Nuclear waste – we don’t want that muck here!
‘We don’t want that muck here’: Residents react to nuclear waste row in
Hartlepool. A row exploded between politicians in Hartlepool over the issue
this week. People in Hartlepool have expressed concern about their town
becoming a nuclear waste “dumping ground”, after a row exploded between
politicians over the issue this week.
The decision by Hartlepool council’s
deputy leader, Conservative Mike Young, to defend facilitating meetings
about the potential for a waste disposal facility in the town, was branded
“hugely disappointing” by Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen. Mr Houchen is
“concerned” that the admission was only made after he brought the issue to
the attention of the public, and submitted an FOI to the council demanding
information about who has discussed Hartlepool as a potential location.
Teesside Gazette 13th Aug 2021
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/we-dont-want-muck-here-21294512
UK’s Radioactive Waste Management employs ”behavioural science” group to monitor online talk about nuclear waste dump plan
We have been sent a leaked document indicating that Radioactive Waste Management, the government body tasked with “Delivery of a Geological Disposal Facility” have employed a company involved in “behavioural science” to monitor independent conversations of those talking online about the deep nuclear dump plan.
The Cumbrian nuclear safety group have sent this leaked report to Lincolnshire County Council and East Lindsey District Council urging them to follow the example of the most nuclear sympathetic County in the UK, Cumbria, and exclude themselves from the RWM agenda which is to implement one or more geological disposal facilities.
The nuclear safety group argue that the science of deep disposal of nuclear wastes is in its infancy and that instead of spending billions of pounds on behavioural scientists in order to deliver a dangerous deep nuclear dump, all effort should be made on containment at the Sellafield site.
Radiation Free Lakeland 9th Aug 2021
Radioactive Waste Management Employ Behavioural Scientists to ‘keep a friendly eye’ on what people are saying – really?
Canada’s political leaders oblivious to the dangers in making plutonium accessible?
Our political leaders seem oblivious to the dangers to the entire planet that could result from widespread access to plutonium. If Canada can access plutonium, so can any other country. If many countries have access to plutonium, the possession of nuclear weapons must be regarded as a real possibility. In a nuclear-armed world, any conflict anywhere can turn into a nuclear war. The stakes could not be greater
Plutonium: from Nagasaki to New Brunswick, https://nbmediacoop.org/2021/08/09/plutonium-from-nagasaki-to-new-brunswick/ by Gordon Edwards, August 9, 2021 Today, August 9, is the 76th anniversary of the US military’s atomic bombing of the City of Nagasaki in Japan. The nuclear explosive used was plutonium.
The destructive power of plutonium was first revealed on July 16, 1945, when a multicoloured mushroom cloud bloomed over the American desert – the first atomic explosion, top-secret, and much more powerful than expected. Robert Oppenheimer, the man in charge, was awestruck and thought of the words from the Bhagavad-Gita: “I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.”
Three weeks and three days later, on August 9, 1945, the City of Nagasaki was destroyed with a single plutonium bomb.
Plutonium is named for Pluto, god of the dead. It is the primary nuclear explosive in the world’s nuclear arsenals. Even the largest nuclear warheads, based on nuclear fusion, require a plutonium “trigger” mechanism. Access to plutonium is key to the construction of such thermonuclear weapons. Removing the plutonium from nuclear warheads renders them impotent.
Plutonium is not found in nature but is created inside every nuclear power reactor,
including the one at Point Lepreau on the Bay of Fundy. Plutonium is a human-made derivative of uranium. A metallic element heavier than uranium, it is created inside the nuclear fuel along with hundreds of lighter, fiercely radioactive by-products – the fragments of uranium atoms that have been split.
The countries that have nuclear weapons – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, UK, France, Russia and China) as well as India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea – have all learned how to separate plutonium from used nuclear fuel for use in weapons. This is done by dissolving the solid fuel assemblies in a hot, highly radioactive chemical bath from which the plutonium is extracted using basic scientific procedures. Any technology for extracting plutonium from used fuel is called reprocessing.
Nuclear advocates have long dreamed of using plutonium as a reactor fuel, thereby increasing the options for new reactor designs and magnifying the longevity of the nuclear age. The problem is, once plutonium has been extracted, it can be used either for weapons or for fuel at the discretion of the country possessing it. Policing methods can be circumvented. As Edward Teller has observed: “There is no such thing as a foolproof system because the fool is always greater than the proof.”
That’s how India exploded its first atomic bomb in 1974, by using plutonium created in a Canadian research reactor given as a gift to India and a reprocessing plant provided by the US. Both the reactor and the reprocessing plant had been designated as “peaceful” facilities intended for non-military use. India declared that the bomb it had detonated was a “Peaceful Nuclear Explosive.”
After the Indian blast, it was quickly determined that several other clients of Canadian technology – South Korea, Argentina, Taiwan, and Pakistan – were also in a position to develop a plutonium-based bomb program. Swift and decisive international action forestalled those threats. In particular, South Korea and Taiwan were discouraged by their US ally from pursuing reprocessing.
Shaken by these shocking developments, in 1977 US President Jimmy Carter – the only head of state ever trained as a nuclear engineer – banned the civilian extraction of plutonium in America and tried to have reprocessing banned worldwide, because of the danger that this nuclear bomb material could fall into the hands of criminals, terrorists, or militaristic regimes bent on building their own nuclear explosive devices. As one White House adviser remarked, “We might wake up and find Washington DC gone, and not even know who did it.”
Japan is the only country without nuclear weapons that extracts plutonium from used nuclear fuel, much to the dismay of its neighbours. South Korea is not allowed to do so, despite repeated efforts by South Korea to obtain permission from the US to use a type of reprocessing technology called “pyroprocessing.” Pyroprocessing is currently undergoing experimental tests at a US nuclear laboratory in Idaho.
Now, New Brunswick has been enticed to take the plutonium plunge. The company Moltex Energy, recently established in Saint John from the UK, wants to use plutonium as a nuclear fuel in a type of reactor that is not yet fully conceptualized. The plutonium would be extracted from the thousands of solid irradiated nuclear fuel bundles currently stored at NB Power’s Point Lepreau reactor using a version of the pyroprocessing technology that South Korea has so far been denied.
On a site right beside the Bay of Fundy, the highly radioactive metallic fuel bundles would be dissolved in molten salt at a temperature of several hundred degrees. A strong electrical current would be used to strip the plutonium metal and a few other elements (less than one percent of the mass) out of the dissolved fuel.
After the government of Canada gave $50.5 million to support the Moltex project in March this year, nine retired US government advisors – all of them experts in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons – wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in May, urging him to authorize an independent review of the international implications of the proposed New Brunswick plutonium scheme.
These nine experts, who have worked under six different US presidents, both Republican and Democrat, are deeply concerned that Canada’s support for reprocessing and the civilian use of plutonium could seriously undermine delicate and precarious global non-proliferation efforts that have been underway for many decades.
No reply from the Canadian government has so far been received, although Trudeau’s office acknowledged receipt of the letter and said that the matter has been entrusted to Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau and Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan.
Without any word from these two ministers, Moltex posted a response to the US experts’ letter on their corporate web site, disputing some of the claims made in the letter to Trudeau. In particular, Moltex claims that their proposed technology is not usable for nuclear weapons purposes because the plutonium is not pure, but mixed with other contaminants that cannot easily be removed.
The Moltex response has prompted another letter to Trudeau from the US non-proliferation experts, correcting this and several other misleading comments from Moltex and reiterating their call for a fully independent expert review of the non-proliferation aspects of the Moltex proposal.
Our political leaders seem oblivious to the dangers to the entire planet that could result from widespread access to plutonium. If Canada can access plutonium, so can any other country. If many countries have access to plutonium, the possession of nuclear weapons must be regarded as a real possibility. In a nuclear-armed world, any conflict anywhere can turn into a nuclear war. The stakes could not be greater.
Citizens of New Brunswick and all Canadians who realize the importance of this issue can write to our Prime Minister in support of a non-proliferation review of the Moltex proposal, and raise this matter with candidates and at the door during the next federal election campaign. We can all raise awareness of the legacy of Nagasaki and do our best to ensure that New Brunswick is not implicated by going ahead with the Moltex plutonium extraction scheme.
Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, is based in Montreal.
Costs of Ontario’s nuclear program will be the burden of the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021.
Ontario’s Unfunded Nuclear Decommissioning Liability Is In The $18–$27 Billion CAD Range Clean Technica, By Michael Barnard 8 Aug 21, Ontario’s nuclear program will be a fiscal burden on Ontarian’s to the tune of around $40 billion CAD which will be spent through roughly 2135, finally being paid off by the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021.
Late last year I worked up the likely amount of public money that would have to be thrown at the nuclear industry in order to successfully and safely decommission the 100 operational reactors and the now shut down ones. Unsurprisingly, the nuclear industry had been very optimistic in its estimates of decommissioning costs and timeframes, when the global empirical averages were trending to a billion USD and 100 years per reactor.
Recently I was asked by an Ontario journalist what I thought the likely situation in Ontario would be, and whether the decommissioning trusts were equally underfunded. I was unsurprised to find that Canada is in the same boat as the US, with highly optimistic schedule and cost projections which belie Canadian empirical experience with the CANDU reactor, and that the fund had nowhere near the money necessary for the job. Let’s run the numbers.
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is the chunk of the provincial utility that was carved apart in the late 1990s by the Mike Harris Conservatives to handle generation alone. It operates 18 aging CANDU reactors across three sites: Bruce, Pickering, and Darlington.
OPG has a nuclear decommissioning fund of about $5 billion CAD or US$4 billion right now. If the experience of other countries on the actual cost of a billion USD per reactor and an actual timeline of decommissioning of a century holds true, and I see no reason why it doesn’t, that means that there is currently a $17.5 billion CAD gap in Ontario, in addition to the existing $19.3 billion CAD in debt still being serviced from their construction. When the government of the era split up the utility, it moved all of the debt off of the components and into general debt. One of the many appropriate and sensible things that the McGuinty Administration did in the 2000s, in addition to shutting down coal generation entirely, was to move the debt back into the utility and set about servicing it from utility bills.
Most of the reactors at Bruce Nuclear are aging out, with several over 40 years old and the remainder approaching 40. Darlington’s are around 30, so they have a bit of runway. Pickering’s reactors are going to be shut down in 2024 and 2025 and start decommissioning in 2028. While refurbishment could bridge Ontario’s for another 20 years in many cases, that’s expensive and typically won’t pass any economic viability assessment compared to alternatives.
The likelihood is that all reactors in Ontario will reach end of life by 2035, and be replaced by some combination of renewable energy and HVDC transmission from neighboring jurisdictions, with both Manitoba and Quebec having excellent, low-carbon hydroelectric to spare…………
So yes, Ontario’s nuclear program will be a fiscal burden on Ontarians to the tune of around $40 billion CAD which will be spent through roughly 2135, finally being paid off by the great-grandchildren of babies born in 2021.
Nuclear, the gift that keeps on giving. https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/06/ontarios-unfunded-nuclear-decommissioning-liability-is-in-the-18-27-billion-cad-range/
Stockton Professor: Nuclear Power is “Terrible Neighbor
Stockton Professor: Nuclear Power is “Terrible Neighbor” https://ocnjdaily.com/stockton-professor-nuclear-power-terrible-neighbor/ By MediaWize – August 8, 2021 By DR. JOHN AITKEN Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Physics, Stockton University
Opponents of the Ocean Wind turbine project spoke in favor of using nuclear power as an alternative to the wind power at the July 27 Michael Shellenberger presentation sponsored by Save Our Shores in Ocean City.
The speaker stated that that while climate change is indeed real, the only solution to reducing carbon emissions is nuclear power, contrary to the position of many environmental organizations.
His proposals to pursue solely nuclear power did not mention its disadvantages and costs. Nuclear power operates carbon free as do solar and wind power, but unlike them, nuclear generates large quantities of dangerous waste that are difficult to dispose of and costly to manage.
Nuclear power can supply an unlimited amount of power but creates an unlimited amount of hazardous nuclear waste requiring storage for at least 300 years. Nuclear power may be a useful servant but it is a terrible neighbor.
Take the example of the Oyster Creek nuclear plant 35 miles north of Atlantic City. After approximately 50 years of service it is being decommissioned due to its inability to compete with cheaper natural gas.
In the 1960s, Lacey Township signed up to host the plant. What they did not realize at the time was that they had signed a deal with devil. The town had traded its own long-term safety for the benefits of good paying jobs and reduced property taxes.
Due to environmental and transportation concerns, nuclear waste storage sites in Nevada or Washington state promised by the federal government never materialized, leaving local plants on their own to store their nuclear waste on site for decades if not centuries.
The costs associated with decommissioning the nuclear site, estimated between $800 million and $1.4 billion, are another legacy left by the plant. The original owner/operator of the plant, Exelon, sold the plant to another company who will execute the decommissioning plan. For the rest of this article I will refer to this decommissioning company as DC.
While the project is supported by a decommissioning fund, likely cost overruns will be paid by future generations through their utility bills. The costs cover the removal and deactivation of spent nuclear fuel, control rods, the reactor and associated buildings, which themselves have become radioactive from exposure to radiation.
But now, with decommissioning approaching, the township is paying the piper dearly for the good years. Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant has been shut down. The spent nuclear fuel and radioactive debris from the reactor and the associated buildings will be stored in 68 cylindrical casks, each 22 feet high and 11 feet in diameter, emitting low levels of radiation on the now-defunct site. The casks must remain intact for at least 300 years to allow the radioactivity of the waste inside to decay to handleable levels.
DC is now in charge of the decommissioning project. DC makes no commitment as to how long, decades or even centuries, these casks will have to remain on the Lacey Township site in close proximity to homes and schools.
Nor is there a guarantee that the casks, manufactured by DC, will remain intact during the 300-year storage period. Lacey Township at first sued DC to prevent the storage of these casks on the site. After a long legal battle, Lacey settled the lawsuit with them, acquiescing to the onsite storage on the condition that DC would build and assign another cask for emergency use by the township.
The Lacey Township decision shows it is a virtual prisoner of DC, which now owns the nuclear waste but is also the town’s only hope of restoring the site to radiation-free conditions.
Operating nuclear plants are also a continual hazard to the communities where they are sited. Nuclear plants do not pose a threat of nuclear explosion. Their Achilles heel is the plumbing, which brings water in and out of the reactor vessels.
The water pipes, degraded by the nuclear reactions, develop cracks and eventually leak water with radioactive contaminants. This water can leak into the local water supply and cause cancer or DNA damage to people who drink it.
As shown by the Oyster Creek experience, nuclear power is costly, dangerous and unmanageable. Those in favor of nuclear power should be ready to accept nuclear power stations in their own backyards and relive the Lacey Township experience. Nuclear power makes a terrible neighbor.
Delay in demolition of Three Mile Island Nuclear Station
Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant Demolition Delayed
WKOK Staff | August 8, 2021 MIDDLETOWN – Stateimpact Pennsylvania is reporting…The company responsible for decommissioning the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant is delaying demolition of the reactor’s two cooling towers, the project director said Wednesday. Frank Helin told the TMI-2 Community Advisory Panel that the towers will come down in 2022 instead of this fall.The decommissioner, TMI-2 Solutions, is a subsidiary of EnergySolutions, a Utah-based company that tries to turn a profit by dismantling inactive nuclear sites under budget. TMI-2 Solutions acquired the reactor’s license from FirstEnergy in December. The company plans to start removing what remains of TMI-2’s damaged core by mid-2022. It expects to complete the entire clean-up process by 2037. EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said the delay in taking down the cooling towers does not affect the rest of the process…………
Eric Epstein, chair of the watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert, said that while he is not concerned about the cooling towers, he believes the reactor building may have more radioactive material than the company is prepared to deal with.
“Our concern is making sure that the plant is finally cleaned up 42 years later,” he said. “We don’t believe the company that owns TMI-2 has the technology, the expertise, or the resources to clean the plant up.” On its website, TMI-2 Solutions says it anticipates the project will cost $1.06 billion. It says the trust fund dedicated to the reactor’s decommissioning contains about $877 million, but that fund growth over time will provide enough money to cover the costs. https://www.wkok.com/three-mile-island-nuclear-plant-demolition-delayed/
The UK and Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA)and other organisations dismayed at approval for dumping Hinkley radioactive mud into coastal waters
The UK and Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) and the
campaigning group Geiger Bay express their deep dismay on the decision over
the weekend by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to allow EDF Energy
to dredge mud and sediment from the cleared Hinkley Point C site into a
coastal site close to the North Somerset town of Portishead. (1)
That this controversial decision was issued unusually over a weekend in the middle of
the holiday season, and from initial reading, appears to be a rushed
response after previous delay, adds to that dismay. The NFLA and other
groups raised significant concerns in our submission to the MMO urging them
not to approve this application. Our concerns, like that of local councils
and a wide range of environmental and community groups, appear to have been
simply ignored. Campaigning groups and other environmental groups are now
seeking legal advice on the decision document.
NFLA 3rd Aug 2021
Campaigners dismayed as application to dump Hinkley Point mud in the Bristol Channel is approved.
| Campaigners dismayed as application to dump Hinkley Point mud in the Bristol Channel is approved. Anti-nuclear campaigners have expressed ‘deep dismay’ following confirmation that the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has approved EDF Energy’s application to dump mud and sediment from the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station into a coastal site close to the north Somerset town of Portishead. “The MMO document endangers health all around the estuary, including the coast of south Wales, as the Welsh Government Davidson Committee’s independent report makes it clear that material dumped at Portishead travels anticlockwise round the estuary,” Geiger Bay spokesperson Richard Bramhall said. “This includes a long-term threat from inhalable particles of uranium and plutonium. We are facing a culture of deliberate ignorance. Future generations will pay the price.” Nation Cymru 3rd Aug 2021 https://nation.cymru/news/campaigners-dismayed-as-application-to-dump-hinkley-point-mud-in-the-bristol-channel-is-approved/ |
Housing market affected in Lincolnshire, as villagers react against UK government plans for a nuclear waste dump.
A Lincolnshire estate agent has warned that plans for a radioactive waste
storage facility in Theddlethorpe are causing people to reconsider buying
houses in the area, and has urged for the proposals to be scrapped.
News of the plans came in late July, when Radioactive Waste Management (RWM)
confirmed it was in “early discussions” with Lincolnshire County
Council about using the former ConocoPhillips Gas Terminal as a nuclear
waste underground disposal facility.
RWM has promised to start a conversation with the community about the proposals, in order to hear and
understand people’s views on the matter, and LCC has stressed that no
decision will be made without public backing.
The Theddlethorpe community
organised a campaign meeting in opposition to the radioactive waste storage
plans, with around 100 people gathering at Mablethorpe Sherwood Playing
Fields to protest it.
Lincolnite 3rd Aug 2021
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give OK for spent nuclear fuel storage in Texas
U.S. NRC staff gives environmental OK to proposed $2.3B spent fuel storage site in Texas Power Engineering 2 Aug 21, The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is recommending granting a proposed license for a planned spent nuclear fuel interim storage facility in west Texas.
The NRC issued its final environmental impact statement on the application by Interim Storage Partners LLC, which is a joint venture of Waste Control Specialists LLC and Orano CIS. If granted, the owners would construct a facility to store from 5,000 (in the beginning) to 44,000 short tons of spent commercial nuclear fuel and a small quantity of spent mixed oxide fuel for about 40 years.
U.S. Department of Energy statistics indicate that the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry generates about 2,000 metric tons of used uranium fuel per year. Once spent and removed from the reactor, used fuel roads are currently stored at close to 75 sites in 34 states, according to the DOE.
The proposed interim site would be in Andrews County, Texas less than a mile from the New Mexico border. The owners would build and operate the project within a 14,000-acre parcel of land accessible by rail and road……..
The original plan is to store 5,000 short tons with subsequent expansion eventually bringing the total to close to 44,000 tons, equal to about 20 years of operation by the entire U.S. nuclear power generation fleet, according to reports………. https://www.power-eng.com/nuclear/waste-management-decommissioning/u-s-nuclear-regulators-give-environmental-ok-to-proposed-2-3b-spent-fuel-storage-site-in-texas/
English and Welsh concerns – call on Marine management leaders to postpone the dumping of Hinkley radioactive mud in te British Channel
EDF has this week rejected concerns about radioactivity from its dredging in the Bristol Channel around Hinkley Point power station near Burnham-On-Sea. A coalition of concerned Bristol Channel researchers and
campaigners says they have undertaken a pre-dredging radioactivity survey near Hinkley Point because “EDF, who want to dump radioactivity in the Bristol Channel, refuse to do it.”
The coalition, representing interests from both Welsh and English communities along the Bristol Channel/Severn estuary coasts, has appealed to the CEOs of the Marine Management Organisation and Natural Resources Wales (who must both adjudicate on EDF’s application to dredge) and the Westminster and Welsh Governments, who oversee those two agencies, to postpone any dumping decision until the survey results are published. The coalition has also formally requested a Public Inquiry to discuss the issues.
Burnham-on-sea.com 30th July 2021
https://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/edf-rejects-radioactivity-concerns-over-hinkley-point-dredging/
Britain’s secret shortlist of areas earmarked for the dumping of nuclear waste
Southend-on-Sea, Essex, is the county’s most populous area, with more people living in the borough than anywhere else, but it’s a different story when you go to one of its most easterly points. Once you pass Shoeburyness, the area becomes almost entirely uninhabited. A series of islands, including Foulness Island and Wallasea Island, are situated here. They’re mostly marshy, boggy areas, but a few people still live there. A number of these islands are or have been owned by the government’s Ministry of Defence, who use this area for a variety of purposes, including as a shooting range. One of these islands is Potton Island. This island is mostly uninhabited, separated from the mainland by a thin creek only navigable via a small bridge which leads to the village of Great Wakering. In the 1800s, it was used as farmland until a major flood left the island abandoned. It was restored in the 1940s, and fell under the control of the Ministry of Defence in the 1950s before being turned back into a space for pasture and farmland. Documents released in 2005, after decades of secrecy, outlined areas the British government had earmarked for dumping nuclear waste in the 1980s and 1990s. Whilst any dumping would have been done in managed and safe ways, it’s still concerning to know that areas across Britain were being earmarked as graves for radioactive waste. Waste could have potentially been buried on Potton Island, and pedestrian access onto it possibly restricted completely. Southend Borough Council reportedly had no idea that Potton Island was on the government’s list of potential dumping locations, and were shocked when they found out it was on the shortlist. Essex Live 31st July 2021 https://www.essexlive.news/whats-on/classified-plans-use-essex-island-5713965 |
Algeria: deep resentment of French colonialism and the effects of nuclear bombing -still very real today.
In Algeria, France’s 1960s nuclear tests still taint ties, https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210729-in-algeria-france-s-1960s-nuclear-tests-still-taint-ties More than 60 years since France started its nuclear tests in Algeria, their legacy continues to poison relations between the North African nation and its former colonial ruler.The issue has come to the fore again after President Emmanuel Macron said in French Polynesia on Tuesday that Paris owed “a debt” to the South Pacific territory over atomic tests there between 1966 and 1996.
The damage the mega-blasts did to people and nature in the former colonies remains a source of deep resentment, seen as proof of discriminatory colonial attitudes and disregard for local lives.
Diseases related to radioactivity are passed on as an inheritance, generation after generation,” said Abderahmane Toumi, head of the Algerian victims’ support group El Gheith El Kadem.
“As long as the region is polluted, the danger will persist,” he said, citing severe health impacts from birth defects and cancers to miscarriages and sterility.
France carried out its first successful atomic bomb test deep in the Algerian Sahara in 1960, making it the world’s fourth nuclear power after the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain.
Today, as Algeria and France struggle to deal with their painful shared history, the identification and decontamination of radioactive sites remains one of the main disputes.
In his landmark report on French colonial rule and the 1954-62 Algerian War, historian Benjamin Stora recommended continued joint work that looks into “the locations of nuclear tests in Algeria and their consequences”.
France in the 1960s had a policy of burying all radioactive waste from the Algerian bomb tests in the desert sands, and for decades declined to reveal their locations.
‘Radioactive fallout’
Algeria’s former veterans affairs minister Tayeb Zitouni recently accused France of refusing to release topographical maps that would identify “burial sites of polluting, radioactive or chemical waste not discovered to date”.”The French side has not technically conducted any initiative to clean up the sites, and France has not undertaken any humanitarian act to compensate the victims,” said Zitouni. According to the Ministry of the Armed Forces in Paris, Algeria and France now “deal with the whole subject at the highest level of state”.
“France has provided the Algerian authorities with the maps it has,” said the ministry.
Between 1960 and 1966, France conducted 17 atmospheric or underground nuclear tests near the town of Reggane, 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) from the capital Algiers, and in mountain tunnels at a site then called In Ekker.
Eleven of them were conducted after the 1962 Evian Accords, which granted Algeria independence but included an article allowing France to use the sites until 1967.
A radioactive cloud from a 1962 test sickened at least 30,000 Algerians, the country’s official APS news agency estimated in 2012.
French documents declassified in 2013 revealed significant radioactive fallout from West Africa to southern Europe. Algeria last month set up a national agency for the rehabilitation of former French nuclear test sites.
In April, Algeria’s army chief of staff, General Said Chengriha, asked his then French counterpart, General Francois Lecointre, for his support, including access to all the maps.
We respect our dead’Receiving the maps is “a right that the Algerian state strongly demands, without forgetting the question of compensation for the Algerian victims of the tests,” stressed a senior army officer, General Bouzid Boufrioua, writing in the defence ministry magazine El Djeich.”France must assume its historical responsibilities,” he argued.President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, however, ruled out any demands for compensation, telling Le Point weekly that “we respect our dead so much that financial compensation would be a belittlement. We are not a begging people.”France passed a law in 2010 which provided for a compensation procedure for “people suffering from illnesses resulting from exposure to radiation from nuclear tests carried out in the Algerian Sahara and in Polynesia between 1960 and 1998”.
But out of 50 Algerians who have since launched claims, only one, a soldier from Algiers who was stationed at one of the sites, “has been able to obtain compensation”, says the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
No resident of the remote desert region has been compensated, it said.
In a study released a year ago, “Radioactivity Under the Sand”, ICAN France urged Paris to hand Algeria a complete list of the burial sites and to facilitate their clean-up.
The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons obliges states to provide adequate assistance to individuals affected by the use or testing of nuclear weapons.
It was signed by 122 UN member states, but by none of the nuclear powers. France argued the treaty was”incompatible with a realistic and progressive approach to nuclear disarmament”.
ICAN France in its study argued that “people have been waiting for more than 50 years. There is a need to go faster.
“We are still facing an important health and environmental problem that must be addressed as soon as possible.”
Over 1.5k people sign petition against nuclear waste storage in Lincolnshire, UK
Over 1,500 people have signed a petition to say no to plans to store
nuclear waste underground on the Lincolnshire coast. Plans emerged to
dispose of nuclear waste at a site near Mablethorpe this week, as
Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) said it was in “early discussions”
with Lincolnshire County Council about using the former ConocoPhillips Gas
Terminal in Theddlethorpe as a Geological Disposal Facility, but that no
decisions had been made.
Lincolnshire County Council Leader Martin Hill
claimed it was only 10 days ago they had a presentation from the firm, and
that it was the first time they’d had a meeting with them. He also said a
“binding” local referendum would be held and “if it’s a no,
that’s the end of it”, according to the BBC.
Lincolnite 29th July 2021
More underground space is needed at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)
More underground space is needed to complete the mission at the Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant to dispose of nuclear waste, contend WIPP officials
during a Monday public meeting. The U.S. Department of Energy was underway
with a permit modification request (PMR) that would amend the DOE’s
permit with the State of New Mexico to allow for the mining of two new
panels where waste would be disposed of along with drifts connecting the
panels to the rest of the underground repository. At WIPP, transuranic
(TRU) nuclear waste consisting of clothing items and equipment irradiated
during nuclear activities at DOE sites across the country is disposed of
via burying in an underground salt deposit.
Carlsbad Current Argus 27th July 2021
1 This Month
9 September – online public forum THREE MILE ISLAND:
7-8:30 PM ET,
Legacy, resistance to reopening – https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-LGJU4j6TD2Hgf0rpgAr1A#/registration
The nuclear industry and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are threatening to restart Pennsylvania’s permanently closed and decommissioning Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear power station. Three expert speakers will present the resistance to this dangerous misadventure in a webinar hosted by the Clamshell Alliance, Beyond Nuclear and Massachusetts Peace Action.
No Nuclear in Cwm Llynfi! Stop the nuclear power station near Maesteg.
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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