The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill now goes before the upper house, where it is expected to pass without a problem.
Some private firms, especially in the US, have been reluctant to set up nuclear power plants in India without a law that would limit their liability.
Parliamentarians agreed to set the compensation cap in the event of a nuclear accident at $320m.
The BBC's Mark Dummet in Delhi says the bill has been criticised by left-wing parties who complained that companies should pay much more in compensation
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India parliament passes civil nuclear power bill [26Jul11] - 0 views
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They also said that foreign firms should not be involved in such an important industry.
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Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program to be discussed at Nuclear Summit [25Jul11] - 0 views
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The conference is the 3rd Annual Nuclear Construction Summit and has already generated masses of interest from major utilities and key organisations in the USA and globally. The meeting comes at a truly critical time for the nuclear renaissance in North America.
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Dave Frantz will join key representatives from the NRC, Duke, Dominion, Progress Energy, SCANA, OPG, Bruce Power, USEC, Areva NP, Westinghouse and many other key organisations in the nuclear industry. This year’s conference will discuss how companies can develop a strong nuclear strategy based on experience from key construction projects that mitigates risk and reduces project costs. The meeting promises to be the key construction meeting for the industry in 2011 with 300+ senior level executives involved in nuclear construction expected across the 3 days. Event organiser Nuclear Energy Insider stated “This conference has come at a hugely important time for the nuclear industry in North America. With knowledge-sharing from all of the key construction projects across the region, the meeting will be an essential platform to discuss best practice and ensure that the industry approaches future challenges head-on.”
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For more information on the 3rd Annual Nuclear Construction Summit which is taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina on October 25-27 visit http://www.nuclearenergyinsider.com/nuclear-construction-summit
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U.S. used Hiroshima to bolster support for nuclear power [26Jul11] - 0 views
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The private notes of the head of a U.S. cultural center in Hiroshima revealed that Washington targeted the city's residents with pro-nuclear propaganda in the mid-1950s after deciding a swing in their opinions was vital to promoting the use of civil nuclear power in Japan and across the world. The organizers of a U.S.-backed exhibition that toured 11 major Japanese cities from November 1955 to September 1957 initially considered opening the first exhibition in Hiroshima.
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According to the private papers of Abol Fazl Fotouhi, former president of the American Cultural Center in Hiroshima, the idea of choosing the city was proposed at a meeting of officials of the U.S. Information Service in December 1954.
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The proposal was dropped because officials were worried that it would link nuclear energy too closely with nuclear bombs. Tokyo was chosen to open the tour and three other cities were visited before the exhibition opened at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which commemorates the 1945 bombing, on May 27, 1956.
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However, the city remained at the heart of Washington's drive to directly intervene in the Japanese debate on nuclear energy at a critical time in the relationship between the two nations and the Cold War. Anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan had been aggravated by the contamination of the crew of the Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru by fallout from the Bikini Atoll nuclear test early in 1954.
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The previous year, successful hydrogen bomb tests by the Soviet Union had prompted the United States to shift its policy from keeping close control of nuclear technology to bolstering relations with friendly countries by sharing its expertise. The campaign in Japan was just one part of an international effort to promote nuclear energy's peaceful use. Yuka Tsuchiya, a professor of Ehime University and an expert on U.S. public diplomacy, said the U.S. government decided acceptance by Hiroshima residents of peaceful nuclear use would have a major impact on Japanese and world public opinion.
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Fotouhi, who was in charge of organizing the Hiroshima event, launched an intensive campaign to win over locals.
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His daughter, who came to Japan with him in 1952 and went to a local elementary school in Hiroshima, said her father invited nearly 100 people to his house to explain its aims. He gathered the support of the city government, the prefectural government, Hiroshima University and local newspapers and managed to stop protests by convincing activists of the event's importance to the peaceful use of nuclear power
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The exhibition attracted long lines. A remotely operated machine for handling hazardous materials, called Magic Hand, was among the most popular attractions. One 74-year-old woman who had been a victim of the 1945 bombing asked one of the exhibition staff if the machine posed any harm to human health. The staff member said nuclear power could be of great value to human life if used for the public good, according to the woman.
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On June 18, 1956, the day after the Hiroshima event closed, the U.S. Embassy in Japan reported to Washington that 120,000 visitors had attended over its three-week run.
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A senior official of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission said in another report that the event had swayed the Japanese public's views of nuclear energy. No other country was as supportive of U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower's promotion of the peaceful use of nuclear power as Japan, the official said.
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In total, 2.7 million people visited the exhibitions in the 11 major cities. A scaled-down version of the exhibition later toured rural areas of Japan.
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Japan's first nuclear reactor, imported from the United States, began operating in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, in August 1957, the month before the end of the exhibition tour.
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How the U.S., after nuking Japan, launched its nuclear power campaign there to win over public opinion. It worked.
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NISA Says Stress Tests to RestartJapanese Reactors Will Take Months [26Jul11] - 0 views
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Plant Status After a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck offshore from Fukushima in the early hours of July 25, Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported there were no problems with any of the systems used to stabilize the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi and no injuries. TEPCO checked the systems for water and nitrogen injection into reactors 1, 2 and 3, the water treatment facility, and the used fuel pool cooling systems for reactors 2 and 3. The Japan Atomic Industry Forum said temperatures at the bottom of Fukushima Daiichi reactor 1 have remained below 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) for six consecutive days through July 24. TEPCO says it achieved the lowered temperature by raising the amount of water injected into the reactor. The company has begun implementing step 2 of its recovery plan for the reactors, which includes maintaining temperatures at the bottom of reactors 1, 2 and 3 below 100 degrees Celsius. The stable operation of the circulatory water injection system is crucial to achieving that goal. TEPCO said a faulty circuit breaker was the cause of a five-hour loss of electrical power to reactors 3 and 4 July 22. Power for contaminated water treatment and for the reactors’ used fuel pool cooling was eventually restored via an alternate source. TEPCO says there was no major increase in the temperature of the pools
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The company is working to improve switching systems among external power supplies. Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues A July 28 public Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting will focus on the agency’s near-term task force recommendations for safety enhancements at U.S. nuclear energy facilities after the Fukushima accident. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano today toured the Fukushima Daiichi site, where he met with TEPCO personnel and gave an interview on location describing his visit. Amano is to meet Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and government ministers to discuss the outcomes of the June IAEA ministerial conference on nuclear safety. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said it will take months to complete the first of two-stage “stress tests” it has ordered all Japanese nuclear power reactor operators to conduct before shutdown reactors can restart. NISA said it does not anticipate any of the 22 reactors that were halted for regular safety checks to resume operations this summer. The tests involve computer simulations of the reactors’ responses to emergencies such as earthquakes, tsunamis and loss of off-site power.
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As TEPCO moves into the second stage of its recovery plan at Fukushima, the joint office it operates with the Japanese government to conduct and review its activities will be restructured. A new radiation and health management team will be established, and two other teams will be incorporated into a “medium-to-long term countermeasures” team. Media Highlights The New York Times editorialized on July 24 on the U.S. response to the Fukushima Daiichi accident. The opinion piece discussed steps taken by the nuclear energy industry and recommendations made by the NRC’s Fukushima-focused task force. Upcoming Events NEI will brief financial analysts in New [...] ...read more
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Iran - Regime's nuclear ambitions have no place for people's problems [26Jul11] - 0 views
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the nuclear program became the main subject of the first European tourney of Foreign Minister Ali Akber Salehi.
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As part of the tourney, Salehi visited the capital of Slovenia Ljubljana and also Vienna, where he talked to his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger and general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano. At the press conference in Ljubljana and Vienna, the head of the Iranian delegation made it clear that Iran is committed to the Nuclear Weapon Nonproliferation Treaty but will never yield its legal rights for implementation of the peaceful nuclear program
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It is not a secret that most economic problems and deprivations of the population of the country are caused by sanctions against our state over the development of nuclear industry. The paradox is that we have already got used to the sanctions, which had been place against us for already 21 years.
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Though the nuclear program in our country started in 1967, when the United State handed the nuclear reactor of 5 MW capacity to Shah Muhammad Reza Pehlevi, in 1979, the clericals who came to power rejected to implement the program of nuclear plant construction. In the first years after war not only foreign but also a great many of specialists participating in the nuclear program left the country. In a few years, when the situation in the country slightly stabilized, the powers decided to restart implementation of the nuclear program.
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A scientific research center with the research reactor on heavy water was created under China’s support in Isfahan, and production of uranium ore continued. All the same, the powers were negotiating the technologies of uranium enrichment and production of heavy water with the companies from Switzerland and Germany. Iranian physicists visited the National Institute of Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics in Amsterdam, nuclear Petten center in Netherlands. However, in 2002 the United States included our country into the so-called evil axe and on the basis of footage from the space, they declared that religious fanatics are working secretly on creation of nuclear weapon. For many years the United States have been seeking international isolation of our country under pretense of inadmissibility of creating a nuclear bomb by this country
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Undoubtedly, nuclear program is a two-edged sword. First, we are an independent state and no one has the right to dictate their provisions to us. The country’s powers have repeatedly stated that the nuclear program is implemented under international standards and control. Additionally, our neighbors Kuwait, Bahrain, Arab Emirates have already stated the intention to build nuclear stations and develop nuclear industry. But the world community is not concerned with it. This means that the ‘concern’ over Iranian nuclear programs is politically motivated. How long will we have to prove that we pursue only peaceful aims?
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Our religious leader Ayatollah Hamenei said that creation of the nuclear bomb is illegal and goes contrary to Islam.
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why do we need this nuclear program? Why do we need those high costs, if 70% of population is starving? There are no economic preconditions for development of the nuclear program. Our country has 10% of world’s proven oil reserves and is second for its natural gas resources.
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The energy complex of the country fully meets the internal needs, for example, Iran is 20th in the world for its power generation. So why do we need the nuclear energy sector? It is much more important in the countries that have no sufficient natural energy sources. Additionally, nuclear energy remains the subject of fierce debates. Opponents and supporters of nuclear energy give different assessment to its security, reliability and economic effectiveness. The threat is connected with problems of waste utilization, car crashes that are causes of environmental disasters.
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It seems that the maniacal wish to develop nuclear program by all means is caused by the excessive ambitions of the regime, which decided to demonstrate its independence and determination by all means. Getting involved in the ambitions race with its main rival-United States, the Iranian authorities do not understand that the nuclear program has already turned into a speculation that is used by each of the parties for their own interests.
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no one cares that this mad race has no place for the problems of people, suffering from international sanctions against the country. Though, we are used to it since in 32 years the regime recalled the people only when there appeared the direct threat of overthrow.
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Safety of Nuclear Stations Under Focus : Tunisia [26Jul11] - 0 views
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Representatives of member states of the Arab Atomic Energy Agency (AAEA) placed emphasis, on Sunday, on the need to attach utmost importance to the issue of safety of nuclear power stations, particularly following the disaster of Fukushima, Japan, this year.
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Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Refaat Chaabouni told TAP news agency that the creation of a nuclear station to produce power in Tunisia is a political decision that Tunisia can take in light of results of a study conducted by the Tunisian Electricity and Gas Company (STEG) on the economic and technical viability of the said station by 2018.
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He added that the disaster of Fukushima does not mean abandoning the use of nuclear energy for power production and its peaceful uses in Arab countries but should rather encourage countries to better control the “safety” aspect and strengthen human resources specialised in this area. Director General of the Arab Atomic Energy Agency Abdelmajid Mahjoub said the accident of Fukushima requires more work to control nuclear energy, preserve the environment and protect people, in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
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Works of the annual conference of the Arab Atomic Energy Agency currently held in Hammamet will evaluate the second year of the implementation of the Arab strategy for the peaceful use of atomic energy spreading over ten years (2010-2020) and develop an annual future plan for the agency’s action.
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NRC Event at flooded Ft. Calhoun nuke plant: Both Fire Suppression Pumps are inoperable... - 0 views
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Event Notification Report for July 25, 2011, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Operations Center:
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Event Number: 47088Facility: FORT CALHOUNEvent Date: 07/22/2011Event Time: 08:30 [CDT]Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(3)(ii)(B) – UNANALYZED CONDITION Event Text FIRE SUPRESSION PUMPS INOPERABLE “Both Fire Suppression Pumps are not operable because the required monthly surveillance tests will not be completed for June and July. The surveillance tests will be completed when flood waters recede to below 1004 feet MSL. The current river level is 1006.3 feet. Both fire pumps, FP-1A and FP-1B, are available and lined up for use. Other options are also available to provide a means of backup fire water supply that include: - Water Plant Pumps DW-8A and DW-8B aligned to the Fire Protection (FP) system.- Temporary connection to the fire protection water distribution system by the Fort Calhoun Fire Truck that is staged on site or any other fire pumper truck via fire hydrant FP-3G.- Admin Building/Training Center fire hydrant via fire hoses or water truck. This supply is from Blair water system and FP storage tank west of Highway 75.- Drafting from the Missouri River via temporary pumps.” The licensee notified the NRC Resident Inspector.
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Japanese Nuclear Emergency Director says local residents have no right to avoid radiati... - 0 views
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Japanese Nuclear Emergency Director: You Have No Right To A Radiation-Free Life, Gizmodo by Andrew Tarantola, July 26, 2011:
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This footage, from a recent meeting of indignant Japanese citizens and feckless Japanese government types should be a little shocking. Sadly, it’s just more of the same – ineptitude and inaction. By denying the right to avoiding radiation? OK, shocking. [...] One Fukushima resident asks, “As other people do, people in Fukushima have the right to avoid the radiation exposure and live a healthy life, too. Don’t you think so?” A Nuclear Safety Commission Of Japan rep, when pushed to go beyond his canned non-answer, deadpans “I don’t know if they have that right.” The crowd reacts as you would expect when told they nuclear-threatened welfare isn’t a concern. [...]
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Harm from Fukushima Radiation: A Matter Of Perspective [09Jul11] - 0 views
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A leading biophysicist has cast a critical light on the government’s reassurances that Americans were never at risk from Fukushima fallout, saying “we really don’t know for sure.”
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When radioactive fallout from Japan’s nuclear disaster began appearing in the United States this spring, the Obama Administration’s open-data policy obligated the government to inform the public, in some detail, what was landing here.
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Covering the story, I watched the government pursue what appeared to be two strategies to minimize public alarm:
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It framed the data with reassurances like this oft-repeated sentence from the EPA: “The level detected is far below a level of public health concern.” The question, of course, is whose concern.
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The EPA seemed to be timing its data releases to avoid media coverage. It released its most alarming data set late on a Friday—data that showed radioactive fallout in the drinking water of more than a dozen U.S. cities.
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Friday and Saturday data releases were most frequent when radiation levels were highest. And despite the ravages newspapers have suffered from internet competition, newspaper editors still have not learned to assign reporters to watch the government on weekends. As a result, bloggers broke the fallout news, while newspapers relegated themselves to local followups, most of which did little more than quote public health officials who were pursuing strategy #1.
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For example, when radioactive cesium-137 was found in milk in Hilo, Hawaii, Lynn Nakasone, administrator of the Health Department’s Environmental Health Services Division, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: ”There’s no question the milk is safe.”
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Nakasone had little alternative but to say that. She wasn’t about to dump thousands of gallons of milk that represented the livelihood of local dairymen, and she wasn’t authorized to dump the milk as long as the radiation detected remained below FDA’s Derived Intervention Level, a metric I’ll discuss more below.
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That kind of statement failed to reassure the public in part because of the issue of informed consent—Americans never consented to swallowing any radiation from Fukushima—and in part because the statement is obviously false.
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There is a question whether the milk was safe.
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medical experts agree that any increased exposure to radiation increases risk of cancer, and so, no increase in radiation is unquestionably safe.
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Whether you choose to see the Fukushima fallout as safe depends on the perspective you adopt, as David J. Brenner, a professor of radiation biophysics and the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center, elucidated recently in The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists:
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Should this worry us? We know that the extra individual cancer risks from this long-term exposure will be very small indeed. Most of us have about a 40 percent chance of getting cancer at some point in our lives, and the radiation dose from the extra radioactive cesium in the food supply will not significantly increase our individual cancer risks.
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But there’s another way we can and should think about the risk: not from the perspective of individuals, but from the perspective of the entire population. A tiny extra risk to a few people is one thing. But here we have a potential tiny extra risk to millions or even billions of people. Think of buying a lottery ticket — just like the millions of other people who buy a ticket, your chances of winning are miniscule. Yet among these millions of lottery players, a few people will certainly win; we just can’t predict who they will be. Likewise, will there be some extra cancers among the very large numbers of people exposed to extremely small radiation risks? It’s likely, but we really don’t know for sure.
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the EPA’s standard for radionuclides in drinking water is so much more conservative than the FDA’s standard for radionuclides in food. The two agencies anticipate different endurances of exposure—long-term in the EPA’s view, short-term in FDA’s. But faced with the commercial implications of its actions, FDA tolerates a higher level of mortality than EPA does.
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FDA has a technical quibble with that last sentence. FDA spokesman Siobhan Delancey says: Risk coefficients (one in a million, two in ten thousand) are statistically based population estimates of risk. As such they cannot be used to predict individual risk and there is likely to be variation around those numbers. Thus we cannot say precisely that “one in a million people will die of cancer from drinking water at the EPA MCL” or that “two in ten thousand people will die of cancer from consuming food at the level of an FDA DIL.” These are estimates only and apply to populations as a whole.
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The government, while assuring us of safety, comforts itself in the abstraction of the population-wide view, but from Dr. Brenner’s perspective, the population-wide view is a lottery and someone’s number may come up. Let that person decide whether we should be alarmed.
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How Low Doses Of Radiation Can Cause Heart Disease And Stroke - 0 views
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A mathematical model constructed by researchers at Imperial College London predicts the risk of cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, stroke) associated with low background levels of radiation. The model shows that the risk would vary almost in proportion with dose.
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Results, published October 23 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, are consistent with risk levels reported in previous studies involving nuclear workers.
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For some time, scientists have understood how high-dose radiotherapy (RT) causes inflammation in the heart and large arteries and how this results in the increased levels of cardiovascular disease observed in many groups of patients who receive RT. However, in the last few years, studies have shown that there may also be cardiovascular risks associated with the much lower fractionated doses of radiation received by groups such as nuclear workers, but it is not clear what biological mechanisms are responsible.
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Don't Be Fooled By the Spin - Radiation is Bad [06Apr11] - 0 views
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Ziggy Switkowski, former chair of ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) and a proponent of nuclear power for Australia, claimed "the best place to be whenever there's an earthquake is at the perimeter of a nuclear plant because they are designed so well", and then quickly added: "On the other hand, you know, if the engineers do lose control of the core, then the answer becomes different."
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Strident nuclear advocate Professor Barry Brook gave assurances in his running commentary that seemed ironically prescient of what was about to happen, stating ''I don't see the ramifications of this as damaging at all to nuclear power's prospects'' and that ''it will provide a great conversation starter for talking intelligently to people about nuclear safety''.
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Other arguments trotted out by pro-nuclearists about how safe nuclear power is demonstrated their chutzpah more than their good judgment. My favourite: the justification for nuclear power is that it kills fewer people than the coal industry. Ignoring the false choice this proposition entails, what does it say about the safety culture of the nuclear industry when one of its selling points is that it kills fewer people than the competition?
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But more insidious and objectionable is the creeping misinformation that the nuclear industry has fed into the public sphere over the years. There seems to be a never-ending cabal of paid industry scientific ''consultants'' who are more than willing to state the fringe view that low doses of ionising radiation do not cause cancer and, indeed, that low doses are actually good for you and lessen the incidence of cancer. Canadian Dr Doug Boreham has been on numerous sponsored tours of Australia by Toro Energy, a junior uranium explorer, expounding the view that "low-dose radiation is like getting a suntan". Toro must have liked what it heard because it made him a safety consultant for the company in 2009.
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Ionising radiation is a known carcinogen. This is based on almost 100 years of cumulative research including 60 years of follow-up of the Japanese atom bomb survivors. The International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC, linked to the World Health Organisation) classifies it as a Class 1 carcinogen, the highest classification indicative of certainty of its carcinogenic effects.
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In 2006, the US National Academy of Sciences released its Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (VII) report, which focused on the health effects of radiation doses at below 100 millisieverts. This was a consensus review that assessed the world's scientific literature on the subject at that time. It concluded: ". . . there is a linear dose-response relationship between exposure to ionising radiation and the development of solid cancers in humans. It is unlikely that there is a threshold below which cancers are not induced."
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The most comprehensive study of nuclear workers by the IARC, involving 600,000 workers exposed to an average cumulative dose of 19mSv, showed a cancer risk consistent with that of the A-bomb survivors
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April 26 marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The pro-nuclearists have gone into full-spin-ahead mode, misrepresenting the latest UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) report on Chernobyl.
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Two days ago on this page, George Monbiot (''How the anti-nuclear lobby misled us all with dodgy claims''), citing the report, wrongly plays down he death toll. He correctly states that the report found 6848 cases of thyroid cancer in children, although he fails to acknowledge it was due to the effects of radioactive iodine in the nuclear fallout. The number of cases will continue to increase, according to the US National Cancer Institute, for a further 10 to 20 years.
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Thyroid cancer is easy to detect because it is normally a rare cancer. Most other cancers caused by radiation are not that easy to detect above the high background natural rates of cancer. It is the proverbial needle in a haystack scenario - but in this case the needles (radiation-induced cancer) look the same as the hay (other cancers). What the report therefore said was that statistical limitations and large uncertainties precluded being able to single out any radiation-induced cancers. It did not say there have been no cancers, as Monbiot and others claim, or that none will develop, only that it is not possible at this stage to detect them.
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IARC states that ''by 2065, predictions based on these models indicate that about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident and that about 16,000 deaths from these cancers may occur''. Whether we will be able to detect them when there will also be more than 1 million other cases of cancer over this period is debatable. But every one of these excess cancers is a tragedy for each victim and their family, and is no less so simply because cancer is a common disease. George Monbiot should read properly the BEIR VII report that Helen Caldicott gave him - all 423 pages
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Australian National Radiation Dose Register (ANRDR) for Uranium Mining and Milling Workers - 0 views
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The Australian Government is committed to strengthening occupational health and safety requirements for individuals working at uranium mining and milling sites. The Australian Government is committed to strengthening occupational health and safety requirements for individuals working at uranium mining and milling sites.
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The Australian National Radiation Dose Register (ANRDR) was established in 2010 to collect, store, manage and disseminate records of radiation doses received by workers in the course of their employment in a centralised database. The ANRDR has been open to receive dose records from operators since 1 July 2010. The ANRDR was officially launched in June 2011 following full development of the Register, including a system for workers to be able to request their individual dose history record.
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The ANRDR is maintained and managed by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).
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What data are we collecting? The ANRDR records radiation dose information as well as some personal information so that we are able to link the dose information with the correct worker. There are several different types of radiation, and different ways that radiation can interact with a worker. This dose register will record information on the doses received from these different radiation types and the pathways through which they interact with the worker. The personal information collected includes the worker’s name, date of birth, gender, employee number, place of employment, employee work classification, and the period of time employed at a particular location. This information is collected in order to ensure that appropriate doses are matched to the correct worker. Please refer to the ANRDR Privacy Statement for further information on the collection, storage and use of personal information.
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How will the data be used? The data will be used to track a worker’s lifetime radiation dose history within the uranium mining and milling industry in Australia. A worker can request a dose history report from ARPANSA which will show the cumulative dose the worker has received during the course of their employment in the uranium mining and milling industry in Australia, and while the worker has been registered on the ANRDR. The data will be used to create annual statistics showing industry sector trends and comparisons. It will also be used to assess radiological doses within worker categories to help establish recommended dose constraints for certain work practices.
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Currently, the ANRDR only records data on workers in the uranium mining and milling industry.
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Rethinking nuclear power - Israel [21Mar11] - 0 views
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The nuclear disaster in Japan caused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to declare last week that Israel will not build nuclear power plants.“I don’t think we are going to pursue civil nuclear energy in coming years,” said Netanyahu, asked by Piers Morgan on CNN whether the situation in Japan will affect plans to construct nuclear plants.
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Also, there was the recent discovery of natural gas in the Mediterranean, he noted. “I think we’ll go for the gas and skip the nuclear.
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It’s wonderful that Netanyahu is saying no to nuclear power. However, Israel could yet become “a light unto the nations” by implementing never-ending, carbon-free and completely safe energy: solar and wind energy – the vision of David Ben-Gurion. Israel is already at the cutting edge of solar energy.
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Some 80 percent of homes have solar panels that heat water. It is “the first” in the world with solar power, says Shoshana Dann, an associate at the Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. That’s where extraordinary work is going on near the graves of David and Paula Ben-Gurion and a few miles from their humble home at Kibbutz Sde Boker, where hangs a 1955 statement of Ben-Gurion: “In the Negev the creative ingenuity and pioneering vitality of Israel will be tested. Scientists must develop... applied solar energy [and] wind-power for producing energy.”
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Dr. David Faiman is director of the center where this dream is being realized. His main project is using sunlight to produce electricity. There’s a huge parabolic plate that focuses 1,000 times more sunlight on a photovoltaic panel than what usually powers a panel. This provides enormous efficiency in harvesting solar energy. Faiman’s rotating solar collector converts more than 70% of incoming solar energy into electricity, compared to industry norms of 10-25%. The center is collaborating with the Israeli company ZenithSolar in marketing solar collectors based on Faiman’s design. Faiman, who made aliya from the UK in 1973, says the way is now clear to manufacture solar energy systems that will compete with conventional technologies. His work in using concentrated sunlight more efficiently constitutes a great boost to solar photovoltaic power.
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Radioactive Tellurium-129m detected in seawater for first time - Short 34 day half-life... - 0 views
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TEPCO denies new leak at Fukushima plant, Asahi, July 1, 2011:
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Radioactive tellurium-129m was detected for the first time in seawater near the water intake of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant’s No. 1 reactor, Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator, said June 29. Seven hundred and twenty becquerels of the substance was detected per liter of water collected on June 4. [...] Tellurium-129m has a short half-life of about 34 days. Its detection near the intake indicates the possibility of a new leak of radioactive water into the sea. [...]
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India, Dark Days Ahead As Coal Supply Drops To All Time Low [25Jul11] - 0 views
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Severe restrictions in mining of coal has led the world’s largest coal supplier, state-run Coal India Limited to rework its coal extraction targets from 460 million tonnes per annum to 452 million tonnes. Rajghat and Dadri, thermal power stations that supply power to India’s Capital are among the 27 plants with critical coal stock. There are 101 such power plants in the country has. ‘Critical’ is a stage where a coal based thermal power plant is left with barely seven days of coal stocks to fire its electricity producing turbines. The standard coal stock for any power plants ranges from 21 to 30 days.
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“We have had similar situations in the past but this time around it is particularly grim as CIL has scaled down its coal production targets (to 452 million tons from 460 million tons which is seven per cent less than the original target) due to reasons varying from environmental clearances to the continuing debate over new mining areas to availability of railway wagons to transport coal,” a senior official in the ministry of power told TEHELKA.
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Of the 27 power stations, all of which fall in the category of ‘major’ power plants two are in the Northern region, eight each in the western and southern region and nine plants are in the southern region of the country. All these power plants generate about 500 MWs of electricity per day.
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SPECIAL REPORT-Fukushima long ranked Japan's most hazardous nuclear plant [26Jul11] - 0 views
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One of 5 worst nuclear plants in world for exposure to radiation * Tepco prioritised cost-savings over radiation standard * Tepco says old plants like Fukushima have high radiation * Foreign workers used to avoid exposing staff to high radiation * Improvements made at Fukushima before disaster hit
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Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world for radiation exposure years before it was destroyed by the meltdowns and explosions that followed the March 11 earthquake. For five years to 2008, the Fukushima plant was rated the most hazardous nuclear facility in Japan for worker exposure to radiation and one of the five worst nuclear plants in the world on that basis. The next rankings, compiled as a three-year average, are due this year. Reuters uncovered these rankings, privately tracked by Fukushima's operator Tokyo Electric Power, in a review of documents and presentations made at nuclear safety conferences over the past seven years. In the United States -- Japan's early model in nuclear power -- Fukushima's lagging safety record would have prompted more intensive inspections by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
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It would have also invited scrutiny from the U.S. Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, an independent nuclear safety organization established by the U.S. power industry after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, experts say. But that kind of stepped-up review never happened in Tokyo, where the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency remains an adjunct of the trade ministry charged with promoting nuclear power. As Japan debates its future energy policy after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, a Reuters review of the long-troubled record at Fukushima shows how hard it has been to keep the country's oldest reactors running in the best of times. It also shows how Japan's nuclear establishment sold nuclear power to the public as a relatively cheap energy source in part by putting cost-containment ahead of radiation safety over the past several decades. "After the Fukushima accident, we need to reconsider the cost of nuclear power," Tatsujiro Suzuki, vice chairman of Japan's Atomic Energy Commission, told Reuters. "It's not enough to meet safety standards. The industry needs to search for the best performance."
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#Radiation in Japan Spreads: Wheat, Rapeseeds in Fukushima, Rice Hay Outside Fukushima ... - 0 views
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Fukushima Prefecture announced on July 25 that radioactive cesium exceeding the provisional limit was detected from the wheat harvested at a farm in Hirono-machi [23 kilometers south of Fukushima I Nuke Plant] in Fukushima Prefecture. The prefectural government says the wheat hasn't been sold in the market. It is the first time that radioactive cesium exceeding the limit has been detected in wheat.
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According to the prefectural government, 630 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found in a sample taken on July 19. The prefectural government has asked the farm to withhold shipment on a voluntary basis. Fukushima Prefecture ranks No. 25th in wheat production in Japan, with 651 tonnes produced last year.
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Also, 720 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium has been detected in the rapeseeds harvested by a farm in Tamura City [41 kilometers west of Fukushima I Nuke Plant] in Fukushima. The rapeseeds haven't been shipped, and the prefectural government has asked the farm to withhold shipment on a voluntary basis.
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Don't overly count on the statement that these crops haven't yet been sold in the market. That's as far as the farmer has told the government, or as far as the government can tell, which may not be much.
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Also, for those who are wondering: When the government asks a farmer to withhold shipment "on a voluntary basis", it means that technically the farmer is free to ship but the government expects the farmer not to ship, and the farmer will not get compensated for not shipping because it is done on a "voluntary basis" - i.e. on his own judgment, technically. The government thus saves money. It is a code word used by the government that means "You are not supposed to ship, but we won't pay you for your potential loss."Also from Asahi (4:49AM JST 7/26/2011):
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Ibaraki Prefecture announced on July 25 that 64,000 becquerels/kg of cesium was detected from the rice hay collected at a farm in Takahagi City [83 kilometers south of Fukushima I Nuke Plant] in Ibaraki Prefecture. If reconstituted, the level of radioactive cesium in the hay would be 14,500 becquerels/kg, more than 48 times the national safety limit [for the feed] of 300 becquerels/kg. No cow has been shipped from this farm.
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So now in Ibaraki. The US government's decision to evacuate its citizens outside 80 kilometers radius from Fukushima I Nuke Plant, which has been criticized by some in the US media as "overreaction", has turned out to be the very prudent thing to do; maybe that wasn't even far enough, considering Takahagi City is outside that zone.
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#Radiation in Japan: Government to Survey Half of Japan for Soil Contamination [26Jul11] - 0 views
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The Ministry of Education and Science announced that it will conduct the aerial survey of 23 prefectures (out of total 47) to determine the level of soil contamination. For some reason, Hokkaido is excluded, but every prefecture from Aomori to Shiga, which is located about in the middle of the Honshu Island will be surveyed. It's all of Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu-Hokuriku.(In the map, Hokuriku is bundled with Chubu; Hokuriku includes prefectures facing the Japan Sea. For more details within the regions, go to the web-japan.org page.)If I were the official at the Ministry, I would test Hokkaido, too. I have seen too many radioactive plumes sweeping the island of Hokkaido in the simulation animations by several European meteorological institutions. (For the latest from the German Weather Bureau, go here. But even they will stop publishing the dispersion map on July 29... )
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GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Expands Supplier Network in Poland as Government Prepares to ... - 0 views
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With Poland evaluating two GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) reactor models for the country’s first nuclear power plant projects, GEH today announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Warsaw-based engineering firm Energoprojekt Warszawa, S.A. (EW) to discuss the feasibility of partnering on future reactor projects.
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The MOU with Energoprojekt Warszawa is the latest in a series of preliminary agreements that GEH has signed with Polish suppliers as the government prepares to develop Poland’s first two nuclear generating stations to diversify the country’s energy supplies. Under the new MOU, both companies will explore how EW could provide specific engineering services to GEH for the potential development of new nuclear power plants in Poland.
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“This initial action shows the future possibility of creating jobs and cooperation related not only to Polish suppliers of fixtures, construction and installation works, but to Polish planning and engineering during the plant’s construction process.”
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Polish utility Polska Grupa Energetyczna S.A. (PGE) is still considering several reactor designs for the projects and Poland’s government expects to begin construction of its first nuclear power plant in 2016 and has targeted 2020 as the commercial date of operation (COD) for the first plant. The Generation III+ Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) is GEH’s newest reactor design and offers the world’s most advanced passive safety systems. GEH’s Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) is the world’s only commercially proven Generation III reactor model.
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Other preliminary project development agreements signed by GEH include: March 2011 with the Institute of Atomic Energy in Poland (POLATOM), a research institute located in Świerk that advises the government on nuclear energy issues. January 2011 Stocznia Gdansk, a leading Polish shipyard, for the potential manufacturing of nuclear components for GEH. RAFAKO S.A., Europe’s leading boiler equipment manufacturer, for the potential manufacturing of nuclear components for GEH. Gdansk University of Technology, West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin University, and Koszalin University of Technology. May 2010 with global engineering services firm SNC-Lavalin Polska.
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GE currently has more than 10,000 employees in Poland.
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Helping Poland Develop Domestic Nuclear Workforce GEH is demonstrating its commitment to supporting Poland’s economy by helping the country create a sustainable, domestic pool of nuclear engineers by donating a number of valuable GateCycle ™ heat balance modeling software packages to several Polish universities. GEH’s customized GateCycle software is used to model nuclear steam cycles and is a powerful tool in teaching students advanced methods of plant modeling and troubleshooting to optimize plant performance. GEH also is hosting 14 engineering interns from Poland. The students recently began their summer internships at GEH’s U.S. headquarters in Wilmington, N.C. The 10-week assignment will expose them to many facets of the nuclear industry including engineering, finance, regulatory affairs and information management.
