The definitive story on nuclear power and health
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Evatt Foundation: Publication: Nuclear power & public health – 31 May 2010
Nuclear power & public health, Evatt Foundation:, By Peter Karamoskos, 31 May 2010“… 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.” – National Academy of Science, BEIR VII report, 2006
“We need to develop a very firm commitment to the elimination of nuclear power as a source of energy on the earth.” – Russell Train, former US Environmental Protection Agency administrator, 1977″
[t]he [economic] failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.” – Forbes, 1985
Introduction
The public health implications for a resurgence of nuclear power appear to have taken a subordinate position to the economic and global warming arguments that the industry has advanced to justify its expansion. The purpose of this essay therefore is several-fold: to review the scientific evidence for public health impacts of nuclear power, to assess occupational hazards faced by nuclear industry workers involved in the nuclear fuel cycle, to assess the evidence for nuclear reactor safety and critically challenge the underlying assumptions which may be less than adequate. It will also examine the public health risks of spent fuel from nuclear power reactors. The common thread linking these safety issues is the risk posed to public health by ionising radiation and in particular the cancer risk. The nuclear industry and our understanding of radioactive health hazards, developed in tandem during the twentieth century, however, the relationship to this day has always been uneasy and often in conflict. A brief historical narrative of this joint evolution is reviewed as it is essential to understanding the context and scope of the public health issues at the heart of the nuclear power debate.
If we are to believe the nuclear industry, nuclear power is both safe and vital to our future, yet over half a century of nuclear power has proven both contentions as false……
Evatt Foundation: Publication: Nuclear power & public health – 31 May 2010
Australia will not sell uranium to India, will sell gas
Mr Smith reiterated that his country will not change its stand on uranium exports.
Australia keen to supply gas but baulks on uranium , The Hindu Business Line K Giriprakash Perth, June 7 Australia on Monday said it is willing to supply more gas to Indian companies but remained firm on its stand on supplying uranium to only NPT-signatory countries. Continue reading
Thyroid cancer danger rises with repeated dental X-rays.
Repeated Dental X-Rays Increase Thyroid Cancer Risk TopNews United Kingdom, by Rasik Sharma , 06/07/2010 – It has been stated by the researchers from Brighton, Cambridge (England) and Kuwait that thyroid cancer risk elevates with an increase in the number of dental x-rays. This finding was cited in the medical journal Acta Oncologica. Continue reading
Australia-wide campaign on action on Climate Change
climate action groups around the country, .. launched a national 100% renewables campaign on May 2.……..For more details visit 100percent.org.au.
Climate groups campaign for 100% renewables, Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2010 By Simon Butler The Rudd ALP government was elected on a promise to take serious action on climate change. Yet it hasn’t acted and Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions — already the developed world’s worst per person — are on the rise again….. Continue reading
Australian taxpayers fund uranium lobbying council
Greens Senator keeps asking awkward nuclear questions in Parliament Christina Macpherson, 7 June 2010. For just one example – this one, about the Uranium Council, funded by the Australian Government.
Senator LUDLAM—The council has been characterised by the uranium industry as a leading advocacy group. Can you explain to me why a group dedicated to increasing the exploitation of uranium should be funded by the Commonwealth? Why does this particular sector deserve Commonwealth support to do its advocacy for it?…
There are two of the largest resource companies in the world exploiting uranium in Australia, and a host of others, but the Commonwealth still thinks it is worth $3 million of taxpayers’ money to do its advocacy for it….
Do other commodities get their own taxpayer funded advocacy groups or is uranium a special case?
Natural gas can play a role in move to renewable energy
Diesendorf also supports “a limited role for gas, because renewable energy is not yet ready to take over all of gas’s roles”.
Replace Hazelwood with gas? Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2010 By Ben Courtice “.., Environment Victoria has taken up the campaign with enthusiasm. A report for EV by energy market analysts Green Energy Markets (GEM) has provided one plan for replacing Hazelwood. Launching the report, GEM director Ric Brazzale said: “By combining new renewable energy with efficient gas and energy efficiency measures we can cut Hazelwood’s annual emissions of 16.2 million tonnes to 1.8 million tonnes, which would reduce Victoria’s emissions by 12% annually, as well as freeing up 27 billion litres of water for other uses.” Continue reading
Saudi Arabia looking to the solar alternative to nuclear power
a great opportunity to not only use solar energy as a primary energy source but to profit worldwide from the renewable energy, as well…Minister of Petroleum, Ali Al-Naimi, said: “Saudi Arabia aspires to export as much solar energy in the future as it exports oil now.”
Alternatives to nuclear energy under focus – Arab News 7 June 2010, “…………..Official studies from the German government has shown that the risk of getting cancer significantly increased in children growing up in the neighborhood of a nuclear power station, particularly leukemia. Other disadvantages have to do with nuclear waste. The EIA has shown that a typical nuclear reactor produces 20-30 tons or waste per year that can’t be disposed of with Plutonium 239 remaining dangerous for as much as 10,000 years and radioactive for 240,000 years. Most countries reuse nuclear waste to create energy but this just creates more waste while others utilize the waste through their national defense departments…. Continue reading
Nuclear Abolition Day marked in Melbourne
…The ICAN video can be viewed on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yVXLDA3YMM – and see also the ICAN Australia website entry – http://www.icanw.org/node/5252
Nuclear Abolition in Melbourne 4 June 2010 On the eve of Nuclear Abolition Day ICAN Australia launched a new short video entitled “Who by Fire” based on retelling of the legend of Prometheus and Pandora displayed in a mural on the wall of the Fire Station Museum on Victoria Parade. Before the screening, which took place at Trades Hall, there was a peace picnic in Parliament Gardens, courtesy of Friends of the Earth ACE Collective, and a live performance of the work interspersed with live music and rap. Members of the audience – including several from Japanese for Peace – stood in the grounds of St Peter’s Eastern Hill church opposite the Museum, and 23 of them held lanterns, each representing 1000 nuclear weapons, this being the total world arsenal today …The ICAN video can be viewed on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yVXLDA3YMM – and see also the ICAN Australia website entry – http://www.icanw.org/node/5252
ACE Collective
Why nuking the BP oil gusher is the worst possible action
Nuclear Follies: How Not To Stem the BP Oil Gusher, Daily Kos:, by Page van der Linden 7 June 2010, “…….Never has it been more apparent that there’s a lot of misunderstanding (deliberate or otherwise) regarding nuclear weapons than recently. I’m talking about the appalling, misguided idea that we can “just nuke” the BP oil gusher and it will some how “be okay”.Here’s the Global Security Newswire’s “Quote of the Day” from June 3, 2010:
The use of a nuclear weapon to stop the BP oil gusher is not an option. It is, in fact, the worst possible thing we could do. Here’s why. Continue reading
Leading Australian law firms take up case against Muckaty nuclear waste dump
Maurice Blackburn, Julian Burnside, charged with waste dump action 3 June 2010 | by The New Lawyer THE Commonwealth Government and the Northern Land
Council will face a Federal Court legal challenge over plans for a radioactive waste dump in the Northern Territory.Maurice Blackburn Lawyers is working with NSW law firm Surry Partners, and Julian Burnside QC, to commence proceedings challenging the nomination of the Indigenous land, at Muckaty Station near Tennant Creek. Continue reading
French nuclear firm secretly got UK subsidy for waste disposal
They know full well that the economics of nuclear don’t stack up and that new reactors will only ever happen if the British taxpayer is forced yet again to carry the atomic can.”
EDF ran secret lobbying campaign to reduce nuclear waste disposal levy• Reactors builder won big concessions on key issues• Rethink on costs is in effect a subsidy, says Greenpeace Tim Webb guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 June 2010
The nuclear industry is being offered what campaigners claim is a taxpayer subsidy on the disposal costs of waste from new reactors following a secret lobbying campaign, the Guardian has learned. Continue reading
The eternal danger of nuclear wastes
THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AND RADIOACTIVE WASTES – our theme for June 2010. “The question whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government.” – Thomas Jefferson, September 6, 1789
Half-life is the period of time it takes for a radioisotope atom to degrade to a state having half of its original intensity
As you can see the continued production, use, and dumping of such waste materials as depleted uranium and plutonium, into the world’s air, land, and water leaves a permanent problem for our children, grandchildren. great-grand-children ….
Call To Martin Ferguson to withdraw nuclear dump plans
We, the undersigned residents of the federal electorate of Batman, call on Martin Ferguson MP to withdraw his plan to establish a national nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land in the NT.We condemn his plans to override Aboriginal heritage laws, environmental protection laws, and all necessary state/territory laws in order to impose the unwanted and unnecessary nuclear dump.
” if you live in Ferguson’s Batman electorate, please sign the e-petition against the dump posted at:
http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/batman-voters-against-a-nuclear-waste-dump/sign.html
The nuclear industry’s track record of falsified documents
More nuclear history repeating | Greenpeace International, 4 June 2010, The news coming out about nuclear power can read merely like a series of isolated, unconnected events. Continue reading
Workers exposed to radioactive polonium at BHP uranium mine
“These high readings should trigger further investigation and individual testing for polonium in the body,
Roxby’s radioactive risk, The Independent Weekly. HENDRIK GOUT04 Jun, 2010 Mining giant BHP Billiton is risking the lives of its staff and employees at Olympic Dam in South Australia by exposing them to unsafe levels of radiation, according to a company whistleblower. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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