Nuclear Energy

News Flash: Fukushima Is Still A Disaster

June 5, 2014 Harvey Wasserman, www.truthdig.com Educate! Fukushima, Japan, Nuclear Energy, Radiation

The corporate media silence on Fukushima has been deafening even though the melted-down nuclear power plant’s seaborne radiation is now washing up on American beaches. Ever more radioactive water continues to pour into the Pacific. At least three extremely volatile fuel assemblies are stuck high in the air at Unit 4. Three years after the March 11, 2011, disaster, nobody knows exactly where the melted cores from Units 1, 2 and 3 might be. Amid a dicey cleanup infiltrated by organized crime, still more massive radiation releases are a real possibility at any time. Radioactive groundwater washing through the complex is enough of a problem that Fukushima Daiichi owner Tepco has just won approval for a highly controversial ice wall to be constructed around the crippled reactor site. No wall of this scale and type has ever been built, and this one might not be ready for two years. Widespread skepticism has erupted surrounding its potential impact on the stability of the site and on the huge amounts of energy necessary to sustain it. Critics also doubt it would effectively guard the site from flooding and worry it could cause even more damage should power fail.

Medea Benjamin Arrested With Shut It Downers

May 11, 2014 Marcia Gagliardi, www.popularresistance.org Resist! CODE PINK, Nuclear Energy

In pouring rain, Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin joined the Shut It Down Affinity Group Friday to block the gate at Entergy Corporation’s Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant here before police arrested twelve women for unlawful trespass. No court date has been set. Code Pink is a women’s peace and justice organization dedicated to ending war and injustice aound the world. With others, Benjamin founded Code Pink. Before blocking the Vermont Yankee gate, the women stood with balloons and banners across from nearby Vernon Elementary School to urge love for mother earth as Mother’s Day approached. Vernon police officer Albrey Crowley single-handedly transported the arrestees by threes and fours to the nearby Vernon Police Station. Vernon townspeople voted Monday to terminate its police department as of July 1. “We are nonviolent and come with the expressed purpose of shutting down Vermont Yankee,” said Hattie Nestel, 75, of Athol, Massachusetts, one of the women arrested Friday. “What if we were intent on using weapons to invade Vermont Yankee in order to obtain nuclear material or, worse, create an explosion that would devastate an area for a radius of fifty or a hundred or more miles?

Top Manager At Fukushima: Radioactive Water Out Of Control

April 22, 2014 Yuka Obayashi, www.japantimes.co.jp Educate! Nuclear Energy, pollution, Radiation

The manager of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has admitted to embarrassment that repeated efforts have failed to bring under control the problem of radioactive water, eight months after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the world the matter had been resolved. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant’s operator, has been fighting a daily battle against contaminated water since Fukushima No. 1 was wrecked by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Abe’s government pledged half a billion dollars last year to tackle the issue, but progress has been limited. “It’s embarrassing to admit, but there are certain parts of the site where we don’t have full control,” Akira Ono told reporters touring the plant last week. He was referring to the latest blunder at the plant: channeling contaminated water into the wrong building. Ono also acknowledged that many difficulties may have been rooted in Tepco’s focus on speed since the 2011 disaster.

Earth Day Launch Of Campaign To Clean Up Toxic Mines

April 21, 2014 Clean Up the Mines, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Environment, health, Nuclear Energy, Uranium

More than 10,000 abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) are located throughout the U.S. primarily in the Western States, and more than 10 million people live within a 50 mile radius of an abandoned uranium mine. “These hazardous abandoned uranium mines poison the air, land and water. The health effects are tremendous,” said Charmaine White Face, a volunteer with Clean Up The Mines and Coordinator of Defenders of the Black Hills. “Currently no laws require clean up of these dangerous abandoned Uranium mines. We are letting Congress know: It is time to clean up the mines!” Ms. White Face concluded. South Dakota has at least 272 abandoned, open-pit Uranium mines: 169 AUMs in the Southwestern Black Hills near Edgemont, and 103 AUMS in the Northwest corner near Buffalo. The Northern Great Plains Region of Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota contains more than 2,000 plus AUMs.

Fracking Near Nuclear Waste Threatens Water Contamination

April 1, 2014 Amy MacPherson, www.freethepresscanada.org Educate! Environment, Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Nuclear Energy

Ontario residents have been kept in the dark, but Canada’s most populous province is about to become an unlikely and international battleground. After all, how many times does the Great White North threaten the drinking water of more than 40 million people, including their neighbours in America? Legislators from south of the border have already taken issue with plans for a deep geologic repository. Less than a mile from the shores of Lake Huron, Bruce Power intends to store 200,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste within the natural rock formation. Senators and congressmen shared their dissent with the Canadian government, but the fed responded by sending police to the homes of eco protesters, in what some would call an act of intimidation.

12 Protesters Found Guilty Of Trespassing At Pilgrim Nuclear

March 23, 2014 Margaret Rice Moir, capedownwinders.org Resist! Nuclear Energy

Three years after Fukushima, and approximately one year after their acts of civil resistance, 12 citizens committed to a safer, less-nuclear future for S.E. Massachusetts, are mounting a vigorous necessity defense against charges of trespass at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. Those daring to challenge the threat known as PNPS are: Bill Maurer, Diane Turco, Doug Long, Femke Rosenbaum, Janet Azarovitz, Joyce Johnson, Margaret Rice Moir, Mike Risch, Paul Rifkin, Sarah Thacher, and Susan Carpenter. Account of Pilgrim 14 Trial by defendant Margaret Rice Moir

Stop ‘Slow Genocide’: Time To Clean Up The Mines

March 21, 2014 Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org Resist! Environment, Nuclear Energy, Uranium

We have been challenged with resource colonization in this area for many years. It’s really the battle—the geopolitics here are rooted in racism. They’re rooted in the corporate greed that we continue to face this day. More than 20,000 Diné, or Navajo, people have been forcibly relocated from our homelands because of Peabody Coal’s activities on Black Mesa, and we have an estimated more than 1,000 abandoned uranium mines on our lands. In 2005, the Diné, or Navajo, Nation decided to ban all uranium-mining activities on our lands. But today, we have tribal council representatives who are really just selling our future away and trying to lift this ban. And so we, at this point, are in a situation where there have been no meaningful health studies on the impacts of uranium mining in our community.

Greenpeace Protests France’s Oldest Nuclear Power Plant

March 20, 2014 Staff www.ctvnews.ca Educate! Energy, Environment, Nuclear Energy

Two police helicopters and some 200 officers were dispatched to the site, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said on BFM television. By afternoon, all the activists had been taken down and brought to police stations for questioning, said Cyrille Cormier of Greenpeace France. Nuclear safety agency ASN said the intrusion "has not had any impact on the safety of the facility." Utility Electricite de France, which operates the plant, says the activists were unable to get inside any of the buildings at the plant. After police took down the banner from the nuclear reactor, another group of activists unfurled a banner on speedboats on the nearby Rhine. "We want to show that even if you take one banner down, the problem isn't going away," Cormier said.

Study Confirms Nuclear Reactors Are Toxic to Surrounding Communities

March 13, 2014 Candace Bernd, www.truth-out.org Educate! Environment, Nuclear Energy

Is the baby tooth under your child's pillow radioactive? It could be if you live relatively close to a nuclear power plant that has been operating normally and in accordance with federal regulations, according to a new study. A study released tlast week shows that public health in the communities surrounding California's Diablo Canyon power plant in San Luis Obispo County declined dramatically after the plant was built. The findings also document the presence of Strontium-90 in baby teeth.

Video: Fukushima Three Years Later – Who is Responsible?

March 12, 2014 The Real News, www.therealnews.com Educate! Fukushima, Nuclear Energy, Video

March 11 marks the three-year anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. It's considered the worst nuclear accident on record since the 1986 meltdown at Chernobyl. Many questions remain unanswered, not the least of which is: did the Japanese government participate in a coverup on the true nature of the accident; and the power plant's operator, TEPCO, whether or not their ability to repair the damage was done effectively. Nuclear power engineer Arnie Gunderson and journalist Chiho Kaneko discuss a lawsuit to hold General Electric and other reactor manufacturing companies responsible and the Japanese public's attitude toward nuclear energy.

Leaked Emails Expose NRC’s Cover-Up of Safety Concerns Days After Fukushima Disaster

March 10, 2014 Brandon Baker, ecowatch.com Educate! Energy, Environment, Fukushima, Nuclear Energy

When an earthquake and tsunami struck Fukushima, Japan leading to a nuclear disaster three years ago, U.S. residents wondered if the aging nuclear facilities in their own country were at risk. What they didn’t know is that the federal government’s nuclear arm worked actively in the days after the incident, trying to cover up the perils that existed in the states. According to a report from NBC, a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) campaign to reassure people about nuclear safety standards coincided with agency experts consistently presenting similar questions behind the scenes. Through a Freedom of Information Act request,NBC acquired a string of March 2011 emails that clearly show the cover-up. “While we know more than these say, we’re sticking to this story for now,” Scott Burnell, an NRC public and media relations manager wrote in one email.

Does US Have Plan To Deal With Nuclear Mishaps?

March 1, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Educate! Environment, Nuclear Energy

A radioactive leak from a New Mexico underground nuclear dump that was championed as a safe long-term repository calls into question the federal government's overall approach to disposing of dangerous waste from nuclear weapons production, experts warn. "This leak just proved that out of sight is not out of mind," said Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer and nuclear safety advocate at Fairewinds Associates and former nuclear industry executive turned whistleblower, in an interview with Common Dreams. "You can have a problem when you get this stuff underground, and then what do you do?" The federally-owned Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico, which stores nuclear waste deep beneath the earth's surface in salt formations, is the only underground repository for materials above the lowest level of radiation.

Flood Threat To Nuclear Plants Covered Up By Regulators

February 17, 2014 Tom Zeller Jr. www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Nuclear Energy

"The probability of Jocassee Dam catastrophically failing is hundreds of times greater than a 51 foot wall of water hitting Fukushima Daiichi," the engineer said. "And, like the tsunami in Japan, the man‐made 'tsunami' resulting from the failure of the Jocassee Dam will –- with absolute certainty –- result in the failure of three reactor plants along with their containment structures. "Although it is not a given that Jocassee Dam will fail in the next 20 years," the engineer added, "it is a given that if it does fail, the three reactor plants will melt down and release their radionuclides into the environment."

U.S. Sailors Sick From Fukushima File Lawsuit

February 11, 2014 Harvey Wasserman, ecowatch.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Nuclear Energy

Citing a wide range of ailments from leukemia to blindness to birth defects, 79 American veterans of 2011’s earthquake/tsunami relief Operation Tomadachi (“Friendship”) have filed a new $1 billion class action lawsuit against Tokyo Electric Power. The suit includes an infant born with a genetic condition to a sailor who served on the USS Ronald Reagan as radiation poured over it during the Fukushima melt-downs, and an American teenager living near the stricken site. It has also been left open for “up to 70,000 U.S. citizens [who were] potentially affected by the radiation and will be able to join the class action suit.”

Solar Provides More Jobs Than Oil and Coal

February 7, 2014 Christina Sarich, www.nationofchange.org Educate! Energy, Environment, Nuclear Energy, Oil and Gas, Solar, Worker Rights and Jobs

Solar employs and nuclear destroys; we have ample evidence of that now, and with the annual U.S. solar jobs census we now have proof that solar power isn’t just providing energy, without destroying our oceans and contaminating the earth and air with strontium, caesium and barium, among other chemicals, it is providing more than 143,000 Americans a paycheck. Since 2012, that’s nearly a 20 percent increase, says The Solar Foundation, which conducts the census. An additional 23,682 jobs have been added – 10 times the rate of employment growth as the national average of just 1.9 percent. In the past four years, 50,000 well paying jobs were added – many of them building and installing solar panels, and this employment rate is expected to continue growing at a steady pace. Solar installers also make an average of $20 – to $23.60 an hour – compared to the wages of a coal miner, that isn’t bad especially considering the payout to workers with black lung disease amount to billions, and the detrimental affects to a worker’s health are almost irreversible.

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