nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Stuxnet computer worm might target North Korea’s nukes

  • the North Korean control system “is dual use, also used by the petrochemical industry, but was the same as those acquired by Iran to run its centrifuges.”
  • Could Stuxnet Mess With North Korea’s New Uranium Plant?  Wired.com. By Kim Zetter and Spencer Ackerman November 22, 2010 The Stuxnet worm may have a new target. While security analysts try to figure out whether the now-infamous malware was built to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, North Korea has unveiled a new uranium enrichment plant that appears to share components with Iran’s facilities. Could Pyongyang’s centrifuges be vulnerable to Stuxnet? Continue reading

November 23, 2010 Posted by | North Korea, safety, Uranium | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

British nuclear veterans set back, for now, by court ruling

The High Court in London ruled Monday that just one out of 10 test cases, representing more than 1,000 claimants, was entitled to proceed to a full trial. The remaining nine cases had been launched outside a legal time limit, it said….However, lawyers for the claimants indicated that they would take the case to the Supreme Court in Britain.

British government wins partial victory in nuclear test claim case, Monsters and Critics, Nov 22, 2010, London – The British government Monday claimed a partial victory in a long-running legal battle over compensation for ex- servicemen involved in 1950’s nuclear tests in Australia. Continue reading

November 23, 2010 Posted by | Legal, UK | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Possibly, a partial solution to unsolved problem of dead nuclear reactors

EnergySolutions cannot dispose of all the waste. Clive is licensed only for the least contaminated material. And the spent nuclear fuel is in the same situation as used reactor fuel all over the country: the Energy Department is under contract to take it, but has no place to dispose of it. Until a permanent repository is built at the proposed Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada or another location, the waste will stay at the Zion site in steel and concrete casks designed to last for decades.

Nuclear Plant Finds Novel Way to Decommission, NYTimes.com, By MATTHEW L. WALD: November 22, 2010 ZION, Ill. — Twelve years ago, Commonwealth Edison found itself in a bind. The Zion Station, its twin-unit nuclear reactor here, was no longer profitable. But the company could not afford to tear it down: the cost of dismantling the vast steel and concrete building, with multiple areas of radioactive contamination, would exceed $1 billion, double what it had cost to build the reactors in the 1970s. Nor could Commonwealth Edison walk away from the plant, because of the contamination. Continue reading

November 23, 2010 Posted by | decommission reactor, USA | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What happened to UK nuclear veterans’ removed body parts?

What happened to the removed body parts , organs and tissue ? The Redfern Report states they were destroyed .A very convenient destruction of evidence ….the Redfern Inquiry shows the NRPB was explicitly and deeply involved in the process to remove of body parts from the corpses , examining them for radiation damage and then destroying the evidence

What the UK Veterans think – Redfern « Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog. 22 Nov 10. “…just when we UK nuc vets needed it , another nail has been hammered into the Ministry of Defence’s cold war policy of excluding nuclear test veterans, our premature widows and genetically damaged children from truth and justice .The Redfern Inquiry Report ( Michael Redgrave QC ) published 16th Nov , together with the refusal of the Ministry of Defence to release 500 documents into the Court should just about destroy the Government’s credibility to any longer defend the indefensible in the Atomic Veterans Group Litigation ,……. Continue reading

November 22, 2010 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Radioactive poisoining of Mayak, in rural Russia

Mayak means irradiated milk, and a river 1,000 times as radioactive as normal. Genetic defects in people 25 times and cancer incidence four times the Russian average……..

Dumping nuclear waste on defenceless Russians, de.indymedia.org |Presenter Sonia Seymour Mikich: “……….The CASTOR protests of Gorleben ( ………german-nuke-waste-transportation) have shown yet again how nuclear waste has entrapped us. There’s no final repository anywhere. There are no disposal suggestions that would be suitable for a million years – that’s how long the fuel rods radiate. Continue reading

November 22, 2010 Posted by | environment, Russia | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yucca Mountain unsuitable for nuclear wastes, but Republicans don’t care

The science the Bush administration used to try to support the project is, at best, incomplete, and the science there has been called into question time and again. There are significant, unresolved safety concerns about the project, and Yucca Mountain is a terrible site to begin with. It’s a porous volcanic ridge, and studies have shown that it is hardly suitable to contain nuclear waste. …Yucca Mountain was chosen as the proposed site for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste in 1987 over several much more suitable sites because Nevada didn’t have any political clout at the time………

A political meltdown Republicans making desperate attempt to send radioactive waste to Nevada Las Vegas Sun Nov. 21, 2010 Continue reading

November 22, 2010 Posted by | politics, USA | , , , , , | Leave a comment

German govt illegally dumping nuclear waste on rural Russians

Berlin breaks German law to dump nuclear waste on Russians, Indymedia NL (Nederland)Diet Simon / MONITOR – 21.11.2010 The German government is ridding itself of highly dangerous nuclear waste by dumping it on rural people in Russia who can’t defend themselves. They’ve already suffered terribly in Mayak, said to be the most radioactively contaminated place on the globe. See http://archive.greenpeace.org/mayak/mayakstory/index.htmlNow, hoping it will be out-of-sight-out-of-mind, German provincial and national authorities plan to send nearly 1,000 spent fuel rods there, probably next month. One of Germany’s leading political television magazines, Monitor, recently showed the horrific lives nuclear waste has caused people in the area. If you understand German, you may want to watch at http://www.wdr.de/tv/monitor/sendungen/2010/1118/atom.php5……… . Indymedia NL (Nederland) – Berlin breaks German law to dump nuclear waste on Russians

November 22, 2010 Posted by | Germany, wastes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Continued fight to stop shipment of radioactive nuclear materials across Great Lakes

“According to BP’s own figures, about 90% of the mass of radioactive material inside the steam generators is plutonium — a highly toxic, long-lived radioactive poison,

Green groups take final shot to block Great Lakes nuclear shipment Carmen Chai ,NATIONAL POST,  Postmedia News · , Nov. 20, 2010 Environmental groups have one last chance to convince Canada’s nuclear-energy watchdog to reject a plan to haul 16 decommissioned radioactive steam generators across the Great Lakes on their way to Sweden for recycling. Continue reading

November 22, 2010 Posted by | Canada, environment | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Town’s drinking water, and its economy, threatened by uranium milling

“The increased presence of radionuclide particles that will contaminate our surface water bodies, currently used as our municipal drinking water source, is of critical concern to the Town of Telluride.”….it could affect the tourist population, he said, it endangers Telluride’s economy.

(USA) Town of Telluride protests uranium millTown pens letter to CDPHE Telluride Daily Planet, By Katie Klingsporn, November 21, 2010 A group of environmentalists from the Telluride region has been hustling for more than a year to protest a uranium mill proposed to go up in Paradox Valley, a lonely, windswept valley in western Montrose County.
Now, the Telluride Town Council is hopping aboard the opposition movement. Continue reading

November 22, 2010 Posted by | USA, water | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Airline travellers’ choice between ionising radiation and ‘pat-down’

the relationship between ionizing radiation  is  cumulative. The time you spend on an airplane + the time you spend getting dental or medical x-rays……….accumulates, every hour of it increasing the probability of tumor formation.

What full body scanner radiation means to you –  Examiner.com, 20 Nov 10, “………..The equipment creates images of your body by scanning a narrow beam of x-rays across your body. The x-rays either penetrate your skin and propagate through your body, the same way as hospital or dental x-rays, or are bounce off your skin, back toward a detector. These back-scattered x-rays are the ones from which the image is built. Continue reading

November 21, 2010 Posted by | technology, USA | , , , , , | Leave a comment

repeated heart radiation imaging causes cancer risks

Heart test hikes long-term cancer riskStudy highlights danger of repeated radiation doses   CHICAGO SUN-TIMES,  November 16, 2010 BY MONIFA THOMAS A common imaging test that’s used to detect coronary artery disease has exposed many heart patients to extremely high cumulative doses of radiation over a 20-year period, putting them at higher risk for cancer, Continue reading

November 21, 2010 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | , , , , | Leave a comment

Nuclear company will pay to ‘educate’ Saskatchewan Indian Nations about Nuclear Wastes

The money comes from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, the group created by Canada’s nuclear electricity industry to find a new home for nuclear fuel waste.

Nuclear group gives First Nations $1M for meetings, November 18, 2010  CBC News The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations has been given $1 million to hold information sessions on nuclear waste storage, but environmentalists are leery about the idea. Continue reading

November 19, 2010 Posted by | Canada, indigenous issues, spinbuster | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Seabed area still radioactive, after Dounreay nuclear plant closed for 60 years

An area equivalent in size to 22 football pitches is being cleaned.

Dounreay: Investigation uncovers worst radiation hotspot ever Radioactive particles located during the latest search of the seabed off Dounreay. STV News, 18 November 2010 An investigation into the seabed off the Dounreay nuclear plant has uncovered the most dangerous radioactive hotspot yet found. Continue reading

November 19, 2010 Posted by | environment, UK | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

50,000 anti-nuclear protestors in Germany having a global impact

the growing scope and international success of CASTOR protests proves that the problem of nuclear waste, and nuclear energy as a whole, is global in its nature….

Thousands attend unprecedented anti-nuclear protests in Germany: Local action achieves global impact. Bellona, 19 Nov 10, GORBLEN, Germany – The largest and longest in a series of direct anti-nuclear protest actions, CASTOR 2010 started on November 5 in France and ended five days later in Gorleben, Germany Continue reading

November 19, 2010 Posted by | 2 WORLD, opposition to nuclear | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Skin cancer a real risk from airport radiation scanning

“While the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high,

Airport scanners may pose risk to skin –   Kelly Brewington, Meredith Cohn and Andrea K. Walker – baltimoresun.com, 18 Nov 10, The new body scanners at U.S. airports are getting a lot of attention for how much they show of the human body, but doctors are saying there’s another problem: The radiation ticks up the chance of developing skin cancer. Continue reading

November 19, 2010 Posted by | health, USA | , , , | Leave a comment