Radioactive nightmare: A community’s 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.
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.
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
Is the Haverigg wind project once more under a nuclear threat?
NFLA 8th Jan 2025
Standing alongside the perimeter of the old RAF Millom are eight wind turbines generating clean energy for the nation, and the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities fear they may be threatened by the latest plans to bring a nuclear waste dump to Haverigg and Millom.
A private company with fifty shareholders, Windcluster, owns and operates four of the turbines, whilst the remainder are run by Thrive Renewables, which has over seven thousand investors.
Windcluster was established in 1988 as a private company. The company first installed five 225 Kw Vestas V27 turbines near the abandoned airfield. This Haverigg I project was a groundbreaker being only the second commercial wind project in the UK. Commissioned on 5 August 1992, it was formally opened that December by Environment Minister, David Maclean MP, at a ceremony hosted by the Haverigg Primary School. Windcluster has continued its relationship with the school, having established a community fund to sponsor its activities.
The V27 turbines were dismantled in 2004 and replaced in 2005 by four larger V52 turbines, with a total rating of 3.4 MW, as the Haverigg III project. This had an expected generating lifespan of 20 years; however, after 15 years, the company secured permission from the landlord, the Craghill family, and from the planning authority, Copeland Council, to continue operations until 2040.
8th January 2025
Is the Haverigg wind project once more under a nuclear threat?
Standing alongside the perimeter of the old RAF Millom are eight wind turbines generating clean energy for the nation, and the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities fear they may be threatened by the latest plans to bring a nuclear waste dump to Haverigg and Millom.
A private company with fifty shareholders, Windcluster, owns and operates four of the turbines, whilst the remainder are run by Thrive Renewables, which has over seven thousand investors.
Windcluster was established in 1988 as a private company. The company first installed five 225 Kw Vestas V27 turbines near the abandoned airfield. This Haverigg I project was a groundbreaker being only the second commercial wind project in the UK. Commissioned on 5 August 1992, it was formally opened that December by Environment Minister, David Maclean MP, at a ceremony hosted by the Haverigg Primary School. Windcluster has continued its relationship with the school, having established a community fund to sponsor its activities.
The V27 turbines were dismantled in 2004 and replaced in 2005 by four larger V52 turbines, with a total rating of 3.4 MW, as the Haverigg III project. This had an expected generating lifespan of 20 years; however, after 15 years, the company secured permission from the landlord, the Craghill family, and from the planning authority, Copeland Council, to continue operations until 2040.
Alongside Haverigg I, Windcluster secured consents to install four more wind turbines on the airfield. Initially financed and developed by The Wind Company UK Ltd and The Wind Fund, this Haverigg II project was brought online by the end of July 1998. This is now owned outright by Thrive Renewables. Haverigg II is equipped with four Wind World W4200 turbines, with a generating capacity of 2.4 GW. Thrive has also developed a Community Benefit Programme which has awarded energy-efficiency grants to the Millom Baptist Church and Kirksanton Village Hall. Like the Windcluster project, Thrive has secured permissions to extend its operations to 2032.
Together the two wind projects generate enough renewable electricity, approximately 16 GW annually, to power around 4,100 homes. Windcluster has published an estimate that Haverigg II saves 4,430 tons of CO2 per year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 443 people in the UK. The smaller Thrive project will save an additional two-thirds of that.
Nuclear Waste Services are now looking to identify ‘Areas of Focus’ in each of the three Search Areas where investigations are ongoing to find a prospective site for a surface facility for the Geological Disposal Facility that would receive regular shipments of high-level radioactive waste from Sellafield.
In each ‘Area of Focus’ NWS will conduct ‘further investigative and technical studies’. The NFLAs have been advised by Simon Hughes, NWS Siting and Communities Director, that ‘NWS will publish an update on Areas of Focus early next year, and the community engagement teams will be out in the community to explain our findings, listen to their feedback, and consider next steps’.
The NFLAs have already written to NWS to request that the major local employer, HMP Haverigg, and tourist and heritage sites be excluded from consideration in the South Copeland Search Area.
As supporters of renewable energy generation, we are also worried that the future of these wind turbines might also be jeopardised if the site is selected as an ‘Area of Focus’, and becomes subject to intrusive borehole investigations in the future.
This is not the first time the turbines have been threatened by a nuclear project………………………………………….. https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/is-the-haverigg-wind-project-once-more-under-a-nuclear-threat/
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
Campaigners accuse government of ‘lack of transparency’ over Sizewell C value.
A campaign group has urged the NAO to review the UK government’s
spending assessment for the nuclear power project in Suffolk. A campaign
group has written to the National Audit Office (NAO) calling for a review
of the government’s value assessment for the controversial Sizewell C
nuclear power station.
Campaign group Together Against Sizewell C (TASC)
has written to the audit office calling for a review of the government’s
value-for-money assessment, which underpinned £8bn of public spending on
the nuclear power station. It claims there has been a lack of transparency
over the government’s audit of spending on the nuclear project, which
unlocked billions of pounds of subsidies before a final investment decision
(FID) has been made.
“It is worth recalling that when EDF first proposed
Sizewell C, they budgeted the costs to get to FID to be £458 million,”
the campaign group said in its latest letter to the NAO. “With a £2.5
billion spend by the previous Tory government, £5.5 billion authorised by
this government under the Devex Scheme and an estimated £700 million
invested by EDF, the cost of getting to FID is approximately 1,900% of the
original budget.”
TASC called the underbudgeting by French energy
supplier EDF “staggering”. According to its registration document in
2020, EDF had “planned to pre-finance the development up to its share of
an initial budget of £458 million”. “There has been no explanation as
to why these costs are so astronomically higher than the original estimate,
how such increases have been justified and how much more public funding is
likely to be assigned to what many observers are calling ‘Labour’s
HS2’,” it said in the letter.
Energy Voice 8th Jan 2025 https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/565210/campaigners-accuse-government-of-lack-of-transparency-over-sizewell-c-value/
EDF delays salt marsh consultation for Hinkley Point C
EDF has delayed a formal public consultation over the proposed location of
a new salt marsh which would act as an environmental mitigation for the
Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant. The consultation was due to commence
in January but will now be delayed to later in 2025 to “carefully
evaluate the best approach.” Four possible locations have been proposed
for a salt marsh along the River Severn, including Kingston Seymour,
Arlingham, Littleton, and Rodley.
Bridgwater Mercury 8th Jan 2025,
https://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/24842339.edf-delay-salt-marsh-consultation-hinkley-point-c/
Genocidal President, Genocidal Politics
The presidential genocide and the active acquiescence of the vast majority of Congress are matched by the dominant media and overall politics of the United States.
Jan 6, 2025, Norman Solomon, https://www.laprogressive.com/war-and-peace/genocidal-president?utm_source=LA+Progressive+NEW&utm_campaign=c01ae947cf-LAP+News+–+%288%29+18+NOVEMBER+2022_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_61288e16ef-c01ae947cf-287023764&ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_11_17_2022_10_46_COPY_01)&mc_cid=c01ae947cf&mc_eid=02629a6e14
Then news broke over the weekend that President Biden just approved an $8 billion deal for shipping weapons to Israel, a nameless official vowed that “we will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defense.” Following the reports last month from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch concluding that Israeli actions in Gaza are genocide, Biden’s decision was a new low for his presidency.
It’s logical to focus on Biden as an individual. His choices to keep sending huge quantities of weaponry to Israel have been pivotal and calamitous. But the presidential genocide and the active acquiescence of the vast majority of Congress are matched by the dominant media and overall politics of the United States.
Forty days after the Gaza war began, Anne Boyer announced her resignation as poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine. More than a year later, her statement illuminates why the moral credibility of so many liberal institutions has collapsed in the wake of Gaza’s destruction.
While Boyer denounced “the Israeli state’s U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza,” she emphatically chose to disassociate herself from the nation’s leading liberal news organization: “I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies.”
The acclimatizing process soon became routine. It was most crucially abetted by President Biden and his loyalists, who were especially motivated to pretend that he wasn’t really doing what he was really doing.
For mainline journalists, the process required the willing suspension of belief in a consistent standard of language and humanity. When Boyer acutely grasped the dire significance of its Gaza coverage, she withdrew from “the newspaper of record.”
Content analysis of the war’s first six weeks found that coverage by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times had a steeply dehumanizing slant toward Palestinians. The three papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians,” a study by The Intercept showed. “The term ‘slaughter’ was used by editors and reporters to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1, and ‘massacre’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2. ‘Horrific’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 36 to 4.”
After a year of the Gaza war, Arab-American historian Rashid Khalidi said: “My objection to organs of opinion like the New York Times is that they see absolutely everything from an Israeli perspective. ‘How does it affect Israel, how do the Israelis see it?’ Israel is at the center of their worldview, and that’s true of our elites generally, all over the West. The Israelis have very shrewdly, by preventing direct reportage from Gaza, further enabled that Israelocentric perspective.”
Khalidi summed up: “The mainstream media is as blind as it ever was, as willing to shill for any monstrous Israeli lie, to act as stenographers for power, repeating what is said in Washington.”
The conformist media climate smoothed the way for Biden and his prominent rationalizers to slide off the hook and shape the narrative, disguising complicity as evenhanded policy. Meanwhile, mighty boosts of Israel’s weapons and ammunition were coming from the United States. Nearly half of the Palestinians they killed were children.
For those children and their families, the road to hell was paved with good doublethink. So, for instance, while the Gaza horrors went on, no journalist would confront Biden with what he’d said at the time of the widely decried school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, when the president had quickly gone on live television. “There are parents who will never see their child again,” he said, adding: “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. . . . It’s a feeling shared by the siblings, and the grandparents, and their family members, and the community that’s left behind.” And he asked plaintively, “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”
The massacre in Uvalde killed 19 children. The daily massacre in Gaza has taken the lives of that many Palestinian kids in a matter of hours.
While Biden refused to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing and mass murder that he kept making possible, Democrats in his orbit cooperated with silence or other types of evasion. A longstanding maneuver amounts to checking the box for a requisite platitude by affirming support for a “two-state solution.”
Dominating Capitol Hill, an unspoken precept has held that Palestinian people are expendable as a practical political matter. Party leaders like Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries did virtually nothing to indicate otherwise. Nor did they exert themselves to defend incumbent House Democrats Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, defeated in summer primaries with an unprecedented deluge of multimillion-dollar ad campaigns funded by AIPAC and Republican donors.
The overall media environment was a bit more varied but no less lethal for Palestinian civilians. During its first several months, the Gaza war received huge quantities of mainstream media coverage, which thinned over time; the effects were largely to normalize the continual slaughter. Some exceptional reporting existed about the suffering, but the journalism gradually took on a media ambience akin to background noise, while credulously hyping Biden’s weak ceasefire efforts as determined quests.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came in for increasing amounts of criticism. But the prevalent U.S. media coverage and political rhetoric — unwilling to expose the Israeli mission to destroy Palestinians en masse — rarely went beyond portraying Israel’s leaders as insufficiently concerned with protecting Palestinian civilians.
Instead of candor about horrific truths, the usual tales of U.S. media and politics have offered euphemisms and evasions.
When she resigned as the New York Times Magazine poetry editor in mid-November 2023, Anne Boyer condemned what she called “an ongoing war against the people of Palestine, people who have resisted through decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture.” Another poet, William Stafford, wrote decades ago:
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
Japanese yakuza leader pleads guilty to trafficking nuclear materials from Myanmar
US authorities charged Takeshi Ebisawa with conspiring to traffic nuclear materials from Myanmar for expected use by Iran in nuclear weapons, handling nuclear material sourced from Myanmar and seeking to sell it to fund an illicit arms deal, US authorities have said.
Yakuza leader Takeshi Ebisawa and a co-defendant had previously been charged in April 2022 with drug trafficking and firearms offences, and both were remanded.
He was then additionally charged in February 2024 with conspiring to sell weapons-grade nuclear material and lethal narcotics from Myanmar, and to purchase military weaponry on behalf of an armed insurgent group, prosecutors said.
The military weaponry to be part of the arms deal included surface-to-air missiles, the indictment alleged.
“As he admitted in federal court today, Takeshi Ebisawa brazenly trafficked nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma,” acting US attorney Edward Kim said on Wednesday, using another name for Myanmar.
“At the same time, he worked to send massive quantities of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States in exchange for heavy-duty weaponry such as surface-to-air missiles to be used on battlefields in Burma.”
Prosecutors alleged that Ebisawa, 60, “brazenly” moved material containing uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, alongside drugs, from Myanmar.
From 2020, Ebisawa boasted to an undercover officer he had access to large quantities of nuclear materials that he sought to sell, providing photographs of materials alongside Geiger counters registering radiation.
During a sting operation including undercover agents, Thai authorities assisted US investigators in seizing two powdery yellow substances that the defendant described as “yellowcake.”
“The (US) laboratory determined that the isotope composition of the plutonium found in the Nuclear Samples is weapons-grade, meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon,” the Justice Department said in its statement at the time.
One of Ebisawa’s co-conspirators claimed they “had available more than 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of Thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the compound U3O8 – referring to a compound of uranium commonly found in the uranium concentrate powder known as ’yellowcake’.”
The indictment claimed Ebisawa had suggested using the proceeds of the sale of nuclear material to fund weapons purchases on behalf of an unnamed ethnic insurgent group in Myanmar.
Ebisawa faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment for the trafficking of nuclear materials internationally.
Prosecutors describe Ebisawa as a “leader of the Yakuza organised crime syndicate, a highly organised, transnational Japanese criminal network that operates around the world (and whose) criminal activities have included large-scale narcotics and weapons trafficking.”
Sentencing will be determined by the judge in the case at a later date, prosecutors said.
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/
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/
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.
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.”
Lepreau nuclear plant’s costs will continue to balloon: critic.
But NB Power insists the station should supply safe, reliable electricity for years to come
Telegraph-Journal, John Chilibeck • Local Journalism Initiative reporter, Jan 08, 2025
Last year’s costly, prolonged shutdown at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station near Saint John is just a piece of debilitatingly expensive repairs to come, warns an industry critic.
The outage that lasted between April 6 and Dec. 11 could end up costing New Brunswick ratepayers hundreds of millions.
But Gordon Edwards argues far bigger costs could be coming down the line in the years ahead to the workhorse in NB Power’s fleet of generators that supplies more than one-third of the province’s electricity.
Edwards is the president and co-founder of the nonprofit organization Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and a long-time anti-nuclear activist who testified in 2023 before a New Brunswick legislative committee.
He told Brunswick News in a recent interview that many of the hopes behind the massive $2.5-billion refurbishment of the plant in 2012 turned out to be a fantasy. Now 41 years old, the plant is showing its age, he said.
There are things in the Lepreau reactor that were simply not done that should have been done at the time of the refurbishment. – Gordon Edwards
“The promise was held out that by spending all this money on refurbishment that essentially we’d have a brand new reactor,” Edwards said from his home in Montreal.
“And that’s obviously not true. When you replace a part of a complicated piece of machinery, like an automobile for that matter, often times it causes something else to go wrong because it’s worn but has not been replaced. And there are things in the Lepreau reactor that were simply not done that should have been done at the time of the refurbishment.”
According to a report by New Brunswick’s auditor general in 2014, Lepreau’s refurbishment took 37 months longer and cost $1 billion more than anticipated.
The latest shutdown started on April 6. It was supposed to be a 100-day planned maintenance outage to ensure the ongoing reliability and safety of the station’s operations. However, when workers started to fire up the plant again, they discovered a big problem on the non-nuclear side of the station where none of the maintenance work had been done.
Before the plant could get back up and running, the problem had to be fixed: six damaged stator bars inside the main generator. NB Power described the repair process as complex, requiring careful disassembly, reassembly, and extensive testing to meet strict safety and operational standards.
In the end, it took 149 extra days to get the job done and the plant back online.
No official figures have been released on the extra cost to customers, but earlier in the summer an NB Power official at rate hearings in Fredericton said the repairs would be more than $70 million and the cost of buying power or burning more fossil fuel at other stations to pick up the slack would be on average $900,000 a day.
This raises the possibility that the shutdown cost as much as $294 million.
“NB Power continues to assess the financial impact of the extended outage and is actively exploring options to mitigate costs for customers, including potential recovery through corporate insurance policies,” the public utility stated in a press release on Dec. 12.
Edwards predicts more problems will arise because the refurbishment, now more than a decade old, mostly addressed the plant’s nuclear side, not the conventional one.
“The fact that you have the core of the reactor back up to top operating condition, puts more of a strain on these other components that have not been replaced,” he said. “Among the components that weren’t replaced are the steam generators, which are critical.”
Edwards said the private consortium Bruce Power in Ontario took a different course, replacing steam generators at the first two units at the Bruce nuclear plants on the eastern shore of Lake Huron when they were refurbished in 2012.
“That was a prudent thing to do, but NB Power did not replace them at Lepreau. I predict that will be a source of problems going forward,” said the critic, an octogenarian who has a PhD in mathematics from Queen’s University.
……………………………………………………………………Edwards said another major issue at the plant is the prolonged use of the same hard water, which has different physical properties than regular water. He said the 200,000 litres that circulate in tubes is highly radioactive and should have been replaced long ago.
“To keep the costs from ballooning completely out of proportion, NB Power hasn’t replaced the hard water,” he said. “The cost of hard water is expensive. As much as one-fifth of the cost of a nuclear plant is simply the hard water.”
He and other anti-nuke activists, such as the Sierra Club of Canada, have for years called for the hard water’s replacement, arguing the radioactivity can leak during accidental spills, causing a threat to plant workers and the wider environment.
But NB Power says for the time being, such a drastic step is unnecessary.
“We continue to monitor industry-wide processes and improvements as it relates to the reactor moderator heavy water,” Couture said. “It has not been determined at this time that a replacement of the moderator heavy water is required.” https://tj.news/new-brunswick/lepreau-nuclear-plants-costs-will-continue-to-balloon-critic#:~:text=No%20official%20figures%20have%20been,slack%20would%20be%20on%20average
Ohio Community Faces Cancer Crisis from Radioactive Contamination
PIKETON, OH – A growing health crisis in Pike County, Ohio, has brought national attention to a region plagued by some of the highest cancer rates and premature death rates in the country. Decades of uranium enrichment and ongoing demolition at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant are now being linked to the troubling health trends impacting this community and six surrounding counties.
A recent study by Joseph J. Mangano, epidemiologist and executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, paints a stark picture of the consequences of radioactive contamination in Pike County. Released last summer, the study highlights significant increases in cancer, infant mortality, and premature death rates in communities located downwind of the former uranium enrichment plant.
Cancer Rates and Premature Deaths
The numbers are alarming. Between 2021 and 2023, Pike County’s premature death rate for individuals under 74 years old was 107% higher than the national average, a sharp rise from 85% above the national average between 2017 and 2020. Over 750 premature deaths occurred during this period in a county with a population of just over 27,000.
Cancer rates in Pike County and six neighboring counties—Adams, Gallia, Jackson, Lawrence, Scioto, and Vinton—were 17.5% above the national average between 2015 and 2019. Infant mortality rates in the region were also 31.9% higher than the U.S. average between 1999 and 2020, and middle-aged adults saw mortality rates more than double the national average.
A School at the Center of Controversy
In 2019, concerns about radioactive contamination reached a tipping point when Zahn’s Corner Middle School in Piketon was permanently closed after radioactive isotopes, including enriched uranium and neptunium-237, were discovered inside the building. The school, located just a few miles from the Portsmouth plant, became a symbol of the community’s struggle with the health impacts of the site. Over the years, several students and staff members at Zahn’s succumbed to rare cancers, further heightening concerns.
Recently, the school district sold the building to a Christian ministry, which plans to reopen it as a STEM academy. While the sale marks a new chapter for the facility, it has reignited fears about whether the site is truly safe, given the radioactive materials previously found within its walls.
Radioactive Contamination and Ongoing Demolition
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, operational from 1954 to 2001, enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and reactors, releasing radioactive particles such as Americium-241, Plutonium-238, and Uranium-235 into the environment. These isotopes, which remain hazardous for thousands of years, have contaminated the air, water, and soil in the surrounding area.
Although uranium enrichment operations ceased in 2001, the plant remains active with demolition and decommissioning projects. Experts have raised concerns that open-air demolition of contaminated buildings is releasing additional radioactive particles into the environment. Critics argue that the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) air monitoring, which detects only “background” levels of radiation, fails to capture the full extent of the contamination.
Community Devastation
The impact on the community has been profound. Families across Pike County and neighboring areas have experienced unusually high rates of rare cancers and aggressive diseases, particularly among children and young adults. Many residents believe these illnesses are tied to decades of exposure to radioactive materials released by the plant.
The closure of Zahn’s Corner Middle School and the deaths of students and staff members have become a grim reminder of the broader crisis affecting the region. Parents and advocates continue to demand answers about the plant’s role in the contamination and the steps being taken to ensure the safety of current and future generations.
A Call for Accountability
Despite mounting evidence of health risks, the DOE has proposed new projects at the Portsmouth site, including uranium purification and experimental reactors. These plans have fueled further concerns among residents, who argue that additional activities could exacerbate the environmental and health challenges they already face.
Advocates and researchers are calling for independent investigations into the health impacts of the Portsmouth plant and comprehensive public health monitoring for affected communities. Many argue that stricter oversight is urgently needed to prevent further harm.
A Community Demanding Justice
The study by Mangano highlights the devastating and long-lasting effects of radioactive contamination in Pike County. The ongoing health crisis, coupled with incidents like the closure of Zahn’s Corner Middle School, underscores the urgent need for accountability and meaningful action to address the region’s toxic legacy. For residents of Pike County and surrounding areas, the fight for answers—and justice—continues.
1 This Month
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
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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