The National 11th Feb 2019 ACCIDENT reports and safety reviews into nuclear weapons and atomic energy programmes in Scotland are among hundreds of documents to have been suddenly withdrawn from public view.
According to a report on the Sunday Post website, following a “security review” the files at the National Archives in Kew were removed so that they can no longer be accessed by the public. The move has been described as “very concerning” by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The documents relate to a range of topics on Britain’s nuclear weapons and atomic energy programmes, including the nuclear power plant in Dounreay, Caithness, as well as Chapelcross in
Dumfries and Galloway and the Hunterston A and Hunterston B power stations which are located in Ayrshire.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17423745.scotlands-nuclear-history-suddenly-disappears-from-public-archive/
Nuclear watchdogs warn against blurring energy, military uses at Ohio fuel plantNuclear watchdogs warn against blurring energy, military uses at Ohio fuel plant, Energy News, BY , 13 Feb 19,
A planned nuclear fuel plant in Ohio could help enable the nation’s next wave of carbon-free electricity, a fleet of small reactors providing continuous power to the grid.
The U.S. Department of Energy fuel facility would be unique in part because it could also produce material for use in nuclear weapons. That crosses a potentially dangerous line, nuclear watchdog groups say — one that could undercut efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Continue reading
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/spain-plans-to-close-all-nuclear-plants-by-2035-11239490, 13 Feb 19, MADRID: Spain aims to close all seven of its nuclear plants between 2025 and 2035 as part of plans to generate all the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2050.
Energy Minister Teresa Ribera announced the move on Tuesday (Feb 12), just as the Socialist government gears up to call an early national election in anticipation of losing a budget vote.
Overhauling Spain’s energy system, which generated 40 per cent of its mainland electricity from renewable sources in 2018, will require investment of 235 billion euros (US$266 billion) between 2021 and 2030, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said last month.
Ribera said the government would present a draft plan to combat climate change, which had been due to be sent to the European Union for approval by the end of last year, to parliament on Feb 22.
Under a draft bill prepared last year, the government aims to ban sales of petrol, diesel and hybrid cars from 2040 and encourage the installation of at least 3,000 megawatts a year of renewable capacity such as wind farms and solar plants.
Phasing out nuclear power, which accounts for a little over 20 per cent of mainland Spain’s electricity, was a campaign pledge for the governing Socialists, who took office last summer after toppling their conservative predecessors in a confidence vote.
Spain’s nuclear plants, which started operating between 1983 and 1988, are owned by Iberdrola, Italian-owned Endesa, Naturgy and Portugal’s EDP.
CEOs Ask Trump to Help Them Sell Nuclear Power Plants Abroad, Bloomberg, By Jennifer A Dlouhy, Ari Natter, and Jennifer Jacobs, February 13, 2019, Executives say they compete with China, Russia and France, Thriving nuclear development key to U.S. security, they say
U.S. nuclear energy developers on Tuesday met with President Donald Trump and asked for help winning contracts to build power plants in the Middle East and elsewhere overseas……..
……..The push comes as developers seek U.S. government approval of next-generation advanced and small modular nuclear reactors — and the administration’s help in selling their products to the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency predicts that some 554 gigawatts of nuclear electric generating capacity will come online by 2030, a 42 percent increase over current levels. Continue reading
https://www.skymetweather.com/content/global-news/global-warming-temperatures-to-rise-by-1-5-celsius-in-5-years-india-to-get-knocked-out/ 11 February 2019 – Global warming in the recent years has comparatively become a larger threat to the world. And the latest trends of extreme weather activities are a clear testimony to this fact. Though, there are certain sections of the society seriously thinking in this regard and trying their bit in bringing about awareness among people across the world, the vicious destruction of our planet continues.
According to meteorological reports, by 2023 global warming could temporarily hit 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels. It will be the first time to ever happen and the results could be disastrous. There are also 10% chances of us experiencing a year where the average temperature will rise more than 1.5˚C.
So far, the hottest year on record was 2016, when Earth heated up to 1.11˚C above pre-industrial levels. Even though the heat has gone down in the past two years, it’s unfortunately only a small part of a long-term upward trend.
Due to certain natural factors, the heat we experience varies from year to year. However, scientists have estimated that we’re warming the planet about 0.2˚C in every 10 years.
Researches also state that, this rise in temperature would adversely affect regions prone to extreme weather conditions. This includes regions like South America, parts of Australia, Africa and India’s coastal areas.
Therefore, till the time we radically scale back our greenhouse gas emissions, the probability of each year creating some kind of a record cannot be ruled out.
In a poll of 26 countries, 13 considered the warming planet the number one concern. This was followed by the threat of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which eight countries, including Russia, France, Indonesia and Nigeria, rated as the top threat. Four nations, including Japan and the U.S., cited cyberattacks as the most urgent issue………http://time.com/5526558/climate-change-top-threat-pew-poll/
This would be the end of the Green New Deal, as far as I’m concerned. Nuclear power is NOT GREEN, NOT CLEAN, as everybody knows. Once this hypocrisy is introduced into “green thinking” then the game is up. Might as well let Michael Shellenberger and his mates write the policy. And I bet I’m not the only one who thinks this way.By Nathanael Johnson, February 10, 2019
The ultimate objective was to place medium-range missiles under the ice — close enough to strike targets within the Soviet Union.
YouTube series “The Real Secrets of Antarctica” revealed how the project came to light in January 1995.
The 2017 documentary detailed: “Some very interesting disclosures were declassified about US military installations in Greenland which took place in the 1960s.
“They fed the American people a highly publicised story about advances in research and building an underground city below Greenland called Camp Century.
Only later did the truth about Project Iceworm surface.
“The Pentagon was attempting to put in place mobile nuclear launching sites to utilise thousands of miles of tunnels.”
Project Iceworm was to be a system of tunnels 2,500 miles in length, used to deploy up to 600 nuclear missiles, that would be able to reach the Soviet Union in case of nuclear war.
The missile locations would be under the cover of Greenland’s ice sheet and were supposed to be periodically changed.
A total of 21 trenches were cut and covered with arched roofs within which prefabricated buildings were erected.
These tunnels also contained a hospital, a shop, a theatre, and a church and the total number of inhabitants was around 200.
From 1960 until 1963 the electricity supply was provided by means of the world’s first mobile nuclear reactor, named PM-2A.
Water was supplied by melting glaciers and tested to determine whether germs were present, including tests for the plague virus.
However, just three years after it was built, ice core samples taken by geologists demonstrated that the glacier was moving much faster than anticipated and would destroy the tunnels and planned launch stations in about two years.
The facility was evacuated in 1965, and the nuclear generator removed.
Project Iceworm was canceled, and Camp Century closed in 1966.
From mining the uranium rich ore, to nuclear abandonment – a dozen by-products more radio toxic than the ore mined to fuel the reactor are discarded. These products are the raffinates culminating in 85% of the total radioactivity that goes directly into the tailings only to migrate throughout the environment.
Products like Radon gas, Polonium-210 with a 140 day half life, Radium-226, with a 1600 year half life, Thorium-230 with a 76,000 year half life are released , and yet only 1kg of Uranium oxide is recovered in every 4,000 kilos mined.
Uranium-238 subjected to neutron bombardment in the reactor becomes Uranium-239 with a 23 minute half life, then that becomes Neptunium-239 with a 2.3 day half life, and that goes on to become Plutonium-239 with a 244,000 year half life, then this spent fuel finally decays to become Uranium- 235 with a half life of 700 million years.
Moreover, x that by no less than 10 to get the life of the radioactive hazard, which equates to no less than 7 billion years, and here we have only just crossed the nuclear industries threshold within the last 76 years with many thousands of nuclear events, and accidents recorded, and yet this is not the only wastes these machines produce with one Canadian CANDU reactor that recorded 100 trillion becquerels of radiation from the Tritium released in just one year.
The nuclear embracing coterie tell us they can safely manage these radioactive wastes, yet there containment vessels are only guaranteed for 25 years not 7 billion years, and a director of Holtec has stated there is no way to remedy a breach of containment. Moreover these nuclear wastes are a gamble and risk that only grows exponentially with every generation.
Laura N. Vandenberg: It’s time to talk about cancer prevention — and the role of the environment https://www.ehn.org/laura-n-vandenberg-its-time-to-talk-about-cancer-prevention-2628192178.html
An inadequate focus on researching and understanding the role of the environment in cancer prevention is a failure for public health. Laura N. Vandenberg 8 Feb 19,
Such funding is crucial to continue tackling the devastating disease. However, missing from the State of the Union—and most other conversations about tackling cancer—is a focus on prevention, specifically the need to research, understand and communicate the role environmental exposures play in cancer risk.
The numbers on cancer incidence and deaths are complex. Although childhood cancer mortality rates have dropped considerably from the 1960s, data from the American Cancer Society shows that incidence rates have increased 0.6 percent per year since 1975.
In this way, childhood cancers are like several others. Between 2005 and 2014, yearly cancer incidence rates rose for several types: thyroid cancer by 4 percent; invasive breast cancer by 0.3 percent in black women; leukemia by 1.6 percent; liver cancer by 3 percent; oral and pharynx cancers by 1 percent in Caucasians; pancreatic cancer by 1 percent in Caucasians; colon cancer by 1.4 percent in individuals younger than 55 years of age; rectal cancer by 2.4 percent in individuals younger than 55; and melanoma by 3 percent in individuals aged 50 and older.
While these cancer rates have increased, overall rates of cancer deaths have started to fall. In fact, since the 1990s, improved detection and treatment, as well as decreased smoking rates, have contributed to significant reductions in cancer mortality.
Reduced deaths from cancer are a great public health victory. These statistics prove that public health interventions like educational programs designed to curb smoking can have dramatic effects.
They also suggest that investments in improved detection and diagnosis are money well spent. A focus on treatments has also improved quality of life for cancer patients and their likelihood of remission.
But where is the call for better cancer prevention? As rates of numerous cancers continue to rise, the failure to identify the causes of cancer remains a disappointment for public health officials and researchers alike.
We know that environmental factors can contribute to cancer risk. Some, like smoking, are avoidable. Others are lifestyle factors that people can change like drinking less alcohol, decreasing consumption of processed meats, using protection from the sun, and increasing exercise.
Yet, other environmental factors like exposures to chemicals in the environment, including endocrine disruptors, have received little attention. While some NIH-funded programs like the Breast Cancer and Environment Research Program have worked to identify chemicals in the environment that promote cancer, funding for cancer prevention initiatives has stagnated.
Despite the limited resources invested in studies of environmental risk factors for cancer, we know enough to take action on some chemicals of concern.
For example, communities contaminated with perfluorinated chemicals, several of which are known to cause cancer, have demanded attention from government officials in addition to asking for more research.
Individuals living in these communities have the right to know how they are being exposed, and what their risks might be – for cancer and other diseases.
It is great that cancer research was raised in the President’s State of the Union speech, and that the difficulties associated with caring for a family member with cancer was mentioned in Stacey Abrams’ rebuttal.
But a failure to focus on prevention, a failure to acknowledge the role of the environment in causing cancer, and a failure to allocate funds to prevention research, are all failures for public health.
Dr. Vandenberg is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Her work on endocrine disrupting chemicals has been funded by the National Institutes of Health including the BCERP program, which focuses on the environmental causes of breast cancer.
Melting ice sheets may cause ‘climate chaos’: study, Daily Nation, FEBRUARY 7 2019 Billions of tonnes of meltwater flowing into the world’s oceans from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could boost extreme weather and destabilise regional climate within a matter of decades, researchers said Wednesday.
These melting giants, especially the one atop Greenland, are poised to further weaken the ocean currents that move cold water south along the Atlantic Ocean floor while pushing tropical waters northward closer to the surface, they reported in the journal Nature.
Known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), this liquid conveyor belt plays a crucial role in Earth’s climate system and helps ensures the relative warmth of the Northern Hemisphere.
“According to our models, this meltwater will cause significant disruptions to ocean currents and change levels of warming around the world,” said lead author Nicholas Golledge, an associate professor at the Antarctic Research Centre of New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington.
The Antarctic ice sheet’s loss of mass, meanwhile, traps warmer water below the surface, eroding glaciers from underneath in a vicious circle of accelerated melting that contributes to sea level rise.
Most studies on ice sheets have focused on how quickly they might shrink due to global warming, and how much global temperatures can rise before their disintegration — whether over centuries or millennia — becomes inevitable, a threshold known as a “tipping point.”
But far less research has been done on how the meltwater might affect the climate system itself.
“The large-scale changes we see in our simulations are conducive to a more chaotic climate with more extreme weather events and more intense and frequent heatwaves,” co-author Natalya Gomez, a researcher in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill University in Canada, told AFP.
“By mid-century,” the researchers concluded, “meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet noticeably disrupts the AMOC,” which has already shown signs of slowing down.
This is a “much shorter timescale than expected,” commented Helene Seroussi, a researcher in the Sea Level and Ice Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, who was not involved in the study.
RISING WATER LEVEL
The findings were based on highly detailed simulations combined with satellite observations of changes to the ice sheets since 2010.
One likely result of weakened current in the Atlantic will be warmer air temperatures in the high Arctic, eastern Canada and central America, and cooler temperatures over northwestern Europe and the North American eastern seaboard.
The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, up to three kilometres thick, contain more than two-thirds of the planet’s fresh water, enough to raise global oceans 58 and seven metres, respectively, were they to melt completely.
Besides Greenland, the regions most vulnerable to global warming are West Antarctica and several huge glaciers in East Antarctica, which is far larger and more stable.
In a second study published Wednesday in Nature, some of the same scientists offered new projections of how much Antarctica will contribute to sea level rise by 2100 — a hotly debated topic………
A special report on oceans by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due out in September, will offer a much anticipated estimate of sea level rise.
The IPCC’s last major assessment in 2013 did not take ice sheets — today seen as the major contributor, ahead of thermal expansion and glaciers — into account for lack of data. https://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/health/Melting-ice-sheets-may-cause-climate-chaos/1954202-4970670-jhymoo/index.html
Red Cross warns of ‘growing’ risk of nuclear weapons, urges ban https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/red-cross-warns-of-growing-risk-of-nuclear-weapons-urges-ban GENEVA (AFP) – The Red Cross called on Friday (Feb 8) for a total ban on nuclear weapons, warning of the growing risk that such arms could again be used with devastating effect.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched a global campaign to raise awareness about the rising nuclear threat facing the world.
In a joint statement, they said some nuclear-armed states were straying from their “longstanding nuclear disarmament obligations” and were “upgrading their arsenals, developing new kinds of nuclear weapons and making them easier to use”. The notonukes.org campaign comes after the United States and Russia ripped up a key arms control treaty, with US President Donald Trump announcing last week that Washington was beginning a process to withdraw from the Cold War-era agreement in six months.
Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly followed suit, saying Moscow was leaving the treatyand would begin work on new types of weapons not permitted under the 1987 deal.
“Seventy-four years after nuclear weapons obliterated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the risk that nuclear weapons will again be used is growing,” the Red Cross organisations warned.
The notonukes.org campaign was launched with a video depicting two friends on a beach discussing whether they would want to live or die if a nuclear bomb were to explode.
One said he would want to live, because life is full of so many beautiful things, like spending time with his family, feeling the sun on his face and falling in love. The other said he would prefer to die, because after the bomb, none of those things would be possible.
The video ends with a call to action: “Let’s decide the future of nuclear weapons before they decide ours.”
The Red Cross said the campaign aimed to shine a light on the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences of a nuclear war”.
It also aims to encourage people to lobby their governments to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which has so far been signed by 70 nations and ratified by 21.
“Any risk of nuclear weapons use is unacceptable,” ICRC president Peter Maurer said in the statement, stressing that the TPNW “represents a beacon of hope and an essential measure to reduce the risk of a nuclear catastrophe”. “At this moment of growing international tension, I call on everyone to act with urgency and determination to bring the era of nuclear weapons to an end,” he said.
Here Are ‘Most’ And ‘Least’ Radiation Emitting Smartphones In 2019 Fossbytes, February 8, 2019 Smartphone addiction is real and is slowly turning into an unhealthy obsession that is messing the minds of people. While we consider lengthy exposure to screens as a major issue, we often fail to neglect other harmful effects that smartphones can have on our health. The radiofrequency waves emitted by phones can even cause cancerous tumors, according to cancer.org.
Every smartphone comes with a Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) value that quantifies the amount of radiofrequency waves emitted from a smartphone. Higher the SAR value, more are the chances of users getting exposed to the harmful radiation. You can usually find SAR value of your device at its official website or in the user manual.
But if you are looking forward to purchasing a smartphone in 2019 that emits the least amount of radiation, here is a list you can refer to. The list has been compiled by German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt fur Strahlenschutz) and published by Statista.com. ………..
Samsung Note 8 owners are least prone to radiations and out of the 16 enlisted smartphones, eight are from Samsung.
Now, don’t you want to know the smartphones which emit the highest amount of radiation? Here, is the list you need to see……….. https://fossbytes.com/most-and-least-radiation-emitting-smartphones-2/
UK pupils to join global strike over climate change crisis, Thousands of pupils to
walk out of lessons amid growing concern over global warming, Guardian, Matthew Taylor, Sat 9 Feb 2019
‘I feel very angry’: the 13-year-old on strike for climate action The school climate strikes that have led to tens of thousands of young people taking to the streets around the world over recent months are poised to arrive in the UK next Friday.
Thousands of pupils are expected to walk out of lessons at schools and colleges across the country amid growing concern about the escalating climate crisis.
The movement started in August when the 16-year-old schoolgirl Greta Thunberg held a solo protest outside Sweden’s parliament. Now, up to 70,000 schoolchildren each week are taking part in 270 towns and cities worldwide.
Individual protests have been held in the UK, but next week a coordinated day of action is expected to result in walkouts in more than 30 towns and cities – from Lancaster to Truro, and Ullapool to Leeds.
Jake Woodier, of the UK Youth Climate Coalition, which is helping to coordinate the strikes, said Greta’s message about the need for radical, urgent change had struck a chord with hundreds of thousand of young people in the UK. ……..
The UK walkouts are being billed as a chance to build towards a global day of school strikes on 15 March….. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/08/global-school-strikes-over-climate-change-head-to-the-uk
Katrina Bohr Face book page: No Nuclear Waste Dump Anywhere in South Australia, 7 Feb 19, WHY IS DIIS SPENDING MORE TIME AND RESOURCES IN HAWKER? THE FLINDERS RANGES COUNCIL COVERS 4,198 SQUARE KMS. WHICH DOESN’T INCLUDE ALL TRADITIONAL OWNERS. IS THIS A FAIR AND CONSULTATIVE PROCESS?
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 