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Germans protest to stop nuclear train

Press TV – November 6, 2010

Demonstrators in Germany have been met by riot police as they attempt to stop a train carrying 123 tons of radioactive nuclear waste from France into Germany.

Tens of thousands of people gathered at the north German town of Gorleben to protest the arrival of the highly-radioactive nuclear waste.

Meanwhile, police forces used truncheons and mace against an estimated 150 activists who were attempting to dig a hole under a railway track to prevent the shipment.

Some of the protestors threw stones at security forces, while others blocked the road using tractors.

Around 16,500 police officers have been sent to quell the unrest, DPA reported.

Other reports indicated that trains were delayed as the activists chained themselves to the tracks. According to AFP, they were eventually removed and arrested by the police.

“This nuclear convoy, the most radioactive ever, exposes the population to excessive risks. There is a risk to lives in the short term in case of an accident, but also a long-term risk to their health,” a spokesperson for the anti-nuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire (Get out of Nuclear) said.

The waste is being shipped from La Hague in France by the state-controlled nuclear engineering company Areva.

Chancellor Angela Merkel labeled the move by the activists as, “not a peaceful demonstration, but a criminal offence.”

The so-called Castor trains — cask for storage of radioactive material — have been met by mass demonstrations for the past 30 years. The protests began when they first started to dump nuclear waste at the Gorleben facility.

Eleven steel containers holding the nuclear waste are expected to reach their destination on Sunday.

The protests are also directed at Merkel’s center-right government, which recently passed legislation to extend the life span of Germany’s 17 nuclear power stations beyond the previous deadline of 2022.

November 6, 2010 Posted by | Environmentalism, Nuclear Power, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Nuclear Testing and the Rise of Thyroid Cancers

The Public Was Never Warned About the Risks

By ROBERT ALVAREZ | CounterPunch | October 15, 2010

According to a recent New York Times article, thyroid cancer in the U.S. has been on the rise for nearly 40 years.

The long-standing explanation that this is due to better diagnostics is no longer accepted. This also means that the impacts of radioactive iodine fallout from nuclear weapons testing and Chernobyl cannot be so readily ruled out.

With a half-life of 8.5 days, Iodine-131 rapidly contaminates air, vegetation and milk supplies. Because it is absorbed mostly in the body’s thyroid, radioactive iodine has been linked to thyroid cancer and other types of thyroid damage in humans for several decades. It takes about 90 days for the radioactivity of I-131 to diminish to very small levels. Thyroid cancer can have a latency period as long as 38 years.

According to the National Cancer Institute in 1992, about 150 million curies of radioactive iodine was released in open air from nuclear testing in Nevada, causing heavy contamination of the nation’s milk supplies from the early 1950’s to the early 1960’s. This is more than 20 times the amount estimated to have been released by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. At the time of open air testing, millions of children were drinking this contaminated milk.

In the early 1950s when radioactive fallout was over-exposing film in cardboard made with contaminated straw, the Eastman Kodak company secretly complained and was given routine warnings by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The public was never warned by the U.S. government about the dangers of consuming milk it was contaminating in its quest to amass a nuclear arsenal.

After the ratification of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration established “Protective Action Guides” for Iodine-131 that triggered removal of dairy products from human consumption following nuclear accidents. Had these limits been in place during the open air nuclear testing in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, the NCI study indicates that milk supplies would have had to be removed from the markets for months at a time.

The NCI admitted in testimony before the U.S. Congress in 1998, after an investigation by the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, that it suppressed this study for 5 years. The NCI also conceded this may have caused as many as 212,000 excess thyroid cancers.

With trust in the U.S. government sinking like a stone, it’s time for greater transparency about the price paid for nuclear weapons. As former Senator John Glenn (D-OH), a staunch supporter of the military, warned, “What good is it to protect ourselves with nuclear weapons, if we poison our people in the process?”

Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary from 1993 to 1999.

October 15, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Environmentalism, Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

The Tritium Deficit

Future Supply of Tritium Explosive Puts US Nuclear Arsenal in Doubt

By ROBERT ALVAREZ | CounterPunch | October 12, 2010

In a recent report to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) in the Energy department is “unable to overcome technical challenges” to producing tritium (H3) in a commercial power reactor for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. As a result the ability to provide new supplies of this radioactive isotope used to enhance the explosive power of nuclear weapons “is in doubt.”

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is an important part of any modern nuclear arsenal. It is why thermonuclear weapons are known as “H-bombs.” Tritium is used in modern nuclear weapons to boost the explosive power of plutonium, which in turn, creates enough heat to cause hydrogen atoms to fuse together. This releases a tremendous amount of destructive energy, in the same process that fuels the sun and stars.

Because of its half-life of 12.3 years, tritium has to be periodically replenished in weapons. From 1954 to 1988, tritium was produced in government reactors, which were closed for safety reasons. In 1993, GAO concluded that tritium supplies from nuclear arms reductions were adequate to meet warhead needs until 2012. After that year, GAO concluded that a new tritium production capability would be needed.

In response, the Department of Energy decided in the late 1990’s to produce new supplies in a commercial power reactor, using new tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TBARs). They contain lithium-aluminate pellets lined with zirconium, and are clad into long pencil-shaped, stainless steel rods. Tritium is produced when the atoms of lithium-6 absorbs neutrons in the reactor core.

However, the rods cannot fully contain the tritium, which is permeating into the reactor cooling system, approaching safety limits set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). To meet projected tritium requirements, additional TVA reactors may be required. NNSA has not yet coordinated this with the NRC, which must approve any such reactor changes.

A reserve stockpile of tritium has yet to be tapped and its size remains classified. Nor is it clear how much more tritium is expected to come from the pending START II arms reduction agreement with Russia, now before the U.S. Senate. Nonetheless, GAO remains concerned. “If NNSA takes longer than expected to increase tritium production, even reserve quantities may be insufficient to meet requirements for an extended period of time.”

Tritium production alternatives include building a new government production reactor or the development of linear accelerators. Both are likely to cost billions of dollars and take several years to bring on line.

However, expanding the production of tritium for nuclear weapons in commercial nuclear power plants further undermines the long-standing barrier between military and civilian nuclear energy applications – a key element of U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy.

This is a situation where public debate and greater transparency by the U.S. nuclear weapons program is sorely needed.

Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary from 1993 to 1999. www.ips-dc.org

October 12, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

‘Uranium rush’ prompts Grand Canyon fears

By Leana Hosea – BBC News – 24 September 2010

A new “gold rush” is under way in the American West, but this time the prospectors are out for another metal: uranium.

The Grand Canyon region in the US state of Arizona holds one of the nation’s largest concentrations of high grade uranium, the fuel for nuclear power.

As global demand for nuclear power has increased so has interest in the metal and, across the south-west, companies are seeking permission to restart uranium mining.

In the US, President Barack Obama has called for an increase in nuclear power to help reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

The US government is currently weighing the costs and benefits of mining, with Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva proposing a ban on mining near the Grand Canyon.

But with the increase in uranium exploration come concerns about the future of the Grand Canyon, a Unesco World Heritage Site and one of America’s foremost natural wonders.

And Native American populations living near uranium mines fear exploration could contaminate their drinking water.

For now, the sole active uranium mine near the Grand Canyon’s northern rim is run by Denison Mines Corporation, a Canadian firm.

The Arizona 1 mine employs 30 miners, and the firm says it goes to great lengths to protect them in the hazardous environment.

Among other precautions, large fans pump clean air into the mine and suck out most of the radioactive radon gas, while workers spray water across the site to keep down potentially harmful dust. The firm also says past accidents were swiftly and effectively cleaned up.

On a recent trip into the mine, none of the miners wore masks, and their hands and face were caked with uranium ore.

“It washes off,” miner Cody Behuden, 28, told the BBC while licking his ore-caked lips.

Vice-president of US operations Harold Roberts said the miners were under no danger from ingesting uranium.

Dr Lee Grier, a biologist at University of California at Riverside, said exposure to uranium can be harmful, and the Navajo Native American reservation nearby is still grappling with contamination from previous uranium mining and milling done by other companies. Those companies now no longer exist.

“The danger with long term exposure is that people breathe it, ingest it or it seeps through the skin,” he said.

“These particles start bombarding tissues and cause wild uncontrolled cell growth like cancer.”

Water supply

After the ore is hauled from the mine, Denison Mines ships it north to a mill in the US state of Utah where the uranium is extracted by dissolving the ore in acid. The resulting product, called yellow cake, is then used in nuclear fuel rods.

The waste from the milling process is 80% more radioactive than yellow cake and has a half-life of 4.7 billion years. Thousands of tonnes of waste are buried in containers lined with 60mm (2.4in) of plastic.

Federal law requires the company to design the facility to last more than 200 years, and an insurance bond ensures funds will be available to maintain the facility.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has been investigating mining risks in the Grand Canyon area in a six-month study.

Its research focuses on whether during mining, uranium could contaminate the area and seep into ground water.

The Colorado River supplies drinking water to some 30 million people from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

“Theoretically uranium could get into the water supply,” said Andrea Alpine, senior adviser on the USGS uranium project.

Geologist Jim Otton, who contributed to the survey, said mining results in increased contamination.

When uranium comes into contact with oxygen it becomes soluble in water, which increases the chance of contamination. Radioactive dust can also be blown away by the wind or washed away by rain.

This is what Carletta Tilousi of the Havasupai Indian tribe fears most. The Havasupai live on the bottom of the Grand Canyon and derive water from the rim.

“Mining companies are pursuing uranium for their own profit,” she said.

“But the only benefit that we are going to get is a source of contamination. We are concerned about the future of our children, that’s why we fight this.”

September 24, 2010 Posted by | Environmentalism, Nuclear Power, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

The impacts of uranium mining on indigenous communities

Heather Tufts | Peace, Earth & Justice News | February 13, 2010

The climate change debate positions nuclear power as a partial solution to carbon emissions according to some scientists and politicians. Uranium mining speculation lacks comprehensive health and safety regulations while the ethics of Canadian exported uranium, which can lead to depleted uranium used in zones of war, needs greater scrutiny. Abandoned uranium mines and the subsequent hazards experienced in forgotten communities have been virtually ignored in Canada leading to tragic, unmitigated circumstances.

The long-term negative impacts of uranium mining can be witnessed in the small, rural community of Deline (North West Territories) which has a Dene population of 800 people. They are located right on the shore of Sahtu (Great Bear Lake) about 300 miles north of Yellowknife. Great Bear Lake is considered to be one of the last great fresh water lakes in the world. This area on the north shore of Sahtu was the site of radium mining from 1934 to 1939, and then a uranium mine from 1943 to 1962.

During the mining era the Dene of Deline, mostly men worked as labourers and as coolies carrying gunny sacks of radioactive uranium ore and concentrates on the transportation route. Waste from both radium and uranium mines were dumped directly into the lake and used as landfill. Port Radium was owned and operated by a Canadian crown corporation but uranium ore and concentrates were extracted, milled and sold to the US Government for the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb during the Second World War.

The mine initially operated under the emergency regulations of the War Measures Act. The circumstances and time-line mean that retroactive mitigation and compensation are an enormous legal challenge and decades later the Dene continue to pay a high price in environmental and health effects. No warnings were issued at the time about the hazardous and toxic nature of these ores and so people took no precautions regarding their drinking water or their traditional foods.

In 1975 young men from Deline were sent to work in the tunnels on a Government training program without masks for radon gas exposure. In 1997 ten young men were sent with only two hours of training to clean up “hot spots” of radioactive soil in Sawmill Bay without shower or decontamination facilities.  Once again the Dene people of Deline were not informed of these hazardous exposures but recent information revelations mean that they now live in constant fear of their contaminated land, water and animals with ongoing concerns about their health and survival.

Deline is known as the ‘village of widows’ because most of the men who worked as labourers in the mines have died of some form of cancer. The widows, who are traditional women, were left to raise their families without husbands and breadwinners. As a result they became dependent on welfare and relied on the young men who remained in the community to help supply them with their traditional foods. The women are struggling and the village is seeing the first generation of young men in the history of the Dene grow up without the guidance and teachings of their grandfathers, fathers and uncles. This unfulfilled tradition threatens the cultural and spiritual survival of the only community on the Great Bear Lake.

In 1998 the Dene First Nation lobbied the federal government for compensation and mitigation. On September 6, 2005, Déline community members were given the disappointing findings of a five-year study to examine the health and environmental impacts of the government-owned radium and uranium mine which had operated for almost thirty years in Deline. Although the community had lost 15 former ore transport workers to cancer the report stated that the numbers of deaths were insufficient to prove unequivocally the link to the mine.

By not acknowledging the full health consequences of uranium mining the government offloads the responsibility to compensate or provide justice to the Dené First Nation. To date consultations with government are still underway with anticipated costs for remediation in the millions of dollars. An agreement about cause and affect has not yet been reached. In a related situation in Port Hope Ontario, NDP MP Nathan Cullen called for an investigation in 2007 into Health Canada’s denials of the health risks of uranium contamination with the accusation that profits are influencing policy. These issues remain unresolved in 2010 even though increased uranium mining is imminent in some Canadian provinces.

Uranium exploration near the world famous Thelon Game Sanctuary in Nunavut alarmed the Dené  and Inuit communities who are dependent on the caribou herds that use the area for grazing and calving. The current land use plan for Kivalliq (Keewatin) has been in place since 2000 and prohibits uranium mining in the region until Nunavut’s environmental assessment process has reviewed all the related environmental and health impact issues. In contradiction to the local land use plan Nunavut’s Inuit land claims commission adopted a policy in favour of uranium mining returning the legacy of uncertainty to the area.  Their policy framework justifies its position with the rationale that uranium mining and nuclear energy could mitigate some of the climate change impacts in the north.

The policy does not account for the quantifiable fossil fuel usage in uranium exploration nor resolves issues about the impacts of nuclear waste storage. They assert that environmental and health concerns related to uranium mining have been resolved but provide no supporting evidence. Opposition gained momentum from the Inuit in Baker Lake and the Hunters and Trappers Association who strongly requested a moratorium on all mining exploration. The vehement opposition to the uranium mine proposal near the Thelon Game Sanctuary eventually led the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board to recommend rejection of uranium exploration at Screech Lake in 2009.

However a junior mining company from Vancouver, Kaminak recently struck a deal with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc (NTI) to allow uranium exploration in the Kivalliq region, about 200 km inland from Whale Cove. The deal, or memorandum of understanding, is unusual for a few reasons. It’s the first time NTI has given permission for a company to hunt for the radioactive material on Inuit-owned land. The deal would give NTI partial ownership of the spin-off company created by Kaminak to search for uranium and the hope of economic progress.

Uranium development in Saskatchewan dates back to the 1930s when the first discoveries were made in the far north. Since that time controversial uranium exploitation has undergone several waves of investment and although it contributes to the nuclear industry and is opposed by many NGOs there has been virtually no opposition from any political party in Canada. Today uranium is one of Canada’s leading exports with the highest percentage being mined in the province of Saskatchewan on indigenous lands.

The wilderness of the north is a land of glacier lakes and pine forests with low lying areas dominated by peat bogs and black spruce. To the west of the Athabasca Basin is a large, unique area of sand dunes. Clean water and land has sustained a wide variety of fish and animals which was the foundation of social and economic development for aboriginal people in the area for many years.

The land is rich in uranium deposits but this hazardous mining industry poses a considerable threat to the natural ecology and the values of people who live on the land. At the heart of this issue is a system of indigenous beliefs and culture which regards them as inseparable from the land, the waters and the animals. Environmental assessment panels have often listened to the submissions of aboriginal people in the area who have expressed deep concerns for the toxicity of uranium mines. The impact of mining on their ancestral lands where they are the traditional custodians contravenes their spiritual and cultural beliefs.

Conversely emerging job opportunities in a struggling northern economy have out of necessity led to the partial cooperation of some native bands with uranium mining projects. In 1993 the La Ronge Indian Band gave their support to the Kitsaki uranium mining development at Rabbit Lake citing increased economic benefits for their community, with the caveat that environmental impacts were closely monitored. Employment opportunities are short-term and hazardous but highly financed propaganda to promote the benefits of uranium mining to northerners potentially trumps aboriginal self-determined, sustainable, economic alternatives.

The often cited rationale that nuclear power is that the quintessential solution to greenhouse gas emissions negates the harsh reality that much of the ore contributes to US weaponry.  Activist and author Jim Harding (Canada’s Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System) offers a compelling argument against uranium mining by outlining its potential for military weapons: “About 90 percent of the depleted uranium is left in a pile which the military has access to. And there’s lots of uranium there. They take the depleted uranium into their own reactors, bombard it with neutrons, create plutonium for weapons, use the depleted uranium in the casing of H-bombs, and now, since the ‘90s, use that as the heavy metal in the weaponry – the bullets, the anti-tank bullets.”

Harding also argues that the geopolitical uses and long-term environmental effects are being hidden, and outweigh the short-term economic gain by which communities and governments are sometimes wooed. He cites the Harper government’s eager acceptance of nuclear energy as evidence that Canada is going down a path of misplaced intentions.

The potential for economic growth and the need for employment have resulted in some aboriginal labour initiatives in the mining industry. The Athabasca Basin Development Ltd. Partnership (ABDLP) was established in 2002, and is 90% aboriginal owned. ABDLP provides services to both mining exploration companies and the main operating uranium mines in the region. In total, some 600 northerners work for ABDLP in winter road maintenance, freight and transportation, mine camp setup, janitorial services, security and underground mining services, as well as line-cutting for seismic exploration.

However the environmental, health and social impacts of uranium development extraction on Aboriginal communities in the Canadian North remain an urgent concern to many communities. Mining activity has altered the landscape through the construction of roads, new settlements and the underground mine sites. Ore extraction and processing have released dangerous chemicals into the air and water and in spite of the participation of the ABDLP there is still a predominance of non-native labour which has displaced and marginalized local indigenous people. Primarily it is the large multinationals, not the local people who benefit from the multi-million dollar uranium mining industry in Saskatchewan and elsewhere.

In the United States Canadian uranium mining speculation has increased in spite of indigenous opposition and a long legacy of life-threatening damages on Navajo Reservations.  Barrick Gold of Canada which netted a 1.5 billion dollar profit in 2006 is active in uranium exploration in New Mexico but it has not committed sufficient funds to adequately address the contamination that has already destroyed four aquifers in Navajo territory.  The uranium industry is attempting to convince the public that it will bring high-paying jobs and tax money to the state by buying advertisements in local papers and other news media while paying industry representatives to testify at hearings.

In 2006 the Indigenous World Uranium Summit held in Navajo territory in the U.S. issued the following powerful declaration: “We, the Peoples gathered at the Indigenous World Uranium Summit, at this critical time of intensifying nuclear threats to Mother Earth and all life, demand a worldwide ban on uranium mining, processing, enrichment, fuel use, and weapons testing and deployment, and nuclear waste dumping on native lands.”

More than 300 participants from 14 countries participated in the event, with a variety of topics including international efforts to halt uranium mining, and the devastating effects on health and culture. Indignation grew as they realized that American Indian uranium miners in both the United States and Canada (Saskatchewan and NWT) had been sent to their deaths to work in the uranium mines long after scientists warned of the health hazards of radon gas and radiation.

Notwithstanding the outcry, uranium production in Canada is likely to increase significantly in the coming years. The Harper regime is poised to align its policies with Obama’s renewed pro-nuclear power stance as a solution to climate change! Several new Canadian mines, now planned or under construction, go into operation sometime after 2011. The two largest projects are Cameco’s Cigar Lake mine and Areva’s Midwest mine, both in northern Saskatchewan.

Canada is the world’s largest producer of uranium with about 60% exported to the United States where depleted uranium is manufactured as weapons. Many abandoned uranium mines have left behind a devastating legacy but the nuclear industry has re-branded itself as a viable solution to global warming. The profitable Canadian uranium mining industry lacks serious scrutiny; meanwhile remote indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to hazardous impacts thinly veiled as economic promise.

September 20, 2010 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Bushehr plant to be launched on Saturday

Press TV – August 21, 2010

Iran’s first nuclear power plant, which is located in the southern port city of Bushehr, is scheduled to be loaded with nuclear fuel on Saturday.

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Director Ali Akbar Salehi and Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Sergei Kiriyenko will be attending the inaugural ceremony of the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

Nuclear fuel will be transferred to the Bushehr reactor under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The startup of the plant will mark an important step in Iran’s efforts to produce nuclear electricity, and it is expected that Iranians will be using nuclear-generated electricity two or three months after the launch.

AEOI spokesperson Ali Shirzadian said the Bushehr reactor will be fully loaded with nuclear fuel by September 22.

He added that the plant is set to produce 500 megawatts of electricity in the initial stage, and its production capacity will increase to 1000 megawatts in the near future.

Despite the accusations by the United States, Israel, and certain other Western countries that Iran is pursing a military nuclear program, non-proliferation experts believe the Bushehr nuclear power plant is not a proliferation risk.

“Bushehr is not a proliferation risk as long as it is run to produce power for electricity generation,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert in non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“It would be a risk if Iran operated it differently, i.e. for short periods at low burn-up in order to produce weapons-usable plutonium — but in this case the IAEA would know,” he told AFP on Friday.

He added that IAEA inspectors will be in Bushehr to oversee the introduction of the fuel into the reactor core.

And the plant is also under full agency safeguards, meaning inspectors will always be keeping a close eye on Bushehr during the start-up phase and when it is finally up and running, he noted.

In conclusion, Fitzpatrick said, “Condemning the start-up of Bushehr sends the wrong signal to the Iranian people because it wrongly implies the West is against any nuclear technology in Iran.”

Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed, saying that “theoretically, any power reactor is a ‘proliferation threat’ in the sense that its spent fuel can be diverted from IAEA safeguards, reprocessed, and the plutonium used to make bombs.”

Nevertheless, over the past 50 years “no proliferator has ever diverted power reactor fuel from IAEA safeguards to make bombs in a hurry,” he added.

In addition, on Friday the founding director of the Center for Energy and Security Studies in Moscow, Anton Khlopkov, told the Russian radio station Vesti FM that the Bushehr nuclear power plant is a totally peaceful nuclear center and does not endanger international security.

The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

Western corporations began the construction of the Bushehr facility in the 1970s. However, following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Western companies reneged on their commitments and pulled out of the project due to political pressure imposed by Washington.

Iran then turned to Russia to complete the project. In 1992, Tehran and Moscow signed a deal to complete the construction of the nuclear power plant.

The Bushehr plant was originally scheduled to be completed in 1999, but its start-up has been repeatedly delayed.

August 20, 2010 Posted by | Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

Chernobyl: The Gift That Never Stops Giving

The threats to human health and the environment from Chernobyl fallout, scientists are now finding, will persist for a very long time.

By Robert Alvarez · IPS · August 13, 2010 

It’s been 24 years since the catastrophic explosion and fire occurred at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. The accident required nearly a million emergency responders and cleanup workers. According to a recent report published by the New York Academy of Medicine nearly one million people around the world have died from Chernobyl fallout.

Now we are finding that threats to human health and the environment from the radioactive fallout of this accident that blanketed Europe (and the rest of the world to a lesser extent) will persist for a very long time. There is an exclusionary zone near the reactor, roughly the size of Rhode Island (1000sq kilometers), which because of high levels of contamination, people are ostensibly not allowed to live there  for centuries to come. There are also “hot spots” through out Russia, Poland Greece, Germany, Italy, UK, France, and Scandinavia where contaminated live stock and other foodstuff continue to be removed from human consumption.

My friends tell me that a growing number of Ukrainians are immigrating to Youngstown, OH (where I grew up),Cleveland, Chicago, and other Ukrainian-American enclaves because of Chernobyl contamination threats.

Here are a few recent examples:

  • A  fast-growing number of wild boars in Germany are having to be destroyed and disposed as radioactive wastes.
  • The mammal population in the exclusionary zone near the reactor is declining, despite the absence of humans, indicative of  growing radiation damage to fauna and flora.
  • Wildfires in Russia appear to be spreading high levels of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl.

True to form, governments with major nuclear programs or ambitions are silent and are encouraging the view that it’s time we forget about Chernobyl.

August 13, 2010 Posted by | Environmentalism, Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

U.S. To Jordan: Change Your Nuclear Program or We’ll Cut Aid

By Bart Farrell | IMEMC | July 13, 2010

Reports from Arab media sources, on Monday, indicated that U.S. authorities are demanding that Jordan share its uranium enrichment with Israel.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordon could lose its pecuniary aid from the United States should it continue to enhance its nuclear program without cooperation with Israel, Israeli news source Ynet reported.

Amman ignored Israeli requests to be involved in the extraction and enrichment of uranium which prompted the threat from Washington. The U.S. and Jordan discussed Jordan’s nuclear plan for six months, but the Jordanians were unable to obtain US approval.

The program began three years ago when over 65,000 tons of uranium ore, one of the largest deposits in the world, was discovered in the Jordanian desert.

All but five percent of Jordan’s energy is imported from other countries, primarily Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The enrichment program is a means by which The Hashemite Kingdom can shed some of its dependence on foreign sources of energy while gaining the ability to export power throughout the region.

Yet the Jordanian economy is hinged on American aid which limits its ability to hold its ground in talks with Washington. This year, the US transferred at least $665 million during the first half of the year, over half of which was for financial aid and the rest for military aid.

The aid Jordan receives from the US is to ameliorate Jordanian financial and social problems. Additionally the aid is sent to bolster national security as the US sees Jordan as a partner in the War on Terror.

King Abdullah condemned Israel for impeding his country’s efforts in its nuclear program last month. The king told the Wall Street Journal that France and South Korea were being persuaded by the Israeli government to not sell nuclear technologies to Jordan. He added that Israeli-Jordanian relations have sunk to a point they have not been since the two countries signed a peace agreement after being in a state of war for nearly half a century.

July 13, 2010 Posted by | Nuclear Power, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Two decades after Chernobyl, Scottish sheep get all-clear

By Rob Edwards | The Herald | 4 July 2010

NEARLY a quarter of a century after the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in the Ukraine exploded and spewed radioactivity across the world, it has finally stopped making Scottish sheep too “hot” to eat.

For the first time since the accident, levels of radioactive contamination in sheep on all Scottish farms dropped below safety limits last month, enabling the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to lift restrictions. Controls on the movement and sale of sheep have been in force since after the explosion in 1986.

The Chernobyl reactor near Kiev scattered a massive cloud of radioactivity over Europe after it overheated, caught fire and ripped apart because of errors made by control room staff.

It was the world’s worst nuclear accident, and has been blamed for causing tens of thousands of deaths from cancers.

Peat and grass in upland areas of Scotland were polluted with radioactive caesium-137 released by the reactor, blown across Europe and brought to ground by rain.

This grass was eaten and recycled by sheep, and has persisted in the environment far longer than originally anticipated.

In 1987, the restrictions covered 73 farms across southwest and central Scotland. Animals that contained more than 1,000 becquerels of ­radioactivity per kilo were banned from being slaughtered for food.

In April 2009, there were still 3,000 sheep at five farms in Stirling and Ayrshire under restrictions. But now, according to an announcement from the FSA, there are none.

An FSA spokesperson said: “Since the early 1990s an annual post-Chernobyl sheep monitoring programme has been carried out on restricted areas in Scotland.

“Over time, radioactivity levels have continued to decline, and, as of February 2010, only two areas in Scotland remained under restrictions. Of these, one area has been taken out of agricultural use, so is no longer being used to farm sheep, and the other area was removed from restrictions on 21 June 2010.”

Dr Richard Dixon, the director of environmental charity WWF Scotland, pointed out that a whole generation had been born and grown up since the Chernobyl disaster.

“It has taken nearly 25 years for the contamination of Scottish soils to decay to officially safe levels – and we’re 1,400 miles away,” he said. “This is a timely reminder of the folly of the UK government’s enthusiasm for a new generation of nuclear reactors.

July 5, 2010 Posted by | Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

Can “emergency” new nuke loans be stopped despite cover of war?

By Harvey Wasserman | Online Journal | July 2, 2010

Amidst a grassroots uproar over funding for the military, the nuclear power industry has again forced $9 billion in loan guarantees onto an “emergency” war appropriations bill for Afghanistan and Iraq.

Citizen opposition helped delay a similar vote scheduled last month. Now green energy advocates are again asked to call Congress immediately.

The move comes as part of a larger push for federal funding for a “new generation” of reactors.

Because independent investors won’t fund them, the reactor industry has spent some $645 million in the last decade lobbying Congress and the White House for taxpayer money.

This $9 billion is for two new reactors proposed for the South Texas site, on the Gulf of Mexico, and another at Calvert Cliffs, Maryland.

Continued operations of the two reactors now at South Texas are threatened by oil gushing from BP’s Deepwater Horizon. Calvert Cliffs is just 40 miles from the nation’s capital.

French and Japanese companies are among the leading candidates to profit from the loans. “Nearly all the major parts that would go into new reactors will be built overseas,” says the Nuclear Information & Resource Service.

Last month the Southern Company officially accepted $8.33 billion in federal loan guarantees to build two new reactors at the Vogtle site in Georgia. Georgia regulators are allowing ratepayers to be charged for construction as it proceeds.

In Florida, despite vehement protests, commissioners who voted against a massive rate hike to build new reactors were removed from the Public Service Commission by a utility-controlled legislative panel. The move, said the ousted commissioners, was “payback” for the opposition to the rate hikes.

The maneuvers surrounding the “emergency” war funding vote have been exceedingly complex. A major grassroots campaign is being waged to muster as many NO votes as possible against prolonging the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Appropriations Chair David Obey (D-WI) has linked war spending to cutbacks on salaries for teachers, among other things. He and others are believed to be opposed to using the bill as a vehicle to foist liability for new reactor construction onto the ratepayers.

Committee members are listed below. They can be reached via (202)224-3121. Call them NOW!

House Appropriations Committee members:

Democrats:

David R. Obey, Wisconsin, Chairman
Norman D. Dicks, Washington
Alan B. Mollohan, West Virginia
Marcy Kaptur, Ohio
Peter J. Visclosky, Indiana
Nita M. Lowey, New York
José E. Serrano, New York
Rosa L. DeLauro, Connecticut
James P. Moran, Virginia
John W. Olver, Massachusetts
Ed Pastor, Arizona
David E. Price, North Carolina
Chet Edwards, Texas
Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island
Maurice D. Hinchey, New York
Lucille Roybal-Allard, California
Sam Farr, California
Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., Illinois
Carolyn C. Kilpatrick, Michigan
Allen Boyd, Florida
Chaka Fattah, Pennsylvania
Steven R. Rothman, New Jersey
Sanford D. Bishop Jr., Georgia
Marion Berry, Arkansas
Barbara Lee, California
Adam Schiff, California
Michael Honda, California
Betty McCollum, Minnesota
Steve Israel, New York
Tim Ryan, Ohio
C.A “Dutch” Ruppersberger, Maryland
Ben Chandler, Kentucky
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida
Ciro Rodriguez, Texas
Lincoln Davis, Tennessee
John T. Salazar, Colorado
Patrick J. Murphy, Pennsylvania

Republicans:

Jerry Lewis, California, Ranking Member
C.W. Bill Young, Florida
Harold Rogers, Kentucky
Frank R. Wolf, Virginia
Jack Kingston, Georgia
Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, New Jersey
Todd Tiahrt, Kansas
Zach Wamp, Tennessee
Tom Latham, Iowa
Robert B.Aderholt, Alabama
Jo Ann Emerson, Missouri
Kay Granger, Texas
Michael K. Simpson, Idaho
John Abney Culberson, Texas
Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois
Ander Crenshaw, Florida
Dennis R. Rehberg, Montana
John R. Carter, Texas
Rodney Alexander, Louisiana
Ken Calvert, California
Jo Bonner, Alabama
Steven C. LaTourette, Ohio
Tom Cole, Oklahoma

July 2, 2010 Posted by | Nuclear Power, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Canada to Supply Uranium to India and China

India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

By Dave Brown –  Uranium Investing News

On June 27, The Prime Ministers of Canada and India signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement.  The deal provides for cooperation in civil nuclear energy including import of uranium and equipment from Canada, underscoring cooperation in the fields of nuclear waste management and radiation safety.

India expects to have 12 new reactors running by 2020, consuming an extra 1,500 tonnes of uranium per year. Other projects are expected, making India’s civilian nuclear sector worth $25-billion to $50-billion over the next 20 years.  Dr. Chaitanyamoy Ganguly, the President of the small Indian division of Cameco (TSX: CCO), the world’s largest uranium miner, said Canada could soon be exporting 2,000 tonnes of uranium to India annually. Canada has some natural competitive advantages over other countries in the Indian market because many of India’s reactors are already based on Canadian CANDU technology and because Australia has refused to sell uranium until India signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  India has also signed civil nuclear cooperation agreements with the USA, Russia, France, UK, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Namibia.

Cameco signed an agreement on June 24 with China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC), a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), to supply China’s largest nuclear generator with uranium concentrate under a long-term agreement through 2020.  The deal would see Cameco supplying approximately 23 million pounds over the next 10 years to CNNC, which currently operates seven reactors with a total capacity of 5,100 MW.  The state-owned CNNC, in operation for nearly 50 years, expects to be one of the world’s leading nuclear power companies by 2020 with 10 reactors under construction totaling capacity of 9,100 MW.

Cameco also has also agreed to pursue long-term non binding co-operation opportunities with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co., Ltd. (CGNPC) to supply uranium fuel for its growing fleet of nuclear power plants.  This agreement will see a strategic alliance between Cameco and China’s largest clean-energy enterprise with the largest number of nuclear power plants under construction in the world.   CGNPC needs uranium to fuel its four existing reactors and indicates that it has about 20,000 MW of nuclear capacity under construction with expectations of over 50,000 MW on line by 2020.

Jerry Grandey, Cameco’s CEO, seemed very pleased with these announcements, “Our plan to double uranium production by 2018 aligns well with China’s vigorous reactor construction program.”  Chinese estimates indicate the country is expecting to increase its nuclear capacity from the current 9 GW to at least 70 GW by 2020 with a further increase to at least 120-160 GW planned by 2030… Full article

Aletho News notes that Canadian based Cameco Resources, which is the largest U.S. uranium producer, operates an in situ leaching plant near Glenrock, Wyoming. – link

June 29, 2010 Posted by | Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

Vermont Yankee confirms cracks in cooling pipes

By Susan Smallheer | Rutland Herald | June 23, 2010

BRATTLEBORO — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirmed Tuesday evening that a large fiberglass pipe in the recently rebuilt cooling towers at Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor had developed an 18-inch crack and was leaking water.

Another crack developed in a joint in another location along the same pipe, a spokeswoman for the NRC said.

The disclosure of the cracks in the large distribution or header pipe in the east cooling tower comes after Entergy recently completed rebuilding the infrastructure of the two cooling towers over the past three years, after the western tower partially collapsed in August 2007.

Samuel Collins, Region One administrator for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Donald Jackson, another NRC official, comfirmed the cracks in the cooling tower pipe during a public meeting over the annual assessment of the plant’s operation and condition held at Brattleboro Union High School. There are cracks in cell 1-5 and cell 1-8 in the east tower, which is closest to the Connecticut River.

Until the issue was brought up by Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor to the nuclear watchdog group The New England Coalition, about two hours into the meeting, neither Entergy nor NRC officials had mentioned the problem, which was discovered Thursday by Entergy. The leaks have already undergone a temporary repair, according to Entergy spokesman Larry Smith.

Smith said the two leaks were spilling about 10 gallons a minute, where the large pipe had tapered to 30 inches in diameter. The pipe, which is 36 inches in diameter at it largest spot, carries 90,000 gallons a minute.

The cracks, which were discovered in fiberplastic pipe that is original to the cooling towers, have been reinforced by strapping, he said.

Unlike the cooling tower collapse in 2007, which also involved the header or distribution pipe, which runs along the top of the cooling tower, the structure under the pipe did not collapse, Smith said.

“It was not a structural issue,” he said. In 2007, the cause of the collapse was traced back to rotted wood in the west tower.

Diane Screnci said after the public meeting Entergy will have to determine what caused the pipe to crack in two different locations.

The NRC and Entergy were busy Tuesday discussing Vermont Yankee in a variety of forums. Earlier in the day, Entergy Nuclear held a press conference in Vernon to discuss the status of the radioactive tritium leak at the plant.

Earlier in the day, Entergy Nuclear officials said insulation left behind by construction workers in 1978 had plugged a key drain, and was directly responsible for the radioactive tritium leak at Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, which so far has cost the company $10 million in cleanup costs.

Michael Colomb, site vice president for Vermont Yankee, told a gathering of press and community leaders Tuesday that progress was being made cleaning up the radioactive contamination at the site, although months of extracting tritium-contaminated groundwater remained.

The company released its own investigation into the radioactive leak Tuesday and said a design flaw, a lack of monitoring and a lack of corporate will were all to blame for the leak.

The plugged drain, which under normal conditions would have allowed leaking radioactive water from other pipes to drain out to a collection system and treatment, instead allowed water to pool in the tunnel and leak out to the environment through a faulty seam. A variety of radioactive isotopes, not just tritium, but strontium-90, cobalt-60, cesium-127 and others, have been found in the soil.

Colomb said the company had identified 111 “piping runs” that contained radioactive isotopes that were either underground, buried or inaccessible. He said Entergy had determined only five of those 111 pipes needed to be replaced with above-ground pipes.

Vermont legislative leaders and the Department of Health have urged Entergy to replace all underground pipes carrying radioactivity with above-ground systems, which are much easier to monitor to avoid a similar radioactive leak.

So far Entergy has removed 240 cubic feet of radioactive soil from an excavation pit surrounding an underground concrete tunnel, which carried drain lines from the advanced off-gas system, plant officials said.

Additionally, about 130,000 gallons of tritium-contaminated groundwater has been pulled out of a new well, and the company says it plans on extracting 300,000 gallons of radioactive water from the ground near the leak.

With many Entergy employees sporting what appeared to be a new “VY4VT” logo, Colomb said the company remained committed to continuing to operate another 20 years beyond 2012, when its original federal operating license expires.

The site vice president said the costs of the cleanup and continuing costs of increased monitoring are proof the company was serious about turning around public opinion and getting legislative approval for continued operation.

The Vermont Senate voted 26-4 against the plant’s license extension, casting serious doubt on the plant’s future.

But company officials said the vote came at a particularly troubled time during the tritium leak, and that it was confident it would prove to Vermonters the company and the reactor could be counted on for 20 more years.

After the session, William Irwin, radiological health chief for the Department of Health, said he wanted the company to come up with a new method of sampling the contaminated groundwater as it reached the Connecticut River.

While sampling has yet to reveal any measurable levels of tritium, Irwin said he believed the highest concentration of tritium contamination wouldn’t reach the river until later this year, probably in the winter.

So far, while the tritium has shown up in about 20 monitoring wells at the plant, it hasn’t showed up in any private drinking water wells.

Irwin said he was pleased with Entergy’s level of activity and dedication to solving the problem, but he said that hadn’t always been the case.

The past couple of years has been marked with problems, he said.

“The work of the past six months needs to be done on a routine basis,” he said. “It’s not what we had prior to this.”

© 2010 Rutland Herald

June 24, 2010 Posted by | Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

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