Taos and Santa Fe need cleanup of Los Alamos, not nuclear weapons
a comprehensive cleanup of Area G, the Lab’s biggest
radioactive dump, could create hundreds of high paying jobs while
permanently protecting the environment. The cities and counties of
Taos and Santa Fe should be pushing the New Mexico Environment
Department (NMED) to require comprehensive cleanup, and they should
insist on that now
Taos should back LANL cleanup, not nuclear weapons
http://www.taosnews.com/opinion/article_f8ef67d6-60d5-11e2-abf3-001a4bcf887a.html
17 Jan 13,
Just under two-thirds of Los Alamos Lab’s annual $2.3 billion budget
is for core nuclear weapons programs, and all remaining LANL programs
support them through excessive overhead and internal lab taxes.
Nevertheless, the city and county of Taos have joined a “Regional
Coalition of LANL Communities” funded by the Department of Energy and
the Los Alamos County government (which is enriched by gross receipts
taxes on Lab operations).
The original purpose of the Regional Coalition was to have local
governments lobby Congress in support of the Lab’s cleanup budget, but
this has already been compromised into supporting LANL’s budget in
general.
The city and county of Taos should be clear and insistent
that it is cleanup they support, and not nuclear weapons programs! Continue reading
USA government quietly rejects nuclear reprocessing
Steve Skutnik January 17, 2013 There is a hallowed tradition in Washington known as the “Friday Document Dump,” in which news and announcements the government wishes to bury are strategically timed for Friday afternoons, when such announcements tend to fall through the cracks of the typical news cycle (i.e., assuming reporters are even present to cover the event, the strategic timing tends to ensure it will miss the weekend papers, thus effectively “burying” the story by the time the new week rolls around).
Unknown (but rocketing?) cost of Tennessee’s new nuclear weapons project
We still don’t know how much Tennessee uranium building will cost https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#inbox/13c4a4790af40902 By John Fleck / Journal Staff Writer , Jan 17, 2013 The latest from Frank Munger at Knoxnews is that we still don’t know how much the Uranium Processing Facility, the big Tennessee nuclear weapons project, will cost. UPF was the competitor to the Los Alamos plutonium laboratory. The multi-billion dollar uranium building got the nod for funding a year ago, while the multi-billion dollar plutonium building was deferred indefinitely.
But how many multi billions will UPF cost? As Frank reports, we’re still stuck with old numbers, with a redesign underway and no new numbers to take their place:
The overall cost of the Uranium Processing Facility is still estimated at between $4.2 billion and $6.5 billion, a cost range that’s been in effect for the past couple of years.
Wyatt, the public affairs manager in the NNSA’s Production Office, declined to give a date for providing a specific cost estimate on the high-profile project.
Climate change, renewable energy, top priorities for Obama’s second term
Obama to focus on renewable energy, climate change http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/obama_to_focus_on_renewable_energy_climate_change/ BY BY MATTHEW DALY WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says tackling climate change and enhancing energy security will be among President Barack Obama’s top priorities in his second term.
Obama will have to do that work with new heads of the agencies responsible for the environment. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Environmental Protection chief Lisa Jackson and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, all have announced they are leaving. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is expected to follow his colleagues out the door in coming weeks.
The White House says no decisions have been made on replacements for any of the energy or environment jobs, but says Obama’s priorities will remain unchanged, including a focus on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar and expanded production of oil and natural gas.
Nuclear weapons components “scattered” across America
Strategy Lacking for Disposal of Nuclear Weapons Components Secrecy News, January 17th, 2013 by Steven Aftergood There is a “large inventory” of classified nuclear weapons components “scattered across” the nation’s nuclear weapons complex and awaiting disposal, according to an internal Department of Energy contractor reportlast year.
But “there is no complex-wide cost-effective classified weapon disposition strategy.” And as a result, “Only a small portion of the inventory has been dispositioned and it has not always been in a cost-effective manner.”.. http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2013/01/disposal_strategy.html
San Onofre leads the way for USA rust bucket nuclear reactors to go
The fiasco at San Onfre is being replayed at rust bucket reactors throughout the US.
Meanwhile, the conversion to green power in Germany is booming. When 8 reactors were shut and the conversion to wind, solar and biomass became official policy, “experts” predicated energy shortages and soaring prices. But the opposite has happened as supply has boomed and prices have dropped.
The same things will happen in California and elsewhere as these radioactive jalopies begin to shut. The effectiveness of citizen activism in California is now vastly multiplied as these two decrepit reactors become increasingly obsolete, inoperable and economically insupportable.
Showdown at San Onofre: Why the Nuclear Industry May Be Dealt a Big Blowhttp://www.alternet.org/environment/showdown-san-onofre-why-nuclear-industry-may-be-dealt-big-blow?akid=9919.1085969.01RI09&rd=1&src=newsletter775567&t=19 Two stricken California reactors may soon redefine a global movement aimed at eradicating nuclear power.January 7, 2013
Two stricken California reactors may soon redefine a global movement aimed at eradicating nuclear power.
They sit in a seismic zone vulnerable to tsunamis. Faulty steam generators have forced them shut for nearly a year.
A powerful “No Nukes” movement wants them to stay that way. If they win, the shutdown of America’s 104 licensed reactors will seriously accelerate.
The story of San Onofre Units 2 & 3 is one of atomic idiocy. Continue reading
Virginia would be gambling its future, with uranium mining
Uranium mining: A fiscal conservative might say, ‘no’, http://www.wpcva.com/altavista/opinion/article_7de6346e-5ff6-11e2-9db4-001a4bcf887a.html ALTAVISTA Journal, Katie Whitehead/Special to the Journal. January 16, 2013
Traditional conservative values support continuing the moratorium on uranium mining in Virginia. Moving forward with legalization of uranium mining in Virginia would be expensive for taxpayers, with no guarantee the costs would ever be recovered.
The governor’s Uranium Working Group (UWG) report lists the many protective actions Virginia would need to take to regulate and monitor uranium mining and milling. Following through on all the suggested safety measures would require establishing a comprehensive uranium mining and milling regulatory program. The only proposal worth considering — other than maintaining the moratorium — is a fully funded, fully staffed, comprehensive, state-level, statewide program that incorporates all the measures outlined by the UWG. Even then, it might be impossible to guarantee a degree of safety in operation that would be acceptable to a majority of citizens.
Dr. Paul Locke, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study committee, recently told reporters, “Putting protective regulations into place would be a very, very, very difficult task. Continue reading
Chrystal River, Vermont nuclear plants likely to follow Kewaunee into closure
Analyst: Florida nuclear plant will likely be closed — Gundersen: “The dominoes are starting to fall” (AUDIO)
Source: Fairewinds Energy Education
Date: January 13, 2013
Nuclear Expert Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education: Duke is seriously considering pulling the plug on the [Crystal River nuclear] plant […]
Last week we had a financial analyst at UBS suggest that Vermont Yankee didn’t make economic sense.
This week, we’ve got a financial analyst at another firm called Fitch and he says that the Crystal River plant will likely be closed because Duke can’t make economic sense out of it.
So the dominoes are starting to fall.
We’ve have Kewaunee, which is shutting down in the Midwest because of financial reasons. And now we’ve got UBS analysts and Fitch analysts also claiming it makes no economic sense to keep other nuclear plants running.
USA’s Dept of Energy announces goals for nuclear waste management
DOE touts interim storage option for spent nuclear fuel, Augusta Chronicle, By Rob Pavey Jan. 16, 2013 “……….Read the complete report:
http://energy.gov/downloads/strategy-management-and-disposal-used-nuclear-fuel-and-high-level-radioactive-waste
Legislative goals for next 10 years:
• Active engagement in a broad, national, consent-based process to site pilot and full-scale interim storage facilities, and site and characterize a geologic repository;
• Siting, design, licensing, and commencement of operations at a pilot-scale storage facility with an initial focus on accepting used nuclear fuel from shut-down reactor sites.;
• Significant progress on siting and licensing of a larger consolidated interim storage facility capable of providing system flexibility and an opportunity for more substantial progress in reducing government liabilities;
• Development of transportation capabilities (personnel, processes, equipment) to begin movement of fuel from shut-down reactors;
• Reformation of the funding approach in ways that preserve the necessary role for ongoing discretionary appropriations and also provide additional funds as necessary, whether from reclassified fees or from mandatory appropriation from the NWF or both; and
• Establishment of a new organization to run the program, the structure and positioning of which balance greater autonomy with the need for continued Executive and Legislative branch oversight.
Source: U.S. Energy Department http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2013-01-16/doe-touts-interim-storage-option-spent-nuclear-fuel?v=1358336852
VIDEO USA’s Atomic Energy Commission’s pointless efforts at “peaceful bombs”
in the least productive but most destructive test, the scientists wanted “to see how big of a hole a nuclear bomb could make.” Motherboard:
“It proved to be a really big hole.”
That test, Project Sedan, spewed radioactive fallout across four states, contaminating “more Americans than any other nuclear test.”
VIDEO The U.S. Once Wanted To Use Nuclear Bombs as a Construction Tool : http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/01/the-u-s-once-wanted-to-use-nuclear-bombs-as-a-
construction-tool/#ixzz2IFsWdcSf Smithsonian. January 16, 2013 In 1962, the Atomic Energy Commission wanted to see how big of a hole they could make with a nuclear bomb. ……..Enter, Project Sedan. the U.S.’s Atomic Energy Commission, Project Plowshare, says Motherboard, was a project in which the nation’s scientists were supposed to find something useful to do with all the nuclear expertise they had acquired throughout World War II and its aftermath. From 1961 through 1973, Project Plowshare saw 27 nuclear detonations. Many of these were at a test site in Nevada, says Motherboard, but some were a bit more experimental. In 1973, Project Rio Blanco, an operation under the banner of Project Plowshare, Continue reading
No nuclear waste dump until 2046, but USA will still keep making the stuff
Obama to act on gun control, USA States acting already
Obama recruits children to push gun bans Will act on own, prod Congress, Washington Times, 16 Jan 13, Acting just a month after the Connecticut school shootings, President Obama will unveil a sweeping package of gun controls Wednesday and will challenge Congress to ban high-capacity magazines and military-style semi-automatic rifles involved in recent shooting rampages.
Mr. Obama, who will make his announcement surrounded by children who wrote letters to him about gun violence, is expected to propose some moves he can take on his own. He also will demand that Congress break a decades-long refusal and enact the first new controls on firearms and ammunition since the early 1990s.
States are acting already. Continue reading
Flooding danger if uranium mine goes ahead in Virginia
Flooding near proposed uranium mining site worries some, VUI says there’s no concern Keep the Ban, January 16, 2013 A road closes near Coles Hill that runs through the Virginia Uranium Incorporated but getting home isn’t the only concern for one nearby farmer. PITTSYLVANIA CO., Va.—
Today’s heavy rain is bringing more attention to the proposed uranium mining site in Pittsylvania County.
A road on the Coles Hill site is flooded.
Opponents say the mining would contaminate streams and rivers……. “you can see what two and three inches of rain is doing it’s flooding the roads down here,” Motley said.
Motley believes the proposed mine could contaminate the water, which runs into a nearby water source.
“Any residue has the potential of washing down this way and going directly into the Banister River,” Motley said….. The Virginia Department of Transportation will keep the road closed until water levels are again below the road.
Ionising radiation a cancer danger in CT scanning
Concerns about exposure to ionising radiation inducing cancer NPS, 15 Jan 13, People are exposed to ionising radiation through medical imaging with X-rays, CT and nuclear medicine scans, including positron-emission tomography (PET).5 While MRI has the advantage of not using ionising radiation4 most of the new MBS items for MRI requested by GPs will require X-ray as a first investigation.2
As there are no completed, large-scale epidemiological studies of cancer risk associated with CT, risk has been approximated using organ doses (or the distribution of dose in the organ) and application of organ-specific cancer incidence and mortality data derived from studies of atomic-bomb survivors on the peripheries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.6 Risk estimates adjusted to take into account the greater use of CT since 2006 indicate that 1.5–2% of all cancers in the US may be due to radiation from CT.6 Estimating cancer risk from CT remains a contentious issue, and large-scale epidemiological studies are needed for a direct assessment of this risk.6
Imaging is justified if the potential benefits outweigh the risks7…….
Nuclear Regulatory Commission rushing report so as to relicense reactors?
After the Court of Appeals decision, NRC chair Allison Macfarlane decided that the NRC would produce a full environmental impact statement in response to the ruling, as opposed to a less rigorous environmental assessment.
Watchdogs say NRC rushing nuclear waste report Rutland Herald, By DAVID McCUMBER Hearst Newspapers | January 13,2013 WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is rushing a court-ordered evaluation of the risks of storing spent nuclear fuel at the country’s nuclear plants, according to two dozen watchdog groups.
In detailed public comments solicited by the NRC, the groups together contended that the agency’s two-year timeline for an environmental impact statement on the spent-fuel risks is inadequate.
The NRC “would be well-advised to slow it down, quite apart from anybody’s position on nuclear power … They just don’t have the data,” Continue reading
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23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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