Taxpayer foots the bill for nuclear bonuses – Times Online
Taxpayer foots the bill for nuclear bonuses TIMESONLINE
Public servants working in Britain’s nuclear industry are being paid millions of pounds of taxpayer-funded bonuses every year, The Times has learnt.
The finding, which emerged from the response to an inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act, has prompted fresh accusations of government waste as the Chancellor prepares the most austere Budget in decades today.
The response from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the agency responsible for the clean-up of Britain’s nuclear sites, shows that the organisation paid nearly £3.8 million in bonuses to its 315 staff last year.
The average bonus was £11,954, with some regular, non-director level staff receiving £36,917 – up to 40 per cent of their salary. NDA directors received bonuses as high as £85,000.
The figures also show that every one of the NDA’s regular workforce received a bonus last year, as they did in 2007. The payments were made on top of the regular salary payments, which totalled £19.5 million in 2008.
Resolve nuclear waste site first
Resolve nuclear waste site first post-Bulletin Jay Youmans 20 April 09
It makes no sense to lift the legal moratorium or build new nuclear power plants in Minnesota until the nuclear industry finds a solution for the radioactive waste produced at nuclear plants.
It makes no sense to pass the costs of electrical production and use on to future generations by leaving them nuclear waste that has to be stored and is dangerous for longer than recorded human history.
How can we justify passing this cost and legacy onto our children?
……………………..Yucca is located in an active earthquake zone with more than 30 known faults in the area (a 5.6 earthquake in 1992 did $100 million damage to the site). Since 1976, there have been 621 seismic events of magnitude greater than 2.5 within a 50-mile radius of Yucca Mountain. Today there is more civilian and military nuclear waste than the Yucca depository’s 70,000 metric ton capacity.
China Nuclear Safety Chief Warns Of Over-Rapid Growth – Planet Ark
China Nuclear Safety Chief Warns Of Over-Rapid Growth Planet Ark 21-Apr-09Country: CHINA : REUTERS BEIJING – China will face safety issues and environmental hazards involving nuclear waste disposal if the nuclear power sector is expanded too fast, the country’s nuclear safety chief said on Monday……………………
“At the current stage, if we are not fully aware of the sector’s over-rapid expansions, it will threaten construction quality and operation safety of nuclear power plants,” Li Ganjie, director of National Nuclear Safety Administration, told the International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Energy.
It would also undermine the country’s plan to use more domestic technology and pose problems in the disposal of nuclear waste, said Li, who is also a vice minister of Ministry of Environmental Protection
World Environment News – China Nuclear Safety Chief Warns Of Over-Rapid Growth – Planet Ark
A new Yucca Mountain in New Mexico?
A new Yucca Mountain in New Mexico?By Lisa Mascaro Las Vegas Sun April 21, 2009 ·
WASHINGTON — Is a salt formation in New Mexico the new Yucca Mountain?
A trade industry publication reports today that discussions are underway to promote an existing facility in New Mexico as an alternative to storing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel in the desert north of Las Vegas..
The Obama administration has promised to “scale back” funds for the Yucca Mountain project, and the president has vowed it will not open as a waste dump. A report last week indicated the fiscal 2010 funding cut would be severe……………………………
“Nuclear industry officials and policymakers are quietly mounting support for constructing a permanent nuclear waste repository inside a large New Mexico salt formation already used for permanent storage of low-level transuranic waste,” Energy Washington Week reports.
The publication reports former Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, a longtime leader in nuclear issues, recently mentioned the idea……………………Transporting the nation’s civilian nuclear waste to WIPP has its own legislative obstacles. Current law now restricts what can be dumped there and would need to be altered.
A new Yucca Mountain in New Mexico? – Politics: The Early Line – Las Vegas Sun
The European roots of Somali piracy
The European roots of Somali piracy euobserver.com LEIGH PHILLIPS21.04.2009 @ 10:49 CETEUOBSERVER / FEATURE – As global powers ratchet up the naval pressure off the coast of Somalia and the European Union this week prepares to play host to a major international conference on the growing scourge of piracy, very little attention is being paid to the other ‘piracy’ in the area – the decades of European illegal fishing and dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters……………………This irregular, self-styled coast guard also set out to put an end to widespread use of their waters as essentially an exceedingly cheap landfill, scrap yard, toilet and nuclear storage site all rolled into one by foreign ships that have been dumping industrial, medical and even radioactive waste.
As early as 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that the vicious tsunami of the previous December had broken up tonnes of rusting barrels of such waste illegally that had been dumped in the country’s waters for years.
Some 300 people died at the time from contact with the waste, while others, according to a UN report, notably in the regions near the northeastern coastal towns of Hobbio and Benadir, were afflicted with a range of respiratory and skin infections, mouth ulcers and bleeding, and abdominal haemorrhages at rates far above normal………………
………Over a decade ago, from 1997 to 1998, Greenpeace Italy and the Famiglia Cristiana newspaper uncovered evidence that Swiss-based Achair Partners and Progresso, an Italian waste broker had signed agreements with warlord Ali Mahdi to dump hazardous waste in Somali waters.
Greens vow to stop nuclear power plant
Greens vow to stop nuclear power plant North West Evening Mail Tuesday, 21 April 2009
A NUCLEAR power plant near Millom would leave Cumbria open to “catastrophic accident or terrorist attack”, resulting in huge loss of life and leaving large parts of the county uninhabitable, green campaigners have warned.
Political group the Green Party has vowed to block plans to build a new plant a Layriggs Farm in Kirksanton.
The defiant stand was announced after a list of 11 potential sites across the country was released by the government on Wednesday (15).
The list also includes land at Braystones, near Egremont, and a plot near Sellafield……………………………
Green Party member Peter Cranie said: “The Green Party has long campaigned against nuclear power due to its high cost and the unsolved problems with radioactive waste and risks of radioactive discharges. There also remains a small, but real, risk of a catastrophic accident.
“New nuclear power stations should not be built on green field sites on the Cumbrian coast, and not at Sellafield either. Sellafield should devote itself to decommissioning and dealing with the radioactive waste already produced.”
The party has expressed concern that a final decision could also be snatched away from “local communities” and handed to a specialist government commission.
North West Evening Mail | News | Greens vow to stop nuclear power plant
Lehman Brothers and yellowcake
Lehman Brothers and Yellowcake BIZMOLOGY by Larry Bills, April 20th, 2009 “………It turns out that Lehman Brothers, the powerful investment bank which collapsed last year and signaled the beginning of the economic meltdown, owns 500,000 pounds of uranium “yellowcake,” slightly less than what’s needed to make one nuclear bomb……………….. I don’t know if I’m crazy about a bankrupt company — struggling to pay off creditors — stockpiling uranium.
Bizmology » Blog Archive » Lehman Brothers and yellowcake
Nuke waste dumping: Are Somalia’s pirates reacting to international abuses?
Are Somalia’s pirates reacting to international abuses? Somali UK 21 April 09 “…………………………The coast remains an easy dumping ground for toxic and nuclear waste.
“It’s a real problem,” said Roger Middleton, a Somalia expert and researcher for the London-based think tank, Chatham House.
“There are very shady goings-on, mostly involving the Mafia.”
The force of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami pulled up dozens of toxic-waste containers, leaving a lethal trail along the Somali coast.
A UN report found as a result many residents suffered “acute respiratory infections, heavy coughing, bleeding gums and mouth, abdominal haemorrhages, unusual skin rashes, and even death.”
Two years later, a team of specialists discovered nine toxic waste sites along 700 km of coastline in southern Somalia.
“Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste starting in the early 1990s, and continuing through the civil war there,” Nick Nuttall of the UN’s Environment Program told the television channel Al-Jazeera, echoing similar findings from other reports.
“And the waste is many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals like cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, and there are hospital wastes, chemical wastes – you name it.”
The waste came from European companies, which paid shady intermediaries as little as $2.50 a tonne to dispose of it, compared with about $1,000 a tonne in Europe…………
………. http://www.somaliuk.com/Indepth1/Fullarticle.php?IndepthID=483
Sellafield: the most hazardous place in Europe
Sellafield: the most hazardous place in Europe
The Guardian 21 April 09 Last week the government announced plans for a new generation of nuclear plants. But Britain is still dealing with the legacy of its first atomic installation at Sellafield – a toxic waste dump in one of the most contaminated buildings in Europe. As a multi-billion-pound clean-up is planned, can we avoid making the same mistakes again?
………………………… “It is the most hazardous industrial building in western Europe,” according to George Beveridge, Sellafield’s deputy managing director.
Nor is it hard to understand why the building possesses such a fearsome reputation. Piles of old nuclear reactor parts and decaying fuel rods, much of them of unknown provenance and age, line the murky, radioactive waters of the cooling pond in the centre of B30. Down there, pieces of contaminated metal have dissolved into sludge that emits heavy and potentially lethal doses of radiation.
It is an unsettling place, though B30 is certainly not unique. There is Building B38 next door, for example. “That’s the second most hazardous industrial building in Europe,” said Beveridge. Here highly radioactive cladding from reactor fuel rods is stored, also under water. And again, engineers have only a vague idea what else has been dumped in its cooling pond and left to disintegrate for the past few decades.
………………….. This, then, is the dark heart of Sellafield, a place where engineers and scientists are only now confronting the legacy of Britain’s postwar atomic aspirations and the toxic wasteland that has been created on the Cumbrian coast. Engineers estimate that it could cost the nation up to £50bn to clean this up over the next 100 years………
……… the condition of edifices such as B30 and B38 – and all the other “legacy” structures built at Sellafield decades ago – suggest Britain might end up paying a heavy price for this new commitment to nuclear energy. After all, if it is going to cost that much to decommission early reactors, green groups and opponents of nuclear energy are asking, what might we end up paying for a second clean-up if we go ahead with new nuclear plants?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/19/sellafield-nuclear-plant-cumbria-hazards
Nuclear power still has the problems that led to a moratorium
Nuclear power still has the problems that led to a moratorium
: April 20, 2009 The Minnesota Senate recently approved an amendment to overturn the state’s moratorium on new nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, the nuclear industry has launched a savvy national campaign to convince citizens that conventional nuclear power is a silver-bullet solution to our energy and climate crisis.
Even the best PR campaign can’t change the reality that nuclear power remains as uneconomical and environmentally unsafe as it was 40 years ago. Conventional nuclear technology is expensive, creates few new jobs and poses long-term environmental hazards. It is a costly distraction from real energy solutions.
The current moratorium was put into place in 1994 because there was no permanent national solution to the problem of how to solve nuclear waste. That problem persists today……………………………… NASA’s top climate scientist James Hansen recently reported, even with the highest levels of priority funding, fourth-generation reactors will not be ready for deployment for 10 to 15 years. We need global warming solutions much sooner. The nuclear moratorium protects us against the development of new power plants based on outdated and risky technology.
In the midst of an international economic crisis, we should also be wary of the economic costs of nuclear power. New nuclear power is only cost effective with massive taxpayer subsidies. Current federal law caps the liability claims that can arise from nuclear accidents and passes that liability on to taxpayers. We have already shelled out billions of dollars to insure commercial nuclear reactors; we shouldn’t be forced to shell out billions more…….
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Fallout from the fire of 1957: radioactive plume led to 200 cancer cases
Fallout from the fire of 1957: radioactive plume led to 200 cancer cases
The Observer, Sunday 19 April 2009 Sellafield is the site of Britain’s worst nuclear accident. A blaze in 1957 in the reactor of Pile 1 released a massive plume of radioactive caesium, iodine and polonium that spread across Britain and northern Europe.
Up to 200 cases of cancer – including thyroid and breast cancer and also leukaemia – may have been triggered by the fire’s emissions, according to estimates which were published by epidemiologists led by Professor Richard Wakeford, of Manchester University, two years ago.
…………………… After the fire the government placed a six-week ban on consumption of milk from cows grazing within 200 miles of Windscale (as Sellafield was then known). However, the weather carried nuclear contamination far beyond that boundary.
The reactor was left in such a dangerous state of intense radioactivity that it has lain undisturbed ever since and is still considered too dangerous to decommission. As a result, Pile 1 is destined to be one of the last sites to be cleaned up during the decommissioning of Sellafield.
……………………… In 1983, British Nuclear Fuels Limited, or BNFL, which was then the operator of the Sellafield plant, was fined £10,000 after radioactive discharges containing ruthenium and rhodium 106 were found to have contaminated a beach near the power station.
The plant – which was originally expected to make profits of around £500m for Sellafield’s operators – is now expected to make losses of up to £1bn and has been earmarked for closure by the year 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/19/sellafield-nuclear-plant-cancer-cases
Yankee nuke extension increases risk
Yankee extension increases risk
Kewaunee nuclear power plant shut down
Kewaunee nuclear power plant shut down
By Rick Romell of the Journal Sentinel
April 20, 2009 The Kewaunee nuclear power plant remains out of operation after being shut down late Thursday night because of an instrumentation problem.
………………….. An event report posted on the site of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission indicates that a problem with calibration procedures was discovered about 6:30 p.m. Thursday. The problem was considered reportable to the NRC under three regulations, including one covering “any event or condition that results in the nuclear plant being in an unanalyzed condition that significantly degrades plant safety.” http://www.jsonline.com/business/43179997.html
Why one remote Taiwan village is giving nuclear waste the red carpet treatment
Why one remote Taiwan village is giving nuclear waste the red carpet treatment Minnesota Post By Jonathan Adams21 April 09 “……………………Critics of the plan say this poor village is merely being bought off by the government’s generous compensation proposal, and is low-balling the health risks. The debate highlights the growing problem of nuclear waste, as more nations — and especially, neighboring China — turn to this “cleaner” energy source to fuel their economies. It also points to a global phenomenon. Whether it’s inner-city America or a remote Aboriginal village in Taiwan, toxic and other waste often ends up dumped near the poorest, most marginalized communities. In Taiwan, Nantian Village is about as poor and marginal as they come……………….. Taiwan’s Aborigines — 2 percent of the population — are the island’s least advantaged, with poverty and alcoholism rates similar to those on Native American reservations in the U.S. Villagers talk about 5 billion — the payout, in New Taiwan dollars (about $150 million) — that the power company has said will go to the county. How much of that would go directly to these villagers is still unclear………………………..” http://www.minnpost.com/globalpost/2009/04/20/8193/why_one_remote_taiwan_village_is_giving_nuclear_waste_the_red_carpet_treatment
Italian Nuclear Waste to be Dumped in Utah
Italian Nuclear Waste to be Dumped in Utah AllGov News by Noel Brinkerhoff April 17, 2009 A uranium isotope is a uranium isotope, regardless of its country of origin. But for two Democratic congressmen, there’s a problem with low-level nuclear waste from Italy being dumped in Utah………………………….
Since the NRC won’t help, Matheson and Gordon have decided to sponsor a bill that would ban the importation of low-level radioactive waste unless the nuclear material originated in the U.S. or the waste was imported for a strategic national purpose. The two congressmen have been joined by Utah’s Republican governor,. Jon Huntsman, who is opposed to the waste coming to his state.Huntsman can’t get legislation passed in his own state banning the importation of nuclear waste, thanks to the numerous political donations that EnergySolutions has spread around among state lawmakers, and its army of lobbyists. In fact, one of the company’s former lobbyists is Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT), whose district includes the dump site.
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
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
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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