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Nuclear lobby hiring “green” spruikers

Still more fluff, lies and radiation from TMI and the new nuke media machine OpEd News by Harvey Wasserman 25 Nov 09 “…….the hype about alleged green support for new reactors. Latest is a carefully contrived piece of industry fluff from one Anthony Faiola, whose “Nuclear Power Regains Support” has just been featured atop the Washington Post.

This wafer thin installment in the “former environmentalists deem nukes green” series features a Brit named Stephen Tindale who recently left Greenpeace under strained circumstances.Greenpeace is as anti-nuke as ever. Like Patrick Moore, another former Greenpeacer now hiring out to the nuclear industry, Tindale’s tenure with the organization was stormy, and his defection unsurprising to many still with the group.But once again the turn of a single activist was a sufficient hook on which to hang a breathless feature.

Faiola cites “only muted opposition” to new reactors in the US while ignoring the inconvenient reality that none are yet licensed for construction. The thousands of No Nukes arrests in the 1970s and ‘80s came at reactor sites like Seabrook, New Hampshire and Diablo Canyon, California, where construction was already under way.

In fact, today’s safe energy opposition is far beyond corresponding stages when the first reactors were just being proposed. Its decisive advantage comes from true green renewable and efficiency technologies that are four decades further along, and that have all but priced atomic energy wholly out of the marketplace. Only this media-based stab at federal handouts keeps the prospect of new reactors on life support.

Faiola crows that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission “is reviewing applications for 22 new nuclear plants from coast to coast.” Unmentioned is Toshiba-Westinghouse’s flagship AP-1000 design, which the NRC says can’t withstand an earthquake, hurricane or tornado. Also missing are devastating safety critiques from regulators in Finland, France and Great Britain of the “standardized” reactor being pushed by France’s taxpayer-financed AREVA…………………..But as sure as radiation continues to pour from Three Mile Island, the hype about “green” support for atomic power will continue to spew, while the core of the environmental movement remains staunchly anti-nuke, especially as the price of Solartopian technologies continues to plummet.

OpEdNews – Article: Still more fluff, lies and radiation from TMI and the new nuke media machine

November 25, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, spinbuster, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radiation, radioactive