Category Archives: no nukes

I Believe The Future Is Not Thorium – But many many people disagree

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I wrote the following rant in response to a question from my stepson Gus. I did it the way I write emails, minues capital letters and punctuation. I may change that later but for now here it is.

as one of my professors used to say.. think about the question before you ask it because it will have an answer….so my first answer is that nuclear anything is an inappropriate use of technology and worse yet design….at least here on the earth…at least until the END…now in space that is another matter…as a small is beautiful person schumacher said that – building nuclear power plants is like using a firehose to knock an ant off your toilet seat…it would do it but it would trash the rest of the bathroom….

using commercial grade nuclear power plants to generate electricity are by their natures large and complex with many moving parts.. they were larely invented by scientists who had a hard on for large complex machine and the military who needed cover for their nuclear weapons program…so it really has no relation to the actual generation of electricity in the world and represents a valid dichotomy in intellectual thinking .. ie. large and central vs. separate and continuous … to me diffuse power systems make a lot of sense…1. they require far fewer power lines so transmission lose is reduced and 2. there is much less of a chance of an actual power failure…then there is the cost

finland is currently the most committed nuclear power plant builder…i know that sounds very weird but it is true and they are right next door to norway the home of the first commercial thorium nuclear test reactor…(what a great segue and a return to your real question)…finland’s last nuke was projected to cost 3 billion $$$ and it came in last year (5 years late) at 8 billion $$$…now understand findland kinda models the earth towards the end of our sun’s useful life…where nukes make sense…they gots no fuel besides wood and it is colder than hell there much of the year…(plus as a political side note they got russia as a neighbor.. big yuk) still it really makes no sense…

so if you can accept the facts of large complicate expensive energy systems and find the current nuclear ones to be dangerous then thorium salt generators may seem to hold promise…i would argue that if the usa was going to go nuclear in the 1950s this is the direction we should have gone…in fact oak ridge build 2 such reactors one, a straight salts burner (remember fission is just a large fire) and 2, a burner with a “mat”….they were quickly shut down because they did not involve highly concentrated uraniun and plutonium…so from that perspective thorium reactors are much safer…generate higher temperatures and generate much “safer” waste…

again for me we got the biggest nuke that we need in the SUN…usens puny humans caint do no betters…so i say we use that until it begins to fail and then use all the stuff we could burn then…unfortunately we have burned 1/2 of it already so we better stop quick….and for the record…contrary to the science fiction models…i do not believe we are going anywhere in this solar system anytime soon so to all the capitalists that have been treating this planet as disposable i say tsck tsck tsck….the billionaires currently have a huge hard on for mars…well they have not solved the radiation, speed and food problems yet let alone the fuel problems so i say have a go at it bloke…i will stand by the side and watch…remember that voyagers 1 and 2 where launched when i was a child and they are just now leaving the solar system…thought votes are still out as to whether they have yet or not…

 

BUT THEN THERE IS SOLAR:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/07/08/germanys-solar-industry-is-imploding/?partner=yahootix

Germany’s Solar Industry Is Imploding

William Pentland, Contributor

I write about energy and environmental issues.

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The title says it all. Go there and read. More next week

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Phase Nuclear Power Out Of The USA – Finally somebody had the guts to say it

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This is so big that I just had to find the original source. Once I got to the source the article did not carry the same headline as the inflammatory piece from Washington Blog but in the last paragraph he does imply phasing out the nukes. He also points out that no upgrades have been ordered in response to Fukushima nor included in the new licenses issue. This IS the insanity of Nuclear Generation of electricity.

http://peakoil.com/alternative-energy/former-u-s-nuclear-chief-american-nuclear-plants-should-be-phased-out-cant-guarantee-against-accident-causing-widespread-land-contamination

But this is what the guy really said.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201303140050

 

INTERVIEW: Former U.S. nuke watchdog chair says regulators must stay independent

March 14, 2013

By SHIRO NAMEKATA/ Correspondent

As it is poised to impose strict regulatory measures on the operation of nuclear power plants, the Nuclear Regulation Authority is increasingly met by opposition that it is making the resumption of plants that are currently offline virtually impossible.

In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun in Washington, Gregory Jaczko, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said it is crucial for a nuclear watchdog to stay independent from the nuclear industry.

Jaczko, who, unlike his four colleagues, opposed the first new construction and operation of a nuclear plant in the United States since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, also discussed the future of nuclear energy. Excerpts from the interview follow:

 

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Go there and read. More next time.

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Fukushima Catastrophe – 2 years later it is still a mess

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It is sad but true that at roughly 3:00 pm Japanese time the world changed. While not one event starting with a powerful earthquake at 9 on the Richter scale that did not itself cause much damage but, followed by a tsunami that washed 20,000 people out to sea. This then was followed the next day with with a nuclear meltdown. 4 of them to be exact. What cast radiation into the air, probably to most areas of Japan. I am not trying to downplay the nuclear disaster but a woman on the radio said that it was clear where the Japanese had built in flood zones.  Which unfortunately could not readily be discerned before the flood because all of the clutter that had accumulated over the years (fences, roads and trees etc.) I hope they do not rebuild there again.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/every-day-is-a-fukushima-memorial/

Every Day Is a Fukushima Memorial’

TOKYO, Mar 10 2013 (IPS) – Japan prepares to mark the second anniversary of the Mar. 11 triple disaster – an earthquake, tsunami and a critical nuclear reactor accident – with much soul searching across the country.

For Yukiko Takada from Otsuki-cho, a scenic fishing town in Iwate prefecture that was turned into rubble in a few hours on that fateful day, the upcoming memorial Monday will simply be another day.

“For me, as it is like for the survivors who experienced the horrible tragedy, everyday remains a memorial, not just March 11, as we struggle to accept what happened and to get our lives back after the devastation,” she tells IPS.

The young woman represents one of the more poignant stories in lessons learnt following the disaster. Takada launched her own community newspaper last June. It was a project, she says, that was imperative to the recovery of the local community.

Otsuchi Shimbun, published weekly, provides up to date information on issues such as relocation of families, temporary housing, employment opportunities and local government decisions. It plays a crucial role in the rebuilding of people’s confidence.

Supported mainly with revenue from local ads, the newspaper, a one-woman show, carries diverse voices, and includes a focus on women. Takada says women have displayed mind-boggling will power to restart their lives for the sake of their families.

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Go there and read. More next time.

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TEPCO knew the Fukushima Nuke would not survive an earth quake

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Yah it was pretty clear to me that they knew an earthquake would toast out the four reactors and the two spent fuel pools. How did I know this?  Not because of the electric generators in the basement. That was stupid, but you just create more damage. It was all the damage and the radioactivity that came immediately after the entire event. That was not caused by a tsunami. It had to be caused by the quake. There was a clear design flaw. The cooling units and the reactors were built on SEPARATE concrete pads which meant they could not SHAKE together and thus they shook in opposition to each other and snapped  the cooling pipes  at that point all of the shoddy construction techniques come back to bite their ass.

http://www.naturalnews.com/037583_TEPCO_Fukushima_catastrophe.html

TEPCO finally admits catastrophic Fukushima disaster was completely avoidable

Thursday, October 18, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) After repeatedly denying that it could not have done anything more to preventatively curtail the damage sustained at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, 2011, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has finally come forward with an honest admission that its now-stricken facility had preexisting structural and safety problems that the company basically ignored.

TIME.com reports that TEPCO recently issued a statement explaining that prior to the three Fukushima meltdowns resulting from the catastrophic damage, company officials were already well aware of the fact that the facility was in dire need of serious renovations and retrofit. But because of various political, economic, and legal concerns, TEPCO deliberately delayed addressing these important issues, which is now coming back to haunt the company.

“Looking back on the accident, the problem was that preparations were not made in advance,” said a TEPCO investigatory task force, led by the company’s president, Naomi Hirose, in a recent statement. “Could necessary measures have been taken with previous tsunami evaluations? It was possible to take action.”

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Go there and weep..I mean read. More later.

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Save the nukes for when the Sun dims – that is if humans are even around

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Most Christians (and many other end of the Earth religions) assume that humans will be here when it happens. I got my doubts about that. The way we are treating the Earth we may be extinct in 50 years. Very few species make it for a couple million years let alone the billions we have to go but if we were smart we would be saving the nukes for the end.

http://www.energy-net.org/NONUKES.HTM

Why a Nuclear Free World is Important

We are now facing an energy crossroad as a culture. Everyone was effected by the price of gas that peaked during the summer of 2008. The world has fallen into a consumer trap where a growing number of people around the world are using finite oil resources to drive to work. The energy it takes to drive a car is like having 700 human slaves pushing that vehicle for a few cents per hour. The era of oil is rapidly coming to an end as the entire planet hunts down the last accessible oil reserves. At the same time, the burning of fossil fuels is polluting the air and water. There is a global shift to move away from oil driven cars. This means electric cars or better, redesigning our communities so we work close to home.

Thirty years ago, energy and environmental activists warned Americans about this coming crisis but were drowned out by the energy industry and the media’s failure to be honest with the public. In 1992, one half of the world’s Nobel Laureates signed onto a call that the world had 20 years to deal with our growing global energy and population crisis. That call was ignored by America’s leaders and the media. Some experts say we only have a few years to keep from being bankrupted by energy costs and global carrying capacity collapses.

The nuclear power industry has been claiming that it can rescue us from climate change and the coming energy crisis. Wrong! The arguments from this failed industry should not be trusted and in fact, represent a disastrous misuse of economic resources at such a critical moment. Their last experiment in Science Fiction has left the world neck deep in deadly wastes and economic boondoggles.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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CEOs admit that nuclear power is dead

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It is true. They are waving the flag of surrender. But more importantly, this is a really cool organization that I have never heard of. I am changing that today.

http://www.beyondnuclear.org/the-nuclear-retreat/2012/8/2/general-electrics-immelt-down-on-nukes.html

General Electric’s Immelt down on nukes

DateAugust 2, 2012

 

The latest confession of the nuclear retreat comes in the interview by Financial Times with none other than General Electric’s Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt. “It’s hard to justify nuclear, really hard,” said Immelt. He joins John “I’m the nuclear guy” Rowe, CEO of Chicago-based electricity giant Exelon Nuclear, who admitted this year that new nuclear power plants were “utterly uneconomical.”

These latest remarks come as no surprise given the atomic industry’s decades’ old penchant for economic failure going back to what Forbes Magazine described in 1985 as “the largest managerial disaster in business history.”  More egregious is how power executives can ignore the constant and many warning signs. Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investment and Fitch Financial Services have been saying for years that risky new reactor construction likely turns to financially toxic assets. Where were Immelt and Rowe when CitiBank called nuclear power the “corporate killer”?  In fact, they were among the corporate heads vying for tens of billions dollars in federal taxpayer “loans” approved by Congress for ludicrously expensive new reactor construction

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Those that defend nuclear power always take it out of context

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Pro  Nuke people always ignore the long chain that leads up to the first Nuclear reaction, including mining the dangerous ore and the tremendous construction costs. This chain may negate at least several years of their contention that Nuclear Power is “carbon free”. They also never discuss the after chain. Which includes both the disposal of the waste from the reactor but eventually the cost of decommissioning the reactors themselves. I think that Yucca Mountain was a perfect response to that, but I am alone on that one. This piece also mentions the distructive economic system that these reactors would perpetuate, which is disgusting. BUT the larger picture is that nuclear reactors are totally unnecessary. I have included here only the Monthly Review’s preface.

http://monthlyreview.org/2011/02/01/on-nuclear-power

On Nuclear Power

Response to John W. Farley’s ‘Our Last Chance to Save Humanity’

and

Monthly Review has long been on record as opposed to the expansion of nuclear energy.1 Most recently, some of the dangers of nuclear power, both in its present form and with continuing new technological developments, were spelled out by Robert D. Furber, James C. Warf, and Sheldon C. Plotkin of the Southern California Federation of Scientists, in their article on “The Future of Nuclear Power” (MR, February 2008).

Nevertheless, we recognize that many scientists, including climatologist James Hansen and our friend, physicist John W. Farley, now see a place for nuclear energy as a kind of last resort, given the dire planetary threat raised by the burning of fossil fuels—made even more dire by the current shift toward even dirtier, more carbon-emitting fossil fuels, such as lower grades of coal, oil from tar sands, and shale oil. If nuclear power presents great dangers to the human population and the earth, it also cannot be denied that the continuation of “business as usual” with respect to carbon emissions will lead to eventual social, economic, and ecological collapse, threatening civilization and most species, including our own. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that some are looking at nuclear energy as a lesser, or more remote, evil. Moreover, the prospect, though still at the theoretical/experimental stage, of revolutionary developments in nuclear power technology, namely Generation IV plants, which could greatly increase the efficiency of nuclear fuel use, reducing the nuclear waste generated, is also changing the nature of the controversy for some.

Yet, in our view, none of this alters the essential nature of the problem: the crossing of planetary boundaries by an economic system that, as long as it exists, must continually produce more and more goods, and thus degrade the environment. In this context, a turn to nuclear energy as a solution is both myopic and a Faustian bargain. The development of alternative energy sources coupled with conservation, in the context of radical transformations in social relations, constitutes the only real, long-term solution.

 

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Anti Nuke Movement Has A Great Holiday Planned – Marching with Santa Claus

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Sounds like a hot time in Southern California.

http://obrag.org/?p=68347

Anti-Nuke Events Proliferate as the Holiday Season Arrives

by on November 29, 2012 · 0 comments

in Energy, Environment, Organizing, Peace Movement, Popular, San Diego

It may be the season for shopping for consumers. It may be a time to recharge for political campaigners. But for the anti-nuclear activists in the region it’s time to intensify their efforts. Following are a half dozen programs, protests and events compiled by the Peace Resource Centerfor the coming days.

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The People Who Defend Nukes Are Ruthless – They can admit no fault

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It always amazes me that the nuclear power business is just a beard for nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are a thing of the past, but no one can admit it. Thus the amazing charges in this case. What about the lax security measures? That is where the prosecution should start.

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/21/muzzling-an-anti-nuke-trial-defense/

Muzzling an Anti-Nuke Trial Defense

November 21, 2012

By John LaForge

Three disarmament radicals who snuck into the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex last summer are preparing for their February 2013 trial, and face the prospect that any mention of nuclear weapons will be forbidden.

Y-12 is the 811-acre site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, that’s been building H-bombs and contaminating workers and the environment since 1943. On July 28, Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed snipped through fences and walked up to the new Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility building. They unfurled banners, spray-painted the building with phrases such as “Woe to the empire of blood,” poured blood, prayed and broke bread.

Now they face felony charges that carry a maximum of $500,000 in fines and 15 years in prison. Additionally, in what looks like an attempt to scare them into pleading guilty now, federal prosecutors have mentioned bringing two heavier charges, including sabotage “during wartime,” which together carry up to 50 years imprisonmen

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Pro Nuke Article Starts Out With A Bang – And closes with a whimper

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Again, you have to take this crap, well like a load of crap. Still it represents the industry opinion, so in fairness I put it up, but this is the last one.

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=184146

Anti-nuke madness & global warming

Gwynne Dyer
Tuesday, November 27, 2012 – After the loss of 10 million American lives in the Three-Mile Island calamity in 1979, the death of 2 billion in the Chernobyl holocaust in 1986, and now the abandonment of all of northern Japan following the death of millions in last year’s Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, it is hardly surprising that the world’s biggest users of nuclear power are shutting their plants down.Oh, wait a minute. … This just in! Nobody died in the Three-Mile Island calamity; 28 plant workers were killed and 15 other people subsequently died of thyroid cancer in the Chernobyl holocaust; and nobody died in the Fukushima catastrophe. In fact, northern Japan has not been evacuated after all.They have already shut them down in Japan. All of the country’s 50 nuclear reactors were closed for safety checks after the tsunami damaged the Fukushima plant, and only two have reopened so far. The government, which was previously planning to increase nuclear’s share of the national energy mix to half by 2030, has now promised to close every nuclear power plant in Japan permanently by 2040. The new Japanese plan says that the country will replace the missing nuclear energy with an eightfold increase in renewable energy The truth is that as the Arctic sea ice melts and grain harvests are devastated by heat waves and drought, the world’s third-largest user of nuclear energy has decided to go back to emitting lots and lots of carbon dioxide.
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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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