http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996550

Radiation risks 'need updating'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3758824.stm


Informant: Teresa Binstock

Radioaktivität kann neutralisiert werden - Beweise

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

die nachfolgende Entwicklung eines Verfahrens zum Abbau von Radioaktivität habe ich in den rückliegenden Jahren unterstützt bzw. auch finanziell gefördert. In der Zwischenzeit liegen Beweise für die Funktionalität des Verfahrens vor, die nicht mehr angezweifelt werden können. Ich bitte Sie um größtmögliche Verbreitung dieser Nachricht, damit die Umweltbelastungen, die zur Zeit noch durch Radioaktivität entstehen, zukünftig neutralisiert werden.

Zudem könnte die Erzeugung von Kernenergie zukünftig preisgünstiger wie auch die Nutzung sicher gemacht werden.

Neue Versuchsreihen eines optimierten Verfahrens zeigen, daß die Aktivität von Thorium 232 sogar innerhalb weniger Stunden fast neutralisiert werden kann.

Beste Grüße
Gerd Ernst Zesar


Thorium Th 232 Halbwertszeit lt. Lehrbuch 14 Milliarden Jahre
Messungen Uni-Bremen Landesmessstelle für Radioaktivität vom 30. 6. 04:
Meßresultat: 1370 +/- 200 Bq pro Thorium-Glühstrumpf

Messungen Uni-Bremen Landesmessstelle für Radioaktivität vom 13. 7. 04:
Messresultat: 68 +/- 15 Bq pro Thorium-Glühstrumpf

Der Abbau vollzog sich innerhalb von nur 2 Wochen.

Bei der ersten und zweiten Messung wurden die Aktivitäten desselben Glühstrumpfes gemessen.

Zwischen der ersten und zweiten Messung wurde der Glühstrumpf einem bahnbrechenden Verfahren zum Abbau von Radioaktivität unterzogen.

Beweise, daß es sich tatsächlich um denselben Glühstrumpf handelt, sind über ein Protokoll der Stadt Syke (Amtsiegel Bürgermeister) erbracht.

Die Ablichtungen der Protokolle und der Messergebnisse liegen hier vor.

Aussagen des Erfinders Dieter Enger:
„Ein Austausch der Proben wurde durch Plomben gesichert und zusätzlich durch die Sparkasse, der Universität Bremen (Prof. Dr. Heyser) und von der Stadt Syke bestätigt.

Meine Aussagen und die vorgelegten Beweise lassen sich nicht widerlegen. Aber immer wieder schnell und aufs Neue nachweisen, ohne daß ich gezwungen bin, den Mechanismus zum Abbau von Radioaktivität offenzulegen (Patentierung!).

1. Günzburg (dpa) Im bayerischen Grundremmingen: Baubeginn für größtes atomares Zwischenlager in Deutschland. Gegen das Zwischenlager sind Klagen vor dem bayerischen Verwaltungsgerichtshof anhängig.

2. Atomkraftwerk Unterweser erhält Zwischenlager für alte Brennstäbe.

Wer von Verfallzeiten in Bezug auf den in Fässern eingelagerten Atommüll spricht (oder die Lagerung genehmigt), muß auch sagen können, wie die Natur die Radioaktivität abbaut. Nur das ist die Grundlage für Verfallzeiten von Radioaktivität. In diesem Zusammenhang wurde folglich das Recht des Bürgers auf körperliche Unversehrtheit außer Kraft gesetzt. Und dies steht im Widerspruch zu unserem Grundgesetz und Verfassung.

Für den Abbau von Thorium 232 1370 +/- 200 Bq benötige ich ein paar Tage. Kurz gesagt stellt der Atommüll kein Problem für die Zukunft mehr da.

Wer die Messungen anzweifeln will, soll erst mal erklären wie es möglich ist, daß nach Aussage der Wissenschaft die Halbwertzeit 14 Milliarden Jahre beträgt und den Nachweis erbringen, daß die Verfallzeiten für eingelagerten Atommüll in den Fässern tatsächlich stattfinden bzw. auch stattgefunden haben.“ Eine diesbezügliche Beweisführung steht bis heute noch aus.

I am sending you along an article from last Sunday's THE SUNDAY TIMES.

The first evidences UK governmental suppression of scientific findings into possible adverse bioeffects from low-level radiation which do not accord with its (the government's) technological ambitions.

Best, Imelda, Cork


From THE SUNDAY TIMES, News page 12, August 1, 2004
"Government gags experts over nuclear plant risks
Mark Gould and Jonathan Leake
see also http://omega.twoday.net/stories/290977/

A BITTER row has broken out inside a government safety committee after two of its experts were barred from voicing fears that radiation from nuclear installations poses a greater threat than previously thought.

Government lawyers have blocked a minority finding written by the two from being included in the committee’s final report — which follows a three-year investigation into the effects of low-level radiation.

Dr Chris Busby and Richard Bramhall, members of the committee examining radiation risks from internal emitters, believe that the risk of cancer from low-level radiation dangers is greater than realised.

They claim that previous methods of calculating the effects of emissions on people living near nuclear installations have underestimated the risk by a factor of up to 300.

If correct, the study could explain the clusters of cancer and leukaemia cases found close to nuclear installations in north Wales and Essex and near Sellafield in Cumbria. But the claims have divided members of the committee, with some supporting the gagging while others have accused civil servants of censorship.

A senior radiation scientist has already resigned in protest and the last meeting of the committee became a shouting match that members feared was going to degenerate into a fist fight.

The committee’s official report — which has majority support — will be published this autumn and says the risk is greater than previously thought, but only by a factor of 10.

Lawyers at Defra, the environment ministry, have sent letters to all 12 members of the committee warning them that they could be sued for defamation if they include Bramhall and Busby’s minority report.

Michael Meacher, who set up the committee while he was environment minister in 2001, is furious that not all the experts’ views will be represented. “I have written to Elliot Morley, the current environment minister, asking for an explanation,” he said.

The committee was created to examine concern that the government’s method of estimating the risk of cancer to people living near nuclear installations was inadequate. Such calculations were based on the radiation doses received by casualties from the Hiroshima bomb used against Japan in 1945.

There have long been doubts about such data, partly because they are so old and partly because Hiroshima victims were exposed to a short and very intensive dose of external radiation. By contrast, people living near nuclear sites tend to experience a different form of radiation — suffering small doses over a long period of time from eating or breathing contaminated particles.

Such radiation is thought to do proportionately more harm because it is inhaled or ingested and so can directly attack the body’s most delicate organs.

Recognising the complexity of the science, Meacher set up the committee with representatives of the nuclear industry, green groups and independent scientists and asked them to include a range of views in their findings, including any minority reports.

Busby and Bramhall say that since Meacher was sacked the committee has been taken over by people with pro-nuclear views who have done their best to suppress opposing opinions.

“The basis of these calculations is completely wrong and as a consequence people living near Sellafield and other installations have been suffering elevated rates of cancers and all sorts of other diseases,” Busby said.

“The other members of the committee and Defra may not agree with our report, but they should still be publishing it.”

Some other committee members disagree. They point out that both men are ardent anti- nuclear campaigners and claim that their report was riddled with inaccuracies.

“The extreme views held by these two meant that the committee became completely polarised with members shouting at each other in anger and exasperation,” one said. “In the end we could not be associated with a minority report that was factually wrong, so it was referred to the lawyers.”

Fears that the committee is being gagged are echoed by Marion Hill, a senior scientist with 30 years’ expertise in radiation safety.

Hill, who emphasises that she is not a member of the green lobby, resigned from the committee in February. In her letter of resignation she accused the committee chairman, Professor Dudley Goodhead, and Ian Fairlie, another member of the secretariat, of biasing the report process so that Busby and Bramhall’s views were
marginalised.

She said yesterday: “It’s a complete failure when you have a scientific committee that is not allowed to write anything about disagreements over science.”

The Sunday Times (UK) today (August 01, 2004) reports "Government gags experts over nuclear plant risks" (Story by Mark Gould and Jonathan Leake)
See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2761-1198060,00.html


Additional background:

This is about the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE) and the use of legal threats to prevent publication of a Dissenting Statement. Two Committee meetings had voted to include it in the final report. The second of these votes took place after Members had seen a draft of the Statement. The next meeting in June reversed the decision. According to the Sunday Times story, some Committee members think our banned Statement is "riddled with inaccuracies". They have complained repeatedly about "potential libels" but they have never said what might be libellous, despite our requests. They have also talked of "inaccuracies", again without being specific although we have asked repeatedly.

The legal opinions provided to the Chairman by Departmental lawyers speak of "negligent misstatements of factual matters" without being specific. Eventually, at the final meeting in June 2004, just before the gagging vote, Committee Members referred to six matters which were supposed to be factually inaccurate. On five of them they were wrong. The other was a minor point which might be a mistake but which we could and would have altered if anyone had pointed it out.

Here (if you have nothing better to do) is what they at last said was "factually inaccurate":

1) a section on the Second Event theory in which Dr. Busby answers scientific points made by his critics in their part of the report. In other words it's not a matter of "fact" but of scientific debate which the Committee has not been able to resolve. Reporting fully on such disagreements is the Committee's remit.

2) the cancellation of a Committee study of cancer near the Bradwell NPP. We wrote that detailed protocols had been agreed early last year but the secretariat had failed to obtain the data with no adequate explanation, leading to cancellation of the study. Discussions during the meeting confirmed our account.

3) We referred to the Secretariat's role in biased drafting of the main report. This was unpopular with the Committee but is essentially true.

4) We said that an external reviewer thought Hugh Richards' work on Tritium and birth anomalies in Cardiff was "cause for concern". In the meeting this was said to be untrue. We said it was true, and we see that our version is now in the final report.

5) Someone said (without being specific) that there was something wrong with our "Table one". This is a table of doses from single particles of Uranium Oxide of various diameters and it has been in the public domain for years without criticism, as far as we know. We have not been told what's wrong with it.

6) We noted that data had not been obtained from Wales Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit. The precise way we wrote this might be open to challenge, but we would have changed it long ago if anyone had pointed out an error.

Not an impressive attack on us, but nonetheless five members voted for a motion to ban the Statement, two against, two abstentions, and two absent members.

ON THE OTHER HAND the main report is prone to misstatements (we say "prone to " because it isn't published yet, so we can't be categorical). The outstanding example concerns infant leukaemia after Chernobyl. Published papers from research groups in several countries all show a sharp increase. We say this unequivocally demonstrates that ICRP's risk model is in error by a factor of several hundred for internal exposure. The chances that these increases in so many countries at the same time could happen randomly are vanishingly small.

Recent drafts of the main report reveal a desperation to dismiss it, partly by minimising statistical significance, partly by plain denial. Some of the studies are ignored, wrong doses are used for Germany, and the reliability of Greek cancer registration data has been questioned without substantiation. A risk coefficient and regression analyses have been used that we never agreed were valid. On the basis of all this fudging the main report says leukaemia was indeed increased but only at the level predicted by current risk models. Since according to the risk model a foetal dose of 10,000 microSieverts caused a 40% increase it is hard to see how the 70 microSievert foetal dose in Germany caused a 48% excess, or 80 microSieverts in Scotland and Wales caused 260%. Etcetera. If dose and response are in a linear relationship (a keystone of ICRP) then 70 microSieverts should have caused an increase of just 0.28%. Discrepancies on this scale are big enough to account for all the nuclear site clusters.


Richard Bramhall
Low Level Radiation Campaign
bramhall@llrc.org
The Knoll
Montpellier Park
Llandrindod
Powys LD1 5LW U.K.
+44 (0)1597 824771

by Robert Merrick, Daily Post

Jul 22 2004

http://icnorthwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/regionalnews/tm_objectid=14450482%26method=full%26siteid=50142%26headline=probe%2dthis%2dcancer%2dcluster%2din%2dkids-name_page.html

FORMER UK environment minister Michael Meacher has demanded an independent probe into claims of a "cancer cluster" in North Wales children linked to nuclear power. The highly-respected Labour MP claimed controversial research, suggesting child leukaemia in the Menai Strait area is 28 times the UK average, had not been properly investigated.

The nuclear industry and the Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit have dismissed the findings. But Mr Meacher said two existing watchdogs did not have the muscle to do the job because they were not fully independent and should therefore be scrapped. Instead, he demanded a powerful committee with sufficient funds to launch independent inquiries and full-time civil service back-up.

The former minister's campaign is a big boost to research, published in February, which blamed the cancer cluster on the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria. Radiation expert Chris Busby, of Aberystwyth, said there were three cases of child leukaemia in Caernarfon in 2000-03, when in fact only 0.1 should have been expected. He also found at least five cases of brain and spinal tumours in the town since 1996 in children aged up to 14 - 18 times
the UK average. He concluded the "link between Sell-afield and excess childhood cancer is indisputable" after studying 34 wards around the Menai Strait.

When the research was released, by the environmental group Green Audit, it was dismissed by the nuclear industry as the latest attempt to discredit it. But, in a Commons motion, Mr Meacher insisted Dr Busby's research echoed other studies of cancer clusters dating back to 1983. A 1984 advisory group recommendation for centralised monitoring of health data to give "early warning" had never been adopted, Mr Meacher said.

Furthermore, the Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) had "no power of independent investigation and did not find the excess leukaemia and cancer on the Menai Strait".

The same was true of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) which, Mr Meacher said, should also be axed.

Mr Meacher is a lifelong member of Friends of the Earth and a fierce opponent of nuclear power. In government, he fought to block the building of more nuclear power stations. Mr Meacher said COMARE acknowledged there were cancer clusters but refused to accept the
explanation "staring it in the face" - that they were caused by nuclear reprocessing.

British Nuclear Fuels spokesman Mark Longbottom said: "Our stance has always been the same as far as Dr Busby's claims are concerned which we view as being part of a long line of attempts by Green Audit to attack the nuclear industry."

Meanwhile Dr John Steward, director of the Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit in Cardiff, said the unit's findings had not found anything supporting Dr Busby's claims. "Nothing unusual has been found and there is nothing for the public to worry about," he said.

r.merrick@central-press.co.uk
Email circular from the Low Level Radiation Campaign
http://www.llrc.org
22 July 2004

bramhall@llrc.org

Richard Bramhall
Low Level Radiation Campaign
The Knoll
Montpellier Park
Llandrindod
Powys LD1 5LW U.K.
+44 (0)1597 824771

Yesterday (20.07.04) the former Environment Minister Michael Meacher put down an Early Day Motion in the British House of Commons calling for the scrapping of two bodies which were set up to investigate the health effects of radiation.

The Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) and the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) have failed to find a severe excess of childhood cancer on the north Wales coast or to give any warning that public health needs protection from the levels of radioactive pollution involved.

Like the notorious Seascale cluster near Sellafield in Cumbria, England, the clustering of cancers in north Wales was found by a TV reporter. It is far more significant and shows that 20 years on from the Black Report, which investigated Seascale, nothing has been learnt and nothing done to save people from cruel, premature and unnecessary suffering. COMARE has shrugged off Seascale as inexplicable and colluded with a cover-up of earlier evidence of excess cancer on the Welsh coast. SAHSU's expensive "investigations" consistently use stupidly inappropriate methods which they openly admit will overlook the effects of radioactive discharges, yet when faced with their mistakes and the inescapable truth of excess cancer on the polluted Blackwater estuary (near the Bradwell NPP) they changed their statistical method to diminish its significance.

We are asking our supporters in the UK to press their Members of Parliament to sign EDM 1548.
Monitor http://edm.ais.co.uk/weblink/html/motion.html/ref=1548 to see progress or go to
http://www.llrc.org (a link to EDM 1548 will be posted within 24 hours of this circular).

FULL TEXT OF EDM 1548
That this House notes a serious excess of childhood cancer and leukaemia recently discovered around the Menai Strait in North Wales, which appears associated with evidence near those parts of the coast of contamination with radioactivity; further notes that in 1983 the Independent Advisory Group chaired by the late Sir Douglas Black was established to investigate and advise on Yorkshire Television's discovery of an excess of leukaemia in children living on the Cumbrian coast near Sellafield, and that in 1984 the Black IAG recommended a centralised system for monitoring health data to give early warning; is concerned that the Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) based at Imperial College in London has no power of independent investigation and did not find the excess leukaemia and cancer on the Menai Strait; is further concerned that, set up on the recommendation of the Black IAG, did not find the excess leukaemia and cancer on the Menai Strait and has not identified a cause of the excess in Cumbria, and has strictly limited powers of independent investigation; and calls on the Government to disband SAHSU and to replace COMARE with a Committee on the Health Effects of Ionising Radiation with a neutral chair, a full-time civil service secretariat, a budget sufficient to permit independent research, and a membership, paid for their work on the Committee and which represents all shades of relevant scientific opinion."

Richard Bramhall
Low Level Radiation Campaign
bramhall@llrc.org
The Knoll
Montpellier Park
Llandrindod
Powys LD1 5LW U.K.
+44 (0)1597 824771

by Geoffrey Lean

Published on Saturday, June 26, 2004 by the lndependent/UK

Nuclear power cannot solve global warming, the international body set up to promote atomic energy admits today.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which exists to spread the peaceful use of the atom, reveals in a new report that it could not grow fast enough over the next decades to slow climate change - even under the most favorable circumstances.

The report - published to celebrate yesterday's 50th anniversary of nuclear power - contradicts a recent surge of support for the atom as the answer to global warming.

That surge was provoked by an article in The Independent last month by Professor James Lovelock - the creator of the Gaia theory - who said that only a massive expansion of nuclear power as the world's main energy source could prevent climate change overwhelming the globe.

Professor Lovelock, a long-time nuclear supporter, wrote: "Civilization is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear - the one safe, available, energy source - now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet."

His comments were backed by Sir Bernard Ingham, Lady Thatcher's former PR chief, and other commentators, but have now been rebutted by the most authoritative organization on the matter.

Unlike fossil fuels, nuclear power emits no carbon dioxide, the main cause of climate change. However, it has long been in decline in the face of rising public opposition and increasing reluctance of governments and utilities to finance its enormous construction costs.

No new atomic power station has been ordered in the US for a quarter of a century, and only one is being built in Western Europe - in Finland. Meanwhile, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden have all pledged to phase out existing plants.

The IAEA report considers two scenarios. In the first, nuclear energy continues to decline, with no new stations built beyond those already planned. Its share of world electricity - and thus its relative contribution to fighting global warming - drops from its current 16 per cent to 12 per cent by 2030.

Surprisingly, it made an even smaller relative contribution to combating climate change under the IAEA's most favorable scenario, seeing nuclear power grow by 70 per cent over the next 25 years. This is because the world would have to be so prosperous to afford the expansions that traditional ways of generating electricity from fossil fuels would have grown even faster. Climate change would doom the planet before nuclear power could save it.

Alan McDonald, an IAEA nuclear energy analyst, told The Independent on Sunday last night: "Saying that nuclear power can solve global warming by itself is way over the top." But he added that closing existing nuclear power stations would make tackling climate change harder.

© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/0626-05.htm


Informant: Chris

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5447149


Informant: kevcross5

Über 25 Jahre wurde im mit Abstand größtem Atomland der Erde, den USA, kein Auftrag mehr für ein neues Kernkraftwerk erteilt. Jetzt wird in den USA über den Bau neuer Akws diskutiert. Und in Deutschland versuchen Politiker von CSU/CDU/FDP und auch SPD den Boden für den Bau neuer Atomkraftwerke zu bereiten. Finnland hat sogar schon einen Reaktor, sein 5. Akw, in Auftrag gegeben. Wieder einmal muss man in unserem Land gegen das Märchen argumentieren, Atomenergie sei preiswert. Dazu den Gastkommentar von Raimund Kamm..

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Art-Umweltpolitik/4916.php