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The Nuclear
Re: The Nuclear
mudra Thu Feb 20, 2014 2:51 pm
The Impending Dangers of Nuclear War: America's W88 Thermonuclear Warhead is 30 Times a Hiroshima Bomb
The US, the UK, Russia, China and France are rebuilding or upgrading their arsenals of nuclear weapons. The other four nuclear states(Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea) too are 'improving' their arsenals. As we discuss the statistics and strategies of 'nuclear arsenals' and 'nuclear deterrence' it can be hard to keep in mind the reality underlying the abstract discussions.
The nine nuclear states have over 10,000 nuclear weapons in their stockpiles1. This is enough to wipe out the entire population of the planet many times over together with all other life forms.
Is this sane? Has the human race lost its senses? A single United States thermonuclear warhead, designated W88, has an estimated 'yield' of 475 kilotons2. The 'yield' is the destructive power expressed in tons of TNT equivalent.
The W88 is over 30 times more destructive than the bomb which wiped out Hiroshima.
A single W88 could completely destroy London, Moscow or New York. Each bomb on a major city would kill millions of people; women, children, babies, old people, everyone. The suffering would be indescribable and for many would go on for months and years before death. No emergency services could begin to cope There would be no relief. What sort of people would do such a thing? What kind of human would threaten such an atrocity?
The US government has 5 nuclear submarines on patrol at all times carrying 1000 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb3. Is it possible to imagine the degree of paranoia represented by such a standing threat? The UK government has started to spend one hundred billion pounds on rebuilding its Trident fleet of nuclear submarines, each one with the capacity to incinerate over 40 million people. This is being done at a time when many citizens are suffering from inadequate defences against flooding and when the social services are being radically cut back.
The situation is being rendered even more dangerous by the US and Russia who keep 1,800 weapons on high alert atop long-range ballistic missiles that are ready to launch 5 to 15 minutes after receiving an order!
It is ironic that the worst offenders are the five permanent members of the 'Security' Council of the United Nations. They have had 69 years to get rid of their nuclear weapons while all that the citizens of the world hear from them are windy speeches around purported good intentions which never come to fruition.
Citizens of the world have simultaneously become aware that the nuclear states do not intend to get rid of their nuclear weapons and that their existence imposes a permanent and intolerable threat to us all. The existence of nuclear weapons means they could be used by accident, by misunderstanding or by malicious intent. How can we ever be sure that some deranged psychopath will not gain power in one of the nuclear states and deceive him/herself into believing that it is in their best interests to make a first strike? How can we ever be sure that some terrorist organisations will not hack into the electronic control systems and carry out the launching themselves? And we now know that even a small nuclear exchange could be a lethal threat to everyone on the planet. In a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan 20 million people would die from the nuclear blasts, fires, and radioactive fallout. And the fallout would have global consequences that would kill millions of people, disrupt climate patterns, and threaten global agricultural collapse4.
Furthermore decent people round the globe know that the existence of nuclear weapons is a brooding evil which undermines the moral integrity of humankind. As the great moral leader Desmond Tutu wrote "Nuclear weapons are an obscenity. They are the very antithesis of humanity5…'
The only remedy is an enforced world ban on the existence of nuclear weapons. The other weapons of mass destruction have already been banned. It is the turn of the last and most destructive of them all.
And finally there is hope. The huge burgeoning of awareness in the citizens of the world is bearing fruit.
There are 9 nuclear states and there are 183 non-nuclear states. The security of the non-nuclear states is threatened by the irresponsible and self-focused behaviour of the 9 others. But these 9 are outnumbered by 20 to one. The non-nuclear majority which do not feel the need for a lethal 'security' crutch have decided to take the initiative. And rather than focus on the numbers and 'yields' of the weapons it was wisely decided to concentrate on the effects on humanity of the use of nuclear weapons. The next logical development, as the nuclear states continue to deny their obligations to shed their arsenals, is for the non-nuclear states to proceed independently to enact a treaty outlawing these weapons internationally. By focusing attention on the humanitarian consequences of their use they are well on their way to doing so.
The first International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons was held in 2013. Humanity owes a great debt to Norway for this initiative.
read on: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-impending-dangers-of-nuclear-war-americas-w-88-thermonuclear-warhead-is-30-times-a-hiroshima-bomb/5369731
Location : British Columbia Canada
Jenetta Sun Mar 02, 2014 3:15 pm
NM: Plume containing cancerous radioactive plutonium isotopes engulfs region after 'nuclear event' announced by DOE
A plume containing radioactive plutonium isotopes has now made its way at least a half mile away from the nuclear waste storage facility
By Shepard Ambellas
CARLSBAD, N.M. (INTELLIHUB) — Radioactive plutonium isotopes have now been detected in an air filter located about one-half mile northwest the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant which experienced a "radiological event" as reported by the U.S. Dept. of Energy and Intellihub News early on this week.
Al Jazeera reported:
A WIPP air monitor detected airborne radiation underground late Friday night, setting off an alert, the Journal reported. WIPP reported the next day that its ventilation system had immediately switched to filtration mode, minimizing any potential release of radiation.
WIPP said in a statement Wednesday that its filters remove at least 99.97 percent of contaminants from the air, "meaning a minute amount still can pass through."
"There is a lot more that needs to be known," Don Hancock, director of the Nuclear Waste Safety Program at the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, told local media.
"The big problem is, does anybody really know what happened in the underground and how much was released or is continuing to be released? And, therefore, how much is being captured by the filters and how much is getting into the environment?"
Amazingly a brief analysis was conducted and has been posted at "Pissing On the Roses", a blog which details just how serious this matter really is and what it means for locals and others downwind.
"Pissing On The Roses" posted the following statement in regards to the recent radioactive release:
CEMRC reports they found 0.64 Bq of Americium 241 & 0.092 Bq of Plutonium 239+240 in the air filter 1/2 mi away from WIPP.
Those contamination values mean that a person directly down wind during that time period inhaled 36 TRILLION Plutonium atoms. Assuming normal breathing rates, and uniform distribution, a person would have had to be on site for 3.6 hours to have inhaled 1 TRILLION Plutonium atoms, one of which would have released an Alpha Radiation particle INSIDE of his/her lungs.
Cases of lung cancer in the region are expected to skyrocket.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zDbmbV0Ous
As it is above; so it is below
Deadly alert issued by potrblog: NM waste isolation plant still spewing '6,667 Bq radioactive plutonium per minute' into air
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvEr1DNW9dY
New Mexico residents, you have been warned–don't wait for the EPA to advise you with false information as airborne radiation has already been detected
http://intellihub.com/deadly-alert-issued-potrblog-nm-waste-isolation-plant-still-spewing-6667-bq-radioactive-plutonium-per-minute-air/
As it is below; so it is above
mudra Fri Mar 14, 2014 8:21 am
Enenews
Chronicle Herald, Mar. 14, 2014: Emergency crews were on high alert Thursday night as it was feared a container of nuclear material was leaking aboard a ship at Halifax's north-end Ceres terminal. [...] "We have a leak, I've got to go," Halifax Fire and Emergency Service Division Commander Corey Beals said [...] Later, the Halifax Fire Department confirmed that four cylinders containing uranium hexafluoride fell from a container, but there was no leak [...] There were also reports that the Halifax Harbour Master had been alerted that there was a ship in the harbour leaking radioactive material. [...] The wife of a worker at the Ceres terminal tweeted late Thursday night that her husband was on scene when the container fell and that he has been quarantined. [...] Uranium hexafluoride that contacts water or moisture in the air will decompose to form a cloud of toxic fumes. If a container carrying the chemical were to leak, it could prove fatal.
source: http://enenews.com/ctv-breaking-news-a-confirmed-leak-radiation-levels-higher-than-they-should-be-commander-we-have-a-leak-ive-got-to-go-workers-container-of-nuclear-material-dropped-a
mudra Wed Mar 19, 2014 12:05 pm
Human radiation experiments in the Pacific
Glenn Alcalay
It was 60 years ago that the US devastated Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific with its Caste-Bravo nuclear bomb test, reports Glenn Alcalay. But did the US run another secret test - in which the Marshall Islanders were nuclear fallout guinea pigs?
The habitation of these people on Rongelap Island affords the opportunity for a most valuable ecological radiation study on human beings ...
When the United States took on the UN Trusteeship of the Marshall Islands, it bound itself to " ... protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources; protect the health of the inhabitants ... " [1]
But the US's actions there - turning these quiet, peaceful, remote islands into a testing ground of nuclear weapons of unbelievable power and ferocity - might call into question its good faith.
According to Marshallese folklore a half-bad and half-good god named Etao was associated with slyness and trickery. When bad things happened people knew that Etao was behind it.
"He's dangerous, that Etao", some people said. "He does bad things to people and then laughs at them." [2] Many in the Marshall Islands now view their United States patron as a latter day Etao.
Castle-Bravo
Sixty years ago this month the American Etao unleashed its unprecedented fury at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
It was nine years after the searing and indelible images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the world first learned about the dangers of radioactive fallout from hydrogen bombs that use atomic Hiroshima-sized bombs as triggers.
Castle-Bravo, the first in a series of megaton-range hydrogen bomb tests at Bikini Atoll on March first of 1954, was nicknamed "the shrimp" by its designer - Edward Teller - because it was the first deliverable thermonuclear weapon in the megaton range in the US nuclear holster.
We had beaten the Soviets in this key area of nuclear weapons miniaturization when the Cold War was hot and the United States did not need to seek approval from anybody, especially the Marshallese entrusted to them through the UN.
read on: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2323244/human_radiation_experiments_in_the_pacific.html
mudra Fri May 02, 2014 9:38 am
Lessons from the Nuclear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucu0b0g9MI0
Lessons of Nuclear History - Harvey Wasserman (Fukushima)
mudra Sat May 31, 2014 4:03 pm
Top Science Journal: "Time bombs" at WIPP nuclear site? "High alert over risk of new explosions" in hundreds of plutonium-contaminated drums — AP: 4 years may be needed just to seal off area where drums stored — Experts go down to check if ground 'still stable' (VIDEO)
Nature, May 28, 2014: Nuclear-waste facility on high alert over risk of new explosions — US repository scrambles to seal off barrels [...] Time bombs may be ticking at the United States' only deep geological repository for nuclear waste. US authorities concluded last week that at least 368 drums of waste at the site could be susceptible to the chemical reaction suspected to have caused a drum to rupture there in February. That accident caused radioactive material to spill into the repository and leak into the environment above ground. [...] To mitigate the threat of further exploding drums, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) in Santa Fe issued an order on 20 May giving the US Department of Energy [...] until 30 May to come up with a plan to "expedite" the sealing of panel 6 and part of panel 7. [A reaction] blew the lid off of the container [an official cautioned,] "It is not yet known how, or if, the reaction created the rupture in the drum(s)" [...] The DOE added that current assumptions and precautions about the hazards of operating the WIPP are being "evaluated and revised".
AP, May 31, 2014: Feds say it could take years [...] to seal off hundreds of potentially dangerous containers at its troubled underground nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico, the U.S. Department of Energy said in a filing Friday. [...] the department gave broad ranges that indicate it could take a minimum of about 100 work weeks — and possibly twice that long — to secure the rooms at the now-shuttered plant where more than 350 containers of toxic waste from decades of building nuclear bombs at Los Alamos National Laboratory is stored. [...] A Department of Energy spokeswoman declined to comment on the estimated time frame [...] A canister shipped from Los Alamos to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project has been linked to the [Feb 14, 2014] release, and officials are investigating whether hundreds of other barrels from Los Alamos that are currently stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Los Alamos and in West Texas are at risk of releasing radiation. [...] There are still 57 barrels on the campus, which officials have repacked into special containers and are now storing under a dome with 24-hour monitoring and fire-protection systems.
read on: http://enenews.com/top-science-journal-time-bombs-at-wipp-nuclear-site-high-alert-over-risk-of-new-explosions-in-350-plutonium-contaminated-drums-ap-4-years-may-be-needed-just-to-seal-off-these-drums-g
Jenetta Fri Jun 06, 2014 11:44 pm
Chris Busby's report reaches the conclusion that DU (depleted uranium) battlefield weapons contamination radionuclides can travel thousands of miles from the country where these weapons were used...for example, Iraq (2003) when Baghdad suffered the "Shock & Awe" invasion by U.S. military DU bunker busters, particles from these weapons affected non combatants and civilians living far away in England (Reading & Aldermaston).
DU Contamination of Europe: Why the EU resists US warmongering in the Ukraine
http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=5725
mudra Fri Jun 27, 2014 2:17 pm
Fast reactor starts clean nuclear energy era in Russia
Published time: June 27, 2014
Controlled nuclear fission has been started in Russia's newest fast breeder reactor in the Urals, heralding a closed nuclear fuel cycle and a future without nuclear waste. Russia is the only country that operates fast neutron reactors industrially.
The next generation BN-800 breeder reactor (880 megawatts) assembled at Russia's Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant has been put in the so-called critical state on Friday, a week after all necessary nuclear fuel was loaded into the active zone.
The press service of Rosenergoatom, the electric energy generation branch of Russia's nuclear monopoly, Rosatom, has confirmed to the RIA news agency that nuclear reaction in the BN-800 reactor has been initiated.
"Starting from that moment the reactor started to 'live'," RIA said, quoting the source in Rosenergoatom.
This means that controlled nuclear fission in the reactor is self-sustaining and ongoing at a constant speed. Once this most important stage of the start-up work is done, the reactor will be gradually prepared to achieve the desired 880 megawatts output expected to be reached in October, when the reactor will be commissioned for industrial use.
The BN-800 uses liquid metal sodium (Na) as a coolant heat transfer agent. The start of commercial operation of the new reactor is planned for early 2015.
read on: http://rt.com/news/168768-russian-fast-breeder-reactor/
mudra Sun Jun 29, 2014 12:40 pm
6/29/2014 — Radioactive waste DELIBERATELY mixed in 'fracking' water for underground 'disposal'
June 29, 2014 Michael Janitch
It would seem 'fracking' has dual purposes…
Fracture shale using water, to extract natural gas, and oil.
Dispose of toxic / harmful substances deep underground.
The second purpose, disposal / injection wells….. apparently was seen as a 'good' thing to do back as far as 1965.
A 'good' idea to pump radioactive waste deep underground, mixed with water of course.
From the Youngstown Vindicator on September 16, 1965:
read on: http://dutchsinse.tatoott1009.com/6292014-radioactive-waste-deliberately-mixed-in-fracking-water-for-underground-disposal/
mudra Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:52 am
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Nuclear Weapons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g
mudra Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:52 am
Nuclear industry prepares for global boom - or is that doom?
The nuclear industry remains remarkably optimistic about its future, wrties Paul Brown - despite evidence that it is a shrinking source of power as renewables, in particular solar and wind power, compete with increasing success to fill the energy gap.
Nuclear stations are expensive and a long time passes before electricity is produced, making them almost impossible to finance in a normal commercial market.
The headline figures for 2014 from the nuclear industry describe a worldwide boom in progress, with 73 reactors presently being built and another 481 new ones either planned or approved.
The World Nuclear Association (WNA) official website paints a rosy picture of an industry expected to expand dramatically by 2030.
It says that over the period 1996 to 2013 the world retired 66 reactors, and 71 started operation. Between now and 2030, the industry expects another 74 reactors to close, but 272 new ones to come on line.
This represents a much larger net increase in nuclear electricity production than the basic figures suggest because most of the newer power stations have a bigger capacity than those closing down.
Detractors of the industry say that these projections are a pipe dream and that nuclear power will not expand at that pace, if at all, and that solar and wind power will grow much faster to fill the energy gap.
Which projection is correct matters enormously because the world is both short of electric energy and needs to replace fossil fuels with low carbon sources of power to save the planet from dangerous climate change. Nuclear energy and renewables such as wind and solar are in competition to fill the gap.
The figures show that nuclear production is currently in decline from a peak in 2006, and is now producing less than 10% of the world's electricity needs.
World solar capacity, on the other hand, increased by 35% in 2013, and wind power by 12.5% - although, added together, they still do not produce as much power as nuclear.
All the evidence is that wind and solar will continue to grow strongly - and particularly solar, where technological advances and quantity of production means that prices have dropped dramatically.
Costs of producing energy are hard to compare because solar is small and local and dependent on sunshine, while nuclear is large and distant and must be kept on all the time. However, research suggests that solar is already producing cheaper power per kilowatt hour than nuclear, the costs of which have not come down.
read on: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2500809/nuclear_industry_prepares_for_global_boom_or_is_that_doom.html
mudra Tue Aug 05, 2014 7:16 am
Rosetta shows - we can keep space plutonium-free!
Karl Grossman
Deep space missions have previously run on nuclear power, writes Karl Grossman - and have twice showered Earth with radioactive debris. But the ESA's Rosetta probe, about to reach its destination, is 100% solar-powered - showing that space can be nuclear-free.
Rosetta is the first space mission to journey beyond the main asteroid belt relying solely on solar cells for power generation.
A demonstration that in space as on Earth, solar power is an alternative to dangerous nuclear power is to come tomorrow when a solar-powered spacecraft called Rosetta will rendezvous with a comet 375 million miles from the Sun.
Ten years after its 2004 launch, the European Space Agency's Rosetta space probe, energized with solar power, is to meet up with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will begin making observations, relaying back to Earth high-resolution images and information from its sensors, of the two-and-a-half mile wide comet.
Rosetta will subsequently send a lander down to the comet that will drill into it and perform a variety of experiments. For a year, Rosetta will fly alongside the comet, named after the two Ukranian astronomers who discovered it in 1969.
And Rosetta, says the ESA "relies entirely on the energy provided by its innovative solar panels for all onboard instruments and subsystems."
Two serious nuclear accidents in space already
For decades, the United States and the Soviet Union, and now Russia, stressed the use of atomic energy as a source of power in space - and there have been accidents as a result.
The first serious incident was the fall-back to Earth of a US satellite with a SNAP-9A plutonium-238 radioisotope thermal generator on board in 1964, disintegrating as it fell, dispersing plutonium worldwide.
Pu-238 is an exotic isotope characterised by its half life of just 88 years. That makes it intensely radioactive compared to other more common isotopes - like the Pu-239 used for nuclear fission in both bombs and nuclear reactors, with its half life of 24,000 years.
In 1978 SNAP-9A was followed by the Soviet Cosmos Satellite 954, with its on-board atomic reactor. It too broke up, spreading nuclear debris for hundreds of miles across the Northwest Territories of Canada.
The late Dr. John Gofman, professor of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, long connected the SNAP-9A accident and its dispersal of plutonium with a global increase in lung cancer. Canada demanded compensation for the Cosmos-954 accident which the Soviet Union eventually paid - in part.
ESA demonstrates - we can do it with solar
At the distance at which Rosetta will encounter Comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko, or at which Juno will be doing experiments involving Jupiter or ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer will work, energy from the Sun is but a small fraction of what it is on Earth.
Still, it can be effectively utilized for power generation, the ESA declares - because even in the remote outer solar system, there's still enough sunlight to power the smart solar cells it developed for the purpose:
"The solar cells in Rosetta's solar panels are based on a completely new technology, so-called Low-intensity Low Temperature Cells. Thanks to them, Rosetta is the first space mission to journey beyond the main asteroid belt relying solely on solar cells for power generation.
"Previous deep-space missions used nuclear RTGs, radioisotope thermal generators. The new solar cells allow Rosetta to operate over 800 million kilometres from the Sun, where levels of sunlight are only 4% those on Earth. The technology will be available for future deep-space, such as ESA's upcoming Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer."
read on: http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2503653/rosetta_shows_we_can_keep_space_plutoniumfree.html
mudra Sun Aug 17, 2014 2:54 pm
Arnie Gundersen: The Hottest Particle (04/03/2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7itx3saTmI&list=TLh7jNI5X3GjDvBGcdVuj2MiMbo7YtWdIV
Three years ago, Fairewinds was one of the first organizations to talk about "hot particles" that are scattered all over Japan and North America's west coast. Hot particles are dangerous and difficult to detect. In this video Mr. Kaltofen discusses the hottest hot particle he has ever found, and it was discovered more than 300 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi site. If Fairewinds Energy Education was a Japanese website, the State Secrets Law would likely prevent us from issuing this video. Arnie Gundersen provides a brief introduction and summary to the video.
Location : Melbourne, Australia
Sanicle Sun Aug 17, 2014 3:24 pm
mudra (quoted) wrote:
According to this site - http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm -
As of March 11, 2014 in 31 countries 435 nuclear power plant units with an installed electric net capacity of about 372 GW are in operation and 72 plants with an installed capacity of 68 GW are in 15 countries under construction.
Yep, still under construction. So why?
Nuclear Watch: USA nuclear arsenal feared in dire straits amid army scandals 9/7/2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgJ8NY_EAFc
mudra Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:21 pm
Clear and Present Danger ☢ Diablo Canyon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r617h0XWF28&list=FLguovwAfX19TMe1gHyoB1uQ
Devil Nuke Plant Will Be America's Chernobyl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjyL1yk5BuE&list=UUQHopfPwfFjn37JgO1l-axg
Japan: 'solar islands' replace nuclear power
As Japan seeks to end reliance on nuclear power, one of the answers is floating 'solar islands', writes Jon Major. A 70MW solar island opened last year, and two additional plants have just been announced.
While the land is highly congested, and therefore expensive, the sea is largely unused. It therefore makes a good degree of sense to use this space for floating power plants.
Two companies in Japan recently announced they are to begin building two large solar power islands that will float on reservoirs.
This follows smartphone maker Kyocera's Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega Solar power plant, the country's largest at 70 megawatts, which opened in late 2013 and is found floating in the sea just off the coast of southern Japan.
The two new solar islands, to be built by Kyocera and commercial partners, will form a network of thirty 2MW stations - adding another 60MW of solar capacity.
The move comes as Japan looks to move on from the Fukushima disaster of 2011 and meet the energy needs of its 127m people without relying on nuclear power.
read on: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2550618/japan_solar_islands_replace_nuclear_power.html
mudra Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:32 pm
No nuclear waste: Fuel of future produced at Russia's high-tech underground plant
Russia's 'Breakthrough' energy project enables closed a nuclear fuel cycle and a future without radioactive waste. The first batch of MOX nuclear fuel has been manufactured for the world's only NPP industrially power generating breeder reactors.
The first ten kilograms of the mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) - a mixture of plutonium and uranium dioxides (UO2 and PuO2), have been industrially produced by Russia's nuclear monopoly, Rosatom, at the Mining & Chemical Combine (GKhK) in the Krasnoyarsk region.
A world first, tablets of the fuel of the future have been put on serial production and are destined for Russia's next generation BN-800 breeder reactor (880 megawatts), currently undergoing tests at the Beloyarskaya nuclear power plant.
The production line, now undergoing start-up and adjustment, was assembled in a mine 200 meters underground and will become fully operational by the end of 2014.
Demonstrating the work of the spent fuel storage of the Mining and Chemical Plant. (RIA Novosti/Alexandr Kryazhev)
Fast fission reactors solve the problem of depleted uranium nuclear fuel on the planet. They can 'burn' not only 'classic' uranium-235, (scarce and already coming to an end), but also uranium-238, which is abundant, and expands the world's nuclear fuel capacity by an estimated 50 times.
Fuel for breeder reactors could even be made from nuclear waste, which from an ecological point of view is a priceless advantage.
The GKhK facility will be equipped with a unique dissolvent reactor that will break down nuclear waste containing plutonium and extract plutonium dioxide to be used in MOX-fuel production.
read on: http://rt.com/news/188332-mox-nuclear-fuel-production/
There is hope . Nature is amazing !
Nuclear waste eaters: Scientists discover hazardous waste-eating bacteria
Tiny single-cell organisms discovered living underground could help with the problem of nuclear waste disposal, say researchers. Although bacteria with waste-eating properties have been discovered in relatively pristine soils before, this is the first time that microbes that can survive in the very harsh conditions expected in radioactive waste disposal sites have been found.
Tiny single-cell organisms discovered living underground could help with the problem of nuclear waste disposal, say researchers involved in a study at The University of Manchester.
Although bacteria with waste-eating properties have been discovered in relatively pristine soils before, this is the first time that microbes that can survive in the very harsh conditions expected in radioactive waste disposal sites have been found. The findings are published in the ISME (Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology) journal.
The disposal of our nuclear waste is very challenging, with very large volumes destined for burial deep underground. The largest volume of radioactive waste, termed 'intermediate level' and comprising of 364,000m3 (enough to fill four Albert Halls), will be encased in concrete prior to disposal into underground vaults. When ground waters eventually reach these waste materials, they will react with the cement and become highly alkaline. This change drives a series of chemical reactions, triggering the breakdown of the various 'cellulose' based materials that are present in these complex wastes.
One such product linked to these activities, isosaccharinic acid (ISA), causes much concern as it can react with a wide range of radionuclides -- unstable and toxic elements that are formed during the production of nuclear power and make up the radioactive component of nuclear waste. If the ISA binds to radionuclides, such as uranium, then the radionuclides will become far more soluble and more likely to flow out of the underground vaults to surface environments, where they could enter drinking water or the food chain. However, the researchers' new findings indicate that microorganisms may prevent this becoming a problem.
read on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140909093659.htm
mudra Sat Nov 22, 2014 2:49 pm
Secrets of the UK Nuclear Bomb Tests Revealed
by CHRIS BUSBY
Secret documents released to me as a result of an order by the Judge in the nuclear test veteran pension appeals (the late HH Hugh Stubbs) reveal valuable evidence about uranium in fallout.
The documents show that fallout from atmospheric nuclear testing contains enormous amounts of uranium. This should be no surprise as nuclear bombs contain a lot of uranium, and most of it remains unfissioned after a nuclear explosion.
But what will come as news to a great many people is the importance in the fallout of an isotope of uranium that few of us have even heard of: uranium-234, a highly radioactive alpha emitter which concentrates in the 'enriched uranium' (EU) used in nuclear bombs.
All uranium binds to DNA and causes cancer and genetic effects in the children of those exposed – but U-234 is especially hazardous. A restricted document shows that the matter was raised as early as 1953 at a meeting at Harwell by the late Karl Z Morgan, who was in charge of analyzing health effects of the US Nevada tests.
Morgan characterized U-234 as a major unexpected hazard at the test sites. The UK and USA military have consistently failed to take account of the exposures to these uranium components of the bombs in all the official reports published by their experts.
Indeed, they have tied themselves in knots trying refuse to release data and meanwhile (in the courts) to argue that there is no uranium at all in fallout. The secret documents give the lie to all this. All of the calculations made by official agencies of fallout exposures are thus faulty and should be revisited.
read on: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/21/secrets-of-the-uk-nuclear-bomb-tests-revealed/
mudra Tue Dec 09, 2014 1:24 pm
Nuclear Watch: World Nuclear impact conference opens in Vienna 12/9/2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGZSuqsu0RQ
Leuren Moret: The Plots Against Humanity & Latest Nuclear Disaster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwxHf15HtBI&feature=youtu.be