Nuclear plant cooling pools – terrorist targets
The Department of Homeland Security has marked Shearon Harris as one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation.
Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina . Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina In Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010 Project Censored, Organic Consumers Association January 3, 2010 One of the most lethal patches of ground in North America is located in the backwoods of North Carolina, where Shearon Harris nuclear plant is housed and owned by Progress Energy. The plant contains the largest radioactive waste storage pools in the country. Continue reading
Maralinga atomic veterans join British class action
It is a race against time as applications have to be lodged before a legal deadline of May 2010
CLASS ACTION BY NUCLEAR VETERANS HEADED BY SYDNEY LEGAL TEAM – NO WIN NO FEE December 31, 2009 by Coober Pedy Regional Times Surviving Australian veterans of the British nuclear tests at Maralinga, Monte Bello Island and Christmas Island in the 1950s and 60s are joining British and other nuclear veterans in taking the British government to court in what could be one of the most significant compensation cases in legal history. Continue reading
Need for media coverage of medical radiation risks
Let’s hope the media gives this as much attention as they do with their traditionally disproportionate reporting on a given test’s benefits.
Radiation from CT scans increases the risk of cancer | KevinMD.com 29 Dec 09 The Archives of Internal Medicine recently released a study concluding that “roughly 72 million CT scans performed in the U.S. in 2007 will ultimately cause some 29,000 cases of cancer.”
That’s an attention grabber.It was found that the amount of radiation given off by CT scans can vary by a factor of ten, based on the model of the scanner itself and the hospital the test was performed in. That makes it difficult to truly estimate a patient’s exposure.
Extrapolating their model to CT-angiography, a controversial heart scan that gaining popularity, it’s estimated that “one in 270 women who [receive the study] at age 40 will develop cancer as a result of the scan, and one in 600 men.”That’s a huge number, and one that warrants discussion whenever the test is being considered. Let’s hope the media gives this as much attention as they do with their traditionally disproportionate reporting on a given test’s benefits.
Radiation from CT scans increases the risk of cancer | KevinMD.com
What about the radiation risks of airport scanning?
“I’ve read nothing about the accumulated radiation risk. Will pregnant women be forced to submit? What about women who aren’t certain that they’re pregnant?
Getting X-Rayed at the Airport: Radiation Risk Anyone? Huffington Post Carol Felsenthal December 30, 2009 I read in both Chicago dailies and the New York Times and Wall Street Journal much about the full-body scanners that seem destined for airports around the world– in hopes that they might prevent another near miss like the Christmas Day attempt by the young Nigerian to blow a hole in the side of the Amsterdam to Detroit airplane. Continue reading
India’s nuclear program hampered by lack of insurance
All property insurance covers exclude losses due to nuclear reaction, nuclear radiation or radioactive contamination.
Irda sounds out insurers on nuclear accident cover The Economic Times 29 Dec 2009, Hema Ramakrishnan & Mayur Shetty, ET Bureau NEW DELHI|MUMBAI: A year after private nuclear plants became a possibility in India following the Indo-US nuclear deal, the insurance regulator is deliberating with companies to cover liabilities arising out of deliberating with companies to cover liabilities arising out of nuclear accidents, which is essential for such plants…
…Currently, nuclear risks are not covered by any policy, as insurers do not have the wherewithal to estimate liabilities. All property insurance covers exclude losses due to nuclear reaction, nuclear radiation or radioactive contamination.
In most countries, operators of nuclear plants buy insurance cover as they are liable to pay compensation for any damage. Normally, the liability is limited by both international conventions and national legislation. The state has the responsibility to accept any liability more than insured.
The absence of such covers here may make it difficult to fund relief, if an accident occurs.
The US, for instance, is not bound by any international nuclear liability convention. The liability from a nuclear accident is addressed by the Price Anderson Act of 1956, which provides $10 billion in cover without cost to the government. It covers power reactors, research reactors and all other nuclear facilities.
Irda sounds out insurers on nuclear accident cover- Insurance news-Insurance-Personal Finance-The Economic Times
After years of denial, NSW govt quietly demolishing radioactive home
Radioactive waterfront home to be razed Sydney Morning Herald BEN CUBBY ENVIRONMENTDecember 28, 2009 NEW plans to clean up the site of a former uranium smelter in Hunters Hill mean a four-storey waterfront mansion the NSW Government has repeatedly declared safe will be demolished. Continue reading
Radiation scan urged, for air travel safety
It’s unclear how much radiation this would subject people to..
Full Body Scans Only Way To Stop Flight 253-Type Attempts: Expert Huliq News by Michael Santo 29 Dec 09 As the world continues to reel in the aftermath of the flight 253 incident, in which Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, attempted to set off PETN explosive on a Northwest Airlines flight (Delta Airlines is NWA’s parent company), a security expert says there is an answer. The backscatter machine, which provides a full body scan, could have prevented the incident, but at the cost of privacy for many……………It’s unclear how much radiation this would subject people to, however, and the potential for harm from that, for frequent travelers. There is still a loophole, however, as the backscatter machine would not detect anything hidden in a body cavity. Unfortunately, a full body X-ray would subject passengers to too much radiation, and cost millions more to implement (a backscatter machine would only cost $200,000, Laird said).
Full Body Scans Only Way To Stop Flight 253-Type Attempts: Expert | HULIQ
Depleted uranium was tested on soldiers in Australia
An Australian royal commission first discovered the use of depleted uranium in atomic tests at Maralinga some years ago,
Global changes ruining the world, September 25, 2009 Human Nuclear Action UK Admits Soldiers Used in Radiation Experiments The UK Ministry of Defense admitted on 12 May that it exposed British, Australian and New Zealand servicemen to radiation in tests during the 1950s and 1960s. A spokesperson for the Ministry denied that the soldiers were used as guinea pigs, Continue reading
Russia still ignoring its nuclear guinea pigs
These people were used as guinea pigs, tested, and then left to die slowly of cancer. The state does not want their tragedy recognized, because it would cost money. Nobody wants to know.
Global changes ruining the world September 25, 2009 Human Nuclear Action Soviet Human Nuclear Experiments Reported According to recently released reports, some 45,000 people, mainly Soviet soldiers, were deliberately exposed in 1954 to radiation from a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima just nine years before. Continue reading
Aborigines get tainted land back, but no compensation for cancers
Just as the Maralinga army veterans find no justice from the Australian government, in their fight for compensation for radiation-induced illness, so those surviving aborigines affected by the atomic tests still go unrecognised.
In the true tradition of British and Australian governments, it is hoped that they will just all die out and be forgotten.
It sounds fine for SA’s Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Jay Weatherill to claim that this land handover is the” final chapter of a 50-year struggle for justice.” But it’s not – those victims of nuclear radiation are still there, and so are their children. The veterans are taking their case to Britain, particularly on behalf of their children and grandchildren. Why should the aboriginal victims continue to be ignored, in the pretense that their health was not affected? Continue reading
China’s nuclear program mired in corruption and dubious safety
Nuclear Power Expansion in China Stirs Concerns The New York Times By KEITH BRADSHER 15 Dec 09 “………. inside and outside the country, the speed of the construction program has raised safety concerns.
The last country to carry out such a rapid nuclear expansion was the United States in the 1970s, in a binge of reactor construction that ended with the Three Mile Island accident Continue reading
Cyclone flood danger to uranium mines
Australia Issues Red Alert as Tropical Cyclone Approaches Coast By Jason ScottDec. 16 (Bloomberg) — Australia issued its highest storm alert as Tropical Cyclone Laurence’s winds strengthened to as high as 285 kilometers (177 miles) per hour as it approached the northwestern coast, where offshore oil and gas rigs were evacuated earlier………..
Cyclone George in March 2007 caused flooding at Energy Resources of Australia Ltd.’s Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory.
Australia Issues Red Alert as Tropical Cyclone Approaches Coast – Bloomberg.com
Australian govt doesn’t care: Maralinga vets join British case
Maralinga vets join British class action Pia Akerman The Australian * December 16, 2009 AUSTRALIANS exposed to deadly radiation in the Maralinga nuclear tests of the 1950s and 60s have abandoned plans to sue at home and will instead join a British class action seeking compensation for damage to their health. Continue reading
Indigenous peoples at Copenhagen say NO to nuclear
Indigenous Peoples in Copenhagen: Ruling out the Nuclear Option — Neither Clean nor Green Nuclear Reaction 15 Dec 09 COPENHAGEN — Remembering the words of Chief Seattle, Indigenous Peoples and people of color at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen sent a message to the world to rule out nuclear energy, which is neither clean nor green. Continue reading
Review: Nuke weapons, BHPB govt influence, Copenhagen
Review of past week
Australia: Embarassment for Rudd (disarmament hero) with new defense call to revive Australian nuclear weapons plan, and with Gareth Evans including ‘peaceful’ nuke power, just as Rudd launches the report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. BHP Billiton adviser Hamish Douglass is appointed to the Foreign Investment Review Board. Tony Abbott dancing around the Coalition’s enthusiasm for nuclear power. Australian company Paladin now mining uranium in earthquake prone area in Malawi.
International: Uranium price continues to fall, but don’t worry, in Copenhagen the industry is pushing for nuclear as the solution to climate change. Meanwhile huge world-wide poll shows growing popularity of renewable energy, majority of people prefer it.Parliament of World’s Religions opposing nuclear. Problems and delays in India’s nuke program, while Young Indian movement gathers opposition to nuclear.
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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