Taiwan nuclear power plant (2 reactors) inoperable to 2016
| By: | SpiderX22 @ 2013-01-11 09:49:31
map #158095
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| Description: | The Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant (formerly Gongliao Nuclear Power Plant and Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, often abbreviated as: Chinese: 核四; pinyin: Hésì; Taiwanese: Hu̍t-sù or He̍k-sù; “Nuke 4”), located in Gongliao Township, is Taiwan’s fourth nuclear power plant, consisting of two ABWRs each of 1,350 MWe. Operation may not begin until 2016. |
| More Info: | en.wikipedia.org |
| Location: | Lungmen, Taiwan (TW) @ 25.03702400, 121.92708600 |
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/lungmen-nuclear-power-plant-1/
NRC Reports on Oyster Creek Hurricane Performance
“..At the same time, the inspectors did observe several areas where performance could be improved. Some examples included heightened awareness of emergency declaration thresholds, clearer documentation in control room records and ensuring reliable back-up power for the plant’s emergency operations facility.
The report also contains a company-identified violation determined to be of very low safety significance related to the use of incorrect meteorological tower data…”
Posted by Moderator on January 11, 2013
Neil Sheehan
Public Affairs Officer
Region I
The NRC staff has issued the findings of the Special Inspection it conducted at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant to review events related to “Superstorm” Sandy. The inspection was launched on Nov. 13.
Our three-member team’s primary focus was the timing of the emergency declarations at the Lacey Township (Ocean County), N.J. facility during the storm. Sandy-generated high water levels at the plant’s water intake structure, prompting first an “Unusual Event” declaration and later an “Alert” declaration.
The inspectors also reviewed preparations by Exelon, the plant’s owner, prior to the storm’s arrival; equipment performance; and overall command and control from an emergency preparedness perspective.
The inspectors’ report is now available on the NRC website. The team has concluded that the declarations were timely and accurate and that plant personnel appropriately carried out their duties during the storm.
Billion-dollar US nuclear sub comes off worst in Strait of Hormuz collision with ‘fishing boat’
Published: 11 January, 2013,
RT
The USS Jacksonville, a large nuclear submarine, has broken its periscope after colliding with a vessel which escaped unscathed. This is the latest collision to involve a US vessel in the busy and tense oil chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz.
The American sub was performing a routine pre-dawn patrol when seamen heard a “thump”, according to a Navy source who spoke to several news agencies. The crew tried to ascertain the damage by looking into its periscope, only to realize it was no longer working. The other periscope on the submarine revealed that the first one had been “sheared off”.
It appears the ‘fishing trawler’ that collided with the 7,000-tonne submarine was not only undamaged, but barely noticed the accident.
“The vessel continued on a consistent course and speed, offering no indication of distress or acknowledgement of a collision,” says an official statement published on the US Navy website.
Authorities insist that USS Jacksonville is in no immediate danger.
“The reactor remains in a safe condition, there was no damage to the propulsion plant systems and there is no concern regarding watertight integrity,” they said.
The cost of repairing the damaged periscope are as yet unclear, but the discontinued Los Angeles-class submarines, to which USS Jacksonville belongs, would cost over $1 billion to build in today’s money (the sub was launched in 1978).
USS Jacksonville has now returned to Bahrain, where its damage will be assessed.
The United States: Exposing the hypocrisy of a nation -Yuram Abdullah Weiler
Yuram Abdullah Weiler
09 January 2013
TehranTimes
On the Fourth of July in 1852 in the American city of Rochester, New York before a celebratory crowd that included then president of the United States Millard Fillmore, the abolitionist, former slave and gifted Black orator Fredrick Douglass, in what was perhaps the most caustic speech he ever delivered, spelled out in no uncertain terms what the American Independence day meant to slaves ensnared in the so-called empire of liberty.
“There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States,” declared Fredrick Douglass and this was in 1852! Over the next century and a half, the United States would add a plethora of abominations, unknown to Mr. Douglass, to its ever-expanding list of condemnable practices, including the following to name but a few: being the first nation to attack another with nuclear weapons; invading and occupying sovereign nations in defiance of international law; using depleted uranium weaponry; firebombing civilian population centers with napalm and other incendiary munitions; spraying carcinogenic chemical defoliants; engaging in assassination drone warfare; starving half a million children to death by economic sanctions; overthrowing democratically-elected governments by covert operations; detaining foreign citizens indefinitely in concentration camps; torturing detainees during interrogation and legally justifying the practice; leading the world in incarcerating prisoners and privatizing the prison industry; and spying without cause on peace activists, corporate protestors, Muslims, and other minority groups.
But one need not look any further than the racist American republic’s subjugation of its non-white population to understand the atrocities Mr. Douglass was condemning over 160 years ago. Popular patriotic mythology narrates the saga of the American Civil War (1861-1865) in terms of a group of rebellious racist southern states of the Confederacy clinging tenaciously to the morally repugnant institution of slavery against the collective will of the “progressive” northern states of the Union, however the truth is quite different. Consider, for example, the sacrosanct American national myth every schoolchild knows that the enlightened President Abraham Lincoln “freed the slaves” by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
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Gov’t apologizes to Fukushima residents for sloppy decontamination work -JT
JAN. 10, 2013 – 01:20PM JST
TOKYO —
Senior Vice Environment Minister Shinji Inoue visited Fukushima on Wednesday and apologized to local residents, following disclosures of sloppy decontamination work.
Inoue said the government will clamp down on contractors cleaning up radioactive material around the ruined Fukushima nuclear plant.
The Environment Ministry hired the nation’s leading contractors to cleanse towns and villages near the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi power plant, starting with four relatively uncontaminated areas.
But the Asahi Shimbun reported last week that dirty soil, leaves and water have been dumped directly into rivers. The paper cited workers as saying they were told to sweep only around radiation monitoring sites.
The head of the ministry’s special office in Fukushima admitted Monday that the authority had confirmed at least two cases in which dirty water was allowed to escape directly into the environment during decontamination work.
Water used to hose down buildings is supposed to be collected and sent for purification before it is released, while soil and leaves should be collected for storage.
Rare photo of A-bomb split cloud found in Hiroshima -JT
JAN. 10, 2013 – 01:20PM JST
Japan Today
TOKYO —
A rare photo showing the mushroom cloud from the Hiroshima atomic bombing in two distinct parts, one above the other, has been discovered in the city, a museum curator said Wednesday.
The black-and-white picture is believed to have been taken about half-an-hour after the bombing on Aug 6, 1945, around 10 kilometers east of the hypocentre.
“The existence of this shot was always known in history books, but this is the first time that the actual print has been discovered,” said a curator at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
“A shot showing the mushroom cloud split into two like this is very rare.”
The photo was found among articles related to the atomic bombing now owned by Honkawa Elementary School in Hiroshima city, she said.
The best-known pictures of the aftermath of the bombing were taken from the air by the US military.
An American B-29 bomber named Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb nicknamed “Little Boy”, turning the western Japanese city into a nuclear inferno and killing an estimated 140,000 in the final chapter of World War II.
Three days later another atomic bomb—“Fat Man”—was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, claiming the lives of another 70,000.
Clean Energy: Must Act Now| Brainwash Update
Published on Jan 9, 2013
Abby Martin looks at the benefits of renewable and alternative energy sources by highlighting countries that have already taken the initiatives to switch from fossil fuels.
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The Avian and Wildlife Costs of Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power
“…Within the uncertainties of the data used, the estimate means that wind farm-related avian fatalities equated to approximately 46,000 birds in the United States in 2009, but nuclear power plants killed about 460,000 and fossil-fueled power plants 24 million…”
Benjamin K. Sovacool
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy – Centre on Asia and Globalisation
June 30, 2012
Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences vol. 9, no. 4, December 2012, 255-278
Vermont Law School Research Paper No. 04-13
Abstract:
Environmentalists and environmental scientists have criticized wind energy in various forums for its negative impacts on wildlife, especially birds. This article highlights that nuclear power and fossil-fuelled power systems have a host of environmental and wildlife costs as well, particularly for birds. Therefore, as a low-emission, low-pollution energy source, the wider use of wind energy can save wildlife and birds as it displaces these more harmful sources of electricity. The paper provides two examples: one relates to a calculation of avian fatalities across wind electricity, fossil-fueled, and nuclear power systems in the entire United States. It estimates that wind farms are responsible for roughly 0.27 avian fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while nuclear power plants involve 0.6 fatalities per GWh and fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for about 9.4 fatalities per GWh. Within the uncertainties of the data used, the estimate means that wind farm-related avian fatalities equated to approximately 46,000 birds in the United States in 2009, but nuclear power plants killed about 460,000 and fossil-fueled power plants 24 million. A second example summarizes the wildlife benefits from a 580-MW wind farm at Altamont Pass in California, a facility that some have criticized for its impact on wildlife. The paper lastly highlights other social and environmental benefits to wind farms compared to other sources of electricity and energy.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 26
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2198024_code1250463.pdf?abstractid=2198024&mirid=1
Kazakhstan’s nuclear legacy – Euronews video
14/04/2010
At the elderly care home in Semipalatinsk, we met 85 year old Praskovya. Semipalatinsk, or Semey, is a city 150 kilometers from the main Soviet nuclear weapons test site.
Praskovya is a former warehouse manager who used to work in a small town bordering the restricted area in the 1950s. She witnessed one of the nuclear explosions: “We were curious, so we went outside to watch. When the explosion happened, it looked like a large bowl, with black smoke and flames coming from the bowl. Then it rolled into a ball, and a smoke column went up, and at the top, the mushroom appeared. And then the soldiers came and made us leave the street, shouting “it’s not allowed, it’s not allowed”. But we already saw everything interesting. And then everyone got health problems. I’ve had headaches all my life.”
After a wave of popular protests, the Semipalatinsk site was closed in 1991. It had carried out 456 secret nuclear tests.
President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, took the decision to close down the facility: “Even senior leaders of Kazakhstan were not allowed to know about the ongoing tests until 1990, until Gorbachev’s glasnost and the opportunity to speak. And as a result of demands from the people, who already knew and understood the complexity and gravity of the issues, I took the only right decision – despite difficulties at the time. The military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union was against it and the Soviet leadership was also against it.”
However, the closure could not reverse the environmental damage to the region, which has more than a million inhabitants, most of which are villagers. Radioactive fallout from nuclear blasts have given Semey and neighboring villages abnormally high rates of cancer and birth defects.
Local oncology centers are screening tens of thousands of patients, trying to detect and treat tumors at early stages. People living in the area are still predisposed to breast and pulmonary cancer.
Tleugaysha Makenova suffers from breast cancer: “I live in a district close to the test zone. Last year I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had to have an operation and radiation therapy. I didn’t see any explosions myself, but my parents talked about the effects of the blasts on the people. My husband got cancer too – he’s already dead.”
Ed Ou – On Semipalatinisk nuclear victims and other projects
“…So I went to document the city and villages surrounding the test site. I was quickly struck by people’s perseverance and compassion, tirelessly caring for their children born with severe birth defects and handicaps. It was a very underreported issue, but an important cautionary tale that shows what happens when governments and militaries worry more about their political and military might than their own people — something that unfortunately plays out in so many ways to this day…”
How did you get from Canada to being a photojournalist in the Middle East at such a young age?
I was born in Taiwan, and my family moved to Canada long before I can remember. I grew up in Vancouver, a very multicultural city where more or less everyone I knew were immigrants who came from a far-flung corner of the world. In university, I studied languages and international relations, and so my focus in school was the Middle East, as all eyes of the world were on the Muslim world after 9/11. As part of my studies, I ended up in the Middle East as a political science student studying Arabic and Hebrew and trying to academically understand the forces that lead us to conflict. It was a time of intense turmoil in the region, so it didn’t take long to get caught up in the news.
I got into journalism because I found there was a disconnect between academia and the realities of what happened on the ground. In school we would study histories and political systems with such dispassionate analysis that the human toll of politics and conflict became lost in statistics and academic nomenclature. Seeing the troubled outcome of poor political decisions firsthand in the Middle East made me want to report on human stories, and look at how everyday citizens are affected by conflict. I began to shoot images for news wires — the Associated Press and Reuters — covering breaking news and feature stories. While I did not officially train as a photographer, I was lucky to be shooting next to some of the best photographers in the world, many of whom took me under their wing and taught me how to chase news, hone my personal vision and tell stories. I’ve been working in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia for the last few years, continuing to shoot news and long-term documentary projects, often working with The New York Times.
Even when you photograph harrowing subject matter, your images are visually very artistic. How do you balance aesthetics and narrative when you’re reporting on a story?
The perfect photo has the ability to take a singular moment and make viewers connect with the people in the frame. We live in a world where we are inundated by imagery, but strong photography balances aesthetics with storytelling value, which gives us information but draws us in to ask more questions. While we may come from different cultures, speak different languages and practice different religions, at end of the day, we are all human. So wherever I make photographs, I try to find moments that show not what makes us different, but universal moments that anybody can relate to, regardless of background. In my storytelling, I try to spend time building intimacy with subjects so the essence of their characters, their hopes, dreams, or flaws and insecurities come out — so they become the ones who are telling their own stories.
The most important thing about journalism is that our photographs serve as evidence that these events we have captured occurred. Whether it is to hold governments and armies to account for their actions, inform the public on injustices and exploitation playing out in our communities, or to create a time capsule of the defining moments in our history for future generations to look back on, they must represent the truth. Of course, “truth” is so subjective, so I spend a lot of time trying to be objective, to photograph people without judgment and without my own personal politics. It is often difficult.
Tell me about the images in Under a Nuclear Cloud. This strikes me as a quietly powerful, hidden story.
I started reading about Central Asia in university, and I realized that I knew very little about the region. The more I dug, the more I was taken aback by the scope of injustices that occurred during the Cold War. In the Semipalatinsk region of northeastern Kazakhstan, hundreds of nuclear weapons were test-detonated by the Soviet military, exposing millions of civilians to nuclear radiation and poisoning the land. Many are still affected to this day, with babies born with a high number of birth defects and conditions linked to radiation.
Talks with IAEA may fail if Iran’s nuclear rights not considered
TEHRAN, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) —
Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Fereidoon Abbasi, said Wednesday that the upcoming talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) may fail if they do not consider Iran’s rights to peaceful nuclear activities and enter the negotiations with “prejudgements.”
Adoption of a cooperative approach by the UN nuclear agency would lead to the settlement of all problems, Abbasi was quoted as saying by semi-official Fars news agency.
“If the representatives of the Agency enter the talks with no prejudgment and aim to clarify the reality and give consideration to our country’s rights, they will certainly reach results in their next meeting with us; but if they want to enter talks with prejudgment, I don’t think that they can attain any result,” said the Iranian official.
In the meantime, Abbasi underlined that Iran will not accept any undertakings outside the framework of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), adding that Tehran will continue enriching uranium to the levels of 5 percent and 20 percent at its facilities based on the country’s needs, according to the report.
He said Iran has received proposals from the Western and Asian countries for the construction of new nuclear facilities in the Islamic republic, according to Press TV.
The Iranian official stressed that despite the hostile policies of the Western countries toward Iran, their companies are after their own interests.
Both the IAEA and Iran announced progress in December talks towards an agreement the IAEA believes would allow the agency to resume inquiry into the nuclear facilities in Iran.
The IAEA said that it looked forward to finalize the framework in the new round of discussions in Tehran on Jan. 16, and start implementing it soon.
The IAEA urges Iran to open access to the Iranian Parchin military site, saying Tehran might have conducted explosive experiment which is suspected to link to Iran’s nuclear program, and suggests Iran is now removing those evidence.
Iran said it has no interests in developing nuclear weapon, and its nuclear activities is for peaceful purpose, while the Western states suspect Iran is heading for a nuclear bomb.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.asp?id=118150
Contractors to run Tenn., Texas nuclear plants
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 08, 2013
The Associated Press
Star-Telegram
NASHVILLE, TENN. — A group of contractors headed by Bechtel National and Lockheed Martin has been selected to manage nuclear weapons facilities in Tennessee and Texas.
The National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday announced that Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC was selected to run the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. The contract will also include management of the construction project to build the new uranium processing facility at Y-12.
The contract also includes the option of managing the Savannah River Tritium Operations at the Savannah River Site in near Aiken, S.C., after the first year of the contract, if NNSA decides to exercise that option.
Consolidated Nuclear Security is comprised of Bechtel National, Lockheed Martin Services, ATK Launch Systems, Inc. and SOC, LLC. The 5-year contract will start May 1, which could be extended an additional five years.
Permanent storage of nuclear waste still in limbo – Prairie Island Indian speaks out -Audio
“…Of course, the tribe is not in complete agreement on nuclear power. Doreen Hagen, right, president of the Prairie Island Indian Community Tribal Council, says the tribe will fight to ensure that its homeland is not endangered by the nuclear reactor that is just 600 yards from reservation homes…”
Permanent storage of nuclear waste still in limbo
by Steven John, Minnesota Public Radio
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Thirty years ago this week the Nuclear Waste Policy Act became law, committing the federal government to finding a permanent storagefacility for the nation’s nuclear waste.
The Prairie Island Indian Community took out a full-page advertisement in the Star Tribune to commemorate the anniversary — but not in celebration.
Decades after President Ronald Reagan signed the act into law, nuclear waste is still being stored in temporary facilities across the country — including at the Prairie Island Nuclear Plant. The site that Congress approved for the permanent facility, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, was removed from consideration by the Obama administration, leaving the issue and the nuclear waste in limbo.
Phil Mahowald, general counsel for the Prairie Island Indian Community, speaks with MPR News about the subject.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/01/08/environment/prairie-island-nuclear-waste/
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2009
Minnesota Indian Tribe Wants Nation’s Nuclear Waste
Continue reading
USA -Wolves spotted at Idaho nuclear facility
January 8, 2013
The Associated Press
IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO — Idaho National Laboratory officials say two wolves have been spotted on the 890-square-mile nuclear facility that is off limits to hunters.
INL spokeswoman Carisa Shultz tells the Post Register (http://bit.ly/V9j65r) that workers spotted the wolves Saturday outside the fence of the Advanced Test Reactor Complex.
Idaho Fish and Game spokesman Gregg Losinski says an elk herd has learned it’s a safe place from human hunters so it’s likely wolves could figure that out also.
Jeff Gould of Idaho Fish and Game says the wolves are probably just passing through and it’s unlikely they’ll set up a home range in the desert.
INL officials have reminded employees to be alert when outside the fence.
Information from: Post Register, http://www.postregister.com
Rolls-Royce Expands Nuclear Operations With US Buyout
Plant Operation
8 Jan (NucNet): Rolls-Royce Holdings is expanding its nuclear energy operations with the purchase for an undisclosed sum of US engineering company PKMJ Technical Services.
The acquisition aims to accelerate growth in nuclear services, London-based Rolls-Royce said in a statement today.
Rolls-Royce already has nuclear services facilities in Williamson, New York state, and Peterborough, in Canada, and a nuclear instrumentation and control facility based in Chattanooga, Tenessee. Last year Rolls-Royce acquired R Brooks Associates, a leading specialist civil nuclear reactor services business in the US.
The company also announced last year a collaboration with Hitachi to work on new nuclear reactors in the UK. In September 2011, Rolls-Royce signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation covering nuclear energy with Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom.
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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