12.5 percent of former residents wanted to return to their hometown. The government hopes to allow some of Futaba’s 5,980 residents to return next year. Okuma is also home to a temporary storage facility for the radioactive waste that came out of the decontamination efforts across Fukushima. A much delayed facility is still underway. Fukushima plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., and government officials plan to start removing the melted fuel in 2021 from one of the three melted reactors, but still know little about its condition inside and have not finalized waste management plans. |
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PAKISTAN’S Prime Minister Imran Khan issues warning on conflict with India, the nuclear danger
Pakistan PM Khan: Kashmir issue ‘cannot keep boiling’ – BBC News
India Pakistan CONFLICT: Imran Khan issues India nuclear WARNING – ‘no one can predict’
PAKISTAN’S Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a dire warning to his neighbouring country as he branded India’s attack on his “nuclear-armed” country as “irresponsible” and warned Pakistan “would have no choice” but to strike back in the future.
“And there is only one difference, which is Kashmir. It has to be settled.
“The Kashmir issue cannot keep on boiling like it is because anything happening in Kashmir – through a reaction to the oppression which is taking place in Kashmir – it would be palmed off n Pakistan.
“We would be blamed and tensions would rise as they have risen in the past.
“So if we can settle Kashmir, the benefits of peace are tremendous in the subcontinent.”
But speaking about the dangers of confrontation escalating between the two countries, Mr Khan warned: “Once you respond, no-one can predict where it can go from there.”……. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1112264/India-Pakistan-news-Kashmir-Imran-Khan-nuclear-weapons-india-election
Ohio’s FirstEnergy Nuclear Bailout Bill designed to cut funding from renewables and energy efficiency
 Ohio’s FirstEnergy Nuclear Bailout Bill Could Undermine Funding for Renewables and Efficiency https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ohios-firstenergy-nuclear-bailout-bill-could-also-undermine-renewables-effi#gs.4ijvjd
The draft “clean air” bill would keep bankrupt utility’s nuclear plants open—but drain money from renewables and efficiency programs. Last week, Energy News Network released draft legislation (PDF) being circulated by majority leaders in Ohio’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives, primarily aimed at rescuing two nuclear power plants — the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo and the Perry plant near Cleveland, which bankrupt utility FirstEnergy Solutions has threatened to close by 2021. The draft bill would add a maximum surcharge of $2.50 per month to every residential customer’s bill, a $20 per month surcharge to every commercial customer’s bill and a $250 monthly charge to every industrial customer’s bill, to raise roughly $300 million a year. Of that, about $180 million would go to subsidize FirstEnergy’s two nuclear plants, according to analysis reported by Energy News Network. The remaining $120 million would be available to resources that are deemed by the newly created board of political appointees to meet the fund’s criteria. But the newly created board would operate with more secrecy than a regular public utilities commission proceeding. And while the draft bill doesn’t use the word “nuclear,” its criteria for which emissions-reducing technologies are allowed to claim a piece of the new pot of money would appear to exclude most of the carbon-neutral energy resources now available, besides nuclear power. Tailor-made for nuclearFirst, the draft bill would require any qualifying resource to “exclusively” obtain compensation from the wholesale energy markets run by mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM and overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — a feature met by FirstEnergy’s nuclear plants, but not by energy efficiency, rooftop solar, or other non-wholesale forms of carbon-free energy. Second, the bill would exclude any facility that receives “state tax exemptions, deferrals, exclusions, allowances, payments, [or] credits, including production tax credits and investment tax credits” — the same federal tax credits provided to wind and solar, respectively. And third, it would bar any municipal utility or rural electric cooperatives. The release of the draft legislation prompted a legislative aide of one of the bill’s sponsors, Republican state Rep. Jamie Callender, to tell Cleveland.com that much of the text was out of date, with a new version “still in a state of flux.” The aide declined to say what would differentiate the newer version of the bill from the draft version obtained last week. The bailout bill comes at a difficult time for FirstEnergy, which has announced plans to close nuclear and coal-fired power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania if it does not receive additional state or federal support. Last week, Bankruptcy Judge Alan Koschik, who is overseeing the utility’s case in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Ohio, rejected FirstEnergy’s proposal to get out of bankruptcy more quickly in part by indemnifying parent company FirstEnergy Corp. from paying any future costs for environmental cleanup at its power plant sites. “Opt-in” to support renewablesOhio’s plan stands in stark contrast to the nuclear incentive programs that have been rolled out in states including Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Illinois. While these states have largely built their nuclear support programs on the foundation of existing state clean energy and carbon reduction policies, Ohio’s plan would actually undermine existing payment structures for the state’s relatively mild clean energy and efficiency goals. The draft bill would do this by declaring that Ohio’s existing monthly charges for renewable energy, energy efficiency and peak demand reduction are now “opt-in” rather than “opt-out” charges on residential and commercial customers’ utility bills. Today, these charges appear on every home and business electric bill, with only large industrial customers having the opportunity to opt out of them. But the draft legislation would flip this arrangement on its head, doing away with the monthly charges unless the utility customer sends “written notice of intent to opt in” to pay the extra fees. The vast body of utility experience shows that switching programs from opt-out to opt-in leads to a drastic reduction in participation rates, since few people will choose to pay more every month, even if they support the services the surcharges pay for. These numbers are likely to be winnowed even further if opting in requires written and mailed-in applications, rather than simpler on-bill, over-the-phone or online options. FirstEnergy Solutions bankruptcy rumbles onFirstEnergy Solutions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2018, after failing to convince the U.S. Department of Energy to issue an emergency declaration that would have forced grid operators and utilities to pay out-of-market prices to its coal and nuclear power plants. While FirstEnergy and the Trump administration have argued the plants are critical to keep the regional power grid stable, multiple studies from PJM indicate the closures won’t affect grid reliability. Many coal and nuclear power plants are struggling to remain competitive. Such plants have been closing at a record rate amid a flood of cheap electricity from natural gas and renewables, as well as continued gains in end-user efficiency. Pennsylvania lawmakers are also considering a bill that would increase utility bills by about $1.77 per household per month to raise about $500 million per year, largely to support two nuclear power plants that owners FirstEnegy and Exelon have said they will be forced to close in the coming years without state support. That bill has drawn fire from consumers and environmental groups for potentially allowing still-profitable nuclear power plants to receive incentives, while not addressing the state’s relatively low ranking in terms of the share of its electricity coming from wind, solar and other carbon-free resources. |
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We should be alarmed about the ongoing consequences of nuclear leaks and the risk of new nuclear disasters
The Chernobyl Syndrome, The New York Review of Books Sophie Pinkham, APRIL4, 2019
Manual for Survival: A Chernobyluie to the Futur
by Kate Brown
Norton, 420 pp., $27.95
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster
by Adam Higginbotham
Simon and Schuster, 538 pp., $29.95
Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe
by Serhii Plokhy
Basic Books, 404 pp., $32.00
“……….. General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was informed that there had been an explosion and fire at the plant but that the reactor itself had not been seriously damaged. No one wanted to be the bearer of catastrophic news. When the occasional official raised the question of whether to warn civilians and evacuate the city of Pripyat, which had been built to house workers from the Chernobyl plant, he was admonished to wait for higher-ups to make a decision and for a committee to be formed. Panic and embarrassment were of greater concern than public safety. The KGB cut Pripyat’s intercity telephone lines and prevented residents from leaving, as part of the effort to keep news of the disaster from spreading. Some locals were savvy enough to try to leave on their own. But with no public warning, many didn’t take even the minimal precaution of staying indoors with the windows shut. One man was happily sunbathing the next morning, pleased by the speed with which he was tanning. He was soon in the hospital.
Moscow officials eventually realized that the reactor had exploded, and that there was an imminent risk of another, much larger explosion. More than thirty-six hours after the initial meltdown, Pripyat was evacuated. Columns of Kiev city buses had been sent to wait for evacuees on the outskirts of the city, absorbing radiation while plans were debated. These radioactive buses deposited their radioactive passengers in villages chosen to house the refugees, then returned to their regular routes in Kiev. Over the next two weeks, another 75,000 people were resettled from the thirty-kilometer area around Pripyat, which was to become known as the “Exclusion Zone,” and which remains almost uninhabited to this day.
The Soviet system began to marshal its vast human resources to “liquidate” the disaster. Many efforts to stop the fire in the reactor only made matters worse by triggering new reactions or creating toxic smoke, but doing nothing was not an option. Pilots, soldiers, firefighters, and scientists volunteered, exposing themselves to huge doses of radiation. (Many others fled from the scene.) They were rewarded with cash bonuses, cars, and apartments, and some were made “Hero of the Soviet Union” or “Hero of Ukraine,” but many became invalids or didn’t live to see their new homes. The radiation levels were so high that they made the electronics in robots fail, so “biorobots”—people in makeshift lead protective gear—did the work of clearing the area.
On April 28, a radioactive cloud reached Scandinavia. After attempts at denial, the Soviet government conceded that there had been an accident. Western journalists soon began reporting alarming estimates of Chernobyl casualties. To maintain the illusion that the accident was already under control, Moscow ordered Ukrainians to continue with the planned May Day parade in Kiev, about eighty miles away, thus exposing huge numbers of people—including many children—to radioactive fallout.
Thanks to word of mouth and to their well-honed skill at reading between the lines of official declarations, however, Kiev residents were already fleeing. By early May, the exodus had grown so large that it became almost impossible to buy a plane, train, or bus ticket out of the city. Tens of thousands of residents left even before the official order to evacuate children was issued, far too late, on May 15. Thousands of people were treated for radiation exposure in Soviet hospitals by the end of the summer of 1986, but the Soviet press was allowed to report only on the hospitalizations of the Chernobyl firemen and plant operators.
A few decades later, it seemed to many that the world’s worst nuclear disaster had caused surprisingly little long-term damage. The official toll is now between thirty-one and fifty-four deaths from acute radiation poisoning (among plant workers and firefighters), doubled leukemia rates among those exposed to exceptionally high radiation levels during the disaster response, and several thousand cases of thyroid cancer—highly treatable, very rarely fatal—among children. Pripyat became a spooky tourist site. In the Exclusion Zone, one could soon see wolves, elk, lynx, brown bears, and birds of prey that had almost disappeared from the area before Chernobyl; some visitors described it as a kind of radioactive Eden, proof of nature’s resiliency. But striking differences in new books about Chernobyl by Kate Brown, Adam Higginbotham, and Serhii Plokhy show that there are still many ways to tell this story, and that the lessons of Chernobyl remain unresolved.
Both Plokhy and Higginbotham devote their first sections to dramatic reconstructions of the disaster at the plant. Sketches of loving family life or youthful ambition introduce the central figures, making us queasy with dread. The two authors’ minute-by-minute descriptions of the reactor meltdown and its aftermath are as gripping as any thriller and employ similar techniques: the moments of horrified realization, the heroic races against time. The prescient 1979 film The China Syndrome, about a barely averted disaster at a nuclear plant and its cover-up, is mentioned in both books. The movie’s title comes from a former Manhattan Project scientist’s hypothetical discussion of a reactor meltdown in North America causing fuel to burn its way through the globe to China. Though that specific scenario was clearly impossible, “China syndrome” became shorthand for anxieties about nuclear material burning through the foundations of the Chernobyl plant and entering the water table, the Dnieper River Basin, and then the Black Sea.
Plokhy, a historian of Ukraine, provides a masterful account of how the USSR’s bureaucratic dysfunction, censorship, and impossible economic targets produced the disaster and hindered the response to it. Though the Soviets held a show trial to pin responsibility on three plant employees, Plokhy makes plain the absurdity of holding individuals accountable for what was clearly a systemic failure…….
For Plokhy, the greatest lesson of Chernobyl is the danger of authoritarianism. The secretive Soviet Union’s need to look invincible led it to conceal the many nuclear accidents that preceded Chernobyl, instead of using studies of them to improve safety. …. Once the reactor exploded, Soviet censorship kept citizens in the dark about the disaster, preventing them from taking measures to protect themselves.
But cover-ups and bureaucratic buck-passing don’t happen only in authoritarian governments. ………
we should be alarmed about the ongoing consequences of nuclear leaks and the risk of new nuclear disasters. Higginbotham points out that the United States now operates a hundred nuclear power reactors, including the one at Three Mile Island that suffered a serious accident in 1979, just twelve days after the release of The China Syndrome. France generates 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants, and China operates thirty-nine nuclear power plants and is building twenty more. Some people see nuclear power plants, which do not emit any carbon dioxide, as the most feasible way of limiting climate change, and new reactor models promise to be safer, more efficient, and less poisonous. But what if something goes wrong?
And what about nuclear waste? There are hundreds of nuclear waste sites in the US alone. In February the Environmental Protection Agency ordered the excavation of a landfill near St. Louis containing nuclear waste, dumped illegally, that dated back to the Manhattan Project. For years, an underground fire has been burning a few thousand feet from the dump. It took the federal government twenty-seven years to reach a decision about how to deal with this nuclear waste dump near a major metropolitan area, yet we fault the Soviet government for its inadequate response to a nuclear meltdown that unfolded in a matter of minutes. US failure to adequately address longstanding hazards—not to mention the slow-motion catastrophe of climate change—is yet another indication that poor disaster response is hardly unique to authoritarian regimes.
Then there is the renewed threat of nuclear war. One of Gorbachev’s biggest achievements was the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated US and Soviet land-based intermediate nuclear weapon systems. This February the US withdrew from the treaty, with President Trump citing Russian noncompliance. His administration recently called for the expansion of the US “low-yield” nuclear force, which includes weapons the size of those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Analysts have pointed out that a greater diversity of nuclear weapons makes it harder for a target to know whether it is facing a limited or existential threat—and therefore raises the risk that the target will overreact…………https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/04/04/chernobyl-syndrome/?fbclid=IwAR3t_0OOHrEx58i85ELla1otEQ8_vIOTpxhDaI0Lw7iWIpfP-4mT5aVLKtU
U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that Russia complies with the New START nuclear arms control treaty
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Pompeo: Russia complying with nuclear treaty that’s up for renewal , The Hill 10 Apr 19, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that Russia is largely in compliance with the New START nuclear arms control treaty with the United States, but indicated the Trump administration is looking at expanding the scope of the pact as renewal talks begin.“There are some arguments on the edges each, but largely they have been compliant,” Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Both the Russians and the United States have been compliant. We’re at the very beginning of conversations about renewing that. If we can get the deal right, if we can make sure it fits 2021 and beyond, President Trump has made very clear that if we can get a good solid arms control agreement, we ought to get one.”
The New START Treaty caps the number of nuclear warheads the United States and Russia can deploy at 1,550 each. There are also limits on the number of deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear warheads, as well as the number of deployed and nondeployed launchers. The Obama-era treaty expires in 2021, but there is an option to extend it another five years. Arms control advocates are worried Trump will let New START expire after he withdrew from a separate arms control treaty with Russia. Advocates warn that for the first time in decades the two biggest nuclear powers might not have limits on their nuclear arsenals. The other treaty, known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, banned the United States and Russia from having nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles. Trump announced in February he was starting the six-month process to withdraw from the INF Treaty after years of Russian violations. Current and former officials broadly agree Russia is in violation of the INF agreement, but there have been no similar accusations regarding New START. Still, in 2017, Trump called New START a “one-sided deal” that was “just another bad deal” made by former President Obama. At Wednesday’s hearing, Republicans touted the benefits of New START……. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/438217-pompeo-russia-complying-with-nuclear-treaty-up-for-renewal |
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Nuclear energy and Price Anderson Act – too risky for insurance companies – just too dangerous
Should the U.S. Revive Nuclear Energy?, NYT Len Charlap, 10 Apr 19, Princeton, N.J. I will support nuclear power the day after the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act is repealed. If insurance company actuaries consider nuclear power to be so dangerous that they cannot compute premiums that the industry can afford, then that industry is not economically viable. If the government (i.e., taxpayers) has to cover the industry with catastrophic insurance, then the government should own the reactors and provide nonprofit energy.
We were lucky at Three Mile Island. We were minutes away from a complete meltdown that given the plant’s location would have killed thousands and done billions in damage. Investigations of Three Mile Island showed that, like the Deepwater Horizon disaster, extremely dangerous processes cannot be allowed to remain in control of people whose first responsibility is profit or return to shareholders…. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/opinion/letters/nuclear-energy.html
Indian Point nuclear station shut down for nearly two weeks: electricity maintained by gas and renewables
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Behind the scenes, though, something occurred that made all that possible. In the days after Indian Point powered down — a rare occurrence prompted by a malfunction in one reactor and scheduled spring maintenance in the other — the state’s electric grid pivoted. With an assist from the grid’s overseers, the state’s energy resources shifted in a way that could offer a preview of what’s to come in the years ahead when Indian Point is scheduled to shut down for good…….. Nuclear power generated by three upstate plants decreased to 2,711 megawatts on March 18 from 4,240 megawatts on March 13, the data show. On just two of the seven days, the contribution from solar and wind power was more than 1,000 megawatts. “Natural gas is filling the gap,” said Darren Suarez, who keeps track of the state’s daily energy mix for the Business Council of New York state. “It’s the largest dispatchable resource that’s available at that point in time and we’d expect it to fill the gap.”…… those who monitor the state’s fuel mix say Indian Point’s shutdown provided a rare opportunity for a glimpse at what lies ahead unless renewable sources of power gain a larger percentage of the state’s energy mix. A snapshot in time taken from NYISO’s real-time dashboard, which is updated every five minutes, offers some insight into the state’s current fuel mix. For example, on April 1, wind and solar contributed about 6.5 percent of the state’s energy mix while another renewable, hydropower, was at 28.43 percent, NYISO data show. New York has the largest hydroelectric plant east of the Rockies in Niagara Falls……. Transmission of power problemGrid watchers say in order to add more renewables to the downstate grid, the state will need to resolve a transmission bottleneck that prevents upstate power from getting down into the Lower Hudson Valley and points south……… https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/2019/04/10/indian-point-shutdown-natural-gas-filled-nuclear-energy-gap/3417635002/ |
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Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor – another delay after delays
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* Likely to delay planned January 2020 start-up * Project already more than 10 years behind schedule – The start-up of Finland’s long-delayed Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor is likely to be pushed back by at least another two months, its project director said on Wednesday. The reactor in western Finland, built by a consortium of France’s Areva and Germany’s Siemens, is already more than a decade behind schedule and had been due to start producing electricity in January 2020. However, operator Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) said that modification work during the first quarter had not progressed according to schedule. This means the loading of nuclear fuel into the reactor will now be pushed back by at least two months, to August from June, it added. “This new schedule review informed by the plant supplier is disappointing of course,” it said in a statement. Changes to automated systems had been made and needed to be checked, which took longer than expected, said project director Jouni Silvennoinen. He told Reuters the fuelling delay would likely postpone the start-up of regular electricity production by an equal number of months. Prior to Wednesday, the most recent delay to the project was announced in November 2018, as a result of which TVO was entitled to a payment of 18 million euros ($20 million) from Areva. Silvennoinen said the financial impact of the new delay would be clarified when the plant eventually started producing electricity regularly. |
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SNC-Lavalin nuclear contracts at risk if it’s convicted
By ERIKA SIMPSON APR. 10, 2019
Whether SNC is allowed to meet and make billions of dollars of new contractual obligations over the next decade will be crucial to the global nuclear industry and Canada’s future development…… (subscribers only)
https://www.hilltimes.com/2019/04/10/snc-lavalin-nuclear-contracts-at-risk-if-its-convicted/195245
Pompeo avoids questions on ending waivers permitting Iran’s ongoing nuclear work
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Pompeo Won’t Commit to Shutting Down Iran’s Contested Nuclear Work
Pompeo avoids questions on ending waivers permitting Iran’s ongoing nuclear work Washington Free Beacon, BY: April 10, 2019 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not commit to ending a series of waivers issued by the Trump administration that have permitted Iran to engage in some its most contested nuclear work, including at a secretive military site that once housed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program. In an exchange with Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Pompeo declined to commit to canceling the disputed waivers, which have sparked an inter-administration battle, as first reported by the Washington Free Beacon. The issue of these waivers—which have been granted to Iran so that it can continue its lucrative oil trade, as well as nuclear research work—has generated a growing rift between Iran hawks on Capitol Hill and within the administration and Pompeo’s State Department. Sources have identified those in the State Department as the reason several policies that have kept the landmark Iran nuclear deal on life support have continued, despite President Donald Trump’s decision to walk away from the pact. Cruz and other Iran policy hawks have gone on record in recent weeks, including in interviews with the Free Beacon, to demand that Pompeo stop issuing both the oil and nuclear waivers. Multiple sources inside and outside the administration have described to the Free Beacon a widening fight between those U.S. officials who aim to keep the nuclear deal alive and those who see an opportunity to tighten the noose on Tehran and potentially collapse its hardline ruling regime……. The issue of these waivers—which have been granted to Iran so that it can continue its lucrative oil trade, as well as nuclear research work—has generated a growing rift between Iran hawks on Capitol Hill and within the administration and Pompeo’s State Department. Sources have identified those in the State Department as the reason several policies that have kept the landmark Iran nuclear deal on life support have continued, despite President Donald Trump’s decision to walk away from the pact…….. https://freebeacon.com/national-security/pompeo-wont-commit-to-shutting-down-irans-contested-nuclear-work/ |
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Mesothelioma Compensation Center to the rescue of nuclear workers affected by mesothelioma
Mesothelioma Compensation Center Now Offers to Make Certain That a Nuclear Power Worker with Mesothelioma or Asbestos Exposure Lung Cancer Gets Accelerated Compensation with The Help of Attorney Erik Karst and His Colleagues at Karst von Oiste, Mesothelioma Compensation Center
PR NewswireApr 10, 2019, NEW YORK, The Mesothelioma Compensation Center is incredibly passionate about making certain that a person who was exposed to asbestos at any type of nuclear power plant and now has mesothelioma or asbestos exposure lung cancer receives the very best possible financial compensation. The group recommends the law firm of Karst von Oiste to assist people like this because they so much experience with power plants and asbestos exposure that would have occurred at these types of facilities as they would like to discuss at 800-714-0303. www.karstvonoiste.com
Rather than offering a free book about mesothelioma or asbestos exposure lung cancer the Mesothelioma Compensation Center offers direct access to attorney Erik Karst the founding partner of the law firm Karst von Oiste. The law firm of Karst von Oiste is one of the nation’s leading legal experts on mesothelioma or asbestos exposure lung cancer.
If the family of a nuclear power worker or a Navy Veteran who was exposed to asbestos on a nuclear submarine or aircraft carrier is concerned about compensation, they are urged to call the Mesothelioma Compensation Center anytime at 800-714-0303 for direct access to attorney Erik Karst for answers to questions about compensation and or how the compensation process works. http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com……
Rather than offering a free book about mesothelioma or asbestos exposure lung cancer the Mesothelioma Compensation Center offers direct access to attorney Erik Karst the founding partner of the law firm Karst von Oiste. The law firm of Karst von Oiste is one of the nation’s leading legal experts on mesothelioma or asbestos exposure lung cancer.
If the family of a nuclear power worker or a Navy Veteran who was exposed to asbestos on a nuclear submarine or aircraft carrier is concerned about compensation, they are urged to call the Mesothelioma Compensation Center anytime at 800-714-0303 for direct access to attorney Erik Karst for answers to questions about compensation and or how the compensation process works. http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mesothelioma-compensation-center-now-offers-to-make-certain-that-a-nuclear-power-worker-with-mesothelioma-or-asbestos-exposure-lung-cancer-gets-accelerated-compensation-with-th
Fluor lays off nuclear workers – those involved in the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project
Fluor Idaho to layoff up to 190 workers, By RYAN SUPPE rsuppe@postregister.com, Apr 9, 2019
1.This Month
After Assange arrest, IMF gives $4.2B to Ecuador
Solartopia Green Power and Wellness Hour
of the week
Can the UK rely on nuclear power?
State of the Climate: Not a Pretty Picture
Earth Focus Episode 55 – Nuclear Insurance: America Goes Naked
EVENTS
22 April – Monday – Earth Day
PETITION
Defend the Grand Canyon From New Uranium Mines http://grandcanyontrust.nonprofitsoapbox.com/canyonuraniumban
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