West Coast activists from FFAN, the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network – a coalition of groups including Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Health, Nuclear Information Resource Service, and EON, the Ecological Options Network – deliver 7000 signatures from around the world to the San Francisco Japanese embassy in support of the Japanese mothers trying to prevent their government from shipping radioactive rubble from Fukushima to various locations in Japan, burning it and dumping the ash in the ocean as a way of ‘sharing the pain.’ While west coast activists delivered the petition in San Francisco, their Washington, DC colleagues from NIRS and Beyond Nuclear delivered letters calling on assistance from Senators Boxer and Feinstein. The petition they delivered was begun by One World No Nukes, who presented their petition to the Japanese consulate in New York. [Photo: Rachel Johnson ]
The video in Japanese translation – with over 15,000 views is here: https://youtu.be/WFSFDMiWVzU
【海外市民団体の見る日本の汚染瓦礫受入問題】制作：EON
As nuclear expert Dr. Chris Busby points out, this burning of radioactive debris would not only eliminate a ‘base line’ of exposure for Fukushima victims near the plant who are certain to sue for damaging health effects in the future, but spread the contamination via the jet stream throughout the northern hemisphere and eventually the entire planet.
The U.S. – which dropped the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then encouraged Japan to buy the faulty GE Mark 1 reactors that caused Fukushima – remains in cover-up mode regarding the ongoing contamination of North America and beyond by Fukushima fallout.
FFAN is pressing California Senator Feinstein to protect the food testing budget and Senator Barbara Boxer to hold hearings and insist that the appropriate U.S. agencies intensively monitor the on-going Fukushima fallout and publicly report the results.
Watch this space for updates…
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Facing the Fallout Facts
by James Heddle and Mary Beth Brangan – Eds.
This edition looks at emerging data showing that past and on-going Fukushima fallout is far more serious than heretofore acknowledged by ‘official’ government and industry sources.
Are you surprised?
Bumped from the headlines by deliberate nuclear industry blocking, by the escalating global financial crisis and ‘Occupy’ movement developments around the planet, is the cascade of new revelations about the extent of the pollution, the attempts at a cover-up, and and the rising tides of public awareness, outrage and push-back regarding the continuing planetary Fukushima nuclear disaster.
As we write, TEPCO has admitted that nuclear reactions are still happening at Fukushima. Lethal radiation is still being released.
The French Nuclear Safety Institute, Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) has reported From March 21 to mid-July, 27.1 peta becquerels of cesium 137 was dumped from Fukushima Daiichi into the ocean. One peta becquerel is a million billion bequerels, or 10 to the power of 15. This is twenty times the amount estimated by TEPCO.
The Fukushima nuclear accident dispersed airborne dusts that are contaminated with radioactive particles. When inhaled or ingested, these particles can have negative effects on human health that are different from those caused by exposure to external or uniform radiation fields, such as from x-rays or cosmic radiation from or airplane flights. Rains across the U.S. and the rest of the world wash these radioactive particles out of the jet stream down onto our soil and water supplies.
Our genes will never be the same. What about our children and the other species?
Despite the denial and mandated inattention by the Obama administration of official monitoring agencies, evidence continues to mount that ‘a hard rain is falling’ across the northern hemisphere and beyond of nuclear contamination. Measurements of elevated levels of radiation here in the west coast as well as in Boston have been reported recently at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA).
Beyond Nuclear reports that ‘Hot radioactive particles from Fukushima found in the US, new study shows; children’s shoes in Japan contaminated with cesium.’
UC Berkeley School of Nuclear Engineering (UCBSNE) reports finding above normal levels of cesium 134 and 137 in San Francisco Bay area milk as late as Oct. 11. Elevated levels have also been recorded in topsoil. Cesium 137 has a half life of 30 years and a hazardous life of approximately 300 years.
Though the levels of radioactive particles detected by the UCBSNE team in California food and water may appear low at first glance, it is now understood that chronic exposure to low levels of radiation can be as damaging, or more so, per unit dose, than a single exposure to a high level of radiation.
Last month we joined efforts on Capital Hill pushing for official U.S. agency monitoring and Congressional hearings on the risks posed by continuing Fukushima fallout to U.S. public health and our food supply – especially on West Coast growers.
A group of us friends that includes Beyond Nuclear, NIRS, Citizen’s for Health, EON and concerned mothers, have formed a network to raise awareness of Fukushima Fallout. We call it the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network, FFAN. We want to help the suffering Japanese residents, spread the understanding of how they are being mistreated, increase public awareness in California and in the US about our Fukushima fallout contamination and to help shut down our own nuclear reactors and safely store the radioactive waste.
FFAN is now taking action to support Japanese mothers in stopping the intentional burning of millions of tons of radioactive rubble. The Japanese government plans to spread the burning throughout Japan and to dump it into Tokyo Bay and other parts of the ocean. The government wants all of Japan to share Fukushima’s pain. But they will also be sharing radiation-caused disease. This burning may also add more radiation to the jet streams circling the planet.
Thousands around the world have signed a petition to oppose this disastrous plan. This is the link to the website with the petition focused on stopping the burning and spreading of the radioactive rubble throughout Japan. Please watch their great short video of their visit to the Japanese Consulate.
We hope that you might be able to join us Monday morning to present the petition to the San Francisco Japanese Consulate, despite the short notice, and also to spread the word to your networks. We will meet at the Japanese Consulate, 50 Fremont St., San Francisco, at 9:00 am. It will be short and sweet.
Please read the following posts, share them with your networks and join our movement to stop this radioactive insanity! Close down all our reactors on fault lines and in tsunamis zones – that’s all California nuclear power reactors!
Oh the things we can do. I stood there with a bull horn on the streets of NYC saying that the children of Fukushima need to be evacuated and the transporting, burning and dumping of contaminated waste into Tokyo Bay must be halted. I’ve never imagined doing such a thing before, but it sure felt right. Right on the steps of the Japanese Consulate!
EPA admits to glitches in radiation monitoring equipment
Fukushima Update – MSNBC
We have more tonight on that disaster in japan. a lot of developments to report, in fact. a government official out and out said there is no end in sight to this disaster. radiation levels in nearby sea water spiked again to more than 3,000 times the normal level. the president of the company that owns the plant now awe total write-off is in the hospital currently with high blood pressure. and today japan’s emperor and empress made a rare public appearance trying to comfort those who lost all their worldly possessions in the earthquake and tsunami.
This spring’s nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant released almost double the amount of radiation the Japanese government has claimed, according to a new analysis. The authors say the boiling pools holding spent fuel rods played a role in the release of some of the contaminants, primarily cesium-137 — and that this could have been mitigated by an earlier response.
Researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Air Research examined radiation monitoring stations throughout Japan and the rest of the globe, extrapolating their findings from initial radiation-release estimates. They say the amount of cesium-137, a long-lived isotope that persists in the atmosphere, was about twice as high as the Japanese government’s official estimate.
An aerial view of San Onofre (SONGS). File photo by Andrea Swayne
An ammonia leak that forced a partial evacuation of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Tuesday was contained within hours but still required the plant to issue an alert and prompted the county to initiate its Emergency Operations Center.
Plant owner Southern California Edison announced the containment shortly before 6:30 p.m. although the alert, continued, according to a news release from SCE. Read more.
Find out true reactor conditions
Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced Wednesday that there is the possibility that criticality, a sustained nuclear chain reaction, had occurred “temporarily” and “locally” in the No. 2 reactor of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. It detected radioactive xenon-133 and xenon-135, products of uranium or plutonium fission, in gases collected Tuesday from the reactor.
Because the half life of xenon-133 is 5.25 days and that of xeon-135 is 9.14 hours, criticality is very likely to have occurred just before the gases were analyzed.
Although more than seven months have passed since the start of the nuclear fiasco, clearly the reactor has not yet been stabilized. Tepco’s plan to achieve “cold shutdown” of the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 reactors by the end of this year may face difficulty.
The fact that Tepco cannot deny the possibility of criticality irrespective of its scale is a grave situation.
NEW NIRS BRIEFING PAPER: ATOMIC RADIATION IS MORE HARMFUL TO WOMEN[Download PDF here.]
NIRS has released a new paper that shows that exposure to radiation causes 50% greater incidence of cancer and 50% greater rate of death from cancer among women, compared to the same radiation dose level to men. We’ve long known that children are much more susceptible to the effects of radiation than adults; now we know that women are more susceptible than men. Yet the world’s radiation standards are determined using a “reference man” as the guide for assessing radiation risk. The paper was written by NIRS’ Mary Olson, director of our Southeast regional office. She, along with NIRS Radioactive Waste Project Director Diane D’Arrigo, internationally known radiation expert Dr. Rosalie Bertell, and Eric Epstein, chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, will hold a telebriefing for activists on this new paper on Thursday, October 27 at 10 am eastern time. Please contact maryo@nirs.org for more information and the call-in number if you’d like to participate. The paper is based on underreported information contained in the National Academy of Sciences 2006 BEIR-VII report, which also concluded that there is no “safe” level of radiation exposure. You can download the eight-page paper here. A press release about the paper is here–we encourage you to download and send to your local media.
On March 30, 1979, Governor Richard Thornburgh recommended an evacuation for preschool children and pregnant women living within five miles of Three Mile Island (“TMI”). Data collected since the meltdown clearly demonstrate a significant nexus between radiation exposure and adverse health impacts to women and children.
A great deal of radiation was indeed released by the core melt at TMI. The President’s Commission estimated about 15 million curies of radiation were released into the atmosphere. A review of dose assessments, conducted by Dr. Jan Beyea, (National Audubon Society; 1984) estimated that from 276 to 63,000 person-rem were delivered to the general population within 50 miles of TMI. David Lochbaum of the Union of Concern Scientists, estimated between 40 million curies and 100 million curies escaped during the Accident. Read more.
FUKUSHIMA — The Fukushima Prefectural Assembly has adopted a petition calling for all 10 reactors at the prefecture’s two nuclear plants to be decommissioned.
The petition to shut down the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant, where four of the six reactor units were wrecked in the March 11 disasters, as well as the four reactors at the Fukushima No. 2 plant, was passed Thursday.
Among the 13 assemblies whose prefectures host nuclear power stations, Fukushima’s is the first to approve a request to decommission nuclear plants.
The global upheaval that is the Occupy Movement is hopefully in the process of changing—and saving—the world.
Through the astonishing power of creative non-violence, it has the magic and moxie to defeat the failing forces of corporate greed.
A long-term agenda seems to be emerging: social justice, racial and gender equality, ecological survival, true democracy, an end to war, and so much more. “When the power of love overcomes the love of power,” said Jimi Hendrix, “the world will know peace.”
Posted by Mochizuki on September 26th, 2011
9/28,Japanese government is lifting the mandatory area in Fukushima.
Obviously nothing has been improved.
They say, the temperature of the reactors are going under 100C, so it is not the dangerous level any more.
However, they also admit all the inspectors are broken in reactor 1,2,3. Only God knows what is going on in reactor 4.
so, what do they measure ??
CPUC Stuck In Culture of Corruption
CalWatchDog OCT. 17, 2011
It is shameful to punish the puppy when the pack leader is at fault. It is no different in the workplace and the corporate world — failure and corruption are usually the fault of the top dogs.
Two recent examples are Pacific Gas & Electric and the California Public Utility Commission. The utility company and the state regulator have talented employees, but problematic corporate big-dogs.
In fact, the entire utility regulatory system in California needs a new pack leader.
The first in line for the overhaul is Michael Peevey, the president of the CPUC since 2002. Politically well connected, Peevey is a former senior executive with Southern California Edison. His wife is State Sen. Carol Liu, D-La Canada-Flintridge.
It was on Peevey’s watch that a succession of deadly events took place, including the horrific 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion, which killed eight, injured more than 100 and destroyed 38 homes (pictured at right). Peevey was CPUC President when a gas line exploded in Rancho Cordova on Christmas Eve 2008, destroying a home and killing the occupant, as well as the very recent September pipeline explosion at a Cupertino condominium, which did not receive much press coverage.
Razor wire surrounds Hanford’s makeshift borders while tattered signs warn of potential contamination and fines for those daring enough to trespass. This vast stretch of eastern Washington, covering more than 580 square miles of high desert plains, is rural Washington at its most serene. But it’s inaccessible for good reason: It is, by all accounts, a nuclear wasteland.
NV Energy’s smart meters to be investigated
By Cy Ryan (contact) Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011
After hearing several complaints about possible health hazards and invasion of privacy, the state Public Utilities Commission has opened an investigation into smart meters installed in more than 500,000 homes in Las Vegas.
Commissioner Rebecca Wagner said there was misinformation or a lack of information when the commission approved NV Energy’s application to begin the project.
She said she wants to look into allowing customers to refuse the installation of the meters and the implications. And she says the investigation should address the health issues and the privacy and security fears.
This should be started now, she said, before “it unravels further.”
“Commissioner Rebecca Wagner said there was misinformation or a lack of information when the commission approved NV Energy’s application to begin the project.”
Global radioactivity data challenge Japanese estimates for emissions and point to the role of spent fuel pools
By Geoff Brumfiel and Nature magazine
The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March released far more radiation than the Japanese government has claimed. So concludes a study1 that combines radioactivity data from across the globe to estimate the scale and fate of emissions from the shattered plant.
The study also suggests that, contrary to government claims, pools used to store spent nuclear fuel played a significant part in the release of the long-lived environmental contaminant caesium-137, which could have been prevented by prompt action. The analysis has been posted online for open peer review by the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
The Japanese government along with TEPCO are a bunch of real liars and murders. They have no concern of what is happening to everyone in Japan. If they continue on the path that they are on, a lot of people will either get very sick or die from radiation in about 20 to 30 years from today.
Yes, there is no immediate effects, but what about the long term effects!
There is so much cover up`s that is taking place in Japan today, from the media to the political arena.
VIDEO UPDATE: October 31, 2011
Scientist Marco Kaltofen Presents Data Confirming Hot Particles
Washington, DC – October 31, 2011 – Today Scientist Marco Kaltofen of Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) presented his analysis of radioactive isotopic releases from the Fukushima accidents at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Mr. Kaltofen’s analysis confirms the detection of hot particles in the US and the extensive airborne and ground contamination in northern Japan due to the four nuclear power plant accidents at TEPCO’s Fukushima reactors. Fairewinds believes that this is a personal health issue in Japan and a public health issue in the United States and Canada.
Burn 200,000 metric tons of radioactive rubble to ride the Jet Stream to the US?
After just 53 days of air cleaning at Radiation Station in Santa Monica, California, two HEPA filters’ dust aggregate comes in at a worrisome 216.0% of background higher than normal. Even in drier climes like Southern California, which hasn’t been hit (yet) by jet stream-carried storms suffused with radioactive fallout from the triple Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns in Japan, there is measurable radiation in dust particulates breathed by millions in the Greater Los Angeles area.
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Beyond the ‘Smartest-Guys-in-the-Room’ Syndrome – SM Resistance Proves Fertile, IOUs Quizzed [Updated 11-6-2011 ]
by Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle, Eds.
This edition documents some progress in the growing public push-back against the hair-brained corporate lemming rush for mass compulsory installation of wireless ‘smart meters’ as public resistance spreads in Vermont, Nevada, Hawaii and in Canada.
The questions raised by EON and a feisty group of other official public interest ‘intervenors’ in the CPUC’s currently on-going proceeding on ‘smart meter’ opt-out options has now led to all California’s aptly-named IOUs (Investor-Owned Utilities) having their feet held to the fire on some hot and burning questions.
Not only PG&E, but Southern California Edison (Sempra) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) have not only been told by the CPUC to submit ‘smart meter opt-out proposals,’ but are also being quizzed on so-far unanswered questions ‘smart meter’ functioning.
You can see part of their responses below, plus a growing chorus of critical voices from within the energy and cyber-security communities who agree with former CIA Director James Woolsey in a recent TV interview that a wireless ‘smart grid’ is “really stupid.”
In addition to PG&E’s ‘smart meter confessions’ documented below by EMFSafetyNetwork’s Sandi Maurer, we were pleased to note SDG&E’s confirmation that – as we reported here – in addition to the RF emissions from ‘smart meter’s’ two wireless antennas, another source of their potentially harmful RF radiation comes from a component called the Switching Mode Power Supply (SMPS). [ See our post: New Critical Problem with ‘Smart’ Meters: The Switching-Mode Power Supply (SMPS) ]
There remain many other interesting tidbits of information that are revealed in these compulsory responses to Judge Amy’s questions. One glaring piece of info to us ‘smart’ meter opponents, is the fact that the peak power in PG&E’s electric meters is 2500 mW. Unfortunately, it appears that Judge Yip-Kikugawa doesn’t understand the biological or physics of why these meters would cause health effects when she stipulated that exposures be averaged over 30 minutes. The cells and organs of the body don’t average the peak pulses when the emissions hit. The peaks are experienced as the high intensity that they are. And, according to the PG&E report, the pulses number from 9,600/day to 190,000/day. This is like a RF jackhammer ranging from emitting those high spiking peaks from between every 9 seconds to every half second per day, 24/7.
Another glaring omission from the computations is that no awareness is given to the fact that in a neighborhood of mesh networked meters constantly ‘chirping’ to each other with these massively high intense millisecond milliwatt bursts, one is likely to be hit by several meters’ transmissions, not just one’s own meter. And that’s not even counting the many situations with a bank of many meters together on apartment buildings, condominiums, office buildings, etc.
Here are some of the latest developments…including Jerry Brown’s appointment of another former PG&E exec. If Goldman-Sachs rules the world, does PG&E rule California?
Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. official as his senior adviser for cabinet and external affairs.
Dana Williamson, who was PG&E’s director of public affairs, “will be responsible for working with members of the Governor’s cabinet especially on projects requiring cross functional collaboration,” Brown’s executive secretaries, Nancy McFadden and Jim Humes, said in an email to staff on Tuesday.
Williamson, 39, will also oversee the governor’s external affairs operation and the administration’s Washington, D.C., office. Read more…
[Who says,] ‘This is commentary on PG&E’s RF responses to the ALJ [ CPUC Administrative Law Judge Amy Yip-Kigawa. See Judge Questions Utilities on ‘Smart Meters’ ]. I must say I do feel some satisfaction about writing that. We have been right all along and now PG&E has finally admitted the truth! If you want to comment, please consider commenting on the website so others can read too.
[ Above photo: An APS employee changes a standard meter to a “smart” meter at a home in the Prescott Country Club area of Dewey-Humboldt this past June. – Les Stukenberg/The Daily Courier – Prescott Arizona ]
SANTA CRUZ, CA.—Just as PG&E enters the final phase of its deployment of wireless “smart” meters in California, the largest of the state’s Investor Owned Utilities (IOU’s) has reversed course, quietly beginning to replace the ‘smart’ meters of those reporting health impacts with the old trusty analog version. Consumer rights and health groups immediately seized on the news, demanding that millions of Californians unhappy with their new wireless meters get their analogs returned immediately at no cost.
In Canada, Free Press picks up Josh’s story: Smart Meter Removal Has Begun
Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh Thursday, November 3, 2011
California’s Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) has quietly begun replacing Smart Meters with analog meters for citizens reporting adverse health effects. Consumer rights and other groups demanded immediately that their wireless devices be removed from their homes.
Joshua Hart of stopsmartmeters.org reported the good news just as PG&E deploys the last phase of its smart meters in California. The Department of Energy’s promise that the smart grid and smart meters will lower electricity costs has proven incorrect; on the contrary, the utility costs have skyrocketed….
…Recently, the California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey assured customers that the utility “will provide for you to go back to the analog meter if that’s your choice.” The problem is that most Americans have no idea how damaging these smart meters are and an even larger group of Americans have never heard of it or see it as a contribution to “save” the planet because that is how these meters were sold to the public.
The tired rhetoric said that the smart grid and smart meters save the planet from doom and gloom, reduce waste by cutting your electricity at peak usage, eliminates the reader who must go to each home to calculate their monthly consumption, reduces your carbon footprint, and it will make the planet “green.” The reality is very far from the disingenuous promises. Read more.
SmartMeters send almost 10,000 signals a day – SFChron
Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s wireless SmartMeters are designed to communicate directly with the utility, eliminating the need for meter readers.
Turns out they do a lot of talking.
According to a document PG&E filed with the California Public Utilities Commission this week, the typical meter sends out almost 10,000 radio-frequency signals per day. Read more.
How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA
A new model of the way the THz waves interact with DNA explains how the damage is done and why evidence has been so hard to gather… [Chart – Technology Review]
On November 1, 2011 the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) held a workshop on its open Smart Grid docket. Originally this was not scheduled to be a public hearing. Vermonters who are opposing wireless Smart Meters picketed outside the PSB office for the hour prior to the beginning of the workshop.
PORTLAND, Maine — Researchers from around the world told a Portland audience Monday afternoon that cellphone use today is akin to smoking decades ago: There’s enough science to suggest the activity can cause cancer, but not enough political will to implement measures to reduce exposure.
“We’re setting ourselves up for an epidemic of cancers in the future that should be preventable based on the knowledge we have now,” David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany, told the crowd assembled at the University of Southern Maine’s Wishcamper Center on Monday.
‘Smart’ Meters in Paradise?
This from KikuLani
This posted just a few days ago – the pilot project is on Maui. If Hawaii residents allow this to move forward, it will become Paradise Lost and also not be good for property values! They need to get on our bandwagon!
Hitachi partners up with Hawaii PUC smart grid project:
https://www.smartmeters.com/the-news/smart-grid-news/2759-hitachi-leads-hawaii-smart-grid-project.html
Add this, too: Hawaii PUC approves smart grid project:
https://www.smartmeters.com/the-news/smart-grid-news/2689-hawaii-puc-approves-smart-grid-project.html
And Hawaii Electric’s Website has lots of updated info:
https://www.hawaiisenergyfuture.com/articles/Smart_Grid.html
BEWARE OF THAT WHICH IS NOT DISCUSSED
September 20, 2011
By Olle Johansson, Associate Professor, Karolinska Institute;Professor, The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden and Susan Foster, MSW.
As the United Nations meets in London yesterday and today to assess the global impact of the five leading chronic diseases ‐‐ cancer, diabetes, mental illness, heart disease, and respiratory disease ‐‐ there is a glaring omission in the environmental risks not being analyzed for impacts on health and economy. That omission is the massive explosion and intrusion of wireless technology into every facet of life. Even without factoring in the proven biological effects of RF (microwave) radiation, the World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates the health costs for the above five diseases could reach $47 trillion over the next 20 years. Read more.
Customers of NV Energy will have a chance next month to air their gripes or support for the controversial smart meter program. The meters already have been installed in more than 500,000 homes in Las Vegas.
Last month, the state Public Utilities Commission voted to open an investigation after hearing complaints from users.
Tampering defined – EMF Safety Network
Many people are stuck with a dumb utility meter they don’t want on their home. They call their utility company and ask for the analog meter back and their request is denied. Some people have taken matters into their own hands, bought an analog meter, hired an electrician and swapped the meter. The question whether or not this is legal based on tampering laws has been questioned. The EMF Safety Network hired environmental attorney Rose Zoia to investigate the legal risks of restoring analog meters.
Q: What is the definition of tampering with an electrical meter?
A: The California Penal Code states tamper “means to rearrange, injure, alter, interfere with, or otherwise prevent from performing a normal or customary function.” With respect to the provision of an utility…Read more.
The electromagnetic radiation (EMR) emitted from mobile towers is so powerful that it affects the biological systems of birds, insects, and even humans. The study, released by the environment ministry, called for the protection of flora and fauna by law.
‘The review of existing literature shows that the EMRs are interfering with the biological systems in more ways than one and there had already been some warning bells sounded in the case on bees and birds, which probably heralds the seriousness of this issue and indicates the vulnerability of other species as well,’ the study found.
[ Editor’s note: Ken Maize is executive editor of MANAGING POWER magazine and editor of POWER Blog. He was the founder and editor of Electricity Daily (1993-2006) and a reporter and editor at The Energy Daily for a dozen years, starting on March 28, 1979, the date of the Three Mile Island problem. See bio here. Contact address: kmaize@hughes.net. ]
However politically incorrect my conclusion, I’m convinced that the “smart grid” is not smart and even dumb. It diverts attention from what is a more important objective–a strong grid. And it politicizes in the very area where we need more consumer-driven, free-market incentives.
Following the Northeast grid collapse of 2003, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) popped out the smart grid concept, largely the brainchild of then EPRI’s CEO Kurt Yeager. The blueprint was for an interconnected intelligent network reaching from the generating station to your toaster, able to talk up-and-down the line, matching supply and demand seamlessly.
Sounds cool, but doesn’t stand up to analysis in my judgment. Read more.
Here’s further evidence why I believe the current smart grid hoopla is bogus, and North America should be focusing on a strong grid instead. Read more.
Smart Grid: Can ‘Smart Metering’ Overcome the Hassle Factor? (transaction costs matter too)
by Robert Michaels
May 29, 2009
When asked for conjectures about the Smart Grid, economists’ imaginations become almost indecently fertile. Writing in her blog, market-friendly Lynne Kiesling sees astounding dividends from real-time pricing and smart grid technology, preferably with competitive retail service.
Say, for example, you are on the train to work, and you get a SMS [ text message] notification that due to unexpected weather, there will be a higher-than-normal electricity price in the 9:00-10:00 hour. You may have already programmed your devices to respond to price signals, but what if the price is high enough that you want to change your settings? You can log in to your HAN [Home Area Network] from your mobile device, or from your computer at work, and change the device settings in the home through the web portal. … [i]f the home has e.g. solar PV panels the customer can program the network to reduce electricity use once the home’s consumption reaches the generation capacity of the solar resource.
Excerpt:
(and conclusion of article by Nate Seltenrich)
Bolinas Activists: Digital Democracy
If Wientjes and Sandizell-Smith represent separate arms of the Marin smart-meter resistance, self-described “full-time media activists” Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle are the heart. Working under the name Ecological Options Network from one corner of a small art studio in Bolinas, across three decades they’ve tackled nuclear power in Palau, radioactive waste in Texas, voting machines in Ohio and other issues. The common thread, Heddle says, is democracy. “It’s always about the question of choice.” Smart meters are another example of “foisting technologies by technocratic decree with no democratic input whatsoever,” he says. “It’s outrageous.” To get their point across, Brangan and Heddle produce films: 18 complete documentaries so far, plus another 60 shorter clips for the web. In addition to documenting the anti-smart-meter movement, they actively participate in it. Brangan frequently attends public meetings to deliver slide shows on the dangers of electromagnetic radiation. With a bright demeanor and a youthful energy that belies her 63 years, she supports anti-smart-meter activists in Marin and beyond, staying abreast of the latest information, distributing it to a wide network of contacts, fostering collaboration and circling back to record the results. This self-perpetuating cycle keeps her at the center of the action. “You have to understand that the body is biochemical-electrical,” she says. “Cells operate through a very complex way of assessing the environment through positive and negative charges … but then you get all these man-made sources coming in, [with no thought] about their compatibility with biological systems at all. No one was thinking about that.” Like Sandizell-Smith and the Wientjeses, Brangan, who says she’s mildly electrical-sensitive, came to West Marin seeking sanctuary from urban environments. Now, living by the beach in Bolinas, she’s careful to keep wireless and electronic pollution out, a fact I was reminded of when I went to meet her and Heddle. The new smart phone in my pocket, after all, had come with a worrisome disclaimer: “Do NOT use the device in a manner such that is in direct contact with the body. Such use will likely exceed the FCC radio frequency safety exposure limits.” Those cautionary words are no small consolation for Brangan and her cohorts. Not only did the CPUC in late October recommend a formal investigation into the health effects of smart meters, but if cell-phone manufacturers can disclose radiation risks in fine print, they reason, it must be only a matter of time before the same information can be used to defeat the wireless meters that already adorn millions of homes throughout California.
[Left: Public protest of ‘smart meters’ in West Marin County, CA.. Middle: Katharina Sandizell-Smith. Marin Magazine Photo by Tim Porter]
A new paper published online today in Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine demonstrates children and small adults absorb significantly more cell phone radiation than had been previously understood by using the conventional and widely used assessment methodology, the Specific Anthropomorphic Mannequin (i.e. plastic model of a brain, or SAM), to assess the ”Specific Absorption Rate”, known as the SAR.
• This study is important because it calls into question present cell phone exposure
guidelines from an engineering, not health, point of view.
• Computer simulation of radiation penetration, in contrast to estimating radiation
exposure using the fluid-filled plastic mannequin, demonstrates much greater
radiation exposures, particularly for children and small adults, than previously
understood.
• The study shows that when phones are placed in the pocket or against the body
the current FCC guidelines for radiation heating effects are presently being
violated, and suggests that different SAR exposure guidelines should be
established for people who are smaller than the mannequin, including children
and smaller adults.
• Experts say it is unlikely many cell phones on the market today would pass the
FCC certification process with the amount of radiation now being demonstrated
with this methodology. Read more.
British Medical Journal’s Upcoming Cell Phone Study Deeply Flawed, Say Experts
October 20, 2011
Environmental Health Trust and Other Experts Expose Major Flaws
in New Danish Study Claiming No Significant Cancer Risks
from Cell Phone Use.
Link to full press release here
“Unsurprising, biased and misleading,” says EHT President, cancer epidemiologist, Devra Davis, PhD, MPH
JACKSON, WY — October 20, 2011 EMBARGOED until 23:30 GMT – A new study to be released online today “Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study,” in the British Medical Journal, claims “to show no link between mobile phone use and tumours.” However, the study is seriously flawed, say technical experts from the U.K., United States, Austria, Sweden and Australia, who have provided critical reviews on the embargoed study to Environmental Health Trust, a research and public educational group and ElectromagneticHealth.org, a health education and advocacy group in the United States.
The study, “Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study,” by Patrizia Frei et al., published online, claims there is no link between long-term use of cell phones and tumors of the brain or central nervous system among 358,403 mostly male cell phone subscribers over the age of 30 during the period 1990-2007. The report is a follow-up to an earlier Danish analysis of the same group when the average use of cellphones was less than a decade that also reported no cell phone-cancer link.
Devra Davis, PhD, MPH, cancer epidemiologist and President of Environmental Health Trust, commented: “From the way it was set up originally, this deeply flawed study was designed to fail to find an increased risk of brain tumors tied with cellphone use.
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — A group representing Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Nokia Oyj asked a federal judge to block enforcement of a San Francisco law requiring wireless phone retailers to post what it called “alarmist” warnings about radiation from mobile devices.
Comment from Ellie Marks, Director of Government & Public Affairs
Environmental Health Trust www.environmentalhealthtrust.org:
Had I not witnessed this in person, I would find what went on in that courtroom this morning unimaginable. The judge’s comments were not only factually incorrect but he was sarcastic, condescending and insulting in regard to excellent science, the World Health Organization, victims, the citizens of San Francisco, the Mayor’s office and the Board of Supervisors.
He showed a blatant disregard for the facts and determination that went into San Francisco’s ordinance and for the right to know for all citizens.
Comparing an advisory about safe cell phone use to advising that a UFO may land nearby is an outrageous statement. The warnings are already in the fine print in every manual. He felt the FCC knows what they are doing and that the WHO does not know what they are doing. If he is correct, then why does the FCC require the safe distance information be included in every manual (yet allows it to be hidden)?
He went as far as to make a snide comment that a small distance could not make a difference in regard to radiation. He also showed little understanding or concern as to how a child could absorb more radiation that an adult.
The good news is he does not believe this issue is federally pre-empted and he is taking a week to deliberate on whether or not to grant the injunction on the ordinance which the CTIA is seeking. Unfortunately we need to get his permission in writing to submit more evidence.
The city attorneys did an excellent job. The judge had the necessary information to understand the facts. This is appalling and hopefully we will be pleasantly surprised next week.
We need to strategize as to how to move forward. Thank you for your continued support.
Judge tells SF to tone down new cell phone law
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer San Francisco Chronicle
(10-27) 16:12 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco’s ordinance requiring
cell phone dealers to warn customers about radiation from their products
goes too far, a federal judge ruled today, ordering the city to soften its
message and stop requiring retailers to post it on their walls.
Cell Phones Do Cause Brain Tumors
Magda Havas, PhD, Trent University
A bout nine out of 10 US households now have at least one cell phone — and that doesn’t include other wireless devices, such as cordless phones, iPads, baby monitors and computers.
Result: The average adult (and child) is flooded with nonionizing radiation, a form of energy that — for the first time — has been officially linked to cancer. In May, a panel of the World Health Organization (WHO) listed cell phones as a class 2b carcinogen, which means that it’s “possible” that cell phones, like some industrial chemicals, increase the risk for cancer.
This conclusion has been disputed by many scientists. But careful analysis of the best studies to date indicate that people who log the most cell-phone minutes are more likely to develop tumors on the same side of the head that they hold the cell phone, compared with those who use cell phones less often.
DISTURBING RESEARCH
The largest study of cell-phone use, known as INTERPHONE, was conducted in 13 countries over a 10-year period. The study, published in International Journal of Epidemiology, found that people who used cell phones for at least 1,640 hours over the 10-year period — that comes to about 30 minutes a day — had a 40% higher risk of developing a glioma, a deadly type of brain tumor.
Disturbing: The development of a brain tumor to the point that it can be detected often takes 20 to 30 years. The fact that these tumors are showing up after 10 years of exposure is disturbing because it is much faster than expected.
Previous studies have linked frequent or prolonged cell-phone use to an increase in parotid (salivary gland) and auditory nerve tumors.
The actual risk probably is higher than the studies indicate. The INTERPHONE study defined “heavy use” as using a cell phone for about 30 minutes a day. That’s a fraction of the time that many people currently spend on their cell phones.
And finally, a new documentary – DISCONNECT trailer by Kevin Kunze
On this Disconnect video trailer Gavin Newsom (Ca Lt. Gov.) says about the CTIA (wireless industry):
“They buy silence. They buy apathy. They buy politicians”
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