Greenpeace threatens E.ON with legal action over nuclear reactors
The Guardian, Terry Macalister, 26 july 09 Greenpeace is threatening to take legal action against E.ON and other nuclear power companies for rushing ahead with plans to build new reactors before they have got the proper consents.
The move has been triggered by reports that preparatory bore holes for new reactors will start to be drilled for E.ON on 3 August at Oldbury in Gloucestershire. EDF is said to be considering similar work.
A Greenpeace spokesman said its lawyers were reviewing a situation which made a mockery of a whole raft of hurdles that were meant to be overcome before the government starts official licensing in 2013.
The environmental campaigning group said there has not yet been a final national policy statement on nuclear, an official “justification” process for building more stations as needed by law, or an assessment of reactor designs by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII).
The green group has sent a letter to the government telling it to put a brake on E.ON…………………..
The moves come amid reports from Canada that the Ontario government has put its nuclear power plants on hold because the only bid from Atomic Energy of Canada, the only “compliant” one received, came in at more than three times more than the province expected to pay.
The first nuclear reactor built in Western Europe for three decades – in Finland – has also been attracting negative publicity with some politicians saying the cost overruns put a question mark over whether any further plants should be constructed.
Greenpeace threatens E.ON with legal action over nuclear reactors | Business | guardian.co.uk
Germany’s nuclear misadventures continue
PRESS TV 25 July 09
Technical problem at two more nuclear reactors in Germany have fuelled the anti-nuclear debate,…………………..The latest mishaps came less than three weeks after a fault at the Kruemmel reactor cuts power and water supplies to thousand of homes, breathing new life into the major campaign issue which has divided the country’s coalition government ahead of the September elections…..
…….a recent poll revealed more public opposition to atomic energy……………
…….Technical faults are not the only demons haunting the country’s nuclear issue.
Last week, a report by Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) questioned the safety of a controversial nuclear waste dump facility in Asse, rating the salt-mine storage facility as one of the most unreliable nuclear waste dumps in use after officials found radioactive water leak.
Uranium contamination haunts Navajo country
THE NEW YORK TIMES by Luis Hipolito on 07/26/2009
“………….The legacy wrought from decades of uranium mining is long and painful here on the expansive reservation. Over the years, Navajo miners extracted some four million tons of uranium ore from the ground, much of it used by the United States government to make weapons.
Many miners died from radiation-related illnesses, and some, unaware of harmful health effects, hauled contaminated rocks and tailings from local mines and mills to build homes for their families.
Now, those homes are being demolished and rebuilt under a new government program that seeks to identify what are very likely dozens of uranium-contaminated structures still standing on Navajo land and to temporarily relocate people living in them until the homes can be torn down and rebuilt.
Stephen B. Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, and other tribal officials have been grappling for years with the environmental fallout from uranium mining.
“There were a lot of things people weren’t told about the plight of Navajos and uranium mining,” Mr. Etsitty said. “These legacy issues are impacting generations. At some point people are saying, ‘It’s got to end’”.
Hiroshima: A Visual Record
The Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 27 July 09 by elin o’Hara slavick
On August 6, 1945, the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb fueled by enriched uranium on the city of Hiroshima. 70,000 people died instantly. Another 70,000 died by the end of 1945 as a result of exposure to radiation and other related injuries. Scores of thousands would continue to die from the effects of the bomb over subsequent decades………………
……………There are 258,000 names of A-bomb victims registered under the cenotaph. Each year on August 6, new names are added. The Flame of Peace is not an eternal flame because it will only burn until nuclear weapons are abolished. Hiroshima has 20/20 vision—a vision of a nuclear weapons-free world 75 years after the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. 2,000 cities outside of Japan participate in the annual conference of Mayors for Peace, an organization started in Hiroshima………………..
……… Parents who lost children, old parents, rush to see with slight hope if they can find a clue of their children. These parents are in their 80s and 90s now. Today there are over 30,000 nuclear weapons in this world. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not past events. They are about today’s situation.”
Nuclear decommissioning – costs blow out endlessly!
Saving funds for shutdown of nuclear plants proves tricky
MISSOURIAN July 24, 2009
BY DAVE GRAM and FRANK BASS/The Associated PressVERNON, Vt. — The companies that own almost half the nation’s nuclear reactors are not setting aside enough money to dismantle them, and many may sit idle for decades and pose safety and security risks as a result, an Associated Press investigation has found……………………….At 19 nuclear plants, owners have won approval to idle reactors for as long as 60 years, presumably enough time to allow investments to recover and eventually pay for dismantling the plants and removing radioactive material.
But mothballing nuclear reactors or shutting them down inadequately presents the most severe of risks. Radioactive waste could leak from abandoned plants into ground water or be released into the air, and spent nuclear fuel rods could be stolen by terrorists.
During the past two years, estimates of dismantling costs have soared by more than $4.6 billion because rising energy and labor costs, while the investment funds that are supposed to pay for shutting plants down have lost $4.4 billion in the battered stock market………………………………
“No one at the NRC wants to acknowledge what is absolutely obvious to us, that the funds are inadequate and that the industry has bare assets,” said Arnold Gundersen, a retired nuclear engineer and decommissioning expert.
Those critics say the industry is making assumptions about their investments that do not account for another market collapse, political obstacles to getting the licenses renewed and unforeseen safety problems that could make nuclear power less palatable.
Last week, British officials reported on a 2007 leak in a cooling tank at the decommissioned Sizewell-A nuclear plant.
Saving funds for shutdown of nuclear plants proves tricky – Columbia Missourian
Nuclear reactor shuts down after malfunction
Nuclear reactor shuts down after malfunction
The Local 24 Jul 09
One of Germany’s most modern nuclear power stations was shut down on Friday due to a technical fault, operator RWE said, less than three weeks after problems at another reactor hit the headlines.
The Emsland reactor in northwest Germany, which supplies around 3.5 million households, underwent an automatic shutdown at 3:00 am (0100 GMT), RWE said in a statement……………………In early July, the Krümmel reactor near Hamburg was shut down after problems – not long after it had been reopened following two years of repairs.This reignited the nuclear debate in Germany, which decided in 2000 under then chancellor Gerhard Schröder to mothball its 17 reactors by about 2020 amid strong public opposition to atomic energy.
The costs and risks of nuclear energy
The costs and risks of nuclear energy
Gainsville.com Diane Forkel 24 July 09 “……………….Progress Energy is looking ahead to increasing energy use. Their plans are to build two new nuclear power plants. However, electric customers beware, excessive cost overruns (and defects and deficiencies) at a Finnish power plant have been reported in the New York Times. If Progress Energy experiences similar problems, utility customers should brace for a double-cost whammy in their electric bills.
Nuclear power plants carry a good deal of financial risk, so the industry is heavily backed by the government. Currently, applications are being made for billions of dollars in loan guarantees, aka government bailouts. And they could end up being just that.
A Union of Concerned Scientist website notes in 1985 Forbes magazine called the nuclear industry bailout of that era “the largest managerial disaster in business history.”……………The nuclear power plant carbon footprint (CF) is also quite large. It encompasses plant construction, plant decommissioning, and construction of a huge waste storage facility, such as Yucca Mountain, and/or other additional storage facilities. I am sure new research buildings and experimental plants for nuke waste technological breakthroughs will also add to CF………………………..
Inexperience is also blamed for Areva’s costly nuclear power plant construction problems in Finland. Yet Areva has more experience than its U.S. counterparts in building nuclear facilities.
Areva’s costly construction issues are unnerving. Structural construction problems raise safety concerns. An accident at any nuclear facility could be devastating in terms of loss of live and long-term environmental damage.
I have to wonder if this country is adequately prepared to handle radiation fallout from a nuclear accident. And the financial burden of a nuclear accident, or even just a huge bailout, could cause the country’s soaring deficit to shatter and crash.
Nuclear power rejected anew in Indonesia – Infoshop News
Nuclear power rejected anew in Indonesia
Infoshop News July 23 2009 PHILIPPINES — The rejection of nuclear power in Indonesia is another nail in the coffin of the nuclear industry, Greenpeace said today as it demanded the Philippine government to follow suit and abandon its dangerous nuclear power plans which it criticized as “backward and unproductive,” and seemingly “reeking of less-than-noble intentions.”
The environment organization had recently welcomed the decision of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, (NU), that nuclear power is haram (forbidden) on the island of Madura, East Java.
he announcement in Madura, close to Indonesia’s second largest city of Surabaya, follows a similar decision by the Jepara, Central Java chapter of NU on 1 September 2007, when scholars and clerics concluded that the threat to the local communities from potential radioactive leaks and radioactive waste handling far outweighed any potential benefits.
“In Indonesia and in any part of the world including the Philippines, communities clearly do not want nuclear power as they will be the most at risk from its operations. This latest case of rejection of nuclear power is another nail in the coffin for the obsolete nuclear power industry.
…………………..Worldwide, the nuclear industry is failing and still struggles with the same problems as it did forty years ago. Very few of the 435 operational nuclear power plants, as well as waste storage sites around the globe have been built within budget and on schedule. While there were reactors being built in 2008, many of these were delayed and no new reactors came online–compared to 27,000 megawatts of wind energy which came online in the same year.
Israeli Nuclear Waste ‘Leads to Palestinian Cancer’
Israeli Nuclear Waste ‘Leads to Palestinian Cancer’
The Media Line by Rachelle Kliger , July 21, 2009
Radiation from Israel’s nuclear facility in Dimona is being buried in Palestinian territory and causing an increase in cancer cases among West Bank Palestinians, a Palestinian doctor and anti-nuclear activist says.“The waste from Dimona is buried west of Dahriyya and the radiation from this buried waste reaches the people and causes cancer,” said Dr. Mahmoud Sa’ada, a Palestinian general practitioner and head of the Middle East division at International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, referring to a small West Bank Palestinian village just north of Hebron and just over 12 miles from the Dimona nuclear reactor.
“What’s new over the past two months is that the radiation has reached Tul Karem,” he told The Media Line, referring to a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank over 100 miles from the Dimona site.
Allegations that Israel’s nuclear facility is causing health hazards are not new, but researchers say the scope of the damage is expanding and putting an increasing number of both Israelis and Palestinians in danger……..
………….. the Dimona nuclear facility was built in the 1960s and has not undergone an overhaul as required after 1993.
Israel admits to having a nuclear facility in Dimona, a city in the south of Israel, but will not confirm or deny allegations that the facility is being used to build nuclear weapons.
Israel maintains a policy of ambiguity regarding its alleged nuclear program whereas it will not confirm or deny the existence of nuclear weapons in its arsenal.
Non-Israeli sources have claimed Israel has more than 200 nuclear warheads in its possession.
US nuclear companies to make $billions out of India deal
ww.chinaview.cn 2009-07-21By Xinhua Writer Yang Qingchuan
“…………. The agreement, inked by Clinton and Indian Minister of External Affairs S. M. Krishna, will set terms for U.S. officials to monitor India’s weapons usage and allow the US to sell sophisticated military technology to India, including fighter jets.
Under the terms of the deal, the U.S. would be allowed to conduct “end-use monitoring,” meaning it would conduct regular assessments of India’s military policies to verify that weapons systems are being used for their intended purposes.
Such an agreement is required by U.S. law before American companies can legally sell weapons systems to any foreign nation.
In other words, it will turn on the greenlight for U.S. defense giants such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, to sell advanced and sophisticated weaponry to India.
“The agreement will boost India’s ability to defend itself through the acquisition of U.S. defense equipment while promoting American high tech exports,” the U.S. State Department said of the deal in a statement.
New pact puts growing U.S.-India military ties under spotlight_English_Xinhua
Waste storage is dark cloud over nuclear power industry |
Burlington Free Press By Crea Lintilhac • July 20, 2009 –
“……………decommissioning of civilian nuclear reactors has been performed only seven times in the industry’s 60-year history and there is a shortage of data to make projections. Moreover, in recent times, the decommissioning of Connecticut Yankee ran half a billion dollars over budget and Yankee Rowe of Massachusetts ran four times over the projected costs. Since the financial collapse, I think we all believe that forecasting our financial future is ever more challenging…….
…….The lack of a disposal site is the dark cloud hanging over the entire enterprise of nuclear power. Until a deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel opens, existing spent fuel should be stored in dry casks; the 150-ton concrete and metal cylinders each holding 10 tons of spent fuel and placed at the 104 reactor sites throughout the U.S…………
…………here are some of the critical points about the dangers of reprocessing and why it’s not the way to go as a waste disposal solution. To “reprocess” spent fuel, different elements like plutonium, are separated so they can be used in new fuel. The problem is, separated plutonium can be readily used to make nuclear bombs…………..
……….The Ford administration, and later the Carter administration, concluded that reprocessing was both uneconomic and dangerous.
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……………..In June 29, President Obama decided to scrap nuclear reprocessing in the United States. It is an encouraging first step towards building an international consensus on reducing the threat from nuclear weapons.Even if no new reactors are built, it is estimated that by mid century, the amount of spent fuel will double………..……We have only a temporary solution with dry cask storage. In the meantime we should at least shut the faucet off and stop generating more waste for the sake of our children’s future.
Chinese villagers flee county in radiation scare, return amid official assurances of safety
Chinese villagers flee county in radiation scare
Freaking News 24/7 20 July 09 BEIJING — They fled in droves, terrified by rumors of a radiation leak, with many jumping empty-handed into motorcycle taxis and farm trucks they hoped would take them out of harm’s way. While most of the residents of Henan province’s Qi county had returned by Monday amid government assurances it was safe, last week’s mass exodus — some residents estimated that hundreds of thousands of people left — illustrates how quickly rumors can spread and cause alarm in China……………..
………….. alarm spread as people began hearing word that explosions occurred at the irradiation plant……………..
……..Rumors can run rife in China, where many do not trust local officials and the government-controlled media because they downplay or in some cases boycott negative news fearing it will trigger social unrest.
Chinese villagers flee county in radiation scare, return amid official assurances of safety
The World from Berlin: Germany’s Radioactive Election Fever
Germany’s Radioactive Election Fever
SPIEGEL ONLINE Josh Ward 17 July 09 Two recent mishaps have provided an opportunity for anti-nuclear forces in Germany — and their flagbearer, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel — to take the offensive. But some German commentators think that, in trying to win votes for his party, Gabriel might actually drive them into the arms of the Greens.German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel is taking advantage of two recent accidents related to the country’s nuclear energy industry to press home his — and most of the country’s — opposition to nuclear energy………………….……….The Krümmel nuclear power plant operated by the Swedish energy giant Vattenfall near Hamburg automatically shut down on July 4 after a fault in a transformer. And, on Tuesday, officials announced that the troubled Asse underground nuclear waste storage facility, a former salt mine, was having renewed problems with major water leakage………………….
……….According to a recent survey by the Forsa polling institute, almost two-thirds of Germans support the closing of the country’s remaining nuclear power plants.
The World from Berlin: Germany’s Radioactive Election Fever – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International
Nuclear Title May Not Be Enough to Push Senate Climate Bill Over the Top –
Nuclear Title May Not Be Enough to Push Senate Climate Bill Over the Top The New York Times By KATHERINE LING Reporters Allison Winter, Alex Kaplun and Darren Samuelsohn contributed. 17 July 09 While supporters of nuclear energy ardently proclaim the power source is necessary to combat climate change, incentives for nuclear power may not be the silver bullet sponsors need to pass climate legislation in the Senate this year…………………………………The energy committee bill has several perks for nuclear energy including a Clean Energy Development Administration, training programs for nuclear education, and exclusion of new nuclear generation or capacity upgrades through efficiency at existing nuclear plants from the power sales baseline used to measure the renewable electricity standard (RE………………..The House climate bill, H.R. 2454 (pdf), also contains a Clean Energy Development Administration — although it prevents any technology from using more than 30 percent of total available funds. It also includes the exclusion of new nuclear generation from the power sales baseline used to calculate the RES………………………………..The underlying question for sponsors: If nuclear incentives are not enough to get undecided senators on board with cap and trade, what is the point of including them at all?…………………..The nuclear issue dominated much of the debate at a hearing on Tuesday………………………”What we are hopeful for in any climate bill are those provisions. One, the recognition of nuclear as a clean energy source so if someone has nuclear in their portfolio they should be recognized for that and, two, recognition that to move forward we are going to have to private-public partnership of government and private enterprise,” said Derrick Freeman, senior director, of NEI’s legislative programs.
Nuclear Title May Not Be Enough to Push Senate Climate Bill Over the Top – NYTimes.com
Sloppy work at Perry nuclear power plant concerns Nuclear Regulatory Commission –
Sloppy work at Perry nuclear power plant concerns Nuclear Regulatory Commission CLEVELAND.COM July 18, 2009 John Funk Plain Dealer Reporter
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is concerned about sloppy workmanship and employee inattention to detail at the Perry nuclear power plant.The NRC wants plant owner FirstEnergy Corp. to explain how it plans to correct these problems……………………..orkers have continued to make small mistakes on routine, day-to-day jobs, in a number of unrelated areas.
Such mistakes are not in themselves a safety concern, but they are often the first signs at a nuclear plant that the culture of “safety first” is eroding and attention to safety is slipping……………..”
Sloppy work at Perry nuclear power plant concerns Nuclear Regulatory Commission – Cleveland.com
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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