Nuke security lacking
Nuke security lacking – The Great Beyond by April 16, 2009 Another day, another security lapse at one of the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons labs.The Government Accountability Office is reporting yet again that there are security lapses in the complex, this time at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, near San Francisco.LLNL is one of three DOE national labs that designs, handles and stores nuclear weapons. It also maintains stores of plutonium and enriched uranium.Investigators found 13 specific deficiencies in the security force employed to counteract a terrorist attack……………….
WMICentral – Payments available to those exposed to radiation
Payments available to those exposed to radiation wmicentral.com 14 April 09 Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act providing for compassionate payments to individuals who contracted certain cancers and other serious diseases as a result of their exposure to radiation released during above-ground nuclear weapons tests or as a result of their exposure to radiation during employment in underground uranium mines…………………………. Northern Arizona RESEP (Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program) through North Country HealthCare is set up to provide education to the public concerning the effects of nuclear radiation due to nuclear fallout or nuclear materials such as uranium…………………………..For those who lived in the following counties: Coconino, Yavapai, Apache, Navajo, Gila and Mohave (north of the Grand Canyon) between 1951-1958 and July 1962, employed as a uranium worker beginning Jan. 1, 1942, ending Dec. 31, 1971 or worked as an on-site participant may qualify for federal compensation from $50,000 to $100,000. If you fit any areas listed above, you may have been exposed to radiation and should be screened for cancer and other serious problems that can develop years after exposure.
The RESEP program provides a no cost medical screenings and/or guidance in applying for federal compensation; one may also file on behalf deceased relative who may have been affected.
Learn more by visiting the following Web sites:
* North County HealthCare RESEP Program – http://www.northcountrychc.org/services/outreach/resep.asp
* Department of Justice RESEP Program – http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/torts/const/reca/index.htm
* HRSA (Health Resources and Services Administration) RESEP –http://www.ruralhealth.hrsa.gov/radiationexposure/
For additional information, contact Tobi Flanagan at (928) 522-2466 and Cornelia Todecozy at (928) 774-6299.
WMICentral – Payments available to those exposed to radiation
NRC says it can’t block foreign nuke waste
Tennessee: NRC says it can’t block foreign nuke waste ” .
The Chattanooga Times Free Press 15 April 09 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it doesn’t have the authority to keep foreign radioactive waste from being imported into the United States just because the material is from another country.
A Tennessee congressman says that’s all the more reason to pass his bill giving the NRC that power. Without it, Rep. Bart Gordon said Tuesday, 20,000 tons of Italian nuclear waste could be brought to Kingston, Tenn., for processing. About 1,600 tons of material left after processing would be shipped to Utah for disposal.
.“Our country is the only country in the world disposing of other country’s radioactive trash,” Rep. Gordon, D-Murfreesboro, said in a news release. “The very agency responsible for regulating this waste has stated in no uncertain terms that they cannot prevent other countries from dumping their waste in our country. The bill I authored would change this, effective immediately.”…………
………..The NRC says that as long as the material can be imported safely and someone is willing to accept it, the commission can’t keep the waste out……..
…………..Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman has said he doesn’t want the waste coming to Utah, but EnergySolutions is challenging in federal court the state’s ability to use an interstate compact to keep the waste out.
Chattanooga Times Free Press | Tennessee: NRC says it can’t block foreign nuke waste
Pro nukes would prefer nicer name for depleted uranium’s risk
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Nuclear Test Downwinders
RECA, clinic help Nuclear Test Downwinders
“…………………..From 1951 to 1958 and for the month of July 1962, an estimated 22,000 people living in Southern Utah, northern Arizona and southeastern Nevada received a large amount of fallout from above-ground nuclear testing conducted at the Nevada Test Site.
These Downwinders, as they have come to be known, show abnormally high rates of malignant and non-malignant thyroid disease and leukemia and over the last decade have shown a higher then expected incidence of lymphoma, breast and thyroid cancers, according to the Utah Cancer Registry……………
Superfund priority cleanup site. The UC: America’s Most Ecocidal “Green” University
Superfund priority cleanup site. The UC: America’s Most Ecocidal “Green” University,
Part II by WIll & Darwin Sunday Apr 12th, 2009
“……………………………………………The military exists in a constant state of mobilization and preparation for warfare, a process that increasingly involves experimentation with toxic pollutants, dumping of hazardous wastes, and militarization of previously thriving ecosystems. The US military is responsible for over one-third of the US’ toxic waste, more than that generated by the top five pollution corporations housed in the US combined. The pollutants it has introduced into the total environment – with consequences that remain relatively unknown and unpredictable — have included pesticides and defoliants like Agent Orange, solvents, petroleum, perchlorate (a component of rocket fuel), lead, mercury, and of course depleted uranium. Within the U.S., one out of every ten Americans lives within ten miles of a military site that has been listed as a Superfund priority cleanup site.
………………………………..It is here that we come to another particularly important point: Most humans targeted by military production’s “Universal Soldier” — pollution — are working class and impoverished people of color and, even more disproportionately, indigenous people. Thus, the military’s environmental wreckage is out of sight, out of mind for the most privileged of our planet, such as the vast majority of mainstream US environmental activists, especially students and graduates of elite universities…………
……….The primary source of environmental degradation in Iraq, however, is of course depleted uranium — a bi-product of the same radioactive processes that have created the vast “national sacrifice areas” and “clans of one-breasted women” in the United States, Russia, and elsewhere.
Yet another $50 billion for rust-bucket nukes?
Yet another $50 billion for rust-bucket nukes? Scoop by Harvey Wasserman 13 April 09 The nuke power industry is back at the public trough for the fourth time in two years demanding $50 billion in loan guarantees to build new reactors.Its rust-bucket poster child is now the ancient clunker at Oyster Creek, whose visible New Jersey rust and advanced radioactive decay are A-OK with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which just gave it a twenty-year license extension. The industry’s savior may be France, whose taxpayer-funded EdF and Areva Corporations may be poised to build their own reactors on US soil using French and American taxpayer money.
And President Obama’s first big test on nuke power may be how he fills a vacancy—and the chair—at the NRC.
The latest demand for a $50 billion taxpayer handout has been sleazed into the Senate budget bill………………………….This latest bailout incarnation has been widely tagged “nuclear pork” even in the right-wing Washington Times,………
………No independent financiers will take an un-subsidized flier on new reactors. Nuke operators can’t get private insurance on a major melt-down. With the proposed Yucca Mountain dump all but dead, the industry—after fifty years—has no certified place to take its high-level radioactive waste……………
……… green energy groups are organizing a national write-in campaign to begin next week, and a call-in effort for April 27, the day after the anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. No one doubts the industry will pour on one legislative scam after another in its desperate attempt to get taxpayer money as it is being priced into oblivion by rapid advances in renewables and efficiency……………
……..whomever Obama appoints, it’s painfully clear that the world’s most expensive failed technology is not going away without a long, hard fight. ***
Landfills raise radiaoactive concerns
Landfills raise concernsPollution prompts calls for operators to help provide clean water The State 11 April 09 By SAMMY FRETWELL – sfretwell@thestate.com
“…………………….All told, landfills across South Carolina — from nuclear waste dumps to disposal sites on military bases — have polluted the groundwater in 125 places, according to DHEC’s 2008 groundwater contamination inventory.
Oyster Creek’s waste stockpile just gets larger
Oyster Creek’s waste stockpile just gets larger pressof AtlanticCity.com By BEN LEACH 9 April 09 , Oyster Creek isn’t going anywhere, and neither is a stockpile of accumulated nuclear waste………………………………….While exact figures are not available for the amount at Oyster Creek, there are 2,180 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel in the state, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 2008-2009 Information Digest………………………. the spent fuel at most nuclear plants across the country goes into storage on the site of the nuclear plant. Oyster Creek stores all of its spent fuel on-site……………………. At Oyster Creek, spent fuel rods must be kept in the on-site storage pool for at least 10 years, according to a Lacey Township ordinance. From there, the rods are typically moved to the “dry” method, which involves placing them in a concrete cask.
The structures – 10 feet wide, 15 feet tall and 20 feet long – are made from reinforced concrete. According to David Benson, a spokesman for Oyster Creek, there are 20 modules at the plant, 16 of which are full.
Each chamber weighs about 600 pounds, with almost two-thirds of that weight a result of the spent fuel itself.
Those modules are protected by security around the clock,…………………..
Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight for Beyond Nuclear Inc., a national nuclear watchdog, said the storage casks remain in plain sight despite security measures.
“Some kind of passing vehicle could just stop and shoot any of these casks from Route 9,” Gunter said.
The protection of nuclear waste is more than just a local issue.
Interior secretary: Wind could replace coal power
Interior secretary: Wind could replace coal power CNET News April 8, 2009 Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is optimistic about the potential of wind power to help wean the U.S. from dependence on foreign oil. “The idea that wind energy has the potential to replace most of our coal-burning power today is a very real possibility,” he said. “It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now,” Salazar said, according to an AP report, at a meeting in Atlantic City, N.J., Monday.
……………………………………Exactly the same problems nuclear has always had. This company just stores the waste. “Nuclear storage dumps” are not a solution, just another problem put ..
Interior secretary: Wind could replace coal power | Green Tech – CNET News
States threatening to halt payments if U.S. cancels Yucca Mountain
States threatening to halt payments if U.S. cancels Yucca Mountain Tghe New York Times By KATHERINE LING, GreenwireApril 8, 2009
Several legislatures of states with nuclear power plants are considering stopping or reducing payments to the federal government for nuclear waste management until the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nev., repository opens or another solution to the waste problem emerges.
Since the February release of President Obama’s budget blueprint, which signaled the likely demise of the Yucca Mountain plan, pro-nuclear lawmakers in Congress have grumbled about the uncertainty such a move would bring. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), for one, threatened to promote a measure to return waste-removal fees paid by electric ratepayers.
But at least four states are trying now to take matters into their own hands.
Maine lawmakers passed a resolution yesterday asking the federal government to immediately reduce fees paid by electricity customers for managing spent nuclear fuel. The resolution also urges the expedited establishment of two federally licensed interim storage facilities that would take possession of the waste and create an independent panel to assess the long-term prospects for handling military and civilian nuclear wastes.Since 1982, U.S. nuclear-power ratepayers have paid a tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour into a federal fund that now holds about $30 billion. The fund can be used only to build the repository.
The Department of Energy has spent about $13.5 billion on the Yucca Mountain project since 1983 and had contracted with utilities to begin taking spent fuel in 1998. The partial breach of contracts leaves DOE liable for about $11 billion based on plans for the repository opening in 2020. That liability would escalate for each year the waste is not removed from nuclear plant sites, DOE says………………..Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the nuclear industry’s policy arm said Maine’s frustration may be just the beginning of a national revolt.
States threatening to halt payments if U.S. cancels Yucca Mountain – NYTimes.com
News Flash: Greed and Stupidity Can Coexist!
News Flash: Greed and Stupidity Can Co-exist THE HUFFINGTON POST Monica Youn 7 April 09 “…………………..A crucial function of government is to protect us from the consequences of the stupid decisions of other people – we should not have to worry that a nuclear power plant operator will decide that certain safety precautions simply aren’t profitable or necessary.
In the nuclear example, were the government to succumb to industry pressure and repeal certain safety regulations on nuclear plants, any resulting accident would be the result of policy as well as stupidity. In other economic sectors, regulations exist to prevent the profit-maximizing incentives of various industries from creating unacceptable levels of public risk………….
Halliburton is among defendants in nuclear waste lawsuit under CERCLA
Halliburton is among defendants in nuclear waste lawsuit under CERCLA Examiner.com Frank Taylor April 7
Halliburton Energy Services is one of the corporations from which the United States seeks to recover the response costs that it incurred due to releases and threatened releases of hazardous substances into the environment from facilities where radioactive materials were manufactured, repaired, reworked, stored, and processed for disposal. GE Healthcare Bio-Sciences Corp. and Pengo Industries, Inc., are among the other defendants in United States of America v. Halliburton Energy Services, Inc., (case number 4:07-cv-03795 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas) The federal government, which filed the lawsuit in 2007, alleges that the defendants are liable under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, commonly known as CERCLA, for more than $26.7 million in unreimbursed response costs for the cleanup of sites in Houston, Webster, and Odessa. The State of Texas intervened in the case to recover the response costs that it had contributed to the federal government.
DTE seeks to downplay incident at Fermi II nuclear power plant
DTE seeks to downplay incident at Fermi 11 nuclear power plant By Eartha Jane Melzer 4/7/09 According to plant report, the water level in the reactor vessel fell to 162 inches during March 28 shutdown but Fermi spokesman says he doesn’t think that ‘necessarily indicates that there was any loss of water level at all. An incident involving a nuclear reactor going into “hot shutdown” at DTE Energy’s Fermi II power generation station in Monroe County late last month went largely unnoticed locally and is raising questions about what exactly happened at the plant. DTE officials have minimized the incident,…………………………
Michael Keegan, a nuclear power critic who lives near the Fermi II plant said that he learned of the incident through a notice on the NRC website.
Keegan, who is among the individuals trying to block the construction of an additional reactor at the Fermi complex, said that locals are “salivating” at the prospect of jobs in building the new plant. He said that he finds the lack of local media on the situation disturbing.
“It’s kind of peculiar,” he said. “You see [this incident] is picked up by Reuters and you can read about it in New York but you can’t read about it in your home town.”…………………..
Jim Riccio, a Greenpeace nuclear policy analyst said he is not surprised that a utility spokesman would try to play down a drop in reactor vessel water levels.
“He wants to make you believe that splitting atoms is something safe, but its not,” Riccio said. “The risk is that if the water levels go too low you uncover the core and you start to melt down, that is what happened at Three Mile Island,” referring to the 1979 partial core meltdown at the nuclear power station near Harrisburg, Pa.
Michigan Messenger » DTE seeks to downplay incident at Fermi II nuclear power plant
‘No’ to nuclear power
‘No’ to nuclear power
Author: David Kennell
People’s Weekly World Newspaper 7 April 09 – “…………………………….The inherent danger of a nuclear accident is recognized by the Price-Anderson Act, which forces taxpayers (not the company) to be responsible for any major accident. Even if no accidents occur, or if plutonium-239 (half-life of 24,110 years), created in fast neutron reactors, is not lost or stolen to make nuclear weapons, there is still no known procedure to eliminate the high-level radioactive waste.
More than 95 percent of the waste products are cesium-137 and strontium-90, which have half-lives (lose 50 percent) of about 30 years. They are not the problem. The “transuranics” (isotopes of uranium, curium-245 and plutonium) have half-lives of thousands of years. So far, the much touted “recycling” requires purification of the transuranics and is very inefficient and difficult and has only been accomplished on a small laboratory scale. The planet is accumulating these highly lethal products with no place to put them.
About half the U.S. nuclear waste is at Hanford, Wash., in nuclear “sludge” acquired from our nuclear weapons program. The other half is from our 103 nuclear power plants. The Hanford waste is beginning to leak into the Columbia River.
As an aside, the unknown cost of waste disposal by currently unknown means is never considered when calculating dollar costs.
But the real costs cannot be measured in dollars. We are saddling future generations, hoping that future technology can solve the problem that has not been solved during the last 60 or so years…………….
Using nuclear fission to boil water is not only absurd — it could be the greatest folly of all time.
1 This Month
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
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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