- Radiation

Dr Michio Kaku - Fukushima and the Future

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:41:18 -0600

Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 19:25:03 -0600

Japan's Radioactive Waters

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:41:16 -0700

Fukushima Update - 50 Years To Clean - Power Rationing

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 23:40:44 -0600

Arnie Gundersen - Update On Fukushima - Black Rain

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:28:58 -0600

Ex Japanese Nuclear Regulator Blames Radioactive Animal Feed on "Black Rain" from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Japan - Extremely High Ground Level Radiation

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:33:50 -0600

Depleted Uranium Being Used In Libya

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 09:48:22 -0600

NATO forces protecting the people of Libya....

Source: Global Research - July 8, 2011

War crimes and crimes against humanity have been and continue to be committed in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya by NATO. Amongst these crimes, the Atlantic Alliance has been using depleted uranium against Libya, specifically civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Bombed sites in Libya have been visited by professional scientists working in the Surveying and Collecting Specimens and Laboratory Measuring Group. The scientists and trained experts have conducted field surveys looking for radioactive isotopes (radioisotopes) at bombed sites. The samples from these sites were then scientifically analyzed at the laboratories of the Nuclear Energy Institution of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

Analysis in Libya through inductively coupled plasma has shown that several sites contain even higher than expected doses of uranium. Holes caused by NATO missiles also have high radioactive measurements, as do the fragments of NATO ordinance. Sites analyzed by the teams of scientists include Bab Al-Azizia and Souk Al-Ahad.

Overview Of The Fire Near Los Alamos Laboratories

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 21:44:23 -0600

Fukushima: The Worst industrial Accident In World History

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:20:49 -0600

Confessions of a Nuclear Power Safety Expert

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:42:09 -0600

Source: Miller McCune - June 14, 2011

When Italy decided in the mid-’70s to add nuclear power to its power portfolio, young mechanical and nuclear engineer Cesare Silvi was among those attracted to the opportunities it presented. His work centered on nuclear safety issues — in particular, what might happen if something unexpected struck a power plant.

Corners he saw cut there eventually soured Silvi on that endeavor. His next position — at the Italian Commission on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Sources, which included work on nuclear disarmament — eventually soured him on nuclear energy itself.

“[If we] continue with nuclear power, there will definitely be worse accidents,” he argued in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi disaster. Over the weekend, Italian voters agreed and overwhelming rejected restarting nuclear power in their country.

“Why not consider Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima as warnings of greater catastrophes to come and avoid the inevitable by shutting them down, much like changing your diet and/or lifestyle after finding out that your cholesterol or blood pressure is elevated, rather than continuing down the same path until a heart attack or stroke strikes?”

In the meantime, he suggests that wrangling existing power plants requires a global response toward the dangers he predicts.

“Instead of a Kyoto accord,” he says, “we will have to have some kind of multilateral nuclear agreement to deal with such threats.”

In the last two decades, Silvi has gone on to acclaim in the world of solar energy, where has been president of the International Solar Energy Society and founder of the Italian Group for the History of Solar Energy.

Silvi originally worked in the north of Italy as a engineer. He did not like the polluted Po River valley, where the smell from various industries near his flat — despite his boss’ assurances of “You’ll get used to it” — annoyed him.

Then the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and its attendant oil crisis prompted the Italian government to consider nuclear energy, and a door opened for Silvi. The newly formed Italian National Commission on Nuclear Energy sought out young engineers like Silvi, who saw the opportunity as a means to return home to Rome. His top scores on the entrance tests won him a spot in the Directorate for Nuclear Safety and Radioactive Protection, and in 1975, the directorate tasked Silvi to examine and analyze threats to the well-being of nuclear power plants from the outside environment.

“I was looking at low-possibility events, like a meteor striking the housing of a reactor or a car thrown at it by a tornado. These definitely had a small chance of happening, but the end result would have been horrific.” Plus, he says now, the proliferation of nuclear plants just adds more targets.

“Many laughed at such speculation and planning,” he says, “but then again, how many would have taken seriously a recommendation of extending the height of the seawall at Fukishima another six meters? They would have questioned your sanity, if you had argued that the 10-meter barrier was inadequate.

“Our problem is that we don’t know what will happen on any scale of time. Such uncertainty is OK when dealing with train trips or dinner choices. But it becomes problematic when considering the possible spread of very dangerous material that will stay deadly for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”

In his introduction to risk analysis, Silvi provides a very simple equation: R=PxC. In English, that translates to the probability of something happening (the P) times the consequences if it does (C) equals the risk to society (R).

He illustrates this by comparing driving on the Italian highway, the Autostrada, with running a nuclear power station. Driving on the Autostrada has a low risk to the general population. A possibility does exist that you will crash, and perhaps die as a result, but the consequences of the accident to the general society will be next to nil. That’s why countries let almost anyone drive. So a moderately high P times a very low C equals a small risk to society as a whole.

On the other hand, the chance of an earthquake and tsunami of the magnitude that hit Japan are quite remote, especially occurring in tandem, which makes for a tiny P. But the consequences — the C — of them imperiling a nuclear power plant are huge, leading to a much higher risk to society.

That equation played out in the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago at Chernobyl, and the aftereffects still ripple throughout Europe. A 1,600-square-mile exclusionary zone in Ukraine and southern Belarus remains off limits. Students gestated during the Chernobyl disaster in contaminated regions as far north as Sweden and Norway have shown poorer performance in school and lower verbal IQ scores.

Silvi’s sincere assessment of outside threats ultimately butted up against unfortunate human constraints.

“One day,” Silvi recalls, “the boss said, ‘Figure out how far should a nuclear plant be from an airport.’ As I did my study, I found that it wasn’t too easy to protect the reactor from a plane crash. The plant can be perfect from the inside, but the problem arises: How many low-probability events that could result in devastating consequences do you protect against through proper construction before such expenditures make the plant too costly to operate? Even if we could affordably, say, pay to reinforce the plant to withstand a hit from a plane or missile, the question never leaves you — ‘Have I figured in everything that might damage the nuclear reactor over its long lifetime?

Continue reading "Confessions of a Nuclear Power Safety Expert"

Aerial View Of Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant Flooding

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:50:20 -0600

Nebraska Nuclear Plant: Emergency Level 4

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:36:26 -0600

Japan’s Richest Man Challenges Nuclear Future

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:03:56 -0600

Source: Bloomberg - June 14, 2011

Billionaire Masayoshi Son has a track record in taking on monopolies after building a business that opened up the nation’s telecommunications industry. Now he aims to shake up Japan’s power utilities after the worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.

Son, the 53-year-old chief executive officer of Softbank Corp. (9984), plans to build solar farms to generate electricity with support from at least 33 of Japan’s 47 prefectures. In return, he’s asking for access to transmission networks owned by the 10 regional utilities and an agreement they buy his electricity.

...

Tokyo-based Softbank plans to set up an affiliate that will use some of the company’s 3 trillion yen annual revenue to build solar power stations, Son said at a May 26 conference. One option would be to raise funds to invest about 80 billion yen into building 10 solar farms, each with about 20 megawatts of capacity, said Softbank spokeswoman Makiko Ariyama.
Solar Capacity

The combined 200 megawatts of power capacity will provide more than 10 times the 19 megawatts in total produced at eight photovoltaic power stations run in Japan by the regional utilities as of June 9. Japan produced 988 terrawatt hours of electricity in the year ended March 31.

Prime Minister Kan pledged to generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity through renewable sources by the 2020s as the nation rewrites its energy blueprint.

“We will do everything we can to make renewable energy our base form of power, overcoming hurdles of technology and cost,” Kan said in a speech in Paris before the Group of Eight summit last month. Japan aims to cut the cost of solar power generation to one-third current levels by 2020 and one-sixth in 2030 and will install roof-top solar panels at 10 million homes, Kan said.

Radioactive 'Hot' Particles

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:43:28 -0600

Arnie Gundersen Interview: The Dangers of Fukushima Are Worse and Longer-lived Than We Think

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 11:42:29 -0600

Source: Chris Martenson - June 3, 2011

"I have said it's worse than Chernobyl and I’ll stand by that. There was an enormous amount of radiation given out in the first two to three weeks of the event. And add the wind blowing in-land. It could very well have brought the nation of Japan to its knees. I mean, there is so much contamination that luckily wound up in the Pacific Ocean as compared to across the nation of Japan - it could have cut Japan in half. But now the winds have turned, so they are heading to the south toward Tokyo and now my concern and my advice to friends that if there is a severe aftershock and the Unit 4 building collapses, leave. We are well beyond where any science has ever gone at that point and nuclear fuel lying on the ground and getting hot is not a condition that anyone has ever analyzed."

Click the play button below to listen to Part 1 of Chris' interview with Arnie Gundersen (runtime 36m:31s):