Tuesday, April 21st, 2015
Lewis Beale, - Reader Supported News
Stephan: Nuclear power, bastard child of the Cold War is just fine until it's not, and when its not the problem can quickly escalate beyond the human ability to deal with it — Fukushima tells that tale very convincingly. And then there is the issue of the nuclear waste which no one knows what to do with and which, in theory, must be maintained in a stable state for, well no one is really sure, but potentially 200,000 years. Since human recorded history only dates back to the Fourth Millennium BCE, roughly 6,000 years, you can see the problem.
Gregory Jaczko, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Credit: AP
Gregory Jaczko was chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission when Japan’s Fukushima power plant suffered a major meltdown in 2013. An advocate of tightening safety controls at America’s aging nuclear facilities after the Fukushima disaster, Jaczko soon discovered that despite his concerns, the influence of profit-hungry corporations over the NRC was affecting its ability to adequately police the industry—and putting the public in danger.
“When I served as chairman [of the NRC], there appeared to be commissioners who were more interested in industry conditions, that the NRC’s job was to protect the industry from the staff of the NRC,” Jaczko told The Daily Beast. “A lot of times, they said the staff was being too aggressive.”
Jaczko’s concerns, and his eventual ouster from the NRC, are part of a larger story told in Indian Point, a new documentary screening this week and next at the Tribeca Film Festival. Named after the electricity-generating […]
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Ari Phillips, - Think Progress
Stephan: I read something about the use of wood pellets in power generation in Europe, and decided to dig a little further. This is what I discovered. Once again greed and stupidity combine to accelerate the the old confederacy's increasing third world status. Wood pellets, like corn ethanol, is a technology driven by greed rather than a real understanding of what climate change is going to demand. It is amazing how short-sighted people are. It reminds me of the man who cut down the last tree on Easter Island; thus ending his culture and the island's ecosystem.
Enviva’s Ahoskie facility as photographed by the Dogwood Alliance in December 2014 during their investigation into the industry’s practices.
Credit: Dogwood Alliance
In late March, a loosely affiliated coalition of southerners gathered outside of the British Consulate in Atlanta, Georgia with an unusual concern: wood pellets. The group, primarily made up of outdoors enthusiasts and conservationists, had traveled from multiple states to British Consul General Jeremy Pilmore-Bedford’s doorstep. Chief on their minds was the rapidly increasing use of the pellets, a form of woody biomass harvested from forests throughout the southeastern U.S. and burned for renewable electricity in Europe. According to the group, what started as a minor section of Europe’s renewable energy law has now burgeoned into a major climate and environmental headache.
“We were trying to elevate the profile of what exactly is going on on the ground here in the U.S.,” Shelby White, who helped organize the event, told ThinkProgress. “And also […]
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Zoë Schlanger, - Newsweek
Stephan: This is an amazing story, a whole separate saga of greed, stupidity, and corruption resulting in the degradation of the Gulf. I had never heard of it before, and I doubt you had either. This is a classic example of a regulatory agency corrupted to the point of irrelevance, and this is what journalism is supposed to do. Although one has to wonder why it has taken so long.
Footage from the Associated Press shows the Gulf of Mexico, where oil has been leaking for 10 years from a toppled Taylor Energy platform.
Credit: Associated Press
When Hurricane Ivan struck the Gulf of Mexico off of Louisiana in 2004, the force of the waves prompted a mudslide that toppled an offshore well platform owned by Taylor Energy. Since then, more than 10 years ago, oil from the undersea wells has been leaking into the Gulf unabated.
And the leak is far larger than reported.
According to an Associated Press investigation, recent U.S. Coast Guard figures show that the volume of the continual spillage is 20 times higher than figures originally put forth by Taylor Energy. (emphasis added)
Taylor Energy for years reported that the volume the leak was declining: from 22 gallons per day in 2008, it […]
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Nicole Akoukou Thompson, - Latin Post
Stephan: Here is some important new research on breast cancer, and a natural approach, to which I think every woman pay attention.
Rose hips
Credit: carey235.blogspot
Extract from rosehips, the red-orange fruit of the rose plant, could drastically reduce the development and migration of cells from a type of breast cancer, known as triple-negative, which represents about 10-20 percent of breast cancers.
Young Hispanic women and African-American women are disproportionately affected by triple-negative, which is an especially progressive form of cancer. Also, it doesn’t respond to most available treatments administered to cancer patients. For this reason, the need for alternative treatments has driven researchers, patients and doctors searching for unconventional ways to tackle cancer.
In a statement, Patrick Martin, Ph.D., associate professor at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and leader of the study, said, “How awesome would it be to be able to say, Here, take a daily vitamin tablet from the rose plant to possibly help prevent or treat cancer? It’s a natural product that we found to be effective, with no known side effects.”
The U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of […]
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Stephan: I think this is wonderful news and I also think this is a datapoint on the trend I see rapidly developing. We are on the verge of a gestalt change as radical as the 1960s. Millennials, realizing they are the ones who are going to live in climate change world have had enough.
A group of Oregon teenagers have sued state government officials for their negligence in not being more proactive in dealing with climate change. On Tuesday a judge will hear their case, which argues that the failure to reduce emissions below 1990 levels by 2050 as was promised represents a violation of the public trust doctrine. Here is a transcript of an interview with the plaintiffs
TRANSCRIPT
Two Oregon teenagers have filed a lawsuit that claims public resources must be protected for future generations and state officials have violated that doctrine by failing to protect Oregon’s air from the impacts of climate change. Pictured, marina docks in Astoria, Oregon, March 29, 2015.
Credit: Reuters
MEGAN THOMPSON: A crowd paraded recently outside the courthouse in Eugene, Oregon. […]
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