Nuclear industry survives on its false claim that it helps the fight against climate change
April 28th, 2021, by Paul Brown, The nuclear industry’s unfounded claims let it rely on “dark arts”, ignoring much better ways to cut carbon emissions.
Nuclear industry’s unfounded claims let it survive, https://climatenewsnetwork.net/nuclear-industrys-unfounded-claims-let-it-survive/
– It is the global nuclear industry’s unfounded claims – not least that it is part of the solution to climate change because it is a low-carbon source of electricity – that allow it to survive, says a devastating demolition job by one of the world’s leading environmental experts, Jonathan Porritt.
In a report, Net Zero Without Nuclear, he says the industry is in fact hindering the fight against climate change. Its claim that new types of reactor are part of the solution is, he says, like its previous promises, over-hyped and illusionary.
Porritt, a former director of Friends of the Earth UK, who was appointed chairman of the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission after years of campaigning on green issues, has written the report in a personal capacity, but it is endorsed by an impressive group of academics and environmental campaigners.
His analysis is timely, because the nuclear industry is currently sinking billions of dollars into supporting environmental think tanks and energy “experts” who bombard politicians and news outlets with pro-nuclear propaganda.
Porritt provides a figure of 46 front groups in 18 countries practising these “dark arts”, and says it is only this “army of lobbyists and PR specialists” that is keeping the industry alive.
First he discusses the so-called levelized cost of energy (LCOE), a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generating plant over its lifetime.
“The case against nuclear power is stronger than it has ever been before”
n 2020, the LCOE of producing one megawatt of electricity in the UK showed huge variations:
- large scale solar came out cheapest at £27 (US$38)
- onshore wind was £30
- the cheapest gas: £44
- offshore wind: £63
- coal was £83
- nuclear – a massive £121 ($168).
Porritt argues that even if you dispute some of the methods of reaching these figures, it is important to look at trends. Over time wind and solar are constantly getting cheaper, while nuclear costs on the other hand are rising – by 26% in ten years.
His second issue is the time it takes to build a nuclear station. He concludes that the pace of building them is so slow that if western countries started building new ones now, the amount of carbon dioxide produced in manufacturing the concrete and steel needed to complete them would far outweigh any contribution the stations might make by 2050 to low carbon electricity production. New build nuclear power stations would in fact make existing net zero targets harder to reach.
“It is very misleading to make out that renewables and nuclear are equivalently low-carbon – and even more misleading to describe nuclear as zero-carbon, as a regrettably significant number of politicians and industry representatives continue to do – many of them in the full knowledge that they are lying”, he writes.
He says that the British government and all the main opposition political parties in England and Wales are pro-nuclear, effectively stifling public debate, and that the government neglects the most important way of reducing carbon emissions: energy efficiency.
Also, with the UK particularly well-endowed with wind, solar and tidal resources, it would be far quicker and cheaper to reach 100% renewable energy without harbouring any new nuclear ambitions.
The report discusses as well issues the industry would rather not examine – the unresolved problem of nuclear waste, and the immense time it takes to decommission nuclear stations. This leads on to the issue of safety, not just the difficult question of potential terrorist and cyber attacks, but also the dangers of sea level rise and other effects of climate change.
Failed expectations
These include the possibility of sea water, particularly in the Middle East, becoming too warm to cool the reactors and so rendering them difficult to operate, and rivers running low during droughts, for example in France and the US, forcing the stations to close when power is most needed.
Porritt insists he has kept an open mind on nuclear power since the 1970s and still does so, but that they have never lived up to their promises. He makes the point that he does not want existing nuclear stations to close early if they are safe, since they are producing low carbon electricity. However, he is baffled by the continuing enthusiasm among politicians for nuclear power: “The case against nuclear power is stronger than it has ever been before.”
But it is not just the politicians and industry chiefs that come in for criticism. Trade unions which advocate new nuclear power because it is a heavily unionised industry when there are far more jobs in the renewable sector are “especially repugnant.”
He also rehearses the fact that without a healthy civil nuclear industry countries would struggle to afford nuclear weapons, as it is electricity consumers that provide support for the weapons programme.
The newest argument employed by nuclear enthusiasts, the idea that green hydrogen could be produced in large quantities, is one he also debunks. It would simply be too expensive and inefficient, he says, except perhaps for the steel and concrete industries.
Porritt’s report is principally directed at the UK’s nuclear programme, where he says the government very much stands alone in Europe in its “unbridled enthusiasm for new nuclear power stations.”
This is despite the fact that the nuclear case has continued to fade for 15 years. Instead, he argues, British governments should go for what the report concentrates on: Net Zero Without Nuclear. – Climate News Network
Please explain: NT Labor slams budget for Kakadu’s missing $216m
Please explain: NT Labor slams budget for Kakadu’s missing $216m NT News, 12 May 21
Despite promising $216m would be spent on new infrastructure at Kakadu, NT Labor claim the federal government have spent barely any and are demanding to know why.–PLEASE EXPLAIN: NT LABOR SLAMS BUDGET FOR KAKADU’S MISSING $216M…. (subscribers only)
Senior Morrison government ministers support Iluka’s plan to reprocess rare earths (no mention of what they would do with the radioactive wastes)
Iluka finds favour in bid to build rare earths refinery, W.A. Today, By Nick Toscano, May 11, 2021
A proposal to build the country’s first full-scale rare earths refinery has secured the support of senior Morrison government ministers, as Australia works to position itself as a key supplier of raw ingredients in smartphones, electric cars and wind turbines.
The board of ASX-listed Iluka Resources, a $3.6 billion company, is assessing the feasibility of developing a refinery at Eneabba in Western Australia to process rare earths – a group of elements used in a range of high-tech products and military weapons systems…….. https://www.watoday.com.au/business/companies/iluka-finds-favour-in-bid-to-build-rare-earths-refinery-20210511-p57que.html
How Bill Gates bankrolls the news agenda
Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage.
During the pandemic, news outlets have widely looked to Bill Gates as a public health expert on covid—even though Gates has no medical training and is not a public official.
PolitiFact and USA Today (run by the Poynter Institute and Gannett, respectively—both of which have received funds from the Gates Foundation) have even used their fact-checking platforms to defend Gates from “false conspiracy theories” and “misinformation,” like the idea that the foundation has financial investments in companies developing covid vaccines and therapies. In fact, the foundation’s website and most recent tax forms clearly show investments in such companies, including Gilead and CureVac.
critical questions about journalists’ tendency to cover the Gates Foundation as a dispassionate charity instead of a structure of power.
Journalism’s Gates keepers, Columbia Journalism Review, By Tim Schwab AUGUST 21, 2020 ,
LAST AUGUST, NPR PROFILED A HARVARD-LED EXPERIMENT to help low-income families find housing in wealthier neighborhoods, giving their children access to better schools and an opportunity to “break the cycle of poverty.” According to researchers cited in the article, these children could see $183,000 greater earnings over their lifetimes—a striking forecast for a housing program still in its experimental stage.
If you squint as you read the story, you’ll notice that every quoted expert is connected to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helps fund the project. And if you’re really paying attention, you’ll also see the editor’s note at the end of the story, which reveals that NPR itself receives funding from Gates.
NPR’s funding from Gates “was not a factor in why or how we did the story,” reporter Pam Fessler says, adding that her reporting went beyond the voices quoted in her article. The story, nevertheless, is one of hundreds NPR has reported about the Gates Foundation or the work it funds, including myriad favorable pieces written from the perspective of Gates or its grantees.
And that speaks to a larger trend—and ethical issue—with billionaire philanthropists’ bankrolling the news. The Broad Foundation, whose philanthropic agenda includes promoting charter schools, at one point funded part of the LA Times’ reporting on education. Charles Koch has made charitable donations to journalistic institutions such as the Poynter Institute, as well as to news organizations such as the Daily Caller News Foundation, that support his conservative politics. And the Rockefeller Foundation funds Vox’s Future Perfect, a reporting project that examines the world “through the lens of effective altruism”—often looking at philanthropy.
As philanthropists increasingly fill in the funding gaps at news organizations—a role that is almost certain to expand in the media downturn following the coronavirus pandemic—an underexamined worry is how this will affect the ways newsrooms report on their benefactors. Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage.
I recently examined nearly twenty thousand charitable grants the Gates Foundation had made through the end of June and found more than $250 million going toward journalism. Recipients included news operations like the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and the Center for Investigative Reporting; charitable organizations affiliated with news outlets, like BBC Media Action and the New York Times’ Neediest Cases Fund; media companies such as Participant, whose documentary Waiting for “Superman” supports Gates’s agenda on charter schools; journalistic organizations such as the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the National Press Foundation, and the International Center for Journalists; and a variety of other groups creating news content or working on journalism, such as the Leo Burnett Company, an ad agency that Gates commissioned to create a “news site” to promote the success of aid groups. In some cases, recipients say they distributed part of the funding as subgrants to other journalistic organizations—which makes it difficult to see the full picture of Gates’s funding into the fourth estate.
Continue readingNO, ANSTO, a nuclear reactor is NOT the only, nor the best, way to produce medical Technetium TC99
NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes Receives Electron Beam Accelerators for First-of-its-Kind Advanced Medical Radioisotope Production.
NorthStar, leading the way as the sole U.S. commercial supplier of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), continues expansion efforts for increased capacity and ongoing reliable supply for diagnostic imaging −BELOIT, Wis.–(BUSINESS WIRE), 12 May 21, —NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, LLC, a global innovator in the development, production and commercialization of radiopharmaceuticals used for medical imaging and therapeutic applications, announced that it has achieved a major milestone in its efforts to expand U.S. production capacity for the important medical radioisotope, molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). The Company has received two custom-built IBA Rhodotron®TT 300-HE (High Energy) electron beam accelerators at its facility in Beloit, Wisconsin. The accelerators are critical components in a first-of-its-kind commercial-scale process to produce Mo-99, the parent radioisotope of technetium-99m, the most widely used medical imaging radioisotope, informing healthcare decisions for approximately 40,000 U.S. patients daily.
NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes is the sole commercial U.S. producer of the important medical radioisotope Mo-99 and the only company in the world to use environmentally friendly Mo-99 production processes that are non-uranium based. For over two years, NorthStar has provided the United States with reliable Mo-99 supply, which is used in its RadioGenix® System (technetium Tc 99m generator) to produce Tc-99m. NorthStar is aggressively expanding and establishing dual production and processing hubs for additional Mo-99 capacity to better meet customer demand and to ensure reliable, sustainable U.S. supply. Two facility expansion projects are nearing completion in Beloit, Wisconsin, to augment current Mo-99 production and processing in Columbia, Missouri, conducted in partnership with the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR®). NorthStar’s Isotope Processing facility in Beloit will enable it to more than double its current Mo-99 processing and is nearing completion, with FDA approval anticipated in 2022. The Company’s Accelerator Production facility in Beloit will add significant Mo-99 capacity, enable flexible production scheduling and minimize customer supply risks.
Delivery of these electron beam accelerators to advance Mo-99 production marks a tremendous milestone event for NorthStar, nuclear medicine and the patients who rely on diagnostic imaging studies for their health,” said Stephen Merrick, President and Chief Executive Officer of NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes. “Using electron beam accelerators is one of the most efficient methods of producing Mo-99, and like other NorthStar processes, it is non-uranium based and environmentally friendly. This production method will increase capacity, provide additional production days, and minimize supply risks. Additionally, electron beam accelerators can be used to produce therapeutic radioisotopes such as actinium-225 and copper-67. We anticipate that testing of these accelerators will begin this year, with commercial accelerator production commencing in 2023, pending appropriate licensure and FDA approval.”……………
Delivery of these electron beam accelerators to advance Mo-99 production marks a tremendous milestone event for NorthStar, nuclear medicine and the patients who rely on diagnostic imaging studies for their health,” said Stephen Merrick, President and Chief Executive Officer of NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes. “Using electron beam accelerators is one of the most efficient methods of producing Mo-99, and like other NorthStar processes, it is non-uranium based and environmentally friendly. This production method will increase capacity, provide additional production days, and minimize supply risks. Additionally, electron beam accelerators can be used to produce therapeutic radioisotopes such as actinium-225 and copper-67. We anticipate that testing of these accelerators will begin this year, with commercial accelerator production commencing in 2023, pending appropriate licensure and FDA approval.”….https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210511005048/en/
Fusion: Ten Times More Expensive Than Nuclear Power,
Fusion: Ten Times More Expensive Than Nuclear Power, https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/05/12/fusion_ten_times_more_expensive_than_nuclear_power_776839.htmlBy Robert L. Hirsch & Roger H. Bezdek
May 12, 2021
The U.S. and world fusion energy research programs are developing something that no one will want or can afford. The stated goal of fusion energy research is to provide a new source of electric power based on nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun and the stars. That has proven to be an extremely difficult task because the related physics is extremely difficult. In the 1970s, the Russian tokamak fusion configuration emerged as having great promise for creating and containing the extremely hot gas, known as plasma.
Physicists worldwide adopted the tokamak approach and worked mightily to understand what was going on in the associated hot plasma while scaling up tokamak experiments. The goal was to progress to a system large enough that more energy would be produced in a tokamak system than was required to heat the plasma. Over the past six decades, while substantial progress has been made, ever so slowly the promise of commercially viable fusion power from tokamaks has ebbed away. Some recognized the worsening commercial outlook, but most researchers simply continued to study and increase the size of their tokamak devices — and to increase the size of their budgets.
At present, there are a number of large tokamak experiments worldwide. The largest such facility is the so-called ITER tokamak experiment, now under construction in France. ITER’s goal is to create a tokamak plasma that is so hot and long lived that it would produce ten times more energy than was used to heat the plasma. ITER was originally envisioned to cost roughly $5 billion, a level that might extrapolate to a reasonably priced tokamak fusion power plant.
However, reality slowly intervened, and the cost of ITER greatly escalated. ITER managers now contend that ITER’s cost is approximately $22 billion. This contention cannot be easily verified, because different parts of ITER are being built in different places around the world, and actual costs are difficult to estimate. The U.S. Department of Energy, which is supposed to be paying 9% of total ITER costs, has estimated that actual ITER costs are much higher, roughly $65 billion.
We calculated that even at a cost of $22 billion, the resulting cost of a power plant based on ITER would be approximately ten times the cost of a nuclear fission power plant, and nuclear fission power plants are considered to be too expensive for further adoption in the U.S. If the ITER cost $65 billion, the resulting cost of a power plant based on ITER would be nearly 30 times more expensive than the cost of a nuclear fission power plant. Thus, no matter how you calculate, ITER is clearly a “White Elephant!”
But the situation is even worse. There are four fusion fuel combinations that might be considered for a practical fusion power plant. The easiest — but by no means easy — involves the fusing of two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. Deuterium occurs as a small fraction of ordinary water, which is easily extracted. This implies that deuterium exists as an essentially infinite, very low-cost fuel. On the other hand, tritium does not exist in nature and decays radioactively. So, tritium must be produced.
The largest source of tritium in the world is heavy water nuclear reactors in Canada. The combination of very limited world production of tritium and its loss by radioactive decay means that world supplies of tritium are inherently limited. It has recently become clear that world supplies of tritium for larger fusion experiments are limited to the point that world supplies are inadequate for future fusion pilot plants, let alone commercial fusion reactors based on the deuterium-tritium fuel cycle. In other words, fusion researchers are developing a fusion concept for which there will not be enough fuel in the world to operate!
So fusion researchers are developing a fusion concept that stands no hope of being economically acceptable, running on a fuel that does not exist in adequate quantities. The situation sounds impossible. How could this happen? The answer is that the cost escalation happened so slowly that researchers failed to notice. Neither did program managers and those involved in program oversight. The tritium supply issue became known after researchers were very far along with expensive, new tokamak experiments.
In effect “The foxes were watching the chicken coop” because all world fusion oversight over the past 60+ years has been conducted by fusion researchers and sympathizers — something we unfortunately witness in numerous government R&D programs. Practical electric power engineers, utility executives, and others who are not members of the fusion mafia have been excluded from fusion program evaluation. We recently suggested to the Secretary of Energy that she appoint a panel of non-fusion engineers and environmentalists to conduct the objective, independent evaluation we believe is necessary. The Secretary gave the request to the leader of the fusion program, who responded that the program is guided by two recent fusion panel determinations. Those panels consisted of fusion physicists and related researchers.
The situation is tragic. With so many people and institutions at risk of losing jobs and financial support, the “wagons have been circled,” and programs continue with excuses held in reserve. The waste is enormous. Talented people and large sums of money are being wasted. For example, the U.S. fusion research budget for the current fiscal year is over $600 million.
And that is not all. The ITER fusion experiment, which will soak up a large fraction of world radioactive tritium, will yield an enormous amount of radioactive waste. That volume has been estimated at roughly 30,000 tons. Researchers feel that is not a problem because the radioactive decay of that waste will occur in roughly 100 years, which is a much shorter time period than the decay of radioactive waste from fission reactors. So, the argument is that this rad waste is not so terrible. However, this is debatable.
Is there no hope for attractive fusion power? The answer is yes, because there are a number of other fusion fuel cycles that could be economically and environmentally attractive. The fuel for these cycles is in huge supply, but the physics is much more difficult. Some physicists shy away from even thinking about the related physics challenges. We will not know if one of these fuel cycles could prove viable unless we try. Right now, government support for these higher fuel cycles worldwide is trivial.
We continue to have hope for practical, acceptable, environmentally attractive fusion power. However, without sharp focus, capable management, and careful, independent oversight it will not happen. Change in fusion research will be jolting. It will also take considerable political courage.
Bill Gates with his GAVI (the Global Alliance for Vaccine Initative) has the power of a member State in the WorldHealth Organisation
it becomes very clear that the private part of this public-private partnership has taken over control. And not only have they taken over control, they’re immune from everything. They’re not responsible for anything. This has got to stop.
The corruption of the WHO: Astrid Stuckelberger, Final Hour. Substack.com, 12 May 21,
Stuckelberger explains how the WHO has mutated into a system of global governance…..
Astrid Stuckelberger interviewed by the Corona Ausschuss
The lawyers at the Corona Ausschuss (the Corona Investigative Committee) have interviewed Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger, https://www.astridstuckelberger.com/, a health scientist, researcher and long-term WHO collaborator. She says she was asked to “take a mandate” on international health regulation, which led to WHO collaboration on pandemic preparedness. She recounts her experience in this field in the interview below and reveals a number of rather extraordinary facts.
Briefly, they are:
1. Incredibly, Bill Gates apparently attempted to get himself the same status as any other country on the board of the WHO! As one of the lawyers remarks, he tried to create ‘Billgateistan’.
2. Gates was rejected in a vote but has seemingly managed, thanks to the leverage that his funding provides, to acquire some sort of special privileges.
Stuckelberger proposes deeper research into the nature of these, starting with the meeting in which Gates was turned down. I had a look at these but couldn’t find a reference to it directly. I did find these minutes from the meeting in 2017 in which a representative of the International Baby Food Action Network raise concerns about a lack of transparency around the relationship between the Gates Foundation and the WHO, the fact that “Foundation had made substantial contributions to many health initiatives and the fact that it could influence WHO’s nutrition policy was no secret. What was less well known, however, was that the Foundation had invested heavily in the food and beverage industries.”
As quoted: “Those investments had been glossed over in the Framework process and the resulting lack of clarity on the relationship had undermined public trust. She echoed the concerns of several Member States concerning the criteria and principles for secondments from nongovernmental organizations, philanthropic foundations and academic institutions. The Framework should be a safeguard; it should not be seen as a funding opportunity. It should be reviewed and evaluated at the earliest opportunity and the terms “partnership” and “stakeholder” clearly defined.”
The framework referred to is the ‘Framework of engagement with non-State actors’.Earlier that year a group of organisations, including the IBFAN, issued an open letter regarding their concern about commercial interests formally entering the WHO.
“Making up WHO budget shortfalls with funding from major investors in food, drug, and alcohol companies (which are often headquartered in wealthy countries) further compromises the independence of the WHO. Granting the Gates Foundation Official Relations status signifies a sharp departure from the post-WWII tradition of the World Health Assembly and makes a mockery of the conflict of interest safeguards purported to underpin the new “Framework of engagement with non-State actors (FENSA).”)
3. GAVI has diplomatic immunity that means it is almost completely protected and can do whatever it wants from its base in Geneva.
4. Swissmedic, the medical regulator, signed a three-way deal between Gates and the WHO. Stuckelberger believes Gates created such deals with many countries after being rejected by the board.
…………… there was already severe discomfort about the expanding power of the Gates Foundation and the commercial interests that it fronts for within the WHO. As the open letter mentioned above also states: “It is, of course, deeply troubling from a governance standpoint that the Executive Board is being asked to approve applicants for Official Relations and verify compliance with conflicts of interest safeguards without being provided with any relevant evidence—verified or otherwise—on the public record.” Does that means Gates’ request to join the Executive Board was entirely unrecorded?
…….. Here’s a machine translation of the terms of GAVI’s [ Global Alliance for Vaccine Initative”s] immunity:
“Art. 5 Immunity from Jurisdiction and Enforcement
1. in the course of its activities, GAVI Alliance shall enjoy immunity from jurisdiction and execution, except:
a)
when such immunity has been expressly waived in a particular case by the Executive Director or by the person designated by him…………
Switzerland is the centre of a lot of corruption because we have one of the most important NGO, it’s GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccine Initative, which the foundation Bill Gates has, which has, I tell you, I have the papers, total immunity. Total, total. They can do whatever they want, the police cannot come and look into their computer. …………….. Maybe we can get the minutes of the executive board. They even accepted that he would be considered as a member state because of the money he gives. So, this is unprecendented in the constitution of the member states.
RF: Is he now being considered as a member state?
AS: Not officially.
RF: But unofficially yes? And that’s probably, that’s why he has this immunity, right?
AS: Yeah. Well, I can tell you why it is very suspicious, it because I think he has done something which every member state the same contracts. What I found out with Swissmedic, Swissmedic is the FDA of Switzerland, because I gave the paper to a jouranlist and I can’t even find it…Swissmedic has signed a contract with Bill Gates and the WHO.
Continue readingCorruption in the pharmaceutical industry – the Bill Gates connection
I Never Trusted Bill Gates, Nor Should You
While leading a Senate investigation, I tracked a corrupt pharmaceutical executive right into the lobby of the much-vaunted Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—Bill Gates did nothing.
| The DisInformation Chronicle, May 11The last year has not been kind to Bill Gates. For two decades, Gates has shoveled out buckets of cash through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to transform himself from despised 1990’s software monopolist to a present-day public health intellectual—a miraculous, money-fueled metamorphosis. But that reputational makeover has stumbled, as a series of critical articles have tarnished Gates’ paid-for golden image and cast doubt on his credibility. However, long before these articles came to light, I already knew that Gates could not to be trusted. |
A decade ago, I led a Senate investigation into a multi-billion-dollar diabetes drug sold by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) that government scientists found to have caused around 83,000 heart attacks. During this federal investigation, I uncovered multiple examples of GSK officials intimidating medical experts who decried the drug’s dangers. A leader in this campaign was GSK’s chairman of research and development, Dr. Tadataka (Tachi) Yamada.
By the time our committee uncovered GSK’s coercion campaign, Yamada had left the company to run Gates’ global health program. And yet, as the media outlets reported on Yamada’s prior role bullying physicians who tried to warn about the drug’s dangers, the Gates Foundation ignored this public outcry and allowed Yamada to maintain his pulpit as global health protector.
Twenty years back, journalists scrutinized Gates’ foundation as a vehicle to enrich himself and polish his appearance. But over the years, reporters began to forget Gates’ past and provide him a platform to puff himself up as scientific expert, despite his having no medical or scientific credentials. Bill Gates’ sculpted persona as health policy guru began to wobble last summer, however, precisely because of revelations showing the tools he had used to improve his media cachet.
In August 2020, Tim Schwab published an article in the Columbia Journalism Review exposing around $250 million in grants that Gates was throwing at journalism outlets including the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and the Center for Investigative Reporting.
A later article in The Nation spotlighted Gates’ potential to profit from investments in companies situated to reap a windfall from the COVID pandemic. And another report in The Nation found that Gates’ funding has stifled debate in public health—described as “the Bill chill”—as organizations are reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them.
These revelations came as little surprise to me.
Continue reading“It is just prejudice against clean energy”: Bowen slams Coalition hostility to renewables — RenewEconomy
Chris Bowen says Coalition’s antipathy to renewables is based on prejudice rather than ideology, and raises concerns about solar tax. The post “It is just prejudice against clean energy”: Bowen slams Coalition hostility to renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.
“It is just prejudice against clean energy”: Bowen slams Coalition hostility to renewables — RenewEconomy
Victoria government backs standards to blacklist fossil fuel hydrogen — RenewEconomy
The Victorian government has signed up to a certification scheme that prevents fossil fuel hydrogen from be able to claim it is a zero carbon energy. The post Victoria government backs standards to blacklist fossil fuel hydrogen appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Victoria government backs standards to blacklist fossil fuel hydrogen — RenewEconomy
“They’re going broke”, ESB chair says coal plant closures now unavoidable — RenewEconomy
ESB chair says not to worry about when coal plants might close, because they’re already going broke. The post “They’re going broke”, ESB chair says coal plant closures now unavoidable appeared first on RenewEconomy.
“They’re going broke”, ESB chair says coal plant closures now unavoidable — RenewEconomy
Turnbull dismisses fossil hydrogen as “delay tactic” by coal and gas industry — RenewEconomy
Turnbull dismisses fossil fuel hydrogen and carbon capture and storage and laments lack of any new major clean energy projects in Morrison budget. The post Turnbull dismisses fossil hydrogen as “delay tactic” by coal and gas industry appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Turnbull dismisses fossil hydrogen as “delay tactic” by coal and gas industry — RenewEconomy
The don’t-mention-climate budget delivers on its goal — RenewEconomy
The single most definitive driving force behind Scott Morrison’s climate policy has been avoiding talking about climate policy. The post The don’t-mention-climate budget delivers on its goal appeared first on RenewEconomy.
The don’t-mention-climate budget delivers on its goal — RenewEconomy
Cash for gas and big emitters in another miserly budget for clean energy and EVs — RenewEconomy
Clean energy and electric vehicles again ignored in a federal budget focused on propping up fossil fuels. The post Cash for gas and big emitters in another miserly budget for clean energy and EVs appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Cash for gas and big emitters in another miserly budget for clean energy and EVs — RenewEconomy
Antinuclear 