The anti-nuclear exhibition “Everything You Treasure: a World Free from Nuclear Weapons” will open on Tuesday February 18, 5.30pm at the Hastings War Memorial Library.
The exhibition was jointly created by Soka Gakkai International and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
Local organiser Jane Featherstone says the exhibition was created to show how nuclear weapons pose a threat to the things we value and treasure as individuals.
“The exhibition includes 40 illustrated and informative panels which challenge viewers to consider the risks posed by nuclear weapons to the things communities hold dear.”
“The exhibition was officially launched at the 20th IPPNW World Congress in Hiroshima and has been making its way around the globe including displays in Oslo, Norway and the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.”
Paula Murdoch, district libraries manager says that with 2014 being the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War 1, this exhibition is a great lead in to the remembrance events.
“The Hastings War Memorial Library will be acknowledging many important dates over the next four years.”
“While WW1 did not involve nuclear technology, this exhibition is a stark reminder both of the unbelievably rapid rate of technological change and also of the unimaginable consequences of conflict and war. Lest we forget.”
Everyone is welcome to attend the official opening of ‘Everything you Treasure’ at the Hastings War Memorial Library on Tuesday February 18 at 5.50pm.The exhibition is on until Tuesday March 11.
A team of nuclear experts from the United Kingdom will serve as consultants in the ongoing decommissioning process at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Lady Barbara Judge, the former chair of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and now the deputy chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO)’s Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee, is the one organizing the information exchange that is seen as a step that can help move forward the process that is expected to take decades to finish.
The engineers from Sellafield, the site of Britain’s worst nuclear accident, will be traveling to Japan to advise on how to effectively decommission the plant. The Fukushima plant experienced a catastrophic meltdown in 2011, in the midst of the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami. Judge believes that Japan will greatly benefit from the knowledge and experience of the engineers, and Britain in return, will also gain from learning about Japan’s nuclear industry. Japanese companies like Toshiba and Hitachi are actually helping plan the building of new nuclear power stations in the UK, the first to be built in decades. Toshiba in fact is buying a 60% stake in NuGeneration, a UK firm that will be building three plants in West Cumbria.
TEPCO is hoping that bringing in the decommissioning experts and Judge’s direction will help rebuild the trust of the Japanese people in them, after many perceive that they are making a mess out of dealing with the clean-up at the plant. They plan to launch a new subsidiary by April 1 that will be in charge of the decommissioning and decontamination of the crippled plant. This will be headed by a Japanese nuclear expert and the British engineers will serve as advisers.
John Russell of the Indianapolis Starreported again yesterday on SB 302, a bill that was withdrawn Jan. 21st and about nuclear power in Indiana. In a Jan. 16th story, Russell wrote at length about the financing option of construction work in progress (CWIP):
The only power plant in Indiana to be built under this financing plan, known as Construction Work in Progress (or CWIP) is Duke Energy’s coal-gasification plant in Edwardsport. The plant, originally approved at $1.9 billion, has soared to more than $3.3 billion, with ratepayers picking up much of the increase. * * *
The Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana said CWIP financing has stung Indiana ratepayers in the Edwardsport case and should be avoided for nuclear plants.
“The only reason utility companies need CWIP is because those investments are too risky, too expensive, and Wall Street won’t support them, similar to the Edwardsport (plant),” said Kerwin Olson, the group’s executive director. “If an investment is sound, then CWIP isn’t needed. If it’s not a good investment for shareholders, why is it a good investment for consumers?” * * *
Two efforts to build nuclear power plants in Indiana in the 1980s were scrapped in the face of rising opposition and high costs…..
[…]
But critics say the reason Wall Street won’t finance nuclear power is not because it is too expensive, but because it’s a losing economic proposition. Other forms of energy, including natural gas, are much cheaper today.
Wall Street, after all, invests heavily in other billion-dollar industries, from computer-chip factories to energy pipelines.
“The test that nuclear can’t pass isn’t how big it is, but whether energy can be generated at much lower cost in other ways,” said Peter Bradford, a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and former chair of the New York and Maine utility regulatory commissions. “The answer is clearly yes.”
A looming issue is how much a new nuclear project will cost — even at the small modular reactors, which are still years away from going from the drawing board to production. It’s difficult to give a price for one, since a utility has yet to buy or build one….
UK media organizations have warned that if a government bill authorizing police to seize journalists’ notebooks, photos and digital files is passed Monday, it could seriously endanger press freedom in the country.
Currently, requests for reporters’ notebooks and files must be made in open court, and representatives of news organizations are allowed to be present in the courtroom. However, if Clause 47 in Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Letwin‘s deregulation bill is passed February 3, secret hearings could authorize the seizure of journalists’ files.
Under the bill, the police will be basically given carte blanche to access journalists’ information without their consent.
Although the rules stating whether police can have access to material or not will remain unaltered, without media groups present at hearings judges could be more easily persuaded to authorize police seizures of journalistic material,The Guardian reported.
Thevoice of Britain’s media, the Newspaper Society, which represents 1,100 newspapers, 1,600 websites and other print, digital and broadcast channels, has protested against the controversial bill’s provisions.
“Reporters are put at risk, whether reporting riot or investigating wrongdoing, if perceived to be ready sources of information for the police and media organizations too vulnerable to police demands for journalistic material,” the society warned in a statement.
The Newspaper Society said it strongly opposes Clause 47 of the Deregulation Bill because “it would take away important statutory safeguards for journalistic material against unlawful seizure by the police, through repeal of important provisions in the Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act 1984. The Bill would remove the mandatory statutory procedural safeguards in PACE itself, which allow the media to have advance notice of police applications for production of journalistic material by the media and guarantee inter partes hearings.”
The society has pointed out that the deregulation bill’s provisions could enable the current statutory safeguards to be “removed completely, reduced, weakened or otherwise radically altered at any later time, without prior consultation of the media affected nor detailed parliamentary scrutiny of the effect.”
“We are alarmed that the removal of such important statutory protections of freedom of expression is put forward as a deregulatory measure,” the society’s statement concluded.
However, a Cabinet Office spokesman told The Guardian that every measure in the deregulation bill was only meant to “remove unnecessary bureaucracy.”
“Clause 47 would bring thePolice and Criminal Evidence Act into line with other legislation in this area and would allow the criminal procedure rules committee to make procedure rules that are consistent and fair,” he said.
In November, theMetropolitan Police ordered journalists to hand over confidential information in secret courts. The case involved a former SAS officer accused of leaking information to a Sky News defense correspondent. Sky News has been ordered by the secret court to hand over emails and any other information passed between the soldier and the journalist. The High Court ruled that seeking production orders in closed courts was unlawful, and the charges against the SAS man and a second soldier were later dropped. However, London’s Metropolitan Police is seeking to overturn the High Court’s decision so they will be allowed to use secret courts to force journalists to hand over documents in future, the Press Gazette reported.
Waste containers were shipped away following a path of least resistance and weakest governance, ending up in remote areas of countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Lebanon, Somalia and the Congo. Toxic waste was dumped on Nigerian and Haitian beaches.
Organised crime is famously good at exploiting time-sensitive industries like construction, fishing, and — of course — garbage removal. But revelations about millions of tons of toxic waste buried haphazardly and illegally by the mob are causing an uproar in southern Italy, where cancer rates are nearly 50 per cent higher than the average in certain areas.
It all began in the 1980s, when the Camorra mafia — one of Italy’s oldest and largest groups — took control of garbage removal in the southern Italian state of Campania. Further south, in Calabria, another mob organisation — the ‘Ndrangheta — was getting into the same business. You see, trash is the perfect racket for the mob: It’s easy to infiltrate, it’s a desperate necessity for every citizen, and it’s not terribly hard to do. As Michelle Tsai explained in a post called “Why the Mafia Loves Garbage,” this holds true for criminal organisations all over the world, from Taiwan to New Jersey to Italy.
In Italy, where as many as one in five businesses is controlled by mafia, the long-term effects of the garbage racket weren’t immediately clear, although it caused periodic crises that filled the Naples streets with trash. But over time, further north, the rural Casal di Principe region has become known for the massive amount of garbage strewn across its once-beautiful landscape.
In this world, the land is so unstable from dumping that concrete scaffolds must be built to hold up houses and buildings, and empty space is thought of us “a giant carpet” to sweep things — specifically, industrial chemicals and radioactive waste — under:
Desperate landowners sell off their fields, and the clans acquire new landfill sites at low — very low — costs. Meanwhile, people are constantly dying of tumors. A slow and silent massacre, difficult to monitor since those who want to live as long as possible flee to the hospitals in the north.
The lungs fester, the trachea starts to redden, a trip to the hospital for a CAT scan where the black spots betray the presence of a tumour. Ask the ill of Campania where they’re from and they’ll often reveal the entire path of toxic waste.
The rates of cancer in some parishes are 47 per cent higher than the national average — and that’s how the region acquired its second nickname, after “the Land of Fires”: The Triangle of Death. According to The New YorkTimes’ new report on the dumping, some 10 million tons of toxic and nuclear waste have been buried here, from as far away as Germany.
Engage constructively with the European Commission’s State aid consultation on Hinkley Point C to demonstrate that the project meets State aid rules;
Work together to maximise opportunities for SMEs in nuclear supply chains;
Develop skilled workforces through investing in joint training programmes and in research and development;
Enhance capabilities in civil nuclear emergency planning and security.
The UK and French governments have issued a joint communique declaring their commitment to developing safe nuclear energy, commercial opportunities and skills…
The declaration, which comes ahead of national leaders’ discussions over the EU’s 2030 energy and climate policy framework, reiterates the two Governments’ shared view that nuclear power has a critical role to play in a cost-effective low carbon transition.
The move is the latest in a string of UK-French initiatives on energy and climate policy, including successfully pushing for the European Commission to propose a 40% EU domestic emissions reduction target for 2030, reflecting the importance of giving national governments flexibility over their own energy mixes and securing reform of the Emission Trading System.
The declaration paves the way for the two Governments to collaborate on constructing new nuclear power stations, to maximise opportunities for SMEs in nuclear supply-chains and to fund joint training and skills centres.
The report is based on the ideas that the Cape heavily relies on tourism and real estate and that a potential disaster at the nuclear power plant could affect the region’s main source of revenue
SOUTH WELLFLEET — The Cape Cod National Seashore Advisory Commission on Monday will discuss a new report on the economic effects on Cape Cod of a public safety emergency at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth.
A subcommittee of the commission has initiated creation of the report, which was researched and written by a University of Massachusetts Amherst student pursuing a doctorate in economics, according to commission member Maureen Burgess, who represents Truro.
The nine-member commission represents the six Cape Cod towns within the boundaries of the Seashore along with county, state and federal representatives.
The commission wrote to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2012 stating its opposition to the relicensing of Pilgrim because of the potential threat to public safety and the environment.
Commenting on the European commission’s investigation into UK plans to subsidise the construction and operation of a new nuclear reactor at the Hinkley nuclear plant, Greenpeace UK chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said:
“The Commission’s investigation into the new Hinkley reactor is likely to turn food into ashes in Cameron and Hollande’s mouths at their pub lunch today. The EU executive has blown a hole in their multi-billion-pound nuclear stitch-up by showing it’s a rubbish deal for consumers, will damage the prospects for clean energy technology, and will leave the UK taxpayers to shoulder the burden of risk. By questioning whether the huge subsidies promised to EDF are justified, the commission is casting a shadow over the whole project.
“The commission also warns nuclear energy is far from being ‘clean’ because of the enormous risks involved in storing huge amount of radioactive waste for very long periods of time. This is a problem Cameron promised needed to be solved before new nuclear plants could be built, but he now seems to have forgotten this pledge. The Sellafield site is a testament to what happens when politicians want to forge ahead before knowing what to do with the nuclear waste.
“The investigation shows that whatever Cameron and Hollande may want, the Hinkley deal is bad for energy bills, bad for the environment, and bad for genuinely clean energy. What’s worse, the agreement stacks the deck against UK taxpayers leaving French-owned EDF very little risk and all the big profits.”
A Devon MP wants Plymouth to bid for a college to train atomic technicians.
Having such a college would remind people of the nuclear capability at Devonport naval base, Plymouth Sutton and Devonport MP Oliver Colvile said.
Plans for an “elite” college to provide high-level technical training for the nuclear industry were set out earlier this week by Skills and Enterprise Minister Matthew Hancock.
Mr Colvile said Plymouth would benefit greatly from having the college.
The base at Devonport is the site for refitting the Royal Navy’s nuclear powered submarines.
‘Vital opportunities’
“Plymouth has a low-wage, low-skills economy and one of the things I’m trying to make sure happens in the course of my time as the Member of Parliament, is to make sure we do something about that.
“This [college] seems a really good way,” he told BBC News.
“If we can campaign to have a nuclear further education college here, that is going to improve our skills base.
“We could actually become the centre for the nuclear industry – and I think that would be a really good thing.”
New nuclear power stations are expected to generate thousands of jobs in the future in the UK. However, some employers have already voiced their concerns about skills shortages.
Mr Hancock said a growing nuclear sector offered vital opportunities for highly skilled workers, and the UK had to ensure it was at the forefront of the industry.
The minister also unveiled plans for a software engineering college to respond to the needs of the information technology sector.
Both colleges would be jointly funded by the government and the nuclear industry.
More here….
“Of course, apart from making a tidy profit they get control of the studies and research as well as corrupting a generation of engineers that learn science according to the principles and restrictions of Corporate Law.”
How have we not had a nuclear war? It is hard to maintain much faith in the long-term safety of our nuclear deterrent with each glimpse of the all-too human flaws of those with their finger on the button. Thirty-four Air Force officers in charge of launching nuclear missiles have been suspended over accusations that they cheated in proficiency tests about their knowledge of how to operate the weapons. The cheating, uncovered during a probe into the use of drugs by nuclear launch officers, betrays the complacency and boredom of men and women whose job is to refrain from doing the one thing they are trained to do.
Officials have been quick to reassure the public that these suspensions pose no risk of nuclear accident, but it’s hard to be convinced. Consider the types of incidents that we now know happened during the cold war era: bombs almost detonating by accident and military exercises being twitchily misunderstood by officers on the other side. The pattern has been one in which the government reassures the public that no danger exists, while privately acknowledging their fears that human and technical error could conspire to catastrophic effect. The classification of military documents will hide current blushes for decades to come.
In 1961, a B-52 Stratofortress fell apart midair in an incident above North Carolina. The crash resulted in the release of two nuclear bombs, described at the time by a US Department of Defense spokesman as being unarmed and incapable of exploding. In 2013, declassified documents revealed that only one of the four safety mechanisms on the bombs worked.
The minutes from a now-declassified meeting with Secretary Of State for Defense Robert McNamara in 1963 says that he complained that this was one of two air crashes – the other in Texas – where “by the slightest margin of chance, literally the failure of two wires to cross, a nuclear explosion was averted.” McNamara was demanding an end to the delegation of responsibility for launching nuclear weapons by anyone other than the president, noting that “despite our best efforts, the possibility of an accidental nuclear explosion still existed.” Publicly, the military had no option but to reassure the public, whilst privately acknowledging the real risk created by the possibility of technical failure and human error.
…..IAEA block has blocked the publication of studies carried out by WHO that show major health effects due to radiation. A few specialists, like Dr Ian Fairlie, study the risk of low level radiation, but it’s really difficult to get statistics…..
Lessons from the Chernobyl Disaster – On Sunday 2 June, we invited the leader of the British supporter’s group Chernobyl Children’s Project UK who has worked to help Chernobyl accident survivors; especially their children.
2nd June 2013, JAN UK had a public meeting. Guest speaker: Ms Linda Walker, Exective Director of Chernobyl Children’s Project UK answered questions and gave a talk about the reality after the Chernobyl incident.
Linda explained how people have suffered after the Chernobyl nuclear accident – not just soon after but the whole 27 years since the disaster, with many pictures shown on the screen, and at Qs and As session.
After the “Black sticky rain”, even the healthy survivors began to suffer health damage. (Which reminded us about Hiroshima and Nagasaki!)
Residents began to suffer all kinds of diseases and disabilities including many types of cancers, but it’s not just cancers unlike many people vaguely imagine. (Which also reminded us about Hiroshima and Nagasaki) But the government initially denied health effect. (Just like Japan!) It was why, Chernobyl Children’s Project needed to be launched in 1995, even 9 years after the accident.
‘This kid died last year’
When we talk about the risk of exposure to low level radiation, we are criticized as “too cautious”. IAEA block has blocked the publication of studies carried out by WHO that show major health effects due to radiation. A few specialists, like Dr Ian Fairlie, study the risk of low level radiation, but it’s really difficult to get statistics. We’d like to say that if more people can evacuate further away, especially the children, that’s safer. Unlike Belarusi, people in Japan can make a fuss about it.
Please listen to what Linda says on the movie clips by yourself. As her speech was so good and powerful, we’d like to invite her next year again on the Chernobyl Day in order to learn what we can do more.
Let’s stop restarting of, and new build of nuclear power stations in Japan, UK, and everywhere and have fewer running reactors on 11 March and 26 April next year!
Velar Grant is a photojournalist who came to the event. You can see her photos she took of Chernobyl. Velar Grant Photo
A complaint has been filed up on Thursday by the civilians and police against people who have been involved in dumping radioactive wood waste produced at a plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
Among them was Norio Ishida, who is a former professor of environmental toxicology at Kyoto University and one of the five members who signed the petition.
This is what he said about the case: “It is our responsibility to keep radioactive materials from spreading. We filed the complaint as part of that effort.”
The document states that the head of a consulting company with another three people have steered a company in Omihachiman, Shiga Prefecture, to dumping wood waste with radioactive material.
The waste, which was produced at a lumber factory in the Fukushima city of Motomiya, was thrown into the river on a private property nearby in Takashima. There is no need to say that it was done without the consent of their owners.
Massive amounts of radioactive material was leaked from the Fukushima power plant into Fukushima Prefecture straight after it was destroyed in a powerful earthquake and tsunami that took place in the region back in March 2011.
Meeting in Committee Room 10 in The House of Commons
Speeches and discussion about the situation in Japan three years on since Fukushima and the lessons we can learn for a nuclear-free world.
Enter Parliament by public entrance by central St. Stephen’s Tower.
Arrive half an hour early to get through security.
The vigil
11th March 2014
outside Japanese Embassy
101 Piccadilly, W1J 7JT
18.00 – 20.00pm
Candle-Lit vigil in support of families and people of all ages continuing to suffer the affects of Fukushima. Please bring torch & wrap up warm.
15th March 2014
The March to Parliament
Hyde Park Corner – London
Assemble 12.30pm, Start 13.00
Assemble at Hyde Park Corner at 12.30 to start the march at 13.00
Route: Hyde Park Corner, Japanese Embassy, TEPCO London Office, Piccadilly Circus, Japan Centre, Trafalgar Square, Parliament
She claimed: “We understand the need for Sellafield to routinely cull animals on site in an effort to contain the spread of radiation.
“However, if as Sellafield says the deer have not entered the site and are not contaminated in any way then surely a more humane solution would be to permanently remove the new double fencing in the woodland area and instead reinforce the original fence another way.”
“As well as preventing the ‘need’ for a cull, this would be a goodwill gesture and would benefit the whole ecosystem of the woodland.”
29th January 2014
ANTI-nuclear campaigners have started a petition against plans by Sellafield Limited to cull a group of roe deer ‘trapped’ at its west Cumbrian plant.
To improve security, the company erected a secondary security fence – spanning 11 miles around the site.
But campaigners say this has ‘trapped’ a number of roe deer who now face a cull by the company which has to provide a ‘sterile area’ between the two fences.
Sellafield Ltd explained around five to 12 deer are involved and the cull was a ‘last resort’ and taken on ‘expert advice’.
It plans to hire ‘professional and skilled’ marksmen to carry out the cull – working under veterinary supervision.
A Sellafield spokesman explained: “The experts advise that to attempt to tranquilise the deer would cause them great distress, and that they would be likely to injure themselves, perhaps fatally, attempting to flee in what is quite dense undergrowth.
“The advice we have been given is that to cull the deer is more humane and will cause less suffering.”
Sellafield tells non-essential staff to stay at home
* Britain says no danger to the public or workers
* State nuclear body says source of radiation unclear
By Kate Holton and Costas Pitas
LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Britain’s Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing plant ordered all non-essential staff to stay at home on Friday while it investigated an elevated radiation reading onsite, which it later concluded was caused by naturally occurring radon gas.
Sellafield, the site of Britain’s worst nuclear accident in 1957 and once the producer of plutonium for nuclear bombs, said its investigation had shown there was nothing wrong with any of its operations.
Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that comes from rocks and soil.
“The number one priority for us is, at all times, safe secure stewardship of the Sellafield site, which is the most complex and challenging nuclear site in Europe,” it said.
The facility, just outside Britain’s striking Lake District national park on the coast of the Irish sea in northwest England, had continued to operate normally during the morning and both the operator and the government had said there was no risk to the public.
A higher than normal radiation reading was logged overnight via an air monitor at a perimeter fence.
“Standard weekend working operations will continue, with day staff due back in on Monday as normal,” it added.
Sellafield, a patchwork of grey buildings, industrial cylinders and cooling towers surrounded by grassland about 300 miles (480 km) northwest of London, said the decision to keep staff at home was conservative.
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