Japan’s PM vows to get Japan off nuclear power

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Radiation Truth

“We will aim to bring about a society that can exist without nuclear power,” said Japan’s Prime Minister Nato Kan on Wednesday in a televised address to Japan’s citizens.

He continued, “Through my experience of the March 11 accident, I came to realize the risk of nuclear energy is too high. It involves techology that cannot be controlled according to our conventional concept of safety.”

35 of Japan’s 54 reactors are offline at the moment. They include reactors damaged or stopped by the earthquake and tsunami, as well as those closed for routine repairs. If reactors that continue to come offline for maintenance are not restarted, Japan has the potential to be off nuclear power by April 2012.

From the Washington Post

Stop business as usual!

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Radiation Truth

Please tell your Senators to say no to new nuclear power plants

The nuclear industry would like to pretend Fukushima never happened. Bills are arriving in the Senate to spend more of our money on new nukes. The industry is still calling it “clean power”. Call them out on their lie and demand your Senators do the right thing. Contact your Senators via Democracy in Action or
Directly at senate.gov.

Renewable Energy beats Nuclear Power in the US for the First Time

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Radiation Truth

This is big news: the amount of energy produced from renewables has surpassed nuclear energy production for the first quarter of 2011.
Renewables include hydroelectric power and biomass energy production, two forms of energy production many environmentalists find objectionable. However, the greenest energy technologies, solar, wind and geothermal, are gaining in percentage. Forbes 7/7/11

Facts to use when discussing nuclear power

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Radiation Truth

Want some nuclear power facts at your fingertips?

Study these 20 facts and be ready to spread the word

Here are two interesting facts from the article by Peace and Justice Online that are not well known: See all the facts.

• “Following the Three Mile Island accident, infant death rates increased dramatically in Pennsylvania’s nearby capital, Harrisburg. About 2,400 families sued, based upon the health impacts, which included cancer, leukemia, birth defects, stillbirths, sterility, malformations, open lesions, and hair loss. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture documented an increase in the death rate among farm animals and wild animals in the area surrounding the nuke.”

• “Although the generation of electricity through nuclear reactions does not produce carbon emissions, reliance upon nuclear power does significantly contribute to the release of carbon into our atmosphere. This is due to the substantial carbon emissions produced by the mining, transport, and processing of the fuel, as well as by the construction and decommissioning of the plant. Nuclear power is not the solution to global warming.”

Nuclear power is unforgiving

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Radiation Truth

Dr. Hannes Alfven was against nuclear power. He wrote that the only way it could work is if the following conditions were always in place:

Perfection by people in charge

No acts of God

IN 1972 Dr. Hannes Alfven wrote theses things in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Read entire article in Karl Grossman’s latest blog post

Reactor roulette in the USA

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Radiation Truth

A list of 7 extremely close calls at US reactors is compiled and described in an article in The Week.

Check out The Week for details of each near miss.

The reactors locations and owners follow:

1. Peach Bottom, Delta, Pa. (Exelon)
2. Indian Point, Buchanan, N.Y. (Entergy)
3. Vermont Yankee, Vernon, Vt. (Entergy)
4. Diablo Canyon, San Luis Obispo, Calif. (Pacific Gas & Electric)
5. Brunswick, Southport, N.C. (Progress Energy)
6. Calvert Cliffs, Annapolis, Md. (Constellation Energy)
7. Wolf Creek, Burlington, Kansas (Wolf Creek Nuclear)

Japan in Wonderland: How the nuclear propaganda machine tricked a country

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Radiation Truth

How did the Japanese fear of all things nuclear (after Hiroshima) evolve into acceptance?
Huge amounts of money have been spent to promote the idea that nuclear power is safe and necessary in Japan. From government mandated school textbooks to building with Disneyworld-like attractions the Japanese were conditioned to believe that Japan’s plants were totally safe. NYT

Infant mortality in the Northwest up 35% following Fukushima disaster

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Radiation Truth

It happened at Chernobyl, and it is happening here. The consequences of the multiple melt-downs are starting to appear. One of the first effects of “low-level” radiation is a rise in infant mortality. Statistics on infant mortality in the Pacific Northwest were analyzed and showed a significant upturn in the first weeks of the Fukushima crisis. (Janette D. Sherman, ND and Joseph Mangano) The original essay looked at eight cities: San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, and Boise. The time frame of the report was the four weeks preceding and the ten weeks after the disaster.

Scientific American claims to debunk this analysis, criticizing its choice of cities and time period as “cherry picking”. However, Counterpunch’s statistician investigated further and his analysis strengthened the results. (Scroll down to headline “Post-Fukushima Infant Deaths in the Pacific Northwest”)

Counterpunch’s staff statistician analyzed all the northernmost Pacific cities, extended the period to ten weeks before and after, and compared deaths in 2011 with the same period a year before (to avoid any seasonal bias). They found a greater increase in infant mortality than the original essay.

Radioactive tritium is leaking at 48 nuclear power sites in the US

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Radiation Truth

Three quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites are leaking radioactive tritium. Although most leaks appeared to have stayed within plant boundaries, drinking wells have been contaminated near two plants in Illinois and near one plant in Minnesota. So far the levels do not exceed federal standards, however many scientists and organizations, including The National Academy of Sciences are convinced that any amount of additional radiation increases ones risk of cancer. See AP report.

Congressional Committee on Nuke Safety Takes in Big Dollars From Nuclear Power Industry

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Radiation Truth

Members of Congress that sit on the House Energy and Commerce and Senate Environment and Public Works committees receive an average of $9,024 per year from the nuclear industry. This is almost 3 times what other Congressmen receive from the industry.

MAPLight.org has analyzed contributions to lawmakers sitting on the above committees . See details.