Open Intelligence / Energy

CWIP, or Construction Work in Progress, is a law, fortunately existent only in a handful of U.S. states, that allows a utility to charge ratepayers higher rates to cover future costs of a yet-to-be-constructed reactor, even if that reactor is never built.

New reactor construction is so expensive and unpredictable that no U.S. utility is willing to take the risk without the backing of federal loan guarantees, potentially in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Beyond Nuclear and others fight to prevent the mature nuclear industry from seizing any such subsidies which are better spent on true climate solutions such as renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.

Exelon Corp. announced Monday it has reached agreement on a $1 billion, 10-year project to dismantle the shuttered Zion nuclear power plant. Used nuclear fuel will remain on site indefinitely under the plan. NewsSunOnline.

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps toured Japan from August 2nd to 12th, visiting Tokyo, Fukushima, Fukui, Kansai and Kyushu. A highlight included meeting with officials from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Nippon Export and Investment Insurance agency, where a letter signed by 75 U.S. national and grassroots groups was delivered, urging no Japanese financing for risky new reactors in the U.S. A backgrounder spelled out these risks in detail. Most proposed new U.S. atomic reactors have designs owned by Japanese companies -- either Toshiba (Westinghouse), Hitachi (General Electric), or Mitsubishi. At South Texas Project, Toshiba and Tokyo Electric Power Company are even partners in the venture. In addition, Japan Steel Works would be the primary supplier of large nuclear components, such as reactor pressure vessels and steam generators. The Japanese news media were alerted to the letter and meeting, and the Japanese Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry received copies of the letter.

A new study by Dr. Mark Cooper of Vermont Law School, released today, warns "it is highly unlikely that the problems of the nuclear industry will be solved by an infusion of federal loan guarantees and other subsidies to get the first plants in a new building cycle completed. U.S. policymakers should resist efforts to force the government into making large loans on terms that put taxpayers at risk in order to ‘save' a project or an industry that may not be salvageable." The press release contains a link to the executive summary and the full report. Steven Thomas of Greenwich University in London, expert on Electricite de France and Areva economic woes, joined Dr. Cooper for the press conference, a full audio recording of which can be found at www.nuclearbailout.org after 6 p.m. today.

NIRS, Public Citizen, South Carolina Sierra Club, and former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford have warned in a press release that the same forces -- skyrocketing new reactor construction costs, decreased demand for electricity, competition from renewables and efficiency, low natural gas prices, etc. -- which just undermined the Calvert Cliffs 3 new reactor proposal in Maryland are also battering away at the new reactor proposals in Texas (South Texas Project Units 3 and 4) and South Carolina (V.C. Summer Units 2 and 3). Calvert Cliffs, South Texas Project, and Summer were the top three federal nuclear loan guarantee finalists after Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia, which the Obama administration awarded a conditional $8.3 billion taxpayer-backed loan guarantee last February. The audio recording of the full press conference is also posted online.

Despite the fact that its proposed new reactor projects are beset by ongoing major safety risks, schedule delays, cost overruns, and other economic and radiological pitfalls, the nuclear power industry continues to seek massive taxpayer bailouts, not only in the U.S. but even overseas. The environmental movement has responded by urging the Japanese government not to risk its own taxpayers’ funds on the risky South Texas Project twin reactor expansion. A coalition of more than 170 organizations, including Beyond Nuclear, recently sent a letter to the Japanese prime minister, and issued an accompanying media release. (Last August, Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps, along with Japanese allies from Green Action, Citizens Nuclear Information Center, Friends of the Earth, and other groups met with the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and the federal Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) to deliver just such a message.) The nuclear industry's attempted money grab in the U.S. has now shifted -- yet again -- to the U.S. Senate, which is considering funding measures for the current and next fiscal year. Right now is a critical time to stave off this latest attempt to risk additional billions of taxpayer dollars on proposed new atomic boondoggles. Call your two U.S. Senators via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            (202) 224-3121      end_of_the_skype_highlighting, or look up their fax numbers and websites for writing in via their webforms, or to find their in-state offices nearest you. Urge them to not only reject additional nuclear power loan guarantees, but also to roll back the entire nuclear loan guarantee program, as 57% of Americans polled by the Wall Street Journal/NBC have indicated ("When it comes to reducing spending, the most popular targets were subsidies to build nuclear power plants...")! After more than half a century of heavy subsidization by American taxpayers and ratepayers, it's high time for the nuclear power industry to stand on its own two feet in the marketplace, or go away for good!

From Bloomberg: Moody’s Japan K.K. cut its rating on Tokyo Electric and warned it may reduce it further, saying the problems at Fukushima “appear far from being resolved” and the company is likely to remain unprofitable for a long time. Senior secured and long-term issuer ratings were downgraded to Baa1 from A1, Moody’s said in a statement. "Tokyo Electric’s shareholders may be wiped out by clean-up costs and liabilities stemming from the nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl. The company, known as Tepco, faces claims of as much as 11 trillion yen if the crisis lasts two years and potential takeover by the government, according to a March 29 Bank of America Merrill Lynch report."

Friends of the Earth has just reported a major victory against new reactors: "Despite intense industry lobbying and contributions, Iowa Senate adjourns without passing ill-advised ‘cost recovery’ bill"! Congratulations to all the groups who fought so hard to win this important victory! Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear met one of them, Mike Carberry, director of Green State Solutions, who visited the Beyond Nuclear information table and attended Kevin's "Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer!" workshop at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in Wisconsin this past Summer Solstice. Mike ordered a whole box of Beyond Nuclear's beautiful wind power and solar power postcards, in order to be non-violently "armed" if and when this battle has to be re-fought next session in the Iowa state legislature. You too can order our postcards. Use them to urge your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers to write their elected officials, to demand a renewables renaissance, and an abolition of dirty, dangerous, and expensive nuclear power.

NHK World of Japan reports that officials of Ibaraki Prefecture, south of the catastrophically leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, have begun radiation monitoring on 17 beaches. They hope to quell the fears of swimmers, surfers, and other visitors ahead of the vital summer tourist season. It has long been known that "radioactive stigma effect" -- not only after catastrophes, but even after smaller accidents or even during "routine" nuclear activities -- can harm other economic sectors, especially ones like agriculture and tourism, over entire regions. Clean, safe, and ever more reliable and cost effective wind turbines, on the other hand, have been shown to attract tourists!

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) “Near-Term Task Force Review of Insights from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Accident” publicly released its 92-page well intentioned near-term review on the implications of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster for US reactors on July 13, 2011.  The federal agency proposes to improve its “patchwork of regulatory requirements” developed “piece by piece over the decades.” Beyond Nuclear remains concerned that many critical reactor safety areas are still dominated by industry “voluntary initiatives” where non-compliance continues to elude federal enforcement and  Capitol Hill pro-nuclear champions announced their resistance to any costly safety improvements

Of most concern, the NRC is still ignoring warnings as did its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission,  in 1972 from their senior safety officer, Dr. Steven Hanuaer to “discourage all further use” in the US of the Fukushima-style General Electric Mark I boiling water reactor. The federal regulators instead issued three more construction permits and eventually 16 more operating licenses in the 1970s for this same dangerous design. There are now 23 Fukushima-style reactors operating in the United States as part of a total of 32 Mark I’s worldwide---counting the smoldering radioactive rubble at Fukushima.   The NRC task force report does not fundamentally address the most critical issue coming out of the Fukushima catastrophe, namely, the design vulnerability of all Mark I containment structures to catastrophic failure during a severe accident

The NRC report further ignores that these same Mark I reactors, like Vermont Yankee and Oyster Creek, are not currently in compliance with their operating licenses that were originally required to have a reliable "leak tight" containment structure. If the NRC were looking for the most significant and meaningful safety upgrade to the US reactors directly impacted by the Fukushima disaster they would require that all Mark I reactor operators restore containment integrity to the original licensed leak tight condition. Or order that they be shut them down, permanently.  All of the Mark I reactors voluntarily installed retrofits to vent all a substandard and undersized containment to save it from rupturing during a severe accident. The same experimental vent was installed at Fukushima in 1991. The same experimental fix failed on three containments buildings to prevent the uncontrolled releases of radioactivity to the air and water that are still occurring now four months after the accident.

"They scoop up soil from their gardens and dump it in holes dug out in parks and nearby forests, scrub their roofs with soap and refuse to let their children play outside. "More than three months after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown at a nearby power plant, Fukushima residents are scrambling to cope with contamination on their own in the absence of a long-term plan from the government. " 'Everything and everyone here is paralysed and we feel left on our own, unsure whether it's actually safe for us to stay in the city,' said Akiko Itoh, 42, with her four-year old son in her lap." Reuters

French ecology minister, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, has announced plans for France to step up its investments in renewable energy, throwing into doubt future nuclear power expansion in the country. France gets 80% of its electricity from its 58 reactors. "Our objective is to rebalance the energy mix in favour of renewables,” Kosciusko-Morizet told the Financial Times.  Regarding the future of nuclear, she told the FT: "We are investing in [nuclear] safety, not in growth objectives as we are doing in renewables." France is launching a bid for five new offshore wind farms

Reports the Washington Post: Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in a television address to the country Wednesday that Japan should decrease and eventually eliminate its reliance on nuclear energy. “We will aim to bring about a society that can exist without nuclear power,” he said. “Through my experience of the March 11 accident, I came to realize the risk of nuclear energy is too high,” Kan said. “It involves technology that cannot be controlled according to our conventional concept of safety.” At present, 35 of the country’s 54 reactors are offline, either damaged, halted by the earthquake and resulting tsunami, or down for routine repairs. As reactors come off line for maintenance  - and if they do not subsequently restart, Japan could be without nuclear energy entirely by April 2012.

As the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex continued to unfold, the nuclear gang—principals of the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear members of the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration—held a two-day “summit” in Washington, D.C. last week on pushing for new nuclear plant construction.

The conclusion about the impacts of Fukushima on their drive for a “renaissance” of nuclear power: it will be only a “speed bump,” as participants put it at the Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy.

“The momentum of the renaissance has hit a speed bump,” Ganpat Mani, president and CEO of ConverDyn which produces uranium hexafluoride which is used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants. ConverDyn is a partnership between Honeywell and General Atomics.

In We Almost Lost Detroit, Hocevar described the blind faith of scientists in atomic energy and their wrong assumptions

he wrote in his foreword to the book We Almost Lost Detroit.

Nuclear power requires “perfection” and “no acts of God,” we were warned years ago. This has been brought home by the ongoing disaster caused by the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Fukushimi Daiichi nuclear plant complex, the flooding along the Missouri River in Nebraska now threatening two nuclear plants, and the wildfire laying siege to Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of atomic energy

CNN Money has quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, defending Western Shoshone Indian Nation treaty rights against the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump proposal: "...Yucca was originally Shoshone land, taken by the federal government in 1951 for weapons testing, said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear. And Nevada was chosen not because it was a good site, but because it had the fewest representatives in Washington of any state under consideration, critics say. "The most common name for that legislation was the 'Screw Nevada Bill,' " said Kamps. "It never should have been targeted to begin with."..."

The U.S. government signed the "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley with the Western Shoshone Indian Nation in 1863; it recognized Western Shoshone sovereignty at Yucca Mountain, throughout most of what is now the State of Nevada, as well as portions of California and Idaho.

The "Screw Nevada Bill," enacted into law in 1987, singled out Yucca Mountain as the only targeted site in the country to undergo further study as a potential high-level radioactive waste repository. The States of Washington and Texas, also on the target list, joined forces, and in coalition with eastern states also on the dumpsite target list, ganged up on Nevada. Texas and Washington had 32 and 12 Representatives in the U.S. House, respectively, whereas Nevada had but one. Texas and Washington also split between them the powerful positions of Speaker of the House and House Majority Leader at that time. Even Nevada's U.S. Senate delegation consisted of two low ranking first-term Senators. But one of those rookies was Harry Reid, who has since devoted his political career to stopping the Yucca dump, and now serves as Senate Majority Leader.

In another propaganda show meant to convince the public there is no threat from radiation in Japan, local schools forced children to clean radioactive dirt from the bottom of the schools swimming pools. One PTA member who didn’t trust the assertions from the school and the government kept a sample of the dirt collected from the pool and decided to have it tested for radiation

According to a the Mainichi Daily News (Japanese), that sample was found to contain 17,020 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium. Here is an English translation of the Mainichi Shinbun article as posted on Yahoo News, 7/5/2011, provided, by EX-SKF

East earthquake: Community School of cesium from the mud pool Joso, Ibaraki / 2 times the allowable standard landfill It was disclosed that 17,020 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium was detected from the dirt that were scooped out from the swimming pool when the teachers and pupils of one public elementary schools in Joso City did the cleaning of the pool in May. The amount is more than twice the safety limit set by the Ministry of the Environment for the radioactive debris that could be buried. The school moved the dirt in a separate area. Upon this news, the city’s Board of Education surveyed the situation of the pool dirt in city’s elementary schools and junior high schools on July 4, and found out there were 4 other elementary schools who had kept the dirt on the school premises.

Urging the public to recognize the massive government cover-up of Japan's Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, including the seriously damaged Reactor #3 with deadly plutonium mix fuel, two nuclear whistleblower organizations, Beyond Nuclear and Friends of the Earth, warned this week that the human toll from Japan's Fukushima nuclear event could be comparable to or potentially greater than that of Chernobyl. Independent nuclear specialists are warning that long-term risk of radiation due to internal exposure will be worse due to lies and cover-up of the catastrophe presently used to protect the nuclear energy industry.

Urging the public to recognize the massive government cover-up of Japan's Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, including the seriously damaged Reactor #3 with deadly   plutonium mix fuel , two nuclear whistleblower organizations,   Beyond Nuclear and Friends of the Earth , warned this week that the human toll from Japan's Fukushima nuclear event could be comparable to or potentially greater than that of Chernobyl. Independent nuclear specialists are warning that long-term risk of radiation due to internal exposure   will be worse due to lies and cover-up of the catastrophe presently used to protect the nuclear energy industry. Among nuclear truth advocates presenting information Friday about the health impact of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe was  Cindy Folkers, a radiation and health specialist at Beyond Nuclear, Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, and Dr. Alexey Yablokov, co-author of "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences

At the same press conference was Dr. Yablokov, who has been holding a daily vigil in front of the World Health Organization headquarters due to its alleged false reporting of Chernobyl.

In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater, the United States government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States, a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive

UPDATE: July 13, 2011, 11:11pm: The peaches reported on July 12 were bought at "a local market," not Santa Monica Market, according to Environews on Wednesday. An investigation about the source of the peaches is underway.   Right to health denied when United States government hides high levels of Fukushima radiation  In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater , the United States   government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States , a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum   began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area   to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive . "Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded, when in fact, the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards," said Gerry Pollet from a non-government organization watchdog, Heart of America Northwest.

UPDATE: July 13, 2011, 11:11pm: The peaches reported on July 12 were bought at "a local market," not Santa Monica Market, according to Environews on Wednesday. An investigation about the source of the peaches is underway.   Right to health denied when United States government hides high levels of Fukushima radiation   In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater , the United States   government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States , a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum   began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area   to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive . "Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded, when in fact, the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards," said Gerry Pollet from a non-government organization watchdog, Heart of America Northwest. A call from the University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum for public radiation readings in Los Angeles came after a finding on Friday, July 8th, 2011 was reported that two peaches from the popular Santa Monica local market were confirmed to have sustained radiation levels of 81 CPMs, or greater