BELARUSIAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT ANGERS LITHUANIA

ENDS Europe DAILY, Wednesday 23 March 2011

Lithuania's environment ministry has criticised a plan to build a nuclear power plant in Belarus, 50 kilometres from the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. It described the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project as "inadequate".

In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry warned that actions would be undertaken by Lithuania to ensure the project is in line with environmental regulations. It says the EIA does not estimate possible radiation levels in case of an accident.

The ministry also complains of insufficient data on the geology, tectonics and seismology of the location. The EIA does not cover spent fuel storage and there are no analyses concerning impacts on
the Neris river and the local hydrological system.

According to the ministry, the Belarusian government has been ignoring calls to involve Lithuania in the project, despite transboundary rules allowing neighbouring countries to comment on EIAs. In 2010, the states of Micronesia used these rules to protest against plans to upgrade a Czech coal-fired power plant.

http://www.endseurope.com/23097?referrer=bulletin&DCMP=EMC-ENDS-EUROPE-DAILY

Lithuania is planning to raise the issue during this week's meeting of European leaders in Brussels, as well as a meeting of parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety in Vienna in April.

http://www-ns.iaea.org/conventions/nuclear-safety.asp

Lithuania's own Soviet-era nuclear power plant in Ignalina was decommissioned between 2004 and 2009 as part of its EU accession agreement.

Greenpeace Japan measures radioactivity

From our radiation sampling team in Japan


Brian Fitzgerald - March 26, 2011
Jacob Namminga, one of our radiation safety advisors, spoke to me via Skype about today's sampling trip in a rural area of Japan, to the north west of the Fukushima nuclear plant. We'll be reporting the details of our findings once they are compiled and have been checked, but I asked Jacob to provide some reflections on what today's trip was like. This is what he had told me.

We are staying in a place in Yonezawa, 45 km from Fukushima city called the Smile hotel. It has a giant yellow smiley on it, which under the circumstances is a bit surreal. We have Internet, the electricity is working. We have it rather easy compared to some of the people here who are refugees, having had to leave their homes and who are living just a few kilometres away. We brought a lot of food in from Osaka and try to eat that and avoid local foods and especially milk.

As we found out today, the radiation levels are high in Fukushima city -- our measurements confirmed levels that have been reported in newspapers and by the government -- in some places so high that you would get your "maximum annual dose" (if you believe in such things) in about 8 days. It's a bit strange to see people biking and going about their business.
At 9am we set out from Yonezawa, and drove for one and a half hours toward the region we wanted to make our measurements.

We do not stay in the high radiation areas longer than necessary in order to minimize our own dosages.
We kept our measurement gear on, but we had to turn off the audio bleeps on the Geiger counter, its constant sound was driving us nuts. The alarms of the devices can't be turned off, and in particularly high radiation areas they'd all go off. There was one place we hit such a high reading that we didn't even stop there. It was windy and dry, and the dust and snow can carry radioactive particles. So if you step out of the car and get dust or snow on you, you might bring radioactive particles into the car and you don't want that. We moved on quickly.

We met the police at a blockade about 35 km out from the Fukushima nuclear plant, and they let us do measurements. Cars were still going in and out that didn't appear to be relief workers or firemen -- it may be people are getting permission to go in and get their belongings, but I'm speculating. It was not busy, but it wasn't deserted: there were still people going in and out.

My biggest impression of the day was that this is a truly beautiful place – the mountains are breathtaking, and if you don't look at the Geiger counters, it's quite a nice place to be. But you look at the Geiger counters and you realise there's a danger, and that you can't see it with your eyes.

Fukushima Nuclear leak causes radiation levels to rocket 1,250 times normal level in surrounding seawater

Risk: Smoke is seen billowing from the No.3 reactor at the Fukushima plant as Japanese officials revealed radiation levels in surrounding seawater have rocketed


By Richard Shears In Tokyo  Mail online 27th March 2011

Residents 18 miles from stricken reactor urged to evacuate

U.S. naval barges rush freshwater towards stricken Japanese plant

Safety concerns in California as scare alert leaves West Coast at risk

Radiation levels are soaring in seawater near the crippled Fukushima plant core, Japanese nuclear safety officials warned today.

Two weeks after the nuclear power plant was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami, tests on Friday showed radioactive iodine had spiked 1,250 times higher than normal in the seawater just offshore the plant.

The latest setback in preventing further leakage was confirmed as engineers tried to pump puddles of radioactive water from the power plant 150 miles north of Tokyo.

Workers, who stepped into radiation-contaminated water at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, are shielded with tarpaulins before receiving decontamination treatment at a nearby hospital

Warning: Radiation readings on Saturday morning in Tokyo are six times higher than normal at 0.22 microsieverts per hour


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370113/Japan-earthquake-Fukushima-reactor-nuclear-leak-causes-radiation-levels-rocket.html#ixzz1HuMkyz2z

It is feared the containment shield around nuclear fuel rods in the plant might have been weakened, resulting in dangerous material leaking out.


It emerged today that Japanese people as far as 18 miles from Fukushima's nuclear plant are being urged to evacuate by government officials.
U.S. naval barges have provided freshwater to help workers at the plant stabilise reactors which have been overheating since the deadly Japanese tsunami crippled the plant's cooling system earlier this month.


Meanwhile, a defect in the U.S. government's nuclear alert system has left West Coast America unable to immediately respond in the event of a radiation emergency.


Half the Environment Protection Agency's 12 California sensors are sending radiation test data too slowly, leaving Californians at risk during a nuclear alarm, according to an EPA official.


Damage to the containment cone, say analysts, could result in steam escaping from the reactor and carrying radiation into the air - and there could also be leakages into the soil around the crippled Fukushima plant.


If radiation of the highly dangerous quality found in water at the troubled number three reactor rises into the atmosphere, strong winds could carry the contamination as far as Tokyo, 135 miles to the south, and beyond.




 

Monbiot the cynic

The summit in the art of self-deception has been scaled by the Guardian journalist George Monbiot, who has written here that Fukushima has convinced him that nuclear is our only option. His reasoning is simple:


A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

How cynical. Monbiot wrote this while firefighters were risking their health and possibly their lives to protect citizens. He wrote this while the nuclear plant was radiating, the levels climbing around it, and still no prospect of an end to the leaks. He wrote this while the people of Fukushima looked on from emergency shelters as their livelihoods were destroyed, possibly for generations, and while tap water in Tokyo was forbidden to babies. Meanwhile, at the time of writing, the plutonium threat in reactor No 3 is still not under control.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/26/cynical-nuclear-power-japan-fukushima

Chris Huhne faces legal challenge over nuclear link to cancer in children

Community worker who lives near proposed nuclear power stations in Lancashire launches unprecedented case

Rob Edwards The Guardian, Friday 25 March 2011
The government has ordered an expansion of the UK's nuclear programme without properly factoring in evidence that nuclear power stations cause an increase in cancer cases in children living nearby, according to a legal challenge in the high court.

The case alleges that the energy and climate secretary, Chris Huhne, did not properly review the evidence on cancer when giving the go-ahead for the expansion last year. Lawyers claim the action could delay, or even stop, the programme of new reactors.

Rory Walker, a 24-year-old community worker from Lancaster, has won legal aid to launch the unprecedented case.

Walker lives close to Heysham where two new reactors are planned, and says he is worried about having children who could suffer an increased risk of leukaemia.

"It is folly beyond belief, and almost genocidal, to build new nuclear power stations," he said. "Nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomic and a dangerous distraction."

Walker's decision to go to court predates the Fukushima nuclear crisis following the Japan tsunami, though Walker said it has reinforced his fears.

He is an active member of the Heysham Anti-Nuclear Alliance, and works on a project to help local people grow more food on a community allotment. Under legal aid rules, he has agreed to contribute 10% of his income towards the cost of the legal action.

Walker alleges that evidence from government-sponsored studies in Germany was not adequately taken into account by Huhne. It suggests that young children who live close to nuclear power stations are twice as vulnerable to developing leukaemia. The studies, known as KiKK (Kinderkrebs in der Umgebung von KernKraftwerken), prompted an investigation by the UK Department of Health, which has not yet been published.

Ian Fairlie, a consultant on radiation in the environment, is acting as an expert witness in support of Walker's court challenge.

"If the risks found following the KiKK study were applied to Heysham, infants and young children under five living within 5km would be exposed to increased risks of cancer, especially leukaemia," he said.

Huhne is accused of breaching a 1996 directive from Europe's nuclear agency, Euratom. Andrew Lockley, a partner with Irwin Mitchell, said: "The fundamental purpose of the Euratom directive is to make sure that a comprehensive and detailed assessment is made before new nuclear reactors are built."

"It does not permit an approach which appears generalised, generic and deferred. Justification requires that the health detriments should be considered and balanced against the economic, social or other benefits which may occur – but this doesn't seem to have happened here." The lawyers want a judicial review to rule that Huhne acted unlawfully, and to quash his decisions.

A spokeswoman for Huhne at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said: "We are confident that the decisions were rightly and properly made. The safety of our nuclear power stations is the government's number one priority and the UK has one of the most rigorous and robust regulatory systems anywhere in the world."

She added: "The government have asked the chief nuclear inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, to produce a report on the implications of the unprecedented events in Japan and the lessons to be learned for the UK nuclear industry."

A spokesperson for the Nuclear Industry Association, which represents nuclear companies said: "This matter is now part of the legal process and we are not therefore in a position to comment."

The government has until the end of the month to make a formal response to the legal action, which will then go to a judge, who may order a hearing in London.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/25/chris-huhne-court-nuclear-cancer-children

George Monbiot is wrong.

Nuclear power is not the way to fight climate change

Renewable energy is a safe, clean source which will become cheaper as we invest in it
Jeremy Leggett The Guardian, Thursday 24 March 2011

Article historyGeorge Monbiot argues of nuclear energy that the absence of less harmful alternatives has "converted me to the cause" (Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power, 21 March). He says he is driven to his new love by the imperative of battling climate change, and what he sees as the inability of renewable energy to run viable economies.

On the climate imperative, I agree. On the other assertions, I profoundly differ. I speak as someone who founded a renewable energy company because of my fears about climate change and the downsides of dependency on conventional energy. Since I did so, I have watched renewables industries become some of the fastest growing in the world. In 2008 and 2009 more renewables came onstream in both Europe and America than did all fossil fuels and nuclear combined. In Europe in 2009, wind and solar PV alone provided more than half all new generation.

"Energy is like medicine," Monbiot writes, "if there are no side-effects, the chances are that it doesn't work." Were he to visit the renewables frontlines, he would discover many views to the contrary. German government and companies have run a scaled national experiment showing that the modern economy could be powered by renewables. A sophisticated American modelling exercise has shown the same for the global economy. All it requires is systematic mobilisation, and the imagination to believe what Silicon Valley believes.

Ultimately we should be able to provide power far less expensively than new nuclear. As we grow, our costs fall. We do not need to hand open cheques for currently unknowable billions to the taxpayer for things like waste transportation, waste disposal, decommissioning, security at sites, or accident clear-up.

But like Spitfires and Lancasters in 1939, we need to be mobilised fast, along with our even more important sister industries in energy-efficiency. And herein lies the main reason why Monbiot contradicts his own objective to counter climate change. The nuclear industry does not want renewable energy to succeed. Indeed, they lobby to kill our chances.

The chief executives of EDF and E.ON are both on record as saying that renewables would spoil the chances for nuclear, and only a minor renewables contribution can be tolerated if ministers want a "nuclear renaissance".

"I still loathe the liars who run the nuclear industry," Monbiot writes. But he now confesses that Fukushima has made him love their technology. He falls in love with the false calculation that it is needed, that it can work economically, and that it can solve its horrific waste, decommissioning and proliferation-security pitfalls.

And then there are the safety, health and indeed human psychology issues. "The impact on people [of the current disaster] has been small," Monbiot asserts. My, how I would love him to have to face a roomful of Fukushima citizens with that argument. Or put on a suit and pick up a hosepipe at the plant itself.

 

First pictures emerge of the Fukushima Fifty as steam starts pouring from all four reactors at the stricken nuclear power plant

By Matt Blake and Richard Shears    24th March 2011

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369216/Japan-nuclear-crisis-Fukushima-Fifty-pictures-inside-nuclear-power-plant.html#ixzz1HYpXT1Ot

 

The darkness is broken only by the flashing torchlight of the heroes who stayed behind.

These first images of inside the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant reveal the terrifying conditions under which the brave men work to save their nation from full nuclear meltdown.

The Fukushima Fifty - an anonymous band of lower and mid-level managers - have battled around the clock to cool overheating reactors and spent fuel rods since the disaster on March 11.

Efforts to control the leakage of radiation from the crippled nuclear plant in Japan received a setback early today when steam began pouring from four reactor buildings.

Until then, black smoke billowing from one of the reactors had been the only concern - an incident which resulted in all work to cool four of the reactors being suspended on Wednesday

At first light in Japan today officials were alarmed to see steam pouring from reactors 1, 2, 3, and 4.

It is the first time that steam has been seen rising from the No.1 reactor since the Fukushima plant was hit by the tsunami nearly two weeks ago.

Firemen this week have been blasting water into the reactors using long hoses but officials were not able to tell whether the desperate work was covering the fuel rods.

Then, when black smoke began pouring out of one of the reactors - suggesting that something was burning - all water-blasting work was suspended and everyone trying to stabilise the plant was ordered to evacuate.

It is believed the steam rising from the four reactors today is from spent fuel rods that have been kept outside the main containment structure where currently active fuel rods are located.

But the spent rods must still be kept immersed in water. If they are not, radioactivity is released into the atmosphere.

Despite sweltering heat from the damaged reactors, they must work in protective bodysuits to protect their skin from the poisonous radioactive particles that fill the air around them.

But as more radiation seeps into the atmosphere minute by minute, they know this job will be their last.

Five are believed to have already died and 15 are injured while others have said they know the radiation will kill them.


The original 50 brave souls were later joined by 150 colleagues and rotated in teams to limit their exposure to the radiation spewing from over-heating spent fuel rods after a series of explosions at the site. They were today joined by scores more workers.

Japan has rallied behind the workers with relatives telling of heart-breaking messages sent at the height of the crisis.A woman said her husband continued to work while fully aware he was being bombarded with radiation. In a heartbreaking email, he told his wife: 'Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while.'


One girl tweeted in a message translated by ABC: 'My dad went to the nuclear plant, I've never seen my mother cry so hard. People at the plant are struggling, sacrificing themselves to protect you. Please dad come back alive.'

But it is becoming even more pressing that the Fukushima succeed after it was revealed today that Tokyo's tap water has been contaminated by unusual levels of radiation.

The government have issued a warning to all mothers urging them not to let babies drink the tap water.

The warning came after it emerged last night that radioactive particles have reached Europe and are heading towards Britain in the wake of the catastrophe that officials say could cost up to £190billion - making it the costliest natural disaster in history.

And fresh safety concerns arose today as black smoke was spotted emerging from Unit 3 of the plant, prompting a temporary evacuation of all workers from the complex, operators Tokyo Electric Power company said.


Nearly two weeks after the twin March 11 disasters, nuclear officials were still struggling to stabilise the damaged and overheated Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, which has been leaking radiation since the disasters knocked out the plant's cooling systems.

Water spray: Workers at Fukushima yesterday try to cool the plant