Russia’s coverup of 2017 nuclear accident in the Ural mountains
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On July 26, a large group of experts led by Olivier Masson from the Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety in Durance, France, and Georg Steinhauser of the Institute of Radioecology and Radiation Protection in Hanover, Germany, published a paper definitively attributing a radiation cloud that spread over Europe in 2017 to an undeclared accident in the Southern Urals region of Russia, likely at the Mayak nuclear facility near Chelyabinsk. Two years ago, Russia promised to investigate where the cloud could have come from, but a commission formed on Russia’s initiative failedto produce a clear conclusion. At the same time, Mayak and Rosatom, the state-owned nuclear power company to which it belongs, have denied that any accident took place. In late September 2017, several Russian regions and then a number of European countries detected high concentrations of radioactive ruthenium-106 in the atmosphere. As the contamination traveled, more countries noticed it and published reports. The first Russian denials, from the authorities of the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions in the Urals, came a week later. Even after the Russian state weather service Roshydromet reported ruthenium-106 pollution in the South Urals, a Rosatom-led commission insisted the contamination wasn’t the result of an accident and suggested that it could have been caused by a defunct satellite burning up in the atmosphere. The Masson-Steinhauser group ruled out the satellite theory: Such an incident would have caused higher concentrations of ruthenium at high altitudes, which was not the case. Instead, the researchers argued that only a nuclear reprocessing facility could have caused this particular type of contamination. A number of Western and Russian facilities had been responsible for ruthenium-106 releases in the past. By analyzing the weather patterns and ruthenium measurements, including those from Roshydromet, the international team placed the source close to the location of Mayak, the erstwhile scene of a major nuclear disaster – the 1957 “Kyshtym Accident” that forced the evacuation of 10,000 people in the area and caused long-term consequences for residents’ health. The 2017 ruthenium release, luckily, hurt no one – the radioactive gas quickly became diluted and there was no significant fallout. This made it easier for the Russian authorities to deny that an accident had taken place. But then, just like in the Soviet Union, which did its best to keep the Chernobyl disaster under wraps until it could no longer deny it or minimize its impact, denying everything is more or less the officially adopted tactic in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, even when there are casualties. The government and its propaganda apparatus have, for example, put out a progression of elaborate but untrustworthy versions of the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airways Flight 17 — which was hit with a Russian missile from territory held by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. Even after the Masson-Steinhauser team published its findings, Leonid Bolshov, a physicist who was a key member of the Russian-led commission, claimed that the paper “ignored” measurements taken near Mayak, “where almost no ruthenium-106 was detected.” According to Bolshov, the commission’s findings weren’t affected by the new analysis. The dispatch quoting Bolshov from the Russian propaganda agency RIA Novosti bore the headline “Physicists Connected Ruthenium-106 Leak with Experiments in Italy.” Indeed, the Masson-Steinhauser paper discusses a possible link between the accident and Mayak’s work on a cerium-144 source for an Italian neutrino experiment; Mayak canceled the order soon after the ruthenium release. But the headline carefully avoids mentioning Mayak or Russia. The right thing for Mayak and Rosatom to do would be to share with international experts any data on that work, including, of course, whatever could have led to the ruthenium release. That, however, is as likely as an honest Chernobyl movie made in Putin’s Russia. Last week, the unofficial trailer of a new Russian Chernobyl series was leaked on YouTube. Its maker, NTV, a television company with close ties to Putin’s inner circle, promptly pulled it down and threatened those who post it with legal consequences for copyright infringement. But those who sawthe video flooded it with dislikes and negative comments; indeed, it looks like a tear-jerking soap opera with no attempt at authenticity. One of the plot lines appears to involve U.S. Spies. When the series runs, it’ll be another reminder to foreign, especially European, scientists that it’s up to them to watch the Russian nuclear industry for signs of serious accidents. Russia, like the Soviet Union before it, won’t be the first to tell the world about them. |
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Murky Middle East nuclear deal involving Trump’s billionaire friend
Trump’s friend tried to profit from Middle East nuclear deal, lawmakers say https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/29/tom-barrack-saudi-arabia-nuclear-deal-envoy
Congressional report finds Tom Barrack tried to buy Westinghouse as he sought a related government post
A billionaire friend of Donald Trump pursued a plan to buy Westinghouse Electric Corp – even as he lobbied Trump to become a special envoy and promote the company’s work on nuclear power in Saudi Arabia, a congressional report released on Monday.
While Tom Barrack failed in both efforts, the report provides fresh evidence of the ease with which some corporate and foreign interests have gained access to the US president and other senior members of his administration.
Documents obtained by the Democratic-led House oversight committee raise “serious questions about whether the White House is willing to place the potential profits of the President’s friends above the national security of the American people and the universal objective of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons”, the report said.
The report is the second from the panel’s investigation into the plan to construct 40 nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East. The plan was supported by Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn; Barrack, Trump’s inaugural committee chairman; and a consortium of companies led by retired US military commanders and former White House officials called IP3.
One company was Westinghouse, the only US manufacturer of large reactors, which was bought out of bankruptcy by Brookfield Asset Management last August.
The report comes alongside a number of other investigations into the administration being conducted by the panel chaired by the US representative Elijah Cummings – including into the use of personal texts and emails for official business by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner.
Trump attacked Cummings, an African American from Baltimore, in weekend tweets that the president’s critics denounced as racist.
Monday’s report was based largely on thousands of documents provided by unidentified private companies. The White House, the report said, provided no documents, while other federal agencies submitted some.
The committee may subpoena White House documents, it said.
Documents showed that Barrack negotiated with Trump and other White House officials to seek “powerful positions”, including special Middle East envoy, as he took steps to profit from the civil nuclear scheme he advocated.
A previous committee report, published in February, said efforts to advance the nuclear power scheme began during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump officials have continued meeting with IP3 even though White House lawyers in January 2017 instructed staff to cease work on the plan over concerns that Flynn was breaking conflict of interest laws, according to that report. Flynn, fired by Trump in February 2017, advised IP3 while serving on his campaign and transition team, said both reports.
White House lawyers also worried that promoters of IP3’s so-called “Middle East Marshall Plan” sought to transfer US nuclear know-how to Saudi Arabia even as they pushed back on Riyadh’s behalf against certain safeguards, the reports said. Known as the “Gold Standard”, the safeguards are designed to prevent nuclear weapons development. IP3 called the standard a “total roadblock”, Monday’s report said.
A Barrack spokesman said the billionaire had been cooperating with the oversight committee and had provided it with requested documents. Barrack’s investments and business development in the region were for a “better aligned Middle East”, he said. “This is not political, it is essential.“
The White House and IP3 did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
New research: 2017 radioactive cloud traced to an unacknowledged nuclear accident in southern Russia
Mysterious Radiation Cloud Over Europe Traced to Secret Russian Nuclear Accident https://www.livescience.com/66050-radiation-cloud-secret-russian-nuclear-accident.html By | July 29, 2019 A vast cloud of nuclear radiation that spreadover continental Europe in 2017 has been traced to an unacknowledged nuclear accident in southern Russia, according to an international team of scientists.
The experts say the cloud of radiation detected over Europe in late September 2017 could only have been caused by a nuclear fuel-reprocessing accident at the Mayak Production Association, a nuclear facility in the Chelyabinsk region of the Ural Mountains in Russia, sometime between noon on Sept. 26 and noon on Sept. 27.
Russia confirmed that a cloud of nuclear radiation was detected over the Urals at the time, but the country never acknowledged any responsibility for a radiation leak, nor has it ever admitted that a nuclear accident took place at Mayak in 2017. [Top 10 Greatest Explosions Ever]
The lead author of the new research, nuclear chemist Georg Steinhauser of Leibniz University in Hanover, Germany, said that more than 1,300 atmospheric measurements from around the world showed that between 250 and 400 terabecquerels of radioactive ruthenium-106 had been released during that time.
Ruthenium-106 is a radioactive isotope of ruthenium, meaning that it has a different number of neutrons in its nucleus than the naturally occurring element has. The isotope can be produced as a byproduct during nuclear fission of uranium-235 atoms.
Although the resulting cloud of nuclear radiation was diluted enough that it caused no harm to people beneath it, the total radioactivity was between 30 and 100 times the level of radiation released after the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011, Steinhauser told Live Science.
The research was published today (July 29) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Ruthenium release
The cloud of radiation in September 2017 was detected in central and eastern Europe, Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and even the Caribbean.
Only radioactive ruthenium-106 — a byproduct of nuclear fission, with a half-life of 374 days — was detected in the cloud — Steinhauser said.
During the reprocessing of nuclear fuel — when radioactive plutonium and uranium are separated from spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power reactors — ruthenium-106 is typically separated out and placed into long-term storage with other radioactive waste byproducts, he said.
That meant that any massive release of ruthenium could only come from an accident during nuclear fuel reprocessing; and the Mayak facility was one of only a few places in the world that carries out that sort of reprocessing, he said.
Advanced meteorological studies made as part of this new research showed that the radiation cloud could only have come from the Mayak facility in Russia. “They have done a very thorough analysis and they have pinned down Mayak — there is no doubt about it,” he said.
The accident came a little more than 60 years since a nuclear accident at Mayak in 1957 caused one of the largest releases of radiation in the region’s history, second only to the 1986 explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which is now in the Ukraine. [Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster 25 Years Later (Infographic)]
In the 1957 accident, known as the Kyshtym disaster after a nearby town, a tank of liquid nuclear waste at the Mayak facility exploded, spreading radioactive particles over the site and causing a radioactive plume of smoke that stretched for hundreds of miles.
Nuclear accident
The study showed that the 2017 accident at Mayak was unlikely to have been caused by a relatively simple release of radioactive gas, Steinhauser said. Rather, a fire, or even an explosion, might have exposed workers at the plant to harmful levels of radiation, he added.
Russia has not acknowledged that any accident occurred at the Mayak facility, maybe because plutonium is made there for thermonuclear weapons. However, Russia had established a commission to investigate the radioactive cloud, Steinhauser said.
The Russian commission ruled that there was not enough evidence to determine if a nuclear accident was responsible for the cloud. But Steinhauser and his team hope it may look again at this decision in the light of the new research.
“They came to the conclusion that they need more data,” he said. “And so we feel like, okay, now you can have all of our data — but we would like to see yours as well.”
Any information from Russia about an accident at the Mayak facility would help scientists refine their research, instead of having to rely only on measurements of radioactivity from around the world, Steinhauser said.
The international team of scientists involved are keenly interested in learning more about its causes. “When everybody else is concerned, we are almost cheering for joy, because we have something to measure,” he said. “But it is our responsibility to learn from this accident. This is not about blaming Russia, but it is about learning our lessons,” he said.
Australia cracks down on climate activism. French journalists arrested while filming anti-coal activities
Adani protest: French journalists arrested while filming anti-coal activities, Guardian
Journalists charged with trespassing after filming Frontline Action on Coal activists include Hugo Clément, Ben Smee@BenSmee, Mon 22 Jul 2019 Four journalists working for the public television network France 2 have been charged with trespassing for filming a protest near the Abbot Point coal terminal, in north Queensland, targeting the operations of the Adani group.
Lies and deceptions surrounding the planned costly bailout of Ohio’s nuclear power plants
There’s still time to say no to Ohio’s costly nuclear bailout https://www.crainscleveland.com/opinion/personal-view-theres-still-time-say-no-ohios-costly-nuclear-bailout Jeff Barge 21 July 19, There may have been a case once for Ohio to subsidize FirstEnergy Solutions’ two nuclear plants in Ohio. But the company’s deceit and dishonesty in providing false and misleading information to the state legislature and the public now make that virtually impossible. That may be why the bailout failed to pass as scheduled on July 17 by one vote and may not be brought up again until Aug. 1.
The Olympic Games and the second Tokai Nuclear Plant,
I am revealing some meaningful facts about Fukushima.
3.On June 25,three days before the G 20 Summit in Osaka,white smoke was
The unpleasant reality behind the Tokyo Olympics’ shimmering curtain of propaganda
Is Tokyo Ready for the Olympic Juggernaut? Tokyo says that it’s ready to host the 2020 Olympics. The early numbers—and quality of Olympic leadership—are not encouraging. The Nation, By Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff 18 July 19
Dave ZirinTWITTERDave Zirin is the sports editor of The Nation.
Secret Locations of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe revealed
Leaked NATO report reveals where USA is hiding SIX nuclear weapons – and they’re in EUROPE https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1155277/us-nuclear-weapons-map-secret-locations-nukes-europe-nato-news
THE SECRET locations of US nuclear weapons in Europe were been accidentally revealed in a NATO-affiliated report. By KATE WHITFIELD, , Jul 19, 2019 The document was titled “A new era for nuclear deterrence? Modernisation, arms control and allied nuclear forces”. It was first published in April and written by a Canadian senator for the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. The document, which has now been deleted, seems to confirm long-held suspicions that US nuclear weapons are being stored in Europe.
The document referred to the sites of roughly 150 American nuclear weapons.
Locations in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey were identified.
The report was seen by Belgian newspaper De Morgen, which said: “These bombs are stored at six US and European bases — Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi-Torre in Italy, Volkel in The Netherlands, and Incirlik in Turkey.”
The document did not attribute this information to any source.
In the final version of the document, published last week, the reference was removed.
The latest version of the report instead makes reference to aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
The report says: “The European Allies often cited as operating such aircraft are Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Turkey.”
A NATO official told The Washington Post the report was “not an official Nato document” and pointed out that it was written by the alliance’s parliamentary assembly.
The official added: “We do not comment on the details of Nato’s nuclear posture.”
While the storage of US nuclear weapons has long been suspected, many are viewing this as confirmation.
De Morgen’s report was headlined: “Finally in black and white: There are American nuclear weapons in Belgium.”
And Dutch broadcaster RTL News said: “NATO reveals the Netherlands’ worst-kept secret.”
Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat-reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, said the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe was “no surprise”.
He added: “This has long been fairly open knowledge.”
The presence of the weapons resulted from an agreement reached in the 1960s and is thought to be a relic of the Cold War era.
But in recent years, fears have grown over whether parts of the continent, such as Turkey, are the best place to store them in the wake of terrorist extremism in the region.
How many nuclear weapons does the USA have?
The US was the first country to manufacture nuclear weapons and, to date, is the only country to have used them in combat – in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in World War II.
Since 1945, the United States produced more than 70,000 nuclear warheads – more than all other nuclear states combined.
At its peak in 1967, the US military had a stockpile of 31,255 warheads.
Now, the most recent figures suggest the US has an estimated 4,018 nuclear weapons in either deployment or storage.
The first victims of the first atomic explosion might have been American children.
After a nearly half a century of denial, the US Department of Energy concluded in 2006, “the Trinity test also posed the most significant hazard of the entire Manhattan Project.
Ionizing radiation is especially damaging to dividing cells, so the developing infant, both before and after birth, is susceptible to radiation damage, as Alice Stewart, an epidemiologist who first demonstrated the link between X-rays of pregnant women and disease in their children,[12] first warned in 1956.[13]This damage may be seen years later with the development of leukemia and other cancers in children exposed in utero to ionizing radiation, as Stewart and others confirmed in subsequent studies.[14] By 1958, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation recognized that, in the short term, radiation damage can be reflected in fetal and infant deaths.[15]
Fallout protection was not a priority for the Trinity explosion.
The current body of historical evidence of harm, negligence, and deception—especially the evidence of increased infant death following the first nuclear explosion—should be more than enough for long overdue justice for the people in New Mexico who were downwind of Trinity.
Is cancer the legacy left by world’s first atomic bomb test?
Trinity: “The most significant hazard of the entire Manhattan Project” https://thebulletin.org/2019/07/trinity-the-most-significant-hazard-of-the-entire-manhattan-project/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Newsletter072219&utm_content=Nuclear_Trinity_071519
By Kathleen M. Tucker, Robert Alvarez, July 15, 2019 For the past several years, the controversy over radioactive fallout from the world’s first atomic bomb explosion in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945—code-named Trinity—has intensified. Evidence collected by the New Mexico health department but ignored for some 70 years shows an unusually high rate of infant mortality in New Mexico counties downwind from the explosion and raises a serious question whether or not the first victims of the first atomic explosion might have been American children. Even though the first scientifically credible warnings about the hazards of radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion had been made by 1940, historical records indicate a fallout team was not established until less than a month before the Trinity test, a hasty effort motivated primarily by concern over legal liability.
In October 1947, a local health care provider raised an alarm about infant deaths downwind of the Trinity test, bringing it to the attention of radiation safety experts working for the US nuclear weapons program. Their response misrepresented New Mexico’s then-unpublished data on health effects. Continue reading
Private Notes Show How Big Oil Spread Climate Science Denial
The ‘Historical Jigsaw of Climate Deception’: Private Notes Show How Big Oil Spread Climate Science Denial DeSmogBlog, By Mat Hope • Thursday, July 11, 2019 We’ve all heard the dodgy arguments: ‘the science is uncertain’, ‘climate change is natural, not down to humans’, ‘science has been hijacked by politics’… Now a new cache of documents sheds light on the origins of the disinformation.
In another verse of a now familiar refrain, a fossil fuel industry group in the 1990s publicly promoted arguments to undermine confidence in climate science while internally acknowledging their products were driving up temperatures.
A cache of meeting minutes, briefings, and emails uncovered by the Climate Investigations Center shows how industry group the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) used its financial clout and political connections to cast doubt on mainstream climate science until its disbandment in 2002. The GCC would for decades cast doubt on the veracity of climate science and strategically spread the message that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was a politicised body, to discourage regulatory reform that would hit coalition members’ profits.
The documents show that the group, which counted fossil fuel giants Exxon, Shell, and Peabody among its members, knowingly pushed misinformation on climate change even as the GCC internally acknowledged humans’ impact on the climate “cannot be denied”. Some of those same companies have been the recent targets of lawsuits seeking damages for climate change impacts.
“These documents are another stain on the fossil fuel industry’s track-record as a disingenuous rogue agent in climate science and politics,” Geoffrey Supran, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University researching climate science denial, told DeSmog. “They further illustrate the sophisticated combination of inside- and outside-lobbying used by the fossil fuel industry to protect their status quo business operations.”
Peddling Denial
Within the GCC, the Science and Technology Assessment Committee (STAC) took responsibility for assessing contemporary climate science and formulating strategic arguments to undermine it. The STAC was chaired by Mobil Oil’s Lenny Bernstein. Mobil, Exxon, and Texaco (now part of Chevron) all contributed five staffers to the committee.
An internal 1994 document outlining “issues and options” for the GCC to consider regarding “potential global climate change” shows the group’s outright climate science denial.
The document concludes that “the claim that serious impacts from climate change have occurred or will occur in the future has not been proven” and “consequently, there is no basis for the design of effective policy action that would eliminate the potential for climate change.”
In the same document, the GCC cites the work of infamous academics known for spreading climate science denial including Richard Linzen, Patrick Michaels, and Robert Balling. The document asserts that these academics’ arguments disputing mainstream climate science “have received far less attention than they deserve”. ……….
Politicisation
The GCC’s disinformation strategy extended beyond casting aspersions on the science to the process of gathering evidence for the major IPCC reports, the documents show.
Porter Womeldorff, an Illinois Power Company employee and co-chair of the STAC, suggested the group focus on the politicisation of the IPCC process.
And that’s exactly what the GCC did. In an internal document from 1996, the GCC boasted that its criticism of the IPCC’s processes had been picked up more widely by the mainstream media:
“Publications which have joined in questioning the IPCC approach to conforming technical reports to summaries include the NYTimes, Wall St. Journal, Energy Daily, and Nature.”
This followed a 1995 report that noted with glee a Nature editorial taking aim at the IPCC for a press-release that the erstwhile journal considered to be needlessly attention seeking.
Harvard’s Supran, who recently testified to the European Parliament about Exxon’s history of climate science denial, told DeSmog that the documents “help fill in pieces of the historical jigsaw of climate deception by the fossil fuel industry”.
“History teaches us that when it comes to the fossil fuel industry’s rhetoric on climate change and energy, we take them at face value at our peril.” https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/07/11/historical-deception-global-climate-coalition-science-denial?utm_source=desmog%20%20weekly%20newsletter
Illegal transport of thorium at Georgia’s border with Armenia
Georgia intercepts radioactive substance at border with Armenia http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-07/15/c_138229300.htm Source: Xinhua Editor: yan TBILISI, July 15 – Georgia on Monday detained an Armenian citizen who was charged with illegally transporting the radioactive substance Thorium at the border with Armenia.
According to the Georgian State Security Service, the radioactive substance was intercepted at the Sadakhlo checkpoint when the suspect in a mini-bus was inspected.
The total weight of the packages carried by the suspect was 71.63 kg, and they contained radioactive isotope Thorium 232, which is a nuclear material and poses a threat to life and health.
The mini-bus was moving from Armenia to Russia through Georgia.
If convicted, the detainee will face 5 to 10 years in prison.
For 6 years, Potentially Dangerous Nuclear Waste Was Shipped to Nevada as Low Level Wastes
DOE Was Shipping Potentially Dangerous Nuclear Waste To Nevada Site For Years
Energy officials told Gov. Steve Sisolak that the Nevada National Security Site received shipments from 2013 to 2018 that could contain “reactive” material. By Sanjana Karanth, 12 July 19
The U.S. Department of Energy shipped potentially dangerous nuclear material incorrectly labeled as low-level radioactive waste into Nevada for several years, the state’s governor announced.
A statement from Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) on Wednesday said the department sent a total of 32 shipments to the Nevada National Security Site between 2013 and 2018 that were supposed to be low-level radioactive waste from a facility in Tennessee. (The DOE told the Las Vegas Review-Journal later on Wednesday that there were actually nine shipments that had 32 containers.)
But DOE Deputy Secretary Daniel Brouillette told Sisolak on July 3 that some of those shipments may have included “reactive” material, which can release large amounts of thermodynamic energy.
Sisolak’s office said DOE officials have not confirmed that the shipments definitely contained reactive materials, which he said “would trigger additional safety concerns,” but the department did confirm Wednesday to the Review-Journal that the shipments were not in compliance with the security site’s waste acceptance criteria.
On July 5, Sisolak and Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) and Jacky Rosen (D) sent a letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry citing the risks posed to Nevada’s residents and environment and demanding that the DOE immediately correct the waste disposal mistake and create new procedures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“These egregious acts ― whether acts of negligence or indicative of something else ― are unconscionable and have potentially put the health and safety of Nevadans and our environment at unacceptable risk,” the letter stated.
The security site has been a place to permanently dispose of what the DOE categorizes as low-level radioactive waste, which can include materials like rags, construction debris and other equipment exposed to radioactive material. The site also takes in some forms of “mixed low-level waste,” which can contain some hazardous waste such as garbage and sludge. The governor’s office said mixed low-level waste is more strictly regulated and requires treatment prior to disposal and a more protective disposal method than low-level waste.
The shipments in question were not properly labeled to indicate which materials were low-level waste and which were more dangerous.
Federal officials, including from the National Nuclear Security Administration, gave an in-person briefing to Sisolak on Tuesday regarding the department’s findings and proposed response. During the briefing, the governor referred to an incident last year in which the DOE shipped half a metric ton of weapons-grade plutonium to the same security site and didn’t give notice until months later.
Yet again, the DOE has violated its mission, broken Nevadans’ trust and failed to follow its own compliance procedures,” Cortez Masto and Rosen said in a joint statement Wednesday. “We intend to immediately determine whether the mixed waste shipped to Nevada poses a hazard to the health and safety of Nevadans and will take every action necessary to hold the DOE accountable.”
DOE officials told the Review-Journal that they are launching an internal investigation to figure out how the shipments were miscategorized for six years, and will temporarily suspend all planned future shipments from the Tennessee facility.
The nuclear industry cries poor, wants bailouts, BUT LOOK WHAT THEY PAY THEIR EXECUTIVES!
Christine Layman . Three Mile Island Survivors (Facebook) 6 July 19, The PA nuclear industry claims it needs a $500 million dollar a year bailout because they are unable to be competitive in the market place and yet, First Energy paid their top 7 executives more than $25 million combined in 2018 alone. Sounds like they are making plenty of money to me!
SAY NO TO ANY NUCLEAR BAILOUT IN PA!
7 First Energy executives were paid more than $25 million in 2018
Arrests in Turkey for theft of nuclear weapons material
Nuclear weapon material worth $72mn seized in a car in Turkey https://www.rt.com/news/463556-turkey-radioactive-material-bust/ : 7 Jul, 2019 Turkish police have taken five people into custody over the smuggling of a highly-radioactive substance used to build nuclear weapons and power nuclear reactors. The 18.1-gram haul was found in a car.
Police discovered a vial of the material after they pulled over a car in the northwestern Bolu province. The substance, believed to be californium, was found stashed under the gear stick wrapped in a bag. Officers had to cut the upholstery to get to the parcel, which is estimated to be worth US$72 million.
Five suspects were detained in the raid, and the mixture was taken to the Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK) for a detailed analysis.
Californium is named after the place where it was synthesized back in 1950 – a laboratory at the University of California. Apart from being used to manufacture nukes and nuclear-powered reactors, the element also has a range of rather innocuous civilian applications. It can be used as part of metal detectors and is used in cancer treatment as well as oil, silver, and gold mining operations. Still, the substance is highly dangerous and its production, distribution, and transportation is restricted. Currently, only the US and Russia synthesize the isotope.
It is not the first time Turkish police have reported a major bust involving californium.
In a scare in March of last year, police in Ankara said they had seized a whopping 1.4kg of the same substance in a car following a tip-off. It turned out to be false alarm, as the haul was later found to have no trace of nuclear or radioactive material, and was, in fact, organic matter.
Dark money and the planned nuclear power bailout in Ohio
Who paid all that money to buy all those nuclear bailout ads raining on Ohio? https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/07/02/who-paid-all-money-buy-all-those-nuclear-bailout-ads-ohio-house-bill-6/1443145001/
Josh Goad, Cincinnati Enquirer July 3, 2019 If you’re an Ohioan with a TV or radio, you’ve probably heard about a nuclear power bailout bill that lawmakers are considering in Columbus. But what you can’t find out is exactly how much money is being spent on those ads – or who originally gave the money for them.
House Bill 6 seeks to tax Ohioans 80 cents a month through their utility bill to bailout First Energy Solutions’ nuclear power plants in Northern Ohio. Critics say the bill, which also will boost costs for commercial and industrial customers, will discourage the use of renewable energy for businesses across the state. Proponents say the bill will help Ohio stay energy independent and keep badly needed jobs in the communities around the plants.
The bill, which has the backing of powerful House Speaker Larry Householder, triggered up to $8.3 million in ads and other campaign spending, published estimates show. For comparison, a record $45 million was spent in the 2018 Ohio gubernatorial race.
Yet an Enquirer analysis of ad purchases for and against House Bill 6 and reported to the Federal Communications Commission shows just $2.7 million in sales. The Cincinnati market, the state’s third largest, was the leader in ads on the bailout bill.
Why the gap between the $2.7 million hard figure and the $8.3 million estimate? Some broadcasters, including Cincinnati’s WCPO-TV, are choosing not to post billings for the ads – and under FCC rules, they don’t have to do so.
The big money behind the bill hasn’t been reserved for ads this year. Groups allied with Householder put $800,000 into ads for Ohio’s 2018 campaigns, boosting candidates who put Householder into the speaker’s seat. A couple of the winning candidates also are key sponsors of House Bill 6.
But donors behind the campaign money, and for many of the ads you’ve seen about the bill, can’t be pinpointed.
The money backing the bill primarily started with a 501(c)(4) or “dark money” organization called Generation Now that doesn’t have to list donors. Generation Now then gave to a political action committee, which must disclose donors. So while it’s clear which candidates got the “dark money” boosting the nuke plant bailout went, it’s uncertain who originally contributed it or the money that bought airtime.
Who runs Generation Now and is on its board isn’t clear. But the Columbus address of a longtime Householder adviser, Jeff Longstreth, is listed as the principal office in documents filed to the Ohio Secretary of State. So far, the 501(c)(4) hasn’t filed paperwork with the IRS – a step that such nonprofits seeking to stay in existence take. Paperwork that’s normally filed with broadcasters, listing the board members of groups airing political ads also is missing.
How much is being spent?
Generation Now has spent over $1.9 million on ads supporting House Bill 6, documents filed with the FCC show. This is out of around $2.7 million reported being spent on ads across Ohio on the proposal.
First Energy, which owns the plants being bailed out, backs the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance. The alliance has spent around $275,000 on ads in support of the bill and has stuck to Facebook for distribution.
The opposition to House Bill 6 has put $400,000 into its ads. The total from Ohio Consumers Power Alliance, American Energy Action and Ohioans Against Nuke Bailout compares to the roughly $1.3 million Generation Now has spent in Cincinnati alone.
Why isn’t all the spending being reported?
The FCC requires stations to make ad spending records available for the public record, but only if the ads are focused on a specific candidate or a national issue. State and local issues are not on the short list of requirements.
Some stations choose to file everything for the sake of transparency. Others don’t.
FCC public inspection files show 41 stations in markets across Ohio – Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland-Akron, Toledo, Zanesville and Wheeling-Steubenville – were contacted by Generation Now or other interested parties because they are required to file such contracts by FCC rules.
But 13 stations, including every commercial TV broadcaster in Dayton, did not report how much Generation Now and other organizations spent on ads.
Where did the money come from?
‘Dark money’ is inherently difficult to track. While we don’t know the source, the money can be followed when it changes hands.
Other than the money Generation Now spent in 2019 on ads, the nonprofit also donated over $1 million to the Growth & Opportunity PAC in 2018. The political action committee is based in Lexington, Kentucky, but operates throughout the Midwest.
According to documents filed with the FEC, the PAC only raised around $1.1 million in 2018. Almost all of that money would go on to pay for ads for Ohio Republican candidates during the midterm elections. Though Generation Now did not directly pay for those ads, it did provide the majority of funds necessary through three sizable donations to the PAC.
When the donations were made last year, Generation Now and the PAC had something in common: A treasurer from Dinsmore Agent Co, a subsidiary of Cincinnati-based law firm Dinsmore and Shohl.
Eric Lycan, the treasurer and former lawyer at Dinsmore’s Lexington office, would have overseen the donation. He still serves as the treasurer for both the organization and the PAC, and several documents filed to the FEC include his Dinsmore email address.
The only Ohio-based organization that is easily traceable is Ohio Citizen Action, founded in Cleveland in 1976. Through its education fund, Ohio Citizen Action created the Ohio Consumers Power Alliance, who has paid for $8,000 in anti-House Bill 6 ads.
As nonprofits, Ohio Citizens Action and its education fund report their annual revenues to the IRS but not their donors. The last available filing for the education fund was for 2017, which was posted in January 2019.
Where did the ‘dark money’ go?
Reps. Jamie Callender, R-Concord, and Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro, both primary sponsors of House Bill 6, directly benefited from the ads purchased by the Growth & Opportunity PAC.
Of the 22 Republican candidates that received either mail or radio ads, 19 would go on to win a seat in the House. Callender received more in ad spending than any other winning candidate, with $93,000 spent on seven different ad buys.
Householder also had nearly $50,000 worth of ads paid for by the PAC during his election to his Southeast Ohio seat. Another $25,000 was donated directly to Householder by FirstEnergy’s PAC.
Karen Kasler, of public radio’s Statehouse News Bureau, asked Householder earlier this year if House Bill 6 was a priority to him because of his connections to Eric Lycan and the Growth & Opportunity PAC.
“It’s a priority bill for me because I’ve always cared about the energy in the state of Ohio,” said Householder. “I’ll tell you who’s paying for these ads: it’s working men and women from Ohio, who want to save their jobs and it’s Ohio corporations, headquartered in Ohio, that want to stay here. That’s who’s paying for it.”
Why is ‘dark money’ hard to track?
It can be as simple as Generation Now, and other dark money groups, not filing the appropriate paperwork to the IRS. If a tax-exempt organization doesn’t file for three consecutive years, it loses its status. Since Generation Now was incorporated in January 2017, the three-year deadline is approaching.
Though Householder says that hardworking men and women donated money to the organization, Generation Now doesn’t have a donation portal on its website.
While reaching out to Generation Now for comment, Curt Steiner, CEO of Columbus-based Steiner Public Relations, answered instead. He said that he represents Generation Now and that he couldn’t speak on why there is no donation portal.
Why have the ads run recently?
Many of the ads about House Bill 6 played on Ohio’s airwaves talked about getting the bill passed before the end of June.
Some of the ads feature an ominous voice talking about what Ohio’s future might look like under the bill, others showcase somebody who talks about their life and what FirstEnergy has done for them.
So why the deadline for passage? FirstEnergy Solutions needed to know whether to place an order for $52 million worth of fuel for one of its nuclear power plants. It takes months for such an order to be filled.
Action on FirstEnergy Solutions restructuring plan, filed through the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio, has been posted four times, moves that a FirstEnergy spokeswoman described as “not unusual.”
Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, told Statehouse reporters on Saturday he isn’t worried about the delayed fuel purchase.
“I’ve had a number of conversations with (FirstEnergy) going back several months about what the timeline was and there’s always been a little bit of flexibility,” Obhof said.
Meanwhile, House Bill 6 is still awaiting a vote in the Ohio Senate.
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