At the heart of Greenpeace’s report ‘Left in the dust: Areva's radioactive legacy in the desert towns of Niger’ is the human cost of nuclear power. If we are going to embrace nuclear power then, every time you flick a switch and nuclear-powered light bulb comes on, you must accept the suffering of the likes of the people who live around Areva’s uranium mines in Niger (and those people are by no means the only people to suffer at the hands of the nuclear industry).

This is what the nuclear industry wants us to forget. According to them, nuclear power is just a matter ‘safe’, ‘clean’ and ‘reliable’ reactors producing ‘low carbon’ electricity. They don’t want to think about where the fuel for those reactors come from, about the contaminated streets of Arlit and Akokan. They don’t want you to think about the people of Niger trapped at the bottom of the United Nation’s Human Development Index.

But, if you’re pro-nuclear power, think about them you must.

Find out more:
- AREVA’S dirty little secret
- From Niger to Geneva
- Left in the Dust - Areva's uranium mining in Niger

Posted by Justin at 6:13 PM | Permalink

Yesterday Greenpeace launched its brand new report, a little bomb of information in the nuclear world, entitled "Left in the dust: Areva's radioactive legacy in the desert towns of Niger".

The press conference took place in in Geneva, Switzerland, city hosting numerous international organizations, and among them the United Nations' World Health Organization. Jean Ziegler, vice-president of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee was the first to speak. He rang the alarm on the dramatic situation in Niger regarding food and health. He also pointed out how international law could be used to trigger pressure on countries like France and Switzerland, and through them on companies like Areva who do not endorse the full responsibility of the damages they cause in other countries like Niger.

Ziegler's alarming words only proved Greenpeace was right to go to Niger last November to check in which context the population of the mining towns of Arlit and Akokan live, showing one more time that Areva is not a trustworthy company.

Dr Rianne Teule from Greenpeace International and Dr Bruno Chareyron from CRIIRAD (an independent French laboratory that did our analysis) demonstrated Areva does not deserve peoples' trust. That it does not deserve the trust of the Nigerien mining towns' people who are clearly suffering from conditions imposed by the French company for not respecting international norms. And that our fight is the right one.

Media came, the room quickly got quite crowded and it was so motivating to see journalists' interest grow as the press conference unrolled. After asking numerous questions, the journalists were presented a short movie of the Greenpeace expedition in Niger and were then offered the opportunity to have a demonstration of radioactivity measurements of some of the samples brought back from Niger.

Funnily enough, journalists were not so keen on approaching the big cement barrel at the right corner of the room where the samples were safely guarded. Of course there was no danger in doing so as everything was cautiously sealed and manipulated, but nuclear radiations is a serious and even scary topic. Nuclear energy, from the very bottom of the chain with the mining, to the processing and storage of nuclear waste is a danger for human health and the environment.

If you are ready to face the truth and want to learn more about Areva's legacy in Niger follow me.

(This post is by Anne-Laure Meladeck, Climate & Energy Officer for Greenpeace International)

Posted by Justin at 12:26 PM | Permalink

Uranium mining by French nuclear company AREVA poses a serious threat to the environment and people of northern Niger in West Africa.

Operations of Nuclear giant AREVA put lives at risk in Niger

Uranium mines in Niger operated by the state-owned French nuclear giant AREVA continue to create a radioactive hazard for the people living nearby. A new report released today by Greenpeace reveals contamination levels in the air, water and soil above internationally accepted limits.

“Radioactivity increases poverty because it creates more victims. With each day passes we are exposed to radiation and continue to be surrounded by poisoned air, polluted water and earth – while AREVA makes hundreds of millions from our natural resources.” said Almoustapha Alhacen, President of the local Nigerian NGO Aghir in’ Man (which means “the shield of the soul” in the Touareg language, is a local environmental and human rights organization).

Last November, Greenpeace carried out soil, water and air tests in Arlit and Akokan, located a few kilometers from the mines. The samples were studied in collaboration with the France-based Research and Independent Information on Radioactivity Commission (CRIIRAD).

“The analysis we have performed show that the uranium contamination in four out of five water samples exceed World Health Organisation safety limits*. We found evidence of radon, a radioactive gas dissolved in water and also chemical elements. Even so, this water is still being distributed to the population and the workers for consumption” said Bruno Chareyron, an engineer in Nuclear Physics from CRIIRAD.

Half of AREVA's uranium comes from two mines in Niger, one of Africa's poorest countries despite being the world's third largest uranium producer for more than 40 years. Areva, has also signed a deal to start tapping a third mine in the desert nation from 2013 or 2014.

“AREVA claims that it is an environmentally friendly company are not borne out in reality, the shocking levels of contamination in Niger reveal the truth. AREVA must take immediate action to end the routine radioactive contamination of villages surrounding their Nigerien mines.” said Rianne Teule, Greenpeace International nuclear campaigner.“ AREVA must also put in place long-term health monitoring of the local population.”

Greenpeace is calling for an independent study around the mines and mining towns in Niger followed by a thorough clean up and decontamination. AREVA must take responsibility for its actions not only in Niger, but worldwide.

* Guidelines for drinking water quality, first addendum to third edition. Vol. 1: Recommendations. WHO, 2006. This version of the guidelines integrates the third edition, which was published in 2004.

Posted by Justin at 11:05 AM | Permalink

…and Greenpeace was there to meet them.

The ship was carrying 650 tons for French nuclear giant AREVA. Where will it end up? Probably dumped in the open air in Siberia if past experience is anything to go by.

And even if you don’t agree with Greenpeace’s point of view, you have to admit we really know how to make a banner…

(More photos available here and more information is available on the Greenpeace Russia website.)

Posted by Justin at 6:18 PM | Permalink

This is a very poor choice of words to describe the global market for nuclear materials as discussed at Barack Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit in Washington this week…

Administration officials are unequivocal about the coming boom in the very materials Obama speaks of in stark terms as posing one of the world’s greatest threats.

Boom?

There seems to have been some very strange attitudes on display at the conference. The parties acknowledged the dangers of uranium falling into the hands of terrorists – and took some very laudable steps towards preventing that happening - but appear rather more relaxed about the plutonium lying about the place around the world doing the same.

France, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom are just some of the United States’ allies in its fight to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism that also already have or are expected to possess large quantities of civilian sector separated plutonium as a byproduct of their atomic energy activities.

[…]

The United Kingdom has 80 metric tons of separated plutonium and France has 100 metric tons of the weapon-grade material, said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Federation of American Scientists’ Strategic Security Program,

"I think that plutonium by and large, it is not being protected," he said.

These countries are, coincidentally, those same countries who want the world to have commercial nuclear reactors. MOX (Mixed-OXide) nuclear fuel is being sold as a solution to nuclear proliferation when it actually makes the problem worse: it’s easier to extract the plutonium from MOX than conventional fuel.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported 18 separate incidents of missing or stolen quantities of plutonium or highly enriched uranium…

It’s rather like giving everyone a gun and then leaving the ammunition cupboard unlocked. Sooner or later someone you really don’t want to might pull the trigger.

Posted by Justin at 6:10 PM | Permalink

Remember earlier in the week when Greenpeace activists dismantled railway tracks near France’s Tricastin nuclear facility? The action was to stop nuclear waste from being exported to Russia.

Unfortunately the waste is on the move and now at sea on the Russian transport ship, Kapitan Kuroptev. That doesn’t mean Greenpeace has given up the chase…

© Pierre Gleizes / Greenpeace

Our colleagues managed to get alongside the ship displaying banners reading ‘Russia is not a nuclear dump’ before attempting to board it.

© Pierre Gleizes / Greenpeace

The Kapitan Kuroptev is carrying this waste to an uncertain future. Ninety percent of French nuclear waste shipped to Russia since 2006 has been dumped. Only 10% was returned. How much of the Kapitan Kuroptev cargo will be making the return trip and how much will be left to contaminate Russia for thousands of years?

(More photos and information in French is available at the Greenpeace France website.)

Posted by Justin at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yesterday morning at 8am CET, eight Greenpeace activists dismantled the railway tracks between the Tricastin nuclear facility and Pierrelatte in order to stop a shipment of nuclear waste being shipped to Russia. The Russian ship, Kapitan Kuroptev, is waiting at Le Havre to receive the shipment.

French nuclear companies AREVA and EDF say depleted uranium is sent to Siberia to be enriched and then returned to France. This is spin and deception. This isn’t ‘recycling’ or ‘reuse’. This is making nuclear waste somebody else’s problem. It only demonstrates once again the industry’s complete inability to deal with the dangers of nuclear waste.

Official figures published in December 2009 show that AREVA and EDF are
not telling the truth. Since 2006 33,000 tons of uranium have been exported to Russia, while only 3,090 tons have returned. Where are the missing 30,000 tons? It’s dumped in places like Seversk.

So frightened are AREVA of Greenpeace shining a light on their dirty dealing they’ve taken us to court in France in an attempt to gag us. If they’ve got nothing to hide, they’ve got nothing to fear.

In France, Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo has already received more than 29,000 petitions for a moratorium on the export of nuclear waste In Russia, people can write directly to Mr Borloo here.

(For more information in French, visit Greenpeace France’s website and follow them on Twitter.)

Posted by Justin at 2:32 PM | Permalink

Today is World Water Day when we remember that ‘an estimated 1.1 billion people rely on unsafe drinking-water sources’. Greenpeace is doing its part and on our website we’re highlighting World Water Toxic Hotspots.

This being a blog about nuclear power we’d like to mark World Water Day by reminding us all of the places around the world where drinking water supplies have been put at risk by the nuclear industry.

• There’s the contaminated drinking water supply in the area surrounding Brazil's Caetité uranium mine.

• ‘[L]ethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico.’ [http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/01/nation/na-radiation-newmexico1]

• ‘[E]nvironmental studies carried out by CRIIRAD and Sherpa in 2005 in [Niger] mining communities showed water radiation levels up to 110 times higher than World Health Organization (WHO) safe drinking water standards in industrial areas and 10 times higher in urban areas.

• At the Ranger uranium mine in Australia’s Kakadu National Park, ‘[u]ranium levels in the nearby Corridor Creek are now 4,000 times the recommended drinking water standard. One recent government study found cancer rates among the Aboriginal population in the Kakadu region are twice as high as those living elsewhere.’

• A report last year by the Sierra Club of Canada found ‘nuclear facilities and power plants are contaminating local Canadian food and water with radioactive waste that increases risks of cancer and birth defects’.

We could go on. Everybody deserves clean water to drink. On World Water Day the nuclear industry should pledge to remove doubt from people’s minds and remove contamination from their water.

Posted by Justin at 5:07 PM | Permalink

Regular readers of Nuclear Reaction may remember the campaign in Slovakia to have the law changed so that the country’s local communities can have a say on uranium mining projects in their areas.

Click image for larger view

The campaign was started three years ago by a coalition of groups which included Greenpeace. In Slovakia, any petition gaining 100,000 signatures must be discussed by the country’s parliament. The coalition’s petition gained 113,000 and it was delivered to the parliament in September last year.

This week the campaign was victorious when, in a momentous decision, the Slovak parliament agreed on legal changes to geological and mining laws to give more power and control to local communities, municipal and regional authorities. This will allow them stop or limit geological research of uranium deposits and to stop proposed uranium mining.

This is a huge achievement for the Slovak environmental movement and should be an inspiration for groups around the world. For the first time in Slovak history non-governmental organisations were able to collect over 100,000 signatures, have an environmental issue submitted to the Slovak parliament by a petition, and to achieve a change in the law by a petition.

This does not mean a complete ban on uranium mining in Slovakia but gives significant powers to local and regional authorities in the mining permission process. All 41 municipal authorities facing proposed uranium mining projects in their territories have already declared their opposition. There’s an excellent chance that Slovakia’s uranium will never see the light of day.

Posted by Justin at 1:16 PM | Permalink

Of all the nuclear waste France has sent to Russia since 2006 for reprocessing, less than 10% has ever been sent back. That’s 3,090 tonnes out of 33,000. The rest is dumped in Russia, often in the open air. This is the ‘clean’ and ‘safe’ nuclear energy US President Barack Obama was mythologizing yesterday.

© Pierre Gleizes / Greenpeace

Greenpeace are demanding a moratorium on the export of nuclear waste from France to Russia. That’s why yesterday Greenpeace France activists blockaded the Tricastin nuclear facility to prevent a shipment of nuclear waste leaving for its Russian dumping ground.

Nuclear waste reprocessing in France is a scam. AREVA and EDF claim that 96% of nuclear waste can be reprocessed. However just 1% finds its way in to MOX (Mixed Oxide fuel). The rest is sent to Russia where most of it is simply dumped and never reprocessed. Nuclear industry claims about ‘recycling’ are simply spin, hype and propaganda. Forget about ‘safe’ and ‘clean’.

(More information and photographs are available in French from Greenpeace France’s website)

Posted by Justin at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It’s just over a month since Greenpeace announced it had found high radiation contamination levels in the streets of Akokan close to French nuclear company AREVA’s uranium mines in Niger.

Today, we’re able to tell you that AREVA have confirmed with their own survey that radiation levels in the area were unacceptably high after having earlier declared the streets of Akokan safe. The company says the area has now been cleaned and also checked by the radiation safety authority. It also states that it has a plan of action for a complete survey of the two cities close to its uranium mines, and is promising that by the end of next year both will have been completely checked and cleaned up.

However, we remain worried. Would this action have been taken had it not been for Greenpeace visiting Akokan and taking its own radiation measurements? Why did AREVA’s own monitoring procedures not detect radioactive contamination levels as high as 500 times normal levels? Are the companies monitoring techniques adequate? The health and environmental impacts of years of uranium mining in Niger has yet to be fully assessed. That’s why Greenpeace is demanding a comprehensive, transparent and independent environmental assessment of the area be conducted urgently.

A full report of what Greenpeace found in Niger will be released soon.

(More information in French can be found at Nigerdiaspora.net. The Greenpeace briefing document for our findings is here. Radiation measurement tool photograph © Greenpeace/Philip Reynaers)

Posted by Justin at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The nuclear industry likes to make a big song and dance about reprocessing nuclear waste (or ‘recycling spent fuel’ as they’re currently greenwashing it).

Did you know, for instance that France has sent 33,000 tonnes of nuclear waste to Russia for reprocessing since 2006? How much of that has come back to France? A mere 3,090 tonnes. That’s less than 10%. The rest is dumped and abandoned in places like the ‘closed’ city of Seversk, the nuclear waste storage facility in Siberia. Some of it is even stored in open air car parks. This is the fabled nuclear safety we’ve heard all about.

After these revelations in October this year, along with it emerging that plutonium had been ‘forgotten’ at the Cadarache nuclear plant, the French government announced a moratorium on nuclear waste shipments to Russia while the High Committee for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Safety conducts a full inventory of France’s nuclear waste products. The results are expected in January.

So when the French government decided to pre-empt the inventory’s findings and break the moratorium this weekend, resuming nuclear waste shipments to Russia, Greenpeace France sprang into action. Nuclear campaigner Yannick Rousselet chained himself to the railway line along which the nuclear waste was to be transported, delaying the shipment.

It’s a strange coincidence that French nuclear giant AREVA would choose to resume nuclear waste shipments exactly when attention is focussed on the opening of the Copenhagen climate change summit. Thanks to Yannick and his colleagues, however, AREVA’s dirty little secret is in the public eye once more.

(More information is available in French at Greenpeace France’s website)

Posted by Justin at 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yesterday, the BBC World Service's Africa in Focus radio programme featured Greenpeace's findings of radioactive contamination on the streets of the villages close to AREVA's uranium mines in Niger. You can listen to it here…

AREVA have been uncharacteristically silent on this matter. As the radio presenter says at the end of the piece: `We tried to contact the uranium mining company AREVA for comments but they were not reachable.'

The company were certainly reachable when Greenpeace activists boarded the Happy Ranger en-route to Areva's OL3 nuclear reactor last month. AREVA were extremely quick in labelling the activists as `militants'. But when there's evidence that AREVA are putting people's health at risk in Niger? The company spin doctors are nowhere to be seen.

AREVA may be silent but voices in Niger are determined to be heard. Tomorrow, a peaceful march to protest against AREVA and its subsidiaries in Niger is being held by the people of Arlit where AREVA has a uranium mine.

Posted by Justin at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Radio France Internationale have featured Greenpeace’s findings of radioactive contamination on the streets of Niger’s uranium mining villages. You can hear an interview with Greenpeace International nuclear campaigner Rianne Teule who was part of the team that found the contamination.

Last year Niger produced nearly 7% of the world’s uranium and is one of the four largest supplier of uranium to the European Union. Yet for all its fuelling of the world’s nuclear reactors, Niger’s people have the worst quality of life in the world, sitting at the very bottom of the United Nation’s Human Development Index. They pay the price but see none of the wealth when we turn on the lights at night.

Posted by Justin at 4:51 PM | Permalink

Just in case you thought the radioactive contamination found close to uranium mines was peculiar only to Niger…

…Brazil’s Brazilian Nuclear Industries (INB) has just been fined $1 million for covering up a leak of radioactive liquid at its uranium mine at Caetité.

This is the same Caetité where last year Greenpeace found drinking water to be contaminated with high levels of uranium.

A year later and it seems things have not changed. Brazil’s ‘Institute of Water Management and Climate (INGA) and the Department of Health (Sesab) notified the municipal authorities of Caetité, Lagoa Real and Livramento de Nossa Senhora’ to stop the consumption of water from six wells and springs after ‘the presence of alpha and beta radioactivity’ was detected. A report on the source of the contamination is due in three weeks.

(More information is available in Portuguese at Greenpeace Brazil)

Posted by Justin at 5:27 PM | Permalink

Greenpeace has found high radiation contamination levels in the streets of Akokan where children play. What is even more disturbing is that this just year AREVA claimed that those same streets were safe.

It began in 2003 when radioactive contamination was found in towns close to Niger’s uranium mines by the independent laboratory CRIIRAD and local NGO Aghir In’Man.

In 2007 CRIIRAD found dangerous levels of radiation levels near the hospital in the mining village of Akokan. The mine operator, French nuclear giant AREVA, admitted to widespread contamination in the village.

In October of that year, the mining company and AREVA subsidiary COMINAK reported the contamination had been addressed. In September 2009 AREVA confirmed to CRIIRAD that a clean up had been done and the streets made safe.

It is clear that this is not true.

There are still radioactive materials in the street of Akokan. Greenpeace’s findings directly contradict AREVA’s assurances. The people of these villages are being exposed to unnecessarily high levels of radiation. In one area Greenpeace tested, the radiation was almost 500 times higher than normal levels.

This is the hidden cost of nuclear power: innocent men, women and children exposed to radiation, exploitation and danger. It’s something you won’t see in the nuclear industry’s glossy brochures and on its impressive websites.

This is what we must accept if we are to continue using nuclear power for our energy needs. The uranium from Niger is used to keep the lights on in France. Nuclear reactors must have uranium. To obtain that uranium it seems that people must suffer. It is a story told wherever in the world uranium is mined. Ask yourself: would you like to live near a uranium mine?

The nuclear industry does not want you to think about the dust in the streets of Niger. Instead it wants you to think about its so-called clean and safe energy. Are the streets of Akokan clean? Are its people safe?

AREVA has shown it cannot be trusted to take care of this problem themselves. An immediate and comprehensive independent assessment and clean up must be done to ensure that the people of the mining villages are protected from AREVA’s radiation.

(A detailed briefing on Greenpeace’s findings in Akokan can be found here)

Posted by Justin at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

We’re once again grateful to Areva’s North America blog for pointing us towards yet another piece of nuclear hype, spin and propaganda. This time it comes from Jim Prentice, Canada’s Minister for the Environment.

Nuclear will play a key role in our clean energy strategy. And the reality is: nuclear is non-emitting.

Let’s be blunt here. This isn’t just misleading. This isn’t just misinformation. This is a lie.

Nuclear energy is not clean energy. One need only look at the environmental destruction caused by uranium mining. In his book ‘Wollaston: People Resisting Genocide’, Miles Goldstick details the damage brought to the lives of the people living around the uranium mines in Canada’s Saskatchewan province. The accumulation of radioactive isotopes in edible plants. The lead, arsenic, uranium and radium found downstream from the mines. The spills that J.A. Keily, then Vice President of Production and Engineering for Gulf Minerals Rabbit Lake, described in 1980 as ‘probably too numerous to count’.

These are stories found wherever uranium mining takes place. The ruined lives, the contamination, the cover-ups, and the deception. And that’s before we even consider what happens to the waste produced by generating nuclear energy.

As for ‘nuclear is non-emitting’, it takes just five seconds to Google for ‘nuclear power’ and ‘emissions’ to show that statement for the ridiculous falsehood that it is.

May we remind you that Jim Prentice is Canada’s Minister for the Environment?

This is, unfortunately, a deception that the whole nuclear industry wants you to believe. A child could see through it and yet the industry and its supporters persist. When the US’s EPA - that’s the Environmental Protection Agency – is filing nuclear energy under ‘clean’ energy, you know how far this deception has spread. Look again what EPA stands (or is supposed to stand) for. You begin to wonder it these people think you’re a moron.

The nuclear industry does not want you to look at where uranium comes from or where it goes to afterwards. To do so would destroy the myths that have supported it this long. ‘Look, our hands are clean,’ it says, while trying to hide its dirty fingers.

Posted by Justin at 1:33 PM | Permalink

Click image for larger view

This week saw Greenpeace deliver a petition with 113,488 signatures calling for the Slovak parliament to change laws regarding uranium mining in the country. Under the Slovakian constitution, any petition having more than 100,000 signatories must be discussed by the country’s parliament.

The petition is seeking a change in the law allowing municipalities to have a say on uranium mining in their areas. As all the towns and cities near potential mining sites are against the idea, this could mean very little or no uranium mining being done in Slovakia.

The campaign was launched three years ago, in order to stop a project aggressively pushed by the Canadian-based company Tournigan. It planned to open two uranium mines: one located just six kilometres upstream from Košice, the second largest city in Slovakia with a population of 250,000 people; the other at the border of the stunning UNESCO national park, ’Slovak Paradise‘. A coalition of groups lead by Greenpeace mobilized dozens of towns and local councils, regional governments, and over 100,000 citizens to express their refusal to turn Slovak Paradise into a contaminated and devastated landscape.

A briefing about the campaign prepared in January 2007 is available here. The only information to have changed is the huge rise in support for the campaign and the fact that a legal intervention from Tournigan closed the tournigan.info website (so much for industry transparency).

The authorities are now counting the signatures. We’ll keep you updated on how things progress.

(More information in Slovak is available on the Greenpeace Slovakia website)

Posted by Justin at 12:03 PM | Permalink

What is the link between coal power and nuclear power?

I mean - apart from the fact that they are both dirty sources of energy proceeding from fossil fuels that exist in limited amounts on the planet.

And also apart from the fact they are both a threat to the environment; the first one because of the amounts of CO2 it releases into the atmosphere, the second one because of all the dangerous substances released at the surface of the planet - both throughout the nuclear fuel chain and the ever-lasting radioactive waste it leaves behind.

Oh yes, and apart from the fact that both the coal and the nukes industry are committed to undermining all attempts to switch to renewable, clean, eco-friendly energy anytime soon.

No? No other ideas?

Continue reading "Coal and Uranium: Dangerous Liaisons" »

Posted by Aslihan at 7:25 PM | Permalink

Nuclear fuel production – the mining, milling and enriching of uranium – is one of the nuclear industry’s dirty secrets. Very little attention is paid to it by industry propagandists and pro-nuclear politicians and for very good reason. It’s dirty, dangerous, incredibly damaging to the environment and endangers the health of those people unfortunate enough to live close to uranium mines.

To hear some supporters of nuclear energy talk, you’d think the whole process of generating electricity begins with the throwing of a reactor’s ‘on’ switch. But there’s a long story before we even get that far. It’s also a long, sad story that often goes untold in the wider media.

Pick any uranium mine around the world and it will invariably be surrounded by stories of pollution, contamination and the exploitation of local communities. Niger, Namibia, Brazil, Canada, Kazakhstan.

And Australia. The country’s ‘Environment Minister Peter Garrett has formally approved the new Four Mile uranium mine in South Australia, saying it poses no environmental risks’. The premier of South Australian, Mike Rann, welcomed the decision saying operations at the state’s nearby Beverley mine ‘show that uranium can be mined without damaging the surrounding environment’.

Which means neither man can have read the South Australian governments own figures into spills at the Beverley mine. Here are just a few…

Apr. 22, 2006: spill of 14,400 litres of solution containing approx. 0.5% uranium

Oct. 31, 2005: spill of 23,700 litres of mining solution, containing approx. 0.06% uranium
Aug. 8, 2005: spill of 13,500 litres of extraction fluid containing approx. 0.01% uranium

Mar. 7, 2005: spill of 50,000 - 60,000 litres of injection fluid

Dec. 8, 2004: spill of approx. 2,300 litres of mining solution, containing 0.028% uranium

June 13, 2002: spill of 1,750 litres of brine solution

June 7, 2002: spill of 1,500 litres of injection fluid in the well field

May 5, 2002: spill of 14,900 litres of water containing 0.0018% uranium

May 1, 2002: spill of almost 7,000 litres of brine solution containing some uranium

January 11, 2002: spill of 60,000 liters of groundwater containing acid and uranium, after pipe rupture

Fancy the premier of South Australia being so ignorant of such worrying safety violations going on in his own state. Scandalous.

In fact, that’s the word to sum up the whole Four Mile story: scandalous. Peter Garrett is a former campaigning rock star who fought doggedly against nuclear power before entering politics (‘Why would Australians support an industry that produces radioactive waste, toxic waste?’ he said just three years ago), And with the local Aboriginal communities being (yet again) left out of the negotiations and decision-making over Four Mile, this all has a horribly familiar ring to it.

Posted by Justin at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Washington Post: Obama: Iran cannot be permitted to be nuke power
’WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says he is "not reconciled" to the idea of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon within a year. The president told The Associated Press in an interview that U.S. government planning is running in precisely the opposite direction. He said a nuclear-armed Iran would likely trigger an arms race in the already volatile Mideast and said that would be "a recipe for potential disaster."’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: Obama: Iran cannot be permitted to be nuke power" »

Posted by Justin at 3:15 PM | Permalink

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Reuters: Secret Canada nuclear papers left in TV studio
’OTTAWA, June 3 (Reuters) - Senior Canadian officials left a binder full of confidential nuclear documents in a television studio and made no attempt to retrieve them, the TV network involved said on Wednesday. The incident is likely to increase pressure on the minority Conservative government, already under fire for its handling of the economic crisis. The main opposition Liberal Party said on Tuesday it would decide next week whether to try to bring down the Conservatives in Parliament. The binder was found in a CTV television studio after a visit by Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt. CTV, which kept the binder for six days before breaking the news, said the documents showed the government would spend far more money on a troubled nuclear reactor than it had acknowledged.’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: Secret Canada nuclear papers left in TV studio" »

Posted by Justin at 5:29 PM | Permalink