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Nuclear Power Can’t Be a Solution to Global Warming Precisely because of Global Warming

Nuclear Power Can’t Be a Solution to Global Warming Precisely because of Global Warming DISSIDENT VOICE Extreme Weather Events Multiply Existing Risks and Vulnerabilities of Nuclear Power: From Natural Disasters to Nuclear Disasters?by Jo-Shing Yang / February 7th, 2009 A new dawn is coming for nuclear power.

This week, America found out that President Obama’s economic stimulus plan includes a $50 billion loan guarantee for nuclear power plants in the Senate version. Nuclear power is about to be revived from its political and public-opinion grave to enjoy a “green renaissance,” now with 35 new nuclear reactors being planned. This lethally radioactive zombie is about to get an extreme makeover with the cosmetics of combating global warming, achieving environmental stewardship, deepening economic prosperity, and attaining energy independence..

Then it will get a new name: the new green energy. The irony is that while nuclear proponents cite global warming as the key impetus for expanding nuclear power, it is precisely global climate disruptions and the associated extreme weather events which will significantly multiply and amplify the existing risks and costs of nuclear power to make it more costly, risky, lethal, and unreliable. With global warming, nuclear power threatens to turn ordinary natural disasters (such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts) into potential nuclear disasters……………………

……… Droughts, Chronic Water Shortages, and the Coming Water Scarcity Are Achilles Heel of Nuclear Power Plants: No Water, No Nuclear Power. Period.

Nuclear power plants are a voracious consumer of water. Nuclear power requires even more water than gas-fired generators, at 3,100 liters per megawatt hour of electricity, just to keep the nuclear reactors from overheating. (Coal and natural gas use 2,800 liters and 2,300 liters per megawatt hours, respectively.) According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2006 “Report to the Congress on the Interdependency of Energy and Water,” the most water-intensive form of electricity generation is nuclear power………

……………….In the well-publicized drought and the heat waves when temperatures soaring above 100° F in summer 2003 led to thousands of deaths across Europe, Electricité de France (EDF) had to shut down a quarter of its 58 nuclear power plants in France while the average electricity price skyrocketed by some 1,300%………..

….. during Europe’s 2006 heat wave, French, German, and Spanish utilities were forced to shut down several nuclear power plants and reduce power at others for as much as a week due to low water levels……………

…………….Water will become scarcer and more expensive as global climate disruptions exacerbate existing water problems of groundwater and surface water pollution and intensify chronic water shortages worldwide………..

……………….The sensible solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not with more nuclear power, but with small, deconcentrated (as opposed to corporate monopolies), and decentralized power systems that can adapt to local conditions.

Dissident Voice : Nuclear Power Can’t Be a Solution to Global Warming Precisely because of Global Warming

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February 9, 2009 Posted by | environment, spinbuster, USA | 1 Comment

Old radioactive mine tailings pose slow-motion threat

Old radioactive mine tailings pose slow-motion threat

Payson Roundup 8 Feb 09
After decades of delay, the U.S. Forest Service is seeking public comments about a slow-motion contamination risk — the radioactive dirt piles left over from now-abandoned uranium mines in the Young Ranger District along popular Workman Creek in the Sierra Anchas……………

………….Many of these tailings dump sites lie along Workman Creek, which drains into Roosevelt Lake, which is a drinking water reservoir for Phoenix. Tests show sufficiently high radiation levels in the creek that the Forest Service advises people against eating fish caught in the creek…………….

………..Although federal officials have known for years of the contamination along the creek that empties into Roosevelt Lake, they still have no idea how much a cleanup will cost…………….

………….The tailings and abandoned mine shafts represent one small, local toll in the rush after the invention of the atom bomb to mine enough of the dense, weakly radioactive material to build thousands of warheads and fuel nuclear power plants. Other fallout from that boom in exploration locally before doctors understood fully the low-term effects of low-level radiation includes a raft of cancer cases among Navajo miners.

The Payson Roundup / Old radioactive mine tailings pose slow-motion threat

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February 9, 2009 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Black Fox protest killed nuclear power plant

Black Fox protest killed power plant The Norman Transcript By M. Scott Carter Feb 08 2009 Mention “Black Fox” in Oklahoma and most people won’t think of a little animal. Instead they’ll talk about the how an eastern Oklahoma grandmother derailed a nuclear power plant……………………………

In an effort to stop the plant, Carrie Barefoot Dickerson and Citizens’ Action for Safe Energy began a decade-long protest and legal battle which eventually forced PSO to abandon its plans to build the plant.

According to the group, the Black Fox plant was the only nuclear power plant in the United States to be canceled by a combination of legal and citizen action after construction had started. Since then, no nuclear plant has been built in Oklahoma.

After the protest, Dickerson founded the Carrie Dickerson Foundation, a nonprofit group designed to educate people about the ills of nuclear energy.

The Norman Transcript – Black Fox protest killed power plant

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February 9, 2009 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Opponents in Missouri mobilize over positioning nuke plants as ‘clean’ –

Opponents in Missouri mobilize over positioning nuke plants as ‘clean’
By Jeffrey Tomich ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 02/08/2009When the “Clean and Renewable Energy Construction Act” was introduced in the Missouri Senate, the bill’s title evoked images of new wind turbines sprouting from the northwest Missouri plains and solar panels lining St. Louis rooftops.A more fitting image might be two more massive cooling towers rising in Callaway County.While the legislation proposed last month may one day aid the development of more renewable energy or a next-generation coal-fired power plant, there’s little doubt that its primary purpose is helping AmerenUE build a second nuclear reactor. It would do so by removing a key barrier — a 1976 law that prohibits the utility from charging customers for the plant before it’s complete.The nuclear industry spent more than two decades repairing an image badly damaged a generation ago by accidents and cost overruns. Now, proponents here and around the country are going a step further by pushing nuclear power as a greener energy source than coal and a key to helping curb global warming.
In the legislation that would repeal Missouri’s ban on charges for construction work in progress, the text uses the word “clean” 26 times, while “nuclear” appears once. In Florida, a utility planning two new reactors unsuccessfully tried last fall to persuade regulators to define new nuclear plants as renewable energy.

Such efforts have been met with disdain by environmentalists, many of whom say categorizing nuclear power as “clean” energy is greenwashing.
“They’re putting a green bow on a box of radioactive waste that’s never going to go away,” said Kathleen Logan Smith, executive director of St. Louis-based Missouri Coalition for the Environment.

Nationwide, applications have been submitted for 26 new reactors in 14 states, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency has been told to expect filings for an additional nine by the end of next year. And wherever new plants are proposed, pro- and anti-nuclear groups are clashing.

02/08/2009 – Opponents in Missouri mobilize over positioning nuke plants as ‘clean’ – STLtoday.com

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February 9, 2009 Posted by | spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear’s Nemesis

Nuclear’s Nemesis Baltimore Examiner

A Senate committee in Kentucky just passed a bill that could potentially allow for the new construction of nuclear power plants in the Bluegrass State.
Essentially, the bill would repeal a 1984 law that placed a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction until the federal government can figure out how to dispose of the waste.
So has the federal government figured out how to dispose of this waste?
Not a chance.
One of the biggest problems with nuclear is that there is still no safe way to dispose of the waste. And no matter how hard they try, there’s simply no way to spin this one. Sure, there have been attempts.

If you have to put something in a highly-engineered container, capable of withstanding enormous impact…then it ain’t safe!
Still, nuclear power plants have been sending massive amounts of juice to the grid for years. And as a result, we now have tons of nuclear waste – and no safe, centralized place to put it………………………That $96.2 billion (right now) will be enough to develop a repository large enough to handle 77,000 metric tons. Here’s the problem – more than 56,000 tons are already stored at more than 77 reactor sites across the country. And this number increases by about 2,000 tons each year. So by 2036 (when Yucca would be filled to capacity), we’ll be looking at about 110,000 tons – or 33,000 tons above what Yucca can store. Translation – problem NOT solved!……………………………..

Today, nuclear provides us with about 20 percent of our electricity. But between energy efficiency and conservation, and the large-scale integration of renewables, that 20 percent could easily be replaced – and without contributing to the safety and environmental issues that are undoubtedly associated with nuclear power.

Baltimore Renewable Energy Examiner: Nuclear’s Nemesis

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February 7, 2009 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Can Obama stop the bomb in the senate stimulus plan?

The Huffington Post 3 feb 09 by Joseph Romm

A radioactive dirty bomb has been dropped on the Senate stimulus package.

On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to add $50 billion in nuclear loan guarantees to the economic recovery package (S. 336). This “would more than double the current loan guarantee cap of $38 billion” for “clean energy” technology.Yet this provision would not create a single job for many, many years, but would saddle the public with tens of millions of dollars more in toxic loans. As I noted in my 2008 report, “The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power“:

In August 2007, Tulsa World reported that American Electric Power Co. CEO Michael Morris was not planning to build any new nuclear power plants. He was quoted as saying, “I’m not convinced we’ll see a new nuclear station before probably the 2020 timeline,”…………………

Why are we still propping up an industry that can’t survive without the taxpayer swallowing both the economic risk of an actual meltdown and the risk of the new nukes melting down financially — all for a mature technology that has already received more than $100 billion in direct and indirect subsidies (see “Nuclear Pork — Enough is Enough“)?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-romm/can-obama-stop-the-nuclea_b_163110.html

February 2, 2009 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Obama May Embrace Emirates Deal as Model for Nuclear Agreements

By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — In her final days as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice signed a nuclear-energy accord with a Persian Gulf ally 50 miles from Iran, calling the measure “a powerful and timely model for the world.”

President Barack Obama is likely to agree……………………….. The agreement may help Obama keep his pledge to crack down on the production and smuggling of nuclear materials.

He has called the spread of nuclear weapons “the gravest danger we face.” That threat is increasing: With global electricity demand projected to double by 2030, dozens of countries across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America have expressed interest in nuclear power — and with any nuclear program comes the risk of proliferation………………………….. the Bush administration supported allowing U.S. companies to sell the Abu Dhabi government nuclear technology.

February 2, 2009 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Entergy apologizes for mishaps at nuclear plant

Associated Press – February 1, 2009 11:45 AM ET

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – An Entergy Nuclear official says the company has replaced several employees following two recent leaks of radioactive water at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power plant.

Entergy Vice President Jay Thayer apologized to key lawmakers Friday for the two mishaps………………The two leaks in January raised concern among lawmakers, following the plant’s problems with its cooling towers last year.

February 2, 2009 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

NJ nuclear plant shut down by fire

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

5:52 AM EST, February 2, 2009

Officials are investigating a fire at the nation’s oldest commercial nuclear plant.

Exelon Nuclear says the fire was in one of the Oyster Creek nuclear plant’s two main transformers………………Oyster Creek is located in Lacey Township, about 60 miles east of Philadelphia and is 38 years old. Its owners are seeking to renew its license.

February 2, 2009 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

AFP: Obama, Pentagon pull in different directions on no nukes goal

Obama, Pentagon pull in different directions on no nukes goal
2 Feb 09 WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Barack Obama has set a goal of a “world without nuclear weapons” but the Pentagon is leaning in a seemingly contradictory direction: a modernized nuclear arsenal.The new administration has signaled its intent to swiftly engage Russia in negotiations on deeper cuts in their respective arsenals, with the ultimate aim of reducing them to zero.But US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been leading another kind of charge, arguing in the final months of the previous administration that deeper cuts must be underpinned by production of a new warhead to replace an ageing nuclear stockpile.

AFP: Obama, Pentagon pull in different directions on no nukes goal

February 2, 2009 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Experts say Vt. Yankee’s nuke waste is here to stay: Times Argus Online

Experts say Vt. Yankee’s nuke waste is here to stay

Times Argus By Daniel Barlow Vermont Press Bureau – Published: January 30, 2009

MONTPELIER – Don’t count on Yucca Mountain or any other national solution for the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel, a consulting group told lawmakers Thursday.

As the Vermont Legislature considers Vermont Yankee’s proposal to continue operating past its 2012 expiration date, lawmakers should assume that all the radioactive spent fuel left will be stored on-site in Vernon, nuclear consultants said.

Bruce Lacy, the founder of Iowa’s Lacy Consulting Group, told members of several House and Senate committees that dry cask storage of this waste material at nuclear power plants has become the default United States policy……………………..Here in Vermont, lawmakers are considering a request by the owners of Vermont Yankee to extend the Vernon plant’s operating license for another 20 years beyond its 2012 end date. Storage of the nuclear waste – the byproduct of creating nuclear power – is one of the chief concerns lawmakers are struggling with………………………Rep. Sarah Edwards… said she worried about the long-term storage of the waste at the Vernon facility, especially if there is a natural disaster there, such as flooding.

She was surprised Thursday to learn that federal regulators did not consider the possible implications of global warming in their flooding predictions for the facility.

Experts say Vt. Yankee’s nuke waste is here to stay: Times Argus Online

February 2, 2009 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste bound for U.S. | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean

Nuclear waste bound for U.S. Tennessean.com 2 Feb 09 c: U.S. should just say no to imported hazard

For a nation that still hasn’t found a sure-fire way of storing its own nuclear waste without worry, it certainly shouldn’t be taking waste from other nations.

U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, a Democrat, and Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican, have teamed on legislation that would ban foreign nuclear waste. The legislation follows efforts by a Utah company, EnergySolutions, to import up to 20,000 tons of nuclear waste from Italy that would go through ports at Charleston, S.C., or New Orleans, and through Tennessee on its way to the EnergySolutions site in Utah………………….. for each load that goes through a community, there could be a problem. Alexander says he agrees with Gordon that the U.S. shouldn’t become “the world’s nuclear garbage dump.”The bill offered by Gordon and Alexander should be a no-brainer. Foreign nuclear waste should be prohibited from being brought into this country…………………………..The fact is no one is in position to guarantee the safety of domestic nuclear energy, and no amount of trouble from coal-fired power plants completely erases nuclear concerns. The fight against foreign waste is hard to square with a gung-ho cry for more domestic power generated from nuclear technology.

Nuclear waste bound for U.S. | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean

February 2, 2009 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Commentary: Will Obama see sense about nuclear threat? – science-in-society – 26 January 2009 – New Scientist

Will Obama see sense about nuclear threat? * New Scientist 26 January 2009 by Lawrence Krauss

THE possibility that, in an Obama administration, science will drive rational public policy provides an unprecedented opportunity to deal with a gnawing yet persistently neglected threat to the world: nuclear weapons.

No government is likely to declare how many strategic nuclear warheads it has, but the US and Russia are thought to possess at least 5000 apiece. The 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty required each nation to have no more than 2200 “operationally deployed” strategic warheads by 2012, yet this represents no real progress towards disarmament, as the target number is essentially identical to that proposed at the 1997 summit on nuclear arms reduction between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin in Helsinki, Finland.

As we object to Iran’s apparent efforts to join the club of nuclear weapons states we should remember that the US, Russia, France, the UK and China have failed to meet their obligations to disarm, some four decades after they all signed the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Reducing the size of our nuclear weapons stockpile would not reduce our ability to deter a nuclear attack – a fact acknowledged by politicians such as Henry Kissinger, George Schultz and William Perry. Even 500 active warheads would be sufficient to kill hundreds of millions of people around the world. Reducing the size of the nuclear stockpile would bring one key benefit, though. Maintaining a huge and complex nuclear infrastructure is not cheap. In a time of increasing budget concerns, this is one area where savings could be achieved with little or no cost to security………………………In this new year, as the country and the world look to Barack Obama with hope, he has signalled his intent to address one clear global threat, namely climate change. Leading the world away from the nuclear precipice will require at least as much sound thinking and political courage. Lawrence Krauss is director of the Origins initiative at Ar

Commentary: Will Obama see sense about nuclear threat? – science-in-society – 26 January 2009 – New Scientist

January 28, 2009 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear plant foes shift from environmentalists to consumer groups

Nuclear plant foes shift from environmentalists to consumer groups
By DON NORFLEET The Fulton Sun Jan 26, 2009 Other than balancing the state’s budget during a recession, AmerenUE’s plan to build a second reactor at the Callaway Nuclear Plant is considered by many as the biggest issue facing the current session of the Missouri General Assembly.

The plant expansion, estimated to cost from $6 to $9 billion, would be the single most expensive construction project in Missouri’s history.

Unlike the first nuclear reactor to be constructed in Missouri, opposition to the second nuclear reactor at the Callaway Nuclear Plant has come more from consumer groups than anti-nuclear activists and environmentalists.

January 26, 2009 Posted by | business and costs, USA | , , , | Leave a comment

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