The National Academy of Sciences Nuclear & Radiation Studies Board announced that they are accepting nominations for panelists to participate in a study assessing cancer risks from nuclear facilities. Nominations will be accepted through September 30, 2010, and can be submitted by email (crs@nas.edu), phone (202-334-3066), or fax (202-334-2077). Please participate in this nominating process by suggesting independent scientists. The NAS needs to know we are watching and participating. Beyond Nuclear will post updates as appropriate.

The study will be conducted in two phases. Phase one, which started on September 1, 2010, will determine how best to conduct an epidemiological study on the cancer risks from Nuclear Regulator Commission (NRC) licensed facilities in the United States and will continue for 15 months. 

Image courtesy of Supertubes Surfing Foundation, Jeffreys Bay, South AfricaBeyond Nuclear, in coalition with allies which organized the grassroots radioactive waste policy summit in Chicago in early June, have declared Sept. 29th an international day of action and awareness raising on radioactive waste issues. The date was chosen to commemorate the worst known radioactive waste disaster -- a reprocessing storage tank explosion in the Ural Mountains of Siberia on Sept. 29, 1957, which contaminated an entire region, immediately killed hundreds, and undoubtedly has sickened and even killed many more since, due to the lingering radioactive contamination of a vast area of the environment. Please help spread the word by sharing the flyer and invitation to take action. Also check out the Facebook page.

The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) adopted a resolution at its International Council meeting on Sunday in Basel, Switzerland, calling for a ban on uranium mining and the production of yellowcake (uranium oxide). The resolution described both processes as “irresponsible” and “a grave threat to health and to the environment”.

The resolution also describes uranium mining and yellowcake production as a “violation of human rights”. The right to life, liberty and security, to physical integrity, self-determination, the protection of human dignity, the right to clean water are just some of the rights that are afflicted by uranium mining and its processes, say the doctors.

The resolution follows on from a conference entitled “Sacred Lands, Poisoned People” held on August 26th, also in Basel, on uranium mining in which Beyond Nuclear's Linda Gunter participated. Activists from all of the major mining regions around the world (including Manuel Pino from Acoma Pueblo, pictured), many of them representing indigenous peoples, gathered together and exchanged information collated on health effects and damage to the environment. The group issued a call for the ban in a joint statement at the conclusion of their talks. As a result of this data, representatives from the German and Swiss IPPNW affiliates submitted a resolution calling for a ban to the bi-annual meeting of the international IPPNW federation.

Although it won't be known for sure until next month, Alaska's Republican U.S. Senator, Lisa Murkowski, may have just lost to "Tea Party" insurgent candidate Joe Miller in yesterday's primary elections. Murkowski, and her father and predecessor in the same U.S. Senate seat, Frank Murkowski, have been top pro-nuclear power champions from their perch atop the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee dating back over a decade. (The elder Murkowski, in fact, was strongly criticized for nepotism when he, just elected Governor of Alaska, tapped his own daughter to fill his own just vacated U.S. Senate seat!) But Tea Party candidates, including kingmaker Sarah Palin herself, are very pro-nuclear power in their own right. For example, Tea Party candidate Sharon Angle in Nevada, challenging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, has advocated reprocessing at Yucca Mountain in lieu of radioactive waste disposal there -- an activity that wouldn't require underground containers to eventually fail and leak over time, but would rather spew large amounts of harmful radioactivity directly into the environment in real time! And Palin herself, whose endorsement of Miller may have put him over the top in his campaign against Murkowski, has lambasted Reid and President Obama for their opposition to the Yucca dump in Nevada. So a Murkowski ouster may not signal any let up in pro-nuclear efforts to expand nuclear power and open radioactive waste dumps in the U.S. Senate, by any means, if they are simply replaced by equally pro-nuclear power Tea Party candidates! How Tea Party candidates can support taxpayer subsidies for new atomic reactors, and exorbitantly expensive government programs such as the Yucca Mountain dump or reprocessing facilities, given their supposed fiscal conservatism and concern for protecting taxpayers, is difficult to reconcile! Similar questions have been asked of currently serving supposedly "fiscal conseratives" in the U.S. Senate who also support massive taxpayer subsidies for new reactors in the form of risky federal loan guarantees.

Watch a 12-minute version of the new Enviro Close-Up interview with Kevin Kamps - "Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive"- on YouTube. Kevin explodes the myths now being promulgated by those promoting nuclear power. He tells of the insoluble problems of nuclear waste, how nuclear power plants routinely emit radioactive poisons, how catastrophic accidents can happen, how nuclear power plants are pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction for terrorists, and the enormously high costs of nuclear power.