Unique gap between women and men on attitude to nuclear power
Men and Women Divided on Nuclear Power, Morning Consult DAVIS BURROUGHS | MAY 24, 2015 As the nuclear power industry pushes to build more reactors, they face pronounced unpopularity among an unexpected bloc: women.A Morning Consult survey finds that a plurality of female voters, 42 percent, oppose increasing the use of nuclear power to generate electricity in the United States; 38 percent support it. A strong majority of men, 70 percent, support using more nuclear power, while 23 percent oppose.
The male-female gap is uniquely wide on this issue.
Previous Morning Consult polling has found much smaller differences between men and women on energy issues. In one poll from Jan. 2015, the gender split on approval for other energy source was 7 percent for natural gas, 10 percent for coal, 3 percent for wind, and 1 percent for solar. For nuclear, the split was 27 percentage points.
“It’s tough to speculate on what makes women more averse to nuclear power than men,” said Sheril Kirshenbaum, director of The Energy Poll at the University of Texas at Austin. “Across issues, women are both less engaged on energy topics, and far less likely to express concern.”……..
A separate survey question reveals three possible explanations as to what’s driving female voter’s concerns over building more nuclear facilities: trepidations over storing nuclear waste, the risk for a disaster or meltdown, and the availability of “better” energy alternatives.
“It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that one out,” said Linda Mayrand, a survey participant from Melbourne, Florida, “there are better alternatives.” Mayrand said she would never live within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission designated evacuation zones, areas that span a 10-mile radius from a nuclear power plant……..
Nicky Davies, a campaigns director for Greenpeace USA, an environmental advocacy group, said the nuclear industry has two Achilles heels. “It is a fact that there’s no safe way to expose of nuclear power,” and secondly “it’s incredibly expensive.”……….
The Morning Consult poll was conducted from April 5 and 7, 2014, among a nationwide sample of 2,047 registered voters. Results from the survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. http://morningconsult.com/2015/05/men-and-women-divided-on-nuclear-power/
Nuclear power being phased out – Former US Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman
Nuclear power not cheap, being phased out: expert http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2015/05/24/2003619043 By Sean Lin / Staff reporter Former US Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Gregory Jaczko yesterday said that nuclear energy is playing an increasingly insignificant role in electricity generation worldwide, and that, contrary to popular belief, it is actually more expensive than a range of methods of energy generation.
At a news conference in Taipei, Jaczko said that the future for nuclear power generation in the US and 
worldwide is one of “decreasing use and eventual phase-out.”
Referencing data generated by the US commission, Jaczko said that even if all US nuclear power plants were able to renew their operational licenses, the use of the energy source in the nation would come to an end by about 2055.
Diminishing use of nuclear power is a global trend, with just about 70 reactors under construction worldwide — a small fraction of operational reactors worldwide, he said, adding that the majority being built are in China.
The number of new plants is much lower than the number of facilities scheduled to be decommissioned, he said. “The countries that have nuclear power plants are not building anywhere close to the amount of plants they need to replace existing plants,” Jaczko said. “Given the long lead time to build the plants, the cost and other factors, it is unlikely that nuclear energy will play a significant role in electricity generation in the next several decades.”
There is more than enough time for governments to look into alternative technologies without compromising their carbon reduction goals, he said, adding that global energy use is expected to grow significantly over the next 30 years.
He said that energy from nuclear power plants is not as inexpensive as advocates claim.
Referring to a chart compiled by the US Energy Information Administration in 2013, Jaczko said that the “total system levelized cost” for power plants utilizing advanced nuclear energy stood at US$108.40 per megawatt-hour (mWh), while for plants generating power from natural gas with carbon sequestration technology or from geothermal sources, costs were US$93.40 and US$89.60 per mWh.
The estimates skip the money required for nuclear waste disposal and site decommissioning, which constitute the most expensive part of such plants, he added.
Asked to comment on a plan by the state-run Taiwan Power Co to ship nuclear waste to France to be reprocessed, which has been proposed based on an agreement for cooperation between Taiwan and the US, Jaczko said that nuclear waste of US origin must gain US approval before it can be exported.
“Just because it is in the agreement does not mean it has to be done,” he said, adding that Taipower’s plan “does not make any sense.”
Canada distributing Potassium Iodate pills to communities near nuclear recators
KI pill distribution coming near Pickering, Darlington nuclear stations OPG developing extensive awareness campaign prior to fall distribution Ajax News Advertiser By Keith Gilligan DURHAM 24 May 15 — Ontario Power Generation is planning an extensive public relations campaign prior to distributing potassium iodide (KI) pills near the Pickering and Darlington nuclear stations.
Last year, OPG’s federal regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, mandated that KI pills be distributed to all homes and businesses within a 10-kilometre radius of nuclear stations.
Kevin Powers, the director of corporate relations and communications for OPG, told the Pickering Community Advisory Council on Tuesday, May 19 that distributing the pills is “quite a change in what our normal operations are.”
To better understand public knowledge of the pills, OPG has been doing research, Mr. Powers noted.“We did research to understand attitudes on KI pills. We wanted a better understanding of what their understanding was,” he said.
He noted only seven per cent of residents currently have the pills in their homes……… Distribution of pills has been done in New Brunswick and Quebec. It’s being done around the Pickering, Darlington and Bruce stations this year.
Pills are currently in some pharmacies within the 10-kilometre radius, “but not many people know. This change is in how we distribute them,” Mr. Powers noted…… The pills will continue to be available at pharmacies, he said. That’s because people might not get enough pills at their home or have moved and don’t have the pills.
“The CNSC mandated that pharmacies within 50 kilometres have the pills,” Mr. Powers said. http://www.durhamregion.com/news-story/5636397-ki-pill-distribution-coming-near-pickering-darlington-nuclear-stations/
The Bjorn Lomborg recipe for inaction on Climate Change
Bringing Lomborg’s work to Australia seems to have been the personal project of Prime Minister Tony Abbott who found $4 million in a budget that cannot afford to support other scientific work on climate change. Abbott is, of course, famous for dismissing climate science as “crap” and choosing as his chief business adviser a man, Maurice Newman, who believes climate science is being used by the UN to impose authoritarian rule over the world.
The Lomborg Ruse, Clive Hamilton 23 MAY 2015 No one in Australia has more relentlessly attacked environmentalists, climate science, carbon taxes and the aspirations of the United Nations than Murdoch columnist Andrew Bolt.
So what does it mean when Bolt sings the praises of a man who is a declared environmentalist, accepts the body of evidence for climate change, supports a carbon tax and is a strong supporter of the United Nations? Oh, and he’s also a gay vegetarian who’s never out of a trendy black T-shirt.
And what are we to make of it when Bolt, who has complained bitterly that the nation’s universities are stacked with leftists, is now up in arms because a man with admittedly left-leaning politics is sent packing from one of those universities.
I speak of course of Bjorn Lomborg and the University of Western Australia’s reversal of its decision to host his Consensus Centre and so reject the $4 million offered by the Federal Government.
Bolt is not Lomborg’s only unlikely defender. John Roskam of the Institute of Public Affairs writes that the opposition to Lomborg “demonstrates all that’s wrong with Australia’s universities”. The IPA, from the late 1990s the epicentre of the dissemination of climate science denial in Australia, now claims that the man who declares “I believe in global warming” has been “muzzled” and must be heard. (The IPA hosted a Lomborg visit to Australia in 2003, at the prompting of federal industry minister Ian Macfarlane.) Continue reading
AUDIO: Paris climate deal faces hurdles
New climate deal faces hurdles
Originally broadcast on Thursday 21 May 2015 7:30PM, repeated Sunday 24 May 2015 10:00AM
With six months to go until the next global climate treaty talks in Paris, environmentalist and former US vice president Al Gore has declared that “the future of the world depends” on their outcome. Lord Nigel Lawson, former energy secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s government, delivers his assessment of the prospects of the world reaching a new climate deal.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/betweenthelines/new-climate-deal-faces-hurdles/6481810 (29min 20sec)
(Background information about Lord Nigel Lawson and the Global Warming Policy Foundation is available on the DeSmogBlog website at: http://www.desmogblog.com/nigel-lawson and
http://www.desmogblog.com/global-warming-policy-foundation – and on the SourceWatch website at:http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Nigel_Lawson and http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation. The program presenter, Tom Switzer, is an Adjunct Fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs –his profile is available at: https://www.ipa.org.au/people/tom-switzer)
Senator Leyonhjelm – Nuclear power is fine: wind power is the danger!
Senator David Leyonhjelm wants government to monitor wind turbine noise, The Age, May 24, 2015 Adam Gartre It seems the only thing colourful crossbench senator David Leyonhjelm hates more than red tape is wind farming.
Despite typically being a fierce opponent of new government regulation, the Liberal Democrat is calling on the government to set up a new regulator to monitor noise levels near wind turbines.
He claims a Senate inquiry he set up has uncovered “credible evidence” that some people are suffering 
health concerns caused by low frequency noise and vibrations known as infrasound.
Australia’s peak medical agency this year concluded there is no direct or consistent evidence that wind farms damage human health, after conducting a year-long study into so-called “wind turbine syndrome”.
AUDIO: Latest research on battery energy storage
Developing new batteries for cars, houses, devices and the grid
Saturday 23 May 2015
Bigger, better and cheaper batteries promise to change our world. Their capabilities will determine how we use small devices, what cars are produced, and how energy is supplied to households. But are some battery technologies approaching their limits? Where to next? The answer is new materials. We hear excerpts from this year’s American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Jose where speakers report on the latest lines of research, the challenges ahead and the prospects when current hurdles with batteries are overcome. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/developing-new-batteries-for-cars2c-houses2c-devices-and-the-/6490522
New Zealand Commission to investigate effects of Pacific nuclear testing – could be just a charade
Nuclear testing victims dubious about commission http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/274486/nuclear-testing-victims-dubious-about-commission The head of an organisation representing victims of nuclear testing in French Polynesia says a commission set up to assess the aftermath of the testing could just be a charade.
It was set up by France’s defence minister, and will be made up of 24 members and chaired by the French High Commissioner in Papeete.
The director of Moruroa e Tatou, which represents victims of testing on the atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa, says 80-percent of the members suffer serious health conditions, including cancer.
Roland Oldham is questioning why more more evidence is needed.
“Why more more and more commissions…isn’t there enough proof now that it had a bad impact on the environment, and a bad impact on the health of polynesian people – itsn’t it enough proof?”
He says they will make themselves heard.
“As far as we’re concerned, we will be speaking with a very loud voice, because we have had enough of all these lies, of 40 years of lying, and if this commission’s just for another lie, then it’s just a waste of money and a waste of time.”
Mr Oldham says the first meeting will be held in two days.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 