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President, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Before the Indian Parliament votes on limiting the liability of nuclear operators due to accidents, it should carefully consider the much higher limits that the United States has set for itself about $11 billion per incident industry maximum (under the Price-Anderson Act). The liability of the operator of the plant would be just Rs. 500 crores, about $110 million, which is just one percent of the U.S. limit, and about $450 million per accident. The proposed law allows an adjustment of this upwards or downwards to a possible lower limit of just Rs. 300 crores, or about $65 million. But more than that, Parliament should consider that the actual damages could be far greater than the U.S. liability limit. A 1997 study by the U.S. governments own Brookhaven National Laboratory, on Long Island, New York, found that the severe spent fuel pool accidents could result in damages from somewhat under $1 billion of up to $566 billion, depending on a how full and hot the pool is at the time of the accident and the intensity of the postulated fire. The high-end figure would amount to over $700 billion in 2009 dollars. Vast amounts of land --- up to about 7,000 square kilometers in the worst case would have to be condemned. Large numbers of people would have to be evacuated. Further, the maximum estimated monetary damages do not take into account some critical elements. For instance, the Brookhaven amount does not include excess cancer deaths, estimated to range from 1,500 to more than 100,000. Worst case nuclear reactor accident cancers and condemned area were estimated to be generally comparable to the upper end of the spent fuel accident estimates.

Greek conservationists from the Greek NGO, Archipelagos, work to protect endangered common dolphins and monk seals and also the region's marine ecosystems from the effects of overfishing, shipping, and the military. Dr Anastasia Miliou, manager and head scientist from Archipelagos Institute of Marine and Environmental Research of the Aegean Sea, based on the Greek island of Samos in the eastern Aegean, explains about seals, uranium deposits and sonar * Digg it * Buzz up * Share on facebook (6) * Tweet this (14) * Guardian Weekly, Friday 30 October 2009 09.00 GMT * Article history Monk seal An endangered monk seal. Photograph: Phil Mislinski/Getty Images The Mediterranean monk seal is the world's rarest and most endangered marine mammal. Its population is less than 450 and one of the most important remaining populations survives in the Aegean region. We are urging fishing communities and authorities to understand that the marine biodiversity needs to be conserved, not only for the sake of productive marine ecosystems or the endangered species, but also for the benefit of human communities, whose livelihood depends on the health and productivity of the seas."

"On May 3, 1969, after hours of bitter debate, the Sierra Club fired David Brower. The organization's first paid staffer, Brower had transformed the Club from an exclusive, politically timid, white male hiking outfit of 2,000 members. But the old guard didn't like the direction that Brower, its executive director, was taking the staid organization: toward political confrontation, grassroots organizing and attacks on industrial pollution, nuclear power and the Pentagon. This kind of green aggressiveness in the face of entrenched power alienated funders, politicians and, eventually, the Internal Revenue Service, which, after Brower's successful international campaign to halt the construction of two mega-dams in the Grand Canyon, moved to strip the group of its tax-deductible status. The IRS action proved to be the final straw and Brower was booted out."

"The U.S. Supreme Court handed North Carolina a victory Tuesday in an epic, decades-long legal battle with other states over plans for a low-level nuclear disposal site that would have been in Wake County. Seven Southeastern states joined in 1986 to share the burden of disposing of irradiated material produced by nuclear reactors, factories, hospitals and laboratories. North Carolina was picked to host a landfill for the material, and the other states in the compact agreed to help with the costs. But safety concerns and out-of-control expenses delayed the project. Money from the other states dried up. Eventually, North Carolina decided to cancel the project and withdraw from the interstate compact. Other states sought to assess $80 million in penalties. North Carolina has maintained since 1999 that it didn't owe anything. The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday."

The average American receives 620 millirems of background radiation every year, as opposed to the 360 millirems as is often stated in the press. The number has crept up in the last two decades, from 180 millirems to 300 millirems, then to 360 millirems and most recently, in 2006, to 620 millirems. Two of the major reasons why the average dose has been adjusted is the recognition that radon poses a substantial threat to health, especially in areas where granite is in abundance, and an increase in the number of medical procedures involving radiation. Many people never reach the average, which includes exposure rates to people who undergo medical treatments with high levels of radiation. Ionizing radiation, the formation of ions by separating atoms or molecules or radicals or by adding or subtracting electrons from atoms by strong electric fields in a gas, can cause cancer. "

"EnergySolutions Inc. announced Wednesday it is dropping plans to import significant quantities of foreign radioactive waste for disposal in Utah. The decision turns the heat down on a three-year controversy in Utah and beyond that has sizzled since the company asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to allow 20,000 tons of cleanupwaste from Italy's defunct nuclear program to be shipped to the United States, some 1,600 tons of it for burial in Utah. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, called it: "A win for Utahns," and said the state "shouldn't be the world's dump." The announcement, made at a news conference at the company's Salt Lake City headquarters, signaled yet another dramatictransformation fora company started two decades ago as a shovel-and-truck enterprise centered at its mile-square disposal site in Tooele County."

"NEW DOCUMENT REVEALS GOV'T PLANS TO * Abandon promised science and "ignition and gain" at Livermore Lab NIF mega-laser * Jack up funding for nuclear weapon "life extensions" beyond what the facts justify, and * Escalate bomb budgets through 2030 despite lip service to Obama disarmament goals LIVERMORE -- The Fiscal Year 2011 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (colloquially known as the "Green Book"), obtained recently by Tri-Valley CAREs, reveals that the U.S. Dept. of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) foments internal plans significantly at variance with the agency's public pronouncements and the Nation's disarmament goals. "The document demonstrates that the NNSA will reach deeper and deeper into the taxpayers' pockets in the coming decades, even as it jettisons scientific objectives and delivers less," charged Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, the Livermore-based nuclear weapons watchdog organization. " What the plan reveals about the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is shocking." (See attached analysis for details.)"

More than 40,000 people were exposed to radioactive fallout in Southern Utah from 1951 to 1958 and July of 1962 during nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. The RESEP clinic at Dixie Regional exists to aid those individuals who were exposed to the testing, as well as those who worked in the uranium industry. The RESEP clinic also helps eligible individuals receive compensation from the government through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Over the last 15 months, Dixie Regional's RESEP clinic has given out RECA information to more than 2,000 people, helped more than 750 people with their RECA claims and more than 114 people have received compensation through RECA.

Gerald Boyd, the Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge manager, spoke at a safety meeting a couple of months ago, and he made a comment that Oak Ridge likely has a bigger base of contractors and subcontractors than other other DOE site in the country. I don't know whether that's the case, and Boyd acknowledged that he didn't know it for sure. But it makes sense, given the diversity of operations in Oak Ridge and the scale of the work taking place.

Wall Street Journal(EDITORIAL) reports uranium will be the next peak as oil peak has slowed down. The expected nuclear-power renaissance, from the U.K. to India, means dozens more nuclear reactors will likely be built in coming years. Current-generation reactors all need uranium for fuel-but where's all that uranium going to come from? For complete story, click this link. Follow developments in uranium mining and exploration for free.Sign on to the Uranium Investing Newsletter.

New nuclear power plants are unlikely to be built without financial incentives from governments, according to Oxford Analytica. A so-called nuclear renaissance has been underway for some years now, OxAn says. It has taken three broad forms, namely:

even years ago, Finland was faced with a daunting energy dilemma. To keep its domestic industries up and running, it needed to double its electricity supply by 2025. At the same time, it had to cut carbon emissions by fourteen million tons a year to comply with its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. The question was how to fill the gap without stifling its flourishing economy or increasing dependence on costly imports.

In Nicole Krauss' sparse and astonishing novel, Man Walks Into A Room, local cops find a disoriented man wandering along Highway 95 in the desolate Mercury Valley of Nevada. After the officers get him out of the shimmering heat, we learn that the man, Samson, has a brain tumor that has obliterated a large chunk of his memory. He has no recollection of the last 24 years of his life. Samson is able to recover the human and concrete remnants of those lost 24 years. His wife is there, loving and supportive; his home is still his; his job is still available. Nevertheless, his life crumbles. His very identity unravels in the absence of the anchor of a large span of memory. It's terrifying. Parts of the nuclear West, especially those involved in Cold War weapons production, suffer from a similar condition. Take Rocky Flats, for example, which for four decades produced tens of thousands of the pits that detonate atomic bombs. While it was in operation, the industrial complex outside Denver, Colo., was veiled in absolute secrecy. The people who worked there couldn't tell outsiders what they did, and they couldn't even talk to one another about their work.

A group of foreign non-governmental organisations on Wednesday caused a stir at the Unep headquarters when their representatives protested at the inclusion of nuclear power as "green energy". They urged delegates attending the ongoing Global Environment Ministers' Conference in Gigiri, Nairobi, to keep nuclear power "out of the Clean Development Mechanism". The NGOs said that this form of energy should not be allowed because it had severe health effects.

The political climate and external conditions for new nuclear power plants may be more favorable now than at any time in the past several decades, but problems with a plant now under construction and the global financial crisis could deal the industry a setback, University of Greenwich Professor Stephen Thomas said Wednesday. The current nuclear renaissance has much greater government backing than previous prospective nuclear revivals and the external factors, such as volatile fossil fuel prices, the need to act on climate change and the geopolitical situation are as favorable as they are likely to get [for new nuclear], Thomas said Wednesday in a paper released at a conference in Washington. But Thomas and co-author David Hall wrote that the Areva EPR reactor being built for Finland utility TVO remains "the marker for the industry."

It appears the pope and another ranking Vatican official were misquoted on the use of nuclear energy by a local politician. Pope Benedict XVI supports the use of nuclear energy but only for improving the medical field and helping the poor but not for generating electricity, Balanga Bishop Socrates Villegas said Tuesday.

A tritium leak at Oyster Creek Generating Station has prompted the federal government to take a closer look at leaks happening at nuclear plants nationwide. On Tuesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission released its inspection report on a leak found at Oyster Creek on April 15, days after the plant was relicensed for another 20 years. The full report did not reveal any new information about the tritium leak, but the issuing of the report has prompted more investigation into future leaks at nuclear plants, including another leak that happened at Oyster Creek in August. The leaks occurred 18 years after the underground pipes had last been recoated. In 1991, engineers reported that two underground pipes had been excavated and completely recoated. The recent investigation revealed that the coating was not applied thoroughly enough. Adjoining areas of the pipes that were not coated properly allowed moisture to seep in, causing corrosion.

Two top Public Service Commission staffers resigned Tuesday and two others went on administrative leave as alleged ethics lapses again overshadowed a hearing on proposed rate increases - this time to pay for new nuclear power plants. At least the appearance of a too-cozy relationship with Florida Power & Light Co., one of two utilities seeking higher nuclear rates, led to the resignation of Ryder Rudd as director of strategic analysis and governmental affairs. Rudd, whose duties included lobbying the Legislature, last month acknowledged he and his wife attended a Kentucky Derby Party at the home of an FPL executive. That disclosure came as the commission began hearings on a separate FPL request to raise its base rates. Commissioner Nancy Argenziano's chief adviser, Larry Harris, also resigned at her request after admitting he gave the private messaging code for his smartphone to an FPL executive.

There's no legal problem here, officials with the U.S. Department of Energy say. Storing mercury at a federal site south of Whitewater won't violate the terms of an agreement the DOE signed with Mesa County more than a decade ago, a top official with the agency said. Well, that's a relief, at least to federal officials eager to find a permanent disposal site for thousands of tons of mercury. But it's not very reassuring to Mesa County residents who believed they had a commitment from the DOE years ago to keep the site near Whitewater free of additional hazardous wastes. That desert disposal site, originally known as Cheney Reservoir, was created to store millions of tons of low-level radioactive waste in the form of mill tailings from uranium milling that occurred in Grand Junction in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.

After 10 years of sifting through thousands of pages of classified records and overcoming secrecy obstacles at the nuclear weapons lab, independent investigators have provided the first rough estimates of radioactive and toxic releases from Los Alamos National Laboratory dating back to its earliest operations and the potential health impact of the nation's first atomic bomb blast on ranchers and other nearby residents in New Mexico. Investigators for the Los Alamos Historical Document Retrieval and Assessment (LAHDRA) project released a draft final report in late June that-while far from definitive in its conclusions-said there was persuasive evidence from spotty, decades-old emissions monitoring data that radioactive releases during Los Alamos' early years were so significant that they could dwarf the cumulative releases from all of the Energy Department's other early nuclear weapons production sites. In particular, the researchers said that although the lab did not monitor emissions from many of its earliest plutonium processing facilities, fragmentary records-especially "industrial hygiene," or worker safety, reports from 1955 and 1956-suggest plutonium releases in the late 1940s and early 1950s were much higher than has been acknowledged by the government to date.