G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
"Nuke Nuggets" glow for the Senate's radioactive rip-off
By Harvey Wasserman
Created Aug 20 2007 - 8:42am
Gargantuan loan guarantees for a "new generation" of nuke reactors define
the Senate's version of the Energy Bill that Congress will consider right
after Labor Day.
Its backers say the $50 billion-plus in radioactive pork will give us
"inherently safe" reactors.
....which is what they said about the last crop, including Three Mile Island,
Chernobyl and hundreds of billions in cost overruns and abysmal failure.
Nuke reactors are no safer than those coal mines just littered with fresh
corpses, than that collapsed Minnesota bridge, or than the levees that let
Katrina swamp New Orleans, and are poised to do it again.
The first "new generation" nuke is already swamped with cost overruns and
absurd miscalculations. Finnish regulators are screaming at Areva, the
French-based nuke pushers, about corner-cutting and costly delays.
But these are merely the latest in the endless flow of "nuke nuggets" that
have made the world's 430-plus reactors history's most lethal and expensive
technological failure:
a.. Faulty plumbing forced one US nuke operator to shut on-site toilet
facilities while the cooling system was in use;
b.. At another US reactor, a basketball wrapped in tape was used to stop
up a critical reactor tube;
c.. Consecutive global-warmed "hundred-year floods" threatened to swamp
the two Prairie Island reactors (south of that collapsed Minnesota bridge)
nearly irradiating the entire downstream Mississippi River;
d.. Like coal miners, uranium miners die en masse from lung cancer and
tunnel collapses;
e.. Steam releases killed and maimed at least four workers at Virginia's
North Anna complex;
f.. "Too cheap to meter" was atomic energy's mantra until it delivered
gargantuan cost overruns and ramshackle reactors in what Forbes Magazine has
called "the largest managerial disaster in business history";
g.. In the 2000-1 deregulation scam, the nuke industry portrayed its own
reactors as being "uncompetitive," thus demanding $100 billion in "stranded
cost" subsidies for their bad reactor investments;
h.. The Yucca Mountain nuke waste repository, which may never open, has
already absorbed $10 billion, but its minimum official cost is now estimated
at around $60 billion, which is likely to soar to at least $100 billion;
i.. In 1957 the industry promised independent insurance companies would
insure reactors against catastrophic accidents, but that has never happened,
either for old nukes or for the proposed new ones;
j.. Before March 28, 1979, nuke owners said the melt-down that destroyed
Three Mile Island Two was "impossible";
k.. Before April 26, 1986, nuke owners said the explosion that destroyed
Chernobyl Four was "impossible";
l.. For nine years, TMI's owners said there was no significant fuel melt,
until a robotic camera showed that nearly ALL the fuel had melted;
m.. TMI's owners say "no one died" there, but stack monitors failed during
the accident and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not know exactly how
much radiation escaped, where it went or who it affected;
n.. No official systematic monitoring of the health of the people around
TMI was initiated when the plant opened, or when it melted, and none has
been maintained;
o.. Some 2400 central Pennsylvania families have tried to sue for damages
since TMI's fall-out hit them, but have been denied a federal trial for
nearly three decades;
p.. Some 800,000 drafted clean-up "liquidators" were forced into
Chernobyl, thousands of whom are dying of cancer;
q.. Seven atomic reactors in Japan were significantly damaged by an
earthquake despite decades of official assurances that they were safe;
r.. Japanese authorities now admit that the recent earthquake
exceeded---by a factor of three---the design specifications of the seven
reactors it damaged;
s.. Far stronger earthquakes are expected soon at all or most of Japan's
55 reactors, where experts say at least some could be reduced to radioactive
rubble;
t.. Four reactors in California, one in Ohio and two in New York are among
the many American nukes built very close to active earthquake faults;
u.. The Perry nuke, east of Cleveland, whose owners denied it was in any
danger from a nearby "geological anomaly," was significantly damaged by a
January 31, 1986 earthquake;
v.. Despite a lawsuit by Ohio's governor, Perry was allowed to open amidst
damage to area roads and bridges that would have made evacuation impossible,
and that could have meant disaster had it been operating at the time;
w.. Near Toledo, dripping boric acid ate through the Davis-Besse pressure
vessel, bringing it within a fraction of an inch of a catastrophe capable of
irradiating Cleveland and all of Lake Erie;
x.. Davis-Besse's owner blacked out the entire northeast, including much
of Canada, partly due to uneven power surges from its nukes and the
deterioration of its electric power grid;
y.. On September 11, 2001, the terrorists who crashed into the World Trade
Center flew directly over the two active reactors at Indian Point, but did
not hit them, apparently believing that they were protected by
surface-to-air missiles;
z.. Not one of the 100-plus US reactors is protected by surface-to-air
missiles;
aa.. Virtually every US reactor has failed simple tests of security
systems meant to protect them from terror attacks;
ab.. Early official government studies warned that a single meltdown could
make permanently uninhabitable "an area the size of Pennsylvania";
ac.. An attack on the Indian Point reactors on 9/11/2001 could have
rendered the entire New York region---including the World Trade
Centers---permanently uninhabitable, causing millions of long-term human
casualties and trillions of dollars in damage, from which the US economy
likely would never have recovered;
ad.. Huge heat emissions make atomic reactors major contributors to global
warming, as do CO2 emissions from construction, decommissioning, the mining,
milling and enrichment of uranium fuel, waste disposal, and more;
ae.. Despite being billed as a "solution to global warming," French
reactors were recently shut because they overheated local rivers with their
waste cooling water;
af.. Despite being billed as a "solution to global warming," one reactor
at Alabama's Browns Ferry was forced shut, and two cut back 25%, as summer
river temperatures hit 90 degrees, the federal limit;
ag.. These shut-downs come precisely when power is most needed for air
conditioning, and when the REAL solution to global warming, solar energy, is
most abundant;
ah.. In 1975, a Browns Ferry reactor suffered a $100 million fire when a
worker ignited its insulation with a candle;
ai.. Reactor regulators report a constant flow of "incidents" that
endanger reactor operations and the public safety;
aj.. The former head of the Atomic Energy Commission's health research
efforts has calculated that "normal" reactor emissions could kill some
32,000 Americans every year;
ak.. A dollar spent on energy conservation saves ten times the energy
produced by a dollar spent on a nuke;
This tragic, terrifying "nugget" list could extend on for another few
hundred pages, as per THE NUGGET FILE, by a former industry insider, and
FISSION STORIES by David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
With a crippled infrastructure and corner-cutting mentality, the corporate
operatives building these reactors are no more competent or trustworthy than
the ones in charge of coal mines, bridges, levees.
Homer Simpson will run the new nukes, just like the old nukes.
Wall Street knows it. Does Congress? Better tell them.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Harvey Wasserman
Created Aug 20 2007 - 8:42am
Gargantuan loan guarantees for a "new generation" of nuke reactors define
the Senate's version of the Energy Bill that Congress will consider right
after Labor Day.
Its backers say the $50 billion-plus in radioactive pork will give us
"inherently safe" reactors.
....which is what they said about the last crop, including Three Mile Island,
Chernobyl and hundreds of billions in cost overruns and abysmal failure.
Nuke reactors are no safer than those coal mines just littered with fresh
corpses, than that collapsed Minnesota bridge, or than the levees that let
Katrina swamp New Orleans, and are poised to do it again.
The first "new generation" nuke is already swamped with cost overruns and
absurd miscalculations. Finnish regulators are screaming at Areva, the
French-based nuke pushers, about corner-cutting and costly delays.
But these are merely the latest in the endless flow of "nuke nuggets" that
have made the world's 430-plus reactors history's most lethal and expensive
technological failure:
a.. Faulty plumbing forced one US nuke operator to shut on-site toilet
facilities while the cooling system was in use;
b.. At another US reactor, a basketball wrapped in tape was used to stop
up a critical reactor tube;
c.. Consecutive global-warmed "hundred-year floods" threatened to swamp
the two Prairie Island reactors (south of that collapsed Minnesota bridge)
nearly irradiating the entire downstream Mississippi River;
d.. Like coal miners, uranium miners die en masse from lung cancer and
tunnel collapses;
e.. Steam releases killed and maimed at least four workers at Virginia's
North Anna complex;
f.. "Too cheap to meter" was atomic energy's mantra until it delivered
gargantuan cost overruns and ramshackle reactors in what Forbes Magazine has
called "the largest managerial disaster in business history";
g.. In the 2000-1 deregulation scam, the nuke industry portrayed its own
reactors as being "uncompetitive," thus demanding $100 billion in "stranded
cost" subsidies for their bad reactor investments;
h.. The Yucca Mountain nuke waste repository, which may never open, has
already absorbed $10 billion, but its minimum official cost is now estimated
at around $60 billion, which is likely to soar to at least $100 billion;
i.. In 1957 the industry promised independent insurance companies would
insure reactors against catastrophic accidents, but that has never happened,
either for old nukes or for the proposed new ones;
j.. Before March 28, 1979, nuke owners said the melt-down that destroyed
Three Mile Island Two was "impossible";
k.. Before April 26, 1986, nuke owners said the explosion that destroyed
Chernobyl Four was "impossible";
l.. For nine years, TMI's owners said there was no significant fuel melt,
until a robotic camera showed that nearly ALL the fuel had melted;
m.. TMI's owners say "no one died" there, but stack monitors failed during
the accident and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not know exactly how
much radiation escaped, where it went or who it affected;
n.. No official systematic monitoring of the health of the people around
TMI was initiated when the plant opened, or when it melted, and none has
been maintained;
o.. Some 2400 central Pennsylvania families have tried to sue for damages
since TMI's fall-out hit them, but have been denied a federal trial for
nearly three decades;
p.. Some 800,000 drafted clean-up "liquidators" were forced into
Chernobyl, thousands of whom are dying of cancer;
q.. Seven atomic reactors in Japan were significantly damaged by an
earthquake despite decades of official assurances that they were safe;
r.. Japanese authorities now admit that the recent earthquake
exceeded---by a factor of three---the design specifications of the seven
reactors it damaged;
s.. Far stronger earthquakes are expected soon at all or most of Japan's
55 reactors, where experts say at least some could be reduced to radioactive
rubble;
t.. Four reactors in California, one in Ohio and two in New York are among
the many American nukes built very close to active earthquake faults;
u.. The Perry nuke, east of Cleveland, whose owners denied it was in any
danger from a nearby "geological anomaly," was significantly damaged by a
January 31, 1986 earthquake;
v.. Despite a lawsuit by Ohio's governor, Perry was allowed to open amidst
damage to area roads and bridges that would have made evacuation impossible,
and that could have meant disaster had it been operating at the time;
w.. Near Toledo, dripping boric acid ate through the Davis-Besse pressure
vessel, bringing it within a fraction of an inch of a catastrophe capable of
irradiating Cleveland and all of Lake Erie;
x.. Davis-Besse's owner blacked out the entire northeast, including much
of Canada, partly due to uneven power surges from its nukes and the
deterioration of its electric power grid;
y.. On September 11, 2001, the terrorists who crashed into the World Trade
Center flew directly over the two active reactors at Indian Point, but did
not hit them, apparently believing that they were protected by
surface-to-air missiles;
z.. Not one of the 100-plus US reactors is protected by surface-to-air
missiles;
aa.. Virtually every US reactor has failed simple tests of security
systems meant to protect them from terror attacks;
ab.. Early official government studies warned that a single meltdown could
make permanently uninhabitable "an area the size of Pennsylvania";
ac.. An attack on the Indian Point reactors on 9/11/2001 could have
rendered the entire New York region---including the World Trade
Centers---permanently uninhabitable, causing millions of long-term human
casualties and trillions of dollars in damage, from which the US economy
likely would never have recovered;
ad.. Huge heat emissions make atomic reactors major contributors to global
warming, as do CO2 emissions from construction, decommissioning, the mining,
milling and enrichment of uranium fuel, waste disposal, and more;
ae.. Despite being billed as a "solution to global warming," French
reactors were recently shut because they overheated local rivers with their
waste cooling water;
af.. Despite being billed as a "solution to global warming," one reactor
at Alabama's Browns Ferry was forced shut, and two cut back 25%, as summer
river temperatures hit 90 degrees, the federal limit;
ag.. These shut-downs come precisely when power is most needed for air
conditioning, and when the REAL solution to global warming, solar energy, is
most abundant;
ah.. In 1975, a Browns Ferry reactor suffered a $100 million fire when a
worker ignited its insulation with a candle;
ai.. Reactor regulators report a constant flow of "incidents" that
endanger reactor operations and the public safety;
aj.. The former head of the Atomic Energy Commission's health research
efforts has calculated that "normal" reactor emissions could kill some
32,000 Americans every year;
ak.. A dollar spent on energy conservation saves ten times the energy
produced by a dollar spent on a nuke;
This tragic, terrifying "nugget" list could extend on for another few
hundred pages, as per THE NUGGET FILE, by a former industry insider, and
FISSION STORIES by David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
With a crippled infrastructure and corner-cutting mentality, the corporate
operatives building these reactors are no more competent or trustworthy than
the ones in charge of coal mines, bridges, levees.
Homer Simpson will run the new nukes, just like the old nukes.
Wall Street knows it. Does Congress? Better tell them.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson