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Friday News Roundup

By Eric McErlain
Some items that I wanted to point all of you to before the weekend that we should have covered earlier in the week:

NRC Tritium Task Force Report Finds No Health Impact From Inadvertent Releases

Yankee Companies Score Legal Victory Under Nuclear Waste Policy Act

Greenpeace Co-Founder Urges Iowans to Join National Coalition Supporting Increased Use of Nuclear Energy

PG&E Seeks Supreme Court Review of Case on Environmental Impact of Potential Terrorist Attacks

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Comments

Anonymous said…
Howdy folks,

The same day that the Patrick "More Nukes" Moore tour hit the road hosted at Iowa's Duane Arnold nuclear power station, a growing national coalition of 145 environmental groups and businesses released their "Sustainable Energy Blueprint" for achieving no-nuclear, low-carbon, energy-efficient renewable energy independence.

The Sustainable Energy Network is a network of 300+ organizations, businesses, and individual advocates promoting the aggressive deployment of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies as a strategy for phasing-out nuclear power, eliminating energy imports, and making deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

See:
http://www.nirs.org/press/10-05-2006/1

Moore's industry handlers choice of Duane Arnold for trotting out the More Nukes roadshow oddly picked one of 23 remaining GE BWR Mark I's which rightfully top the list for prompt closure due to their dangerously inadequate containments and vulnerable elevated high-level radioactive waste storage pools which perch thousands of tons of irradiated nuclear fuel high up in the reactor buildings outside containment.

Moreover, the More Nukes argument that the only way to bring down global carbon emissions is by increasing nuclear power capacity is only getting more and more specious because:

1) as history shows, the excessively expensive economics of more nuclear power would leave scant resources for renewable solar and wind deployment as well as gamble with lengthy time-to-completions for new reactor construction that is likely to squander what precious time is left to take effective aggressive action through renewables and efficiency, and:

2) more of us are cognizant that the real "mix" that Moore is laying track for along with increased nuke capacity is more coal fired plants as epitomized by NEI's Chairman of the Board Anthony Earley, Jr. whose DTE Energy in addition to operating the single unit Fermi 2 nuclear power station is also one of today's rapid climate change culprits boasting to be "a specialist" in marketing, managing and transporting the nation's carbon emitting coal supply to electric utilities, and claiming to move nearly 40 million tons of coal across the country, in addition to the 21 million tons used by Detroit Edison. Duh...

Moore is just a one more willing pawn in a alliance of deception by the coal and nuclear industry that has no more interest in abating rapid climate change than the coal, oil and nuclear industries' wholly-owned Bush-Cheney Administration.

Part of the aggressive promotion of a renewables and efficiency energy policy is to expose this hypocriful "CON job" by the coal, oil, and nuclear industries as perpetrated by a national energy policy that is increasingly destructive to global human health, safety, security as well as the environment and climate.

Gunter, NIRS
October 9, 2006 at 12:45 PM
Anonymous said…
One other point to this conglomeration:

Here's how the St. Louis Post Dispatch headlined the NRC's tritium task force report:

"Tritium leaks can go unseen, task force says"

The article led with the sentence
"Leaking radioactive tritium from the nation's nuclear power plants can reach the environment undetected through equipment that isn't subject to regular inspection and maintenance, a federal task force has concluded."

We share the paper's sense of priorities and concerns.

Gunter, NIRS
October 9, 2006 at 5:18 PM
Brian Mays said…
Earlier, gunter said...

"The same day that the Patrick 'More Nukes' Moore tour hit the road hosted at Iowa's Duane Arnold nuclear power station, a growing national coalition of 145 environmental groups and businesses released their 'Sustainable Energy Blueprint' for achieving no-nuclear, low-carbon, energy-efficient renewable energy independence."

Hmm ... so a "coalition" of professional activist groups and little niche startup companies looking for government handouts have published a plan with ridiculous claims and absurd demands and based on nonsensical assumptions, which will never be followed by anybody because it's so divorced from reality.

[yawn] ... Who cares?

If I ever saw a plan that -- realistically, if anyone ever attempted to put it into practice -- would lead to even more fossil-fuel burning (particularly from coal plants and imported natural gas), it's this one.
October 14, 2006 at 6:14 AM
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