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US lawmakers reject nuclear in renewable power goal

US lawmakers reject nuclear in renewable power goal

Wed May 20, 2009 By Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers pushing to include greater recognition for existing nuclear power in a national renewable energy standard failed to win new breaks for the industry when a U.S. congressional panel on Wednesday voted down an amendment to a controversial climate change bill.

The sweeping bill, which seeks to cap greenhouse gas emissions, includes a renewable energy mandate that would require utilities to generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2020………………………………

Under the legislation sponsored by Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, utilities’ renewable mandate would be reduced in proportion to the portion of any electricity sales from new nuclear plants, but not existing nuclear plants…………

……..Waxman argued that the bill was not discriminating against nuclear power, but that nuclear was not renewable energy because it requires uranium, a limited resource. Also, he said the renewable standard was aimed at promoting new power sources and technology.

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN20533760

May 21, 2009 Posted by | ENERGY, politics, USA | , , | Leave a comment

Obama lying about nuclear warhead

Barack Obama is lying about the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead

Examiner.com by Ann Garrison May 20, 2009 Barack Obama is lying about the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW).  He says that it’s not in his budget.

However, the RRW is in the $50 billion Pentagon “black budget,” and this is Commander-in-Chief Obama’s budget too.

  1. Obama and the rest of the Pentagon are free to use the black budget at will, because Congress would rather not know or take responsibility for it.

In January 2009, the London Guardian reported that the RRW is still being developed at Britain’s nuclear weapons laboratory, Aldermaston.

Neither President and Commander-in-Chief Obama, nor Energy Secretary Chu, nor any Pentagon spokesperson denied the report.

As Director of the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, Energy Secretary Chu oversaw the development of the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Wahead from 2006 until 2008, when Congress finally defunded it, under pressure in an election year.

It is inconceivable that Energy Secretary Chu does not know that the RRW’s development proceeds at Aldermaston, but, Chu was at least telling the truth, in a very deceptive sense when, earlier this year, he said that it would not be in his Energy Department budget.

Barack Obama, however, is lying.  He is President and Commander-in-Chief Obama, with Constitutional, and military executive authority over the Pentagon.   The Pentagon’s $50 billion black budget is Obama’s budget, first and foremost.  He is lyiing when he says that his budget does not include the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead .

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-8257-SF-Energy-Policy-Examiner~y2009m5d20-Barack-Obama-is-lying-about-the-Reliable-Replacement-Nuclear-Warhead

May 21, 2009 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | , , | Leave a comment

Clean green nuclear war machine

Clean green nuclear war machine

Examiner.com, by Ann Garrison 12 May 09

Most world class planet and people trashers, including Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Peabody Coal, Dupont, Dow Chemical, Coca Cola, Barrick Gold, Monsanto, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Eison, and, even Halliburton, have given their corporate images the new Green Brand.

And, most belong to the globally sociopathic World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the Wildlife Habitat Council, a non-profit conglomerate devoted to “stewarding” large tracts of land for the corporations, after getting rid of the people in the name of the critters.

Even the Pentagon has developed a Green Brand, and its own Green Brand press clips, as has Lockheed Martin., on its Going Green web page.  Lockheed-Martin manufactures nearly all the U.S. military’s jet fighter bombers, including the trillion $ fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, wired to deliver a larger “payload,” meaning more bombs, conventional or nuclear, than the F-22 or other combat planes sent out to clear the air space ahead of it………………………

…………….. Wikipedia’s list of  nuclear submarines at the bottom of the ocean, and other nuclear sub accidents, including one, in my hometown of origin, Bremerton, Washington, home of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in 1983, and, another in my current hometown, San Francisco, where the nuclear-powered U.S.S. Guitarro sank to the bottom of San Francisco Bay, off  Mare Island, in 1969.

http://www.examiner.com/x-8257-SF-Energy-Policy-Examiner~y2009m5d12-Clean-green-war-machines

May 21, 2009 Posted by | spinbuster, USA | , , | Leave a comment

7 Reasons to Support Comprehensive Clean-Energy Legislation

7 Reasons to Support Comprehensive Clean-Energy Legislation

1. Clean-energy legislation will create jobs by spurring investment in renewables and efficiency.

The legislation would place a cap on global warming pollution that would give companies and utilities an incentive to invest in low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies in order to minimize their emissions. These kinds of investments increase demand for renewable electricity and fuels, helping grow entire new businesses, and create jobs in struggling sectors of the economy such as manufacturing and construction.

Clean-energy investments also create more jobs than investments in traditional energy sources.

2. Boosting investments in low-carbon energy will help the United States regain the lead in the manufacture and sale of clean-energy technologies.

3. Action on clean-energy legislation has critical industry support.

4. Global warming is harming our health and the physical environment.

5. Comprehensive clean-energy legislation can provide a host of economic benefits.

6. Clean-energy legislation requires that polluters pay.

7. Opponents of action would continue the status quo of doing nothing, which cost the average family a $1,000 increase in energy bills over past eight years.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/clean_energy_reasons.html

May 21, 2009 Posted by | ENERGY, USA | , , | Leave a comment

Nuclear cleanup funds mismanaged

  1. Nuclear cleanup funds mismanaged New American by Steven J. DuBord    Wednesday, 20 May 2009 As part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, “the Energy Department has begun releasing more than $6 billion in stimulus money to clean up 18 nuclear sites from New York to California, more than doubling the typical yearly funding for the program,” a May 18 Washington Post story recounts.
  2. The sites were involved in Cold War-era nuclear weapons production, and the cleanup will deal with radioactive and chemically hazardous waste. But it is another type of waste that is causing a concerned reaction and prompting “sharply worded warnings from some government officials and lawmakers who say the stimulus funding is ripe for abuse.”

The Washington Post points out that “contractors helped shape the stimulus package and are lined up to get the work, including many that have been cited for serious safety violations and costly mistakes.” The cleanup program “has long been plagued by cost overruns and delays and is designated by the Government Accountability Office as ‘at high risk for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.’ Over the past two years, estimated cleanup costs at all 22 sites have escalated from $180 billion to $240 billion, according to the Energy Department.”

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/1136

May 21, 2009 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | , , , | Leave a comment

Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival

Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival

Fox13now David Wells Senior Web Producer

May 18, 2009 SALT LAKE CITY – A federal judge has removed a major roadlock for EnergySolutions in its quest to to import Italian nuclear waste. U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart has ruled that a compact of several states doesn’t have the authority to ban foreign imports. Many Utahns, including Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, have spoken out against the company’s plan to bring 1,600 tons of Italian nuclear waste to its facility in Utah’s west desert.

Utah Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R) and Jim Matheson (D) are co-sponsors of a national bill that could block imports of nuclear waste. FOX 13’s Katy Carlyle has more.           http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-judge-compact-of-states-cant-block-foreign,0,7394556.story

May 21, 2009 Posted by | USA, wastes | , , , | Leave a comment

Conn. high court backs anti-nuke plant activist

Associated Press

Conn. high court backs anti-nuke plant activist

By DAVE COLLINS , 05.20.09 A Connecticut environmental activist on Wednesday scored a significant legal victory in her fight over how the Millstone nuclear power complex manages its wastewater.

The state Supreme Court unanimously decided to allow Nancy Burton to challenge the state process that led to a preliminary decision to allow Millstone to renew its wastewater discharge permit. The state Department of Environmental Protection released a draft decision in August 2006 to renew the permit

Burton claims Millstone’s water intake and discharge system has destroyed billions of fish and other marine life in Long Island Sound and alleges the permit renewal process that began in 1997 has been tainted by bias, state favoritism toward Millstone and a disregard for environmental laws.

The five justices overturned a lower court judge’s ruling that Burton had no standing under state law to challenge the permit process.

“We conclude that the plaintiff’s complaint adequately sets forth facts to support an inference that unreasonable pollution, impairment or destruction of a natural resource will probably result from Millstone’s operation,” Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the court’s decision………………………A federal appeals court ruled in 2007 that power plants, including nuclear facilities, must use the best technology available to avoid harming aquatic life…………

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/05/20/ap6449239.html

May 21, 2009 Posted by | politics, USA | , , | Leave a comment

Delays at Japan’s ill-fated nuclear plant

Delays at Japan’s ill-fated nuclear plant

By Hiroyuki Koshoji
UPI Tokyo, Japan — Japan’s Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, built to extract plutonium from the spent fuel produced in Japan’s nuclear reactors, continues to be plagued by technical difficulties that have pushed its start-up date for commercial operations to August this year.

The plant in Rokkasho in northern Japan was out of action for nine months from the end of 2007 due to problems in one of its vitrification facilities, a furnace that mixes high active liquid waste with molten glass to seal radioactive waste in glass canisters that can safely be buried in the ground.

Attempts to restart the plant failed last October as problems with the glass melting process persisted. Then in January, 150 liters of high-level liquid radioactive waste leaked from pipes in the vitrification cell, forcing Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. to postpone operations until August.

The problems at Rokkasho, especially with extracting plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, are a blow to Japan’s nuclear fuel-cycle program,………………. According to the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, out of the 19,240 tons of total storage capacity available in Japan for spent nuclear fuel, 60 percent is already occupied. It is believed that storage capacities at Fukushima and the Tokyo Electric Power Company Inc. would be used up within two to three years.

May 21, 2009 Posted by | business and costs, Japan | , , | Leave a comment