{"id":1020,"date":"2012-03-12T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/what-we-can-learn-from-no-nukes-and-solartopia-of-30-years-ago.html"},"modified":"2012-03-12T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T12:00:00","slug":"what-we-can-learn-from-no-nukes-and-solartopia-of-30-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/what-we-can-learn-from-no-nukes-and-solartopia-of-30-years-ago.html","title":{"rendered":"What we can learn from no nukes and solartopia of 30 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"Why were only 12% of the projected 1000 nuclear plants built in the U.S. by\nthe year 2000?\nBecause of the no nukes movement started in Seabrook, New Hampshire\nin 1977.\nAnd because New Hampshire banned CWIP.\nHere in Georgia in 2012 we can cut to the chase and do what they\ndid that worked.\n

\nHarvey Wasserman wrote for The Free Press 13 May 2007,\n\nHow creative mass non-violence beat a nuke and launched the global green power movement<\/a>,\n

\nThirty years ago this month, in the small seacoast town of Seabrook,\nNew Hampshire, a force of mass non-violent green advocacy collided\n\n<\/a>\nwith the nuke establishment.\n

\nA definitive victory over corporate power was won. And the global\ngrassroots “No Nukes” movement emerged as one of the most important\nand effective in human history.\n

\nIt still writes the bottom line on atomic energy and global warming.\nAll today’s green energy battles can be dated to May, 13, 1977, when\n550 Clamshell Alliance protestors walked victoriously free after\nthirteen days of media-saturated imprisonment. Not a single US\nreactor ordered since that day has been completed.\n<\/blockquote>\nHow effective?\n

\nRichard Nixon had pledged to build 1000 nukes in the US by the year\n2000. But the industry peaked at less than 120. Today, just over a\nhundred operate. No US reactor ordered since 1974 has been\ncompleted. The Seabrook demonstrations—which extended to\ncivil disobedience actions on Wall Street—were key to keeping\nnearly 880 US reactors unbuilt.\n<\/blockquote>\nThe only new nukes ordered since then are the ones Georgia Power\nwants to build at Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River, for which\n\nGeorgia Power customers are already getting billed Construction\nWork in Progress (CWIP).<\/a>\n

\nThirty years later, some things haven’t changed:\n\n\n

\nAs in the 1970s, the cost calculations for new reactors that are fictional\nwish lists. Despite millions in PR hype, there is no core Wall Street\nfunding for new nukes or reliable private insurance for liability in\ncase of a major accident. There is also no solution to the problems of\nwaste storage or terror attacks. Whatever economic case there might have\nbeen for atomic energy thirty years ago has long since disappeared.\n<\/blockquote>\nWe already know what New Hampshire did:\n\nthe NH legislature banned Construction Work in Progress (CWIP)\nand the Seabrook-building PSNH went bankrupt.<\/a>\nNo utility wanted to follow that path.\n

\nUntil now, in Georgia, which has CWIP.\n

\nFrom these gatherings came a “Solartopian” vision of a\nfossil\/nuke-free economy, powered by green energy, that the\nClamshell demonstrators carried with them onto the Seabrook site.\nThey were battling not just nuclear power, but an obsolete “King\nCONG” paradigm centered on coal, oil, nukes and gas. Once the\nimmense resources being wasted on nukes and unclean fossil fuels\nwere shifted to renewables and efficiency, they said, a\ngreen-powered Earth would come.\n<\/blockquote>\nThirty years later, wind and especially solar energy are much more efficient\nand less expensive.\n\n<\/a>\nAnd\n\ndoctors in hard hats in Georgia are cutting solar ribbons and prices.<\/a>\nIf we can get Georgia Power out of the way with its CWIP and its\n\nterritoriality law,<\/a>\nwe can have distributed renewable energy, resistant to terrorist attack,\nimmune to OPEC oil prices, helping float county and city budgets, and bringing\nprofit to rural south Georgia.\n

\nIt’s sad that gapower is standing in the way when it could be leading\nthe country in solar power and profits for its shareholders.\nMaybe we should help Georgia Power help itself, by\n\nbanning CWIP in Georgia.<\/a>\n

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