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Tepco estimates 44 years to decommission Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant

They say that the first stage, comprising radiological surveys, will take ten years. The second stage, which will involve clearing the equipment from around the nuclear reactors, will last 12 years. Removal of the reactors (stage 3) and demolition of the reactor buildings (stage 4), will each last 11 years.

But these estimates are useless. The U.S. has been cleaning up Hanford, WA, site of the reactors that made the plutonium in the Alamagordo bomb, and then the Nagasaki bomb, for decades, at an every mounting cost and an ever-receding completion date. Turns out that generating large amounts of high-level nuclear waste turns out to be a bit more challenging to deal with than the techno-optimists ever dreamed. If there’s anyone around with the consciousness to care several hundred years from now, the creation of nuclear waste is going to be a very nasty reminder of how stupid we were.


n-tepco-a-20200124-870x491
The Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant
January 23, 2020
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. has estimated that it will take 44 years to decommission its Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant.
Tepco presented the outline of decommissioning plans to the municipal assembly of Tomioka, one of the two host towns of the nuclear plant, on Wednesday.
The Fukushima No. 2 plant is located south of the No. 1 plant, which suffered a triple meltdown accident in the wake of the March 2011 massive earthquake and tsunami.
According to the outline, the decommissioning process for the No. 2 plant will have four stages, taking 10 years for the first stage, 12 years for the second stage and 11 years each for the third and fourth stages.
Tepco will survey radioactive contamination at the nuclear plant in the first stage, clear equipment around nuclear reactors in the second, remove the reactors in the third and demolish the reactor buildings in the fourth.
Meanwhile, the plant operator will transfer a total of 9,532 spent nuclear fuel units at the plant to a fuel reprocessing company by the end of the decommissioning process, and 544 unused fuel units to a processing firm by the start of the third stage.
Tepco will submit its finalized decommissioning plans for the Fukushima No. 2 plant to the Nuclear Regulation Authority after gaining approval from the municipal governments of Tomioka and the other host town, Naraha, as well as the Fukushima Prefectural Government.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/23/national/tepco-fukushima-decommissioning/#.XjG3uCNCeUm

January 31, 2020 Posted by dunrenard | Fukushima 2020 | decommissioning, Fukushima Daini | 1 Comment

Vladivostok customs stopped a radioactive Toyota Prius that arrived from Japan

information_items_7771The contaminated Toyota Prius will be shipped back to Japan. Picture: Vladivostok customs

January 23, 2020
 
There were 875 contaminated items sent back by Russia since 2011 Fukusima-1 nuclear power plant disaster.
 
The radiation-emitting Toyota Prius was detected at the territory of Vladivostok Sea Port.
 
The dangerous cargo was contaminated with beta-active radionuclides, said the city customs press secretary Asya Berezhaya.
 
The test showed radiation flux density ranging from 40 to 120 particles per square centimeter per minute.
 
The car will now be shipped back to Japan.
 
This is the first case in three years time of a radioactive vehicle arriving from Japan detected by Russian customs.
 
Overall Vladivostok customs reported 875 contaminated goods, including cars, that arrived from Japan since Fukusima-1 nuclear power plant disaster in 2011.
 
The last case shows that the consequences of the 2011 accident have not been completely eliminated, said head of radioactive department of Vladivostok customs Maksim Shesternin.
 
Beta radiation is a stream of electrons emitted at a velocity approaching the speed of light, with enough energy to enter human skin but not to pass through it.
 
Beta radiation can be stopped by a thin layer of aluminium or Persplex, according to Science Direct.
 
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/vladivostok-customs-stopped-a-radioactive-toyota-prius-that-arrived-from-japan/

 

January 31, 2020 Posted by dunrenard | Fukushima 2020 | Exported cars, Fukushima Radiation, Russia | Leave a comment

In Cumbria, concern over nuclear waste canisters, and inadequacy of Radioactive Waste Management (RWM)

Current model for storing nuclear waste is incomplete, https://cumbriatrust.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/current-model-for-storing-nuclear-waste-is-incomplete/ 30 Jan , New research carried out by Ohio State University has revealed significant problems with one of the key containment methods for high level nuclear waste to be used in the UK.  It had previously been assumed that forming high level waste into glass or ceramics within a stainless steel canister would ensure that the waste would be isolated from its surroundings while it underwent radioactive decay. It now appears that the iron within stainless steel canister is reacting with the silicon, a fundamental constituent of glass.  This leads to severe localised corrosion at a far higher rate than previously assumed.  The full article can be found here.

Followers of Cumbria Trust will be aware that this is not the only example of a canister intended for the UK’s geological disposal programme which has failed to perform as expected.  Another is the KBS-3 concept which used copper canisters, where some experiments have shown accelerated corrosion via a pitting process.

During the previous search for a site to bury the UK’s nuclear waste, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) attempted to deny the existence of these problems.  Recently, Radioactive Waste Management (RWM), a subsidiary of the NDA, has become more open in its admission of the difficulties they face.  Cumbria Trust welcomes this approach, and has had a constructive dialogue with some senior RWM figures over recent years.

Our recent experience with RWM hasn’t been entirely positive though – they have failed to exclude designated areas (such as national parks and AONBs) in the latest search process, despite overwhelming public opposition to their inclusion, and have refused to discuss this with Cumbria Trust when asked.  Cumbrians might ask themselves why RWM are taking this stance.

January 31, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

UK govt is treating Julian Assange inhumanely – amounting to torture

Julian Assange and the Inhumanity of the British State: ‘Unofficial’ Solitary Confinement as Torture 21st Century Wire, JANUARY 26, 2020 BY NINA CROSS 

Up until this week, Assange has been held in solitary confinement in Belmarsh prison. Incredibly, it was the other prisoners along with Assange’s legal team, who have pressured the government officials to respect the law and allow Assange to be removed from solitary confinement, resulting in his transfer to a general wing. This piece looks at how Assange was unofficially segregated in the prison’s healthcare unit,  with no recourse to systems designed for prisoners in official solitary confinement regimes as applied under Prison Rule 45, leaving him out of reach of rules and law.

The sustained violation of the human rights of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, has been carried out in full view of the world throughout his arbitrary detention in HMP Belmarsh. Until now, condemnation of his treatment and pleas to end his suffering have been met with denial and silence by the British authorities.

 But the announcement this week that Assange has been moved out of Belmarsh healthcare unit where he has been detained in solitary confinement since May, is a sign that the campaign to stop his persecution is gaining traction. Continue reading →

January 30, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

A new serious problem with stainless steel canisters for nuclear wastes

Schematic of a stainless steel nuclear waste canister, with radioactive particles (purple) trapped inside in glass and the acidic spiral that starts when water, steel, and glass are brought together. Guo et al/Nature Materials

Stainless steel may not be the best choice for storing nuclear waste. https://newatlas.com/energy/stainless-steel-storing-nuclear-waste/

By David Szondy January 28, 2020 A new study by researchers at Ohio State University suggests that stainless steel may not be the best choice for containing high-level nuclear waste. By simulating long-term storage conditions, the team found that the storage materials interact with each other more than previously thought, causing them to degrade faster.
The storage of nuclear waste is more than a perennial political football, it is an existential problem. Whatever one’s opinions about nuclear power or weapons, there are thousands of tons of nuclear waste temporarily stored around the world, meaning that a way must be found to store it all
safely in the long term.
The most important type of nuclear waste is the high-level waste left over from reprocessing nuclear fuel or from nuclear weapon production. Such waste is made up of a complex mixture of radioactive isotopes with half-lives ranging from years to millennia. Though reactors have been operating all over the world for over 75 years, only Finland has started to build a permanent storage facility for such very dangerous waste.
That may show a remarkable lack of political will or even courage, but perhaps this reluctance will turn out to be serendipitous. That’s because the favored way of storing high-level waste is to vitrify it. That is, to mix the isotopes with molten glass or ceramics to form a chemically inert mass that can be sealed in stainless steel canisters before being sealed in an underground storage facility.
That plan may now have to change if the Ohio study is correct. Led by Xiaolei Guo, the team took glasses and ceramics and put them in close contact with stainless steel in various wet solutions for 30 days in conditions similar to those that would be found in the proposed US Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
In the real-life scenario, the glass or ceramic waste forms would be in close contact with stainless steel canisters,” says Xiaolei. “Under specific conditions, the corrosion of stainless steel will go crazy. It creates a super-aggressive environment that can corrode surrounding materials.”

They found that the steel interacted with the glass or ceramic to produce severe and localized corrosion that both damaged the steel and corroded and cracked the glass and ceramics. According to the team, this is because the iron in stainless steel has a chemical affinity with the silicon in glass, accelerating corrosion.

This indicates that the current models may not be sufficient to keep this waste safely stored,” says Xiaolei. “And it shows that we need to develop a new model for storing nuclear waste.”

The research was published in Nature Materials. Source: Ohio State University

January 30, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | Reference, safety, USA, wastes | 2 Comments

Surplus nuclear power has become an embarrassment. Inflexible baseload power no longer needed.

Weatherwatch: nuclear energy now surplus to needs, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/27/weatherwatch-nuclear-energy-now-surplus-to-needs-renewable-energy, Baseload argument no longer true when large quantities of cheaper renewable energy available, Paul BrownTue 28 Jan 2020 
Some myths are hard to kill, especially when they once contained a grain of truth, and keeping outdated ideas alive might save a dying industry. Ministers, journalists and pro-nuclear politicians of all stripes keep repeating the mantra that baseload power is needed to keep the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.
In 2020 this statement is no longer true and excess baseload power is becoming an embarrassment. Nuclear power, so inflexible that it cannot be turned down or off, is surplus to requirements when large quantities of cheaper renewable energy are available. The need to accommodate nuclear power pushes up bills because windfarm owners are being paid to turn off turbines and avoid making unwanted free electricity.The problem of intermittency has not been completely cracked because the grid and technology needs updating to cope with the occasional shortfalls of renewables but batteries, pump storage, biogas turbines and other engineering tricks are rapidly solving the problem.

Out of earshot of the politicians, the question of what to do with all the surplus power when demand is low is being tackled by increasing storage capacity but also by making green hydrogen. Some nuclear buffs are even suggesting hydrogen production might be the only viable hope for using up their spare power.

January 30, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs, politics | Leave a comment

The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War

Nuclear Nightmares–– By Justin Vogt, NYT, Jan. 28, 2020, THE BOMB By Fred Kaplan, It’s an old joke, but a good one. “Doctor, my son thinks he’s a chicken,” a father tells a psychiatrist, who suggests treatment for the boy. “We’d like to do that,” the father says, “but we need the eggs.”

For decades, American presidents have found themselves in a similar predicament, as revealed with bracing clarity by “The Bomb,” Fred Kaplan’s rich and surprisingly entertaining history of how nuclear weapons have shaped the United States military and the country’s foreign policy. It is the story of how high-level officials, generals and presidents have contended with what Kaplan calls “the rabbit hole” of nuclear strategy, whose logic transforms efforts to avoid a nuclear war into plans to fight one, even though doing so would kill millions of people without producing a meaningful victory for anyone. As President Barack Obama once put it before weighing in during a meeting on nuclear weapons: “Let’s stipulate that this is all insane.”

Owing to the spread of those weapons and to the inevitability of competition between powerful countries, generations of policymakers have leapt into the abyss again and again. Nuclear strategy is an exercise in absurdity that pushes against every moral boundary but that has likely contributed to the relative safety and stability of the contemporary era, during which nuclear weapons have proliferated but major war has all but vanished. Apparently, we need the eggs.

“The Bomb” is a sequel of sorts to “The Wizards of Armageddon,” Kaplan’s 1983 book about the Cold War-era thinkers who established a template for how generations of American officials would approach nuclear weapons. The new book revisits the foundational debates and explains how they have played out in more recent years, making use of newly declassified material and a wealth of interviews with insiders. In less skillful hands, this could be a slog. But Kaplan has a gift for elucidating abstract concepts, cutting through national security jargon and showing how leaders confront (or avoid) dilemmas. ……….. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/books/review/the-bomb-fred-kaplan.html

January 30, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | 2 WORLD, resources - print, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The danger in deploying new US nuclear warhead on a submarine

Deployment of new US nuclear warhead on submarine a dangerous step, critics say

First submarine to go on patrol armed with the W76-2 warhead makes a nuclear launch more likely, arm control advocates warn, Guardian  Julian Borger in WashingtonThu 30 Jan 2020 The US has deployed its first low-yield Trident nuclear warhead on a submarine that is currently patrolling the Atlantic Ocean, it has been reported, in what arms control advocates warn is a dangerous step towards making a nuclear launch more likely.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, the USS Tennessee – which left port in Georgia at the end of last year – is the first submarine to go on patrol armed with the W76-2 warhead, commissioned by Donald Trump two years ago.

It has an explosive yield of five kilotons, a third of the power of the “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima and considerably lower than the 90- and 455-kiloton warheads on other US submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Advocates of W76-2 argued that the US had no effective deterrent against Russian tactical weapons because Moscow assumed Washington would not risk using the overwhelming power of its intercontinental ballistic missiles in response, for fear of escalating from a regional conflict to a civilian-destroying war.

Critics of the warhead say it accelerates a drift towards thinking of nuclear weapons as a means to fight and win wars, rather than as purely a deterrent of last resort. And the fielding of a tactical nuclear weapon, they warn, gives US political and military leaders a dangerous new option in confronting adversaries other than Russia…… https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/29/us-submarine-trident-nuclear-warhead-patrols-atlantic-ocean

The Trump administration’s nuclear posture review (NPR) in February 2018, portrays this warhead as a counter to a perceived Russian threat to use its own “tactical” nuclear weapons to win a quick victory on the battlefield.

January 30, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Does the USA arsenal REALLY need costly new plutonium weapons cores?

An Unanswered Question at the Heart of the U.S.’s Nuclear Arsenal.  Nobody knows how long the plutonium “pits” in the cores of bombs last, and the answer could cost—or save—billions   https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/an-unanswered-question-at-the-heart-of-americas-nuclear-arsenal/, By Stephen Young on January 28, 2020  

The United States has an arsenal of some 3,800 nuclear weapons, about half of which are deployed, with the rest in storage. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) and the nuclear weapons laboratories it oversees are concerned that the performance of the weapons will degrade over time. Most of the components can be—and are being—replaced with new versions, so the main concern is the behavior of aging plutonium “pits” at the core of all U.S. weapons.

Plutonium essentially doesn’t exist in nature but is produced in nuclear reactors. It was first produced during World War II, and the U.S. government didn’t care about pit aging because it constantly replaced pits with newly built ones as it upgraded its arsenal during the Cold War.  So, no one in the weapons labs knew what the lifetime of a pit was. Instead, the NNSA simply assumed it was 45–60 years.

And during the Cold War, the U.S. produced a lot of pits, tens of thousands. It stopped in 1989 when the production plant was shut down by the FBI and the EPA due to pervasive environmental damage. Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico manufactured 31 pits between 2007 and 2013, but none since. That means virtually all the pits in today’s arsenal were made 30–40 years ago, which would have meant serious problems for the stockpile starting in 2025 if the NNSA’s assumption were correct.

So, what is the lifetime of a pit?

In 2005, Congress tasked JASON, the independent science advisory group, with answering this question. Their groundbreaking 2007 report examined the data the weapons labs had produced and concluded that most weapons system types in the stockpile “have credible minimum [emphasis added] lifetimes in excess of 100 years as regards aging of plutonium.” Moreover, this minimum age would also apply to the remaining types once straightforward adjustments were made. This finding significantly reduced pressure to resume large-scale production of pits for some time.

Last year, Congress—led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.)—sensibly asked JASON to update its earlier work. Unfortunately, JASON’s new, very brief “letter report” contains zero new information on pit lifetimes.

What went wrong? Did JASON fail to do its job? Or was the group unable to do it?

When asked this question, an NNSA official confirmed that it was a lack of data, not a failure by JASON, that prevented an update on the 2007 estimates. JASON’s report states: “A focused program of experiments, theory, and simulations is required to determine the timescales over which Pu [plutonium] aging may lead to unacceptable degradation in primary performance.”

JASON lays the blame for this failure squarely on the NNSA, declaring that “in general, studies on Pu aging and its impacts on the performance of nuclear-weapon primaries have not been sufficiently prioritized over the past decade.”

It seems entirely possible that this was not an oversight on the part of NNSA but reflects that the agency does not want to know the answer. The NNSA wants to produce new types of warheads, not just refurbish existing ones. That requires the ability to produce new pits in bulk.  If minimum pit lifetimes were 200 years, then there would be no need for new pit production to maintain existing weapons. The cost of pit production would then be entirely attributed to new weapons and the price tag for those would increase substantially, making it less likely that Congress will give NNSA the go-ahead.

Instead of studying pit lifetimes, the NNSA has focused on major upgrades for three existing nuclear weapons, a new uranium processing facility and, notably, one all-new nuclear weapon—the first since the end of the Cold War—that will require production of new plutonium pits.

And, not coincidentally, the Trump administration and many in Congress are pushing a plan to produce at least 80 pits per year by 2030. The rationale they offer is disarmingly simple: if the U.S. has roughly 4,000 nuclear weapons and pits last 100 years, then the NNSA needs to produce 80 pits per year starting in 2030 to be able to replace the entire stockpile by 2080.

But what if plutonium pits last longer than 100 years? Deferring production of new pits would significantly reduce the stress on the NNSA’s infrastructure, already struggling under a workload many times heavier than at any time since the end of the Cold War. It would also save tens of billions of dollars.

However, the all-new warhead, known as the W87-1, would need new plutonium pits. The NNSA estimates the W87-1 will cost $11–16 billion, not including the money needed to produce the new pits, which adds another $14–28 billion.

Moreover, another recent independent study mandated by Congress found that the current timeline and cost estimate for pit production are not realistic. The May 2019 study by the Institute for Defense Analyses concluded that the 80 pits per year goal was “potentially achievable given sufficient time, resources, and management focus, although not on the schedules or budgets currently forecasted…. Put more sharply, eventual success of the strategy  to reconstitute plutonium pit production is far from certain.” (Emphasis added.)

In other words, producing 80 pits per year may be possible, but it will not happen by 2030 and it will cost more than current projections.

This makes an updated estimate on pit lifetime even more important.

Congress should put the NNSA’S feet to the fire. Sen. Feinstein, sponsor of the JASON study, is the ranking member of the Senate committee that oversees the NNSA. She should push the committee to direct the NNSA to undertake the “focused program” that JASON recommends, now. The answer will determine whether the U.S. needs to spend tens of billions of dollars in a rush to produce pits, or whether it can sensibly and safely postpone that decision.

January 30, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea’s nuclear tests have made Hamgyong Province area unstable

Latest North Korea quake shows legacy of instability at nuclear test site: South Korea, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/north-korea-earthquake-nuclear-test-12364348 29 Jan 2020 SEOUL: A small natural earthquake detected in North Korea on Wednesday (Jan 29) was likely a result of seismic instability lingering in the area since North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test in 2017, the South Korean government said.A magnitude-2.5 earthquake was detected at 9.33am (0033 GMT) in Hamgyong Province, the location of North Korea’s shuttered Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, according to South Korea’s Meteorological Administration.

“It was a natural earthquake, presumably caused by the sixth nuclear test,” the administration said in a statement on its website. “The area is about 3km southeast of the sixth nuclear test site.”

Punggye-ri is the only known site in North Korea used to test nuclear weapons. At least six tests were conducted there between October 2006 and September 2017.

In early 2018, North Korea said it would close the site, saying its nuclear force was complete.

The entrances to tunnels at the site were blown up in front of a small group of foreign media invited to view the demolition, but North Korea rejected calls for international experts to inspect the closure.

Frustrated at what it sees as a lack of reciprocal concessions by the United States in denuclearisation talks, North Korea now says it is no longer bound by its self-imposed moratorium on test firing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, though it has not conducted new tests.

The 2017 nuclear test, which North Korea said was a thermonuclear weapon, appeared to be several times larger than previous blasts, according to monitoring organisations at the time.

In the weeks after the sixth explosion, experts pointed to a series of tremors and landslides near the nuclear test base as a sign the large blast had destabilised the region.

Wednesday’s quake is the latest confirmation that the nuclear explosion had permanently changed the geology of the area, said Woo Nam-chul, an earthquake analyst at KMA.

“The terrain of the area was solid enough to have no natural earthquakes before the sixth nuclear test in September 2017.”

January 30, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | North Korea, safety | Leave a comment

Long Island Power Authority ratepayers will have to Subsidize Upstate Nuclear Power Plants


LIPA Customers To Subsidize Upstate Nuclear Power Plants.wshu, By JAY SHAH 29 Jan 2020 Long Island Power Authority ratepayers could spend more than $800 million over the next decade to help fund upstate nuclear power plants.

LIPA will have to buy zero-emission credits through a state agency, which subsidizes energy generators that don’t emit greenhouse gases, like [?]  nuclear power plants. …….https://www.wshu.org/post/lipa-customers-subsidize-upstate-nuclear-power-plants#stream/0

January 30, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Russian Space Agency confirms plans to launch nuclear-powered space tug by 2030 

Russian Space Agency confirms plans to launch nuclear-powered space tug by 2030  Space Daily, by Staff Writers
Moscow (Sputnik) Jan 29, 2020 The secrecy-laden project, in development since 2010, is intended to facilitate the transportation of large cargoes in deep space, including for the purpose of creating permanent bases on other planets in our solar system.Roscosmos plans to deliver a nuclear-powered space tug into orbit by the year 2030, agency first deputy director Yuri Urlichich has confirmed.

In a presentation at the ongoing Korolev Academic Space Conference in Moscow, Urlichich explained that the tug will be launched in 2030 for flight testing, with series production and commercial use to begin after that…….. http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russian_Space_Agency_confirms_plans_to_launch_nuclear_powered_space_tug_by_2030_999.html

January 30, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | space travel, Spain | Leave a comment

The road to Armageddon — our two existential threats and the 2020 US presidential race — IPPNW peace and health blog

As we begin this new decade, our world faces great peril from two intertwined existential threats: climate change and nuclear war. Failing to solve these two issues may lead to the end of life as we know it. This year’s US presidential campaign has had no significant questioning or dialogue on the risk of nuclear war. We must demand responses from presidential candidates as to their understanding of the threat posed by the continued existence of nuclear weapons.

via The road to Armageddon — our two existential threats and the 2020 US presidential race — IPPNW peace and health blog

January 29, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Trump “Peace Plan” Leaves ~ 15 Jewish Settler Ghetto Enclaves Within Palestinian Territory; Israel Would Maintain “Overriding Security Responsibility for the State of Palestine”; Control Air Space — Mining Awareness +

 

One need only look at the map and see that this won’t work. Reading the details it’s even worse. Trump’s supposed “Peace Plan” leaves approximately 15 Jewish settler enclave-exclave ghettos within Palestinian Territory. Israel would maintain “overriding security responsibility for the State of Palestine“. Furthermore, it allows for “punitive demolitions following acts of terrorism“, by […]

via Trump “Peace Plan” Leaves ~ 15 Jewish Settler Ghetto Enclaves Within Palestinian Territory; Israel Would Maintain “Overriding Security Responsibility for the State of Palestine”; Control Air Space — Mining Awareness +

January 29, 2020 Posted by Christina MacPherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste dump proposal has many Ontario First Nations worried – Canada

Published: January 24, 2020 By Cory Bilyea

Follow this blog for updates. There will be updates in coming days

Nuclear waste dump proposal has many Ontario First Nations worried

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is running out of time to find a permanent solution for storing radioactive nuclear waste.

Dry storage containers, the current method of storing contaminated items, have a minimum life span of fifty years and is ‘80s technology, according to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), a non-profit overseen by the government.

A permanent dumpsite is needed for low and intermediate-level nuclear waste. The secure Bruce nuclear site in Kincardine, Ont., is the proposed location but it’s on the unceded territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON).

The items, including contaminated worker clothing and tools, could be radioactive for 100 years while resins, filters and used reactor components could be toxic for 100,000 years, according to NWMO.

These items need to be buried in something called a deep geologic repository (DGR), which will be buried 680 metres underground, deeper than the CN Tower is tall.

A ratification vote has been called by the SON and will be held collectively on Chippewas of Saugeen First Nations at the James Mason Memorial, Culture & Recreation Centre and on Chippewas of Nawash First Nation at the Cape Croker Community Centre on Jan. 31.

Talks with OPG and several information sessions have been held to date.  A detailed information booklet is available for the nearly 4,000 band members who are eligible to vote.

The voting age has been lowered to 16 and there will be a special information session for young people on Jan. 25-26 at the Outdoor Education Centre, between Sauble Beach and Wiarton.

Two community members said concerns over the proposal have been heightened by the accidental emergency broadcast message that was sent to thousands of people from the Pickering nuclear plant early on Sunday, Jan. 12.

London resident Jane Meathrel said in a Facebook post, the waste site should be located “as far away as possible from the Great Lakes. I do not trust ‘the experts’ that it is not dangerous.”

Concerns about the adverse impacts on water quality are a key reason people around the power plant are saying no to nuclear waste being buried so close to their homes and livelihoods. Many rely on the fish from Lake Huron for food and income.

“We the people who live on this continent are well aware that we have the worlds greatest freshwater resources,” said Sue Boles, who leases land for a cottage in Neyaashiinigaaming. “We have a duty and an obligation to protect it for future generations and the world.”

Boles brings her grandson to the beach near her cottage to swim every year.

President and CEO of Bruce Power, Mike Rencheck, was not available for comment,  but said on their website, “We recognize our role and work to ensure our decision-making process incorporates environmental, social, cultural and economic systems.”

Saugeen resident and band member Kim George is voting no and if she had a voice when the plant was first built, she would have said no then too.

“I think most of us have always had an underlying fear of the nuke plant,” she said. “The planned nuclear DGR is compounding that fear.”

Online voting has begun for off-reserve band members and will be open until Jan. 31.

Even with a yes vote, there will still be many years, possibly decades before the facility is built.

Ontario Power Generation has guaranteed that if the vote is no, they will abide by the decision and begin to look for another location.

Also see

These findings may have serious implications for plans to use steel canisters for vitrified high-level reprocessing waste. France, Germany, Britain…. A very long list. “Nuclear waste storage plans aren't as safe as we thought, experts warn” https://t.co/qpjHEGW55O

— Johan Swahn (@jswahn) January 28, 2020

January 29, 2020 Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries    

1.This Month

You can find names and items of interest by using our SEARCH button. Scroll down the right hand sidebar to find it
***

EVENTS 

On 22 January 2021, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will enter into force. To mark the day that nuclear weapons become illegal under international law, ICAN campaigners and other anti-nuclear activists around the world will be hosting a huge range of actions and activities. Find one near you (or online in your timezone) through this interactive map at International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons . And make sure to add yours to the map as well!
110 Events for Global Action Day

25 January Takoma Park  USA Commemorating ‘Nuclear-Free Zone’

with Virtual Film Screening

Hibakusha: A-bomb survivor, 95, never giving up the

battle to eliminate nuclear weapons 

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201229/p2a/00m/0na/032000c

December 30, 2020 (Mainichi Japan)

Tsuboi released comments expressing his joy after he

learned that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear

Weapons would enter in force.

“I am filled with excitement, thinking, ‘At long last.

This is great.’ It is a major step toward my long-held,

earnest desire for nuclear weapons to be banned

and eliminated,” he said. At the same time, he

noted that states with nuclear weapons, as well

as Japan, had not ratified the treaty and said, “The road hereafter may be rough.”

Still, each time I have met Tsuboi, he has

repeatedly stated, “I won’t give up until there ar

e zero nuclear weapons. Never give up!”

 

JAN 28 AT 7 AM UTC+11 – JAN 28 AT 8:30 AM UTC+11

Webinar: Ending the global security threats of nuclear power

Event by Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick, Beyond Nuclear and 2 others

of the week
****
Fukushima: Save Pacific Ocean From Radioactive Waste
****
Stop Excluding Military Pollution from Climate Agreements
GENDER AND RADIATION IMPACT PROJECT
****
PAWB – People Against Wylfa-B
****
Speak Up For Assange
****

 

 

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