Mini series Chernobyl unfolds the horror of radiation sickness – a warning for the future
‘A horrible way to die’: how Chernobyl recreated a nuclear meltdown, Guardian, Julie McDowall, 5 June 19,
From ‘painting on’ radiation sickness to making the explosion less ‘Die Hard’, the acclaimed drama has gone to great lengths to evoke the chaos and terror of the Soviet-era disaster.
We were lucky to have survived the Cold War without a nuclear attack. The pop culture of that chilly era warned what the bomb would do: the crisping of the skin; the slow agony of radiation sickness; the pollution of the land; and the death of cities.
The bomb didn’t explode, but some people experienced a fragment of this horror. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 brought explosions, radiation sickness, evacuations, contaminated earth and, finally, medals awarded and memorials erected. It was war after all – but not against the west; this was another type of nuclear enemy.
Sky Atlantic/HBO’s drama Chernobyl unfolds over five distressing episodes that show the 1986 explosion was more than just another disaster in a decade horribly cluttered with them: it was a ghastly taste of nuclear war, a monstrous cover-up and, finally, an event that helped bring down the Soviet Union.
So it is fitting that the series begins with the explosion, as if to get it out of the way so that we might focus on what happens afterwards………..
Surprisingly, Parker didn’t look to photos of Hiroshima or Nagasaki victims for examples of radiation damage, as he suspects these were tempered by wartime propaganda. He went instead to medical textbooks, and this allowed him to pioneer a technique for Chernobyl where he “layered” the skin: painting the actors’ bodies with wounds, then putting a semi-translucent layer on top, giving the impression that sores are forcing themselves to the surface as the body degrades from within. The effect is dreadful to see. Yet, Parker was strict in saying these men must not be relegated to Hollywood “zombies”, and he explains that the director made sure sympathy stayed with these characters: even as they lie rigid on the bed, gurgling and fading, they still speak, and a wife may still hold her husband’s rotting fingers.
“It’s the worst way to die,” says Parker. “Beyond anything you can imagine. The most horrible way to die. I think it’s the worst, in line with medieval torture.” What makes it particularly atrocious is that the victims were denied pain relief. In the latter stages of radiation sickness you cannot inject morphine, he explains. “The walls of the veins are breaking down.”
So the Chernobyl disaster produced agonising deaths without pain-relieving drugs, which brings us back to the horror of nuclear war. Plans for the NHS after a nuclear attack show drug stockpiles would quickly be exhausted, and those who were hopelessly injured would be allowed to die without the tiny mercy of a supermarket paracetamol.
Chernobyl is a compelling and brilliantly realised drama, but it’s also a warning – of the dangers of lies, arrogance and complacency, and of nuclear war itself.
The final episode of Chernobyl airs Tuesday, 9pm on Sky Atlantic. The whole series is available to view on Sky Go and NowTV
Holtec’s involvement in the Ukraine’s Chernobyl’s dry store facility
Halting Holtec – A Challenge for Nuclear Safety Advocates, CounterPunch, 7 June 19 “……….The California – Chernobyl Connection
Holtec and its client Edison would have the public believe that the San Onofre ISFSI is top of the line, up to date and state-of-the-art spent fuel handling. But that image seems to be contradicted by a recent Holtec press release and accompanying animated video that may seem to describe something like the kind of waste storage system many are advocating for at San Onofre.
On May 6, 2019, Holtec was “pleased to announce the start of final system-wide trials for Chernobyl’s dry store facility….” In the next two months, Holtec expects to complete “stem-to stern functional demonstrations of the [SF-2] spent fuel handling and storage processes before handing over the facility to Ukraine’s State owned enterprise Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP).”
The Holtec press release boasts, “Dismembering more than 21,000 RBMK spent fuel assemblies in a special purpose “hotcell,” packaging those fuel assemblies in double walled canisters(DWCs), and transferring them from (open) water-cooled pools into hermetically sealed rugged helium-filled storage systems inside ventilated modules will mark a huge safety milestone for Ukraine.” https://youtu.be/GYR3GmkRZV0
Holtec is also building a project called a Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility (CSFSF) for the Ukrainian company Energoatom. Holtec says the “CSFSF will employ double-confinement DWCs, the world’s first double-walled, double-lid multi-purpose canister system for dry storage of spent nuclear fuel.”
Many may now be asking, “Why isn’t what’s good for Ukraine, also good for California?” But, Donna Gilmore points out that, “It’s a thin-wall canister system. Exterior wall is 3/8″ thick. Interior wall is 1/2″ thick. Both welded shut. Still must be stored in Holtec concrete cask with air vents. Still cannot be inspected, maintained, monitored or repaired inside or out.” …………https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/07/halting-holtec-a-challenge-for-nuclear-safety-advocates/
It is absurd to question whether we can afford to keep our planet liveable
Guardian Fiona Harvey 7 June 19, The chancellor has warned against cutting UK emissions to net zero. But failing to act will have dire consequences.
The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has written to the prime ministerto warn against adopting the strict targets on greenhouse gas emissions recommended by the government’s advisers.
His intervention, first reported by the Financial Times (£), raises the important question of whether or not it makes economic sense to save the planet.
If the question sounds absurd, that’s because it is. If we fail to move to a low-carbon economy, the consequences will be dire. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of the world’s leading climate scientists convened by the UN, we must drastically reduce our emissions in the next decade to avoid a catastrophic situation in which droughts, floods, heatwaves and extreme weather across the globe devastate lives, destroy agriculture, lay waste to wildlife and force millions to flee.
Set against that, the costs – of £50bn a year in investment, according to the Committee on Climate Change(CCC), which set out the case last month for a target of net-zero emissions by 2050, or £70bn a year, according to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – of maintaining our current lifestyles and orderly existences are trivial. The UK’s economy is worth roughly £2tn a year at present, so Hammond’s estimate of a £1tn cumulative cost by 2050 amounts to less than half of one year’s GDP in three decades.
Doug Parr, the chief scientist for Greenpeace UK, said: “The Treasury is putting their ideology before our wellbeing, and trying to shape the public debate for political ends. If you want to know whether a policy is good, include the benefits as well as the costs. In this case, the benefits include an economy fit for the 21st century, cleaner air, warmer homes, and maximising the chances of civilisation surviving. If reality doesn’t fit with the Treasury models, it’s the models that need to change.”…….
When we ask whether we can afford to tackle climate change, we are really asking – as the IPCC report and decades of climate science show us – whether we want humanity to survive in anything like our current structures. If our economic system stands in the way of doing so, perhaps it is the economics that are at fault. And economics, like politics, are just a human construct. The physics of the earth’s atmosphere are not. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/06/it-is-absurd-question-whether-we-can-afford-keep-our-planet-liveable
As Uk’s nuclear power plans fumble, time to boost renewable energy to ensure electricity supply
Report: Boost renewables for ‘no-regrets insurance’ against nuclear gap Business Green, Michael Holder 7 June 19, Boosting renewable power sources in the UK would provide “no-regrets insurance” against a looming gap in the UK’s nuclear capacity, playing a crucial role in reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the process, a report today by a leading think tank has found.
The government’s plans for a fleet of new nuclear plants in the UK are facing major challenges after recent decisions by Hitachi and Toshiba to halt projects in North Wales and Cumbria respectively, creating a shortfall between official projections of future nuclear capacity and what the market appears set to deliver.
Meanwhile, the discovery of cracks in graphite bricks around the core of nuclear reactors – such as that which has led to Hunterston B power station in Ayrshire shutting down a reactor – has raised fears some of the UK’s existing nuclear plants could yet close earlier than planned.
The industry’s travails could potentially leave the UK with a looming nuclear capacity gap, which could have huge implications for both the electricity system and the UK’s long-term carbon targets, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
Assessing the potential impact of a future nuclear energy gap, the report argues that accelerating the rollout of renewables alongside energy storage and grid flexibility technologies to make up the shortfall in expected capacity during the late 2020s and early 2030s would prove a “no-regrets” solution……
Reports suggests the government may legislate for a 2050 net zero emissions target in the coming week, and if so the government will have to increase its ambitions for renewables in the coming years, said ECIU director Richard Black.
“It would economically pragmatic to accelerate decarbonisation in the near-term by building up capacity in low-cost renewables and flexibility mechanisms,” he explained. “If it turns out they’re not needed, all ministers will have done is to accelerate decarbonisation which they say they need to do anyway; so this really is a no-regrets pathway. But it’s one where decisions are needed soon.” https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3076976/report-boost-renewables-for-no-regrets-insurance-against-nuclear-gap
UK Labour party has accused the government of “actively dismantling” the UK’s solar power industry
the UK’s solar power industry after new installations by households
collapsed by 94% last month. Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business
secretary, used prime minister’s questions to challenge the
government’s record on climate action after scrapping subsidies for
domestic solar panels from April. Standing in for Jeremy Corbyn,
Long-Bailey said solar power had the potential to cut household bills and
carbon emissions while creating thousands of jobs. “But the government,
for some reason, appears to be determined to kill it off, while continuing
to cheerlead for fracking,” she said. (NB – story by Jillian Ambrose
who has moved from the Telegraph to replace Adam Vaughan at the Guardian).https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/home-solar-panel-installations-fall-by-94-as-subsidies-cut
Chernobyl miniseries could not be made in the real Chernobyl wasteland – radiation would have damaged the film kit
Not at the real Chernobyl wasteland that still stands today in what is now Ukraine, but rather in Lithuania, mainly at Chernobyl’s sister power plant, Ignalina, with other portions filmed in suitably… (subscribers only) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/lithuania/articles/chernobyl-tv-show-real-filming-locations/
In UK civilian nuclear power’s real purpose is to subsidise nuclear weapons, nuclear submarines
 Nuclear: Energy bills ‘used to subsidise submarines’ BBC,
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Germany’s energy plant operators as well as government are clear that nuclear station lifetimes will not be extended
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Germany’s env min and plant operators dismiss call for nuclear lifetime extensions,Clean Energy Wire
Germany’s env min and plant operators dismiss call for nuclear lifetime extensions, Germany certainly does not need to return to nuclear energy and should push through with its energy transition instead, according to environment minister Svenja Schulze. Following isolated calls to extend the lifetime of the country’s nuclear plants, Schulze said the technology is very expensive, on closer inspection not CO₂-neutral, and always carries the risk of an accident. Germany’s remaining nuclear power plant operators RWE, E.ON and EnBW also rejected the idea to upend the country’s societal consensus to phase out nuclear power by the end of 2022. Germany’s environment minister Svenja Schulze has dismissed recent isolated calls for a postponement of the country’s nuclear exit to protect the climate. “We certainly don’t need a return to nuclear power. That would cause nothing but problems,” Schulze told energy managers at utility association BDEW’s annual conference. The technology is very expensive, on closer inspection not CO2-neutral, and always carries the risk of an accident, according to Schulze, whose ministry is also in charge of nuclear security…… Opposition to nuclear power has been particularly strong in Germany, and there is a broad societal consensus to phase it out as part of Germany’s landmark Energiewende (energy transition). While the country struggles with aspects of the phase out – such as what to do with the waste – one issue that isn’t a problem is public consent. The vast majority of Germans want to see nuclear power gone sooner rather than later. …… With reference to Germany’s unsolved challenges of dealing with nuclear waste, Schulze said the country had used nuclear power for only three generations, and now left radioactive waste for thousands of following generations to deal with. Schulze also said nuclear power stations would not fit into Germany’s future electricity system. “Nuclear power would only block the grid. We don’t need more inflexible large power stations in a decentralised flexible system.”…… Plant operators have repeatedly said nuclear power will come to an end by the end of 2022 as planned and utility association BDEW said that reaching climate targets in the energy sector does not require a longer operating life for nuclear power plants. “It doesn’t make sense at all to start a discussion about lifetime extensions shortly before reaching the finishing line,” BDEW head Stepan Kapferer said at the conference, adding the operators had already clearly rejected the idea anyway. Nuclear power in Germany “is finished”, plant operators E.ON, RWE and EnBW told Jakob Schlandt for an article in Tagesspiegel Background. “This chapter is over,” said a RWEspokesperson…… The BDEW expressed confidence that its companies can benefit hugely from the energy transition. The Energiewende offered “huge opportunities for growth”, said BDEW head Stefan Kapferer in his opening remarks with reference to renewables and the charging infrastructure for electric mobility. He repeated his association’s call for a CO2 price for heating and transport. “It’s a joke that electricity, as the greenest available form of energy, is also the most expensive,” Kapferer said. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-env-min-and-plant-operators-dismiss-call-nuclear-lifetime-extensions |
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Concern in Suffolk, UK, over the environmental threat of Sizewell nuclear project
in part of east Suffolk – and the lack of coordinated policy to deal with
the concentration of development. Campaigners fear the massive schemes,
which could be built in 25 square miles of rural landscape, could cause
serious harm to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – and devastate the
area’s tourism industry.
been set up to fight the Government over the issue and secure a national
plan for where vital infrastructure will be located. Graeme Murray,
chairman of the Anglian Energy Planning Alliance, said the group was not
against the generation and provision of electricity to secure the country’s
future power needs, but wanted “proper planning” to ensure local
communities were treated fairly and precious landscape and habitat was
protected.
hub” is bounded by Friston, Theberton, Thorpeness and Sizewell – small
communities which will see new power stations, wind farm substations, and
national grid interconnector sites to bring power from abroad.
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/east-suffolk-energy-hub-anglian-planning-alliance-fears-1-6084835
Sweden’s Uppsala District Court rules against extraditing Assange to Sweden
Sweden’s Uppsala District Court has found in favour of Assange: the court ruled NOT to detain Assange in absentia. The preliminary investigation can proceed without Assange’s extradition to Sweden. This was always the case as Assange has always cooperated with the investigation.
Suzie Dawson on Julian Assange’s mistreatment #FreeAssange
UK Labour’s plan for a :Green Jobs” tour
bid to ignite national support for its ‘Green Industrial Revolution’
agenda. Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey visited Morecambe in
Lancashire on Saturday to discuss the area’s potential for “green jobs” in
sectors such as offshore wind, tidal power and community-owned renewable
energy.
and ideas of people throughout society”. “That’s why we’re talking to
unions, businesses and communities across the country to prepare detailed
and ambitious plans to deliver a Green Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Alongside the tour, Labour is hosting an online call for evidence, asking
for input from trade unions, businesses, public sector bodies, party
members, civil society groups and members of the public on its plans to
develop the green jobs market around the UK. The consultation is open until
the end of 2019.https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3076624/labour-launches-green-jobs-tour
3 Royal Navy sailors serving on nuclear missile ship were caught taking cocaine
Evening Standard 2nd June 2019 Three sailors serving on a submarine which carries 16 nuclear missiles have
been caught taking cocaine, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. The
Royal Navy submariners failed a Compulsory Drugs Test shortly after HMS
Vengeance visited a US naval facility in Florida.
EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy makes some schoolboy errors in his fatuous defence of nuclear power
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Together Against Sizewell C accuse EDF Boss of Schoolboy Errors in his Defence of Nuclear Power, http://www.tasizewellc.org.uk/index.php/news/271-together-against-sizewell-c-accuse-edf-boss-of-schoolboy-errors-in-his-defence-of-nuclear-power 30th May 2019
Together Against Sizewell C chairman, Pete Wilkinson, claims that EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy makes some schoolboy errors in his fatuous defence of nuclear power in his IEA February 25th speech, this having been recently reported by World Nuclear News, 20 May 2019. Pete Wilkinson says “M. Lévy is careful to use the word ‘direct’ when claiming that nuclear power produces electricity without emissions; by this, he presumably means that the only part of the nuclear fuel cycle that can even come close to being ‘low carbon’ is that which ‘burns’ uranium in the reactor. Of course, he knows, as do we all, that across the entire fuel cycle, nuclear requires an acceptance of a carbon footprint from uranium mining, milling, enrichment, fuel production, transport, nuclear plant construction, storage and the still-unknown CO2 burdens created by final spent fuel and waste management conundrums. To claim otherwise is disingenuous, especially from someone in such a position of responsibility. It is true that the fight against climate change is challenging, but to conclude that nuclear power is essential to winning that fight is wrong and designed to defend a technology which is antiquated, costly, polluting and presents us with a wealth of unresolved health issues related to childhood leukaemia. Sixty studies, including the seminal German government-sponsored KiKK Report indicate elevated rates of leukaemia and other cancers as a result of exposure to ionising radiation. The Oxford Research Group produced a report some years ago which clearly demonstrated that, given the global nature of the problem of climate change, it would require the building of at least 3000 nuclear plants to have a noticeable impact on the problem – that’s one new plant a week for 60 years. Impossible, yes, but wholly undesirable as well since the nuclear waste legacy that scale of programme would create is unthinkable: we can’t even deal with the 500,000 cubic metres of legacy waste in the UK after 60 years of merrily creating it without a thought about how to manage it safely. Even after ten years of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the UK is still no closer to a universally safe and secure means of dealing with the legacy waste, let alone the hotter and more radioactive waste which M. Levy’s reactors will leave us over the next few decades in return for huge amounts of UK tax payers’ cash should the plant at Hinkley ever be finished and should Sizewell become more than an EdF aspiration. A further reason why nuclear power cannot hope to have more than a minor role to play in the fight against the climate emergency, is the fact that the plants take so long to build. The ‘nuclear renaissance’ in the UK was mooted on the back of energy security and low carbon. The lights in the UK were, at the time of Blair’s announcement in 2005, predicted to go out in 2017. It is now 2019, the lights didn’t go out and no new nuclear is contributing electricity to the national grid in the UK and is unlikely to be doing so for at least another six or seven years – probably longer, given the historic over-runs of time and budget which accompany nuclear plant. Nuclear is an option for the future, not an imperative: that much has been shown time and again with analyses from highly reputable and responsible green and academic groups. Nuclear just can’t contribute fast enough and even if and when it does, its contribution will be only marginal at best, negative at worst. By definition, renewables are potentially endless. They rely on the Sun, the wind, the tides and ambient energy. Moreover, the source of the energy arrives free-of-charge, without mining for rare, unstable and potentially lethal metals or digging for fossil fuels to burn, releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere. Combined with efficiency measures, decentralised electricity generation, smart grids and conservation measures which have already seen electricity demand fall in the UK by some 16% in the last decade, we can meet all our climate change, cost and demand targets without nuclear. This has been demonstrated time and time again: nuclear is an option, not an imperative, and it is an option we should refuse.
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Australian Julian Assange the victim of psychological torture: Australian government no help
UN rapporteur on torture: Julian Assange subjected to psychological torture
May 31, 2019 London: Julian Assange has been subjected to intense psychological torture comparable to some of the gravest cases from “interrogation prisons” around the world, a United Nations expert says.He accuses the UK, US and Sweden of a “consistent failure” to protect Assange’s human rights – and Australia of a “glaring absence” where it should be helping one of its citizens…..Nils Melzer, a Geneva-based former Red Cross lawyer and human rights expert who is now the UN special rapporteur on torture, spent four hours with Assange in Belmarsh in early May, assessing his psychological and mental state along with two medical specialists.
In a currently confidential report submitted to the British government on Monday, along with letters to the US, Swedish and Ecuadorian governments, Melzer concluded Assange “shows all the symptoms of someone exposed to prolonged psychological ill-treatment”.
“The evidence is overwhelming and clear,” Melzer said. “Mr Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.
“I condemn, in the strongest terms, the deliberate, concerted and sustained nature of the abuse inflicted on Mr Assange and seriously deplore the consistent failure of all involved governments to take measures for the protection of his most fundamental human rights and dignity.”
Melzer said the ill treatment was a combination of the way Assange was confined, isolated and persecuted while inside the Ecuadorean embassy, especially in his last year there, along with death threats and public accusations, the prosecutions pursued against him and the public statements made by US government officials as to how he should be dealt with.
Torture did not just include active efforts, but also covers a situation where a State is “aware your behaviour will have these consequences and not doing anything about it”, Melzer said.
“In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law.”
Melzer told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that in his work with the UN and before in the field with the Red Cross he had seen people in rendition for interrogation after 9/11, and prisoners of war who had been ill-treated on a daily basis.
“But [Assange] is really something I’ve never seen in 20 years,” Melzer said. “I’ve seen atrocities in war areas that were physically more horrible but I’ve never seen a single person pursued so relentlessly and with so little foundation.
He said Assange’s treatment was “very close to the intentional, purposeful infliction of coercive measures to try to break him”.
Melzer said his visit on May 9 involved a three-hour psychological and physical assessment based on the “Istanbul Protocol”, a standard manual for assessing torture victims around the world.
The assessment took place before WikiLeaks revealed, on Wednesday, that Assange had been moved to a prison hospital having “dramatically lost weight” and in such a state that “it was not possible to conduct a normal conversation with him”…….
Assange, unlike other prisoners, was exposed to multiple major pending legal proceedings with “so much political commotion”, and was not being given enough time to talk to his lawyers and get updates on his case. ……
Melzer said he had seen no sign of Australian assistance for Assange.
“Australia is a glaring absence in this case. They’re just not around, as if Assange was not an Australian citizen. That is not the correct way of dealing with that.”…..
After it was reported Assange had been taken to the hospital prison this week, the Australian government again got in contact with the prison to check on him.
“We are confident that Mr Assange is being treated appropriately in Belmarsh Prison. Mr Assange has advised us that he is being treated the same as other prisoners in Belmarsh,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue to visit Mr Assange in prison, monitor and advocate for his health, welfare and equitable treatment, and closely follow his legal proceedings.” https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/assange-a-victim-of-torture-and-australia-shares-blame-says-un-expert-20190531-p51t1v.html
1 This Month
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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