Nuclear lobby downplays the real dangers
Nuclear Energy White Knight or Dangerous Fantasy?
Solve Climate Aug 17th, 2009
In their current enthusiasm for nuclear energy, boosters have tended to overlook or dismissed the dark days of nuclear’s more recent past.
For example, British scientist James Lovelock has dismissed the Three Mile Island accident as a “a joke.” Continue reading
Rebranding nuclear waste fools nobody
Greenpeace 4 August 09
Nuclear waste has undergone an image makeover recently. Indeed, the industry is working hard to ensure that the most dangerous kind of nuclear waste isn’t even called nuclear waste any more. It’s now called ‘spent fuel’.
Sounds much friendlier, doesn’t it? Doesn’t make all the nasty problems associated with the nuclear waste that comes out of reactors disappear but giving something horrible a nice name helps to stop people thinking about those nasty problems. It why we call civilians killed in wars ‘collateral damage’ and why genocide gets called ‘ethnic cleansing’.
The issue of we do with this nuclear waste – sorry, spent fuel – has also had a splash of greenwash. There’s been a big push to rebrand nuclear waste reprocessing as recycling. We don’t reprocess nuclear waste any more – we ‘recycle spent fuel’. Isn’t that nice? Sounds green and environmentally friendly, doesn’t it? Nothing in the actual process has changed and we’re still left with the dangerous by-products but it sounds so much better.
So, now nuclear power has successfully rebadged* itself as not-nasty and environmentally friendly, surely it’s been warmly accepted as a renewable energy source?
The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) will not back programmes to develop nuclear energy due to the waste it produces and the risks it presents […] ‘Irena will not support nuclear energy programmes because it’s a long complicated process, it produces waste and is relatively risky,’ Helene Pelosse, director general of Irena, told Reuters in a telephone interview from the French Alps.
POWER POLITICS: West Virginia redefines dirty energy as “alternative”
POWER POLITICS: West Virginia redefines dirty energy as “alternative” FACING SOUTH 14 July 09 “………. In the recent legislative session, Gov. Joe Manchin (D) (in photo at right) championed and state lawmakers approved an energy portfolio standard bill requiring 25% of generation to come from “alternative and renewable” sources by 2025. But the new standard, which goes into effect this month, has defined “alternative” to include……………………… nuclear power, which releases radioactive pollution to the environment and also produces dangerous waste products.
The West Virginia Environmental Council head lobbyist Donald S. Garvin Jr. blasted the new standard in an op-ed:
No other state includes natural gas as a source of “alternative” energy. Nuclear energy is included by only a few, and they specify “advanced generation” nuclear facilities.
ISS – POWER POLITICS: West Virginia redefines dirty energy as “alternative”
Exxon still aids denialist lobby
Exxon still aids denialist lobby Sydney Morning Herald David Adam in London July 3, 2009
THE world’s largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question global warming, despite its public pledge to cut support for climate change denial.Company records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to such lobby groups last year. These include the National Centre for Policy Analysis in Dallas, which received $75,000, and the Heritage Foundation in Washington, which received $50,000……………………….According to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, the NCPA and Heritage Foundation have published “misleading and inaccurate information about climate change”…………………………The Heritage Foundation’s December “web memo” said: “Growing scientific evidence casts doubt on whether global warming constitutes a threat, including the fact that 2008 is about to go into the books as a cooler year than 2007.”……………………….Mr Ward said: “ExxonMobil has been briefing journalists for three years that they were going to stop funding these groups [but] … they are still doing it. If [it] wants to fund climate change denial then it should be upfront about it and not tell people it has stopped.”
Cheerleaders’ for nuclear energy ignore facts
‘Cheerleaders’ for nuclear energy ignore facts
STAR-TRIBUNE Karen B. Maute
June 24, 2009The Virginia Uranium Inc. oligarchy continues to ignore and minimize the negative impacts of uranium mining and milling.
Equally disturbing is this industry’s ongoing attempts to erode our civil rights and the legislators who are allowing this travesty.
Virginia Uranium has engaged a host of self-serving experts and VUI family members to write letters of support on their behalf.
Their letters speak, in generalities, of nuclear power and avoid mention of the negative impacts of uranium mining and milling on a community, region and state.
The Nuclear Energy Institute has joined the metastasizing Virginia Uranium Inc. supporters.
NEI project manager Suzanne Phelps weighs in with more of the same……………..She neglects to mention the radioactive/hazardous wastes that are generated and stored for thousands of years as a result of mining, milling and nuclear power generation.
She also omits information regarding the cost of building a reactor and the tax dollars that subsidize, monitor and clean up after the industry.
We do not appreciate cheerleaders for nuclear energy. We crave factual information regarding mining and milling of uranium.
So-called “CLEAN” nuclear energy
Ohio Governor, Duke Power, UniStar, USEC, and France merge to build “clean energy park” at DOE site
Beyond Nuclear 20 June 09 Background: An alliance involving Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, Duke Power company, United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), UniStar Nuclear Energy, and France’s troubled nuclear power giant AREVA is being forged to build a new 1600 megawatt Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) at the now closed atomic bomb and nuclear fuel enrichment factory site in Piketon, Ohio. The proposed site is at the U.S. Department of Energy’s old Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant which was leased to USEC for the enrichment of uranium. USEC ceased operations in May 2001. The Piketon site is also the USEC pilot project for new uranium enrichment technology with the construction of the American Centrifuge Demonstration Facility.
Our View: There is nothing “clean” about this proposed first-of-a-kind nuclear energy park for the enrichment of nuclear fuel alongside a new nuclear power plant including the secret dumping of radioactive contamination from the Cold War Piketon bomb factory. The Piketon facility is still the focus of more than $100 million in long overdue cleanup money from industrial contamination dating back to the bomb factory’s opening in 1952. The construction of a new uranium enrichment and now a new power reactor will likely result in widening contamination and divert vital resources from truly clean renewable energy resources and energy efficiency.
AREVA and the nuclear illusion
Areva’s difficulties and the nuclear illusion
The View From Brittany June 3 2009Areva is no ordinary company. It is the nuclear arm of the French state, in charge with the building and the supplying of French nuclear plants. Even though it is technically a corporation, it is owned by the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique, a public agency whose director is appointed by the French President who has occasionally sold nuclear plants on its behalf.
Areva, supposedly the “jewel” of the French industry is in real troubles. Even though it sells more than ever, its benefits have plummeted and it has been forced to cancel a mining project in Canada. According to the “Réseau Sortir du Nucléaire”, Areva needs 3 billions euros, mostly because of the costly failure the Olkiluoto EPR has proven to be. The Finnish third generation nuclear plant, which should have been put online this year has been delayed due to technical difficulties and costs are sky-rocketing – 5.4 billions instead of the original 3 billions. Moreover, South Africa has recently cancelled the building of 12 nuclear plants while the “sells” announced by the French presidency (4 plants in Italy and 2 in India) remain virtual – nobody know how they are going to be funded.
Areva is presently clamouring for public funds. It will probably get them, no matter how loud we, and others, protest. France, trapped as it is by its own nuclear strategy, simply cannot afford to lose the control of its uranium supply.
That is hardly the whole story, however. What this affair highlight is how problematic is nuclear power at the eve of catabolic collapse. A nuclear plant is very costly and takes a long time to build. Besides, it is of absolutely no use as long as it is not completed. The end result is that to launch a nuclear program you have to immobilize a lot of capital – human, natural and financial – without any hope of anything looking like a return of investment for quite a long time……………………Areva’s difficulties pose, however, another, often overlooked question : what will nuclear plants will become after the nuclear industry fails. In a number of countries, it may happen sooner than one thinks……………….And then what ?
Dismantling a nuclear plant and disposing of the wastes are very costly operation. Will the impoverished societies of forty years from now be able to afford them ? One can seriously doubt it. In fact, in a situation of worsening energy and capital shortage, one can expect them to operate their ageing nuclear plants to very end – the way the Ukrainian government did with Chernobyl – then let them decay away.
The result, needless to say, won’t be good for the neighbourhood,……………. This, by the way, can have interesting geopolitical consequences in countries such as France which are littered with nuclear plants.
The activists who, in the late seventies, have made sure no nuclear plant would ever be built in Brittany may have won their far descendants more than what they thought.
http://theviewfrombrittany.blogspot.com/2009/06/arevas-difficulties-and-nuclear.html
Is the Nuclear Renaissance Fizzling?
May 29, 2009, Is the Nuclear Renaissance Fizzling?
The New York Times By James Kanter
“……………. long-standing problems with the technology still could lead to canceled orders and renewed public opposition. One problem is what to do with the highly dangerous waste produced by reactors. Currently waste is stored above ground in pools of water or in vast dry casks, but neither of those methods is regarded as adequate over the long term……………..…………..Another recurring problem is the high up-front price tag of nuclear technology compared with other sources of energy. Utilities were already canceling nuclear power plants before the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The reason? Huge cost overruns………..
…….nuclear’s difficult history with financing could be repeating itself, as the first two reactors that were meant to lead a comeback have been delayed and are running over-budget.
And even if stars do align for nuclear, it still could take some time for it to play a significant role in lowering greenhouse gas levels,
Is the Nuclear Renaissance Fizzling? – Green Inc. Blog – NYTimes.com
Clean green nuclear war machine
Clean green nuclear war machine
Examiner.com, by Ann Garrison 12 May 09
Most world class planet and people trashers, including Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Peabody Coal, Dupont, Dow Chemical, Coca Cola, Barrick Gold, Monsanto, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Eison, and, even Halliburton, have given their corporate images the new Green Brand.
And, most belong to the globally sociopathic World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the Wildlife Habitat Council, a non-profit conglomerate devoted to “stewarding” large tracts of land for the corporations, after getting rid of the people in the name of the critters.
Even the Pentagon has developed a Green Brand, and its own Green Brand press clips, as has Lockheed Martin., on its Going Green web page. Lockheed-Martin manufactures nearly all the U.S. military’s jet fighter bombers, including the trillion $ fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, wired to deliver a larger “payload,” meaning more bombs, conventional or nuclear, than the F-22 or other combat planes sent out to clear the air space ahead of it………………………
…………….. Wikipedia’s list of nuclear submarines at the bottom of the ocean, and other nuclear sub accidents, including one, in my hometown of origin, Bremerton, Washington, home of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in 1983, and, another in my current hometown, San Francisco, where the nuclear-powered U.S.S. Guitarro sank to the bottom of San Francisco Bay, off Mare Island, in 1969.
http://www.examiner.com/x-8257-SF-Energy-Policy-Examiner~y2009m5d12-Clean-green-war-machines
An open, honest nuclear debate
An open, honest nuclear debate Alberta’s ‘public consultation’ on nuclear power seems designed to quash any opposition to the plan canada.com By Douglas Roche, 19 May 2009
The consultation process launched by the Alberta government to determine if a nuclear power plant should be built in the Peace River area appears designed to dampen any opposition to the plan.
The Alberta nuclear consultation survey is cleverly formulated to intimidate all those without a scientific background, for example, asking the responders if they can explain the details of Alberta’s electricity system or nuclear energy to others. The responder is asked to affirm whether or not: “I was very familiar with the history of nuclear use in Canada.” In other words, if you don’t have a technical background, is your opinion worth much? Why bother to proceed if you’re not an expert?………..
……………………The report of the nuclear power expert panel and the government’s subsequent workbook downplay the risk of nuclear accidents, the staggering costs to taxpayers of nuclear power, the link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and the immense new potential of alternate sources of energy……………………………
A new study by the Pembina Institute found Alberta could go from producing more than 70 per cent of its electricity from coal to 70 per cent from clean energy sources in just 20 years, based on existing technology and rates of deployment already seen in other jurisdictions.
Using proven renewable energy technologies, combined with industrial co-generation and a serious commitment to improved consumption efficiency, Alberta could satisfy its growing demand for power while dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful environmental impacts……………..
……………..For every argument that nuclear power is entering a “renaissance,” there is another that it is headed for obsolescence.
Biased pro-nuclear report is challenged
Full of problems or ripe with promise?
Meridian Booster By Graham Mason 14 May 09
With the Uranium Development Partnership report being presented to the public next month there is a question over how much the environment was taken into consideration in its glowing conclusions.
The report, titled Capturing the Full Potential of the Uranium Value Chain in Saskatchewan, was released March 31.
The nuclear and uranium industry were well represented on the 12-person panel with Duncan Hawthorne, president and CEO of Bruce Power, Armand Laferrere, president and CEO of Areva Canada, and Jerry Grandey, president and CEO of Cameco Corporation. ……………
……………Dr. Patrick Moore founding member of Greenpeace, was the only member to identify himself as an environmentalist.
In a statement before a U.S. congressional committee in Apr. 2005, he described his views on nuclear power generation where he described himself as an ‘environmental moderate.’
………………………………The Saskatchewan Environmental Society couldn’t disagree more in a recent nuclear pamphlet.
“The real solutions to climate change lie in the area of energy efficiency and renewable energy,” said the report. “If we were to provide the same level of support for these options as we have done for the nuclear industry, we could move much faster into the sustainable, low-carbon energy economy which is where the future lies.
The report argues nuclear is not an alternative to fossil-fuelled plants, rather they are both part of an environmentally unsustainable approach to the electricity system.
Coxworth questions whether Moore qualifies to be the environmental conscience of the report.
“Patrick Moore … is a paid consultant to the nuclear industry,” said Coxworth. “Labelling him by his past Greenpeace involvement would be somewhat analogous to identifying me solely by the fact that long ago I worked for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.”
“Doubtless some of the other partnership members have taken some environmental classes as part of their technical education.”
Local public consultations are at Lakeland College on June 10, the Don Ross Centre in North Battleford on June 11 http://www.meridianbooster.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1566432
Nuclear is not the answer
Nuclear is not the answer
“………………………………….To forestall the reopening of the BNPP, Greenpeace has brought in Yves Marignac, an international consultant on nuclear and energy issues, who is executive director of WISE-Paris, an organization dedicated to “promoting independent information and well-informed decision-making” regarding the use of nuclear energy for power generation…………………………….A mathematician by training, Marignac says he has been going around the world talking about the French “experience” with nuclear energy because French President Nicholas Sarkozy “has been aggressively promoting the French nuclear industry,” convincing governments in the developing world to invest in nuclear power with the help of French-built machinery and expertise……………………………
France is extraordinarily committed to nuclear power generation, with 50 reactors around the country, and some still under construction. But a report on the French nuclear industry, published by Global Chance, an association that includes among its members several of France’s independent nuclear experts, shows that “France’s nuclear promises are a dangerous illusion … locked into nuclear power in a way that presents an obstacle to the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.”
As Marignac puts it, the French nuclear power industry “hasn’t delivered even against its own set targets.”………….
………..Marignac has many tables and charts to show how power generated by nuclear plants provides only a small percentile of the total energy required by the French people, mainly because so much of this demand is created by reliance on gasoline……………………………
BUT the main drawback to an energy program dependent on nuclear power, says Marignac, is that “it approaches the problem from the wrong end.”
In his view, any long-term solution to cut dependence on fossil fuels must be addressed from the “demand side,” that is, reducing dependence on electricity and fuel by cutting down electricity use. Not only is nuclear power dangerous, expensive and wrought with untold health and security issues, it ultimately will not bring an end to the threat of climate change. As France has shown, even with 50 nuclear power plants, the French remain as dependent on fossil fuels as ever.
Nuclear is not the answer – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
Nuclear power still has the problems that led to a moratorium
Nuclear power still has the problems that led to a moratorium
: April 20, 2009 The Minnesota Senate recently approved an amendment to overturn the state’s moratorium on new nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, the nuclear industry has launched a savvy national campaign to convince citizens that conventional nuclear power is a silver-bullet solution to our energy and climate crisis.
Even the best PR campaign can’t change the reality that nuclear power remains as uneconomical and environmentally unsafe as it was 40 years ago. Conventional nuclear technology is expensive, creates few new jobs and poses long-term environmental hazards. It is a costly distraction from real energy solutions.
The current moratorium was put into place in 1994 because there was no permanent national solution to the problem of how to solve nuclear waste. That problem persists today……………………………… NASA’s top climate scientist James Hansen recently reported, even with the highest levels of priority funding, fourth-generation reactors will not be ready for deployment for 10 to 15 years. We need global warming solutions much sooner. The nuclear moratorium protects us against the development of new power plants based on outdated and risky technology.
In the midst of an international economic crisis, we should also be wary of the economic costs of nuclear power. New nuclear power is only cost effective with massive taxpayer subsidies. Current federal law caps the liability claims that can arise from nuclear accidents and passes that liability on to taxpayers. We have already shelled out billions of dollars to insure commercial nuclear reactors; we shouldn’t be forced to shell out billions more…….
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Green Party leader condemns Sask. nuclear report
Green Party leader condemns Sask. nuclear report By Kerry Benjoe, Leader-Post April 17, 2009
REGINA — The leaders of the provincial and federal Green Party slammed the report compiled by the Uranium Development Partnership on Friday.
Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, called the report a sham. She said Green Party members from around the world oppose the development of nuclear power.
“The industry doesn’t make sense. It will never survive without tremendous government subsidies,” said May.
She said speaking as a federal leader, this is something that Saskatchewan people should go into with their eyes wide open……………………”The so-called environmental rep is a paid lobbyist for nuclear industry. This is a sham. This is not the report on which a government should base decisions,” said May. “This is the equivalent of a report from lobbyists telling government how they want them to spend their money.”
Pro nukes would prefer nicer name for depleted uranium’s risk
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1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
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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