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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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Problems plague cleanup at Hanford nuclear waste site

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

USA Today - By Peter Eisler - Jan. 18 (Special Report) - Seven decades after scientists came here during World War II to create plutonium for the first atomic bomb, a new generation is struggling with an even more daunting task: cleaning up the radioactive mess.

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Blaming U.S. and Israel, Iran Reports Killing of Nuclear Scientist

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Alan Cowell, Rick Gladstone - Jan. 11 (News Report) - A bomber on a motorcycle killed a scientist from Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment site and his bodyguard-driver on Wednesday during the morning commute in Tehran, Iranian media reported, in an assassination that could further elevate international tensions over the Iranian nuclear program and stoke the country’s growing anti-Western belligerence.

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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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Energy Costs to Rise 'Viciously' Without Atomic Power, IEA Says

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:55:55 -0800

Bloomberg - By Lananh Nguyen - Nov. 09 (Special Report) - Energy will become "viciously more expensive" and polluting if governments don't promote renewable and nuclear power in the next two decades instead of burning coal, the International Energy Agency said. Global demand for energy is set to increase 40 percent by 2035, the Paris-based agency said today in its annual World Energy Outlook report. Consumption will rise 1.3 percent a year to 16.96 billion metric tons of oil equivalent in 2035, spurred by China and other emerging economies, the IEA said. The worst atomic accident in 25 years at the Fukushima plant in Japan on March 11 led Germany, Europe's biggest economy, to close eight of its 17 reactors permanently. Nuclear plants generate power continuously while emitting virtually no greenhouse gases. Without nuclear, keeping world temperature gains at 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) will cost an extra $1.5 trillion through 2035, the IEA said. "If we do not have an international legally binding agreement soon, and if it doesn't give a boost to a major investment wave of clean energy technologies by 2017, the door to 2 degrees will be closed forever," Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist in Paris, said in an interview yesterday. A shift away from nuclear power "would definitely be bad news for energy security, for climate change and also for the economics of the electricity price."

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Xenon detected at Fukushima plant

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Roland Buerk - Nov. 02 (News Report) - A radioactive gas has been detected at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the facility's operator says. Tepco said xenon had been found in reactor two, which was previously thought to be near a stable shutdown. There has been no increase in temperature or pressure, but the discovery may indicate a problem with the reactor. Boric acid - used to suppress nuclear reactions - has been injected as a precaution. Ever since the meltdowns in March triggered by the huge earthquake and tsunami, engineers have been working to bring the Fukushima reactors under control.

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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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Explosion at nuclear plant in southern France

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Jenny Barchfield - Sep. 12 (News Report) - An explosion at a nuclear waste facility in southern France killed one person and injured four on Monday. Authorities said there was no radioactive leak, but critics urged France to rethink its nuclear power in the wake of the catastrophe at Japan's Fukushima plant.

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In Cheney’s memoir, it’s clear Iraq’s lessons didn’t sink in

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Bob Woodward - Sep. 12 (Special Report) - A key lesson of the 9/11 decade for presidents and other national security decision makers is the importance of rigorously testing intelligence evidence: poking holes in it, setting out contradictions, figuring out what may have been overlooked or left out. It is essential to distinguish between hard facts and what is an assessment or judgment.

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NRC: Earthquake shook nuclear plant past design limits

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Melanie Mason - Sep. 09 (News Report) - A nuclear power plant in central Virginia may have experienced twice as much shaking as it was designed to withstand during last month’s rare East Coast earthquake , according to federal nuclear regulators, although no major damage has been found.

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The Earthquake and North Anna

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - Aug. 24 (Opinion) - I already knew that nuclear power presented problems with waste disposal and potential terrorism. Now I know about earthquakes.

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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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Philippines aims to rekindle nuclear industry

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Marga Ortigas - Jul. 24 (News Report) - A nuclear plant in the Philippines that has sat untouched for over a quarter of a century has become an unlikely tourist attraction. With another power crisis now looming, energy officials hope allowing people to cheaply tour the facility will eventually win their much-needed support to finally bring the facility on-line, even though its fuel rods were sold off over 10 years ago and the plant is not well maintained.

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Meltdown: What Really Happened at Fukushima?

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Jake Adelstein, David McNeill - Jul. 03 (News) - It’s been one of the mysteries of Japan’s ongoing nuclear disaster: How much of the damage did the March 11 earthquake inflict on Fukushima Daiichi’s reactors in the 40 minutes before the devastating tsunami arrived? The stakes are high: If the quake alone structurally compromised the plant and the safety of its nuclear fuel, then every other similar reactor in Japan is at risk.

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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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Confronting the Nuclear Industry

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

resistinc.org - By Janet Greenwald - Jul. 01 (Opinion) - As we receive dire reports from our friends in Japan and watch the levels of radiation in our rain and drinking water creep up, many progressive-thinking people feel frustrated that the Obama administration still considers nuclear power a necessary part of the “mix” of energy sources for our future—and the nuclear bomb a necessary part of our weapons reparatory. Neither should be part of our future.

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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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NRC and industry rewrite the history of nukes

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

Associated Press - Jun. 29 (Investigative Report) - As part of a yearlong investigation of aging issues at the nation's nuclear power plants, the AP found that the relicensing process often lacks fully independent safety reviews. Records show that paperwork of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sometimes matches word-for-word the language used in a plant operator's application.

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Is Karzai's Accusation That Coalition Forces Are Polluting Afghanistan with Nuclear Material Accurate or an Over-Reaction?

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Larry Greenemeier - Jun. 25 (News Report) - President Obama has called for the withdrawal of 33,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan over the next year and the remaining 68,000 by the end of 2014, but questions linger regarding what the troops are leaving behind after more than nine years of combat. In particular, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has accused U.S. and NATO-led coalition troops of littering

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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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GAO: leaks at aging nuke sites difficult to detect

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Jun. 21 (News) -

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US nuke regulators weaken safety rules

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Jeff Donn - Jun. 20 (Special Report) - Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

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