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Obama’s New Appointments

Obama’s New Appointments
 Baltimore Chronicle by Stephen Lendman Friday, 19 December 2008 Obama’s team assures business as usual, a near-seamless transition from George Bush, and not “change to believe in.” His latest choices raise more cause for concern and with good reason…………………..According to a December 16 Mark Hertsgaard commentary…..Obama’s position on climate change, though far better than Bush’s, is weak compared to what the EU aims for by 2020 and his view on coal is unclear. His support for so-called “clean coal” has no basis in reality. It’s an industry-invented phrase about the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet and nothing in prospect will “clean” it…………………………..

Steven Chu

He’ll become Obama’s new Energy Secretary,…

He strongly backs nuclear power and called it “a necessary part of the portfolio” at the annual Stanford University economic summit last March. Yet he downplays its risks that are considerable. According to Helen Caldicott, nuclear power is dangerous and won’t solve our energy problems. Each commercial reactor is an atom bomb factory. Moreover, they require a vast infrastructure, called the nuclear fuel cycle, that uses huge and rapidly growing amounts of fossil fuels. Each stage in the cycle adds to the problem, starting with the enormous energy needs to mine and mill uranium fuel.

Then there are tail millings that need fossil fuels to remediate. Other cycle steps need them as well, including plant construction, dismantling, cleanup, handling contaminated waste, storing and transporting it. In a word, nuclear power, for commercial or military use, plays Russian roulette with planet earth, and sooner or later we lose.

It’s economics also don’t add up – for construction, insurance, government subsidies, and more. Add the human health toll on uranium miners, nuclear industry workers, and everyone living close to reactors or downwind from them. Plus the danger of an accidental or terrorist-caused core meltdown that some experts believe is inevitable, the waste storage problem, the need to guarantee against seepage for 500,000 years, and the threat of nuclear war and catastrophic nuclear winter that will end all human life on earth.

Chu’s support for the industry is why he’ll be DOE Secretary. When asked in 2005 if fission-based nuclear power plants should be a larger part of the energy-producing portfolio, he responded: “Absolutely,” and elaborated with a cavalier attitude about its dangers in advocating for “recycling” of waste.

As professor of journalism and frequent writer on environmental and energy issues, Karl Grossman states: “recycling and reuse of nuclear garbage ends up spreading poisons that cause cancer, genetic damage, and other causes of premature death.” Chu is “trapped (in a) nuclear mindset,” according to Greenpeace USA’s Jim Riccio. He downplays safe, clean renewable technologies; ignores the concerns that Caldicott and others raise; staunchly advocates for the industry; and will head to Washington to support it. He’d better or he’ll be back at Berkeley and be replaced by someone who will.

Obama’s New Appointments

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, urasium, radioactive

December 20, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized