Official Bias and Incompetence Fuel Citizen Anger
Public fear, consternation and pushback spreads as corporate and regulatory denial, foot-dragging and refusals to monitor and test for fallout levels characterize this week’s post-Fukushima developments in Japan and the U.S.

Japanese government killing its own people in Fukushima
https://youtu.be/rVuGwc9dlhQ

Ex Japanese Nuclear Regulator Blames Radioactive Animal Feed on “Black Rain”
by Fairewinds Associates

Japan to recommend new evacuations around nuclear plant

Japanese authorities said Thursday that they would recommend the evacuation of hot spots near the nuclear power plant damaged in the March earthquake and tsunami.
The locations, to be announced in the next few days, were outside the 20-kilometre evacuation zone but had seen spikes in radiation levels that could expose people to more than the recommended maximum of 20 millisieverts per year, government spokesman Yukio Edano was quoted as saying in news reports.

NYTimes: In the Wake of Fukushima – Editorial
…If nuclear power is to have a future in this country, Americans have to have confidence that regulators and the industry are learning the lessons of Fukushima and taking all steps necessary to ensure safety.

Split Within Nuclear Regulatory Agency
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON — A majority of the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission is signaling that it wants to move slowly on at least some new recommendations from its staff on how to reduce the chance of a Fukushima-type accident at an American reactor despite calls by its chairman for swift action.

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A video series in five parts. [Scroll down to view.]

From Russia With Love
In the wake of Fukushima three women with profound personal knowledge of the social, economic, medical, biological and environmental impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster came to the U.S. to share their experiences and insights in a national speaking tour sponsored by Beyond Nuclear.

The delegation included:
Natalia Miranova – world renowned organizer at forefront of nuclear debates, won Supreme Court case against government of Russia.
Natalia Manzurova – cleanup engineer at Chernobyl for five years and international advocate for radiation victims.
Tatiana Mukhamedyarova – outspoken voice on radiation exposure with the Movement for Nuclear Safety.

[ For personal video interviews with each of these women, please see our previous post: Chernobyl Consciousness – Three Womans’ Stories
For more videos on this topic please see:
KEEPERS of the DEADLY FIRE – An interview with Nuclear Guardianship Project Founder Joanna Macy.
FUKUSHIMA FALLOUT – Lessons from Chernobyl with Dr. Dave DeSante
DVD copies available on request: orders@EON3.net 415-868-1900 ]

The delegation’s presentation at San Fransisco State University, organized by Department of American Indian Studies Lecturer Philip Klasky, was co-sponsored by his Department as well as the Department of Anthropology, the Environmental Studies Program and the Earth Island Institute’s Center for Safe Energy.

Other speakers included, Philip Klasky, Dr. Carlos Davidson of the Environmental Studies Program, Andrew Lichterman from the Western States Legal Foundation and Ernest Goitein, a nuclear engineer.

Part 1 – The Planetary Context
Philip Klasky, Lecturer in American Indian Studies and Dr. Carlos Davidson, Director of the SFSU Environmental Studies Program, lay out the cultural, environmental and historical context of nuclear technology.

Part 2 – Lessons Ignored
World renowned sociologist and anti-nuclear organizer Dr. Natalia Miranova presents the scientific, ecological and social implications of the Chernobyl and Fukushimsa disasters.

Part 3 – A Radiation Biologist’s Story
Radiation biologist Natalia Manzurova tells of her experience as a Chernobyl ‘clean up liquidator’ – translated by psychologist Tatiana Mukhamedyarova.

Part 4 – The Role of Social Movements
Attorney Andrew Lichterman of the Western States Legal Foundation discusses the difficulties of obtaining accurate information about the emerging impacts of Fukushima and the role of social movements in combating the madness of nuclear power and weapons proliferation.

Part 5 – Q&A
In the conclusion, panelists, including world renowned sociologist and anti-nuclear organizer Dr. Natalia Miranova; radiation biologist Natalia Manzurova; attorney Andrew Lichterman and nuclear engineer Ernest Goitein respond to comments and questions from the audience.

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The Nuclear Reality Gap Widens
Despite official silence and obfuscation, no-fly zones, news blackouts, nukewashing denials, NRC attempts to extend the lives of seriously-aging existing plants, and an indefensible Obama initiative to refurbish the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal and give a $35 million in taxpayer-funded loan guarantees to new nukes, a dense pall of reality is beginning to settle – like Fukushima fallout – across the world.

Major countries like Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Thailand, Malaysia and China are backpeddeling on nuclear power build-out plans, ‘The Market’ is turning away, and the informed public opinion swing against a ‘nuclear renaissance’ will take more than inflated PR budgets to reverse.

The industry may be in denial about this just being a ‘bump in the road’ and just a ‘public education’ problem, but it begins to look more like a terminal road block for the new nukes fantasy. The head of the UN’s IAEA recognizes that “Public confidence in the safety of nuclear power has been deeply shaken.” Even FOX News is worried. Write your White House and Congress person. Campaign for de-funding and decommissioning. Let’s seize the day! JH
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Mainichi Video: Radioactive Fallout from Fukushima Comes to North America– Mainichi Daily News

Radioactive dust from Fukushima plant hits N. America
Radioactive materials spewed out from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant reached North America soon after the meltdown and were carried all the way to Europe, according to a simulation by university researchers.

The computer simulation by researchers at Kyushu University and the University of Tokyo, among other institutions, calculated dispersal of radioactive dust from the Fukushima plant beginning at 9 p.m. on March 14, when radiation levels around the plant spiked.

Revealed: British government’s plan to play down Fukushima
Internal emails seen by Guardian show PR campaign was launched to protect UK nuclear plans after tsunami in Japan
Rob Edwards
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 June 2011 21.36 BST
Read e-mails here.
British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.

Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.

“This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally,” wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose name has been redacted. “We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear.”

Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power….
“Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works,” the official told Areva. “We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl.”
Read more.

Fukushima Spews, Los Alamos Burns, Vermont Rages and We’ve Almost Lost Nebraska
by Harvey Wasserman
Humankind is now threatened by the simultaneous implosion, explosion, incineration, courtroom contempt and drowning of its most lethal industry.

We know only two things for certain: worse is yet to come, and those in charge are lying about it—at least to the extent of what they actually know, which is nowhere near enough.

Indeed, the assurances from the nuke power industry continue to flow like the floodwaters now swamping the Missouri Valley heartland.

But major breakthroughs have come from a Pennsylvania Senator and New York’s Governor on issues of evacuation and shut-down. And a public campaign for an end to loan guarantees could put an end to the US industry once and for all.

Press remarks regarding the Las Conchas Fire, June 29, 2011, 2:30 pm
Los Alamos Study Group Update

Meltdown as “Speed Bump” – The Nuclear Gang Regroups
By KARL GROSSMAN
As the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex continued to unfold, the nuclear gang—principals of the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear members of the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration—held a two-day “summit” in Washington, D.C. last week on pushing for new nuclear plant construction.

The conclusion about the impacts of Fukushima on their drive for a “renaissance” of nuclear power: it will be only a “speed bump,” as participants put it at the Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy.
…A running point at the summit was the need to “educate the public” about the benefits of nuclear power despite Fukushima….

Radiation in Our Food
By Chris Kilham
…Should you panic about this? No. That will do no good. But you can call, write and email your congressperson, your senator, and any other elected officials in your district, ask them to push for testing of foods and water in your area, and tell them to take the threat of global nuclear fallout seriously. For while none of the 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S. are melting down at present, we have had our own nuclear accidents. Remember Three Mile Island? Radiation has made its way to the American dinner table. This is a time to speak out, and to put pressure on policy makers. Clearly, it’s far better to be politically active now than radioactive tomorrow.
Read more

Rewriting History: Nuke Plants Designed to Last 40 years, Now Talk of 100-Year Life Span
by Jeff Donn
ROCKVILLE, Maryland — When commercial nuclear power was getting its start in the 1960s and 1970s, industry and regulators stated unequivocally that reactors were designed only to operate for 40 years. Now they tell another story – insisting that the units were built with no inherent life span, and can run for up to a century, an Associated Press investigation shows.

This July 12, 1972 file picture shows the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey Township, N.J. Called “Oyster Creak” by some critics because of its aging problems, this boiling water reactor began running in 1969 and ranks as the country’s oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant. Its license was extended in 2009 until 2029, though utility officials announced in December 2010 that they’ll shut the reactor 10 years earlier, rather than build state-ordered cooling towers. By rewriting history, plant owners are making it easier to extend the lives of dozens of reactors in a relicensing process that resembles nothing more than an elaborate rubber stamp.

As part of a yearlong investigation of aging issues at the nation’s nuclear power plants, the AP found that the relicensing process often lacks fully independent safety reviews. Records show that paperwork of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sometimes matches word-for-word the language used in a plant operator’s application.

America’s Worst Nukes
Poorly regulated nuclear power plants had 14 ‘near-misses’ in 201
Rolling Stone Photo Essay

Cuomo Takes Tough Stance on Nuclear Reactors
By DANNY HAKIM – Published: June 28, 2011
ALBANY — One of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s top advisers met with the operators of the Indian Point nuclear plant last week and told them that the governor was determined to close the plant.

Mr. Cuomo is not the first politician or the first governor to take that position, but newly passed state legislation will make it easier for him to do so.

Scientists Monitor Air as Fire Burns Near Nuclear Site
LOS ALAMOS – As crews fight to keep a New Mexico wildfire from reaching the nation’s premier nuclear-weapons laboratory and the surrounding community, scientists are busy sampling the air for chemicals and radiological materials.

Smoke from the Las Conchas fire fills the sky near the Los Alamos Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., Tuesday, June 28, 2011. A vicious wildfire spread through the mountains above a northern New Mexico town on Tuesday, driving thousands of people from their homes as officials at the government nuclear laboratory tried to dispel concerns about the safety of sensitive materials. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Their effort includes dozens of fixed-air monitors on the ground, as well as a “flying laboratory” dispatched by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The special twin-engine plane is outfitted with sensors that can collect detailed samples.

What Happened to Media Coverage of Fukushima?
by Anne Landman
While the U.S. media has been occupied with Anthony Weiner, the Republican presidential candidates and Bristol Palin’s memoir, coverage of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has practially fallen off the map. Poor mainstream media coverage of Japan’s now months-long struggle to gain control over the Fukushima disaster has deprived Americans of crucial information about the risks of nuclear power following natural disasters….[ Great summary update. Read more. ]

Internal Contamination Confirmed – Fukushima residents have radioactive urine
Posted on Jun 27th 2011 by David Gomez
According to The Japan Times, more than 3 millisieverts of radiation were measured in the urine of 15 Fukushima residents of the village of Iitate and the town of Kawamata yesterday. This confirms that internal radiation exposure has occurred.

Millisieverts are a measurement of the amount of radiation dosage received by people.

Both places are about 24 miles from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The plant has been releasing radioactive material into the environment since the week of March 11, when an earthquake and tsunami caused core meltdowns.

“This won’t be a problem if they don’t eat vegetables or other products that are contaminated,” said Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University. “But it will be difficult for people to continue living in these areas.”

Nuke Chief at Fort Calhoun, Critics Up Concerns
Despite the Missouri River’s ever rising waters which are now less than three feet from forcing the Cooper plant to be shutdown, Jaczko downplayed any discussion of a radiation leak or flood waters climbing into the plant. Jaczko telling reporters, “Everything’s possible but right now it is not anticipated that we would see the water levels get that high.” Jaczko and officials with the Nebraska Public Power District which runs Cooper insist the plant is safe and would be shut down before any problems occur.

The reactor at Fort Calhoun has been shut down since April and plant officials have said they do not intend to bring it back on-line until the threat of flooding is over.

UN nuclear chief warns no ‘business as usual’
By Agence France-Presse
VIENNA (AFP) – The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog warned on Monday that confidence in atomic energy had been “deeply shaken” by the Fukushima disaster as a conference began to debate lessons to be drawn of the crisis in Japan.

“The eyes of the world will be upon us in the next few days,” Yukiya Amano said at the start of the five-day ministerial meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

“Public confidence in the safety of nuclear power has been deeply shaken.”

Germany’s Greens back Merkel’s 2022 nuclear deadline
By Agence France-Presse
BERLIN (AFP) – Germany’s Green party on Saturday decided to accept a government decision to close all nuclear reactors by 2022 instead of pushing for an earlier deadline.

Ahead of the extraordinary meeting in Berlin, the party leadership called on members to support the government, although some of the 819 delegates are calling for Germany to abandon nuclear energy as early as 2017.

“Giving up nuclear energy is a victory for the Greens,” said the party’s co-leader, Claudia Roth.

Radioactive Dust From Japan Hit North America 3 Days After Meltdown
But Governments “Lied” About Meltdowns and Radiation

NIRS Update on Fukushima
* note: all Update times are Eastern U.S. time

UPDATE, Tuesday, June 21, 2011. A new version of the map we posted Friday of radiation readings in Japan sheds more light on the vast contamination of the northern part of the country and new evidence that the government’s response has been woefully inadequate. The map is here. https://gunma.zamurai.jp/pub/2011/18June.pdf
(Warning, this is a very large—15mb—pdf file; not recommended for slow connections).

10,000 Nuclear Experiments on Hold as Wildfire Closes US Lab
by P. Solomon Banda and Susan Montoya Bryan
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Officials at the nuclear laboratory that created the first atomic bomb say it could be a few days before they know how experiments have been affected by a shutdown forced by a 323-square-kilometre wildfire.

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Obama’s Zombie Nuclearism
Never mind earthquake and tsunami, fire and flood – not to mention the Cold War reportedly being over for some time now – President Obama continues to push a ‘renaissance’ for both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. You may have thought boosting nuclear power was all he’s up to. But, no. He wants a new nuclear arms race, too.

You’d think Fukushima, plus the flood waters rising around Nebraska’s two nukes, plus the New Mexico wildfire advancing on the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab might give the President and his nuclear advisers pause. The concurrent emergencies illustrate the double danger that nuclear power and weaponry represent, and why, combined, they are a clear and present danger to true national security.

The posts in this edition lay out the factual, as opposed to the ideological, reasons Mr. Obama’s nuclear policies are tragically wrongheaded and why – despite squandering huge national resources – they are fortunately, unlikely to succeed. They show, in short, why America’s current ‘nuclear posture’ is an economic, geopolitical and anatomical impossibility.

The first link is to NUCLEAR ROULETTE: The Case Against A ‘Nuclear Renaissance,’ by Gar Smith, Editor Emeritus of Earth Island Journal. Edited by ECOTOPIA author Ernest Callenbach, with a foreword by international activist Aileen Mioko-Smith, NUCLEAR ROULETTE is No. 5 in the International Forum on Globalization’s (IFG’s) series of publications focused on false solutions to the global climate crisis.

As IFG Founder Jerry Mander and Ernest Callenbach say in their Prologue, the report:
“,,,focuses on the appalling attempt to revive and celebrate nuclear power as a grand ‘green’ climate-friendly energy system that can successfully replace fossil fuels and continue to sustain our industrial society at its present level. Author Gar Smith systematically refutes all the nuclear industry arguments, including one of their most critical assumptions – that the deadly radiation from nuclear wastes can be successfully sequestered for the 250,00 years they will remain dangerous to all life, an assertion bordering on insane.”

Smith’s 10 arguments for the abolition of nuclear power: (1) the impossibility of speedy deployment; (2) its catastrophic risks; (3) its inherent inefficiency and unreliability; (4) extravagant costs; (5) environmental impacts on air, land and water: (6) the waste dilemma; (7) the impact on indigenous people; (8) nuclear weapons proliferation; (9) the ‘inherently safe’ fallacy; and (10) that better options exist including efficiency, renewables and conservation.

The second link is to a brief video interview in which Jeremy Rifkin succinctly lays out his own five arguments for the inevitable demise of nuclear power. (1) construction is too costly and slow to impact climate change in time; (2) there’s no safe place for the waste; (3) the uranium supply is running out; (4) fueling the world’s reactors with plutonium would be a boon to terrorists; and (5) nuclear plants consume and pollute huge quantities of the planet’s fast-dwindling fresh water supply. Finally, Rifkin explains why – as in the cases of peer-to-peer file sharing putting music companies out of business, the internet blogosphere impacting news papers and the Linux free and open operating system challenging Microsoft and Apple – lateral networks of small energy producers linked in local micro-grids will make monopolistic centralized energy networks look soooo 20th century.

The third post is today’s Democracy Now report on Obama’s Nuclear Folly in light of encroaching catastrophic facts.

And finally, Norman Solomon – the only California Congressional candidate to call for the immediate shutdown of the nuclear plants at Diablo Canyon at San Luis Obispo and San Onofre – explains why.

JH
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Just Released!
IFG’s New Report: Nuclear Roulette
The ever-worsening news from Fukushima has blown the lid off of decades of nuclear industry disinformation about the perils of nuclear power. Country after country is rethinking nuclear expansion, including Japan itself.

The release of this new comprehensive report, Nuclear Roulette: The Case Against a “Nuclear Renaissance” couldn’t be more timely. Order a copy here.

Jeremy Rifkin – Why Nuclear Power is Dead
Une vidéo réalisée par TerreTV
[ Note: Begins with a brief clip of Sarkozy pushing nuclear energy in French. Rifkin speaks English. ]

In a rare interview, the Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington (the FOET), demonstrates in five factual arguments why the era of nuclear power is coming to an end.
“I chair a group of 120 largest companies in the world in the field of information technology, transport, logistics, energy, power distribution, construction […], these Companies know that nuclear power is dead, “said Jeremy Rifkin.

… “40% of all drinking water consumed in all of France is used to cool the nuclear reactors. When the water is rejected, it is hot and dehydrated ecosystems … ”

As Obama Quietly Pushes for a Nuclear Weapons Renaissance, Wildfire Threatens Los Alamos Nuclear Lab

In New Mexico, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the main nuclear weapons lab in the United States, has been shut down for a second day as a massive wildfire approaches the facility. The anti-nuclear watchdog group, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, says the fire now appears to be about 3.5 miles from a dump site at the lab where as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste are stored in fabric tents above ground.

Nuclear dangers close to home
by Norman Solomon – Marin Independent Journal
SEVERAL DECADES AGO, three expert nuclear engineers told a congressional panel why they decided to quit: “We could no longer justify devoting our life energies to the continued development and expansion of nuclear fission power — a system we believe to be so dangerous that it now threatens the very existence of life on this planet.”
…
Such inherent dangers are all too close to home here in California, where the state’s two nuclear power plants — Diablo Canyon at San Luis Obispo and San Onofre farther south — are both located on major earthquake faults along the coast.

The overall record of Diablo Canyon’s owner and operator — PG&E — hardly inspires confidence. And recent events in Japan showed that official assurances can become worthless after a big quake and tsunami.

Continuing radioactive leaks from Fukushima are extensive and multifaceted. The authoritative journal Nature reported in late May that “some scientists are simply floating the idea of turning Fukushima into a nuclear graveyard” — but “given the plant’s location on the coast, storing the waste there for millennia may be unrealistic.”

Here at home, I fundamentally disagree with the official mantra that California’s two nuclear power plants should keep operating while federal agencies conduct “studies” to determine whether those nukes are risky enough to warrant closure. Read more.

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Connecting The Dots (Duh!)
With cyberwarfare the new and coming thing, how ‘smart’ is it to create a nation-wide, easily hackable, wirelessly-managed power grid that includes both old and new nuclear plants?

Despite Fukushima fallout, and declaring the flooded Ft. Collins nuke a disaster, Mr. O continues to say that nuclear power should be revived in the U.S., as it provides “electricity without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.” Would that have anything to do with his connection with Exelon Nuclear? Exelon generates (according to its website) “approximately 20% of the U.S. nuclear industry’s power capacity with 10 power plants and 17 reactors—located in Illinois.”

As Karl Grossman lays out in the radio interview below, Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s ex-Chief-of-Staff, now Chicago Mayor, helped put Exelon together in his old investment banker days.

In the following posts, Rachel Maddow, Mic Wright, Matthew Bunn, Michiu Kaku, Harvey Wasserman, Arnie Gunderson and others share information that points in one direction: a wireless nuclear power grid would equal stupidity squared.

Flood waters threaten Nebraska nuke plant – video
June 22: Rachel Maddow reports on the Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Nebraska, which is threatened by the flooded Missouri River, and follows up on the latest news from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan.

Fukushima ‘still a ticking time bomb’ – Kaku on CNN – video

ROMANS [CNN HOST]: Then Fukushima. The disaster that won’t go away. Nobody is paying attention. But is the nuclear meltdown more dangerous than ever? […] Michio Kaku on the biggest industrial catastrophe in history. […]
KAKU: In the last two weeks, everything we knew about that accident has been turned upside down. We were told three partial melt downs, don’t worry about it. Now we know it was 100 percent core melt in all three reactors. Radiation minimal that was released. Now we know it was comparable to radiation at Chernobyl. […]
ROMANS: In your view, did they not know how bad it was or they knew and didn’t tell […]
KAKU: […] We knew it was much more severe than they were saying, because radiation was coming out left and right. So in other words, they lied to us. […]

What Happened to Media Coverage of Fukushima?
by Anne Landman
While the U.S. media has been occupied with Anthony Weiner, the Republican presidential candidates and Bristol Palin’s memoir, coverage of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has practially fallen off the map. Poor mainstream media coverage of Japan’s now months-long struggle to gain control over the Fukushima disaster has deprived Americans of crucial information about the risks of nuclear power following natural disasters….[ Great summary update. Read more. ]

Nuclearism as Pathology –
Arnie Gunderson, Harvey Wasserman and Karl Grossman – on KPFA’s ‘Living Room’ with Chris Welch

Michio Kaku’s Update on Fukushima
It has been over 3 months after the tragic accident in Fukushima, Japan, and a flood of new information has been coming out…

Project Flood 2011 and tornados meet two nuclear stations
Two United States nuclear power plants are on alert and President Obama has declared emergencies in Nebraska’s counties where both nuclear stations are experiencing “unusual events.” The official emergency declarations apply to both counties where the nuclear facilities are threatened with flood waters. Red Cross closed its emergency shelter at Fort Calhoun, home of one of the nuclear facilities, and is now referring and transitioning evacuees to other shelters. Red Cross is due to assess Fort Calhoun when conditions permit.
“Massive flooding along the Missouri River has put Nebraska’s two nuclear plants, both near Omaha, on alert,” reported Amy Goodman for The Guardian on Wednesday.

Obama declared an emergency in Nebraska and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the area affected by flooding. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is now authorized to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance in the counties included in the declaration.

Nuclear Terrorism Can Cause Another Fukushima: Expert
Global action to protect the nuclear industry against possible terrorist attacks is urgently needed, a leading expert said, as are safety steps to prevent any repeat of Japan’s Fukushima accident.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) fact-finding team leader Mike Weightman examines Reactor Unit 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant May 27, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/IAEA/Handout) “Both al Qaeda and Chechen terrorist groups have repeatedly considered sabotaging nuclear reactors — and Fukushima provided a compelling example of the scale of terror such an attack might cause,” Matthew Bunn of Harvard University said.

Some countries had “extraordinarily weak security measures in place,” he said in an Internet blog posted this week, without naming them.

Your gas meter: The new frontline in cyberwar
By Mic Wright
By the end of 2020, the government wants every home in the UK to be fitted with a smart meter. The device, as part of a networked system of localised power distribution, allows consumers to control their consumption and — more contentiously — also lets utilities companies monitor real-time usage. The

The £8 billion scheme is being sold as a way for the average household to cut its energy bills by an estimated £28 per year.

But could such a banal technology in fact be fraught with danger? In July 2009 — five months before the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced the initiative — security firm IOActive demonstrated a worm that could rapidly spread through a smart-grid network, disabling meters as it went. The experiment proved what many cybersecurity experts already knew: hackers distributing the right malware could shut down the network. Britain would go dark.

“Before, to destroy a meter, you had to take a sledgehammer to it,” explains John Bumgarner, research director for security technology at think tank the US Cyber Consequences Unit. “That worm could destroy 300,000 [smart meters] in one go. The smart grid is going to be a major target for hackers.”

Japan’s nuclear power plant crisis: Some context
Posted on March 14, 2011 by Power & Policy
By Matthew Bunn
Harvard Kennedy School Associate Professor Matthew Bunn, whose research topics includes nuclear proliferation risks, the future of nuclear energy and its fuel cycle, and policies to promote innovation in energy technologies, offered these observations early Monday on the earthquake-damaged nuclear power plants in Japan.

Cheap natural gas looms over new US nuclear projectcts
* Cheap natural gas seen as a roadblock to nuclear growth
* Regulatory risk also seen after Fukushima-S&P analyst
* “Ledge that nuclear is operating on is not that wide”
* All eyes on whether first two plants are on budget
By Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) – Japan’s ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant may slow the expansion of the U.S. nuclear industry, but cheap and abundant supplies of natural
gas are a far bigger roadblock to financing new reactors, a Wall Street panel said on Tuesday.

Financiers and investors are watching to see how much U.S. nuclear plant costs are raised after a U.S. regulatory review of the Japanese disaster, one of several challenges to nuclear growth described at a conference of utilities, manufacturers and suppliers in Washington.

“On top of that speed bump, you have the tire-slashing metal spikes of gas,” said Richard Cortright, a managing director in Standard & Poor’s utilities ratings group, referring to cheap domestic natural gas, an attractive power source for a new generation of electrical plants.

“I think that unless you have self-inflatable tires, it’s going to be a little while before nuclear gets back on the radar screen,” Cortright said.

Some French Conservatives Questioning Nuclear Power
One Suggests France Could Become a Renewable Energy Powerhouse
June 20, 2011
By Paul Gipe
The solid block of support for nuclear power among French elites is showing signs of strain.

In an unusual development, Parisian newspaper Liberation published two side-by-side articles about French political figures on the right who question nuclear power in the wake of the Italian referendum on new nuclear plants.

Nuclear Energy, the U.S. Remains Committed to Its Expansion
Despite calls to shutter the U.S. nuclear program, President Obama remains steadfast in his support of the industry, despite his stated position opposing it before he was elected

Dear EarthTalk: Radioactive rain recently fell in Massachusetts, likely due to Japan’s nuclear mess. Given the threats of radiation, wouldn’t it be madness now to continue with nuclear power? How can President Obama include nukes as part of a “clean energy” agenda?—Bill Mason, Hartford, Conn….

…According to investigative journalist Karl Grossman, Obama changed his tune on nuclear as soon as he took office, “talking about ‘safe, clean nuclear power’ and push[ing] for multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies for the construction of new nuclear plants.” Right away, Grossman says, Obama brought in nuclear advocate Steven Chu as energy secretary, and two White House aides that had been “deeply involved with…the utility operating more nuclear power plants than any other in the U.S., Exelon.”

Undeterred by the Japanese nuclear disaster, Obama pledged just two weeks following the initial explosions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi facility that nuclear power should be revived in the U.S., as it provides “electricity without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.”

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