No to progress or peril? Revisiting the case for or against nuclear energy
what’s the case against nuclear power? Business Mirror 25 May 09 “……………………It boils down to two things: safety and economics, according to Prof. Roland Simbulan of the University of the Philippines, National Chairman of the Nuclear-Free Philippines Coalition (NFPC). “The major issue is safety considering that we do not have an effective disaster management culture especially to handle nuclear technology,” Simbulan told the BusinessMirror.
“Even industrialized countries have difficulty confronting this problem.” Simbulan adds that the safety issue concerning storage of nuclear waste will hound the country considering the Philippines is an agricultural country dependent on a fishing industry.
He also argued that the BNPP was constructed under a “conspiracy of corruption” as it is an overpriced, unsafe plant and one that has left the Filipinos with $2.2 billion of debt. Simbulan suggests that the best alternative to nuclear power is safe, clean and less expensive renewable energy such as solar, wind, wave, tidal, geothermal energy, among others.
“We have an eternal abundance of these renewables. Also, energy conservation and efficient technologies that require less energy to generate can be considered such as light bulbs that consume less energy for more light. We also have to simplify lifestyles,” he explained. Simbulan adds that renewables are easier to utiilize compared to nuclear energy. “In the long run, they are cheaper…………………..
……………. “It is a known fact that nuclear power is an expensive technology that is risky to operate and creates deadly radioactive waste. Congress must realize that every Filipino citizen aspires for a safe and secure future. This will not be achieved through nuclear power technology,” said Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Francis de la Cruz.
Greenpeace argued that the history of nuclear power in the world shows us that aside from being costly and risky, it discourages energy efficiency and impedes the development of renewable energy sources that are cleaner, sustainable and safe.
No to progress or peril? Revisiting the case for or against nuclear energy
Native rights declaration challenges ‘settler’ nations
Native rights declaration challenges ‘settler’ nations
By Haider Rizvi May 25, 2009 – UNITED NATIONS, May 6 (IPS) – The United States is considering whether to endorse a major U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for the recognition of the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples over their lands and resources………………………….
Approved by a vast majority of the U.N. member states in September 2007, the General Assembly resolution on the declaration was rejected by the George W. Bush administration over indigenous leaders’ argument that no economic or political power has the right to exploit their resources without seeking their “informed consent.”
Three other “settler nations” of European descent, namely Canada, New Zealand and Australia, also voted against the declaration, which states that indigenous peoples have the right to maintain their cultures and remain on their land…………………However, last month, the new left-leaning government in Canberra reversed its position, announcing support for the declaration.
Government Urged To Step Up Anti-nuke Campaign
Government Urged To Step Up Anti-nuke Campaign Voxy.co.nz 26 May, 2009 – 15:14
The Government should take the advice of former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and launch a new anti-nuclear campaign, says Labour’s disarmament spokesperson Phil Twyford.
Mr Fraser met the Prime Minister yesterday and is advocating New Zealand and Australia form a ginger group of countries to push for the abolition of nuclear weapons in light of US President Obama’s strong support for the cause.
“After meeting Mr Fraser, Mr Key told Radio New Zealand he would consider ‘whether we may maybe take a bolder and… larger step forward’,” Phil Twyford said.
“Because of our anti-nuclear legislation and longstanding commitment to disarmament New Zealand is well placed to champion the cause of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.
US nuclear accord with a Persian Gulf state raises concerns about proliferation
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
US nuclear accord with a Persian Gulf state raises concerns about proliferationBackers says the agreement with the United Arab Emirates is a model for other countries in the region. But critics worry about the UAE’s ties with Iran.
from the May 23, 2009 edition
Washington – The Obama administration, anxious to demonstrate America’s willingness to deepen relations with reliable partners in the Muslim world before the president’s much-heralded speech to that community early next month, has signed a controversial nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates.
The nuclear accord, negotiated by the Bush administration but left for President Obama’s sign-off, is touted by the new administration – as it was by the former – as a model for future civilian nuclear cooperation with Arab countries……………………..opponents of the accord blast it as a short-sighted plan designed to secure lucrative contracts for US corporations that build nuclear reactors, yet one which may result in a string of plants producing nuclear fuel across a very volatile region.
“The US does not have a strategy to deal with this very real issue of proliferation, all they have is a sale,” says Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization that promotes a nuclear-weapons-free world. “We shouldn’t be sprinkling the Middle East with nuclear power reactors until we figure out how to stop them from turning out nuclear bombs.”……………………………………Ploughshares’ Mr. Cirincione says….”What got these countries scrambling for nuclear technology was the summer of 2006, the war in Lebanon and Iran’s support for Hizbullah in that conflict.
US nuclear accord with a Persian Gulf state raises concerns about proliferation | csmonitor.com
Tribes protest nuclear waste plan
Tribes protest nuclear waste plan By Loa Iok-sin
STAFF REPORTER
TAIPEI TIMES May 24, 2009 Led by a royal descendant of an ancient line of Aboriginal Paiwan kings, residents and environmentalists yesterday staged a parade in Daren Township (達仁), Taitung County, to protest Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) plan to build a storage facility for nuclear waste there………………Opposed to the plan, more than 100 Paiwan and Puyuma Aborigines and environmentalists rallied outside a local elementary school yesterday morning, where they were blessed by Paiwan elders in a traditional ritual before they departed. The demonstrators then carried a cross on a two-hour march to the site selected for the facility.After arriving at the site, the demonstrators erected the cross and made a smoke signal to inform their ancestral spirits of their determination to defend their ancestral homeland………………………..“This region has long been a traditional domain of the Tacupul Kingdom, and it’s the job of all descendants of Tacupul to defend it,” said Sauljaljuy Ruvaniyaw, a member of the Ruvaniyaw family — the royal family of the Tacupul Kingdom that ruled in Daren and its neighboring areas hundreds of years ago………………….The rally and the march are only the beginning of the mobilization against the nuclear waste dumping ground, Ruvaniyaw said.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans The Local : 22 May 09 12:31 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090522-19443.htmlThe Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) announced Friday they will take on a large operation to test radiation-exposure levels of both current and former workers at the atomic waste depot Asse near the town of Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony. With this health monitoring programme, we want to find out if the cases of cancer and leukaemia of former Asse workers had anything to do with the radiation exposure of their work,” BfS spokesman Werner Nording said in a statement on the authority’s website…………………….Officials are now trying to determine what to do about dangerous nuclear waste which has been stored at the increasingly unstable site since 1978.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans – The Local
Will the Nuclear Power “Renaissance” Ever Reach Critical Mass?: Scientific American
Will the Nuclear Power “Renaissance” Ever Reach Critical Mass?
Scientific American May 21, 2009 Despite an abundance of plans and applications, new nuclear reactors outside of Asia are few and far between, which puts nuclear’s contribution to fighting greenhouse gas emissions at risk This month, Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor was supposed to begin generating power, a tangible sign of the revival of the nuclear industry outside of Asia after nearly 30 years of no new construction because of accidents, cost-overruns and other issues. Instead, the reactor won’t be completed for more than three more years, its price is nearly 60 percent more than anticipated, and it is mired in costly legal squabbles between the builder, Areva, and the Finnish utility, Pohjolan Voima.In the U.S., since 2003, 17 applications for 26 new reactors have been filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but not one is yet under construction.
Despite dozens of new nuclear plants ordered or built in Asia in recent years, “increased deployment of nuclear power has been slow both in the United States and globally,” wrote the authors of a new Massachusetts Institute of Technology review of the state of nuclear power.Those figures, say the authors of the report, an update on a similar report in 2003, mean that “even if all the announced plans for new nuclear power plant construction are realized, the total will be well behind that needed for reaching a thousand gigawatts of new capacity worldwide by 2050.”
One thousand gigawatts is the number the M.I.T. professors estimated would be needed to ensure that nuclear power provided 20 percent of global electricity needs as well as cut emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants. …………………..(There are, of course, significant greenhouse gas emissions associated with building and fueling nuclear facilities).
But the price of new nuclear power has “escalated dramatically,” according to the report, jumping by 15 percent a year to reach as much as $4,000 per kilowatt compared with $2,300 for coal-fired generation and just $850 for natural gas. And the industry is asking for at least $100 billion in federal tax subsidies and loan guarantees for the 26 reactors currently planned.
The situation is no better in Europe, according to Steven Thomas, a professor of energy studies at the University of Greenwich in London: Finland cannot complete its new reactor; the U.K. has yet to get started on any projects; and a new nuclear reactor in France, after 18 months of construction, is 20 percent overbudget and requires complete subsidy by the French government………………….. Nor has there been a solution to the issue of nuclear waste……………………….. Adds Thomas: “It seems to me highly unlikely that [investing in nuclear power] is the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Put that money in other sources, such as energy efficiency and renewables, and get a much better return on your money.”
Will the Nuclear Power “Renaissance” Ever Reach Critical Mass?: Scientific American
French Court Turns Away Veterans Plea for Compensation
French Court Turns Away Veterans Plea for Compensation The Chosun Ilbo 23 May 09 A French appeals court has rejected demands by military veterans for millions of dollars in compensation for illnesses allegedly contracted during 30 years of nuclear testing in Algeria and French Polynesia. Still, the French government is preparing draft legislation to compensate some nuclear testing victims.
The court case is just one in a series of long-running complaints that French nuclear testing between the 1960s and the 1990s sickened many people. The latest case involves a dozen French veterans who claim the cancers they subsequently fell ill to are linked to radiation exposure from the testing. France conducted 210 nuclear tests in Algeria and French Polynesia over the three decades.But a Paris appeals court rejected their compensation demands, claiming they pertained to events before 1977 — when a law on compensation took effect………………………….Separately, another court in French Polynesia began to hear this year complaints from former workers at France’s nuclear test sites there.
US lawmakers reject nuclear in renewable power goal
US lawmakers reject nuclear in renewable power goal
Wed May 20, 2009 By Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers pushing to include greater recognition for existing nuclear power in a national renewable energy standard failed to win new breaks for the industry when a U.S. congressional panel on Wednesday voted down an amendment to a controversial climate change bill.
The sweeping bill, which seeks to cap greenhouse gas emissions, includes a renewable energy mandate that would require utilities to generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2020………………………………
Under the legislation sponsored by Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, utilities’ renewable mandate would be reduced in proportion to the portion of any electricity sales from new nuclear plants, but not existing nuclear plants…………
……..Waxman argued that the bill was not discriminating against nuclear power, but that nuclear was not renewable energy because it requires uranium, a limited resource. Also, he said the renewable standard was aimed at promoting new power sources and technology.
Obama lying about nuclear warhead
Barack Obama is lying about the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead
Examiner.com by Ann Garrison May 20, 2009 Barack Obama is lying about the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW). He says that it’s not in his budget.
However, the RRW is in the $50 billion Pentagon “black budget,” and this is Commander-in-Chief Obama’s budget too.
- Obama and the rest of the Pentagon are free to use the black budget at will, because Congress would rather not know or take responsibility for it.
In January 2009, the London Guardian reported that the RRW is still being developed at Britain’s nuclear weapons laboratory, Aldermaston.
Neither President and Commander-in-Chief Obama, nor Energy Secretary Chu, nor any Pentagon spokesperson denied the report.
As Director of the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, Energy Secretary Chu oversaw the development of the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Wahead from 2006 until 2008, when Congress finally defunded it, under pressure in an election year.
It is inconceivable that Energy Secretary Chu does not know that the RRW’s development proceeds at Aldermaston, but, Chu was at least telling the truth, in a very deceptive sense when, earlier this year, he said that it would not be in his Energy Department budget.
Barack Obama, however, is lying. He is President and Commander-in-Chief Obama, with Constitutional, and military executive authority over the Pentagon. The Pentagon’s $50 billion black budget is Obama’s budget, first and foremost. He is lyiing when he says that his budget does not include the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead .
Clean green nuclear war machine
Clean green nuclear war machine
Examiner.com, by Ann Garrison 12 May 09
Most world class planet and people trashers, including Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Peabody Coal, Dupont, Dow Chemical, Coca Cola, Barrick Gold, Monsanto, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Eison, and, even Halliburton, have given their corporate images the new Green Brand.
And, most belong to the globally sociopathic World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the Wildlife Habitat Council, a non-profit conglomerate devoted to “stewarding” large tracts of land for the corporations, after getting rid of the people in the name of the critters.
Even the Pentagon has developed a Green Brand, and its own Green Brand press clips, as has Lockheed Martin., on its Going Green web page. Lockheed-Martin manufactures nearly all the U.S. military’s jet fighter bombers, including the trillion $ fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, wired to deliver a larger “payload,” meaning more bombs, conventional or nuclear, than the F-22 or other combat planes sent out to clear the air space ahead of it………………………
…………….. Wikipedia’s list of nuclear submarines at the bottom of the ocean, and other nuclear sub accidents, including one, in my hometown of origin, Bremerton, Washington, home of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in 1983, and, another in my current hometown, San Francisco, where the nuclear-powered U.S.S. Guitarro sank to the bottom of San Francisco Bay, off Mare Island, in 1969.
http://www.examiner.com/x-8257-SF-Energy-Policy-Examiner~y2009m5d12-Clean-green-war-machines
7 Reasons to Support Comprehensive Clean-Energy Legislation
7 Reasons to Support Comprehensive Clean-Energy Legislation
1. Clean-energy legislation will create jobs by spurring investment in renewables and efficiency.
The legislation would place a cap on global warming pollution that would give companies and utilities an incentive to invest in low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies in order to minimize their emissions. These kinds of investments increase demand for renewable electricity and fuels, helping grow entire new businesses, and create jobs in struggling sectors of the economy such as manufacturing and construction.
Clean-energy investments also create more jobs than investments in traditional energy sources.
2. Boosting investments in low-carbon energy will help the United States regain the lead in the manufacture and sale of clean-energy technologies.
3. Action on clean-energy legislation has critical industry support.
4. Global warming is harming our health and the physical environment.
5. Comprehensive clean-energy legislation can provide a host of economic benefits.
6. Clean-energy legislation requires that polluters pay.
7. Opponents of action would continue the status quo of doing nothing, which cost the average family a $1,000 increase in energy bills over past eight years.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/clean_energy_reasons.html
Nuclear cleanup funds mismanaged
- Nuclear cleanup funds mismanaged New American by Steven J. DuBord Wednesday, 20 May 2009 As part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, “the Energy Department has begun releasing more than $6 billion in stimulus money to clean up 18 nuclear sites from New York to California, more than doubling the typical yearly funding for the program,” a May 18 Washington Post story recounts.
- The sites were involved in Cold War-era nuclear weapons production, and the cleanup will deal with radioactive and chemically hazardous waste. But it is another type of waste that is causing a concerned reaction and prompting “sharply worded warnings from some government officials and lawmakers who say the stimulus funding is ripe for abuse.”
The Washington Post points out that “contractors helped shape the stimulus package and are lined up to get the work, including many that have been cited for serious safety violations and costly mistakes.” The cleanup program “has long been plagued by cost overruns and delays and is designated by the Government Accountability Office as ‘at high risk for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.’ Over the past two years, estimated cleanup costs at all 22 sites have escalated from $180 billion to $240 billion, according to the Energy Department.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/1136
Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival
Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival
Fox13now David Wells Senior Web Producer
May 18, 2009 SALT LAKE CITY – A federal judge has removed a major roadlock for EnergySolutions in its quest to to import Italian nuclear waste. U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart has ruled that a compact of several states doesn’t have the authority to ban foreign imports. Many Utahns, including Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, have spoken out against the company’s plan to bring 1,600 tons of Italian nuclear waste to its facility in Utah’s west desert.
Utah Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R) and Jim Matheson (D) are co-sponsors of a national bill that could block imports of nuclear waste. FOX 13’s Katy Carlyle has more. http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-judge-compact-of-states-cant-block-foreign,0,7394556.story
Conn. high court backs anti-nuke plant activist
Associated Press
Conn. high court backs anti-nuke plant activist
By DAVE COLLINS , 05.20.09 A Connecticut environmental activist on Wednesday scored a significant legal victory in her fight over how the Millstone nuclear power complex manages its wastewater.
The state Supreme Court unanimously decided to allow Nancy Burton to challenge the state process that led to a preliminary decision to allow Millstone to renew its wastewater discharge permit. The state Department of Environmental Protection released a draft decision in August 2006 to renew the permit
Burton claims Millstone’s water intake and discharge system has destroyed billions of fish and other marine life in Long Island Sound and alleges the permit renewal process that began in 1997 has been tainted by bias, state favoritism toward Millstone and a disregard for environmental laws.
The five justices overturned a lower court judge’s ruling that Burton had no standing under state law to challenge the permit process.
“We conclude that the plaintiff’s complaint adequately sets forth facts to support an inference that unreasonable pollution, impairment or destruction of a natural resource will probably result from Millstone’s operation,” Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the court’s decision………………………A federal appeals court ruled in 2007 that power plants, including nuclear facilities, must use the best technology available to avoid harming aquatic life…………
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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