Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
TriTown News 14 May 09 Paula Gotsch Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety
It has been a crisis month for Exelon since federal regulators jumped the gun and relicensed the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey until 2029.
Failure of a main transformer led to the shutdown of the reactor. That followed the recent discovery of high levels of radioactive tritium contamination at the site.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff have tracked the tritium leak to two burst pipes, a concrete vault and a monitoring well. Concentrations of radioactive tritium are 300 times the allowable levels in four test wells at the site.
This raises alarm about the plant’s aging management program, which was the basis of the relicensing that is supposed to prevent this sort of dangerous mishap.
Despite assurances from Oyster Creek spokespeople that tritium has not traveled off company grounds, it has entered the water table. Water flows, and at Oyster Creek it will eventually empty into Barnegat Bay, where the state announced this week a huge reseeding program of the oyster beds…………………
…………………Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek are a serious issue for the public. Contrary to reassuring words, tritium, though low energy, is highly radioactive and has a half-life of over 12 years. Low-energy beta particles, like those emitted by tritium, can cause considerable harm.
Tritiated water is handled by the body like regular water, becoming part of the cells. It easily crosses the placental barrier, with risk of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, congenital malformation and childhood diseases.
Exelon’s record for handling tritium leaks in the past at its other nuclear power stations is horrible. At the Braidwood plant in Illinois, tritium leaked from the site for nine years and state officials were not notified until a citizen noticed and tested a pool of water in his backyard. The test came back positive for tritium, and the state of Illinois subsequently sued Exelon.
………………………..Each day Oyster Creek operates, the public is exposed to continuous doses of low-level radiation. Of all nuclear plants nationwide, Oyster Creek’s airborne emissions for strontium 90 are highest, and they are the second highest for airborne strontium 89. The plant also emits the second highest airborne levels of barium 140. All are radioactive.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says these discharges are just a normal part of routine nuclear operation, and are below acceptable levels for public health. This claim is dead wrong.
The Bier VII report issued by the NationalAcademy of Sciences stated there are no safe levels of exposure to continuous levels of low-level radiation. Also, the socalled allowable standards are set for the most robust: a healthy 35-year-old male.
The “allowable” doses do not protect the most vulnerable: women, children, infants and the developing fetus……………………… http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2009/0514/letters/009.html
Village’s fury over radioactive waste plan
Village’s fury over radioactive waste plan
Whitehaven News By Andrew Clarke
13 May 2009
CONTROVERSIAL proposals to bury radioactive waste in Keekle have met with opposition from councillors. French-owned company Sita UK plans to drill 24 exploratory boreholes at Keekle Head to see if the area is suitable for disposing of very low-level radioactive waste.
However, councillors from Frizington, which neighbours the potential site, have voiced their concerns.
“We have had enough rubbish dumped on us,” said parish council chairman Peter Connolly.
“We unanimously agree that we don’t want the proliferation of any waste, in particular low-level nuclear waste.”
Coun Tim Knowles gave Cumbria County Council’s view to the parish council meeting, held on Monday.
“The council is strongly against the dispersal of nuclear waste that I believe these boreholes relate to
Foreign Policy: Electing the Nuclear Pope
Foreign Policy: Electing the Nuclear Pope
NPR 14 May 09by Charles D. Ferguson
………………………..the ElBaradei legacy weighs heavily. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the IAEA in 2005, vindicating the director-general’s belief that he is on a mission to prevent war. Although some countries welcomed ElBaradei’s activist approach — he passionately disputed the Bush administration’s claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, for example — others would surely prefer someone less controversial. That difference of opinion often falls along economic lines, with richer countries pushing for a technocrat and the developing world advocating a peacemaker…………………. Whoever finally gets the nod will have to continue ElBaradei’s work of building the agency up from a traditionally underfunded and understaffed one to an international powerhouse of legitimacy and technical capability.
Nuclear is not the answer
Nuclear is not the answer
“………………………………….To forestall the reopening of the BNPP, Greenpeace has brought in Yves Marignac, an international consultant on nuclear and energy issues, who is executive director of WISE-Paris, an organization dedicated to “promoting independent information and well-informed decision-making” regarding the use of nuclear energy for power generation…………………………….A mathematician by training, Marignac says he has been going around the world talking about the French “experience” with nuclear energy because French President Nicholas Sarkozy “has been aggressively promoting the French nuclear industry,” convincing governments in the developing world to invest in nuclear power with the help of French-built machinery and expertise……………………………
France is extraordinarily committed to nuclear power generation, with 50 reactors around the country, and some still under construction. But a report on the French nuclear industry, published by Global Chance, an association that includes among its members several of France’s independent nuclear experts, shows that “France’s nuclear promises are a dangerous illusion … locked into nuclear power in a way that presents an obstacle to the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.”
As Marignac puts it, the French nuclear power industry “hasn’t delivered even against its own set targets.”………….
………..Marignac has many tables and charts to show how power generated by nuclear plants provides only a small percentile of the total energy required by the French people, mainly because so much of this demand is created by reliance on gasoline……………………………
BUT the main drawback to an energy program dependent on nuclear power, says Marignac, is that “it approaches the problem from the wrong end.”
In his view, any long-term solution to cut dependence on fossil fuels must be addressed from the “demand side,” that is, reducing dependence on electricity and fuel by cutting down electricity use. Not only is nuclear power dangerous, expensive and wrought with untold health and security issues, it ultimately will not bring an end to the threat of climate change. As France has shown, even with 50 nuclear power plants, the French remain as dependent on fossil fuels as ever.
Nuclear is not the answer – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout The Guardian by Terry Macalister and Helen Carter 12 may 09 Environmentalists say controls on 369 farms highlight danger of plans to build nuclear plants around UK Nearly 370 farms in Britain are still restricted in the way they use land and rear sheep because of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident 23 years ago, the government has admitted……………………………..
Critics of the nuclear industry expressed alarm at the latest numbers, which they believed would increase public unease about the highly toxic and long-term impact of radioactivity.
David Lowry, a member of Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates, said the figures demonstrated the “unforgiving hazards” of radioactivity dispersed into the environment, whether from Chernobyl in Ukraine, thousands of miles away and 23 years ago, or over decades from the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland, as revealed by the Guardian last month…………………………
…………Revelations about the continuing impact of the Chernobyl accident come weeks after three different sites were bought in auction by EDF and other power companies for building new atomic plants in Britain.
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained APP.com By PETER HIBBARD • May 12, 2009The recent reports of tritium being found in monitoring wells at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey are deeply disturbing. Once a contaminant gets into the aquifer, it is nearly impossible to remove it. Water in the aquifer moves slowly, but it moves……….
…………..Oyster Creek is the oldest nuclear plant of its type in the nation. It has one of the highest leak rates in the country. Project Tooth Fairy measured Strontium 90 in children by examining baby teeth, and estimated the leakage has been going on for many years. Growing teeth can be checked for age of exposure, like rings on a tree.
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained | APP.com | Asbury Park Press
Seismic activity makes nuclear power unsafe, says geologist
Seismic activity makes nuclear power unsafe, says geologistP ALOMA MIGONE – Herald-Tribune staff 13 May 09 – “……………………
The most recent earthquake occurred near the proposed nuclear plant site in Peace River on Feb. 19 with a magnitude of 3.2.
There was another earthquake recorded near Fort St. John in the ’80s and another near Snipe Lake, which is east of Valleyview, in the ’70s.
“This would be the most foolish place in Alberta to even think of putting a nuclear plant,” he said.
The concern is that over the course of many small earthquakes, a nuclear power plant would suffer “fractures,” weakening the structure and making it unsafe.
‘ADDED DANGER’
“The facilities of the nuclear plant, the concrete, the piping, over time they corrode, they get weaker and this is simply an added danger to the safety of the plant.”
Adele Boucher Rymhs from Citizens Against Nuclear Development said agreeing to a nuclear plan now would pass the problem to residents’ kids and grandchildren.
“Thirty years, 40 years from now, they are the ones who will suffer from problems if they occur.”
Quick answer unlikely for nuclear hot potato
Quick answer unlikely for nuclear hot potato TriCity Herald by Rick Larson, 11 May 09 A piece of President Obama’s budget that hasn’t drawn as much attention as other high-profile programs would finally bury the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project in Nevada.Scrapping Yucca Mountain will leave a $13.5 billion hole in the ground, which is how much the Department of Energy has spent on the project since 1983, and it leaves unanswered the question of what to do with waste from nuclear power plants. It’s a question the nation has struggled with for some 30 years………………………………
Scrapping Yucca Mountain isn’t as simple, however, as just walking away from a massive hole in the ground. The problem of what to do with the 55,000 tons of used nuclear fuel sitting in 39 states in “temporary” storage at nuclear power plants — including the Energy Northwest plant at Hanford — remains.
And lawmakers from states with nuclear plants are getting angry, threatening to stop or reduce their payments to the federal government for nuclear waste management until a solution for nuclear waste emerges. The New York Times reported in April that at least four states — Maine, South Carolina, Michigan and Minnesota — were considering measures.
All of this comes as nuclear power plants are being promoted as potential sources of clean and reliable base power……………………
Quick answer unlikely for nuclear hot potato – Ask the Editors | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news
political risks for uranium mining
Q+A-Eurasia Group on political risks for global mining
REUTERS 11 by Andrew Marshall May 0 9 “……………………………Q – What are the implications of the economic downturn on the expansion of nuclear energy and uranium mining projects?
A – Generally bad news across the board. The absence of new loan guarantees for new reactors in the UK and the U.S. will undermine the growth of the nuclear power sector. Emerging market nuclear programs… will also face funding pressures…………….
Safety threat to planned nuclear power stations
Safety threat to planned nuclear power stations Devastating blow as leaked letter shows regulator could pull plug on proposed UK reactors because of ‘design errors’
THE INDEPENDENT By Geoffrey Lean, 10 May 09
Britain’s plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations have been thrown into jeopardy by startling official safety fears. The nuclear regulatory body in Finland, where the first of the reactors is being built, has taken the extraordinary step of threatening to halt its construction because it has not been satisfied that key safety systems will work.
STUK, the Finnish government’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, says that “evident errors” have not been corrected more than a year after it raised its concerns and condemns the “lack of professional knowledge” of people working for the firm responsible for its design and construction.
This is an unexpected, and potentially devastating, blow because one of the main selling points of the new European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) has been that its safety systems will work far better than those in current reactors. It is particularly important that they do because, as The Independent on Sunday reported in February, they will produce many times as much radiation that could be rapidly released in the event of an accident…………………………….
Safety threat to planned nuclear power stations – Green Living, Environment – The Independent
Nuclear waste in N.B. unacceptable
Nuclear waste in N.B. unacceptable
Times and Transcript Friday May 8th, 2009 Premier Shawn Graham, Energy Minister Jack Keir and every other politician of whatever stripe in New Brunswick need to be told and to clearly understand that New Brunswickers do not want and will not accept a national nuclear waste dump in this province no matter how deep underground, how many jobs it creates or how many glib assurances are given about its safety………………
……..There is no reason why the province should “take one for Canada” on this issue. The province is simply an unsuitable location. It is geographically small, well populated and though not without environmental issues, still relatively environmentally healthy. To leave the door open to nuclear waste flies in the face of the premier’s own “green” policies and initiatives.
Bureaucratic talk of “process”is misleading. It can be the best process in the world, but it will make no difference if the outcome is unacceptable. This is a time-honoured way to try to keep people quiet or co-opt them and move things along until it is too late for the public to stop a project. There is no reason for New Brunswick to play along.
These efforts also highlight the increasingly clear fact that nuclear power (and our premier is working hard towards a second reactor even though the first continues to be costly, its refit is well behind schedule and it will cause power rates to rise again) is not a cost effective energy answer. The underground waste dump is expected to cost from $16-24 billion just to build. That massive amount must be included in any calculation on the costs of nuclear power. And expect the cost to rise substantially by the time any decision is made.
New Brunswickers have correctly and overwhelmingly rejected uranium mines, even if the government hasn’t. They will reject a national nuclear waste dump too.
timestranscript.com – Nuclear waste in N.B. unacceptable – Breaking News, New Brunswick, Canada
‘Useless’ Trident is an obscene waste of money
“………………………..In the bloated, overfunded world of nuclear “defence” (now there’s an oxymoron if every I heard one) plans to replace the Trident nuclear-armed submarine fleet continue apace, as if nothing has happened.The current estimate for replacing Trident starts at about £20 billion (the government figure) and rises to £75bn (the figure from groups such as Greenpeace). And yes, I did say “billion” with a “B”, not million.The government is absolutely committed to replacing Trident. Supposing we were all starving in the gutter, the government would still press ahead…………………….
The fact of the matter is this. Trident is useless, in the sense that it can never be used. If it was used, the retaliation would be so massive that it is unlikely there would be any life left on the planet afterwards.
The world has enough nuclear weapons to kill every person on the planet. I guess they want to allow for the possibility of resurrection, because the level of overkill is such that we have enough nuclear weapons to kill every person on the planet not just once, but several times over……………………in the current financial climate, the idea of spending such enormous sums of taxpayers’ money on replacing Trident is simply obscene.
‘Useless’ Trident is an obscene waste of money – The Inverness Courier
An American Tragedy
An American Tragedy
Augusta GazetteFri May 08, 2009,Approximately 225,000 American servicemen participated in atmospheric nuclear tests conducted between 1945 and 1962 in the U.S. and over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
These Americans were placed in very hazardous, extremely dangerous areas and were constantly exposed to the unknown factors of radiation in the performance of their duties. They were assigned to these duties with no formal training, knowledge of the hazards and with very little or no safety gear.
They were America’s atomic guinea pigs and kept away from the public.
And still today the U.S. government remains reluctant to acknowledge the health problems created by the atomic testing, which left the servicemen with hidden wounds — not from bullets or shrapnel, but from radiation.
“Thousands of veterans have died while they begged for medical help. The government has never admitted that subjecting them to atomic radiation causes all different kinds of cancer,” said Gary Thornton of Leon, who has been working hard to bring honor and remembrance to our nation’s forgotten veterans…………………..
They were also instructed to sign a document stating that whatever they “witnessed, saw, or heard would not be revealed for 20 years under the penalty of execution and/or life imprisonment.” This was called the Atomic Secrets Act and no entries were made in the service jackets, medical records or orders of these soldiers.
Because of the sworn secrecy, it’s as if the testing never happened.
Thornton has been telling anyone who will listen that most of the Atomic veterans have experienced severe health problems, as well as their children and grandchildren.
Tracking Central Asia’s Nuclear Traces
Tracking Central Asia’s Nuclear Traces registan Net 10 May 09 “……………………Recently, three Chinese tourists from Xinjiang bought a 600-lb piece of “glittering treasure” at a flea market in Kyrgyzstan. Upon sending a piece of it to a lab at Tsinghua University in Beijing, they discovered it was an enormous hunk of depleted uranium…………..
……………last year a train bound for Iran from Kyrgyzstan was stopped at the border with Uzbekistan when sensors at the border crossing detected high amounts of radiation emanating from an empty car. While the train was isolated and eventually returned to Kyrgyzstan for decontamination, the question remains: how did so much Cesium-137 go undetected in Kyrgyzstan, or through two supposedly secure border checkpoints in Kazakhstan, only being stopped in Uzbekistan? Indeed, Kyrgyzstan seems to be at the center of many nuclear security lapses in the region…
………………Tracking nuclear waste products is just as important as tracking enriched uranium (something the international community still does poorly).
Niger’s uranium, poverty and France’s growing wealth
The $1.5 billion new uranium mine in Niger that is expected to yield 5,000 tonnes of uranium a year once opened will follow in the tradition of the existing two Areva-owned mines. Areva currently operates two uranium mines in Niger that have left poverty in place and radiological contamination behind. The new Imouraren mine – that will be the second largest uranium mine in the world – will continue to deliver most of the profits to France (Areva is 90%-owned by the French government.) The Niger government has only a 33% share in the mining operation but historically any domestic profit has in any case been fed back into the richer southern half of the country
Niger’s uranium, poverty and France’s growing wealth AFRIK.COM 5 May 2009, by Konye Obaji Ori, Patrick K. JohnssonNiger to get the world’s 2nd largest uranium mineThe President of Niger, Mr. Mamadou Tandja has sought peace-talks with rebel groups in the country to reach terms of agreement to share the country’s impending rise of Uranium wealth. According to estimates, Niger will become home to the world’s second largest uranium mine by 2012. To benefit from this development, the president has promised amnesty to rebels who will lay down their weapons. But will the mines profit Nigeriens?…………….……….Areva, French nuclear energy giant formerly known as Cogema, is building the mine and will take a majority share in it. France has kept close ties with its former colony for its uranium; a relationship which is vital to France’s nuclear energy program. Areva’s uranium mines have helped in shaping France’s place as the world’s fourth uranium producer and the first producer of nuclear power…………………In 2007, anti-Areva protests rocked the country as thousands of Nigeriens marched on the streets against the presence of the French company, following a nearly 40 year Areva operation in Niger that had yielded little development in the lives of the local people and the country………………..
……………Activists from the local branch of the Greenpeace lobby group claim that the potential pollution from the Uranium mines will bring about the forced displacement of the local people……..
……………the fluctuating price in uranium created by the big consumers in a profit maximization system, has brought repeated instability to Niger’s economy as the world’s fourth biggest producer of uranium.
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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