Guardians of our Common Seas

A new book by big name in the movement stake out the boundaries of that debate. On the pro-nuclear side stands Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto , by Stewart Brand. Stewart Brand is fairly sanguine about how to handle the radioactive wastes produced by nuclear power plants. He regards efforts to somehow isolate nuclear wastes for thousands of years as not just absurdly costly, but also wrongheaded, arguing instead that we should figure out how to store it for a couple of hundred years and leave to future generations the choice of what to do with the used fuel. “If we and our technology prosper, humanity by then will be unimaginably capable compared to now, with far more interesting things to worry about than some easily detected and treated stray radioactivity somewhere in the landscape,” writes Brand. “If we crash back to the stone age, odd doses of radioactivity will be the least of our problems. Extrapolate to two thousand years, ...

Once an opponent of nuclear power, Stewart Brand is now a big backer. With regard to the safety, cost, waste handling, and weapons potential of nuclear power, Brand writes, “I’ve learned to disbelieve much of what I’ve been told by my fellow environmentalists.” On safety, Brand notes, “year after year, the industry has had no significant accidents” in the operation of the world’s 443 civilian nuclear plants. “Radiation from nuclear energy has not killed a single American,” asserts Brand. He does look at the after-effects of the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant which released a lot of radiation over swathes of northern Europe. He finds that the dire predictions that hundreds of thousands would die of radiation induced cancers turned out to be false. Weighing the safety tradeoffs between nuclear power and man-made global warming, Brand cites this observation from environmentalist Bill McKibben: “Nuclear power is a potential safety threat, if s...

Informasjon om farlige og meget langvarige konsekvenser av radioaktiv kraftproduksjon blir enda i dag tilbakeholdt, selv for mennesker som bor i nærheten av atomkraftanlegg. I Sellafield visste f.eks. ikke innbyggerne som vi var i kontakt med at det ble sluppet ut store mengder atomavfall direkte til havet. Derfor skaper vi nå en InfoArena ikke bare for atomeksperter, men også for den vanlige mann og kvinne.

De fleste produsenter av kjernekraft har endret sin strategi fra at en ulykke ikke kan hende, til at det nettopp kan hende. Det finnes mange årsaker til dette fra menneskelige feil, terroraksjoner, tekniske feil m.fl. Menneskelige feil er i dag årsak til 8 av 10 alvorlige hendelser. Arbeiderne ved Sellafield bekrefter at arbeidet med kjernekraft er farlig. Det gjelder å forutse det verste som kan skje. Hver gang det skjer utslipp av radioaktive nuklider til miljøet øker faren for kreft. WHO anbefaler alle mennesker som bor nærmere enn 500 km til et kjernekraft-anlegg å ha jod tilgjengelig i fall en katastrofe. Kreft er ikke bare den eneste form for konsekvenser som har økt i Tjernobyl-område, men også f.eks. grå stær og barn som er født etter ulykken har også problemer med skoldbukkjertelen og har hodesmerter. Den radioaktive partiklene vil kunne falle ned over hav- og landområder i Norge og Norden og ødelegge områdene kanskje for generasjoner. Informasjon om farlige konsek...

The Government confirmed monday 18 October 2010 that Sellafield is suitable for a new nuclear power station. A 500-acre site north of the existing west Cumbrian complex has been included on a list of eight sites earmarked for new reactors. Two other Cumbrian locations on a preliminary list – Braystones, near Egremont, and Kirksanton, near Millom – have been deemed inappropriate and removed the process, as reported in the News & Star last week. From Lofoten mot Sellafield - the guardians of our common Seas are worried about the site to day, and we hope that Sellafield not will be chosen. More in the News & Star http://on.fb.me/9MPO0k

As a consequense of the joint statement between Sellafield Ltd., Bellona and Guardians of our Common Seas (GCS) we will travel to Sellafield for a visit and a meeting about: - the international inspection - conference in Lofoten 12 and 13 April 2011 about nuclear waste and safety in Sellafield and Europe We look forward to travel with Marit Tennfjord from Nordland County Counsil and bishop Tor B. Jørgensen. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Som et ledd i inngåtte felles erklæring mellom Sellafield Ltd., Bellona og Lofoten mot Sellafield reiser fylkesråd for miljø og kultur, Marit Tennfjord, sammen med oss til Sellafield 1. og 2. desember. Biskop Tor B. Jørgensen er også positiv og vil gjøre en avklaring de nærmeste dagene. Vi inviterer også miljøvernminister Erik Solheim med oss på turen. Vårt mål i Brussel-møtet 3. mars 2010 var internasjonal inspeksjon av Sellafield-anlegget og ikke mange dagene etter møtet bekreftet davære...

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has closed down a vital nuclear waste plant at Sellafield and is taking legal action to force the site's operators to improve their flawed safety procedures. The crackdown by the government's safety watchdog on Britain's biggest and oldest nuclear complex follows a series of radioactive leaks and safety blunders, despite private sector managers receiving multimillion-pound "performance-related" payments from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The HSE has also rejected a £40bn plan for cleaning up Sellafield because of proposed delays in dismantling ageing and potentially hazardous facilities. The Guardian newspaper says the disclosures come at a critical time for the nuclear industry which is trying to convince Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, it is efficient enough to build a new generation of reactors. But the latest development is is also embarrassing because Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) – a co...