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U.S. nuclear spent fuel liability jumps to $44.5 billion

 Nov 27, 2024, https://www.ans.org/news/article-6587/us-spent-fuel-liability-jumps-to-445-billion/

The Department of Energy’s estimated overall liability for failing to dispose of the country’s commercial spent nuclear fuel jumped as much as 10 percent this year, from a range of $34.1 billion to $41 billion in 2023 to a range of $37.6 billion to $44.5 billion in 2024, according to a financial audit of the DOE’s Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) for fiscal year 2024.

The estimated liability excludes $11.1 billion already paid out to nuclear power plant owners and utilities for the DOE’s breach of the standard contract for the disposal of spent fuel (10 CFR Part 961), which required the DOE to begin taking title of spent nuclear fuel for disposal by January 1998. Owners of spent fuel routinely sue the federal government for the continued cost of managing the fuel. The recovered costs are paid out from the Treasury Department’s Judgement Fund and not from the DOE.

According to the audit, conducted by the independent public accounting firm of KPMG, the liability estimate “reflects a range of possible scenarios” regarding the operating life of the current fleet of nuclear power reactors. The estimate is also based on when the DOE thinks it may begin taking spent fuel. In May, the DOE received initial approval (Critical Decision-0) for a consolidated interim storage facility for spent fuel that, if constructed, would be operational by 2046.

The Department of Energy Nuclear Waste Fund’s Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Statement Audit was released by the DOE Office of Inspector General on November 14.

The fund: The NWF, which was intended to finance the DOE’s disposal of spent fuel, had a balance of $52.2 billion as of September, according to the KPMG audit.

The NWF was funded through annual fees—initially, $0.001 for every kilowatt hour provided by a nuclear power plant—levied by the DOE on owners and generators of spent fuel. The DOE stopped collecting annual NWF fees, however, in 2014 following an order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which found that the DOE failed to justify the continued imposition of the fee following the suspension of the Yucca Mountain repository project.

January 14, 2025 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

While Los Angeles burns, AI fans the flames

Artificial intelligence is a water-guzzling industry hastening future climate crises from California’s own backyard.

By Schuyler Mitchell , Truthout, January 11, 2025

“………………………………………………. Trump’s latest smear campaign is little more than political football. But the renewed attention on California’s water does highlight ongoing tensions over the conservation and management of this finite resource. As the climate crisis worsens, it’s expected to exacerbate heat waves and droughts, bringing water shortages and increasingly devastating fires like those currently scorching southern California. The situation in Los Angeles is already a catastrophe. Climate change-induced water shortages will make imminent disasters even worse.

In the face of this grim reality, it’s worth revisiting one of the major water-guzzling industries that’s hastening future crises from California’s own backyard: artificial intelligence (AI).

Silicon Valley is the epicenter of the global AI boom, and hundreds of Bay Area tech companies are investing in AI development. Meanwhile, in the southern region of the state, real estate developers are rushing to build new data centers to accommodate expanded cloud computing and AI technologies. The Los Angeles Times reported in September that data center construction in Los Angeles County had reached “extraordinary levels,” increasing more than sevenfold in two years.

This technology’s environmental footprint is tremendous. AI requires massive amounts of electrical power to support its activities and millions of gallons of water to cool its data centers. One study predicts that, within the next five years, AI-driven data centers could produce enough air pollution to surpass the emissions of all cars in California.

Data centers on their own are water-intensive; California is home to at least 239. One study shows that a large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, or as much as a town of 50,000 people. In The Dalles, Oregon, a local paper found that a Google data center used over a quarter of the city’s water. Artificial intelligence is even more thirsty: Reporting by The Washington Post found that Meta used 22 million liters of water simply training its open source AI model, and UC Riverside researchers have calculated that, in just two years, global AI use could require four to six times as much water as the entire nation of Denmark.

Many U.S. data centers are based in the western portion of the country, including California, where wind and solar power is more plentiful — and where water is already scarce. In 2022, a researcher at Virginia Tech estimated that about one-fifth of data centers in the U.S. draw water from “moderately to highly stressed watersheds.”

According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, the U.S. government’s leading report on climate change, California is among the top five states suffering economic impacts from climate crisis-induced natural disaster. California already is dealing with the effects of one water-heavy industry; the Central Valley, which feeds the whole country, is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, and the Central Valley aquifer ranks as one of the most stressed aquifers in the world. ClimateCheck, a website that uses climate models to predict properties’ natural disaster threat levels, says that California ranks number two in the country for drought risk.

In August 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation declared the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River, which supplies water to California — including roughly a third of southern California’s urban water supply — as well as six other states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. The Colorado River water allotments have been highly contested for more than a century, but the worsening climate crisis has thrown the fraught agreements into sharp relief. Last year, California, Nevada and Arizona agreed to long-term cuts to their shares of the river’s water supply.

Despite the precarity of the water supply, southern California’s Imperial Valley, which holds the rights to 3.1 million acres of Colorado River water, is actively seeking to recruit data centers to the region.

“Imperial Valley is a relatively untapped opportunity for the data center industry,” states a page on the Imperial Valley Economic Development Corporation’s website. “With the lowest energy rates in the state, abundant and inexpensive Colorado River water resources, low-cost land, fiber connectivity and low risk for natural disasters, the Imperial Valley is assuredly an ideal location.” A company called CalEthos is currently building a 315 acre data center in the Imperial Valley, which it says will be powered by clean energy and an “efficient” cooling system that will use partially recirculated water. In the bordering state of Arizona, Meta’s Mesa data center also draws from the dwindling Colorado River.

The climate crisis is here, but organizers are not succumbing to nihilism. Across the country, community groups have fought back against big tech companies and their data centers, citing the devastating environmental impacts. And there’s evidence that local pushback can work. In the small towns of Peculiar, Missouri, and Chesterton, Indiana, community campaigns have halted companies’ data center plans.

“The data center industry is in growth mode,” Jon Reigel, who was involved in the Chesterton fight, told The Washington Post in October. “And every place they try to put one, there’s probably going to be resistance. The more places they put them the more resistance will spread.”  https://truthout.org/articles/while-los-angeles-burns-ai-fans-the-flames/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=3634e1951f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_01_11_08_34&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-3634e1951f-650192793

January 13, 2025 Posted by | climate change, technology, USA | Leave a comment

Now By Fire, Next by Quake, then by Apocalyptic Radiation: Will Gavin Newsom’s Diablo Canyon Atomic Folly Kill Us All?

Los Angeles is now being destroyed by fire.

by Harvey “Sluggo” Wasserman, January 11, 2025, more https://freepress.org/article/now-fire-next-quake-then-apocalyptic-radiation-will-gavin-newsoms-atomic-folly-kill-us-all-0

Los Angeles is now being destroyed by fire.

Next will be the “Big One” earthquake everyone knows is coming.

And then—unless we take immediate action—Diablo Canyon’s radioactive cloud will make this region a radioactive dead zone. 

My family is now besieged by four fires raging less than four miles away.  We don’t know how long our luck will hold.

We are eternally grateful to the brave fire-fighters and public servants who are doing their selfless best to save us all.

We are NOT grateful that Gavin Newsom has recklessly endangered us by forcing continued operation at two unsafe, decrepit nuclear power plants perched on active earthquake faults, set to pour radioactive clouds on us from just four hours north of here.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s resident site inspector—Dr. Michael Peck—after five years at Diablo warned that it cannot withstand the earthquakes we all know are coming.  

In 2006 the NRC confirmed that Unit One was already seriously embrittled.  Its fragile core makes a melt-down virtually certain to cause a catastrophic explosion, shooting a lethal apocalyptic cloud right at us…and then across the state and continent.  

These wildfires make clear that these city, state and federal governments—maybe NO government ANYWHERE—can begin to cope with these kinds of mega-crises.  

Imagine watching our public servants trying to cope while dressed in radiation suits, knowing everything around us has been permanently contaminated.

Imagine leaving all you own forever behind while racing to get yourself and your family out of here under the universal evacuation order demanded by radioactive clouds like those that decimated the downwind regions from Chernobyl and Fukushima, not to mention Santa Susanna and Three Mile Island, Windscale and Kyshtym.

Pre-empting such a catastrophe was a major motivation for the 2018 plan to phase out the two Diablo nukes in 2024 and 2025,

That landmark blueprint was crafted over a two-year period with hundreds of meetings, scores of hearings involving the best and brightest in energy, the economy, the ecology and the hard engineering realities of aging atomic power reactors.

It was signed by the then-Governor (Jerry Brown), Lieutenant Governor (Gavin Newsom), state legislature, state regulatory agencies, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, plant owner (PG&E), labor unions, local governments, environmental groups and many more, .  

The economic and energy security goals of this plan have been far exceeded by advances in renewable generation and battery storage.  California now regularly gets 100% of its electricity from solar, wind and geothermal.  Battery back-up capabilities exceed Diablo’s capacity by a factor of four or more.  Its inflexible baseload productions unfortunately interferes with far cheaper renewables filling our grid.

The grid’s most serious blackout threats now come from disruptive malfunctions and potential disasters at Diablo Canyon. 

All this has been well known since 2018, when Newsom signed the Diablo agreement.

The phase-out proceeded smoothly for four years, largely exceeding expectations.

But in 2022, Newsom strongarmed the legislature into trashing the phase-out plan.  His Public Utilities Commission decimated the statewide rate structure, costing our solar industry, billions in revenues and at least 17,000 jobs.

Instead Newsom fed PG&E about $1.4 billion in public subsidies and $11 billion in over-market charges to keep Diablo running through 2030.

Neither the NRC nor state nor PG&E have done the necessary tests to guarantee Diablo’s safety, refusing to re-test for embrittlement even though such defects forced the NRC to shut the Yankee Rowe reactor in 1991.

Diablo has no private liability insurance.  Should it irradiate Los Angeles, NONE of us can expect compensation.  

So as we shudder amidst the horrors of this firestorm, we know that our loss of life, health and property will be orders of magnitude—literally, infinitely—more devastating when, by quake or error, the reactors at Diablo Canyon melt and explode.

Responsibility for this needless, unconscionable threat lies strictly with Gavin Newsom.  There is no sane economic, electric supply or common sense reason for him to impose this gamble on us.   

Governor Newsom: NOTHING can make public sense of this radioactive throw of the dice.  

We respectfully beg, request, demand, beseech that you honor the sacred word you gave in 2018 to phase out the Diablo Canyon atomic reactors.  

As we see the devastation engulfing us, and the inability of government to make it right, there is zero mystery as to why these nukes must shut.  

  NOW!!!

January 13, 2025 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Are Blinken and Biden’s Gaza genocide denials any different than Nazi WWII genocide denials?

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 12 Jan 25.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the NY Times he’s not worried about history judging him as a genocide enabler.

When asked he replied, “No. It’s not (genocide), first of all. Second, as to how the world sees it, I can’t fully answer to that.”

Blinken will deny to his death his $22 billion in weapons that Israel has used to utterly destroy sustainable life for 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza’s 139 square miles is genocide. But the entire world aside from the Biden administration is correct in viewing it as genocide

It isn’t that Blinken “Can’t answer to that” (the world viewing it as genocide). He simply won’t answer to what is the most monstrous crime a national leader can commit. From Day 1 in the genocide Israel embarked upon in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, Blinken and his boss Biden have been calling the genocide their weapons enable ‘self-defense.’

Denying genocide is what the Nazi war criminals did to a man at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials after WWII.

There will be no war crime trials for Blinken and Biden for the genocide that could not take place their tens of billions in weapons, vetoes of ceasefire resolutions in the US Security Council, public support and their endless ‘self-defense’ refrain.

In a bitter irony for humanity, it was the US which helped establish the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 to ferret out and prosecute war criminals. But with criminal US wars devastating Afghanistan and Iraq, the US has turned on the ICC in fear of becoming ICC war crime targets. The US has abstained from membership and has blasted the ICC indicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his Gaza genocide. President Biden called the indictment “outrageous” and declared “We will always stand with Israel.”

Is that any different from denying, even condoning WWII Nazi genocide?

Blinken and Biden, barreling toward historical infamy with their blank check enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza.

January 13, 2025 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Lawsuit challenges NRC on SMR regulation

Friday, 10 January 2025, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/lawsuit-challenges-nrc-on-smr-regulation

The States of Texas and Utah and microreactor developer Last Energy Inc are challenging the US regulator over its application of a rule it adopted in 1956 to small modular reactors and research and test reactors.

Under the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Utilization Facility Rule, all US reactors are required to obtain NRC construction and operating licences regardless of their size, the amount of nuclear material they use or the risks associated with their operation. The plaintiffs say this imposes “complicated, costly, and time-intensive requirements that even the smallest and safest SMRs and microreactors – down to those not strong enough to power an LED lightbulb” must satisfy to secure the necessary licences. This does not only affect microreactors: existing research and test reactors such as those at the universities in both Texas and Utah face “significant costs” to maintain their NRC operating licences, the plaintiffs say.

In the filing, Last Energy – developer of the PWR-20 microreactor – says it has invested “tens of millions of dollars” in developing small nuclear reactor technology, including USD2 million on manufacturing efforts in Texas alone, and has agreements to develop more than 50 nuclear reactor facilities across Europe. But although it has a “preference” to build in the USA, “Last Energy nonetheless has concluded it is only feasible to develop its projects abroad in order to access alternative regulatory frameworks that incorporate a de minimis standard for nuclear power permitting”.

Noting that only three new commercial reactors have been built in the USA over the past 28 years, the plaintiffs say building a new commercial reactor of any size in the country has become “virtually impossible” due to the rule, which it says is a “misreading” of the NRC’s own scope of authority.

They are asking the court to set aside the rule, “at least as applied to certain small, non-hazardous reactors”, and exempt their research reactors and Last Energy’s small modular reactors (SMRs) from the commission’s licensing requirements.

Houston, Texas-based law firm King & Spalding said the lawsuit, if it is successful, would “mark a turning point” in the US nuclear regulatory framework – but warns that it could also create greater uncertainty as advanced nuclear technologies get closer to commercial readiness.

“Regardless the outcome, the Plaintiffs’ lawsuit highlights the challenges in applying the Utilization Facility Rule to the advanced nuclear reactors now under development in the US,” the company said in in analysis released on 9 January.

But the NRC is already addressing the issue: in 2023, it began the rulemaking process to establish an optional technology-inclusive regulatory framework for new commercial advanced nuclear reactors, which would include risk-informed and performance-based methods “flexible and practicable for application to a variety of advanced reactor technologies”. SECY-23-0021: Proposed Rule: Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors is currently open for public comment until 28 February, and the NRC has said it expects to issue a final rule “no later than the end of 2027”.

The lawsuit has been filed with the US District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.

January 13, 2025 Posted by | Legal, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

China Is Not Our Enemy

 So I coordinate our CODEPINK’s China is our enemy campaign, and the campaign was created in response to this rise in recent years of anti-China sentiments and the actions that our government has been taking to accelerate the new Cold War offensive against Beijing, and that includes spending billions of dollars militarizing Asia Pacific region, utilizing military economic coercion to push US interests outright labeling China an enemy, demonizing essentially anything China does, and all of which has led to a rise in Asian American hate around the country. 

 So the campaign seeks to do two things. The first is to educate the public how their minds are being shaped for war. And we do this by teaching our audience about China, dismantling the lies being told by the media, by politicians, and then also informing on all the tax dollars being spent preparing for war with China. And the second thing that we try to do is redirect all that energy into a push for peace. And that’s why we emphasize the need for friendship and cooperation with China for working together on climate justice, nuclear disarmament and other extremely important issues today.

SCHEERPOST, 10 Jan 25, Robert Scheer interviews Megan Russell, a writer, academic and CODEPINK’s China is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. in the past 50 or so years, you know, China has accomplished an incredible amount of progress, something they don’t talk about enough, in my opinion, is how China managed to eradicate extreme poverty. And that’s not just a minimum income level. It also means access to food, to clothes, health care, clean housing, free education, you know, means infrastructure, means functioning systems and and through the past half a century, you know, through market reforms, rural collectivization and other poverty alleviation programs, China was ultimately successful in its in its mission. And by 2021, I believe the last 100 million people were taken out of extreme poverty, which was nearly 900 million people total. And many UN officials call it the greatest anti-poverty achievement in history, which it is. That’s 1.4 billion people without extreme poverty. That’s about the entire continent of Africa or the US and Europe combined. 

…………………………………………….This turn toward China, and this new narrative that China is some sort of existential threat to us, even though China has never threatened war or even invaded or intervened in a nation for 50 years, which is a sharp contrast to US history, which is very heavily involved in overseas conflicts. But, you know, China’s been focused on its internal growth and accomplishing its own goals. And non interventionism, of course, is one of its foundational policy pillars. 

The American saber-rattling against China has been increasing almost as fast as China’s own development in the past few years. China’s economic prosperity and international influence is undeniable yet American politicians continue to treat their rise as a threat to their global hegemony. Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence is Megan Russell, a writer, academic and CODEPINK’s China is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator.

Scheer is quick to point out the intergenerational dynamic between his own work on China as a fellow in the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s and Russell’s recent experience living in China and studying in Shanghai. Both witnessed and experienced the American perspective of China and how it has continued to undermine it. Scheer and Russell focus on her latest article, which calls out New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman for his portrayal of China and how his deficient op-ed mirrors the broader perception of China in the United States. While many may think that China is an authoritarian country with people living under the heel of Xi Jinping, the actual material conditions of its population are often left out.

“Something [people] don’t talk about enough, in my opinion, is how China managed to eradicate extreme poverty. And that’s not just a minimum income level, it also means access to food, to clothes, healthcare, clean housing, free education. It means infrastructure, means functioning systems,” Russell says.

People also point to working conditions and the outsourcing of American jobs to China as a means of attacking them. To this, Russell explains, “All China has done is use the system in place to develop and try to provide opportunities to its incredibly vast population, while still maintaining its proto-socialist policies. It’s us that has exported the production of all our goods to make a few more dollars.”

In the end, the US stands to lose, not only in a trade war, but also in the climate aspect, since China has also made great strides towards combatting the climate crisis. Russell cites their plan of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 and tells Scheer, “China has really undergone this internal green energy revolution, doing far more than any other country to combat climate change.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Megan Russell  

…………………………………………………………………………………..Megan Russell  

Yeah, you know, a lot of times the first thing people ask me when they hear that I lived in China was that was “Was it scary?” Did I feel threatened and watched? Someone actually just asked me that yesterday, and it’s very real to them, though it always sounds a little silly to me, because I actually felt very safe in China more than I felt in most other countries, I would say, maybe all of them. And that’s, you know, my honest answer. You know, crime rates are very low in China. I never had any safety issues. I lived there a year. I traveled extensively by myself to many provinces on all sides of the country. I never felt unsafe. I never worried about pickpockets. I never worried about being robbed. I never felt the discomfort of being a woman alone. You know, everyone has a different experience, but this was my experience, 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………  the success of China is, you know, very triggering to this idea of Western exceptionalism. You know that any form of socialism could actually improve the lives of the people, could actually obtain any measure of success. And this exceptional exceptionalism is based on ideals, right on this imagined perfection of free markets and democracy, yes, but also on colonial racist doctrines. And that’s really, you know, at the root of it, a lot of this negativity as well. Unfortunately, though, it’s, you know, often disguised or dressed up like something else. It’s at the root of it, a dehumanization of China and Chinese people that they are worth less, that they aren’t deserving of of jobs or opportunities or of success. And I think this manifests itself very easily into a global system that is, you know, inherently based on a division of humanity that we have been forced to accept as normal and and that doesn’t just go for China, of course, but the entire Global South……………………………………………………………………………..

Robert Scheer…………………………………………………………………… you know, we need to manufacture consent for militarization, for war, because it’s far easier with public support, and it helps maintain internal stability here as well. And this is why you’ve seen, you know, this steady rise of anti-China messaging and and fear mongering. You know, just last fall, the House passed a bill to fund $1.6 billion to anti-China propaganda around the world. You know, that’s $1.6 billion of going to information warfare. Because, you know, in order to pursue this agenda, you need to convince the rest of the world that, or at least the United States, that China is a threat and and many people aren’t, you know, convinced enough. And also, along with that, you know, there was a whole China week where they passed 25 anti China bills, including the propaganda Bill, you know, all with the end goal of countering the influence of the Communist Party of China………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/10/china-is-not-our-enemy/

January 12, 2025 Posted by | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

U.S. politicians want transparency about the radiation risks of the fire afflicted Santa Susana nuclear site.

Public Risks from the Woolsey Fire and the Santa Susana Field Laboratory: A Letter to DTSC https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/11/20/18819268.php, by Bradley Allen (bradley [at] bradleyallen.net)  Nov 20th, 2018    

On November 19, representatives Henry Stern and Jesse Gabriel authored a joint letter to Barbara Lee, Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). In their letter, Senator Stern and Assembly member Gabriel call for “full transparency” to “ensure the public is fully aware of any public health risks posed by the Woolsey Fire on Santa Susana Field Laboratory.”

Prior to the first round of data analysis, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control reported that its scientists “do not believe the fire caused any releases of hazardous materials that would pose a risk to people exposed to the smoke.”

“A common denominator in every single nuclear accident – a nuclear plant or on a nuclear submarine – is that before the specialists even know what has happened, they rush to the media saying, ‘There’s no danger to the public.’ They do this before they themselves know what has happened because they are terrified that the public might react violently, either by panic or by revolt.” 

—Jacques-Yves Cousteau

On November 19, representatives Henry Stern and Jesse Gabriel authored a joint letter to Barbara Lee, Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). In their letter, posted to social media, Senator Stern and Assemblymember Gabriel call for “full transparency” to “ensure the public is fully aware of any public health risks posed by the Woolsey Fire on Santa Susana Field Laboratory.”

Henry Stern represents nearly 1 million residents of the 27th Senate District, which includes Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Malibu, Moorpark, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, part of Santa Clarita and the following Los Angeles communities: Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Encino, Porter Ranch, Reseda, Lake Balboa, Tarzana, West Hills, Winnetka, and Woodland Hills.

Jesse Gabriel represents Assembly District 45 comprised of the cities of Calabasas and Hidden Hills, a small portion of unincorporated Ventura County and several neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles: Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Encino, Northridge, Reseda, Tarzana, Warner Center, West Hills, Winnetka, and Woodland Hills.

Senator Stern and Assemblymember Gabriel outline five specific requests regarding transparency from the DTSC, and conclude, “Given the serious and unsettling nature of this situation, we respectfully request that all information and data be disclosed as quickly as possible. Our community—and the broader public—deserve answers.”

Letter from Senator Stern and Assembly member Gabriel to DTSC,  Continue reading →

January 11, 2025 Posted by | climate change, environment, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Radioactive nightmare: A community’s fight for survival amid soaring cancer rates

Jay Salley, News Editor by Jay Salley, News EditorJanuary 8, 2025, https://sciotovalleyguardian.com/2025/01/08/radioactive-nightmare-a-communitys-fight-for-survival-amid-soaring-cancer-rates/

PIKETON, Ohio — Pike County, Ohio, is facing a severe health crisis that’s attracted national attention. The region has some of the highest cancer and premature death rates in the U.S. This alarming trend is linked to decades of uranium enrichment and ongoing demolition at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

A study by Joseph J. Mangano, an epidemiologist with the Radiation and Public Health Project, sheds light on the impact of radioactive contamination on Pike County. Released last summer, the study shows significant increases in cancer, infant mortality, and premature deaths in areas downwind of the plant.

From 2021 to 2023, Pike County’s premature death rate for those under 74 years old was 107% higher than the national average, up from 85% between 2017 and 2020. Over 750 premature deaths occurred in this period in a county with a population of just over 27,000.

Cancer rates in Pike and six neighboring counties—Adams, Gallia, Jackson, Lawrence, Scioto, and Vinton—were 17.5% above the national average from 2015 to 2019. Infant mortality rates in the region were 31.9% higher than the U.S. average from 1999 to 2020, and middle-aged adults saw mortality rates more than double the national average.

In 2019, concerns about radioactive contamination peaked when Zahn’s Corner Middle School in Piketon was permanently closed after radioactive isotopes, including enriched uranium and neptunium-237, were found inside. The school district later sold the building to a Christian ministry, which plans to reopen it as a STEM academy, raising safety concerns.

The Portsmouth plant, operational from 1954 to 2001, enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and reactors, releasing radioactive particles into the environment. Despite ceasing uranium enrichment in 2001, the plant remains active with demolition and decommissioning projects, raising concerns about further contamination.

The Guardian spoke with local activist Gina Doyle. Gina heads the group, Don’t Dump On Us. When asked about the study, Doyle said that in both of Dr. Mangano’s reports, the rate of cancer deaths and other related illnesses has a direct link to the Portsmouth plant. “The contamination is growing, too. It is in everything and everywhere in the surrounding communities. Past instances at the Portsmouth plant show not only human error but deaths of workers. DDOU has a compiled list of cancer victims from the community that grows every single day. I add to that list names of cancer victims; the stories are heartbreaking and infuriating. 

The push for nuclear in our country is growing and that will most definitely cause more sickness and deaths. Transparency has been called for by activists and we still don’t know the whole truth because all of the information is kept hush-hush by the DOE. We do know that other agencies like the OEPA, DOH, and NRC who are supposed to be working to protect our communities have also turned their backs. Questions are never answered; we are kept in the dark by our government. Why? In my opinion, because of money and power. It is time to put people first and stop the lies and covering up the truth. The truth is they are killing innocent people and children. Remediation without any chance of bringing it back to background is not possible. We are forever contaminated. Forever the community will be affected.”

Families in Pike County and neighboring areas have experienced high rates of rare cancers and aggressive diseases, believed to be linked to exposure to radioactive materials from the plant. The closure of Zahn’s Corner Middle School and the deaths of students and staff have become a grim symbol of the crisis.

Emily Stone, another resident, told the Guardian “that when you have world-renowned, out-of-state epidemiologists and scientists who are all saying there is a major problem in Piketon, then that should be taken with the utmost priority and urgency. It is not normal for so many people in one area to be sick and die from some of the rarest cancers and illnesses to exist. For the cause of all of those sicknesses to have a direct link to radioactive materials is truly unreal. When will someone care that an entire community, and its surrounding counties, are all being harmed by this one place and do something to stop it? How many more kids and adults have to die before enough is enough?”

Despite the health risks, the Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed new projects at the Portsmouth site, causing further concern among residents. Advocates are calling for independent investigations and comprehensive public health monitoring for affected communities to prevent further harm.

The fight for accountability and action to address the region’s toxic legacy continues for Pike County residents.

January 11, 2025 Posted by | health, USA | 2 Comments

Independent testing of radiation levels in air- Woolsey Fire and Santa Susana Field Lab Site.

WOOLSEY FIRE: ARE YOU BREATHING TOXIC AND RADIOACTIVE AIR? http://lancasterweeklyreview.com/woolsey-fire-radiation-toxic-testing  by fdr | Nov 14, 2018 Preliminary Independent Radiation Test Results from US Nuclear Corporation from The Woolsey Fire and Santa Susana Field Lab Site

After various complaints and talking with numerous concerned parents The Lancaster Weekly Review has ordered a commission in a preliminary study in order to finally answer some of the community’s concerns regarding potential toxic materials released from the Woolsey Fire as well as radiation from the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. The Field Lab was the site of a nuclear meltdown in 1959 with many locals and doctors condemning subpar cleanup efforts that point to high cancer rates which are 60% higher for those people living within a 2 mile radius of the SSFL. A lingering effect of the various toxins within the Field Labs vicinity.

It appears that the recent Woolsey Fire which has devastated swathes of Ventura and northwestern Los Angeles Counties, originated at the Santa Susa Field Lab and Testing Site with varied reports to the damage to the facility as well as the contamination area of the nuclear meltdown. The Southern California Edison Chatsworth Substation which is on the SSFL site shut down 2 minutes prior to start of the Woolsey Fire.

An independent study of air testing was conducted by US Nuclear Corporation of Canoga Park on Tuesday, November 13, five days after the Woolsey fire began. The owner, Mr. Bob Goldstein, was more than happy to help with the study and dispatched David Alban and Detwan Robinson to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory on Tuesday, November 13th at 3PM. They took two types of measurements for radiation with the US Nuclear Fast-Cam Air Monitor and another with a filter air tape. Twenty minute samples were taken at high flow rate of 40cfm at the Lab Entrance, which is up wind from the Lab. Another 20 minute sample was taken on the down wind side, which is North of the Lab. Given the proximity of the company’s headquarters to the Woolsey Fire US Nuclear Corporation’s team also took indoor samples at their office in Canoga Park.

It appears that many of the preliminary tests are picking up increased levels of Radon. Mr. Goldstein of US Nuclear Corporation commented, “Ordinary background radiation from minerals in the soil (and also from the solar wind and from cosmic rays) gives a dose rate of 0.015mR/hr (milliRem per hour) in the San Fernando Valley. But at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory background levels were found to be elevated to 0.040mR/hr. which is 0.025mR/hr higher than expected.”

Mr. Goldstein also stated, “The radioactivity collected on the filters decayed down to undetectable levels within 3 hours, leading us to conclude that this radioactive material is from Radon gas which decays after a short half life.” Overall, the tests that were conducted found that the area’s Radon levels are about 3 times higher than the surrounding San Fernando Valley.

Additional independent testing of other contaminants and toxins will take place in the coming days and will be published as soon as testing has taken place.

January 11, 2025 Posted by | environment, radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s war on wind power: Plans to stop windmill construction nationwide

 In a recent conference held at his Florida resort, US President-elect
Donald Trump announced his intention to halt the construction of wind
turbines across the country. “We are going to have a policy where no
windmills will be built,” Trump declared, reiterating his long-standing
opposition to this form of renewable energy.

 Review Energy 8th Jan 2025
https://www.review-energy.com/otras-fuentes/trump-s-war-on-wind-power-plans-to-stop-windmill-construction-nationwide

January 11, 2025 Posted by | politics, renewable, USA | Leave a comment

LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135bn

 The Los Angeles wildfires are on track to be among the costliest in US
history, with losses already expected to exceed $135bn (£109.7bn). In a
preliminary estimate, private forecaster Accuweather said it expected
losses of between $135bn-$150bn as the blazes rip through an area that is
home to some of the most expensive property in the US.

The insurance industry is also bracing for a major hit, with analysts from firms such as
Morningstar and JP Morgan forecasting insured losses of more than $8bn.
Fire authorities say more than 5,300 structures have been destroyed by the
Palisades blaze, while more than 5,000 structures have been destroyed by
the Eaton Fire.

 BBC 9th Jan 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07g73p4805o

January 11, 2025 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

What a second Trump administration may mean for the Saudi nuclear program

By Nour Eid |  Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 6th Jan 2025

Donald Trump’s return to the White House could mean the end of the
nonproliferation regime: As the Iranian-Israeli confrontation intensifies,
and the threat of an Iranian nuclear breakout looms, the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia could see in a second Trump administration an opportunity to finally
get the nuclear cooperation the Saudis have been yearning for.

The Saudis argue that it is their right, under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT), to enrich uranium for domestic energy purposes. They
refuse to be subjected to double standards, given that India and Japan
received “blanket consents” to seek enrichment or reprocessing
capabilities under their respective 123 agreements.

Adding insult to injury, in Saudi eyes: Its main rival, Iran, was allowed to enrich uranium
under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as
the Iran nuclear deal. The Saudis aim to benefit from the same privileges
by developing an indigenous nuclear program………………………………………………….. https://thebulletin.org/2025/01/what-a-second-trump-administration-may-mean-for-the-saudi-nuclear-program/

January 10, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

Deep Fission to supply Endeavour data centers with 2GW of nuclear energy from “mile-deep” SMR

The first reactors are expected to come online in 2029

DCD, January 07, 2025 By Zachary Skidmore

Deep Fission, a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) developer, has partnered with Endeavour Energy, a US sustainable infrastructure developer, to develop and deploy its technology at scale.

As per the agreement, the partners have committed to co-developing 2GW of nuclear energy to supply Endeavour’s global portfolio of data centers which operate under the Endeavour Edged brand. The first reactors are expected to be operational by 2029.

The Deep Fission Borehole Reactor 1 (DFBR-1) is a pressurized water reactor (PWR) that produces 15MWt (thermal) and 5MWe (electric) and has an estimated fuel cycle of between ten to 20 years…………………………………

Deep Fission plans to release white papers throughout the regulatory approval process for discussion direction on key issues surrounding the SMR………………………………..

Based in Berkley, California, Deep Fission was founded in 2023. In August last year, it announced a $4 million pre-seed funding round to accelerate efforts in hiring, regulatory approval, and the commercialization of its SMR.

Edged, Endeavour’s data center arm, will be the primary beneficiary of the power produced by DFBR-1.

The company, which was formed in 2021, has data centers across the US and the Iberian peninsula, with facilities in operation or development in Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, and across the US, including Missouri, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and Illinois.

The company specializes in data centers built for high-density artificial intelligence, which utilize a waterless cooling system……………………..  https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/deep-fission-to-supply-endeavour-data-centers-with-2gw-of-nuclear-energy-from-mile-deep-smr/

January 10, 2025 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Genocide: The New Normal

The genocide, and the decision to fuel it with billions of dollars, marks an ominous turning point. It is a public declaration by the U.S. and its allies in Europe that international and humanitarian law, although blatantly disregarded by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and a generation earlier in Vietnam, is meaningless.

By Chris Hedges ScheerPost January 7, 2025,  https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/07/chris-hedges-genocide-the-new-normal/

Joe Biden’s parting gift of $8 billion in weapons sales to the apartheid state of Israel acknowledges the gruesome reality of the genocide in Gaza. This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. This is a permanent, endless war designed not to destroy Hamas, or free Israeli hostages, but to eradicate, once and for all, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It is the final push to create a Greater Israel, which will include not only Gaza and the West Bank, but chunks of Lebanon and Syria. It is the culmination of the Zionist dream. And it will be paid for with rivers of blood — Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security of Israel Avi Dichter was probably offering conservative estimates when he said “I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that [Israel] will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor].”

Mass extermination takes time. It is also expensive. Fortunately for Israel, its lobby in the U.S. has a stranglehold on Congress, our electoral process and the media narrative. Americans, although 61 percent support ending weapons shipments to Israel, will pay for it. And those that express dissent will be frog-marched into Zionist black holes where their voices are silenced and their careers jeopardized or destroyed. Donald Trump and the Republicans have an open disdain for democracy, but so do the Democrats and Joe Biden.

The U.S. provided $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024, a substantial increase from the already $3.8 billion in military aid the U.S. gives Israel annually. This is a record for a single year. The State Department has informed Congress that it intends to approve another $8 billion in purchases of U.S.-made arms by Israel. This will provide Israel with more GPS guidance systems for bombs, more artillery shells, more missiles for fighter jets and helicopters, and more bombs, including 2,800 unguided MK-84 bombs, which Israel has a habit of dropping on densely packed tent encampments in Gaza. The pressure wave from the 2,000-pound MK-84 pulverizes buildings and exterminates life within a 400-yard radius. The blast, which ruptures lungs, rips apart limbs and bursts sinus cavities up to hundreds of yards away, leaves behind a 50-foot-wide and 36-foot-deep crater. Israel appears to have used this bomb to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, in Beirut on September 27, 2024.

The genocide, and the decision to fuel it with billions of dollars, marks an ominous turning point. It is a public declaration by the U.S. and its allies in Europe that international and humanitarian law, although blatantly disregarded by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and a generation earlier in Vietnam, is meaningless. We will not even pay lip service to it. This will be a Hobbesian world where nations that have the most advanced industrial weapons make the rules. Those who are poor and vulnerable will kneel in subjugation. The genocide in Gaza is the template for the future. And those in the Global South know it.

The “wretched of the earth” who lack sophisticated weapons, who do not have modern armies, artillery units, missiles, navies, armored units and warplanes, will strike back with crude tools. They will match individual acts of terror against massive campaigns of state terror.

Are we surprised we are hated? Terror begets terror. We saw this in New Orleans where a man who was allegedly inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) killed 14 people when he drove his pickup truck into a crowd on New Year’s Day. We will see more of it. But let’s be clear. We started it. The moral void of the suicide bomber is birthed from our moral void.

Israel’s frustration at the dogged resistance in Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen and Lebanon increases the bloodlust. Members of Israel’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee sent a letter to Minister of Defense Israel Katz, calling on the government to intensify the siege of Gaza.


“Effective control of the territory and the population is the only means towards cleansing enemy lines from the strip, and naturally towards decisive victory, rather than treading [water] in a war of attrition, where the side that is most worn is Israel,” they write. “Therefore we end up inserting our soldiers again and again into neighborhoods and alleys that were already conquered by them many times.”

Israel, the letter reads, must carry out “remote elimination of all energy sources, that is fuel, solar panels and any relevant means (pipes, cables, generators etc.)” It should ensure the “elimination of all food sources including warehouses, water and all relevant means (water pumps etc.)” and it must facilitate the “remote elimination of anyone who moves in the area and does not exit with a white flag during the days of the effective siege.”

The letter concludes that “after these actions and the days of siege upon those who remain, [the] IDF must enter gradually and conduct a full cleansing of the enemy nests…. This should be done in the northern Gaza Strip, and similarly in any other territory: encirclement, evacuation of the population to a humanitarian zone, and effective siege until surrender or full elimination of the enemy. This is how every army acts, and so must the IDF act.”

In short, exterminate the brutes.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old U.S. military veteran who plowed his pick-up truck into a crowd of New Year’s revellers in New Orleans killing 14 people and injuring 35 others, spoke to us in the language we use to speak to the Arab world. Indiscriminate death. The targeting of innocents. The callous indifference to life. The thirst for revenge. The demonization of others. The belief that fate or God or western civilization has decreed that we have a right to impose our vision of the world with violence. Jabbar, who posted videos online in which he professed his support for Islamic State, is our murderous doppelgänger. He will not be the last.

“When a society is dispossessed, when the injustices thrust upon it appear insoluble, when the ‘enemy’ is all-powerful, when one’s own people are bestialised as insects, cockroaches, ‘two-legged beasts,’ then the mind moves beyond reason,” Robert Fisk writes in The Great War for Civilization. “It becomes fascinated in two senses: with the idea of an afterlife and with the possibility that this belief will somehow provide a weapon of more than nuclear potential. When the United States was turning Beirut into a NATO base in 1983, and using its firepower against Muslim guerrillas in the mountains to the east, Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Baalbek were promising that God would rid Lebanon of the American presence. I wrote at the time — not entirely with my tongue in my cheek — that this was likely to be a titanic battle: U.S. technology versus God. Who would win? Then on 23 October 1983 a lone suicide bomber drove a truckload of explosives into the U.S. Marine compound at Beirut airport and killed 241 American servicemen in six seconds…I later interviewed one of the few surviving marines to have seen the bomber. ‘All I can remember,’ he told me, ‘is that the guy was smiling.’

These acts of terrorism, or in the case of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Yemen armed resistance, are used to justify endless mass killing. This Via Dolorosa leads to a global death spiral, especially as the climate crisis reconfigures the planet and international bodies, such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, become hollow appendages.

We are sowing the Middle East with dragon’s teeth and, as in the ancient Greek myth, these teeth are rising from the soil as enraged warriors determined to destroy us. 

January 9, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Jimmy Carter hailed as ‘action’ hero for stopping nuclear meltdown at 28

Jimmy Carter hailed as ‘action’ hero for stopping nuclear meltdown at 28  https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/jimmy-carter-is-action-hero-for-stopping-nuclear-disaster/
By Hannah Sparks, December 16, 2021  Who needs action movies when there are real-life superheroes like Jimmy Carter among us?

A viral Twitter thread is reminding the world that the 39th US President James Earl Carter Jr., now 97, actually rescued Ottawa, Ontario, from nuclear destruction as a 28-year-old way back on Dec. 12, 1952.

“Do you remember the world’s very first nuclear meltdown? That time the US President, an expert in nuclear physics, heroically lowered himself into the reactor and saved Ottawa, Canada’s capital?” asked Canadian physicist University of Ottawa professor Jeff Lundeen in his now-viral thread, originally posted Tuesday but officially trending two days later.

Sounds like schlocky action movie, but it actually happened!”

Lundeen’s revelatory tweet to his modest 1,078 followers now boasts nearly 50,000 likes, more than 20,000 retweets and hundreds of cheerfully shocked comments. He included data from the Ottawa Historical Society and a snippet of a 2011 report documenting Carter’s heroics, and he followed up with several other media sources that recount the historic tale.

As the story goes, the Plains, Ga., native planned his entire life to join the Navy — and did so when he received his appointment to the Naval Academy in 1942. After graduating with distinction, Carter spent two years completing his service ship duty before signing on to the Submarine Force. Following a series of relocations and promotions, the young lieutenant would request to join Captain Hyman G. Rickover’s nuclear sub program, where they were developing the world’s first atomic subs.

Rickover then sent Carter to work for the US Atomic Energy Commission, where he served on temporary duty with the Naval Reactors Branch. Meanwhile, a few months later, an accidental power surge at Chalk River Laboratories in Ottawa caused fuel rods within a nuclear research reactor to rupture and melt — risking a full nuclear meltdown.

It was the first such incident of its kind, and Carter’s team of 23 men was ordered to clean it up.

I

n a scene straight out of modern-day blockbusters, the operation would require the brave men to descend into the core by rope and pulley so they could deconstruct the reactor bolt by bolt. The lab had set up a duplicate reactor as a training field for Carter’s team, who would get only one shot at the real thing. Each man would have to descend into the core and complete their high-flying tasks in 90-second spurts, as exposure to toxic radiation within the reactor posed a high risk to their long-term health.

Their plan went off without a hitch. The core was shut down and then rebuilt. From there, Carter went on to become the engineering officer for the USS Seawolf, one of the first submarines to operate on atomic power. By 1961, he retired from the Navy and Reserves, and, in 1963, ran for his first political office.

For those who admire the single-term Democratic president, Lundeen’s tweet was just another reminder of Carter’s selfless service — and good jokes.

One top Twitter response included a quote from the president, who visited Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island power plant in 1979, during their disastrous partial meltdown.

When asked by media if he thought it too dangerous to visit the radioactive site, he reportedly quipped, “No, if it was too dangerous they would have sent the vice president.”

January 9, 2025 Posted by | incidents, PERSONAL STORIES, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

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