South Africa Scraps Plan to Build Nuclear Power Plant

South Africa Scraps Plan to Build Nuclear Power Plant
By Ron Derby and Carli Lourens

Dec. 5 (Bloomberg)

-- South Africa, suffering a power crisis that's limiting supplies to gold and platinum mines, canceled a plan to build a
nuclear plant for about 120 billion rand ($12 billion) as the credit freeze cuts financing.

State-owned Eskom Holdings Ltd's decision won't undermine "national security of supply" as economic growth will slow and other plants are being built, the government communications office said in an e-mailed statement today.

Groups led by Areva SA, the world's largest supplier of nuclear reactors, and Toshiba Corp.'s Westinghouse Electric Co. were vying for the order. A global recession and an expected drop energy demand is halting spending on projects from Canada to the Middle East and Africa.

"It's too big, we can't do it," Johannesburg-based Eskom spokesman Fani Zulu said. "The bidders were informed after we took the decision at a board meeting yesterday."

Eskom, looking to borrow about 150 billion rand, is in talks with the World Bank for a loan of as much as $5 billion and its credit rating was cut by Moody's Investors Services this year after regulators allowed a 27 percent increase in electricity prices rather than 61 percent.

'Disappointed'

"We're disappointed because we put a lot of work into the process, but we're hopeful the South African government will remain committed to developing nuclear power," Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, spokesman for Areva in Paris, said by telephone. "If South Africa comes back to us, we'll be there."

Eskom hasn't kept pace with electricity demand in Africa's biggest economy and restricted supply to companies including Anglo American Plc and Xstrata Plc.

The economy will probably grow at a slower pace than forecast by Eskom over the next five years, reducing power needs, said Jac Laubscher, group economist of Sanlam Ltd., the biggest South African-owned life insurer. "It's not a train smash that they've canceled the nuclear plan."

The global recession and rising interest rates in South Africa have reduced government projections, with the economy now expected to expand 3 percent next year and 4 percent in 2010.

The plan was also canceled also to ensure Eskom's ability to "provide the economy with competitively priced energy is not jeopardized," the government said.

Demand Increase

South Africa had planned to generate 20,000 megawatts from nuclear reactors by 2025, more than 10 times the current output. Power demand has risen by 50 percent since apartheid ended in 1994, while government indecision postponed Eskom's expansion.

The reasons for the "pause" are specific to South Africa, and don't reflect the general state in the nuclear industry, as shown by efforts by utilities in the U.K. and the U.S. to build nuclear power plants, Areva's Saulnier said.

Areva proposed two 1,650-megawatt reactors, while Westinghouse offered to build three 1,140-megawatt reactors. South African construction groups Aveng Ltd. and Murray & Roberts Ltd. formed part of the groups bidding for the contract.

Janine Claber, a spokeswoman for Westinghouse, wasn't immediately available to comment on the decision.

Electricite de France SA, the world's biggest operator of atomic reactors, has South Africa among its priorities for nuclear expansion. The utility wants to operate about 10 so- called Evolutionary Power Reactors by 2020 and yesterday at an investor day in London included two in South Africa.

South Africa remains "committed to nuclear power," to lessen thenation's carbon footprint, said Department of Public
Enterprises Director General Portia Molefe today.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ron Derby in Johannesburg at
rderby1@bloomberg.net; Carli Lourens in Johannesburg at
clourens@bloomberg.net.

Lafayette, here we come!!!

The Network ‘SORTIR DU NUCLEAIRE’ is currently the main French anti-nuclear coalition, with a membership of over 700 organizations and more than 14,000 individual subscribers.

It is completely independent, entirely funded by donations and the subscriptions from its members.

Their mission is to unite everyone concerned with phasing out nuclear power, convince France to phase out nuclear power generation by rethinking its energy policy, improving the efficiency of electricity use, developing alternative and sustainable generation scenarios.

GNB spoke with press representative Stéphane Lhomme to learn that the unified media front presented by new French president Sarkozy, allied with French Greens, is deceptive.

The world press reported a French moratorium on new nuke construction, when it fact it's a moratorium on the siting of new construction. Since there are already over 100 sitings in France, this means nothing, allowing EDF to go forward with the construction of new nukes.

The 58 (most of them Westinghouse) reactors in France are rapidly aging and need to be decommissioned. Sherwood Martinelli discovered that no monies have been set aside by the French utility EDF for this decommissioning period, and therefor, without the profits generated from new construction, the French nuclear industry will quickly go bankrupt, facing billions in decommissioning costs. Sherwood is preparing a full report on the French situation.

GNB also learned from Stéphane Lhomme that during the very violent storm that blew through France a couple years ago, the nuclear power plant near Bordeaux, was completely flooded, much like the two Entergy nuclear power plants in New Orleans during Katrina, except in this case, the situation became so critical, it is believed that Bordeaux nearly escaped a major nuclear disaster.

GNB and Rock The Reactors will remain in close touch with "Sortir Du Nucleaire" to keep each other abreast of our activities. Stéphane Lhomme understands that to stop nuclear up the Hudson, also means stopping nuclear in his country, as the two are so closely inter-related.

EDF plays a big part in the funding of NuStart here in the USA, the organization beating the drum for a wave of new nuke construction to fuel the hydrogen economy.

There will be a large anti-nuclear demonstration in Marseille on November 10th.

For more information:
www.sortirdunucleaire.org

Nuclear, Entergy-The Shaw Skank Deception

Nuclear is in the news in a BIG WAY these days, and unless you live under a rock you are aware of the nuclear industry's dreams of a Nuclear Renaissance here in America. So, when you find a man (Jim Bernhard) who was the head of the Democratic Party in Louisiana, yet had donated $100,000 to George Bush's Inaugural Celebration, it grabs your attention. When that man's company, The Shaw Group, got the contract with the US Postal Service to clean up after the anthrax scare, and after Hurricane Katrina gets hundreds of millions, including $200 million in no bid contracts, I'm going to start Googling.

When my Googling exposes a man trying to buy his credentials as a real player in the nuclear industry, I start getting nervous. When said man makes deals with GE, Westinghouse, and forms a 50/50 partnership with Entergy (second largest nuclear player in America) I am thinking alarms, bells and whistles all going off at once. Then when further investigation shows me that Entergy's vice president is on the board of NEI (Nuclear Energy Institute-lobbying arm of the nuclear industry), I want Dan Rather or 60 Minutes on the phone. Couple all this with Shaw Group's government contracts with both the military (in Iraq) and the DOE, mix it with the fact that Jeb Bush as a member in good standing in CASEnergy (fully funded by NEI) and I'm thinking a brewing Enron on the horizon...it seems to be a more carefully orchestrated Hunt Brothers scenario when they tried to corner the silver market. However, in this case we have the Bayou Boys (Entergy and Shaw Group Inc.) wanting to own the lion's share of the nuclear renaissance, and have the ability to hold America hostage in the bargain.

George W. Bush: Nuclear President

The "renaissance" also now comes with what Mariotte says "may be the most ardently pro-nuclear power presidency in U.S. history." The Bush administrations stance on nuclear power is aggressive and minimizes the dangers of atomic technology.

As Bushs Secretary of Treasury Paul ONeill has told The Wall Street Journal, "If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear is really is good."

The administration struck a close working relationship with the nuclear industry well before taking office. Its energy "transition" advisors included:

1. Joseph Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the lead nuclear industry-funded trade group.

2. J. Bennett Johnston who as a senator was a leading pro-nuclear power figure in Congress and now runs a consulting firm that assists the nuclear industry.

3. Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute and former head of the American Nuclear Energy Council, forerunner of the NEI, and a friend of Bush going back to their days at Yale.

4. Representatives of four U.S. utilities involved with nuclear power.

Two weeks after being sworn in, Bush set up a "National Energy Policy Development Group" and appointed Vice President Dick Cheney as its chairman. Its members included ONeill and Andrew Lundquist, who also coordinated the energy "transition" team was named executive director.

If you were looking to find a scandal of this magnitude, you'd imagine a firm getting hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts all over the world after making generous donations to various politicians on both sides of the isle, including $100,000 towards George Bush's Inaugural celebration. We have that in spades. Imagine this company getting contacts with the US EPA, NASA, the Pentagon, Army Corp of Engineers, and even the US Postal Service to clean up after the Anthrax scare! No, we are not talking Haliburton here, but looking into this company you realize they are just as bad, if not worse. Where is a special federal prosecutor looking into the business dealings of the Shaw Group, and Jim Bernhard's joint collaboration (with Entergy) to own a major portion of the nuclear industry's dream about nuclear renaissance? Just how involved in this scam are the Bush brothers, and is it true that Entergy/Shaw sat in on the Energy Policy meetings with Dick Cheney?

To understand this story, one first has to look at the founder of the Shaw Group, examine its founder, try to figure out what makes Jim Bernhard tick. A read of the information let out to the press paints an image of a man that Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan and even Pippi Longstockings would be envious of. A barrel chested man who worked his way up from digging trenches to become a titan of industry who now heads a fortune 500 company. After getting his bachelors degree from Louisiana State University, he bounced around working for various pipe fitters before striking off on his own with a couple of his college buddies. NOT EXACTLY.

First, it appears this man led a pampered childhood in many ways, the proverbial silver spoon stuck up his ego driven ass. His family owns Bernhard Mechanical Contractors which was started in 1919 by Jim's Grandfather, and the multimillion dollar firm is now run by Jim's brothers. It's easy to picture him as the good looking spoiled rich kid that had life handed to him on a platinum platter. If he saw something he wanted, he took it, and if that failed, Daddy probably went out and bought it for him...this to some degree is born out in the way Jim Bernhard has gone after acquisitions for his once small pipe fitting company, The Shaw Group.

When his inside government sources led him to believe there would be a Nuclear Renaissance, it appears he leveraged the Shaw Group to the hilt and went into the Federal Bankruptcy Court to buy himself and his company nuclear credentials that are not really his, and is using them to run around the world like a paper tiger making deals...problem is, can the building of nuclear reactors be trusted to a newbie in the field, and more importantly will his political cronies in Washington keep the government contracts flowing in long enough for his gamble with other people's money to pay off, or will his scheme backfire leaving America's small investors holding the bag in yet another Enron Pyramid scheme?

Jim Bernhard seems to have had an uncanny ability to land VERY LARGE government contracts from the start back in the mid eighties when the Shaw Group was first started. Once you take a look at the family business, Bernhard Mechanical Contracting, you see where the ability and CONNECTIONS come from. Bernhard Mechanical Contracting has been getting rich off of the taxpayers money for decades now.

A cursory look at records easily found online show for instance tens of millions of dollars flowing into the Bernhard till just from work done in their end of building prisons, and even some major work on a Federal Court House. Looking at the list of Bernhard projects, it's very obvious the family business has some very serious connections at all levels government, and perhaps had no problems in using them to win favor. In short, Jim Bernhard seems to have mentored with the best, grew up from chilhood learning and playing the game. So much for the tears in our eyes story about a young man working his way up from the bottom, but then if you listen to Donald Trump or Ted Turner, they did it all on their own as well.

This whole thing reminds me of the Iraq Press Scandal and the Lincoln Group back a few years ago. A young man from out of nowhere suddenly seems to know every one, and is winning Government Bids worth hundreds of millions, and forming new partnerships in an on time delivery basis. This blogger was not able to get the whole truth on the man (Christian Bailey)behind the Lincoln Group, and I still think he has ties into the CIA's black budget (covert)...it's the only way to explain the Englishman's convenient ties to George Bush and Condi Rice, and his incredible timing in placing himself and his company in Iraq, seemingly before our troops arrived. Hopefully, Jim Bernhard's footprints and timelines will give us more clues about his hidden truths, and the dark unbelly of The Shaw Group's uncanny abilities. Lets do some exploring of the man's timeline, and you the reader can make up your own mind.

1987-Jim Bernhard with two of his buddies start their business as the proverbial three musketeers, and the company gets it name from their FIRST Acquisition, the BF Shaw company out of South Carolina. Where did these three upstarts get the money to take over a large sized company like this. Further, the BF Shaw company's HORRID environmental record betrays portrayal of the Shaw Group as a Clean, Green environmentally concerned citizen. It has been suggested by some, that Shaw Connex is contributing to GREATLY increased cancer risks in Virginia...does Jim Bernhard care, and is so what is the Shaw Group doing to clean up its act?

1993-The Shaw Group gets busy, and the true sinister nature of Jim Bernhard's plan to corner the pipe fabricating industry starts to take shape with several more acquisitions.

Formed Shaw Nass Middle East, WLL, a partnership with Abdulla Ahmed Nass, a Bahrainian entity, to operate a fabrication facility in Bahrain.

To understand how to quietly BUY FAVOR, and to understand the Shaw Groups war profiteering under the George Bush Third Reich, you have to track the campaign contributions that give a company access, such as this example from a Shaw Nass Middle East Employee: (One has to wonder how many other Shaw Group employees were encouraged or coerced into making political contributions?)

Jack and Sims Gen Mgr / Reg. Nurse
Shaw-Nass Middle East Ltd. George W. Bush
$500 1624 Bomi Circle
Winter Park, FL 32792

Formed Shaw-Formiconi, CA (now known as Manufacturas Shaw South America, CA), a partnership with Formiconi CA to operate a fabrication facility in Venezuela.

Acquired Shaw Sunland Fabricators, Inc which put the company's employee base just below 2,000.

In 1996 and 1997 Shaw Group would have serious labor problems with Sunland and another company in the Baton Rouge area, both represented by local 198. Several Union members who did not want to be identified, but were around at the time freely accuss Jim Bernhard and the Shaw Group of Union busting, and one was convinced that Shaw Group A) out sources jobs, and B) may be using illegal workers (Hurricane Katrina was mentioned in this charge). We here at Green Nuclear Butterfly cannot verify this information, so like much of this artcle it is speculative and forward thinking, and falls under the heading of heresay.

Changed name to the Shaw Group Inc and went public with 3.125 million shares on the NASDAQ at $14.50.

Was the name change necessary for the stock offering, seeing as it was ALREADY OWED by someone else? Do your homework there JIMMY BOY! Anyone else a bit amazed here at this company's sky rocketing growth...could it have anything to do with Jim Bernhard's DADDY, AND THE DADDIES of his two original partners? It's not what you know, but who you know jumps to mind here.

In 1994 Shaw acquired the Fronek Company, Inc. and FCI Pipe Support Sales, Inc.

In a deal made in 2004, the Fronek assets were sold.

One important fact here. Jim Bernhard likes to paint himself and the Shaw Group out as good environmental stewards, in short, GREEN LEADERS. So why is it most of their holdings seem to be major polluters wherever they are located?

In 1996 they acquired Word Industries Fabricators, Naptech, Inc. and stock of Alloy Piping Products and Pipe Shields. Inc.

Sure are a lot of acquisitions going on...also, how is the other family business benefitting from all this elimination of the competition?

In 1997 Shaw acquired United Crafts, Inc., Merit Industrial Construction, Cojafex BV in Holland, Prospect Industries, plc, and Lancas, CA in Venezuela.

The most interesting acquisition in 1997 was Cojafex BV in Holland.

In 2000 Shaw joined with the Entergry Corporation to create Enetergy/Shaw LLC and acquired all assets of Stone and Webster, Inc..

Here with the Entergy Partnership, we see Shaw Groups attempt (through a lot of inside information?) begin to position itself to profit from the supposed Nuclear Renaissance in the same fashion it has profitted from the Iraq War, and Hurricane Katrina. Buying Stone and Webster out of bankrupcy in a predatory fashion gave the Shaw Group the beginnings of their PAPER CREDENTIALS.

In 2002 Shaw opened a facility in Cgina and acquired The IT Group, Inc., bringing the company's employee total to 18,000.

The IT Group purchase along with some ownersip secured in Westinghouse gave Jim Bernhard the credentials to do what he wanted...testify before a Senate Sub Committee and encourage them to embrace and fund the Nuclear Renaissance, while failing to mention his own (and his company's) biased conflict of interest in taking such a position.

In 2003 Shaw acquired stock of Envirogen, Inc. and MWR, Inc., assets of Badger/P&C and stock of Energy Delivery Services.

In 2004 Shaw created a joint venture, Shaw CENTCOM Services, LLC, with construction companies in Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

Interesting to note here, that almost as soon as Shaw inked the deal with Centcom, tens of millions in Defense Contracts came rushing through the door.

In 2005 Shaw was awarded contacts with FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to assist in Katrina related recoveries.

In addition to his contacts with George Bush, and the Seargent at Arms for the Senate, seems Jim Bernhard picked a good time to be friends with the governor of Louisana, though her flying to a bowl game in Shaw Groups PRIVATE JET played no part in the $100's of millions in new bid contracts Shaw Group received for Hurricane Katrina.

There is far more to write about when it comes to the Shaw Group, but one thing is for sure...If I owned stock in this company, I'd personally DUMP IT.

1. The public record show them to be MAJOR POLLUTERS OF THE WORST KIND.

2. THEY SEEM TO BE OPPORTUNIST using their Washington contacts to get rich at the taxpayers expense...be interesting to know if Jim Bernhard is friends with Tom DeLay or Dick Cunningham.

3. They are WAR PROFITEERS-they have RAKED IN over $3 BILLION in Defense Contracts over in Iraq, but ask them what they have done for the families of the 19 Shaw Group employees KILLED IN IRAQ for their corporate GREED.

4. Entergy owns to of the most dangerous Nuclear Reactors in the world that are leaking Strontium 90 and Tritium into the Hudson River...Shaw Group holds their maintenance contract, need I say more.

IF YOU ARE A GREEN INVESTOR, GREEN NUCLEAR BUTTERFLY SUGGESTS YOU PUT YOUR MONEY ELSEWHERE.

Chirac Quits... French Pro-Nuclear Swine!

If anyone speaks the tongue of frogs, saw his bow out speech last night on television, you will have picked up on his renewed commitment to a green future for la belle France uttered in the same breath as his renewed glowing praise for nuclear power as a clean, green means of electrical generation, the solution to global warming.

Face it, the man, a Georges Pompidou spawn, who while kicking the S.H.A.P.E. out of France, allowed Westinghouse the run of the House of Baguette and Cheese, to build what is now the greatest nuclear threat looming large, so large French anti-nuclear demonstrators get sent straight to jail.

France is sitting on a nuclear powder keg of aging reactors and nuclear waste... leaking, dangerous plants, renewed rumors of lethal accidents going unreported by the mainstream press... it's only a matter of time before one of France's 58 reactors goes critical and bathes all of Europe in a catastrophe of Gargantuan proportions.

Jacques Chirac wants official recognition from the European Union of nukes as a clean, green energy source, this while Germany, Spain and Austria are fiercely anti-nuclear, committed to solar and wind, desperately seeking suitable battery storage chemistry, now in limbo in the black labs at MIT.

Yet the European Union last week already agreed to embrace the nuclear option in a battle to save the planet, as a desperate measure of ignorance and greed, to preserve the powers that be in the seat of supreme autocracy. The reason why I left France, and am here, 30 years later, having foreseen this, asserting myself as a leader in the American anti-nuclear community.

This is an issue that could split Europe in two, again, as well as the whole world... if we're not careful. Anti vs Pro nuclear sentiments are paramount to religious zeal in many people, and societies... those who understand the subtle energies of nature and those who do not! Those who would have us poison the whole world for a quick return on investment, and those who would have us reduce our energy consumption and start on the path of planetary restoration.

We're in dire straights here, and it concerns Indian Point, because what happens on the Hudson, with the Indian Point relicensing, will reflect on the entire survival, of the aging, failing, nuclear industry all over the globe, not just here. I left France in the early 70's. As a child, I was in the same room as Pompidou, I witnessed him hand over my father's land to the ugly Westinghouse Americans... the corporate swine who transformed France into a nuclear waste dump!

To say that nuclear power is cleaner than oil, gas or coal, shows an absurd miscomprehension of the issues involved, an absurd lack of understanding of what radioactivity really is, how it affects all life on earth, energy fields, our genes. The anti-nuclear community in this country knew the score 30 years ago, it still does today... but it's been asleep at the wheel, brow beaten by the millions of dollars spent by the Utilities brainwashing school children into believing the nuclear industry is clean and green... this while a civilian independent safety assessment team can't even enter a nuclear power plant to visit, not so much for fear of terrorism, but for fear of finding out what is really going on... leaking fuel pools, rupturing weld joints... contamination on the order of which mankind has never seen before, seeping into everything, insidiously polluting the air, the water, the land.

The nuclear thugs in the European Union, in league with the international nuclear industrial complex, contemplating an end to their reign of oil and coal terror on mankind, are desperately trying to cling to world supremacy by perpetuating the nuclear nightmare as a guise to preserve their control over international institutions.

It's a ploy... It's a ruse... and I hope the good people of Rockland and Westchester County, as well as the good people of Fairfield County and Manhattan, will not fall for this insanity of cosmic proportion perpetuated upon them. We can end it here, right here, right now, by preventing Indian Point its relicense. Turn the criminal tide of multinational corporate tyranny against nature.

Give the land Indian Point sits on back to the Native Americans to who it belongs. Give America back to its people. Free Leonard Peltier, the way we freed Mandela!!! Have a heart America... Genocide on an entire civilization... then making them sick with uranium mining, giving them red bricks made of uranium tailings, to make homes, to annihilate them... Listen to your conscience good people of Peekskill... Go to the Peekskill Museum... remember who you are, where you are... remember who this land once belonged to!

Save The Planet is the slogan that sits on top the Hard Rock Cafe logo, the Hard Rock now owned by the Seminole Indians of Florida, who never signed a peace treaty with the U.S. Government, who vowed to buy back their land, one burger at a time. This is war, don't kid yourself... We re-empowered the Indian Nation with the means to fleece back the white man... rob him blind... and use the profits to restore this land.

It's too late for the quiet, peaceful not-in-my-backyard resolution of IPSEC... a wind is slowly blowing up the Hudson... a wind of change the likes of which humanity has not seen in a long, long time... a song of reason and love and reverence for this earth, for this land... a song Pete Seeger sang his whole entire life... musicians, who feel, troubadours who weave tales of emotion, of renewed hope and inspiration, who for decades sang at the Clearwater festival... dreaming this day would finally come.

Close down Indian Point. Do it for reason. For respect. For reconsideration. Let the French stew in the poisoned juices of their own pathetic failed imperialist ambitions. Don't let this sad little country sink us into a third World War over Protons and Poetry. Give it up, stand down. Let us be. Let Amerika be!