articles local and web-based [sites]
(last updated, 7/20/01)
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Earthlife Africa Media Release: Secret Meeting of International Nuclear Panel,, 1 Oct 2001
In a process reminiscent of the apartheid days, an international panel
of "experts" are meeting to discuss and debate the feasibility study for
the proposed Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor (PBMR), under the aegis of the
Department of Minerals and Energy.
The
process to date has excluded civil society completely, and is being
carried out behind closed doors. "The first feasibility study was
withdrawn by Eskom, as we were able to find many flaws in it" says
Nuclear Energy Costs the Earth Campaign Co-ordinator, Muna Lakhani. "It
seems that they are afraid that we will do the same to this one. All our
research to date shows that the PBMR, at best, and getting everything
right the first time, will cost over R3.3 billion over it's proposed 40
year life. This is more than sufficient to install safe and clean wind
turbines, for example, and easily generate the same amount of
electricity over the period, with no radiation or long term radioactive
waste hazard. The alternatives will also create many more jobs than the
PBMR ever could."
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Interview with Alice Stewart and supporting documents, August 2000
In the 1950s, Alice Stewart found that exposing pregnant mothers to X-rays
doubled the risk of cancer in their children. Ever since, the physician
and epidemiologist has argued that low doses of radiation might be harmful.
It's a view that has put her at odds with governments, the military and
the nuclear industry. This week, Stewart, who is 93, publishes new research
supporting her claims. Michael Bond spoke to the maverick of radiation
epidemiology and found her in fighting form.
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Comments on the History of
Permissable Dose Standards
by Dr. Rosalie Bertell
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Earthlife Africa Needs Our Help
To Transform Leftover Apartheid Nuclear Energy Path, 15 April 2001
A letter from a Southern African volunteer environmental activist group
seeking assistance to stop the development, production and use/sale of
Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR), by Eskom, South Africa's parastatal
utility, intending to build a `new generation' of nuclear power reactors.
Eskom's partners include BNFL (UK) and Peco (USA). The plan is to build a
demonstration unit, and then anything up to 216 reactors over the next
10 years. Anyone with ideas of how to help the people in Earthlife
Africa prevent this inappropriate exercise of human intelligence is
urged to contact them directly.
See Also
the following mirrored copy from Earthlife Africa:
- Entry Point to Nuclear Energy Costs the Earth (PDF)
Paper, January 2001
Details the ambitions of Eskom, South Africa's parastatal utility,
to build a `new generation' of nuclear power plants.
- Arguments on the Construction of PBMR Reactors in South
Africa
Examines the arguments for and against the development by the nationally
owned utility, Eskom, of a small modular nuclear power reactor, the
Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR), for construction in South Africa and
for export.
- Introduction to the PBMR Programme [1/2]
Includes: Introduction, What is the PBMR programme?, What is a Pebble Bed
Modular Reactor?, Justifications, Risks, Do we need PBMR?, Export potential?
- Introduction to the PBMR Programme [2/2]
Includes: Nuclear Power and Climate Change, Policy and Process, Renewable
Energy & Socio-economic considerations, Additional material
As well as
the new ratville times' section on
Deregulation and The Fake Energy Crisis.
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Mushroom clouds over Nevada: 50 years later, the tragedy of nuclear tests
by Norman Solomon, 5 January 2001
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Hibakusha Wins in Nagasaki A-Bomb Matsuya Lawsuit,
Claims of Thousands of Nuclear Victims of the World Justified, 15 October 2000
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Personal Information and History of Radiation Misuse
by Axel Campbell (Oct 2000)
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Victims of the Nuclear Age by Rosalie Bertell, The Ecologist, 11/99
- RACHEL'S
ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH
WEEKLY:
- Future nuclear policy in Germany -- Nuclear Phase Out portion, 11/15/98, translated by Gerhard Schmidt
- The High Cost of Uranium in Navajoland, by Bruce E. Johansen, Akwesasne Notes, Spr 97
ASCII text
- On Reforming the Government's Scientific Establishment,
thoughts by J Truman, Founder and Director of Downwinders
- An Open Letter To Those Concerned About Fallout Victims' Issues
From Downwinders, 6/98
- See Also: ratical FOCUS-ON-NUKES
news posting "service"
- A Background Briefing on Radioactive Pollution
by Wendy Oser and Molly Young Brown, M.Div., 1996
A review of problems associated with radioactive
pollution from nuclear power, weapons and waste.
ASCII text
- An Open Letter To Those Concerned About Fallout Victims' Issues
from Downwinders, 6/7/98
- Anti-nuclear nun, Dr. Rosalie Bertell,
a Grey Nun for half a century, is an internationally
recognized expert in the field of radiation,
by Donna Jean MacKinnon, May 3, 1998
- An Overview, Hazards of Low Level Radioactivity,
by Sara Shannon, Winter 1998 (author of Diet for the Atomic Age)
ASCII text
- South Australia: Beverley uranium: the government's dirty secret, late 1997
- The Greatest Health Tragedy (SCANDAL) Ever
To Hit Japan, by Dr Geoff Pain, 1/29/98
- Screening mammography and public health policy:
the need for perspective, The Lancet, July 1, 1995
- Women's Strike For Peace:
Activist Mothers Warned of Radiation Danger in 1960's and Were Ignored
- Radiation-Monitoring Reveals Interesting Data
by Linda Schatz
published in the December 1997 edition of the EFMR Monitor,
Monitoring radiation trends in the Three Mile Island area
- Gulf War Syndrome, Depleted Uranium and the
Dangers of Low-Level Radiation,
by Dr. Rosalie Bertell
Desert Storm veterans along with the people of Iraq and Kuwait were
victims of one of the latest military experiments on human beings.
I believe that the ignorance was culpable and criminal.
These two files are mirrored, with permission, from the
Canadian Coalition for
Nuclear Responsibility web site.
- Sam Miller's Frontline Response letter to PBS regarding "Nuclear Reaction"
A letter sent to the PBS e-mail address less than two hours after
this program aired April 27, 1997 on TV, it contains 9 talking
points addressing some of the distortions of this pro-nuclear
industry propaganda piece.
- ratitor's Commentary: Fronting
for the Nuclear Industry
A Study in the Craft of Propaganda, Frontline Style
- RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY:
#473 The Fourth Horseman: Nuclear
Technology, December 21, 1995
Excellent backgrounder on:
- how bomb-grade uranium-235 and plutonium-239 are created
- Britain, France, Japan, Germany,
and Russia are all committed to breeder reactor technology
- The official "nuclear club"
- known plutonium inventories worldwide as of 1990
- the impossiblility of just keeping track of nuclear inventories in the
former Soviet Union
- with or without terrorism, nuclear safety is impossible to assure
- recent scientific studies reveal that plutonium causes genetic damage
to humans, but it's a new kind of damage which may not become evident
for several generations. In other words, infinitesimal amounts of
plutonium breathed today may not harm you, but may harm your
grandchildren or great-grandchildren.
#443 Radiation Causes Breast Cancer,
May 25, 1995
"Breast cancer is an eminently preventable disease, in the true
sense of that word: making breast cancer not happen by
preventing unnecessary exposures to carcinogens (cancer-causing
agents). . . . John Gofman's new book,
Preventing Breast Cancer,
examines this problem head on."
#147 Mr. Reilly's EPA Develops Strategy For Solving Nation's Waste Problems: Full-Scale Linguistic Detoxification, September 19, 1989
Provides some of the background on the way the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) in concert with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC),
attempted in 1989 to declare one-third of the nation's low-level nuclear
wastes as "below regulatory concern," (BRC) which would have allowed
them to be dumped into ordinary municipal landfills and incinerators.
- The Price of Power, Atomic Energy's Free Ride, Multinational
Monitor, January 1993
. . . Fiscal Fission: The Economic Failure of Nuclear Power, a Greenpeace study released last
December, estimates that federal outlays from 1950 to 1990 for nuclear
power totaled $97 billion in 1990 dollars. This estimate relates to
costs of R&D and regulation, construction costs, uranium enrichment
program costs and costs of the nuclear waste fund. It does not take
into account costs associated with insuring the nuclear industry against
accidents, costs relating to environmental damage, state government
appropriations to the industry or federal appropriations to non-nuclear
agencies that benefit the nuclear industry. . . .
