Radiation Bulletin:Week History

Read the latest summary of the Radiation Bulletin''! The 'Weekly News' ticker will be continuously published on the main page ...''

''2010 we provided this news service already for several months on our website. Unfortunately we had to interrupt it when the author couldn't continue to write the weekly news summaries and only provided the news links without comments. Now these summaries are available again. You can check these former weekly news archive provided on the Nuclear Heritage Network's website.''

About the Radiation Bulletin
These stories are provided by the Abalone Alliance Clearinghouse, which is part of the Nuclear Free California Network, week by week. They publish them in several anti-nuclear networks and on their website. Here is their own description of the service:


 * The Energy Net has been online since 1988 when we were given permission to take over the name from the folks that started the original Energy-Net back in the early 1980′s.


 * The original Energy-Net was a network of activists across California who were organizing community based renewable energy programs, starting with making homes more energy efficient. This popular project was in competition against PG&E’s version of how to reduce electricity demand. The project died when PG&E and NRDC was able to push their own version of how to do energy efficiency programs within “the captured” California Public Utilities Commission.


 * In 1988 The Energy Net first went online as a member of the global network of Bulletin Board Services (BBS) called Fidonet. It stayed a local BBS system until 1994 when we switched to its current location on the world wide web. The formation of this blog is hopefully the next jump in the evolution in online communications… The Energy Net has been the archival home of the Abalone Alliance, the California statewide anti-nuclear movement that ran between 1977 and 1985. Please check out these resources about the Alliance.


 * This blog (containing the weekly news, the editor) was setup on April 3rd 2007 in response to the growing push to develop nuclear power by the Bush Administration and the nuclear power industry. The blog has initially been setup as a vehicle for publishing the best nuclear news in the world. Go HERE to see the full RSS Feed from where these stories are coming from. As oldtimers start checking back in and get over the huge PR push by the media on nuclear, there will be a growing need to organize a response.

July 29th – Aug. 4th 2013  The Nuclear Industry has suffered a serious setback worldwide this last week. The biggest blow came with news out of South Korea that has put that country’s entire nuclear fleet into question over a growing scandal of forged documents on a large number of safety related parts. In Japan there was a scandal that TEPCo intentionally withheld knowledge of the massive tritium leak (up to 40 trillion becquerels in the last two years). The government and TEPCo continue to withhold money from the public that had to flee from Fukushima. The Queen of England got hit with a scandal over a secret speech in case of a nuclear attack. Plans to build a reactor in Turkey took a turn for the worst, and will likely be postponed for an additional three years. While legislators in Taiwan had fist fights over the continued scam to hold a rigged public poll over a new reactor’s construction. And we thought we have a PR problem. There was a 4 part series on nuclear waste out of Australia by one of that country’s biggest nuclear spin doctors. To the north, Canada has withdrawn a set of controversial plans to transport n-waste.

The French nuclear giant, EDF is withdrawing from the US nuclear market. But then the big news of the week would be that Duke Power had withdrawn plans to construct the $24 billion Levy Country reactors in Florida (they aren’t giving up totally on future facilities however). There were major hearings in Washington over new legislation on how to deal with spent nuclear fuel, even though republicans continue to push for Yucca Mountain. Last but not least, was an astonishing story about how two East Coast AG’s plan on getting involved in the NRC’s attempt to throw out their own ASLB decision over San Onofre. And yeah, a lot of industry spinning going on in an attempt to stop the growing hemorrhaging that as mentioned last week could soon lead to over a dozen other reactors being closed down.

July 22nd - 28th 2013  TEPCo has apologized for hiding the scale of the leaks, not wanting to frighten the public? Dang! Hey, and we are all still waiting for the government to fine them for what? Hey, they at least finished the sarcophogus for unit 4. Tritium levels with one of the leaks are through the ceiling, as there are growing fears the new regulatory agency will buckle under the immense pressure being pushed by nuclear village. Another story that’s been getting a bit of coverage is the sheer number of corrupt companies involved in the cleanup at Fukushima.

Elsewhere, Austria has announced plans to not buy any nuclear power for its grid, while the Bulgarian Supreme Court stopped the construction of a n-waste dump. The leaked EU plan to let individual states to subsidize nuclear reactor development will likely continue to create controversy across Europe. In hushed up story, the US turned over just 650 pages of just declassified documents about 49 secret weapons tests equal to over 3,000 Hiroshima bombs (see 7-24 Fallout Secrecy story).

In the US, there continues to be a continuing dual over the growing number of articles suggesting the downturn of the nuclear industry, vs. industry proponents. Meanwhile SoCal Edison pulled the fuel from Unit 2 and announced that it would cost $13 billion to permanently shutter the reactors. And on a difficult turn of events the state of Nevada has pulled its weekend wire services which will take a while to deal with.

July 16th - 21st 2013  An interesting news week. In Japan, the big news is the latest with LDP and Abe's pro-nuke party taking control of both houses. And of course, the LDP was the only pro-nuke party as well. Naoto Kan has filed a slander suit against Abe. The Fukushima leak was downplayed by Tepco and most of the press. Kudamkulam is still on hold, Greenpeace broke into a nuke just as the EU announced millions of Euros of nuclear bribes, which pissed off Germany.

Peter Bradford & Mark Cooper's report listing a dozen potential reactors that are on the edge made news in reactor communities across the country. While the NRC listed TVA's Browns Ferry unit as the worst in the country. Fourteen activists were arrested for doing civil-disobedience at the Pilgrim facility. Southern blamed activists for the $1 billion cost overruns at Vogtle, while Southern Cal Edison sued Mitsubishi for constructing faulty steam generators...

July 8th-14th 2013  An up and down week indeed. The bad first, the last hurdle for Kudamkulam was swept away, with the reactor going hot on the 14th. Japan is approaching another set of elections. Opposition to nuclear continues to be strong. The radiation leak at Fukushima is now jumped 100% in the last week. Two more restart requests were submitted, now up to 10 units, while it is estimated that it will take up to a year to process the requests. A bit more speculation about the former head of unit one took place. Greenpeace broke into a reactor in France while a rare protest in China leads to the cancellation of uranium processing facility. A new 2013 World Nuclear status report has been released.

The Tea Party continues to push for the reopening of Yucca Mountain. A good mix of local anti-nuke stories also came out. Check em out.

July 1st-7th 2013  Goodness, There were more major stories out of Japan this week than most of the world gets in months! Probably the biggest news was the fact that sometime in September, Japan will once again be without a single nuclear power station. While TEPCo also announced plans to open up another facility, but was forced to also delay those plans as well! Then the story that cesium reaching the highest they've been since the main days of the disaster. New Fires, a secret pluthermal deal with the US, another rat problem and Helen Caldicott's symposium rounded the top news. Taiwan's nuclear scam referendum continues to spark opposition. A couple of German journalists were in arrested in India, a radiation release secret was exposed, while an activist wrote a piece saying that the nuclear push in India is about to collapse. A floating windmill arrives in Japan while the biggest offshore wind system of it kind went online in the UK. Revelations that French atmospheric tests were substantially higher than previously acknowledged came out. A lot of interesting political upheaval in Europe took place, including stories out of Chernobyl, while to our border to the north the proposed waste dump continues to stir controversy.

Vogtle got its DOE loan extension. New reactors in the Northwest were proposed! A scandal with the Texas dump hit, while editorials are starting to mount about the new HLW legislation grow with the plans including a new agency to manage the process as well as an intermediate storage plan. The sequestration budget cuts is effecting all kinds of DOE funding, especially cleanup. A wrongful death suit was file at Arkansas one, where a worker died earlier this year. An interesting story on the costs of cleaning up the N-weapons mess, for example six years ago the estimate stood between $270-330 billion... Waste issues will grow across the country, with locals in South Carolina coming together to make plans to bring waste there. While an excellent story points out that there are over 3,500 n-weapons still awaiting dismantlement while 2/3rds of DOE's budget still goes for weapons and is as high as it ever was, not to mention a $136,000 fine at Hanford for its contractor and the continued leaks going on there. Last, its still a fact that Southern Californians are paying for San Onofre, as well as surviving the huge heat wave that hit the state with temperatures as high as 129 degrees.

June 24th-30th 2013  Japan's LDP is the only party in the country that supports any nuclear option! Only a few scandals, like Tepco refusing to pay people for mental distress, signs of serious underground contaminants hitting the ocean. The good news at Koodamkulam, there's no underground volcano, and its still not online!

I usually attempt to do a sampling of the news, but this time wanted to put a bit of attention on California since there has been a bit of good news. One down and 400 plus more to go. At the CEC's recent IEPR workshop newly discovered documents by A4NR shows that the NRC coached the local utility PG&E on how to overturn its own resident inspector back in 2010. Diablo Canyon clearly isn't capable of withstanding the highest seismic standards it supposed to be built for.

And just as this news starts to creep out, PG&E over a year ahead of the next round of seismic studies scheduled to be completed has already started a major campaign around the region promoting its local-centric economic benefits, even announcing its plan to relicense the reactors over a decade before its current license comes due. The battle is on, we've caught both PG&E and NRC in a very very bad position. They, and the state will be throwing everything it can to keep Diablo from following San Onofre. Another worry is the growing backlash that is being tossed up in the regional media around San Onofre. There are a lot of upset workers and pro-nuke types. A lot of help will be needed to counter the revenge, with SCE announcing another 700 rank and file nuke workers being laid off in the last couple of days. Hopefully nothing stupid is going to happen. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

June 10th 2013  Sorry,

But the energy-net blog has been attacked, and badly damaged.

This weeks bulletins have been completed, but am taking it a bit slow.

There was a lot of major news this week with San Onofre being closed as well as plans not to build any new reactors in Iowa.

I will post as soon as the site is back online.

r http://www.energy-net.org

May 27th - June 2nd 2013  A lot of interesting news over the last week. Just a week after the large protest in Taiwan the country experienced a 6.3 quake killing two people. Japan's Prime Minister continues to escalate the push to reopen most of the country's reactors, and with all radioactive areas of the country outside of Futaba now lifted as no go zones. The UN opened its new PR facility, as well as making announcements that nobody will be hurt from the radiation. Meanwhile 60,000 had another protest, TEPCo asked for more compensation money, they are considering freezing the contaminated water, as well as having talks with India about involvement in new nuke construction there. In a first out of Russia, has started its own renewable energy program - just a few decades behind the rest of the world. Poland's push for constructing a nuke ran into a bit of trouble over a scandal with their nuke head. A story out of Austria about how animals there are still contaminated from the Chernobyl disaster, while other stories about how safe radiation continue to be a regular part of the Science Daily rag. Also an interesting report that the world's major nuclear weapons users have all been breaking international treaties in the push for a new generation of weapons. An interesting story out of Mexico on that country's aging nuke while there were a number of stories on the growing concern about dump N-waste on the north shore of Lake Superior.

Here in the US, Senator Boxer called on a criminal investigation of the owner of San Onofre, while the NRC has set up closed meetings with state reps and a handful of activists - very possibly an illegal breach of California's Brown Act, clearly with the goal of promoting their agenda of ignoring their own ASLB decision calling for adjudication of the ongoing Steam Generator controversy. Massachusetts is questioning the current onsite storage agenda of n-waste, Rep. Markey has introduced legislation banning the recycling of radioactive scrap metal, and reports out of New York on the strategies of Entergy to keep its Indian Point operating. Up and down stories of reactors were numerous from Fort Calhoun to reactors in N Carolina. One of the regular stories that continues to spread is the clear death of the nuclear renaissance as the price of Natural Gas is now nearly 3x cheaper than nuclear power. More wind construction continues with major production starting in Maine. Last, is a story out of Wheeling PA about how the local city doesn't appear to care or want to enforce its own regulations over plans to recycle radioactive water from a Fracking facility there... Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

May 20th -- 26th 2013  Another busy week newswise. Nuclear stories have gone psychotic, but what's new! With the radiation release that contaminated 30 workers, to legal battles, or the sudden death of a Ibaraki man from radiation and high levels of cesium in the Pacific, Not to mention an 8.3 quake off the coast of Korea - not news - 30,000 people protesting the rigged nuclear referendum being pushed by the ruling party in Taiwan. The media in Europe continues to pounce on Germany's renewable energy program - its the economics etc. Much of the news was out of the USA. Incidents continue to take out more reactors, not to mention the formal release of plans to shutdown the gaseous diffusion facility at Paducah. Texas passed a law letting them take in hot wastes, and yeah, a beam me out of here movie done at San Onofre. And oh yeah, MIT closed down its fusion program! A couple of protest with 10 arrested at Pilgrim. The state of Michigan is looking into the Ontario's dump plan on Lake Superior, and New Mexico announces plans to build a massive uranium mine. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

May 13th - 19th 2013  The saga continues... A very busy news week. Nearly twice as much as the previous week. For years, I've been keeping an eye on Russia's nuclear agenda, as mentioned last week, President Putin announced on the anniversary their plans to go ahead with more reactors. They've been circulating this agenda around the world, with a new focus - South Africa. Yep, they are now behind that country's growing push to reverse the strong anti-nuclear trend.

Elsewhere, following a nasty 6.0 quake in NE Japan, an announcement came out that one of the country's prize nukes is indeed sitting on top of an active quake, and will likely require that it be stopped, as was also the announcement that Monju would not be opening any time soon. For folks not watching this ugly Breeder, it had a horrible fire in the mid 90's, was shut down but on the verge of reopening just as Fukushima hit. Nuclear hot zones in India, Taiwan and even a bit of an awakening of activists in Turkey where Japan recently announced plans to build a new nuke! Hey what a wonderful reference! Oh, they also just announced a loosening of restrictions on access to Futaba, one of the most contaminated towns. And we thought the last administration was bad... And there's a story of more vets joining in on the Fukushima lawsuit. It was also revealed that a ship in the port of Hamburg Germany caught fire on May 1st. It was carrying 9 tons of uranium hexafluoried and explosives - imagine that! Explosives and a volatile nuclear material on the same ship! The Greens caught wind of the censored story and released it! There's video too! And of course then there's the February near miss in Canada at Chalk River that got tamped down as well. It would seem keeping the lid on serious incidents is going to be an important hobby of the US and international media, of course we know who and what they are defending these days, as could be seen by the psychotic responses we've been seeing by the current administration, from all okays at controversial facilities across the country with the most blatant being NRC likely refusal to heed its own ASLB's decision that public hearings should be held at San Onofre. MOX, more uranium mines... and promo's popping up all over the place from europe to good old Sam all spouting that the vampire will never die. Probably not at this point, but the rest of us probably will thanks to these nuts... So more than a few unknown stories worth looking to, I'd say. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

April 15th - 21st  This coming week will be the 27th anniversary of Chernobyl. It would be nice to see a bit of coverage... A couple of protests around the world from Vermont, the UK, and Taiwan where there was an attempt by the KMT to sleeze a scam initiative through, but was blocked by protestors Yeah! Bad valves were found at Kudankulam, while a swam of quakes in recent weeks continues in Japan. A shipment of MOX fuel from France was protested by Greenpeace as it left the country for Japan, while a judge refused a call to shut down Oi.

In the US, Kewaunee is due to be shut forever on May 7th. Reid appoints Jackzo to a weapons panel, while Moniz won appointment to DOE 21-1, dang they couldn't have done better if they'd tried to appoint Eddie Teller in abstention. Another security breach took place with gunfire at Watts Bar while lightning struck another facility. Quite a few fuel cycle stories, with another tritium leak at Pilgrim, a number of cleanup stories around the country. UCS did a nice piece on the NRC online photo library at flickr. And of course a lot of other stories... Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

April 1st – 7th 2013  A slow news week. Protests in India, Europe and USA. Fukushima had a couple of problems while TEPCo formally took the blame for the meltdowns. Imagine that happening here! Again, I'm only able to send a single link, so this is just to the site, where the 4 different bulletins are posted. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Mar 25th – 31st 2013  Geez, a tough news week. It took the Chinese news agency to report the death of a worker at an Arkansas nuke, while new media disclosures in Japan take a turn into "DARK MONEY". While there were two court decisions (Vermont Yankee & Switzerland - bad) - The UK going ahead with more nukes - Japan's leadership calling for a rapid restart - while, of course everybody finally seems to be catching on to the incredibly insane - freakout situation with North Korea making full scale nuclear threats... Something to do with the US holding war games off their coast that includes stealth B2 bombers. Let's see the last time we pulled this off, people died. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Mar 11th – 24th 2013 Sorry about no news last week, but the wire was out of commission. Gave me a bit of a chance to have Sunday Evening without the usual routine. Well, at least until I had to make it up tonight. And my what a major news cycle it was, starting with the 2nd anniversary of Fukushima, an avalanche of news across the planet. Let's just say if you have a moment make sure to scan through the main news as well as the Fukushima section, as I'm not going to do a serious review of so much news. AT&T continues to block sending of news. So this will be a notice just to go to the main blog where the latest 4 segments are posted. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Mar 3rd - 10th 2013 It's the 2nd anniversary of the Fukushima disaster (Japan Time) and there's been a spurt of news coverage, reviews. There's a good amount of other news, but this is late, and an experiment to try to get this posted. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Feb 25th - Mar 3rd 2013 Commentaries are on vacation this week as I'm busy with a slideshow. However, there were a few notables events, with Taiwan going ahead with a referendum on whether or not to let a new reactor go ahead, the Belene reactor was shut down by the Bulgarian government and its likely any nukes in Japan will be started this year. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists did a whole series on nuclear power, and much more from Pilgrim to San Onofre. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Feb 18th - 24th 2013 I'm a bit late today. As well, there wasn't a large volume of news. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Feb 11th - 17th 2013 Friday Eve, I was outside enjoying the very summer like evening when the largest meteor I've ever seen flew directly overhead and then out into the Pacific in SF. Probably wasn't more than me and my friend who saw it as most urban people seldom look up anymore because of all the light pollutions. A bit of a shock though considering the largest meteor of the 21st century had hit earlier in the week near Chelyabinsk, one of the most contaminated places on the earth, while not that too far away Chernobyl lost part of its roof due to a heavy snowstorm. The rhetoric in the UK continues to be hotter than a reactor core after Cumbria refused to be the country's hlw repository. If Turkey goes ahead with a reactor, its now estimated to cost $25 billion. There are now two separate movements opposing reactors in India, Kudamkulam and Vellakovil in Tamil Nadu with around 200 residents of launching a fast-unto-death campaign. The biggest international story, of course, was N. Korea's nuclear weapons test, that has the international press abuzz. In Japan, the counter revolution grows as more stories hit on why Japan must have nukes, not to mention the promotion of a wacko story that nobody - yup - nobody has been hurt by Fukushima! This at the same time, when another outlet was reporting two more cases of Thyroid cancer in youngsters!

In the US, we had the shocking news in California that Southern California Edison and the NRC knew about the flaws of San Onofre's new steam generators before they were installed. This was followed by SCE giving free CostCo cards to its employees who were shipped in enmasse, now a standard strategy at the NRC hearings, not to mention holding the meeting at the same time as the state of the union address. The issues was not part of the agenda, but that didn't keep more than a few people from bringing it up. Then, as usual, so many other issues, like a new tank leak in Hanford of HLW liquid wastes, Obama's un-nuclearlike behavior, riling the weapons community, Pilgrim multiple trips in the middle of the big east coast storm, Vermont Yankee's owner is under the gun with state hearings, and I don't know how many others, from MOX budget issues, new rules for the new HLW, Wyden's DC waste legislation and a number of well stories... Enjoy. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Feb. 4th - 10th 2013 The UK nuclear snafu continues to reverberate big time as nukesters are pulling out all the stops to try and save their baby. Even China is now being brought back in as the option to build reactors! Pictures and scandals in Japan and uranium in Africa... Same old..

Speaking of same old, the cold weather and noreaster proof that climate change is bogus.. not.. A lot of stories about the industry getting a nuclear cold, or maybe a depression. Vermont, Pilgrim and especially the news about San Onofre were all over the local papers, which means very little national news other than Yucca part...zzz.

Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Dec. 24th - 30th 2012 Seasons Greetings. Not a large number of major stories in the last week, but there were a lot of news both out of Japan and on the fuel cycle front. See also the overview in Top Nuclear Stories for 2012. Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Dec. 10th – 16th 2012 As predicted in recent poles, the LDP, which was ousted barely 3 years ago after ruling Japan since the end of WW II won control over the government with Noda's Democratic Party was badly beaten. Of course, it was the LDP that played the central role in promoting nuclear power will likely reopen all reactors by spring, having gained a super majority. Shortly after a major sea action off of Kudankulam, the government put off opening the reactors until next year. Routine attacks on Germany's move towards solar continues to be regularly attacked in the European press. A fun story out of Europe, Don't worry about the truck carrying nuclear waste by a passenger train!!!

Back in the good old USA there were quite a few stories. The Indian Pt hearings ended, while important stories from Browns Ferry, Vermont Yankee, Oyster Creek hit. Not to mention opposition to ending a ban on uranium mining got a new and important allie, while Exelon has called for its employees to lobby for the end of wind energy support. An interesting article on DC lobbying strategies on energy hit.

Nuclear News | Fuel Cycle/DOE | Government Docs | Fukushima News

Dec. 3rd - 9th 2012 There should be major news tomorrow about the direct action battle over Kudamkulam. Election coverage in Japan is heading the news, with polls showing the conservatives likely winning at this point. There was more than a bit of frayed nerves in as a result of the 7.3 quake at the same location as the 9.0 on 311. France took another major policy hit as a major Italian utility pulled out of nuclear development partnerships, while Obama and Russia are talking about weapons treaty discussions again. In the US hearings started for both San Onofre (ASLB).

The final report for uranium mining in Virginia was released. The report did not make any major findings either way, but mining proponents claimed it was a victory for them, and their push to remove the 30 year moratorium. The state was unable to determine the economic costs of mining because it could not find an unbiased contractor. 14,000 signatures were submitted by opponents, that also claimed that the more people learn the more people will oppose uranium mining. There were a few videos and a bit of coverage on the national conference in Chicago, a fair amount of fuel cycle/DOE news as well.