See DVD of INTO ETERNITY/San Onofre Nuclear Plant Closed After Radiation Leak

The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, Baltimore Quaker Peace and Justice Committee of Homewood and Stony Run Meetings and Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility are continuing the FILM & SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS DVD SERIES.  The DVDs will be shown at Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218, on the First Friday.  After the peace vigil, there will be a potluck dinner. At 7 PM, from January through June, a DVD will be shown with a discussion to follow.  There is no charge, and refreshments will be available. 

 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2012 

 

INTO ETERNITY [Denmark, 2010] is a documentary film directed by Danish director Michael Madsen. It follows the construction of the Onkalo Waste Repository at the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant on the island of Olkiluoto, Finland. The director questions Onkalo's intended eternal existence, and the film is structured as a message to future generations.  The film raises the question of the authorities' responsibility of ensuring compliance with relatively new safety criteria legislation and the principles of nuclear waste management.

 

The world’s nuclear power plants have generated an estimated 300,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste that must be safely stored for 100,000 years or more. Every year, they generate another 12,000 metric tons of high-level waste.  INTO ETERNITY is the first feature documentary to explore the mind-boggling scientific and philosophical questions long-term nuclear waste storage poses. A representative from the Nuclear Information Research Service will lead the discussion. Call 410-366-1637.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/02/san-onofre-nuclear-plant-closed-after-radiation-leak/

 

Feb 1, 2012 6:20pm

San Onofre Nuclear Plant Closed After Radiation Leak

 

                                                                          (Image Credit: Lenny Ignelzi/AP Photo)

A small quantity of radioactive gas leaked inside one of the buildings at San Onofre nuclear power plant north of San Diego, according to a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The spokesman said the radiation levels were “barely measurable,” but the plant was shut down as a precaution.

“At no point were the public or our workers in any danger,” Southern California Edison spokesman Gil Alexander told ABC News.

 Officials say the radiation leak likely occurred in the steam generator tubes of San Onofre’s reactor #3. The steam system, which is supposed to be shielded from exposure to radiation, was replaced in December 2010. Alexander said plant officials will be conducting an investigation into why the new steam tubes leaked.

Gary Headrick is part of the environmental group San Clemente Green and lives just eight miles away from San Onofre.

“If we don’t make them shut it down, it’s going to be too late,” Headrick said.

San Onofre is one of dozens of U.S. reactors facing new scrutiny after Japan’s nuclear crisis. It is located right on the coast, and in the heart of America’s earthquake country.

It also is right next door to Camp Pendleton, a Marine Corps base where 38,000 military families live, and another 32,000 people work each day, all of whom would be in immediate danger if there’s ever a meltdown.

ABC News visited San Onofre the day the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan melted down. At the time, plant officials were eager to reassure the public that the same thing could not happen on the California coast.

“This plant is safe,” California Edison’s Chief Nuclear Officer Pete Dietrich told ABC News.

After Japan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission updated its seismic model and in a report issued yesterday found that 96 reactors in the central and southern U.S. are in regions at a higher risk for quakes than previously thought.

The report included parts of the country that are not traditionally seen as geologically active, places like Chattanooga, Tenn., Savannah, Ga., Jackson, Miss., Manchester, N.H., and Houston, Texas.

Major metropolitan areas are uncomfortably close to nuclear plants, with as many as 120 million Americans living within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Indian Point, outside of New York City, has 20 million people living within a 50-mile radius. And Dresden is just 50 miles from the heavily-populated suburbs of Chicago.

Nuclear regulators plan to give plant operators four years to reevaluate seismic risks, but some of the plants may be too expensive to make earthquake safe.

However, in the case of San Onofre, it’s unlikely the leak had anything to do with seismic safety and was probably just faulty equipment.  Officials have been taking extra care to reassure the public that there’s no danger, since after Japan, the idea of radiation leaking from a nuclear plant tends to set people on edge.

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Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs