"The high-tech task of investigating radiological contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory where nuclear testing took place will employ some decidedly low-tech tools.
The Environmental Protection Agency will rely on four mules carrying high-tech scanners designed to detect gamma radiation contamination in rocky, steep terrain in a section of the 2,850-acre field.
The animals will help solve the "challenge of trying to get in more rugged terrain," said EPA senior science adviser Gregg Dempsey of the agency's Radiation and Indoor Environments National Laboratory."
I am a Middle East Consultant living in the UK and would like all people living in or near areas of conflict to understand the High Tech Weaponry used by many military establishments worldwide, especially the US (the manufacturers) and other NATO forces.
The reason for pointing this out to you is as a response to my research on the terrible rise in cancer related deaths. This is not only confined to military personnel in the battle zone but also the indiscriminate contamination of civilians, field crops and water supplies in the immediate area as well as the adjacent areas/countries. Below is my report:
Concerns regarding radiation contamination by the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weaponry in the Balkans, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Eastern Mediterranean Countries.
The majority of high tech weapons today contain Depleted Uranium and or other Heavy Metals. Some are coated in DU and others have both DU and Heavy Metal in their warheads. DU is also used to act as a counterweight.
Mayor Julian Castro City of San Antonio,Steve Bartley Interim General Manager, CPS Energy,Craig Severance, CPA Author, Business Risks & Costs of New Nuclear Power,Dr. Patrick Moore Co-Chair, Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, Dr. Arjun Makhijani President, Institute for Energy & Environmental Research
At the San Antonio Clean Tech Forum noted pundits square off and discuss the San Antonio's involvement in the proposed expansion of the South Texas Nuclear project.
Mayor Julian Castro City of San Antonio,Steve Bartley Interim General Manager, CPS Energy,Craig Severance, CPA Author, Business Risks & Costs of New Nuclear Power,Dr. Patrick Moore Co-Chair, Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, Dr. Arjun Makhijani President, Institute for Energy & Environmental Research
At the San Antonio Clean Tech Forum noted pundits square off and discuss the San Antonio's involvement in the proposed expansion of the South Texas Nuclear project.
Interview with Dr. Arjun Makhijani at the San Antonio Clean tech forum
on the risks associated with the planned expansion of STP 3 & 4 and the alternatives that should be considered.
Interview with Dr. Arjun Makhijani at the San Antonio Clean tech forum
on the risks associated with the planned expansion of STP 3 & 4 and the alternatives that should be considered.
Putting a new spin on the term "nuclear waste dump," radioactive droppings from Cold War-era critters have spurred a high-tech cleanup funded by the current U.S. government economic stimulus program.
Government contractors this September flew a helicopter equipped with radiation detectors and GPS equipment over scrubland in eastern Washington State near the vast Hanford Site, a 1950s plutonium-production complex.
The goal was to pinpoint soils contaminated with harmful radioactive materials that had been spread far a field within the complex by animals and the wind.
Putting a new spin on the term "nuclear waste dump," radioactive droppings from Cold War-era critters have spurred a high-tech cleanup funded by the current U.S. government economic stimulus program.
Government contractors this September flew a helicopter equipped with radiation detectors and GPS equipment over scrubland in eastern Washington State near the vast Hanford Site, a 1950s plutonium-production complex.
The goal was to pinpoint soils contaminated with harmful radioactive materials that had been spread far a field within the complex by animals and the wind.
Japanese high-tech giant Hitachi Ltd., reeling from massive losses, said Monday that it planned to raise 415.7 billion yen (4.6 billion dollars) from investors to shore up its shaky finances.
Hitachi, which makes everything from refrigerators to nuclear power systems, aims to drum up the cash by selling convertible bonds and new shares. The sprawling conglomerate has been hit hard by the global economic downturn.
It is restructuring with measures including 7,000 job cuts, after losing 787.3 billion yen in the year to March 2009 -- the biggest ever loss for a Japanese manufacturer.
Other cash-strapped Japanese companies are also going cap in hand to investors to bolster their capital, including electronics giant NEC.
Japanese high-tech giant Hitachi Ltd., reeling from massive losses, said Monday that it planned to raise 415.7 billion yen (4.6 billion dollars) from investors to shore up its shaky finances.
Hitachi, which makes everything from refrigerators to nuclear power systems, aims to drum up the cash by selling convertible bonds and new shares. The sprawling conglomerate has been hit hard by the global economic downturn.
It is restructuring with measures including 7,000 job cuts, after losing 787.3 billion yen in the year to March 2009 -- the biggest ever loss for a Japanese manufacturer.
Other cash-strapped Japanese companies are also going cap in hand to investors to bolster their capital, including electronics giant NEC.
The Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy Uranium Mining Subcommittee is responsible for overseeing all aspects, including the scope and design, of the study that will inform the General Assembly's decision whether to reaffirm or lift Virginia's moratorium on uranium mining.
The subcommittee met for the first time on Friday, Dec. 12, in Richmond. The meeting included brief remarks by Dr. Michael Karmis, a professor in the Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering at Virginia Tech and director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research. The meeting also included a public hearing to receive suggestions regarding points of concern that should be included in the scope of any study on the impact of mining uranium in the Commonwealth. Twenty people spoke representing citizen and/or industry interests.
Participating in nuclear power hearing can be a 'learn-as-you-go' process
Joseph Wojcicki concedes his last name can twist tongues.
"It's Voo-tess-kee," the West Columbia man says with a thick Polish accent. "But you can call me 'Joe the Intervenor.'"
A retired Midlands Tech math teacher, Wojcicki took part as a citizen intervenor in the Public Service Commission's almost three-week-long hearing on SCE&G's $9.8 billion plan to add two reactor units to the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station at Jenkinsville.
Intervenors, 12/22/08
Intervenors Pamela Greenlaw, bottom left, Meira Warshauer, center, and Joseph Wojcicki, right, listen to attorney Bob Guild, standing left, as he enters an objection to secret building cost amounts during the hearing before the commission. The intervenors sit at the table with lawyers for other groups challenging the nuclear plan. They represent the consumer.
- Tim Dominick/tdominick@thestate. /The State
Intervenors, 12/22/08
Lay-people known as "intervenors" question witnesses at the Public Service Commission hearing on SCE&G's plan to build two reactors at its plant in Jenkinsville.
- Tim Dominick/tdominick@thestate. /The State
Intervenors, 12/22/08
About a half-dozen lay-people known as "intervenors" are questioning witnesses at the Public Service Commission hearing on SCE&G's plan to build two reactors at its plant in Jenkinsville.
- Tim Dominick/tdominick@thestate. /The State
Intervenors, 12/22/08
Intervenors Pamela Greenlaw, bottom left, Meira Warshauer, center, and Joseph Wojcicki, right, listen to attorney Bob Guild, standing left, as he enters an objection to secret building cost amounts during the hearing before the commission.
- Tim Dominick/tdominick@thestate. /The State
Intervenors, 12/22/08
Intervenor Joseph Wojcicki looks through documents during the hearing before the commission.
- Tim Dominick/tdominick@thestate. /The State
Intervenors, 12/22/08
Citizen intervenor Meira Warshauer, left, asks a que
Nuclear Power Faces an Uncertain Future Under an Obama Administration
Illinois produces more megawatts of nuclear power than any other state in the union, accounting for nearly 12 percent of the national total, and Barack Obama, the junior senator from the land of Lincoln, has had a very cosy relationship with the state's nuclear industry over the years. The employees of the Exelon Corporation, the largest operator of commercial nuclear power plants in the U.S., have donated at least $300,000 to Obama since 2003, and for his part, Obama has danced with those who brung him.
Regarding Iranian Nuclear Development, Chomsky Says "the majority of the world supports Iran."
This is the first of a three-part interview with Institute Professor Noam A. Chomsky, conducted in early September by Subrata Ghoshroy, a researcher in the Science, Technology, and Global Security Working Group at MIT. In this part, Ghoshroy and Chomsky discussed the then-pending U.S.-India nuclear deal and why a "majority of the world supports Iran."
Agency gives OK to some Area 51 workers seeking compensation
In 1998, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy were keeping mum about the secret work that went on at Area 51, a widely known Air Force installation near the northeast corner of the Nevada Test Site.
That year, the U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal by former Area 51 workers who claimed that they were made sick and that co-workers had died from exposure to toxic fumes from stealth coatings burned in open trenches near the Groom Lake base, 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The site was used to test high-tech aircraft.
What should be the most important issue in this election is one that is rarely, if ever, addressed: Why is U.S. military spending at the highest point, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than at any time since the end of World War II? Why, without a sophisticated military opponent in sight, is the United States spending trillions of dollars on the development of high-tech weapons systems that lost their purpose with the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago?
A device described by its operators as a hi-tech worm has been used to probe the condition of a pipeline once used to discharge radioactive effluent.
The £100,000 pipe crawler has beamed back images from inside the system at the Dounreay plant in Caithness.
The underground pipeline to the sea was in use from 1957 to 1992.
Over 25 people attended a two-hour meeting Tuesday night to discuss a planned evaporation capping project and other issues of concern to residents regarding the Yerington Mine.
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The meeting was called by the Yerington Community Action Group and featured U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials and a pair of EPA consultants who gave presentations on the mine's evaporation pond removal project.
Nadia Hollan Burke, Remedial Project Manager with EPA Region 9 (Superfund) over the Yerington Mine remediation project, was joined by her superior, Roberta Blank, as EPA representatives. Also giving a presentation was Victor Early, senior engineering geologist wih Tetra Tech, a consultant for EPA, who was joined by Tetra Tech's Doug Herlocker, an air quality specialist/environmental project manager.
This time around, U.S. Senate skeptics who killed the nuclear test-ban treaty a decade ago must take into account a new, $1-billion verification network underpinning the pact, the treaty chief said Wednesday.
In 1999, "the system was a blueprint," Tibor Toth said of the high-tech web of stations on alert for nuclear bomb tests. Now "I could call it a `verification Manhattan Project," he said, referring to the all-out U.S. program that built the first bombs in the 1940s.
Toth, who heads the U.N.-affiliated Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, spoke with The Associated Press on the eve of a conference of some 150 nations convened every other year to urge those that have not ratified the treaty, including the United States, to do so.
The two-day session will be held in parallel Thursday with a summit of the 15 U.N. Security Council members on the subject of nuclear nonproliferation, presided over by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Japanese high-tech giant Toshiba Corp. announced Friday its biggest ever loss and warned it would remain mired in the red this year because of weak demand computer chips.
The group, which owns US nuclear plant maker Westinghouse, suffered a net loss of 343.6 billion yen (3.5 billion dollars) in the year to March, against a year-earlier profit of 127.4 billion yen.
It logged an annual operating loss of 250.2 billion yen, against a profit of 246.4 the previous year. Revenue slid 13 percent to 6.65 trillion yen.
"The economic downturn has appeared to hit bottom but we are not seeing a recovery yet," vice president Fumio Muraoka told reporters. "We cannot expect a rapid rebound."
Workers decommissioning a nuclear power complex have found Mr Muscle to be more effective than specialised techniques for cleaning contaminated glass tubes.
The household cleaning product was used at Dounreay in Caithness, which is being demolished at a cost of £2.5bn.
Hi-tech equipment had been developed to destroy radioactive materials.
However, Mr Muscle was found to be the best option to help make safe the tubes which were used at a nuclear reprocessing laboratory.
"A study to determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia is moving forward.
Officials say Virginia Tech's Center for Coal and Energy Research has signed a contract with the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council for the study.
The first phase of the study will focuses on the technical and public-safety aspects of mining. The study's fieldwork will begin this summer and last through the fall of 2011.
Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit in Pittsylvania County. The company will pay for the first phase of the study through Virginia Tech.
Before uranium could be mined in Virginia, the General Assembly would have to lift a ban that has been in place since 1982. The study is a first step to lifting that ban.
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