
Bellona Nuclear Digest. November-December 2024
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
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Publish date: January 7, 2009
News
The Institute of Marine Research has created a numerical model for calculating the spread of salmon lice. Salmon lice spread during the first three stages of the louse’s life cycle, before the copepodite becomes parasitic and has to attach itself to a host to survive. The salmon louse’s potential for spreading is therefore a function of current, wind and the time it takes for the louse to pass from the free-swimming planktonic phase to the immobile parasitic phase.The time it takes before the parasitic phase begins is highly dependent on water temperature. In general, colder temperatures will lead to slower development (Jonson et al., 1991a) and a greater potential for spreading over longer distances.
At 8°C it will take approximately 4.5 days from hatching until the salmon louse is infectious, after which they can be infectious for up to 23 days. For 12°C, the corresponding figures are approx. 2.5 and 13 days (Boxaspen, K. et al., 2000). That is, at 8°C the salmon louse can spread for almost a month, whereas at 12°C the potential spreading period is cut in half. Given the typical current speeds in Western Norwegian fjord areas, this means that the salmon louse can be carried several hundred kilometres from where it hatched and still be capable of infesting salmon (Asplin, L. et al., 2002).
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
A military drone with a high-explosive warhead struck the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine overnight, damaging a protective shelter that prevents radiation leaks at the plant’s destroyed fourth reactor unit, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Friday.
Russia has officially withdrawn from an international environmental agreement that brought to bear billions of dollars from EU nations and the United States on addressing the nuclear legacy of the Soviet Union.
This article by Angelina Davydova, editor of Bellona’s Ecology & Rights magazine, first appeared in The Moscow Times. The oil spill in ...