tagged w/ boondoggle
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TOKYO — What passes for normal at the Fukushima Daiichi plant today would have caused shudders among even the most sanguine of experts before an earthquake and tsunami set off the world’s second most serious nuclear crisis after Chernobyl.
Fourteen months after the accident, a pool brimming with used fuel rods and filled with vast quantities of radioactive cesium still sits on the top floor of a heavily damaged reactor building, covered only with plastic.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/26/world/27japan/27japan-articleLarge.jpgTOKYO — What passes for normal at the Fukushima Daiichi plant today would have... more
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NEW YORK — The five skyscrapers were all supposed to rise by early next decade to replace the ravaged World Trade Center, with the city's tallest towers set in a spiral evoking the Statue of Liberty's torch.
They would frame a massive memorial in a tree-filled park, plus a theater and a transportation hub with uplifted wings — one of several symbols intended to defy the terrorists who destroyed the 16-acre site in under two hours.
Standing on the site now — a multi-level labyrinth of concrete and steel, from the entrance resembling the rooftops of an underground city — the sweeping design unveiled 6 1/2 years ago still hasn't materialized.
It's not a pit," Ward said. "Now, it's a sense of rebirth." (-heh-)
Its history is "too sad to even really think about progress," said the 48-year-old Austin, Texas, insurance worker. But "I am a little surprised — I thought there'd be something built there.
When will there be?NEW YORK — The five skyscrapers were all supposed to rise by early next decade... more
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As the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks approaches, the slow pace of construction at Ground Zero in New York is puzzling many people.
A poll found more than half of New Yorkers believe the rebuilding is going badly and more than 60 per cent do not think key parts of the project will be finished on time.
On the ravaged World Trade Centre site, signs of the massive rebuilding effort are finally edging above street level.
The work is hot and hard, but eight years after September 11, workers like carpenter Estelle St Clair are proud of the project.
"Even though I was so devastated then, I felt I didn't participate then when it happened, I feel like I'm participating now to bring us back to where we need to be here in New York and as a country," she said.
Years of cost blowouts and squabbling between the site's owner and developer have slowed down construction.
Work on the main tower, once called the Freedom Tower, is due to be finished in 2013.As the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks approaches, the slow... more
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Public Citizen and a coalition of environmental organizations have filed a legal challenge to the proposed Calvert Cliffs-3 atomic reactor. The proposed nuclear project runs afoul of numerous laws and regulations, and remains a bad deal for the people of Maryland and its neighbors.Public Citizen and a coalition of environmental organizations have filed a legal... more
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Ethanol: It's Unethical.
The whole process of growing, transporting, and converting the corn to fuel requires more energy than is produced. This is only economically possible because of obscene agricultural subsidies given to North American corn producers, subsidies which have added to third-world poverty while creating a surplus of corn -- soon to be deficit...Ethanol: It's Unethical.
The whole process of growing, transporting, and... more
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