Radioactive wastes are produced at all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle
The NUCLEAR INDUSTRY and the GLOBAL NUCLEAR WASTE PROBLEM – our theme for June 2010
From the uranium mine to the final destruction of the nuclear reactor….
Uranium companies pressuring Aboriginals in Australia’s Kimberly region
Green group on ‘uranium awareness’ tour » Kimberley Page, 10 June 2010, Uranium Awareness Community Forums planned for July While the proposed construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility at James Price Point attracts widespread media attention, an increase in uranium exploration is underway and under the radar in the Kimberley.
Presently there are numerous uranium tenements covering the Kimberley . This spike in activity is the result of the Barnett Government’s move to overturn the long-standing ban on uranium exploration and development held by the previous Labor Government.Already Traditional Owners across the Kimberley are under pressure to allow exploration activities. Meanwhile uranium companies are talking in glowing terms about the Kimberley as Australia’s new uranium province. Continue reading
BHP Billiton fudges radiation exposure levels of uranium mine workers
The whistleblower produced documents that show BHP uses manipulated averages and distorted sampling to ensure the figures are below the maximum exposure levels set by government…..managed to manipulate the sampling by transferring workers, whose exposures were escalating, to a different area
Radiation unsafe at BHP’s Olympic Dam: whistleblower, Sydney Morning Herald, June 4, 2010 Workers at BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam are being exposed to unsafe levels of radiation, according to a company whistleblower. Continue reading
USA’s double standards on USA’s oil, India’s nuclear pollution dangers
Under the civil liabilities for nuclear damage bill, central to a deal with the controversial nuclear pact with the US, costs for cleaning up a catastrophic failure would end up being paid by the Indian taxpayer…….so that shareholders of large US corporations would not be forced to pay out for sloppy, deadly mistakes.
Obama hasn’t learned lessons of Bhopal, Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk 10 June 2010 Foreign companies such as BP are shown the big stick, but Washington offers a big shield for its multinationals abroad
While Barack Obama is lambasting BP for spreading muck in the Gulf of Mexico, he should perhaps pencil in a date with the people of Bhopal when he visits India later this year. While 11 men lost their lives on BP’s watch and the shrimps get coated with black stuff, the chemicals that killed thousands of people in Bhopal in 1984 are still leaching into the ground water a quarter of a century after a poisonous, milky-white cloud settled over the city. Continue reading
repeated ionising radiation is a breast cancer risk for women
…In answer to the question “Is ionizing radiation a cause of breast cancer?” Cornell experts say “Yes” and note “… female breast tissue is highly susceptible to radiation effects.”….
Radiation builds up.
Do X-rays & other radiation contribute to breast cancer? ALLVOICES, by Anne Hart, Jun 09, 2010 “……, a study at Cornell University “Ionizing Radiation and Breast Cancer Risk,” showed how it’s well-established that exposure to ionizing radiation can trigger mutations and other genetic damage and cause normal cells to become malignant… Continue reading
The definitive story on nuclear power and health
I recommend that you download, print off, and study at your leisure, the complete article – from
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
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
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
Public Health Association backs union stand on danger of uranium mining
| The Northern Territory Branch of the Public Health Association of Australia (NT PHAA) has endorsed the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) call for workers to shun uranium mining.
NT PHAA Spokesperson Clive Rosewarne described the QLD/NT Branch of the ETU decision to advise its members not to work in the uranium and nuclear industries as a sensible and responsible move by the union. |
1 This month
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Antinuclear 