Group items tagged

The World Health Organisation is seeking studies for up to 20 years to keep watch over public health in Japan following the Fukushima nuclear emergency, a senior official said on Wednesday. WHO environmental health chief Maria Neira played down a current risk to public health outside the 30-kilometre exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant, based on tests and monitoring by Japanese authorities. "There is no need for new public health measures," Neira told journalists. She nonetheless underlined that the UN health agency could not let its guard drop while the radiation emergency at the plant was underway, as the WHO maintained permanent monitoring with the Japanese and global detection networks.

"Although the contents of the two documents are not yet revealed, the US Department of Energy and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have retrieved data on the Huntington Pilot Plant (HPP) from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory vault. The US Department of Energy operated the Huntington Pilot Plant on the same ground as International Nickel (INCO) in Huntington from the mid-50s until the early 60s performing various activities in conjunction with one or more of the DOE's gaseous diffusion plants in Portsmouth (Ohio), Oak Ridge (Tennessee) and Pad (Ky). After remaining in a state of readiness until 1978, the DOE ordered that the plant be demolished. By 1979, all but the ground floor of the plant (now used as a Waste Water Treatment facility by INCO's successor, Special Metals), were demolished and buried in a classified and secret ditch at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, including even the railroad cars and trucks used to transport the debris. Based on their exposure to such radioactive contaminants as uranium, nickel, plutonium and other metals, workers at the former DOE plant are eligible for compensation. "

"The memories of former workers from the radioactive material processing plant in East Huntington always comes with a preface that the shared information was formerly top secret. Some describe a high chain link fence with armed security guards. Others remember armed guards overseeing the loading and unloading of product by railcar. The Huntington, WV Department of Energy plant supplied items to three gaseous diffusion plants that enriched uranium to make atomic weapons. These plants were in Piketon, Ohio (Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion); Paducah , Ky. (Paducah Gaseous Diffusion) and Oak Ridge, Tenn. (Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant). These three plants enriched uranium in a mile-long system of pipes, ducts, chambers , motors and electrical lines. The sublimed crystalline gaseous and greenish uranium flowed through nickel filters which separated isotopes. This section of the diffusion plant has been called The Cascade. ( Description courtesy of " A Pigeon in Piketon," by Geoffrey Sea, January 1, 2004 American Scholar .) "

Five years after the closing down of Bulgaria's Nuclear Power Plant's 1st and 2nd blocks and two since the closing of 3rd and 4th there isn't a single employee fired from both sections, "Dnevnik" daily writes Monday. There are 1095 people employed in the closed down parts out of the total 4492 in the whole AEC-Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant. The plant currently produces power with its 5th and 6th 1000 MW blocks. The medium salary in the plant is around EUR530, as the money for employee payments is included in the final electricity tax consumers pay. "Dnevnik"'s Calculations show that for 2008 alone EUR6,500,000 have been spent for the employees in the closed blocks.

Can the theories of peace address current global conflicts and counter terrorism? Can we use the lessons of peace to counter nuclear proliferation? What is realistic pacifism? It is fitting that in a year celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the peace symbol, veteran scholar and peace activist David Cortright offers a definitive history of the human striving for peace and an analysis of its religious and intellectual roots. This balanced and highly readable volume also explores the underlying principles of peace--nonviolence, democracy, social justice, and human rights--all placed within a framework of "realistic pacifism." Peace brings the story up-to-date by examining opposition to the Iraq War and responses to the so-called "war on terror." This is history with a modern twist, set in the context of current debates about 'the responsibility to protect, Darfur, nuclear proliferation, and conflict transformation. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls PEACE, "A hopeful but realistic book that deserves to be read and studied widely." Bishop Desmond Tutu calls it "an exploration of the essential principles and practical means of preventing war and resolving conflict without violence." Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.M.C., calls PEACE "A crowning achievement."

Luxembourg's Minister for Health, Mars Di Bartolomeo, has confirmed that no nuclear waste is, nor has been, transported through the Grand Duchy. The information was provided in response to a parliamentary question which was raised following an incident this summer when a train carrying nuclear waste was stopped (outside Luxembourg) on its way to the Moselle. However, European regulations do not require one country to inform another that train cargo passing close to a country's border may contain nuclear waste.

Warren Buffett's decision to rescue Constellation Energy Group Inc. gives one of the nuclear power industry's biggest skeptics some important clout in deciding its future. In agreeing to a $4.7-billion cash deal for Baltimore-based Constellation, Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will gain control of three nuclear power plants. In addition, it will own half of a prominent nuclear-plant development company, UniStar Nuclear Energy LLC, which is trying to accelerate construction of the next generation of nuclear plants in the U.S. Mr. Buffett, who has sizable investments in electric utilities and gas pipelines through Berkshire's energy firm, MidAmerican Energy Holding Co., has previously argued nuclear plants are too costly to build.

Under pressure from the CIA, the Swiss government destroyed thousands of documents that would have revealed the CIA's relations with a family a Swiss engineers, Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, who are suspected of supplying Iran and Libya with nuclear technology, The New York Times reported. Last May, when the Swiss president announced the documents' destruction, he claimed that it was to make sure that detailed plans for nuclear weapons never fell into the hands of terrorists. The real explanation, according to US government officials, was that the United States had urged that the files be destroyed in order to conceal ties between the Tinners and the CIA.

Terence Corcoran in his editorial (Is there a case for nuclear power, July 3) has made a number of errors and exaggerations in his column. He claims that the problems with nuclear power include terrorism, nuclear fuel waste and nuclear safety. His real argument is about costs.

Nuclear energy is a radioactive topic. Depending whom you talk to, it's either a clean, sustainable fuel source providing ample homespun electricity, or an expensive, dirty and dangerous gamble as outdated as the Cold War. This debate's roots run deep, having electrified conversation since the nuclear-energy boom of the 1970s, when most of America's nuclear plants rose from the gravel and began churning out power for the growing population. The average nuclear reactor produces enough electricity each year to power 740,000 households (equivalent to 13.7 million barrels of oil). While no new nuclear plants have been licensed to be built in the United States for about 30 years, the country's 66 existing plants, and their 104 reactors, continue to generate about 19 percent of its electricity. Many of these reactors are now reaching the end of their 40-year licensing agreements, and the era of global warming and fickle gas prices is leading a new generation to reconsider nuclear energy. In response, many power-plant operators are requesting 20-year license renewals and completing applications for new plants. Here's a quick 101 on nuclear energy, to help inform your debate.

It's not looking good for the nuclear industry. Last month, the $50 billion earmark for nuclear energy was removed from Obama's stimulus bill. And today Yucca Mountain, the problematic nuclear waste containment facility that was supposed to finally legitimate the viability of nuclear energy, just had its plug pulled by Steven Chu, head of the D.O.E. Chu tried to assure jittery senators in the Senate Budget Committee that "Nuclear is going to be part of our energy future," but many were skeptical. A quiet and growing consensus seems to be emerging among energy experts, cleantech investors and the general public that nuclear just does not seem to add up. When asked about the future of nuclear energy this week at the ECO:nomics summit, Matt C. Rogers stated that nuclear was taken off the table because it didn't meet the key criterion of the stimulus bill -- to get projects underway and create jobs in the next 18 months. That doesn't mean there won't be appropriations for nuclear in the upcoming energy bill, but the focus will likely be on creating "next-gen" nuclear which by some estimates is at least 10 years away from deployment.

The environmental watchdog group, Greenpeace is calling for a halt to plans to ship a load of nuclear fuel through the Pacific. Around two tonnes of reprocessed waste is about to leave France for Japan - the largest such shipment ever. The shipment contains a nuclear fuel known as MOX - a mixture of Plutonium and Uranium. The French nuclear group Areva has confirmed it will be shipping the Plutonium, but will only say possibly through the Pacific.