700 Climate oriented NGOs criticize Japan for promoting nuclear power

[kristopher]

Japan criticized for pushing nuke plant exports despite accident

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan has been given the Fossil of the Day "award" at a U.N. climate change conference in Panama for pushing a scheme to promote its exports of nuclear power generation technologies to developing countries as a way of curbing global warming, an international environmental group said Monday.

The Climate Action Network, which groups some 700 nongovernmental organizations in 90 countries, said in a press release it had given Japan "first place" in the award for pushing for a mechanism for exporting nuclear technology despite the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The network said the Fukushima calamity "certainly destroyed the myth that nuclear power is safe and clean" and rapped Japan for its failure "to learn an important lesson from the accident."

In a working group meeting on climate change in the Central American country, Japan refused to drop the option of including a scheme under which exporters of nuclear plants to developing countries can earn emissions credits in the so-called "clean development mechanism," the network said.

The mechanism...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111004p2g00m0dm048000c.html

[kristopher]

1. 700 organizations formed to address climate change critical of using nuclear power.

Imagine that,

[kristopher]

2. 700 climate action organizations from 90 countries!

All rejecting the use of nuclear power as a way to address climate change?

Wow.

[bananas]

3. Nuclear is not a good way to address climate change.

Despite all the hype from the nuclear industry.

[kristopher]

4. Perhaps those 700 climate action organizations criticizing Japan for selling nuclear plants...

...are actually secret agents of the fossil fuel industries and all of their work against coal and petroleum is just a ruse.

At least, that is the way such opposition to nuclear is portrayed by the nuclear proponents.

[kristopher]

5. Odd that the nuclear proponents have nothing to say...

About 700 climate action groups rejecting their claims.

[FBaggins]

6. You mean apart from pointing out that it isn't true?

Just about anyone that wants to call themselves an NGO can join... and there's no mechanism to identify how many of the members agree with a given policy position. This isn't 700 climate groups saying something... it's ONE group claiming that they have 700 groups that agree with them.

"Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy" claims almos 10,000 members/correspondents/supporters in 60 countries. Does that suddenly make them more credible?

The bigger question is why we should care what two guys in a trailer in Colorado have to say about the claims of science?

[kristopher]

7. 700 Groups Organized to Address Climate Change...

700 Groups Organized to Address Climate Change condemn the promotion and sale of nuclear

Versus

1 Group Organized to Promote Nuclear Power by claiming it is is needed to address climate change



Sourcewatch lists "Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy" under its "Nuclear Spin" heading.
"This article is part of the Center for Media & Democracy's focus on the fallout of nuclear "spin.""

And its founder, Bruno Comby when "asked why the two environmental organisations Greenpeace and WWF were opposed to nuclear power...came out with the ludicrous conspiracy theory that "Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund... have international money coming from other countries. And when you go up to the source, it ends up with the oil companies or the Arab countries. They have a strong interest in suppressing the nuclear industry."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Environmentalists_for_Nuclear_Energy-USA

:rofl:

[PamW]

8. What is TRUTH?

700 Groups Organized to Address Climate Change condemn the promotion and sale of nuclear

Versus

1 Group Organized to Promote Nuclear Power by claiming it is is needed to address climate change
==================================

Do you honestly believe this is how we find out what truth is - counting or voting?

Your 700 groups many have 100,000 people or so. I bet I could find 100,000 people who have only
a high school education that believe that you can't take the square root of a negative number.
They all say their calculators give an error.

In opposition, I have one university mathematics professor that tells us the field of complex numbers
allows one to take the square root of negative numbers.

What is truth? Who is correct? The mathematics professor is correct.

The environmental groups may have the edge in mere numbers; but they are uneducated.

When you ask the educated scientists, like the National Academy of Science and Engineering;
they tell us that renewables alone are insufficient, and that we need nuclear.

PamW

[kristopher]

9. IPCC: Renewables can supply more far energy than needed at highly competitive cost

IPCC: Renewables can supply more far energy than needed at highly competitive cost
100 Percent Renewables: The Resources are There, Says UN Report
By Carl Levesque, American Wind Energy Association
May 16, 2011

Renewable energy sources are expected to contribute up to 80 percent of global energy supply by 2050, according to a new report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Among the report’s points of emphasis: wind power alone is capable of supplying more than 100 percent of future demand.

“The report clearly demonstrates that renewable technologies could supply the world with more energy than it would ever need, and at a highly competitive cost,” said Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council. “The IPCC report will be a key reference for policy makers and industry alike, as it represents the most comprehensive high level review of renewable energy to date.”

The 1,000-page report, which was adopted by 194 governments after marathon negotiations on May 9, considers the potential contribution from wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, hydro, and ocean energy, as well as their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, their integration into the energy networks, their contribution to sustainable development, and the policies which are needed to put them in place. Following a review of 164 scenarios, the IPCC found that renewables will play a key role in any successful plan to combat climate change....

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/05/100-percent-renewables-the-resources-are-there-says-un-report?cmpid=WindNL-Thursday-May19-2011

Download entire IPCC report here: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Full_Report
Dial-up warning - 28MB

[kristopher]

10. A Close Look At A Pronuclear “Environmentalist”

A Close Look At A Pronuclear “Environmentalist”
By Jim Harding

It’s important to know “both sides” of the nuclear waste controversy now that Saskatchewan is being targeted as a nuclear dump. Even if you are skeptical of industry claims that a nuclear waste solution “is in the works”, and see this as a ploy to get more nuclear power plants approved, there’s lots to learn about the nuclear worldview.

Bruno Comby of the French-based “Environmentalist for Nuclear Energy” argues that “nuclear waste has undeniable environmental benefits”. Comby lists three benefits: its “small amount”, it not being “disposed of in the biosphere” and it being “almost totally confined.” He claims that “reprocessed radioactive waste” can be decreased “to the natural level of radioactivity of the original ore after only 5,000 years”, and that “safe, simply and efficient solutions exist to make nuclear waste inert” and to isolate it “from the biosphere until it is no longer toxic”. Finally he claims that a naturally-occurring nuclear reaction 2 billion years ago at Okla, Gabon shows that “waste, after being left unconfined…has not migrated more than three meters.” He concludes the nuclear waste issue is “technically and ecologically solved by a combination of reprocessing technology, vitrification and deep geological disposal.”

This is quite a mouthful. If it’s this “pat” then why, nearly 70 years after the first atom was split, are governments struggling with what to do with nuclear wastes? Comby’s argument is constructed to make real problems disappear. Notice his phrase “after only 5,000 years”, as though it would be acceptable to continue to create high-level wastes threatening environmental health for 50 generations. (It’s actually many more generations when you consider that plutonium has a half-life of 26,000 years.) He claims that because it takes a smaller quantity of uranium than oil to produce the same amount of energy, nuclear wastes are less problematic. But he completely ignores the build-up of long-lived radioactive uranium tailings, which are part of the nuclear waste stream; there are already more than 200 million tons of such tailings in Canada. Comby trivializes the toxicity of spent fuel, claiming that once plutonium is “reprocessed and recycled” as fuel for new reactors the remaining waste “is totally isolated from the environment”. Furthermore, Comby completely ignores the increased dangers of proliferation from plutonium becoming more available.

MORE DISINFORMATION
Comby states that over time nuclear wastes “…are only weakly radioactive. And these…are alpha-ray emitters from which we can easily protect ourselves.” Actually alpha radiation is highly mobile and much more dangerous than previously thought, and is highly carcinogenic if breathed and imbedded in our lungs. Radon gas, which after smoking is the greatest cause of lung cancer worldwide, is an alpha-emitter. But Comby tries to minimize the dangers from nuclear waste build-up by focusing on the dangers of other energy systems. He quotes pronuclear “gaia” theorist James Lovelock that “there is at present no other safe, practical and economic substitute for … burning carbon fuels.” Lovelock said this in 2003, when the global shift to renewables was already underway. By 2005 electricity from renewables surpassed that from nuclear power worldwide, and the gap keeps growing.

Comby tries...

http://sites.google.com/site/cleangreensaskca/Home/jim-harding-s-column/a-close-look-at-a-pronuclear-environmentalist

[kristopher]

11. 10,000 protesters lay siege to Tamil Nadu nuclear plant site

10,000 protesters lay siege to Tamil Nadu nuclear plant site
Published: Thursday, Oct 13, 2011, 18:00 IST
By Kumar Chellappan | Place: Chennai | Agency: DNA

The agitation against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant near Tirunelveli reached a feverish pitch on Thursday with more than 10,000 activists laying siege to all the entry points to the project site.

More than 700 scientists and technicians who reached the KNPP for their morning shift could not enter the reactor premises which broughtroutine works to a grinding halt.

“The maintenance works were carried out by the staff on overnight duty who could not come out of the plant because of the road block,” a senior executive of the KNPP told DNA.

This is the first time in the history of the country that the works in a nuclear reactor were affectedfollowing agitation by the local residents...

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_10000-protesters-lay-siege-to-tamil-nadu-nuclear-plant-site_1598354