U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigating FirstEnergy over its involvement in the Ohio nuclear corruption scandal
Now the SEC is investigating FirstEnergy and Ohio’s $1 billion nuclear bailout bill: This Week in the CLE, By Laura Johnston, cleveland.comCLEVELAND, Ohio — Who’s investigating FirstEnergy, in relation to the $1 billion nuclear bailout bill?
We’re talking about the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission investigation on This Week in the CLE…….
|
Is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission the latest agency to investigate FirstEnergy over its involvement in a $60 million bribery scheme to bail out nuclear plants and get other goodies from the Ohio Legislature? Yes. The SEC has launched a separate probe of the company tied to the $60 million House Bill 6 bribery scandal. The examination became public in a federal lawsuit the company and a consulting firm filed against a former employee. Just how little do likely voters in Ohio think of Larry Householder, the disgraced and ousted former Ohio House speaker? Householder is now rated one of the most unpopular state politicians in recent history, with a favorable rating at 7% among likely voters.………… With all the corruption talk swirling around FirstEnergy and utilities in Ohio, in the Ohio Power Siting Board really going to stand behind its inexplicable decision that is killing the proposed offshore Lake Erie wind farm? The Ohio Power Siting Board is preparing to rule that it won’t revisit its decision, even though neither side is happy. The board says the the turbines can’t move at night between March 1 and Nov. 1. ……….. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2020/09/now-the-sec-is-investigating-firstenergy-and-ohios-1-billion-nuclear-bailout-bill-this-week-in-the-cle.html |
|
|
IAEA and China helping Saudi Arabia with its nuclear ambitions
China and IAEA are helping Saudi Arabia achieve its nuclear ambitionsAlthough Saudi Arabia has pledged that its nuclear program is strictly peaceful, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said the kingdom would develop a bomb if Iran did so. The Print JONATHAN TIRONE 16 September, 2020 Vienna: The United Nations nuclear watchdog has been working in parallel with Chinese officials to help Saudi Arabia exploit uranium — the key ingredient for nuclear power and weapons — despite its inspectors being frozen out of the kingdom.
The International Atomic Energy Agency published a document ahead of its annual conference next week showing the Vienna-based organization assisting Saudi efforts to make nuclear fuel. An institute in Beijing affiliated with the IAEA has been prospecting for uranium in Saudi Arabia……..
The Saudis have stepped up their pursuit of nuclear technologies in recent years, piquing the interest of companies from South Korea to Russia and the U.S. The kingdom is nearing completion of its first reactor, a low-powered research unit being built with Argentina’s state-owned INVAP SE. It has repeatedly pledged that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes, but Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said the kingdom would develop a bomb if its regional rival Iran did so.
Nuclear non-proliferation experts have long warned that without adequate safeguards, IAEA technical cooperation can unwittingly help countries develop weapons capabilities………
While Saudi Arabia has been open about its ambitions to generate nuclear power, less is known about the kinds of monitoring the kingdom intends to put in place. President Donald Trump’s administration sent a letter to Saudi Arabia a year ago setting requirements to access U.S. atomic technology. The baseline for any agreement is tougher IAEA inspections that include a so-called Additional Protocol — the same monitoring standard applied in Iran and more than 130 other nations, which allows inspectors wider access to sites including uranium mines.
The kingdom is among only 31 countries worldwide that still applies an old set of IAEA regulations that don’t allow inspections. On Monday, the agency said it was beginning a new initiative to roll back those rules because they can’t provide adequate assurance that all activity is for exclusively peaceful purposes.
“I’m approaching them, telling them that in 2020 this is no longer adequate,” Grossi said. “We have to be up to a minimum standard.”
The IAEA provided financial and technical aid to develop Pakistan’s uranium mines and improve plutonium-producing reactors even after the country tested a nuclear weapon in 1998 in defiance of a non-proliferation treaty. While that aid was intended for civilian nuclear power, scientists involved in those projects said Pakistan used uranium mined with agency help for weapons.
The IAEA similarly helped North Korea develop its uranium mines before it kicked inspectors out in 2003. Syria, under investigation since 2007 for allegedly building a secret atomic-weapons reactor, used an IAEA-built lab to produce uranium ……..https://theprint.in/world/china-and-iaea-are-helping-saudi-arabia-achieve-its-nuclear-ambitions/503674/#:~:text=The%20International%20Atomic%20Energy%20Agency,for%20uranium%20in%20Saudi%20Arabia.
Russia developing a nuclear-powered missile that can ”attack from unexpected directions”
Russia’s nuclear missile with global reach is capable of attacking from ‘unexpected directions’ https://www.wionews.com/world/russias-nuclear-missile-with-global-reach-is-capable-of-attacking-from-unexpected-directions-327492
|
WION Web Team New Delhi, India Sep 14, 2020 Russia is developing a nuclear-powered missile that can fly around the atmosphere for years on end ready to strike at any moment.
This does mark the first time this missile has made the headlines. Last year, this so-called missile was involved with a mysterious explosion in Russia, which reportedly left at least 5 scientists dead. This explosion had also led to a major spike in the radiation levels in the area. Now British intelligence claims that Russia is “pushing the boundaries of science, and international treaties” in developing novel weapons. So what do we know about this cruise missile? Russia calls the missile “Burevestnik” or “Storm Petrel”, while the NATO calls it “Skyfall” Putin first unveiled the Burevestnik on March 1, 2018, claiming that it was invincible. Essentially, it is a cruise missile that features a small nuclear-powered engine. This is the first of its kind, for it can fly long distances for hours or even days. The missile can also exploit loopholes in enemy defence networks. Russian president Vladimir Putin had earlier said that the testing of Burevestnik was going on successfully. The British chief of defence said the missile had global reach and could “attack from unexpected directions”. The mention of this missile came up during the Five Eyes intelligence hub including experts from the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. |
|
South Korea says no use of nuclear weapons in joint operational plans with U.S
 South Korea says no use of nuclear weapons in joint operational plans with U.S. The Chronicle Herald,
Hyonhee Shin, 16 Sep 20, SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea said on Tuesday none of its joint military action plans with the United States include any use of nuclear weapons, after a book by a U.S. journalist sparked debate over whether scenarios of a full-blown war with North Korea would entail a nuclear attack from either side.
In his new book, titled “Rage,” Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward wrote that the United States had devised plans for a possible armed clash with North Korea, such as “the U.S. response to an attack that could include the use of 80 nuclear weapons.” The book was based on multiple interviews with U.S. President Donald Trump. The passage fueled debate in South Korea over whether it meant Washington or Pyongyang would detonate 80 bombs against each other. Seoul’s defense ministry said on Tuesday its joint operational plans (OPLAN) with the United States did not include any use of nuclear weapons, reiterating the view of the presidential office. A presidential official said on Monday there must not be another war on the peninsula and any use of force cannot be implemented without South Korea’s consent. “I can say clearly that the use of a nuclear weapon does not exist in our OPLANs, and it is impossible to use military force without our agreement,” the official told reporters…………. https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/world/south-korea-says-no-use-of-nuclear-weapons-in-joint-operational-plans-with-us-497135/ |
|
Long nuclear convoy near Glascow
|
Nuclear convoy passes near Glasgow ‘laden with six warheads’ A 26-vehicle convoy passed through Balloch and by Loch Lomond this morning, a Nukewatch UK campaigner told Glasgow Live
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/nuclear-convoy-passes-near-glasgow-18940177 ByCraig Williams 15 SEP 2020 A nuclear weapons convoy passed near Glasgow this morning carrying what is believed to have been six Trident nuclear warheads. Nukewatch UK claims the convoy left RNAD Coulport this morning on its way to Atomic Weapons Establishment Burghfield near Reading – taking a route which saw it travel over Haul Road to the A82 near Cameron House, before passing through Balloch on the A811 to Stirling. Including an estimated 26 vehicles, the unmarked convoy is then said to have travelled along the M9 towards Edinburgh, taking the Edinburgh Bypass and then the A68 towards Jedburgh. Nukewatch UK Campaigner Jane Tallents followed the convoy from the Edinburgh Bypass onto the A68. She told Glasgow Live: “The convoy took the Haul Road and travelled onto the A82 before passing through Alexandria and Balloch. It was then spotted in Drymen as it made its way along the A811 towards Stirling.” Having studied convoys like it for the last 30 years, Jane believes it was travelling with approximately six nuclear warheads to AWE Burghfield for the weapons to undergo repair works prior to being returned to RNAD Coulport and put back on the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines. “The convoy, which numbered around 26 vehicles, included huge lead-lined lorries carrying the nuclear warheads, along with a fire engine in case of a fire, a moving workshop, a decontamination unit, tow truck and loads of MOD police. “The journey is usually made six times per year when they take the warheads down to refurbish them and then transport them back up again.” Nukewatch UK tracks and monitors the convoys that transport the UK’s Trident nuclear warheads by road from Burghfield to Coulport. Campaigner Jane believes that more people show know of the convoys that travel from Scotland to England via motorways and on small country roads. She added: “We campaign for an end of nuclear weapons. The fact there is such a risk taken with these convoys is reason enough to get rid of them. The convoys travel on small roads at various points of the journey and pass peoples’ houses – today it went through the village of Buchlyvie (around 18 miles north of Glasgow). “Residents in the village could stand on their doorsteps and the nuclear convoy travels about four feet by their doors.” |
The persistence of plastic
The amount of synthetic microfiber we shed into our waterways has been of great concern over the last few years, and for good reason: Every laundry cycle releases in its wastewater tens of thousands of tiny, near-invisible plastic fibers whose persistence and accumulation can affect aquatic habitats and food systems, and ultimately our own bodies in ways we have yet to discover. …. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-09/uoc–tpo091620.php
Egypt supports Bamako Convention banning import of hazardous waste, especially radioactive, into Africa
Egypt supports Bamako Convention banning import of hazardous waste into Africa: Minister. https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/91884/Egypt-supports-Bamako-Convention-banning-import-of-hazardous-waste-into Egypt Today, CAIRO – 12 September 2020: Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad has asserted Egypt’s support to the Bamako convention and called for cooperation among African countries to face the coronavirus pandemic without affecting the environment.
This came during her speech at a virtual meeting of the Bureau of the Bamako Convention on Saturday.
The minister also asserted that hazardous materials and waste were banned from being imported into Africa, noting the importance of controlling their trans-boundary movement.
She also underlined the importance of finding new measures to build African capabilities to deal with such hazardous materials and waste.
The Bamako Convention is a treaty of African nations prohibiting the import into Africa of any hazardous (including radioactive) waste.
The convention was adopted in 1991 and came into force in 1998 with the aim of protecting human and environmental health.
Decorum be damned. Top science editor spits the dummy with Trump
|
America’s Top Science Journal Has Had It With Trump
The editor of Science has abandoned staid academic-speak to take on falsehoods in the White House—decorum be damned. Wired Adam Rogers, 16 Sep 20, WITH AN ARCHIVE that goes back to 1880 and a reputation for publishing world-changing research, the journal Science is the apex predator of academic publishing. Getting an article past its gatekeepers and peer reviewers can make a researcher’s career; the journal’s news section is a model for high-level reporting on everything from quarks to viruses to blue whales to galactic clusters. Along with its competitors Cell and Nature, the journal represents not just new knowledge but also the cultural mores of the world it covers—innovation, integrity, accuracy, rectitude, fealty to data.
So it’s surprising (but maybe not as much as you think) that Science’s newish editor-in-chief has focused a laser-like stream of neural energy at calling out the crummy pandemic policies of the Trump administration. H. Holden Thorp, a chemist and longtime university administrator, became editor-in-chief of Science and five other journals published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science last October, just two months before Covid-19 started spreading around the world. The hopes of a planet full of humans looking for treatments and vaccines turned quickly to scientists, and Thorp’s journals would have been among the places that the best, most relevant work would appear. It has, of course. But Thorp also started a crusade from Science’s editorial page, calling out the ways Donald
Trump’s administration has ignored, misunderstood, and misused science for political gain. Now Thorp’s editorial page is at the forefront of a movement—with scientists casting aside the old stereotype of apolitical disinterest. On Wednesday, even the venerable magazine Scientific American endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its 175-year history. (It was Joe Biden.)
Thorp’s most recent broadside, “Trump Lied About Science,” appeared last week. It was the most vigorous condemnation yet, a lightning siege of criticism over Trump’s admission, to the journalist Bob Woodward, that the president knew Covid-19 was more serious than he acknowledged to the public. “This page has commented on the scientific foibles of US presidents. Inadequate action on climate change and environmental degradation during both Republican and Democratic administrations have been criticized frequently,” Thorp wrote. But this, he added, “may be the most shameful moment in the history of US science policy.”
That’d be tough stuff on any newspaper op-ed page; from a place like Science, which has in the past had a somewhat arid editorial voice, it was fire. Thorp has been activated. I asked him what did it, and how his new approach might change science—and Science. Thorp’s answers are here, edited lightly for length and clarity………………
think about what science has been putting up with. We have people telling us we’re all deep-state liberals who are trying to destroy the planet, that we’re taking away hope for people, that we’re being too melodramatic about how bad this all is. And all of the stuff that Trump and his surrogates have been saying turns out not only to be wrong, but that they knew it all along. All the snark that scientists have been putting up with, from the news and from their family members who are Fox News people—all these things that we were supposedly doing to sabotage the world were all lies and knowingly delivered, planted, by the president of the United States. ………… https://www.wired.com/story/americas-top-science-journal-has-had-it-with-trump/
|
|
The hidden stumbling block to progress on nuclear weapons
The hidden stumbling block to progress on nuclear weapons, Bulletin of the Atomic SCientists,By Ward Wilson, September 16, 2020 ”……………………Eliminating nuclear weapons is an especially important subject these days because there’s a confrontation brewing. The United States and the other nuclear-armed states are upgrading their weapons (and some are even increasing the size of their arsenals). But many non-nuclear-armed states seem to be taking the opposite position. In 2017, the United Nations passed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and more than 60 percent of the world’s countries voted for it—122 nations in all. The treaty will go into effect when 50 nations sign and ratify it. Today, there are 84 countries that have signed and 44 that have ratified. With only six more countries to go, entry into force will likely come in 2021 or, at the latest, 2022.
Once the treaty is in effect, elimination will become the center of a contentious worldwide debate. The majority of the world will have a new legal argument for pushing toward global zero, but the nine nuclear-armed states are sure to resist. So it makes sense to think a little about whether eliminating nuclear weapons is even possible.
Nuclear weapons are both weapons and symbols…….
Weapons are essentially tools to achieve a particular task. The effectiveness of a tool is objective and quantifiable—how well does it get the job done?
Symbols, on the other hand, are psychological. They can inspire and change beliefs. ……
Nuclear weapons are, in some ways, like these ceremonial swords. Their symbolic value is more important than their military utility. For example, one of the roles of nuclear weapons is as a symbol of prestige. ………
The people who make nuclear weapons policy seem to believe that they have enormous power, conflating their symbolic meaning with their practical usefulness.
But in reality, nuclear weapons are not terribly valuable as weapons. They have not been used in war for more than 75 years. And although numerous occasions have arisen since 1945 when their use was considered, each time, decision makers declined………
Once the symbolic layer has been peeled away, the remaining task will be to evaluate the military utility of nuclear weapons objectively. If it becomes clear that nuclear weapons are dangerous and have almost no military uses, it may be much easier to take [them] off. https://thebulletin.org/2020/09/the-hidden-stumbling-block-to-progress-on-nuclear-weapons/
Tomgram: Mandy Smithberger, Ending the Pentagon’s Pandemic of Spending — Rise Up Times
“A Post-Coronavirus Economy Can No Longer Afford to Put the Pentagon First.”
Tomgram: Mandy Smithberger, Ending the Pentagon’s Pandemic of Spending — Rise Up Times
Hurrah!! Plans for Wylfa B Scuppered!! —
CONGRATULATIONS to ALL WHO HAVE CAMPAIGNED SO LONG TO STOP WYLFA ESPECIALLY PEOPLE AGAINST WYLFA B – This abandonment by Hitachi is due in no small part to continued opposition to new nuclear in Wales. Well Done to All who have campaigned to STOP WYLFA A Message from PAWB below… Hitachi pulls out of Wylfa […]
Hurrah!! Plans for Wylfa B Scuppered!! —
Arctic sea ice becomes a sea of slush
|
Sea of Slush: Arctic sea ice lows mark a new polar climate regime Reporting by Natalie Thomas in the Arctic Ocean and Cassandra Garrison in Buenos Aires; Editing by Katy Daigle and Lisa Shumaker By Natalie Thomas, Cassandra Garrison ARCTIC OCEAN (Reuters) 14 Sept 20, – At the edge of the ice blanketing part of the Arctic Ocean, the ice on Monday looked sickly. Where thick sheets of ice once sat atop the water, now a layer of soft, spongey slush slid and bobbed atop the waves. From the deck of a research ship under a bright, clear sky, “ice pilot” Paul Ruzycki mused over how quickly the region was changing since he began helping ships spot and navigate between icebergs in 1996. “Not so long ago, I heard that we had 100 years before the Arctic would be ice free in the summer,” he said. “Then I heard 75 years, 25 years, and just recently I heard 15 years. It’s accelerating.” As if on cue, scientists on Monday said the vast and ancient ice sheet sitting atop Greenland had sloughed off a 113 square kilometer chunk of ice last month. The section of the Spalte Glacier at the northwest corner of the Arctic island had been cracking for several years before finally breaking free on Aug. 27, clearing the way inland ice loss to the sea, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland bit.ly/2Rq5Mw2 reported. With climate change driving up Arctic temperatures, the once-solid sea ice cover has been shrinking to stark, new lows in recent years. This year’s minimum, still a few days from being declared, is expected to be the second-lowest expanse in four decades of record-keeping. The record low of 3.41 million square kilometers – reached in September 2012 after a late-season cyclonic storm broke up the remaining ice – is not much below what we see today. “We haven’t gone back at all to anything from 30 to 40 years ago,” said climatologist Julienne Stroeve at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. And as climate change continues, scientists say the sea ice is unlikely to recover to past levels. In fact, the long-frozen region is already shifting to an entirely new climate regime, marked by the escalating trends in ice melt, temperature rise and rainfall days, according to new research published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Those findings, climate scientist Laura Landrum said, were “unnerving.” All three variables – sea ice, temperatures and rainfall – are now being measured well beyond the range of past observations. That makes the future of the Arctic more of a mystery……… https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-arctic-sea-ice/sea-of-slush-arctic-sea-ice-lows-mark-a-new-polar-climate-regime-idUSKBN2652UL |
|
Relicensing Turkey Point nuclear station – a striking example of a dangerous action in climate change times
With climate change, aging nuclear plants need closer scrutiny. Turkey Point shows why. https://thebulletin.org/2020/09/with-climate-change-aging-nuclear-plants-need-closer-scrutiny-turkey-point-shows-why/ By Caroline Reiser , September 14, 2020Last December, two nuclear reactors at Florida’s Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station, located 25 miles south of Miami, became the first reactors in the world to receive regulatory approval to remain operational for up to 80 years, meaning reactors that first came online in the 1970s could keep running beyond 2050.
The ages of the Turkey Point reactors are not unusual; of the 95 reactors currently licensed to operate in the United States, only five are less than 30 years old, while more than half are 40 or more years old. The Turkey Point reactors are a bellwether, just the first of possibly many aging nuclear reactors that will seek permission to stay online well into the middle of the century. Not long after the December decision, in March 2020, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted two more reactors, located in Pennsylvania, the same extensions that it gave Turkey Point.
In pursing these extensions, the US commercial nuclear industry and its supporters collide with the realities of the aging US nuclear fleet and climate science projections. Existing safety and environmental requirements fail to provide the oversight necessary to ensure communities and the environment are protected. As nuclear reactors receive permission to operate for twice as long as originally envisaged, and in a world that, because of climate change, is drastically different from the one they were built for, the insufficiency of the existing regulatory framework is daunting.
A 40-year lifespan? At the beginning of its commercial nuclear power program, the United States designed and licensed reactors with a 40-year projected lifetime. Once the 40-year license is set to expire, regulations require the reactor owner to apply for a renewed license in order to continue operating for an additional 20 years. What the regulations don’t make clear, however, is the number of times a reactor license can be renewed. What Turkey Point received last year was not its first, but its second extension—what regulators call a subsequent renewed license. Continue reading
Rapid climate change has made Greenland lose a record amount of ice
|
Greenland glacier loses 110 square kilometres’ worth of ice, ABC, 14 Sept 20, A chunk of Greenland’s ice cap estimated to be
Scientists say the incident is evidence of rapid climate change. The glacier section broke off the fjord called Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden, which is about 80 kilometres long and 20 kilometres wide, the National Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) reported. The glacier is at the end of the north-east Greenland ice stream, where it flows off land into the ocean. Annual end-of-melt-season changes for the Arctic’s largest ice shelf in the region are measured by optical satellite imagery. GEUS showed area losses for the past two years each exceeded 50 square kilometres. “We should be very concerned about what appears to be progressive disintegration at the Arctic’s largest remaining ice shelf,” GEUS professor Jason Box said……. In August, a study showed that Greenland lost a record amount of ice during an extra-warm 2019, with the melt massive enough to cover the US state of California in more than 1.25 metres of water. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-14/chunk-of-greenlands-ice-cap-has-broken-off/12663510 |
|
|
The coronavirus pandemic and the increased safety risks for nuclear reactors
Nuclear Alert: NRC & Nuke Safety In the Time of COVID-19 https://www.fairewinds.org/demystify/nuclear-alert-nrc-amp-nuke-safety-in-the-time-of-covid-19 September 14, 2020 By The Fairewinds Crew
First off, we would like to preface this by saying that the world simply cannot afford a meltdown or nuclear disaster on top of the already traumatic times wrought by Pandemic 2020.
Did you know that nuclear plants close for scheduled refueling every 18-months, meaning that 1/3 of the operating reactors are off-line each spring and fall? For the record, more than three dozen reactors had planned to do so in Spring 2020. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) defines this rather temporary closing as an outage. During these outages, used-up nuclear fuel is replaced, and critical safety inspections are performed.
You may remember, that in early May, Maggie wrote extensively about the numerous safety risks to all of us if the nuclear industry continued operating these reactors during the COVID-19 Pandemic without implementing critical safety protocols and procedures. Along with 86 other organizations from all over the U.S., Fairewinds Energy Education nonprofit cosigned a letter to Vice President Pence and the COVID-19 Task Force detailing significant safety risks that must be addressed. You can read more about that letter and the increased safety hazards here. To date, we have received no response!
When the COVID-19 Pandemic began in late February, atomic reactor operators and owner corporations begged the NRC for special exemptions from regulatory requirements to implement critical safety and security inspections for up to two years! And, in an extreme example of regulatory capture, the NRC has approved all the corporate requested safety inspection delays, handing them out like candy to eager Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween! We know you have heard this before from the Crew at Fairewinds Energy Education, however, let us emphasize again that the federal laws [called statutes] that authorize the NRC, chartered it to protect ‘public health and safety’. Letting the industry continue to ignore critical safety inspections risks public health and safety!
During the past decade, the success in the growth of renewables has caused the nuclear industry to fight tooth and nail to keep operating even though nuclear power plants are much more expensive to operate than sustainable energy sources, and nukes charge much higher rates to consumers. Additionally, the risk of a disaster or other calamity has increased dramatically due to the old age of all current U.S. operating reactors. Instead of moving to solar and wind and shutting down these decrepit reactors, the energy and utility corporations are trying to reduce their higher operating costs by laying off employees and pushing the people remaining to work harder to save money and continue stockholder profit earnings.
Rather than slowing down these Spring refueling outages and allowing more time for inspections and repairs due to the extra burden the COVID-19 Pandemic has put on their employees and contractors, America’s nuclear monopoly has decided to risk ‘public health and safety’ – you remember what the federal law states – by reducing the amount of safety inspections the staff at each reactor was scheduled to perform. We agree that squeezing three or more people into a confined space for an inspection could be a recipe for COVID-19 transmission. However, slowing the inspection down and using fewer people at a time means having the reactor offline [shutdown] for a longer amount of time. In other words, the truth is that any operating schedule delay reduces each corporation’s profits.
Most atomic power reactors earn $1Million dollars in revenue every day. In addition, vice presidents, plant managers, and other corporate functionaries are on special bonus plans equivalent to between 40 and 70% of their salaries in a special year-end bonus. Such huge sums create a unique incentive for nuclear corporate executives to keep the outages as short as possible. When a vice president earns about $500,000, they will receive a $350,000 year-end bonus for meeting corporate goals, especially a short outage. We tend to notice that bonuses of that size cloud one’s judgment. Furthermore, we are reminded of Upton Sinclair when he so aptly said, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Is the risk of a disaster and a major radiation release to the surrounding community worth the extra millions of dollars earned by the corporate owner for starting these reactors up too soon? We don’t believe so.
Despite there being an abundance of available electricity without even using the atomic chain-reaction, the nuclear power operators and their corporate owners as well as the nuclear industry lobby are claiming that delayed testing will not cause a disaster and no nearby communities will be damaged or deal with the radioactive exposure to its residents.
Safety risks obviously increase because critical inspections are being delayed.
-
Archives
- February 2026 (228)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 