Lithuania to shut its only nuclear power station By Gabriel Gatehouse BBC News 31 December 2009

Lithuania is to shut down its one and only nuclear power station in Visaginas on 31 December.

One hour before midnight, staff at the Ignalina plant will flick the switches, shutting down the only nuclear reactor in the Baltic states.

The closure of the Soviet-era plant was a condition of Lithuania’s membership of the European Union…..It was built to the same design as Chernobyl, which was behind the worst civil nuclear disaster in history when one of its reactors overheated in 1986.

Atomic Insights Blog  December 15, 2009 Focused Effort to Increase Cost of Nuclear Energy From Oyster Creek by Rod Adams Yesterday, the New Jersey senate held hearings lasting more than three hours on proposed legislation that would force Oyster Creek, the oldest currently operating nuclear power plant in the United States, to install cooling towers. The plant currently operates with the required steam condenser cooling water being drawn from a local surface water supply and then returned to that water supply somewhat warmer than it was before. There are limits assigned to the amount of temperature rise allowed and to the maximum discharge temperature.

Atomic Insights Blog: Focused Effort to Increase Cost of Nuclear Energy From Oyster Creek

First, a set up. I am a first year law student. Before entering law school, I was just as baffled as everyone else when I would read about a high-profile court decision that seemed to make no sense. I’ve come to realize that law operates on a different plane than mere common sense, as rules exist for a reason. On that same note, I also enjoyed many a movie when a heartless lawyer was the bad guy, seeming to try and screw over the protagonists with his unflinching, unfair application of the law.

This blog is dedicated to pointing out the legal issues in some of our more popular films. More accurately, to show how an understanding of the law has ruined movies for me forever.

And so…..

GHOSTBUSTERS:

At the start of Ghostbusters II, the Ghostbusters have been disbanded and are in dire straits because of the legal action taken against them after the events of the first film. They were sued by the city for property damage they incurred in their fight against Gozer, and furthermore they are under a restraining order preventing them from ghostbusting or investigating any ghosts. Now there are a myriad of reasons why Ghostbusters II is a complete fucking embarrassment to anyone with a basic understanding of the law, but I’ll talk about that some other time.

What’s important is that Spengler, Stantz, Venkman, and Veddemore (Huh, I never realized before that they’re all either Jewish or Eastern European. Even the black guy.) had their asses sued off and a restraining order against them. This is seen to be a grave injustice to our noble heroes. Well, it’s really not.

First of all, the issue of them being sued for the damage they caused. Were they police or legally sanctioned by the city to perform their duties, there would be no question that they would be absolved of liability for any damage caused in the reasonable execution of their duty. But they weren’t. They were paranormals for profit. The mayor did let them do their thing to stop Gozer, but that was more about letting them out of prison.

Think about this situation: You own a store in the mall. A shoplifter tries to steal something and a noble citizen tries to stop him. In doing so, he sets fire to your store and burns it to the ground. Was he doing the right thing? Yes. Should he be liable for that damage? Yes. No one was saying the Ghostbusters were being criminals, just that they could be held liable in a civil context.

Technically the damage was caused by the Ghostbusters AND Gozer. There is an established principle in tort law that where two parties are liable for negligence, at least one of them has to be held liable in a court of law so the innocent party (the city, in this case) can recover damages. Since Gozer is, well, banished to another dimension, one in which the laws of the state of New York have no jurisdiction, the Ghostbusters are the only logical party to sue. Plus, the Ghostbusters made a great deal of money by ignoring laws regarding their destruction of public property, reckless endangerment, negligence, and possible fraud, so why is it suddenly unfair that those same laws hold them accountable?

Oh yeah, the fraud thing. These guys were profiting off expelling ghosts. I can’t speak to the United States, but the Canadian Criminal Code actually has a provision prohibiting you from doing this. Section 362 prohibits fraud outright, and Section 365 is particularly interesting:

365. Every one who fraudulently

(a) pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration,

…

(c) pretends from his skill in or knowledge of an occult or crafty science to discover where or in what manner anything that is supposed to have been stolen or lost may be found,

is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in charge of regulating civilian use of nuclear and radioactive materials. Their regulatory legislation says that any private citizen who wishes to use atomic technology must obtain a license for doing so. And since Egon admits at one point that each of the Ghostbusters has an “unlicensed nuclear acceleator on [their] back,” I’m willing to bet he didn’t write to the USNRC for a license. I don’t know about you, but I’d feel much less safe living in a world when anyone who wants to can obtain nuclear technology.

Al Qaeda would love the precedent set by acquitting the Ghostbusters.

(Above: FUCKING TERRORIST-ENABLERS!)

From THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

GENKAI, Saga Prefecture–Despite lingering questions about safety, cost efficiency and waste disposal, the trial operation of the long-delayed “pluthermal” program–perhaps the future of Japan’s energy needs–started here Thursday……………..

In the pluthermal program, plutonium is extracted from spent nuclear fuel, mixed with uranium and reused to generate power.

The program is a pillar of Japan’s national policy of creating a “nuclear fuel cycle.”………

But MOX fuel costs more than conventional uranium fuel in terms of production and transportation. …….

Disposal methods of nuclear waste produced in the program are still not clear. And there is also the issue of safety in the operations.

Although the Genkai town and Saga prefectural governments approved the pluthermal project, local residents are opposed, citing concerns about the use of plutonium.

The limits of nuclear power , The Ottawa Citizen , by Kate Heartfield 30 Dec 09 “……………The very quality that makes a nuclear power plant so attractive — its size — is also a major flaw. A small windfarm might not provide much power, but it can go up easily in a few years, and is inexpensive enough to be accessible to a variety of companies.
Small power is flexible and nimble; big power is not. A nuclear plant is also one big single point of failure for the grid. I also worry about waste storage — not an insoluble problem, but a problem nonetheless. And then there are the environmental consequences of uranium mining.

The limits of nuclear power – The Ed Board blog

What To Do With Zombie Nuke Plants  CBS News November 24, 2009 by Christian Parenti: Thirty Years Affter The Three Mile Island Partial Meltdown, Old Plants Pose The Real Nuclear Power Threat.  Oyster Creek Generating Station, .. the oldest in the country, was slated to close in 2009 when its original forty-year license was ending. It had seen four decades of service, using radioactively produced heat to boil water into high-pressure steam that ran continuously through hundreds of miles of increasingly brittle and stressed piping.
Tritium is a form of hydrogen. In August workers found another tritium leak coming from a pipe buried in a concrete wall. Radiation makes metal brittle, so old pipes must be routinely switched out for new ones. The second leak was spilling about 7,200 gallons a day and contained 500 times the acceptable level of radiation for drinking water.

That leaking pipe had erroneously–or perhaps fraudulently–been listed in paperwork as replaced. How this error occurred remains unclear. What seems likely is that the plant’s previous owner, GPU Nuclear, was deliberately skimping on maintenance as it approached the end of the plant’s license. Then Oyster Creek was sold to Exelon and won relicensing.

How many other mislabeled, brittle, old components remain in the plant’s guts is impossible to determine without a massive audit and investigation. Unfortunately, stories like this are all too common: crumbling, leaky, accident-prone old nuclear plants, shrouded in secrecy and subject to lax maintenance, are getting relicensed all over the country. ………………new nukes are not the issue. New atomic plants are prohibitively expensive. If enough public subsidies are thrown at the industry, one or two gold-plated, state-of-the-art, extremely expensive nuclear power stations may eventually be built, at most.

The real issue is what happens to old nukes. The atomic power industry has a plan: it wants to make as much money as possible from the existing fleet of 104 old, often decrepit, reactors by getting the government to extend their licenses. The oldest plants, most of which opened in the early 1970s and were designed to operate for only forty years, should be dead by now. Yet, zombielike, they march on, thanks to the indulgence of the NRC. ……………….

Over the past two decades the NRC has also promulgated rules that effectively exclude from consideration many of the grounds on which the public could intervene to oppose relicensing. For example, the public cannot raise the issue of terrorism. Nor can it question maintenance plans, or waste storage plans, or even evacuation procedures. …………………..

This fleet of poorly regulated zombie plants is the real story of nuclear power. Building hundreds of new nukes to save us from climate change is a pipe dream–the time and expense necessary for that would be impossible to overcome in the decade or two remaining. And so the debate about the future of atomic power in the age of climate change functions mostly as a smoke screen behind which these old, leaky, crumbling plants are being pushed to the limit of their endurance. Half the fleet has already been relicensed and many up-rated to run at more than 100 percent of their designed capacity. To avoid dangerous accidents over the next two decades, the industry must be subject to real oversight. For that to happen, the NRC must be reformed.

What To Do With Zombie Nuke Plants – CBS News

French Nuclear Energy Policy – a cake the US may do well not to consume too much of Treehugger, by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11.22.09 “………………. US politicians now cite the French energy policy example with excitement; claiming that nation’s high reliance on nuclear power is exemplary. (Inference that support for climate and energy legislation is more likely if nuclear power expansion incentives are included.) It doesn’t seem to matter to that France is roughly the size of Texas and that the existing US nuclear fleet already is far larger than what France has or will ever have. Nor, that the French government controls the nuclear power industry (socialized electricity).

Think it will matter to US Congressional proponents of government-funded nuclear power that France may be forced to import electrical power this winter due to operating problems and that the newest French power plant design – one that some argue should be used to update the nuclear fleet in both France and the USA – was recently challenged for being overly elaborate, and possibly unsafe?

I love it when Senators use the “Manhattan Project” simile. With Westinghouse, the big “American” nuclear supplier, long owned by Toshiba, and Areva, the French nuclear company, poised to go after an expanding US market, tax payer subsidies could flow to Japan & France, respectively. What’s the big deal?

As Lloyd points out in his post “Why Can’t We Be More Like France” it would be a very big deal indeed:

According to Joe Romm, to generate the same percentage as France, the US would have to build between 300 and 600 nuclear plants, depending on how you deal with existing plants needing retirement or growth in electricity demand.Oh, and Joe calculates that it will cost some four trillion dollars, and would need seven Yucca Mountain sized waste disposal sites. And that there are serious problems in the supply chain. Whether you love or hate nuclear power, there is no way that we can build enough of it fast enough to make much of a difference.

There is no French Energy Revolution. Move along Marie. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/french_nuclear-power-design-cake-let-them-eat.php

Generating Failure  How building nuclear power plants would set America back in the race agasinst global warming.  Environment Illinois 22 Nov 09  – “……Executive Summatry. Far from being a solution to global warming, nuclear power will actually set America back in the race to reduce pollution. Nuclear power is too slow and too expensive to make enough of a difference in the next two decades. Moreover, nuclear power is not necessary to provide clean, carbon-free electricity for the long haul.

The up-front capital investment required to build 100 new nuclear reactors could prevent twice as much pollution over the next 20 years if invested in energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy instead. Taking into account the ongoing costs of running the nuclear plants, a clean energy path would deliver as much as five times more progress for the money.

Early action matters in the fight against global warming….

• Reducing emissions from power plants holds large potential for early progress. The share of the U.S. emissions budget available to electric power plants could be as little as 34 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from 2010 cumulatively through 2050………………..
• No new reactors are now under construction in the United States. The nuclear industry will not complete the first new reactor until at least 2016, optimistically assuming construction will take four years after regulatory approval.
• However, it is likely that no new nuclear reactors could be online until 2018 or later. During the last wave of nuclear construction in the United States, the average reactor took nine years to build. New reactors are likely to experience similar delays. For example, a new reactor now under construction in Finland is at least three years behind schedule after a series of quality control failures.
• The American nuclear industry is not ready to move quickly. No American power company has ordered a new nuclear power plant since 1978, and all reactors ordered after the fall of 1973 ended up cancelled. As a result, domestic manufacturing capability for nuclear reactor parts has withered and trained personnel are scarce.
• Even if the nuclear industry managed to complete 100 new reactors in the United States by 2030 – the level of construction advocated by supporters of nuclear power – new nuclear power plants could still only reduce cumulative power plant emissions by 12 percent over the next two decades, leading to a higher and later peak in pollution. As a result, America would burn through its 40-year electric sector carbon budget in just 15 years……
• In contrast, energy efficiency and renewable energy sources can make an immediate contribution toward reducing global warming pollution.
• Clean energy can begin cutting emissions immediately. Energy efficiency programs are already reducing electricity consumption by 1-2 percent below forecast levels annually in leading states, and the U.S. wind industry is already building the equivalent of three nuclear reactors per year in wind farms, and growing rapidly.
• With the up-front capital investment required to build 100 new nuclear reactors, America could prevent twice as much pollution in the next 20 years by investing in clean energy instead. (Midpoint estimate, see Figure ES-1 and page 21 of the full report for more details.) ….

http://www.environmentillinois.org/uploads/c4/6b/c46b345b95dd70df2c8341d397e21866/Generating-Failure—Environment-Illinois—Web.pd

“Counting on new nuclear reactors as a climate change solution is no more sensible than counting on an un-built dam to create a lake to fight a nearby forest fire.”

— Peter Bradford, former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission member

Like coal, natural gas, and oil, uranium is a nonrenewable resource. Consequently, is uranium being depleted faster than we think? With all the talk of building and investing in so-called next generation nuclear reactors, is enough uranium available to meet this proposed new demand in addition to sustaining current demand? Some U.S. Senators are proposing that more nuclear energy is the answer to address our climate change and energy troubles.

U.S. Senators Jim Webb, a democrat from Virginia, and Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, do not support the current cap-and-trade legislation, but these Senators are throwing their support behind nuclear power and carbon-capture-and-storage technology. Furthermore, “Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is working with Democrat John Kerry on the bill, highlighted how France now derives 80 percent of its energy from nuclear power and is presently constructing a next-generation reactor, said to be the most advanced in the world.” More on dwindling uranium supplies from the Physics arXiv Blog:

The world is about to enter a period of unprecedented investment in nuclear power. The combined threats of climate change, energy security and fears over the high prices and dwindling reserves of oil are forcing governments towards the nuclear option. The perception is that nuclear power is a carbon-free technology, that it breaks our reliance on oil and that it gives governments control over their own energy supply.

That looks dangerously overoptimistic, says Michael Dittmar, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich who publishes the final chapter of an impressive four-part analysis of the global nuclear industry on the arXiv today.

Perhaps the most worrying problem is the misconception that uranium is plentiful. The world’s nuclear plants today eat through some 65,000 tons of uranium each year. Of this, the mining industry supplies about 40,000 tons. The rest comes from secondary sources such as civilian and military stockpiles, reprocessed fuel and re-enriched uranium. “But without access to the military stocks, the civilian western uranium stocks will be exhausted by 2013, concludes Dittmar.

It’s not clear how the shortfall can be made up since nobody seems to know where the mining industry can look for more.

That means countries that rely on uranium imports such as Japan and many western countries will face uranium .shortages, possibly as soon as 2013. Far from being the secure source of energy that many governments are basing their future energy needs on, nuclear power looks decidedly rickety.

And from PhysOrg.com:

New York Times energy reporter Matthew Wald, writing in Technology Review, said new reactors would be unable to pay for themselves because of the massive cost of construction and competition from emerging alternatives that could affect the energy price. Wald compared the costs per kilowatt of capacity of nuclear ($4,000), coal ($3,000) and natural gas ($800), which makes the nuclear option a big financial gamble. The future cost of fossil fuels is unknown, and could also affect the nuclear industry’s viability.

Energy efficiency standards and renewable energy options are better solutions than the nuclearization of energy sources. From Los Angeles Times:

If the U.S. wants to help stop global warming, nuclear power is not the way to go, according to a new report released today.

The Environment California Research & Policy Center concluded that launching a nuclear power industry nearly from the ground up is too slow and expensive a process. Energy efficiency standards and renewable energy options are better solutions, researchers said.

.       .       .

But even if the nuclear industry managed to build 100 reactors by 2030, the total power produced would reduce total U.S. emissions only 12% over the next 20 years, which Environment California deemed “far too little, too late.”

The $600-billion upfront investment necessary for the 100 reactors would slice out twice as much carbon pollution in that period if invested in clean energy, according to the report. And given the costs of running a power plant, clean energy could deliver five times as much progress per dollar in lowering pollution.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Christina Macpherson's websites & blogs

Oh those Russians!  Apparently they’re so keen to outdo everyone else in nuclear technology – they’re aiming to send men to Mars.  I guess, being patriotic Russians, those astronauts don’t mind that radiation in space will give them cancer, or even that scientists are agreed – it would be a one-way trip!

Russia goes all out to develop nuclear-powered spacecraft www.chinaview.cn 2009-11-13   MOSCOW, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) – President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will prioritize the development of nuclear energy, especially the use of nuclear technology in spacecraft. Medvedev made the announcement Thursday during his annual address to the Federal Assembly……………nuclear energy technology could be first tried on satellites, then on cargo spaceships. Manned spacecraft with nuclear power sets could be built and sent to Mars and other planets in the solar system.

Russia goes all out to develop nuclear-powered spacecraft_English_Xinhua

The Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fiction – Part IV: Energy from Breeder Reactors and from Fusion? The Oil Drum by Francois Cellier on November 10, 2009 - “….

The publicly available data from past experimental breeder reactors indicate that a large number of unsolved technological problems exist and that the amount of “created” fissile material, either from the U238 → Pu239 or from the Th232 → U233 cycle, is still far below the breeder requirements and optimistic theoretical expectations.

Thus huge efforts, including many basic research questions with an uncertain outcome, are needed before a large commercial breeder prototype can be designed.

Even if such efforts are undertaken by the technologically most advanced countries, it will take several decades before such a prototype can be constructed. We conclude therefore, that ideas about near-future commercial fission breeder reactors are nothing but wishful thinking.

We further postulate that, no matter how far into the future we may look, nuclear fusion as an energy source is even less probable than large-scale breeder reactors, for the accumulated knowledge on this subject is already sufficient to say that commercial fusion power will never become a reality……”

The Oil Drum: Europe | The Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fiction – Part IV: Energy from Breeder Reactors and from Fusion?

Problematic ‘pluthermal’ era ” Japan Times Nov. 11, 2009 .……. Japan’s first reactor using plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) as fuel, attained nuclear criticality last Thursday and started trial operations Monday….. Thus “pluthermal” power generation has begun, but many problems remain unresolved………….

Under an international obligation to prevent nuclear proliferation, Japan has to burn its accumulated plutonium. Since the 1970s, Japan has entrusted reprocessing its spent nuclear fuel to France and Britain. As of the end of 2008, Japan had 32 tons of fissile plutonium — 25 tons in France and Britain — enough to make several hundred Nagasaki-type plutonium bombs. The power industry plans to start using MOX fuel in 16 to 18 reactors by fiscal 2015.

But pluthermal power generation and the nuclear fuel-cycle plan face many problems. A series of accidents have delayed the startup of a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture.

A study shows that pluthermal power generation only saves 10 to 20 percent of the uranium normally needed for power generation and that reprocessing spent nuclear fuel costs two to four times more than disposing of such fuel underground. Thus the electricity bill per household will be ¥600 to ¥840 higher annually than if the spent nuclear fuel was buried underground. In addition, if a reactor uses MOX fuel its control rods will become less effective because the plutonium fission process is less stable than that for uranium. And finally, there remains the problem of how to properly dispose of spent MOX fuel.

Problematic ‘pluthermal’ era | The Japan Times Online

Here are some interesting environmental news links I’ve come across recently:

1. Today, October 24, 2009, is International Day of Climate Action, organized by 350.org. Science Magazine has an interview with Bill McKibben—the founder of 350.org:
   

   Writer Bill McKibben has built an international climate activism movement around a concentration: 350 ppm. Two years ago he launched 350.org after NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen told him that was the carbon dioxide concentration needed to prevent dangerous man-made warming (pdf). But the atmosphere already is around 390 ppm—and scientists expect the concentration to rise beyond 550 ppm if drastic measures aren’t taken soon to reduce humanity’s carbon emissions. So it’s an understatement to say that McKibben’s goal is a tough one.

   .       .       .

   Q: 350 a really hard goal. Do you wonder sometimes if you’ve chosen a goal that you’ll always be falling short of?

   B.M.: I wonder all the time whether we’re going to get there. It’s definitely a tough number. But the point is aiming for another number isn’t useful. There’s the Tripati study out of UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles]: 390 parts per million, the last time we were there, 15 million years ago, we had 100 foot rise in sea level. If 390 melts the Arctic, there’s no point in doing our best to get to 450. Yes, we’re probably going to hit 450, but we need to bounce off it as fast as we possibly can and get back down. There are whole countries that are going to disappear this century unless we bring things under control. Island nations that are going to go beneath the waves, and African nations that are going to be so drought ridden no one’s going to live there. So this is incredibly pragmatic. It may not be easy, and it may not be at the moment politically realistic—but the negotiation that’s going on right now is between human beings on the one hand and physics and chemistry on the other. … Physics and chemistry have stated their bottom line: 350 parts per million if you want the world to work at all the way you’re used to it working. That’s a pretty hard number. I’m pretty confident it’s going to be easier to change the political reality than it is to change the laws of nature. One of the reasons this seems so difficult to do is that we’ve never built a political movement to demand that change happen. That’s what we’re doing now. The scientists have done their job—they’ve given us a robust number to work with.

   Today’s awareness campaign of 350 ppm is global. Check out this video from downtown Manhattan:
   

   You can learn more about what 350 ppm means and why it’s important here.

2. Groundwater overdrafting is a huge problem in many areas of the world. It occurs when groundwater is extracted and used faster than it’s replaced. In some areas, due to the geology, it’s very difficult to recharge groundwater. The consequences of recklessly using aquifers in Spain are causing peat bogs to dry out, self-combust, and consequently release tones of carbon dioxide. In some areas, the land above an overused aquifer sinks—a process known as land subsidence. From the guardian.co.uk:
   

   They are meant to be Spain’s most important inland wetlands, but yesterday the lagoons at Las Tablas de Daimiel national park were not just dry, they were burning. Stilted walkways stood on baked earth and rowing boats lay stranded on the ground. Observation huts revealed no birds, just an endless stretch of reeds rooted in cracked mud.

   Only 1% of the park’s surface remains wet, but the real catastrophe is happening underground. “If you see smoke it is because the dried-out peat under the ground has begun to self-combust,” a park worker warned visitors. Occasionally, the fire breaks to the surface, sending up puffs of white smoke.

   Scientists warn the wetlands are losing the lining that once retained water, with deep cracks opening up in the worst areas. Park authorities worry the damage may prove irreversible.

   .       .       .

   Spain’s environment ministry, which runs the failing park, this week banned Ruiz from talking to the Guardian, but scientists who know the wetlands all agree on what is happening.

   The aquifer which once fed the lagoons now lies 50ft below them. Farmers near the park have sunk thousands of wells, some 300ft deep, and have spent years pumping out more water than goes in. Furthermore, the Guadiana river, which used to flow into the Tablas de Daimiel, has disappeared.

   “People have been warning that it was going to dry out for 20 years,” said Luís Moreno of Spain’s Geological and Mining Institute.

   As the peat burns, an area that once trapped carbon dioxide has started releasing vast quantities of it. “We saw the first smoke in August but the fires must have been burning for a while,” said Moreno. “It is a very difficult thing to control. It could burn for months.”

3. Unfortunately, a research survey vessel recently collided with a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus)—the largest living animal on the planet (and possibly that ever lived). More on the fatal blue whale ship strike from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
   

   “This is a big deal,” said Thor Holmes, curator of the vertebrate museum at Humboldt State University and a member of the California Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

   The 72-foot whale died after being struck by a research vessel, believed to be the 78-foot Pacific Star. Its crew is under contract to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to update maps of the ocean floor. The contractor is based in San Diego while the boat was leased from Washington, said Joe Cordaro, a NOAA biologist.

   Crew members reported they were seven miles off the coast of Fort Bragg moving at about 5.5 knots when the ship shuddered, he said. They had not spotted a whale and didn’t immediately know what happened. Then a whale surfaced, bleeding profusely, Cordaro said.

   A few hours later, a blue whale with huge gashes washed up along the rocky coast just south of Fort Bragg.

   Cordaro said it’s hard to explain how a ship and whale would collide in the open ocean. But when whales are feeding, breeding or coming up for air, they aren’t paying attention to their surroundings, he said.

   Just so history doesn’t repeat itself, it’s not wise to blow up a whale carcass with dynamite! Via NBC Bay Area:
   

   To offset the terrible news of the blue whale ship strike, in May of this year, it was reported, “The voice of a male blue whale was tracked about 70 miles off the south shore of Long Island on January 10 and 11, 2009 . . . ‘This is a very important moment in the environmental history . . . [since] blue whales were almost hunted to extinction by the middle of the 20th century, and the fact that now we’re finding them migrating not far off our shores is truly remarkable.’”

4. There are consequences to testing nuclear weapons. These consequences are apparently represented by a rise in cancer amongst Americans that lived during testing events. From Politics Daily:
   

   The winds carried Strontium-90, Iodine-129 and other lethal particles across a broad swath of the country. Infants who were bottle-fed, which was then considered the modern approach, were particularly vulnerable to the Strontium-90 that ended up in cows’ milk.

   In 1961, as John Kennedy was poised to resume atmospheric testing after a two-year moratorium, he met with White House science adviser Jerome Wiesner in the Oval Office one rainy day. The president wondered how fallout reached the earth. Wiesner explained that it was washed out of the clouds by rain. “You mean,” Kennedy asked, “it’s in the rain out there?” As Wiesner tells it, the president then “looked out the window, looked very sad and didn’t say a word for several minutes.” Nonetheless JFK, fearful that the Soviet Union might score a nuclear breakthrough, authorized a new round of above-ground testing before negotiating the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963.

   .       .       .

   But a study released Tuesday documents the enhanced cancer risk that Baby Boomers face because of these long-ago atmospheric tests. Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano analyzed the lingering radiation in infant teeth (donated long ago by the parents of baby boys born in the St. Louis area between 1959 and 1961) and compared the results to contemporary cancer data from the subjects. “What we found out was shocking,” Mangano said. “Persons who had died of cancer had more than double the Strontium-90 in their (baby) teeth than did healthy persons.” The original variance in Strontium-90 levels among individuals, he explained, was caused by seemingly small factors such as how much milk expectant mothers drank, diet and the source of the municipal water supply.

5. Bugs, bugs, and more bugs: This video captures the fascinating flight patterns of bugs flying around a street light (the music is by Telefon Tel Aviv, “What’s The Use Of Feet If We Haven’t Got Legs”)
   
6. Via ClimateWire, scientists argue that the “combustion of fossil fuels is inherently inefficient,” so worldwide energy consumption would drop if “all energy consumption is converted to electricity.” From ClimateWire:
   

   Mark Jacobson, an engineering professor at Stanford University, and Mark Delucchi, a researcher at University of California, Davis, in the article attempt to map out a plan for powering the entire planet with renewable sources of energy. Doing so, they say, is achievable and would cost less than fossil fuels or nuclear power.

   The core of their argument is this: Combustion of fossil fuels is inherently inefficient, while running a vehicle on electricity conserves energy. When gasoline is used to power a standard car, 80 percent of the energy is lost through heat. Electric-powered vehicles, on the other hand, only lose about 20 percent, they say.

   “If you make this transition to renewables and electricity, then you eliminate the need for 13,000 new or existing coal plants,” Jacobson said through the Stanford news service. “Just by changing our infrastructure, we have less power demand.”

   Jacobsen and Delucchi estimated worldwide energy demand with the current mix of energy sources at 16.9 terawatts in 2030. But if virtually all energy consumption is converted to electricity, either for direct use or hydrogen production, that figure would drop to 11.5 terawatts, according to their prediction.

   The long-term savings of converting to wind, geothermal, tidal, hydroelectric and solar power, they claim, would more than make up for the expense of replacing a fleet of plants fueled by coal, natural gas and nuclear. To get there, they argue for an unprecedented construction boom in transmission lines, among other measures.

   In all, the scientists say about 1.3 percent of the Earth’s land surface would suffice to host the wind turbines and solar installations that would dominate in their theoretical clean energy system.

7. Biophysical economics combines economics, ecology, and thermodynamics (e.g., unlimited economic growth is impossible) to argue that “the neoclassical mantra of constant economic growth is ignoring the world’s diminishing supply of energy at humanity’s peril, failing to take account of the principle of net energy return on investment.” . . . [so is the world] headed toward a dramatic economic collapse as energy scarcity takes hold . . . [or can we] turn the ship around.” More from Scientific American (emphasis added):
   

   Central to their argument is an understanding that the survival of all living creatures is limited by the concept of energy return on investment (EROI): that any living thing or living societies can survive only so long as they are capable of getting more net energy from any activity than they expend during the performance of that activity.

   For instance, if a squirrel burns energy eating nuts, those nuts had better give the squirrel more energy back then it expended, or the squirrel will inevitably die. It is a rule that lies at the core of studying animal and plant behavior, and human society should be looked at no differently, as even technologically complex societies are still governed by EROI.

   .       .       .

   The sharpest difference between biophysical economics and the more widely held “Chicago School” approach is that biophysical economists readily accept the peak oil hypothesis: that society is fast approaching the point where global oil production will peak and then steadily decline.

   The United States is held as the prime example. Though the United States is still the world’s third-largest producer of oil, its oil production stopped growing more than a decade ago and has flatlined or steadily fallen ever since. Other once-robust oil-producing countries have experienced similar production curves.

   But the more important indicator, biophysical economists say, is the fact that the U.S. oil industry’s energy return on investment has been steadily sliding since the beginning of the century.

   Through analyzing historical production data, experts say the petroleum sector’s EROI in this country was about 100-to-1 in 1930, meaning one had to burn approximately 1 barrel of oil’s worth of energy to get 100 barrels out of the ground. By the 1990s, it is thought, that number slid to less than 36-to-1, and further down to 19-to-1 by 2006.

   “If you go from using a 20-to-1 energy return fuel down to a 3-to-1 fuel, economic collapse is guaranteed,” as nothing is left for other economic activity, said Nate Hagens, editor of the popular peak oil blog “The Oil Drum.”

   “The main problem with neoclassical economics is that it treats energy as the same as any other commodity input into the production function,” Hagens said. “They parse it into dollar terms and treat it the same as they would mittens or earmuffs or eggs … but without energy, you can’t have any of that other stuff.”

—
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By Brad Friedman

September 07, 2009 “Huffington Post” — It has now been over a week since the video tape and transcript from the remarkable 8/8/09 deposition of former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds was publicly released. Previously, the Bush Administration invoked the so-called “state secrets privilege” in order to gag Edmonds, in attempting to keep such information from becoming public.

The under-oath, detailed allegations include bribery, blackmail, espionage and infiltration of the U.S. government of, and by current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and agents of the government of Turkey. The broad criminal conspiracy is said to have resulted in, among other things, the sale of nuclear weapons technology to black market interests including Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Libya and others.

Even as many of these allegations had been previously corroborated to varying extents, by a number of official government reports, documents and independent media outlets (largely overseas), not a single major mainstream media outlet in the U.S. has picked up on Edmonds’ startling claims since her deposition has been made fully available.

Granted, last week was a busy news week, with the death of Ted Kennedy, the release of the CIA Inspector General’s report on torture, and the announcement that Michael Jackson’s death was ruled a homicide. And, it’s true, a 4-hour deposition and/or 241-page transcript [PDF] is a lot of material to review, particularly given the wide scope of the charges being made here. Still, given the serious national security issues at stake, said to have the been among the most important matters of the past 8 years, one would think someone in the corporate MSM might have taken the time to go through the material, and report on it. Particularly as Edmonds’ claims have previously been found “credible” “serious” and “warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review,” by the DoJ Inspector General, and confirmed as such, on several occasions, by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and many many others.

So for the benefit of the U.S. media, and other readers, who may find it helpful for this large body of newly-available information to be culled down into more digestible pieces, I will attempt to break down the deposition, a bit, into some of its subject matter-based component parts. I will try to go through the major disclosures from the deposition, one-by-one, in a series of pieces which might help others to further report and/or investigate these breathtaking disclosures from a former FBI official who, following 9/11, listened to and translated wiretap recordings made from 1996 through 2002, in the FBI’s counterintelligence and counterterrorism departments, under top-secret clearance.

In this first break-down article, we’ll look at the answers given by Edmonds during her deposition in regard to bribery and blackmail of current and former members of the U.S. Congress, including Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), Tom Lantos (D-CA, deceased) and an unnamed, currently-serving, married Democratic Congresswoman said to have been video-taped in a Lesbian affair by Turkish agents for blackmail purposes.

In further breakdown articles, we’ll look at her disclosures concerning top State and Defense Department officials including Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and, perhaps most notably, the former Deputy Undersecretary of State, Marc Grossman, the third-highest ranking official in the State Department. Also, details on the theft of nuclear weapons technology; disclosures on Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA front company Brewster-Jennings; items related to U.S. knowledge of 9/11 and al-Qaeda prior to September 11, 2001; infiltration of the FBI translation department and more.

Though Edmonds was careful to not “discuss the intelligence gathering method by the FBI,” she notes in her deposition that her claims are “Based on documented and provable, tracked files and based on…100 percent, documented facts.”

Among the specific charges she levels against current and former U.S. Congress Members in the deposition:

Dennis Hastert: “[S]everal categories. The acceptance of large sums of bribery in forms of cash or laundered cash … to make it look legal for his campaigns, and also for his personal use, in order to do certain favors … make certain things happen for foreign entities and foreign governments’ interests, Turkish government’s interest and Turkish business entities’ interests. … other activities, too, including being blackmailed for various reasons. … he used the townhouse that was not his residence for certain not very morally accepted activities. … foreign entities knew about this, in fact, they sometimes participated in some of those not maybe morally well activities in that particular townhouse that was supposed to be an office, not a house, residence at certain hours, certain days, evenings of the week.”
Stephen Solarz: “[A]s lobbyist … acted as conduit to deliver or launder contribution and other briberies to certain members of Congress, but also in pressuring outside Congress, and including blackmail, in certain members of Congress.”

Bob Livingston: “Until 1999 … not very legal activities on behalf of foreign interests and entities, and after 1999 acting as a conduit to, again, further foreign interests, both overtly and covertly as a lobbyist, but also as an operative.”

Tom Lantos: “[N]ot only … bribe[ry], but also … disclosing highest level protected U.S. intelligence and weapons technology information both to Israel and to Turkey. … other very serious criminal conduct.”

Unnamed Congresswoman: (Though not identified as such during the deposition, Edmonds has since confirmed her to be a Democrat) “[T]his Congresswoman’s married with children, grown children, but she is bisexual. … So they have sent Turkish female agents, and that Turkish female agents work for Turkish government, and have sexual relationship with this Congresswoman in her townhouse … and the entire episodes of their sexual conduct was being filmed because the entire house, this Congressional woman’s house was bugged. … to be used for certain things that they wanted to request … I don’t know if she did anything illegal afterward. … the Turkish entities, wanted both congressional related favoritism from her, but also her husband was in a high position in the area in the state she was elected from, and these Turkish entities ran certain illegal operations, and they wanted her husband’s help. But I don’t know if she provided them with those.”

Roy Blunt: “[T]he recipient of both legally and illegally raised donations, campaign donations from …Turkish entities.”

Dan Burton: (And others) “[E]xtremely illegal activities against the United States citizens who were involved in [covert] operations that were … against … foreign government[s] and foreign entities against the United States’ interests.”

Hastert, Livingston and Solarz, as Edmonds notes in her deposition, would all go on to become highly-paid lobbyist for Turkey and/or Turkish public interest groups after they left the U.S. Congress.

Peter Custers, Monthly Review, September  2009

The U.S.-India nuclear deal was initiated through a framework agreement signed by India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President Bush in July 2005. India, at the instigation of Washington, agreed to separate its civilian and military nuclear production facilities, and place all civilian production facilities under the inspection regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in return for U.S. economic, technological, and military cooperation. The nuclear deal, which took three years to complete, is officially aimed at promoting India’s access to uranium and to civilian nuclear technology, through enlarged importation of both. Whereas nuclear energy contributed a reported 2.5 percent of India’s energy requirements in 2007, the deal is expected to boost the contribution of the nuclear sector to India’s electricity supply, without reducing India’s primary dependence on coal. From its very start, the U.S.-India nuclear deal has generated huge controversies, both in India and internationally. The intent here is to lay bare the implications of the deal for the creation of waste, while putting aside, for the moment, other important controversies associated with the nuclear agreement.

Continues >>

I would argue that most conservationists and environmentalists understand that we live in a world with limited resources (so unlimited growth is impossible); otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be conservationists or environmentalists in the first place. Since we live in a world with limited resources, small changes in behavior—in the aggregate—in addition to policies that bring about big changes are important in alleviating our propensity to increase entropy—or the unavailability of energy to produce work, thus goods and services. Consequently, extracting energy from renewable resources, consuming or using less goods and energy, thus generating less waste, are important in conserving energy within a closed system (e.g., Earth). However, this concept isn’t commonly or aggressively distributed by the media, politicians, or in our school systems.

For example, I find the complacency of relying on fossil fuels and the subsequent impacts of relying on fossil fuels extremely worrying. During the 2008 presidential elections a hot topic was offshore drilling. An alarming number of Americans believed (and many still do) that offshore drilling was an appropriate remedy to our energy woes. However, what happens when we exhaust offshore energy supplies? Therefore, shortsighted policies do nothing but exacerbate the problem. Consequently, save the offshore supplies for when we really need them, because to me, a smarter policy is modernizing the grid, utilizing as much renewable energy as possible, and getting gas-guzzlers off the road. Investing in appropriate technologies is important too. Furthermore, although the markets can foster change, the markets often bring change too late. Therefore, the federal government has a responsibility to drive policy. That policy should reflect the maximum sustainability that’s possible to achieve with current technology and resources. Considering the various competing interests, such a policy would be difficult to hammer out but certainly not impossible.

I believe utilizing more nuclear power has its problems as well—the biggest being nuclear waste. Drought is also the Achilles’ heel of nuclear power, so like coal-fired power plants, nuclear power relies heavily on water resources. Furthermore, I believe nuclear power is a lazy remedy to our energy woes. Nuclear power should be a tool to solve our energy crisis, but it shouldn’t be pursued aggressively.

Our current paradigm of development is undeniably unsustainable, and it’s unsustainable because we use energy unsustainably.  This behavior results in less energy for future generations and high energy prices.  Certainly, the economy of the United States can absorb high-energy prices but only to a particular amount and for a certain amount of time. Driving your family around in an inefficient vehicle such as an SUV might make you feel safe, but what type of world are you leaving your children?

For instance, when we burn coal it turns to ash, so the same amount of energy contained before the coal was burned can’t be extracted from the ash. The same applies when we extract crude oil and produce diesel, gasoline, kerosene, petroleum gas, or the many other products we create from crude oil. After these products are burned, the energy they contained before being used can’t be recaptured. Furthermore, burning these products produces pollution. Likewise, consuming food and drink provides fuel for our bodies, but the end product—or the waste—is essentially useless. Rusting iron and steel illustrates the entropic process as well.

The concept that unlimited growth is impossible, and we are limited by how much energy is available reflects the Second Law of Thermodynamics, especially the concept of entropy. More from Tushara Kodikara at Scoop.co.nz (emphasis added):

However, a litany of environmental problems, including destruction of the ozone layer, climate change, acid rain, deforestation, overpopulation, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, desertification, floods, famine, overfishing, hazardous wastes, expanding landfills, fresh water depletion and the depletion of nonrenewable resources, to name a few, are symptoms of the shortcomings of the current economic system.

The planet is approximately in a steady state. Neither the mass nor the surface is growing or shrinking and the flows of energy inwards and outwards are roughly equal. Energy and matter enter the economy as inputs, are turned into goods and services, and leave as wastes. This flow is known as throughput.

Steady state economics draws from the work of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971). This explains how the second law of thermodynamics can be applied to the economy. In a closed system such as the planet, where the energy balance is around zero, the availability of useful energy decreases. Production of economic goods transforms matter-energy from a state of low entropy to a state of high entropy. Entropy is a measure of the disorder within a closed system.

The second law implies that matter can only be recycled a number of times and that energy can be recycled. However it takes more energy to do the recycling than the amount of energy being produced. The law also implies that creating order by means of producing goods will create greater disorder elsewhere in the environment. Therefore the entropy law puts a limit on how much we can produce. Therefore unlimited growth is impossible.

The planet’s interdependence has its limits too, and in turn limits growth. The environment provides vital services such as non-renewable resources which excessive economic growth exhausts. Forests, for example, can be considered as floating lakes. They hold topsoil in place, preventing erosion; help absorb rainwater, thereby preventing flooding; and they also remove carbon dioxide, produce oxygen and many other important ecological services. Deforestation removes all of these services.

However, in neoclassical economics, this forest can be turned into books on the topic of the ecological services of trees and people can go to the library and learn about the ecological services trees provide. This economic theory treats factors of production as substitutes; natural capital can be replaced by human capital or physical capital. If there is less of one (such as labour) it can be replaced by another (machinery) and you can still get the same output.

Before the industrial age, when the economy was small compared to the ecosystem, physical capital was the limiting factor. Fish in the sea were abundant. The number and capacity of fishing boats determined the catch size. Today however, Daly argues, the factors’ roles have changed—the economy has become very large relative to the ecosystem—making natural capital the limiting factor. The depleted fish stock in the sea will determine the number of fish that can be taken as opposed to the technologically advanced fishing fleet.

.       .       .

Until recently, the world economy had been growing, and yet we still have extreme poverty. It should be obvious that what actually grows is the reinvested surplus, such as profits and the benefits of growth go to the owners of the surplus, who are not the poor.

Another argument of those who oppose the steady-state economy and think that the current system is the answer is that of technology being able to solve our problems. We shouldn’t worry about peak oil, as electric cars will become cheap and viable for everybody. However, there are a couple of issues here. There is a limited amount of platinum available in the world. This is an important component for the vehicle’s battery. There is not enough platinum to produce enough cars to replace the current petroleum-based vehicle fleet on the planet.

This blind faith that technology will solve all our problems is just that, blind faith. These solutions will be far more expensive than the preventive measures available. These solutions may in fact cause more problems rather than solving the current environment problems.

The most important point is that petroleum isn’t just used for fossil fuels. It is also an important chemical feedstock used in just about every produced good. It is literally the lubricant for the world’s economy. Under the current economic system, a substitute should be able to replace this vital feedstock. However, this substitute is not forthcoming.

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Exergy image found here.

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• A d v e r t i s e m e n t
• 

Israeli and Egyptian officials said two ships had sailed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea.

Media reports in Israel said the two Saar-class missile ships had been sent as a “message” to the Tehran government, which has repeatedly issued threats against Israel and is developing nuclear technology believed by the West to be intended for atomic weapons programme.

While Iran denies this, saying its enrichment of uranium is for civlian purposes only, so that it can generate electricity.

Israel has also deployed a submarine using the Suez Canal, but it has since returned to the Mediterranean.

Read entire article

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/israeli-warships-rehearse-for-iran-attack-in-red-sea/

FROM WND

Top Obama adviser’s statement contradicts official U.S., Israeli estimates

David Axelrod

In an apparent mistake, President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod stated during an interview yesterday there are nuclear weapons in Iran which are a threat to the entire world.

No country has ever claimed Iran currently has a nuclear arsenal. A 2007 U.S. intelligence estimate previously claimed Iran halted its nuclear weapons-related work in 2003, although that report was highly criticized. Other American agencies have stated Iran could obtain nukes by 2013 or later.

Israel maintains Iran could have enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon in less than a year, although other Israeli estimates put the timeline at 2012.

Axelrod, meanwhile, said yesterday in little noticed comments to ABC News that there are already nuclear weapons in Iran.

“I think the president’s sense of solicitude with those young people has been very, very clear, and we’re very mindful of that,” said Axelrod.

“We are also mindful of the fact that the nuclear weapons in Iran and the nuclearization of that whole region is a threat to that country, all countries in the region, and the world. And we have to address that. We can’t let that lie,” he said.

Axelrod was responding to a question from ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos about whether U.S. talks with Iran’s leadership would undermine the opposition movement in Tehran.

The White House did not immediately respond to a WND query about whether the U.S. has new information indicating Iran possesses nuclear weapons.

An Israelis security official said there was no indication Iran currently possesses a nuclear weapon.

Axelrod wasn’t the only Obama administration official yesterday to declare the U.S. is still open to discussions with Iran over its disputed nuclear program despite Tehran’s violent crackdown on post-election protests.

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said yesterday the legitimacy of the Iranian government is not the “critical issue” in Washington’s dealings with Tehran.

“We are concerned for our own national interests to ensure that Iran doesn’t pursue its nuclear program,” she told CBS News. “It is in the United States’ national interest to make sure that we have employed all elements at our disposal, including diplomacy, to prevent Iran from achieving that nuclear capacity.”

Rice said Iran must decide whether to end its alleged nuclear weapons program and rejoin the international community or “face increased isolation and pressure.”

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