Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps (near left) debated Breakthrough Institute's Michael Shellenberger (far left) in Headline News "The Lion's Den" November 7, 2013 over Robert Stone's one-side nuclear power promotional film "Pandora's Promise."
Read the oped by Linda Gunter and Kevin Kamps, published by CNN, on why nuclear power is not the answer to climate change. The oped was commissioned to rebut CNN's screening of Pandora's Promise on November 7th.
Here is the lead, then read more:
The climate change crisis is upon us. The world's leading climate scientists agree that time is rapidly running out and that urgent steps are needed in the next 10 years to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. But exchanging global warming for nuclear meltdown is not the answer.
From a purely practical standpoint — and ignoring for a moment nuclear power's other showstoppers such as cost, unmanaged nuclear waste, atomic weapons proliferation and catastrophic accident — there simply isn't time to choose nuclear power. There are faster, affordable alternatives, including energy efficiency and renewable energy installations such as wind farms and solar arrays that can be completed in months to a few years.
The average construction time for a new nuclear power reactor is close to 10 years. A 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study concluded that more than two new reactors would have to start operating somewhere in the world every month over the next 50 years to displace a significant amount of carbon-emitting fossil-fuel generation.
Such a fantasy does not pass the reality check in corporate boardrooms or on Wall Street where nuclear power has been soundly rejected. The exorbitant costs and unpredictably long completion time -- a reactor at Watts Bar in Tennessee, for example, was "under construction" for 23 years and may be connected to the grid by 2015 -- make nuclear power an unappealing, even reckless, business choice for corporations and shareholders. Read the rest of the article.
Reports Deadline Hollywood: "Well, one thing is for sure: Cable news viewers like films about killer whales a lot more than ones about pro-nuclear power. CNN’s airing of the documentary Pandora’s Promise delivered a wet 345,000 total viewers in its 9-11 PM time slot and just 145,000 among adults 25-54. The heavily promoted Robert Stone-directed film was way, way down from the 1.36 million that CNN Films’ Blackfish drew in total viewers in the same slot two weeks beforehand."
Greenwire has published an article by Hannah Northey, E&E reporter, exposing the hypocricy of Exelon for exploiting the very wind power subsidy that it has attacked as giving the wind power industry an unfair competition advantage.
The article reports: "Amy Grace, a North American wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, pegged Exelon's wind PTCs [Production Tax Credits] for 2013 at $75 million to $100 million based on the company's 1.3 gigawatts of wind projects."
The American Wind Energy Association expelled Exelon from its membership in 2012 for Exelon's lobbying to kill the wind power production tax credit.
Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates, Inc.Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, Inc. (photo, left), testified before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) on behalf of an environmental coalition opposed to the construction and operation of Detroit Edison's proposed new Fermi 3 atomic reactor in Monroe, MI, on the Great Lakes shoreline. He focused on license applicant Detroit Edison's (DTE) blatant violations of safety significant quality assurance regulations.
The coalition, comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environment Coalition of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste MI, and Sierra Club MI Chapter, issued a press release.
Gundersen voiced his concerns about the trustworthiness of geotechnical data gathered by DTE and its subcontractors as part of the Fermi 3 Development Project. Detroit Edison has argued that it was not required to have quality assurance in place, as it was not yet an “applicant” for a new reactor construction and operating license at the time.
“Given Detroit Edison’s violations of quality assurance requirements, the geological borings and soil samples are suspect. Fermi 3’s building structures would be very heavy, so the geotechnical data has to be verifiable, so that the atomic reactor’s foundations are rock solid, and seismically qualified."
Gundersen pointed out that Detroit Edison’s playing fast and loose with the definition of the word “applicant” presents dangers not only at Fermi 3, but would set a very bad precedent across the nuclear power industry.
Gundersen continued: “If Detroit Edison was not an applicant, then it was not subject to NRC rules guarding against deliberate misconduct, the bearing of materially false witness, and requirements of completeness and accuracy of information, employee whistleblower protections, oaths of affirmation, and reporting of defects and noncompliance. Without quality assurance in place from the get-go, the very fabric of nuclear safety regulation has been torn asunder at Fermi 3. Whistleblowers watch out: NRC confirms that whistleblower protection did not apply at Fermi 3. As a former nuclear whistleblower, this is truly terrifying."
Arnie appeared in two recent podcasts put out by Fairewinds Energy Education having to do with this Fermi 3 proceeding. The first one, on October 30th, is entitled "Let the Games Begin." The second one, dated November 7th, is entitled "NRC Strips Whistleblower Protections."
Gundersen filed an expert declaration on QA, or lack thereof, on Dec. 8, 2009. He included his CV.
On January 15, 2010, the coalition had to fend off legal attacks by both DTE and NRC Staff.
He submitted additional expert testimony on June 8, 2010. A week later, the ASLB admitted the environmental coalition's QA contention to the evidentiary hearing stage.
He also filed non-proprietary QA testimony on April 30, 2013, which accompanied Intervenors' Initial Statement of Position on Contention 15 [QA].
DTE sicked three experts on Gundersen on April 30, just as they did at the oral evidentiary hearings on October 30-31.
NRC's expert, George A. Lipscomb, who also filed written testimony on April 30, was subjected to withering cross examination by the ASLB during the October 31 evidentiary hearing. Lipscomb stuck to his position, that DTE was not responsible for QA before it filed its Fermi 3 license application in September 2008. One of the three ASLB administrative law judge’s took issue with the agency staff person’s testimony.
“I really find your position to be very troubling,” ASLB Administrative Law Judge Anthony J. Baratta stated on the record. Baratta described NRC’s logic as “circular,” “confusing,” “appalling,” and even “somewhat misleading.”
In addition, ASLB Chief Administrative Law Judge Ronald M. Spritzer stated that NRC’s position was “completely irrational” and a “totally incoherent version of this regulation.”
Also responding to NRC’s testimony, Michael Keegan of Don’t Waste Michigan said: “That was the best Double Speak I’ve heard in a long time. George Orwell is spinning so fast in his grave, he should be hooked up to the electric grid.”
Gundersen also filed non-proprietary rebuttal testimony on May 29, 2013. It accompanied the environmental coalition's rebuttal to DTE and NRC Staff legal attacks.
November 15, 2013