Iran’s most notorious dissident group loves luring gullible U.S. officials and journalists
That Secret Iranian ‘Nuclear Facility’ You Just Found? Not So Much.Iran’s most notorious dissident group loves luring gullible U.S. officials and journalists into seeing a bomb factory beneath every building in Tehran. Dig a little deeper, sheeple. FP, BY JEFFREY LEWIS MARCH 3, 2015That’s not quite the same thing as saying it’s a load of bullfeathers, but we’ll get there in due course. The story may be false, but it demonstrates both the culture of leaks in Washington and the way open-source information can challenge that culture………
there is every reason to think the latest allegations by NCRI represent a politically motivated effort to derail the engagement of Iran over its nuclear program.
Almost immediately, there were reasons to doubt NCRI’s claim. A review of commercial satellite images reveals no evidence of large-scale excavation or tunneling during the 2004-2008 period identified by NCRI. The site seems to lack a suitable transformer substation for electricity to power centrifuges or evidence of ventilation systems so workers underneath can breathe. (It turns out workers tend to insist on breathing.) And if Iran had excavated a massive 2,000-square-meter underground facility, where’d all the dirt go? It just doesn’t add up.
Moreover, the press release contained a number of details that were obviously fabricated. NCRI claimed that the facility had “3 by 3 m radiation proof doors that are 40 centimeters thick and weigh about 8 tons … to prevent radiation leak.” There is no reason for such doors at a uranium-enrichment facility, which is not subject to massive radiation leaks. Almost immediately, others were able to determine that the picture of the door released by NCRI was actually lifted from an Iranian commercial website. That detail is just balderdash, despite NCRI’s lame defense that the firm supplies doors to the Iranian nuclear industry.
The site that NCRI identified is, in fact, a facility operated by a firm calledMatiran. NCRI described Matiran as a firm that produces identification documents, like passports, for the Iranian government. Helpfully, that’s how Matiran describes itself, as well. You may not have heard of it before — I had not — but its representatives attend international conferences and its employees post their CVs on social networking sites. The construction of the new facility roughly corresponds with Matiran’s successful bid to produce the new Iranian national identification card.
Hey, what do I know, but it seems unlikely that Iran has decided to double-upproducing ID cards and enriching uranium at the same site.
…….The important thing is that open-source tools, plus a little investigative shoe leather, allowed us to quickly determine that the allegation was false. …….
There is, today, an enormous amount of information that can help the public sort fact from fiction. It is really is just a matter of having skilled nongovernmental groups working in the public interest. There isn’t, at the moment, much funding available for this sort of work and only a few institutions really do it for nuclear issues, including the Institute for Science and International Security as well as my home institution, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. But the important point, the one illustrated by the Hasakah Spinning Factory and now Matiran, is that, given a chance, we cansort fact from fiction, and at a modest cost. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/03/that-secret-iranian-nuclear-facility-you-just-found-not-so-much/
Iran’s leaders – pragmatic, not fanatic
Iran’s Leaders Are Not Suicidal Critics of a nuclear deal claim the regime in Tehran is fanatical. Where’s their evidence?, The Atlantic PETER BEINART MAR 2 2015, “……..Through its proxies, Iran is fighting a regional cold war. And like the United States, U.S.S.R., and China when they were fighting their global cold war, it is doing so in a distinctly non-suicidal way. Iran is seeking to extend its power without doing something so aggressive that it provokes retaliation that imperils the regime’s survival. Iran isn’t doing truly reckless things like invading a Saudi ally in the Persian Gulf or launching chemical or biological weapons at Israel, either directly or through its terrorist proxies. And it never has. This is a regime, after all, that accepted a UN-sponsored ceasefire rather than fight to the death against Saddam’s Iraq and that cooperated with the United States to depose the Taliban.
Stop the Nuclear Restarts in Japan – international petition
Stop the Nuclear Restarts in Japan http://act.greenpeace.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1844&ea.campaign.id=36172 Add your voice to prevent further nuclear disasters in Japan.
It’s been 4 years, and clean-up of the Fukushima nuclear disaster continues with the long term damage still unclear.
The Abe government and the power utilities monopoly want to restart the nuclear reactors. This is despite broad public opposition in Japan. Greenpeace along with local groups have been successful in keeping Japan’s nuclear reactors offline for the last 18 months.
With your help, we can keep it that way.
Together we can create a safer and sustainable future for the people of Japan and the world.
Book: THE GREAT TRANSITION: SHIFTING FROM FOSSIL FUELS TO SOLAR AND WIND ENERGY
http://globalenergysecurity.blogspot.com.au/
by Lester R. Brown with Janet Larsen, J. Matthew Roney,
and Emily E. Adams “The energy transition will change not only how we view the world but also how we view ourselves,” say the authors of The Great Transition. “With rooftop solar panels to both power homes and recharge car batteries, there will be a personal degree of energy independence not known for generations.”
As fossil fuel reserves shrink, as air pollution worsens, and as concerns about climate instability cast a shadow over the future of coal, oil, and natural gas, a new world energy economy is emerging. The old economy, fueled largely by coal and oil, is being replaced with one powered by solar and wind energy.
We can see the transition unfolding. In the U.S. Midwest, Iowa and South Dakota are generating 26 percent of their electricity from wind farms. Denmark generates 34 percent of its electricity from wind. Portugal and Spain are above 20 percent. In China, electricity from wind farms now exceeds that from nuclear power plants. And in Australia, 15 percent of homes draw energy from the sun. With solar and wind costs falling fast, their spread is accelerating.
In The Great Transition, Lester R. Brown and his colleagues explain the environmental and economic wisdom of moving to solar and wind energy and shows how fast change is coming.
Fukushima company to build 400 unmanned surveillance aircraft
DRONES TO BE MASS-PRODUCED IN FUKUSHIMA http://fukushimaupdate.com/drones-to-be-mass-produced-in-fukushima/
Kikuchi Seisakusho plans to produce 400 unmanned surveillance aircraft at its plant in Minamisoma in Fukushima Prefecture. “Fukushima is a suitable production site given its need to measure radiation,” said Nonami, a professor at Chiba University. “We also hope that production will help the region’s recovery.”
The drone, 50 centimeters in height and 90 centimeters in diameter, can fly for up to 30 minutes at a time at speeds of up to 36 kph. With six propellers, it weighs only about three kilograms but can carry loads of up to six kilograms. It will be priced at around ¥2 million to ¥3 million.
The drone made a demonstration flight Friday, taking photos from 20 meters above the ground. A larger drone currently under development, with the capacity to carry loads of up to 30 kilograms, was also shown.
The use of drones is expected to spread for tasks such as measuring radiation, shooting movies and monitoring social infrastructure such as bridges, as well as for work related to the decommissioning of reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
The United States is considering regulating the use of drones to protect privacy and ensure safety. A similar debate may also take place in Japan ahead of their full implementation.
New batteries, clever engineering promote Britain’s renewable energy – leaving nuclear behind
Renewable energy is conquering quirky nature of Britain’s climate, http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/mar/02/weatherwatch-wind-solar-nuclear-renewable-energy Guardian, Paul Brown, 3 Mar 15
New solar farms will make a big difference to the energy mix
Britain’s energy supply is increasingly driven by the weather. As spring progresses, large numbers of new solar farms will make a noticeable difference to the energy mix. Wind farms on and offshore are also being brought on line.
At the same time the decision over whether to go ahead with Britain’s first new atomic plant in 30 years in Somerset has been put off again. Even if it is built the station is unlikely to be producing power before 2030. This leaves 15 years in which the electric output from renewables in their many forms will grow dramatically as costs fall. Solar, wind and small-scale hydropower are all now cheaper than new nuclear build and undersea turbines and even wave power are getting more competitive.
One big drawback to acceptance of renewables has been opponents drawing attention to the quixotic nature of British weather causing output to vary; but even that problem is being conquered. Individual solar systems for homes can now come with domestic water heating devices and batteries to run the house when the sun goes down. Much larger district batteries, storing energy from surplus wind and solar during the day, are providing power in the evening peak.
Energy policies seem to have lagged behind the exciting possibilities this holds out for Britain’s energy supply, contrasting sharply with enthusiasm for the stagnant nuclear industry. But clever engineering, smoothing out the peaks and troughs of renewable power, looks like making the nuclear industry redundant before a new station can be built.
Crying Earth Rise Up! – the uranium documentary
It’s Mother Earth vs. Father Greed in New Pine Ridge Uranium Documentary, Indian Country Natalie Hand 3/3/15 The emotionally charged documentary Crying Earth Rise Up! was showcased to a full house at this week’s Sedona International Film Festival in Sedona, Arizona.
Filmmaker Suree Towfighnia and film editor Sharon Karp were on hand for the screening. “This is the fourth screening of the film,” Towfighnia said. ” We literally finished production just last week. So I feel a sense of relief and accomplishment.”
The film, narrated by Tantoo Cardinal, focuses on two Oglala Lakota women on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. One is Elisha Yellow Thunder, a young mother with a daughter, Laila, who was born with cloacal abnormalities that causes internal organs to be connected. Laila’s only functioning kidney fails at age 8. Elisha’s quest to determine the cause of her daughter’s birth defects leads her to the water on her homeland. Majoring in geology, she is mentored by Dr. Hannan LaGarry, a geology professor and author of 5 year study on hydrology the Ogallala Aquifer who teaches her to study water and uranium outcroppings on her homeland as a possible cause of the high number of birth defects and stillborn babies on Pine Ridge. “My little girl’s story is too big not to tell,” Yellow Thunder said.
Water brought Elisha together with Debra White Plume, a frontline activist who is challenging Canadian mining giant Cameo, who operates the Crow Butte uranium mine near Crawford, Nebraska, near the Pine Ridge reservation. White Plume filed an intervention opposing Cameo’s 10 year renewal license and application to expand their mining operation in December of 2007. She is the only individual intervener in this case against Cameo. In the film, White Plume attributes the in-situ leach mining operation at Crown Butte for contaminating the aquifer that flows under her homeland. Dr. La Garry serves at the expert witness in White Plume’s defense.
“Without water, there is no life,” White Plume says in a quote that is featured onthe film’s website. “It’s like Mother Earth against Father Greed. You’re either for uranium or against it. There is no middle ground.”
“This work is about protecting precious water, for all of us, for Mother Earth and our coming generations,” White Plume said at the Sedona screening. “This film will help tell our truth to the world, all over the world water is in shortage, there are droughts or floods, or water is so contaminated it cannot be ingested by humans. We tell our truth based on our love of our generations.” Her words earned a standing ovation from the crowd………
For more information or to host a screening,visitCrying Earth Rise Up!on Facebook.
Read more athttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/03/03/its-mother-earth-vs-father-greed-new-pine-ridge-uranium-documentary-159451Nuclear power? simply an unclean industry
Unclean Nuclear Energy http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/02/opinion/unclean-nuclear-energy.html?_r=0 ROGER JOHNSON 3 Mar 15 The nuclear industry is bamboozling the Environmental Protection Agency into its agenda of promoting nuclear power as “clean” (“E.P.A. Wrestles With Role of Nuclear Plants in Carbon Emission Rules,” Business Day, Dec. 26). It is no secret that every nuclear power plant regularly emits low-level radiation into the environment. Why focus only on carbon emissions while ignoring iodine-129, plutonium-239, cesium-135 and other lethal radionuclides?
The nuclear industry wants us to focus narrowly on the fission process and to ignore the footprint of mining, milling, enrichment, processing and storing of nuclear fuel.
It also wants us to ignore the elephant in the room: its inability to rid the planet of high-level nuclear waste that accumulates every hour that any nuclear power plant is operating. The latest plan of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in effect to turn every nuclear power plant in the country into a nuclear waste dump is shocking indeed.
The bottom line is very simple: Nuclear power is the most expensive, the most unreliable, the most dangerous and the most environmentally damaging of all forms of energy production.
Conservationist question Vogtle Nuclear’s plan for water release to Savannah River
In December, the EPD issued a permit to Southern Nuclear to draw up to 74 million gallons of water daily from an intake site on the river. Southern Nuclear was required to install oxygen injection systems, commonly called “bubblers,” in the Savannah Harbor to offset concerns about oxygen levels.
“This will affect other dischargers and those using the waters, including the harbor and the lakes,” said Savannah Riverkeeper Tonya Bonitatibus. “We have permits that are expired and have not been renewed, and this one is being put forward prematurely.”…….Environmentalists underscored that the Vogtle project is nearly three years behind schedule and said the EPD should take more time to consider the potential damage to the river and the Savannah Harbor.
In December, the EPD issued a permit to Southern Nuclear to draw up to 74 million gallons of water daily from an intake site on the river. Southern Nuclear was required to install oxygen injection systems, commonly called “bubblers,” in the Savannah Harbor to offset concerns about oxygen levels.
“This will affect other dischargers and those using the waters, including the harbor and the lakes,” said Savannah Riverkeeper Tonya Bonitatibus. “We have permits that are expired and have not been renewed, and this one is being put forward prematurely.” http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2015-03-03/conservationists-nuclear-proponents-comment-vogtle-hearing
Murky story of the funding of climate denialist Willie Soon
Was Climate Science Denialist Willie Soon Funded To Do Science Or Was It Just PR Cash From The Fossil Fuel Industry? DeSmogBlog, Graham Readfearn, 1 Mar 15 So one of the climate science denial industry’s most celebrated scientists has been caught describing his research work as “deliverables” to his fossil fuel funders.
Dr Willie Soon, the aeronautics engineer who dabbles in public health, atmospheric science, solar physics and sea level rise, describes himself as an “independent scientist”.
More often though over the years, he is described by others as an “astrophysicist” at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, lending him credibility which most serious climate scientists would argue Soon’s science doesn’t deserve…….
In recent days, the Smithsonian has pointed out that even though Soon is employed as a “part time researcher at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory” they don’t actually pay him. “Dr. Soon pursues external sources to fund his research activity,” a statement said.
Soon has solicited more than $1.5 million since 2001 from fossil fuel companies and conservative foundations.
Coal electricity generator Southern Company, Exxon, Donors Trust, the Charles G. Koch Foundation and the American Petroleum Institute have been among his key funders.
While it’s been known for several years that Soon was being funded heavily by the fossil fuel industry, the current outcry centres on the disclosure of that funding to the journals who have run his research.
InsideClimate News has a summary of the 11 scientific papers where Soon had described his studies as “deliverables” to his funders – in those cases coal utility Southern Company and conservative funding arm Donors Trust. On most occasions, the fossil fuel funding was not disclosed.
Three Senators have extended this to a request to 100 fossil fuel companies and organisations to ask if they are funding research on climate change.
There is an obvious conflict of interest element to this story. Are journals and legislators doing enough to ensure that potential conflicts of interests are disclosed when research is submitted and statements are made? This should extend to media representations too.
But a key reason why the Soon story is so important is not that his work has been repeatedly funded by fossil fuel interests, but that this funding has come during and after many scientists have dismissed Soon’s findings as flawed and irrelevant, and shown it to be so…….
Soon is also most often cited as a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (HSCfA). Rarely are his ties to fossil fuel funded and ideologically-driven think tanks mentioned.
This is strange, because a copy of Soon’s own CV from 2005 lists these associations……..
There is also evidence available that in 2003 Soon had sought to undermine an assessment of climate science by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In emails uncovered by Greenpeace, Soon wrote to like-minded sceptics that “I hope we can start discussing among ourselves to see what we can do to weaken the fourth assessment report”. ……
As science historian Professor Naomi Oreskes, author of Merchants of Doubt (and who actually is employed by Harvard), told the New York Times: “The whole doubt-mongering strategy relies on creating the impression of scientific debate. Willie Soon is playing a role in a certain kind of political theater.”…..http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/03/01/was-climate-science-denialist-willie-soon-funded-do-science-or-was-it-just-pr-cash-fossil-fuel-industry
De3fect in pipe causes shutdown of France’s oldest nuclear plant at Fessenheim
The plant, which is near the Swiss and German borders, was closed on Saturday due to a flaw in a pipe in the machine room, which does not house nuclear material.
Activists have long campaigned for the plant’s permanent closure due to its age. The Fessenheim plant is made up of two 900 megawatt reactors and has been running since 1977, making its France’s oldest operating plant.
Greenpeace activists have voiced their complaints to French President François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to push Europe towards a real energy transition, rather than depend on either nuclear power, as is the case in France or coal power, as in Germany.
Wind energy myths lead British public to over-estimate renewables costs
New industry-backed survey shows that the UK public think subsidies for wind power are more than 14 times higher than they actually are (subscribers only) http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2397404/wind-energy-myths-lead-british-public-to-over-estimate-renewables-costs
1 This Month.
5 January -Webinar-What is Trump’s Golden Dome?
REGISTER AT Massachusetts Peace Action Education
New book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923372157?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
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