Report: Vermont Yankee thermal discharge exceeds permit limits
“They seem to think that fish should be able to do math. Guess what, fish can’t do math but they do know when they are in hot water.”
Published: Monday, October 08, 2012, 5:00 AM
By JOSH STILTS
GREENFIELD – Scientists for the state of Massachusetts say the discharge from a nuclear plant in Vernon, Vt., is adding heat to fish habitats in theConnecticut River far beyond what the reactor’s water permit allows.
Ken Sprankle, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service coordinator for the Connecticut River, said he’s working with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, the state Department of Environmental Protection and similar departments in New Hampshire and Vermont to create a recommendation on the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant’s usage of the river.
Photo by JOSH STILTS Scientists say the thermal discharge from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is affecting fish habitats miles downstream. Here warm water flows from the plant into the Connecticut River.
Nationalists at odds over Nato and nuclear weapons -Scotland
It is also totally irreconcilable with membership of Nato, an organisation which supports the threatened use of the very nuclear weapons to which the SNP has “unqualified opposition”.
TUESDAY 9 OCTOBER 2012
Angus Robertson, the SNP’s defence spokesman, has been pushing the idea of his party abandoning its principled opposition to Nato. This may well cause a more substantial and damaging loss of support for independence.
Meanwhile Nicola Sturgeon is on record as affirming the SNP’s “unqualified opposition to nuclear weapons”.
This is excellent. It is also totally irreconcilable with membership of Nato, an organisation which supports the threatened use of the very nuclear weapons to which the SNP has “unqualified opposition”.
Brian Quail,
World to gather in Sendai for meeting on risk management, Local voices not invited!
Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012
U.N. data show that more than 200 million people are affected by natural hazards every year and annual economic losses exceed $200 billion. Some disaster experts say investing in disaster resilience instead of disaster response systems is more beneficial and cost-effective.
When a two-day international conference on disasters and development opens Tuesday in the disaster-hit city of Sendai, Japan will have its moment to shine — relating to the world how it survived last year’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami and sharing lessons about disaster preparedness.
Global leaders, disaster experts and survivors will gather in Sendai for the “Sendai Dialogue,” a meeting hosted by the government and the World Bank to focus on ways to reduce the economic impact of natural disasters.
Greenpeace ejected by South Korea -“can’t deny the risks of nuclear power forever”
Blogpost by Jan Beranek – October 8, 2012 at 13:18
“But instead of denying entry to those who expose the risks of nuclear energy, South Korea’s government would be better off acting swiftly to address those risks rather than the actions it took to trysilence us today.“
I am at a detention centre at South Korea’s airport, quickly writing these few words as best I can on a mobile phone. Together with my colleague, Dr. Rianne Teule, I have been denied entry to South Korea.
We have done nothing wrong. That is, unless you agree with the government in Seoul that exposing the risks of nuclear power and calling for better protection of people from radiation is wrong.
This is our second visit to South Korea, but this time we were told that the government would not let us in.
After waiting for hours to fly to Hong Kong we have boarded. From Hong Kong we go on to Japan where we will continue our investigations into the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Rianne is an expert in the risks of nuclear radiation and has led Greenpeace operations to independently document radiation contamination near the disaster.
We have been denied access to South Korea today even though we have previously debated the issue of nuclear power here at high-profile conferences and with the media……
Nuclear blunder -Halliburton finally finds lost radioactive rod in Texas
Rod containing americium-241/beryllium had been lost a month ago during a 130-mile journey between oil wells
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 October
The US oilfield services company Halliburton has found a seven-inch radioactive rod it lost in the Texas desert almost a month ago.
The company lost the rod, which contains americium-241/beryllium, during a 130-mile journey between oil well sites in Pecos and Odessa on 11 September.
A spokesman for Halliburton said the device was found late on Thursday night on a road about seven miles from the well site in Pecos, where the rod was last used.
Midland County sheriff Gary Painter said an oilfield pumper recognised the device from fliers that had been handed out in the area.
Halliburton workers, police officers and the national guard had been involved in searching for the rod, which is stamped with a radiation symbol and the words “Danger Radioactive: Do not handle. Notify civil authorities if found.”
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had warned that the radioactive materials “could cause permanent injury to a person who handled them”.
Haryana farmers to visit Narora nuclear plant -Nuclear PR
Chandigarh, Oct 8 (IANS) To allay fears of farmers in Haryana’s Fatehabad district about a proposed nuclear plant, a group of 40 farmers of Gorakhpur village left for Narora Atomic Power Plant in Uttar Pradesh Monday.
While flagging off the trip, additional deputy commissioner, Fatehabad, Rajiv Ratan said that the farmers will be informed about the benefits of the nuclear plant in their district.
Officers of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), Haryana Police, revenue and other departments accompanied the delegation of farmers.
Ratan said that farmers of Gorakhpur, Kajalheri and Badopal had provided land for the nuclear power plant planned for Fatehabad district, 300 km from Chandigarh.
Ratan said that the farmers had wanted to see how a nuclear plant operates.
New -The siege of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant from the sea front went off peacefully
J Arockiaraj, TNN | Oct 9, 2012, 02.22AM IST
“Why should I be afraid of the sea? I am fighting for my people and my children,”
“The sea is our livelihood and we will not give up our struggle even if we have to die in this protest”
IDINTHAKARAI: The siege of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant from the sea front went off peacefully as the protesters called off the demonstration by 4pm and the boats returned to the shore in the evening. Tight security arrangements were made as 5,000 security personnel from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Rapid Action Force of the CRPF and the District Armed Reserved Police were deployed in the plant. Three boats from the coastal security group monitored the sea front while coast guard vessels were anchored away from the protest site.
The siege started at around 9.30 am as PMANE co-ordinator, S P Udayakumar along with other activists, Pushparayan, M P Jesurajan, Milton and others started in a fibre boat to the siege site 500 meters away from nuclear power plant. The struggle committee had made special arrangements to differentiate boats used for the siege. Boats with a white flag patrolled the boundary to keep away fishermen straying into the boundary line while boats with green flags provided food and water to the protesters. The protesters were onboard boats with black flags while media persons were taken in boats having red flags. After two hours of the siege, the demonstration was further reinstated as hundreds of fishing boats from Kanyakumari also sailed to the spot. “The sea is our livelihood and we will not give up our struggle even if we have to die in this protest”, said V Santacruz from Koothankuli.
Kudankulam’s neighbours weigh nuclear power fears against living standards
At the end of my visit, Rani took me back to the St. Lourdes church from her house. Hundreds of wind turbines dotting the area around Idinthakari, twinkled and twirled. Seeing the natural power of the wind the sun and the tides while talking about an energy crisis invited observations about irony. Behind her, the plant formed a hazy silhouette in the setting sun.
Rani enters her home for the first time in more than a week. She switches on the light, but it doesn’t work. Tsunami Colony, where she lives in the village of Idinthakari, has been deserted for months, and the electricity supply has been patchy.
The people who were living in the development fear that the police will return and ransack houses – as they reportedly have done to several places in the village. The residents prefer to sleep on the sand outside St. Lourdes church here in Idinthakari in Tamil Nadu, alongside people who have spent more than a year protesting the planned opening of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, which sits about 2 kilometres away.
There have been nearly 400 days of protests in the village. A plastic board outside the church tallies this number, every day. Villagers claim that their power supply has been irregular with long power cuts ever since they started protesting.
“The day we started protesting, our power began to be cut,” said Vinsula, a woman who lives in the village. “Our electricity is being cut, and then this backs up their claim of ‘power shortage’ which validates the nuclear plant.”
Australia -Fight against Muckaty Nuclear Dump Continues (Audio)
Posted on 09/10/2012
Those protesting against a nuclear waste dump being located at Muckaty Station in the Territory gathered over the weekend for a big meeting.
Nat Wasley, Beyond Nuclear Initiative Co-ordinator joined Nerida Currey on Strong Voices to tell us more…
http://caama.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/8.10.12-Nat-Wasley-Edited.mp3
Lengthy review possible at damaged San Onofre nuclear power plant
MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press | Monday, October 8, 2012
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. (AP) — Federal regulators disclosed Monday that the proposed restart of the long-shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant in California could lead to an exhaustive review that might last months or even years.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering if the complex proposal submitted by operator Southern California Edison last week to repair and start the damaged Unit 2 reactor will require an amendment to San Onofre’s operating license, Regional Administrator Elmo Collins told reporters.
uch reviews can involve a thicket of hearings, appeals and other steps on safety and design issues that can take as long as two years to complete.
UK Hinkley -Anti-nuclear activists claims major victory in mass trespass
8.10.12
At least eight protesters have been arrested during a mass trespass at the Hinkley Point nuclear power station in Somerset.
More than 50 people swooped on the perimeter fence of the land earmarked for two new EPR mega-reactors next to the existing power plant just after dawn.
Dozens fanned out around the 5-miles long fence while others held banners and placards outside the main security gate. A 14-foot banner reading, “Nuclear disaster zone. Boycott EDF” was hung across the gate.
Nuclear engineer slams industry safety standards: speech given at anti-nuclear protest rally UK
Commenting on EDF Energy’s bid to build a new EPR reactor at Hinkley, Smith added, “The nuclear industry suffers from the delusion that nuclear power is safe. They said that after Three Mile Island, they said it after Chernobyl and they said it after Fukushima. Do we really want Hinkley Point to be the next major disaster?”
06.10.12
A specialist engineer who worked at Hinkley Point nuclear power station for almost 30 years yesterday slammed the nuclear industry’s approach to safety and predicted that a Fukushima-type disaster in the UK was ‘almost inevitable’.
Speaking at a rally organised to oppose the construction of a new mega-reactor at the Somerset power station, Peter Smith said he become increasingly disillusioned with the nuclear industry during his career. “Over the years, I became more and more aware of the dangers and dark side of nuclear power,” he said.
“The industry denies that it ever puts profit before safety but this is a lie. I have seen corner-cutting from the design stage onwards. At Hinkley, major safety systems were omitted and others only implemented after major incidents.”
Nuclear Lead poisoning cover-up UK, serious wildlife contamination found!
In a recent wildlife report it was shown that birds tested in the period winter 2010 to winter 2011 were found that elevated levels of lead (i.e. >20.0 μg/dL) were found in the blood of 34 % (n = 285) of waterbirds tested at four sites in Britain during the 2010/2011 winter this happening during some of the largest radioactive releases from nuclear power plants and medical reactors.
In this study, we examined data on current and historical trends in lead poisoning in British waterbirds and related these to the introduction of legislation restricting the use of lead. Our results indicate that lead poisoning has continued to affect a wide range of British waterbirds long after legal restrictions were introduced.
Of course, it could be argued that existing lead weights might be the cause of this anomaly but the main effected bird species prone to lead weight poisoning was the swans.
significant change in lead-related mortality in mute swans found during the same time period, 25 % (n = 12) between 1971 and 1987, 4.6 % (n = 65) between 1988 and 1999 and 2 % (n = 100) between 2000 and 2010
The annual breakdown of radioactive materials in the UK Water Standards report due 2012 for the period 2011 to 2012 (May) to date has not been published. But I was able to snag a Google cached copy of the USA military base UK Annual water report for that period. It clearly shows the lead pollution getting to, or above the safety levels for humans. Depending on the varying safety level. The US military had to go back the following month (October 2011) and redo the test for it to pass. Here is some evidence of that and also, where the contamination was likely from. the Budapest Medical Isotopes Institute in Hungary.
Getting to “Yes” at International Conference on Nuclear Waste -Canada
but the tough questions during Tuesday’s sessions about transparency in some of the siting process and the independence of the nuclear regulators came from outside Canada, or not at all.
[…]
“You don’t want a “yes” crowd because a “yes” crowd incites a “no” crowd and the “no” crowd always has a lot of energy”, explained Saida Laarouchi Engstrom, from the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company.
[…]
Asked to comment on what constitutes community support, Kramer replied that “Fifty (percent) plus one is not enough” and suggested that the ballot box was a way to measure support. Kramer said that those who support the nuclear waste burial project were elected, and those did not support it lost in the municipal elections.
Friday, October 05, 2012 by: BayToday.ca Staff
Story Brennain Lloyd/Special to BayToday.ca.
A parade of country representatives took to the stage Tuesday in downtown Toronto at an international conference on nuclear waste burial, outlining programs and plans for what the nuclear industry calls “geological repositories”. The two-day international conference was the most recent in a series of gatherings convened every four years.
In an opening panel of “implementers” from Sweden, Finland, Japan, the U.K. and Switzerland, presenters flashed image after image of tunnels, shafts and caverns carved out of rock, all generated as part of national planning processes which would ultimately result in country stockpiles of high level nuclear fuel waste being placed deep below the surface, as a “final solution” to the to-date intractable problem of how to contain the radioactive wastes that are generated by nuclear power plants and will remain hazardous – and harmful – for hundreds of thousands of years.
Thirty Five Minutes To Meltdown -EU nuclear stress tests update
“In the end, there always remains a degree of risk
that you can reduce through retrofitting and investments.
But you can never completely eliminate it.”
Günther Oettinger European Commissioner for Energy
in interview with Der Spiegel, April 2011
BY ADONAI
OCTOBER 6, 2012
POSTED IN: EDITORS’ PICKS, ENERGY
European activists are joining their voices and worries after European Commision released this week their “stress tests” report of nuclear power plants (NPP) in Europe. By the report there are currently 145 nuclear reactors in 15 European states, EC states that safety record is such that although incidents have occurred andcontinue to occur, no major accidents have ever taken place. Activists said the report dodges the real issues.
The results don’t say that any nuclear reactor in Europe is too unsafe to operate. But they identify concerns across Europe, including a lack of seismic measuring instruments, insufficient safety and rescue equipment, and inadequate emergency plans. The largest number of concerns was found in France, the leader in number of nuclear reactors in EU.
Anti-nuclear campaigners criticised the report, which they said glosses over more serious concerns. “The final report of the EU nuclear stress tests charade looks set to dodge all the tough questions, as expected,” said German Green MEP Rebecca Harms (europeanvoice.com).
In introduction to released “stress tests” EC states that the challenges which nuclear safety and its governance face were highlighted in the accident at the Fukushima reactors in Japan following the earthquake and the tsunami in March 2011. This event demonstrated that nuclear reactors must be protected even against accidents which have been assessed as highly improbable. Events at Fukushima revealed well-known and recurring issues: faulty design, insufficient backup systems, human error, inadequate contingency plans, and poor communications. The EU must learn the lessons of Fukushima to further reduce the risk of nuclear incidents in Europe.
The Fukushima accident resulted in unprecedented efforts to review the safety of nuclear installations in Europe and worldwide. Initiatives were taken at national, regional and international level. In the EU, the European Council, in March 2011 concluded that “the safety of all EU nuclear plants should be reviewed, on the basis of a comprehensive and transparent risk and safety assessment (“stress tests”).
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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