nuclear-news

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in Ecoshock 160525 Lo-Fi (14 MB) or Ecoshock 160525 CD Quality (56 MB)

Welcome to a third program where we look into claims Earth will experience rapidly rising seas and super storms in the coming decades…….

I have trouble with James Hansen’s promotion of nuclear power as a solution for climate change. In Hansen’s book “Storms of My Grandchildren” he advocates for Generation Four nuclear reactors, new designs that are allegedly safer. But now he’s gone a step further, teaming up in an unlikely alliance with Michael Schellenberger of the Breaththrough Institute, to push for Illinois to keep old and dangerous reactors running – and get a public subsidy for them.

Two of these are the GE Mark I reactors that blew up in Fukushima, due to bad design (the fuel rods come up from the bottom, through seals that let reactor fuel leak out of containment). Hansen is on the board of an industry-friendly group in Illinois, all funded by the Chicago billonaire family, the Pritzkers. Strange company.

I talk with the long-time head of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) Michael Mariotte about “how low will they go”. In the few days since I recorded that interview, I am sad to report that Michael passed away May 23rd from pancreatic cancer. This was his last interview. Michael was true to his cause literally to the end.

Then we get some surprises in new science on Antarctica, from two Australian experts, Tony Worby and David Etheridge. We’ve all be focused on major changes in the Arctic, which is conveniently closer to most of us – but it’s the South Pole which may determine the future of the world – through sea levels, and sea ice several times greater than Australia. That ice melt may determine the coming weather, even in the next decades.

You can listen to this show on Soundcloud right now!…….http://www.ecoshock.org/2016/05/ice-melt-controls-world-weather.html