"Lessons of Nuclear Power and the Media," San Francisco, Dec. 3rd

No Nukes Action invites people to its first educational conference "THE LESSONS OF NUCLEAR POWER AND THE MEDIA" on Saturday, December 3rd at San Francisco State University in California! Since the nuclear reactor accident on March 11th, 2011 in Fukushima, Japan, the world became more alert on issues of radioactive contamination due to the accidents. While mainstream media, governments, corporations, and military institutions are working to cover up the harms of the nuclear military-industrial-complex, people became media by sharing their skills, knowledge, and wisdom to protect themselves. Our speakers will discuss the history of nukes, industry, resistance, and make global pipelines of resistance against nukes among Japan, Korea, Mongolia, California, and New York. The event will be broadcasted on ustream, and will be archived on our conference website (http://nukeinfo.wordpress.com/). Speakers include Professor Anthony Hall (Globalization Studies, University of Lethbridge), Andrew Philipps, Barbara George (Women's Energy Matters), Donna Gilmore and Marion Pack (San Onofre anti-nukes activists), Kei Sugaoka (former Tepco engineer), Steve Zeltzer (Labor Video Project), Choi Seungkoo (Nuclear-Free Asia, Christian Network for Nuke-Free Earth), and Yuko Tonohira (Todos Somos Japon), with music provided by the Okinawan sanshin band. Beyond Nuclear is a proud endorser of this event. For more information, see the event flyer.

Fire latest emergency at problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has reported that a fire, cutting power to ventilation in the reactor control room at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Toledo, prompted owner/operator FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) to notify federal and state officials of an emergency alert status for several hours last week. The fire was caused by a faulty valve in a pipe carrying purified water to the reactor core, which leaked onto an electrical switchbox, causing an electrical arc and fire. Luckily, the reactor has been shut down since October 1st for major repairs, including the removal of the plant's 82 ton, corroded, second reactor lid. Severe corrosion on the reactor's original lid in 2002 represented the most infamous close call to a disaster at a U.S. atomic reactor since the 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island. A giant hole cut in radiological containment structures for the reactor lid "transplant operation" revealed a 30 foot long crack in the reinforced concrete shield building, as well as additional cracks in the shield building. Despite this, FENOC hopes to persuade the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to allow it to restart Davis-Besse by the end of November. Beyond Nuclear has joined forces with Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio in an intervention opposing FENOC's proposed 2017 to 2037 license extension at the now 35 year old reactor. On Halloween, while Beyond Nuclear performed an "I Have a Scream!" protest against radioactive waste at Energy Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., our environmental coalition allies performed a solidarity action in Toledo against Davis-Besse. A week earlier, they held a press conference about the cracks, calling on the Toledo City Council to pass a resolution urging Davis-Besse's permanent closure, which the Cleveland Plain Dealer covered.

"The Energy Department's loan guarantee program is the real Solyndra scandal"

Today's Washington Post editorial headline above got it spot on. A high-profile hearing before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce government oversight subcommittee has shined a bright spotlight on the "Solyndra solar scandal," but nary a word about much more risky nuclear loan guarantees was uttered. The Washington Post has run three articles and an editorial in the past two days in its print edition: yesterday's "Solyndra made demands of Energy Department" and "Upton sought loan for now-ailing solar company in Michigan"; today's front page above the fold "Energy chief defends agency"; and today's lead editorial "No fun in the sun." Hopefully, the magnifying lens being taken to the Solyndra solar loan guarantee default will also be applied to already approved, and future proposed, nuclear loan guarantees! See Beyond Nuclear's nuclear loan guarantee website section for more information, as well as our summary backgrounder on U.S. Representative Fred Upton's (R-MI) nuclear power industry cheerleading (see the section entitled "Handing over the keys of the U.S. Treasury to the nuclear power industry").

GAO reports proposal to "revive" reprocessing still half-baked

The New York Times has blogged that a new Government Accountabilty Office (GAO) report finds the proposal to "revive" commercial reprocessing (plutonium extraction from irradiated nuclear fuel) in the U.S. still full of disconnects. The article reports on reprocessing's inherent nuclear weapons proliferation risks, due to the separation of weapons-usable plutonium. Such risks led the Ford and Carter administrations to ban U.S. commercial reprocessing beginning in 1976, in direct response to India's detonation of a nuclear device secretly created from "Atoms for Peace" reprocessing technology provided by the U.S. and a research reactor provided by Canada.

The article also states that irradiated nuclear fuel is comprised of "95.6 percent unused uranium," and that this is "not particularly hard to dispose of." But such a statement flies in the face of evidence presented by public interest experts like Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, who has warned that "depleted uranium" (mostly U-238, left over after uranium enrichment activities) should be disposed of in deep geologic disposal (as is planned for high-level radioactive waste and trans-uranic waste) due to its radiological hazards. Dr. Doug Brugge of Tufts University has warned about uranium's toxic heavy metal hazards, including its estrogen-mimicing properties that risk reproductive harm in mammals.

EDF fined millions & its senior officials sentenced to years in prison for spying on Greenpeace France

Greenpeace International has blogged about the larger implications of a French court's conviction of Electricite de France (EDF) and two its senior staff for "complicity in computer piracy": hiring a private investigator to hack into Greenpeace computers and steal 1,400 documents. The court has fined EDF 1.5 million Euros ($2 million), ordered it to pay 500,000 Euros ($682,000) in damages to Greenpeace France, and an additional 50,000 Euros ($68,200) to the Greenpeace campaigner whose computer was hacked and confidential documents stolen. The court has sentenced two senior EDF officials, and two officials at the private investigation company, to 2-3 years of jail time each, as well as fining three of them thousands of Euros each. World Nuclear News has reported on this story.