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Spain upholds decision to reject plan for uranium mine

Spain’s Energy Ministry has again denied Berkeley Energia permission to build a uranium mine near Salamanca. In making the ruling, the ministry referred to a statement from its previous rejection, which said the Nuclear Safety Council had expressed concerns over “poor reliability and high uncertainty of the safety analyses of the radioactive site.”
Full Story: Reuters (2/7)
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/spain-sticks-with-decision-block-berkeleys-uranium-mine-2023-02-07/

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February 10, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Spain, Uranium | Leave a comment

The government’s price isn’t right for plutonium-contaminated land in Palomares (Almeria)

 https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/10/07/the-governments-price-isnt-right-for-plutonium-contaminated-land-in-palomares-almeria/By Linda Hall • 07 October 2022

FIFTY-SIX years on, Palomares is still suffering the effects of its infamous “nuclear incident.”

This occurred on January 17 in 1966 when four unarmed thermonuclear bombs were released after two US aircraft crashed in mid-air over the Mediterranean.

One bomb was found far out to sea but three fell on Palomares, releasing plutonium and contaminating an area of two square kilometres. The US army decontaminated some of the land but much remains untreated.

Spain’s central government announced in early October that it would soon be completing its estimate of the value of the plutonium-affected properties it intends to acquire.

“This would appear to be the first step in the clean-up plan drafted more than 10 years ago,” provincial media sources said.

Buying up the land was in the public interest “to safeguard residents’ health and permit a close watch on the land”, the government said, allocating €345,127 for the compulsory purchase of 324,073 square metres of land.

According to the same sources, the 30 owners involved, who include developers and agricultural growers, dismissed the €1 per square metre compensation as “laughable.”

They maintained that this was particularly risible after Spain’s Energy, Environmental and Technological Research Centre (CIEMAT) recommended a price of €17 per square metre of rural land and €83 for building land in a 2007 report to the Nuclear Safety Council.

Most of the land in question is located within the Cuevas del Almanzora boundaries although five properties belong to Vera.

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October 7, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | - plutonium, Spain | Leave a comment

Developer dismisses B-52 crash radiation fears at proposed site of Spanish resort

Two nuclear bombs exploded in 1966 after US aircraft involved in mid-air collision over Palomares in Almería

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/14/developer-dismisses-b-52-crash-radiation-fears-at-proposed-site-of-spanish-resort Stephen Burgen in Barcelona, Thu 14 Jul 2022 

A British company has defended its plans to develop a resort in south-east Spain after environmental groups claimed the area could be contaminated with radioactivity from nuclear bombs that fell after a plane crash in the 1960s.

On 17 January 1966 a US air force B-52 collided mid-air with a refuelling plane over Palomares in Almería, killing seven of the 11 crew.

Of the four 1.5 megatonne nuclear bombs the B-52 was carrying, three fell to Earth, of which two exploded as conventional bombs, spreading radioactive debris over a wide area, while the fourth landed in the sea. It was recovered 80 days later.

Shortly after the accident, the US shipped 1,700 tonnes of contaminated earth to South Carolina, after which it was largely forgotten.

British-based Bahía de Almanzora plans to build 1,600 homes, a hotel and a sports complex about a mile (1.5km) from the contaminated zone in Palomares, which has been fenced off for the past 56 years. The Almanzora proposal makes no mention of the 1966 incident or the contamination.

José Ignacio Domínguez, a lawyer who heads the local Ecologists in Action group, said: “The plutonium isn’t just in the fenced-off area because it’s carried on the wind and by animals such as birds and rabbits.” Domínguez said his group’s own tests have revealed dangerously high levels of radiation outside the closed zone.

Meritxell Bennasar from Greenpeace said: “A chain-link fence isn’t much of a barrier. Some of the contamination is only a few centimetres deep. There are places where the United States secretly buried contaminated soil and we’re only just finding out where they are.”

Fraser Prynne, development director for Bahía de Almanzora, said the contaminated land was “nowhere near the development” and that “this stuff about particles flying about is nonsense”.

“There’s no need to say it’s close to contaminated land,” he said. “There are probably 150 existing houses that are closer.”

The 1966 accident happened as Francoist Spain was opening up to tourism and shortly afterwards Manuel Fraga, the tourism minister, and Angier Biddle Duke, the US ambassador, staged a photo-op of them swimming in the sea at Palomares in an attempt to demonstrate that the waters were safe.

Fifty-six years later, 103 hectares (254,000 acres) remain fenced off and neither the Spanish nor US governments have complied with a mutual agreement signed in 2015 to clean up the zone.

https://f71595344c259f395ddc898ef26f49a4.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

“We’re as keen as anyone to see the area cleaned up,” Prynne said. “It’s American plutonium but there’s no nuclear cemetery in Spain and no one else wants it.”

Palomares was not mentioned during the recent visit to Madrid by the US president, Joe Biden, and when Julissa Reynoso Pantaleón, the US ambassador to Spain, was asked about the long-delayed clean-up in an interview this week in El País newspaper, she said only that “we are prepared to listen to any proposal from the Spanish government”.

Aside from the radiation issue, environmentalists say the proposed development will destroy what is virtually the last stretch of virgin coast in Almería.

“The only reason this part of the coast hasn’t been destroyed is because it’s radioactive,” said Domínguez.

The developers however say the mayor and the local population are in favour of the plan. “They’ve seen all the development along the coast and it’s been disappointing not to see it happening in their area,” Iain Anderson Moody said on behalf of the Almanzora

July 13, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Spain | Leave a comment

Thousands March in Madrid for Peace and “NATO NO”.

this from a previous protest in UK

Thousands March in Madrid for Peace and “NATO NO”.  https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Thousands-March-in-Madrid-for-Peace-and-NATO-NO—20220626-0005.html&source=gmail&ust=1656372213390000&usg=AOvVaw3X62tTdIvq0p0thk8VygFj  The Sao Paulo Forum, the Women’s International Democratic Federation, Ecologists in Action, Pacifists Foundation; Not to war, Not to Nato; Plataforma Madrid and pacifist associations from France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Italy, among others, emphasized the need to maintain the protests and not allow NATO to dictate the future.  The Summit for Peace “NATO NO” that took place in Madrid, reiterated its rejection of militarism, while expressing its repudiation of the Atlantic alliance, and ended its deliberations with the demonstration from Atocha station to Plaza de España.

Some 10 thousand people marched today through the center of the capital in favor of peace and in rejection of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in particular the Summit for Peace “NATO NO” to be held here.

The parade along the Paseo del Prado, passing by the fountain and the Cibeles palace, took the Gran Vía in a march in which emblematic songs such as El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido, by the Chilean Víctor Jara, and La Muralla, based on the verses of the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, stood out.

The demonstrators’ posters and statements were dominated by slogans in favor of peace, repudiation of wars and invasions, interference in the internal affairs of nations through the use of military force and disrespect for the sovereignty of peoples by NATO, as well as harsh criticism of the European Union (EU).

In the Final Declaration of the so-called Madrid counter-summit, the participants from various countries indicated that “NATO 360º has become a threat to peace, an obstacle to progress towards shared and demilitarized security”.

They considered that the Atlantic alliance, which will hold its summit meeting on the 29th and 30th at the IFEMA-Madrid fairgrounds, turns its back on the real problems of the planet, namely hunger, disease, inequality, unemployment, lack of public services, land and wealth grabbing, and the climate crisis.

The alternative summit, for Peace, against NATO and against wars, underlines the obligation as a human species, to build and defend peace 360º, from north to south, from east to west. This implies renouncing militarism as a way of dealing with conflicts, said the declaration of the meeting.

The Sao Paulo Forum, the Women’s International Democratic Federation, Ecologists in Action, Pacifists Foundation; Not to war, Not to Nato; Plataforma Madrid and pacifist associations from France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Italy, among others, emphasized the need to maintain the protests and not allow NATO to dictate the future.

June 27, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, Spain | Leave a comment

Spain and Portugal stand out from the European Union, in slashing energy bills because of their high renewable energy use

 Spain and Portugal have broken ranks with the EU to allow themselves the
space to slash their energy bills by 40 per cent. The move is being allowed
because both southern European countries have a large amount of renewable
energy and aren’t as reliant on fossil fuels as the rest of the Continent.

 MSM 31st May 2022

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/spain-and-portugal-to-slash-energy-bills-by-40percent-by-breaking-ranks-with-eu/ar-AAXQXKf

June 6, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, Spain | Leave a comment

Russia’s ‘broken arrow’: Fears that NUCLEAR MISSILES sank with Putin’s flagship Moskva

Russia’s ‘broken arrow’: Fears that NUCLEAR MISSILES sank with Putin’s flagship Moskva amid claims that 452 of the 510 crew have drowned and top admiral has been arrested after cruiser was ‘hit by Ukrainian missile’ , Daily Mail  By WILL STEWART and CHRIS PLEASANCE and CHRIS JEWERS FOR MAILONLINE 16 April 2022

Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, has been confirmed to have sunk near port of Sevastopol

Experts and analysts are now warning that the warship may have been carrying two nuclear warheads They are calling for an urgent probe into ‘broken arrow’ incident – military slang for an accident with nukes

 Meanwhile questions remain over the fate of Moskva’s 510-strong crew, most of whom are unaccounted forIlya Ponomarev, a politician exiled from Russia, said as many as 452 members of the crew could have died 

The Moskva, a Soviet-era guided missile cruiser, sank near the port of Sevastopol on Thursday after Ukraine said it hit the ship with two cruise missiles. Today, Mykhailo Samus, director of a Lviv-based military think-tank; Andriy Klymenko, editor of Black Sea News; and Ukrainian newspaper Defence Express all warned that the Moskva could have been carrying two nuclear warheads designed to be fitted to its P-1000 ‘carrier killer’ missiles.

If true, the loss of the warheads into the Black Sea could spark a ‘Broken Arrow’ incident – American military slang for potentially lethal accidents involving nuclear weapons.

‘On board the Moskva could be nuclear warheads – two units,’ Samus said, while Klymenko called on other Black Sea nations – Turkey, Romania, Georgia, and Bulgaria – to insist on an explanation. ‘Where are these warheads? Where were they when the ammunition exploded,’ he asked.

Meanwhile Ilya Ponomarev, a politician exiled from Russia for opposing Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, said just 58 of the 510-strong crew have since been accounted for – raising the prospect that 452 men went down with the ship in what would be a bitter loss for Vladimir Putin’s already beleaguered army.

The figure, while unconfirmed, is consistent with losses suffered on exploding warships. During the Russian Navy’s infamous defeat at the Battle of Tsushima against Japan, an explosion on board the Borodino – slightly smaller than the Moskva – saw all-but one of her 855 crew killed.

Russia claims all the Moskva’s sailors were ‘successfully evacuated’ but video taken in Sevastopol overnight shows dozens of cars purportedly belonging to the sailors still parked in the port – suggesting their owners had not returned to collect them……………….. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10721351/Ukraine-war-Fears-Moskva-warship-carrying-nuclear-weapons-sank.html  


April 18, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Spain, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Spain outraged as massive US nuclear-powered submarine arrives in Gibraltar

SPAIN has launched an official complaint against the arrival of a US nuclear-powered submarine in Gibraltar.

By ALESSANDRA SCOTTO DI SANTOLO, Apr 14, 2022 The arrival of a USS Georgia submarine in the port of Gibraltar has sparked a diplomatic row between Spain and the US. The Spanish Foreign Ministry has confirmed that it has lodged an official protest with the US.

The Spanish authorities wanted the submarine to anchor at the Rota naval base instead, where the US Georgia had already been based in August 2020.

The reasons and the duration for the stopover of the submarine remain unknown.

Since the port of Gibraltar was ceded by Spain to the United Kingdom in 1713, the Spanish government actually lacks the authority to prevent such moves.  The British Overseas Territory has been at the centre of a bitter row between the UK and EU after Brexit, as access to Gibraltar was not included in the trade agreement. Under an EU proposal, Spain would gain control over the country’s external border……………………https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1596057/spain-news-Gibraltar-uss-Georgia-submarine-nuclear-uk-latest

April 16, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Spain | Leave a comment

Russia’s secret nuclear waste city – Ozersk, City 40

Russian city hiding chilling Cold War secret from world  https://www.9news.com.au/world/ozersk-city-40-secret-russian-city-cold-war-graveyard-of-the-earth/9644dcbb-e94f-44c6-b69e-4e3e4ca96455

By Richard Wood • Senior Journalist Jan 9, 2022 There has been a “slow-motion” disaster unfolding over the past 70 years at one of Russia’s most secretive sites. Ozersk, codenamed City 40, was the birthplace of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program at the dawn of the Cold War.

On the surface, it was a clean modern city that boasted good housing, spacious parks and high quality schools to attract the country’s top nuclear scientists.And its purpose was seen as so important that Russian authorities effectively hid it from the rest of the country and the world. But while, the work of Ozersk’s army of scientists developing Russia’s plutonium supplies was cloaked in secrecy, its environmental impact proved harder to contain.Today its legacy of radiation pollution has earned Ozersk the title ‘Graveyard of the Earth’.

Building Russia’s nuclear shield

Ozersk’s origins can be traced to the US dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 at the end of World War II.

Alarmed at the terrifying new weapon of mass destruction, Russian leader Josef Stalin ordered his scientists to build a nuclear arsenal to combat the American threat.The Mayak plant deep in the Urals was founded in 1948 to develop essential large scale plutonium supplies for the Soviet atomic bomb. The work needed hundreds of workers.

Ozersk was founded nearby, initially as a sort of shanty town of wooden huts to house the workers. But over ensuing yeas, it grew to become a modern city of 100,000 people, with many of its citizens working at the Mayak plant.

‘Plutopias’

US environmental historian Kate Brown has described Ozersk and its counterpart nuclear cities in the US as “Plutopias”, a merging of the words plutonium and utopia. Professor Brown, who wrote Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters, told Nine.com.au that Ozersk residents were the envy of most Russians.

‘When I wrote about plutopia, I mean by that special, limited-access cities exclusively for plutonium plant operators who were well paid and lived comfortably. The people who lived in them were ‘chosen’,” Professor Brown said.”The plutonium cities such as Ozersk provided wonderful opportunities because not only was the housing very cheap and the wages very good, but the schools were good.”

But in Cold War Russia this all came at the price of intrusive security and curbs on personal freedom.Ozersk did not appear on maps and its citizens were struck from the national census.Residents were even forbidden to contact families and friends for up to years.

And for decades, the city was ringed by barbed wire fences and guard posts and entry was strictly controlled.

Lake of Death’

Professor Brown said both the Russians and American governments were prepared to cut corners in their dash to develop an edge in nuclear weapons.

And in 1957 one of the cooling systems at the Mayak plant, near Ozersk, failed, causing one of the tanks that contained the plant’s nuclear waste to overheat and explode.

While there were no casualties from the blast itself, more than 20 million curies of nuclear waste were swept up by the wind and scattered around the nearby countryside.The full effects of the Mayak radiation release and other incidents took years, even decades to become fully apparent, Professor Brown said.

The plutonium disasters were not big, explosive overnight affairs. They were slow-motion disasters that occurred over four decades,” she sai d.Officials from the Mayak plant also ordered the dumping of its waste into nearby lakes and rivers, which flow into the the Arctic Ocean.

Prof Brown said one of the lakes near Mayak has been so heavily contaminated by plutonium that local people have renamed it the ‘Lake of Death’.

‘Cover up’

The scale of the pollution was hushed up by Russian authorities for decades.

“Thanks to exhaustive efforts by the Soviet government and the already secretive nature of the location, for a long time, no one outside of the Ozersk area was even aware that it happened.

“It wasn’t until renegade Soviet scientists exposed the cover-up in the 1970s that scientists started to grasp the extent of the disaster.”

Radioactive spills have also happened at other secret Russian military and industry sites.In August 2019 a brief spike in radioactivity was recorded following a mysterious and deadly explosion at the Russian navy’s testing range in Nyonoksa on the White Sea.The explosion killed two servicemen and five nuclear engineers.

Campaigners expose contamination

Today the Mayak plant now serves the more peaceful purpose of reprocessing spent radioactive fuel.In Ozersk many restrictions have been eased, with residents free to leave when they want.

But the city is still surrounded by thick walls and guard fences, and entry by outsiders is strictly controlled by government officials.And while efforts have been made to clean up the environment, radiation pollution remains a threat to the health of residents.

A recent study showed that Ozersk residents are more than twice as likely to develop lung, liver, and skeletal cancers and far more likely to experience chronic radiation syndrome.Prof Brown says Russian environmental activists still face threats and persecution for exposing the radiation levels.

“They’ve paid a heavy price in terms of prosecution by the state and receiving threats of fines and even jail,” she said.  “But they were determined to expose what really was disaster by design.”

January 10, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Spain, wastes | Leave a comment

Spain is turning rapidly away from coal and nuclear, going for renewable energy

 Spain is expected to see a sharp decline in nuclear and coal power
capacity by 2030 in its turn towards renewable energy sources.

 Power Technology 21st Oct 2021
 https://www.power-technology.com/comment/spain-nuclear-power-phase-out/

Spain on track to complete nuclear power phase-out by 2035

October 23, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Spain | Leave a comment

Radioactive water leak in Valencia, Spain

Environmentalists denounce radioactive water leak, The Portugal News

The Iberian Anti-Nuclear Movement (MIA) has denounced the existence of a “highly radioactive” water leak at the Cofrentes nuclear power plant, located in the Spanish province of Valencia, but the owner says there was no environmental or safety impacts.

By TPN/Lusa, 12 Sept 21,

In a statement sent to Lusa, MIA states that the information on the occurrence of this nuclear accident came from the Tanquem Cofrents platform, which is part of the Iberian movement and that brings together the main ecological groups and organisations of the Valencian civil society.

The accident was recorded on Thursday, with “a leak of highly radioactive water in the turbine of the plant, in the reactor’s primary circuit”……..

According to environmentalists, the Cofrentes plant “is old and deteriorated” which, together with the management policy “of maximising production at all costs, makes it more than predictable that accidents like this or more serious will be repeated.”

“The MIA has insisted that this plant be closed as it endangers all citizens, and that a rapid transition be made to a system based solely on renewable energy, that avoids catastrophic climate change and that will make it cleaner, safer and cheaper,” he concludes.

It also warns of the danger of extending the operation of the Almaraz nuclear power plant, located 100 kilometres from the border with Portugal and next to the Tagus River. https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2021-09-11/environmentalists-denounce-radioactive-water-leak/62314

September 13, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, Spain | Leave a comment

Why Spain plans to ban uranium mining.

Shock waves: what will a Spanish ban mean for uranium mining in Europe?, Mining Technology, Yoana Cholteeva12 January 2021 ” ………. Reasons behind the proposed ban

The proposed ban has been welcomed by environmental groups and local organisations concerned about the potential damage to ecosystems in the country and overall safety, as argued by the Spanish organisation Stop Uranio (Stop Uranium). The group, which was established in 2013, has since then been trying to prevent the approval and construction of Berkley Energy’s uranium mining project in the Campo Charro area of Salamanca.

For the past seven years, Stop Uranium has organised a number of campaigns and protest rallies over the country, with activists from both Spain and Portugal raising concerns over Salamanca’s agriculture lands, pastures, rural tourism, and the population’s health being at stake.

Stop Uranium member and spokesperson Jose Manuel Barrueco has written in The Free –  blog of the post capitalist transition, that “the majority of the inhabitants of the area oppose the planned mines due to the negative effects that this activity will entail for the region: explosions with release of radioactive dust into the atmosphere, the continuous transfer of trucks and heavy machinery, loss of forest, diversion of water courses, etc.”.

It terms of scientific evidence to support the some of the claims, according to a 2013 peer reviewed article, ‘Uranium mining and health’, published in the Canadian Family Physician journal, the chemical element has the potential to cause a spectrum of adverse health effects to people, ranging from renal failure and diminished bone growth to DNA damage.

The effects of low-level radioactivity include cancer, shortening of life, and subtle changes in fertility or viability of offspring, as determined from bothanimal studies and data on Hiroshima and Chernobyl survivors.

….. MP Juan Lopez de Uralde has in turn voiced his support of a holistic approach, telling the Spanish online newspaper Publico that banning uranium extraction is directly linked to the energy policies of both Spain and the EU. He continued that “since no uranium mine is active in the Old Continent”, “by committing to the closure of nuclear power stations we should complete the circle entirely by banning uranium mining”………. https://www.mining-technology.com/features/shock-waves-what-will-a-spanish-ban-mean-for-uranium-mining-in-europe/

February 4, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, politics, Spain, Uranium | Leave a comment

Australian uranium mining company threatens Spanish government with legal action

Miner threatens Spain over uranium ban, Cosmo Sanderson, 01 February 2021

An Australian company developing a controversial €450 million uranium project has threatened to bring an arbitration against Spain over a proposed law banning mining of the material……  (subscribers only)   https://globalarbitrationreview.com/miner-threatens-spain-over-uranium-ban

February 4, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, Spain, Uranium | Leave a comment

Spain’s Asco 1 nuclear plant taken offline for three-day halt

Spain’s Asco 1 nuclear plant taken offline for three-day halt, 7 Sept 20, AuthorGianluca Baratti , EditorManish Parashar 

HIGHLIGHTSOutage from Sept. 5 through Sept. 8

Asco 2 planned maintenance in October

Barcelona — Spain’s 1.03 GW Asco 1 nuclear plant was taken offline for an unplanned halt, operator Centrales Nucleares Asco Vandellos 2, or ANAV, said Sept. 5, leaving Spanish nuclear output at around 6 GW on Sept. 7……….

Another one of ANAV’s plants — the 1.09 GW Vandellos 2 — was halted on Sept. 1 for a brief maintenance in the cooling system, coming back online Sept. 3.

The group’s third plant, Asco 2, is due offline on Oct. 3 for a scheduled refueling halt through to Nov. 5.

https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/topics/hydrogen

September 8, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Spain | Leave a comment

Cumulative exposure to ionising radiation from diagnostic imaging tests

Cumulative exposure to ionising radiation from diagnostic imaging tests: a 12-year follow-up population-based analysis in Spain.  https://www.docwirenews.com/abstracts/cumulative-exposure-to-ionising-radiation-from-diagnostic-imaging-tests-a-12-year-follow-up-population-based-analysis-in-spain/

August 22, 2020   Cumulative exposure to ionising radiation from diagnostic imaging tests: a 12-year follow-up population-based analysis in Spain.BMJ Open. 2019 09 18;9(9):e030905

Authors: Lumbreras B, Salinas JM, Gonzalez-Alvarez I

Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To calculate each patient’s cumulative radiation exposure and the recurrent tests during a 12-year study period, according to sex and age, in routine practice.
DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.
SETTING: A general hospital with a catchment population of 224 751 people, in the Southeast of Spain.
PARTICIPANTS: Population belonged to the catchment area of that hospital in 2007. We collected all consecutive diagnostic imaging tests undergone by this population until 31 December 2018. We excluded: imaging tests that did not involve radiation exposure.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The cumulative effective dose and the recurrent imaging tests by sex and age at entry of study.
RESULTS: Of the 224 751 people, 154 520 (68.8%) underwent an imaging test. The population had 1 335 752 imaging tests during the period of study: 1 110 077 (83.0%) plain radiography; 156 848 (11.8%) CT; 63 157 (4.8%) fluoroscopy and 5670 (0.4%) interventional radiography. 25.4% of the patients who had a CT, underwent five or more CTs (5.4% in the 0-20 years age group). The median total cumulative effective dose was 2.10 mSv (maximum 3980.30) and 16.30 mSv (maximum 1419.30 mSv) if we considered only doses associated with CT. Women received more effective dose than men (median 2.38 vs median 1.90, p<0.001). A total of 7142 (4.6%) patients received more than 50 mSv, with differences in men and women (p<0.001) and 2.5% of the patients in the 0-20 years age group, if we considered only doses associated with CT.
CONCLUSIONS: Nearly 5% of patients received doses higher than 50 mSv during the 12-year period of study and 2.5% of the patients in the 0-20 years age group, if we considered only doses associated with CT. The rate of recurrent examinations was high, especially in older patients, but also relevant in the 0-20 years age group.

August 23, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, Spain | Leave a comment

Portuguese party PAN lodges complaint to U.N. about Spain’s ageing Almarez nuclear power station

Almaraz nuclear risks: PAN lodges complaint against Spain to UN   https://www.portugalresident.com/almaraz-nuclear-risks-pan-lodges-complaint-against-spain-to-un/  By

 Natasha Donn  natasha.donn@algarveresident.com-30th July 2020  PAN, the party representing people, animals and nature, has formally lodged a complaint against Spain with the United Nations, following Spain’s extension on the functioning of its ageing nuclear power station at Almaraz (click here).

The risks associated with Almaraz have been making headlines for years (click here).

So has the perceived ‘inertia’ of the Portuguese government in tackling them (click here).

As PAN’s leading MP André Silva stresses, what’s crucial at this point is a ‘transfrontier evaluation of the environmental impact” of the decision to prolong the life of the 41-year-old power station running two very old fashioned reactors beyond the 2023/ 2o24 limit previously established.

The latest approval by Spain extends the reactors’ lives to 2027 and 2028 respectively.

Says Silva: ‘We have on the one hand’ Spain that is violating two conventions, and on the other a Portuguese government and a Portuguese environment minister that does nothing about it.

Spain’s unilateral decision to further extend the lifespan of a plant that sits so close to Portuguese territory – not to mention on the banks of the river Tejo – is “an affront to Portuguese people” who, according to a study conducted by the Portuguese army, would be severely impacted in the event of any kind of serious incident (click here).

The two conventions André Silva refers to are the Espoo Convention, which requires environmental impacts in situations like these, and the Arhus Convention, which obliges Madrid to ‘inform and consult’ Portuguese counterparts before making any decisions.

Says Silva, “it is fundamental that the international community is alerted to this problem, which is not simply environmental but social and political as well”.

‘Ideally’ Almaraz should have been mothballed 10 years ago “but Spanish authorities have successively renewed its continuation”, despite the increasing risks of a nuclear accident, which as Silva stresses, would have a “disastrous impact” on Portugal.

This is in fact the second time a formal complaint has been lodged against Spain over activity at Almaraz. A bid to stop a warehouse for nuclear waste being constructed in 2017 resulted in the creation of a commission, but this has never presented any ‘material’ / findings or reports to speak of.

August 4, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, safety, Spain | 1 Comment

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