Neuropathy in Navajo children almost certainly caused by uranium mining pollution
fragile communities continue to live amid the poisoned wells and contaminated earth, and the uranium riddled sagebrush flats are home for the next generation of Navajo children.
Abandoned Uranium Mines Plague Navajo Nation, Earth Island Journal BY SONIA LUOKKALA – MAY 5, 2015 Mining companies left behind a legacy of poisoned wells and contaminated earth
We are in Diné Bikéyah, land of the Navajo. “………The incidence of Navajo neuropathy is five times
higher on the western side of the Navajo reservation than on the eastern side. Some researchers believe this discrepancy is
linked to the land: On the western side, the mines were mostly tunnels, whereas in the west they were primarily open pits. After the uranium companies left, the unfilled pits started to fill with water. Some, as deep as 130 feet, eventually formed into small lakes. Unsuspecting Navajos and their livestock use the contaminated water for drinking.
A 1990 study of Navajo neuropathy ruled out water contamination as a possible cause of the disease………As the Los Angeles Times also reported, in 1986, Thomas Payne an environmental health officer for Indian Health Services, along with a National Park Service ranger, took water samples at 48 sites surrounding Cameron, AZ, a town in Navajo Nation. These samples revealed uranium levels in wells as high as 139 picocuries per liter. In abandoned pits, the levels were as high as 4,024 pinocuries. The EPA limit for safe drinking water is 20 picocuries per liter. ….. Continue reading
more intensive medical examinations needed – for Fukushima’s children
74% chance of lymph node metastasis Not only is the number of thyroid cancers large, but also the symptoms are serious. Last year Fukushima Medical University published 55 cases of thyroid cancer in Fukushima: 2 of them were anaplastic carcinoma, and 74% of them lymph node metastasis. Normally, the prognosis of thyroid cancer among adults is good: little metastasis and slow progression. But this is not true of thyroid cancer found in Fukushima.
The Government Must Expand Medical Examinations for Victims of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster http://www.foejapan.org/en/energy/doc/150310.html 10 March 2015
117 children in Fukushima have been suspected of having thyroid cancer: the second round of medical examination found 8 children. On February 12, 2015, the Oversight Committee for Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey held a meeting. According to the committee, the total number of children suspected of thyroid cancer reached 117. Of them, 86 already went through surgery and were confirmed to have suffered thyroid cancer. Since April 2014, the second round of medical examination has been conducted on 75,311 children. 8 of them had shown “no abnormality” at the first round, but they were newly suspected of thyroid cancer after the second round. One of them went through surgery and indeed had thyroid cancer.Every time a child in Fukushima was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, Fukushima Medical University and the Japanese government insisted on “screening effects” – namely, an early ultrasound scan simply detected thyroid cancer that would have been otherwise found much later. The university and the government also argue that thyroid cancer develops slowly: Since the number of paediatric thyroid cancers began to increase only five years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, the cases of paediatric thyroid cancers in Fukushima so far are unlikely to have be caused by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster. But if their argument had been correct, they would not have found any thyroid cancer after the second round of medical examination. Nonetheless, Hokuto Hoshi, chairman of the oversight committee, stated, “Of course, we cannot completely preclude the possibility of causal relationship between the nuclear disaster and thyroid cancer. But, given the results of medical examinations, we don’t think it’s necessary to change our position, that is, the causal relationship is unlikely.”
74% chance of lymph node metastasis Not only is the number of thyroid cancers large, but also the symptoms are serious. Last year Fukushima Medical University published 55 cases of thyroid cancer in Fukushima: 2 of them were anaplastic carcinoma, and 74% of them lymph node metastasis. Normally, the prognosis of thyroid cancer among adults is good: little metastasis and slow progression. But this is not true of thyroid cancer found in Fukushima. Moreover, the nuclear fallout contaminated not only Fukushima but also adjacent prefectures, as suggested by UNSCEAR’s report. In light of the real extent of nuclear pollution, the government must expand the coverage of medical examinations for areas outside of Fukushima Prefecture.
Treatment for other diseases than thyroid cancer
While we tend to focus on thyroid cancer, we also should keep in mind the necessity of systematic medical examinations for thyroid malfunction and other illnesses. According to longitudinal surveys on A-bomb survivors, radiation dose exceeding 1 mSv (with regard to a particular organ) is statistically correlated with the increased likelihood of uterine fibroid, thyroid diseases, cataract, kidney and ureteral stones (among men), hypertension, and heart attack. The national report, published by the Ukraine government 25 years after the Chernobyl disaster, also describes thyroid malfunction and many other illnesses related to immune, respiratory, and digestive systems.
Problems with MOE’s “Expert Committee” and “Current Policy”
Victims of the nuclear disaster and NGOs demanded the government to (1) improve medical examinations and (2) extend them to municipalities outside of Fukushima Prefecture. The Ministry of Environment (MOE), responsible for the health of disaster victims, established the “Expert Committee” in November 2013. The committee is chaired by Shigenobu Nagataki, emeritus professor at Nagasaki University, one of the longstanding defenders of the “radioactivity-is-safe” ideology who helped to underestimate health effects of the Chernobyl disaster. The committee also includes members who received monetary contributions from the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, sit on radioactivity, nuclear safety, and emergency response commissions, and are responsible for the failures to distribute potassium iodine tablets and use SPEEDI in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster. Put another way, those who helped to create disaster victims deliberated on policy for victims’ health management.
The selection of committee members, as well as the way the committee’s deliberation was framed, was therefore meant to defend the foregone conclusion, not to expand the current medical examinations for disaster victims. Indeed, the mid-term report published by the expert committee in December 2014 not only failed to offer epidemiological analysis of thyroid cancer and other illnesses in Fukushima Prefecture, not to mention case studies, but also concluded that the level of radiation exposure outside the prefecture is too low to warrant any medical examination. Given this report, MOE announced its “current policy” on February 28, 2015, to promote “nationwide cancer registration” as well as “risk-communication projects” to educate citizens with “accurate” information about health effects of radioactivity, instead of expanding medical examinations for disaster victims inside and outside of Fukushima.
Conclusion
Article 13.2 in the Act on the Protection and Support for the Children and other Victims of the TEPCO Disaster guarantees lifelong medical examinations for victims residing in areas where radiation doses are estimated to exceed a certain level, whereas Article 13.3 promises to subsidize medical expenses for illnesses related to the nuclear disaster. However, these measures are yet to be implemented. At this rate, we are concerned that adequate investigation and prevention of thyroid cancer and other illnesses, both inside and outside of Fukushima, will not take place. We therefore demand that the government effectively implement the Act, given that our knowledge of health effects of radioactivity is very much incomplete at present.
| Details of the 8 children suspected of thyroid cancer after the second roundSex: 4 boys and 4 girls Age: 6 to 17 at the time of the disaster Size of tumour: 6-17.3 mm Residence: Namie, Date, Tamura, Ōkuma, Fukushima Estimated dose: less than 1 mSv (2), 2.1 mSv maximum, unknown (2) First-round results: A1 (5), A2 (3) |
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Israel has 400 nuclear weapons – Iran claims
Iran’s claim that Israel has 400 nuclear weapons, WP By Glenn Kessler May 1 “It’s laughable that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has become everybody’s nonproliferation guru. He is sitting on 400 nuclear warheads, nuclear warheads that have been acquired in violation of the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].”–Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, speaking in New York, April 29, 2015
In the debate over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the unacknowledged nuclear stockpile of Israel often comes up.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Israel secretly acquired the technology and material to build nuclear weapons, frequently misleading the U.S. government about its intentions. (France was Israel’s partner in the building of the Dimona reactor in the Negev desert, while South Africa is believed by some to have assisted Israel in conducting at least one nuclear test in the 1970s.)
Zarif quickly noted that Israel (unlike Iran) is not a member of the NPT, but added: “Those who provided them with the technology were members of the NPT and violated the NPT to provide them with the technology, and we know who they were. And now they are the proponents of nonproliferation.” (Actually, France’s cooperation with Israel ended in 1966, before the NPT went into effect in 1970.)
Zarif’s estimate of Israel’s stockpile seemed rather large. Does Israel really have 400 nuclear weapons?
The Facts For a secret and unacknowledged program, the history of Israel’s quest for nuclear weapons is relatively well-documented. Our colleague Walter Pincus recently recounted how Israel misled the Kennedy and Johnson administrations about the facility in the Negev, describing it at one point as “a textile plant” and later as “a metallurgical research installation.”
Requested inspections by U.S. experts were cursory and often postponed — Israel refused to accept visits from the International Atomic Energy Agency – and later it was learned that the Israelis had built fake walls around the elevators that led to an underground reprocessing plant, according to a 2014 account in The Guardian newspaper.
By 1968, the CIA was convinced Israel had nuclear weapons – just as negotiations on the NPT were completed and the treaty designed to thwart the spread of nuclear weapons was opened for signature by members of the United Nations. U.S. officials concluded it was too late to turn back the clock and make Israel abandon its nuclear capability………….
Given that some 50 years have passed, how many nuclear weapons does Israel have?
Since Israel has never officially admitted having weapons, the answer relies on a bit of guesswork, principally how much plutonium might have been produced in Dimona. A key factor is the power level of the reactor, which (according to satellite imagery) does not appear to have increased much over time.
A leaked 1999 intelligence assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, published in Rowan Scarborough’s 2004 book “Rumsfeld’s War,” estimated that Israel had 60 to 80 weapons at the time, and would have 65 to 85 by 2020. (The report also said Iran would have 10 to 20 nukes by 2020.)……..
In 2014, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists echoed that estimate. “We conclude that many of the public claims about the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal are exaggerated,” a comprehensive report declared. “We estimate that Israel has a stockpile of approximately 80 nuclear warheads for delivery by two dozen missiles, a couple of squadrons of aircraft, and perhaps a small number of sea-launched cruise missiles.”
Other analysts believe that the number is closer to 100, and possibly a bit higher. In 2007, the Federation of American Scientists said the estimates range from 70 to 400 warheads………http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/05/01/irans-claim-that-israel-has-400-nuclear-weapons/
Cheap, efficient deep bore waste disposal would abort nuclear reprocessing
successfully developing deep-hole disposal techniques would be a great development for society
it could be devastating for next-generation nuclear developers attempting to utilize existing used nuclear fuel stockpiles
Why Sending Nuclear Waste to the Center of the Earth is Bad News for General Electric,Motley Fool By Maxx Chatsko April 30, 2015 “………the U.S. Department of Energy is set to experiment with a technique to dispose of nuclear wastes by drilling 3-mile boreholes into the Earth’s crust and then, well, dropping radioactive materials into their geological tombs. For good
………Fergus Gibb, the technique’s pioneer, told The Engineer that each bore hole, measuring roughly 3 miles deep and 2 feet wide, would cost just a few tens of millions of dollars to drill. …
Wide spread of radiation could result from smoke from fires in Chernobyl exclusion zone
Smoke from Chernobyl fire could spread radiation far and wide – experts Rt.com April 29, 2015 Smoke from burning forests in the 
is capable of spreading contaminants across great distances, even after the fire has been stopped, ecology experts told RT.
The forest fire near the crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant started on Tuesday and triggered an emergency alert, with police and National Guard mobilized to bring the flames under control……
Although the sarcophagus remains untouched by the fire, decades-old contaminants could still be released and travel far and wide, borne aloft by the smoke, nuclear safety expert John H. Large told RT:
“Brush fires and forest fires were the greatest concern in terms of the means by which you can disperse a secondary radiological impact from the original dissipation that occurred in 1986,” he said. John went to Chernobyl in 2006 to assess the situation there and spoke to dozens of scientists working on containing the contamination.
“In the exclusion zone and further away you have an area that has been abandoned for farming, abandoned for man management,” John says. “That means you’ve got lots of brush and young wood growing out of control, and that means there’s a big fuel load to have a fire.”
He says the high temperatures and volumes of smoke produced in a forest fire can take contaminants hundreds of kilometers away from the exclusion zone: “Radiation really doesn’t respect any international boundaries.”
Forest fires have happened in the area before, but have never been so serious, Timothy Mousseau, biology professor at the University of South Carolina, told RT:
“Previous forest fires had re-released about eight percent of the radiation from the original catastrophe. The fire that we’re seeing today seems to be on a much larger scale, and so we could see a re-dispersion of a very significant component of the original radiation.”
Another problem is that as the trees that have absorbed contaminants burn up and release smoke, this turns radioactive particles into a much more dangerous form than if they simply lie in the ground….http://rt.com/news/254193-chernobyl-fire-radiation-spread/
Generation IV Nuclear Reactors no better than the current ones
Future Of Nuclear Industry Takes Yet Another Hit http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Future-Of-Nuclear-Industry-Takes-Yet-Another-Hit.html By Charles Kennedy, 28 April 2015
Despite the rough patch that the nuclear industry has experienced in recent years, its future remains bright, the industry insists. That is because the next generation of nuclear reactors will provide significant safety and economic benefits over current reactors.
But what if the new designs are actually not all that much better than the current fleet?
That is the provocative conclusion that France’s nuclear watchdog came to in a new report. Published on April 27, the IRSN said that the so-called “generation IV” reactors of the future may not be able to offer major upgrades in safety (most of the reactors running today are generation II – built in the 1960’s and 1970’s – and the newer designs that are currently under construction today are considered to be generation III).
The IRSN report reviewed six of the most promising generation IV reactor designs: sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFR); very high-temperature reactors (VHTR); gas-cooled fast reactors (GFR); lead-cooled fast reactors (LFR); molten salt reactors (MSR); and SuperCritical water reactors (SCWR).
Out of all of those, ISRN found that only the sodium-cooled fast reactor is close enough to maturity. SFRs have been trumpeted as an exciting concept – they can burn nuclear waste, reducing the need to build long-term spent fuel storage.
But after looking into the technology ISRN says it’s hard to say whether or not SFRs would be better. “While it seems possible for SFR technology to guarantee a safety level at least equivalent” to generation III reactors, “IRSN is unable to determine whether it could significantly exceed this level,” the report concluded. That is because liquid sodium can explode if exposed to water. IRSN also questioned the extent to which SFRs could actually burn through dangerous nuclear waste.
The report amounts to a big rebuke for generation IV reactors, the first significant criticism of a nuclear dream that has been hailed as the key to solving energy and climate change challenges.
However, ISRN also ultimately said that the devil will be in the details. The reactor designs could solve some of their drawbacks as the specifics are fleshed out. But unless generation IV designs can prove to be much safer than generation III designs, the nuclear renaissance may not be as bright as many had hoped.
NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGES
The decline of the nuclear industry poses huge challenges – nuclear experts need not fear unemployment.
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL. If all nuclear reactors stopped today, and all nuclear weapons were “turned off”, the world would still be left with a massive unsolved problem of disposing of the wastes.
BURYING THE CORPSES of nuclear reactors – (they prefer that nice word “decommissioning”) – a huge part of the unsolved waste problem.
ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGIES
Renewable energy is taking over – it is supposed to be “clean and green”. And digital communications are also taking over the world.
But at present, both of these require “rare earths”
RARE EARTHS On the one hand, these play a part in the renewable energy future, for example in making wind turbines, and in electric car batteries. Rare earths are a group of 17 chemical elements ( yttrium and the 15 lanthanide elements (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium) Rare earth metals and alloys that contain them are used in many devices that people use every day such as: computer memory, DVD’s, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, car catalytic converters, magnets, fluorescent lighting and much more. http://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/
On the other hand, – the downside of rare earths – in the mining and processing of these rare earth minerals, radioactive wastes are produced.
Tritium is a major radioactive pollutant from Canada’s CANDU nuclear power reactors.
Tritium Traffic: Deadly Dividends for Nuclear Industry, Peace Magazine By David H MartinIn February, 1934, the British journal, New Scientist, published an article by Tom Wilkie, “Old Age Can Kill the Bomb.” It was an ingenious solution to the arms control nightmare of verification; controlling not only the number of weapons, but the strategic materials that fuel them — mainly plutonium, enriched uranium and tritium. Wilkie focused on tritium, because it turns into non-radioactive helium at a rate of 5.5 per cent per year. A halt of tritium production would rapidly cripple all nuclear arsenals. Thus, attention was rivetted on Ontario Hydro’s plan to produce about 57 kilograms of tritium by 2006. A one megaton thermonuclear warhead (equivalent to one million tons of TN”) may contain as little as one gram of tritium.
Tritium (H3) (a form of hydrogen that emits beta radiation), is a major radioactive pollutant from Canada’s CANDU nuclear power reactors. Unlike American reactor systems, the CANDU uses heavy water as a moderator and coolant. The moderator and the heavy water coolant slows down the neutron release from the uranium fuel in the reactor so that a chain reaction can take place. The active ingredient in heavy water is deuterium, another form of hydrogen. When the deuterium picks up a neutron, some of it is transformed into tritium. The concentration of tritium in the heavy water increases with the age of the reactor.
The CANDU reactor system produces 2400 times as much tritium as the American light water reactor. Continue reading
Danger of nuclear reactors as explained by Alvin Weinberg
Top US Nuclear Physicist: “Iodine-131 will be lethal after ingestion of 30 billionths of a gram” — Main worry is not a Chernobyl-type accident, rather it’s a melt-through of containment vessel — “Not possible to disprove China Syndrome” http://enenews.com/top-nuclear-physicist-iodine-131-will-be-lethal-after-ingestion-30-billionths-gram-main-worry-chernobyl-type-accident-melt-containment-vessel-possible-disprove-china-syndrome?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29 The hazards of nuclear power plants and the related nuclear industries are reviewed
Alvin M. Weinberg, nuclear physicist (Director of Oak Ridge National Lab and pioneered the pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors used in nuclear power plants, worked on the Manhattan Project, appointed to President’s Science Advisory Committee during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations), 1973:
- [A]re there concerns regarding the possibility that these systems may malfunction and cause hazard to people and to the environment? This is a perfectly legitimate question that deserves serious and thoughtful consideration; and it is this aspect of the matter that I shall address… The potential hazard of a nuclear system arises from the toxicity both of the materials that keep the system burning and from the fission product ashes. Plutonium-239… is lethal to man in doses of about 16 thousandths of a gram if ingested in the lungs; Strontium-90, with a half-life of 30 years, will be lethal if about 70 millionths of a gram is ingested; Iodine-131, with a half-life of eight days, will be lethal after ingestion of only about 30 billionths of a gram.
- As I have said, even during the Manhattan Project, we realized that a nuclear reactor could undergo what is known as an excursion [see Chernobyl] – that is, if too many control rods were removed, the reactor power could surge to dangerous levels. This, however, is not the main worry, for such excursions are inherently self-limiting both in time and magnitude.
- Rather, the worry is that in a very high-powered reactor, immediately after the chain reaction has stopped, the fission products at least momentarily continue to generate 7% as much energy… Thus a high-powered chain reactor must continue to be cooled for a considerable time after shutdown if fuel meltdowns are to be avoided. It was Edward Teller who some 25 years ago insisted with great prescience that in these respects nuclear reactors were potentially dangerous, and therefore they should be subjected to the most searching kind of technical scrutiny… The response of the engineer… was to build a… containment vessel around every reactor; the second [was] various back-up safety systems… to prevent the reactor core from melting. Why bother with the back-up cooling systems if the containment vessel in final analysis will catch whatever radioactive debris might be created in an accident and thus prevent harm befalling the public? And indeed this was the attitude in the earliest days… As long as reactors were relatively small we could prove by calculation that even if the coolant system and its back-up failed, the molten fuel could not generate enough heat to melt itself through the containment However, when reactors exceeded a certain size, then it was no longer possible to prove by calculation that an uncooled reactor fuel charge would not melt through its containment vessel. This hypothetical meltthrough is referred to as the China Syndrome for obvious reasons. Since we could not prove that a molten fuel puddle wouldn’t reach the basement of a power reactor, we also couldn’t prove whether it would continue to bore itself deeper into the ground. Whether or not the China Syndrome is a real possibility is moot. The point is, however, that it is not possible to disprove its existence. Thus, for these very large reactors, it is no longer possible to claim that the containment shell, which for smaller reactors could be relied upon to prevent radioactivity from reaching the public, was sufficient by itself. In consequence, the secondary back-up cooling systems… must now be viewed as the ultimate emergency protection against the China Syndrome… if one is trying to be practically 100 percent sure of always being able to cope with a reactor meltdown, then one must… be absolutely certain that the engineered safety features, particularly the emergency core cooling system, will work as planned.
Scientists advise deep bore burial for high level nuclear wastes
Nuclear waste: Bury nuclear waste down a very deep hole, say scientists, Science Daily April 14, 2015 Source: University of Sheffield
The concept — called deep borehole disposal — has been developed primarily in the UK but is likely to see its first field trials in the USA next year. If the trials are successful, the USA hopes to dispose of its ‘hottest’ and most radioactive waste — left over from plutonium production and currently stored at Hanford in Washington State — in a deep borehole………
Deep borehole disposal (DBD) has a number of advantages over the current solution envisaged for all UK nuclear waste, which is in a mined repository at 500m depth:
- DBD is effectively ‘pay-as-you-go’ disposal. A mined repository can cost from hundreds of millions to tens of billions of dollars to construct before any waste can be disposed of; DBD costs a few tens of millions of dollars per borehole.
- There are more geological sites suitable for DBD as the granite layer that is required can be found at appropriate depths under most of the continental crust.
- A borehole could be drilled, filled and sealed in less than five years, compared to the current timescale for a UK mined repository, which is to open in 2040 and take its first waste by 2075 (although a site has not yet been agreed).
- As DBD disposes of nuclear waste at greater depths and with greater safety and because there are more potential sites available, it should be easier to obtain public and political acceptance of the technology.
- DBD has limited environmental impact and does not require a huge site: the holes are a maximum 0.6m in diameter and can be positioned just a few tens of metres apart. Once a borehole is complete, all physical infrastructure on the surface can be removed.
- While seismic activity might damage the containers within the borehole, fracture the surrounding rock and disrupt some of the nearest barriers in the borehole, it would still not destroy the isolation of the waste or make it possible for radioactivity to reach the surface or any ground water.
The demonstration borehole in the USA will be drilled just under half a metre in diameter and trials will be conducted to ensure waste packages can be inserted into the borehole and recovered if required. Initial results are expected in 2016. If these results are positive, disposal of the Hanford waste capsules would then take place in another borehole, just 0.22m in diameter.
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of Sheffield. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150414100956.htm
Why China should avoid the doubtful dream of commercial nuclear reprocessing
Reprocessing in China: A long, risky journey, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 15 Hui Zhang“………Should China continue pursuing its plans for fast breeder reactors and commercialized reprocessing? Good reasons exist for avoiding this course of action. First, because most of China’s power reactors are newly built, Beijing will face little pressure over the next two decades to reduce its spent fuel burden. And spent fuel can be stored safely, at low cost, in dry casks—or disposed of safely in a deep geological repository.
Second, China faces no shortage of uranium resources for the foreseeable future. The nation’s identified resources more than tripled between 2003 and 2012, to 265,500 metric tons from 77,000 metric tons. China’s potential uranium reserves amount to more than 2 million tons. Beijing in recent times has also secured huge overseas uranium resources—about three times as large as its own identified uranium reserves. More such reserves could easily be added.
In any event, the cost of uranium accounts for only a small percentage of the cost of power that reactors generate. Simply put, the cost of uranium will not increase in the foreseeable future to levels that would justify the cost of reprocessing and breeder reactors. To the extent that China is concerned about potential disruptions in its uranium supply, it could easily and inexpensively establish a “strategic” uranium stockpile.
China should carefully examine the experiences of nations that have launched large reprocessing programs and built demonstration breeder reactors in the expectation that the commercialization of these reactors would follow. Commercialization did not follow in those countries—but huge expenses were incurred for cleaning up reprocessing sites and disposing of separated plutonium. For China, there is no urgent need to go down this risky road.
Plutonium recycling is much more expensive, and much less safe and secure, than operating light water reactors with a once-through fuel cycle. As for nuclear waste, dry cask storage is a safe, flexible, and low-cost option that can postpone for decades the need either to reprocess spent fuel or to dispose of it directly—allowing time for technology to develop. China has no convincing rationale for rushing to build commercial-scale reprocessing facilities or plutonium breeder reactors. http://thebulletin.org/reprocessing-poised-growth-or-deaths-door8185
Fears of a nuclear Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) cause Pentagon to re-open Cheyenne mountain bunker
EMP Nuclear Attack Fears Have US Reopen Cheyenne Mountain, ARUTZ SHEVA Israel International News, By Mark Langfan 4/11/2015, Days after Iran deal, Pentagon acts fearing nuclear missile attack that would burn out America’s electronic-based defenses. The Pentagon has decided to reopen the Cheyenne Mountain Air Defense facility, which housed the heart of America’s air and missile defense of North America. The facility had been mothballed in a “cost-saving” move in 2006.
Last week, Admiral William Gortney, head of US NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and US Northern Command, reversed that decision and announced the Pentagon was spending an opening ante of $700 million to oversee reactivation of the Cheyenne mountain-embedded facility.
The reason – the Pentagon’s fears of a nuclear Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack by a missile that would burn out America’s overly-dependent defense, which is based on modern electronics.
US NORAD and US Northern Command aren’t just acronyms. They represent the last-ditch American defense of the continental United States homeland. NORAD originally stood for North America Air Defense Command, but now stands for North American Aerospace Command. US Northern Command is the area-specific designation of the US military command that is responsible for the continental United States homeland.
Given the current US military fear of an inter-continental ballistic (ICBM) missile attack with an EMP nuclear-device, Admiral Gortney explained that “because of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain’s built, it’s EMP-hardened. And so, there’s a lot of movement [in the Pentagon] to put [military] capability into Cheyenne Mountain and to be able to communicate in there.”
In early 2013, this author warned against a similar Iranian “Fatwa-compliant” EMP attack against Saudi Arabia, and a North Korea EMP attack against South Korea.
In an even more startling admission, Admiral Gortney revealed that his “primary concern” was whether the Pentagon was “going to have the space inside the [Cheyenne] mountain for everybody who wants to move in there, and I’m not at liberty to discuss who’s moving in there.”
The Cheyenne mountain bunker is a half-acre cavern that was carved into a mountain in the 1960s that was originally designed to withstand a Soviet nuclear attack. During the Cold War, the United States feared a Soviet nuclear attack scenario that would feature an opening Soviet “EMP decapitation” nuclear attack.
Such a nuclear attack was not the launch of a massive Soviet nuclear first-strike against American cities, but instead, a first-strike Soviet “EMP decapitation” attack that would explode a nuclear device high-above the United States, burning out all of America’s command and control communication systems, and thus severing America’s President from being able to order the US military to retaliate.
By first electronically destroying America’s communications systems, the Soviets would thus have “decapitated” the US’s ability to respond to a secondary more massive follow-on Soviet nuclear attack on American cities.
Thus, a successful Soviet nuclear EMP attack on the US would have “trumped” the concept of MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, because America would have been unable to retaliate and destroy the Soviet Union in response to a Soviet nuclear attack.
During the Cold War, airmen stationed inside the massive complex were poised to send warnings and firing codes that could trigger the launch of America’s vast web of nuclear missiles. Now, in light of the latest nuclear EMP dangers hanging over the United States, the US military, and the United States of America- itself, once again hopes to be protected by the mountains of Colorado…….http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193883#.VSrsY9yUcnk
Nuclear reprocessing has NOT gone according to plan, in China
Reprocessing in China: A long, risky journey, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Hui Zhang , April 15 Since 1983, a closed fuel cycle has been an official element of China’s nuclear energy policy. According to proponents, plutonium reprocessing and breeder reactors will allow full utilization of China’s uranium resources, drastically reduce the volume of radioactive waste that must be stored in an underground repository, and establish a way to dispense with the spent fuel accumulating in China’s reactor pools.
But Beijing’s attempts to develop commercially viable reprocessing facilities and breeder reactors have been afflicted with technological difficulties, serious delays, and cost overruns. At this point—especially taking into account China’s ample uranium resources and its easy access to additional resources abroad—it appears very doubtful that reprocessing and fast reactors are the proper way forward for China’s nuclear energy sector.
Not according to plan………..
Parallel with development of the pilot reprocessing plant, China has been working to establish commercially viable plutonium breeder reactors. According to a plan in place until 2013, development of breeder reactors was to be a three-stage process. The first stage was to complete a project known as the China Experimental Fast Reactor. The second stage would involve building, by about 2020, a few demonstration fast reactors. Finally, commercialized fast reactors would be deployed around 2030. Progress always ran far behind schedule.
The China Experimental Fast Reactor is a sodium-cooled experimental fast reactor using technology developed for Russia’s BN-600 reactor. The project, with a planned capacity of 20 megawatts, was approved in 1995. Construction began in 2000. As with the pilot reprocessing plant, the experimental fast reactor encountered many difficulties during construction. Capital cost estimates had to adjusted twice, with each estimate double the previous one. The reactor went critical in July 2010 and, by July 2011, 40 percent of its full power was incorporated into the grid. The reactor, however, was online for only 26 hours during the remainder of 2011, and it produced the equivalent of just one full power-hour. Not until December 2014 did the reactor manage to operate at full capacity for 72 hours. So 19 years passed between project approval and operation at full capacity.
As for the second stage of the pre-2013 plan, CNNC in 2009 signed an agreement with Russia’s Rosatom to jointly construct two copies of Russia’s BN-800 fast neutron reactor in China. But Beijing has not officially approved the project. As with the French reprocessing plant, Chinese experts complain that Russia is demanding too high a price. It is not clear when or if the project will go forward. Instead, CNNC in 2013 began focusing on the development of the indigenous 600-megawatt China Fast Reactor (CFR-600). The start of construction is envisioned for 2017, with operations to commence in 2023—but the government has not approved the project yet.
Experts from CNNC have also, since 2013, urged the development of China’s first commercial fast reactor—a 1,000-megawatt reactor based on experience gained from the CFR-600. But CNNC expert Gu Zhongmao—an advocate of the closed fuel cycle—said at a recent workshop on nuclear energy in East Asia that “China needs at least another 20 to 30 years of effort before commercialization of fast reactor energy systems, and there are so many uncertainties ahead. It is beyond our ability to draw a clear picture 20 years ahead.”…………. http://thebulletin.org/reprocessing-poised-growth-or-deaths-door8185
Chernobyl’s Radioactive Impact on micro-organisms
11. Chernobyl’s Radioactive Impact on Microbial Biota submitted by damchodronma 6 April 15
Alexey V. Yablokov
Of the few microorganisms that have been studied, all underwent rapid changes in the areas heavily contaminated by Chernobyl. Organisms such as tuberculosis bacilli; hepatitis, herpes, and tobacco mosaic viruses; cytomegalovirus; and soil micromycetes and bacteria were activated in various ways.
The ultimate long-term consequences for the Chernobyl microbiologic biota may be worse than what we know today. Compared to humans and other mammals, the profound changes that take place among these small live organisms with rapid reproductive turnover do not bode well for the health and survival of other species.
One gram of soil contains some 2,500,000,000 microorganisms (bacteria,microfungi, and protozoa). Up to 3 kg of the mass of an adult human body is made up of bacteria, viruses, and microfungi. In spite of the fact that these represent such important and fundamentally live ecosystems there are only scarce data on the various microbiological consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe.
Several incidences of increased morbidity owing to certain infectious diseases may be due to increased virulence of microbial populations as a result of Chernobyl irradiation.
read on
pgs 281-83
“Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment”
by Alexey Yablokov, Vasily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko
NY Academy of Sciences, Volume 1181, 2009.
5,000 Slavic language studies reviews, over 1,400 cited.
http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov_Chernobyl_book.pdf
Will Energy Secretary Moniz benefit France in MOX nuclear boondoggle deal? Or make AREVA accountable?
$30+billion Plutonium (Pu) Fuel Project, Good for France; Bad for America: AREVA-MOX Ça Pue! Pe-yoo! Minimg Awareness, 5 Apr 15 [Recall that Areva is 89.9% French State owned and would be long gone if it weren’t for French taxpayers keeping it afloat. Furthermore, Areva has been under police investigation for years in France due to what is known as the Uramin scandal. After the French State the largest shareholder is Kuwait (Kuwait Investment Authority at 4.8%.]
From Savannah River Site Watch:
“Now, we’re being told the real reason for continuing construction of the $12.7 MOX plant at SRS – “it’s good for France!” Part of DOE’s foreign aid program fostered by Senator MOX….
“French ambassador impressed with MOX”
Aiken Standard, March 17, 2015,
We all know that with the gracious assistance of big-spender Senator Lindsey Graham that the bankrupt company AREVA has thrived on the transfer of US tax payer money into their coffers and are getting desperate as their plans for reprocessing of commercial spent fuel in the US have gone down the drain.
“We want to save the jobs in South Carolina because it’s good for the state, he (Wilson) believes it’s good for the U.S. and to me, it’s good for France,” Araud said. (Gerard Araud, France’s Ambassador to the United States)
“The MOX facility is being designed by AREVA, a French company that is also the parent company to the MOX contractor, CB&I-AREVA MOX Services. Gilles Rousseau, the chief operating officer for the contractor, expressed his gratitude for having Araud on site.”
[…]
“Business at its Ugly Usual at DOE: As of April 4, 2015, there is No Accountability to the Tax-Paying Public for the U.S. DOE’s Grossly Mismanaged $30+-billion Plutonium Fuel (MOX) Project, a Textbook Case of Big Government’s Inability to Manage a Costly, Complex Project. When will Secretary of Energy Moniz and Congress act to hold those responsible accountable?
As DOE spins out of control in its management of large projects, the MOX coverup drags on and on and on. When will there be any accountability for the failed MOX project?
SRS Watch requested in a letter hand delivered to US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on July 29, 2014 that he “Take immediate steps to hold managers in DOE, NNSA and Shaw AREVA MOX Services accountable for the massive cost overruns and schedule delays associated with MOX project.”.http://www.srswatch.org/uploads/2/7/5/8/27584045/letter_to_moniz_from_srs_watch_july_28_2014.pdf
Will Secretary Moniz act responsibly and fulfill his obligations as a public servant? Will he hold specific individuals accountable and make sure that their glaringly inadequate abilities in managing the MOX boondoggle are not used elsewhere in DOE? Let us know who you think must be held accountable: srswatch@gmail.com https:// ……….miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/30billion-plutonium-pu-fuel-project-good-for-france-bad-for-america-areva-mox-ca-pue-pe-yoo/
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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