Caldicott and Monbiot debate Coal and Nuclear energy on Democracy Now

Today, Democracy Now hosted a debate contrasting Coal and Nuclear Energy between British journalist George Monbiot and Dr. Helen Caldicott. The first part was excellent but towards the end it turned a bit caustic. It's clear they like and respect each other, but that they have strongly divided points of view.

To summarize their points:

Caldicott: Radiation and radioactive wastes from nuclear power are incredibly dangerous. When a particle is inhaled it will kill a few cells and cause mutations in surrounding cells that will cause cancer a few years later. There is enough nuclear material in the Japanese plants to poison the whole planet. The danger from Nuclear power is too great.

Monbiot: In the rush to shun nuclear power he's afraid (certain) the powers-that-be will turn back to Coal to provide electricity. It would be the ditching of a bad technology to one that's horridly worse.

• George Monbiot, British journalist and author. He is a columnist with the The Guardian (U.K.) and most recently wrote the article “Why Fukushima Made Me Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Power."
• Helen Caldicott, world-renowned anti-nuclear advocate, author and pediatrician. She has spent decades warning of the medical hazards posed by nuclear technologies. She is the co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

GEORGE MONBIOT: ... But I’m very worried that the global response to what’s happening in Fukushima will be to shut down nuclear power stations around the world and to cancel future nuclear power stations, and that what will happen is that they will be replaced by coal. Now, coal is hundreds of times more dangerous than nuclear power, not just because of climate change, though, of course, climate change is a big one, but also because of industrial accidents and because of the impacts of pollution on local people.

... what I’m calling for here is not complacency. ... I’m calling for perspective, and I’m saying that we must not replace a bad technology with a much, much worse one, because, unfortunately, that is what’s likely to happen.

HELEN CALDICOTT: ...The Guardian yesterday reported that Unit No. 2 had actually melted down. The fuel had melted through the reactor vessel onto the concrete floor below. That is a problem because the zirconium in the fuel reacts with the concrete, and it could form a huge hydrogen bubble like happened at Three Mile Island. There could be a huge hydrogen explosion, which would rupture the containment vessel, and out of Unit 2 would come huge plumes of radiation, which, if the wind is blowing towards the south, could devastate much of Japan forever, or it could be blown across the Pacific towards the American—North American continent and around the globe, indeed, and pollute the whole of the northern hemisphere.

GEORGE MONBIOT: Well, I agree that it’s a very parlous situation indeed. It does look as if it’s going to melt through the reactor floor, effectively, and onto the concrete, in which case exactly the scenario she’s talking about could take place.

I would disagree, though, that it will devastate a large part of Japan forever, which I think was a term that she used. I think that’s an overstatement of the impacts of the radiation. There’s no question that it will cause mass evacuation. It may cause health effects for some people.

... cherry-picking studies, plucking out work which is very much against the scientific consensus. When it comes to low-level radiation, unfortunately, environmentalists have been responsible for quite a similar approach by making what appear to be unjustifiable and excessive claims for the impact of that radiation. ...

HELEN CALDICOTT: ... A new report from the New York Academy of Sciences has just translated 5,000 papers from Russian into English. ... Up to a million people have already died from Chernobyl, and people will continue to die from cancer for virtually the rest of time. What we should know is that a millionth of a gram of plutonium, or less, can induce cancer, or will induce cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilos, or 500 pounds, of plutonium in it. You know, there’s enough plutonium in these reactors to kill everyone on earth.

... George, I really appreciate your writing, and I understand your concern about global warming. ... You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative, George, because you’re highly intelligent and a very important commentator, that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days. I do suggest, humbly, that if you read my book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, which I think I’ve tried to send you once, you’ll learn about that.

HELEN CALDICOTT: ... Nuclear power, George, creates massive quantities of radioactive waste. There is no way to put it on earth that’s safe. As it leaks into the water over time, it will bioconcentrate in the food chains, in the breast milk, in the fetuses, that are thousands of times more radiosensitive than adults. One x-ray to the pregnant abdomen doubles the incidence of leukemia in the child. And over time, nuclear waste will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia and genetic disease, and random compulsory genetic engineering. And we’re not the only species with genes, of course. It’s plants and animals. So, this is an absolute catastrophe, the likes of which the world has never seen before. ...

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http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/30/prescription_for_survival_a_debate_on

Ralph Nader Advocates Phasing Out Nuclear Power Industry: With extreme hyperbole

Appearing with the tag "Anti-Nuclear Activist" under his name, Ralph Nader appeared on Democracy Now to deliver a searing demand to completely phase out the nuclear industry. This of course was in the wake of the Japanese 9.0 earthquake, which triggered a large Tsunami, which triggered a nuclear crisis. While he had a lot of good things to say, he also over-hyped his position and said a few outright falsehoods.

This is where he started:

RALPH NADER: The Japanese disaster has ended whatever nuclear renaissance is being considered here in the United States. The problem is that people have got to get more involved, because the government and the industry will defend nuclear power in the United States to the last mutation. They are representing a closed, monetized mind that does not have options for revision, which true science should provide for. Secretary Chu, Energy Secretary, has refused for two years to meet with the leading critics of nuclear power, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, Friends of the Earth and other groups. He has met with nuclear business interests regularly, and he has written articles touting nuclear power.

Uh, okay.. Let's unpack this a bit. Does this event mean it has "ended" the "nuclear renaissance"?

It appears to be true that a lot of people are alarmed about nuclear power. Because of this event.

It's true that the Obama Administration is pushing for nuclear power. On the day of the earthquake Obama held a press conference in which he described Nuclear Power as a "Clean Energy Source" and called for increased use of nuclear power. (see: Obama proposes nuclear power expansion while Japan has nuclear crisis and News Conference by President Obama, March 11, 2011)

Recent history is full of we the people being sold on crazy ideas. It seems plausible the powers that be will sell us again on nuclear power. Ralph seems to understand this when he says "The problem is that people have got to get more involved, because the government and the industry will defend nuclear power in the United States to the last mutation."

What we’re seeing here is 110 or so operating nuclear plants in the United States, many of them aging, many of them infected with corrosion, faulty pipes, leaky pumps and combustible materials.

He went on to say this has been documented by data from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission assembled by the Union of Concerned Scientists. But rather than describe that data he talks about how unevacuable are large cities like New York City, and I suppose he's envisioning the skyscrapers as becoming mausoleums for the people now living there?

Why are we playing Russian roulette with the American people for nuclear plants whose principal objective is simply to boil water and produce steam?

Does he understand engineering well enough to ponder what mechanisms could convert heat into electricity? One of those mechanisms is using the heat to convert water into steam that runs a turbine to generate electricity. In the 1960's (when this design was created) there might not have been other methods for converting heat to electricity. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the typical coal fired or natural gas fired power plant also uses heat to create steam that turns a turbine. Ask yourself, if you have heat how are you going to create electricity out of it?

national security problems, for every nuclear plant is a prime target

It would be cool if he said more about this. But instead he goes on to

It affects our civil liberties. It endangers our workers.

Which again would be cool if he explained but he went directly into explaining that nuclear power is unfinancable because it's too risky. The nuclear industry demands 100% "taxpayer guarantees" from governments. In the wake of the 2008-9 financial fiasco with taxpayer guarantee of the toxic financial industry, this is a line of reasoning which should cause us to stop in our tracks. But he doesn't even explain this very well but instead moves on to list the White House phone numbers, encouraging people to demand hearings.

We must no longer license any new nuclear plants. We should shut down the ones like Indian Point. How many people know that Hillary Clinton, as senator, and Andrew Cuomo, as attorney general, demanded that Indian Point be shut down? That doesn’t matter to the monetized minds in Washington, D.C. We also should prepare a plan ...for the phase-out of the entire industry.

I'm afraid he didn't make a case. He threw out a tremendously tightly packed line-up of statements without explanation.

To be clear - there are a lot of problems with this and I largely agree with him. But just looking at what he said, he doesn't give the evidence to support the suggestion he's making.

He also doesn't give a plan for how to power our society if all nuclear plants are removed from the scene. Abandoning nuclear means somehow replacing that electricity with something - but what? Coal? Natural gas? C'mon...

This is institutional insanity, and I urge the people in this country to wake up before they experience what is now going on in northern Japan: uninhabitable territory, thousands dead, hundreds of thousands at risk of cancer, enormous economic loss. And for what?

Here's where he really lost me with hyperbole. Institutional insanity aside - does the Japan situation yet have "uninhabitable territory" or "thousands dead"? Really? We haven't seen the end of this yet and we do not know yet whether this will be true.

The thousands of dead in this case were from the earthquake and tsunami, not from the nuclear accident. Is Ralph confused?

It's not yet known whether this territory will be uninhabitable, or whether they'll be able to gain enough control over the situation and safely entomb the radioactive material. This is not the same situation as Chernobyl.

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"Why Are We Playing Russian Roulette With the American People?": Longtime Nuclear Critic Ralph Nader Advocates Phasing Out Nuclear Power Industry

CNN.com - Officials: Muslim sites subject to secret monitoring for radiation - Dec 24, 2005

I suppose "people" are a little sensitive right now to warrantless searches by government law enforcement people. We're in the midst of the snoopgate scandal, in which the Bush administration has admitted to spying on Americans. And, in which, the Echelon system has been implicated in being used in snoopgate by the NSA to vacuum up all communications for analysis by the NSA.

It's in this context we learn: Officials: Muslim sites subject to secret monitoring for radiation (From Kevin Bohn and Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Saturday, December 24, 2005)

This is about the FBI and/or other agencies monitoring radiation levels at specific places inside the U.S. A major target are mosques and other muslim-connected places. While the article says some non-muslim sites were also monitored, the article shows outrage from muslim spokespersons basically complaining of racial targeting.

One thing the article discusses is the warrantless nature of this monitoring. Technically a warrant isn't required because radiation can be monitored from a distance. And, for that matter, other government agencies do warrantless monitoring like this all the time. For example the FCC regularly monitors for illegal radio stations, simply by listening on the radio and using radio direction finder equipment to narrow down the broadcast location.

The program is part of the "dirty bomb" meme that's been running around for a long time. You know this one ... in the confusion shortly after September 11, 2001, someone was accused of a dirty bomb plot. A dirty bomb is a regular chemical explosive device that's been laced with radioactive material. The idea is to spread the radioactive material over a large area through the explosion. But ever since that accusation one of the scares which are repeatedly reinforced in the public mind is this dirty bomb meme.

One possibility I see here is to make monitoring equipment ubiquitous. Rather than this being a special arrangement, suppose all the street lights had equipment mounted on them to monitor air pollution, temperature, rain, radiation, various chemicals, etc. The equipment would need to transmit the data "home" to a data collection repository. That would provide a very interesting set of data not just for law enforcement, but also environmental monitoring and climatology.

Already there are a slew of video cameras being installed by governments. Why not add to them other kinds of monitoring?

CNN.com - Officials: Muslim sites subject to secret monitoring for radiation - Dec 24, 2005

I suppose "people" are a little sensitive right now to warrantless searches by government law enforcement people. We're in the midst of the snoopgate scandal, in which the Bush administration has admitted to spying on Americans. And, in which, the Echelon system has been implicated in being used in snoopgate by the NSA to vacuum up all communications for analysis by the NSA.

It's in this context we learn: Officials: Muslim sites subject to secret monitoring for radiation (From Kevin Bohn and Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Saturday, December 24, 2005)

This is about the FBI and/or other agencies monitoring radiation levels at specific places inside the U.S. A major target are mosques and other muslim-connected places. While the article says some non-muslim sites were also monitored, the article shows outrage from muslim spokespersons basically complaining of racial targeting.

One thing the article discusses is the warrantless nature of this monitoring. Technically a warrant isn't required because radiation can be monitored from a distance. And, for that matter, other government agencies do warrantless monitoring like this all the time. For example the FCC regularly monitors for illegal radio stations, simply by listening on the radio and using radio direction finder equipment to narrow down the broadcast location.

The program is part of the "dirty bomb" meme that's been running around for a long time. You know this one ... in the confusion shortly after September 11, 2001, someone was accused of a dirty bomb plot. A dirty bomb is a regular chemical explosive device that's been laced with radioactive material. The idea is to spread the radioactive material over a large area through the explosion. But ever since that accusation one of the scares which are repeatedly reinforced in the public mind is this dirty bomb meme.

One possibility I see here is to make monitoring equipment ubiquitous. Rather than this being a special arrangement, suppose all the street lights had equipment mounted on them to monitor air pollution, temperature, rain, radiation, various chemicals, etc. The equipment would need to transmit the data "home" to a data collection repository. That would provide a very interesting set of data not just for law enforcement, but also environmental monitoring and climatology.

Already there are a slew of video cameras being installed by governments. Why not add to them other kinds of monitoring?

Examining nukes to replace oil

I haven't caught up with President Bush's proposals last week in energy policy. I was traveling and didn't have time to read it as it happened.

When It Comes to Replacing Oil Imports, Nuclear Is No Easy Option, Experts Say (By MATTHEW L. WALD, Published: May 9, 2005 NYTIMES.COM)

Apparently one proposal was to promote the building of more nuclear power plants, as a way to balance energy needs.

Hmmm... The article above says this is using peculiar reasoning:

There is a problem, though: reactors make electricity, not oil. And oil does not make much electricity.

The problem facing us is oil. In the NOW, there is a high price for oil (in the $50-60 range, up from the $25-30 prevalent since 2000, and up from the $10-15 range it had been through most of the 90's). And we see in the near-term future an impact from the "Oil Peak" effect where it will become impossible to increase production of oil products, even in the face of rising demand.

Oil is used largely for fuel for vehicles (cars, trucks, airplanes, etc), which are largely not electrically driven.

Which just means that by proposing nuclear power to balance a problem with oil supplies is a ruse. Another lie from the Bush administration, this time intended to get more nuke plants out there for some reason.

The article does go into some useful figures:

According to the Energy Department, last year the electric utilities used about 207 million barrels of oil, or less than 600,000 barrels a day. (Total American consumption of oil is about 20.5 million barrels a day.)

This says that a mere 2% of the oil used in this country goes to electricity production. Hmmm, not much.

The article goes on to describe a sideways process that could improve the existing oil supply to be more suitable for vehicle use. It's a little complex, so let's take this one step at a time:

Gasoline is made of molecules with a certain ratio of carbon to hydrogen. Part of each barrel of oil consists of molecules with too much carbon to be useful in gasoline; instead, those molecules are used only in low-value products like asphalt and tar.

The technology exists for refineries to break up those molecules and add hydrogen, until the hydrogen-carbon ratio is suitable for making gasoline or diesel.

They go on to explain that heavy oil has a higher ratio of carbon, while light oil has a higher ratio of hydrogen. It is the light oil that we put into vehicles.

Hence, the idea is to convert heavy oil into light oil by adding hydrogen.

For example:

Canada has vast reserves of shale oil, now being converted to ingredients of motor fuel by using natural gas. The gas is used to heat the shale to make its oil flow more easily, and hydrogen, also obtained from the natural gas, is incorporated into the oil to make it suitable for use in gasoline. But a nuclear reactor could do those jobs, delivering both hydrogen and steam for cooking the oil out of the rock, Mr. Herring said.

Another strategy, he said, would be to break down coal, shale oil or other hydrogen fuels into a gas comprising hydrogen and carbon monoxide. At high pressure, these materials could form molecules suitable for making gasoline or diesel. A reactor could provide the energy required.

The "reactor" in question is not the current design of nuclear reactor, but is in the process of being designed and will take another 20+ years to get ready.

The Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, which is owned by the Department of Energy, is working on ways to take very hot steam from a nuclear reactor, then run a small electric current through it to separate the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. If that can be done more cheaply than the current method of producing hydrogen, which uses natural gas, the hydrogen could be used at refineries to make components of gasoline.

Yup, use a nuclear reactor to make heat and with that heat optimize the electrolysis process used to split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. That gives you some hydrogen you can then use to improve the heavy oil to create light oil.

This sounds like a lot of work, and a very circuitous process, all just to preserve the hold the oil industry has over the U.S.A. It will take a lot of R&D dollars to go this route, and I wonder "why".

Why not use those dollars to improve funding for alternatives like wind, solar, etc..?

NO NUKES!!!!!

Project Censored: 2005 report

Project Censored (projectcensored.org/) is a research organization based in Sonoma County CA dedicated to exposing newsworthy stories that do not get covered by the mainstream press. Every year they publish a list of 25 under-reported stories.
Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2002-2003

(http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/index.html)

#1: Wealth Inequality in 21st Century Threatens Economy and Democracy

In the late 1700s, issues of fairness and equality were topics of great debate—
equality under the law, equality of opportunity, etc. Considered by the framers of the Constitution to be one of the most important aspects of a democratic system, the word “equality

#1: Wealth Inequality in 21st Century Threatens Economy and Democracy

#2: Ashcroft vs. the Human Rights Law that Holds Corporations Accountable

#3: Bush Administration Censors Science

#4: High Levels of Uranium Found in Troops and Civilians

#5: The Wholesale Giveaway of Our Natural Resources

#6: The Sale of Electoral Politics

#7: Conservative Organization Drives Judicial Appointments

#8: Cheney's Energy Task Force and The Energy Policy

#9: Widow Brings RICO Case Against U.S. government for 9/11

#10: New Nuke Plants: Taxpayers Support, Industry Profits

#11: The Media Can Legally Lie

#12: The Destabilization of Haiti

#13: Schwarzenegger Met with Enron's Ken Lay Years Before the California Recall

#14: New Bill Threatens Intellectual Freedom in Area Studies

#15: U.S. Develops Lethal New Viruses

#16: Law Enforcement Agencies Spy on Innocent Citizens

#17: U.S. Government Represses Labor Unions in Iraq in Quest for Business Privatization

#18: Media and Government Ignore Dwindling Oil Supplies

#19: Global Food Cartel Fast Becoming the World's Supermarket

#20: Extreme Weather Prompts New Warning from UN

#21: Forcing a World Market for GMOs

#22: Censoring Iraq

#23: Brazil Holds Back in FTAA Talks, But Provides Little Comfort for the Poor of South America

#24: Reinstating the Draft

#25: Wal-Mart Brings Inequality and Low Prices to the World

Powell may be lying, or not

Following the release of claims that Iran has yet more secret uranium enrichment facilities than have previously been disclosed - Colin Powell (at this point still U.S. Secretary of State) was quoted as saying he'd seen similar "intelligence" and that he believed the report. Despite it coming from an Iranian dissident group which the U.S. lists as a terrorist group.

This CNN article documents a little firestorm around his comments:


Source of Powell's Iran intelligence under scrutiny

Friday, November 19, 2004 Posted: 4:15 PM EST (2115 GMT) CNN.COM

"This allegation is timed to coincide with the next meeting of the board of governors of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]," Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hussein Moussavian, said. "And every time just before the meeting there are these kind of allegations either from the United States or terrorist groups. And every time these allegations have proven to be false."

Now, this is much as I said a couple days ago. Curious timing this is. The denial is a little hollow, though, coming from an Iranian. Just as Powell's claim of having seen evidence is a little hollow, given his past performance at truthfulness (can you say 26 lies in the U.N. Security Council presentation in Feb 2003 to justify the Iraq invasion?).

So what we're left with is some he-said-he-said games and we can't really trust any of the speakers. Powell lied to the U.N. already, the dissident group is on the State Department terrorist list, and the Iranians may simply be covering their ass with public denials. What's the truth?

This is the problem with having lied in the past, Secretary Powell. We don't trust you any longer. If you hadn't lied to the U.N. then you would still have credibility and your claim today would hold water. While you will be gone soon, your designated successor has even less credibility.

Portable Nuclear Power Plants (SSTAR: a small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor)

Nuclear power has a greatly mixed blessing. On the one hand it offers vast quantities of electricity without the hydrocarbon-style pollutions, and you don't have to ruin a river valley by installing a dam. On the other hand nuclear wastes last for thousands of years, so disposal is a problem, and then what if the nuclear material falls into the wrong hands and they make bombs out of it? Proliferation of nuclear weapons is a serious problem.

The tension with both Iraq and North Korea right now is over their development of nuclear technology. Is it simply for peaceful purposes, providing electricity to run the country? Or are they building bombs? Since they're refusing to abide by the nuclear inspection regimine run by the International Atomic Energy Commission, how can we be certain?

All countries, developing and otherwise require power in order to modernize themselves. A team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been working on a particular solution to this problem.

• LLNL Sience & Technology (http://www.llnl.gov/str/JulAug04/Smith.html)
• NewScientist.COM (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996344)
• Uranium Information Center (Australia) (http://www.uic.com.au/nip60.htm)
• Lead-Alloy Liquid-Metal-Cooled Fast Reactor (ADVANCED REACTOR, FUEL CYCLE, AND ENERGY PRODUCTS WORKSHOP FOR UNIVERSITIES; http://neri.inel.gov/universities_workshop/proceedings/pdfs/lfr.pdf)

SSTAR is a small and relatively lightweight nuclear reactor with which they intend to solve a broad range of issues around the use of nuclear reactors. Here's the feature set:

• Transportable by ship in a shipping container
• At 500 tons weight, it can be transported from the port to its destination by heavy truck
• It is tamper resistant and contains notification capabilities, making it safe to deliver into uncertain territory and have assuredness the nuclear material will not be misdirected
• The coolant is a liquid metal that will not boil off
• The design is sealed and meant to remain in operation for 30 years without much intervention
• Wastes remain within the reactor
• After 30 years the recipient returns the nuclear reactor for "recycling"

Clearly we have a two-edged sword here. Past nuclear reactors have safety problems, could provide weapons making material to undesirable institutions, and have massive technology and infrastructure requirements to build and maintain. Further the waste disposal problem is very bad, with growing resistance to the transport of nuclear waste around the world (and with good reason).

These problems have resulted in a vehement anti-nuclear crowd that knee-jerkily shouts "NO NUKES" whenever possible. They regularly protest anything remotely nuclear, and just last week a protester in Germany lost his life trying to block a train carrying nuclear waste.

With the current state of nuclear technology, I must agree with them. It is very dangerous stuff, and I am glad that the U.S. has not built new nuclear plants in decades.

However, this LLNL design provides for some very interesting thinking.

What if ... The design is of a size useful to a developing country, and appears to have enough safeguards for deployment nearly anywhere. And it offers "clean" power, in that the immediate output of the reactor is steam that runs a turbine. Due to the high temperature it can also be used in hydrogen production, providing a source of pure hydrogen for fuel cells.

What are the problems with nuclear power and how does this design stack up against them? Here's a few, and it makes the rosy scenario painted by the scientists to be a little less certain. I am comforted somewhat that they envision shipping these as product in 2015, which gives us a few years (5-10 maybe) of design debugging.

Issue	Solution	Devils Advocate
Proliferation	Tamper-"resistant" and includes notification facilities.	"Resistant"? I'd rather it be tamper "proof" but how could that be accomplished? The notification facility is likely some kind of satellite radio system. The article discusses the notification system being triggered by detectors rigged to "identify actions that threaten the security of the reactor". What if a country gets real "uppity" and successfully wards off inspectors and the "international community" to tamper with and remove the nuclear material for their own nefarious ends?
Waste & Radiation in general	The waste stays within the reactor. It gets "recycled" after the 30 year lifespan is up. It has to be returned to the supplier for recycling.	What if the supplier goes out of business? How can we test against leaks over a 30 year lifespan? What if there's an accident during transport to the destination, or upon return to the supplier? Will the design withstand being dropped while being loaded or unloaded on the cargo ship? What if the cargo ship sinks?
Meltdown	Liquid metal "coolant" cannot boil off Liquid metal is at a low pressure The design can include a passive shutdown feature	In the article they discuss "corrosiveness" of some formulations of the liquid metal coolant. Will this work over a 30 year lifespan? Control systems fail all the time, and computer systems always have bugs. How can we trust 30 years of successful operation to a computer software system?

More missing "nuke-stuff"

Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq By JAMES GLANZ, WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
nytimes (registration required)

This story is about more missing stuff that could be used to make nuclear weapons. In this case it is an ultra-high-explosive known as HMX, stored at a huge ammo-dump in Iraq. HMX is used in both conventional and nuclear weapons, in nuclear weapons it helps ignite nuclear reactions.

The presence of the explosive in Iraq was well known, and had been under IAEA seal before the invasion. The IAEA warned the U.S.A. to guard that material, but the military did not. This is one of the dual-use materials which GW Bush had cited as justification for the invasion, and therefore it is strange-seeming that it was not carefully guarded.

Instead:

Earlier this month, in a letter to the I.A.E.A. in Vienna, a senior official from Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology wrote that the stockpile disappeared after early April 2003 because of "the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security."

Of course, this just makes one wonder why the IAEA waited until last month to say anything.

In any case, this is to my eye yet another failing of the administrations war effort. At the time of the invasion there was rampant looting - such as the dissappearance of historical artifacts from the Iraqi museums documenting the history in the area we view as the cradle of modern civilization. But we now know it wasn't just art museums that were looted, but military storage areas (e.g. the yellowcake Iraq did have was looted since the war). And just what did the invaders rush to protect first? It was the oil ministry.

By invading the country we took responsibility for that country. We failed miserably.

Project Censored: 2004 report

Project Censored (http://www.projectcensored.org/) is a research organization based in Sonoma County CA dedicated to exposing newsworthy stories that do not get covered by the mainstream press. Every year they publish a list of 25 under-reported stories.

Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2002-2003

(http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/index.html)

#1: The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance

(my coverage: Iraq War "background material")

The story is that the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a think tank founded by such luminaries as Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfield, and Richard Perle (among others; most of whom are now holding positions of High Power) have been cooking plans to invade first Iraq, then Iran, then Syria, all in the name of exerting American Supremacy, and to install moderate regimes in the middle of the Middle East.

The war for Iraq has nothing to do with Terrorism, and everything to do with Oil.

#2: Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty

Just what has the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) been formed to do? Just what are they doing? Just what are the provisions of the PATRIOT Act, which was passed during a state of stress shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and which did not recieve proper debate in congress?

Apparently DHS has drastically stronger powers of domestic survellience and impositions on civil liberties.

There are calls for the repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act, which is what prevents the Military from being used as a domestic police force.

#3: US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq U.N. Report

During the events leading to the launching of the war in Iraq (my coverage), demands were made to the Iraqi government to come clean on all the UN Resolutions on which they had not yet come clean. For example, declaring their weapons, submitting to inspections, etc.

They submitted a 11,800 page report. The U.S. "helpfully" offered to photocopy the report, because of faster turnaround time in U.S. publishing facilities. Well, somehow 8,000 pages of the report did not get delivered to the U.N. from the U.S. publishing facilities, however Iraq unnofficially delivered the full report to various journalists and others primarily in Europe.

What's in the missing pages? Documentation of the Regan and Bush I governments complicity in arming Iraq. Hmmm...

#4: Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists

A secret counter-terror plan to plant covert counter-intelligence agents. One of their strategies is to provoke terrorist groups into making attacks, giving an excuse to attack those terrorist groups.

#5: The Effort to Make Unions Disappear

Various U.S. administration actions to weaken Unions. The prevalent excuse is national security.

#6: Closing Access to Information Technology

Changing telecommunications rules surrounding access to the Internet, as well as the rise of Broadband connections, together are spelling Doom for independant Internet Service Providers (ISP's). Quickly, rather than wide choices of service providers, the market is quickly narrowing to few choices, partly through FCC actions.

#7: Treaty Busting by the United States

The U.S. administration is either blatantly violating or gradually subverting at least 9 international treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory.

#8: US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects

(my coverage and other coverage)

The U.S. and Britian are highly fond of DU (Depleted Uranium) amunition. It is extremely dense (that is, very heavy for the size it is) giving it great penetration capability and ability to kill tanks or other fortified thingies. Unfortunately it is Uranium, and even though it is far less radioactive than weapons grade Uranium, it is still rather poisinous.

The U.N. has classified DU munitions as illegal weapons of mass destruction.

#9: In Afghanistan: Poverty, Women's Rights, and Civil Disruption Worse than Ever

All eyes have been turned from Afghanistan to Iraq. Likewise has the attention to solving the problems of that country, and it still has no constitution, no new laws, little food, and doubtlessly little hope. Very sad.

#10: Africa Faces Threat of New Colonialism

In June 2002 the G8 nations met (well, their leaders anyway) and formed a plan to "save" Africa known as New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Funny thing is that no Africans were invited to the summit, so this is an outside "solution" being imposed on Africa. Doubtlessly the solution is geared to the needs of the G8 nations, opening markets for exploiting their resources for our benefit, that kind of thing. For example the U.S. currently gets 10% of its oil from Africa, and expects this to grow to 25% by 2015.

#11: U.S. Implicated in Taliban Massacre

During the war to Liberate Iraq from the Taliban, a tremendous number of fighters were incarcerated at Mazar-i-Sharif and killed there. Investigation of the mass graves and other evidence implicates U.S. forces in the massacre.

Oh, and by the way, why is it that the Taliban is still in control over much of Afghanistan?

#12: Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela

On April 11, 2002 a coup was done against the Socialist leaning leader of Venezuela. Among his actions prior to the coup was to nationalize the oil industry, and make various changes to give more rights to the people. The coup was apparently planned by U.S. CIA officials.

#13: Corporate Personhood Challenged

The fiction of corporate "person" status, and the legal rights that flow from the fiction that corporations are "persons", is part of the egregious misbalance of power in the U.S. putting average people at a great disadvantage. A few small steps were taken to undermine this legal fiction.

#14: Unwanted Refugees a Global Problem

The number of displaced asylum seekers around the world has exploded in the last 10 years. Some are "internally displaced" (driven out of their homelands, but still within their country) while others are displaced to other countries. Most are the poorest of the poor, and are the indigenous peoples of their homelands.

#15: U.S. Military's War on the Earth

The U.S. Military is a gross polluter emitting tremendous quantities of highly toxic waste material. It is not contained just to the territorial U.S., since the Military has bases in countries all around the world.

The Military is continuing to claim that if it were forced to abide by U.S. environmental laws, that would undercut readiness.

#16: Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA

The Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA) would extend NAFTA to the whole of North and South America. It's a wet dream of free market capitalism no doubt. It is an obvious step of the march of Globalization, for better or worse.

#17: Clear Channel Monopoly Draws Criticism

Clear Channel is a megalopoly controlling over 1200 radio stations around the U.S. There is a rising tide of criticism ranging from centralized control over the news broadcast over Clear Channel stations, to suppression of various artists (such as a supposed ban of the Dixie Chicks when they criticized the U.S. administration over the war in Iraq), and more.

Certainly the growing centralization of control over U.S. media outlets is greatly concerning.

#18: Charter Forest Proposal Threatens Access to Public Lands

The plan would "privatise" much of the federally owned forest land, turning these lands to locally controlled "trusts". The trusts would then be empowered to give greater access to corporate interests for recreational or who knows what other activities.

Sounds like more of the free market capitalism wet dreams.

#19: U.S. Dollar vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq

An interesting and arcane study of global finance. Namely, Oil trading has traditionally been denominated in U.S. dollars. This and other things gives some measure of control by the U.S. over global trade. Except, Iraq began selling Oil denominated in Euros, and since that time the value of the Euro has climbed 17% while the U.S. dollar has fallen in value.

Did the U.S. invade Iraq to change this, and force Iraq to sell its Oil denominated in U.S. dollars?

#20: Pentagon Increases Private Military Contracts

While Dick Cheney was Bush I's Defense Secretary, he awarded a contract to Halliburton to “study and then implement the privatization of routine army functions.”

Dick Cheney then became CEO of Halliburton. During that time Halliburton bought Kellog, Brown & Root, a Defense contractor.

Dick Cheney then became U.S. Vice President. In the fallout of the Iraq war, Halliburton (via the Brown & Root subsidiary) is being awarded many no-bid contracts for operations in Iraq.

More free market capitalism wet dreams? Is "crony capitalism" part of the free market?

#21: Third World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon to a City Near You

Globalization, supposedly the savior force for us all. One way this plays out in the world is that third world countries in debt trouble often turn to the IMF or World Bank, and then are forced to follow a four stage series of reforms. The formula includes Capital-market liberalization, privatization, market-based pricing, and, finally, the introduction of “free trade.”

The formula is being applied to the U.S. as well. God save us all.

#22: Welfare Reform Up For Reauthorization, but Still No Safety Net

President Clinton pushed for "Welfare Reform" to change the way public aid worked, or didn't work as some claimed. Welfare agencies around the country became more like employment centers as a result.

The reform legislation is up for renewal in 2003, but the Bush Administration is appearing to deny renewing the plan. This would greatly cut back money given to the local agencies.

#23: Argentina Crisis Sparks Cooperative Growth

The IMF reform recipe had driven Argentina bankrupt. The Argentine President had frozen everybody's bank accounts, and massive shortages and closures of businesses and more resulted. Their President was forced out of power, and the following President defaulted on loan payments.

The unemployed people have begun to take over the country on their own. They are collectively running various factories, paying off the debts owed by the factories, etc. They have formed local assemblies to coordinate things. They have formed secondary currencies that are outside the official currency of the country. And more, generally they are forming grass roots real democracy, and along the way rebuilding their country.

#24: Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine

U.S. aid to Israel is being spent to support the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and superceding of their rights.

#25: Convicted Corporations Receive Perks Instead of Punishment

Convicted corporations such as Enron and Worldcom are still receiving federal contracts. This despite a Clinton era rule prohibiting companies convicted of illegal activities from receiving federal contracts. You see, the Bush administration quietly negated that rule.

President Enr(er..)Bush received most of his campaign contributions from Enron.