Saturday, January 14, 2012

No New Nukes! | FUKUSHIMA NOT "SHUT DOWN"



No New Nukes! | Greenpeace


How can we possibly be thinking about building new nuclear reactors? Just one of the following would be reason enough for "No New Nukes!"

An Economic Disaster

If the nuclear industry and Wall Street financiers are unwilling to assume the economic risk of constructing new nuclear power plants, why should the American taxpayer?

Perhaps the Senate is betting that these new reactors will be better than the one hundred and three reactors that already exist? But consider the economic and safety meltdown experienced by the nuclear industry over the past thirty years. The Department of Energy (DOE) compared nuclear construction cost estimates to the actual final costs for 75 reactors. The original cost estimate was $45 billion. The actual cost was $145 billion! Forbes magazine recognized that this "failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster of monumental scale." According to Forbes, "only the blind, or the biased, can now think the money has been well spent." Despite the $100 billion cost overrun, Senator Pete Domenici wants to again give the nuclear industry billions in taxpayer dollars and guaranteed loans.

However, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the prospects for a second generation of nuclear reactors are equally abysmal. According to the CBO, the Department of Energy could provide loan guarantees for up to 50% of the construction costs for seven new nuclear power plants. However, the CBO considers the risk of default on these loans to be very high - well above 50 percent. It is little wonder that the three nuclear corporations that are attempting to site new nuclear reactors, Dominion Resources, Entergy and Exelon have stated that the numbers for new nuclear construction just don't add up.

The Most Dangerous Means to Boil Water

But bad economics is only part of the problem. The government's nuclear advisers have determined that these new nuclear designs constitute "a major safety trade-off" because they lack containment domes, the last line of defense protecting the public from a catastrophic release of radiation.

Nuclear power already is the most dangerous and expensive means yet devised to boil water. But when you add to this danger the threat of a terrorist attack, the continued support of nuclear power becomes unconscionable...


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TAKE ACTION
Put an end to the NRC's rubber stamp! (Greenpeace)

Tell President Obama: End the nuclear loan program now! (NIRS)

Call for a halt to reactor construction and ultimately, an end to nuclear power in the U.S. (Friends of the Earth)


Beyond Nuclear - FREEZE OUR FUKUSHIMAS:
"Freeze Our Fukushimas" is a national campaign created by Beyond Nuclear to permanently suspend the operations of the most dangerous class of reactors operating in the United States today; the 23 General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactors, the same flawed design as those that melted down at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan.

Act Now | NukeFree.org




Redefining “Cold shutdown” doesn’t hide the truth about Fukushima | Greenpeace

A satellite image shows damage at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant In Fukushima Prefecture after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami (© DigitalGlobe)

The Japanese authorities stated last Friday that Fukushima is in a state of "cold shutdown. This is not true. At first glance, the announcement that the stricken nuclear reactors are now “stable”sounds like some rare good news from the disaster zone. Not at all. As we all know, first impressions can be deceptive.

The industry definition of “cold shutdown” means that the temperature inside a nuclear reactor has stabilized below 95℃ from the hellish temperatures of the nuclear fission process. In the case of Fukushima, this suggests the crisis is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the Japanese authorities have cheated by redefining “cold shutdown” to suit the situation at Fukushima. Only operating nuclear reactors can be put into a state of “cold shutdown”. Reactors that have suffered meltdowns – like those at Fukushima – cannot be. The 260 tons of nuclear fuel inside the Fukushima reactors melted and burned through the steel floors of the containment vessels and into the thick concrete under pads. The melted fuel is far from under control. This means the temperature inside the reactor can’t be regulated by conventional means. Nobody at Fukushima actually knows what state this highly radioactive molten fuel is in or what temperature it is at because it’s obviously far too dangerous to go in and find out.

Also, tens of thousands of tons of water that was pumped into the reactors in the attempt to cool them remains inside and is highly radioactive. The authorities have no idea what to do with it. It’s leaking into the environment with some of it reaching the Pacific Ocean. Last week, Fukushima’s operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) had to abandon plans to dump it in the ocean after protests by local fishermen. Right now, there’s nowhere for it to go, other than to leak into the sea and groundwater.

So, we don’t have a “cold shutdown” at Fukushima...

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Search results | Greenpeace: Nuclear



See also

"Mission Accomplished" delusion | Radioactive Dumping

Fukushima "China Syndrome?"

China Syndrome | No cold shutdown possible at Fukushima


whats up: 25th Anniversary of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster | NUCLEAR "SAFTEY" = NUCLEAR THREAT
All nuclear reactors and their waste should be declared illegal, and can be considered crimes against humanity and the ecosphere - all governments and corporations and their officers should be made directly liable for the immediate decommissioning of all nuclear power plants, and for the security, clean up and management of the eternal quagmire of nuclear waste that they have created.


whats up: Nuclear Power = Crime Against Humanity


whats up: Nuclear Safety is an Oxymoron | How will broken-melting-fuming-leaking Fukushima Daiichi weather Monster Typhoon?
"nuclear power kills - it is not clean, it is not cheap, and it is immoral - anyone who says that it is safe is either lying, making money, misinformed and/or delusional"


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NO NUKES | RE-TOOL NOW

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