USA’s fiasco of money wasted on nuclear energy
Money spent on nuclear energy is wasted http://www.mlive.com/opinion/saginaw/index.ssf/2013/01/letter_terry_t_crevia.html TERRY T. CREVIA, The Jan. 14 Associated Press article “Training under way for new nuclear plant operators” shows the continued attempt to resurrect nuclear energy in the United States, despite its dismal track record of being too costly, too dangerous and inefficient.
Safety training is just one of the gaps in the nuclear energy fiasco. There are just too many problems with nuclear energy besides personnel training for it to continue to receive the tens of billions of dollars in government subsidies and additional financing for cost over-runs.
This is an example of wasteful spending we hear little about from Congress and the media, as too many get caught up in the excitement of cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment insurance.
Oyster Creek, N.J., is the oldest operating reactor in the United States. During Hurricane Sandy, flood waters rose by more than 6.5 feet, coming within 6 inches of wiping out the cooling system. Had this cooling system failed, the Northeast would have faced more radiation poisoning than Chernobyl or Fukushima.
From waste storage and transportation, accidental and planned radiation releases, locating fresh-water sites for cooling to uranium mining site contamination, nuclear energy has a host of unsolvable problems.
Since the Eisenhower administration’s Atoms for Peace program of the 1950s, the U.S. has spent half a trillion dollars without solving inherent nuclear energy problems, and still this industry is determined to put the square nuclear peg in the round energy hole. As Congress and the media beat the entitlements discussion to death, remember how your tax dollars are being wasted on the nuclear industry’s folly of hoping that with enough money and time, nuclear energy will become something, someday.
AUDIO USA Dept of Energy plans to put radioactive materials into products
Gundersen: U.S. gov’t to allow highly radioactive material from nuclear plants into silverware, other items? (AUDIO)http://enenews.com/gundersen-u-s-govt-to-allow-highly-radioactive-material-from-nuclear-plants-into-silverware-other-items-audio 15 Jan 13
Source: Fairewinds Energy Education
Date: January 13, 2013 Arnie examines a new proposal by the Department of Energy to melt radioactive scrap metal and reuse it in consumer goods like knives and forks.
- 14:15 Radioactive material from inside a nuclear plant
- 14:20 Turn radioactive vessels from liability to asset
- 15:30 Pots, pans, forks, knives, spoons
- 16:30 Highly radioactive steam generators to be used?
- 17:15 Reused material can remain in radioactive lumps
- 19:45 It’s not helping the consumer here to get any radioactive material in their baby spoons
Full program here http://www.fairewinds.com/content/fairewinds-podcast
World’s largest offshore wind farm for Japan
Japan to build world’s largest offshore wind farm, New Scientist, 16
January 2013 by Rob Gilhooly, Tokyo It’s goodbye nuclear, hello
renewables as Japan prepares to build the world’s largest offshore
wind farm this July. Continue reading
VIDEO USA’s Atomic Energy Commission’s pointless efforts at “peaceful bombs”
in the least productive but most destructive test, the scientists wanted “to see how big of a hole a nuclear bomb could make.” Motherboard:
“It proved to be a really big hole.”
That test, Project Sedan, spewed radioactive fallout across four states, contaminating “more Americans than any other nuclear test.”
VIDEO The U.S. Once Wanted To Use Nuclear Bombs as a Construction Tool : http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/01/the-u-s-once-wanted-to-use-nuclear-bombs-as-a-
construction-tool/#ixzz2IFsWdcSf Smithsonian. January 16, 2013 In 1962, the Atomic Energy Commission wanted to see how big of a hole they could make with a nuclear bomb. ……..Enter, Project Sedan. the U.S.’s Atomic Energy Commission, Project Plowshare, says Motherboard, was a project in which the nation’s scientists were supposed to find something useful to do with all the nuclear expertise they had acquired throughout World War II and its aftermath. From 1961 through 1973, Project Plowshare saw 27 nuclear detonations. Many of these were at a test site in Nevada, says Motherboard, but some were a bit more experimental. In 1973, Project Rio Blanco, an operation under the banner of Project Plowshare, Continue reading
VUDEO: online Atlas of Renewable Energy resources: IRENA
VIDEO World First Renewable Energy Resources Atlas Goes Online 
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/01/16/world-first-renewable-energy-resources-atlas-goes-online/#pGsPGdve7XQtcPHD.99 January 16, 2013 Joshua S Hill
Live now at www.irena.org/GlobalAtlas, the atlas is the largest ever initiative to help countries asssess their potential renewable energy generating potential. It combines data and maps from leading technical institutions across the planet as well as private companies, and currently charts solar and wind resources.
The atlas hopes to expand to other forms of renewable energy during the next two years. In the next 10 years we expect a huge rise in the investments in renewable energy. The Global Solar and Wind Atlas will help us make the right decisions,” says Martin Lidegaard, Danish Minister of Climate, Energy and Building, and President of the 3rd session of the IRENA Assembly.
“The Global Atlas provides a powerful new tool in international efforts to double the world’s share of renewable energy by 2030,” said Adnan Z. Amin, IRENA Director-General. “With 22 countries now taking part, and more expected to join in the coming months, it is a clear sign of our growing political will to transition to clean, renewable energy.”
No nuclear waste dump until 2046, but USA will still keep making the stuff
Renowned documentary film-maker interviewed by ScreenZone
ON THE FRONTLINE: A ScreenZone interview with David Bradbury, 15 Jan 13 ScreenZone is proud to have renowned Australian documentary filmmaker David Bradbury join our catalogue, with a number of his award-winning and important films taking centre stage. Bradbury’s films have been shown on all the major Australian commercial and public broadcast networks as well as globally. He has won countless international film festival prizes and been the winner of five AFI awards and two Academy Award nominations (Frontline, which profiled war cameraman Neil Davis, and Chile: Hasta Cuando?, on the brutal military dictatorship of General Pinochet).
Currently sourcing funding for an ambitious and strategic three-part documentary showing the relationship between Australian minining, depleted uranium (DU) fallout and the Indian nuclear program, Bradbury continues to fight on the frontline, using the power of media and documentary film to show the world the truth, and empower individuals into collective action. You can help by donating via The Frontline Film Foundation: http://www.frontlinefilmfoundation.org/friend.htm a registered charity with tax deductible status that is committed to making environmentally aware and consciousness-raising films. And stay tuned for the crowdsourcing campaign in 2013 to further engage with the power of activist filmmaking via: https://www.facebook.com/FrontlineFilmFoundation ……… http://screenzone.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/on-the-frontline-a-screenzone-interview-with-david-bradbury/
UK secretly to exploit Australian outback again, testing killer drones
Drones have become a mainstay of warfare but are shrouded in secrecy. The US, ramping up its drone program under President Barack Obama, has used them against “kill list” targets in place such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Britain’s Taranis tests Australia appealed because it contains a lot of wide open spaces with next to no electromagnetic signals. He believed the tests would take place around Woomera in South Australia…..
It is estimated about 3000 people have been killed in US drone strikes, including hundreds of civilians
$190 million drone coming to Australia, The Age Asher Moses, January 16, 2013 An unmanned British stealth drone that can fly faster than the speed of sound and go undetected by radar will soon have its first test flight in Australia.
The £125 million ($190 million) Taranis, named after the Celtic god of thunder, can attack targets across continents, automatically dodge missiles and other efforts to bring it down and independently identify targets. It can refuel in mid-air and carry weapons including laser guided bombs and missiles.
Designed to avoid having to put human lives at risk (?) Continue reading
Remembering Aaron Swartz -Breaking The Set, Wiki and Richard Silverstein
“…There is a witchunt on on-online activists…”
Published on Jan 16, 2013
Breaking The Set – RT
Duration 14 mins (approx)
Abby Martin gives a tribute to internet prodigy and computer genius, Aaron Swartz and speaks to Producer Manuel Rapalo, who is reporting on the ground in Chicago from Aaron’s Swartz’s funeral.
From Wiki…
Swartz was significantly involved with a campaign to prevent the passing of the Stop Online Piracy Act(SOPA) bill that sought to monitor the Internet for copyright violations and would have made it easier for the U.S. government to shut down websites accused of violating copyright.[32]
Following the defeat of the bill, Swartz was the keynote speaker at the F2C:Freedom to Connect 2012 event in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2012. His speech was titled “How we stopped SOPA”[33]and he informed the audience:
“There’s a battle going on right now, a battle to define everything that happens on the internet in terms of traditional things that the law understands… [Under SOPA], new technology, instead of bringing us greater freedom, would have snuffed out fundamental rights we’d always taken for granted”
WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Remove United States District Attorney Carmen Ortiz from office for overreach in the case of Aaron Swartz.
It is too late to do anything for Aaron Swartz, but the who used the powers granted to them by their office to hound him into a position where he was facing a ruinous trial, life in prison and the ignominy and shame of being a convicted felon; for an alleged crime that the supposed victims did not wish to prosecute.
A prosecutor who does not understand proportionality and who regularly uses the threat of unjust and overreaching charges to extort plea bargains from defendants regardless of their guilt is a danger to the life and liberty of anyone who might cross her path.
Promoting Israeli democracy, exposing secrets of the national security state
Aaron Swartz hung himself a few days ago in his Brooklyn apartment.
Many of you will ask: who was Aaron Swartz? He was only a cross between Henry David Thoreau and Steve Jobs, someone who stood at the divide between the digital world and a visionary quest for freedom. A man who devised RSS at the age of 14. Those of you who use any sort of online reader to collect or aggregate the blogs and websites you follow couldn’t have done so without the genius Swarz employed to create it.
AUDIO: One by one, USA’s nuke plants likely to close?
Analyst: Florida nuclear plant will likely be closed — Gundersen: “The dominoes are starting to fall” (AUDIO)
Title: Repairs at Four Nuclear Reactors Are So Expensive That They Should Not Be Restarted http://enenews.com/analyst-florida-nuclear-plant-will-be-closed-gundersen-dominoes-starting-fall-audioSource: Fairewinds Energy Education
Date: January 13, 2013
Nuclear Expert Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education: Duke is seriously considering pulling the plug on the [Crystal River nuclear] plant […]
Last week we had a financial analyst at UBS suggest that Vermont Yankee didn’t make economic sense.
This week, we’ve got a financial analyst at another firm called Fitch and he says that the Crystal River plant will likely be closed because Duke can’t make economic sense out of it.
So the dominoes are starting to fall.
We’ve have Kewaunee, which is shutting down in the Midwest because of financial reasons. And now we’ve got UBS analysts and Fitch analysts also claiming it makes no economic sense to keep other nuclear plants running.
AUDIO: Future great floods threaten USA’s nuclear power plants
Gundersen: US nuclear plants at risk of ‘flood of biblical proportions’? — “They’re not designed against biblical floods” (AUDIO) Nuclear Expert Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education: At the Ft. Calhoun plant [in case of an upstream dam failure] we’re looking at 35 feet more water than there was in the flood 18 months ago. […]
January 13th, 2013 a
Title: Repairs at Four Nuclear Reactors Are So Expensive That They Should Not Be Restarted
Source: Fairewinds Energy Education
Date: January 13, 2013
Nuclear Expert Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education: At the Ft. Calhoun plant [in case of an upstream dam failure] we’re looking at 35 feet more water than there was in the flood 18 months ago. […]
Dr. [Bernard] Shanks has a quote […] he said that if an upstream dam were to fail it would cause a flood of biblical proportions. These plants are not designed against biblical floods. These plants were right at their limit 2 years ago.
According to Dr. Shanks and many other geologists and hydrologists, the condition of the upstream dams is suspect.
Full program here
No nuclear wastes dump near Lake Huron – Bruce County group
Bruce County group opposes burying nuclear waste near Lake Huron, The Record, Frances Barrick, Jan 15 2013 A Bruce County-based group opposed to burying nuclear waste near Lake Huron is taking its fight to Canada’s largest city.
A billboard along Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway says “bad idea” to a plan to build an underground repository to store low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste at the Bruce nuclear plant near Kincardine.
“We feel this is a national issue and we want to bring this to the attention of all Canadians,” Beverly Fernandez, spokesperson for Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump Inc., said of the sign on one of Canada’s busiest commuter routes.
The Ontario Power Generation is in the midst of seeking approval from the federal government for this project, which would be built about one kilometre from the shores of Lake Huron. Approval is expected in about nine months, she said.
“It defies common sense to bury radioactive waste beside a source of drinking water that 40 million people rely on,” said Fernandez, a Southampton resident.
This project is separate from plans by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization to bury highly radioactive nuclear waste in a “willing” community in Canada…..
The group has also launched an online petition intended for federal Environment Minister Peter Kent, who has final approval of the project. The petition is at www.gopetition.com/petitions/stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.html…..
UK to get new interim nuclear waste store – so they can make more wastes?
Sizewell B builds new radioactive nuclear waste store, BBC News 15 Jan 13, All the spent radioactive waste from Sizewell B is stored on site An energy firm has begun work on a new store for radioactive waste at Sizewell B nuclear power station.
EDF Energy said the dry fuel store at its site on the Suffolk coast would provide capacity for all the spent fuel created until the plant shuts in 2035.
The store for uranium oxide waste should by completed by 2015…… All the nuclear waste created since Sizewell B started generating electricity in 1995 is currently stored on site under water in storage ponds.
EDF said the new project meant spent fuel would be put in welded metal canisters, cleaned and placed in large concrete casks.
‘Safely and securely’
The energy firm said it would continue to store waste on site until a deep geological disposal facility was made available – similar to the storages created in underground rock caverns in Finland.
Jim Crawford, Sizewell B’s station director, said: “This is an important development for Sizewell B which will ensure we have the ability to continue to store our spent fuel, safely and securely on site for many years to come…..http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-21032888
Obama pledged to seek a nuclear weapons free world – he now has as econd chance
Obama’s Second Term Chance to Fulfill No-Nuke Pledge 16 January 2013 By Richard Falk and David Krieger, Truthout | Op-Ed It’s not too late for the President to demonstrate his first-term pledge of “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Continue reading
Obama to act on gun control, USA States acting already
Obama recruits children to push gun bans Will act on own, prod Congress, Washington Times, 16 Jan 13, Acting just a month after the Connecticut school shootings, President Obama will unveil a sweeping package of gun controls Wednesday and will challenge Congress to ban high-capacity magazines and military-style semi-automatic rifles involved in recent shooting rampages.
Mr. Obama, who will make his announcement surrounded by children who wrote letters to him about gun violence, is expected to propose some moves he can take on his own. He also will demand that Congress break a decades-long refusal and enact the first new controls on firearms and ammunition since the early 1990s.
States are acting already. Continue reading
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