The coal connection : You might think that "clean coal" is an alternative to nuclear power.

But they both fit into the corporate nuclear strategy.

"Clean coal" is a stop-gap (and untested) measure. It's meant to "fill the gap" until nuclear gets up and running.

It's meant to take away research from the really clean energy methods - energy efficiency and renewable energy

world - weapons & war

Ian Hore Lacy (Aust) spruiker for World Nuclear Association,and formerly for uranium miner CRA

Bruno Comby (France) nuclear physicist, poses as environmenatlist.

Patrick Moore(Canada) poses as environmentalist, spruiks for Canadian Nuclear Association

Warwick Grigor (Canada) chairman of uranium explorer Monaro Resources.

Bjorn Lomborg (Denmark) Denies global warming, claims that the world's environment is in a good state.

Fred Singer(USA) - funded( through Heartland & Cato Institues), by Exxon, denies human -caused global warming

James Lovelock (UK)-close associate of Bruno Comby, claims that nuclear power plants cannot be used for weapons production.

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand
A PENTAGON CAMPAIGN Retired officers have been used to shape terrorism coverage from inside the TV and radio networks.
NEW YORK TIMES By DAVID BARSTOW 4 May 08 - "....................................Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, ................military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration's war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse - an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

................The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.
These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated.Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as "message force multipliers" or "surrogates" who could be counted on to deliver administration "themes and messages" to millions of Americans "in the form of their own opinions."..."

Nuclear Renaissance A Sham:

Beyond Nuclear 7 May 08 - "Beyond Nuclear is in Chicago this week with our colleagues from Nuclear Energy Information Service to continue to expose the nuclear industry's preposterous claim that it is enjoying some kind of 'renaissance'

As we are sure you have noticed, the nuclear industry is now on a permanent road trip using highly-paid shills to advance its fraudulent claims of regeneration.Beyond Nuclear and NEIS conducted press outreach to coincide with this week's annual conference of the industry's trade group - the Nuclear Energy Institute. Coverage includes the Chicago Tribune and National Public Radio.he nuclear industry cannot be allowed to get away with its spurious claims unchallenged.

The only way the nuclear industry can survive its enormous costs is to once again milk the public purse. Its renaissance is in reality a relapse, a costly habit enabled entirely by federal funding. Without it, the nuclear industry would find itself in the throes of sudden death, a far cry from a 'renaissance'..................".

StopGreenwashing .org

Greenpeace Marks Earth Day '08 With New Website Exposing Corporate 'Greenwash' Claims TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL April 22nd, 2008 - Common Dreams News Center WASHINGTON, DC - April 22 - - "Greenpeace, with a 36-year history of monitoring corporate malfeasance, confronting polluters, and stopping environmental misdeeds, marked Earth Day 2008 with the launch of project StopGreenwashing .org to expose deceptive corporate environmental claims known as 'greenwashing.'

"Consumers are being misled, corporations are preying upon the public's good will and lawmakers are being distracted with marketing pitches that overstate concrete action and results," Greenpeace Research Director Kert Davies said. "This epidemic of greenwashing must stop and companies must adopt genuine green solutions to protect the environment."

With efforts to address global warming and energy security more urgent than ever, StopGreenwash.org begins with three investigations profiling the energy industry's use of misleading environmental claims: America's Power Clean Coal campaign.........................General Motors' "Gas-Friendly to Gas-Free"-...............Greenwashing Nuclear Power -

Public relations troubles are nothing new for the nuclear industry. For more than half a century, this industry has attempted to deflect attention away from the dirty and dangerous downsides of nuclear power. Now, riding the threat of global warming, the nuclear industry has launched a renewed PR effort to green its image.

The most common form of greenwashing is advertising and branding of products, but it also can involve the gamut of public relations tools, from the formation of front groups to the sponsorship of 'green' events. Unlike some analyses of greenwashing that focus on specific consumer products, Greenpeace has established four specific criteria to evaluate core business and marketing practices on green claims. Greenpeace's Greenwash Criteria
Ad Bluster - Using targeted advertising or public relations campaigns to exaggerate an environmental achievement to divert attention from environmental problems or spending more money advertising an environmental achievement than actually doing it.
Dirty Business - Touting an environmental program or product while the corporation's product or core business is inherently polluting or unsustainable.
Political Spin - Advertising, speaking about or using front groups to tout corporate 'green' commitments while lobbying against environmental laws and regulations.
It's the Law, Stupid - Advertising or branding a product with claims about environmental achievements that are already mandated by law.
...........................................The website will allow users to submit examples of greenwashing such as videos of TV ads and scans of print ads to form the first available online library of greenwashing. Users will rate these ads, which will be viewable on the site. There also will be a discussion board, ways to take action online to target companies to eliminate their greenwashing behavior, materials on the history of greenwashing and links to key web resources and recent news items on the subject....."

Hall of Nuclear Shame Beyond Nuclear 25 April 08 - Christine Todd Whitman co-anchors the pro-nuclear, industry-funded propaganda front group currently touting nuclear energy around the globe.

Her co-booster is none other than industry darling, Patrick Moore, whose claim that he co-founded Greenpeace has been soundly debunked by the actual founders who noted that Moore applied to join the first Greenpeace sailing that departed two years after the organization was founded.

(The actual founders were a group of Quakers and journalists). ..

.......Patrick Moore is frequently cited by the news media as an 'environmentalist.' Last time we looked, the definition of an environmentalist was not a paid booster for the nuclear, chemical, clear-cut logging and GM foods industries.

It's time to set the record straight on this and Moore's well-worn claim that he 'co-founded' Greenpeace and expose his phony environmental credentials.................................".

French siren call to nuclear power is delivered with a deceptive charm...icWales.co.uk 1 April 08 by Steve Dube, Western Mail - "ZUT alors! It's good to see that our visions are undimmed as we welcome a new entente aimable and put all our futures into the friendly French nuclear basket.........

.....Let's just be thankful for the dawn of the entente nucléaire, and for the added bonus that it was sealed by a chanteuse of rare delectability ......Madame Sarkozy was enough to distract anyone from the serious business deals done behind the ballyhoo of her husband's state visit. The verb 'to drool' and the noun 'saliva' do not quite do justice to the media reaction. ..............

...............The French probably have better words that they're keeping to themselves, along with their long term solution to the little problem of nuclear waste.

Thank goodness we don't have to worry about anything like that. The experts will surely come up with some kind of solution in the next couple of thousand years, even if it means blasting it all into outer space.

There is one little niggle. The world's nuclear power stations are all situated either on the coast, or on rivers or lakes. It takes a great deal of water to cool the white heat of this technology. But are we not being warned of climate change sea level rises and floods? What kind of fools will we look if we end up with an underwater entente diabolique?........."

Jobs are used to justify anything, but the numbers don't add up The credibility of the employment claims made for projects like nuclear newbuild is rarely, if ever, questioned - The Guardian UK George Monbiot April 1 2008 - "There is no nonsense so gross that it cannot be justified by the creation of jobs-......

.......John Hutton claims that new nuclear power stations will generate not only the energy we need, but also 100,000 new jobs. When and how? Here, or in France? .........

....……..But the big question is asked very rarely in the press: how reliable are these promises? Whenever a new defence contract or superstore or road or airport is announced, newspapers and broadcasters repeat the employment figures without questioning them. They rarely return to the story to discover whether the claims were true……"

Documents Debunk Myth of French Nuclear 'Success'
Reality a Radioactive Mess:

Reprocessing and Plutonium Fuel Have Cost Billions Common Dreama 3 March 08 TAKOMA PARK, MARYLAND - March 3 - "Nuclear power and reprocessing in France have been a costly mistake and have contaminated groundwater,air and the sea, according to a new collection of documents released today by Beyond Nuclear.

A fully footnoted fact sheet - Nuclear Power and France: Debunking the Myths - and a pamphlet - Nuclear Power in France: Setting the Record Straight - show how the French decision to reprocess reactor fuel as well as to manufacture and use plutonium fuel in civilian reactors has burdened the French economy and created one of the most complex radioactive waste challenges in the world.

Full details are found on the Beyond Nuclear Web page, France and Nuclear Power. "The notion that the French nuclear example should be followed in the U.S. is a dangerous fraud perpetrated by nuclear merchants desperate for a sale," said Linda Gunter of Beyond Nuclear and author of the exposé on nuclear France. "France has accumulated more than 80 tons of weapons-usable plutonium as a result of reprocessing.The reactors that use plutonium fuel still produce plutonium in the waste fuel for which there is no disposal solution. France has no high-level radioactive waste repository, and liquid radioactive discharges from its reprocessing plant have contaminated seas as far as the Arctic Circle."

Among the findings are:
* admissions by a French government report that choosing reprocessing and plutonium fuel cost the country billions of francs* more than generating nuclear electricity alone;
* evidence of elevated rates of leukemia around the French reprocessing site, linked to aerial and water-borne radioactive discharges;
* widespread radioactive contamination of important areas such as the Champagne wine region .............

'With these documents we have put together a comprehensive indictment of the French nuclear industry,'Gunter concluded. 'It is patently absurd to hold up French nuclear power as anything other than a disaster in radioactive waste management and increased security risks'........................"

In the US, nuclear power is becoming the new green The Age Andy Vuong, Denver February 11, 2008 - "…………………..Working against nuclear power is the cost of construction, which far exceeds the cost to build a coal or natural-gas plant.

A 1000-megawatt nuclear plant would cost $US2 billion ($A2.2 billion) to build if construction began in 2015, according to the research service ……

…….Concerns remain about the safety hazards of using radioactive materials to generate power and the struggle to find proper storage for nuclear waste.

'Even though the waste is a really small quantity, it's very, very toxic, and it will be here for a very long time,'said Colorado environmentalist Leslie Glustrom. Mr Glustrom and others say utilities should focus on boosting safer alternative energy sources such as solar and wind......".

ENERGY FLASHES MOTHER EARTH NEWS 2 Feb 2008 - "JULY MARKS THE MONTH WHEN THE 'U.S. COMMITTEE FOR ENERGY AWARENESS' a public relations group representing (and substantially made up of executives from) utility companies, plans to launch its multimillion-dollar pro-nuclear ad campaign nationwide. AS we reported in this column in MOTHER N0. 81, consumers will likely pay most of the $40-million-plus tab for the promotion, which is designed to "set the record straight" (according to the slick TV spots) and convince us all that nuclear power is both safe and desirable.

MEANWHILE, AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF ADVERTISING YOU CAN EXPECT FROM THE "U.S. COMMITTEE FOR ENERGY AWARENESS" , here's just one audio script from a CEA television spot. During the commercial, Dr. Leonard Sagan, M.D., of the Electric Power Research Institute, is the on-camera spokesperson Says Sagan, "In laboratories like these, scientists develop procedures to safely dispose of radioactive nuclear wastes vital to our continued use of nuclear medicine, nuclear energy, the defense of our nation. The method is to permanently seal off the waste from our environment and store it deep in stable geological formations. The concept is endorsed by the prestigious National Academy of Scientists. Most people aren't aware of that. That's why we brought you this message, to set the record straight."

BUT NO PROVEN MEANS OF SAFE DISPOSAL HAS EVER BEEN DEMONSTRATED! As James J. McKenzie, Ph.D., senior staff scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists puts it, "Through the use of poorly written, ambiguous language, this ad would lead the listener to assume that the waste problem has in fact been solved. To state that 'the method' is to seal wastes away is to do little more than articulate a goal that is presently far from being achieved."

WHAT'S MORE, RECENT REPORTS FROM THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY concluded that 'the difficulties and uncertainties connected with the geological disposal of high-level waste' represent 'significant potential stumbling blocks that need critical attention'

And a year-long study conducted during the Carter Administration says that the problem is one 'whose resolution will clearly require an unprecedented extension of capabilities in rock mechanics, geochemistry, hydrogeology, and long-term predictions of seismicity, volcanism, and climate.'..............................

UTILITIES NOW HAVE 10,000 METRIC TONS OF SPENT FUEL RODS in 'temporary storage' according to Business Week magazine . . . and each of the nation's 70 nuclear power plants generates approximately 25 additional tons of the radioactive garbage every year Although the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (passed late last year) mandates the construction of two "permanent disposal" sites by the year 1998, major obstacles-including the selection of the sites, the technological problems mentioned above, and the issue of precisely who will ultimately pay the $14.8 billion estimated cost of the project (the utilities would like to pass the price on to customers)threaten to cause substantial delays. .. "

Public opinion: how do we get it on our side? NUCLEAR ENGINEERING 21 January 2008 -

".......................The fact that many people haven't had to think very hard about energy matters for some time suggests that opinion can easily be influenced ......

........ climate change provides a fantastic opportunity for nuclear to be seen in a new light .........

.......The companies concerned must be seen to be interested in far more than profit and be seen to ultimately have the interests of the local area and the wider country at heart. …

…........there must be a lot more to it than the facts. Beliefs and values are arguably even more important than solid information...............

........the search for credible third party advocates. Industries are seen as essentially self-interested................................prominent environmentalists such as James Lovelock and Patrick Moore are worth their weight in gold when they speak up in support of nuclear's importance. (Note - Patrick Moore has for 17 years been a paid spruiker for logging and other anti-environment industries - CM)..................

..................The association with military uses is very hard to shake off - had nuclear power alternatively (and more correctly) been termed 'fission power', the difficulties over public acceptance would undoubtedly been rather less. Although it's now rather too late to quietly re-brand the industry, it's a lesson for the future - be careful in what you casually say,................

.......The other good example is the careless terming of everything coming out of the back of a reactor as 'waste'..........................

As an alternative, referring to 'used fuel' would have highlighted the potential economic value, so the time period could potentially be much-expanded (under the guise of passing on an important asset to the next generation rather than a liability).......There is a variety of other initiatives which can be taken to support nuclear, but none of them is important as better crisis communications when things do go wrong, as inevitably they will do from time to time......."..

John Gofman vs. the Nuclear Cowboys
Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis
Counter Punch By FRED GARDNER and SHOBHIT ARORA January 2, 2008 - "Dr. John Gofman left us in 2007 at the age of 88. Edward Teller called him 'the enemy within' the nuclear research establishment because Gofman warned the public about the dangers inherent even in peaceful uses. (Teller was proud of his own sobriquet,'father of the H-bomb' Peter Sellers used Teller as a model when he played Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick's great black comedy.) …………………

…………………………………..The worst-case scenario is this. Ever since its inception, the Atomic Energy Commission --then called ERDA, then called DOE-- has had one thing in mind. 'Our program is sacrosanct' And they recognize, as I've recognized, that their entire program will live or die based upon one thing.

If the public should come to learn the truth about ionizing radiation, nuclear energy and the atomic energy program of DOE is going to be dead. Because the people of this country --and other countries-- are not going to tolerate what it implies. The key thing --it's everything in the DOE program-- is:'We must prove that low doses of radiation are not harmful..' They have been conducting a Josef Goebels propaganda war, saying there's a safe dose when there has never been any valid evidence for a safe dose of radiation. Yet the DOE and others continue to talk about their 'zero-risk model'…………………………Gofman:

The answer is this: ionizing radiation is not like a poison out of a bottle where you can dilute it and dilute it. The lowest dose of ionizing radiation is one nuclear track through one cell. You can't have a fraction of a dose of that sort. Either a track goes through the nucleus and affects it, or it doesn't. So I said 'What evidence do we have concerning one, or two or three or four or six or 10 tracks.' And I came up with nine studies of cancer being produced where we're dealing with up to maybe eight or 10 tracks per cell. Four involved breast cancer. With those studies, as far as I'm concerned, it's not a question of 'We don't know' The DOE has never refuted this evidence. They just ignore it, because it's inconvenient. We can now say, there cannot be a safe dose of radiation. There is no safe threshhold. If this truth is known, then any permitted radiation is a permit to commit murder.......................................................'................................".

Don't buy the nuclear sales pitch - Aspen Daily News Roger Herried - 22 June 07 "...............Moore is not a founder or co-founder of Greenpeace. ...................... Moore and his behavior in the late 1970s wreaked havoc on Greenpeace. Moore has had nothing to do with environmental issues for over 15 years. He's been using the last 15 years to promote the logging industry and other polluters.

The idea that the nuclear industry would hold up such a flagrant example is astounding. One of the real founders of Greenpeace called him a Judas! For anyone with their eyes open, short sales pieces by paid industry spokespeople that have millions of federal pork to spend promoting a plan to get billions more from us, please, if there was ever a time not to trust someone, it is the nuclear industry, during George 'let's make a deal on Iraq's oil' Bush's administration.

In Feb 1984, Forbes magazine called the nuclear industry the largest financial disaster in U.S. history. The big picture on nuclear power includes the ugly truth that nuclear power and weapons are linked at the hip, and enjoys second to none subsidies that go back over 50 yearsYou wouldn't know it unless you live in Nevada, that the plan to dump high level waste at Yucca Mountain is facing opposition from both parties there. You wouldn't know it that when Bush promised not to let Yucca Mountain go ahead unless there was good science that proved its safety. With that promise George Bush won the 2000 election and Nevada's electoral votes were enough to make the difference in who would be president...................

.The nuclear industry wants you to allow the federal government to subsidize private companies to build a new generation of experimental reactors. What will the real cost be? Once they get a hook on your wallet, we all know what a blank check is! The first time around they said it was gonna be too cheap to meter. In 1966, California's Diablo Canyon was estimated to cost just over $350 million to build two reactors. Twenty years later the construction costs totaled $5.8 billion, with an additional $7 billion in financing costs. The utility got every penny of those costs from the government and ratepayers, plus a profit. The result? California's rates nearly doubled over a six-year period................................" . .

The spin over the joint nuclear energy plan THE HUFFINGTON POST by Alex Raksin 25/4/07 - "...................in my over 20 years in journalism ......I have never encountered a slicker spin than the administration's announcement today, April 25, of a 'joint nuclear energy action plan'" between the United States and Japan.......it will 'safely and securely, allow developing nations to deploy nuclear power to meet energy needs'and shower lavish financing on companies that agree to 'construct... nuclear power plants in the United States for the first time in 30 years,'including a promise that U.S. taxpayers will generously compensate any companies that lose money on the deals. The plan, the biggest deal that Bush's $405-million 'Global Nuclear Energy Partnership'(GNEP) has scored to date, also makes a host of other promises, from 'reducing the number of required ... waste depositories to one for the remainder of this century''to 'enhancing energy security, while promoting non-proliferation.'.............................................. Robert Alvarez, President Clinton's top energy advisor from 1993-99, released a study documenting the many ways in which the Administration's nominally 'environmentally friendly' GNEP program could become a deadly and costly fiasco.........................the GNEP would allow large quantities of cesium 135 -- a radionuclide with a half life of 2.3 million years -- to be disposed in the near surface and pose serious contamination problems for many thousands of years. .....................Despite the Energy Department's claims that recycling of reactor spent fuel will solve the nuclear waste disposal problem, a small fraction is likely to be recycled.DOE's plans include the landfill disposal of tens of thousands of tons of recovered uranium. .................................the Bush administration had asked Department of Energy officials to bar citizens from commenting on GNEP after April 4.

But nuclear safety proponents successfully pressed officials to extend the deadline to June 4, leaving all Americans free to submit their views either to their federal legislator or directly to the administration by contacting Timothy A. Frazier by phone (866-645-7803) or email (GNEP-PEIS@nuclear.energy.gov).

You might assume -- as most of my good friends are wont to do -- that you are too small and powerless to stop the GNEP juggernaut, I have news for you: But you'd be wrong. continued below

The Bush administration had asked Department of Energy officials to bar citizens from commenting on GNEP after April 4. But nuclear safety proponents successfully pressed officials to extend the deadline to June 4, leaving all Americans free to submit their views either to their federal legislator or directly to the administration by contacting Timothy A. Frazier by phone (866-645-7803) or email (GNEP-PEIS@nuclear.energy.gov).

So far, the nation's legislators and many reporters have been asleep at the nuclear reactor control panel.
You can help wake them up by asking them to zero out the budget for the GNEP program that Alvarez's study shows to be ludicrously impractical.

Or you could go further and suggest that the leftover funding be diverted into the scores of demonstrably cost-effective and environmentally safe energy-generating alternatives, such as geothermal and hydropower, that the president -- incredibly enough -- is now actually pressing legislators to de-fund in next year's budget."

NUCLEAR POWER ON THE WEB From greenhouse to greenhouse Gerry Wolff 11 April 2007 "Things that appear on the web about nuclear power seem to fall into four main categories:

1. Rather bland pro-nuclear articles, typically in minor newspapers, suggesting that the problems with nuclear power are largely in the past, that it is quite safe and, that it is the way to cut CO2 emissions. Most of these articles are very inaccurate and seriously misleading as you will see if you compare them with what Helen Caldicott has to say in her excellent book 'Nuclear power is not the answer.'

2. Seemingly factual reports saying things like ;Such and such nuclear power station produced record output recently or that it has come back on stream.;These reports are probably accurate but they don't seem to serve any other purpose than raising the profile of nuclear power in the public mind and suggesting in a comforting way that this technology is busy producing the electricity we need so we can rest easy in our minds.

3 With Google alerts set on 'comprehensive' so that it searches all kinds of web pages and not just news, I have come across a number of blogs preaching a very pro-nuclear line. They all look suspiciously professional in their web design and all have a rather similar layout. They do look to me like things that have been set up deliberately to spread the pro-nuclear word.

4 Fortunately, there are some reports and articles that present a more accurate view of nuclear power and its many problems.

All of these kinds of articles, reports or blogs provide an opportunity to correct misleading information about nuclear power and raise awareness of a major alternative. "