Tokyo protesting against South Korea’s Tokyo 2020 radioactive Olympics posters
South Korea is definitely right in calling out this shit. No amount of lies and cover ups can bury the truth: 2020 Tokyo Olympics are the radioactive Olympics. Despite the past years gigantic PR campaign to whitewash the still ongoing Fukushima nuclear disater and all its radiation harmful consequences, claiming that all is under control, totally safe, back to normalcy, back to business. Hell no!
So, the multi-billion-dollar propaganda machine of TEPCO and the Japanese Govt is calling out South Korea for creating propaganda against their own propaganda. Again, like always, there is only one truth: radiation kills.
This time, the truth is that Olympians will get high doses of rads that are on the ground in Tokyo, in Fukushima Prefecture, and in every neighboring prefectures all the way down from Fukushima to Tokyo.
There are hot spots all over Eastern Japan. So many of these hotspots have been well documented by folks like you and me, as Japanese citizens had to organized themselves and learned to protect themselves by mapping the radiation present in their living environment, due to the massive campaign of denial of their government prioritizing economics expediency over people’s health.
VANK put up the posters on the walls of the new Japanese embassy on Jan. 6 before uploading images of the posters on social media. (image: VANK)
Fogwater deposition of radiocesium in the forested mountains of East Japan during the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident: A key process in regional radioactive contamination
Japan wants cruise ship infected separated from country’s total over economy fears
Young woman leads revival of Fukushima’s fishing industry
When economic considerations take precedence over radioactive contamination and people’s health…
Britain’s trade deal with Japan could lead to Fukushima food restrictions being dropped
UK’s new nuclear projects headed to be submerged due to climate change?
Speeding Sea Level Rise Threatens Nuclear Plants https://www.ecowatch.com/sea-level-rise-nuclear-plants-2645160125.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2 Climate News Network, Feb. 15, 2020 By Paul Brown
The latest science shows how the pace of sea level rise is speeding up, fueling fears that not only millions of homes will be under threat, but that vulnerable installations like docks and power plants will be overwhelmed by the waves.
New research using satellite data over a 30-year period shows that around the year 2000 sea level rise was 2mm a year, by 2010 it was 3mm and now it is at 4mm, with the pace of change still increasing.
The calculations were made by a research student, Tadea Veng, at the Technical University of Denmark, which has a special interest in Greenland, where the icecap is melting fast. That, combined with accelerating melting in Antarctica and further warming of the oceans, is raising sea levels across the globe.
The report coincides with a European Environment Agency (EEA) study whose maps show large areas of the shorelines of countries with coastlines on the North Sea will go under water unless heavily defended against sea level rise.
Based on the maps, newspapers like The Guardian in London have predicted that more than half of one key UK east coast provincial port — Hull — will be swamped. Ironically, Hull is the base for making giant wind turbine blades for use in the North Sea.
The argument about how much the sea level will rise this century has been raging in scientific circles since the 1990s. At the start, predictions of sea level rise took into account only two possible causes: the expansion of seawater as it warmed, and the melting of mountain glaciers away from the poles.
In the early Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports back then, the melting of the polar ice caps was not included, because scientists could not agree whether greater snowfall on the top of the ice caps in winter might balance out summer melting. Many of them also thought Antarctica would not melt at all, or not for centuries, because it was too cold.
Both the extra snow theory and the “too cold to melt” idea have now been discounted. In Antarctica this is partly because the sea has warmed up so much that it is melting the glaciers’ ice from beneath — something the scientists had not foreseen.
Alarm about sea level rise elsewhere has been increasing outside the scientific community, partly because many nuclear power plants are on coasts. Even those that are nearing the end of their working lives will be radio-active for another century, and many have highly dangerous spent fuel on site in storage ponds with no disposal route organized.
Perhaps most alarmed are British residents, whose government is currently planning a number of new seaside nuclear stations in low-lying coastal areas. Some will be under water this century according to the EEA, particularly one planned for Sizewell in eastern England.
The agency’s report says estimates of sea level rise by 2100 vary, with an upper limit of one meter generally accepted, but up to 2.5 meters predicted by some scientists. The latest research by Danish scientists suggests judiciously that with the speed of sea level rise continuing to accelerate, it is impossible to be sure.
A report by campaigners who oppose building nuclear power stations on Britain’s vulnerable coast expresses extreme alarm, saying both nuclear regulators and the giant French energy company EDF are too complacent about the problem.
The report said: “Polar ice caps appear to be melting faster than expected, and what is particularly worrying is that the rate of melting seems to be increasing. Some researchers say sea levels could rise by as much as six meters or more by 2100, even if the 2°C Paris target is met.
“But it’s not just the height of the rise in sea level that is important for the protection of nuclear facilities, it’s also the likely increase in storm surges. An increase in sea level of 50cm would mean the storm that used to come every thousand years will now come every 100 years. If you increase that to a meter, then that millennial storm is likely to come once a decade.
Bearing in mind that there will probably be nuclear waste on the Hinkley Point C site [home to the new twin reactors being built by EDF in the West of England] until at least 2150, the question neither the Office of Nuclear Regulation nor EDF seem to be asking is whether further flood protection measures can be put in place fast enough to deal with unexpected and unpredicted storm surges.”
European Pressurised Reactor at Flamanville: nuclear is expensive and it doesn’t work.
France Culture 14th Feb 2020, EPR: nuclear is expensive and it doesn’t work. A kind of modern replica of the Danaïdes barrel, the EPR at Flamanville, in the Manche department, is once again being talked about: between construction delays (delivery scheduled for 2010, “potentially promised” now in 2022) and additional costs ( estimated three billion, we would exceed 12 billion today), is there ultimately a future for what was sold in the late 90s (1998-2000) as
the new wonder of the genre?
Don’t lets get “emotional” about nuclear-caused deformities, illnesses, deaths..
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Hysteria isn’t killing nuclear power But the harm it causes should stir emotions, Beyond Nuclear By Linda Pentz Gunter, 16 Feb 20,
Time was, that a woman suffering from menopause, pre-menstrual syndrome, a heightened libido or lack thereof, was labeled “hysterical.” Her very real medical or psychological troubles were put down to an “emotional reaction.” For a while these symptoms were even attributed to a “wandering womb.” What? Yes, really. For years, if you were a woman who opposed nuclear power, you were likely subjected to exactly the same treatment (although luckily not the one for the “wandering womb,” which I won’t go into here). How many of us were told, usually by men, that we were simply far too “emotional”? (Implication? We just didn’t understand the actual “science”.)
Those illustrious scientists Penn & Teller called their takedown show on Helen Caldicott — who has certainly borne the brunt of the “too emotional” slur in our movement — “Penn & Teller vs Dr. Helen Caldicott, Candles & Anti-Nuclear Fearmongering.” …… And here’s what well known columnist, Fareed Zacharia, just wrote in a February 14 column in the Washington Post that appeared to have been cribbed from the cliff notes of any number of pro-nuclear front groups: “Fears about nuclear power, which Sanders clearly shares, are largely based on emotional reactions to the few high-profile accidents that have taken place over the past few decades.” But it’s not fear that has done in nuclear power. It’s the very real risks — along with its exorbitant cost. It’s the fact that it can poison people, animals, air, land and water for millennia. It’s the fact that, despite their ivory tower pontificating, people like Zacharia have never met the mothers of children suffering as a result of the Fukushima disaster or even, still, Chernobyl. Those children may be immaterial statistics to lofty columnists and bloggers, but they aren’t immaterial to those mothers. And it’s not fear that drives politicians like Bernie Sanders to oppose nuclear power. It’s that the subsidies we would squander, and the time we would waste on propping it up, costs us time we don’t have, and money we sorely need to fix climate change fast. So, yes, Mr. Zacharia, I have an “emotional reaction” when I see small children who should be carefree and playing outside, confined indoors, or worse, coming down with thyroid cancer they would never have suffered without Fukushima. I have an “emotional reaction” when I see the sad faces of mentally and physically disabled children dumped into Belarusian orphanages, children harmed by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which happened long before they were born. I even have an “emotional reaction” when I see the photos and videos of dead or dying cows abandoned in Fukushima, their bellowing cries echoing around cowsheds already strewn with the corpses of their herdmates. And yes, I have an “emotional reaction” even when there isn’t an accident. I am disturbed at the alarming increase in leukemias among children living close to nuclear power plants. I get emotional hearing the stories of Navajo uranium miners and their families, who must battle radiation exposure-induced diseases along with deprivation and discrimination. I am disturbed, emotionally, at the toll taken on endangered sea turtles, captured and killed at operating nuclear plants. And I get upset when I see that, once again, the only plans for dealing with radioactive waste are to dump it on poor communities of color…… The American Psychiatric Association dropped the term hysteria in 1952. The pro-nuclear lobby should stop using it to dismiss the very real, medical harms of nuclear power, which most often impact communities the least resourced to fight back. If you don’t have an “emotional reaction” when confronted with the tragedies wrought by nuclear power, then you are the one who needs a doctor. https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72759838/posts/2591560323 |
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Ultimate Doomsday Weapon: Missiles Powered By Nuclear Reactors
 Ultimate Doomsday Weapon: Missiles Powered By Nuclear Reactors, With disastrous results. National Interest
– 17 Feb 20 Key Point: Russia is resurrecting the demons of our shared Cold War past.
After days of speculation by Western analysts that a deadly accident on August 8 that briefly spiked radiation levels in northwestern Russia was tied to tests of an exotic nuclear-powered “Skyfall” nuclear-powered cruise missile, Russian sources confirmed to the New York Times the explosion of a “small nuclear reactor.”
While there’s a tactical rationale behind Russia’s development of a fast, surface-skimming cruise missile with an unlimited range as a means of bypassing American missile defenses, it strikes many analysts as an inordinately expensive, extremely technically challenging, and—evidently!—downright unsafe. That’s because the United States has tried it before sixty years earlier—and even with the fast-and-loose safety culture of the Cold War 1960s, the poison-spewing radioactive mega missile it began developing was considered too dangerous to even properly flight test. This project was most famously described in a 1990 article by Gregg Herken for Air & Space Magazine, which remains well worth the read. …..
The SLAM missile was expected to soar towards its Soviet targets at tree-top level, traveling at three times the speed of sound. The combination of low-altitude (reducing detection range) and Mach 3 speed was thought to make it too fast for interception by fighters or surface-to-air missile. The sonic shock wave produced by the huge missile was believed to be strong enough to kill anyone caught underneath it.
The huge missile, laden with up to twelve thermonuclear bombs, would proceed to race towards one Soviet city after another, visiting Hiroshima-level human tragedies upon each. And once the bombs were exhausted, the nuclear-powered missile would…simply keep on going and going like a murderous Energizer Bunny. Because installing adequate radioactive shielding on such a small reactor would have proven impossible, the SLAM would have spread in its wake trails of cancer-inducing gamma and neutron radiation and radioactive fission fragments expelled by its exhaust. Project Pluto scientists even considered weaponizing this property by programming the missile to circle overhead Soviet population centers, though how exposing even more people to slow deaths by radiation poisoning would be useful in an apocalyptic nuclear war that would likely leave both nations in ruin in a few days is hard to fathom. However, realizing the SLAM concept involved a succession of serious technical challenges. For example, a separate conventional rocket system would be necessary for the missile to reach the supersonic speeds at which its ramjet motor could function. That, in turn, meant the reactor had to be designed to withstand the heat and stress of those powerful booster rockets. In fact, it’s believed precisely that problem may have resulted in the deadly accident in Russia this August. As a result, the Livermore laboratory devised a 500-megawatt reactor so robust it was nicknamed the “flying crowbar.”……. Having established the workability of the nuclear ramjet, Merkle’s team then ran into a serious practical obstacle: where on Earth, literally, could a long-range weapon prone to trailing plumes of radioactive pollution behind it be tested? And what would happen if the supersonic weapon with theoretically nigh-unlimited range “got away”—ie., fell out of control, and potentially irradiated American communities? …….
Deploying the weapon operationally presented even worse dilemmas, as the missile would likely overfly U.S. allies on its approach to Russia. Even deploying an operational weapon to a remote Pacific island seemed to entail an inordinate amount of radiation poisoning for the surrounding environment. ……
Fortunately, the Pentagon was able to assess that the SLAM did nothing to alter the Mutually Assured Destruction dynamic of Moscow and Washington’s Cold War standoff, except perhaps by provoking an equally terrifying response. Furthermore, it presented undesirable budgetary burdens and intolerable safety and political risks.
Despite technical advances since the 1960s, those same fundamental considerations likely remain true for Russia’s Skyfall missile today.
As John Krzyzaniak succinctly put it in a piece for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “The problems with a nuclear-powered missile are so numerous and obvious that some have questioned whether Putin is being hoodwinked by his scientists, or whether he is bluffing to scare the United States back into arms control agreements. In any case, what was once a terrible new idea is now just a terrible old idea.”
Unfortunately, in a climate of escalating paranoia and nuclear arms competition, Moscow is not merely devising exotic new nuclear weapons, but resurrecting the demons of our shared Cold War past. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ultimate-doomsday-weapon-missiles-powered-nuclear-reactors-123231
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Tortuous progress, ever-increasing costs for UK’s Sizewell and Hinkley Point C nuclear projectsy
 Reports: EDF readies plans for £16bn Sizewell C nuclear plant, Business Green , Michael Holder, 17 Feb 20, EDF is gearing up to formally submit plans for a new £16bn-£20bn nuclear power station at Sizewell in Suffolk within weeks, which if approved could generate enough energy for around six million UK homes, according to reports.The French state-controlled energy giant has again teamed up with CGN – the Chinese state-owned company with which it is currently developing Hinkley Point C power station in Somerset – on the project, which would include two new EPR reactors, reports The Telegraph.
A planning application is currently being prepared for the new Suffolk nuclear plant, which would be located at the same site as EDF’s existing Sizewell B nuclear plant, and could be lodged by as soon as the end of this month, or potentially in March, the newspaper revealed on Saturday. Due to the size of the development, the project requires a Development Consent Order (DSO) to proceed from the UK’s Planning Inspectorate, which could take around a year to approve or reject the application. …. concerns reportedly remain about flood risk at the site due to its low lying coastal location, while a framework for funding the new Sizewell nuclear plant still needs to be ironed out, which could potentially delay the plant’s development, according to the newspaper. A spokesperson for EDF said work on the DSO application “is continuing” but declined to comment any further when contacted by BusinessGreen. It comes in the wake of criticism over the decision to proceed with the two firms’ other flagship nuclear project Hinkley Point C due to the high cost associated with the project, which is being paid for through a surcharge on consumer energy bills. In September EDF was once again forced to increase its cost estimates for the Somerset project, admitting that costs are likely to soar £2.9bn over the original budget, and that it may not start generating electricity until 2026, 15 months later than previously scheduled. More broadly the UK’s nuclear sector has suffered setbacks over the past couple of years, with two other major projects at Wylfa in North Wales and Moorside in Cumbria having both been shelved by developers over cost concerns…….. https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4010867/reports-edf-readies-plans-gbp16bn-sizewell-nuclear-plant |
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Climate change to continue hitting UK with bigger storms
  UK must prepare for more intense storms, climate scientists say
Government urged to create more natural drainage systems to cope with impact of crisis, Guardian, Jonathan Watts 17 Feb 20, Britain must brace for more storms like Dennis and Ciara because rainfall will be more intense in a climate-disrupted future, scientists have warned.They said the government needed to increase the creation of more natural drainage systems if it wanted to avoid having to raise the level of sea and river defences every few years to counter the growing threat of flooding and storm surges. Storm Dennis killed at least three people and flooded many parts of the country at the weekend. Politicians from all parties have acknowledged the link to the climate crisis, but differ over how to respond. The new environment secretary, George Eustice, said on Sunday that the UK was already spending billions of pounds on flood infrastructure, but that there was a limit to how effective this could be in the face of a worsening threat…… Dr Mohammad Heidarzadeh, the head of coastal engineering and resilience at Brunel University, said the UK’s flood defences were not suited to the current situation, which is characterised by high frequency and high intensity climate events. “While the interval for major floods was 15-20 years in the past century in the UK, it has dramatically shortened to two-to-five years in the past decade. Therefore, it is no surprise that several flood defence systems were overtopped or damaged by flood water,” he said…… After Storm Desmond devastated parts of Scotland, the Lake District and Northern Ireland in 2015, scientists estimated human-driven change to the climate made extreme rain about 40% more probable. Similar attribution studies for the latest downpours will need more time, but the overall trends towards more extreme weather are well established. Compared with 50 years ago, the Met Office says the maximum daily deluge each year has risen by 17% from 64mm to 75mm, while the longest wet spell has increased from an average of 12.4 days to 12.9 days. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/17/uk-must-prepare-for-more-intense-storms-climate-scientists-say |
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Iran would return to 2015 nuclear agreement if Europe would provides “meaningful” economic benefits
 Zarif Says Iran Could Reverse Nuclear Breaches If Europe Acts, Sunday, 16 February, 2020 Munich- Asharq Al-Awsat
Iran would be willing to move back towards the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) if Europe provides “meaningful” economic benefits, announced Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif on the sidelines of Munich Security Conference (MSC).
Zarif met with members of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in Munich where they discussed the nuclear deal, Europe’s obligations under the deal, and regional and international issues. He pointed out that Iran is ready to return from reducing its nuclear obligations if Europe abides by its obligations and takes practical steps in this field…… https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2134461/zarif-says-iran-could-reverse-nuclear-breaches-if-europe-acts |
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Radioactive leaks and other problems at Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory near Columbia
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Inspectors at the Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory near Columbia recently found 13 small leaks in a protective liner that is supposed to keep pollution from dripping into soil and groundwater below the plant.
Now, the company plans to check a concrete floor beneath the liner, as well as soil below the plant, for signs of contamination that could have resulted from the tears, which were characterized in a federal inspection report as ‘’pinhole leaks.’’ The pinhole leaks, discovered by Westinghouse late in 2019, may have formed after company employees walked across the liner and weakened it, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. If that’s true, it would mark the second time in two years that Westinghouse has run into trouble over employees walking across protective liners. Foot traffic weakened a liner in another part of the plant that contributed to a 2018 leak of uranium solution through the plant’s floor, according to the NRC. The 2018 leak, which occurred near a spiking station that mixes solutions, contaminated soil, prompting an outcry from community residents about operating practices at Westinghouse. Since the leak of uranium solution, state and federal agencies have revealed the existence of previously unreported leaks at the plant. Troubles at the plant have sparked public meetings in eastern Richland County, where many neighbors have criticized Westinghouse for not keeping them informed. The Westinghouse plant converts uranium hexafluoride into uranium dioxide to make nuclear fuel assemblies for atomic power plants. Chemicals used in the process can be hazardous if people are exposed to substantial amounts. Among the threats are kidney and liver damage. Uranium is a radioactive material that also can increase a person’s risks of cancer. …… The NRC inspection report, completed in January, said Westinghouse was supposed to ensure that walking pads were across the liner to prevent problems, but “this proved to be ineffective.’’ The report said “13 pinhole leaks were found in the liner, indicating that the liner had been walked on.’’ The problems, discovered Dec. 9, occurred in a section of the plant with a second spiking station, similar to the spiking station where the leak was found in 2018……. Established in 1969 between Columbia and what today is Congaree National Park, the factory makes fuel rods for the nation’s atomic power plants. The company has a decades long history of groundwater contamination. ……. Concerns have risen recently upon the revelation of previously unknown leaks at the plant in 2008 and 2011. Westinghouse knew about the leaks but did not inform regulators for years. Westinghouse also has had multiple problems in the past five years complying with federal nuclear standards. In addition to the 2018 uranium leak, the company also had troubles in 2016 when inspectors found that uranium had built up in an air pollution control device, creating a potentially dangerous situation for workers. Last year, the company dealt with a small fire in a bin containing nuclear plant refuse, as well as uranium-tainted water leaking from a rusty shipping container. https://www.thestate.com/news/local/environment/article240309966.html |
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High levels of radioactivity in housing complex, Jakarta National Nuclear Energy Agency urges calm.
 Don’t panic’: Nuclear agency urges controlled reaction to radiation in South Tangerang housing complex, Gemma Holliani Cahya, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Sun, February 16, 2020 The National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan) has asked residents of the Batan Indah housing complex in South Tangerang, Banten, to remain calm after finding high levels of radiation within the complex.Agency spokesperson Heru Umbara said locals should not panic because the case was being handled by the relevant authorities. “Residents can carry out activities as usual, as long as they do not enter the area that has been marked as contaminated. If managed properly, exposure to this radiation will not endanger the residents,” Heru said in a statement on Saturday. The Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency (Bapeten) first detected the radiation during a routine check meant to ensure that the agency’s mobile radiation detection unit was working properly……. “A joint Bapeten and Batan team conducted a search to find the source of the high radiation on Feb. 7 to 8 and found several radioactive fragments,” he said, adding that after the fragments were removed, tests showed that the radiation levels in the area had decreased but were still above normal levels. “Based on those results, we concluded that the contamination had spread in the area and decontamination efforts had to be conducted by removing or dredging contaminated soil and removing contaminated trees and other vegetation.” Bapeten spokesperson Abdul Qohhar Teguh said that the agency was not yet able to confirm the source of the radioactive fragments found in the area. “For the time being, we have not focused on investigating the location of the source, where it came from, why it was there, who brought it. At the moment the joint team is still focusing on clearing the scene,” Qohhar told The Jakarta Post on Saturday. He added, however, that the team’s initial findings indicated that the radiation did not come from a nuclear reactor leak. The Puspiptek building, which is located about five kilometers away from the Batan Indah complex, houses several small reactors used for experimental purposes. “The source of radiation that we found [in the complex] is Caesium-137, which is frequently used for industrial purposes,” he said. “Caesium-137 is also one of the substances that will contaminate the environment when there is a reactor accident, such as at Chernobyl or Fukushima. But in addition to Caesium-137 there would also be other substances [in a reactor accident]. In this case, the only radiation source is Caesium-137, so the hypothesis that this incident is due to a reactor leak is baseless.”…….. Heru said that Batan was currently in the process of cleaning up the exposed area and had collected 52 drums of soil and vegetation from the locations. “The results of the cleanup showed that the material causing the radiation had mixed with the soil. The findings are currently being analyzed in the Batan laboratory,” he said. He added that after the cleanup, the radiation levels fell by 30 percent, from 149 microSieverts per hour to 98.9 microSieverts per hour. The normal exposure rate from background radiation is around 0.03 microSieverts per hour. The clean-up process, Heru said, started on Feb. 12 and would continue until early March. He added that the team would soon conduct a radiation test known as “whole-body counting” on residents who lived in the exposed area to measure their bodies’ radioactivity levels. “We will keep doing the cleanup until the area is thoroughly clean and there is no longer any danger to the people and the environment,” Heru said. https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/02/16/dont-panic-nuclear-agency-urges-controlled-reaction-to-radiation-in-south-tangerang-housing-complex.html |
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