Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) damaging to environment and consumer safety
US-EU trade deal ‘risks’ emerge in leak, West Australian, May 2, 2016, Brussels (AFP) – A massive US-EU trade deal would harm the environment and consumer safety, Greenpeace said Monday citing secret documents it leaked, as Brussels dismissed the release as a “storm in a teacup”.
The campaign group published 248 pages online to “shine a light” on the closed-door talks to forge a so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which would be the world’s largest ever bilateral trade pact.
Greenpeace said the deal would place corporate interests above the environment and consumer safety, and inflict a dangerous lack of standards on US and European consumers.
“This treaty is threatening to have far reaching implications for the environment and the lives of more than 800 million citizens in the EU and US,” said Greenpeace as it presented the documents in Berlin.
Washington and Brussels have been negotiating the mega-deal since 2013 and want it completed this year before US President Barack Obama leaves office, but it has faced mounting opposition on both sides of the Atlantic…….
In Europe there is deep suspicion that TTIP will erode ecological and health regulations to the advantage of big business with officials in France and Germany also increasingly voicing doubts about the deal.
Greenpeace said the papers show, for example, that the US wants to be able to scrap existing EU rules in areas such as food labelling or approval of dangerous chemicals if it they spell barriers to free trade.
“TTIP is about a huge transfer of power from people to big business,” the group said……
Greenpeace meanwhile decried the lack of mention at all in the proposed text of global goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“These leaked documents confirm what we have been saying for a long time,” said Greenpeace EU director Jorgo Riss. “TTIP would put corporations at the centre of policy-making, to the detriment of environment and public health.” https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/31488372/greenpeace-to-release-secret-documents-on-contested-eu-us-trade-deal/
USA Defence Secretary accuses Russia of sabre-rattling
US accuses Russia of nuclear sabre-rattling, amid Nato tensions US Defence Secretary Ash Carter has accused Russia of “nuclear sabre-rattling” and of being intent on eroding international order.BBC News, 3 May 16
He said he regretted strained relations with Moscow but said the US had to “prioritise deterrence” on Nato’s eastern flank.
US-Russian ties have been strained by the Ukraine crisis and recent military encounters in the Baltic Sea.
Russia has accused Nato of threatening its national security……http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36197856
May 3 Energy News
Science and Technology:
¶ Solar Impulse, the zero-fuel airplane, has flown the first leg across the continental US in its attempt to fly around the world. It left Mountain View, California, at dawn on Monday and landed 16 hours later in Goodyear, Arizona. It was the 10th leg of its round the world quest. [BBC]
A pre-dawn take-off for Solar Impulse from Moffett Airfield.
Solar Impulse photo.
World:
¶ Manitoba Hydro is now helping customers go solar. The crown corporation announced the details of the new Power Smart Solar Energy PV Program. The plan allows goodies for businesses and home owners to go solar, while selling surplus solar energy back to Manitoba Hydro. [CleanTechnica]
¶ Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems A/S has fully installed 31 turbines at the 310-MW Lake Turkana wind farm in Kenya. The Lake Turkana Wind Power project will use total of 365 pieces…
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Mishap with a Nuclear Spent Fuel Cask Could Cause Many Caskets: Holtec at Indian Point Evacuation Concerns; Holtec Routinely Requests and Gets “Amendments” Further Reducing Safety
Alongside the better known old, defective, Indian Point nuclear power station near New York City lurks a lesser known menace.
“You’ve seen the narrow one-lane Route 9 that serves two lanes of traffic and serves as the main evacuation route for so many who live and work around Indian Point. You’ve seen the traffic congestion in off-hours and the dangerous roads that lead across Bear Mountain Bridge. You’ve seen that the lines on the map really are not lots of roads, but small country lanes leading to nowhere… So, we ask that you take our concerns about the proposed dry cask storage system very seriously. In today’s environment, a minor mishap with a cask could cause many caskets!” (Thomas J. Abinanti, Westchester County Board of Legislators, 2004)
Buchanan NY, home to Indian Point Nuclear Power Station, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone overlay via Greenpeace: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/code/2016/chernobyl/index.html (Interactive map at the original…
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Exelon seems to think the rules are for others
Cover sheet of NRC letter to Exelon raising questions about the company’s efforts to reclassify public documents on emergency planning.
It might seem that we’re guilty of dumping on Exelon in these pages, which is possibly true, especially since there is an apparently endless supply of Exelon-initiated issues worthy of bringing to public attention. After all, Exelon is the nation’s largest electric utility, the largest nuclear utility, and while we haven’t developed a test for this yet, quite likely the nation’s greediest electric utility.
Still, consider this one from Crain’s Chicago Business Review, which has been doing a great job of trying to hold Exelon accountable: it turns out that while Exelon has been pleading poverty in Springfield, Illinois–home of the Illinois legislature–and loudly proclaiming it needs a bailout to keep at least three uneconomic reactors operating; when the company goes to Wall Street, Exelon paints quite a different…
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Radioactive Blues: Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station Relicensing Hearing a 1000 Miles Away, in DC, on May 4th
To Obama’s statement after B.B. King’s death, almost a year ago, that “there’s going to be one killer blues session in heaven tonight.” one can but reply that there’s going to be a killer of a nuclear accident in Mississippi or somewhere else soon, and that will be a reason for a killer blues session in heaven alright. https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/05/15/bb-king-blues-has-lost-its-king-and-america-has-lost-legend
“BB King on December 9, 2010 in DC. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)”
Obama apparently intends to evac to his father’s birthplace, Kenya, or he wouldn’t have beem running around the world begging to dump foreign nuclear waste upon America, to be buried there, under the guise of “non-proliferation”. Unless, of course, he’s just blinkered, drugged up and/or insane. [Oh, wait, maybe he just thinks that everyone should die of life-shortening cancers like his mother did. And, as a smoker he is clearly not health…
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May 2 Energy News
Opinion:
¶ “Tesla Model 3 Is Changing Auto History” • In its first week alone, the Tesla had amassed, “about $14 billion in implied future sales, making this the single biggest one-week launch of any product ever.” And it’s growing. Last week, Tesla had almost 400,000 orders for the Model 3. [CleanTechnica]
Tesla Model 3
¶ “Stuck in Time – Ruined Chernobyl nuclear plant to remain a threat for 3,000 years” • It is 30 years since Chernobyl came to mean more than just a little village in rural Ukraine. Now, 25 years after the country that built it ceased to exist, the full damage of that day is still argued. [The Keene Sentinel]
World:
¶ The price per barrel of global benchmark Brent Crude ended April just above $47. Since dipping briefly below $30 in January, it has risen by nearly two-thirds. That sounds a…
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Drigg: quaint coastal village and the UK’s “Low Level” Nuclear Dump
Drigg the quaint coastal village is also home to the UKs ‘Low Level Waste Repository’ (the word ‘Nuclear’ has been dropped from the official title) Although locals know this as the Nuclear Dump. Drigg is located near the Sellafield nuclear site on the shifting sands of the Cumbrian coast. Up until the late 1980s radioactive wastes including plutonium wastes were tumble tipped into trenches. Now the site has gone all hi tech and compacts radioactive waste into rusting shipping containers, any void in the container is filled with concrete.
The site sits above West Cumbria Aquifer from which is drawn the borehole water supply for much of West Cumbria while Sellafield gets most of its water from Wastwater.
The plan is to keep on dumping the high end of “low level” radioactive waste here despite the threat of inundation not just from the Irish Sea but also from the rivers…
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French Government Plan to Subsidise EDF Could Be Illegal Warn Leading Barristers; Why are State Owned Entities Unfairly Allowed to Compete like Private Corporations Internationally in the first place?
Protesters picketed the entrance of the nuclear new build forum at Whitehall in London on April 20th: https://southwestagainstnuclear.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/energy-minister-and-delegates-challenged-at-nuclear-new-build-conference-in-london/
While a legal opinion warns that the French Government Plan to “Subsidise EDF” could be illegal, as discussed further below, state-owned EDF’s existence outside of France is unfair and should be illegal. No one appears to be addressing the obvious that the very existence of AREVA, EDF, Rosatom and China General Nuclear Power Corporation and their subsidiairies – all state owned nuclear behemoths which act as international corporations – comprises unfair trade and business practices. If France wants to have state-owned utilities within France, Russia within Russia, and China within China, then that should be their right, and it can be under their parliamentary control, responsive to their taxpayers. However, to let AREVA, EDF, Rosatom, and now China General Nuclear Power to prance around the world pretending to be corporations when they…
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NCAR: Global Temperature Increase To Lower Oxygen Content of Most Ocean Zones by the 2030s
A reduction in the amount of oxygen dissolved in the oceans due to climate change is already discernible in some parts of the world and should be evident across large regions of the oceans between 2030 and 2040. — The National Center for Atmospheric Research in a press release on April 27th.
*****
Loss of oxygen in the world’s oceans. It’s one of those really, really bad effects of a human-forced warming of our Earth. One of the those climate monsters in the closet that Steve Pacala talks about. The kind of thing we really don’t want to set loose.
Deoxygenated Oceans as Major Killing Mechanism During Hothouse Extinctions
The damage caused by ocean oxygen loss is multi-variant and wide-ranging. The most obvious harm comes in the form of generating environments in which oxygen-dependent life in the oceans can no longer breathe. Any living creature that filters oxygen out…
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Fukushima provides a perfect case study for the meltdown of truth. It is beyond reckless and immoral for governments and mainstream media to downplay and cover up such disasters……
Let us not forget that the global economy is ruled by those who control the money system….The way profits are extracted have nothing to do with a healthy environment and humanity
Fukushima – the story continues... BY: ROGER METCALFE, BIZCOMMUNITY. South Africa, 29 Apr 16, The 5th anniversary of the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant on the east coast of Japan has come and gone, and, still the whole story hasn’t been told.
Besides Japanese pride, there are many reasons for the cover-up. Some include the 2020 Olympic Games, payment of compensation to victims and the negative impact on Japan’s economy.
Cracks starting to show
However, the smokescreen is beginning to show cracks, and the head of the Japanese nuclear regulatory authority Shinji Kinjo, has just admitted that they have anemergency on their hands. He also criticised Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company), the utility that runs Fukushima, saying: “Their sense of crisis is weak.”
Death and contamination
Currently if an unprotected person approaches the damaged Fukushima buildings, the radiation level is so high that death could occur in less than an hour. Entering the damaged building, even wearing protective gear, is out of the question, and three remote controlled robots have also failed, due to intense radiation.
Outside opinion
Mycle Schneider is a Paris-based nuclear energy consultant, and advisor to the European parliament on nuclear matters. He is also lead author of The World Nuclear Industry Status Reports and does not mince his words.
He says Japan’s escalating situation is: “Far worse than we truly know. There are hundreds of issues at stake here,” he told the Huffington Post UK.
“Whether it is meltdown temperature, radiation exposure, or the number of people exposed – all of these statistics are flawed. We don’t know anything yet.”
“This is far worse than what the general public are perceiving. At the moment we are facing the challenge to conquer denial. This is simply organised denial,” he said.
Pushing ahead with nuclear development
Yet, even as the Fukushima disaster continues to play out, Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has reaffirmed his commitment to nuclear power and is pushing to restart other nuclear plants. With 70% of Japanese population opposed to nuclear energy, this proposal goes totally against public opinion. While many scientists and Greenpeace are alarmed by the continuing contamination of the atmosphere and of the Pacific Ocean, Abe insists that the situation at Fukushima is under control.
Morality and survival
Fukushima provides a perfect case study for the meltdown of truth. It is beyond reckless and immoral for governments and mainstream media to downplay and cover up such disasters. Besides being well researched on environmental crises, I have written many articles and have aired my views on radio several times.
Not wanting to be branded a ‘scare monger’, I’m beginning to shift focus from radiation damage to life, to the immorality and hypocrisy that lies behind such disasters.
With such disasters, truth is often the first casualty. Yet truth (in whatever form) is the key to health and survival, especially regarding unprecedented life-threatening disasters like Fukushima.
The South African scenario
South Africa is no different and we are witnessing the collapse of truth on many levels. Besides vested interests, there is no good reason for South Africa to even consider purchasing nuclear power. Our solar energy potential is one of the highest on the planet. And yet the issue of purchasing costly nuclear power plants is shrouded in secrecy.*……….
The dark side of capitalism
Let us not forget that the global economy is ruled by those who control the money system. Multinational corporations, including multi-trillion dollar nuclear industries, seek to monopolise control of the markets, such the energy sector. The way profits are extracted have nothing to do with a healthy environment and humanity.
This is the dark side of capitalism, working systematically to undermine democracy and common sense, as well as the environment and the health of humanity.
Hinkley nuclear project for UK and France political reasons: let’s stop pretending otherwise
The real point of this story is that nuclear power is not commercially viable but has become a state-sponsored technology. There is nothing wrong with state supported technology. But we could save a lot of time and money by not pretending that it is something else.
Lets Stop Pretending Nuclear Power Is Commercially Viable http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Lets-Stop-Pretending-Nuclear-Power-Is-Commercially-Viable.html By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles
Sat, 30 April 2016, First its new president, Jean-Bernard Levy, said French state utility EDF would delay a decision on its joint French-Chinese nuclear project in the UK, Hinkley Point. That was over a year ago. Then the CFO of EDF, Thomas Piquemal, quit reportedly because he opposed the project on fi-nancial grounds. That was a short time ago. Then after a leaked memos, the French gov-ernment just announced that EDF would be raising more money and the Hinkley decision would now come in September.
Now for the finances. These British nuclear units will cost roughly £18 billion ($27 billion). EDF has already sold a 35 percent share to the Chinese state nuclear company. However EDF still has to find more outside investors and get its ownership of the plant below 50 percent or it will have to consolidate Hinkley Point on its books and show all of the project’s debt on its own balance sheet.
If we were gamblers we would not wager that EDF will take the obvious first step towards restor-ing its financial health and cancels the Hinkley project. Of course, if David Cameron loses the Brexit vote (a referendum to take the UK out of the European Union) and is ejected from Number Ten Downing Street, a new Prime Minister might take a more skeptical view of Hinkley Point.
The real point of this story is that nuclear power is not commercially viable but has become a state-sponsored technology. There is nothing wrong with state supported technology. But we could save a lot of time and money by not pretending that it is something else.
Nuclear shipwreck still highly radioactive over 60 years later
Details Emerge from Cold War-Era Nuclear Shipwreck, New Historian, David DeMar May 01, 2016 More details have emerged regarding the wreck of the USS Independence, a US Navy vessel deliberately sacrificed in 1946 at the Bikini Atoll nuclear weapons tests at the very inception of the Cold War…….
NOAA and Boeing used a combination of high-resolution sonar imaging and an unmanned submersible known as “Echo Ranger” to locate and safely survey the still-irradiated wreck of the Independence. The resultant case study, plus newly declassified files on the Navy ship straight from the US National Archives, concerning its time as a nuclear weapons testbed, have been published in theJournal of Maritime Archaeology (JNA)……
merging documentary evidence with a study of the physical remains of a maritime archaeological site is a goal that can and should be pursued…….
The infamous tests at Bikini Atoll, The Bikini tests, conceived and undertaken just one year after dropping not one but two nuclear weapons on Japan, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to end the Second World War, was one of the most visible and noteworthy events to signal a fundamental shift in postwar history.
In one of the newly-declassified reports dating from the era, it was suggested that the awesome power of nuclear weaponry represented a new era where the utter destruction of man had become possible, scouring the Earth of nothing but vestigial traces of humanity. http://www.newhistorian.com/details-emerge-cold-war-era-nuclear-shipwreck/6397/
Climate change is already taking its toll
Jeff Masters: Food system shock: climate change’s greatest threat to civilization.
The greatest threat of climate change to civilization over the next 40 years is likely to be climate change-amplified extreme droughts and floods hitting multiple major global grain-producing “breadbaskets” simultaneously.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/food-system-shock-climate-changes-greatest-threat-to-civilization & http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/-8878616388554072809
India heatwave: Train keeps city alive as cricket matches cancelled, farmers and animals suffer
In India, 330 million people across 10 states are in the grip of a crippling drought and heatwave.
Supplies are so depleted in one city that it is entirely reliant on drinking water delivered daily by train.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-01/train-keeps-indian-city-alive-in-heatwave/7373546
Japan’s ex Prime Minister Kan honoured for his work to stop nuclear power
3/11 Prime Minister Kan recognized for efforts to phase-out nuclear power, Japan Times, 1 May 16 KYODO FRANKFURT – Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan was honored in Germany Saturday for his work to promote the phase-out of atomic power in Japan following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis.
At a ceremony at Frankfurt City Hall, former German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin praised Kan as a “fighter” for his work on nuclear and renewable energy.
Kan received a certificate from a representative of EWS, a power company in Schoenau, southern Germany, on the initiative of citizens against nuclear power.
Kan, who led the former Democratic Party of Japan, was prime minister from June 2010 to September 2011. He was the man who had the misfortune of being in office when the unprecedented March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters struck……http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/05/01/national/311-prime-minister-kan-recognized-efforts-phase-nuclear-power/#.VydmpNQrLMx
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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