Jim Green’s comprehensive analysis of the World Health Organisation’s report on Fukushima’s radiation health effects
What to make of the WHO report on health risks from the Fukushima disaster? Summary and comments
from Jim Green jim.green@foe.org.au 2 March 2013,
World Health Organization, February 2013, ‘Health risk assessment from the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami based on a preliminary dose estimation’
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pub_meet/fukushima_report/en/index.html
And a related report released at the same time:
‘Preliminary dose estimation from the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami’
In a nutshell
The report is important because of WHO’s stature, and because it acknowledges the likelihood of increased cancer incidence and mortality from radiation exposure from the Fukushima disaster (whereas many nuclear apologists claim otherwise).
What the WHO report does
1. It pulls together lots of information on radiation exposures from the Fukushima disaster. Continue reading
Solar air conditioning is the answer for Australians affected by extreme hot weather
Grandparents Carking It In The Heat? Install Renewable Energy!, Clean Technica March 1, 2013 Ronald BrakelsWorld temperatures are rising, resulting in increasing mortality from heat stress. Or to put it another way, more people are dropping dead because it’s too damn hot. Unfortunately this is nothing new in Australia. Dropping dead from damn hotness has always been popular in these parts. Here in South Australia about 75 people currently die from it each year.
Other people building wind turbines or installing solar on their roofs can push down electricity prices for everyone and help prevent old people from dying when it’s too damn hot, but an excellent way to keep down electricity prices for the elderly is to put solar panels on the roofs of any old people whom you’d like to see continue to shuffle around on this mortal coil.
Rooftop solar is especially good for powering air conditioners as it produces the most electricity on hot, cloudless, summer days. It is particularly good for air conditioning when it faces west, or partially west, as then it can produce plenty of power all through the afternoon. It will produce less electricity when it’s cloudy, but it’s not so hot when it’s cloudy, so that’s not a real problem. And sure, it can still be hot after the sun goes down, but that’s not such a big deal if the house is already cool. No one is likely to die from it being too damn hot if they turn off their air conditioner at sunset.
For most Australians the feed-in tariff for new solar is now about 8 cents a kilowatt-hour. This means it will cost a person with a couple of kilowatts or more of rooftop solar perhaps 18 cents an hour to run a room air conditioner in a heat wave. Considering that ice-cream cones can cost $7.50 here, that’s a pretty good deal and only the most price sensitive of Australians would be too cheap to turn on the air conditioner at that cost.
Marcia Langton’s pro mining lectures raise questions about corporate funding of university lecturers
Langton failed to disclose mining company funding The Age, Gina McColl 2 March 13, LEADING environmentalists have criticised the ABC and Professor Marcia Langton after revelations her recent ABC Boyer Lectures, in which she praised the mining industry’s role in the emergence of an Aboriginal middle class and delivered a broadside against the green movement, drew on research partially funded by big mining companies.
Santos contributed $45,000, Woodside $30,000, and the federal government’s Indigenous Affairs Department $300,000 to a four-year research project led by Professor Langton into economic empowerment in indigenous communities.
Rio Tinto contributed an undisclosed sum to the $480,000 project, while Marnda Mia, a company that represents local indigenous communities in deals with Rio, offered non-cash support.
Scientist and former Australian of the year Tim Flannery, whom Professor Langton accused in one lecture of racism, said the lectures ”take on a different light” since the big resource companies’ contribution was highlighted by website Crikey. Professor Flannery said the views expressed were consistent with those of the mining industry in their criticism of environmentalists and advocacy of indigenous development and mining expansion going hand in hand.
”This goes to the heart of the credibility of the Boyer Lecture series,” he said. ”There should be requirements for disclosure of this sort of thing and they should be abided by.”
While detailed on the University of Melbourne website, where Professor Langton is foundation chair of Australian indigenous studies, the industry funding was not disclosed to listeners when the lectures were delivered in the ABC’s Brisbane studios late last year, broadcast on Radio National or extracted in Fairfax Media……. an academic with experience researching the Western Australian mining regions said the commercialisation of research did raise questions about independence.
Dr Sarah Holcombe, at the Australian National University, said access to staff and mine sites are controlled by the companies, and that accommodation outside of their mining camps is often non-existent.
World Health Organisation’s Fukushima report brings radiation-cancer link to world headlines
Fukushima cancer headlines appear all over mainstream media http://enenews.com/fukushima-cancer-headlines-all-over-mainstream-media
February 28th, 2013
AAP: Fukushima cancer risk near plant: WHO
AFP: Fukushima raised cancer risk near plant: WHO
AP: WHO: Small cancer risk after Fukushima accident
BBC: Fukushima disaster ‘increased cancer risk’
Bloomberg: Fukushima Radiation Increases Cancer Risk for Girls: WHO
GlobalPost: URGENT ¥¥¥ Fukushima raised cancer risk near plant: WHO
Reuters: Higher cancer risk after Fukushima nuclear disaster: WHO
See also: WHO beholden to nuclear interests — “Like having Dracula guard the blood bank” (VIDEOS
Ontario to shut all coal-fired plants by 2015, switching to renewable energy
Ontario to add renewable energy, shut coal-fired power plants Mar 1,
2013 (Reuters) – Ontario’s power grid operator expects more than
3,200 megawatts (MW) of renewable capacity to be connected to the
transmission system, while the province’s remaining coal-fired plants
will shut over the next 18 months. Continue reading
Global fossil fuel subsidies over $620 billion, – renewable subsidies $88 billion
Fossil Fuel Subsidies Eclipsed $620 Billion in 2011, by Energy Matters, 2 March 13, Globally, governments provided more than USD$620 billion to subsidize fossil fuel energy in 2011 and just $88 billion went to subsidies for renewable energy. According to the Earth Policy Institute (EPI), $131 billion in subsidies went to coal, gas and oil consumed specifically for electricity generation.
“Through these subsidies, governments cut the prices people paid for fossil energy by nearly a quarter – encouraging waste and hindering efforts to stabilize climate.”……
EPI sourced its data from the International Energy Agency’s Fossil Fuel Subsidy Database.
While subsidisation of renewable energy is often criticised, it’s often forgotten the fossil fuel industry has been riding the subsidy gravy train for decades – and its not as though it needs the degree of support it enjoys. The EPI points out Royal Dutch Shell , ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and ConocoPhillip collectively raked in $137 billion in profits in 2012.
The International Energy Agency estimates state phasing out all fossil fuel consumption subsidies by 2020 would slash carbon dioxide emissions in that year by close to 2 gigatons.
The Earth Policy Institute (EPI) was founded in 2001 by Lester Brown, the founder and former president of the Worldwatch Institute, to provide a plan of a sustainable future along with a roadmap of how to get from here to there. http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3618
Rio Tinto’s Rossing uranium mine cutting back, slashing jobs
Namibia’s Roessing uranium mine to slash jobs Global Post, 1 Mar 13, The Roessing uranium mine in Namibia, a unit of British mining giant Rio Tinto, said Friday it plans to cut 17 percent of its workforce due to slowing demand for nuclear fuel…. As with many other uranium producers, Roessing is buckling under low metal prices and reduced demand, the company’s managing director Chris Salisbury told reporters.
“Since the Japanese tsunami in 2011, uranium demand has remained depressed and the uranium price has fallen by more than 36 percent,” he said.
Japan shut down its nuclear power plants after the tsunami destroyed the Fukushima nuclear plant, and a number of other countries including Germany have also signalled they plan to reduce or phase out their facilities.
“With the utility sector in Japan essentially shutdown, there is little prospect of a turnaround in the near term,” he added.
At the same time electricity and water costs have gone up…. Roessing Uranium Limited is owned 68.6 percent by British mining giant Rio Tinto and is one of two operating uranium mines in Namibia. .http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130301/namibia-s-roessing-uranium-mine-slash-jobs
United Nation’s prediction – illness in 3 million children as result of Chernobyl nuclear radiation
3 million children require treatment because of Chernobyl, many will die prematurely -U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2000 http://enenews.com/3-million-children-require-treatment-because-chernobyl-many-will-die-prematurely-secretary-general-kofi-annan-2000
February 28th, 2013
AP, April 26, 2000:
The United Nations released a new assessment of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown Tuesday, saying the worst health consequences for millions or people may be yet to come. […]
“Chernobyl is a word we would all like to erase from our memory,” said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a foreword.
But, Annan added, “more than 7 million of our fellow human beings do not have die luxury of forgetting. They are still suffering, everyday, as a result of what happened.” He said the exact number of victims may never be known, but that 3 million children require treatment and “many will die prematurely.”
“Not until 2016, at the earliest, will be known the full number of those likely to develop serious medical conditions” because of delayed reactions to radiation exposure, he said.
Nearly 13 years later: “Shameless”: U.N. agency’s report shockingly downplays health risks after Fukushima — “WHO and other organisations must stop hiding the impact”
Small nuclear reactors another wasteful tax-payer funded boondoggle
Mini Nuclear Reactors Earn Golden Fleece Award For Government Waste Clean Technica, February 28, 2013 Jeremy Bloom Are mini nuclear reactors the future of high-end energy development — or a wasteful government boondoggle?
While it may or may not be great that profitable companies like Babcock & Wilcox and Toshiba are researching these mini or even micro reactors (don’t worry, they won’t fit in a suitcase, or even in your basement), the group Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) has dinged the program as its recipient of the 2013 Golden Fleece Award, for sucking down potentially half a billion dollars in taxpayer money.
“The nation is two days away from the across-the-board budget cuts known as 
sequestration,” notes Ryan Alexander, president of TCS. “But at the same time we are hearing the Department of Energy and the nuclear industry evangelizing about the benefits of small modular reactors. In reality, we cannot afford to pile more market-distorting subsidies to profitable companies on top of the billions of dollars we already gave away.”
Indeed, at a time when that much money could pay for some substantial progress in growing fields like biofuels or solar power, you have to wonder why companies like Babcock & Wilcox need any help from the government at all……the TCS says the possible drawbacks are legion:
- The energy they generate just won’t be cost-effective.
- And that’s at current estimates — nuclear companies are notorious for over — estimating benefits and under-estimating costs.
- Before anything can be built, it’ll take years for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evaluate these new designs.
- Each of these new reactors would be a potential terrorist target, multiplying the security nightmare.
- And we still have no way of dealing with nuclear waste.
“The nuclear industry has a tradition of rushing forth to proclaim that a new technology, just around the corner, will take care of whatever problem exists,” says Autumn Hanna, senior program director for TCS. “Unfortunately, these technologies have an equally long tradition of expensive failure. If the industry believes in small modular reactors and a reactor in every backyard – great – but don’t expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab.”
Secretive giant firm Glencore traded with Iranian nuclear firm
Glencore traded with Iranian nuclear firm, The Independent NIKHIL
KUMAR , NEW YORK 01 MARCH 2013 Glencore, the London-listed Swiss
commodities giant, supplied thousands of tonnes of alumina to an
Iranian company with links to the country’s controversial nuclear
programme.
Glencore supplied the raw material to the Iranian Aluminium Company
(IAC), which was hit by European Union sanctions in December for
allegedly supplying aluminium metal to Iran Centrifuge Technology Co.
(ICTC), a subsidiary of the body responsible for Iran’s nuclear
programme.
The deal was part of a barter arrangement – where goods are swapped
for other goods ….
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/glencore-traded-with-iranian-nuclear-firm-8517404.html
Nuclear and climate news for the past week – Australia
Uranium – still being hyped up by the industry, and a few politicians – and yet – even the Australian Uranium Association is now admitting that the prospects for the industry in Queensland, in particular, are not good. By their own reckoning Queensland’s uranium would fetch less than $4 billion at the current rate for Australian uranium sales. The $4 billion figure is of little relevance since the uranium price is too low for any mines to be viable in Queensland.
Maralinga The scandal of Australian 80,000 troops used as radiation guinea pigs for British nuclear tests in the 1950’s and 60’s just won’t go away, as we await the hearing of their case, by the Human Rights Commission
Climate change and Australia’s 2013 election. As usual, the media focusses on personalities. However, there are ructions around issues of renewable energy and climate change. The fossil fuel lobby, and by consequence, the Liberal Coalition are getting very annoyed about Australians’ new bad habit of using less electricity. Worse, Australians’ new bad habit of switching to home solar power. As well, there are those annoyingly cheap wind power sources.
So – the battle is on – to get rid of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, and the Clean Energy Act, the carbon price and so on. Greg Hunt, Opposition spokesman on Climate Change, is pushing the Coalition’s “Direct Action” policy. Christine Milne has effectively exposed this policy – a sham that could never succeed. Which, no doubt, is the aim of it, in line with the wishes of the Coalition’s fossil fuel industry backers.
I am happy to be going to the New York Symposium on The Medical and Ecological Impacts of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident To Be Held at the New York Academy of Medicine nuclearfreeplanet.org . Still hoping that some other Australians will join me – to hear this most impressive array of international scientists and doctors .
Australia’s shame – the wrong done to Maralinga’s soldiers and Aboriginal communities
That 8000 of our men could be placed so close to ground zero seems impossible to believe. That we as a nation have refused to compensate these men is bad enough; that we won’t even grant them full access to health benefits is just plain staggering.
You will not be surprised to learn that cancer rates are 23 per cent higher in these men than in the rest of the population. Their children have higher rates of cancer as well. Deformities, miscarriages and the like are too easy to find among their families.
These men were put in harm’s way by the Australian government
We must right the wrong of Maralinga BY:GRAHAM RICHARDSON The Australian March 01, 2013 THERE was never much chance that Bob Menzies would knock back a request from the government of Britain. The future Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was an Anglophile of the highest order.
In the early 1950s, when the old country requested that a stretch of Australia should be set aside to allow the Brits to explode nuclear bombs, Menzies was only too eager to please. A few bombs were tested on Montebello Island off Western Australia, but the area was pretty small and when more territory was sought, Maralinga was chosen.
It must have been an easy choice at the time. A long way from anywhere, no population to speak of apart from a few Aborigines who could easily be moved on, inhospitable desert unfit for living creatures apart from lizards, snakes and witchetty grubs – no doubt his view was that this would be uncontroversial, and he was right.
As Australia recovered from the aftermath of World War II there were bigger things to worry about than Maralinga. In fact, Menzies thought so little of all this that he acceded to the request without even putting it to his cabinet. Continue reading
Fall in the value of Queensland’s uranium resources – a non viable industry
Five sizing up uranium
John McCarthy
Courier Mail 1/3/13
QUEENSLAND’S uranium resource has been estimated at 40,000 tonnes, with five companies expected to vie to be the first to develop it.
AREVA Resources Australia, Paladin Energy and its associate Summit Resources, Laramide Resources and Mega Uranium are in the mix, according to the Australian Uranium Association.
But the resource estimate has led to environmentalists claiming the industry is nowhere near as viable as the Government and the industry had previously claimed.
The Australian Conservation Foundation said that estimate would be worth only $3.36 billion on current spot prices, 75 per cent lower than the industry’s previous estimate of $18 billion.
‘‘In the case of Queensland, claims made about in-situ resources need to factor in the technically difficult – and therefore uncertain and potentially expensive – nature of a number of these deposits,’’ the ACF’s Dave Sweeney said.
‘‘Obviously there is a vast chasm between the two figures of $18 billion figure and $3.36 billion – the October 2012 figure is 5.4 times higher than the February 2013 figure.
‘‘Put another way, the value of Queensland’s uranium resource has fallen by $14.64 billion in the short space of four months.
‘‘If this pattern continues, the value of Queensland’s uranium resource will fall to zero in March 2013.’’
However, only about 10 per cent of the uranium market is on the spot price with the rest negotiated in long-term contracts that differ widely from the current market price.
The ACF is pushing the debate towards a comparison of the industry’s viability against its potential impact and have made a submission to the State Government’s implementation committee headed by Paul Bell which will report in March…
Christine Milne explodes Greg Hunt’s Liberal Coalition sham climate change action plan
Treasury has said that: “Direct Action measures alone cannot do the job without imposing significant economic and budget costs…Moreover, many of the direct action measures cannot be scaled up to achieve significant levels of abatement, and for those that can be scaled up, the cost per tonne of abatement would rise rapidly.
The Coalition cannot hide from the fact that Direct Action is a slogan, not a policy. It’s time that they were called out on it.”
Why Greg Hunt’s Direct Action policy is a sham http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/why-greg-hunts-direct-action-policy-is-a-sham-77552 By Christine Milne on 28 February 2013
“Let’s consider Mr Hunt’s Direct Action Plan. It’s a sham.
“This week the Coalition has been all over the shop. From “we will compensate businesses” from Joe Hockey and “we will not compensate businesses” from Tony Abbott and “we will impose penalties” from Abbott and “we don’t expect to” from Mr Hunt.
The world is on a trajectory of 4 degrees of warming. The fact that Direct Action cannot be scaled up, is only intended to reduce emissions by 5% and cannot effectively achieve more is its overwhelming and fundamental failure. Who in their right mind thinks that such a weak target in any way reflects the science?
At a time when we have IMF boss Christine Lagarde saying, “Unless we take action on climate change future generations will be roasted, toasted fried and grilled” to try to suggest that an Australian target of just -5% by 2020 is acceptable is a lie. As the rest of the world move towards a legally binding global treaty and the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, such a lax target will become untenable and indefensible.
To the detail of the plan, it is in essence a massive ‘competitive grant programme’ which seeks to reduce emissions by companies putting in ‘tenders’ for actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the government then paying those companies which submit the lowest bids (per tonne of abatement).
There are numerous fundamental problems, many of which, while widely understood are rarely discussed. For example:
1) The Coalition expects more than 60% of the abatement to come from soil carbon – but the science to back this up is not yet solid, so this abatement would not be recognised in international treaties. That’s a showstopper. Continue reading
Australia’s Liberal Coalition not likely to repeal carbon tax – “Abbott proof fence” around it
Libs carbon tax repeal ‘unlikely’
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/16259527/libs-carbon-tax-repeal-unlikely/
Andrew Probyn Federal Political Editor, The West Australian February
28, 2013, International and domestic investors in Australia are being
told there is only a one-in-three chance that Opposition Leader Tony
Abbott will be able to fulfil his “pledge in blood” to dump the carbon
tax.
In a briefing note sent to clients yesterday, Bloomberg Finance said
the Government had built a secure “Abbott-proof fence” around its
carbon tax legislation. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 