A very abbreviated Nuclear Newsreel today as I have to run off early–my band is playing tonight. Sound checks and fast food–ah, the life of a rock and roll star…. hey, even an activist has to have a life!
It’s absolutely shameful, but the U.S. Ambassador to Prague actually issued a statement in which he says the U.S. is “disappointed” in the end of the idea of building two new reactors at the Temelin site in the Czech Republic. This is something that should instead be celebrated, and certainly will be by Czech ratepayers and taxpayers for decades to come. For a very different perspective on the announcement, read this piece from former NIRS’ board chair Paxus Calta, who spent many years in the Eastern Europe fighting Temelin and many other proposed reactors–many of which were never built. And the people Paxus worked with, and acknowledges here, are still at it. Finally, for those with a historical interest, you can read my account of the international blockade of Temelin in 1997.
Workers sickened by toxic (radioactive?) fumes at Hanford speak out for the first time. This is a scandal in the making, but few outside KING-TV in Seattle seem to be paying much interest.
SimplyInfo.org, the best ongoing source of information on Fukushima, reports today that “the radioactive sludge leak from the H4 tank farm last August was more than three times worse than admitted.” Initially said to be 80 million becquerels of strontium 90 released, Tepco now admits the actual release was more like 280 million becquerels.
ClimateProgress has a good piece today pointing out that Japan replaced half of its lost nuclear power after Fukushima with energy efficiency programs, and asks whether the U.S. could do the same. One word answer: Yes. Expanded answer: But it takes political willpower to make it happen. That’s where you come in.
The Solar Industry Has Been Waiting 60 Years For This To Happen — And It Finally Just Did. This graph says it all. But if it takes a moment to grasp, that’s understandable. That plunging gray line? It shows just how fast and how far solar prices have been plunging–all the way down to competitiveness with gas and coal (nuclear? wouldn’t compete with any of these…) in less than a decade. As Jefferson Airplane once said to a crowd of about 500,000 people before 7 am: It’s a new dawn….
Have a great weekend, we’ll see you Monday.
Michael Mariotte
April 11, 2014
Permalink: https://www.nirs.org/2014/04/11/nuclear-newsreel-friday-april-11-2014/
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The US Ambassador – clearly not cut from the same cloth on the same planet as William Luers – is so in tune with our pioneering frack-baby-frack Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ….. Isn’t it amazing that the profound cut in Japan’s energy usage doesn’t reach mainstream media in the US….