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Busy week. A health forum here addressed the dangers of dumping
nuclear fuel pool water directly into the Hudson River just north of NY City
The Hudson is a tidal river that’s used for fishing & drinking water both upstream & down.
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Nancy S Vann, Esq. (JD)
@NSVann
Retired Wall Street Attorney & whistleblower; President Safe Energy Rights Group; Yale Law '83; Keep uranium & fossil fuels in the ground not in our air & water
New YorkJoined November 2009
Nancy S Vann, Esq. (JD)’s Tweets
"Wind & solar, combined with batteries, will solve sustainable energy for Earth"
Elon Musk, January 31, 2023
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I can’t tell you the number of times the NRC has ignored it’s own regulations that I have brought forward in expert testimony, Only to prostitute itself to the whims of its nuclear licensees. I think Heather has heard enough. Bye-bye Heather.
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Of course, nuclear proponents will claim that all lessons of the past are wrong and everything will become completely different in the future. Hell, even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet can't afford a really small nuclear reactor without DOE paying half of the bill...
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Costs Skyrocket at U.S. Small Modular Reactor Project via
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#oilandgas cannot be produced without emitting #methane.
Technologies to measure and track methane emissions are years away fitting with the strategy of DELAY.
Meanwhile, #fracking is expanding like a contagion.
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Seems there weren’t any deaths this time
But that’s not always the outcome with careless handling of even small amounts of radioactive material
We need to stop making more nuclear waste while attempting to ‘idiot proof’ what we already have
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Can you imagine what would happen if there were that many waste shipments over that period of time?
Accidents are inevitable.
If a tiny capsule of cesium-137 couldn’t be safely shipped, how could this enormous amount of radioactive waste be transported?
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A very interesting read: “Small modular reactors won’t achieve economies of manufacturing scale, won’t be faster to construct, forego efficiency of vertical scaling, won’t be cheaper… They’ve existed since the 1950s and they aren’t any better now than they were then.”
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.@mzjacobson
Another analysis of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) looks at the trajectory for implementation
The AP1000 line of reactors (like Vogtle & Summers) were “supposed to do most of what small modular reactors are supposed to do”
They didn’t
cleantechnica.com/2023/01/18/the
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Americans have paid into their Social Security and Medicare every single paycheck since they were 16 years old.
I'm strengthening those programs. And if a piece of legislation lands on my desk that wants to gut them, I'll veto it.
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This might be the sum total of “changing the things I can change” for today.
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I am once again asking people to stop putting two spaces after periods
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Another analysis of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) looks at the trajectory for implementation
The AP1000 line of reactors (like Vogtle & Summers) were “supposed to do most of what small modular reactors are supposed to do”
They didn’t
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I don’t believe we should postpone moving to electrification. It's not only that the climate goals demand it, but it’s also in the interest of homeowners. Thanks to the for the coverage.
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So, let’s just stop making more nuclear waste. We already have too much of it - and no solution for storing it for the hundreds of thousands of years it will remain dangerous.
Close existing nuke plants as quickly as possible & ‘just say no’ to SMRs:
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Why Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Are Not a Climate Fix
youtu.be/ojWCvxKzUgk @naomioreskes @DavidSchlissel @ieefa_institute @nirsnet @dorfman_p @ProfStrachan @ChristianOnRE @BrianVad @AmoryLovins @CKemfert @HJFell @EWGnetwork @NSVann @HeidiHutner @Suzwarto @ssteingraber1
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In case you’re wondering how shipping radioactive waste might affect you:
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If you live within 50 miles of almost any train line in the US, you might be a good candidate for evacuation
Frequent derailments make it an almost certainty that at least some of the proposed shipments will have accidents. And not just the fires we’ve seen. Invisible radiation.
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If you think shipping the highly radioactive waste to CIS sites might be safer on trains, you might have forgotten some pretty spectacular rail accidents in the past few years:
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Let’s not start shipping highly radioactive ‘spent’ nuclear fuel by train. It’s not possible to evacuate a necessary 50 mile radius in a lot of places.
Fiery freight train derailment prompts Canada to enact 30-day speed limit - ABC News - via @ABC abcn.ws/2vUBpGt
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To give you an idea of just how many towns & people would be affected by the proposed radioactive waste shipments, it would take one or more shipments every day for 50 years.
Here’s more info on just how much waste there is:
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At Regional Decommissioning Forum in Montrose, NY today, a little info on what transporting nuclear waste from plant sites to interim or permanent storage would entail:
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Containers of radioactive material have had accidents in the past.
The highly radioactive waste that the industry plans to ship to CIS sites presents a significant risk along routes throughout the country.
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If the approves Consolidated Interim Storage (CIS) for used nuclear fuel, thousands of towns between closing nuke plants & those facilities would have huge containers of radioactive waste sitting in their railroad stations & driving through city streets.
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Calling used nuclear fuel “spent fuel” is a misnomer. It’s actually MORE radioactive than when it’s installed
The bombardment that produces fission leaves the material unstable
Just the sort of thing you want on trucks & trains through your town
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A radioactive gauge smaller than a penny is missing in Australia
Authorities warn being within 3 feet of it for 1 hour is equivalent to 10 x-rays (1 day = 240 x-rays)
But tell me again how moving used nuclear fuel across country is “completely safe”
thedailybeast.com/emergency-warn
read image description
ALT
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A bit behind so just reading Heather Cox Richardson’s Jan. 25th letter including her review of antitrust changes
Biden led the committee that killed Reagan’s nomination of Bork to the Supreme Court. His reversal of Bork’s antitrust views is even better.
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-25-2
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Replying to @NSVann and @matthewstoller
.@Powers4People @NewYorkStateAG
While many remember him as a failed Supreme Court nominee or a Richard Nixom hatchet man, Robert Bork’s most lasting influence was undermining antitrust law & enforcement.
Fortunately people are ready to reverse that:
mlexwatch.com/articles/13146
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The cancer clusters that were traced by local monitoring folks after the Three Mile Island disaster have taken a horrible toll on individuals & families
The fetal abnormalities & other health effects that are higher in children are also lifelong tragedies long after plants close
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As Dr. Caldicott points out, nuclear plants are cancer factories whose damage lasts long after they’re shut.
Nuke proponents who claim low fatalities from plants aren’t just inaccurate on that score, but the idea that deaths are the only relevant effect is seriously unethical.
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Tritium is another problem - particularly because, as H3O it becomes a part of any water source
At the Indian Point nuke plant it has leaked into the ground water & the Hudson River for decades
That’s a ‘tidal’ river that is used by some local communities for their water supply
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Strontium 90 is next on her list of cancer causing elements that produces bone cancer.
Plutonium is another one with a very long half-life (half a million years) that causes lung cancer.
It also causes fetal deformities.
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Dr. Hellen Caldicott is now speaking at a webinar on the health dangers of nuclear plants.
One of her slides lists all of the radioactive elements released in the plants during
Cesium which attacks calcium has a half life of many years and can destroy muscle & cause cancer.
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Most people don't know that the #oilandgas industry uses our atmosphere as a #methane dump. Anytime they need to do maintenance/repair or when there is an emergency, they have a blowdown. The emissions are not included in the emission inventory.
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.: "The reality is that fusion energy will not be viable at scale anytime within the next decade, a time frame over which carbon emissions must be reduced by 50% to avoid catastrophic warming of more than 1.5°C." resilience.org/stories/2023-0 #ClimateAction
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This is the year NY commits to all electric buildings. We're proud to have the NY Heat Act in our package! Shoutout to for carrying this important bill.
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Robert Howarth, the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology, advised New York state senators last week to downsize the state’s natural gas pipeline system and to repeal laws that easily connect gas to new homes
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Today I joined to call for the end of fossil fuels in buildings. To have reliable electrification by 2030, we need comprehensive solutions like upgrading our electrical grid, ending oil/gas incentives, and increasing training. #GasFreeNY #RenewableHeatNow
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“Nuclear power is like fighting world hunger with caviar, it’s like using the most expensive option when there are far more plentiful and nutritious options available.”
Prof Benjamin Sovacool, lead author for IPCC on climate change mitigation between now and 2050.
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We’ve been unable to raise reclamation bond requirements for oil & gas wells to the true cost of plugging them because there wouldn’t be any new wells if those costs were incurred up front.
The current fracked gas business model is to pay executives big salaries & go bankrupt.
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The ‘bankruptcy option’ for fracking companies distorts that market, allowing many costs to be externalized to the public.
No drilling should be permitted without a sufficient set-aside for capping depleted wells.
Of course there would be no new wells if that were required.
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Every false solution we spend time & money on is an ‘opportunity cost’ that delays progress against climate change.
It’s important to educate people about what DOESN’T work (like carbon capture) in order to focus on what’s really needed: moving from fossil fuels to renewables.
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Professor Mark Jacobson, Head of civil engineering, Stanford University, has a new book out.🏆🇺🇸
Prof Jacobson is most famous for providing the 100% renewables roadmap, for every state in the USA, based on their local Sun/wind resources.
Buy it here.
amazon.com/No-Miracles-Ne
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