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For the first time in Canadian history, First Nations, whose territory encompasses the entire coastline of British Columbia, have publicly united to oppose the transport of tar sands crude oil through their land. Over 60 nations have signed the Save the Fraser Declaration, which bans tar sands oil pipelines throughout the Fraser River watershed, an area that was never ceded to the Canadian government, and therefore not legally under the government’s control. “North or south, it makes no difference. First Nations from every corner of BC are saying absolutely no tar sands pipelines or tankers in our territories,” said Chief Jackie Thomas of Saik’uz First Nation, a member of the Yinka Dene Alliance. “We have banned oil pipelines and tankers using our laws, and we will defend our decision using all the means at our disposal.” The First Nations’ refusal to allow tar sands oil extraction or transport through their would make it legally impossible for the Canadian government to move forward with many high price oil production projects. Monday’s announcement – on the first anniversary of the Save the Fraser Declaration – comes in response to recent calls from the Harper government and oil executives to push through pipeline and tanker projects against the wishes of British Columbians and First Nations.

President Obama is feeling election-year pressure over the pending decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. Republicans say the Canadian project would provide the U.S. with oil and new jobs, but environmentalists want Obama to block it. They say Alberta's oil sands generate more greenhouse gases than other kinds of oil, and Americans must not become dependent on such a dirty source of energy. But it may already be too late to change that.

Ben West, an anti-oil tanker activist with a group called the Wilderness Committee, says when the pipeline company Kinder Morgan bought this facility in 2005, it shifted its focus to exports — primarily to the American West Coast. "We've seen this huge increase of tanker traffic," he says. "We went from 22 tankers in 2005, up to 79 [in 2010]. You know these 700,000-barrel tankers that are now coming through the Burrard Inlet, which passes through one of the most populated areas of British Columbia."

The pipeline also has a branch that crosses the border, feeding crude oil to refineries in Washington state. Kinder Morgan is now exploring the possibility of doubling the pipeline's capacity. West calls it the "quiet repurposing" of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. And because of it, oil sands gasoline is now fueling cars from Seattle to San Francisco.

Take NASA scientist James Hansen, who wrote (pdf) a public letter in June suggesting that the fate of the planet rests with the 1,700-mile Keystone XL project.

The climatologist said the proposal is a steppingstone to exploiting the entire oil sands region in Canada, where a vast amount of carbon dioxide sits underground in sand formations. Hansen asserted that its extraction would mean "game over" for the Earth when combined with emissions from coal. Canada holds the second-largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia.

, proponents of Keystone XL say that oil production in the Canadian region will continue no matter what, and that developers will find a way to transport the oil overseas if the United States declines to approve the pipeline.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will carry oil from tar sands in Canada across the entire midwestern United States to Port Arthur, Texas. It could eventually transport 900,000 barrels of oil a day and without government funding of any kind has the potential to create 20,000 jobs starting early in 2012. The greens want President Obama to kill it of course; the political blindness and the wishful thinking that so frequently vitiates green policy proposals is fully on display.

I will only point to a study by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers: “Oil sands crude is six per cent more GHG intensive than the U.S. crude supply average on a wells-to-wheels basis.” Only 6 percent. Yes, that study comes from the oil industry; the green studies and the oil company studies are both suspect and need outside review.

the Washington Post want to throw the greens under the bus on this one. “Tar sands crude is not appealing; it is low-grade, it is hard to extract, it is difficult to refine and it produces a lot of carbon emissions. But if it is to be burned anyway, there’s little reason for America to reject it, as long as Keystone XL can transport it across the plains safely.”

out

Nuclear power was gaining a lot of momentum prior to the terrible disaster at Japan's Fukushima powerplant in March.

But since then, atomic energy has come under increased scrutiny and once again drawn the ire of environmentalists who were just warming up to its carbon-free emissions.

After the typhoon hit Fukushima,massive scale of contamination is detected. It has been about 21.0 uSv/h around in Futabamachi all day long.

Even NHK reported that they detected double amount of cesium in the sea around reactor 3. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110921/k10015758171000.html (Though this article reports the radiation level of around reactor 3,it mentions only cesium amount around reactor 2.) Also,Tepco reported they found the water level was raised by about 44 cm in the basement floor of reactor 1.

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20110922-00000053-jij-soci However,in Onagawa nuc plant ,which is about 100km north to Fukushima plant, 2800 tons of water flowed in the the basement floor. Looking from this flooding in Onagawa nuc plant,it is natural to assume that the same or even worse scale of flooding happened to each reactor of Fukushima plant.

conversations have been popping up about thorium in recent years and how it can be a game-changer in the energy industry. Thorium has incredible potential as an ultra-safe, clean, and cheap nuclear energy source which can power the world for millennia.

Thorium is found naturally in rocks in the form of thorium-232, and has a half-life of about 14 billion years. Estimates by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) show it is about three times more common in the Earth's crust than uranium. It can be obtained through various methods, most commonly through the extraction from monazite sands. Known reserves of thorium are not well-known due to lack of exploratory research. The US Geological Service estimates that the USA, Australia, and India hold the largest reserves. India is believed to have the lion's share of thorium deposits. In the United States, Idaho contains a large vein deposit. The world has an estimated total of 4.4 million tons

A newly created organization known as the Weinberg Foundation has taken up the cause of promoting thorium energy. The foundation was named after Dr. Alvin Weinberg, a nuclear energy researcher in the 1960s who laid out the vision of safe and abundant thorium power. He pioneered the Molten Salt Reactor using thorium in its liquid fuel form at the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This reactor had an inherently safer design and dramatically reduced the amount of atomic waste in comparison to typical nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, the thorium reactor program was not fully pursued due to political and military reasons.

The day after the Obama administration rejected a proposal for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- a move widely, if cautiously, applauded by environmental groups and advocates of renewable energy -- a new report highlights the destructive impact of fossil fuel consumption in the United States. The report, called Fueling Extinction: How Dirty Energy Drives Wildlife to the Brink, highlights the top 10 US species whose survival is most threatened by the development, extraction, transportation, and consumption of fossil fuels.

The report itself does not shy away from pointing its finger directly at the profit-driven aspect of the fossil fuel industry, nor its dependence on taxpayer-funded subsidies:

The animals (and one plant) highlighted by the group range from the relatively unknown and small Tan Riffleshell, a freshwater mussel found in only five rivers in the eastern US, to the large and majestic Bowhead Whale, believed to be among the oldest mammals on earth and the only whale that lives exclusively in arctic waters.  The other eight species examined in the report include: the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, the Graham’s Penstemon (a wildflower), the Greater Sage Grouse, the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle, the Kentucky Arrow Darter, the Spectacled Eider, the Whooping Crane, and the Wyoming Pocket Gopher. Receiving the 'activist's choice award' from the voting members was the Polar Bear, chosen because it was "the species they were most concerned about."

On November 15, the Ministry of the Environment announced the result of the survey of the radioactive material density in bottom soil in 193 locations in rivers, lakes and dams in Fukushima Prefecture. Radioactive cesium was detected in almost all locations, with the highest density of 60,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in the riverbed soil in the Ota River that runs through Minami Soma City, which was designated as "evacuation-ready zone" after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

The Ministry also conducted the survey of the water. Maximum 27 becquerels/liter of radioactive cesium was detected in the water from a dam inside the "no-entry zone" [within 20-kilometer radius], but in most locations it was not detected. The Ministry's analysis is that "radioactive materials have been absorbed by sludge and sands and sunk to the bottom, and that is why the radiation density is high [in the soil in rivers, lakes and dams]."The survey result is not yet uploaded at the Ministry's website.The provisional "safety" standard for drinking water in Japan is 200 becquerels/liter of radioactive cesium. (For reference, in Belarus, it is 10 becquerels/kg.)

Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology announced that in April, Cesium from Fukushima dropped from air to the pacific ocean and fell down deep in the sea attached to dead plankton. 4/18~4/30, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology measured cesium from particles which is made of dead plankton or sand, smaller than 1mm, called “Marine snow”. It was off shore of Polustrov Kamchatka, where is 2,000 km away from Fukushima and 5,000 meters deep in the sea around Ogasawara islands, where is 1,000 km away from Fukushima. From the ratio of cesium 134 and 137, they judged it was from Fukushima plants. They have not announced the amount of cesium. (Source)

This nation has recovered from worse natural – and manmade – catastrophes. But it is the triple meltdown and its aftermath at the Fukushima nuclear power plant 40km down the coast from Soma that has elevated Japan into unknown, and unknowable, terrain. Across the northeast, millions of people are living with its consequences and searching for a consensus on a safe radiation level that does not exist. Experts give bewilderingly different assessments of its dangers.

Some scientists say Fukushima is worse than the 1986 Chernobyl accident, with which it shares a maximum level-7 rating on the sliding scale of nuclear disasters. One of the most prominent of them is Dr Helen Caldicott, an Australian physician and long time anti-nuclear activist who warns of "horrors to come" in Fukushima.

Chris Busby, a professor at the University of Ulster known for his alarmist views, generated controversy during a Japan visit last month when he said the disaster would result in more than 1 million deaths. "Fukushima is still boiling its radionuclides all over Japan," he said. "Chernobyl went up in one go. So Fukushima is worse."

The reading is also higher than levels measured recently at Iitate, an area in Fukushima prefecture that has been evacuated. The reading in Setagaya was taken one metre above the ground near a hedge, national broadcaster NHK said, while other parts of the same sidewalk showed lower readings. The reading came after ward authorities said Wednesday that levels of 2.7 microsieverts per hour had been detected on October 6, higher than levels of less than 0.1 microsieverts in other parts of Setagaya according to official data.

The higher readings come as more tests illustrate how far fall-out from the Fukushima disaster have spread, with elevated levels of radioactive caesium recently found as far away as Yokohama, more than 241 kilometers (150 miles) from the plant.

Setagaya ward did not immediately confirm Thursday's reading. "We don't know the cause (of the high radiation levels) yet. We are asking experts to find it urgently and decontaminate the area," a spokeswoman said. She added that the high readings have been shown only in a two-meter long area and below 1.5 meters from the ground. "We also plan to check sand in the ward's 258 parks over one month from late October," she told AFP. Radiation levels in the area have not fallen since the ward's efforts to decontaminate it on October 6, and authorities are instructing children to avoid the walkway as they go to school.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis highlighted not only Japan's dependency on nuclear energy, but also how strongly the public felt about it. Sept. 19 saw the nation's largest-ever antinuclear-energy demonstration in Tokyo's Meiji Park, and other protestors — including musicians, celebrities and artists — have been voicing their opinion through marches, activities and announcements.

Artist collective Chim↑Pom have already received a fair amount of press about their activities. They added, guerrilla-style, an image of a burning Fukushima power plant to Taro Okamoto's "Myth of Tomorrow" mural at Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, and then made a sand sculpture of a child wearing a gas mask in a Fukushima Prefecture playground that had been deemed unsafe for children. Now they're making a more intimate statement with "K-I-S-S-I-N-G" at the Container in the Nakameguro district of Tokyo. The exhibition — which manages to squeeze a video installation, a large photograph and a set of drawings into a freight-container space — is, say Chim↑Pom, "an allegory that uses lightbulbs to express the anxiety or loneliness people are still suffering since the earthquake (of March 11)." The door welcomes visitors with a red kiss mark from the lips of Ellie, the only female member of the collective, who has also written "XOXO Chim↑Pom" there in red lipstick. Immediately, there's a sense of intimacy, emphasized further by the tiny exhibition space.

"Shaken by anxiety and loneliness, people came to rediscover their close relationships," says Chim↑Pom on discussing the effect of the Great East Japan Earthquake. "There's been an increase in marriage and there may be fewer divorces from now on. Lovers are happy: They are reminded of the fantastic time they can share caring for each other. 'K-I-S-S-I-N-G' conveys those feelings that we can't put into words." The video, which is projected behind a display of broken lightbulbs, shows a pair of lightbulbs circling each other, "courting" and "cuddling." Chim↑Pom say the incandescent bulbs are an obvious reference to electricity issues — because such bulbs are now being replaced by more electricity-efficient LED versions, they serve as a stronger visual link to the nuclear energy that Japan has relied on for decades. The bulbs break and burst into flames when they kiss onscreen.

On location report from Minami Soma – Strontium continues to be detected – “Too early for evacuees to be returning home.” Nationally declared “emergency evacuation preparedness zones” have been simultaneously lifted, however excessive risks may remain. Lab results from a radioactive contamination survey commissioned by Minami Soma City Council yield shocking results. - Desipite the lifting of the “emergency evacuation preparedness zone” designation, the perception is that contamination questions linger. - 59,000 people lived within the 20-30km “emergency evacuation preparedness zone”, 28,000 have relocated. Citizens view the lifting of the designation as good news, but unease persists.

From a local council perspective, the sooner evacuees return to start rebuilding the better. - Citizens infuriated with fuzzy official statements regarding severity of contamination, particularly when they have to consider the safety of their own kids. - Local government testing reveals strontium contamination, further complicating the situation. 17 spots around Minami Soma were tested, and four locations showed 33 – 1,113 Bq/kg of strontium contamination, including 100 Bq/kg from an area previously covered by the recently lifted evacuation advisory zone. - Regarding the possibility of internal exposure, Strontium is much more serious than cesium. As explained by a researcher from the Japanese Atomic Energy Institute, biological half life of cesium is 100 days vs 50 years for Strontium, which mimics calcium in the body.

It’s reasonable to expect that where there is cesium, there is also strontium, however it takes much longer to run tests for strontium and there are very few labs equipped to run the tests. - On the same day that the evacuation advisory zone was lifted, MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) finally released results of strontium testing carried out around the plant. - Of the samples, collected since June, Futuba (inside the 20km zone) was the highest, at 5,700 Bq/m2 (note the change in unit from kg to square meters). Of particular concern were results from within the lifted evacuation advisory zone: Minami Soma (three locations: 600, 260, 160 bq/m2), Tamura (610 Bq/m2), Kawauchi (380、130、39 Bq/m2) and Hirono (220、150、120、76、61 Bq/m2). - Plutonium also detected for the first time outside the plant, however official attitude is to ignore the results, as ‘compared to cesium the quantities are minuscule, therefore the focus will remain on cesium’.