Green World Blog
News, views & musings for our nuclear-free, carbon-free future
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Nuclear Newsreel, Monday, March 17, 2014
Nearly 30 years later, radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident continues to plague life in the region. Some days I really wish this global warming stuff would hurry up and happen…ok, just a lame joke but really, it’s another snow day here in Washington, DC–in mid-March!–our tulips are halfway up already; the government is…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Friday, March 14, 2014
Nuclear Power On EcoWatch, Harvey Wasserman rounds up a bunch of recent articles and statements from sources ranging from Amory Lovins to Ralph Nader to, yes, GreenWorld, reflecting on the third anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima disaster and what lies ahead for nuclear power. An illegal radioactive waste dump has been discovered in…
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The utility death spiral, stupid utilities and grid defection
Much has been written so far this year, including in these pages, about the “utility death spiral,” in which electric utilities that fail to adapt to changing technologies and electricity delivery systems like rooftop solar and distributed generation generally will gradually (or quickly, depending on one’s perspective) wither away and disappear. Warren Buffet thinks the…
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Activists pay attention: the nuclear industry wants to rig your rates
It seems like every day we’re seeing stories like this one: Pilgrim’s owner pushes for market changes to help keep the nuclear plant open, indicating the nuclear industry’s public relations arm is hard at work pushing out its position that consumers should pay more for nuclear power than other sources of electricity just because it’s…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Thursday, March 13, 2014
The MOX plutonium fuel factory under construction at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, 2013. Photo from Friends of the Earth. Nuclear Power Is this one reason the UK has seemingly been among the more reluctant European nations to support imposing sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine? The Guardian reported Wednesday that…
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On the endangered reactors list: Pilgrim and Columbia?
Massachusetts Governor Patrick Deval told a group of anti-nuclear protestors yesterday that he supports shutdown of the Pilgrim reactor near Cape Cod. He added that he would write a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners asking them to close the reactor but said, “It doesn’t matter what I think.” Massachusetts’ Pilgrim reactor. The NRC quickly…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Monday, March 10, 2014
Nuclear Power The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has filed a legal challenge at NRC over Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) St. Lucie reactors’ steam generators. As reported two weeks ago (Nuclear Newsreel, February 24 and 25), an unusual amount of wear has been experienced at the relatively-recently replaced generators, leading to concern that…
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The trend is clear: even Secretary Moniz admits renewables outpacing nuclear
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz In this brief interview, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz reiterates his support for nuclear power while acknowledging that its “long term trajectory remains quite uncertain” in the U.S. More surprisingly, Moniz predicts that renewables will supply 30-40 percent of U.S. power by 2030. That’s a lowball figure for the more optimistic among…
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Fukushima + 3: nuclear accidents have a beginning–but no end.
Fukushima in the aftermath of the onset of the accident three years ago tomorrow. Tomorrow, March 11, marks the third anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. As the world learned at Chernobyl in 1986, and as has been reinforced at Fukushima, nuclear catastrophes do have a discernible beginning. What they don’t have…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Friday, March 7, 2014
Nuclear Power Leak in massive Hanford nuclear waste tank getting worse. The first signs of a leak in the one million gallon tank showed up in October 2011. But last week workers at the site confirmed via video inspection that a new leak has arisen, which is now the third leak positively identified. South Carolina…
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