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Who will face up to the climate change crisis?
Obama and McCain both say global warming a problem, but are their proposals enough to make a difference?
The Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls put forward their respective energy and environmental platforms last week, addressing offshore drilling, coal, nuclear energy and fuel efficiency. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have said that Global warming is a problem and would make it a top priority. But would they go as far as NASA's Dr. James Hansen says is necessary before reaching what he calls the tipping point? The Real News spoke with Ben Wikler of Avaaz.org and Professor Catherine Gautier about the promises and shortfalls of the candidates' plans.
Ben Wikler is a campaign director for Avaaz.org, a global version of MoveOn.org, where he oversees efforts on climate change, global health, and other issues. Previously, he worked as press secretary for Congressman Sherrod Brown's US Senate campaign in Ohio, and was a founding producer of The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio.
Catherine Gautier is involved in educational aspects of climate change science and policy. Originally from Paris, France, Gautier directs the Institute for Computational Earth Systems Science at the University of California Santa Barbara. the book 'Facing Climate Change Together' was compiled and edited by Catherine Gautier and Jean-Louis Fellous. Obama and McCain both say global warming a problem, but are their proposals enough to make a difference? ... more -
The looming nuclear nightmare in the backwoods of North Carolina
Looking for weapons of mass destruction? Try the backwoods of North Carolina. The site is easy to find. You don't need infrared telemetry, informants, or a global positioning satellite. Just follow the railroad tracks deep into the heart of the triangle area to the gleaming cooling tower of the Shearon Harris nuclear plant, which rises like a concrete beacon out of the forest.
It may not look like much-a run-of-the-mill nuke, but inside the confines of the steel fence that rings the plant, resides one of the most lethal patches of ground in North America. Shearon Harris is not just a nuclear power-generating station, but a repository for highly radioactive spent fuel rods from two other nuclear plants owned by Progress Energy.
Those railroad tracks? They're for hauling nuclear waste. The spent fuel rods are carted by rail from the Brunswick and Robinson nuclear reactors to Shearon Harris, where they are stored in four densely packed pools, filled with circulating cold water to keep the waste from heating up. The pools are interconnected and enclosed within one building. That building is attached to the reactor itself. Together, they form the largest radioactive waste storage pools in the country.
All this makes Shearon Harris a very inviting target for would-be terrorists. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has fingered Shearon Harris as one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation.
Potential atomic terrorists don't have to steal plutonium, take a crash course in physics, or concoct a bomb to manufacture a radiological nightmare scenario in the heart of the Carolinas. All they have to do is penetrate the security fence of a lightly guarded commercial reactor and find a way to ignite the pools of high-level radioactive waste. The easiest method is to disrupt the circulation of the water system that keeps the pools cool.
The resulting fire would be virtually unquenchable. Moreover, because the water system that feeds the waste pools is also connected to the Shearon Harris reactor, a pool fire could also trigger a nuclear meltdown. And so it goes.
An uncontrolled pool fire and meltdown at Shearon Harris would put more than two million residents of this rapidly growing section of North Carolina in extreme peril. A recent study by the Brookhaven Labs, not known to overstate nuclear risks, estimates that a pool fire could cause 140,000 cancers, contaminate thousands of square miles of land, and cause over $500 billion in off-site property damage. Looking for weapons of mass destruction? Try the backwoods of North Carolina. The site is easy to find. You don't need infrared t... more -
Nuclear waste. We can do better.
This ought to be big news, as the method of transporting deadly NUCLEAR WASTE is completely dangerous.
Check this article out, then raise some hell.
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Give them your zip code and talk to your Representative.
Tell them this needs to be looked into and propose a bill to make transport safe, and hopefully stop the use of this dirty, outdated energy source. This ought to be big news, as the method of transporting deadly NUCLEAR WASTE is completely dangerous. ... more -
The World's Hardest Working Shaman
Western Shoshone leader, Corbin Harney talks about his prophetic conversation with the water
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Pelosi, Clinton, Obama Favor More Nuclear Plants
The renewed push for legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions could falter over an old debate: whether nuclear power should play a role in any federal attack on climate change.Congress, with added impetus from a Supreme Court ruling last week, appears more likely to pass comprehensive energy legislation. But nuclear power sharply divides lawmakers who agree on mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. And it has pitted some on Capitol Hill against their usual allies, environmentalists, who largely oppose any expansion of nuclear power.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Barbara Boxer - Bay Area Democrats with similar political views - are on opposite sides.
Pelosi used to be an ardent foe of nuclear power but now holds a different view. “I think it has to be on the table,” she said.
Boxer, head of the Senate committee that will take the lead in writing global warming legislation, said that turning from fossil fuels to nuclear power was “trading one problem for another.”
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) - all presidential candidates - support legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions and provide incentives to power companies to build more nuclear plants.
Opponents of nuclear power say that because a terrorist attack on a plant could be catastrophic, it makes no sense to build more potential targets. And radioactive waste still has no permanent burial site, they say, despite officials’ three decades of trying to find one.
But attitudes toward nuclear power may be shifting as a consensus emerges that greenhouse gases are causing the world to heat up.
The Supreme Court added its voice, criticizing the Bush administration for not acting to control greenhouse gases.
Max Schulz, a former Energy Department staff member who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said the ruling could help “spur the revival of nuclear power.” The renewed push for legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions could falter over an old debate: whether nuclear power should play a ... more -
Nuclear energy - 'The Eyes of Nye'
Bill Nye explores the ramifications of nuclear energy and its waste.
You might remember Bill Nye from his show Bill Nye the Science Guy on PBS. This is a show somewhat like that but geared for adults (kind of). Bill Nye explores the ramifications of nuclear energy and its waste. ... more -
Slow Train to Yucca Mountain
Writer Judith Lewis, in a recent contribution to Mother Jones, writes about the existing bureaucratic hurdles and geological limitations at Yucca Mountain in Nevada -- site of a vast ongoing nuclear waste repository project. Yucca Mountain, adjacent to the Nevada Test Site in Nye County -- 80 miles away from Las Vegas -- was identified by the Department of Energy under the Reagan Administration in 1984 as one of three possible sites to store nuclear waste. And by 1987, Congress settled on Yucca Mountain and began establishing research and the preliminary infrastructure which included drilling a 5-mile long tunnel and running rail through it. Read more on Lewis' profile of Yucca Mountain, and whether nuclear waste storage at the site will move forward.
Image: Yucca Mountain courtesy of wikipedia.org. Writer Judith Lewis, in a recent contribution to Mother Jones, writes about the existing bureaucratic hurdles and geological limitatio... more -
R.A.W.A. - Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Speak Out
This is a link to the latest newsletter from R.A.W.A. (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) with 17 news items on life in Afghanistan.
1. A Young Girl Kidnapped in Baghlan Province
2. Unidentified assailants blow up school in Khost
3. Afghan Disenchantment
4. Unemployment, drought force youth out of Samangan Province
5. Her son killed for a gold ring, an Afghan mother wants justice
6. Afghanistan: 'Opium Brides' pay the price
7. Afghan lawmakers pass resolution aimed at censoring un-Islamic images on TV
8. Pakistan 'dumped nuclear waste' in Afghanistan
9. UN: Afghanistan still heavily mined
10. Afghan woman MP challenges parliament expulsion
11. Forced Taking and Seizure of the Properties of the People of Sar-e-Pul
12. 8-year Old Girl Raped in Takhar Province
13. Around 40 civilians killed in a deadly airstrike by US-led coalition
14. What “Freedom” Brought to Afghanistan
15. Mass grave discovered in Afghan north
16. Children work in brick factories to help pay off family debts
17. Afghans Battle Drug Addiction
There can be no peace without justice. Women and families in Afghanistan want the same thing women and families want worldwide, freedom, peace and justice. Work and pray for justice across the earth. This is a link to the latest newsletter from R.A.W.A. (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) with 17 news items on li... more -
The Externalities Of Nuclear Power
The nuclear power industry has latched on to global warming as an argument for its renaissance. Although even industry proponents acknowledge that the problem of disposing of spent nuclear fuel remains unsolved, the industry routinely assumes this problem will be solved in the future. Unfortunately, this is the same assumption made by nuclear energy proponents at the beginning of the nuclear industry fifty years ago. We haven’t solved the nuclear waste problem in the past half century, and there is no reason to think we will be more likely to do so in the next one. Like the shipwrecked economist in the old joke, the nuclear industry continues to postulate that we should “assume we have a can opener” for the nuclear waste problem.[1]
While the impacts of global warming are described as “intergenerational,” the impacts of the nuclear waste cycle are better described as inter-civilizational.[2] Nuclear fuel wastes remain hazardous for hundreds of thousands to as much as a million years.[3] By contrast, recorded human history goes back only about 5,000 years, and human civilization is only about 10,000 years old. Globally, none of the generators of nuclear fuel waste have successfully implemented any permanent disposal option for nuclear waste, leaving this externality of nuclear energy production as a problem for future generations, or, more likely, for future civilizations. Put simply, the nuclear industry, with government complicity, has transferred and deferred the most expensive part of the cost of the nuclear fuel cycle to future generations and civilizations unknown.
Nor are the environmental and public health costs of nuclear waste the only ones that nuclear energy generation has externalized. Nuclear generation also poses a risk externality — the economic and social harms that the public has assumed in the event of a radiation release, for which the generating industry has limited liability. This risk externality arises not only from the risk of accidental reactor meltdown and release of radioactivity, but also from the proliferation and terrorism risks that are inseparable from any scheme of nuclear energy production and waste disposal.
These twin externalities, waste and risk, make any nuclear renaissance an unsatisfactory substitute for fossil fuel power generation. As horrendous as the impacts of global warming will be — millions of people displaced and dead — the likely long-term impacts of increased nuclear energy production are comparable, and longer lasting.
I~~~~~~~~
There is much more information in this very well written and comprehensive report on nuclear power. It is something we cannot once again rush into simply to appease those interests looking to use the climate crisis as a way to profit. The nuclear power industry has latched on to global warming as an argument for its renaissance. Although even industry proponents ackn... more -
Barack Obama's Ties To Nuclear Power
I'm surprised any network even dared to touch this. But it does prove to me that Barack Obama is no more anti-lobbyist than Hillary Clinton is. However, more importantly, I am not convinced that he would not use nukes in a military strike. Even at the debates, he has made it clear that he would not hesitate to attack Pakistan (and like Bush has stated that terrorists are planning to hit us again) and just to remind you, Pakistan has nukes. For me it is hard to look credible for you to say you are against nuclear proliferation yet for nuclear power. And as this wound up, the bill he stated he passed was watered down and never became law. Is this then really change or just more of the same wrapped in a different package? And this issue is important to me and one I think should be important to more people. Nuclear power is not the "clean green" energy source everyone has been led to believe it is, and Obama's ties to lobbyists along with Clinton regarding this make me very wary of just how much they will be for truly eliminating nukes while allowing subsidies for gigantic nuclear power plants to be built. And one other thing, how would the residents of any town know that any "voluntary" policing was working? In the beginning of this Obama stated that the bill regarded notification of what the power plant "believed to be radioactive." That is just an open invitation for them to lie about what they are still emitting and simply saying it isn't radioactive enough to warrant notification. Why are they allowed to leak at all? So as long as they "notify" residents they don't have any other accountability? Again, like the Bush administration we get "voluntary" policing of a potentially deadly hazard to humans, marine life, air, and water. And frankly, that isn't good enough for me. I'm surprised any network even dared to touch this. But it does prove to me that Barack Obama is no more anti-lobbyist than Hilla... more
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Nuclear Waste: Achilles' Heel of the Fake Green Technology
As Nuclear Waste Languishes, Expense to U.S. Rises
WASHINGTON — Forgotten but not gone, the waste from more than 100 nuclear reactors that the federal government was supposed to start accepting for burial 10 years ago is still at the reactor sites, at least 20 years behind schedule. But it is making itself felt in the federal budget.
Each reactor typically creates about 20 tons of waste a year, which is approximately two new casks, at roughly $1 million each. If a repository or interim site opened, clearing the backlog would take decades, experts say. At present, waste is in temporary storage at 122 sites in 39 states.
"Accelerating Hanford Cleanup"
http://www.archive.org/details/acc300
The first two minutes of "Accelerating Hanford Cleanup" are eye opening and the amount of radioactive waste and work needed there is staggering.
NO NEW NUKES. As Nuclear Waste Languishes, Expense to U.S. Rises ... more -
Mercy, Mercy, Me
Amazing that this was the song that turned me and many others on to the environmental movement about thirty years ago, and here we all sit thirty years later still fighting to keep mercury out of our air and water... radiation out of our ground and skies, and toxic waste out of our water. To me that doesn't speak well of the human species even for all the strides we have made. And no one sings this song like Marvin Gaye did, and it saddens and inspires me everytime I hear it. We need to do better. Amazing that this was the song that turned me and many others on to the environmental movement about thirty years ago, and here we all... more
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Nuclear Donating Big To Obama and Clinton
And yet, we are to believe they are candidates of change? That they care about the environment? Nuclear energy is not "green." It is an antiquated dangerous form of energy that has seen its day. It is only because of the rise of concern over the climate crisis that certain lobbies have been trying to push it into the green column in order to make a profit from it. And Obama and Clinton are helping them in their quest to do so at the expense of this planet. Subsidies to the nuclear industry could be used to bring innovative and truly visionary alternate energies to the fore that would reduce our dependence on oil in much cleaner and safer ways. This is very discouraging to see and tells me that Obama, who talks about change in his glossy abstract speeches means only changing the person living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It doesn't mean changing the way business is done. Any candidate who truly believes in addressing climate change and in fighting terrorism is not for nuclear power, period. It is bad enough that Republicans push for nuclear energy and antiquated methods proven to be unproductive in progressing us towards the future. I expected better from Democrats, or at least, those who call themselves Democrats. And yet, we are to believe they are candidates of change? That they care about the environment? Nuclear energy is not "green.... more
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Where Does Stored Nuclear Waste Go
How many other clandestine locations in this country are storing nuclear waste and how many other groundwater supplies are being poisoned by it? And groups continue to lobby that nuclear energy is "green?" It's time for nuclear to go. How many other clandestine locations in this country are storing nuclear waste and how many other groundwater supplies are being poiso... more
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Cookie cutter reactors running into Hurdles!
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 - For the first time in three decades, companies are getting ready to build nuclear reactors in the United States. They intend to do so under streamlined procedures meant to avoid the long delays and cost overruns that crippled the industry last time around.
But with early jockeying under way to win government approval for this new generation of plants, ominous signs are emerging that the plans may not go smoothly.
And if the industry succeeds in winning approval for as many new reactors as it wants, 31 and counting, the capacity of nuclear suppliers is likely to be strained. By most estimates, they can fabricate enough parts for only three or four reactors a year, and the United States will be competing with other countries that want to build nuclear plants.
Some of the most important parts can be cast only by a single foundry, Japan Steel Works. "The global supply chain is going to be the pacing item," Mr. Wallace said. WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 - For the first time in three decades, companies are getting ready to build nuclear reactors in the United States. ... more -
Coal Train Blockaded - Rising Tide
19 NOVEMBER 2007: Coal Train Blockaded
Grassroots climate change action group Rising Tide has blockaded a coal train on its way into the worlds biggest coal export port, at Kooragang Island in Newcastle Harbour. No trains are able to enter Kooragang Coal Terminal because of the blockade.
We are taking action today on behalf of our children, and for all those species that will be pushed to the extinction by climate change. It is unconscionable for the Government and the coal industry to continue profiting from accelerating greenhouse gas emissions in this way. 19 NOVEMBER 2007: Coal Train Blockaded ... more -
Alice Springs voices opposition to nuclear waste dump
Anti-nuclear protesters confronted CLP candidate for Lingiari, Adam Giles, outside his Alice Springs office at 8:30 this morning.
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Russian protesters try to teach St. Petersburg police to count to three; fail.
Russian police broke up an environmental demonstration protesting the import of depleted nuclear materials (on leaky, unguarded trains through crowded urban areas) just for the fun of it. Russian police broke up an environmental demonstration protesting the import of depleted nuclear materials (on leaky, unguarded trains... more
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Nuclear Waste
