Photographs by Robert Knoth Reporting by Anoinnette:
Twenty years ago, during the night of April 26, 1986, the crew
working in Chernobyl's reactor block number 4 received special
instructions from Moscow to conduct an experiment. Before beginning,
all safety modules were switched off. The chain reaction that
followed could not be controlled. An explosion blew the 100-ton
roof off the building large quantities of radioactive elements
were launched high up into the atmosphere and spread across the
entire northern hemisphere. It took 36 hours before plans for
evacuation were announced, and then ten days to put out the fire.
Iodine preparations were not distributed to those affected until
May 23. Most of the nuclear plants at Chernobyl continued working
until the last one was shut down in the year 2000. Read
More
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS ONLY A SMALL PART OF THE ENTIRE LIST
552. 1981, December - AUSTRALIA The widow of an atomic airman
who died of throat cancer in 1972 after working on planes contaminated
by nuclear radiation at South Australian atomic bomb tests in
1953 has been awarded $14,500 compensation. A precedent was set
on bomb-test claims in August this year (1981) when a retired
RAAF squadron leader, who tracked radioactive clouds in a bomber
at Maralinga, became the first living person to win such a case.("The
West Australian" 4th December 1981)Read
More
A uranium processing plant in south Australia that is owned by
an American company has had a series of accidents involving radioactive
material, the South Australia state government says. The plant,
run by Heathgate Resources, a unit of the American company General
Atomics, is at the Beverley uranium mine, about 340 miles north
of Adelaide. It has been in operation for less than two years.
Read
More
A SHORT EXERPT FROM
AN ARTICLE ENTITLED: Ranger danger.
(Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu National Park)
Habitat Australia, June, 2004 by Sweeney, Dave:
“The embattled Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu National Park
is under the spotlight again after a series of recent contamination
scares generated significant community concern and media attention.
RANGER URANIUM MINE, majority owned by the British miner Rio Tinto
and operated by Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), was closed
for two weeks in April after workers drank and showered in water
with uranium levels up to 400 times the maximum Australian safety
standard.
The latest incidents add to a litany of over 120 leaks, spills
and accidents since the mine opened in 1981”….. Read
More
Jabiluka is a uranium deposit on Mirrar Aboriginal land surrounded
by the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park in the Northern
Territory. The struggle to prevent uranium mining in the Kakadu
region has a long history. The Mirarr are the indigenous community
that has had the longest direct relationship with uranium mining
in this country and the estate includes the land that holds both
the Ranger uranium mine and the stalled Jabiluka mine project.
Read More
Nuclear
power is in trouble around the world. The industry that once proclaimed
that it would produce energy 'too cheap to meter' has been battered
by being uneconomic, having serious safety concerns, growing radioactive
waste problems, the reality of nuclear weapons proliferation and
an increasingly informed and skeptical global community.
Read More
Australian heavy metals 'blowing to NZ' 14th August 2007,
New Zealand, known for its clean, green image, is becoming a dumping
ground for heavy metals picked up in dust in eastern Australia
and blown across the Tasman, a scientist says. Climatologist and
atmospheric scientist Dr Samuel Marx, of the University of Queensland's
Department of Geographic Sciences and Planning, said dust samples
collected from glaciers on the largely pristine western side of
the South Island showed traces of heavy metals. Read
More
Nuclear power currently generates 17% of the world's
electricity. Recent US plans to increase nuclear power production
to solve its energy crisis will not solve greenhouse gas pollution
problems. Nuclear energy is neither an efficient nor an effective
way of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, irrespective of problems
related to nuclear energy and its waste. Read
more
In l982 the South Australian
parliament passed the Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act,
which exempted l.5million hectares of land around Olympic Dam
mine from being accountable to some of the most important environmental,
Indigenous rights and Freedom of Information legislation. The
Indenture Act allows BHP Billiton (BHPB) veto power over the release
of information regarding its activities at the mine and its surrounds.
It allows BHPB to determine every aspect of its relations with
the traditional Aboriginal landowners, the Kolkata people, with
regard to cultural heritage concerns as well as to decide which
Aboriginal sites the company will recognise and what level of
protection, if any, these sites will receive. Read
More
Nuclear
power uses uranium as its fuel. Uranium is mined & processed
in Australia & then uranium oxide or yellow cake is exported.
Yellowcake is a concentrated and made into rods that are used
in nuclear power stations to heat water, create steam and drive
a turbine that make electricity. Radioactive waste left behind
from the process needs to be kept away from people and the environment
for as long as 250,000 years. *250,000 years = approximately 7,500
generations of our children that will be dealing with our waste.
Read More
Climate
change is widely acknowledged as being one of the most pressing
issues for the global community, including for NIRS/WISE and our
allies. Climate change affects many aspects of the environment
and society, including human health, ecosystems, agriculture and
water supplies, local and global economies, sea levels and extreme
weather events. However, many in the nuclear industry see climate
change as a 'lever' by which to revitalize the fortunes of nuclear
power.Read
More
I
follow the culture of my people. We belong to the land. We are
the caretakers for the land. Our lifetime on this earth is only
a blink in time, so our lifetime is spent protecting and caring
for this land for future generations.... .....I want to tell you
how I feel about uranium and how the whole nuclear cycle affects
our land, our lives, our traditions....Read
More
Despite
the nuclear energy industrys well-funded efforts to convince the
public otherwise, uranium fuel for atomic power plants is in limited
supply. Like coal, oil and gas, it will soon run out, leaving
scores of giant reactors useless and abandoned. Also like fossil
fuels, the impact of mining and processing fuel for nuclear power
plants involves huge impacts on humans and the environment. With
mines mostly in Australia, the American west, Canada, and central
and southern Africa, atomic power has created huge ecological
crises whose solutions are a long way off and are already proving
to be exceedingly expensive.Read
More
When most people hear the words 'nuclear energy', they usually
think of nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations. These are
in fact what most uranium is used for, in about equal amounts.
Uranium has other uses, which however require only a tiny amount
of the world's uranium. Some of these uses can be substituted
for by less harmful products.Read
More
At 6:30 am Adelaide time, April 26 1986, in 4 seconds the power
output from Unit 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant increased
100 times and the reactor exploded. The explosion blew the top
off the reactor. Hot radioactive metal was flung into the air,
the reactor caught fire, radioactive smoke and steam spewed out.
The radioactive fallout was 200 times that caused by the weapons
exploded at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fuel was the same, uranium.Read
More
Links
The
Australian Conservation Foundation
In Australia the push is on for more uranium mines, a new nuclear
reactor and radioactive waste dumps. Despite enormous community
opposition to the nuclear industry in Australia, Europe and the
US, weapons stockpiles continue to grow, nuclear waste dumps are
overflowing, mines are still scarring the landscape, and casualties
of radioactivity are on the rise.
While ACF welcomes the major rehabilitation
works at Rio Tinto's controversial Jabiluka uranium mine site, there
is still much to be done. ACF is calling for a ban on in situ leach
mining technology, the scrapping of plans to build a second Sydney
reactor, and legislation to end plans for imposed radioactive waste
dumps and to ensure that existing radioactive waste is managed responsibly.www.acfonline.org.au
Greenpeace
Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously
against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the
environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion
of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.www.greenpeace.org
Friends
of the Earth Anti Uranium Collective
Friends of the Earth Anti Uranium Collective is actively campaigning
for a nuclear free future. In order to create an environmentally
sustainable and socially just world we need to end uranium mining,
stop dumping of radioactive wastes, prevent the proliferation of
nuclear weapons and ban the irradiation of food. www.melbourne.foe.org.au
Friends
of the Europe
Europe must stop wasting taxpayers' money to protect a dangerous
and expensive technology. 20 years after the Chernobyl disaster,
nuclear power, despite its widespread use also in Europe, remains
the most dirty and dangerous form of energy. www.foeeurope.org
Campaign
For Nuclear Disarmament
CND campaigns non-violently to rid the world of nuclear weapons
and other weapons of mass destruction and to create genuine security
for future generations. www.cnduk.org
