bojacobs

bojacobs, 1 year ago to histodons

Today is the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

It is not over. Chernobyl spread radioactive particles across Europe and beyond. The fire in reactor #4 burned for over a month, releasing massive amounts of radionuclides which then would fallout and embed into the #ecosystem.

37 years later we still find food contaminated with Chernobyl fallout every year. Often with cesium-137 which is very adept at transporting in an ecosystem once the particle has deposited from the fallout cloud.

#Chernobyl #nuclear #fallout #NuclearPower #radionuclide @sts @histodons #EnvHist #environment #Europe @nuclearhumanities

video/mp4

bojacobs, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to nuclear

Today is the 78th anniversary of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on Earth, the Trinity Test in New Mexico in 1945, three weeks before the nuclear attacks on Japan.

There will be many images posted of the mushroom cloud today, but here is what mattered more, the fallout cloud. Dozens of homes and communities were blanketed with fallout, which which also contaminated fields as far away as Illinois and Indiana.

They have always known about radioactive fallout.

#Trinity #MED #NuclearWeapons #nuclear #NM #LANL @histodons @sts

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bojacobs, 10 months ago to nuclear

Our high-level nuclear waste, spent fuel from nuclear reactors, is the most substantive creation of human civilization. It will outlast everything else humans have made.

It is how our descendants will know us, we are the people who made that.

How do we warn the 1,000s of generations who will experience risk from this radioactive waste?

#nuclear #NuclearWaste #NuclearPower #Anthropocene @sts @histodons

https://vimeo.com/663187398

bojacobs, 10 months ago to nuclear

Global warming is shutting down nuclear, not the other way around:

"High river temperatures to limit French nuclear power production"

This is the second summer in a row that French nukes are being taken offline because higher water temperatures make it impossible to cool the reactors and the spent fuel.

#nuclear #NuclearPower #climate #environment @sts

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/high-river-temperatures-limit-french-nuclear-power-production-2023-07-12/

bojacobs, 7 months ago to nuclear

This is very bad news for radioactive waste management at #Hanford

"Hanford’s pre-treated waste might not meet Vit Plant criteria"

Much of the worst radioactive waste at Hanford is the "liquid" waste in the Tank Farms. The plan was to vitrify them (enclose them in glass). Now, looks like the Vit Plant may not be up to the task. Billions more wasted after the first Vit Plant was scuttled for safety concerns.

All of the tanks in the Tank Farm are leaking. Workers are hospitalized annually for inhaling toxic fumes working at the site. They may remain with no viable plan to process the waste into a form that is manageable.

#nuclear #NuclearPower #NuclearWaste #WA #NuclearWeapons #plutonium @sts @histodons

https://www.exchangemonitor.com/hanfords-pre-treated-waste-might-not-meet-vit-plant-criteria/

bojacobs, 1 month ago to solar

Finally, an actual good idea about use of the former Nevada Test Site (now#NNSS).

-Cover the heavily irradiated landscape with solar panels. Allow the unusable soil to be covered with renewable energy production.

#NTS #solar #climate @sts

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/nuclear-test-site-cleanup-clean-energy/

bojacobs, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to China

Built over 4,000 years ago:

"China's ancient water pipe networks show they were a communal effort with no evidence of a centralized state authority"

#China #archaeology #RespectForTheAncestors @histodons

https://phys.org/news/2023-08-china-ancient-pipe-networks-communal.html

bojacobs, 4 months ago to nuclear

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January 27th is the National Day of Remembrance for America’s Downwinders in the USA. These are people who lived downwind of the Nevada Nuclear Test site, and were exposed to radioactive fallout. Much of that fallout remains radioactive and is now embedded into the ecosystem.

The US government has paid a token compensation to a minuscule portion of this community through #RECA.

#NTS #NNSS #nuclear #NuclearTesting #ColdWar @histodons

bojacobs, 6 months ago to nuclear

Nuclear Power, even SMRs, are about making money, not climate mitigation. That's just the sales pitch. If there isn't profit for investors, the techno-saviors pull out.

#nuclear #NuclearPower #SMR #capitalocene #NuScale

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/nuclear-power-smr-nuscale

bojacobs, 7 months ago to nuclear

3/4 of a century of failing the communities contaminated by the Manhattan Project:

"The Corps reported more than $2.5 billion in environmental liabilities for nuclear waste in the last fiscal year. Nineteen sites have been deemed contaminated under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, which manages cleanup of areas contaminated by the Manhattan Project and similar early U.S. atomic energy activities. Of these sites, the GAO report found eight are located near disadvantaged communities."

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#nuclear #NuclearPower #NuclearWaste #MED

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4260390-oversight-democrats-gao-radioactive-waste-cleanup-army-corps-engineers/

bojacobs, 6 months ago to nuclear

Graphic showing the leaking of the high-level radioactive waste at the Hanford Tank Farms, and the depth of the leakage. An underground plume of the liquid waste has been transporting towards the Columbia River.

This is the same technology as “recycling" nuclear waste from reactors.

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#Hanford #ColumbiaRiver #WA #nuclear #NuclearPower #NuclearWaste #TankFarm #MED #ColdWar

bojacobs, 5 months ago to nuclear

They are still trying to normalize nuclear materials as miraculous:

"A Man Drank So Much Radium His Skull Literally Disintegrated"

#nuclear #radium @histodons

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-drank-so-much-radium-his-skull-literally-disintegrated

bojacobs, 5 months ago to climate

The same is true for radionuclides, as residents of Simi Valley found out when radioactive particles from the Santa Susana nuclear meltdown of 1959 (of which they were unaware) were discovered after the Woolsey Fire of 2018:

"Wildfires can unlock toxic metal particles from soils, study finds"

#climate #wildfire #toxicity #SantaSusana

https://phys.org/news/2023-12-wildfires-toxic-metal-particles-soils.html

bojacobs, 6 months ago to spain

Disaster Control

NYT video about the Palomares nuclear accident over Spain in 1966.

A US h-bomber was refueling in mid-air over Southern Spain. Both exploded and four h-bombs fell onto a small Spanish beach town (2 into the Mediterranean). This film examines health consequences to the clean up crew.

#Palomares #ColdWar #NuclearWeapons #Spain #NuclearAccident #plutonium @histodons @nuclearhumanities

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bojacobs, 4 months ago to nuclear

"Two planned nuclear power projects in Pac NW are scrapped"

#NuclearPower #nuclear

https://columbiainsight.org/two-planned-nuclear-power-projects-in-pac-nw-are-scrapped/

bojacobs, 6 months ago to nuclear

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The power of art to communicate complex information easily.

You can see charts of the total number of nuclear weapon tests (2,000+), or of the locations of those tests, or the years. However, this video communicates that history in a visceral, embodied way.

#nuclear #NuclearTests #ColdWar @sts @histodons @nuclearhumanities

https://youtu.be/cjAqR1zICA0?feature=shared

bojacobs, 7 months ago to nuclear

The whole ecosystem is "marked" by radioactive particles globally distributed by nuclear weapon testing:

"Anthropogenic uranium signatures in turtles, tortoises, and sea turtles from nuclear sites"

There are countless species, flora and fauna, with studies tracking this. Interested in more on this, read my book Nuclear Bodies

#Anthropocene #nuclear #NuclearTesting @histodons

https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/8/pgad241/7244772

bojacobs, 26 days ago to random

I know I’m an old man yelling at clouds, but when I was a young vegetarian we didn't need our proteins to pretend to be meat.

bojacobs, 2 months ago to nuclear

I was interviewed along with other scholars and activists about the film “#Oppenheimer" in today's edition of the Chugoku Shimbun, our local newspaper here in Hiroshima.

My general take as reported here is that the film essentially repeats the decades old American narrative of the #nuclear attacks on #Hiroshima & #Nagasaki. It tells a story about Americans and not Japanese people. It is a story about great scientists, great technology and great industrial capacity. It is a story about American exceptionalism, and not about the use of weapons of mass destruction against a civilian population.

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@sts
@histodons

bojacobs, 6 months ago to nuclear

"The nuclear accident in Chernobyl in 1986 led to the spread of radioactivity across Sweden and Europe. In a long-term study now published in Environmental Epidemiology, researchers have used new, more specific calculation methods to show the connection between radiation dose and certain types of cancer."

#Chernobyl #nuclear #NuclearPower @sts

https://scienmag.com/some-increase-in-cancer-after-1986-chernobyl-disaster/

bojacobs, 7 months ago to random

Looks like the Republican “let’s give all the tax money to corporations" caucus is battling with the Republican “let's burn the whole playground down!" caucus.

Governance

bojacobs, 7 months ago to nuclear

Nuclear power was invented in the Manhattan Project before nuclear weapons. It was invented to manufacture plutonium to kill thousands of people.

My article on this origin story

"Born Violent: The Origins of Nuclear Power"

#nuclear #NuclearPower #NuclearWeapons #Hanford #MED @histodons @sts

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333617931_Born_Violent_The_Origins_of_Nuclear_Power

bojacobs, 8 months ago to random

Nuclear weapons testing cause of radioactivity in wild boars, study says - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66665646

bojacobs, 1 month ago to histodons

Chernobyl, 38 years ago today.

Human "bio-robots" had to make homemade lead lined suits to then spend 40 seconds to 2 minutes on the roof of reactor #3 shoveling bits of the reactor core into the hole where reactor #4 used to be. 3,500 people did this task.

#Chernobyl #NuclearPower @histodons @sts

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bojacobs, 2 months ago to nuclear

An early plan for long-term burial of spent nuclear fuel was to put it in the Arctic since the ice was "permanent"

"The US Left Nuclear Waste Around The World, Now Climate Change May Unearth It"

#nuclear #NuclearWaste #ColdWar @sts #RMI #Greenland #climate

https://www.iflscience.com/the-us-left-nuclear-waste-around-the-world-now-climate-change-may-unearth-it-73226