Wednesday, March 15, 2023

A Dozen Years after Fukushima, Nuclear Power is Still a Death Wish - CounterPunch.org

A dozen years after four atomic reactors exploded at Fukushima, the plant STILL daily irradiates 150 tons of water which must be treated and stored forever.

Thousands of tons more of such lethal liquid are still held in rotting tanks. The Japanese government wants to dump them in the Pacific, but local resistance is fierce. The build-up will continue for countless years to come, with gargantuan quantities of deadly liquid ever-readier to destroy our oceans….and perhaps, eventually, human life, whose irrational addiction to atomic power has yet to abate.

As of March 10, 2011, the official industry line was that no US-designed commercial reactor could explode. Chornobyl blew up on April 26, 1986, sending deadly radioactive clouds throughout the Earth.

But the commercial reactor producers hid behind Chornobyl’s Soviet design, saying no such thing could happen to reactors designed by GE or Westinghouse.

The next day a massive offshore quake shook the six GE-designed reactors at Fukushima, severely damaging four of them. Some experts believe Unit One was on its way to melting before the giant tsunami wreaked havoc…followed by four massive explosions.

Cores at Units 1-2-3 melted, creating massive quantities of hydrogen, which ignited. A mushroom-shaped cloud suggested possible fission from the high-intensity fuel in Unit 3.

Hydrogen from Unit 3 seeped into the then-shut Unit 4 and exploded, leading to an extremely dangerous loss of coolant in the spent fuel pool.

In concert, the four blown nukes spewed at least 100 times more radioactive cesium than was released by the Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan’s prime minister contemplated evacuating Tokyo’s 15 million people. Prevailing winds blew most of the radiation into the ocean—-towards California…

Monday, September 19, 2022

Opinion | Nuclear Power Still Doesn’t Make Much Sense - The New York Times


Opinion | Nuclear Power Still Doesn’t Make Much Sense - The New York Times

Thursday, September 8, 2022

The Insanity of Expanding Nuclear Energy - Emagazine.com

Former nuclear regulatory top dogs from the United States, France, Germany and Great Britain issued a joint statement in January strenuously opposing any expansion of nuclear power as a strategy to combat climate change. Why? There is not a single good reason to build new nuclear plants. Here are ten solid reasons not to…

Monday, August 15, 2022

NIRS Statement in Response to the Inflation Reduction Act: Climate Compromises and Sacrifices Are Not Justifiable

  On Friday, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) passed the House and is headed to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law. This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating a just environmental and economic future. It should've been a major success for climate policy. 

It is a deep disappointment that the IRA is not truly a climate bill and is certain to harm the very communities that most need action on climate. With the IRA, our elected leaders have chosen to side with dirty energy industries, their financiers and investors, corporate media, and political opportunists to prop up the dirty energy status quo with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, financing, and devil’s bargains. 

NIRS joins the many frontline and BIPOC-led organizations that have pointed out they cannot support the bill. The compromise between climate action and climate destruction in the IRA is not one we can accept. NIRS urges Congress and the White House to go back and develop a policy that truly addresses climate change and environmental injustice – including restoration and repair of the harms caused by fossil fuels and nuclear energy. 

We refuse to accept that frontline communities must be sacrificed yet again for nuclear, fossil, and other dirty energy interests. We stand in solidarity with the frontline communities and we will not stop fighting for a just, equitable, and sustainable future. 


Wednesday, August 10, 2022

ACT NOW: Tell the House to Oppose the Nuclear Bailout and Save the Climate!

ACT NOW: Tell the House to Oppose the Nuclear Bailout and Save the Climate!

BIG NEWS: West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin reached a deal with Congressional Democrats on a sweeping climate and energy package that supposedly would address the climate crisis, now called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). The Senate passed the bill on Sunday, August 7, and the House of Representatives plans to vote on it this Friday, August 12. 

This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating the just environmental and economic future the Biden administration promised voters. It should've been a major success for climate policy, thanks to tireless activists who worked to hold Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer accountable to get Sen. Manchin to the table on climate.

But, among the desperately needed good progressive measures in the IRA are bad policies and hundreds of billions of dollars in poison pills – handouts to fossil fuels, false climate solutions, and Big Nuclear. These provisions would profit dirty and polluting energy industries that are causing climate and ecological crises at the expense of taxpayers, environmental justice, and TRUE investment in the 100% renewable, just, and sustainable energy future we deserve. 

Frankly, the harm they would cause can’t be justified, and may actually block renewable energy and other real climate solutions in the bill.

Of the $369 billion dollars, up to $72 billion is slated for subsidies to aging nuclear reactors — a wasteful expenditure that will not create a single new job, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by any amount, nor make any progress towards climate action. The measure is nothing more than a corrupt bailout scam by the nuclear industry and their cronies in Congress. There is also: 

    $250 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loans to prop up old nuclear and fossil fuel power plants 

    $40 billion in taxpayer loans that could go to building new reactors and fossil fuel power plants

    $700 million to promote domestic uranium mining and enrichment

We cannot settle for the inadequate, unjust, and wasteful policies in the Inflation Reduction Act. We cannot settle for a bill that backs false climate solutions and sacrifices frontline communities. We MUST demand better from Congress: a strong national policy for climate, the economy, and for environmental justice. The time to act is now. Demand that Congress and the Biden administration eliminate the massive subsidies to nuclear power and other dirty energy.