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Devastating review of Yablokov’s Cherno by l: Consequences of the Catastrohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phe for Peohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/ple and the Environment by Rod Adams on October 20, 2011 in Accidents , Contamination , Health Effects , Politics of Nuclear Energy htthttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p://www.facebook.com/sharer.https://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phhttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p?u=htthttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phe-for-https://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/peohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/ple-and-the-environment.html&amhttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p;t=Devastating%20review%20of%20Yablokov%E2%80%99s%20Chernobyl%3A%20Consequences%20of%20the%20Catastrohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phe%20for%20Peohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastr

Devastating review of Yablokov’s Cherno by l: Consequences of the Catastrohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phe for Peohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/ple and the Environment by Rod Adams on October 20, 2011 in Accidents , Contamination , Health Effects , Politics of Nuclear Energy htthttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p://www.facebook.com/sharer.https://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phhttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p?u=htthttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phe-for-https://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/peohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/ple-and-the-environment.html&amhttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p;t=Devastating%20review%20of%20Yablokov%E2%80%99s%20Chernobyl%3A%20Consequences%20of%20the%20Catastrohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phe%20for%20Peohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium

Devastating review of Yablokov’s Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phe for Peohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/ple and the Environment by Rod Adams on October 20, 2011 in Accidents, Contamination, Health Effects, Politics of Nuclear Energy htthttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p://www.facebook.com/sharer.https://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phhttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p?u=htthttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phe-for-https://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/peohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/ple-and-the-environment.html&amhttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/p;t=Devastating%20review%20of%20Yablokov%E2%80%99s%20Chernobyl%3A%20Consequences%20of%20the%20Catastrohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%2F24479126-6666cb8c/phe%20for%20Peohttps://plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton?url=http%3A%2F%2Fatomicinsights.com%2F2011%2F10%2Fdevastating-review-of-yablokovs-chernobyl-consequences-of-the-catastrophe-for-people-and-the-environment.html&size=medium&count=true&annotation=&hl=en-US&jsh=r%3Bgc%

On Tuesday, July 12, the Energy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science will hold a hearing to examine whether it would be economical for the U.S. to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and what the potential cost implications are for the nuclear power industry and for the Federal Government. This hearing is a follow-up to the June 16 Energy Subcommittee hearing that examined the status of reprocessing technologies and the impact reprocessing would have on energy efficiency, nuclear waste management, and the potential for proliferation of weapons-grade nuclear materials.

Dr. Richard K. Lester is the Director of the Industrial Performance Center and a Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He co-authored a 2003 study entitled The Future of Nuclear Power. Dr. Donald W. Jones is Vice President of Marketing and Senior Economist at RCF Economic and Financial Consulting, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois. He co-directed a 2004 study entitled The Economic Future of Nuclear Power. Dr. Steve Fetter is the Dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He co-authored a 2005 paper entitled The Economics of Reprocessing vs. Direct Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel. Mr. Marvin Fertel is the Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

3. Overarching Questions  Under what conditions would reprocessing be economically competitive, compared to both nuclear power that does not include fuel reprocessing, and other sources of electric power? What major assumptions underlie these analyses?  What government subsidies might be necessary to introduce a more advanced nuclear fuel cycle (that includes reprocessing, recycling, and transmutation—''burning'' the most radioactive waste products in an advanced reactor) in the U.S.?

To whom does scientific debate belong? That was a central question raised by many of the 200-plus people who attended a citizens' forum in Tokyo on Oct. 12, as they criticized the ways in which the Japanese government and radiation specialists working for it are assessing and monitoring the health effects of the ongoing nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The daylong conference, organized by the Japanese citizens' groups SAY-Peace Project and Citizens' Radioactivity Measuring Station (CRMS), featured experts who dispute much of the evidence on which the government has based its health and welfare decisions affecting residents of Fukushima Prefecture and beyond. Organizers of the event were also demanding that the government take into consideration the views of non-experts — and also experts with differing views from those of official bodies such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). The Japanese government has constantly referred to the ICRP's recommendations in setting radiation exposure limits for Fukushima residents.

One of the driving forces for the citizens' forum was a desire to challenge the conduct and much of the content of a conference held Sept. 11-12 in Fukushima, titled the "International Expert Symposium in Fukushima — Radiation and Health Risk." That conference, sponsored by the Nippon Foundation, involved some 30 scientists from major institutions, including the ICRP, the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Although the proceedings were broadcast live on U-stream, the event itself was — unlike the Tokyo forum — closed to the public. Some citizens and citizens' groups claimed that this exclusion of many interested and involved parties — and the event's avowed aim of disseminating to the public "authoritative" information on the health effects of radiation exposure — ran counter to the pursuit of facilitating open and free exchanges among and between experts and citizens on the many contentious issues facing the nation and its people at this critical time.

In particular, there was widespread criticism after the Fukushima conference — which was organized by Shunichi Yamashita, the vice president of Fukushima Medical University and a "radiological health safety risk management advisor" for Fukushima prefectural government — that its participants assumed from the outset that radioactive contamination from the plant's wrecked nuclear reactors is minimal. Critics also claimed that the experts invited to the conference had turned a collective blind eye to research findings compiled by independent scientists in Europe in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in present-day Ukraine — specifically to findings that point to various damaging health consequences of long-term exposure to low-level radiation. So it was that those two citizens' groups, angered by these and other official responses to the calamity, organized the Oct. 12 conference held at the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center in Shibuya Ward. Among the non-experts and experts invited to attend and exchange their views were people from a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, constitutional law and pediatrics. On the day, some of the speakers took issue with the stance of the majority of official bodies that the health damage from Chernobyl was observed only in a rise in the number of cases of thyroid cancers.

Since 311, Japanese government pretended to check radiation level of various areas in Japan, but because they measure radiation at 14 m or 85 m high from the ground, nobody got to believe the data. They therefore ordered 600 dosimeters from a Geiger counter maker named Alpha Tsushin. Those dosimeters were supposed to be put at schools in Fukushima etc.. However, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology stated they cancelled the contract on 11/18/2011 because “their dosimeter is not accurate and they can’t make 600 of the dosimeters by the deadline.”

However, according to the explanation of Alpha Tsushin, it was because the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology wanted false dosimeter. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology was afraid to show higher radiation levels than the monitoring posts set on 14 m or 85 m high from the ground, so they ordered Alpha Tsushin to make geiger counters to indicate lower radiation level than actual. Alpha Tsushin uses parts from America, which are manufactured using international standards, but the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology tried to force the engineers to use the “Japanese standard”. As a result, Alpha Tsushin was cancelled, luckily for them.

The company is planning to have a press conference to tell the truth.

Radioactive substances from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have now been confirmed in all prefectures, including Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture, about 1,700 kilometers from the plant, according to the science ministry. The ministry said it concluded the radioactive substances came from the stricken nuclear plant because, in all cases, they contained cesium-134, which has short half-life of two years. Before the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, radioactive substance were barely detectable in most areas.

the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's survey results released on Nov. 25 showed that fallout from the Fukushima plant has spread across Japan. The survey covered the cumulative densities of radioactive substances in dust that fell into receptacles during the four months from March through June. Figures were not available for Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, where the measurement equipment was rendered inoperable by the March 11 disaster. One measurement station was used for each of the other 45 prefectures. The highest combined cumulative density of radioactive cesium-134 and cesium-137 was found in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki Prefecture, at 40,801 becquerels per square meter. That was followed by 22,570 becquerels per square meter in Yamagata, the capital of Yamagata Prefecture, and 17,354 becquerels per square meter in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward.

The current air radiation level in Ibaraki Prefecture is about 0.14 microsievert per hour, equivalent to an annual dose of about 1 millisievert, the safety limit for exposure under normal time international standards. Large amounts of radioactive dust fell in Tokyo, but a separate survey has detected relatively low accumulations of cesium in the soil. "Tokyo has smaller soil surfaces than other prefectures, but road and concrete surfaces are less prone to fixate cesium deposits, which were probably diffused by the wind and rain," a ministry official explained.

Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across America. Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP's yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants. Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard — sometimes at hundreds of times the limit.

While most leaks have been found within plant boundaries, some have migrated offsite. But none is known to have reached public water supplies. STORY: Regulators weaken safety standards for nuclear reactors At three sites — two in Illinois and one in Minnesota — leaks have contaminated drinking wells of nearby homes, the records show, but not at levels violating the drinking water standard. At a fourth site, in New Jersey, tritium has leaked into an aquifer and a discharge canal feeding picturesque Barnegat Bay off the Atlantic Ocean.

The calls these days for a technological “energy revolution” are widespread. But how do you spark breakthroughs when the natural bias of businesses, investors and governments is toward the here and now? In governance, politics creates a bias toward the short term. This is why bridges sometimes fall down for lack of maintenance. That’s also why it’s so hard to sustain public investment in the research and intellectual infrastructure required to make progress on the frontiers of chemistry, biology and physics, even though it is this kind of work that could produce leaps in how we harvest, harness, store and move energy. (This is why I asked, “Are Chemists and Engineers on the Green Jobs List?” back in 2008.)

To get the idea, you only have to look at the sputtering state of President Obama’s mostly unfunded innovation hubs, or look once again at the energy sliver in the graph showing America’s half-century history of public investment in basic scientific research. (There’s not much difference in research patterns in most other industrialized countries.) You can also look at the first Quadrennial Technology Review produced by the Department of Energy (summarized by Climate Progress earlier this week). The review was conducted after the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology wisely recommended regular reviews of this sort as part of its prescription for accelerating change in energy technologies.

This excerpt from the new review articulates the tension pretty transparently for a government report: There is a tension between supporting work that industry doesn’t— which biases the department’s portfolio toward the long term—and the urgency of the nation’s energy challenges. The appropriate balance requires the department to focus on accelerating innovation relevant to today’s energy technologies, since such evolutionary advances are more likely to have near- to mid-term impact on the nation’s challenges. We found that too much effort in the department is devoted to research on technologies that are multiple generations away from practical use at the expense of analyses, modeling and simulation, or other highly relevant fundamental engineering research activities that could influence the private sector in the nearer term.

Britain is still paying for nuclear-generated electricity consumed a generation ago because of the hidden costs of an industry reared on the expectation of public subsidies, the Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said yesterday. He told the Royal Society in London that the nuclear industry and the Government should show that they have learned from their past mistakes if they are to retain public support for a renaissance in nuclear power. “And some of those mistakes are not small,” he said in a keynote address. “Nuclear policy is a runner to be the most expensive failure of post-war British policy-making, and I am aware that this is a crowded and highly contested field.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/chris-huhne-nuclear-power-a-costly-failure-2370340.html

Japan Times reports on a “Citizens’ conference” on radiation here. This was a gathering of people not qualified in any way with the purpose of spreading fear. I am pleased to read about it, since it gives me another great occasion to link to Rod Adams’ essential “Atomic Insights” blog. One of the “experts” speaking at the conference cited the Yablokow report on Chernobyl. Anybody who wants to assess the credibility of said report needs to read the review of by M.I. Balonow of the Institute of Radiation Hygiene, St. Petersburg, published in full at Atomic Insights.

That review states that the Yablokow report is “science fiction rather than science”. I recall blogging about how this pamphlet managed to be included in a formerly respected Journal published by the New York Academy of Sciences without peer review. The conference also had one Sebastian Pflugbeil as a speaker. His Wikipedia page shows that he is famous as a former East German politician, with no publications in the relevant field of radiation protection. His qualification as “president of the German Society of Radiation Protection” is rather less impressive once you realize that anyone is free to found this kind of society and call it “German Society of Radiation Protection”. According to the German Wikipedia page, this “German Society” was founded in 1990 and has about 50 members. When asked about what dose rate would justify an evacuation in his opinion, Pflugbeil answered that he does not know, since he only is informed about the effects of radiation in Germany. That answer does not exactly inspire confidence that he knows what he is talking about.

Another conference involving citizens and scientists is planned for next year. I am looking forward already to the opportunity to point againt to the above review of the Yablokow science fiction.

Dismissed as a “nobody” by Japan’s nuclear industry, seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi spent two decades watching his predictions of disaster come true: First in the 1995 Kobe earthquake and then at Fukushima. He says the government still doesn’t get it.The 67-year-old scientist recalled in an interview how his boss marched him to the Construction Ministry to apologize for writing a 1994 book suggesting Japan’s building codes put its cities at risk. Five months later, thousands were killed when a quake devastated Kobe city. The book, “A Seismologist Warns,” became a bestseller.That didn’t stop Haruki Madarame, now head of Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, from dismissing Ishibashi as an amateur when he warned of a “nuclear earthquake disaster,” a phrase the Kobe University professor coined in 1997. Ishibashi says Japan still underestimates the risk of operating reactors in a country that has about 10 percent of the world’s quakes.

“What was missing -- and is still missing -- is a recognition of the danger,” Ishibashi said, seated in a dining room stacked with books in his house in a Kobe suburb. “I understand we’re not going to shut all of the nuclear plants, but we should rank them by risk and phase out the worst.”Among Japan’s most vulnerable reactors are some of its oldest, built without the insights of modern earthquake science, Ishibashi said. It was only in the last four years that Japan Atomic Power Co. recognized an active fault line running under its reactor in Tsuruga, which opened in 1970 about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Osaka and close to a lake that supplies water to millions of people in the region.New Fault LinesJapan Atomic is reinforcing the plant to improve quake tolerance and believes it’s safe despite the discovery of new active faults lines in 2008, Masao Urakami, a Tokyo-based spokesman for the utility, said.“We can’t respond to every claim by every scientist,” he said. “Standards for seismic ground motion are not decided arbitrarily, but are based on findings by experts assigned by the government.”

Reactor 1 at the Tsuruga plant, which had its license extended for 10 years in 2009, is one of 13 on Wakasa bay, a stretch of Sea of Japan coast that is home to the world’s heaviest concentration of nuclear reactors. The area is riddled with fault lines found in the last three or four years, according to Ishibashi.

Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues have discovered a new relation among electric and magnetic fields and differences in temperature, which may lead to more efficient thermoelectric devices that convert heat into electricity or electricity into heat.

An n-type semiconductor on top of a p-type semiconductor creates a vertical electric field (E, green arrow), while diffusion creates a depletion layer near the junction (orange), where the electric field is strongest. Heating one end of the device creates a heat gradient at right angles to the electric field (del T, red arrow). Electrons and holes moving in these fields are forced into loops of current, and a magnetic field is generated “sideways” (B, blue arrow), at right angles to both electric and thermal fields.

"In the search for new sources of energy, thermopower -- the ability to convert temperature differences directly into electricity without wasteful intervening steps -- is tremendously promising," says Junqiao Wu of Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division (MSD), who led the research team. Wu is also a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. "But the new effect we've discovered has been overlooked by the thermopower community, and can greatly affect the efficiency of thermopower and other devices."

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Falcyone.seesaa.net%2Farticle%2F218011433.html&act=url  Perhaps a better Japanese translation is available for paragraphs like this: The first crack to expand premises Fukushima If released into the atmosphere as steam began to black biennial magma underground, dozens of days, until it could cause radioactive contamination of large magnitude I think strong. The other people on campus would not have started already. Again can not even approach. It can only be death from exposure. 

http://youtu.be/9RrwDxS9S8E 

August 2, 2011 at 9:39 am I don’t see anything that looks like Liquid Air in the video, but I do see what appears to me to be the Shared Spent Fuel Pool on fire and with open criticality – which is more shocking than anything I’ve ever witnessed. 

Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant."How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives. "The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant. There is widespread concern in Japan about a general lack of government monitoring for radiation, which has caused people to begin their own independent monitoring, which are also finding disturbingly high levels of radiation. Kodama's centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima - and their findings are alarming.According to Dr Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 "Hiroshima-type atomic bombs" and the amount of uranium released "is equivalent to 20" Hiroshima bombs.

Kodama, along with other scientists, is concerned about the ongoing crisis resulting from the Fukushima situation, as well as what he believes to be inadequate government reaction, and believes the government needs to begin a large-scale response in order to begin decontaminating affected areas.Distrust of the Japanese government's response to the nuclear disaster is now common among people living in the effected prefectures, and people are concerned about their health.Recent readings taken at the plant are alarming.When on August 2nd readings of 10,000 millisieverts (10 sieverts) of radioactivity per hour were detected at the plant, Japan's science ministry said that level of dose is fatal to humans, and is enough radiation to kill a person within one to two weeks after the exposure. 10,000 millisieverts (mSv) is the equivalent of approximately 100,000 chest x-rays.

t is an amount 250 per cent higher than levels recorded at the plant in March after it was heavily damaged by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), that took the reading, used equipment to measure radiation from a distance, and was unable to ascertain the exact level because the device's maximum reading is only 10,000 mSv. TEPCO also detected 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) per hour in debris outside the plant, as well as finding 4,000 mSv per hour inside one of the reactor buildings.

SciDev.Net reporters from around the world tell us which countries are set on developing nuclear energy despite the Fukushima accident. The quest for energy independence, rising power needs and a desire for political weight all mean that few developing countries with nuclear ambitions have abandoned them in the light of the Fukushima accident. Jordan's planned nuclear plant is part of a strategy to deal with acute water and energy shortages.

The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) wants Jordan to get 60 per cent of its energy from nuclear by 2035. Currently, obtaining energy from neighbouring Arab countries costs Jordan about a fifth of its gross domestic product. The country is also one of the world's most water-poor nations. Jordan plans to desalinate sea water from the Gulf of Aqaba to the south, then pump it to population centres in Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa, using its nuclear-derived energy. After the Fukushima disaster, Jordan started re-evaluating safety procedures for its nuclear reactor, scheduled to begin construction in 2013. The country also considered more safety procedures for construction and in ongoing geological and environmental investigations.

The government would not reverse its decision to build nuclear reactors in Jordan because of the Fukushima disaster," says Abdel-Halim Wreikat, vice Chairman of the JAEC. "Our plant type is a third-generation pressurised water reactor, and it is safer than the Fukushima boiling water reactor." Wreikat argues that "the nuclear option for Jordan at the moment is better than renewable energy options such as solar and wind, as they are still of high cost." But some Jordanian researchers disagree. "The cost of electricity generated from solar plants comes down each year by about five per cent, while the cost of producing electricity from nuclear power is rising year after year," says Ahmed Al-Salaymeh, director of the Energy Centre at the University of Jordan. He called for more economic feasibility studies of the nuclear option.

The magnitude-5.8 earthquake last month in Virginia caused about twice as much ground shaking as a nearby nuclear power plant was designed to withstand, according to a preliminary federal analysis.

Parts of the North Anna Power Station in Mineral, Va., 11 miles from its epicenter, endured jolts equal to 26% of the force of gravity (0.26g) from some of the higher-frequency vibrations unleashed by the quake, said Scott Burnell, spokesman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

An NRC document says the reactors' containment structure was built to withstand 12% of the force of gravity (0.12g.) Dominion, the power company that operates the plant, says parts of the plant can handle up to 0.18g.STORY: Quake readiness of nuclear power plants unclear

The accident at Fukushima in Japan in March this year seems to have had little overall impact on the UK public's confidence in nuclear power, according to a poll.The survey, carried out by Populus last month and commissioned by the British Science Association, found that 41% of respondents agreed the benefits of nuclear power outweighed the risks, up from 38% in 2010 and 32% in 2005. Those who said that the risks greatly or slightly outweighed the benefits of nuclear power in 2010 numbered 36%, and in 2011 this dropped to 28% of respondents.

"It's genuinely surprising to me that views have returned to these early 2010 levels quite so quickly and slightly more positively," said Nick Pidgeon of the University of Cardiff, who discussed the findings of the latest poll at a briefing to mark the launch of the British Science Festival, which starts in Bradford on Saturday. "There's been a lot of speculation about the impacts of Fukushima on public attitudes – this is the first fully independent study we've had in the UK."Though overall support was up, there was a striking difference between men and women, with 53% of men in favour of nuclear power but only 21% of women supportive. "If you dig into the data, you see that men in particular become much more confident about nuclear energy," said Pidgeon.Monbiot effectHe also said that blanket media coverage and commentary – something he referred to as the "George Monbiot effect" – may have had a positive effect on public attitudes because, despite the severity of the crisis, no one has so far died.

Populus interviewed 2,050 adults between 26 and 29 August and weighted its results to ensure they were representative of the British population.Overall, the support for nuclear power has been gradually increasing for about 10 years, said Pidgeon, and, in the past five years, the majority of people in Britain has come to support the renewal of the nuclear programme.Pidgeon said that polls in the direct aftermath of the Fukushima accident had showed a dip in support for nuclear in the UK and elsewhere, though confidence did not collapse. "There were still more people, even immediately afterwards, in favour of nuclear energy than against in Britain," he said.

The Japanese Science and Education Ministry (MEXT), is mandating a new curriculum which includes radiation education to be taught at schools across Japan. MEXT doesn't only mandate education standards, they define specific material and teaching techniques in many cases. This video analyzes the new radiation education curriculum. This is the same ministry that is responsible for setting some of the sky-high radiation "safety" standards with regards to the Fukushima disaster.This curriculum is aimed at junior high school and is thus compulsory education that all children in Japan will receive. Japanese junior high school is grades 8-10.

Links and references: Japanese Science and Education Ministry courses of study. (This is information on the curriculum that MEXT mandates for Japanese school children - Japanese language only.)http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/new-cs/youryou/chukaisetsu/index.htmRadiation Education Promotion Committee web site (Japanese)http://www.radi-edu.jp/My video on radioactive lantern mantels (which are used as part of the new radiation education material)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhE8-5g39SQ

UK science and engineering students will be able to experience building a scaled down nuclear power plant as part of a new training programme known as the Nuclear Island.   The programme was officially launched on 15 June, when a pilot week began with 25 engineering students from Imperial College London designing and constructing a scaled down nuclear power plant. They will be assessed in relation to real-life skills such as radiation protection, site licensing, budgetary control and project management. The pilot week is scheduled to end with a yet to be unveiled safety breach, which will test the students' ability to respond to a potential disaster scenario.

The Nuclear Island has been developed by a partnership of Imperial College London, Constructionarium, Cogent Sector Skills Council, the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) and Construction Skills. The partnership received funding to develop the project from the National Higher Education Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (HE STEM) Programme and the Royal Academy of Engineers.

The Nuclear Island will be a hands-on new build experience for students initially in engineering, but will be broadened out to other science, technology, engineering and mathematical areas as part of the pilot programme. According to Cogent, "For the first time, nuclear safety culture will be an essential part of construction engineering courses, embedding critical safety behaviours from day one."

It took Japan’s Fukushima disaster to make nuclear energy interesting to students in Karl Craddock’s advanced placement chemistry class at William Fremd High School in Palatine, Ill. Too bad the buzz was about radiation plumes, iodine pills, and potential deadly threats at nuclear power plants that generate more than half the electricity in Illinois. It wasn’t the sort of talk to get kids excited about a career in nuclear energy. “It doesn’t have the cool factor right now, that’s for sure,” says Craddock, who has taught science at the suburban Chicago high school for seven years.

Nuclear utilities in the U.S. will need to hire nearly 25,000 people to replace the 39 percent of its workforce that will be eligible for retirement by 2016, says Carol L. Berrigan, senior director for industry infrastructure for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based trade group. Meanwhile, U.S. universities awarded a total of 715 graduate and undergraduate degrees in nuclear engineering in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available.

After nuclear plant disasters at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in Ukraine, nuclear power lost political support in the U.S. Hiring slowed through the 1990s and nuclear workers under the age of 40 became a rarity as talk turned from expansion to shutting down existing plants. “That’s not an exciting prospect for a young person thinking about their career,” says K.L. “Lee” Peddicord, a professor of nuclear engineering and director of the Nuclear Power Institute at Texas A&M University.