Fukushima vs. Chernobyl: How Have Animals Fared?

For a little bird, bee or butterfly trying to make it in the world, which is the worse place to land: Fukushima or Chernobyl? On the one hand, there’s the risk from the release of radioactive materials that occurred in Japan just over a year ago. On the other, there’s the threat of mutations from accumulated environmental contamination over the past quarter-century from the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine. New York Times

Debate between Beyond Nuclear and Russian nuclear establishment proponent on Voice of Russia Radio

Last Thursday, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps debated Victor Murogov, the Head of the International Nuclear Education Center and Professor at the National Research Nuclear University in Moscow. The debate was aired on the Voice of Russia Radio. The discussion revolved around the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, which President Obama attended last week.

Chernobyl: A field trip to no man's land

"...an international team of a dozen researchers...are here to study the ecosystem that was left behind after the 1986 accident.

"They come here to find out what the impacts are of a nuclear accident on the life that is left behind.

"The team's latest studies on birds suggest that the contamination is linked to some unusual genetic effects.

"One member of the team, biologist Gier Rudolfsen from the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, has been focusing on how the male birds' reproductive organs might be affected.

"The constant unzipping and replication of DNA required to produce millions of sperm cells each day means there are many opportunities for the biological assembly line to be broken." See BBC Nature for more detail and videos.

EU "deep geologic disposal" reprocessing loophole will likely target Russia

Reuters has reported that the European Union has set a deadline of 2015 for its 14 member states with nuclear power industries -- comprising a total of 143 atomic reactors -- to come up with plans for "deep geologic disposal" sites for burial of their high-level radioactive wastes. However, the EU admits it will take as long as 40 years to construct those repositories. Deutsche Welle also reported on this story, including on the loophole in the new EU directive that will still allow high-level radioactive waste exports to foreign countries for reprocessing, so long as those countries also have deep geologic repositories. Such shipments would likely target Russia.

Revisiting Chernobyl for lessons to apply at Fukushima

Over 25 years since it exploded and caught fire, the Australian television program Sixty Minutes on June 6, 2011 revisited the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine to learn the lessons about radioactivity's hazards for application in Japan, downwind and downstream of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe.