“I am dismayed that the Commission saw fit to recommend that the Department of Energy (DOE) have a large upfront role in both the next steps for repository program, …  DOE was in large part responsible for the mess the program is in now,

Radioactive Wastes From Nuclear Bomb Program Given Short Shrift In Blue Ribbon Commission Report EnEws Park Forest, TAKOMA PARK, MD–(ENEWSPF)–January 27, 2012. Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, today commented on some of the recommendations of the final report of the Presidential Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) on America’s Nuclear Future.

The commission was created to address U.S. nuclear waste issues after the Obama administration cancelled the Yucca Mountain program….

….On wastes from the nuclear bomb program:

Makhijani: “It is tragic that the Commission did not substantively address the most pressing radioactive waste contamination threats to precious water resources – for instance hundreds of times the drinking water limit at Hanford, Washington on the banks of the Columbia River.
The Commission had a charter to conduct a ‘comprehensive’ review of the nuclear waste problem, including defense wastes from the nuclear bomb program. Yet, it simply said it did not have the resources to deal with all the problems and punted the nuclear weapons waste issue to Congress while focusing on commercial spent fuel at nuclear reactor sites.”

“I am even more dismayed that the Commission suggested that Congress
consider the possibility of leaving the defense waste disposal in the
purview of the Department of Energy (DOE). The Commission has entirely
ignored the immense evidence that DOE’s plans for disposal of several
types of defense waste pose much greater threats to water resources,
most especially at Hanford, than from even Yucca Mountain, a poor
repository site.”
On reprocessing and breeder reactors:

The commission acknowledges in its report that:

“…no currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel
cycle technology developments—including advances in reprocess and
recycle technologies—have the potential to fundamentally alter the
waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the
next several decades, if not longer.” (p. 100)

Makhijani: “The Commission did reject some reprocessing advocates’
claims by recognizing that it will not eliminate the need for a
repository and that no form of reprocessing is economical today. But
it left the door open for reprocessing existing spent fuel at some
future date. Reprocessing spent fuel from existing reactors will
multiply risks and costs. There is simply no economic or technical
case for that, and the Commission was provided with ample evidence to
that effect. Even if the chosen path is breeder reactors, it would be
technically better and economically far superior to use the half
million tons of depleted uranium that already exist, enough to fuel a
U.S. reactor fleet at the present size for 5,000 years. The Commission
unfortunately chose to ignore these facts.”

“To its credit the Commission did recognize that reprocessing is not
an answer to the waste management problem (as indicated by quote
above) and that use of plutonium fuel creates an ‘increased
proliferation risk’ (p. 105) both as currently practiced  in France
and as it might in the future be practiced with breeder reactors.”

“Despite having been presented with ample evidence of the failure of
the sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor program – $100 billion has been
spent worldwide on the technology and yet it is nowhere near
commercial – the BRC is suggesting more of the same.  This is
unwarranted when there are so many renewable energy options that are
far closer to reality and far safer.”
On spent fuel storage:

Makhijani: “The Commission used the Fukushima tragedy to punt on the
question of hardened dry rather than wet storage of spent fuel at
reactor sites. The National Academies had already concluded well
before Fukushima that dry storage was safer; Fukushima has only made
the risks of wet storage clearer. Nothing we learn from it will
indicate that wet storage is safer than dry storage.  Yet, the
Commission, citing lessons yet to be learned from Fukushima called for
yet another study instead of hardened on-site dry storage that has
been urged by dozens or organizations.”

“IEER calls on the Administration and Congress to mandate that all
spent fuel aged more than five years be moved to hardened dry storage
on site, and the remaining spent fuel kept in low-density storage in
reactor pools. Nuclear Waste Fund monies should be used for on-site
hardened dry storage.”….
Makhijani: “I am dismayed that the Commission saw fit to recommend
that DOE have a large upfront role in both the next steps for
repository program, “including R&D on geological media” (p. 118) and
for the Interim Storage site before a new organization is put in place
to take over the responsibility. DOE was in large part responsible for
the mess the program is in now, which began well before Congress cut
off the process in 1987, pointing to Yucca Mountain alone. On the one
hand the Commission has cautioned against haste; on the other hand, it
has encouraged haste in a really ill-advised way by recommending a
continuing DOE role in critical activities better left to an
independent agency.”…
The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research provides
policy-makers, journalists, and the public with understandable and
accurate scientific and technical information on energy and
environmental issues. IEER’s aim is to bring scientific excellence to
public policy issues in order to promote the democratization of
science and a safer, healthier environment.

http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/science-a-environmental/30464-radioactive-wastes-from-nuclear-bomb-program-given-short-shrift-in-blue-ribbon-commission-report.html

But Navrotsky and others have since discovered a new way in which seawater can corrode nuclear fuel, forming uranium compounds that could potentially travel long distances, either in solution or as very small particles. The research team published its work Jan. 23 in the
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This is a phenomenon that has not been considered before,” said Alexandra Navrotsky, distinguished professor of ceramic, earth and environmental materials chemistry. “We don’t know how much this will increase the rate of corrosion, but it is something that will have to
be considered in future.”….
In the new paper, the researchers show that in the presence of alkali metal ions such as sodium — for example, in seawater — these clusters are stable enough to persist in solution or as small particles even when the oxidizing agent is removed.

In other words, these clusters could form on the surface of a fuel rod exposed to seawater and then be transported away, surviving in the environment for months or years before reverting to more common forms of uranium, without peroxide,  and settling to the bottom of the
ocean. There is no data yet on how fast these uranium peroxide clusters will break down in the environment, Navrotsky said… http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10131

In a nutshell, radioactive elements, also known as radioisotopes or radionuclides, are unstable atoms. They seek stability by giving off particles and energy—ionizing radiation—until the radioisotope becomes stable. This process occurs within the nucleus of the radioisotope, and the shedding of these particles and energy is commonly referred to as ‘‘nuclear disintegration.’’ Nuclear radiation expert Rosalie Bertell describes the release of energy in each disintegration as ‘‘an explosion on the microscopic level.”

This process is known as the “decay chain,” and during their decay, most radioactive elements morph into yet other radioactive elements on their journey to becoming lighter, stable atoms at the end of the chain. Some of the morphed-into elements are much more dangerous than the original radioisotope, and the decay chain can take a very long time. This is the reason that radioactive contamination can last so long.

To further complicate the issue, different radioisotopes give off different kinds of radiation—alpha, beta, gamma, X ray, or neutron emissions—all of which behave differently. Alpha emitters, such as plutonium and radon, are intensely ionizing but don’t penetrate very far and generally can’t get through the dead layers of cells covering skin. But when they are inhaled from the air or ingested from radiation-contaminated food or water, they emit high-energy particles that can do serious damage to the cells of sensitive internal soft tissues and organs. The lighter, faster-moving beta particles can penetrate far more deeply than alpha particles, though sheets of metal and heavy clothing can block them. Beta particles are also very dangerous when inhaled or ingested. Strontium-90 and tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, are both beta emitters. Gamma radiation is a form of electromagnetic energy like X rays, and it passes through clothing and skin straight into the body. A one-inch shield of either lead or iron, or eight inches of concrete are needed to stop gamma rays, examples of which include cobalt-60 and cesium-137—one of the radionuclides of most concern in the Fukushima fallout. Aside from use in medical diagnostics, X rays are also produced in nuclear fission, and their effects are similar to gamma radiation. Neutron emissions are the most penetrating of all types of radiation and require a shield of several feet of water or concrete to contain them.

The behavior of radioisotopes out in the environment also varies depending on what they encounter. They can combine with one another or with stable chemicals to form molecules that may or may not dissolve in water. They can combine with solids, liquids, or gases at ordinary temperature and pressure. They may be able to enter into biochemical reactions, or they may be biologically inert.

In her book No Immediate Danger: Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth, Bertell notes that if they enter the body either through air, food, water, or an open wound, “They may remain near the place of entry into the body or travel in the bloodstream or lymph fluid. They can be incorporated into the tissue or bone. They may remain in the body for minutes or hours or a lifetime.” To illustrate how different radioisotopes behave, she points out that: “Plutonium is biologically and chemically attracted to bone as is the naturally occurring radioactive chemical radium. However, plutonium clumps on the surface of bone, delivering a concentrated dose of alpha radiation to surrounding cells, whereas radium diffuses homogeneously in bone and thus has a lesser localized cell damage effect. This makes plutonium, because of the concentration, much more biologically toxic than a comparable amount of radium.”

Specific health effects from internal radiation exposure correlate with where radioisotopes land in the body. Bertell explains: “For example, radionuclides lodged in the bones can damage bone marrow and cause bone cancers or leukemia, while radionuclides lodged in the lungs can cause respiratory diseases. Generalized whole body exposure to radiation can be expressed as a stress related to a person’s hereditary medical weakness. Individual breakdown usually occurs at our weakest point.” In other words, the impact of radiation exposure also depends very much on each individual’s level of health and genetic make-up…..

http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-update-why-we-should-still-be-worried-2012-1

She says she was … “Raised by a very good mother, that said, ‘Just don’t lie. ‘Cause once you tell your first one it’s real hard to … they just continue to grow.’”…

Audio http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=145326474&ft=3&f=145326474  Hanford Nuclear Safety Manager Questions Waste Treatment Plant NPR by ANNA KING  January 17, 2012 from N3 RICHLAND, Wash. – Waste in underground tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation may have much more plutonium than previously thought. That’s according to a report by a Hanford contractor that’s just been leaked to public radio. It’s also according to the latest high profile whistleblower to raise serious concerns about a waste treatment plant being built at the Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington.

Here is why you should care about what Donna Busche says. She told me she’s the manager for environmental and nuclear safety at Hanford’s waste treatment plant.

“I’m where the nuclear safety buck stops,” Busche says.

And Busche wants a well-working plant.

“I believe the waste treatment plant is needed. We need to get the waste out of the tanks, we have to. Right? They are in degraded state they are long past their life cycle,” Busche says.

What that means is that those tanks near the Columbia River are in danger of leaking more radioactive sludge into the ground, or worse, one could rupture.

The waste treatment plant is a massive complex of buildings all meant to separate, mix and ready that radioactive sludge before it’s turned into glass logs for long term storage.

But here’s the thing: Busche says there are serious engineering problems with that process that haven’t been figured out yet. And the longer those sticky issues go unsolved, the more expensive it will be to fix them.

“We continue to build it even with these big, huge lingering issues”, say says. “Like:

*Is criticality safety a concern?….

Here are some of Busche’s main concerns:

Hanford engineers have recently revised their estimates for how much plutonium is in the nuclear site’s sludge. Listen to these numbers: Hanford engineers used to think they had 10 kilograms of plutonium in the tanks. They now believe they’ve got between 30 and 130 kilograms. Let’s put that in perspective: The nuclear bomb at Nagasaki had about 6 kilograms of plutonium. In the worst case scenario Busche says Hanford could have 13 times more plutonium than previously thought.

“Since day one of the project, many years before I got here, the project has designed the plant assuming criticality was incredible. Which means criticality it would never happen, never,” Busche says.

A criticality is when radioactive atoms release a burst of energy……
Here’s another of Busche’s concerns: That radioactive sludge can create hydrogen gas. If it builds up in a closed space it can blow up. And Busche worries the plant’s complex system of pipes isn’t robust enough to withstand hydrogen explosions. And once the plant starts working, it’s not like you can go in and fix those pipes.

“You have to remember that in this plant we are building vessels in black cells. Which means once we shut that door, we are never going back in there,” Busche says.

The plant’s black cells are where the waste is pretreated and processed, and they will be so radioactively hot that they’re impossible to enter. Imagine fixing a leaky kitchen sink without opening the kitchen cabinets.
Busche raised her concerns to her supervisors, and to their supervisors.   She even testified at amajor two-day hearing of the national Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in 2010.

During her testimony to the board she gave different answers than top-level officials with the Department of Energy and contractors Bechtel National and URS. Afterward, she says her managers asked her to change her answers. Busche said “No.”

She says she was … “Raised by a very good mother, that said, ‘Just don’t lie. ‘Cause once you tell your first one it’s real hard to … they just continue to grow.’”…

…… Khan could legitimately claim a victory over the Indians when it came to centrifuge technology. While the Indians had beaten Pakistan to the bomb, they had  done  so through mastery of plutonium production—a  different route to creating a nuclear weapon. India’s ability to enrich uranium remained limited. New Delhi started a centrifuge program in the 1970s, but  the  Indians weren’t ready to break ground on their main  enrichment facility until  1986. By that point, Pakistan’s KRL had  been  churning out  weapons-grade uranium for at least  three years.

India’s enrichment program progressed slowly, but at some point before 1992 the Indians began experimenting with supercritical centrifuges, devices that can withstand very high rotational speeds. The program apparently continued to expand, with the Indians purchasing large quantities of supercritical centrifuge components from 1997 to 1999 and again from 2003 to 2006.  Surprisingly, they were almost open about their shopping spree. In 2006 the Washington, D.C.–based Institute for Science and International Security revealed that the Indian government had used news- paper ads to solicit bids for centrifuge parts. The details of these advertisements, along with documents the Indians gave potential suppliers, provide strong clues about where New Delhi’s supercritical centrifuge technology came from. Despite some changes, the design is recognizable to the trained eye:  It almost mirrors the  G-2 centrifuge, a design that  Khan  stole from URENCO in the 1970s and later reproduced as Pakistan’s P-2 centrifuge.

Centrifuge specs are not the only apparent link between India’s enrichment program and Khan’s operation. The cast of characters also overlaps, starting with Gerhard Wisser, a German living in South Africa. In collaboration with Gotthard Lerch in Switzerland, Wisser’s engineering firm supplied new gas- handling equipment for KRL’s centrifuges, delivered through Farooq’s operation in Dubai. When Khan struck his 1997 deal with Libya, he called on Wisser for similar equipment. According to a South African court document, Wisser also supplied India’s centrifuge program with specialized equipment, starting in the late 1980s. What else he or Lerch might have sold to the Indians remains unknown, but the timing is consistent with India’s earliest known work with supercritical centrifuges. Wisser seems to have had access to centrifuge designs, too; he tried to sell them to the South Africans around the same time.

Could Khan have been ignorant about Wisser’s dealings with India? His own guilty conscience says otherwise. Though Khan has never acknowledged having a fourth customer, he gave his Pakistani interrogators at least two contradictory cover stories that explained how KRL’s enrichment technology could have ended up in enemy hands. The full transcript of Khan’s interrogation, said to run hundreds of pages, has never been made public, but Musharraf ’s 2006  memoir provides important details…..” http://www.playboy.com/magazine/the-secret-treachery-of-a-q-khan

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.html  VIDEO A IS FOR ATOM Adam Curtis , 16 March 2011As a background to the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant I am putting up a film I made a while ago called A is for Atom. It was part of a series about politics and science called Pandora’s Box.

The film shows that from very early on – as early as 1964 – US government officials knew that there were serious potential dangers with the design of the type of reactor that was used to build the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But that their warnings were repeatedly ignored.

The film tells the story of the rise of nuclear power in America, Britain and the Soviet Union. It shows how the way the technologies were developed was shaped by the political and business forces of the time. And how that led directly to inherent dangers in the design of the containment of many of the early plants.

Those early plants in America were the Boiling Water Reactors. And that is the very model that was used to build the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Three of them were supplied directly by General Electric.

In 1966 the US government Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards tried to force the industry to redesign their containment structures to make them safer. But the chairman of the committee claims in the film that General Electric in effect refused.

And in 1971 the Atomic Energy Commission did a series of tests of Emergency Core Cooling systems. Accidents were simulated. In each case the emergency systems worked – but the water failed to fill the core. Often being forced out under pressure.

As one of the AEC scientists says in the film:

“We discovered that our theoretical calculations didn’t have a strong correlation with reality. But we just couldn’t admit to the public that all these safety systems we told you about might not do any good”

And again the warnings were ignored by senior members of the Agency and the industry.

That was the same year that the first of the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s reactors came online. Supplied by General Electric.

The film also has some of the recordings of the voices of the Commissioners struggling to deal with the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979. It was recorded by a dictaphone left running on a table – and you get a very good sense of what it must feel like to deal with such a crisis. A group of men realising they have no idea what is going on inside the core – knowing only that the cooling systems seem to have failed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom.html

while deaths were reported across all age categories, infants under the age of one-year old were the demographic hardest hit. The increase in 2010-2011 deaths among infants in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.  Infant deaths were highest “because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults,”

 this study, which was released publicly on December 19, 2011, was not covered by mainstream media, but mostly watchdog groups and alternative, underground and fringe publications. There has been little reported about the after affects of Fukushima of late.

In an audio news conference, Mangano says the reaction of the nuclear industry and government will likely be a smear campaign to the report’s credibility

14,000 U.S. Deaths Linked to Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown: Infants Hardest Hit,The Province,   Tess Zevenbergen January 9, 2012. The first study linking radioactive fallout to 14,000 U.S. deaths as a result of Fukushima’s nuclear meltdown following the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that struck the coast of Japan on Friday, March 11th last year has been published in the International Journal of Health Services (IJHS). According to a news release issued over the PR Newswire, the study is the first peer-reviewed study to appear in a medical scientific journal that documents the health hazards associated with the Fukushima nuclear explosion and meltdown catastrophe.

The study, authored by epidemiologist Joseph Mangano MPH MBA and Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, and Janette Sherman, a toxicologist and adjunct professor at the University of Michigan, states the number of radiation-related deaths linked to the Fukushima disaster is comparable to the number of deaths following the Chernobyl meltdown of 1986. The results of the study were gleaned from looking at U.S. death rates during the period Fukushima occurred, as well as in previous months and years.

“This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal. It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world. Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation,” stated Mangano.

Radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster, the largest nuclear meltdown the world has ever witnessed, was connected to more than 16,500 related deaths in the 17 weeks immediately following the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. In comparison, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown is being linked to 14,000 U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks preceding the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Just six weeks following the explosion of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant, scientists supposedly detected a plume of toxic fallout heading to U.S. shores. The news release also states that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported increased levels of radiation in the air, water and milk right across the U.S. that were 100s of  times above normal levels. However, on May 3, 2011 less than two months after the Fukushima nuclear explosion and fire, the EPA returned to its regular RadNet monitoring and analysis operations after reporting declining radiation levels. Watchdog groups and critics however criticized the EPA for alleging “rigging” Japanese nuclear radiation equipment which caused them to report lower levels of radioactive fallout.

Part of the evidence the study uses to argues its case of radiation-related U.S. deaths is gleaned from death stats reported by the Center for Disease Control(CDC). The CDC publicly issues weekly reports on numbers of deaths for 122 U.S. cities with a population over 100,000, or about 25-30 percent of the U.S.  population. Fourteen weeks after Fukushima fallout arrived in the U.S. (March 20 to June 25), deaths reported to the CDC rose 4.46 percent from the same period in 2010, compared to just 2.34 percent in the 14 weeks prior. Estimated excess deaths during this period for the entire U.S. are about 14,000. The study further estimates that based on continued research, the U.S. death toll may rise as high as 18,000.

The study claims while deaths were reported across all age categories, infants under the age of one-year old were the demographic hardest hit. The increase in 2010-2011 deaths among infants in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.  Infant deaths were highest “because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults,” said Mangano.

What startles me is that this study, which was released publicly on December 19, 2011, was not covered by mainstream media, but mostly watchdog groups and alternative, underground and fringe publications. There has been little reported about the after affects of Fukushima of late.

In an audio news conference, Mangano says the reaction of the nuclear industry and government will likely be a smear campaign to the report’s credibility. ….. To listen to the audio news conference for this study click here. For a complete copy of the study click here.   http://blogs.theprovince.com/2012/01/09/14000-u-s-deaths-linked-to-fukushima-nuclear-meltdown-infants-hardest-hit/

“Germany has been the only country that’s had a sensible long-term program in place to promote the use of renewables,” says Green.

Some argue solar cells are not a competitive option for reducing carbon emissions, and are limited by the fact that they don’t generate energy unless the Sun is shining.

But according to Green, the “stars are aligning for conventional roof mounted solar” and it is ripe for a new kick start from governments.

Cheaper technology

Green says the cost of solar cells has come down rapidly in recent years largely due to the expanding manufacturing industry in China.

“They’re now a third to a quarter of the costs of only a couple of years ago,” he says.

“It’s expected that this [decline in price] will continue over the next decade. The projections are that about 60 per cent further will be taken off the costs over that period.”

The German experience

Green says the advantage of solar cells is they produce most of their energy in the day when energy use is at its highest.

While clouds can cut back solar energy production, this can be compensated for by energy from other areas that are sunny – as long as the grid covers a large enough geographic area, he says.

Green points to data from Germany where nearly one million (mainly rooftop) solar panels supply the equivalent of a dozen nuclear power plants, or about 40 per cent of the maximum demand in Australia.

“When you average across the whole country you get a very predictable daily output,” he says.

Balancing generation and use

Green says matching the generation of energy with its use is an old issue that the grid has found ways of accommodating.

“You just slightly change perspective when you are generating most of your power during the day time [as you would with a system involving photovoltaics],” he says.

Green says current day coal and nuclear power stations push out energy all night, when it’s not particularly needed. As a result there is a need to store excess energy produced at night or for incentives to encourage energy use during this time.

“We give away electricity to aluminium smelters at night just to provide a load for the power plants at night,” says Green.

He says in countries like Japan, Germany and the US, excess energy from conventional power plants is currently used to pump water uphill at night for hydroelectricity.

Generation of excess energy from photovoltaic cells during the day could be dealt with in a similar way, says Green.

Local storage of energy from photovoltaics in batteries is also starting to occur, he says.

Feed-in tariffs

Green says Australian state-based schemes to promote rooftop solar have been undermined by fixed feed-in tariffs.

Instead, a sliding tariff scale of the kind used in Germany, which progressively reduces subsidies to solar energy and drives down the cost of solar panels, is more sustainable.

“The German scheme has been undoubtedly successful,” says Green.

“It has single-handedly driven the world market for both wind and solar products and changed the industry from non-viable to the state it is now where it has the chance of being self-sustaining.”

He says a carbon tax in Australia will only encourage lowest-cost present day low-emission alternatives.

The tax should be complemented by German-style schemes to boost photovoltaics, which are presently at a low stage of development but have the potential to lower costs in the future

Efficiency and sustainability

Green’s research team currently holds the record for highly efficient solar cell technology, which has been commercialised through CSG Solar Pty Ltd, of which he is research director.

Green says current silicon cells show 25 per cent efficiency in the lab, although commercially available panels operate at just 14 to 15 per cent. His team is working with several companies to improve this efficiency.

He says the thermodynamic limit of converting sunlight into electricity is 74 per cent, and at this point, the best lab device reaches 36 per cent using cells made from exotic materials.

Green says the energy being used to make solar cells is also reducing.

“Everything that is being done to reduce the cost of the cells also reduces the energy content,” he says.

And he says the industry is moving away from the use of toxic chemicals that require expensive disposal, with pollution from solar cell production becoming the exception.

“Of the hundreds of manufacturers in China there have been two of them in the last five years that have been found to be not disposing of the wastes of the processing of the silicon for the cells in an acceptable way.”  http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/01/26/3415244.htm

“….The mythical “Nuclear Renaissance” has been gutted by Fukushima, low gas prices and the escalating Solartopian revolution in green energy. Solar panels, wind turbines, sustainable bio-fuels, geo-thermal, ocean thermal, increased efficiency and much more have simply priced atomic energy out of the market.

There is virtually no private money to build new reactors — except where there are huge government subsidies and guarantees. In 2012 we must make those all go away.

Likewise, there are increasingly powerful grassroots movements focused on shutting reactors that still operate. Germany has shut 7, and the rest will be gone by 2022, if not earlier. In Japan, just 11 of more than 50 reactors now operate. Because local governments can prevent nukes from re-opening once they go down for refueling, Japan could emerge from 2012 without a single nuke on line.

The biggest US battle is at Vermont Yankee. March 21 is D-Day for forcing a nuclear corporation to honor a solemn contract it signed with a sovereign state, agreeing to shut down if the state doesn’t approve continued operations. The legislature wants the reactor shut, which Entergy now refuses to do.

But with some 430 reactors still operating worldwide, and with several score ostensibly on order, here are some of 2012′s keys to finally ridding the planet of this radioactive curse:

X The switch to green power has become definitive and is clearly unstoppable. Last year renewables generated more US electricity than nukes. Far more private capital is now being invested in renewables than in nuclear or fossil fuels. General Electric says its photovoltaic solar cells will generate electricity cheaper than coal within five years. Well-funded opponents aremaking it more difficult to spread green technologies, but they can be beaten.

X The breakdowns in the solar business are far fewer and further between than in the fossil/nuke world. The lead in this technology has shifted to Asia. The much hyped Solyndra failure came not from technological issues, but because the Chinese are underselling its American competitors — and its own costs — by 30-40%. Returning at least some of the business to the US is essential to our economic survival.

X A dollar invested in increased efficiency — powered by accelerating breakthroughs such as LED lighting — has long since produced more jobs and saved more energy than one invested in nuclear power.

X In-depth studies from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Rocky Mountain Institute, and a host of others make it clear that investments in solar and wind energy yield better returns than nuclear.

X It takes at very least and optimistic five years to bring a nuclear plant on line assuming all permits are in order, but large-scale wind and solar facilities regularly come on line in half that or less.

X The decisions by Japan and Germany to abandon nuclear power have come from countries long at the core of the industry. Japan manufactures many key reactor components, and maintains ownership stakes in General Electric and Westinghouse, which have designed and/or built most of the world’s commercial reactors. Germany’s corporate giant Siemens, an industry mainstay, has abandoned the technology to focus on renewables. As other major countries and corporations follow suit, the nuke industry will waste away.

X Those who “support nuclear power” cannot guarantee the reactors they want built will be properly regulated or monitored. The world at large may not hear about the next Fukushimas until long after the radioactive fallout spreads around the planet. Given the dismal state of regulation even in “advanced” countries like Japan and the US, will those who support the “Renaissance” be there to monitor the Korean nukes sold to the United Arab Emirates et. al.?

X The US still has some $10 billion in designated loan guarantees for new reactors. Two reactors are technically under construction in South Carolina, and two more at Georgia’s Vogtle. Despite $8.33 billion in loan guarantees, Georgia’s rates are already soaring. Attempts to get Congress to kick in more money have been blocked by the grassroots No Nukes movement.

X Local resistance to reactor projects has raged wherever reactors operate or are proposed, and has been extremely effective. Richard Nixon promised 1000 US reactors by the year 2000, but the operable number was 104. Those nearly 900 reactors that went missing were mostly stopped by local grassroots movements. Every proposed or operating reactor not killed financially can be ultimately stopped by local opposition movements geared toward a long, hard struggle against “impossible” odds that ultimately prove beatable.

X As it has been from the start, nuclear power is a ward of the state. Nowhere on Earth are the builders held fully responsible for their mess. The Japanese government has just coughed up a tip-of-the-iceberg $13 billion bailout for Fukushima’s owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Hundreds of billions are yet to come. Either the company goes bankrupt, or the government takes it over beforehand. Either way, the public pays financially, and with its health and that of its children. So it will be everywhere nukes are built, including the US, where the 1957 Price-Anderson Act still limits owner liability in the wake of a catastrophe.

X Cost estimates for new reactors have already soared 200-300% and more over original prices just a few years ago, and will continue go ever higher. By contrast, renewable technology prices continue their rapid, steep decline.

X France’s nuclear industry has all but given up on the US market. A reactor under construction in Finland is years behind schedule and billions of Euros over budget, as is another at Flamanville, in France itself. French public opinion has turned strongly toward renewables.

X US war hawks now want an attack on Iran for allegedly using commercial technology to build a Bomb. But it’s instructive to remember that the west once tried to sell 36 reactors to the Shah, who was overthrown by religious fundamentalists in 1979, leading to the current crisis. Does the “Renaissance” blueprint mean pushing reactors everywhere, then launching preemptive wars following the inevitable regime changes?

X After more than 50 years, the radioactive waste problem has been nowhere solved. Nevada’s Yucca Mountain is not revivable, and there are no usable high-level storage sites anywhere else on the planet.

X Nuclear power makes global warming worse. Greenhouse gases pour out of the mining, milling, enrichment and waste management process. Massive quantities of direct heat threaten our rivers, lakes and oceans. Thus more and more reactors must shut during hot summer months, when they are supposedly fighting global warming.

X The calculations on how much climate changing heat and steam have spewed into the atmosphere during the explosions at Chernobyl and Fukushima remain to be done. Likewise the heat impacts of the liquid emissions into the ocean at Fukushima remain unknown.

X By wasting huge amounts of social capital, nuclear construction slows the conversion to renewables, which at the real core of defeating global warming.

X Fukushima is not over. Three melted cores remain problematic, and the entire complex is vulnerable to aftershocks which could bring spent fuel pools crashing to the ground and cause other disasters impossible to foresee.

X Nuclear power is killing people in ever-greater numbers. The industry continues to mount its usual personal assaults on those who prove that. But the killing power of radiation has been known since “mountain sickness” — lung cancer — began surfacing among Czech uranium miners in the 1500s. The continuum is unbroken through the introduction of x-rays, the work of the Curies, radium watch dial painting, definitive links to childhood leukemia, and more. The Hiroshima-based “science” used to establish a “safe” dose of radiation has been thoroughly debunked. The medical consensus that there is no such thing is quite firm.

X The nuclear industry never accepted the burden proving this technology to be safe before being deployed amidst a civilian population. For a half-century reactor backers have done a superb job of simply refusing to maintain or study reliable epidemiological data bases around commercial reactors (as well as weapons production facilities). But as early as 1970 the chief medical officer of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr. John Gofman, branded commercial atomic power as a form of “premeditated mass murder.”

X The largest study so far of the health impacts of Chernobyl, conducted by three Russian scientists, indicates upwards of a million casualties over the past quarter-century. That first study of the US health impacts from Fukushima, indicates that many thousands more deaths are likely to be suffered in the US above what’s already apparent.

Does all this add up to the end of nuke power?

Worldwide, the industry is crumbling. The collapse of its private investment base, and the shutdowns in Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Mexico, Israel and elsewhere are rapidly shrinking the technology’s credible reach.

In the US, we can cut off all subsidies for new reactors. Fierce no nukes campaigns in the UK, India and even China, as massive demonstrations there are starting to erupt. None of these fights will be easy, but all are winnable, especially as the full impacts of Fukushima become known, and as the Solartopian green power revolution renders the nuclear option increasingly uneconomic.

The movement to shut the old reactors is hitting critical mass. The Vermont Yankee case will go to the US Supreme Court, which must decide if corporations are above even the contracts they sign with the public. Once the first of these are forced shut, the dam will break and the American fleet of 104 licensed reactors will rapidly shrink, along with others around the world.

Some two dozen Fukushima clones now operate in the US. They are old, rickety, cracked and dangerous. Other designs, like Ohio’s Davis-Besse, with a cracked containment and an infamous hole eaten through its head, aren’t faring much better. Nebraska’s Cooper has been flooded. Indian Point, New York, is also under attack from the state

Far more money is being invested in renewables worldwide than in nukes or even fossil fuels. Green energy will soon constitute the world’s largest industry, financially and in terms of employment. The conversion to a post-fossil/nuclear Solartopian economy based entirely on renewables and efficiency will mark the most important industrial transition in human history.

Fukushima has taught us that as long as reactors operate, the apocalyptic clock is ticking.

With that in mind, and with the flow of green money turning into a financial tsunami, we can make 2012 the year nuke power finally dies.

It will require a serious push from the grassroots.

But we are ready to win a green-powered earth. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harvey-wasserman/2012-is-the-year-to-final_b_1180444.html