Solar Energy Project at the Weizmann Institute Promises to Advance the Use of Hydrogen Fuel: Innovative solar technology that may offer a "green" solution to the production of hydrogen fuel has been successfully tested on a large scale at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The technology also promises to facilitate the storage and transportation of hydrogen. (13-september-2005)
Cancer Rates Drop Sharply for Residents in Radioactive Buildings: About 10,000 people who lived in highly radioactive Taiwan apartment buildings for 9 to 20 years have cancer rates that are a fraction (about 3 percent) of the cancer death rates in the general population. The recycled steel used in constructing about 180 buildings in 1983 was accidentally contaminated with discarded cobalt-60 sources, which was not discovered until 1992. (19-september-2004)
The Week That Was: September 18 Newsletter by SEPP (Science and Environmental Policy Project), website conducted by Prof. Fred Singer. (2) Study Cites Risks of Full-body Scan - (3) The Dim Realities of a Hydrogen Economy - (4) Kerry's Ethanoil Plan is Corny - (5) Hurricane Hype - (6) Cold Raises heart Attack Risk for Hypertensive - (7) The National Geographic lays a Global Warming Egg - (8) AG Lawsuit Update(18-sep-2004)Let a Thousand Reactors Bloom: Physicists and engineers at Beijing's Tsinghua University have made the first great leap forward in a quarter century, building a new nuclear power facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed reactor. A reactor small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts and cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts. A reactor whose safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete. And, for a bona fide fairy-tale ending, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is labeled hydrogen. (12-september-2004)
Chernobyl: Greatest Bluff in the 20th Century: The explosion in nuclear reactor in Chernobyl does not belong to the worst trage-dies of the 20th century. The explosion did not kill thousands of people, nor did it heavily contaminate for hundreds of years enormous areas of land. (5-july-2004)
A Dose of Nuclear Radiation: (excerpts from the "Ages of Gaia", by James Lovelock) Would you belive he was almost the father of the evironmental movement? Not now, that he has been labeled "traitor" by the Green Lobby, especially when he writes: "It is usually assumed that the change in attitude towards radiation came from our revulsion at that first misuse of nuclear energy at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it is not that simple. I well remember how the first nuclear power stations were a source of national pride as they quietly delivered their benefice of energy without the vast pollution of the coal burners they replaced. There was a long spell of innocence between the end of the Second World War and the start of the protest movements of the 1960s. So what went wrong?" (25-may-2004)
New material next week!
LATEST MATERIAL PUBLISHED DURING THE WEEK
(Updated: SEPTEMBER 13st, 2005)
Problems of U.S. Policy On Radiation Protection: Two eminent radiation experts, discuss the deliberate misrepresentations, omissions, and bias in a report by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection, at the expense of the general welfare.
(1-May-2004)Nuclear Energy on the World Today: At the end of 1998, 33 countries around the world hosted 434 operating commercial nuclear energy-fueled electric generating facilities. Those facilities had cumulatively recorded 9,012.5 years of operation. Japan now has 54 nuclear power plants, followed by 35 in the United Kingdom. Russia follows with 29, and then Germany with 20. China currently has seven operational plants and two under construction. Finland is going ahead with a fifth reactor. A total of 29 new nuclear power plants were under construction worldwide at the end of 2002, with an estimated capacity of 23 billion watts.
Jaworowski article: The following article is highly recommended for anyone interested in the actual health effects of radiation, and planning for the coming changes in rad protection and cleanup policies as the errors of the "linear model", and immorality of the costs to society, of the current rules and programs are rejected. (Message posted in a message board by Jim Muckerheide, from Radiation Science & Health)
Medical Effects of Depleted Uranium in Kosovo: The total mass of depleted uranium dispersed over Kosovo ranged between 2.5 and 25 tons. The radioactivity of one round was about 10 megabecquerels (MBq). Assuming that 30 000 rounds were fired, one can easily calculate that a total activity of about 300 000 MBq of uranium-238 activity was dispersed over the environment of Kosovo.
All You Need to Know to Prove The Renewable Energy Economy Is a Hoax: Review of the book The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won't Run the World, by Dr. Howard C. Hayden. The "fraud" the author refers to in the book's title, is the hucksters who claim that that solar and other so-called renewable energies are the answer to ha the energy needs of the world. Such hoaxsters use fake accounting and media hype to make their claims.Response to various critics of articles on Nuclear Energy: Our Policy Forum paper (Science, Sep 20, 2002) documents that engineering tests and analyses of radioactivity from molten nuclear fuels, with failed containment [of reactor], under realistic worst-case assumptions, would produce few, if any, casualties. Commenters have made no attempt to answer the referenced reports that support this conclusion and refute their position.
The Significant Health Benefits Of Nuclear Radiation : Many of the negative images of nuclear energy, especially those developed since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, relate to perceptions of adverse health effects, specifically the possibility of inducing cancer and genet- ic damage, from any exposure to ionizing radiation. The irony is that we are continuously exposed to radiation from natural sources. Do exposures from human-made sources really significantly increase the normal incidence of cancers and birth defects? What about the beneficial health effects from low doses we've been hearing about? The answers to these questions are important because humanity now faces severe environmental, energy and medical issues, which greatly affect our quality of life. (by Jerry M. Cuttler, D.Sc. past president of the Canadian Nuclear Society).
Using Low-dose Radiation for Cancer Suppression and Vitalization: Dr. Sadao Hattori, Vice President in charge of Nuclear Energy of Japan's Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI). He directs Japan's research program on the effects of low-dose radiation, conducted at 14 universities, was interviewed by managing editor of 21st Century Science & Technology Marjorie Mazel Hecht in April 1997, and published in the Summer 1997 issue, Vol. 10, No. 2. - 4 great graphs!
Hydrocarbons are NOT fossils!: Review of Dr. Thomas Gold's Book: "The Deep Hot Biosphere" - Gold's thesis in The Deep Hot Biosphere is simple: Hydrocarbons have been in existence since the earliest times of the universe, and are part of the process of planetary formation. Their constituents, hydrogen and carbon, originated in the "primordial soup" from which Earth was formed. Earth's methane and petroleum, Gold says, are abiogenic - without biological origin. Contrary to the currently promoted explanation, Cold says that hydrocarbons did not disso-ciate during these early times because of high temperatures of planet formation, as theorists claim. Current geological science, he shows, affirms that the temperatures were not high enough, especially when depth-related pressures are taken into account.
Radiation and Cancer: letter from Dr. James Welsh, M.S., M.D., University of Wisconsin - Madison Medical School, Madison, Wisc.: "As a physician specializing in the treatment of cancer using radiation, I read with great interest Jerry Cuttler's article "The Significant Health Benefits of Nuclear Radiation" in the Fall issue [p. 48]. In clinical external beam radiotherapy we tipically use large dosis of carefully directed ionizing radiation to eradicate tumors while sparing normal tissues. In order to achieve this goal we exploit physics to accurately target the tumors (through the use of modern techniques such as 3-Dimensional Conformal Radiotherapy and Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy), and radiobiology to minimize the deleterious effect on the normal tissue that is inevitably exposed". Read the complete and most interesting letter from Dr. Walsh!
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: ONE DECADE AFTER CHERNOBYL: Summing up the Consequences of the Accident, Vienna, Austria 8-12 April 1996
Gamma radiation found in the Capitol Building: Gamma radiation dose rates were measured at several locations in and around the U.S. Capitol and U.S. Library of Congress buildings in Washington, D.C. A qualified radiation surveyor used a Bicron MicroRem meter for measuring. Dose rates inside the Capitol building and outside the Thomas Jefferson Building were measured at 30 microrem per hour.
Elementary Nuclear Physics: A primer on some basic facts on nuclear physics. Taken grom the web page "Progress and Its Sustainability", by Prof. John McCarthy, Stanford University.
The False Promises of Renewables Energies: Pros and Cons of renewable energy sources, as windmills and photovoltaic cells.
The Psycho Meltdown at Three Mile Island: A short report about the truth on what really happened during the infamous nuclear incident of Three Mile Island reactor, and the way the press misinformed it. Twenty years later, the antinuclear groups still try to scare the population with a Big Lie.
Japan developing micro nuclear Reactor for apartment blocks: PARIS, Aug 22 (AFP) - Japan is developing a tiny nuclear reactor designed to generate power in the basement of an apartment block, despite widespread public concern over the country's nuclear safety record, New Scientist says.
FOOD IRRADIATION Food irradiation is one of the most promising and "environmentaly friendly" technological means for eliminating food-borne diseases.
The Fear of Radon
Gasoline and Alternative Fuels
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