Karen Meadows blows an airhorn in the kitchen of her house at 9 a.m. to start a drill and then she and her seven children scrambled out the door like they would in the event they need to evacuate their home if a radioactive plume of smoke is released from the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton.
Watch the video at Family practices evacuation in case of West Lake Landfill radiation leak
A video of Sunday’s explosions that preceded a fire in a state-owned radioactive waste trench at the US Ecology site 10 miles south of Beatty shows white smoke emanating from the soil before the ground erupts, shooting debris and more white smoke into the air.
The 40-second cellphone video, released Thursday by the Nevada Department of Public Safety two days after the Las Vegas Review-Journal had requested it, was taken from a berm atop Trench No. 11 overlooking the soil cap of Trench No. 14.
Trench No. 14 is where containers of low-level radioactive waste were buried in part of a pit the size of a football stadium in the 1970s.
Authorities shut down a 140-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 95 for nearly 24 hours because of the fire and flash floods during Sunday’s heavy rains in Nye County. Beatty is about 117 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
State Fire Marshal Chief Peter Mulvihill said Tuesday investigators don’t know yet what caused the “energetic burning” in that pit Sunday but whatever caught fire below the surface of the unlined, clay terrain “definitely burned very hot.”
The state’s public safety team decided to allow the fire to burn itself out instead of trying to douse it because they didn’t want to put water on any material that might be reactive to water, fearing that could potentially exacerbate the problem.
[…]
For 30 years — from 1962 through 1992 — the dump operated by US Ecology and its predecessor, Nuclear Engineering Co., on state land leased to the companies was one of a few graveyards in the United States for disposing low-level nuclear waste along with sites in Barnwell, S.C., and Richland, Wash.
The Beatty dump, as it is sometimes called, occupies a stark, treeless stretch in the Amargosa Desert. It looks harmless from US. 95 with the appropriately named Bare Mountains off in the distance.
US Ecology continues to operate a 40-acre landfill for hazardous waste adjacent to the 40-acre landfill for low-level radioactive waste that closed Jan. 1, 1993. That’s when US Ecology was forced to shut its gates to nuclear waste haulers because of a federal law that required individual states to open their own dumps or join compacts with other states for regional disposal of low-level radioactive waste.
Items buried in the low-level nuclear waste dump include contaminated laboratory gear, medical isotopes and nuclear reactor crud but not highly radioactive used-nuclear-fuel assemblies, the type of high-level waste the government has planned to entomb in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Read more at Video shows blasts at nuclear waste dump site that shut down U.S. 95
消費者庁は最新の消費者意識調査で、東京電力福島第一原発事故を受けた食品の放射性物質検査の実施を「知らない」と回答した人が初めて３割を超え、３分の１以上になったと発表した。
「事故から４年以上がたち、関心が低下している」と分析している。
調査は２０１３年２月から、インターネットを使って東日本大震災の被災地と大都市圏の成人約５０００人に対して半年ごとに実施されている。最新は６回目にあたる今年８月の調査。検査実施を「知らない」は３４・７％だった。１～５回目は全て２０％台だった。
国の規制値（一般食品は１キロ・グラムあたり１００ベクレル）を超えると出荷されないことを「知っている」と答えたのは４５・２％で半数を割った。「福島産の食品の購入をためらう」と回答した人は１７・２％で、１～５回目と大きな差はなかった。
LONDON – The overall cost of replacing and maintaining Britain’s nuclear deterrent will reach 167 billion pounds ($256 billion), much more than expected, according to a lawmaker’s and Reuters’ calculations based on official figures.
If the figure is confirmed, it is likely to spur critics who say Britain should not be committing to spending billions of pounds on defense at a time when they say deep cuts under the government’s “austerity” policies are hurting families.
Some military officials also say the money would be better spent on maintaining the army and on more conventional technology, which have also faced cuts.
Until now, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has said replacing the ageing fleet of four submarines which carry nuclear warheads to provide a continuous at-sea deterrent would cost an estimated 15-20 billion pounds.
[…]
Using the same figures, a Reuters calculation came to the same sum of 167 billion pounds.
Asked about the rising cost, a spokesperson for the British Ministry of Defense said the government had published an unclassified version of a review on alternatives to Trident which “demonstrated that no alternative system is as capable, or as cost-effective, as a Trident-based deterrent”.
“At around 6 percent of the annual defense budget, the in-service costs of the UK’s national deterrent … are affordable and represent an investment in a capability which plays an important role in ensuring the UK’s national security,” the spokesperson said.
[…]
Its popularity has surged since Scots rejected independence in a vote last year, with millions of supporters won over by its anti-austerity message. It won 56 out of 59 seats in Scotland in May’s parliamentary election.
“The renewal of Trident is unjustified. It is unaffordable. It is immoral,” SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon told her party’s conference this month. “Be in no doubt. The SNP will stand against Trident – today, tomorrow and always.” REUTERS
Read more at Exclusive: UK nuclear deterrent to cost 167 billion pounds, far more than expected
About the film—
Can we contain some of the deadliest, most long-lasting substances ever produced? Left over from the Cold War are a hundred million gallons of radioactive sludge, covering vast radioactive lands. Governments around the world, desperate to protect future generations, have begun imagining society 10,000 years from now in order to create monuments that will speak across the time. Part observational essay filmed in weapons plants, Fukushima and deep underground—and part graphic novel—Containment weaves between an uneasy present and an imaginative, troubled far future, exploring the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.
Dear Mr. Justin Trudeau:
Congratulations on your party’s victory this week in Canadian national elections. Nearly 70 percent of eligible Canadians cast votes in Monday’s federal election. That’s almost 12 percent more than the 2011 vote and the highest since 1993. Analysts attribute the high turnout to you, saying the Liberal Party energized and invigorated voters.
[…]
One of the things we like hearing is that you and your party are “greener” than Mr. Harper. Already, pundits on both sides of the border are writing their obituaries for the Keystone XL pipeline, even though you’ve supported it in the past. They say you’re OK with the pipeline, but not rabid about it the way Mr. Harper was.
Which brings us to our concern here in Port Huron.
Ontario Power Generation wants to bury tons of nuclear waste at Kincardine, just a few kilometers from Lake Huron and the world’s largest supply of fresh surface water. Mr. Harper’s environment minister was expected to issue a final ruling on OPG’s application in December.
We understand that a new, Liberal Party government means a new environment minister, one who, like you, values the planet Earth and its environment more than the Conservatives did. We’re hoping, Mr. Trudeau, that you and your new environment minister see OPG’s nuclear waste storage facility as the environmental catastrophe it is and put a stop to it.
Read more at Mr. Trudeau please stop Lake Huron nuke dump
東京電力福島第１原発事故に関する訴訟を各地で起こしている弁護団が２３日、東京都内で共同記者会見し、事故についての国際原子力機関（ＩＡＥＡ）の報告を翻訳し、訴訟に証拠提出することを国に求めるよう、福島、千葉、東京の３地裁に申し入れたと明らかにした。
さらに今後、全国の原発訴訟弁護団が、係争中の地裁や地裁支部計１４カ所に申し入れる。
弁護団によると、ＩＡＥＡは８月、東電や政府が巨大津波の危険を認識しながら対策を怠ったとする報告書を公表し、専門家向けに千ページを超える技 術報告書もまとめた。弁護団は複数の訴訟で技術報告書の証拠提出を求めたが、国側は日本語に訳して公表する予定はないと述べたという。
(EnviroNews California) – The infamous accident at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island power facility is typically the first meltdown that comes to mind when people think about nuclear disasters in America. While CNN has reported that it was the worst nuclear meltdown ever in the United States, they are wrong. The under-reported meltdown at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the late 1950s was far worse, and in fact, it is the worst nuclear disaster in United States history. The Santa Susana Field Laboratory is located a scant couple of miles from the city of Simi Valley and only about 30 miles from greater Los Angeles. The site was used by Rocketdyne for jet fuel testing and by the Atomic Energy Commission for nuclear power experiments. The Sodium Reactor Experiment was designed to prove that nuclear power could be used to generate commercial power. Sodium, which explodes on contact with water, was used to cool the reactor. On July 12, 1959 that experiment went horribly wrong, and there was no one around to report on it. For 14 days, radioactive material was vented into the open air. There is no record as to exactly how much or what kind, though there are sources that say it was immeasurable because the measuring equipment available at the time did not have the ability to read emissions that high. What is known, is that deadly plutonium and strontium were indeed released during the episode.[…]Other U.S. Nuclear Meltdowns Unfortunately, Three Mile Island and the catastrophe at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in 1959 are not the only nuclear meltdowns that have occurred on U.S. soil since the dawn of the nuclear age. The Borax-I was a deliberate meltdown in 1954 at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) that produced an explosion audible from at least a half mile away. On Nov. 29, 1955, the EBR-I, also located at the INL, suffered a meltdown due to “operator error” during a coolant flow test. On Jan. 3, 1961, the Army’s Stationary Low-Power Reactor No. 1 experienced an explosive meltdown that killed three military personnel. This prototype reactor, meant to provide electricity and heat in places like the Arctic, was built at the INL. According to one account, not all of the men died immediately. The SNAP8ER at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory was allowed to run for about a year between 1964 and 1965 while in a compromised state, which resulted in approximately 80 percent of its fuel being damaged. In 1966, the FERMI 1 reactor suffered a meltdown that resulted in a manual shutdown. Two of the fuel rods had melted, and according to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, no radiation escape the containment area. The SNAP8DR at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory suffered a fate that was about the same as the SNAP8ER. When it was shutdown in 1969, about 30 percent of its fuel was found to be damaged. It should also be noted that the above list contains only those nuclear accidents that were considered meltdowns. There are still people in Utah today that are suffering ill effects from being downwind of the nuclear tests conducted in Nevada — some that went “right” and some that went terribly wrong.
By Yoshioka Hitoshi
On August 11, Unit 1 of Kyūshū Electric Power Company’s Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima became Japan’s first nuclear reactor to be restarted after receiving approval by the Nuclear Regulation Authority under its new set of safety standards. The Kyūshū plant resumed commercial operations on September 10, almost four and a half years after the nuclear disaster triggered by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
Supporters of nuclear power in Japan can only hope that the developments at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant will set the pace for facilities around the nation, but they have little cause for optimism on that score. Unit 2 at the same Kagoshima plant got restarted on October 15 and its commercial operations are set to resume in November. But the prospect of a 2015 restart for other reactors is slim.
[…]
The obstacles to the industry’s revival will scarcely disappear after 2015. Fukushima Prefecture is lobbying to have all its remaining nuclear plants scrapped, and local opposition to resumption of operations predominates in Niigata Prefecture, Shizuoka Prefecture, and the village of Tōkai in Ibaraki Prefecture. Between them, these four locales account for 15 (about a third) of the nation’s nuclear reactors. Four other units (one at Japan Atomic Power’s Tsuruga plant, two at Hokuriku Electric’s Shika plant, and one at Tōhoku Electric’s Higashidōri facility) are facing likely decommissioning owing to earthquake hazards. Kansai Electric is appealing a May 2014 court order against restart of two reactors at its Ōi facility, and more unfavorable rulings are possible in the months ahead.
The electric utilities themselves are expected to scrap a number of older units in consideration of cost factors.
[…]
Nuclear power imposes heavy cost burdens that can only grow in the years ahead. Thus far the government has borne the brunt of the costs and risks, nurturing the industry with subsidies to the host communities and prefectures, funding for research and development, and guaranteed assistance with compensation and cleanup costs in the event of an accident, while allowing the electric utilities to pass the costs of the nuclear fuel cycle to their customers. In today’s climate, this amounts to long-term nursing care for a terminally ill industry. An end to these lavish supports is the electric power industry’s worst nightmare.
[…]
Despite the reforms instituted in the wake of the 2011 meltdown, the fundamental safety issues surrounding nuclear power in Japan remain unresolved.
The final report of the government’s Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations, along with a slew of outside reports, points to the culture of complacency that undermined Japan’s pre-2011 nuclear safety regime and left the country—with its high population density and high risk of natural disasters—vulnerable to a catastrophic accident. It was clear that the government needed to institute a far stronger regulatory regime if it wanted to resurrect Japan’s nuclear power program. In September 2012, it launched the Nuclear Regulation Authority, and in July 2013, the NRA adopted new safety standards for reactors in use at nuclear power stations.
Unfortunately, the new regulatory regime is also inadequate to ensure the safety of Japan’s nuclear power facilities.
The first problem is that the new safety standards on which the screening and inspection of facilities are to be based are simply too lax. While it is true that the new rules are based on international standards, the international standards themselves are predicated on the status quo. They have been set so as to be attainable by most of the reactors already in operation.
[…]
The second basic problem is that the new standards do not cover all the levels of “defense in depth” advocated by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its seven-stage International Nuclear Events Scale. They extend only as far as Level 4 (“control of severe conditions including prevention of accident progression and mitigation of the consequences of a severe accident”), stopping short of Level 5 requirements for responding to accidents that threaten the surrounding area through significant release of radioactive materials.
Under the Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness, the prefectural and municipal governments within a 30-kilometer radius of a nuclear power facility are given full responsibility for emergency preparedness and evacuation planning geared to nuclear accidents with wider consequences, whose impact extends beyond the confines of the plant compound. Under the law, the plans must incorporate all items on a mandated checklist, but they are not subject to any outside review. The NRA does not view local preparedness or evacuation plans for a nuclear disaster as part of its regulatory regime.
[…]
The three basic conditions for controlling a nuclear accident are stopping the chain reaction, cooling the fuel, and containing the radioactive material. By these criteria, the Fukushima accident has yet to be brought under control after more than four years. The water-injection system used to cool the molten fuel has been plagued by reliability issues. As for containment, the radioactive materials spewed over a vast area during the accident can never be recovered, nor can the radioactive wastewater that has been discharged into the ocean. Furthermore, workers have been unable to pinpoint the location of the highly radioactive fuel that leaked out of the reactors during the meltdown.
In many respects, the progress and causes of the accident remain unclear to this day. Without knowing these things, how can we institute effective safety measures to ensure that such accidents will not occur in the future?[…]
Three factors appear to have averted the energy crisis many were predicting. First, it appears that Japan had considerable excess capacity in the form of unused or underutilized conventional thermal power generators. Second, electricity demand remains far below the peak levels registered before the 2008 global recession. And third, the Japanese people have worked diligently to hold down electricity consumption.
[…]
Now is the time to plan for a shift from long-term nursing to end-of-life care for Japan’s unsustainable nuclear power industry.
Read more.
A nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois. Taken by photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com).
