Environment
TAKOMA PARK, MD - December 2nd will mark 70 years since scientists achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, without knowing then, or now, what to do with the radioactive waste it would generate. That very first waste was generated by the Enrico Fermi team at the University of Chicago in 1942 as part of the Manhattan Project. Next month, a special nuclear waste conference of experts will be held at that same site, December 1, 2 and 3, both to observe the date and to deliver panels and plenaries that cover every aspect of the radioactive waste challenge, from uranium mining through nuclear weapons production, nuclear energy generation and the unsolved waste “disposal” problem. The conference is hosted by Nuclear Energy Information Service and Beyond Nuclear. (See details at end of press release).
November 6 marks a tremendous victory for the fracktivists in Mansfield, Ohio. They passed a "Community Bill of Rights" referendum with 62.87% of the vote on Tuesday.
The Center for Health, Environment, and Justice reported this:
"Mansfield is a city with roughly 48,000 citizens located 80 miles southwest of Cleveland and 66 miles northeast of Columbus, right in the heart of the Utica Shale basin. Eric Belcastro, the Pennsylvania Organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), explained the rationale behind the “Bill of Rights” push in a blog post:
Faced with the permitting of two 5,000 foot deep injection wells in Mansfield by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR)…[t]he amendment would drive a community Bill of Rights into Mansfield’s charter and then prohibit the injection of fracking wastewater on grounds that such prohibition is necessary to secure and protect those community rights. The amendment also recognizes corporate “rights” as subordinate to the rights of the people of Mansfield, as well as recognizing the rights of residents, natural communities and ecosystems to clean air and water."
The Center for Health, Environment, and Justice reported this:
"Mansfield is a city with roughly 48,000 citizens located 80 miles southwest of Cleveland and 66 miles northeast of Columbus, right in the heart of the Utica Shale basin. Eric Belcastro, the Pennsylvania Organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), explained the rationale behind the “Bill of Rights” push in a blog post:
Faced with the permitting of two 5,000 foot deep injection wells in Mansfield by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR)…[t]he amendment would drive a community Bill of Rights into Mansfield’s charter and then prohibit the injection of fracking wastewater on grounds that such prohibition is necessary to secure and protect those community rights. The amendment also recognizes corporate “rights” as subordinate to the rights of the people of Mansfield, as well as recognizing the rights of residents, natural communities and ecosystems to clean air and water."
Suddenly we all know Sandy, the superstorm that whacked New York City, left 55 people dead across the East Coast — and about that many in Haiti as well — knocked out power to millions and caused some $20 billion worth of property damage.
What I find fascinating is that the storm has a name.
Sandy failed to bring climate change into the presidential election season — though the warmer waters of the Atlantic and rising sea levels, resulting from human activity, aggravated the storm’s intensity — but “she” claimed quasi-celebrity status as a killer mega-storm, thus manifesting a deeply pre-scientific human need to personalize nature, indeed, to be one with nature, as so many indigenous people still are.
The naming of tropical storms may seem trivial, but I’m thinking maybe it’s anything but. Climate change denial rests on the assumption that nature is inert and the planet on which we have evolved is a dead rock. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what we do to it.
What I find fascinating is that the storm has a name.
Sandy failed to bring climate change into the presidential election season — though the warmer waters of the Atlantic and rising sea levels, resulting from human activity, aggravated the storm’s intensity — but “she” claimed quasi-celebrity status as a killer mega-storm, thus manifesting a deeply pre-scientific human need to personalize nature, indeed, to be one with nature, as so many indigenous people still are.
The naming of tropical storms may seem trivial, but I’m thinking maybe it’s anything but. Climate change denial rests on the assumption that nature is inert and the planet on which we have evolved is a dead rock. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what we do to it.
The US fleet of 104 deteriorating atomic reactors is starting to fall. The much-hyped "nuclear renaissance" is now definitively headed in reverse.
The announcement that Wisconsin's Kewaunee will shut next year will be remembered as a critical dam break. Opened in 1974, Kewaunee has fallen victim to low gas prices, declining performance, unsolved technical problems and escalating public resistance.
Many old US reactors are still profitable only because their capital costs were forced down the public throat during deregulation, through other manipulations of the public treasury, and because lax regulation lets them operate cheaply while threatening the public health.
But even that's no longer enough. Dominion Energy wanted a whole fleet of reactors, then backed down and couldn't even find a buyer for Kewaunee. As the company put it: "the decision" to shut Kewaunee "was based purely on economics. Dominion was not able to move forward with our plan to grow our nuclear fleet in the Midwest to take advantage of economies of scale". Ironically, Kewaunee was recently given a license extension by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The announcement that Wisconsin's Kewaunee will shut next year will be remembered as a critical dam break. Opened in 1974, Kewaunee has fallen victim to low gas prices, declining performance, unsolved technical problems and escalating public resistance.
Many old US reactors are still profitable only because their capital costs were forced down the public throat during deregulation, through other manipulations of the public treasury, and because lax regulation lets them operate cheaply while threatening the public health.
But even that's no longer enough. Dominion Energy wanted a whole fleet of reactors, then backed down and couldn't even find a buyer for Kewaunee. As the company put it: "the decision" to shut Kewaunee "was based purely on economics. Dominion was not able to move forward with our plan to grow our nuclear fleet in the Midwest to take advantage of economies of scale". Ironically, Kewaunee was recently given a license extension by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
As demonstrators from the Coalition Against Nukes prepare to descend on Washington DC and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the world's third-largest economy has taken a landmark step toward Solartopia.
A pro-nuclear Japanese government has announced it will phase out all commercial reactors by 2040.
It comes as atomic power continues to plummet and reactors go dark in Germany, France, Quebec, California and elsewhere.
Japan's announcement has gotten mixed domestic reviews. Powerful industrial leaders say it's unrealistic. Some reports indicate the government intends to proceed with new reactors already on order. But a burgeoning grassroots No Nukes movement is demanding a faster phase-out of existing reactors and is sure to put up fierce resistance to any new ones being built, whether they're on the books now or not.
A pro-nuclear Japanese government has announced it will phase out all commercial reactors by 2040.
It comes as atomic power continues to plummet and reactors go dark in Germany, France, Quebec, California and elsewhere.
Japan's announcement has gotten mixed domestic reviews. Powerful industrial leaders say it's unrealistic. Some reports indicate the government intends to proceed with new reactors already on order. But a burgeoning grassroots No Nukes movement is demanding a faster phase-out of existing reactors and is sure to put up fierce resistance to any new ones being built, whether they're on the books now or not.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney presented his energy plan for the nation on August 23rd to a crowd of supporters in Hobbs, New Mexico. My reading of Romney's 18-page speech and other public documents and reports raise a number of concerns about his positions on energy policy.
The overriding goal of Romney's energy plan is to initiate and press hard for policies that will enhance the power of the already powerful and too-big-to-fail oil, gas, and coal companies as the best way to achieve "energy independence.” The idea of winning independence of foreign oil is a hackneyed notion offered up by presidential candidates and incumbents every four years going back to the early 1970s. Michael Grunwald makes this point in his new book, The New New Deal:
"Ever since 1973, when Richard Nixon vowed to end oil imports by the decade's end, every president had made we-can-do-it promises about energy independence. 'I happen to believe that we can do it,' said Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had proclaimed this crusade 'the more equivalent of war.' Even George W. Bush had pledged 'to move beyond a petroleum-based economy" (p. 38).
The overriding goal of Romney's energy plan is to initiate and press hard for policies that will enhance the power of the already powerful and too-big-to-fail oil, gas, and coal companies as the best way to achieve "energy independence.” The idea of winning independence of foreign oil is a hackneyed notion offered up by presidential candidates and incumbents every four years going back to the early 1970s. Michael Grunwald makes this point in his new book, The New New Deal:
"Ever since 1973, when Richard Nixon vowed to end oil imports by the decade's end, every president had made we-can-do-it promises about energy independence. 'I happen to believe that we can do it,' said Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had proclaimed this crusade 'the more equivalent of war.' Even George W. Bush had pledged 'to move beyond a petroleum-based economy" (p. 38).
The Arctic ice is melting at a record pace this summer - just one more measurable phenomenon indicating that extraordinary change in the global ecosystem is in progress. As the ice melts, and the vast polar reflecting surface diminishes, the planet absorbs more and more of the sun’s energy and . . . grows warmer. More ice melts.
"Oh God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small."
The Arctic ice is melting at a record pace this summer - just one more measurable phenomenon indicating that extraordinary change in the global ecosystem is in progress. As the ice melts, and the vast polar reflecting surface diminishes, the planet absorbs more and more of the sun's energy and ... grows warmer. More ice melts.
So what?
Sitting at my desk in Chicago, I was tempted to opt out of caring about this - trend Republican, you might say. Put it on the back, ahem, burner. It takes a leap of consciousness to align my own well-being with the fate of the Arctic ice, the ocean, the Inuits, the polar bears.
"Oh God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small."
The Arctic ice is melting at a record pace this summer - just one more measurable phenomenon indicating that extraordinary change in the global ecosystem is in progress. As the ice melts, and the vast polar reflecting surface diminishes, the planet absorbs more and more of the sun's energy and ... grows warmer. More ice melts.
So what?
Sitting at my desk in Chicago, I was tempted to opt out of caring about this - trend Republican, you might say. Put it on the back, ahem, burner. It takes a leap of consciousness to align my own well-being with the fate of the Arctic ice, the ocean, the Inuits, the polar bears.
With every atomic reactor disaster comes the inevitable whitewash.
And Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has just painted a tragic new coat over the radioactive wasteland of atomic flim-flam.
Its "Panic at Fukushima" speaks volumes to a nuclear power industry now crumbling at the core. It fits an historic pattern:
When yet another radioactive leak emits from the local nuke---no matter how serious---the official response is hard-wired to include the phrase "no danger to the public."
When serious structural cracks surface at reactors like Ohio's Davis-Besse or Crystal River, Florida, safety concerns are invariably dismissed with well-funded contempt.
As with fatally flawed steam generators at California's San Onofre, if it can make an extra buck, the industry will run these reactors into the ground, safety-be-damned. Protected by federal taxpayer insurance and the bankruptcy laws, they know even a catastrophic disaster need not trouble their bottom line.
And Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has just painted a tragic new coat over the radioactive wasteland of atomic flim-flam.
Its "Panic at Fukushima" speaks volumes to a nuclear power industry now crumbling at the core. It fits an historic pattern:
When yet another radioactive leak emits from the local nuke---no matter how serious---the official response is hard-wired to include the phrase "no danger to the public."
When serious structural cracks surface at reactors like Ohio's Davis-Besse or Crystal River, Florida, safety concerns are invariably dismissed with well-funded contempt.
As with fatally flawed steam generators at California's San Onofre, if it can make an extra buck, the industry will run these reactors into the ground, safety-be-damned. Protected by federal taxpayer insurance and the bankruptcy laws, they know even a catastrophic disaster need not trouble their bottom line.
Baker said he and others working with Frack-Free Ohio have made inroads particularly with Muskingum County Conservancy District.
“We’ve managed to get them to halt the sales of water until an impact study can be done. The impact study will be finished towards the end of the year. So that’s an issue that’s coming up as far as water sales go.”
But he said private subcontracted haulers are taking water from easily accessible sources.
“They may be public or they may be just available and no one’s watching them. At this time, it’s not fully determined what the legalities are, which puts us in a really bad position at the grassroots level as far as pushing for some new laws and pushing for some oversight.”
He said laws and regulations are only as good as the persons willing to uphold them.
“We have plenty of laws. It just seems like we’re not always protected. Muskingum Watershed has a meeting this Friday at Pleasant Hill. We’ll be attending that, making our thoughts known there, inside and outside. We’re trying to cater to all folks with a rally and also testimony inside the board meeting.”
“We’ve managed to get them to halt the sales of water until an impact study can be done. The impact study will be finished towards the end of the year. So that’s an issue that’s coming up as far as water sales go.”
But he said private subcontracted haulers are taking water from easily accessible sources.
“They may be public or they may be just available and no one’s watching them. At this time, it’s not fully determined what the legalities are, which puts us in a really bad position at the grassroots level as far as pushing for some new laws and pushing for some oversight.”
He said laws and regulations are only as good as the persons willing to uphold them.
“We have plenty of laws. It just seems like we’re not always protected. Muskingum Watershed has a meeting this Friday at Pleasant Hill. We’ll be attending that, making our thoughts known there, inside and outside. We’re trying to cater to all folks with a rally and also testimony inside the board meeting.”
Oak Harbor, OH—An environmental coalition opposing the 20-year license extension at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor on Ohio’s Lake Erie shore has cited scores of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents, obtained by Beyond Nuclear through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), to show how dangerous cracking of the concrete shield building containment actually is, despite FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) denial and downplaying.
The filing is posted online, as are the NRC documents revealed through FOIA.
In one document (FOIA Document B/9), NRC’s Pete Hernandez states: “I think the greater concern is will the SB [Shield Building] stay standing, and not whether or not the decorative concrete will fall off. Because the licensee has not performed core bores to see if there is cracking in the credited concrete, do they have a basis to say that the structural concrete will maintain a Seismic II/I condition?”
The filing is posted online, as are the NRC documents revealed through FOIA.
In one document (FOIA Document B/9), NRC’s Pete Hernandez states: “I think the greater concern is will the SB [Shield Building] stay standing, and not whether or not the decorative concrete will fall off. Because the licensee has not performed core bores to see if there is cracking in the credited concrete, do they have a basis to say that the structural concrete will maintain a Seismic II/I condition?”