I am not a fun of nuclear power. There are certain advantages in this such as the relatively low emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and the readily available technology. But the disadvantages and the risks taken of going nuclear outweigh the benefits.

The nuclear waste is extremely dangerous and their disposal is still an unsolved problem. Both the plants and the nuclear waste can be a target of terrorist attacks.

Despite the high technology and standards, accidents can still happen, and their consequences are disastrous.

It takes a lot of time to plan and build a new nuclear plant.

Despite the standing views, nuclear is not a sustainable or a green option. Uranium, the source of energy for nuclear power is available only in limited quantities and during the operation of producing energy it is being consumed, so it won’t be available for the future generations. Uranium-238, the most prevalent isotope in uranium ore, has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years. That means that half the atoms in any sample will decay in that amount of time. Thus, both nuclear plants and nuclear waste pose a threat to hundreds of future generations that would have to deal with this very dangerous waste.

Instead of building new nuclear plants, that will be able to operate and produce energy in about 20 years, it would be much better to concentrate our efforts in developing the next few years, safe, clean and renewable energy technologies, such as solar and wind.

Despite the facts and the risks, the British government has deemed ten sites (map below) suitable for future nuclear plants in England and Wales, while plans for any plants in Scotland, which has two existing sites, were opposed by the Scottish National Party (SNP) government.

Image Credit: BBC News

The Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, said that nuclear is a “proven and reliable” energy source that will help the UK to reduce its carbon emissions and become more energy independent. He argued that nuclear was one of a “trinity” of future fuel options, but he also announced an “ambitious” new policy for the transition to clean-coal generation, as well as targets for generating 30% of electricity by renewable sources by 2020.

The new Infrastructure Planning Commission led by Sir Michael Pitt, a veteran civil servant, will make its final decision on the proposals “within a year” of receiving them, Ed Miliband told the MPs. The first set of plants is to be operational by 2018 and, by 2025 nuclear electricity could amount to around 40% of new energy provision. The majority of the UK’s ageing nuclear infrastructure will have to be decommissioned by 2023, leading some experts to warn of the prospect of power shortages if capacity is not added.

The Conservatives backed the decision. The shadow climate change and energy secretary Greg Clark said that Government Ministers should have taken the decision a decade ago, “when they had the chance to secure the investments that are so desperately needed to keep the lights on, keep prices down and cut carbon emissions.”

The Liberal Democrats and the Green party questioned the accountability of the new plans. Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat energy and climate change spokesman, said: “A new generation of nuclear power stations will be a colossal mistake regardless of where they are built. New plants in the UK have never been built without massive cost to the taxpayer and a lethal legacy of toxic waste.”

Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green party, said that by “bypassing the planning system in this way is bad news for democracy and for the environment. A key democratic right is for the public to have a say on how their area is developed. Decision-making about where we get our energy from, and the long-term costs associated with nuclear, should be opened up to more accountability, not less.”

Source: BBC News

Have you noticed that the more a person argues and the louder he gets the more he is wrong?  I believe  truth speaks for itself. Things that happen easily are meant to.

The people in the United States today are divided among those that are still clinging  to the precepts of those wanting to follow the rules set by the American Constitution and those trying to establish a Socialist agenda.

The truth is that President Barak Obama  won.  Regardless of the why’ and how. He is now free to try and implement whatever policies and changes he so wishes . For those of you who are spewing blood out of your ears and eyes , calm down and be realists.  Time is on your side. His Chicago  politics alone will hang him and his followers.

Generations of Americans have been raised on the precepts of individual freedom and the right to pursue happiness which up until now meant the right to create abundant wealth.

In the news today, we learn that some Coward fired a shot  at  Lou Dobbs residence,  with his wife standing 15 feet away from her car. Do you shoot a news reporter or a news commentator because he is doing his job?  He is reporting The Truth that you need to hear and understand . Without it,  you will operate in a vacuum.

It seems that it  is the way this country goes. We know it was no conservative who fired that shot. The problem is that Most Liberals are uninformed ( what do you expect when the media for the Exception of Fox news,  is what they watch.”  Liberals are voraciously an angry group. They snarl, they threaten, they bully, they follow blindly )………………………….

Liberals however, do not debate.  Facts, truths, are irrelevant.  The progressive method of realization is by following the adage that says:” The means justify the end result.”  So onward they go smirking at all that disagree. When that fails the bullets come out.

To those Americans out there that are clinging to all that is red white and blue.  I Salute you. Consider this. The American Constitution is what  made America strong and allowed it to become the most powerful Nation in modern times.

As nothing is perfect at all times , so is it with America. Too much greed, too much graft, too much power in the wrong hands has allowed this great Nation to go astray and as a result create in the chaos a viral cancer known as The entitlement mentality.

Why bother working when the Government can support you?  Nothing is for free. If government is to make all decisions concerning financial compensation for its people, than lets look at what this Government can accomplish. The people after all should be the beneficiaries of all that is American.

We are a rich Nation. Can you imagine how great life could be if we started developing our own resources? Did you know that this country has enough oil and natural gas to last forever?  Why can we not produce our own energy and make it environmentally friendly and sell it on the world market.? As an American you would become a shareholder deriving financial benefits every month , and we would not have to depend on foreign oil.  How do you think all the citizens of Saudi Arabia got rich?  Much of The oil revenues of the country were shared with its citizens.

According to the  ICJT. organization  there  are 400  Nuclear Plants under construction around the world except in America?  Wake up Americans…..

Sick of Big Government getting bigger and accomplishing nothing for you? It is time to smarten up. In a day and age where information abounds, it is up to the individual to make it his business to educate himself on what will further his chances to live a successful life.

Take some time in your day to do some research on the pertinent issues of the times. Use your own logic. Get smart if not,  you will end up being led by the nose…..

Andrea

Sure, solar will play perhaps the largest role in solving the Earth’s energy problems. The sun, after all, is the largest source of energy on the planet.

Uranium deposits hold more stored energy than fossil fuel reserves

But nuclear power will be the second major leg of the stool, according to Ian Copeland, president of renewables and new technology at Bechtel.

That’s because uranium, the fuel for the plants, holds a tremendous amount of stored energy – more than the planet’s known fossil fuel deposits.

In the coming years, nukes may see favorable economic comparisons. The cost of conventional power plants is on the rise, with the price of coal plants already up by 75 to 130 percent. As the price of carbon climbs and with carbon sequestration an expensive add-on, this trend is unlikely to reverse.

“I believe nuclear will be coming on quicker,” said Copeland this week at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference. Already the government has applications for 27 reactors from 17 companies.

Copeland estimates that without new nuclear plants in the nation’s energy mix (and with the construction of new coal plants constrained because of their dirty emissions) the price of electricity will rise two to three times.

Of course that leaves the nation facing the intractable problem of storing radioactive waste. But as the industry likes to say, all the waste generated so far fits inside a football field seven feet high. You would think we might find a safe place for it.

Dr George Barnsby, The Barnsby Blog No. 2011, Sept  10, 2009

Brown’s suicidal efforts to blow us all up has been further exposed by
his latest proposals outlined by Professor David Elliott of the Open
University in a letter in today’s Guardian.

The Labour government has moved from a position of replacing older
nuclear plants to one of a radical expansion from the present 13% of
electricity from nuclear sources to 35-40% beyond 2030. Brown has indicated that he believes the world needs 1,000 extra nuclear power stations and has argued that Africa could build nuclear power plants to meet growing demands for energy.

In 2009 a new UK Nuclear Centre of Excellence was announced to promote, ‘wider access to civil nuclear power across the world’ with an initial budget of £20million. Professor Elliott goes on the say, ‘As a life-long Labour movement activist and long standing Labour Party member I have struggled to live with New Labour policies. But these new policies on nuclear power will, I believe lead to long term global security problems.

The policies could undermine energy security and environmental
sustainability since money, manpower and other resources will be diverted away from renewables and energy efficiency’.

The Professor ends by saying, ‘I have made these points regularly in
various forums. But the commitment to an expanded nuclear programme is deepening. I have therefore, reluctantly, decided to resign from the Labour Party’.

Good for Professor Elliott. This BLOG and COPAM entirely agree with
his actions.

For an island surrounded by water and floating on coal it is madness to think that we need nuclear power. And the present BBC  programmes of Neil Oliver showing the power of water as he moves around the coast of Britain brings to mind the phrase as applied to Gordon Brown, that those the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.

Ron Schenone at Lockergnome writes and article asking if, with an increasing number of people using Google services, Google is till able to handle the load  (full article at http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2009/09/02/as-more-people-use-google-services-is-google-able-to-handle-the-load/). Will Knight at MIT Technology review adds some considerations on how to disconnect form the cloud (full article at http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24086)

I add a couple of points for disussion:

• on one side I think that Google like any other business is facing the problem of optimizing costs and this reflects also on having a structure dimensioned everytime ”on the hedge” with little space for errors
• on the other side I’m little bit worried on the fact that Google engineers talk about having “we had slightly underestimated the load which some recent changes”: Google engineers are human and can make mistakes, but what if the error in estimates was not slight but big?
• We are relying too heavily on network infrastructure: in other times if Google went down, we would have said ”I’ll try again later” , while everybody is now acting like the outage was the outage of a nuclear plant

This posta as a comment also at http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2009/09/02/as-more-people-use-google-services-is-google-able-to-handle-the-load/#comment-190118 and at http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24086/#comment-213214

Bruce Falconer (http://www.motherjones.com/authors/bruce-falconer) at Mother Jones interviewed a security expert on possible threats linked to terrorsit attacks on nuclear plants (full article at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/delayed-nuclear-reaction).

I think that it’s really a big challenge to secure transportation, storage and usage of active nuclear fuel or nuclear waste.

In my opinion a security breach could be more unlikely in western areas of the world, where instead an attack to the plants it’s easier.

On the other side in Russia could be most likely exactly the opposite.

Nuclear fuel (both newly produced and exausted), in my opinion should be under government protection at all time, with plants treated as military bases.

Nuclear is a big and effective power source, which I wish will take more and more place, but needs specific and uncommon security rules (and cautions) to be followed, not only on operational side but also on security one.

Especially in these troubled times.

This comment also as a post at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/delayed-nuclear-reaction#comment-182350

Channel 2 in Israel reported last night that the Israeli Air Force has begun training drills to avoid being shot down by Russian mad S-300 anti-air craft missiles in Iran.

Sign of an imminent pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iran?

Bush kept us safe.  For that he has been unrelentingly demonized by the left.  Those days – other than the ongoing demonization – are gone.  Now we have the Obama administration – which rebranded “the war on terror” as an “overseas contingency operation”; which decided to start referring to “terror attacks” as “man-caused disasters”; which only just today screwed up and leaked nuclear secrets – in charge of keeping America safe.

Even as Obama has sought to have hardcore terrorist Gitmo detainees released to US prisons – which would further radicalize our prison system – four Muslims (three of whom had converted while in prison) were captured in the act of planting bombs in an FBI sting operation.  While only .06 percent of Americans are Muslims, militant Wahhabist Islam is the fastest growing religion in the US prison system – especially among young African-Americans).

Why worry about terrorists coming to us from Muslim lands when we can grow our very own hardened Islamist terrorists right here?

Yesterday we suffered the first successful domestic terrorist attack (the second if you count the Tiller murder) under the Obama administration.  The Muslim convert who killed one American soldier and wounded another outside a recruiting center offered this account for his actions:

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, also known as Carlos Bledsoe, is charged with capital murder and 16 counts of terroristic acts.

According to the police reports, Muhammad admitted to shooting the victims, and then revealed how and why.

He told police that he put three weapons, including an assault rifle, into his SUV and then drove around until he saw the Recruiting Station and the two soldiers smoking outside the building.

He then pulled into the parking lot in front of the station, stopped his vehicle, and began shooting at the soldiers standing outside, firing several rounds from an SKS assault rifle with the intent of killing them. Muhammad also told officers that he would have killed more soldiers if they had been on the parking lot. Muhammad also told police he was a practicing Muslim, and that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past.

The terrorist who contributed to one of Obama’s “man-caused disasters” had maps to several other targets.

But these are just warm-up acts for the bloodletting to follow.  We only need to worry over such attacks when we let a radicalized convict out of one of our prisons.

Yesterday on Fox News Special Report, Amy Kellog in London reported:

“The general manager of al-Arabia says the press tends to treat Obama as a friend of the region, something that could backfire efforts to combat extremism.”

The general manager of al-Arabia then said:

“I have to mention as well – uh, let’s call them, you know, the ‘bad guys’ – that time they feared Bush.  They do not seem to fear Obama right now.  So the psychology of fear does not exist today with Obama so far because they don’t think he will launch a war.  They don’t take his threats seriously.”

“They feared Bush.  They do not seem to fear Obama.  They don’t think he will launch a war.  They don’t take his threats seriously.”

And what happens when Islamist terrorists lose their fear of America and its president?

We have a major al-Qaeda announcement from Osama bin Laden warning America of “revenge on the U.S.”

And we have a terrifying message coming from a major al-Qaeda recruiter, Kuwati professor Abdallah Fahd Abd Al-’Aziz Al-Nafisi.  During his message, he predicted a biological warfare attack “guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour,” and prayed for success of potential attacks “bombing nuclear plants within the US.”

Abdallah Al-Nafisi: Four pounds of anthrax – in a suitcase this big – carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the US, are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour, if it is properly spread in population centers there.  What a horrifying idea.  9/11 will be small change in comparison. Am I right? There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings, and so on.  One person, with the courage to carry four pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this “confetti” all over them, and then will do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real “celebration.”

The WMD is a problem.  The Americans are afraid that the WMDs might fall into the hands of “terrorist” organizations, like Al-Qaeda and others.  There is good reason for the Americans’ fears, because Al-Qaeda used to have in the Herat region… It had laboratories in north Afghanistan. They have scientists, chemists, and nuclear physicists. They are nothing like they are portrayed by these mercenary journalists – backward Bedouins living in caves. No, no.  By no means. This kind of talk can fool only naïve people.  People who follow such things know that Al-Qaeda has laboratories, just like Hizbullah.  Hizbullah has laboratories in South Lebanon, in which it produces weapons and sells them. Hizbullah has laboratories in South Lebanon, from which it sells weapons to Romania and Hungary.

While Obama drones on about a peace plan that he is indicating to the Muslim world will benefit Palestinians at the expense of Jews, al-Nafisi says:

Allah states in the Koran that the hostility between us and [the Jews] is eternal. So whoever talks about dialogue – cut off his tongue! What dialogue are they talking about?! There is no room for dialogue. Allah said that our hostility towards the Jews is eternal, and then along comes someone and talks about brotherhood and so on… This contradicts the Koran. Anyone who contradicts the Koran is an infidel. Accusing people of heresy? Yes, I’m all for it. Yes, I support accusing people of heresy.

And he ends his message by saying:

I, Abdallah Fahd Abd Al-’Aziz Al-Nafisi, am inciting you to confront, using any means possible, anyone who speaks out against the resistance. “Any means possible” – get it?

Al-Qaeda knows that the United States is wearing a giant “Kick Me” sign on its southern border.  Given the fact that Mexican peasants can easily cross into the country, how hard could it be for hardened Spanish-speaking Islamist terrorists to find their own path in with four extra pounds of weight?

Read the WorldNetDaily story for more.

Neville Chamberlain – the former prime minister of Great Britain who has come to be universally mocked for his appeasement of Adolf Hitler – was absolutely ruthless in advancing his liberal-socialist domestic agenda.  It was only in his foreign policy and his dealings with dictators that he revealed himself to be pathetically weak and appallingly naive.

The message that Obama promised America was that he would somehow put an end to all the enmity and divisions of the world.  But he hasn’t reduced our Islamist enemies by so much as a single terrorist.  Rather, all he has succeeded in doing is removing their fear of any meaningful American response under a president they rightly believe to be weak.

SustainLane, an on-line “people powered sustainability guide”, recently wrote an in-depth profile piece on Public Citizen’s own Tom “Smitty” Smith.  For an excellent glimpse of the man behind the machine, our very own white-hat-wearing fearless leader and official “American Changemaker,” check out the following:

‘Smitty’ Wrangles Texans for Environmental Battles

by Amy Linn, SustainLane Staff

Tom “Smitty” Smith is one of the leading lights in the environmental movement, in his home state of Texas and beyond.

A large part of wisdom is awareness; another is putting awareness to good use. Taking both those skills—and using them to win countless battles for people and the planet—has made veteran activist Tom “Smitty” Smith one of the leading lights in the environmental movement, in his home state of Texas and beyond.

For 24 years, Tom “Smitty” Smith has been the Texas director of Public Citizen, a consumer and environmental watchdog group that weighs in on nearly every eco-issue, whether it’s fighting the construction of new coal-fired power plants (an ongoing struggle), pushing for renewable energy (one of the group’s major success stories), or combating global warming. Name a progressive battle in Texas, and Smith’s been there, won that.

It’s a path he says he was primed for by his childhood amid the farm belt of Champaign, Ill. In his 20s—before the word “green” meant anything but a color—Smith fought for anti-pollution laws; after graduating college, he stayed on the eco front lines.

What sparked his interest in this tough (and, on bad days, Sisyphusian) line of work?

“My parents,” he says, without hesitation. “When I was a kid we went for walks every Sunday. And they taught me how wonderful nature was, and how little damage it took to the balance of our ecological system to turn a pure little stream into a muddy slough. And they taught me about the impact of pesticides on birds and animals.”

More ominously, Smith recounts what his father told him in the past decade, after attending his 50th high school reunion. “Many of my dad’s classmates were still alive, but he was shocked at how many of their sons had died from cancers,” Smith says. “These were the kids who’d first grown up using pesticides—children who worked on the family farm, who would have been in their late 40s or early 50s and had died.”

Pesticides, unfortunately, weren’t the only things causing deadly problems and planetary distress. And from the time he studied urban planning at Valparaiso University, near Gary, Indiana, Smith has tried to turn things around.

“When I was in college 40 years ago, there were enormous fish kills due to pollution in Lake Michigan, and the skies were blackened several times a day with the soot and the sulfur coming off the big steel mills in Gary,” he recalls. Smith got involved in an air- and water-monitoring research project, and then buttonholed his friends and created student groups to work with environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and push for stronger environmental laws.

Thanks to those types of efforts—and a groundswell of activism nationwide—Congress passed the landmark 1970 Clean Air Act and 1972 Clean Water Act.

“That was when I first began to realize that organized groups of students, teachers, and concerned citizens could have a powerful role in changing U.S. policy,” Smith says. He was hooked.

In 1974, Smith moved to Texas and worked as a VISTA volunteer, a Food bank director, and an anti-hunger advocate. He also worked in a Legal Aid office with struggling low-income families who couldn’t afford to pay energy bills. With the aid of a local church, he helped one woman make her home more energy efficient and—the coup de grace—replaced her ancient air conditioner. The simple changes made the woman’s house 50 percent more efficient. It was another “eureka” moment.

“It showed me the opportunity all of us have to make our lives more energy efficient,” Smith says. “Most of us waste between 20 and 50 percent of the energy we use on a daily basis, and for relatively little money we could reduce that.”

By 1985, Smith took the helm in the Texas office of Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest group that fights for consumer protections in everything from prescription drugs to power plants. The latter were wreaking havoc in Texas.

“One third of the global warming gases here in Texas come from power consumption, and between one-third and two-thirds of all the toxic air pollutants come from our power plants,” Smith says.

Public Citizen found a cost-saving formula for change. “The fastest and cheapest way to reduce air pollution and global warming is to do efficiency first, and then begin to develop renewable energy,” he says. “For every dollar in energy efficiency, there’s typically a three-dollar savings in energy costs. For every dollar invested in renewable energy, you get 2.5 dollars in reducing energy costs. And at the same time, you significantly reduce air pollution.”

Since 1994, Public Citizen has been promoting renewable energy on every front. Smith has testified before more than 100 legislative committees and has worked to build extensive networks of coalitions among business owners, farmers, ranchers, and environmentalists. He’s also been a relentless lobbyist for green causes, and has launched or served on the boards of groups like Clean Water Action, Texans for Public Justice, Campaigns for People, and the Texas Ratepayers’ Organization to Save Energy.

The results? Texas today is a leader in wind energy, with a long-term commitment to renewable energy sources. In 1999, state legislation mandated that electricity providers use 3 percent, or 2,000 megawatts, of renewable energy like solar and wind power to serve customers. The so-called Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) became a model for the rest of the country; in its wake, wind power development in the state more than quadrupled.

In 2005, Smith helped win passage of a bill that will increase the state’s use of renewable energy to 10,000 megawatts by 2020, reducing power plant pollution by 8 percent. In addition, Smith helped forge the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan, which slashes toxic emissions from dirty diesels and requires new homes and commercial buildings to meet tough new energy standards.

The battles never stop, of course. Smith and other environmentalists are now struggling to defeat five additional coal-fired power plants and a proposed expansion of two nuclear power plants, which—hello, greenwashing—are being touted as “environmentally friendly.”

“There are over 30 nuclear plants on the drawing board right now nationwide,” Smith notes. “The nuclear power industry is saying they don’t emit global warming gases, which is just not true. There are literally life-threatening volumes of pollutants coming from these plants.”

But Texas has managed to make changes nearly as big as its boundaries. And Smith credits dedicated citizens.

The 1999 renewable energy legislation, for example, “basically happened because of five women in the Dallas area who decided they were going to go on a crusade,” he says. The women met at a restaurant with Public Citizen staffers and decided to ask two members of the Texas legislature to sponsor legislation demanding that—as a starting point—3 percent of state energy come from renewables within 10 years.

“They went to their churches, they went to the Sierra Club, and Audubon, and women’s groups. They passed out letters when their kids were playing soccer and they set up tables in front of the local grocery stores. And they literally got thousands of letters to their legislators,” Smith says.

“The message here is that a few people really can make an enormous difference.”

And here’s the best part: “I’ve often found it only takes about 10 letters for a member of the legislature to decide this is something they have to respond to,” Smith says. “If they get 100 letters, they know they have take leadership on the issue,” he adds. “And if they get 1,000 letters, they know they’d better listen, or they won’t be reelected.”

Today, Smith has new worries. The pollution of old was blatant: fish killed by pollution, rivers burning (read: the Cuyahoga), snow blackened by soot from steel mills. Many of those problems have been cleaned up thanks to public pressure, he says.

“The threats today are far more dangerous because they’re more invisible,” he says. Global warming is a subtle actor, quietly extinguishing plants and animals, erasing water supplies and habitats, and melting glaciers.

“We have very little time to make the changes we need to protect the planet,” Smith says. But we can save the future. We’ve already begun.

“Two years ago, virtually nobody would have thought it was possible to have elected a black president,” he points out. “If we can make that profound a cultural change in two years, I’m confident we can make the necessary environmental changes as well.”

Read about more American Changemakers here.

I’m going to cross-post the following article from the Texas Observer’s Floor Pass blog whole hog, because it is just that good.  Look for Smitty’s quote in bold, and hold on to your hat

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
The Chosen Ones

posted by Susan Peterson at 03:12 PM

There’s a lot to celebrate this Earth Day when it comes to the Texas Legislature. Republicans in both chambers are carrying environmental legislation – if for no other reason than to stick it to the feds before the feds, under President Obama and a Democratic Congress, begin regulating the environment themselves. And Speaker Joe Straus has been a boon to environmental bills, as well, since he’s actually letting the legislators run the show in the House, unlike his predecessor.

The upshot? More good environmental bills and fewer bad ones.

Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, says there are just two main bad bills this session. Both would both speed up the permitting process for power plants. Rep. Dan Flynn’s HB 2721, which is being heard today in Environmental Regulation, would speed it up for nuclear plants. The other bad bill, Rep. Randy Weber’s HB 4012, would fast-track permitting for coal power plants.

And I know it’s unlike us to report good news, but Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen in Texas, says he is “suffering from a crisis of abundance” when it comes to all the worthwhile environmental bills this session.

“There are more good bills in the lege session than I can keep up with,” Smitty says. “It is reminiscent of the 1991 legislative session when Ann Richards was elected and there was a wave of reform. This is the best session I’ve had in 18 years.”

Hot damn!

But which of these good bills actually have a chance? Read about them after the jump.

By this point in the session, it usually pretty clear what the “chosen” bills are – the ones that have the leadership and support to put up a good fight in a system designed to kill bills. These bills are often omnibus bills resulting from negotiations with legislators of both parties, industry representatives and advocates.

Of the dozens of environmental bills filed this session, here’s a rundown of which appear to be the chosen ones, and where they are in the process.

Energy Efficiency

“Energy efficiency” generally describes low-tech measures that reduce energy use, such as increasing insulation in buildings, replacing standard appliances with Energy Star appliances, and using compact fluorescent lighting rather than conventional.

On the Senate side is Troy Fraser’s SB 546, which would establish concrete goals for utilities to decrease their demand. The bill passed the Senate 29 -1 on April 20, and so it’s on its way to the House.

The chosen energy efficiency bill on the House side is Rafael Anchia’s HB 280, which also sets demand reduction goals – but was described by Smitty as “much more aggressive” as the Fraser bill.

Renewable Energy Resources

The big solar bill on the Senate side is also Fraser’s. SB 545 is an incentive program that would primarily promote the use of rooftop solar panels, mostly for private residences. It passed out of the Senate yesterday, 25-4.

On the House side, it’s still up in the air which bills will emerge as the chosen ones. The major contenders, authored by Reps. David Swinford and Mark Strama, may get out of committee as early as this week and hit the House floor next week. Stay tuned.

Senate Bill 16

And finally, there’s Sen. Kip Averitt’s SB 16, which has been pegged as a big’un since the beginning of the session, and passed the Senate a couple weeks ago.. The bill is an omnibus clean air act which requires, among other things, better building codes, appliance standards, improved incentives for plug-in hybrid vehicles and more oversight when it comes to power plant locations and specs. It will be heard in House Environmental Regulation sometime next week.

False flag in progress:

US nuclear plants told to prepare for plane attacks

Firms building nuclear power stations will have to present designs that limit the possible effects of a large aircraft hitting the facility, the US nuclear energy watchdog said Wednesday.

The rules are designed to limit the impact of a potentially catastrophic September 11-style attack on reactors, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The new regulations – which come after nearly two years of deliberations – were approved on Tuesday according to Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the NRC.

“This is a common sense approach to address an issue raised by the tragic events of September 11, 2001,” said NRC Chairman Dale Klein.

The new regulations mean that cooling systems are able to function and fissile material remains stable in the event of a large commercial aircraft hitting the plant.

The rules will be included in the process of evaluating three new reactors that the NRC is currently considering.

No new reactor has been built in the US since the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.

The new rules will not apply to the 104 nuclear plants currently in operation, which supply around 20 percent of US electricity.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20092\20\story_20-2-2009_pg4_2

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E-book:

Operation Gladio and NATO Terrorism in Western Europe

A must Read:

Dr. Daniele Ganser, an academic historian from Switzerland researched false flag terrorism in Europe.

Besides his publicity around the 9/11 truth movement, his historical work about the so-called “Nato secret armies” is extremly interesting.

If you want to get several examples which false flag operations have been definetly proven, how they were uncovered, how they were interlocked with politicians or even brought to courts, Gansers work is a good place to start.

You can down load here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/294202/Daniele-Ganser-NATOs-Secret-Armies-Operation-Gladio-and-Terrorism-in-Western-Europe

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Afghanistan, the Next US Quagmire?

by Thalif Deen

The United States is planning to send an additional 17,000 troops to one of the world’s most battle-scarred nations – Afghanistan – long described as “a graveyard of empires.”

First, it was the British Empire, and then the Soviet Union. So, will the United States be far behind?

“With his new order on Afghanistan, President (Barack) Obama has given substantial ground to what Martin Luther King Jr., in 1967 called ‘the madness of militarism,’” Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS.

“That madness should be opposed in 2009,” said Solomon, author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.

The proposed surge in U.S. troops will bring the total to 60,000, while the combined forces from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including troops from Germany, Canada, Britain and the Netherlands, amount to over 32,000.

When in full strength, U.S.-NATO forces in Afghanistan could reach close to 100,000 by the end of this year.

Still, in a TV interview Tuesday, Obama said he was “absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban (insurgency), the spread extremism in that region solely through military means.”

“If there is no military solution, why is the administration’s first set of decisions to continue drone attacks and increase ground troops?” Marilyn B. Young, a professor of history at New York University, told IPS.

She said the uncertainty around Afghan policy seems to be spreading even while the Obama administration announces an increase in troops.

“This is one of the ways events seem to echo U.S. escalation in the Vietnam War,” said Young, author of several publications, including “Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn From the Past.”

On Tuesday, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released a report revealing that in 2008, there were 2,118 civilian casualties in Afghanistan, an increase of almost 40 percent over 2007.

Of these casualties, 55 percent of the overall death toll was attributed to anti-government forces, including the Taliban, and 39 percent to Afghan security and international military forces.

“This is of great concern to the United Nations,” the report said, pointing out that “this disquieting pattern demands that the parties to the conflict take all necessary measures to avoid the killing of innocent civilians.”

During his presidential campaign last year, Obama said the war in Iraq was a misguided war.

The United States, he said, needs to pull out of Iraq, and at the same time, bolster its troops in Afghanistan, primarily to prevent the militant Islamic fundamentalist Taliban from regaining power and also to eliminate safe havens for terrorists.

But most political analysts point out that Afghanistan may turn out to be a bigger military quagmire for U.S. forces than Iraq.

Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy said Obama’s moves on Afghanistan have “the quality of a moth toward a flame.”

In the short run, Obama is likely to be unharmed in domestic political terms. But the policy trajectory appears to be unsustainable in the medium-run, he added.

“Before the end of his first term, Obama is very likely to find himself in a vise, caught between a war in Afghanistan that cannot be won and a political quandary at home that significantly erodes the enthusiasm of his electoral base while fueling Republican momentum,” Solomon argued.

Dr. Christine Fair, a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation and a former political officer with UNAMA in Kabul, told IPS she is doubtful that more troops will secure Afghanistan.

“Perhaps several years ago more troops would have been welcomed. My fear is that more troops means more civilian losses and further erosion of good will and support for the international presence,” Fair said.

“I would personally prefer a move from kinetics and towards using this increased capacity to help build Afghan capacity,” she noted.

“I also think greater support from the international community for reconciliation is needed. Afghans need to own this process,” said Fair, a former senior research associate with the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the U.N. Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington.

However, she said, the international community has legitimate interests in remaining in some capacity to ensure that Afghanistan does not again emerge as a safe haven for al-Qaeda and other international terrorist groups.

Fair also co-authored (along with Seth Jones) a USIP report released early this week, titled “Securing Afghanistan,” which spelled out the reasons why international stabilization efforts have not been successful in Afghanistan over the last seven years.

“Security issues in Afghanistan are extraordinarily complex, with multiple actors influencing the threat environment – among them, insurgent groups, criminal groups, local tribes, warlords, government officials and security forces,” the report said.

Afghanistan also presents a multi-front conflict that includes distinct security challenges in the northern, central and southern parts of the country, the study declared.

In Afghanistan, Solomon argued, the U.S. president is proceeding down a path that can only be too steep and not steep enough.

The basic contradiction of his current position – asserting that the situation cannot be solved by military means yet taking action to try to solve the problem by military means – signifies that Obama is bargaining for short-term wiggle room at the expense of longer-term rationality, he added.

“In a very real sense, Obama is kicking a bloody can down the road, unable to think of any other way to confront circumstances that will grow worse with time in large measure because of his actions now,” he said.

Even while disputing some thematic aspects of the “war on terrorism” at times, Obama is reinvesting his political capital – and re-dedicating the Pentagon’s mission – on behalf of a U.S. war effort that is probably doomed to fail on its own terms, Solomon said.

“Reliance on violence is a chronic temptation for a commander-in-chief with the mighty U.S. military under its command. We’ve seen the results in Iraq – or, more precisely, the people of Iraq and many American soldiers have seen and suffered the results,” he added.

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/deen.php?articleid=14285

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ALBANY — State fees on nuclear power plant operators could nearly double next year under the governor’s proposed budget.

Annual fees would swell from $550,000 to $1 million per reactor, according to budget division spokesman Matt Anderson. The money collected from New York’s six reactors would be split – half funneling to the counties and local municipalities located around the reactors and the other half staying with the state, Anderson said.

Entergy Nuclear, the New Orleans-based company that owns two reactors at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan and another at the James Fitzpatrick site near Oswego, declined to opine about the state’s squeeze.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081217/NEWS/81217045/-1/NEWS