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

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

NOT ONE MORE TAXPAYER PENNY FOR NEW NUCLEAR POWER!

Tell DOE: 

Not one more taxpayer penny for new nuclear power!

Comment deadline is November 3, 2014.

For the past seven years, we--and you--have been fighting back against Congressional and Department of Energy efforts to lend taxpayer money to giant nuclear utilities to help them build new nuclear reactors.

Together, we beat back every effort to expand the pot of taxpayer money available in this unnecessary and dangerous program. Nine separate times, we won. The amount of money stayed at the Bush-era level of $18.6 Billion for new reactors and a couple billion more for fuel cycle facilities.

And, when DOE actually tried to start giving away nuclear loans, it found few takers. So far, only Southern Company's Vogtle complex in Georgia has received a taxpayer loan--of about $8 billion. And that project is, predictably, already well over-budget and behind-schedule. The risk of a default that would result in loss of the taxpayer money is growing daily.

You'd think the DOE would have learned its lesson: people don't want this program and even nuclear utilities are wary of building new reactors--they're just too expensive, even with taxpayer loans.

Instead, the DOE is trying again to give away the rest of the nuclear loan money it has: more than $10 Billion for new reactors, plus another $2 Billion for new fuel cycle facilities.

ACT NOW! Tell DOE: Not a penny more for new nuclear power!

SIGN NOW

 Nuclear-Free, Carbon-Free
NUKES? WE DON'T NEED THEM! 

#BustTheMyth :: NUKES ARE NOT SAFE, CLEAN, GREEN OR AFFORDABLE! - THEY ARE NO SILVER BULLET FOR CLIMATE CHANGE !
Many studies have shown a path to a nuclear-free, carbon-free energy system. We have provided links to many of these below. More will be added as the studies continue to pour in...INFO > Nuclear-Free, Carbon-Free - NIRS

whats up: #BustTheMyth
you can't nuke global warming!

The next Solyndra? $8 billion U.S. loan guarantee for nuke reactors too risky

"Think what you want about nuclear power. Maybe it’s the best way to generate electricity, and maybe it’s the worst. If you are a taxpayer, that debate may be less relevant than the one aimed right at your pocketbook."

...Americans may be divided on the use of nuclear power, but very few people will defend the notion that massive utilities should be relying on taxpayers to build nuclear reactors. The bottom line is clear: Putting the full faith and credit of the U.S. government behind this costly, high-risk Vogtle reactor project is fiscally irresponsible.

> The next Solyndra? $8 billion U.S. loan guarantee for nuke reactors too risky

The Federal Government's $10 Billion Plutonium Boondoggle

As Republicans and Democrats squabble over the cost of student loans, both sides are wasting enormous sums on misguided nuclear schemes.

APR 27 2012

Getty Images

While a national debate rages over whether to spend $6 billion to keep down interest rates on loans that students desperately need, the government may spend $10 billion to make plutonium bombs and plutonium fuel that nobody wants. Congress and the Administration are in a fierce contest to see who can throw the most money into the plutonium pit.

Some members of Congress are trying to restore billions in funding for a new factory at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to make plutonium cores for nuclear bombs that the military doesn't need. Meanwhile, President Obama is plowing ahead with plans to make plutonium fuel rods for power reactors that no power company wants to buy. Together, construction costs for these two radioactive white elephants add up to over $10 billion, and rising.

This is seriously wasteful spending at a time when we should be serious about fiscal responsibility and national security. Developing a nuclear strategy that is smart, efficient, and effective against current threats means cutting Cold War programs we no longer need.

PLUTONIUM PITS, MONEY PIT

The plutonium laboratory (sometimes called by its technical name, Chemical Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility, or CMRR) is the worst kind of nuclear boondoggle. Expensive and unnecessary, it diverts funds from other vital programs. Yet some members of Congress are still fighting to fund it.

"[Plutonium] pit production enabled by CMRR-NF is not needed to maintain U.S. nuclear weapons for decades to come," said Bob Peurifoy, former vice president of Sandia Laboratories. "As a result, the Nuclear Facility might just sit there with nothing to do."

Many of the planned functions of this new plutonium laboratory -- plutonium pit storage, for example -- can be carried out at already existing facilities. One thing sets CMRR apart: It can increase production of plutonium pits, the cores of nuclear weapons, to 80 per year. Production on this scale is completely unnecessary. We already have more than 14,000 pits in storage. Those pits will last at least 85 years, according to National Nuclear Security Administration's own estimate.

For a project without a mission, the plutonium lab's price tag is unbelievably high. Costs have exploded, from less than $400 million in 2001 to close to $6 billion today. Maintenance costs are through the roof too -- almost $150 million per year, 15 times the costs of maintaining the old plutonium lab.

Pouring billions into an unnecessary program just doesn't make sense. President Obama recognized this; he eliminated funding for the plutonium lab for the next five years. Congress upheld this decision in the first round of the 2013 budget battle -- the House Appropriations Energy and Water Bill. But some members of Congress are trying to stuff CMRR back in the budget, claiming it is key to national security.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Investing in outdated Cold War weapons is fiscally irresponsible. It diverts resources from more important priorities.

FUEL TO NOWHERE

CMRR isn't the only white elephant in the nuclear budget. The plan to build a new facility for producing a dangerous nuclear fuel is equally wasteful.

In his speech at Hankuk University in South Korea, President Obama called his plan part of the "fuel cycle of the future." Plutonium fuel is not the fuel of the future. It is the failed fuel of the past.

This Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel, a blend of plutonium and uranium, is dangerous and expensive. That's why no power companies in the United States want to buy it. Producing this fuel will weaken the global nonproliferation regime by developing a plutonium economy that will encourage plutonium production.

Despite all these concerns, the plan to build a multibillion dollar facility to produce plutonium fuel is charging ahead based on contracts and political commitments. The project, with construction costs skyrocketing to nearly $5 billion, was fully funded in the president's budget. This is exactly the wrong decision. As the new House Energy and Water Development Subcommittee's draft funding bill warns:

"There is still no fidelity on the total project costs and timeline to get the MOX facility up and running, and few details have been provided on the long term investments that will be needed to support full operating feedstock requirements."

The committee cut the budget for the fuel plant but has allowed it to continue pending further reviews.

Funding for the plutonium fuel facility falls within the nuclear nonproliferation budget. That means that every dollar spent on unnecessary programs like MOX is one dollar less for vital nonproliferation programs that keep nuclear material and technology out of the hands of terrorists.

Getting serious about the fiscal crisis means getting serious about reining in wasteful nuclear spending. CMRR and the MOX fuel facility are dangerous, expensive, and contribute nothing to our national security. With more than 5,000 nuclear weapons, we don't need to invest in expanding our nuclear capabilities. We don't need a new government program forcing power companies to buy a fuel none of them want. We do need policymakers to stand up against nuclear pork and cut the waste in the nuclear budget.

---

The Federal Government's $10 Billion Plutonium Boondoggle - Joseph Cirincione - Politics - The Atlantic

---

by JOSEPH CIRINCIONE - Joe Cirincione is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. He is the author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.

---

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

---

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

OpEdNews | April 20, 2012 | By Joan Brunwasser

---

"My guest today is Harvey Wasserman, author of Solartopia! Our Green Powered Earth and long-time anti-nuclear activist. Welcome back to OpEdNews, Harvey. What's new on the nuclear front these days?"

Tons.

First, the loan guarantees for the two reactors at Vogtle [Georgia] turn out to be not a done deal. So we are building a national grassroots campaign as fast as possible to beat them. I think that would kill any further prospects for new nukes in the US. We have a petition up at www.nukefree.org , and there are others. It's gotta happen fast, but the stakes are huge, and I think we can win. You've posted my article on it, Joan, so thanks for that.

[I can't take the credit for that. Someone at OpEdNews beat me to the punch.]

Next, the old reactors in the US are crumbling fast. Vermont Yankee, Indian Point, San Onofre, Crystal River, Davis-Besse, South Texas and many more have really serious structural and operational issues. The grassroots opposition has become fiercer than ever. The question is: can we shut them all down before the next Three Mile Island / Chernobyl / Fukushima. For all our sakes, we MUST!!!

Next, Vermont is all-out at war with Entergy. The governor, Senator Sanders, the legislature, the grassroots".everybody wants the damn thing shut. But they are resisting, and it'll go the US Supreme Court, where it may become a states rights issue. Even the Gang of Five [Supreme Court conservative majority] has upheld states rights on medical marijuana. Now we'll see if they do it for nukes.

Worldwide the industry is collapsing. Japan may shut its last nuke next month. The only really big question is China. We shall see very soon.

Georgia has become a cautionary tale for what can happen to local taxpayers when nuclear plants are built. Can you tell our readers about that, Harvey?

Georgia has become ratepayers' worst nightmare because of CWIP, Construction Work in Progress, which allows utilities to soak them (us!) for rate hikes to pay for nukes WHILE THEY'RE BEING BUILT. This means the utilities have no risk and can build these things forever, with no cost restraints, while forcing the public to pay. It's the ultimate scam. And it means billions in useless, worthless costs that go straight to the pockets of the fat cat executives, who then use much of it to buy and rent the legislatures. Florida is now reeling from this. We had it in NH, which facilitated Seabrook. It's on the table in Iowa. It must be stopped!

How can President Obama resist the powerful lobbies and pro-business interests who fight for nuclear plants? And just how unpopular is nuclear energy? Is it possible that people really want the plants?

I haven't seen the latest polls, and they usually depend on how the question is phrased. But there has been a great global turning against atomic energy, even in France.

This includes the financial community, which will not invest in it, and that's critically important. The tipping point has been reached and renewables are officially cheaper than new nukes. This is a very big deal, and is at the core of why we will ultimately bury this industry...

more > OpEdNews - Article: Can we stop those nukes? Wasserman says: You betcha!

---