nuclear-news

Protester Gets Jail Time for Non-violent Protest of Nuclear Plant in Virginia”

It’s getting hot in here 29 Sept 08 Three of the six protesters arrested at the Dominion Resources North Anna Nuclear Power Plant were found guilty of trespassing today in the Louisa County Courthouse. The charges stem from conducting an alternative tour and sit-in at the Dominion Power Nuclear Information Center on August 7th.The judge rejected their defense of necessity and sentenced Paxus Calta to 30 day in jail with 15 suspended……………………..Sue Frankel-Streit and Spot Etal were fined $1,000 with $700 suspended. All three are banned form entering Dominion property for a period of two years. About 20 supporters gathered in front of the courthouse with signs displaying their anti-nuclear message.
“What is a greater harm here? That Dominions nuclear information center was inconvenienced and had to close 30 minutes late or that an untested new nuclear reactor will overheat Lake Anna when it is already getting to over 100 degrees most summers?” asks Paxus Calta, one of those arrested and a member of the People’s Alliance for Clean Energy (PACE) a group of concerned Louisa and Albemarle County residents who want real renewables and efficiency solutions instead of the proposed new reactor.
“Dominion wants to build a dangerous new reactor when it has no place to put the waste for the current two. These plants are already a toxic nightmare and we don’t need anymore in this area,” Says defendant Sue Frankel-Streit. “Dominion and the State are failing to address the problems of climate change and of nuclear toxins. We need a different way to make decisions about energy, because the solutions being proposed are failing to serve the people.”Three other protestors from this action pled guilty last month and were fined $1,250,

Uranium forum: a black hole
Tellirude Daily Planet by Ben Williams  08 For anyone unfamiliar with the regulation of uranium in the State of Colorado, the Uranium Regulation Forum in Montrose Sept. 24 was a real eye-opener. Indeed, it was like staring into a black hole……..The meeting was called to update county government on the application of radioactive materials licenses………the tone and tenor of this introduction seemed to anticipate some grave civil uproar. Sitting in the audience, one felt like a naughty child waiting for some punishment the grownups were busy deliberating. The watchful eye of a Law Enforcement Officer from the rear of the room surveyed those in attendance, just in case, one supposes……………..“All of the mills we’ve looked at,” Steve Tarlton, the unit leader, reassured us, nodding like a salesman, “all of the problems we’ve looked at, we’ve learned from.”

That’s good news, one expects: Except “all the mills we’ve looked at” actually means one. There have only been two mills operative in the entire United States in the last 25 years. Both are now in decay, experiencing massive environmental problems. One is in Blanding, Utah. And the other one is the Cotter Mill near Canon City. This obsolete structure, with outdated technology, has apparently taught them a lot. A sort of negative definition. ……Nowhere in this head-nodding, effusive reassurance of our newfound mastery over the “historical problems” that have plagued this industry for years was anything concrete presented, scientific, or specific. The slides used in the presentation were hilarious. You couldn’t find more circular reasoning in a toothpaste commercial. It amounted to a dizzying array of… nothing.

Nuclear fire hazard kept secret for fear of aiding terrorists
Hunterston operator promises plant improvements Sunday Herald 21 Sept 08 By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor

DETAILS OF a serious fire hazard at the Hunterston nuclear power station in North Ayrshire have been kept secret because they could aid a terrorist attack.

The government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has refused to release information about a “specific fire scenario” at the reactors because to do so could “threaten national security”.

The revelation has prompted calls from environmentalists for the plant to be shut down as soon as possible…………………………….

Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, accepted that if there was a real opportunity for terrorists, it was right to withhold information about it. “But the public would also be right to worry about why a facility with such a risk is allowed to continue operating,” he said.

“Given its poor reliability record in recent years, Hunterston is clearly approaching the end of its useful life, and this problem should be another nail in its coffin. There should be no question of considering extending its operating life beyond 2011. If anything, it should be closed sooner.”

Friends of the Earth Scotland backed the Scottish government’s decision to phase out nuclear power in favour of renewable energy.

“The likelihood of a terrorist incident at a UK nuclear facility is thankfully low, but the consequences are unthinkable,” warned McLaren.

A deadly pact with the devil
 NIGERIAN Tribune 10-09-2008 Has Nigeria signed a pact with the devil? With the signing of an agreement with Iran to help resuscitate the nation’s ailing energy sector, that is exactly what seems to have been done. August 29, 2008, some foreign media (particularly The Florida Times Union newspaper) published that Nigeria and Iran signed an agreement the previous day, for “Iran to share peaceful nuclear technology with Nigeria to help Africa’s biggest oil producer to bolster its woeful energy generation capacity.”…………………………Was this information deliberately kept out of the Nigerian press or could it have been an oversight? No matter what one might think, what qualifies Iran to sell nuclear energy technology to Nigeria? Is it because it is defying the rest of the world to continue its revolutionary, pet nuclear project?……………………..Much as Nigeria may be desperate to improve electricity supply, nuclear energy should probably be the farthest alternative from our minds given the level of our development and the mostly lackadaisical attitude towards maintenance and control of public infrastructure.

German Government Aware of Nuclear Problems: Report

A report published in Germany’s Focus magazine alleges that authorities in the state of Lower Saxony were aware of safety issues at the Asse II atomic storage facility 15 years ago.

The Focus report says the state government, led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) at the time, commissioned a technical report on potential hazards at the converted salt mine in 1991.

After two years of evaluation, experts warned that areas near the south-western edge of Asse were unsafe. Their 1993 report found that up to 4,000 litres of water were flooding into the mine’s shafts each day. It recommended that all shafts and caverns less than 750 metres below the earth’s surface should be stabilised to prevent possible collapse.

Focus reports that although SPD leaders in Lower Saxony received an updated report highlighting safety concerns in 1998, they chose to keep the warnings under wraps.

The extent of the safety problems at Asse were made public last week, prompting Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel to transfer responsibility of the facility from the Munich-based Helmholtz Institute for Scientific Research to the Federal Office for Radiation Protection.

Nuclear power is often touted as being clean and carbon-friendly, but opponents point out that no one has yet found a durable solution for storing nuclear waste, which remains highly radioactive for centuries………………………..Der Spiegel reports that a search for alternatives elsewhere, which Gabriel and the Social Democrats prefer, would cost at least one billion euros. If plans for the waste storage facility at Gorleben are given up completely, energy companies could make compensation demands worth billions of euros.