No Nukes News: Era of decommissioning

[Angela Bischoff]

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Feb. 6, 2018

“The problem with nuclear power is that it’s alright until it isn’t,” says Gordon Edwards.  Arnie Gunderson adds: "This is a technology that can turn on you overnight. It’s 40 good years and one bad day. And the one bad day wipes out everything that went before it.”     

The World

☢ The era of nuclear decommissioning will be characterized by escalating battles (and escalating sticker shock) over lifespan extensions, decommissioning and nuclear waste management. The industry faces severe problems, not least the ageing of the global reactor fleet. The only nuclear industry that is booming is decommissioning ‒ the World Nuclear Association anticipates US$111 billion worth of decommissioning projects to 2035.

☢ Evacuations after Severe Nuclear Accidents This article by Dr. Ian Fairlie discusses 3 related matters: the experience of evacuations during the Fukushima nuclear disaster; whether lengthy evacuations from large cities are feasible; and some emergency plans for evacuations in North America.

☢ Into Eternity The subject of this feature length film is the Finnish government's attempt to solve its nuclear waste problem by carving a vast, 4km-deep bunker out of solid rock to bury it in for at least the next 100,000 years. Haunting. Watch it online.

☢ 400 Chernobyls: Solar Flares, EMP, and Nuclear Armageddon In the past 152 years, Earth has been struck by roughly 100 solar storms causing significant geomagnetic disturbances (GMD). If an extreme GMD were to occur today, in all likelihood it would initiate a chain of events leading to catastrophic failures at the vast majority of our world’s nuclear reactors, quite similar to the disasters at both Chernobyl and Fukushima, but multiplied over 100 times.

☢ Russia could cause an energy grid attack The UK defence secretary has issued the starkest warning yet that electricity distribution system could be targeted by Moscow, knocking out the national grid.

☢ Environmentalists and Citizen Groups Are Fighting Billions in Subsidies Meant to Prop Up Aging Nuclear Plants Deteriorating nuclear plants pose a growing threat to public safety and the environment.

☢ Fukushima nuclear disaster: Lethal levels of radiation detected in leak seven years after plant meltdown in Japan Expert warns of 'global' consequences unless the plant is treated properly.

☢ Candyce and Marius Paul of English River First Nation talk about their work fighting uranium mines in Saskatchewan After the uranium mines opened, the incidence of previously uncommon cancers and other rare diseases started to rise. Most people who worked in the mines suffered and died young of cancers. Physicians noting increases in diseases like lupus began asking for a baseline health study. That’s never been done.Ontario

☢ Are Ontario's nuclear emergency plans dead in the water? An accident at Pickering could poison Lake Ontario and downstream communities as far away as Montreal, yet a provincial study promised in 2013 to look at the risks has yet to materialize. 

☢ The final chapter for a historic reactor Canada's first demonstration nuclear reactor came online in Rolphton, ON in1962. Now a private consortium aims to decommission, bury and abandon the facility on site, alongside the Ottawa River. Read more on why this is unacceptable by Dr. Gordon Edwards.Renewables and Conservation

☼ The Controversy Surrounding Massachusetts’ $1.6B Hydropower Transmission Line Mass. wants to buy QC's low-cost, renewable water power to replace its high-cost nuclear. But they have to build a transmission line, and there's growing opposition to that in New Hampshire. (Editor: ON on the other hand already has the transmission line; all we have to do is sign a deal with QC and then close Pickering in August 2018 when its license expires.)

☼ Putting The Sister In Solar: The Movement Bringing Women Out Of Energy Poverty For Africans living in rural areas, electricity is scarce and unlikely to arrive any time soon. In rural Tanzania, just 7% of people have access to power and approximately 70 million people outside of Nigeria’s cities are without electricity. Solar is the answer.

☼ Renewable Energy Is Much Faster To Install & More Scalable Than Nuclear Power Nuclear power plants can require 5–15 years to complete and some have taken 20 or more. New coal plant, 4 years. New gas-powered plants, several years as well. By comparison, installing a solar farm can be completed in a number of months. The same is true of wind farms: a 10 MW wind farm can be built in about 2 months and a 50 MW in approximately 6 months.

☼ Trump Seeks to Gut US Renewables, Efficiency Budget After $190B Gift to Fossils The Trump Administration will soon ask the U.S. Congress for a 72% cut in clean energy research for 2019, hard on the heels of a tax cut that delivered US$190 billion in added value to fossil companies and a State of the Union address last week that glorified coal while ignoring the climate crisis.Take Action!

☢ Protect Kyoto -- prevent another nuclear disaster in Japan. Stop the dangerous Ohi plant. Please sign the petition.

☢ Please contact Interim PC Leader Vic Fedeli [vic.fedeli at pc.ola.org], potential PC Leadership candidate Caroline Mulroney [caroline at carolinemulroney.ca] and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath [ahorwath-qp at ndp.on.ca] and ask them to champion a long-term deal with Hydro Quebec to lower our electricity bills. More info here.

☢ Sign our petitions to Close Pickering and to Buy Quebec Power. And share them with your friends. Watch our 2 min. video here. 

☢ Stop OPG's  Nuclear Waste Dump Before It's Too Late Learn more about OPG’s nuke waste dump proposal in Kincardine, ON, and write Minister McKenna, Premier Wynne and PM Trudeau here.

☢ Tell the Japanese government: don’t dump nuclear waste into the ocean!

☢ Can you spare a few hours to leaflet blitz your neighbourhood mailboxes? Help us make the closure of the Pickering nuclear station a public issue. Contact: angela at cleanairalliance.org

☢ Order your free KI (anti-thyroid-cancer) pills here if you live within 50 km of an ON nuclear facility - that includes all of Toronto and beyond. Download your anti-thyroid cancer posters here to post in your office, school, or local cafe.

☢ Canada – Sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Last year 122 member states of the United Nations voted to approve the text of a Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, but the Nuclear Weapons States voted against it as did most NATO countries including Canada. This petition asks Canada to sign the Treaty.Events

☼ Good Investment Fair Wed. Feb, 21, Centre for Social Innovation, 720 Bathurst St. Toronto. Want to earn good financial returns while supporting green energy? Participating organizations include: Community Energy Development Co-operative, CoPower, SolarShare and more.
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