The health toll of Australia’s uranium nuclear industry – theme for June19
Well -they carefully haven’t kept health records, have they?
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY, Parliament of Australia
4.1 The perception that uranium mining has not led to ill health effects in workers has been created through the lack of comprehensive studies on worker health and the failure of Governments to establish a national registry for health workers. …..
Uranium mining, however, presents unique risks over other mining operations. Because of the presence of radioactive elements, uranium miners are at risk not only of immediate health problems, but of delayed fatal effects such as cancer. There is also the potential for radiation exposure to lead to illness and defects in the offspring of uranium miners
RADIATION EXPOSURE FOR URANIUM MINERS. The potentially serious effects of radiation on workers has been shown by previous mines in Australia. Evidence was given to the Committee that 40% of underground workers at the Radium Hill mine in South Australia have died of lung cancer [12]. Even with more recent mining operations it was clear that worker health and safety was not given the priority it deserves. On a trip to the closed Narbarlek mine, the Committee saw worker health records and files left scattered on the floor of an abandoned administrative building. When the Committee visited WMC’s Olympic Dam mine, it saw workers who were not wearing the Thermoluminescent Dial (TLD) badges which register their exposure to radiation. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Former_Committees/uranium/report/d05#10
Kirsten Johnson
kirstjohn@aapt.net.au I have a father, uncle and two aunts who all worked at Rum Jungle in the 1960’s. My father and uncle passed away in their 60’s due to lung cancer. My aunt in her 60’s due to breast cancer and my other aunt who is still with us today has also had breast cancer. Surely this cannot be a coincidence and I would like to know if there is information with regards to the health impact that the Rum Jungle uranium mine has had on past workers.
Janet Dickinson nee Litchfield
dickinsonjanet@hotmail.com – I am Kirsten Johnson’s aunt, and sister to Judy, Peter and Kevin Litchfield who passed away with cancer. all having worked at Rum Jungle in the 50’s. My father in law also passed away in 1979, aged 70 from lung cancer, he worked at Rum Jungle for 20 years from 1958. I have just recently been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.
Health effects on Aboriginal people near Ranger uranium mine.
….Since 1981, three years after mining began, at least 120 ‘mishaps’ and ‘occurrences’ — leakages, spillages of contaminated water, and breaches of regulations — have occurred. The Office of the Supervising Scientist has consistently claimed no harm to either the environment or human health — a claim difficult to substantiate. Since completion of the AIATSIS social impact monitoring report in 1984, there has been no monitoring of the social and physical impact on Aboriginal health and well-being, and no agency has specifically investigated the impacts on Aboriginal health.
Exploratory research undertaken in 2005 and 2006 has found a significant overall increase in the incidence of cancer among Aboriginal people in the Kakadu region — some ninety per cent greater than would be expected. We could not determine possible effects on maternal and child health because data on congenital malformations and stillbirths were not available. …. https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/products/discussion_paper/dp20-aborigines-uranium-monitoring-health-hazards_0.pdf
Home affairs minister Peter Dutton “knew nothing” about police raids on Australian media offices, and a home!!
Peter Dutton denies prior knowledge of AFP raids on ABC and News Corp, Guardian, Sarah Martin and Kate Lyons 5 Jun 2019
Following two consecutive days of raids on journalists who had reported on defence matters, Dutton sought to distance himself from the police investigations, saying they were independent from government./////https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/05/peter-dutton-denies-prior-knowledge-of-afp-raids-on-abc-and-news-corp?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwA
Statement by Ita Buttrose, ABC Chair, on the public’s right to know
http://about.abc.net.au/statements/statement-by-ita-buttrose-abc-chair-on-the-publics-right-to-know/
An untrammelled media is important to the public discourse and to democracy. It is the way in which Australian citizens are kept informed about the world and its impact on their daily lives.
Observance of this basic tenet of the community’s right to know has driven my involvement in public life and my career in journalism for almost five decades.
The raid is unprecedented – both to the ABC and to me.
In a frank conversation with the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, Paul Fletcher, yesterday, I said the raid, in its very public form and in the sweeping nature of the information sought, was clearly designed to intimidate.
It is impossible to ignore the seismic nature of this week’s events: raids on two separate media outfits on consecutive days is a blunt signal of adverse consequences for news organisations who make life uncomfortable for policy makers and regulators by shining lights in dark corners and holding the powerful to account.
I also asked for assurances that the ABC not be subject to future raids of this sort. Mr Fletcher declined to provide such assurances, while noting the “substantial concern” registered by the Corporation.
There has been much reference in recent days to the need to observe the rule of law.
While there are legitimate matters of national security that the ABC will always respect, the ABC Act and Charter are explicit about the importance of an independent public broadcaster to Australian culture and democracy.
Public interest is best served by the ABC doing its job, asking difficult questions and dealing with genuine whistle-blowers who risk their livelihoods and reputations to bring matters of grave import to the surface. Neither the journalists nor their sources should be treated as criminals.
In my view, legitimate journalistic endeavours that expose flawed decision-making or matters that policy makers and public servants would simply prefer were secret, should not automatically and conveniently be classed as issues of national security.
The onus must always be on the public’s right to know. If that is not reflected sufficiently in current law, then it must be corrected.
As ABC Chair, I will fight any attempts to muzzle the national broadcaster or interfere with its obligations to the Australian public. Independence is not exercised by degrees. It is absolute.
___________________________________________________________
For further information contact:
Peter Munro, ABC Communications
munro.peter@abc.net.au
Oh dear, things are looking crook for the uranium industry
Top Uranium Producer Is Gloomy About Nuclear Power, for Now, Bloomberg, By Will Wade, 
June 7 2019, Don’t expect an upswing in the global uranium market anytime soon.
“In our models, we don’t get excited on the demand side,” said Galymzhan Pirmatov, chief executive officer of Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan’s state-owned mining company that’s the world’s biggest supplier.
With construction of nuclear power plants at a 10-year low, uranium demand remains weak. That’s holding prices so low that mining companies have been wary of increasing production. Kazatomprom’s output will increase about 5% this year, to as much as 22,800 tons, and then will be flat in 2020, Pirmatov said Wednesday in an interview in New York. While he hasn’t yet made a decision on 2021, he doesn’t see much to get excited about, at least in the short term.
“I do believe prices are too low,” he said. Uranium has slumped 15% this year to $24.35 a pound as of Wednesday. Kazakhstan controls about 40% of the world’s supply of the metal, and Kazatomprom accounts for half of that, making it the biggest producer………
U.S. Closings
In the U.S., flush with abundant and cheap natural gas, utilities are closing nuclear plants. The U.S. is also considering whether to impose tariffs on uranium, after two small domestic mining companies filed a trade case last year, arguing that imports are a threat to national security. The Commerce Department concluded its investigation in April, but the results haven’t been made public……..https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-05/top-uranium-producer-is-gloomy-about-nuclear-power-for-now
Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor delayed releasing data that shows greenhouse gas levels continue to rise
Delayed government data shows greenhouse gas levels continue to rise, Australia’s latest greenhouse gas data shows emissions are continuing to rise, with Labor saying it’s a “fantasy” that the nation will meet reduction targets. SBS, 7 June 19, Labor says it’s a government “fantasy” that Australia is on track to meet its emissions reduction targets, after delayed data showed greenhouse gas levels continue to rise.After missing a parliamentary deadline to report on greenhouse gas levels for the December quarter by last Friday, Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor released the data on Thursday.
The December quarter figures show a 0.8 per cent increase compared to the previous quarter and a 0.7 per cent rise from the same time last year.
Despite the increase, Mr Taylor maintains Australia is on track to meet its Paris Agreement targets to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
“Our plan is laid out to the last tonne,” Mr Taylor told ABC radio on Friday. ……..
Mr Taylor took over responsibility for emissions reduction from former environment minister Melissa Price after the election.
He says Australia is now almost 12 per cent below its 2005 levels and emissions have decreased by 9.5 per cent in 30 years. However, government projections show more than half that target can be achieved through carryover credits from achieving goals of the Kyoto protocol.
Although Australia met its target in the first Kyoto agreement, it allowed for an increase of emissions.
Labor’s energy spokesman Mark Butler says it’s a government “fantasy” that Australia is on track to reach the Paris targets.
Mr Taylor’s announcement focused on the data per capita, while talking up the benefits of LNG.
“Today’s release shows once again that the Liberals will try every trick in the book to avoid scrutiny of their record on tackling climate change,” Mr Butler said.
Calls for a rethink on climate policy
Greens MP Adam Bandt has vowed to chase the government and department for answers over why the release of the data was delayed, and why it was given to select media before being made public.
Mr Taylor insists the government’s climate solutions plan will achieve the Paris target, primarily through paying companies and communities for projects to reduce pollution……..
Vivien Thomson from the Australian Firefighters Climate Alliance has warned that rising emissions are exposing communities to higher risks from more intense bushfires and other extreme weather events.
Ms Thomson says the climate-fuelled disasters stretch the mental and physical limits of firefighters, and cost billions in clean up and recovery costs.
The Climate Council says the government needs to rethink its approach to reducing emissions, as levels have increased over the past four years.
“The prime minister and his new cabinet have an opportunity for a fresh start. We cannot waste another three years,” Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/delayed-government-data-shows-greenhouse-gas-levels-continue-to-rise
USA govt to reclassify some radioactive wastes, to save money, and time
US to label nuclear waste as less dangerous to quicken cleanup, Guardian, 6 June 19, Energy department says labeling some waste as low-level at sites in Washington state, Idaho and South Carolina will save $40bn, The US government plans to reclassify some of the nation’s most dangerous radioactive waste to lower its threat level, outraging critics who say the move would make it cheaper and easier to walk away from cleaning up nuclear weapons production sites in Washington state, Idaho and South Carolina.The Department of Energy said on Wednesday that labeling some high-level waste as low level will save $40bn in cleanup costs across the nation’s entire nuclear weapons complex. The material that has languished for decades in the three states would be taken to low-level disposal facilities in Utah or Texas, the agency said………
Critics said it was a way for federal officials to walk away from their obligation to properly clean up a massive quantity of radioactive waste left from nuclear weapons production dating to the second world war and the cold war.
The waste is housed at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina, the Idaho National Laboratory and Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state – the most contaminated nuclear site in the country.
Washington’s Governor Jay Inslee, a Democratic presidential candidate, and the state attorney general, Bob Ferguson, said the Trump administration was showing disdain and disregard for state authority.
“Washington will not be sidelined in our efforts to clean up Hanford and protect the Columbia River and the health and safety of our state and our people,” they said in a joint statement.
The new rules would allow the energy department to eventually abandon storage tanks containing more than 100m gallons (378m liters) of radioactive waste in the three states, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The change means that some of the “most toxic and radioactive waste in the world” would not have to be buried deep underground, the environmental group said.
“Pretending this waste is not dangerous is irresponsible and outrageous,” the group’s attorney Geoff Fettus said.
Tom Clements of Savannah River Site Watch, a watchdog group for the South Carolina nuclear production site, called the reclassification of waste “a cost-cutting measure designed to get thousands of high-level waste containers dumped off site”. He said moving the waste to Utah or Texas is a bad idea involving “shallow burial”.
The old definition of high-level waste was based on how the materials were produced, while the new definition will be based on their radioactive characteristics – the standard used in most countries, the energy department said……..
The nuclear site 200 miles (322km) south-east of Seattle contains about 60% of the nation’s most dangerous radioactive waste that’s stored in 177 ageing underground tanks, some of which have leaked.
Cleanup at Hanford has been under way since the 1980s, at a cost of more than $2bn a year.
The energy department said it would immediately begin studying one waste stream at the Savannah River Plant to see if it should be reclassified as low-level waste. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/05/us-to-label-nuclear-waste-as-less-dangerous-to-quicken-cleanup?fbclid=IwAR1NuNSVrKbw8rn_rLUwOZlx
The pros and cons of changing the classification of nuclear waste radiation
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THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS DOWNGRADING TOXIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS WASTE TO CUT DISPOSAL COSTS—SHOULD WE BE WORRIED? https://www.newsweek.com/trump-toxic-nuclear-weapons-waste-disposal-reclassify-1442573 BYON 6/6/19 The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it is moving forward with plans to reclassify toxic nuclear waste from Cold War weapons research, downgrading some of it from the highest level, in order to cut costs and quicken the disposal process.The waste under review is currently located at three DOE Defense Reprocessing Waste Inventories: the Hanford Site in Washington, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Idaho National Laboratory.
Environmental campaigners hit back, accusing the Department of Energy (DOE) of risking the health and safety of Americans through what it characterized as a reckless and dangerous departure from decades-long convention in the country’s handling of its nuclear waste. But an expert in nuclear waste management said DOE’s shifting approach is both reasonable and desirable—provided it is transparent with the American public in order to build confidence that it is disposing of the toxic material responsibly and safely. Currently, DOE treats most of its radioactive waste as “high-level” (HLW) because of how it was made rather than classifying it by its characteristics, such as radioactivity. HLW must be buried deep underground when it is disposed of. DOE said in a release that this “one size fits all” approach to waste management has caused delays to permanent disposal, leaving toxic waste stored in DOE facilities, which causes health risks to workers and costs the taxpayers billions of unnecessary dollars. Now, DOE will seek to lower the classification of waste of lesser radioactivity, meaning it can be disposed of with greater ease because it does not need to be stored deep below ground—and both sooner and at a lower cost. Professor Neil Hyatt, an expert in nuclear materials chemistry and waste management at the U.K.’s University of Sheffield, told Newsweek this is potentially a positive change by the DOE. “DOE is proposing to manage waste on the basis of risk rather than how it was produced, which is quite reasonable—and desirable. We would want resources to be focused on dealing with the waste of highest risk,” Hyatt said. “That said, it is important that this is achieved with regard to the risk to health and the environment over the full lifecycle of waste management—including the period of waste disposal, which is some 250,000 years.” Hyatt added: “The new interpretation has the potential to radically change the location, inventory, and nature of waste disposed of, which will be of concern to local communities.” For the new interpretation of HLW to succeed, Hyatt said, those communities will need to be engaged by authorities in a transparent way. “The problem is that the action will be seen as moving the goalposts, for unfair means, whilst the game is in progress,” Hyatt told Newsweek. “If you have agreed that waste is to be classified and managed in a certain way for decades, how do you now build confidence in a new approach? “This cannot be taken for granted. Transparency, effective public engagement and independent expert scrutiny, in evaluating the risk, will be key. But with a new approach comes a new opportunity to get that right.” Another expert concurred. Pete Bryant is a consultant in nuclear waste management and president of The Society for Radiological Protection in the U.K. He also teaches in the field at the University of Liverpool. “By characterizing the waste and classifying it according to its radioactivity and ultimately the risk it poses to human health and the environment, it is possible to dispose of some of the less hazardous waste, reducing the burden of managing them all of HLW,” Bryant told Newsweek. “As long as this is done under appropriate arrangements and checks this will not present a risk to members of the public and the environment,” he said, adding that this is all in line with global standards of toxic waste management. After DOE’s announcement, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRD), an environmental campaign group, hit out at the imminent reclassification of some HLW. “The Trump administration is moving to fundamentally alter more than 50 years of national consensus on how the most toxic and radioactive waste in the world is managed and ultimately disposed of,” Geoff Fettus, a senior attorney at NRDC, said in a statement. “No matter what they call it, this waste needs a permanent, well-protected disposal option to guard it for generations to come. Pretending this waste is not dangerous is irresponsible and outrageous.” DOE said the change will bring its practices in line with international standards on nuclear waste disposal. |
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It is absurd to question whether we can afford to keep our planet liveable
Guardian Fiona Harvey 7 June 19, The chancellor has warned against cutting UK emissions to net zero. But failing to act will have dire consequences.
he chancellor, Philip Hammond, has written to the prime ministerto warn against adopting the strict targets on greenhouse gas emissions recommended by the government’s advisers.
His intervention, first reported by the Financial Times (£), raises the important question of whether or not it makes economic sense to save the planet.
If the question sounds absurd, that’s because it is. If we fail to move to a low-carbon economy, the consequences will be dire. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of the world’s leading climate scientists convened by the UN, we must drastically reduce our emissions in the next decade to avoid a catastrophic situation in which droughts, floods, heatwaves and extreme weather across the globe devastate lives, destroy agriculture, lay waste to wildlife and force millions to flee.
Set against that, the costs – of £50bn a year in investment, according to the Committee on Climate Change(CCC), which set out the case last month for a target of net-zero emissions by 2050, or £70bn a year, according to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – of maintaining our current lifestyles and orderly existences are trivial. The UK’s economy is worth roughly £2tn a year at present, so Hammond’s estimate of a £1tn cumulative cost by 2050 amounts to less than half of one year’s GDP in three decades.
Doug Parr, the chief scientist for Greenpeace UK, said: “The Treasury is putting their ideology before our wellbeing, and trying to shape the public debate for political ends. If you want to know whether a policy is good, include the benefits as well as the costs. In this case, the benefits include an economy fit for the 21st century, cleaner air, warmer homes, and maximising the chances of civilisation surviving. If reality doesn’t fit with the Treasury models, it’s the models that need to change.”…….
When we ask whether we can afford to tackle climate change, we are really asking – as the IPCC report and decades of climate science show us – whether we want humanity to survive in anything like our current structures. If our economic system stands in the way of doing so, perhaps it is the economics that are at fault. And economics, like politics, are just a human construct. The physics of the earth’s atmosphere are not. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/06/it-is-absurd-question-whether-we-can-afford-keep-our-planet-liveable
Al Gore – Australia is at climate crossroads, – could lead on renewable energy
Australia is at a crossroads on climate change, according to Al Gore, SBS, 7 June 19, Former US Vice President turned climate change crusader Al Gore says Australia is at a crossroads on climate, while stopping himself from taking swing at Adani.
Former US Vice President turned climate change crusader Al Gore says Australia is at a crossroads with renewable energy, and risks missing out on the opportunity to capitalise on it by doggedly pursuing fossil fuels.
At a climate conference in Brisbane on Friday, Mr Gore said the country was at the forefront of a renewable energy revolution and well poised to take advantage of it.
“You have the most sun-blessed nation of any other nation in the world,” Mr Gore said in reference to renewable solar energy. “Australia is number one on the list.”
Mr Gore, an outspoken critic of Adani’s proposed mine, said on Wednesday he doubted the proposed Galilee Basin mine was financially viable. ………
He said the country had to make a decision on whether to pursue renewable energy, which he said the Palaszczuk had taken steps toward.
“The history of this period will record that the change (to renewable energy) became unstoppable and that Queensland led the way,” he said.
Ms Palaszczuk vowed to keep investing in renewable energy, insisting it creates jobs while slowing climate change impacts that hammer the state. She reminded regional Queenslanders who voted against Labor in the federal poll that renewable energy had produced 4000 jobs in four years.
She said farmers deal with climate change on a daily basis when they experience floods, droughts and cyclones.
“We understand the need to act on climate change,” Ms Palaszczuk said. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-is-at-a-crossroads-on-climate-change-according-to-al-gore
RADIATION WILL MAKE MARS MISSION DEADLY
EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY: RADIATION WILL MAKE MARS MISSION DEADLY, https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-radiation-mars-mission-deadly JUNE 5TH 19__DAN ROBITZSKI__
Slow Down
Elon Musk once said he’d likely move to Mars in his lifetime. But before we settle the Red Planet, the European Space Agency (ESA) urges extreme caution.
That’s because it lacks the natural barriers that protect us Earthlings from cosmic radiation, which would put astronauts at risk of deadly health conditions. But they’re working on it — the ESA says it has partneredwith particle accelerators to recreate cosmic radiation in a controlled setting and build shields that can protect future explorers.
Harsh Conditions
“The real problem is the large uncertainty surrounding the risks,” said ESA physicist Marco Durante in the press release. “We don’t understand space radiation very well and the long-lasting effects are unknown.”
Shields Up
The ESA found that a six-month stay on Mars would expose astronauts to “60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their entire career.”
As it stands today, we can’t go to Mars due to radiation,” said Durante. “It would be impossible to meet acceptable dose limits.”
READ MORE: Radiation Makes Human Missions to Mars Too Dangerous: ESA [ExtremeTech]
America Never Had a Chernobyl. But It Came Close.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a27729387/chernobyl-broken-arrows/
The U.S. kept nuclear accidents like the Damascus Incident secret for decades.
HBO’s Chernobyl is over, but if you’ve seen the series, you’ll remember it for a long time.
Coming on the heels of the mega-hyped Game of Thrones series finale, the five-part miniseries—created and written by Craig Mazin, and directed by Johan Renck—quickly overtook the fantasy story with its astonishing performances and commitment to its immersion in a world that Americans never really understood.
The focus in the discussion around Chernobyl lies where the miniseries has gone: nuclear reactors meant for peaceful energy. The safety of nuclear plants is of upmost importance, but that’s not the only place nuclear energy is located. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the Department of Defense maintains an estimated stockpile of approximately 4,000 warheads. Mishaps with these weapons of mass destruction are referred to as “Broken Arrow” accidents.
The United States has officially had approximately 32 of these incidents, often involving the transport of weapons from one location to another. None of these incidents caused a major disaster, let alone a Chernobyl-like event. Two nuclear weapons were dropped on Goldsboro North Carolina in 1961 and are now commemorated with an historical marker. But there’s no such memorial for the 1980 accident in which a Titan II missile carrying a thermonuclear reactor exploded near Damascus, Arkansas.
Chernobyl offers a new chance to examine these Broken Arrows. Fortunately, both the stories of Goldsboro, the Damascus Incident, and other Broken Arrows have already been documented in the film Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner and based on a book by Eric Schlosser.
Available on PBS, Netflix, and other streaming services, the documentary shows that the story of lies and of nuclear mismanagement is not limited to Soviet borders.
On September 18, 1980, routine maintenance on an Titan II went awry. A Propellant Transfer System (PTS) team was working on the missile under the authority of the Air Force. A ratchet was used instead of a torque wrench, and that was all it took for a socket from the missile’s oxidizer tank to fall 80 feet down, where a freak bump allowed it to puncture the missile’s first-stage fuel tank.
Efforts to stabilize the missile failed, and late into the night, it exploded. Two men sent in to vent the gas were presumed dead. One of them, Senior Airman David Livingston, died 12 hours later. The nuclear warhead was later found in a field.
There are many differences between Damascus and Chernobyl, of course. Honesty was maintained within the chain of command, although the man who dropped the socket had trouble articulating the truth of the situation for half an hour afterward. And while safety protocols couldn’t keep the 7-story missile from exploding, they did keep the warhead in check.
But when it comes to nuclear incidents, Command and Control makes it clear that the U.S. shares more with the scientists of Chernobyl than many feel comfortable to admit.
There may not be a deeply embedded culture of lying stateside, but the U.S. was as willing to cover up the truth of Damascus, as well as thousands of other nuclear accidents, for decades. And when it came down to the final decision making in Damascus, the documentary paints a picture of an out-of-touch Strategic Air Command that issued commands without any understanding of the situation on the ground—decisions that resulted in Livingston’s death.
Mazin has made it clear that his Chernobyl is not primarily focused on nuclear power. It’s a complex subject, as Valery Legasov, played masterfully by Jared Harris, makes clear in the final episode. But perhaps the greatest similarity between Damascus and Chernobyl was the confident belief that nuclear power could be safely managed at all.
Explaining how nuclear power works in a Soviet court, Legasov describes a dance that can generate tremendous energy. But as Adam Higginbottom shows in Midnight in Chernobyl, it’s a dance that people have been trying to get right for many years.
The Soviet system might have set up the scientists at V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant for failure. But even with the best dancers in the world, there’s eventually a missed step.
Vulnerability of Holtec’s nuclear waste canisters
Halting Holtec – A Challenge for Nuclear Safety Advocates, CounterPunch, 7 June 19, The loading of 3.6 million pounds of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel has been indefinitely halted at the San Onofre independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI), operated by Southern California Edison and designed by Holtec International.Last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) fined Southern California Edison an unprecedented $116,000 for failing to report the near drop of an 54 ton canister of radioactive waste, and is delaying giving the go-ahead to further loading operations until serious questions raised by the incident have been resolved.
Critics have long been pointing out that locating a dump for tons of waste, lethal for millions of years, in a densely populated area, adjacent to I-5 and the LA-to-San Diego rail corridor, just above a popular surfing beach, in an earthquake and tsunami zone, inches above the water table, and yards from the rising sea doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense from a public safety standpoint.
The near drop incident last August, revealed by a whistleblower, has drawn further attention to the many defects in the Holtec-designed and manufactured facility. It has been discovered that the stainless steel canisters, only five-eights inches thick, are being damaged as they are lowered into the site’s concrete silos. Experts have warned that the scratching or gouging that is occurring makes the thin-walled canisters even more susceptible to corrosion-induced cracking in the salty sea air, risking release of their deadly contents into the environment and even of hydrogen explosions.
Furthermore, critics point out, these thin-walled canisters are welded shut and cannot be inspected, maintained, monitored or repaired.
Systems analyst Donna Gilmore is the founder of SanOnofreSafety.org, and a leading critic of the Holtec system. She explains her concerns this way in a recent email:
The root cause of the canister wall damage is the lack of a precision downloading system for the canisters. Holtec’s NRC license requires no contact between the canister and the interior of the holes. The NRC admits Holtec is out of compliance with their license, but refuses to cite Holtec for this violation.
NRC staff said the scraping of the stainless steel thin canister walls against a protruding carbon steel canister guide ring also deposits carbon on the canisters, creating galvanic corrosion. The above ground Holtec system has long vertical carbon steel canister guide channels, creating similar problems.
Once canisters are scraped or corroded they start cracking. The NRC said once a crack starts it can grow through the wall in 16 years. In hotter canisters, crack growth rate can double for every 10 degree increase in temperature.
Each canister holds roughly the radioactivity of a Chernobyl nuclear disaster, so this is a critical issue people need to know about. Continue reading
‘A horrible way to die’: how Chernobyl recreated a nuclear meltdown
Guardian, Julie McDowall, 5 June 19, From ‘painting on’ radiation sickness to making the explosion less ‘Die Hard’, the acclaimed drama has gone to great lengths to evoke the chaos and terror of the Soviet-era disaster.
We were lucky to have survived the Cold War without a nuclear attack. The pop culture of that chilly era warned what the bomb would do: the crisping of the skin; the slow agony of radiation sickness; the pollution of the land; and the death of cities.
The bomb didn’t explode, but some people experienced a fragment of this horror. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 brought explosions, radiation sickness, evacuations, contaminated earth and, finally, medals awarded and memorials erected. It was war after all – but not against the west; this was another type of nuclear enemy.
Sky Atlantic/HBO’s drama Chernobyl unfolds over five distressing episodes that show the 1986 explosion was more than just another disaster in a decade horribly cluttered with them: it was a ghastly taste of nuclear war, a monstrous cover-up and, finally, an event that helped bring down the Soviet Union.
So it is fitting that the series begins with the explosion, as if to get it out of the way so that we might focus on what happens afterwards………..
Surprisingly, Parker didn’t look to photos of Hiroshima or Nagasaki victims for examples of radiation damage, as he suspects these were tempered by wartime propaganda. He went instead to medical textbooks, and this allowed him to pioneer a technique for Chernobyl where he “layered” the skin: painting the actors’ bodies with wounds, then putting a semi-translucent layer on top, giving the impression that sores are forcing themselves to the surface as the body degrades from within. The effect is dreadful to see. Yet, Parker was strict in saying these men must not be relegated to Hollywood “zombies”, and he explains that the director made sure sympathy stayed with these characters: even as they lie rigid on the bed, gurgling and fading, they still speak, and a wife may still hold her husband’s rotting fingers.
“It’s the worst way to die,” says Parker. “Beyond anything you can imagine. The most horrible way to die. I think it’s the worst, in line with medieval torture.” What makes it particularly atrocious is that the victims were denied pain relief. In the latter stages of radiation sickness you cannot inject morphine, he explains. “The walls of the veins are breaking down.”
So the Chernobyl disaster produced agonising deaths without pain-relieving drugs, which brings us back to the horror of nuclear war. Plans for the NHS after a nuclear attack show drug stockpiles would quickly be exhausted, and those who were hopelessly injured would be allowed to die without the tiny mercy of a supermarket paracetamol.
The final episode of Chernobyl airs Tuesday, 9pm on Sky Atlantic. The whole series is available to view on Sky Go and NowTV
{also in Australia – on Foxtel Showcasw – first episode 12 June]
June 7 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “Large Ebola Outbreaks New Normal, Says WHO” • The world is entering “a new phase” in which large outbreaks of deadly diseases like Ebola are a “new normal,” according to the World Health Organization. Climate change, rainforest exploitation, emerging diseases, population pressures are among the issues making outbreaks worse. [BBC] ¶ […]
Energy Insiders Podcast: Oliver Yates and what the public doesn’t know — RenewEconomy
Former CEFC boss Oliver Yates talks about lessons from his recent Kooyong campaign and why the renewables sector needs to get its messaging right. The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Oliver Yates and what the public doesn’t know appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Energy Insiders Podcast: Oliver Yates and what the public doesn’t know — RenewEconomy
1.This month
For international nuclear news go to https://nuclear-news.net/
Ethics, Nuclear Power, and Global Heating – theme for December 2019
Ethics of Nuclear Energy Abu-Dayyeh (P.hD) Amman – H.K. of Jordan Ayoub101@hotmail.com E_case Society (President) www.energyjo.com [Extract]
“……2- Health Risk Analysis
If “risk” is defined as the product of probability of an accident happening with its severity, we ought to start this title by considering first major commercial nuclear accidents of level 7 on the INES scale, as a priority in analysis, so we must consider 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe where “Emissions from Chernobyl reactor exceeded a hundredfold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki”(10).
The latest New York Academy report on Chernobyl catastrophe has published horrendous facts of more than a million causalities; the new book concludes: Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer (11). A paper by Kristina Voigt and Hagen Scherb also showed that after 1986, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, around 800,000 fewer children were born in Europe than one might have expected. The overall number of “missing” children after Chernobyl could have reached about one million (12); not to mention that the researchers have not covered all countries in their count!
According to UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation), adding to the latter casualties, between 12,000 and 83,000 children who lived in the vicinity of Chernobyl were born with congenital deformations, and also estimate that around 30,000 to 207,000 genetically damaged children were born worldwide (13). Amongst the interesting findings was that only 10% of the overall expected damage was actually seen in the first generation; the worse is yet to come with the offspring. A similar research on butterflies around Fukushima has yielded a similar result which will be discussed later.
As for the level 6 on the INES scale, it is classified as a serious nuclear accident that includes the accident at the Kyshtym facility in Russia in 1957, unfortunately not much research was published! on level 5, accidents with wider consequences include United Kingdom Windscale facility in the year 1957, Chalk River – Canada in 1952 and the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, after which the USA only licensed few new reactors; At present, only three nuclear reactors are being constructed in the United States: Watts Bar 2 reactor (1180 MW) which started decades ago, and was put on hold till 2007, expected by the IAEA to commercially operate in 2015. Another two reactors; vogtle 3 and Summer 2 of 1200 MW each, are expected to operate in 2017(14).
The Fukushima-Daitii nuclear accident in Japan on March 2011 is also classified as level 5. However, nuclear accidents of level 4 with local consequences include a long list, so are levels 4,3,2 and 1; a non-ending list of accidents(15).
In one year only (2008), according to an IRSN report, 205 accidents were recorded in nuclear facilities (safety and environmental), a noticeable 56% increase compared to the accidents recorded in 2005 which accounted for 131 accidents only. A typical example of those accidents is the leakage of 20 m3 of radioactive water from Socatri facility at Tricastin – France. Some of the radioactive water followed rain water drainage into the eco-system while the rest radioactive water seeped underground polluting the soil and under-ground water aquifers (16).
Since March 2011 funds of hundreds of billions of dollars are being allocated by TEPCO, the Tokyo Electricity Company, as to cover for the direct damages of the Fukushima disaster; however, the scale of damage on biodiversity and genetic disorders is not clearly understood.
The early mutations of butterflies around Fukushima are alarming as the mutations disorders have been increasing with the offspring. Mutations caused by Fukushima disaster radiation had affected 12% of adult pale grass blue butterflies in the surrounding area two months after the March 2011 disaster. When that batch mated, it produced an offspring with an 18% mutation rate. In the following generation, mutations were found in 34% of the butterflies born. In September 2011, a new study disclosed that the adult butterflies displayed 28% mutation rate and their offspring had a whopping 58% mutation rate (17).
In a similar study on mice after 25 years of the Chernobyl catastrophe, it yielded the following outcome: “The rate of mutation amongst the field mice is one hundred thousand times higher than normal” (18).
Another environmental damage connected with the nuclear industry is thermal pollution which is basically the form of water pollution that refers to degradation of water quality by any process that changes ambient water temperature. The main cause of thermal pollution is attributed to one particular industry, or to be more precise to nuclear power plants that use water as a coolant. After this water has been used as a coolant it is returned to the natural environment at a higher temperature. This change in water temperature decreases the amount of oxygen in the water which can lead to negative ecological effects.
Less oxygen in the water can harm fish population, as it can increase the metabolic rate of fish population and other aquatic animals so that they would more likely eat a lot more food in a shorter period of time than if their environment was not changed. This change can lead to imbalance in the food chain, thus resulting in significant long-term damage to many aquatic ecosystems.
Warmer water temperatures are known to lead to reproduction problems for many aquatic animals, and can further cause huge bacteria and plant growth. Warmer waters can even lead to algae bloom resulting in a consequent loss of more oxygen in the water. However, this damage is likely to be ethically benign compared to the mutations that result from radioactivity.
As for the effects of radioactivity on humans, scientists from the universities of Moscow and Leicester examined blood samples from 79 families, the parents of who had been living within a 300 km radius of nuclear reactors. The scientists were surprised by children born between February and September 1994 as cases of mutations had doubled (19). Peter karamoskos, a nuclear radiologist, quotes the following: “There is a linear dose-response relationship between exposure to ionizing radiation and the development of solid cancers in humans. It is unlikely that there is a threshold below which cancers are not induced”(20). Radiation can cause the breakdown in chromosomes, causing Down’s syndrome in babies as well as mental and physical disorders. Children exposed to radiation have a higher risk to develop leukemia (21).
Higher incidence of leukemia in UK children has been reported in the environment of the Sellafield (Windscale) fuel reprocessing facility in England (22-23), not far from the Dounreay reprocessing plant in Scotland (24-25), and also in similar children who lived within a few kilometers from the Aldermaston or Burghfield military weapons facilities in England (26). In a comprehensive survey done by Forman et al(27) and Cook-Mozaffari et al (28-29) reported excess mortality rate due to leukemia and Hodgkin’s disease particularly in young persons living in the vicinity of fourteen nuclear facilities, eight of them electricity generating nuclear plants.
In the United Kingdom, studies of populations living near nuclear power plants have yielded mixed results. Ewings et al (30) found increased incidence of leukemia and lymphoma in young persons near the Hinckley Point power station. Clap et al (31) reported an excess incidence of leukemia in men in five towns near the Pilgrim nuclear power station in Massachusetts.
Free Julian Assange, before it’s too late. Sign to STOP the USA Extradition
Make a submission about the radioactive waste dump!
The Federal Government wants to put a National Radioactive Waste Facility in Kimba or the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. The Department is calling for submissions and says these will be “one of the factors the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia may take into account when determining broad community support for the Facility.” If you live outside the ballot area, a submission is the only way to have your say! It only takes a minute to voice your opposition – use our online proforma submission and add whatever comments you like.
Submissions can be made by: Email: radioactivewaste@industry.gov.au Post: The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. National Radioactive Waste Section. GPO Box 2013, Canberra ACT 2601| More information
FEDERAL. Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia Read the published submissions on the Parliamentary website. Read the SUMMARIES of submissions here.
