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Appendix E
Latvia
1/23
Appendix E
Latvia
2/23

Atklātā vēstule Vides Pārraudzības Valsts Birojam sakarā ar Zviedrijā, Forsmark, plānoto kodolatkritumu kapsētu radioaktīvā piesārņojuma eksistenciālajiem draudiem dzīvai videi
Batijas Jūras Reģionā

saskaņā ar 1991.gada Espoo konvencijas “Par ietekmes uz vidi

novērtējumu pārrobežu kontekstā” 4. un 5 panta prasībām un Zviedrijas Vides aizsardzības aģentūra paziņojumu par izstrādāto ietekmes uz vidi novērtējuma ziņojumu un tā

sabiedrisko apspriešanu

Arī kā PDF pielikumā Sakarā ar to, ka kļūdu summa ekoloģiskās drošības sistēmā, kā arī sociālās un ekonomiskās drošības sistēmās, ir novedusi cilvēci līdz eksistenciālam riskam, kā arī tamdēļ, ka esam klātienē sekojuši Forsmark un Oskarshamn kodolatkritumu kapsētu projektu izveides procesam, ziņojam ka tā profesionālā uzticamība ir absolūta ilūzija projekta visos līmeņos un dimensijās.

Kodolatkritumu kapsētas tiek plānotas pēc KBS-3 metodes
1) pašā Baltijas jūras krastā, burtiski – jūrā, neviena vieta sauszemē nav atrasta jo visas citas pašvaldības ir atteikušās kodolatkritumus pieņemt – tikai AES pašvaldības piekritušas jo ir jau gadu desmitiem korumpētas,
2) celt vēsturiski seismiski ļoti aktīvā zonā, 3) klintīs kas ir ūdenscauralidīgas plaisu dēļ, un piedzīvo arī metāna gazes atsalšanas detonācijas,
4) atkritumi tiktu likti kapara cilindros kas rūsē jau pēc 100 gadiem un pārsprāgtu arī no gāzēm,
5) bentonīta māls ap cilindriem izplūdes nenotur, bet pat lieliski iznēsā uz plašajām daļiņu virsmām,
6) urbumu 500 m dziļums ir nepietiekošs un radiācija ieplūstu gruntsūdeņos

un Baltijas jūrā

7) ārzemniekiem vadot projektus kas jau nogādā kodolatkritumus, radioaktīvos metāllūžņus un urāna rūdas pat no ASV un Austrālijas
8) melojot ka kapsulu saturs jau pēc 1000 gadiem būs kļuvis tik pat mazkaitīgs kā Urāna rūda klintīs...lai gan iet runa par 30 radioanuklīdiem kas nepastāvēja uz Zemes virsmas pirms kodol-ēras,

un Urāna238 pussabrukšanas laiks ir 4,5 miljardi gadu

9) izmantojot IAEA ieteikto ICRP radiācijas risku paredzēšanas modeli kas rada kļūdas pat līdz vairāku tūkstošu reižu apmērā. Jālieto ir ECRR

modelis, kas uzticami paredz Radiācijas riskus – bet kodolatkritumu

kapsētu projekti to nedara, tūkstoškārtīgi samazinot-falsificejot projektu riskus reģiona dzīvai videi

10) utt

Ir ļoti svarīgi ka Latvija, iegūstot šo informāciju par plānoto kodolatkritumu kapsētu projektu, kas top jūras piekrastē Zviedrijā un Somijā, konceptuālo zinātnisko falsifikāciju, sāk aktīvi iesaistīties Espoo Konvencijas piedāvātajos procesos, kas dod iespēju kaimiņvalstīm izteikt savu

Appendix E
Latvia
3/23

viedokli par projektiem kas var ietekmētu to vidi apokaliptiski – arī uzliekot VETO.

Mēs, Balijas Jūras Reģiona ECRR (European Committee on Radiation Risk), uzskatām par nepieciešamu neatliekami informēt Latvijas sabiedrību par

sekojošo:

Saindētā gaisa elpošana un saindēto zivju un citu produktu ēšana rada nopietnus veselības traucējumus, tostarp vēzi. Piemēram, pēc Černobiļas avārijas Baltijas jūras krastos Zviedrijā pierādīti pieauga saslimstība ar krūts vēzi, kamēr Zviedrijas iekšzemes teritorijā tā kritās.

Baltijas Jūras Reģionālā Eiropas Radiācijas Risku Komiteja aicina
1) Latvijas valdību izmainīt Latvijas “kā Kodolatkritumu glabātuvju projektu Zviedrijā un Somijā NEIETEKMĒTAS VALTS statusu; lai Latvijas valdība un pašvaldības iesaistītos Kodolatkritumu glabātuvju izveides un analīzes pārrunu procesos pēc Espo

Konvencijas pamatprincipiem

2) steidzami izmainīt ekoloģiskās drošības kultūras sistēmu, atbalstot
PAMATIEDZĪVOTĀJU sociālās un ekonomiskās sistēmas, kas veicina neatkarīgus zinātniskos pētījumus kā arī drošības sistēmas, kļūdu summa kurās ir novedusi cilvēci līdz eksistenciālam riskam,
3) veikt grozījumus visos likumos, lai attīrītu vidi no tajā izplatījušās radiācijas,
4) veikt Baltijas jūras reģionā no radioaktīvajām vielām aizsargājošus pasākumus, un vidi attīrošus projektus, kā arī informēt iedzīvotājus par radiācijs sekām, rast līdzekļus neatkarīgiem zinātniskiem projektiem, kas izmeklē Baltijas jūras radiācijas ietekmi uz iedzīvotāju veselību,
5) atbildīgās institūcijas steidzami pārvērtēt pielietojamo Radiācijas
Risku modelēšanas sistēmu, apgūstot ECRR radiācijas risku novērtēšanas modeli, atsakoties no ICRP modeļa pielietošanas;
6) monitorēt Urāna daļiņu piesārņojumu Baltijas jūras reģionā (Helcom

neveic);

Chris Busby, sniegt Jums detalizētu prezentāciju par sekojošiem akūtiem

aspektiem ••••

Baltijas jūra pēdējo 40 gadu laikā kļuvusi par radioaktīvāko pasaulē Saslimstība Latvijā ar onkoloģiskām slimībām ar katru gadu pieaug Urāna u c daļiņas izraisa neatgriezeniskus bojājumus DNS un genofondam Radioaktīvās daļiņas pārvietojas ar Baltijas jūras plūsmām apkārt visā reģionā

Video Pr. C.Busby no Zinātņu Akadēmijā, angliski, 29.03.2016

https://youtu.be/z3xyAx0-bXg?list=PLQugSGR36JKHDF0DMu2fMExHwGb5mxLot

Cieņā,

Ditta Rietuma

Baltijas Jūras Reģionālā ECRR ģenerālsekretāre

www.euradcom.org, [email protected]

+46-703 999 069 +371-298 110 64

Appendix E
Latvia
4/23

An open letter to the Environment State Bureau regarding existential threats to the living environment in the Baltic Sea region caused by radioactive pollution from the nuclear waste repositories, which are planned to be built in
Forsmark, Sweden

according to the requirements of Section 4 and 5 of the Espoo
Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary
Context (1991) and a statement of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency regarding the prepared environmental impact assessment report and its public consultation

Also enclosed as a PDF Having regard to that the total number of errors in the ecological safety system, as well as in the social and economic safety systems has led to an existential risk to humanity, and also due to the fact that we have been present and closely followed the development process of nuclear waste repository projects, we hereby inform that the professional reliability is an utter illusion on all levels and dimensions of the project.

The nuclear waste repositories are planned by using the KBS–3 method:
1) right on the coast of the Baltic Sea, literally in the sea, as no any other place on the land has been found because all other municipalities have refused to accept nuclear waste apart from those municipalities which host the nuclear power plants (NPP), since they have already been corrupted for many decades;
2) to build in a historically very active seismic zone; 3) in the rocks which are water-permeable due to cracks and may also have methane gas cooling detonations;
4) waste would be stored in copper cylinders which start corroding already after 100 years and would also explode from gasses contained therein;
5) bentonite clay around cylinders is not resistant to discharges but rather serves as an ideal carrier material on the wide surfaces of particles;
6) the borehole depth of 500 m is insufficient and radiation would get into groundwaters and the Baltic Sea;
7) projects are managed by foreigners who are already transporting nuclear waste, radioactive scrap metal and uranium ores even from the U.S. and Australia;
8) lying that after 1000 years the contents of the nuclear waste capsules would have become as harmless as uranium ore in the rocks, although the whole issue is about 30 radionuclides that did not exist on the Earth before the nuclear era, and half-life of uranium-238 is 4.5 billion years;
9) using the ICRP radiation risk prediction model recommended by the IAEA, which may entail the error frequency by up to several thousand times. The ECRR model that provides high reliability in predicting the radiation risks should be used, however, it is disregarded in the nuclear waste repository projects which reduce and falsify the risks caused to the living environment in the region by several thousand times;
10) etc.

Appendix E
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It is very important that by acquiring this information about the conceptual scientific falsification of the planned nuclear waste repository projects implemented on the Swedish and Finnish coastline, Latvia is starting to actively participate in the processes suggested by the Espoo Convention that provides an opportunity for the neighbouring countries to express their opinion about the projects which may have an apocalyptic impact on the environment, including the right to use their veto-power.

We, the Baltic Sea Regional Office of the ECRR (European Committee on Radiation Risk), consider that it is urgently necessary to inform the Latvian society about the following:

Breathing contaminated air and eating contaminated fish and other products cause serious health problems including cancer. For example, it was proved that after the Chernobyl disaster, cancer incidence rate among people living in Sweden near the coast of the Baltic Sea increased, whereas it decreased among those living in the inland of Sweden.

The Baltic Sea Regional Office of the European Committee on Radiation Risks hereby asks

1) the Latvian government to change the status of Latvia from the current one, namely, “a COUNTRY UNAFFECTED by the nuclear waste repository projects in Sweden and Finland” so that the Latvian government and municipalities could participate in discussions about development and analysis of the nuclear waste repositories in line with the Espoo Convention guidelines
2) to urgently change the ecological safety system by supporting the social and economic systems of INDIGENOUS PEOPLE that would facilitate independent scientific research, as well as to change the safety systems where the total number of errors has led to the existential risk to humanity
3) to make amendments to all laws to clean the environment from the disseminated radiation
4) to take radiation protection measures and implement projects to clean the environment in the Baltic Sea region, as well as to inform the local people about consequences of radiation, to assign funds for independent scientific research projects that would investigate the impact of radiation in the Baltic Sea on human health
5) the responsible institutions to urgently reassess the applied radiation risk modelling system by introducing the ECRR radiation risk assessment model and abandoning the use of the ICRP model
6) to monitor pollution with uranium-bearing particles in the Baltic Sea region (Helcom does not do this)

In cooperation with Pr. Chris Busby, the Scientific Secretary of ECRR (www.euradcom.org), we are ready to give you a detailed presentation about the following urgent aspects:

• Over the last 40 years, the Baltic Sea has become the most radioactive sea in the world

  • •
  • Oncological disease incidence rate in Latvia is increasing every year

  • Uranium and other particles cause irreversible damage to DNA and gene
  • •

pool •region
Radioactive particles are floating around the Baltic Sea in the entire
VIDEO by Pr. C.Busby from the Academy of Science, in English, 29.03.2016

Appendix E
Latvia
6/23

https://youtu.be/z3xyAx0-bXg?list=PLQugSGR36JKHDF0DMu2fMExHwGb5mxLot

Yours sincerely, Ditta Rietuma General Secretary of the ECRR Baltic Sea Regional Office

www.euradcom.org, [email protected]

+46-703 999 069 +371-298 110 64

Appendix E
Latvia
7/23

Decree on failures of Governance and Human Rights in

Radiation Risk of Genetik Malformations and the selection-process protocols for External Experts in the matter of the proposed Swedish Final Radioactive
Waste Repository at Forsmark

Chris Busby Ditta Rietuma

Espoo Paper 2016, 15 April 2016
ÖSTERSJÖVÄLDET

Appendix E
Latvia
8/23

Decree Future of offspring of all of the inhabitants of the whole Baltic Sea Region in the 10 countries around the Baltic Sea is endangered by the Swedish Final Radioactive Waste Repository at Forsmark. Therefore the project of building Final Radioactive Waste Repository at Forsmark is categorised as genocidal corporate conspiracy against the peoples of the Baltic Sea Region.

1. Forsmark 1.1 Backgound

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM.se) as well as the Environmental Court in Nacka have received SKB's (Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co.) application to build the final nuclear waste repository in Forsmark, Sweden. The question is whether SKB´s project is acceptable in the matter of choice of location and method to keep the 12,000 tons of the most radioactive nuclear waste produced by Swedish nuclear industry, separated from the living systems of the Baltic Sea region. The project suggests the disposal of the waste according to the KBS-3 method, in 6 m Copper cylinders, in tunnels 450 meters below ground. The area extends at Sea coast in the beautiful archipelago of Östhammar municipality, 100 km from Swedens capital Stockholm. Swedish court Mark och Miljödomstolen decides if SKB's application conforms to the Nuclear Industry regulations in the questions about whether (1) Forsmark is the best place and (2) if SKB-3 is the best method. SSM is an advisor to the Environment Court in the matter of environmental consequences. This is the last possibility for Societies affected to have a chance to leave input on the repository process or to impact the conclusions within the frame given by Espoo convention. The society´s right to address the project will be seen as passed after this.

1.2 Radioactive waste

A pivotal global issue for the development of nuclear energy and the Uranium economy is the disposal of radioactive waste. This problem has not been solved in any country. The issue is how to keep the radioactivity from the biosphere for the time it takes for it to physically decay to harmless non-radioactive material, and essentially this problem is insoluble. This is because the half-life of the main hazardous component, Uranium, is measured in billions of years, evolutionary timescales. For the alpha emitter Plutonium, the half life is some 25,000 years. For the high specific activity radioactive nuclides, Strontium 90 and Caesium 137 the half lives are more modest, some 30 years. The physical quantities are large. The quantities in terms of activity are enormous. The material is physically hot, that is, it self-generates heat, and has to be cooled. There are enormous technical problems associated with storing it and preventing its escape to the wider environment where it would poison huge areas of land, the water, the sea, the atmosphere and all living systems. The Fukushima catastrophe highlighted this since some thousands of tons of spent fuel were stored in water tanks on top of the reactors. When the water was lost, the spent fuel tanks exploded and vapourised large quantities of radioactivity. A spent fuel tank in Chelyabinsk exploded in 1959 and contaminated thousands of square kilometres making them uninhabitable and forcing mass evacuations

Appendix E
Latvia
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(Medvedev 1981). The quantity of spent fuel at sites like Sellafield in the UK and La Hague in France beggars belief and represents a continuous and increasing threat to Europe. As long as the nuclear reactors operate, more spent fuel is produced every year.

There are only two options: find somewhere to store it safely or shut down nuclear power. The USA has spent vast amounts of money on this problem with the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. It was abandoned. Who will find the solution? It may seem that Sweden and Finland will somehow solve the problem where everyone else has failed.
The project is a private one, being developed by SKB, the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company. It involves astronomical quantities of money, but will allow the development of the even more astronomic money-generating nuclear energy project and will safeguard the shares of those who invested in the Uranium economy. So right from the start we should be on guard. Sweden has become a centre of interest for the nuclear industry in the last decade, with global companies like E.ON and Westinghouse taking control of earlier Swedish investments. Previously Swedish state-managed, now private global share holder owned Studsvik AB is expanding rapidly in the business of importing radioactive waste from global locations, diluting into non-radioactive material to a level just below the new EURATOM statutory limits and then exporting the new recycled “safe” material. In the process, very large quantities of radioactivity are tipped into the Baltic Sea, which is now acknowledged to be the most radioactive sea in the world, with levels of Caesium-137 in the silt at more than 100,000Bq/sq metre (measured and reported by HELCOM). The main source of the dangerous radioactive nuclide Strontium-90 contamination in the Eastern coastal Baltic waters is Studsvik. The Studsvik-exported radioactive metal and other material will form consumer materials like saucepans, spectacle frames, vehicles etc and when these are finally broken up the radioactivity will, of course, increase the levels in the environment in the normal way, just as if it had been released directly in the first place. But this way, the industry will not have to pay to store it or properly dispose it. Everyone in the industry gains. But of course not the public who fear that the cancer rates will increase along the shores of the Baltic Sea and near the site of the disposal operation. It is their right, according to various UN declarations, elaborated below, to be heard and to affect the outcome of decisions about such a development.
To legitimise the development of the Forsmark repository, the Swedish State has, under UN International Environmental Human Rights Laws, to consider and approve the project. This is a most important part of the process and so we will take some space to elaborate it.

2. Human Rights and the Environment

Ironically, since this nuclear project is to be resolved in Sweden, as early as 1972 the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment addressed the interrelationship between Human Rights (as already enshrined in the Articles of the UN Declarations) and environmental protection. And at the 1968 Teheran conference, Principle 1 of the final UN declaration stated (Final Declaration 1972):

“Man has the fundamental right to Freedom, Equality and Adequate conditions of Life in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well being and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future

generations” (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Dec 16 1966 993 UNTS 2, 6 ILM 360 1967)

Appendix E
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22 years later UN Resolution 45/94:

“Recognises that all individuals are entitled to live in an environment adequate for the health and well-being and calls upon member states and intergovernmental and non- governmental organizations to enhance their efforts towards a better and healthier environment.”

It follows that to those whose well-being suffers or might suffer due to environmental degradation Human Rights law currently provides the only set of international legal procedures that can be invoked to seek redress for harm that is the consequence of an act or an omission attributable to a State. The inclusion of INACTION is significant since most environmental harm is due to inactivity of the State. And thus whilst no international human rights procedure allows direct legal action against private enterprises or individuals who cause environmental harm, a State allowing such harm may be held accountable. As Judge Weeremantry of the International Court of Justice put it:

“The protection of the environment is a vital part of contemporary human rights doctrine. Damage to the environment undermines all of the human rights spoken of in the Universal Declaration.”

Degradation of the environment impacts the right to health and the right to family when genetic or genomic damage is involved since human fertility is affected.

The procedural consequences of these international agreements, to which Sweden is a signatory, have been that there are

1. Rights to environmental information 2. Public participation in decision-making 3. Remedies in the event of environmental harm

The original Stockholm Principle 1 and later Rio Declaration both state

“Individuals shall have appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public authorities, including information on hazardous materials and activities in their communities and the opportunity to participate in decision- making processes. States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely available. Effective access to judicial and administrative proceedings including redress and remedy shall be provided.”

The 1998 Aarhus Convention (UNECE) states

“Every person has the right to live in an environment adequate for his or her health and

well-being and the duty, both individually and in association with others to protect and improve the environment for the benefit of present and future generations”

Article 1

“Citizens must have access to justice in environmental matters”

It follows that Public Participation in environmental decision-making is a right and

Appendix E
Latvia 11/23

that there must be such participation based on the RIGHT of those who may be affected, including foreign citizens and residents to have a say in their environmental future

1. The right to be heard 2. The right to affect decisions 3. The right to remedy and redress

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    (1,4,5). In doing so, Weber and Zanzonico one-sidedly focus on risk in 4. Ozasa K, Shimizu Y, Suyama A, et al. Studies of the mortality of atomic bomb the low-dose region as the default assumption, neglecting benefit. survivors, report 14, 1950-2003: an overview of cancer and noncancer diseases. Radiat Res. 2012;177:229–243. Most tellingly, they imply that prospective studies are the only 5. Siegel JA, Welsh JS. Does imaging technology cause cancer? Debunking the valid basis on which to decide, but they simultaneously say that linear no-threshold model of radiation carcinogenesis. Technol Cancer Res such studies may be “logistically and financially prohibitive,” not Treat. 2016;15:249–256. to mention possibly unethical. Thus, as the basis of regulatory 6. Dobrzynski´ L, Fornalski KW, Feinendegen LE. Cancer mortality among people policy and medical practice, they ensconce LNT in a position living in areas with various levels of natural background radiation. Dose Response. 2015;13:1559325815592391. impervious to further (obtainable) evidence and implicitly reject the mounting nonprospective evidence against it. Jeffry A. Siegel* Indeed, many, if not most, medical conclusions and practices have Bill Sacks been arrived at without prospective studies, which would often be *Nuclear Physics Enterprises unethical. For example, in the 19th century a stunning insight by 4 Wedgewood Dr. Dr. John Snow, that cholera was caused by sewage in the water Marlton, NJ 08053 supply, led to the purification of the water supply with salutary results. E-mail: [email protected] No prospective trial was ever performed, nor could it be performed ethically.
  • Understanding the Ongoing Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima

    Understanding the Ongoing Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima

    Volume 9 | Issue 37 | Number 3 | Article ID 3599 | Sep 21, 2011 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Understanding the Ongoing Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima: A “Two-Headed Dragon” Descends into the Earth’s Biosphere •Japanese original text is available 福島で進行中の核の大惨事を どう見るか −−「双頭の天龍」を地球生命圏に降下させた危険を見据 えよう Fujioka Atsushi Understanding the Ongoing Nuclear Jinzaburō (Citizens’ Nuclear Information Disaster in Fukushima: A “Two- Center) once pointed out. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster broke out on April 23, 1986, Headed Dragon” Descends into the and shortly after that Takagi wrote the Earth’s Biosphere following: The Japanese original text is available Nuclear technology is the Fujioka Atsushi equivalent of acquiring on earth the technology of the Translated by Michael K. Bourdaghs heavens….The deployment here on earth of nuclear reactions, a The author assesses the Fukushima nuclear phenomenon occurring naturally disaster in light of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only in heavenly bodies and Hanford, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the completely unknown to the natural nexus between nuclear weapons and nuclear world here on the earth’s surface, power. is…a matter of deep significance. This summer, I participated for the seventeenth For all forms of life, radiation is a time in the “Pilgrimage for Peace,” traveling to threat against which they possess Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a group that no defense; it is an alien intruder included seventeen American students led by disrupting the principles of life on Professor Peter Kuznick of American earth. Our world on the surface of University, seven international students from this planet, including life, is across Asia, and sixteen students from Japan.
  • Regulation Under Uncertainty: Use of the Linear No-Threshold Model in Chemical and Radiation Exposure

    Regulation Under Uncertainty: Use of the Linear No-Threshold Model in Chemical and Radiation Exposure

    Regulation under Uncertainty Use of the Linear No-Threshold Model in Chemical and Radiation Exposure Dima Yazji Shamoun, Edward Calabrese, Richard A. Williams, and James Broughel September 2016 MERCATUS WORKING PAPER Dima Yazji Shamoun, Edward Calabrese, Richard A. Williams, and James Broughel. “Regulation under Uncertainty: Use of the Linear No-Threshold Model in Chemical and Radiation Exposure.” Mercatus Working Paper, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Arlington, VA, September 2016. Abstract This paper examines the use of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model in chemical and radiation exposure. The LNT model assumes that exposure to any level of a chemical or radiation is harmful, down to even the last molecule. Used primarily to be “public health protective,” the model has been the backbone of chemical and radiation risk regulation for many decades. Given the current state of science and risk management tools, we challenge the notion that using the LNT as the default model is public health protective. First, more and more research has uncovered dose-response relationships that reveal either a threshold or, more importantly, a hormetic response, where exposure to low doses of a hazard actually yields health benefits. Second, given these more realistic alternative dose-response models, risk management tools including risk-risk analysis and health-health analysis show that regulating down to extremely low levels can have negative health consequences when ancillary risks are considered. Risk- risk analysis focuses on how reductions in target risks can lead to increases in risk from substitute chemicals or activities. Health-health analysis explores how costs of compliance are borne in part by consumers who are forced to reduce their own private risk-mitigating activities.
  • EDI August 2021 Newsletter

    EDI August 2021 Newsletter

    Environmental Defense Institute News on Environmental Health and Safety Issues August 2021 Volume 32 Number 8 NuScale scales down SMR project planned for Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) slated to be constructed at the Idaho National Laboratory The NuScale small modular reactor project slated to be built at the Idaho National Laboratory has been cut in half, from 12 reactor modules to 6 reactor modules. 1 The electric energy per module in the design application is 50 MW per module but NuScale hopes to increase the allowable generation per module to 77 MW per module, and therefore expects the 6-module facility to generate 462 MW-electric. Subscribers have been found for only 103 MW. 2 Last October, the City of Idaho Falls cut it commitment to the project in half, from 10 MW to 5 MW. NuScale received a commitment from the Department of Energy last year of $1.4 billion dollars. NuScales’s design application was approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission which didn’t actually complete its review and left open important unresolved issues like the very unique heat exchangers. NuScale must also apply to the NRC for a license to construct and operate the facility and the NRC has stated that it is not a given that it will be approved. When the Department of Energy issued its press release in August 2020 that said the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had approved the NuScale design, DOE’s website stated “The final safety evaluation report [FSER] issued by the NRC is the first of its kind for a SMR and represents the technical review and NRC staff’s approval of the NuScale SMR design.” 3 But the U.S.
  • Radiation & Health

    Radiation & Health

    Radiation & Health TEAC5 -- Dr. Alexander Cannara, May 2013 www.thoriumenergyalliance.com • Nature wisely evolved its organisms to have immune systems that combat invasion by micro-organisms, including parasites,virusses & bacteria. • Nature, even earlier, evolved mechanisms in single cells that protect against chemical & radiological damage – repair systems , even genetic sharing in bacteria. • Chemicals can break or distort molecules important to cells, while energetic radiation simply breaks molecular bonds , such as in proteins & DNA, by ionizing individual atoms. • Decades ago, some poor science led to the conclusion that no level of ionizing radiation was small enough not to cause irrepairable damage to living cells . That belief led to radiation- exposure standards with no relation to reality or evolutionary history. • In recent years, that error & outright lies about radiation dangers have begun to be corrected. This talk attempts to explain why Mother Nature isn’t dumb about radiation . Radiation & Health The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to . -- Pinter Oxidants (OH Radicals, Alcohol, Peroxide…) Threats to Living Cells… Oxygen, chemical pollutants, particulates, microbes, solar/ cosmic/nuclear-decay/fission/ fusion radiation, auto-immune Nature’s diseases, or parasites. Response Nature has dealt with all for ~1.6 billion years, when photo- >1/Second DNA synthesis finally produced Repairs Per Cell enough Oxygen to alter air & water. Earlier, heat, radiation & Sulfur chemistry dominated life & its need for defenses. Oxidants are more dangerous. Courtesy Wikipedia Dr. Alexander Cannara [email protected] 650-400-3071 Cells That Serve & Protect ~100 times the genes of a human are in internal/external microbes . Virome and microbiome coexist peacefully, and may even cooperate.
  • Eliminating Use of the Linear No-Threshold Assumption in Medical Imaging

    Eliminating Use of the Linear No-Threshold Assumption in Medical Imaging

    Letters to the Editor Eliminating Use of the Linear No-Threshold in patients treated with surgical removal of the thyroid gland. Al- Assumption in Medical Imaging though the authors concluded that there was no increased incidence of leukemia at this low whole-body radiation dose (5), the 22% decrease in the 131I-treated patients suggests a possible hormetic effect. The surgery-treated patients were the controls, the number TO THE EDITOR: The lead article, by Siegel et al. (1), in the of patients followed was large, and all had hyperthyroidism. January 2017 issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine is bril- The poor scientific quality of the Weber and Zanzonico commen- liant, timely, and scientifically superb. Unfortunately, the Invited tary is perhaps the most important feature of their contribution. If this Perspective by Weber and Zanzonico (2) that follows it is scien- is the best the agnostics can do, it is certainly a plus for finally tifically poor and inconsistent. The authors strive to hang on to the removing the LNT model from radiation protection “science.” The long-outdated ideas espoused by government bureaucrats by im- earth is not flat, there is no ether, disease is not caused by miasmas, plying that we just do not know the truth yet, and they ignore a and the LNT model is wrong because of our knowledge of repair and huge mass of valid scientific literature in doing so. carcinogenesis mechanisms. Calling the linear no-threshold (LNT) model controversial is the first problem. A solid body of science is against it, and those who treat it as a religion—or whose jobs, contracts, grants, or consulting positions depend on acceptance of the LNT model—are in favor of REFERENCES it.
  • The Linear No-Threshold Assumption and Its Alara Principle: Non-Science That Is Inapplicable to Medical Imaging Radiation Risk

    The Linear No-Threshold Assumption and Its Alara Principle: Non-Science That Is Inapplicable to Medical Imaging Radiation Risk

    RADIATION RISK: A PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW By Dr J A Siegel, C W Pennington & Dr B Sacks The linear no-Threshold assumption and its alara principle: non-science that is inapplicable to medical imaging INTRODUCTION MEDICAL IMAGING AND THE ADAPTIVE RESPONSE The linear no-threshold assumption (hereinafter referred While medical imaging, particularly CT, is thought by most to as simply LNT) is the purported scientific basis for virtu- radiologists and referring physicians, as well as by most ally all regulatory policies throughout the world involving patients or their parents, to raise the cancer risk later in life, exposure to ionizing radiation. In particular, those involving hundreds of experimental and observational studies dem- medical imaging and occupational exposures are wrapped onstrate that such low-dose radiation more likely confers a in the authoritative mantle of LNT. But LNT derives from health benefit and actually helps prevent future cancers [4]. invalid, early-20th-century conclusions, a fact, until recently, Many radiologists and health physicists defensively point to unreported by other scientists [1]. Hermann Muller, in his epidemiological studies that purport to demonstrate elevated 1946 Nobel Lecture about his work on radiogenic mutations radiogenic risk of leukemias and solid cancers from low- in fruit flies, asserted that no threshold exists below which doses and dose rates. However, as we have shown, these stud- radiation is harmless, but his claim was based on experi- ies generally ignore the basic sciences of biology, chemistry, ments using doses greater than 4,000 mGy, a stunningly and physics, and employ circular reasoning, cherry picking unwarranted over-extrapolation.

  • Britain's Pacific H-Bomb Tests

    GRAPPLING WITH THE BOMB BRITAIN’S PACIFIC H-BOMB TESTS GRAPPLING WITH THE BOMB BRITAIN’S PACIFIC H-BOMB TESTS NIC MACLELLAN PACIFIC SERIES Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Maclellan, Nic, author. Title: Grappling with the bomb : Britain’s Pacific H-bomb tests / Nicholas Maclellan. ISBN: 9781760461379 (paperback) 9781760461386 (ebook) Subjects: Operation Grapple, Kiribati, 1956-1958. Nuclear weapons--Great Britain--Testing. Hydrogen bomb--Great Britain--Testing. Nuclear weapons--Testing--Oceania. Hydrogen bomb--Testing--Oceania. Nuclear weapons testing victims--Oceania. Pacific Islanders--Health and hygiene--Oceania. Nuclear explosions--Environmental aspects--Oceania. Nuclear weapons--Testing--Environmental aspects--Oceania. Great Britain--Military policy. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover image: Adapted from photo of Grapple nuclear test. Source: Adi Sivo Ganilau. This edition © 2017 ANU Press Contents List of illustrations . vii Timeline and glossary . xi Maps . xxiii Introduction . 1 1 . The leader—Sir Winston Churchill . .19 2 . The survivors—Lemeyo Abon and Rinok Riklon . 39 3 . The fisherman—Matashichi Oishi . 55 4 . The Task Force Commander—Wilfred Oulton . 69 5 . The businessman—James Burns . 81 6 . The pacifist—Harold Steele . 91 Interlude—On radiation, safety and secrecy . 105 7 . The Chief Petty Officer—Ratu Inoke Bainimarama .