Greenpeace 11th May 2018 , In response to reports in the Japanese media that the UK government has
agreed to guarantee all the 2 trillion yen of loans necessary for Hitachi to build a reactor at Wylfa, and further requests from the company for the government to take a multi-billion pound stake in the project, Hannah Martin, Head of Energy at Greenpeace UK, said –
“No bank, hedge fund or insurer will touch the UK’s new nuclear programme with a bargepole. So
Hitachi have no option but to ask the government for a taxpayer bailout to keep their collapsing reactor programme afloat.
This would leave the British public to carry much of the cost and all of the risk. Any prudent investor would laugh at this request. After the Hinkley debacle, it’s vital that the government stops trying to keep our energy policy a secret and presents any offer of a deal to Parliament before the Hitachi board meeting at the end of May. Otherwise it’s difficult to know where theirgenerosity to the nuclear industry might end.”
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/about/press-releases/
Trump will ‘size Kim Jong Un up’ in meeting on his commitment to ending nuclear program: John Bolton By CHEYENNE HASLETT May 13, 2018 National Security Adviser John Bolton said one advantage of President Donald Trump‘s fast-approaching meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is that Trump will be able to “size Kim Jong Un up” on his commitment to ending his nuclear program…..https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-size-kim-jong-commitment-ending-nuclear-program/story?id=55110237
The Strategic Disaster of Leaving the Iran Deal, Trump Is Making the Middle East Less Safe, Foreign Affairs
DEFRA 10th May 2018 ,Seeking views on how a new environmental watchdog will work, and on the
application of environmental principles, in England after EU exit. We want
to know what you think about plans to create a new independent
environmental watchdog. What functions and powers should the watchdog have
to oversee environmental law and policy? We’re also seeking views on what
environmental principles we should apply in England to guide and shape
environmental law and policy making.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/environment-developing-environmental-principles-and-accountability
No place for nuclear power http://www.concordmonitor.com/No-nuclear-power-17303115, May 06, 2018
Last week, CBS Evening News reported on two as yet unexplained rare cancer clusters in Auburn, Ala., and Huntersville, N.C. To investigate the cause, Dr. Carol Shields of Philadelphia’s Will Eye Hospital explained: “We need to really carefully go through exactly where they lived, foods they liked, how close were they to a nuclear reactor, how much time did they spend outside.”
There should be no place for nuclear power in New Hampshire energy policy.
Cracks in nuclear reactor threaten UK energy policy, Problems at Hunterston B in Scotland trigger doubts over six other 1970s and 80s plants, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 7 May 18,
The government’s energy policy is under renewed pressure after the prolonged closure of one of Britain’s oldest nuclear reactors because of cracks in its graphite core raised questions over the future of six other plants built in the 1970s and 1980s.
The temporary shutdown of reactor three at Hunterston B in Scotland is also expected to burn an estimated £120m hole in the revenues of its owner, EDF Energy. The firm said this week that it was taking the reactor offline for six months after inspections revealed more cracks than expected.
Safety fears have been quashed, but the potential impact on wider energy strategy has alarmed experts who say the reactor may never be restarted……
The government’s energy policy is under renewed pressure after the prolonged closure of one of Britain’s oldest nuclear reactors because of cracks in its graphite core raised questions over the future of six other plants built in the 1970s and 1980s.
The temporary shutdown of reactor three at Hunterston B in Scotland is also expected to burn an estimated £120m hole in the revenues of its owner, EDF Energy. The firm said this week that it was taking the reactor offline for six months after inspections revealed more cracks than expected.
Safety fears have been quashed, but the potential impact on wider energy strategy has alarmed experts who say the reactor may never be restarted.
…….. BMI Research said it did not expect Hinkley Point C to come online by 2025 as planned, given recent warnings of further delays to EDF’s Flamanville plant in France, which uses the same reactor design. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/06/cracks-nuclear-reactor-threaten-uk-energy-policy-hunsterston
The scientists say their research is the first to use a human bone to precisely measure the radiation absorbed by an atomic bombing victim, Smithsonian, By Julissa Treviño , 3 May 18, “…….
evidence of the atomic bomb lives on in the bones of victims of the blast. A recent study published in the journal PLOS ONE used the jawbone of one person who was less than a mile from the bomb’s hypocenter to reveal exactly how much radiation was absorbed by the city’s population.
As Laura Geggel reports for Live Science, the research team used a technique called Electron Spin Resonance spectroscopy to learn the jawbone contained 9.46 grays, or Gy (the unit to measure absorbed radiation), double the amount it would take to kill someone if their entire body is exposed.
The researchers say their work is the first to use human bones to precisely measure the radiation absorbed by atomic bombing victims. However, as the Washington Post’s Kristine Phillips points out, in the late 1990s, a team of scientists from Japan were able to measure the radiation dose that nasopharyngeal cancer patients had absorbed from radiotherapy by studying their jawbones.
The new research is thanks to advances in technology. According to the study, in the 1970s, co-author Brazilian scientist Sérgio Mascarenhas discovered that X-Ray and gamma-ray radiation exposure caused human bones to become weakly magnetic. While his initial idea was to use his observation toward the archaeological dating of bones of prehistoric animals and humans in Brazil, he soon decided to test his methodology on nuclear bombing victims.
So, he traveled to Japan, where he was given the jawbone featured in the latest stduy from a Hiroshima victim. But the technology was not advanced enough, nor were there computers that could process the results in a precise manner. Making use of the instruments at hand, Mascarenhas presented evidence that the blast radiation aborbed by the jawbone sample could be observed at a meeting of the American Physical Society in 1973.
The jawbone was brought to Brazil, where it waited until science was ready for then-postdoctoral student Angela Kinoshita to continue Mascarenhas’ research with co-author Oswaldo Baffa, her former professor at the University of São Paulo.
Kinoshita, who is now a professor at University of the Sacred Heart in Brazil, was able to use ESR to identify direct blast radiation in the jawbone from so-called background signal, which the press release explains as “a kind of noise…[that] may have resulted from
from the superheating of the material during the explosion.”
To conduct their research, the team removed a small piece of the jawbone used in the previous study and then exposed it to radiation in a lab. This process is known as the additive dose method. Their result was similar to the dose found in physical objects taken from the site, including bricks and house tiles.
The scientists are currently looking into even more sensitive methodology, which they predict in the press release to be “about a thousand times more sensitive than spin resonance.” They see their research becoming increasingly relevant in future events like in the case of a terrorism attack.
“Imagine someone in New York planting an ordinary bomb with a small amount of radioactive material stuck to the explosive,” Baffa tell Agência FAPESP. “Techniques like this can help identify who has been exposed to radioactive fallout and needs treatment.”https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-study-human-bone-find-out-how-much-radiation-hiroshima-victims-experienced-180968932/
Trump glows in Noble Peace Prize chatter, The Hill, BY REBECCA KHEEL – 05/01/1 President Trump is basking in the glow of chatter that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on the Korea peninsula.
Trump’s supporters — and even the South Korean president — say that getting North Korea to denuclearize and end the Korean War would be a monumental achievement worthy of the prize.
……. Trump was definitely nominated both this year and last — but the Nobel Committee said the public nominations appear to be forgeries, and both were referred to Norwegian police.
……. on last week’s inter-Korea summit, ICAN credited South Korea for the progress rather than Trump.
“The dangerous rhetoric from Donald Trump and the U.S. brought us to the brink of nuclear war, and only careful diplomacy from South Korea has brought us back from it,” ICAN said in a statement Friday.
….. If successful, however, there is little doubt that solving the conflict on the Korean peninsula would be considered an exceptionally important contribution to global stability, and worthy of a prize,” Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo ,said in an email.
“If Trump makes a major contribution to such achievement, he will be considered for the Peace Prize, and it is quite possible that he could get it. However, he has been playing a high-stake game so far, so he needs to demonstrate statesman skills beyond threats and [deterrence] for that to happen.” http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/385735-trump-glows-in-noble-peace-prize-chatter
Green groups warn of maritime ‘Chernobyl’ as Russia launches floating nuclear power plant, Telegraph UK 1 MAY 2018
A controversial ship-borne nuclear power plant was launched from St Petersburg as part of a Russian plan to power remote seaside settlements.
The Akademik Lomonosov, which green groups have dubbed “a floating Chernobyl,” was towed from the shipyard where it was built in the Gulf of Finland on Saturday.
It will be towed through the Baltic Sea and around the coast of Norway to Russia’s Arctic port of Murmansk, where it will be loaded with nuclear fuel for sea tests……..Rosatom, Russia’s state owned nuclear energy monopoly, now says it will go into service in Chukotka, the far eastern province opposite Alaska, in 2019.
But the project has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists alarmed at the prospect of a nuclear accident in stormy, ice-filled oceans.
The Lomonosov was originally meant to be tested at the shipyard in St Petersburg, but plans were changed for an arctic test after protests from other Baltic sea countries.
“To test a nuclear reactor in a densely populated area like the centre of St. Petersburg is irresponsible to say the least,” said Jan Haverkamp of Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe in a statement.
“However, moving the testing of this ‘nuclear Titanic’ away from the public eye will not make it less so: Nuclear reactors bobbing around the Arctic Ocean will pose a shockingly obvious threat to a fragile environment which is already under enormous pressure from climate change.”….. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/01/green-groups-warn-maritime-chernobyl-russia-launches-floating/
Doctors are stumped after at least 36 people from SAME Alabama college are diagnosed with rare eye cancer that affects only six in every million
A rare eye cancer has struck 18 people in North Carolina and reportedly 36 more in Alabama, leaving doctors stumped as they search for a cause.
Only six out of every one million people are diagnosed with ocular melanoma each year.
Four friends with the rare cancer who attended Auburn University together believe an investigation into their alma mater may find the cause.
In January, 18 patients within a 15-mile radius were diagnosed with the cancer in Huntersville, North Carolina.
The four friends with ocular melanoma, have learned of 36 other Auburn University grads or workers who have the cancer as well, according to CBS………
Although the situation in Auburn has not been dubbed a cluster, the group of patients with the cancer in Huntersville has been defined as a cancer cluster.
In Huntersville not only have 18 people have been affected, but four have died within a 15-mile radius due to the illness.
Oddly the cancer, although more typically found in men in their 60s, has affected majority women in their 30s or younger in the community.
Investigators studying the Huntersville cluster with accounts dating back to 2014, published a report earlier this month that said no cause of the cluster has been found.
The study investigated air, water and land related issues but it yielded no findings towards a cause.
‘It’s just hard to believe that there’s not a common thread here. I just keep thinking they need to do more,’ Mecklenburg County Commissioner Pat Cotham said to WCNC. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5675573/Rare-eye-cancer-strikes-communities-North-Carolina-Alabama.html#ixzz5EDN7ZUDA
Nikkei Asian Review 29th April 2018 , Chairman to ask British premier May to take direct stake in Horizon power unit.
Hitachi will ask the U.K. government to take a direct stake in the company
that is to build and operate a nuclear power plant in Wales which is now
100% owned by the Japanese industrial company.
Hitachi expects the U.K. government will invite private British companies to participate and hopes
to reduce its own stake to less than 50%. Hitachi has recently concluded
that the risk of proceeding with the Anglesey project, at an estimated cost
of more than 3 trillion yen ($27.5 billion), is too great to manage on its
own as a private company.
It plans to withdraw from the project if restructuring negotiations fall through. Such a move would have significant
repercussions for nuclear power policy for both Britain and Japan. In
response to Hitachi’s concerns, the British government earlier this month
proposed that U.K. interests and Japanese public and private interests join
with Hitachi to move Anglesey forward. The three sets of shareholders would
each put 300 billion yen into the project, giving each a one-third stake.
According to sources, the company and the Japanese government see it as too
risky for Japanese interests to retain a majority shareholding and hope
that British interests will acquire a controlling stake.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Hitachi-seeks-talks-to-slash-shareholding-in-UK-nuclear-business
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1100320.shtml
The Beijing-based academy apologized for not restraining the behavior of its partner, claiming the ritual was “against the spirit of science” in a statement released on its official Sina Weibo account on Monday.
He Zhanjun and Cao Yuxiang, employees at the academy’s Shanghai institute of applied physics, were suspended on Monday after the institute found they were present at the ritual but did nothing to stop it.
The Thorium Molten Salt Reactor Nuclear Energy System is a project developed by the academy and the Gansu government at a total cost of 22 billion yuan ($3.48 billion).
Seven officials from Minqin county, Gansu Province are also being investigated by a local discipline watchdog after pictures of the ritual went viral.
The photos showed a Taoist monk holding religious items and reciting incantations as a lamb was slaughtered and yellow papers with Taoist spells were burned in front of him.
The heated debate, whether for or against, was valuable in attracting public attention to projects involving large amounts of public money, noted Zhao Chu, a Shanghai-based columnist and military affairs specialist.
“At a time when knowledge and sciences are advocated, we should also reserve some respect for historical and cultural heritage as well as local and religious customs,” Zhao wrote in an article posted on news site qq.com on Tuesday.
Analysis: Korea summit puts nuclear ball in Trump’s court, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/analysis-korea-summit-puts-nuclear-ball-in-trumps-court/2018/04/28/d53a2a66-4b43-11e8-8082-105a446d19b8_story.html?utm_term=.72844b0
SEOUL, South Korea — After a summit high on theatrics, emotional displays of Korean reconciliation and some important but familiar sounding plans to boost bilateral relations, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has safely returned to Pyongyang and South Korean President Moon Jae-in to his official residence in Seoul.
But is buyer’s remorse about to set in?
Despite its feel-good emphasis on relationship-building, the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade left a lot of question marks around the biggest and most contentious agenda item of them all: denuclearization. And that puts the ball squarely in the court of President Donald Trump, whose much anticipated sit-down with Kim is expected to be just weeks away.
For Moon and Kim, that was probably a feature, not a bug. They were both looking to make a show of Korean unity. But it could complicate matters for Trump, who has raised expectations of a deal with Kim to abandon his nuclear weapons much higher. In the long run, that could complicate things for everyone involved.
For sure, Friday’s daylong summit inside the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Koreas was a major step forward for diplomacy and could set a more solid foundation for future, more substantive talks. Starting off with a meeting that establishes goodwill and personal relationships at the highest level is a smart move, particularly when there is so much animosity in the air.
Moon also proved he really knows how to put on a show — and Kim revealed his skill at playing along for the cameras.
The two seemed almost like old pals, hugging and holding hands, sitting off to themselves on a footbridge in the Demilitarized Zone for a private “chat” that lasted nearly a half hour. As they exchanged their first handshake, Moon motioned for Kim to cross the concrete slab that marks the division of the nation — a hugely symbolic, albeit highly choreographed, moment.
Kim then went off script, according to South Korean officials, and motioned for Moon to take a step back and join him in the North. The seemingly impromptu dance seemed to encapsulate the reality — some might say absurdity — of their nation’s division along the 38th parallel, a decision made not by Koreans themselves but by a U.S. military trying to counter Soviet expansion after Japan’s defeat in World War II.
The summit follows meetings between Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, with South Korean presidents in 2007 and 2000. Each produced similar sounding vows to reduce tensions, replace the current armistice that ended the fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War and expand cross-border engagement.
One difference from Friday’s summit was the pledge by Kim and Moon to officially declare an end to the conflict this year.
They also announced a series of engagement measures. They will set up a liaison office in the North Korean city of Kaesong, which is near the border and is the site of a now shuttered industrial complex that had for years been the biggest joint project between the two countries. Moon will visit Pyongyang in the fall, high-level military talks will be held next month and reunions will be arranged for families separated by the war.
All of these measures are significant.
They underscore a real policy shift in the South away from the hard-line approach taken by its previous president, Park Geun-hye. Moon clearly is interested in pursuing a less volatile relationship with the North on several fronts and appears unwilling to put all of that on hold until Kim agrees to some sort of quick and complete denuclearization.
He also seemed to steer well away from human rights issues, which have been all but forgotten in the shadow of the North’s nuclear program. That’s a bit of a blow to Tokyo, which has been largely sidelined lately and was hoping that Moon would bring up the matter of what happened to Japanese abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and ‘80s.
More importantly, the softer approach, while helping many South Koreans breathe easier after the exceptionally high tensions of last year, puts Seoul and Washington on conflicting paths.
Trump welcomed the talks on Twitter.
But the messaging from the White House remains ambiguous. Trump has suggested Pyongyang must demonstrate a commitment to denuclearization before his policy of maximum pressure on the North can change.
Moon, on the other hand, seems willing for the most part to kick the nuclear issue down the road. He signed off on a pledge with Kim to seek the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula — a phrase that sounds good on the surface but has very little practical meaning without the inclusion of specific measures, time frames and even a definition of exactly what the word “denuclearization” means.
This is where the obligatory mention of the devil being in the details comes in.
The United States hasn’t kept nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula since the early 1990s. But for Pyongyang, denuclearization has generally been taken to mean the removal of South Korea from Washington’s “nuclear umbrella.” That would mean Washington must somehow assure Kim that his country is safe from a nuclear attack — and that’s a very complicated thing to do.
Maybe that will all become clear when Kim and Trump meet.
But so far, neither has offered any realistic, detailed proposals.
Trump could get Nobel Peace Prize nod for progress on North Korea denuclearization,
Straight talk from down-under more https://thebulletin.org/straight-talk-down-under11743, Bulletin of the Atomic scientists By Dan Drollette Jr, 26 APRIL 2018 During the darkest days of World War II, US Army general Joseph Stilwell earned the nickname “Vinegar Joe” for his brilliant, blunt, bracing, leadership style. Stilwell’s tough, honest assessment of a disastrous military campaign in Asia captured the imagination of the American public, and roused the White House to completely re-assess the direction it had been taking: “I claim we got a hell of a beating. We got run out of Burma and it is humiliating as hell. I think we ought to find out what caused it, fix it, then go back and retake it.”
Though she may not enjoy the comparison to a military man, the same tough-but-invigorating observations can be found in the pithy, concise, sharp (and sometimes humorous) words of legendary anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott, who recently gave an hour-long interview to the Bulletin by Skype from her home in Sydney. For nearly 60 years, this Australian physician has been taking on the powers-that-be, and fighting for a world without nuclear weapons.
And not holding anything back.
It’s not every day that one hears the words “missile envy” in a sober-sided analysis of the reasons for the nuclear arms race. Or learn that the solution to nuclear proliferation may be to give the collective bottoms of those in charge a good swat.
Or hear this observation about the current situation in Washington: “We’ve got a man in charge who I think has never read a book, and who knows nothing about global politics, or his own county’s politics. Who operates with his own kind of sordid intuition. And he’s putting people in every department committed to destroying that department… My dream solution is that people from Congress come in, pick him up, and lock him in a laundry [room] or something. ”
And now, you can enjoy a sneak peak of the full interview, for free, in advance of formal publication in the Bulletin’s bi-monthly magazine.
And find out what she said about you.
(Full disclosure: I was the interviewer, so I may be biased in her favor. But I’d still highly recommend reading what Caldicott has to say, no matter who conducted the interview.)
29 Jan. Thursday 7-8 p.m. Webinar – World’s Largest Nuclear Station in Port Hope, ON?
31st January – Challenging the War Machine – a DECLASSIFIED UK SUMMIT
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