New York officials claim
power plant is killing endangered fish
New York’s largest power provider may be
shut down amidst concerns endangered fish
species are threatened by the plant. The
Indian Point Energy
Center provides energy for roughly 18 to
38 percent of the New York metropolitan
area. To cool the plant’s reactors, up to
2.5 billion gallons of water from the Hudson
River are used each day. Under the plant’s
controversial "once-through" water
process, almost a billion organisms, including
endangered shortnose sturgeon eggs, are
sucked into the facility’s system and killed
each year, according to the state Department
of Environmental Conservation. In April,
the DEC refused to grant the plant's owner,
Entergy Nuclear, a water quality permit.
The agency said it is illegal to kill any
shortnose sturgeon, and it would allow the
plant to operate only if a greener ‘closed-cycle’
water collection system was used, according
to The Associated Press. More than 30 percent
of power plants nationwide have been ordered
to phase out ‘once-through’ systems, in
favor of more eco-friendly devices to reduce
the number of fish killed.’
Nuclear industry presses
sceptical Huhne over backing new reactors
‘Leaders of the nuclear industry have sought
urgent meetings with the new energy secretary,
Chris Huhne, amid concern that he will not
provide the support needed for their £30bn
investment programme in a new generation
of reactors. Sam Laidlaw, Centrica's chief
executive, and Paul Golby, head of E.ON
UK, have scheduled talks in the coming days
with Huhne, who has strongly indicated that
his primary focus is renewable power. Ian
Marchant, boss of Scottish and Southern
Energy, said today he had spoken by phone
to Huhne this week when the minister outlined
his views on the commercial viability of
atomic plants. "He was sceptical on
the economics of nuclear but made it clear
he would allow people to make their own
decisions on this and would not stand in
their way if they can do it without subsidies,"
said Marchant, whose company is considering
a new reactor in Cumbria but is far less
committed to nuclear than either Centrica
or E.ON. "I think being sceptical is
no bad thing. The worst thing you can have
is a situation where the state bends over
backwards to [financially] support nuclear.
Look where that got us," he added.’
Brazil-Turkey Deal with
Iran Undermines Big Power Politics
‘UNITED NATIONS, May 19, 2010 (IPS) - When
Brazil and Turkey clinched a deal with Iran
over its disputed nuclear programme last
weekend, the two non-permanent members of
the Security Council not only challenged
the unbridled political power exercised
by the five big powers but also jeopardised
U.S. plans for a unanimous resolution imposing
sanctions against Tehran. As a result, the
15-member Security Council now remains split,
with at least two countries - and possibly
more - lined up against a U.S.-inspired
resolution against Iran. The Brazil-Turkey
initiative, which has undermined the upcoming
resolution likely to be adopted next month,
has also triggered implicit political threats
against the two "renegade" countries.
According to unnamed government sources
both in Europe and Washington, Turkey's
longstanding attempts to join the European
Union (EU) are likely to be derailed further.
And so would Brazil's plans to join as a
permanent member of the Security Council
(along with Japan, Germany and India). Phyllis
Bennis, director of the New Internationalism
Project at the Washington-based Institute
for Policy Studies, told IPS the U.S. crusade
for new U.N. sanctions against Iran has
been underway for a long time.’
Safety chief says nuclear power growth depends
on Congress
‘The growth of nuclear energy in the United
States depends on if or how Congress will
regulate carbon emissions, said Chair of
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Gregory
B. Jaczko in a talk to energy students at
Stanford on Tuesday. The commission, of
which Jaczko was named chair by President
Obama last year, is charged with regulating
the civilian use of nuclear material. Jaczko
was speaking as part of the Stanford Energy
Seminar series. Chair of the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission Gregory B. Jaczko
drew parallels between commercial nuclear
energy oversight and oil drilling regulations
on Tuesday. ‘If we don’t ensure that the
current fleet of operating reactors is safe...then
there will be no nuclear expansion in this
country,’ he said. ‘The future of nuclear
power in this country will probably hinge
more than anything else on what Congress
decides to do about climate change and about
regulating carbon,’ Jaczko said. With the
construction cost of one new reactor ranging
from $6 billion to $10 billion (the U.S.
Department of Energy has $18 billion in
loan guarantees set aside for all construction),
few now are willing to finance nuclear projects,
Jaczko said. ‘It’s not the kind of money
that anybody on Wall Street is willing to
lend to a utility, and it’s not the kind
of money that a lot of utilities right now
are willing to put up on their own,’ he
said. But Congress, to whom the commission
reports, could change that.’
Poland’s PGE to pick
one out of three nuclear technologies
‘Polish Energy Group (PGE), the largest
electricity supplier in Poland, appointed
three teams to analyse technologies used
in nuclear reactors possibly to be applied
in nuclear power plants to be built in Poland
in the future. Technologies developed by
Areva, Westinghouse and GE Hitachi are under
PGE’s scrutiny. Analysts study the EPR reactor
offered by Areva; AP 1000 reactor from Westinghouse
as well as ABWR and ESBWR reactors provided
by GE Hitachi, wnp.pl reports. PGE president,
Marcin Ciepliński, declares that
if another new technology is developed and
there is a rational reason to be interested
in it, PGE will look into it as well. PGE
has 3-4 years to select a technology for
Poland’s first nuclear power plant. PGE
has already signed several memoranda of
cooperation with nuclear power plant reactor
suppliers. One was signed with Westinghouse
Electric Company LLC, the supplier of AP
1000 reactors, in April. AP1000 PWR is a
passive pressurised water reactor of Generation
III+. PGE signed a similar agreement with
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas in March.
The memorandum mentions a feasibility study
of ABWR and ESBWR reactors. PGE also signed
a memorandum of cooperation with EdF last
November to study the Generation III+ EPR
(European Pressurized Reactor) reactor produced
by Areva.’
The Chinese road to
Pyongyang
Kim Jong-il’s visit to China early this
month was a gentle reminder that the road
to Pyongyang leads through Beijing. China
is the only power that has remained engaged
with North Korea, through many ups and downs,
whereas Russia, Japan, the US and South
Korea have all come and gone. By keeping
a door open to North Korea’s leaders, China
is making a substantial contribution to
regional peace. This is bold diplomacy -
for which China is given little credit -
at a highly sensitive moment. Nevertheless,
China’s ‘leverage’ over North Korea is in
part illusory. Kim’s visit should be evaluated
in terms of Chinese-North Korean relations
as they are, rather than as others might
wish them to be. Doing so reveals the role
left to the US and South Korea to engage
the North in order to revive the denuclearization
process and repair inter-Korean relations.
Rather than criticize China, US President
Barack Obama and Lee should now reach out
to the Chinese for thorough debriefings
about what was learned from Kim’s visit
- on security as well as economic issues.
China should continue to lead the effort
to encourage reform and opening of the North
Korean economy, with help from international
financial institutions.’
Critics of nuclear energy
in Parliament call for more clarity on waste
problem
‘Members of Parliament of the Green League
and other MPs who take a sceptical view
of nuclear energy are urging Fennovoima,
which hopes to build one of two new nuclear
reactors endorsed by the government, to
report on how it plans to dispose of its
nuclear waste. Fennovoima, which is owned
jointly by the German E.On and a number
of Finnish companies, had not yet revealed
any waste disposal plans when it applied
for a licence to build a new nuclear reactor.
Parliament resumed debate on the nuclear
issue on Tuesday, after it had been interrupted
by the discussion of the Greek economic
crisis. Critics of nuclear energy drew attention
to the fact that the increased capacity
of nuclear generation would make Finland
an exporter of nuclear-generated electricity.’
Nuclear fuel recycling
could take 20-30 years: US DOE official
‘The US would be able to implement a nuclear
fuel recycling program in the next 20 to
30 years if it committed to such a program
now, Warren Miller, the Department of Energy's
assistant secretary for nuclear energy,
said Wednesday. Speaking at a hearing before
the US House of Representatives' Committee
on Science and Technology, Miller said DOE
would look at advanced recycling technologies
that are more resistant to proliferation
than the Purex approach used internationally
that separates plutonium and uranium from
used nuclear fuel. Many nonproliferation
advocates see the production of plutonium
as a risk because it could be stolen and
used to manufacture a nuclear weapon. Illinois
Republican Representative Judy Biggert expressed
frustration during Miller's testimony that
the US has not moved faster to implement
programs to recycle used nuclear fuel.’
+ More
Nuclear News: UN Atomic
Chief Amano Warns That Nuclear Accidents
May Rise
UN Atomic Chief Amano
Warns That Nuclear Accidents May Rise
‘May 17 (Bloomberg) -- Nuclear accidents
may occur more often as atomic technology
spreads and countries build more reactors,
International Atomic Energy Agency Director
General Yukiya Amano said. "Member
states are considering the introduction
of nuclear power plants," Amano said
during a May 14 interview in his 28th-floor
office overlooking Vienna. "We cannot
exclude accidents. If there are more, we
have certain risks." The IAEA expects
as many as 25 nations to start developing
nuclear-power facilities by 2030. The total
global investment in building new atomic
plants is about $270 billion, the Arlington,
Virginia-based Pew Center on Global Climate
Change said on Feb. 17. The additional uranium
resources needed to power the reactors may
create security hazards for which the public
must prepare, said Amano, 63, a career diplomat.
Amano pointed to an April 9 incident in
India in which one person died and six others
were hospitalized after they came into contact
with a stray radioactive source mixed in
with scrap metal. The IAEA is concerned
that terrorists may try to use such lost
sources in an attack, he said.’
Rejection of proposed
India uranium mine
‘Plans to develop a uranium deposit within
the Balphakran National Park in Meghalaya
state, India, have been rejected by a federal
ministry because local authorities had failed
to prevent illegal coal mining in the area.
The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) had
sought approval from the Ministry of Environment
and Forests to conduct exploratory drilling
for uranium in the Garo Hill District. However,
at a recent meeting of its Standing Committee
of the National Board on Wildlife, the ministry
decided to reject the proposal. In a statement,
the committee said that, while acknowledging
India's urgent need to augment domestic
uranium supplies, it "took this decision
keeping in view of the sentiments of the
local people and a number of representations
received from local civil society groups."
During its meeting, the committee was presented
with a report by one of its members - Asad
Rahmani of the Bombay Natural History Society
- on illegal private coal mining around
the Balphakran National Park. Having visited
the area, he found that there were private
coal mines operating in Meghalaya state,
close to the Bangladesh border, in violation
of national environmental and mining regulations.’
Jaitapur villagers nuke
power project
‘Angry protesters, who had gathered in large
numbers, on Sunday made their opposition
known by stalling a public hearing by the
NPCIL. The matter is getting more and more
complicated as an NPCIL official has admitted
to holding back an environmental impact
assessment (EIA) report from villagers.
Apparently, the Nuclear Power Corporation
of India had distributed the English version
of the environmental impact assessment report
only in one village, keeping others in the
dark. The villagers argued that the hearing
can not be held when a majority of the project-affected
people have not been provided with an EIA.
This eventually led to the hearing process
being called off. As has been reported by
ET, the government so far has not been able
to mobilise enough land for the project
that will house six European-pressurised
water reactors (EPRs), each with a 1,600-mw
capacity. As per the initial plan, the project
is expected to come up in 938 hectares and
is likely to be completed by around 2020.
However, the opposition from the unyielding
villagers may throw the entire project off-track.
The villagers are upset with the government's
unilateral decision to take over their prized
tracts of land against a meagre compensation
which is based on March 2008 property rates.’
Non-Proliferation and
the Nuclear "Renaissance": The
Contribution and Responsibilities of the
Nuclear Industry
‘Introduction: With global demand for electricity
increasing rapidly and concerns over greenhouse-gas
emissions and energy security becoming national
priorities, both developed and developing
countries are looking to nuclear energy
as a means of providing a secure and scalable
source of low-carbon power. As existing
nuclear-power states prepare to replace
or expand their reactor fleets following
a decades-long lull in construction and
new countries seek to enter the marketplace,
the concept of a nuclear "renaissance"
has taken root. However, for all the opportunity
that a nuclear revival promises, there are
equally serious challenges. An expansion
of the civilian nuclear sector to include
new actors will bring with it a wider diffusion
of nuclear materials, technologies, and
knowledge at a time when the international
regulatory regime is struggling to cope
with existing security and safety concerns.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT), the foundation of international
efforts to ensure nuclear non-proliferation,
is facing both institutional and operational
challenges with respect to current nuclear
activities. Any expansion of nuclear commerce
involving the spread of sensitive technologies
such as uranium enrichment and spent fuel
reprocessing will put additional pressure
on a fragile non-proliferation regime leading
to increased risks.’
Indonesia committed
to have nuclear power plant soon
‘JAKARTA, May 17 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia is
committed to have a nuclear power plant
soon as new source of energy, officials
said here on Monday. For the purpose, Indonesia
has allocated 7 billion rupiah (about 769,633
U.S. dollars) for nuclear power plant socialization
to curb fear among people. "The government
has allocated the fund in 2009. That is
a clear indication that the government is
ready to move to seize the opportunity,"
Minister for Research and Technology Suharna
Suryapranata told a parliamentary hearing.
He said that his ministry is given limited
authority for the project, just for preparation
of the power plant construction. However,
he said that Indonesia is ready to embrace
the technology as since its first preparation
in 1979 there has no single case that indicates
the government's incapability. "According
to our view, we are ready now and we are
waiting for the Ministry for Energy and
Mineral Resources to implement it, "
said the minister. He admitted that resistance
has emerged from various elements of people.’
U.S., allies critical
of new deal on Iran's nuclear program
‘Baku - APA. President Barack Obama indicated
Monday that he isn't satisfied with a deal
that Brazil and Turkey have negotiated with
Iran to send some of its nuclear fuel abroad
because it fails to address Tehran's refusal
to suspend its uranium enrichment program,
APA reports quoting "McClatchy Newspapers".
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
issued a statement acknowledging the effort,
but he added that like Britain and France
, the U.S. would continue negotiations at
the U.N. Security Council on a resolution
imposing tougher sanctions on Iran . "The
proposal announced in Tehran must now be
conveyed clearly and authoritatively to
the IAEA before it can be considered by
the international community," Gibbs
said, referring to the U.N. International
Atomic Energy Agency. It would be a "positive
step" if Iran transferred low-enriched
uranium off its soil, Gibbs said. He noted,
however, the Iranian declaration Monday
that it intends to continue producing low-enriched
uranium in violation of U.N. Security Council
resolutions after an October deal collapsed.’
New era for nuclear
fleet
‘At the start of May, for the first time
in several years,the International Nuclear
Services Marine Terminal at Ramsden Dock,
Barrow, was quiet, with all its three specialist
vessels at sea. Two were on their way to
Japan with mixed oxide (Mox) fuel for power
stations. A third was in Japan, having just
returned a consignment of highly active
waste from Sellafield to the company which
originated it. This year has seen the start
of a decade of highly active waste (HAW)
shipments to Japan and Europe as part of
a deal which will see intermediate level
waste remain at Sellafield, while the most
radioactive waste will be returned to the
country of origin. For International Nuclear
Services (INS), business is entering a new
era with three new state of the art Pacific
Nuclear Transport Limited (PNTL) vessels
ordered for Barrow over the last few years.
One of the three vessels, the Pacific Heron,
was constructed by Mitsui Engineering and
Shipbuilding Co Ltd in Japan and delivered
to its home port in June 2008. It is currently
on its second voyage. Meanwhile the two
other PNTL vessels, the Pacific Egret and
the Pacific Grebe, have recently been launched
in Japan and will arrive in Barrow later
this year. The Heron cost £30m and
it is believed the three have cost around
£100m.’
For New Mexico, Nuclear
Waste May Be Too Hot To Handle
‘Tourists in New Mexico know the art galleries
of Santa Fe and the ski slopes of Taos,
but not the state's truly unique attraction:
the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, is a series
of caverns mined out of underground salt
beds. The Department of Energy has been
burying "transuranic" waste there
for 11 years. The waste includes gloves,
equipment and chemicals contaminated - probably
with plutonium - during the making of nuclear
weapons. It's dangerous stuff but fairly
easily handled. That's what WIPP was built
to take. But the federal government has
a lot of other really hot, high-level waste
to get rid of - especially spent fuel from
reactors.’
+ More
Nuclear News: Nuclear
renaissance a myth
‘The recent past provides
a glimpse of the dangerous nature of confrontations
governments are getting into vis-à-vis
their citizenry, thanks to their obsessive
pursuit of predatory development projects.
Take Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, where the
disaster called Enron was located. The government
is preparing to impose another Enron on
Ratnagiri—this time, a nuclear one, with
potentially far worse consequences. This
is a “nuclear park”, comprising six 1,600
mw reactors to be made by France-based Areva.’
Bulgaria bags additional
decommissioning funds
‘The European Parliament (EP) has approved
a European Commission (EC) proposal to extend
its financial aid for the decommissioning
of four shut-down reactors at Bulgaria's
Kozloduy nuclear power plant until 2013.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Serbia is said to
be considering taking a stake in the proposed
new plant at Belene.’
DOE Backs 2nd Nuclear
Project with Loan Guarantee
‘Looks like the Department of Energy is
making good on its plan to dole out $54.5
billion in loan guarantees to build nuclear
power in the U.S. On Thursday afternoon
the DOE said it has offered a $2 billion
loan guarantee to French nuclear giant AREVA
to help it build its uranium enrichment
facility in Idaho that will provide uranium
services to the nuclear power industry.
Loan guarantees serve essentially as promises
by the government to back a loan if the
company can’t make good on it.’
Obama backs nuclear
energy loan guarantees
‘WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is
poised to ask Congress to agree to $9 billion
more in loan guarantees for the nuclear
energy industry, a Democratic aide said
Thursday, in a renewed push for nuclear
power as the growing oil spill in the Gulf
of Mexico highlights the risks of fossil
fuel production. At the insistence of Democratic
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California,
the request for more spending on nuclear
energy would be coupled with $9 billion
in loan guarantees for renewable energy
such as wind and solar, according to the
aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity.’
VY critics: Report just
‘varnish’
‘BRATTLEBORO -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s
Ground Water Monitoring Inspection Report
is nothing but "varnish," said
a critic of Entergy’s management of its
Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon.
"NRC takes a lot of words to say that
neither they nor Entergy has a clue how
vulnerable any aquifer that may lie below
or next to the VY site may be to pollution
from reactor water leaks," said Ray
Shadis, technical consultant for the New
England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution.
"The report amounts to paraphrasing
and repeating what Entergy told them."’
Russia invests N$8bn
in uranium sector
‘MOSCOW – Russia is ready to invest about
US$1 billion, nearly N$8 billion, to develop
uranium deposits in Namibia, Sergei Kiriyenko,
Chief Executive Officer of Rosatom, said
yesterday following talks between President
Hifikepunye Pohamba and his counterpart
Dmitry Medvedev.’
+ More
Nuclear banks? No thanks!
Today sees the launch
of the www.nuclearbanks.org website, a joint
venture between BankTrack, Greenpeace International,
Urgewald (Germany), Les Amis de la Terre
(France), Antiatom Szene (Austria), WISE
(the Netherlands) and CRBM (Italy).
Banks around the world
love to boast about their investments in
green technologies and renewable energy.
What they don’t like to boast about is their
involvement with the dirty and dangerous
business of nuclear power.
Nuclear power can’t
help in the fight against climate change.
It isn’t safe, it isn’t clean, it isn’t
reliable.
And it isn’t cheap.
There’s one thing nuclear
power needs more of than anything else.
Money. Lots and lots of money. Our money.
Our savings and our deposits.
Who gives the nuclear
industry the billions of dollars and euros
of our money to build new reactors, block
renewable energy, contaminate the environment
and create highly dangerous waste that will
be with the human race for hundred of thousands
of years to come? The banks do.
This is the secret they
don’t want you to know. This is the secret
the www.nuclearbanks.org website will tell
you.
The banks have handed
hundreds of billions of euros to the nuclear
industry since 2000. We have identified
transactions worth 200 billion, and this
is only a part of the whole picture. And
they’re not finished yet. With the industry
planning to build dozens of new reactors,
the banks risk pouring yet more of our billions
into this dirty and dangerous black hole.
Banktrack is a coalition
of citizen organisations whose research
campaign is tracking down those financial
institutions bankrolling the nuclear industry.
The website will tell
you all you need to know about the nuclear
industry’s players, their plans and plots.
It will reveal the nuclear renaissance’s
dirty deals and dodgy deeds. Find out about
the nuclear banks, companies and projects.
Join the campaign and take action.
+ More
Nuclear News: Are Obama's
Energy Plans Jinxed?
‘President Obama's inability
-- or unwillingness -- to take control of
the Gulf Coast oil disaster seems to be
part of a larger pattern. Many environmentalists
say they feel betrayed by a president they
thought would end, or sharply limit, many
environmental horrors of the past. Obama
has promised a comprehensive climate and
clean energy policy that invests in energy
efficiency and renewable power. But the
president himself had acknowledged that
getting 60 votes to pass an energy bill
through the Senate will require significant
concessions on nuclear power, "clean
coal," and offshore oil drilling. Critics
feel its business as usual in Washington.
What's scary is -- if disasters come in
threes -- President Obama is giving the
nuclear industry a new life through loan
guarantees. In his State of the Union speech,
President Obama called for "a new generation
of safe, clean nuclear power plants."
After issuing $8 billion in nuclear energy
loan guarantees in February, the administration
is poised to announce another $9 billion
for the nuclear energy industry. The Energy
Department also just announced a $2 billion
loan guarantee to French-owned Areva Inc.
for construction of a uranium enrichment
plant in Idaho after a ban on such private
facilities since the 1970's.’
EDF to press ahead with
nuclear plans after assurances from Chris
Huhne
‘EDF Energy will announce today that it
has received sufficient reassurances from
the energy and climate change secretary,
Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, to continue
planning for a new generation of nuclear
plants in Britain. There were fears that
the Lib Dems' manifesto commitment to halt
the construction of any more nuclear reactors,
and recent sceptical signals from Huhne,
could derail its £20bn building programme.
But Vincent de Rivaz, the chief executive
of EDF in Britain, will tell a conference
he is convinced that both sides are committed
to the same goal: new reactors without subsidies
and at a viable cost. "What has emerged
very quickly from the coalition government
is clarity over its commitment to deliver
a low carbon future, together with a commitment
that new nuclear will play a part in the
new administration's plans," de Rivaz
will say. "Chris Huhne has already
provided important reassurances that he
will take a pragmatic approach to new nuclear
power as long as it can be built without
subsidy.’
PGE delays selection of nuclear plant partners
‘WARSAW, May 26 (Reuters) - Poland's leading
utility PGE pushed back the selection of
a financial partner and technology supplier
for the country's first nuclear plant, the
head of its nuclear energy arm said on Wednesday.
PGE officials had said the partners would
be known later this year, but Marcin Cieplinski,
who runs PGE Energia Jadrowa, said only
a preliminary list of prefered partners
would be set in 2010. "This year, we
will know with whom we would prefer to cooperate...
but it will most likely be more than one
company," Cieplinski said. "As
long as the legal framework is not set,
I doubt any partner would like to decisively
declare their will to cooperate on this
project." Cieplinski added the deals
with both the supplier and the financial
partner, which will have a 49 percent stake
in the project, would be signed in 2013
at the latest. Poland, which wants to built
its first nuclear plant by 2020, needs to
first adapt its various laws in order to
regulate the nuclear industry and wants
to setup the special regulator to oversee
the industry.’
Brazil poised to attain
uranium autonomy
‘Brazil, the oldest nuclear power in Latin
America, is poised to attain industrial
autonomy in the processing of uranium in
a move pursued by the military to secure
the country's pre-eminent status in military
and political fields. Brazil completed enrichment
on a small non-commercial scale many years
ago but faced U.S. intervention in its long-standing
nuclear program at every step of the way
until the military leaders enlisted Germany
as one of the key suppliers. Although U.S.
pressure on Germany curtailed some of the
technology transfers, Brazil under successive
military and civilian administrations pushed
forward with a nuclear program that began
in the 1930s. (my insert: date can't be
right) A secret weapons development program,
started by the military in the early stages
but shelved from time to time by successive
regimes, remains shrouded in mystery. Brazil
has frequently battled with the International
Atomic Energy in Vienna to resist inspection
of facilities designated as sensitive by
the military. News that autonomy on an industrial
scale was at hand was broken by military
sources quoted in the Brazilian media. The
sources said Brazil will be able to control
the whole industrial cycle of uranium processing
from extraction to conversion to fuel by
the end of 2010.’
Vermont Yankee Nuke
Plant Shuts Down Suddenly
‘MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - The Vermont Yankee
nuclear power plant went into automatic
shut down Wednesday while it was starting
back up after a month of routine maintenance
and refueling. Plant spokesman Larry Smith
said it wasn't known for certain what caused
the shutdown at about 3:35 p.m., but it
may have been triggered by a problem in
an electrical switchyard just outside the
plant. Smith said no radiation was released,
and the reactor will be powered back up
after the problem is identified and corrected.
He said he did not know how long that would
take. "Plant systems responded safely
as designed," Smith said in an e-mail.
"Plant technicians are investigating
the cause of the shutdown." Vermont
Yankee had been off line for a refueling
outage since April 24. Such outages occur
about every 18 months, when the reactor
undergoes routine maintenance and has about
a third of its nuclear fuel replaced. The
plant was going back on line after the federal
Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied a request
from U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes of New Hampshire
to order the plant closed until water and
soil contaminated during a radioactive leak
at the reactor is removed. The plant is
in Vernon in southeast Vermont.’
GDF Suez eyes Italy's
nuclear relaunch
‘LONDON, May 26 (Reuters) - GDF Suez is
keen to take part in the Italian nuclear
power rebirth but only with at least two
other partners, the utility's chief executive
said on Wednesday. Italy's centre-right
government wants 25 percent of Italy's electricity
to come from nuclear power, and France,
the world's second largest producer of atomic
energy, has eyed the potentially lucrative
market closely. 'We are interested in principle,
but we are not in a hurry, to assess the
interest of the nuclear power generation
in Italy,' Gerard Mestrallet said at the
Reuters Global Energy Summit 'The only thing
I can say is that if we decided to do that,
we would go with Italian partners and European
partners. We'll never go alone,' he added.
GDF Suez has a 15 percent nuclear power
share in its global energy mix and aims
to maintain the same share in the next decade
despite the fact that the firm has no nuclear
power assets in the 19,000 megawatts in
power generation capacity it is currently
building. Italy will use Areva's latest
EPR technology, a reactor designed to resist
powerful shocks including plane crashes,
for the first four reactors to be built.'
One Drill Too Far
Blogpost by Juliette - May 17, 2010 at 2:04
PM 2 comments Paul Horsman is a Greenpeace
campaigner, currently in Louisiana to assess
the destruction from the Deepwater Horizon
disaster. Below is an update he sent from
the bayou.
Here in the southern
US the land doesn’t just ‘meet’ the sea
so much as the land and sea ‘shake hands’
with fingers of land and sea curving around
each other creating a coastline of inlets
and bayous hundreds of miles long. It’s
a unique flat land- and water-scape with
willows, reeds, water lilies, and massively
abundant bird and marine life. It’s a warm,
sultry, slow and considered kinda place.
Access is by water which
is the determining element here. Carey (a
local skipper) showed me where he’d been
born and raised right in the middle of the
bayou, as a kid he was picked up by the
school boat; his mother-in-law at 85 years
had been still getting around in her small
aluminium boat with outboard. He took us
out in his home built boat. The water not
only forges the environment and its wildlife,
it moulds the people, determines their work
and lives.
Even in the short couple
of days that I’ve been here the tension
and fear is palpable as the tragedy unfolds
just 50 miles offshore and a mile deep.
It is now 3 weeks since BP’s Deepwater Horizon
drilling rig exploded killing 11 and sinking
rupturing the subsea wells and pipes. The
blowout preventers, which should automatically
kick in to stop oil leaking, failed with
the result that each day thousands of gallons
of oil are haemorrhaging from the ocean
floor. Each day since then, all of us have
been scanning the weather forecasts, listened
to updates, waiting and wondering. Waiting
for the oil to reach the shore, wondering
what the hell is going on out there and
what this will all mean for wildlife, livelihoods
and communities. Long after the journalists
have gone – it is these that will be left
to continue as best they can.
A woman at a public
meeting on Thursday regaled a panel of EPA,
coastguard and BP people asking them what
about the future for her, her children and
grand-children – ‘would you bring your family
here?’ she asked. But by this time, the
BP represented had slipped out of the door;
although he was from New Orleans, he was
clearly having some trouble trying to defend
the indefensible.
So what is going on
out there? Information is fragmented and
often contradictory. Several attempts have
tried and failed to stop the leak. BP has
been injecting thousands of gallons of chemical
dispersants into the oil underwater. These
chemicals are themselves poison and serve
to simply break up the oil so that some
sinks and spreads further but thinner and
less obvious. Hundreds of miles of booms
have been laid in attempts to stop the impending
black tide; huge trucks have created long
berms of sand to try to protect holiday
homes; straw bales and absorbent materials
have been laid along high tide marks; military
trucks and helicopters deploy people and
equipment; captains look out over their
boats now moored in harbour.
With deep sea drilling,
BP is pushing the technology to its limits
– this accident shows that they have pushed
it beyond its limits. So too with the response
to the spill. No one knows how to stop it;
no one knows what the impacts are going
to be of thousands of tonnes of crude oil
spreading from the sea floor, injected with
thousands of gallons of dispersant chemicals.
Oil is toxic, dispersants are toxic and
the combination is certainly going to have
major impacts.
There is not just a
tragic story unfolding here. Last October
I was in Northern Canada where Greenpeace
is campaigning against the tar sands – a
frontier of oil development that is creating
a big black mess. Down here off the coast
is another big black mess as a result of
another oil frontier development. In other
words at each end of North America there
is a huge black mess caused by the oil industry
destroying the environment in their desperate
grab for the remaining oil in the frontiers.
Even with these disasters
the industry with the blessing of government,
want to move into the fragile Arctic. Such
short-sighted folly.
It has to stop. Although
we cannot stop using oil tomorrow we know
we have to move away from using oil and
all fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
This shift begins by stopping the oil industry
from going any further. As the oil continues
to haemorrhage from the ocean floor here
in the Gulf of Mexico a clear message should
be sent to the government and the industry
– Stop oil exploration and shift towards
clean sustainable energy sources which are
the future – the oil industry is the past.
+ More
Watching Obama at the
Whitehouse on Facebook
It was great to see
Obama saying some very strong stuff about
BP, the oil industry, and the future of
energy in America last night. It was great
to see him defer further permits on offshore
oil drilling, not so great to see him fail
to ban drilling in the Arctic altogether.
But what was best was
sitting in a noisy balcony at the Whitehouse
press room with a bunch of pals heckling,
cheering, and throwing popcorn.
At least, that's what
it felt like. I watched via the Whitehouse
App on Facebook, where the live broadcast
is accompanied by a live chat stream. Even
cooler, I found it via a link on whitehouse.gov
itself, which I considered a very clued-up
move by the POTUS's webbies.
Next press conference,
check it out. Invite your friends. Grab
some action links from Greenpeace or other
activist sites and kick them into the chat
flow so people can put action behind their
words. This is the stuff democracy is made
of.
The Monopoly Strikes
Back: In a California Battle Over Clean
Power, IT Companies Must Use Their Force
Blogpost by Jodie - May 25, 2010 at 12:43
AM 1 comment Information Technology companies
know far too well that big monopolies are
not the engine of innovation. If they were,
we’d all be using Windows Vista and Internet
Explorer. But California, notoriously an
incubator of innovative policy models that
spread to other parts of the United States,
is just days away from potentially passing
a law that would squash a green tech powered
clean energy transformation of the electricity
grid, thereby setting a very bad precedent.
The proposed law in
question, Proposition 16, would block communities
from taking back control from the investor-owned
utilities of where and how their electricity
is generated and delivered. Not coincidentally,
Prop 16 is on the ballot courtesy of the
state’s largest investor-owned utility,
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).
Prop 16 is a California
ballot initiative that would amend the state
constitution to preserve PG&E’s (and
other big investor-owned utilities') monopoly
status indefinitely, requiring local governments
to win super-majority approval of two-thirds
of its voters before providing electricity
to residents through a municipally-owned
utility or "community choice"
initiative. If passed, Prop 16 would effectively
kill the ability of local jurisdictions
in California to take charge of where they
get their electricity and how fast a clean
tech revolution can occur locally and beyond.
PG&E’s privately
funded rewriting of the State Constitution
is a pernicious response to California’s
2002 Customer Choice Aggregation (CCA) law,
which was designed to foster greater competition
by permitting cities and counties to create
buying pools of their residents to purchase
cheaper electric power than provided by
the existing utility. However, each time
a community has considered adopting the
CCA model in its community, PG&E has
vigorously opposed it, pouring significant
resources into convincing the public and
decision-makers that such a move would be
too risky to tax payers.
After a prolonged battle
with PG&E, the CCA model is now available
for the first time in California to residents
of Marin County, just north of San Francisco,
who can choose to buy renewable power through
the newly established Marin Clean Energy
Program. But faced with the prospect of
fighting the same battle again and again
as other communities follow suit, the monopolists
at PG&E are attempting one big effort
to slam the barn door shut.
PG&E has poured US$35 million from its
corporate coffers to get Proposition 16
on the ballot and flood the airways with
a deceptive ad campaign to help it pass.
California’s voter initiative system was
not intended to provide corporations an
avenue by which they can hijack state law
with a profit-driven agenda. But that’s
exactly what is happening with Prop 16,
as a single utility devotes millions of
dollars to restricting market competition
to the detriment of the public and other
businesses.
Why IT Companies Should
Oppose PG&E’s Prop 16
The IT sector, a cornerstone
of California’s economy, has been unfortunately
silent on Proposition 16, demonstrating
an apparent lack of concern over a threat
to competition and a loss of tremendous
business opportunities, in addition to the
opportunity to partner with local governments
in a transformational way to speed the deployment
of clean technologies at a scale scientists
say is needed to address climate change.
If only PG&E had made the mistake of
trying to outlaw the iPad.
But Silicon Valley companies
like Google, HP, and Cisco stand to lose
significant business development pathways
if the initiative passes, as the proliferation
of locally managed energy districts would
create new long-term customers for IT innovations
that manage and measure energy. More competition
in the utility market and local control
of power distribution would ultimately drive
renewable energy deployment across a decentralized
grid and, in turn, boost demand for IT energy
solutions, such as the smart grid and building
efficiency management tools.
It’s therefore befuddling
that California IT companies aren’t more
engaged. They have already experienced first-hand
one of the key benefits of having an alternative
to big investor-owned utilities: lower cost.
Many IT companies, looking to site new energy-voracious
data centers in California, have already
identified their favorite utility jurisdiction
— that of Silicon Valley Power, locally
run by the City of Santa Clara. Vacant commercial
buildings in Santa Clara are regularly sized
up by IT companies for their potential to
be converted into data centers because Silicon
Valley Power offers businesses lower prices
on electricity than PG&E. Prop 16 would
make it practically impossible for Silicon
Valley Power to expand its territory.
As was highlighted in
recent analysis by legal experts at UC Berkeley,
there is an environmental benefit to local
control. Municipalities will do more, faster
to incorporate renewable energy into the
power mix, and consumers will be able to
exercise greater control over their electricity
use and purchasing. Locally-managed power
entities can drive faster experimentation
and deployment of a decentralized, dynamic
grid that would deploy energy-saving and
renewable energy solutions. Decisions about
energy issues affecting diverse communities
will reflect a higher degree of consultation
with their businesses and citizens and drive
faster innovation and adaptation to their
energy needs, as opposed to uniform distribution
of fossil fuel based electricity over the
long distances currently operated by private
utilities.
Community aggregation
programs will provide a much needed incubation
space for rapid deployment of IT energy
solutions and a much broader customer base
for IT companies, as local jurisdictions
work to leverage the use of smart meters
and data that measures energy use and efficiency
effectiveness. Google’s PowerMeter and other
programs that provide real-time energy use
information have been shunned by PG&E
and many other utilities for fear of losing
control of the customer relationship. IT
companies would likely find many more interested
partners in locally-run power districts.
IT companies will no longer have to depend
on the adoption of their technologies by
a single, large and slow-moving utility
primarily interested in maintaining its
monopoly.
Defeating Prop 16 sets the stage for much
stronger clean tech partnerships between
IT companies and local governments. As cities
and counties attempt to define and measure
their regional emissions and energy impacts
in order to develop comprehensive Climate
Action Plans, they struggle with a dearth
of data to inform policy development. By
leveraging a fraction of the revenue from
CCAs, local governments can invest in IT
software and other clean tech tools to help
them quantify impacts, collecting and leveraging
data from smart grids, smart meters, and
other technologies that better inform local
codes and policies to drive faster innovation
and energy savings.
Given the clear economic
benefits and market opportunities of maintaining
the existence of locally-controlled power,
why haven’t the IT brands spoken up against
Proposition 16? Is it because they do not
want to get on the wrong side of the biggest
bully in the California energy market? IT
companies, with their significant political
influence and resources must better utilize
the bully pulpit to speak out against this
PG&E power grab.
Two entities that have
been vocal in their endorsement of Prop
16 are the Bay Area Council and the California
Chamber of Commerce. Not surprisingly, PG&E
holds a seat on both the Executive Committee
and Board of the Bay Area Council. But IT
companies, such as Google, HP, and Oracle,
are also members. Which begs the question:
Why are the IT companies allowing two business
associations that represent them advocate
for a law that would take away a major pathway
for the growth of their business? While
it is positive that many IT companies recently
wrote a letter to President Obama demanding
greater consumer access to energy use data
from utilities, back on the ranch in California,
they are conspicuously absent from the debate
as PG&E fills the airwaves with Prop
16 propaganda.
PG&E and other investor-owned
utilities are not interested in a green
revolution. They would prefer a slow transition
to what will inevitably have to be a cleaner
grid, one which allows them to maximize
profits by prolonging the status quo. If
IT companies want to preserve competition
and ensure rapid transformation to a smart
grid fueled by renewable power in the most
innovative and trend-setting markets of
the United States, they had better speak
up quickly and boldly.
Passage of Prop 16 will mean a loss of competition,
stronger monopoly control, and a subservient
role for IT companies in a drawn-out transition
to cleaner technology. Defeat of Prop 16
will be a win for the clean tech sector,
a win for the public, and ultimately a win
in the fight against climate change. Well...
Google, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, HP...
which is it going to be?
