ROUTINE RADIOACTIVE RELEASES FROM NUCLEAR REACTORS - IT DOESN’T TAKE AN ACCIDENT

What you are not supposed to know:

1 ~ It doesn’t take an accident for a nuclear power plant to release radioactivity into our air, water and soil. All it takes is the plant’s everyday routine operation, and federal regulations permit these radioactive releases.

2 ~ Radioactivity is measured in "curies." A large medical center, with as many as 1000 laboratories in which radioactive materials are used, may have a combined inventory of only about two curies. In contrast, an average operating nuclear power reactor will have approximately 16 billion curies in its reactor core. This is the equivalent long-lived radioactivity of at least 1,000 Hiroshima bombs.

3 ~ A reactor’s fuel rods, pipes, tanks and valves can leak. Mechanical failure and human error can also cause leaks. As a nuclear plant ages, so does its equipment - and leaks generally increase.

4 ~ Some contaminated water is intentionally removed from the reactor vessel to reduce the amount of the radioactive and corrosive chemicals that damage valves and pipes. The water is filtered and then either recycled back into the cooling system or released into the environment.

5 ~ A typical 1000-megawatt pressurized-water reactor (with a cooling tower) takes in 20,000 gallons of river, lake or ocean water per minute for cooling, circulates it through a 50-mile maze of pipes, returns 5,000 gallons per minute to the same body of water, and releases the remainder to the atmosphere as vapor. A 1000-megawatt reactor without a cooling tower takes in even more water--as much as one-half million gallons per minute. The discharge water is contaminated with radioactive elements in amounts that are not precisely known or knowable, but are biologically active.

6 ~ Some radioactive fission gases, stripped from the reactor cooling water, are contained in decay tanks for days before being released into the atmosphere through filtered rooftop vents. Some gases leak into the power plant buildings’ interiors and are released during periodic "purges" and "ventings." These airborne gases contaminate not only the air, but also soil and water.

7 ~ Radioactive releases from a nuclear power reactor’s routine operation often are not fully detected or reported. Accidental releases may not be completely verified or documented.

8 ~ Accurate, economically-feasible filtering and monitoring technologies do not exist for some of the major reactor by-products, such as radioactive hydrogen (tritium) and noble gases, such as krypton and xenon. Some liquids and gases are retained in tanks so that the shorter-lived radioactive materials can break down before the batch is released to the environment.

9 ~ Government regulations allow radioactive water to be released to the environment containing "permissible" levels of contamination. Permissible does not mean safe. Detectors at reactors are set to allow contaminated water to be released, unfiltered, if below "permissible" legal levels.

10 ~ The Nuclear Regulatory Commission relies upon self-reporting and computer modeling from reactor operators to track radioactive releases and their projected dispersion. A significant portion of the environmental monitoring data is extrapolated – virtual, not real.

11 ~ Accurate accounting of all radioactive wastes released to the air, water and soil from the entire reactor fuel production system is simply not available. The system includes uranium mines and mills, chemical conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication plants, nuclear power reactors, and radioactive waste storage pools, casks, and trenches.

12 ~ Increasing economic pressures to reduce costs, due to the deregulation of the electric power industry, could further reduce the already unreliable monitoring and reporting of radioactive releases. Deferred maintenance can increase the radioactivity released - and the risks.

13 ~ Many of the reactor’s radioactive by-products continue giving off radioactive particles and rays for enormously long periods – described in terms of "half-lives." A radioactive material gives off hazardous radiation for at least ten half-lives. One of the radioactive isotopes of iodine (iodine- 129) has a half-life of 16 million years; technetium-99 = 211,000 years; and plutonium-239 = 24,000 years. Xenon-135, a noble gas, decays into cesium-135, an isotope with a 2.3 million-year half-life.

14 ~ It is scientifically established that low-level radiation damages tissues, cells, DNA and other vital molecules – causing programmed cell death (apoptosis), genetic mutations, cancers, leukemia, birth defects, and reproductive, immune and endocrine system disorders.

THIS INFORMATION SHEET IS INTENDED FOR REPRINTING AND, THEREFORE, IS NOT COPYRIGHTED

Nuclear Information and Resource Service
6930 Carroll Avenue Suite 340
Takoma Park, MD 20912
301 270 6477; 301 270 4291
nirsnet@nirs.org; www.nirs.org

Strontium-90 in the fish...God forbid we test the bones!

(CHIC today is a new online magazine which has just issued a special green edition. The cover is by famed celebrity fashion photographer Guiliano Bekor. Model: Ira. Perhaps next issue, CHIC will make anti-nuclear activism trendy again by featuring the work of sustainable designers like Katharine Hamnett.)

Morning rant by RemyC.

I became an environmental activist to prove my father wrong, because it the 70's he thought it was already all over, that as a species we had taken an irreversible course, that we would burn up everything that could be burned, nuke ourselves to death. He had been invited to sit on the Club of Rome by Prince Philip, turned him down saying it was a waste of time. I wanted to survive.

Knowing now what he knew then, considering we can't even get decent batteries into production, that the oil and automobile companies are still lying to us about the state-of-the-art in electric drive train propulsion, the sheer hopelessness of the situation in terms of getting alternative energy sources funded in a fashion that would reflect the urgency of the situation... I am now inclined to agree with my ol'sardonic departed dad, which would mean I have come to the realization I have wasted 30 years of my life... utterly and completely, on a futile quest to save a planet that doesn't want saving... it will just wipe us out, like flies...

The hedonistic folks who live in sensual bliss, who couldn't care less about the technicalities and hardships of eco-fashion and recycling, of trying to thread lightly on the earth, the folks who rip everything apart with their all-terrain assault vehicles, their chemical perfumes and vulgar diamond jewels which makes them look like wrinkled old ladies... Lavish in the lap of luxury while the earth dies, while refugees from oil wars starve... these people, living in Palm Beach, and Switzerland, and Bel Air... they were right, I was wrong, I was a fool and a twirp... They are rich, I am poor. I am nothing in their eyes...

The earth is doomed, being terra formed into Mars... it's all pompous grand standing and green washing, so few are doing anything real... aside from selling cute pricey eco-trinkets to the idle green rich at 2KH in Chelsea...

Sorry folks, I woke up with a knot in my belly this morning... this close from where Abbie Hoffman was when he decided it was time to walk away from his body... throw in the towel.

Grateful Dead's Bob Weir in Peekskill Tuesday!!!

BOB WEIR & RATDOG

Tuesday Mar 6 - 7:30pm

$51-71

The Paramount Center for the Arts

www.paramountcenter.org

1008 Brown Street

Peekskill, NY 10566

914.739.2333 fax 914.736.9674

Presented by PKM Presents/Premier Concerts (Waterbury, CT)

RatDog's music represents Bob Weir's complete repertoire, from blues like "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and "Little Red Rooster" to the psychedelic stylings of his Grateful Dead classics like "Playing in the Band," "The Other One," and "Throwing Stones," to his own Dead rockers like "Cassidy," "One More Saturday Night," and "Sugar Magnolia."

www.rat-dog.com

A few months ago, the Paramount Center refused to host a fundraiser for then Congressional candidate John Hall with Bonnie Raitt, fellow founding member of Musicians for Safe Energy (MUSE), organizers of the 1980 NoNukes concert.

Did Bob Weir know when he and his band RatDog book the Paramount Center in Peekskill, NY that a major portion of the center's financial support comes from Entergy, the company owning the Indian Point nuclear power plant down the hill on the Hudson River?

The Grateful Dead had a long history of environmental activism, campaigning to protect the rainforest.

Please write to Bob Weir to make him aware of the Paramount Center's financial ties to the Indian Point nuclear power plant...encourage Bob to make a statement about the issue during RatDog's performance.

webnerd@rat-dog.com

www.greennuclearbutterfly.com & www.rockthereactors.com will be available outside the Paramount Center on March 6th to discuss Indian Point. We welcome anyone advocating the immediate shut down of Indian Point to join us in this peaceful protest.

Rock The Reactors founder, Remy Chevalier, was the first environmental director of the Wetlands Preserve nightclub in Manhattan (1989-2001). Wetlands became a home away from home for fans of the Greatful Dead and Rainbow tribes in the 90s. The club's activism is chronicled in the documentary www.wetlandspreserved.com.

Wetlands gave birth to a direct action organization, the Wetlands Activism Collective - www.wetlands-preserve.org - which recently helped www.forestethics.org in swaying the Victoria's Secret catalog to switch over to recycled paper for its catalog. It is also working on a campaign to bring tree-free paper awareness to the comic book industry.

Wetlands founder Larry Bloch owns www.savethecorporations.com in Brattleboro, VT. Wetlands owner Peter Shapiro's brother Andrew is the founder and CEO www.greenorder.com which conceived and developed the Eco-magination campaign for General Electric.

Additional history about Wetlands can be read here:

www.eco-saloon.com

Join Green Nuclear Butterfly and Rock The Reactors Tuesday evening in front of the Paramount Center in Peekskill.

Dangers Keep Mounting...Entergy's Indian Point Reactors DOWN AGAIN

DANG ELMER, IS THAT A CRACKED FUEL ROD DOWN THERE ON THE FLOOR? SHUCKS, IT LANDED RIGHT ON THAT BAD WELD TOO! Lessard WOULD KILL US if he were here to see that!

While the NRC plays games with Indian Point's statistics to keep them in the GREEN ZONE, the plant has yet MORE PROBLEMS in their aging, decaying Indian Point reactors as the plant went into FULL SHUT DOWN again...seems yet again, that there was a very SIGNIFICANT cooling problem that saw the facility thrown into a full emergency shut down mode...of course, as is par for the course, the company downplayed the event, claiming, "There was no radiological release from the incident."

Let's look at the past TEN DAYS at INDIAN POINT!

1. Incident One-Employeed at Entergy's failing facility on the Hudson, better known as Indian Pointless GOES POSTAL, and in a supposed murder/suicide takes out his wife and daughter before murdering himself. This writer finds himself wondering...is there more to this than meets the eye? Just what did occur on February 8th, and should auhtorities have been put on alert, should this mans family (wife and daughter) have been warned by Entergy officials? Any one on the inside want to come forward with some information, feel free to contact us at roycepenstinger@aol.com and we will publish the news.

2. A cracked spent fuel rod...this is FAR MORE SERIOUS than both Entergy and the NRC are letting on. Seems that this incident is beginning to occur on a far to frequent basis all over AMERICA! How close are we to a spent fuel rod pool fire with rods breaking and crashing to the floors all over America....what community is going to be tossed into Armageddon over this issue?

3. Last, but certainly NOT LEAST...the shut down because of cooling problems. Now, if memory serves me correctly, wasn't there a shortage of water issue a couple weeks ago that was dismissed as a blockage? Hmmmm....maybe I need to call the NRC Region 1 office. What happened to safe and secure?

Now, on top of everything else Indian Point has to worry about, tomorrow at PACE the folks at Clearwater are hosting an Indian Point summit...John Hall will be there, but seems his SOCIAL EVENTS in NYC are more important to him than his constituents as he'll not be in attendance for the public portion of the event from 6:30 to 8:30 as he has a prior (fund raising) event in New York City....so much for priorities there Johnny Boy.

Wake Up To The Truths Revealed In Nuclear Past-Reactors are DEATH MACHINES, and NRC Endorses Said Holocaust

Nuclear Power is not, and has NEVER been safe...problem is, too many Americans have chosen to ignore the past, or are too young to remember it, and are buying into the propaganda of green nuclear energy.

Dr. John William Gofman, one of the foremost expert on nuclear energy, and the nuclear industry testified in the Federal Court in Nashville, Tenn back in 1978...his testimony was/is riveting, and nothing has changed in the almost 30 years since his testimony. Let's look at a couple of the damning statements found in the court transcripts.

Question: Can leukemia or cancer be specifically identified as caused by ionizing radiation?

Answer: There is no reasonable doubt in my mind or to my knowledge from the scientific literature on the part of anyone that radiation is A CAUSE OF LEUKEMIA OR CANCER.

If you read the entire transcript, it goes on to state, that the rate of leukemia deaths from the continued use of nuclear reactors could be as many as 100 deaths a day! In short, the NRC, the DOE are condoning/allowing the nuclear industry to KILL 36,500 of us EACH AND EVERY YEAR in the name of the nuclear industry.

Question: Could you tell us what ALARA, A-L-A-R-A, refers to ?

Answer: ALARA, A-L-A-R-A means as low as reasonably achievable. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SAFETY OR FREEDOM FROM CANCER AND GENERIC INJURY. It just means that for the amount of money you are WILLING to spend, try to do what you can to keep people from getting too much of a dose and hence too many cancers and leukemias and generic injuries.

Question: Does ALARA essentially PLAN IN HUMAN DEATHS?

Answer: It PERMITS deaths.

Question: Permits human deaths?

Answer: Yes, because ALARA does not say-see, the one way you could avoid deaths from the nuclear fuel cycle is to have ZERO releases. ALARA says keep the releases as low as you can reasonably achieve with the economics that you WANT TO SPEND ON IT and the equipment you have available and so forth.

So it is a planned emission of radioactivity and that in effect means PLANNED DEATH.

Curious here, how many of Green Nuclear Butterfly's readers are fine with PLANNED DEATH in the name of Nuclear Industry profits? We know there are releases...look at Pilgrim, look at Vermont Yankee, look at Indian Point....every one of these Entergy nuclear time bombs is LEAKING radioactive contaminants, everyone of these reactors IS KILLING PEOPLE...and that is OK with the NRC as long as those deaths fit within acceptable criteria of ALARA! Curious here...if your wife, sister, daughter is dying of breast cancer caused by Indian Point, is that OK with you? If your child is dying of Leukemia, is that FINE BY YOU....do you really find ALARA acceptable? Do you really find risk/cost analysis acceptable when profits come ahead of someone/any one's life? It's fine as long as it's not one of YOUR RELATIVES?

Did you know a child born in the United States today has a ONE IN THREE chance of dying of cancer? Did you know that the NRC has abandoned their claims that nuclear does not cause cancer, and instead gone to a fall back position that ONE DAY A CURE WILL BE FOUND FOR CANCER!

Indian Point is leaking Strontium 90 and Tritium into the Hudson River Watershed area, and effluent from their stacks are routinely releasing (ALARA) what the NRC refers to as acceptable amounts of other radioacive contaminants into OUR AIR, onto our soil. The Jordan Memorandum of 1977 lead to what was billed as the Murder Trail of the Century in Federal Case 78-3371. It is 2007, 30 years later, and the Nuclear Industry is killing more of us each and every day, Entergy's brittled and aging fleet of rusting, delapidated nuclear reactors are releasing more and more radioactive particulates into the environment with each passing down, and with these increasing releases, our DEATH TOLL rise!

The time has come for a NEW MURDER TRIAL OF THE CENTURY.

A Solar Revolution or Millions Starving in the Streets?

The question everybody keeps asking, is where is all the power going to come from when we shut down Indian Point. It's always the same story... You have to start from scratch with people... because they don't have decades of experience in the trenches of the alternative energy movement to understand the logistics and how difficult is has been getting it to this point, against all odds, with all of the monies spent on trying to prevent a solar revolution rather than create it.

There's been tons of ink spilled on both sides of the equation, the new way vs. the old way... back in the 50's there was nothing else but oil, coal and nuclear... the subtle energies that were the sun and the wind were not harnessed yet... there is still the problem of storage, and we have the that problem licked, but it still sits in labs, waiting for funding.

It's great that so many drove to the Oscars in hybrids, that Al Gore and Laurie David are green celebrities... But look who their friends are... it's the same old thing, the same old machine, telling you one thing, then doing the other, to preserve what they have rather than take a chance on the future.

We're not talking about a leap of faith here, we're talking about high-tech nano-materials that can do so much more with so much less, like Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) for example, which can light a space for a fraction of the energy that fluorescent take, never mind incandescent, which are history. Even at Wal-Mart you can't find any... In super-mass production, LEDs are going to be dramatically cheaper than fluorescents, and a lot cleaner, safer, kindler, gentler on the environment, because fluorescent use tons of poisons, while LEDs are encapsulated in solid-state substrates.

LEDs means we can light streets, homes, factories, for 2% the energy we used to need before, 2%, that's right, 2%... that's how insane this is... yet it took independent companies, the sweat of their brow, all late 90's, selling plans, through Home Power magazine, to build them yourself practically, because none of the major corporations would touch them... because they would indeed spell the end of an energy addiction, an end to profiting from our electron addiction.

The same is happening with batteries, where chemistries, where devices that can store electricity with the same voracity and precision as we use microchips to store information, also in the form of electrons, and give us power packs, without liquid or gel, that are easily mass-produced, scaled up, distributed, and safe from unstable safety effects.

Yes, all these things need pulling together, by industry, by government, but it's not happening there, it's happening from little companies, again, struggling, stealing fire from the Gods, building components in China, usurping patents they know they can't license, because the labs are in league with military interest, and they are still under the illusion, that these energy conversion devices must stay secret, or curtailed, in limited use, for fear some terrorist somewhere might find the formula to rob a bank with a pulse bomb.

We need to get over this, and quickly, because this "fear" that is chronically instilled in us, this fear of being without, of being in the dark, is a lie... an outright light... we have more alternatives, and more solutions, than we know what to do with, but for as long as all the money is spent on cleaning up a nuclear mess like the flood spills in Louisiana, or the waste leaking at plants all over the country... if we just stopped this insanity, cleaned up the mess, and invested instead in third wave, fourth wave quantum nuclear physics, that "charms" the atom rather than wack it over the head with a sledge, to boil water... we'd be in heaven... or almost.

These wars, these campaigns, led by blind men who can't settle on religious faith, who won't let sensuality rule this sphere... who block everything over dogma, can't understand that indeed the answer is blowing in the wind, this is not some romantic notion, this is a physical reality, that all things are in balance, and if we use the flow, of the wind, of the sun, we can easily run all our machinery, by fine tuning, and maybe doing with a little less here and there, conserve, not keep rooms in the City at 75 degrees in the den of winter, like I experience too often still today.

We all need to get into the act, so that this 2000Mw the new governor of New York talked about, promised, never mentioned again, to my knowledge, is done without... and it already is, all tabulated, it is... we've already conserved that much, for all the people going green, up and down the Hudson, turning off the lights, changing bulbs, walking or biking rather than driving... switching over to alternative fuels, buying more efficient vehicles... we're on a roll, doing our due diligence, educating those around us to do the same, get inspired.

But this muse is a little lazy, taking its time, likes to party... doesn't really understand that boys will be boys, want to get their hands dirty, with a feeling of urgency, and spirit, and necessity... that's what have you join the army, to serve, to feel empowered, with momentum, with power... so if we don't give them that now, to restore the earth, save the planet, that energy will be spend aggressing against an enemy that isn't there, that the weapons makers invent, to sell more guns and bombs, crippling children in hospitals, filling refugee camps.

We have heroes and heroines now, Angelina Jolie comes to mind, someone I met when she was just a toddler on a high chair, crying because nobody was paying attention to her pain... She broke my heart a few months old... the way other woman have, who cry so deep for the damage and horror we do this world... Ani DiFranco sings, and I morn, because I hear in her voice a call, a message I can't answer, because it would need an army, and I'm only a general in my imagination.

We need to get busy is what I fell you... we need to shut down Indian Point, give this country a renewed sense of being, of identity... of Viridian Design (even if you sank the Whole Earth Review, Mr. Sterling for being too stubborn to invite me in...) We are going to do this... it's only a matter of weeks... the workers themselves want to quit, we know this from talking to them in private sessions, it's a small village up there on the banks of the Hudson.

But Entergy is vast, and it's strong, and it has deep ties with evil tendencies of war... of secret programs, of bomb making, of sadness and sorrow, and horror and bones... When will we learn, when will humanity learn? When will the fear of anti-Christ stop true leaders from emerging, men like Clinton with a libido to match, nothing wrong with that, that's human kind... he at least tried... so did Carter, so do most Democrats, who don't have their hands dipped in war machinery, gone our of control, sending boys to war, who should be making music, building cities, greening cities, charming maidens... running free in the woods, making love in the rain...

But we spent our youth, us old eco-warriors, trying to set it right for future generations, and this is almost it, the Woodstock generation, trying, wanting to shut this plant, we got so old, and grey, being called names by men and women with no capacity to feel trees, and snails, and blades of grass growing... who think uranium is just another stone, and not this poison that should have been left in the ground, or at the very least, dealt with the utmost respect.

We don't have the time for all this bullshit, not anymore, sorry to ramble on, go on like that, but I'm tired, I want to go do something else... I want this to be done and over with, but I'm a tenacious f***, so I won't let go, I will never let go, I never look back... When I make a commitment to something, 30 years later I'm still at it... and if I die, if they run ME off the road one night, I know all the seeds I planted, all the young people I trained, will just be there to follow in my footsteps and finish what I started.

They made me this way, they stole my childhood, because they expected something they didn't get... a justification for their silly, hollow lives... and I don't want to see it repeated, I won't let the one I love, who inspire me now, fall prey to this desolation of the soul in exchange of rent money and food on the table. We know better now, we can do better now... all we need is a little something, a little push, a little encouragement, to let go of the old, and embrace the new... things change, it's ok... you're not losing freedom, you're gaining hope... light, love... tranquility, a new sense of open space... a mission... a divine mission to fix this place we call home.

Top nuclear engineer favors closing of Oyster Creek plant

From:
Mannajo@aol.com

Posted by the
Asbury Park Press

02/25/07

BY NICK CLUNN
STAFF WRITER

The state's top nuclear engineer, who has inspected the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant numerous times and has reviewed classified documents about its operation, says the Lacey plant should close after its operating license expires in two years.

The plant's obsolete design, its vulnerability to a 9/11-style attack, and the chaos that would ensue if the public near the plant had to evacuate from a radioactive release top Dennis Zannoni's list of reasons — even if they've been heard before.

Citizen activists and environmental groups have championed those concerns for years, but Zannoni is not your everyday renewal opponent.

In addition to his special clearances, Zannoni has 20 years of experience with the state Department of Environmental Protection and four-year degrees in nuclear engineering and mathematics from the University of Maryland.

Zannoni said he has also tracked the plant through a federal review it must pass to have its license renewed for an additional 20 years, though he was ordered to stop that work on Jan. 31 after being reassigned pending an investigation of a complaint against him.

The performance of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission during that review bolstered Zannoni's negative stance on the future of Oyster Creek.

But regulators say they've taken a serious look at the plant, and have placed dozens of conditions on the renewal — in the form of additional inspections and tests — if the renewal is approved.

Zannoni said his once-productive relationship with the NRC began to sour after the agency launched the renewal assessment two years ago.

Three months into the nearly three-year review, Zannoni called the NRC to complain about how some of its officials had " "berated" members of the public during a contentious renewal meeting at the Lacey Municipal Building.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said he would not comment on that accusation, but said that the agency expects its staff to treat members of the public with respect. If that does not happen, he said, citizens are encouraged to notify NRC management, or the agency's inspector general.

Zannoni said he complained again in May 2006 after the NRC barred two state nuclear engineers from participating in important meetings related to the plant's drywell liner, a steel radiation barrier that rusted and became thinner some 25 years ago.

State engineers, he said, were "specifically being excluded from all activity and documentation related to the drywell, which completely blew us away."

After receiving a telephone call from one of the state engineers who was barred from the meetings at Oyster Creek, Zannoni drove there from his office in Ewing to ask that his engineers be included.

Zannoni said NRC officials acknowledged they had made a mistake, and allowed the state engineers to participate, though several days of meetings had already passed.

They were included just in time for the inspection of the drywell, in which water was found where it wasn't supposed to be.

AmerGen had not checked several jugs meant to catch water leaking from an upper portion of the plant, as it had promised.

The NRC told AmerGen that the oversight raised doubts about AmerGen's ability to meet commitments, but said the water did not pose a safety threat.

Sheehan said the NRC would not comment on what Zannoni said about the drywell meetings.

More:
Top nuclear engineer favors closing of Oyster Creek plant
DEP yanks staffer who monitors Oyster Creek