CND Press Digest: Thursday 24th August 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) has started pumping water from a new groundwater well and plans to build more at the site as part of efforts to ensure sufficient cooling for its six reactors after the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam in early June.
• Boss of the notorious Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin is presumeddead, after this private plane crashed during a flight in Russia yesterday. The incident comes two months after his groups failed mutiny against the Kremlin.

Test Veterans

• The Mirror: One of the last surviving ‘cloud flyers’ holds first medal for Britain’s nuclear test veterans.

Nuclear-Free Zones

• Calls for West Sussex to be made a nuclear free zone made at Nagasaki gathering in Worthing.

UK Nuclear Energy

• House of Lords library: The role of nuclear in the UK’s energy supply.

Nuclear Energy

• France heatwave curbs cooling water supply to St Alban nuclear plant.

Uranium

• Bloomberg: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing the US and Europe to search for alternative sources of enriched uranium to power their reactors.

Radiation

• Chemistry World: Sustained exposure to low-dose ionising radiation is linked to a higher risk of mortality from solid cancers than previously estimated, a new analysis of the International Nuclear Workers Study (Inworks) has found. The researchers say the findings should inform radiation protection standards, which are currently based on studies of acutely exposed people, such as survivors of the atomic blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

• Tortoise and turtle shells can be used to study nuclear contamination, scientists have found. Just as tree rings can provide snapshots of the Earth’s climate, and ice cores can give us information on past temperature, researchers found that the layers of shells can be used as a time stamp of periods with nuclear fallout.

Fukushima

• Fukushima nuclear plant starts pumping radioactive waste water into sea. Coverage by Sky News, The Independent, Reuters.
• Sky News: Releasing nuclear waste from Fukushima is safe - but it’s destroyed the livelihood of fishermen.
• (Also) Sky News: Fukushima nuclear plant: Is flushing out radioactive water safe?
• The Guardian: China bans Japanese seafood after Fukushima wastewater release.
• Citizen’s Nuclear Information Centre briefing on the release of radioactive materials from Fukushima.
• Associated Press: In Japan’s neighbors, fear and frustration are shared over radioactive water release.
• AP: Fukushima’s radioactive wastewater is being released in the Pacific. Here’s what you need to know.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament