Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Nuclear power plant”
Radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan has been detected at an increased number of sites off U.S. shores, including the highest level in the area detected to date, scientists announced Thursday. While the levels are still too low to be considered a threat to human or marine life by the government’s standards, tests of hundreds of samples …
As you read this, a terror attack has put atomic reactors in Ukraine at the brink of another Chernobyl-scale apocalypse. Transmission lines have been blown up. Power to at least two major nuclear power stations has been “dangerously” cut. Without emergency backup, those nukes could lose coolant to their radioactive cores and spent fuel pools. They could then melt or …
Nuclear-industry critics Arnie and Maggie Gunderson warn that, four-and-a-half years after the meltdown, Fukushima still poses a danger to Japan and the Pacific region, and that the Japanese government is trying to prevent journalists and physicians from disclosing the ongoing problems.
The program closes with an excerpt from a speech by Arnie Gunderson rebutting the idea of nuclear power as a solution to global warming.
Arnie and Maggie Gunderson both worked in the nuclear-power industry, then became whistleblowers about problems in the industry. They now operate the Fairewinds foundation
(www.fairewinds.org)
VICTORY AT THE CHAIN REACTION!
We celebrate the hard-won decision by the Santa Monica city council to fully fund the re-hab needed for the legendary Paul Conrad statue. We’re joined by JERRY RUBIN who has been part of the successful campaign. This iconic sculpture commemorates the atomic bombings in Japan and warns us to make sure it never happens again. Erected in the early 1990s, it has been in need of funds for rehabilitation. There were those who wanted to tear Chain Reaction down. But Jerry tells us it will now be fully preserved and surrounded with a peace park. FANTASTIC NEWS!!!
We also talk SHUTTING NUCLEAR POWER with longtime activists MICHAEL KEEGAN in Monroe, Michigan and ACE HOFFMAN in southern California about the FERMI, DAVIS-BESSE, DIABLO CANYON and SAN ONOFRE nukes. These legendary experts take us deep into the nightmare world of decaying reactors as we assess the prospects for dealing in a sane manner with these horrendous remnants of this failed technology.
As time passes, a bona fide message emerges from within the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster scenario, and that message is that once a nuclear power plant loses it, the unraveling only gets worse and worse until it’s at its worst, and still, there’s no stopping it. Similar to opening Pandora’s box, there’s no stopping a ferocious atom-splitting insanity …
SHUTTING THE PILGRIM NUKE is our primary focus of our roundtable talk with four tremendous activists. Pilgrim’s owner, ENTERGY, has announced it will close the ancient nuke by June 1, 2019. But the reactor is out of compliance on a large number of safety and engineering issues and will put the region at risk if it goes forward.
SHEILA PARKS, Boston-area founder of On Behalf of Planet Earth; ARLENE WILLIAMS of Cape Downwinder; TIM JUDSON of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service and PAUL GUNTER of Beyond Nuclear join us to cover the issue.
Among other concerns are violations of fire safety requirement now nearly a quarter-century out of compliance; spent fuel overflowing the site’s ability to handle it; a dertioriating work force and much more.
The latest shut-down announcement would take the US reactor fleet to 98, the lowest total in many years. But can we survive Pilgrim & its ancient siblings operating even another fuel cycle?
Stay tuned….
We visit DYING NUKES THAT TERRIFY US ALL with MICHAEL KEEGAN of Don’t Waste Michigan and PAUL GUNTER and KEVIN KAMPS of Beyond Nuclear.
The debate over atomic energy is over. FUKUSHIMA has shown the world that nuke reactors will explode and destroy whole sections of a country while contaminating oceans. Germany’s ENERGIEWIND is showing that the transition to 100% renewables can be done quickly, cleanly and profitably.
But we’re left in the US with 99 dying nukes that truly terrify us all. Starting in Michigan, at Monroe, we deal with Fermi Unit I, which nearly exploded in 1966; Fermi 2 which is now falling apart; and Fermi 3, which Detroit Edison wants to build at massive ratepayer expense.
We then shift to the truly horrifying Davis-Besse reactor near Toledo, which operated for years with a massive hole in its head, and which has a shield building that’s literally crumbling. It’s owner wants a $3 billion public bailout to keep endangering all of the Great Lakes region.
We also visit Pilgrim near Boston, which is officially in violation of both NRC production standards and NRC safety standards. Paul tells that October 10 we will hear a major announcement from Energy, which owns this dying nuke.
Over the coming weeks we will “tour” the national fleet of reactors that need to shut ASAP. Let’s hope Pilgrim will now lead the way to the end of this insane industry!!!
Harvey Wasserman As the first Democrat presidential debate finally approaches (on Oct. 13), America’s nuke power industry is in accelerated collapse. The few remaining construction projects in the U.S. and Europe are engineering and economic disasters. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders may address this in broad terms. But as a nation we must now focus on the 99 dying U.S. reactors that threaten us all every …
Paul Blanch has had 45 years experience in the nuclear power industry. Earlier he was a nuclear operations engineer and a Navy Submarine Reactor operator. He was been a nuclear engineer and designer for several reactors including the Millstone and Connecticut Yankee plants. In addition he has been employed or hired as a consultant for Maine Yankee, Indian Point via Entergy, the Electric Power Research Institute, Nuclear Entergy Institute and various state agencies. Paul has also been an expert witness on behalf states initiatives to prevent relicensing of aging reactors including Indian Point, Vermont Yankee and Seabrook, and in support of plaintiffs filing suit against energy corporations. Recently , Paul has had a chance to review withheld documents from the National Regulatory Commission through a freedom of information act submission that show the NRC and the owners of Indian Point nuclear reactor – Entergy – are jeopardizing the health and lives of 10s of millions of people throughout the tri-state area by pushing forward with a high pressured natural gas pipeline only 105 feet from the nuclear facility. More information and ways people can act to stop the pipeline can be found on Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion website SAPE2016.org
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering a move to eliminate the “Linear No-Threshold” (LNT) basis of radiation protection that the U.S. has used for decades and replace it with the “radiation hormesis” theory—which holds that low doses of radioactivity are good for people. The change is being pushed by “a group of pro-nuclear fanatics—there is really no other way …
