Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Charlie the tuna glows in the dark?


Charlie the tuna glows in the dark? - YouTube

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear joins Thom Hartmann. Now on to a story that - tragically - just won't go away: The Fukushima Nuclear crisis. Radioactive fish are now swimming in U.S. waters. Scientists have - for the first time - discovered Bluefin tuna that were contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan last year - swimming off the coast of California. Radioactive cesium ten times above the normal level was found in the fish - though health officials say the levels are too low to be considered a health threat. Then again - no amount of radiation is good for you. Meanwhile - back at the crippled nuclear plant - a bulge was detected in the walls of reactor four - increasing fears that the structure holding tens of thousands of highly radioactive spent fuel rods is not sound. Should the reactor four building give way - it could trigger a nuclear disaster even worse than Chernobyl.



Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Koodankulam Must Be Stopped: Vandana Shiva



Appeals to New Delhi on Koodankulam: India Gate 20th May,2012. - YouTube

Koodankulam Must Be Stopped: Vandana Shiva

James George of Envirobeat.com, a US-based environmental reporting agency was at the India Gate in New Delhi on May 20th when Dr. Vandana Shiva released the National Appeal on Koodankulam. Below is the short interview of Dr. Shiva which James took after the release. Envirobeat.com has also published the transcriptof Dr. Shiva’s statement at the India Gate while releasing the appeal to the people of India. 

We are publishing it here courtesy Envirobeat.com | via DiaNuke.org

Q: “A lot of people propose nuclear power and a solution for climate change, and a lot of people say it is a false solution. And since you’re here I assume you think it’s a false solution as well. What solutions do you like for climate change?”
Vandana Shiva: “Well, the first solution I like for climate change is organic farming. Because I’ve done a book calledSoil Not Oil that shows that 40% of emissions comes from industrialized globalized agriculture. The nitrogen oxide, the methane from factory farms, and fossil fuel use. So you can cut 40% by doing good farming the feeds the world, protects the soil, and creates livelihoods.”
“My second preferred solution is renewable energies, decentralized renewable energies, of which there is no dearth. We have far more wind and far more sun than we have uranium. And it is crazy to build an energy plan on an exhaustible resource which exhausts but leaves an inexhaustible waste.”
“My third solution is not to push people out of their homes. Leave them where they have livelihoods. Don’t push the tribals out of their forest. Don’t push the peasants off the land. You’ve got a solution to climate change. You push everyone into a city, you push the poor out two hours away. You’re going to have huge amounts of fossil fuel used just to move people around.”
“So redesigning agriculture, redesigning energy, and redesigning the relation between the rural and urban, you solve the problem and improve society.”
Q: “Could you say anything about the relation between nuclear weapons and nuclear power?”
Vandana Shiva: “Nuclear power started in weaponry. It was designed for war. And any instrument that has its origins in war always has the potential for war.First because the material you need to make bombs, you’re multiplying it though nuclear power, you’re taking uranium and turn it into plutonium. Second by equipping governments and private companies with this potential, in society you spread this potential, that here is a weapon of mass destruction available.”
“This is exactly what happened with fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers came from explosive factories are increasingly used in terrorist attacks. In Delhi in the high court, in Mumbai, in Afganistan. Most of the bomb explosions are from fertilizer bombs. And if a harmless thing called fertilizer can become so lethal, why would nuclear power stay in safe hands, when even in safe hands it is not safe.”
Q: “And Fukushima we had an accident that was unexpected…”
Vandana Shiva: “Fukushima happened in a country which is probably the most rigorous, in terms of technology, in terms of scientific care, in terms of an accountability system. And if it can happen in Japan, Fukushima’s can happen anywhere.”
“The point about nuclear is that accidents don’t happen in any nuclear power plant because of the calculation about your fission material. They happen because a generator stops. They happen because a cooling tower stops. They happen because of small mechanical failures which you can’t predict.”
“But in the case of nuclear, which is a stupid technology because all you’re doing is creating fissionable material, creating radioactive material, using radioactive material, to boil water. The power doesn’t come from nuclear, the power comes from the water. Now there are safer ways to boil water.”
Q: “Who is going to defend that nuclear waste for all those thousands of years?”
Vandana Shiva: “Now the point is, a government that is not able to take care of plastic waste, we have mountains of plastic waste, which is itself destructive to health and the environment, they will keep nuclear waste in the same way. And it has happened, nuclear waste was found, nuclear material was found in a recycling market in Delhi. …if they can’t take care of any kind of waste disposal, they will not take care of nuclear waste disposal.”
Q: “This is a question about the politics – how many people is it going to take to influence policy, is there hope here?”
Vandana Shiva: “One thing is for sure, even conventional elections will be a safety net at this point. Just a change in power to undo the commitments this present government has made. And it won’t be the best of governments, but at least it’ll be a different one. And that’s why the 2014 elections are vital.”

Vandana Shiva’s Statement at the India Gate, May 20, 2012
 
“I’m also here for solidarity with one of the most significant struggles for the future of democracy in India. I want to salute the people of Koodankulam who haven’t given up in spite of all the terror attacks on them from what has become a militarized state. A very interesting new article has been published in The Economist, which is not a people’s magazine, it’s a corporate magazine. And The Economist says, increasingly nuclear power will become less and less a creature of democracy.”
“And that is why India’s democratic fabric is being assaulted in order to impose nuclear power. The very agreement that has given licence to spread nuclear was an undemocratic agreement that nearly killed our parliament, the U.S. India nuclear deal. And if it wasn’t for purchase of votes, the cash for votes scandal, that agreement wouldn’t have gone through. We then had the Civil Nuclear Liability Act, which pays the costs of liability in case of an accident so that industry can walk away for free like they did after the Bopal disaster.”
“I believe Koodankulam is significant for many reasons. For some sad perverse reason, our government is making a choice for the most backward, most primitive, most hazardous and most crude technologies in every sphere.”
“Energy, we have so much more sophisticated alternatives from renewables, whether it’s biomass, decentralized – Ghandi chose it – wind solar, it wasn’t there in his time. They’re picking nuclear which every country is giving up. Germany stopped it because their people said after Fukushima we don’t want nuclear. And nobody needs any more evidence that this is a dangerous technology than Fukushima. Germany stopped, Italy stopped. France will stop, the country that is highest nuclear power plants, is going to stop under the new President François Hollande. Brazil has announced it won’t go further. Japan has said no more. If every democratic enlightened technologically advanced country is saying no to nuclear, why is India picking this backward technology?”
“In agriculture they are picking the worst option. They have agro-ecology, we have organic, they are picking genetic engineering. And worse, when people with intelligence, information, freedom, rise to educate the government about their rights, and the rights for safety, only the government can say is, this is the foreign hand, when the real foreign hand is Monsanto behind GMOs. And the global nuclear industry behind the nuclear power plants.”
“Sadly our public sector is always there as the face to bring it all in, to make it look like it’s in the national interest. I started my life in the Bhabha Atomic Research Institute. It used to be public sector then, it is no more. Everywhere nuclear is being shut down, we are giving them a red carpet. On our money, they are imposing hazards on us. It’s a double violation of democracy. Because it’s our money that’s being used to build these plants against our will. I really do believe that the assault on democracy that we are seeing in Koodankulam is something that is so serious, that if we don’t stop them here they will do this on every issue everywhere. No citizen will be safe in their home, in their village, in their town.”
“And that is why this appeal to all of you – not to government – to each of us to raise our conscience, to wake ourselves up, to say this country got its freedom with a very long struggle that was nonviolent. That is the path that the Koodankulam activists are following. That’s the path we have a right and a duty to continue following.”
“And to the government I want to say: don’t send psychiatrists along with police. There’s nothing wrong with the people who know about the hazards. If there is an insanity it is at the level of Delhi, and if we need psychiatrists let Nimhans [National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences] come and see why is the mind of the official India gone so bezerk that they cannot make a single sane decision about the future of this country. “
“And so all strength to the people of Koodankulam, and to those who think nuclear is not their business, take this home – read it.”

> “An Urgent Appeal to the Conscience of the Nation on Koodankulam” – Text of Statement Released by Vandana Shiva at India Gate | envirobeat.com


Environment Petition: Senators Boxer and Feinstein: Investigate the ongoing danger from the Fukushima nuclear reactors | Change.org


CALIFORNIA

The spent fuel pools at Fukushima are a bomb waiting to go off. Each pool contains irradiated fuel from several years of operation, making for an extremely large radioactive inventory without a strong containment structure that encloses the reactor cores;
Several pools are now completely open to the atmosphere because the reactor buildings were demolished by explosions; they are about 100 feet above ground and could possibly topple or collapse from structural damage coupled with another powerful earthquake;
The loss of water exposing the spent fuel will result in overheating can cause melting and ignite its zirconium metal cladding – resulting in a fire that could deposit large amounts of radioactive materials over hundreds of miles.
Fukushima is in an active earthquake zone. The urgency of the situation is underscored by the ongoing seismic activity around NE Japan in which 13 earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 - 5.7 have occurred off the NE coast of Honshu last week in the 4 days between 4/14 and 4/17. This has been the norm since the first quake and tsunami hit the site on March 11th of last year. Larger quakes are expected closer to the power plant. http://www.countercurrents.org/alvarez240412.htm
California is downwind from Japan. Radiation from the earthquake hit is increasing.http://www.infowars.com/california-slammed-with-fukushima-radiation/
A Chernobyl type explosion from the spent fuel pools could force coastal California to evacuate for decades.
Tepco and the Japanese government lack the staggering resources- up to $250 billion- to clean up Fukushima before another disaster happens. Tepco's timeline is way too slow- 10 years to contain the spent fuel ponds.
We urge the California Senators to join Oregon Senator Wyden in touring Fukushima, and then investigate the risks, with an eye to mobilizing US and international support for the cleanup.
sign the petition > Environment Petition: Senators Boxer and Feinstein: Investigate the ongoing danger from the Fukushima nuclear reactors | Change.org


Monday, May 28, 2012

The Future Children of Fukushima


The Future Children of Fukushima

by JOE GIAMBRONE
"[A] woman in her fourth month of pregnancy was contaminated with 137Cs [radioactive cesium]? The concentration of 137Cs in the mother (0.91 kBq/kg bw) was similar to that in her newborn child (0.97 kBq/kg bw)." 1
Children in Belarus, Ukraine and certain provinces of Russia tell us what to expect from a massive radiation contamination such as Japan is currently experiencing. Radiation attacks the young to a harsher degree than it does adults, and yet we do know that it kills adults. Radioactivity causes numerous illnesses including terminal cancers, and not just from a large initial dose but over time from absorbed emitting particles inside the body.
A senior nuclear adviser to the Japanese Prime Minister, professor Toshiso Kosako resigned in protest from his government. This as the Japanese government raised the level of permissible exposure to schoolchildren twenty fold, from 1mSv/year to 20mSv.
The atomic power industry, it can be proved, has been an unprecedented catastrophe for mankind.
One of the world’s leading experts on radionuclide contamination is Dr. Yury Bandashevsky based in Minsk, Belarus. Near Chernobyl’s "ground zero" Bandazhevsky has published hundreds of scientific papers and has studied the radioactive contamination absorbed by children there for decades.
The parents of northern Japan had best investigate Dr. Bandashevsky’s dietary recommendations. He’s found that apple pectin helps remove radioactive cesium-137 from the body.
However, food grown and animals grazed in contaminated regions will pass along radiation to human populations for centuries. The Japanese reliance on fish will soon produce another shock to their nation as larger fish absorb more radioactive particles up the food chain.
Dr. Bandashevsky has placed hard numbers on the dangers of internal contamination from radiation,
"Chronic Cs-137 levels over 30 Bq/kg body weight is often associated with serious cardiovascular diseases 2."
For children with cesium 137 in excess of 50 Becquerels/kg body weight, "pathological disorders of the vital organs or systems will occur 3." These levels can produce grotesque malformations in newborn babies and increase the risk of spontaneous abortions.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) says, "Both 134Cs and 137Cs emit beta particles and gamma rays, which may ionize molecules within cells penetrated by these emissions and result in tissue damage and disruption of cellular function 4."
Expecting Japanese mothers should flee the north of Japan as quickly as possible. Abandon the region for the sake of their children’s safety. Fetuses are in imminent danger and are many times more vulnerable to radiation than are adults.
How much radiation is Japan bathed in right now?
Nature magazine online reported that soil 40km northwest of the plant contained, "Cesium-137 levels of 163,000 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) and iodine-131 levels of 1,170,000 Bq/kg, according to Japan’s science ministry 5."
Tellingly, the new official "exclusion zone" is only a 30km radius from the plant. This means that those living atop the irradiated soil described above will not even be prompted to leave. Most will not. They will eventually return to life as usual. Only the colorless, tasteless, odorless radioactive isotopes will poison their families ceaselessly for the rest of their lives. Cesium, strontium, iodine and other radionuclides will continue to attack life forms in that contaminated environment despite any hollow assurances to the contrary.
Plutonium, the most toxic substance on earth, has been detected at eight different monitoring stations in Korea.
Radioactivity is a highly contested and controversial subject. Vast caches of medical evidence are routinely ignored in the mainstream media. At the nerve center of the controversy is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose entire purpose is to promote the atomic power industry worldwide. Many don’t know, but the IAEA has the authority on all health matters concerning radiation, both military and civil.
The World Health Organization can simply be blocked ? by the IAEA ? from publishing its findings concerning radioactive disasters like Chernobyl. This exact scenario occurred in 1995 under the tenure of WHO Director Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima 6.
A Swiss documentary team discovered that Dr. Nakajima’s 1995 international conference of "700 experts and physicians" was prevented from publishing its findings on Chernobyl by the IAEA. The 2004 Swiss film Nuclear Controversies documents this battle between doctors and scientists on the scene vs. the IAEA.
Regarding the IAEA, Dr. Nakajima said, "for atomic affairs, military use and civil use, peaceful or civil use they have the authority. They command 7."
The elephant in the room is that word "military," and the desire of Western militaries to pummel other lands with "depleted uranium" (sic) munitions. As NATO currently plasters Libya with uranium tipped bombs, it must deny that the uranium contamination will harm the civilian population there. That admission alone would constitute a confession of war crimes, and so the fiction continues.
Radiation attacks DNA and causes horrific malformations, sudden mortality, and diseases that persist for the rest of the person’s life.
Several films have documented the radiation effects on the children of Chernobyl including the Academy Award winning Chernobyl Heart (2003). This film shows harrowing images of deformed infants and numerous teenagers who suffer from thyroid cancers and other thyroid diseases. Fewer than 20% of children in the nation of Belarus can be classified as "healthy," according to official government studies.
A Ukrainian study found that, "for each case of thyroid cancer there were 29 other thyroid pathologies 8."
Dr. Bandashevsky found further health effects at even lower levels of cesium contamination. For "children having 5 Bq/kg more than 80% are healthy, while having 11 Bq/kg only 35% of children are healthy 9."
Chernobyl Heart, The Battle of Chernobyl (2006) and Nuclear Controversies (2004) have been available streaming online for all to see. The evidence that radiation destroys the lives of entire populations is irrefutable.
Official United Nations studies have failed to reflect this reality on the ground. What the UN has fallen back on as a rationale for its behavior is found in the 2008 UNSCEAR report on Chernobyl:
"As discussed previously in the section on the attribution of effects to radiation exposure, because presently there are no biomarkers specific to radiation, it is not possible to state scientifically that radiation caused a particular cancer in an individual 10."
By their own logic it is also not possible to scientifically rule out that radiation caused the epidemic of cancers found in the highly contaminated regions. But, that’s exactly what the UN has shamelessly done in a series of reports that deliberately under-count the deaths from the Chernobyl catastrophe.
While the IAEA refuses to accept medical consequences of the radioactivity it promotes, it does acknowledge that radiation has spread from the crippled Fukushima plant. Readings as high as 25 Megabecquerels per sq. meter iodine-131, and 3.7 Megabecquerels per sq. meter cesium-137 were reported "at distances of 25 to 58 km 11" from the still out of control plant. These numbers should prompt massive evacuations at much greater distances than the official exclusion zone (read: uninhabitable zone) of 30km.
Facing that reality would render a large chunk of Japan a wasteland with economic costs beyond calculation. The numbers of refugees would surpass anything that the government could possibly manage. The absolute insanity of atomic power would instantly become an unavoidable fact to the entire (sane) world.
All exposures to radiation increase the risks of cancer, and there is no such thing as a "safe dose." This is the determination of the National Academy of Sciences 12, the EPA 13, NRC 14, CDC 15 etcetera. Thus, when a population is exposed to any increase in radioactive particles, some percentage of people and animals will be adversely affected. The exact number is difficult to determine, but estimates are made through extrapolation.
Dr. Chris Busby has predicted "400,000" cases of cancer for the population within 200 kilometers of Fukushima 16. That includes the suburbs of Tokyo. Studies from Europe after Chernobyl were used in his calculations. Cancers include thyroid, leukemia, pancreas, prostate, lung, skin, bone ? every type of cancer that exists. This is what radiation does to living organisms.
The evidence is clear. Children living "in contaminated regions, in a radius of 250 – 300 km from Chernobyl show an increase in mutations 17." From the years 1987 to 2004, "the incidence of brain tumors in children up to 3 years of age doubled and in infants it increased 7.5-fold 18."
Thousands of studies from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the surrounding countries were compiled in 2009 by Dr. Alexey Yablokov and Drs. Vassily and Alexey Nesterenko. Chernobyl, Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment was published by the New York Academy of Sciences and cites 5,000 studies. Forty percent of Europe was dosed with significant radiation. Radioactivity spread across the northern hemisphere where it continues to affect human health to this day.
The most contaminated provinces show human devastation directly correlated to radiation levels. Gomel province in Belarus had 90% healthy children in 1985, the year before the meltdown. By 2000, "fewer than 10% of children were well 19." Effects were directly related to the levels of contamination, eliminating other possible factors.
Rare deformities in infants increased radically. Severe Congenital Malformations (CMs) "such as polydactyly, deformed internal organs, absent or deformed limbs, and retarded growth increased significantly in the contaminated districts? officially registered CMs increased 5.7-fold during the first 12 years after the catastrophe 20."
This is what the parents of Northern Japan should expect if they decide to stay. This is what the promotion of high risk atomic power has bequeathed to the next generations of those who live near the contaminated zone.
The IAEA’s methodology showed obvious holes in the counting of victims, post-Chernobyl. Stillbirths aren’t counted at all. The reality is that up to 2004, "the estimated total number of miscarriages and stillbirths in Ukraine as a result of Chernobyl was about 50,000 21."
Those are fifty thousand human deaths in the single nation of Ukraine that did not even merit a mention in the UN’s so-called "official death toll."
How many really died from Chernobyl’s meltdown?
The Yablokov/Nesterenko book places the death toll at about one million.
"Thus the overall mortality for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated at 985,000 additional deaths. This estimate of the number of additional deaths is similar to those of Gofman (1994a) and Bertell (2006). 22"
Three independent studies arrived at similar findings.
The atomic energy industry today across many nations displays a reckless disregard for human life bordering on Crimes Against Humanity. The Rome Statute, employed by the International Criminal Court, added the following category to Crimes Against Humanity:
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
As all nuclear plants regularly and routinely discharge harmful radioactive particles, which all governments admit are unsafe, the case is pretty clear. Nuclear power must be abolished while there is still enough uncontaminated arable farmland to sustain us.
In a strictly moral sense, these reckless plants endanger millions of other people’s children, perhaps 12,000 human generations yet to be born 23. Radioactive power generation places us in jeopardy at risk for catastrophic illnesses. This is a gross deliberate violation of millions of people’s human rights.
Plutonium remains a threat to future civilizations. This reckless, uncontrolled release of radioactive isotopes has fouled the earth.
The people of Japan should remember the people of Belarus. Birth defects in children "whose mothers live in contaminated zones is twice as high as compared to those, whose mothers live in clean regions 24."


Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire. He edits the Political Film Blog. He be reached at: polfilmblog at gmail.
Notes
1. World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on Cancer IARC, Monographs on the Evaluatiion of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, Vol. 78 Ionizing Radiation Part 2: Some Internally Depostited Radionuclides, 2001, IARCPress, Lyon France, p. 343.
2. Yuri Bandazhevsky, Chronic Cs-137 incorporation in children ‘s organs, 488 SWISS MED WKLY, 2003;133:488?490 ? www.smw.ch (peer reviewed), Official journal of, the Swiss Society of Infectious disease, the Swiss Society of Internal Medicine, Swiss Respiratory Society
3., 17., 24. The Chernobyl Catastrophe and Health Care, By Dr. Michel Fernex, Professor emeritus, Medical Faculty of Basel, F-68480 Biederthal, France.
4: Center for Disease Control Publication p157-c2, CESIUM, 2. RELEVANCE TO PUBLIC HEALTH, CDC website.
5. Nature Journal Online, Radioactivity Spreads in Japan, March 29 2011, http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110329/full/471555a.html
6., 7. Nuclear Controversies, 2004, Swiss TV, Film by Wladimir Tchertkoff, Feldat Film Switzerland.
8. ,18., 19., 20., 21., 22. Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, Alexey V. Nesterenko, 2009, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol.1181.
9. V.B. Nesterenko’s report at the International conference "Medical Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe: results of 15-year researches", June 4-8, 2001, Kiev, Ukraine.
10. SOURCES AND EFFECTS OF IONIZING RADIATION, United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes, VOLUME II Annex D Health effects due to radiation from the Chernobyl accident
11. IAEA website, Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log, March 30, 2011,http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2011/fukushima300311.html
12. National Academy of Sciences, 2006, Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII Phase 2.http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11340&page=1#
13. EPA website, Radiation Risks and Realities, "The more radiation dose a person receives, the greater the chance of developing cancer? Current evidence suggests that any exposure to radiation poses some risk, however, risks at very low exposure levels have not been definitively demonstrated." ["very low" not defined ?JG]www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/402-k-07-006.pdf
14. NRC website, Fact Sheet on Biological Effects of Radiation, "This dose-response hypothesis suggests that any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk."
15. Center for Disease Control website, Prenatal Radiation Exposure: A Fact Sheet for Physicians, "However, the human embryo and fetus are particularly sensitive to ionizing radiation, and the health consequences of exposure can be severe, even at radiation doses too low to immediately affect the mother. Such consequences can include growth retardation, malformations, impaired brain function, and cancer."
23. Al Jazeera, April 4, 2011, No safe levels’ of radiation in Japan by Dahr Jamail, quoting Dr. Kathleen Sullivan.


The Future Children of Fukushima | Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names


Nuclear energy | Climate change | Science & policy


Photo: Nuclear energy
Credit: thebmag via Flickr.

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is experiencing a revival due to growing concerns about climate change. The nuclear industry has reinvented itself as an environmentally friendly option, producing electricity without the air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions of coal, oil or gas.
But a closer look reveals nuclear power is neither an environmentally or financially viable option. Nuclear power creates radioactive waste for which there is no accepted method of safely managing or storing. It is also prohibitively expensive. The last plant constructed in Ontario, Darlington, was budgeted at $3.4 billion but ended up costing $15 billion when it was finally completed in the mid-1980s.

Environmental problems

Whatever benefits nuclear technology may provide through decreased air pollutants are more than made up for by large and unresolved environmental problems. As of 2000, Canada had 35,000 tonnes of highly radioactive nuclear waste and nowhere to put it. With a radioactive half-life of 25,000 years, nuclear waste remains dangerous for 250,000 years, meaning huge costs and risks for future generations.
As well, mining uranium for nuclear power is extremely energy-intensive, meaning that nuclear power is in fact a considerable source of greenhouse gases. Furthermore, routine releases and accidental spills of contaminated water from mining operations have poisoned fisheries and threatened the health of local communities.
Many safety issues surround nuclear power, especially as power plants age. Nuclear plants routinely emit radioactive material, imposing cancer risks on workers, their children and people in surrounding communities. Power plants can also leak other hazardous materials. For example, Pickering reactor #4 had a heavy water leak in April 1996 that released radioactive tritium into Lake Ontario, contaminating drinking water supplies.

Economic problems

The energy source once billed as "too cheap to meter" has proven to be one of the most expensive energy sources in history.
Between 1956 and 2000, Canada's state-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) received subsidies totaling $16.6 billion. Even with these subsidies, nuclear power is far more expensive than both fossil fuels and renewables.
The last 20 reactors built in the U.S. had an average cost of $5,000 per kilowatt of capacity; the last one built in Canada cost $4,000 per kilowatt. Compare these prices to the current prices for large-scale wind power and natural gas plants, currently at $1,200 and $1,000 per kilowatt respectively.
The figures for nuclear do not include lifecycle costs to society from environmental and health damage, or the costs of accidents, clean up, waste disposal or plant decommissioning. And nuclear plants are not only expensive, they're also financially risky because of their long lead times, huge cost overruns and open-ended liabilities.

Nuclear energy | Energy | Climate change | Science & policy | Energy | Issues • David Suzuki Foundation | Solutions are in our nature


see also

Running on Empty: Shifting to a Sustainable Energy Plan for BC | | Publications | David Suzuki Foundation: This report from the David Suzuki Foundation and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives warns that British Columbia will face an energy crunch if it doesn't make sweeping changes to the sector with a new focus on energy security, renewable energy and conservation.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Missing the institutional point – Have nuclear regulators gone native?


...The solution?  Abolish the Nuclear Rubberstamp Commission—and shut down every nuclear power plant in the U.S. They provide just 20% of our electricity and this could be substituted for with electricity generated by safe, clean, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind—without the loss of lives.


Missing the institutional point – Have nuclear regulators gone native? | Enformable


Friday, May 25, 2012

GLOBAL PETITION "APPEAL FOR FUKUSHIMA"



Considering the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states:

Article 1 : All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 3 : Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Considering the current situation of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which endangers the Japanese population and the rest of the world,
And considering the inability of the utility TEPCO and the Japanese government to manage the situation,


We, the peoples of the Earth, appeal to the UN, WHO and all international organizations and governments. We ask:

1. The establishment of an international, interdisciplinary team with authority to take over management of the plant in Fukushima Daiichi and its consequences, under a UN mandate. 

2. The establishment of a crisis team within the UN responsible for implementing all measures necessary to protect the Japanese people at any price whatsoever.

We are human beings born free and equal. With reason and conscience, we act in a spirit of brotherhood. We are concerned for the life, liberty and security of our Japanese brothers and our children. 


In addition to this I think it would be wise to create an international rapid response team to respond to any and every nuclear incident with the same gusto that has been devoted to making war. The militaries of the world needs to be completely re-tasked.



THE NUCLEAR NEWSREEL | NIRS



THE NUCLEAR NEWSREEL

May 24, 2012:















UNITED STATES

Steven Chu

The one essential action you can take to help stop new nuclear power in the U.S.

Act here now: tell DOE Secretary Chu and President Obama to stop a taxpayer loan for new reactors in Georgia.



The largest, most important anti-nuclear protest you don't know about.May 11: Amnesty International issues urgent Alert

330+ Kudankulam hunger strikers face imminent arrest. May 8: Urgent message from protesters: police clampdown may be imminent.  Hunger strike underway. Support Indian protesters; Stop Kudankulam: Take Action here.



Fukushima Daiichi 1


May 2, 2012. 72 Japanese organizations urgently ask U.N. to step in and help stabilize Fukushima Unit 4.Sign on in support here (organizations only).



Hot News and Actions

ONGOING! $8.3 Billion taxpayer loan for Vogtle reactors is in trouble and CAN be stopped! Act here.

May 16, 2012: Your comments matter.Support NIRS Petition for Rulemaking: Tell the NRC to expand Emergency Planning Zones.



Reports, Papers and Info You Can Use


May 9, 2012. Nuclear Loans, Subsidies & other Taxpayer Swindles…. Powerpoint presentation by NIRS' Michael Mariotte to Sierra Club National Nuclear Strategy Meeting, May 5, 2012.


March 28, 2012. New study from UK's Energy Fair: The Financial Risks of Investing in Nuclear Power.PDF


March 6, 2012. New UCS report on nuclear power safety in US one year after Fukushima. Says industry's voluntary FLEX program is inadequate for nuclear power safety.

March 5, 2012. New mapping tool from NRDC shows potential consequences from nuclear accident at every U.S. reactor site based on actual weather patterns from March 11, 2011.

March 2, 2012. Are you at risk? New Greenpeace Internationall interactive map showing nuclear reactors/population around the world.

February 28, 2012. Living on Borrowed Time. 2nd annual Union of Concerned Scientists report on nuclear safety in the U.S.

February 6, 2011. Updated Greenpeace International report on Areva's EPR design: A Dangerous Waste of Time and Money.

January 24, 2012. Too Close to Home: Nuclear Power and the Threat to Drinking Water. New report from PIRG and Environment America.



MORE > Nuclear Information and Resource Service - NIRS


Thursday, May 24, 2012

"Chernobyl" - The New York Academy of Sciences



Cover: Pine trees reveal changes in wood color, density, and growth rate following irradiation from the Chernobyl disaster. T.A. Mousseau, University of South Carolina (2009)

This is a collection of papers translated from the Russian with some revised and updated contributions. Written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, the volume outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. According to the authors, official discussions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations' agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments.


Chernobyl | The New York Academy of Sciences, 2009
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もうすぐ日本語版出てきます。必見。覚えておきましょう。
The best reference of Chernobyl DisasterJAPANESE translation is now ON STORE from Apr. 26, 2013, 27 years after the accident.
From Iwanami, one of the most reliable publisher in Japan.
http://chernobyl25.blogspot.jp/2013/02/blog-post.html



see also

Greenpeace Report - “Chernobyl death toll grossly underestimated,” 2006

"A new Greenpeace report has revealed that the full consequences of the Chernobyl disaster could top a quarter of a million cancer cases and nearly 100,000 fatal cancers."

Our report involved 52 respected scientists and includesinformation never before published in English. It challenges the UN International Atomic Energy Agency Chernobyl Forum report, which predicted 4,000 additional deaths attributable to the accident as a gross simplification of the real breadth of human suffering.

The new data, based on Belarus national cancer statistics, predicts approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl. The report also concludes that on the basis of demographic data, during the last 15 years, 60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000.

The report also looks into the ongoing health impacts of Chernobyl and concludes that radiation from the disaster has had a devastating effect on survivors; damaging immune and endocrine systems, leading to accelerated ageing, cardiovascular and blood illnesses, psychological illnesses, chromosomal aberrations and an increase in foetal deformations.

The real face of the nuclear industry

Each one of these statistics has a face. Many people are paying a price for the negligence of a dirty and dangerous industry... (photos)


Greenpeace statement on the anniversary of Chernobyl, from Executive Director Gerd Leipold

These powerful images are a timely reminder that human lives are more than just numbers. For each statistic there is a person paying the ultimate price. Anyone who doubts the dangers of nuclear power should visit the exhibition and see for themselves one of the reasons why we oppose nuclear power. Twenty years on, every nuclear power plant bears the legacy of the nuclear industry's victims; and every nuclear power plant represents the threat of becoming the next Chernobyl.

more > Greenpeace Chernobyl Anniversary statement | Greenpeace International


Chernobyl death toll grossly underestimated
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