Nuclear Power Bill

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

ALERT ALERT ALERT

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

GANG OF 10 BILL:

BIGGEST GIVEAWAY TO THE NUCLEAR POWER
INDUSTRY EVER !!



NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17



This is it. In the mainstream media, the Gang of 10 (actually, now it's the Gang of 20) energy bill is all about offshore oil drilling. And, to be sure, there's lots of that in the bill, which is expected to come up in the Senate late next week.

The bill would also be the biggest giveaway to the nuclear power industry ever.


Unlimited loan guarantees for construction of new atomic reactors.

That's right, unlimited. As much money-hundreds of billions of dollars--as everyone in the nuclear industry wants, when it wants, for as long as it wants.


I'm sure I don't need to tell you how that would absolutely destroy our ability to effectively address the climate crisis and what a disaster that would be for our economy, for our nation, for our planet.



How do these Senators think they can get away with this? Because they're not hearing from enough of us, often enough. They think this is a popular stand. We all need to stand up now and be counted.



That's why NIRS, CAN, Physicians for Social Responsibility and other national groups are putting out the word for a National Call-In Day to the Senate on Wednesday, September 17. We need at least 10,000 phone calls to the Senate on Wednesday. We need the phones there to be ringing non-stop from dawn to dusk.

You can help !!

Call the

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121



*Please call both of your Senators that day with a very simple message:

Take taxpayer loan guarantees for nuclear power out of the Gang of 20 energy bill. (note: the bill does not yet have a number. It's called the New Energy Reform Act of 2008, but everyone will know what you are talking about if you just say "Gang of 20 energy bill.")

*Please forward this Alert to any and all of your mailing lists.

*Please print this Alert and take it to any public meetings and gather places you go to between now and Wednesday. Post it at food co-ops and other central locations.

*Please talk to your friends and colleagues, congregations this Sunday, PTAs next week. Spread the word.

*Call even if you think your Senator(s) are hopeless. Everyone walking in the halls of the Senate should hear phones ringing everywhere, all day long. It is important to keep those phones ringing all day long!





We can't let the nuclear industry get away with this. All that can stop it now are your actions. If we all just sit back and wait for someone else to take action, we will lose. If we all make those two calls-one to each Senator, and ask each of our friends and colleagues to make those two calls, we can show the Senate what the American people really think. And we can win.


It is up to each of us.
It's that simple.

Please take five minutes and make two phone calls Wednesday.


Thank you for all that you do.



Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
[e-mail], www.nirs.org
301-270-6477
September 12, 2008


P.S. For those who want more information:

You can read a Physicians for Social Responsibility analysis of the nuclear provisions in the Gang of 20 energy bill here. The bill includes not just loan guarantees, but also more "risk insurance" for new nukes, construction of a reprocessing plant, and much more.
You can read a longer article on the issue written by Michael Mariotte for DailyKos here.

[bananas]

1. links

http://www.carolinapeace.org/content/view/1310/35/
http://moodle.presidiomba.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=37358
(edit to add a second link.)

[NNadir]

2. The nuclear subsidy should be 100's of billions of dollars, if not more.

Nuclear power is, by far, the largest form of climate change gas free energy, outstripping all other forms of climate change gas free forms of energy combined.

It is superior to all other forms of climate change gas free energy, including the solar and wind toys advertised by people who know zero science.

[bananas]

3. Scientist James Hansen: "Neither carbon sequestration nor nuclear power can help in the near-term"

"and they both have serious issues even over the longer term."

"Near-term demands for energy can be satisfied via a real emphasis on energy efficiency and renewable energies. Neither carbon sequestration nor nuclear power can help in the near-term, and they both have serious issues even over the longer term. But Massachusetts and California have demonstrated the tremendous potential of efficiency aided by appropriate incentives."
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/4/1/16055/76057

[NNadir]

9. 100% of these bullshit "appeal to authority" logical fallacies fail to appeal to competent authority

[bananas]

11. I wasn't making an "appeal to authority" argument.

I was providing some counter-examples to your incorrect statement "It is superior to all other forms of climate change gas free energy, including the solar and wind toys advertised by people who know zero science."
I listed some people who know science and who know that renewables will provide more energy than nuclear will.

The IPCC and IAEA scientists are competent authorities, so if I had been making an appeal to authority argument, it would have been valid anyway.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wtmusic]

14. No, you were making the "selective quoting" argument.

Your own link, the sentence before your quote began:

"Dirty, inefficient coal plants must be replaced to avoid climate disasters, but only by choosing options from energy efficiency, renewable energies, nuclear power, and coal plants that capture all emissions, including CO2."

<>

"I suggest that, to assist your considerations, we have a one-day discussion with top experts in the country in energy efficiency, renewable energies, clean coal with carbon capture, and nuclear power."

I didn't think James Hansen was a zealot. Do you really think you're helping your cause by such transparently-biased quoting? :eyes:

[bananas]

15. You want a longer quote?

If you want a longer quote, here's a longer quote:

Your public statements recognize the climate problem and indicate a desire to do what is right for the environment, the young generation, and your rate-payers. However, your suggestion that new, more efficient coal-fired power plants, which do not capture CO2, can be part of a solution ignores the basic facts and urgency of terminating coal emissions. Dirty, inefficient coal plants must be replaced to avoid climate disasters, but only by choosing options from energy efficiency, renewable energies, nuclear power, and coal plants that capture all emissions, including CO2.

Near-term demands for energy can be satisfied via a real emphasis on energy efficiency and renewable energies. Neither carbon sequestration nor nuclear power can help in the near-term, and they both have serious issues even over the longer term. But Massachusetts and California have demonstrated the tremendous potential of efficiency aided by appropriate incentives.

Plans for over 50 coal-fired power plants nationwide have been dropped in recent months due to rising construction and coal prices, unpredictable carbon costs, and concerns about climate change. Near-term energy needs can be met with massive but feasible conservation and efficiency programs, cogeneration, solar, wind, and biomass generation. Diversifying generation has other benefits -- creating jobs, conserving water, and minimizing the possibility of terrorist acts against the grid, about which former CIA Director James Woolsey recently warned the National Governors' Association.

Recently I testified as climate expert in suits filed by the automobile manufacturers against vehicle greenhouse gas regulations in California and Vermont. The manufacturers lost both cases, and they are going to be scrambling to improve vehicle efficiency. As you know, another suit has been filed, on behalf of the Inuit of Kivalina, against ExxonMobil, Duke Energy, and others who bear special responsibility for the emissions that drive climate change.

:popcorn:

[Javaman]

16. The comedic stylings of Nnadir, please give him a round of applause!! LOL nt

[bananas]

4. Scientist Stephen Pacala: "nuclear is a non-starter."

"I personally think nuclear is a non-starter. In the article we were not trying to choose sides, only to point out the mitigation technologies that are already in place. However, I cannot imagine that in this era of concerns about terrorism that we are going to start the production of fissionable material all over the world. It is disingenuous when the Bush administration says that the way to solve this problem is through coal and nuclear. Clean coal through carbon capture is fine if it can be made to work. But if you actually injected all of the CO2 produced in the United States (1.5 billion tonnes) the entire country would jack up in the air by 1mm/year. You don’t have to be a scientist to know that is not sustainable. If you try to solve even one wedge of this problem with nuclear, it would require a doubling in the amount of nuclear power deployed. Solving the problem entirely with nuclear means increasing deployment by a factor of 10, and if you calculate how many of these plants would have to be in countries like Sudan and Afghanistan, you are just not going to do it."
http://www.theclimategroup.org/index.php/viewpoint/stephen_pacala/

[bananas]

5. The Nobel-winning IPCC scientists: electricity: 30-35% from renewables, only 18% from nuclear

"In terms of electricity generation, the IPCC envisage that renewable energy can provide 30 to 35% of electricity by 2030 (up from 18% in 2005) at a carbon price of up to US$50/t, and that nuclear power can rise from 16% to 18%. They also warn that higher oil prices might lead to the exploitation of high-carbon alternatives such as oil sands, oil shales, heavy oils, and synthetic fuels from coal and gas, leading to increasing emissions, unless carbon capture and storage technologies are employed.<31>"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report

[bananas]

6. IAEA Scientists: Nuclear will only be 12.5 to 14% of electricity

"The IAEA ... reported that nuclear´s share of global electricity generation dropped another percentage point in 2007 to 14%. This compares to the nearly steady share of 16% to 17% that nuclear power maintained for almost two decades, from 1986 through 2005."
...
"According to the IAEA´s 2008 high projection ... nuclear power´s share therefore will hold steady at 14%. In the low projection ... by 2030 nuclear power's share of global electricity is projected to drop to about 12.5%."
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bananas/613

[bananas]

7. Whoops! WPPSS "customers will continue paying for those uncompleted plants through 2021"

What a boondoggle.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bananas/535

<snip>

Once upon a time, doing business as the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS), the organization gained national notoriety for a quixotic attempt to build five big nuclear plants — Three at the federal Hanford nuclear site in Eastern Washington near Richland, and two near Satsop, Wash., west of Olympia. Construction costs mushroomed, demand for power shrank, the well of Wall Street capital ran dry, and only one of those plants was finished. (As the Columbia Generating Station, it currently contributes 1,157 megawatts to the Northwest power grid.) The other four were abandoned, triggering the largest municipal default in American financial history.

WPPSS itself may have receded into the dim recesses of the region's consciousness, but WPPSS payments continue to show up every month on the region's electric bills. The Bonneville Power Administration had guaranteed nearly all the bonds sold to finance the first three plants. BPA customers will continue paying for those uncompleted plants through 2021. Currently, the annual debt service tab runs to roughly $311 million.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council's first big job was deciding whether to bail out the WPPSS projects. It decided not to. The council's current plan, drawn up in 2004, foresees no new nuclear plants. It does foresee up to 5,000 megawatts of wind capacity by 2025.

The council seems to have guessed wrong about wind. Wind planning in the Northwest is "going crazy," says the council's John Harrison. The Pacific Northwest is awash in proposals for new wind farms. The region seems likely to reach 5,000 megawatts by the end of 2012.

<snip>

[bananas]

8. A good article about the nuclear bail-out boondoggle

From January of this year.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/05/6191

Published on Saturday, January 5, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
Anti-Nuclear Renaissance: A Powerful but Partial and Tentative Victory Over Atomic Energy

by Harvey Wasserman

As the presidential primary season heats up, an "anti-nuclear renaissance" against loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants will escalate, with the future of American energy policy and global warming hanging in the balance.

In the last days of 2007, grassroots activism ran up a stunning and improbably victory. But the triumph is both partial and tentative, and will be fiercely contested throughout 2008, with the basic direction of US energy policy hanging in the balance.

This latest chapter in the half-century saga of atomic energy began last summer, with an industry attempt to grab a blank taxpayer check for underwriting new reactor construction. The charge was been led by six-term Senator Pete Domenici (D-NM), atomic power's prime Congressional pusher.

<snip>

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

10. Thanks Bananas for your input,

I wonder how the "Nuclear Freeze Movement" could suddenly have a massive resurrection. And what the hell is up with Domenici?

We have no way of dealing with Nuclear Waste and should stop creating more immediately. Energy can safely be generated with wave power, this needs to be funded, no pollution involved.

[bananas]

12. That's a typo - Domenici is a Republican, not a Democrat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Domenici

Pietro Vichi "Pete" Domenici (born May 7, 1932) is an American politician, currently serving as a Republican Senator from New Mexico. He has served continuously since 1973, the longest tenure in the state's history.

During Domenici's tenure in the Senate, he advocated waterway usage fees, nuclear power, and related causes. However, in recent years, his environmental record was rated to be one of the worst in the Senate, he has been involved in a scandal involving the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, and he has had dwindling approvals in his sixth term. Domenici announced on October 4, 2007 his decision not to seek re-election to the Senate in 2008 for health reasons, in particular frontotemporal lobar degeneration.<1><2>

<snip>

Environmental record

The grassroots organization Republicans for Environmental Protection singled out Domenici as “Worst in the Senate in 2006” on environmental issues.<16> In addition to assigning Domenici a score of zero for his environmental voting record, the group issued him “environmental harm demerits” for what they saw as two particularly irresponsible acts: first, for spearheading efforts to include in federal budget legislation provisions for “speculative revenues from oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; second, “for sponsoring and securing passage of S. 3711, the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, which would perpetuate America’s dangerous oil dependence, set a precedent for drilling in sensitive marine waters, and direct a disproportionate share of federal royalty revenues from a public resource to four states.”<16>

Domenici also received an exceptionally low environmental rating from the nonpartisan League of Conservation Voters, who claimed in 2003 that “uring the last decade his voting record has become even more strikingly anti-environmental.”<17> The LCV went on to criticize Domenici for voting in 1995 “to allow mining companies to ‘patent’ (purchase) public lands in order to extract minerals from them, without environmental standards, for the ridiculously low ‘price’ of $5 an acre or less.”<17>

<snip>