The #NuclearIsDirty! Presentation Series – environmental problems #nuclear power creates from cradle to grave

As part of the #NuclearIsDirty campaign, NIRS has hosted a series of public events and presentations detailing the massive environmental problems nuclear power creates: from cradle to grave.

The #NuclearIsDirty! Presentation Series

• Church Rock, 1979: The story of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history • Canaries in the Uranium Mine The Abandoned Uranium Mine Crisis and the Campaign to Clean them Up • Fukushima+5 - Report on Life on the Ground in Japan• Chernobyl +30: A Look from the Inside • Abusing our Waters: Nuclear Power Threats to Water and Ecosystems

Press Release for Oct 27 2016 No Nukes Bailout Action

Stop the Cuomo Tax is a grassroots campaign led by Food & Water Watch and the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). For Immediate Release:October 27, 2016 Media Contact: Mark Dunlea (518) 860-3725 dunleamark@aol.com More than 100 Groups Join Growing Campaign to Stop the Cuomo Tax; 25,000+ New Yorkers Sign Up to Oppose Cuomo Tax of Nearly $8 Billion in Increased Utility Rates During Statewide Day of Action, New Yorkers Reject Cuomo’s Billions for Planned Nuclear Power Bailout (view videos on Explore WESPAC) White Plains – A statewide campaign of over 100 organizations today urged Governor Cuomo to pull the plug on his plan to spend billions to bail out aging, unsafe upstate nuclear power plants. At rallies across the state, advocates and consumers mobilized against Governor Cuomo’s costly and increasingly unpopular nuclear bailout plan. They called on Cuomo to abandon his controversial and misguided plan to tax New Yorkers to pay nearly $8 billion to bail out a wealthy Chicago-based corporation that runs several failing nuclear power plants in the state. The direct hit to residential consumers alone will be huge. Con Edison customers’ electric bills alone go up by more than $700 million dollars. They already pay some of the highest electricity rates in the nation. Long Island customers’ bills will increase by $500 million and Niagara Mohawk bills by $465 million. To dramatize their message, supporters of the Stop the Cuomo Tax campaign delivered an oversized rejected utility bill to the Governor’s office in New York City, and held similar events in Albany, Long Island, Poughkeepsie and White Plains. Cuomo has directed the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) to insert into New York’s “Clean Energy Standard” a surcharge on utility bills designed to bail out failing nuclear power plants. The Cuomo Tax has nothing to do with clean energy. Instead, it will raise billions to prop up and subsidize three upstate nuclear plants – FitzPatrick, Ginna and Nine Mile Point – that are among the oldest plants still operating in the United States. Under the Cuomo Tax, regular New Yorkers will pay more for their utility bills over the next 12 years – from 2017 to 2029 – to bail out failing nuclear plants that should be replaced by energy efficiency and truly clean renewable energy. These aging and dangerous plants are losing money and their costs continue to rise the longer they stay open. Plus, more than one million New Yorkers already struggle to pay their utility bills every month. The total cost for bailing out the FitzPatrick, Ginna and Nine Mile Point nuclear plants could be nearly $8 billion, according to a new independent analysis from the Public Utility Law Project (PULP), a nonpartisan group that represents and advocates for low-income consumers in utility, telecommunications and energy-related matters. "Many low and moderate income consumers are having a hard time paying their utility bills. The last thing they need is a tax on their monthly utility bill to bail out the rich corporate owners of dirty, expensive nuclear power plants. If the Governor wants to create jobs and curb climate change, he should redirect the $7.6 billion into support for offshore wind and a major expansion of solar power," said Mark Dunlea of the Green Education and Legal Fund and 350NYC. “The campaign to Stop the Cuomo Tax grows stronger every day. Today, the people of New York sent a strong message to Governor Cuomo: don’t waste $7.6 billion of our money to prop up aging nuclear plants. It’s time for Governor Cuomo to listen to New Yorkers and invest in renewables, instead of wasting billions propping up the dirty fuels of the past,” said Greta Zarro, Organizer at Food & Water Watch “Nuclear power is a highly-polluting industrial process which produces large amounts of radioactive waste, heat, and greenhouse gases throughout its entire full fuel cycle. Characterization of nuclear as ‘zero-emission’ is, frankly, Orwellian. Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes which – combined – consume large amounts of fossil fuels and generate potent warming gases in addition to toxic waste byproducts,” said Michel Lee, an attorney who has worked pro bono with citizen groups opposing the nuclear subsidy. “Imagine the broad benefits which would accrue if the same level of subsidies - $7.6 to $10 billion – was put to use upgrading the transmission grid or promoting green construction and technology," added Lee, who has been active with the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition. "Clearwater opposes the nuclear subsidy included in the NYS Public Service Commission's Clean Energy Standard, because nuclear power is far from clean in its mining, milling transportation, use and storage. Nuclear plants emit radioactivity into the air, water and ground through planned and unplanned releases," noted Manna Jo Greene, Environmental Director for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. "This mandatory 12-year subsidy means that ratepayer dollars that should be going to scale up renewables and energy efficiency are being used to bail out aging, unprofitable and dangerous nuclear plants, which will continue to generate highly radioactive nuclear waste for which there is no safe storage." ABOUT STOP THE CUOMO TAX Stop the Cuomo Tax is a grassroots campaign led by Food & Water Watch and the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). To learn more, please visit www.StopTheCuomoTax.org.


via C.A.N. Coalition Against Nukes

Nuclear Hotseat #279: Fort Calhoun SHUTDOWN! w/LaVerne Thraen & #ShutPilgrimNow Speakout at Mass. State House w/Diane Turco

#ShutPilgrimNow Speakout at Mass. State House w/Diane Turco

LISTEN NOW: Nuclear Hotseat #279: Fort Calhoun SHUTDOWN! w/LaVerne Thraen #ShutPilgrimNow Speakout at Mass. State House w/Diane Turco

This Week’s Featured Interviews:

• LaVerne Thraen is a veteran energy activist who has been opposing the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station since the 1980’s.  We spoke less than an hour after it was shut down for good, on Monday, October 24, 2016.

• Diane Turco of Cape (Cod) Downwinders fills us in on last week’s #ShutPilgrimNow Citizen Speak-out at the Massachusetts State House.  Call Governor Charlie Baker’s office and tell him the reactor needs to be shut down NOW: 

(617) 725-4005

The Massachusetts State House Citizen Shut Pilgrim Speak-Out

Numnutz of the Week:

James Hansen uses propaganda tricks perfected by Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbles to try to convince the world that anti-nuclear is bad and nuclear is **clean** **green** **sustainable**… and also that his own fecal matter is not odoriferous.  Just remember what Goebbles said:  “Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty” and “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people wil eventually come to believe it.”  A perfect description of what James Hansen is doing, whether he understands the source of his strategy or not.

LISTEN NOW: Nuclear Hotseat #279: Fort Calhoun SHUTDOWN! w/LaVerne Thraen #ShutPilgrimNow Speakout at Mass. State House w/Diane Turco

Join the Petition to Suspend Operations At the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant | AGREE

The Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE) and Beyond Nuclear have filed a petition with the NRC asking for an emergency enforcement action against the James A. FitzPatrick nuclear power plant in Scriba, New York. The petition asks for the immediate suspension of the plant's operating license, public hearings on the safety of the plant, and the public release of a post-Fukushima safety reassessment.

We hope you will join the petition as a co-signer. To sign on, click here.

If you've already signed on, please ask your friends to join this campaign. If each of us convinces just one other person, we can surpass our goal!Email your friends about our campaign, or, promote this page on Facebook and Twitter.

Join the Petition to Suspend Operations At the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant | AGREE

October 27 ::: Rally to Stop the Nuclear Bailout in New York! (Facebook event page)

We know Governor Cuomo’s plan to tax New Yorkers’ utility bills to bail out old, unsafe, unprofitable nuclear plants is a big mistake. If the governor gets his way, he’ll take $7.6 billion from hard working New Yorkers and hand it over to subsidize dangerous, inefficient nuclear plants owned by a wealthy Chicago-based corporation. We can’t let that happen. 

Join us at Thursday, October 27th at noon outside Governor Cuomo's Midtown office at 633 3rd Avenueto send a strong message agaist the bailout. Together, we can stop the Cuomo Tax, block the nuclear bailout, and start moving to a truly green renewable energy future. But it’s going to take all of us! Join us Thursday October 27th at noon!

(Facebook event page) –

Rally to Stop the Nuclear Bailout

• clock

  Thursday, October 27 at 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM EDT Tomorrow · 46–54° Rain

• pin	Show Map 633 Third Avenue 633 3rd Ave, New York, New York 10017

Nuclear Hotseat #278: Dr. Ian Fairlie on Radiation Measurments – Linear No Threshold vs. “Whore”mesis

This Week’s Featured Interviews:

• Dr. Ian Fairlie has studied radiation and radioactivity since the Chernobyl accident in 1986; received his doctorate from Princeton on the radiological hazards of nuclear fuel reprocessing; and from 2000 to 2004, was head of the Secretariat of the UK Government’s CERRIE Committee on internal radiation risks. He has been a consultant on radiation matters to the European Parliament, local and regional governments, environmental NGOs, and private individuals.Dr. Fairlie’s article on Linear No Threshold (LNT) vs. Hormesis.
  
  
• Eiji Ogama made the film “Tell the Prime Minister”  on the Japanese anti-nuclear movement.  Using Youtube videos (with permission) and interviews done specifically for the film, he catches the movement at its peak, culminating in the 2012 demonstration in front of the Prime Minister’s residence which consisted of over 200,000 demonstrators.  A  sociology and history professor at the Faculty of Policy Management at Keio University in Tokyo, Oguma both participated in and researched anti-nuclear movement since the Fukushima accident began in 2011.

Numnutz of the Week (for Nuclear Boneheadedness):

TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), which operated the demolished, radioactive, leaking mess that remains of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, “isn’t asking for a bailout,” they just “want help to avoid bankruptcy.”  TRANSLATION:  Money money money money money money money money — endless amounts of government – meaning taxpayer – money that will never, ever be enough.   Isn’t that just like the nuclear industry?  

Featured Photo: Still shot from “Tell the Prime Minister” by Eiji Ogama. 

LISTEN NOW: Nuclear Hotseat #278: Dr. Ian Fairlie on Radiation Measurments – Linear No Threshold vs. “Whore”mesis

Public Participation Hearings on PG&E’s Request to Close Diablo Canyon on OCT 20; SAN LUIS OBISPO {{ CLOSE IT NOW! }}

– "We are holding [this] Public Participation Hearing[s] to provide an
opportunity for residents and organizations in and near San Luis Obispo to provide their perspective and input to us about..."

1:30 & 7 PM

PRESS RELEASE: 

CPUC TO HOLD PUBLIC PARTICIPATION HEARINGS IN
SAN LUIS OBISPO ON PG&E’S REQUEST TO CLOSE DIABLO CANYON
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 28, 2016 - The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will hold Public Participation Hearings to provide an opportunity for residents and organizations in and near San Luis Obispo to provide their perspective and input to the CPUC about Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (PG&E) request to close its Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
WHEN: Oct. 20, 2016, 1:30 p.m. AND 7 p.m.
WHERE: San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden in El Chorro Regional Park, Oak Glen Pavilion Room,
450 Dairy Creek Rd., San Luis Obispo
Comments from the public can help the CPUC reach an informed decision and consumers are encouraged to attend the Public Participation Hearings. The CPUC expects to hold additional Public Participation Hearings later in the course of this proceeding. 

MORE: http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/…/Publ…/G000/M167/K744/167744006.PDF

CPUC Meeting and Events Calendar

CPUC Facebook Event 1:30 PM
CPUC Facebook Event 7 PM

CPUC event page does not list the simulcast mtg set up for SLO ... where as their website does ... WATCH FOR UPDATES


http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PPH/

Energy & Water Collisions: Drought Implications | CleanEnergy Footprints « Archive July 31st, 2012

“There are places in which so much water is being removed from rivers and lakes for drinking water, agriculture, and current power plants that if you add in more power plant water demand, something will have to give. Developers, regulators, and investors really need to closely look at how new plants would affect water sources before backing those plants. Even though people think of the eastern U.S. as having plenty of water, current problems and trends in water demand and supply show that energy-water stresses will only increase in lots of places. Research shows that climate change has and will likely continue to increase the frequency of drought in certain parts of the country, including in the Southeast, making low- or no-water options like wind, solar photovoltaics, and energy efficiency even more valuable.”

July 31st, 2012
As we enter the dog days of summer, much of the Southeast region has once again succumbed to drought conditions, especially Georgia and neighboring Alabama. And nationally, drought is plaguing much of the country and affecting not just the “usual” suspects out West–even presumed “water rich” regions including the Southeast and areas along the East Coast are being impacted by record low rainfalls and blazing temperatures. As we have pointed out before, especially through our recent work with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on the collaborative Energy and Water in a Warming World (EW3) initiative, our existing electricity infrastructure is especially vulnerable given it’s reliance on the availability of abundant water supplies...

READ: Energy & Water Collisions: Drought Implications | CleanEnergy Footprints « Archive July 31st, 2012

whats up: #BustTheMyth – nukes are NOT carbon-free, clean, safe, green, or affordable!

Nuclear Energy | PopularResistance.Org

at PopularResistance.Org …

California: Clean Energy To Replace Nuclear Energy From Last Nuclear Plant

CREATE! CALIFORNIA, CLEAN ENERGY, NUCLEAR ENERGY 
By Phil McKenna, www.insideclimatenews.org
June 24th, 2016

By Phil McKenna for Inside Climate News – Diablo Canyon, California’s last remaining nuclear facility, will be retired within a decade if state regulators agree to a proposal by Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation and several environmental and labor organizations to replace its power production with clean energy. The San Francisco-based utility said on Tuesday that it will ask state regulators to let operating licenses for two nuclear reactors at its Diablo Canyon power plant expire in 2024 and 2025. The utility said it would make up for the loss of power with a mix of energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage that would cost less than nuclear power. 

California, World’s Sixth Largest Economy, Going Nuclear-Free

RESIST! NUCLEAR ENERGY, RENEWABLE ENERGY 
By Kate Colwell, www.foe.org
June 22nd, 2016

By Kate Colwell for Friends of the Earth – BERKELEY, CALIF. – An historic agreement has been reached between Pacific Gas and Electric, Friends of the Earth, and other environmental and labor organizations to replace the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors with greenhouse-gas-free renewable energy, efficiency and energy storage resources. Friends of the Earth says the agreement provides a clear blueprint for fighting climate change by replacing nuclear and fossil fuel energy with safe, clean, cost-competitive renewable energy. 

5 More US Nukes To Close

RESIST! CLIMATE CHANGE, ENERGY, HEALTH, NUCLEAR ENERGY 
By Harvey Wasserman, www.ecowatch.com
June 19th, 2016

By Harvey Wasserman for EcoWatch. A rising tsunami of U.S. nuke shut-downs may soon include California’s infamous Diablo Canyon double reactors. But it depends on citizen action, including a statewide petition. Five U.S. reactor closures have been announced within the past month. A green regulatory decision on California’s environmental standards could push the number to seven. The focus is now on a critical June 28 California State Lands Commission meeting. Set for Sacramento, the hearing could help make the Golden State totally nuke free, ending the catastrophic radioactive and global warming impacts caused by these failing plants. A public simulcast of the Sacramento meeting is expected to gather a large crowd at the Morro Bay Community Center near the reactor site.

Nuclear Energy | PopularResistance.Org

The Astronomical Cost of New Subsidies for Old Reactors: $280 Billion. | GreenWorld

ALERT: October 27 ::: Rally to Stop the Nuclear Bailout in New York! (Facebook event page)

GreenWorld has covered the unfolding story of the American nuclear power industry’s clamor for new subsidies and bailouts since it started in 2014. Purely as a spectator sport, it might have been entertaining to watch the country’s largest utilities go from proclaiming a “Nuclear Renaissance” a decade ago to peddling the message that “Nuclear Matters.”

But there is just too much at stake to treat it like a game. The utility industry’s ramped-up efforts to block renewable energy and horde billions of our clean energy dollars to prop up old nukesrisks both climate and nuclear disaster. Most of these proposals have been failing, thanks to the dogged persistence of grassroots activists and clean energy groups–and, it must be said, the outrageous sticker price of subsidies the industry needs. In fact, just this week, the two-year saga of FirstEnergy’s $8 billion nuclear-plus-coal bailout plan seems to have ended, with what amounts to a consolation gift to a couple FirstEnergy utility companies. Still an outrageous corporate giveaway, but no subsidies for nuclear or coal, even after it seemed like a done deal a few months ago.

But New York Governor Cuomo’s decision in August to award a 12-year, $7.6 billion subsidy package to four aging reactors–including reversing Entergy’s decision to close the FitzPatrick reactor this coming January–has put wind into the industry’s sails. Even that chapter isn’t over, with lawsuits already being filed and several more expected. And environmental groups this week launched a new campaign to get Governor Cuomo to smell the coffee and cancel what will not only be the largest corporate give-away in the state’s history, but relegate clean energy to second-class status behind old nukes.

The lingering uncertainty hasn’t stopped the industry PR and lobbying machines, though–after all, billions of dollars in free money is at stake! Exelon, FirstEnergy, and other companies touted New York as a national model, and began urging states from Connecticut to Illinois to follow suit. Having to get each state to line up is going to be a tall order. In addition to FirstEnergy’s failed Ohio bailout, Exelon hasn’t been able to sell a much smaller five-year, $1.5 billion subsidy in Illinois. And nukes in Connecticut and New Jersey are still making millions in profits each year, without heaping billions more in subsidies onto ratepayers’ utility bills.

So the industry has started pushing for a national bailout. NIRS thought we should take a look at what that might cost. Next week, we will publish a short report showing that a federal nuclear subsidy based on the EPA’s estimate of the social cost of carbon (as New York approved) would be massively expensive: up to $280 billion by 2030. Even if it were only applied to reactors that are already becoming unprofitable–more than half of the nukes in the country, according to a recent report–it would total at least $160 billion. In Illinois and Pennsylvania alone, it would cost ratepayers in each state $30 billion.

NIRS is launching a petition to the next President urging the new administration to say no to a national nuclear bailout, and to end subsidies for nuclear and fossil fuels. We hope you’ll sign the petition and help us get to our goal of 100,000 signatures. Whoever wins the election in November needs to know that another nuclear bailout isn’t going to fly with the American people.

There is no nuclear bridge to a clean energy future. If we are going to make good on the global climate treaty and prevent runaway global warming, we need to go all in on renewable energy (and efficiency!) and not waste our time and money propping up dirty energy sources. Nobody is even talking about putting  the kind of money a national nuclear bailout would cost into climate action. But if we did, we could get off nuclear and fossil fuels in a generation. And maybe save the world.

The Astronomical Cost of New Subsidies for Old Reactors: $280 Billion. | GreenWorld


ALERT: October 27 ::: Rally to Stop the Nuclear Bailout in New York! (Facebook event page)

whats up: #BustTheMyth – nukes are NOT carbon-free, clean, safe, green, or affordable!

Tell the Next President: Act Now for 100% Clean Energy

Stop the $100+ Billion Bailout for Nuclear Power!

Energy corporations are pushing a massive plan to prop up dirty, old, dangerous nuclear power plants—and they want the next President to make it a national policy, costing $280 billion by 2030. 

For the same money, we could get four times more renewable energy than nuclear power, and accelerate the transition to a 100% renewable energy economy--carbon-free AND nuclear-free .

Join us in calling on our next President, and every state governor, to end subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power—and to oppose the nuclear power bailout. This outrageous scheme is starting at the state level, and the industry is already pushing presidential candidates take it nationwide.The United States can make energy a force for good, both domestically and abroad:

• Making sure our kids have clean, healthy air, land, and water.
• Creating millions of good jobs and building a prosperous, stable economy.
• Making energy affordable, so no one has to choose between the power bill and the grocery bill.

Our next President, and our state governors, must say no to the nuclear power bailout, and put our energy dollars to work for the clean energy revolution.

SIGN NOW: Tell the Next President: Act Now for 100% Clean Energy

see also: The Astronomical Cost of New Subsidies for Old Reactors: $280 Billion. | GreenWorld


whats up: #BustTheMyth – nukes are NOT carbon-free, clean, safe, green, or affordable!

Preparing the country for nuclear terrorism | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

"The candidates for president of the United States continue to discuss preventing nuclear proliferation and the threat of nuclear terrorism, yet we hear little about how well prepared the nation is to manage the aftermath of terrorist use of an improvised nuclear device. Some may think the notion of such an attack is apocryphal. So allow me to explain just how likely such a possibility is, how devastating the result of such a detonation would be, and—in particular—just how poorly prepared the United States is to respond..."

more: Preparing the country for nuclear terrorism | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists