Don’t be sucked in by ‘spin’ promoting thorium nuclear reactors
thorium is merely a way of deflecting attention and criticism from the dangers of the uranium fuel cycle and excusing the pumping of more money into the industry….. the nuclear industry itself is also sceptical
‘ these arereally U-233 reactors,’ This isotope is more hazardous than the U-235 used in conventional reactors, he adds, because it produces U-232 as a side effect (half life: 160,000 years), on top of familiar fission by-products
Don’t believe the spin on thorium being a ‘greener’ nuclear option Ecologist, Eifion Rees 23rd June, 2011 It produces less radioactive waste and more power than uranium but the UK would be making a mistake in looking to it as a ’greener’ fuel. The Ecologist reports….. nuclear radiologist Peter Karamoskos, of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), says the world shouldn’t hold its breath.
‘Without exception, [thorium reactors] have never been commercially viable, nor do any of the intended new designs even remotely seem to be viable. Like all nuclear power production they rely on extensive taxpayer subsidies; the only difference is that with thorium and other breeder reactors these are of an order of magnitude greater, which is why no government has ever continued their funding.’ Continue reading
In Japan, (as in other countries) nuclear lobby cons children
At left is an example of AREVA’s spin to children in Australia
‘Alice in Wonderland’ was used to convince children in Japan nuclear power is safe (PHOTO & VIDEO) http://enenews.com/alice-wonderland-convince-children-japan-nuclear-power-safe-photo-video (VIDEO) August 8th, 2012 By ENENews
Speaker: Charles Ferguson, President, Federation of American Scientists Stories have come out that the government was promoting nuclear power so much that they were using cartoon characters, they were using Alice in Wonderland to convince school children nuclear power is incredibly safe. They weren’t showing the other side of the story adequately enough. It was an unbalanced presentation.
The New York Times’ Norimitsu Onishi on the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme: The New York Times’ Norimitsu Onishi on the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme:
Source: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
Near a nuclear power plant facing the Sea of Japan, a series of exhibitions in a large public relations building here extols the virtues of the energy source with some help from “Alice in Wonderland.”
“It’s terrible, just terrible,” the White Rabbit says in the first exhibit. “We’re running out of energy, Alice.”
A Dodo robot figure, swiveling to address Alice and the visitors to the building, declares that there is an “ace” form of energy called nuclear power. It is clean, safe and renewable if you reprocess uranium and plutonium, the Dodo says.
“Wow, you can even do that!” Alice says of nuclear power. “You could say that it’s optimal for resource-poor Japan!”
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to woo indigenous peoples with education money
This funding opportunity is open to institutions of higher education; Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions; Hispanic-serving Institutions; Historically Black Colleges and Universities; and Tribally-Controlled Colleges and Universities; non-profits.
$4.7 Million Funding Available for Nuclear Education Curricula Development Power Industry News, WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced that it expects to award discretionary grant for the development of nuclear education curricula promoting common defense and security; and protecting the environment. Continue reading
Nuclear and fossil fuel lobbies wage expensive war against renewable energy
Renewable Energy Under Siege In The USA http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3326 by Energy Matters, 7 Aug 12, Renewable energy faces opposition from cashed-up fossil fuel supporters in Australia; but it’s nothing compared to what is going on in the USA at the moment. While solar energy, wind power and other clean energy sources have always hit opposition in the USA, the smearing has hit new levels as the nation prepares to vote and crucial renewable energy support mechanisms are under review.
The Sierra Club has released a report revealing how the fossil fuel industry is using tactics such as financial contributions to political campaigns, fake think tanks and faux intellectuals to attack renewable energy in order to alter public opinion and the views of lawmakers. ”From California to Pennsylvania, clean energy jobs are under attack by fossil fuel interest groups – yet many in Congress are sitting on their hands while tens of thousands of American jobs hang in the balance,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.
The Sierra Club’s report claims the oil and gas industry spent more than $146 million on lobbying alone in 2011 and organizations such as the Manhattan Institute and the Heartland Institute that defend oil subsidies while attacking renewable energy have received in excess of $600,000 each since 1998 from the oil company Exxon. The report states the oil and gas industry contributed to 88 percent of all members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 89% of Senators in the 2010 election cycle.
Quoting data from Open Secrets; ConocoPhillips spent $20.5 million on lobbying last year and Royal Dutch Shell, $14.79 million. Add to those figures spending by ExxonMobil, Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute, and Koch Industries and the grand total comes to more than $74 million in 2011.
The report comes at a crucial time as a crucial element of support for wind energy – the Production Tax Credit (PTC) – may be lost at the end of this year. The PTC helps support the more than 75,000 jobs in the wind industry and many as half those jobs could be lost if it is not renewed.
The report, titled “Clean Energy Under Siege – Following the Money Trail Behind the Attack on Renewable Energy”, can be viewed in full here (PDF).
Big oil companies fight renewable energy through “think tanks”
rather than providing the public with education for the greater good, faux “think tanks” like Manhattan Institute and the Heartland Institute masquerade as “pro-free market” organizations yet they defend oil subsidies and attack renewable energy support. The organizations are funded by fossil fuel companies like Exxon,
New report outlines coordinated attacks by big oil on renewable energy Examiner, AUGUST 2, 2012 BY: ALICIA BAYER A new report released today by the Sierra Clubshows that over the past decade the fossil fuel industry and its well-funded backers have mounted a coordinated campaign to discredit renewable energy and hinder its growth. Continue reading
That magic phrase again – Fukushima – “just a SPEED HUMP”
Report: Fukushima a “Speed Bump” on the Road to Massive Nuclear Power Expansion IEEE Spectrum BY: DAVE LEVITAN, JULY 26, 2012 “….. According to the UN’s Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear power will expand between 44 and 99 percent by 2035, with a total added capacity between 165 and 371 gigawatts.
To be sure, some countries, notably Germany, which has pledged to shut down all of its 17 reactors by 2022, are headed in the opposite direction. Even if they follow through, however, this might not make a dent in the industry overall growth. The report, known informally as
the Red Book, predicts nuclear will expand between 125 and 185 percent in East Asia, with heavy construction in China, South Korea, India, and Russia. (Notably though, the low end of that prediction does not include the possibility that Japan will fully disavow the use of
nuclear in Fukushima’s wake.)
It seems striking that a disaster that captured the world’s full attention might have so little lingering effect. Gary Dyck, the head of nuclear fuel cycle and materials at IAEA, told Reuters that “we see [Fukushima] as a speed bump. We still expect huge growth in China.” That’s a hell of a speed bump; after Chernobyl in 1986, global nuclear capacity growth did slowfairly dramatically, though this could be attributed to a number of factors.
Climate Science Denial – Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs (IPA)
Science denial tourism, sponsored by the IPA Want to a free trip around Australia, all expenses paid? It’s easy, just publish a book denying climate change (scientific credentials not required) then
contact the Institute of Public Affairs — they’ll take care
everything. Graham Readfearn from DeSmogBlog.com reports on the IPA —
Australia’s home of anti-science……
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/environment/science-denial-tourism-sponsored-by-the-ipa/
Nuclear and fossil fuel lobbies have conned Australia about wind energy
There are two main anti-wind farm groups in Australia busily fomenting anxiety and opposition. One is the Waubra Foundation, a group of mainly wealthy individuals, none of whom live in or near the town of Waubra, near Ballarat. Several of them, NIMBY style, have opposed turbines near their own properties elsewhere. They are led by an unregistered doctor, Sarah Laurie, and a wealthy mining investor, Peter Mitchell who also has connections to the Landscape Guardians. Despite their name, the Guardians have never attempted to guard our landscape from over-zealous residential developers, open cut coal or coal seam gas mining. They only target wind farm developments. All three – Waubra, the Guardians and Mitchell’s mining investment company share a South Melbourne post office box.
Wind turbine syndrome: a classic ‘communicated’ disease https://theconversation.edu.au/wind-turbine-syndrome-a-classic-communicated-disease-8318?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+20+July+2012&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+20+July+2012+CID_be7f8aff1000afd17cabaf558b629431&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Simon+Chapman+investigates At the beginning of this year I started collecting examples of health problems some people were attributing to wind turbine exposure. I had noticed a growing number of such claims on the internet and was curious about how many I could find. Within an hour or two I had found nearly 50 and today the number has grown to an astonishing 155. Continue reading
Japan Atomic Energy board “sanitises” education about nuclear radiation
The editing of the supplementary reader was commissioned to the Japan Atomic Energy Relations Organization, where senior officials of power utilities serve as board members.
Both the supplementary reader and the teacher’s guide tout the benefits of radiation, but neither of them mentions last year’s nuclear disaster and the public’s alarm about high levels of radiation exposure
No well-trodden path for radiation literacy classes in Fukushima schools July 12, 2012 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, by Yasuhito Watanabe and Midori Iki. Schools in Fukushima Prefecture, still reeling from last year’s nuclear disaster, find themselves in uncharted territory with a new addition to their curriculums: radiation literacy classes.
Fukushima’s prefectural board of education ordained that between one and three hours of homeroom activity, or “integrated studies,” be set aside every year for the topic from this academic year through all grades. Continue reading
Integral Fast Reactors – let the public beware of these!
In dispraise of Integral Fast Nuclear Reactors Independent Australia, 5 July 12, Can only nuclear technocrats discuss nuclear issues — leaving the great unwashed out of the debate? Noel Wauchope considers the latest – but not necessarily the greatest – nuclear gizmo — Integral Fast Reactors. “….. It must be reassuring to the nuclear lobby to know that the great unwashed, the hoi polloi, the peasantry, have no idea about the differences between the various types of nuclear reactors now in operation — the Generation 2 and Generation 3 reactors. Let alone the new developing blueprints of Generation IV: Integral Fast Reactors, Lead Cooled Fast Reactors, Molten Salt Reactors, Sodium Cooled Fast reactors, Thorium Liquid Fuel reactors; the peasant mind boggles! And wait, like those old TV commercials – there’s more! – Generation V is now in the minds and on some bits of paper of the nuclear boffins.
Well, the nuclear priesthood is pretty safe in all this. They keep the argument narrowly technical, with pages and pages on the various technicalities of cooling systems, reprocessing of fuel systems, passive safety systems and so on; in other words, they induce in the public a kind of mindless torpor as they dazzle us with science.
At the same time, the nuclear priesthood, like some gifted but autistic child with specialist knowledge in just one area, seems to have little grasp of other issues concerning nuclear power — blinkered as they are in their apparent view that the technicalities are the whole story. This is the case with their latest propaganda for the ‘Integral Fast Reactor’ or IFR.
For instance, they ignore the fact that IFRs needs plutonium or enriched uranium as fuel. So, to have fast reactors, Australia would need to import these, or set up nuclear reprocessing or uranium enrichment here. This would also involve issues such as cost, politics, public opinion, issues concerning our growing renewable energy systems, radioactive waste storage — just to mention some of the more obvious of the considerable obstacles to Australia ever getting fast reactors. Nuclear lobbyists seem naively oblivious to the importance of these factors in the minds of the general public……
The Integral Fast Reactor is, after all, just another type of nuclear reactor — it runs on radioactive fuel, provides heat to make electricity and produces radioactive waste. It also uses reprocessed nuclear wastes for its fuel, therefore nuclear reprocessing plants would be needed. So far, all existing nuclear reprocessing has proved to be an expensive failure. For instance, the USA’s MOX reprocessing fuel plant is still under construction — it has cost billions of dollars, is over budget and also behind schedule. In Japan, the super expensive Monju prototype fast breeder reactor is costing 1,000 times more than conventional reactors to run………
As these fast reactors need to get the weapons grade plutonium and/or enriched uranium, these materials have to be procured from somewhere. The nuclear lobby portrays this as a benefit to the world, by using up the existing plutonium and so on. Now, I don’t know whether they say this out of naiveté or hypocrisy, but the obvious reality is that the old-fashioned Generation 3 and 4 reactors will have to be kept going – or uranium enrichment and reprocessing will have to keep going – to turn out more plutonium, which must then travel to the new IFRs. Of course, all this flies in the face of President Obama’s move to limit nuclear weapons proliferation, the New START treaty with Russia, which depends on confining the spread of uranium enrichment and weapons grade plutonium…….
there’s that final problem of the wastes.
David Biello from the Scientific American comments:
‘Ultimately, however, the core problem may be that such new reactors don’t eliminate the nuclear waste that has piled up, so much as transmute it. Even with a fleet of such fast reactors, nations would nonetheless require an ultimate home for radioactive waste, one reason that a 2010 M.I.T. report on spent nuclear fuel dismissed such fast reactors.’…..
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/environment/in-dispraise-of-integral-fast-nuclear-reactors/
Corporate disinformation about renewable energy
Renewable Energy Versus Industry Groups in Michigan SustainableBusiness.com News http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/23825 By Stephen Lacey, 28 June 12, Michigan is becoming the new ground zero in a disinformation campaign against renewable energy.
In an effort to expand the state’s renewable energy targets, a coalition of environmental groups and local businesses is gathering signatures for a November ballot initiative that would increase Michigan’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to 25% by 2025.
But that’s not sitting well with large power companies and the Chamber of Commerce.
Yesterday, a group backed by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and two of the state’s largest utilities dubbed “Clean Affordable Renewable Energy for Michigan Coalition,” (CARE) rolled out a campaign to stop the ballot initiative before it truly begins.
The group’s messaging, which contradicts real-world experience with renewable energy deployment in Michigan and surrounding states, is typical for the heel-dragging, climate change-denying Chamber of Commerce. Even with the overwhelming positive economic evidence and the diverse range of businesses supporting an increase in renewable energy in the state, the Chamber and its utility allies say they’re ready to put up a big fight.
They’re not fighting with much evidence on their side. Continue reading
Wobbly words from USA, as it has no solution to its nuclear wastes
Solution to nuclear waste remains in limbo, Greenville Online, 20 June 12, “….. The nuclear industry has produced about 65,000 metric tons since its inception, and 2,000 more per year must be stored in deep pools of water and moved above ground to steel containers reinforced with concrete — all at the sites of the country’s 104 nuclear reactors…..
the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future was created and tasked with finding a solution …
In discussions of how to dispose of nuclear waste, terms such as “temporary” and “interim” are defined in timelines extending more than 100 years.
In 1987, Congress dismissed two other options being studied to designate Yucca Mountain as the only site the Department of Energy could consider for a permanent repository. Nevada at the time lacked political clout, and the decision has long been described by the state as the “screw Nevada bill.”
Twenty five years later, the government is back where it started. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, in its long-anticipated report, said recently that just selecting a new site could take as long as 20 years…..
Two years ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a “waste confidence decision” declaring that storage of spent fuel at reactors is safe despite the fact that the country has no place to store it permanently.
The fuel rods must cool in large pools near the reactor for several
years before they can be moved into “dry cask” containers.
Instead, the regulatory commission relies on the notion that a permanent site will be operating by the time it is necessary.
World Health Organisation dancing to nuclear lobby’s tune on Fukushima radiation?
Dr. Caldicott says the WHO only focuses on 
thyroid cancer and ignores all other cancers and other radiation related diseases.
“There is a substantially increased incidence of thyroid tumors among exposed children, up to 50 percent of those tested by ultrasound. But instead of biopsying these tumors, they are ‘following’ them, i.e. doing nothing, which means they are
not being diagnosed and many of these children are therefore destined to die, because almost certainly
many of the tumors will be malignant,” …. She is far from alone in her views.
The Fukushima Battleground Over Science, By Aron Lamm, Epoch Times, 8 June 12, More than a year after the Fukushima nuclear incident, there is still much disagreement about many aspects of its actual consequences. A recent example is a report by the World Health Organization, which estimates radiation doses and cancer risks in the wake of the disaster.
Its findings are being criticized by other medical professionals who use different assumptions and different science, and accuse the WHO of downplaying the gravity of the health risks for people living in the affected area…… Continue reading
The latest dirty lie – gas energy called “clean” and eligible as “renewable”
The EU governments fast one is a clear victory for the European natural gas lobby, according to The Guardian. “The insertion of gas energy as a low-carbon energy into an EU programme follows more [than] 18 months of intensive lobbying by the European gas industry, which is attempting to rebrand itself as a green alternative to nuclear and coal, and as lower cost than renewable forms of power such as wind and sun.”
EU Pulls an €80B Fast One; Natural Gas to be Eligible for Renewable Energy Subsidies http://cleantechnica.com/2012/06/03/eu-pulls-an-e80b-fast-one-natural-gas-to-be-eligible-for-renewable-energy-subsidies/ JUNE 3, 2012 BY ANDREW Clean Technica The power and influence of fossil fuel dollars over politicians and political processes never ceases to amaze. In the latest illustration of just how much sway the fossil fuel lobby has over governments around the world, the European Union (EU) is likely to divert €80 billion of funds earmarked specifically for development of innovative renewable energy sources to the development of natural gas power plants. Continue reading
Nuclear disaster’s effect on humans has been underestimated
WHO statistics and studies on how the Fukushima disaster may have already, and will continue to affect human beings must be re estimated. The outcome based on the new information will obviously be much worse.
Germany’s Solar Success and Fukushima’s Crisis: Intelligent Energy Priorities, HUFFINGTONPOST, Vivian Norris 06/01/2012 “…….Fukushima is far from over, and to emphasize this, new information coming from testimony from Japanese leaders who were making decisions during the early days of the crisis, force us to accept that virtually no one had correct information, no one was in control, and the
situation was far worse than the public was told.
Yet nuclear physicists, engineers and safety specialists were at work on the internet trying to tell anyone who would listen that the situation at Fukushima was bordering on a worldwide catastrophe.
The amounts of radiation which flowed into the Pacific, the weather patterns which carried radioactive particles across the Pacific, and frankly around the world, were far higher than TEPCO admitted. This has led to a mistrust not only of the industry, but of the mainstream media and regulators as the Japanese government appeared to put saving face before informing the public. Continue reading
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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