nuclear weapons « nuclear-news

Three times more plutonium waste than they thought, at Hanford!

.“What is reasonably foreseeable is that there are people who will be drinking the water in the ground at Hanford at some point in the next few hundred years,” Mr. Pollet said. “We’re going to be killing people, pure and simple.”

Analysis Triples U.S. Plutonium Waste Figures, NYTimes.com, by Matthew Wald, 12 July 2010, The amount of plutonium buried at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is nearly three times what the federal government previously reported, a new analysis indicates, suggesting that a cleanup to protect future generations will be far more challenging than planners had assumed. Continue reading →

July 13, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons, plutonium, radiation, radioactive, reprocessing, uranium | Leave a comment

Opposition to nuclear steam generators in Canadian harbour

“The idea of having 16 steam generator sitting on the harbour wall for five weeks is not acceptable to me. They do emit radiation,” she said.

Mayor concerned about nuclear steam generators – Bruce Power officials at council tonight Owen Sound Sun Times – Ontario, CA By Denis Langlois 12 July 2010, A plan by nuclear generator Bruce Power to ship 16 radioactive steam generators out of Owen Sound Harbour to Sweden has run into opposition by the city’s mayor. Ruth Lovell Stanners said storing the school bus-sized, decommissioned generators, considered intermediate-level nuclear waste, next to the harbour and then shipping them on the Great Lakes poses too much of a public health and safety risk to ignore…………. Continue reading →

July 13, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, safety | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons, radiation, reactors | Leave a comment

The anti nuclear cause – a form of preventive medicine

Dr. Caldicott gives lectures and hosts a weekly radio show called If You Love This Planet, which covers issues such as global warming, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, toxic pollution, hunger and poverty, and species extinction in an hour-long, in-depth format.

Heroes of Sustainability: Dr. Helen Caldicott and The Ultimate Form of Preventive Medicine Dolphinblueinc’s Blog, 12 July 2010 “She showed me what one set-on-fire human being can do to shift the consciousness of the world.” –Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking Continue reading →

July 13, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment

Atomic veterans die as UK govt uses delaying tractics on compensation

A legal battle is now ensuing while the Ministry of Defence attempts to avoid paying out to the veterans, who are thought to be dying at the rate of three a month.

Newspaper in compensation bid for nuclear veterans, Holdthefrontpage.co.uk 12 July 2010, by Helen LambourneA regional daily newspaper has launched a campaign calling for compensation for veterans of nuclear testing.The Derby Telegraph is urging the Ministry of Defence to compensate those affected by the tests, which took place during the Cold War. Continue reading →

July 13, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, UK | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear costs, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment

Online films recall New Zealand’s Anti Nuclear Battle

Today (Saturday 10 July) is the 15th anniversary of the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior bombing by French agents. To mark the date, New Zealand On Screen has launched four titles exploring anti-nuclear protest and the politics of New Zealand’s ‘no nukes’ stand.

The movies can be watched online, for free.

When a Warrior Dies – a documentary on the aftermath of the bombing and the efforts by Greenpeace and sculptor Chris Booth to create a remembrance monument.

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/when-a-warrior-dies-1991

Fallout – excerpts from award-winning Tom Scott and Greg McGee-scripted mini series dramatising events leading to NZ’s 80s ‘No Nukes’ stand

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/fallout-1994/series

Mururoa 1973 – a landmark Alister Barry doco about protest flotilla who risked their lives travelling to French nuclear testing zone at Mururoa.

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/mururoa-1973

A Nuclear Free Pacific – documentary on the long struggle for a treaty to declare the South Pacific free of nuclear arms.
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/a-nuclear-free-pacific–niuklia-fri-pasifik-1988

July 10, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | New Zealand, politics international | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear weapons | Leave a comment

Nevada to export solar energy, not import nuclear wastes

“Nevadans are well positioned to use their world-class natural resources and talented workforce to be an exporter of clean solar energy rather than an importer of hazardous nuclear waste and polluting fossil fuels,”

Nevada Nuclear Test Site to Host Solar Demonstration Zone, Environment News Service, LAS VEGAS, Nevada, July 9, 2010 (ENS) – Advanced utility-scale solar energy technologies soon will be tested at a sprawling federal site in the Nevada desert where nuclear weapons were tested 60 years ago. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, USA | antinuclear, climate change, energy efficiency, global warming, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear weapons, renewable energy, renewables, solar | Leave a comment

Nuclear test veterans die as the law delays

it has been estimated that hundreds of veterans would have passed away and the legal costs will have risen to more than £30 million.

(UK) Test vets may be forced to wait another four years, Burton News , by ROB SMYTH, 9 July 2010, NUCLEAR test veterans may have to wait more than four years for their case to be heard, even if an appeal by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) fails……….. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, UK | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear weapons, radiation, reactors | 1 Comment

Ever more radioactive – they don’t know what to do with Depleted Uranium

Depleted uranium, unlike other forms of nuclear waste, grows more dangerous as it ages, making storage difficult.

DOE seeks home for depleted uranium, SALT LAKE CITY, July 9 (UPI) — The U.S. government is looking for even a temporary storage site for 10,000 drums of depleted uranium from a South Carolina nuclear plant, Utah officials said.The waste was supposed to have been stored permanently in Utah by EnergySolutions Inc. But the state intervened as the first shipment arrived, seeking more information from the Salt Lake City company and a review of the site………

Depleted uranium, unlike other forms of nuclear waste, grows more dangerous as it ages, making storage difficult.

The first shipment from the Savannah River site, 5,400 barrels, is now in an EnergySolutions storage cell in Utah. The rest is still in South Carolina.….DOE seeks home for depleted uranium – UPI.com

July 10, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | antinuclear, depleted, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

The movement for a Nuclear Free Pacific

VIDEO NZ On Screen – A Nuclear Free Pacific (Niuklia Fri Pasifik) , 10 July 2010, This documentary travels to nine Pacific nations, including New Zealand, to chronicle the long struggle to create a regional nuclear arms free zone. Interviews with politicians, activists, radiation victims and American and French admirals are counterpointed. When hopes of a treaty are dashed at a South Pacific Forum meet, it is pointed out that the David Lange-trumpeted independence of NZ’s nuclear free policy is evidently “not for export”. Local music scores the doco, including Australia’s Midnight Oil, whose lead singer (future MP Peter Garrett) is interviewed.

July 10, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, weapons and war | antinuclear, AUSTRALIA, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment

Nuclear injustice to the people of Marshall Islands

And now the US government is washing it hands of the people of the Marshall Islands. Aid, funding and compensation are being cut off and forced returns to the contaminated islands are being contemplated…

Remember the Rainbow Warrior and the Marshall Islands | Greenpeace International, 9 July 2010, Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French secret service in New Zealand’s Marsden Wharf. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, OCEANIA | antinuclear, cancer, indigenous, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, uranium | 1 Comment

Christians against nuclear weapons

most voiced disappointment that his [Obama’s] administration’s fiscal year 2011 defense budget–even when adjusted for inflation–surpasses any Pentagon budget since World War II………

Nuclear swords to God’s plowshares – On Faith at washingtonpost.com, 9 July 2010, “………radical Christian pacifists want to dismantle bombs, not detonate them. More than 180 peace activists convened last weekend to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Plowshares movement, an anti-nuclear weapons movement spearheaded by religious pacifists. Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons | Leave a comment

Hanford radioactive waste needs more, not less, safety regulation

A nuclear disaster at a cleanup site like Hanford is to be avoided at all costs. The persistence of radioactivity in the environment for thousands of years makes large areas of land uninhabitable, and wreaks an ongoing and incalculable human health toll. Prevention, rather than reaction, to such tragedies should be driving law and policy.

(USA) Nuclear cleanup regulation could put public at risk, Seattle Times, July 9, 2010, The weaknesses of federal regulatory agencies have been exposed by recent high-profile accidents. Tom Carpenter fears the Department of Energy will reduce its oversight of cleanup at the nation’s nuclear waste sites.
Millions of gallons of oil gush continue to rush unabated from BP’s mile-deep well in the Gulf of Mexico, and 11 workers are dead from the massive explosion that caused the biggest oil spill in decades. Weeks before this event, the news was dominated by the preventable explosion that killed 29 West Virginia coal miners……………. Is nuclear next? Continue reading →

July 10, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear weapons, radioactive | Leave a comment

“Countdown to Zero” an inconvenient film for nuclear industry

highly enriched uranium could be easily smuggled into the United States

An “Inconvenient Truth” Film for Nuclear Analysts? – By David Hoffman | Foreign Policy, 8 July 2010, “………………harrowing tales of the nuclear age thrust back into the limelight this summer in a new documentary film, Countdown to Zero, Continue reading →

July 9, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | antinuclear, enriched, nuclear, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons, uranium | Leave a comment

Effect of nuclear radiation on sheep

Caesium-137 is considered a health hazard because it can easily enter the food chain and be taken up by the body. Sheep grazing on upland grass especially in the summer months are likely in the worst-affected regions to build up levels of caesium-137 t

Scottish sheep farms finally free of Chernobyl fallout – Science, News – The Independent, By Kevin Rawlinson and Rachel Hovenden, 7 July”…….

The effect of radiation* Two factors led to the imposition of restrictions on the sale and movement of some flocks of sheep in Britain soon after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, which sent a radioactive plume over much of north-west Europe. Continue reading →

July 9, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, UK | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons, radiation, reactors | Leave a comment

GE-Hitachi, Westinghouse face risk of increaded nuclear weapons proliferation

The renewed risk of nuclear proliferation in one of the world’s most unstable regions is the latest hurdle for companies including US-based firms GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse Electric, a subsidiary of Japan’s Toshiba Corp, trying to enter India’s nuclear energy sector

Nuclear proliferation, Manila Bulletin, By SANJEEV MIGLANI, July 8, 2010, SINGAPORE (Reuters) — A 2008 civilian nuclear energy pact between the United States and India was meant to lift a 34-year-old embargo on nuclear trade despite New Delhi’s longstanding weapons program, a move seen as bolstering it as a counterweight to China. Continue reading →

July 9, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear spin, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons | Leave a comment