nuclear-news

Peace group battles nuclear waste facility

Peace group battles nuclear waste facility Calif. storage plan motivates women
boston.com By Erica Werner Associated Press / January 25, 2009 SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – At the western edge of a largely dormant anti-nuke movement, three generations of mothers are tilting at nuclear reactors. But their mission is less quixotic than it might appear. Wielding a novel argument about the potential impact of a terrorist attack on nuclear facilities, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace is aiming to set legal precedent requiring tougher environmental reviews for nuclear power plants and radioactive waste storage nationwide.

Peace group battles nuclear waste facility – The Boston Globe

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium

January 26, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Iran’s Nuclear Adventurism

Iran’s Nuclear Adventurism  The Times January 26, 2009 The West has few options but united diplomacy to contain a threatening regime. There is no obvious course by which outsiders can stymie the development of an Iranian bomb. A military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities has surely been debated within the US, recalling Israel’s 1981 destruction of the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq. But the logistical difficulties are immense and the chances of success slight. Moreover, while Iran has an extremist theocratic regime, it is not a totalitarian state. It has a civil society and a degree of openness that was unknown in Baathist Iraq. The West must not lose the possibility of exerting pressure on Iran by a direct appeal to a generally young population with much instinctive goodwill to the West…………………………..The conjunction of a new US Administration and technical obstacles may provide an opportunity to check Iran’s nuclear adventurism. The evidence is that Iran freezes its nuclear activities when it faces concerted diplomatic pressure. Unlike North Korea, it wishes to remain within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In the face of a united front from the US and the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany), Iran suspended its uranium enrichment in October 2003, and a year later agreed to a still more comprehensive moratorium. It now appears that Iran’s stock of raw uranium is running low.

Iran’s Nuclear Adventurism -Times Online

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium

January 26, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

: Nuclear Fallout

Nuclear fallout Fort Worth Weekly 23 Jan 09 Luminant announced plans to expand Comanche Peak at an estimated cost of $20.4 billion. There is, however, a caveat to the utility’s grand plan: The Mitsubishi-designed reactors it has ordered have not been approved by the NRC for use in this country and have not been tested under real-world conditions anywhere, a fact that makes Harper even more nervous.“What?” she asked. “Are they going to test them on us?”………………Lon Burnam will be the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit being planned by a coalition of public interest groups…………………………..Environmentalists, many of them veterans of the first battle of Comanche Peak, will have evidence of actual, rather than just theoretical, health effects in the area around the plant: Cancer rates in Hood County, Somervell’s nearest downwind neighbor, have increased significantly since the plant came on line. And other issues will be in play that weren’t germane last time around — like water. In a drought-damaged area of Texas with predictions of more drought to come, the plant’s voracious thirst for water is high on the list of objections.

“We can live without a lot of things,” Harper said. “But we can’t live without water.” ………………………………….

Luminant’s environmental impact documents show that each of the two existing reactors uses a million gallons of water every minute for the circulating water system that provides cooling. The new, higher- capacity ones will need 1.2 million gallons of coolant water per minute. In order to meet such a huge demand, Luminant will draw 103,717 acre feet per year from Lake Granbury. (An acre foot is the volume of water that would cover one acre to a depth of one foot.) That would be about three-fourths of Lake Granbury’s total storage capacity of 136,823 acre feet, according to the Brazos River Authority.

The water needs of Lake Granbury’s other customers pale beside that of the plant — 2 billion gallons per year in 2006, according to the river authority, versus 33 billion to be used by the expanded plant, drawn from both Squaw Creek and Granbury.

FWWeekly: Feature: Nuclear Fallout

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium

January 23, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Mothers for Peace take on nuclear waste storage

Mothers for Peace take on nuclear waste storage Associated Press 22 Jan 09 By ERICA WERNER – 2 hours agoSAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (AP) — At the western edge of a largely dormant anti-nuke movement, three generations of mothers are tilting at nuclear reactors. But their mission is less quixotic than it might appear.Wielding a novel argument about the potential impact of a terrorist attack on nuclear facilities, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace is aiming to set legal precedent requiring tougher environmental reviews for nuclear power plants and radioactive waste storage nationwide.It’s the latest chapter in a long-running battle that pits the all-volunteer group of aging hippies, activists and teachers against the federal government, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, nestled on a gorgeous stretch of coastline nearby.”This whole town — it’s like this veil is over our town. Of denial, is what it is,” said Mothers for Peace member Linda Seeley………………………..f Mothers for Peace has its way, no new plant would get built, nor storage facility approved, without an in-depth review of the environmental impacts if terrorists attacked such facilities.

Adding that level of review is an unwelcome prospect for the industry, as it would add another, potentially steep barrier to getting projects under way………………….Meanwhile, challenges on similar grounds were filed elsewhere, setting up the potential for a conflicting opinion from another federal appeals court that would have to be resolved in the Supreme Court. The nuclear industry might hope to get a more favorable outcome in that setting than from the 9th Circuit, viewed as liberal-leaning — but Mothers for Peace might also be in reach of its goal of setting new precedent for the nuclear power industry.

The Associated Press: Mothers for Peace take on nuclear waste storage

January 22, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Going Nuclear

Going NuclearT  Eneergy Bangla 21 Jan 09 René B. AzurinWhat a nuclear power plant does is boil water. The boiled water becomes steam, the steam turns a turbine, and the rotating turbine spins conductors in a magnetic field to generate electricity. What makes this simple process complicated is that a nuclear reactor boils water in a complicated and dangerous way. Going nuclear, therefore, shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion. Yet, that is precisely what is implied by the proposed bill that effectively mandates the commissioning of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant………………………

………Opponents argue that operating a nuclear plant is inherently risky and requires a strict adherence to a stringent and complex set of safety measures if one is to avoid nuclear accidents (like the 1986 Chernobyl explosion that scattered radiation to large parts of Europe) or radioactive contamination (like the 1997 and 1999 incidents at Takaimura that leaked radiation to the surrounding community). They dispute the safety argument, pointing out that accidents and near-accidents at nuclear plants occur with disturbing regularity every few years or so. They also point out that nuclear plants may not emit carbon and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere but they create even more toxic pollutants that remain deadly for millenia not only to humans and animals but also to flora and fauna……

…………….In any event, whether the rehabilitation and eventual operation of the BNPP is technically and economically advisable is still a question mark. More fundamentally, the operation of a nuclear power plant remains a controversial issue for most. Generating electric power from nuclear fission needs to be measured against cleaner alternatives like power from renewable and perpetual sources like wind and sun. The recently passed Renewable Energy bill makes those even more viable. And, given the current state of technology and relative costs, an array of wind farms and solar farms may now be better alternatives to nuclear plants, even for base-load power. It has been demonstrated that we can economically turn turbines with the wind. And we can boil water in simpler fashion using the sun.

Energy Bangla – Going Nuclear

January 21, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

North East families fight for nuclear test compensation

North East families fight for nuclear test compensation Chronicle Live Jan 20 2009 By Paul JamesThe Ministry of Defence will tomorrow begin a legal bid to derail High Court compensation claims by 1,000 nuclear test veterans before they have even begun.The claims relate to bomb testing in mainland Australia and its island territories by the Ministry of Defence at the height of the Cold War in the 1950s.Veterans from all parts of the country and who served in all three services, the Army, Royal Navy and Air Force, as well as New Zealand and Fijian claimants, are involved in the landmark compensation case.Around 20 nuclear explosions in mainland Australia, the Montebello islands off the west Australian coast and on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, form the centre of the claim.Lawyers say the veterans involved suffered personal injuries of all types, ranging from minor injuries and skin conditions to cancers of the thyroid, liver, intestine and lungs and even death.

It is estimated that the case could cost the MOD hundreds of millions of pounds in damages payouts if it is successful.

But tomorrow MOD lawyers will attempt to halt the claim on the basis that the events concerned happened too long ago to be the subject of a compensation claim now, using arguments under the Limitation Act 1980……………………….

…………Douglas Hern, litigation secretary for the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, claimed he and his comrades had been used as “guinea pigs” by the military……………………”There are thousands of children that have been affected and the Government does not want to know,” he said.

“What happened to our families is going to be published and they are not going to get away with it.”

The hearing to assess whether the claims are barred by the Limitation Act is due to begin tomorrow and last for three weeks.

North East families fight for nuclear test compensation – ChronicleLive

January 21, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

The cost of nuclear security – Los Angeles Times

The cost of nuclear security Los Angeles Times 18 Jan 09 It may come as a surprise that the U.S. spends much more on its arsenal than it does on minimizing risk or planning for the consequences of an attack.By Stephen I. Schwartz and Deepti ChoubeyJanuary 12, 2009Seven years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, at a time when government officials and outside experts are expressing growing concern about the prospect of a nuclear 9/11, few members of Congress know how much the United States spends on nuclear security or where the money goes…………………the first public examination of open-source data, shows that the U.S. spent at least$52.4 billion on nuclear weapons and programs in fiscal 2008. This budget, which spans many agencies, not just the Defense Department, does not count related costs for air defense, anti-submarine warfare, classified programs or most nuclear weapons-related intelligence programs.

The 2008 nuclear security budget exceeds all anticipated spending on international diplomacy and foreign assistance ($39.5 billion) and natural resources and the environment ($33 billion). It is nearly double the budget for general science, space and technology ($27.4 billion), and it is almost 14 times what the Energy Department allocated for all energy-related research and development.
Although the size of the overall budget is troubling, another concern is that we spend so little on initiatives to minimize the risk of nuclear and radiological attacks. More than 17 years after the end of the Cold War, it may come as a surprise to most Americans that the U.S. still spends relatively large annual sums upgrading and maintaining its nuclear arsenal ($29 billion), developing ballistic missile defenses ($9.2 billion) and addressing the deferred environmental and health costs associated with more than 50 years of unconstrained bomb building and testing ($8.3 billion).

More alarmingly, the government spends relatively little money locking down or eliminating nuclear threats at their source, before they can reach U.S. shores ($5.2 billion), or preparing for the consequences of a nuclear or radiological attack on U.S. soil ($700 million).

The cost of nuclear security – Los Angeles Times

January 19, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment