ECOCIDE - After World War Two, a new crime was created on the international statute books, called Genocide. Since then there has been no World War Three, but humans, have created the Anthropocene Age, where governments and powerful corporations are destroying the planet environmentally. We are therefore keen to see the Rome Statute amended to create a crime to recognise and seek to prevent ruthless profiteering and exploitation, such that this irresponsible plundering of our natural resources might be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. 

Chernobyl was some heavy shit, that should compel us to introduce hefty Radiation Taxes in the fight against ecocidal tendencies.

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history both in cost and casualties. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan. The initial emergency response, together with later decontamination of the environment, involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion Soviet rubles—roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation.

The accident occurred during a safety test on the steam turbine of an RBMK-type nuclear reactor. During a planned decrease of reactor power in preparation for the test, the power output unexpectedly dropped to near-zero. The operators were unable to restore the power level specified by the test program, which put the reactor in an unstable condition. This risk was not made evident in the operating instructions, so the operators proceeded with the test. Upon test completion, the operators triggered a reactor shutdown. But a combination of operator negligence and critical design flaws had made the reactor primed to explode. Instead of shutting down, an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction began, releasing enormous amounts of energy.

The core melted down and two or more explosions ruptured the reactor core and destroyed the reactor building. This was immediately followed by an open-air reactor core fire. It released considerable airborne radioactive contamination for about nine days that precipitated onto parts of the USSR and Western Europe, before finally ending on 4 May 1986. Some 70% of fallout landed in Belarus, 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) away. The fire released about the same amount of contamination as the initial explosion. As a result of rising ambient radiation levels off-site, a 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) radius exclusion zone was created 36 hours after the accident. About 49,000 people were evacuated from the area, primarily from Pripyat. The exclusion zone was later increased to 30 kilometres (19 mi) when a further 68,000 people were evacuated from the wider area, and later it became the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone covering an area of approximately 2,600 km2 (1,000 sq mi).

The reactor explosion killed two engineers and severely burned two more. A massive emergency operation to put out the fire, stabilize the reactor, and clean up the ejected nuclear core began. During the immediate emergency response 134 station staff and firemen were hospitalized with acute radiation syndrome due to absorbing high doses of ionizing radiation. Of these 134 people, 28 died in the days to months afterward and approximately 14 suspected radiation-induced cancer deaths followed within the next 10 years.

Chernobyl's health effects to the general population are uncertain. An excess of 15 childhood thyroid cancer deaths were documented as of 2011. A United Nations committee found that to date fewer than 100 deaths have resulted from the fallout. Determining the total eventual number of exposure related deaths is uncertain based on the linear no-threshold model, a contested statistical model. Model predictions of the eventual total death toll in the coming decades vary. The most robust studies predict 4,000 fatalities when solely assessing the three most contaminated former Soviet states, to about 9,000 to 16,000 fatalities when assessing the whole of Europe. Following the disaster, Pripyat was replaced by the new purpose built city of Slavutych.

The USSR built the protective Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus by December 1986. It reduced the spread of radioactive contamination from the wreckage and protected it from weathering. It also provided radiological protection for the crews of the undamaged reactors at the site, which were restarted in late 1986 and 1987. Due to the continued deterioration of the sarcophagus, it was further enclosed in 2017 by the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement. This larger enclosure allows the removal of both the sarcophagus and the reactor debris, while containing the radioactive hazard. Nuclear clean-up is scheduled for completion in 2065.

Soviet criminal trial 1987

A trial took place from 7 to 30 July 1987 in a temporary courtroom set up in the House of Culture in the city of Chernobyl, Ukraine. Five plant employees (Anatoly S. Dyatlov, the former deputy chief engineer; Viktor P. Bryukhanov, the former plant director; Nikolai M. Fomin, the former chief engineer; Boris V. Rogozhin, the shift director of Reactor 4; and Aleksandr P. Kovalenko, the chief of Reactor 4); and Yuri A. Laushkin (Gosatomenergonadzor [USSR State Committee on Supervision of Safe Conduct of Work in Atomic Energy] inspector) were sentenced to ten, ten, ten, five, three, and two years respectively in labor camps. The families of Aleksandr Akimov, Leonid Toptunov and Valery Perevozchenko had received official letters, but prosecution against the employees had been terminated at their deaths.

Anatoly Dyatlov was found guilty "of criminal mismanagement of potentially explosive enterprises" and sentenced to ten years imprisonment—of which he would serve three — for the role that his oversight of the experiment played in the ensuing accident.

Nuclear power generation is dangerous. We are not just talking about accidents, like core melt-down and radioactive coolant leaks. We are talking about the fact that spent fuel is stored in caverns, in the sea and boreholes, without any possible long-term management plan. Simply because no corporation will survive for hundreds of thousands of years, and no bond or other financial deposit scheme could be large enough and long lasting enough to cope with any eventual pollution disaster. And what can happen will happen. That is Murphy's Law.

Since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the UK has maintained a network of gamma dose rate monitors. This network, known as RIMNET, currently consists of 96 fixed and 112 mobile gamma dose rate monitors. The fixed monitors are distributed geographically evenly across the UK and the mobile monitors are positioned along coastlines and around civil nuclear facilities.

Chernobyl

Deuterium

Fukushima

Germany: cost of nuclear energy

Hinkley Point C

Hiroshima

Nagasaki

Sizewell C

Rosatom & EDF - Greenwashing pink hydrogen, Emmanuel Macron

Tritium

Plutonium

Proliferation

Uranium

DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS - Boris Johnson's government has no real clean energy policy. His comedy cabinet of clowns is countenancing, new oil fields and coal mines, and licking the back-sides of nuclear energy companies. All of which has caused an energy crisis in the United Kingdom. When what he should have done was push for wind and solar renewables like there was no tomorrow. He could have done that with policies and statute, but he was too lazy, keeping in the back of his mind that many of his paying supporters are in the petrochemical and gas businesses and property developers. Talk about conflicted interests!

Such conflicts are hardly conducive to blazing a zero emission trail, because he would be biting the hand that feeds him - unless he was honest and incorruptible. In politics, that is a rare breed indeed.

Johnson's successor could make nuclear power untenable with a Radiation Tax. He could give wind and solar companies massive tax holidays, and force councils to implement an infrastructure for EVs, that pave the way to a sustainable hydrogen economy, while catering for battery electrics. Such policies would attract overseas investors, and restore confidence in the United Kingdom, where at the moment the country is weak and vulnerable to a virtual takeover with China and France investing in utilities, which should more properly be controlled by British (or at the very least European) investors who are themselves not in the pockets of Asian or Russian concerns, with world domination agendas, aimed at the accumulation of personal wealth.

We believe that every nation should be protected by international bullies, and their geographical borders and trade routes respected. We are also hopeful that one day there will be an international currency based on agriculture and the food production capability of planet earth, free of artificial fertilizers. That should be the new gold standard, where at the moment we are in free-fall with no limitations on the printing of money, that has no substance to back it up. Without some kind of natural brake on lending, all currencies are crypto.

BOJO'S EPITAPH 

When Boris Johnson advised Queen Elizabeth that proroguing parliament was legal, it was not true. How far along the line of being a deliberate lie that may have been is unclear. But Bojo has a chequered career when it comes to telling it straight. He was though instrumental in making Her Majesty party to an unlawful action.

Somehow, despite many scandals of a sexual nature, Boris has managed to cling onto Clowning Street, the debt centre of town - with a toxic economy for pensioners, whose savings are rapidly reducing in value. In the media, it is said, presumably allegedly, that he has fathered many children outside of wedlock, earning him the name Shagatha Christie. Many people have asked how many children does Bojo have?

Normally, that would call into question his morals. But because he was elected to deal with Brexshit, everybody turned a blind eye. Even the Queen, though she was lied to over proroguing parliament.

But he could be forgiven if he knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, almost everything he touches turns to crap. He is the exact opposite of Midas and Austin Power's Goldmember. He is Shitfinger.

IS IT SAFE? - In our view, nuclear power in any form, can never be safe. Under international law, nuclear proliferation is illegal. In view of the ultimate danger storing radioactive waste presents to future generations, we consider that any administration that encourages, endorses or otherwise employs atomic fission for any purpose, should be considered an Eco Nazi - and liable to the full force the law - to include confiscation of assets - to help pay for cleaning up the mess they have created for mankind.

And surely, he's heard that it is illegal to proliferate nuclear weapons, yet he has done a deal with Australia and the USA. Perhaps that should be referred to the International Criminal Court?

BRITAIN GOT ANOTHER BUM DEAL - In electing a clown as Prime Minister, UK voters made one of the biggest mistakes in British history. Brexit was and is a disaster, costing pensioners an absolute fortune, as real world inflation halved the value of their savings, with timber, copper and other commodities doubling in price. Then there is the energy crises and nuclear power, with food prices rising. We feel sure that Dr Hannibal Lecter would like to have his old friend for dinner. It might be that some Conservative Party members might also want to join in the feast.

ARE THESE THE DIRTIEST DOZEN - WORLD'S WORST - TOP HR VIOLATORS ?

DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS - We pay our taxes but get no value for all our hard earned pounds. Don't forget that our income is taxed along with just about everything we buy. Even buying a house is subject to stamp duty and dying also costs money with death duties. Shit! How are they getting away with bleeding the electorate dry like this? Fuel is taxed, drinks are taxed (that's okay by us), and using roads is taxed. Then there is car tax of course. We heard they are thinking of taxing sex, based on the length of your Johnson.

Conservative politics is based on delaying economic shortcomings by robbing Peter to pay Paul. Another prime example of short term politics with long term cost and pollution implications, is nuclear power and radioactive waste that can never be safe.

Despite that, the UK has let Electricity of France (EDF) into the frame, with promises to pay almost double the rate for a megawatt of energy, than it costs to generate the same with solar and wind power. Why on earth did Boris make such a decision, without consulting the general public, and informing them as to the facts?

LINKS & REFERENCE

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