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JULY 18th , 2008 |
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IN THIS ISSUE: 1) NUMBER 23: CITY OF LINDSAY SIGNS ON! 2) BEDFORD MINING ALERT PRESS RELEASE 3) ARTICLE: ONTARIO FIRST NATIONS DEMAND FIRM RIGHT TO SAY 'NO' TO MINING DEVELOPMENTS 4) ARTICLE: URANIUM SAMPLES STOLEN FROM PICKUP 5) NUCLEAR POWER SPEEDING UP GLOBAL WARMING 6) ARTICLE: PROTESTERS HAVE NO APPETITE FOR YELLOWCAKE 7) ARTICLE: NUKE PLAN TOO COSTLY: FOES ACTIVISTS TO CHALLENGE ONTARIO AT ENERGY HEARINGS 8) ARTICLE: ONT. PLAN TO SAVE BOREAL FOREST COULD BENEFIT MINING INDUSTRY 9) ARTICLE: UCORE URANIUM REPORTS HIGH GRADE RARE EARTH DRILL RESULTS FROM LOST POND 10) ARTICLE: IAEA AIDS WORKERS IN THE SEARCH FOR RADIOACTIVITY AFTER CHINA'S EARTHQUAKE
The City of Lindsay, of the Kawartha Lakes district, has become the 23rd Ontario municipality to call for a moratorium on uranium mining and an overhaul of the Ontario Mining Act! 2) BEDFORD MINING ALERT PRESS RELEASE July 17, 2008 Bedford Mining Alert public meeting on Saturday, July 26 at 10:00 am â?" Hear from Provincial Political Representatives and from the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve on topics which include property rights, the environment and building sustainable communities.
Don Ross, Executive Director, Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve, on promoting a balance between the natural environment and human economic activity that will ensure a proud past and sustainable future for generations to come, Peter Tabuns, NDP MPP, Toronto Danforth, and Energy and Environmental Critic, on Mining Act reform and sustainable environment, Randy Hillier, Conservative MPP, Lanark-Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, and Rural Affairs Critic, on the Ontario governmentâ?Ts obligation to update the Mining Act to reflect legitimate property-rights and environmental concerns. The BMA, is a group of concerned citizens in Bedford District, South Frontenac Township, who have been working for 9 years to bring about constructive changes to the Ontario Mining Act. The goal of BMA is to realize changes that allow property owners and local communities greater input into land use decisions and environmental protection issues, so that the full economic and societal potential of the land is protected and realized. Sandy Cameron, the Chair of BMA says, â?oThis meeting will provide an opportunity to gain more information about important issues related to claim staking and exploration affecting this area and the province and about the progress being made by BMA. We will also hear about the positions of the political parties and learn about the value being brought to our community by the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve.â? BMA invites the public to attend and help send a strong message to government that issues and concerns about prospecting, claim staking, exploration and mining practices affect all property owners and need to be addressed in a transparent and inclusive manner. There will be ample opportunity for questions.
Government's pledge draws skepticism July 16, 2008 Kerry Gillespie "On the day in May that native leader Bob Lovelace was released from jail after spending 100 days there for blocking mining exploration, he was asked if he'd do it again. He replied: "If you don't have the right to say, 'No,' you have no right at all." This week, the province has said it's giving First Nations that right through land protection for the Far North and changes to the outdated mining act." To read the rest of this article to go, http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/461007#Comments
By Kingston This Week Staff "Kingston Police are requesting the publicâ?Ts assistance after raw uranium core samples were stolen from a pickup truck." To read the rest of this article go to, http://www.kingstonthisweek.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1115232&auth=
Much has
been made of the power contained in a single uranium fuel bundle used
in Ontarioâ?Ts CanDU reactors to produce electricity. It is supposed
to be able to generate as much electricity as 380 tonnes of coal or 1,800
barrels of oil (Canadian Nuclear Association website â?oNuclear
Factsâ?.) Compared to the burning of fossil fuels to produce
the steam to generate electric power the fuel bundle undergoes a fission
process, splitting the uranium atoms to produce heat to fabricate the
steam to drive turbines connected to the generators in a complicated process
of electricity generation. The 6 operating Bruce Power reactors, by the way, are drawing close to 17 million litres of lake water A MINUTE(!) to keep the process from overheating (Golder Associates Ltd. Consultants). What happens to this cooling water? Most of it is discharged back to the lake, but not in the same condition â?" it goes back out up to 12 degrees Celsius warmer. This so-called thermal plume has been heating up the Lakes for decades, 24/7, 365 days a year. Very little ice has been forming on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay over successive, even colder, winters, resulting in lake water evaporation over the full 12 months instead of the normal 8 months of ice-free water. Without ice cover solar irradiation will also have the effect of additional warming of the open waters, while ice cover would have reflected the sunâ?Ts rays! No wonder lake levels continue to drop, now at record low levels, affecting the economy of shipping companies and marinas, with waters getting warmer, resulting in increased evaporation and cloud forming. That powerful fuel bundle â?" and there are 5760 of them in each reactor â?" can remain productive for just over 12 months, at which time it has to be removed BY REMOTE CONTROL because the fission has made it so highly radioactive that it would kill a person, standing as close as 3 metres, instantly. When it is removed it still contains over 99% of potential energy, â?but to extract it out costs a lot more than just to take it out and put it under waterâ? (Jeremy Whitlock, past President, Canadian Nuclear Society, quoted on New Media Journalism website). That â?~spent fuelâ?T bundle is so hot (37,000 watts â?" AECL 1994, NWMO Study â?~Choosing a Way Forward â?" 2005) that it, together with its compatriots, has to be kept in huge swimming pools, called irradiated fuel bays, for at least 10 years to bring the heat down to 5 watts, at which point it is supposed to be safe to store it above ground in heavy concrete containers. So this impressive energy contained in the fuel bundle creating all the heat â?" how much electricity does it actually produce? Figures quoted generally pertain to primary power generation only. This writer has toured the Bruce Power plant several times, also the huge Waste Management Facility adjacent to the reactors. There are a large number of auxiliary buildings absorbing lots of power, huge pumps sucking the cooling water from the Lake, stand-by power yards, fire fighting equipment â?" of course computers are running all the functions on site â?" all these together consume about one third of the electric power generated. Together with transformer and transmission line losses and with the THERMAL POLLUTION HEAT LOSS, only about 33% of the heat released by that fuel bundle, while in the reactor, reaches the end user as electricity. (â?oNuclear Heatâ?, Issue Brief, Union of Concerned Scientists, August 2006.) Talking about efficiency â?" EFFICIENTLY HEATING UP OUR ENVIRONMENT WITH A HUGE AMOUNT OF WASTE HEAT! IS
NUCLEAR POWER REALLY THE SOLUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING? 6) ARTICLE: PROTESTERS HAVE NO APPETITE FOR YELLOWCAKE By Pete Fisher July 15, 2008 "Although few in number, a group of concerned citizens brought a cake and sang songs to show solidarity in opposition to yellowcake uranium from Iraq that is on its way to Port Hope." To read the rest of this article go to, http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1114010 7) ARTICLE: NUKE PLAN TOO COSTLY: FOES ACTIVISTS TO CHALLENGE ONTARIO AT ENERGY HEARINGS By Amy Chung, Sun Media July 16, 2008 "Anti-nuke groups plan to turn the heat up today at an Ontario Energy Board hearing over what they say is the province's much too costly nuclear power program. "The costs (for nuclear) are going through the roof. They have tripled in the past decade. The Darlington plant went three times its original budget," said Mark Lutes of the David Suzuki Foundation." To read the rest of this article go to, http://www.torontosun.com/News/Canada/2008/07/15/6160321-sun.html 8) ARTICLE: ONT. PLAN TO SAVE BOREAL FOREST COULD BENEFIT MINING INDUSTRY By Peter
Koven July 17, 2008 "TORONTO - The Ontario government's move to block development of half the province's boreal forest ranks among the biggest land-protection initiatives in recent memory. But in a strange twist, it is also a potential positive for the mining industry." To read the rest of this article go to, http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=aa80cf12-0767-4364-a18d-0772caed9853
July 16, 2008 "VANCOUVER, BC, Jul 16, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- Ucore Uranium Inc. (CA:UCU: news, chart, profile) is pleased to report the results of a three hole drill program completed in 2007 at the U3 grid on the Lost Pond uranium property in western Newfoundland." To read the rest of this article go to,
Nuclear
Waste News The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has provided training and equipment to help Chinese emergency teams in their recovery efforts. The teams are using radiation detection equipment to find and recover all of the 50 sources of radioactive material, said Chinaâ?Ts National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA)." To read the rest of this article go to, |