Solartopia Green Power and Wellness Hour – 02.02.17

KEVIN KAMPS of Beyond Nuclear and TIM JUDSON of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service chime in on the collapse of Westinghouse, the overages in nuclear construction around the world, the appointment of an non-regulatory new chair for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the procession of state bailouts, and much more.

As we approach a green-powered Earth, we pray no more of these obsolete, obscene nukes will explode, and that the transition to renewables will proceed as fast as possible.

Paul Brown – Nuclear energy revival remains elusive

LONDON, 25 December, 2016 – There have been three well-documented major nuclear accidents in the last 60 years, each one accompanied by official lies and cover-ups. There have been other less well-known serious accidents that have been so effectively hushed up that decades later there are only the sketchiest details available. The legacy of these disasters is a deep distrust of the …

Damian Carrington – Power stations to get early warning against jellyfish invasions

Invasions of jellyfish have proved adept at shutting down power plants in recent years. But an early warning tool is now in development to alert power stations to incoming swarms which block the cooling water intakes of coastal plants. EDF’s Torness nuclear power plant in Scotland was closed for a week in 2011 after a mass of moon jellyfish invaded …

DAVE LOCHBAUM – Setting the Nuclear Safety Bar

Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent #52, last week’s commentary, described the timely and effective response by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to the unexpected discovery of cracked control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzles at the Oconee nuclear plant in South Carolina. Soon after being surprised, the NRC determined who needed to do what when in order to properly resolve the …

California Nukes To Shut Down; New York Nukes Troubled: Living on Earth interview with Arjun Makhijani

PG&E has decided to take the aging Diablo Canyon nuclear plant near an earthquake fault in California offline by 2025 and replace its electric power with wind and solar. But the even older Indian Point reactors near New York City continue in service despite defects and opposition. The President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Arjun Makhijani, joins …

Nadia Prupis – Public Cost of Fukushima Cleanup Tops $628 Billion and Is Expected to Climb

The public cost of cleaning up the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster topped ¥4.2 trillion (roughly $628 billion) as of March, and is expected to keep climbing, the Japan Times reported on Sunday. That includes costs for radioactive decontamination and compensation payments. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) will sell off its shares to eventually pay back the cost of decontamination and waste disposal, but …

Karl Grossman – New York’s Woeful $7.6 Billion Nuclear Bailout Package

The New York State Public Service Commission—in the face of strong opposition—this week approved a $7.6 billion bail-out of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo—who appoints the members of the PSC—has called for the continued operation of the nuclear plants in …

James Stafford – Bill Gates And Other Billionaires Backing A Nuclear Renaissance

Let’s for a second imagine a world without nuclear energy. That’s a tough one but let’s try. No nuclear bombs, of course, no Chernobyl and Fukushima, no worries about Iran and North Korea. A wonderful world, maybe? Probably not, because without nuclear energy we would have burned millions more tons of coal and billions more barrels of oil. This would …

Helen Caldicott – The Medical Implications of the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

The following text by renowned scientist and physician Dr. Helen Caldicott on the impacts of the 1986 Chernobyl will be followed in a subsequent article by an analysis of the medical implications of the Fukushima disaster The only on-site medical and epidemiological data gathered after Chernobyl was released in a report published by the New York Academy of Medicine in 2009 titled …