Upcoming Events

International | Environment

no events match your query!

New Events

International

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link This Site Will Soon Be Hosted at anti-em... Sun Sep 22, 2024 17:24 | Anti-Empire

offsite link Ukraine Shoots Down F-16 With Patriot, A... Sat Aug 31, 2024 11:53 | Anti-Empire

offsite link Surprise Offensive Puts 300 km² of Russ... Fri Aug 09, 2024 08:44 | Marko Marjanović

offsite link The Wholesome Photo of the Month Thu May 09, 2024 11:01 | Anti-Empire

offsite link In 3 War Years Russia Will Have Spent $3... Thu May 09, 2024 02:17 | Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.  We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below). 

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link The Joke?s On Us as Tin-Eared Keir Quips to U.S. Business Leaders: ?I?d Like to Pretend This is My A... Thu Sep 26, 2024 20:11 | Will Jones
The joke's on us as Tin-Eared Keir quips to U.S. business leaders that he'd "like to pretend" a flash NYC building was his own home amid questions over pretending a Labour donor's penthouse was his home during lockdown.
The post The Joke’s On Us as Tin-Eared Keir Quips to U.S. Business Leaders: “I’d Like to Pretend This is My Apartment” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Mandatory Vaccination and Confinement Included in Draconian Health Bill for NI Thu Sep 26, 2024 18:26 | Dr Elizabeth Evans
Mandatory vaccination, medical examination and confinement are included in the draconian new Health Bill for Northern Ireland. The public must speak out in opposition, says Dr. Elizabeth Evans.
The post Mandatory Vaccination and Confinement Included in Draconian Health Bill for NI appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link ?Prevention? Will Not Save the NHS. Just Ask Every Health Secretary of the Past 25 Years Thu Sep 26, 2024 16:14 | Dr Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson
'Prevention' will not save the NHS, say Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson. Wes Streeting proclaims it like he's discovered the golden ticket, but so too did every Health Secretary of the past 25 years.
The post ‘Prevention’ Will Not Save the NHS. Just Ask Every Health Secretary of the Past 25 Years appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Lockdowns Turned Boris Johnson into Oliver Cromwell, Says James Cleverly Thu Sep 26, 2024 14:37 | Will Jones
The Covid lockdowns turned Boris Johnson into Oliver Cromwell, making him only the second British leader to have cancelled Christmas, Conservative leadership candidate James Cleverly has said.
The post Lockdowns Turned Boris Johnson into Oliver Cromwell, Says James Cleverly appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Miliband?s Hyperactive Rhetoric Can?t Hide That the ?Green Jobs? Are All Going to China and the Unio... Thu Sep 26, 2024 12:01 | Ben Pile
Ed Miliband rhetorically bounced around the podium like a geek who'd missed his meds. But as the fabled 'green jobs' evaporate in the face of China's coal-driven industry, the unions are growing restive, says Ben Pile.
The post Miliband’s Hyperactive Rhetoric Can’t Hide That the ‘Green Jobs’ Are All Going to China and the Unions Have Noticed appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Cognitive warfare in the West, by Thierry Meyssan Tue Sep 24, 2024 06:56 | en

offsite link Russia arms Ansar Allah against Israel in response to U.S. arming of Ukraine Fri Sep 20, 2024 11:41 | en

offsite link Israel must immediately end its illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Ter... Wed Sep 18, 2024 08:37 | en

offsite link On September 10, Israeli settlers became illegal migrants, by Thierry Meyssan Tue Sep 17, 2024 15:46 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N°99 Sat Sep 14, 2024 06:54 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Radioactive leaks in Germany

category international | environment | press release author Tuesday July 08, 2008 09:37author by Anne Fitzgerald Report this post to the editors

Radioactive leaks from the nuclear waste deposits in Germany

Confirmation that radioactive brine has been leaking for two decades from a German underground deposit for nuclear waste is yet another blow to the idea that nuclear power can safely increase electricity generation and simultaneously reduce emissions.

Radioactive leaks from the nuclear waste deposit Asse II near Braunschweig in Lower Saxony, some 225 km southwest of Berlin, were first discovered in 1988. The state-owned Helmholtz Institute for Scientific Research, which operates the centre, officially admitted the leaks only Jun. 16, under pressure from the German press.

Helmholtz spokesperson Heinz-Joerg Haury told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that researchers "did not consider that the leaks were worth a declaration to the press. We did not have the feeling that the public would be interested in knowing that radioactive brine is leaking in Asse II."

Asse II, a former salt mine, is the oldest nuclear waste deposit in Germany. The abandoned mine was transformed into a deposit for nuclear waste in 1967, following the scientific hypothesis that rock salt pits are the best geological structure to store radioactive waste.

But in 1988, radioactive brine started to leak through the mine's walls. The site operator never informed the public.

Germany officially has four deposits for nuclear waste. Two other sites, Gorleben and Morsleben, are also abandoned rock salt mines. A fourth, Schacht Konrad, also in Lower Saxony, is a former iron mine.

No one has yet found a durable solution for storing nuclear waste, that remains highly radioactive for centuries.

France continues to deposit thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive waste into its nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at La Hague on the Normandy Atlantic coast, close to the English Channel.

In Germany, power plant operators have been "temporarily" storing nuclear waste in Gorleben, some 150 km northwest of Berlin. They are waiting for the government to decide whether it is geologically suitable as a definitive storage site.

Morsleben was the German Democratic Republic deposit for radioactive waste, and is now being dismantled (former East and West Germany reunited in 1990). Asse II is officially considered a "research site".

By June 2008, some 80,000 litres of a radioactive salt solution had accumulated there. The brine, eight times above the radioactivity limit, has been pumped to a deeper level, but some 30 litres of radioactive brine continue to leak every day.

In Germany, the maximum limit of radioactivity for material stored in open air is 10,000 Becquerel per kilogram. The Becquerel is the standard international unit of radioactivity, equal to one radioactive disintegration (change in the nucleus of an atom when a particle or ray is given off) per second.

Caesium 137, the chemical that is setting off the radioactivity from the brine, is produced from the detonation of nuclear weapons and as a by-product from nuclear power plants. It was most notably released into the atmosphere from the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

The Helmholtz institute is seeking to minimise the risks. "The Caesium 137 (detected in Asse II) will have lost its radioactivity in 90 years," Haury told the press. "Until then, the salt solution containing it is 950 metres deep, and safe."

Many others are not so sure.

Related Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43108

 #   Title   Author   Date 
   Factual mistake     Diet Simon    Wed Jul 09, 2008 01:34 
   interesting     Dave    Wed Jul 09, 2008 09:39 


 
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy