nuclear-news

just before his death, Michael Mariotte told me “…I have long trusted Hansen on climate issues; now, I am nervous about that. If he can be so wrong in Illinois, and so far removed from his own previous statements on nuclear safety, and seems willing to sell himself to the nation’s largest, and quite possibly greediest, electric utility, well, how can I trust his other work?”

It gets worse. Michael Mariotte tells us that James Hansen, in his zeal for nukes, went to other foundations asking them do cut funding to any environmental group that opposed nuclear power! I haven’t verified this myself, but NIRS has the documents. Mariotte says this Hansen push to defund even included groups like the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) – which isn’t even specifically anti-nuclear, but says reactors are a concern.

Download or listen to this 21 minute interview with activist Michael Mariotte in Michael Mariotte on Ecoshock CD Quality or Michael Mariotte on Ecoshock Lo-Fi

ICE MELT CONTROLS WORLD WEATHER http://www.ecoshock.org/2016/05/ice-melt-controls-world-weather.html    “……..IS JAMES HANSEN WRONG ON NUCLEAR POWER AS A SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE?Why is the world’s most famous climate scientist helping out America’s biggest electricity producer Exelon? And why is James Hansen trying to get the people of Illinios to subsidize Exelon’s dangerous old reactors in Illinios? Even stranger, why did the “death of environmentalism” guy Michael Shellenberger suddenly pop up with a new front group called “Environmental Progress Illinois”? Who is the billionaire funding all that, and why did Hansen join the board? Questions, questions. 

For decades, I’ve relied on the non-profit Nuclear Information and Resource Service, the NIRS to get answers on nuclear power. The group was formed in 1978. Michael Mariotte was it’s executive director since 1985. Due to health concerns, Michael stepped aside for the new Director Tim Judson. But thank goodness, that doesn’t mean Michael has shut up. Without him, I would never have known about the nuclear swamp in Illinois, and Hansen’s questionable connections there.

OK, this is crushing news for me. When I contacted Michael, he wasn’t sure he could do the interview. It turns out he was entering a hospice due to his three-year battle with Pancreatic cancer. I’m pretty sure you are listening to his last radio interview, likely his last media interview. We’ve all lost a strong life-long campaigner to stop the madness of nuclear power.

The group of scientists led by James Hansen have explored the extreme possibilities of climate change this century. While I’m not qualified to judge the science, I disagree with one of Hansen’s solutions, nuclear power. I’m talk that over with one of the greatest anti-nuclear activists in America, Michael Mariotte.

HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?

I found Michael (again) as he posted this very serious article about James Hansen teaming up with one of the worst abusers of “green” imagery, Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute (which doesn’t really have any “breakthroughs” for the climate at all…).

In a post on the Green World blog, Mariotte asks “How low can they go? Hansen, Shellenberger now shilling for Exelon“. Exelon, if you didn’t know, is the largest owner/operator of nuclear power plants in America. Now that is has merged with another big power company, Pepco, Exelon is also now the largest single supplier of electricity in the United States.

The story of Exelon in the state of Illinois is not pretty. The company started out there, and still operates three reactors. Two of them are the dangerous GE Mark I reactor designs, or “Fukushima clones” as Mariotte calls them. The other is newer, built in the 1980’s.

Exelon claims their Illinois reactors are losing money. Other sources dispute that. In any case, Exelon is trying to get a bill rammed through the Illinois State legislature to either (a) get a big rate hike from electricity consumers in the state, or (b) get a straight-out subsidy from Illinois taxpayers. But Illinois doesn’t need that nuclear power. The reason Exelon claims to be losing money is they are getting killed by much lower cost wind power from the mid-West, and by lower cost natural gas generating plants (mostly powered by fracked gas).

The Exelon reactors could shut down tomorrow (and they should!) and Illinois would not go dark. There is no reason for the people of Illinois to keep these dangerous nuclear dinosaurs going. So Exelon is reaching deep for any reason to get more money. They now says the reactors are need to fight climate change. (Wind will do that job).

So they need friends who can promote nuclear power as a green alternative. Enter Michael Shellenberger, a non-scientists who with pollster Ten Nordstrom declared themselves “Senior Fellows” of an “Institute” that was originally just some offices in a mall in El Cerito, California. A foundation funded them.

Now Schellenberger got some funding from Chicago’s wealthiest family, the Pritzkers. He created another non-profit with the money, “Environmental Progress Illinois” – which tries to look like some sort of citizen’s lobby group. It isn’t. James Hansen is shown as a board member. Does he get paid?

I think Hansen is way out of his league on this. He’s not an energy expert. This move to keep old GE Mark I reactors going, well beyond their design date, and despite severel melt-downs, casts doubt about his judgement. I won’t say it demotes his science, which is known to be world class. It does show how far James Hansen will go to follow up his beliefs.

You can read about Hansen’s role here, in the article “Climate scientist James Hansen stumps for nuclear in Illinois as Exelon bill looms“,

Download or listen to this 21 minute interview with activist Michael Mariotte in Michael Mariotte on Ecoshock CD Quality or Michael Mariotte on Ecoshock Lo-Fi

If you want to Tweet out or Facebook this last Mariotte interview, use this shorter URL:
Mariotte interview on Radio Ecoshock

NO BREAKTHROUGH FROM THE BREAKTHROUGH INSTITUTE

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus were originally funded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation – famous for food products like Sara Lee. That became worth over half a billion dollars. After funding greens for years, the Cummins Foundation changed direction.

Now Shellenberger and Nordhous’s BreakThrough Institute has Rachel Pritzker as the chair of its advisory board. The big Pritzker family has 11 billionaires with a combined worth over $30 billion dollars.

You can follow my two part programs on Michael Shellenberger and the Breakthrough Institute here:

PLOTTING THE GREEN DEATH The “Grim Reapers”, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus are at it again, claiming “environmentalism is dead”. New book “Break Through”, interview the authors, plus Peggy Shepard of WE ACT, environmental justice in Harlem. Ecoshock show 071019 (54 min) 13 MB

PLOTTING THE GREEN DEATH – PART 2 “Death of Environmentalism” boys, Shellenberger and Nordhaus, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which pays for green bashing. Ecoshock 071026 58 min 14 MB. Transcript here.

This is what they say:

“and it will require that we leave environmentalism behind, as we construct a post-natural politics” (Shellenberger and Nordhaus in BreakThrough) To my mind, these two became anti-environmentalists.

Bill McKibben in a New York Times book review objected to Breakthrough book’s idea to bioengineer humans to withstand the coming heat. But his main objection is this book gives up on trying to control carbon emissions. We can go on burning fossil fuels, Shellenberger and Nordhouas suggested, while waiting for the next big technical fix, like hydrogen cars, or maybe fusion power.

The Pritzker family is deep into Illinois politics, as one of the most powerful families in Chicago. They include Penny Sue Pritzker, the US Secretary of Commerce.

Again, whether or not we agree with nuclear power as a solution to climate change, does not reflect on the science behind the new paper “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms”. The scientific community is still divided on Hansen’s new work. It will take time to evaluate it.

But just before his death, Michael Mariotte told me “…I have long trusted Hansen on climate issues; now, I am nervous about that. If he can be so wrong in Illinois, and so far removed from his own previous statements on nuclear safety, and seems willing to sell himself to the nation’s largest, and quite possibly greediest, electric utility, well, how can I trust his other work?”http://www.ecoshock.org/2016/05/ice-melt-controls-world-weather.html