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oday I have had the opportunity to meet with Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia and other distinguished Indian leaders. We had productive discussions about the opportunities for partnerships between our two countries on clean energy technologies. Meeting the climate and clean energy challenge is a top priority for President Obama. In the past ten months, the United States has demonstrated its renewed commitment to these goals both by supporting domestic policies that advance clean energy, climate security, and economic recovery; and by vigorously vigorously re-engaging the international community through bi-lateral relationships, the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, the G20, and the UN negotiations. The U.S. will continue to work hard toward combating climate change and reaching a strong international agreement that puts the world on a pathway to a clean energy future. Working together, we can meet the clean energy and climate challenge in a way that will drive sustainable, low-carbon economic growth in the 21st century.

oday I have had the opportunity to meet with Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia and other distinguished Indian leaders. We had productive discussions about the opportunities for partnerships between our two countries on clean energy technologies. Meeting the climate and clean energy challenge is a top priority for President Obama. In the past ten months, the United States has demonstrated its renewed commitment to these goals both by supporting domestic policies that advance clean energy, climate security, and economic recovery; and by vigorously vigorously re-engaging the international community through bi-lateral relationships, the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, the G20, and the UN negotiations. The U.S. will continue to work hard toward combating climate change and reaching a strong international agreement that puts the world on a pathway to a clean energy future. Working together, we can meet the clean energy and climate challenge in a way that will drive sustainable, low-carbon economic growth in the 21st century.

The federal government used the throne speech to promise it will switch Canadians on to clean energy by balancing the need for power with climate change. To achieve that goal, it pledged to ensure 90% of all Canada's electricity comes from "non-emitting sources" such as hydro, nuclear, clean coal and wind by 2020. "The key is nuclear and also other clean energy sources," Environment Minister Jim Prentice said. "Clean coal is a part of that. We need to see improvements in terms of technology there, but this is a realistic objective." Environmentalists, however, say describing energy sources such as nuclear and coal as clean is misleading.

Chairman and CEO of Progress Energy Jeff Lyash acknowledges that we must address America's power demands as they pertain to economic and environmental issues. His solution is clean coal and more nuclear power. Fossil fuels should be short term bridge to clean, renewable energy sources. But make no mistake, there is no such thing as clean coal and nuclear power is neither clean nor cheap.

Top Obama Administration officials, in Seattle for a Clean Energy Economy forum, touted new "clean" power sources as a wellspring for new American jobs. But there were surprisingly glowing words for nuclear power. "We're laying a foundation for our economic future: We all believe that a cornerstone of that will be a clean energy economy," said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency boss Lisa Jackson. But an administration colleague, Undersecretary of Energy Kristina Johnson, praised nuclear energy - even though a collapsing nuclear construction program once threatened to melt down the Northwest's economy.

Top Obama Administration officials, in Seattle for a Clean Energy Economy forum, touted new "clean" power sources as a wellspring for new American jobs. But there were surprisingly glowing words for nuclear power. "We're laying a foundation for our economic future: We all believe that a cornerstone of that will be a clean energy economy," said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency boss Lisa Jackson. But an administration colleague, Undersecretary of Energy Kristina Johnson, praised nuclear energy - even though a collapsing nuclear construction program once threatened to melt down the Northwest's economy.

"Nuclear workers honored" (Oct. 31) was a nice article about a celebration of former nuclear plant workers who worked and sacrificed themselves to clean up the nuclear waste sites from the Mallinckrodt chemical plant in the St. Louis area. There are still nuclear waste sites today in St. Louis that are being cleaned up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The sites are in the downtown St. Louis area, a north St. Louis County site and several St. Louis County sites. There is one nuclear waste landfill site that is not being cleaned up: The West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton. It is in the flood plain of the Missouri River and near the drinking water intake plants for St. Louis north of Interstate 70 and the city of St. Louis.

"Nuclear workers honored" (Oct. 31) was a nice article about a celebration of former nuclear plant workers who worked and sacrificed themselves to clean up the nuclear waste sites from the Mallinckrodt chemical plant in the St. Louis area. There are still nuclear waste sites today in St. Louis that are being cleaned up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The sites are in the downtown St. Louis area, a north St. Louis County site and several St. Louis County sites. There is one nuclear waste landfill site that is not being cleaned up: The West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton. It is in the flood plain of the Missouri River and near the drinking water intake plants for St. Louis north of Interstate 70 and the city of St. Louis.

Last week House Energy and Commerce members approved by 51-6 an amendment to the Waxman-Markey bill offered by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) to create a clean energy bank . As Greenwire explained, the amendment would "create an autonomous Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) within the Energy Department" that would "provide a suite of financing options, including direct loans, letters of credit, loan guarantees, insurance products and others" for "energy production, transmission, storage and other areas that could reduce greenhouse gases, diversify energy supplies and save energy." CEDA must adopt a "portfolio investment approach" and "ensure no particular technology receives more than 30 percent of the total funding available." John Podesta and Karen Kornbluh explain why we need a clean energy bank in a post first published here. The picture is of a worker makes adjustings before a section of a wind turbine is put into place at Energy Northwest's Nine Canyon Wind Project near Finley, WA, the kind of clean energy project the bank could help accelerate. The United States is falling behind in the space race of our generation-building long-term economic prosperity powered by low-carbon energy. China's stimulus package invests $12.6 million every hour in greening its economy, for a total of $220 billion, twice as much as similar U.S. investments. Meanwhile, during the most recent economic expansion the average American family paid more than $1,100 a year in rising energy bills for U.S. policies that favor fossil fuels.

That's how much time has passed since Lockheed Martin Corp. discovered an underground plume of toxic waste beneath an old beryllium plant it owned in Tallevast. And nearly a year has passed since Lockheed submitted its revised clean-up plan to state environmentalists, claiming it would take more than a half-century to clean up the spill. TIFFANY TOMPKINS-CONDIE/ttompkins@bradenton.com Tallevast Road through the small community greatly affected by the dangerous chemicals released from the old beryllium plant. Buy it: Order this photo now Buy it: Order this photo now Buy it: Order this photo now Buy it: Order this photo now Buy it: Order this photo now Buy it: Order this photo now CLICK FOR MORE PHOTOS * * * * * * * Tallevast * Tallevast Special Section While limited clean-up of the beryllium plant campus is under way, the final clean-up plan still awaits state approval. The Department of Environmental Protection has sent Lockheed back to the drawing boards three times in the past nine months with requests for more information and modification.

Regarding your story "The Half-life of Memory," I had the pleasure of serving on the Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board (RFCAB), and in 2000 we had the chance to tour Building 771 (HCN, 2/16/09). The DOE considered 771 to be the most dangerous building in America. The opportunity to walk through a building that was essentially a nuclear ghost town in and of itself was a fascinating look into a facility that I grew up downwind from for 25 years. It really emphasized the dire need to demolish and clean up Rocky Flats. It's unfortunate that your article didn't mention RFCAB. There were many dedicated people on that board who were more passionate about seeing Rocky Flats cleaned up than it seemed the feds themselves were. RFCAB, I thought, did much in getting the state and federal agencies to see the bigger picture of what Rocky Flats was and would become. I remember the heated discussions about how "clean" clean could be. What I find most unfortunate is that so many people are willing to forget what happened at Rocky Flats and all the ordinary people who made the plant and subsequent cleanup possible.

The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.

The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.

The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.

The Clean Energy bills navigating their way through the Senate and House sound good at first glance. Consider the sales pitch: * Create clean energy jobs. * Achieve energy independence. * Reduce global warming. Who can argue with such lofty goals? Not you, not me - not unless we look at the fine print on Jeff Bingaman's 21st Century Energy Technology Deployment Act (S. 949), and the Markey/Waxman American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454). Here's the dirty little secret.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a provision to its sweeping climate and energy bill that would create an autonomous Clean Energy Deployment Administration within the Energy Department and make reforms to DOE's loan guarantee program for low-emission projects. The time spent debating the amendment was more than hour, suggesting the committee will face a slog through the 946-page measure. The amendment passed 51-6, with ranking member Joe Barton (R-Texas) among a handful of Republicans who opposed it. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), who offered the amendment with Democrats Jay Inslee of Washington and Bart Gordon of Tennessee, said the plan would aid deployment of new nuclear plants as well as renewable technologies. Changes to the loan guarantee program and creation of a "clean energy" bank within DOE are also part of a major energy bill before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, although the plans are not identical. The Clean Energy Deployment Administration would be empowered to provide a suite of financing options, including direct loans, letters of credit, loan guarantees, insurance products and others.

The Department of Energy is not adequately reporting the environmental impact of its billion-dollar program to clean up nuclear waste, according to a government audit. The Government Accountability Office released a report today noting that the DOE's nuclear clean-up program has been labeled as "a high-risk area for fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement" since 1990, which the GOA says is the result of "inadequate management and oversight of its projects." As recently as March of 2009, the report stated, the GOA testified that cost increases at some major nuclear clean up projects were estimated to require an additional $25 to $42 billion to complete. Despite the consistent problems with the projects and ballooning budgets, the DOE did not adequately report its progress or the actual environmental impact of its work, the audit states.

"If You Think Nuclear Power is Safe and Clean (like the President does), think again (like the President should)! President Obama thinks he can jumpstart a new generation of safe and clean nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is neither safe nor clean, nor cheap, nor useful, nor vital, nor good for America. And no "new" nuclear power plant design will make nuclear power any of these things."

" For many years the residents of the Lincoln Park area, most recently Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste and its supporters, have been monitoring the futile efforts of Cotter Corp. to clean up their mess at the Canon City mill. The mill site and parts of the surrounding neighborhoods have been a Superfund site since 1984 with soil, air and groundwater showing uranium and molybdenum contamination. Cotter has been doing "interim" clean-up on their site, but not a complete clean-up to the levels that will be required when they close. That's not good enough! Several months ago, Cotter announced plans to refurbish and start processing again in 2014. The question on everyone's lips is: "How can they build a new plant without cleaning up the old one?" The answer has been: "There is nothing in the law to prevent it.""

A meeting of the Department of Energy's Site Specific Advisory Board for clean up and reuse of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at Piketon brought forth a tug of war. Much like the Huntington downtown Superblock which lay fallow for nearly 30 years, uses for the contaminated site break down to two camps: Clean up the radioactive waste that still kills former workers versus possibly attracting a so-called new nuclear plant that would allegedly be safe. The latter would bring jobs to an area starving for employment. But, many nearby residents do not trust the statements that a 'new' nuclear plant would not continue the odyssey of cover ups since the former facility opened during the Cold War in the 1950s. However, after an elaborate news conference in the summer of 2009, the project dropped off the radar. Activist and former Piketon employee Vina Colley, referred to past contamination as a reason to avoid nuclear power. "All of their drains and laundry [water] where they washed contaminated clothes and [water from] equipment washed off went into the local creeks, which emptied into the Scioto River, then filtered to the Ohio and down to the Mississippi. We're not the only ones affected. The whole world is affected by what these nuclear facilities are producing and releasing into the environment."

A meeting of the Department of Energy's Site Specific Advisory Board for clean up and reuse of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at Piketon brought forth a tug of war. Much like the Huntington downtown Superblock which lay fallow for nearly 30 years, uses for the contaminated site break down to two camps: Clean up the radioactive waste that still kills former workers versus possibly attracting a so-called new nuclear plant that would allegedly be safe. The latter would bring jobs to an area starving for employment. But, many nearby residents do not trust the statements that a 'new' nuclear plant would not continue the odyssey of cover ups since the former facility opened during the Cold War in the 1950s. However, after an elaborate news conference in the summer of 2009, the project dropped off the radar. Activist and former Piketon employee Vina Colley, referred to past contamination as a reason to avoid nuclear power. "All of their drains and laundry [water] where they washed contaminated clothes and [water from] equipment washed off went into the local creeks, which emptied into the Scioto River, then filtered to the Ohio and down to the Mississippi. We're not the only ones affected. The whole world is affected by what these nuclear facilities are producing and releasing into the environment."

A meeting of the Department of Energy's Site Specific Advisory Board for clean up and reuse of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at Piketon brought forth a tug of war. Much like the Huntington downtown Superblock which lay fallow for nearly 30 years, uses for the contaminated site break down to two camps: Clean up the radioactive waste that still kills former workers versus possibly attracting a so-called new nuclear plant that would allegedly be safe. The latter would bring jobs to an area starving for employment. But, many nearby residents do not trust the statements that a 'new' nuclear plant would not continue the odyssey of cover ups since the former facility opened during the Cold War in the 1950s. However, after an elaborate news conference in the summer of 2009, the project dropped off the radar. Activist and former Piketon employee Vina Colley, referred to past contamination as a reason to avoid nuclear power. "All of their drains and laundry [water] where they washed contaminated clothes and [water from] equipment washed off went into the local creeks, which emptied into the Scioto River, then filtered to the Ohio and down to the Mississippi. We're not the only ones affected. The whole world is affected by what these nuclear facilities are producing and releasing into the environment."

'Inadequate cleaning and flushing' of generator closed nuclear plant Broken generator's governor wasn't flushed adequately Southport | The 10-day shutdown of the Brunswick Nuclear Plant in September was due to inadequate cleaning and flushing procedures during maintenance of the governors on the power plant's emergency diesel generators (EDG), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report on its special inspection of the shutdown. "Since the licensee's cleanliness and flushing procedures were not adequate … the inspectors concluded that foreign material was likely introduced into the (emergency diesel generator) governor during licensee maintenance activities in April 2009," the NRC report said.

'Inadequate cleaning and flushing' of generator closed nuclear plant Broken generator's governor wasn't flushed adequately Southport | The 10-day shutdown of the Brunswick Nuclear Plant in September was due to inadequate cleaning and flushing procedures during maintenance of the governors on the power plant's emergency diesel generators (EDG), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report on its special inspection of the shutdown. "Since the licensee's cleanliness and flushing procedures were not adequate … the inspectors concluded that foreign material was likely introduced into the (emergency diesel generator) governor during licensee maintenance activities in April 2009," the NRC report said.

An advertising watchdog has told the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan to come up with another slogan for its nuclear energy ads because the term "clean" is misleading, sources familiar with the matter said. In a nonbinding adjudication delivered Nov. 25, the Japan Advertising Review Organization Inc. said that a power federation ad published in a magazine in April 2008 inappropriately stated that "Nuclear power generation is a clean way to generate electricity," the sources said. JARO discussed the matter through a panel of seven experts after a man in Kanagawa Prefecture complained that nuclear power generation should not be described as clean because of the risk of radioactive pollution resulting from accidents.

The Florida Senate's Committee on Communications, Energy and Public Utilities late Tuesday passed a bill with a "clean energy portfolio standard" that establishes a 20%-by-2021 goal for power from generation that does not produce greenhouse gases, and permits up to one quarter of the goal to be met by either nuclear plants or integrated gasification/combined-cycle plants with carbon capture and sequestration. The bill, SB 1154, which was introduced by Senator Jim King, the Republican committee chairman from Jacksonville, sets a 7% "CEPS" goal for 2013, rising to 12% in 2016, 18% in 2019 and 20% in 2021. The bill permits the Florida Public Service Commission to "excuse" a utility from compliace with the CEPS if the supply of clean energy or clean energy credits is not adequate, or if compliance would raise customer rates by more than 2%.

Mayor Julian Castro City of San Antonio,Steve Bartley Interim General Manager, CPS Energy,Craig Severance, CPA Author, Business Risks & Costs of New Nuclear Power,Dr. Patrick Moore Co-Chair, Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, Dr. Arjun Makhijani President, Institute for Energy & Environmental Research At the San Antonio Clean Tech Forum noted pundits square off and discuss the San Antonio's involvement in the proposed expansion of the South Texas Nuclear project.

Mayor Julian Castro City of San Antonio,Steve Bartley Interim General Manager, CPS Energy,Craig Severance, CPA Author, Business Risks & Costs of New Nuclear Power,Dr. Patrick Moore Co-Chair, Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, Dr. Arjun Makhijani President, Institute for Energy & Environmental Research At the San Antonio Clean Tech Forum noted pundits square off and discuss the San Antonio's involvement in the proposed expansion of the South Texas Nuclear project.

A group created to protest American Ecology's plan to bring extremely low-level nuclear waste to its Owyhee County burial facility has closed up shop after the company filed a defamation lawsuit. Rexburg-based Citizens for a Clean Idaho has taken its Web site down and failed to respond to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff report that discounted its claims about Westinghouse Electric's request for a federal exemption to ship 50,000 tons of soil and debris contaminated with extremely low levels of radioactive material to American Ecology's state-regulated facility. The Idaho company filed a lawsuit in 4th District Court last week claiming the group and its founder Stephen Loosli - with the support of American Ecology's Utah competitor EnergySolutions - made false and misleading statements about American Ecology. Loosli said the lawsuit was filed to quiet a critic and that the assertions that Citizens for a Clean Idaho is a front group for EnergySolutions are unfounded.

A group created to protest American Ecology's plan to bring extremely low-level nuclear waste to its Owyhee County burial facility has closed up shop after the company filed a defamation lawsuit. Rexburg-based Citizens for a Clean Idaho has taken its Web site down and failed to respond to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff report that discounted its claims about Westinghouse Electric's request for a federal exemption to ship 50,000 tons of soil and debris contaminated with extremely low levels of radioactive material to American Ecology's state-regulated facility. The Idaho company filed a lawsuit in 4th District Court last week claiming the group and its founder Stephen Loosli - with the support of American Ecology's Utah competitor EnergySolutions - made false and misleading statements about American Ecology. Loosli said the lawsuit was filed to quiet a critic and that the assertions that Citizens for a Clean Idaho is a front group for EnergySolutions are unfounded.