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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board Chair Nominated to Head the NRC

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - By Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - May. 24 (Breaking News) - President Barack Obama today named Allison Macfarlane, chair of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, as his choice to lead the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Macfarlane also served on the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.

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Radiation: It's just what the doctor ordered | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

thebulletin.org - By Dawn Stover - May. 24 (Special Report) - "Thirty years ago, these sources accounted for approximately 15 percent of the public's total radiation exposure. Today, that figure has more than tripled, so that nearly 50 percent of the public's overall radiation exposure can be attributed to medical sources."

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Under A Withering Industry Assault, Nuclear Safety Chief Resigns

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Ryan Grim - May. 21 (News Report) - Under a withering assault from the industry, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko is stepping down, effective upon the confirmation of his successor, according to a statement from Jaczko. The resignation follows months of bureaucratic knife-wielding by the four industry-backed members of the five-person panel.

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The Pacific Ocean Is Dying

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - May. 18 (Special Report) - Just prior to the Supermoon of March 18th, 2011, the world witnessed a natural and manmade disaster of epic proportions. What transpired off the coast of Honshu Island, Japan on March 11 has forever altered the planet and irremediably affected the global environment.

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Nuclear Safety Advocates Accuse Industry And Regulators Of Foot-Dragging On Basic Safety Measure

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Tom Zeller Jr. - Apr. 30 (News Report) - "It always comes down to public safety versus the cost to industry of implementing something." So it has been, Lampert argues, with one seemingly straightforward emergency feature: Requiring a filtered vent in the concrete containment buildings surrounding nuclear reactors like the one at Pilgrim.

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As Fukushima Worsens, US Approves New Nukes

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Common Dreams - Mar. 31 (News Report) - Despite reports this week that the Fukushima nuclear situation may be even worse than previously thought, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has given approval today for two combined licenses for two nuclear reactors in South Carolina, only the second time in the last three decades that new nuclear plants have been approved in the nation. read ...

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Quake catastrophe like Japan's could hit Pacific Northwest, new data show

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

MSN.com - By M. Alex Johnson - Mar. 29 (News Report) - While most Americans probably think the San Andreas fault running through California poses the greatest threat of unleashing a killer mega-quake, data from the Japanese quake indicate that the distinction actually belongs to the Cascadia fault line, which runs through southern Canada, Washington and Oregon to Northern California, Anderson said at the conference.

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Japan Earthquake Anniversary: U.S. Slow To Update Nuclear Safety Requirements Following Disaster, Experts Say

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Chris Kirkham - Mar. 08 (Special Report) - "There is no question that the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi site ... will be regarded as a seminal event in the history of nuclear power," Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a speech last May. "We have the responsibility t

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Anti-Nuclear Groups in Georgia Seek To Block First New Nuclear Plants in U.S. in Decades

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Mar. 06 (News Report) - On this Super Tuesday in Georgia, one issue where the Republican candidates fully agree with President Obama is nuclear power. The nation’s first reactors since 1978 recently won federal approval. Atlanta-based Southern Company is attempting to build two new reactors at the Vogtle plant in eastern Georgia. We speak with Stephen Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, one of nine groups seeking to block the project, who notes that nuclear power plants relies on federal loan guarantees because Wall Street is not interested in investing. “You would think that the conservative party would be conservatively approaching use of both rate payer money and tax payer money and that they would want transparency and openness,” Smith says. “Yet we have heard virtually nothing from anyone in the Republican Party.” [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Water leaks found at stricken Japan nuclear plant

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

MSN.com - Jan. 30 (News Report) - "The cooling water is from a filtrate tank for fire extinction and doesn't contain radioactive materials," Tepco said of the incident at reactor No. 4. It added that some water from the other leakage had flowed into a drain and "we are examining whether this water has flowed into the ocean or not."

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Panel: Start now to replace Nevada nuke site

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

tri-cityherald.com - By Matthew Daly - Jan. 28 (News Report) - The Union of Concerned Scientists said construction of an interim storage facility for nuclear waste poses a stiff political challenge and could distract from the more important goal of finding a permanent repository site.

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Bill Clinton: Solar and wind energy are "both cheaper than nuclear right now."

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Louis Jacobson - Nov. 11 (Fact Check) - During a Nov. 8, 2011, appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, former President Bill Clinton touted the prospects for adopting renewable energy. "Solar energy and wind energy ... would already be competitive with coal if you had to pay the extraneous costs of coal -- the health care costs and other things. And ... wind within two years and solar within five will be competitive in price with coal. They're both cheaper than nuclear right now."

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The "scientization" of Yucca Mountain | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

thebulletin.org - Oct. 12 (Special Report) - Let's stop pretending that choosing a nuclear waste repository site is all about science: Government officials are often guilty of politicizing science. Egged on by business or religious interests, they cast doubt on the scientific evidence for a connection between tobacco and lung cancer, or between fossil fuels and climate change, or even between humans and our primate ancestors. Some scientific findings are suppressed, while others are manipulated or distorted beyond recognition. But in the case of Yucca Mountain, the reverse happened: Government officials "scientized" politics. They made decisions that were largely political but cloaked them in the garb of science.

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Almost everything is getting better

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Long Now Foudation - By Kirk Citron - Aug. 10 (News Report) - Last week The Millennium Project released its 02011 State Of The Future report, looking at trends for the past twenty years and projecting ahead for the next decade. (Not the 10,000 year future, but still of interest.) You can read an executive summary of the report here. While the report finds many things to worry about – global warming, terrorism, corruption – overall the trends are surprisingly hopeful, as shown in their chart called “Where we are winning”

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Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, George Weller - Aug. 09 (Special Report) - As radiation readings in Japan reach their highest levels since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdowns, we look at the beginning of the atomic age. Today is the 66th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which killed some 75,000 people and left another 75,000 seriously wounded. It came just three days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing around 80,000 people and injuring some 70,000. By official Japanese estimates, nearly 300,000 people died from the bombings, including those who lost their lives in the ensuing months and years from related injuries and illnesses. Other researchers estimate a much higher death toll.

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United States Hit With a Triple Nuclear Threat – How Dangerous is it?

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

dianuke.org - By Michio Kaku - Jul. 02 (News Report) - The Los Alamos fire is an immediate problem, with forest fires raging at its doorstep... there are at least 6 metric tons worth of plutonium used in the weapons program stored there. Of immediate concern is Area G, containing up to 30,000 fifty five gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated nuclear waste. These drums are not secured, but are simply stored above ground in an ordinary building and the fire is about 3 miles from these drums.

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New Exposé Reveals Nuclear Regulatory Commission Colluded with Industry to Weaken Safety Standards

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 29 (News Report) - Three U.S. senators have called for a congressional probe on safety issues at the nation’s aging nuclear plants following a pair of new exposés. In a special series called “Aging Nukes,” the Associated Press revealed that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear power industry have been working in tandem to weaken safety standards to keep aging reactors within the rules. Just last year, the NRC weakened the safety margin for acceptable radiation damage to reactor vessels.

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Fukushima: World's Worst Industrial Disaster Reveals How Nation States Are Powerless to Protect Us from Advanced Technology | | AlterNet

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Victor Kotsev - Jun. 29 (Investigative Report) - very few believed that a nuclear accident as bad as the 1986 meltdown in Ukraine would occur again. "I think that's basically impossible," said James Stubbins, an expert at the University of Illinois, and many others agreed. Yet, as we are now slowly coming to realize, Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl. In a revealing recent feature article published by al-Jazeera, Dahr Jamail conveys the comments of Arnold Gundersen, a senior former nuclear industry executive in the United States. "Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Gundersen asserts.

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Japan Nuclear Plant A 'Ticking Time Bomb,' Says Physicist

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Jun. 22 (News Report) - Though global fears about radiation emissions from the heavily damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility have calmed in the weeks since Japan's devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, famed physicist Michio Kaku insists the situation remains a "ticking time bomb." A professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and the City College of New York, Kaku discussed some recent revelations about the disaster's impact, and noted that Japanese officials still don't yet have control at the site.

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Nebraska nuclear power plant at Emergency Level 4 and could become another Fukushima

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

abovetopsecret.com - Jun. 16 (News Report) - "On June 6, 2011, the Fort Calhoun pressurized water nuclear reactor 20 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska entered emergency status due to imminent flooding from the Missouri River. A day later, there was an electrical fire requiring plant evacuation. Then, on June 8th, NRC event reports confirmed the fire resulted in the loss of cooling for the reactor's spent fuel pool. The discussion includes specific details of the technical failures at Fort Calhoun, the risks of coolant loss at overcrowded "spent" fuel pools, and the national hazards of nuclear facilities along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and other water sites during the current period of floods and climate change."

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Swiss lower house of parliament votes to phase out nuclear power

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

beyondnuclear.org - Jun. 13 (News) - In response to the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, Switzerland's National Council, the country's lower house of parliament, has voted 101 to 54 to phase out nuclear power,

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As Japan Nuclear Crisis Worsens Citizen-led Radiation Monitors Pressure Govt to Increase Evacuations

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 10 (News Report) - Almost three months after the earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear disaster in Japan, new radiation "hot spots" may require the evacuation of more areas further from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility. Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency recently admitted for the first time that full nuclear meltdowns occurred at three of the plant’s reactors, and more than doubled its estimate for the amount of radiation that leaked from the plant in the first week of the disaster in March. “What they failed to mention is that they discharged an equally large amount into the ocean,” says our guest Robert Alvarez, former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy. “As [the radiation] goes up the food chain, it accumulates, and by the time it reaches people who consume this food, the levels are higher than they originally were when they entered the environment.” We also go to Tokyo to speak with Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the group Green Action. She says citizens are leading their own monitoring efforts and calling for additional evacuations, especially for young children and pregnant women.

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CNN's John King interviews Arnie Gundersen about the Hot Particles discovered in Japan and the US.

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

fairewinds.com - By John King, Arnie Gundersen - Jun. 08 (News Report) - Now what we're finding are hot particles....In Tokyo there are about 10 hot particles per day in what a normal person would breath...In Seattle it doesn't go down that much; it is about 5 hot particles per day. These charged particles latch on to lung tissue, or in the digestive tract, and over time they cause cancer.

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Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS

Thu, 26 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

fairewinds.com - By Arnie Gundersen - May. 26 (Special Report) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) held a special ACRS meeting Thursday May 26, 2011 on the current status of Fukushima. Arnie Gundersen was invited to speak for 5 minutes concerning the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident as it pertains to the 23 Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors (BWR's) in the US and containment integrity.

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The Implications of the Fukushima Accident on the World's Operating Reactors

Sun, 22 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

fairewinds.com - May. 22 (Special Report) - video

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