tagged w/ Reactor
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It's up to you to keep aware of radiation levels in your town. Here are a couple of places to help you do that.It's up to you to keep aware of radiation levels in your town. Here are a couple... more
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TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has begun uranium enrichment at a new underground site well protected from possible airstrikes, a leading hardline newspaper reported Sunday.
Kayhan daily, which is close to Iran’s ruling clerics, said Tehran has begun injecting uranium gas into sophisticated centrifuges at the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom.
Iran is under U.N. sanctions for refusing to stop uranium enrichment — which can produce both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material — and other suspected activities that the international community fears could be used to make atomic arms.
Tehran says it only seeks reactors for energy and research, and refuses to halt its uranium enrichment activities.
“Kayhan received reports yesterday that show Iran has begun uranium enrichment at the Fordo facility amid heightened foreign enemy threats,” the paper said in a front-page report. Kayhan’s manager is a representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But Iran’s nuclear chief Fereidoun Abbasi said late Saturday that his country will “soon” begin enrichment at Fordo. It was impossible to immediately reconcile the two reports.
Iran has a major uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in central Iran where nearly 8,000 centrifuges are operating. Tehran began enrichment at Natanz in April 2006.
The Fordo centrifuges however are reportedly more efficient, and the site better shielded from aerial attack.
Satellite image of construction site of Iran's new uranium enrichment facility near Qom.
Built next to a military complex, Fordo was long kept secret and was only acknowledged by Iran after it was identified by Western intelligence agencies in September 2009.
Both the U.S. and Israel have not ruled out a military strike should Iran continue with its program.
Tehran however says it needs its enrichment program to produce fuel for future nuclear reactors and medical radioisotopes needed for cancer patients.
The country has been enriching uranium to less than 5 percent for years, but it began to further enrich part of its uranium stockpile to nearly 20 percent as of February 2010, saying it needs the higher grade material to produce fuel for a Tehran reactor that makes medical radioisotopes needed for cancer patients. Weapons-grade uranium is usually about 90 percent enriched.
Iran says the higher enrichment activities — of nearly 20 percent — will be carried out at Fordo. These operations are of particular concern to the West because uranium at 20 percent enrichment can be converted into fissile material for a nuclear warhead much more quickly than that at 3.5 percent.
Buried under 300 feet of rock, the facility is a hardened tunnel and is protected by air defense missile batteries and the Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s most powerful military force. The site is located about 12 miles north of Qom, the religious nerve center of Iran’s ruling system.
“The Fordo facility, like Natanz, has been designed and built underground. The enemy doesn’t have the ability to damage it,” the semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted Abbasi as saying Sunday.
For more photos about the story >>> http://rencadesign.com/wp/2012/01/report-iran-begins-uranium-enrichment/TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has begun uranium enrichment at a new underground site well... more
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artq8
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added this
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5 months ago
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Can improving the efficiency by which we use energy address climate change before we hit a tipping point? Energy density is key to rapid deployment of new energy production solutions. If you are serious about climate change, then you need to take a serious look at LFTR.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbx_gFT0v7kCan improving the efficiency by which we use energy address climate change before we... more
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"The bad news: the baby seal hunting season has begun off the coast of Newfoundland. The good news: they're using a more humane technique. They're shaking the baby seals instead of clubbing them." Chris Martin joins People for the Ethical Treatment of Stand-up Comedians at the 9:55 Comedy Club's open mic May 2, 2011. Joshua Saucier is the MC.
http://www.chrismartincomedy.com"The bad news: the baby seal hunting season has begun off the coast of... more
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"Bad news: Japan glows in the dark. Good news: Sarah Palin can now see two countries from her porch." Stand-up comedian Chris Martin goes Gilbert Gottfried April 19, 2011 at Strange Matter in Richmond, VA. John Reaves is the MC.
http://chrismartincomedy.com"Bad news: Japan glows in the dark. Good news: Sarah Palin can now see two... more
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"The bad news: tsunami hits Japan. The good news: swirlies are on the house." MC John Reaves bestows the Too-Soon Award to stand-up comedian Chris Martin March 14, 2011 at Cafe Diem Comedy Night in Richmond, VA.
http://ChrisMartinComedy.com"The bad news: tsunami hits Japan. The good news: swirlies are on the... more
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worrg
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added this
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1 year ago
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No, the mutated animals will not be giant radioactive ants or grasshoppers like 1950s monster movies. But they can be terribly mutated monstrosities with DNA horribly twisted by nuclear poisoning.
Things of horror emerged from the southwestern desert after the early atomic tests by the U.S. military. Although much was hushed up, some of the mutated terrors leaked into scientific reports of the time.
Russian scientists discovered first hand the nuclear nightmare world of mutants in the months following the Chernobyl disaster. Although the radioactive plume drifted around the world, the most severe impact was seen in the region of the reactor and adjacent countryside. Not only plants and animals, but humans too were mutated.No, the mutated animals will not be giant radioactive ants or grasshoppers like 1950s... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
A second reactor unit at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan may have ruptured, authorities announced on Wednesday. This is on top of their earlier revelation that the containment vessel of a separate reactor unit had cracked.
As of Tuesday, four nuclear reactors in Japan seem to be in partial meltdown in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami, according to Christian Parenti of the Nation:
One of them, reactor No. 2, seems to have ruptured. The situation is spinning out of control as radiation levels spike. The US Navy has pulled back its aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, after seventeen of its crew were exposed to radiation while flying sixty miles off the Japanese coast.
But despite three major explosions—at reactor No. 1, then No. 3, then No. 2—the Fukushima containment vessels seem to be holding. (Chernobyl lacked that precaution, having only a flimsy cement containment shell that collapsed, allowing the massive release of radioactive material.)
So, the good news is that only one out of four of the reactors is teetering on the brink of a full meltdown, and engineers might still be able to stave off disaster. The bad news, Parenti explains, is that spent fuel rods on the reactor sites could pose grave health hazards even if the threat of meltdown is averted. Even so-called “spent” rods remain highly radioactive.
The big question is whether the facilities that house this waste survived the earthquake, the tsunami, and any subsequent massive explosions at the nearby reactor. Given the magnitude of the destruction, and the relatively flimsy facilities used to house the spent rods, it seems unlikely that all the containment pools emerged unscathed. Parenti explains:
Unlike the reactors, spent fuel pools are not—repeat not—housed in any sort of hardened or sealed containment structures. Rather, the fuel rods are packed tightly together in pools of water that are often several stories above ground.
A pond at the Fukushima Daiichi plant is overheating, but radiation levels were so high that the Japanese military has postponed a helicopter mission to douse the pond with water.
Journalist and environmental activist Harvey Wasserman tells the Real News Network that the housing the spent rods (a.k.a. nuclear waste) is a chronic problem for the global nuclear industry.
Wasserman told GRITtv that the west coast of the United States has reactors that could suffer a similar fate in the event of a sufficiently large earthquake.
“If I were in Japan, I would at least get the children away from the reactor, because their bodies are growing faster and their cells are more susceptible to radiation damage. I would go out to 50 kilometers and at least get the children away from those reactors,” nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen told DemocracyNow! on Tuesday. At the time he said this, 70,000 residents had already been forced to evacuate their homes, and another 140,000 were ordered to stay indoors.
Mainstreaming anti-contraception
Kirsten Powers, Fox News’ resident self-proclaimed liberal, took to the pages of the Daily Beast recently to make the bizarre case that Planned Parenthood should be de-funded because the 100-year-old organization doesn’t really prevent the half-million abortions that it claims to prevent by supplying millions of clients with reliable birth control. (Powers was forced to concede that a gross statistical error rendered her entire piece invalid.) At RH Reality Check, Amanda Marcotte describes how Powers attempted to repackage fringe anti-contraception arguments for a mainstream audience. At TAPPED, I explain why Planned Parenthood’s abortion-prevention claim is rock solid.
Diet quackery
Unscrupulous doctors are cashing in on the latest diet fad: hormone injections derived from the urine of pregnant women, Kristina Chew notes for Care2.com. Patients pay $1,000 for consultations, a supply human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), and a 500-calorie-a-day diet plan. There is no evidence that hCG increases weight loss more than a starvation diet alone. But paying $1,000 to inject yourself in the butt every day does evidently work up a hell of a placebo effect.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
A second reactor unit at the... more
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Using a common metal most famously found in self-cleaning ovens, Sossina Haile hopes to change our energy future. The metal is cerium oxide -- or ceria -- and it is the centerpiece of a promising new technology developed by Haile and her colleagues that concentrates solar energy and uses it to efficiently convert carbon dioxide and water into fuels.
LINK : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119102746.htmUsing a common metal most famously found in self-cleaning ovens, Sossina Haile hopes... more
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It may look like any average building but behind closed doors could lie the answer to safe renewable energy of the future. Here at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore California, scientists are aiming to build the world's first sustainable fusion reactor by 'creating a miniature star on Earth'. Following a series of key experiments over the last few weeks, the £2.2 billion project has inched a little closer to its goal of igniting a workable fusion reaction by 2012. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/your-details/11685-creating-a-miniature-star-on-earthIt may look like any average building but behind closed doors could lie the answer to... more
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worrg
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added this
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1 year ago
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Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has been building a previously undeclared nuclear facility to enrich uranium, raising fears that Tehran is closer to acquiring an atomic bomb than has been predicted up until now.
The presence of a secret second site – built inside a mountain near the holy Shia city of Qum – has been known about by American and other Western intelligence agencies for some time, although nothing has been revealed until now.
Iran’s formal letter to the IAEA in Vienna, sent on Monday, pre-empted an announcement to be made today by President Obama, Gordon Brown and President Sarkozy of France before the opening of the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, in which Tehran will be accused of building the secret facility about 100 miles southwest of the Iranian capital.
Although the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) has been tracking construction of the plant for several years, Mr Obama decided it was time to put maximum pressure on Tehran by revealing its existence.Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has been building a... more
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