NRC approves transfer of Entergy’s Fitzpatrick nuclear plant to Exelon Robert Walton Utility Dive 8 Mar 17@TeamWetDog Dive Brief:
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week approved the transfer of the operating license belonging to Entergy’s FitzPatrick nuclear facility to Exelon as part of a $110 million deal to keep the plant operating.
The NRC’s approval is the last regulatory hurdle of the deal, Syracuse.com reports, with Exelon officials anticipating to close out the deal later this month.
Entergy had planned to shutter the struggling FitzPatrick plant, but Exelon agreed to purchase it with the caveat that New York developing a Clean Energy Standard subsidy program to keep it profitable. But the Zero Emissions Credit plan is now being challenged by the Electric Power Supply Association, which argues the credits intrude on federal jurisdiction of wholesale markets.
Dive Insight:
New York’s plan to save the state’s nuclear fleet is tied up at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The agency has only two members, preventing any decisions on major cases until a third commissioner is seated for a quorum.
While the deal moves ahead, federal regulators will still need to make broader decisions about how to credit the carbon-zero output from nuclear plants, which struggle against natural gas plants and renewables with lower fixed costs. While generators opposing the plan say the ZECs intrude into wholesale power markets, Exelon has argued they are within the state’s purview…..http://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrc-approves-transfer-of-entergys-fitzpatrick-nuclear-plant-to-exelon/437539/
“Under aggressive but cost-effective and potentially attainable increases in energy efficiency beyond the levels assumed in the Clean Energy Standard, all of the consumption otherwise met with IPEC (Indian Point Energy Center) station output could be met by more efficient energy use alone by 2023…”
The report estimates that aggressive energy efficiency programs could produce savings equal to twice the power generated by the Indian Point plant. A New York Times piece by Patrick McGeehan discusses the report’s analysis of energy efficiency programs in Connecticut and Rhode Island; these two states provide incentives for the adoption of energy efficiency measures and are able to produce energy savings of about 3% a year.
Ultimately, we will need renewable energy to power our entire energy system, but in the short run, we waste so much energy that efficiency can be used to meet our energy needs without using nuclear power. …..
Using energy efficiency to replace nuclear power, as proposed by NRDC and Riverkeeper, is an elegant solution to a difficult problem. New York’s Public Service Commission should work harder to incentivize energy efficiency. Utilities should make more profit when they deliver on efficiency goals. Con Ed should make more money when they sell less electricity. Homeowners should receive tax credits for demonstrating reductions in energy use. Energy audits and the capital costs of retrofits should be provided at a discount. Businesses should receive free consulting services from utilities and the state on how to incorporate energy efficiency practices into routine organizational management. The goal is to grow the economy without building new power plants—to maintain, and even improve, our standard of living while reducing our use of energy.
The idea to replace nuclear power with energy efficiency was not invented in New York. Typical of many new energy and environmental programs, it began in California. In June 2016, Pacific Gas and Electric announced an agreement it had reached with labor unions and environmental groups to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant by 2025 and replace it with energy efficiency and renewable energy. Writing in Scientific American, Debra Kahn reported that: “Environmentalists said other states could use the agreement as a template to replace other nuclear and fossil-fueled plants with renewables, especially distributed solar, in order to fight climate change.”
Renewables still require new technology to displace other sources of energy, but energy efficiency is here right now. Energy efficiency is an important source of energy because of the casual way we have treated the use of energy in the past. Energy is a central resource needed in nearly every aspect of modern life. Appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners, heaters, vehicles, computers, smartphones, radios, cable boxes, televisions, stoves and coffee makers all require energy. In many cases these appliances have been built to ensure reliable performance, but until the past decade or two, efforts to deliver that performance did not focus on delivery with the least possible energy use. Once engineers turned their attention to energy efficiency they found they could produce new appliances that worked just as well as the old but required much less energy. Similarly, architects and real estate developers started to design structures and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems that used less energy. Old structures could be retrofitted with better insulated windows, timers, and motion-sensitive lighting, along with LED light bulbs.
Industrial energy use in data farms and other locations provide large, new targets for energy efficiency. One of the chief advantages of energy efficiency is that it is difficult to argue against it. What is the counter-argument? Let’s waste as much energy as we can and spend lots of money on energy instead of saving it for better uses?
There are, however, obstacles to energy efficiency: capital costs, habit, inconvenience, risk due to reduced redundancy (eg. in information technology facilities), outmoded regulations, and so on. But there is undeniable momentum behind efficiency as a “source” of energy. It enables reductions in pollution and in the costs of energy without trading off any benefits…..
INDONESIA ACTS TO FIGHT #CLIMATECHANGE #AUSPOL, J Pratt 7 Mar 17
United States President-elect Donald Trump may have labelled climate change a hoax, but that has not stalled the momentum behind last month’s United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Marrakech, Morocco.
Less than one year after its adoption, the Paris climate agreement has entered into force, with some 175 countries already on board.
The next step will be to begin implementing the commitments each country has made.
In South-east Asia in particular, regional cooperation will be critical to address certain issues that transcend national boundaries.
One of the largest obstacles to climate change efforts in South-east Asia remains Indonesia’s forest and peatland fires. Though these fires are perhaps most notorious as the source of the annual haze that blankets our region, they should rightly be framed as a global concern about carbon emissions.
To put things into perspective, Indonesia’s 2015 fires produced the equivalent of 1,750 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2e), which is almost the same amount emitted by Indonesia’s entire economy in an average year (1,800 MtCO2e).
Hence, it is heartening that Indonesia has shown resolve in addressing the issue.
The reduction in fires this year must be credited to not only wetter weather, but also the political will and concerted efforts of the government of President Joko Widodo.
At the peak of the haze crisis last year, Mr Widodo visited South Sumatra to understand the fires first-hand and subsequently established the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) in January 2016.
The BRG has been charged with coordinating the restoration of 2.1 million hectares of degraded peatland across Indonesia by 2020.
Following orders by Mr Widodo to “get very tough” on errant companies, Indonesian police have arrested more than double the number of individuals in forest fire cases this year compared with last year.
The Indonesian government is also responding faster to fires, enabled by the early declaration of a state of emergency in six provinces. These efforts have been commended by regional leaders, including Singapore’s Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Masagos Zulkifli.
Such measures were crucial in the immediate aftermath of the fires. But the true challenge comes in figuring out how to tackle this complex problem in the long term.
One pressing issue is the ongoing debate over the most appropriate way to restore degraded peatland. Comprised of partially decayed organic matter, peatland is often drained to grow oil palm, acacia trees for pulp and paper, and other agricultural crops. But drained peat is highly flammable during the dry season, resulting in fires that can take months to extinguish.
Some parties contend that the only sustainable way to restore degraded peatland is to rewet, reforest and protect the entire landscape. Otherwise, fires that start on agricultural lands may easily spread into protected areas, destroying intact forests…….https://jpratt27.wordpress.com/2017/03/06/indonesia-acts-to-fight-climatechange-auspol/
BEAVER VALLEY NUCLEAR PLANT FUTURE HINGES ON SUBSIDIES, Beloit Daily News March 07, 2017 By ANYA LITVAK, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette PITTSBURGH (AP) — One way or another, come next year, FirstEnergy Corp. is getting rid of the Beaver Valley nuclear power station.
Either the Ohio-based company will shut down the 1,800-megawatt plant, two decades ahead of schedule, or it will sell it to another operator. The latter option is a nonstarter unless something — aka someone, aka legislators in Pennsylvania and Ohio — intervenes to give nuclear energy a boost.
The Beaver County nuclear plant and two others in Ohio share the same chopping block as about a dozen fossil fuel plants in FirstEnergy’s portfolio across several states where electricity generation is not directly supported by ratepayers.
But getting legislation that would recognize — monetarily — nuclear energy’s lack of carbon emissions is FirstEnergy’s top priority, according to the firm’s CEO Chuck Jones, even though FirstEnergy won’t stick around to operate the plants either way.
“I don’t think there’s any guarantee, absent some other support for these units, that they’re going to keep running far into the future,” he told analysts during a call last month. Without something to “make them attractive to a buyer, there’s only one way for us to exit this business,” he said.
That something isn’t ambiguous.
In Ohio, it will be legislation seeking to create a program where customers would pay a surcharge to fund zero-emission credits given to nuclear plants. A similar mechanism supports the purchase of renewable energy in Pennsylvania and in Ohio, although the Buckeye State’s program had been frozen for the past two years and some in the state Legislature are attempting to neuter its mandates by making them penalty-free goals instead.
Jones expects an Ohio bill in support of nuclear energy to be introduced soon and said he’s optimistic, “given the discussions we’ve had so far,” that it will pass.
In Pennsylvania, Exelon is taking the lead. The Chicago-based operator of three of the state’s five nuclear power stations has been emboldened by recent victories in Illinois and New York, where it credited the 11th-hour approval of zero-emission credits with saving several plants from early retirement.
This year, Exelon added a significant number of Harrisburg lobbyists to its roster……..
If New York is any indication, Beaver Valley might serve as a sweetener for Pennsylvania lawmakers to act quickly.
When New York was mulling a nuclear credit program, Exelon said it would buy the FitzPatrick nuclear plant from Entergy Corp. — which planned to shut it down — if emission credits were approved………..
In October, five Pennsylvania legislators — most of whose districts include nuclear power plants — formed the nuclear energy caucus. They announced it with a Tweet, posed in front of a banner that read, “Pennsylvania’s nuclear plants support more than 15,600 jobs.”
The caucus, which includes Jim Marshall, R-Beaver County, and Robert Matzie, D-Beaver/Allegheny, plans to make a formal announcement of its existence later this month to be followed by a discussion of a new report on how states can save nuclear power plants, commissioned by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Matzie and Marshall did not return calls for comment.http://www.beloitdailynews.com/article/20170307/AP/303
Suitors line up to walk Kenya down controversial path to nuclear energyStandard media UK By Paul Wafula , March 7th 2017
Kenya is on a delicate journey that will see it switch on its first nuclear power plant by 2027. The country plans to put up four nuclear plants in the long term, each generating 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Initial estimates show it will cost between Sh400 billion and Sh500 billion to put up one nuclear reactor. This means one plant will cost slightly more than building the 609-kilometre Mombasa to Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). By the time the plan is complete, the country will have spent about Sh2 trillion – just under the national Budget for a year – to reap the benefits of an additional 4,000MW of energy plugged into the national grid.
Besides the financing headache, the second test for the 10-year dream being championed by the Kenya Nuclear Energy Board (KNEB) is coming up with a location to for the reactors. The board estimates site selection will cost the country Sh1.5 billion in a three-year process. Though the potential sites have remained a closely guarded secret, the power plant will be built next to any of the four biggest water bodies in the country – that is, the Indian Ocean, Lake Victoria, River Tana and Lake Turkana.
…………..These plans have excited sellers of nuclear reactors who are now courting the country, with some dangling ‘free training’. The potential suppliers include South Korea, whose companies are constructing nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates. Kenya has also been window shopping in China, and with Rosatom in Russia and Westinghouse in the United States. The country’s plans appear modelled on the UAE’s, which awarded a South Korean consortium to build four plants at a cost of Sh2 trillion.
…………Kenya has already signed a memorandum of understanding with China, South Korea, Russia and Ghana. KNEB said the deal with China would help Kenya “obtain expertise through training and skills development, technical support in areas such as site selection for Kenya’s nuclear power plants, and feasibility studies”. China has been offering ‘free’ training and feasibility studies for big infrastructure projects in Africa as a strategy to get into the boardrooms where key decisions are made. This is the same approach it used to land the SGR deal.
………..The country has also signed nuclear power co-operation agreements with Slovakia and South Korea.
…………He added that the Sh500 billion cost per plant for UAE may be cheaper because South Koreans were trying to get into the market. France is also lining up for a piece of the action, with the country offering Kenya technical, engineering and financial support to develop reactors.
…………MAKING THE CASE Juma has defended the cost of the project on the grounds that in the long run, nuclear energy is a cheaper and more stable source of power, with sustainable base loads. The board is looking at having flexible financing options, including public-private partnership where a private developer will finance the plant, construct and operate it for some time to recoup investments and make a profit, before handing it over to the State.
……The agency is looking at plants that will have a lifespan of up to 80 years.
………….it will have a difficult task of convincing local communities that the country is ready to deal with the radiological effects of nuclear.
……The other headache that must be tackled is the development of national strategies for radioactive waste management, emergency preparedness and the nuclear fuel cycle.
……energy experts from Italy and Germany last year, advised Kenya to drop plans to build nuclear reactors and instead harness its vast renewable energy resources, including geothermal, solar and wind, for power generation. They cited massive costs for a nuclear plant, long construction periods of about 10 years and expensive decommissioning at the end of plants’ lifespan, especially disposing of hazardous radioactive waste.
The seventh Nuclear Power Asia conference being held in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday and Wednesday is bringing together the leaders of the Asian nuclear-power industry.
Session participants have concurred that nuclear power, being an economically and environmentally viable source of electricity, has the capacity to contribute greatly to Asia’s sustainable future.
“Sustainable future is impossible without sustainable energy,” said Egor Simonov, director of Rosatom Asia. “Nuclear power [emits] 25-30 times less [greenhouse gas] than coal- or oil-fired power plants. Therefore, nuclear power may be a viable solution for Asean nations willing to fulfil their climate-change commitments.”
Rosatom is Russia’s nuclear regulator, and its Southeast Asian regional branch is in Singapore. …….The Nuclear Power Asia conference is a platform to discuss the latest challenges, trends and achievements in the Asian nuclear industry. The event is annually attended by more than 300 participants from nuclear-energy authorities, energy commissions, nuclear energy programme implementing organisations, international developers and operators, technology suppliers, and academic society. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/breakingnews/30308264
Georgia Power’s decision to pass on plans to construct a nuclear power plant near Columbus is the latest in a string of setbacks for the US nuclear industry. The Local BY MATT SMITH 6 Mar 17
The company behind one of only two nuclear power plants under construction in the United States says it’s passing on plans for another.
Georgia Power told state regulators last week that it was shelving plans for a possible new nuclear power plant in Stewart County, near Columbus. In a letter to the state Public Service Commission, the utility said it no longer saw any need for another reactor in the next few years….
The decision comes at a rough time for the U.S. nuclear industry, which has seen five reactors shut down in the past few years and is expecting six more to go offline in the coming decade. . ….
it’s already struggling to complete a two-reactor expansion of its existing Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant near Augusta. The project, which Georgia Power is sharing with three other utilities, is running three years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.
Vogtle’s expansion was further clouded by February’s announcement of $6.3 billion in losses at the Japanese industrial conglomerate Toshiba, which owns the US nuclear company Westinghouse — which designed and is building the new reactors. The company also said it wouldn’t be building any more American reactors……
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy hailed the news, calling the plan “a bad deal for the citizens of Georgia.”
“The proposed Stewart County nuclear units were nothing more than financial insult to injury on the people of Georgia,” Stephen Smith, the green group’s executive director, said in a written statement. “We need more oversight on the runaway costs at Vogtle, not another blank check in Stewart County.”http://www.seeker.com/georgia-utility-shelves-new-nuke-proposal-2302767501.html
“On March 11, we will be remembering that exactly six years have passed
since the triple explosions and meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
reactor site. Over 150,000 from Fukushima Prefecture were forced to leave
their homes to flee from radiation, the majority of which are still living
in many different parts of Japan. It is likely that many of them will never
be able to return to their homes. We also know that 300 tonnes of
radioactive water flows EVERY DAY through the site of the Fukushima
disaster into the Pacific Ocean. So the crisis there is as acute as ever,
and we support calls for an international response to this environmental,
economic and social disaster.
Seven movements in Wales will be supporting an anti-nuclear event in The
National Library, Aberystwyth on Saturday, March 11. The speakers will be:
¶ “What Rural Alaska Can Teach The World About Renewable Energy” • In many remote Alaskan villages, the cost of electricity is the highest in the nation, reaching a wallet-emptying $1/kWh in some communities (the national average is 12¢/kWh). The price is due to the cost of hauling fossil fuels by plane or barge to these remote areas. [Ensia]
¶ More than 130,000 solar households in Victoria will benefit from a steep increase in their solar feed-in tariff in 2017/18, to a minimum 11.3¢/kWh for their exports back to the grid, up from 5¢/kWh currently. The new price is based on an increase in the wholesale costs, with 3.5¢/kWh added for network, climate and other benefits. [CleanTechnica]
¶ Solar firm WElink Energy, based in the UK, has signed an EPC agreement with China Triumph International…
Temperatures over the Chukchi Sea are predicted to hit as high as 37 degrees Fahrenheit (2.9 C) on Wednesday and Thursday as a massive high pressure ridge building over Alaska pulls warm, moist Pacific air northward. These temperatures represent staggering warmth for this Arctic Ocean zone during March when temperatures are typically about 54 degrees F (30 degrees C) cooler.
Major Warm Wind Invasion for the Chukchi This Week
(Multi-day above freezing temperatures for the Chukchi sea predicted for later this week is not a normal event for early March. Unfortunately, warm wind invasions like this one have become more common as the globe has warmed up due to human fossil fuel emissions. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)
This recent warm wind invasion is one of many observed over the past five years in which enormous bulges in the Jet Stream have pierced deep into what was once a mostly…
Since the election of President Trump, certain words have taken prominence in our lexicon: “alternative facts”, “gaslighting”, “normalization”. But the techniques these words represent have been used by the nuclear industry and its purveyors in government since the Cold War love affair with nuclear weapons began.
And as we deal with the continuing fallout 6 years after the Fukushima, and 31 years after the Chernobyl, catastrophes began, the nuclear industry continues to put these techniques to good use. They have labeled “radiophobic” those who question nuclear power or who refuse to move back to contaminated areas or eat contaminated food. They shame people into taking health risks and socially isolate those who refuse to comply. They sell the lie of decontamination despite the fact that what has been decontaminated one day, may be recontaminated the next.
Women and children are often the focus of these “normalization” techniques. And they are the ones with the most to lose including supportive social and familial structures, and ultimately, health. Females, children and pregnancy pay a disproportionate price for nuclear energy because they are especially vulnerable to radiation damage. When a catastrophe like Fukushima happens, they become targets: targets of gaslighting, social isolation, radiation damage.
Japan’s radiation refugees
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) estimates that as of Nov 2016, the number of people displaced because of the earthquake, tsunami and radioactive contamination remains at 134,000. Of this number, 84,000 are still displaced around Fukushima, where evacuation orders are not yet lifted around the reactor.
In 2017, Japan is lifting evacuation orders and basically forcing people to move back to towns that were, and still are, contaminated with radioactivity from the ruined Fukushima nuclear reactors. Those who return are promised a one-time sum for doing so. For those who will not go back, the Japan government will cut off compensation. The IDMC frames the issue as a horrible choice: return to risk or try to reintegrate elsewhere without any resources. Greenpeace, in their February 2017 report, demonstrates that the uncertain risks and unpredictable nature of radiological contamination mean there is no return to normal.
Taking radiation into your psyche, as if it is normal
Radiation is associated with disease, even at low levels. Nuclear power proponents incorrectly contend that if you think you are sick from radiation exposure, it is all in your head and your health problems resulted from your worry. In other words, it was your fault, not theirs. They term it “radiophobia”. This pernicious label was first coined in the United States in the 1950’s. Like much of the initial Cold War nuclear policy, it attempted to “normalize” nuclear technology so that above ground atomic bomb tests could continue unhindered.
In fact, an opinion piece in the Western journal of surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, a medical journal which addressed women’s health issues, blamed caretakers for inciting fear of nuclear weapons in children. In the piece, entitled “RADIOPHOBIA; a new psychological syndrome,” the author claims “Anxiety-ridden parents or teachers who fear atomic bombs probably project the same fears to their children…” And that this “conditioning amounts to psychological punishment”. In essence the author, who was not a qualified mental health practitioner, was accusing these parents of abuse. The not-so-subtle implication was that radiophobia was a woman’s disease that she passed to any children she contacted.
The unscientific radiophobia label has persisted through the larger nuclear power catastrophes. For instance, according to a Macmillan dictionary entry, “Chernobyl has left an enduring legacy of opposition to nuclear power, now often referred to as radiophobia by technical experts…” However, the targets of this dismissive and derisive label are not just those who oppose nuclear power. The mysogynistic overtones of the radiophobic label are clearly present as the Fukushima and Chernobyl catastrophes continue to unfold.
In the wake of a nuclear catastrophe, exposed women and children are specifically berated into silence. If they continue to express concerns about health impacts, they risk becoming social outcasts. In this context, radiophobia is a social label used to stigmatize, not a scientific or medical diagnosis. In the case of Japan, radiophobia is called “radiation brain mom“. This epithet particularly refers to women who question whether food is contaminated; and it implies that they are irrational, overly emotional and unscientific, merely for asking the question.
Radiophobia accusations at Fukushima put children and women’s health at risk
After Fukushima began, doctor of psychosomatic medicine, Katsuno Onozawa, was interviewed by the Asahi Shimbun in 2013. As an actual expert on psychosomatic disorders, she stated: “children were exhibiting a range of symptoms including sore throats, nosebleeds, diarrhea, fatigue, headaches and rashes…” Yet these symptoms were written off as “radiophobia” and the mothers were accused of making their children sick by worrying. “Many reproach themselves, thinking, ‘Maybe I’m the one who’s strange,’ and become depressed.” She concludes: “If we say ‘it’s safe’ despite the risks only to erase fears, then we simply leave in place the danger that defenseless children may be contaminated.”
For the record, here are some symptoms of short-term, higher radiation exposure: “nausea, vomiting, headache, and diarrhea…swelling, itching, and redness of the skin” Many around Three Mile Island complained of similar symptoms following the partial meltdown there. The higher the radiation dose, the quicker the symptoms manifest. Children are more vulnerable to radiation exposure than adults, women more vulnerable than men.
In Japan, the “radiation brain mom” label has resulted in a self-censoring of concern about radiological contamination, leaving women and children unprotected after exposure to the initial radiation cloud. Subsequently their health is continually put at risk from food and environmental contamination. “Silence was not imposed by an iron fist of government, but rather wrapped around people like soft velvet, gently making women feel that they had to be silent.”
Taking radiation into your body, as if it is normal
Since the Fukushima catastrophe started, recommendations for radiation exposure limits in Japan were increased by 20 times. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) sets non-binding recommendations internationally for post nuclear catastrophes. Their limit is 1 mSv per year in addition to background radiation. This effectively would double the dose from unavoidable natural background, which is already 0.8 to 1 mSv per year. However, according to the IAEA, 1-20 mSv per year “is acceptable and in line with the international standards and with the recommendations from the relevant international organisations, e.g. ICRP, IAEA, UNSCEAR and WHO”.
Therefore Japan is, under controversy, encouraging resettlement in areas up to 20 mSv/yr. The increase in the allowable exposure limit occurred after contamination created wide-reaching negative economic impacts. Before the radioactive release contaminated Fukushima province, it was a center for organic farming and the “eat locally” movement. Since the contamination, consumer instinct has been to avoid Fukushima products.
Since studies show cancer and other disease impacts can occur within the range of natural background, clearly, the decision to allow a higher exposure level had nothing to do with health. Instead, it was an economic decision that took advantage of the fact that many diseases induced by this radiation exposure may not show for years, or may show as hard-to-attribute subclinical impacts, masking radiation’s disease-causing role. For those health impacts that do appear, nuclear proponents can always fall back on the argument that “it is all in your head”–i.e. radiophobia.
International agencies and industries normalize eating contaminated food to save face and money.
The ICRP is guilty of encouraging radiation ingestion, despite known risks. One recommendation is the encouragement of growing, selling and consuming, contaminated food, as an economic imperative for those in contaminated areas.
ICRP has also supported an effort in the wake of Fukushima called ETHOS that encourages “practical radiation protection culture” (PRPC). ETHOS was an effort originally started with the French nuclear industry, after the Chernobyl catastrophe began, when they realized that the cost of evacuation and compensation was starting to impact the nuclear industry’s financial and public standing worldwide.
Encouraging PRPC is a cowardly way of saying it’s too expensive to move people away from contaminated areas or allow them to eat clean eat food, so officials need to tell people there is no health risk from contamination. This is done under the guise of empowering the local populations by providing them with monitoring equipment, training, and a sense that eating contaminated food is okay. Mothers in Belarus were trained to measure the radioactive contamination of their children and to accept a certain level, resigning them to the fate of living with and eating radioactivity.
ETHOS goes one step further in claiming that individuals bear the responsibility to keep themselves safe from radioactive contamination with little to no help or resources from the industry that caused the contamination in the first place. Now, ETHOS is in Fukushima, protecting the nuclear industry from those whose lands it has defiled and whose lives it has marred.
The U.S. will be no different
For those who are hoping the U.S. will somehow escape the radiation normalization process, think again. We are learning from Fukushima and Chernobyl that international bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO) or ICRP will provide no support for clean food and relocation to uncontaminated land should we suffer a nuclear catastrophe.
We are further learning that our U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admits that decontamination is a lie. Using very colorful and demeaning language regarding radiological cleanup, an EPA employee said in 2013 “‘U.S. residents are used to having ‘cleanup to perfection,’ but would have to abandon their ‘not-in-my-backyard’ mentality in such cases. ‘People are going to have to put on their big-boy pants and suck it up…’”.
Dove-tailing on this egregiously tone-deaf statement, EPA proceeded to institute “protective” action guides (PAGs) meant to provide levels of acceptable contamination in food and water subsequent to a radiological incident. A radiological incident can include a catastrophic release but also lesser releases from transport accidents, for instance. The limits EPA recommends are hundreds to thousands of times higher for some radionuclides than previously allowed. Exposure could continue at these levels for years, endangering women and children the most. Just like women have been resigned or bullied into silence at Chernobyl and Fukushima, we can expect the same modus operandi here.
UN Human rights instruments offer women and children radiation protection when other national and international agencies fail to
Women and children are more susceptible to radioactivity, therefore any attempt to label women as irrational for fearing radioactivity is ludicrous. The fact is, women and early life stages are not protected by the recommendations of international experts. Women and children have, and will continue to, pay a disproportionate price for the use of nuclear power, it’s routine radioactive releases, and the catastrophes it causes.
Increasing allowable levels of exposure post accident for economic convenience or to tamp down fear is unacceptable. Encouraging women and children to eat contaminated food appears to be in violation of Article 24 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), particularly the principle of needed access to “adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking-water, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution”.
Women’s voices should count for more, not less
Women are often the most concerned about social health, and are the first and most vociferous in protecting public health following a nuclear catastrophe. And science shows they should be. Women and children are more vulnerable to radiation’s impacts and the life-stage of pregnancy is uniquely sensitive. They pay the highest price for nuclear power and it releases, so their voices should count for more, both in the energy decisions we currently face and in how we protect those whose lives are upturned by nuclear catastrophes.
Naohiro Masuda, head of decommissioning for the damaged Fukushima
On March 2, 2016, five years after the meltdown caused by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Naohiro Masuda the Chief Decommissioning Officer of the Fukushima nuclear plant said that operators have yet to locate where the melted nuclear fuel has gone: “There are melted fuels in units 1, 2 and 3,” Masuda said. “Frankly, we do not really know what the situation is for these (melted fuel), nor where it has gone.”
One year later the melted fuel has not yet been located with certainty. The two major problems are first to find where it is, and if found how to remove it from where it is. Both jobs rendered extremely difficult by high levels radiation frying the robots’ electronic semiconductors….
How will melted fuel at Fukushima plant be removed?
The Mainichi answers common questions readers may have about how disaster-response workers plan to remove melted fuel from the disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Question: What methods are being considered for removing the fuel?
Answer: Innovation will be needed in order to avoid exposing people to radiation, due to the high levels of radiation released from the fuel. One method under consideration is to fill the containment vessels holding the fuel with water, since water has radiation-blocking properties.
Q: Aren’t the containment vessels ruptured?
A: Just like you can’t fill a cup with water if it has a hole in it, the water-filling method won’t work if the containment vessels are ruptured. If they are, then another possible method is removing the fuel from the air.
Q: Which way is better?
A: Both have advantages and disadvantages. The water method could require finding and patching holes in the containment vessels. The air method wouldn’t need this, but could cause dust and other particles containing radiation to be released. The national government and plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) will discuss as early as this summer about these two plans.
Q: What is the fuel like now?
A: At the time of the meltdown, the reactors at the plant were heated to over 2,000 degrees Celsius. The melted fuel is thought to have mixed with equipment in the plant, concrete and other materials, and to have cooled to a rock-like state. It will have to be cut out and removed.
Q: How will the fuel be cut loose?
A: The plan is to use a remotely-controlled robot. However, high-tech electronics using semiconductors are easily broken by radiation. There are ideas to make the robot use hydraulics or springs for its movement, to make it resistant to the radiation. Robot technology will be the key to a successful decommissioning of the reactors.
(Answers by Mirai Nagira, Science & Environment News Department)
North Korea fires ‘multiple missiles’ into Japanese waters Seoul, SMH. 6 Mar 17 : North Korea has fired ‘multiple missiles’ from its Tongchang-ri region where a missile base is located, South Korea’s military says.
The missiles flew about 1000 kilometres in possible retaliation by the reclusive state to joint US-South Korean drills that began last week.
apanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also said North Korea had fired four ballistic missiles, three of which fell into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Tokyo had “lodged a stern protest with North Korea,” Abe told reporters……
North Korea has threatened to take “strong retaliatory measures” after South Korea and the US began annual joint military drills on Wednesday that test their defensive readiness against possible aggression from the North.
The mainstream media have been so timid for so long, so unwilling to take on the right for fear of being accused of liberal bias, that they really don’t know how to behave otherwise.
The problem is not that the media are now normalizing Trump, serious as that is, but that their tendencies to do so are so deep, there is little hope they can ever perform as a real instrument of democracy. First, there is their fascination with style over substance.
So Donald Trump has actually been right about one thing: the mainstream media are a farce. You can game them, as he has and will continue to do.
Media Fawns Over Trump’s New Tone: A Closer Look
The Media’s Rapid Retreat http://billmoyers.com/story/medias-rapid-retreat/, Tuesday provided a vivid demonstration that we are in this all by ourselves. The media won’t come to America’s rescue. BY NEAL GABLER | MARCH 3, 2017 Oh, how optimistic, naïve and ultimately foolish we were! When Donald Trump bulldozed his way through his first five weeks of his presidency, leaving wreckage in his wake, we knew the mainstream media couldn’t pretend this was business as usual. And they didn’t. And when Trump performed at his first presser as if he were, to put it charitably, deranged, we knew the media couldn’t pretend otherwise. And they didn’t. And when Trump decided to lash out at the mainstream media and declared them an “enemy of the people,” a characterization that even the reliably conservative John McCain thought contained a hint of dictatorship, we knew that the media, if only in self-defense, wouldn’t take that lying down. And they didn’t.
But here is what we should have known: the media scrutiny was only a temporary deviation from their norm. And something else. Though, as Todd Gitlin wrote so powerfully and eloquently in this space, we have a lot to fear from Trump’s media attacks, I think we have far more to fear from the media’s own customary cowardice. Trump won’t have to murder them. They will kill themselves. They already are in the process of doing so.
Since the election, the great media beast, which had performed with such servile lassitude for decades, had finally seemed to rouse itself from its stupor. It was one of the things that provided some small comfort for those of us who perceived Trump as an existential threat not only to civility, decency, common sense and truth, but to democracy itself. The press acted the way it was supposed to act: as a searchlight and a disinfectant. And, of course, it was the reason our new president was so exercised against them.
Well, the comfort didn’t last long — just until Trump’s appearance Tuesday before a joint session of Congress. We all know that it doesn’t take much to snooker the press. Alas, Donald Trump knew it too. Before last year’s debates, many of us predicted that if Trump could simply string two sentences together, the media would declare him the winner. His problem was that he couldn’t even manage that. But, to borrow a phrase that George W. Bush once applied to education — “the soft bigotry of low expectations” — when it comes to Republicans, the media always apply their own bigotry of “low expectations” and then somehow turn it into a win for the inept. If a candidate or, in this case, a president, exceeds those expectations by just a smidgen — “surprisingly presidential,” the ordinarily astute Washington Post pronounced afterward — the press gush and grovel. So all Trump had to do was take it down a notch, stay on the TelePrompTer, throw a few tiny bones to his antagonists and — voila! — the roaring lions of the press suddenly became cuddly kittens. It’s too easy.
If you ever needed an object lesson in media abdication, Tuesday’s speech analysis was it. When Trump began by condemning anti-Semitism after weeks of silence and after seemingly helping to incite a wave of national hatred, the media fawned. (Let me repeat that: A president condemns anti-Semitism and gets cheered for it. That is how far we have fallen.) When he said that the time had passed to fasten on “trivial fights” — this from the man who had only focused on the trivial — the media saw statesmanship. When he used the widow of dead Navy Seal William “Ryan” Owens as a prop, milking his death for applause, the media saw a great moment — “an emotional moment,” ABC called it, and CNN’s Van Jones said it was “one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics.” All sins were apparently washed away, no matter that on the same day he had accused former President Obama of leaking the Russian information to the press and picked up the “alt-right,” white nationalist theory that the attacks on Jewish cemeteries and centers were inflicted by his enemies. Some statesman.
On ABC, White House correspondent Jonathan Karl celebrated an “upbeat President Trump,” “right off the bat reaching out.” The other words we heard endlessly were “new tone” (“a softer and more measured tone,” said anchor Lester Holt Wednesday on the NBC Nightly News, while Kristen Welker said he was “striking a more positive tone”) and “pivot,” as in, he pivoted from being a reckless amateur to a president, though, in fairness, NBC also noted that Trump’s windy pronouncements needed to be subjected to a “reality check,” and had the temerity to challenge his assertion that the raid in which Owens died provided “large amounts of vital intelligence.” Citing 10 officials, Cynthia McFadden said it did no such thing.
Of course, we should have seen this capitulation coming. Trump can’t help himself from being who he is, and the media can’t help themselves from being who they are. The mainstream media have been so timid for so long, so unwilling to take on the right for fear of being accused of liberal bias, that they really don’t know how to behave otherwise. It was a wonderful interlude of media responsibility we had for a few weeks there, but it was an interlude and an anomaly, and even then, Trump’s dalliance with the Russians got 1/10,000 of the coverage that Hillary Clinton’s emails received, and, let me remind you, we are talking about a foreign enemy government hijacking our election.
The problem is not that the media are now normalizing Trump, serious as that is, but that their tendencies to do so are so deep, there is little hope they can ever perform as a real instrument of democracy. First, there is their fascination with style over substance, which was in full display on Tuesday. In the media, it is not what you say or even do, it is how you say it. I assume that this is so because substance is hard and style is easy, and the media almost always take the path of least resistance. Trump talked nice, and they fell for it.
Second, there is their tendency to create narratives — in this case: Trump, who was out of control, has now learned how to become a statesman. This is a much better story than the real one: that of a president who is temperamentally and ideologically unfit for office. The media love this stuff.
Third, there is their obsession with reverting to the mean — which we see not only in the false equivalencies the media seem intent on creating, but also in their timid retreat when they realize they may have acted too boldly. Trump hadn’t given them much of an opportunity to temper criticism with praise, and they were clearly looking for one. (How eager? Seth Meyers showed how often they had leapt to the same conclusion during the campaign.) Once they found it on Tuesday, they seized it with alacrity. Expect more.
Finally, there is the terror of engaging in warfare, even if warfare is the only way to preserve our democracy, as it is now. I suspect that a lot of journalists fear blurring the line between telling the truth and taking sides, and the Republicans have taken full advantage of that fear for years. No doubt Trump will too. If you call him out, you are picking on him, which is to lose your objectivity. And even if individual journalists were to screw their courage to the sticking post, it is highly unlikely that their employers, especially broadcast networks, would let them. You have to play it safe.
So Donald Trump has actually been right about one thing: the mainstream media are a farce. You can game them, as he has and will continue to do. It is best we realize that now. Trump may be his own worst enemy because some things are beyond the pale and must be reported as such. But Tuesday provided a vivid demonstration that we are in this all by ourselves. The media won’t come to America’s rescue. They don’t know how.
Donald Trump is destroying the State Department and growing the military. The danger is, when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon recently asserted that “deconstruction of the administrative state” was a primary goal of the Trump administration. And he meant it literally, which, when it comes to foreign policy, has potentially dangerous repercussions for the United States and the world.
Immediately after taking office, Donald Trump forced resignations by a number of top level State Department management officials. When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson came on board, he engaged in an abrupt reorganization of remaining management without explanation. And as of yet, the Trump team has put forth nominees for only 7 of the 118 positions within the State Department that require Senate confirmation. The majority of leadership positions remain unfilled, including almost every Ambassadorship.
They really want to blow this place up. I don’t think this administration thinks the State Department needs to exist. They think Jared [Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law] can do everything. It’s reminiscent of the developing countries where I’ve served. The family rules everything, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knows nothing.
During the campaign, Trump was asked who he consults with on foreign policy:
I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things. I know what I’m doing and I listen to a lot of people, I talk to a lot of people and at the appropriate time I’ll tell you who the people are. But my primary consultant is myself and I have a good instinct for this stuff.
Trump has also engaged his son-in-law in foreign policy, to the extent that Kushner has been characterized as “a shadow secretary of state, operating outside the boundaries of the State Department or the National Security Council.”
Simultaneous with his gutting of the State Department, Trump has also expressed his intention to seek an additional $54 billion in funding for the Defense Department.
Bruce Bartlett, a historian and economist, and a former aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, commented on the situation:
Statements about what U.S. foreign policy will look like under the Trump administration have been vague but deeply disconcerting. He has expressed deep-seated nationalism and an intention to change dramatically the role of the U.S. as a world leader. He has expressed doubt about U.S. commitment to long-standing allies, including NATO, and repeatedly asserted a desire to move closer to adversaries like Russia. He has casually discussed the use of nuclear weapons, including saying in one interview, “Somebody hits us within ISIS, you wouldn’t fight back with a nuke?” and reportedly asking three times in a single security briefing “why can’t” the U.S. use nuclear weapons.
Former foreign partners of the U.S. are already “weighing contingency plans and bracing for the worst” with regard to the Trump administration. Regardless of political party, Trump’s affection for military options, including nuclear weapons, and his intentional destruction of the mechanisms of diplomacy are a combination that should send a chill up the spines of all of us.
nuclear-news 
