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Nuclear power is a risk we can’t afford

 https://www.registerguard.com/opinion/20180912/nuclear-power-is-risk-we-cant-afford,  Susan Cundiff, 13 Sept 18 I appreciated reading Frank Lawson’s update on EWEB’s performance (EWEB working to improve costs, more, Sept. 8). One item gave me pause: the $3.5 million increase from Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). Part of that bill pays for nuclear power. EWEB is the largest purchaser of nuclear power in Oregon, representing 7.5 percent of its energy portfolio. All of this power comes from the aging Columbia Generating Station (CGS) located near the leaking tanks and collapsing tunnels at Hanford Nuclear Reservation on the banks of the Columbia River.

Nuclear power is expensive and a threat to health and safety. When the cost of CGS power is compared to average market prices, EWEB is projected to overspend by $53 million between 2006-2028. The average household could save $25/year if CGS were closed. Visit www.oregonpsr.org/economic_issues for more info. The design of the plant is similar to the Fukushima Daiichi reactor that melted down in Japan. Recognizing this folly, the Board of Seattle City Light sent a letter to BPA indicating they must stop purchasing power from CGS. EWEB commissioners should do the same. Nuclear power is a risk we can’t afford. More than giving us pause, this should be full stop.

 

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September 14, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Nuclear industry “light years away” from getting costs down

Utility Week 7th Sept 2018 , The nuclear industry lags behind other industries in terms of technological
innovation over recent decades, the director general of the OECD’s
Nuclear Energy Agency said. The industry is light years away from getting
costs down to levels required to develop nuclear plants without support
from subsidy mechanisms like contract for difference or a dramatic increase
in carbon taxes,
https://utilityweek.co.uk/nuclear-industry-lags-behind-technological-innovation

September 12, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Will France import and process 4 tons of radioactive waste from Australia?

Liberation 8th Sept 2018 , It is spent uranium and plutonium that has been used in a research reactor.
They will be treated at the Hague and returned to Australia.
http://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/09/08/la-france-va-t-elle-importer-et-traiter-4-tonnes-de-dechets-radioactifs-venant-d-australie_1676296

September 10, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

What of the nuclear industry’s future in France now?

Le Monde 8th Sept 2018 ,[Machine translation] It’s a low-noise battle that took place for a year
between Nicolas Hulot and EDF, a company he was in charge of. On the one
hand, a minister who has not always been antinuclear, but who has become
convinced in recent years that this energy has no future.

On the other hand, the management of EDF, Bercy and the entire French nuclear industry –
its 220,000 employees, its engineers and its weight in the heart of the
state -, convinced that nuclear power remains an opportunity for the La
France. Between the two,

Emmanuel Macron, long-time proponent of the
nuclear, but which maintains on this subject a policy of “at the same
time”, which for a long time allowed him to provide support to the
partisans and the opponents to the atom. Two questions are quickly at the
heart of this step of two: how to succeed in reducing the share of nuclear
energy in the production of electricity from 75% to 50%? And should we
start in France the construction of new reactors to eventually replace the
current fleet? The answer depends on one essential element: will
electricity consumption increase in the coming years, as EDF argues, or
will it continue to stagnate?
https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2018/09/08/nucleaire-dans-les-coulisses-de-la-bataille-entre-hulot-et-edf_5352068_3234.html

September 10, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Top Cancer Researcher Fails to Disclose Corporate Financial Ties in Major Research Journals

 NYT, By Charles Ornstein and Katie Thomas, Sept. 8, 20, This article was reported and written in a collaboration with ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative journalism organization.

One of the world’s top breast cancer doctors failed to disclose millions of dollars in payments from drug and health care companies in recent years, omitting his financial ties from dozens of research articles in prestigious publications like The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet.

The researcher, Dr. José Baselga, a towering figure in the cancer world, is the chief medical officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He has held board memberships or advisory roles with Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb, among other corporations, has had a stake in start-ups testing cancer therapies, and played a key role in the development of breakthrough drugs that have revolutionized treatments for breast cancer.

According to an analysis by The New York Times and ProPublica, Dr. Baselga did not follow financial disclosure rules set by the American Association for Cancer Research when he was president of the group. He also left out payments he received from companies connected to cancer research in his articles published in the group’s journal, Cancer Discovery. At the same time, he has been one of the journal’s two editors in chief……..

Dr. Baselga’s extensive corporate relationships — and his frequent failure to disclose them — illustrate how permeable the boundaries remain between academic research and industry, and how weakly reporting requirements are enforced by the medical journals and professional societies charged with policing them

……..The penalties for such ethical lapses are not severe. The cancer research group, the A.A.C.R., warns authors who fill out disclosure forms for its journals that they face a three-year ban on publishing if they are found to have financial relationships that they did not disclose. But the ban is not included in the conflict-of-interest policy posted on its website, and the group said no author had ever been barred.

Many journals and professional societies do not check conflicts and simply require authors to correct the record.

Officials at the A.A.C.R., the American Society of Clinical Oncology and The New England Journal of Medicine said they were looking into Dr. Baselga’s omissions after inquiries from The New York Times and ProPublica. The Lancet declined to say whether it would look into the matter……..https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/health/jose-baselga-cancer-memorial-sloan-kettering.html?emc=edit_th_180909&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=114249920909

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September 10, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Luxembourg supports Austria against Hinkley Point C in European Court challenge.

Luxembourg supports Austria against Hinkley Point C in European Court
challenge,  RTL 6th Sept 2018 
http://www.rtl.lu/letzebuerg/1234030.html

September 8, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Spiralling costs make Hinkley C nuclear project a risky test case for the global industry

Montel 4th Sept 2018 UK plans to build a nuclear plant in Anglesey – an outline agreement has
been struck – and the under construction Hinkley Point C are test cases
in the nuclear industry’s ability to compete, said a report on Tuesday.

The biggest danger was spiralling costs, with the controversial Hinkley
Point in southwest England set to cost GBP 20bn, and given cheap and
plentiful gas and the rise of renewable power, many industry observers
wonder how nuclear power can compete, according to The Energy Transition
Report in the Financial Times. “We’ve seen a substantive decline in the
share of nuclear of total electricity generation worldwide,” said Paul
Dorfman, of the Energy Institute at University College London.
https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/costs-renewables-set-to-derail-nuclear-renaissance–report/931254

September 8, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

“Modest but detectable level(s)” of radioactive material found in Hanford workers’ cars

Tri City Herald 4th Sept 2018 , Hanford Challenge is calling for an independent study of the threat that
radioactive contamination might pose to the Tri-Cities from the Hanford
nuclear reservation. On Tuesday it released a research report by Marco
Kaltofen, an engineer with Boston Chemical Data Corp., who has been
collecting Hanford-area samples at times since at least 2008.

His latest report found “modest but detectable level(s)” of radioactive material
that had collected on the air filters of three vehicles belonging to
Hanford workers. The vehicles had been checked and cleared to leave the
Hanford nuclear reservation, where they had been at the Plutonium Finishing
Plant.
https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article217827665.html

September 6, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Nuclear power- detrimental to UK now, and to future generations

Power technology 3rd Sept 2018 Nuclear power is high on the agenda for the UK Government, with a spate of projects planned in the coming years. But just how beneficial will it be to
the country?

Industry experts offer their views. Dr Ian Fairlie, member of
the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s National Council “The reality is
that we don’t need new nuclear. As many studies indicate, renewables will
do the job. “The economics of nuclear are dire, with the cost of
renewables steadily falling whereas those of new nuclear are always rising.

Hinkley C would cost over £21bn if it were ever finished, while new
offshore wind turbines are already supplying electricity at less than half
the estimated cost of electricity of the mooted Hinkley C station if it
were ever built.

“Some nuclear proponents think that nuclear is the
answer to climate change. But nuclear lifecycle analyses prove the
contrary, as uranium mining and milling are highly carbon-intensive.

“Additionally, even after 50 years’ research, no government has found a
sure-fire way of keeping nuclear’s dangerous waste safe for hundreds of
thousands of years.

Finally, there is the incontrovertible evidence in over
40 studies of raised levels of childhood leukemia near nuclear reactors
worldwide. “We don’t need nuclear. It’s unsafe, uneconomic, and it
creates dangerous waste. Much better alternatives are already here. Nuclear
can hardly be said to be a benefit to the UK, more like a serious detriment
to us and to future generations.”
https://www.power-technology.com/features/67772/

September 4, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Want clear information on nuclear issues? Go to Beyond Nuclear International

Beyond Nuclear 2nd Sept 2018 What is the difference between an open pit and an in-situ leach uranium mine? How does a nuclear power plant produce electricity? What happens to reactor fuel once it’s no longer usable? What is the difference between high-level and low-level radioactive waste and where is it stored? Why isn’t reprocessing really “recycling”?
We may know the answers to some or all of these questions. But can we deliver a succinct, clear, accessible answer to explain them to someone not already steeped in the issue?
As any activist engaged in anti-nuclear advocacy knows, nuclear power is a complex topic and describing each phase of the nuclear fuel chain can quickly bog us down in long, technical explanations. And once we go there, eyes glaze and we lose our audience.
Proponents of nuclear energy have taken full advantage of this, downplaying and minimizing the risks and using facile and superficially appealing sound bites, unsupported by facts, to convince people that nuclear power is benign and useful for climate change.
Facts are what we believe will change people’s minds. But the idea that bombarding someone with a deluge of irrefutable facts about the dangers of nuclear power will automatically win them to our cause has proved to be an illusion. It doesn’t necessarily work.
We do need facts, of course. And that is where our Handbook — The Case Against Nuclear Power: Facts and Arguments from A-Z — comes in. We must be able to accurately describe why nuclear power is dangerous, uneconomical and unjust.
But we must do so in succinct, simple lay language. And then, once
the basics are understood, we need to move people. And that is why the
Beyond Nuclear International website came to be born, providing a natural
home for the Handbook and expanding from facts to compelling narratives.
We have already compiled three Handbook chapters which you can find on the Beyond Nuclear International website under Handbook. So far, we have published: An Overview that offers simple explanations for every phase of
the nuclear fuel chain; Radiation and harm to human health, which lays out
the detriments to health of every phase of nuclear power operations; and
Climate change and why nuclear power can’t fix it. More chapters are in
the works.
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/09/02/an-a-z-against-nuclear-power/

September 4, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Will we do anything to protect our children and grandchildren from uncontrolled climate change?

Uncontrolled climate change could result in disaster for our kids. Will we do something?

USA Today, Mike Hoffmann,    Aug. 31, 2018
 Would you put your child or grandchild on a plane that has a one chance in 20 of a disastrous crash?

It’s hard imagining anyone doing that, but it is essentially what we are doing to our kids and grandkids by not raising our voices about climate change and the 1-in-20 chance that disaster lies ahead for them. It is bad enough that we are likely on the path to exceed the 3.6 degree Fahrenheit goal stated in the Paris Agreement, which will result in dire consequences such as increasing droughts and wildfires and inundation of low lying coastal areas because of sea level rise.

If we continue on that path without taking the necessary actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there is a 5 percent chance of catastrophic consequences — even an existential threat to humanity by mid-century, according to experts at the Scripps Institute.

We can see the change is happening

We all take chances, but few would board a plane with a 5 percent chance of crashing. In reality, air travel is incredibly safe because we trust those who design, build and test aircraft and manage the flow of thousands of flights a day.

A lot of engineering and science has made aircraft and air travel safe. The same holds for the science behind climate change — a lot of smart and dedicated people who have their own children and grandchildren, working hard to understand what is happening now and what the future holds, and find solutions.

Think of one person who is much younger than you whom you care deeply about — a son, daughter, grandchild, sibling, niece, nephew — and whisper their name and put them on that plane and watch them take off on their journey. Then consider what their future holds given what is happening all around us — it’s getting warmer, large wild fires are more frequent in California, it’s getting too hot to fly planes out of Phoenix, there are more downpours hitting New York City and Boston, and Alaska is melting. And then consider what that younger person’s life journey looks like in a changing climate: It’s not going to get better. By attaching the name of someone you care about, it becomes personal and for many, strikes home.

We care about our kids and grandkids. In the USA, there are an estimated 49 million children under the age of 12, and more than 70 million who are under 18. They can’t vote, and few contribute to political causes or participate in political debates. They don’t have a lot of power, although they are gaining ground on their own in the courts. They are depending on us to ensure a safe and prosperous future, like that air traffic controller who is keeping your loved one safe, but let’s take a look at what lies ahead for them. Ask yourself, what course, what flight plan, are we setting for their future?

Our kids face the consequences of our choices

Let’s fast-forward to the year 2048, when today’s under-12 crowd will be in their early 30s and 40s. Most of them will be settled into careers, with young families, and relatively secure — or maybe not. It all depends on the path we choose to take now…………

So today, those who won’t accept the truth about climate change are messing with our children and grandchildren — their life journey. For the vast majority who do believe we face a grand challenge, raise your voice, get involved, and whisper that name again. It’s personal, very personal. What will they say about us in 2048? Did we try?

Mike Hoffmann is executive director of the Cornell Institute for Climate Smart Solutions, faculty fellow at Cornell University’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, and a professor in the Department of Entomology. See also his TEDx Talk, Climate Change: It’s time to raise our voices. 

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.  

September 3, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Right wing nationalism is linked to climate denial

Bill Bufford, 31 Aug 18 Right wing nationalism is now linked to climate denial. In Sweden recently a rightwing nationalist-racist party took over. They threw out plans for renewables, and put an end to the phasing out of nuclear and nuclear reactors in sweden. Rightwing nationalism is racist and chauvenistic in nature.  Right wing nationalism-racism is shown to be  linked to a rise in climate denial as we see in america, sweden. It is linked to the invigoration of dangerous nulear reactors in japan post fukushima. Even with the continued earthquakes and dramataic increases in dangerous tropical storms there. The Swedes were growing renewables and cutting nuclear. Trump counts wwhite nationalst-racists as his base. Trump is a strong climate deniar that is heavily into nuclearism. The same can be said of nationalist racists in Britain like UKIP. In germany. In Hungary. In Poland.

Abe in Japan engenders nationalism through hatred of korean and chinese immigrants. Through hatred of other immigrants and refugees. He even illegally uses refugees to work for nothing at Fukushima; while they are irradiated to death.

With neonazis and rightwing nationalists  in power in sweden, they are scrapping renewables and planning on keeping old reactors open . They are planning on opening new nuclear reactors.

Why is rightwing nationalism and, their awful racism linked to fracking, more fossil fuel-oil rigs and exploitattion, more nuclear reactors?

It is because they have to manufacture the fake motivations and anger of racism, to justify their corporate bosses and others, disconnection from reality. Also they have to have a rallying cause for their fake and amoral cult like with Trump in america and Abe in Japan.The racism card fits the bill!

Corporations have long been linked to climate denial. They are now cultivating and

Engendering rightwing nationalism and racism to further their dirty deeds and aims. Same can be said for nuclearists.

ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY recently published an article where M Hultman and his research colleagues show the connections between conservatism, xenophobia, and climate change denial, through a study in Norway

Hultman an expert explains:

“That many of the right-wing nationalist parties in Europe now have climate change denial as one of their most important issues.

These parties are increasing in significance.

We see it in Denmark and Norway, in Britain with UKIP, and Front National in France. But also, in Sweden, with the Sweden Democrats’ suspicion towards SMHI (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute), their dismissal of the Paris Agreement and of climate laws, and in their appraisal of climate change denier Václav Klaus as a freedom-fighting hero.”

August 31, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

The planet in the Epoch of Stupid

The Ass Clown Epoch, Counter Punch, JENNIFER MATSUI , 28 Aug 18  How do we define “dumb” in the Age of Stupid? Whether you call it the Anthropocene, or the more scientific ‘Ass Clown Epoch’, stupid is the defining feature of our “smart” everything society: From our phones to the lampshades and corkscrews that increasingly depend on them to function. When the greatest minds of your generation came up with the idea of enriching themselves to the extent that no one else can survive – financially or even physically – it’s time to acknowledge that we are in the throes of irreversible human cognitive collapse. Some would point to the Supreme Dotard at its apex as symptomatic of its underlying causes rather than the cause itself. After all, stupid is the fertile foundation from which both “intelligent life” and Donald Trump evolved.  ……

 For these people, “asshole” is less an insult than a badge of honor since it denotes a rugged and “alpha” disposition. Science has confirmed that the smell of sulfur has its own aphrodisiac underpinnings if it’s emanating from someone dressed as a banker or a tech bro.  ……
There’s always the risk of unfairly maligning those with actual disabilities who bear the brunt by association with those who use their intellects to devise ways of driving species essential to the continuation of life to extinction, and then talk about moving to Mars and nuking it for their own survival. We can’t call the latter “retards”, since the word still has unpleasant associations with hate speech directed at vulnerable people, yet not calling them out on their intellect-driven choices misses a valuable opportunity to reassess what it means to be “smart” and how this designation puts us all at risk as in . . . “The decision by educated and well-informed bureaucrats and corporate executives to build nuclear power plants close to the coastline of a seismically active island prone to tsunamis was monumentally . . . misguided”. As was the decision to invade Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya . . . The list is as long as our capacity to unlearn history is boundless……..
Understatements like “misguided” only serve to insulate evil-doers from their evil, and even evoke sympathy and admiration for their “plight” as remorseful serial killers with the benefit of hindsight. Even “psychopaths” enjoy a sort of cult status, and considered role models in tech and banking circles.  …..
Understatements like “misguided” only serve to insulate evil-doers from their evil, and even evoke sympathy and admiration for their “plight” as remorseful serial killers with the benefit of hindsight. Even “psychopaths” enjoy a sort of cult status, and considered role models in tech and banking circles.  …….
The people we deem “genius”, blessed, gifted, or even capable, are too often committed to the destruction of everything or anything that sustains balance, harmony and joy for short-term, ego-driven gains that have endlessly cascading consequences for organized life on earth. Very bad ideas, once monetized, become “innovation”, while the criminal masterminds behind them them are dubbed “visionaries”. It takes a genius to devise ways to integrate banking systems, airlines, hospital equipment and vending machines so that they all crash simultaneously in some foreseeable future without running water or electricity…….

If a person is somehow able to mathematically chart a course for himself to a distant, freezing planet, having helped mastermind the destruction of his own, we somehow consider this development an achievement milestone ……..Jennifer Matsui is a writer living in Tokyo.  https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/28/the-ass-clown-epoch/

August 29, 2018 Posted by | general | 1 Comment

Climate change is real. We must not offer credibility to those who deny it 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/26/climate-change-is-real-we-must-not-offer-credibility-to-those-who-deny-it

If ‘balance’ means giving voice to those who deny the reality of human-triggered climate change, we will not take part in the debate, say Jonathan Porritt, Caroline Lucas, Clive Lewisand 57 other writers, politicians and academics

We are no longer willing to lend our credibility to debates over whether or not climate change is real. It is real. We need to act now or the consequences will be catastrophic. In the interests of “balance”, the media often feels the need to include those who outright deny the reality of human-triggered climate change.

Balance implies equal weight. But this then creates a false equivalence between an overwhelming scientific consensus and a lobby, heavily funded by vested interests, that exists simply to sow doubt to serve those interests. Yes, of course scientific consensus should be open to challenge – but with better science, not with spin and nonsense. We urgently need to move the debate on to how we address the causes and effects of dangerous climate change – because that’s where common sense demands our attention and efforts should be.

Fringe voices will protest about “free speech”. No one should prevent them from expressing their views, whether held cynically or misguidedly. However, no one is obliged to provide them with a platform, much less to appear alongside them to give the misleading impression that there is something substantive to debate. When there is an article on smoking, newspapers and broadcasters no longer include lobbyists claiming there are no links to cancer. When there’s a round-the-world yacht race we don’t hear flat-earthers given airtime: “This is madness; they’ll sail off the edge!”

There’s a workable model for covering fringe views – which is to treat them as such. They don’t need to be ridiculed, just expected to challenge the evidence with better evidence, and otherwise ignored. As campaigners and thinkers who are led by science and the precautionary principle, and who wish to debate the real and vital issues arising from human-triggered climate change, we will not assist in creating the impression that climate denial should be taken seriously by lending credence to its proponents, by entertaining ideas that lack any basis in fact. Therefore we will no longer debate those who deny that human-caused climate change is real. There are plenty of vital debates to be had around climate chaos and what to do about it; this is simply no longer one of them. We urge broadcasters to move on, as we are doing.

Jonathon Porritt Chair, Sustainable Development Commission 2000-11  Continue reading →

August 27, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Tokyo Olympics have offical dance – ? The Radiation Tango?

ICYMI, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Have an Official Dance  This month marks just 24 months (squee!) until the next Summer Olympics, set to go down summer 2020 in Tokyo, Japan. And what better way to get in the Olympic spirit starting RIGHT NOW than to learn a surprisingly intense choreographed dance?

The Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee based this ditty and its accompanying moves on the theme song for the 1964 Summer Olympics, aka the last time Japan’s capital city hosted the Games……https://www.dancespirit.com/tokyo-2020-dance-2598707903.htm

August 26, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

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