nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Deadly and powerful lies minimise the true health effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster

liar“The entire cover-up of the effects of radiation hinges on Chernobyl. This was the most substantial release of radiation into the environment before Fukushima. Verified health effects will accurately depict the true hazard of man-made radiation released amidst populations. This is why Chernobyl effects have to be covered up by [the nuclear establishment by] any and every means”

highly-recommendedPowerful Lies – The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster And The Radioactive Effects On Human Health By Richard Wilcox PhD 2-22-13 Rense.com,“Even one atom of uranium undergoing alpha decay has the potential for creating a fatal cancer.” – Paul Zimmerman, A Primer in the Art of Deception (1; p. 53)

“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous, and its speaker a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James (2)

“It ain’t what we don’t know that causes all the trouble, it’s what we do know that ain’t so.” – a saying from Jim in Texas (Ibid.)

“The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.” – Molly Ivins (3)

The Trouble We Are In Continue reading

February 25, 2013 Posted by | radiation, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

STOP THE GREAT LAKES NUCLEAR DUMP FACT SHEET

highly-recommended 

Global Research, February 23, 2013
Region: 

by Stop The Great Lakes Nuclear Dump     

1.     Ontario Power Generation (OPG), a multi-billion dollar corporation wholly owned by the Province of Ontario, plans to build a nuclear waste dump at the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant site, Municipality of Kincardine, Ontario “located approximately 1 km inland from the shore of Lake Huron at the surface and more than 400 metres below the deepest near-site point of Lake Huron.”  http://tinyurl.com/arc34y2  , page 55  OPG owns all Ontario’s nuclear plants and all radioactive nuclear waste created.

2.     Low and intermediate level radioactive nuclear waste will be buried in the nuclear waste dump. Intermediate level nuclear wastes are highly radioactive and many remain toxic for over 100,000 years.  Some are as dangerous as nuclear spent fuel.  No scientist or geologist can provide a 100,000 year guarantee that this nuclear waste dump will not leak. Continue reading

February 25, 2013 Posted by | Canada, environment, Reference | Leave a comment

At Hanford – 200 square miles of radioactively polluted groundwater

Hanford-waste-tanksMillions of dollars and labor hours are being spent moving nuclear waste from bad tanks into good tanks. Then millions more will be spent on vitrification. But single-shell or double shell, peanut butter or glass, it will still be nuclear waste. There is no getting rid of it. There is only finding more convenient, less uncomfortable ways to deal. .

At The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, A Steady Drip Of Toxic Trouble by  Feb 24, 2013   Eric Nusbaum tours the largest environmental cleanup operation the United States government has ever undertaken. “……There are 200 square miles of contaminated groundwater under Hanford. Every day that water moves closer to the Columbia River. Not coincidentally, there are also 177 massive storage tanks on the site, each built to hold between 55,000 and more than 100,000 gallons of nuclear waste.

Our first stop was at one of these tanks, which, even in the middle distance, was ominous and metallic and looked sort of like a giant industrial-sized swimming pool. Continue reading

February 25, 2013 Posted by | Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

How Radiation Affects Life

Powerful Lies – The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster And The Radioactive Effects On Human Health By Richard Wilcox PhD 2-22-13 Rense.com,

 

“…….The nuclear establishment would prefer the general public believe that nuclear radiation is essentially nothing to be concerned with. However, their own science and words belie the rhetoric. The Cult of Nuclearists have billions of dollars to devote to propaganda whereas the Nuclear Truth Tellers (NTTers) are marginalized by a whole host of economic and political tricks. One of the trump cards that the Nuclearists hold is that understanding the science of radiation effects when presented in an intentionally confusing way to mislead is beyond the capabilities of the average person to grasp, and that they have no other choice than to trust the experts. Fortunately there is a large body of literature that debunks the nuclear industry’s powerful lies. Continue reading

February 25, 2013 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

New 3D mammography increases risks of breast cancer

New 3-D Mammography is Basically a CT Scan for Breasts

The procedures give women twice as much radiation as a standard mammogram

New 3D Mammography Significantly Increases Radiation Exposure, and Your Risk of Radiation-Induced Cancer Mercola.com February 19, 2013 By Dr. Mercola

Breast cancer is big business, and mammography is one of its primary profit centers. This is why the industry is fighting tooth and nail to keep it, by downplaying or outright ignoring its significant risks.

In the US, women are still urged to get an annual mammogram starting at the age of 40, completely ignoring the updated guidelines set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in 2009.

Unfortunately, many women are completely unaware that the science simply does not back up the use of routine mammograms as a means to prevent breast cancer death.

As was revealed in a 2011 meta-analysis by the Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews, mammography breast cancer screening led to 30 percent overdiagnosis and overtreatment, which equates to an absolute risk increase of 0.5 percent.

There’s also the risk of getting a false negative, meaning that a life-threatening cancer is missed. Continue reading

February 24, 2013 Posted by | health, Reference, USA, women | Leave a comment

Radiation situation at Fukushima is unimaginably bad

FUKUSHIMA-2013No workers were visible around the No. 3 reactor building. An unmanned crane was removing debris on the roof.


It is hazardous to human health to work in the reactor building where
radiation levels range from 20 to 100 millisieverts per hour.

water-radiationThe amount of radioactive water stored in tanks and other facilities
rose to 230,000 tons this month, up from 10,000 tons in July 2011.

In addition, an estimated 100,000 tons of water have accumulated in
the basements of buildings.

Decommissioning will not be completed for the next 30 to 40 years

High radiation bars decommissioning of Fukushima plant Asahi highly-recommendedShimbun,
February 21, 2013
By HISASHI HATTORI/ Senior Staff Writer
Preparations for the mammoth task of decommissioning crippled reactors
at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are being stymied by
continued high levels of radiation from the triple meltdowns there two
years ago.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the plant, has had to install
more tanks to store radioactive water, which continues to swell by
several hundreds of tons daily.
water tanks Fukushma
Asahi Shimbun reporters entered the No. 4 reactor building on Feb. 20,
accompanied by inspectors from the secretariat of the Nuclear
Regulation Authority, to assess the situation….. Continue reading

February 22, 2013 Posted by | Fukushima 2013, Japan, radiation, Reference | 1 Comment

Germany’s nuclear waste nightmare- the Gorleben salt mines

highly-recommendedAbyss of Uncertainty: Germany’s Homemade Nuclear Waste Disaster Spiegal online, By Michael Fröhlingsdorf, Udo Ludwig and Alfred Weinzier, 21 Feb 13,  Some 126,000 barrels of nuclear waste have been dumped in the Asse II salt mine over the last 50 years. German politicians are pushing for a law promising their removal. But the safety, technical and financial hurdles are enormous, and experts warn that removal is more dangerous than leaving them put……

wastes-Gorleben-salt-mine

Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) has been responsible for Asse since 2009. This is an agency that was originally founded to monitor things such as the safety of workers in nuclear research facilities. In early 2010, the federal government ordered the BfS to assess whether the radioactive waste in the Asse mine can be retrieved. The agency estimated that it would take three years to prepare the project. Most recently, the BfS said it would need 10 years for the fact-finding phase alone.

The BfS still has no detailed concept for the retrieval, no timetable, no script that maps out the technical procedures. It’s essentially a flight by the seat of the pants, and problems are encountered for which no solutions have been found anywhere in the world…. Continue reading

February 22, 2013 Posted by | Germany, Reference, wastes | 1 Comment

Low level radiation and bone cancer

radiation-warningStudy: Low radiation levels in atomic bomb survivors could lead to soft-tissue sarcomahttp://www.healio.com/orthopedics/oncology/news/online/%7BF99DF823-6823-4E35-B0A7-53720A8B6195%7D/Study-Low-radiation-levels-in-atomic-bomb-survivors-could-lead-to-soft-tissue-sarcoma Samartzis D. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2013.  February 15, 2013 New results from the prospective, longitudinal Life Span Study of Japanese atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki show that low levels of exposure to ionizing radiation may result in soft-tissue sarcoma, and 1 Gy doses nearly doubled the survivors’ sarcoma risk.

“Our study attempts to raise awareness that even moderate levels of ionizing radiation exposure—from medical imaging, radiation therapy, and environmental exposure—can lead to the development of soft-tissue sarcomas,” orthopedic surgeon Dino Samartzis, DSc, MSc, and colleagues wrote in the study.Among 80,180 survivors they analyzed, researchers identified 104 soft-tissue sarcomas, with 4.1 cases observed every 100,000 person-years. The survivors were analyzed against a control group with <0.005 Gy average radiation exposure. Most survivors with sarcoma were diagnosed with leiomyosarcomas (37 cases) or malignant fibrous histiocytomas (11 cases).

The survivors were aged 26.8 years, mean, at the time of the bombings and were diagnosed at age 63.6 years mean, with the majority of cases seen in the uterus or stomach. Though 27 sarcoma cases were confirmed at autopsy and two cases by death certificate, the difference in radiation exposure for these individuals and those diagnosed while still living were not significant.

February 16, 2013 Posted by | health, Japan, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

US service personnel affected by Fukushima radiation – but now “on their own”

Fukushima Rescue Mission Lasting Legacy: Radioactive Contamination of Americans, New Jersey News, 31 JANUARY 2013 BY ROGER WITHERSPOON
The Department of Defense has decided to walk away from an unprecedented medical registry of nearly 70,000 American service members, civilian workers, and their families caught in the radioactive clouds blowing from the destroyed nuclear power plants at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan.

The decision to cease updating the registry means there will be no way to determine if patterns of health problems emerge among the members of the Marines, Army, Air Force, Corps of Engineers, and Navy stationed at 63 installations in Japan with their families. In addition, it leaves thousands of sailors and Marines in the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group 7 on their own when it comes to determining if any of them are developing problems caused by radiation exposure. Continue reading

February 16, 2013 Posted by | health, radiation, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

They’re untested, they’re just as expensive – small nuclear reactors

Nuclear energy: Flexible fission, Ft.com,  By Sylvia Pfeifer  14 Feb 13,  At the Baltic Shipyard in St Petersburg squats the hull of the Akademik Lomonosov. It is no ordinary ship. Once it is finished in three years’ time, it will be Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant.Two reactors, similar to those used in Russia’s nuclear-powered ice breakers, will each provide 35 megawatts of power. The floating power plant is one of several planned by the Kremlin to be anchored near towns or industrial sites……

Critics are wary, warning that floating atomic power stations would make an ideal terrorist target and be vulnerable to stormy weather and earthquakes. Others point out that even if smaller reactors had less fuel and were partly buried underground, there would be an increasing number of small facilities dotted across emerging markets, sometimes in places that lack the infrastructure to cope with emergencies….

Gates and Branson

multiple challenges remain.

There are questions over whether the regulatory regime and siting criteria should be relaxed for these reactors? There are also suggestions the plants could be run with fewer staff, helping to cut the costs even further.

Dame Sue Ion, a nuclear fuel expert and fellow at the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering, says the first small modular reactors will, realistically, be sited on existing nuclear-licensed sites.

“It may be that the physical characteristics make it safer but you would still have to have all the safety arrangements and emergency planning in place,” she adds.

“You still have the same safety, proliferation and accident concerns,” says Doug Parr, chief scientist and policy director at campaign group Greenpeace UK. “You need capacity and supportive infrastructure to respond if there is an emergency.”

Then there is the issue of public acceptance. “To expect the general public to just accept them because they are small is pushing the point. It does not seem obvious to me,” Kevin Hesketh, senior fellow at Britain’s National Nuclear Laboratory,  told an industry conference last month…….. “Licensing and public acceptance – both have to be addressed. ..

The biggest challenge facing the model is simply that no one has done it. Nuclear also has a bad record on cost. At the same time, competition from renewables, which are becoming cheaper, is growing.

Dominic Holt, associate director, nuclear advisory, at KPMG, says “none of the positives have been tested yet”. Claims of cost and programme certainty are still unproven. Analysis of a range of available data show that the “levelised cost” – per MW/hour – of SMRs is still similar to that of a large reactor…

February 15, 2013 Posted by | Reference, technology | Leave a comment

Stories and pictures of abandoned nuclear power plants

see-this.wayiPctures: Gone Fission: 11 Unfinished Nuclear Power Plants http://weburbanist.com/2013/02/10/gone-fission-11-unfinished-nuclear-power-plants/ These 11 unfinished, abandoned, canceled, mothballed and/or suspended nuclear power plants will, for better or worse, never know the warmth of split atoms.

Marble-hill-abandoned-nuke- Lemoniz Nuclear Power Plant, Spain Construction of the Lemóniz Nuclear Power Plant, located on the Bay of Biscay on Spain’s northern coast, began in the mid-1970s but was dogged from its inception by violent opposition from ETA, the terrorist organization dedicated to the independence of Spain’s Basque country. The group managed to smuggle bombs into the facility on several occasions in 1978 and 1979 resulting in a number of fatalities and delaying the plant’s construction……

Marble Hill Nuclear Power Station, Indiana, USA  (at left) From 1977 to 1984, Public Service Company of Indiana (PSI) spent approximately $2.5 billion to build the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Station near Hanover, Indiana, and by the time the financial tap ran dry it was only half-finished! The political and environmental landscape had changed quite a bit over those 7 years with the biggest speed bump being the Three Mile Island crisis in 1979. With costs spiraling out of control and the state government reluctant to provide funding, PSI abandoned the project and auctioned off most of the salvageable material for a mere pittance.

Equipment and parts from the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Station continued to be sold off in the early to mid-1990s but by the year 2000 everything of value had been sold. Since 2008, slow and steady demolition under the auspices of MCM Management Corp. has seen first the fuel-handling building and then the twin reactor containment buildings gradually reduced to mounds of scrap. The bright side, if any, is that none of the demolished material is radioactive.

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, Philippines Continue reading

February 11, 2013 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Reference | 1 Comment

USA’s Energy Dept plan to sell nuclear wastes into consumer products

radioactve-crockeryThis approach ignores the current scientific consensus that there is
NO safe level of radiation exposure.

the fundamental safety question is whether any additional radiation
exposure is safe in any meaningful sense.
This approach also fails to deal with the reality that once the
department has released radioactive materials for commercial use, it
loses almost all control over how and where they’re used, and in what
concentrations.

Multimillion Dollar Bonanza: Nuclear Waste from US Weapons Industry To
Be Sold for Profit? By William Boardman Global Research, February 05,
2013
An Energy Department plan to allow the
recycling of scrap metals emitting very low levels of radiation is
drawing opposition because of concerns about potential health hazards.
But the upside for U.S. atomic bomb-makers is that waste now requiring
costly storage could be sold for a profit.

In something of a stealth maneuver during the 2012 holiday season, the
U.S. Department of Energy set about to give every American a little
more radiation exposure, and for some a lot, by allowing manufacturers
to use radioactive metals in their consumer products – such as
zippers, spoons, jewelry, belt buckles, toys, pots, pans, furnishings,
bicycles, jungle gyms, medical implants, or any other metal or
partly-metal product. Continue reading

February 8, 2013 Posted by | Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

No One in Charge of Risk – USA’s plan to put nuclear waste materials into consumer “goods”

radiation-warning“Nothing has changed since 2000 that would justify lifting its current
ban. Rather, just the opposite: since then the National Academy of
Sciences has acknowledged that there is no safe level of radiation
exposure, and we’ve learned that women are even more vulnerable to
radiation than men (while children have long been known to be more
vulnerable than adults).”

NIRS and other advocacy organizations are currently engaged in aFlag-USA
campaign to submit comments before the Feb. 11 deadline to ask the
Energy Department to withdraw this proposal.

radioactve-crockeryMultimillion Dollar Bonanza: Nuclear Waste from US Weapons Industry To
Be Sold for Profit? By William Boardman Global Research, February 05,
2013
Consortiumnews 4 February 2013 “……No One in Charge of Risk

There is no federal agency with responsibility for such oversight or
enforcement [of radioactive materials in consumer products] . This regulatory vacuum was illuminated by the discovery
in 2009 of thousands of contaminated consumer products from China,
Brazil, France, Sweden and other countries, as reported by Mother
Nature Network:

“The risk of radiation poisoning is the furthest thing from our minds
as we shop for everyday items like handbags, furniture, buttons, chain
link fences and cheese graters. Unfortunately, it turns out that our
trust is misplaced thanks to sketchy government oversight of recycled
materials.

“The discovery of a radioactive cheese grater led to an investigation
that found thousands of additional consumer products to be
contaminated. The source is recycled metals tainted with Cobalt-60, a
radioactive isotope that can cause cancer with prolonged exposure.” Continue reading

February 8, 2013 Posted by | radiation, Reference, wastes | Leave a comment

Wind energy to be stored in USA’s largest power storage system

Duke Energy completes North America’s largest energy storage system,
Renewable Energy Magazine Robin WhitlockThursday, 07 February 2013
The 36MW energy storage system will store power generated by the
nearby Notrees wind farm and became fully operational in December

The company announced plans to install large-scale energy storage
systems to service its wind farm at Notrees in late 2009, matching a
$22 million grant from the US Department of Energy (DOE).

As well as helping to meet power demand the system will also help to stabilize the frequency of electricity travelling through the power grid. DukeEnergy is currently working closely with the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) which will indicate whether the system shoulddispatch stored energy to increase frequency or absorb energy to decrease it.  Performance data will be collected from the battery storage system by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to help assess the broader potential for deployment of storage solutions throughout the sector. Continue reading

February 8, 2013 Posted by | energy storage, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Plutonium in ocean near Fukushima

PuStudy: Fukushima plutonium in Pacific Ocean from ‘liquid direct releases’? http://enenews.com/study-plutonium-could-be-pacific-ocean-liquid-direct-releases-fukushima
Title: Should we measure plutonium concentrations in marine sediments near Fukushima?
Source: Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry
Author: R. Periáñez, Kyung-Suk Suh, Byung-Il Min
Date: February 2013

Excerpt

Much less information is available in the case of plutonium isotopes. Trace amounts of Pu isotopes originating from the accident have been identified in soil samples. While it is known that atmospheric releases of Pu were several orders of magnitude lower than that from Chernobyl accident, no information on Pu isotopes in the liquid direct releases to the sea is available. Pu isotopes have been measured in marine sediments outside a 30 km radius circle around Fukushima. Results do not show any contamination due to the accident. Instead Pu isotopes here detected are attributed to global fallout.

However, the situation inside the 30 km zone remains unknown. It could be possible that Pu isotopes entered this coastal area from the direct release of contaminated water in early April 2011. The objective for this work consists of showing, by means of numerical modelling, that, if Pu contamination originating from the accident would be present in sediments of the close area to Fukushima, contamination would not reach areas far from the plant. Contamination would be restricted to the close area because of the low mobility of Pu. Thus, it would not be detected if samples are not collected there. Consequently, further studies on the determination of Pu isotopes in seawater and sediments within the 30 km zone would be required.


Note the objective: “The objective for this work consists of showing […] that, […] Pu contamination […] would not reach areas far from the plant.”

See more from the study here

February 7, 2013 Posted by | Fukushima 2013, Japan, oceans, Reference | Leave a comment