Not just
EDF and Calvert Cliffs
that would be enabled by
the current NRC rule-changing comment period.
In April
NRC denied a license to NRG and Toshiba Corp. (aka Nuclear Innovation North America, or NINA)
for two new reactors at the South Texas Project nuclear facility outside Bay City;
the same facility where STNP 2
http://www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/2013/01/fire-in-texas-nuclear-reactor.html
had a fire in January.
The reason for denial was the same as for EDF and Calvert Cliffs: Continue reading
Category Archives: Politics
NRC to change nuke foreign ownership so EDF can fire up Calvert Cliffs?
The NRC “upheld” license denial for the Calvert Cliffs nuke
with its fingers crossed, the very same day
directing staff to look into changing the requirement
by which it just ruled.
A requirement against majority ownership by a foreign firm,
in this case
Électricité de France (EDF),
whose flagship Cattenom reactor
caught on fire a week ago with smoke seen from miles away;
two people died at Cattenom in February.
You can comment on NRC’s proposed changes to let EDF
fire up Calvert Cliffs
online or in person June 19th in Maryland.
The same day
the NRC upheld denial of a license, 11 March 2013,
the same Commission
“directed the staff to provide a fresh assessment on issues relating to FOCD including recommendations on any proposed modifications to guidance or practice on FOCD that may be warranted.”
And the issue with Calvert Cliffs was that very same “foreign ownership, control, or domination (FOCD) of commercial nuclear power plants.”
This explains why Continue reading
Review of the misleading movie Pandora’s Promise
Here’s a trailer for the “documentary” pro-nuke film that comes out today,
Pandora’s Promise.
The film discounts solar and wind energy because its makers
don’t understand the exponential decrease in solar prices or
the night backup power ability of wind connected with a smart grid.
The vast majority of the American people already are demanding
those real renewables instead of nuclear or coal,
and the economics of wind and solar are also rapidly beating natural gas.
Atom Ecology’s promotional writeup 7 June 2013, Pandora’s Promise – Anti-Nuclear Mob Burns Environment In Coal Fired Forges Of Industry For 30 Years begins,
A new documentary film that reveals how opposition to and voting against nuclear power turned into massive increases in coal burning power plants. The far worse outcome for the environment as coal has filled energy demand is the story just coming to theatres.
The tiny germ of truth in that ten years ago is just plain wrong now that coal is not the alternative because solar has reached grid parity with nuclear, coal, and natural gas.
The movie plays up Stewart Brand’s conservationist credentials
and his conversion to pro-nuke.
Senate Farm Bill adds Rural Gigabit Amendment
The U.S. Senate just adopted an amendment to invest in gigabit
(1,000 megabit per second) rural broadband networks.
Our local leaders need to lobby for the House to pass this,
if they are serious about fast affordable Internet service for everyone here.
Senator Leahy’s tiny Vermont, with the population of a single Congressional district,
is already well along towards gigabit Internet.
Our three House members can help get south Georgia on the road to better
jobs, education, and health care through better Internet service.
Jennifer Reading wrote today for WCAX, Leahy’s high-speed internet amendment passes,
What I want to make sure is that a rural area can compete the same way an urban area can. It’s actually the argument, the debate that went on before I was even born about whether you had rural electricity, rural telephone or not and if we hadn’t done that much of this country would be a wasteland,” said Sen. Leahy.
Don’t we want that, too?
Continue readingGM Ag corporations thank Jack Kingston for Monsanto rider
A long list of agricultural corporations wrote a letter thanking Jack Kingson (R GA-01) for working to get the Monsanto rider into the 2013 Ag. bill:
Again, we commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston’s efforts and urge the support of Section 733 in the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
This letter is on
Monsanto’s own website.
It contains not one word about public health or quality of food or preservation of farmers who do not choose to
poison people the Monsanto way.
The glyphosate mentioned in the letter is the principal ingredient in Roundup, and
research shows it causes DNA damage even when vastly diluted.
Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant crops are genetically modified to include a gene which produces a poison that
other research indicates is toxic to humans.
These poisons are what the Monsanto rider makes harder to get out of fields.
June 12, 2012
The Honorable Harold Rogers
Chairman
House Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives
H‐307 U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515The Honorable Norm Dicks
Ranking Member
House Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives
1016 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515Dear Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Dicks:
Our organizations strongly support Section 733 of the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The provision will give growers assurance that crops developed through biotechnology that have already been approved by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) can be planted and harvested under temporary stewardship conditions in the event of litigation against the agency’s decision. We commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston for including Section 733 in the subcommittee bill and urge your support for this necessary provision when the Appropriations Committee considers this bill later this month. The provision addresses Continue reading
Remerton Mill demolition –WCTV
Maybe Nina King’s elegy on the sad demolition of Remerton’s Strickland Mill will spur enough people to get involved in the community so next time a monument is threatened with demolition we can find the resources to save it, and we can bring things the community needs now, like fast affordable Internet access for all.
Greg Gullberg reported for WCTV 11PM News last night,
Demolition Of Remerton Mill Has Begun,
in which Nina King said:
“Well, it breaks my heart, and it’s so sad. And I don’t understand why anybody would want a historic old building torn down like this.”Continue reading
DeKalb County is a slum –DeKalb County Commissioners
I could see our Commissioners using this reasoning. -gretchen
Erica Byfield reported for WSBTV yesterday, DeKalb commissioners declare most of county a slum,
What’s this urban redevelopment zone about? Tax breaks for businesses that produce new jobs, leaving taxes to be paid mostly by… Continue reading
Bubba McDonald’s solar evangelism
I’ve thanked Bubba McDonald for
being serious about solar.
However, 500 MW by Georgia Power in several years is nowhere
near enough, when
New Jersey has 1,000 MW already installed.
What we need in south Georgia is distributed solar power
for local jobs and direct reduction of electricity bills.
Making
a solar monopoly as in HB 657 wouldn’t solve that problem;
it would actually hinder
a real distributed solution.
Instead we need to reform that antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act
to enable financing for distributed solar.
Jim Galloway wrote for the AJC yesterday, GOP revolutionaries push Georgia Power to embrace solar energy,
Lauren “Bubba” McDonald Jr. has spent more than four decades in and around the state Capitol. That fact alone should automatically disqualify him as a rabid revolutionary.
And yet here he is, attempting to force real, radical change upon one of this state’s most staid and revered institutions. McDonald is the leader of a new and very Republican effort to require that Georgia Power give solar energy a chance.
Continue reading
China carbon cap and Georgia Power
If China implements a carbon tax, will Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers
change his recent answer to a question about a carbon tax,
which was “why would anyone want that?”
In February
the Chinese Ministry of Finance (MoF) said China would soon tax
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions,
and that’s getting closer in
the country whose capital Beijing has smog bad it’s literally off the charts.
Katie Valentine wrote for ThinkProgress 22 May 2013,
Bombshell: China May Be Close To Implementing A Cap On Carbon Pollution,
Continue readingChina is taking steps to tackle its huge carbon output. Today, the country announced the details of its first carbon trading program, which will begin in the city of Shenzhen next month. The southern city is one of seven cities and provinces, including Beijing, which will take part in the pilot program, set to be completely implemented by 2014.
And according to one local news source, China could implement an absolute, nation-wide cap on its carbon emissions by 2016. China’s 21st Century Business Herald reported this week that the country’s State Council still needs to approve the carbon cap proposal submitted by the National Development and Reform Commission, a government entity that controls much of the Chinese economy. The proposal, which the State Council is reportedly likely to support, would ensure China’s emissions would not increase past the country’s target cap, regardless of economic growth — though it’s still unclear what that cap would be. The paper reported that the NDRC also predicts China’s greenhouse gas emissions will peak in 2025, rather than 2030, as earlier predictions stated.
If the cap is adopted,
Monsanto rider came from south Georgia: Jack Kingston GA-01
Jack Kingston (GA-01) slipped the Monsanto rider into a recent law, requiring “the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed”.
Alexis Baden-Mayer wrote for AlterNet 8 July 2012, The “Monsanto Rider”: Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity From Federal Law?
Whom do we have to thank for this sneak attack on USDA safeguards? The agricultural sub-committee chair Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) — who not coincidentally was voted “legislator of the year for 2011-2012” by none other than the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto and DuPont. As reported by Mother Jones, the Biotechnology Industry Organization declared Kingston a “champion of America’s biotechnology industry” who has “helped to protect funding for programs essential to the survival of biotechnology companies across the United States.”
The Biotechnology Industry Organization’s PR about that award of 24 April 2012 says down at the bottom:
Photos of the award presentation are available upon request.
If that award is such an honor,
why are they hiding the pictures of Jack Kingston receiving it?
If Monsanto’s products are so great, why don’t they label them
so we can tell which they are?
Why did a French court
just uphold a conviction of Monsanto
for poisoning a French farmer?
Why does Monsanto
oppose independent GMO research?
And why did
hundreds of thousands of people just march against Monsanto?
Could it be because of
liver and kidney damage, cancer and birth defects, pollution of water and air,
systematic gaming of the patent system,
perversion of the regulatory system,
and corruption of the legislative system?
Speaking of corruption, Kingston has put the survival of biotechnology companies above the survival of farmers and the health of the American people.
Jack Kingston, voted Biotech “Legislator of the Year.” Responsible for adding the Monsanto Immunity Rider to the farm bill (H.R. 5973, Section 733). Tell him what you think!
www.facebook.coim/jackkingston/, 202-225-5821, 912-352-0101
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