Tactical Nuclear Weapons, the Menace No One Is Talking About
Politics Daily David Wood 8 July 07 “…………………………Presidents Obama and Medvedev, who agreed on the outlines of the treaty at their Moscow summit, seem to have overlooked thousands of nasty nuclear weapons bristling right under their noses in Europe: Russian and American tactical nukes. About 4,500 of these war-fighting weapons, mostly bombs and short-range missile warheads, are stored in Europe and in western Russia. They are not a subject of the strategic nuclear arms talks announced in Moscow. In fact, they are not part of any arms control treaty or negotiation.
The security of the facilities where they are stored, including underground U.S. bunkers across Western Europe, has come under question. The Russians have at least eight times as many of these weapons as the United States has deployed in Europe, an imbalance that a panel of senior American experts recently called “stark and worrisome.”
In the shifting geopolitics of post-Cold War Europe, tactical nuclear weapons play an increasingly important role in Russian military doctrine, a brute reminder of Russian power against the growing influence of the West along its borders. For instance, the Russians are working to fit tactical nuclear warheads onto submarine-launched cruise missiles, a weapon that “will play a key role” in Russian strategy, according to Vice Adm. Oleg Bursev of the Russian General Staff. “Their range and precision are gradually increasing,” he said this spring.
………………………….. These are bombs carried on ordinary jets, like F-16s, and mounted on short-range ballistic missiles. This class of weapons might still include the nuclear land mines and nuclear artillery shells that were deployed by the tens of thousands in Europe during the Cold War. The United States and Russia both say they’ve gotten rid of these weapons, but intelligence services on each side harbor doubts.
The U.S. tactical weapons, mostly B-61 thermonuclear bombs, are stored in underground vaults in Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy, and Turkey, where they are under the control of U.S. Air Force munitions support squadrons.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/08/tactical-nuclear-weapons-the-menace-no-one-is-talking-about/
Can Nuclear Power Take The Heat?
Can Nuclear Power Take The Heat? The New Republic -Bradford Plumer 7 July 09 Via Climate Progress, the London Times reports that France’s nuclear fleet is once again running into water and heat trouble during the summer……………………….These summer shutdowns are becoming more and more common, and don’t bode well for the future, given that temperatures in Europe have been creeping up faster than the global average, according to a recent European Environmental Agency report, and will almost certainly keep climbing as the world warms. Some countries, like France, Germany, and Spain, have responded to this problem in the past by overriding their own environmental laws and allowing plants to dump hotter water into the rivers—the downside is that this can cause considerable damage to river life.
Nor is this just Europe’s problem: In 2006, Exelon had to cut the power at a nuclear plant in Illinois when the Mississippi River got too warm to be used as cooling water. According to the recent NOAA synthesis report on climate-change impacts in the United States, one of the things we can expect to see across the country in the coming decades is a much greater frequency of hotter-than-90°F (32°C) days—precisely the point at which France’s plants keep running into trouble. Meanwhile, as the AP reported last year, if droughts become more frequent, that could mean additional trouble for nearly one-quarter of the nation’s nuclear plants.
Reprocessing is no solution
Reprocessing is no solution
Rutland Herald July 7, 2009 “………………The Bush administration began the new push for a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. In 1979 a United States naval nuclear engineer and president, Jimmy Carter, ended this dangerous program.Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel was supposed to be one alternative to lots and lots of mining forever and forever. The biggest experiment in reprocessing was at Sellafield in Britain. In 2005, after decades of contamination and leaks and general spewing of horrible matter into the ocean, air, and land around the reprocessing plant, Sellafield was shut down because a bigger-than-usual leak of fuel dissolved in nitric acid —some tens of thousands of gallons — was discovered. It contained enough plutonium to make about 20 nuclear bombs.A nuclear dump site just six miles from the famous Champagne vineyards in France is leaking radioactive waste into the groundwater. According to the French nuclear safety authority, the “wall of a storage cell fissured” while concrete was being added to a recent layer of nuclear waste.It showed levels of radioactivity leaking from another dump site run by the same company in Normandy — at up to 90 times above European safety limits.That waste has seeped into underground water used by farmers, with contamination spreading into the countryside and threatening dairy production. The Champagne site will receive a total of 4,000 terabequerels of tritium — more than three times the amount of tritiumwaste as the dump site in Normandy.
Reprocessing is not a new idea. In fact, more than $40 billion has been spent globally on reprocessing technologies that have never become commercially successful. A 1996 report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the costs of reprocessing and transmutation of irradiated fuel from waste produced by existing U.S. reactors alone easily could be more than $100 billion, in the addition to the cost of a geologic repository.
A new face of nuclear medicine
A new face of nuclear medicine Heart Institute makes own medical isotopes By Tom Spears, The Ottawa Citizen J uly 7, 2009 “…………………In the institute’s basement, there’s a machine with a name like a carnival ride — the cyclotron — that produces medical isotopes (radioactive atoms) without a nuclear reactor.
To anyone who has toured a nuclear reactor building, the contrast is startling. Reactors are huge machines in earthquake-proof buildings running 24 hours a day, surrounded by layer upon layer of security and shutdown systems, and with radioactive waste that will last for millennia.
They cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build (even the smallest ones), and the last pair built in Canada flunked their safety tests last year and therefore have never operated.
The cyclotron at the Heart Institute is a big metal box in a room that measures about eight by 10 metres. You can walk right up to it safely while it’s running.
At night, the staff just turn it off and go home.
This is a new face of nuclear medicine, making medical isotopes that will make pictures of the heart, brain, bones and so on.
De Kemp continues his explanation of the glowing blobs on a compu
Inexplicable leukemias rock small German rural region
Inexplicable leukemias rock small German rural region Google News By Arnaud Bouvier – 7 July 09 GEESTHACHT, Germany (AFP) — For 20 years, children from a small rural northern German region — where Alfred Nobel invented dynamite — have been contracting leukemia at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world and no one knows exactly why.Nineteen cases of leukemia among children under 15 have been recorded since 1989 in the region of Elbmarsch, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the city of Hamburg, three or four times the average rate.”Such a high rate of leukemia is unique in the world,” according to Hayo Dieckmann, a health official in the nearby town of Lueneburg who is also a medical doctor…………………………………………..
Campaigners, however, point out that within two kilometres of the region lie the Kruemmel nuclear power station and the GKSS scientific research centre, both of which they believe are to blame for the leukemia outbreaks.
The “citizens’ association against leukemia in Elbmarsch” (BI) believes that a nuclear accident took place at the GKSS centre, only six months after the devastating meltdown at Chernobyl.
The campaigners say that a radiation leak occurred at the centre — which operates a small nuclear reactor for research purposes — on September 12, 1986, which was later covered up by the authorities……………………………
Campaigners also point an accusing finger at the Kruemmel nuclear power plant which reopened on June 24 after a fire broke out there two years ago.
The plant hit headlines again at the weekend in the wake of two further malfunctions, one of which plunged part of Hamburg into darkness and knocked out the city’s traffic lights.
At the end of 2007, a national survey of nuclear power stations in Germany showed that the risk of contracting cancer rose dramatically for children living near a power plant.
Belarussian kids receive care
Belarussian kids receive careBy John Henderson Rocky Mount Telegram July 06, 2009 Children from Belarus who continue to be exposed to radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant incident have once again traveled to Rocky Mount from the former Soviet Union to receive free medical care.But fewer local “host families” in this down economy have been able pay for the flights and take the children into their homes for six weeks. The host families also take the children to local offices for medical, eye and dental care treatment………………………….
On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant reactor exploded, releasing dangerous amounts of radiation into the air. The wind on that day carried it toward Belarus, contaminating the region’s air, soil and water.
“The problem is there is so much unknown radiation material (in Belarus), and it will probably be there for 3,000 or 4,000 years,” Patrone said. “Some of the food is not safe.”………………………………….
“Medically, they are small in size,” Patrone said. “Some have thyroid problems and an occasional immune-deficiency problem. They are still suffering, because basically, radiation is still in the dirt.”
If a child is diagnosed with a major problem here such as thyroid cancer, they are sent back to Belarus for treatment, he said.
“(The trip to Rocky Mount) is a way to get out of the radiation zone and to give kids a second (doctor’s) opinion,” he said.
Downwinders still waiting for RECA coverage
Downwinders still waiting for RECA coverage By Blair Koch Times-News 7 july 09 A common fear among victims of radiation fallout caused by nuclear testing in Nevada during the 1950s and ’60s is that they will not live long enough to see the government take accountability.Ilene Hoisington expressed this sentiment when interviewed by the Times-News in June 2007. At 75, she had seen both her sons die of cancer and had her own larynx removed due to the same disease. Hoisington’s sister also died of cancer.In June 2008, Hoisington lost her battle too, having died before Idaho fallout victims were included in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.”I think (the government) is waiting until we all die and then there won’t be anymore downwinders, problem solved,” Hoisington said in 2007.
New study: Nuclear workers at higher risk for cancer –
New study: Nuclear workers at higher risk for cancer Brattleboro Reformer By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff July 2BRATTLEBORO — Are nuclear power plant workers at higher risk to die of cancer?A study conducted by a Canadian researcher concluded the risk is substantially higher to them than to the general public.The document, “Exposure to Radiation and Health Outcomes” was made public last week. It was written by Mark Lemstra, who was formerly a senior research epidemiologist for the Saskatoon, Canada, Health Region……………………In the radiation report, in which Lemstra reviewed 1,725 articles related to radiation studies, he concluded that nuclear power plant workers have a “relative excess risk” of getting cancer.
In epidemiology, excess risk is defined as the difference between the proportion of subjects in a population with a particular disease who were exposed to a specific risk factor and the proportion of subjects with that same disease who were not exposed.
In the case of nuclear power plant workers, that risk factor is low-dose radiation.
New study: Nuclear workers at higher risk for cancer – Brattleboro Reformer
No answer on nuclear waste issue
No answer on waste issue Rutland Herald KATHLEEN KREVETSKI 29 June 09 “……………………. the Areva nuclear fuel processing plant — La Hague in France where spent nuclear fuel rods are refined for weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium. La Hague acknowledges that it is intentionally dumping thousands of gallons of radioactive waste into the ocean while the incidence of childhood cancer is rampant in the area surrounding that plant.
Before George Bush left office, the U.S. EPA had radically increased permissible public exposure to radiation in drinking water, including a nearly 1,000-fold increase in permissible concentrations of strontium-90, 3,000- to 100,000-fold for iodine-131, and a nearly 25,000 increase for nickel-63. The relaxation of these radiation protection regulations had been sought for years by the nuclear industry and its allies in the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission .
In the most extreme case, the new standards permit radionuclide concentrations seven million times more lax than permitted under the Safe Drinking Water Act and would permit public exposure to radiation levels vastly higher than EPA had previously deemed unacceptably dangerous. The public did not get to comment on these changes. What exactly is the radioactive waste that is now being discharged into the Connecticut River. When will our Vermont Department of Public Health start reporting on the trends of cancer incidence rising in Vermont? And Entergy and the NRC thinks its OK to continue to build up the stockpile of the radioactive waste here in Vermont because no one else will accept it
Fears for safety as nuclear watchdog hires staff from firms pitching to build reactors
Fears for safety as nuclear watchdog hires staff from firms pitching to build reactors The Guardian Tim Webb 26 June 2009
The Nuclear Installations Inspec
torate is recruiting more than a dozen project managers to speed up its review of new reactor designs – even though they work for the companies hoping to build them.
The Guardian has learnt that the government has approached companies including the US groups Bechtel and CH2M Hill, as well as the UK’s Amec, to fill the senior posts. The companies involved are eager to secure lucrative contracts to help build the UK’s first new reactors for decades.
Government and industry sources admitted the secondments posed potential conflict of interest problems.
It is also understood that the inspectorate has recruited technical staff from Areva,…………………………There are concerns that the potential conflicts of interest could compromise the safety of the new nuclear reactors if the companies helping the inspectorate have a vested interest in approving their design.
The high price of nuclear fuel
The high price of nuclear fuel: Censorbugbear 25 June 2009 story sourced from World Nuclear News, Itar-Tass news agency, LARRI Namibian miners inhale alpha radiation:During a May 2009 visit to the Netherlands, Mrs Hilma Shindondola-Mote, director of the Namibian research institute LArrI, warned that many uranium workers in Namibia ‘ fear for their health and lifestyle due to the environmental impact of uranium mining while concessions for mine companies continue to be granted by the government.”
She presented the institute’s findings in its latest report: ‘Uranium mining in Namibia – the mystery behind low-level radiation’, with research conducted among fifty workers of Namibia’s largest uranium mine: Rössing Uranium (Rio Tinto Group). *
“Mine workers and others in the surrounding communities inhale dust and radon gas. The radon gas exposes the body to alpha radiation, which is destructive. Exposure to radiation is most often associated with cancer, but it can also have other harmful effects. Low level radiation can contribute to birth defects, high infant mortality and chronic lung, eye, skin and reproductive illnesses.”
They are only informed about health problems after leaving their jobs…Uranium mine workers are not aware of the true nature of their health status: “During the time we conducted the study, employees claimed that Rössing does not explain what health problems can arise from exposure to uranium”. Also, workers of the company raised concern that although they are tested annually, the results are never revealed until such a time when they leave the company. *
“The workers feel that there is a conspiracy between the doctors and Rössing. They are only informed about health problems like cancer after leaving their jobs. The doctors tell them that the deterioration in their health is because of their genes, family history or lifestyle.”
Censorbugbear reports…: Russia gets fuel deals with Nigeria,Egypt,Namibia
NUCLEAR LEGACY
NUCLEAR LEGACY Soviet nuclear tests still haunt Kazakhs canada.com By Maria Golovnina, ReutersJune 25, 2009 “…………………………
Moscow tested about 500 bombs here between 1949 and 1989, exposing 1.5 million people like Abishev to extreme levels of radiation and contaminating an area roughly the size of Germany.
The Soviet Union conducted its last test here in 1989 and the facility was officially closed in 1991 as the Soviet collapse brought the global nuclear arms race to an end.
Twenty years on, the Semipalatinsk test range is silent, a steppe wind blowing gently through the abandoned site dotted by ruined concrete buildings and giant hunks of rusty metal.
But hundreds of thousands of residents, subjected to the equivalent of 20,000 Hiroshima bombs during 40 years of Russian experiments, are still sickened by the legacy of their past.
The incidence of cancer, mental illness and fertility problems in this region is among the highest in Kazakhstan, a vast Central Asian nation west of China, and infant mortality is five times higher than in other regions………………………………scientists say more needs to be done to study the effect of 40 years of tests on the people. It is an issue still little understood by science, and researchers say mutations are already being passed down from parents to their children.
“The biggest issue is not so much those who experienced the explosions directly but the impact on their children and grandchildren,” said Mikhail Panin, an environmental scientist who is researching the matter in the Semipalatinsk area.
Revealed: catalogue of atomic leaks
Revealed: catalogue of atomic leaks The Fuardian Terry Macalister and Rob Edwards 21 June 09
The scale of safety problems inside Britain’s nuclear power stations has been revealed for the first time in a secret report obtained by the Observer that shows more than 1,750 leaks, breakdowns or other “events” over the past seven years.
The damning document, written by the government’s chief nuclear inspector, Mike Weightman, and released under the Freedom of Information Act, raises serious questions about the dangers of expanding the industry with a new generation of atomic plants. And it came as the managers of the UK’s biggest plant, Sellafield, admitted they had finally halted a radioactive leak many believe has been going on for 50 years.
The report discloses that between 2001-08 there were 1,767 safety incidents across Britain’s nuclear plants. About half were subsequently judged by inspectors as serious enough “to have had the potential to challenge a nuclear safety system”. They were “across all areas of existing nuclear plant”, including Sellafield in Cumbria and Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire, says Weightman, chief inspector of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII).
Revealed: catalogue of atomic leaks | Environment | The Observer
Thousands of consumer products found to contain low levels of radiation
Thousands of consumer products found to contain low levels of radiationBy ISAAC WOLF Scripps Howard News ServiceSunday, June 21, 2009
Thousands of everyday products and materials containing radioactive metals are surfacing across the United States and around the world.
Common kitchen cheese graters, reclining chairs, women’s handbags and tableware manufactured with contaminated metals have been identified, some after having been in circulation for as long as a decade. So have fencing wire and fence posts, shovel blades, elevator buttons, airline parts and steel used in construction.
A Scripps Howard News Service investigation has found that – because of haphazard screening, an absence of oversight and substantial disincentives for businesses to report contamination – no one knows how many tainted goods are in circulation in the United States.
But thousands of consumer goods and millions of pounds of unfinished metal and its byproducts have been found to contain low levels of radioactivity, and experts think the true amount could be much higher, perhaps by a factor of 10.
New power-plant drain on rivers sparks debate
New power-plant drain on rivers sparks debate Ny san Antonio 21 June 09 by Antonio Caputo
New power plants planned along the lower Colorado River could use the same water supply that was denied San Antonio for future growth.
The driving force is simple. Power shortages are forecast for Texas’ future — shortages that power companies are rushing to meet with new plants.
But experts, environmental groups and others are beginning to question whether there is enough water available to serve the massive facilities.
The issue pits two fundamental resources critical to the fast-growing state against each other — water and power.
In an indirect way, it even puts San Antonio’s two largest utilities in competition for water from the lower Colorado River, some 200 miles away……………………
Nukes’ take
The lower Colorado River is a microcosm of an issue exploding statewide.
The South Texas Project, which supplies San Antonio with about a third of its energy, wants to build two more nuclear reactors and use the Colorado River water for cooling.
1 This Month
of the week – Shut Down Drone Warfare!
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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