"U.S. welcomes Japan's pro-nuclear policy in joint statement"

Kyodo News reports:

"The United States on Friday welcomed Japan's recently decided new energy policy that supports the use of nuclear power despite the devastating accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011.

In a joint statement released after Japanese and U.S. leaders held a meeting in Tokyo a day earlier, the United States said it "welcomed Japan's new Strategic Energy Plan, which includes global, peaceful and safe use of nuclear energy and acceleration of the introduction of renewable energy."

The remarks are in contrast to the concerns the United States is said to have expressed when the previous government led by the Democratic Party of Japan, now the main opposition party, decided in 2012 on an energy strategy that seeks to phase out nuclear power."

This pro-nuclear U.S.-Japanese policy statement comes on the eve of the 28-year mark of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, and 37 months after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe began. Although Prime Minister In a bid to secure the 2020 Summer Games for Tokyo, Abe assured the International Olympic Committee last year that the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe was "under control." But his flippant words were contradicted just five days ago by a knowledgable insider, as reported by Reuters in an article entitled "Fukushima No. 1 boss admits plant doesn't have complete control over water problems."

"What’s wrong with proposed nuclear waste dump on Lake Huron?"

Dr. Gordon Edwards of CCNR. Photo by Jim Bloch.Jim Bloch at The Voice has reported on an April 14th presentation in Port Huron, MI, by Dr. Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility in opposition to the Ontario Power Generation Deep Geologic Repository targeted at Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario. Bruce is located about 110 miles northeast of Port Huron.

Describing OPG's proposal and its attempted justifications, Dr. Edwards said “This is not science. This is a belief system which is based upon the hope that we have a solution. It is not proof that we have a solution.”

Crimea conflict could risk another Chernobyl

As tensions mount in eastern and southern Ukraine after the Russian takeover in Crimea, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant sits in the potential firing line. Zaphorizhia, with six full size nuclear reactors, is located north of Crimea. Another nine reactors, at three separate locations, are also still operating across Ukraine.

"The current tension between Ukraine and Russia serves as a stark reminder that armed conflict and nuclear power don't mix,” said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear. “Decades of warnings that nuclear power plants are potential weapons for an enemy in wartime have gone unheeded. Whether intentionally targeted or accidentally hit during military conflict, atomic reactors and radioactive waste storage facilities could unleash catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity over a broad region.” Read the full Beyond Nuclear press release.

Radioactive "Moral Hazard": DOE loans, and guarantees, $6.5 billion for two new reactors for a 0%, $0.00 credit subsidy fee!

Aerial image of Plant Vogtle Nuclear Generating Station - photo credit to High Flyer. The photo shows the operating Units 1 and 2, as well as the construction site for proposed new Units 3 and 4.Southern Alliance for Clean Energy reports in a press release entitled "New Documents Confirm Utility Giant Southern Company Gets Sweetheart Deal from Energy Department for Multi-Billion Nuclear Loan Guarantees for Vogtle Reactors":

"As revealed today in an Energy & Environment News story by Hannah Northey, the credit subsidy fee for utility giant Southern Company and its utility partner, Oglethorpe Power, for billions of dollars in taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantees, is nothing, $0. This shocking information was disclosed two months after the Department of Energy (DOE) finalized terms of $6.5 billion worth of loan guarantees that were offered as part of an $8.3 billion package to build two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia. A third partner in the project, MEAG, has yet to have their $1.8 billion loan guarantee finalized."

Please register your disapproval of this nuclear sweetheart deal, at taxpayer expense and risk, to President Obama, your two U.S. Senators, and your U.S. Representative! You can be patched through to your Members of Congress via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

More.

Update on April 25, 2014 by admin

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has posted a blog linking to a CREDO petition initiated by NIRS, calling on U.S. Senators Boxer (D-CA) and Markey (D-MA), strong nuclear power wathdog who, respectively, chair and serve on the Environmental and Public Works Committee, with jurisdiction over nuclear power matters, to request a Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation into the ZERO credit subsidy fee "no money down" scandal. At the bottom of the CREDO petition site is a link to NIRS' GreenWorld blog post about the Vogtle 3 & 4 sweetheart deal, at taxpayer expense.

The SACE blog also links to a clever and insightful "by the numbers" blog written by Sue Sturgis, Institute for Southern Studies Editorial Director.

National Campaign Launched to Clean Up ‘America’s Secret Fukushima’

Charmaine White Face, Coordinator, Defenders of the Black Hills, and Clean Up the Mines! volunteersCharmaine White Face, Coordinator of Defenders of the Black Hills, based in Rapid City, SD has shared the following message:

"Finally, a national campaign with an upcoming federal bill to clean up all the abandoned uranium mines throughout the country.  There are more than 10,000 abandoned Uranium mines [AUM] in the United States with 10 million people living within 50 miles of an AUM."

Clean Up the Mines! and Defenders of the Black Hills put out the following press release:

Red Shirt Village, Oglala Lakota Nation (SOUTH DAKOTA) – Organizations from throughout the United States held an Earth Day ceremony to launch a nation-wide campaign to clean up hazardous abandoned uranium mines (AUMs). Clean Up The Mines! calls for effective and complete eradication of the contamination caused by the estimated 10,000 abandoned uranium mines that are silently poisoning extensive areas of the U.S.

Clean Up The Mines! volunteers from across the country toured abandoned mines this week. They donned hazardous materials suits at Mount Rushmore and carried a large banner to raise awareness of the 169 AUMs in the Southwestern Black Hills near Edgemont. There are another 103 AUMS in the Northwest corner near Buffalo. The Northern Great Plains Region of Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota contains more than 3,000 AUMs... READ MORE HERE.