NRC to hear challenge to nuke plants Citrus County Chronicle , September 19, 2012 Pat Faherty It is all about water. That is the way Cara Campbell, Ecology Party chair, described the upcoming hearing on the proposed nuclear power plant in Levy County.
On Oct. 31, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will hold an evidentiary hearing on a challenge to the application for two nuclear power reactors. Continue reading
Obama all too cosy with nuclear company Exelon
Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Big Utility, NYT By ERIC LIPTON August 22, 2012 WASHINGTON — Early in the Obama administration, a lobbyist for the Illinois-based energy producer Exelon Corporation proudly called it “the president’s utility.” And it was not just because it delivers power to Barack Obama’s Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago.
Exelon’s top executives were early and frequent supporters of Mr. Obama as he rose from the Illinois State Senate to the White House. John W. Rogers Jr., a friend of the president’s and one of his top fund-raisers, is an Exelon board member. David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime political strategist, once worked as an Exelon consultant, and Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayor and Mr. Obama’s former chief of staff, helped create the company through a corporate merger in 2000 while working as an investment banker.
With energy an increasingly pivotal issue for the Obama White House, a review of Exelon’s relationship with the administration shows how familiarity has helped foster access at the upper reaches of government and how, in some cases, the outcome has been favorable for Exelon. Continue reading
USA’s problem seeking safe disposal of uranium 233
Uranium Substitute Is No Longer Needed, but Its Disposal May Pose Security Risk http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/us/uranium-233-disposal-proves-a-problem.html By MATTHEW L. WALD September 23, 2012 WASHINGTON — At the dawn of the civilian nuclear age in the 1950s, one of the pressing questions was how to find enough fuel for reactors and bombs. The government and the private sector seized on a man-made substitute for natural uranium, producing about 3,400 pounds of an exotic and expensive material called uranium 233.
Today, the problem is how to safely get rid of it. Continue reading
USA’s solar energy – a chequered history, but now resurging
the solar industry is actually expanding quickly in the United States, and under the Obama
administration solar is having a real resurgence, helping lift the cloud that has surrounded the industry.
Changing Cities: Where Are the Solar Panels Mr. President? By Carrie Halperin abc news, Sep 23, 2012 “…..In 1979, [President Jimmy] Carter predicted at the dedication ceremony of the White House solar system that by 2000 solar panels like the one on the roof would either be supplying cheap, efficient energy or “a museum piece , an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”
During his administration huge strides were taken in curbing the country’s dependence on foreign source of energy, including investing heavily in renewable power. But with a shift of administrations and the new Reagan era, research and development budgets for renewable
energy were slashed and the Department of Energy eliminated tax breaks for solar and wind projects.
Carter’s worries about his solar panels ending up in the museum proved prescient. Half the panels were taken by the Unity College cafeteria in Maine, but the other half did indeed end up as museum pieces, now housed in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History , the Carter Library , and the Solar Science and Technology Museum in Dezhou, China.
Yes, that’s right China, which seems a bit symbolic, since China now produces close to 80 percent of the world’s solar water heaters. Continue reading
Plutonium left Livermore – (but where did it go?)
High-Security Nuclear Material Leaves Livermore
http://www.kolotv.com/news/californianews/headlines/High-Security-Nuclear-Material-Leaves-Livermore-170905161.html KOLO8 News 23 Sept 12, LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) – Federal officials say Lawrence Livermore Laboratory is no longer home to some high-security, special nuclear weapons materials.
The National Nuclear Security Administration say the lab will still focus on the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, but just with a reduced amount of nuclear material that does not require as much as security as was needed in the past.
The agency says that decision will save about $40 million in taxpayer funds.
NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino says taking the materials out of Livermore is part of a national plan to consolidate special nuclear materials in as few places as possible.
The Oakland Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/OQD1PT) the materials were
removed from the lab’s Plutonium Facility, which is located in an area known as the “Superblock.”
Transparent solar cells – a revolution in solar energy
every building could be designed with south-facing windows that would absorb some amount of electricity without impeding peoples’ views.
These types of applications would not necessarily require huge renovations either, simply requiring owners to apply the film on top of the existing glass window.
Transparent Solar Cells Could Make Windows Into A Power Source http://why.knovel.com/all-engineering-news/1743-transparent-solar-cells-could-make-windows-into-a-power-source.html July 24, 2012 Over the past few years, the U.S. has already become a growing player in the solar energy industry, with states like New Jersey and California seeing solar panels cropping up on rooftops from houses to warehouses.
Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles are hoping to bring this revolutionary new power source down off the roofs specifically to where people will not see them – windows. Continue reading
Radioactivity at high levels in Louisiana sinkhole
Testing of total alpha and total beta radiation showed that these were at levels about twice the natural background.
The State of Louisiana found much higher levels of radiation in deeper parts of the sink hole than the place where we received our surface sample
Sinkhole: Radioactivity at 5,900 picocuries per kilogram from uranium and thorium floating on surface, about double background — “Much higher levels of radiation” down deeper — Residents’ frustration growing (VIDEO)
September 21st, 2012
By ENENews Title: Sampling Continues at Bayou Corne as Sinkhole Expands http://enenews.com/sinkhole-surface-radioactivity-at-5900-picocuries-per-kg-from-uranium-and-thorium-about-double-background-levels-much-higher-levels-of-radiation-down-deeper
Source: Louisiana Environmental Action Network
Author: Wilma Subra
Date: Sept 22, 2012 Continue reading
Concern over Idaho wildfire at uranium contaminated site
One area of concern is a defunct uranium mine and milling operation 5 miles west of North Fork, where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted a cleanup several years ago of polluted soil, hazardous wastes and piles of raw uranium and thorium ore.
No decontamination of buildings at that site was ever performed, and at least one of those buildings burned in the fire, according to officials from the state Department of Environmental Quality
Idaho wildfire roars through former uranium mine site Laura Zuckerman
Reuters, September 21, 2012 SALMON, Idaho Continue reading
Fort Calhoun nuclear repairs: Exelon Corporation to get $millions from Omaha Public Power District
NE: Nuke plant fixer to get millions September 20, 2012 Joe Jordan | Nebraska Watchdog OMAHA—The price-tag to get the troubled nuclear power plant at Fort Calhoun up and running after nearly 18 months is in, and it’s loaded with zeroes.
Nebraska Watchdog has learned that the Omaha Public Power District—unable to get the reactor on line itself—is shelling out $400 million to a private firm, Exelon Corp.
Exelon will be paid $20 million a year for the next 20 years, according to information released by OPPD.
Nebraska Watchdog requested but was denied copies of contracts between the utility and Exelon.
OPPD said state law covering confidential information—involving trade secrets, academic and scientific research—allows those contracts to “be withheld from the public.”
OPPD did provide a “summary of key provisions of the Exelon agreements” information that included the $400 million payout….. The Fort Calhoun plant is still on the shelf and OPPD officials believe Exelon will get the reactor running sooner than later.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has the final say over start-up, has given no indication when the plant will be back on-line. http://watchdog.org/56953/ne-troubled-nuke-plant-costing-millions/
USA government minimised health risks from Fukushima radiation
Impact to US West Coast from Fukushima disaster likely larger than anticipated, several reports indicate, Bellona 21 Sept 12, “…..US government environmental agencies remain mum In the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima accident, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refused to answer questions or to explain the exact location and number of monitors, or the levels of radiation, if any, being recorded at existing monitors in California, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
On March 21, 2011, the EPA pulled 8 of 18 air monitors in California, Oregon and Washington state that track radiation from Japan’s nuclear reactors out of service for “quality reviews.”
By April, 2011 the EPA had temporarily raised limits for radiation exposure by rewriting its Protective Action Guides (PAGs) to radically increase the allowable levels of iodine-131 by 3,000 times, a 1,000-fold hike for exposure to strontium-90, and a 25,000-fold increase in exposure limits to radioactive Nikel-63.
The EU followed suit by implementing an “emergency” order without informing the public that increased the amount of radiation in food by up to 20 times previous food standards, according to Kopp Online and Xander News. According to EU bylaws, radiation limits may be raised during a nuclear emergency to prevent food shortages.
How will longer term radiation exposure affect the US Pacific Coast?
David Brenner, a professor of radiation biophysics and the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center wrote in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in June that the extra individual risks of cancer from long term exposure to radionuclides from Fukushima will be small.
But he added that when the problem is examined not from a perspective of individuals at risk, but rather that of the entire population, the extra risk becomes far more significant.
“A tiny extra risk to a few people is one thing. But here we have a potential tiny extra risk to millions or even billions of people,” he wrote. “Think of buying a lottery ticket — just like the millions of other people who buy a ticket, your chances of winning are miniscule. Yet among these millions of lottery players, a few people will certainly win; we just can’t predict who they will be.” http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2012/fukushima-westcoast-radiation
Radiation caused cancer hit US movie stars
“The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you’d expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up even in a court of law.”
FROM PEOPLE MAGAZINE:Occupy the NRC 21 Sept 12, Few moviegoers remember The Conqueror, a sappy 1956 film about a love affair between Genghis Khan and a beautiful captive princess. But to the families of its stars, John Wayne and Susan Hayward, and of its director-producer, Dick Powell, memories of The Conqueror have begun to acquire nightmarish clarity.
The movie was shot from June through August 1954 among the scenic red bluffs and white dunes near Saint George, Utah, an area chosen by Powell for its similarity to the central Asian steppes. At the time it did not seem significant that Saint George was only 137 miles from the atomic testing range at Yucca Flat, Nev.; the federal government, after all, was constantly reassuring local residents back then that the bomb tests posed no health hazard. Now, 17 years after aboveground nuclear tests were outlawed, Saint George is plagued by an extraordinarily high rate of cancer (PEOPLE, Oct. 1, 1979)—and the illustrious alumni of The Conqueror and their offspring are wondering whether their own grim medical histories are more than an uncommon run of bad luck. Continue reading
San Francisco – pay a little more for 100% renewable energy?
San Francisco’s 100% renewable energy plan, Smart Planet, By Tyler Falk | September 20, 2012, San Francisco is one step closer to offering residents the option to switch to 100 percent renewable energy after the city’s Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 in favor of the program that would lead to significant cuts in carbon emissions.
CleanPowerSF , a $19.5 million program run by Shell Energy North America, will automatically opt-in half of San Francisco residents and then give them the option to opt-out. It’s a roundabout way of giving people choice, but the five-year program will need 90,000 of 375,000 residents to make the switch to make the program worthwhile.
If the city is successful at getting residents to buy into the program (and stick with it) CleanPowerSF could do more than previous efforts to reduce carbon emissions. According to the city, it would see a cut 10 times greater than the amount the city has already cut.
The program will also provide competition to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which currently operates utilities in San Francisco. The city is able to do this because of a 2002 state law that allows municipalities to choose their electricity provider. A community-choice aggregation system, as it’s called, is also available in Marion, County California.
But choice and carbon emissions reductions will come at a price. Residents who stay in the program will see their utility bill rise by $9 a month while the commercial increase will be about $18 a month. If customers decide that’s too much then San Francisco could owe Shell as much as $15 million. If residents are willing to pay more for green power, the city will profit and use the money to build city-owned renewable energy facilities.
It’s a risk the city seems willing to take….. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/san-franciscos-100-renewable-energy-plan/658
Radioactive air, water, marine life, debris from Fukushima to USA West Coast
reports of radioactive air, water, marine life, and weather reaching the US Pacific Coast in such significant quantities
Impact to US West Coast from Fukushima disaster likely larger than anticipated, several reports indicate, Bellona 21 Sept 12, Part of: Nuclear meltdown in Japan The massive release of anthropogenic – or non-naturally occurring radionuclides such as cesium 137 and cesium 134 – by the meltdowns and explosions that rocked Fukushima Daiichi occurred in the five days following the beginning of the accident, according to a new report. www.greenpeace.org
Non-naturally occurring radionuclides from the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant’s triple meltdown last year radioactively contaminated the entire northern hemisphere within days and the US west coast bore a significant brunt of so called hot particles, an independent scientific paper released yesterday claims. Charles Digges, 19/09-2012
US government environmental monitoring agencies have either declared as safe, refused to comment on, or – say several independent researchers – vastly understated what impacts, if any, this could have for America’s western coastal population. Significant omissions in data reporting and hobbling of radioactive monitoring systems, say many, make it seem unlikely that hard government facts will be forthcoming to support evidence presented by independent researchers. Continue reading
Ratepayers to pay over 10 years for Fort Calhoun nuclear plant repairs
Neb. utility pays nuclear rehab cost over 10 years http://fremonttribune.com/news/state-and-regional/neb-utility-pays-nuclear-rehab-cost-over-years/article_b49cd0e8-f4bc-5120-a170-2d7ea5ba652b.html 20 Sept 12, The Nebraska utility that owns the troubled Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant has decided to spread out the cost of repairs at the plant over 10 years to lessen the immediate impact on rates. Continue reading
9th Circuit Hears Health Care Plea from Islanders Affected by Nuclear Bomb Testing (CN) Opposing Views, by Courthouse News Sep 20, 2012 – An attorney for the the disease-prone residents of pacific island nations where the United States once tested nuclear bombs decried discrimination before the 9th Circuit. Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau each were used by the U.S. military to test its developing nuclear arsenal in the 1940s and 1950s. Many residents claim that resulting health issues have lingered through the generations.
These countries have enjoyed a Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the United States since 1986, a relationship that allows their natives to live in Hawaii and other states as nonimmigrants, eligible for government assistance, including Medicaid.
In 1996, however, the Welfare Reform Act cut off Medicaid benefits for the islanders. States had the option to keep providing health care under their own programs, but Hawaii stopped giving COFA residents the benefits to which they were previously entitled in 2010.
That year marked the start of the Basic Health Hawaii (BHH) program, to which it switched most of the COFA residents. The move cut the care provided to the islanders quite severely, limiting patients to no more than 10 days of hospital care per year, 12 outpatient visits per year, six mental health visits and a maximum of four medication prescriptions per month.
A group of islanders, many of whom have persistent and serious health conditions, filed a class action against the state, alleging that the cut in benefits violated the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Finding that Hawaii had “failed to identify any particular state interest that is advanced by their decision to exclude COFA Residents from the old programs,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright granted an injunction and ordered Hawaii to reinstate the former benefits. Hawaii appealed to the 9th Circuit, a three-judge panel of which heard oral arguments in the case on Tuesday in San Francisco. …. http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/9th-circuit-hears-health-care-plea-islanders
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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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