Friday, January 19, 2018

7 Strategies for a Radioactive Wasteland


One of the commentators at this blog observed that there is a concerted effort underway to turn the world into a radioactive wasteland, if we've not already achieved that outcome.

I agree and have outlined here the 7-point strategy aimed at this outcome:

1. Strategy One is to reinvigorate uranium mining:
Uranium Miners Pushed Hard for a Comeback. They Got their Wish. (2018, January 13). The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/climate/trump-uranium-bears-ears.html

But now, emboldened by the Trump administration's embrace of corporate interests, the uranium mining industry is renewing a push into the areas adjacent to Mr. Holiday's Navajo Nation home: the Grand Canyon watershed to the west, where a new uranium mine is preparing to open, and the Bears Ears ...

2. Strategy Two is to use propaganda to persuade public that nuclear is "clean" and necessary for fueling electrification (as in electric vehicles)

3. Strategy Three is to promote modular nuclear reactors as a safe and green innovation and to subsidize their development, regardless of cost and lack of long-term nuclear waste storage. Strategies Two and Three are illustrated in this article, especially in the byline and first paragraph:
UK government to release funding for mini nuclear power stations. (2017, December 3). The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/03/mini-nuclear-power-stations-uk-government-funding
Up to £100m expected to be announced in effort to make UK leader in technology and provide fresh source of clean power. Ministers are expected to back the first generation of small nuclear power stations in Britain with tens of millions of pounds this week, in an attempt to give the UK a competitive edge on the technology and provide a new source of clean power....  their backers pitch them as a cheaper and quicker way to generate the new, low-carbon power the UK needs.  Rolls-Royce has been publicly and privately lobbying the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) over its SMR design, which it positions as an industrial opportunity for Britain that would generate thousands of UK jobs. The firm argues that with electric cars likely to drive up future energy demand, the reactors will become a vital part of national infrastructure.

4. Strategy Four is to render invisible the entire supply-chain pollution created in the process of producing, utilizing and disposing of nuclear fuel and to raise radiation exposure levels so that the costs for expected nuclear accidents are reduced:
EPA (2017, September ) Protective Action Questions and Answers for Radiological and Nuclear Emergencies: A companion document to the US Environmental Protective Agency Protective Action Guide (PAG) Manual. EPA-402/K-17/002. Available, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-07/documents/pags_comm_tool_p9.pdf
See my blog post here https://majiasblog.blogspot.com.es/2017/10/the-sociopaths-have-won-epa-changes.html
EPA abandons major radiation cleanup in Florida, despite cancer concerns. http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/01/30/14190/epa-abandons-major-radiation-cleanup-florida-despite-cancer-concerns

[Excerpt] The Environmental Protection Agency is walking away after a decades-long battle with Florida politicians and industry officials over cleaning up phosphate-mining waste in an area that could expose more than 100,000 residents to cancer-causing radiation levels. 

Under a decision quietly finalized two weeks ago, the federal agency will leave it to state officials to decide the fate of the sites in and around Lakeland, an approximately 10-square-mile residential area midway between Orlando and Tampa. 

However, Florida officials have long argued that the affected area need not be cleaned up in the absence of radiation levels well above what EPA policy would normally permit. 

The decision not to enforce the usual federal rules could have far-reaching implications for how the United States deals with future radioactive contamination anywhere across the country — regardless of whether it is caused by conventional industrial activities or illicit radiological weapons, critics say.[end]

5. Strategy Five is to fail to acknowledge the problems of accumulating radioactive contamination in fresh and sea water caused by failed nuclear reactors and other industrial and/or natural occurrences. We see this strategy deployed in a range of contexts, from plans to dump tritiated Fukushima waste-water into the ocean to disregard of growing uranium contamination of drinking water:
Uranium in drinking water. EWG https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/contaminant.php?contamcode=X006#.WmI7NnlG0XQ
Japan’s nuclear watchdog urges discharge of Fukushima radioactive water into ocean (13 Jan, 2018). RT https://www.rt.com/news/415786-fukushima-dump-radioactive-water-watchdog/

6. Strategy Six is to promote "small" scale, "flexible" nuclear weapons as an appropriate offensive weapon:
Gordon, Michael R. (2018, Jan 16). US Plans New Nuclear Weapons. The Wall Street Journal, A1, A3.

7. Strategy Seven is to increase global tensions and direct public anxiety toward clearly defined "rogue" enemies in order to deflect attention from the pillaging and raping of the environment and our health underway. See here for discussion https://majiasblog.blogspot.com.es/2018/01/dr-strangelove-indeed-trump-promotes.html

If you are not already located in a radioactive wasteland, you will be soon.


RELATED POST
 
Bioaccumulation: Cesium is One Among the 1000 Radionuclides Unleashed by Fukushima Now Bioaccumulating in Flora and Fauna http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/bioaccumulation-cesium-is-one-among.html

9 comments:

  1. Pruitt has fired half his scitific staff. Soon there will be no epa standards on radiation in water, under trump.

    https://nuclear-news.net/2018/01/19/americas-toxic-superfund-sites-to-be-ignored-as-pruitt-cuts-epa-funding/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

    There will be no management of superfund sites.

    There will be more hi and lo radioactive waste sites , right in yur backyard America. Americans are the greedist, easyist dupes. The stupidest people on earth. Thats why they live in the largest radioactive shithole on earth, and say give me more. So stupid, that they elect psychopaths that laughhttps://nuclear-news.net/2018/01/19/americas-toxic-superfund-sites-to-be-ignored-as-pruitt-cuts-epa-funding/amp/?__twitter_impression=true them, as the and their children are poisoned and ruined.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shut down the pentagon. Get rid of the insane-ass trump. Get rid of the insane repulican-asses. They have gotten us into this mess, with the evil, war monkeys and psycho man. They promised change. This is their change. Radioactive wasteland.

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  3. Radionuclides are more dangerous,and toxic, than the worst chemicals in the environment. More toxic by factors of 10 to the 6th, or 10 to the 8th. That is, millions and billions of times more toxic than the worse chemical carcinogens, peaticides, endorine disrupters, or ogent orange like pcbs. Americans are not oblivious to this. They are afraid of radioactive materials.
    Hundreds of millions, of americans drink water, that is significantly radioactive. Our antibiotics, do not work anymore. Chronic disease is manifest. Autism is growing exponentially. Killer flues are getting worse. Genetic diseases growing exponentially. America now has one of the highest infant mortalities, in the developed world.

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  4. MANY Radionuclides are much more chemically toxic than other chemicals because they attach to TARGET tissue. They disrupt chemical signals. They disrupt, cell communication. They disrupt electro-chemical signals in sensitive tissue, like the heart and tear up all the tissue around them. They are extremely genotoxic.

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  5. I'm sorry you've not been able to post Weez. I know that my site was de-ranked by Google in April when the company introduced the new "truthiness" criteria. Perhaps some new filter is also complicating comments. One quick test is to try a new browser. I use Mozilla.

    ReplyDelete
  6. New film about radioactive wasting of the Western aunited States

    http://www.zerohotwater.com/

    The Uranium Industry's Dirty Little Secret

    When you were growing up, how many people did you know who had cancer?

    How many do you know today?

    Filmmakers Lizabeth Rogers and Kevin Flint travel to South Dakota following a story about uranium contamination—only to discover that the problem flows much farther and runs much deeper than they could have imagined.

    Three years and thousands of miles later, Hot Watertells the story of those impacted by uranium mining, atomic testing, nuclear energy and the subsequent contamination that runs through our air, soil and—even more dramatically—our water.

    From Fat Man and Little Boy to Duck and Cover, we believed it was safe to eat, drink and breathe in the shadow of the atomic age.

    Hot Water offers this question: Are the thirty-eight million people in the American Southwest aware that their water supply is filtered through 16 million tons of radioactive waste lying on the banks of the Colorado River?

    Our ground water, air and soil are contaminated with some of the most toxic heavy metals known to man, and the subsequent health and environmental damage will take generations and 100's of billions of dollars to heal.

    Follow Liz, Kevin and their team as they travel the American West and expose uranium mining and our nuclear legacy for what it is, and for what it's left behind.



    ReplyDelete
  7. https://mobile.twitter.com/fairewinds/status/954027102168342529
    Nuclear is dying. There is no need to mine uranium, that will pollute and waste the country

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well, in addition to radioactive contamination of the environment there are numerous other contaminants. But your audience and the audiences of others who concern themselves with these problems is relatively small and
    with very little power to effect change. And why is this? Well, the educational system has deteriorated at every level. People are too busy earning a living and staying in a livable mood. Too busy with their electronic devices. Their relationships. Their health. And we have not had very good government. So the responsive populace you would need does not exist. The people you wish were there would need a less crazed society which in turn would require a more prosperous one. A quieter and more decent one. A more serious one.
    Etc. One with less Hollywood and TV that read books and reflected on things. What are American universities doing to encourage such a society? I am not sure we will such a society in the near future. I am not sure such a society of human beings will ever arrive. It is a pity but it is a fact that most people just follow a leader.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Tried to post before. Was posted in wrong place.


    The most important thing to do, is to shut down all reactors. Begin, by shutting the coastal reactors, and all GE Mark reactors. That will be the challenge. If it does not occur soon, radioactive wasteland will be a forgone conclusion

    ReplyDelete

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