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Radioactive fallout killed up to 690,000 Americans from 1951 to 1973.

In the 1950s, the U.S. government downplayed the danger of radioactive fallout, asserting that all radioactivity was confined to the Nevada test site. Despite this, a national estimate attributed 49,000 cancer deaths to nuclear testing in the area.

But the results of new research suggest that this number is woefully inaccurate. Using a novel method, and today’s improved understanding of radioactive fallout, Keith Meyers from the University of Arizona discovered that U.S. nuclear testing was responsible for the deaths of at least as many — and likely more — as those killed by the nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Specifically, between 340,000 and 690,000 Americans died from radioactive fallout from 1951 to 1973.

At least 340,000 Americans died from radioactive fallout between 1951 and 1973 https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/new-estimate-deaths-from-us-nuclear-tests?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2 Domestic nuclear testing wreaked havoc on thousands of families. MATTHEW DAVIS 14 December, 2018  

  • Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. But new research shows that domestic U.S. nuclear tests likely killed more.
  • The new research tracked an unlikely vector for radioactive transmission: dairy cows.
  • The study serves as a reminder of the insidious and deadly nature of nuclear weapons.

When we think of nuclear disasters, a few names probably come to mind. There’s the Chernobyl disaster, which killed around 27,000 people, although estimates are fuzzy. After Fukushima, there were no deaths due to radiation poisoning, but this event occurred relatively recently, and radiation poisoning often kills slowly over decades. When the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, estimates put the death toll at around 200,000 people, but again, exact numbers are difficult to calculate.

One name that almost certainly didn’t come to mind is Nevada. When the Soviet Union detonated their first atomic bomb in 1949, the U.S. was shocked into action. America’s prior nuclear testing had been carried out in the Pacific, but it was logistically slow and costly to conduct tests there. In order to maintain dominance over the growing Soviet threat, the U.S. selected a 1,375 square-mile area in Nye County, Nevada.

This was an ideal spot for several reasons. It was closer than Bikini Atoll. The weather was predictable and very dry, reducing the risk that radioactive fallout would be dispersed by rainstorms. It was sparsely populated. There was an understanding that there would be some amount of risk posed to nearby civilians, but it was deemed acceptable at the time. The trouble is, our understanding of radioactive fallout was still in its infancy. It was a catch-22; the only way to learn more was to test nuclear weapons.

In the 1950s, the U.S. government downplayed the danger of radioactive fallout, asserting that all radioactivity was confined to the Nevada test site. Despite this, a national estimate attributed 49,000 cancer deaths to nuclear testing in the area.

But the results of new research suggest that this number is woefully inaccurate. Using a novel method, and today’s improved understanding of radioactive fallout, Keith Meyers from the University of Arizona discovered that U.S. nuclear testing was responsible for the deaths of at least as many — and likely more — as those killed by the nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Specifically, between 340,000 and 690,000 Americans died from radioactive fallout from 1951 to 1973.

Prior studies generally looked at the areas surrounded the Nevada test site and estimated the deaths caused by fallout from the area. This number was relatively low, owing to the dry, predictable weather mentioned earlier. However, the bulk of the deaths were actually dispersed throughout the country, primarily in the Midwest and Northeast regions. These deaths were caused by an unfortunate synergy between meteorology, radiation, and — perhaps oddly enough — cows.

Out of all the radioactive elements produced by a nuclear explosion, iodine-131 was the biggest killer. I-131 has an eight-day half-life, tends to accumulate in the thyroid gland, and emits beta and gamma radiation. While alpha radiation is generally weak and doesn’t penetrate material very well, beta and gamma radiation are highly energetic and shoot through clothing and flesh, ripping up DNA as it goes along.

Prior studies had examined the radioactive fallout dispersed by low-altitude winds, which would generally settle around the Nevada test site. However, a significant amount of I-131 was caught up in high-altitude winds. These winds carried the radioactive particles to other regions of the U.S., where it mixed with rain clouds.

The now-radioactive rain fell onto the grasslands in the Midwest and Northeast. Then, cows ate the now-radioactive grass. The cows then produced radioactive milk. Dairy practices during the study period were different than they are today — most people drank milk that had recently been extracted from local cows.

Thanks to a National Cancer Institute database that contains broad data on radiation exposure, Meyers was able to track the amount of I-131 found in local milk and compare this with the number and nature of deaths on a county level. In this way, Meyers was able to determine that a significant number of these deaths were due to drinking poisoned milk. These civilians would have had no idea that the milk they were drinking had been irradiated by nuclear explosions hundreds of miles away.

Ironically, the area around the Nevada test site didn’t have this problem. Although they too drank fresh milk from local cows, they imported hay from other parts of the country. Since their cows weren’t eating irradiated hay, the local Nevadans took in significantly less radioactive material than their less-fortunate, distant countrymen.

Although our understanding of radiation and nuclear fallout is much improved since the dawn of the nuclear age, the study serves as a warning of the insidious nature of nuclear weapons. Containing nuclear fallout is challenging, even when you know where all of the vectors of radioactive transmission are. The complexity and intertwining nature of our ecological and social systems means that words like “clean,” “precise,” or “surgical” will likely never apply to nuclear weapons.

 

 

December 15, 2018 Posted by | radiation, USA, weapons and war | 2 Comments

USA’s absolute dilemma over radioactive trash – used nuclear fuel

What to do with used nuclear fuel, from Illinois to California https://thebulletin.org/2018/12/what-to-do-with-used-nuclear-fuel-from-illinois-to-california/ By Jeff Terry, December 14, 2018 The largest operator of nuclear power plants in the United States, Exelon, closed two nuclear reactors in the city of Zion, Illinois in 1998 because of low demand, which in turn led to poor operating economics. Ever since, these two pressurized water reactors have sat unused on the Lake Michigan shoreline just north of Chicago. Exelon contracted the company EnergySolutions to decontaminate and decommission the site, and this fall it announced it was nearly done, with demolition of the two structures almost complete.

These two closed reactors have been a thorn in Zion’s side since they shut down 20 years ago. The city lost $18 million in annual property tax revenue when the plants closed, and the shortfall had to be made up by local businesses and residents. Beyond the financial loss, the city can’t use the site for parkland, redevelopment, or anything else. But now that decontamination and decommissioning are nearly complete, Zion should be able to reclaim the land and convert it to beneficial use—right?

Not just yet. There is still spent nuclear fuel at the Zion site—bundles of rods of uranium dioxide pellets contained within Zircaloy metal claddings. These used fuel assemblies have been placed in large cylindrical concrete containers, which will be stored at the site on a 3,000 square-meter pad, an area just larger than half a football field. There they will remain in limbo due to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. That year, in its infinite wisdom, the US Congress enacted a law saying that “the generators and owners of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel have the primary responsibility to provide for, and the responsibility to pay the costs of, the interim storage of such waste and spent fuel until such waste and spent fuel is accepted by the Secretary of Energy in accordance with the provisions of this Act.” In other words, the power plant owner—in this case Exelon—has to hang on to the waste until the Energy Department agrees to accept it. The problem is that the Energy Department won’t accept it, because it has never arrived at an acceptable political solution for dealing with used nuclear fuel. Back in the late eighties, Congress designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the nation’s nuclear waste repository, but it has been the subject of political battles ever since, leaving the United States with no place for long-term disposal of nuclear waste.

Other countries have dealt with this problem. France reprocesses used nuclear fuel rods, extracting usable uranium and plutonium and immobilizing the leftover radioactive waste in hunks of glass. Finland has created the Onkalo repository for disposal in metal canisters deep underground. But since the US Energy Department doesn’t have a plan for nuclear waste, it is destined to sit at the Zion site for years, if not decades. A similar fate will likely befall the used fuel stored at other closed nuclear plants around the country, like the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California. As in Zion, the San Onofre plant is located on prime waterfront real estate that local and state government would like to see available for public use as soon as possible.

n general, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and nuclear scientists would prefer to come up with a long-term solution to nuclear waste, meaning one that will last for thousands of years. The Yucca Mountain site was supposed to serve that purpose. But they also recognize that short-term or “interim” storage—good for up to 100 years—may be required. The Energy Department and private companies have floated proposals to use temporary sites around the country for short-term consolidated storage of waste from the current fleet of nuclear reactors. For example, Interim Storage Partners has proposed a consolidated storage site for Andrews County, Texas. Just over a decade ago, the American Physical Society released a comprehensive report, “Consolidated Interim Storage of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel,” saying that while it tends to prefer a long-term solution, it does recognize that “Consolidated storage could facilitate the decommissioning of sites with reactors that have been shut down.”

There are many closed nuclear plants in the United States that will undergo decontamination and decommissioning, but the Zion plant is an unusual situation, having nearly reached the point at which the land is entirely recoverable except for the lingering issue of used fuel. It is unreasonable to expect cities and towns to deal with land they can’t use, yet can’t collect tax on. Unfortunately, the problems Zion is about to face are just a harbinger of what is likely to happen around the country.

Proposed interim consolidated waste storage sites will probably face lawsuits from non-governmental organizations that don’t like the idea of nuclear waste being stored at temporary locations. Cities and citizens will also likely object to used nuclear fuel being moved along interstate shipping routes, and sue to stop that from happening. Governors will complain about radioactive materials being shipped into their states. This will all increase the amount of time Zion will have to act as a de facto interim waste storage site, without any of the benefits of being an official storage site, such as the potential to attract jobs in waste disposal and possibly enrichment or reprocessing.

There is, though, another potential option. The used fuel at Zion can be stored on only 3,000 square meters of land, an amount that could easily be found at either of the two Energy Department facilities in Illinois, the Argonne National Laboratory and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, both located west of Chicago. It should be possible to move the waste from Zion to either of these sites. No interstate shipping would be required. Either site could store the waste in the same storage casks, on a similar pad. Neither Argonne nor Fermilab are expected to close, and even if they did unexpectedly, it would be decades before the land could be reclaimed for other purposes, which would give plenty of time for the waste to be moved again.

Both of these Energy Department facilities have experience handling radioactive materials. Both have strong research groups focused on radiation damage. They have the expertise to monitor and perform research on any potential degradation of the dry concrete storage containers. In terms of land use, security, and availability of expert staff, Illinoisans would be far better off with the waste stored at one of these sites than sitting in Zion on the shore of Lake Michigan.

Storing the waste in this way would even offer a research advantage. The Energy Department could fully study and document the process of taking ownership of the used fuel. It would end up with a model of safe transportation, storage, and monitoring that could be used to finally establish a process for the spent fuel sitting at other American commercial nuclear reactors. Even if the federal government fails to come up with a final disposition site, California could follow the Illinois model, transferring waste from closed nuclear plants like San Onofre to Energy Department sites within the state, or potentially even Defense Department facilities.

As EnergySolutions has now demonstrated in Zion, the private sector has the ability to decontaminate and decommission closed reactor sites. These places can be returned to public use, but only if the Energy Department finally takes title to the used nuclear fuel as it was obligated to do 20 years ago. We are about to have a restored site that cannot be fully used by the local community due to used fuel. It could easily take more than 10 years for interim storage to open elsewhere, and cities and towns should not have to serve as nuclear waste storage sites in the meantime. The Energy Department should consider moving used fuel to its own facilities within the same state.

December 15, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Space travel enthusiasts show their ignorance of ecology and the dangers of Plutonium 238

I do not have time at the moment to really think about this one, –  But –  a couple of  lovely sentences just leaped out at me:

Plutonium-238 is very special for the fact that it’s a material that poses virtually no danger to anyone unless you do something insane 

we have to put our illogical fears aside 

That’s from this absolute hymn to Plutonium 238  – Forbes 13 Dec 18 – NASA Doesn’t Have Enough Nuclear Fuel For Its Deep Space Missions

 

December 15, 2018 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Trump and Putin could save The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty, and it’s worth saving

The INF nuclear treaty is worth saving. Trump and Putin should give it a 6-month try. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/12/13/trump-putin-nato-save-landmark-inf-nuclear-treaty-column/2277732002/

Richard Burt and Ellen Tauscher, Dec. 13, 2018

Landmark nuclear treaty can still benefit US, NATO and Russia security. They should delay action for six months and negotiate ways to show compliance. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty — a key part of the post cold war nuclear system of controls and restraint — is on life support. President Donald Trump announced his desire to withdraw from the 1987 INF pact in October, citing Russian cheating and a desire to deploy missiles against China as motives. German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly convinced Trump this month to hold off on withdrawal for at least two months so the NATO alliance could act in a more united fashion to either bring Russia back into compliance or show it was trying.

As officials who helped negotiate the last two major strategic arms control agreements, we believe there is a deal to save the treaty and ensure its benefits can continue. This will require creative, serious and genuine negotiations by Washington and Moscow. We know firsthand, however, that negotiating with Russia can lead to surprising and positive results. Such engagement is desperately needed now, and could save a critical part of the post-Cold War arms control system that benefits American security

There’s no doubt that Russia violated INF Treaty  The INF Treaty signed by President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev bans the US and Russia from having land-based missiles with ranges from 500-5500 kilometers. The Treaty helped end the cold war and paved the way for reductions in strategic nuclear weapons. Banning these weapons gave leaders in Russia, Europe and America more time to make decisions in a crisis, and the treaty is worth saving if all sides can show there are fully complying with the deal.

There is no real question that Russia has violated the INF treaty. The United States has been sure of this since 2013 and has been increasingly clear about how Russia has violated the deal. Russia tested its 9M729 cruise missiles from a mobile fixed launcher to a distance of over 500 KM — something allowed by the treaty — and then later tested the same system from a ground-mobile launcher, making the missile a ground-launched system under the terms of INF.

Russia denies the 9M729 missile violates INF and instead accuses the United States of violating the INF by deploying the Mark-41 missile launcher as part of NATO missile defenses in Europe. The Mk-41 on shore is used to launch missile defense interceptors, but is used by the U.S. Navy on ships to launch offensive missiles. Russia claims this violates INF. Washington says the Mk-41 launcher for NATO’s defense is physically capable of holding canisters to launch offensive missiles like the Tomahawk cruise missile, but the land-based variant deployed in NATO is not equipped with firing software. Washington claims this makes the launcher legal, but this explanation gives Moscow little comfort.

For five years, the two countries have tried to get the other to admit their violation. That approach has failed and the treaty is now at risk of disappearing. The only way to save it — something both countries say they want — is for both to go beyond what the treaty requires to assure the other that it is in compliance.

Over the last year, former officials and experts from Russia and the United States have met privately to explore what an extra transparency regime might look like. Russian former military officials have said that the 9M729 should be made available for both inspection and even taken apart for American inspectors to determine if it can travel over 500km. While not an official Russia government offer, it seems unlikely that former officials would suggest such a thing without a sense that it might be possible.

The INF Treaty is beneficial and worth saving

Former American officials, for their part, have said NATO missile defense sites could be made available for visits by Russian officials to show no offensive missiles deployed on site. Other more extreme steps might be to modify the Mk-41 launcher so that it cannot physically hold or launch offensive missiles.

This deal is worth official exploration. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin should pledge not to take any unilateral steps on the INF Treaty — including withdrawal — for at least six months. They should send senior officials from their militaries, the State and Defense departments, and the White House and Kremlin to negotiate on a continual basis to see if such a deal is technically feasible. The teams should be directed to produce a draft deal for both presidents and for NATO — whose security is most at risk and whose members will need to agree to steps providing transparency over NATO missile defense sites — in three months for official consideration.

Trying to save the INF treaty can have important benefits for the United States and its NATO allies. Now that the US has publicly released details of Russia violations, European NATO states may be able to bring more pressure on Russia to come back into compliance. If in the end, Russia’s violations cannot be reversed, making these efforts will show it is a lack of political will, and not technical problems, that led to the treaty’s demise. This will in itself help NATO allies as they wrestle with how to manage security and stability in a post-INF world.

Treaties should only remain in force if they benefit American and allied security, and sometimes treaties outlive their usefulness. But the INF still can protect these interests, and Russian security as well, if all sides are prepared to show that they remain in compliance.

Richard Burt is for the former ambassador to Germany and led the 1991 START Agreement talks. Ellen Tauscher is the former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security and oversaw negotiation of the New START Treaty. Both are members of the Nuclear Crisis Group based in Washington.

December 15, 2018 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Transport of nuclear wastes to USA’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is stalled while maintenace work is on

US Nuclear Repository Turns Focus to Maintenance Projects https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-mexico/articles/2018-12-14/us-nuclear-repository-turns-focus-to-maintenance-projects  Work to dispose of tons of radioactive waste from defense sites around the United States will be put on hold next month so maintenance can be done at the federal government’s only underground nuclear waste repository. CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) — Work to dispose of tons of radioactive waste from defense sites around the United States will be put on hold next month so maintenance can be done at the federal government’s only underground nuclear waste repository.

Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant announced during a meeting Thursday that the three-week work stoppage will begin Jan. 7.

The maintenance will include work on electrical substations and the refurbishing of areas where waste is stored until it’s taken below ground to be disposed of in rooms carved from an ancient salt formation.

The facility receives between five and 10 shipments weekly. That’s not expected to increase much until a new $135 million ventilation system is installed.

Repository managers say they’ve made progress this year but that air quality remains an issue.

December 15, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

PG and E needs $1.6 billion more to decommission Diablo Canyon — and it’ll come from your bill,

PG&E needs $1.6 billion more to decommission Diablo Canyon — and it’ll come from your bill Tribune BY KAYTLYN LESLIE 14 Dec 18 PG&E needs to collect $1.6 billion from ratepayers by 2025 to pay for Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s closure, according to new filings with the state.

For a typical residential customer, this would translate to about $1.98 more on your bill, though the exact amount would vary depending on usage.

In its Nuclear Decommissioning Cost Triennial Proceedings, filed on Thursday, the company said it expects the total cost of decommissioning Diablo Canyon to be about $4.8 billion — up from the $3.8 billion it estimated in its last triennial report in 2015. https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article223058625.html

December 15, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Environmentalists fear that reclassifying some nuclear wastes means abandoning clean-ups

Energy Department Plan to Reclassify Nuclear Waste Worries Environmentalists https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-12-10-energy-department-reclassify-nuclear-waster
At a Glance

    • The U.S. Department of Energy wants to reclassify some of the waste that meets highly technical conditions.
    • The agency says the change could save the federal government $40 billion in cleanup costs at nuclear sites across the nation.
    • About 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes are stored in tanks in Washington state.
    • Environmentalists fear a U.S. Department of Energy proposal to reclassify some radioactive waste left from the production of nuclear weapons is simply a way to abandon the cleanup of places like the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state.The Trump administration proposal to lower the status of some high-level radioactive waste would make disposal cheaper and easier. Reclassifying the material to low-level could save the agency billions of dollars and decades of work by essentially leaving the material in the ground, critics say.
    • The proposal joins a long list of Trump administration efforts to loosen environmental protections. Just last week, the Environmental Protection Agency acted to ease rules on the sagging U.S. coal industry.Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge, a nuclear watchdog group, said it wants a thorough cleanup of the Washington state nuclear site, which is half the size of Rhode Island. That includes building a national repository somewhere else to bury the waste once it has been stabilized.
  • “The cleanup of the site is really at stake,” Carpenter said about the proposed change.

    He noted that Hanford is located in an environmentally sensitive site adjacent to the Columbia River and susceptible to earthquakes, volcanoes and flooding.

  • Hanford was established by the Manhattan Project in World War II to make plutonium, a key ingredient in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The plant went on to produce most of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal.As a result, the site also contains the nation’s largest collection of nuclear waste. The most dangerous is stored in 177 aging underground tanks, some of which have leaked. The tanks hold some 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes waiting to be treated for permanent disposal.Cleanup efforts at Hanford have been underway since the late 1980s and cost about $2 billion a year.

    Current law defines high-level radioactive waste as resulting from processing irradiated nuclear fuel that is highly radioactive. The Energy Department wants to reclassify some of the waste that meets highly technical conditions.

    The agency says the change could save the federal government $40 billion in cleanup costs across the nation’s entire nuclear weapons complex, which includes the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina and Idaho National Laboratory.

  • Environmental groups and the state of Washington, which has a legal commitment with the Energy Department to oversee the Hanford cleanup, said the proposal is a concern.”They see it as a way to get cleanup done faster and less expensively,'” said Alex Smith of the Washington state Department of Ecology.Carpenter said there “is not much point in doing much else if they don’t clean up the high-level waste.”

    At the request of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, the agency extended the public comment period on the proposal to Jan. 9. The agency can make the change without the approval of Congress.

    “No one disputes the difficulty of retrieving and treating high-level waste from Hanford’s aging storage tanks,” Wyden wrote to the DOE. “However, lowering the bar for level of protection of future generations and the environment by changing the definition of what has always been considered high-level waste requiring permanent disposal is a significant change.”

December 13, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Maine watchdogs keep close eye on Trump’s bid to change nuclear waste storage rules

December 13, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

TRUMP WANTS TO RECLASSIFY RADIOACTIVE WASTE FROM NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO ‘LOW LEVEL’ SO DISPOSAL IS CHEAPER

December 13, 2018 Posted by | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Pacific island countries accuse USA of obstructing talks at UN climate change summit

US accused of obstructing talks at UN climate change summit
Vanuatu’s foreign minister says worst offenders on global warming are blocking progress, Guardian, Ben Doherty in Katowice @bendohertycorro, Wed 12 Dec 2018 

 The United States and other high carbon dioxide-emitting developed countries are deliberately frustrating the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, Vanuatu’s foreign minister has said. His warning came as Pacific and Indian ocean states warned they faced annihilation if a global climate “rule book” could not brokered.In a bruising speech before ministers and heads of state, Vanuatu’s foreign minister, Ralph Regenvanu, singled out the US as he excoriated major CO2-emitting developed countries for deliberately hindering negotiations.

“It pains me deeply to have watched the people of the United States and other developed countries across the globe suffering the devastating impacts of climate-induced tragedies, while their professional negotiators are here at COP24 putting red lines through any mention of loss and damage in the Paris guidelines and square brackets around any possibility for truthfully and accurately reporting progress against humanity’s most existential threat,” he said.

Regenvanu said the countries most responsible for climate change were now frustrating efforts to counter it.

The UN’s climate change talks in Poland have been distracted by a semantic debate over whether the conference should “welcome” or “note” the IPCC’s special report warning of dire consequences if global warming rises more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, with a bloc of four oil-producing countries – the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Kuwait – insisting the report be only “noted”.

Documents from the conference presidency, seen by the Guardian, indicate the issue of how to acknowledge the report will be returned to later in the week and is likely to further slow progress on negotiating a final outcome. Negotiators said they are growing increasingly pessimistic that talks can be concluded by their deadline on Friday…….

As 193 countries at the climate talks seek to establish a “rule book” on how to implement the commitments made in the Paris agreement three years ago, Regenvanu condemned a two-tier system that exempted high-emissions countries from reductions obligations, saying the world needed “one common rule book, in which rules apply to all”.

The US state department declined to comment on his remarks……https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/11/us-accused-of-obstructing-talks-at-un-climate-change-summit

December 13, 2018 Posted by | climate change, OCEANIA, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Washingtonhelping nuclear workers to get compensation State will defend its law

State will fight feds over Hanford worker compensation, Q13 FOX, , DECEMBER 11, 2018, BY ASSOCIATED PRESS SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Officials for the state of Washington said Tuesday they will defend a new law that helps employees of a former nuclear weapons production site win worker compensation claims, after the federal government filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the law.

Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee criticized the lawsuit as outrageous and “depraved.”

“The people who fought communism shouldn’t have to fight their federal government to get the health care they deserve,” said Inslee, who is weighing a run for the White House in 2020.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed the lawsuit on Monday in federal court for the Eastern District of Washington.

The Washington Legislature last spring passed a law that says some cancers and other illnesses among Hanford Nuclear Reservation workers are assumed to have been caused by chemical or radiological exposures at work, unless that presumption can be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence.

…….The legislation signed into law in March by Inslee was propelled through the Legislature by the concerns of sick Hanford workers frustrated by state denials of their compensation claims…..

Ferguson said he presumed the federal government was worried the new Washington law might spread to other states where federal employees were involved in dangerous work. He predicted the issue would likely be resolved at trial.

“Before this, workers had to prove that whatever illness they had was not caused by something else in their lives,” Ferguson said.

Inslee called it another attempt by the Trump administration to take health care away from people in the state.

“They want to tell workers at Hanford to go hang,” said Inslee, who used to represent the Hanford site in Congress.

Lynne Dodson of the Washington State Labor Council said the federal government should be working to improve worker safety, rather than pursuing this lawsuit.

“Donald Trump and (Energy Secretary) Rick Perry would kick these workers while they are down,” Dodson said. https://q13fox.com/2018/12/11/state-will-fight-feds-over-hanford-worker-compensation/

December 13, 2018 Posted by | employment, Legal, politics, USA | Leave a comment

White House fury as Russian nuclear planes visit Venezuela 

December 13, 2018 Posted by | Religion and ethics, Russia, SOUTH AMERICA, USA | Leave a comment

USA’s intractable nuclear waste problem: a new approach is needed

U.S. must start from scratch with a new nuclear waste strategy, a Stanford-led panel says

Thousands of tons of highly radioactive spent fuel are in temporary storage in 35 states, with no permanent solution being discussed. International experts led by Stanford show how to end this status quo. Stanford News, BY KATHLEEN GABEL CHUI AND MARK GOLDEN, 10 Dec 18,  The U.S. government has worked for decades and spent tens of billions of dollars in search of a permanent resting place for the nation’s nuclear waste. Some 80,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants and millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste from defense programs are stored in pools, dry casks and large tanks at more than 75 sites throughout the country.

A Stanford University-led study recommends that the United States reset its nuclear waste program by moving responsibility for commercially generated, used nuclear fuel away from the federal government and into the hands of an independent, nonprofit, utility-owned and -funded nuclear waste management organization.

“No single group, institution or governmental organization is incentivized to find a solution,” said Rod Ewing, co-director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and a professor of geological sciences.

The three-year study, led by Ewing, makes a series of recommendations focused on the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The report, Reset of America’s Nuclear Waste Management Strategy and Policy, was released today.

A tightening knot

Over the past four decades, the U.S. nuclear waste program has suffered from continuing changes to the original Nuclear Waste Policy Act, a slow-to-develop and changing regulatory framework. Erratic funding, significant changes in policy with changing administrations, conflicting policies from Congress and the executive branch and – most important – inadequate public engagement have also blocked any progress.

“The U.S. program is in an ever-tightening Gordian knot – the strands of which are technical, logistical, regulatory, legal, financial, social and political – all caught in a web of agreements with states and communities, regulations, court rulings and the congressional budgetary process,” the report says.

The project’s steering committee sought to untangle these technical, administrative and public barriers so that critical issues could be identified and overcome. They held five open meetings with some 75 internationally recognized experts, government officials, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, affected citizens and Stanford scholars as speakers.

After describing the Sisyphean history of the U.S. nuclear waste management and disposal program, the report makes recommendations all focused around a final goal: long-term disposal of highly radioactive waste in a mined, geologic repository.

“Most importantly, the United States has taken its eyes off the prize, that is, disposal of highly radioactive nuclear waste in a deep-mined geologic repository,” said Allison Macfarlane, a member of the steering committee and a professor of public policy and international affairs at George Washington University. “Spent nuclear fuel stored above ground – either in pools or dry casks – is not a solution. These facilities will eventually degrade. And, if not monitored and cared for, they will contaminate our environment.”

The new, independent, utility-owned organization would control spent fuel from the time it is removed from reactors until its final disposal in a geologic repository.   ………https://news.stanford.edu/2018/12/10/square-one-u-s-nuclear-waste-management-program/

December 11, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The worst performing countries for climate action- USA and Saudi Arabia

US, Saudi Arabia back-of-the-pack on curbing climate change,  Researchers have identified the United States and Saudi Arabia as the climate change laggards. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/us-saudi-arabia-back-of-the-pack-on-curbing-climate-changeThe United States and Saudi Arabia rank last when it comes to curbing climate change among the 56 nations accounting for 90 percent of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, researchers said Monday.A large number of laggards means the world is dangerously off-track when it comes to slashing the carbon pollution that has already amplified droughts, flooding and deadly heatwaves worldwide, they reported on the margins of UN climate talks in Katowice, Poland.

Only a few countries have started to implement strategies to limit global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit),” the cornerstone target of the 2015 Paris climate treaty, according to NewClimate Institute and Germanwatch, an NGO.

Most governments “lack the political will to phase out fossil fuels with the necessary speed.”  Continue reading →

December 11, 2018 Posted by | climate change, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

No answer to clean up Washington’s Hanford nuclear site

December 11, 2018 Posted by | Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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