Playing radioactive Russian roulette at Davis-Besse: nuclear nightmare on the Great Lakes

This essay by Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps and Toledo-based writer Michael Leonardi has gotten top billing in this weekend's CounterPunch postings. It was based on a Beyond Nuclear backgrounder written by Kevin last December as Beyond Nuclear took the lead on pulling together an environmental coalition to challenge the 20 year license extension sought by the highly troubled reactor.

German utility association votes to phase out nuclear power by 2020

The Associated Press reports that, overriding opposition by the utility owners of Germany's 17 atomic reactors, the German electrical utility association has voted to call upon the German government to phase out atomic power by 2020. This revives the "German Nuclear Consensus" hammered out in 2000 by the ruling Social Democratic and Green Party coalition at that time. Angela Merkel and her Conservative Party coalition have spent the past several years working to overturn the nuclear phase out consensus. But in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, Merkel has moved to shut down Germany's pre-1980 reactors for a safety review, and has also moved to revisit the nuclear phase out agreement which she previously attempted to undo.

New reactor build at Calvert Cliffs, Maryland hits the wall on foreign ownership ban

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff determined today that UniStar Nuclear Corporation is "ineligible" to proceed with the proposed new construction of the  Calvert Cliffs Unit 3 reactor in Lusby, Maryland because the applying corporation is determined to be 100% foreigned owned, controlled and dominated by the French government.  The original US domestic application partner, Constellation Energy of Annapolis, MD dropped out of UniStar in October 2010 because of the mounting cost of increasingly risky financing even with an $8 billion in federal loan guarantee. Electricitie de France, now the sole owner, has been looking for a new domestic partner without success.  Foreign ownership and domination of a US reactor is prohibited under federal law via the Atomic Energy Act.

UniStar Corporation (aka the French Government) was hoping to incorporate a subcommittee of US nationals to claim compliance but has failed to convince anybody. So its back to the drawing boards.

IEER calls for more stringent, coordinated Fukushima fallout monitoring to determine radioactive iodine risk to U.S. milk and water

Dr. Arjun Makhijani at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research has called for "More Stringent, Coordinated Fukushima Fallout Monitoring...To Determine Radioactive Iodine Risk to U.S. Milk and Water." Makhijani also chastised the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its misleading downplaying and obscuring of radioactivity risks, stating:

"It is lamentable that the U.S. government is not speaking with a coherent, science-based voice on the risks of radiation," said Dr. Makhijani. "There is no safe level of radiation exposure in the sense of zero risk. Period. This has been repeatedly concluded by official studies, most recently a 2006 study done by the National Academies. Yet there is no shortage of unfortunate official statements on radiation that may seek to placate the public about 'safe' levels of radiation, but actually undermine confidence."

As an example, IEER cited a statement by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that "In general, a yearly dose of 620 millirem from all radiation sources has not been shown to cause humans any harm." (http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/around-us/doses-daily-lives.html). This annual dose includes medical uses of radiation, including CAT scans, and other voluntary exposures, from which people get some benefits. It also includes indoor radon, which the EPA estimates "is the number one cause of lung cancer among non-smokers.... Overall, radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer [after smoking]. Radon is responsible for about 21,000 lung cancer deaths every year. About 2,900 of these deaths occur among people who have never smoked." (http://www.epa.gov/radon/healthrisks.html).

"While the NRC is saying the 620 millirem a year on average has not been shown to cause harm, the EPA is saying that only about one-third of this total average annual dose attributable to indoor radon, is responsible for thousands of cancer deaths every year," said Dr. Makhijani. "The NRC statement is an appalling misrepresentation of the science that underlies its own regulations as well as published statements on radon risks by the EPA. Using the 2006 National Academies risk estimates for cancer, 620 millirem per year to each of the 311 million people in the United States would eventually be associated with about 200,000 cancers each year; about half of them would be fatal."

Deep skepticism regarding TEPCO's competence at measuring radioactivity, transparency at reporting it

The New York Times reports that 83% of the Japanese polled are not satisified with Tokyo Electric Power Company's public notices regarding radioactivity releases from its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, with a growing number of monitoring gaffes made by the company.