Does Donald Trump Believe Nuclear War Is Inevitable? The man about to take control of US nukes has a very fatalistic view, Mother Jones, DAVID CORN DEC. 8, 2016 n just seven weeks, a man known for being ill-tempered, thin-skinned, narcissistic, and erratic will take control of the US nuclear arsenal. Donald Trump will have the authority and power to launch any combination of the country’s 4,500 nuclear weapons. At any time and for any reason he deems fit, Trump could destroy a nation and, through miscalculation, the world.
During the presidential campaign, he uttered several troubling statements about nuclear arms. At a Republican primary debate, he botched a question about the nuclear triad—America’s system of sea-, air-, and land-based nuclear weapons—suggesting he did not understand the most basic information about the structure of the US nuclear command. (He babbled, “For me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”) At other points in the campaign, Trump noted he would support allowing Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia to obtain nuclear weapons and indicated he would be open to using such weapons against ISIS and in other conflicts.
What makes Trump’s loose talk—and ignorance—about nuclear weapons particularly worrisome is that in the past, he has taken a fatalistic approach toward the notion of nuclear war. He has spoken as if he believed such a conflagration was almost inevitable. And now he is about to become one of the few humans on the planet who can decide the fate of the Earth……. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/donald-trump-nuclear-war-weapons-inevitable
December 9, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA, weapons and war |
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All indications so far point to a bleak future for addressing climate change, or even recognizing it as one of the world’s largest challenges. A number of his cabinet nominees, political appointees and closest advisors are outright climate deniers while others have funded the denial of climate change or are lukewarm on accepting the science.
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At best, climate action will likely take a backseat to other issues. At worst, there could be an all-out assault on the science, and as important, the funding that makes it possible.
To glean a clearer picture of where Trump’s administration stands and where it may be headed, we’ve created a list of his major cabinet and agency appointees as well as his senior advisors. We’ll continue to update this as appointments are made.
Steve Bannon, Senior Advisor
His views: Since 2012, Bannon has been in charge of Breitbart News, a site that espouses extremist right-wing views on a number of issues, including climate change. Under Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart News has repeatedly referred to climate change as a hoax and denigrated everyone from scientists (“dishonest” and mostly “abject liars”) to the Pope (“a 16-year old trotting out the formulaic bilge”) who has spoken out about the need to rein in carbon pollution.
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According to James Delingpole, a writer for Breitbart, “one of his pet peeves is the great climate-change con . . . it’s going to be a core part of his administration’s political program.”
Bannon has also framed dealing with climate change and terrorism as an either/or choice (a similar theme has emerged with Trump’s national security picks as well. It’s also a false dichotomy).
What he could do: As senior advisor, Bannon will be in position to influence Trump’s thinking on a wide range of issues, including climate change.
Reince Priebus, Chief of Staff
His views: As chair of the Republican National Committee, Priebus oversaw the creation of the 2016 party platformthat called the widely respected Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution.”
During the primaries, Priebus criticized Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley for saying that “the cascading effects” of climate change contributed to the rise of ISIS despite the research directly linking the climate-change fueled Syrian drought to instability in the region.
More recently, Priebus reiterated that Trump “has his default position, which most of it is a bunch of bunk” when it comes to climate science.
What he could do: As chief of staff, Priebus will also have Trump’s ear and advise him on all fronts, including climate change. Traditionally, the chief of staff also acts as a gatekeeper to the president and works with Congress to communicate and enact the president’s agenda.
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Senator Jeff Sessions, nominee for Attorney General
His views: Sessions (R-Ala.) has repeatedly questioned climate change and voted against climate action. In a 2003 floor speech in opposition to the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, Sessions said, “I believe there are legitimate disputes about the validity and extent of global warming . . . Carbon dioxide does not hurt you. We have to have it in the atmosphere. It is what plants breathe. In fact, the more carbon dioxide that exists, the faster plants grow.”
Sessions repeated an oft-debunked claim that there’s been “almost no increase” in temperatures over the past 19 years during a December 2015 episode of Washington Watch, a podcast put out by the conservative think tank Family Research Council.
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Sessions also signed a letter to cut U.S. contributions to the United Nations Green Climate Fund, which is designed to help poor countries adapt to climate change. He is also on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works where Republicans have attacked the U.S. commitments to the Paris Agreement and the EPA’s implementation of the Clean Power Plan.
What he could do: As attorney general, Sessions would be advising Trump on the legality of various climate rules and treaties, including the Clean Power Plan and the Paris Agreement. Sessions would also be head of the Justice Department, which is currently defending the Clean Power Plan in court. As Attorney General, Sessions could tell federal government to stop arguing the case, though how that would work and what would come after is unclear according to Michael Burger, executive director of Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Burger said there are a number of states, cities and environmental organizations that could continue the defense.
Rep. Mike Pompeo, nominee for Director of the CIA
His views: Pompeo (R-Kan.) has been an outspoken critic of factoring climate change into national security issues during his tenure in the House of Representatives. In a December 2015 statement, Pompeo said, “For President Obama to suggest that climate change is a bigger threat to the world than terrorism is ignorant, dangerous, and absolutely unbelievable.” The Pentagon doesn’t necessarily support that view nor the idea that climate and terrorism is an either/or issue (more on that below).
Pompeo has referred to the Paris Agreement — a pact forged between nearly 200 countries to voluntarily take steps to reduce their impacts on the climate beginning in 2020 — as a “radical climate change deal” and even used last year’s mass shooting in San Bernardino to claim that President Obama “continues his pursuit of misguided policies, including his radical climate change agenda.”
On C-SPAN in December 2013, Pompeo responded to a question on if he agrees that global warming is a problem by saying “Look, I think the science needs to continue to develop. I’m happy to continue to look at it. There are scientists who think lots of different things about climate change. There’s some who think we’re warming, there’s some who think we’re cooling, there’s some who think that the last 16 years have shown a pretty stable climate environment.”
That statement belies the fact that the world has warmed dramatically, with temperatures increasing about 1°C since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This year will be the hottest on record, marking the third year in a row that’s happened. The 2000s were the warmest decade on record and the 2010s are easily on the path to surpass that mark.
- What he could do: As the CIA’s director, Pompeo would be responsible for how the U.S. approaches national intelligence and security. The CIA shut down its climate program last year, but an agency spokesperson said “it continues to evaluate the national security implications of climate change.” Under Pompeo, it’s likely that resources focused on climate change would be further scaled back or scrapped altogether.
Gov. Nikki Haley, nominee for United Nations ambassador
Her views: South Carolina, where Haley is governor, is one of the states suing the EPA over the Clean Power Plan. She has criticized that plan, saying in a meeting with electric utilities that it “raises the cost of power. That’s what’s going to keep jobs away.”
During her tenure as governor, the state Department of Natural Resources came under fire for burying a report on the impacts of climate change throughout South Carolina for what appear to be political reasons.
What she could do: As the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Haley would set the tone for how the U.S. approaches international climate negotiations. Trump has threatened to “cancel” the Paris Agreement. While he can’t cancel it, he can pull the U.S. out of it and Haley would likely play a major role in doing that if Trump decides to move forward.
Lt. General Michael Flynn, National Security Advisor
His views: Similar to Pompeo, Flynn has railed against the idea that climate change should be a national security priority, a stance that would fly in the face of the Pentagon’s risk assessment and planning.
Dealing with climate change and terrorism is not a simple one-or-the-other decision. The two are linked, withnumerous studies showing climate change is tied to conflict and that climate change will only further destabilize the world. The Pentagon itself has described climate change as an “immediate” risk and major threat multiplier, one that could cause crops to fail, spark mass migrations and increase conflict for dwindling water resources (to say nothing of the threat sea level rise poses to U.S. naval bases around the world).
- What he could do: As national security advisor, Flynn will be Trump’s main sounding board and trusted source on security issues. If he downplays the threat of climate change, Flynn could create a huge blind spot for the administration’s security plans.
Betsy DeVos, nominee for Education Secretary
Her views: Of all Trump’s appointees so far, DeVos, an heiress to the Amway fortune and philanthropist, has the most moderate views on climate change (though she’ll likely have little influence in that realm as head of the Department of Education). WindQuest Group, the investment management firm she operates with her husband Dick DeVos, has overseen investments in clean technology.
But that moderation is somewhat tempered. DeVos has donated to the political campaigns of a number of Republican senators and representatives who deny climate change and have voted on an array of bills that would increase offshore oil drilling, end fuel efficiency standards and bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. Of course, that’s a bit of guilt by association as over the past eight years Republicans have been steadfast in their opposition to Obama’s climate and energy policies and any donation to her party would have resulted in votes against meaningful climate action. But given Republicans will soon control the White House, Senate and House, the legislators she’s backed will likely play a role in further gridlocking climate action or actively dismantling it.
What she could do: As education secretary, DeVos would have little direct sway on climate policy as there are no national education standards. But Ann Reid, head of the National Center for Science Education, said DeVos’ interest in providing vouchers and school choice could have an indirect effect on climate education.
“It’s not at all clear these charter schools are held to the same standards as public schools with curricula,” Reid said. “Part of their point is to be creative and teach in new ways. That sounds grand but what if they don’t accept climate change? Are they going to be held to the standards of the state? That’s a big, big change.”
K.T. McFarland, Deputy National Security Advisor
Her views: Like Bannon, Pompeo and Flynn, McFarland views climate change and terrorism as mutually exclusive. McFarland worked in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations on national security and is currently a commentator on Fox News. It’s in the latter position where she’s espoused views that terrorism is a greater threat than climate change. Speaking about President Obama attending the 2015 climate conference in Paris in the wake of the terrorist attacks that killed 130, she told Fox host Neil Cavuto:
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“Well, because President Obama thinks that climate change is the greatest strategic and geological and existential threat to our future. You know, here we are — and the irony, if it were not so tragic it would be funny — here we have ISIS, which is attacking with suicide vests and Kalashnikovs and potentially chemical weapons in the French water supply. What are we doing? We’re going to fight ISIS. We’re going to have windmills. We’re going to have solar panels. We’re going to show them. It’s just really — all it does is it gives encouragement to the terrorists who feel that they have been selected and chosen by Allah to establish the caliphate and kill everybody who disagrees with them. They now look at this and they are laughing.
“This is a threat and an assault against all western civilization. We will not defeat it with windmills and solar panels.”
What she could do: As deputy national security advisor, McFarland will occupy a similar role to Flynn, and her views on climate change appear to line up with his.
Rep. Tom Price, nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary
His views: The voting pattern of Price (R-Ga.) in the House lines up with his fellow cabinet nominees Pompeo and Sessions. He has voted against having the EPA regulate greenhouse gases and voted no on subsidies for renewable energy as well voting to continue giving subsidies for oil and gas exploration.
Price also signed a pledge created by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group funded by the Koch brothers, vowing to oppose climate legislation.
What he could do: As Health and Human Services Secretary, Price would have sway over a number of agencies and centers that do research on climate-related diseases and health issues, including the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health.
Elaine Chao, nominee for Transportation Secretary
Her views: In a 2009 blog post for the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, where she was a fellow at the time, Chao derided a proposed cap-and-trade system as a policy that “would drain trillions of dollars out of the private economy and into federal coffers.” While the economics of any cap-and-trade system are worthy of debate, it’s clear something has to be done about climate change and Chao has shown no interest in any alternative. Letting global warming continue unabate could cause trillions in economic losses from drowned coastal cities to decreased agricultural productivity.
Chao was on the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ board until January 2015. She chose to step down after the foundation decided to ramp up its “Beyond Coal” campaign. The move came shortly after her husband, Senator Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.), won re-election during a campaign where he was attacked for accepting money from “enemies of coal,” a veiled reference to Chao’s board membership at Bloomberg.
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What she could do: As Transportation Secretary, Chao would be tasked with overseeing a large chunk of Trump’s proposal to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure over the next 10 years. She would also be tasked with building out the electric vehicle charging corridors proposed by the Obama administration earlier this month, a project that is unlikely to fit with Trump’s plans that focus on the private sector.
Steven Mnuchin, nominee for Treasury Secretary
His views: It’s a mystery. Mnuchin has worked at Goldman Sachs, hedge funds and as a financier in Hollywood. Through all that, he’s said nary a word about climate change or energy-related issues.
His political donations also don’t say much about his views. He and his wife donated $5,400 to Trump, the maximum amount allowed under campaign finance law, and $309,600 to the Republican National Committee. That’s not surprising since he was Trump’s campaign finance chair. He also donated $2,000 to Kamala Harris, California’s new Senator who has been outspoken about the need to address climate change (in sharp contrast to Trump).
What he could do: As Treasury Secretary, Mnuchin would essentially help Trump set economic policies for the country. Climate change is expected to cost the U.S. — and the world — trillions if actions aren’t taken. Speaking at the Brookings Institute in 2014, current Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said, “if the fiscal burden from climate change continues to rise, it will create budgetary pressures that will force hard tradeoffs, larger deficits or higher taxes.”
The Treasury has also had to loan $24 billion to the National Flood Insurance Program to cover hurricane damages from Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Sandy, underscoring that planning for a fiscal response to near- and longer-term climate shocks will be a part Mnuchin’s job.
Wilbur Ross, nominee for Commerce Secretary
His views: Ross is a billionaire who made his fortune in buying distressed companies, cutting costs and selling them for a profit. In the past, he’s invested in coal companies and has recently moved into the oil and gas industry.
Beyond those investments, Ross hasn’t said anything about his interest or understanding of climate science.
What he could do: As Commerce Secretary, he would oversee the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s $189 million climate research budget. One of Trump’s advisors has suggested shifting some of NASA’s climate science responsibilities to NOAA, further expanding the amount of climate work Ross would be in charge of.
Gen. James Mattis, nominee for Defense Secretary
His views: Mattis served in a number of roles in the Marines prior to retiring in 2013. He hasn’t espoused anything publicly, but according to Stephen Cheney, a retired Marine brigadier general, Mattis “gets climate change.”
In 2003, Mattis led the 1st Marine Division during the Iraq invasion. Following the invasion, he told Navy researchersto “unleash us from the tether of fuel.” That indicates an understanding that renewable energy and alternative fuels have an important role to play in military preparedness and operations. The statement lines up with recent Department of Defense goals to reduce the use of petroleum products, increase renewable energy and cut non-combat greenhouse gases 34 percent by 2020.
What he could do: As Defense Secretary, Mattis would be in charge of implementing military strategy around the world (in comparison to Trump’s National Security Advisor, who can only offer advice). Under the Obama administration, climate change has been on the Department of Defense’s radar from how it affects national security to how military installations around the world should prepare for climate impacts, like sea level rise at naval bases, melting permafrost in the Arctic and more extreme rainfall events around the world.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correctly note that Kamala Harris is California’s newest Senator, not governor.
December 9, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA |
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Critics blast Cuomo’s $7.6B subsidy for nuclear plants, WBFO.org, By KAREN DEWITT, 8 Dec 16, A long-term energy plan by the Cuomo administration that includes a nearly $8 billion subsidy to two upstate nuclear power plants is being challenged from both ends of the political spectrum, and a lawsuit has been filed to try to stop the deal.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Public Service Commission plans to convert 50 percent of the state’s power sources to renewable energy over the next decade and a half. A controversial part of that program includes a $7.6 billion state-financed subsidy to a company that now runs two New York nuclear power plants – Nine Mile Point in Oswego and Ginna near Rochester – and is taking over a third plant, FitzPatrick, also in Oswego.
That has angered environmental groups, who filed a lawsuit, saying the PSC “acted improperly when it mandated a massive subsidy to prop up New York’s aging, failing nuclear power plants as part of the State’s Clean Energy Standard.”
Other progressive-leaning groups, including the New York Public Interest Research Group, also object to the deal.
“In some ways, it’s a straight-up ratepayer issue,” said Blair Horner, NYPIRG’s legislative director.
He said the deal will result in $2.3 billion in increased payments for residential utility customers, and even more for businesses. That’s in a state that already has among the highest utility rates in the nation.
“Roughly 800,000 New Yorkers are already having a hard time paying their existing electric bills,” Horner said. “This isn’t going to make it any better.”
Not only left-leaning groups oppose the deal. Fossil fuel companies like Shell and BP have objected, filing complaints with the PSC. Oil and gas companies would have to essentially help subsidize the deal through the price of zero emission tax credits bought and sold in New York…..http://news.wbfo.org/post/critics-blast-cuomos-76b-subsidy-nuclear-plants
December 9, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA |
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Trump could face the ‘biggest trial of the century’ — over climate change, WP By Chelsea Harvey December 1 A few weeks ago, a federal judge in Oregon made headlines when she ruled that a groundbreaking climate lawsuit will proceed to trial. And some experts say its outcome could rewrite the future of climate policy in the United States.
The case, brought by 21 youths aged 9 to 20, claims that the federal government isn’t doing enough to address the problem of climate change to protect their planet’s future — and that, they charge, is a violation of their constitutional rights on the most basic level. The case has already received widespread attention, even garnering the support of well-known climate scientist James Hansen, who has also joined as a plaintiff on behalf of his granddaughter and as a guardian for “future generations.”
The U.S. government under President Obama, along with several others representing members of the fossil fuel industry, filed to have the lawsuit dismissed. But on Nov. 10, federal judge Ann Aiken denied the motion, clearing the case to proceed to trial. According to Our Children’s Trust, the nonprofit representing the youth plaintiffs, a recent case management conference indicated that the case would likely go to trial by summer or early fall of 2017.
[Scientists have long feared this ‘feedback’ to the climate system. Now they say it’s happening]
“It’s been called the biggest trial of the century, and it is,” said Mary Wood, a law professor at the University of Oregon and expert in natural resources and public trust law. “Literally, when I say the planet is on the docket, it would be hard to imagine a more consequential trial, because the fossil fuel policies of the entire United States of America are going to confront the climate science put forth by the world’s best scientists. And never before has that happened.”
The odds of success
Theoretically, the trial’s outcome could have major implications for the incoming Trump administration, which aims to dismantle many of the climate and energy priorities established under President Obama.
Should the plaintiffs prevail, the federal government could be forced to develop and adhere to stringent carbon-cutting measures aimed at preserving the planet’s climate future for generations to come. The only other place such action has ever been ordered by a court is in the Netherlands, where a similar case resulted in a landmark ruling last year requiring the Dutch government to slash its emissions by a quarter within five years…….. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/01/trump-could-face-the-biggest-trial-of-the-century-over-climate-change/?utm_term=.d1aa009e5e04
December 9, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Legal, USA |
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Officials set to repackage radioactive waste in New Mexico, Huron daily Tribune, Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press, December 1, 2016 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Isolated in a temperature-controlled storage area at one of the nation’s premiere nuclear weapons laboratories, dozens of containers of radioactive waste similar to one that ruptured in 2014 remain under 24-hour surveillance, awaiting treatment so they can be stabilized and disposed of.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced this week that treatment of the 60 containers is expected to begin next spring following a series of safety assessments and upgrades to the building where the work will be performed…….
The work is one step in a yearslong effort to get the federal government’s multibillion-dollar cleanup program back on track at Los Alamos and other installations around the country where decades of Cold War-era waste — from gloves and tools to clothing and other material —have piled up.
The shipment of that waste to an underground disposal facility in southern New Mexico was put on indefinite hold in February 2014 when a container sent from Los Alamos to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant breached, contaminating a significant portion of the underground storage area……
The incident resulted in an overhaul of policies, costly work to mitigate the contamination, and a multimillion-dollar settlement with the state of New Mexico for numerous permit violations.
The Energy Department had hoped to resume some work at the Waste Isolation Plant by the end of the year. But the agency still needs to submit a readiness report to state regulators for review and an onsite inspection needs to be done.
Even if the site is cleared to begin moving waste into the underground, state officials say shipments will be sent slowly before they are ramped up………All of the work will be done inside an enclosed box in a specially engineered building with filters. Technicians will handle the waste only through gloved ports. http://www.michigansthumb.com/news/article/Feds-prepare-to-repackage-radioactive-waste-in-10646737.php
December 9, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, wastes |
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An Albuquerque watchdog group is calling for an additional federal review before WIPP can reopen.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad has been working for nearly three years to recover from a radiation accident in February 2014.
Roof collapses at WIPP raise new safety questions,Albuquerque Journal By Lauren Villagran / Journal Staff Writer Tuesday, December 6th, 2016 In a salt mine more than 2,000 feet underground where drums of nuclear waste are embedded in enormous rooms – some radiologically contaminated – workers heard a loud noise and saw a spray of salt dust.
It was just before 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 3 at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Still recovering from a radiation accident nearly three years ago, managers of the nation’s only deep geologic repository for defense nuclear waste had just two weeks prior decided to shut down the far south end of the mine after the salt ceiling collapsed in two places.Suspecting a rock fall, workers reported the incident to the Central Monitoring Room on the surface. Managers called for an evacuation of the underground and, following the latest safety protocol, activated the Emergency Operations Center 26 miles away in Carlsbad as a precaution.
The next day, a team of geotechnical and radiological control experts, members of the mine rescue team and a representative from the Mine Safety and Health Administration descended into WIPP. They found a massive area of the ceiling in Room 4 of Panel 7 had crashed: a rock fall two-thirds the length of a football field, eight feet thick.
WIPP is supposed to reopen this month. The U.S. Department of Energy has not publicly changed its position that WIPP will begin putting waste underground in December, a symbolic “end” to a recovery that still will likely go on for years.
There are regulatory hurdles left to clear. WIPP managers are expected to make public the results of a DOE “operational readiness review” this week, which could include corrective actions and could alter the time frame. New Mexico’s Environment Department must also complete a review of safety equipment, procedures and staff training and sign off that WIPP is ready.
But experts say the recent roof collapses inside WIPP – which have injured no one, thanks to precautionary closures of troubled areas – call into question the facility’s ability to handle ground control in a contaminated mine.
At the least, they say, the latest roof fall reduces available real estate underground, including potentially eliminating Room 4. At worst, the inability to keep up with maintenance could threaten worker safety, although WIPP managers frequently repeat that safety is the “highest priority.”……..
The radiation accident drastically reduced ventilation underground, curbing the number of vehicles that can operate. Workers must wear bulky protective clothing and respirators in contaminated areas and thus work more slowly. These and other constraints mean they can’t bolt back the roof at pre-accident rates, and some areas have been left unattended.
Salt was the chosen burial ground for certain types of legacy Cold War nuclear waste because, once filled and closed, the salt will slowly encapsulate the drums forever. But salt’s dynamic nature means WIPP managers are in a race against time – one they have not been winning.
“People have to understand, for WIPP to work it has to be a successful and a safe mining operation,” said Robert Alvarez, a columnist for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and former senior policy adviser to the Energy Secretary in the 1990s in the lead-up to WIPP’s opening. “They are just not out of the woods. But they are under enormous pressure to get this thing open because of all these sites sitting on this transuranic waste.”
Transuranic waste consists of boots, gloves and other materials contaminated during weapons production. Hundreds of shipments of “TRU” waste are piling up at sites around the country, including at Los Alamos and Idaho national laboratories and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina………
Federal review sought
An Albuquerque watchdog group is calling for an additional federal review before WIPP can reopen.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad has been working for nearly three years to recover from a radiation accident in February 2014.
In a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy dated Nov. 21, Albuquerque’s Southwest Research and Information Center and the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council asked DOE to submit WIPP to a review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.
The last NEPA review of WIPP came in 1997 – documents that “are now known to be incomplete, and in some cases, erroneous,” according to the letter.
Specifically, the letter requests NEPA analyses of WIPP’s recovery and its waste disposal plans – such as studies outlining the impacts of an underground fire like the one that occurred days before the radiation release in an unrelated accident – as well as a new analysis regarding the probability and impacts of a hot reaction inside a waste drum like the one that contaminated the facility.
– Lauren Villagran https://www.abqjournal.com/902842/new-safety-questions-come-up-at-wipp.html
December 7, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
incidents, USA |
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For patients, unnecessary procedures (usually imaging procedures) and radiation dosing errors represent the bulk of risk from medical radiation, whereas incidental, unintended radiation exposure is the primary concern for nurses and other health care workers…
Radiation safety for patients—and nurses Oncology Nurse Advisor, Bryant 
Furlow, October 26, 2011 Diagnostic and therapeutic radiation have prolonged and improved millions of patients’ lives, and represent indispensable and increasingly sophisticated tools in clinical oncology. But medical radiation’s gifts have come at the potential cost of unintended irradiation of patients and health care workers and increased lifetime risks of secondary cancers. This concern has grown with improving patient survival times, particularly among pediatric cancer patients. Continue reading →
December 7, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
health, Reference, USA, women |
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US to build $1.6B Idaho facility for warships’ nuclear waste,WNTV.com 6 Dec 16 By KEITH RIDLER Associated Press BOISE, Idaho (AP) – A $1.65 billion facility will be built at a nuclear site in eastern Idaho to handle fuel waste from the nation’s fleet of nuclear-powered warships, the Navy and U.S. Department of Energy announced Tuesday.
Officials said the new facility is needed to keep nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines deployed.
The new construction will be at the Naval Reactors facility on the Energy Department’s southeastern Idaho site that covers about 890-square-miles of high-desert sagebrush steppe. The area also includes the Idaho National Laboratory, considered the nation’s primary lab for nuclear research.
“This action will provide the infrastructure necessary to support the naval nuclear reactor defueling and refueling schedules to meet the operational needs of the U.S. Navy,” the Department of Energy said in a statement.
Officials said site preparation is expected to begin in 2017 with construction of the facility likely to start in 2019, creating 360 on-site jobs. The facility is expected to start operating in late 2024. The Department of Energy formally announced the plan with publication of what’s called a record of decision in the Federal Register. The record of decision made public Tuesday was signed last month by Admiral James F. Caldwell Jr., director of the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.
The record of decision concludes a lengthy and public environmental process that also looked at continuing using outdated facilities at the eastern Idaho site or overhauling them…..
The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, a joint Navy and Energy Department organization, has been sending spent Navy fuel to the Idaho site since 1957. It’s transported by rail from shipyards. Dahl declined to describe security at Navy site.
“Appropriate security will be provided for the new facility,” he said.
Officials also declined on Tuesday to describe security measures at the rest of site, but access roads have armed checkpoints and visitors must leave passenger vehicles far from facilities and ride buses into secured areas.
Nuclear waste coming into Idaho prompted lawsuits when state leaders in the late 1980s and early 1990s thought the site was becoming a permanent nuclear waste repository. The lawsuits culminated in a 1995 agreement, then a 2008 addendum, limiting such shipments and requiring most nuclear waste to be removed from the federal site by 2035. The deal applies to the Navy’s spent nuclear fuel.
Under the agreement, fuel waste coming to the new facility after 2035 will only remain for the six years it takes to cool in pools. After that, it’s required to be put in dry storage and taken out of Idaho. However, the nation has no repository for spent nuclear fuel at this time, so where it will go is not clear…..http://www.wbtv.com/story/33941726/us-to-build-16b-idaho-facility-for-warships-nuclear-waste
December 7, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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How far will Trump go to gut U.S. climate policies? http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060046632 Evan Lehmann, E&E News reporter ClimateWire: Monday, December 5, 2016 President-elect Donald Trump would have to undertake a herculean political effort to reverse his administration’s responsibility to reduce greenhouse gases, and he might not be able to count on Republicans in Congress for help.
In promising to rescind the Clean Power Plan, Trump is clipping a regulation off at the stem, but the roots would survive to pester his administration with the threat of lawsuits and the likelihood of future rules governing the release of carbon dioxide at U.S. firms, according to experts.
When the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases are an “air pollutant,” it set in motion a series of actions that could now require Trump to convince the courts that global warming is not adversely affecting humans and the Earth — after the same court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, came to the opposite conclusion in 2012.
That effort would occur if Trump’s U.S. EPA tried to reverse the so-called endangerment finding of 2009, a tick-tock in the bureaucratic record that gave rise to a cascade of regulations on greenhouse gases over cars, power plants, natural gas wells and more in the future. The finding is EPA’s trigger to regulate. Continue reading →
December 7, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, politics, USA |
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As nuclear plants age, risks rise, telegram.com Christine Legere, Dec 4, 2016 Dec 4, 2016 “………COLLAPSING COMMUNITIES
Fifty years after the U.S. launched a bold plan to invest in nuclear power, most of the promises of clean, inexpensive energy have failed to materialize. Plants often cost far more than projected and took years longer to build — driving up rates for consumers. Many plants were never completed, instead becoming a debt utility companies passed on to ratepayers.
Meanwhile, the direst fears of anti-nuclear activists also have not played out. Although there are rashes of safety incidents, the most serious U.S. incident being the 1979 partial meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island, there has never been the kind of catastrophe seen at the Chernobyl plant or, more recently, at the Fukushima reactor.
But skeptics such as Gunter say risks are still with us. As reactors age, they are more prone to accidents caused by worn-out parts. In some cases, operating licenses are being renewed far beyond a plant’s planned shelf life, meaning expensive upgrades and extra-vigilant maintenance — things not always tended to by strapped utilities.
Of even greater concern to the nuclear watchdogs: the vast and growing piles of spent nuclear fuel. There is still no known way to store used fuel long-term that guarantees it won’t leak during the tens of thousands of years some components remain radioactive. The 76,000 metric tons of dangerous nuclear waste that already have been generated now sit on plant sites across the country. To give that number perspective, if existing radioactive fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, they would stand more than two stories high and cover a football field.
And there is another impact — one that perhaps even the most ardent of anti-nuclear activists did not envision. Across the country, communities expanded and grew dependent on the nuclear plant in their backyards. Now, as many of those plants cut back or are decommissioned, economic vitality is gutted. Jobs and middle-class lifestyles disappear. Housing prices collapse. Tax bases dwindle, undermining everything from school budgets to road repairs……
IN THE RED
Across the country, other communities also have found it hard to recover from the loss of revenue when their nuclear plants close…….
PENT-FUEL FEARS
Plymouth may be able to mitigate the financial loss of Pilgrim, but, like other sites of shuttered plants across the country, the town will be left with several hundred tons of nuclear waste in the form of highly radioactive spent fuel.
Spent fuel is nuclear fuel that has been used and removed from the reactor core. The Government Accountability Office calls the hot and highly radioactive stuff one of the most hazardous substances created by humans. Some components stay radioactive for tens of thousands of years
The country’s nuclear plants are adding about 2,000 metric tons of waste each year to the 76,000 metric tons already sitting at 72 plants across the country.
“If not properly contained or shielded, the intense radioactivity of spent fuel can cause immediate deaths and environmental contamination, and in lower doses can cause long-term health hazards such as cancer,” the accountability office said in a study of spent fuel done in 2012 at the request of Congress.
Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Congress mandated that the federal government open a permanent geological storage facility for nuclear waste from civilian facilities and begin accepting waste by 1998. Plans for such a repository at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, ran into heavy opposition and were halted in 2010. To date no alternative has been found.
More than 70 percent of the spent fuel in the U.S. currently remains at reactor sites, squeezed into tightly racked storage pools that were designed for much smaller loads.
Boron panels, which prevent fission from occurring in the fuel pool, are deteriorating at many sites, including at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. To address the problem, operators shift the hottest fuel in the pools away from the degraded panels. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission currently views the issue as one it will monitor.
Although it does not solve the problem of waste storage in communities across the country, the only way to reduce the danger from spent fuel is to move it to dry casks, mammoth steel-lined concrete structures, says David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
LEFT WITH A ‘NUCLEAR DUMP’
Mayor Al Hill says Zion knew what it was signing up for in 1973, when it agreed to host a nuclear power plant: The trade was 267 acres of lakefront property for $18 million in annual revenue. The city did not agree to storing nuclear waste indefinitely
We have environmental concerns and everybody in the U.S. should have environmental concerns about these rods being so close to Lake Michigan,” Hill says. “We’re stuck with a nuclear dump.”
In July, U.S. Rep. Robert Dold, an Illinois Republican, filed a bill at the urging of Hill and other regional leaders to pay communities storing the nuclear waste. Under the Stranded Nuclear Waste Accountability Act, Zion, which stores more than 1,000 metric tons of spent fuel, would get about $15 million annually. Congressmen from other host communities have signed on to the bill.
The Department of Energy is working on a plan for consent-based interim storage. Andrews County in West Texas, with a total population of under 15,000, has endorsed a proposal submitted by Waste Control Specialists. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing the company’s application for a facility that would be ready by 2021 to store 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel from closed commercial reactors.
Holtec International is working on an application for a storage site in southeastern New Mexico and expects to submit its proposal to federal regulators by year’s end.
DEMANDING ANSWERS
Populations near U.S. reactors, meanwhile, want to know if their proximity poses a health threat. The NRC hired the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study in 2010 but halted the work last year because of costs, expected to be about $8 million.
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has long fought for tighter industry controls, said the agency gambles with the public’s health.
“The NRC blames budgetary constraints for ending the study, but what price do residents pay for living near operating nuclear facilities?” he wrote in a statement. “We should know that answer.”
Plant owners, however, hope to keep lucrative reactors online despite their age. Most already have extended their reactor licenses for another 20 years beyond the initial 40 they were allowed to operate. And at least two already have indicated their intent to go for another extension, which would allow the plants to continue until they are 80 years old. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission makes the decision on those extension requests.
In a recent study on extending nuclear plant licenses, the Office of Nuclear Energy said the question that must first be answered for the public is “How safe is safe enough?
“Even with continuous improvements in safety and performance, nuclear power is still perceived by the public as not safe enough,” the report noted. “Nuclear power does involve high-consequence events like those at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima that are rare but can be catastrophic.”
Gunter says further license renewals should not even be considered. He calls the current plants “antiquated” and no longer economically viable without government subsidy.
“They’re in a death spiral,” Gunter says. “The question now is how quickly can we retire this industry? How much more nuclear waste are we going to generate before we realize enough is enough?” http://www.telegram.com/news/20161204/as-nuclear-plants-age-risks-rise
December 7, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
employment, safety, social effects, USA, wastes |
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James Mattis warned that land-based nuclear missiles pose false alarm danger
Trump’s pick for next US defence secretary has questioned need for US’s ICBMs, which are ready to launch within minutes in event of an attack, Guardian, Julian Borger, 4 Dec 16, James Mattis, the retired general Donald Trump has chosen to be the next US defence secretary, has questioned the need for land-based nuclear missiles on the grounds they represent a higher risk than other weapons of being launched on a false alarm.
Mattis raised doubts about US nuclear orthodoxy in a statement to Congress in 2015, raising the issue over whether nuclear deterrence should continue to rest on a “triad” of weapon types: land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched missiles and warheads carried by air force bombers. During the campaign, Trump vowed to proceed with current plans to modernise all three legs of the triad, with an estimated price tag of half a trillion dollars over 20 years.
In his remarks to the Senate about US national security priorities, Mattis struck a more sceptical tone. He asked whether the US should declare that the sole purpose of its nuclear arsenal was to deter nuclear attack, a statement that would narrow its purpose and potentially lower the number of warheads required. The present US nuclear posture states that, in some circumstances, the current, 4,500-warhead arsenal has a role in deterring conventional or chemical weapon attack.
“The nuclear stockpile must be tended to and fundamental questions must be asked and answered,” Mattis told the Senate armed services committee. “We must clearly establish the role of our nuclear weapons: do they serve solely to deter nuclear war? If so we should say so, and the resulting clarity will help to determine the number we need.”
“Is it time to reduce the triad to a diad, removing the land‐based missiles? This would reduce the false alarm danger,” Mattis said.
The US has about 400 ICBMs on a “hair-trigger alert”, ready to launch within minutes if early warning systems show an incoming attack. Several former defence secretaries and generals have argued that they should be taken off this state of readiness because of the danger of false alarms, especially in the age of cyber warfare. Some former officials, including William Perry, defence secretary in the Clinton administration, have argued ICBMs should be scrapped altogether.
Perry said he knew Mattis well, having worked for the marine, then a colonel, for three years during Perry’s time at the Pentagon. The two have since taken part in conferences and panel discussions on nuclear weapons and defence.
“He’s very intelligent, a very serious thinker, nothing frivolous at all about him,” Perry told the Guardian. “My view of him is that he will be a solid addition to Trump’s team. He brings an experience in defence and national security that is lacking.”
“More importantly,” Perry said, “he is a man who says what he thinks. He’s not easily intimidated. He is known for speaking truth to power and that will be a great asset in this administration.”
Perry added that, during conversations he had had with Mattis and George Shultz, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, the marine general showed a deep understanding of the dangers of nuclear weapons. “I would not expect him to be recommending anything rash with nuclear weapons,” Perry said……. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/04/james-mattis-defense-secretary-nuclear-missiles-trump
December 7, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, weapons and war |
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More terrifying than Trump? The booming conspiracy culture of climate science denial, Guardian, Graham Readfearn, 6 Dec 16,
Conspiracy websites and hyperpartisan media outlets are building huge online audiences who want to hear climate change is a hoax “…….
Climate change is an issue he [Alex Jones]covers regularly on his shows, where he has interviewed climate science deniers such as Christopher Monckton (a familiar name to Australians given his multiple speaking tours here), Marc Morano and James Delingpole.
While it’s easy to dismiss the conspiracy culture pushed by Jones as pseudoscientific rubbish, it is not so easy to dismiss the size of the audience he has been building. Jones’s website gets 57m page views per month – double where it was six months ago.
According to analytics site Social Blade, the Alex Jones YouTube channel has 1.8m subscribers and just racked up its one billionth (that’s not a typo) video view. (For comparison, the BBC News YouTube channel has 992,000 subscribers.)
Jones’s Infowars site is part of an ecosystem of hyperpartisan media outlets that insist climate change is a hoax. Like Jones, that ecosystem is rapidly building a receptive online audience.
Those sites can now reach hundreds of millions of people with headlines insisting that human-caused climate change is a hoax, that global warming has stopped or that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is good.
One example. The most popular climate change story across social media in the past six months was not some diligently researched piece from one of the many very good science journalists writing for major news organisations around the world.
Rather, the story claimed that thousands of scientists had come forward to declare that climate change was a hoax. The writer was a guy running a website in Los Angeles who worked for eight years for the UK conspiracy theorist David Icke.
Icke thinks the moon might be some sort of spaceship, that the world is controlled by a globalist illuminati and, yes, that climate change is a hoax. Icke is a regular guest on Infowars.
Infowars will often source material from Breitbart – the website that used to be run by Trump’s campaign chairman and soon-to-be chief strategist, Steve Bannon.
Many of Breitbart’s most popular climate change items are written by Delingpole, a British polemicist. Guess what he thinks of climate change?…..
Breitbart is also building its audience. According to data from SimilarWeb, the site now gets 168m page views per month, doubling its reach in the past six months……
I’m happy to admit the online growth and reach of climate science denialists and conspiracy theorists terrifies me. Why?
The problem is not that these sites exist but that not enough people seem to know the difference between actual news, fake news, partisan opinion and conspiratorial bullshit. One of those people is the president-elect of the United States.
Either that, or people don’t even care to differentiate between fake and real, especially if what they read taps into their own prejudices.
There is a concerted attempt to cut sensible climate policy off at the knees by building a popular online movement against the science itself.
For decades, the fossil fuel industry and so-called “free market” ideologues at conservative thinktanks have misled the public on the science and the risks of climate change.
Now, the decades of material produced by that climate science denial machineryis finding a new audience. Those talking points are being reheated and screamed, in FULL CAPS.
So what’s the answer? No one seems to know but much appears to be in the hands of Google and Facebook.
Other than that, a crash course in critical thinking and recognising climate science denial brought to you by the illuminati might be the order of the day. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/dec/06/more-terrifying-than-trump-the-booming-conspiracy-culture-of-climate-science-denial
December 7, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA |
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Global Warming Research in Danger as Trump Appoints Climate Skeptic to NASA Team, The Intercept, Alleen Brown December 2 2016, ONE OF NASA’S most high-profile projects has been to track historical average global temperature. In January 2016, the agency released data that showed 2015 had been the hottest year on record. “Today’s announcement not only underscores how critical NASA’s Earth observation program is, it is a key data point that should make policy makers stand up and take notice — now is the time to act on climate,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a statement at the time. Since then, NASA’s monthly updates on temperature delivered a steady dose of dread as month after month was declared the hottest recorded.
Now Donald Trump’s first NASA transition team pick is Christopher Shank, a Hill staffer who has said he is unconvinced of a reality that is accepted by the vast majority of climate scientists: that humans are the primary driver of climate change. Shank previously worked for Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican congressman who played a key role in dragging out debates on the basic nature of climate change at a time when the science is settled and action is urgent.
Shank has criticized the type of scientific data NASA regularly releases. As part of a panel in September 2015 at Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, he said, “The rhetoric that’s coming out, the hottest year in history, actually is not backed up by the science — or that the droughts, the fires, the hurricanes, etc., are caused by climate change, but it’s just weather.”…..
Shank’s appointment dovetails with threats from Trump’s advisors to scrap NASA’s research on climate change. In an October op-ed for Space News, Trump campaign advisors Robert Walker and Peter Navarro stated, “NASA should be focused primarily on deep space activities rather than Earth-centric work that is better handled by other agencies.”…….
Shank’s longtime boss Smith, the Republican head of the House Science, Space, and Technology committee, led an effort to slash NASA’s earth science budget this year and in 2011 requested an investigation into the “politicization of NASA.”
Smith is obsessed with combatting what he has called “climate religion.” …… https://theintercept.com/2016/12/01/global-warming-research-in-danger-as-trump-appoints-climate-skeptic-to-nasa-team/
December 5, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, USA |
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Standing Rock: US military veterans back North Dakota pipeline protests, ABC News 3 Dec 16, US military veterans plan to build a barracks at a protest camp in North Dakota to support thousands of activists in frigid conditions opposing a multi-billion-dollar pipeline project near the Standing Rock Native American reservation.
Key points:
- Veterans have started arriving at Oceti Sakowin camp, aim to form a wall in front of police to protect the protesters
- Native Americans and protesters say pipeline threatens water resources and sacred sites
- Number of protesters in recent weeks has topped 1,000
Veterans volunteering to be human shields have been arriving at the Oceti Sakowin camp near the small town of Cannon Ball, where they will work with protesters who have spent months demonstrating against plans to route the Dakota Access Pipeline beneath a lake near the Sioux reservation, organisers said.
The Native Americans and protesters said the $US3.8 billion pipeline threatened water resources and sacred sites.
Some of the more than 2,100 veterans who signed up on the Veterans Stand for Standing Rock group’s Facebook page are at the camp, with hundreds more expected during the weekend.
Tribal leaders asked the veterans, who aim to form a wall in front of police to protect the protesters, to avoid confrontation with authorities and not get arrested.
The plan was for veterans to gather in Eagle Butte, a few hours away, and then travel by bus to the main protest camp, organisers said, adding that a big procession was planned for Monday.
Protesters began setting up tents, tepees and other structures in April and the numbers swelled in August at the main camp.
Joshua Tree, 42, from Los Angeles, who has been visiting the camp for weeks at a time since September, said he felt pulled to the protest.
“Destiny called me here,” he said at the main camp.
Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Pussy Riot petition Obama
Adding to the momentum of the protests, more than 150 musicians including members of Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Moby and Tegan & Sara have signed an open letter calling on President Barack Obama to “revoke the permits” for the pipeline construction.
British recording artist Kate Nash organised the petition in order to take a stand against what she describes as the “extremely aggressive tactics” used by police against the activists.
The letter, addressed to “President Obama, Army Corps of Engineers, and Department of Justice”, compared the treatment of activists by police to “inhumane methods used during WWII”.
“We call on the White House to deny the easement now, revoke the permits, remove the DAPL construction workers, and order a full environmental impact statement,” the letter said.
“Know that the world’s eyes and the eyes of the music community are on you now as you continue to disregard the treaties you have with the Native American people and act barbarically towards them.”
Nash told Vice News’ Noisey wesbite that now more than ever it is important for musicians to be using their influence for political ends.
“Donald Trump is to become president, people connected to Trump are heiling in meetings, there’s a normalisation of white supremacists. It’s a very important time for us to be holding America to account,” she said.
‘It’s time for them to go home’
The activists’ voices have been heard by companies linked to the pipeline as well, including banks that have been targeted by protesters for their financing of the pipeline……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-03/us-military-veterans-back-north-dakota-pipeline-protests/8089562
December 5, 2016
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, USA |
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