Ace Hoffman's blog -- mostly about nukes

Every year, it's cheaper to keep 'er...

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 06:23:00 +0000

December 11th, 2009

How in the world DOES the NRC measure risk?

The Penn State Breazeale Reactor (PSBR) has been relicensed for another 20 years (see World Nuclear News article, shown below).

It's only used part-time. It does not power the campus. It does not provide medical isotopes. Much of its use now is just for "operator training" which is better done at other, more modern facilities (PSBR is the nation's oldest operating reactor).

Many university reactors are only operated part-time, because there really aren't that many people who want to go into nuclear reactor operations these days. Some so-called "basic research" is done with the Penn State reactor, but that research could easily be done elsewhere (if it's even worth doing). Like any university, Penn State wants to be on the forefront of everything. But this?

In 2005, during the reactor's 50th anniversary, the university applied to renew PSBR's license for another 20 years. If the license application hadn't been made during the hopeful Bush era, perhaps the trusties of the educational institution would have let it lapse in 2009, since the nuclear renaissance has been exposed for what it really was: Just another attempt to steal hundreds of billions of dollars from the public, by the utilities who won't pay a dime themselves for new reactors, or for insurance, or for waste management, or for terrorism protection, or for metallurgical studies, or for health studies, or for new evacuation assessments in view of new population figures, or for modern earthquake studies, and on and on and on. What renaissance, indeed?

But in 2005 the show was in full swing. We were told that scores of new reactors were going to be built all over America, and hundreds more around the world. Most of those schemes have already fallen through, and most of the rest are in big trouble, because financially, NO ONE CAN JUSTIFY A NEW NUKE. If you don't believe me, you only need to read the Wall Street Journal's many articles more carefully... Or many other financial assessments.

So who needs Penn State's old reactor? Nobody, that's who. But in any given year, as with all the old commercial reactors, it's easier to just keep it going than to close it down and decommission it once and for all. And the trusties probably wonder: What if, say, next year, there IS a nuclear "renaissance"? Penn State might be left behind!

And so, Penn State's old reactor will continue to create nuclear waste so that a few scientists can use it during regular school hours, and a few reactor operators can be trained, and if a terrorist wants to destroy State College, where I used to live, the reactor will be there as a sitting target. For nothing.

It appears that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants license extensions for so-called "research" reactors just as automatically as it grants renewals for commercial power reactor licenses. The agency has NEVER failed to give a commercial license renewal -- I believe the current number is 57 out of 57 requests. They've granted 100% of the requests for onsite dry fuel storage, as well -- nearly 40 of those have been issued so far, despite well-documented cases of fraud in numerous parts of the dry cask fabrication industry here and abroad!

But on and on it goes.

Where WILL it all end? It will end in accidents and fury.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

The author began studying nuclear issues around the time he was briefly at PSU, in the 1970s.

--------------------------------------------------------------
From:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/print.aspx?id=26754
--------------------------------------------------------------

Regulation and Safety
Another twenty years for USA's oldest reactor
11 December 2009

After over half a century of operations, the oldest research reactor in the USA has been licensed to operate for a further 20 years.

The Penn State Breazeale Reactor (PSBR) first received an operating licence from the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1955 and went critical on 15 August that year. Its licence number - R-2 - belies that it was in fact the first research reactor to be licensed by the forerunner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Licence R-1 was reserved by AEC and granted retrospectively to a reactor at the North Carolina State College which had started up in September 1953 but had already ceased operating by before PSBR went critical. The Carolina reactor never restarted; the R-2 licence for PSBR has never lapsed.

Penn State University was one of the first US universities to take advantage of President Dwight Eisenhower's 1954 Atoms for Peace initiative by building its own reactor. The original reactor consisted of a core of plate-type fuel elements mounted in a grid plate, suspended from a movable bridge in an open pool of water. Initially, the reactor's power level was limited to 100 kWt. In 1960, the authorized maximum operating power level was increased to 200 kWt. Then in 1965, the original core was replaced with a TRIGA reactor core and control system. At the time, TRIGA-type reactors had been installed at other facilities but the PSBR was the first existing research reactor to be converted to a TRIGA. The TRIGA core had a maximum steady-state power level of 1 MWt and included a pulse capability allowing a peak pulse power of approximately 2000 MWt.

Over the years, the reactor has undergone several modifications including major renovations to the replace the original General Atomics TRIGA control system with a new analogue-digital control system, completed in 1991.

The PSBR is the second oldest research reactor operating in the world today. Only the F-1 graphite pile reactor at Russia's Kurchatov Institute, which started up at the end of 1946, is older. The American Nuclear Society recognized PSBR's historical status nearly two decades ago, presenting it with a Nuclear Historic Landmark Award in 1991.

Research reactors are generally not used for power generation but instead to provide a neutron source for research or other purposes. They are smaller and simpler than power reactors, and operate at lower temperatures, but like power reactors are still subject to International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) safeguards and inspections. The PSBR is used for experimental, research and educational purposes, including student laboratory exercises and operator training. It currently operates for approximately 2000 hours per year, with the reactor critical for between 840 and 1040 hours per year.

Penn State University applied for a 20-year licence renewal for the reactor in 2005, the same year the reactor celebrated its 50th anniversary. After a full safety review carried out by the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, the regulator has ruled that "PSU can continue to operate the PSBR, in accordance with the renewed licence, without posing a significant risk to the health and safety of the public, facility personnel, or the environment."

************************************************
** Ace Hoffman, Owner & Chief Programmer, The Animated Software Co.
** POB 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018
** U.S. & Canada (800) 551-2726; elsewhere: (760) 720-7261
** home page: www.animatedsoftware.com
** email: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com
** To cease contact, please put "Unsubscribe-me-please" in the subject.
************************************************

Is San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station at a tipping point?

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:20:00 +0000

November 19th, 2009

Dear Readers,

At the end of August 2009, Southern California Edison, the owner/operator of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, suddenly -- and as quietly as possible --- replaced about 70% of their work force: All the main contractors and their subcontractors. They kept themselves, though -- minus quite a few "early retirements."

This happened in the midst of growing concerns about shortages of trained personnel in the nuclear industry due to the combined stresses of an aging workforce and so few new recruits (there are far more enjoyable -- and profitable -- things for smart young people to do these days).

And it happened in the midst of enormous and difficult repairs and replacements of embrittled and leaking parts, due to the combined stresses of more rapid degradation than expected and longer permitted running times than the utility had hoped for in their wildest dreams when they built the plant.

Some of the people who lost their jobs had been working at the plant for decades. They knew the place inside and out. They knew how to falsify documents. They knew how to sleep on the job and get away with it. They knew how to claim a weld was done correctly when it wasn't. They knew what the regulators would look for -- and what they wouldn't. These guys really knew the plant well.

SCE got rid of them all, because SCE's management needed to show the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that they were doing SOMETHING to fix their "culture of cover-up." It had already been established that there was, indeed, such a culture at the plant. But subsequent testimony from whistleblowers makes it clear that the culture of cover-up remains, even if many of the faces involved have been changed (URLS to You-Tube videos are included below).

San Onofre has had a lot of friends over the years -- people on the outside who denigrate anyone who speaks out against the plant. Some of these people even have degrees in nuclear physics or nuclear engineering! They think that makes them experts in molecular biology, epidemiology, metallurgy, the economics of "safe" nuclear waste disposal, offshore wind power, terrorism, and every other field needed to understand nuclear power and its potential impact on the planet and on human life.

Arguing endlessly is possible, but worse than pointless: It's negligent. As long as the pro-nuclear activists can keep the pro-DNA activists debating, "they" win because San Onofre stays open by default. And that's pre-meditated murder. San Onofre is dangerous. Multiple whistleblowers are warning us that this is so -- long-time workers at the plant, former workers, and outside experts.

To have so many people -- people who ought to know -- warning us so clearly about a danger so big is terrifying -- but it can be fortuitous, too, if we take the time to listen to what they are saying.

Right now, San Onofre Unit Two is shut down for extensive repairs and rebuilding. Next year (2010), Unit Three will shut down for an extended period because it too is old and in disrepair. Neither unit should EVER reopen. (Unit One was closed in the early 1990s.)

San Onofre harms people by releasing radiation into the environment. Peer-reviewed studies have shown cancer clusters around nuclear plants, as well as birth defects, heart problems, and other health effects. And yet, admittedly, a properly operating reactor only releases a tiny fraction of the lethal waste it creates each day. Unless there is a serious accident, the vast majority of the waste will remain on-site and inside its containment. But even the daily releases of an operational nuclear power plant cause measurable health effects. Needless to say, every effort is made NOT to properly measure these effects!

Catastrophes which could release vast quantities of deadly radiation are possible, too. Tsunamis far taller than the sea wall at San Onofre can occur at any moment. Earthquakes can too, far stronger than San Onofre's 7.0 (variously claimed to be 7.5) standard, if it would even hold up to that. Airplanes can fall out of the sky by accident, and hit the plant. It is under a major air route.

Or a worker can drop a bolt, and say nothing, and later it gets stuck in a valve.

Clean energy is available all around us, we just need to harness it properly. Offshore wind energy farms could be built, for instance. As little as eight miles out to sea, they are barely visible from shore. And they don't create oil spills or anything. The portion of San Onofre which is currently an electrical switchyard could continue to be used to collect and redistribute clean, green power. San Onofre employees -- those not involved in scandals -- could be employed building renewable energy systems throughout the county.

We have had many moments in the past where we could have shut San Onofre down. If we had turned to renewables some time in the past, the cost of electricity in California would now be much lower than it is.

The moment of change is always difficult, but in the case of San Onofre, waiting to change will be far more difficult in the long run. Every day the plant remains open, enough new deadly hazardous waste is created -- never mind yesterday's or the day before's -- to destroy Southern California for thousands of generations. Enough to cause trillions of dollars of damage, and millions of deaths. One day's waste.

And no one can buy insurance against a nuclear disaster. Check your home-owners' policy, your rental policy, your business insurance policy -- check them all. Nuclear accidents are EXCLUDED. You and your family will die, and your far-away heirs will get nothing, or at most, a tiny fraction of a penny on the dollar, from a grossly inadequate general fund created by a notorious act of vile legislation known as the Price-Anderson Act. The most dangerous industry in the world is allowed to operate, for all intents and purposes, WITHOUT INSURANCE.

In addition to not having proper insurance, other arcane special laws allow San Onofre to operate without real oversight. For example, Cal-OSHA has only a limited presence at San Onofre, because it's a nuclear facility regulated by the NRC. Even the federal OSHA has no real presence there, also due to "special agreements" with the NRC and/or the Department of Energy (DOE).

How did the most dangerous industry on earth ALSO become the least regulated? Because of national security and enormous complexity. State officials didn't understand how the plant worked, and were happy to relinquish authority to federal regulators. Secrets about fuel composition and other matters made the federal nuclear regulators want to keep even other federal regulators out of the workplace.

San Onofre's most blind and fervent supporters will always declare that nuclear power is safe. "Look at France! Look at Japan!" they'll cry, because both of those countries get most of their electricity from nuclear power, at a terrible, but hidden (to those who refuse to look), cost. "Yucca Mountain" they've been crying for nearly 20 years as if it would solve the waste problem. What a lie THAT was! But for 20 years the local media has bought it, the local politicians have bought it, and the local population, spoon-fed this lie by the media, the politicians, and the plant, have bought it as well.

One lie after another has kept San Onofre open. Worker lawsuits for cancers they never thought they'd suffer haven't stopped it. Repeated allegations -- proven allegations -- of fraud haven't stopped it. Fuel fleas, radioactive kittens, maniacal ex-employees with garages full of weapons, haven't stopped it. Major components installed backwards? No, that didn't stop it, either.

And, of course, even broad public opposition to the plant, which has often existed in the past as well as now, despite the government and industry's "best" efforts, hasn't stopped it. Will anything stop it, short of a meltdown?

We better hope so.

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

NOTE ABOUT THESE VIDEOS: I've left "ratings" open and set "comments" to "monitored." Please RATE these videos -- that will greatly improve their chance of being viewed in their entirety by others!

"Shut it down!" Unknown speaker at the November 5th, 2009 NRC hearing in Dana Point, CA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIg1ap-tSqk

Also from the November 5th, 2009 NRC hearing in Dana Point, CA. The first speaker here is Rick Busnardo, a supervisor at San Onofre (see below):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP9vgNWFk6o

From an October 22, 2009 NRC hearing on NUREG-1437:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOFxNTcuoN8

From the May 8, 2009 special hearing on San Onofre's culture of cover-up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1exr7HFYew

===================================================

From: Know No Nukes:

2 SoCal nuke plant workers file federal complaints
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (The Associated Press) - Nov 18

Two supervisors at the San Onofre nuclear power plant have filed
federal complaints claiming they suffered retaliation for reporting safety
violations.

Monday's filings with the U.S. Department of Labor claim managers at
the San Diego County plant marginalized Rick Busnardo and gave Mike Mason a
bad evaluation last year. The men had cited a welder for violating
regulations while making a canister to hold spent nuclear fuel.

Busnardo and Mason are now on medical leave.

The plant's chief nuclear officer, Ross Ridenoure, didn't directly
address the complaints but says the plant encourages workers to point out
safety problems without fear of retaliation.

===================================================

-----------------------------------------
Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
address: PO Box 1936, Carlsbad, CA 92018
Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
Email: ace@acehoffman.org
To unsubscribe:
Send "Unsubscribe" in subject line.
-----------------------------------------

Negligently-run and negligently-regulated: Only outrage will do...

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:39:00 +0000

November 16th, 2009

Dear Readers,

It's very rare to get ANY "mass media" attention for nuclear issues these days.

Nevertheless, my November 5th, 2009 blog ("Lots of new faces but it's the same old SONGS... ") regarding the "culture of cover-up" that exists at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station ("SONGS"), and some of the reasons that culture should be expected to continue, was re-edited, re-worked, re-titled and republished as a Community Essay in yesterday's San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday, November 15th, 2009). The SD U-T version of the essay can be found online here:

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/nov/15/nuclear-power-is-not-the-answer-renewable-energy

Also, please be sure to view the You-Tube video from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing that same day in Dana Point, California regarding management problems at San Onofre. A long-time Southern California Edison employee described the "culture of cover-up" that exists there, and suggested what the terrifying consequences might be. Here is the URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP9vgNWFk6o

A nuclear power plant is simply no place to have a culture of cover-up. And yet, I've heard these sorts of comments from MULTIPLE long-term employees who currently still work at San Onofre. THEY are scared.

If we were talking about a trucking company, or a hospital, or a manufacturer of baby carriages, or a construction company, we would be pretty upset to hear from within the plant itself that there is a "culture of cover-up" at the facility. But where nuclear reactors are concerned, things must be a million times safer, because the risks are about a million times greater for society.

California activists especially should send the URL of this whistleblower's testimony to our elected officials, and to other residents of our beautiful state, so we can keep it that way! Ask them to watch it, and tell them that NOW is the perfect time to shut San Onofre forever!

It really is: Aside from the work ethic problems (which should be reason enough to shut San Onofre), Unit Two is currently shut down anyway, and will be for months. (Unit One was shut down in 1992 when required safety upgrades were deemed too expensive. Even now the reactor pressure vessel and almost all of Unit One's spent fuel still remain at San Onofre, because no one will take them.) Unit Three is due for a long (and expensive) maintenance outage starting next year (2010).

Every day San Onofre remains operating, 500 pounds of new High Level Radioactive Waste is created, on average (250 lbs per reactor per day). Each gram could lay waste to a small city, and will remain dangerous -- and, most importantly, difficult and expensive to handle -- for hundreds of thousands of years.

Virtually all of the hazardous radioactive waste "SONGS" creates each day -- what isn't spilled or leaked into the environment -- sits on our sea coast either in huge "spent fuel pools" or in even-more-dangerous "dry storage casks," which are relatively new and could have been avoided at San Onofre entirely if we had shut the facility down just a few years ago.

Both the wet and dry "temporary" radioactive waste storage methods are inadequate, and threaten to destroy our way of life forever in a matter of seconds, from an earthquake, tsunami, act of terrorism, or other tragedy. Don't ever believe the lying scoundrels from the plant, or from government, who say those containments are safe! They are not!

Since we can't shut the plant down yesterday, which would have been better, today will have to do, since tomorrow may be too late. The blackouts when three of California's four nuclear power plants were inoperable in the early part of the century were a hoax. We ALL know that now. We can live just fine without San Onofre as a dangerous and unstable electricity source; a dangerous and unstable neighbor. In fact, we can live BETTER, since renewables wouldn't have to compete with artificially-low-priced nuclear power.

Every nuclear power plant has a "culture of cover-up," as well as numerous other subcultures, power struggles, and political wranglings going on. From giving colorful glossy books to local schools, expressing how "clean and green" nuclear power is, to sending smooth-talking lobbyists to talk to Congressional aides and elected officials (after paving the way with cash donations, often to ALL candidates in various amounts), to being permitted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to say nothing about any release that is "below regulatory concern" and very little, if anything, about those that are above that nebulous tipping point -- the nuclear power plant's operators hide every possible mistake that occurs, and every potential problem that is created for the future. Why worry about the waste? We'll send it to Yucca Mountain, they've been saying for decades. And now what do they say? We'll reprocess it, they say. Well, that's dirty, too, and would require an additional 100-billion or 200-billion dollars! Really, it will just sit here, dangerously, in ever-increasing amounts. Continuing to make even more radioactive waste is foolhardy.

The entire nuclear industry is based on lies piled on lies: On circular, pointless, and long-winded arguments, on statistical quagmires, on faulty assumptions, on corporate and government secrecy, and on the false hope that really, a little radiation IS always good for you, no matter what your age, no matter what the form of the radiation, no matter how much additional radiation you'll get in your lifetime, and no matter how much "a little" really is (this "theory" is known as "Hormesis").

The scientific and technological world has progressed beyond the craziness of the nuclear industry: Most doctors have learned to avoid unnecessary x-rays, and modern medical procedures almost always expose people to far LESS radiation than, say, 20 years ago. And renewable energy alternatives abound and await public acceptance, such as Atmospheric Vortex Engines. But because society isn't paying close attention (and the topic is so complex), the 104 operating nuclear power plants in America just keep getting older and older and older. And when faced with closure, increased coal use is threatened as the only alternative.

Leaving the plants operating makes a serious accident in America virtually inevitable. We've come close many times. Davis-Besse in 2002 was one recent event -- which went nearly unnoticed by the public. But numerous other events have also occurred. And Three Mile Island's partial meltdown in 1979 could have been a whole lot worse, but in many ways, America was very lucky that day.

After a large accident, surely THEN they will ALL be shut down. But that will be too late. The poisons will have been spread, the death tolls begun, the cancers programmed to occur in our bodies some time in the future.

A smart America won't wait for that. But are we a smart America?

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

The author develops educational software for colleges and universities. He has studied nuclear issues since the 1970s.

------------------------------------------------------------
The NRC thinks it is ready to codify what it takes to make a safe work environment, even while they are failing miserably to do so at San Onofre:
------------------------------------------------------------

It's hard to believe the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has an "expectation that any NRC-regulated organization will establish and maintain a positive safety culture" but apparently they do (see below). And, as always, they think they know what they're doing about everything, and want to be in full control of everything at every nuclear facility. So in the midst of all the fraudulent record-keeping, worker safety violations, lies, and whistleblower accusations at San Onofre and other nuclear power plants, the NRC acts like it knows perfectly well how to achieve a "positive safety culture," and is ready to codify it's capabilities into written policy!

Comments are due February 4, 2010.

--------------------------------------------------------------

NRC seeks public comment on draft safety culture policy for nuclear
facilities and nuclear material users

Nov 12, 2009 -- NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION DOCUMENTS AND
PUBLICATIONS/ContentWorks

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued for public comment a
draft policy statement on "safety culture," including the Commission's
expectation that any NRC-regulated organization will establish and maintain
a positive safety culture.

The Commission addressed the safe conduct of nuclear power plant
operations in a 1989 policy statement and a safety-conscious work
environment in a 1996 policy statement. After years of work in this area,
and after the experience of incorporating aspects of safety culture into the
Reactor Oversight Process effort, the Commission has approved issuing a
draft policy statement that sets forth its expectation that all licensees
and certificate holders establish and maintain a safety culture that
protects public health and safety and the common defense and security. The
draft policy defines safety culture as: "That assembly of characteristics,
attitudes and behaviors in organizations and individuals which establishes
that as an overriding priority, nuclear safety and security issues receive
the attention warranted by their significance."

A safety culture should include a work environment where personnel
feel free to raise safety and security concerns without fearing retaliation,
as well as prompt and thorough identification, evaluation and resolution of
those concerns. The NRC is strongly committed to promoting a positive safety
culture among the organizations it regulates.

The NRC is interested in the public's comments in several areas,
including:

* Does the draft policy's safety culture definition need further
clarification? * What specific safety culture characteristics relevant to
particular types of NRC licensees should the draft policy address? * What
characteristics in the draft policy do not contribute to safety culture? *
How can the NRC better involve stakeholders in addressing safety culture?

Comments on the changes will be accepted until Feb. 4, 2010, following
publication of the draft safety culture policy statement in the Federal
Register, (<http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-26816.pdf>http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-26816.pdf). Comments
may be mailed to: Alexander Sapountzis, Office of Enforcement, Mail Stop O4
A15A, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or
e-mailed to: <http://webmail.americanis.net/imp/message.php?mailbox=INBOX&index=169731#>alexander.sapountzis@nrc.gov.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Contact information for Ace:
----------------------------------------------------------------

Shocking public testimony of a long-time San Onofre nuclear power plant employee...

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:14:00 +0000

November 9th, 2009

Dear Readers,

SoCal, we have a problem.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a hearing about San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (aka "SONGS") last Thursday (November 5th, 2009). At the hearing, Southern California Edison tried to convince the regulators that SCE's "culture of cover-up" had been fixed. They talked about dropping the incident rates down, but they couldn't tell us why, and it could just represent MORE cover-ups and MORE shoddy work.

The SCE executives barely mentioned firing the incompetents from Bechtel and replacing them with the scoundrels from The Shaw Group, which occurred in August of this year (2009). After around 40 years, they think the way to fix the problem is fire about 70% of the work force... Over the past few years, executives have resigned in droves, lest they be fired, too. The spokesliar for the plant for more than a decade, Ray Golden, head of the local businessman's association too at the time, was suddenly gone.

At the November 5th hearing, San Onofre's owners had to try to convince the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that by firing Bechtel, who operated the plant from DAY ONE, and instead bringing in a collection of foreign and out-of-state workers from an international company renowned for shady deals and shady customers, they would somehow fix their ongoing "culture of cover-up." Of course, it's not working. One advantage: According to one whistleblower I spoke to, The Shaw Group supposedly has "real" engineers, whereas Bechtel had "a lot of people who they called engineers, but they didn't have a degree in anything."

But at least Bechtel's employees knew the plant. In fact, they knew everything so well, they (along with their sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors) knew how to get away with falsifying records and reports, and doing shoddy work, for years and years! The Nuclear Regulatory Commission believes in as much self-regulation as possible. There is less than one on-site NRC inspector for every thousand workers at the plant. So a lot of things are never inspected. When fire inspection records are found to be falsified, for instance, it never occurs to the NRC that it's THEIR fault for not looking at the records even once in five years.

The Shaw Group is a conglomerate of old nuclear companies, such as Stone and Webster. That division alone paid over $6 million this year in fines to the U.S. government for (alleged) "false claims and contract fraud" for repeatedly hiding injury reports -- a problem which has plagued San Onofre, too. These are the "good" guys who have been brought in because Bechtel had to be kicked out to show that SOMETHING was being done to fix the "culture of cover-up" at SONGS! But the culture remained, and remains to this day.

At last week's hearing, when the public was allowed to speak, one of the plant workers got up first. He was allowed to hold the microphone (a privilege not extended to those who had come to speak out against the plant). A privilege they probably wish they hadn't given HIM!

The plant employee confirmed everything I had heard several months ago myself. But unlike the whistleblowers I talked to in private, this gentleman spoke out from his own personal experience in front of the NRC, in front of the heads of SCE, in front of other employees, and in front of the public.

It was an astounding moment to witness and I was fortunate enough to have my HD camera handy to catch it, although I had forgotten my tripod, as you'll see... Several other people spoke, mostly in opposition to the continued operation of the plant. There was no clapping all night long -- hardly surprising: There wasn't much for anyone to clap about.

We are not talking about making cars poorly on an assembly line, or even fighter jets. The scandal we are talking about here controls the fate not of a hundreds, or even thousands, but potentially the health and well-being of tens of millions of Americans.

All it takes is dropping a bolt and not saying anything to destroy the lives of all those people, all those families, as this whistleblower so eloquently describes.

Please tell your friends to watch this video, and tell your elected officials to watch it as well. This is a rare moment in history, for someone to step up like this and say, "WE HAVE A PROBLEM."

Even if the plant were to be shut down permanently tomorrow, this man's problem would still need to be solved at the plant. The nuclear waste storage facility SONGS would immediately become (which is what it is now -- it just has the reactors too) would need good people to constantly monitor it and improve it, or at least, make do with the limited funds they would be given to try to secure it.

But that, of course, is not what the speaker wants to do. Electricity has to come from somewhere, he knows, and he still believes that the right crew can ALWAYS prevent San Onofre from melting down. But forces, beyond even the best people's ability to control, can come into play in an instant at San Onofre, so, despite knowing that people like this work there, I still say, without hesitation: "SHUT IT DOWN!"

But the NRC says we are protesting to the wrong room -- that they are ONLY in charge of "safety" and so are not responsible for simply giving up.

And the California state and local agencies who SHOULD be demanding San Onofre be shut down?

They (Coastal Commission, Energy Commission, Public Utilities Commission, etc. -- this author has appeared before these and many others...) each insist that their mandate is only to mitigate the environmental effects of a properly-running nuclear power plant, which they see as minor, since, for example, tritium is assumed to be about 100 times or maybe even 1,000 times less hazardous than it really is, especially for fetuses. For a California state regulatory agency to assume a nuclear power plant might melt down would be considered a safety issue -- and the NRC regulates that, by virtue of an agreement between the federal government and the state of California which has been interpreted time and again as a way of preventing any state agency from regulating ANYTHING of any significance regarding nuclear power, and absolves those people in those agencies from even having to UNDERSTAND how the darned thing works, let alone, how it kills people in the community on a day-to-day basis, and let alone, what might happen if there is a massive accidental release of radiation from the plant. These arcane "agreements" have even been interpreted to prevent Cal-OSHA from effectively regulating nuclear power plants within our state borders, while similar "agreements" with the federal OSHA have prevented THEM from regulating it, as well! So the NRC, understaffed, is also expected to be the expert in everything!

So if we were in the wrong room, I'm not sure what the right room would be. This suicide pact -- to keep San Onofre running until it melts down -- seems to be unstoppable.

Please tell ANY media you know to watch this shocking video. NO OTHER CAMERA WAS IN THE ROOM that I could see. So when -- it is hard to say "if" after you've heard what this man has to say -- San Onofre melts down, this will be the only documentation of why. The Democrats will blame Osama, and the Republicans will blame Obama, but it will just be some guy who dropped a bolt in the reactor and didn't tell anyone.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

--------------------------------------------------------------

URL for video of whistleblower describing the "culture of cover-up" at San Onofre, recorded November 5th, 2009. In the video, my presentation (about two minutes in length), follows the whistleblower's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP9vgNWFk6o

--------------------------------------------------------------

URL for video of the October 22nd, 2009 hearing (on a somewhat different subject, so this is not the hearing I refer to as the "previous" hearing when all the SONGS employees showed up -- that one was in May, 2009 (see next item, below)):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOFxNTcuoN8

--------------------------------------------------------------

URL for video of the May 7th, 2009 hearing (this recording is from the "previous hearing" referred to in the November 5th, 2009 video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1exr7HFYew

--------------------------------------------------------------

"In military housing disaster, a whistle-blower awaits vindication
A military program to privatize housing for soldiers and their
families is behind schedule and over budget. The man who blew
the whistle on the problems ended up getting fired."

* Read the full article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/373921_militaryhousing07.html

--------------------------------------------------------------

"A painter who was fired after complaining about a potential safety threat at a nuclear power plant in north Alabama won his whistleblower lawsuit against a Tennessee Valley Authority contractor... A Department of Labor review board sided with James Speegle of Tuscumbia five years after he was dismissed by Stone & Webster Construction Inc. while working at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Athens. Speegle, 43, contended he was fired for raising concerns about possible safety problems at the plant's Unit 1 reactor in 2004. Unqualified workers were doing a sloppy job that could have resulted in paint clogging an important cooling system, he argued."

* Read the full article at:
http://www.nacbe.com/articles/Whistleblower-wins-case-over-apf-3705188242.html

--------------------------------------------------------------

Just one year ago, everything was looking good to the NRC. The problems were all there to be found, but the NRC couldn't find them:

"Based on 56 interviews and six focus groups (consisting of approximately 50 people) conducted during this inspection, observations of plant activities, and reviews of the corrective action and nuclear safety concerns programs, the team determined that site personnel were willing to raise safety issues and document them in the corrective action program. The team observed that workers at the site felt free to report problems to their management, and were willing to use the Nuclear Safety Concerns program. "

Source:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/SANO3/sano3_pim.html

That assessment was completely inaccurate at the time it was written.

===================================================

Report from Wed Nov. 5-09 -

by Jerry Collamer (Jerry also attended -- and spoke at -- the Nov. 5 NRC hearing)

Dana Point Doubletree
(The Trestles Room?) Hotel's Edison / NRC / SONGS
public laundering of SONGS progress in getting 'their'
ancient, ailing, sickly, deadly beast (from a long ago era)
under control (if it ever has been).

The jest of last night's gentlemanly slugfest - NRC vs Edison,

"Who's in charge at SONGS?"

My conclusion: the beast is.
And we're the losers.

-----------------------

Ace (Hoffman) voiced it to Doubletree's packed room
of SONGS managers / team leaders / union heads /
SONGS (new) management team and NRC-heavy's
last night,

"Shut'er Down!"

Ace is dead right.

The charade played at SONGS antique, rusting,
leaking, deadly double boiler, sitting on Sano's
shaky sand, over a 'fault' no one knew existed back
at SONGS launching is - we're dumb (really dumb),
and they (SONGS et al) are really smart.

The opposite is true.

The true dummies in the room labor futilely to manage
the unmanageable (re-sculpt an aging dinosaur into
a 21st century thoroughbred. But the bone structure's
all wrong) - as us few public smarties sit gap mouthed
at the curious performance playing out on stage.

(my thought is always - should we be hearing this?)

To NRC and Edison's credit, for us 'the willing' to be
invited to witness SONGS ongoing inter-corporate
slugfest / struggle to exercise 'human control' over
their leaky, creaky, rusting nuke-beast, and its
2000-plus old-line (high paid) union employees,
while they air their dirty laundry in public,
is the best show in town.

If you're into scary movies.

The result of which, only furthers any conscious being's
plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face awareness: the inner
workings at SONGS is more laissez-faire Chinese-fire-drill,
than the in-control, ship-shape, zero-tolerance work
environment one expects from the keepers of earth's
most dangerous flame aka nuke rods on the barbie.

When we do protest too much, NRC reminds us,
we're in the wrong room.

Because control of SONGS fate
lies in the hands of legislators.

So I agree with both Ace and NRC's spokesman.

Yes, SONGS should be shut down now and forever.

And yes, we're protesting - to the wrong room.

Neither of which is a new feeling.

jer

=====================================================

************************************************
** Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad CA 92018

Lots of new faces but it's the same old SONGS...

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:59:00 +0000

November 5th, 2009

Dear Readers,

Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is having a hearing in Dana Point, California (see below) regarding the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (aka "SONGS").

At the hearing, Southern California Edison is going to claim that they are doing everything necessary to fix the "culture of cover-up" that exists -- pardon me, existed -- ahem, ahem -- at the plant.

But in reality, firing about 70% of the staff did not fix it, and nor has anything else.

Not only does that "culture of cover-up" still exist, but actually, it is a necessary component of the operation, in the eyes of everyone who works there! Because they'll get in trouble if the media or the public find out what leaks, what cracks, what drops, what bursts, what spills, who gets contaminated, or by how much. Especially when it's YOU getting contaminated -- they don't want to tell you that. And nor do the so-called "regulators."

And it's all based on even more uneconomical and unsound lies! So how can you NOT have a "culture of cover-up" when the whole operation is based on lies? San Onofre is a terrific danger to everyone on the planet and to Southern California especially, for no reason: Renewable energy is "chomping at the bit" and so is Murphy.

We have a law in California which prohibits new nuclear power plants until a solution to the problem of nuclear waste is found. But since nuclear waste destroys any container you put it in, and is so concentrated and so dangerous that millionths of a gram is a lethal dose, proper solutions defy the laws of physics, averages, and economics. Indeed, they defy reality.

The way California's law was written, no one has been able to get around it. No new nuclear power plants have been built in California since San Onofre and Diablo Canyon have come online, and if either of the reactor units at either of these facilities close, that unit cannot legally be replaced.

Therefore, Southern California Edison plans to keeps these old clunkers running for as many more decades as the so-called "regulators" will let them. A running nuclear power plant, with a federal government promise (unkept, and that's another matter) to assume responsibility for the deadly radioactive waste, is a very profitable thing. Not that there aren't a lot of expenses, but if you don't have to pay proper insurance, and you don't have to pay proper fuel disposal costs, and you don't have to pay for an accident if it does happen, well, then it's profitable. For the owners, but not for society as a whole.

Attendance at this hearing is a good idea. It's your chance to tell SCE to shut that old clunker down. While they replace billions of dollars in old rusted parts, they are keeping many more old parts running. The plant is falling apart. They are doing major rebuilds when they should shut down forever instead, and open the door to renewable, clean energy.

Lastly, it should be noted that other laws in California have allowed every potentially-responsible state and local agency, such as the Coastal Commission or the Energy Commission, to ABDICATE their legally-mandated responsibility to protect YOU from these nuclear power plants. These agencies -- each and every one of them -- refuse to rule on all issues relating to "safety," claiming that they are prohibited from doing so! So really, knocking on the NRC's door, futile though it may be, is probably our best hope for closing these old clunkers before they kill us all, and now is an especially-appropriate time to close San Onofre forever.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

The notice below is from CREED. Note the interesting job offer at the bottom that shows that SCE doesn't currently think they've solved their problems -- yet they are plowing ahead with the retrofit!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Creed" <Creedmail@cox.net>

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED....TRY....TRY....TRY

This JOB BOARD ENTRY placed today, may be EDISON'S attempt for a SOLUTION to Federal Nuclear Commission's FOURTH YEAR safety report citations for repeated same SAFETY VIOLATIONS by personnel.

In public presentation of their on-going efforts to change "deteriorating safety culture," management officials told of training programs, and that, "It takes a long time to change a culture." Several workmen have objected to the term "safety culture," naming it an ongoing "culture of cover-up," being discovered by the NRC in recent years.

NRC may have a different solution to present in its Thursday this week public report on the safety San Onofre's 2200 employees, enlarged by 1000, there preparing the containment dome interior for replacement of steam generators. The deteriorated UNIT II is in a three month shut-down for refueling and re-building.

Many of us in the evacuation radius of San Onofre are hoping that the NRC will recommend to Edison that it retain Unit II in shut-down mode, that it reject defective Mitsubishi generators, and place SO II in decommissioning process safe shut down.

JOIN THE ACTION...OR JUST LISTEN TO NRC AND PUBLIC COMMENT
And report back to your organizations
Nov. 5 Dana Point Double-Tree hotel
34402 Pacific Coast Hwy. 6:30 p.m. free parking under hotel

Corrective Action Program (CAP) Director

Posted by: mailto:Marier@bartlettinc.com?subject=3DRoadtechs.com=20 post: Corrective Action Program (CAP) Director on October 31, 2009 = at=20 12:40:48. Click=20 here to reply to this post via Email.

Contract / Temp to Perm / Permanent: Contract

Bartlett is currently recruiting for a CAP Director for the San = Onofre=20 Nuclear Power Station.

We are seeking individuals with significant CAP and recent Recovery=20 experience to direct all aspects of client CAP Recovery effort to = include=20 activities as Chairperson of RCE teams, direct backlog reduction effort = and=20 provide consultation to client for CAP program enhancements.

For more information please contact Marie Rossi @ = marier@bartlettinc.com or=20 call 800-225-0385 ext 1308.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------
Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
address: PO Box 1936, Carlsbad, CA 92018
Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
Email: ace@acehoffman.org
To unsubscribe:
Send "Unsubscribe" in subject line.
-----------------------------------------

No virus found in this outgoing message
Checked by PC Tools AntiVirus (6.1.0.25 - 6.13640).
http://www.pctools.com/free-antivirus/

NRC public hearing on NUREG-1437: Ace is (finally!) on YouTube!

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:55:00 +0000

October 26th, 2009

Dear Readers,

Last week I attended the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing in Dana Point, California regarding the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants (NUREG-1437). I have created a YouTube video of my presentation. It begins with clips of remarks by another attendee regarding the written document I had submitted at the hearing (and handed out to attendees). (The same document was also my previous newsletter (October 22nd, 2009).)

The video runs about five minutes in length.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOFxNTcuoN8

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
--------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------
Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
address: PO Box 1936, Carlsbad, CA 92018
Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
Email: ace@acehoffman.org
To unsubscribe:
Send "Unsubscribe" in subject line.
-----------------------------------------

Concerns regarding San Onofre's Steam Generator replacement project

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:43:00 +0000

To: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Submission (for tonight's hearing in Dana Point, California)

October 22nd, 2009

The most dangerous times for any nuclear power plant are: Initial start-up or during a restart, and during a shut-down, especially an emergency shut-down.

Three Mile Island Unit II, for instance, had been in commercial operation for less than three months when it partially melted down. It was only slightly different from, slightly more powerful than, Unit 1, which, today, was relicensed by the same careless Nuclear Regulatory Commission we seek redress from today as well -- for another 20 years -- until April 19, 2034. Some of Three Mile Island Unit 1's parts will be 60 years old when it is finally "retired" -- irradiated, thermally heated, pressurized, chemically embrittled, and cycled on and off hundreds or even thousands of times.

The Emergency Core Cooling Systems, mandatory for all commercial reactors, have never actually been tested, and many scientists have asserted that their calculations have indicated the ECCSs may not work when needed. Not only that, but several ECCSs, such as Monticello's, were found to be completely inoperative several decades after installation, and would definitely not have worked. Control rods have jammed, fuel rods have been bent, plutonium has escaped... and one reactor, Davis-Besse, nearly corroded all the way through before anyone noticed! Except maybe the filter salesman.

Many of San Onofre's sea-encrusted, rusted, dilapidated parts will be 60 years old, too, if it makes it to retirement age.

And with all the NEW parts they are installing at San Onofre right now -- miles of pipes, dozens of pumps, scores of valves, hundreds of new sensors, drum after drum of electrical cables -- there will be new pressures and fluid flows throughout the system, new control mechanisms, and even relatively new, or completely new, operators. People quite a bit younger than the plant itself, who don't know how hard people fought to stop it in the first place. Who don't know that almost all our fears have ALREADY been realized, from cancers in the community because of the plant, to fraud at the plant, to piling nuclear waste problems, to threats of terrorism. Yes, it was all foreseen.

Right now, one by one, each of San Onofre's two remaining operable reactors are being rebuilt, top to bottom. That is, pieces of them are being replaced, top to bottom (even the fog lights, and certainly the sump pumps). But despite the retrofit, vastly more pieces are never being touched, never even being inspected.

How much inspection can such a small crew as the NRC leaves "on site" really do? There is only one inspector for every couple of hundred workers.

Furthermore, a climate of cover-up still exists at the plant, according to whistleblowers this author has talked to. And no doubt no one from The Shaw Group wants to expose their mistakes, since they are all new at the site and the last group or operators -- Bechtel and their subcontractors -- were fired en masse after about 40 years of running the most dangerous thing on earth, on August 30th, 2009.

During the retrofit -- a different division of Bechtel is doing that work -- the danger is probably a lot less than during an average day the plant is running. Criticality is not occurring at the shut-down reactor. Water isn't screaming through the system at enormous velocities and pressures. Lazy, sleepy operators on mood-altering cardiac beta blockers for health problems due to sitting all day long aren't using inaccurate and faulty instrumentation to monitor the whole thing and stop it from melting down.

So I'm less scared when the plant is shut down than at any other time. But the restart AFTER this major retrofit will be an especially dangerous time.

And then, the continued operation of the plant for 20 more years may well spell doom for SoCal at some point -- for any of a million different reasons. The old welds might start failing, let alone all the new ones that weren't done right, or were done right in Japan or elsewhere in the world, but didn't get shipped properly to America, or broke during installation. And nobody reported anything, because of the climate of cover-up.

During the actual retrofit, at least the reactor that is being refitted is not increasing the quantity of spent fuel with nowhere to put it by an average of 250 pounds per day per reactor, as happens each day the reactor is operating (500 lbs per day for San Onofre altogether, when both reactors are running). That's in addition to the tritium which is released and poorly tracked, and the hundreds of pounds per year of noble gases which are not tracked or stopped in any way at all, and the daily releases of radioactive isotopes of all known elements, in varying quantities, as allowed by ALARA.

All nuclear facilities vent radioactive isotopes to the public. HEPA filters were originally designed in the 1940s for cleaning the air of radioactive particles but they only achieve a 99.97% success rate (by definition). 3 particles in 10,000 may not sound like a lot, and might have been good enough for The Manhattan Project, but when you are releasing billions of billions of particles every day INTO the filters, it means you are letting a lot of children die in your community DESPITE the filters. And HEPA filters don't work for isolating tritium (a lot more H3 could be removed, but not that way) nor do they do anything to stop the release of the noble gases, which flow right through them. The legal limit for releases of tritium each year by each reactor at San Onofre is about one thirtieth of a teaspoon. Tritium is extremely hazardous, and even this seemingly small amount is way, way too much. And besides, whenever they release more than a thirtieth of a teaspoon, the NRC gives them two special dispensations: One not to say anything, and one not to do anything.

So-called "low-level" waste, such as the old steam generators, and the old pumps, pipes, valves, etc., which are being swapped out at the same time as the steam generator replacement project is going on, will be irradiating people, and will get into our children's braces eventually.

No reactor should ever be restarted. Period. Shut them ALL down and dismantle / decommission them. All other choices are folly.

Ace Hoffman
POB 1936 Carlsbad, CA 92018
www.acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com

The author has developed and distributed award-winning educational software for more than 25 years and has customers at over 1000 colleges and universities in over 100 countries. His company web site -- www.animatedsoftware.com -- gets millions of "hits" every month. Hoffman has studied nuclear power for about 40 years and wrote approximately 1000 blog entries on nuclear issues prior to authoring The Code Killers in 2008 (and several dozen since).

-----------------------------------------
Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
address: PO Box 1936, Carlsbad, CA 92018
Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
Email: ace@acehoffman.org
To unsubscribe:
Send "Unsubscribe" in subject line.
-----------------------------------------

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood...

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:32:00 +0000

cc: Beth Parke, Executive Director, SEJ

October 8th, 2009

Dear Readers,

The Society of Environmental Journalists is holding its annual meeting this week, in Madison, Wisconsin.

James Rogers, Chairman, President and CEO of Duke Energy Corporation, which owns more than half a dozen nuclear power reactors, will be speaking tomorrow morning (10/9/2009) in "Capital Ballroom B" under the topic: "BIG THINK: Energy Policy in a New Economy." The panel presentation is supposed to discuss how to "set the world on a new, greener path." So what's HE doing there?!?

Another member of the panel will be a smart-grid enthusiast, Katherine Hamilton, president of the GridWise Alliance, which supports something I support, namely a smarter and greatly expanded electrical energy grid. But the Alliance works with: "the Union of Concerned Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, Midwest Research Institute and other organizations to lobby Congress and statehouses, including Maryland, on various clean energy policies and funding." MRI? Fine, but both the UCS and the NRDC are troubling allies. (The UCS is often referred to in this newsletter as the UUCS ("Union of UnConcerned Scientists" because of statement such as this: "While nuclear waste can be stored safely for the short term (in on-site concrete casks)..." (May, 2009 UCS factsheet.) That's not showing much concern! And the NRDC helps build wildlife "sanctuaries" around nuclear power plants, and that makes them happy. 'Nuff said 'bout them, too.) Hamilton worked with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, "to put into place several programs mandated in the Energy Policy Act of 1992, including federal energy audit and water conservation programs." So basically, she stays away from worrying about nuclear power.

Another panelist is Abrahm Lustgarten, Energy Reporter, ProPublica, former staff writer and contributor for Fortune, who received his masters in journalism from Columbia in 2003, and wrote a book about China with a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which supports public radio (PBS), which is the mouthpiece of the government for most things they talk about, and gets most of its money from the government (right now, PBS is getting a grant from NASA and announcing it daily (a VERY pro-nuclear government agency, which has launched dozens of plutonium-238-laden rockets and several small reactors, and some of these "toys" have failed, causing worldwide plutonium dispersals!)). Lustgarten does not appear to be an expert on the dangers of nuclear energy and is also hardly a counterbalance to Rogers.

The final panelist, Brian Czech, is a "certified wildlife biologist" who "applies his training and experience to economic issues, especially macroeconomic policy. He has 20 years of experience in federal, state, and tribal governments with duties ranging from firefighting to managing elk herds to developing national conservation policies. Czech is also a visiting professor at Virginia Tech University, where he teaches ecological economics and endangered species policy. A prolific author, Czech wrote the book Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train, which calls for an end to reckless economic growth." So basically, he stays away from worrying about nuclear power, too? So it appears. But he's probably plenty worried about "climate change" and "global warming," which nuclear power could be considered a source of, not a solution for, but Rogers will claim otherwise, because "they" always do. And it sounds like everyone on the panel will let him.

The moderator, Lisa Palmer, is an award-winning science writer and guess what? I can't find anything negative she has ever had to say about nuclear power!

Will questions from the audience make this event memorable? Palmer can ensure that doesn't happen, by, for example, letting each of these panelists make long-winded statements about how damaging global warming is to plant and animal species all over the world, and how badly BOTH expanded nuclear power AND most (but not all) green energy solutions need a better energy grid to be viable options (but not the same grid: The renewable one is more distributed, and thus, much more resilient).

It does not appear that anyone on the panel will be qualified, or interested in, grilling The Big Guy (Rogers, he's everywhere these days, he must have a fast jet at his disposal, I hope someone will ask him how he got there) about what HE knows about how tritium damages a fetus. Nothing, he's an executive, not a doctor, he'll say. You know it as well as I do.

No one on the panel will be asking Rogers what he expects to do with the nuclear waste his reactors have already created. It's well over ten million pounds of nuclear waste -- all his! He's been saying, "Yucca Mountain" for years (as have them all), but what does he say now? Reprocessing? That's even yuckier that "Yuckie" Mountain!

No one will ask what he expects to do with the waste from the new nuclear reactors he wants the government to build for him. That's us, folks, the common taxpayer, who will pay for his nukes (and his waste)! (And not to mention, his ratepayers, too, will pay particularly dearly for these things.) And that's after the government finishes paying billions of dollars to foreign-owned companies with American names (such as "Westinghouse" and "GE") to cover the costs of designing the new nuclear reactors.

If they only allow a few questions, it will surely be quite a whitewash. And, of course, with Palmer moderating the questions from the audience, there's no reason to expect the truth to be exposed even if they allow a thousand questions (in the 75 minutes allotted to this important topic).

It's unlikely that Mr. Rogers will be asked what he thinks will be the total number of Curies his reactors will release into the environment over their lifetime, and the total number of deaths he thinks these releases will cause. (Not including accidents he doesn't think have happened, let alone, accidents he doesn't think WILL happen.)

It's unlikely that the rate hikes that are inevitable if Duke continues to be a nuclear-focused company will be realistically expressed.

It's extremely unlikely the circular cracks in the flanges (they call them "nozzles" for some reason, but let's pray they never BECOME "nozzles") at the Oconee reactor (owned by Duke) will be discussed. These cracks went nearly all the way around some of the control-rod flanges (they call them "nozzles" but God forbid...). IF the cracks had gone just the least little bit further around it could have -- would have -- resulted in a MELTDOWN. Oops, Mr. Rogers, there goes the neighborhood! And the state it's in, with it (South Carolina)!

So-called "super-alloys" aren't so super. Numerous parts, from steam generators to pipes, pumps, valves, and the reactor vessels themselves, are falling apart sooner than expected and in worse ways than expected. Indeed, this is the most likely cause for catastrophe in the nuclear industry these days (but hardly the only one). And just about ANY qualified person in the nuclear industry -- even Mr. Rogers -- will probably admit to you (once he believes you know a thing or two about the industry) that yes, "materials" is their biggest worry -- "these days." (They're such optimists!)

It is a shame to see a sham at the SEJ annual meeting, but I think that's what the environmental journalists in the audience should expect. In reality, nuclear topics should fill the agenda this year at the SEJ meeting. And real experts should be speaking, not just industry blowhards and their sycophants, so that the journalists can learn more about the topics they plan to write about, instead of just learning what the party line is, as if that's news.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

Society of People Who Call Themselves Environmental Journalists, 2009 agenda:
http://www.sej.org/initiatives/sej-annual-conferences/AC2009-agenda

============================
From NIRS: Dems caving on nukes in climate bill? Act Now!
============================

ACT NOW! E-MAIL/FAX YOUR SENATORS

ACT OCTOBER 15! CALL YOUR SENATORS ON NATIONAL DON'T NUKE THE CLIMATE CALL-IN DAY

Your actions are more important than ever, as the push for more nuclear power subsidies in the Senate climate bill intensifies.

October 8, 2009

Dear Friends,

Now that the Kerry-Boxer climate bill has been introduced, the nuclear industry is intensifying its efforts to turn the bill into a multi-billion dollar giveaway for new reactor construction, dirty and dangerous radioactive waste schemes like reprocessing, further "streamlining" reactor licensing proceedings, and the whole industry Christmas wish-list.

Leading the charge are Senators like John McCain (R-AZ) who has already said he will "never, never, never" vote for the bill; Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who has been making speech after speech calling for 100 new reactors in the U.S. by 2020 even while admitting he won't vote for a climate bill; and now Lindsay Graham (R-SC) who says golly gee, if they'll just put a lot of money for nuclear power and offshore oil drilling in the bill, maybe they'll get some more votes...

Yeah, right... Expanding oil drilling isn't exactly the best way to reduce carbon emissions--and neither is nuclear power or "clean coal," another pet cause of these Senators who won't vote for a climate bill in any case. What they're really trying to do is lard the bill with so much taxpayer giveaways to their favorite dirty energy interests that no one should vote for it.

Unfortunately, some of the bill's backers are listening to the nuclear lobby. Read this article posted on the NY Times website yesterday.

No matter where you stand on the climate bill itself, and our constituency seems fairly evenly divided between "against it," "for it, with reservations" and "wait and see what's in the final bill," we can all agree that the bill must not become a multi-billion dollar bail-out for the nuclear power industry.

Please send a letter to your Senators today. You can send an e-mail, fax, or both.

Please plan to call both of your Senators on National Don't Nuke the Climate Call-In Day, Thursday, October 15. It doesn't matter where they may stand on the issue--they need to hear your voice. Let's keep those phones ringing from dawn til midnight on October 15! Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.

Please forward this Alert as widely as possible. Print it out and take it to meetings, post it at neighborhood food co-ops and other progressive venues, please do everything possible to spread the word. Organize protests at your Senators' district offices. Write letters-to-the-editor: Senate offices read them!

The backroom deals are being made now. It's never been more important for us all to take every action possible.

*Again: please send a letter to your Senators today.

*Please call your Senators on October 15, and start now to organize your friends, neighbors and colleagues to join you. Plan call-in gatherings at your house, a local pub or restaurant, a park--wherever it's easy for people to join you.

*Please forward this Alert and do everything possible to reach out to people who may not be on this list.

*If you haven't donated recently, please make a small contribution now and help us expand our outreach during this critical period. Faxes are more effective than e-mails, but we do have to pay for them; your contribution will also help us pay for the thousands of faxes that we hope everyone will send!

Together, we can stop this nuclear madness and build the nuclear-free, carbon-free energy future our planet and our people need.

Thanks for all you do,

Michael Mariotte

Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

www.nirs.org

nirsnet@nirs.org

============================
Dodging bullets:
============================

The location of this morning's earthquake off California was not more than about 45 miles out to sea from San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, where about five million pounds of high-level radioactive used reactor cores (aka "Spent Fuel") is currently being stored and about 500 more pounds are being created every day the reactors are running. Right now, one of the "SONGS" reactors is undergoing multi-billion-dollar repairs and is closed. It should be PERMANENTLY SHUT, not "fixed" (patched up with toilet-paper and spit, wrapped up with bailing-wire and coat-hanger wire, duct-taped, and turned on again).

------------------------------------------------

A really cool interactive live map of earthquake activity (thanks to Dr. Carol Rosin for finding this!):
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

------------------------------------------------

From:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gxhGnOv1Z19F4ACtyN7PXeO4qOIAD9B6OTGO0

Small undersea quake occurs off California coast

(AP) 10 hours ago

AVALON, Calif. A magnitude-3.8 undersea earthquake has struck near the Channel Islands off the southern tip of San Clemente Island.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the tremor occurred at 8:31 p.m. Wednesday about 31 miles southeast of San Clemente Island and 43 miles south of Avalon.

The USGS Web site reported that very light shaking was felt in some Orange County communities, including Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, but police there said they received no calls about the quake.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

AVALON, Calif. (AP) A magnitude-3.7 undersea earthquake has struck near the Channel Islands off the southern tip of San Clemente Island.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the tremor occurred at 8:31 p.m. Wednesday about 31 miles southeast of San Clemente Island and 43 miles south of Avalon.

============================
Information about the author of this newsletter:
============================

Blog:
http://acehoffman.blogspot.com/

Book:
http://acehoffman.org/

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: www.acehoffman.org
phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
address: PO Box 1936, Carlsbad, CA 92018
Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
email: ace@acehoffman.org
-----------------------------------------

Talley followup: The many financial-failure tsunamis of nuclear power

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:39:00 +0000

October 7th, 2009

Dear Readers,

Last week, practically the entire Pacific Rim was under several earthquake-generated tsunami warnings and watches. Thousands are confirmed dead in Indonesia, Samoa, and American Samoa; thousands more are still missing. In some places, waters roared a mile or more inland. These events have demonstrated: "that the early-warning systems are not fail-safe and education is as important as technology, seismologists and disaster management experts say." (Kathy Marks, Sydney, ABCNews.go.com, October 3, 2009)

Seismologists, geologists, and other experts say our coastal nuclear reactors are NOT properly protected (and can't be) against reasonably foreseeable -- even expected -- tsunamis. The "sea wall" at San Onofre, for example, is only about 30 to 35 feet tall; waves at high tide already lap the bottom. Some of the waves from the Banda Ache tsunami in 2004 were 50 to 60 feet high! Only dumb luck protects us. Two weeks after the event, an eyewitness to the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami wrote:

"The best way to describe this - because we grew up with the images and we all know what it looked like - is that Banda Ache looks like Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. It's totally destroyed. The buildings have been flattened for miles and entire communities -- probably something like a hundred thousand people -- have been swept out to sea." (Chris Rainier, National Geographic, January 11, 2005.)

Real tsunamis aside, a financial crisis is often called a tsunami as well. The nuclear industry is in the midst of a financial crisis, as are we all. In a brief email exchange with Wall Street Journal journalist Ian Talley (whose article was discussed in my previous report (September 29, 2009)), Talley clarified how the Department of Energy's nuclear loan guarantees could be used:

>"$18.5 billion in loan guarantees can leverage loans far in excess of that value."

He added that the maximum amount of "LG" is 80% of the cost of a nuke.

The basic concept is that someone other than the federal government will loan the extra billion (if the lowest of the two ridiculously low industry estimates Talley gave of $5 billion is correct) or the extra $4 billion (if my estimate of $20 billion for a new nuke started today is correct).

Either way, it isn't easy to get loans for a billion dollars these days, even if someone knows a gung-ho pro-nuclear government has provided an additional $4 billion to throw away on the risky venture.

So one question is: By proposing doubling the amount of money available for loan guarantees, is Secretary of Energy Chu expecting to start more than the 4-5 nukes the original $18.5 billion was for? Or is he just upping the ante for those first few, because he realizes they'll actually cost a lot more than he thought? Talley didn't know. Chu didn't say.

From the utilities' standpoint, the biggest stumbling block for new nuclear construction at the moment appears to be spent-fuel-related. With Yucca Mountain not technically on the horizon (though not "killed" altogether, by any means), the government isn't willing to make the dumb deal it made back in the 1980s, when it promised to take all the used reactor cores away and magically make them disappear.

Needless to say, it wasn't a dumb deal for the utilities and they ALL -- every one that is operating today -- signed on. The government would take the highly radioactive -- and pyrophoric -- used nuclear reactor cores and manage their long-term care. That's "long-term" as in: Longer than the United States has existed as a country, times a thousand.

It hasn't worked out that way. The government hasn't taken the waste, and you can blame politics all you want, but the real reason it hasn't worked out is the physics make it impossible for a "safe" repository to exist. Someone will ALWAYS have a legitimate gripe against ANY plan. It's the nature of ionizing radiation that it will break down any container made of any material, as it irradiates the container. Microbes won't "eat" radiation away for us. Each little atomic breakdown has all the strength, per alpha particle, beta particle, or gamma ray, of the alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays of a nuclear bomb. A nuclear decay is an unstoppable force. Its direction cannot be predicted or controlled. It has an average energy level within a statistically-definable range of probable values, according to various laws of sub-atomic particle physics. The precise moment of any particular decay is also unpredictable.

No place on earth is safe to hold the waste. No place can be guaranteed not to have ANY of the following, to start a long list: Earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, tsunamis, jet crashes, terrorists, sloppy construction, or poor design. If all else goes well, any location could still be hit by an asteroid. Why doom the whole earth for one small asteroid?

And then there are the transportation problems. The last DOE solution I saw had about 98 wheels and was just a drawing. It looked like a lumbering terrorist's target to me. They don't really know what they are going to do.

No country has ever "solved" its nuclear waste problem. France grinds stuff up, releases much of it directly into the North Sea, and stores the rest with no idea of what to do with it. (A tiny fraction is reused, so they call the whole thing "recycling".) Here in American we just let it sit in scores of deadly sites all over the country.

And the dry storage casks are deteriorating as we speak. Shoddy welds, shoddy alloys, unrealistic expectations...

Meanwhile, the government is already being sued by about a dozen nuclear power companies, asking for permission to stop putting money into the used-reactor-core-storage fund, and to get back some of what they've already put in! The rest are watching closely, like a pack of vultures.

New nuclear power plant loan guarantees don't come with promises to take the spent fuel. And THAT's the real financial hang-up for new nuclear construction in America.

But the nuclear industry is working HARD to get around that with help from -- seriously! -- French espionage, infiltration, subversiveness, and other covert and overt actions. That's right: The French intend to get American suckers (that's you and me, folks, the American taxpayer) to pay French-government owned and/or managed firms (EdF and/or AREVA) to build and operate expensive NEW reprocessing plants here in America! And open new (and old) uranium mines, new milling operations, and so on. They use agent-provocateurs, subliminal messages in their advertisements, covert lobbying and funding of politicians... and in other countries where these two "corporations" do business, they behave even more illegally!

Reprocessing would theoretically "solve" the fuel problem for the utilities, including slowly eating into their current backlog of millions of pounds of commercial nuclear power-plant high-level radioactive waste. but "theoretically" is one thing, and realistically is another.

What reprocessing really would do is cost another hundred (or two hundred) billion dollars and pollute the entire planet, killing people and causing health effects as if we are all expendable, as long as no one can prove for certain where any particular cancer, leukemia, heart disease, birth defect, etc. came from. And burn enormous quantities of fossil fuels in the process, causing thousands more deaths.

Reprocessing of nuclear waste is chemical-intensive, too. But it's the only thing that could possibly allow a dying industry to keep going. The current fleet of operating plants is running out of options for waste storage. None of the plant's owners want to have to shut down for lack of storage space, but it might happen. As long as someone will take the waste from you later, operating a nuclear power plant is a "great" way to make money -- like stealing candy from a baby (and giving them cyanide to play with in return).

Aside from the waste problem, new nuclear construction almost suffered from an insurance problem. Instead, the Price-Anderson Act was extended a few years ago in one of the most notorious pieces of midnight legislation to come out of the Bush years (and that's saying a lot). If Price-Anderson had not been extended, that too would have stopped new nuclear construction because the Act prevents citizens from seeking damages against the utility in the event of an accident. No Price-Anderson would have meant no new nukes. And the old ones would have shut down, too. But now, although both Price and Anderson are long gone, the Price-Anderson Act has been renewed and you still can't get insurance for your home against a nuclear accident anywhere in the world. (Some form of Price-Anderson has been copied in every country which has operating nuclear programs.)

In addition to the waste problem and the insurance problem -- the former unsolvable and the latter solved by government fraud -- there are still the costs and delays of construction.

Offshore wind power, solar power, energy conservation and other solutions can be brought online virtually immediately -- by the time a permit for a new nuclear power plant is granted, especially a new design, you could have thousands of megawatts of renewable energy up and running.

And the new nuclear power plant, which may well cost close to -- or more than -- $20 billion dollars if construction started today -- will have faulty parts, faulty welds, faulty pipes, faulty concrete, faulty wiring, faulty instructions, workers sleeping on the job, fire crews not knowing what to do when there's a fire, exploding transformers, leaky steam generators, and thousands of other problems. These are the day-to-day facts of life at ANY large facility (but these examples are taken strictly from Nuclear Regulatory Commission records). Most large industrial facilities won't kill millions of people if and when they fail. Most industries are not running on the edge of a mega-catastrophe 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as nuclear power does.

Every nuclear construction project now involves hundreds of companies in dozens of countries, each with their own level of oversight for worker safety and for quality of their output. Each has different ethics about what "quality" means, and what the punishments are for shipping shoddy work half-way around the world where its shoddiness won't be discovered for decades, until the part fails at a critical moment, causing a meltdown, and all the evidence is destroyed.

Fraud has always been rampant in nuclear construction and operation, and continues with the new international trade agreements, where even so-called "American" companies such as GE and Westinghouse are really just fronts for, in those cases, Japanese corporations, and where both EdF and AREVA claim in America that they are as American as apple pie, just because the heads of the American divisions are American.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
www.acehoffman.org

=====================================
Cancer and nuclear power:
=====================================

(In the superb article linked to below, the reporter outlines many of the enormously complicated cost issues related to new nuclear construction. The article also quotes the notorious Victor Dricks of the NRC making the outlandish claim that airplanes simply cannot destroy nuclear power plants, calling it "impossible." The entire nuclear community should demand Dricks' permanent ouster from the NRC! He is unqualified, pretentious, arrogant, irrational, and on a personal basis, attempts to intimidate the activists both physically and through enforcing arbitrary rules on who can place documents where, or at all. Arbitrary, except the utility can always place anything they want on the NRC's table, and the NRC will ensure that material is handed out. That's Victor Dricks, and the NRC's, idea of free speech. -- Ace)

A clip from:
http://www.sacurrent.com/news/story.asp?id=70567

Risky Business
Part Two In a Series: What CPS won't tell you about nuclear power
San Antonio Currant September 30th, 2009

by Greg Harman

..."For more than a year, the city has been drifting, in multi-million-dollar installments, into a second helping of nuclear power from the South Texas Project nuclear facility outside Bay City.

"On one level, the city's obsession with the bottom line $5.2-billion for our share of two new nuclear-power reactors makes sense. It was, after all, runaway costs and construction failures that undermined Wall Street's willingness to invest in the hugely expensive projects, resulting in a decades-long freeze on domestic nuclear power plants. Today, with 17 proposed nuclear projects jockeying for crucial federal loans through the U.S. Department of Energy, Moody's Investors Service is warning that utilities that pursue new plants face heightened financial risks and may expose their customers to 'future rate shocks.'

"For the last hour, the talk has idled at intersecting concerns over whether Toshiba can deliver two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors to STP on time and on budget; whether renewable energy sources could become cost competitive with nuclear by 2020, when San Antonio will really need the extra electricity; if CPS Energy's price estimates for alternative energy sources, such as natural gas and efficiency, are even close to accurate.

"'Nuclear has risks,' confesses CPS Energy's Co-CEO Steve Bartley, 'cost risks, waste risks, health-and-safety possible risks. … Our goal is to evaluate the risks as best we can, understand what they are, and plan a mitigation strategy.'

"While the Congressional Budget Office wrote in 2003 that 'well above 50 percent' of federal nuclear-power loan recipients will default because of 'technical risks' and high construction costs, Bartley tells the audience that CPS had its proposal screened by Fitch Ratings and were told the utility should be able to maintain a Double-A credit rating through the life of the reactors. "

======================================
"Preventing Future Deaths" - a Coroner acts:
======================================

From: "Richard Bramhall" <bramhall@llrc.org>
To: "info llrc" <info@llrc.org>
Subject: "Preventing Future Deaths" - a Coroner acts
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 13:23:20 +0100

"Preventing Future Deaths" - a Coroner acts

Following the 10th September '09 verdict on the death of Stuart Dyson, Robin Balmain, a Coroner in the Black Country Coroner's District in Smethwick, UK, has written to the Secretary of State for Defence, Bob Ainsworth MP.

The Jury in the inquest into Mr. Dyson's death found that he had been exposed to Uranium during his service in Iraq during 1991, and that the Uranium caused or contributed to the colon cancer which finally killed him in 2007 at the age of 39.

The expert witness at the inquest was Professor Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, who presented evidence of the inadequacy of the radiation risk model advised by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. The Ministry of Defence failed to send either legal or scientific representatives.

Mr. Balmain writes that "action should be taken" since the use of Uranium weapons creates "an obvious risk to service personnel" which "equally applies to civilians in areas of conflict."

For over a decade the Low Level Radiation Campaign has stated that use of Uranium weapons is contrary to international law because of their indiscriminate effects.

Rule 43 of the Coroners Rules 2008 states:

"Where the evidence gives rise to a concern that circumstances creating a risk [that] other deaths will occur, or will continue to exist, in the future and in the coroner's opinion action should be taken to … eliminate or reduce the risk of death … the Coroner may report … to a person who the Coroner believes may have the power to take such action."

Rule 43A requires Bob Ainsworth to reply to Mr Balmain within 56 days.

Mr Balmain's letter is at http://www.nonuclear.se/dyson_coronor_rule43_20090918

Report on verdict at www.llrc.org/du/subtopic/dysonverdict.htm including full copies of written submissions from Professor Busby and MoD.

======================================
Newsletter author contact information:
======================================

Talley-ho!

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:46:00 +0000

Date: September 29th, 2009

To: "Ian Talley, Dow Jones Newswires" <ian.talley@dowjones.com>

Mr. Talley,

In your recent article (shown below) on the future nuclear power in America, you said that $18.5 billion would be enough federal loan guarantee money for "4-5 [nuclear power] plants." Later in the article you claimed that a new nuclear power plant is estimated to cost $5 to $8 billion.

Those are artificially-low estimates. Even just sticking purely to the cost of financing new construction, securing land and licenses, etc., a new nuke plant is liable to cost upwards of triple your low estimate and double your high one if started today. And none of these new plants would have spades in the ground today or next week, or even probably next year. (Thank goodness.)

Have you read what the new PM of Japan wants to do to the U.S.? Basically it's this: Cut us off. Stop loaning us money (stop letting us use them as a military base, stop doing what we ask, etc. etc..). There goes a few trillion in "economic recovery" over the next few years right there!

But perhaps more importantly from your perspective at the moment: Where do you think most of the parts for a new nuclear plant are going to be built? That's right: Japan! So expect to pay double, and then double that again, in the next few years. So $15 - $16 billion is probably low, too. And calling nuclear power a "domestic industry" is a shell game.

(The idea is that we'll just piece the plants together after they get delivered here in large sections. The industry wants the new plants to be modular. Most of the final assembly work will probably be done with foreign workers here on visas! And don't forget all the Reactor Pressure Vessels that have been installed backwards over the years, and all the other construction problems that have delayed deployment, reduced safety, and increased costs -- even with so-called high-quality American labor.)

To claim that $18.5 billion in loan guarantees is enough for 4-5 plants is misleading at best, and, at worst, shows bias in favor of starting new nuclear power plant construction even if we have to lie about what the total costs will be.

Even at $15-$16 billion, or $20 billion for that matter, it's still a lie about the costs. Because nowhere in the "cost" of construction of a new nuclear power plant are the true costs to society: Not just the cancers, leukemias, heart diseases, birth defects, and other ailments that will occur to workers at the plants and/or their families, the communities around the plants, and even to people in Timbuktu, but also costs like: New enrichment plants, new uranium mines, new transport systems, and new "dry storage casks" for the spent fuel if we don't build new reprocessing plants. And if we do, the reprocessing plants will need waste storage facilities and permits to pollute the planet with radioactive carcinogens. Reprocessing wouldn't help at all.

As to a permanent repository: It's proven impossible to find one that can be guaranteed to be safe, economical, or wanted, anywhere. A 20-year-old government panel -- really just a revolving door of nuclear researchers whose entire careers were probably financed by government nuke-related grants -- recently simply gave up. Instead, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board decided to "refocus" their efforts on reprocessing and temporary on-site storage. That's called abdication of responsibility, or more simply: Criminal negligence.

Of course, I've just touched on the problems. I haven't mentioned proliferation, or terrorism dangers, or clean alternatives, or about a thousand other issues. Instead, I'll ask you (and your editors) to please read my book The Code Killers, available for free download at my web site:

www.acehoffman.org

I'll be happy to send you (and your editors) a bound, printed (and autographed) free copy upon request. I've distributed over a thousand bound copies, mostly to activists. Several hundred have gone to political figures, and several dozen have also been sent to members of the press. Additionally, hundreds more people have viewed the book online. Here's the comment of one Health Physicist at San Onofre, who recently BOUGHT a copy of the book, having seen a copy in the HP instructors' area of the plant: "You obviously know your stuff." He also said plant management specifically forbids HP instructors from using the book in their employee training classes. Big surprise there, but you needn't be as biased as Southern California Edison's management. In fact, you needn't be biased at all.

I suggest you especially look at: "Steps in the Nuclear Process" (page 12), "What's Worse than a Meltdown" (page 15), "What Else Can (and does) Go Wrong?" (page 16), "How Far Does Radiation Spread?" (page 17), "Nuclear Waste: Your Gift to Tomorrow (page 18), "At Least I'm Insured, Right? (wrong! page 19) and the three pages on the health effects of radiation (pages 20-22). And see Stanley Thompson's comment on page 13, which will never be refuted.

Upon consideration of all these problems, even $20 billion -- a figure I pulled from thin air a few minutes ago, but without a pro-nuclear bias -- would be an artificially-low-balled estimate of the true cost of a new nuclear power plant.

After all, on accident WILL cost over a trillion dollars and probably shut the industry down -- the whole industry -- at least for a while. Or at least it will shut down all the remaining PWRs if it's a PWR that blows its top (such as Davis-Besse's nearly did in 2002) or the BWRs if it's a BWR that melts down for some reason -- perhaps because its overcrowded Spent Fuel Pool catches fire and falls on the reactor and its vital accessories, such as cooling pipes and control pathways.

This is not impossible, just beyond the NRC's Design Basis for what can go wrong. But if a 747 pancakes down onto the SPF of a typical BWR, what do YOU think is going to happen? And if you think that would not constitute an eminent catastrophe, where in the world are you going to find an UNBIASED engineer who will agree with you? What the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says is that 747s can't crash into NPPs via terrorist acts because the TSA and the Pentagon are charged with preventing such a thing, and it is assumed (by the NRC) that they'll do their job. And the NRC also assumes that sane pilots wouldn't do a thing like that.

Of course they wouldn't! Not on purpose, that is. But engines fall off. Control surfaces have separated in midair. Both bird strikes and hail have caused broken windshields and loss of power. Control hydraulics and electronics have all failed, as well as the logic boards and software programs of the modern computers.

Plunging, uncontrolled dives can result from loss of control of an aircraft. A separation of laminates caused American Airlines Flight 587 to dive into the Bronx shortly after takeoff from JFK on November 12, 2001. Pilot error was blamed due to excessive pedal input after encountering wake turbulence, which stressed the rudder beyond its "design limit." But had the laminate not separated, the excessive attempt to keep the passengers comfortable rather than let the plane be tossed around a little wouldn't have cracked the rudder, rendering it useless and dooming the plane.

There was some speculation that luckier pilots might still have been able to bring the craft home using the remaining controls, such as using left/right engine thrust to replicate rudder movement. We can't all be lucky, but we can assume one isn't given control of an Airbus A300-600 without having proven some talent for handling an aircraft.

And everyone who steps into an airplane knows that it's better to be lucky with a bad pilot at the controls than unlucky with a good one.

We can't rely on luck when millions of lives are at stake, even if we need to rely on a bit of it to get a few hundred of us from hither to yon in a tin can at 37,000 feet and 600 miles per hour these days (since far eco-friendlier and safer terrestrial vacuum-tube transport systems haven't been implemented yet, although they were invented and tested long, long ago). To get us to accept nuclear power, we were all promised that talent, skill, a safety-conscious work environment, backup systems, and constant vigilance would remove "luck" from the equation. But any student of the nuclear industry knows that in the end, it's been dumb luck that's protected us. And dumb luck always runs out eventually.

An Airbus A300-600 has a maximum take-off weight of over 375,000 lbs, and a maximum fuel capacity of 18,000 gallons. Even if you subtract the weight of one engine, that's going to make a huge mess if it crashes uncontrollably into a nuclear power plant. And if you want to believe there will be no significant damage, you'll want to also assume the engine itself also plunged uncontrollably but safely somewhere, though in reality, the turbine shafts are the most dangerous part of the aircraft for those under it when it falls out of the sky.

A four-engined Boeing 747-8 weighs about 975,000 pounds, holding more than three times the fuel of the Airbus twin-engined jet. There's lots of things flying around up there that can hurt us.

I hope that next time you write about Secretary of Energy Steven "I love nuclear power" Chu's attempts to use his position and power to help refinance and thus restart the failing and fraudulent pro-nuclear "renaissance" and keep that murderous business firmly entrenched on its pathway to hell, you will consider the alternative viewpoints, and the many scientists and common citizens who hold them.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

=======================================================
From: Know No Nukes by Philip D. Lusk:
=======================================================

Nuclear Loan Guarantees Should Be Doubled -US Energy Secretary
Dow Jones & Company, Inc. - Sep 25

Federal loan guarantees for new nuclear power plant construction
should be at least doubled to allow construction of four to five additional
plants, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said late Thursday.

If Congress were to approve this, companies such as Duke Energy Corp.
(DUK) and Progress Energy Inc. (PGN) could be among the beneficiaries of the
new loan guarantees.

Chu, in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, said additional nuclear
power plant loan guarantees would help rejuvenate a domestic industry and
cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Although companies have submitted 18 new nuclear power plant license
applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy
only has authority for $18.5 billion, enough for four to five plants.

"If you really want to restart the American nuclear energy industry in
a serious way...we [need to] send signals to the industry that the U.S. is
serious about investing in nuclear power plants," Chu said on the sidelines
of a conference here.

Chu didn't say when he would formally propose such an expansion.

Republicans have urged construction of 100 new nuclear power plants.
While not going that far, Chu said "there's real interest out there [for]
another four to five or more, we could easily do."

"It's part of how we're going to get to the carbon reductions we need
in order to avoid the worst of climate change," Chu said.

Earlier this year, the DOE narrowed the list of proposed new nuclear
power plants it's considering for the limited loan guarantees, pointing to
the ones farthest along in the license application process.

New reactors at Southern Co.'s (SO) Vogtle plant in Georgia, SCANA
Corp.'s ( SCG) Summer plant in South Carolina, Constellation Energy Group
Inc.'s (CEG) Calvert Cliffs plant in Maryland and NRG Energy Inc.'s (NRG)
South Texas plant are among the projects still in the running for federal
loan backing. Constellation is developing the Calvert Cliffs reactors as
part of UniStar Nuclear Energy, a joint venture between Constellation and
Electricite de France SA (EDF.FR).

"We definitely welcome it unconditionally," said Mitchell Singer, a
spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "We've said for a long time now
the loan guarantee program is remarkably unfunded."

Under the loan guarantee program, the government promises to assume
the companies' debt obligations if they default on loans for the nuclear
projects. Given rising construction costs exacerbated by a growing supply
crunch for qualified engineers and specialized nuclear power plant parts,
industry officials say new projects are unlikely to be able to move forward
without government assistance.

Pressing for new nuclear power may help the administration win over a
handful of Republican Senators needed to help pass a landmark climate bill
into law. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for example, supports a cap on
emissions in principle, but said government support for nuclear power is
essential for him to consider backing a bill that would cut greenhouse
gases.

The Energy Secretary said the loan guarantees would help revitalize a
U.S.- based nuclear industry, given that most of the major companies that
build reactors are now owned by international companies.

"It's also an American leadership issue," the Secretary said. "We were
the pioneers in the nuclear industry...We are no longer the world leaders,"
he said.

Several companies, such as Exelon Corp. (EXC), have suspended their
reactor license applications, citing difficult market conditions, including
the dearth of loan guarantees and unresolved long-term waste liabilities.

New nuclear power plants are estimated to cost $5 billion to $8
billion to build. With such high upfront capital expenditures compared to
the firms' market capitalization, financing is extremely difficult.

Marshall Murphy, Exelon's director of nuclear communications, said
additional loan guarantees would be encouraging. "It would certainly
make...it one factor that would be trending positively."

Other companies that have applied include a joint venture between TXU
Corp. ( TXU) and Energy Futures Holdings Corp., Dominion Resources Inc. (D)
and PPL Corp. (PPL).

Earlier this week, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Gregory Jaczko said on the sidelines of a Platts Energy briefing that the
agency was revising its license application schedule. Several applications
would likely be delayed because more technical work from the companies was
required, he said. Jaczko declined to elaborate.

-By Ian Talley, Dow Jones Newswires; (202) 862 9285;
ian.talley@dowjones.com

=============================================================

========================================
Quotes collected by Ace Hoffman:
========================================

----------------------------------------------
"Nuclear war must be the most carefully avoided topic of general significance in the contemporary world. People are not curious about the details." -- Paul Brians (author; quote is from: Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction)
----------------------------------------------
�When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.� -- Sinclair Lewis (first American Nobel Prize winner in Literature, 2.7.1885 - 1.10.1951)
----------------------------------------------
"There is no such thing as a pro-nuclear environmentalist." -- Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa, 1992)
----------------------------------------------
"Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories." -- Sun Tzu (Chinese general b.500 BC)
----------------------------------------------
"The most intolerable reactor of all may be one which comes successfully to the end of its planned life having produced mountains of radioactive waste for which there is no disposal safe from earthquake damage or sabotage." -- A. Stanley Thompson (a pioneer nuclear physicist who later realized the whole situation)
----------------------------------------------
"Any dose is an overdose." -- Dr. John W. Gofman (another pioneer nuclear physicist who saw the light (9.21.1918 - 8.15.2007))
----------------------------------------------
"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery." -- Octavia Butler (science fiction writer, 7.22.1947 - 2.24.2006)
----------------------------------------------
"If you want real welfare reform, you focus on a good education, good health care, and a good job.

If you want to reduce poverty, you focus on a good education, good healthcare, and a good job.

If you want a stable middle class, you focus on a good education, good health care, and a good job.

If you want to have citizens who can participate in democracy, you focus on a good education, good health care, and a good job.

And if you want to end the violence, you could build a million new prisons and you could fill them up, but you never end this cycle of violence unless you invest in the health and the skill and the intellect and the character of our children. you focus on a good education, good health care and a good job.

And other than that, I don't feel strongly about anything."

-- Paul Wellstone (US Senator, D-Minnesota, 7.21.1944 - 10.25.2002)
----------------------------------------------
"There are no warlike peoples - just warlike leaders." -- Ralph Bunche (8.7.1903 - 12.9.1971)
----------------------------------------------
"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." -- Thomas Jefferson
----------------------------------------------
"Please send this to everyone you know!" -- Ace Hoffman (original collector of the above quotes, January, 2008)
----------------------------------------------

This email was sent by:

"Ace Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
www.animatedsoftware.com
PO Box 1936, Carlsbad, CA 92018
(760) 720-7261

Is Thomas Friedman worried about his manhood?

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:10:00 +0000

September 24th, 2009

When I first read Thomas Friedman's most recent use of denigrating terminology ("wimps") to describe those who disagreed with him, I thought he was just a bit emotional.

Then I went back through the record, and this Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times author actually is rather habitual about it. Those who opposed his gas tax idea in 2006 were also "wimps," and in 2008 they had no "guts." Now, any environmentalist who opposes nuclear power has earned the moniker.

Friedman hasn't changed.

And nor has the New York Times. They are the classic newspaper of America, they provide the indelible historic record, and even in this electronic era, they still hold sway over public opinion, political discourse, and thus, over public policy, as only a few other media outlets can even aspire to, let alone, come close to.

And so they are the perfect place for a nincompoop to poop nincomshit. Hence, Friedman has found a home.

Friedman is playing dirty, rotten pool with the facts, but how could such shoddy material slip past the editors at the New York Times? Not by accident. Unflagging support for government policies on nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and for various wars, despots, agendas and so forth, have been a part of The New York Times' editorial process for decades.

The government loves a public that is asleep about the dangers of nukes. Friedman wants to help with that. Romancing France's nuclear policies is especially useful right now for the pro-nuclear agenda, because the two large French nuclear "corporations" (arms of the government, really, especially in the case of AREVA) are both buying American nuclear power companies, enrichment companies, mining companies, etc.. Once invested, they will use local employees to sway public policy based on French government interests, not those of the majority of Americans, who want to preserve our land and protect our children's DNA. Radiation destroys our DNA, and the way the French handle their nuclear problems is to lie about them, to sink protestor's boats (and even kill protesters), and to bribe foreign workers. Yet Friedman calls us "wimps" for not embracing their murderous nuclear habit. The French also smoke a lot more cigarettes than, say, Californians. Just thought I'd mention it.

Friedman would love to whip the public into a fierce frenzy. He uses the word "wimps" to describe those who oppose his point of view. Wimps are made to be broken, of course. By bigger wimps.

The opposite of building more nukes isn't just "not building more nukes." It's also shutting down the ones that are currently operating. But that view never makes it into the venerable (by some vestige of their former reputation) New York Times. Only "build a lot more nukes" versus "build a few more nukes" or maybe, once in a while, "don't build any more right now." But NEVER will the New York Times give space to "shut 'em all down immediately" which is, actually, the scientifically, economically, and medically sound thing to do. Thus, the patriotic thing to do. Not doing so allows about 10 tons of hazardous high-level radioactive waste to be produced each day in America, for which no valid (safe, economical) solution exists because plain old physics gets in the way. Friedman calls Yucca Mountain "totally safe." He's totally wrong. And getting the waste to Yucca Mountain isn't safe, either. And leaving it where it is? That's the worst choice of all. Ten tons worse every day in America, and about 50 tons worse around the world.

Global warming? Radiation is "hotter than hell." Each radioactive burst is a little fire, its "heat" stirs and shakes up everything around it: It spins molecules around, making poisonous mirrors of themselves. It destroys DNA. It breaks large signal proteins. It puts holes in cell walls. It creates thousands of "free radicals" at once.

And there are so many radioactive atoms released in a nuclear accident! It is so great a number, that nobody expresses radiation in raw numbers. It is often filtered down into Curies, for instance. A Curie is 37 billion atomic disintegrations per second.

Chernobyl released about 10 billion Curies of radiation, in mixed isotopes. Chernobyl has probably killed 300,000 people, yet pro-nukers claim it only killed 60 or 100 or some other unrealistic number, because they swear that a little radiation is good for you, because, they say, it stimulates the immune system. This flawed and simplistic hypothesis is known as "Hormesis." Randomly poisoning our children with excess radiation should not be allowed at all, but it is.

Your immune system will be plenty stimulated throughout your life. This is an unnecessary and unwarranted additional burden.

Being allowed to release what lax regulators call "small" amounts of radiation into the environment is a fundamental principle of business -- of economic survival -- for virtually ALL commercial nuclear facilities. They MUST leak or they will, themselves, become overwhelmed with radiation.

Supposedly "only" 15 million Curies of radiation were released at Three Mile Island, although the exact amount is unknown and it could be ten times that, or worse. Yet Friedman naively believes that there were "no deaths or injuries" from TMI. Not one? It doesn't even fit the official government description of Linear, No Threshold (LNT) effects from radiation, which is the theory that radiation effects occur at any dose, and in a ratio according to dose size.

The LNT theory, widely accepted in the scientific community, and in direct contradiction to Hormesis, does NOT mean that a low dose only causes a mild illness. Instead, it suggests that the rate of cancers will be approximately proportional to dose. But cancer's no fun, even if only a few people get it. I've had it. More than a few people are getting it. And radiation is a primary cause of cancer, leukemia, heart disease, and a thousand other ailments.

Friedman calls those who do not endorse the random killing of humans and other living things "wimps." What are we to do when the New York Times allows him to do this, and lets him call anyone who opposes his views "wimps" year after year? Challenge him to a duel? How uncivilized! Ask them to print our responses? How hopeless!

Scorn them on the Internet? Sure, it's a start.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

========================================
Quotes collected by Ace Hoffman:
========================================

----------------------------------------------
"Nuclear war must be the most carefully avoided topic of general significance in the contemporary world. People are not curious about the details." -- Paul Brians (author; quote is from: Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction)
----------------------------------------------
"When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." -- Sinclair Lewis (first American Nobel Prize winner in Literature, 2.7.1885 - 1.10.1951)
----------------------------------------------
"There is no such thing as a pro-nuclear environmentalist." -- Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa, 1992)
----------------------------------------------
"Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories." -- Sun Tzu (Chinese general b.500 BC)
----------------------------------------------
"The most intolerable reactor of all may be one which comes successfully to the end of its planned life having produced mountains of radioactive waste for which there is no disposal safe from earthquake damage or sabotage." -- A. Stanley Thompson (a pioneer nuclear physicist who later realized the whole situation)
----------------------------------------------
"Any dose is an overdose." -- Dr. John W. Gofman (another pioneer nuclear physicist who saw the light (9.21.1918 - 8.15.2007))
----------------------------------------------
"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery." -- Octavia Butler (science fiction writer, 7.22.1947 - 2.24.2006)
----------------------------------------------
"If you want real welfare reform, you focus on a good education, good health care, and a good job.

If you want to reduce poverty, you focus on a good education, good healthcare, and a good job.

If you want a stable middle class, you focus on a good education, good health care, and a good job.

If you want to have citizens who can participate in democracy, you focus on a good education, good health care, and a good job.

And other than that, I don't feel strongly about anything."

This email was sent by:

"Ace Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
www.animatedsoftware.com
PO Box 1936, Carlsbad, CA 92018
(760) 720-7261

Trouble, trouble, trouble in and around San Onofre Nuclear (Waste) Generating Station

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:56:00 +0000

September 18th, 2009

Dear Readers,

Southern California Edison (SCE), the owner of San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station, is in a heap of trouble. With your help, it might shut them down forever.

First of all, they're actually having trouble with the federal regulators. Imagine that! Even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is demanding better quality control from these "closet criminals" who try to hide every mistake they make. The NRC even demanded an extra public meeting after six months instead of the normal one year. That occurs on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 -- not that the public is REALLY welcome, but technically, they're invited as long as they don't try to hand out literature inside the room. This practice was banned entirely effective immediately, as a response to a complaint filed by this author and his spouse earlier this year about Victor Dricks, the local public relations henchman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the San Onofre district. He tried to get my table banned at the last hearing, and has successfully done so this time. It is a clear attempt by the NRC to intimidate not only THIS activist, but all activists who seek to inform the public about nuclear power.

And the funny thing is, SCE had packed that same hearing with employees, who showed up with their badges and pro-nuclear attitudes. But unfortunately for SCE, I was expecting a lot of activists to show up, but only a handful actually did. Nearly half of the SCE employees took a copy of my book, The Code Killers. Because of the large SCE attendance, I was able to hand out about 80 copies -- every one I had brought.

Doing so resulted in two SCE whistleblowers contacting me. One told me that the book is banned on site at the plant -- but that the management actually use it themselves because it is, after all, accurate! I was told that a post-it with my URL ( www.acehoffman.org ) is attached to one of the monitors in the instructors' area, and they are told NOT TO USE information from my web site in their courses. I have this from a very reliable plant veteran who has worked there for more than 25 years and works there still.

Even besides any effect my book might be having on the enthusiasm of plant employees to work in the nuclear field, SCE was and is having plenty of trouble with the work force anyway. They fired the majority of them as a group last month -- fired the main subcontractor after 40 years of running the plant (Bechtel), and every sub-subcontractor that Bechtel had hired. SCE had to bring in and train, new operators and other staff. SCE employees themselves were not released -- about 800 people, or about a third of the total work force. So most of those books I handed out actually went to people who were released from the plant a few months later, as a group. Bechtel no longer operates ANY nuclear power plants. (There is still a division of Bechtel with a contract on site -- they are installing the new Steam Generators (SGs). It's a different corporate division. They hope to get the second reactor's SG replacement contract, but it's not very likely.)

San Onofre's numerous safety violations had so riled up the regulators that management peppered its own ranks with high-level people from other nuclear power plants around the country, after a bunch of their top people quit before being fired in disgrace. I mean, they were decimated. This is the SCE people, not Bechtel. And the "good" ones that were kept weren't so good, either -- the plant STILL has an attitude of "cover it up, don't let the regulators see it, or we'll all be in even bigger trouble." The SCE employee who ASSURED ME THAT IS STILL THE ATTITUDE THERE has over 25 years at the plant, and counting.

So while the NRC thinks they are tightening the screws and making SCE run the plant correctly, all they are REALLY doing is making them try to hide the truth from the regulators! Good job, NRC. NOT. This is the federal agency the California environmental agencies rely on without question to protect your safety. It isn't being done.

Some of these new top people at SCE came from the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio, which nearly melted down in 2002, AND hid numerous crimes from the federal regulators, and from the Monticello plant in Minnesota, which would have melted down if it ever needed its Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) to save it in the first 30 years of operation, because the shipping bolts had been left on and it wasn't actually available! These are where the replacement guys for the bad guys within SCE came from. Do you feel safer?

The Bechtel employees were replaced with The Shaw Group employees, who build and operate nuclear power plants all over the world, making billions off of corrupt plant corporations that are too dumb to operate the plants themselves -- like SCE. The Shaw Group is heavily involved in projects with other corrupt nuclear corporations such as AREVA, EdF, Rosatom, etc.. Now we have these corporate parasites bringing in foreign workers from wherever in the world they want, many of whom don't even speak English yet they operate our nuclear power plants and know our secrets about how to melt them down and how they spill radiation into our environment. And they're making high fives or even six figures while they do it! If they were to come to a public hearing they wouldn't understand a word of it. Of course, they wouldn't actually see democracy in action there anyway, but that's a separate issue (see above again).

SCE is also having trouble with their parts suppliers. What do you expect when Mitsubishi, a highly corrupt parts supplier to nuclear power plants, can't get the welding for the new steam generators right? That is, they can't even get them up to Japanese standards! THAT is to say, Japanese bribery-induced permissiveness standards. Forget the standards you might expect American parts suppliers to be expected to meet. And if you want to trust so-called American nuclear parts suppliers like "Westinghouse" and "General Electric" just remember to call them "Toshiba-Westinghouse" and "Hitachi-GE" if you want to get their names right. These are American companies in name only, if that. And the quality of their work reflects that, as do their business practices. Most of their new reactor activity is in China and other countries where bribery is easy to get away with. This is no coincidence, although dead Chinese officials who might have been caught and executed tell no tales.

The way it works with steam generators is this: THEY ALL LEAK. They'll always leak. Some amount of primary coolant, which is filled with radioactive particles activated by the reaction in the core, as well as debris that falls off the fuel, will be spritzed into the secondary coolant via these leaks, as what can amount to thousands of gallons of water goes from the highest-pressure system to the second-highest-pressure system. That's the way all commercial Pressurized Water Reactors in the U.S. operate (about 2/3rd of all U.S. reactors are PWRs. The rest are Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs), which have their own problems). From just a few years after the first ones were installed, they realized that the SGs would leak. And profits wouldn't be ask good as they thought, but they'd still make money.

So what they do is, they go in during the outages and plug up the leaky tubes. There are about 14,000 tubes in each SG (it varies, depending on the design) so plugging up even a thousand of them -- not unusual over the life of the SG -- doesn't mean you can't use them. It just means the EFFICIENCY is lowered and you'll make less money from your reactor. And your secondary coolant loop will be more contaminated (and it leaks into the tertiary coolant loop, by the way, too, at various points in the cycle).

Babies -- and fetuses, and children, and adults -- die when these highly radioactive particles get out into the environment. The industry says it just becomes indistinguishable from "background" radiation but first of all, what they call "background" includes ALL previous accidents, and second of all, each ADDITIONAL spill poisons somebody -- everybody. And third of all, many of the man-made radioactive poisons are far more hazardous per Curie (a unit of measure for radiation) than the "natural" radioactive elements. And fourth of all, not only are they more hazardous, but they are where they can do more harm -- in the air, in the topsoil, in the water, rather than deep in the ground. One of the most hazardous man-made radioactive pollutants, tritium, leaks out of everything and gets into everything. It crosses the placenta and gets in your baby's DNA. And the nuclear industry thinks this is good for baby! No, it's not. It's an evil thing to do to someone, to screw up their DNA. It causes deformities, cancer, leukemia (cancer of the blood) and a thousand -- yes, a thousand, or more -- other ailments. If nothing ELSE it ages you prematurely.

No one at SCE believes they are actually killing babies. They just all accept that "well, maybe a little bit IS good for you!" and stop worrying, or they say, "yeah, but coal kills, too" which is true, but irrelevant.

Since you can't possibly bring your baby's lifeless body to them and say with certainty, "YOU DID THIS!" they feel safe from the wrath of their victims. Most of their victims are many miles away, scattered all over the world. Your baby's cancer might have been caused by Chernobyl, or weapons testing, or your own smoking, if you smoke. You'll never know. Lucky for SCE. Not lucky for their victims.

SCE is also having trouble with the state regulators. First of all, about two years ago state senator Christine Kehoe held SWORN TESTIMONY -- a true rarity these days in public hearings -- during which the ECONOMIC FAILURE of nuclear power was clearly proven in indisputable, irrefutable terminology, with all the appropriate statistics and analysis. Second of all, the California Energy Commission (CEC) is supposedly doing its own study, and that's expected out soon and is expected to again show the rotten economics of nuclear power, again, though, even without proper accounting for the cancers in infants far away (or nearby) which are a routine and direct result of nuclear power plant operations.

SCE wants to get its new steam generators stuffed in and operating before THAT report comes out, since it could remind the public (it probably won't, but it could) that every day, about a thousand new pounds of incredibly deadly, incredibly expensive, so-called "High Level Radioactive Waste" (HLRW) is created in California by its four operating commercial nuclear reactors, and we can't afford to manage THAT waste, let alone all the "quap" that's been created already -- about 10 million pounds of HLRW in California from just the four operating reactors (plus military, research, closed reactors, and other waste) that must be stored safely for thousands of times longer than California has existed as a state -- or than the U.S. has existed as a country -- or than civilization has existed, period.

That report COULD be devastating, but it probably won't be since the CEC has never shown much guts for the truth. But even if it isn't devastating, SCE probably won't like it because no matter how you try to ignore the true costs of dead children, of suffering, of pain by saying "Hormesis" (the bogus theory that a little ionizing radiation is good for you) or whatever excuse you give, there are still the economic realities that these plants are expensive to build, operate, and dismantle, even without an accident that could cost trillions and happen any day. And they are prone to long and unexpected shutdowns even though the nuclear industry likes to call them "baseline power" because they are so hard to shut off and the NRC wants them to do that as few times as possible in a year, and keeps careful track of the total number of times any one plant has been shut down, especially suddenly.

SCE is of course also having trouble with the public. They can't handle the truth being so available to everyone -- it scares them. They fear the Internet. They fear the NRC hearings. They even fear the media. They fired their long-time public relations spokesliar after he claimed he "truly believed they'll find a cure for cancer" on tape. (Several activists think this statement was the reason, not just this activist. The "real" reason was, of course, never revealed. He was president of the local corporate luncheon group at the time, and suddenly... gone! The new spokesliar didn't even attend the last two public hearings or kept a very low profile if she did.)

SCE is also having trouble with terrorists. All the plants are. They have no way to screen employees properly to be sure they are not terrorists. And plant employees everywhere are almost routinely walking onto the job site with guns and other illegal items -- so much so that the NRC is holding a special hearing about the generic issue. One problem is that if they crack down too hard, they'll lose a lot of "good" employees, and the industry can ill afford to have people walk away from it once they've accepted the basic premise that "radiation isn't that dangerous for ME -- I'll be one of the lucky ones." (When they do get brain cancer or something, they'll say, "they never told us" but the plant will insist they were warned of all possible risks and are owed nothing, since who knows where this particular cancer came from.)

One of the whistleblowers I spoke to last month told me that inside the plant, ALARA does NOT stand for "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" (which is an industry term for "leak like a sieve, no one will stop you) it stands for "Always Let Another Run Ahead." In other words, smart nuke workers let dumber ones do the dirty work, so THEIR badges will show the higher accumulated dose, and THEY'LL have to go to a less well-paying job, not you. And THEY'LL get cancer from it, not you. ALARA.

SCE is also having trouble with the laws of physics. The laws of physics demand that parts will embrittle, earthquakes will then rattle those parts, and the whole thing will come tumbling down some day. Try as they might -- and they are doing this 24 hours a day -- they can't make new pipes and fittings fast enough to replace the old ones that are failing, and that they feel might fail in the NEXT 20 years. They are spending tens of millions of dollars on maintenance, but only to keep an old jalopy running, that would cost tens of BILLIONS to replace properly with a new one. In other words, a drop in the bucket on maintenance compared to the cost of a full, new, "working" reactor.

Not that this author wants to see NEW reactors at San Onofre (or anywhere), but we should not kid ourselves that all that money they are spending on band-aids for the old ones really buys us any protection against meltdowns. Not at all.

And SCE is having trouble with their remaining employees. Else why would I have heard from TWO who were NOT on the Bechtel short end of the stick?

And they're bound to have trouble with their new employees, since The Shaw Group is untrained in how to run these old reactors and the crew that knew how to do it was unceremoniously fired. (Newspapers knew about the switch weeks, if not months ahead of time, but wouldn't report on it until the day it happened, so that if the suggestion were to be made that such a switch is dangerous, it would be too late to stop it.)

Trouble, trouble, trouble? Not enough to make SCE afraid that we'll shut 'em down. Not nearly. For that to happen, activists will have to be much more forceful about their demands. Shut 'em down today, to prevent a meltdown tomorrow. An activist who cannot bring themselves to support immediate shutdown of their local reactor is, at best, confused. In the case of San Onofre, they're downright crazy. These reactors are dangerous, and there's no better time than right now to say: "Forget it! IT WAS NEVER A GOOD IDEA ANYWAY."

The public has been duped by the Nuclear Mafia for far too long, but in the case of SCE, it's becoming hard to hide all the problems.

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

************************************************
**

Biased reporting isn't reporting at all, it's propaganda!

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:03:00 +0000

To: The Christian Science Monitor

Date: August 14th, 2009

To The Editor:

Your staff writer, Mark Clayton, is clearly biased in favor of nuclear power. Shame on you.

For example in the third paragraph glowing words appear without quotes. The words are attributed, but the way they appear one immediately assumes the reporter thinks they are statements of fact. Otherwise, he would have made sure that such drastically wrong statements appear in quotes lest they be inaccurately misconstrued.

Nuclear power is not clean or green. There are many things stopping its resuscitation in America, not just money, as Clayton claims. Questioning minds STILL want to know: What will we do with the waste? More educated minds understand the definition of "Ionizing Radiation' precludes a solution, since all possible physical barriers are destroyed by ionizing radiation.

After carrying on as if Federal Loan Guarantees will solve every problem nuclear power has, further proof of the reporter's less-than-hidden bias comes when he points out that T. Boone Pickens' planned wind farm is cited at a cost of ten billion dollars -- said in the article to be about the same as nuclear. Well, it's probably half a new nuclear plant, or even less, IF one were to be built. But the reporter fails to mention that Pickens' plan was for a 4,000 megawatt wind farm. Later in the article the reporter equates 1,000 megawatts of wind power capacity to a single nuclear power plant. So therefore, it's his bias showing.

Next the reporter tells us -- that is, lets the NEI spokesliar tell us -- that nuclear power is the only thing that can provide "the sheer volume of reliable 'base load' power..." Say WHAT? What exactly does the word "reliable" mean to these people?!? One little fire and the plants are down for four months or more, as happened at the nearby San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station, or an earthquake drops out a whole slew of plants in Japan (more than once...). Urgent Reactor Pressure Vessel Head replacement projects brought down France's reactors, as have summer droughts, which are likely to hit us, too, in the coming years, as ever-decreasing water supplies shrivel. Nuclear power is NOT reliable and should NOT be thought of as "base load" -- it's just one more BIG LIE of the media and the nuclear industry. For shame.

Next the reporter blithely tells us that EdF, funded 85% by the French government, isn't big enough to build Calvert Cliffs III by itself and so needs at least 80 to 85% U.S. funding. If building it is such a good idea for France's company, why don't THEY take up the financial risk? Your reporter doesn't seem to even know there's a question to be asked there! Let alone whether the corruption issues at EdF and AREVA and throughout the French nuclear government regulatory structure should be considered a safety issue for American citizens around the proposed new plant (he doesn't mention any of this).

Then the reporter claims the Department of Energy had "plans" for $122 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear construction last fall, but just didn't have the money. Well, then all they had was pipe dreams. The report then quotes one Veep of one utility saying that without Federal Loan Guarantees, nothing will happen. He could have quoted a dozen V.P.s and CEOs and so forth -- not one will move forward on their own. That should tell us all -- including your reporter -- that we're being scammed.

What Senator Lamar Alexander (R, TN) did at the National Press Club last month was make a buffoon of himself and his audience of media lapdogs. I can't help assuming your less-than-intrepid reporter was there, lapping up Alexander's dogma.

Lastly, the reporter spends considerable time on HOW Federal Loan Guarantees for the nuclear industry might be handed out in the near future. Where he could have been explaining that the waste problem will remain unsolved because it is a physics problem, not a financial one or a political one, or where he could have been mentioning Davis-Besse's hole in its head or Monticello's ECCS's in-operability for 30+ years, and dozens of serious fires, or the secrecy of INPO (even the NRC can't know what INPO knows), or the studies that have shown increased cancer risks around nuclear power facilities, or the lies that accompanied Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, or dozens of other serious accidents -- NO. The reporter wanted to close with nearly a dozen paragraphs assuming Federal Loan Guarantees are inevitable so let's do them right. How nice.

Those Loan Guarantees AREN'T inevitable. Nuclear power is a costly and dangerous solution which doesn't achieve any of society's goals. It's based on lies, inertia, greed, and massive ignorance, not only on the part of most citizens, but also -- obviously -- on the part of reporters (and their editors).

Please read my FREE web-based book (or you can buy a printed copy if you like) THE CODE KILLERS, available at my personal web site:

www.acehoffman.org

Don't let your reporters lie, whether those lies are printed due to ignorance or because the reporter has an agenda he wants to fulfill. The best scientists have known for more than half a century that nuclear power was and is a mistake. All your reporter needed to do was listen to them.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Independent Researcher
Carlsbad, CA

The author is the programmer/animator/author of several award-winning educational software titles used in over 100 countries, and has studied nuclear power for more than 35 years.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Main article:
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/08/13/nuclear-power%E2%80%99s-new-debate-cost/

Sidebar:
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/08/13/the-bumpy-road-to-nuclear-energy/

================================================================

Issues of safety and waste make way for a focus on funding.

By Mark Clayton | Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor/ August 13, 2009 edition

Overlooking the shimmering waters of Chesapeake Bay, the massive twin concrete domes of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power station's two reactors could soon see a third sister rising alongside them.

If construction begins in Lusby, Md., perhaps by 2012, Calvert Cliffs III will be part of the larger promise of a "nuclear renaissance" of reactor construction sweeping the globe, proponents say.

By providing safe, domestic, moderately priced, and greenhouse-gas-free energy, nuclear power will be "a critical component of America's future," says George Vanderheyden, president of UniStar Nuclear Energy LLC, developer of Calvert Cliffs III.

Yet a new wave of concern is rising not over traditional anxieties such as radioactive waste or weapons proliferation but about the mammoth financial cost of nuclear power and who will bear it.

The big hurdle for Calvert Cliffs III and at least 21 other nuclear power reactors now in the US development pipeline is all about money finding the billions in loans to build them. And the key to getting those loans is winning federal guarantees to back them.

Today, the US has 104 nuclear reactors, providing about 20 percent of the nation's power. No new nuclear plants have been ordered in the US since 1978. This is not because of protestors, but because of a lack of investor funding and Wall Street remembering the ghosts of nuclear power's past massive construction cost overruns, utility defaults, and bankruptcies. Yet these no longer seem to haunt the nuclear industry or its supporters.

A new nuclear enthusiasm has now emerged quite powerfully in Congress.

House Republicans in June unveiled a plan for 100 new US nuclear reactors. A Senate proposal calls for a 20-year construction schedule, costing $700 billion. Industry will pay the full freight, according to the Senate plan. While there must be federal loan guarantees in order to convince Wall Street to fund the projects, in the end, the system will cost taxpayers "zero dollars," it says.

Echoing that push, the Democrat-controlled Senate in May put its stamp on energy-climate legislation that has buried in it the potential for hundreds of billions of dollars in loan guarantees for "clean energy" the lion's share destined for nuclear power, critics say.

"The Senate energy committee has passed legislation that could provide unlimited loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors ," says Michele Boyd, head of the safe-energy program for Physicians for Social Responsibility.

No nuclear plants in the US are under construction yet because they haven't secured federal licenses or loan guarantees, many observers say. Such guarantees would become a huge stimulus for the nuclear power industry, enabling utilities to borrow billions from Wall Street or the federal finance bank.

"Despite industry efforts to frame nuclear energy as the cheapest option, the reality is that nuclear power's very survival has required large and continuous government support," writes Doug Koplow, president of the Boston energy consulting company Earth Track, in a recent analysis of public subsidies for nuclear power. Mr. Koplow tracks $178 billion in public subsidies for nuclear energy for the period from 1947 to 1999. Others have reached similar figures.

ALTOGETHER, NUCLEAR-INDUSTRY BAILOUTS in the 1970s and '80s cost taxpayers and ratepayers in excess of $300 billion in 2006 dollars, according to three independent studies cited in a new nuclear-cost study by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

New guarantees in coming years could also leave US taxpayers picking up the tab if nuclear utilities defaulted on their loans. In 2008, the Government Accountability Office said the average risk of default on Department of Energy guarantees was about 50 percent. The Congressional Budget Office projected that default rates would be very high well above 50 percent."

On that basis, the potential risk exposure to US taxpayers from federally guaranteed nuclear loans would be $360 billion to $1.6 trillion, depending on the number of power reactors built, the Union of Concerned Scientists' study found.

"You want to talk about bailouts the next generation of new nuclear power would be Fannie Mae in spades," says Mark Cooper, senior fellow at Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment. Dr. Cooper is among several economic analysts who contend that waste and safety issues aside nuclear energy is too costly.

"Funding nuclear power on anything like the scale of 100 plants over the next 20 years would involve an intolerable level of risk for taxpayers because that level of new nuclear reactors would require just massive federal loan guarantees," says Peter Bradford, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and former chairman of the New York State Public Service Commission.

Even if no loans were defaulted on, nuclear would be too expensive, Cooper says. The multitrillion-dollar cost eclipses most energy sources, such as wind power, which also has a sizable up-front capital cost. But wind's lifetime cost is roughly one-third less than current estimates for nuclear, Cooper's and others studies show. So who would want to invest in such costly electricity? Not Wall Street at least not without loan guarantees.

Even during the heady days of 2007, Wall Street's seven biggest banks were wary. In a letter to the Department of Energy, they advised the federal government that they would require 100 percent federal loan guarantees to help finance nuclear power.

In June, using unusually strong language, a Moody's Investor Service report called new nuclear power plants a "bet the farm" credit risk for the 14 utilities pursuing them.

"The nuclear power industry may be correct about wanting those guarantees, but at what risk to US taxpayers?" asks Ellen Vancko, Nuclear Energy and Climate Change Project coordinator at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The industry assures everyone there is no risk and some believe them."

But industry representatives say the loan-guarantee issue is being hyped by critics and that the industry's own funds paid out to compensate the government will cover any defaults.

The government's two predictions of a 50-percent default rate are "hypothetical" and "an unsupported assertion," according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade association.

"There's a misperception about the costs [of nuclear power] going up," says Leslie Kass, director of business policy and programs for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "Yes, we did have rising capital costs along with every other form of [energy] generation. Those costs are starting to tip back down."

While the mantra of nuclear power was once "power too cheap to meter," Ms. Kass admits the next generation of nuclear costs will be considerable. Even so, she contends that large nuclear plant costs compare favorably to a giant $10 billion Texas wind project pursued by T. Boone Pickens, which was recently scaled back.

ONLY NUCLEAR POWER, Kass says, can provide the sheer volume of reliable "base load" power the nation will need going forward and meet the challenge of climate change at the same time by not emitting carbon.
The reason federal loan guaranties are needed, she says, is because Wall Street is still averse to large capital projects of all kinds. "Our challenge, like everyone [else's] is access to capital during a recession." she says.

Whether a nuclear project defaults depends on many factors, but often most heavily on where costs of nuclear construction are headed. Cost estimates to build a new nuclear power plant have more than tripled in the past five years, according to industry-funded reports, industry statements, and detailed studies of new nuclear power generation by a half-dozen independent researchers.

Construction delays are a huge cost. In Finland and France, nuclear-power projects are way behind schedule and over budget, suggesting potential delays and other problems for new US plant construction, says Ms. Vancko with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Calvert Cliffs III is being built by UniStar, a joint venture of Constellation Energy Group and Électricité de France, which is 85 percent owned by the French government. With cost estimates approaching $10 billion dollars, Calvert Cliffs III is too big for its backers to fund on their own although a spokesman says French financing could cover 15 to 20 percent of the cost, lowering the amount of federal loan guarantees that would be required.

In 2008, Moody's put the cost to build new nuclear reactors at about $7,000 per kilowatt of capacity. That estimate would put the 1,600-megawatt Calvert Cliffs III at around $11.2 billion.

While authorized to grant just $18.5 billion in guarantees for nuclear power, the US Department of Energy last fall had applications for $122 billion in loan guarantees to build 21 proposed reactors.

Most new nuclear projects will live or die based on whether they get those loan guarantees. "We're poised to commence early site preparation this year for the first new nuclear plant in the US in 30 years, but to be clear, we cannot move forward without federal loan guarantees," Michael Wallace, vice chairman of Constellation Energy, said last year.

He's still waiting. However, the goal seems nearer. Last month, the company's Calvert Cliffs III project was selected by the Department of Energy as one of four projects entering a final phase of due diligence for a share of the federal loan guarantees.

OTHERS HAVE BEEN LESS FORTUNATE. Exelon last month dropped its application to build two reactors at Victoria County Station, Texas. Company chairman John Rowe cited a weak economy and "limited availability of federal loan guarantees." Deep in the massive energy-climate bill now being debated in the Senate is a plan that could vastly expand loan guarantees for nuclear power.

At the National Press Club last month, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee unveiled his $700 billion plan to almost double the number of reactors nationwide.

"Let's take another long, hard look at nuclear power," Senator Alexander says. "It is already far and away our best defense against global warming. So why not build 100 new nuclear power plants in 20 years?"

Plans are moving forward to create a new federal "clean energy bank" a semiautonomous agency that could ladle out funding and guarantees for new nuclear power and other technologies. Such a bank would not be a bad idea, if done properly, many say. Nuclear, "clean coal," wind, and solar energy would all benefit from federal backing. To ensure all technologies get a fair shot at loan guarantees, the House version of the bill has a 30-percent cap on the amount that any one technology could receive.

But the Senate "Clean Energy Development Administration" (CEDA) proposal does not have such a cap which worries Sen. Bernie Sanders, (Ind.) of Vermont. His proposed 20-percent cap on the Senate
version of CEDA was swatted down in an 18-5 vote by members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Nuclear-industry backers are behind CEDA, but not the House version. "We're not in favor of a cap because our projects tend to be larger," says Ms. Kass, who says a cap would unduly limit nuclear expansion and tilt the playing field.

Others insist a cap is vital.

"If we want to ensure that no one technology receives the bulk of the available funding and financing, a cap on how much investment can be made in any one technology ensures a more level playing field for competing technologies," says Senator Sanders. "It would not be good policy to allow any one energy technology to get the lion's share of government support."

What worries some even more than lack of a cap is how the Senate's CEDA plan would operate with little oversight due to a proposed exemption from the Fair Credit Reporting Act that would otherwise subject such loan guarantees to the congressional appropriations process, says Autumn Hanna, senior program director for Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Under Senate provisions, the CEDA will be overseen by a nine-person board that could potentially hand out unlimited billions in federal loan guarantees for nuclear or any other eligible technology, Ms. Hanna says.
"The big story here is that nine unelected people [could get] unlimited authority to hand out these loan guarantees," Mr. Boyd says. "That's the big issue here."

===========================================

Subject: http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/08/13/the-bumpy-road-to-nuclear-energy/

The bumpy road to nuclear energy

Of the 182 construction permits granted by government commissions, 50 were abandoned in construction with billions in investment lost and 28 were closed before their 40-year licenses expired.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Mark Clayton | Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor/ August 13, 2009 edition

In 1974, President Nixon announced Project Independence a plan to build 1,000 nuclear stations. But of the 253 reactors eventually ordered by the US electric industry, 71 were canceled before construction began, according to a tally by the antinuclear group Beyond Nuclear.

Of the 182 construction permits granted by government commissions, 50 were abandoned in construction with billions in investment lost and 28 were closed before their 40-year licenses expired including the Three Mile Island plant's Unit 2.

Gary McCool knows all about the financial pitfalls of nuclear power. Thirty years ago the Plymouth State College reference librarian warned managers at his tiny New Hampshire Electric Cooperative that its plan to purchase 2 percent of the new Seabrook nuclear power plant's generating output when it was completed could push the coop into bankruptcy or perhaps produce the highest electric rates in the nation.

It turned out to be both. Today he's still paying the price of nuclear power even though his coop no longer purchases any. There on his monthly bill is a $6.06 charge for "stranded costs" the cost of paying off the coop's adventure into Seabrook.

It was a calamity echoed nationwide. Several government-owned power companies, including the Washington Public Power System, went bankrupt. Other investor-owned utilities, such as Long Island Lighting Company and Consumers Power, were nearly bankrupted.

This is a sidebar to the full story, Nuclear power's new debate: cost

=======================================================

************************************************
**

Ace Hoffman on Todd Tucker; Harvey Wasserman on Three Mile Island

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:05:00 +0000

To: "Editor, Washington Post" <letters@washpost.com>

March 24th, 2009

To The Editor,

Todd Tucker thinks he serves his old shipmates in the U. S. Navy, and SSBN 731 (USS Alabama) in particular, by committing treason against the citizens of the United States and the earth. To attempt to mislead the public is to attempt to destroy our democracy.

He chastises the nuclear industry for "proclaiming that it can construct a reactor that's "inherently safe' .... " However, he immediately shows his true colors by saying "All methods of power generation involve tradeoffs..." For Tucker, everything is dangerous, therefore nuclear power's dangers are insignificant.

Nuclear energy is not safe. Not for subs (I guess Tucker missed the rash of accidents involving nuclear subs lately, any one of which could have resulted in massive releases of radiation and losses of hundreds of seamen) and not for so-called "commercial" reactors which never really pay their way.

The historical evidence is clear: Nuclear power is not green. It is not economical. It kills people every day. Neither Tucker nor the three turncoats of the environmental movement he honors can explain how ionizing radiation is safe for babies, fetuses, zygotes, or anyone or anything else, since, of course, it is NOT safe.

Tucker denigrates concerns about the link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons by focusing on the idea that the only problem is OTHER nations. He says "you couldn't turn a nuclear reactor into a bomb any more easily than you could power your house with a hand grenade." A better analogy is you cannot build a house in which grenades can be safely exploded. The soft tissue of the humans inside will be damaged; the walls of the house will be damaged. Ionizing radiation is like microscopic grenades going off inside you. It ALWAYS damages you. Even natural radiation (such as from K-40) is harmful (just utterly unavoidable). And pssst: Someone should mention to Tucker (as if he doesn't know) that nuclear power plants can release 1000 times MORE radiation than a bomb can -- plus the spent fuel pools, plus the dry storage casks, plus other nearby reactors. Nuclear power plants are weapons for the enemy, as one classic tome put it, about the time Tucker was doing his "stint" in the Navy. Tucker should have surfaced occasionally and breathed in the fresh air of truth.

Tucker claims that Three Mile Island was "the defining event in the history of American nuclear power." Maybe so, but that's only because the American public never learned about how close we came to an even worse accident in 2002 at Davis-Besse, and nor are they informed about thousands -- yes, thousands -- of other near-misses which have occurred. The worst is yet to come. A far more potent "defining moment" for American nuclear power is as inevitable as sunshine and rain. Sooner or later, Three Mile Island will be considered only a precursor...

Why? Because it, and all the other warnings, such as Davis-Besse (not to mention 9-11 and the overflight of Indian Point by American Airlines Flight 11, minutes before it impacted the North Tower) are being ignored.

Tucker claims no one died because of Three Mile Island -- that the health consequences of the radiation which was released are "insignificant." The nuclear industry has repeated this claim so often that the Washington Post doesn't question the utter lack of logic inherent in such preposterous claims. If Tucker wants to chastise the industry for something, this would be a good start.

Where DID all that radiation go? Measurements were spotty, to be sure. But there is no question that during critical periods, the needles pegged -- and the radiation releases went off-scale. It is known that millions of curies of radiation were released, much of it as so-called "short-lived" isotopes. Tucker appears to be confused about the relative impacts of short-lived versus long-lived isotopes, although chances are he really just wants his readers to be confused, hoping they will somehow see BOTH short- and long-lived isotopes as harmless -- each for the opposite reason.

In reality, they are both harmful, and the most harmful are often the ones with neither short- nor long- lives, such as cesium-137 and strontium-90, both with half-lives of about three decades, and both of which (and many others) Tucker conveniently ignores. One of the main reasons certain radioactive isotopes are more harmful than others is that some bioaccumulate in the body. Tucker doesn't even mention this -- but neither does the nuclear industry, another point he could have chastised them for.

Of course, since Tucker doesn't know the EXACT numbers, he assumes ZERO damage globally from Three Mile Island. Statistically, this is about as close to impossible as you can get. But because not one person can claim with absolute certainty that THEIR cancer was caused by Three Mile Island, Tucker (and the entire nuclear industry) sees ZERO damage.

Tucker claims that the growth of nuclear power since Three Mile Island as a percentage of our total electricity mix has been a benefit to the nation, despite what he claims were the misguided attempts of "environmentalists." In reality, the fact that even Three Mile Island failed to shut down the nuclear industry was a horrific mistake which has already saddled America with 50,000 new tons of toxic waste, and will lead to a complete, horrific, costly meltdown sooner or later.

The waste we are being saddled with is so toxic that no container can safely hold it. Make it out of gold if you like -- it might help for a while, but absolutely nothing can safely contain nuclear waste for the eons necessary. That's a physical reality due to the magnitude of the forces involved -- it won't change. And many of the gaseous discharges from radioactive waste are, themselves, also radioactive, and THAT won't change. And some of them -- many of them -- cannot be properly filtered and end up in the environment. The promises of proper containment by the industry are NEVER kept.

Radioactive waste is so toxic that NO amount can be safely released into the environment. And yet spills occur with frightening regularity.

The waste is so toxic for so long (in part because one atomic breakdown usually leads to another (via a radioactive daughter product) and another and another) that no financial trust fund can possibly be set aside which can pay for the proper care of the waste. The total cost will fall on our children, and their children for hundreds of generations, even if there are ZERO transport accidents and ZERO accidents at the destination. Tucker tries to dismiss the problems of the longevity of nuclear waste by saying that "the problem isn't the material's half-life -- it's the level of radioactivity it possesses." Does someone really need to explain to Tucker that it's because of the radioactivity that the longevity matters, or is he just making stuff up if he thinks the public will buy it (having realized, perhaps by their past statements, that he could get these logical fallacies past the Washington Post editors)?

And what destination does Mr. Tucker, the historian, propose for the waste, now that Yucca Mountain is practically dead?

Nothing. He just points out that yeah, this is a bit of a problem for pro-nukers, but "the top environmental concern for most of us is global warming." Pssst: Renewable energy solves the global warming problem. Nukes aren't renewable and if one takes the entire life-cycle into account (as Tucker conveniently does for coal, but not for nuclear) they contribute massively to global warming. Don't bother telling this to Tucker.

The Washington Post is foolish to publish such desperate lies as the nuclear industry is attempting to propagate through people like Tucker. If left unquestioned, Tucker's lies will continue to kill Americans.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Author, THE CODE KILLERS
www.acehoffman.org
Carlsbad, CA

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd Tucker / Washington Post:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

At 12:04 AM 3/22/2009 -0500, TODD TUCKER wrote:
>5 Myths on Nuclear Power
>
>By TODD TUCKER
>Sunday, March 22, 2009; B03
>
>Thirty years ago this week, a chain of errors and equipment malfunctions triggered the defining event in the history of American nuclear power: the accident at Three Mile Island. Although no one died and the health consequences were insignificant, the mishap was vivid confirmation that things could go wrong with a nuclear reactor. It almost instantly galvanized popular opposition to this form of power, giving rise to lingering misconceptions about one of our nation's largest sources of electricity. 1. Three Mile Island killed the idea of nuclear power in the United States.
>
>The 1979 accident and the fear it spawned were undoubtedly setbacks to the nuclear power industry. Only recently did utilities even attempt to license new reactors again. But Three Mile Island didn't even kill nuclear power at Three Mile Island. While TMI 2 was destroyed, TMI 1 is still in operation today. In fact, in generating electricity, nuclear power is second only to coal, which produces about half the power we use. Nuclear today produces more electricity than it did at the time of the accident -- about 20 percent compared with 12.5 percent in 1979. 2. Long half-lives make radioactive materials dangerous.
>
>It's impossible to read anything about the problem of nuclear waste without having to consider enormously long periods of time: thousands of years, or tens of thousands, or even longer. The Web site Greenpeace.org, for instance, points out that plutonium 239, a byproduct of uranium fission, "has a half-life of approximately 24,000 years. . . . However, the hazardous life of radioactive waste is at least ten times the half-life, therefore these wastes will have to be isolated from the environment for 240,000 [years]." There seems to be something intrinsically evil about anything that persists for so long. But a long half-life doesn't necessarily make a substance dangerous.
>
>A half-life is a measure of how fast a radioactive material decays. Take Carbon 14. This is a slowly decaying radioactive isotope present in natural carbon, which occurs in all living things. Archeologists and scientists measure the amount of carbon 14 remaining in an object to calculate its age. A useful, radioactive and harmless part of every person, Carbon 14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. Conversely, some short-lived isotopes can be extremely dangerous. Nitrogen 16, which is produced in operating nuclear reactors, emits very high-energy radiation despite its half-life of just 7.1 seconds.
>
>None of this is to say that radioactive waste isn't dangerous or isn't a problem -- even industry boosters identify it as one of the biggest challenges they face. But the problem isn't the material's half-life -- it's the level of radioactivity it possesses. 3. Nuclear power is bad for the environment.
>
>Many nuclear reactor byproducts are dangerous and require careful long-term storage. This is at the root of the fairly widespread belief that nuclear power is incompatible with a concern for the environment, even though its effects compare favorably with coal's.
>
>The top environmental concern for most of us is global warming, and nuclear power is by far the biggest source of emission-free power we currently have, contributing none of the greenhouse gases that coal plants spew by the ton every day. Neither does nuclear power require the decapitation of Appalachian mountains or the construction of billion-gallon sludge ponds. So why won't environmentalists even consider the nuclear alternative? Some have, notably former Greenpeace member Patrick Moore, Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand and Gaia theorist James Lovelock. But most environmentalists remain constitutionally averse to nuclear power, for reasons that Brand has described as "quasi-religious." 4. Nuclear power is "unnatural."
>
> From Godzilla to Blinky the three-eyed fish on "The Simpsons," many of pop culture's oddest creatures owe their existence to the mutating powers of radiation. It's easy to forget that radiation and nuclear processes are pervasive in the natural world. President Harry S. Truman put it memorably when he presided over the keel-laying of the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered ship, in 1952: "Her engines will not burn oil or coal. The heat in her boilers will be created by the same force that heats the sun -- the energy released by atomic fission, the breaking apart of the basic matter of the universe." Cosmic rays bombard us constantly, and radioactive isotopes of common elements are an unavoidable -- and benign -- part of our food supply. Uranium, the primary fuel in most nuclear reactors, is a natural substance found all over the globe, roughly as plentiful as tin. 5. A nuclear power plant is similar to a nuclear bomb.
>
>Not really. Nuclear power plants use fission -- the splitting of uranium atoms to release enormous energy -- to create power. Modern nuclear weapons use nuclear fusion: the fusing together of hydrogen atoms to release even greater amounts of energy. It's true that early nuclear weapons, such as the one dropped on Hiroshima, were fission weapons that used uranium as fuel, but scientists had to overcome incredible technical challenges to get the fuel to compress long enough to reach a "critical mass" that would release explosive levels of energy. A nuclear power plant is a radically different machine, designed with great care to convert nuclear fission into steady power over a period of years. You couldn't turn a nuclear reactor into a bomb any more easily than you could power your house with a hand grenade.
>
>There is one important link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons: Uranium-fueled reactors produce plutonium, a key ingredient in the construction of nuclear bombs. This is why the United States is justifiably concerned about any nations that are building or attempting to build nuclear power plants.
>
>Nuclear power certainly isn't without hazards, and the industry does itself a disservice by proclaiming that it can construct a reactor that is "inherently safe," implying a condition in which nothing bad can ever happen. That's not possible in any manmade creation. It's also easily disproven the instant something bad does happen -- as it did at Three Mile Island. All methods of power generation involve trade-offs, a balancing of risks against returns. We shouldn't evaluate nuclear power any differently.
>
>ssbn731g@yahoo.com
>
>Todd Tucker is the author of "Atomic America: How a Deadly Explosion and a Feared Admiral Changed the Course of Nuclear History."

----------------------------------------------------------
People Died at Three Mile Island by Harvey Wasserman:
----------------------------------------------------------

People Died at Three Mile Island

By Harvey Wasserman

www.NukeFree.org

People died---and are still dying---at Three Mile Island.

As the thirtieth anniversary of America's most infamous industrial accident approaches, we mourn the deaths that accompanied the biggest string of lies ever told in US industrial history.

As news of the accident poured into the global media, the public was assured there were no radiation releases.

That quickly proved to be false.

The public was then told the releases were controlled and done purposely to alleviate pressure on the core.

Both those assertions were false.

The public was told the releases were "insignificant."

But stack monitors were saturated and unusable, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later told Congress it did not know---and STILL does not know---how much radiation was released at Three Mile Island, or where it went.

Using unsubstantiated estimates of how much radiation was released, the government issued average doses allegedly received by people in the region, which it assured the public were safe. But the estimates were utterly meaningless, among other things ignoring the likelihood that high doses of concentrated fallout could come down heavily on specific areas.

Official estimates said a uniform dose to all persons in the region was equivalent to a single chest x-ray. But pregnant women are no longer x-rayed because it has long been known a single dose can do catastrophic damage to an embryo or fetus in utero.

The public was told there was no melting of fuel inside the core.

But robotic cameras later showed a very substantial portion of the fuel did melt.

The public was told there was no danger of an explosion.

But there was, as there had been at Michigan's Fermi reactor in 1966. In 1986, Chernobyl Unit Four did explode.

The public was told there was no need to evacuate anyone from the area.

But Pennsylvania Governor Richard Thornburgh then evacuated pregnant women and small children. Unfortunately, many were sent to nearby Hershey, which was showered with fallout.

In fact, the entire region should have been immediately evacuated. It is standard wisdom in the health physics community that---due in part to the extreme vulnerability of human embryos, fetuses and small children, as well as the weaknesses of old age---there is no safe dose of radiation, and none will ever be found.

The public was assured the government would follow up with meticulous studies of the health impacts of the accident.

In fact, the state of Pennsylvania hid the health impacts, including deletion of cancers from the public record, abolition of the state's tumor registry, misrepresentation of the impacts it could not hide (including an apparent tripling of the infant death rate in nearby Harrisburg) and much more.

The federal government did nothing to track the health histories of the region's residents.

In fact, the most reliable studies were conducted by local residents like Jane Lee and Mary Osborne, who went door-to-door in neighborhoods where the fallout was thought to be worst. Their surveys showed very substantial plagues of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, respiratory problems, hair loss, rashes, lesions and much more.

A study by Columbia University claimed there were no significant health impacts, but its data by some interpretations points in the opposite direction. Investigations by epidemiologist Dr. Stephen Wing of the University of North Carolina, and others, led Wing to warn that the official studies on the health impacts of the accident suffered from "logical and methodological problems." Studies by Wing and by Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear industry official, being announced this week at Harrisburg, significantly challenge official pronouncements on both radiation releases and health impacts.

Gundersen, a leading technical expert on nuclear engineering, says: "When I correctly interpreted the containment pressure spike and the doses measured in the environment after the TMI accident, I proved that TMI's releases were about one hundred times higher than the industry and the NRC claim, in part because the containment leaked. This new data supports the epidemiology of Dr. Steve Wing and proves that there really were injuries from the accident. New reactor designs are also effected, as the NRC is using its low assumed release rates to justify decreases in emergency planning and containment design."

Data unearthed by radiologist Dr. Ernest Sternglass of the University of Pittsburgh, and statisticians Jay Gould (now deceased) and Joe Mangano of New York have led to strong assertions of major public health impacts. According to Mangano, one major study "found that the number of cancers within 10 miles of TMI rose from 1731 to 2847 between 1975-79 and 1981-85. A 64% increase. But they 'didn't find any link' with the accident, and suggested the rise might be due to stress." On-going work by Sternglass and Mangano clearly indicates that "normal" reactor radiation releases of far less magnitude that those at TMI continue to have catastrophic impacts on local populations.

Anecdotal evidence among the local human population has been devastating. Large numbers of central Pennsylvanians suffered skin sores and lesions that erupted while they were out of doors as the fallout rained down on them. Many quickly developed large, visible tumors, breathing problems, and a metallic taste in their mouths that matched that experienced by some of the men who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, and who were exposed to nuclear tests in the south Pacific and Nevada.

A series of interviews conducted by Robbie Leppzer and compiled in a "a two-hour public radio documentary VOICES FROM THREE MILE ISLAND ( www.turningtide.com ) give some indication of the horrors experienced by the people of central Pennsylvania.

They are further underscored by harrowing broadcasts from then-CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-c1PrCLaRw ) warning that "the world has never known a day quite like today. It faced the considerable uncertainties and dangers of the worst nuclear power plant accident of the atomic age. And the horror tonight is that it could get much worse."

In March of 1980, I went into the region and compiled a range of interviews clearly indicating widespread health damage done by radiation from the accident. The survey led to the book KILLING OUR OWN, co-authored with Norman Solomon, Robert Alvarez and Eleanor Walters ( www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/KOO.pdf ) which correlated the damage done at TMI with that suffered during nuclear bomb tests, atomic weapons production, mis-use of medical x-rays, the painting of radium watch dials, uranium mining and milling, radioactive fuel production, failed attempts at waste disposal, and more.

My research at TMI also uncovered a plague of death and disease among the area's wild animals and farm livestock. Entire bee hives expired immediately after the accident, along with a disappearance of birds, many of whom were found scattered dead on the ground. A rash of malformed pets were born and stillborn, including kittens that could not walk and a dog with no eyes. Reproductive rates among the
region's cows and horses plummeted.

Much of this was documented by a three-person investigative team from the Baltimore News-American, which made it clear that the problems could only have been caused by radiation. Statistics from Pennsylvania's Department of Agriculture confirmed the plague, but the state denied its existence, and said that if it did exist, it could not have been caused by TMI.

In the mid-1980s the citizens of the three counties surrounding Three Mile Island voted by a margin of 3:1 to permanently retired TMI Unit One, which had been shut when Unit Two melted. The Reagan Administration trashed the vote and re-opened the reactor, which still operates. Its owners now seek a license renewal.

Some 2400 area residents have long-since filed a class action lawsuit demanding compensation for the plague of death and disease visited upon their families. In the past quarter-century they have been denied access to the federal court system, which claims there was not enough radiation released to do such harm. TMI's owners did quietly pay out millions in damages to area residents whose children were born with genetic damage, among other things. The payments came in exchange for silence among those receiving them.

But for all the global attention focused on the accident and its health effects, there has never been a binding public trial to test the assertion by thousands of conservative central Pennsylvanians that radiation from TMI destroyed their lives.

So while the nuclear power industry continues to assert that "no one died at Three Mile Island," it refuses to allow an open judicial hearing on the hundreds of cases still pending.

As the pushers of the "nuclear renaissance" demand massive tax- and rate-payer subsidies to build yet another generation of reactors, they cynically stonewall the obvious death toll that continues to mount at the site of an accident that happened thirty years ago. The "see no evil" mantra continues to define all official approaches to the victims of this horrific disaster.

Ironically, like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island Unit Two was a state-of-the-art reactor. Its official opening came on December 28, 1978, and it melted exactly three months later. Had it operated longer, the accumulated radiation spewing from its core almost certainly would have been far greater.

Every reactor now operating in the US is much older---nearly all fully three decades older---than TMI-2 when it melted. Their potential fallout could dwarf what came down in 1979.

But the Big Lie remains officially intact. Expect to hear all week that TMI was "a success story" because "no one was killed."

But in mere moments that brand new reactor morphed from a $900 million asset to a multi-billion-dollar liability. It could happen to any atomic power plant, now, tomorrow and into the future.

Meanwhile, the death toll from America's worst industrial catastrophe continues to rise. More than ever, it is shrouded in official lies and desecrated by a reactor-pushing "renaissance" hell-bent on repeating the nightmare on an even larger scale.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Harvey Wasserman has been writing about atomic energy and the green alternatives since 1973. His 1982 assertion to Bryant Gumbel on NBC's TODAY Show that people were killed at TMI sparked a national mailing from the reactor industry demanding a retraction. NBC was later bought by Westinghouse, still a major force pushing atomic power.

------------------------------------------------------------

************************************************

GNEP: Another high crime by the Bush Administration

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:10:00 +0000

March 9th, 2009

Dear Readers,

If colluding with a corrupt foreign-government-owned "business" to suck an estimated ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS from the taxpayers to begin a nuclear proliferation project in the guise of nuclear NON-proliferation isn't a high crime, what, pray tell, is?

GNEP, which stands for Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, is an invention of the Bush Administration. The most significant partner all along has been the French Government, in the corporate form of AREVA, which was cobbled together from several failing French nuclear companies (and a few other things they could grab so they could look green).

GNEP aims to build a taxpayer-funded reprocessing plant for spent nuclear fuel, even though reprocessing would violate U.S. law and pollute wherever it happened. GNEP would allow the failing commercial nuclear industry to go on polluting and generating yet more waste.

GNEP was first announced in 2006, when the U.S. Department of Energy, under Vice President Dick Cheney's control and as part of his secret energy group's secret plan, released their concept -- already well-formed and just needing money -- tens of billions of dollars to start. Areva's executive roster included, at least for a time, a former member of Dick Cheney's own energy team, so they knew exactly what to expect from the Bush Administration.

But things have changed, and Areva is running out of money -- in fact, they may even be bankrupt by the time you read this. If so, they'll walk away from environmental damage in hundreds of locations around the world. (And their proposed fuel fabrication plant in Piketon, Ohio is also obviously unnecessary, and needs to be stopped, too.) AREVA can and should go bankrupt. What then? Do we just keep making more waste anyway, even when "plan B" (and C, and D, and E, etc.) fails, along with "Plan A" (Yucca Mountain)?

We have a chance to stop GNEP by submitting comments regarding GNEP's Preliminary Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). Comments are due March 16th, 2009 (see below for more information). Stopping GNEP will go a long way towards crippling the nuclear industry, especially their plans for new reactors, because it would highlight the lack of a waste disposal solution.

Steven Chu, Obama's Energy Secretary, recently stopped nearly all progress on Yucca Mountain, which is good, but he doesn't have a better idea, which is bad. Canceling Yucca Mountain means that unless some form of "reprocessing" happens, all spent nuclear reactor fuel will surely continue to be stored unsafely on site where it is created, and that's why the nuclear industry and their friends in government favor GNEP.

GNEP supposedly offers an alternative to long-term storage of nuclear waste. The spin is to call it a "closed cycle" system of reprocessing and reusing nuclear waste. In reality, GNEP just compounds the problem.

GNEP would produce nuclear fuel called MOX, which is made from reprocessed nuclear waste. MOX is more hazardous than regular "fresh" reactor fuel from virgin uranium, because of all the impurities created during its previous use, which are never completely removed.

MOX itself cannot be recycled a second time, so it's not really much of a recycling program. But they like the term -- it sounds green.

Creating MOX is both expensive and very polluting. The byproduct from creating MOX is a horrendous trail of deadly vapors, liquids, partially-solidified radioactive sludge with frighteningly-more radioactive hotspots, crystallized crap with cracks and quap leaking out, and -- perhaps worst of all -- recycled metals which end up (somehow; it's always a mystery to the nuclear industry how this happens) as children's dental braces and titanium craniums.

Some of the waste from MOX production is poured into the oceans, on the pretend assumption that diluting nuclear waste renders it harmless (which is wrong), that it doesn't accumulate in various places on the sea bed (which is wrong), that it isn't taken up by living organisms and then concentrated up the food chain (which is wrong), and that infinitesimal amounts cannot cause the full spectrum of health effects (they can, albeit at lower rates, the lower the dose, in what is now almost universally believed to be a linear progression).

The rest of the MOX waste is stored improperly. You know it's improper because there is no such thing as safe storage of nuclear waste.

The attempts to clean up the waste from the Cold War at Hanford, Washington are a good indication of what will happen to the waste from GNEP. (Hanford is the most polluted site in the Western Hemisphere.) Originally, GNEP was going to be built at the Savannah River Site in Georgia. It is currently being promoted for construction at Hanford.

This author never supported Yucca Mountain because it was not a proper nuclear waste storage method -- unsafe and impractical. And every little bit that spills, kills.

But the problem with stopping Yucca Mountain is that there is no alternative.

One should remember that of the estimated $10 billion dollars already put into studying Yucca Mountain specifically (really, a lot more, I suspect, but they're calling it that), some of it went into possible alternatives to Yucca Mountain. The scientific team was NOT told they could not consider alternatives. Their job was to find the BEST SOLUTION POSSIBLE within time, budget, and other constraints, one of which was LOCATION. Same thing, different place wasn't allowed. But anything else, even in a different place, was, and yet the Yucca Mountain scientists STILL couldn't come up with a better plan.

So what is Steven Chu actually offering? He's NOT offering to shut the nuclear reactors down, despite the fact that they are old, dirty, leaking, and most will cost billions just to replace the parts that are known to be failing -- let alone the potential cost of NOT replacing any critical components. He's not offering any way to get out of our current dilemma. Dry cask storage is extremely dangerous and was NEVER intended to be a long-term solution. Not one community was convinced to allow it to start without being told it was temporary -- "only until Yucca Mountain opens" we were each told. And we tried to say, "but Yucca Mountain will probably never open, and shouldn't -- it's a boondoggle!" but we were always assured that Yucca Mountain would solve the nuclear industry's waste problem. What's a few dry casks for a few years? But a few dry casks turned into dozens, then hundreds, and a few years turned into dozens, and will turn into hundreds, too.

There IS NO OTHER SOLUTION besides Yucca Mountain. GNEP is terrible and doesn't even help. If Chu can kill Yucca Mountain, shouldn't he feel obligated to shut down the nuclear industry, since it is unsustainable? It doesn't generate anything of value for America if all its costs and liabilities are properly included. Shut 'em down NOW!

Instead, Chu and the DOE are pushing GNEP, apparently just so the public won't realize what a dead end nuclear power really is, and how corrupt it makes our government officials.

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Hanford Watch #1709:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are 3 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. GNEP DEADLINE TO COMMENT MARCH 16
From: Leo Leonardo

2. ARID LANDS - 03-30-2009
From: Leo Leonardo

3. Fw: Nuclear waste coming soon to an interstate near you
From: Lynn Porter

Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1. GNEP DEADLINE TO COMMENT MARCH 16
Posted by: "Leo Leonardo" concordiasalus@hotmail.com
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 9:08 am ((PST))

URGENT!!!!
GNEP DEADLINE TO COMMENT MARCH 16, 2009. ONLY 10 DAYS LEFT

There are only 10 days left for you to comment on
the proposal to double nuclear power and to dispose of more
nuclear waste at Hanford. This is the Energy
Department's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental
Impact Statement (GNEP PEIS).

You remember, that plan to double nuclear power in
the U.S. while adding
dangerous waste to Hanford,
putting nuclear trucks on the road, and risking nuclear weapons proliferation.
This is your final opportunity to let USDOE know that it has completely failed
to address the risks to the environment and human health from its plan.

The EIS does not identify
the quantities of wastes that will be produced by GNEP and added to Hanford and other sites.

- The EIS does not evaluate
the risks of a foreseeable accident or terrorist attack involving one of the
many trucks that would carry spent nuclear fuel through the Northwest and
elsewhere.

- The EIS does not adequately
evaluate the proliferation risks presented by "reprocessing" spent nuclear fuel
to extract plutonium and uranium that could be used in bomb-making.

- Finally, the EIS plays an inappropriate
game of "hide the ball," analyzing risks only at hypothetical sites. The EIS
fails to evaluate the environmental impacts of proceeding with GNEP based on a Hanford site-specific
proposal. USDOE solicited and paid Hanford contractor TRIDEC
for this proposal.

Please, please make it clear to the Obama
administration that GNEP should have left with the Bush Administration. Submit
your FINAL comments by March 16th to USDOE. You
can submit comments: Electronically:

http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=09000064807446b5

Mail:

Mr. Francis Schwartz, GNEP PEIS document manager

Office of Nuclear Energy (NE-5), U.S. Department
of Energy

1000
Independence Ave, SW

Washington, D.C. 20585-0119

Refer to the GNEP PEIS CITIZEN'S GUIDE for
your commenting:

http://www.hoanw.org/uploads/hoanw/4%20pg%20GNEP%20PEIS%20Cit%20Guide.pdf

Thank you for making your voice heard to oppose
doubling nuclear power and oppose more than doubling nuclear waste in the U.S.!
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™ Contacts: Organize your contact list.
http://windowslive.com/connect/post/marcusatmicrosoft.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!503D1D86EBB2B53C!2285.entry?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_UGC_Contacts_032009

Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. ARID LANDS - 03-30-2009
Posted by: "Leo Leonardo" concordiasalus@hotmail.com
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 9:27 am ((PST))

ARID LANDS upcoming screening of movie on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Please join us on Monday, March 30 at 7 PM at the First UU
Church at SW 12th and Main, Portland,
Oregon, for a screening of Arid Lands, a locally made award winning video on Hanford Nuclear
Reservation. Gerry Polett, ED of Heart of America
will talk about the future of Hanford and
upcoming opportunities for comment on Hanford as
USDOE issues additional Environmental Impact Statements regarding nuclear waste
at Hanford.
Arid Lands screening is being sponsored by Alliance for
Democracy, Community for Earth of the First Unitarian
Church, and Heart of
America Northwest. Hope to see you on March 30.

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™ Groups: Create an online spot for your favorite groups to meet.
http://windowslive.com/online/groups?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_groups_032009

Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. Fw: Nuclear waste coming soon to an interstate near you
Posted by: "Lynn Porter" lporter@efn.org lynnporter97401
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 5:37 pm ((PST))

Also see http://hanfordwatch.org -- L.P.

----- Original Message -----
From: Flights of Thought
To: lporter@efn.org
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 7:47 AM
Subject: Nuclear waste coming soon to an interstate near you

Action needed, please send your opinion to the DOE before March 16, 2009.
This is a nationwide concern, not just those of us in Oregon and
Washington. Highly radioactive shipments will traverse the country via rail
and interstates if this plan goes through.
This article and related links archived here:
http://www.squadron13.com/JackDresser/NuclearWasteComingSoon.htm and copied
below for your convenience.
Gordon

Nuclear waste coming soon to an interstate near you.

By Jack Dresser

Pasco, Wash., is an exceptionally clean, well-kept little city. But as many
unhappy homeowners and investors now realize, when something looks too
good, you'd better look more closely. Pasco is the gateway to the most
contaminated nuclear site in the Western Hemisphere. We attended a U.S.
Department of Energy hearing there last Nov. 17, and another the following
night in Hood River.

Sixteen years ago Portland General Electric shut down Trojan, Oregons only
nuclear power plant. In 2005, the Trojan reactor vessel and other
radioactive equipment were removed, encased, barged upstream, and buried in
a 45-foot deep pit at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation along the Columbia
River and its salmon spawning grounds. Our radioactive leftovers joined
Hanfords 44-year repository as the nations nuclear dumpster.

When decommissioned in 1987, Hanford held two-thirds of the nation's
high-level radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks. These have
been leaking into the groundwater and the river despite a massively funded,
19-year cleanup effort.

The Nov. 17 hearing presented a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement
on the Energy Department's earlier proposal to develop a Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership presented in May, 2007 at the same locations.
The DOE snuck in its mandated hearings far from our population centers,
with short and little notice. For good reason.

Under the GNEP plan, nuclear fuel would be produced in the U.S. and other
advanced nuclear nations through a reprocessing technology that is yet to
be developed. The cost is undisclosed but substantial. Nuclear fuel would
be provided to developing countries for their nuclear energy development.
In return, we would receive their waste for further reprocessing, an
international recycling system that would keep the big boys in control of
weapons-grade nuclear material production. The DOE claims the reprocessing
site isn't yet selected, but the inside word is that its Hanford.

Most of the waste would be shipped by truck or train through Oregon,
primarily along the Interstate 5 and Interstate 84 corridors.

We also attended the earlier hearing, at which local teenagers told us they
couldn't swim in the Columbia River or eat the fish they caught. We read
the local paper. Despite years of cleanup research and billions of dollars
spent, the sources of groundwater contamination still haven't been identified.

We know we're at least close to one major source, a DOE groundwater
geologist stated in a Tri-Cities Herald story. If we can find the source,
we can clean it up.

Another Herald story the following day reported that Hanford workers have
moved enough radioactive waste through two- and three-inch underground
pipes in recent months at the tank farms to fill six Olympic-size swimming
pools. These fields of underground tanks, the story continued, hold 53
million gallons of some of Hanford's worst waste contaminated with
high-level radiation and hazardous chemicals.

In contrast to the local news, the deceptively soothing DOE handouts had
brief and carefully worded descriptions, touting nuclear as an energy
source that doesn't pollute the air (never mind the Earth and water). And
its proposed system will allegedly be proliferation-resistant (not
proliferation-secure), making nuclear materials nearly impossible (not
impossible) to divert without detection. They were clearly hedging their
pledges, and it wasn't reassuring.

The newly released PEIS addresses areas of controversy, acknowledging
irreducible uncertainties.

Can we afford these uncertainties on trucks loaded with nuclear materials
rolling through Eugene and Portland on I-5 during rain, snow, fog and
rush-hour congestion? The PEIS estimates as many as 35,000 truck shipments
per year under one plan, with an average shipping distance of 2,100 miles.

The impact statement also estimates the latent cancer fatalities based
upon population densities along the selected routes for incident-free
transport, meaning the radiation cannot be fully contained and insulated
from the public.

Unsurprisingly, the PEIS sidesteps the probabilities of accident and
intentional destructive acts (e.g., terrorist opportunism), and the
possible consequences upon those of us who happen to be in the vicinity.
Since this hearing, we read of the truck accident in Eastern Oregon that spilled radiological waste from medical laboratories headed for Hanford.

The GNEP proposal can be viewed at www.gnep.energy.gov. Our governor has
announced his opposition to the plan, and it is important that the DOE hear
from as many potentially affected Oregonians as possible. To
comment, call Francis Schwartz toll-free at (866) 645-7803 or send a fax to
(866) 489-1891. To e-mail comments, go to www.regulations.gov, search for
Francis Schwartz, see Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and click on Send a comment
or submission. Comments must be received by March 16, 2009.

Our testimony at the Hood River hearing, and those of numerous highly
informed, articulate Oregonians, can be viewed at our Web site, here:
http://www.squadron13.com/deployed/081118PascoHoodRiver/

Jack Dresser, a former Army psychologist and a behavioral research
scientist, is a member of Veterans for Peace. He lives in the McKenzie
Valley near Springfield.

published 3/4/09:
http://www.registerguard.com:80/csp/cms/sites/web/opinion/8611560-47/story.csp

(WEBMASTERS NOTE: the full link to submit your comments online is here:
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=09000064807446b3)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose About Nuclear Crimes
High and Low, Large and Small,
Far and Wide
Free download: www.acehoffman.org
phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
address: PO Box 1936 Carlsbad, CA 92018
Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
email: ace@acehoffman.org
------------------------------------------------

The fallacy in Obama's logic regarding Yucca Mountain

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:07:00 +0000

February 27th, 2009

Dear Readers,

So far, I like the Obama Administration. It's not just that "nobody could possibly be worse than Bush!" which, I think, is pretty close to true, but I approve of Obama's stated ideas on many topics. And, of course, he's intelligent, articulate, eloquent, and he's the best man for the job, undoubtedly.

And I was pleased as punch when nuclear power didn't even get a nod or a wink in his big budget speech to Congress this week.

As the topic -- or would-be topic -- approached, we held our breath. We listened. Wind energy. Check. Solar. Check. Motionless, we waited. NO MENTION! It went unsaid! He's on to autos and fuel efficiency and so on -- it's past. The moment it would have been said has past! He didn't even say nuclear has to be "part of the mix" or anything! Yeah! We high-fived. We cheered.

But will his actions even begin to match his unspoken words? Within a day or so, a new ruling on Yucca Mountain came down: Stop everything. Well, almost everything. Everything except the license applications filed in the last year (say what?). Well, anyway, stop something. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) is happy. He, of course, being from Nevada, never liked Yucca Mountain and basically has been elected over and over, on that platform.

Harry Reid's response to citizens who are worried about Yucca Mountain is this: Safe on-site storage of nuclear waste is the way to go. Those states that produced it should eat it. (Okay, he didn't say "eat it" in his letter to a constituent I was shown, but he did say that states can and should keep their waste "on site" which AMOUNTS TO THE SAME THING.)

On-site storage of nuclear waste is extremely hazardous and should not be permitted anywhere. Doubt me? You can actually read a number of technical reports about "dry casks," and spent fuel pools. You can read about the transportation vehicles which would have moved the waste to Yucca Mountain (and might yet). You can read about the size of a potential accident, and it can be quite overwhelming to think about. And yet.

And yet, what you read will be a lie, because, if you dig DEEPER into the records, you'll find that the "postulated accident" only releases, for example, 0.01% (less than a single percent of a single percent) of the total fuel inventory being transported in ONE container, or being stored in ONE dry cask. And a vastly smaller portion of a spent fuel pool is EVER postulated to be exposed to air, to catch fire, to burn unquenchably.

These studies are not realistic. They do not reflect every-day hazards our dry casks, spent fuel pools, and spent fuel transportation vehicles can experience. They are LIES.

So that's the first reason that Obama's "stop-work" order regarding Yucca Mountain is insufficient and thus, illogical and dangerous.

The second reason is that the Yucca Mountain scientists were told they could come up with anything -- THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO STICK TO THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROPOSAL.

The Yucca Mountain team considered deep sea disposal (no retrieval if it isn't working), space-based disposal (way, way, WAY too risky), different kinds of geological burial and ice burial (it would -- duh -- melt the ice), and EVEN on-site storage.

In fact, the only thing they weren't allowed to study was a similar disposal plan in a different location.

Now remember, we had already spent tens of billions of dollars trying to solve the waste problem before Yucca Mountain was first picked as the nation's ONLY nuclear waste repository. And we've spent around $100 billion altogether now, and Obama wants us to start the whole search over again, as if no progress had ever been made?

As Thomas Edison famously said, we've learned thousands of things that don't work. In terms of nuclear waste storage, we've learned that vitrification doesn't work, storage tanks don't work, pools don't work, casks don't work, nothing works. And so-called "recycling" or reprocessing is a hoax -- a dirty way to get bomb-grade isotopes and some very dirty reactor fuel called MOX out of the waste stream.

But the questions is: Why haven't we learned to stop making more nuclear waste? (The answer is greed.)

And the third reason Obama's logic has a serious fallacy is that there is NO safe solution because of sound scientific reasons. ANY containment would be destroyed by the radiation contained within. A simple look at any energy spectrum diagram shows the problem quite clearly.

So what CAN you do besides, as the saying goes, "truck it 50 miles onto Indian territory and dump it!"

The only logical thing to do right now is to stop making more waste.

Instead (for example), at the South Texas Project (STP) nuclear facility, the French government, in collusion with the nuclear power plant's current owners and other local businesses, is planning to build two new and very large nuclear reactors. This isn't to save money for the local residents, it's to make money for the local businesses, at the EXPENSE of the local residents -- and all others. Making more of the very waste we already have no idea what to do with is how AREVA / EDF / FRANCE will make money and, perhaps more importantly for them, CONVINCE CHINA to also buy some of the same reactors.

What they are doing is a simple and well-known technique: They go to China and say, "See what a GREAT IDEA THIS IS -- after all, they're doing it in Texas!" and at the exact same time, they go to Texas and say, "See what a GREAT IDEA THIS IS -- after all, they're doing it in China!"

Meanwhile, they tell the whole world, "See what a GREAT IDEA THIS IS -- after all, they're doing it in both the United States and in China! So obviously, it MUST be a good idea!"

So you see, we have to stop STP. Not just the two proposed new reactors, but the currently-operating reactors, too, which are producing waste with nowhere to store it. Even in a state as big as Texas.

Texas has wind. Texas has solar. Texas has rivers. Texas even has oil. What do they need nuclear for?

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

************************************************

Resolution against the use of new nuclear power plants to solve America's energy problems -- PLEASE FORWARD!

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:04:00 +0000

February 22nd, 2009

Dear Readers,

The enclosed Resolution Against the Use of New Nuclear Power Plants to Solve America's Energy Problems passed this weekend (Feb. 20-21, 2009) at a meeting of the California-Pacific Conference of the United Methodist Church, Conference Board of Church and Society. The Resolution was presented by Peter Moore-Kochlacs. Peter then took the document to Washington, where he is right now, presented it to 25 people from various interfaith groups, and plans to present it to Congressional aides this Monday (February 23, 2009).

I am deeply honored to have had a part in the creation of the Resolution, along with many other people, and I hope it will be widely distributed and endorsed. If you, or any group you are associated with, endorses this Resolution, please contact Peter and let him know:

"Peter Moore-Kochlacs" <PeterEco@aol.com>

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resolution against the use of new nuclear power plants to solve America's energy problems
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whereas the Bible is clear that we are not to pollute our neighborhoods, the planet, and the poor, but are to be good stewards of all (Genesis 2:15, Isaiah 24, Jeremiah 4:2&7,Micah 6:6-8 & Matthew 22:36-40), and

Whereas the building of nuclear power plants, the generation of nuclear power and the plant�s radiation byproducts have been proven to be very unhealthy to life, and

Whereas, every step in the nuclear process is fossil-fuel intensive, including mining, milling, fuel fabrication, building the power plants, and even operating them -- let alone the fossil fuel and other resources which will be needed to care for the used reactor cores after they have been irradiated inside the reactor, and

Whereas, the only safe nuclear power plant is one that does not exist, since no human structure (e.g. underground storage facilities, kick and roll burial of �low level� radioactive materials) can withstand the forces of nature, and

Whereas, every step in the nuclear process is not only fossil-fuel intensive, but terribly polluting in its own right, starting with leakages of radioactive radon gas from the mine tailings, to the radioactive "shine" which emanates from the spent fuel casks, despite several feet of concrete and several inches of steel, and

Whereas, our children are 100 to 1000 times more susceptible to radiation poison damage than adults, and

Whereas, thousands of diseases which are caused or enhanced or exacerbated by radiation are so much worse for children who have no voice or vote, and

Whereas, there is a very sound scientific reason why nearly $100 billion dollars in research funding so far has produced nothing in the way of safe containments for nuclear waste (the scientific reason being that radioactive decay is far stronger than any chemical bond in nature -- known or postulated), and

Whereas, money spent on nuclear power will buy, at most, half the number of jobs that money spent in developing and building cleaner energy sources, such as wind power, would buy, and the new energy would be delivered as much as ten years sooner, and

Whereas, the nuclear industry is incapable of purchasing insurance on the open market, because the size of a catastrophe would bankrupt any and all insurance agencies, and

Whereas, the Government does not provide adequate insurance (the Price-Anderson Act is a hollow shell which would hardly compensate any one after an accident); those few who would receive anything, would get fractions of a penny on the dollar, and

Whereas, every operating nuclear power plant produces isotopes of plutonium and hydrogen and other elements which are the raw materials of nuclear bombs, and

Whereas, every operating nuclear power plant has a list of security and safety violations, which if fully known and understood by the public, would create such an outcry that all current nuclear power plants would likely be shut down, and

Therefore, be it resolved that the California Pacific Conference Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church insist that the United States Federal Government provide that no government money be invested in any nuclear power technology, except as maybe necessary to pay for shutting down the current nuclear power plants as quickly as possible and caring for their waste in as safe as possible a manner, and

Therefore, be it further resolved that we oppose the building of any new nuclear power plants, their funding, or their approval and that the currently operating plants be closed as soon as feasible, and

Therefore, be it further resolved that people who have already been harmed by nuclear power be both identified and compensated as best as possible, and

Therefore, be it further resolved that cleaner energy alternatives such as solar, wind, geo-thermal (atmospheric vortex engines, ocean thermal energy conversion, low flow rate undersea turbines) and other workable and sustainable clean energy solutions be invested in by our Federal Government, instead of Nuclear Power Plants, and

Therefore, be it finally resolved that this resolution be presented to members of the US Congress, other government bodies, public policy organizations, religious bodies and congregations of faith across the United States and World for their information and hopeful affirmation of it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose About Nuclear Crimes
High and Low, Large and Small,
Far and Wide
Free download: www.acehoffman.org

Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
email: ace@acehoffman.org
------------------------------------------------

#1 with a bullet: Tritium

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:54:00 +0000

February 15th, 2009

Dear Readers,

Wal-Mart has lost 15,800 tritium-based emergency-exit signs.

That's enough tritium to make more than a few dirty bombs. In fact, you can pretty easily make 15,800 dirty bombs with it. Okay, dirty grenades. Dirty little land mines. Poison gas bombs.

Most of these missing signs are probably being properly used, albeit in improper places -- as exit signs elsewhere, to comply with various fire safety laws. But some of them are undoubtedly being disposed of improperly, too.

No one knows where they all are. The Star of Toronto published a very informative article today, with lots of good information about tritium generally (shown below). But its author has only written that tritium is "potentially dangerous." Tritium -- radioactive hydrogen -- is very, very dangerous.

Hydrogen, element #1 in the Periodic Table, is the most common element in our bodies, on earth, and in the universe. But tritium has an extra two neutrons in its nucleus, in addition to the single proton all hydrogen has (some hydrogen has one neutron, which is called deuterium and is also stable, like normal hydrogen, which is the lightest, smallest element, and normally has no neutrons in its nucleus).

When tritium decays, on average 12.3 years after it happens to be created, it shoots off a beta particle, which is a high-speed electron. High speed means "a significant fraction of the speed of light." Beta particles are extremely dangerous little bullets, mainly because they have a charge of one negative electron volt.

Initially -- when it first escapes the nucleus of the radioactive hydrogen atom (which becomes a stable isotope of helium, with two protons and one neutron) -- the "beta particle" (the high-speed electron) is actually relatively harmless. It is very light compared to atoms, and very small, and moving so fast that its electrical charge does not have TIME as it passes things, to have much effect on anything it passes.

It is only when a beta particle SLOWS DOWN that it starts to hang around long enough to cause significant trouble. The slower the beta particle is when it passes things, the more TIME it has to knock other electrons off of atoms, thus ionizing them, or to spin the atoms of delicate protein molecules into unknown and useless configurations (perhaps these damaged proteins were "signal molecules" that control millions of other molecules in your body). All beta decay particles are dangerous, but the fact that tritium's beta particle is described by pro-nukers as "low-energy" doesn't make it less dangerous than any other beta decay particle.

Tritium is not merely "potentially dangerous." Tritium is one of the most dangerous substances on earth. It requires about 13,000,000,000 (13 billion) gallons of water to dilute the tritium released from a typical American nuclear power plant every year (about 1,000 Curies) to the current (outrageously too high) EPA standard of 20,000 picoCuries per liter of drinking water. Canadian CANDU reactors release about twenty times more tritium than American reactors, and could not operate under the tighter U.S. standards. If an American nuclear power plant releases even a gram (10,000 Curies) of tritium in a single year, they'd probably need a special permit (they'd get it).

And yet, we are told by pro-nukers only that tritium has "a low-energy beta decay" and that it is a "natural isotope already found on earth." They'll tell us that it is released only in "minute" quantities by nuclear power plants "during their routine operation." But every plant has years with excessive tritium releases -- perhaps 10 times the normal annual amount. No member of the public will be told, and the news media will not be issued a press release. Some of the data might eventually appear in some of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's obscure, but publicly-accessible databases, usually months later, but the actual quantity of tritium released will only be estimated, because, inevitably, gauges don't work, records are lost, calibration wasn't done within the proper time limit, and, of course -- THE NEEDLES PEGGED DURING THE EVENT.

It happens all the time.

A better way to describe tritium than to call it "harmless" (as pro-nukers actually have been quoted in the papers as saying) would be to say this: Tritium is radioactive hydrogen, the most pervasive of all radioactive isotopes created in nuclear fission reactors. Tritium is rarely found in nature, but the world is flooded with it every day by nuclear reactors, especially the CANDU reactors. The nuclear industry knows there is NO WAY to prevent the release of most of this radioactive hydrogen, so they call its radioactive decay a "low energy beta decay" so the victim thinks it is harmless. It's 'low' only compared to other beta decays created by other fission products of reactors. Its energy can (and will) break thousands of bonds in your body. It's not 'low' energy at all compared to your biological structures (or to steel structures, for that matter), but the industry MUST lie about 'tritium' (radioactive hydrogen) to operate. Otherwise it would have to shut down. So it lies, without hesitation and in most cases, without the pro-nuker even understanding that something with a 'low energy beta decay' is actually MORE dangerous per unit of energy released! They really don't even know that. But ignorance does not excuse criminal behavior.

In the Star article, one spokesperson for Wal-Mart claims they will no longer use tritium-based exit signs, but another spokesperson waters that claim down significantly. Part of the problem is that fire regulations require self-lighted exit signs but don't also state that those signs must NOT be made with tritium. Ignorance about tritium pervades (although the spokesperson from Greenpeace Canada, quoted in the article, is eloquent).

When tritium escapes into the environment, it cannot be smelled or tasted, or seen. Tritium usually binds with oxygen, creating tritiated water -- "HTO" (and, very rarely, T2O). Different isotopes of an element are indistinguishable by biological systems (and very difficult to isolate). Tritium also binds with many other elements. No matter how tritium gets out of the reactor and into your body, it becomes part of the biosphere's inventory of poisons, which kills and debilitates, without compensation for the victims, or punishment for the perpetrators.

All countries which operate nuclear reactors turn a blind eye to the devastation caused by tritium. They have to, to continue releasing this deadly poison which they MUST do to operate. So, tritium's very limited service as a diagnostic tool in hospitals is touted, although in fact, tritium is NOT used if an alternative can be found, precisely because it is so "wicked."

Regulations regarding tritium are lax, enforcement is lax, permissible standards are lax, proper measurements of existing tritium "hot spots" are lax, and in every way, reasonable concern for the protection of life, especially infants, babies, fetuses, zygotes, sperm and egg, etc., is very, VERY lax.

Releasing tritium into the environment IS murder.

Sincerely

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

My 2007 essay on tritium:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environment/tritium/2007/ItsAllAboutTheDNA.htm

My 2006 essay (includes a glossary and some background):
http://animatedsoftware.com/environment/tritium/2006/EPATritiumStandard.htm

My first tritium essay (2004):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/2004/TritiumComments%2020041223.htm

My Animated Periodic Table of the Elements:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/elearning/Periodic%20Table/AnimatedPeriodicTable.swf
Password: NO NUKES!!
Login ID: anything

--------------------------------------------------------------------

At 08:53 AM 2/15/2009 -0500, "Tim Seitz" sent:
>http://www.thestar.com/business/article/587906
>
>Wal-Mart's glow-in-the-dark mystery
>
>TheStar.com - Business -
>
>Wal-Mart's glow-in-the-dark mystery
>Retail giant can't account for 15,800 of its exit signs that contain a potentially dangerous radioactive gas
>February 15, 2009
>Tyler Hamilton
>BUSINESS REPORTER
>
>It began in late 2007 as a routine audit. Retail giant Wal-Mart noticed that some exit signs at the company's stores and warehouses had gone missing.
>
>As the audit spread across Wal-Mart's U.S. operations, the mystery thickened. Stores from Arkansas to Washington began reporting missing signs. They numbered in the hundreds at first, then the thousands. Last month Wal-Mart disclosed that about 15,800 of its exit signs – a stunning 20 per cent of its total inventory – are lost, missing, or otherwise unaccounted for at 4,500 facilities in the United States and Puerto Rico.
>
>Poor housekeeping, certainly, but what's the big deal?
>
>In a word: radiation.
>
>The signs contain tritium gas, a radioactive form of hydrogen. Tritium glows when it interacts with phosphor particles, a phenomenon that has led to the creation of glow-in-the-dark emergency exit signs.
>
>It's estimated there are more than 2 million tritium-based exit signs in use across North America.
>
>It turns out that Ontario-based companies SRB Technologies (Canada) Inc. of Pembroke and Shield Source Inc. of Peterborough have sold the lion's share of these signs, which use tritium produced as a by-product from the operation of Canadian-made Candu nuclear reactors.
>
>The health effects of tritium exposure continue to be a hot topic of debate. It's not strong enough to penetrate the skin, and in low quantities regulators and industry groups say tritium is safe. But when inhaled or ingested it can cause permanent changes to cells and has been linked to genetic abnormalities, developmental and reproductive problems and other health issues such as cancer.
>
>"The problem is that because it's hydrogen it can actually become part of your body," says Shawn-Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace Canada. "The radiation doesn't emit far, but when it actually becomes part of your cell it's right next to your DNA. So for a pregnant woman, for example, it can be really dangerous."
>
>General exposure from one broken sign might be the equivalent of getting up to three chest X-rays, even though today we no longer give pregnant women X-rays. If tritium is ingested, for example, by a child who breaks a sign with a hockey stick, it's much more potent. If only 5 per cent of the tritium in a large exit sign is ingested, it would be equivalent to 208 years of natural background radiation, according to a report from the Product Stewardship Institute at the University of Massachusetts.
>
>And what about exposure from thousands of signs dumped near a source of drinking water, or packed with explosives in the back of a truck that has been driven into a crowded building?
>
>"I'm sure thousands of them would create a credible dirty bomb," says Norm Rubin, director of nuclear research at Energy Probe in Toronto. "Most experts think the main purpose of a dirty bomb is to cause panic, disruption and expensive cleanup rather than lots of dead bodies. A bunch of tritium, especially if oxidized in an explosion, would probably do that job fine."
>
>Tritium is also a component in nuclear warheads. In 2005, SRB Technologies got permission from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to export 70,000 of its tritium exit signs to Iran. Foreign Affairs Canada blasted the regulator for allowing shipment to a country that's attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction. The shipment went through.
>
>South of the border, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission appears more concerned with tritium contamination of landfills and the threat of leaching into drinking water. The agency regulates the use of tritium devices, requiring the reporting of lost, stolen or broken property and proper cleanup and disposal.
>
>"Throughout the whole process we stayed in very close contact with the NRC and received their guidance," said Wal-Mart spokesperson Daphne Davis Moore. "We no longer use these signs in our stores."
>
>Wal-Mart's poor recordkeeping was a wake-up call for the nuclear agency, which in January sternly reminded users of the signs of their regulatory obligations. At the same time, it assured the public there's nothing to worry about.
>
>Still, the agency was concerned enough to demand that any organization possessing 500 or more tritium exit signs conduct audits and report their findings within 60 days. The list included Home Depot, AMC Theatres and a number of universities and schools.
>
>Wal-Mart Canada says it has a few tritium exit signs in most of its stores. "We've gone back over our records and have not found any reason for concern," said spokesperson Kevin Groh. "We are doing an audit to get an accurate inventory." The difference, in Canada, is they don't have to do it. Users of the signs are not licensed in Canada as long as the product is properly marked as radioactive, according to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. This makes it difficult to determine exactly how many tritium signs exist in Canada and where they end up.
>
>Stensil of Greenpeace said it's a strange way for a government to treat a radioactive device, but he's not surprised. He said the federal government has always had lax rules when it comes to tritium, partly because Canada, through its Candu nuclear plants, is one of the biggest producers of the substance in the world.
>
>Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, who teaches environmental health at the University of Toronto, said there's a double standard in Canada when it comes to regulating tritium. Permissible levels in drinking water here are 100 times greater than in Europe and more than 400 times greater than in California.
>
>She was shocked when told about the 15,800 missing tritium signs at Wal-Mart, but even more surprised to learn that use of such signs isn't tracked or monitored in Canada.
>
>"Most people haven't even heard of tritium," she lamented.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tell the children: Radiation kills -- I've lost 1000 years' worth of friends to it.

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:03:00 +0000

February 10th, 2009

Dear Readers,

Over the weekend, I was asked over to a neighbor's house to help with some of the kids' science projects. Seventh graders: Bubbling, bright, and full of life.

"Oh, wow!" I exclaimed. "A DNA molecule! It's beautiful!"

Needless to say, that was EXACTLY what they wanted to hear -- instant recognition of those two spiraling arms and the four-colored cross-bracing. And it WAS a beautiful model, made with pipe cleaners they had bought at the 99 cents store.

I told the children: "There are about three billion of those cross-braces in each DNA strand, and the whole thing curls around on itself into a tiny clump, or it would be this long." I stretched out both my arms.

"There are somewhere between 10 trillion and 100 trillion copies of that molecule inside your body, depending on who you ask, and how big you are" I added.

All they actually needed was a strong glue. I brought over one that was non-toxic, dries clear, and "bonds most anything." Then I helped hold the model steady while the glue set.

Children are our future. They can be educated, or they can be left to discover whatever truths they can find, without our help. Or, we can lie to them, and make their search for truth just that much more difficult. Those are really the only choices. They WILL search for the truth. They will try to learn everything we know, and more.

I have tried to condense what I have learned into shorter, more concise forms of information transfer, so others can learn the same things -- the important things I learned (sometimes painfully) -- faster (and more easily).

We are each and every one of us in a race -- against death. Sure, we all lose in the end. But the idea is to keep the end as far away and as pleasant as possible. Not just far away. And not just a pleasant, die-in-your-sleep, painless, non-narcotic death. That should come AFTER 100 years. Anything less than that, and you have surely been robbed.

Forget the "averages." Those include the nearly-always doomed cigarette smokers, the many other unlucky cancer victims, the weak, the accident-prone, the slovenly, the gluttonous. Surely not you or me!

If nothing kills you, you CAN live to be 100! If young people believed it, and didn't eat poisons such as fast foods or your standard school lunch, and didn't kill each other with guns, cars, pills, dares, and diets, many of them, even in THIS polluted world, WOULD live to be 100!

But even if we could do everything perfectly, and eat only raw veggies and so on, we might still get poisoned to death by our environment. For example, I shouldn't live so close to the train tracks, leaking who-knows-what from their chemical cars and diesel fumes from their engines (which should, of course, be electric, or perhaps hydrogen-powered).

If stopping nuclear power is impossible, then the human race is doomed. All large, long-lived, non-conglomerate creatures will die -- oh sure, some massive array of fungus might still be a "large creature" by some definition, but blue whales, horses, humans, goats, cats, rats and elephants will all be gone.

Radiation destroys organization at all levels. Its gross damage can be obvious, Its cellular damage is not. Its magnitude (energy level) can be roughly -- only roughly -- predicted. Its direction or moment of occurrence cannot be predicted in any way, except statistically (which is irrelevant on an individual basis).

Radiation kills.

Its heat is the energy, the fire, the ruckus at the atomic level, the molecular level, the microscopic, hidden level. We die of the result, be we don't see or feel (or smell, or taste) the assault itself.

Some people can turn their heads and pretend no harm is done -- not even to a fetus, whose cells will replicate (some of them) tens of thousands of times, and differentiate, and be the parent cells of billions of cells.

These cells need YOUR protection. Our fetuses cannot speak for themselves, and nor can our past and gone activists.

We lost four great ones recently: Pamela Blockey-O'Brien, Oscar Shirani, Wendy MacLeod-Gilford, and Ross Wilcock. Below are obituaries for each of these wonderful people. Above them is something that we need to do as soon as possible.

I have lost so many friends. These four alone, I have known for a total of over 50 years! Pamela and I co-authored dozens of essays, though we decided to credit only one of them to us jointly -- The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, which is probably the most widely-distributed essay on the subject in the world. Sadly, I never met her in person, but we talked for hundreds of hours on the phone (she had essentially no computer access; so we never emailed).

With the loss of these giants, the rest of us will simply have to work harder. A lot, lot harder.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

Included below:

1) Call your Congresspeople! by Harvey Wasserman
2) Call your Congresspeople! by NIRS
3) Pamela Blockey-O'Brien, Peace and Nuclear Activist
4) Oscar Shirani, Nuclear Industry Whistleblower
5) Wendy Macleod-Gilford, Nuclear Activist
6) Ross Wilcock, Retired Pathologist and Nuclear Activist
7) Contact information for Ace Hoffman

==============================================================================
1) THE MELTDOWN YOU STOP MAY BE YOUR OWN! A PLEA FROM HARVEY WASSERMAN:
==============================================================================

by Harvey Wasserman

>Why is that $50 billion radioactive antique toilet still in the stimulus bill?
>February 10, 2009
>
>The infamous $50 billion nuke power loan guarantee package meant to use your money to build new nuke reactors has gone missing from saturation media coverage of Obama's Stimulus Package. But it's still in the Senate version of the bill, it could be voted on this week, and it could kill us all.
>
>Like that $30,000 antique toilet that disappeared into the banking bailout, the corporate media carries not a word about this gargantuan handout to the dying reactor industry. All the hype about a "nuclear renaissance" will come to naught without this massive taxpayer handout. But if it goes through, the landscape could be pock marked with lethal new nukes.
>
>We have days---maybe hours---to stop it. While aid programs to the states, for education and the truly needy are slashed, this gargantuan boondoggle is poised to sail through with virtually no public knowledge.
>
>The loan guarantee package was slipped into the Senate version of the Stimulus Bill by Senator Robert Bennet (R-UT) who proceeded to vote against the overall package. It is not currently in the House version.
>
>As the two bills are reconciled, armies of radioactive lobbyists will be marching through the Halls of Congress. They know Wall Street will never pay for new nukes, so that leaves…you and me!
>
>The estimated price of building new reactors has nearly tripled since the beginning of 2007. It is virtually certain to at least double again before any new nuke could come on line, which could not happen in less than a decade.
>
>Reactors built from the 1960s to now came on line an average of 200% and more over budget. A French-based reactor construction project in Finland has soared more than $2 billion over budget and is more than two years behind schedule. The Government Accountability Project warns that at least half those who build new reactors are likely to plunge into bankruptcy. To this day the industry cannot get private insurance to cover the full potential liability of a reactor catastrophe.
>
>But Bennett's maneuver, supported by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) would divert billions away from renewables and efficiency, and into these failed terror targets.
>
>Calls and letters are desperately needed to the Congressional leadership---NOW!--- to flush this horrific boondoggle out of the stimulus package. With White House pressure mounting to get it passed this week, every minute counts.
>
>Numerous major national environmental organizations offer websites from which to sign on and send letters, including www.nirs.org , www.beyondnuclear.org and www.nukefree.org. The Congressional phone line is 202-224-3121 or (toll free) 800-962-3524.
>
>Do not hesitate: the melt-down you prevent could otherwise kill you; the money re-directed to green alternatives could save our planet…and our economy.
>
>--
>Harvey Wasserman edits http://NukeFree.org. His SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth is at http://solartopia.org. This article was originally published by http://freepress.org.

=================================================
2) CALL TO STOP THE BAILOUT! A PLEA FROM NIRS:
=================================================

CONTACT YOUR HOUSE MEMBER:

LET'S STOP THE $50 BILLION NUCLEAR/COAL BAILOUT!

February 9, 2009

Dear Friend,

We have now confirmed that the "compromise" Senate stimulus bill still contains the $50 Billion pre-emptive bailout for the dangerous and dirty nuclear power and coal industries.

But as we've noted before, the version passed by the House of Representatives does not include this provision.

Now we need to ensure that the House position prevails in the final negotiations over the two versions. Please send a letter to your House member now by clicking here:

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/t/4100/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1057

And then please call your member at 202-224-3121.

We've been getting more than 1200 letters per day into the Senate! Now let's turn that focus to the House. Note: this letter is new, so even if you've sent a letter to your Representative already, please send the new one too.

And, please forward this Alert to all of your mailing lists, friends, colleagues. Put it up on blogs, Facebook and Myspace pages, and everywhere you communicate.

Let's make clear we're not willing to be the bankers of last resort for new nuclear reactors and coal plants. Nor do we want more dangerous radioactive waste and dirty coal ash piling up in our communities.

Thank you to the thousands and thousands of you who have acted so far in this campaign--your response has been amazing! But your help is needed even more now. Congress is trying to finish the stimulus bill this week--our actions now can make the difference! Click the above URL to send your message to your Representative.

After you do that, please consider making a small donation to help us pay for this campaign. Your help is needed and gratefully appreciated.

Thanks for all you do,

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
nirsnet@nirs.org
www.nirs.org

=================================================
3) Pamela Blockey-O'Brien, Peace and Nuclear Activist:
=================================================

Pamela Blockey-O'Brien was introduced to me in the mid 1990s by another activist who had met both of us and thought we should join up. We were joined at the hip ever since. It was the best thing that could have happened to me: Pamela knew everything I wanted to learn, she could give me hours and hours of her time, she kept meticulous records and could dig them up and quote them to me for use in an essay, and she could write some of the most technical nuke jargon you've ever seen -- easily keeping up with (and surpassing) the "big boys" in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the "Death of the Earth Squad" (DOE) as she liked to call them.

Whether it was cracked shrouds encircling embrittled reactor pressure vessels, or tritium-triggered aging nukes, Pamela always had a good grasp of both the engineering details and the potential biological consequences. Often she would call me up, terrified over some newly-reported nuclear horror, and together, over the phone, we would cobble together a report. Or I would call her with a nearly-completed essay, and we would spend the next three hours on the phone finishing it. "Okay, now read the whole thing to me again." "From the beginning?" "Yes." She had seemingly infinite patience with me, and we were both perfectionists. The story had to be right. The facts had to be right. The conclusion had to be right. She would call me a few hours later. "Did you send it yet?" "No, I'm still editing it." "Good! I was thinking, we should add...." and off we'd go again.

Pamela Blockey-O'Brien was an environmentalist and human rights activist. She was known worldwide since the early 1960s for her courageous work in South Africa and elsewhere around the world on human rights, hunger, the needs of children, and also against nuclear weapons and nuclear waste, as well as other global issues including chemical and biological weapons, disarmament and toxic waste health effects. She was a member of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest interreligious pacifist organization in the world. (IFR has had at least SEVEN Nobel peace prize winners in its ranks since its inception.)

Pamela was a smoker; her asthma finally caught up with the COPD. She was in the hospital for a week, and they thought she would come out, but a severe asthma attack put her in a coma, and ten minutes later it was all over.

Below is a clip from a longer statement by Pamela, showing her typical attempt at trying to explain how bad it is EVERYWHERE. She knew who was killing us and wanted us to know, too. Perhaps it ran in her veins to do so: Her father was a British Pathfinder during World War II (he did not survive the war; the plane he was in was lost over the Channel). I'm sure he would have been very proud of his daughter.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT RADIATION, NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS, RADIATION EXPOSURE AND "ALARA" ["As Low As Reasonably Achievable"].

What governments and industry don't want the public to know.

By Pamela Blockey-O'Brien (Member I.F.O.R.)

Contrary to popular belief, the entire nuclear fuel cycle -- from mining of uranium to transportation of nuclear materials, to manufacture of nuclear weapons/projectiles/so-called "depleted uranium" armor piercing munitions, to nuclear power plant and nuclear research reactors--emits DEADLY RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINANTS TO AIR, SOIL, VEGETATION AND WATER.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Pamela was great at finding quotes from industry experts, which are particularly hard for industry experts to deny. She would read them to me, and I would type them in. We agonized over making sure there were ZERO transcription errors every time. Here's an example of what it brought forth:

----- CLIP FROM W. W. SCHUTZ, GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, 1951 -----

"It is possible to eliminate certain hazards by suitable physical or chemical treatments. Harmful bacteria can be destroyed by heat or by suitable chemicals. An acid can be neutralized by a base. A capacitor can be discharged. In contrast to this, there is nothing that can be done to a radioactive material that will change the characteristics of its radiation. Its temperature may be raised or lowered and it may be subjected to severe mechanical treatment or combined chemically with other elements, but it will still continue to radiate as before. There is no switch available which can turn the radiation on and off. No matter what treatment they receive, radioactive materials will continue to emit radiation in accordance with definite natural laws."

-- From: Radiation and Radiation Hazards, by W. W. Schutz of the General Engineering Laboratory of the General Electric Company, written in 1951.

----- END OF CLIP -----

Added Pamela, "All 'dilution' in water does, for example, is spread it around."

In the next few months, I will have the opportunity to meet Pamela's husband, daughters, and grandchildren, and to go through Pamela's voluminous historic records. I was SUPPOSED to go film a documentary, but time ran out. Pamela was 65. Services will be Friday.

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

=============================================================
4) Oscar Shirani, nuclear industry whistleblower:
=============================================================

Oscar Shirani, who sacrificed his career to bring attention to faulty nuclear industry practices, passed away unexpectedly on December 24, 2008. He was only 52 and was diagnosed with a brain tumor just six days earlier. He will be dearly missed by his family, by me and, I'm sure, by many others.

Being 52 as well, and a cancer survivor (2007: bladder cancer), Oscar's death would hit me hard even if we hadn't been friends. But we must have talked at least a dozen times, and we met in Chicago years ago. From the first time he contacted me, I knew I was talking to an engineer's engineer. The best of the best. Shirani and I were instantly close, and I will always miss him. In October 2008, he provided some text about himself for the page on whistleblowers (he is one of seven mentioned specifically) in my book about nuclear dangers, THE CODE KILLERS.

Oscar Shirani was one of the most honest gentlemen I have ever met, with a delightful, bubbling, infectious personality, and he was surely one of the most principled, and one of the most abused (for holding steadfast to those principles) as well.

He worked in the nuclear industry for decades, and he may have believed right until the end that a properly-run nuclear industry could co-exist with humans on this earth (I think / hope that I was convincing him otherwise, over time). But, I know he also believed the current generation(s) of nuclear proponents are a bunch of lying, cheating scoundrels who would -- in his own words -- "sell their mothers for money." His testimonies were devastating to the nuclear industry -- or should have been.

I think it is important that we recall how hopeless Shirani thought the possibility of fixing the current problems with the nuclear industry really was. Perhaps in a perfect world, he would still have supported nuclear power. But he knew we were not going to get there with ANY of the current nuclear power plants OR nuclear engineers -- and that the dry casks we are using are genocidal -- so poorly built, so global in their potential devastation. He knew all this.

In the email that notified me of Oscar's death, Shirani's daughter Portia linked to an NEIS interview on CAN-TV. The full interview is available at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1770087398372293956

In the introduction to the video, Dave Kraft describes Oscar Shirani as "a pro-nuclear safety advocate." Then, Oscar describes his 25-year history of working in the nuclear industry as a structural engineer. He adds that he was actively involved with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for the past 12 years, and had presented ASME-sponsored workshops for training engineers all around the world. Kraft describes Shirani as "pro-nuclear, BUT [Kraft's emphasis] a safety advocate" to which Shirani says: "yes, that's exactly right."

The rest of the interview is about the horrific problems Shirani had, trying to alert the NRC, his bosses, and, eventually, anyone who would listen (since the NRC and his (eventually former) bosses wouldn't) to the "major problems in the design, and especially the welding" of critical components in the nuclear industry.

He then describes the stop-work he obtained against General Electric in 1997 (G.E. builds more reactors than anyone). Shirani had found serious "design flaws in all the documentation.... If my managers had let me, I could have shut down all the boiling water reactors in Illinois and everywhere."

He soon discovered -- was shown -- many of the ways the nuclear industry tries to destroy people like him -- honest people who realize there are problems involving public safety. It usually works, but Shirani fought back. In the nuclear industry, if you lie and support the industry no matter what they do wrong, no matter what crimes you see, you get promoted. If you're honest like Shirani, your career is destroyed, your authority is removed, and your reports are routinely denied, ignored, or simply lost as if they had never been written. You get transferred out of the nuclear division of the corporation, or fired, if you can't close your eyes to the problems you see. It's happened to thousands of people, but most just go away and carry on in their lives. Shirani wanted to correct the problems he found doing the job he had been assigned. That alone is enough to get you in trouble in the nuclear industry.

Shirani describes how he realized the entire nuclear industry was denying every safety issue: "design work had flaws, weld work had flaws... all the code violations for the layers of the welds were bypassing inspection ... NRC cannot sit face-to-face with me to prove that these casks are according to the codes." Meaning they are dangerous.

Then, talking about nuclear power plant upgrades, he explained that reactor operators are increasing the power by 20% by "eroding the safety margin that we [the engineers who designed the reactors] had built into the system." He describes increasing the power AND the lifespan as a "double-wammy" that squeezes more power out of the reactors, but at a greatly increased risk. He says the Department of Energy has the plants running for 60 years instead of 40 years (which, I should add, was instead of 20), the power upgrades, Yucca Mountain may never be built -- how is the industry going to keep going? Dry casks are the ONLY solution for the industry, and that's why his charges are being ignored, and records are being falsified to hide Shirani's findings. Because without dry casks, the industry dies.

If government and / or the nuclear industry addressed Shirani's issues properly, it would be enough to shut every nuclear power plant down until all-new components are designed, tested, built, tested, and then put into production. It would be decades into the future, and all the current nuclear workers would be gone. That's not a very "pro-nuclear" position, although it does leave some room for hope for the nuclear proponents. That door is closing because of medical issues -- through the back end, so to speak.

Tritium, released into the environment, may have been what killed Shirani, for example. What started his tumor -- what damaged his DNA. The brain is nothing but a thin shell (some skulls thicker than others) filled with water, and tritium gets everywhere hydrogen gets in your body -- which is everywhere (hydrogen is the "H" in H2O (water); tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen). Tritium's beta decay is called "weak" by the nuclear industry specifically to fool you, but it's decay is strong enough to destroy thousands of molecular bonds, and to ionize thousands of atoms in your body (in Shirani's brain). Each decay can do this, and there are millions of such decays going on every day in each of our brains, thanks to the nuclear industry (only a tiny amount of tritium is produced naturally). So the industry is not likely to ever win out. In the end, it MUST die -- or we all will.

Oscar Shirani always wanted to point out that he came from the industry and was "pro-nuclear" but he always was very, very careful to also point out that he was having an impossible time finding honest people in the nuclear industry, and he realized the industry cannot be run safely without a preponderance of honest people. He realized the industry literally kicked him out to silence him. He realized he had essentially no friends in the nuclear industry simply because he was honest. He realized he was a "whistleblower" who needed protection. He realized that he was "sacrificed" (his term) to protect the dry cask storage system that the nation uses, which would be shut down in a heartbeat if people in charge listened to the truths he spoke.

Shirani had many misgivings about the industry, and was learning about the biological side of the problems with nuclear power. "The nuclear disasters are something that we cannot afford to 'overwrite'" he said during the interview. We cannot fill out forms to make them safe. The inspections cannot be done on paper. Welds must really be x-rayed. Bolts must be tested to the point of failure. Calculations must be proven experimentally.

When Kraft asked, "what do you see as the future for nuclear power" he replied that "we need to put the pressure on the government to restructure the NRC" and called the nuclear companies "the Nuclear Mafia," and said the industry must be restructured "at any cost." He hopes that children will learn NOT to falsify their work. He points out that the NRC should be brought "to ... justice." He asks, "Do we want the Chernobyls to happen? Do we want millions of people dying and being scared? What's the cost of nuclear safety? I've seen the children of Chernobyl. We have an obligation." He adds, "Yes, I'm emotional. " He wanted to testify to Congress.

Oscar was in the hospital for about a week. The doctors thought they might be able to attack his tumor and he might live, but then he took a turn for the worse, and died within a day.

Shirani's death will certainly help guarantee a nuclear meltdown or spent fuel fire in America. Congress should have asked him to testify. They never ask nuclear whistleblowers to testify, though, let alone citizen-experts or activists. Shirani was robbed of his citizen's rights, as are we all.

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

Oscar Shirani, RIP: 01/29/1956-12/24/2008

=====================================================
5) Wendy Macleod-Gilford, Nuclear Activist:
=====================================================

Most sadly, British nuclear activist Wendy Macleod-Gilford also has passed on. She died late last year; of pain-induced and self-inflicted drowning, just a few days after my last communication with her (which, alas, was mainly about Dr. Wilcock's passing (see below)).

For many years, Wendy kept me informed about, and in touch with, British nuclear activists. In her last letter to me, she told me she just can't go on with activism anymore. Days later, on November 14th, 2008, she gave up the struggle entirely against the painful burning sensations of her skin condition, the inability to sleep through the pain (it was down to an hour a night), and other sufferings. She drove to where she and Mick Gilford were engaged, entered the water, and drowned. Wendy's car and belongings were discovered shortly thereafter; Mick had to "prepare for the worst" as the police put it.

Wendy's body was recovered from the Thames on December 20th. The services were January 2nd, 2009.

Wendy's many contributions to this newsletter and to the movement will be missed, but this author is glad she has surely found peace now.

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

=====================================================
6) Ross Wilcock, Retired Pathologist and Nuclear Activist:
=====================================================

The author also wishes to acknowledge, and mourn, the passing of dear Dr. Ross Wilcock.

Dr. Wilcock (MA, MB, B.Chir, (Cantab), FRCPath), was a retired pathologist. As far as I know, Ross was the first to describe "hot particles" as microscopic "land mines." Ross died of a heart attack September 25th, 2008. We had corresponded many times, starting during the Cassini battle. Ross was an intense lover of humanity, and worked tirelessly (perhaps too tirelessly) to protect it.

Below is part of one of my earliest correspondences with Ross, from 1997: He wrote:

"I have made a new contribution drawing a parallel between antipersonnel land-mines at one level and microscopic plutonium particles as 'cell-mines' - with perpetual anti-cellular activity in Nature."

I wrote back, asking permission to publish the entire article (which he gave me), and quoted my own newsletter from just a few weeks earlier (#29; I used to number them):

"Nanotechnology will never make a more vicious killing machine than a particle of plutonium 238. If it gets into your body those microscopic particles start tearing apart everything around them, bombarding surrounding cells with 'heavy' alpha particles (each has 2 protons [and two neutrons]; much heavier than beta particles). Sometimes they tear and damage chromosomes. Ripping yourself apart from the inside, even on a small, microscopic scale, is NOT a good thing!"

I added, "I have also made a number of statements over the years supporting a total ban on land mines..."

We were friends from then on.

Ross Wilcock was 68.

=====================================================
7) A brief closing comment:
=====================================================

None of us have forever to solve the world's problems, so we MUST work together, and help each other, and always do our best. Nevertheless, currently, we are losing ground, literally and rapidly. We are losing people. We are losing everything dear to us. And the Obama Administration wants to hand $50 billion dollars more to the nuclear industry, instead of killing it outright, as it should. Who is left to educate the new administration?

Nuclear power didn't kill all these wonderful people, and maybe even none of them, but it robbed them of a more productive life, as it has robbed me, and you, and so many others.

=====================================================
8) Contact information for Ace Hoffman:
=====================================================

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose About Nuclear Crimes
High and Low, Large and Small,
Far and Wide
Free download: www.acehoffman.org
Subscribe to my free newsletter today!
email: ace@acehoffman.org
------------------------------------------------

Stop $50 Billion Nuke Bailout by Harvey Wasserman; Nuke Jobs Stink! by Ace Hoffman

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:23:00 +0000

January 30th, 2009

Dear Readers,

By all means, CALL YOUR CONGRESSPEOPLE, as Harvey Wasserman suggests! I had the honor of looking at the draft of Harvey's statement, so I went ahead and called my Senator's office (they gave me Feinstein's when I called the Capital switchboard) before the lines got busy, and told them I was against ANY nuclear bailout, ever, and told them that the proper way to get energy is from OTEC and AVEs (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion and Atmospheric Vortex Engines) and that we need to close all the nuke plants. They don't even want your name, they don't care -- they just want to know you're in their Congressperson's district. At the end of the conversation, I said I was the author of "The Code Killers, which I sent the Senator a couple of months ago." but I didn't think he was even really writing anything down, except so he could keep the conversation going until I got as bored as he was and hung up. It took about three minutes, maybe less. I should follow it up by sending Feinstein a CURRENT copy of the book, since she got one of the earliest editions and there have been a lot of improvements (and more than a few typos corrected, and so forth)!

I also called the EPA last week -- and got bounced around from office to office a few times, and then left a brief message on somebody's machine, who never called me back, of course. But I think it was a pretty good message, if they actually listened. "Please let me know what scientific studies were used for these extraordinary increases in allowable limits for Cesium-137, Strontium-90, Tritium and so on." That sort of thing. Maybe it helped -- maybe I got sent to the right person. Anyway, something worked for that one item, that one time, but stopping the nuke bailout? It cannot be stopped forever unless we stop the whole wicked system.

Either we (the taxpayers) give them money, or they won't be able to build new nukes. They have no choice -- nuclear power is not economically viable. Our government has been nuke-crazed for too long. It hurts to see the Obama Administration pick up where Bush left off on an issue as important as funding for new nuclear power plants. But we all had a warning, what with his coming from nuke-happy Illinois and making vague remarks about nuclear being "part of the mix." I grieve to see so many people -- including, I think, Obama himself, who surely is a good man -- misled by the nuclear industry into believing it is safe, cost-effective, or necessary.

Yours,

Ace

Included below:

1) Article by Harvey Wasserman
2) Letter from Ace Hoffman to Mark Haim
3) Mark Haim's request for information

-----------------------------------------------------
(1) A $50 Billion Nuke Power Bomb is Dropping Toward Obama's Stimulus Package by Harvey Wasserman:
-----------------------------------------------------

The desperate, dangerous nuclear power industry has dropped a $50 billion
stealth bomb meant to irradiate the Obama Stimulus Package.

It comes in the form of a mega-loan guarantee package that would build new
reactors Wall Street wouldn't finance even when it had cash. It will take a
healthy dose of citizen action to stop it, so start calling your Senators
now.

The vaguely worded bailout-in-advance provision was snuck through the Senate
Appropriations Committee in the deep night of January 27. It would provide
$50 billion in loan guarantees for "eligible technologies" that would
technically include renewable sources and electric transmission. But the
handout is clearly directed at nukes and "clean coal."

The Stimulus Package is explicitly meant to create jobs within the next two
years. But according to sources at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, no
new reactors could be licensed for construction within that time. Nor could
any new coal plants. And thus the funds in this rider are to "remain
available until committed." That means their "stimulus" might not go into
effect for many years.

But the nuclear industry does have the ability to spend large sums of money
on "site preparation" and other busy work prior to being licensed. Though
the guarantees could technically be used for truly green sources such as
wind and solar, the provision's backers, including Senators Robert Bennett
(R-UT) and Thomas Carper (D-DE), have made it clear that this money is meant
to go for new reactor construction.

In late 2007, nuclear power's Congressional Godfather, then-Sen. Pete
Domenici (R-NM), stuck a similar $50 billion loan guarantee package into
that year's energy bill. A grassroots uprising, joined by virtually all
national environmental organizations, helped defeat the package. Among
other things, the fight inspired a music video from Bonnie Raitt, Jackson
Browne, Graham Nash, Keb Mo and Ben Harper (www.nukefree.org).

In late 2008 the industry came back again with a blank check package that
went down in flames along with the stock market.

Still unable to get private financing, the industry is back yet again. In
the interim, the projected cost of building new reactors has soared to more
than $10 billion each, and continues to climb steadily. Many of the
previous generation of reactors came in hugely over budget. According to
the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, one DOE study places the overall
average overruns at 207%. But reactor projects such as Seabrook, in New
Hampshire, New York's Shoreham, Pennsylvania's Beaver Valley, California's
Diablo Canyon, and many others, far exceeded that.

The Congressional Budget Office now predicts that half the nuclear utilities
using such a loan program will go into default. Some $18.5 billion in loan
guarantees has already been approved, apparently for such use. But its
legality is being hotly disputed, and the money has not been distributed by
the Department of Energy.

Washington insiders believe this latest attempt at a pre-arranged bailout
has again come from Domenici, who has stayed in Washington to lobby for his
radioactive benefactors after apparently retiring from the Senate in
January.

This guarantee package was not part of the Stimulus Package that passed the
House. Its secretive, late night inclusion on the Senate side is
reminiscent of how former Vice President Dick Cheney did business for the
fossil/nuclear corporations that funded much of the Bush
Administration. The reappearance of this kind of back door dealing has not
been well received, especially in the House.

Numerous national groups, including the Nuclear Information & Resource
Service (www.nirs.org) are providing sign-ins for sending e-mails to the
Senate. They also urge that you call your Senator at 202-224-3121.

Time is fast slipping by for the nuke power industry. As the popularity
of renewables and efficiency escalates, the most obvious source of new jobs
and prosperity has become truly green technologies. Atomic power has long
since been priced out of the market. Only massive federal and ratepayer
subsidies could bring it back, to the direct detriment of the revolution in
renewables.

Defeating this latest money grab will help drive another nail in the coffin
of the 20th century's most expensive failed technology. It is an essential
step toward a truly green-powered future.

-----------------------------------------
Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, is at
www.harveywasserman.com. He edits the NukeFree.org web site, and is senior
editor of www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared.

-----------------------------------------------------
(2) Nuke Jobs Stink! (Letter to Mark Haim regarding jobs in the nuclear industry):
-----------------------------------------------------

January 31st, 2009

Dear Sir,

Did you see the NIRS statement the other day with the figure of $1.5 million in investment money per job in the nuclear sector? That's way more than for solar, wind, or any renewable energy job, I'm sure!

I was talking to Bill Johnson yesterday, a retired physicist who lives near (and opposes) Calvert Cliffs, and he said that the U.S. government will NOT promise to remove ANY spent fuel waste from ANY new nuclear plants which might be constructed.

From a trade union perspective, this means there will almost surely be a few very dirty, very boring, very dangerous, very menial jobs which offer at best only mediocre pay and the most minimal benefits possible, so when you get cancer from that close exposure, the utility doesn't have to pay for your illness, let alone, when your family gets sick. There won't be enough security workers to stop an overwhelming terrorist force, let alone, a force of nature. These are certainly NOT good jobs for anyone, whether they are union jobs or not!

Good jobs are building things which last, which help the community, which you're proud of later. Nuclear jobs are nothing to be proud of, and nuclear employees have been "running scared," as whistleblower Bruce Gordon put it, for 30 years. Now, with all this talk of a nuclear renaissance, and $50 billion or more in loan guarantees this time and tens of billions last time, and with Steven Chu being put in charge of the Department of Energy, they feel GOOD. "Like coiled springs" says Gordon.

And they should not feel that way. They should be wondering why they don't learn to hang wind turbine blades, or wire solar rooftops -- the unions want those renewable energy jobs to all be guaranteed to be union labor, or they won't support them. We all want licensed contractors doing the labor, and unions are in general a good thing, not a bad thing. But sometimes their demands are excessive and unworkable. Millions of renewable energy jobs will be opening up, and I don't think anybody can promise they will ALL be union work. But renewable energy will ALWAYS beat the alternative -- sickness from radiation poisoning for the electrical workers and other nuke plant employees (and their families). If they fail to do their jobs right, every bloody-handed one of them, well, then it won't just be some crane crashing down from the 40th floor of a high-rise and killing hundreds of people on the ground, which could happen any day in America -- it will be a meltdown, killing hundreds of thousands. Three orders of magnitude worse!

Union jobs are supposed to be safe jobs. That is not possible in the nuclear industry.

Furthermore, Davis-Besse's near-meltdown in 2002 should have been a klaxon warning to America, but it was successfully covered up and no large media hype ever ensued. That battle was won by the spin doctors. According to Gordon, there have been at least a hundred equally-severe, risky, near-meltdown events, which the industry is well aware of through their own organization (known as INPO), that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the public do not know about. According to Gordon, who had access to the records for several years, the NRC is NOT officially allowed to see INPO records, and probably doesn't see them at all, in most cases. (Wikipedia states: "The results of INPO plant evaluations are not shared with the public, and any related information shared within the nuclear industry does not typically include the name of the plant.")

There will be a meltdown in America some day. Either we close the whole fleet, or it's inevitable. Statistically speaking, we've been incredibly lucky so far. Our luck, the planet's luck, cannot hold out forever. There will be a meltdown.

The workers at the plants are getting long in the tooth, they are retiring, dying of heart attacks and cancer, dropping like boomer-babies do. They are viciously protective of their local plants, lest they have to retrain at half their current bloated salaries.

In the nuclear industry, workers are so scarce, THEY control the cards. They are hard to fire when they fall asleep on the job because they are hard to replace. Every one of them is a criminal in one way or another, and many of the work-related crimes reflect the general attitude at the plants of being outlaws to the world, criminals doing something with more than a touch of evil attached to it. (Look at their in-house worker tee-shirts, for instance. The logos are remarkably similar to the "death from above" flying eagle patches you see on paratrooper's shoulders, and the logos for various nuclear submarine crews, where most of the operating-room employees, and in fact, many of the workers throughout the plants, came from.) They all have "cowboy" attitudes towards law enforcement. In their mind, the NRC is the enemy, and hiding things from the NRC is perfectly alright. They are aided greatly in their ability to hide things from the NRC by the fact that the NRC employees who supposedly are "on site" 24/7 are actually restricted to where they can go and what they can look at, and what they can report on (and what their bosses will pay attention to, if they DO file a complaint of some sort). The NRC employees are on short leashes, and like it that way.

The leading jobs in America these days are high-tech. Nuclear power plants are generally 50-year old technology, and almost all of the operating plants are several decades old. This work is so specialized, with each reactor so complex and unique, that workers are reluctant even to be moved from one plant to another within the same site! Let alone, go from a BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) to a PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor), or vice-versa, or be retrained outside the industry. No, these people want tomorrow to be just like today. They want to be making waste and profit at other people's expense and sorrow.

The industry is simply in denial about the dangers they pose to others and to themselves. Certain workers at the plants, known as "Health Physicists," tell them their exposure is below legal limits, after taking rough measurements and doing even rougher calculations on those measurements. Beyond that, the culture at the plants is that nuclear radiation is not only SAFE, it is like a little invisible vitamin -- sort of a "sunshine vitamin" which will light you up -- in a good way -- from the inside.

In this respect, they are utterly crazy. Yet every plant worker believes in "Hormesis," the theory, debunked decades ago and repeatedly ever since, that a little radiation is good for you because it "stimulates the immune system." They "prove" this by pointing out that radiation therapy for cancer victims prolongs lives, which, of course, is sometimes true (my own cancer, however, was surgically -- and successfully -- removed, for example), but largely irrelevant.

All these circular arguments benefit the polluter, the bandit, the stealth murderer, the child killer, the nuclear industry. Children are 100 to 1000 times more susceptible to radiation's poisonous effects: Their cells have many more divisions left to complete, so a small error will multiply more greatly in them. And their cells are still increasing in number -- one becomes many -- while adults are simply replacing dying cells at steady rates -- one becomes one. For very young children, infants, fetuses, zygotes and sperms and eggs, the damage is more likely to be serious or fatal. These people and protoplasmic globs do not vote; they have no chance to protect themselves.

Tritium, one of many products -- not BYPRODUCTS, but PRODUCTS -- of the nuclear fuel cycle, gets into our bodies pervasively. (Electricity is a by-product of nuclear reactors; cancer is the main end-product; tritium an intermediate product.) Tritium, being radioactive hydrogen, gets everywhere hydrogen gets -- which is everywhere. One protein molecule inside your body might have thousands of hydrogen molecules, each one precisely placed. If one suddenly decays and becomes helium plus a beta particle, then that protein is damaged -- probably ruined or even turned poisonous. And the beta particle is hazardous, although the nuclear industry pretends tritium's beta particle is safe, because it is "low energy" compared ONLY to other beta particles, but it is much stronger than any chemical bond, by thousands. Thus, in slowing down, the beta particle WILL destroy thousands of other atoms, for example by ionizing them (which is why it's called "ionizing radiation"), and it will destroy complex molecules used by your biological system -- DNA, RNA, proteins -- or perhaps it will "just" add to your inflammation, weaken your immune system, or literally "break" your heart -- harm it's signalling system, or start a rip, which turns into a tear...

The union electricians and whatnot at the plant know none of this. Even the so-called "experts" there -- those HP guys -- don't learn much about the biology of radiation damage, and instead, just learn to calculate dosages nine ways to Sunday, and then tell you it's safe. They don't know about long-term effects like heart disease, which is just being recognized as being caused by radiation (as well as many other things). Many HP "professionals" don't even believe radiation causes ANY excessive cancers in the population, or in the plant workers. To them, any legally-approved dosage is SAFE, maybe even good for you.

American cannot live in the fantasy world of the nuclear worker, be they union, management, federal lab, or university. This close-knit, closed-off, self-serving, secretive, well-funded and extremely powerful cabal of criminals must be stopped.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

Author, THE CODE KILLERS: AN EXPOSE
www.acehoffman.org

---------------------------------------------------------
(3) Re: MO: Looking for Info on Jobs& Nukes issue
---------------------------------------------------------

At 04:02 AM 1/31/2009 -0500, Thinkcivic@aol.com sent:

>NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
>
>
>Hello friends,
>
>I'm looking for help. We are locked in a real battle here in Missouri over the CWIP issue. One of the problems we are encountering, especially with Democratic lawmakers, is that the buildings trade unions are leaning on them heavily to get behind the repeal of our voter-enacted ban on CWIP charges. To them, it's all about jobs.
>
>I know that work has been done documenting how many jobs are created per x-number of dollars spent in multiple categories of spending. And I know that when I saw these numbers in the past, efficiency improvements and renewables were more labor-intensive than nukes, both in terms of construction/installation jobs and in ongoing/permanent jobs operating and maintaining.
>
>What I don't have at the moment is easy access to up-to-date sources of such info.
>
>Can anyone point me in the right direction on this? I need the info ASAP. I have a meeting with a legislator tomorrow, and this would be good to have by then.
>
>Please feel free to post me off list if you'd like, or, perhaps this info would be of more general interest.
>
>Many thanks,
>Mark
>
>
>Mark Haim
>1402 Richardson St.
>Columbia, MO 65201
>(w) 573-875-0539
>(h) 573-442-2360
>
>E-mail: mhaim@riseup.net
>

----------------------------------------------------------
Contact information for Ace Hoffman:
---------------------------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose About Nuclear Crimes
High and Low, Large and Small,
Far and Wide
Free download: www.acehoffman.org
------------------------------------------------

A tale of two F-4 Phantom pilots: A hero named Sully versus a sullied reputation

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 02:33:00 +0000

January 17th, 2009

Dear Readers,

The "miracle on the Hudson" earlier this week forced me to think about a traumatic event that occurred just over three years ago, when another ex-F4 pilot used his skill and training for another purpose. An evil purpose: Attempted murder-suicide.

WAS it the event that triggered Gonzo-gate and helped destroy the Bush Administration? The event everyone is looking for but no one can find? Since the Bush Administration destroys information with alarming regularity, we may never be told the truth.

So here once more is a fresh recounting of the events of November 25th, 2005, about 8:35 pm, when Randall Harold "Duke" Cunningham, who was then the United States Congressman from my district, attempted to commit suicide. First, Cunningham tried to flip his car in a lone accident. When that failed, he tried to smash the car he was driving head-on at high speed into the car I was driving, a Honda Passport.

The full story of how I avoided him is available online in an animation I created in 2007, shortly after surviving another harrowing experience -- bladder cancer. I figured I better lay it down for historic purposes while I'm still here.

I recognized Cunningham as the assailant three days after his attack, when he appeared on television to resign from Congress. Then, I realized that my wife and I were not only the victims of a vicious and unconscionable attack, but that the aftermath was a clear case of "celebrity justice" of the worst sort, for it was combined with additional special privileges for high government officials.

When U.S. Airways Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River -- the first time a commercial jet had successfully ditched in any body of water -- another F4 pilot showed what Cunningham's training could have been used for. Like Sully, Cunningham was also an F4 pilot -- the last ace there will ever be, with five "kills" in Vietnam. He probably trained Sully.

As Cunningham attacked us, in his mind he must have been back in combat, attempting to get one more kill. Out of bullets in his warped fantasy, he was going to ram us. My wife and I were objects, enemies, non-humans, inconsequential. We still are to him, and to the legal system which protects him.

The letter shown below was sent to Mr. Cunningham at Tucson State Penitentiary in Arizona, where he currently resides on unrelated charges. Copies were also sent to the DoJ and to the judge who sentenced Mr. Cunningham in the other cases., and to the District Attorney. I don't expect any answers, but nor do I expect to be sued for libel or charged with filing false police reports, making false statements, etc.. This is what really happened.

I don't think the sheriffs who helped Cunningham that night could keep their stories straight to the Internal Affairs office, especially if the Federal agent I'm sure was involved told even half the truth to his employers, in the hope of leniency for himself. Of course, that assumes that, behind the scenes, the DoJ actually DID investigate this affair at least a little -- before people started getting pulled from the case -- especially Carol Lam, who is in some part culpable for what happened.

Lam was the U. S. Attorney who made the government's deal with Cunningham, in the days before his suicide / murder attempt. So the Bush Administration wanted to get her out of office, to keep the matter quiet. To cover the firing of one U.S. Attorney without any apparent reason, they tried firing a slew of U. S. Attorneys. The Bush Administration had problems with other attorneys and liked the idea of a mass-firing, but everyone seems to agree that it was Lam who was most targeted, and I believe her role in what you are about to read is the real reason.

For more information, please visit my web site and click on "Seven Seconds in San Marcos."

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

---------------------------------------------------------------------

To:
Randall Harold "Duke" Cunningham
Federal Prisoner Registration # 94405-198
USP TUCSON
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 24550
TUCSON, AZ 85734

January 17th, 2009

Mr. Cunningham,

Earlier this week in New York, Chesney B."Sully" Sullenberger III showed what an F-4 Phantom pilot can do. What they can use their training and experience for. It could have been you receiving those accolades.

Not only did he ditch the Airbus A-320 aircraft successfully in the Hudson River after a flock of birds knocked out both engines, but afterwards, he and the other four crew members helped get all the passengers off the plane. Then Sully walked up and down the plane again -- twice -- to be sure everyone really was off.

You, on the other hand, used all your skill and training as a fighter pilot to try to crash your Chevy Tracker head-on in a Kamikaze-style attack into the Honda Passport I was driving on the night of November 25th, 2005, on Mission Road in San Marcos, California. And then you drove off into the darkness. Then, you colluded with the San Marcos sheriffs, who undoubtedly helped you abandon your car -- and probably even gave you a ride home after your attempted murder-suicide! Astounding! But that's how bad things had gotten in the Bush years.

After I successfully foiled your evil plan, you still hit -- with hostile intent -- the back of my car. A flick of your wrist AWAY from me at that final moment would have avoided an accident entirely. But you, consciously and deliberately, chose to hit my car, with me and my wife in it -- a very dangerous move, even if it isn't as dangerous as a head-on collision.

Three days later you resigned from office, confessed to other crimes, and pretended to the public that you were a changed man, now cooperating with police. But you did NOT cooperate with ALL the investigations! You did not cooperate with ANY of mine.

As we passed just inches apart, my wife didn't think to look at who was trying to kill her and me that night. I, however, looked. When you resigned from Congress the following Monday, I recognized you as our assailant from the prior Friday evening.

Not long ago, I heard that you hope to be pardoned by George Bush. Perhaps, in one of his last acts as President, he WILL pardon you.

I hope not, because I only feel reasonably safe from you while you are in jail.

But it's not just me. Others would also be in danger. So, if the state lets you out of jail for ANY reason, including simply that you've done your time, I'll immediately charge the state with endangering the public. And I'll have a very strong case. You think you're some kind of special person, who can get away with murder, or at the very least, attempted murder. I don't blame you for thinking that, based on what actually happened. But nevertheless, the danger such thoughts cause for the rest of us citizens is real. I've experienced your recklessness AND your anger -- and your arrogance.

You are NOT a responsible person. Who will you kill next time you feel like committing suicide for any reason? Or will you hunt ME down when you get out of jail, or help others to do so, in order to silence the only witness who saw your face (except those in law enforcement)?

If anything happens to me, every one of my friends and family will already suspect you or the police involved in helping you that night.

You'll never be like Sully, but every day, you have the chance to redeem yourself -- to tell the truth about what you did that night. Then, the psychiatrists could be held accountable, because they negligently helped you when you should already have been in jail, instead of in Congress and driving around San Marcos knowing you're supposed to resign soon.

I know that the deal had already been made with Carol Lam. My father, Howard S. Hoffman, a World War Two combat veteran and experimental psychologist (who has since passed on) suggested the Google search which revealed that information. You were given the Thanksgiving holiday week to put your affairs in order and write your resignation speech.

Instead, you used that time to decide that suicide was a better option, and went out the night after Thanksgiving by yourself, and tried to flip your Chevy Tracker -- basically a later-model "Suzuki Samurai" (which you apparently borrowed from a friend) in a lone accident. Undoubtedly, you knew at the time that those types of cars were famous for rolling over in accidents. I saw your last attempt to flip it, but heard from witnesses immediately after the accident that you had been driving extremely dangerously just beforehand. You may have been drunk, as they thought, but you weren't so drunk you didn't know you were trying to flip your own car.

But it wasn't working. What you didn't know was that the designers and engineers of the Chevy Tracker / Suzuki Samurai had worked very hard to solve the rollover problem. As you surely know from your pilot days, a little tweak here and there to the balance or configuration of a plane, car, bike or motorcycle can greatly effect the handling characteristics.

When you couldn't flip your Chevy Tracker, you did the next-best-thing (in your mind): You aimed for my wife and me in our Honda Passport, which was just a pair of headlights to you at that distance, more than two football fields away. After your last attempt to flip your car, you saw my headlights and aimed right at them.

I had already alerted Sharon (my wife) to your crazy driving. I immediately nudged her shoulder and pointed straight ahead and said, "LOOK AT THIS GUY!!" The alarm in my voice could not have been mistaken. I had seen you almost spill your own blood on the street, and you were right in front of us -- already in our lane, but aimed towards your proper lanes. At that moment, I had a good profile view of your vehicle.

You immediately straightened out your car -- in MY LANE! And I could see you were accelerating -- the two lights were separating, and getting bigger and brighter, too. A friend had a Suzuki Sumurai, so I knew the comparative handling characteristics of our two vehicles, which were this:

Your's could turn tighter, accelerate faster, and brake in less distance. You had all the advantages.

So how did I win?

It wasn't easy. First, I turned to the right. I exaggerated the motion, because when you went crazy in front of me I had immediately braked to a much slower speed -- around twenty miles per hour. When you started coming straight at me, I turned to the next lane over to my right, and tried to give you my original lane, since you seemed to want it for some reason, and were coming fast and furious. I thought you were being chased by cops. Boy was I off about that!

You didn't want my lane, you wanted ME. You immediately moved into my rightmost lane too -- two lanes from your closest legal lane! When it was clear that you were doing this, I moved back over to my original lane -- again at relatively slow speed, but with greatly exaggerated motions so that you could clearly see what I was doing. You continued to accelerate.

When you saw me move back to my original lane, you followed immediately and exactly -- I could not shake you. Your precision was absolute.

I straightened out in my original lane because that seemed the best way to let you know exactly where I would be, so you could decide how best to get around me. Part of me still HOPED -- despite several moves which PROVED the contrary -- that you were NOT REALLY trying to have a head-on collision.

But you were. We were still about a football field away, and your speed was already over 30 miles per hour, and you were still coming right at us, no matter where I went. That meant you'd be going at highway speeds when we collided. Every clue screamed out that this wasn't a game.

At that point, I could "hope" no longer. I turned to prayer, instead. "Oh, Jesus." I said. I didn't know what else to do. You were coming at us, and there was no way to turn away. Every time I tried, you followed immediately and precisely. If I kept trying, it was obvious to all -- you, me, and my wife, in the seat next to me -- what would happen: Three people were about to die. For no reason -- it wasn't going to be an accident, though you were obviously hoping it would look like one. It would be murder and suicide.

But it turned out that waiting, doing nothing, was actually the right thing to do! By God's grace, I had recently learned exactly how to handle a case like this, from a trained driving instructor who just happened to have a relative who had been through something very much like what you were doing.

It took more than a year to remember where I learned it, but just before talking to the "CLERB" (the powerless and toothless citizen's review board for the San Diego Sheriff's Department), it came to me: It was a local (Carlsbad) driving instructor's video shown on public access cable television! And here's what you MUST do: Wait, and let the other driver (in this case, YOU) gain speed.

That was the right thing to do, and I just sort of found myself doing it. Lucky me. Lucky you. Lucky Sharon.

I slowed down even more, to give you even more time to gain speed before you got to my car. Than, I accelerated directly at you without turning at all, so that you could not know until I began my turn, which side I would turn to. When I turned, I turned to my left -- normally, your side. I figured: You weren't using that side, and weren't planning to. Because this was no game.

With our speed differences, my car would have more maneuverability than yours would, and I could evade you even if you followed my turn -- but only if I waited long enough, and then accelerated fast enough, and turned tight enough to avoid you. And got lucky, too.

As expected, when you saw me suddenly turn at the last moment -- after we both had been going straight at each other for about three seconds and you had been chasing my lights for about six seconds -- you turned towards me, and continued to try to have a high-speed, head-on, FATAL collision.

In the end, I thought we would pass each other by inches, but instead, you purposefully and angrily hit the back end of my car -- a very dangerous move for both of us -- and it almost flipped your car when you did it. Then you sped off, and the cops helped you get home.

You STILL have the chance to tell your side. If you don't, you will never know what could have been. If they let you out on the streets, I will wonder if you are trying to contact your friend who owned the Chevy Tracker, to check on your story for that night. Or the cops who helped you. Or the psychiatrists who knew you were having "suicidal ideations" as one put it, but didn't take away your keys or do anything to protect the public.

For your continued arrogance and uncooperativeness in this matter, I recommend you stay in jail as long as possible. Being eligible for parole, or even completing your sentence, should NOT be a reason to let you out on the streets again. You remain a threat to society.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Sharon Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

Now we know the real reason the "powers that be" let Obama win...

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:16:00 +0000

January 13th, 2009

Dear Readers,

Now we know the real reason the "powers that be" let Obama win: He's vehemently pro-nuclear.

Obama's nominee for Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, is utterly pro-nuclear. And in sworn testimony today before the Senate energy committee, Chu proved that you can win a Nobel Prize and yet still not know enough to get by productively in today's world. The guy needs an education in dozens of nuclear issues, and his confirmation -- almost certain -- will be a calamity for honest energy decisions in America. Or for any hope of productive change in our society. Yeah, it's that important. Energy is a huge chunk of our economy and the secretive cabals that control it -- Dick Cheney's infamous energy policy meetings being only the tip of the iceberg -- need to be exposed, and brought down. Corporations like AREVA. People like Steven Chu.

If nothing else, Dr. Chu proved today that you can win a Nobel prize in physics and not know much about radioactive waste. Supposedly, his current studies concern "biological systems at the single-molecule level" (according to Wikipedia). Clearly, though, damage to populations from radiation has escaped his attention (even though it all starts at the atomic and molecular level). Perhaps it's too statistical for him, or too abstract, or too real, or too complicated, or too simplistic, or whatever. One way or another, he overlooked it.

So for more than an hour he promoted "recycling" of nuclear waste, which is actually still known as "reprocessing" among most people, including a number of the Senators at the hearing. Apparently the new term is "recycling" because it sounds more eco-friendly, and was portrayed that way by Chu and by various Senators.

But whatever you call it, reprocessing nuclear fuel ISN'T eco-friendly. However it took Chu more than an hour of promoting it before he admitted that he doesn't actually know much about it. He did, however, admit it -- in sworn testimony!

Then he went back to promoting nuclear fuel "recycling."

France was cited as a bastion of successful recycling. What France actually does with its nuclear waste, and the waste from probably more than a dozen other countries (I don't have the exact number; it's hard to obtain, but is surely in that range), is grind up, chop up, and then melt down, burn up, or chemically dissolve the highly poisonous spent fuel rods. However, each gram of spent fuel contains over 500 DIFFERENT radioactive isotopes, representing the ENTIRE spectrum of known elements!

What is called a "success" in France is really just isolating the plutonium and uranium from these other elements, and then isolating specific isotopes of those two elements (and perhaps thorium). All this creates large amounts of chemical pollution, at a huge cost, and with the concomitant loss of vast quantities of radionuclides into the environment, Noble gases, for instance, are simply released to the environment. their quantities are barely even estimated. Many other elements such as Strontium-90, Cesium-137, Iodine-131 -- France releases them all into the environment in order to accomplish "recycling." It's not clean. It's not safe. The industry lies at every step so as not to annoy the public -- and has plenty of help from the government in the form of covert operations against legitimate activist groups and official cover-ups of wrong-doing, leaks, etc.. Is this what we want in America?

Chu apparently doesn't know any of this, but he's all for it anyway.

But that's not the silliest thing about Chu's performance today before the Senate committee. Surely the silliest thing about his ambitious nuclear plans is that he believes that nuclear spent fuel rods can be safely stored somewhere. Obviously, he means "on-site" in something -- some container -- NOT Yucca Mountain.

Not that he opposes Yucca Mountain. He wants it to keep crawling forward. There is no Yucca Mountain, by the way. One activist today told me she thought it was already being filled with waste. It isn't.

Another citizen witnessed, first-hand, what is called "safe" by Dr. Chu:

"Are they building another reactor at San Onofre?!?" he asked me this morning, after a recent fishing trip brought him close to the local nuclear reactor. "No, that's the spent fuel storage facility you saw. Soon it will be the #1 terrorist target in Southern California. If a small group of terrorists pierce that casing and light the spent fuel rods that will be stored there on fire, or if anything else causes them to burst, we'll be dead within minutes (we live about 12 miles away) and SoCal will be ruined forever. And one millionth of a gram will kill you many times over."

"They were as big as a cruise ship! It had to be seven stories tall! Is it going to be all steel?"

"No, it will have a lot of concrete around the steel. But not enough."

Those "dry casks" have other problems, too, which Dr. Chu conveniently doesn't acknowledge. There have been corruption issues with the design, the construction, and the implementation of NUMEROUS INSTALLATIONS of dry casks.

The security staffs protecting these spent fuel installations fall asleep on the job. This has been reported in -- yep -- NUMEROUS INSTALLATIONS in the past. And even if they're fully awake, there aren't enough guards at any one plant to overcome a concerted attack.

There never could be enough guards, because a concerted attack will STILL come from the air. It will be swift, it will be over in seconds, and it will be devastating. There is no defense planned, and Dr. Chu doesn't care. To him, these casks are safe -- despite the dangers from earthquakes and tsunamis (not to mention asteroids, improper construction, and a thousand other possible FATAL -- to 500,000 people or more -- FLAWS of spent fuel storage.

The operating nuclear power plants are an even greater threat -- in terms of probability of an accident -- than the spent fuel. But in terms of how many citizens could die from an accident? That's a toss-up. Short-lived radionuclides would be released in a reactor accident -- seal the windows and doors carefully with duct tape, don't use up your oxygen too fast, eat canned food and drink bottled water for a few weeks and you'll be fine, unless whatever exposure you do get (and you're sure to get some) results in a cancer later, or heart disease, or inflammation, deformed children, or a thousand other ailments. If you're outside or otherwise unprotected at the time of the accident, you will die a horrible death, wherein your cells are broken down by the radiation which gets inside your lungs, your gut, and is absorbed through your skin. Certain organs in your body are targeted by some radionuclides, other organs, by other isotopes. Either way, it's often very painful, it can last a long time, it is usually accompanied by an agonizing and unquenchable thirst, and it will happen to perhaps half a million Southern Californians if we don't close the plants and properly secure the waste. Such deaths -- known as "acute radiation poisoning" -- will occur as much as 500 miles downwind, and in broad swaths in every direction. You will not know where to run: The poison is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Roads will be crowded, or crowded with the dead. Or both.

Support Dr. Chu, and you support this fate. Chu's policies are deadly. They are irrational. They will be expensive to implement, expensive to undo, and a million times MORE expensive if -- and when -- they fail.

And no, Yucca Mountain is not the solution. And yet, there is no known better solution! In fact, the Yucca Mountain team was allowed to suggest anything they thought was a better idea, other than simply choosing some other site and basically doing the same thing there instead of at Yucca Mountain.

I do not have a solution. But I assure you, neither does Dr. Chu. The difference is, he's probably going to be confirmed as head of the most notorious promoter of nuclear power on the planet, the U. S. Department of Energy -- and I'm one citizen out of nearly seven billion. And I DO have a solution to the GROWING problem of nuclear waste -- STOP MAKING MORE.

Nearly every Senator asked about renewable energy solutions or "clean coal" which invariably meant "carbon sequestration." And Dr. Chu always had an answer for these -- he was all for biomass, and all for ethanol from sugar, and all for wind and solar, etc.

But don't be fooled! This man will continue the death-train of nuclear poisons -- created, released, ignored.

Dr. Steven Chu should not be confirmed, but he surely will be. Republicans love him. Democrats love him. The status quo loves him, because the status qua is to keep the 104 operating nuclear plants in America open -- until an American meltdown shuts them. Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who has a degree in "Industrial Management" and wants "300" nuclear power plants in America, loves Chu. Senator Corker and others want to help Chu find more and more ways for the federal government to finance so-called "private industry" to restart the nearly-catatonic (thank goodness -- but it ain't dead, by any means) "Nuclear Renaissance." They want nukes in THEIR state. Big money loves Chu. And everyone at our corrupt National Laboratories loves Chu too, of course.

And worst of all, with all Chu's talk of renewables, environmentalists who don't know any better will probably love him, too.

I think the Obama Administration's great secret has finally been revealed: They're no different. They won't stop using Depleted Uranium munitions in war. They won't shut the nuclear power plants. They won't solve the nuclear waste problem (because that is a physical impossibility, as ANY physicist worth his degree knows, and 60+ billion dollars and 60+ years put into finding a solution should prove it "prima facie" to everyone else), and they won't do anything to stop the criminal backroom deals that have allowed the nuclear industry to keep moving forward, despite the deaths it causes.

I do not believe Dr. Chu believes everything he said today. Maybe I just don't think you can be that dumb and still win a Nobel Prize. Maybe I think his occasional rapid blinking and other mannerisms suggest blatant dishonesty. But either way, I am convinced Dr. Chu lied under oath. Well, we're used to that, after the Bush Administration.

Come next Tuesday, when Obama is sworn in, it will be Business As Usual in America. And don't expect any kind of national health care to pay for your illness when you get cancer!

It should be noted that it was surely not an accident that the biggest media event of the confirmation hearings -- Hillary Clinton's day in the sunshine -- was the same day as Chu's all-important Energy Committee hearing. This kept the press off the nuclear issue, so people wouldn't hear the bad news.

Expect more Davis-Besse near-disasters, more Three Mile Island nearer-disasters, and a few Chernobyls (real full-blown nuclear disasters) in America during, or some time after, the Obama Administration. Don't bother being surprised when it happens.

Radioactive death for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans, is as inevitable as sunshine and rain now. Chu is a shoe-in for Energy Secretary. Our fate is sealed.

Sincerely,
Ace Hoffman
Author,
The Code Killers: An Expose of Nuclear Crimes Large and Small, High And Low, Far and Wide
www.acehoffman.org

----------------------------------------------
Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose
PO Box 1936
Carlsbad, CA 92018

www.acehoffman.org
Phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
Email: ace@acehoffman.org
-------------------------------------------------------

California Attorneys object to Yucca Mountain while tacitly embracing SONWGS and Diablo Cyn -- go figure... (RESEND)

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:48:00 +0000

December 31st, 2008 (RESEND with corrected "ignoble seven" information)

by Ace Hoffman

Attorneys for the state of California have filed a 400-page document with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, describing two dozen serious flaws with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository plan. These follow on the heels of Nevada's own 229-count objection.

I'm sure I could come up with hundreds of serious flaws, too, and so can you. The Yucca Mountain plan stinks, no doubt about it.

Nevertheless, both of these states' complaints are half-measures at best, and in the case of California (where the author's lives), the absurdity of the attorneys' claims in the face of their own actions -- or rather, LACK OF ACTION -- against California's operating nukes is, to say the least, baffling. To say they seem to have blinders on isn't nearly good enough. They seem to have erected a lead shield to protect themselves from grasping -- and then acting on -- the facts. Our nuclear power plants need to be closed -- not tomorrow, but immediately. Yesterday would have been better, but today will have to do. Waiting until tomorrow could be tragic, and in any case, will add additional costs to the problems these plants will leave us, no matter when -- or why -- we close them.

But somehow, despite California's many objections to Yucca Mountain, those same attorneys for the state evidently cannot see that creating additional radioactive waste on a daily basis with no solution in sight is foolhardy at best.

Such myopia should be called what it REALLY is: Criminal Negligence.

The root reason the waste problem isn't solved is technical. Since radioactive emissions are strong enough to destroy ANY container (1) , the "technical" problem will NEVER be solved. New alloys, new crystal structures, microbes that eat radioactive waste, vitrification -- all worthless (2). Rocketing the waste into space, subduction zones in the sea, deep holes -- won't work either (3).

Every day, there is more waste, more radioactive pollution, such as tritium, which is killing our citizens, and more of the "ignoble seven" whose daughter products include noble gases, which are freely released by nuclear power plants in copious quantities (4).

These attorneys seem to have missed the elephant thrashing about in the livingroom. The plants need to be closed NOW. They are old, corroded, embrittled, dilapidated and their employees have repeatedly abdicated their responsibilities, from proper training (5) to doing their fire rounds (6), to numerous problems with top management, and so on.

Every day the plants run, they increase the total risk, the total cost, the immediate risk, and the immediate cost -- costs in terms of health effects around the plants, and delayed costs from accidents or just from fuel storage. Even if we stop making nuclear waste, every movement of the fuel entails enormous risk. And there will be tens of thousands of shipments from all around the country.

A really safe transport of nuclear waste is impossible and any transportation is a big production. Consider all the bridges that have to be strengthened, the potholes that have to be filled, the roads that have to be blocked off as the caravan passes, the staggering number of caravans that will be needed. Each shipping container will hold "only" about 15 tons of spent fuel. With more than 2,500 tons -- 5,000,000 pounds -- of waste (of which any millionth of a gram will poison you fatally) already created in California alone, it will take decades to do anything with the waste. But what? And how? And where? Lawyers don't know, because scientists don't know.

Each trip is a terrorist's best friend and a sane person's worst nightmare. The lawyers seem to have grasped that, at least somewhat.

But what are we left with? Does anyone in California remember Bande Ache? I don't think so, because years afterwards, our nuclear waste is still piled along the coast, and those people charged with protecting it either have no idea it's their responsibility, or have abdicated that responsibility utterly.

Does the San Clemente fire department think it is equipped to deal with tsunami-busted dry casks, a permanent evacuation of thousands of square miles, mass deaths, and a meltdown or two to go with it -- or Genpatsu-Shinsai (the same thing, but starting with an earthquake instead of a tsunami)? If so, they are sadly mistaken.

The utility spokespeople tell the public, the press, and even the NRC that dry casks are safe, knowing that they (the plant employees) are safe from investigation for lying (7). The NRC will barely study the plans at all, won't inspect the casks before use (hardly, anyway), and won't study the actual construction work records whatsoever. So the utilities all say their casks are safe, but any fool who ever studied engineering (or explosives) for more than a day can tell you that's just wrong. In reality, no dry cask is safe -- not one. And nearly every site's casks are different, for no apparent reason. Why are Diablo Canyon's spent fuel rods stacked vertically, and San Onofre's horizontally? Whim? Real estate issues? Earthquake issues?

And there is every reason to fear each ADDITIONAL dry cask. Complacency is a common cause of accidents.

The storage casks are designed to do one thing well (and I doubt they can even do that), which is to sit in one place for up to 100 years, or 20 years -- depends on who you ask (and who you believe).

The proposed shipping casks aren't designed to take ANY significant stress. The fire retention standards are way too low (as proven in the Baltimore train tunnel fire), the load-drop or crush protection is equally inadequate (as proven in the Minnesota bridge collapse, et al).

Splitting the atom is very, very costly.

In fact, the only reason anyone would keep these plants open is because "experts" from places like LLNL are brought in every so often to tell the Energy Commission these plants are safe. These experts are not vetted -- their opinions are not presented in public (they are given in private to, say, Governor Schwarzenegger, or to individuals on the California Energy Commission).

Such experts, of course, now form the heart of the upcoming Obama administration's energy policy.

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose
www.acehoffman.org

(1) For a chart of energy levels, see page 9 of my book The Code Killers.
(2) There are seven long-lived fission daughter products which are sure to cause problems (along with THEIR daughters). See page 18 of The Code Killers for a list of "the ignoble seven."
(3) The Yucca Mtn team was charged with finding any other solution they thought was better. They were NOT limited to thinking about Yucca Mountain. These other choices were eliminated for various reasons, mainly unpredictability (for space-based disposal, reliability was especially a problem, but then, so was money, technical issues, the record of failure, etc. etc.).
(4) See the glossary of The Code Killers for various isotopes, such as Cerium-144 and others, that are manufactured and sometimes (if not always) released by nuclear power plants in large quantities. The "ignoble seven" are: Technetium-99, Tin-126, Selenium-79, Zirconium-93, Cesium-135, Palladium-107, and Iodine-129. All have half-lives > 200,000 years.
(5) After dropping a crane in 2001, San Onofre had to completely retrain virtually everyone in the place who had any chance of ever being involved in a lift. I heard (from a plant worker) that it cost them about 4,000,000 dollars, including all the new strapping, I-beams, hooks, etc. they also had to buy after they dropped a rented crane.
(6) A recent news item reported that for four years, such records were falsified. Numerous other incidents, including threats by armed ex-employees, nearby airplane crashes, etc. etc. should also serve as a warning to all.
(7) "Statements made by the public affairs officer of a NRC licensee are not regulated activities. Therefore, the veracity of such statements will not be investigated by the NRC." Letter to the author from the NRC, received March 30th, 2002.

===============================================================

At 03:26 PM 12/29/2008 -0500, Janette Sherman <toxdoc.js@verizon.net> wrote:

>Begin forwarded message:
>
>>From: MoJo <mollypj@yahoo.com>
>>Date: December 29, 2008 3:00:52 PM EST
>>To: HD-Global <hd-g@hopedance.net>
>>Subject: [NukeNet] California Says Yucca Poses Threat to People, Resources
>>
>>NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
>>
>>
>>http://www.energycentral.com/centers/news/daily/article.cfm?aid=11717362
>>
>>California Says Yucca Poses Threat to People, Resources
>>
>>Dec 25 - Las Vegas Review - Journal California is urging federal regulators to turn down the Energy Department's bid to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, charging analysts did not fully study how the plan would affect Death Valley groundwater and the state's transportation networks.
>>
>>"Proceeding with the project in the manner described by DOE poses a threat to the people, natural resources and environment of California," attorneys said at the outset of a 400-page document filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
>>
>>The commission "may not approve DOE's license application unless DOE provides an adequate environmental analysis that analyzes threats to California and how to mitigate them," said the lawyers from the state's Energy Commission and its Department of Justice.
>>
>>California's objections were made available on Monday, several days after Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced Nevada was submitting 229 repository challenges to the NRC on a variety of technical grounds.
>>
>>There is significance to California raising similar issues before the NRC, according to Joe Strolin, planning division administrator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
>>"Anytime you have California in the mix it lends a gravitas to an issue," Strolin said Tuesday.
>>
>>"They are always considered a 600-pound gorilla in the room," Strolin said. "Having them weigh in makes a statement that this is an important issue and not just a Nevada issue. That there are other states, and big states, that have concerns as well."
>>
>>DOE spokesman Allen Benson said the department was reviewing the contentions and would respond to them within 50 days, as set in NRC regulations.
>>
>>California attorneys identified 24 issues it wants the NRC to consider as it weighs the safety of the repository plan and decides whether to issue DOE a construction license.
>>Many of California's contentions charge the government failed to adequately analyze the transportation impacts from hundreds of radioactive waste shipments that would originate at reactors in the state as well as shipments through California from other states.
>>
>>"DOE has not conducted sufficient analysis or provided sufficient evidence that such shipments will be conducted in the safest manner," according to the state's complaint.
>>Attorneys said DOE took care to fully analyze transportation risks in Nevada "yet it illogically did not do this analysis for the likely transportation routes in the rest of the country, and specifically not in California."
>>
>>The state's complaint further said DOE has failed to analyze how waste at California reactors could be packaged safely for shipping.
>>
>>California has four operating reactors, two at Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, and two at San Onofre, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Three other reactors - at San Onofre, the Humboldt Bay station in Eureka and the Rancho Seco plant south of Sacramento are no longer operating but spent fuel is stored there and is awaiting removal.
>>
>>Collectively, the reactors have generated 2,510 tons of spent nuclear fuel, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
>>
>>Other California contentions charge that more analysis is needed to determine how a buildup of contaminants expected to leak from the Yucca site over time would affect aquifers that feed springs in Death Valley.
>>
>>"Recent scientific work done by the County of Inyo indicates that contaminants entering the carbonate aquifer from the repository could migrate to the springs in Death Valley relatively quickly," attorneys said.
>>
>>"These springs are the only source of water for the park workers and the approximately 1.25 million annual visitors to Death Valley National Park," attorneys said.
>>
>>Contact Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.
>>
>>(c) 2008 Las Vegas Review - Journal. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
>>A service of YellowBrix, Inc.
>>
>>
>>"No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make safe and which remain an incalculable danger to the whole of creation for historical or even geological ages. To do such a thing is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime perpetrated by man. The idea that a civilization could sustain itself on such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity. It means conducting the economical affairs of man as if people did not matter at all." -- E. F. Schumacher �Small is Beautiful�
>>
>>Molly P Johnson
>>Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility www.a4nr.org
>>H.O.M.E. (Healing Ourselves & Mother Earth) www.h-o-m-e.org
>>Grandmothers for Peace www.grandmothersforepeace.org
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________________________________
>>Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
>>Change your settings at:
>>http://mail.energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
>>NukeNet messages are publicly archived here: http://mail.energyjustice.net/pipermail/nukenet_energyjustice.net/

================================================================

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose
PO Box 1936
Carlsbad, CA 92018

www.acehoffman.org
Phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
Email: ace@acehoffman.org
-------------------------------------------------------

Send your old shoes (or shoelaces) to George Bush to demand release of the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at our lame duck!

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:00:00 +0000

December 16th, 2008

Dear Readers,

This is a resend of my plea to get the Iraqi shoe-throwing reporter released, to fix two small typos. Media With Conscience notes that their in house editor, Emily Mervyn, suggested the same thing last night.

My letter is available online at the MWC web site, where it can be easily translated or forwarded:

mwcnews.net/content/view/27310/42/

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Wearing new shoes in Carlsbad, CA

------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 16th, 2008 (resend)

Dear Readers,

Let's start a campaign, right here, right now, to protect the journalist who was beaten and jailed, and now faces as much as seven years in prison and possibly more, for throwing his shoes at our dumb President.

George Bush was being interviewed shortly thereafter, and OVER THE SCREAMS OF THE REPORTER IN THE BACKGROUND, WHO WAS BEING BEATEN, Bush could be heard saying the guy "just wanted to get his name in the paper."

Actually, it was symbolic of a people's utter disgust. The reporter could be heard calling Bush a "dog" and saying it was for: "the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!" He had previously been imprisoned by U.S. forces, kidnapped by terrorists, and had lost close family because of Bush's (and Cheney's) phony war.

As a protest, and to demand that the reporter be immediately released without charges, I propose that everyone send an old pair of shoes to George Bush at the White House (1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC 20500). Too expensive for you? Just send him some old shoelaces -- it's practically free and he'll get the message if enough people do it.

It could take millions before he'll get the message. The reporter, Muntadhar al-Zeid, is currently in a hospital in the green zone, with at least a broken arm as I write this, so please send this email to everyone you know, to try to get him released WITHOUT CHARGES.

Throwing your shoes at someone is a potent, ancient, emotionally-charged gesture which means a lot in Iraq -- it means you are lower than the dirt on one's shoe. Don't, of course, try such antics at home!

But Bush SHOULD have the book thrown at him. And the shreds of the Constitution he destroyed, too.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose
PO Box 1936
Carlsbad, CA 92018

www.acehoffman.org
Phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
Email: ace@acehoffman.org
-------------------------------------------------------

Barring a meltdown...

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com (AceHoffman) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 22:28:00 +0000

December 7th, 2008

Dear Readers,

Apparently John Bryson is on Barack Obama's short list for Secretary of Energy (see article by Harvey Wasserman, below, top). And NASA climatologist James Hansen has endorsed nuclear power as a solution to global warming (see letter to him from this author, below, bottom).

With such support, barring a meltdown, the 104 licensed nuclear power plants in this country will still be operating when Obama leaves office. And maybe a few "mini-nukes" will ALSO have been built by then, either for military, or for rich civilian use. And maybe a few new large ones, too, and a score of military propulsion units. Yucca Mountain will keep moving slowly, inexorably forward, unless there is a large earthquake nearby (there are routinely, lots of small ones).

Obama could leave America at least as vulnerable to terrorism, to human error, to unwatched embrittlement, and to unchecked creeping cracks as it is today.

Tritium and a thousand other radioactive isotopes could be pouring into our air, seas, and soil from every reactor that operates today. No change.

All Obama has to do, is do nothing.

And that's not good enough. The world has to undo this mistake; it can't just assume nuclear plants will go away by themselves, run out of raw materials or be shut down for cost reasons. NO. It won't work that way. They'll keep them going with toilet paper and spit and "recycled" military weapons -- thorium, anything -- until something awful happens.

Nuclear reactors employ a lot of union workers. Each of these workers -- every one of them, or they'd quit -- thinks radiation isn't so dangerous. Government and industry wouldn't lie to them to make a buck off their misery, they think. They don't know any better. They believe what they want to believe, to preserve the cocoon of self-confidence, and there's always someone "qualified" (a Health Physics professional, usually) to tell them it's safe -- to tell them it might even be good for them. To tell them everything is dangerous. Crossing the street is dangerous.

So Obama will have no trouble keeping the nuclear power plants open, if that's what he really wants. And there ARE more operating civilian nuclear power plants in his home state than in any other state in the nation.

Nevertheless, by his near-utter silence on the issue during the campaign, Obama practically single-handedly HAS killed the "Nuclear Renaissance," which is withering on the vine these days (but by no means is it dead). Was this just good politics, or what? We'll see.

It's certainly good to watch one multi-billion dollar nuclear project after another around the world falter, as has been happening, but it's not nearly enough, and perhaps is more due to the financial -- pardon the term -- meltdown than to anything else. We need to close the operating nukes -- all of them. Obama can take office with them already closed. Nuclear power produces an unreliable 1/5th of our (U.S.) electricity, about 7% of our total energy needs -- we can close them all and quickly replace them with wind power, peaking power -- ANYTHING.

But of course, it won't happen.

Unless there's a meltdown.

And that's not all that unlikely, when you think about it. With 104 nuclear power plants, most of them many decades old, with the entire NRC focused on trying to issue as many preliminary site licenses as possible before Bush leaves office, with "self-regulation" rampant throughout the nuclear industry, with constant demand for maximum power, with cost pressures forcing fix-on-fail for everything not called a "critical" part according to some arcane NRC regulation, with deadly dry casks popping up all over the country and then being forgotten about while they multiply -- and multiply their dangers -- with spent fuel pools full, even as some of the fuel is being offloaded into the even-more-deadly dry casks, a meltdown -- or something worse -- is not unlikely. It's not too late to impeach George Bush for not shutting the nukes down, for Dick Cheney's secret pro-nuke energy plan, for torture, for the million dead from the War on Truth, or for complacency in the face of imminent threats to the national security.

Finding the right person for Secretary of Energy is certainly one of the most important tasks Obama faces right now. Bryson doesn't fit the bill, but be warned: In a letter to this author, Harvey Wasserman stated, "the rest of the list I've been seeing isn't all that great."

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose:
www.acehoffman.org
Author and programmer, All About Pumps, Animated Periodic Table of the Elements:
www.animatedsoftware.com
Carlsbad, CA

============================================================
My pick of Secretary of Energy would be Harvey Wasserman:
============================================================

At 02:06 AM 12/7/2008 -0500, Harvey Wasserman wrote:

>John "Nuke Bailout" Bryson must NOT be Secretary of Energy
>December 6, 2008

By Harvey Wasserman

>Among the names on the apparent short list for Barack Obama's all-important choice as Secretary of Energy is that of John Bryson, former head of Southern California Edison.
>
>As the embodiment of greenwashed corporate piracy and radioactive public bailouts, Bryson's appointment would send a terrible message.
>
>Bryson is now being hyped as "an advocate of hybrid cars." No doubt he is reinventing his image. On a personal basis, he may be the finest of individuals.
>
>But John Bryson will forever epitomize the bailout of the nuke power industry and the horrific catastrophe of electric utility deregulation, including the contrived energy crisis that cost Californians tens of billions of dollars and allowed them to be robbed by the disgraced Enron.
>
>Early in his career, Bryson helped found the Natural Resources Defense Council. Under Jerry Brown he headed the California Public Utilities Commission, where he played a role in the installation of some 17,000 windmills. He also sold his soul---and much of California's---to the nuke power industry.
>
>When Bryson left the CPUC to head the huge Southern California Edison utility company, many heralded the switch as an eco-triumph. But in the early 1990s, California's green community proposed a pioneer renewable construction project that would have provided the state with some 600 megawatts of Solartopian power free from fossil and nuclear fuels.
>
>Bryson attacked, falsely charging that the power was unnecessary and expensive. In defense of the state's four reactors, all sited near earthquake faults, he used Edison's huge legal and political resources to kill the proposed renewable energy bank.
>
>With all those windmills and solar panels safely buried, Bryson drafted AB1890, the catastrophic deregulation law that opened the door for Enron.
>
>AB1890 allowed SoCalEd and Pacific Gas & Electric to recoup billions in nuke construction cost overruns. Rushed through the legislature under intense pressure from Bryson's lobbyists, the bill overrode years of citizen opposition and forced ratepayers to eat the utilities' radioactive mistakes.
>
>AB 1890's chief public advocate became a Bryson disciple named Ralph Cavanagh, who unfailingly flouted his "green" credentials during radio debates (a few of them with me).
>
>Cavanagh and SoCalEd paved the way for corporate piracy on a gargantuan scale. They argued that the state's expensive, uncompetitive reactors could not stand in the market place. Their billions in "stranded costs" must therefore be absorbed by the ratepayers to pave the way for "true competition" that would somehow "lower rates."
>
>Bryson then sat back and watched as Enron selectively withheld power and gamed the de-regulated grid, driving thousands of businesses into bankruptcy and soaking the state's ratepayers for tens of billions of dollars.
>
>AB1890 passed with Republican Pete Wilson in the governor's mansion. But the crisis broke on Democrat Gray Davis. A close Bryson associate, Davis failed to stand up to SoCalEd and Enron's price gouging. Public outrage opened the door to the recall that led to Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor.
>
>Bryson's seminal pro-nuclear, anti-ratepayer role at SoCalEd stands as a monument to the power of greenwashing. From California the craze to deregulate electric utilities spread to two dozen states. In many of them, the idea of a marketplace in electricity was merely a cover used to scam billions in cost overruns at uncompetitive nuke plants. (In Ohio alone, the take exceeded $9 billion) These "stranded costs" then disappeared from utility balance sheets, giving the illusion that their bloated, dangerous and inefficient reactors were somehow paying for themselves.
>
>Some of the same utilities that argued then for these stranded cost handouts on the grounds that their nuke plants could not compete are now demanding loan guarantees to build still more reactors on the grounds that they are somehow "cheap."
>
>However much he may wish to greenwash his image, John Bryson has never come clean about what he did to delay renewables and bankrupt ratepayers.
>
>Long gone from Southern California Edison, Bryson's ascent to head the DOE would send a disastrous signal to those who are genuinely committed to a post fossil/nuclear future. It would say that somehow an extremely powerful executive who took very destructive steps to delay the green revolution and support nuke power is now the one to lead us to Solartopia.
>
>There are other candidates to head the DOE who have long histories of genuine support for the renewables revolution on which the future of this country so thoroughly depends.
>
>In an age where green-powered self-sufficiency is an absolute necessity, John Bryson is unfit to be Secretary of Energy.
>
>--
>Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at www.solartopia.org. The first Solartopian dance video is now at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x-0Us8szXE .

======================================================
Letter to James Hansen, NASA scientists
======================================================

Sent to: "James Hansen" <jeh1@columbia.edu>

Subject: I saw you speak at the Int't Platform Assoc meeting in DC, approx. 1984

December 6th, 2008

Dear Sir,

I saw you speak there, and Dr. Heimlich, and Tom Clancy, and many others also, that year.

You sounded reasonable and scientific, you had good graphics to present your data (which always impresses me), and since then, I've noticed global warming has only continued to get worse, just as you predicted. And the pointers to human activity have only gotten stronger, just as you predicted.

But what's this I hear, that you think nuclear power might be a solution?!? For shame! Forsooth, do look at my new book on the subject, called THE CODE KILLERS: AN EXPOSE, available for free download as a pdf or I'll be happy to send you a printed copy at no charge:

www.acehoffman.org

Are you the scientist who can refute it? If you think so, please do, but if not, then how do you know that 4th generation nukes (which are really 1st or 2nd generation nukes, reworked) are going to solve anything? Do you have a solution to the waste problem? If so, I'm sure I'd have heard that James Hansen has solved the nuclear waste problem! But that didn't happen, and it won't (see my graphic on page 9, based on a NASA graphic but greatly enhanced, to review why it CAN'T happen -- because no containment is stronger than a radioactive decay). And besides, surely you know too, that there is too much debris in orbit around the earth to allow "deep space" or sun-deposited nuclear waste, even if the cost could be brought down by several orders of magnitude to make it worth it.

And that waste is HOT, Sir, hot. How can that solve global warming? Consider all the heat a reactor puts out. How can that help, when there are alternatives that do not produce so much heat per watt of delivered electricity? Aren't those going to be the best solutions (such as Atmospheric Vortex Engines, which can use waste heat, and in any event, don't actually produce any heat at all)?

I implore you, Sir: Don't support jumping into the fire to escape the frying pan! America can and must do better.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

================================================
###
================================================

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose
PO Box 1936
Carlsbad, CA 92018

www.acehoffman.org
Phone: (800) 551-2726; (760) 720-7261
Email: ace@acehoffman.org
-------------------------------------------------------