France’s government demands that EDF fix Flamanville nuclear reactor within one month
EDF given a month to draw up a fix for Flamanville’s nuclear woes French energy group under pressure to address faults highlighted in a new report. https://www.ft.com/content/877eedae-f987-11e9-a354-36acbbb0d9b6 David Keohane in Paris, 28 Oct 19.
The reprehensible pro nuclear campaign for bailing out nuclear power in Ohio
Melting Ice, Crumbling Nukes, Cecile Pineta Newsletter Sunday, October 27, 2019 For anyone following or attempting to follow nuclear energy news in the United States, what’s been going on in the State of Ohio is a solid indicator of just where we stand, technologically, and from a style of government standpoint.
Without going into stupefying background detail, I’ll try to sum up the Ohio situation with help from the summary published Oct. 26 by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman who have been birddogging this issue for decades now. And I quote:
- In July, the gerrymandered Ohio Legislature passed HB6, a massive
[1 billion-dollar] bailout to keep the two dying nukes operating on Lake Erie, [Davis-Besse, and Perry].
- Akron-based First Energy is bankrupt…[demanding] a promised $1 billion bailout.
- Signature gatherers were offered as much as $2,500 to turn over their signed petitions. [Contrast this with receiving only $.25 cents a signature.]
While disrupting legitimate [signature] gatherers, pro-nuke thugs aggressively collected multiple duplicate signatures for a fake non-binding petition.
Deep Pockets
- First Energy then claimed it had gathered more than 800,000 “pro-nuke’ signatures.
- First Energy accompanied [thug] assaults with a massive radio/TV/mailer campaign [with the ridiculous claim that] “Chinese Communists” were buying Ohio’s grid.
- OACB’s court filing showed that state regulations imposed on certification have vastly reduced the number of referenda Ohioans can vote on.
- Wednesday last, Oct. 26, a federal judge rejected OACB’s request for more time to gather signatures, and sent the case to the Ohio GOP-dominated Supreme Court.
- OACB is rumored to have about 225,000 signatures on hand, 40,000 short of the threshold. Far more will be needed to overcome a [Republican] Secretary of State certain to disallow as many as [possible].
- [And here’s the kicker:] Polls show Ohioans [who will be the rate-payers] vehemently opposed to the bailout. [That’s why] most observers believe if it [got] on the ballot, the referendum would pass by a large margin.
- [But] should Federal appeals fail, and the Ohio Supreme Court refuse the request for more time, the referendum process will have suffered a potential death blow nationwide. It will mean Fascist thugs will be free to assault legitimate signature gatherers at will.
This last point is the main take-away. First Energy mounted this campaign in major Ohio cities: Youngstown, Akron, Toledo, and Columbus among them. It underwrote its million-dollar-plus cost-of-doing business in flyers, TV/radio/mailer announcements. It paid thousands of goon-disrupters to do their thuggish business on the streets.
At play is a $1 billion bailout. A million-dollar cost-of-doing business is a mere investment, a drop in the corporate bucket. At issue is that its cost will be passed directly to ratepayers.
Core tests conducted at Davis Besse show that its containment vessel is critically embrittled. Should there be an accident (like Three-Mile Island for example} Lake Erie is at serious risk of nuclear contamination. First Energy’s ratepayers draw their water from Lake Erie, the fourth largest of the Great Lakes and source of fresh water for Canadians and Americans living in the area.
Already in 2011, following the nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima, I covered the issue of Davis Besse’s critical embrittlement in Devil’s Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step.
That was 8 years ago….. https://devilstangobook.blogspot.com/2019/10/melting-ice-crumbling-nukes.html?showComment=1572237519303#c7332297197888828316
National nuclear commission strategy for Marshall Islands
Marshalls endorses nuclear commission strategy, https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/401921/marshalls-endorses-nuclear-commission-strategy The Marshall Islands government has endorsed the adoption of a national nuclear commission strategy for the next three years.
The strategy honours the legacy of Marshallese nuclear heroes and heroines who fought and continue to demand accountability for their communities.
The strategy was mandated in the Marshall Islands parliament, or Nitijela, as part of the National Nuclear Commission Act of 2017.
It focuses on five broad themes for nuclear justice: compensation, health care, the environment, national capacity, and education and awareness.
From 1946 to 1958, the US used the Marshall Islands to test its nuclear weapons.
The commission also aims to establish an independent panel of scientists and specialists in fields related to radiation exposure, to provide the republic’s citizens access to trusted, independent science.
The commission’s chair, Rhea Moss-Christian, said the NNC strategy was a tool for all Marshallese, whether living in the islands or overseas, to use in their individual and collective efforts to respond to the devastation resulting from the US nuclear weapons testing program in the Marshall Islands.
“It is also a resource for our partners and friends outside the Marshall Islands to understand the nuclear testing impacts that persist today and how they can support the Marshallese people,” Ms Moss-Christian said.
Governments manipulate social media – Twitter executive is a British army psychological operations officer
governments have a long history of trying to manipulate the media,” and are steadily moving into the realm of social media.Media Ignore Unmasking of Twitter Exec as British Psyops Officer https://fair.org/home/media-ignore-unmasking-of-twitter-exec-as-british-psyops-officer/comment-page-1/#comment-3169114
Government penetration and control over media of little interest to those who are subject to it, ALAN MACLEOD, 24 Oct 19, A recent investigation from independent news outlet Middle East Eye (9/30/19) uncovered that a senior Twitter executive is, in fact, an officer in the British Army’s 77th Brigade, a unit dedicated to psychological operations (psyops), propaganda and online warfare.
For media so committed to covering news of foreign interference with US public opinion online (see FAIR.org, 8/24/16, 12/13/17, 7/27/18), the response was distinctly muted.The story did not appear at all in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News or virtually any other mainstream national outlet. In fact, the only corporate US outlet of any note covering the news that a person deciding what you see in your Twitter feed is a foreign psyops officer was Newsweek, which published a detailed analysis from Tareq Haddad (10/1/19). When asked by FAIR why he believed this was, Haddad agreed it was major news, but downplayed the idea of media malevolence, suggesting that because it was a small British outlet breaking news involving a British officer, US media may have overlooked it.
Deep State and Fourth Estate
A Fact-Free Zone
Yet factchecking organizations are not neutral arbiters of truth, but part of an increasingly elite class of people with their own biases and preconceptions. In practice, they have tended to espouse a “centrist” ideology—a word with its own problems (FAIR.org, 3/23/19)—and are hostile to anyone challenging the status quo from either right or left. Factcheckers have been carrying out something of a war against Bernie Sanders’ campaign, constantly rating the Vermont Senator’s statements as misleading or untrue without due reason.
Furthermore, the choice of who gets to decide what is true and what is false is an important one. Facebook has already partnered with conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, a publication that was crucial in pushing arguably the greatest fake news stories of the 21st century: those of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s links to 9/11 (Extra!, 9/09). “There is no debate about the facts” that “the Iraqi threat” to the US is “enormous” and that Saddam’s henchmen helped Osama Bin Laden, it wrote in 2002 (1/21/02). Yet Facebook picked this organization to help it gauge the veracity of viral stories across its platform.
Silencing Dissent Online
In September, Twitter suspended multiple accounts belonging to Cuban state media. And along with Facebook and YouTube, it also suspended hundreds of Chinese accounts it claimed were attempting to “sow political discord in Hong Kong” by “undermining the legitimacy” of the protest movement. These social media giants have already deleted thousands of Venezuelan, Russian and Iranian accounts and pages that were, in their own words, “in line with” those governments’ positions. The message is clear: Sharing opinions that do not fall in line with official US doctrine will not be tolerated online.
In contrast, Western politicians can continually flout Twitter’s terms of service with no consequences. Sen. Marco Rubio threatened Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with torture and execution, sharing a video of Moammar Gadhafi being tortured and killed in a not-so-subtle message that broke multiple Twitter rules. Meanwhile, Donald Trump announced that we would “totally destroy” North Korea with “fire and fury,” and promised he would bring about the “official end” of Iran if it angered him again. Twitter has continually refused to delete tweets like that on the grounds that this would “hamper necessary discussion,” although it later saw fit to delete those from Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Decisions like these highlight how there is one rule for the powerful and quite another for the rest of us, and how the big social media platforms are increasingly acting like arms of Western governments, adopting their perspectives on what are and are not acceptable political viewpoints.
For the climate’s sake, the $multibillion nuclear industry bailouts must stop
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Nuclear Industry’s $23 Billion Bailout Request Shows Why It Should Have ‘No Role to Play’ in Solving Climate Crisis: Study “For the sake of taxpayers, electricity consumers and the climate, Congress must stop this endless nuclear boondoggle.” by Eoin Higgins, staff writer A proposed bailout of the U.S. nuclear power industry that could cost taxpayers $23 billion over the next 10 years is a perfect example of why the climate crisis needs solutions that focus on renewable resources, green advocacy group Friends of the Earth said Thursday.”The dying nuclear industry wants a massive bailout at the expense of taxpayers and the climate,” the group’s senior policy analyst Lukas Ross said in a statement. Friends of the Earth commissioned a study (pdf) on the Nuclear Powers America Act of 2019, a nuclear industry-backed bill making its way through Congress that would continue subsidies for the industry for decades. Vermont Law School fellow Mark Cooper, who authored the study, wrote that the consequences of continuing tax credits for the industry would have the effect of making other potential technologies unviable for reducing emissions. “Subsidizing nuclear keeps reactors on-line and crowds out the alternatives,” said Cooper. “It slows the transition to an electrical grid based on low-carbon distributed resources.” While renewables are a major part of the push from climate activists and advocates to solve the climate crisis, using nuclear power to reduce emissions has been floated as a potential piece of the Green New Deal. The technology was notably left out of the legislation by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a decision that Popular Mechanics writer Avery Thompson hailed in February as a “great idea.” “Reactors are gigantic beasts, and sustaining a nuclear reaction while drawing power from it requires an absurd level of engineering,” wrote Thompson. “Reactors are expensive, bulky, and complicated, to say nothing of the waste products they produce or the fear of a catastrophe like Chernobyl or Fukushima.” The proposed nuclear industry bailout, warns Cooper in the new report, is an attempt to reverse economic trends that have never been favorable to nuclear power standing by itself. The industry, Cooper said, hasn’t earned the right to be considered as a realistic solution to the climate crisis or U.S. energy needs. “Nuclear has failed for over 50 years to control its costs, even with help from massive subsidies, and alternatives are available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a much lower cost,” wrote Cooper. Time is of the essence, said Friends of the Earth’s Ross. “With just a decade left to prevent the worst of the climate crisis, we shouldn’t dump more money into ancient nuclear reactors at the expense of cleaner and much cheaper renewables,” he said. |
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Rick Perry, as Energy Secretary, “solved” nuclear waste problem by reclassifying high level waste as low level
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Perry’s Odd Definition of Progress on Nuclear Waste https://www.nrdc.org/experts/caroline-reiser/perrys-odd-definition-progress-nuclear-waste, October 22, 2019 Caroline Reiser
After months of suspense, Energy Secretary Rick Perry finally confirmed he will resign, boasting in a farewell tweet that under his leadership the Department of Energy “made environmental progress unseen for decades cleaning up the legacy of the Manhattan Project.” —What’s that now? Where exactly are the “numerous” legacy sites that Perry claims the Department tackled? All the Department of Energy has done under Perry is weaken standards and renege on promises by finding ways to abandon the world’s most toxic chemical and radioactive waste in place. To give a brief history of the legacy Perry is referring to, the Manhattan Project is the name of the World War II era research and development effort that led to the first several nuclear weapons, including those used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the atomic arms race of the Cold War, the Department of Energy and its predecessor agencies continued to design, test, and manufacture nuclear weapons but on a vaster scale—ultimately manufacturing over 30,000 nuclear weapons. Making nuclear weapons is not a clean business. Every country that has built a nuclear arsenal has harmed its own people and environment in the process. Nuclear production created a so-called “legacy” of profoundly contaminated radiological and chemical waste sites. There are dozens of these legacy waste sites across the United States; the largest three are the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, the South Carolina Savannah River Site, and the Washington Hanford site (which many consider one of the most contaminated sites in the Western Hemisphere). To give you a picture of the scale in terms of size and danger, the Hanford site hosts 177 tanks. The tanks range from 55,000 gallons to more than a million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste each. That’s from about 20 semi-trucks full to about two Olympic sized swimming pools. And even brief exposure to a small portion of that waste can be deadly. So what happened at these sites under Perry? Not much. The most far-reaching action the Department of Energy took under Secretary Perry was to give itself permission to “reclassify” highly toxic radioactive waste. The Department’s new stance is that it can magically decide that certain High-Level Waste is now Low-Level Waste without oversight from the Environmental Protection Agency, states, or tribes. With this authority, the Department of Energy no longer has to permanently isolate from the environment High-Level Waste, but instead can abandon hundreds of gallons of the most toxic waste at sites like Hanford. So really the only way Perry could be said to have cleaned up this toxic waste is by “recategorizing” it as something less dangerous than it is, and then (metaphorically) washing his hands of it. The Perry-led Department of Energy will also be remembered for breaking promises. In addition to the promises the Department is breaking by reclassifying High-Level Waste, the Department is also breaking promises to clean up smaller sites as well. For example, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory sits in the golden hills of California, right on the outskirts of Los Angeles’s urban sprawl. In 2010, the Energy Department agreed to clean up the site to what’s called “background levels,” meaning the normal levels of radiation one could expect to find at the site before industry intervened. But the Perry Energy Department decided this agreement didn’t matter – it now plans to leave in place the vast majority of the contamination and to act without consent from California. Both Washington and California are pushing back against the Department of Energy’s broken promises. And it’s clear that if the Department gets away with it at these sites, it will do the exact same thing at other sites across the country. So, for Secretary Perry’s tweet to be true, he must have a strange definition of “progress.” Maybe he means progress in abandoning the Department of Energy’s obligation to clean up the mess it made. Maybe he means progress in speeding up transferring the responsibility of managing highly toxic sites back to states, tribes, and local communities. Maybe he means progress in cutting corners to favor cost over health and safety. All I can say is that I hope the next Secretary and I have a more similar idea of what progress looks like. The Department of Energy can do better. President Trump has already nominated Dan Broulliette as a replacement for Perry. If Broulliette wants to make actual progress on America’s nuclear waste legacies, he needs to stop wasting time trying to get away with doing less – do the work and do it right. Given the track record of the last few years, there’s ample reason for skepticism. But I would love to be proven wrong. |
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UK govt postpones decision on Wylfa nuclear project
Wylfa: Anglesey nuclear power plant planning decision deferred, BBC,
She had been widely expected to back the proposals, granting what is known as a development consent order (DCO).
Hitachi shelved the scheme, the biggest energy project ever proposed in Wales, over funding issues.
Developers Horizon Nuclear Power had earlier said the decision would “heavily influence” how the project progresses.
Ms Leadsom has now given a deadline by the end of the year – and invited comments from Natural Resources Wales, the Office for Nuclear Regulation, Anglesey council and other bodies. She wants more assurances on various aspects – from biodiversity, visual impact, flooding and construction noise – and any risk to the Sandwich tern, which has a colony nearby.…….
Opponents of nuclear power have called on Ms Leadsom to dismiss the planning application and focus on renewable sources of electricity. Dylan Morgan of People Against Wylfa B said it was “obvious the developers are keen to get planning permission in order to try and sell the site”.
“But that’s easier said than done at the moment given the pretty perilous state of the global nuclear industry and the hopeless economics.”……. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-50139360
Uninsurable – and for good reason – nuclear power
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Nuclear energy is too costly and risky; better alternatives exist https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/opinion/columnists/common_ground/nuclear-energy-is-too-costly-and-risky-better-alternatives-exist/article_71a11439-581d-572f-87c7-88dad34ddf74.html Common Ground / By Paul W. Hansen , 23 Oct 19 In last week’s Guest Shot the director of the Idaho National Lab (INL) Mark Peters wrote to open a dialogue with News&Guide readers about nuclear energy. I want to take him up on his offer. First, what we agree on. Nuclear energy produces about 20% of the nation’s electricity, which is about 8% of our total energy use. Overall, we need to produce and use energy that minimizes greenhouse gases. Looking at the troubled history, poor economics, attendant risk and unsolved problem of nuclear waste disposal, I think there are much better alternatives for producing carbon free energy. Today, there are 97 nuclear reactors in 29 states that produce electricity. Thirty-four reactors have been shut down. More orders for nuclear plants have been canceled than plants have been built. Only one plant has come online in the last 25 years. Early claims that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter” proved false. Despite extensive public subsidies, nuclear plants across America have faced significant cost overruns. For example, the Washington Public Power Supply System defaulted on $2.25 billion in municipal bonds when cost overruns on two units caused the cancellation of two other units. The Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant on Long Island was completed in 1985, but never operated when an evacuation plan could not be implemented. The plant was decommissioned. The $6 billion cost of the unused plant was passed on to Long Island residents. Attempts to build new nuclear plants have been even more challenging. During the 1980s, the cost of Plant Vogtle’s first two nuclear units near Augusta, Georgia, jumped from an estimated $660 million to $8.87 billion. Regardless, 20 years later Georgia Power wanted to build the “next generation” of nuclear power plants. In August 2008, it was estimated that Plant Vogtle reactors 3 and 4 would cost $14.3 billion and begin operations in 2017. Today, updated estimates put the cost at $28 billion with an operation date of November 2022. The project is projected to be $14 billion over budget and more than 5 years behind schedule. The builder of the reactors, Westinghouse, has declared bankruptcy. In 2017, a similar two-unit plant in South Carolina, the V.C. Summer plant, was abandoned — costing about $5 billion. Concerns over the transportation and storage of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel have prevented any nuclear waste repositories from being developed in the U.S. Spent fuel rods are stored onsite at nuclear plants. When uranium fuel is used up, usually after about 18 months, the spent rods are generally moved to deep pools of circulating water to cool down for about 10 years. The radioactive material is then transferred to metal casks. The waste remains dangerously radioactive for about 10,000 years. There is no plan for permanent disposal of this waste. This brings me to my biggest concern — the fact that those in our society whose business it is to determine risk will not insure nuclear power. If you own a home, look at your homeowner’s insurance policy. You are not covered in the event of a nuclear accident. No one is. The nuclear industry exists only due to the liability limitations granted by Congress in the Price Anderson Act. Price Anderson requires the nuclear industry to fund an account of $12.6 billion. Any liability above that is supposed to be covered by taxpayers. Then there are the issues of long-term decommissioning costs, nuclear accidents or terrorists. In Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear accidents have left large areas uninhabitable. What if the 9/11 terrorists had managed to crash those planes into the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant north of New York City? While the reactor containment vessel might have survived the impact, the spent fuel rod pools may not have, leaving much of the New York metropolitan area uninhabitable. Nuclear energy has not worked out as planned. Far more carbon-free power can be generated at far less cost and risk by renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. |
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Missouri Commission Wants Legislators To Scrap Nuclear Plant-Funding Law, St
Missouri Commission Wants Legislators To Scrap Nuclear Plant-Funding Law, St Louis Public Radio By SHAHLA FARZAN • OCT 17, 2019 The Missouri Air Conservation Commission is asking state legislators to repeal a decades-old law that controls how companies fund new nuclear power plants.
The Construction Work in Progress law, passed by Missouri voters in 1976, prohibits utility companies from charging customers to cover the cost of building power plants until the facilities are up and running.
The commission unanimously passed a resolution Thursday calling the law an “intractable roadblock” for nuclear power in Missouri. Opponents say the governor-appointed commission is overstepping its bounds.
Ed Smith, policy director for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, said he was “in shock” after the vote.
“We have people who are unelected telling elected people how to set energy policy for the state of Missouri,” said Smith, who submitted a letter in opposition to the resolution. “That is best left in the legislative arena, not for the commissioners to pick and choose winners.”
Commissioner Ron Boyer introduced the resolution on Aug. 29, six weeks after he wrote an op-ed for the Missouri Farm Bureau in support of nuclear power. …….
Smith said the commission is ignoring the financial risks of building new nuclear power plants. He cited the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project near Jenkinsville, South Carolina, which cost ratepayers $2 billion and resulted in an FBI investigation.
“Not only is nuclear a dangerous power source, it’s dangerous to consumers when plants are being built,” he said.
Geoff Marke, chief economist for the Missouri Office of Public Counsel, submitted a memo to the commission Oct. 16 calling a repeal of the law “wholly unnecessary,” arguing it would shift the financial risk of building new power plants onto the shoulders of ratepayers…….. https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/missouri-commission-wants-legislators-scrap-nuclear-plant-funding-law#stream/0
Final push for anti-nuclear signatures before Ohio’s nuclear bailout referendum
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Anti-Nuclear Bailout Group Making Final Push For Signatures Before Monday’s Deadline https://www.statenews.org/post/anti-nuclear-bailout-group-making-final-push-signatures-mondays-deadline
By ANDY CHOW 18 Oct 19, Petitioners are giving one last push into the drive that would put Ohio’s nuclear bailout law before voters. The referendum effort must file enough valid signatures, 265,774, by Monday afternoon in order to qualify for next year’s ballot.
Opponents of the law say it’s a corporate bailout for FirstEnergy Solutions. They’re also against the coal subsidies and the cuts to green energy policies. That’s why they want to put the law on the ballot for a potential repeal. Among those opponent organizers is Rachael Belz, executive director of Ohio Citizen Action, which advocates for community involvement and corporate responsibility. Belz says they’re planning an all-out blitz to gather last-minute signatures around the state. “I feel optimistic. We’re gonna push as hard as we can up until the last minutes to make sure that this gets on the ballot,” says Belz Pro-nuclear bailout groups will continue to have their own canvassers out trying to get people not to sign the petition along with ads against the referendum. There are other looming issues. The anti-bailout group leading the charge, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, has filed a lawsuit in federal court asking a judge to extend their time. The group argues a requirement for them to file paperwork about their petitioners made them vulnerable against their opposition. Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts also says in the lawsuit that it took too long for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office to approve the petition language, so they’re asking for an additional 90 days. Pro-nuclear bailout groups have filed a case in the Ohio Supreme Court arguing that the new bailout law creates a tax, and is therefore immune to a referendum attempt. |
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Nuclear shill Rick Perry switching from DOE Secretary to Small Nuclear Reactor Salesman
Perry to Resign as DOE Secretary, With Nuclear Weapon Programs on 
Autopilot, OCTOBER 18, 2019, BY DAN LEONE,Rick Perry on Thursday announced his resignation as the Donald Trump administration’s first secretary of energy after more than two-and-a-half years on the job. In a published letter to President Donald Trump, Perry said he would resign “later this year”…(subscribers only) https://www.exchangemonitor.com/perry-resign-doe-secretary-nuclear-weapon-programs-autopilot/
Energy Wire 17th Oct 2019, Energy Secretary Rick Perry will head back to Europe next week as part of an effort to boost the U.S. advanced nuclear industry’s ability to export its technologies across the globe.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/10/17/stories/1061299145
Ohio’s Fascist Pro-Nuke Attack on Democracy Comes Due on Monday
By Harvey Wasserman, 18 Oct 19A terrifying series of gestapo-style assaults, petiton buying, bribery, mass media manipulation and systematic intimidation has smacked into the attempt of Ohio citizens to repeal a billion-dollar bailout for two dangerously failing atomic reactors on Lake Erie.The unprecedented assault threatens the referendum process in Ohio and across the nation.It also threatens to keep on line two very old, dangerously decayed reactors where melt-downs and explosions could forever contaminate the Great Lakes region and more. (For a full explanation, hear this one-hour discussion at:The story may end Monday, October 21, when signatures are due to qualify an anti-nuclear referendum for the fall 2020 ballot.It begins with the July passage by the gerrymandered Ohio Legislature of HB6, a massive bailout scheme designed to subsidize the Perry and Davis-Besse nukes, plus two fifty-year-old coal burners, one of them in Indiana. HB6 does support ten small solar facilities. But it also kills an extremely popular, effective energy efficiency program along with larger subsidies for wind and solar energy in general.The bailout is vehemently opposed by a large majority of Ohioans, including most of its usually pro-corporate media. Commercial, industrial and environmental groups did mount a massive campaign meant to stop the bill from passing. But with help from Democrats in both houses, the Legislature narrowly approved the bailouts.Almost immediately, a referendum was filed for repeal. With 265,000 signatures due by October 21, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts began hiring canvassers.Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State delayed the process as long as possible. He waiting a full 20 days before turning down the first petition submission. He then waited another 20 to certify the second.But as soon as the referendum supporters began gathering signatures, pro-nuke forces attacked with a fascist assault unlike any other in US history.First they began running an astonishing wave of TV ads claiming the referendum was a plot by Chinese Communists to take over Ohio’s electrical grid. The ads feature (they are still running!) hordes of goose-stepping Chinese soldiers, sinister footage of China’s dictator, shuttered US factories, and more.Accompanied by high-gloss mass mailings, the pro-nuke forces are also running saturation radio ads warning Ohioans to shun all signature gatherers lest they be tracked by sinister communists out to ruin their lives and credit. A toll-free number is offered to those willing to call in the location of any repeal supporters.But the pro-nuke gestapo has also leapt from mere media manipulation to physical intimidation. When the referendum-gatherers hit the streets, they were confronted by industry “blockers” to tangibly prevent them from doing their job. In one case (as filmed on a security camera) a blocker smacked the cell phone out of the hands of a signature gatherer as he tried to photograph her. Gatherers have widely reported close-up verbal assaults. In some cases as many as three paid blockers have surrounded a single signature gatherer to prevent anyone from coming near to signing a petition.Because many of the signature gatherers are hired employees, they’re required to register contact information with the state. The pro-nuke mob has assaulted them with threatening phone calls. In some cases they’ve reportedly offered substantial cash payments and airline tickets if they leave the state. One signature gatherer reported being offered $2500 (!) for the day’s accumulated sign-up sheets, which would presumably then be shredded.Under the circumstances, many now wonder if the pro-referendum forces have been able to accumulate the required 265,000 signatures, plus the many more needed for a traditional cushion. The Republican Secretary of State is certain to discard as many signatures as he can, especially with the micro-managed scrutiny of the nuclear industry.The ramifications of such an outcome are staggering. It could signal the death of the popular referendum, a cornerstone of the democratic process.It could also mean two old, uncompetitive, uninsured, un-inspected crumbling atomic reactors highly likely to explode will continue to threaten the entire Great Lakes region for years to come.————-Harvey Wasserman’s People’s Spiral of US History is at solartopia.org. His California Solartopia show is broadcast at KPFK/Pacifica-90.7FM in Los Angeles. The Green Power & Wellness Show is podcast at prn.fm.
Bradwell B – UK’s futile nuclear project
BANNG 17th Oct 2019, Andy Blowers ponders the question, ‘Why, since Bradwell B is such a futile project, don’t the regulators stop it now?’ in the BANNG column for Regional Life, October, 2019. Why is it that so often decision makers fail to see or, perversely, choose to ignore the blindingly obvious?
This thought occurred to me during a recent meeting of BANNG with officials from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency (EA) about the Bradwell B site?
There are at least three major ‘showstoppers’ that should have already made Bradwell B, to borrow a phrase, ‘dead in the water’: Cooling water – the Blackwater estuary cannot possibly provide or sustain the volume of cooling water needed.
Emergency plan – in the event of a serious accident it will be impossible
to evacuate the surrounding area. Climate change – the Bradwell site is
fragile and vulnerable to rising seas, storms and erosion which will,
sooner or later, impact on the power station and its dangerous nuclear
waste stores. https://www.banng.info/news/the-show-must-not-go-on/
Trump grants extension for nuclear fuel recommendations
The Nuclear Fuel Working Group had been expected to deliver recommendations to President Donald Trump last week. But the Commerce Department says Trump granted a 30-day extension.
Uranium mining interests say the global market for uranium ore is vulnerable to political turmoil.
They want Trump to boost U.S. demand to help domestic suppliers. But the president rejected a requested quota during the summer and gave the task force 90 days to come up with other ideas….. https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/us/article/Trump-grants-extension-for-nuclear-fuel-14541894.php
USA’s “outrageous” claim to “universal jurisdiction over every person on earth”- plea from Australia to save Julian Assange
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The campaign for the Morrison government to intervene gathered momentum on Monday after former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce lent his support to the WikiLeaks founder’s cause. Independent MP Andrew Wilkie also revealed that a multi-party parliamentary group to “agitate” for Mr Assange to be brought home to Australia would be launched in the coming weeks and would include some members of the Coalition government. In April, Mr Smith voiced concerns to Washington’s man in Canberra that Mr Assange could be charged under an “outrageous” US claim to “universal jurisdiction over every person on earth”. “Australians, like Americans, may have mixed opinions on Julian Assange, however, I believe the tide will turn if it appears an Aussie is being made a scapegoat for a security failure of the US intelligence services,” Mr Smith wrote in the letter seen by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. “I can assure you that many Australians will not readily accept that Mr Assange is being held responsible for such a serious security failure, as embarrassing as it may be.” He said it was “imperative to maintain the good relations” between Australia and the US, but Washington would “jeopardise” the relationship by asking its courts to “criminalise journalistic endeavours”. “I believe this will damage the reputation of the United States as an upholder of freedom of speech and a defender of human rights, and result in untold damage to the good relations between Australia and the American people.” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the government would not intervene in attempts by the US to have the 48-year-old Australian stand trial, where he faces a sentence of 175 years if found guilty of computer fraud and obtaining and disclosing national defence information……. Confidential government briefing notes, inadvertently released on email by the Prime Minister’s Office on Monday, gave “talking points” to MPs if they were asked about Mr Assange and his fight against extradition from Britain to the US. …. https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/dick-smith-lobbied-us-to-drop-julian-assange-extradition-request-20191014-p530lf.html |
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