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Wrong assumptions from the Fukushima nuclear disaster

World is ignoring most important lesson from Fukushima nuclear disaster
Fukushima’s most important lesson is this: Probability theory (that disaster is unlikely) failed us. If you have made assumptions, you are not prepared. Nuclear power plants should have multiple, reliable ways to cool reactors. Any nuclear plant that doesn’t heed this lesson is inviting disaster.  Christian Science Monitor By Kenichi Ohmae / April 5, 2012 TOKYO
A year has now passed since the complete core meltdown of three boiling water reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima No.1 plant. Because of the limited information issued by the Japanese government – and its insistence that the disaster was only a result of the unanticipated magnitude of the earthquake and tsunami – the world does not know what really happened and will thus draw the wrong lessons. Continue reading →

April 6, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Business leaders welcome Los Angeles CLEAN LA Solar program

 The CLEAN LA Solar program will allow local property owners to sell solar power generated from rooftops and parking lots back to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), using a mechanism called a feed-in tariff, or, in plain language, a solar cash-back program.

Major New Clean Energy Projects Lauded by Business, Labor, Environmental Organizations, HUFFINGTON POST, 5 April 12,  This week, there were two big clean energy projects announced in California that are remarkable for a couple of reasons. Together, these two projects will power hundreds of thousands of homes with clean, affordable solar energy. Continue reading →

April 6, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Delays, cost overruns at TVA’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant

TVA’s nuclear reactor in the works will cost more and take longer to finish than estimated  THE TENNESSEAN, 5 April 12, Construction of a second reactor at TVA’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant will cost an additional $1.5 billion to $2 billion to complete and won’t befinished until 2015, officials disclosed today……. Continue reading →

April 6, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Collapse of nuclear power projects for financial reasons

The long list of nuclear reactor projects cancelled due to lack of financing and shoddy economics just got longer. It has been this way for decades

Double trouble for nuclear power: UK and Bulgaria projects collapse Greenpeace,  by Justin McKeating – April 4, 2012   Yet more news in the past week about how bad an investment nuclear power is. In Bulgaria a plan to build a nuclear power plant was cancelled while in the UK plans to build two new plants were thrown into chaos.

First, on March 28, the Bulgarian government announced it was cancelling the Belene nuclear power plant, construction of which began way back in 1981. This brings to a successful close10 years of resistance to this bad idea. There were death threats against one of the key activists, Albena Simeonova, legal actions, and the involvement of hundreds of activists, volunteers, citizens, experts, politicians and civil servants.

The Bulgarian project finally collapsed over the issue of its cost. Continue reading →

April 5, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Nuclear: no answer to climate change, the economics rule it out

 Climate change is kicking in; science tells us we need to make drastic cuts starting now. If nukes are to ride to the rescue, we need a few on the horizon now.

But the new fleet of reactors has not been built and won’t be, because Wall Street won’t fund them. 

Why Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer to Global Warming, There is no “nuclear renaissance” and there won’t be: it just doesn’t
make sense economically. http://www.alternet.org environment/154854/why_nuclear_power_is_not_the answer_to_global_warming  AlterNet,  By Christian Parenti, 4 April 12,   Despite the triple meltdown at Fukushima—which has driven tens of thousands of Japanese from their homes, cast radioactive fallout across the U.S., and will likely cost

the Japanese economy ¥50 trillion, or $623 billion—many desperate Greens now embrace nukes. They include Stewart Brand and George Monbiot. What drives these men is panic—a very legitimate fear that wewill trigger self-fueling runaway climate change.

There is no “nuclear renaissance” and there won’t be: it just doesn’t make sense economically. Continue reading →

April 5, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Israel endangering world peace?

Israel  is “directing warheads of mass destruction to a place where the existence of a single nuclear bomb is unproven.”

Nobelist Grass Says Nuclear-Power Israel Threatens Peace Bloomberg News, By Catherine Hickley   April 04, 2012 Guenter Grass, the Nobel Prize winning author of “The Tin Drum,” attacked Israel’s nuclear capacity and the threat it poses to Iran in a poem published in today’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Continue reading →

April 5, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Is Japanese government really committed to independent nuclear regulation?

Japan fails to revamp nuclear regulator, Aljazeera, Cabinet had endorsed bill to create a powerful and independent body by April 1 to unify safety and regulatory roles.  03 Apr 2012  Japan has failed to create a revamped nuclear regulatory agency by the promised date of April 1, raising questions about its commitment to bolster oversight in the wake of last year’s crisis.. Continue reading →

April 4, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Solar energy – a money saver for Jamaican homes and businesses

Not only can they use the grid as a back-up, but in times when they are generating more electricity than they need, they can sell power to JPS and get some remuneration, and
that again will help to defray the cost of putting the system on their roof,”

Solar Energy Ideal Option for Many Jamaicans, Jamaica Information Sevice, By Latonya Linton 30 MARCH 2012  With the increase in oil prices and ultimately electricity bills, for many Jamaicans, solar energy can prove to be an ideal source of power for homes and businesses. To this end, the Government has been encouraging Jamaicans to use renewable energy, such as solar energy, as a means of reducing electricity cost.
Continue reading →

March 31, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Xcel cutting back on nuclear electricity production

Xcel Seeks to Reduce Minnesota Nuclear Plan on Low Gas Prices, Bloomberg, 30 March 12,  Xcel Energy Inc. (XEL) (XEL ) is seeking to scale back an expansion of the Prairie Island nuclear plant following a drop in natural gas prices, a filing showed.

Xcel said it is now economical to increase production capacity at the two-reactor, 1,096-megawatt plant by 135 megawatts instead of the 164 proposed in 2008, according to a filing today to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.

Natural gas prices “have fallen dramatically” and energy demand will probably grow at a lower rate than projected four years earlier, the Minneapolis-based company said….
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-30/xcel-seeks-to-reduce-minnesota-nuclear-plan-on-low-gas-prices

March 31, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Negotiations over cost overruns for South Carolina’s proposed new nuclear reactors

Scana ends dispute over early nuclear costs,  Mar 29, 2012 * Scana unit to pick up $138 million in early cost overruns * First Summer reactor operation delayed one year to 2017 * U.S. regulators to vote on Scana license Friday  March 29 (Reuters) – Scana Corp’s South Carolina utility said on Thursday it reached a preliminary pact to settle a dispute over early cost overruns for its proposed new nuclear reactors, a day before U.S. regulators are expected to vote to allow construction to move forward.

Scana’s South Carolina Electric & Gas Co (SCE&G) and its partner, state-owned electric agency Santee Cooper, want to build two AP1000 reactors at the Summer nuclear site near Jenkinsville, South Carolina, at a projected cost of $9 billion.

Scana also revised its timeline to complete the reactors, delaying the first reactor’s start date to 2017, a year later than earlier expected…

SCE&G, Westinghouse, and the Shaw Group have been negotiating who is responsible for certain increased costs to build the two new reactors for several months. SCE&G, which owns 55 percent of the project, said its portion of the increased costs will be $138 million, or $50 million less than they had previously disclosed……

Westinghouse is majority-owned by Japanese multinational Toshiba Corp. http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL2E8ETCU220120329

March 31, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Earth Hour in India’s smallest State

Earth Hour on Saturday TNN | Mar 30, 2012,  The Earth Hour 2012 will be observed on March 31 from 8.30pm to 9.30pm, when people all over the world will turn off the lights to create awareness about climate change. Enthusiasts in Goa, too, have organized some programmes at Margao and Saligao. At Saligao some youth have organized a programme at Lourdes Convent open air courts, from 8.30pm to 9.30 pm. WWF Goa has urged citizens to switch off their lights for one hour on Saturday.  …  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Earth-Hour-on-Saturday/articleshow/12462295.cms

March 30, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Earth Hour – a global event to show how we can conserve energy

Map of cities participating in Earth Hour

http://www.theage.com.au/multimedia/environment/earth-hour-map

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  Earth Hour is a worldwide event that is organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, encouraging households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour to raise awarenessabout the need to take action on climate change. Earth Hour was conceived by WWF and The Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights.[1] Following Sydney’s lead, many other cities around the world adopted the event in 2008.[2][3] Earth Hour 2012 will take place on March 31, 2012 from 8:30p.m. to 9:30p.m., at participant’s local time.

Earth Hour 2012 will take place on March 31, 2012 from 8:30pm to 9:30pm.[4]

In February, Earth Hour launched its 2012 campaign, “I Will If You Will”, with the intention of engaging its growing global community to go beyond the hour and coordinate their efforts publicly through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email. Using a dedicated YouTube platform [5], IWIYW asks Earth Hour’s digital community to inspire people from all corners of the globe to take sustainability actions, and to share their commitment to the environment with their own social media networks.

Executive Director and Co-Founder Andy Ridley said, “Earth Hour’s challenge is no longer to connect people; the challenge is to offer a reason to connect. Any movement of change begins with symbolism – it’s a needed step to prove enough people care about an issue. Earth Hour is past the beginning now, and lots of people are switching their lights off every year in March. We’re now at the stage of taking it beyond the hour.” [6]

Further proof of Earth Hour’s change in direction came when it was announced its global headquarters was moving from Sydney to Singapore. A launch event took place at ION Orchard on February 20, where it was announced that the move was supported by Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDB). [7]

March 30, 2012 Posted by | general | 1 Comment

8 days of Indian anti nuclear protestors’ hunger strike

“Idanthikarai reveals how cruel governments can be” On the eighth day of the hunger strike, anti nuclear plant protestors say they continue to wait for the Central and state government to come talk to them Tekelka, Jeemon Jacob, 27 Mar 12 Idanthikarai/ Thiruvananthapuram  A woman protester was shifted to hospital even as the anti-nuclear plant protests entered the eighth day. Forty-year-old Melred Raj, was shifted to the local hospital on Sunday 25 March, after she fainted at the protest venue. Her condition is said to be stable now  Continue reading →

March 28, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Council of Renewable Energy puts the case for renewable energy for Nigeria

Renewable energy, panacea to incessant power outages, Vanguard,  MARCH 27, 2012 · “……….National Coordinator for the Council of Renewable Energy in Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Ugah Unimke, spoke on the current state of renewable energy in Nigeria, “it is quite impressive and viable option in Nigeria in terms of power supply”. Continue reading →

March 28, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Israeli citizens reach out for friendship with Iranians

Amid war fears, Israelis reach out to Iran, Gulf News, 26 March 12, Citizens use social media, build website and set up an art exhibit to show opposition to Tel Aviv’s threats  “….. a small but growing number of Israelis trying to reach out to Iranians, even as Israeli
politicians warn with growing frequency and intensity that Israel might strike to halt Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. Continue reading →

March 26, 2012 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

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