Biden to Bibi: ‘OK to continue Gaza genocide till after election’
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coaliton, Glen Ellyn IL, 27 Oct 24
On October 14, President Biden sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu giving Israel 30 days to allow more aid of food, water and medicine into Gaza’s 139 square miles being utterly destroyed by Israel for the past year. It’s noteworthy that the 30 day time limit ends 9 days after the US election. Biden’s letter is brilliant politics and grotesque governance. Biden, who has been funding, supporting and enabling the yearlong genocide in Gaza, desperately needs to appear peace loving ahead of the election. He knows a majority of his Democratic voters are horrified by his genocide enabling. They want him to end the so far 50,000 tons of weapons he’s already given Israel to demolish Gaza.
The letter, designed to promote his concern for the devastation he’s enabled, will do nothing to end the genocide in Gaza. Netanyahu has ignored every one of Biden’s pleas for supplying life sustaining aid there. The letter doesn’t even state Biden will cut off aid to Israel. It merely implies that if US demands aren’t met, the US might consider enforcing foreign assistance laws. Those laws forbid the US from sending weapons to any nation committing wholesale destruction of civilian populations. But not one word about actually cutting off those weapons destroying Gaza.
Every day dozens, hundreds, even a thousand or more Palestinians die in Gaza, obliterated by Biden’s 2,000 lb. bombs, or killed more slowly from disease or starvation. Biden does not care. His toothless letter begging for more aid to the 2,300,000 Palestinians will do nothing to alleviate their suffering. But it may mollify his antiwar critics enough to help achieve Democratic victory Election Day.
Win or lose November 5, Biden is unlikely to do anything substantive to end the genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza. It goes against everything he’s believed in and supported about Israeli colonial domination of Palestine for his entire 52 year governmental career. But it will ensure he descends into historical infamy for enabling the worst genocide of the 21st century.
‘You couldn’t make this up’: Expert pans Ontario nuclear option
SMH, By Bianca Hall and Nick O’Malley, October 28, 2024
Ontario subsidises its citizens’ electricity power bills by $7.3 billion a year from general revenue, an international energy expert has said, contradicting the Coalition’s claim that nuclear reactors would drive power prices down in Australia.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has repeatedly cited the Canadian province as a model for cheaper power prices from nuclear.
“In Ontario, that family is paying half of what the family is paying here in Perth for their electricity because of nuclear power,” Dutton said in March. “Why wouldn’t we consider it as a country?”
In July, Dutton said Canadian consumers paid about one-quarter of Australian prices for electricity.
Professor Mark Winfield, an academic from York University in Canada who specialises in energy and environment, on Monday said the reaction among people in Ontario to the comparison had ranged from disbelief to “you couldn’t make this up”.
Ontario embarked on a massive building spree between the 1960s and the 1990s, Winfield told a briefing hosted by the Climate Council and the Smart Energy Council.
In the process, he said, the provincial-owned utility building the generators “effectively bankrupted itself”. About $21 billion in debt had to be stranded to render the successor organisation Ontario Power Generation economically viable.
In 2015, the Canadian government approved a plan to refurbish 10 ageing reactors, but Winfield said the refurbishment program had also been beset by cost blowouts.
“The last one, [in] Darlington, east of Toronto, was supposed to cost $C4 billion and ended up costing $C14 [billion],” Winfield said.
“And that was fairly typical of what we saw, of a cost overrun in the range of about 2.5 times over estimate.”
In Melbourne, Dutton said while he respected new Queensland Premier David Crisafulli’s opposition to nuclear, he would work with “sensible” premiers in Queensland, South Australia and NSW on his plan, if he was elected………………………………………………..
Winfield said household bills were kept artificially low under the Ontario model, despite the high cost of refurbishing ageing nuclear facilities.
“There’s a legacy of that still in the system that we are effectively subsidising electricity bills to the tune of about $C7.3 billion a year out of general revenues. That constitutes most of the provincial deficit; that’s money that otherwise could be going on schools and hospitals.”
Dutton’s comments came as a parliamentary inquiry into the suitability of nuclear power for Australia continued in Canberra. Experts provided evidence on how long it would take to build a nuclear fleet, and the potential cost and impact on energy prices compared with the government’s plan to replace the ageing coal fleet with a system of renewables backed by storage and gas peakers.
……………………………………………………….. In its annual GenCost, CSIRO estimated earlier this year that a single large-scale nuclear reactor in Australia would cost $16 billion and take nearly two decades to build, too late for it to help meet Australia’s international climate change commitments, which requires it to cut emissions 43 per cent by 2030. It found renewables to be the cheapest option for Australia.
Dutton has so far refused to be drawn on the costs of his nuclear policy. Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said the Coalition would release costings before the next federal election, which must be held by May.
O’Brien told this masthead “expert after expert” had provided evidence that nuclear energy placed downward pressure on power prices around the world. ……………. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/you-couldn-t-make-this-up-expert-pans-ontario-nuclear-option-20241028-p5klx1.html
US nuclear regulator kicks off review on Three Mile Island restart
By Laila Kearney, October 26, 2024
- Summary
- Companies
- NRC holds first public meeting on Three Mile Island restart
- Constellation wants to restore Unit 1’s operating license
- NRC requests more emergency, environmental restart plan details
- Watchdog group questions plans, including simulator
NEW YORK, Oct 25 (Reuters) – U.S. nuclear regulators kicked off a long-winding process to consider Constellation Energy’s (CEG.O), opens new tab unprecedented plans to restart its retired Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in an initial public meeting held on Friday.
Constellation, which announced last month that it had signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft that would enable reopening the Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island, made its case before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restore its operating license for the plant.
The company also sought to extend the life of the plant and change its name to the Crane Clean Energy Center.
Three Mile Island, which is located in Pennsylvania on an island in the Susquehanna River, is widely known for the 1979 partial meltdown of its Unit 2 reactor. That unit has been permanently shut and is being decommissioned.
Members of the NRC requested details about the emergency evacuation plans for the restarted plant and information about the commercial deal with Microsoft, while imploring Constellation to quickly work on permitting related to its water use for the plant.
The NRC also raised questions about how the restart of Unit 1 would intersect with the decommissioning of Unit 2, which began last year, nearly 45 years after the partial meltdown.
Utah-based nuclear services company EnergySolutions owns Unit 2 and related infrastructure, while Constellation owns Unit 1 and the site’s land.
Unit 1 shut down due to economic reasons in 2019, some 15 years before the operating license was set to expire. At the time, Constellation said it did not anticipate a restart.
Constellation now expects to restart the 835-megawatt Unit 1 in 2028, delivering power to the grid to offset electricity use by Microsoft’s data center in the region.
A recent jump in U.S. electricity demand, driven in part by Big Tech’s energy-intensive AI data center expansion has led to a revival of the country’s struggling nuclear industry.
No retired reactor has been restarted before. The Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, owned by Holtec, is also in the process of being resurrected.
…………………..The physical work to restore Three Mile Island, which is expected to start in the first quarter of 2025, cost at least $1.6 billion, and could require thousands of workers, still needs licensing modifications and permitting.
Local activists have also vowed to fight the project over safety and environmental concerns, including the storage of nuclear waste on the site.
Scott Portzline, who is with nuclear watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert in Harrisburg, questioned the site’s backup power and criticized the proposed nuclear control room simulator used for training.
“I have a constitutional right to know how my nuclear plants are operating and the utility ought to be able to answer that,” Portzline said during the meeting……….
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the NRC will be required to complete an environmental assessment within the final year of any restart. The plant will require other environmental permits, including ones for air emissions and water pollutants. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-nuclear-regulator-hears-three-mile-island-power-plant-restart-plan-2024-10-25/
Letter laments the unscientific assurances of safety by spokesmen from the nuclear industry.
Dr. Paul Moroz, 25 Oct 24
I am writing about the Deep Geological Registry (DGR) proposed for Teeswater by the NWMO as a way of managing all of Canada’s high-energy nuclear waste. I can no longer remain silent as I have witnessed the reckless way that the NWMO has misinformed the public and municipal leaders on the real potential risks of DGR technology.
I am a Professor of Medicine having taught in Canadian and US medical schools for more than three decades. I have served as an independent reviewer for many, many research proposals for new medications, new surgical procedures, new technologies with the obvious focus being on the evidence-based demonstration of human safety for the proposed intervention.
Having observed for the last two years the public disclosures by the NWMO, I am appalled at their claims of DGR technology as a “settled science” and “best practice” for the management of high-level nuclear waste near human settlements and water-sources. There are currently no functioning DGRs anywhere in the world. One currently being built in Finland is years away from starting up. Also, three test-DGRs done in the last two decades (one in the US and two in Germany) all reportedly leaked or had major problems. The NWMO are simply in no position to call this a “settled science” or “best practice”.
The NWMO may think it is a “settled science” from a geological point of view, but they cannot claim this from a medical or population health perspective at this time. No one can. Yet, NWMO nuclear engineers and physicists claim it is safe for humans; but, where are NWMO’s doctors, professors, population health experts and epidemiologists? They do not have any, as far as I can see.
I contacted Health Canada to ask about DGR safety and they told me they have left this all to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), an offshoot of the nuclear industry. I cannot trust this relationship as a truly independent assessment of something so crucial as the possibility of thousands of years of leaking radiation into our environment. This is just so wrong.
No Canadian or US medical school or medical regulatory board would accept this kind of non-evidence-based, non-independent claim of safety of an unproven technology, I believe. If a surgeon tried to perform a never-done-before surgical procedure without first extensive study, testing and reliable confirmation of testing over time, that surgeon would very quickly lose [his or her] medical license.
Yet, it seems OK for the NWMO to so openly mislead the public and council members with claims of safety when they simply do not know how safe a DGR really is. No one does, since there are no working DGRs anywhere in the World. “Taking a chance” with a million years of decaying high-level nuclear waste in populated farmland and watershed is simply just unacceptable if it can first be tested remotely.
Canada’s first DGR should be done in an area far away from populated farmland and waterways and certainly away from the Great Lakes, the source of water for 40 million people in both Canada and the US. Such a DGR could then be tested for a reasonable period of time before it can be labeled “safe”. I would suggest testing a DGR for at least 100 years. Yes, 100 years is not unreasonable given that DGR radioactivity will be active for an estimated one million years. Only then might we call a DGR “reasonably safe” to nearby humans.
I went to NWMO sponsored DGR public meetings twice, once in Teeswater in 2023 and once in Mildmay in 2024. Opposition voices were not allowed a platform – so much for an open public meeting. No open microphone for questions were allowed and written submitted questions were hand-picked. I submitted questions that were not read out or answered.
On Oct 5, 2024 Protect Our Waterways featured presentations in Teeswater by physicians, nuclear physicists, scientist/broadcaster David Suzuki and a legal scholar, all of whom were never invited to speak at NWMO public meetings. Open minded people should be asking themselves why? All these speakers were against the unproven DGR claims made by NWMO.
I am not anti-nuclear, and I am not even anti DGR technology. But the fashion in which this has been presented by the NWMO is irresponsible and misleading, I believe. No one should accept placing never-before tested DGR technology into populated farmland and cattle country near the Great Lakes, the biggest collection of fresh water in the world. The risks over the course of thousands of years of possible radiation leakage, even a small one, is simply too much for a never tested technology.
Dr. Paul Moroz, MD, MSc, FRCSC, FAAOS,
Southampton, Ontario
Prof of Surgery (part-time), McMaster University,
Faculty of Health Sciences.
Former Prof of Surgery,
University of Hawaii,
John A. Burns School of Medicine.
Wildlife Refuge’s Toxic Past Still A Colorado Concern
A national wildlife refuge that was contaminated by plutonium from the 1950s through the early 1990s is still a health concern for nearby Colorado communities.
Gary Stoller, Forbes, Oct 25, 2024
For many decades, Rocky Flats has been a controversial contaminated site south of Boulder, Colorado, about 20 miles north of Denver. The controversy continues, as nearby communities refuse to further develop the 6,200-acre site that’s now a wildlife refuge with trails for walkers and cyclists.
Rocky Flats, which housed facilities to produce nuclear weapons components from 1952 through the early 1990s, was contaminated by plutonium and other nuclear materials. Cleanup ended in 2006, and, a year later, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the site as the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Federal government officials say the area used for the refuge is safe for human visitors, but neighboring cities Westminster and Broomfield and the town of Superior apparently remain unconvinced.
For many decades, Rocky Flats has been a controversial contaminated site south of Boulder, Colorado, about 20 miles north of Denver. The controversy continues, as nearby communities refuse to further develop the 6,200-acre site that’s now a wildlife refuge with trails for walkers and cyclists.
Rocky Flats, which housed facilities to produce nuclear weapons components from 1952 through the early 1990s, was contaminated by plutonium and other nuclear materials. Cleanup ended in 2006, and, a year later, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the site as the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Federal government officials say the area used for the refuge is safe for human visitors, but neighboring cities Westminster and Broomfield and the town of Superior apparently remain unconvinced.
Last month, Westminster withdrew from an intergovernmental agreement to fund the building of a tunnel and a bridge into the refuge. Such construction would improve access to the refuge — home to more than 200 wildlife species— for hikers, walkers, cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts. Broomfield and Superior had previously withdrawn their support.
The refuge is part of the Rocky Mountain Greenway, a 25-mile trail that reaches from Commerce City, a Denver suburb, into Boulder and Jefferson counties. The trail links Rocky Flats with the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, land outside of downtown Denver that also was cleaned up after contamination from the manufacture of chemical warfare agents, including mustard gas, for World War II.
In a 2006 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said $10 billion had been spent since 1995 to clean up Rocky Flats. The amount of cleanup waste that had to be removed “was equivalent to a 65-story building the length and width of a football field,” the GAO said…………….
The majority of Westminster city councilors said last month they feared foot traffic could stir up plutonium, according to a story published by Colorado Community Media, which has publications in eight Colorado counties. Critics said measurable radioactive materials remain in and around the Rocky Flats site and will remain for thousands of years, the media group reported. https://www.forbes.com/sites/garystoller/2024/10/25/wildlife-refuges-toxic-past-still-a-colorado-concern/
Has Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization earned the public’s trust?
by Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, October 24 2024.
http://www.ccnr.org/NWMO_and_Public_Trust_2024.pdf
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) represents Canada’s nuclear waste producers. For 14 years, NWMO has been searching for a “willing host community” to accept all of Canada’s high-level radioactive waste (used nuclear fuel) for burial in a Deep Geological Repository (DGR). In 2010, NWMO promised “the industry’s plan will only proceed in an area with informed and willing hosts.”
The residents of South Bruce are now voting on whether or not to lock themselves into the NWMO plan. I am deeply disappointed to find that, for more than a dozen years, NWMO has been consistently misleading these residents about the true nature of the hazards from used nuclear fuel. In fact, NWMO has systematically withheld the most relevant scientific information from candidate host communities.
Each candidate community has a Community Liaison Committee (CLC) that meets with NWMO 10 times a year under a program called “Learn More”. Despite more than a hundred meetings over a dozen years, NWMO has never called attention to the dozens of varieties of human-made radioactive materials – the very thing that makes used fuel so dangerous. These toxic materials include radioactive varieties of commonly occurring non-radioactive elements like iodine, cesium , and strontium.
All reactor-created radioactive waste materials are known carcinogens. Most of them are not found in nature. They are particularly dangerous when ingested, inhaled or otherwise absorbed into the body. To get into the environment, they must leak out of the used fuel – something that happens regularly in reactor cooling systems, including the used fuel storage pools.
Does NWMO think that Canadians are not entitled to know about these materials and their dangers to humans and the environment?
When I spoke to the South Bruce Community Liaison Committee (CLC) in 2020, one man who had already served for seven years on the CLC for South Bruce was caught completely off-guard when I spoke about these things.
He said, “You mentioned about radioactive materials. I guess that’s the first I’ve heard of them. There are names I have not heard of before – strontium [radioactive strontium], iodine [radioactive iodine]. That’s the first I’ve heard of it. How are they created, or generated? How do they come about?”
from a South Bruce CLC member, November 4 2020
I was stunned. This man had met with NWMO at least 60 or 70 times to “Learn More”, yet he knew nothing about the nature of these radioactive waste materials that will almost certainly be released into the local environment when six million individual fuel bundles are repackaged for burial. Even tiny cracks or pinholes in the metallic fuel cladding will allow radioactive iodine and cesium to be released in the form of a gaseous vapour that is difficult to contain completely. These gases turn back into a solid on contact with any cool surface.
In particular, radioactive iodine contaminates cattle feed such as hay or alfalfa, and then re-concentrates in the cow’s milk. When children drink that milk, the radioactive iodine concentrates even further in the thyroid gland. The iodine in the thyroid is typically 10,000 times more concentrated than the iodine released in the air. In Belarus, 5000 children had to have their thyroid glands surgically removed as a result of radioactive iodine from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Do the dairy farmers in the South Bruce area not deserve to be informed of such facts?
Radioactive cesium released from Chernobyl contaminated sheep meat in Northern England and Wales for twenty years after the accident. Even today, when hunters kill a wild boar in Germany or Eastern Europe, the meat is unfit for human consumption due to radioactive cesium contamination from Chernobyl. Radioactive cesium concentrates in the soft tissues, hence the meat of farm animals. On the other hand, radioactive strontium goes to the bones, where it can cause bone cancer and/or leukemia.
NWMO has insisted that the used fuel is completely solid, implying that there can be no leakage. On the NWMO web site we are told that, in order to prevent leakage, “the first barrier in the multiple-barrier system is the fuel pellet … a ceramic material, which is baked in a furnace to produce a hard, high-density pellet.”
But NWMO does not reveal that used fuel pellets are always badly cracked and fractured. About 2 percent of the radioactive iodine and cesium vapours have already escaped from the used pellet and are available for immediate release as soon as there is the slightest penetration of the cladding.
Iodine-129 has a half-life of 16 million years, so when it is released into the environment it is there to stay. Cesium-135 has a half-life of 3.5 million years, so it too will be a permanent threat. Cesium-137 has a half-life of only 30 years, so half of it is already gone by the time the used fuel arrives at its final destination, but the amount released into the local environment will stick around for several centuries.
As a science educator, I find NWMO’s failure to highlight these facts unforgivable. They are asking the public to trust them for countless generations to come. I do not believe they have earned that trust.
P.S. Here is a video of my presentation to the residents of Teeswater and South Bruce on October 5, 2024. Other speakers included David Suzuki, Brennain Lloyd of Northwatch, Dale Dewar of IPPNW-Canada, and Theresa McClenaghan of the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM1kfDsS9Uc -a video of the entire event:
Mission Innovation should not send tax-payer money to Bill Gates’ nuclear dream
We cannot trust billionaire philanthropists to lead the way on climate action, Online Opinion, By Noel Wauchope , 16 December 2015 “…….At the opening of the Paris Climate Summit (COP21), with the blessing of the White House, Bill Gates announced the Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEA), with an ambitious goal to deal with climate change. 24 billionaire philanthropists have joined in the BEA. They include Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos.
Simultaneously 19 governments, including the United States, China and India, announce “Mission Innovation”, a project that will involve tax-payer money to explore and invent new ways to develop low carbon energy.
Not surprisingly, the two organisations will work in tandem. The billionaire philanthropists plan a public-private partnership between governments, research institutions, and investors that will focus on new energy methods especially for developing countries……
For a start, this twin project is directed at researching new forms of low carbon energy. A lot of money therefore is to go into trying out new plans, that exist at best, only in blueprint form. Yet already there are in operation large scale and small scale renewable energy projects that could be deployed. In particular, small scale solar energy is very well suited to being deployed in rural India, Africa, and other developing nations, as well as in Australia and other developed nations. It is happening now. Projects such as Barefoot Power have operated for years now, bringing affordable solar power to millions of rural poor in Africa, Asia Pacific, India and the Americas.
The energy need now for poor countries is deployment of existing technologies, not years of research and testing of so far non-existent ones………
- The one and only University that has joined BEA is the University of California, which runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, well known for its nuclear research.
- Bill Gates is co-founder and current Chairman of the innovative nuclear energy company TerraPower Gates has a long term history of enthusiasm for small nuclear power reactors. Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, USA’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission has tightened the rules for new reactors. Fortunately for Mr Gates, China is less fussy about this, so Gates has been able to do a deal with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). TerraPower and CNNC will build the first small 600 MW unit in China, and later deploy these nuclear reactors globally.
I don’t doubt that Bill Gates is sincere in his goal of reducing greenhouse gases. It’s just that I have reservations about Small Nuclear Reactors having any impact on global warming.
If Small Nuclear Reactors did in fact reduce greenhouse gases, the world would need thousands of them to be up and running quickly, but they’re still at the planning stage. They’re supposed to be much safer than conventional nuclear reactors, but still produce radioactive wastes, and are targets for terrorism. Each and every one of them would need 24 hour guarding. It gets expensive………
The term selected “Breakthrough Energy Initiative” gives the game away. For many years now, America’s Breakthrough Institute has lobbied and publicised “new nuclear” as the solution for climate change. The Breakthrough Institute has many well-meaning and enthusiastic environmentalists as members. Its philosophy, expressed in “The Ecomodernist Manifesto” is full of beautiful motherhood statements about climate and environment, and only a few paragraphs about new nuclear technology.
This Manifesto, by the way, appears as a Submission to the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission.
The effect of the Breakthrough Institute, over the years, has been to slow down action on reducing the use of fossil fuels. It has also aimed to discredit renewable energy……..http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17899
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.
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
US authorizes CIA mercenaries to run biometric concentration camps in Gaza Strip
A private intelligence corporation billed as “Uber for war zones” is preparing to create what Israel hopes will be the model for supplanting Hamas rule in Gaza.
Uncaptured Media, Dan Cohen, Oct 22, 2024
The Biden administration has approved the deployment of 1,000 CIA-trained private mercenaries as part of a joint U.S.-Israeli plan to turn Gaza’s apocalyptic rubblescape into a high-tech dystopia.
Starting with Al-Atatra, a village in the northwestern Gaza Strip, the plan calls to build what the Israeli daily Ynet calls “humanitarian bubbles” – turning the remains of villages and neighborhoods into tiny concentration camps cut off from their environs and surrounded and controlled by mercenaries.
This comes as Israel carries out daily massacres and ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, enacting the proposal known as The Generals’ Plan, originally crafted by former national security chief Giora Eiland to turn Gaza into “a place where no human being can exist.”
The plan, approved by White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, calls for the Israeli military to clear out pockets of Palestinian resistance, which it has failed to achieve, demonstrated by the recent killing of Israeli Colonel Ehasn Daksa, the highest ranking officer to lose his life in the year long war.
48 hours after stamping out resistance, they plan to erect separation walls around the neighborhood, forcing its residents, and no one else, to enter and exit using biometric identification under the CIA contractors’ control. Those who do not accept the biometric regime would be refused humanitarian aid…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://open.substack.com/pub/uncaptured/p/us-authorizes-cia-mercenaries-to
Mini-Nukes, Big Bucks: The Interests Behind the SMR Push
The “billionaires’ nuclear club”
The 2015 Paris climate talks featured what cleantechnica.com called a “splashy press conference” by Bill Gates to announce the launch of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEC) – a group of (originally) 28 high net-worth investors, aiming “to provide early-stage capital for technologies that offer promise in bringing affordable clean energy to billions.”
Though BEC no longer makes its membership public, the original coalition included such familiar names as Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, Jack Ma (Alibaba), David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group), Tom Steyer, George Soros, and Mark Zuckerberg. Many of those names (and others) can now be found on the “Board and Investors” page of Breakthrough Energy’s website.
Why Canada is now poised to pour billions of tax dollars into developing Small Modular Reactors as a “clean energy” climate solution
by Joyce Nelson, January 14, 2021, story. Mini-Nukes, Big Bucks: The Interests Behind the SMR Push | Watershed Sentinel
Back in 2018, the Watershed Sentinel ran an article warning that “unless Canadians speak out,” a huge amount of taxpayer dollars would be spent on small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which author D. S. Geary called “risky, retro, uncompetitive, expensive, and completely unnecessary.” Now here we are in 2021 with the Trudeau government and four provinces (Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Alberta) poised to pour billions of dollars into SMRs as a supposed “clean energy” solution to climate change.
It’s remarkable that only five years ago, the National Energy Board predicted: “No new nuclear units are anticipated to be built in any province” by 2040.
So what happened?
The answer involves looking at some of the key influencers at work behind the scenes, lobbying for government funding for SMRs.
The Carney factor
When the first three provinces jumped on the SMR bandwagon in 2019 at an estimated price tag of $27 billion, the Green Party called the plan “absurd” – especially noting that SMRs don’t even exist yet as viable technologies but only as designs on paper.
According to the BBC (March 9, 2020), some of the biggest names in the nuclear industry gave up on SMRs for various reasons: Babcock & Wilcox in 2017, Transatomic Power in 2018, and Westinghouse (after a decade of work on its project) in 2014.
But in 2018, the private equity arm of Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc. announced that it was buying Westinghouse’s global nuclear business (Westinghouse Electric Co.) for $4.6 billion.
“If Wall Street and the banks will not finance this, why should it be the role of the government to engage in venture capitalism of this kind?”
Two years later, in August 2020, Brookfield announced that Mark Carney, former Bank of England and Bank of Canada governor, would be joining the company as its vice-chair and head of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and impact fund investing, while remaining as UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance.
“We are not going to solve climate change without the private sector,” Carney told the press, calling the climate crisis “one of the greatest commercial opportunities of our time.” He considers Canada “an energy superpower,” with nuclear a key asset.
Carney is an informal advisor to PM Trudeau and to British PM Boris Johnson. In November, Johnson announced £525 million (CAD$909.6 million) for “large and small-scale nuclear plants.”
SNC-Lavalin
Scandal-ridden SNC-Lavalin is playing a major role in the push for SMRs. In her mid-December 2020 newsletter, Elizabeth May, the Parliamentary Leader of the Green Party, focused on SNC-Lavalin, reminding readers that in 2015, then-PM Stephen Harper sold the commercial reactor division of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) “to SNC-Lavalin for the sweetheart deal price of $15 million.”
May explained, “SNC-Lavalin formed a consortium called the Canadian National Energy Alliance (CNEA) to run some of the broken-apart bits of AECL. CNEA has been the big booster of what sounds like some sort of warm and cuddly version of nuclear energy – Small Modular Reactors. Do not be fooled. Not only do we not need new nuclear, not only does it have the same risks as previous nuclear reactors and creates long-lived nuclear wastes, it is more tied to the U.S. military-industrial complex than ever before. That’s because SNC-Lavalin’s partners in the CNEA are US companies Fluor and Jacobs,” who both have contracts with US Department of Energy nuclear-weapons facilities.”
But, states May, “Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan has been sucked into the latest nuclear propaganda – that ‘there is no pathway to Net Zero [carbon emissions] without nuclear’.”
Terrestrial Energy
Then there’s Terrestrial Energy, which in mid-October 2020 received a $20 million grant for SMR development from NRCan’s O’Regan and Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry). The announcement prompted more than 30 Canadian NGOs to call SMRs “dirty, dangerous, and distracting” from real, available solutions to climate change.
The Connecticut-based company has a subsidiary in Oakville, Ontario. Its advisory board includes Stephen Harper; Michael Binder, the former president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission; and (as of October) Dr. Ian Duncan, the former UK Minister of Climate Change in the Dept. of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Perhaps more important, Terrestrial Energy’s advisory board includes Dr. Ernest Moniz, the former US Secretary of the Dept. of Energy (2013-2017) who provided more than $12 billion in loan guarantees to the nuclear industry. Moniz has been a key advisor to the Biden-Harris transition team, which has come out in favour of SMRs, calling them “game-changing technologies” at “half the construction cost of today’s reactors.”
In 2015, while the COP 21 Paris Climate Agreement was being finalized, Moniz told reporters that SMRs could lead to “better financing terms” than traditional nuclear plants because they would change the scale of capital at risk. For years, banks and financial institutions have been reluctant to invest in money-losing nuclear projects, so now the goal is to get governments to invest, especially in SMRs.
That has been the agenda of a powerful lobby group that has been working closely with NRCan for several years.
The “billionaires’ nuclear club”
The 2015 Paris climate talks featured what cleantechnica.com called a “splashy press conference” by Bill Gates to announce the launch of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEC) – a group of (originally) 28 high net-worth investors, aiming “to provide early-stage capital for technologies that offer promise in bringing affordable clean energy to billions.”
Though BEC no longer makes its membership public, the original coalition included such familiar names as Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, Jack Ma (Alibaba), David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group), Tom Steyer, George Soros, and Mark Zuckerberg. Many of those names (and others) can now be found on the “Board and Investors” page of Breakthrough Energy’s website.
“As long as Bill Gates is wasting his own money or that of other billionaires, it is not so much of an issue. The problem is that he is lobbying hard for government investment.”
Writing in Counterpunch (Dec. 4, 2015) shortly after BEC’s launch, Linda Pentz Gunter noted that many of those 28 BEC billionaires (collectively worth some $350 billion at the time) are pro-nuclear and Gates himself “is already squandering part of his wealth on Terra Power LLC, a nuclear design and engineering company seeking an elusive, expensive and futile so-called Generation IV traveling wave reactor” for SMRs. (In 2016, Terra Power, based in Bellevue, Washington, received a $40 million grant from Ernest Moniz’s Department of Energy.)
According to cleantechnica.com, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition “does have a particular focus on nuclear energy.” Think of BEC as the billionaires’ nuclear club.
By 2017, BEC was launching Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), a $1 billion fund to provide start-up capital to clean-tech companies in several countries.
Going after the public purse
Bill Gates was apparently very busy during the 2015 Paris climate talks. He also went on stage during the talks to announce a collaboration among 24 countries and the EU on something called Mission Innovation – an attempt to “accelerate global clean energy innovation” and “increase government support” for the technologies. Mission Innovation’s key private sector partners include the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, the World Economic Forum, the International Energy Agency, and the World Bank.
An employee at Natural Resources Canada, Amanda Wilson, was appointed as one of the 12 international members of the Mission Innovation Steering Committee.
In December 2017, Bill Gates announced that the Breakthrough Energy Coalition was partnering with Mission Innovation members Canada, UK, France, Mexico, and the European Commission in a “public-private collaboration” to “double public investment in clean energy innovation.”
Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources at the time, Jim Carr, said the partnership with BEC “will greatly benefit the environment and the economy. Working side by side with innovators like Bill Gates can only serve to enhance our purpose and inspire others.”
Dr. M.V. Ramana, an expert on nuclear energy and a professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at UBC, told me by email: “As long as Bill Gates is wasting his own money or that of other billionaires, it is not so much of an issue. The problem is that he is lobbying hard for government investment.”
Dr. Ramana explained that because SMRs only exist on paper, “the scale of investment needed to move these paper designs to a level of detail that would satisfy any reasonable nuclear safety regulator that the design is safe” would be in the billions of dollars. “I don’t see Gates and others being willing to invest anything of that scale. Instead, they invest a relatively small amount of money (compared to what they are worth financially) and then ask for government handouts for the vast majority of the investment that is needed.”
Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist at Beyond Nuclear, told me by email that the companies involved in SMRs “don’t care” if the technology is actually workable, “so long as they get paid more subsidies from the unsuspecting public. It’s not a question of it working, necessarily,” he noted.
Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, says governments “are being suckers. Because if Wall Street and the banks will not finance this, why should it be the role of the government to engage in venture capitalism of this kind?”
“Roadmap” to a NICE future
By 2018, NRCan was pouring money into a 10-month, pan-Canadian “conversation” about SMRs that brought together some 180 individuals from First Nations and northern communities, provincial and territorial governments, industry, utilities, and “stakeholders.” The resulting November 2018 report, A Call to Action: A Canadian Roadmap for Small Modular Reactors, enthusiastically noted that “Canada’s nuclear industry is poised to be a leader in an emerging global market estimated at $150 billion a year by 2040.”
At the same time, Bill Gates announced the launch of Breakthrough Energy Europe, a collaboration with the European Commission (one of BEC’s five Mission Innovation partners) in the amount of 100 million euros for clean-tech innovation.
Gates’ PR tactic is effective: provide a bit of capital to create an SMR “bandwagon,” with governments fearing their economies would be left behind unless they massively fund such innovations.
NRCan’s SMR Roadmap was just in time for Canada’s hosting of the Clean Energy Ministerial/Mission Innovation summit in Vancouver in May 2019 to “accelerate progress toward a clean energy future.” Canada invested $30 million in Breakthrough Energy Solutions Canada to fund start-up companies.
A particular focus of the CEM/MI summit was a CEM initiative called “Nuclear Innovation: Clean Energy (NICE) Future,” with all participants receiving a book highlighting SMRs. As Tanya Glafanheim and M.V. Ramana warned in thetyee.ca (May 27, 2019) in advance of the summit, “Note to Ministers from 25 countries: Prepare to be dangerously greenwashed.”
Greenwash vs public backlash
While releasing the federal SMR Action Plan on December 18, O’Regan called it “the next great opportunity for Canada.”
Bizarrely, the Action Plan states that by developing SMRs, our governments would be “supporting reconciliation with Indigenous peoples” – but a Special Chiefs Assembly of the Assembly of First Nations passed a unanimous 2018 resolution demanding that “the Government of Canada cease funding and support” of SMRs. And in June 2019, the Anishinabek Chiefs-in-Assembly (representing 40 First Nations across Ontario) unanimously opposed “any effort to situate SMRs within our territory.”
Some 70 NGOs across Canada are opposed to SMRs, which are being pushed as a replacement for diesel in remote communities, for use in off-grid mining, tar-sands development, and heavy industry, and as exportable expertise in a global market.
Whether SMRs work or not, Mission Innovation members will be throwing tax-dollars at them like there is no tomorrow.
On December 7, the Hill Times published an open letter to the Treasury Board of Canada from more than 100 women leaders across Canada, stating: “We urge you to say ‘no’ to the nuclear industry that is asking for billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to subsidize a dangerous, highly-polluting and expensive technology that we don’t need. Instead, put more money into renewables, energy efficiency and energy conservation.”
No new money for SMRs was announced in the Action Plan, but in her Fall Economic Statement, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland touted SMRs and noted that “targeted action by the government to mobilize private capital will better position Canadian firms to bring their technologies to market.” That suggests the Canada Infrastructure Bank will use its $35 billion for such projects.
It will take a Herculean effort from the public to defeat this NICE Future, but along with the Assembly of First Nations, three political parties – the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois, and the Green Party – have now come out against SMRs.
Award-winning author Joyce Nelson’s latest book, Bypassing Dystopia, is published by Watershed Sentinel Books. She can be reached via www.joycenelson.ca.
Nuclear lobby propagandises to kids AGAIN!
They did this in the past – with rather pathetic little comics and posters
Like this one, from Canadian uranium company Cameco
Department of Energy Goes Nuclear with New Comic Book – Office of Nuclear Energy, 23 Oct 24
What does dodgeball have to do with nuclear power?
You can find out in a new comic book released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that’s geared toward young readers.
The Spark Squad Nuclear comic book follows middle schoolers Jasmine, Aria and Thomas on their quest to collect enough “joules” to qualify for the regional power fair.
The students quickly find out just how “energy dense” uranium fuel is after meeting Aria’s old friend Dakota at a nearby coal facility, which was recently converted to a nuclear power plant.
Dakota then asks for the Spark Squad’s help to initiate a chain reaction by getting enough uranium particles to play dodgeball with “neutron balls” to split apart other Uranium-235 atoms.
This epic game of dodgeball results in a sustained nuclear reaction AND more than enough joules for the students to qualify for regionals!………….
Spark-ing Interest in Nuclear Energy
The Spark Squad comic book and video were created by DOE to make nuclear power more accessible to younger audiences.
We developed a special activity called “Dodgeball Fission” and also worked with our national labs to create a STEM toolkit for the comic book to help engage learners of all ages. It can be used both in-school and out-of-school with standards-aligned, ready-to-use activities for educators.
Nuclear and STEM
The United States operates the largest fleet of reactors in the world with 94 units located at 54 sites across the country.
And, if you don’t live near one of these plants, then you might not know just how good of a neighbor nuclear can be.
These plants support thousands of high-paying jobs with salaries that are typically 30 percent higher than the local average.
Nuclear plants also contribute millions of dollars each year to their communities through federal and state taxes that are used to improve local infrastructure projects and schools.
DOE estimates our nuclear capacity could triple by 2050 to help meet our rising energy demand with clean power.
That means hundreds of thousands of new jobs could be created in the sector as current nuclear plants work to extend their operations and new plants come online.
To help cultivate this future workforce, it’s important to engage youth at an early age with activities like this comic book and the accompanying activities to spark their interest in future STEM careers.
You can also check out earlier Spark Squad comic books as the team explores hydropower.
The Spark Squad comic books were produced through a collaborative effort between the Office of Nuclear Energy, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Chromosphere Studio.
To explore more STEM activities related to nuclear power, check out our Navigating Nuclear Curriculum or visit our full suite of DOE STEM resources.
Three Mile Island nuclear plant gears up for Big Tech reboot
Reuters, By Laila Kearney, October 23, 2024
Summary
Companies
Activists say they will challenge licensing for the plant
Restart work is expected to begin in Q1 2025
Constellation has ordered major equipment
Microsoft would consider similar contracts to restart nuclear power plants
Work includes refurbishing cooling towers and millions of feet of scaffolding
THREE MILE ISLAND, Pennsylvania, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Giant cooling towers at Constellation Energy’s (CEG.O), opens new tab Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania have sat dormant for so long that grass has sprung up in the towers’ hollowed-out bases and wildlife roam inside.
Armed guard stations at an entrance to the shut concrete facility, surrounded by barbed wire, sit empty. The plant, which would run so loud when operating that workers were required to wear hearing protection, is nearly silent.
“It’s still eerie walking in here and it’s, just, quiet,” Constellation regulatory assurance manager Craig Smith said during a tour of the plant last week. Smith, who worked at Three Mile Island when Constellation shut the site’s remaining reactor in 2019, is now preparing for a restart.
Constellation announced last month that it would revive the half-century-old Three Mile Island with the purpose of fueling Microsoft’s (MSFT.O), opens new tab data centers. Microsoft is expected to pay at least $100 a megawatt-hour, nearly double the typical cost of renewable energy in the region, as part of the 20-year power contract.
The agreement shows the dramatic lengths Big Tech is willing to go to procure electricity for its artificial intelligence expansion and the undertaking by the U.S. power industry to meet that demand.
The effort to restore Unit 1 at Three Mile Island is expected to take four years, at least $1.6 billion, and thousands of workers to complete the unprecedented task of restarting a retired nuclear plant.
Constellation has already ordered costly equipment for the site and identified fuel for the unit’s reactor core, with work expected to start early next year, according to Reuters’ interviews with company executives, contractors and a tour of the site.
Successfully resurrecting Three Mile Island, which is widely known for a 1979 partial meltdown that cast a pall over the U.S. nuclear sector for decades, would put the plant at the front edge of an industry revival…………………………………………………..
A restart of the plant, however, is not certain. Three Mile Island, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Complex, still requires licensing modifications and permitting. Local activists have also vowed to fight the project over safety and environmental concerns.
If the plan suffers the same lengthy delays and cost overruns that have plagued nearly every nuclear build in the country’s history, it could stymie other deals and set back Big Tech’s quest to rapidly expand, power experts say.
………………………………………………………………..The company has commissioned the fuel design for the reactor’s core, said Constellation Chief Generation Officer Bryan Hanson. The core holds the enriched uranium, the fuel source for the plant, stacked in pellets and sealed in tubes.
Constellation, which is the biggest U.S. operator of nuclear plants, will tap into fuel from its existing enriched uranium reserves as one of the final steps before starting up.
………………………………………………Not everyone is enthused about the prospect of a nuclear comeback. The power plants produce waste that can remain radioactive for thousands of years.
About a tennis court-size amount of spent nuclear fuel from Unit 1 is stored on Three Mile Island, which sits on a strip of land in the Susquehanna River. The decommissioning of Unit 2 is still underway about 45 years after the partial meltdown.
Local activist Eric Epstein, who remembers the March 1979 incident, said he will fight Constellation’s request to resume operating and water use licenses.
“It’s going to be a protracted battle,” Epstein said.
The first chance for the challenges comes on Oct. 25, when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled its initial public hearing on Constellation’s plan to restart Unit 1.
Reporting by Laila Kearney Editing by Marguerita Choy
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/three-mile-island-nuclear-plant-gears-up-big-tech-reboot-2024-10-22/
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
Navy ‘Innovation’ Center for “warfighting capabilities” will harm the Monterey Peninsula and ocean
Nina Beety
California Carmel Pine Cone, Monterey 23 Oct 24
The planned Navy Innovation Center for “warfighting capabilities” will
cause irreparable harm to the Monterey Peninsula and ocean. The Navy’s
track record of environmental damage is well-known – wanton disregard
for life, health, and safety, including its own personnel, maiming and
killing whales and dolphins, poisoning ocean, land, and drinking water –
while refusing accountability and transparency.
In its scant environmental assessment for the center, the Navy refused
to evaluate coastal zone management, hazardous materials and waste,
public health and safety, or recreation impacts, or existing local
impacts – [Navy] groundwater contamination from the airport flowing into
Laguna Grande, radioactive contamination under NPS, killing historic
trees along Del Monte Avenue, sonar, new 5G on the beach, and violating
federal laser limits. Its microwave emissions harm surrounding
residential areas and forests, and those emissions will increase with
the new center. The Navy’s nuclear waste dumps near the Farallons and
Half Moon Bay impact the bay.
This center is incompatible with the viability and health of this
community and the Earth. Please oppose it.
1 This Month
10 June – Assessing Canada’s Investments in Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – https://zoom.us/meeting/register/IiqHA5feRhaEBycOLNTJlA#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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