*** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and links

Water scarcity could drive push towards wind and solar
[link to reneweconomy.com.au]

Plane carrying low-level radioactive materials in accident at Bratislava Airport
[link to spectator.sme.sk]

hi windy,

indeed it was the subject matter...

where are these people going?... are they tired of the evacuation centres and lack of money, and out of desperation and exasperation are returning home to highly irradiated areas?...

FOCUS: Japan's nuclear phase-out goal in precarious state as election looms

As Japan moves toward a general election that many are foreseeing would bring in a new government, a controversial energy strategy that aims to phase out nuclear power in the 2030s is left in a precarious position.

Japan's new energy policy was compiled two months ago in the wake of last year's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex disaster, but the government has shown little progress in fleshing out the strategy amid criticism that it includes measures that contradict its zero-nuclear goal.

"The country's energy policy is in disarray," said Harutoshi Funabashi, an environmental sociology professor at Hosei University. "After all, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has been in a deadlock on this issue as well as on other issues."
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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IAEA: Iran accelerates uranium enrichment

The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that Iran is accelerating the pace of uranium enrichment at a facility by installing more centrifuges.

The IAEA said in a report on Friday that the Fordow nuclear site near the city of Qom has produced 95.5 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent. The figure is up 46 percent from the amount confirmed by the UN nuclear agency in August. The number of centrifuges at the site has increased by more than 600 from August to 2,784.

The report also raised concern about the ongoing activity at a military complex outside the capital, Tehran.

The IAEA has been demanding an on-site inspection of the complex.

The report said satellite images show the removal and replacement of surface soil over 25 hectares of land in the compound.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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Energy measures left up in the air

Japan's economic policy is not the only thing that is facing an uncertain future. So are plans for energy.

In September, the government mapped out new energy measures. They included the termination of nuclear power generation by the 2030's.

The government was also planning to come up by year end with a framework for introducing renewable and other forms of alternative energy.

Final decisions on these matters are made at meetings of the National Policy Minister, the Economy, Trade and Industry Minister and by other cabinet officials.

But it's now unclear whether such meetings will be held by the end of the year.

In addition, debate on the country's comprehensive basic energy plan has been shelved. The plan was expected to address future electricity needs.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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SCANA says SC Summer reactor repair to add two weeks to outage

South Carolina power company SCANA Corp found and repaired some small cracks on the reactor vessel at the 966-megawatt (MW) Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina, which shut in mid-October for planned refueling.

Fixing the cracks may have added about two weeks to the outage, SCANA spokesman Eric Boomhower told Reuters on Friday.

He said the outage had originally been scheduled to last about 40 days. Based on that schedule, the plant should exit the outage in the first or second week of December.

"The plant is absolutely safe and poses no safety concern to the public," Boomhower said, noting the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates the nuclear power industry, was fully aware of the work SCANA is doing.
[link to www.nucpros.com]

How many times have we heard that one before?... seems to be a standard phrase in the business...
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Oyster Creek to Repair Reactor Nozzle After NRC Inspection
[link to manchester-nj.patch.com]

<snips and edits (additions and comments)/fb>
The Invisible Nuclear Threat Within Non-Organic Food
18h November 2012

By Sayer Ji - with edits and commentary

Whether you know it or or not, nuclear waste (cobalt-60) has been used for decades to make your food “safer.”

There is a profound misunderstanding in the mass market today about the value of certified organic food. The question is not whether the 50% higher or more you pay at the register for an organic product is really worth the added vitamin, mineral and phytonutrient content you receive. Even though organic food does usually have considerably higher nutrient density, it is not always the positive quality of what it contains that makes it so special. Rather, it is what you know the organic food does not contain, or what has not happened to it on its journey to your table, that makes buying organic a no-brainer to the educated consumer. Let me explain.


The FDA presently supports and actively promotes the use of cobalt-60 culled from nuclear reactors as a form of “electronic pasteurization” on all domestically produced conventional food. They claim it makes the food “safer.”[1] The use of euphemisms like “food additive” and “pasteurization” to describe the process of blasting food with inordinately high levels of gamma radiation can not obviate the fact that the very same death rays generated by thermonuclear warfare to destroy life are now being applied to food to “make it safer.” This sort of Orwellian logic, e.g. WAR is PEACE, is the bread and butter of State-sponsored industry propaganda, and also informs other ostensibly “humanitarian” applications of weapons of mass destruction such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Inconceivably High Amounts of Radiation Used To “Pasteurize” Your Food
This is not a hypochondriac’s ranting, as we aren’t talking here about small amounts of radiation. The level of gamma radiation used starts at 1 kiloGray (equivalent to 16,700,000 chest x-rays or 333 times a human lethal dose) and goes all the way up to 30 kiloGray (500,000,000 chest x-rays or 10,000 times a human lethal dose). The following table is a list of foods that are increasingly being “nuked” for your protection.

Source: FTSI, Food Irradiation

How Do You Know If Your Food Has Been Nuked?
When you buy conventional food, there is little assurance that it has not been irradiated. Although labeling requirements specify that irradiated food sold in stores should have the international symbol – the Radura – affixed to it, oversight is particularly poor in this regard, and restaurant food and processed food containing irradiated ingredients are not legally required to be labeled as such.

Labeled, or not, irradiated food is exposed to the same ionizing gamma radiation that destroyed life in Hiroshima, Chernobyl and now Fukushima. “Primitive” life forms like microbes refuse to ingest irradiated food (which is why we use it), but humans are gullible enough to believe industry pundits and governmental “authorities” like the USDA and FDA, who say doses of radiation applied to your food up to and quite close to a billion chest x-rays worth of ionizing radiation is safe for human consumption.

Is Your Health “Collateral Damage” In The War Against Food Perishability?
Despite the irresponsible promotion of this process as safe, food irradiation destroys much of the vitamin content of food, produces a number of toxic byproducts: formaldehyde, benzene, and formic acid, as well as unique radiolytic products, e.g. 2-alklycyclobutanoes, that have been demonstrated to be cytotoxic (damages cells), genotoxic (damages DNA), and carcinogenic (causes cancer) in test tube and animal studies. (View peer-reviewed research on gamma irradiation here).

Also, gamma radiation is capable of increasing the allergenicity of food proteins such as milk by denaturing them, and this side effect was found to occur, ironically, even at low radiation doses.

How is it, then, that a process that is so obviously detrimental to human health is allowed? There are at least three reasons driving this dangerous process:

Food Sanitization: food irradiation allows for the continuance of the fundamentally unsanitary and unsafe farming practices considered essential for the profitability of large corporation-owned factory farms. When raw human sewage and wastewater in combination with manure from sick, antibiotic-raised animals is used as fertilizer, virulent strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria can infect the product, getting deep within its tissues where chemical sanitizers can’t reach. Gamma-radiation, which effectively penetrates deep within the product, enables the irresponsible, immoral and unsanitary conditions to remain.
Food Globalization: The increased stabilization and reduction in perishability provided by food irradiation supports the continued globalization of food production and distribution, furthering the agendas and profitability of transnational corporations, whose respect for the sovereignty, constitutional rights and public health of the U.S. or any other nation, is secondary to the primary aim of raw, unregulated capitalism in pursuit of profits at all costs.
Food Politicization: Finally, the military-industrial complex requires that the public perceive nuclear energy as not just an element of war, or potential ecological disaster, but as something “beneficial” that may protect us from harm. Nuclear waste, once the irrepressible hobgoblin of the nuclear energy industry, is suddenly transformed – under the guidance and support of our government – into both a profitable commodity and a “therapeutic” agent.
It Gets Worse: Spraying Our Food With Virus Cocktail To Make it “Better”
In the same way that irradiating bacteria contaminated food does nothing to remove the unsanitary processes that cause the underlying problem, in 2006, the FDA passed, without any public review or oversight, the use of bacteriphage virus “cocktails” to be sprayed on meat, in an attempt to prevent Listeria monocytogenes outbreaks. These bacteria-specific viruses, in theory, lay dormant waiting for virulent and antibiotic-resistant bacteria upon which they prey.

Although the FDA only approves the use of lysic bacteriphages which are not believed to alter the DNA of the cells they infect, the possibility of contamination with lysogenic strains which can alter DNA is significant, owing to the fact that these viruses are only between 20 and 200 millionth of a millimeter in size. The FDA’s decision to define bacteriophages as “Generally Recognized As Safe” (GRAS) food additives is premature, and therefore a red flag to those who are concerned about the underlying food safety issues that are not being addressed.

Genetically Modified Organisms: The Food Experiment You Are Already Enrolled In
With the country still reeling from the implosion of the financial markets, new attention has been placed on the huge trade deficits the US has with its trading partners. One major factor in our increasingly disadvantaged global trading position is our decision to use genetically modified organisms (GMO’s), despite growing concern over its short and long term adverse effects on the health of the human body and the environment. For example in 2006 “the most significant event in the history of the U.S. rice industry” occurred, according to David Coia of the USA Rice Federation trade group, when trace amounts of genetically modified rice was found commingled in the U.S. rice supply.

According to Green Peace, the U.S. sustained approximately 1.2 billion dollars in losses, when over 30 countries were affected by the contamination, and many closed their markets to U.S. rice, including the European Union and the Philippines. Why the global outcry? Despite our government’s arguably criminal avoidance of the evidence linking genetically modified food to adverse health effects, the governments of other nations are aware of the dire risks to human and environmental health these GMOs pose. America one of the only countries in the world which does not require GMO ingredients or foods to be labeled as such. We can’t expect the rest of the world to so carelessly experiment on its population with foods that have been profoundly altered to contain potentially toxic gene products from other species, as well as contamination with highly toxic agrichemicals such as Roundup, or similar glyphosate-based formulations.

Their reluctance to participate in the largest food experiment in the history of our species is directly reflected in the world’ s increasing resistance to accepting food exported from the U.S., which has had huge impacts on our economic well-being. If you wish to withdraw yourself as a guinea pig from this national GMO experiment, remember, the only way you can know for sure that you food is not genetically modified is if it is certified organic, or certified GMO-free. (to learn about the devastating health effects of GMOs, go to seedsofdeception.com)

Buying Organic Food: Vote With Your Fork!
Food quality has become an oxymoron in this country. With the state-sponsored promotion of food irradiation, virus-laden food additives, genetic modification, pesticide usage and raw sewage fertilizer, Americans who don’t go out of their way to buy only organic food, are unknowing participants in the largest food experiment ever performed in recorded history. Not too long ago, all cultures considered food sacred for its ability to sustain our physical, emotional and spiritual well being from the ground up. Today, the forces of commodification and naked, unbridled “free market” capitalism have converted food into devitalized metabolic poisons, which slowly render those who consume them into commodities themselves, i.e. sickened patients, against whom are plied the thousands of branded ‘snake-oil’ potions conjured up by the conventional medical establishment’s cauldron-like pharmacopeia.

Remember, next time you shop, know that buying organic isn’t just about it being more nutritious than conventional food; rather, it provides the only assurance that can still shield you from the veritable minefield of potential health liabilities which is lurking within every supermarket across the land. Also, it enables you to affect real change by voting with your fork when the ballot box or government representatives increasingly moves in the wrong direction.

<end snips>

Last Edited by CitizenPerth™ on 11/17/2012 11:03 PM

MHI, Obayashi develop radiation-shielded seat for machinery operators

TOKYO — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd and Obayashi Corp have jointly developed a “radiation-shielded seat” that suppresses radiation exposures of industrial vehicle operators working in radiation-contaminated areas.

The seat incorporates body armor-like radiation shielding developed by combining MHI’s radiation shielding technology based on development and production of special vehicles, and Obayashi’s decontamination experience, with a target of suppressing radiation exposure of operators by 50%.
[link to www.japantoday.com]
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Aging Nuke Plants Add to Europe's Economic Woes

The parking lot outside the atomic power plant is weedy and potholed. Bus stops that once teemed with hundreds of workers are eerily empty.

Yet the stillness at Ignalina, a Lithuanian nuclear plant built in the 1980s Soviet era, belies an unsettling fact: There is still nuclear fuel inside one of its two reactors, three years after it was shut due to safety concerns.

A temporary storage facility for spent fuel and radioactive waste is four years behind schedule, creating a money drain at a time when the 27-nation European Union grapples with a crippling economic crisis.
[link to abcnews.go.com]
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Kudankulam to go live during Putin trip

NEW DELHI: After the setback over Russian President Vladimir Putin's abrupt decision to postpone his India visit, the two countries are looking to undo some of the recent strife by commissioning the first Kudankulam reactor during his visit in late December.
[link to timesofindia.indiatimes.com]
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Oyster Creek to Repair Reactor Nozzle After NRC Inspection

Oyster Creek’s reactor nozzle, which leads into the power plant’s reactor, will need repairs prior to returning online, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Spokesman Neil Sheehan said.

The plant was shut down in October for a refueling and maintenance outage in which numerous plant components and systems are inspected. During those inspections, two “indications” were identified on a nozzle attached to the reactor vessel, Sheehan said.

“An indication is not a crack but rather a flaw that, left unaddressed, could eventually develop into a crack. One of the indications found at Oyster Creek was 2.5 inches in length, the other 1.5 inches in length,” he said.
[link to manchester-nj.patch.com]
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Centrica to abandon nuclear plants in Britain as energy giant switches investment to US market

Centrica is expected to turn its back on building new nuclear power stations in Britain and instead focus its expansion in the US.

The owner of British Gas will formally take the decision by January at the latest to end its partnership with French energy giant EDF to build a new Hinkley Point power station in Somerset.

According to senior company sources, only a dramatic change in Government policy on subsidising nuclear power would create a business case for investment.
[link to www.thisismoney.co.uk]
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NRC RENEWS LICENSE FOR FORT CALHOUN

NUCLEAR POWER PLANT FOR AN ADDITIONAL 20 YEARS
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has renewed the operating license of the Fort
Calhoun nuclear power plant, located north of Omaha, Nebraska, for an additional 20 years.

The plant is operated by the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD).
OPPD submitted its license renewal application to the NRC on January 11, 2002. With the
renewal, the license for Fort Calhoun is extended from August 9, 2013, to August 9, 2033.
[link to pbadupws.nrc.gov]

Fukushima child suspected to have thyroid cancer -Kyodo
[link to enenews.com]

Kyodo: Radioactive trout over 100 times gov’t limit caught in Fukushima river
[link to enenews.com]

Thread: Scientists: “The very lowest levels of radiation are harmful to life” — We have to rethink exposure levels from nuclear plants

Strontium-90 measured from west of Tokyo
[link to fukushima-diary.com]

This will not end well, I'm afraid...


Iran's underground nuclear capacity keeps expanding: IAEA report
[link to news.xinhuanet.com]

Aging nuke plants add to Europe's economic woes
[link to www.google.com]

Black and white smoke came out from near reactor3 for 40 mins on 10/30 and 9/4/2012
[link to fukushima-diary.com]

The muddy issue of cesium in a lake
[link to www.japantimes.co.jp]

[snip]

Lake Kasumigaura in Ibaraki Prefecture is facing an environmental threat that has essentially turned it into a time bomb ticking away 60 km northeast of Tokyo.

It's no big surprise. The lake's catchment area is huge, covering 2,200 sq. km across 24 municipalities in Ibaraki, Chiba and Tochigi prefectures. It doesn't take a genius to understand that the radiation that fell across some of the Tohoku region, and beyond, in the wake of the March 2011 nuclear disaster found its way into the area's rivers and thus flowed into the lake. In addition to that, Lake Kasumigaura, which is the name given to three contiguous lakes (the largest is Lake Nishiura and the other two are called Kitaura and Sotonasakaura), is a closed lake with no outflow. That means incoming radioactive substances have nowhere else to go.

Georgia



Health Officials Reopen Radon/Uranium Study
[link to www.gpb.org]

Georgia


Testing Continues Of Polluted Wells
[link to www.gpb.org]

The Food Lab, testing for radioactive contamination in food and the environment.
This is a community based testing lab, and run as a free service to SCCC Inc., members. The computer based testing is running 24/7, so as new discoveries are made, the results will be posted here. All care is taken to produce as accurate results as possible, but take into account that this service is run by non professional volunteers
[link to sccc.org.au]