Beyond Nuclear International
Nuclear power is not the answer in a time of climate change
Woolsey Fire just a precursor to future climate-related radioactive releases
By Heidi Hutner and Erica Cirino
In November 2018, the Woolsey Fire scorched nearly 100,000 acres of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, destroying forests, fields and more than 1,500 structures, and forcing the evacuation of nearly 300,000 people over 14 days. It burned so viciously that it seared a scar into the land that’s visible from space. Investigators determined that the Woolsey Fire began at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a nuclear research property contaminated by a partial meltdown in 1959 of its failed Sodium Reactor Experiment, as well as rocket tests and regular releases of radiation.
The State of California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) reports that its air, ash and soil tests conducted on the property after the fire show no release of radiation beyond baseline for the contaminated site. But the DTSC report lacks sufficient information, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. It includes ‘few actual measurements’ of the smoke from the fire, and the data raises alarms. Research on Chernobyl in Ukraine following wildfires in 2015 shows clear release of radiation from the old nuclear power plant, calling into question the quality of DTSC’s tests. What’s more, scientists such as Nikolaos Evangeliou, who studies radiation releases from wildfires at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, point out that the same hot, dry and windy conditions exacerbating the Woolsey Fire (all related to human-caused global warming) are a precursor to future climate-related radioactive releases.
With our climate-impacted world now highly prone to fires, extreme storms and sea-level rise, nuclear energy is touted as a possible replacement for the burning of fossil fuels for energy – the leading cause of climate change. Nuclear power can demonstrably reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Yet scientific evidence and recent catastrophes call into question whether nuclear power could function safely in our warming world. Wild weather, fires, rising sea levels, earthquakes and warming water temperatures all increase the risk of nuclear accidents, while the lack of safe, long-term storage for radioactive waste remains a persistent danger.
Why women should oppose nuclear power
Pregnant women don’t get x-rays. There’s a reason
By Linda Pentz Gunter
It may come as no surprise to learn that it was women who first raised the alarm about just how dangerous radiation exposure might be to humans, but especially to women and their children. As the late Walter Wolfgang, a co-founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), recalls in Carol Turner’s book, Corbyn and Trident:
”Around the time of Britain’s first atomic tests many women in particular became concerned about the health dangers of radiation, its effect on unborn children and so on. This was much discussed in scientific journals at the time, and found a reflection in political magazines such as Tribune and New Statesman. Through opposition to testing, people became aware of the problem with nuclear weapons. Then politicos such as myself got involved, concerned about Britain’s foreign policies and international relationships. There was a coalescence between the two that led to the foundation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.”
Dr Alice Stewart (third from left) with Edinburgh doctors and nurses. (Photo: Wellcome Trust/WikiCommons)
What is surprising is that, decades later, we still find ourselves trying to impress these truths upon the public, and even on reluctant women politicians. After all, it was back in the 1950s that these dangers first became apparent, through the pioneering work of a woman, Dr. Alice Stewart, who died 17 years ago, on June 23, 2002 at 95.
Emissions omissions
EDF keeps pushing its pointless nuclear pipe dream
By Pete Wilkinson
EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy makes some schoolboy errors in his misleading defence of nuclear power in his February 25th speech at the International Energy Agency, as reported by World NuclearNews, 20 May 2019. M. Lévy is careful to use the word “direct” when claiming that nuclear power produces electricity without emissions; by this, he presumably means that the only part of the nuclear fuel chain that can even come close to being “low carbon” is that which “burns” uranium in the reactor.
Of course, he knows, as do we all, that across the entire fuel chain, nuclear power requires an acceptance of a carbon footprint from uranium mining, milling, enrichment, fuel production, transport, nuclear plant construction, storage and the still-unknown CO2 burdens created by final spent fuel and waste management conundrums. To claim otherwise is disingenuous, especially from someone in such a position of responsibility.
Nuclear power requires an acceptance of a carbon footprint across the entire nuclear fuel chain, starting with uranium mining. (Photo: Vonvon/WikiCommons)
It is true that the fight against climate change is challenging, but to conclude that nuclear power is essential to winning that fight is wrong and designed to defend a technology which is antiquated, costly, polluting and presents us with a wealth of unresolved health issues related to childhood leukaemia. Sixty studies, including the seminal German government-sponsored KiKK Report indicate elevated rates of leukaemia and other cancers as a result of exposure to ionising radiation.
Cartographie d’un corps contaminé à l’uranium
Par où transite l’uranium et ses produits de désintégration et comment ils nous nuisent
(This is a republication, in French, for our French-speaking readers, of our original article, The Uranium Map in our Bodies.)
Traduction par Sortir du Nucléaire Paris
L’uranium est radioactif. Depuis plus d’un siècle, les humains extraient de l’uranium dans le monde entier, que ce soit pour vernir les poteries ou pour la production de bombes atomiques. Alors que l’impact de l’uranium et de ses produits de désintégration sur la santé on été initialement inconnus, au moment de la constitution de l’arsenal atomique de la guerre froide, des effets évidents sur la santé ( le cancer du poumon, par exemple, étaient devenus associés aux mines d’uranium dès les années 1930) ils ont été ignorés pour favoriser la production d’ogives nucléaires. Les mines et les usines de concentration d’uranium se sont répandues aux États-Unis.
Dans l’ouest des États-Unis, comme dans la plupart des pays du monde, les mineurs et les personnes vivant à proximité de ces installations étaient en grande partie autochtones. Non seulement la santé des travailleurs a été impactée, mais les processus industriels de l’uranium ont laissé une contamination radioactive dans le sol et dans l’eau, les habitants de la région ont également subi des effets néfastes sur la santé. L’uranium et ses produits de désintégration jonchent encore ces paysages, posant un danger permanent, en particulier lorsqu’ils sont inhalés ou ingérés. Bien que ces radio-isotopes soient naturels, ils sont artificiellement présents en raison de leur traitement industriel. Bien que l’extraction de l’uranium soit la source la plus évidente, l’or et d’autres procédés miniers peuvent également libérer ces matériaux. Les sites miniers et les zones environnantes constituent le plus grand danger d’exposition à l’uranium et à tous ses produits de désintégration.
Parmi les autres sites susceptibles de présenter un danger par les produits de désintégration, on peut citer les sites d’élimination des déchets de thorium et les usines qui utilisaient de la peinture au radium pour des produits de consommation, et militaires tels que les cadrans de montres et d’avions. Ces sites parsèment le paysage nord-américain et, bien qu’un certain nombre de ces installations aient été nettoyées dans le cadre du programme Superfund, pour certaines, la surveillance est en cours. Le radon peut lixivier du sol dans de nombreux endroits, pas seulement des mines, et se retrouver piégé dans des bâtiments. Dans ce cas, toutefois, le radon peut être éliminé facilement et en toute sécurité grâce à une technologie simple, recommandée par la US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), qui ne présente pratiquement aucun danger.
Suing to stop sea turtle kills
Nuclear power plant continues to take too high a toll on endangered species
By Linda Pentz Gunter and Paul Gunter, with the Turtle Island Restoration Network
On Thursday, May 30, 2019, the Turtle Island Restoration Network and Beyond Nuclear filed a formal notice of their intent to sue the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Florida Power & Light (FPL) for failing to protect endangered species from illegal intake and harm at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant in Jensen Beach, Florida.
For decades, the reactor site’s cooling water intake system, which draws in nearly three billion gallons of sea water daily, has routinely captured, harmed and killed thousands of marine animals, most notably endangered and threatened species of sea turtle as well as the endangered smalltooth sawfish. But it’s not just countless species of marine wildlife—two scuba divers were sucked through the unprotected cooling intake pipe on separate occasions, one of whom is suing the power plant for being entrained at the plant in 2016.
A video, produced by the authors in 2001, showed how sea turtles — around since the time of the dinosaurs — are being assailed from many quarters, and the compounding and cumulative damage done to them by captures and kills at nuclear power plants.
A rogue regulator worth reading
A shocking if predictable look inside a captured nuclear agency
By Libbe HaLevy
“Nuclear power is a failed technology.”
If that unequivocal statement by former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Greg Jaczko were the only “confession” he made, it would be powerful enough. But in his recently published book, Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator, Jaczko rips away the secrecy from the inner workings of the NRC as he experienced it first-hand.
This ultimate nuclear insider provides a clear picture of the failings of the captured nuclear agency, the corrosive day-to-day political battles with other commissioners, and the unfolding terror when Fukushima’s nuclear reactors were first shaken, then swamped – and no one could predict what was going to happen next.
With a lean narrative, a scientist’s spare prose, and a canny sense of how to make complex technical issues understandable, Jaczko paints the picture of what’s wrong with the nuclear industry and the NRC. The result is a narrative both shocking and, for some of us, sadly predictable, as he confirms the worst beliefs and observations held about the agency that’s supposed to regulate the most deadly energy technology on earth.
Gregory Jaczko at an Oval Office a meeting in the Obama White House just days after the Fukushima nuclear accident began, along with John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; and Rob Nabors, Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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