Iowa turns against nuclear power – and not to gas, but to renewables
Like with any energy source, burning natural gas should be considered in the context of its entire lifecycle. In that context, its greenhouse gas emissions are not much better than coal, if not worse,
depending upon the amount of methane leakage
Iowa’s Campaign to Stop Nuclear Power, Blog For Iowa, August 7, 2013 | Author Paul Deaton Nuclear Neighborhoods: 11,000 Generations Prepared remarks delivered by Paul Deaton at the Iowa City Public
Library on the 68th Anniversary of Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 2013.
Well we held back new nuclear power in Iowa. Isn’t that great?
In February 2010, I wrote the first of a long series of posts on Blog
for Iowa about what I believed to be the legislature’s infatuation
with nuclear power during the last four sessions of the Iowa General
Assembly. I wrote, “I heard the words ‘zero sum gain’ applied to
MidAmerican Energy’s process toward change for the first time. It
seems to fit. A zero sum gain is a situation in which a participant’s
gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other
participant(s). If the state wants to move forward with nuclear power,
it’s okay with MidAmerican Energy, but they are a business, so the
customers will have to pay.”
The customers will have to pay. That pretty much sums it up. What’s
missing is no one knew how much a new nuclear power plant would cost,
then, or now. For this and other reasons, the people of Iowa decided
there were better ways to generate electricity…….. Continue reading
Growing worldwide anti nuclear movement
Is there a new anti-nuclear movement growing? RABBLE CA, BY CELYN DUFAY AUGUST 6, 2013 It has been 68 years since America’s nuclear attacks on Japan, and world leaders are still discussing nuclear arms reduction and disarmament to be achieved “someday.”
But unprepared to sit and wait while thousands of nuclear weapons remain on full alert, citizens are organizing on every continent to demand their governments establish a convention banning nuclear weapons.
Positive signs of the renewed interest in the reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons have been emerging in recent years: from Obama’s goal of achieving a nuclear weapons free world, and the negotiation of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, to the recent support of 389 Members of the European Parliament for the Global Zero Action Plan, which calls for the phased and verified elimination of all nuclear weapons.
Importantly, we are also witnessing a rise in popular mobilization across the globe, by populations calling for the prohibition and elimination of all nuclear weapons around the world.
Throughout Nuclear Abolition Week 2013, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) had campaigners spread across 25 countries, on every continent, calling upon national governments to work together to ban and eliminate all nuclear weapons.
Through organized press conferences, exhibitions, round table discussions, meetings with government officials, and other activities, organizers brought this important topic to the political agenda. The popular response to these initiatives was tremendous: over 5000 people from 126 countries have now signed ICAN’s online petition calling for a negotiated nuclear weapons ban.
Here in Canada, Ceasefire.ca has been supporting ICAN with its “Louder Than the Bomb” campaign, by collecting signatures from citizens, coast to coast, to petition the Government of Canada to work with the international community to establish a nuclear weapons ban……
According to recent assessments, the overwhelming majority of the world’s population and national governments support a ban on nuclear weapons and efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament. An international poll conducted in 26 countries found that 78 percent of people support a treaty that would outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons.
Similarly, 151 of 195 UN member nations have a stated policy supporting a ban on nuclear weapons. Only 22 nations in the world are opposed to a ban on nuclear weapons, nearly all of whom are members or allies of NATO or the EU…….
To advocate for the peaceful disarmament of nuclear weapons from inside NATO would strengthen international peace movements and restore Canada’s clout as an international leader in peace and prosperity.
Citizens of the world therefore, must mobilise in support of ICAN and other peace movements to encourage substantive action by their governments to ban nuclear weapons now. http://rabble.ca/news/2013/08/there-new-anti-nuclear-movement-growing
Hiroshima remembers. Mayor rebukes Abe government
Hiroshima marks atom-bomb anniversary as Japan unveils warship (+video) Hiroshima marked the 68th anniversary Tuesday of the dropping of ‘Little Boy’ on the city. Sixty-eight years later, citizens of Hiroshima and the nation of Japan are considering revising its war-renouncing Constitution. By Gavin Blair, CSM, Correspondent / August 6, 2013 TOKYO
As 50,000 people marked the 68th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the mayor of the city used his speech at the somber annual ceremony to criticize Tokyo‘s plans to both restart the country’s nuclear reactors and export the technology. A peace bell was struck at 8:15 a.m. on Tuesday, the moment the ‘Little Boy’ bomb was dropped on Hiroshima from a Boeing B-29 Superfortress on Aug. 6, 1945. ……
Hiroshima’s mayor is critical
In the traditional peace declaration speech delivered every year by the mayor of Hiroshima, however, Mayor Kazumi Matsui rebuked the Abe administration over its intention to sell Japanese nuclear power technology to India, one of four countries that have not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferationof Nuclear Weapons. Continue reading
Global groups join in movement to ban nuclear weapons
On floating lanterns – and nuclear bombs National Catholic Reporter, Thomas C. Fox | Aug. 5, 2013 Kansas city, Mo. Nuclear weapons are an extravagant waste of our tax money and resources. They are not good for our economy; they are an unusable, unsustainable product. We could use those resources for (since I’m a nurse) medical research and health care.
Nuclear weapons are immoral. Many world religions have made statements condemning nuclear weapons.
There is a growing international, as well as national, movement to ban nuclear weapons. The majority of people worldwide want to get rid of them.
A new process has been established by the United Nations,”Open Ended Working Group to Take Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations” (OEWG); it met in May for the first time. It sponsored the “Open the Door to a Nuclear Free Future” campaign that inspired us to use the symbol of the door in our July 13 action at the KC Plant.
The International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons hosted diplomats from 127 countries who met in Oslo, Norway March 4-5 to examine the catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons. ICAN held a Civil Society Forum to build support for the ban alongside the diplomats’ meeting. I would like to attend the next one in Mexico. ICAN sponsored Nuclear Abolition Week July 6-13, which our July 13 action was part of. ICAN is also sponsoring the “Share Your Shadow” campaign, where people are encouraged to take a picture of their shadow and send it in. I’m planning on tracing my shadow with black chalk on the sidewalk in front of Zimmer Realty (which owns the new KC nuclear bomb plant) and in from of City Hall and JE Dunn (the construction company which built the new KC nuclear bomb plant), along with an appropriate phrase such as “KC Out of the Nuclear Weapons Business”! Should be fun!
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement are calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
The United States Conference of Mayors calls for US Leadership in global elimination of nuclear weapons and redirect nuclear weapons spending to meet the urgent needs of cities.
United for Peace and Justice is a U.S. group that has designated August as “Nuclear-Free Future” month – a month of education and action for a world free of nuclear weapons
Everyone can do something. Join a group, become informed, write a letter to the editor, call your congressperson, speak up and participate in demonstrations, support elected officials who are doing something. http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/floating-lanterns-and-nuclear-bombs
Effect of public opposition to nuclear power, USA project in India cancelled
US company nukes Rs 2724 cr nuclear parts project at Vizag Manish & Swati Rathor, TNN | Jul 26, 2013, “….. US player Brighton Energy Corporation Ltd’s Rs 2724 crore megaproject to make forged steel components for use in nuclear power plants was to come up inVisakhapatnam district. According to officials of the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), the project planned by US player in Nakkapalli mandal of the district has been shelved. ….
China’s government fears that anti-nuclear activism may become a national movement
The government in Beijing would be happy if anti-nuclear protests were to stay at the level of bickering between counties or even the occasional outburst of nimbyism, as in Jiangmen. But there is a risk that the success of Jiangmen residents in securing a change of heart could encourage others. “We can expect similar protests wherever a nuclear project is planned,” says Eva Sternfeld of Berlin’s Technical University, who has studied such activism.
Nuclear activism Limiting the fallout, The Economist A rare protest prompts the government to scrap plans to build a uranium-processing plant. Is anti-nuclear activism on the rise? Jul 20th 2013 | PENGZE, JIANGXI PROVINCE |OPPOSE nuclear pollution”; “Give us back our green homeland”. So declared banners raised by some of the hundreds of protesters who took to the streets of Jiangmen city in the southern province of Guangdong on July 12th. In a remarkable concession, the local government announced that it would heed their demands and abandon plans to build a uranium-processing facility. For officials in Beijing, keen to develop nuclear power and keep activism in check, the demonstration was an unsettling sign of potential
trouble.
The protest was the first known major public rally against a project involving the nuclear-power industry since China began building nuclear plants in the mid-1980s. Continue reading
30 arrested after break-in to France’s Tricastin nuclear power plant
Greenpeace members arrested after France nuclear break-in CBC News 16 July 13, Intrusion raises questions about the security of France’s 19 nuclear power plants Around 30 Greenpeace activists were arrested on Monday after breaking into an EDF nuclear power plant in southern France, saying they wanted to expose security flaws and demanding its closure…… The action echoed tensions between the Socialist government and ecologists, who accuse Hollande of not doing enough to reduce France’s reliance on nuclear power and increase the use of renewable sources of energy.Greenpeace activists occupied this French nuclear power plant site before dawn Monday, a media stunt deeply embarrassing to a government intent on demonstrating that France’s reliance on nuclear power is safe. (Micha Patault/Greenpeace/AP)
Hollande sacked his energy and environment minister for publicly criticizing cuts to her budget earlier this month.
The president has pledged to cut the share of nuclear energy in the country’s electricity mix to 50 per cent from 75 per cent by 2025. He has also said he wants to close the country’s oldest plant at Fessenheim, near the German border, by 2017.
Greenpeace said to honour his promise, Hollande would have to close at least 10 reactors by 2017 and 20 by 2020. The campaign group said this ought to include Tricastin, which was built more than 30 years ago.
The dawn raid came less than a week after six female Greenpeace activists climbed London’s Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe, in protest over plans by oil producer Royal Dutch Shell to carry out drilling in the Arctic circle.http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/07/15/france-greenpeace-nuclear-plant.html
Antinuclear campaigners break in to French nuclear power plant
Break in at French nuclear plant Sky News, July 15, 2013 Around two dozen Greenpeace campaigners have broken into a nuclear plant in southern France, in the latest such break-in by the environmental group.
The activists managed to enter the grounds of the Tricastin plant, some 200 kilometres north of Marseille, at around 5am (1300 AEST), Greenpeace and police said.
They hung banners reading ‘Tricastin: a nuclear accident’ and ‘Francois Hollande: president of a catastrophe?’ in reference to the French leader, according to Isabelle Philippe, a Greenpeace spokeswoman.
Twelve of the activists were arrested more than two hours later, according to the EDF energy giant that runs the country’s atomic power plants……
Members of the environmental anti-nuclear group have staged several break-ins at French nuclear plants in recent years in an effort to highlight what they say are dangers of atomic power and to expose security problems at the power stations.http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=888225
People power winning against the nuclear industry – even in China!
China Protest Forcing Nuclear Retreat Shows People Power By Bloomberg News – Jul 14, 2013 Protests in a southern Chinese city last week that forced local authorities to abandon plans for a uranium-processing facility highlight the growing willingness of ordinary people to challenge the state on environmental issues.
The proposed Longwan Industrial Park project won’t be approved “in order to fully respect the opinion of the masses,” the government of Heshan, Guangdong province, said in a statement on its website on July 13. A “social-stability risk assessment” of the proposal that was released for public awareness generated “much opposition,” it said.
Heshan is the latest local authority to back down in the face of pressure from a public increasingly empowered by its ability to sway officials who fear social unrest. Governments in cities across the country have canceled or delayed plans for industrial projects over the past year after confrontations with residents concerned about safety and pollution.
“Chinese civil society is getting stronger,” said Willy Wo-Lap Lam, an adjunct professor of history at the Chinese Universityof Hong Kong. “People now realize if their numbers are big enough, if they are united and stand their ground, the government will back down,” he said.
Opposition to the uranium facility underscores growing concern among China’s expanding middle class that industrial plants damage the environment and people’s health. Pollution has replaced land grabs as the primary cause of social unrest with many of the protests erupting in more prosperous coastal cities such as Shanghai and Ningbo where residents have deployed smartphones and used social media to organize their campaigns…….
“In future, especially in coastal developed regions, these kinds of public demonstrations may be the norm as we’ve seen in the West, where such projects face growing ‘not in my backyard’ sort of opposition,” said Ma. “In the future, large projects in China will need a longer and longer time to get approved like they do in the West.” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-14/china-protest-forcing-nuclear-retreat-shows-people-power.html
Peaceful anti nuclear protestors arrested in Kansas City
Two dozen arrested in nuclear-plant protest KSHB.com 14 July 13 KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Two dozen people were arrested Saturday morning for trespassing at the entrance to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s new south Kansas City complex in a peaceful protest against the nuclear weapons that will soon be built there.
Scheduled for completion sometime next year, the plant at 150 Hwy and Botts Road will replace the current nuclear-bomb-parts plant at the Bannister Federal Complex at Bannister and Holmes, now operated by Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies. …The protestors were organized by the local chapter of PeaceWorks to coincide with Nuclear Abolition Week, July 6-13…. http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/local_news/nearly-two-dozen-arrested-in-nuclear-plant-protest#ixzz2Z9cKfsUh
Success for Chinese anti nuclear protestors, as government scraps plans for uranium processing plant
China cancels $6 billion uranium plant after protest SATURDAY JUL 13, 2013 | CHEN AIZHU, QI DING FOR REUTERS BEIJING (Reuters) – China has abruptly canceled plans to build its largest uranium processing plant in a southern Chinese city, a day after hundreds of protesters took to the streets demanding the project be scrapped, a local government website said on Saturday.
The proposed 230-hectare complex in the heart of China’s Pearl River delta industrial heartland in Guangdong province had also sparked unease in neighboring Hong Kong and Macau.
Authorities in the gambling enclave had formally raised the issue with their Guangdong counterparts, the South China Morning Post reported.
A one-line statement published on the Heshan city government’s website said that “to respect people’s desire, the Heshan government will not propose the CNNC project”.
State-run China National Nuclear Corporation and China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp (CGNPC) had planned to build the 37 billion yuan ($6 billion) project.
Officials from both companies could not be reached for comment……..
The surprisingly swift decision to cancel the project came after hundreds marched to city offices on Friday that forced officials to pledge an extension of public consultation by 10 days. Locals had planned more protests on Sunday.
Chinese authorities are becoming increasingly sensitive to local protests over environmental issues, having canceled, postponed or relocated several major petrochemical and metals plants…….http://www.newsdaily.com/article/dea9628fb2b26f48d30394204db3e45a/china-cancels-6-billion-uranium-plant-after-protest
Anti nuclear march in Jiangmen – a rare protest movement in China
Jiangmen rises against uranium plant http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=38672&icid=2&d_str= (07-12 12:57) More than 1,000 people have marched to the municipal government office in Jiangmen to protest against a plan to build a uranium processing plant in Guangdong City.
The protesters say they’re concerned about radiation and possible nuclear pollution. They’re also unhappy with the government’s 10-day consultation process, which ends tomorrow, RTHK reports.
Jiangmen authorities have already signed an agreement with the China National Nuclear Corporation to house the 40-billion-yuan project. Construction is expected to begin at the end of this year.
Guangdong protests against uranium processing plant
Jiangmen residents protest against uranium processing plant http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1280894/jiangmen-residents-protest-against-uranium-processing-plant Several hundred people gathered in Jiangmen’s city centre on Friday morning to protest against a planned uranium processing plant in the Guangdong city.
“Jiangmen doesn’t want radiation”, one banner carried by demonstrators said. “We want children, not atoms,” said another. Police appear to have been anticipating the protest with Jiangmen city government building being cordoned-off.
One group of protesters gathered in front of the building, another group meet at the Donghu Lake park.
Two protesters, who declined to be identified, said that the protest had been organized via QQ and WeChat, two social messaging services, at least two days ahead of the protest.
One local said that the local government had held an emergency meeting last night to prepare for the protest. According to one demonstrator, the public protest lasted from 8am to 11:30am and is planned resume in the afternoon.
Some protesters were holding banners calling for another protest on Sunday.
Thee 30-hectare plant would carry out uranium conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication, the Jiangmen City Development and Reform Bureau said in an earlier statement.
The plant’s construction some 100km from Hong Kong and Macau has sparked health concerns in both cities as well. The Heshan government under the administration of Jiangmen held a press conference earlier on Friday morning defending the project. Heshan mayor Wu Yuxiong said that the local government has decided to extend the period in which the risk assessment report is publicly accessible by a further ten days.
Microblogs about the protests have been quickly censored, indicating increased sensitivity about a backlash. Earlier this year, two demonstrations against a gas refinery in Kunming have caused a public backlash. A similar protest in Chengdu had been repressed.
New Mexico protests against uranium mining
La Jicarita: Protesters in Santa Fe Say No Uranium Mining http://unoccupyabq.org/2013/06/la-jicarita-protesters-in-santa-fe-say-no-uranium-mining/ 27 June 13 La Jicarita: Albuquerque and Santa Fe activists joined an inter-tribal delegation to protest the planned resumption of uranium mining in New Mexico. With organizing help from (un)occupy Albuquerque, the June 25 action began at the New Mexico Mining Association offices, then moved to the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division where the contingent confronted division director Fernando Martinez in a polite but insistent impromptu dialogue. Moving on to the offices of the Uranium Producers of America, the protesters found the occupants had moved out (not in search of larger premises, we hope). Ending up at the Santa Fe plaza, the activists took part in a call to free imprisoned AIM activist Leonard Peltier and an Idle No More-led round dance around the town’s monument to the Indian Wars. Click on the links between the pictures below to hear the words of participants in these events.
Read the full article here.
Reporter Eric Schultz also included audio of many of the speakers, well worth a read, and a listen.
Angry shareholders demand Japanese nuclear power shutdown
“TEPCO should just shut down,” “If we have another Fukushima, Japan will not survive.”
Japan utility behind nuclear crisis faces angry shareholders at annual meeting, Yahoo 7 Finance By Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer | Associated Press TOKYO (AP) 26 June 13, — Shareholders angry at the utility company behind Japan’s nuclear catastrophe peppered executives with questions Wednesday about leaking radioactive water and demanded a phase-out of atomic power. Continue reading
1 This Month
10 March A LIVE WEBINAR THE REAL EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR POWER
What the Industry Isn’t Telling Us
1:00 PM Mountain, 2 pm Central, 3 pm Eastern. Live on the Keepers of the Water Facebook page
18 March Webinar @ 1 PM EST: An Assessment of SMR Projects: The Case of Canada
register for the zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o8BIIOUvQ2ONJR1nta65DQ#/registration
of the week – STOP SMALL MODULAR REACTORS IN CANADA
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