New York AREA - Strategic Alliance Formed

From:
www.rocklandbusiness.org

We are pleased to announce that the Rockland Business Association and New York AREA have forged a strategic alliance to help advocate for the “end user” of our electricity supply.

New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance (New York AREA) was formed in the wake of the 2003 blackout which cost New York more than $1 billion in lost economic activity in less than forty-eight hours. Due to the pressing need for an advocacy organization of its type, 17 business and labor groups united with the commitment of making sure New York maintained the electricity needed to meet its ever increasing demand for power.

Today New York AREA is a coalition of more than 150 members united with a broad mission that helps promote issues and policies that will provide New York with an ample supply and efficient distribution of affordable reliable electricity.

New York has some of the fastest rising electricity costs in the nation, including rates that are 66% above the national average. This puts an enormous burden on our manufacturers, small businesses and other entrepreneurs who are trying to compete in a global marketplace.

New York AREA’s broad agenda includes advocating for policies that aid in the development of energy sources to meet the growing demand for power in New York as well as ensuring New York has a sensible and balanced energy portfolio.

“We look forward to working closely with New York AREA over the coming months and years to help foster solutions to our State’s energy crisis that affects so many of our members,” noted Al Samuels, President/CEO.

Rockland Business Association
One Blue Hill Plaza
P.O. Box 1567
Pearl River, NY 10965
Phone: 845-735-2100
Fax: 845-735-2482
rba@rocklandbusiness.org

Patrick Moore shills at Rockland Business Association's annual meeting

Nuclear power advocate calls for Indian Point relicensing
By LAURA INCALCATERRA AND GREG CLARY

THE JOURNAL NEWS
(November 9, 2007)

BLAUVELT - A Greenpeace founder who now advocates for nuclear energy addressed about 100 people yesterday during the Rockland Business Association's annual meeting.

Patrick Moore used the opportunity to call for the relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear power plants. He said an increasing number of countries were turning to nuclear energy and that the United States should as well.

Moore said nuclear power plants were safe and, unlike coal-burning plants, did not produce carbon dioxide and other forms of air pollution. He said politicians who advocated shutting down Indian Point used the issue to gain support and that many environmentalists used scare tactics in their efforts to close them.

He also asserted that the anti-nuclear movement was all but dead and that most opposition nowadays was seen in California and the Northeast.

"There is a very strong majority of support for nuclear in the future of the energy mix in the U.S.," Moore said.

Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns and operates Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3, has applied for license extensions for both. If granted, the renewals would allow the plants to operate until 2033 and 2035, respectively.

The original 40-year license for Indian Point 2 will expire in 2013. Indian Point 3's will expire in 2015.

Some community activists have raised concerns, which led Rockland and Westchester counties to go to court to try to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to change its relicensing criteria.

The NRC does not consider such factors as population density and the ability to conduct an effective emergency evacuation as part of its relicensing process.

Among those opposing the relicensing is Tarrytown-based Riverkeeper organization, whose policy director, Lisa Rainwater, criticized Moore's view of nuclear energy yesterday.

"It's difficult to call any form of energy clean when it produces waste that is deadly for hundreds of thousands of years," Rainwater said by telephone yesterday.

"Indian Point's 1,500 tons of waste are stored on the banks of the Hudson River in leaking, spent fuel pools that are poisoning the river and groundwater," she said. "If that's clean energy, Riverkeeper would like to know what constitutes dirty energy."

Moore is a consultant to the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, whose members include Entergy. The alliance is helping the company in its relicensing effort, spokesman Paul Steidler said after the meeting.

Moore spent 15 years as a leader of Greenpeace, but said he decided he wanted to work on building consensus among competing concerns rather than continue in the "politics of confrontation."

He said many people call for the shutdown of nuclear plants without offering an alternative. He said sites for hydroelectric plants have all been taken and that natural gas was too expensive to use as a fuel for power plants.

He said solar and wind power were not enough to ensure an adequate supply of energy and that coal was too polluting, leaving nuclear power plants as an alternative. He said such plants were also much cheaper to build than coal-burning units outfitted with the best-available pollution controls.

Reach Laura Incalcaterra at 845-578-2486 or lincalca@lohud.com.

Impacts of Climate Change on Nuclear Power Station Sites

Greenpeace UK
12-03-2007

This review looks at the impacts that climate change will have on the coastal environment around a selection of power station sites, over the lifetime of both existing and proposed nuclear reactors, and examines the risks to which they would be exposed by rising tide levels, coastal erosion and storm surges. It also highlights the even more disastrous consequences that would ensue upon the loss of a significant area of land-based ice such as the Greenland ice shelf, which could result in a catastrophic global sea level rise.

The impacts of climate change on nuclear power station sites: full report (PDF)
The impacts of climate change on nuclear power station sites: executive summary (PDF)
Watch an animation to see how rising seas will threaten both existing and new nuclear power stations

Thanks to Chris Dudley at MDSolar for the story tip.
Mirrored from my new blog WinaFish.

Gwyneth Cravens's Hail to Nukes!

Global warming has given nuclear power new appeal. But is the cost too great?

POWER TO SAVE THE WORLD
The Truth About Nuclear Energy
By Gwyneth Cravens
Alfred A. Knopf, 464 pp., $27.95

Review by Bill McKibben

Excerpt:

... at a party some years later in her native New Mexico, she bumped into Rip Anderson, a scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, with "curly, receding gray hair, a full mustache, blue eyes," a wiry build, a flannel shirt, and an "international reputation in the fields of probabilistic risk assessment, environmental health, and nuclear safety." His manner of speaking, "courteous and laconic, with the occa-sional archaic word thrown in, reminded me of the Old West." Their conversation sparked this book, Power to Save the World , which the author calls "an unexpected journey through the nuclear world with Rip as my Virgil." Cravens, as Dante, begins each section with a fluttering set of questions: Isn't radiation dangerous? Can't the terrorists turn these things into bombs? What will we do with the waste? And the unflappable Anderson takes her on a suitable field trip -- to a reactor control room or a mine or a waste stor-age site. In each case she sees that things are not as she has feared, and Anderson seals the deal with some anecdotes about radiation as a small sprinkling of salt on a plate of hash browns or why the physics of "ground effect" would make it extremely difficult to crash a speeding jet into a relatively squat reactor.

This strategy works well to convey copious amounts of fairly dry information about the risks of a nuclear accident. The only problem is that Anderson is the truest of true believers -- he ends the book with a little sermon about how God sent "the brainiest guys in human history" to crack the atom "and enough uranium and thorium to last for thousands of years." And while Cravens is diligent in following him through the vast nuclear archipelago, she's less diligent in tracking down the opponents of nuclear power to hear their metaphors and statistics. She quotes a couple of former opponents, there's one throwaway sentence apiece from Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, and she scolds Barbra Streisand and "former supermodel" Christie Brinkley for being environmental hypocrites. But other than that, she mostly just lets it Rip.

To read the whole review, click here!

(via indianpointsec list serv)

Igniting A Revolution ~ The Voice of AK Press

Igniting A Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth

AK Press
674-A 23rd Street
Oakland, CA 94612

Derrick Jensen (Contributor), John Zerzan (Contributor), Robert Jensen (Contributor), Marilyn Buck (Contributor), Jeff Luer (Contributor), Robert Thaxton(Contributor), Ann Hansen(Contributor), Steven Best, and Anthony J. Nocella, II

For decades, environmental groups have been resisting the destructive trends set by industry and government, but as the social and political climate has changed, popular protest movements have become less and less effective. As the earth's situation worsens, those opposing its destruction have out of necessity become increasingly militant. Corporate and federal properties have been vandalized, set ablaze-even bombed-and the government is meeting this new brand of environmental militance with an increasingly heavy hand.

Whether you're drawn by frustration with environmental strategies that, to date, have been ineffective against this growing ecological crisis, or simply by curiosity (Who are these people? Why are they doing this? What do they hope to gain?), Igniting a Revolution offers a fascinating and compelling look at the emerging movement of revolutionary environmentalism.

Includes essays by Marilyn Buck, Robert Jensen, John Zerzan, Ashanti Alston, Jeffrey "Free" Luers, Derrick Jensen, Ann Hansen, and a preface by Bron Taylor.

"This volume will interest any reader who wishes to hear directly from some of the leading intellectuals, activists and prisoners involved in these movements. The insights gained by listening directly to these voices...can hardly be overestimated"—Bron Taylor, from the preface.

"There's no way that anyone can agree with everything laid out in this collection. But there is no way, either, that we can afford to ignore these varied voices, because the one sure path to destruction is that of business as usual."—Joel Kovel, The Enemy of Nature

"As we face unprecedented ecological crises, along with growing political violence and state repression, revolutionary enivronmentalists claim that another world is possible. This book promises important insights into radical alternativesw and principled resistance"—John Sorenson

"Can extralegal means justify an end? The future of terrestrial life itself may depend on whether or not serious debate on that very point is put back on the public agenda. Igniting a Revolution threatens to do just that."—Chris Hannah, Propagandhi

Energy as the Basis of all Human Activity

Bataille’s Peak Energy, Religion, and Postsustainability
by Allan Stoekl

Penn State University

327S Burrowes Building

University Park, PA 16802 814.863.7499

ais3@psu.edu

$20.00 paper

An audacious exploration of Bataille’s philosophy of energy within current conservation debates.

As the price of oil climbs toward 100 dollars a barrel, our impending post-fossil fuel future appears to offer two alternatives: a bleak existence defined by scarcity and sacrifice or one in which humanity places its faith in technological solutions with unforeseen consequences. Are there other ways to imagine life in an era that will be characterized by resource depletion?

The French intellectual Georges Bataille saw energy as the basis of all human activity—the essence of the human—and he envisioned a society that, instead of renouncing profligate spending, would embrace a more radical type of energy expenditure: la dépense, or “spending without return.” In Bataille’s Peak, Allan Stoekl demonstrates how a close reading of Bataille—in the wake of Giordano Bruno and the Marquis de Sade—can help us rethink not only energy and consumption but also such related topics as the city, the body, eroticism, and religion. Through these cases, Stoekl identifies the differences between waste, which Bataille condemned, and expenditure, which he celebrated.

The challenge of living in the twenty-first century, Stoekl argues, will be to comprehend—without recourse to austerity and self-denial—the inevitable and necessary shift from a civilization founded on waste to one based on Bataillean expenditure.

Allan Stoekl is professor of French and comparative literature at Penn State University. His interests include twentieth-century French intellectual history, contemporary literary theory, theories of energy, and the history of energy production and use. He is the author of Agonies of the Intellectual: Commitment, Subjectivity, and the Performative in the Twentieth-Century French Tradition and translator of Bataille’s Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927–1939.

280 pages November 2007

University of Minnesota Press

111 Third Avenue South Suite 290

Minneapolis, MN 55401

Publicist - Heather Skinner

612-627-1932

presspr@umn.edu

Indian Point-The Lowest Hanging Fruit

Many of our readers here on Green Nuclear Butterfly have been watching the B movie flame war fizzling out over on the IPSEC list between our own Royce Penstinger of the acid tongue, my never ending attack, and Mark Jacobs reknowned Hall Monitor of the slow moving IPSEC serve list...GOD forbid the scroll rate gets out of control over there, he might lose the knitting crowd. Since John Hall was elected to Congress, between my Congressman John Hall blog, the once famous but now dormant Washington Scandals blog, and here I seem to have pissed off and/or alienated almost everyone but the Pope, and given half a chance, sure I could upset the Vatican as well.

Most people don't seem to get me, or perhaps they don't understand my agenda, are confused on why I worked so hard to get John Hall elected, only to seemingly TURN ON HIM, why I seem to go to such great extremes to bitch slap such revered groups as Riverkeeper, Clearwater, IPSEC or even Greenpeace for their dismal efforts where Indian Point is concerned. Simply stated, everyone of them are asleep at the wheel, and I cannot let a perfect storm that could stop the relicensing of Indian Point be squandered away through inaction and stupidity.

I asked Mark Jacobs to spell out the IPSEC plan to close Indian Point, challenged him to stand up and lead the coalition...His response was to say everyone was doing what they could. Fair enough, but here is a news flash for everyone....The current stategies deployed by those opposing relicensing aging, brittle reactors is FAILING MISERABLY. That is not a knock, it is a fact...the deck has been stacked against us, as was witnessed in a speech this week from a retiring NRC Commissioner who confidently boosted that 50 reactors were already relicensed for 20 more years, and within a couple more years, all 103 reactors will be relicensed....BOOSTING OF A PERFECT GAME OF THAT MAGNITUDE IS PROOF POSITIVE THE GAME IS FIXED.

It is time to throw out the rule book, get down and dirty in a street brawl...enter Indian Point, the lowest hanging fruit as Michele Boyd of Public Citizen describes these two failing Entergy reactors on the Hudson River, and the perfect storm that will allow us (Anti-relicensing groups) to cull them from the herd, close them down and in the process, greatly damage the GNEP Nuclear Renaissance juggernaut that is leading the United States and the world down the road of good intentions to hell.

I have a plan, or as Arlo Guthrie once said in his song about the pickle, a vision burnt across my mind...I don't want a reactor and its leaking spent fuel pools sitting on the Hudson. We need a movement! The ANTI ENTERGY, CLOSE INDIAN POINT MOVEMENT, and all 21 million people living within 50 miles of these nuclear time bombs have to do to join, is GET INVOLVED, put their hearts, time and a few bucks into making a dream a reality...CLOSING THE INDIAN POINT REACTORS.

STOP ROLLING YOUR EYES FOR A FEW MINUTES, STOP YOUR LAUGHING AND GUFFAWING LONG ENOUGH TO FINISH THIS ARTCLE, AND MAYBE, JUST MAYBE YOU'LL REALIZE MY PLAN, MY DREAM IS NOT SO FAR FETCHED.

Why the Indian Point reactors and Entergy are the perfect battle for the anti relicensing folks, why every angry reactor host community should join in our battle.

1. Entergy currently is one of the two BIG BOYS on the nuclear block. Culling out Indian Point from their fleet and forcing them into closure would be enough of a blow to possibly force Entergy into a situation of having to sell its remaining reactors, and get out of the nuclear end of the energy business. New reactor owners mean new public hearings for license transfer, which means second bites at some of the apples for our side.

2. The Indian Point reactors have a horrid safety record, are leaking strontium and tritium into the Hudson River, and after 9/11 no one can argue that they are the reactors most vulnerable to terrorist attack.

How can we win the fight to shut down these ticking time bombs?

1. First, population numbers are on our side...21 million people live within the 50 mile circle of death around Indian Point. In short, wake up the masses, get them involved, and half our battle is done.

2. We can out spend, Entergy, the NRC and NEI combined if our hearts are in this fight! I can hear the naysayers now claiming I am insane....think for a minute folks! We have 21 million people living within 50 miles of Indian Point! A one dollar donation from each one of them is $21 million dollars! The NEI's entire budget for their PR for the entire nuclear industry is $8 million.

Can you imagine if every one of those 21 million people donated just $10 dollars to the cause of closing down Indian Point? That's $210 million dollars, over half of Entergy's entire profit picture from everything they earned in 2006. Now, can you imagine if everyone of those 21 million people were willing to donate $100 dollars a year towards closing down Indian Point and bringing in safe renewable energy to our region? That's $2.1 BILLION dollars, or almost three times the $841 million dollar NRC budget approved by Congress for 2007! YES, WE HAVE THE POWER TO OUT SPEND THEM, OUT LAWYER THEM, AND OUT ADVERTISE/PROPAGANDA THEM...this is what a movement is about!

3. We have local government on our side in this...which would make protests, sit ins and acts of civil disobedience far easier. We have some heavy hitters nationally, and the timing for holding their feet to the fire on this issue could not be better with next year being a presidential election year.

4. This kind of a movement WOULD CATCH THE ATTENTION of both national and international press, and in doing so bring the horrid truth of the 103 aging, failing reactors front and center, and under the media microscope.

5. Let's not forget John Hall in all this...he has the ability to bring the musicians back into this fight, has the ability to give Pete Seeger the gift of seeing the relics that are the Indian Point Reactors closed down and decommissioned.

Call me Don Quixote tilting at reactors on the Hudson, but this radical idea can work. We want the Indian Point Reactors shut down, we want to get the anti relicensing team on the scoreboard in a huge way, and we can do it if everyone will get involved in the Green Nuclear Butterfly's Close Down Indian Point Movement/Coalition.

Remember those good old days when we believed? Want to bring them back again, and once again know the sweet taste of victory against overwhelming odds? Then join us, and do Arlo proud in this new movement. Together we can use our ladders to harvest Entergy's lowest hanging fruit, Indian Point reactors 2 and 3.

Send donations and inquiries to:

Sherwood Martinelli
Green Nuclear Butterfly
Close Indian Point Coalition
351 Dyckman Street
Peekskill, New York 10566

Open Letter To Greenpeace...Three DAYS TO SIGN ON.

Curious...Did you know with all the MONEY we send Greenpeace, they only have ONE PERSON in Washington to deal with Nuclear ISSUES for the ENTIRE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT? WHERE ARE YOU GREENPEACE?

To remind everyone, am posting our OPEN LETTER to Greenpeace below. Time to sign on is running out here. Make sure to get your organization of name on this important letter THIS WEEK before it is mailed off.

Below is an open letter to the Executive Director of Greenpeace. Support this just and noble cause by signing on to the positions in the letter by leaving a comment on this post. If you would like your own elected officials CCed a copy of this letter, please let us know, and they will be added to the CC list. You can also have a more formalized response from your own organization included with this letter by emailing roycepenstinger@aol.com The deadline for signing on to this open letter is January 31st, 2007.

John Passacantando
Executive Director
Greenpeace
702 H Street, NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20001

Dear John:

With all due respect to yourself, and to the work of Greenpeace, we are writing this open letter to you, to ask the question, "Where is Greenpeace in the fight to stop the wrongful relicensing of antiquated and aging nuclear facilities?" As longtime clean energy advocates, we ask this question because as a nation, America is but a handful of reactors away from the proverbial tipping point of pursuing the dangerous path being laid out by the DOE's Nuclear 2010/GNEP.

For some time now, the battle cry of the environmental movement, of Greenpeace, has been to think globally but act locally. Unfortunately, at this stage, this fight cannot be won locally. The fight to stop the relicensing of dangerous reactors such as Entergy's Vermont Yankee, Pilgrim, and reactors 2 and 3 at the Indian Point site will require national involvement in a big way from Greenpeace, from the National Wildlife Federation, even the Sierra Club. There is no more, cannot be any more backing up and waiting for a better time to make our stand...the time is now, the fight will be won or lost during this the 110th Congress...the nuclear industry knows it, and one would assume that Greenpeace knows it. Sadly, other than token efforts and position papers, Greenpeace as the marquee player and pace setter within the Green movement seems to be largely absent from the battle as one local host community after another is mowed down by the NRC. That, however, doesn’t have to be the case.

I, and members of my community, would like to work in concert with Greenpeace before it is too late. With this in mind, we would like to know what Greenpeace is doing to push Congress to pass a bill demanding a full and complete safety and security assessment of every reactor in the United States. Is Greenpeace openly and publicly opposing the nuclear industry's wrong sighted plan known as "Nuclear Power 2010" that would help create a renaissance of the nuclear industry, and the sighting of as many as 400 fuzzy science reactors world wide with as many as 50 of them sited and built here in America? Where is Greenpeace in confronting Congressmen/women and Senators who pretend to be on our side, yet refuse to introduce safety and security assessment laws for the entire nuclear industry?

The time of sitting on the sidelines because the win is not assured has to end, and the national and international organizations led by Greenpeace need to step forward, and lead the fight, as the line has been drawn in the sand, and we fight now, or fold up our tents and go home. Small grassroots organizations and individuals such as myself and my, "Green Nuclear Butterfly" cannot win this fight locally; we are but cannon fodder without your help in this fight.

We must work as one team and go to Congress to demand that a national bill be passed in this 110th Congress that accomplishes the following: a) order a security and safety assessment (identical to the one done for Maine Yankee) at every nuclear reactor in the United States; b) implement a moratorium on all NRC relicensing activities and efforts until such time as every assessment has been completed; c) establish a ‘Blue Ribbon Committee’ that includes a member of a grassroots organization from every reactor host community in America to review the information and data from said assessments, and d) submit for consideration to the Congress a ‘Nuclear Industry Blue Ribbon Commission Report’ complete with recommendations for said Congress to adopt into law.

The moratorium would remain in full effect until such time as every recommendation of this commission was enacted into law. In this fashion, we have the national debate on Nuclear Reactors with all the cards honestly laid out on the table. As a part of this process, there should be informational meetings, and at least one public hearing for the purpose of taking citizen testimony in every community hosting a nuclear reactor, and or other facility related to or producing source materials for these reactors.

I, and the undersigned organizations, respectfully request a response from Greenpeace on these matters as quickly as possible. We need leadership and commitment from Greenpeace while we still have a chance to win this war.


Respectfully,


Green Nuclear Butterfly

CO-Signers Of Note

Michel Lee, Esq.
Chairman
Council on Intelligent Energy
& Conservation Policy
White Plains, New York 10602

Mitzi Bowman, Coordinator
Don't Waste Connecticut
Member of Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone
www.mothballmillstone.org
(203)389-2067
upthesun@cshore.com

Sherwood Martinelli, Peekskill, NY
roycepenstinger@aol.com

Remy G. Chevalier
www.rockthereactors.com

Evan Mulholland, South Royalton, Vt.
evanmulholland@yahoo.com

Gary Sachs, Brattleboro, Vt.

Keith Harmon Snow
413-626-3800
www.allthingspass.com

Sally Shaw
Gill, Massachusetts

Claire Chang
Citizens Awareness Network
www.nukebusters.org

Bryan Shaw
Westminster West Vermont.

RJ Haskins
Brattleboro Vermont

Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes
P.O. Box 331
Monroe, MI 48161
Michael J. Keegan

Don't Waste Michigan
6677 Summerview
Holland, MI 49424
Alice Hirt

Citizens' Resistance at Fermi Two
P.O. Box 463
Monroe, MI 48161
Keith Gunter

Wendy Brawer
New York, NY

George Crocker
North American Water Office
Lake Elmo, MN

Bruce Meland
Electrifying Times
Bend, OR

Matthew Shapiro
Citizens Environmental Coalition
Albany, NY

John Schaeffer
Real Goods
Hopland, CA

Harvey Wasserman
Author of Solartopia

Patty de Llosa
Author of The Practice of Presence

Connie Hogarth
Center for Social Action

Doug Moss
Publisher
E The Environmental Magazine

Scott Sklar
The Stella Group, Ltd.

David Bedell
Secretary
Fairfield County CT Green Party

Richard Duffee
CT Representative
US Green Party International Committee

Bruce K. Gagnon
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power

Paul H. Gavin, PhD, retired
pgavin@adelphia.net

Eleanor I.Gavin, RN, Retired
elliegavin@adelphia.net

CC List

Congressman John Hall
Congressman Maurice Hinchey
Congresswoman Nita Lowey
Governor Eliot Spitzer

Clearwater, IPSEC, and Riverkeeper-The Emperor Has No Clothes

If one follows the story, Governor Eliot Spitzer, Congressman Maurice Hinchey, Congressman John Hall, Congresswoman Nita Lowey, even Andy Spano want Indian Point shut down. Singing sensations like Pete Seeger, Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt want the aging reactors that are Indian Point entombed and turned off forever. The big money players like Clearwater, IPSEC and Riverkeeper with their Hearst and Kennedy family ties want the reactors shut down...problem is, in their own naive ways, in their money, wealth and fame, are these people playing into Entergy's hands?

Let's look at IPSEC as one example. They want things handled locally, and quietly...GOD FORBID we put pickets out in front of the plant like the seven women in front of Vermont Yankee this week who successfully shut down the main entrance to that reactor for over one hour. Such antics would NOT LOOK GOOD in a wealthy affluent community like Westchester County, New York now would it? Let's not flood the public meetings with 2,500 ANGRY CITIZENS...we are more civilized than that. Curious here...how many PRO NUCLEAR people belong to IPSEC? How many members of IPSEC have no problems with nuclear, just problems with nuclear in their back yards? Perhaps this explains some of their civilized approach to the issue? Sure, they may think Indian Point should be shut down, point to its age and its deplorable safety record, mix that with its poor choice of location just 24 miles from New York and say SHUT IT DOWN, but they actually EMBRACE NUCLEAR...NIMBY fools if you ask this writer. Perhaps one could even consider the use of the term nuclear elitist?

Now Congressman John Hall has or had some serious ties to Clearwater...he, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and others filled Battery Park with their anti nuke concert. So, where are they now in putting 50,000 people on the road in front of the Entergy reactors known as Indian Point. All they have to do is pick a day, and let EVERYONE KNOW they'll be there and the people would come. They could START A MOVEMENT! Problem is, that's so...so...so GOD DAMN ACTIVIST! What would the neighbors think? I'm sure John Hall could, might even organize a concert, and agree to donate the funds to Clearwater so that they could put another attorney on staff to go after Indian Point...problem is, that will not take this issue into the National Media, will not succeed in closing down the accident on the Hudson, just waiting to happen, that is Indian Point.

Riverkeeper...it's my understanding that one of Patty Hearst's daughters is intimately involved with the organization, and we all know the organization is a favorite play toy of at least one of the Kennedy clan. They have money, and surely can get more...but, whatever they do has to be socially correct...maybe they'll hold a HIGH TEA to discuss the matter of Indian Point, send their attorney to speak with Indian Point's attorney in the hopes of brokering a deal...GIVE US A BREAK, that is NOT GOING TO WORK.

Shutting down Indian Point is going to take protests, even civil disobedience, closing Indian Point is going to take bodies packing the meetings to standing room only. It's going to take awakening the masses and calling them to action. IPSEC, Clearwater and Riverkeeper have the ability to make that happen. These three organizations signing on to Green Nuclear Butterfly's open letter to Greenpeace would be enough to bring this National Organization, and probably several others into town in FULL FORCE. So folks, ask yourself why they are not taking BOLD STEPS, enacting innovative plans aimed at throwing road blocks in the way of Entergy's relicensing.

Win or lose, it appears that these groups want a NICE fight, don't want anything like protests to give their neighborhoods or Westchester County a BLACK EYE in the national press. Well, two black eyes, even a bloody lip are worth it if in the process we succeed in closing down Indian Point. Do your homework...if Indian Point gets relicensed, those aging reactors will be with us not for twenty more years, but forty years. One significant accident at Indian Point will ruin communities like Briarcliff, Pleasantville, Ossining, Croton, Peekskill, Garrison, Tarrytown, Cold Springs and others, all depending on which direction the wind is blowing...we need BOLD LEADERS, we need IPSEC, Clearwater and Riverkeeper to STEP UP LARGE, or step aside. We need Congressmen Hall and Hinchey and Congresswoman Lowey to step up large, need them to rally the forces in Washington DC like they have never been rallied before. Where is HILLARY? The Clintons could bring the NATIONAL SPOT LIGHT DOWN ON ENTERGY like no one's business...but GOD FORBID, that might dent Hilliary's presidential aspirations! WHO THE HELL CARES! She is supposed to be here for US, is supposed to be our Senator, and this is OUR HOUR OF NEED.

The old expression goes, lead, follow or get the hell out of the way...what's it going to be? A fight for all we are worth, or meek acceptance of 40 mores years of living in the shadow of Indian Point? We know who claims to be a player in this fight...IPSEC, Clearwater, Riverkeeper, Hall, Hinchey, Kennedy, Lowey, Spitzer, Hilliary, Spano and a few others...well, if they are serious, let's see them step forward, let's see them call the citizens to action. Anything short of that is nothing more than lip service while they quietly acquiesce to the wishes of big business. With these players doing everything they can, we can mobilize a citizen force against relicensing of over 10 MILLION people...question is, are these people and groups real and sincere LEADERS in the fight to close Indian Point, or Trojan horses ready to lead us to the gallows?

Open Letter To Our Readers In The Grassroots

TMI Was Only A Partial Meltdown

Open Letter To Grassroots

First, to those who have so far joined in signing both our petition, and our open letter to Greenpeace, on behalf of Green Nuclear Butterfly, I extend our heartfelt thanks. (This includes a special thanks to the three groups in Michigan who joined our cause today.)

Many individuals and groups on both sides of this Nuclear Plant re-licensing issue are watching the Green Nuclear Butterfly blog closely...we make the nuclear industry nervous, and some on the anti nuclear side of the fence wonder if we are too confrontational, too controversial in our message. One activist has told us that her organization believes we lead by example, stated the old adage that you get more bees with honey in life. As much as I and the Green Nuclear Butterfly would like to agree with her when it comes to this issue, we cannot, as it is simply NOT TRUE.

As I have said before, the slogan of, "Thinking Globally but acting locally" in this battle is backwards. By keeping us isolated, by making the re-licensing issue a local issue for each separate community, we are losing to the NRC, and to the nuclear industry. Like it or not, the FIX is in, and all you have to do is look at the numbers so far...we are losing 48-0. We are losing because Idaho National Labs, MIT, DOE, NRC, NEI and the entire nuclear industry need America's aging reactors to continue operating for at least another 20 years if they have any hope of their dream of a Nuclear Renaissance becoming a reality. In short, the deck has been DELIBERATELY and MALICIOUSLY stacked against us.

Let's pose a question here...how many of your local and federal officials have told you to your face that they SUPPORT a safety and security assessment of your reactor? I know of five at Vermont Yankee who submitted a written request for this very thing to Mr. Diaz of the NRC...of course that request was denied. Here in my own area, Congressman John Hinchey introduced a bill asking for a Safety and Security Assessment of Indian Point, and the other three members of Congress around the plant co-signed said bill. It was read twice at committee level, and sent to sub-committee where it died a quick death. They could tell us, "WE DID ALL WE COULD", and walk away. Problem is, it is a lie. Work the numbers for yourselves. We are 103 communities with an average of 3 members of Congress representing the area around each reactor. The numbers for the Senate represent lower numbers, but the same percentage scale as in the Congress. If every member of Congress who is paying LIP SERVICE to the local reactor communities signed onto ONE BILL asking for a Safety and Security Assessment at every nuclear facility in America, asked for a Moratorium on every license renewal application, they would have a VETO PROOF MAJORITY.

Problem is, that reality will not happen as long as the grassroots remains divided, isolated and alone. We can not win this fight locally, we cannot win this fight being nice and baking cookies. We might though be able to draw to an inside straight if we all join as one. Ask yourselves, "Has being NICE worked for the 48 reactor communities who have lost so far?" As much as the NRC and the nuclear community would like to think they own us, these are our communities, our towns, our cities and we need to speak as one in demanding our voices not only be heard, but that it carry weight.

The Green Nuclear Butterfly is confrontational, but it is not the voice of a singular soul crying in the wilderness. The Green Nuclear Butterfly, our movement belongs to any one who wants to join. Our blog has a standing invitation to any one in the anti-nuclear movement to send in articles, to have them published and heard. In short, the Green Nuclear Butterfly is the sum of our parts, and as the number of parts grow, so shall our voice. Join us, become a part of something that just might work...if you think about it, what do you have to lose? 30 years ago, Greenpeace started in a garage...today, they are crusaders for many noble environmental causes, with an annual budget approaching 100 Million Dollars. So far, they are noticeably absent in this fight, and we need them, this is OUR HOUR OF NEED...if they will not step in, then we will build our own movement one grassroots person, one grassroots organization at a time as our voice grows and sweeps across America.

Another Part of The Rubberstamp Puzzle

Our Government, DOE and NRC Selling Us Down River

So, you think your towns aging relic of a reactor should be closed, is your community tired of having to deal with the elevated risk factors as these old dinosaurs slowly begin to die? TO BAD, the NRC is rubber stamping the license renewals of at least 85 percent of the fleet, and short of Congressional Action, there may not be much we can do about it...I stumbled across this very disturbing article this evening, and suggest every grassroots activists in America read it carefully. It further confirms the contention of the Green Nuclear Butterfly that our government is trying to force us to play host to unsafe reactors because they have decided Nuclear Energy should be a part of our nation's energy portfolio...problem is, don't we deserve honest, straight forward relicensing procedures that are NOT FIXED GOING IN? One other disturbing note in all of this...is this rule why GREENPEACE is not stepping into this fight? Jim Riccio is the nuke point person for Greenpeace in Washington, DC...he is the same Jim Riccio quoted in the article. Seems to me, that if Greenpeace does not step in immediately on this issue, they are by their actions saying they are fine with, and endorse this crime against humanity being visited upon Nuclear Reactor Host Communities. Riccio is Greenpeace's point man on Nuclear, he pointed out this plan to RUBBER STAMP re-licensing six years ago. The Executive Director of Greenpeace has NO EXCUSES...if he refuses to step in, he is saying Greenpeace is fine with the environmental RAPE of 103 American Communities.

NRC 20-Yr Plant Extensions

To: RADSAFE
Subject: NRC 20-Yr Plant Extensions
From: Susan Gawarecki
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 17:05:44 -0400
Organization: ORR Local Oversight Committee

+++

This article came to me electronically today, although the news is obviously dated I hadn't heard about it. Would this be considered a "pro-nuclear power" decision by the existing administration?

My personal opinion of the major party candidates is that they are both very comfy with the petroleum industry, which gives them plenty of incentive to ignore the nuclear power question. As a geologist, I think this would be very good for my [original] profession!

The biggest problem with an energy policy is that it forces the candidates to make difficult trade-offs, as all forms of energy generation (not to mention transmission) have environmental or political consequences. I'm sure they find it easier to just not deal with it.

Please note that the opinions expressed in the article below (or that of the activist organization that distributed it) do not necessarily reflect the opinions of me or my organization.

Regards,
Susan Gawarecki

NRC 20-Yr Plant Extensions - Patching Nuclear Power
J.A. Savage, Albion Monitor
September 25, 2000

In a hushed quest to allow an expected 85 percent of the nation's nuclear reactors to live beyond mandatory retirement, the nuclear industry talked the federal government into allowing a generic 20-year extension on the life of reactors. The public only has until October 16 to let the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) know what it thinks of the government's plan to allow license renewal instead of decommissioning.

According to the NRC, the only public meeting on the re-licensing plan has been held at its Maryland headquarters. The government's process effectively shuts out any public input on extending plant licenses, said Public Citizen senior policy analyst Jim Riccio. "Most of the public is not aware of the issues until they land in their laps, by way of their local nuclear plant."

Here's where the "generic" part of re-licensing comes in. Instead of having an "in my backyard" approach for concerned citizens, the generic license extension puts the onus in a generic somewhere-else land. "By making something generic, they don't have to deal with the public," Riccio added.

What few nuclear critics are hip to the industry/government move, are focusing on safety issues. "During the early stage of life and the late stage, the failure rate for both man and machines is generally higher than during middle age; the reliability of both man and machines is generally lower during the early and late stages. The prudent and proper course of action is to retire aging nuclear plants before they reach the point where reliability drops off markedly," notes Dave Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists' nuclear safety engineer. The nuclear industry claims it deserves generic safety rules for re-licensing because its safety track record has only gotten better over the years, now that its reactors are in middle age.

In a fortunate acronym for nuclear critics, the generic re-licensing program is called "GALL"- -for Nuclear Power Plant Generic Aging Lessons Learned. The "generic" part appears most important to both industry and government.

"Aging is the same no matter if the [reactor] maker is GE, Westinghouse or Combustion Engineering," said Electric Power Research Institute manager of life-cycle management, John Carey, who added that the weather surrounding a particular reactor is the only difference.

Long known as an aging problem is the brittleness of the metal enclosing the reactor core. The reactor gets bombarded with electrons for years and the metal becomes brittle. EPRI, for one, believes that brittleness is not a problem. "Many plants even at 60 years won't reach that [threshold] level of embrittlement. There's probably none that will at 40," said Carey.

While most of the government's and critics' attention is focused on reactor safety during aging, the industry's impetus admittedly has to do with short-term financial gains that come with a second license and the value added to a plant for resale.

"In a deregulated, competitive business, a fully depreciated nuclear plant (beyond its original 40-year license) is a tremendous asset. It can sell its power at marginal cost, which is very competitive. Such a plant would have significant profit potential," notes the industry group Nuclear Energy Institute. In other words, once ratepayers have paid off the construction investment, the primary expense of nuclear plants disappears and the only ongoing costs to owners are fuel, safety expenditures and staffing. Less tangible opportunity costs like guaranteed ecological preservation are not a part of the calculations.

The NRC's attempt at generic guidelines for license renewal had been sitting around in various stages since the early 1990s. It was goosed into action, though, when Baltimore Gas & Electric's (Constellation) Calvert Cliffs became the first facility to ask for a 20-year extension. Calvert Cliffs (in the NRC's back yard) was approved this March. Duke's Oconee plant in North Carolina followed suit in May.

License renewal does not come without a price, however, as keeping that license means an owner has to invest in anti-aging technology - a.k.a. capital investments.

Like plastic surgery fixes the fissures and sags in an aging body, keeping a past-prime nuke in shape "depends on how much money you have," Carey. For instance, replacing a steam generator, a typical aging problem, costs about $150 million. Shareholders might be loath to invest that kind of capital in an old plant. But, the beauty of re-licensing is that any such investment can be amortized over an extra 20 years, even if the plant owners do not plan to run the plant that long. Thus, license renewal tucks in the short-term operating costs of nuclear plants.

Public Citizen's Riccio, says that the 20 year extension "shifts the risk of future operation from the stockholder to the ratepayer." Riccio believes that the specter of early shutdowns with their attendant stranded asset risk is driving re-licensing. Fitch ICBA analyst Ellen Lapson explained the early shutdown scenario, "Towards the end of the life of a plant, if there's no re-licensing then there's less reason to invest capital."

Using the medical metaphor again, that means there's a choice between euthanasia (decommissioning) because the patient is too expensive to keep up and take the risk of having to pay all those exorbitant hospital bills, or pump more money into the patient--say an aging pop singer, a la Diana Ross--in the expectation the survival will allow payback when the star makes a comeback tour.

A 20-year extension also "enhances the value of the plant if [owners] decide to get out of the business," said Bob Wood, NRC senior licensing financial policy advisor. He added that no owner had confessed that intent directly.

But the industry's unstated intent appears known to the NRC. "GenCos are snatching up economically uncompetitive facilities," noted Christopher Grimes, NRC chief of license renewal and standardization.

But economics can also kill a re-license. Yankee Rowe, a poster-child nuclear facility, scrapped its plans to live beyond middle age because it would have cost too much money just to prove to the NRC that it could do the repairs needed for re-licensing. EPRI's Carey blamed it on the small size of the plant and the economics of energy in New England.

The other economic benefit to plant owners is that when a plant gets a 20-year life extension, payments into its decommissioning fund also gets drawn out another 20 years, allowing another decrease in short-term operating expenses, noted Fitch's Lapson.

Like a boomer turning 40, the limit for what constitutes old-age in a nuke was "arbitrary," said the NRC's Grimes. "In the Atomic Energy Act of 1956, everybody said 40 years ought to be enough," said Grimes, adding that the arbitrary number was based on financing available to owners. "We looked into what might be life-limiting aging effects. In 1991 the first rule was issued on aging effects. It concluded Mother Nature doesn't care how long the NRC's license term is."

Weld Concerns See NRC Issuing RED ALERT WARNING to Four Reactors

Could Your Community Be The Next Hiroshima?

Entergy, the Nuclear Industry and NRC don't really want us to know the reality...all of the old, aging fleet of reactors are held together with a never ending patchwork of welds and patches. Green Nuclear Butterfly raised this issue in a previous article. Our attempts to raise the alarm were, for the most part met with deaf ears, and denials from the long ball hitters in the Nuclear Industry who will use any trick in the book to save their dilapidated fleet of reactors.

Well, the cat is OUT OF THE BAG, though the industry is already attempting to mitigate the news. Four North Eastern Reactors have received ALERTS after a nuclear reactor in Monticello, Minn. shut itself down. The CULPRIT...WELDS. Yes, the very welds that we have raised serious concerns about, the welds that have been used to make repairs deep in the bowels of the reactor itself.

"The Monticello plant has been shut down since Jan. 10 when welds failed that held in place a 35,000-pound box containing valves that control steam pressure. No radiation was released, officials said."

As communities are raped and plundered through a re licensing process that can only be called RUBBER STAMPING, these relics of an era long gone are plunging towards the cataclysmic MELTDOWN that we are told can never happen. How big was this "incident" in Monticello you ask? We are talking a 17 TON TOOL BOX CRASHING DOWN on the very pipe that carries radioactive STEAM! In short, only the God's above allowed us once again to dodge the bullet of another Chernobyl, though company officials are trying DESPERATELY to mitigate the scare...but of course. Of IMPORTANT NOTE HERE, Monticello just two months ago received their NRC RUBBER STAMP to continue operations for another 20 years. Even the spokesperson for the plant admitted, "I don't want to sugarcoat it; this was a significant problem," What this writer finds MOST DISTURBING though was the next quote shared here, "I think we have our arms around what caused it." HE THINKS? These reactors are now being operated on guesses? The rubber stamping of license renewals needs to stop, the WEAKENING of the rules has to stop...you can only cut corners so much, and for so long before one or more communities here in America become a radioactive WASTELAND.

This disturbing and stressing news is of immense importance to those of us who live in the epicenter of death that is Indian Point...you see, Entergy's entire fleet of reactors are old, antiquated and breaking down...more IMPORTANTLY, three of the reactors who have received the ALERT belong to Entergy's fleet! The reactors that are involved in this RED ALERT are Pilgrim, Vermont Yankee, Oyster Creek, and Nine Mile Point, another dangerous facility RIGHT HERE IN NEW YORK. Perhaps because Entergy plans to submit its application for license Renewal in just over one month, NRC threw them a bone in leaving Indian Point off the Red Alert list?

The only person who seems to have a real clue is George Crocker, executive director of the North American Water Office who was quoted, "Market forces that push nuclear plants to the limit, coupled with aging issues, coupled with the lack of understanding about how these components and materials perform over time as they're subjected thermally and radiologically-- all of these factors are increasing the likelihood that a really unforgiving event will occur..."

This event makes Green Nuclear Butterfly's question all the more important,"Where is Green Peace?" For that matter, where is NIRS, where is the Sierra Club, where are the national and international groups in this, our hour of need?

Open Letter-Greenpeace, Where Are You in This Fight For Our Communities?

Below is an open letter to the Executive Director of Greenpeace. Support this just and noble cause by signing on to the positions in the letter by leaving a comment on this post. If you would like your own elected officials CCed a copy of this letter, please let us know, and they will be added to the CC list. You can also have a more formalized response from your own organization included with this letter by emailing roycepenstinger@aol.com The deadline for signing on to this open letter is January 31st, 2007.

John Passacantando
Executive Director
Greenpeace
702 H Street, NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20001

Dear John:

With all due respect to yourself, and to the work of Greenpeace, we are writing this open letter to you, to ask the question, "Where is Greenpeace in the fight to stop the wrongful relicensing of antiquated and aging nuclear facilities?" As longtime clean energy advocates, we ask this question because as a nation, America is but a handful of reactors away from the proverbial tipping point of pursuing the dangerous path being laid out by the DOE's Nuclear 2010/GNEP.

For some time now, the battle cry of the environmental movement, of Greenpeace, has been to think globally but act locally. Unfortunately, at this stage, this fight cannot be won locally. The fight to stop the relicensing of dangerous reactors such as Entergy's Vermont Yankee, Pilgrim, and reactors 2 and 3 at the Indian Point site will require national involvement in a big way from Greenpeace, from the National Wildlife Federation, even the Sierra Club. There is no more, cannot be any more backing up and waiting for a better time to make our stand...the time is now, the fight will be won or lost during this the 110th Congress...the nuclear industry knows it, and one would assume that Greenpeace knows it. Sadly, other than token efforts and position papers, Greenpeace as the marquee player and pace setter within the Green movement seems to be largely absent from the battle as one local host community after another is mowed down by the NRC. That, however, doesn’t have to be the case.

I, and members of my community, would like to work in concert with Greenpeace before it is too late. With this in mind, we would like to know what Greenpeace is doing to push Congress to pass a bill demanding a full and complete safety and security assessment of every reactor in the United States. Is Greenpeace openly and publicly opposing the nuclear industry's wrong sighted plan known as "Nuclear Power 2010" that would help create a renaissance of the nuclear industry, and the sighting of as many as 400 fuzzy science reactors world wide with as many as 50 of them sited and built here in America? Where is Greenpeace in confronting Congressmen/women and Senators who pretend to be on our side, yet refuse to introduce safety and security assessment laws for the entire nuclear industry?

The time of sitting on the sidelines because the win is not assured has to end, and the national and international organizations led by Greenpeace need to step forward, and lead the fight, as the line has been drawn in the sand, and we fight now, or fold up our tents and go home. Small grassroots organizations and individuals such as myself and my, "Green Nuclear Butterfly" cannot win this fight locally; we are but cannon fodder without your help in this fight.

We must work as one team and go to Congress to demand that a national bill be passed in this 110th Congress that accomplishes the following: a) order a security and safety assessment (identical to the one done for Maine Yankee) at every nuclear reactor in the United States; b) implement a moratorium on all NRC relicensing activities and efforts until such time as every assessment has been completed; c) establish a ‘Blue Ribbon Committee’ that includes a member of a grassroots organization from every reactor host community in America to review the information and data from said assessments, and d) submit for consideration to the Congress a ‘Nuclear Industry Blue Ribbon Commission Report’ complete with recommendations for said Congress to adopt into law.

The moratorium would remain in full effect until such time as every recommendation of this commission was enacted into law. In this fashion, we have the national debate on Nuclear Reactors with all the cards honestly laid out on the table. As a part of this process, there should be informational meetings, and at least one public hearing for the purpose of taking citizen testimony in every community hosting a nuclear reactor, and or other facility related to or producing source materials for these reactors.

I, and the undersigned organizations, respectfully request a response from Greenpeace on these matters as quickly as possible. We need leadership and commitment from Greenpeace while we still have a chance to win this war.


Respectfully,



Green Nuclear Butterfly

CO-Signers Of Note

Michel Lee, Esq.
Chairman
Council on Intelligent Energy
& Conservation Policy
White Plains, New York 10602

Mitzi Bowman, Coordinator
Don't Waste Connecticut
Member of Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone
www.mothballmillstone.org
(203)389-2067
upthesun@cshore.com

Sherwood Martinelli, Peekskill, NY
roycepenstinger@aol.com

Remy G. Chevalier
www.rockthereactors.com

Evan Mulholland, South Royalton, Vt.
evanmulholland@yahoo.com

Gary Sachs, Brattleboro, Vt.

Keith Harmon Snow
413-626-3800
www.allthingspass.com

Sally Shaw
Gill, Massachusetts

Claire Chang
Citizens Awareness Network
www.nukebusters.org

Bryan Shaw
Westminster West Vermont.

RJ Haskins
Brattleboro Vermont

Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes
P.O. Box 331
Monroe, MI 48161
Michael J. Keegan

Don't Waste Michigan
6677 Summerview
Holland, MI 49424
Alice Hirt

Citizens' Resistance at Fermi Two
P.O. Box 463
Monroe, MI 48161
Keith Gunter

Wendy Brawer
New York, NY

George Crocker
North American Water Office
Lake Elmo, MN

Bruce Meland
Electrifying Times
Bend, OR

Matthew Shapiro
Citizens Environmental Coalition
Albany, NY

John Schaeffer
Real Goods
Hopland, CA

Harvey Wasserman
Author of Solartopia

Patty de Llosa
Author of The Practice of Presence

Connie Hogarth
Center for Social Action

Doug Moss
Publisher
E The Environmental Magazine

Scott Sklar
The Stella Group, Ltd.

David Bedell
Secretary
Fairfield County CT Green Party

Richard Duffee
CT Representative
US Green Party International Committee

Bruce K. Gagnon
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power

Paul H. Gavin, PhD, retired
pgavin@adelphia.net

Eleanor I.Gavin, RN, Retired
elliegavin@adelphia.net

Marilyn Elie
Westchester Citizens Awareness Network

Priscilla Feral
President
Friends of Animals
777 Post Road
Darien, CT 06820

CC List

Congressman John Hall
Congressman Maurice Hinchey
Congresswoman Nita Lowey
Governor Eliot Spitzer