The facts: Fukushima today
The herculean cleanup of Fukushima Prefecture involves 105 cities, towns, and villages. Unlike Chernobyl where authorities declared a 1,000 square mile no-habitation zone and resettlement of 350,000 people, thus allowing radiation to dissipate over decades-to-centuries, Japan is attempting to remake Fukushima back into its old self. But, radioactive material collected in millions of black bags is a vexing problem for the ages.
Adding to the lingering problem of transporting and storing radioactive waste, over time, the bags will likely deteriorate and need to be replaced with fresh bags. It is an endless cycle.
Handling radioactive waste in Japan may become generational employment, similar to how second and third generation workers eventually completed the grand cathedrals of Europe, like Notre Dame de Paris with a cornerstone laid in 1163 resulting in major construction completed circa 1250.
Fukushima Today, Dissident Voice by Robert Hunziker / December 29th, 2015 Throughout the world, the name Fukushima has become synonymous with nuclear disaster and running for the hills. Yet, Fukushima may be one of the least understood disasters in modern times, as nobody knows how to fix either the problem nor the true dimension of the damage. Thus, Fukushima is in uncharted territory, a total nuclear meltdown that dances to its own rhythm. Similar to an overly concerned parent, TEPCO merely monitors but makes big mistakes along the way.
Over time, bits and pieces of information about Fukushima Prefecture come to surface. For example, Arkadiusz Podniesinski, the noted documentary photographer of Chernobyl, recently visited Fukushima. His photos and commentary depict a scenario of ruination and anxiety, a sense of hopelessness for the future.
Ominously, the broken down Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant looms in the background of everybody’s life, like the seemingly indestructible iconic image of destruction itself, Godzilla with its signature “atomic breath.”
Podniesinski’s commentary clearly identifies the blame for the nuclear accident, namely:………
Within Fukushima, Orange Zones are designated as less contaminated but still uninhabitable because radiation levels run 20-50 mSv/y, but decontamination work is underway. Residents are allowed to visit homes for short duration only during the daytime. However, as it happens, very few people are seen. Most of the former residents do not want to go back and the wooden houses in many of the towns and villages are severely dilapidated.
The lowest radiation areas are designated the Green Zone (< 20 mSv/y), where decontamination work is complete and evacuation orders are to be lifted.
Enormous black sealed bags filled with radioactive soil and all kinds of sizzling waste are stacked across the countryside, as approximately 20,000 workers thoroughly cleanse soil, rooftops, streets, and gutters. House-by-house, workers scrub rooftops and walls by hand.
The radioactive-contained black bags are trucked outside of towns to the far outskirts where thousands upon thousands upon thousands of big black bags are stacked. An aerial view of these temporary storage sites appears like gigantic quilts of rectangular shapes neatly, geometrically spread across the landscape for as far as the eye can see. The government claims the radioactive-contained black bags will be gone from the countryside within 30 years, but where to?………
The herculean cleanup of Fukushima Prefecture involves 105 cities, towns, and villages. Unlike Chernobyl where authorities declared a 1,000 square mile no-habitation zone and resettlement of 350,000 people, thus allowing radiation to dissipate over decades-to-centuries, Japan is attempting to remake Fukushima back into its old self. But, radioactive material collected in millions of black bags is a vexing problem for the ages.
In that regard, Japanese authorities have commissioned construction of a massive landfill just outside of the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, expected to contain 16-to-22 million bags of debris, enough to fill 15 baseball stadiums. Unfortunately, bags filled with radioactivity are more than a mere headache; they are more like a severe migraine. A truck can carry 6-8 of the huge bags at a time, and with so many, it could take decades to move the material. Adding to the lingering problem of transporting and storing radioactive waste, over time, the bags will likely deteriorate and need to be replaced with fresh bags. It is an endless cycle.
Handling radioactive waste in Japan may become generational employment, similar to how second and third generation workers eventually completed the grand cathedrals of Europe, like Notre Dame de Paris with a cornerstone laid in 1163 resulting in major construction completed circa 1250. http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/12/fukushima-today/
“Radiation Sensors in Major U.S. Cities Turned Off By EPA
BEFORE IT’S NEWS, Dec 19 to Dec 26, 2015″ By Bob Nichols”………“Radiation Sensors in Major U.S. Cities Turned Off By EPA”: Billings, Montana on Oct 16, 2015 was reading a Combined Beta and Gamma Rad of 1,227 Beta and 703 Gamma for a Combined reading of 1,930CPM. The Beta Rad unit stopped publicly reporting, then four (4) days later on Oct 20, 2015 at 12:37:25 the unit came to life again. It’s… ahh, personality had changed, though. The new Beta and Gamma reading was 926 Beta and 401 Gamma. The new Combined radiation number on Oct 20 was 1,227 CPM Combined. The Combined reading was 603 CPM less than it was 4 days before. There was no Note or Comment on the missing four days. It was a 4 Day Rad Gap and an unexplained disappearance of 603CPM. The disappearing CPM was comprised of 302 CPM Gamma and 301 CPM Beta. In the next 4 Hours the Combined CPM eroded another 550 CPM for a total CPM Loss of 1,153 CPM. Billings, Montana today is barely in the List of cities above 1000 CPM. Billings is now 23rd on the list and reads 1,101 CPM. The missing Radiation remains “Unaccounted For.” Presumably it [the radiation] did not go to the Moon; therefore, it is on Earth somewhere now. (So, they apparently tried to “rig” the system and failed, so instead turned it all off. Just my hunch… – CP)USA’s new Protective Action Guidelines (PAG) designed to protect the nuclear industry
New Protection Action Guidelines Will Leave You Chilled to the Bone, Nuclear World, Marti LeRoux 26 Dec 15, “………..On April 15th, 2013 a request for public comment regarding the new Protective Action Guidelines or PAGs was published in the Federal Register while at the same time, the EPA made the new PAGs effective immediately. Obviously, the request for public comment was just a dog and pony show designed to give the illusion of presenting the new PAGs in a public forum.
The new PAGs released under the Obama administration puts our health at risk due to its utter lack of concern regarding skyrocketing cancer rates, genetic mutations, miscarriages, infertility and other radiation induced health issues that will manifest as a direct result of these new PAGs. (Ironically, the majority of these health issues can easily be blamed on the victim’s poor eating habits, radiophobia, “genetic predisposition” and a host of other things, but it’s doubtful the word “nuclear radiation” will never be uttered.)
The vague and misleading language deliberately engineered to leave you vulnerable and unprotected will also leave you chilled to the bone once you comprehend the full impact of just how inept the new PAGs are. The root problem lies in the unconcealed fact that these new PAGs “allow massive radiation exposures without any protective actions being recommended to limit them.”
To add insult to injury, the new PAGs bury the new changes in footnotes. These changes are not included in the document itself, only citations referencing other reports. Not one word is mentioned as to how the new PAGs compare to previously established protections in the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
According to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the new Protective Action Guides would disturbingly raise allowed levels of radiation in food, water, air, and the environment. PEER is a national organization of local, state, and federal employees who were justifiably alarmed over internal EPA emails regarding new PAG standards. PEER claims these new PAGs will cause a “nearly 1000-fold increase for exposure to strontium-90, a 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for exposure to iodine-131; and an almost 25,000 rise for exposure to radioactive nickel-63″ in drinking water.
The EPA is turning its back on its responsibility, as previous limitations assured that we would not be exposed to “more than 5 rem over 50 years.”
These new PAGs may be the final nail in the coffin if they are not immediately repealed and the older, more responsible PAGs are reestablished.
Suspiciously, since 2011 (coincidentally the same year Fukushima started spewing its unrelenting radioactive poison all over the world) the EPA has been planning on raising limits. These planning sessions took place behind closed doors due to a loophole, since PAGs are considered “guidance” and therefore do not require public input as proposed new regulations would. However, the problem arises as these new “permissible levels” are treated as if they carry the same weight as a regulation would. It’s scary business indeed, as internal documents obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show evidence that the new “permissible levels” would allow a single glass of drinking water to contain, “the equivalent of a lifetime’s permissible exposure.”
These new PAGs are hard to swallow, as they grant “on-site authorities” a great degree of latitude in ignoring previously established limits. They also leave the EPA unaccountable. What is most concerning, is that the term “on-site authorities” is very vague and misleading. I believe it is our duty to question who qualifies as an “on-site authority.” The first thing that pops into my mind is some corporate flunky with a clip board and a checklist or a lab coat clad EPA employee well versed in all the loopholes contained within the new PAGs. Anyway you slice it, these new PAGs spell disaster for the US population as a whole. http://www.nuclearworld.net/pag/
Christmas joy for the weapons makers, especially in USA
US foreign arms deals up by nearly $13 billion December 27, 2015 Nicholas Fandos The United States controls just over 50 per cent of the world’s weapons markets, Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-foreign-arms-deals-up-by-nearly-13-billion-20151226-glv3sx.html#ixzz3vU4qe9zF Nicholas Fandos, 27 Dedc 15 . Washington: Foreign arms sales by the United States jumped by almost $US10 billion ($13 billion) in 2014, about 35 per cent, even as the global weapons market remained flat and competition among suppliers increased, a new congressional study has found.
American weapons receipts rose to $US36.2 billion in 2014 from $US26.7 billion the year before, bolstered by multibillion-dollar agreements with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Those deals and others ensured that the United States remained the single largest provider of arms around the world last year, controlling just over 50 per cent of the market.
Russia followed the US as the top weapons supplier, completing $US10.2 billion in sales, compared with $US10.3 billion in 2013. Sweden was third, with roughly $US5.5 billion in sales, followed by France with $US4.4 billion and China with $US2.2 billion.
South Korea, a key US ally, was the world’s top weapons buyer in 2014, completing $US7.8 billion in contracts. It has faced continued tensions with neighbouring North Korea in recent years over the North’s nuclear weapons program and other provocations. The bulk of South Korea’s purchases were made with the United States, worth more than $US7 billion, and included transport helicopters and related support, as well as advanced unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles.
Brazil, another developing nation building its military force, was third with $US6.5 billion worth of purchase agreements, primarily for Swedish aircraft.
The report to Congress found that total global arms sales rose slightly in 2014 to $US71.8 billion, from $US70.1 billion in 2013. Despite that increase, the report concluded that “the international arms market is not likely growing over all” because of “the weakened state of the global economy”.
It was the second successive year that global sales remained steady, suggesting that the market has begun to level off after several years of extreme fluctuation.
Read more:
ENE News summarises the most shocking points in India’s scandalous nuclear history
“Nuclear Nightmare”: Children with mutations “on almost every street” — Deformed heads, lopsided bodies, “toad skin”, eyelids turned inside out — School built using radioactive waste “part of community outreach project” — Nuclear Expert: “Exceptionally worrying, no one should’ve been living anywhere near” (VIDEO)http://enenews.com/nuclear-nightmare-village-birth-defects-deformed-heads-lopsided-bodies-toad-skin-eyelids-turned-inside-school-built-radioactive-waste-children-mutations-almost-every-street-video?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29Excerpts from report on Huffington Post, Dec 14, 2015 (emphasis added):
- How India’s Nuclear Industry Created A River Of Death…
- Researchers found that the Subarnarekha river and areas around Jadugoda, India, werepoisoned from the emissions of a nearby secret nuclear factory…
- [T]he Center for Public Integrity has reviewed hundreds of pages of personal testimony and clinical reports in the case that present a disturbing scenario…
- Doctors and health workers, as well as international radiation experts, say that nuclear chiefs have repeatedly suppressed or rebuffed their warnings… The case files include epidemiological and medical surveys warning of a high incidence of infertility, birth defects and congenital illnesses…
- [Dipak Ghosh, a respected Indian physicist and dean of the Faculty of Science at Jadavpur University, with his] team collected samples from the river and from adjacent wells, seven years ago, he was alarmed by the results… “It was potentially catastrophic,” Ghosh said in a recent interview. Millions of people along the waterway were potentially exposed…
- Many said their children were born with partially formed skulls, blood disorders,missing eyes or toes, fused fingers or brittle limbs…
- Analyzing a representative sample of people between 4 and 60 years old living within a mile and a half of the third tailing dam, the researchers hired by [Uranium Corporation of India Limited] concluded that the residents were “affected by radiation.”… symptoms included swollen joints, spleens and livers, and coughing up blood. The UCIL report also described “osteoporosis, defective limbs, and habitual abortion,” as well as many complaints of “missed menstrual cycle” and a cluster of cancer cases…
- [A]n American diplomat [warned that] “lax safety measures … are exposing local tribal communities to radiation contamination.” In a confidential cable to Washington, Henry V. Jardine, a career foreign service officer and former Army captain, expressed blunt dismay… In a new cable on June 6, 2008… Jardine told Washington that still another epidemiological study had concluded “indigenous groups … living close to the mines reportedly suffer high-rates of cancer, physical deformities, blindness, brain damage and other ailments.” UCIL “refuses to acknowledge these issues,” he noted. Jardine wrapped up: “Post contacts, citing independent research, say that it is difficult to point out any reason other than radiation…”
- Surendra Gadekar, a nuclear physicist, began taking soil, water and air samples… Their study was published in 2004… It found radiation levels inside the villages around the tailing ponds were almost 60 times the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission “safe level.”… [They] also documented the existence in neighboring populations of children withmalformed torsos and deformed heads and the wrong number of fingers, as well as a cluster of cases where infants’ bodies grew at different rates, giving them alopsided gait. Some had hyperkeratosis, a condition known as “toad skin”…
- In late 2000, [Hiroaki Koide, a nuclear engineer who teaches at the Research Reactor Institute at Kyoto University] took soil and water samples… “These figures wereexceptionally worrying,” Koide said. “No one should have been living anywhere near“… Koide confirmed that uranium rock and finely ground mine tailings had been used as ballast for road leveling and house building and to construct a local school and clinic… [A] senior UCIL official… confirmed these construction projects using irradiated materials had gone ahead as “part of a community outreach project.”
Toronto Star, Sep 15, 2014: India’s nuclear nightmare: The village of birth defects… Neither Alowati nor Duniya can walk, nor can they hold anything; their limbs dangle lifelessly… Their knees and elbows are rubbed raw from crawling… They need help to bathe and use the toilet. Children with birth deformities like Alowati and Duniya live on almost every street in Jadugora… When people began to notice that young women were having miscarriages, witches and spirits were blamed… But people had lesions, children were born with deformities, hair loss was common. Cows couldn’t give birth, hens laid fewer eggs, fish had skin diseases… [L]ocal media reports… included shocking pictures of children who were sick or deformed… A 2007 report by the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development, a non-profit, found a far greater incidence of congenital deformity, sterility and cancer… Mohammad is 13 but looks 7. Like Alowati and Duniya, he drags himself forward with his elbows… A few huts away [a child’s] eyelids are turned inside out…
Vulnerability of India’s nuclear materials to theft
India’s nuclear explosive materials are vulnerable to theft, U.S. officials and experts say. But Washington has chosen not to press for tougher security while its trade with India is booming, Center For Public Integrity, By Adrian Levy
R. Jeffrey Smith 17 Dec 15 “…….. officials here and outside India depict as serious shortcomings in the country’s nuclear guard force, tasked with defending one of the world’s largest stockpiles of fissile material and nuclear explosives.
An estimated 90 to 110 Indian nuclear bombs are stored in six or so government-run sites patrolled by the same security force, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an independent think tank, and Indian officials. Within the next two decades, as many as 57 reactors could also be operating under the force’s protection, as well as four plants where spent nuclear fuel is dissolved in chemicals to separate out plutonium to make new fuel or be used in nuclear bombs.
The sites are spread out over vast distances: from the stony foothills of the Himalayas in the north down to the red earth of the tropical south. Shuttling hundreds of miles in between will be occasional convoys of lightly-protected trucks laden with explosive and fissile materials — including plutonium and enriched uranium — that could be used in civilian and military reactors or to spark a nuclear blast.
The Kalpakkam shooting as a result alarmed Indian and Western officials who question whether this country — which is surrounded by unstable neighbors and has a history of civil tumult — has taken adequate precautions to safeguard its sensitive facilities and keep the building blocks of a devastating nuclear bomb from being stolen by insiders with grievances, ill motives, or in the worst case, connections to terrorists.
Although experts say they regard the issue as urgent, Washington is not pressing India for quick reforms. The Obama administration is instead trying to avoid any dispute that might interrupt a planned expansion of U.S. military sales to Delhi, several senior U.S. officials said in interviews.
The experts’ concerns are based in part on a series of documented nuclear security lapses in the past two decades, in addition to the shooting:
- Several kilograms of what authorities described as semi-processed uranium were stolen by a criminal gang, allegedly with Pakistani links, from a state mine in Meghalya, in northeastern India, in 1994. Four years later, a federal politician was arrested near the West Bengal border with 100 kilograms of uranium from India’s Jadugoda mining complex that he was allegedly attempting to sell to Pakistani sympathizers associated with the same gang. A police dossier seen by the Center states that ten more people connected with smuggling were arrested two years after this, in operations that recovered 57 pounds of stolen uranium.
- In 2008, another criminal gang was caught attempting to smuggle low-grade uranium, capable of being used in a primitive radiation-dispersal device, from one of India’s state-owned mines across the border to Nepal. The same year another group was caught moving an illicit stock of uranium over the border to Bangladesh, the gang having been assisted by the son of an employee at India’s Atomic Minerals Division, which supervises uranium mining and processing.
- In 2009, a nuclear reactor employee in southwest India deliberately poisoned dozens of his colleagues with a radioactive isotope, taking advantage of numerous gaps in plant security, according to an internal government report seen by the Center.
- And in 2013, leftist guerillas in northeast India illegally obtained uranium ore from a government-run milling complex in northeast India and strapped it to high explosives to make a crude bomb before being caught by police, according to an inspector involved in the case. Continue reading
Fukushima Prefecture’s problem of disposal of radioactive trash
Behind the Scenes / Waste disposal site a dilemma for Fukushima, Japan Times 21 Dec 15 By Yuki Inamura and Keita Aimoto / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writes
On Dec. 4, the Fukushima prefectural government notified the national government that it would accept a proposal to dispose of the radioactive designated waste [definition below page] stored in the prefecture, where a catastrophic accident struck Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant due to the 2011 earthquake. The Fukushima prefectural government’s recent decision signifies a step forward in efforts to rehabilitate the nuclear disaster-hit prefecture. However, the latest move poses a dilemma: In some neighboring prefectures that are home to a large amount of such designated waste, there are persistent calls for their waste to be concentrated in Fukushima Prefecture.
The government’s proposal would entail the use of the Fukushima Eco-tech Clean Center, an existing private-sector disposal plant in the town of Tomioka, to bury a portion of the designated waste stored in the prefecture. The waste subject to this disposal will consist of garbage and other waste material whose radiation levels stand at 100,000 becquerels or less per kilogram.
Two years ago, the national government formally presented the proposal to the Fukushima prefectural government. This coincided with the national government’s move to unveil another plan aimed at building an interim storage facility in the prefecture. This facility would be used to store, for extended periods, garbage whose radioactive levels exceed 100,000 becquerels per kilogram as well as a massive amount of contaminated soil. There has been a constant increase in the amount of contaminated soil as a result of ongoing decontamination work. The interim storage facility is currently being built. Continue reading
Excavation planned – removal of NUMEC nuclear waste dump in Parks Township
NUMEC nuclear waste dump in Parks Township will be excavated http://triblive.com/neighborhoods/yourallekiskivalley/yourallekiskivalleymore/9678472-74/nuclear-corps-materials#axzz3v71kOvgB
According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Special Nuclear Material is only “mildly radioactive” but can include fissile material — uranium-233, uranium-235 and plutonium-239 — that, in concentrated form, can be the primary ingredients of nuclear explosives.
By Mary Ann Thomas, Dec. 22, 2015 After finding more complex radioactive contamination than expected in 2011 at the nuclear waste dump in Parks Township, the Army Corps of Engineers announced Tuesday it will stay the course for a $350 million project to dig up and remove 36,000 tons of waste.The Corps shut down the cleanup four years ago after unearthing more highly radioactive nuclear materials that required special handling, escalating cleanup costs.
The defunct Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. and successors, the Atlantic Richfield Co. and Babcock & Wilcox disposed of uranium, plutonium and other hazardous materials at the 44-acre, Armstrong county, site from 1960 until the early 1970s. With plants in Parks and Apollo, those companies produced fuel for Navy nuclear reactors, nuclear power plants and other government entities.
The Corps will release its request for proposals from contractors and likely name a new cleanup company in 2017. The contractor will develop new plans and start digging again in 2018. The waste will then be shipped out of state.
The project is expected to finish between 2026 and 2028 : http://triblive.com/neighborhoods/yourallekiskivalley/yourallekiskivalleymore/9678472-74/nuclear-corps-materials#ixzz3v728qWVp
World’s largest nuclear fusion reactor launched by Germany
Germany launches world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor The rocky road to nuclear fusion power, DW, 18 Dec 15 Innovative designs using modern superconductors are supposed to bring us nuclear fusion power plants soon – some optimists say. Fusion experts predict, however, that a practical application will take many more decades. Nuclear fusion is considered a potential energy source of the future. It’s clean nuclear energy. But what is it, exactly and why is it so difficult to generate? Let’s start with the difference between classical nuclear fission and nuclear fusion.
Nuclear fission means that radioactive isotopes, like uranium or plutonium are being split up and turned into other highly radioactive isotopes that then have to be deposited or reprocessed.
Nuclear fusion means that two isotopes of hydrogen – called deuterium and tritium – merge together – they “fuse.” And that leaves behind only non-poisonous helium and one single neutron, but no nuclear waste.
Huge amounts of energy caught in a plasma
Nuclear fusion takes place in the sun for example – or in a hydrogen bomb – and that’s the big challenge for engineers – how do you control the high energy fusion process in a power plant?
That’s what scientists have been working on since the 1960s. One model-fusion-reactor called Wendelstein 7-X has just started operating in the northern German town of Greifswald. It is not designed to generate a nuclear fusion reaction yet – so far it’s just a specific reactor design that’s being tested.
What all fusion reactors have in common is a ring-shaped form. The idea behind it is to take powerful electromagnets and create a strong electromagnetic field, which is shaped somewhat like an inflated bicycle tube.
That electromagnetic field must be so dense that when it is being heated by a microwave oven to about one million degrees centigrade, a plasma will emerge in the very center of the ring. And that plasma can then be ignited to start the nuclear fusion process.
Research reactors show what’s possible
In Europe, two prominent fusion experiments are under way. One is Wendelstein 7-X, which just generated its first helium plasma last week – albeit without actually going into nuclear fusion. The other one is ITER – a huge experimental project in southern France, which is still under construction and won’t be ready to run before 2023.
ITER is supposed to do real nuclear fusion – but only for short periods of time, certainly not for any longer than 60 minutes. And ITER is just one of many steps towards turning the idea of nuclear fusion into a practical application.
Are smaller, alternative designs feasible?………
Hot, hot, hot
The heat is also problematic. In the core of the nuclear-fusion plasma, the temperature would be around 150 million centigrade. This extreme heat stays put – right there in the center of the plasma. But even around it, it still gets seriously hot – 500 to 700 degrees at the breeding blanket – which is the inner layer of the metal tube that contains the plasma and which will serve to “breed” the tritium that is needed for the fusion reaction.
Even more problematic is the so called “power-exhaust.” That is the part of the system, where the used-up fuel from the fusion process is being extracted – mostly helium. The first metal components hit by hot gases are called the “diverter.” It can get hotter than 2,000 degrees centigrade.
The engineers are trying to use the metal tungsten, used in old-fashioned light bulbs – to withstand such temperatures. They have a melting point of around 3,000 degrees. But there are limits.
“In the case of ITER we can do it, because the heat is not there constantly. Only one to three percent of the time, ITER will eventually be running.” Hesch says. “But that is not an option for a power plant, which has to run 24/7. And if someone pretends to build a smaller reactor with the same power as ITER, I can definitely say – there is no solution for that diverter-problem.”
Several decades to build a real power plant
Nonetheless Hesch is optimistic that the development of nuclear fusion power reactors will go ahead – but not quite as fast as some of the industry optimists predict.
“With ITER we want to show that fusion can actually deliver more energy than we have to put into it to heat the plasma. The next step would be to build an entirely new fusion demonstrator power plant, which will actually generate electricity.”
The engineers are already working on the designs now. They will have to learn lessons from ITER, which is scheduled to start operating in 2023. Taking the necessary time for design, planning and construction into account, it looks very unlikely the first nuclear-fusion power plant will be up and running much before the middle of the century. http://www.dw.com/en/the-rocky-road-to-nuclear-fusion-power/a-18927630
Radioactive matter travels faster than expected through carbonate rock
Radioactive matter migrates more quickly through fractured carbonate rock, Science Daily December 18, 2015
- Source:
- American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
- Summary:
- A new study has determined the impact of intrinsic colloid formation on increased migration of leaked radioactive materials in the environment. Colloids are microscopic inorganic or organic solids that remain suspended in water. Intrinsic colloids are formed when radioactive waste mixes with other dissolved components in the groundwater, such as bicarbonate.
- Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have found that radioactive matter migrates more quickly in carbonate bedrock formations once it has leaked from a tank from near surface waste sites and geological repositories.
Corroded stored waste containers can lead to radionuclide (radioactive) leakage, which may reach groundwater.
The study, published in the online journal Environmental Science & Technology (ACS Publications), determined the impact of intrinsic colloid formation on increased migration of leaked radioactive materials in the environment. Colloids are microscopic inorganic or organic solids that remain suspended in water. Intrinsic colloids are formed when radioactive waste mixes with other dissolved components in the groundwater, such as bicarbonate.
“This study showed that intrinsic colloids formed by interactions between soluble Cerium (Ce) and carbonates significantly increase the mobility of Ce injected into a carbonate rock fracture,” explains BGU Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research Director Prof. Noam Weisbrod, Ph.D. “The formation of intrinsic colloids, if not accounted for, could result in the under prediction of radionuclide migration through fractures in fine-grained carbonate bedrock, such as chalk.”……..http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151218110259.htm
“Culture of quiet” about India’s Top-Secret Nuclear City to Produce Thermonuclear Weapons
The nuclear city would, in short, be ringed by a security perimeter of thousands of military and paramilitary guards.
in choosing to remain publicly silent, the United States was taking a risk, evidently to try and reap financial and strategic rewards.
India Is Building a Top-Secret Nuclear City to Produce Thermonuclear Weapons, Experts Say The weapons could upgrade India as a nuclear power — and deeply unsettle Pakistan and China. Foreign Policy.com BY ADRIAN LEVY DECEMBER 16, 2015 “………A culture of quiet
Like the villagers in Challakere, some key members of the Indian Parliament say they know little about the project.
One veteran lawmaker, who has twice been a cabinet minister, and who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the topic, said his colleagues are rarely briefed about nuclear weapons-related issues. “Frankly, we in Parliament discover little,” he said, “and what we do find out is normally from Western newspapers.” And in an interview with Indian reporters in 2003, Jayanthi Natarajan, a former lawmaker who later served as minister for environment and forests, said that she and other members of Parliament had “tried time and again to raise [nuclear-related] issues … and have achieved precious little.” Continue reading
Corporate Astroturf “Nuclear for Climate” is really a lobby group of 140 pro nuclear societies.
Nuclear for Climate isn’t a network of grassroots environmentalists, it’s a network of more than 140 nuclear societies. It isn’t grassroots environmentalism, it’s corporate astroturf.
Nuclear lobbyists’ epic COP21 fail. Our next job? Keep their hands off climate funds, Ecologist, Jim Green16th December 2015 “……..Robert Stone, director of the Pandora’s Promise pro-nuclear propaganda film, launched a ‘resource hub’ called Energy For Humanity, promoting “more advanced, mass-producible, passively safe, reactor designs”.
Rauli Partanen and Janne Korhonen, members of the Finnish Ecomodernist Society, have been attacking environmentalists for opposing nuclear power. Rebutting a rebuttal by Michael Mariotte from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Partanen and Korhonen offer this gem:
“Even the much-maligned Olkiluoto 3 nuclear project [in Finland] turns out to be very fast way of adding low-carbon energy production when compared to any real-world combination of alternatives.”
A single reactor that will take well over a decade to build (and is three times over budget) is a “very fast way” of adding low-carbon energy? Huh? Maybe that’s why a second reactor of the same EPR design to be built at Okiluoto was cancelled in May 2015, while the main players are locked in a €10 billion legal battle.
‘The instransigent network of anti-nukes’ versus Astroturf
Partanen and Korhanan authored a booklet called ‘Climate Gamble: Is Anti-Nuclear Activism Endangering Our Future?‘, and crowdfunded the printing of 5,000 copies which were distributed for free at the COP21 conference.
James Hansen and three other climate scientists were in Paris to promote nuclear power. Hansen attacks the “intransigent network of anti-nukes” that has “grown to include ‘Big Green,’ huge groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund and World Wide Fund for Nature. They have trained lawyers, scientists, and media staff ready to denounce any positive news about nuclear power.”
By way of sharp contrast, the impoverished US nuclear industry could only rustle up US$60 million (€55m) to lobby Congress and federal agencies in 2013-14.
So is there an undercurrent of grassroots pro-nuclear environmentalism waiting to burst forth if only their voice could cut through Big Green hegemony? Perhaps Nuclear for Climate, promoted as a ‘grassroots organization‘, is the environmental network to take on Big Green?
Well, no. Nuclear for Climate isn’t a network of grassroots environmentalists, it’s a network of more than 140 nuclear societies. It isn’t grassroots environmentalism, it’s corporate astroturf.
And the list of 140 associations includes 36 chapters of the ‘Women in Nuclear’ organisation and 43 chapters of the ‘Young Generation Network’. One wonders whether these organisations have any meaningful existence. Does Tanzania really have a pro-nuclear Young Generation Network? Don’t young people in Tanzania have better things to do?
Nuclear for Climate has a website, a hashtag, a twitter handle and all the modern social media sine qua non. But it has some work to do with its messaging. One of its COP21 memes was: ‘The radioactive waste are not good for the climate? Wrong!’ So radioactive waste is good for the climate?! http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986693/nuclear_lobbyists_epic_cop21_fail_our_next_job_keep_their_hands_off_climate_funds.html
India’s river of nuclear death and disease
India’s nuclear industry pours its wastes into a river of death and disease Scientists say nuclear workers, village residents, and children living near mines and factories are falling ill after persistent exposure to unsafe radiation Center For Public Integrity , By Adrian Levy December 14, 2015 Jadugoda, Jharkhand, INDIA —When Ghosh’s team seven years ago collected samples from the river and also from adjacent wells, he was alarmed by the results. The water was adulterated with radioactive alpha particles that cannot be absorbed through the skin or clothes, but if ingested cause 1,000 times more damage than other types of radiation. In some places, the levels were 160 percent higher than safe limits set by the World Health Organization.
“It was potentially catastrophic,” Ghosh said in a recent interview. Millions of people along the waterway were potentially exposed.
What the professor’s team uncovered was hard evidence of the toxic footprint cast by the country’s secret nuclear mining and fuel fabrication program. It is now the subject of a potentially powerful legal action, shining an unusual light on India’s nuclear ambitions and placing a cloud over its future reactor operations……..
On August 21, 2014, however, a justice in this state’s court ordered an official inquiry into allegations that the nuclear industry has exposed tens of thousands of workers and villagers to dangerous levels of radiation, heavy metals or other carcinogens, including arsenic, from polluted rivers and underground water supplies that have percolated through the foodchain — from fish swimming in the Subarnarekha River to vegetables washed in its tainted water.
Given the absolute secrecy that surrounds the nuclear sector in India, the case is a closed affair, and all evidence is officially presented to the judge. But the Center for Public Integrity has reviewed hundreds of pages of personal testimony and clinical reports in the case that present a disturbing scenario.
India’s nuclear chiefs have long maintained that ill health in the region is caused by endemic poverty and and the unsanitary conditions of its tribal people, known locally as Adivasi, or first people. But the testimony and reports document how nuclear installations, fabrication plants and mines have repeatedly breached international safety standards for the past 20 years. Doctors and health workers, as well as international radiation experts, say that nuclear chiefs have repeatedly suppressed or rebuffed their warnings. Continue reading
Official data now reveals hugh extent of Fukushima radiation to USA West Coast
OFFICIAL DATA: FUKUSHIMA BOMBARDED WEST COAST WITH 790X NORMAL RADIATION http://www.thedailysheeple.com/official-data-fukushima-bombarded-west-coast-with-790x-normal-radiation_122015 DECEMBER 14, 2015 | JOSHUA KRAUSE | THE DAILY SHEEPLE |Ever since the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011, our government has been pretty quiet about the environmental and health implications of that disaster. When the plant first melted down, much of our population was justifiably alarmed. After all, many of us remembered the Chernobyl incident and how the radiation it produced spread all across Europe, and in smaller amounts, the world.
But the government assured us that everything would be fine, and at most we would see a negligible amount of radioactive particles in the United States. Everyone who said otherwise was and still is, called a quack or a conspiracy theorist.
However, official government data that was collected in 2011 has just seen the light of day, and it suggests that our initial concerns were probably correct. The information was collected by officials with Los Angeles County when concerns were raised by residents. After state and federal agencies failed to test the area for radiation in a timely manner, the county hired their own people to run the test. Natural News reported on the results.
Samples were taken between April 29 and May 2, 2011, approximately seven weeks after the radioactive releases from Fukushima. The county found that gross alpha radiation levels at a location in Los Angeles were 300 femtocuries per cubic meter (fCi/m3), and levels at a Hacienda Heights location were 200 fCi/m3.
For context, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reports the average (annual median) level of gross alpha activity for the state of California as just 0.38 fCi/m3 – that is, 790 times lower.
The levels detected in Los Angeles County were a full 100 times higher than the level that requires an investigation at a U.S. nuclear laboratory, according to the Environmental Monitoring Plan at Brookhaven National Laboratory: “If the gross alpha activity in the [air] filters is greater than 3 fCi/m3, then collect more samples in the vicinity, and project manager will review all detections above the limits … All values greater than the above-stated gross alpha/beta concentration shall trigger an investigation.”
Finally, the Los Angeles County levels were almost 15 times higher than the federal regulatory limit for alpha radiation, which is 21 fCi/m3, according to a 2010 document from Idaho National Laboratory.
Moreover, the alpha radiation emitting particles that were deposited on the West Coast are incredibly dangerous for humans. While Gamma and Beta Radiation have far more power and penetration, Alpha rays produce a tremendous amount of damage in the human body when ingested. Because they don’t penetrate materials like Gamma rays do, all of their energy is deposited into the cells that reside near the particle.
More importantly, it doesn’t take very many of these particles to ruin your long-term health. For instance, if you were exposed to a temporary large dose of radiation, your body could probably recover from it, perhaps without even developing cancer. But when the particle itself is embedded in your tissue for weeks, months, and in some cases for years, as it destroys and mutates surrounding cells over and over again, you can expect a significantly shorter lifespan. Even if the amount radiation is small, it’s also continuous, and its source is difficult to remove
So while the government was telling us that everything was hunky dory in the weeks after the Fukushima meltdown, major West Coast cities like Los Angeles were being drenched in alarming levels of this radioactive waste.
Who knows how much of that fell onto the countless farms in the Central Valley, which feed much of the United States? And since they failed to inform us about the danger we were in then, who knows how much danger we are in now? Our government hates to admit when its wrong (or they won’t admit that they lied to us), so if we are still in danger, somehow I doubt they will have anything to say to us now.
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India’s authorities in denial about nuclear industry’s radiation-caused deaths
“Inside UCIL, they see themselves as under siege, defending the nation, one atom at a time,” Biruli said, “and outside … we are absorbing those atoms and whatever else the corporation spews out from its broken pipes and dams. We’re drinking it all up, feeding it to our kids, and our wives, if they can conceive, are absorbing them into their blood stream.”
India’s nuclear industry pours its wastes into a river of death and disease Scientists say nuclear workers, village residents, and children living near mines and factories are falling ill after persistent exposure to unsafe radiation Center For Public Integrity , By Adrian Levy December 14, 2015 Jadugoda, Jharkhand, INDIA
……..Denying what scientists documented
India’s nuclear project is seen as the country’s most prestigious enterprise, a tangible expression of the nation’s resilience and resourcefulness. This idea was cemented when India tested nuclear devices in 1998, in twin blasts. Feeding the weapons program was UCIL’s duty, and protecting the mines became paramount.
As a result, the UCIL-funded health studies were not welcomed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, the country’s premier civil and military nuclear research facility, which has a Health Physics Laboratory in Jadugoda. It said in 1999, after a quick visual inspection of villagers living close to the mines, that its own experts “unanimously agreed that the disease pattern could not be ascribed to radiation exposure.” The complainers were “backwards people” who suffered from “alcoholism, malaria and malnutrition,” the company said. But it took no soil, water or air samples and launched no epidemiological study.
UCIL subsequently reversed its own position. “There is no radiation or any related health problems in Jadugoda and its surrounding areas,” J.L. Bhasin, the managing director of UCIL, concluded in 1999, in a press conference before local reporters in Jadugoda. A.N. Mullick, UCIL’s chief medical officer for 25 years, issued a press statement a few months later that “I have not come across any radiation-related ailments during my entire career.” Continue reading
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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