tagged w/ Radioactivity
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Public Citizen and a coalition of environmental organizations have filed a legal challenge to the proposed Calvert Cliffs-3 atomic reactor. The proposed nuclear project runs afoul of numerous laws and regulations, and remains a bad deal for the people of Maryland and its neighbors.Public Citizen and a coalition of environmental organizations have filed a legal... more
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MADRID (Reuters) - Greenpeace blocked the entrance on Thursday to a Spanish nuclear power station facing closure next year and urged the government to shut it down immediately in line with election pledges to phase out nuclear power.
Greenpeace said Spain's booming renewable energy sector could easily replace the 500 megawatts of power produced by Garona.MADRID (Reuters) - Greenpeace blocked the entrance on Thursday to a Spanish nuclear... more
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Mining is returning to the Uranium Capital of the World. But do people really want it back again?Mining is returning to the Uranium Capital of the World. But do people really want it... more
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dbocaz
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added this
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3 years ago
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"Over the past few decades a series of studies has called stereotypes [about coal and nuclear energy] into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash—a by-product from burning coal for power—contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste...
...Developing countries like India and China continue to unveil new coal-fired plants—at the rate of one every seven to 10 days in the latter nation. And the U.S. still draws around half of its electricity from coal. But coal plants have an additional strike against them: they emit harmful greenhouse gases...
With the world now focused on addressing climate change, nuclear power is gaining favor in some circles. China aims to quadruple nuclear capacity to 40,000 megawatts by 2020, and the U.S. may build as many as 30 new reactors in the next several decades. But, although the risk of a nuclear core meltdown is very low, the impact of such an event creates a stigma around the noncarbon power source.
The question boils down to the accumulating impacts of daily incremental pollution from burning coal or the small risk but catastrophic consequences of even one nuclear meltdown. "I suspect we'll hear more about this rivalry," Finkelman says. "More coal will be mined in the future. And those ignorant of the issues, or those who have a vested interest in other forms of energy, may be tempted to raise these issues again."
ARE WE F*CKED OR WHAT?!?
Who's side are you on in the Coal VS Nuclear Rivalry? Shall I print up TEAM COAL and TEAM NUCLEAR shirts?
"Over the past few decades a series of studies has called stereotypes [about... more
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The renewed push for legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions could falter over an old debate: whether nuclear power should play a role in any federal attack on climate change.Congress, with added impetus from a Supreme Court ruling last week, appears more likely to pass comprehensive energy legislation. But nuclear power sharply divides lawmakers who agree on mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. And it has pitted some on Capitol Hill against their usual allies, environmentalists, who largely oppose any expansion of nuclear power.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Barbara Boxer - Bay Area Democrats with similar political views - are on opposite sides.
Pelosi used to be an ardent foe of nuclear power but now holds a different view. “I think it has to be on the table,” she said.
Boxer, head of the Senate committee that will take the lead in writing global warming legislation, said that turning from fossil fuels to nuclear power was “trading one problem for another.”
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) - all presidential candidates - support legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions and provide incentives to power companies to build more nuclear plants.
Opponents of nuclear power say that because a terrorist attack on a plant could be catastrophic, it makes no sense to build more potential targets. And radioactive waste still has no permanent burial site, they say, despite officials’ three decades of trying to find one.
But attitudes toward nuclear power may be shifting as a consensus emerges that greenhouse gases are causing the world to heat up.
The Supreme Court added its voice, criticizing the Bush administration for not acting to control greenhouse gases.
Max Schulz, a former Energy Department staff member who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said the ruling could help “spur the revival of nuclear power.”
The renewed push for legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions could falter over an... more
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KIEV, Ukraine - Twenty-two years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, work is under way on a colossal new shelter to cover the ruins and deadly radioactive contents of the exploded Soviet-era power plant.
For years, the original iron and concrete shelter that was hastily constructed over the reactor has been leaking radiation, cracking and threatening to collapse. The new one, an arch of steel, would be big enough to contain the Statue of Liberty.
Once completed, Chernobyl will be safe, said Vince Novak, nuclear safety director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development which manages the $505 million project.
The new shelter is part of a broader $1.4 billion effort financed by international donors that began in 1997 and includes shoring up the current shelter, monitoring radiation and training experts.
The explosion at reactor No. 4 on April 26, 1986 was the world's worst nuclear accident, spewing radiation over a large swath of the former Soviet Union and much of northern Europe. It directly contaminated an area roughly half the size of Italy, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
In the two months after the disaster, 31 people died of radioactivity, but the final toll is still debated. The U.N. health agency estimates that about 9,300 will eventually die from cancers caused by Chernobyl's radiation. Groups such as Greenpeace insist the toll could be 10 times higher.
The old shelter, called a "sarcophagus," was built in just six months. But intense radiation has weakened it, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and rain and snow are seeping through cracks.
Officials say a tornado or earthquake could bring down the shelter, releasing clouds of poisonous dust.
The first step, shoring up the sarcophagus, is almost complete, Ukrainian and EBRD officials say.
Later, the 20,000-ton arch — 345 feet tall, 840 feet wide and 490 feet long — will be built next to the old shelter and slid over it on railtracks.
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But remember, nuclear power is safe according to our Congress. It can't happen here. What a tragedy this is.
KIEV, Ukraine - Twenty-two years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, work is under... more
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Uranium Hearings on whether to allow uranium mining in and near Grand Canyon and elsewhere in Arizona.
Hear Navajo President Joe Shirley, Jr., and other Indian leaders decry the desecration of the water and land.
This message from your friends at TouchArt.net and One Earth Blog.Uranium Hearings on whether to allow uranium mining in and near Grand Canyon and... more
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As Nuclear Waste Languishes, Expense to U.S. Rises
WASHINGTON — Forgotten but not gone, the waste from more than 100 nuclear reactors that the federal government was supposed to start accepting for burial 10 years ago is still at the reactor sites, at least 20 years behind schedule. But it is making itself felt in the federal budget.
Each reactor typically creates about 20 tons of waste a year, which is approximately two new casks, at roughly $1 million each. If a repository or interim site opened, clearing the backlog would take decades, experts say. At present, waste is in temporary storage at 122 sites in 39 states.
"Accelerating Hanford Cleanup"
http://www.archive.org/details/acc300
The first two minutes of "Accelerating Hanford Cleanup" are eye opening and the amount of radioactive waste and work needed there is staggering.
NO NEW NUKES.
As Nuclear Waste Languishes, Expense to U.S. Rises
WASHINGTON — Forgotten... more
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WASHINGTON -- Pared-down energy legislation cleared the Senate on Thursday by a wide margin after the oil industry and utilities succeeded in stripping out provisions that would have cost them billions of dollars.
The tax measure and the renewable electricity mandate were included in an energy bill that easily passed the House last week. But industry lobbyists focused their attention on Republican members of the Senate and on the White House, which repeatedly threatened to veto the bill if the offending sections were not removed.
Separately, Congress reached a tentative agreement on a major energy package that it plans to enact outside the energy bill, according to a Senate Democratic staff member. The agreement, to be included in a broad government spending bill, would authorize the Energy Department to guarantee loans for various energy projects, making financing far easier.
The agreement would guarantee loans of up to $25 billion for new nuclear plants and $2 billion for a uranium enrichment plant, something those industries had been avidly seeking. It would also provide guarantees of up to $10 billion for renewable energy projects, $10 billion for plants to turn coal into liquid vehicle fuel and $2 billion to turn coal into natural gas.
!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!!?!?!!?!!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?!!?!!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!!?!?!?
In other news, as hand basket sales sky rocket, scientists are feverishly working on a family sized hand basket that would allow as many as 20 people to make the journey to hell together. O.k., I made that up, but if you can't afford a bomb shelter and you don't know Tom Cruise, you may want to buy a hand basket before you spend all your money on Christmas presents.
WASHINGTON -- Pared-down energy legislation cleared the Senate on Thursday by a wide... more
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When Chernobyl's Number Four reactor blew up in April 1986, spewing radioactive fallout across Belarus, workers quickly slapped a giant concrete sarcophagus over the site to contain the hazard. It was supposed to be a temporary fix.
Is Wired magazine totally pro nuke, or what?
"Sounds like a blast." Peter Savodnik
WTF?
When Chernobyl's Number Four reactor blew up in April 1986, spewing radioactive... more
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November 15, 2007: Despite all the bluster and all the rhetoric over nuclear power, the South Australian Rann Government is not willing to legislate to ban it...November 15, 2007: Despite all the bluster and all the rhetoric over nuclear power,... more
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The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, Dr Helen Caldicott, has devoted the last 35 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction.The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the... more
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