Harvey Wasserman - Will You Pay as New Reactors Jump $900 Million in Just Three Months?

Listen to Harvey's show "Green Power and Wellness Hour" weekly at 2pm (Eastern Time) on Tuesday's

The projected price for Georgia's Vogtle Double Reactor Project has jumped at least $900 millionin just three months -- and that's just for starters.

Will you pay for it? The future of new atomic power in the U.S. 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 U.S. reactor project now under construction, is meeting fierce ratepayer 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?

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harvey-wasserman/new-reactor-prices_b_1516820.html

Harvey Wasserman - The Nuclear Industry Has Melted in Japan and France

Listen to Harvey show, "Green Power and The Wellness Hour" weekly at 2pm on Tuesday's.

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.

( http://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.

Read More:

http://nukefree.org/editorsblog/nuclear-power-industry-has-melted-japan-and-france

Harvey Wasserman - Obama's Atomic Solyndra?

Listen to Harvey show (Green Power and Wellness Hour) on Tuesday's at 2pm (Eastern Time) on PRN.fm

The future of nuclear power now hangs on a single decision by President Obama -- and us.

His Office of Management and Budget could cave to the unsustainable demands of reactor builders who cannot handle the standard terms of a loan agreement.  

Or he could defend basic financial procedures and stand up for the future of the American economy.

You can help make this decision, which will come soon.

It's about a proposed $8.33 billion nuke power loan guarantee package for two reactors being built at Georgia's Vogtle. Obama anointed it last year for the Southern Company, parent to Georgia Power. Two other reactors sporadically operate there. Southern just ravaged the new construction side of the site, stripping virtually all vegetation.

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harvey-wasserman/obamas-atomic-solyndra_b_1433308.html?ref=green

George Monbiot - The double standards of green anti-nuclear opponents

The accusations have been so lurid that I had to read my article again to reassure myself that I hadn't written the things that so many of my correspondents say I wrote. So, before I begin the counter-attack, here's what I didn't say about nuclear power.

I did not claim that there is no alternative to atomic energy, or any such thing. Nor did I suggest that nuclear should replace renewables, or produce any higher proportion of our electricity than it does already. But I did point out that most of the countries that might abandon nuclear power are likely to replace it not with renewables but with fossil fuel, and that this is a major change for the worse. Environmentalist Mark Lynas has shown how phasing out planned nuclear programmes in a number of countries as a result of the Fukushima disaster could add another degree to global warming. Author and blogger Chris Goodall estimatesthat if the planned construction of new nuclear power stations in the UK stalls in response to the crisis, the result will be an increase of 9m tonnes of carbon dioxide for every year we delay.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/mar/31/double-standards-nuclear

Tamil Nadu - Cop thrashes anti-nuclear activist

Madurai: A police constable allegedly beat up an anti-nuclear activist at a village near Kudankulam for requesting shopkeepers to down shutters in support of their movement against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project.

Pushparayan, convenor of the People's Movement against Nuclear Energy, spearheading the stir against KNPP, said the activist had severe chest and hand injuries but that his family was scared of filing a complaint, fearing harassment.

In a statement in Madurai on Wednesday he alleged that police at Kudankulam are filing FIRs against every shopkeeper who did not keep their shops open.

Read More:

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/tamil-nadu-cop-thrashes-antinuclear-activist/245811-3.html

Tom Pettifor - Murder mystery: New twist in anti-nuclear campaigner's death as brain is lost

THE mysterious death of anti-nuclear campaigner Hilda Murrell has taken an extraordinary turn – her brain has gone missing.

The Forensic Science Service admitted in an email it has also lost her liver after sending the organs for toxicology tests.

Her nephew Robert Green said last night: “At first I didn’t believe what they were telling me. This is another suspicious aspect to this saga.”

The 78-year-old was found dead in 1984, just days before she was due to give evidence to the public inquiry into the proposed Sizewell B nuclear reactor in East Anglia.

Her death sparked rumours of MI5 action and Tam Dalyell MP told Parliament “men of British intelligence” were involved.

Read More:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hilda-murrell-mysterious-death-of-anti-nuclear-765586

Jason Strother - Anti-Nuclear Activists Say Summit Ignores True Nuclear Security

 President Barack Obama says the United States is committed to developing new technologies to produce peaceful nuclear energy. He made these remarks on Monday at the start of a nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea. But one year after the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex, concerns about the safety of nuclear power linger on. Some activists, though, say there is no form of safe nuclear power.

Speaking at a South Korean university, Obama said the peaceful uses of nuclear energy bring many benefits. He pointed to advances in medicine and science, and said nuclear power is a comparatively clean and affordable means of energy production.

His views are shared by other leaders attending this week’s global Nuclear Security Summit, including South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. South Korea is emerging as a nuclear power exporter and is building reactors in the United Arab Emirates.

Read More:

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/anti-nuclear-activists-say-summit-ignores-true-nuclear-security/123

Thousands stage Japan anti-nuclear protest

Tens of thousands of people have rallied near Japan's crippled Fukushima plant demanding an end to nuclear power as the nation marked the first anniversary of a disastrous earthquake and tsunami.

Memorial ceremonies and anti-nuclear demonstrations were held across the northeast region where an estimated 160,000 people were forced to evacuate after the monster waves triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Around 16,000 people gathered at a baseball stadium in Koriyama some 60 kilometres away from the plant.

Participants called for an end to nuclear energy in Japan and compensation for victims from operator Tokyo Electric Power, a year after the March 11 quake-tsunami sparked the world's worst atomic disaster in a generation.

Read More:

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1633417/thousands-stage-japan-anti-nuclear-protest

Will Nichols - Green thinkers hit back at anti-nuclear letter

Five leading figures in the green movement have warned David Cameron that he risks undermining both the energy security of the UK and its ability to cut greenhouse gas emissions if he follows the advice of former Friends of the Earth directors and phases out nuclear power in the UK.

Guardian columnist George Monbiot and author Mark Lynas are among the signatories of an open letter that takes issue with a letter sent to Cameron by Jonathon Porritt, Charles Secrett, Tom Burke and Tony Juniper earlier this week.

In that letter, the prime minister was told the UK is effectively subsidising French companies EDF and Areva, which are contracted to build several of the eight planned new reactors.

Read More:

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2159851/green-thinkers-hit-anti-nuclear-letter

Richard Black - Global fallout: Did Fukushima scupper nuclear power?

In the tense days nearly a year ago when smoke rose around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power station as if from a battlefield, when hydrogen explosions tore the reactor buildings apart and workers fought for their lives and Japan's future, it seemed as though we might be watching the death throes of the nuclear dream.

In the wake of what is officially classified as one of the two worst nuclear accidents in history, ranking at Category Seven on the International Event Scale (INES), the "electricity too cheap to meter" vision of the 1950s appeared to be turning into a technology too costly to contemplate in terms of the human and financial balance-sheets.

Read More:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17287740