Gulf Oil Spill Kill Zone, 80-Square Miles In Size, Found Near BP Well (VIDEO)

reply to post by SarK0Y

Looks purely fairy tales: no any specification was given, Just emotional article...

There is also this:

Toshiba Seeks U.S. Approval for Micro Reactor for Rural Power By Megumi Yamanaka --

Toshiba Corp., Japan's biggest maker of nuclear power plants, will start talks this month with a U.S. regulator to approve a micro reactor targeted at remote areas such as Galena on Alaska's Yukon River. The company will hold the first meeting on Oct. 23 to brief the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on safety and other features of the new 4S reactor, seeking design certification, the U.S. regulator said on its Web site. The license is required to sell and build the plant in the U.S..... www.bloomberg.com...

Toshiba 4S reactor - wiki link en.wikipedia.org...

The NRC received the latest version of the letter of intent from the designers of the reactor as of March 13, 2009. The approval process is on track for official submission to the USNRC in October 2010 of a standard application for Design Certification. During the week of October 16, 2009, persons or organizations unknown submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the USNRC requesting that "documents related to the Super-Safe, Small and Simple (4s) Nuclear Reactor from Toshiba Corporation particularly related to possible placement in Galena, Alaska, including tech info on reactor, safety assessments, nuclear material security, etc." be released to the requestors.... en.wikipedia.org...

Toshiba is not the only Corporation in on the game. There is also Hyperion Power Generation, Inc.
wiki link en.wikipedia.org...

Nuclear Power Industry News: Consortium Researching Hyperion’s Small Modular Reactors for Ship Propulsion System

Business Week Miniature Nuclear Plants Seek Approval to Work in U.S:

Manufacturers of refrigerator-sized nuclear reactors will seek approval from U.S. authorities within a year to help supply the world’s growing electricity demand.

John Deal, chief executive officer of Hyperion Power Generation Inc., intends to apply for a license “within a year” for plants that would power a small factory or town too remote for traditional utility grid connections.

The Santa Fe, New Mexico-based company and Japan’s Toshiba Corp. are vying for a head start over reactor makers General Electric Co. and Areva SA in downsizing nuclear technology and aim to submit license applications in the next year to U.S. regulators. They’re seeking to tap a market that has generated about $135 billion in pending orders for large nuclear plants.

Doesn't look like a fairy tale but it remains to be seen if the idiots in Washington will approve it.

reply to post by mayabong


Well.. 80 miles is something whenever every fish that swims into it dies because it can't swim 80 miles with no oxygen and frantically goes deeper and deeper into the dead zone looking.

reply to post by crimvelvet

i cannot understand your worries: no doubt, projects of nuclear plants with fast neutrons shan't be stopped but they cannot solve our crucial troubles (lack of the drinking water, oil peak..).

requesting that "documents related to the Super-Safe, Small and Simple (4s)

Just a thought: the same crap was said about Titanic Super, Super, ..., Super any engineered system cannot have only pluses

As an engineer with 20 years experience, 5 of which were with Nuclear Electric (now British Energy) working on the design of Sizewell ‘B’ Pressurised Water Reactor in the Radwaste and Reactor Control departments I think I have an informed opinion which is this. Nuclear energy is very clean but is only as safe as the funding that accompanies it. The problem with Nuclear reactors in the former USSR is they have been run for decades with aged equipment and no budget. Plotters with pencils attached and no paper are an example of a primary alarm system, if the pencil is on the floor the alarm was serious, if it’s still on the plotter then not too bad. I have witnessed this first hand as part of a cooperative I was part of after Chernobyl. NE and Framatome of France contributed millions in the early 90s to improve processes and maintenance regimes in the reactor sites of the former USSR and sent personnel, of which I was one, to various sites. All to no avail. The staff didn’t want to know, would not share information, would not implement our practices (well if you hadn’t been paid for a year and forced to work regardless or go to prison you’d be a bit miffed too!) and the money was siphoned off by the government for weapons, bodyguards and fancy cars.
No funding = Chernobyl type incidents. Funding and training = relatively safe and controlled environment.
By the way, if we do not build nuclear power plants pretty soon, we will lose all of the skills and know – how that got us to were we are today since the birth of the nuclear industry in the fifties. We cannot recover that (nuclear engineers and scientists don’t grow on trees) and it will take years to develop the skill set again. I left the Nuclear industry as all future projects were curtailed after Sizewell ‘B’ due to a change of government and policy.

If you want to know how much serious waste (High level) is generated by a typical nuclear reactor during it’s lifetime, typically 45 years include extensions to service, imagine a small 3 bedroomed house. It’s about that much. All other waste is classified Intermediate and Low as such because it’s been on a nuclear site, this includes newspapers, overalls, lunch boxes, files and folders, shoes ….everything that goes on site.

reply to post by Mez353

Nuclear energy is very clean but is only as safe as the funding that accompanies it

we cannot call TNRs clean & safe because they need long-lived tombs to store used fuel. about FNRs, curious remark is here

Hence FNRs can utilise uranium about 60 times more efficiently than a normal reactor. They are however expensive to build and operate, including the reprocessing, and are only justified economically if uranium prices remain above 1990s low levels.
---------------
www.world-nuclear.org...

no reason to think that cost will not rise.

True. That’s why the caveat was about funding being required to ensure safety. The storage is rightly an issue but mainly because nobody wants it in their back yard. High Level radioactive waste is made into a gel. The gel is encapsulated in grout in a steel and concrete flask. The flask is entombed in another flask of steel and concrete. This is then buried in a chamber miles underground (do a search of the Nirex facility in Cumbria). The chamber is steel and concrete and is in side another steel and concrete chamber mined out of solid granite. In absence of the ability of launching the stuff into space I cannot see what else they can do to be honest. In response to the uranium costs….

But there is. Uranium deposits are now plentiful hence the low price. Maybe in the future they will be consumed much more quickly if fast breeder technology is implemented commercially. The issue a while back and the concern was that they were not plentiful, and that is why a lot of time and money was spent on reprocessing facilities in the US and the UK. These facilities are now usually kept open with government funding as they reprocess very little due to more than adequate supplies of uranium for the current PWR and thermal stations. If uranium wasn’t plentiful, then we have the reprocessing facilities. 97% of the fuel in a fuel rod is unused when it is sent for reprocessing so we only have to find around 5% of the fuel taking into account reprocessing losses. If fast breeders are used ( and it will take a lot more development and enormous sums of money to start them up successfully ) then I concede that uranium deposits may not match the required amount of output for Fast Breeder Technology in about 100 years. Kinda like the peak oil theory we are now in with hydrocarbons eh? Except that we could just continue with current technology, i.e. thermal systems such as PWRs and not have to worry about uranium depletion.

Thought this was interesting and link only 2 pages of info.
www.cop.noaa.gov...

Gulf of Mexico Ecosystems & Hypoxia Assessment (NGOMEX)

CSCOR-supported Research Provides Foundation for Effective Management of the Dead Zone

The northern portion of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, which contains almost half of the nation's coastal wetlands and supports commercial and recreational fisheries which generate $2.8 billion annually, has undergone profound changes due to nutrient enrichment of Mississippi River water from land-based sources. This over-enrichment of nutrients stimulates the development of seasonal hypoxia (very low oxygen waters) over the Louisiana/Texas continental shelf in summer and results in the largest recurring hypoxic zone in the United States. In 2008, the hypoxic zone (or “Dead Zone”) was the second largest on record, encompassing more than 8,000 square miles, an area roughly the size of Massachusetts. Hypoxic waters can cause habitat loss, stress and even death to marine organisms; affecting commercial harvests and the health of impacted ecosystems.

Building on nearly 20 years of research, the NGOMEX program addresses the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico through the funding of multi-year, interdisciplinary research projects. Current studies are documenting the dynamics of the hypoxic zone over the Louisiana continental shelf and helping to better define the biological, chemical, and physical processes that influence hypoxic zone development and determine its extent, and impacts on fisheries.

reply to post by Mez353

But there is. Uranium deposits are now plentiful hence the low price.

hmmmm... Amicus, crucial moment is not about U-reserve: oil peak, drinking water peak shall rise prices for all branches of industry.

Touche' SarKOY,
"Many of the wars of the 20th century were about oil, but wars of the 21st century will be over water."

--Isamil Serageldin World Bank Vice President

In North Africa, Egypt and Sudan have counted on the abundance of the Nile’s life-giving flow but now upstream nations want to keep more of the abundance for themselves. Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda are asserting their rights to more of the river’s relentless flow. Dam projects in the upper Nile are going to cause major hassles in that area, especially the 6 planned by Uganda.

Cracking discussion article here
Can the Nile States Dam Their Way to Cooperation?
www.internationalrivers.org...

reply to post by TheWill


Thank you for the explanation, TheWill. I hadn't understood the gravity of how fast it was polluting the GoM compared to the chemicals in the Mississippi River. I guess it's not so bad since it's stopped leaking? Though the comment about any sea creature swimming through the dead zone, diving deeper looking for oxygen then dying is very sad.

As for the commentators, with engineering backgrounds and who have studied this mess - thanks for contributing, I'm learning a lot in your discussions.

www.globalresearch.ca...

Widespread Contamination of the US Gulf Coast . Illnesses related to the Oil Disaster
Environmental Protection Agency Turns a Blind Eye


In response to their oil disaster last summer that released at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of widely banned toxic Corexit dispersants (which have been banned in 19 countries) to sink the oil. The dispersants contain chemicals that many scientists and toxicologists have warned are dangerous to humans, marine life, and wildlife.

All these spills are enormous in size and I wonder how it's affecting our eco-system? Should we be worried about eating contaminated seafood?

Without a doubt, globa research has plenty of articles discussing the contamination in the shellfish, so does rense.com.

phoenixrisingfromthegulf.wordpress.com...< br /> Siesta Key GOM beach sample with 173 ppm of BP’s Oil (Macondo Prospect)
Posted on November 8, 2010 by concernedcitizensofflorida
Testing the Waters reports that a GOM beach sample from Siesta Key, FL contains 173
ppm of BP’s oil from the Macondo Prospect. A fingerprint match was identified by the testing laboratory.
What makes this finding so extraordinary is that it came from a citizens’ initiative -TESTING THE WATERS – which was formed by Gulf Coast residents who simply want to know if their beaches are oil free, the water is clean enough to swim in, and the seafood is safe to eat.
Isn’t this what government is supposed to do? Test the water! They test it for everything else, and yet getting regular testing like this done seems to take an act of GOD.

Does BP have such a lock on the entire governmental system responsible for the necessary testing, interpreting and reporting of these kinds of results that we still do not hear from the EPA, FL DEP, NOAA, CDC, Coast Guard, State/County Public Health Departments, etc. in any substantive way. And when we do hear from the appropriate government bureaucracy, it’s pure propaganda.

So, here we have individual citizens putting up their own money to fund essential testing from a public health and safety standpoint. Isn’t this what are tax dollars are for? If so, what are they doing with the tax revenue besides promoting the BP marketing campaign. You know, the one that lulls you to sleep with the cyborg mouthing the words:

The seafood is safe to eat … don’t worry.

The water is safe to swim in … be happy.

The beaches are oil-free … come and relax.

Perhaps it’s time we all held those government authorities and departments accountable for at least doing their bare minimum jobs. Obviously, they have chosen to not hold BP responsible for anything.

Wonder why the residents have to test for themselves, well with this kinda delaying tactics going on ...

uk.finance.yahoo.com...

Investigators looking into BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill have accused one of the energy giant's suppliers of obstructing the inquiry.

The White House oil spill commission said that National Oilwell Varco (NYSE: NOV - news) is not cooperating with its requests for information.

US officials need the company's help to recreate what the crew who died in the accident might have seen on their monitors in the moments before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded. The accident, on April 20, killed 11 men.

reply to post by Mez353

Amicus, one moment is gov.'s & corpies have led along criminal way to get more Power & money, but, on the other hand, we're stumbled down to've taken new techs to solve real challenges against us instead of fairy tales about the World terrorism + consumers in Essence cannot reach to real Stars.