Germany is awake and paying attention: HERZLICHEN GLÜCKWUNSCH DEUTSCHEN

German Parliament Approves Nuclear Power Shutdown 

BERLIN -- German lawmakers overwhelmingly approved on Thursday plans to shut the country's nuclear plants by 2022, putting Europe's biggest economy on the road to an ambitious build-up of renewable energy.

The lower house of parliament voted 513-79 for the shutdown plan drawn up by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government after Japan's post-earthquake nuclear disaster. Most of the opposition voted in favor; eight lawmakers abstained.

Lawmakers sealed for good the shutdown of eight of the older reactors, which have been off the grid since March. Germany's remaining nine reactors will be shut down in stages by the end of 2022.

By 2020, Germany wants to double the share of energy stemming from water, wind, sun or biogas to at least 35 percent. Until this year, nuclear energy accounted for a bit less than a quarter of Germany's power supply. 

Germany joins the short list of socially responsible countries that explicitly reject nuclear power.  At this time the only other ones I know of are New Zealand and Switzerland; please leave a comment if you know of any more.

Full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/30/germany-nuclear-power-shutdown_n_887590.html

Americans are still the world's biggest energy hogs

World Bank figures for CO2 emissions in metric tons per capita:

Carbon dioxide emissions are those stemming from the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement. They include carbon dioxide produced during consumption of solid, liquid, and gas fuels and gas flaring.

Source Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, United States.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC/countries/US--XS-FR-DE-CN-IT?display=graph

Nuclear power is often cited as "necessary to our energy needs" but the data charted clearly indicate that if America got responsible like other countries and were less piggish about their "energy needs", we probably wouldn't need nuclear at all.  It is a dissembling argument based on the assumption that our energy gluttony is itself a necessary thing, except that those making the argument never point out that American energy consumption is vastly excessive.

Santa Susana Meltdown COVERED UP FOR 20 YEARS

The video discusses the proximity of the Santa Susana plant to Simi Valley almost as if Simi Valley is the only place likely to be heavily contaminated, but most weather flows from northeast to southwest so the San Fernando Valley is probably worse off in that regard. That is the only nit I have to pick with this excellent documentary from the History Channel:

Flooding Brings Worries Over Two U.S. Nuclear Plants

 Much of the attention has been focused on the Fort Calhoun plant because of recent concerns about its preparedness and the dramatic images of the structures surrounded in all direction by water, as if rising out of a lake. Earlier this month, the plant briefly lost power needed to cool the spent fuel pool after a fire that remains under investigation. 

Last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission cited the Fort Calhoun plant for not being adequately prepared for floods and rated the safety violation in the “yellow” category, the second most serious. The agency ordered changes because it said that under the plan in place at the time, a major flood could cause core damage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/us/21flood.html

Radioactive Tritium Has Leaked From Three-Quarters Of U.S. Nuclear Plants: AP Investigation

This is nothing new and has been going on for years.  Tritium is EXTREMELY mobile and hard to contain.  I read a study once about tritium being detected in the blood of subjects who wore diving watches that had tiny little glass tubes on the watch hands with tritium in them so they would glow and could be seen in the dark.  Tritium leaked out of the sealed glass tubes, out of the sealed diving watches, and diffused across the skin of the experimental subjects wearing the watches, THAT's how mobile it is.  So we shouldn't be surprised to see it showing up in groundwater under and near nuke plants, just another reason why nuclear energy is so irresponsible and even criminal in its intent. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/radioactive-tritium-leaks-us-nuclear-plants_n_881090.html

G-8 Energy Ministers Pledge Support for Stricter Nuclear Safety Tests

By MATTHEW SALTMARSH

Published: June 7, 2011

PARIS — International energy ministers and officials of nuclear agencies pledged support Tuesday for a global push to improve safety tests at nuclear power plants.

The pledge emerged from a meeting in Paris that also highlighted divergent national approaches to the sector following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

The meeting, described as an “informal seminar,” was suggested by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France at a Group of 8 leaders’ meeting last month.

 Full story at www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/business/global/08nuke.html

 Sure, the French are sweating bullets, having committed to a nuclear economy that is increasingly obvious to have been a bad decision.  So Sarkozy's driving this thing, having a meeting where everyone agrees "There was a general, uncontested agreement from everyone at the meeting that nuclear safety must come first — whether it’s a question of more or less nuclear power. And that depends on international cooperation." AND NOW they can all say they're doing something.  But they can't change the laws of nature and they can't eliminate natural disasters and crime and terrorism and insanity and stupidity and accidents so nuclear power is always going to be dangerous UNTIL ALL THOSE THINGS GO AWAY WHICH THEY NEVER CAN SO NUCLEAR POWER IS INHERENTLY UNSAFE.  That is what should have been concluded at that meeting and even though some governments are smart enough and responsible enough to do the right thing (Switzerland and Germany for starters, and the Italian people at least if not their government) and end nuclear power in their countries, period.  So this meeting is nothing but window dressing designed so that Sarkozy can assure his constituents that he is doing something about the issue, even though by not ending nuclear power in France he is doing the wrong thing.  Shame on you Mister Sarkozy, are you for sale too like the American government?