The New York State Public Service Commission – in the face of strong opposition – has this week approved a $7.6 billion bailout of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – who appoints the members of the PSC – has called for the continued operation of the nuclear plants in order to, he says, save jobs.

The bailout would be part of a ‘Clean Energy Standard’ advanced by Cuomo. Under it, 50% of electricity used in New York by 2030 would come from “clean and renewable energy sources” – with nuclear power considered clean and renewable.

“Nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable”, testified Pauline Salotti, vice chair of the Green Party of Suffolk County, Long Island at a recent hearing on the plan.

“Without these subsidies, nuclear plants cannot compete with renewable energy and will close”, declared a statement by Jessica Azulay, program director of Alliance for a Green Economy, based in upstate Syracuse with a chapter in New York City.

“But under the guise of ‘clean energy,’ the nuclear industry is about to get its hands on our money in order to save its own profits, at the expense of public health and safety.”

Moreover, she emphasized, “Every dollar spent on nuclear subsidies is a dollar out of the pocket of New York’s electricity consumers residents, businesses and municipalities” that should instead go towards backing “energy efficiency, renewable energy and a transition to a clean energy economy.”

Twice as much money for nuclear as for wind and solar

The ‘Clean Energy Standard’ earmarks twice as much money for the nuclear power subsidy than it does for renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

Its claim is that nuclear power is comparable because nuclear plants don’t emit carbon or greenhouse gasses the key nuclear industry argument for nuclear plants nationally and worldwide these days because of climate change.

What the industry does not mention, however, is that the ‘nuclear cycle’ or ‘nuclear chain’ the full nuclear system is a major contributor to carbon emissions. Numerous statements sent to the New York PSC on the plan pointed to this.

“Nuclear is NOT emission-free!” Manna Jo Greene, environmental director of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, wrote the PSC. “The claim of nuclear power having ‘zero-emission attributes’ ignores emissions generated in mining, milling, enriching, transporting and storing nuclear fuel …

“New York no longer needs nuclear power in its energy portfolio, now or in the future. Ten years ago the transition to a renewable energy economy was still a future possibility. Today it is well underway.”

“Nuclear power is not carbon-free”, wrote Michel Lee, head of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy based in Scarsdale. While the operation of reactors “produces minimal carbon”, he said, “every other stage produces prodigious amounts.”

Thus the nuclear industry is a “big climate change polluter … Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes which combined consume large amounts of fossil fuels and generate potent warming gasses. These include: uranium mining, milling enrichment, fuel fabrication, transport” – and her list went on.

“The State of New York and its energy officials have a genuine opportunity to alter the course of history. You have the chance to help direct America and the world towards a more secure and prosperous future … With vision and resolve, our state can be at the vanguard of a new global energy era.”

2,000 nuclear jobs or 82,000 renewable energy jobs?

In opposing the New York nuclear subsidy, Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Atmosphere / Energy Program at Stanford University, wrote in an op-ed in Albany Times Union, the newspaper in the state’s capitol, that he was “shocked” by the PSC’s “proposal that the lion’s share of the Clean Energy Standard funding would be a nuclear bailout.”

Allowing the upstate nuclear plants to close now and replace them with equal energy output from offshore wind and solar power “would be cheaper and would create more jobs”, he said. The closure of the upstate plants “would jeopardize fewer than 2,000 jobs”.

Meanwhile, he added, based on a peer-reviewed study he has completed, “converting New York State to 100 percent clean, renewable energy – which is entirely possible now would create a net of approximately 82,000 good, long-term jobs.”

The upstate nuclear power plants to be bailed out under the plan would be FitzPatrick, Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 and Ginna. The money would come over a 12-year period through a surcharge on electric bills paid by residential and industrial customers in New York State.

Cuomo “directed the PSC to create subsides for upstate reactors”, reported Tim Knauss of the Post-Standard of Syracuse. “Industry watchers say New York would be the first state to establish nuclear subsidies based on environmental attributes, a benefit typically reserved for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

“The ‘zero emission credits’ would be paid to nuclear plants based on a calculation of the economic value of avoiding greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.”

A model for other states to bail out failing nuclear plants?

Reuters has reported that the nuclear “industry hopes that if New York succeeds, it could pressure other states to adopt similar subsides” for nuclear plants. The headline of the Reuters story: “New York could show the way to rescue U.S. nuclear plants.”

The two Indian Point nuclear power plants 26 miles north of New York City are not now included in the plan but it “leaves the door open to subsidies” for them, says Azulay of Alliance for a Green Economy. If they were to be included, he said, the costs of the bailout would rise to “over $10 billion.”

Cuomo has called for a shutdown of the Indian Point plants in the densely populated southern portion of the state, although boosting the continued operation of the nuclear plants in less populated upstate.

“Nuclear has a role”, he declared at a press conference last month. “Unless we’re willing to go back to candles, which would be uncomfortable and inconvenient, we need energy generation.”

Still, the consequences of a Fukushima or Chernobyl-level accidents at the upstate plants could have major impacts. In a 1982 report, ‘CRAC-2’, done at Sandia National Laboratories for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the consequences of a meltdown with breach of containment at every nuclear power plant in the United States were estimated.

These included these in upstate New York. The analysis projected early fatalities, early injuries, cancer deaths and the ‘scaled costs’ of “lost wages, relocation expenses, decontamination costs, lost property, and interdiction costs for property and farmland” (in 1980 dollars).

The projections for the upstate plants are:

• FitzPatrick (Scriba): 1,000 early fatalities, 16,000 early injuries, 17,000 cancer deaths and $103 billion in scaled costs.
• Nine Mile Point 1 (also in Scriba: 1,400; 26,000, 20,000 and $66 billion.
• Nine Mile Point 2: 1,400, 26,000, 20,000 and $134 billion.
• Ginna (in Ontario, NY): 2,000, 28,000, 14,000 and $63 billion.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York / College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

The New York State Public Service Commission – in the face of strong opposition – has this week approved a $7.6 billion bailout of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – who appoints the members of the PSC – has called for the continued operation of the nuclear plants in order to, he says, save jobs.

The bailout would be part of a ‘Clean Energy Standard’ advanced by Cuomo. Under it, 50% of electricity used in New York by 2030 would come from “clean and renewable energy sources” – with nuclear power considered clean and renewable.

“Nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable”, testified Pauline Salotti, vice chair of the Green Party of Suffolk County, Long Island at a recent hearing on the plan.

“Without these subsidies, nuclear plants cannot compete with renewable energy and will close”, declared a statement by Jessica Azulay, program director of Alliance for a Green Economy, based in upstate Syracuse with a chapter in New York City.

“But under the guise of ‘clean energy,’ the nuclear industry is about to get its hands on our money in order to save its own profits, at the expense of public health and safety.”

Moreover, she emphasized, “Every dollar spent on nuclear subsidies is a dollar out of the pocket of New York’s electricity consumers residents, businesses and municipalities” that should instead go towards backing “energy efficiency, renewable energy and a transition to a clean energy economy.”

Twice as much money for nuclear as for wind and solar

The ‘Clean Energy Standard’ earmarks twice as much money for the nuclear power subsidy than it does for renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

Its claim is that nuclear power is comparable because nuclear plants don’t emit carbon or greenhouse gasses the key nuclear industry argument for nuclear plants nationally and worldwide these days because of climate change.

What the industry does not mention, however, is that the ‘nuclear cycle’ or ‘nuclear chain’ the full nuclear system is a major contributor to carbon emissions. Numerous statements sent to the New York PSC on the plan pointed to this.

“Nuclear is NOT emission-free!” Manna Jo Greene, environmental director of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, wrote the PSC. “The claim of nuclear power having ‘zero-emission attributes’ ignores emissions generated in mining, milling, enriching, transporting and storing nuclear fuel …

“New York no longer needs nuclear power in its energy portfolio, now or in the future. Ten years ago the transition to a renewable energy economy was still a future possibility. Today it is well underway.”

“Nuclear power is not carbon-free”, wrote Michel Lee, head of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy based in Scarsdale. While the operation of reactors “produces minimal carbon”, he said, “every other stage produces prodigious amounts.”

Thus the nuclear industry is a “big climate change polluter … Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes which combined consume large amounts of fossil fuels and generate potent warming gasses. These include: uranium mining, milling enrichment, fuel fabrication, transport” – and her list went on.

“The State of New York and its energy officials have a genuine opportunity to alter the course of history. You have the chance to help direct America and the world towards a more secure and prosperous future … With vision and resolve, our state can be at the vanguard of a new global energy era.”

2,000 nuclear jobs or 82,000 renewable energy jobs?

In opposing the New York nuclear subsidy, Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Atmosphere / Energy Program at Stanford University, wrote in an op-ed in Albany Times Union, the newspaper in the state’s capitol, that he was “shocked” by the PSC’s “proposal that the lion’s share of the Clean Energy Standard funding would be a nuclear bailout.”

Allowing the upstate nuclear plants to close now and replace them with equal energy output from offshore wind and solar power “would be cheaper and would create more jobs”, he said. The closure of the upstate plants “would jeopardize fewer than 2,000 jobs”.

Meanwhile, he added, based on a peer-reviewed study he has completed, “converting New York State to 100 percent clean, renewable energy – which is entirely possible now would create a net of approximately 82,000 good, long-term jobs.”

The upstate nuclear power plants to be bailed out under the plan would be FitzPatrick, Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 and Ginna. The money would come over a 12-year period through a surcharge on electric bills paid by residential and industrial customers in New York State.

Cuomo “directed the PSC to create subsides for upstate reactors”, reported Tim Knauss of the Post-Standard of Syracuse. “Industry watchers say New York would be the first state to establish nuclear subsidies based on environmental attributes, a benefit typically reserved for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

“The ‘zero emission credits’ would be paid to nuclear plants based on a calculation of the economic value of avoiding greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.”

A model for other states to bail out failing nuclear plants?

Reuters has reported that the nuclear “industry hopes that if New York succeeds, it could pressure other states to adopt similar subsides” for nuclear plants. The headline of the Reuters story: “New York could show the way to rescue U.S. nuclear plants.”

The two Indian Point nuclear power plants 26 miles north of New York City are not now included in the plan but it “leaves the door open to subsidies” for them, says Azulay of Alliance for a Green Economy. If they were to be included, he said, the costs of the bailout would rise to “over $10 billion.”

Cuomo has called for a shutdown of the Indian Point plants in the densely populated southern portion of the state, although boosting the continued operation of the nuclear plants in less populated upstate.

“Nuclear has a role”, he declared at a press conference last month. “Unless we’re willing to go back to candles, which would be uncomfortable and inconvenient, we need energy generation.”

Still, the consequences of a Fukushima or Chernobyl-level accidents at the upstate plants could have major impacts. In a 1982 report, ‘CRAC-2’, done at Sandia National Laboratories for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the consequences of a meltdown with breach of containment at every nuclear power plant in the United States were estimated.

These included these in upstate New York. The analysis projected early fatalities, early injuries, cancer deaths and the ‘scaled costs’ of “lost wages, relocation expenses, decontamination costs, lost property, and interdiction costs for property and farmland” (in 1980 dollars).

The projections for the upstate plants are:

• FitzPatrick (Scriba): 1,000 early fatalities, 16,000 early injuries, 17,000 cancer deaths and $103 billion in scaled costs.
• Nine Mile Point 1 (also in Scriba: 1,400; 26,000, 20,000 and $66 billion.
• Nine Mile Point 2: 1,400, 26,000, 20,000 and $134 billion.
• Ginna (in Ontario, NY): 2,000, 28,000, 14,000 and $63 billion.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York / College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

The New York State Public Service Commission – in the face of strong opposition – has this week approved a $7.6 billion bailout of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – who appoints the members of the PSC – has called for the continued operation of the nuclear plants in order to, he says, save jobs.

The bailout would be part of a ‘Clean Energy Standard’ advanced by Cuomo. Under it, 50% of electricity used in New York by 2030 would come from “clean and renewable energy sources” – with nuclear power considered clean and renewable.

“Nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable”, testified Pauline Salotti, vice chair of the Green Party of Suffolk County, Long Island at a recent hearing on the plan.

“Without these subsidies, nuclear plants cannot compete with renewable energy and will close”, declared a statement by Jessica Azulay, program director of Alliance for a Green Economy, based in upstate Syracuse with a chapter in New York City.

“But under the guise of ‘clean energy,’ the nuclear industry is about to get its hands on our money in order to save its own profits, at the expense of public health and safety.”

Moreover, she emphasized, “Every dollar spent on nuclear subsidies is a dollar out of the pocket of New York’s electricity consumers residents, businesses and municipalities” that should instead go towards backing “energy efficiency, renewable energy and a transition to a clean energy economy.”

Twice as much money for nuclear as for wind and solar

The ‘Clean Energy Standard’ earmarks twice as much money for the nuclear power subsidy than it does for renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

Its claim is that nuclear power is comparable because nuclear plants don’t emit carbon or greenhouse gasses the key nuclear industry argument for nuclear plants nationally and worldwide these days because of climate change.

What the industry does not mention, however, is that the ‘nuclear cycle’ or ‘nuclear chain’ the full nuclear system is a major contributor to carbon emissions. Numerous statements sent to the New York PSC on the plan pointed to this.

“Nuclear is NOT emission-free!” Manna Jo Greene, environmental director of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, wrote the PSC. “The claim of nuclear power having ‘zero-emission attributes’ ignores emissions generated in mining, milling, enriching, transporting and storing nuclear fuel …

“New York no longer needs nuclear power in its energy portfolio, now or in the future. Ten years ago the transition to a renewable energy economy was still a future possibility. Today it is well underway.”

“Nuclear power is not carbon-free”, wrote Michel Lee, head of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy based in Scarsdale. While the operation of reactors “produces minimal carbon”, he said, “every other stage produces prodigious amounts.”

Thus the nuclear industry is a “big climate change polluter … Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes which combined consume large amounts of fossil fuels and generate potent warming gasses. These include: uranium mining, milling enrichment, fuel fabrication, transport” – and her list went on.

“The State of New York and its energy officials have a genuine opportunity to alter the course of history. You have the chance to help direct America and the world towards a more secure and prosperous future … With vision and resolve, our state can be at the vanguard of a new global energy era.”

2,000 nuclear jobs or 82,000 renewable energy jobs?

In opposing the New York nuclear subsidy, Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Atmosphere / Energy Program at Stanford University, wrote in an op-ed in Albany Times Union, the newspaper in the state’s capitol, that he was “shocked” by the PSC’s “proposal that the lion’s share of the Clean Energy Standard funding would be a nuclear bailout.”

Allowing the upstate nuclear plants to close now and replace them with equal energy output from offshore wind and solar power “would be cheaper and would create more jobs”, he said. The closure of the upstate plants “would jeopardize fewer than 2,000 jobs”.

Meanwhile, he added, based on a peer-reviewed study he has completed, “converting New York State to 100 percent clean, renewable energy – which is entirely possible now would create a net of approximately 82,000 good, long-term jobs.”

The upstate nuclear power plants to be bailed out under the plan would be FitzPatrick, Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 and Ginna. The money would come over a 12-year period through a surcharge on electric bills paid by residential and industrial customers in New York State.

Cuomo “directed the PSC to create subsides for upstate reactors”, reported Tim Knauss of the Post-Standard of Syracuse. “Industry watchers say New York would be the first state to establish nuclear subsidies based on environmental attributes, a benefit typically reserved for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

“The ‘zero emission credits’ would be paid to nuclear plants based on a calculation of the economic value of avoiding greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.”

A model for other states to bail out failing nuclear plants?

Reuters has reported that the nuclear “industry hopes that if New York succeeds, it could pressure other states to adopt similar subsides” for nuclear plants. The headline of the Reuters story: “New York could show the way to rescue U.S. nuclear plants.”

The two Indian Point nuclear power plants 26 miles north of New York City are not now included in the plan but it “leaves the door open to subsidies” for them, says Azulay of Alliance for a Green Economy. If they were to be included, he said, the costs of the bailout would rise to “over $10 billion.”

Cuomo has called for a shutdown of the Indian Point plants in the densely populated southern portion of the state, although boosting the continued operation of the nuclear plants in less populated upstate.

“Nuclear has a role”, he declared at a press conference last month. “Unless we’re willing to go back to candles, which would be uncomfortable and inconvenient, we need energy generation.”

Still, the consequences of a Fukushima or Chernobyl-level accidents at the upstate plants could have major impacts. In a 1982 report, ‘CRAC-2’, done at Sandia National Laboratories for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the consequences of a meltdown with breach of containment at every nuclear power plant in the United States were estimated.

These included these in upstate New York. The analysis projected early fatalities, early injuries, cancer deaths and the ‘scaled costs’ of “lost wages, relocation expenses, decontamination costs, lost property, and interdiction costs for property and farmland” (in 1980 dollars).

The projections for the upstate plants are:

• FitzPatrick (Scriba): 1,000 early fatalities, 16,000 early injuries, 17,000 cancer deaths and $103 billion in scaled costs.
• Nine Mile Point 1 (also in Scriba: 1,400; 26,000, 20,000 and $66 billion.
• Nine Mile Point 2: 1,400, 26,000, 20,000 and $134 billion.
• Ginna (in Ontario, NY): 2,000, 28,000, 14,000 and $63 billion.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York / College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

The New York State Public Service Commission – in the face of strong opposition – has this week approved a $7.6 billion bailout of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – who appoints the members of the PSC – has called for the continued operation of the nuclear plants in order to, he says, save jobs.

The bailout would be part of a ‘Clean Energy Standard’ advanced by Cuomo. Under it, 50% of electricity used in New York by 2030 would come from “clean and renewable energy sources” – with nuclear power considered clean and renewable.

“Nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable”, testified Pauline Salotti, vice chair of the Green Party of Suffolk County, Long Island at a recent hearing on the plan.

“Without these subsidies, nuclear plants cannot compete with renewable energy and will close”, declared a statement by Jessica Azulay, program director of Alliance for a Green Economy, based in upstate Syracuse with a chapter in New York City.

“But under the guise of ‘clean energy,’ the nuclear industry is about to get its hands on our money in order to save its own profits, at the expense of public health and safety.”

Moreover, she emphasized, “Every dollar spent on nuclear subsidies is a dollar out of the pocket of New York’s electricity consumers residents, businesses and municipalities” that should instead go towards backing “energy efficiency, renewable energy and a transition to a clean energy economy.”

Twice as much money for nuclear as for wind and solar

The ‘Clean Energy Standard’ earmarks twice as much money for the nuclear power subsidy than it does for renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

Its claim is that nuclear power is comparable because nuclear plants don’t emit carbon or greenhouse gasses the key nuclear industry argument for nuclear plants nationally and worldwide these days because of climate change.

What the industry does not mention, however, is that the ‘nuclear cycle’ or ‘nuclear chain’ the full nuclear system is a major contributor to carbon emissions. Numerous statements sent to the New York PSC on the plan pointed to this.

“Nuclear is NOT emission-free!” Manna Jo Greene, environmental director of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, wrote the PSC. “The claim of nuclear power having ‘zero-emission attributes’ ignores emissions generated in mining, milling, enriching, transporting and storing nuclear fuel …

“New York no longer needs nuclear power in its energy portfolio, now or in the future. Ten years ago the transition to a renewable energy economy was still a future possibility. Today it is well underway.”

“Nuclear power is not carbon-free”, wrote Michel Lee, head of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy based in Scarsdale. While the operation of reactors “produces minimal carbon”, he said, “every other stage produces prodigious amounts.”

Thus the nuclear industry is a “big climate change polluter … Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes which combined consume large amounts of fossil fuels and generate potent warming gasses. These include: uranium mining, milling enrichment, fuel fabrication, transport” – and her list went on.

“The State of New York and its energy officials have a genuine opportunity to alter the course of history. You have the chance to help direct America and the world towards a more secure and prosperous future … With vision and resolve, our state can be at the vanguard of a new global energy era.”

2,000 nuclear jobs or 82,000 renewable energy jobs?

In opposing the New York nuclear subsidy, Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Atmosphere / Energy Program at Stanford University, wrote in an op-ed in Albany Times Union, the newspaper in the state’s capitol, that he was “shocked” by the PSC’s “proposal that the lion’s share of the Clean Energy Standard funding would be a nuclear bailout.”

Allowing the upstate nuclear plants to close now and replace them with equal energy output from offshore wind and solar power “would be cheaper and would create more jobs”, he said. The closure of the upstate plants “would jeopardize fewer than 2,000 jobs”.

Meanwhile, he added, based on a peer-reviewed study he has completed, “converting New York State to 100 percent clean, renewable energy – which is entirely possible now would create a net of approximately 82,000 good, long-term jobs.”

The upstate nuclear power plants to be bailed out under the plan would be FitzPatrick, Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 and Ginna. The money would come over a 12-year period through a surcharge on electric bills paid by residential and industrial customers in New York State.

Cuomo “directed the PSC to create subsides for upstate reactors”, reported Tim Knauss of the Post-Standard of Syracuse. “Industry watchers say New York would be the first state to establish nuclear subsidies based on environmental attributes, a benefit typically reserved for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

“The ‘zero emission credits’ would be paid to nuclear plants based on a calculation of the economic value of avoiding greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.”

A model for other states to bail out failing nuclear plants?

Reuters has reported that the nuclear “industry hopes that if New York succeeds, it could pressure other states to adopt similar subsides” for nuclear plants. The headline of the Reuters story: “New York could show the way to rescue U.S. nuclear plants.”

The two Indian Point nuclear power plants 26 miles north of New York City are not now included in the plan but it “leaves the door open to subsidies” for them, says Azulay of Alliance for a Green Economy. If they were to be included, he said, the costs of the bailout would rise to “over $10 billion.”

Cuomo has called for a shutdown of the Indian Point plants in the densely populated southern portion of the state, although boosting the continued operation of the nuclear plants in less populated upstate.

“Nuclear has a role”, he declared at a press conference last month. “Unless we’re willing to go back to candles, which would be uncomfortable and inconvenient, we need energy generation.”

Still, the consequences of a Fukushima or Chernobyl-level accidents at the upstate plants could have major impacts. In a 1982 report, ‘CRAC-2’, done at Sandia National Laboratories for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the consequences of a meltdown with breach of containment at every nuclear power plant in the United States were estimated.

These included these in upstate New York. The analysis projected early fatalities, early injuries, cancer deaths and the ‘scaled costs’ of “lost wages, relocation expenses, decontamination costs, lost property, and interdiction costs for property and farmland” (in 1980 dollars).

The projections for the upstate plants are:

• FitzPatrick (Scriba): 1,000 early fatalities, 16,000 early injuries, 17,000 cancer deaths and $103 billion in scaled costs.
• Nine Mile Point 1 (also in Scriba: 1,400; 26,000, 20,000 and $66 billion.
• Nine Mile Point 2: 1,400, 26,000, 20,000 and $134 billion.
• Ginna (in Ontario, NY): 2,000, 28,000, 14,000 and $63 billion.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York / College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

The Four Thousands Islands (Sipangdon) in southern Laos, has long beguiled explorers tourists and locals with its vast number of islets, spectacular waterfalls and 26 major islands. Over a stretch of 50 kms the mighty Mekong River splits into seven major braided channels. This pristine area of precious wetlands screamed out for international protection as provided for under the Ramsar Convention, a protection that has been embraced by Cambodia just two kilometres away across the border. But the Lao authoritarian state opted for a hydropower dam, rather than Ramsar protection for endangered dolphins, the abundant fisheries and one of the region’s most cherished waterscapes.

Malaysian real estate company Mega-First MFCB has selected the worst possible site for the dam which has blocked the only channel (out of the seven channels) that is deep enough and wide enough for large fish to migrate, a channel that has provided an all year round effective fish passage around the rapids, rocks and waterfalls over the millennia.

The Don Sahong dam construction launched in January 2016 has already stopped the water flow along the Hou Sahong channel (see the video) disrupting fish navigation and depriving hundreds of fishing families of their livelihood.

Earth-moving machinery, trucks and several thousand Chinese workers from construction giant Sino-hydro, which signed the contract with Mega-First Malaysia, have occupied Saddam Island and built a bridge to the mainland.

The acting director of the Cambodia’s Inland Fisheries Institute, Chheng Pen told the Ecologist “The fish are trapped in dry season. It became a killing zone for two months. The migratory fish could not move upstream deeper into Lao because the water was too shallow.”

 A small colony of Irrawaddy Dolphins and many villagers have suffered a periodic noise barrage from the din of dynamite blasting for several months. Dolphins are ultra-sensitive to sound. The excavation is scaring the landscape and shatters the normal serenity of this unique ecosphere of rock formations, flooded forests and waterways.  

On the opposite bank (a 15-minute ride by boat) lies Cambodia. Preah Rumkel is an eco-tourism site on the Cambodian side that attracts many visitors who come to watch the dolphins. Chhith Sam Ath, programme director of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Cambodia says: “Cambodian people have a deep respect for dolphins and want to see dolphins and fisheries protected.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MEKONG FISHERIES

Sipangdon fisheries has been 4,000-tonnes-a-year business with 70% consumed by Lao people. Based on first-sale prices and the Mekong River Commission’s (MRC’s) recently released figures the total wild-capture fish catch in the Mekong in 2015 was 2.3million tonnes and is worth about $11 billion.

http://www.mrcmekong.org/news-and-events/newsletters/catch-and-culture-vol-21-no-3

Chhith Sam Ath, says: “The Don Sahong Dam is an ecological time bomb that threatens the food security of millions and a population of critically endangered Mekong Irrawaddy dolphins. The dam will have disastrous impacts on the entire river ecosystem all the way to the Delta in Vietnam.”

The Mega-First Corporation claim they have come up with an engineering solution to divert fish away from the Sahong channel to Hou Xang Phuek and Hou Saddam – two much smaller channels that have been artificially deepened.

However, Dr So Nam, from the MRC fisheries unit, reports that MRC technical experts have concluded “Hou Saddam and the Hou Xang Phuek channels cannot compensate for fish losses from Sahong and there will also be an impact on the Khone Falls.”

HAS THE MEKONG RIVER OMMISSION FAILED TO PROTECT THE MEKONG ECOSYSTEM?

The 1995 Mekong Agreement that created the MRC (The Mekong River Commission) was based on the four-member states Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. All decisions were to be made by consensus, hence Mekong dam projects are not subject to any veto and the MRC secretariat is really only an advisory body.

Increasingly the Mekong has become an arena of unilateral ‘water grabbing’ for the sole purpose of hydro-dam construction by China and Lao, with scant regard for good governance in water sharing or for the protection of the rich biodiversity of the longest river in SE Asia.

The six dams built on the Upper Mekong by China were built without any consultation (Beijing has never joined the MRC). The MRC has a detailed consultation process, but it failed to curb the zealous drive of the developers and the determination of the Lao Government to ride roughshod over all the objections and protests over the two dams launched on the Lower Mekong.

The Xayaburi Dam was launched in 2012 and this year the Don Sahong Dam. Construction started and in both cases building commenced before the MRC consultation process had been completed.

The new MRC chief Pham Tuan Phan explained, “The MRC is not a regulatory body for the management of water-related resources. Nor can it approve or disapprove any development projects such as hydropower development.”

The Lao regime steamed ahead against of a tide of opposition from Cambodia, Vietnam, civilians and riverside communities that was expressed during the six months MRC-run consultation process known as the PNCPA [MRC public consultation process Procedures for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement.)

MRC leaders have passively watched the ongoing erosion of the Mekong River’s unique biodiversity with the apparent justification “we have no regulatory powers” to stop the rush to build dams. Many critics say this is an all too glib excuse for not accepting a greater responsibility as an advisory body, with considerable scope for advocacy based on their own research. 

Dr Philip Hirsch the director of the Mekong Research Centre (University of Sydney) told the Ecologist “The MRC’s fisheries programme has produced reports that advised against proceeding with Don Sahong (dam). Yet the MRC leadership has not used these scientific reports to make a proactive recommendation against the dam. The Secretariat and its CEO have played an overly cautious game in which fear of offending governments, has taken precedence over its duty of care for the river.”

Cambodian fisheries expert Chheng Phen is depressed by the looming prospect of more dams and shrinking fish stocks. If the cascade of nine dams on the Lao side of the Mekong goes ahead, which the HDI Delta Study projects a 55% loss of fisheries if 11 dams go ahead. “I am very disappointed in the failure of the MRC consultation process. They have failed to protect fisheries, I feel very sorry for Cambodian people who rely on fish.”

 The MRC has a stock response to such criticism. “We understand certain stakeholders have different expectations about the role of the MRC that go beyond our mandate under the 1995 Mekong Agreement. Unfortunately, it’s very challenging to balance everyone’s interests and impossible to satisfy all parties.”

But the MRC mandate does in fact clearly refer to protection of the environment. There is nothing in the 1995 Agreement that prohibits the CEO and the secretariat from expressing stronger concerns about the destruction of the Mekong, dam by dam.

The fact that a clear majority of Mekong citizens have clearly rejected the two Lao dams as documented by the MRC consultation feedback from riparian stakeholders in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, could be used as mandate for the MRC to raise concerns about reckless dam development much more stridently. The CEO can readily cite article 3 (mandate for environmental concern) and article 7 of the Mekong Agreement (which specifics that where harm is done to the river calls for a suspension of projects can be made) www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/263/changing-tides-for-a-common-future-the-mrc-and-hydro-diplomacy

Has the MRC forgotten the landmark SEA Report (the Strategic Environmental Assessment Report) that concluded that the only way to protect the Mekong was to declare a moratorium on all dam-building for 10 Years?

http://www.mrcmekong.org/about-mrc/programmes/initiative-on-sustainable-hydropower/strategic-environmental-assessment-of-mainstream-dams/

commissioned this independent study on the environmental impacts of the 11 scheduled dams on the mainstream Mekong but has never endorsed it. The recommendation to suspend all dams clashed with the pro-business tilt of “sustainable hydro-power” and the political agenda of the Lao PDR to utilise its part of the mainstream Mekong for maximum profit by selling electricity to Thailand, regardless of the environmental cost to the Mekong itself.

Dr Hirsch points out that the SEA “expressly warned against using the Mekong mainstream as an experimental site for untested mitigation approaches”. Vietnam has endorsed the report but the Lao team threatened to “walk out” if it was ever brought up again by the secretariat. A former CEO capitulated to this threat. And the dams go on being built.

DESTROYING THE MEKONG DAM BY DAM

Two more dams on the mainstream Mekong are currently being readied for construction. Altogether a total of nine dams are being planned by the Lao Ministry of Energy.

During this year’s drought when the Mekong river hit its lowest point for 100 years, downstream countries could only get some trickle of relief, if China turned on the tap and released water from its six dams. And nobody needed to ask who is the new overlord and master of the once mighty Mekong?

China’s geo-political power has been greatly enhanced by its cascade of dams, and its control over water resources. It has even set up its own Lancang-Mekong committee to deal with Mekong affairs posing a challenge to an already weak MRC suffering major budget cuts.  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-03/15/c_135190799.htm

But climate change scientists warn this is the worst of times to build new dams, when the vital glaciers of Tibet – the common source of many great rivers including the Mekong – are melting. Water flow is diminishing year on year. And by the time more dams in Laos come online, the water flow maybe insufficient to drive the turbines which means, in effect, the Mekong River’s rich biodiversity may well be needlessly sacrificed to build ineffective dams that can no longer deliver the promised supply of electricity.

If future dams become unviable, there is no technology in the world that can recover the lost biodiversity and reverse the damage done to the Mekong. Machinery can be restored but the fragile ecosystems and nature can never be resurrected.

Vietnamese scientists are increasingly aware of this developmental madness. Wetlands scientist Nguyen Huu Thien, a participant in the SEA environmental report on dam impacts toldme: “If all the Mekong dams go ahead, then Vietnam will cease to be a rice exporter, and the delta denied sediment flow will no longer be able to support 18 million population. Social unrest, migration and other problems should not only concern Hanoi but all the Asian governments.”

The failure of the MRC should motivate other international agencies, not only Asian. The collapse of the Mekong ecosystem has global implications and several UN agencies UNDP, FAO and WFP that regularly buy Mekong rice for humanitarian missions would be directly affected by this impending disaster.

At a recent conference in the Delta capital of Can Tho, Dr Tran Dinh Thien director of Vietnam’s Institute of Economics declared: “We can only save the Mekong by shedding the narrow pond mentality of making profit from the river in the name of development” adding “there must be a Mekong River Protection Fund to protect the flow and a global movement to protect the river as an ecological and cultural asset of the world”

https://youtu.be/TPXRVe35h7c

This Author:

Tom Fawthrop has previously reported on dams, ecology, human rights, rebellions and military coups in the South East Asia for Al Jazeera TV, The Economist, the Guardian and The Ecologist. He is also a documentary filmmaker and has directed two films about dams on the Mekong and the Salween (Eureka films).

More by Tom Fawthrop on The Ecologist.

Labour is at an impasse. However the upcoming leadership contest finishes, it doesn’t look likely the party will emerge fit to win a general election. The most probable outcome in September – a Corbyn victory – could leave us with a party without a functioning parliamentary force. A defeat for Corbyn would decimate the morale of the door knockers and leafleteers who salvaged unlikely victories in Labour’s last three by-elections.

Labour’s mess is merely a microcosm of a country in crisis. And of course large numbers of disenfranchised voters demonstrated their frustration with the status quo in the recent EU referendum; the exit they demanded will now be managed by the most unrepresentative government ever, led by an un-elected Prime Minister, overseen by an unelected second chamber.

Amid the chaos, climate change has been all but forgotten.

Far removed from the internal wranglings of the British political parties are the 18 million Vietnamese living in the Mekong Delta, whose homes are sinking into the sea, along with the rice which feeds many of the poorest around the world. The people of the Mekong Delta, so imminently threatened by climate change, need a progressive government in power in the UK and, frankly, needed it years ago.

A government is urgently required which, for instance, treats renewable energy technologies as far more than just new entrants into the economic market, and fracking as what it is; an attempt to sustain the fossil-fuel status quo. The Vietnamese people need a government that will, in the event of Brexit, rewrite and even improve the climate change legislation we lose.

New Prime Minister Theresa May’s move to scrap the Department of Energy and Climate Change and appoint Andrea Leadsom (see here) as Environment Minister suggests these tasks cannot be entrusted to what is *certainly not* the “greenest government ever”. The Conservatives’ unconvincing record on climate change action, which will likely culminate in the missing of our 2020 renewable energy targets, has implications far beyond Britain’s borders. The hypocrisy is that this inaction will exacerbate migration challenges in countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh which would dwarf the controversial (and now even more unlikely) entry of Turkey into the EU.  

Actors across the UK political spectrum are recognising that the time is ripe for fundamental change; a Progressive Alliance of the left and centre parties, offering comprehensive constitutional, electoral, and policy reform. To name but a few: George Monbiot, Caroline Lucas MP (Green), Clive Lewis MP (Labour), and Tim Farron MP (Lib Dem) have all made the call in recent weeks. Important reforms are on the table for a Progressive Alliance (notably a shift to proportional representation) but, absent from the dialogue thus far, is what the Alliance could offer the UK’s environmental and climate change credentials.

The Labour movement is the final piece of the jigsaw. Despite the damage Labour’s in-fighting is doing to their ability to govern, there are reasons for optimism. Sit in on Labour or Momentum meetings around the country (when they’re not suspended) and you’ll hear thousands of people from all backgrounds reluctant to capitulate on their beliefs for the sake of expediency. This move to a more principled politics has potential benefits from an environmental perspective; dealing with climate change is not about political expediency but is a moral imperative. For them, and indeed for me as a young Labour member, the leadership feels like a fundamental decision which will define the future course of UK politics.

Perhaps the most common accusation against Jeremy Corbyn is that he stands for ‘the politics of protest’ and not the ‘politics of winning’. Corbyn could set out a robust counter to this claim if he joined with fellow left MP Clive Lewis and committed to forming a Progressive Alliance at the next general election. Even if Labour did make losses due to the much touted un-electability of Corbyn they would, based on 2015 numbers, be able to win a general election as part of a Progressive coalition.

People for a Progress Alliance has identified 49 seats that could be won from the Conservatives by joining forces with the other progressive parties; the Lib Dems, the Greens, Plaid Cymru, and (only on certain votes) the SNP; many of whom have already stated they are open to the idea. All of these parties cite tough action on climate change repeatedly in their manifestos; indeed, based on their manifestos there is more that unites than divides them.

The time for a Progressive Alliance for reform, and for our environment, is now.

This Author

Alex Chapman is one of the Ecologist New Voices contributors. A Labour Party Member, he is a Climate Change Researcher at the University of Southampton, and founder of the Facebook community People for a Progressive Alliance

Many of us depend on coffee to fuel our early morning meetings, mid-afternoon slumps or all-night study sessions.

These days, the words ‘coffee’ and ‘fuel’ are half-jokingly synonymous. More than 9m tonnes of the bean are produced annually around the world and, once we brew it, an awful lot of waste is created. The vast majority ends up in landfill.

Researchers in South Korea, however, have discovered a way of using waste coffee grounds as a fuel in a far more literal sense. In a study in Nanotechnology, they report using coffee waste to produce a carbon material full of small pores which increase the surface area, known as ‘activated’ carbon. This new material is capable of absorbing and storing methane and hydrogen, both of which can be used as fuels.

While the ability to store these fuels from such a cheap material is a great step towards making this technology more viable, it also provides an environmental advantage: methane is a harmful greenhouse gas.

This is by no means the only use for waste coffee grounds. As a relatively pure and essentially free waste stream, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs have looked into various ways of putting it to use.

Burn coffee for low-cost fuel

For a few years now, Nestlé has been using waste coffee grounds from its instant soluble coffee production as thermal fuel. It currently uses coffee to cook the food it produces in more than 20 factories globally, displacing more than 800,000 tons of coffee grounds each year that would otherwise go to landfill.

In a more specific enterprise, the London-based company Bio-bean is trying to turn waste from local instant coffee producers (nearly 200,000 tonnes in London and south-east England alone) into biomass pellets for power generation, as well as residential heating using trendy biomass burners. These beans burn more cleanly and contain 50% more energy than traditional wood pellets.

However unlike Nestlé, Bio-bean first removes oil from the coffee, which brings us to our second point.

Turn coffee into liquid fuel

Like most plant seeds, the coffee bean contains a significant amount of oil which can either be squeezed out or chemically extracted. It can then be converted into biodiesel, a liquid with similar properties to that of regular diesel.

My own research found coffee-derived biodiesel wasn’t affected by where the coffee was grown, the type of bean or how it was brewed. This is a great plus as it means the coffee-derived fuel will give off a predictable and consistent amount of energy when burnt.

Coffee grounds can also be fermented to produce ethanol or subject to extreme heat and pressure in order to create bio-oil, a material similar to crude oil. Both processes, however, are expensive. Biodiesel is the only fuel that seems to be viable on a larger scale, hence Bio-beans’s endeavours to commercialise it.

It’s full of valuable chemicals

Coffee contains a number of chemicals that, when isolated and purified, can serve very specific uses. Examples include:

• chlorogenic acid, a food additive that slightly lowers blood pressure; trigonelline, which helps prevent and treat diabetes and central nervous system diseases;
• polyhydroxyalkanoates, which are used to make bioplastics;
• and a wide range of antioxidants which can be used in healthcare or added to fuel and lubricants to lengthen their lifetimes.

Compost coffee?

Coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen, a vital nutrient for plant growth. This is known by a number of coffee shops which will provide their used coffee to customers who request it. It reduces their waste, and might be tipped into organic, caffeine-infused fruit and veg. What barista could say no to that?

Soaking up heavy metals

Waste coffee is even effective at soaking up harmful ‘heavy metals’ such as chromium, copper, nickel or lead which often leak out of chemical plants, farms or factories and cause significant damage.

In specific lab conditions waste coffee has been reported to remove up to 91% of heavy metal ions from solution – a good example of potential environmental benefits.

Coffee goes high-tech?

Most complex of all, researchers have investigated using coffee to make supercapacitors – electrical stores capable of holding more power and more charge cycles than traditional batteries. Ultra-thin porous carbon nanosheets have been produced with good electrical properties.

Whether it’s used at home as garden compost, in lab for research or even in industrial fuel production, there are clearly lots of uses for waste coffee. This huge variety could potentially be a negative thing. After all, how do you decide what to do with something so versatile?

One thing is for sure, however. We certainly shouldn’t be throwing it away.

Rhodri Jenkins is Postdoctoral Researcher in Biofuels, University of Bath.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Bosses at the University of Glasgow were motivated to remove the email account and online privileges of emeritus professor of geophysics David Smythe because of his anti-fracking views, an investigation by DeSmog UK has revealed.

Internal emails dating back to July 2014, obtained by Smythe through a Subject Access Request filing and seen by DeSmogUK, confirm his online privileges were revoked following a long-running dispute between the university and Smythe concerning his use of the university name when discussing the impacts of shale gas extraction.

The emails appear to contradict the university’s previous claims that the change in Smythe’s online privileges, removed in February this year, had been the result of a “routine review of email accounts in the School of Geographical & Earth Sciences.”

Smythe argues this goes against an agreement with the university, made upon his retirement in 1998, granting him continued access to the university’s email and online journals. He also says the actions of the university are an attack on his freedom of speech.

“Accessing the scientific and academic library database online is my lifeline”, Smythe told DeSmog UK. “The point of them cutting me off like this means that I’m in effect unable to pursue serious research anymore. They’ve really tried to kill me off academically speaking by cutting off this lifeline.”

Making ‘industrial research partners’ unhappy

The internal emails demonstrate that several university staff and academics, including engineering professor and member of the university court, Paul Younger, and the university’s court secretary, David Newall, had been working to distance the university from Smythe’s views on fracking for more than two years.

And as one email from Younger suggests, some of the university’s “various industrial research partners” were not happy about Smythe’s anti-fracking comments.

DeSmog UK reached out to the University of Glasgow, including to Younger and Newall, for clarification on the issue with regards to the contents of the emails.

Elizabeth Buie of the university’s communications and public affairs office, replied: “May I refer you to my previous email to you on this matter, confirming that David Smythe left the University some 18 years ago and stating that termination of his email was indeed part of a routine review carried out by the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences which covered a number of former staff members.”

Smythe believes however that the emails demonstrate this was instead the result of “a two-year campaign led by Professor Paul Younger and other senior members of the university to have me silenced.”

In 2014 Paul Younger co-authored a paper in the in the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, ‘Quantification of potential macroseismic effects of the induced seismicity that might result from hydraulic fracturing for shale gas exploitation in the UK‘, calling for a lighter regulatory regime for fracking operations.

The paper states: “it is our hope that the contents of the present paper may be of value in guiding these authorities towards an improved regulatory process, to avoid unfairly disadvantaging the new shale gas industry relative to existing industries”.

‘Misrepresenting the University’

According to the emails, the idea for “removing [Smythe’s] access to a University of Glasgow email address” appears to have been first suggested by Younger in a 16th July 2014 email to John Chapman, vice-president of the College of Science and Engineering, Dorothy Welch, deputy secretary to the court, and Maggie Cusack, a professor in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences.

The email, titled “Misrepresenting the University of Glasgow”, was prompted by a BBC Radio Scotland interview given by Smythe, a former chair of geophysics at the university’s geology department, where he criticised fracking.

Younger wrote: “I wish we had the wherewithal to go further, but it would not appear that the Univ [sic] statutes allow us to ‘strike off’ emeritus status from anyone claiming it, no matter the depths of turpitude to which they sink.”

In response, Welch wrote: “I have sent a ‘cease and desist’ letter to David Smythe asking him not to give the impression of misrepresenting the University. I would hope that would be sufficient but we need to continue to be alert.

“We cannot easily withdraw access to UoG email [sic] as it was part of an agreement when he left us; that said, if he continued to bring the University into disrepute we could escalate the situation. I’m not willing to do that just now though. We don’t have a procedure for withdrawing emeritus status but I have flagged to HR that we need to develop one.”

The 2014 letter, signed by court secretary Newall asks that Smythe make it clear his views “are not necessarily representative” of the university. It reads: “A number of my academic colleagues are concerned that the views you have expressed, particularly on the subject of shale gas, are not consistent with the work currently being undertaken at the University.”

A later email on 23 July 2014 from Younger, a former fracking advisor to the Scottish Government, to court secretary Newall, as well as Chapman, Welch and Cusack, reads: “Various industrial research partners have suggested an open letter to major newspapers making clear he does not speak for us.”

It does not appear, however, that any such open letter was ever published. What followed instead was a protracted internal battle to stop Smythe affiliating himself with the University, including a series of articles in the national press that August.

Younger took to the pages of the Telegraph and the Daily Mail to criticise Smythe’s views on fracking as “pseudo-scientific scaremongering” and accused Smythe of “fraud” for allegedly misrepresenting his credentials as a chartered geology – something Smythe has since admitted was a mistake.

Expert evidence opposing fracking and coial bed methane production

Smythe, 69, who now lives in the South of France, spent 10 years working as a consultant for the oil industry after he left the university. He first became concerned about fracking when plans for shale gas exploration were announced in the Languedoc area of France where he resides.

Since then, he has submitted a series of objections to fracking plans in Britain and served as an expert witness on the issue of coal bed methane near Falkirk in 2014. He also submitted evidence in 2014 arguing against Cuadrilla’s plans for shale gas exploration in Lancashire.

Commenting on the 2014 letter from the university, Smythe asserted: “I have never ‘misrepresented’ the university; on the contrary I have always made it clear that my opinions are my own.”

According to his website, Smythe hasn’t published any journal articles since 2003. In January of this year, however, he submitted a discussion paper on the environmental impacts of fracking for open review at the journal Solid Earth Discussions. Roughly three days after it was published, Smythe’s University of Glasgow online access was terminated.

Smythe’s paper was ultimately rejected by the journal due to the volume of topics covered in it. He plans to resubmit a new, more condensed version soon. But as he argued: “The real argument to me isn’t just about fracking and whether Paul Younger is right and I’m wrong, or vice versa, it’s a more fundamental issue of freedom of speech.”

Access to email and scientific documents terminated

Emails dated 4 February 2016 show the final decision to deactivate Smythe’s email account was made by Newall. One of these emails, sent by the head of the School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, Martin Lee, confirms Lee was in contact with Solid Earth Discussions regarding Smythe’s Glasgow email.

Addressed to Newall, it reads: “I have just got a message from the journal saying that Smythe’s Glasgow e-mail address is still active. Could you please investigate – I think you had spoken to IT Services last week about deactivating the e-mail.”

Newall replied: “IT Services has deactivated the email account, having received a request via HR from the School … I expect Professor Smythe will challenge this, and will argue that, as an Emeritus Professor, he has a right to an email account. But I am comfortable with the decision.”

Smythe plans to pursue legal action over the issue and says he aims to launch an online crowdfunding campaign to support the costs: “I’m arguing that I have these rights which are in perpetuity and they have no right to cut me off.”

The aim, he said, “is to get back my legal rights of access so that I can carry on doing scientific research. There are other areas of research that I’d much rather be working on than studying the fine details of environmental contamination from fracking. But I feel at the moment that I have to pursue this because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Many people write to me in desperation asking if I can help them out to fight a particular planning application. So, I feel a moral pressure to help these people as far as I can.”

Kyla Mandel is Deputy Editor of DeSmog UK. She tweets @kylamandel.

This article was originally published by DeSmog.uk. This version includes some additional reporting by The Ecologist.

Fetch the comfy chair! The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is in town to enforce its own safety regulations at your local nuclear power plant. Reactor owners have been duly warned. Comply or else …

Or else what? Three more last chances? No, unlike Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition, the NRC isn’t bothering to read the charges. It’s handing out immunity.

The US still has 30 operating reactors of the same General Electric design that exploded at Fukushima. Yet the NRC has decided not to require a significant safety retrofit that it had ordered in 2013, and that would have reduced the radioactive consequences of a major accident at one of these dangerously flawed reactors.

Or rather, the NRC will require it, but only after the reactor closes. The Oyster Creek nuclear generating station in New Jersey, which happens also to be the world’s prototype for the Fukushima reactors, is scheduled to close on December 31, 2019.

The NRC agreed to owner Exelon’s request for an extension to comply with the installation of a reliable severe accident-capable hardened vent. Exelon’s new deadline? January 2020, just after the reactor will be permanently shuttered.

Similarly, the Entergy-owned Pilgrim nuclear plant near Plymouth, MA, also a GE Fukushima design, and which has announced a June 1, 2019 shutdown date, has requested and extension to comply with the vent order until December 31, 2019.

It’s tempting be cynical and assume that by agreeing to extend such deadlines, the NRC is hoping owners will change their minds and keep their reactors open. After all, shutdowns are bad for business, and the NRC is very much in league with the interests of its industry friends.

Nothing illustrated this better than the NRC’s decision to provide a 20-year license extension to the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant – another Fukushima clone – ten days into the 11th March 2011 Japan nuclear disaster. Luckily, the owners closed the financially hemorrhaging plant at the end of 2014.

The consistent pattern: industry cost cuts before public safety

Beleaguered by an economic nosedive, the nuclear industry has consistently challenged the NRC’s safety compliance orders to avoid the expense, putting profit well ahead of safety. The NRC has consistently and obligingly capitulated, even when the risk itself is identified as a top priority.

For example, the agency allowed the nuclear industry to remove fire barriers that were found to be combustible from around safe shutdown electrical cables at reactor buildings, and in some cases replace them with … nothing! In the absence of replacement barriers that actually function, workers are expected to patrol vulnerable fire zones (and presumably shout ‘Fire!’) This, despite the fact that the NRC rates fire as the most likely cause of a meltdown.

Just this April, the agency issued less than a slap on the wrist to Entergy Nuclear Corporation for its security guards’ falsification of safety inspections for missed fire watches at its Pilgrim and Waterford (LA) nuclear power plants.

Recently, Entergy’s Palisades plant dismissed 22 security guards under investigation for the same falsification violation. The malfeasance extends to supervisors who then falsified company time cards for fire patrols that never happened. How far does this extend up the corporate management ladder? Bring on the soft cushions and the NRC will find out.

Genius – let the nuclear industry self-report its own violations!

The list goes on. At the Exelon-owned Braidwood, IL nuclear power plant, starting in 1996, millions of gallons of water contaminated with tritium (radioactive hydrogen) leaked from the plant for 10 years while Exelon covered it up.

The tritiated water spilled onto roadways and into ditches, contaminating nearby agricultural fields, ponds and the drinking water wells of surrounding homeowners. Two on-site NRC inspectors supposedly failed to notice the lake of radioactive water flooding on and off the site.

The NRC’s solution was to allow the industry to self-report future leaks through an unenforceable voluntary honor system; a guarantee for further cover-ups. This despite revelations including in a report by my organization Beyond Nuclear – Leak First, Fix Later, and by the Associated Press that radioactive leaks were likely occurring at almost every nuclear plant in the country.

At the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio, the NRC chose to risk losing Toledo and the Great Lakes after years of saving owner FirstEnergy the trouble and expense of finding and fixing a growing and eventually gaping corrosion hole in the reactor vessel head. Just three-sixteenths of an inch of a bulging stainless steel inner liner was all that remained on the six-inch thick reactor pressure vessel lid – and all that prevented a likely meltdown.

Official estimates found that the lid could have breached under the reactor’s extremely high pressure in just several more weeks of operations, had the reactor not finally shut for refueling and a long delayed inspection. Both FirstEnergy and the NRC had known the risks but chose to gamble public safety and allowed the plant to keep operating anyway.

At least on this occasion there was some punitive action. The NRC’s own Office of Inspector General concluded that the agency had suppressed an order finalized by its own staff to require an early shutdown of Davis-Besse to inspect the corrosion problem. Instead the agency allowed continued operation in deference to FirstEnergy profit motives.

The plant eventually closed for two years, costing ratepayers $600 million. Davis-Besse was fined first $5.45 million and then an additional $28 million, the largest such financial penalty in NRC history. But such outcomes are rare. Instead, collusion with industry is endemic at the NRC.

Who is watching? Certainly not Congress, to whom the NRC is supposed to answer but which has rarely asked the agency to explain its negligence. Instead, there have been scores of close calls at US nuclear plants -166 in the last decade alone according to Greenpeace. The NRC has issued dozens of license extensions to old, decrepit reactors and denied none.

‘The agency is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear power industry’

All this should have changed in 1974 when the Energy Reorganization Act divided the then Atomic Energy Commission into two new agencies – the NRC and what would become the Department of Energy. This was done to create a dividing line between nuclear regulation and promotion, with the NRC assuming the former role.

But the umbilical cord never got cut. The NRC didn’t just climb straight back into bed with the nuclear industry. It crawled back into the womb, as former NRC commissioner and now critic, Peter Bradford, told the New York Times: “The NRC inherited the regulatory staff and adopted the rules and regulations of the AEC intact.”