International What's New

Fermi nuclear power plant's risks extend beyond borders

2012-02-06T23:29:08Z

NRC file photo of Fermi 2 on Lake Erie shoreCitizen Environmental Alliance of Southwestern Ontario has joined a U.S. environmental coalition to officially intervene against the new "Fermi 3" reactor proposed near Monroe, Michigan. This is because the risks from the Fermi nuclear power plant (including the operating Fermi 2 reactor, a GE BWR Mark I, identical in design to, although significantly larger than, Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4) extend across the artificial U.S.-Canadian border drawn through Lake Erie and the Detroit River. Such risks and impacts include to health, the impossibility of effectively evacuating all of southeast Michigan, northwest Ohio, and southwest Ontario during a catastrophic radioactivity release, etc.

The Fermi nuclear power plant is located a mere 8 miles across Lake Erie from Ontario.

Regarding the environmental coalition's -- and allies' -- recent strong resistance to Fermi 3, including those issues mentioned above, please see:

(A comprehenisive, running list of comments, media coverage, and nuclear utility and NRC responses is now posted on Beyond Nuclear's website.)

Beyond Nuclear expert witness testimony to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

2012-01-30T21:07:37Z

In October 2011, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps was honored to be asked by Families Against Radiation Exposure in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada to serve as its expert witness in a proceeding before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission regarding Cameco's application for a five year license extension at its Uranium Conversion Facility, just off downtown and very near residential neighborhoods. Cameco's waterfront facility is amongst the oldest nuclear industrial sites in the world, first opened in 1932 as a radium extraction plant. Port Hope's residents have suffered many decades of radioactive pollution and contamination as a consequence.

Kevin submitted his written comments to CNSC on December 19, 2011. He focused on the radioactive stigma impacts to Port Hope, including on property values, as well as threats of flooding at the site due to climate destabilization, as well as security risks given Cameco's (and its predecessor Eldorado's) involvement in the nuclear weapons industry, as well as depleted uranium (DU) munitions. Kevin then attended a three day long hearing before the CNSC, from January 17 to 19, 2012, at which he testified.

In late March, 2011 Kevin also served on the Northwatch team, along with Northwatch's Brennain Lloyd and Great Lakes United's John Jackson, at a Joint Panel Review concerning proposed new reactors at the Darlington Nuclear Power Plant, just a short distance west of Port Hope. Kevin focused on high-level radioactive waste risks associated with that proposal. A coalition of environmental groups in Ontario has since filed a lawsuit challenging the decision to move ahead with those new reactors.

Radioactive fallout from Nevada Test Site did not stop at U.S. border

2012-01-27T23:57:21Z

Radioactive Iodine-131 fallout from the Nevada Test Site across the U.S., by county, measured in radsIn such U.S. states as Utah and Idaho, the 61st anniversary of the first nuclear weapons test at the Nevada Test Site was marked by a National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders, and a call for compensation and health care for an expanded number of fallout victims and uranium workers. However, as shown by the map at the left, radioactive fallout from the Nevada Test Site did not magically stop at the U.S. border. Judging by the high levels of fallout in Montana and North Dakota counties immediately on the Canadian border, it is reasonable to assume that significant radioactive fallout entered Canadian provinces. Ironically, Saskatchewan provided a large fraction of the uranium that went into the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, as documented in Jim Harding's 2007 book Canada's Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System (Fernwood Publishing, Halifax and Winnipeg) -- only to have it "return to sender" as hazardous radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing in Nevada.

Similarly, while proposed U.S. legislation would expand Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) coverage to the U.S. territory of Guam, downwind of U.S. nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, no mention is made of the many other countries in the Pacific likewise downwind.

False claims (on Frontline and elsewhere) persist that nuclear-free Germany will emit more CO2

2012-01-19T19:40:30Z

The suggestion made during the Frontline program that Germany will emit more Co2 as a result of its nuclear phase-out is another perfect example of those skeptics who claim that the German nuclear phase-out was a panicked overreaction and could even amount to environmental vandalism. But science disproves these claims. Thanks to Arne Jungjohann at the Heinrich Boell Institute for the following rebuttal:

Looking at the German nuclear phase-out, some have argued that Germany will produce an extra 300m tones of carbon dioxide between now and 2020. However, Numerous feasibility studies, amongst others by the Federal Environmental Agency or an independent Commission on Energy Choices , have shown that the nuclear phase-out will not jeopardize Germany's ambitious climate action efforts: reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2020 and by at least 80 percent by 2050. If emissions were to rise due to the nuclear phase-out, the government would have to come up with compensating measures to reach these targets.

However, it is unlikely that emissions will rise, because according to the rules of the EU cap-and-trade system there is a cap for emissions from the energy sector and that of course also applies for Germany. Even if Germany’s nuclear capacity was to be replaced by using energy generated in coal plants, the total energy emissions would still have to be reduced. This could be achieved by either shifting to more natural gas or by replacing older coal plants with new and more efficient plants. That's the genius of a cap-and-trade system. Believe it or not, with that system in place, Germany's nuclear phase-out will even cause emissions in other European countries to fall.

The German nuclear phase-out – which is being followed by other countries including Switzerland, Italy and Belgium – is in reality another important element to accelerate the long-term strategy of a transition towards a low-carbon economy.

Study finds childhood leukemia doubled around French reactors

2012-01-13T15:06:19Z

A major epidemiological study just published in the January 2012 edition of The International Journal of Cancer indicates there is “a possible excess risk” of acute leukemia among children living in close vicinity to French nuclear power plants (NPP). The study called for an “investigation for potential risk factors related to the vicinity of NPP, and collaborative analysis of multisite studies conducted in various countries.”

The study found a doubling of occurrence of childhood leukemia between the years of 2002-2007 among children under 5 years living within 5 km of nuclear plants – similar to the findings of the German 2008 study by the Cancer Registry in Mainz which found an association between the nearness of residence to nuclear power plants and the risk of childhood leukemia.

The epidemiological study was conducted by a team from the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) and the National Register of hematological diseases of children in Villejuif. The results marked a surprising and encouraging change at IRSN which had endeavored to discredit earlier French epidemiological studies that had shown an impact of nuclear facilities on health.

Fukushima further "explodes the myth" of "nuclear renaissance"

2012-01-02T06:08:42Z

Images such as the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 seared into the public's mind internationally.In a new report entitled "Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Economics: Historically, Accidents Dim the Prospects for Nuclear Reactor Construction; Fukushima Will Have a Major Impact," Dr. Mark Cooper of the Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment compares the cost increases for new reactor construction -- due to increased nuclear safety regulation in the aftermath of the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown -- to escalating costs that can be expected after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. Cooper points out, however, the new reactor construction costs were already skyrocketing before the TMI and Fukushima meltdowns -- but the accidents accelerated the cost increases dramatically.

He concludes: "From a big picture perspective, Fukushima has had and is likely to continue to have an electrifying impact because it combines the most powerful message from TMI on cost escalation with the most powerful message from Chernobyl on the risk of nuclear reactors in a nation where it was not supposed to happen. And, it has taken place in an environment where information and images flow instantaneously around the world, so the public sees the drama and trauma of losing control of a nuclear reaction in real time."

Allegations of deep ties between TEPCO and the Japanese mafia

2012-01-01T23:34:25Z

The Atlantic Wire reports that the connections between Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the yakuza, or Japanese mafia, go much deeper than just the recruiting of laborers desparate enough to take jobs in Fukushima Daiichi's hazardous radiation fields. Commenting on the desparation of taking a job at Fukushima Daiichi, a yakuza explained it as "folk wisdom": “When a man has to survive doing something, it’s the nuclear industry; for a woman, it’s the sex industry.”

The article quotes a Japanese federal senator: "TEPCO's involvement with anti-social forces and their inability to filter them out of the work-place is a national security issue. It is one reason that increasingly in the Diet we are talking de facto nationalization of the company. Nuclear energy shouldn't be in the hands of the yakuza. They're gamblers and an intelligent person doesn't want them to have atomic dice to play with." The senator added: “The primary difference between TEPCO and the yakuza is they have different corporate logos...They both are essentially criminal organizations that place profits above the safety and welfare of the residents where they operate; they both exploit their workers. On the other hand, the yakuza may care more about what happens where they operate because many of them live there. For Tokyo Electric Power Company, Fukushima is just the equivalent of a parking lot.”

First Nations of North Shore of Lake Huron take strong stand against high-level radioactive waste dump proposal

2011-12-23T00:35:39Z

Photo by Robert Del Tredichi of uranium tailings at Elliot Lake, showing devastating impact of radioactivity and toxic chemicals on the environmentAs announced in a media release, the North Shore Tribal Council of Lake Huron, representing 7 First Nations communities, has expressed its strong opposition to a bid by the City of Elliot Lake in Ontario to serve as a Canada-wide dumpsite for high-level radioactive waste. Elliot Lake remains severely contaminated after decades of a dozen uranium mines in its immediate area. The nuclear utility run Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has been put in charge of searching for a "volunteer host" for irradiated nuclear fuel, hazardous for millions of years. The North Shore Tribal Council said "Our statement to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization is: Do not waste your financial resources if you plan to conduct a study in this area because a nuclear waste dump is not going to happen here."

A 1998 book, republished in 2003, entitled "This Is Our Homeland," edited by Serpent River First Nation Members Lorraine Rekmans and Keith Lewis, as well as Anabel Dwyer, contains testimonials by First Nation and other survivors of decades of uranium mining at Elliot Lake.

Japan PM declares Fukushima Daiichi stable, but many don't believe it

2011-12-21T19:10:18Z

Self portrait by Tomohiko Suzuki, taken with a pinhole camera hidden in his wristwatch, on the way to work at Fukushima DaiichiAs reported by the New York Times, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, in a nationally televised address last week, declared that the four destroyed units at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been brought under control, and "cold shutdown" will be achieved by year's end, ending a catastrophic chapter in Japan's history. However, critics warn that the decommissioning and "clean up" of the site could take 40 years, and that nuclear criticality in the melted cores is still a risk. Noda's announcement comes with an "all clear" from federal, prefectural, and local authorities for many of the 90,000 nuclear evacuees to return to their homes for the first time in nine months, but many of them question such assurances, and people across Japan still fear the documented radioactive contamination of the food supply.

Meanwhile, the Mainichi Daily News reports that a journalist, Tomohiko Suzuki, worked undercover inside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant for over a month this summer, and now reports that "absolutely no progress is being made," that rushed work is often shoddy and done for cosmetic, not safety purposes, and that major short cuts are being taken on such vital activities as decontaminating vast quantities of cooling water highly contaminated with radioactivity. Suzuki quotes one worker as saying "Working at Fukushima is equivalent to being given an order to die," and reports that many games are being played to under-report actually radiation doses being suffered by workers.

The article reports: " '(Nuclear) technology experts I've spoken to say that there are people living in areas where no one should be. It's almost as though they're living inside a nuclear plant,' says Suzuki. Based on this and his own radiation readings, he believes the 80-kilometer-radius evacuation advisory issued by the United States government after the meltdowns was "about right," adding that the government probably decided on the current no-go zones to avoid the immense task of evacuating larger cities like Iwaki and Fukushima." (emphasis added)

25-40% underestimate of radiation doses to 1,769 Canadian health care workers undetected for 4 years

2011-12-13T20:20:28Z

The Star has reported that 1,769 Canadian health care workers suffered radiation doses 25 to 40% worse than they were told four years ago, due to an error in a computer program administered by Health Canada. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission regulates Health Canada on such matters, but both federal agencies missed the error for 4 years. Some health care workers were exposed to above permissible doses, once the error was caught. CNSC also regulates Canadian atomic reactors, and other nuclear facilities and activities. The article closed by quoting Mark Mattson of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper:

"Mark Mattson of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, who has opposed construction of new nuclear units at Darlington, said the incident raises question about the nuclear regulator – which also oversees nuclear power stations.

'The shocking thing here is that no one noticed the mistake for four years,' he said.

'Waterkeeper is very interested to see who is held accountable for this mistake. In recent years, we have become increasingly concerned that the CNSC is lax when it comes to enforcing the rules.' "