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President Obama pushes for UN call to end nuclear weapons testing, by-passes Congress

Obama White House govObama will bypass Congress, seek U.N. resolution on nuclear text-relevanttesting, WP, By Josh Rogin August 4 President Obama has decided to seek a new United Nations Security Council resolution that would call for an end to nuclear testing, a move that leading lawmakers are calling an end run around Congress.

Top administration officials, including Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, briefed lawmakers and congressional staffers this week about President Obama’s decision to push for the U.N. action this September, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was adopted in September 1996 but was never ratified by the Senate.

National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price told me that the administration still would like to see the Senate ratify the test ban treaty but is “looking at possible action in the UN Security Council that would call on states not to test and support the CTBT’s objectives. We will continue to explore ways to achieve this goal, being careful to protect the Senate’s constitutional role.”

The administration did not consult Congress before making the decision, and leading Republicans, including those who opposed Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, are irate that the White House plans another major national security move without their advice or consent……..

The Obama administration has tried for years without success to build Senate support for ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which has been ratified by 164 countries. The Clinton administration signed the treaty, but the Senate refused to ratify it in 1999. There’s no chance that the current Republican-led Senate would ratify it before Obama leaves office…….

Several lawmakers and staffers acknowledged that another congressional effort to stop Obama’s new U.N. plan would have little chance of success, especially because of the distractions of the election season and the shortage of days lawmakers are in session this fall………

The president’s push for U.N. action on nuclear testing came after months of debate inside his administration over how to advance his nuclear non-proliferation agenda. The president decided to move forward with this item after meeting with his entire National Security Council at the White House. Other nuclear policy changes could be decided and announced in the coming months. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/08/04/obama-will-bypass-congress-seek-u-n-resolution-on-nuclear-testing/

August 5, 2016 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hinkley Nuclear Project : A dramatic turn of events


Nu Clear News No 87 5 Aug 16  Hinkley : A dramatic turn of events It has now been a few days since the Government shocked the energy industry by announcing a further review of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station just a few hours after EDF approved the project.

 

Although we may never know exactly what has gone on behind the scenes it is clear that EDF had moved its final investment decision forward from September in order to bounce the new UK Government into giving its approval quickly  before mounting problems become even more obvious to everyone.

Hinkley plan

Stop Hinkley spokesperson, Roy Pumfrey said

 

Much of the media seems to think this is just a temporary pause and that Hinkley Point C will eventually go ahead, but if Theresa May gives this scheme just a cursory glance she will see that we are being asked to buy a pig in a poke. 

 

According to the Financial Times (2) the head of EDF, Jean-Bernard Lévy gave his fellow board members only two days to read 2,500 pages of contracts for a deal which one investment analyst described as “verging on insanity”.

 

The decision to review the project has been attributed by some to security concerns about Chinese involvement in the sector expressed by Mrs May’s chief of staff, Nick Timothy. The Stop Hinkley Campaign has itself expressed concerns in the past about making nuclear deals with a country with such a poor health and safety record.

 

Writing on the Conservative Home website last October Timothy said the Hinkley deal could lead to the Chinese designing and constructing a third nuclear reactor at Bradwell in Essex. Security experts – reportedly inside as well as outside government – are worried that the Chinese could use their role to build weaknesses into computer systems which will allow them to shut down Britain’s energy production at will. (5) For those who believe that such an eventuality is unlikely, the Chinese National Nuclear Corporation – one of the state-owned companies involved in the plans for the British nuclear plants – says on its website that it is responsible not just for “increasing the value of state assets and developing the society” but the “building of national defence.” MI5 believes that “the intelligence services of…China…continue to work against UK interests at home and abroad.”

 

Mandiant, a US company that investigates computer security breaches around the world, looked into the operations of just one Chinese cyber espionage group, believed to be the Second Bureau of the People’s Liberation Army of China, or ‘Unit 61398’. Mandiant found that Unit 61398 has compromised 141 different companies in twenty major industries.

 

There were 115 victims in the United States and five in the UK. The intellectual property stolen included technology blueprints, manufacturing processes, test results, business plans, pricing documents, partnership agreements, and emails and contact information. Timothy said

evidence like this makes it all the more baffling that the British Government has been so welcoming to Chinese stateowned companies in sensitive sectors. The Government, however, seems intent on ignoring the evidence and presumably the advice of the security and intelligence agencies. But no amount of trade and investment should justify allowing a hostile state easy access to the country’s critical national infrastructure. Of course we should seek to trade with countries right across the world – but not when doing business comes at the expense of Britain’s own national security. http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo87.pdf

 

August 5, 2016 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

New York State Public Service Commission’s $7.6 billion bailout of uneconomic nuclear power plants

New York Approves $7.6 Billion Bailout Of Nuclear Power Plants, Huffington Post  08/03/2016  Karl Grossman Investigative reporter

The New York State Public Service Commission—in the face of strong opposition—this week approved a $7.6 billion bailout of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support.

taxpayer bailout

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo—who appoints the members of the PSC—has called for the continued operation of the nuclear plants in order to, he says, save jobs at them. The bailout would be part of a “Clean Energy Standard” advanced by Cuomo. Under it, 50 percent of electricity used in New York by 2030 would come from “clean and renewable energy sources”—with nuclear power considered clean and renewable.

“Nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable,” testified Pauline Salotti, vice chair of the Green Party of Suffolk County, Long Island at a recent hearing on the plan.

“Without these subsidies, nuclear plants cannot compete with renewable energy and will close. But under the guise of ‘clean energy,’ the nuclear industry is about to get its hands on our money in order to save its own profits, at the expense of public health and safety,” declared a statement by Jessica Azulay, program director of Alliance for a Green Economy, based in upstate Syracuse with a chapter in New York City. Moreover, she emphasized, “Every dollar spent on nuclear subsidies is a dollar out of the pocket of New York’s electricity consumers—residents, businesses and municipalities” that should “instead” go towards backing “energy efficiency, renewable energy and a transition to a clean energy economy.”

The “Clean Energy Standard” earmarks twice as much money for the nuclear power subsidy than it does for renewable energy sources such as solar and wind…….

In opposing the New York nuclear subsidy, Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University, wrote in an op-ed in Albany Times Union, the newspaper in the state’s capitol, that he was “shocked” by the PSC’s “proposal that the lion’s share of the Clean Energy Standard funding would be a nuclear bailout.” He said “allowing the upstate nuclear plants to close now and replace them with equal energy output” from offshore wind and solar power “would be cheaper and would create more jobs.” The closure of the upstate plants “would jeopardize fewer than 2,000 jobs” while a “peer-reviewed study” he has done “about converting New York State to 100 percent clean, renewable energy -which is entirely possible now—would create a net of approximately 82,000 good, long-term jobs.”

The upstate nuclear power plants to be bailed out under the plan would be FitzPatrick, Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 and Ginna. The money would come over a 12-year period through a surcharge on electric bills paid by residential and industrial customers in New York State…….

Reuters has reported that the nuclear “industry hopes that if New York succeeds, it could pressure other states to adopt similar subsides” for nuclear plants. The headline of the Reuters story: “New York could show the way to rescue U.S. nuclear plants.”

The two Indian Point nuclear power plants 26 miles north of New York City are not now included in the plan but it “leaves the door open to subsidies” for them, says Azulay of Alliance for a Green Economy. This would mean “the costs [of the bailout] will rise to over $10 billion.” ………http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karl-grossman/76-billion-bailout-of-ny-_b_11302708.html

August 5, 2016 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s loose talk about nuclear weapons – not that far from USA’s official position

Republican hawk (Trump)Trump’s nuclear nightmare His loose talk on the ultimate weapon isn’t so different from official doctrine, but it plays into Clinton’s attacks on his temperament, nonetheless, Politico, By  08/03/16  “…………Trump’s comments about nuclear weapons, which many experts call dangerously glib and uninformed, and which play into the Democratic strategy of portraying him as unfit to handle the nuclear codes.

That seemed clear from a new Fox News poll released Wednesday showing that 56 percent of voters believe that Clinton would make better decisions about nuclear weapons, with just 34 trusting Trump more.

Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out the use of nuclear weapons, saying he reserves the option to use them in Europe and the Middle East. Trump has also said he might welcome seeing certain U.S. allies, including Japan, acquire atomic arms to better defend themselves without U.S. assistance………

“He talks about nuclear weapons very loosely, casually—as if they’re just another tool in the toolbox,” said Joe Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a nonprofit that advocates nuclear arms reductions.

While Trump’s comments have drawn widespread condemnation, they do not defy America’s nuclear doctrine, which reserves the right to use nuclear weapons—even as a “first strike” against an adversary fighting with only conventional weapons.

There are some exceptions: The Obama administration has said it will “not use or threaten to use” nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that have signed and are in compliance with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty……….

he does not discuss the issue with the nuance of foreign policy experts and insiders, who choose their words with extreme care, and, when possible, avoid discussing nuclear strikes entirely.

Trump has also unnerved observers with his apparent unfamiliarity with U.S. nuclear doctrine. When asked during a December primary debate whether he would eliminate any part of the so-called nuclear triad — which consists of land, air and sea-based weapons — Trump seemed unaware of the concept……..

Trump’s defense of the right to use nuclear weapons also comes at a time when President Barack Obama is considering issuing an executive order that would change U.S. policy to rule out the first use of a nuclear weapon.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign squarely targeted the concept of a nuclear-armed Trump during last week’s Democratic National Convention. “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons,” Clinton said in her nomination acceptance speech, echoing several other speakers.

And since mid-June the pro-Clinton Super PAC Priorities Action USA has been airing an advertisement that features audio of Trump saying, “I love war, in a certain way,” immediately followed by a different clip in which Trump says, “including with nukes, yes, including with nukes.”

Clinton advisers say they believe the prospect of Trump commanding America’s arsenal of 7,200 atomic weapons is a highly effective way of crystallizing voter anxieties about the New York mogul’s temperament……….http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-226639

August 5, 2016 Posted by | USA elections 2016 | Leave a comment

California abandons nuclear power, New York does the opposite

Flag-USAThese two huge states are both going green. But only one is sticking with nuclear, WP 

 By Chris Mooney August 1 In June, the state of California — which has led the U.S. in putting electric cars on the road and switching to so-called clean electricity — took a decisive turn in its quest to move away from carbon–emitting fuels. An agreement between the large utility Pacific Gas and Electric and environmental and labor groups set a path for retiring the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, and thus, for a state in which “carbon free” will not include energy generated through the splitting of atoms.

On Monday, though, New York — also a leader when it comes to greening power supplies — announced a very different route. The state’s Public Service Commission approved a Clean Energy Standard backed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s backed Clean Energy Standard. It seeks to get New York to 50 percent renewable electricity by the year 2030 — while also retaining the six nuclear reactors that currently provide more 30 percent of the state’s electricity. (These reactors would not count as part of the renewable 50 percent.)……….

many critics of nuclear energy persist, in the environmental community and elsewhere, and not all observers think New York necessarily made the right move.

“By not making them compete for a place in the low carbon portfolio, the state is almost assuring that the customers are going to pay more than they have to, and that some desirable alternative sources won’t get developed, because nuclear’s place in the picture is locked in,” said Peter Bradford, a former chair of the New York Public Service Commission and an adjunct professor at the Vermont Law School………

All sides will now watch how these two experiments — in New York, and California — play out. Nuclear provides a major stream of what is often termed “baseload” electricity, which is continuous and thus very different from wind and solar, which are much stronger at key times (solar, for instance, in the afternoon) and less available at others. Thus, integrating more wind and solar with less baseload, as California aims to do, presumably puts a greater emphasis on the use of energy efficiency measures (less electricity use over all), or energy storage (using electricity at a different time from when it is generated), to deal with these sources’ intermittency………https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/08/01/why-new-york-state-just-delivered-extremely-good-news-to-the-nuclear-industry/?utm_term=.20097475af56

August 5, 2016 Posted by | climate change, ENERGY, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Hinkley nuclear fiasco is a threat to French company EDF

AREVA EDF crumblingNu Clear News No 87 5 Aug 16 EDF’s future threatened.  Perhaps of more immediate concern is that a go-ahead for Hinkley could threaten the future of the company itself. EDF is a company in a very precarious financial situation. The ratings agency, S&P, postponed a decision to downgrade its credit rating when the UK Government announced the review. (7) EDF has €37 billion of debt. The collapse in energy prices has pushed earnings down 68% in 2015. The Company needs to spend €50 billion upgrading its network of 58 ageing reactors by 2025. It is scrambling to sell €4 billion of new shares and €10 billion of assets to strengthen its balance sheet. EDF is also expected to participate in the €5 billion bailout of Areva, the bankrupt developer of EPR technology, by taking a 75 per cent stake. (8) About the last thing it needs is a new €15 billion millstone around its neck.

 

 

Roy Pumfrey said “The EDF Board should take the opportunity presented by this pause to see that its Nuclear SatNav has taken the Company down a dead end; it’s only a matter of time before we hear that voice saying “At the next opportunity, turn round!”‘

 

 

He continues: “Perhaps most disappointing if not unexpected has been the reaction of the big UK Union leaders. Whilst confessing themselves ‘baffled’ by the government’s ‘bonkers’ decision, they should ask why the French union leaders representing EDF’s own workers were (and are) solidly and vocally opposed to HPC. This project involves a reactor which many of EDF’s own staff regard as unconstructable, selling off the family silver to fund it and putting EDF and therefore their own livelihoods at risk. UK unions do not seem to appreciate that the fantasy 25,000 jobs on HPC are a conjurer’s trick. Only 30% will be ‘local’, which means 90 minutes drive time from HPC, and with only 5,600 on site on any one day, a job with a particular skill set will only be good for two years at most. That’s assuming that

HPC can be built in an optimistic ten years, even that too long to keep the lights on.”

 

 

Over recent months several different alternative to building Hinkley Point C have been detailed (10) Most recently consultancy firm Utilitywise has described the proposed nuclear station as an “unnecessary expense” Energy efficiency measures could save the equivalent amount of electricity along with £12bn

 

Roy Pumfrey said: “This Government review of Hinkley Point C provides us with a wonderful opportunity to turn Somerset into a sustainable energy hub for England. The alternatives would be better for jobs, better for consumers, would reduce the mountain of dangerous waste we don’t know how to deal with and save Somerset from a decade of disruption caused by one of the biggest construction projects in the world The sooner EDF and the UK Government come to their senses the better. http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo87.pdf

 

August 5, 2016 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Donald Trump’s upsetting statements about nuclear weapons

Trump9 Terrifying Things Donald Trump Has Publicly Said About Nuclear Weapons, THINK PROGRESS

BY JUDD LEGUM AUG 4, 2016 On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough passed on an intriguing piece of gossip: Donald Trump, speaking with a “foreign policy expert,” repeatedly asked “why can’t we use nuclear weapons.”

Scarborough’s claim was thinly sourced. He didn’t reveal the identity of the expert advising Trump or even where he learned the information. Information attributed to anonymous sources is inherently suspect.

But one need not rely on anonymous sources to glean Trump’s views on nuclear weapons. He has broached the subject repeatedly on the campaign trail. Several of his public comments are similar to Scarborough’s account while others are terrifying in their own way.

Trump said he might use nuclear weapons and questioned why we would make them if we wouldn’t use them  [VIDEO]….

Trump said he was open to nuking Europe because it’s a “big place” [VIDEO]……

Trump said that “you want to be unpredictable” with nuclear weapons [VIDEO] ,……

[nore videos]…….
 

Trump had no idea what the “nuclear triad” was [VIDEO]…….

Trump started talking about nuclear weapons in Pakistan and made no sense at all [VIDEO]…….

Trump said he’d be OK with a nuclear arms race in Asia [VIDEO]…..

The time he said it didn’t matter if Saudi Arabia acquired nuclear weapons because “it’s going to happen anyway” [VIDEO] …. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/08/04/3804985/7-terrifying-things-donald-trump-publicly-said-nuclear-weapons/

August 5, 2016 Posted by | USA elections 2016 | Leave a comment

UK: Conservatives against Hinkley nuclear power project

scrutiny-on-costsflag-UKNu Clear News No 87 5 Aug 16  Anti-Hinkley Tories Perhaps most interesting amongst recent events has been the emergence of Conservative figures calling on the government to call time on the Hinkley proposals. The think-tank Bright Blue, whose advisory board includes Francis Maude, Nicky Morgan and former DECC minister Greg Barker, has said the government needs a new “plan A”. The group stresses that its position is not necessarily endorsed by all members of the organisation, which includes more than 100 parliamentarians. “The Government should abandon Hinkley C – pursuing it in light of all the evidence of cost reductions in other technologies would be deeply irresponsible,” said Ben Caldecott, associate fellow, Bright Blue. “We need a new ‘Plan A’. This must be focused on bringing forward sufficient renewables, electricity storage, and energy efficiency to more than close any gap left in the late 2020s by Hinkley not proceeding. This would be sensible, achievable, and cheap.” Zac Goldsmith, also a Bright Blue member, has welcomed the government’s rethink.
 Ben Caldecott said “we seem to be re-entering reality, there is an opportunity to develop a new ‘Plan A’ … A range of technologies can easily fill the envisioned capacity that Hinkley would have provided in the late 2020s had it been successfully delivered on the current (and already significantly delayed) construction schedule. They can also do this much more cheaply. Cancelling Hinkley would provide greater certainty for investors in other technologies thereby encouraging investment in new capacity today.” .
He said the price of onshore wind is already much cheaper than nuclear (£85/MWh today and expected to fall to £60/MWh by 2020), with large-scale PV (expected to fall to £80/MWh by 2020) and offshore wind (expected to fall to £80/MWh by 2025) set to do the same – all well before Hinkley would start to receive its staggeringly high guaranteed and index-linked £92.50/MWh.
He goes on to say that Bright Blue will be publishing specific recommendations on energy efficiency soon, and that small modular nuclear reactors are very unlikely to be commercially available at all, let alone before the 2030s in any scalable, cost-competitive or politically acceptable way. They are too uncertain in terms of likelihood and cost for us to place too much faith in them yet, apart from perhaps investing in more R&D. “Blind faith in new nuclear and shale gas have yielded precisely zero for UK security of supply, despite constant rhetoric to the contrary, and yet more punts in high risk areas would not be prudent.” http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo87.pdf

August 5, 2016 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

With UK and USA government help, NuScale hopes to go ahead with “mini” nuclear reactors

NuClear News No 87, 5 Aug 16 Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) Britain’s ambition to build small modular nuclear plants took a step forward as the nation’s last independent steelmaker said it will work with Fluor Corp.’s NuScale Power to make components. Sheffield Forgemasters International Ltd. will forge a large civil nuclear reactor vessel head by the end of 2017. It is part of a £4m programme funded by the government-backed Innovate U.K. agency. NuScale is providing an undisclosed sum of additional funding.
In the USA, NuScale says it is “at an advanced stage” of development compared to its nearest competitors. NuScale is the only SMR developer to be currently receiving US Department of Energy match funding ($217 million over five years), the only SMR developer to be close to submitting a Design Certification Application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission – which NuScale says will happen later this year – and it has “multiple active customer deployment projects under way”. The first NuScale facility is planned to be in operation in 2024 in the state of Idaho. (2)
New “mini” nuclear reactor technology should be built at Trawsfynydd – the site of a closed Magnox station – according to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. The nuclear plant in Snowdonia National Park has been shut down since 1991 and is undergoing the lengthy process of decommissioning. The Welsh Affairs select committee said the site would make an “ideal” location to build small modular reactors, and urged the Government to designate it as a site for their construction. Trawsfynydd was not included on the list of approved sites for new nuclear construction drawn up by the Government in 2009, due to its inland, national park location and small size. But there is growing support in Wales for the idea that it could be suitable for small module reactor (SMR) technology, which is by definition smaller and proponents say will be much easier to construct.
NuScale Power has become a supporting partner of the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Nuclear AMRC) in Sheffield. The two bodies said the move, which follows several years of informal collaboration, will further enable the two organisations to support each other’s ambitions to bring SMR technology to the UK. The announcement was made on the same day that Nuclear AMRC hosted NuScale Power’s first UK Supplier Day at its facility at the University of Sheffield.
For further information on SMRs see the NFLA Briefing: http://nuclearpolicy.info/docs/nuclearmonitor/NFLA_New_Nuclear_Monitor_No37.pdf   http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo87.pdf

August 5, 2016 Posted by | business and costs, politics, technology | 1 Comment

New Nuclear UK : fears Hinkley uncertainty will affect Wylfa, Moorside, Sizewell and Bradwell

Moorside NuGen plan CumbriaNucClear News No 87,  5 Aug 16 New Nuclear: Wylfa, Moorside, Sizewell and Bradwell. Horizon and NuGen are both insisting that their projects at Wylfa and Moorside are not dependent on EDF getting the go-ahead for Hinkley. But Industry experts have warned that confidence across the sector would be damaged if Theresa May pulls the plug, especially given the French energy giant has already invested £2.4bn in Hinkley with unstinting Government support until now. If Hinkley were cancelled without any reimbursement for EDF, this would “significantly undermine” other developers’ confidence and might prompt them to seek some sort of financial guarantee. (1)
Greg Clark flew to Tokyo at the end of July on a three-day mission to convince Hitachi and Toshiba of the government’s commitment to new nuclear power stations in Wales and Cumbria and drumming up funds for the reactors, which he says are needed to replace Britain’s ageing coal and nuclear plants.
Hitachi and Toyota are understood to be concerned about Britain’s commitment to nuclear power. They hope to use the reactors as a showcase for their nuclear technology – Advanced Boiling Water Reactors and AP1000s. But the funding for the schemes has yet to be found, and both are scrabbling for investment. (2)
Meanwhile prominent nuclear lobbyist and former chair of the House of Commons energy select committee – Tim Yeo – says Russian, Chinese and South Korean nuclear companies should be offered subsidy contracts to build reactors in the UK if they are cheaper than other projects already under development. Yeo who chairs New Nuclear Watch Europe, a lobby group whose members include the Korean nuclear firm Kepco, urged the Government to “urgently examine which nuclear vendors can deliver the cheapest electricity, maximise the number of UK supply chain jobs and minimise the risk of construction delays”. (3) …….http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo87.pdf

August 5, 2016 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Exelon nuclear snubbed by Illinois legislature, embraced by New York’s governor-appointed state regulators

Exelon finds a nuclear ally in New York after Illinois snub , Chicago Tribune, Mark Chediak and Jim Polson, Bloomberg, 4 Aug 16,   In the end, the fate of Exelon Corp.’s money-losing reactors in Illinois and New York may have come down to one governor who desperately wanted to rescue them and another who wasn’t so sure.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid down his marker in December when he told the chairman of the state’s utility regulator that losing two upstate nuclear plants would gut a plan to cut global warming pollution and cost jobs. On Monday, the state agreed to a bailout and within hours, Exelon said it would invest $200 million in the two plants.

While Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner also worried about job losses, he said any rescue plan must protect ratepayers and taxpayers and that corporate bailouts raise red flags. In June, Chicago-based Exelon said it would close two Illinois plants after the state legislature balked at a measure to stem their financial losses.

“In New York, it was the governor’s support that did it,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kit Konolige said by phone Wednesday. “In Illinois, from what the governor said in public, it appeared he wasn’t all in.”

Debates over nuclear policy come at a critical time for the industry as U.S. reactors face tough competition from power generators that burn cheap natural gas flooding out of shale formations and rising solar and wind production. As of the end of July, 11 nuclear power plants have closed or are slated to be shut, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.

In New York, Exelon benefited from Cuomo’s support and his determination to help upstate reactors as part of a clean energy plan even as he calls for the retirement of Entergy Corp.’s Indian Point nuclear plant near New York City. The state Public Service Commission vote Monday may also save Entergy’s James A. FitzPatrick nuclear plant near Oswego. Exelon said it would consider buying FitzPatrick if subsidies were approved.

Cuomo had the advantage of being able to tap governor-appointed state regulators to weigh the nuclear bailout instead of the legislature, according to Christine Tezak, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners in Washington……..http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-exelon-nuclear-plant-new-york-20160803-story.html

August 5, 2016 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The Aftermath of a Nuclear War: The Top 1% and the Mission to Mars

Mars escape

The American Empire is Playing a Dangerous Game with its Nuclear Weapons Arsenal The Day After Nuclear Armageddon: Armchair Warriors, Chicken Hawks and the Colonization of Mars? By Timothy Alexander Guzman Global Research, August 01, 2016    “………In 2015, the main-stream media, in this case Newsweek published an article titled ‘Star Wars’ Class Wars: Is Mars the Escape Hatch for the 1 Percent? It claims that wealthy billionaires are planning an escape from planet earth and leave the rest of the human race behind:

It’s nice to know Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have a plan. They will help the richest people in the world go to Mars and start over, leaving the other 99 percent to suffer on a dying, warring planet. The only solace for those of us left here will be that the Biebs should be prosperous enough to go with them

But those who have the political power and most of the world’s wealth at their disposal are in the midst of creating a plan to leave Earth in case of an apocalyptic scenario whether by a world war or an unstoppable life-threatening disease or any other catastrophe. They have it all figured out. The billionaire founder of Space X, Elon Musk and others like him have an ambitious dream and that is to colonize planet “Mars.” Yes, you heard this right the next planet closest to the sun. Maybe they want to step out into the sun and get an instant sun tan instead of heading out to their private beach or their local overpriced sun tan salons? Living on Mars does not seem like something the average human being would like to do at some point in their lives, maybe visit as a tourist but to live for the rest of their lives? I highly doubt it.

Perhaps Musk is not the only elite multi billionaire who would want to live on another planet or in space far away from the madness of our planet. Besides many of the financial and political elite created the situation that led to war, poverty and disease in the first place for their own benefit whether it was financial or political. According to an interesting article on Elon Musk’s vision of colonizing mars by www.science.com titled ‘Now Is the Time to Colonize Mars, Elon Musk Says’ quotes Musk who addressed an audience at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and said“now is the first time in the history of Earth that the window is open, where it’s possible for us to extend life to another planet,” he continued “That window may be open for a long time — and hopefully it is — but it also may be open for a short time,” he added. “I think the wise move is to make life multiplanetary while we can.”

According to Newsweek, Musk wants humans to become a “multiplanet species” and maintain an outpost as an “insurance policy” if something catastrophic were to occur on earth

Colonizing Mars has long been a passion of Musk’s. Indeed, the entrepreneur has repeatedly said that he founded SpaceX in 2002 primarily to help make humanity a multiplanet species. Having a self-sustaining outpost on the Red Planet would serve as an insurance policy, making humanity’s extinction unlikely even if something goes terribly awry here on Earth, Musk said Tuesday. Colonizing Mars would have other benefits as well, he added; the effort would greatly advance science discoveries and technological capabilities, and it would help inspire and excite people from all walks of life and from all around the globe

I do agree that colonizing mars would “advance science” but that is as far as I would go for such a project. Musk’s plan to send “people from all walks of life and around the globe” sounds nice but in all actuality is unrealistic. Who would reach Mars? Those with wealth and fortune from mainly the West not the 99 percent will get to go to Mars (and of course if you are willing to live the rest of your life on the red planet)…..http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-american-empire-is-playing-a-dangerous-game-with-its-nuclear-weapons-arsenal/5539076

August 3, 2016 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New York’s subsidy gift to the nuclear industry – the prelude for other States?

climate and nuclear“Nuclear power is not carbon-free,” wrote Michel Lee, head of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy based in Scarsdale. “If one stage,” reactors operation itself, “produces minimal carbon…every other stage produces prodigious amounts.” Thus the nuclear “industry is a big climate change polluter…Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes which­combined­consume large amounts of fossil fuels and generate potent warming gasses. These include: uranium mining, milling enrichment, fuel fabrication, transport” and her list went on.

Reuters has reported that the nuclear “industry hopes that if New York succeeds, it could pressure other states to adopt similar subsides” for nuclear plants.

New York’s Woeful $7.6 Billion Nuclear Bailout Package http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/08/02/new-yorks-woeful-76-billion-nuclear-bailout-package by Karl Grossman

The New York State Public Service Commission—in the face of strong opposition—this week approved a $7.6 billion bail-out of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo—who appoints the members of the PSC—has called for the continued operation of the nuclear plants in order to, he says, save jobs at them. The bail-out would be part of a “Clean Energy Standard” advanced by Cuomo. Under it, 50 percent of electricity used in New York by 2030 would come from “clean and renewable energy sources”­with nuclear power considered clean and renewable.

“Nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable,” testified Pauline Salotti, vice chair of the Green Party of Suffolk County, Long Island at a recent hearing on the plan.

taxpayer bailout

“Without these subsidies, nuclear plants cannot compete with renewable energy and will close. But under the guise of ‘clean energy,’ the nuclear industry is about to get its hands on our money in order to save its own profits, at the expense of public health and safety,”declared a statement by Jessica Azulay, program director of Alliance for a Green Economy, based in upstate Syracuse with a chapter in New York City. Moreover, she emphasized, “Every dollar spent on nuclear subsidies is a dollar out of the pocket of New York’s electricity consumers­residents, businesses and municipalities” that should “instead” go towards backing “energy efficiency, renewable energy and a transition to a clean energy economy.”

The “Clean Energy Standard” earmarks twice as much money for the nuclear power subsidy than it does for renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

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August 3, 2016 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Anti war protest at USA’s Democratic Convention

USA election 2016A Revealing Moment at the Democratic National Convention https://bracingviews.com/2016/07/28/a-revealing-moment-at-the-text-relevantdemocratic-national-convention/by wjastore  W.J. Astore

Yes, there was a revealing moment at last night’s Democratic National Convention.  No, it wasn’t President Obama’s soaring speech, or Joe Biden’s heartfelt appeal, or Tim Kaine’s “believe me” lampoon of Donald Trump.  All these were scripted.

It was the anti-war protesters who spoke out against drone assassinations and war while former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spoke.

Good for them.  This democratic convention has been at pains to please the military. Last night, Panetta called the U.S. military our greatest national treasure.  Obama repeated his claim that the U.S. military is the finest fighting force since Cain slew Abel.  Tim Kaine opened his remarks by mentioning the Marines and shouting Semper Fi.

The Democrats are the new Republicans: they’re going “all in” on military boosterism and ra-ra patriotism.

Which is why the anti-war protest was so refreshing.  End the wars — end the killing — what’s wrong with these protesters for expressing such crazy sentiments at a Democratic political rally?  (An aside: my favorite sign read “Fauxmocracy.”)

The DNC response was swift.  Apparently, they cut the lights to the section where the main body of protesters sat (the Oregon delegation), but the protesters simply pulled out their Smart phones for light.  Panetta, of course, ignored them, carrying on with his prepared speech that vilified Trump for his remarks about Vladimir Putin and hacking.  (Pretty dumb by The Donald, but the man is an empty barrel, an Archie Bunker who loves to make lots of noise.)

Most interesting of all was media response.  I was watching MSNBC (I think) when a commentator attacked the anti-war protesters for undercutting Panetta’s speech against Trump.  Yes, it was the protesters who were TOTALLY in the wrong!  How dare they chant “no more war” at a former CIA Director and secretary of war? How dare they challenge an olympian like Panetta while he’s on the stage?  How dare they organize and exercise their first amendment rights?

Expect more unbounded praise of the U.S. military tonight by Hillary Clinton. Expect more talk of war.  Just don’t expect any honest talk about the cost of America’s wars or any vows about ending them in our lifetimes.

Update (7/28):

I just endured General Allen’s jingoistic speech/scream and all the “USA! USA!” chants, followed by a short speech by a Medal of Honor recipient in favor of Clinton.

After which Brian Williams of MSNBC said, “Sadly,” you could still hear faintly the voices of protesters shouting “No more war.” Why is that so sad, Brian Williams? Why is it so sad for Democrats to be against war? Why must they shut up when a general speaks, a general who boasts of making the U.S. military stronger with even better weaponry with which to kill?

That’s the real “sad” part, Brian Williams: How the Democratic Party has become the war party.

August 1, 2016 Posted by | USA elections 2016 | Leave a comment

Theresa May not happy with Chinese nuclear investment plans for Britain

text Hinkley cancelledflag-UKBritain’s May worried by China investment, intervened to delay nuclear deal, SMH, Kate Holton , 31 July 16 London: British Prime Minister Theresa May was concerned about the security implications of a planned Chinese investment in the new Hinkley Point nuclear plant and intervened personally to delay the project, a former colleague and a source said.

The plan by France’s EDF to build two reactors with financial backing from a Chinese state-owned company was championed by Mrs May’s predecessor David Cameron as a sign of Britain’s openness to foreign investment.

But just hours before a signing ceremony was due to take place on Friday, Mrs May’s new government said it would review the project again, raising concerns that Britain’s approach to infrastructure deals, energy supply and foreign investment may be changing.

The decision could prove a test for Mrs May, with any attempt to renegotiate the terms of the project potentially straining relations with Paris and Beijing at a time when Britain is seeking to build trade deals following the country’s vote to leave the European Union.

“When we were in government Theresa May was quite clear she was unhappy about the rather gung-ho approach to Chinese investment that we had,” Vince Cable, Britain’s former business secretary and a leading member of the Liberal Democrats, who governed in coalition with Mr Cameron, told BBC Radio.

He later told Sky News her concerns over China’s involvement were linked to national security. “This was an issue that was raised in general but it was also raised specifically in relation to Hinkley,” he said……..http://www.smh.com.au/world/britains-may-worried-by-china-investment-intervened-to-delay-nuclear-deal-20160731-gqhkm7.html

August 1, 2016 Posted by | politics, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

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