nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Deliberate explosion damaged Iran’s uranium enrichment facility

‘Blast in Iran struck uranium enrichment facility’, By JPOST.COM STAFF AND YAAKOV KATZ, 11/30/2011  Satellite imagery confirms Isfahan facility rocked by blast was a
nuclear facility, ‘The Times’ reports, citing Israeli intel officials. Satellite imagery “clearly showing billowing smoke and destruction” has proven that an explosion Monday damaged a nuclear facility in the Iranian city of Ifsahan, according to aWednesday Times of London
report .

The report quoted Israeli intelligence officials as saying that there was “no doubt” that the blast damaged a uranium enrichment site, and asserted that it was “no accident.”
Officials from Isfahan have been denying that the city had been hit by an explosion. …http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=247560

December 1, 2011 Posted by | incidents, Iran | Leave a comment

Sabotage, assassinations, cyber attacks on Iran’s nuclear program

Iran Nuclear Sabotage Suspected After Reports of Blasts at Atomic Centers, Bloomberg, By Ladane Nasseri – Nov 28, 2011  Reports of a blast in the province of Isfahan, home to one of Iran’s atomic facilities, adds to a series of unexplained incidents that have raised suspicions of sabotage against the country’s nuclear program. Continue reading →

November 30, 2011 Posted by | Iran, safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

India’s poor nuclear safety record

Koodankulam struggle: Western nations are learning from their mistakes, India is not  The Weekend Leader,   By Nityanand Jayaraman & Sundar Rajan, 30 Nov Chennai  “………The claim that Indian nuclear plants are safe is contrary to the facts. Safety breaches in India’s nuclear establishments seldom come to light because of the shroud of secrecy surrounding the institutions. But what little we know gives serious cause for concern.
Just take the case of Kalpakkam. The following violations have come to light, including some that were acknowledged more than six months after the incident.
• 1987: A refuelling accident ruptured the reactor core
• 1991: Workers were exposed to radioactive heavy water
• 1999: 42 workers were exposed to radiation
• 2002: 100 kg of radioactive sodium was released into the environment
• 2003: 6 workers were exposed to high levels of radiation
Other very serious incidents have happened in other reactors. In November 2009, more than 55 workers at the Kaiga nuclear plant, Karnataka, were exposed to excessive levels of radiation when they drank water laced with radioactive tritium…. http://www.theweekendleader.com/Causes/833/Nuking-myths.html

November 30, 2011 Posted by | India, safety | Leave a comment

Explosion near Isfahan, in Iran, possibly near nuclear centre

Blast near Iran nuclear facility Gulf Daily News, , November 29, 2011
TEHRAN: The sound of an apparent explosion was heard from Iran’s Isfahan city yesterday, Gholamreza Ansari, the head of the judiciary in the province said. An important Iranian nuclear facility involved in processing uranium is located near the city, although Iranian media reports did not say whether the explosion was near the nuclear centre. International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Gill Tudor said the UN watchdog was aware of the reports but had no further information.

Iranian media provided contradictory information about the incident, which came less that three weeks after a massive explosion at a military base near Tehran that killed more than a dozen members of the Revolutionary Guard including the head of its missile forces…. http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=318693

November 29, 2011 Posted by | incidents, Iran | Leave a comment

Nuclear power for India – neither safe nor necessary

NUCLEAR EMERGENCY IN JAPAN: LESSONS FOR INDIA,  Aid Netherlands, Shankar Sharma November 25, 2011 “…..While it is clear as to why Japan has put so much importance for the safety and reliability of its nuclear power plants (it is relying on its nuclear power industry for about 30% of its total electricity supply), can we assume similar checks and balances in India where the installed capacity of nuclear power is only about 2.8%?

In this background and with the potential for nuclear catastrophe our society has to seek answer to a credible question: whether the planned addition of more than 60,000 MW of nuclear power by 2031-32 (as per Integrated Energy Policy, IEP) is in the interest of our society?. It is also the high time that the proposed Jaitapur nuclear power park in Maharastra, and similar nuclear power parks in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarath are put to such a critical and objective analysis. A document by DAE (A Strategy for the Growth of Electricity in India: http://www.dae.gov.in/publ/doc10/index.htm) indicates the aspiration of the department to increase the nuclear power capacity to 274,560 MW by 2052. It is very unlikely that the huge risks involved in such a large number of nuclear reactors in the form of vast nuclear power parks can be acceptable to a densely populated and poor country like ours.

The other question that needs to be answered honestly is that in the backdrop of all the associated high risks, are nuclear power plants essential to our society? Can we not manage the legitimate demand for electricity from so many other benign options? …..http://www.nl-aid.org/continent/south-asia/nuclear-emergency-in-japan-lessons-for-india/

November 27, 2011 Posted by | India, safety | Leave a comment

Japanese soldiers to enter Fukushima radiation zone

Once More Into the Breach, TIME  by  , November 25, 2011 TOKYO – Japanese troops are being sent once again into the heart of the Fukushima radiation zone to battle contamination from the stricken nuclear power plant. Specially trained troops will enter the 20-kilometer (12.4 miles) exclusion zone around the plant next month to decontaminate abandoned government buildings and facilities…..

 About 400 troops from the Ground Self Defense Force’s Central Nuclear Biological Chemical Weapon Defense Unit will be sent to Fukushima.  They’ve been there before: Four members of the unit were injured in a hydrogen explosion at the plant on March 12.  Several helicopter pilots and crew received large doses of radiation while dumping seawater on one of the damaged reactors.

The soldiers are expected to finish their work in about a month. No word on when, or if, all the contamination will be gone…… http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/11/25/once-more-into-the-breach/#ixzz1eqfdOOoZ

November 27, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Earthquake risk to India’s planned huge Jaitapur nuclear plant

Jaitapur nuclear plant site not immune to earthquake: Experts Economic Times, 23 Nov 11 BANGALORE: Two leading geologists have warned that a magnitude 6-plus earthquake cannot be ruled out in Jaitapur – the proposed site of India’s largest 9,900 MW nuclear power plant on the west coast that has seen protests against it for safety reasons – and that it could occur within the lifetime of the power plant. Continue reading →

November 24, 2011 Posted by | India, safety | Leave a comment

Fukushima area – 5.9 magnitude earthquake

Magnitude-5.9 quake hits near Japan nuclear site, USA Today 24 Nov 11TOKYO (AP) – A strong earthquake struck Thursday morning near the Japan nuclear power plant hit by a powerful tsunami earlier this year. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-5.9 quake struck shortly before 4:30 a.m. local time. It hit 62 miles (101 kilometers) east of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The quake struck at a depth of 23 miles (37 kilometers).

The quake struck 151 miles (244 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not immediately issue a tsunami alert. Similar quakes have struck in the region since a March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake…

The region lies on the “Ring of Fire” — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around thePacific Rim. About 90% of the world’s quakes occur in the region.http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-11-23/japan-earthquake-1123/51372658/1

November 24, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Japanese seismologist predicted nuclear earthquake disaster

Disregard for the science extended to a government panel started in 2001 to revise seismic engineering standards for Japan’s nuclear plants, said Ishibashi. He quit the panel after five years of debate that he called rigged and unscientific…..

an article on Hamaoka published in the October 1997 issue of Japan’s Science Journal that reads like a post-mortem of the Fukushima disaster: A major quake could knock out external power to the plant’s reactors and unleash a tsunami that could overrun its 6-meter
defenses, swamping backup diesel generators and leading to loss of cooling and meltdowns.

Vindicated Seismologist Says Japan Still Underestimates Threat to Reactors, Bloomberg, By Jason Clenfield – Nov 21, 2011, Dismissed as a “nobody” by Japan’s nuclear industry, seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi spent two decades watching his predictions of disaster come true: First in the 1995 Kobe earthquake and then at Fukushima. He says the
government still doesn’t get it….
Haruki Madarame, now head of Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, from dismissing Ishibashi as an amateur when he warned of a “nuclear earthquake disaster,” a phrase the Kobe University professor coined in 1997. Ishibashi says Japan still underestimates the risk of operating reactors in a country that has about 10 percent of the world’s quakes. Continue reading →

November 23, 2011 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Danger of AREVA’s nuclear waste convoy from France to Germany

If the radioactivity from the transport was dispersed in an accident or an attack, Areva would be discharged from almost all liability. 

Last Minute information – high-risk transport from France to Germany leaving one day early, 21 Nov 11  Transport of highly radioactive nuclear waste will again cross France from west to east, and part of Germany, exposing people and the SNCF agents to  nuclear risks.  Originally scheduled this Thursday, 24 November, the train from Valognes railway terminal has been advanced one day by AREVA and SNCF to try to avoid the huge mobilisation that is being prepared. The convoy should leave Valognes on Wednesday 23 at 14:36.The two routes planned by the authorities from Amiens remain unchanged, the convoy could head north towards Arras or south to Reims. Eleven containers carrying 301 barrels of high activity waste “re-treated” at the Areva plant in La Hague (Manche).

A rolling Chernobyl : Europe again under the threat of a nuclear convoy at high risk The official inventory of radioactivity in the transport amounted to 3756.5 peta becquerel (PBq) or 3.75 billion billion Becquerel of Becquerel. For comparison, the convoy will transport many times the radioactivity released during the Chernobyl disaster [i]. Scattered in the environment, the radio-toxicity potential [ii] this convoy would be enough to poison the whole human race [iii]. Continue reading →

November 21, 2011 Posted by | France, Reference, safety | Leave a comment

European Union bans X-ray airport body scanners

EU bans airport body scanners over cancer fears Zee News, 18 Nov 11 London: The European Union has banned the controversial airport body scanners over fears the X-ray technology could cause cancer, a media report said.  Continue reading →

November 19, 2011 Posted by | EUROPE, safety | Leave a comment

France’s nuclear watchdog warns of safety flaws in reactors

France must tighten nuclear security after Fukushima, watchdog says, By RFI 17 November 2011 France must urgently improve safety in its 58 nuclear reactors in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster, an official report published Thursday said. The head of the French nuclear watchdog warned of “small faults that could have serious consequences”. Continue reading →

November 19, 2011 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

Nuclear fuel company fined for safety breach

Global Nuclear Fuel Fined for Near-Critical Amount of Uranium in Air Filters Nuclear Street, 16 Nov 11, Enough uranium accumulated in air filters at a North Carolina nuclear fuel plant earlier this year to pose a risk of criticality, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined…. http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2011/11/16/global-nuclear-fuel-fined-for-near_2d00_critical-amount-of-uranium-in-air-filters-111601.aspx

November 17, 2011 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Guilty plea in nuclear materials trafficking

Woman pleads guilty in US on Pakistan reactor deal Google News, 16 Nov 11 WASHINGTON — The former boss of a US company’s Chinese subsidiary pleaded guilty to illegally supplying material to Pakistan for use in a nuclear reactor and is now cooperating with US investigators…. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jpFZDocKmk3MLn9RQXrDUsmItKMQ?docId=CNG.fca116c64091d56b372d5ceeb38eb

November 16, 2011 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Endangering, sorry, I mean protecting, London’s Olympic Games

Opening ceremony ticket holder Sharon James was delighted at the announcement, telling us, “If I’m going to be vapourised in an instant, I sure as hell want it to be at the hands of my own government, not because of some Johnny Foreigner on the look out for some after-life poontang.”

Nuclear warheads to protect Olympic village, claims Hammond, News Thump  (satire) 14 November 2011,  Defence Secretary Philip Hammond this afternoon confirmed that the Olympic games in London next summer will be protected from terrorist attack by a series of strategically placed nuclear devices.

In his first appearance at Defence Questions since taking over from Liam Fox, Hammond told MPs that the use of nuclear weapons in London would be a last resort in the face of a terrorist threat.

“We are prepared for every eventuality, and I want to make it clear that we would only destroy everything in and around London when all other options had been exhausted.” Continue reading →

November 15, 2011 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »