Disaster in the Pacific

I have been blogging about the environmental disaster in the Pacific Ocean, and here is another link to the disaster, (h/t to brother Tim).

Nuclear power link to breast cancer

This is a detailed study showing the relationship between breast cancer and proximal living to nuclear reactors;The risk is doubled.

nuclear-news

there was twice the chance of dying of breast cancer if you lived next to the Blackwater than if you lived next to the Crouch.

Breast cancer and nuclear power – statistics reveal the link ‘they’ wanted to hide, Ecologist  Chris Busby 18th May 2015  The link between nuclear power and cancer is real, writes Chris Busby, and revealed in the UK’s cancer statistics – if only you look for it. Previous approaches have focused on rare cancers over large, poorly selected populations. But look at common cancers among those most exposed to nuclear radiation, and the statistical evidence is overwhelming.

Do nuclear sites cause increases in cancer in those living nearby? This is the question which has always been the key to stopping the development of nuclear energy.

For if the answer is Yes, the laws would cut in; human rights would cut in. Check Mate. The nuclear industry…

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IAEA and UN erred by ignoring Eastern European reports on the effects of Chernobyl nuclear disaster

There is a fire raging in the Ukraine near Chernobyl. There’s a link to it an article by the New York Academy of sciences stating that translations of the East European literature state there are 1 million deaths related to the disaster at Chernobyl.

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Chernobyl All Over Again  http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2015/05/01/title-172 May 1st, 2015   by Stephen Lendman  Forest fires rage in Ukraine dangerously close to Chernobyl. Ukrainian interior minister Arsen Avakov said conditions “worsened.” “The forest fire is heading in the direction of Chernobyl’s installations,” he said. Treetop flames and strong gusts of wind have created a real danger of the fire spreading to an area within 20 kilometers of the power plant.”

“There are about (1,000 acres) of forests in the endangered area,” he claimed. “National Guard and interior ministry forces have been put on combat alert.”

The April 26, 1986 Chernobyl incident was the worst nuclear power plant disaster up to that time – exceeded only by Japan’s Fukushima (March 11, 2011).

Nuclear expert Helen Caldicott called it “by orders of magnitude many times worse than Chernobyl.”

The effects of both catastrophes are still being felt. A 2009 New York Academy of…

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The NRC and God

I recently attended the NRC meeting in Brattleboro, VT.  I sat and listened.  I did not speak but this is what I would like to say.

I would like to start with a quote from Nietzsche.  God is Dead. Nietzsche warned that some people might make science and technology the new God.  It seems to me that you people, the NRC and the Entergy, do worship technology.  You seem to have  the same glazed faith that people used to have  about religion.   I hear all these power point presentations about the policies and procedures. There is this irrational faith that if one monitors all the sins of commission and omission everything will work out alright.

I am reminded of NFL.   There are all these rules and regulations that are supposed to make the game safe, and there are penalties for breaking the rules, and it is regulated, and everything is alright.   Deals are made.  Tax breaks are made for the teams    But it isn’t alright.   The players are destroyed with traumatic brain injury, and the culture of violence has an impact on them and their families.  The revenues promised never materialize.  But wait, We are all having a good time.    Let us not look at the mess that is being made.  After all, it is just a game,  You don’t have to watch.

And so, the NRC dance goes on, and experts fuss over policies and procedures.   And everyone says its ok.   But even after  the Marshall Islands, Mayak, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima we are being told that everything is alright.  The nuclear industry is not a game, and the stakes for getting it wrong are catastrophic.

There seems to be this stunning arrogance, that everything is under control.   Is there no understanding of hubris?

Where is your moral compass?   Cannot you tell right from wrong?   What will it take for you to decide that nuclear power is not the answer?   What are you willing to accept before you change your mind?

More Radiation found in well at Vernon

There was a recent report  by Susan Smallheer in the Rutland Hearld that Strontium 90 was found in one of the wells at Vernon.   The experts say that the levels are “safe.”   I have two specific concerns.

The first is that the EPA has recently changed the standards of what is safe.   Much higher levels are now regarded as being “safe.”

The second concern is that they only measured the radioactivity of the strontium; the article does mention that other possible radioactive elements were found, such as cesium and cobalt.   Thus, listing a single element can vastly under report the total amount of radioactivity present.

Vermont Yankee’s problems have not been solved.

There was a recent letter to the editor by Nancy Braus outlining the potential problems with waste storage at Vermont Yankee.  She points out that for the dry cast storage that:

The NRC requires examining of 1 cask per site out of dozens, only once every 25 years!

The initial idea was that this waste was to be taken elsewhere.   But where is elsewhere but someone else’s back yard?   Now it is to be stored locally, on a flood plain.   Since this storage has never been done before, how can the scientists be so confidant that no problems can arise?  Have they never heard of Murphy’s Law, that states that, if something can go wrong, it will?

WIPP: Wrong Cat Litter Used

There was a recent post about the explosion at the WIPP faculties.  They were to be the repository of toxic material from Los Alamos, but it caught fire and was forced to shut down.    The post  stated that:

More than three months after the leak, LANL chemist Steve Clemmons compared the ingredients of the drum, labeled Waste Drum 68660, to a database of federal patents and found that together, the drum’s contents match the makeup of patented plastic, water-gel and slurry explosives, according to a memo.  “All of the required components included in the patent claims would be present,” Clemmons wrote in the May 21 memo.

The article goes on to say that the substitution of organic wheat-based cat litter for clay-based cat litter may have been due to a typographical error!

US supported Japan’s Secret Nuclear Weapons Programs

I recently found a  post by Joseph Trento about the collaboration between the highest levels of government of Japan and the United States to allow Japan to develop nuclear weapons through the dual program of Atoms for Peace.  The post says:

The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports. – See more at: http://www.dcbureau.org/201204097128/national-security-news-service/united-states-circumvented-laws-to-help-japan-accumulate-tons-of-plutonium.html#sthash.2eKA5AWt.dpuf

The article go into great detail outlining the lengthy history of collaboration. It started with President Eisenhower, and his Atoms for Peace.    President Carter, a former nuclear submarine officer, tried to put a stop to the program, but he was reversed by President Reagan, who wholeheartedly supported these programs.

The article goes on to say:

The Agreement between the Energy Department and Japan’s monolithic nuclear energy utility, the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC), violated a laundry-list of anti-nuclear prohibitions. It provided no Japanese guarantee that nuclear material would not be transferred to other countries without American consent, nor any assurance that Japan would not reprocess American reactor fuel into plutonium without prior U.S. approval. In short, the United States abdicated all control of U.S.- origin nuclear material in Japan for the next 30 years.

The deal also violated Carter’s Atomic Energy Act, a U.S. law which mandates that the reprocessing or retransfer of American nuclear material must not increase the risk of proliferation. In particular, the agreement did not ensure timely warning to the United States of any diversion for weapons purposes. In fact, Japan has lost track of more than 70 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium at its accident plagued Tokai reprocessing plant – enough to make more than 20 nuclear weapons. In a single agreement, the United States ceded control of nuclear material and gave up whatever safety margin it had to prevent a rapid nuclear deployment. At the time of the transfer, officials in both Washington and Tokyo knew that the only thing the breeder program would produce reliably was plutonium and that it would churn it out in enormous quantities, and in a form twice as pure as the plutonium used in American nuclear weapons.

The desire to do the corporate deal has overwhelmed the sense the nuclear gene might be dangerous.  The article also makes it abundantly clear that nuclear power and nuclear weapons are inseparable.

Toxins killing sea lions on West Coast.

There was a recent post about sea lions having the seizures and dying along the California coast.   They are accumulating a neurotoxin, domoic acid, being at the top of the food train.  The post went on to say:

First discovered in 1987 when 107 people on Prince Edward Island fell ill after eating mussels harboring domoic acid, the algae occasionally produce this deadly toxin, which scientists believe is triggered by changing ocean conditions and surges of nitrogen into bodies of water.

Once produced by the algae, domoic acid quickly works its way up the food chain, first gobbled up by shellfish and plankton-eating fish, like sardines and anchovies, that harbor the toxin in their guts. Next in line are sea lions, brown pelicans, otters, whales and dolphins, all of which have been stranding in large numbers recently, or, in the case of pelicans, literally dropping dead out of the sky.

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USS Ronald Reagan Irridiated

Harvey Wasserman reported on the similarities between the Lucky Dragon and the USS Ronald Reagan recently in a blog.  The Lucky Dragon was a Japanese fishing boat that was down wind from a nuclear bomb test.  For a long time the US denied any relationship with The LuckyDragon and they are denying any relationship with USS Ronald Reagan.