THE NUCLEAR NESTS
George W. Bush has embarked on perhaps the most radical course of any president in US history. Without consulting or even informing Congress, Mr. Bush this week terminated the landmark 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty that has been the cornerstone of global nuclear arms control for three decades.
– Marc Ash, December 16, 2001
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
~ o ~
April 4, 2008
Good to Glow
Despite its own scientists' objections, state regulators are greenlighting a massive nuclear waste dump in West Texas.
By Forrest Wilder, Texas Observer
In February, hundreds of government regulators and businesspeople gathered in Phoenix for “Waste Management ’08,” the annual radioactive waste industry confab. Amid the swag and schmoozing, industry insiders appraised the state of their business. The good news: The nuclear industry appears to be rebounding in the United States, providing potentially huge new radioactive waste streams as planned reactors come online. The bad news: The number of landfills for burying low-level radioactive waste is dwindling.
One of the oldest sites, in Barnwell, South Carolina, will close to all but a handful of states on July 1. That will leave 36 states, including Texas, with no place to send the radioactive waste generated by their nuclear power plants, universities, hospitals, and companies.
Since 1980, when the federal government delegated to the states the task of dealing with low-level radioactive waste, not a single new landfill has opened. Ten attempts have been made by states to develop one. The congressional Government Accountability Office estimates that the failed efforts in developing sites cost a combined $1 billion.
The industry largely blames public opposition. “We just didn’t get kicked out of South Carolina,” said Steve Creamer, CEO of Utah-based EnergySolutions Inc., the company that runs Barnwell. “We got brutalized and kicked out of South Carolina.”
Creamer estimated that the United States’ 104 commercial nuclear reactors would generate 117 million cubic feet of waste over their collective lifetimes. Federal nuclear facilities under decommissioning orders will produce millions more. Where will it all go?
A subsidiary of Dallas-based conglomerate Valhi Inc., Waste Control Specialists LLC was in Phoenix to make the case that it was on the verge of doing what no other company has been able to do—license and build a massive radioactive waste landfill.
“Considering our political support, considering our local support, if a new facility cannot be licensed in Texas, it probably can’t be licensed anywhere,” said Bill Dornsife, a Waste Control vice president.
By early 2010, Waste Control officials told the conference-goers, the company hopes to begin disposing federal and state radioactive waste at two adjacent Texas landfills in Andrews County. All the company lacks are two final licenses from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. One, known informally as the “byproduct license,” would authorize the disposal of 3,776 canisters of radioactive waste from a closed, Cold War-era processing plant in Fernald, Ohio, as well as mill tailings from the Texas uranium mining industry. TCEQ has issued a draft license for the byproduct dump.
The second license would allow the company to bury low-level radioactive waste from federal and state sources, including nuclear reactors, weapons programs, and hospitals. With both licenses, Waste Control could bury more than 60 million cubic feet of waste over the span of 30 years, more than half the volume of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium.
If Waste Control can repel legal challenges by environmental organizations and secure final approval from TCEQ for the second license, its remote site in Andrews County would become the repository for commercial nuclear waste from Texas, and also Vermont as part of a “compact” between the two states. A loophole in state law, however, allows the state compact commission, an oversight board appointed by Gov. Rick Perry, to contract with other states and compacts for waste disposal. “For political reasons, we don’t want anyone to come knocking on the door until we get this up and operating, but I think there are some capabilities there,” Dornsife told his Phoenix audience.
Federal radioactive waste, mostly the leftovers from the U.S. government’s atomic weapons program, is the most lucrative of the waste streams contemplated by the company. In 2003, as part of Waste Control-backed state legislation that authorized privatized radioactive waste disposal in Texas, the Legislature granted companies like Waste Control the right to dispose of Cold War-era federal waste as well as waste generated by states.
“[W]e just had to get the state law changed,” said Rod Baltzer, Waste Control president, at the conference. It probably didn’t hurt that Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons owns Waste Control through Valhi. Simmons is one of top campaign contributors to the state’s Republican leadership.
The new landfills would join Waste Control’s expanding waste portfolio, all of which are clustered on the company’s 1,338-acre site in Andrews County, near the New Mexico state line. The company’s radioactive waste treatment and storage plant opened in 1997. The license for that facility is “very unique,” Dornsife said, because it allows for “unlimited storage time, and we could go to unlimited [radio]activity.”
There’s also the hazardous waste landfill. Half of that dump is actually filled with radioactive waste, material the state has deemed “exempt” from radioactive disposal standards. The company’s efforts to broaden the exemptions are ongoing. “[D]isposing of radioactive material at [hazardous waste] pricing is extremely cost-effective,” Dornsife said.
In their conference presentations, Baltzer and Dornsife failed to mention the problems the company has encountered with worker exposure to radiation. And while Baltzer admitted that the licensing process has been brutal,” he didn’t detail the rift it has created within TCEQ between scientists and engineers, who stridently object to Waste Control’s plans, and agency upper management that wants to approve the licenses.
In March 2005, Waste Control began processing radioactive waste from the Rocky Flats plant, a site in Colorado that manufactured plutonium triggers for the United States’ Cold War-era hydrogen bomb program. On June 2, 2005, while processing this waste, a worker known in state documents as Number 67 at Waste Control’s mixed waste facility was wounded on his leg by a piece of contaminated metal. The company tested the worker’s urine and feces, and found elevated levels of two plutonium isotopes, as well as americium-241. Later in June, an independent expert determined that the worker had probably inhaled the radionuclides. Over the next few months, as processing of the Rocky Flats waste continued, the investigation expanded to include eight of Number 67’s co-workers. All but one tested positive for low levels of radionuclides, including one employee who hadn’t worked at the mixed waste facility for three years. On September 22, Waste Control management decided to suspend operations at the mixed waste facility and expand the testing to virtually all employees.
In all, 43 individuals had been exposed to plutonium and americium, company testing showed, according to documents uncovered by the Observer. According to Waste Control, a ventilation system wasn’t working properly, allowing plutonium and americium particles to escape into the lunchroom and adjacent hallways....
The TCEQ audit also criticized Waste Control for waiting months to suspend operations after it learned employees had been exposed. “It is my opinion that WCS management did not act in a timely manner in their decision to suspend operations until the source of the intakes could be identified,” wrote Sheila Meyers, a TCEQ chemist who authored the audit report. Baltzer said the company began testing workers as soon as possible, and temporarily closed the facility once conclusive lab results were received.
The radioactive contaminations were in large part preventable, the audit noted. Waste Control acknowledged in a report on the incident that testing employee fecal samples could have caught the exposures sooner. That failure to test may be partly the fault of state regulators. In 2003, the Department of State Health Services dropped a requirement that Waste Control test employees’ feces annually for the presence of radionuclides. Instead, the analysis could be “performed at the discretion of the [company’s] radiation safety officer.”
Four male workers tested positive for radionuclides in 2007, according to TCEQ documents. One employee told inspectors in an August 2007 interview that “the air vents at the mixed waste treatment facility had not been fixed completely.”
In August 2007, Susan Jablonski, the head of TCEQ’s radioactive materials division, provided her boss, Deputy Director Dan Eden, with a written update on the review of Waste Control’s two license applications. In the memo, which is stamped “confidential,” she identified “radiation protection” as one of four major outstanding problem areas. “The radiation protection issues appear not to be under control at the larger site,” she wrote. “The apparent loss of control of radioactive materials also impacts the ability to establish true background [radiation] at the site.” Background, or natural radiation, is necessary as a baseline so that leaks can be detected....
So far, the accidents have not derailed the company’s activities. Yet stiff resistance from TCEQ personnel in charge of reviewing Waste Control’s proposals has put the company on the defensive. One of the company’s fiercest critics, Glenn Lewis was brought on at the TCEQ’s radioactive materials division to manage any controversies concerning the application. He quickly soured on the process. “It was obvious from the beginning that the enabling legislation was written for the benefit of, and largely by, this applicant,” Lewis said. “That raised immediate concerns about how objective a review of the application could possibly be.” In December, Lewis left TCEQ after serving 25 years in Texas state government.
In all, three former TCEQ employees who worked on the Waste Control license applications said they left the agency because of frustration with the licensing process. All three came to the conclusion, after years of working on the applications, that Waste Control’s site is fundamentally flawed. “After years of reviewing the application, I submitted my professional judgment that the WCS site was unsuitable,” said Patricia Bobeck, a hydrogeologist who worked on the byproduct application. “Agency management ignored my conclusions and those of other professional staff, and instead promoted issuance of the licenses.”
Encarnación “Chon” Serna, Jr. an engineer, said he quit in June 2007 when it became apparent that a license for the low-level radioactive waste landfill would be issued despite staff objections. At the end of the staff’s technical review in August 2006, Serna and other staff members decided the application was “very, very deficient” and couldn’t be approved. Nonetheless, TCEQ mangers decided to move forward, giving the company until May 2007 to address some problem areas. “Around that time I started getting the idea that these people are going to license this thing no matter what,” said Serna. “I felt that in clear conscience I couldn’t grant a license with what was being proposed.”
Serna said that when he left, there were still “thousands of questions in every area of review.” For example, he had trouble determining accurate calculations of radiation doses workers might expect to receive when handling soil-like “bulk waste.” In 2006, Serna wrote in an internal e-mail that he’d come across 57 scenarios in Waste Control’s plan in which workers would be close to radioactive waste. “I think there could be potential exposures to significant doses of radioactivity,” he wrote.
His overarching concern, shared by the other former staffers, relates to the site’s physical location. Serna said he is convinced that the geology of the site is unsuitable for containment of radioactive waste for thousands of years.
That view was echoed in an August 14 memo prepared by two TCEQ engineers and two agency geologists. The proximity of a water table to the disposal site “makes groundwater intrusion into the disposal units highly likely,” the four wrote. Their memo stated that “natural site conditions cannot be improved through special license conditions” and recommended denial of the license.
The next day, Susan Jablonski conveyed those concerns to Deputy Director Dan Eden, who reports directly to Executive Director Glenn Shankle. Waste Control “states the second water table is no closer than 14 feet from the bottom of the low-level landfill,” read her memo to Eden, which is stamped “confidential.” A staff analysis, she wrote, “shows that the water table may be closer than 14 feet.”...
By late October, Waste Control had a draft license in hand for its byproduct dump. TCEQ Executive Director Shankle had chosen to deal with his staff’s objections by adding stipulations to Waste Control’s licenses, including a requirement that the company conduct further studies on erosion, groundwater, and possible fractures.
In March, he rebuffed the Sierra Club’s call to rescind the license. A draft license for the low-level landfill is currently being written.
Read the complete article at
http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2729
September 5, 2007
Air Force official fired after
6 nukes fly over U.S.
B-52 bomber, accidentally armed with warheads,
went over several states
WASHINGTON - A B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for more than three hours across several states last week, prompting an Air Force investigation and the firing of one commander, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called the mishandling of the weapons “deeply disturbing” and said the committee would press the military for details. Rep. Edward J. Markey, a senior member of the Homeland Security committee, said it was “absolutely inexcusable.”
“Nothing like this has ever been reported before and we have been assured for decades that it was impossible,” said Markey, D-Mass., co-chair of the House task force on nonproliferation.
The plane was carrying Advanced Cruise Missiles from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a Defense Department policy not to confirm information on nuclear weapons.
The missiles, which are being decommissioned, were mounted onto pylons on the bomber’s wings and it is unclear why the warheads had not been removed beforehand....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20427730/?GT1=10357
June 25, 2007
New Mexico's Nuclear Governor
The Grooming of Bill Richardson
By BOB ANDERSON
New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson has a long way to go before he can call himself a peace candidate as he has been doing in his presidential campaign in the press and out east. He can't do that back in his home state, not on peace nor on a range of other issues.
Ben Luce, the former head of New Mexico Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy said this week in a series of interviews that the governor is more in the pocket of the energy corporations than his image machine presents. Luce, a ten year activist on environmental issues and a former insider in the Richardson camp spoke out to warn voters that Richardson had crafted policies in favor of energy corporations while claiming they were much different. He said Richardson's laws make him look good as a presidential candidate but don't do much else (Albuquerque Journal, 6-20-07).
On war and peace many of us in the grassroots anti-war movement know the governor is in the pocket of the military industrial complex, just as he sides with the energy industry on many pieces of legislation. He would have unknowing voters believe he was a big voice in the movement for social and economic justice when he is not. Richardson claims to be for human rights too but yielded his veto pen to prevent elimination of the death penalty in our last legislative session.
Richardson may criticize other Democratic Party presidential contenders for their past actions and votes on the war in Iraq but his record is much the same, not different enough to warrant notice. This is important because when a voter evaluates a public official for truth it is the experience and past record of the candidate that tells us a lot about future possible actions. Richardson's man selling point is his experience in public service. If Richardson applied his yardstick to himself he would come up short and working more for the private sector than the public.
More and more New Mexicans are coming back dead from Bush's wars in the middle east, especially Iraq where a lot of New Mexico citizens serve as guard and reserve troops. So, what has the governor done in his role as chief executive to stop this killing? Nothing really. The governor actually made it more likely our state citizens would be willing to go war by getting a hefty state death-in-combat supplement passed for those who get killed. This is his idea of bring the troops home.
The governor, a creative man could have come up with some new use of his executive power to stop the guard deployment right here and saved their lives. He could have even stood with the concerned public in front of the buses full of soldiers departing to the war as we have done several times over the years he has been in office.
He has not stood with ANY of the large anti-war demonstrations in the state over the past four years. He has not even sent a wave to the anti-war folks at key times of large gatherings, of which there have been many in Albuquerque, the main city of our state. He has been seen at many meetings of the war profiteers here though. Our state is full of war profiteers like Lockheed Martin, Northrop, Boeing, Honeywell, etc. The governor is always being seen in the newspapers as having been at some ribbon cutting or function put on by the people who profit from war.
In 2003, fifteen million people demonstrated around the world against the start of the war against Iraq, saying it was a hoax. Five thousand stood in Santa Fe at the governor's office and was he there? No, and he could not then hear the massive voice of the people. Now he claims to be a leader in our movement.
The governor did not even send a solidarity message or anything to the crowd then or anytime later because he was supporting the war hawks but was afraid to speak out. How could we expect him to provide visionary leadership in the future on war and peace issues when he has no track record of that in the past in his home state?
We in the anti-war movement have marched and protested since before the war started in 2003 and the governor (like our city councilman Martin Heinrich who has jumped on the bandwagon to run for Congress as an anti-war leader) has been missing in action on this crucial front of struggle every single time.
We did see the governor break all kinds of land speed records to get over to Clovis, NM last year to stand with the Republicans who were complaining of the BRAC plan to close the obsolete Cold War Cannon AFB war base. As a result of bi-partisan high level lobbying it was kept open and turned into something even worse. The base is now to become a cover war training base for future wars in the fake war on terrorism.
This week a House committee has made major funding cuts for the nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos National Lab, our premier nuclear holocaust factory, and the governor is again calling to keep it open and growing (Albuquerque Journal, 6-16-07). In his speeches outside the state he has said he is for diversifying and not producing any new nuclear weapons, which sounds good, but here he says and works for the opposite. When he was head of the Department of Energy under the Clinton administration, at a time when he had some role of importance he never made any great changes. His tenure is marked by the racist scapegoating of Wen Ho Lee for a set of research labs drifting into a loss of mission.
The labs are a large government public works project for many high paid scientists and technicians who could not otherwise make a living. The governor always has their job interests in mind when he makes statements here in his state.
Here in Albuquerque, home to the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, the governor has never replied to repeated requests to make a statement about the great danger these weapons pose to our community of over 600,000 people. If he had any real message to give he could have pointed out in 2003, before President Bush launched the big war, that Albuquerque had 2,000 WMDs here and Iraq had none. It would have been a welcome gesture to have said let's talk of dismantling our WMDs and you do the same.
You would think as head of the Dept. of Energy and all that research he had privy to on nuclear issues he would have known that of the obvious nuclear weapons dump in Albuquerque. Albuquerque is the third largest nuclear power in the world. He missed that little fact because he was busy cheerleading for the war for control of the middle east. His real problem with the war is that it has become messy and has gone on too long, longer than WW II for us.
Our governor has said nothing about the Department of Defense's establishment of a major nuclear war planning center here at Kirtland AFB, in the center of Albuquerque, which is likely to make us another target in any global conflict era.
Nor has he questioned the most intensive industrial project in human history, much of it going on here in our state: the arms race in space. A real time Star Wars is being developed at a local military base, Kirtland AFB with help from our state universities. University faculty get big lucrative contracts to create the new weapons technologies for space war which is in violation of many treaties on space.
The university keeps some of the war profiteering money for overhead and all keep quiet. Richardson hand picked the CEO of the key university who in turn drove out critics of this large new Manhattan Project. In turn he was fired for his own malfeasance, costing the state taxpayers over a million in contract buy-outs.
Last fall (Sep. 29, 2007) Lockheed Martin held a symposium at the University of New Mexico to promote the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, which would be a violation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and very costly to the nation. The one sided discussion was attended by many grassroots activists whom the university threw out of the meeting for speaking out against the RRW program and the privatization of the public university for war profits. The governor could have used an event like this to announce his position on the RRW and war profiteering if he had really any serious intention here in the weapons Mecca of the world. Did he speak out as the newspapers carried articles and discussions on the arrest at the meeting and debate that followed? No.
Also, at the same military base in Albuquerque he has not spoken out about the intentions of the new covert program such as the radical technology tilt-rotor Osprey. The CV-22 is an aircraft designed for covert insertion of assassins into other countries. This is a program that will only cause us more grief as a nation. We don't need hidden and secret war machines anyway.
In his home city of Santa Fe local citizens have organized and called for his support to stop the military from placing a squadron of Blackhawk helicopters in the placid, peaceful town. Where has Richardson been on this issue? Like all the other times of grassroots struggle with the military industrial complex he has been silent and working behind the scenes to assist the other side.
Near Ft. Carson, Colorado where residents are opposed to closing an Army base he said he would take care of the Base Realignment and Closing process (Albuquerque Journal, 6-18-07). With Richardson as president we would have more of a war based economy than what we have now. Richardson has a message of hope and hype for all audiences. A sane person would have to wonder who he really is. Richardson is in the mold of his mentor, Bill Clinton, a New Democrat, one who talks values associated with the New Deal era of FDR but one who practices the neo-conservative economic and military polices of New Gingrich. Richardson is a neo-liberalist, a supporter of global interventions and expansion.
Richardson claims to be an enlightened leader with skills in international affairs and events. But it must be remembered he was dumb enough to go along with the Bush administration hoax of an Iraqi WMD threat. Why? He really agreed with the goal to support regime change in other countries, and has cheered on the Trojan Horse war on terrorism without missing a beat. Homeland Security has a large presence in our state thanks to his administration and the large war industry here.
As an experienced U.N. diplomat for our country, as he repeatedly reminds listeners, one would have expected enlightened dissent then, and a vision not so centered around war profiteers. And this is his same approach to health care. While our state is at the bottom of health care access lists for poor people his name was just painted on a huge ugly $300 million elite cancer treatment center here at the university hospital complex. His name will be up there in large font after he has long gone and the poor died from lack of treatment.
As this new center was being built over the last thee years, across the street hospital rank and file workers have been falling further and further behind in wages. Just last week they had to hold a picket as negotiators for the university tried to drive down again their demands for a living wage. Some workers have been there for 20 years and barley make a substandard wage. This is going on all the while Billy Sparks one of his spin doctors had a special job created at the same hospital to the tune of nearly $150,000. Richardson claims he has done a lot for labor and the poor here but don't believe it. Richardson is in the pockets of the insurance corporations not working for the workers. He has opposed universal access to health care for our state's poor time and again as just not feasible but he can year after year find tax cuts and roll backs for the corporate elite and global rich who reside in our state.
It is more likely the governor would still be for the war in Iraq if he saw it was a winner. His position on Iraq is basically the same as that of the Cato Institute's Ethical Realism policy (same as the Baker Commission plan, talk and divide the country as we fight at the same time).
Richardson, like Henry Kissinger his former consulting business partner (see Albuquerque Journal, Nov. 7, 05), and Rep. Heather Wilson all would like to see Iraq broken up into three sub regions for better management by an outside superpower. This ethnic cleansing would be managed by a puppet government and backed up by an outside coalition of "peace" troops from other countries, or NATO or the U.N.
This is old fashion colonialism in the post-colonial era dressed up for the unwise as progressive politics. Richardson has been heard to now say he would get U.S. troops out of Iraq but his real intentions is like that of the neo-cons. He is not about to give up on the oil resources in the region. He would just do it in a more sophisticated manner. Richardson we must not forget was quietly paid nearly half-million dollars for being a trophy on the board of directors for Diamond Shamrock Oil Company (in Texas, now renamed Valero) until it became an embarrassment to his presidential image. In this mold he is more like Bush and Cheney than most people know....
On Iran, Richardson has said he would use diplomacy first which means he would keep open the use of war machines if he felt it necessary. Noticeably absent from his message, especially as a former U.N ambassador is language to support the basic right of self determination and sovereignty for Iran, even if their people want a different leader or policy. Richardson is about how to make Iran bow to the empire not empowering national independence or a global community of equals.
On immigration as a border state governor he has appeared concerned but has not hesitated to help Bush militarize the border to appease the right wingers. Poor people now see more guns and armies on his soil as they try to find jobs. Thanks Bill.
One of the largest immigration detention centers, overcrowded to the max exists in downtown Albuquerque and he has said nothing. Protests have been held to get humane treatment for these people being held with out any legal rights. With his expertise at photo ops and getting hostages released it would be a great mission for him to undertake right here in his home state to do the same.
On his watch we could probably expect a much more brutal war of shock and awe against Iran than what Bush and company have unleashed against Iraq.
The governor still promotes the genocidal lie that Palestine was a desert vacant of people when Israel brought democracy to the region. He has said Israel, not the struggle for justice by Palestinians is our key ally in the middle east. As late as April of this year he was saying our relationship with this racist settler state is a cornerstone of U.S. policy in the region (Albuquerque Journal, April 26, 2007)....
The corporate elite from large energy companies, to private aviation jet manufacturers, to expensive mattress firms, to space tourists promoters and entertainment moguls have had a run at New Mexico, much like the global elite do elsewhere when exploiting a colony with a weak political structure. Richardson has gone so far as to hand them hefty capital investments of public money for risky business ventures. Hundreds of millions from the state's permanent and retirement funds have been diverted to assist the global rich by him. I am sure they will help him in his run for another office. This scheme must be something he learned while manager of Henry Kissinger's consulting firm for large corporations which offers policies on how to plunder poor counties in the global economy.
Under Richardson's watch Intel, the wealthiest and largest computer chip manufacture with a large non-union shop here was awarded a staggering $16 billion tax refund. This went down in a town where the plant is strategically located that can't raise enough money to build all the high schools needed for the local children of its workers.
Richardson was again silent while this mega rip off of the state took place and corporations offered more charity to help the high schools.
Two other high schools in Albuquerque just had to turn to a private charity to find funds to operate in-school health clinics, which sever mainly poor families. The unmet infrastructure needs for New Mexico's poverty population has grown by leaps and bounds under Richardson's tenure but at the same time a high tech infrastructure for space militarization, high tech weapons research and global war has grown with the assistance of the governor.
At the rate at which Richardson is racing to get out in front of the growing, global peace movement we might expect him to soon say he was helping Bob Dylan write anti-war lyrics, when in reality he was in prep school being groomed for leadership of a poor state that he could use to launch a large political career.
Bob Anderson can be reached at: citizen@comcast.net
http://www.counterpunch.org/anderson06252007.html
December 16, 2006
China, U.S. sign deal to import
Westinghouse nuclear power
technology to China
China and the United States on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding for Westinghouse Electric Co. to provide technology for four nuclear power units to be built in China.
The memorandum of understanding was signed by China's Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission(NDRC) Ma Kai and U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.
"The pact was signed to ensure the introduction of technology and the smooth construction of the nuclear power plants," according to a statement released by the NDRC.
The U.S.-based Westinghouse will provide China with the AP1000 technology, a light water nuclear reactor which has an advanced design and an automatic system to deal with emergencies.
The deal was signed on the sidelines of a five-country energy ministers meeting in Beijing.
Source: Xinhua
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/16/eng20061216_333300.html
July 19, 2006
CHINA DEPLOYS NUCLEAR SUBMARINES...CAPABLE OF NUCLEAR COUNTERSTRIKE
Posted By: Seawitch <Send E-Mail>
This was emailed to me this afternoon. I am posting for awareness purposes.
************************************
Hong Kong's Xin-bao reported on July 7th that China has deployed next-generation nuclear submarines and are capable of second nuclear counterstrike.
German military publication 'International Navy' reported that China officially deployed recently-developed Type 093 and 094 nuclear submarines, and conducted training exercises. They are in combat-deployment now, according to the publication.
It said that Type 094, Tang-class, is the improved version of Xia-class nuclear submarine, with 10,000-ton displacement, and can carry 16 Julang-2 SLBM's which have means that a single Type 094 submarine can strike 48 targets simultaneously. Type 094 has fourth-generation nuclear reactor and is equipped with noise-suppression feature and precision sonar capability. It has superior stealth, mobility, and survivability, which is rated as comparable to Ohio class submarine of the U.S.
Type 093 is an attack submarine with 7,150 ton displacement, whose design is based on Han-class submarine. If their deployment is successful, Chinese nuclear capability will expand from land-based nukes to second nuclear counterstrike, according to this publication.
People's Daily, Chinese official communist party paper, featured an article on its Internet site about the submarines on July 6th, which is a de-facto confirmation of their deployment.
Energy and Prayers,
Seawitch
www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=90814
June 21, 2006
New Nuclear Plants Too Risky to Build
and Too Costly to Operate
AUSTIN – Environmental groups today decried NRG Energy Inc.’s plans to build two new reactors at its South Texas nuclear plant site. The costs for the reactors are expected to reach $5 billion and will expose Texans to the risks and radioactive wastes of nuclear power.
Nuclear power is extremely costly and relies on taxpayer subsidies, creates radioactive waste with no long-term disposal solution, and poses security and public health risks.
“Thirty years ago, we were promised that nuclear energy would produce energy ‘too cheap to meter,’ but the costs are still mounting,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas office. “Nuclear plants are too costly to build, too risky to operate and the wastes are still too hot to handle.”
The existing Texas reactors built at the site more than twenty years ago cost more than six times the projected estimates and had so many critical flaws that construction was halted and parts of the plant were rebuilt to address serious safety concerns.
Nuclear power continues to be dependent on taxpayer handouts for survival. From 1947 to 1999, the nuclear industry was given more than $115 billion in direct taxpayer subsidies. The management of nuclear waste and the requirements for reactor decommissioning require billions more in additional funds. In comparison, federal government subsidies for wind and solar power totaled only $5.7 billion over the same period – 25 times less than nuclear subsides.
“Pollution from uranium mining, the dangers of reactor accidents and the legacy of radioactive waste are all serious concerns,” said Donna Hoffman of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
“Nuclear madness has arisen again, risking our health and safety,” said Karen Hadden, executive director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition.
“Radioactive waste can be converted to materials to make nuclear weapons. We should lead by example and not fuel the international weapons race by creating more of it.”...
“Renewable energy and energy efficiency are a viable alternative to nuclear power and conventional fuels, and can meet the country’s energy needs without the burdens of carbon emissions or radioactive waste,” said Luke Metzger of Environment Texas.
The flaws of nuclear power include cost, waste, security, safety, and proliferation. To learn more, click here.
www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2222
March 17, 2006
Duke Energy Should Be Denied Taxpayer Subsidies to Build New Nuclear Reactors; Better Alternatives Exist
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Duke Energy’s plan to apply for a construction and operation license to build two new nuclear reactors at a site owned by Southern Co. in Cherokee County, S.C., should not be permitted to come to fruition, Public Citizen said today. Duke is angling to receive billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to defray the costs of applying for a license as well as operating the plants; it should not be given a government handout for the application, the organization said. Nor should the government issue a license. Not only does nuclear power pose a threat to public health and safety, but Duke Energy has a track record that indicates it has been dishonest with consumers.
No new reactors have been ordered in the United States for 30 years, and for good reason. Nuclear power is extremely expensive and not economically viable in the marketplace – no nuclear power plant has operated without taxpayer money since the nuclear power industry was born. It also poses a public safety and national security threat and creates dangerous highly radioactive waste, for which no country in the world has a solution, and will not be effective in addressing climate change.
Further, Duke Energy has one of the worst track records of energy companies in the United States when it comes to manipulating markets and cheating consumers. Duke Energy has been forced to pay $257 million to settle allegations of market manipulation and other misdeeds in the past three years. Consider:
In September 2003, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission fined Duke Energy $28 million for manipulating natural gas markets.
In December 2003, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission fined Duke Energy $2.5 million, resolving an investigation into allegations that Duke engaged in market gaming practices during the California energy crisis.
In July 2004, the California attorney general announced a $207.5 million “electricity price-gouging settlement” with Duke Energy for the company’s role in ripping off the state’s consumers during the energy crisis that led to forced blackouts and almost bankrupted California, harming many small businesses and consumers.
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) in 2001 rescinded $14.4 million in payments Duke Energy had received after the company did not make its power plants available for the California market. The CAISO then issued a $4.5 million fine against Duke for failing to follow California market rules during a declared system emergency.
In July 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission imposed a cease-and-desist order on Duke Energy because Duke’s internal accounting controls were insufficient to ensure that its traders properly recorded their trading activities. As a result, Duke Energy illegally classified $56.2 million of the company’s speculative power and natural gas trading operations.
If Duke is permitted to proceed with its proposal, taxpayers could be on the hook for cradle-to-grave subsidies, including:
half the cost of applying for the license, estimated at as much as $45 million per application for pre-approved reactor designs;
“risk insurance” to pay the industry for delays in licensing, which could be up to $500 million each for the first two plants;
taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for up to 80 percent of the cost of a project, potentially costing taxpayers more than $2 billion per plant; and
production tax credits of 1.8-cents for each kilowatt-hour of nuclear-generated electricity from new reactors during the first eight years of operation, estimated at a total of $5.7 billion in revenue losses to the U.S. Treasury through 2025.
For these reasons, we urge the government to deny Duke Energy federal dollars to subsidize the exorbitant costs of building new reactors and ultimately deny the company a license.
Renewable energy is a viable alternative to nuclear power and conventional fuels, and can meet the country’s energy needs without the burdens of carbon emissions or radioactive waste. In addition to renewable technologies themselves, using energy more efficiently is an important part of moving to a clean energy future. The increase in energy demand Duke predicts can be met much more safely and effectively by efficiency measures than through building new nuclear plants.
For more information about the five fatal flaws of nuclear power, click here. For more information about the proposed Duke-Cinergy merger, click here.
www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2155
December 20, 2005
Heads roll at Veterans Administration
Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed
by Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner
www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml
Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium munitions in the Iraq War.
Considering the tons of depleted uranium used by the U.S., the Iraq war can truly be called a nuclear war.
Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given, however a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military.”
Bernklau continued, “This malady (from uranium munitions), that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed.”
He added, “Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!”
The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.
“The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,” wrote Bernklau. “He, and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, (it) ... is far too big to hide or to cover up!”
“Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that ‘Gulf Era Veterans’ now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans,” said Berklau.
The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence,” stated Berklau.
“Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as ‘spectacular … and a matter of concern!’”
When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for “destroying things and killing people,” Fulk was more specific: “I would say it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people!”...
www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/122005_world_stories.shtml#0
April 4, 2005
YUCCA MOUNTAIN
Workers describe sabotage
Whistle-blower case lists efforts bypass
water meter, violate EPA guidelines
By Keith Rogers, Review-Journal
Pipe fitters on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project were told by a foreman two years ago to sabotage the tunnel’s main water line and make a special pipe to bypass a meter that measures how much of the state’s water is used.
That’s according to a claim made in a Labor Department whistle-blower case and in interviews last month with former contract workers at the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Before Ronald Dollens of Pahrump was fired in May 2003 by Yucca Mountain Project contractor Bechtel SAIC, he said he endured “a lot of harassment” for reporting what he perceived as violations of worker safety laws and Environmental Protection Agency laws, including the Clear Air Act and Clean Water Act....
”In a statement that Dollens filed for a Labor Department investigation into his wrongful termination claim, he said his foreman, Mike Oettinger, asked him and co-worker Dale Cain in November 2002 “to purposely break a line that ran into the tunnel just so we could get overtime pay fixing the pipe that would be broken.”...
Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in San Francisco, recommended Dollens receive a $250,000 punitive award from Bechtel SAIC for “reckless conduct indifferent to the rights of the whistle-blower.”...
For more, GO TO > > > The Vultures on Yucca Mountain
April 6, 2005
Nuclear Plants in 31 States
Said Prone
By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Fuel storage pools at nuclear power plants in 31 states may be vulnerable to terrorist attacks that could unleash raging fires and deadly radiation, scientists advised the government on Wednesday.
The group of nuclear experts said neither the government nor the nuclear industry “adequately understands the vulnerabilities and consequences of such an event.”
They recommended undertaking a plant-by-plant examination of fuel storage security as soon as possible....
Congress sought the study by a National Academy of Science panel because of the heightened concerns that terrorists might seek to target nuclear power plants. The release Wednesday of a declassified version of the report followed months of debate with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over how much of the findings should remain secret, and therefore, unavailable to potential terrorists.
At 68 plants, including some already shut down, in 31 states, thousands of used reactor fuel rods are in deep water pools. Dry, concrete casks hold a smaller number of these rods.
Much more highly radioactive fuel is stored in pools than is in the more protected reactors - 103 in total - at these sites.
Some scientists and nuclear watchdog groups long have contended that these pools pose a much greater danger to a catastrophic attack than do the reactors themselves....
The report said an aircraft or high explosive attack could cause water to drain from the pools and expose the fuel rods, unleashing an uncontrollable fire and large amounts of radiation.
Nuclear regulators said they would give the report’s recommendations “serious consideration.” But the NRC has disputed many findings and suggestions from the experts....
April 12, 2003
Agents Involved With Woman
Didn’t Tell FBI of Spy Suspicions
By Curt Anderson, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Two former FBI counterintelligence agents suspected in 1991 that the woman with whom both were having an affair was passing sensitive information to the Chinese, but neither told a superior, according to government documents.
Former agent James J. Smith and former FBI supervisor William Cleveland Jr. kept under wraps their knowledge that Katrina Leung, an FBI intelligence “asset” for two decades, had contacts with intelligence services of the Chinese government.
Cleveland, who retired from the FBI in 1993, has resigned from his position as chief of an employee security awareness program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The lab develops nuclear weapons....
...Continued at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
March 5, 2003
Lab Scandal Undermines
Nuclear Credibility
By Notra Trulock, III, Accuracy in Media
Three Los Alamos whistleblowers finally got to tell their story to Congress recently.
At a hearing before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, congressmen expressed shock and outrage at the testimony of Glenn A. Walp, Steve Doran and Jaret McDonald. The Inspector General of the Energy Department told the subcommittee that his inquiries had confirmed many of the problems uncovered by the three.
A University of California vice president, also present at the hearing, apologized to the Congress for the university’s management failures at Los Alamos, promised to do better in the future, and told members that "the experience has strengthened us." Whether those assurances will be enough to save the university’s contract to manage the lab will not be known until later in March.
The subcommittee was most interested in the whistleblowers’ account of efforts by lab managers to cover up widespread abuses and obstruct investigations, including those by the FBI, into the scandal. These efforts went all the way up to the lab’s principal deputy director, who has since been fired....