[Translate] Waste Confidence: NRC Webinar January 31 Tuesday, January 31, 2012 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM CST 19:00:00 Tuesday January 31, 2012 in GMT 04:00:00 Wednesday February 1, 2012 in Asia/Tokyo SimplyInfo’s  JapanEarthquake5 live blog will contain posts live blogging the NRC public meeting to determine US spent fuel policy along with ongoing discussion. We will start prep for the public meeting about 12:45 Materials & Related Documents: Long Term Waste Confidence Update – slides & graphics Background and preliminary assumptions (long term waste confidence) slides and graphs More information about the January 31st public meeting here. NRC website The NRC has released a document for public review. – This is the core public document on spent fuel from NRC How to send spent fuel policy feedback to the NRC: The comment period is 45 calendar days, from January 3 to February 17, 2012. You may submit comments via email to WCOutreach@nrc.gov or … Read entire article »

[Translate] The problem of what to do with all this spent nuclear fuel has frustrated every country that has a nuclear power program. With the US upcoming public meeting on spent nuclear fuel tomorrow we are taking a look at what is being done in various countries. This is an international problem. All nuclear countries should be looking at what has worked and what has not worked as we try to find solutions. Germany: Germany thought they had a suitable site for their nuclear waste. The Gorleben salt dome was chosen largely for political purposes. It was in a lightly populated area near what was the East German border at the time. The technical requirements of the site quickly fell apart. It has a gas deposit below it. Removing the deposit would cause … Read entire article »

[Translate] The mothers protesting on METI’s front lawn in Tokyo have not been evicted. The declined the request to leave and a rather huge crowd showed up at eviction time to support them. Tokyo police decided not to do anything due to the crowd. The national government rejected the Fukushima Governor’s request for free healthcare for anyone under 18 living in Fukushima. Now the governor is considering spending money intended for decontamination and health surveys for the plan. Many have criticized the plan as a pressure tactic to try to get families with children to stay in the area. Maybe the governor could spend those funds evacuating children to somewhere safe? TEPCO took second place for worst company in the world in an international poll. They only lost by about 800 votes. Mitsubishi Electric … Read entire article »

[Translate] METI has decided to evict the group of mothers who have been peacefully camping in front of the ministries Tokyo office for months. Minister Edano has decided to evict this group 4 months into their 10 month and 10 day protest. This comes on the heels of METI kicking the public out of public meetings on nuclear reactor restarts. METI stopped listening to the public, now they want to take it out on a group of mothers doing a peaceful protest. Avazz has organized a form you can use to contact METI’s office to ask them to stop the eviction.  Beyond Nuclear has gathered contact information for METI: An emergency press conference will be held on January 27th at 1pm at the Japan Federation of Bar Associations’ Building, Room 1006. (Access:http://www.nichibenren.or.jp/jfba_info/organization/map.html ) This will be followed by … Read entire article »

[Translate] This problem is global. People end up fighting a huge company and frequently their own government for knowledge, safety and compensation for damage. The new documentary Atomic States of America looks at the community of Shirley, New York on Long Island and how they slowly realized the Brookhaven National Lab was far from a good neighbor. The lab had been conducting atomic experiments and had a number of accidents and leaks. The community discovered the high number of rare cancers clustered around the lab but met with everything from resistance to outright mockery for trying to get answers out of Brookhaven. Kelly McMasters, a journalist that grew up in Shirley was able to access the library at Brookhaven and found evidence of not just a multitude of accidents and leaks but a … Read entire article »

[Translate] The US Energy Information Administration, released their findings for 2010 that show only 9% of US power consumption capacity was provided by nuclear power.  This flies in the face of the constant claim by nuclear industry lobby groups that the total is 20%. This 20% claim always comes with the claim that the US can’t survive without nuclear power. The same thing the people in Japan were told after Fukushima, while power companies threatened widespread blackouts that never happened. It also came out today that the Japanese government withheld information that showed they were overestimating 2012 power consumption predictions. This omission made it look like Japan would have a 10% shortfall the summer of 2012 when in fact they will not. Instead they will have a 6% surplus. This manipulation … Read entire article »