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 | Comments (0)

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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 | Comments (0)

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 | Comments (0)

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 | Comments (0)

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 | Comments (0)