January 22, 2010
The only safe nuke is 150 million kilometres away!
- Vic Yanda
The world-wide renaissance of nuclear power that has so often been predicted will not take place in the next few decades. Nuclear energy will be on the decline till the year 2030, and will continue to decline in importance globally. This is the conclusion of the Swiss “Prognos” institute based in Basel.
http://www.wieninternational.at/en/node/16702
Premier Dalton McGuinty has signed a landmark agreement with a South Korean consortium that will see $7 billion invested in Ontario to create 16,000 new jobs over six years.
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/753816--mcguinty-heralds-samsung-green-energy-deal
http://www.rechargenews.com/energy/wind/article193520.ece
http://dcnonl.com/article/id37193
Consumers in Ontario and across the country should pay a higher price for electricity, especially in peak periods, to reflect its environmental cost and the cost of new generating facilities.
From exploration to fuel production, this website related the contamination, water consumption, waste generation, costs to the American taxpayer through government subsidies, health impacts, and the CO2 emissions that are caused by the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
Also, watch the fantastic 10-minute documentary.
http://www.downtheyellowcakeroad.org/
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The Florida Public Service Commission (PUC) denied Florida Power and Light (FPL) Company's $1.27 billion rate-hike request, granting instead a minuscule $75.5 million in a decision that could be the death knell for not only two proposed nuclear reactors in Florida, but several elsewhere in the U.S.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/january182010/fla_nukes.php
Can you really call something a renaissance if it consists of one or two projects, paid for by the government?
In 2005, Finland broke ground on the world’s most advanced reactor, a 1,600-megawatt plant built by Areva of France and the German firm Siemens. The nuclear industry hoped it would be an example of a new generation of plants that were cheap and efficient and could be built faster than older models.
Four and a half years later, the project is running at least three years late, costs have doubled and both sides are locked in an ugly legal battle that spilled out in public several times last year.
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100116/BUSINESS/701169960/1005
Doctors at hospitals in Belarus and Ukraine are seeing highly unusual rates of cancers, mutations and blood diseases in their young patients. An assessment by the Russian academy of sciences says there have been 60,000 deaths so far in Russia and an estimated 140,000 in Ukraine and Belarus - far higher than the ludicrous but "official" figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which claim only 56 people have died as a direct result of the radiation released by the Chernobyl explosion and that only about 4,000 will die from it eventually.
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/storage/Chernobyl_figures-Disputed_Guardian_Jan2010.pdf
Calling the incidence rate of thyroid cancer in eastern Pennsylvania an "epidemic," a nuclear power watchdog group is placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the nuclear power industry.
France is not the Example
It is perhaps no accident that the nuclear power industry chose a French word – “renaissance” – to promote its alleged comeback. A failure to challenge this facile falsehood has cemented the myth of a French nuclear Utopia in the minds of the public. It masks a very different reality.
The German government has the upper hand as it meets with heads of major energy companies in Berlin. Should the government close Germany's aging nuclear plants, or collect money from the companies to keep them running?
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5154213,00.html
This 1-minute comedy act was from June, 2009 after a tritium spill at Chalk River nuclear station. In Dec. ’09 we had another tritium spill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuiFplYlLCg
The latest news on the uranium/nuclear industry
At a time of economic pain and planetary peril, a renewable global powerhouse takes shape. Just when we need it most.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/131/solar-goes-supernova.html
Shot primarily from a helicopter, Peter Mettler's visionary flimmaking offers an unparalleled view of the world's largest industrial, capital and energy project. This bird's eye view offers a staggering and unique perspective on how some of the world's dirtiest oil is produced—and how much we're willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of unsustainable and destructive energy sources. From the poisoning of downstream First Nations communities and the total assimilation of wildlife habitats, to the contamination of critical waterways and the clear cutting of the Boreal Forest, the tar sands have become the poster child of where our global addiction to dirty fuels has taken us. "Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands" seeks to expose the true nature of this fiercely destructive project by taking the viewer deep into the oily belly of the beast.
Royal Theatre (608 College St.), Toronto
Friday Jan. 22nd to Wed. Jan. 27th, 7:00pm
Also Sunday Jan. 24th - 4:30pm
Ticket price is $10. Students and seniors $8.
In conjunction with the screenings there will be a Q+A with a host of speakers, including film-maker Peter Mettler and Greenpeace Canada's Executive Director, Bruce Cox.
Find out more about the film: http://www.petropolis-film.com/#
Toronto Report-back from UN Climate Change Talks in Copenhagen
Thursday, January 28, 7pm
United Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil Street (south of College, east of Spadina)
Join us as we hear from participants from different delegations as they discuss the negotiations and the "Copenhagen Accord", the 100,000-strong demonstration, the shameful role of the Canadian Government which won the "Fossil of the Day" award ten times through out the conference and what needs to be done to combat climate change!
Speakers include:
CLAYTON THOMAS MULLER Tar sands organizer, Indigenous Environmental Network
CAROLYN EGAN President, Steelworker Toronto Area Council
DAVE MARTIN Energy coordinator, Greenpeace Canada
KIMIA GHOMESHI Member, Canadian Youth Delegation
(Moderator) BRETT RHYNO Organizer, Toronto Climate Campaign
FREE! ALL WELCOME!
TORONTO CLIMATE CAMPAIGN
web: www.torontoclimatecampaign.org
e-mail: info@torontoclimatecampaign.org