Monday, April 18, 2011

Nuclear Overseers Are "Fake" Agencies Funded and Controlled by the Nuclear Power Industry


The Christian Science Monitor noted recently:

Just as the BP oil spill one year ago heaped scrutiny on the United State's Minerals Management Service, harshly criticized for lax drilling oversight and cozy ties with the oil industry, the nuclear crisis in Japan is shining a light on that nation's safety practices.

***

[Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreev, who as director of the Soviet Spetsatom clean-up agency helped in the efforts 25 years ago to clean up Chernobyl ] has also accused the IAEA of being too close with corporations. "This is only a fake organization because every organization which depends on the nuclear industry – and the IAEA depends on the nuclear industry – cannot perform properly."

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is no better.

As nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, Duane Peterson (president of VPIRG & coordinator for the campaign to retire Vermont Yankee nuclear plant), investigative reporter Harvey Wasserman and Paul Gallay (executive director of Riverkeeper) point out in a roundtable discussion:

  • The NRC won't even begin conducting its earthquake study for Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York until after relicensing is complete in 2013, because the NRC doesn't consider a big earthquake "a serious risk"
  • Congressman Markey has said there is a cover up. Specifically, Markey alleges that the head of the NRC told everyone not to write down risks they find from an earthquake greater than 6.0 (the plant was only built to survive a 6.0 earthquake)
  • The NRC is wholly captive to industry
  • The NRC has never turned down the request of a nuclear power plant to be relicensed in the United States. Relicensing is solely a paper process; there is no safety review.
  • The NRC's assumptions regarding a worst-case accident are ridiculous. For example, the NRC assumes only 1% of the fuel could meltdown, while 70% melted down at Fukushima. The NRC assumes no loss of containment, while there has been a major loss of containment in reactors 1-3 (especially 2) at Fukushima.
  • "If there was a free market in energy, nuclear power would be over ... immediately". Nuclear plant owners can't get insurance; they can only operate because the U.S. government provides insurance on the taxpayer dime. The government also granted a ridiculously low cap on liability
  • If we had no subsidies for nuclear, coal or oil, we'd have a clean energy economy right now
  • We have 4 reactors in California - 2 at San Onofre 2 at San Luis Obisbo - which are vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis.
  • No state or federal agency knows who would be in charge in case of an accident at Indian Point. It's like the Keystone Cops
Watch live streaming video from deepakhomebase at livestream.com

Note: The videos appear to rotate, so if the nuclear roundtable is not playing at first, keep on watching, and it will eventually loop back.
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6 comments:

  1. windcatcherApril 18, 2011 at 12:53 PM

    I don’t agree with the video presented, now is the time for people to become kick-ass political activist not pacifist learning to accept their fate and to die peacefully. If we are to win, we need people “who are as mad as Hell and are not going to take it anymore”!

    Here is a video link to Leuren Moret, a wise and knowledgeable scientist with Geological and Chemical expertise that presents a summary of the nuclear danger and the present nuclear situation in Japan. The video is long but much important evidence is presented on the secrecy and cover-up of the real damage from nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and Bush’s depleted uranium weapons (a gift that goes on giving). Moret also exposes HARP as an offensive weapon; the ultimate weapon of mass destruction that may have been involved in the Japanese earthquake.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be0ow2Jjs9E&feature=player_embedded#at=120

    Youtube blocked the video. See the video on the Coming Depression.

    http://thecomingdepression.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. amyApril 18, 2011 at 10:22 PM

    I am really tired of hearing about "win" or "lose" etc. First of all - there is no such thing as winning because what this post is about is about fighting for your life. Because we have to fight our actual selves (humans) and not just nature for our life - already a zero sum game. Already not a win. A very sick situation. Protests etc. don't work in this day and age. I have no idea what is going to change how humans live but frankly until we realize money is not truly required for life, we are on quite a nasty hamster wheel. Our mother earth is absolutely filthy right now and we just. don't. stop. None of us. There is no escape from our collective consequences of our collective action. My heart remains broken. I am so thankful I decided not to have children. I truly feel for those that did procreate. What a friggin mess. Who in their right mind would want to live on this planet? I feel like I am in exile in psycholand.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BeckyApril 19, 2011 at 12:17 AM

    Hi there!

    Another great solution is David Blume's Alcohol Can Be a Gas - find it at Permaculture.com - the book is amazing and tells the whole story back through history of how the "Oiligarchy" as David calls it, took over the internal combustion engine which was designed and built to run on alcohol - and his solutions are elegant and practical and WORKABLE.

    You should definitely check him out!!

    Nuclear power is used to produce steam. this is insane. You can create steam by burning alcohol made from just about anything - algae to cat tails - and it burns clean. puts out only carbon diozide and the plant matter properly grown can sequester up to 17 TIMES the amount of CO2 created by burning the alcohol. WE HAVE THE SOLUTION NOW.

    David's research on Brazil and other places already implementing it PROVE it. And the lies they tell to hide the truth are just like all the others - spawned in something like 1910 by that phenomenal power hungry destroyer of life ROCKEFELLER. Is there anything that man did NOT destroy? The inheritors of his wealth and others like him continue the lies to this day in all fields of endeavor from food to health to energy. It's time to wake up and change the world ourselves. We CAN do it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. DreddApril 19, 2011 at 5:35 AM

    windcatcher,

    Courageous comment.

    Perhaps the "geopolitical location", a.k.a. "where it's at", should determine the appropriate vaccime for any particular meme complex we find ourselves in.

    One size rarely fits all.

    Good post on a good blog.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bill BergmanApril 19, 2011 at 7:30 AM

    Consider this as perspective for thinking about the regulators for our banking system and financial markets. The work of George Stigler, Sam Peltzman and Mancur Olson is worth looking at on this score as well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. windcatcherApril 19, 2011 at 11:25 AM

    Becky... “Another great solution is David Blume's Alcohol Can Be a Gas”.

    Becky, you are going to be delighted to learn of the greatest invention of this century; cracking hydrogen from water by electrical/chemical hydrolysis.

    It is true; any internal combustion engine can run on water. Do away with the gas fuel tank and the extra weight, a gallon of water is equivalent to 150 gallons of gas!

    Nuclear power plants can be outmoded to boil water; there is no need to use fossil fuel for energy! The great inventor name is Stanley Meyer and as an inventor, the patents he was granted in the US and in foreign countries proves his amazing invention. OPEC offered Meyers a BILLION dollars for his patents so they could take it off the market but Meyers refused. His purpose for the invention was for the betterment of our Earth and Mankind. His last words were “They poisoned me” and that is the last we hear about his wonderful invention. His last refinement was an hydrogen cracking injector as small as a spark plug! Any internal combustion engine can run on water by simply changing the spark plug to his injector!

    Here is a web page that lists Stanley Meyer’s hydrogen cracking patents.

    http://www.rexresearch.com/meyerhy/meyerhy.htm

    There are also numerous YouTube videos of the demonstration of Meyer’s water/hydrogen cell and his water powered dune buggy.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOGAkRkCWfA

    ReplyDelete

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