USA Dept of Energy funds shonky science promoting radiation “hormesis” and “adaptive response”
the agency [USA Dept of Energy] gave a $1.7 million grant to MIT, last month that will address among other things, the “difficulties in gaining the broad social acceptance” of nuclear power. MIT has also received millions of dollars from Tokyo Electric
Power Co (TEPCO), which is responsible for the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Since the turn of the century the US DOE has aggressively pushed the concepts of hormesis and adaptive response. It has spent a lot of money funding research around the world.
A Radioactive Conflict of Interest Robert Alvarez on the Conflict of Interest inherent within US DOE radiation research http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-alvarez/mit-radiation-study_b_1623899.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=679403,b=facebook “……..Observations based on radiation-exposed humans have long been considered of greater scientific importance, [than those conducted on mice] some which were obtained with a callous lack of ethics. In March 1954, after the U.S. exploded an H-bomb in the Marshall Islands that released a roughly comparable amount of cesium-137 as the Fukushima accident, Japanese fishermen and Marshallese were exposed to life-threatening doses of radioactive fallout while forcing Japan to confiscate four million pounds of fish.
Two years later, medical advisors to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC now DOE) secretly recommended returning the Marshallese people to their homes after being told they would be living in “by far the most contaminated place in the world.” At the meeting an AEC expert stated,” it would be very interesting to go back and get good environmental data… when people live in a contaminated environment… Continue reading
Secrets and lies in Virginia’s uranium mining shemozzle
Intrigue in the fight over Va. uranium mining, WP. 18 Sept 12, By Peter Galuszka For months, Pittsylvania County near the North Carolina border has been embroiled in controversy over a proposal by Virginia Uranium, backed by local and Canadian investors, to develop a 119-million pound deposit of uranium near the small town of Chatham. The battle has taken a new turn. It involves a late-evening telephone call by Virginia Sen. Bill Stanley, a fast-rising Republican politician and ally of Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, to a county supervisor — who happened to tape-record the call……. Continue reading
USA developing computer malaware, Stuxnet, Flame etc
Cyber clues link U.S. to new computer viruses http://news.yahoo.com/cyber-clues-u-computer-viruses-130127756–finance.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter By Jim Finkle 18 Sept 12 BOSTON (Reuters) – Researchers have found evidence suggesting that the United States may have developed three previously unknown computer viruses for use in espionage operations or cyber warfare. Continue reading
US Department of Energy (DOE) and its conflict of interest about radiation
It’s quite a leap to claim that evacuation zones around nuclear power plants might not be needed based on the chromosomes of 112 irradiated mice.
in 1970, the world’s largest human study of pregnancy x-rays reported that NRC’s harmless dose more than doubles the risk of childhood cancer
A Radioactive Conflict of Interest HUFFINGTON POST, Robert Alvarez on the Conflict of Interest inherent within US DOE radiation research 06/25/2012 Having the Energy Department control radiation health research makes as much sense as giving tobacco companies the authority to see if smoking is bad for you.
Last month, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) heralded an Energy Department funded study indicating that evacuation zones around nuclear power stations might not be needed after a major nuclear accident. Continue reading
Heat pollution in river due to Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant
Demonstrators take to the water to protest against Vermont Yankee By JOSH STILTS Brattleboro Reformer 09/17/2012 Marlboro residents Rose Watson and Laura Berkowitz share their boat with an unnamed protester during Saturday s Safe and Green flotilla.
More than 100 anti-nuclear activists gathered along the Connecticut River to tell the owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to stop dumping the reactor s thermal discharge into the river.
VERNON — Dozens of protesters flocked to the Connecticut River Saturday afternoon to condemn the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and its owner, Entergy, for the reactor’s thermal discharge…… State Rep. David Deen, D-Westminster addressed the crowd and spoke about his concerns and those of fellow members of the Connecticut River Watershed Council.
According to a recent report from several hydrologists, the river’s temperature exceeded Vermont Yankee’s permit limit 58 percent of the time between May and October of 2006 through 2010. One of the group’s major concerns is the affect that the increased water temperatures is having on fish that use the Connecticut as their spawning grounds. Continue reading
AS USA’s nuclear wastes pile up, solutions seem further away
Piling up spent nuclear fuel presents future disposal challenge,Fierce Homeland Security September 16, 2012 | By David Perera Even were the Energy Department to resume this year licensing efforts for Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear power waste disposal facility, it would still be 15 years before the site could start accepting spent fuel, says the Government Accountability Office.
By then, about 50,000 metric tons of spent fuel stored roughly equally in wet and dry storage will have accumulated, assuming that no new nuclear power plants open in the interim, according to Nuclear Energy Institute estimates cited by the GAO in an Aug. 15 report (.pdf) not posted online until Sept. 14……. Continue reading
$352 billion the minimum cost to fix up USA’s Los Alamos nuclear arsenal
A study this summer by the nonpartisan Stimson Center, a Washington think tank, estimated costs would be at least $352 billion over the coming decade to operate and modernize the current arsenal. Others say the figure could be far higher, particularly if the work is delayed even longer.
Aging U.S. nuclear arsenal slated for costly and long-delayed modernization WP, By Dana Priest, September 15 The U.S. nuclear arsenal, the most powerful but indiscriminate class of weapons ever created, is set to undergo the costliest overhaul in its history, even as the military faces spending cuts to its conventional arms programs at a time of fiscal crisis.
For two decades, U.S. administrations have confronted the decrepit, neglected state of the aging nuclear weapons complex. Yet officials have repeatedly put off sinking huge sums into projects that receive little public recognition, driving up the costs even further. Now, as the nation struggles to emerge from the worst recession of the postwar era and Congress faces an end-of-year deadline to avoid $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to the federal budget over 10 years, the Obama administration is overseeing the gargantuan task of modernizing the nuclear arsenal to keep it safe and reliable.
There is no official price tag for the effort to upgrade and maintain the 5,113 warheads in the inventory, to replace old delivery systems and to renovate the aging facilities where nuclear work is performed. Continue reading
Los Alamos nuclear weapons site – what a mess!
The aging facility was slated for replacement 20 years ago. But in 1998, designers identified a fault line beneath the structure. The discovery pushed the price of reconstruction so high that no administration was willing to sign off. The Obama administration says safety requires its replacement — at a cost of $6 billion. Critics in Congress and among anti-nuclear groups, however, say the expensive new plant is unnecessary and would still present environmental dangers if built on the fault line. Continue reading
President Obama beholden to USA’s Nuclear Weapons Establishment
All of the president’s decisions, from the broad nuclear structure to the number of warheads and the top-secret target list, cascade through the nuclear establishment, affecting the types of weapons and delivery systems that must be available to meet the objectives
Still a growing number of former senior administration officials from both parties argue that more substantial cuts would encourage nonnuclear states to abandon their nuclear ambitions, making the world safer from political miscalculations and saving money for defense items that are actually used.
Aging U.S. nuclear arsenal slated for costly and long-delayed modernization WP, By Dana Priest, September 15“…….Nuclear Posture Review In an April 2009 speech, President Obama outlined his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Acknowledging that his goal might not be accomplished in his lifetime, Obama laid out an agenda for forging new partnerships to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, ending production of fissile material for weapons and ratifying new treaties to reduce their numbers.
Since then, though, the president has taken few steps to implement his objective. Continue reading
Nuclear Regulatory Commission hushed up flood risk to reactors
Flood Threat To Nuclear Plants Covered Up By Regulators, NRC Whistleblower Claims HUFFINGTON POST, Tom Zeller Jr, 09/15/2012 In a letter submitted Friday afternoon to internal investigators at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a whistleblower engineer within the agency accused regulators of deliberately covering up information relating to the vulnerability of U.S. nuclear power facilities that sit downstream from large dams and reservoirs. Continue reading USA government worried about Japan cutting out nuclear power?
U.S. energy official voices concern over zero nuclear energy target, Japan Times, 14 Sept 12, Jiji WASHINGTON — U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman has voiced concerns about Japan’s apparent plans to end its nuclear energy dependence by the 2030s, Democratic Party of Japan executive Seiji Maehara said Wednesday.
At a meeting with the DPJ’s policy chief Tuesday, Poneman said that if Japan takes such steps it might have unexpected effects on the United States and other concerned parties, Continue reading
USA public waking up to the dangers of MOX nuclear fuel reprocessing
MOX or not? Gov’t likes weapons fuel, public doesn’t Equities.com, By Eric Fleischauer, The Decatur Daily, Ala. 
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services Sept. 14--The Energy Department believes it is safe to use weapons-grade fuel at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, but not many residents attending a public hearing Thursday agreed.
“They don’t need to have it here,” said Sara Crossfield of Athens, who has a farm near the Limestone County plant. “TVA’s charter requires them to protect us.”
U.S. treaties with Russia require the disposal of 50 tons of surplus plutonium. The treaties authorize disposal by recycling the weapons-grade plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, for use in nuclear reactors. MOX is a mixture of plutonium and low-enriched
uranium.
The purpose of Thursday’s public hearing was to receive comments on a draft document describing the environmental impact of using MOX. About 60 people attended.
While MOX is the Energy Department’s preferred alternative for most of the surplus plutonium, the Tennessee Valley Authority said it has no preference. Sachiko McAlhany, document manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, presented a summary of the environmental impact statement. She said the department concluded using MOX “does not appreciably change” the risk posed by conventional uranium fuel.
Neither McAlhany nor a TVA representative, Mick Mastilovic, answered questions at the hearing. The comments from the public will be incorporated into the final environmental impact statement, scheduled for a spring 2013 release.
The plutonium would be reprocessed into MOX at a $6 billion plant in South Carolina, operated by France-based AREVA. It would then have to be transported to Browns Ferry.
Many of the concerns expressed by those attending the hearing involved the cost of creating MOX and the risks involved in transport.
Concerns specific to Browns Ferry focused on the impact of the fuel — which burns at slightly higher temperatures than conventional fuel — on the reactors and the possibility that Browns Ferry would become a terrorist target. Continue reading
Uranium- No Thanks, say Danville and Pittsylvania County residents
Poll: uranium mining ban should remain in place Go Dan River 14 Sept 12, The majority of Danville and Pittsylvania County residents do not want to see the state ban on uranium mining lifted.
That was the bottom-line result of a poll taken by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Survey and Evaluation Laboratory for the Alliance for Progress in Southern Virginia, which was released at a news conference in downtown Danville on Thursday.
More than 550 Danville and Pittsylvania County residents participated in the poll.
Jay Poole, a spokesperson for the alliance, said he was surprised by two things the survey revealed: the number of people who were aware of the issue, and the number of people who had already formed an opinionon the issue.
“The overwhelming margin of support in opposition to the proposed uranium mine in Pittsylvania County was striking,” Poole said.
Although 54 percent of respondents said they thought a mine might help the local economy, they clearly felt that was offset by potential risks, with 53 percent saying they do not want uranium mining in their backyards, compared to 29 percent who support the idea of a uranium mine at Coles Hill near Chatham.
When asked how they thought agriculture and the wood products industry would be affected, 63 percent said they felt it would be negatively impacted.
Sixty-three percent of respondents also said they are concerned about the affect such a mine could have on water quality, and 60 percent said they believe it would reduce property values in the region…. http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2012/sep/13/poll-uranium-mining-ban-should-remain-place-ar-2202990/
Ending the Nuclear Age- A Mountain of Radioactive Waste
For more information on radioactive waste, see the various sub-sections under Beyond Nuclear’s website section on the subject, as well as its pamphlet entitled “A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High”
U.S. Senate hearing lays groundwork for latest Mobile Chernobyl legislation http://www.beyondnuclear.org/radioactive-waste-whatsnew/2012/9/13/us-senate-hearing-lays-groundwork-for-latest-mobile-chernoby.html
at left: The cover of Beyond Nuclear’s pamphlet “A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High”
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has acknowledged that the court-ordered revision to its Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision, and preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement about the risks on at-reactor storage of irradiated nuclear fuel, will delay the issuance of new reactor construction and operating licenses, as well as old reactor 20 year license extensions, by two years. This has led to a backlash by the nuclear establishment in industry and government. Continue reading
Nuclear power advocate predicts end of the industry,because of waste problem
Nuclear Advocate: “Within 5 years there will be no nuclear power in U.S. unless something is done” — Fuel pools will fill up without Yucca Mt., “There’s nowhere for old material to go” (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/pro-nuclear-advocate-within-5-years-there-will-be-no-nuclear-power-in-u-s-unless-something-is-done-fuel-pools-will-fill-up-without-yucca-theres-nowhere-for-old-material-to-go-v includes 
VIDEO September 13th, 2012 By ENENews interview with Karl Denninger Warren Pollock Sept 12, 2012
Transcript Excerpt at
Karl Denninger, Market Ticker: “… the uranium based system, which, by the way, Jazcko managed to essentially completely torpedo.
I don’t know if you’re aware of this, within 5 years there will be no nuclear power in the United States unless something is done with this administration.
Because what Jazcko did by illegally shutting down Yucca, which by the way was a violation of federal law the way he went about it, through that process he put a hard stop on nuclear power in the United States…
[Inaudible, Repeats Comment] This will result in the denial of license renewals when those fuel pools fill up, because you can’t store the material. There’s nowhere for old material to go and therefore you can’t put any new material in…”
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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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