Obama Administration enables nuclear industry to pitch itself as climate change solution
Politico blasted today’s summit: ”The nuclear crowd is certainly excited for the attention and the summit will also let them feel like part of Team Climate, given the industry’s sense of being the unloved stepchild of the whole enterprise.
Hopefully Politico is right and today’s event is really just another cheerleading event for a floundering industry that is grasping at any means to stay afloat and not a true commitment of the limited time and financial resources we have to a technology that cannot deliver carbon emission reductions in an expedient and affordable manner.
Who’s asking for (and getting) even more taxpayer bailouts? Hint: they’ve done it before http://blog.cleanenergy.org/2015/11/06/whos-asking-for-and-getting-even-more-taxpayer-bailouts-hint-theyve-done-it-before/ November 6th, 2015 Once again the nuclear power industry is the culprit and once again, the Obama Administration, like numerous previous Administrations, is the enabler — obliging an industry to the detriment of U.S. taxpayers by continuing to push an “all of the above” energy policy.
On the heels of the wise rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline today, another polluting player in the energy sector received some significant bolstering. This afternoon the “White House Summit on Nuclear Energy” was held for the flailing nuclear power industry, which has been rocked by several early closures of nuclear plants and major debacles at all the under-construction nuclear projects here in the U.S. (TVA’s Watts Bar 2 in Tennessee, Southern Company’s Vogtle 3 & 4 in Georgia and SCANA’s V.C. Summer 2 & 3 in South Carolina). The industry and its proponents, such as the Nuclear Energy Institute and Third Way, which not surprisingly helped organize and participated in today’s pep rally, misleadingly claim that carbon emission reductions, such as required by the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and being discussed at the upcoming U.N. climate conference in Paris, can only happen if nuclear power is expanded.
Political bias in UK’s defence chief’s criticism of Jeremy Corbyn’s nuclear weapons policy
Corbyn accuses defence chief of political bias in nuclear row, BBC News, 9 Nov 15 Jeremy Corbyn has accused the chief of the defence staff of political bias after he criticised the Labour leader’s anti-nuclear stance.
Mr Corbyn called on the defence secretary to “take action” against Sir Nicholas over his comments.
In a statement, the Labour leader said: “It is a matter of serious concern that the chief of the defence staff has today intervened directly in issues of political dispute.
“It is essential in a democracy that the military remains politically neutral at all times.
“By publicly taking sides in current political arguments, Sir Nicholas Houghton has clearly breached that constitutional principle. Accordingly, I am writing to the defence secretary to ask him to take action to ensure that the neutrality of the armed forces is upheld.”
- Mr Corbyn, a leading member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, sparked a row with his shadow cabinet at his party’s annual conference when he revealed that would never press the “nuclear button” – and he has since praised Scottish Labour’s rejection of Trident.Mr Corbyn has said he was elected Labour leader on a platform of opposing Trident renewal and that he is committed to “promoting an international nuclear weapons convention which would lead to a nuclear-free world”……..http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34759626
Not much real help to nuclear lobby from White House
Obama tweaks $12.5 billion in nuclear power loans, Washington ExaminerBy JOHN SICILIANO • 11/6/15 The Obama administration announced Friday that it will supplement its $12.5 billion loan guarantee program to build and license new nuclear reactors, but very little new money is being made available.
The announcement was made during a nuclear energy summit held at the White House Friday to discuss the role of nuclear power in producing zero-emission energy to combat climate change.
The Energy Department will be “supplementing its existing solicitation that makes up to $12.5 billion in loan guarantees available to support innovative nuclear energy projects,” according to a White House fact sheet.
That means the administration will allow nuclear plant developers to use government loans to cover the costs of more items related to power plant development, including licensing costs, compared with the previous policy that provided loan backing solely for the construction of the plant itself.
“The solicitation states that eligible projects can include construction of advanced nuclear reactors, small modular reactors, uprates and upgrades at existing facilities, and front-end nuclear facilities,” the White House said.
Putting the costs of licensing a new plant in the new plan addresses the new, small modular power plants that the administration has attempted to jumpstart a market for, but with little success…….
The only problem: None are being built, and no licenses have been granted by the federal government to build one.
The administration said it has invested $452 million over six years to help reduce the engineering costs associated with certification and licensing activities for the reactors, and expects a design license won’t be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission until just before President Obama leaves office.
The Energy Department, also, is establishing what it calls the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear, which is sort of a one-stop shop for pushing new nuclear reactor designs toward commercialization, the White House said.http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obama-tweaks-12.5-billion-in-nuclear-power-loans/article/2575815
Nuclear lobby convincing USA govt of its climate change credentials ?
One major consideration is convincing investors to back new nuclear…...
The Clean Air Task Force is working with other industry and environmental groups to launch the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, which aims to improve investing for advanced nuclear in the United States. A formal rollout is scheduled for later this month
White House summit boosts industry’s sagging spirits Jean Chemnick and Hannah Northey, E&E reportersE&E Daily: Friday, November 6, 2015 The nuclear industry hopes today’s White House summit is the start of a more proactive effort by the Obama administration to put reactors into the U.S. push to meet its international climate change targets.
The summit comes as the days tick down to the Nov. 30 start of the U.N. climate conference in Paris aimed at producing a post-2020 emissions agreement. President Obama has staked out a large role in helping to broker a Paris deal. Continue reading
Nuclear industry sulking because Obama is not doing enough for them
Obama’s Green Push Comes At Expense Of Nuclear Power, Daily Caller 6 Nov 15 The nuclear power industry supports President Barack Obama’s plan to force coal plants to close, but a pending Supreme Court case threatens to cause huge problems for nuclear plants.
Currently the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is embroiled in a Supreme Court battle over a program called demand response, which seeks to cut energy use by compensating retail customers who reduce consumption during peak power grid operation. FERC is forcing energy companies to participate, a move that opponents argue exceeds their legal mandate. According to Utility Dive, demand response keeps wholesale energy prices low, cutting into profits in the nuclear and coal industry……….
The court case puts the coal and nuclear power industries on the same side……..
In the wake of these closures, the industry has been lobbying the administration to increase government assistance to nuclear power, arguing the nuclear industry holds the key to cleaner air………http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/05/obamas-green-push-comes-at-expense-of-nuclear-power/
Pitfalls and huge costs make South Africa’s nuclear programme untenable
The nuclear build is a very risky exercise with numerous potential pitfalls. And there are alternatives. The shortfall in the projected nuclear capacity can be covered by a 50% larger than planned renewable energy investment. Wind and solar energy plants have been operationalised on schedule, and solar panel prices continue falling. The intermittence of renewable energy availability is considered manageable. Finally, energy saving strategies have yet to be fully explored.
Why SA must abandon nuclear ambitions, The nuclear build is a very risky exercise with numerous potential pitfalls. And there are alternatives. Tech Central, By Hartmut Winkler, 6 Nov 15 It has been an eventful year in South Africa, characterised by power cuts, parliamentary confrontations about wasteful expenditure and student fee protests. There has, however, been an elephant in the room that has impacted all these issues but enjoyed surprisingly scarce attention. The idea, vigorously driven by government, is for the country to build nuclear plants with an expected price tag of R1 trillion.
This equates to 4 000 times the controversial costs to upgrade President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence and 400 times the shortfall the tertiary education sector will experience in 2016 because of the freeze in university fee increases. Continue reading
Virginia nuclear power plant owner Dominium seeks 80 year lifespan for reactors !!
Dominion plans to extend Surry nuclear reactors to 80-year lifespan BY JOHN RAMSEY Richmond Times-Dispatch, 6 Nov 15 Dominion Virginia Power today will formally seek a second license extension for its Surry nuclear power plant, becoming the first utility in the U.S. to try to push the operating range for nuclear reactors to 80 years.
If successful, the utility’s pair of reactors in Surry County would be eligible to operate past 2050.
At a White House summit on nuclear energy this afternoon, Dominion executives will deliver a letter to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirming plans to apply for the extension.
The Surry plant, located on the south bank of the James River in southeastern Virginia, saw its first reactor open in December 1972 and its second in May 1973……
As of today, no nuclear plants in the country have been granted the second 20-year extension Dominion is seeking.
USA’s Environment Protection Agency helping nuclear industry out of its financial crisis
Nuclear Power: Dead in the Water it Poisoned, CounterPunch, by JOHN LAFORGE NOVEMBER 5, 2015 “……..As the nuclear industry struggles against financial collapse, government regulators seem to have capitulated to political pressure to weaken radiation exposure standards after accidents and thereby save the industry hundreds of billions of dollars.
On April 15, the EPA issued new Protective Action Guides (PAGs) for dealing with large-scale radiation releases — like Fukushima. The proposed PAGs represent a preemptive government bailout, because they would save reactor owners the nine-figure costs of currently required decontamination following large radiation releases. Eerily, the new PAGs seem to presume the premeditated inevitability of catastrophic releases that the industry can’t afford to withstand. The likelihood of such events was cold-bloodedly conceded by NRC Commissioner James Asselstine who testified to Congress in 1986: “[W]e can expect to see a core meltdown accident within the next 20 years, and it … could result in off-site releases of radiation … as large as or larger than the releases … at Chernobyl.”[48]
Now that Fukushima has tripled down on Commissioner Asselstine’s radiation roulette wager, real players in big electricity are running for the exits. Unlike Congressional hogs feeding at utility lobbying buffets, or commercial television executives who devour utility advertising checks, Wall Street isn’t buying bank-busting liabilities like Fukushima which will cost Japan a minimum of $350 billion and which is relentlessly salting the entire Pacific Ocean with long-lived radioactive materials.
Big investors must smirk at sloganeering about “safe reactor designs” spouted in documentary hoaxes like “Pandora’s Promise.” They read headlines from Japan and recall the stinging deception purveyed by Lewis Straus of the Atomic Energy Commission who said electricity from reactors would be “too cheap to meter.” And they can’t forgetForbes’ 1985 denunciation of nuclear power as industry’s “largest managerial disaster.”
Only add to Forbes’ prescient epitaph that nuclear is also history’s broadest and most and persistent health and environmental catastrophe.
Notes……. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/05/nuclear-power-dead-in-the-water-it-poisoned/
Time to stop Tokyo 2020 Olympics plan: instead deal with Fukushima nuclear disaster
Murata is not opposed to the Tokyo Olympic Games per se, but finds them a major distraction to what needs to be done immediately — namely, gathering the best minds and expertise from around the world and, with the full support of the Japanese government, doing everything humanly possible to bring Fukushima No. 1 truly “under control.” This will help to ensure the Pacific Ocean is no longer used as an open sewer for Fukushima-produced radiation, and also address the ongoing pain and distress of the residents of Fukushima Prefecture and beyond.
Time has come for an ‘honorable retreat’ from Tokyo 2020 over Fukushima, BRIAN VICTORIA
Kyoto http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2015/11/04/voices/time-come-honorable-retreat-tokyo-2020-fukushima/#.VjvGN9IrLGh
Dear Olympics minister Toshiaki Endo, Let me begin this message by offering you my sincerest condolences. Condolences for what? For the death of the belief that a trouble-free 2020 Tokyo Olympics would serve to showcase Japan’s economic revival.
Up to this point, the exact opposite has been the case, due to the scrapping of plans for a very expensive new National Stadium, the scuttling of the Olympic logo amid charges of plagiarism and newspaper headlines alleging, for example, that “Japan’s Olympics fiascoes point to outmoded, opaque decision-making.” Even more recently, Japan sports minister Hakubun Shimomura offered to resign over the Olympic stadium row.
Among these developments, the charge alleging “outmoded, opaque decision-making” is perhaps the most troubling of all, because it suggests that both of the major setbacks the 2020 Olympics has encountered are systemic in nature, not merely one-off phenomena. If correct, this indicates that similar setbacks are likely to occur in the future. But how many setbacks can the 2020 Olympics endure?
At this point it may be apt to recall the warning of 13th-century Zen master Dogen: “If there is the slightest difference in the beginning, the result will be a distance greater than heaven is from Earth.”
One lesson to be learned from Dogen’s words is that in order to understand the mess you are in now, you should reflect on how you got into it in the first place. When this is done, the “beginning” becomes clear, i.e., Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s 2013 statement to the International Olympic Committee that the situation at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was “under control.” The prime minister went on to tell the Diet, “The effect of radioactive substances in the nearby waters is blocked within 0.3 sq. km of the plant’s harbor.”
One needs only to look at recent stories describing the torrential downpours in the Fukushima area to know that this claim, if it were ever true, is clearly no longer valid. Even Tepco stated: “On Sept. 9 and 11, due to typhoon No. 18 (Etau), heavy rain caused Fukushima No. 1 drainage rainwater to overflow to the sea.” This is not to mention the high probability that relatively decontaminated areas have been contaminated once again by the heavy rains carrying radioactive particles lodged in the nearby mountains down onto the plains. Nor does it take into account that no one knows the location or condition of the melted fuel in reactors 1, 2 and 3.
At this point it may be apt to recall the warning of 13th-century Zen master Dogen: “If there is the slightest difference in the beginning, the result will be a distance greater than heaven is from Earth.”
One lesson to be learned from Dogen’s words is that in order to understand the mess you are in now, you should reflect on how you got into it in the first place. When this is done, the “beginning” becomes clear, i.e., Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s 2013 statement to the International Olympic Committee that the situation at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was “under control.” The prime minister went on to tell the Diet, “The effect of radioactive substances in the nearby waters is blocked within 0.3 sq. km of the plant’s harbor.” Continue reading
Malaysian govt prepares way for nuclear power, but big hurdles remain
Government prepares Act to pave way for nuclear programme http://www.theedgemarkets.com/my/article/government-prepares-act-pave-way-nuclear-programme By Ben Shane Lim / theedgemarkets.com | November 5, 2015 KUALA LUMPUR : The government is preparing to table a new Nuclear Energy Act that will pave the way for the country to adopt nuclear power into the energy mix by 2028.
The Act could be tabled in Parliament by next year, said Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Maximus Ongkili. However, Ongkili stressed that planning for nuclear power is still at a very early stage and not high on the ministry’s list of priorities.
“The original plan was to have nuclear make up 10% of generation capacity. This would diversify our energy sources. But since the unfortunate incident at Fukushima, [Japan], we are taking more time to study it,” Ongkili told reporters on the sidelines of the Fifth Korea-Malaysia Energy Cooperation Workshop here today.
The low commodity prices have also reduced the incentive to develop the nuclear programme swiftly. Not only are oil and gas prices low, coal is also at record low prices, noted Ongkili.
According to the 2014 Energy Sector Outlook report by the Energy Commission, there are plans to introduce nuclear power to the national grid by 2024. Ongkili said however, that deadline has since moved to 2028, noting that 13 years are plenty of time to study and develop a nuclear programme.
Normally, it takes 10 years to develop a nuclear power plant. “Dealing with the nuclear waste is one of the main issues we need to think about,” he added.For now, the government will place more focus on the renewable energy sector, which is targeted to make up 23% of generation capacity by 2020, said the minister.
Apart from the Nuclear Energy Act, Ongkili said the government plans to set up the institutional infrastructure necessary for the nuclear programme.
Environmental and safety issues aside, getting public support for a nuclear programme might be a challenge going forward, especially if it is more expensive than conventional power sources.
After all, with the removal of electricity subsidies and the introduction of the fuel cost pass-through mechanism, consumers will bear the full brunt of higher generation costs. Also not helping the case for nuclear power is the fact that Malaysia is able to produce its own natural gas.
The financial folly of South Africa’s nuclear power plan
Why South Africa should not build eight new nuclear power stations, Mail &Guardian, 05 NOV 2015 HARTMUT WINKLER South Africa has plans to build new power stations despite many calling for no nuclear energy in the country. t has been an eventful year in South Africa, characterised by power cuts, parliamentary confrontations about wasteful expenditure and student fee protests. There has, however, been a massive elephant in the room that has impacted all these issues but enjoyed surprisingly scarce attention. The idea, vigorously driven by government, is for the country to build nuclear plants with an expected price tag of one trillion rand.
This equates to 4 000 times the controversial costs to upgrade President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence and 400 times the shortfall the tertiary education sector will experience in 2016 because of the freeze in university fee increases………
In South Africa too the need for the continued inclusion of nuclear power in the energy mix was being reexamined. Continue reading
Drastic risks to UK’s security, jobs, in the Hinkley Point C boondoggle
It is clear that this unprecedented handover of power and money to Chinese hands will prompt a justified reaction from those thousands of UK steel workers whose jobs are about to disappear due in part to the global dumping of steel by China.
Will the remnants of the steel industry and its workers see a fraction of the £76 billion to be spent by the Chancellor on his nuclear boondoggle? Not likely.
The nuclear option can and has been criticised in so many ways that the UK Government should think long and hard before proceeding with what many UK citizens will rightly consider an unpatriotic and unethical waste of money. It may even constitute a real and potent danger to our current lifestyle in Britain.
The Hinkley Point C boondoggle: a dangerous waste of money http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/the-hinkley-point-c-boondoggle-a-dangerous-waste-of-money-57108 By Alex Russell and Peter Strachan on 2 November 2015 The UK Government’s pursuit of a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point C represents not just a colossal waste of money, but could also be real danger to the UK’s national security, write Professors Alex Russell and Peter Strachan of Robert Gordon University. “Let us hope that the Prime Minister and Chancellor’s actions do not lead to the radicalisation of unemployed steel workers who are now being joined by unemployed renewable industry personnel.”
The Conservative government, arguably, has completely lost the plot in continuing to pursue its so called energy policy that depends so heavily on building a new fleet of nuclear power stations to keep the lights on in Britain. The government want to have 16 GW of new nuclear power stations built in the UK all using EDF’s troubled Generation-III design, of which Hinkley Point C (3.2 GW) is only the first installment.
With this project is George Osborne seeking an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the first Chancellor of the Exchequer to commission the world’s most expensive nuclear power station? The Chancellor says the project represents good value for money. But the facts suggest otherwise. Further, and with the recent signing of a new nuclear accord as part of the State Visit of the President of China, not enough attention appears to have been given to national security issues.
Economic madness All in all, Hinkley Point C will cost an estimated £76 billion, for up to 3.2 GW of new generation capacity. Building costs are now estimated by EDF, the owner, at £24.5 billion. As a sobering thought, even offshore wind looks cheap when compared to the full commercial costs of this project.
This apparent blank cheque for new nuclear build is all the more surprising coming at a time when the Treasury has slashed support for onshore wind and solar power and other low carbon projects. Continue reading
USA’s budgetary tug of war between nuclear weapons and radioactive trash clean-up
The clean-up work, which includes a mixture of radioactive and chemical wastes, “is the largest environmental remediation ever undertaken by mankind and the most technically challenging”
One reason for the Energy Department’s struggles is a budgetary tug of war within the agency. One part of the department maintains the US’s atomic arsenal, and another is in charge of cleaning up the contamination from nuclear work. Funds for both come from the same pot, and in a shift from the 1990s, an increasing portion is going towards ensuring the readiness of the weapons arsenal
Toxic remnants of US nuclear program http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/toxic-remnants-of-us-nuclear-program/story-fnay3ubk-1227591352430m JOHN R. EMSHWILLER, GARY FIELDS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NOVEMBER 03, 2015
About 70km southeast of San Francisco, in an 320ha mini-city built to create atomic bombs, there’s a contaminated building slated for eventual demolition.
Mark Costella, a facilities manager at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, would prefer to tear down the structure, but doesn’t have the tens of millions of dollars needed.
Instead, he is spending $US500,000 ($700,000) to fix the roof.
These are the kinds of contradictions at the heart of the complicated, expensive and struggling effort to clean up the US’s 70-year-old nuclear weapons program.
The Energy Department’s clean-up operation is wrestling with reduced budgets, tens of billions of dollars in ballooning cost estimates and 2700 structures on its to-do list. Officials said more than 350 additional unneeded facilities controlled by other programs in the Energy Department are probably eligible for transfer to the clean-up operation. But that office said its funds were limited and it was not accepting any more projects, no matter their significance.
That means some of the nation’s toughest threats are now on the backburner, possibly for decades, while relatively low-priority work moves forward.
Dirty and decaying structures where weapons work and other nuclear activities were carried out — some the size of several football fields and old enough to qualify for Social Security — are clustered in federal sites from South Carolina to California. Some are within easy walking distance of people’s homes. Continue reading
What’s happening? USA’s weapons program and nuclear waste clean-up funds come from the same kitty!
Q&A: What’s Next for America’s Nuclear-Waste Clean-Up, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/02/qa-whats-next-for-americas-nuclear-waste-clean-up/ WSJ, By GARY FIELDS and JOHN R. EMSHWILLER
The Senate and House are expected as early as this week to take up the defense authorization bill President Barack Obama vetoed last month and try to push a version of it through again. Buried in the bill is a proposal that could dramatically re-order nuclear-weapons clean-up activities, a decades-long effort that is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars
The proposal is five paragraphs, barely noticeable in the 1,000-plus-page document. But, if implemented, its effects could be felt in communities around the country. Here’s a Q&A:
What is the problem?
Creating America’s nuclear arsenal left thousands of structures around the U.S. tainted with radioactive and chemical contamination. Over the past quarter century, the Energy Department clean-up office has disposed of about 2,800 of them with a like number still to do. However, for various reasons some of the dirtiest and most dangerous buildings aren’t yet on that clean-up list and might not be added for decades.
How many structures are in this sort of limbo?
An Energy Department inspector general’s report this year put the number at over 350. Among them is Alpha 5 in Tennessee. Larger than ten football fields, it produced uranium for the Hiroshima bomb but is now a decaying structure of radioactive and chemical contamination where “the speed of degradation is far outpacing” maintenance funding, said an Energy Department report.
Why aren’t these places getting addressed?
The issue, as with many things, is money. The Energy Department’s money for the weapons program and the clean-up effort come from the same the same kitty. A quarter century ago, with the end of the Cold War, more money for the first time started flowing into clean-up than weapons. In recent years that situation has reversed. Plus, much of the money available to the clean-up operation is committed at various sites and there isn’t enough money to take to address some of these other buildings–even if they are more in need of attention than some of the structures being dealt with.
What are Congress and the administration doing?
The energy secretary has appointed a working group to review clean-up priorities. The provision in the vetoed defense bill would require buildings such as Alpha 5 to be added to the clean-up operation within three years—a timetable the Obama administration says isn’t possible.
Strong vote by Scottish Labour against renewal of trident nuclear missile system
Scottish Labour votes against renewal of Trident nuclear weapon system, Ft.com Mure Dickie in Perth, 1 Nov 15 Scottish Labour has voted emphatically against renewing the Trident nuclear weapon system, offering a major boost to supporters of unilateral disarmament in the UK party, including its leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Party members and union delegates to a conference in Perth both voted by 70 per cent to 30 to abandon plans to maintain a “massively expensive” and “militarily useless” submarine-launched ballistic nuclear missile system.
Ian Murray, Labour’s only MP in Scotland and a member of the UK shadow cabinet, said the more than two-thirds majority meant disarmament was now formal policy for the Scottish party. That would mean it must be considered by UK Labour policy planners and could be included as part of Labour’s platform for the Scottish parliamentary elections next May. “It should be in the manifesto,” Mr Murray said.
The vote highlights uncertainty about Labour’s policy on Trident since Mr Corbyn’s election and will be portrayed by the Scottish National party as evidence of deep divisions between him and the UK party’s mainstream.
But many Scottish Labour members praised the decision of Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish party’s new leader and an opponent of unilateral disarmament, to allow delegates to choose to debate and vote on Trident and other issues.
The vote came after a vigorous and often passionate debate in which opponents of Trident renewal stressed what many called the fundamental immorality of nuclear weapons while supporters focused on the threat that scrapping them would pose to thousands of well-paid jobs.
Union representatives were divided on whether to back Trident renewal, with many fearing that promised defence industry diversification would not deliver equivalent employment for highly skilled workers…….. delegate Stephen Low said scrapping nuclear weapons would free money to be spent in more economically productive ways.
“I’d rather have pie in the sky on my horizon than a mushroom cloud,” Mr Low said. “You get a lot of bang for your buck with Trident . . . but you don’t get that many jobs.”
Defence policy is decided by the UK party, but Bill Butler, a candidate for the party in next May’s Scottish parliamentary election, said it could help build momentum for nuclear disarmament……..http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fb106dec-809b-11e5-84dc-31c8b3b18e5f.html#axzz3qGtjP1GJ
1 This Month
22 June – Virtual Event –Climate Change: New Data, New Debate
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25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
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Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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