New power-plant drain on rivers sparks debate
New power-plant drain on rivers sparks debate Ny san Antonio 21 June 09 by Antonio Caputo
New power plants planned along the lower Colorado River could use the same water supply that was denied San Antonio for future growth.
The driving force is simple. Power shortages are forecast for Texas’ future — shortages that power companies are rushing to meet with new plants.
But experts, environmental groups and others are beginning to question whether there is enough water available to serve the massive facilities.
The issue pits two fundamental resources critical to the fast-growing state against each other — water and power.
In an indirect way, it even puts San Antonio’s two largest utilities in competition for water from the lower Colorado River, some 200 miles away……………………
Nukes’ take
The lower Colorado River is a microcosm of an issue exploding statewide.
The South Texas Project, which supplies San Antonio with about a third of its energy, wants to build two more nuclear reactors and use the Colorado River water for cooling.
Remember Erin Brockovich?
appomatox’s posterous by , Jane Kollmer17 June 09 Four counties in the lower Hudson Valley of New York are reported to have the highest rates of thyroid cancer in the nation. With alarming statistics coming from a specific region, health experts are looking for the culprit, which appears to be the nearby Indian Point Power Plant.The plant produces and emits radioactive iodine particles, which when they enter the human body, attack thyroid cells and lead to cancer and other problems such as hypothyroidism. About 300 residents in the four surrounding counties are diagnosed with thyroid cancer each year……………………………….This is to those who believe that open pit uranium mines and mills can be GOOD for you, ie: thinking that uranium ore equals radiation for cancer treatment. No matter how you cut it, radiation is dangerous for humans………………………The difference between using radiation as cancer treatment and radiation that occurs in mining and milling is that there is some transparency in the former.
Remember Erin Brockovich? Image Mag – appomattox’s posterous
Ottawa to spend $6M seeking medical isotope alternatives
Approval for alternative types of medical isotopes such as thallium for cardiac scans and sodium fluoride for bone scans has also been been sped up, Aglukkaq said.”Although the next month is going to be challenging with Petten down as well, I believe that the increasing use of those two alternatives really does give us a significant step up in coping with the need to help our patients,” said Dr. Sandy McEwan, the federal government’s new special adviser on medical isotopes.Also on Tuesday, Ontario’s Health Ministry announced it will pay $1.4 million in one-time funding to produce sodium fluoride as an alternative diagnostic procedure for about 2,000 cancer patients.
Is depleted uranium too hot for Utah site?
Is depleted uranium too hot for Utah site?
Environment » State Radiation Control Board has decided to look further into the question.
06/10/2009 03
Utah‘s Radiation Control Board will dig deeper into the long-term risks of depleted uranium before it decides whether the unusual form of low-level radioactive waste warrants a moratorium. ………………………..”First of all, I believe the public should be protected and the environment should be protected,” said board vice chair Elizabeth Goryunova, suggesting that the board had a responsibility to consider the need for a moratorium despite hassles that might be involved in imposing one. “That’s absolutely a must.”…………………………
Atomic tests ruling is ‘too late’
An atomic test veteran from Manchester said a ruling by the High Court to give ex-servicemen the right to sue the British government has come too late.
Peter Gilbody, 70, of Withington, was involved in clearing up nuclear bomb debris in Australia in 1958. He has since been diagnosed with skin cancer.
About 1,000 servicemen blame their ill health on Britain’s involvement in nuclear tests in the South Pacific……………………..
He said: “I used to bury radioactive material… I had a mate who washed down our vehicles and planes and he got it terrible.
“Widows have lost husbands very early in life, children have got leukaemia.
“Compensation is a bit late now, it won’t do me any good now will it?”
In January the MoD tried to halt compensation claims, arguing that they had been made far too late to go ahead.
Many atomic veterans are terminally ill and since the original hearing seven claimants have died.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Merseyside | Atomic tests ruling is ‘too late’
Is nuclear a green fuel? « Voices from Ghana
Is nuclear a green fuel?June 1, 2009 · Voices From Ghana “…………….some forecasters predict an uptick in nuclear power.
Yet, for nuclear energy to contribute to a significant degree to greenhouse gas abatement, the rate of construction would need to vastly accelerate. Offsetting even 10 percent of global carbon emissions by 2050 would be an immense undertaking, requiring some 2,200 new plants, or more than one per week in the coming decades.
The nuclear power option faces a set of vexing problems that should temper enthusiasm for an expansion of this scale.
Safety and CostAlthough no plant design can be risk-free, new research has brought claims of a new generation of nuclear reactors with advanced safety features. However, they have yet to be tested at full scale, and all reactors on order now use conventional technology. Moreover, nuclear power plants are now considered plausible targets for terrorist attacks. Whether caused by accident or malice, a sudden dispersal of radioactivity would have severe community impact, perhaps exacerbated by inadequate evacuation plans. If such an event triggered a renewal of anti-nuclear sentiment in the general public and led to demands for a nuclear moratorium, the resilience and sustainability of the energy system would be greatly compromised.
The full economic costs of nuclear energy are difficult to determine. A comprehensive accounting would include accident insurance, safety assurance, decommissioning, and radioactive waste disposal — costs that are often buried in generous public subsidies for the nuclear industry or shifted to future generations. As the experience in the U.S. with the first wave of nuclear plants indicated, projected costs will soar as the full costs of the nuclear-fuel cycle are reflected in the price of electricity. Of course, high costs might not be a key issue if nuclear power were the only option for climate mitigation. It is not.some forecasters predict an uptick in nuclear power.
Yet, for nuclear energy to contribute to a significant degree to greenhouse gas abatement, the rate of construction would need to vastly accelerate. Offsetting even 10 percent of global carbon emissions by 2050 would be an immense undertaking, requiring some 2,200 new plants, or more than one per week in the coming decades.
The nuclear power option faces a set of vexing problems that should temper enthusiasm for an expansion of this scale.
Safety and CostAlthough no plant design can be risk-free, new research has brought claims of a new generation of nuclear reactors with advanced safety features. However, they have yet to be tested at full scale, and all reactors on order now use conventional technology. Moreover, nuclear power plants are now considered plausible targets for terrorist attacks. Whether caused by accident or malice, a sudden dispersal of radioactivity would have severe community impact, perhaps exacerbated by inadequate evacuation plans. If such an event triggered a renewal of anti-nuclear sentiment in the general public and led to demands for a nuclear moratorium, the resilience and sustainability of the energy system would be greatly compromised.
The full economic costs of nuclear energy are difficult to determine. A comprehensive accounting would include accident insurance, safety assurance, decommissioning, and radioactive waste disposal — costs that are often buried in generous public subsidies for the nuclear industry or shifted to future generations. As the experience in the U.S. with the first wave of nuclear plants indicated, projected costs will soar as the full costs of the nuclear-fuel cycle are reflected in the price of electricity. Of course, high costs might not be a key issue if nuclear power were the only option for climate mitigation. It is not.
Proliferation and Security
Nuclear power cannot be de-coupled from nuclear weapons. Two paths lead from a nuclear energy program to weapons-grade material; one involves uranium and the other plutonium.
Nuclear Power Deflects Us From the Path to Sustainability……………….With its long-term legacy of heightened risks and toxic burden, nuclear power violates a fundamental principle of sustainability: passing on a resilient world to future generations. At the least, a world laced with nuclear power plants and crisscrossed with commerce of fissionable materials would require a strong international regime of security and control, a world more consonant with an authoritarian Fortress World scenario than a Great Transition.
Radiation contamination by Depleted Uranium
Concerns regarding radiation contamination by the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weaponry in the Balkans, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Eastern Mediterranean Countries. The Palestine Telegraph By Peter Eyre 1 June 09 The majority of high tech weapons today contain Depleted Uranium and or other Heavy Metals. Some are coated in DU and others have both DU and Heavy Metal in their warheads. DU is also used to act as a counterweight…………………………..
The European Parliament has expressed grave concerns on the use of such weapons as follows:
having regard to UN General Assembly resolution of 5 December 2007, highlighting serious health concerns about the use of depleted uranium weapons, having regard to Rule 108(5) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas (depleted) uranium has been widely used in modern warfare, both as ammunition against hardened targets in rural and urban environments and as hardened armoured protection against missile and artillery attacks,
B. whereas, ever since its use by the allied forces in the first war against Iraq, there have been serious concerns about the radiological and chemical toxicity of the fine uranium particles produced when such weapons impact on hard targets; whereas concerns have also been expressed about the contamination of soil and groundwater by expended rounds that have missed their targets and their implications for civilian populations,
C. whereas, despite the fact that scientific research has so far been unable to find conclusive evidence of harm, there are numerous testimonies as to the harmful and often deadly effects on both military personnel and civilians,
D. whereas the last few years have seen great advances in terms of understanding the environmental and health hazards posed by depleted uranium, ………………
………………………..All of my research experts state it is radiation alpha particles from uranium atoms that causes the problem, and this type of contamination can be measured very precisely. It is the alpha particle that once inside your body runs rife and the rate and type of “Cancer” is subject to if it was inhaled or ingested. The latter is caused mainly in areas where DU dust has spread in the atmosphere and returned to earth in precipitation.
Climate crisis will not be solved by nuclear power
Guest column: Climate crisis will not be solved by nuclear power greenbay pressgazette.com Bill Christofferson • May 27, 2009 Concern about climate change has sparked a campaign by the nuclear power industry to try to sell itself as a “clean” energy solution, with Wisconsin a key target……….the campaign to persuade the Legislature and governor to open the door to more reactors in Wisconsin, which has not built one since 1974……..
……….Nuclear power makes no more sense today than it did when the law was passed in 1983. Wisconsin must address the climate crisis, but renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions than nuclear power………………
What is ‘low-level’ waste, and is it good* for you?
The nuclear-power lobby
San Antonio Current by Greg Harman 27 May 09
…………………………..What is ‘low-level’ waste, and is it good* for you?
So-called “low-level” radioactive waste is basically everything except the nuclear fuel, weapons waste, or uranium mill tailings from mining.
While “high-level” radioactive waste includes irradiated fuel, “low-level” waste includes everything from shoe covers, rags, and mops to irradiated nuke plant components and piping, control rods from reactor cores, and the poison curtains that soak up neutrons from reactor-core water.
Critics claims the term “low-level” is misleading, since these wastes can emit anywhere from one or two curies per cubic meter all the way to up to 5,000 curies per cubic meter.
Ultimately, entire nuclear power plants will be dismantled and buried as “low-level” nuclear waste.
Carcasses of animals “treated” with radioactive elements in pharmaceutical or medical research also need to be disposed of as low-level waste.
And scientific, medical, and some research waste also fall into this category. Most medical wastes decay within days or weeks, while wastes from nuclear power plants can remain deadly for hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years.
Sources: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Information Resource Service, Ohio State University
*Not on your irradiated life.
France to pay (well, a bit) for nuclear health problems
France to pay for nuclear health problems
Euro News 28 May 09 People who have suffered health problems arising from France’s past nuclear tests are in line for compensation. It is the first time the government will vote on such a measure after decades of campaigning by pressure groups. France’s Defence Minister Herve Morin said the compensation system would reflect similar ones in Britain and the United States
Paris is setting aside some 10 million euros initially but victims groups say the money needs to be offered to more people exposed to radiation.
Patrice Bouveret, from support group, Truth and Justice, said: “the government is talking about a few hundred victims, whereas several thousand people have health problems which can’t be explained by genetics or smoking but by their presence during France’s atomic tests.”
Around 150,000 people were on site for the hundreds of nuclear tests France carried out in the South Pacific and the Sahara until 1996.
http://www.euronews.net/2009/05/27/france-to-pay-for-nuclear-health-problems/
Doctors urged to use diagnostic alternatives to reactor-produced isotopes
Doctors urged to use diagnostic alternatives to reactor-produced isotopesLaura Eggertson CMAJ Laura Eggertson 26 May 09 The Canadian affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War is urging doctors to use diagnostic alternatives to procedures that require reactor-based ionizing radiation, because of links between the way medical isotopes are produced and the nuclear weapons industry…………………….. Edwards, a professor at Vanier College in Montréal, Quebec, and consultant on nuclear issues, says that makes the uranium a potential target for terrorists in search of material to build a nuclear bomb. “Now I know that most doctors don’t think there’s a connection between medical isotopes and bombs, but unfortunately there is,” Edwards, who is also president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, told CMAJ. The connection is that molybdenum-99 is broken down into technetium-99m, that is used in about 1.5 million nuclear medicine procedures in Canada annually, Edwards earlier said to about 40 physicians at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa, Ont.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans The Local : 22 May 09 12:31 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090522-19443.htmlThe Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) announced Friday they will take on a large operation to test radiation-exposure levels of both current and former workers at the atomic waste depot Asse near the town of Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony. With this health monitoring programme, we want to find out if the cases of cancer and leukaemia of former Asse workers had anything to do with the radiation exposure of their work,” BfS spokesman Werner Nording said in a statement on the authority’s website…………………….Officials are now trying to determine what to do about dangerous nuclear waste which has been stored at the increasingly unstable site since 1978.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans – The Local
Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
TriTown News 14 May 09 Paula Gotsch Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety
It has been a crisis month for Exelon since federal regulators jumped the gun and relicensed the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey until 2029.
Failure of a main transformer led to the shutdown of the reactor. That followed the recent discovery of high levels of radioactive tritium contamination at the site.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff have tracked the tritium leak to two burst pipes, a concrete vault and a monitoring well. Concentrations of radioactive tritium are 300 times the allowable levels in four test wells at the site.
This raises alarm about the plant’s aging management program, which was the basis of the relicensing that is supposed to prevent this sort of dangerous mishap.
Despite assurances from Oyster Creek spokespeople that tritium has not traveled off company grounds, it has entered the water table. Water flows, and at Oyster Creek it will eventually empty into Barnegat Bay, where the state announced this week a huge reseeding program of the oyster beds…………………
…………………Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek are a serious issue for the public. Contrary to reassuring words, tritium, though low energy, is highly radioactive and has a half-life of over 12 years. Low-energy beta particles, like those emitted by tritium, can cause considerable harm.
Tritiated water is handled by the body like regular water, becoming part of the cells. It easily crosses the placental barrier, with risk of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, congenital malformation and childhood diseases.
Exelon’s record for handling tritium leaks in the past at its other nuclear power stations is horrible. At the Braidwood plant in Illinois, tritium leaked from the site for nine years and state officials were not notified until a citizen noticed and tested a pool of water in his backyard. The test came back positive for tritium, and the state of Illinois subsequently sued Exelon.
………………………..Each day Oyster Creek operates, the public is exposed to continuous doses of low-level radiation. Of all nuclear plants nationwide, Oyster Creek’s airborne emissions for strontium 90 are highest, and they are the second highest for airborne strontium 89. The plant also emits the second highest airborne levels of barium 140. All are radioactive.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says these discharges are just a normal part of routine nuclear operation, and are below acceptable levels for public health. This claim is dead wrong.
The Bier VII report issued by the NationalAcademy of Sciences stated there are no safe levels of exposure to continuous levels of low-level radiation. Also, the socalled allowable standards are set for the most robust: a healthy 35-year-old male.
The “allowable” doses do not protect the most vulnerable: women, children, infants and the developing fetus……………………… http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2009/0514/letters/009.html
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout The Guardian by Terry Macalister and Helen Carter 12 may 09 Environmentalists say controls on 369 farms highlight danger of plans to build nuclear plants around UK Nearly 370 farms in Britain are still restricted in the way they use land and rear sheep because of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident 23 years ago, the government has admitted……………………………..
Critics of the nuclear industry expressed alarm at the latest numbers, which they believed would increase public unease about the highly toxic and long-term impact of radioactivity.
David Lowry, a member of Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates, said the figures demonstrated the “unforgiving hazards” of radioactivity dispersed into the environment, whether from Chernobyl in Ukraine, thousands of miles away and 23 years ago, or over decades from the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland, as revealed by the Guardian last month…………………………
…………Revelations about the continuing impact of the Chernobyl accident come weeks after three different sites were bought in auction by EDF and other power companies for building new atomic plants in Britain.
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained APP.com By PETER HIBBARD • May 12, 2009The recent reports of tritium being found in monitoring wells at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey are deeply disturbing. Once a contaminant gets into the aquifer, it is nearly impossible to remove it. Water in the aquifer moves slowly, but it moves……….
…………..Oyster Creek is the oldest nuclear plant of its type in the nation. It has one of the highest leak rates in the country. Project Tooth Fairy measured Strontium 90 in children by examining baby teeth, and estimated the leakage has been going on for many years. Growing teeth can be checked for age of exposure, like rings on a tree.
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained | APP.com | Asbury Park Press
1 This Month
22 June – Virtual Event –Climate Change: New Data, New Debate
Monday, June 22, 2026 2:30 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. CT
YouTube. Register here
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
Thursday, June 25, 2026
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5
From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- June 2026 (193)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 