Nuclear and Radiation

Image: Pacific Gas & Electric's Diablo Canyon plant near Avila Beach has California's last operating nuclear reactors. (Michael Mariant / Associated Press)

latimes.com - June 21st 2016 - Ivan Penn and Samantha Masunaga

One of California’s largest energy utilities took a bold step in the 21st century electricity revolution with an agreement to close its last operating nuclear plant and develop more solar, wind and other clean power technologies.

The decision announced Tuesday by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to close its beleaguered Diablo Canyon nuclear plant within the next decade runs counter to the nuclear industry’s arguments that curbing carbon emissions and combating climate change require use of nuclear power, which generates the most electricity without harmful emissions.

Image: Dr Rachel Furley (centre) with members of the Kartuzovi family, one of the many families her charity helps.

bbc.com - April 26th 2016 - Tom Burridge

Children are still being born with severe birth defects and rare types of cancer in areas near to Chernobyl, according to a British charity, three decades on from the world's worst civil nuclear disaster.

The accident on 26 April 1986 contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union, changed the way the world thinks about nuclear energy and has affected an unquantifiable number of people in the region.

For British paediatrician Dr Rachel Furley, the "desperately sad" reality is that women who have spent their entire lives exposed to high levels of radiation are now having children. 

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Indian Point Nuclear power plant located on the Hudson River in Buchanan, New York  Photo: John Mottern / AFP

nytimes.com - by Liam Stack - February 7, 2016

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is sending a radiation-protection specialist to New York this week to inspect the Indian Point nuclear power plant after state officials found evidence of a surge in radiation levels in groundwater there, a spokesman for the federal agency said on Sunday.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the findings of increased radiation at the plant on Saturday, saying that “alarming levels” of radioactivity caused by tritium contamination had been detected in three of the 40 monitoring wells. At one of the wells, Mr. Cuomo said, the level of radiation had jumped 65,000 percent.

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“The models that predicted the arrival of radioactive seawater stated that the seawater could come anytime from late March or early April to the end of year . . ."  Photo: KAI VETTER

ecowatch.com - by Harvey Wasserman - June 3, 2014

The corporate media silence on Fukushima has been deafening . . .

Ever more radioactive water continues to pour into the Pacific. . .

Hundreds more tons are backed up on site, with Tepco apologists advocating they be dumped directly into the ocean without decontamination.

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