nuclear-news

New book documents the nuclear power nightmare

“At the heart of the nuclear nightmare,” she writes, “is something no one wants to talk about: birth defects, a whitewash word for children born without the attributes we recognize as human.”

Fukushima Tour de Force: New Book Chronicles Nuclear Devil’s Tango HUFFNGTON POST, Jeff Biggers, 22 May 12, With Japan now only weeks into its temporarymoratorium on nuclear power  plants, a chillingly prescient chapter in Cecile Pineda’s new

tour de force, Devil’s Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step , foretells the lasting impact of a “planetary catastrophe” in the time of powerful energy lobbies…..  ”It’s not easy for you, or me, or anyone to pay attention to the consequences of the nuclear energy cycle,” Pineda tells the reader in her foreword. “Why? Because you can’t see radiation.”

May 23, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

A new book on a crime against humanity – nuclear warfare

Taking a stand against nuclear war The Star, Malaysia, By LIM WEY WEN KUALA LUMPUR: Nuclear war is a crime against humanity and it has to be prevented, said Canadian academic Prof Michel Chossudovsky .

That was the reason he wrote a book in an effort to prevent nuclear war.

“Death by radiation is gradual, and the effects could spread,” said the author of Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War. “I am a writer and a researcher, and this book is there to sensitise public opinion (on nuclear warfare).

“(The book) is to present the facts and to point to the fact that in the wake of Sept 11, 2001, there has been a very significant redefinition of nuclear doctrine in terms of the US military.”

He said this after the launch at the Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF) here….. Prof Chossudovsky asserts the world is at a very critical crossroad as the line between nuclear and conventional weapons becomes increasingly blurred.

He warns of the development of “new-generation nuclear weapons” that are touted to be “safe” for the surrounding civilian population.

“The distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons has been totally blurred and the wars of the 21st century are going to be waged with a combination of both,” he said….. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/5/11/nation/11264133&sec=nation

May 11, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

New book on the world’s great leap to renewable energy

Renewable energy among industrial revolution’s next ‘leaps’ BY DAVID DODGE, EDMONTONJOURNAL.COM MAY 4, 2012   EDMONTON – Author Chris Turner calls it “the great leap sideways.” The leap Turner is referring to is the next industrial revolution. It’s replacing non-renewable energy with renewable energy in the next 50 years. Continue reading →

May 5, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

New book on nuclear energy

The Doomsday Machine, The High Price of Nuclear Energy, the World’s Most Dangerous Fuel, Martin Cohen and Andrew McKillop Palgrave Macmillan Today, there are over 400 nuclear reactors in 31 countries, including France, Brazil, India, the UK, and Canada. Proponents claim that nuclear power is the only viable alternative to fossil fuels given rising energy consumption and the looming threat of global warming, and are pushing for an even greater investment. Here, energy economist Andrew McKillop and social scientist Martin Cohen argue that the nuclear power dream being sold to us is pure fantasy. Debunking the multi-layered myth that nuclear energy is cheap, clean and safe, they demonstrate how landscapes are ravaged in search of the elusive yellow cake to fuel the reactors, and how energy companies and politicians rarely discuss the true costs of nuclear power plants – from the subsidies that build the infrastructure to the unspoken guarantee that the public will pick up the cleanup cost in the event of a meltdown, which can easily top a hundred billion dollars. In the wake of the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima power plant, the future of nuclear energy is again uncertain; this is a timely and hard-hitting look at why its costs are simply too high for humanity. , “The Doomsday Machine,”

April 11, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

Coming geological extreme events (not good for nuclear reactors)

Climate change may stir geological mayhem http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/02/climate-change-may-stir-geological-mayhem.html New Scientist,  23 February 2012 Fred Pearce, consultant In Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, geologist Bill McGuire warns we may be waking primordial monsters

IN 2006, London geologist Bill McGuire argued in New Scientist that global warming would trigger epidemics of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. Now he’s written the book. The story is even scarier writ large….. There is now abundant evidence that catastrophic outbursts of geological activity accompanied past periods
of rapid climate change, for instance, when we shifted in and out of ice ages. The stresses and strains of rising and falling sea levels and the creation and loss of ice sheets triggered these outbursts. Climate change, he says, may already be shaking up the Earth anew. Continue reading →

February 27, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

Book exposes the secret nuclear horror of Rocky Flats

 her message is searing. She grew up in a small town near Rocky Flats, Colorado, where a secret nuclear weapons plant built over 70,000 plutonium “triggers” for nuclear bombs. Iversen spoke with me this week about her research … “They made Nagasaki bombs in my backyard,” she explains.

cancer rates are telling the tale: they remain elevated in neighborhoods around Rocky Flats 30 years on

profit motives are driving the push to develop lands that, according to scientists, can never be inhabited safely again. …”Rocky Flats happened in my backyard. [This will be] happening in everyone’s backyard.” 

From Rocky Flats to Fukushima: this nuclear folly,  Naomi Wolf, Guardian UK 21 Feb 12,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/21/rocky-flats-fukushima-nuclear-folly?newsfeed=true There’s no such thing as safe and accidents are always covered up. So why let Obama build a whole new generation of reactors?

 In March 2011, novelist Kristen Iversen‘s memoir, Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats, was waiting sedately among piles of other manuscripts at various publishing houses. Then,Japan was hit by a tsunami, and the cooling systems of the Fukushimanuclear reactor were overwhelmed, giving the world apocalyptic images of toxic floods and floating cars, of whole provinces made uninhabitable. Continue reading →

February 22, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons and the race between cooperation and catastrophe

Sam Nunn tackling ‘global problem’ of nuclear weapons Former senator also discusses military, current politics, midstate Macon.com By JIM GAINES, 22 Jan 12 Nunn, a Democratic senator for 24 years, is one subject of a new book by former New York Times reporter and editor Philip Taubman.

“The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and their Quest to Ban the Bomb” chronicles the effort to control nuclear materials worldwide. Nunn joined former secretaries of state Henry
Kissinger and George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and Stanford University physicist Sidney Drell to write a 2007 Wall Street Journal article calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons,and they’ve traveled the world in quest of that goal ever since….

“He says if there’s a 10 percent chance of having a nuclear catastrophe — a city goes up — in a given year, and that persists for 50 years … there’s only one-half of a 1 percent chance of
avoidance,” Nunn said. “In other words, 99 and one-half percent chance it’s going to happen over 50 years, somewhere. If you can move that 10 percent to one percent … then over 50 years, you’ve got a 60 percent chance of avoidance. That’s what threat reduction’s all about. It’s a global problem, but as I say often — and it’s true — we’re in a race
between cooperation and catastrophe.”…..
“It’s not simply weapons. You’ve got to control nuclear material, and you’ve got to stop producing the stuff. You could get rid of every nuclear weapon in the world, and the world would still be a very dangerous place if a terrorist could make a weapon. Nobody’s saying
this is going to be easy. But the other way to go is to say ‘We’re going to have them forever.’….. http://www.macon.com/2012/01/22/1873859/former-senator-also-discusses.html

January 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

New book on nuclear security

New Book Chronicles Shultz-Perry-Kissinger-Nunn Initiative , NTI Global Security Newswire  , 5 Jan 12, In a new book, award-winning journalist Philip Taubman tells the intimate story of five men—Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn, William Perry, and Stanford physicist Sidney Drell—and their campaign to reduce the threat of a nuclear attack and, ultimately, eliminate nuclear weapons altogether.

January 7, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons proliferator Pakistan wants Australian uranium

Why Australia must not sell uranium to Pakistan, The Conversation, Peter Meyer 7 December 2011 Predictably, Pakistan is seeking equal treatment with India on uranium sales from Australia……The activities of the AQ Khan network in selling equipment and technology to other states show Pakistan to have been an active proliferator (as Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark point out in their book, Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy). And the military establishment under whose wings Khan – the father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme – operated still dominates public affairs in Pakistan, even under an elected government…..

December 8, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

Japan, and USA, have practical and profitable alternatives to nuclear power

  Lovins and colleagues, in a new book, extend the argument to the U.S. as well:

For the United States, Rocky Mountain Institute’s new synthesis “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era” shows how to run a 2.6-fold bigger 2050 economy with no oil, no coal, no nuclear energy, one-third less natural gas, and $5-trillion lower cost than business-as-usual. 

DOES JAPAN REALLY NEED NUCLEAR?, New Yorker,  by Evan Osnos, November 4, 2011 “……….As I described in the magazine last month, polls show mounting opposition to nuclear power, but many of Japan’s most influential thinkers and politicians have concluded that the country simply cannot afford to give it up. Continue reading →

November 7, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment

Mohamed ElBaradei offers a way towards nuclear disarmament

In this new book, ElBaradei reports on a deeply disturbing development — a scramble by numerous nations, driven by fear and insecurity, to obtain nuclear weapons or to maintain their own privileged nuclear status….

ElBaradei has some harsh words for what he calls the “double standard” of nuclear-armed nations. The United States, Britain, France, China, and Russia not only dealt ineffectively and inconsistently with other nations suspected of developing nuclear weapons, but, through “their own failure to disarm contributed directly to proliferation itself.”

Mohamed ElBaradei’s The Age of Deception, HUFFINGTON
POST, Lawrence Wittner, 29 Sept 11, Can international diplomacy cope with the nuclear dangers that now threaten global survival? In The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times (Metropolitan Books, 2011), Mohamed ElBaradei makes the case that it can — if national governments would make a good faith effort to support it. Continue reading →

September 30, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | resources - print | Leave a comment