Obama’s Nuke-Powered Drone Strike on America’s Energy Future | EcoWatch

by Harvey Wasserman

So the “all the above” energy strategy now deems we dump another $6.5 billion in bogus loan guarantees down the atomic drain. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has announced finalization of hotly contested taxpayer handouts for the two Vogtle reactors being built in Georgia. Another $1.8 billion waits to be pulled out of your pocket and poured down the radioactive sink hole...

A nuke-powered drone strike on fiscal sanity.

While Fukushima burns and solar soars, our taxpayer money is being pitched at a failed 20th century technology currently distinguished by its non-stop outflow of lethal radiation into the Pacific Ocean.

Take that $6.5 or $8.3 billion and invest it right now in wind, solar, sustainable bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal, wave energy, LED light bulbs, building insulation and Solartopian south-facing windows.

The money is to pump up a pair of radioactive white elephants that Wall Street won’t touch. Georgia state “regulators” are strong-arming ratepayers into the footing the bill before the reactors ever move a single electron—which they likely never will.

Sibling reactors being built in Finland and France are already billions over budget and years behind schedule. New ones proposed in Great Britain flirt with price guarantees far above currently available renewables.

The Vogtle project makes no fiscal sense … except for the scam artists that will feed off them for years to come.

Substandard concrete, unspecified rebar steel, major labor scandals, non-existent quality control … all the stuff that’s defined this industry since the Shippingport reactor started construction outside Pittsburgh some six decades ago is with us yet again.

It would be nice to say this is merely $6.5 billion wasted. But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Long Island’s Shoreham and New Hampshire’s Seabrook came in at 5-10 times their original cost estimates.

Shoreham never made it to commercial operation. Neither did Seabrook Unit Two.

Should Vogtle, for which these loans are designated, beat the odds and actually go on line in the years to come, it will multiply its sunk cost by irradiating the countryside and creating radioactive waste nobody can handle.

Nor can it get private insurance to shield future victims and the taxpaying public from the inevitable disaster. The next commercial reactor to explode (joining the five that already have) will do damage in the trillions.

Its owners will not be liable, and the people making this decision will never go to prison.

But many along the way will pocket major fortunes from substandard construction, corner-cutting “safety” scams, black market parts purchasing, mafia-run hiring operations and the usual greasing of radioactive palms that defines all reactor construction projects.

Take that $6.5 or $8.3 billion and invest it right now in wind, solar, sustainable bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal, wave energy, LED light bulbs, building insulation and Solartopian south-facing windows.

THEN we can dent in our climate crisis.

THAT’s where the jobs are.

THERE would be an all-the-above energy strategy that actually makes sense.

Visit EcoWatch’s NUCLEAR page for more related news on this topic.

Obama’s Nuke-Powered Drone Strike on America’s Energy Future | EcoWatch

OCCUPY NUKES hiroshima day AUGUST 6 | OWS Environmental Solidarity

OWS Environmental Solidarity Working Group calls for OCCUPY NUKES, a national day of action against the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. On August 6th, Hiroshima Day, take action against a part of the war machine–nuclear warheads, which number 10,000–that takes up $7.6 billion of the Obama FY 2012 budget.

The 99% have tools to transform this waste and danger into structures that meet our real needs: true sustainability, (true security,) just food production, jobs, renewable energy, affordable housing, education, and economic justice. We awaken in order to do so on August 6.

Occupy Nukes will take place in New York City, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Los Alamos, NM, as well as in solidarity with what activists do all over the world at this time to remember the U.S. government’s use of nuclear warfare, to oppose its continued use of nuclear warfare (as with depleted-uranium weaponry), and to radically turn from nuclear technology and dirty power.

To participate in New York City, our direct action will meet across from the (eastern face of the) GE Building (30 Rockefeller Plaza), at the steps that descend into the sunken cafe area.  Be there at 5:30pm, August 6.  Wear black.

Details for participating in the New Mexico actions and the action in San Francisco can be found here: http://www.occupynewmexico.org/august-6-national-day-of-action-against-the-u-s-nuclear-weapons-arsenal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=august-6-national-day-of-action-against-the-u-s-nuclear-weapons-arsenal and here: http://nukefreenow.org/.

As Occupy Santa Fe and (un)Occupy Albuquerque join the NukeFreeNow coalition to mark the 67th anniversary of the U.S. military’s horrific atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, Japan, with large-scale “non-violent direct action and mass civil disobedience” at the Los Alamos, NM nuclear weapons laboratory, Occupy groups across the country are uniting in solidarity to make August 6, 2012 a national #OccupyNukes day of action against the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. With support from Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Francisco, and the OWS Environmental Solidarity working group, anti-nuclear actions are planned on August 4-6, 2012 indozens of cities including New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, NV, Portland, OR, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Oak Ridge, TN, Kansas City, MO, and of course, Santa Fe and Los Alamos in New Mexico, as well as nationwide in Japan. - August 6: Join #OccupyNukes National Day of Action Against U.S. Nuclear Weapons Arsenal! | Occupy New Mexico 

OCCUPY NUKES hiroshima day AUGUST 6 | OWS Environmental Solidarity

OCCUPY NUKES hiroshima day AUGUST 6 @OWSEnvironmenthttp://environmentalsolidarity.nycga.net/2012/07/09/occupy-nukes-hiroshima-day-august-6 < #OccupyNuclear | #OCCUPY #NUCLEAR#nonukes #antinuclear #ows

nuke free now ‏@nukefreenow

Coalition Against Nukes Announces 3-Day DC Rally for Nuclear Free Future | Coalition Against Nukes http://fb.me/Jx14VTrA 

•  Reply 
•  Retweeted 
•  Favorited

43mOWS Environment ‏@OWSEnvironment

@nukefreenow @r_cherwink OWS Environmental Solidarity is working on getting buses for this.

32mRobert Cherwink ‏@r_cherwink

@OWSEnvironment @nukefreenow < #CANRallyDC : #NoNukes #DCRally Sept 20-22: http://coalitionagainstnukes.org/no-nukes-rally-in-d-c … <#OccupyNuclear #ows #occupy #antinuclear

•  Reply 
•  Delete 
•  Favorite

41mRobert Cherwink ‏@r_cherwink

@OWSEnvironment @nukefreenow Excellent! - thank you! NO NUKES! < #OcNuke #nonukes

__________

re: C.A.N. RALLY - 

 3-Day DC Rally for Nuclear Free Future

‎"OWS Environmental Solidarity is working on getting buses for this."

OWS Environment @OWSEnvironment
@nukefreenow @r_cherwink
OWS Environmental Solidarity is working on getting buses for this.

---
nuke free now @nukefreenow
Coalition Against Nukes Announces 3-Day DC Rally for Nuclear Free Future | Coalition Against Nukes http://fb.me/Jx14VTrA

coalitionagainstnukes.org

ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIONS 2012 - NIRS

Current NIRS Actions! 
Important things you can do to help build a nuclear-free, carbon-free energy future.

Join 36 organizations (and growing)--more than 1 million Americans--and support the American Clean Energy Agenda to build a renewable energy reality by 2030.

The single most important action you can take to help stop new nuclear power in the U.S. Act here now: tell DOE Secretary Chu and President Obama to stop a taxpayer loan for new reactors in Georgia.

Tell Japan's Prime Minister: Keep Japan Nuclear-Free (petition to be presented to Japanese Embassy in Washington, DC on June 18, 2012).

Ongoing Petition: Urge President Obama to act to help prevent a new Fukushima disaster.

Support NIRS Petition for Rulemaking: Tell the NRC to expand Emergency Planning Zones and strengthen emergency evacuation rules.

Act here to oppose second term of nuclear industry-backed Kristine Svinicki to NRC. Put public safety above industry profits!

Tell the EPA: Don't Sacrifice Navajo Water for Uranium Mining!(change.org petition from our friends at ENDAUM).

> ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIONS 2012 | NIRS

Will You Pay as New Reactors Jump $900 Million in Just 3 Months? | NukeFree.org

by Harvey Wasserman

---

The projected price for Georgia's Vogtle Double Reactor Project has jumped at least $900 million in just three months....and that's just for starters.   

Will you pay for it?  The future of new atomic power in the US hangs in the balance.   

A national grassroots campaign is now working to stop tax/ratepayer handouts and kill the project. 

Construction there is defined by faulty concrete and non-spec rebar steel that threaten public safety and could delay completion dates beyond those projected even before construction began.   

South Carolina's V.C. Summer, the only other new US reactor project now under construction, is meeting fierce rate payer resistance in two states.  From Iowa to Brazil, Japan to France, the global reactor industry is collapsing in tandem.  But what other nations will it bankrupt and irradiate before it's finished? 

President Obama has tagged $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for Vogtle's construction.  And Georgia ratepayers are being forced to pay for it in advance.   

But the Office of Management and Budget is still dickering over terms with the Southern Company.  Vogtle's prime builders want to put up little or no money.  They want interest rates lower than what you would pay to buy a new house.  They expect you to take primary liability for future disasters. They can't say what will happen to the radioactive waste.    

The real price tags for both Vogtle and Summer are suspect. Original estimates have been as low as $2-4 billion/reactor.  But Florida's Progress Energy has just admitted its proposed reactors for Levy County, near Tampa, would go as high as $9.5 to $12 billion each.  Given their delays and structural defects, there's no reason to believe Vogtle or Summer could come in cheaper.  At those prices, they cannot begin to compete with new renewables or efficiency.   

So where does that leave Vogtle's federal loan guarantees?  George W. Bush set aside $18.5 billion at the Department of Energy for new reactor funding, but made no grants.  Despite fierce lobbying, industry attempts to add to the fund have been defeated by national grassroots campaigns. 

Obama designated the first $8.33 for Vogtle in 2010.  But closed-door negotiations between his OMB, the DOE and Southern have been inconclusive. 

The $535 million failure of Solyndra Solar loans has cast a shadow over the entire federal guarantee system.  The proposed Vogtle guarantee is 15 times bigger.  At least three national petitions are circulating to kill it.     

Southern has hinted it might seek better terms from private lenders.  But Wall Street has long scorned atomic investments.  And Georgia ratepayers are already being soaked for hundreds of millions to pay in advance for reactors sinking in debt and increasingly unlikely to ever operate.  In both South and North Carolina, ratepayers are revolting against skyrocketing rate hikes to build Summer.   

In a major defeat for the nuclear industry, the Iowa legislature adjourned without voting advance rate hikes to build nukes there.  Similar legislation is stalled in Missouri and under attack in Florida.  Brazil has announced it will build no more reactors.  Despite fierce federal attempts to reopen them, all Japan's commercial reactors remain shut. 

New President Francois Hollande has pledged to phase down France's dependency on atomic power.  A construction project at Flamanville (like one in Finland) is sinking in devastating overruns and delays.  Whether Hollande will proceed there or at any other remains to be seen. 

But France's new nuclear hesitancy may kill new reactor projects in Great Britain.   They have been posited on support from Electricite de France, now under attack from Hollande and a skeptical banking system being hammered by Europe's financial crisis. 

In India, many of the 350-plus women committed to a fast-unto-death against the Koodankulam reactors have entered critical life-threatening stages.  Police-state tactics have escalated the mass confrontation at the site. 

Only China still seems a hold out for large-scale new construction.  As grassroots anti-nuclear campaign there begin, the central government has not yet announced its post-Fukushima decision on whether to proceed with some 30-plus proposed new reactors. 

But at Fukushima itself, we still face a potentially catastrophic situation at Unit Four's spent fuel pool, still perched 100 feet in the air.  Tons of horrifically radioactive rods remain at the mercy of an earthquake that could send them crashing to the ground, spewing releases that can only be termed "apocalyptic." 

In California, a failed $960 million "upgrade" at California's San Onofre has led to steam generator tube failures shutting two reactors with no firm reopening date.  More than a $1 billion spent by Progress Energy at Florida's Crystal River may also doom it to long overdue burial.   

In Vermont, New York, Texas, Ohio and elsewhere else there are operating reactors, escalating leaks, flaws, errors and advanced aging define a supremely dangerous industry falling apart at its faulty welds. 

So far there have been no balanced national hearings on the future of Vogtle's loan guarantees, or continued construction at Summer.  But this latest $900 million price jump casts yet another deadly shadow over America's nuclear future. 

It's time to kill this loan---and this industry---and put our money into green-powering our planet. 

Our economic and ecological survival depend on it.   

---

SIGN THE PETITION KILLING NUCLEAR LOAN GUARANTEES

---

MAJOR BLOWS TO NUCLEAR INDUSTRY IN JAPAN AND FRANCE....PLEASE CIRCULATE & ASK OTHERS TO SIGN THE PETITION KILLING NUCLEAR LOAN GUARANTEES ...

Email from Harvey Wasserman -

SIGN THE PETITION: Stop New Nuke Loan Guarantees

There are zero commercial reactors operating in Japan today.  On March 10, 2011, there were 54 licensed to operate, well over 10% percent of the global fleet.

But for the first time in 42 years, a country at the core of global reactor electricity is producing none of its own.

Worldwide, there are fewer than 400 operating reactors for the first time since Chernobyl, a quarter-century ago.

And France has replaced a vehemently pro-nuclear premier with the Socialist Francois Hollande, who will almost certainly build no new reactors.  For decades France has been the “poster child” of atomic power.  But Hollande is likely to follow the major shift in French national opinion away from nuclear power and toward the kind of green-powered transition now redefining German energy supply.

In the United States, a national grassroots movement to stop federal loan guarantees could end new nuclear construction altogether. (see nukefree.org | please-do-sign-petition-stop-new-nuke-loan-guarantees)

New official cost estimates of $9.5 to $12 billion per reactor put the technology off-scale for any meaningful competition with renewables and efficiency.

In India, more than 500 women have joined an on-going hunger strike against construction of reactors at Koodankulam.  And in China, more than 30 reactors hang in the balance of a full assessment of the true toll of the Fukushima disaster.

But it seems to have no end.  Three melted cores still smolder.  New reports from US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), confirm that at least one spent fuel pool suspended 100 feet in the air, bearing tons of hugely toxic rods, could crash to the ground with another strong earthquake—a virtual certainty by most calculations.

Those uncovered fuel rods contain radioactive cesium and other isotopes far beyond what was released at Chernobyl.  A fire could render vast stretches of Japan permanently uninhabitable (if they are not already).  The impacts could harm millions worldwide, including many of us here, where the cloud would come down within a week.

Japan’s total shut-down cuts to the core of the historic industry.  The globe’s primary reactor designers, General Electric and Westinghouse, are now primarily Japanese-owned.  Pressure vessels, steam generators and much more of the industry’s vital hardware have long been manufactured in Japan.

But the archipelago’s antinuclear movement also has deep roots.  In 1975-6, large, angry crowds I spoke to were already demanding the end of Fukushima and other reactor projects.  They warned that all Japanese reactors were vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis, and that disasters on par with what happened at Fukushima were essentially inevitable.  Now that it’s happened, the public rage in what has been a traditionally conservative, authoritarian society is almost unfathomable.

Along the way, local governments did win the right (not enjoyed in the United States) to keep shut nearby reactors that were closed for repairs and refueling.  On Saturday, May 5, a deep-rooted, highly focussed grassroots movement shut the archipelago’s last operating nuke.  It’s bound and determined to keep them that way.

As summer air conditioning demand skyrockets, Japan’s Prime Minister will try to prove that atomic power is essential.  But an efficiency-oriented public has dealt very well with cutbacks in supply since Fukushima.  Each potential re-start will have its own dynamic.

Japan’s stunning reality is that its gargantuan capital investment in more than 50 commercial reactors is now dead in the water…. and being irradiated by its own deadly fallout.  That can only drag the global industry closer to oblivion at a moment when the public’s financial and political commitments to renewables and efficiency are deepening daily.

Likewise the demise of Nikolas Sarkozy.  His allies at France’s nuclear-commited utility, EDF, have been Europe’s primary pushers of the “Peaceful Atom.” Now his Socialist rival is running the country, backed by a constituency largely supportive of a green conversion to parallel the one in neighboring Germany.

America’s green activists also want atomic power ended.  In Vermont, New Jersey, New York, Florida, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere, escalating grassroots campaigns have put the future of 104 licensed reactors in doubt.  The confrontation may be most immediate at San Onofre, on the Pacific shore between Los Angeles and San Diego.  Faulty steam generator tubes have forced two reactors shut.  As in Japan, the industry loudly warns of shortages when summer hits.  It wants at least one reactor back by June.  But experts warn that San Onofre’s design deficiencies threaten the public safety, as does its uninsured vulnerability to earthquakes and tsunamis.

The battle parallels the one over new construction.  Already plagued with faulty concrete and design-deficient rebar steel, two reactors at Georgia’s Vogtle still await final agreement on federal loan guarantees granted by President Obama last year.  But Progress Energy’s guess that its own double-reactor proposal for Florida’s Levy County could cost a staggering $24 billion casts a long shadow over Vogtle, where tax/ratepayers are already being stuck with huge bills for a project that could be vastly underfunded.  A national petition drive has been fired up to stop the guarantees from going through.

And while India’s growing non-violent army of nuclear opponents vow to fast to the death, the global reactor industry awaits word from China on how many new reactors it thinks it will build.  The world will then watch with bated breath as the Middle Kingdom’s own nascent anti-nuclear movement gathers strength in the inevitable race to shut the local reactor before it melts.

But for now, this weekend’s message from Japan and France could not be more clear:  at nuclear power’s historic core, the collapse has come.  Humankind is running ever-faster toward a green-powered Earth, desperate to win before the next Fukushima strikes.

---

> SIGN THE PETITION: Please Do this Sign-On Petition to Stop the New Nuke Loan Guarantees

---

---

see also

whats up: OpEdNews - Article: Can we stop those nukes? Wasserman says: You betcha!

nukefree.org

whats up: Urgent Request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon | Fukushima Update

whats up: Kudankulam protests | Jaitapur

whats up: Wyden calls on Japan to accept nuclear clean-up help

whats up - label: new nukes

---

Tell President Obama and Secretary Chu: Stop taxpayer loans for Georgia reactors!

---

This is big. The $8.3 Billion taxpayer loan for construction of two new reactors at the Vogtle site in Georgia, the centerpiece of the Obama Administration's support for the "nuclear renaissance," may be blocked--by the Obama Administration. You can help make this happen.

According to an article from the industry publication Platt's, the nuclear industry is growing increasingly worried that the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which also must approve the loan, will not give its final approval. That's because the nuclear industry wants a sweetheart deal--one where Southern Company has to put up virtually none of its own money and where all financial risk is laid squarely on the shoulder of taxpayers.

But both OMB and DOE have come under scathing criticism, especially from Congressional Republicans, over the failure of the Solyndra solar company loan granted by the Administration. And the proposed Vogtle loan would be 15 times larger (and far riskier) than the one given to Solyndra.

Thus, the Administration is being much more cautious over the Vogtle loan than it would have been when first agreed to more than two years ago. And the more public scrutiny the Administration receives--and the more letters we send--the more likely that caution will lead to a cancellation of this loan. Our actions now matter--a lot. It may not be too much to say that the strength of our actions now could determine the fate of new nuclear power in the U.S.

---

Tell President Obama and Secretary Chu below to stop these loans now.

---

Stop the New Nuke Power Loan Guarantees

---

By harvey wasserman (Contact)

To be delivered to: the general public, including taxpayer groups, and anti-nuke/pro-green environmental organizations across the board., The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama

In light of Fukushima and Solyndra, please stop the rip-off taxpayer loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors in Georgia...and anywhere else.

The Department of Energy is poised to give $8.33 billion in loan guarantees to the Georgia Vogtle double-reactor project that could irradiate the planet and bankrupt the state. But especially after the Solyndra bankruptcy, details of the deal are coming under intense scrutiny, at the Office of Management and Budget and elsewhere. If we stop this boondoggle there may never be another nuclear plant built in the US.

---

> SignOn.org Beta - Stop the New Nuke Power Loan Guarantees

---

Obama administration calls for no expansion to nuclear loan guarantee program in FY2013 budget!

---

---

 

As reported in the Huffington Post, for the first time in three years, the Obama administration has not called for a major expansion in the nuclear loan guarantee program. In fact, it has called for no expansion at all.

In his Fiscal Year 2011 and Fiscal Year 2012 budget requests, fresh on the heels of explicitly promoting nuclear power in his State of the Union addresses, President Obama called for a major expansion of the nuclear loan guarantee program, to the tune of $36 billion. However, as a testament to people power over nuclear power, the nuclear lobbyists didn't get away with it -- we stopped them time and again on Capitol Hill, through tireless concerned citizen pressure! It's a huge grassroots environmental victory!

The program already had $22.5 billion, however, mostly authorized during the George W. Bush administration, snuck through on December 23, 2007 when most Americans were more tuned into holiday celebrations with family and friends, rather than the backroom wheeling and dealing by dirty energy industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Of that $22.5 billion already authorized, $18.5 billion was set aside for new atomic reactors, while $4 billion was set aside for new uranium enrichment facilities.

In Feb. 2010, President Obama announced the first nuclear loan guarantee himself -- $8.3 billion for two new atomic reactors at Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. On December 30, 2011, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the Toshiba-Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design, despite lingering concerns about major safety flaws. Just this month, by a 4 to 1 vote (with NRC Chairman Jaczko dissenting), the NRC Commissioners approved the combined Construction and Operating License Application (COLA) for Vogtle Units 3 and 4.

Another leg up for Vogtle 3 & 4, this time at ratepayer expense, is Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) charges on ordinary family's electricity bills, making them pay for the reactors in advance. CWIP is illegal in most states. Yet another leg up, at federal taxpayer expense: the AP1000, along with the General Electric Hitachi ESBWR (so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor") has benefitted from U.S. Department of Energy "Nuclear Power 2010" research and development 50/50 cost sharing...

---

more > Beyond Nuclear - Loan Guarantees - Obama administration calls for no expansion to nuclear loan guarantee program in FY2013 budget!

---

NO NUKES | RE-TOOL NOW

---

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...

> more

---

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...

> more

---

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"

---

• LINKS PAGE
• VIDEOS PAGE
• TOP OF BLOG for more recent posts

• recent Fukushima & related updates for nuclear news, background info, links and actions -

free downloads | anti-nuclear art☢ RAGE AGAINST NUCLEAR ☢
TEPCO says it 'no longer owns' Fukushima fallout
Tell President Obama: End the nuclear loan program now!
Nukespeak is a classic! | Karl Grossman
Help watchdog nuclear safety risks by calling in
Is cancer an epidemic in America?
"Mission Accomplished" delusion | Radioactive Dumping
FUKUSHIMA UPDATE | The Fukushima Updates blog
Fukushima "China Syndrome?"
webcasts | FREEZE OUR FUKUSHIMAS | Strong Children Japan
Unthinking the Thinkable | Nukespeak | Marginalized Media
China Syndrome | No cold shutdown possible at Fukushima
NUCLEAR VIDEOS: The Retrosic - bomb & "Victory At Sea"
Beyond Nuclear - Radiation & Health What's New - Cancer panel to issue final report.
telling the truth about radiation
"DON'T DIG HERE" | Musicians United for Safe Energy | Nukes, Earthquakes & Hurricanes
Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Truth About Nuclear Power | Lethal Levels of Radiation
Diablo Canyon | Need To Know | It Can Happen Here
You can't see it, and you can't smell it either | Nuclear Nightmare Unfolding
Three Nuclear Meltdowns, Radiation Leaked into Sea; U.S. Waste Poses Deadly Risks
Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe Update | Related News
Nuclear Safety is an Oxymoron | How will broken-melting-fuming-leaking Fukushima Daiichi weather Monster Typhoon?
What's going on at Japan's damaged nuclear power plant?
End the nuclear loan program now | Quaint Vermont fixer-upper
Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown Confirmed
abolish atomic - new art | news from Beyond Nuclear | TAKE ACTION
Learning from the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster? | Unsafe at Any Dose
We do not want atom!
Fallout? | Delay Licensing! | Evacutation? | Taxes?
NO NUKES | RE-TOOL NOW - Flyer
Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 | Downwinders | Nuclear Law
25th Anniversary of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster | NUCLEAR "SAFTEY" = NUCLEAR THREAT
Anti-nuclear movement | California Nukes
Arnie Gundersen on Current Fukushima Daiichi Situation
Deepak Chopra homebase: Fukushima ~ Indian Point, NY
Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth
Fukushima a "Ticking Time Bomb"
Nuclear Catastrophe in Japan “Not Equal to Chernobyl, But Way Worse”
Nuclear Power = Crime Against Humanity
Obama: No Money for Nukes!
Pacifica Nuclear Teach-in | The Code Killers by Ace Hoffman
Nuclear Obama, Radioactive Boars & Frogs of Fukushima
fukushima plutonium
Fukushima still fuming - nuclear catastrophe update
MARCH ARCHIVE

---

CHECK FOR NEWS
• google news ~ "Fukushima + nuclear"
• news feeds below

---

-!- fukushima nuclear power plant japan nuclear crisis nuclear disaster radiation catastrophe radioactive fallout nuclear energy safety hazard environment ecology pollution -!-

---

NO NUKES | RE-TOOL NOW

---