Navajo gather for uranium film event
Livestream Navajo Window Rock Uranium Film Fest Grassroots Gathering (includs video) http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/livestream-navajo-window-rock-uranium.html Live from Navajo Nation: International Uranium Film Festival, with grassroots talks and workshops Dec 2 — 4, 2013. By Brenda Norrell Censored News NAVAJO NATION — The grassroots gathering at the International Uranium Film Festival on the Navajo Nation began this morning, with talks by Native Americans battling uranium mining in their homelands. The festival will also feature 21 films, many focused on the poisoning and disease by Navajoland Cold War uranium mining, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Navajo President Ben Shelly spoke during the opening of the three day event.
President Shelly said he is still “talking” with the US about cleaning up the Church Rock, N.M., uranium tailings spill that happened in 1979. Shelly said he is still “talking” about cleaning up the Tuba City dump site too.
The Church Rock spill poisoned the region, and then flowed down the Rio Puerco toward Flagstaff, Arizona, poisoning more land and water on the Navajo Nation and causing cancer and disease. Continue reading
Storage solution for wind and solar energy, from Hitachi
Hitachi Announces Storage Technology for Renewable Energy Bloomberg, By Brian Wingfield – Dec 2, 2013 Hitachi Ltd. (6501) unveiled an energy-storage system that the company said will support wind and solar power and allow users to sell electricity into deregulated markets such as California.
The units can be installed on high-voltage power lines, and will be able to capture excess energy produced by wind and solar sources so it can be sold back into the network when the demand for power exceeds the supply. The systems, which include telecommunications and lithium-ion battery technologies developed by Tokyo-based Hitachi, will also minimize volatility on the power grid, company officials said today at a press conference in Washington.
“As the use of renewable energy expands, stabilization has become a very important priority,” Masaaki Nomoto, general manager for the company’s transmission and distribution systems division, said through a translator. He said the potential customers for the technology will include anyone who wants to sell power into the market, not just utilities……http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-02/hitachi-announces-storage-technology-for-renewable-energy.html
Anxiety surrounds plan to clean up Hanford’s radioactive trash
serious questions were raised last year after Walter Tamosaitis, one of the scientific chiefs of the project, disclosed that the innovative technology for mixing the waste in processing tanks could cause dangerous buildups of explosive hydrogen gas and might allow plutonium clumps to form.
Doubts grow about plan to dispose of Hanford’s radioactive waste, LA Times 28 Nov 13 Experts raise concerns about the complex technology intended to turn 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge at the former Hanford nuclear facility into glass and prepare it for safe burial. By Ralph Vartabedian November 29, 2013, RICHLAND, Wash. — On a wind-swept plateau, underground steel tanks that hold the nation’s most deadly radioactive waste are slowly rotting. The soil deep under the desert brush is being fouled with plutonium, cesium and other material so toxic that it could deliver a lethal dose of radiation to a nearby person in minutes.
The aging tanks at the former Hanford nuclear weapons complex contain 56 million gallons of sludge, the byproduct of several decades of nuclear weapons production, and they represent one of the nation’s most treacherous environmental threats.
Energy Department officials have repeatedly assured the public that they have the advanced technology needed to safely dispose of the waste. An industrial city has been under development here for 24 years, designed to transform the sludge into solid glass and prepare it for permanent burial.
But with $13 billion already spent, there are serious doubts that the highly complex technology will even work or that the current plan can clean up all the waste. Alarmed at warnings raised by outside experts and some of the project’s own engineers, Department of Energy officials last year ordered a halt to construction on the most important parts of the waste treatment plant.
“They are missing one important target after another,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “It feels like we are going around in circles.”……….
Many of the problems stem from the decision to launch construction of the plant even before engineers had completed the design. The job of turning waste as thick as peanut butter into glass is at the leading edge of nuclear chemistry, a job made difficult by the complex mixture of wastes that were fed into the underground tanks by some of the nation’s largest industrial corporations under a cloak of government secrecy.
The basic plan is to pump the waste into a pre-treatment plant, a factory larger than a football field and 12 stories tall, that would filter and chemically separate the waste into two streams of high- and low-level radioactivity. Then, two other plants would “vitrify,” or glassify, the waste. One would produce highly radioactive glass destined for a future geological repository, and the other a lower radioactive glass that could be buried at Hanford.
But serious questions were raised last year after Walter Tamosaitis, one of the scientific chiefs of the project, disclosed that the innovative technology for mixing the waste in processing tanks could cause dangerous buildups of explosive hydrogen gas and might allow plutonium clumps to form……. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-hanford-nuclear-risks-20131130,0,5013027.story#axzz2m8Dynzbj
Looking for Internet pornography while at work – NRC employees
Nuclear Regulatory Commission employees surf porn while on the job, December 01, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes (NaturalNews) It’s something that Homer Simpson would most likely do, but he’s a cartoon character and isn’t even real. Still, it is an apt comparison given Simpson’s cartoon job status as an employee at a nuclear power plant.
As reported by The Washington Times, employees at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that oversees the operations of the nation’s nuclear power plants, recently managed to bypass government firewalls and access porn online with their work computers.
From the paper:
It’s become tougher to surf porn on government computers after scandals, but some workers at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission managed to find ways to bypass detection software and firewalls to get the illicit content, records show.
One contract employee watched, in his words, two “porn type” Netflix movies during “downtime” on his 12-hour shift at the commission’s office of information services, according to case records reviewed by The Washington Times.
Problem has not gone away
Another employee, the paper said, had repeatedly used photo-sharing website Flickr to search for porn while in the office.
And for years, a resident inspector at the nuclear agency scanned eBay looking for images of porn.
http://www.naturalnews.com/043082_internet_surfing_government_employees_Nuclear_Regulatory_Commission.html#ixzz2mLPwliKZ
USA’s nuclear missile launch code was unsafe for 20 years!
Starting World War III with just one finger: The secret U.S. nuclear missile launch code was kept terrifyingly simple for nearly 20 years – and even printed on a checklist – (GOOD PHOTOS) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2515598/Launch-code-US-nuclear-weapons-easy-00000000.html By DAILY MAIL REPORTER 29 November 2013 For nearly 20 years, the secret code to authorize launching U.S. nuclear missiles, and starting World War III, was terrifyingly simple and even noted down on a checklist.
From 1962, when John F Kennedy instituted PAL encoding on nuclear weapons, until 1977, the combination to fire the devastating missiles at the height of the Cold War was just 00000000. Continue reading
USA Renewable Energy Data Book Now Available
Renewable Energy Data Book Now Available http://eponline.com/articles/2013/11/28/renewable-energy-data-book-now-available.aspx The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has released a new renewable energy data book that assesses U.S. energy statistics for 2012, including renewable electricity, worldwide renewable energy development, clean energy investments, and data on specific technologies. Nov 28, 2013
“The 2012 Renewable Energy Data Book is filled with information-packed charts and graphics, which allows users, from analysts to policymakers, to quickly understand and summarize trends in renewable energy — both on a U.S. and global scale,” said NREL Energy Analyst Rachel Gelman.
According to the data book, renewable electricity represented 14 percent of total installed capacity and more than 12 percent of total electric generation in 2012. Installed renewable electricity capacity is more than 163 gigawatts (GW). The installed global renewable electricity capacity, including hydropower, doubled between 2000 and 2012, and represents a significant and growing portion of the total energy supply both globally and in the U.S.
In 2012, wind energy and solar photovoltaics (PV) were two of the fastest growing electric generation technologies in the U.S. Cumulative installed wind energy capacity increased by nearly 28 percent and cumulative installed solar photovoltaic capacity grew more than 83 percent from the previous year. Renewable electricity accounted for more than 56 percent of all new electrical capacity installations in the U.S.— major increase from 2004 when renewable electricity installations captured only two percent of new capacity additions.
Utah nuclear power plant wins approval for diversion of water
“We expected this to be the case. The state engineer obviously spent two years looking at it,” said Aaron Tilton, whose company, Blue Castle Holdings, is proposing the twin-reactor plant in Emery County.
Tilton added that the judge rightfully weighed the merits of Jones’ decision within the context of what state law dictates.
“You got to look at the totality of everything that we have done and the way the law was applied. If we interpreted the law the way HEAL Utah wanted, nobody’s water rights would be approved,” he said.
The decision was blasted by HEAL Utah and other environmental groups that contended Jones’ decision was illegal because there was no demonstration by Blue Castle that the project is economically feasible or the water use is sustainable.
“It’s baffling that this project continues to stumble forward,” says HEAL Utah’s policy director, Matt Pacenza.
But 7th District Judge George Harmond said HEAL Utah and the other environmental groups failed to prove their case, and there was no lawful basis to deny the water use………http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=960&sid=27813730&fm=most_popular
Bible-bashing climate change and evolution – an American phenomenon
How did these issues get wrapped up together? On its face, there isn’t a clear reason—other than a marriage of convenience—why attacks on evolution and attacks on climate change ought to travel side by side. After all, we know why people deny evolution: Religion, especially the fundamentalist kind. And we know why people deny global warming: Free market ideology and libertarianism. These are not, last I checked, the same thing. (If anything, libertarians may be the most religiously skeptical group on the political right.)
And yet clearly there’s a relationship between the two issue stances. If you’re in doubt, watch this Climate Desk video of a number of members of Congress citing religion in the context of questioning global warming:
Using the Bible to Resist Climate Action: A Supercut
Indeed, recent research suggests that Christian “end times” believers are less likely to see a need for action on global warming……. http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/11/why-climate-change-skeptics-evolution-deniers-joined-forces
Warren Buffett is going for Renewable Energy
Here’s What Warren Buffett Thinks About Renewable Energy The Motley Fool By Jason Hall | November 27, 2013 |
“Rule No. 1: Never Lose Money. Rule No. 2: Never Forget Rule No. 1.”
–Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is famous for both his legendary investing acumen, and his simple, straightforward investing advice. For years, alternative energy has been viewed as non-competitive with traditional energy production from coal and other fossil fuels, making them money-losers for most investors.
Buffett’s own Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B ) subsidiary MidAmerican Energy is heavily investing in alternative energy sources, including both wind and solar. And considering that MidAmerican produces more than $1.2 billion in annual “ammo” for Buffett’s “elephant gun,” the story on renewables is clearly changing.
Should investors follow t… (registered readers only) http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/11/27/when-it-comes-to-renewable-energy-buffetts-not-blo.aspx
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy wants to build a laser uranium enrichment facility in Kentucky
GE Hitachi, Energy Dept. in talks over Ky. uranium Chron, By DYLAN LOVAN and ROGER ALFORD, Associated Press | November 27, 2013 LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday that it is entering negotiations with General Electric’s nuclear division on a proposal to replace an aging uranium enrichment plant in Kentucky with a new facility.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy wants to build a laser enrichment facility that would make use of the depleted uranium kept at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The Energy Department announced that it has selected GE Hitachi to begin exclusive negotiations for the sale of the uranium inventory.
GE Hitachi spokesman Chris White said Global Laser Enrichment that uses a unique laser technology would extract natural uranium from Paducah’s stores of depleted tails. The uranium would be used to fuel commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S., he said.
The negotiations are just beginning and there is no timetable on building a new plant, White said…….http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/GE-Hitachi-Energy-Dept-in-talks-over-Ky-uranium-5017015.php
Connection between breast cancer and cell phone radiation?
This website is focussed on the nuclear industry, and energy issues. While ionising radiation is a proven cancer-causer, there is debate about electromagnetic radiation. More research should go into that issue.
Cell phone radiation breast cancer link – New study raises grave concerns, November 27, 2013 by: Lloyd Burrell (NaturalNews) A new study raises concerns of a possible association between cell phone radiation exposure and breast cancer in young women.
The research team, led by Dr. Lisa Bailey, a former president of the American Cancer Society’s California Division and one of California’s top breast surgeons, studied four young women – aged from 21 to 39 years old – with multifocal invasive breast cancer.
The researchers observed that all the patients developed tumors in areas of their breasts next to where they carried their cell phones, often for up to 10 hours per day, for several years. None of the patients had a family history of breast cancer. They all tested negative for BRCA1 and BRCA2 – breast cancer genes linked to about one-half of breast cancer cases – and they had no other known breast cancer risks.
Imaging of the young girls’ breasts revealed a clustering of multiple tumor foci in the part of the breast directly under where their cell phones touched their body……….
Studies show that other EMF exposures from similar, supposedly harmless, everyday appliances and devices can also be dangerous. The recently published “BioInitiative Report 2012” concluded, “there is sufficient evidence from in vitro and animal studies, from human biomarker studies, from occupational and light-at-night studies, and a single longitudinal study with appropriate collection of urine samples to conclude that high MF (magnetic field) exposure may be a risk factor for breast cancer.” The report’s authors went on to say that “there is rather strong evidence from case-control studies that longterm, high occupational exposure (over 10 milliGauss) to ELF (Extremely low frequency) magnetic fields is a risk factor for breast cancer.”………
Need to monitor Fukushima radionuclides reaching West Coast of USA
“Radionuclides from Fukushima due to hit U.S. West Coast any day now” — Senior Scientist: “Really bizarre” U.S. gov’t not testing for it — Concerned officials contacting him about threat http://enenews.com/plume-of-water-carrying-radionuclides-from-fukushima-due-to-hit-u-s-west-coast-any-day-now-senior-scientist-its-really-bizarre-that-u-s-govt-is-not-doing-any-testing-concerned-offic
Cape Cod Times, Nov. 24, 2013:
Model shows estimated location of plume in 2014
With the first plume of water carrying radionuclides from Fukushima due to hit the U.S. West Coast any day now, [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Senior Scientist Ken] Buesseler’s latest project is to convince the federal government to monitor radiation levels in the sea water. […] He predicts the radiation will be so diluted after the long journey across the Pacific that it will pose no threat […] But he knows that’s not enough to reassure the public. […] he knows people are concerned […] he fields regular phone calls from surfers and salmon fishermen as well as congressmen. […]
Federal Government
[Buesseler] spent this past week in Washington, D.C., meeting with representatives of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy, asking them to come up with some sort of plan to keep tabs on levels of radionuclides […] Buesseler also talked with U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., […] Markey said in an email that an increased federal role is not likely considering the budgetary brakes being applied by the Republicans in Congress. “The sequester is a double-punch, cutting funding for the agencies charged with promoting scientific discovery and protecting our natural resources,” he said.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Senior Scientist Ken Buesseler: We’ve known that for two and half years. Every day they are making contaminated water […] I’m a little disappointed in Japan. What (the denial has) done is made the public extremely mistrustful. […] We don’t have a U.S. agency responsible for radiation in the ocean […] It’s really bizarre. […] Given what’s happened at Fukushima […] Wouldn’t you want to have some measurement?
More from Buesseler: Graphic: 900-mile-long “front” of most contaminated water from Fukushima Daiichi moving across Pacific toward U.S., Canada (VIDEO)
Navajos copped uranium pollution, now they’re to do the clean-up
they always give the dirty jobs to indigenous people
NAU seeks Navajos for uranium cleanup training http://www.sunherald.
com/2013/11/25/5146098/nau-seeks-navajos-for-uranium.html BY FELICIA FONSECA Associated PressNovember 25, 2013 FLAGSTAFF, ARIZ. — Northern Arizona University is using federal grant money to address two of the most widespread problems on the Navajo Nation — unemployment and uranium contamination.
A $200,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will allow the school’s Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals to train up to 40 people over three years to safely handle radioactive materials and to find a job in a place where the unemployment rate hovers around 50 percent.
About 4 million tons of uranium ore were mined from the reservation from 1944 to 1986 for wartime weapons, leaving a legacy of death and disease. Families still live among the contamination that the tribe and federal government are working toward cleaning up. The top priority is the former Northeast Church Rock Mine near Gallup, N.M. Continue reading
Uranium market not a good prospect – Goldman Sachs gets out
Goldman Sachs to sell uranium unit BUSINESS DAY, BY SCOTT DISAVINO AND DAVID SHEPPARD, NOVEMBER 25 2013 NEW YORK — US BANK GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP HAS PUT ITS URANIUM TRADING BUSINESS UP FOR SALE, A SOURCE FAMILIAR WITH THE MATTER SAID ON FRIDAY, THE LATEST SIGN THAT WALL STREET’S MOST STORIED COMMODITY TRADER IS PARING BACK PARTS OF THE BUSINESS.
The move comes as other US banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, look to exit physical commodity trading in the wake of increased government scrutiny, squeezed trading margins and forecasts for tepid demand in certain markets……
The move to sell also comes as uranium prices languish at their lowest since 2005. Spot prices of U3O8 (triuranium octoxide), a material that is converted to uranium hexafluoride for the purpose of uranium enrichment, have ranged from $34-$35 a pound since September, less than half the price prior to the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011……
Financial firms started to get into the uranium business in the mid-2000s when prices were rising on expectations demand would grow with the nuclear renaissance. Reuters http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/americas/2013/11/25/goldman-sachs-to-sell-uranium-unit
USA Republicans mindless opposition to this, or any, deal with Iran
Republicans are opposed to President Obama’s deal with the Iranians — whatever it is. WP, By Dana Milbank, November 25 A couple of minutes after 9 p.m. on Saturday, word crossed the news wires that negotiators in Geneva had reached an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Then, at 9:08 p.m. — before any details of the pact were known — Ari Fleischer delivered his opinion on the agreement, via Twitter…….Fleischer’s instant and reflexive response — even knees don’t jerk as quickly as he did — set the tone for Republicans. Three minutes after Fleischer’s tweet came one in agreement from Ron Christie, another veteran of the Bush administration. “Precisely,” he wrote, also without the benefit of knowing what was in the agreement. “A disgraceful deal.”
An hour later — still before Obama detailed the accord in a statement from the White House — John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, had analyzed the administration’s motives in reaching the deal…… In the eyes of Republicans, the agreement with Iran has a fatal flaw: It was negotiated by the Obama administration. This president could negotiate a treaty promoting baseball, motherhood and apple pie, and Republicans would brand it the next Munich.
The opposition in this case is particularly mindless. Certainly there are reasons to be skeptical that Iran will act in good faith. But the deal is temporary — six months — and easily reversible. In the (likely) event that Iran doesn’t agree to a permanent accord to end its nuclear program, the tougher sanctions contemplated in Congress could be applied. Would it be better to go to war now without exhausting diplomatic options? We’ve been there and done that — when Ari Fleischer stood on the White House podium.
But Republicans were being reflexive, not reflective…….. In the stampede to judgment, Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) risked getting trampled. He actually waited until hearing Obama speak before issuing a statement, and then declared that he would “look forward to studying details.”
A member of the opposition party who wants to think before criticizing the Obama administration?… http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-republicans-mindlessly-oppose-iran-nuclear-deal/2013/11/25/b87f65ce-5603-11e3-835d-e7173847c7cc_story.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
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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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