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14 Dec 09
Nuclear-test veterans' outrage as legal bill soars to £16m - mirror.co.uk
Lawyers have charged £16million in the battle to get justice for Britain's nuclear test veterans.
The money has been spent by legal teams for the UK Ministry of Defence and the veterans during a fiercely contested High Court action. It means the final bill could be much higher than any com-pensation eventually received.
The revelation comes after a judge told both sides, who are meant to have been negotiating a settlement for the past six months, to start talks. Some 22,000 men, who were sent to Australia and the South Pacific to witness atomic bomb tests, allegedly suffered a range of health problems.
Many of the 3,000 survivors have joined together in a major legal case to sue the MoD for negligence. But the case has descended into farce, with the MoD claiming a confidential offer has been made, but vets' lawyers saying they haven't received one. The High Court was told on Friday that costs are already at £15m for the three-year case, with a further £1m expected to pay for an appeal brought by the MoD which will be heard in May.
Don't back off on cooling tower | APP.com | Asbury Park Press
The state Legislature may finally do what the Department of Environmental Protection and Gov. Jon Corzine should have done long ago: Mandate a cooling tower at the Oyster Creek nuclear reactor in Lacey to mitigate the plant's harmful environmental and economic impact.
A bill proposed by Sen. Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Environment Committee in Trenton Monday in what is shaping up as an epic showdown between Oyster Creek owner Exelon and the state's environmental groups, which are firmly united in support of the legislation. Among those expected to testify against it is Exelon CEO John Rowe.
The bill would impose conditions on all energy generation facilities that withdraw water from or discharge water to a "shallow lagoonal estuary." At Oyster Creek, those conditions could only be satisfied by constructing a cooling tower.
The Argus Observer | Nuclear accident still mystery to rescue worker
Count Egon Lamprecht among the thousands of experts still perplexed and haunted by SL-1.
Like other experts, Lamprecht has analyzed every detail of the world’s first nuclear accident, which on Jan. 3, 1961, killed three men on what’s now the site of Idaho National Laboratory.
Like them, he knows the improper removal of a control rod from the infamous Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, or SL-1, led to a flash heating of water that raised the reactor 9 feet out of its base. In four milliseconds, hundreds of gallons of water were turned into superheated steam.
Bennett's bankroll - Salt Lake Tribune
Clearly, Sen. Bob Bennett has been in office for a very long time. Consider these contributions to his 2010 re-election campaign from corporate and individual special interests (selected from www.opensecrets.org): oil and gas, $116,650; waste management (nuclear), $51,900; securities and investments, $233,850; commercial banks, $130,725; finance/credit companies, $61,900; insurance, $182,700; food processing and sales, $28,900; defense aerospace, $39,000; defense electronics, $16,000; health services/HMOs, $17,750; pharmaceuticals/health products, $104,044; telecommunication services and equipment, $815,250; lawyers/law firms, $110,900; lobbyists, $157,186; automotive, $16,997; chemical and related manufacturing, $11,200. Given all this special-interest support, it seems Bennett does not serve his constituents.
Global energy giants win contracts for 2 Iraqi oil fields _English_Xinhua
The world's leading energy companies won rights to develop two major oil fields in Iraq at an auction on Friday.
Royal Dutch Shell and Malaysia's Petronas were awarded the contract to exploit the Majnoon oil field in southern Iraq, one of the world's largest untapped oil fields with more than 12 billion barrels of proven reserves.
They accepted a fee of 1.39 U.S. dollars per barrel.
Blair Says Nuclear Weapons Weren’t Vital to Iraq War (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would have favored removing Saddam Hussein from power even with no evidence that the Iraqi leader had weapons of mass destruction, he said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.
“I would still have thought it right to remove him,” Blair said when asked if he would have backed a war against Iraq knowing that Hussein didn’t have nuclear weapons. “Obviously, you would have had to use and deploy different arguments” to justify the war to lawmakers and the public, he told the BBC.
NRC - NRC Seeks Comment, Plans Public Meetings on Blending of Low-Level Radioactive Waste
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on issues associated with blending of low-level radioactive waste and is planning public meetings to discuss blending in Rockville, Md.
The issue of blending low-level radioactive waste has received increased attention from the nuclear industry since the 2008 closing of the Barnwell, S.C., low-level waste disposal site. This action left waste generators in 36 states with no disposal options for Class B and Class C wastes, the two classes of low-level waste with higher radioactivity. Blending in some cases can lower the classification of the wastes to the lower-radioactivity Class A, which has available disposal capacity, by reducing the concentration of radionuclides.
Blending refers to mixing low-level wastes of different concentrations, primarily Class B or C with Class A. It does not involve mixing radioactive waste with non-radioactive waste, a practice known as “dilution.” And it does not imply release of radioactive material to the general environment, either to municipal non-radioactive waste disposal sites or to consumer products. Blended wastes remain low-level waste and must be disposed in a licensed low-level waste disposal facility.
HoweStreet.com -A Hot Future for Geothermal
Capturing energy from the earth’s heat is pretty easy pickin’s for geologically-active areas of the world like Iceland, Indonesia, and Chile. In some locations, hot fluids are so near the earth’s surface that heat from naturally-occurring hot fluids can be directly circulated through buildings for heating. Iceland, in particular, takes advantage of this low-hanging energy fruit.
However, in most areas of the world where geothermal energy is captured, the heat is used to generate electricity.
Conventional Geothermal Energy
Unlike some of the more common alternative energies — hydro, solar, and wind — geothermal is impervious to weather conditions. This independence means it provides excellent base load electricity.
Currently all commercial geothermal electricity is generated by so-called conventional systems, whereby naturally- occurring hot water or steam is accessed at comparatively shallow depths in areas of very high geothermal gradient. Wells are commonly drilled to depths on the order of 2 km. The water or steam they produce is used to spin turbines that in turn generate electricity.
North Anna reactor shutdown caused cooling-water discharge into lake | Richmond Times-Dispatch
The most recent shutdown of a nuclear reactor at Dominion Virginia Power's North Anna Power Station also involved the accidental discharge of tens of thousands of gallons of cooling water into Lake Anna.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday's shutdown of Unit 2, caused by an electrical malfunction, also prompted the discharge of what was originally thought to be up to 59,500 gallons of cooling water into the Louisa County lake.
The NRC said Dominion Virginia Power told the agency that it later appeared that the amount of discharge was actually closer to 35,000 gallons.
Dominion Virginia Power also told the NRC that the lake water was tested after the discharge and was found to be within government-approved limits.
Live Green at Heart | Knoxville, TN | DOE drills wells to test for the movement of nuclear waste across the Clinch River
The Department of Energy is drilling a series of wells south of the Clinch River to ensure no nuclear waste from Oak Ridge has migrated underground into its neighbors' backyards along Jones Road.
"We have not found any evidence of any contamination south of the river," said David Adler with the Department of Energy. "This is completely a precautionary measure."
North of the Clinch River on DOE property is where nuclear waste was buried from the 1940s until the '80s. The groundwater in this area is known to be contaminated from the hazardous materials. However, recently there were signs that the material may be moving towards the river.
The Signal - Santa Clarita Valley News - Toxic water to be cleaned
Two Saugus water wells were shut down more than a decade ago because they were contaminated with perchlorate, a toxic byproduct of rocket fuel production. But soon, they might be running again.
Within about four months, the Castaic Lake Water Agency expects to open a new, $20 million water treatment plant and pipeline system that will pump safe drinking water from those wells.
The plant is set to open in March, said Brian Folsom, engineering and operations manager for the water agency. The state Department of Public Health still has to certify the plant.
It represents a step in an arduous cleanup process that has gone on for years — and has several more to go.
Russian shipyard says recent radioactive leak poses no threat | Top Russian news and analysis online | 'RIA Novosti' newswire
The Zvezdochka shipyard in northern Russia said on Friday that a recent minor radioactive leak at its storage facility posed no threat to people or environment.
According to a Zvezdochka statement, the "radiation incident" took place on Thursday when about two cubic meters liquid radioactive waste leaked through a seam in a pipe connecting a storage tank and a waste treatment facility.
"The pipe itself is located in a leak-proof tunnel and the waste did not spill outside," the statement said, adding that the tunnel has been drained of the waste in two hours following the leak.
"The radiation levels around the tunnel are normal. The causes of the leak are being investigated," the shipyard said.
Severodvinsk-based Zvezdochka is Russia's biggest shipyard for repairing and dismantling nuclear-powered submarines. It has the capacity to scrap up to four nuclear submarines per year.
Russia Withholding Plutonium NASA Needs for Deep Space Exploration | SpaceNews.com
Russia has reneged on an agreement to deliver a total of 10 kilograms of plutonium-238 to the United States in 2010 and 2011 and is insisting on a new deal for the costly material vital to NASA’s deep space exploration plans.
The move follows the U.S. Congress’ denial of President Barack Obama’s request for $30 million in 2010 to permit the Department of Energy to begin the painstaking process of restarting domestic production of plutonium-238. Bringing U.S. nuclear laboratories back on line to produce the isotope is expected to cost at least $150 million and take six years to seven years from the time funding is approved.
Whitehaven News | News | Sellafield is fined as workers exposed to highly toxic radiation
SELLAFIELD has been fined £75,000 over a catalogue of safety failures that led to two workers being exposed to a “serious and significant” dose of highly toxic radiation.
Two men working for Workington building company Stobbarts were subject to “airborne radioactive contamination” when plutonium escaped from a floor they were drilling at the site in July 2007.
The men were carrying out work to remove plutonium from the floor of the site’s Central Waste Handling Facility, which was to be converted into offices.
One worker was operating the drill, while the other was spraying water on the area to clear dust.
They were both wearing PVC suits and respirators and were working inside a protective tent.
The Associated Press: EU nations commit $3.6 billion to climate fund
EU leaders say they have agreed to commit euro2.4 billion ($3.6 billion) a year until 2012 to help poorer countries combat global warming.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the offer "puts Europe in a leadership role in Copenhagen."
All 27 members of the European Union agreed on the figure after two days of difficult talks at a summit in Brussels.
Sarkozy also said Friday the leaders agreed to reduce their emissions by 30 percent of 1990 levels by 2020. In the past EU leaders have pledged a 20 percent cut with an option to cut to 30 percent if other parts of the world will make the same kind of contribution.
The myth of global warming
A good question for today would be whether a fraud on the scale of the one being consummated at the Copenhagen “earth summit” has even been attempted before in human history.
I’ve been trying to think of examples. Things like the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion come to mind — a hoax out of Russia around the turn of the last century. It has been very consequential in the lives of Jews, and remains an issue in most Middle Eastern countries today, where state media continue to present this most vicious of all anti-Semitic slurs as historical fact.
CBC News - Montreal - Quebec to study effects of uranium
Quebec will create a special committee to study the potential effects of uranium exploration and mining on public health, says the province’s chief public health officer Dr. Alain Poirier.
Poirier made the announcement Friday, following a meeting with a group of 23 doctors in the province’s North Shore region.
The doctors at the Sept-Îles Hospital have threatened to resign unless the province puts in place a ban on uranium mining and exploration, which they said is a threat to public health.
"We agreed to look at all the options and not just only to think if one day there will be a mine — but what are the effects now on the population," Poirier said.
t r u t h o u t | Updated: US Senators: More Coal, Oil and Nukes Are "Solution" for Global Warming
The once-demonized nuclear industry got its biggest boost in years Thursday.
A bipartisan coalition of US senators put forward a "framework" for climate legislation that aims to dramatically increase off-shore oil drilling, ensure a "future for coal" and, above all, ramp up subsidies for the financially risky nuclear power industry. The announcement was timed, in part, to send a signal to negotiators at the climate conference in Copenhagen that the US Senate is supposedly serious about climate reform.
Sen. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman are taking the lead in pushing an industry-friendly package that aims to bring down carbon emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels - a modest goal shared by House-passed legislation and President Obama. As The Hill reported: "White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called the framework a 'significant step' and said Obama believes it shows movement toward reaching a bipartisan Senate agreement."
FACTBOX-What is uranium enrichment? | Markets | Reuters
Uranium, the silvery-white mineral that powers nuclear reactors, is capturing growing attention amid burgeoning demand for power from emerging nations and a scramble to curtail carbon emissions.
Here are some details about the uranium enrichment process:
* WHAT IT MEANS:
-- Enrichment is a process of increasing the proportion of fissile isotope found in uranium ore (represented by the symbol 'U') to make it usable as nuclear fuel or the compressed, explosive core of nuclear weapons.
* WHY URANIUM MUST BE ENRICHED:
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