Los Angeles Times spells it out on the dishonesty of President Donald Trump
Our Dishonest President, LA Times, 2 Apr 17
- PART I Our Dishonest President PART II Monday PART III Tuesday PART IV Wednesday
Still, nothing prepared us for the magnitude of this train wreck. Like millions of other Americans, we clung to a slim hope that the new president would turn out to be all noise and bluster, or that the people around him in the White House would act as a check on his worst instincts, or that he would be sobered and transformed by the awesome responsibilities of office.
Instead, seventy-some days in — and with about 1,400 to go before his term is completed — it is increasingly clear that those hopes were misplaced.
In a matter of weeks, President Trump has taken dozens of real-life steps that, if they are not reversed, will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.
His attempt to de-insure millions of people who had finally received healthcare coverage and, along the way, enact a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich has been put on hold for the moment. But he is proceeding with his efforts to defang the government’s regulatory agencies and bloat the Pentagon’s budget even as he supposedly retreats from the global stage.
These are immensely dangerous developments which threaten to weaken this country’s moral standing in the world, imperil the planet and reverse years of slow but steady gains by marginalized or impoverished Americans. But, chilling as they are, these radically wrongheaded policy choices are not, in fact, the most frightening aspect of the Trump presidency.
What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. …….
In the days ahead, The Times editorial board will look more closely at the new president, with a special attention to three troubling traits:
1 Trump’s shocking lack of respect for those fundamental rules and institutions on which our government is based……
2 His utter lack of regard for truth……..
3 His scary willingness to repeat alt-right conspiracy theories……..http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-our-dishonest-president/
Cancer deaths linked to nuclear power plants in Salem County
Study claims cancer deaths up since startup of Salem nuclear plants, By LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK TWP. — A new study claims cancer death rates in Salem County have risen higher than the state average since the startup of three nuclear power plants there.
“Something like this that affects so many people is worth further study,” said Joseph J. Mangano, executive director of the Ocean City-based Radiation and Public Health Project.
“Current death rates in Salem County exceed the state rates for both genders, all age groups, all races and ethnic groups and all major types of cancer,” the study says.
Mangano, in the self-authored study, says that cancer death rates in Salem County have risen from about 5 percent below the state average in the 1983-1986 period to 20 percent above the average in the 2011-2014 period. He also says that non-cancer death rates have risen from about 2 percent above the state average in 1983-1986 to more than 23 percent above in the 2011-2004 period.
According to Mangano’s research, the incidences of cancer went from 1 percent below the state average in 1998-2001 to more an 9 percent above the average in 2011-2014.
The three nuclear reactors operated by PSEG Nuclear at Artificial Island in Lower Alloways Creek Township — Salem 1, Salem and Hope Creek — comprise the second-largest nuclear generating station in the U.S. in terms of power output.
Salem 1 began producing electricity in 1976, Salem 2 in 1980 and Hope Creek in 1986.
“We are not advocating for the shutdown of nuclear power plants,” Mangano said. “There well may be other factors that account for this cancer rise … a combination of factors.”
The region is also home to refineries, chemical plants and Superfund sites……..
Mangano says one of his major concerns are what he says are releases from nuclear plants.
“We are concerned that nuclear plant emissions may be contributing to the increase (on the cancer and death rates),” Mangano said. “We believe strongly that the focus should be placed on the new cancer risk factors and one of them that should be studies is the emissions from the Salem/Hope Creek plants.”……http://www.nj.com/salem/index.ssf/2017/04/study_says_cancer_deaths_up_since_salem_nuclear_pl.html
Monsanto’s slag dumping: hazardous chemicals and rdaioactive wastes
Monsanto’s Superfund Secret https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/monsanto-roundup-production-superfund-sites-radioactive Bart Elmore April 1, 2017 The world’s most widely used herbicide, Roundup, has faced intense scrutiny in recent weeks, since documents surfaced revealing a close relationship between Monsanto, the creator of Roundup, and EPA officials tasked with regulating herbicide use in the United States. One email exchange included a Monsanto executive boasting that an EPA official had told him he “should get a medal” if he could “kill” an agency investigation into the herbicide.
This news was troubling, considering the fact that the World Health Organization recently declared Roundup’s active ingredient “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The 2015 WHO announcement raised major alarms because roughly 89 percent of American corn and over 90 percent of all soybeans produced in the United States—millions of tons of which are exported every year to dozens of countries around the world—are genetically engineered to be herbicide resistant, Roundup Ready being a preferred variety. These findings gave new scientific fodder to many GMO opponents who have long alleged that the world’s food supply is awash in dangerous chemicals.
But while new emails raise serious questions about the safety of consuming food contaminated with Roundup, historical documents reveal troubling issues further upstream. I obtained files from the EPA via a Freedom of Information Act request that tell the story of Roundup’s origins at a Superfund hazardous waste site. These documents show that there are disturbing environmental and human health concerns at the beginning, not just at the end, of Roundup’s lifecycle.
Monsanto’s weedkiller comes from beneath the soil. The active ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate, which is ultimately derived from elemental phosphorous extracted from phosphate rock buried below ground. Monsanto gets its phosphate from mines in Southeast Idaho near the town of Soda Springs, a small community of about 3,000 people. The company has been operating there since the 1950s.
I went to visit last summer, and what I found was startling. I stood just beyond a barbed-wire fence at about nine o’clock at night and watched as trucks dumped molten red heaps of radioactive refuse over the edge of what is fast becoming a mountain of waste. This dumping happened about every fifteen minutes, lighting up the night sky. Horses grazed in a field just a few dozen yards away, glowing in the radiating rays coming from the lava-like sludge. Rows of barley, for Budweiser beer, waved in the distance.
When phosphate ore is refined into elemental phosphorous, it leaves a radioactive by-product known as slag. Monsanto’s elemental phosphorous facility, situated just a few miles from its phosphate mines, produces prodigious quantities of slag that contains elevated concentrations of radioactive material. For years, this slag was actually sold to the town of Soda Springs and nearby Pocatello, and people built their homes and roadways out it. In the 1980s, however, the EPA conducted a radiological survey of the community and warned that citizens might be at risk from elevated gamma ray exposure. The study concluded that if business continued as usual in Soda Springs, within four decades “the probability of contracting cancer due to exposure from elemental phosphorous slag” would “be about one chance in 2,500 in Pocatello and one chance in 700 in Soda Springs.”
The EPA, facing serious pressure from Monsanto and community members who feared what this study might mean for property values, later agreed to submit the report for review, and ultimately recommended the initiation of new studies. In the meantime, the mayor of Soda Springs worked with the city council to ban the further sale of slag in the community.
I spoke with a radiological scientist who studied the slag issue in the area for many years, and he assured me that homeowners in Southeast Idaho are exposed to only small levels of gamma radiation that should not be harmful—currently the EPA’s official position.
Nevertheless, a website created by the Phosphorous Slag Technical Work Group—a coalition that includes Monsanto, EPA officials, local public health agents, and other mining concerns—offers advice to Idahoans, including the helpful tip that if dangerous contamination is found, homeowners might consider “spending less time in the basement.”
Monsanto’s Soda Springs plant is currently an active Superfund site, having achieved that toxic waste site designation in 1990. Harmful onsite pollutants include cadmium, selenium, and radioactive radium all of which can cause serious health problems in humans in high concentrations.
In 2013, over two decades after EPA declared Monsanto’s Soda Springs plant a Superfund site, the EPA explained that pollution problems continued to plague the facility: “The remedy for the Monsanto site is currently not protective because concentrations” of “contaminants of concern” continued to leach into groundwater. In a five-year review of the site, the EPA found that some harmful chemicals were increasing in plumes migrating from the plant. The agency offered a disheartening conclusion: “Monitoring trends indicate that the groundwater performance standards will not be met in the foreseeable future.” This was the last five-year review of the site to date. Currently, the EPA’s website for the facility reports that groundwater contamination is “not under control” even as elemental phosphorous production continues.
In the past, Monsanto has also had elevated levels of mercury emissions at the plant. Citing an EPA study, Keith Riddler of the Associated Press reported that in 2006 “about 684 pounds of mercury was emitted in [Idaho], 659 of that from Monsanto Co.’s Soda Springs phosphate processing plant in eastern Idaho.” In 2015, the company reported mercury compound emissions topping 875 pounds. For context, the third- and fourth-largest emitters of mercury compounds among power plants in the United States—which the Obama administration targeted for serious mercury emissions reductions under the Clean Power Plan—put out 823 pounds and 782 pounds respectively in 2013.
Toxic chemicals are not confined to Monsanto’s processing facility. In 2003, the EPA began Superfund remediation assessments at three closed Monsanto mine sites nearby—Ballard, Henry, and Enoch Valley—due in large part to selenium contamination in mining debris.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, since 1996, “an estimated 600 head of livestock (including horses, cattle, and sheep) have died after ingesting plants or surface water containing high concentrations of selenium.” Some of these incidents took place at mine sites owned by other phosphate companies in the area, such as FMC, but Monsanto mines have contributed to this casualty count over the years.
Radioactive waste piles, groundwater pollution, mercury emissions, and poisoned livestock: these are just some of the supply-side costs of producing Roundup, an herbicide that Monsanto dubs the lynchpin of its “environmentally responsible weed control program.”
The prospects for resolution of these problems are bleak. President Trump’s EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, is an avowed adversary of the agency he now heads, and he has given clear signs that he intends to annul regulations designed to curb polluting practices. If the EPA’s relationship with corporations like Monsanto was already cozy, it is likely only to become more so. In other words, Monsanto is not likely to face renewed federal pressure to clean up its act anytime soon.
As Monsanto looks to seal a multibillion-dollar merger with German rival Bayer, its power to spread Roundup around the world is due to expand in the years ahead. And if the past is any indication, Monsanto’s message to the world will be one of agricultural salvation through biotechnology. But communities that are the target of these corporate promises should take heed. The sustainable future Monsanto hawks remains tied to a toxic Superfund past that is not even past.
Bart Elmore is an assistant professor of environmental history at the Ohio State University and a Carnegie Fellow at New America.
The path to war? US legislation in Congress to unravel the Iran nuclear agreement
Why Give Trump The Keys To War With Iran? https://www.niacouncil.org/give-trump-
keys-war-iran/ When Trump won the elections, many worried that it could lead to war between the United States and Iran, due to his desire to kill the Iran nuclear deal. Now, thanks to the U.S. Senate, we may be one step closer to this nightmare scenario: The Senate is poised to pass legislation that will place President Trump’s trigger-happy finger on the ignition switch of a deadly conflict with Iran.
Introduced to coincide with the annual American Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC) conference that concludes today, the Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017 (S. 722) would give Trump new tools to violate the Iran nuclear deal. Perhaps most shockingly, a small group of Senate Democrats have joined Republicans to grant Trump some of the most dangerous authorities that would put the U.S. and Iran back on the path to war. The list of sponsors includes many of the usual suspects ― the consummate Iran hawks who worked to block Obama’s diplomacy with Iran and many of whom have sworn to “rip up” the nuclear deal: Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Bob Corker (R-TN), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Ted Cruz (R-TX). But the list of sponsors also includes Ben Cardin (D-MD) ― who opposed the nuclear deal but has said the U.S. should still abide by it ― as well as Bob Casey (D-PA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) who supported the deal.
Yet now these senators are signed onto legislation that requires non-nuclear certifications that would block the president from removing sanctions that are set to expire in later stages of the nuclear agreement. Why would Democratic senators who support the nuclear deal sign on to a measure that would violate the agreement? Because, they have argued, the bill gives the president a case-by-case waiver for the deal-killing provisions. That means that these senators are trusting Donald Trump with new deal-killing authorities and abdicating to him whether the U.S. honors the nuclear deal or “rips it to shreds.”
The bill also enables Trump to re-impose sanctions on Iranian entities that were de-listed pursuant to the accord. And it mandates sanctions that would broadly target any person or entity that ― knowingly or unknowingly ― contributes to Iran’s ballistic missile program, including universities that conduct research and banks that process payments for the government. This would amount to a trickle-down reimplementation of sanctions on much of Iran ― and a violation of the nuclear accord. Finally, the bill would designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an elite branch of the Iranian military, as a terrorist group ― a major escalation. The IRGC is a highly problematic organization that has benefitted from years of a sanctions economy at the expense of Iran’s people. It is not unusual for individuals within the IRGC to be sanctioned if they are believed to have connections to Iran’s ballistic missile program. However, designating a foreign military branch as a terrorist organization is an extremely dangerous provocation that Pentagon leaders in multiple administrations have advised against. AIPAC has urged for the IRGC designation for the past decade, yet Barack Obama and even George W. Bush resisted. But now, with Donald Trump in the White House, AIPAC is pressing ahead with its proposal.
If this legislation is passed the U.S. can expect a negative response from Tehran that will undermine moderates in Iran’s upcoming May elections and empower anti-U.S. hardliners. The ranking member of Iran’s Parliament, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, has already signaled that Iranian lawmakers will consider designating the U.S. Army as a terrorist organization in retaliation. It is naïve to assume this exchange will be limited to words. U.S. special forces and IRGC units are currently fighting ISIS on the same front in Mosul. Despite some evidence that IRGC units targeted U.S. troops with IEDs during the height of the Iraq War, there have been no such incidents since U.S. soldiers reentered Iraq in the summer of 2014. In effect, the IRGC and the U.S.-backed coalition have agreed to stay out of each other’s way as they fight a mutual enemy in ISIS. This bill could change that reality by removing any incentive for Iran not to attack U.S. troops in Iraq, forbidding any cooperation with IRGC-backed militias against ISIS, and placing our Iraqi allies in a diplomatic catch-22. It is for this very reason that back in 2007, President Bush’s Pentagon opposed an SDGT designation for the IRGC.
With thousands of AIPAC supporters on Capitol Hill to lobby senators on behalf of the bill, there is a strong chance that this bill could obtain filibuster-proof levels of support. If every Republican supports the bill, and just one more Democrat signs on, AIPAC’s bill will hit 60 votes. If that happens, and Congress sends Trump this legislation, our new president will be granted the tools and the greenlight from Congress to unravel the Iran deal and put us back on the path to a war with Iran. Unless Democratic senators stand up against this bill soon, opponents of the Iran nuclear deal may wipe away Obama’s diplomatic legacy with Iran faster than even they thought was possible. This piece originally appeared in The Huffington Post.
On foreign affairs, Trump’s ignorance is cause for concern
Trump has antagonized the leaders of allied countries like Mexico, Australia and Germany, and he has repeatedly demonstrated an extraordinary lack of knowledge about foreign affairs.
This is the president who faces what Warren Christopher, President Clinton’s first secretary of state, called problems from hell. A partial list, compiled by Project Syndicate, includes: intensifying conflicts and dissent within the European Union; the rise of illiberal forces, including welfare chauvinism and exclusionary nationalism; the danger to the continued independence of the buffer states surrounding Russia; a frayed consensus in support of western liberal democratic principles; aggression from a nuclear-armed North Korea and counter threats from the Trump administration of a pre-emptive strike; a foreign policy that The Economist reports has left America’s allies “aghast” — a policy that “seems determined to destroy many of the institutions and alliances created in the past half century.”
When the President Is Ignorant of His Own Ignorance, NYT Thomas B. Edsall MARCH 30, 2017 How prepared is our president for the next great foreign, economic or terrorist crisis?
Financial disaster looms for Georgia and S Carolina’s new nuclear stations, after Westinghouse bankruptcy
Westinghouse bankruptcy leaves costly nuclear mess for Southern utility customers https://www.facingsouth.org/2017/03/westinghouse-bankruptcy-leaves-costly-nuclear-mess-southern-utility-customers March 31, 2017 Federal and state officials who oversee nuclear power can’t say they weren’t warned that financial disaster was a very real possibility should they approve plans for new nuclear reactor construction projects at Southern Company/Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Georgia, and SCANA/SCE&G’s Summer Plant near Jenkinsville, South Carolina.
Clean energy and consumer watchdog groups were outspoken in opposition to the projects, which involved a new type of reactor known as the AP1000. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) testified extensively with expert witnesses before the Georgia Public Service Commission to warn about the high risks of investing in expensive new nuclear power and to encourage turning instead to clean, affordable alternatives like energy efficiency, and SCE&G ratepayers intervened to try to block construction in South Carolina.
But in 2009, federal and state regulators approved two AP1000 reactors for each of the sites. While the Obama administration offered $8.3 billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to help finance the construction of the Vogtle reactors, the Georgia legislature passed a law allowing Southern Company to finance them through a scheme called “construction work in progress” that forces ratepayers to pay in advance, with a charge of about $10 on the average customer’s monthly bill. South Carolina also has a law in place allowing prepayment; as a consequence SCE&G customers have faced nine rate hikes since 2009 driven in large part by the project.
Construction got underway at the two sites — but then came the predicted delays and cost overruns. With the first new reactors initially set to come online this year, the Vogtle project is only about 36 percent complete, and construction at Summer is only about one-third complete. And while state regulators have approved costs of around $14 billion for each project, Morgan Stanley has estimated the final bill at about $19 billion for the Georgia reactors and $22 billion for the South Carolina project. Ratepayers in Georgia have already forked over about $3.9 billion for the reactors, while those in South Carolina have paid about $4.5 billion. Meanwhile, the utilities are guaranteed a 10 percent return in profits, even in the case of cost overruns.
Now this week Westinghouse — the Pittsburgh-based division of Japanese tech conglomerate Toshiba and the reactors’ main contractor — cited those massive cost overruns in declaring bankruptcy. The move leaves the projects in limbo and utility customers in Georgia and South Carolina facing one of two unpleasant scenarios: paying billions for nothing, or continuing to pay even more for reactors whose completion remains uncertain.
Critics are reminding regulators that they should have seen this coming. “Time and time again, our legitimate concerns and consumer-protecting recommendations were ignored,” said SACE Director Dr. Stephen Smith. “Now there is a lot of wringing of hands and surprise by those with the power to protect utility customers claiming that no one could have predicted this. The reality is, they shouldn’t have ignored the predictions they were presented over and over again, and they should not ignore the predictions now.”
‘No option that doesn’t affect rates’
At the time the projects were first proposed, worried consumer advocates pointed to the nuclear power debacle of the 1970s and 1980s, when utilities nationwide canceled about 100 planned reactors due to cost overruns. In the end, ratepayers and taxpayers shelled out about $40 billion for those abandoned projects — over $200 billion in today’s dollars. Forbes magazine called it “the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.”
What will happen next in Georgia and South Carolina remains uncertain.. On a conference call this week, SCANA told investors that 5,000 workers would continue working on the Summer site for 30 days while the company considered its options. SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh said the company’s “preferred option” is to finish the reactors while its “least preferred option is abandonment.” Meanwhile, Georgia Power said it is looking at “every option.”
During a SACE conference call this week about the implications of the Westinghouse bankruptcy, Peter Bradford, a former member of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and adjunct professor at Vermont Law School, said Georgia and South Carolina utility customers should expect another rate hike if the reactors eventually go into service — or if they are abandoned.
Liz Coyle, executive director of the consumer advocacy group Georgia Watch, pointed out on the call that the costs ratepayers are being forced to bear for the unfinished reactors present a “tremendous burden” for low-income households — one that is unlikely to ease any time soon.
“We see no option ahead that doesn’t affect rates customers will be paying,” she said.
Smith, Coyle and others are calling on utility regulators in Georgia and South Carolina to conduct a careful, transparent analysis of what’s in the best interest of ratepayers and proceed accordingly — and to remain unswayed by corporate interests that want to press ahead at any cost. If the companies and regulators do decide to proceed with construction, Smith said, ratepayers’ financial exposure should be capped.
Smith is also urging regulators to ground all future decisions in a basic concept of fairness: that no utility customer should be forced to pay for any facility for which a company cannot offer a reliable price estimate and timetable.
“If companies choose to build electric generation facilities with unknown costs and schedules, they should have shareholders carry the risk,” Smith said. “We must call on regulators to do their job and look out for customers’ interests.”
Attempts to stop New York State’s $8 billion bailout of Exelon’s upstate nuclear power stations
Groups Make Last Ditch Effort To Stop NY Nuclear Plant Bailout, WAMC 1 Apr 17 Midnight Friday is not just the deadline for the New York state budget to be finished. It’s also the date for an $8 billion state bailout of some upstate nuclear power plants to begin. More than 80 local government leaders are making a last ditch effort to stop a plan that they say will cost electric utility ratepayers billions of dollars.
In the summer of 2016, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Public Service Commission announced that they’d reached a deal to provide nearly $8 billion to help Exelon, which owns two upstate nuclear power plants, buy a third one and keep them all running for another twelve years.
Cuomo announced the deal to cheering plant workers in Oswego, who would all be able to keep their relatively high-paying jobs for another dozen years.
“And keep it producing nuclear power for years and years to come,” Cuomo said, in August of 2016…….
The downside of the deal, say opponents, is that electric rates will go up for many rate payers in vast regions of New York.
More than 80 local government leaders, mainly from municipalities who would also have to pay the higher electric rates, came to the Capitol to ask for a moratorium on the deal, until there’s more time to study the consequences. Carl Chipman, supervisor of the town of Rochester, in Ulster County in the Hudson Valley, says the plan was enacted in a hasty and secretive manner, with no chance for the public to weigh in.
“We urge Governor Cuomo to halt the planned Public Service Commission mandate,” said Chipman, “Until a comprehensive and transparent evaluation of the available alternatives is conducted and made available for public comment.”
Jean Kessner, Syracuse City Councilor At-Large, says her city will be paying part of the estimated $2 billion in additional electric fees to help finance the bail out.
“It is not fair,” Kessner said. “If somebody sent you a bill for something you didn’t buy, you wouldn’t pay it.”
The plan has also angered some environmentalists. The New York Public Interest Research Group is one of the organizations opposed to the bailout. NYPIRG’s Blair Horner says nuclear power is not the best bridge fuel to use in achieving greener energy sources.
“It’s multi billions of dollars the state is going to spend to give to one company to keep Vietnam War-era power plants open for twelve years, and then close them down,” Horner said. “We think the money is better invested in 21st century, renewable and safe technology.”
Governor Cuomo has a different policy for nuclear power plants located downstate. In January, he announced a deal to close the Indian Point nuclear power plant along the Hudson River in Westchester County by 2021……http://wamc.org/post/groups-make-last-ditch-effort-stop-ny-nuclear-plant-bailout
The Republicans who now accept the need for action on climate change
Climate Converts: The Conservatives Who Are Switching Sides on Warming
It’s hardly being noticed, given the current political atmosphere in Washington. But a small yet growing number of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians are starting to push for action on climate. Yale Environment 360 MARCH 30, 2017 As liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans pull farther apart in the long-running, increasingly polarized debate over climate change, Jerry Taylor is a rare bird — an advocate who has switched sides.
For two decades, as an energy and environment expert with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council and the libertarian Cato Institute, Taylor challenged the scientific consensus on climate change and argued that decarbonizing the energy sector would impose intolerable costs on the U.S. economy. “I was an enthusiastic and convinced champion of the idea that climate change is an overblown problem,” he says.
Today, as the founder and president of the Niskanen Center, a libertarian think tank, Taylor embraces the scientific consensus on climate change and argues that a carbon tax is “the most efficient and least costly means of achieving greenhouse gas emissions reductions and hedging against climate risk.” He makes the conservative case for carbon pricing in footnoted position papers, on Capitol Hill, and to the media, with unbridled passion. “If you believe in free markets, how are those ends advanced by burning the planet?” he asks.
Taylor has joined a small but growing cohort of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians who are bucking Republican Party orthodoxy on climate — even as President Trump has moved briskly to roll back the Obama administration’s major climate initiatives. Loosely organized and sometimes called the eco-right, they include GOP stalwarts James Baker and George Shultz and the former treasury secretary Hank Paulson; Ted Halstead of the Climate Leadership Council, a newly formed research and advocacy group that supports a revenue-neutral carbon tax; Eli Lehrer of the R Street Institute, a right-leaning Washington think tank that supports carbon taxes; and Lynn Scarlett, a former Bush administration official and director of the libertarian Reason Foundation who now directs global public policy at The Nature Conservancy. ……..http://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-converts-the-conservatives-who-are-switching-sides-on-climate-change
Colorado’s secret nuclear history
Nuclear secrets you probably didn’t know about Colorado http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/nuclear-secrets-you-probably-didnt-know-about-colorado, Robert Garrison Mar 31, 2017 DENVER – You might not know it, but Colorado played a major role in the nuclear arms race during the Cold War.
With New York subsidy to FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant, Exelon has now bought this struggling station
Sold! FitzPatrick acquisiton complete, WRVO, 1 Apr 17, By PAYNE HORNING The transfer of the FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant to its new owner is officially complete. Exelon, which owns and operates the nearby Nine Mile Point Nuclear Facility Exelon, announced Friday that its negotiations with Entergy are done. The company bought the Oswego County plant last summer for $110 million.
FitzPatrick had been hemorrhaging money because of competition from natural gas. Entergy said the plant was losing the company about $60 million annually, so they moved to decommission it. But New York regulators stepped in to prevent its closure, passing a comprehensive clean energy plan that will the state’s financially struggling nuclear plants, including FitzPatrick, with subsidies that are scheduled to kick in tomorrow. …….
the subsidy program supporting the deal may be in jeopardy. The New York State Assembly has proposed a one-house budget that would halt the program until they can hold a hearing with state officials. And several pending lawsuits also threaten the plan.http://wrvo.org/post/sold-fitzpatrick-acquisiton-complete
Toshiba’s nuclear flagship U.S. Westinghouse goes bust after $10 billion losses
Where Toshiba’s $10bn nuclear debt came from: the Vogtle AP1000 construction site in Georgia, under inspection by NRC Commissioner Svinicki.
Toshiba’s nuclear flagship goes bust after $10 billion losses
News that one of the world’s biggest nuclear power constructors, Westinghouse, has filed for bankruptcy in with debts of over $10 billion has put the entire sector on notice and issued a dire warning to nuclear investors everywhere, writes Jim Green. Among the likely casualties: the UK’s Moorside nuclear complex in Cumbria.
The rapidly-evolving nuclear power crisis escalated dramatically yesterday when US nuclear giant Westinghouse, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Toshiba, filed for bankruptcy.
The Chapter 11 filing took place in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in New York City.
Westinghouse and its parent Toshiba are in crisis because of massive cost overruns building four ‘AP1000’ nuclear power reactors in the southern US states of Georgia and South Carolina.
The combined cost overruns for the four reactors now amount to about $1.2 billion and counting. And it has now emerged that they may never be finished at all. Whether the four reactors will be completed is now subject to an “assessment period”, according to Westinghouse.
The corporate mishap may also signal the end of new nuclear power in the US. No other reactors are under construction in the country and there is no likelihood of any new reactors in the foreseeable future. The US reactor fleet is one of the oldest in the world, with 44 out of its 99 reactors having been operated for four decades or more.
A $10 billion financial hole – and it’s getting deeper!
Toshiba says Westinghouse had debts totalling US$9.8 billion. Plans for new Westinghouse reactors in India, the UK and China are in jeopardy and will likely be cancelled. Bloomberg noted yesterday: “Westinghouse Electric Co., once synonymous with America’s industrial might, wagered its future on nuclear power – and lost.”
The same could be said about Toshiba, which is selling profitable businesses to stave off bankruptcy. Toshiba said yesterday it expects to book a net loss of $9.1 billion for the current fiscal year, which ends on Friday – a record loss for a Japanese manufacturer.
That projected loss is also well over double the estimate provided just last month, raising investor fears that the final figure may be greater still. “Every time they put out an estimate, the loss gets bigger and bigger”, said Zuhair Khan, an analyst at Jefferies in Tokyo. “I don’t think this is the last cockroach we have seen coming out of Toshiba.”
The BBC noted that Toshiba’s share-price has been in freefall, losing more than 60% since the company first unveiled the problems in December 2016. Toshiba president Satoshi Tsunakawa said at a news conference yesterday: “We have all but completely pulled out of the nuclear business overseas.”
Westinghouse is the major member of the Nugen consortium that’s set to build a massive three-reactor AP1000 nuclear complex at Moorside in the UK, next to the Sellafield site. The company has already stated that while it intends to progress the project through planning stages, it is unable to take on financing or construction and intends to sell its share.
Nugen’s other member, the French energy company Engie (formerly GDF Suez) has also gone on record as wanting to extricate itself from the Moorside project in favour of the ‘new energy’ economy based on renewable, storage and smart grid technologies.
It’s now looking increasingly probable that the Moorside project, given the state of the Nugen consortium and the massive failure of the AP1000 design, may never progress to construction.
The good news for the nuclear industry? The UK’s Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) today – with impeccable timing – accepted the AP1000 design as “suitable for construction in the UK“ and issued Westinghouse a Design Acceptance Certificate.
Is the nuclear game up at last?
A similar crisis is unfolding in France, which has 58 power reactors but just one under construction. French ‘EPR’ reactors under construction in France (Flamanville) and Finland are three times over budget – the combined cost overruns for the two reactors amount to about €12.7 billion and counting.
The French government is selling assets so it can prop up its heavily indebted nuclear utilities Areva and EDF. The French nuclear industry is in its “worst situation ever” according to former EDF director Gérard Magnin.
Meanwhile a simple comparison of decommissioning provision between France and Germany indicates that EDF has massively under-budgetted for its liabilities. Germany has set aside €38 billion to decommission its 17 nuclear reactors (€2.2 billion each), but France has set aside only €23 billion to decommission its 58 reactors (€0.4 billion each).
When the real costs, for which EDF will be liable, come in, they could easily bankrupt the company. This in turn puts the UK’s Hinkley Point double EPR nuclear project, in which EDF is the main partner, in doubt.
The crisis-ridden US, French and Japanese nuclear industries account for half of worldwide nuclear power generation. Other countries with crisis-ridden nuclear programs or nuclear phase-out policies account for more than half of worldwide nuclear power generation.
Meranwhile renewable energy generation doubled over the past decade and strong growth, driven by sharp cost decreases, will continue for the foreseeable future.
Toshiba’s nuclear unit files for bankruptcy, 1 tril. yen loss eyed
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Toshiba Corp. said Wednesday its troubled U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electric Co. has filed for Chapter 11 and it could post a net loss of over 1 trillion yen, the biggest ever for a Japanese manufacturer.
Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, as the Japanese parent company was rushing to limit further losses from the U.S. unit and looking to exit the money-losing overseas nuclear business.
With the do-or-die decision on the filing, Toshiba will make all-out efforts to move out of its financial woes, Toshiba President Satoshi Tsunakawa told a press conference in Tokyo after Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy.
“We are almost risk-free as we are pulling out of overseas nuclear operations, the biggest problem,” he said.
Toshiba said it could post a group net loss of 1.01 trillion yen ($9.13 billion) for the fiscal year ending on Friday, with massive costs related to the Chapter 11 filing. Westinghouse has $9.8 billion in total liabilities, much of which must be shouldered by Toshiba under a debt guarantee for the U.S. unit.
The estimated net loss would eclipse 787.3 billion yen posted by Hitachi Ltd. in the year to March 2009 following the 2008 global financial crisis and would be much worse than the 390 billion yen loss the company projected in February.
The huge loss would put the company in a negative net worth of 620 billion yen at the end of March, Toshiba said, far larger than the 150 billion yen it previously estimated.
Tsunakawa said that he feels responsibility for the company’s crisis but has no intention to step down as chief executive.
He took the helm at the company last June after it had been hit by an accounting scandal in 2015.
The bankruptcy filing will deconsolidate Westinghouse from Toshiba’s financial results for the current fiscal year.
The company has been under pressure to have Westinghouse file for bankruptcy protection, as the unit is the main cause of its massive losses with delays in U.S. plant projects leading to cost overruns, informed sources have said.
The nuclear-to-electronics conglomerate was looking to finalize losses related to the unit within the current fiscal year through the bankruptcy filing.
In February, Toshiba said it was expecting a loss of 712.5 billion yen in its U.S. nuclear business for the nine months through December on an unaudited basis. The company had to delay its earnings announcement twice, saying it needed more time to look into an accounting problem at Westinghouse.
Faced with ballooning losses, Toshiba had been considering a way to separate itself from the debacle at Westinghouse, which it bought in 2006 as a step to tap into overseas markets.
The cash-strapped company has decided to spin off its prized memory chip business and sell a majority stake, or even the whole operation, to raise funds to bolster its financial standing.
Toshiba closed the first round of bids Wednesday for the new semiconductor division that it plans to establish on Saturday. It has likely attracted 10 bidders and will choose the preferred buyer in May, according to sources close to the matter.
Tsunakawa is confident that the bidders have a strong financial standing and the proceeds from the sale will be able to eliminate the company’s liabilities.
He estimates the value of the chip business at 2 trillion yen at least, and said he expects the value to continue to rise.
Toshiba is seeking support from Korea Electric Power Corp. as a sponsor, aiming to sell its Westinghouse shares to the South Korean utility.
“We are focused on developing a plan of reorganization to emerge from Chapter 11 as a stronger company while continuing to be a global nuclear technology leader,” Westinghouse Interim President and Chief Executive Officer Jose Emeterio Gutierrez said in a release.
The company turned the corner in stemming the bleeding for the time being. But the fate of its turnaround remains unclear.
The sale of Westinghouse and the pullout of the overseas nuclear business will leave the company with no core profit-making businesses after it sold its cash-cow medical business and as it plans to sell its chip operation.
The outlook for the sale of the U.S. unit is far from certain. Toshiba may find it difficult to attract a buyer with slowing demand for nuclear power generation after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170330/p2g/00m/0bu/029000c
America leads boycott of historic UN conference on nuclear weapons ban
U.N. Considers a Historic Ban on Nuclear Weapons, But U.S. Leads Boycott of the Talks, Democracy Now, MARCH 30, 2017 Some 120 countries gathered at the United Nations this week to draft a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. But the United States is leading a boycott of the talks. Meanwhile, more than 2,000 scientists signed an open letter endorsing the U.N. talks, and, on Tuesday, Pope Francis encouraged the United Nations to pursue the “total elimination” of nuclear weapons. We speak to Zia Mian, physicist, nuclear expert and disarmament activist. He is co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.
TRANSCRIPT
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to a historic debate at the United Nations. Some 120 countries gather this week to draft a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. But the United States did not take part. In fact, the U.S. led a boycott of the talks. This is U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley…….
AMY GOODMAN: U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley was joined by envoys from Britain, France, South Korea and other nations in opposing the U.N. talks on a nuclear weapons ban treaty. Russia and China have also declined to participate in the conference.
We’re joined now by Zia Mian, physicist, nuclear expert and disarmament activist, co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He’s co-author of Unmaking the Bomb: A Fissile Material Approach to Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation.
What’s happening here? Why is the U.S. leading this boycott?
ZIA MIAN: The news is not that the U.S. is leading a boycott. We knew the United States wasn’t going to participate and that it’s been trying to force its nuclear NATO allies also to not participate. The news here is that, after 70 years, the vast majority of countries in the world have decided they’ve had enough of waiting for the United States and the other countries with nuclear weapons to keep their promise that they would get rid of nuclear weapons, and said, “Enough is enough. We are now going to create an international treaty that will ban nuclear weapons, and you are going to be nuclear outlaws. And you’re going to have to deal with this new reality.”
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So how did these nations come together now?
ZIA MIAN: It’s taken years and years of effort by non-weapons states and peace movements around the world to build the kind of coalition that it’s taken to bring a resolution to the United Nations last year, in which 123 countries, as you mentioned, voted in support of the beginning of talks. The United States tried actively to block that resolution being passed. It actually sent a classified memo to all of the NATO allies the U.S. protects with its nuclear weapons, saying, “Don’t support this resolution at the United Nations. And if the resolution passes, don’t go, or else.” It was actively threatening its own allies to make sure they wouldn’t participate, because they know that in many of the countries in Europe, in particular, and in countries like Japan, which are protected by U.S. nuclear weapons, public opinion and many parliaments are actually in favor of joining the process to ban nuclear weapons. And it’s taken a lot of effort by the United States to keep these countries out of the process…….https://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/30/un_considers_a_historic_ban_on
$Trillions for nuclear weapons, as USA rejects UN nuclear ban conference
What the million-dollar—trillion-dollar modernization means is that when it came down to making deals with Republicans in the Congress, the Obama administration was willing to do a deal on the future of humanity and said, “Look, if you—if we need you to pass legislation through the Senate, and you want more nuclear weapons and more spending on nuclear weapons, we’ll give you that to get what we want.” And the Obama administration made a tragic deal with the Republicans in the Senate.
But the fact of the matter is, they could have refused to make that deal. But they decided that it was more important to pursue that legislative priority than to think about what the next 30, 40, 50, 60 years will look like. And that is something that we’re now going to have to wrestle with year by year,
And so, this letter from scientists is part of a long-standing effort by scientists from all over the world to make democracy work when it comes to nuclear weapons. And this is what the ban treaty process is also all about, that in the international community, it should not be the most powerful military state in the world that decides what happens in the world, but it should be the majority of the world’s community deciding what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
U.S. Boycotts U.N. Talks on Nuclear Ban While Spending Trillions to Modernize Nuclear Arsenal, Democracy Now, 30 Mar 17 Full interview with Princeton’s Zia Mian about the proposed U.N. nuclear ban treaty, the U.S. boycott and the U.S. trillion-dollar plan to “modernize” its nuclear arsenal. Zia Mian is a physicist, nuclear expert and disarmament activist. He is co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University………
Would Trump stage a “terrorist situation” if his popularity went right down?
I think that sooner or later the white working-class constituency will recognize, and in fact, much of the rural population will come to recognize, that the promises are built on sand. There is nothing there.
Maybe scapegoating, saying, “Well, I’m sorry, I can’t bring your jobs back because these bad people are preventing it.” And the typical scapegoating goes to vulnerable people: immigrants, terrorists, Muslims and elitists, whoever it may be. And that can turn out to be very ugly.
I think that we shouldn’t put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly
Chomsky: If Trump Falters With Supporters, a ‘Staged or Alleged’ Terrorist Attack Could Follow, truth dig, Mar 29, 2017 By Jan Frel / AlterNet It’s March 2017 , and the political process and the media in the U.S. are a depressing mess, on top of an ever-growing pile of issues that are not remotely being addressed, much less resolved by society: inequality, climate change, a global refugee crisis, you name it.
Donald Trump presents a new problem on top of the old familiar ones; a toxic multifront political disaster whose presence in the White House is doing damage to the national psyche on a daily basis. But in the first few months of his presidency it appears he is unwilling or unable to carry out almost any of the campaign promises he made to his base. Repealing Obamacare was supposed to be a cinch—well, that was a total disaster for Trump and the Republican party; the first big legislative rollout of his presidency, and it didn’t even make it to a vote. What about canceling TPP? Trump did do that, right?
In a recent interview with the renowned intellectual and public commentator Noam Chomsky, he told me TPP was dead on arrival regardless of who was elected. What about scrapping NAFTA? Chomsky said he was doubtful Trump would be able to do much there either. What Trump appears to be doing, Chomsky observed, is ramming through the standard GOP wish list: tax cuts, corporate welfare, climate change denial. How would Trump’s voters react to that? What we need to worry about, Chomsky says, is the potential for the Trump administration to capitalize on a “staged or alleged” terrorist attack. The text of our interview follows.
Jan Frel: Do you observe any meaningful signs of the key power factions in Washington aligning against Trump? Noam Chomsky: Well, the so-called Freedom Caucus, which is a Tea Party outgrowth, has been refusing, so far, to go along with the health plan that he has advocated. There are other indications of the Tea Party-style far-right, separating themselves from Trump’s proposals.
On the other hand, if you take a look at what is actually happening in Washington, apart from the rhetoric and what appears in Sean Spicer’s press conferences and so on, the old Republican establishment is pretty much pushing through the kinds of programs that they have always wanted. And now they have a kind of open door that is Trump’s cabinet, which draws from the most reactionary parts of the establishment. It doesn’t have much to do with Trump’s rhetoric. His rhetoric is about helping the working man and so on, but the proposals are savage and damaging to the constituency that thinks that Trump is their spokesperson.
JF: Do you think there will ever be a moment of awakening, or a disconnect for Trump’s supporters of his rhetoric and what he’s been doing in Washington, or can this just keep going?
NC: I think that sooner or later the white working-class constituency will recognize, and in fact, much of the rural population will come to recognize, that the promises are built on sand. There is nothing there.
And then what happens becomes significant. In order to maintain his popularity, the Trump administration will have to try to find some means of rallying the support and changing the discourse from the policies that they are carrying out, which are basically a wrecking ball to something else. Maybe scapegoating, saying, “Well, I’m sorry, I can’t bring your jobs back because these bad people are preventing it.” And the typical scapegoating goes to vulnerable people: immigrants, terrorists, Muslims and elitists, whoever it may be. And that can turn out to be very ugly.
I think that we shouldn’t put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly…….http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/chomsky_if_trump_falters_with_supporters_a_staged_terrorist_20170329
Will Westinghouse be able to complete any of its nuclear projects?
Westinghouse files for bankruptcy in blow to nuclear power, NYT, 30 Mar 17 “……..Bankruptcy will make it harder for Westinghouse’s business partners to collect money they are owed by the nuclear-plant maker. That mostly affects the American power companies for whom it is building reactors, analysts say. Now, it is unclear whether the company will be able to complete any of its projects, which in the United States are about three years late and billions over budget.
The power companies — Scana Energy in South Carolina and a consortium in Georgia led by Georgia Power, a unit of Southern Company — would face the possibility of new contract terms, long lawsuits and absorbing losses that Toshiba and Westinghouse could not cover, analysts say. The cost estimates are already running $1 billion to $1.3 billion higher than originally expected, according to a recent report from Morgan Stanley, and could eventually exceed $8 billion over all.
Dennis Pidherny, a managing director at Fitch Ratings who is sector head of the United States public power group, said that it was possible that the company’s bankruptcy filing could terminate the contracts and that it could be difficult for the utilities to find another builder to take them over.
“There’s still quite a bit of work that needs to be completed,” he said. “The biggest challenge there is quite simply finding another suitable contractor who can complete the contract and have it completed at a quote-unquote reasonable cost.”
That is, if they are constructed at all. Stan Wise, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission, said the utilities developing the Alvin W. Vogtle generating station in the state would have to evaluate whether it made sense to continue.
“It’s a very serious issue for us and for the companies involved,” Mr. Wise said. “If, in fact, the company comes back to the commission asking for recertification, and at what cost, clearly the commission evaluates that versus natural gas or renewables.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Toshiba said Westinghouse and affiliated companies were “working cooperatively” with the owners to arrange for construction to continue. In recent days, the affected companies issued statements saying they were monitoring the situation and exploring their options, as did the Energy Department, which has authorized $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for the Georgia project.
“We are keenly interested in the bankruptcy proceedings and what they mean for taxpayers and the nation,” said Lindsey Geisler, a Department of Energy spokeswoman. “Our position with all parties has been consistent and clear: We expect the parties to honor their commitments and reach an agreement that protects taxpayers, promotes economic growth, and strengthens our energy and national security.”https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/westinghouse-toshiba-nuclear-bankruptcy.html?_r=0
1 This Month
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- October 2026 (81)
- September 2026 (339)
- August 2026 (330)
- July 2026 (355)
- June 2026 (287)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (267)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
