nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLAs) believe budget is opportunity to lobby Ministers to ditch Sizewell C

NFLAs believe budget is opportunity to lobby Ministers to ditch Sizewell C

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be unveiling the contents of her red box when making her Autumn Statement on Wednesday and the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities believes this offers an opportunity to lobby Labour to ditch Sizewell C – if opponents act now.

Though intended to be constructed by French owned nuclear operator EDF Energy, the outgoing Conservative Government squandered £2.5 billion of taxpayers money on preparatory work, and in August 2024, Labour compounded the calumny by announcing a new subsidy scheme that could make up to a further £5.5 billion in public money available to support this unwanted white elephant. Consequently, the project is now 76%-owned by the British Government at a time when Ministers and their advisors still desperately chase private sector investors to back this Suffolk turkey.

There are still many unknowns about the eventual overall cost of Sizewell C. In contrast to the amazing reductions achieved in recent years in the cost of generating electricity through renewables, the delivery cost of nuclear continues to rise. Given that Sizewell C’s predecessor, the identical Hinkley Point C, is being delivered hugely over budget with some estimates that the cost in real terms will be up to £46 billion, it is wholly incredible that this project can be delivered for the £20 billion that Ministers claim.

And Sizewell C presents additional costly challenges. As a consequence of climate change, the coastal location will be increasingly threatened by inundation from an encroaching sea, requiring significant expenditure on coastal defences. Further Suffolk is ‘water stressed’ meaning that there will be increasing competition for fresh water from inhabitants or commercial operators, and Sizewell C has still to secure a guaranteed sustainable potable water supply for its planned 60 years of operation.

Given the circumstances it is unsurprising that few players amongst the financial markets have expressed any interest in taking a stake in the Sizewell doonboggle, and there is still considerable uncertainty when, or even if, the Financial Investment Decision will be made.

Sizewell C also represents a double whammy for electricity consumers. As taxpayers, we are expected to front up to £8 billion in funding, incidentally almost the same in total that Labour has dedicated to Great Britain Energy over the entirely of its five year term in office, but as electricity consumers we will also be expected to reimburse the construction costs through the imposition of an additional levy on bills, derisking the project for the profit-focussed operator. Unsurprisingly, the NFLA Secretary has described this Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model as the ROB for it represents daylight robbery.

The Labour Government has announced that they will establish a new ‘Office of Value for Money’ within the Treasury and the appointment of a Chair is expected imminently. Stop Sizewell C has launched a petition calling for that office holder to prioritise an examination of the financial liability that is Sizewell C.

Although initial feedback from the Treasury to campaigners had indicated that Sizewell C would definitely be examined by the new office holder, officials in recent correspondence have been more ambivalent and a recent written answer by Nuclear Minister Lord Hunt to a House of Lords parliamentary question was opaque and non-committal.

Stop Sizewell C are also asking supporters of their campaign to join them in writing to the Chancellor, Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Energy to cancel Sizewell C.

The NFLAs would urge opponents of Sizewell C to sign the petition:

October 30, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

South Bruce Municipality narrowly votes to host underground nuclear waste disposal site

Matthew McClearn, October 28, 2024, Globe and Mail,

Residents in Ontario’s Municipality of South Bruce narrowly voted in favor of hosting a nuclear waste disposal site in a referendum completed on Monday.

Unofficial results published Monday evening by Simply Voting, an online voting platform, reported that of the 3,130 votes case, 51.2% voted in favor, while 48.8% were opposed.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), a non-profit organization representing major nuclear power generation utilities, has been hunting since 2010 for a site to store spent fuel from nuclear power reactors. Known as a deep geological repository, or DGR, the facility would be built more than half a kilometer underground, at an estimated cost of $26 billion.

South Bruce, located more than 120 kilometres north of London and home to about 6,200 residents, is a rural, largely agricultural area of less than 500 square kilometers. It includes a few small communities including Mildmay, Formosa, Culross and Teeswater. The NWMO has secured more than 1,500 acres of land north of Teeswater for the project.

From the outset, the NWMO said it would build the facility only “in an area with informed and willing hosts,” which meant one municipality and one Indigenous group. South Bruce is one of two finalists to host the DGR, down from an original list of 22 communities that expressed interest. The NWMO said it will announce its final selection by Dec. 31st.

Under a hosting agreement the municipality signed earlier this year, South Bruce stands to receive $418-million over nearly a century and a half if selected. The municipality agreed not to do anything to oppose or halt the project, and at the NWMO’s request will communicate its support. The NWMO can modify the project in several respects, including changing the sorts of waste it will store there. The facility would be constructed between 2036 and 2042, ns would then receive, process and store nuclear waste for another half-century.

South Bruce’s byelection, which began last week, asked residents to vote by phone or Internet on whether they were in favor of hosting the DGR. Simply Voting reported turnout of 69.3%, substantially above the 50% minimum required to make the outcome binding under Ontario’s Municipal Elections Act.

The other community in the running is Ignace, Ont., a town of 1,200 more than 200 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay. Its council voted to accept the DGR in July, and would receive $170-million under its own hosting agreement. (The move was supported by 77% of registered voters who participated in a non-binding online poll.) That location, known as the Revell site, is about 40 km west of the town.

The NWMO also seeks approval from two Indigenous communities: The Saugeen Ojibway Nation for the South Bruce site, and the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation for the Revell site. Neither First Nation has yet signaled consent, but the NWMO spokesperson Craig MacBride said the organization is “in active discussions” with both.

“The NWMO still anticipates selecting a site by the end of this year,” he wrote in an e-mailed response to questions.

As of June 2023, Canada had accumulated 3.3 million spent fuel bundles, each the size of a fire log. They’re currently stored at nuclear power plants in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, and roughly 90,000 new ones are added each year. Upon removal from a reactor, they’re highly radioactive and must be stored in pools of water for about a decade; afterward, they’re moved to storage containers made from reinforced concrete and lined with half-inch steel plate.

The South Bruce referendum follows a campaign that lasted a dozen years and produced rifts within the community.

Protect Our Waterways, a local group opposed to the DGR from the outset, had demanded a referendum. Some DGR supporters opposed putting the matter to a public vote, preferring to leave the decision to elected officials. Municipal officials pointed to the area’s declining economy and population, and emphasized the benefits brought by the NWMO’s spending. Supporters and opponents often accused each other of producing misinformation………………………………………………………….. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-south-bruce-municipality-narrowly-votes-to-host-underground-nuclear/#:~:text=Its%20council%20voted%20to%20accept,km%20west%20of%20the%20town.

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Slovenia’s referendum on new nuclear cancelled

WNN, Friday, 25 October 2024


The nationwide referendum due to be held in Slovenia on 24 November about proposed new nuclear power units has been called off and may now be staged later in the project process, in 2028, instead.

The decision by Slovenia’s parliament to cancel the vote – just days after the elected members had voted for it to happen – followed challenges to the wording and allegations that it was not being properly conducted………………..

Prime Minister Robert Golob has committed to hold a referendum on the project before it goes ahead, with a number of key studies and documents to be published beforehand to “enable citizens to make an informed decision”. The current timetable for the project is for a final investment decision to be taken in 2028, with construction beginning in 2032.

Among a raft of reviews and documents published over the past few months, was an economic review of the estimated cost of the project which put the cost, depending on the power-generating capacity selected, at EUR9.5 billion to EUR15.4 billion (USD10.3 billion to USD16.7 billion).

The opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) -… – said it now opposed the referendum because, they say, Energy Minister Bojan Kumer had requested, and not published, an analysis of the costs if there was no nuclear energy and up to 100% renewable energy instead.

SDS MP Zvone Černač said if media reports were 
true “and Minister Kumer hid the study from the public for two months, he should resign”. Černač
 accused the minister of using the “rhetoric of renewable energy activists” and said that in the current circumstances carrying out a referendum “would be irresponsible”……………………… https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/slovenias-referendum-on-new-nuclear-cancelled

October 28, 2024 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Crippling The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA): The Knesset’s Collective Punishment of Palestinians

UN Secretary-General Guterres was aghast at the two bills. “It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people.”

October 26, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/crippling-unrwa-the-knessets-collective-punishment-of-palestinians/—

The man has a cheek. Having lectured Iranians and Lebanese about what (and who) is good for them in terms of rulers and rule (we already know what he thinks of the Palestinians), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been keeping busy on further depriving access and assistance to those in Gaza and the West Bank. This comes in draft legislation that would prevent the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from pursuing its valuable functions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The campaign against UNRWA by the Israeli state has been relentless and pathological. Even before last year’s October 7 attacks by Hamas, much was made of the fact that the body seemed intent on keeping the horrors of the 1948 displacements current. Victimhood, complained the amnesiac enforcers of the Israeli state, was being encouraged by treating the descendants of displaced Palestinians as refugees. Nasty memories were being kept alive.

Since then, Israel has been further libelling and blackening the organisation as a terrorist frontbest abolished. (Labels are effortlessly swapped – “Hamas supporter”; “activist”; “terrorist”.) Initially came that infamous dossier pointing the finger at 12 individuals said to be Hamas participants in the October 7 attacks. With swiftness, the UN commenced internal investigations. Some individuals were sacked on suspicion of being linked to the attacks. Unfortunately, some US$450 million worth of donor funding from sixteen countries was suspended.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini was always at pains to explain that he had “never been informed” nor received evidence substantiating Israel’s accusations. It was also all the more curious given that staff lists for the agency were provided to both Israeli and Palestinian authorities in advance. At no point had he ever “received the slightest concern about the staff that we have been employing.”

In April, Lazzarini told the UN Security Council that “an insidious campaign to end UNRWA’s operations is under way, with serious implications for peace and security.” Repeatedly, requests by the agency to deliver aid to northern Gaza had been refused, staff barred from coordinating meetings between humanitarian actors and Israel, and UNRWA premises and staff targeted.

Israel’s campaign to dissuade donor states from restoring funding proved a mixed one. Even the United Kingdom, long sympathetic to Israel’s accusations, announced in July that funding would be restored. In the view of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, UNRWA had taken steps to ensure that it was meeting “the highest standards of neutrality.”

In August, the findings of a review of the allegations by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, instigated at the request of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres,were released. It confirmed UNRWA’s role as “irreplaceable and indispensable” in the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, a “pivotal” body that provided “life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.”

In identifying eight areas for immediate improvement on the subject of neutrality (for instance, engaging donors, neutrality of staff, installations, education and staff unions), it was noted that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” that the agency’s employees had been “members of terrorist organizations.”

On October 24, UNRWA confirmed that one of its staffers killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza,Muhammad Abu Attawi, had been in the agency’s employ since July 2022 while serving as a Nukhba commander in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion. Attawi is alleged to have participated in the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im in October last year. His name had featured in a July letter from Israel to the agency listing 100 names allegedly connected with terrorist groups. But no action was taken against Attawi as the Israelis failed to supply UNRWA with evidence. Lazzarini’s letter urging, in the words of Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications, “to cooperate … by providing more information so he could take action” did not receive “any response”.

Having been foiled on various fronts in its quest to terminate UNRWA’s viable existence, Israeli lawmakers are now taking the legislative route to entrench the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Two bills are in train in the Knesset. The first, sponsored by such figures as Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky and Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz, would bar state authorities from having contact with UNRWA. The second, sponsored by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, would critically prevent the agency from operating in Israeli territory through revoking a 1967 exchange of notes justifying such activities.

Even proclaimed moderates – the term is relative – such as former defence minister Benny Gantz support the measures, accusing the UN body of making “itself an inseparable component of Hamas’s mechanism – and now is the time to detach ourselves entirely from it.” It did not improve the lot of refugees, but merely perpetuated “their victimisation.” Evidently for Gantz, Israel had no central role in creating Palestinian victims in the first place.

By barring cooperation between any Israeli authorities and UNRWA, work in Gaza and the West Bank would become effectively impossible, largely because Jerusalem would no longer issue entrance permits to the territories or permit any coordination with the Israeli DefenseForces.

UN Secretary-General Guterres was aghast at the two bills. “It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people.” Ambassadors from 123 UN member states have echoed the same views, while the Biden administration has, impotently, warned that the proposed “restrictions would devastate the humanitarian response in Gaza at this critical moment” while also denying educational and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

In their October 23 statement, the Nordic countries also expressed concern that UNRWA’s mandate “to carry out […] direct relief and works programmes” for millions of Palestinian refugees as determined by UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) would be jettisoned. “In the midst of an ongoing catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, a halt to any of the organisation’s activities would have devastating consequences for the hundreds of thousands of civilians served by UNRWA.”

The statement goes on to make a warning. To impair the refugee agency would create a vacuum that “may well destabilise the situation in [Gaza, and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem], in Israel and in the region as a whole, and may fundamentally jeopardize the prospects of a two-state solution.”

These are concerns that hardly matter before the rationale of murderous collective punishment, one used against a people seen more as mute serfs and submissive animals than sovereign beings entitled to rights and protections. Israel’s efforts to malign and cripple UNRWA remains a vital part of that agenda. In that organisation exists a repository of deep and troubling memories the forces of oppression long to erase.

October 27, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

Slovenia cancels referendum on new nuclear plant

By Reuters, October 25, 202, Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Christina Fincher-
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/slovenia-cancels-referendum-new-nuclear-plant-2024-10-24/

Slovenian lawmakers on Thursday voted to cancel a referendum on building a new nuclear plant after environmental groups and experts filed complaints questioning its legality at the constitutional court.

The new JEK 2 plant was due to be constructed next to Slovenia’s existing Krsko nuclear power plant, which is jointly owned by Slovenia and Croatia and meets about 20% of the electrical energy demand in Slovenia and 16% in Croatia.

Sixty-nine MPs in the 90-seat parliament voted to cancel the public referendum, one was against and one abstained from voting. The referendum had been due to take place on Nov. 24.

Earlier this month, Slovenia’s parliament decided to call the referendum with the question: “Do you support the implementation of the JEK 2 project, which together with other low-carbon sources will ensure a stable supply of electricity?”

But public criticism of both the question and the project led the parliamentary groups to withdraw their support for the referendum.

Lawmakers said there were valid doubts about whether voters could make an informed, autonomous and responsible decision on such an issue.

“I am personally satisfied that there will be no referendum,” Slovenia’s President Natasa Pirc Musar was quoted as saying by state STA news agency. “I will always emphasize that significantly more information is needed for such a referendum.”

But observers say the cancellation of the referendum next month does not mean it might not take place at a later time.

The government has said it will work on the preparation of a special law on JEK 2, and that the state-owned GEN Energija will continue working on the development of the project, which has been estimated to cost between 9.6 billion euros ($10.37 billion) and 15.4 billion euros.

Slovenia and Croatia agreed in 2023 to prolong the lifespan of the Krsko plant by 20 years until 2043. The thermal power capacity of Krsko is 1,994 Megawatts (MW) with net power output of 696 MW.

October 27, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

Taiwan is only months away from shutting off all nuclear power. 

 nuclear waste on Lanyu in Taiwan

ABC News, By East Asia correspondent Kathleen Calderwood, Xin-yun Wu and Fletcher Yeung in Lanyu and Hsinchu, Taiwan, 26 Oct 24

As Syamen Womzas harvests taro in a water-logged field on Lanyu, pebbles of sweat trace the lines on his face.

The early autumn sun still beats hard on the island and, about as far south-west as you can go and still be in Taiwan, the humidity is oppressive.

“This is the field I inherited from my parents,” he says.

“These fields have been here for generations.”

The tiny island he calls home is at the heart of Taiwan’s nuclear power debate.

For decades, Lanyu has been saddled with a nuclear waste facility, which Syamen Womzas and others have protested over and campaigned to have removed, fearing environmental impacts.

He wants to see Taiwan completely free of nuclear power.

That transition is happening, but as Taiwan works to phase out its nuclear plants, questions are being asked about how it will continue to power itself……..

Nuclear power and democracy in Taiwan

Syamen Womzas is a member of the Taiwanese aboriginal Tao people, who have lived on Lanyu for thousands of years.

Fringed by emerald cliffs and other-worldly rock formations, today the island is a haven for divers and tourists wanting to explore its stunning coral reefs and enjoy its laid-back lifestyle.

But the nuclear waste facility is one enduring scar on the otherwise pristine island.

“When the nuclear waste entered Lanyu, we people in Lanyu were completely uninformed,” Syamen Womzas tells the students at the Lanyu Elementary School, where he is the principal.

“They said they were building a military harbour and a canning factory.

“No one knew that the so-called cans would turn out to be barrels of nuclear waste.

“For almost 40 years we’ve kept asking the government to remove the storage site, but the officials keep delaying.”

In the 1970s and 80s, when Taiwan was still under martial law and the authoritarian rule of the exiled Kuomintang government, three nuclear power plants were built.

But as Taiwan moved towards democratisation and the Chernobyl disaster occurred in Ukraine, an anti-nuclear movement began to emerge.

“The ruling Democratic Progressive Party really came together only in 1986 — the year of Chernobyl,” says clean energy advocate Angelica Oung, founder of the Clean Energy Transition Alliance.

“The fact that that was such big news back then caused people to draw an equal sign between authoritarianism, contamination and nuclear energy as a symbol of the lack of democracy that Taiwan was under.

“They made it a goal to get rid of nuclear energy in Taiwan, and so the fight against nuclear energy and the fight for democracy in Taiwan have become entwined.”

Fear of disaster puts nuclear out

In 2011, after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the nuclear debate really entered the mainstream.

It stirred fear in the community that a similar accident could happen in Taiwan where, like Japan, it’s prone to frequent earthquakes.

In the years following, the Democratic Progressive Party installed a nuclear-free homeland policy under which it committed not to renew the licences of the three existing plants.

Meanwhile, the construction of a fourth plant had been beset by problems and delays over a 15-year period.

Then in 2021, a referendum was held that saw the Taiwanese public vote against finally firing it up.

………………………Taiwan’s government now seems to be hedging on its no-nuclear policy and testing the water on how the public might react to the possibility of extending the licence of the nuclear plants…………………………

two power plants have been shut down, with the final one due to be completely decommissioned by May next year.

…………………………Construction of offshore wind is stalling because of delays, high costs due to a local component requirement and the geopolitical risks of investing in Taiwan, while there is limited land space for solar.

………………………………………..The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), arguably the world’s most important chip firm, is headquartered in Hsinchu.

“The semiconductor industry is an absolute monster when it comes to consuming electricity,” Ms Oung says.

………………………….Differing views on the future 

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s electricity company Taipower is still deciding on what to do with the rest of Taiwan’s nuclear waste.

It says it will decide on a permanent storage location by 2038. If a new site is approved, Taipower says it will also relocate the waste from Lanyu there.

…………………….recently, the government found that Taipower has failed to properly monitor and manage the waste.

The report was initiated in response to a complaint filed by the family of a man who was diagnosed with leukaemia three years after working at the storage site.

It found that “workers performing inspection and re-packaging work back then were likely exposed to quite high doses of radiation.”

“Over the past 30 to 40 years, managing and storing each of these 100,000-plus barrels has cost at least $NT1 million ($47,000) per barrel, with expenses expected to continue indefinitely.”

………………………..Syamen Womzas, the school principal, still worries about how it will impact the environment.

“If the nuclear waste stays in Lanyu, it will continue to impact the environment,” he says.

“It will also impact the roots of the plants, and the habits of the animals.

“I think we are constantly thinking (about) progress and development, so we need more electricity — if everyone can think about more rational use of energy, I think it will be better for the earth.”

October 26, 2024 Posted by | politics, Taiwan | Leave a comment

The New Nuclear Push: New Package, Same Lies

Karl Grossman,  https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/10/23/the-new-nuclear-push-new-package-same-lies/

Nuclear power zealots are engaged in their biggest push in years in the United States and internationally. Headlines of recent pieces online about nuclear power include: “Japan’s top business lobby proposes maximum use of nuclear energy.” And, U.S. “looks to resurrect more nuclear power.” And, “European nations back nuclear power ahead of major climate summit.” And, “The super-rich are looking at nuclear power for emission-free yacht voyages.” And, “France plans to turn nuclear waste into forks, doorknobs and saucepans.”

Central to the drive: they’re trying to latch on to climate change as a new reason for nuclear power with the claim that it is “carbon-free” or “emissions-free.”

This is untrue especially when the “nuclear fuel chain” is taken into account.

“The dirty secret is that nuclear power makes a substantial contribution to global warming. Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intense industrial processes,” Michel Lee, an attorney and chair of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy, has said. “These include uranium mining, conversion, enrichment and fabrication of nuclear fuel; construction and deconstruction of the massive nuclear facility structures; and the disposition of high-level nuclear waste.”

In a two-page fact sheet that is online titled “How Nuclear Power Worsens Climate Change,” the Sierra Club Nuclear Free Campaign says: “Nuclear power has a big carbon footprint. At the front end of nuclear power, carbon energy is used for uranium mining, milling, processing, conversion, and enrichment, as well as for formation of [fuel] rods and construction of nuclear…power plants….All along the nuclear fuel chain, radioactive contamination of air, land and water occurs. Uranium mine and mill cleanup demands large amounts of fossil fuel. Each year 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste and twelve million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste are generated in the U.S. alone. None of this will magically disappear. Vast amounts of energy will be needed to isolate these dangerous wastes for generations to come.”

The main release of carbon occurs during this nuclear fuel cycle; however, nuclear plants themselves also emit carbon, a radioactive form, Carbon 14.

Still, many politicians and much of media continue to use the words “carbon-free” or “emissions-free” when it comes to nuclear-generated electricity. Consider the front-page story in the business section of The New York Times this month that began: “Technology companies are increasingly looking to nuclear power plants to provide the emissions-free electricity needed to run artificial intelligence and other businesses.”

And there was an Associated Press article last month in the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday which started: “Amazon on Wednesday said that it was investing in small nuclear reactors, coming just two days after a similar announcement by Google, as both tech giants seek new sources of carbon-free electricity to meet surging demand from data centers and artificial intelligence.”

Among the politicians buying into the climate change claim appears to be New York Governor Kathy Hochul who just organized a “summit” with a focus on nuclear power. At it, a “Draft Blueprint for Consideration of Advanced Nuclear Technologies” from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) was released. It asserted that “a growing and innovative group of advanced nuclear energy technologies has recently emerged as a potential source of carbon-free power.”

As the Washington, D.C. organization Food & Water Watch says: “Governor Hochul’s latest bad idea is to build new nuclear power plants in New York. In September, she hosted an ‘Energy Future Summit’ in Syracuse where she wined and dined the nuclear industry, and now her administration has published a ‘blueprint’ for promoting the construction of new nuclear reactors.”

I live on Long Island, New York where for decades the now defunct Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) planned to build seven to eleven nuclear power plants. Long Island was to become in the parlance of nuclear promoters what they called a “nuclear park.”

It took years, but the scheme was stopped by strong actions at the grassroots, opposition by Suffolk County government and also then New York Governor Mario Cuomo, and the creation by the state of the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) with the power to utilize condemnation if LILCO persisted in its nuclear plans. The first nuclear power plant LILCO constructed, at Shoreham, was turned over to the state for $1 after problem-plagued low-power testing and was decommissioned as a nuclear facility.

Safe-energy activists on Long Island are now concerned that the area might again be targeted for nuclear power plants. The 120-mile-long island jutting out into the ocean east of Manhattan has been regarded as an advantageous area for nuclear power plants because of it being surrounded by vast amounts of water which can be tapped as coolant—a nuclear power plant needs up to a million gallons of water a minute as coolant.

Moreover, established on Long Island in 1947 by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was Brookhaven National Laboratory with developing civilian uses of nuclear technology as a main mission. Its staff included many scientists and engineers who had worked at the Manhattan Project who at BNL sought to develop uses of atomic energy in addition to nuclear bombs. At the start of 1947, on January 1, 1947, the Manhattan Project, the World War II crash program to build nuclear weapons, was succeeded by the AEC.

BNL scientists and engineers joined with LILCO attorneys at hearings on LILCO nuclear plant projects and they formed an organization, Suffolk Scientists for Cleaner Power and Safer Environment, to promote them.

BNL’s administrators were closely involved with LILCO. Phyllis Vineyard, wife of BNL’s long-time director, George Vineyard, was a member of the board of directors of LILCO, advocating nuclear power. And in the years before LILCO went under due to its failed nuclear power pursuit, its CEO and chairman was William Catacosinos, a former assistant director of BNL

Long Island safe-energy activists —some who were veterans of the battle against LILCO’s drive for nuclear power—are now readying a letter to the board of trustees of LIPA stating they “reaffirm the long-held consensus that nuclear power has no place on Long Island. We are also convinced that nuclear power has no place in planning New York’s energy future.”

“LIPA exists because the people of Long Island said no to nuclear power. Public safety, the impossibility of evacuation and ever-rising costs and electric rates were the reasons for this decision. Nuclear energy was neither necessary nor appropriate for Long Island.  This is still true,” it continues.

“A recent study by the Nature Conservancy found that ‘Long Island has enough low-impact solar PV siting potential to host nearly 19,500 megawatts (19.5 gigawatts) of solar capacity in the form of mid-to large-scale installations (250 kilowatts and larger),’” the letter went on. “A gigawatt of energy can power 750,000 homes. These estimates, totaling almost three times more power than is currently required, do not even include the potential for residential solar. Additionally, solar is the most widely accepted and supported form of renewable energy in the nation. By contrast, nuclear power garnered the most public opposition.

“Long Island’s abundant energy resources also include offshore wind. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the full offshore wind potential in our region is 323,000 megawatts or 323 gigawatts of energy. LIPA has led the way with the South Fork Wind Farm. Clearly, there is no shortage of renewable energy potential on Long Island. Nuclear energy will not be needed here.”

Also, the letter points out, “LIPA’s enabling legislation clearly states that the ‘authority shall utilize to the fullest extent practicable, all economical means of conservation, and technologies that rely on renewable energy resources, cogeneration and improvements in energy efficiency which will benefit the interests of the ratepayers of the service area.’”

It calls for opposing “any effort” by the state’s Public Service Commission or NYSERDA to site nuclear power facilities on Long Island.

Food & Water Watch is asking that people to relate their views about the Hochul administration’s advocacy of nuclear power by letter or email to Hochul and Doreen Harris, president of NYSERDA, both in Albany, before a November 8th deadline set for comments. “Take action: Demand they stop this fast-track to danger and instead chart a path to the renewable energy future we need,” asks the group.

This month, the U.S. Department of Energy released a report saying: “U.S. nuclear capacity has the potential to triple from 100 GW [gigawatts] in 2024 to 300 GW by 2050.” It said: “In 2022, utilities were shutting down nuclear reactors; in 2024, they are extending reactor operations to 80 years, planning to uprate capacity [pushing nuclear power plants to run harder and generate more electricity]; and restarting formerly closed reactors.”

The nuclear power issue remains—indeed, is getting even more intense.

“We are up against the biggest push for nuclear power that I’ve ever experienced in 32 years of anti-nuclear power activism,” said Kevin Kamps of the Takoma Park, Maryland-based organization Beyond Nuclear in a TV program I hosted this year. It and a follow-up program were syndicated by Denver, Colorado-based Free Speech TV and broadcast on nearly 200 cable TV systems in 40 states and the major satellite TV networks and also on internet platforms.

Of the new main argument for nuclear power, that it is “carbon-free,” Kamps stated: “It’s not true. It’s not carbon-free by any means,” and “not even low carbon when you compare it to genuinely low carbon sources of electricity, renewables like wind and solar.” But the nuclear industry, he said, is involved in a “propaganda campaign” attempting to validate itself by citing climate change. He speaks of many in government having “fallen for this ploy.”

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and is the author of the book, The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet, and the Beyond Nuclear handbook, The U.S. Space Force and the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear war in space. Grossman is an associate of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion.

October 25, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Harris admits to US/Israeli genocide in Gaza….then says ‘Oops, never mind’.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

At a campaign stop in Milwaukee, Kamala Harris was confronted by a protester who charged the Biden administration “invested “billions of dollars in genocide in Gaza that has resulted in massive child casualties.”

Before Harris could consult her scripted genocide denial playbook, she blurted out “What he’s talking about, it’s real. That’s not the subject that I came to discuss today, but it’s real.”

Mainstream news didn’t cover Harris’ US genocide agreement comment. But just to be safe her campaign issued a statement that Harris “doesn’t agree with defining the war as a genocide, and she has not expressed such a stance in the past, as this is not her position.”

Perhaps the guilt of participating in the most grotesque genocide in this century is beginning to weigh on the conscience of Kamala Harris. If so campaign protesters, keep holding up the mirror of Biden/Harris genocide enabling in Gaza to Kamala at every campaign stop. She must be constantly reminded she cannot escape the depravity into which she has sunk to achieve the US presidency.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

October 25, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Ontario town starts voting today on willingness to host ‘forever’ nuclear waste storage site

$418 million in subsidies from Canada’s nuclear industry

“When you look at the money, I don’t think it’s really significant when you look at the scope of this project,“

Teeswater, north of London, and northern Ontario site being considered for massive facility

Andrew Lupton · CBC News · Posted: Oct 21, 2024 

The small farming community of Teeswater, Ont., faces a massive decision. Starting today, its 6,000 residents will vote in a referendum on whether or not they’re willing to host Canada’s largest underground storage facility of spent nuclear fuel.

For Anja Vandervlies, who operates a 1,300-goat dairy farm nearby, it’s a monumental decision for her town in the municipality of South Bruce, and an easy choice for her. 

“If we vote yes, we’re stuck with this nuclear waste in the ground forever,” said Vandervlies, a member of the opposition group Protecting Our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste. “This is the only time that we, as residents, are going to get a say in this whole process.” 

A two-hour drive from London but less than 45 minutes from the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on Lake Huron, Teeswater is one of two locations being considered to host Canada’s largest permanent underground storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. 

Also under consideration is Ignace, a community of about 1,200, located 245 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay. Voters there have already said they’re willing hosts; now it’s Teeswater’s turn to have its say. 

Voting will be conducted online and by phone over seven days. To be binding, a yes vote of 50 per cent plus one is required. If Teeswater votes yes, the board of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) will make a final decision between Teeswater and Ignace, likely before the end of this year. 

Once the site is decided, the $26-billion storage facility would be built in stages, with plans to begin accepting waste in the 2040s and continue storing it away underground for the next 175 years. 

The process also requires consultation from First Nations groups in both communities. Neither has officially made a decision. The Wabigoon Lake Ojibway First Nation will vote in November. Opposition from Indigenous groups to the northern Ontario site is growing. 

Wherever it’s located, the facility, which the NWMO calls a “deep geological repository” that would be located 600 metres underground, will take spent nuclear fuel from Canadian Candu reactors located as far away as Winnipeg. 

Running counter to the safety concerns is the significant windfall awaiting whichever of the two communities winds up hosting the storage facility. 

The host town would not only benefit from high-paying jobs, but also $418 million in subsidies from Canada’s nuclear industry over the the course of the project. 

South Bruce Coun. Ron Schnurr didn’t want to say how he’s voting, opting instead to give the community its say this week.

However, he said the money would be a massive boost to a rural community with big infrastructure needs and a small tax base to pay for them. ……………………….

To Vandervlies and others in the group opposing the facility, the risk far outweighs the potential reward of hosting the site. 

“When you look at the money, I don’t think it’s really significant when you look at the scope of this project,” she said. 

The question

Voters will decide yes or no to the following question: 

  • Are you in favour of the Municipality of South Bruce declaring South Bruce to be a willing host for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s proposed Deep Geological Repository (DGR)?

Information about how to vote, how to get on the voters list and where to find a voter assistance centre is posted here. Voting closes on Oct. 28 at 8 p.m. ET.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/teeswater-nuclear-waste-storage-site-vote-1.7356267

October 24, 2024 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Years after nuclear fiasco soaked ratepayers, leaders look at restarting VC Summer project .

The State, BY SAMMY FRETWELL OCTOBER 15, 2024

Seven years after two power companies abandoned a failing nuclear construction project, a report has concluded that the equipment and existing buildings on the site are in “excellent’’ condition — and it would be worth a look at restarting construction.

A Sep. 16 report by two members of the Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council said partially completed buildings show “no degradation, corrosion’’ or chipped concrete at the V.C. Summer site northwest of Columbia. The report, discussed Tuesday at the council’s quarterly meeting, said nuclear parts that had already been installed showed some surface rust, but that was not unexpected or a substantial problem.

The V.C. Summer nuclear expansion project marked what many consider the biggest construction failure in South Carolina history. The project to build two reactors to complement an existing one cost $9 billion, soaked ratepayers with higher utility bills and left thousands of employees out of work. Utilities walked away from the project in 2017 because of excessive costs and delays.

But there has been renewed talk of restarting the effort to meet growing energy needs, and the Advisory Council report examined what kind of shape the buildings and equipment were in………………….

The reality of restarting the project is unknown without more study and finding a way to pay for it. Doing so would make for an additional cost, beyond the more than the $9 billion Santee Cooper and SCE&G spent on the V.C. Summer project before it was shelved seven years ago.

Lee and Little’s report recommended a more extensive study of the equipment, buildings and possibility of finishing the project.

Considering the costs to customers — many are still paying for the failed project as part of their monthly energy bills — beginning work on the abandoned reactors could be unpopular with the public, said Tom Clements, a nuclear safety watchdog and critic of the V.C. Summer expansion. As of late last year, ratepayers were still being charged more than 5 percent on their Dominion energy bills for the failed project.

At the same time, SCE&G, which was acquired by Dominion Energy, terminated the federal license to build the plant. Getting a new one for the work could be an extensive process, taking possibly years to complete, he said. “It would take a tremendous amount of effort and financial resources that would make restart of the project highly impractical,’’ Clements said………………………………………………………………

Meanwhile, Santee Cooper is not interested in owning or operating nuclear reactors at V.C. Summer, if they were completed, a spokeswoman said. A Dominion spokesman offered similar comments. The Virginia-headquartered power company “has no plans to restart construction of additional units at V.C. Summer,’’ spokeswoman Rhonda O’Banion said in an email…………………………………………………………

Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, also has mentioned that the infamous Three Mile Island site in Pennsylvania was under consideration for restart of a nuclear reactor. Davis suggested Lee and Little put together the report discussed Tuesday at the council meeting. Efforts are underway to crank up a unit that shut down in 2019 so that the plant can accommodate a Microsoft data center, Reuters reported. Data centers are tremendous users of energy. The Three-Mile Island site is home to what’s considered the nation’s worst nuclear accident, a meltdown in the 1970s. The reactor to be restarted is not the one in which the 1979 accident occurred.

……………………………………………………………………… Dominion Energy and Santee Cooper jointly own the V.C. Summer property, but Santee and Westinghouse own the equipment. When the V.C. Summer expansion project shut down, SCE&G ratepayers had been charged more than $1 billion for the construction, prompting a public and political outcry. Top utility executives were accused of withholding information about the project’s problems, charged criminally for their actions and sentenced to prison……………………….  https://www.thestate.com/news/local/environment/article293978684.html

October 20, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

US opens applications for $900 million for small nuclear reactors (article includes a note of caution)

By Timothy Gardner, October 17, 2024

WASHINGTON, Oct 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. on Wednesday opened applications for up to $900 million in funding to support the initial domestic deployment of small modular reactor nuclear technology…………………………

 no U.S. commercial SMR has been built yet. Critics say they will be more expensive to run than larger reactors because they will struggle to achieve economies of scale. Like the large reactors, they will also produce long-lasting radioactive waste for which there is no final depository in the U.S.

HOW WILL THE MONEY BE DISTRIBUTED?

The funds come from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and the Energy Department anticipates offering it in two tiers.

Up to $800 million will go to milestone-based awards for support of first mover teams of utility, reactor vendor, constructor, end users and others.

………………..Up to $100 will spur additional SMR deployments by addressing gaps that have hindered the domestic nuclear industry in areas such as design, licensing, supplier development, and site preparation, the department said. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-opens-applications-900-million-small-nuclear-reactors-2024-10-16/

October 20, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

North Somerset MP objects to salt marsh at Kingston Seymour

North Somerset Times 16th Oct 2024

NORTH Somerset’s MP, Sadik Al-Hassan, objects to the creation of a salt marsh in the corner of his constituency, claiming his constituents are being “shut out of the conversation.” 

The proposed salt marsh at Kingston Seymour, which sits on the boundary with the neighbouring Wells and Mendip Hills constituency, is one of four sites earmarked on the Severn Estuary by EDF as environmental mitigation measures for its construction of Hinkley Point C. The other sites include Littleton, Arlingham and Rodley………………………………………….. https://www.northsomersettimes.co.uk/news/24657962.north-somerset-mp-objects-salt-marsh-kingston-seymour/

October 19, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Another Phony Biden PR Stunt About Humanitarian Aid In Gaza

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 16, 2024,  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/another-phony-biden-pr-stunt-about?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=150283330&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The Biden administration is performing another PR stunt about getting humanitarian aid into Gaza as election day approaches.

The White House has given Israel a 30-day notice that it needs to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip or risk losing military aid—a deadline which you will notice conveniently falls after US election day on November 5. 

Rather than releasing this information itself, the Biden administration published it in its customary manner by laundering it through Axios as a letter that was “obtained” by the outlet and its Israeli intelligence insider Barak Ravid, thereby framing this as a news story and not a White House press release.

Not only does the 30-day deadline fall after election day, it also falls after Israel’s planned attack on Iran in response to Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on Israel. Anonymous officials have told The Washington Post that Israel will be launching this attack before the election in the US.

This narrative the Biden administration is trying to insert into public consciousness is already falling apart. The Washington Post’s John Hudson reports via Twitter:

“Biden’s spokesmen at the White House and State Department declined to say the U.S. will restrict arms sales to Israel if it continues to block aid, raising doubts for some about the seriousness of the U.S. warning.”

Hudson also cited the analysis of former senior Biden administration official Jeremy Konyndyk, now the president of Refugees International, regarding this development:

“After the past year, Netanyahu will be understandably skeptical that Biden will put real teeth behind this sort of warning. He has blown through every guardrail the U.S. has tried to erect, and has done so with total impunity so far.”

If this was a real thing with real teeth and not an incredibly cynical eleventh-hour election ploy, it would have happened a full year ago. As with all words the US government releases about Israel, it can be safely ignored without missing out on anything of value. The Biden administration’s actions speak for themselves, and have done so for a year.

Ignore their words. Watch their actions. If you just look at the material actions of the US government and Israel and mentally mute all their mountains of verbiage about it, you simply see a big country pouring weapons into a little country who uses them to attack its neighbors.

If you tune out all the words expressing “concern” for the people of Gaza, about how Israel must do more to get humanitarian aid to civilians and try to kill fewer people, about how sad and tragic and unfortunate this whole thing is but it’s oh so very important that Israel has the ability to “defend itself”, and plus Hamas and Hezbollah are hiding behind the civilians and blah blah blah blah — if you tune all that out and just look at the raw data of what’s happening, you just see a state raining hellfire on civilian populations packed full of children and using siege warfare to starve hundreds of thousands of people.

Ignore their words and watch their actions. That’s how you sort out fact from fiction in an information environment that’s saturated in propaganda and manipulation — not just with Israel, but with everything. Watch where the war machinery is going, where the money is going, and where the resources are going, and ignore all the words about why it makes perfect sense for this to be happening. Do this and you’ll have an infinitely better understanding of what’s going on in the world than you could ever hope to glean from watching CNN or Fox News.

This is a great way to see through the manipulations in your personal life as well. If you’re in a relationship with someone who keeps letting you down in various ways and always has sensible-sounding reasons for doing so, but when you look at where the resources and/or relaxation and/or pleasure are going in your relationship you see it’s mostly going toward your partner, that tells you what’s really going on there. It tells you you’re in an unequal and exploitative relationship, regardless of what words they use to explain why they keep getting their way at your expense.

Manipulators understand that you can trade words for real material benefits. Say the right words in the right way and you can get people to agree to let you commit mass atrocities. You can get them to give you control over their material circumstances. You can get them to consent to wildly unfair economic and political systems. You can persuade them to let you destroy the biosphere they depend on for survival. You can get them to give you power, money, sex, egoic gratification — whatever it is you’re after — just by saying the right words in the right way.

And that’s basically our entire problem as a species right now. That’s why the world looks the way it looks. A few clever manipulators have figured out how to use mass-scale psychological manipulation to get us to trade away real material benefits for empty narrative fluff. That’s the only reason this genocidal, ecocidal, exploitative, bat shit insane political status quo has been permitted to exist by people who vastly outnumber the few who benefit from it.

This will keep happening until humanity becomes a conscious species. To become a conscious human is to awaken from the trance of the believed narratives in your skull and begin perceiving life as it truly is.


The difference between our mental stories about how life is happening and how it really is could not be more different — which is why manipulators are able to extract so much benefit from manipulating our mental stories about how life is happening. Manipulators will always have the ability to do this until we make the necessary adaptation as a species from believing mental narratives to perceiving life as it truly is.

Every species eventually hits an adaptation-or-extinction juncture as its conditioning runs into changing material realities on this planet. We’re at ours right now, and unlike other species who have gone extinct before us, our own behavior is responsible for the changing material realities we are running up against. Since our behavior at mass scale is being driven by mass-scale psychological manipulation via the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed, in order to see a change in the way humans behave on this planet, we’re going to have to see a mass-scale shift in our species’ relationship with mental narrative.

It is possible for an individual to stop imbuing their mental chatter with the power of belief and start seeing life as it is, and if it is possible to do this individually it is possible to do it collectively as well. We all have this potentiality sleeping within us. It will either awaken and carry us beyond the adaptation-or-extinction juncture we now face, or we will go the way of the dinosaur.

That’s where we’re at right now. We have the freedom to go either way.

October 18, 2024 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Ignore Their Words; Watch Their Actions

October 18, 2024 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Kamala Harris’ foreign policy agenda music to war party, anathema to swing state voters

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 13 Oct 24

It’s standard procedure for presidential candidates to promote bellicose US foreign policy in their campaigns. When the weapons makers, career generals, Congressional Hawks and pro war pundits pounce on candidates promoting peace over war, the warning is clear: don’t mess with US unipolar dominance.

But Kamala Harris has taken that to another level with her positions that are furthering the Israeli genocide in Gaza, destruction of Ukraine, looming war with Iran, and endless war provocations in the Far East with China.

She calls the $17.9 billion in US weapons obliterating Palestinian moms and kids “defense” and vows to continue it in a Harris administration. That alone disqualifies her to serve as president. That is not an endorsement of Trump, who’s even more ravenous for Israel to “to finish the job (genocide) in Gaza”

Harris remains in complete denial that US provocations made the Russian invasion of Ukraine inevitable. She’s committed to providing Ukraine with war weapons, already exceeding $150 billion, that have largely destroyed Ukraine as a functioning state. She calls negotiations to end the war “surrender”, something she will never do.

Harris’ claim that Iran is “America’s greatest adversary” is preposterous. She’s cool with Israel bombing folks in Tehran, but when Iran bombed back in protest, Harris got on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to discuss US help in Israel’s planned reprisals. That is not stateswomanship . That is criminal warmongering.

Harris is also on board endless US provocations against China in the Far East that could provoke war with the third largest nuclear power. Why? Harris says “The US must “win the competition for the 21st century with China.” A competition that ends in war is not winning. It is self destruction.

Harris may be pleasing the US war party, but not voters in swing states. They are not supporting endless US wars sucking up US treasure needed for the Homeland. They favor Trump’s approach to ending them (however unrealistic) over Harris’ bellicose stance by a margin of 58% to 42%. That alone could cost Harris the electoral votes she needs for victory November 5. Her foreign policy is not just wrong…it is stupid.

On domestic issues Kamala checks all the right boxes. On foreign policy issues she my be leading America and the world to ruin.

October 14, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »