Nuclear, climate, pandemic news – in this critical week
Pandemic As that election day arrives, US coronavirus cases break global daily record with just under 100,000 new infections. Protecting nature is vital to escape ‘era of pandemics’ – report. Urgency to protect nature, or up to 850,000 animal viruses could be caught by humans.
Climate. In all the hooha about the American election, and all the very important coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, – global heating moves on inexorably, with relatively little media coverage of its effects. But the effects are there – in the melting Poles, in continuing wildfires, droughts, extreme weather. Effects are worsein developing countries that have not themselves been the emitters of greenhouse gases. Droughts and floods force populations to leave their homelands.
Nuclear. Not a lot of media coverage on nuclear issues, though some still about the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. But here’s one important one:
Investigative journalism -The tangled web – well-being of communities has become dependent on the nuclear weapons industry.
Meanwhile, media coverage of nuclear issues continues to be mainly propaganda for the industry.
Some bits of good news – Chameleon last seen a century ago rediscovered in Madagascar. 14-Year-Old Girl Wins $25,000 For a Scientific Breakthrough That Could Lead to COVID-19 Cure. Couple Turns Barren English Estate into Conservation Eden, Rewilding to Attract Rare Species of Astonishing Biodiversity.
The new Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty supports existing agreements, and in no way conflicts with them. Archbishop Tomasi has led the Vatican’s fight against nuclear weapons.
Documentary history from the perspective of radiation victims.
Plutonium: How Nuclear Power’s Dream Fuel Became a Nightmare.
Despite propaganda from nuclear front group ”Third Way”, research shows that nuclear power as carbon reducer is counter-productive.
The world’s banks must start to value nature and stop paying for its destruction.
Space exploration – to lead to dangerous nuclear-armed totalitarian societies?
Super power: Here’s how to get to 100pct wind, solar and storage by 2030. Renewables, not nuclear, are the solution, for a cleaner world..
The very real risks of radiation accidents on Earth, from nuclear reactors in space.
BRAZIL. Surge in fires in Brazil’s Amazon.
JAPAN. Dumping Fukushima’s Water into the Ocean… Seriously? Fishers and farmers fear impact of Fukushima water release. Compensation claims recognised – workers made ill by working at Fukushima’s wrecked nuclear plant. Japan’s net zero emissions target should be combined with zero nuclear power.
SOUTH KOREA. South Korea’s ‘serious concern’ about Japan’s dumping of Fukushima radioactive water. Parties Blast Foreign Ministry Response to Japan’s Water Discharge Move. Tritium is what makes nuclear reactors so dangerous, not only in Fukushima but also in S. Korea. South Korea to end dependence on coal, switch to renewables.
ARCTIC. Release of methane off East Siberian coast has been triggered.
UK. Pressure on UK Prime Minister to show strong climate leadership. UK government’s economic recovery plan fossil fuels £3.8bn, but renewables only £121m. Strong feeling in UK public that the Covid recovery must be a green recovery, too.
Britain to lose protection of the environment – as a result of Brexit.
90% of Sellafield’s Discharged Plutonium Wastes are on the “Cumbrian Mud Patch” Below which Lies the Coal Mine Plan.
USA.
- Coronavirus cases rise in grim march to America’s Election Day.
- Investigative journalism– How the marketing of American weapons determines U.S. foreign policy on China. Expert guidance for the next President to head off a nuclear catastrophe. A Joe Biden administration would re-examine the U.S. nuclear strategy and arsenal.
- Russia and the U.S. Need a Timeout on Nuclear Weapons, With New START about to expire, the U.S. should accept Moscow’s offer of a one-year extension.
- U.S. Senate unanimously passes resolution supporting nuclear weapons workers made ill by radiation.The human cost in illness and death, caused by working with nuclear weapons.
- Financial red flags warn against Utah’s NuScale small nuclear reactor project. Big questions on the costs and safety of NuScale’s little nuclear reactors. Two more cities opt out of Utah’s dubious small nuclear reactor project. Small nuclear reactors pose a financial danger to municipalities – Utah Taxpayers Association. Another city bites the dust in regard to Utah’s NuScam small nuclear reactors plan.
- Columbus, Cincinnati, take legal action to block Ohio’s nuclear power plant bailout law. Two politicians to plead guilty in Ohio nuclear corruption case.
- Santa Susana Field Laboratory site– historically radioactively polluted, but risks never being cleaned up.
- Nearly 30 US states see renewables generate more power than either coal or nuclear coal
UKRAINE. Using a robot to map the highly radioactive area of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
RUSSIA. Russia’s nuclear doctrine – both Russia an USA benefit from nuclear weapons control agreements. Putin’s Russia keen to exploit the Arctic for fossil fuels: more nuclear-powered icebreakers on the way.
FRANCE. EDF trucks enriched uranium to the unfinished Flamanville nuclear reactor. Why so much in advance of the need for it? France trying to market nuclear reactors to Romania.
LITHUANIA. Lithuania protests Belarus’plan for nuclear power station close to their border.
FINLAND. Finland, stuck with increasingly costly Olkiluouti nuclear nightmare, plans and even worse expense, with small nucler reactors!
CANADA. Investigative journalism – While Canadian authorities fall for “New Small Nuclear” spin, U.S. consortium rips off Canada’s nuclear waste disaster. Suspected COVID-19 outbreak declared at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in Chalk River, Ontario.
IRAN. Iran building underground nuclear facility, replacing the damaged one.
CHINA. China-India competition is not likely to lead to a nuclear weapons exchange.
AUSTRALIA. International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)- from a tiny group to an International Treaty.
Google headline articles on nuclear issues today are mainly promoting nuclear power
3 November 20, Leaving out the subject of nuclear weapons, the articles on nuclear power were mainly supporting or promoting it. Of the total of 64 articles, 41 approved of or enthused about nuclear power, while 15 were critical of it, and 8 could be described as neutral, – factual, with no opinion either way.
The favourite topics for pro nuclear articles were the ”need” for new nuclear reactors, both small and large, the promotion of nuclear reactors for shipping, and the need to prolong the lives of existing reactors. Nuclear fusion and nuclear for space travel were also popular topics. Nuclear power praised for safety , climate action and nuclear medicine. Radiation danger -”exaggerated”.
Anti nuclear articles focussed on costs, toxic wastes, and safety risks, with small nuclear reactors singled out for being uneconomic. Nuclear power was also criticised as being ineffective against climate change.
In the 27 articles about nuclear weapons, much of the coverage was done in a neutral way, with factual reporting on the policies of USA , Russia, China. There were 11 articles clearly opposing nuclear weapons, and 4 that could be seen as supporting them – in that they stressed the need for retaining or building up a nuclear arsenal.
Fishers and farmers fear impact of Fukushima water release
Storage tanks holding water contaminated with radioactive tritium at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in 2019
October 30, 2020
Fishermen and farmers in Fukushima Prefecture have voiced concern about the risk of further harmful rumors about produce from the area if the government allows Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (Tepco), the operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, to release water contaminated with radioactive tritium into the Pacific Ocean.
The government is in the final stages of giving the green light to release the radioactive water accumulating at the plant into the sea.
Nearly 10 years after the triple meltdowns at the nuclear power plant in March 2011, prices for agricultural and fisheries products from the prefecture haven’t fully recovered.
Some producers are still struggling to get retailers to buy their produce. They are concerned that if the government cannot set out detailed measures to tackle the reputational damage, they will need to start all over again from scratch.
“It’s unprecedented, and it’s hard to predict how much and how long it will last,” said deputy trade minister Kiyoshi Ejima, who heads a government task force on nuclear disasters, in an interview, regarding the harmful rumors. “We can’t offer a comprehensive (aid) package at this point of time.”
The government is expected to offer measures of support for the farm and fisheries industries, conduct public information campaigns based on science and compensate for damages as a result of releasing the water into the sea.
But it appears the government has not set out a detailed approach for how it plans to tackle any reputational damage caused by the release.
Since the 2011 disaster, the prefecture’s fisheries cooperative has only been able to conduct experimental fishing on limited days, with restrictions on the areas fished.
It is planning to move to full-scale fishing in April, with all 43 types of fish approved to be shipped.
“What we have been working on will be all for nothing,” said Toshimi Suzuki, 67, who belongs to a cooperative for sea urchin and abalone fishing in the city of Iwaki that is urging the government to decide against releasing the tritium-laced water into the sea. “I want them to listen to the voices of fishermen who are still struggling due to harmful rumors before deciding what measures to take.”
Farmers are also worried.
“If the waters are released when people at home and abroad aren’t adequately informed that it’s safe, based on science, harmful rumors will spread again,” said Yasuaki Kato, 44, a farmer who produces rice and apples.
When Kato worked to promote the safety of Fukushima-made produce in Tokyo, he felt it was extremely difficult to gain the understanding of people from outside Fukushima Prefecture.
“If people don’t understand the safety of the produce and how it has been made, it won’t have a price tag equivalent to what it’s worth,” Kato said.
In northern Fukushima Prefecture, fruit farmers were hit by heavy rain last year, after Typhoon Hagibis swept through the region, and were significantly affected by plant disease this year. Koji Suzuki, 69, who harvests peaches and persimmons in the town of Kunimi, says he was only able to harvest about 40% of his fruit compared to normal years.
He is afraid prices that plummeted after the meltdowns will once again drop.
“I want (the government) to propose measures on what it will do when consumers avoid produce from Fukushima,” Suzuki said.
This section features topics and issues covered by the Fukushima Minpo, the prefecture’s largest newspaper. The original article was published Oct. 21.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/10/30/national/fishers-farmers-fukushima-radioactive-water/
Dumping Fukushima’s Water into the Ocean… Seriously?
By Robert Hunziker
October 30, 2020
For nearly a decade the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been streaming radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. As it happens, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) struggles to control it. Yet, the bulk of the radioactive water is stored in more than 1,000 water tanks.
Assuredly, Japan’s government has made an informal decision to dump Fukushima Daiichi’s radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. A formal announcement could come as early as this year. Currently, 1.2 million tonnes of radioactive water is stored.
The problem: TEPCO is running out of storage space.
Government of Japan’s solution: Dump it into the Pacific Ocean.
Third-party expert solutions: Build more storage tanks.
Environmental groups insist there is no reason why additional storage tanks cannot be constructed outside the perimeter of the plant. They accuse the government of seeking the cheapest and quickest solution to the problem. All along, authorities have promised the site will be safe in 40 years. Really, only 40 years!
According to IAEA’s Director General Grossi, who visited Fukushima in February 2020, dumping radioactive water that is mainly contaminated with tritium meets global standards of practice. (Source: Michael Jacob in Tokyo, What! Is Japan Really Planning to Dump Radioactive Water From Fukushima Into the Ocean? Sweden-Science-Innovation, June 10, 2020)
In that regard, advocates of nuclear power utilize a subtle storyline that convinces, and deceives, the public into accepting nuclear power, however reluctantly. It goes something like this: “There’s nothing to worry about. Nuclear power plants routinely release tritium into the air and water. There is no economically feasible way to remove it. It’s normal, a standard operating procedure.” Nevertheless, as shall be explained in more detail forthwith, there is nothing positive about that posture, absolutely nothing!
According to TEPCO, all radioactive isotopes will be removed, except tritium, which is hard to separate. Still, similar to all radioactive substances, tritium is a carcinogen (causes cancer), a mutagen (causes genetic mutation), and a teratogen (causes malformation of an embryo).
The good news: Tritium is relatively weak beta radiation and does not have enough energy to penetrate human skin. The principal health risks are ingesting or breathing the tritium.
TEPCO has deployed an Advanced Liquid Processing System that purportedly removes 62 isotopes from the water, all except tritium, which is radioactive hydrogen and cannot easily be filtered out of water.
However, the filtration system has been plagued by malfunctions. According to Greenpeace International, within the past two years TEPCO admitted to failures to reduce radioactivity to levels below regulatory limits in more than 80% of the storage tanks. Reported levels of Strontium-90 (a deadly isotope) were more than 100 times regulatory standards with some tanks at 20,000 times.
“They have deliberately held back for years detailed information on the radioactive material in the contaminated water. They have failed to explain to the citizens of Fukushima, wider Japan and to neighboring countries such as S. Korea and China that the contaminated water to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean contains dangerous levels of carbon-14. These, together with other radionuclides in the water will remain hazardous for thousands of years with the potential to cause genetic damage. It’s one more reason why these plans have to be abandoned.” (Source: Fukushima Reactor Water Could Damage Human DNA if Released, Says Greenpeace, The Guardian, October 23, 2020)
Cancer is the main risk to humans ingesting tritium. When tritium decays it emits a low-energy electron (roughly 18,000 electron volts) that escapes and slams into DNA, a ribosome or some other biologically important molecule. And, unlike other radionuclides, tritium is usually part of water, so it ends up in all parts of the body and therefore, in theory, can promote any kind of cancer. But that also helps reduce the risk because tritiated water is typically excreted in less than a month. (Source: Is Radioactive Hydrogen in Drinking Water a Cancer Threat, Scientific American, Feb. 7, 2014)
Some evidence suggests beta particles emitted by tritium are more effective at causing cancer than the high-energy radiation such as gamma rays. Low-energy electrons produce a greater impact because it doesn’t have the energy to spread its impact. At the end of its atomic-scale trip it delivers most of its ionizing energy in one relatively confined track rather than shedding energy all along its path like a higher-energy particle. This is known as “density of ionization.” As such, scientists say any amount of radiation poses a health risk.
According to Ian Fairlie, Ph.D. (Imperial College/London and Princeton University), a radiation biologist and former member of the 3-person secretariat to Britain’s Committee Examining the Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters: “At the present time, over a million tonnes of tritium-contaminated water are being held in about a thousand tanks at the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan. This is being added to at the rate of ~300 tonnes a day from the water being pumped to keep cool the melted nuclear fuels from the three destroyed reactors at Fukushima. Therefore new tanks are having to be built each week to cope with the influx.” (Source: Ian Fairlie, The Hazards of Tritium, March 13, 2020)
Furthermore, radioactive contaminants in the tanks, such as nuclides like caesium-137 (an extremely deadly isotope) and strontium-90 (which is equally deadly) in reduced concentrations still exist in unacceptable high levels. According to Fairlie: “These problems constitute a sharp reminder to the world’s media that the nuclear disaster at Fukushima did not end in 2011 and is continuing with no end in sight.”
“There are no easy answers here. Barring a miraculous technical discovery which is unlikely, I think TEPCO/Japanese Gov’t will have to buy more land and keep on building more holding tanks to allow for tritium decay to take place. Ten half-lives for tritium is 123 years: that’s how long these tanks will have to last – at least. This will allow time not only for tritium to decay, but also for politicians to reflect on the wisdom of their support for nuclear power.” (Fairlie)
Meanwhile, over the course of seemingly endless years, Fukushima Daiichi remains “the world’s most dangerous active time bomb” for several reasons, and spent fuel rods are at the top of the list.
In addition to the 800 tons of lava-like molten fuel, aka: corium, (the big meltdown) in the three reactor containment vessels, the crippled reactor buildings contain more than 1,500 units of used nuclear fuel rods in open pools of water and must be kept cool at all times or all hell breaks loose. Loss of water from structural damage or another major earthquake (the structures are already seriously compromised) could expose the fuel rods, resulting in uncontrolled massive release of sizzling radiation that could be worse than the original meltdown, possibly exposing Tokyo to an emergency mass evacuation event with people running and screaming.
Tokyo Electric Power has plans for complete removal of the dangerous fuel rods by 2031. That work is being carried out remotely from a control room about 500 metres distance due to extraordinarily high radiation levels inside the reactor buildings.
Dismally, a perverse endlessness overhangs Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima Daiichi (2011), earmarking these nuclear power meltdowns as the worst industrial accidents in human history.
Yet, with 440 operating nuclear plants worldwide, and 50 new plants under construction, there are plans to build a few hundred more.
Good luck
South Korea’s ‘serious concern’ about Japan’s dumping of Fukushima radioactive water
Students protest against Japan’s disposal of radioactive water, outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Oct 20, 2020
South Korea expresses ‘serious concern’ over Japan plan to dump radioactive water from Fukushima
October 29, 2020
SEOUL (REUTERS) – South Korea expressed alarm on Thursday (Oct 29) about the possibility that Japan will dump more than one million tonnes of contaminated water from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea.
South Korea’s “serious concern” about the contaminated water was conveyed when senior officials from the uneasy neighbours met for talks in Seoul for the first time since Japan’s new prime minister, Mr Yoshihide Suga, took office last month.
“Director-general Kim highlighted our grave awareness and serious concern about the issue of the Fukushima reactor contaminated water,” the South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to Mr Kim Jung-han, director-general for Asia and Pacific affairs, who led the South Korean team.
Media has reported that Japanese authorities have decided to discharge some one million tonnes of radioactive water into the sea nearly a decade after an earthquake triggered a tsunami that slammed into the Fukushima nuclear plant north of Tokyo, causing extensive damage.
The Japanese government has said no decision has been made on the disposal of the water from the damaged plant.
Among other issues the two sides discussed were an annual trilateral summit with China and a diplomatic and trade dispute over the issue of South Koreans forced to work at Japanese companies during 1910-45 colonial rule, which has seriously strained ties between the two US allies over the past year.
Mr Kim said Japan needed to show a “more sincere attitude” to resolve the row, urging it to lift trade restrictions imposed on South Korea, the South Korean ministry said.
S Korea expresses concern over any Japanese radioactive water dump
October 30, 2020
SEOUL – South Korea expressed alarm on Thursday about the possibility that Japan will dump more than one million tons of contaminated water from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea.
South Korea’s “serious concern” about the contaminated water was conveyed when senior officials from the uneasy neighbors met for talks in Seoul for their first time since Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, took office last month.
“Director-general Kim highlighted our grave awareness and serious concern about the issue of the Fukushima reactor contaminated water,” the South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to Kim Jung-han, director-general for Asia and Pacific affairs, who led the South Korean team.
Media has reported that Japanese authorities have decided to discharge some one million tons of radioactive water into the sea nearly a decade after an earthquake triggered a tsunami that slammed into the Fukushima nuclear plant north of Tokyo, causing extensive damage.
The Japanese government has said no decision has been made on the disposal of the water from the damaged plant.
Among other issues the two sides discussed were an annual trilateral summit with China and a diplomatic and trade dispute over the issue of South Koreans forced to work at Japanese companies during 1910-45 colonial rule, which has seriously strained ties between the two U.S. allies over the past year.
Kim said Japan needed to show a “more sincere attitude” to resolve the row, urging it to lift trade restrictions imposed on South Korea, the South Korean ministry said.
269 compensation claims linked to Fukushima plant work
269 compensation claims linked to Fukushima plant work deemed in Japan
October 29, 2020
TOKYO, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) — A total of 269 cases related to the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant work in Japan have been deemed as job-related accidents and covered by compensation since the nuclear disaster in 2011, labor ministry officials said Thursday.
The compensation claims that have been passed refer to the period since the nuclear accident in March 2011 through Oct. 1 this year.
Among them, six cases of workers developed cancer or leukemia because of radiation exposure, and four suffered from overwork-related illnesses, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare officials.
Currently, about 4,000 people still work on site of the Fukushima plant decommissioning every day, with many at risk of radiation exposure, according to local media reports.
The decommissioning work has been under way since nearly 10 years ago when the massive earthquake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan and triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (TEPCO), the plant operator, said three people died between fiscal 2011 and 2019.
The company said a total of 98 people suffered from heat-related illnesses between fiscal 2011 and 2019, as they had to wear less permeable masks and protective gear in the scorching summer heat.
Moreover, a total of 313 accidents have occurred in the same period of time at the site of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, including several fatal cases in which workers fell into a tank, TEPCO said. Enditem
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-10/29/c_139476903.htm
This photo taken on Sept. 26, 2020, in Okuma, northeastern Japan, shows the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant where decommissioning work is taking place.
Compensation claims related to Fukushima plant work total 269
October 30, 2020
TOKYO (Kyodo) – A total of 269 cases linked to the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant work have been deemed as job-related accidents and covered by compensation since the 2011 nuclear disaster, labor ministry officials said Thursday, underscoring the harsh conditions onsite workers still face.
The workers’ compensation claims that have been recognized by labor authorities include six cases of workers who developed cancer or leukemia due to radiation exposure, and four others who suffered from overwork-related illnesses, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare officials.
Decommissioning of the Fukushima plant is still under way nearly 10 years after the massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. To this day, about 4,000 people still work on site every day, with many at risk of radiation exposure.
The compensation claims that have been approved refer to the period since the March 2011 nuclear accident through Oct. 1 this year.
According to the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., three people died between fiscal 2011 and 2019.
One worker, who wished to remain anonymous, told Kyodo News the pressure of working at a nuclear power plant as opposed to a normal working site is “incomparable.”
“I have to deal with so much anxiety and stress as I could never know what may happen inside a nuclear power plant,” said the man from Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture.
According to the worker, he wears two protective layers of clothing and tapes them together so there is no space between them, and also puts on a raincoat.
“I sweat a lot even in winter and I drink a lot of water,” he said, adding that several of his colleagues suffered from heat stroke or heat exhaustion while working at the plant.
TEPCO said a total of 98 people suffered from heat-related illnesses between fiscal 2011 and 2019, having had to wear masks and protective gear made of less permeable materials under the sweltering summer heat.
At the site of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 313 accidents have occurred in the same period of time, including several fatal cases between 2014 and 2015 in which workers fell into a tank, TEPCO said.
Acknowledging that many accidents had occurred, a TEPCO official said, “We will continue to work with our contractors to prevent such incidents from happening.”
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201030/p2g/00m/0na/014000c
Parties Blast Foreign Ministry Response to Japan’s Water Discharge Move
October 26, 2020
South Korea’s ruling and opposition parties both criticized the Foreign Ministry’s response to Japan’s reported plan to release radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean.
In a parliamentary audit on Monday, ruling Democratic Party(DP) lawmaker Lee Jae-jung unveiled an internal document from the ministry which stressed that the handling of the contaminated water is Japan’s sovereign issue.
Lee raised concern about whether the ministry was trying to view the issue as a domestic affair, and urged a more aggressive response as Tokyo is currently promoting its stance to the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), while Seoul is not.
DP lawmaker Kim Young-ho also expressed concern that the IAEA may accept Japan’s plan and urged Seoul’s Foreign Ministry to persuade the United States.
Main opposition People Power Party(PPP) Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon also noted that Japan has submitted its final report on research results to the IAEA while the Seoul government is only continuing internal discussions.
He said countries have the obligation to prevent maritime pollution and that legal action must be taken against Japan.
While Canadian authorities fall for “New Small Nuclear” spin, U.S. consortium rips off Canada’s nuclear waste disaster
U.S. corporations profiting from major Canadian nuclear liability, https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-
expressed/2020/10/us-corporations-profiting-major-canadian-nuclear-liability Ole Hendrickson, October 30, 2020
The nearly 70-year history of the federal crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) has left a $16 billion toxic legacy of shuttered reactors, polluted lakes and groundwater, contaminated soils, and hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of radioactive waste.
AECL’s 2018 annual report estimates its undiscounted waste and decommissioning liability at $15.9 billion as of March 31, 2018. Table 5.7 in Canada’s 2019 public accounts estimates AECL’s environmental liabilities at $1.05 billion and “asset retirement obligations” at $6.6 billion.
This $7.7 billion estimate of AECL’s total nuclear liability is heavily discounted. The accounting firm Deloitte does not recommend discounting for environmental liabilities and asset retirement obligations unless the amount of the liability and the amount and timing of cash payments are “reliably determinable.” As explained in a detailed report, neither is true for AECL’s liability.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper thought that the private sector might do a better job of addressing this massive liability than AECL itself. Just before losing power to the Liberals in the 2015 election, his government contracted an American-controlled consortium (creatively called the “Canadian National Energy Alliance”) to manage federal nuclear facilities and reduce the waste liability quickly and cheaply.
According to the main estimates, AECL’s expenditures grew from $326 million in 2014-15 (before the consortium assumed control) to $491 million in 2015-16, $784 million in 2016-17, $827 million in 2017-18 and $829 million in 2018-19. The 2020-21 main estimates for AECL are $1.2 billion.
AECL hands most of this money over to the consortium, whose current members are Texas-based Fluor and Jacobs, and SNC-Lavalin. AECL retains ownership of the waste. A 2017 special examination report of the Auditor General of Canada to AECL’s board of directors says that “approximately $866 million for contractual expenses was paid or payable by the Corporation in the 2016-17 fiscal year.”
Is this “Government-owned, contractor-operated” (GoCo) arrangement providing value for money?
The GoCo contract was supposed to have been reviewed after an initial six-year period. However, AECL — whose president is an American with past ties to consortium members — extended it to a full 10-year period in April 2020, 18 months before its September 2021 renewal date.
The centrepiece of the consortium’s approach — a million-cubic–metre radioactive waste mound on a hillside draining into the Ottawa River – was revealed in May 2016, shortly after the ink dried on the contract. Neither the public, nor Algonquin peoples on whose unceded territory this facility would be built, were consulted.
Technical problems and public opposition have put the “near surface disposal facility” — to be built at AECL’s Chalk River laboratories — years behind schedule. AECL waste management experts who left when the consortium took over have been highly critical, pointing out that an above-ground mound would not contain and isolate the types of radioactive waste that the consortium planned to put in it.
Chalk River, the focal point of Canadian nuclear research since the late 1940s, is where most of AECL’s radioactive waste legacy is found. But AECL also built reactors at four other sites in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. All have been shut down for decades — radioactive hulks, yet to be fully decommissioned.
AECL and its American-led consortium have announced quick and cheap plans for Manitoba and Ontario reactors: fill them up with blast furnace slag and concrete, and abandon them in place. Critics say these proposals are seriously flawed, noting that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says that “entombment” should only be considered in the event of a serious reactor accident.
Critics say that these sub-standard schemes would pollute major Canadian waterways and could expose workers and future generations to dangerous radiation levels.
The consortium is trying to salvage its Chalk River mound proposal with a promise to reduce the amount of radiation in the wastes it would house. Less radiation would leak into the Ottawa River.
However, management practices during Chalk River’s early years were poor, accidents were frequent and records were lost in a fire. Trying to separate out lower-activity from higher-activity wastes would involve considerable expense and high worker radiation exposures. And if strict limits on the mound’s radioactivity were adhered to, much of the federal waste liability would likely remain unaddressed.
Management of Canada’s radioactive waste by for-profit corporations, combined with a lack of government oversight, creates risks of delays, excessive radiation exposures to workers and the public, and squandering of tax dollars. Critics of AECL’s GoCo contract are asking the federal government to establish a publicly acceptable strategy for addressing its nuclear liability.
In a mission to Canada in late 2019, IAEA reviewers found virtually “no evidence … of a governmental policy or strategy related to radioactive waste management.” The government agreed to their recommendation that this gap be filled, assigning the task to Natural Resources Canada.
But Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan seems preoccupied with promotion of a new generation of mass-produced, “modular” nuclear reactors. Two consortium members — Fluor and SNC-Lavalin — are heavily invested in their own reactor designs. There are plans to build three new demonstration reactors at Chalk River, and talk of building as many as eight. One proposal has already reached the environmental assessment stage.
If the Liberal government caves into industry pressure to fund the building of these new reactors — instead of dealing responsibly with its existing waste liability — AECL’s $16 billion radioactive burden on Canadian taxpayers — and risks to workers and the public — will just keep growing.
Ole Hendrickson is a retired forest ecologist and a founding member of the Ottawa River Institute, a non-profit charitable organization based in the Ottawa Valley.
Now climate change, rising seas, swamping Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, victims of nuclear racism
Losing paradise, Atomic racism decimated Kiribati and the Marshall Islands; now climate change is sinking them, Beyond Nuclear https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72759838/posts/2998141589–1 Nov 20, This is an extract from the Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland report “Nuclear Weapons, the Climate and Our Environment”.
Kiribati. In 1954, the government of Winston Churchill decided that the UK needed to develop a hydrogen bomb (a more sophisticated and destructive type of nuclear weapon). The US and Russia had already developed an H-bomb and Churchill argued that the UK “could not expect to maintain our influence as a world power unless we possessed the most up-to-date nuclear weapons”.
The governments of Australia and New Zealand refused to allow a hydrogen bomb test to be conducted on their territories so the British government searched for an alternative site. Kiritimati Island and Malden Island in the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in the central Pacific Ocean (now the Republic of Kiribati) were chosen. Nine nuclear weapons tests – including the first hydrogen bomb tests – were carried out there as part of “Operation Grapple” between 1957 and 1958.
Military personnel from the UK, New Zealand and Fiji (then a British colony) and Gilbertese labourers were brought in to work on the operation. Many of the service personnel were ordered to witness the tests in the open, on beaches or on the decks of ships, and were simply told to turn their backs and shut their eyes when the bombs were detonated. There is evidence that Fijian forces were given more dangerous tasks than their British counterparts, putting them at greater risk from radiation exposure. The local Gilbertese were relocated and evacuated to British naval vessels during some of the tests but many were exposed to fallout, along with naval personnel and soldiers.
After Grapple X, the UK’s first megaton hydrogen bomb test in November 1957, dead fish washed ashore and “birds were observed to have their feathers burnt off, to the extent that they could not fly”. The larger Grapple Y test in 1958 spread fallout over Kiritimati Island and destroyed large areas of vegetation.
Despite evidence that military personnel and local people suffered serious health problems as a result of the tests, including blindness, cancers, leukaemia and reproductive difficulties, the British government has consistently denied that they were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and has resisted claims for compensation.
Like the Marshall Islands, the low-lying Republic of Kiribati is now bearing the brunt of the effects of climate change. Salt water washed in on king tides has contaminated the islands’ scarce freshwater resources. Pits that are used to grow taro plants have been ruined and the healthy subsistence lifestyle of local people is under threat.
It is predicted that rising sea levels will further impact freshwater resources and reduce the amount of agricultural land, while storm damage and erosion will increase. Much of the land will ultimately be submerged. In anticipation of the need to relocate its entire population, the government of Kiribati bought 20km2 of land on Fiji in 2014.
The UK is set to spend £3.4 billion a year on Trident nuclear weapons system between 2019 and 2070. If Trident were scrapped, a portion of the savings could be provide to the Republic of Kiribati in the form of climate finance (see section 1.2.1). Scrapping Trident would also allow money and skills to be redirected towards measures aimed at drastically cutting the UK’s carbon emissions (see section 1.2.2) – action that Pacific island nations are urgently demanding.
The Marshall Islands. The most devasting incident of radioactive contamination took place 8,000 km from the US mainland during the Castle Bravo test in 1954. The US detonated the largest nuclear weapon in its history at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, causing fallout to spread over an area of more than 11,000km. Residents of nearby atolls, Rongelap and Utirik, were exposed to high levels of radiation, suffering burns, radiation sickness, skin lesions and hair loss as a result.
Castle Bravo was just one of 67 nuclear weapons tests conducted by the US in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. Forty years after the tests, the cervical cancer mortality rate for women of the Marshall Islands was found to be 60 times greater than the rate for women in the US mainland, while breast and lung cancer rates were five and three times greater respectively. High rates of infant mortality have also been found in the Marshall Islands and a legacy of birth defects and infertility has been documented. Many Marshallese were relocated by the US to make way for the testing.
Some were moved to Rongelap Atoll and relocated yet again after the fallout from Castle Bravo left the area uninhabitable.
Rongelap Atoll was resettled in 1957 after the US government declared that the area was safe. However, many of those who returned developed serious health conditions and the entire population was evacuated by Greenpeace in 1984. An attempt to resettle Bikini Atoll was similarly abandoned in 1978 after it became clear that the area was still unsafe for human habitation.
A 2019 peer-reviewed study found levels of the radioactive isotope caesium-137 in fruits taken from some parts of Bikini and Rongelap to be significantly higher than levels recorded at the sites of the world’s worst nuclear accidents, Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Compounding the injustice of nuclear weapons testing, the Republic of the Marshall Islands is now on the frontline of the climate emergency. The government declared a national climate crisis in 2019, citing the nation’s extreme vulnerability to rising sea levels and the “implications for the security, human rights and wellbeing of the Marshallese people”.
At Runit Island, one of 40 islands in the Enewetak Atoll, rising sea levels are threatening to release radioactive materials into an already contaminated lagoon. In the late 1970s, the US army dumped 90,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste, including plutonium, into a nuclear blast crater and covered it with a concrete cap. Radioactive materials are leaking out of the crater and cracks have appeared on the concrete cap. Encroaching salt water caused by rising sea levels could collapse the structure altogether. The Marshallese government has asked the US for help to prevent an environmental catastrophe but the US maintains that the dome is the Marshall Islands’ responsibility. Hilda Heine, then President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, said of the dome in 2019: “We don’t want it. We didn’t build it. The garbage inside is not ours. It’s theirs.”
The Runit Island dome offers a stark illustration of the ways in which the injustices of nuclear weapons testing and climate change overlap. Marshall Islanders were left with the toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing conducted on their territory by another state. The country is now being forced to deal with the effects of a climate crisis that they did not create, including the erosion of the Runit dome.
The nations that contributed most to the crisis are failing to cut their emissions quickly enough to limit further global heating, leaving the Marshallese at the mercy of droughts, cyclones and rising seas. A recent study found that if current rates of greenhouse gas emissions are maintained, the Marshall Islands will be flooded with sea water annually from 2050. The resulting damage to infrastructure and contamination of freshwater supplies will render the islands uninhabitable.
If the US scrapped its nuclear weapons programme, it could give a portion of the billions of dollars that would be saved to the Republic of the Marshall Islands to help the country mitigate and adapt to climate disruption (see section 1.2.1 on international climate finance). The US could also use the freed-up funds to invest in its own Just Transition away from a fossil-fuel powered economy. Read the full report.
Coronavirus cases rise in grim march to America’s Election Day
Coronavirus cases rise in grim march to Election Day, SMH, By Doina Chiacu and Susan Cornwell
Nearly 87,000 cases were reported on Saturday, with 909 deaths and record hospitalisations for the sixth straight day in the Midwest, according to a Reuters tally. In October, 31 states set records for increases in new cases, 21 for hospitalised COVID-19 patients and 14 for record increases in deaths.
President Donald Trump, the Republican seeking re-election against Democratic challenger Joe Biden on Tuesday, downplays the virus and has accused Democrats of overblowing the pandemic that has killed more 230,000 Americans, more than any other country.
Biden and fellow Democrats have hammered Trump as a poor leader who failed to contain COVID-19 in the United States, which also leads the world in the daily average number of new cases.
Trump’s false accusation Friday that doctors were profiting from COVID-19 deaths drew harsh criticism from the governor of the election battleground state of Wisconsin.
“We have a president that believes that the doctors are at fault, they’re messing with the numbers and he believes that it’s over. It ain’t over,” Democratic Governor Tony Evers told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
“We have hospitalisations going through the roof,” he said. “We absolutely need somebody that understands that this is an issue, it’s a thing. People are dying.”……..
Stanford University economists estimated that Trump’s campaign rallies have resulted in 30,000 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, and likely led to more than 700 deaths overall, according to a paper posted this weekend.
Infectious disease experts have long suspected that the president’s rallies might be so-called superspreader events. But scientists have not been able to get a good read on their impact, in part because of a lack of robust contact tracing.
Trump has repeatedly disdained masks, even after outbreaks affected his own family and multiple White House staffers.
In contrast, Biden has stuck to federal health guidelines that discourage large, crowded gatherings during his campaign events. He has called Trump’s handling of the virus negligent and irresponsible.
Amid the acrimony, DeWine urged Americans to come together and fight what he called a war against a common enemy.
“This virus doesn’t care whether we vote for Joe Biden or whether we vote for Donald Trump. It’s coming after us.” https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/coronavirus-cases-rise-in-grim-march-to-election-day-20201102-p56ali.html
Superannuation funds getting out of investments on nuclear weapons
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It would probably come as a surprise, and a disappointment, to most Australians to hear that some of their superannuation is invested in nuclear weapons. Especially given the strong community backing for nuclear disarmament, with two surveys in 2018 and 2020 (IPSOS) showing that between 71 and 79% of respondents supported Australia signing and ratifying the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Yet the vast majority of superannuation funds have holdings in companies involved in the manufacture and maintenance of nuclear weapons. While many funds exclude investments in “controversial weapons”, astoundingly this definition often still allows nuclear weapons investment. But this is about to change. With the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was endorsed by 122 countries at the United Nations in 2017, having just reached the milestone of 50 countries ratifying it, the treaty becomes international law in less than three months. Nuclear weapons, the worst of the weapons of mass destruction, will finally be on the same illegal footing as chemical and biological weapons. This means assistance of any sort, including financial assistance, towards nuclear weapons becomes illegal under international law. Only 26 companies support these weapons. Boeing, for example, the second largest weapons producer in the world, has contracts worth more than US$1.7 billion: building new nuclear weapons for the US, key components for the long-range nuclear Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles system, sustaining the UK Trident II system and making tail-kit assemblies for the new B61 bombs. Divestment is accelerating. Globally, major investors are already ceasing their exposure to nuclear weapons activities. This includes two of the top five pension funds in the world, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund and ABP, which have divested from the 26 companies tied to nuclear weapons. Deutsche Bank and KBC are also divesting. In Japan, 16 banks (including three mega banks) have flagged ceasing investment in nuclear weapons companies. With accelerating divestment, the risks of holding nuclear weapons stocks increases. Superannuation funds in Australia are starting to consider the financial risks, reputational risks and ethical imperatives surrounding investments in nuclear weapons. Some, like Australian Ethical, Future Super and Bank Australia have already acted……… As with climate change, there is little point accumulating funds on behalf of the community if they contribute to the deaths of billions and a severely damaged future. Quit Nukes, an Australian-based campaign launched late last year, is working to get super fund portfolios out of the financing of nuclear weapons. The campaign members have met with senior executives at more than a dozen funds, the regulator APRA, several banks, index setters and a number of industry bodies. Blackrock, MSCI and other index setters have recognised the increasing demand from the public for ethical funds and have created products to suit. The full list of funds that have already acted is on the Quit Nukes website. Consumers are increasingly concerned about their funds being invested in destructive and unethical industries and super funds need to respond. https://www.michaelwest.com.au/disarmament-treaty-drops-bomb-on-super-funds-investing-in-nuclear-weapons/ |
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USA should accept Russia’s offer of a one-year extension of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
Russia and the U.S. Need a Timeout on Nuclear Weapons, With New START about to expire, the U.S. should accept Moscow’s offer of a one-year extension. Bloombeerg By James Stavridis, 31 October 2020, “…….. The stakes are vastly higher when it comes to negotiations involving the possible use of strategic nuclear weapons, such as those on intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have the potential to end civilization as we know it. In my final military job, as supreme allied commander at NATO, I argued contentiously with senior Russian officials that U.S. Aegis missile systems in Eastern Europe — which are intended primarily to avert an Iranian attack on the continent — could not threaten their strategic nuclear force. It was a debate that went around and around in circles.
The administration’s goals are overambitious for now — particularly given that Trump may not be in office in three months — so it would be smart to take up Russia’s offer.
Plutonium: How Nuclear Power’s Dream Fuel Became a Nightmare
Nailing the Coffin of Civilian Plutonium, Plutonium: How Nuclear Power’s Dream Fuel Became a Nightmare, By Frank von Hippel, Masafumi Takubo, and Jungmin KangSpringer Press, Reviewed by Thomas Countryman, November 2020
Even in the world of speculative investment bubbles, it would be difficult to find a parallel to the business of making plutonium. This “industry” has seen massive investment by private and mostly governmental funds in pursuit of creating the world’s most dangerous material, an investment that has failed to yield a single dollar in returns. Nevertheless, a combination of scientific ambition, bureaucratic inertia, and governmental hubris keeps alive a dream that should have been smothered long ago.
Leave it to three highly experienced specialists to briefly recount the history, clearly explain the physical realities, and precisely pick apart the ever-weakening arguments that have supported reprocessing spent nuclear fuel into a new plutonium-based fuel. Frank von Hippel, Masafumi Takubo, and Jungmin Kang accomplish all of this in Plutonium: How Nuclear Power’s Dream Fuel Became a Nightmare. Its planned translation into Japanese and Korean should help citizens participate in critical upcoming decisions about continuing plutonium projects by governments in Tokyo and Seoul.
The earliest rationale for using plutonium as a nuclear fuel rested on the fact that spent nuclear fuel, the leftover material from civilian nuclear power plants, still contained far more potential energy than had yet been consumed. In the 1970s, uranium was believed to be scarce in the natural environment, and the full utilization of its energy capacity made some engineering, logical, and economic sense. In succeeding decades, the economic rationale has been constantly undermined by the realization that natural uranium is sufficiently plentiful that its price is no longer the primary cost factor in nuclear power generation, by the unanticipated complexity of building advanced reactors optimized to use plutonium as fuel, by the cost of new and necessary safety regulations applicable to all reactors, and most recently by the continued fall in the cost of generating renewable energy.
In the face of these realities, only France, at a substantial economic loss, currently operates a full program for recovering plutonium from spent fuel for use as new nuclear fuel. Russia reprocesses spent fuel and is now testing plutonium in a breeder reactor. Japan has indicated it plans to open one of the world’s largest reprocessing plants in Rokkasho in the next two years, but that two-year time frame has been the boilerplate forecast for each of the past 10 years. India is actively reprocessing civilian spent fuel, and China is constructing a major facility for that purpose. South Korea has announced an end to its nuclear power program, but some officials and experts retain the aspiration to pursue civilian reprocessing.
No other nuclear-powered nation is actively pursuing “closing” the nuclear fuel cycle by reprocessing plutonium for energy generation. The economic and technical realities forced one country after another—Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, then the United States—to end their own efforts.
This weak support highlights the merits of the authors’ arguments. They systematically deconstruct the political and technical arguments in favor of such programs. Crucially, they demonstrate the factual inaccuracy of the primary argument advanced by Japanese and South Korean advocates that reprocessing spent fuel will diminish the volume and danger of nuclear waste that must ultimately be stored in geological repositories. They also knock down convincingly the claim that plutonium that is reactor grade, as opposed to weapons grade, is unusable in an explosive device.
Although it may be the prerogative of sovereign states to spend their own money irrationally, the authors focus also on important externalities, in particular the threat to the world’s security and environment from the continued production of plutonium. A commitment to the closed fuel cycle delays the inevitable decision that must be made by Japan and South Korea concerning permanent safe storage of spent fuels, a decision on which the United States also continues to procrastinate. In addition, it leads to unsafe practices concerning the storage of spent fuel rods destined for reprocessing. The authors describe for the first time how close the world was to a greater disaster in 2011, as overcrowded spent fuel cooling ponds could have led to a much greater radiation release following the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The authors explain that moving the spent fuel to interim dry cask storage would avert such catastrophic risks.
Of still greater concern is the risk that even a sliver of the massive plutonium stockpiles could be acquired by terrorists to use in a nuclear explosive device or a panic-inducing radiological dispersion device. Since plutonium was first fabricated 80 years ago, nations have created more than 500 tons of what is arguably the world’s most dangerous material. The International Atomic Energy Agency defines a “significant quantity” of plutonium, or enough to make a nuclear weapon, as eight kilograms, although even a Nagasaki-size blast could be generated with significantly less plutonium. Thus, the 300 tons of plutonium designated for civilian use would be sufficient to create more than 35,000 warheads.
Continuing to accumulate plutonium is not only a terrorism risk, but also a source of tension between states. There is concern in Beijing that Japan holds greater stocks of separated plutonium than China and in Seoul that South Korea holds none. The authors note briefly but tellingly the normally unstated security considerations that in part motivate civilian reprocessing programs: an intention to sustain a latent weapons capacity.
The authors make a convincing case for the international community to act together to end further production of separated plutonium. The effort to negotiate a fissile material cutoff treaty, which would ban production of plutonium for weapons, remains frozen in a glacier at the Conference on Disarmament. Whether or when it moves ahead, there is a separate compelling need to negotiate a ban on civilian separation of plutonium.
Although less than 200 pages, Plutonium is not light reading. Its economic and scientific arguments are compact, thoroughly documented, and clear even to lay people. For policymakers and the public, it provides a clear picture of a dream whose claimed benefits have all evaporated but whose danger remains ominously present.
Thomas Countryman is the chair of the Arms Control Association Board of Directors. He served 35 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, retiring in 2017 as acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
A tiny group built the momentum for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons treaty backed by 50 nations to become international law https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/nuclear-weapons-treaty-backed-by-50-nations-to-become-international-law,14455
2020 HAS BEEN a very tough year with fires, pestilence and massive economic and human disruption but amid the difficulties, an Australian-born initiative is steadily growing global support and offers our shared planet its best way to get rid of its worst weapons.
In October 2017, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), an initiative born in Melbourne and adopted, adapted and applied around the world, was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
This was in recognition of its:
“…work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”
Fast forward to October 2020 and the Treaty on the Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons has just cleared a big hurdle. Despite strong pressure from the nuclear weapons states, especially the U.S., 50 nations have now ratified the ban treaty. It will enter into force and become part of international humanitarian law on 22 January 2021.
At a time when the threat of nuclear war is more explicit than it has been in decades, the ICAN story is timely and shows the power of both the individual and the idea. When ICAN started in 2007, its founders could have fitted in a minibus. Ten years later, there are over 500 ICAN groups and formal partners in more than 100 nations. And a treaty. Continue reading
Despite propaganda from nuclear front group ”Third Way”, research shows that nuclear power as carbon reducer is counter-productive
For many scientists — and Bill Gates — nuclear energy is part of the answer to the world’s climate-change problem. The market for nuclear power could triple by 2050 across the world, according to a recent study by Third Way, a U.S.-based think tank. There are more than 60 advanced reactor designs in development in the U.S., the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank, said in a paper.data from 123 countries over a 25-year period, examining how the introduction of either nuclear-power or renewable-energy sources affects each country’s levels of carbon emissions.
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