We are very sad to report that our dear friend and colleague, Bill Hirt, has passed on. He died surrounded by his loving family on Monday, March 30, 2015, more than eight years after being diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), more common…
Continue readingvia abcnews.com / March 27, 2015 / The cutting-edge technology was billed as a way to decipher where exactly the morass of nuclear fuel might sit at the bottom of reactors in the Japanese power plant that went into multiple meltdowns four years ago. But what went wrong, even in a simple demonstration for reporters Friday for the 500 million yen ($5 million) project, was a sobering reminder of the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / March 31, 2015 / The nuclear operator of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has announced that it plans to disclose all data on radiation levels recorded at the site in response to criticism of lack of transparency following the catastrophe. Tokyo Electric Power Co. TEPCO will start disclosing all data sets “as soon as they become available” for release, President Naomi Hirose (pictured right) told a press … Continue reading →
Continue reading“Burning money” graphic art by Gene Case and Avenging Angels appeared on the cover of the Nation Magazine, accompanying an article about the nuclear relapse by Christian ParentiNuclear utilities, like Exelon of Chicago and FirstEnergy of Ohio, are seek…
Continue readingvia CNIC.jp / March 31, 2015 / The Complainants for Criminal Prosecution of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster (CCFN) filed a criminal accusation in June 2012 inquiring into the responsibility for the nuclear accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, but the Tokyo Public Prosecutor’s Office dropped the case in September 2013, and the complainants therefore petitioned the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution. In July 2014, the Tokyo Fifth … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Hajime Matsukubo / CNIC.jp / March 31, 2015 / Many of the measuring instruments installed in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) measuring system continue to malfunction as a result of the accident. Although there is no guarantee of the accuracy of values being measured, if the values from the measuring instruments are taken as the premise, from the water temperature in the containment vessels and the spent … Continue reading →
Continue readingTwo op-eds published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer advocate that FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) should not be allowed to saddle Ohio ratepayers with a $3 billion surcharge over the next 15 years, a subsidy to keep two dirty, dangerous, a…
Continue readingBy Hiroshi Hoshi / Asahi Shimbun / March 30, 2015 / FUTABA, Fukushima Prefecture — A daily calendar pad on a living room wall in a private home in this northeastern community still showed the fateful date: “March 11, 2011.” All of Futaba’s 7,000 or so residents left the town after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, which struck on that date, triggered a triple meltdown at the Fukushima … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia japantimes.com / March 27, 2015 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. has disclosed that a 35-ton piece of machinery debris might be resting on the inner gate of the spent fuel pool for reactor 3 of the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and that the gate is slightly out of position. TEPCO said Thursday that a fuel-handling machine dislodged during the March 2011 quake, tsunami and meltdown-triggered hydrogen explosions is … Continue reading →
Continue readingHarvey Wasserman has written in commeration of the meltdown at Three Mile Island (TMI) Unit 2 on March 29, 1979. He writes:
“The lies that killed people at Three Mile Island 36 years ago tomorrow are still being told at Chernobyl, Fukushima, Diabl…
Logo courtesy of Public Citizen Energy ProgramAs reported by UtilityDIVE and Argus Media, the Maryland Public Service Commission (MD PSC) has given itself till May 8th to decide whether or not to approve the proposed $6.8 billion merger between Exel…
Continue readingTim Judson, Executive Director of NIRS. Photo courtesy of NIRS.As just announced by the University of the District of Columbia’s (UDC) David A. Clarke School of Law, two panels of experts will examine the question of whether or not the proposed purch…
Continue readingU.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of NevadaU.S. Senator Harry Reid (Democrat from Nevada, photo left) has announced he won’t seek re-election, and will retire 22 months from now. Reid, who has long served as either the U.S. Senate Majority or Mi…
Continue readingNRC file photo of Entergy Nuclear’s Palisades atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shore in Covert, MIAs reported by a press release, a coalition of environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, today testified before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Com…
Continue readingSmith amidst the 2012 “Occupy METI” (Ministry for Economy, Trade, and Industry) anti-nuclear protests in Tokyo in 2012Heidi Hutner, Director of the Stony Brook University Sustainability Program, has honored Aileen Mioko Smith, Executive Director of Gre…
Continue readingNRC file photo of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, on the Pacific Coast near San Luis Obispo, CAAs reported by David R. Baker in the San Francisco Chronicle, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) …
Continue readingNRC file photo of Entergy Nuclear’s Palisades atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shore in Covert, MIAs reported by a press release, a coalition of environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, today testified before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commi…
Continue readingMarch 24, 2015 / by Mari Yamaguchi / AP / Japanese government auditors say the operator of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has wasted more than a third of the 190 billion yen ($1.6 billion) in taxpayer money allocated for cleaning up the plant after it was destroyed by a March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. A Board of Audit report describes various expensive machines and untested measures that ended in … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Stephanie Chao / chinapost.com More than 283 Japanese food products imported from the radiation-stricken areas near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster were found to be relabeled as having come from other areas of Japan and sold to local customers, authorities said yesterday. Officials from New Taipei City’s Department of Health, as well as the Food and Drug Administration and other law-enforcement authorities, seized the mislabeled products, although a substantial … Continue reading →
Continue readingAn infrared photo showing the thermal heat of a German CASTOR cask filled with irradiated nuclear fuel being transported by rail to Gorleben. The high-level radioactivity, not the thermal heat, is the hazard to human health, safety, and the env…
Continue readingvia phys.org / March 20, 2015 / Researchers in Japan have jointly developed a robot with four arms and four crawlers which can perform multiple tasks simultaneously to help clean up the rubble left after the 2011 quake-tsunami disasters in Minamisoma, Fukushima. On March 13th, a remote controlled four-armed, four-wheeled crawler robot designed to clear rubble and save lives in areas with complex terrain was unveiled at the Kikuchi plant … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Daily Kos / March 19, 2015 / “Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, destroyed 4 years ago in explosions and meltdowns triggered by an earthquake and tsunami, won’t be truly safe until engineers can remove the reactors’ nuclear fuel. But first, they have to find it.“ So begins an in-depth article in the March 6th edition of the Journal Science entitled Muons probe Fukushima’s ruins. In February of this … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / March 22, 2015 / Japan plans to build a 400-kilometer chain of sea walls to fend off any future natural disasters. Some parts of the $6.8 billion project will reach a height of five stories, but critics say it could damage marine life and won’t guarantee residents safety. Some 440 sea walls will be built in the north east of the country. The project is aimed at … Continue reading →
Continue readingInvestigative journalist and Beyond Nuclear board member, Karl GrossmanMatt Wald, the New York Times’ decades-long nuclear power reporter, recently retired from the newspaper. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the nuclear power industry’s lobbying an…
Continue readingEntergy’s problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, MI, on the Lake Michigan shoreline.A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) will hold an oral argument pre-hearing on Wednesday, March 25th beginni…
Continue readingBy Julie Makinen / via latimes.com / March 11, 2015 / Neon pink and yellow banners flutter along the roadsides, their gentle flapping breaking an eerie stillness. The houses here are shut tight, the streets are nearly deserted, the fields that once sprouted rice, tomatoes and cucumbers are fallow. Shigeo Karimata dons a hard hat and a mask and prepares to get out of his car. “Some people say, ‘Oh, … Continue reading →
Continue readingfrom japan-focus.org / December 26, 2011 / By Nishioka Nobuyuki I: Fukushima and Okinawa At midnight on April 22, 2011, the Japanese government designated the zone within a 20-kilometer radius of the Fukushima nuclear power plant a controlled area under the Basic Law for Disaster Countermeasures. As a result, all entry into the zone was prohibited without special government permission. Some 78,000 people were separated from their homes, without knowing … Continue reading →
Continue readingLogo compliments of Public Citizen’s Energy ProgramThe two counties comprising Pepco’s residential customer base in Maryland — Montgomery and Prince George’s — have just agreed to the merger of the electric utilities Exelon and Pepco, according…
Continue readingvia The Japan News / March 13, 2015 The transfer of soil, contaminated four years ago with radioactive materials from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, to an interim storage facility began in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Friday. The Environment Ministry plans to move the contaminated soil — currently being kept at more than 75,000 locations in the prefecture’s 43 villages, towns and cities — to the facility gradually. … Continue reading →
Continue readingDOE imageAs by reported by Joby Warrick in the Washington Post, the first such study by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in seven years predicts that easily a third of U.S. energy needs could be supplied by wind power by 2050.
The DOE report is e…
Thom Hartmann, host of “The Big Picture”On March 12, Thom Hartmann hosted Beyond Nuclear’s Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, on “The Big Picture” to discuss a massive leak of 750 tons (200,000 gallons) of highly radioactive rainwater at Fukushim…
Continue readingChiho Kaneko, Fairewinds Energy Education board member, along with Alfred Meyer of PSR’s national board, and Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps, in the Carbon-Free/Nuclear-Free contingent at the People’s Climate March in New York City, Sept. 2014.On March 12…
Continue readingLetters were hand-delivered to Japanese embassies and consulates around the world on March 11, 2015, marking the fourth anniversary of the start of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Beyond Nuclear participated in these actions by hand-delivering a letter…
Continue readingBeyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste watchdog, Kevin Kamps, was interviewed by Bill Moore, founder of EV WORLD: WORLD OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES on his inFOCUS video program. Their 30-minute dialogue covered a lot of ground, focusing on the latest news from Ja…
Continue readingvia NEI.org / The March 2011 accident at Fukushima Daiichi followed a 45-foot-high tsunami that washed over the plant in the wake of a historically powerful earthquake off Japan’s east coast. Loss of electric power to the facility and all but one of 12 emergency diesel generators led to overheating nuclear fuel in three of the six reactors, meltdown of uranium fuel and ultimately the release of radioactivity into the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Press TV / March 10, 2014 / A fresh report in Japan shows the number of deaths by radiation from the country’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in 2011 increased by 18 percent last year. The report published on Tuesday by the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun said figures from authorities in Fukushima Prefecture showed a total of 1,232 deaths in 2014 were linked to the nuclear disaster. The highest … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia channelnewsasia.com / March 11, 2014 / Muneo Kanno left his village to avoid radiation contamination after the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan four years ago. But that has not stopped the evacuee from making daily trips back home. The 64-year-old farmer is on a mission to reclaim the village he called home for most of his life and he has started a number of projects to achieve this … Continue reading →
Continue readingMrs. Sachiko Sato (background) and her daughter Mina (age 13), speaking in New York City in September 2011. AP photo.In September 2011, about six months after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe began, Beyond Nuclear had the honor and privilege…
Continue readingWhat is new at the stricken Fukushima nuclear site since the March 11, 2011 nuclear disaster there began? What really happened? And what are the health implications, both in Japan and for the U.S. if a similar nuclear disaster happened here? The newly …
Continue readingBeyond Nuclear has released a press release, looking to tomorrow’s fourth anniversary since the Fukushima, Japan nuclear disater began.
Headlined: “Higher radiation doses could be ruled “acceptable” after nuclear disaster: “Fukushima” in the U.S. an ev…
Entergy Nuclear’s Palisades atomic reactor, located 4 miles south of South Haven, in Covert, MI on the Lake Michigan shoreline.An environmental coalition, represented by Toledo-based attorney Terry Lodge, as well as expert witness Arnie Gundersen (Chie…
Continue readingThe Vogtle Unit 3 reactor pressure vessel, parked in front the Vogtle Unit 4 containment vessell bottom head, May 2013. Photo credit: Georgia Power.As reported by Matt Kempner in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the two new atomic reactors unde…
Continue readingAs reported by David R. Baker in the San Francisco Chronicle, “Pacific Gas and Electric Co. replaced $842 million of equipment at the heart of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant without first making sure the new gear could pass a vital seismic safety…
Continue readingThe French-owned AREVA nuclear corporation has requested that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission suspend indefinitely its design certification review of the US Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR). The February 25, 2015 letter to the NRC was followed by …
Continue readingNEWS FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR
For immediate release
Contact: Paul Gunter, 301.523.0201; Cindy Folkers, 240.354.4314; Kevin Kamps, 240.462.3216.
Higher radiation doses could be ruled “acceptable” after nuclear power disaster
“Fukushim…
via asahi.com / March 4, 2015 / Around 71 percent of Fukushima Prefecture residents remain dissatisfied with the central government’s handling of the nuclear disaster four years after the triple meltdown forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, a survey showed. Only 14 percent of respondents were satisfied with the central government’s efforts at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, according to the telephone survey conducted jointly … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia mainichi.jp / March 3, 2015 / The planned completion of the purification of highly radioactive water stored at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is expected to be pushed back to sometime around May next year, more than a year later than initially planned, it has been learned. Naohiro Masuda, chief decommissioning officer at the Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination & Decommissioning Engineering Co., disclosed the anticipated delay during an … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia world-nuclear-news.org / March 3, 2015 / The transfer of radioactive soil and waste generated from clean-up work following the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant to a provisional storage site has been approved by the governor of Fukushima prefecture and the mayors of Futaba and Okuma. In August 2014, the then governor of Fukushima Prefecture Yuhei Sato approved a central government plan to construct an interim storage … Continue reading →
Continue readingMargene Bullcreek. Photo by Gabriela Bulisova.It is with heavy hearts that we share the sad news that Margene Bullcreek passed on, on Sunday, March 1st, 2015. An In Memoriam has been issued by her colleague Ian Zabarte of the Native Community Action C…
Continue readingIn a press release, Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) of Chicago has warned the energy future of IL is at stake, as Exelon Nuclear lobbyists have unveiled their wish list bill seeking $580 million from state legislators, at ratepayers’ expe…
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