USA’s disgraceful militaristic bullying at Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons
A pair of conferences here this week have tried to raise public and government awareness of nuclear weapons.
The first, a Civil Society Forum put on by the Int’l Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, brought 
together non-governmental groups, parliamentarians, and activists of all stripes to try and boost morale and renew enthusiasm in efforts to ban the bomb.
About 700 participants spent two days delving into the ghastly health and environmental effects of nuclear war, the hair-raising frequency of H-bomb accidents and near detonations, and the horrifying impacts of bomb test fallout — and other human radiation experiments conducted without informed consent upon our own unwitting civilians and soldiers……..
A second conference of about 1,000 government representatives, NGOs and others followed the ICAN meeting. The “Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons” (HINW) was the 3rd in a series and your felonious Nukewatch reporter was somehow granted permission to attend the deeply stuffy affair.
After decades of negotiations over the numerical size of nuclear arsenals, the HINW meetings have finally faced the harsh ugliness and catastrophic health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons.
Expert witnesses spoke directly to 180 state governments about the ethical, legal, medical and ecological consequences of H-bomb detonations which are — in the language of diplomatic nicety — “foreseeable.” Then, scores of state delegates called on nuclear-armed countries (US, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) to dissolve their reliance on the worst of our WsMD and see them abolished.
But the naked emperor can’t see his own bare ass……….
Immediately following harrowing personal testimonies from downwind bomb test victims, and a review by Ms. Olson of the science showing women and children to be far more vulnerable to radiation than men, the U.S. interrupted.
Although conveners explicitly directed participants to only ask questions, US delegate Adam Scheinman was the first at the mic and he declared flatly, “I will not ask a question but make a statement.” The bully then completely ignored the panel’s discussion of the brutal, gruesome, and long-term effects of nuclear weapons testing and use. Instead, in ringing non sequitur, the U.S.’s prepared remarks declared opposition to a nuclear weapons ban treaty..…..
The U.S.’s refusal to support (and its dismissal of) the movement for a nuclear weapons ban/treaty should be the story today, but corporate media can be counted on to regurgitate Obama’s encouragement of interminable negotiations to nowhere.
The desired result of its bombast is that the U.S. will momentarily divert attention from the indiscriminate, uncontrollable, widespread, persistent, radiological and genetically destabilizing impact of its nuclear weapons — and gotten television to pat it on the back merely for showing up and “listening.”
Indeed, after its usurpation of center-stage here — and after having ignored and then temporarily recast the subject of the conference — the U.S. may now leave the building and get back to its one-thousand-billion-dollar upgrade of infrastructure for producing 80 new H-bombs a year by 2020. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/10/us-attends-then-defies-conference-on-nuclear-weapons-effects/
USA’s Department of Energy (DOE) makes $12.5 billion available to bolster new nuclear power projects
DOE Opens $12.5B Nuclear Loan Guarantee Solicitation, Power 12/10/2014 | Sonal Patel
The Department of Energy (DOE) today opened a loan guarantee solicitation to make available as much as $12.5 billion to bolster the construction of new nuclear projects.
Issued under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Advanced Nuclear Energy Projects Solicitation backs four key technology areas: advanced nuclear reactors, small modular reactors (SMRs), uprates and upgrades at existing facilities, and front-end nuclear projects.
According to Peter Davidson, executive director of the DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), “any technology that meets the eligibility requirements is welcome to apply,” but the four areas are of “particular interest.”
“Advanced nuclear reactors” include projects with “evolutionary, state-of-the-art design improvements in the areas of fuel technology, thermal efficiency, modularized construction, safety systems, and standardized design,” he said. The DOE is also seeking SMR projects, typically 300 MW or smaller, and uprate and upgrade projects, which use an “innovative technology to improve an existing reactor by increasing efficiency, increasing capacity or making critical improvements that are integral to current or future facility operations.”
The DOE, meanwhile, specified that $2 billion of the $12.5 billion available under the solicitation will be available exclusively for front-end projects. These include uranium conversion or enrichment, as well as nuclear fuel fabrication…….http://www.powermag.com/doe-opens-12-5b-nuclear-loan-guarantee-solicitation/
As USA government ignores the issue, USA citizen scientists find Fukushima radiation in Pacific Ocean
Fukushima radiation found 400 miles west of Newporthttp://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2014/12/10/fukushima-radiation-found-miles-west-newport-ore/20223771/ Tracy Loew, Statesman Journal On the last Sunday in November, Terry Waldron waded into the surf at Nye Beach in Newport and filled a plastic bucket from the frigid Pacific Ocean.
The salty water now sits in a laboratory across the country, at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, awaiting testing on highly sensitive equipment.
Waldron is part of a corps of West Coast citizen scientists sampling ocean water near their homes for traces of radiation from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant on the other side of the Pacific.
New data from Woods Hole shows very low levels of Fukushima radiation about 400 miles due west of Newport, as well as at other offshore sites along the West Coast.
At current levels, the radiation is not expected to harm humans or the environment.
But in the absence of federal monitoring, citizens such as Waldron have taken it upon themselves to test for its arrival on beaches. Continue reading
If USA redeploys nuclear cruise missiles to Europe it will not make us safer
Redeployment of nukes to Europe won’t increase US security – Moscow Rt, December 12, 2014 The possible redeployment of nuclear cruise missiles to Europe and other military steps mentioned by a US official over Russia’s alleged violation of a crucial arms control treaty won’t add to US security, but will increase tension, Moscow said………..Earlier this year, the US implemented several waves of sanctions and aborted cooperation with Moscow in a number of key areas over Russia’s alleged involvement in the Ukraine crisis.
The INF Treaty is a key agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union which put a seal on the Cold War era.
It eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with intermediate ranges, defined as between 500-5,500 kilometers (300-3,400 miles).
The two countries agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and conduct extensive on-site verification inspections. As a result, Moscow and Washington destroyed a total of 2,692 missiles. http://rt.com/news/214011-russia-us-nuclear-europe/
Unease in Southern California over San Onofre’s Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Plan
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also ruled earlier this year that radioactive waste can be stored on nuclear plant sites indefinitely. “We’re looking at the waste sitting here for potentially hundreds of years,” Gilmore said, pointing from her home to the coastline below. “We don’t know how many years it’s going to sit here, and the NRC only certifies these casks for 20 years.”
San Onofre’s Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Plan Worries Some Residents, KPBS, December 11, 2014 By Alison St John Almost 4,000 highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies will have to be stored indefinitely on the narrow strip of land between Interstate 5 and the ocean, where the San Onofre nuclear power plant now stands. That’s because political gridlock nixed a federal long-term storage site for nuclear waste in Nevada. Continue reading
USA resists tightening international safety rules on nuclear reactors
Russian Nuclear Safety Proposal Put Focus on U.S. Reactors Bloomberg, By Jonathan Tirone Dec 10, 2014 Russia scaled back opposition to European proposals to improve the safety of nuclear power, leaving the U.S. as the main dissenter to new rules intended to avoid a repeat of Japan’s 2011 meltdown in Fukushima.Russia changed its stance at a Dec. 4 meeting of nuclear diplomats, setting out the Moscow government’s view of new rules to limit radioactive contamination in the event of a nuclear accident, according to a copy of the 13-page presentation seen by Bloomberg. The move raised the chances of a deal to strengthen the Convention on Nuclear Safety, according to three Western diplomats present at the meeting, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private.
The European Union is trying to find a path to tighter safety rules for the world’s aging nuclear reactors with its relationship with Russia overshadowed by the conflict in Ukraine. Yet it’s the U.S., the world’s biggest nuclear-power generator, that is proving the biggest obstacle, the diplomats said, as company investments in reactor safety lag those of European peers.
U.S. resistance to the European safety proposals is a “serious concern,” Senators Barbara Boxerand Edward Markey said in a Dec. 1 letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Allison Macfarlane. The Democrats urged U.S. diplomats to work with “international partners” to amend safety flaws exposed by the 2011 Fukushima Dai-Ichi meltdowns.
Two Proposals
Russia abandoned its opposition to tightening international rules on reactor safety the day after reports of a nuclear accident in Ukraine. The reported mishap — which ultimately proved to be false — roiled markets and sent Ukrainian bond yields to a record high. The 1986 meltdown of a Soviet-built reactor in Chernobyl, about 80 miles north of the capital Kiev, weighed on Ukraine’s budget for decades and resulted in a 2,600 square kilometer (1,000 square miles) exclusion zone.
The European proposal would compel nuclear operators to both prevent accidents and, should they occur, mitigate the effects of radioactive contamination. Most controversially, the treaty change would also force potentially costly upgrades at existing plants.
More than half of the world’s 438 reactors were built at least 30 years ago and are nearing the age when they’ll need special attention, according to International Atomic Energy Agency statistics………
“People in the U.S. don’t realize that in many ways our nuclear safety standards lag behind those inEurope,” former NRC commissioner Victor Gilinsky said in a written reply to questions. “The German and French containment structures are generally more formidable than ours and those reactors generally have more protection systems.”……
Regulators worldwide have tried to boost safety standards in response to the Fukushima meltdown, which forced 160,000 people to flee radioactive contamination after a tsunami flooded safety back-up systems.
The NRC is still working out the parameters on how it values human lives at risk from a nuclear accident, spokesman Scott Burnell said. The value helps determine how much nuclear-plant operators need to spend on backfitting reactors with new safety gear. The NRC was criticized Dec. 3 by Boxer, chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works committee, for being slow to ensure plant safety improvements.
“Some reactor operators are still not in compliance with the safety requirements that were in place before the Fukushima disaster,” Boxer said. “This is unacceptable.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at jtirone@bloomberg.net http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-10/russian-concessions-on-nuclear-safety-put-focus-on-u-s-reactors.html
Palisades Nuclear Plant safety violation
NRC finds Palisades Nuclear Plant safety violation involving monitoring workers for radiation By Emily Monacelli | emonacel@mlive.com COVERT TOWNSHIP, MI, 11 Dec 14 — Federal regulators found a safety violation involving monitoring of workers for radiation exposure at the Palisades nuclear power plant inCovert Township early this year, according to a report……. David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Nuclear Safety Project, expressed concern Thursday about a report recently released that showed NRC inspectors examined 20 components at Palisades and found 10 low-level safety violations. Lochbaum said it is alarming that the problems were found by NRC inspectors and not first by Entergy workers.
“You have to do more than fix these violations,” Lochbaum said, adding that to prevent recurrences requires that Palisades operators get to the root of the problems. http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/12/palisades_safety_violation.html
Unnecessary radiation given to elderly breast cancer patients
Most elderly breast cancer patients receive unnecessary radiation, Medical News Today, by James McIntosh 8 December 2014 In 2004, a randomized clinical trial supported the omission of radiation treatment in elderly female patients with early-stage breast cancer. Despite this evidence, a new study reports that almost two-thirds of this group of patients still receive this treatment today. The randomized clinical trial – often regarded to be the “gold standard” in evidence-based medicine – demonstrated that the administering of radiation to patients who had received surgery and the drug tamoxifen did not improve 5-year recurrence rates or survival rates in elderly women diagnosed with early-stage tumors.
Radiation therapy has been considered the standard treatment for early-stage breast cancer for many years. However, it appears that practitioners are reluctant to change their ways. In the new study, published inCancer, the authors state that the omission of radiotherapy has not been widely adopted into clinical practice.
They cite a recent assessment of the nation’s largestcancer registry, the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database. Among women aged over 70, 76.5% received radiation treatment, and little change was observed in treatment practice before and after the publication of the 2004 study………
The American Society for Radiation Oncology have recommended against using whole-breast radiotherapy in women aged over 50 for early-stage breast cancer without first considering a shorter treatment schedule.
“Although shorter treatment schedules are more convenient for patients and less costly for the health care system, the omission of radiotherapy in women aged >70 years with early-stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer would achieve these goals while sparing patients the potential acute and late toxicities associated with radiotherapy,” write the authors.
Results for the trial published last year indicate that recurrence rates were still low in patients that had not received radiation therapy. …..http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/286539.php
In America, the fossil fuel industry fights back against clean energy
The utility pushback against clean energy accelerates Green World, 9 Dec 14, We have been saying for months that the nuclear and coal industries are on the ropes–that’s true and grows more evident daily. But on the ropes doesn’t mean dead, and, as we have been warning for months, large, wealthy industries like these don’t go down easily.
NIRS’ Tim Judson laid out the industry’s plans in his September paper, Killing the Competition, and the industry is following the script he predicted. Now, in the lull between the comment period of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and its final revision, followed by each state having to develop a State Implementation Plan, the nuclear and fossil fuel industry’s pushback against the clean energy future that threatens to make them extinct is accelerating across the country.
And this is just the beginning.
In Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio and elsewhere, the battle lines are forming and nuclear and fossil fuel-dominated utilities are working to end clean energy programs, fight against energy efficiency measures, and stick it to ratepayers every way they can.
Take Kansas. The re-election of far-right governor Sam Brownback and the presence of Wichita-based Koch Industries has emboldened opponents of clean energy, who tried but failed last year to repeal the state’s Renewable Energy Standard. Despite Kansas’ enormous wind power resources–not to mention that wind already has met its RES standard there so repeal would have only a symbolic effect on the standard, but a highly negative effect on additional investment in wind (Kansas remains behind on solar), the dirty energy lobby is planning to again try for repeal. The issue does not break entirely along party lines in Kansas–plenty of Republicans have seen the positive effect investment in wind power has had on the state, but for the dirty utilities and their backers, repeal is a cherished goal–especially as part of a domino effect that could help lead to repeal in other states.
In North Carolina, which has a solar potential nearly as strong as California’s, utility-scale solar power has been growing rapidly, with 700 MW now installed in the state. But growth in the utility-sponsored arena is likely to dwindle in the coming years and the state lags far behind in rooftop solar. There are only 1700 rooftop solar systems in the state, which has a population of 9.85 million. Compare that to Massachusetts, where the climate is much less conducive to solar, but where there are 6,800 rooftop systems in a much smaller population of 6.7 million. That’s nearly six times better than North Carolina’s rate. The reason? Duke Energy and Duke-friendly legislators, which are blocking policies that could encourage rooftop solar. Indeed, the solar potential is so great that two-thirds of the state’s required carbon emission reductions by 2030 under the EPA’s Clean Power Plan could be met with relatively modest changes to state law. But can Duke be beaten?
In Ohio and Pennsylvania, First Energy is taking aim at energy efficiency programs. In fact, it wants demand response programs ended entirely. The utility’s complaint is that energy efficiency programs are so effective that “We feel that it’s going to lead to even more premature closures of power plants,” said Doug Colafella, a spokesman for the firm. Of course, if power plants are not needed, it’s hardly fair to call them “premature closures.” What First Energy really is saying is that it thinks it should have a right to run polluting power plants for as long as it feels like and get as much money out of them as it wants, the public–and the climate and environment–be damned.
But First Energy isn’t the only utility going after energy efficiency. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) warned last week that dirty utilities are increasingly seeking to raise monthly “fixed charges”–or charges utilities impose on ratepayers simply for being hooked up to the grid–because customers are spending less on electricity due to the effectiveness of energy efficiency programs. Raising fixed charges would provide a disincentive for further advances in energy efficiency, which is the cheapest and fastest means of reducing carbon emissions, since, as ACEEE explains, “First, it limits our control as customers over energy costs in our homes and businesses. If a higher portion of your utility bill is fixed, any actions you take to use energy more efficiently will have less impact on your total bill. That makes wasting electricity less expensive.” ACEEE adds, “weakening the incentive to invest in efficiency isn’t just bad news for our individual pocketbooks; it’s also bad for the economy and the environment. Investing in energy efficiency doesn’t just save us money. It creates jobs and lowers pollution.”
Then there’s Illinois, where we have been reporting for months that Exelon wants some $585 million in what it calls “not a bailout” to keep its uneconomic reactors–five of them–open. And the Illinois legislature is likely to take up some of Exelon’s ideas in its next session…….
the New York Times Sunday published a long, groundbreaking article detailing what it calls “a secretive alliance” between many Republican State Attorneys General and big dirty energy companies to push back against clean energy initiatives, both from the White House and in the states. It’s a must-read in the know-your-enemy department.
And, at Washington’s The Hill newspaper, we learn to absolutely no one’s surprise that the nuclear industry is looking forward to the incoming GOP-led Congress, where nuclear safety issues are likely to take a backseat–at least for the next two years, while efforts to adopt foolish radioactive waste policies are likely to jump up front.
In short, we all have our work cut out for us. ………..http://safeenergy.org/2014/12/08/the-utility-pushback-accelerates/
Three religious peace activists still in prison in USA
Angela 9 Dec 14 Please remember that there are three people in prison.
“Two years after Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli entered the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, TN to issue an indictment against the continuing production of nuclear weapons components there and to oppose plans for a multi-billion dollar Uranium Processing Facility which would produce thermonuclear cores for US weapons… ”
http://transformnowplowshares.wordpress.com/
From Madrid, with love to Tohoku and, also, to Megan, Greg and Michael.
US Energy Dept fined $54 Million by New Mexico, for Nuclear Accidents
New Mexico Fines U.S. $54 Million for Nuclear Accidents http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-mexico-fines-u-s-54-million-for-nuclear-accidents-1417898258 Underground Fire, Radiation Leak at Repository Exposed Workers to Contamination By DAN FROSCH Dec. 6, 2014 SANTA FE, N.M.—New Mexico has fined the U.S. Energy Department more than $54 million over accidents at the country’s only underground repository for nuclear waste.
The fines, which state officials announced Saturday morning, stem from an underground fire and a radiation leak earlier this year at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, known as WIPP. Nearly two dozen workers were exposed to contamination at the plant, which handles radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear-weapons program.
The facility, in southeastern New Mexico near Carlsbad, remains closed.
The fines represent the largest penalties New Mexico has ever levied against the Energy Department, state officials said, noting that their investigation found major procedural problems.
The Energy Department committed 37 violations of state regulations in its handling of radioactive waste, the state said. Drums of the waste were improperly treated and stored at Los Alamos National Laboratory before being shipped to the nuclear repository, according to the state, contributing to the accidents last February. A federal report issued earlier this year traced the radiological accident at WIPP to a drum of waste that contained a mix of material that didn’t meet the facility’s standards for storage. The Energy Department has said it could cost more than $500 million to return WIPP to full operations.
Energy Department officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
New Mexico has fined the Energy Department in past years over state violations at Los Alamos and WIPP, according to Don Hancock, director of the nuclear-waste program at the Southwest Research and Information Center, an Albuquerque watchdog group.
Other states, such as Washington and Idaho, have also sued and fined the Energy Department over its handling of nuclear waste, Mr. Hancock said.
Write to Dan Frosch at dan.frosch@wsj.com
Nuclear Regulatory Commission reveals that workers inhaled uranium during spill at an in-situ mine
Nuclear regulatory agency: 6 workers inhaled uranium at Wyoming mine after yellowcake spill, Star Tribune by: MEAD GRUVER , Associated Press : December 5, 2014 CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Six workers at a Wyoming uranium mine inhaled the radioactive element while cleaning up a spill inside a processing building just days before the mine delivered its first shipment last year, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The workers’ urine tested positive for uranium at close to seven times the federal agency’s permissible level, the federal agency alleges in a Nov. 14 violation notice against Lost Creek LLC ISR, a subsidiary of Littleton, Colorado-based Ur-Energy.
The spill happened Nov. 28, 2013, at the Lost Creek in-situ uranium mine in south-central Wyoming. In-situ mining involves pumping fluids underground to release uranium into a solution that is pumped to the surface. No shafts or tunnels are dug.
Some 1,500 pounds of yellowcake, a precursor of enriched uranium, surged onto the floor of a processing building while a worker was filling a 55-gallon drum with the dry, powdery substance, according to the notice…….http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/284909581.html
America’s dangerous thinking about national security and nuclear weapons
Beyond M.A.D.: Reviving Nuclear War, Huffington Post,6 Dec 14
Let’s meditate on this irony — that disarmament, finally, means no more than growing old and weak and pathetic.
What brilliant Cold War Revival propaganda, masquerading, in the Los Angeles Timeslast week, as objective reporting. Let’s meditate on the dark chuckles of the Cold War technocrats, as they attempt to summon an extra trillion dollars or so from the national coffers to restore America’s nuclear weapons program to the glory of the 1960s and push on vigorously with the design and development of the next generation of nukes: our national strength, the foundation of our security. All that’s missing from the article — “New nuclear weapons needed, many experts say, pointing to aged arsenal” — is Slim Pickens screaming “Ya-hoo!” as he rides the bomb into human oblivion at the end of Dr. Strangelove.
The ostensible focus of the article, as well as a second article published two weeks earlier, both by Ralph Vartabedian and W.J. Hennigan, is the decrepitude of the American nuclear arsenal, with its myriad sites and delivery systems hampered with out-of-date technology and indifferent maintenance, e.g.: “Today, the signs of decay are pervasive at the Pantex facility in Texas, where nuclear weapons are disassembled and repaired. Rat infestation has become so bad that employees are afraid to bring their lunches to work.”
Oh, the horror. Rats and nukes. Next up, Godzilla? Any serious challenge to nuclear weapons as the ultimate manifestation and symbol of national strength is absent from these articles; so is any rational account of the danger their hair-trigger presence poses to humanity — not to mention the insanity of their ongoing development.
For instance:
“John S. Foster Jr., former director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and chief of Pentagon research during the Cold War, said the labs should design, develop and build prototype weapons that may be needed by the military in the future, including a very low-yield nuclear weapon that could be used with precision delivery systems . . .” (emphasis added).
During the Cold War, the primary justification for our gargantuan nuclear arsenal was contained in the acronym M.A.D.: mutually assured destruction. No more world wars, boys and girls! With the Cold War superpowers in possession of the means to destroy the human race, the only wars we could wage were relatively small, proxy wars in Third and Fourth World countries.
“Those who like peace should love nuclear weapons,” said Kenneth Waltz, Cold War academic extraordinaire and founder of the school of neorealism (as quoted recently by Eric Schlosser in The Guardian). “They are the only weapons ever invented that work decisively against their own use.”
But seven decades into the nuclear era, mission creep is making its presence felt along with the rust and rats. Link low-yield nuclear weapons with a word like “precision” and their use in a real war starts to feel almost justifiable — and so much more satisfying, apparently, than simply maintaining a nuclear arsenal for the purpose of never using it. Threat is power in the abstract. But a mushroom cloud over Central Asia or the Middle East is power made manifest, especially if one lacks the mental and spiritual capacity to grasp the consequences……….
What seems desperately outmoded and nearing collapse isn’t our nuclear infrastructure but our thinking about national security. The United States of America, nation of Manifest Destiny, was built on conquest and exploitation. This is the basis of its inability to believe that security could be based on anything except near-absolute power and the reason why, in the corridors of political power, disarmament is synonymous not with sanity but neglect.
Unless the paradigm shifts and we redefine ourselves as a nation — and we redefine our relationship to other nations, including our alleged enemies — our future is nuclear weapons we can use. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-koehler/beyond-mad-reviving-nucle_b_6272094.html
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press), is still available. Contact him atkoehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
Worrying questions on the real costs of Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power plant
State monitor warns on Ga. nuclear plant costs, seattle pi By RAY HENRY, Associated Press, December 7, 2014 TLANTA (AP) — Public watchdogs are giving Southern Co. a between-the-lines warning that building a multibillion-dollar nuclear plant in Georgia without a detailed construction schedule could trigger financial penalties.
That warning came in a report filed by a nuclear engineer and an analyst who work for state regulators and monitor the construction of two new reactors at Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia.
The Public Service Commission has warned for at least two years that Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power is relying on an outdated project schedule that contains almost no detail after December 2015, even though construction will continue for several more years.
Nuclear engineer William Jacobs Jr. and financial analyst Steven Roetger said building a complex, first-of-its-kind project without a schedule was unreasonable. “In fact it runs counter to any prudent project management, nuclear or otherwise,” goes against the project’s construction agreement and an industry group’s own recommendations for construction, Jacobs and Roetger wrote in a semi-annual report.
That keyword — “prudent” — was meant to catch the ears of Southern Co. executives.
By law, the Public Service Commission can prevent Georgia Power, a regulated monopoly, from billing its customers for any construction costs the commission decides are the result of “imprudence.”
The state’s elected utility regulators have agreed to delay any final decisions on construction costs until after the first reactor is finished, likely in late 2017 at the earliest. However, the latest filing shows the commission’s staffers are laying the legal groundwork that could be used in future arguments to prevent customers from paying some of Georgia Power’s costs……….
Georgia Power’s budget estimate does not reflect the potential costs of resolving a roughly $1 billion lawsuit between the plant’s builders and its owners over previous delays and design changes. While Georgia Power has denied any responsibility for those extra costs, company leaders have said they would consider a settlement if it made financial sense.
Follow Ray Henry on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rhenryAP. http://www.seattlepi.com/business/energy/article/State-monitor-warns-on-Ga-nuclear-plant-costs-5941198.php
USA Republican battling against climate change denialism
House Republican Plans to Introduce Pro-Climate-Science Bill http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/house-republican-plans-to-introduce-pro-climate-science-bill-20141205
Chris Gibson wants the GOP to “operate in the realm of knowledge and science.”
BY BEN GEMAN December 5, 2014 A Republican House member is battling the skepticism toward climate-change science that’s common in GOP ranks. And he wants to put lawmakers on record in the process.
Rep. Chris Gibson said Thursday he plans to introduce a resolution on climate change that will help others “recognize the reality” of the situation. Gibson said the extreme weather he has witnessed in his own upstate New York district supports the science, and he wants to be a leader in spurring recognition of changing weather patterns.
“My district has been hit with three 500-year floods in the last several years, so either you believe that we had a one in over 100 million probability that occurred, or you believe as I do that there’s a new normal, and we have changing weather patterns, and we have climate change. This is the science,” said the two-term lawmaker who was reelected in November.
“I hope that my party—that we will come to be comfortable with this, because we have to operate in the realm of knowledge and science, and I still think we can bring forward conservative solutions to this, absolutely, but we have to recognize the reality,” Gibson said. “So I will be bringing forward a bill, a resolution that states as such, with really the intent of rallying us, to harken us to our best sense, our ability to overcome hard challenges.”
Gibson spoke at an event hosted by Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, which is a pro-Republican advocacy group; a PAC that supports Republicans called Concord 51; and the Conservation Leadership Council, a group of conservatives that includes Gale Norton, who was Interior Secretary under George W. Bush. The Environmental Defense Fund helped create the CLC. Event organizers provided a video clip of his comments. Gibson’s office did not respond to inquiries about the matter. But while the specifics of the effort aren’t yet clear, Gibson’s stances are at odds with many in the GOP’s ranks.
Ascendant Republicans on Capitol Hill are preparing fresh assaults on the White House climate agenda, and expressing continued doubts about the scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels and other human activity is the leading driver of global warming.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, during his reelection campaign in Kentucky, said he is “not a scientist” when asked about climate change, a line used by a number of Republicans.
Gibson, to be sure, hardly marches in lockstep with environmentalists. He supports the Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline and has voted for expanded offshore drilling.
But he also joined just two other Republicans last March in voting against a bill to scuttle EPA’s carbon-emissions rules for power plants, and he has also voted against other attacks on federal climate-change programs.
He won support in this year’s elections from the political branch of the Environmental Defense Fund. “It’s very encouraging to see this kind of leadership emerging in the Congress,” Tony Kreindler, EDF Action’s senior director for strategic communications, said of Gibson’s planned resolution.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Gibson both touted his support for expanded drilling and called for more investment in federal green-energy investment, while noting the potential of solar energy as costs decline.
1 This Month
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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