There is talk about Soviet funding for green groups to block shale gas fracking and coal mining. This is not a new thing.
[Indeed Jo wrote last week: Russian-linked groups donated to anti-frakking Green groups because they love the planet right?]
In case you were wondering why we have no nuclear power and why the sensible old-time conservation movement turned into a radical green monster, the late John Grover told the story in his book Struggle for Power (1980). This is a summary of the chapter on the birth of the anti-nuclear program under the guise of “respectable” consumer advocacy in the US and also the worldwide network of communist agencies and their fronts.
To summarize the summary:
In 1971 Ralph Nader, bankrolled by the Rockefeller network, began to work with the “Union of Concerned Scientists” to combine the efforts of environmental groups and public interest lawyers against nuclear power (NP). They worked on several fronts: Legal action to delay projects; Lobbying Congress and Government agencies; Propagandising the churches; Advertising directed at the general public.
Exaggerated dangers and innuendos of industry incompetence were widely accepted and the industry had no strategy to respond.
“To cut a long story short, thanks to Ralph Nader’s initiative, there exists a well co-ordinated coalition of interest groups in the USA with all the attributes of a major corporation: well planned, influential, with strong political and financial support, well-tested strategies, professional communication expertise and tremendous legal punch. About 600 full-time “environmental lawyers” operated on a budget of at least 45 million dollars in 1977 and about one-third of this was spent purely on energy-stopping.”
The major agencies involved in this effort were Consolidated Intervenors, doing legal activities to impede developments; the Union of Concerned Scientists, mostly funded by Dr Henry Kendall of MIT; Business and Professional People for the Public Interest in Washington to front Government committees and inquiries; Friends of the Earth co-ordinating environmental groups and disseminating information by advertising, books and pamphlets; Environmental Action, National Intervenor and The Public Media Centre dealing with publications and presentations.
The role of the churches
“A division of the American National Council of Churches declared plutonium morally dubious and called for a moratorium on its use. This bizarre intrusion of theology into science was explained on the grounds that scientists were “split down the middle” and therefore the theological community should have the casting vote”. That path was taken on advice from a committee of inquiry of 21 people (selected by the anthropologist Margaret Mead) consisting of 11 who had previously published papers opposing NP and 10 clergymen and lawyers. None of the 21 could claim expertise in the field of nuclear energy or plutonium. This advice, distributed through the network of churches, impressed a Southern Baptist, President Jimmy Carter and his advisors.
Church Anti-Nuclear Ads
According to Grover, in 1978 the political religious group based in New York, City Clergy and Laity Concerned (CALC) distributed packages of anti-nuclear materials to churches across the nation: Prayers, liturgical aids, a pastoral letter and suggestions for organizing local churches under the anti-NP banner.
The CALC coordinators were Rick Boardman and Don Luce (a public supporter of the communist “re-education camps” in Vietnam). CALC’s leaders frequently met with the Vietnamese communists in Paris and Hanoi. CALC described its aims thus:
“What we’re about today is not simply and end to the war in Vietnam but a struggle against American imperialism in just about every corner of the world…and..to help liberate our own nation from its reactionary and exploitative policies.”
American Government Support – the debacle of Jimmy Carter
The protest movement started with dedicated volunteers, then became an occupation when funding came from wealthy backers and foundations to pay for professional and fulltime workers. Then it reached the pinnacle of achievement when Governments took on board activists to pursue their passions with public funding and the power of the State to back them.
This was first apparent with the killing of the Clinch River fast breeder reactor project by executive order from President Carter in 1977. A speaker at a conference in 1978 pointed out that the US Administration “had become a card carrying member of the anti-nuclear force”.
“Most remarkable of all has been the outcome of a campaign promise by President Carter that he hoped to challenge Ralph Nader for the role of top consumer advocate in the country”.
Many sub-cabinet posts went to former public interest lawyers, consumerists and environmental activists. Fourteen key White House assistants including the President’s chief speechwriter came from the public interest movement. Speechwriters with a gift for the telling turn of phrase can make a great impact on public perceptions. Carter turned out to be especially susceptible to half-baked ideas, as demonstrated by Amory Lovins, a leader of the no-growth movement, who worked for Friends of the Earth in London. Lovins was well known in some circles for a pamphlet that advocated the ‘soft energy path’ for the US, using calculations that overstated the cost of NP by a factor of 2 and understated the cost of solar power by a factor of 10.
“Nevertheless, just twenty hours after meeting with Mr Lovins and without the benefit of consulting with any of the many energy experts available to him, President Carter presented Lovins’ energy calculations verbatim and uncritically in a speech.
Who is Behind it?
The following organizations were listed in connection with public agitation urging the US to make unilateral concessions at the US-Soviet Union strategic arms limitations talks. The US Peace Council, the National Council for American-Soviet Friendship, American Friends Service Committee (far left Quakers), Clergy and Laity Concerned, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. All of those organizations worked closely with the World Peace Council and that body spawned Mobilization for Survival as an anti-nuclear arm of the communist “peace” movement. The four slogans of Mobilization for Survival were: – zero nuclear weapons – ban nuclear power (even for peaceful purposes) – stop the arms race – fund human needs
The Rockefeller group backed Ralph Nader and the Ford Foundation supported anti-nuclear environmental groups to the tune of $5.8M over eight years from 1970. A million dollars was real money 50 years ago:)
International Scene 1978-79
A 1978 report by Stockton and Janke of the Institute for the Study of Violence found that “The key organizations behind the anti-nuclear propaganda drive have at last surfaced through the mire of a hundred groups, many with titles that don’t quite relate to what they are doing.”
The US provided the leadership in personnel, tactics, organization and communications for the worldwide Western anti-nuclear movement. Amsterdam was a key centre for outreach from the US. The Institute of Policy Studies (the Washington one) set up the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam which in turn set up agencies in South Africa and the Phillipines. Amazingly, The Australian Solidarity Collective was established in Amsterdam in 1978 in association with the Greenpeace Movement in London. The Collective was presumably transient and references cannot be found on the net. Another offshoot was the Transnational Cooperative, established in Sydney with Laurie Carmichael (Communist Party of Australia) and Tom Uren as the directors.
World Coordinators of Misinformation
The International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace (ICDP) in London appeared to be the anti-nuclear world coordinating link. A major presence was Peggy Duff, also instrumental in establishing Mobilization for Survival. The ICDP handles World Peace Council activities where the parent body wants to remain out of sight.
The ICDP has/had two Australian connections.
- The Association for International Cooperation and Disarmament in Sydney in the Sydney CBD.
- The Congress for International Cooperation and Disarmament in Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne.
Grover printed a list of 26 Australian groups that were prominent in the cause, including Friends of the Earth, Uranium Moratorium, Australian Conservation Foundation, Australian Teachers Federation, Doctors for a delay in uranium mining, Shareholders for Social Responsibility, Women Against Nuclear Energy and the World Council of Churches.
He regarded that list as the tip of the iceberg because some of those groups sponsor others which are not obviously committed on the issue of nuclear power. Church groups were especially likely to be recruited, as revealed at a March 1979 Aboriginal Land Rights “Teach In” at the University of Sydney. The role of Aboriginal Land Rights as a vehicle to impede the nuclear industry is explained in another section of the book.
“The most remarkable feature of this event was the almost total absence of Aborigines. One participant was told that Aborigines were scared to walk in the streets for fear of abuse or attack by whites”. That would have been news to residents of Surry Hills and Redfern where I lived at the time.
The list of 32 sponsors included the Catholic Missions Office, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, De La Salle Brothers, Little Sisters of Jesus, Society of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Loreto House, Good Shepherd Sisters, Marcia Langton, Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association, Australian Council of Churches and the National Missionary Council.
First Growth in Australia
The movement officially hit Australia at the Academy of Science conference in Canberra in 1972. This was billed as a discussion of technology and energy planning and turned into an anti-nuclear platform and a forum for low-energy lifestyle advocacy.
The Australian Conservation Foundation took a strong political line and urged newly formed environmental groups to focus on uranium. Journalists played their usual role in reporting the dangers.
“Scientifically out of their depth, the Australian media became prone, for a period, to presenting scenarios of nuclear disaster. Two headlines come to mind: ‘Radioactive Time Bomb Ticks Away at Port Pirie’ and ‘Our First Atom Death: Victim of Radiation’. The former, it transpired, referred to the natural remnants of a beach sands mining operation and the latter to the unfortunate death by leukemia of an employee of the Atomic Energy Commission who had not been subjected to radiation in connection with his job “.
Friends of the Earth
The FOE arrived from the US and started work in Adelaide by 1970. They extended nationwide and became the leading distributors of foreign-inspired arguments. Especially impressive was a slide show with beautiful outback photos, focused on the Aboriginal way of life and the threat of mining the Kakadu National Park.
FOE moved to Castlereagh Street in Sydney and shared a building with a radical bookshop, Campaign Against Racial Exploitation, Chile Committee, Free Zimbabwe [still functioning I hope], No Ties with Apartheid, the Vietnam Society and others.
Other Groups
At the time of writing FOE had been recently upstaged by the Movement Against Uranium Mining (MAUM). Grover became aware as he debated at various meetings that there were several groups with overlapping membership and the basic message remained the same while the front group that hosted the meeting, the specific topic and method of approach were adjusted to suit the audience and the shifting focus of the campaign. For example the MUAM was actually an arm of the AIDC.
A particularly interesting group appeared in Sydney in December 1978, called The People’s Commission [not the ABC!] with the brief
“…to investigate the role of the media, the educational system and other social processes including State and Federal Government, in withholding information on the arms race and minimising the dangers of nuclear technology. The Commission will also examine the ‘language’ of TV and journalism, and the countless ways in which it pacifies, manipulates and misrepresents.”
In addition to the People’s Commission there is an Educational Research Group which “…will cover essentially the same area as the media group, but will deal with the NSW educational system, exploring the knowledge and feelings of children throughout the state on the nuclear issue”.
On the PR front, many public libraries were well supplied with anti-nuclear propaganda, to the extent that many people would not have encountered any other material, while being warned against the “lies” of the mining companies.
National TV and Radio
Grover wrote that some ABC staff uncritically passed on the mostly negative nuclear news from overseas and from the local groups.
“Some of the success of the anti-uranium campaign is due to the manner in which the Commission has been “used” by activists. The misinformation being broadcast almost daily at one time by Radio 2JJ has shown no respect for the truth and has had a major impact on schoolchildren.”
Teachers
A great success in the anti-uranium campaign was the literature distributed to schools in NSW in July 1978. “Two dozen broadsheets destined for schoolchildren were such that many teachers and secondary students were shocked. Material from the US was laid out and made to look like a teaching study. With few exceptions the cartoons were on the political level, some skillfully done.”
“Videotapes, sound tapes and other audiovisuals were listed, referring to the overseas ‘information’. The emotional speeches of pediatrician Helen Caldicott, and those of plausible Paul Ehrlich (with the magnificent voice) featured prominently, with taped sessions from the ABC’s ‘Broadband’, ‘City Extra’ and other sessions which contributed prominently to the anti-uranium case. Activities sheets followed explaining how the concepts could be best implanted in children’s minds.”
Among the materials were powerful and emotional pieces including “Aboriginals” (depicted in chains) and “Hiroshima” (easy to depict in a shocking manner).
“Teenagers could be deeply affected by the emotional impact. Many teachers resented this but the rules of the NSW Teachers Federation and the open support of the Labor Minister for Education ensured the silence of the majority. One must wonder at the Federation statement concerning ‘inundation of pro-uranium propaganda’. Nobody knew of any.”
A small grass-roots group of concerned parents and teachers tried to achieve some professionalism or balance in the system. They pointed out that conscientious or dissenting teachers could be silenced by the Federation rule which permitted suspension from membership and imposition of a fine on teachers acting contrary to any decision of the Council.
At least two schools known to Grover organised a speaker from each side of the argument and some teachers attempted to provide balance. One used her own money in an attempt to inform students of the other side of the case but the material that she included in the “resource kit” was removed because it was contrary to the union policy and the kit was being distributed to “redress the balance” of propaganda!
Political Propaganda
The anti-uranium movement captured the new minority party – the Australia Party – formed by dissident Liberals following the businessman Gordon Barton because they could not accept the Liberal line on the Vietnam war. Grover described a 10-page question and answer document on uranium as “shockingly dishonest” and much the same applied to statements from the other minority party, the Australian Democrats.
Read the summary of John Grover’s story, on line here.
The movement had two evil effects:
- A significant cohort of the population and the left-wing political classes turned against nuclear power.
- The movement was the trojan horse that enabled radical greens to penetrate and take over the conservation movement.
Alan Carlin observed the green capture of environmentalism when he was an office-bearer in the early days of the Sierra Club in the US. He wrote Environmentalism Gone Mad to document the process and he also described how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) turned into a predator against conventional energy providers.
Dr. Alan Carlin has been carrying out or supervising economic and scientific research on public policy issues for more than 40 years, first at The RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, and from 1971 to 2009 at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC.
Dr. Carlin has an extensive background of working with and in environmental organizations as a volunteer. In the late 1960s he worked very closely with the Sierra Club to present economic arguments against the construction of two proposed dams in the Grand Canyon of Arizona. This campaign was ultimately successful and the dams were not built. In 1970–71 he served as chairman of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club, then the Club’s second largest chapter. He received the Chapter’s Weldon Heald award for conservation work.
Dr. Carlin, now retired, was a 37-year career environmental economist and scientist at EPA when, in June 2009, the Competitive Enterprise Institute broke the story of his negative 100-page report reviewing the agency’s draft Endangerment Finding. As a result, Dr. Carlin’s supervisor ordered him not to discuss climate change with anyone outside his group and to stop working on the issue.
EPA’s attempt to silence Dr. Carlin became a highly publicized embarrassment to the agency, especially given Administrator Lisa Jackson’s and President Barack Obama’s announced commitment to transparency and scientific integrity.
— John Grover wrote several books including an account of the Fabians titled The Hellmakers and Struggle For Cargo” (1983) on the anti-mining movements that had a devastating impact on the industry in the 1970s. His books can be sourced on line.
It’s handy to have the details filled in, but the story can be summarised thus:
Australia’s opposition to Nuclear Energy was never founded in science. It was whipped up by the Communists among us for the purpose of hindering Western nations in the Cold War nuclear arms race.
I daresay this was going on in the rest of the “western” world, though less successfully in France.
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In case you missed it yesterday…
Big boys with big toys leaving for China and snubbing the US.
https://sputniknews.com/20220310/whos-the-pariah-after-snubbing-biden-saudi-aramco-agrees-to-build-massive-refinery-in-china-1093759364.html
Paul
“Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian state oil company, announced on Thursday it would help build a massive new refining facility in northeastern China.”
I suppose that sounds like “Winning” to Biden & Trudeau.
Now considering that Saudi Aramco, Petro China, and China Petroleum are the top 3 largest oil companies in the world by profits – oh well eh?
What’s backing the US Dollar now?
It means that the US Dollar has to change and its going to be UGLY as its traded everywhere.
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I have no problem with going nuclear, including nuclear weaponry but don’t forget that fossil fuels are still by far the most efficient and effective means to power a viable nation, and it most likely will remain that way for decades to come provided the West doesn’t become some sort of modern version of the old and toppled Russian Soviet Union. Problem is we are already more than half way there to becoming that modern version of the old Soviets. Good luck with that one peoples!
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Three names stand out here.
Margaret Mead, Ralph Nader and, of course, our second-worst President, that fool, Jimmy Carter.
Margaret Mead, the one who single-handedly “created” Social Anthropology”and the concept of the “Noble Savage”. A Socialist through and through. Destroyed the field for quite some time.
Ralph Nader, the human gadfly who killed one of the most innovative cars ever produced in the States (Corvair) and a talented grifter. Another Socialist.
And then, that empty vessel, Carter, who did whatever he was told to do.
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No need to blame Russia, as the Progressive Marxists in control of the political left are doing a thorough job of sabotaging our energy supplies all by themselves.
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Say, what’s behind The Green Door?
Behind The Green Door is the Trilateral Commission and the U.N Brundtland Report on Sustainable Development.- See Patrick White book ‘Trilaterals Over Washington.’ The Trilateral Commission was created in 1973 by by David Rockerfeller and Zbrgniew Brzezinskito support a global technocracy to manage the world’s resources
Powerful people like US Presidents Carter, Clinton and Bush , other members include Kissinger, Greenspan and Soros, Al Gore and later, John Podesta, Dianne Fernstein and Eric Schmidt joined this elite global club.
Membership is by invitation only.
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Hope this gets through as other was mediated… Comment re Carter from Patrick Woods.
‘President James Earl Carter, the country politician who promised, “I will never lie to you,” was chosen to join the Commission by Brzezinski in 1973. It was Brzezinski, in fact, who first identified Carter as presidential timber, and subsequently educated him in economics, foreign policy, and the ins-and-outs of world politics. Upon Carter’s election, Brzezinski was appointed assistant to the president for national security matters. Commonly, he was called the head of the National Security Council because he answered only to the president – some said Brzezinski held the second most powerful position in the U.S.
Carter’s running mate, Walter Mondale, was also a member of the Commission. (If you are trying to calculate the odds of three virtually unknown men, out of over sixty Commissioners from the U.S., capturing the three most powerful positions in the land, don’t bother. Your calculations will be meaningless.)’
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All the Corvair needed was a camber compensator fitted.
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Yes, much green activity in the USA and Europe is funded by wealthy Western radicals via organisations linked with Russia and China:
https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/finalreport_73014_2.pdf
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/12/04/who-funds-extinction-rebellion-american-uk-millionaires-some-of-americas-most-famous-families-including-the-kennedys-the-gettys/
https://unherd.com/2021/12/does-the-ccp-control-extinction-rebellion/?mc_cid=5ea83bd9d0&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
The Secretary-General of NATO asserted (on 19/6/2014) that Vladimir Putin’s Russia, as part of its sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engages actively with so-called non-governmental organisations, environmental organisations working against shale gas – obviously to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas; see especially p10 of this document:
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/20140619RasmussenQ%26A.pdf
A few years ago, suspiciously professional protestors violently prevented a Romanian village mayor from pursuing fracking in collaboration with a Western energy company:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/russian-money-suspected-behind-fracking-protests.html
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The much touted NGOs’. These bodies who sound respectable, socially responsible and a bulwark against despicable capitalists, who infact are none of the afore mentioned and share one thing in common throughout the western world, they pay NO TAXES. So what we get is our lives altered to suit some agenda and all at our own expense.
Brings to mind that old expression “When getting screwed is inevitable, just lay back and enjoy it”. Whether or not you have post screwing regret or fond memories remains to be seen.
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BTW, forgot something:
(Was going to bring up the Sierra Club, but I got lazy. They’re culpable as well. Someone here should do a deep dive on them.)
Absolutely excellent post! Thank you Jo and the author.
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Also, I see the Fabians were briefly mentioned in the article above, but there should be more light shone on the activities and connections of this group in Australia given the number of Labor politicians amongst their ranks (Bob Carr etc)
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Carter (who is still alive aged 97) was probably so anti-nuclear because, having been trained on nuclear reactors in the US Navy, he led a US team that gave assistance to Canada where a rector had partly melted down at Chalk River in 1952; see his Wikipedia entry.
07
They had an accident that put the reactor out for two years. A 1944 designed reactor that is still going.
It might have influenced him but there were accidents like a ship of fertiliser destroying a port town (Port of Texas City) and killing 500 that didn’t stop the practice of shipping fertiliser.
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Not only still going, but the source of all sorts of isotopes essential in medical imaging.
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Look, I know all this is probably dead boring, but if any of you would like to read information about the processes of Nuclear power generation, I have an eleven part Series I wrote way back in 2009. Some of the information (costings mainly) are dated, but the processes are still the same.
This is the link to the Introduction, and at the bottom of that Intro are the links to each of the separate Posts.
Tony.
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I never tire of the truth. The truth is always dead boring to those who don’t want to listen to it for whatever reason. Please keep spelling out the truth; it has become a rare commodity in our society.
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Thanks Tony for repeating this story.
As you say the biggest impediment is and will continue to be “What about the nuclear waste?”
Something bothers me about the huge difference between this and disposal of wind turbine blades.
The greens are ramping up their propaganda for disposal of blades to counteract that risk.
Nuclear waste planning is stuck in the doldrums. Just no will or resources to attack this problem?
If Elon Musk had this sort of problem, he would ask “do we really need to do it at all”.
You say that after the waste comes out of the reactor, its concentration is less than it came out of the ground.
There must be methods of disposal that don’t involve single point storage.
Maybe we should copy the blades disposal methods and argue what’s good for them …
30
Tony, any chance you know what’s happening with Callide 4C after it’s overspeed accident.
20
I know Jo hates going off topic early in threads but the DOW is booming, gold tanking and Putin talking.
If he couldn’t subdue Ukraine in two weeks, the cost was going to be too high.
How good is that?
20
Gold tanking? Ya gotta be kidding me.
Just now looked it up as of 0830 3/11 in the states.
Gold: $1,983.20 -23.50 | Wow! A whole $23.50. Yup, that’s tanking fer sure…
30
The DOW was 33,174 @ 5 pm on the 10th and the futures were 33,493 just before open, when I posted. Gold was 1964 at 9 am, “tanking” in the short term.
An hour and a half can be a long time in the markets. The good news rumour must have blown away in that time. I’m sorry for peddling the good news.
30
Gold is a tiny bit down. It was 2060 (USD)) per ounce on the 9th and is in the range of 1996 today. The market is up a tiny bit, but down quite a bit from its high early last year. The rumor among the “conservative” sites that Pfizer was asking to be delisted is not so (the request was by/for a company pfizer was trying to acquire). Rumors abound.
The good news is that, temporarily at least, value investing is back.
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I am not totally anti-nuclear, but I have two concerns… WHAT TO DO WITH THE WASTE, and NUCLEAR ENERGY IS NOT RENEWABLE (just like solar and wind). Nuclear may be clean (compared to CO2), but I have my reservations. As for the Sierra Club? Give me a break LOL. They were just a bunch of dills.
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TonyfromOz explains how to deal with the waste in one of the posts in his series that he linked in #6. See Post 9.
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One should reprocess the waste so there is far less of it, and the whole fuel cycle becomes more efficient. That we (the U.S.) do not reprocess is due to an executive order, I think, courtesy of Jimmy Carter. The waste issue is entirely a self-inflicted wound.
You will note that among the various designs for small modular reactors a large number (I have not sorted them all out because of the sheer number of designs) reprocess the spent fuel. Some go so far as to fuel the reactor for 10-30 year cycles, then remove the entire reactor for reprocessing and refurbishment at the manufacturer’s facility, and just plug in a fresh reactor.
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There’s already an answer for the storage of that waste, just waiting to be used.
We already have the solution , an otherwise worthless tract of land in the Nevada desert. Former very deep mines there. (Sorry, it I can’t remember exactly where, but it’s been in use until…)
Barack, the destroyer, if I remember correctly, closed them down for any more nuclear waste. If there was ever a sellout (geeze, I wish I use major profanity here) SOB, this tool of the globalists.
If I’m wrong, please correct me.
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There are gold mines in Sth Africa so deep it is expensive air conditioning the holes to keep the men alive. How much would it cost to buy one?
Old salt mines are, by definition, geologically stable and they exist around the world. IIRC Germany has some.
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Yucca Mountain. Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, had more to do with its abandonment than anyone else.
30
There is also a proven industrial process for the immobilisation of highly active nuclear waste inside a synthetic rock – originally called SYNROC – that was developed by ANU in conjunction with ANSTO in the 1970s.
As the rock is grown from a molten liquid, the waste is trapped inside the mineral crystals, just as happens in nature.
The process has been proven at pilot plant scale and is being investigated as a replacements for existing immobilisation technologies in use throughout the world.
The process is now owned by an Australian company.
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The waste, eh?
Well, the “danger” of the waste is radioactivity, right?
The energy we are extracting is also the radioactivity, right?
So, if we extract a large proportion of that radioactivity for energy, then mix the resulting “waste” with the very rock and soil it came from. the resulting pile should be less radioactive than when we took it from the ground, right?
Then, if we put that back where we got from, in as close a condition as possible to the original, this less radioactive material would have the same chance of “leaking” or otherwise entering the environment as the original, more radioactive material we mined, right?
Meaning we have reduced any possible damage from radioactivity, right?
What did I miss?
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I’ve always believed in ‘dilution is the solution to pollution’, so mix the waste with sand and spread it out evenly over the whole Sahara desert.
10
I am sure that for every potential decision there is a lobby for each possible outcome. It is a very sure way of destabilising any simple or complex strategy which has woven together a framework of dependencies and so our enemies will always be working at it. It only has to ensure that a bad decision is made once in any particular cause to have a desired effect on all other outcomes in that cause. Look at climate change policy and the SARS-CoV-2 saga to see how it works.
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In America, the foolish ideals espoused by Jimmy Carter, who was an acolyte, or rather as is said above an “empty vessel” spokesperson, of the Long March Through the Institutions as that movement matured during the 1970s, never really went away.
The progressive ideals, particularly the energy transformation and the central planning economics factors, failed so spectacularly during the Carter Presidency, and the Reagan Revolution which followed succeeded so spectacularly, that the movement was forced to take refuge and go partially underground. But it lingered and smoldered in academia, and in the administrative state, for two generations.
They thought they would make a storming comeback in 2009, but the unforeseen Fracking Revolution scuttled it temporarily. Then came the Trump Revolution. In desperation, they decided to not leave anything to chance, or to free markets and free elections, and force their religion on everybody by iron fisted control.
It should not be surprising that the similar policy agendas of the Carter years results in another debacle- only on steroids.
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It is nothing short of stunning how much the Biden Administration, ideas and lack of competence and aspirations, resemble the Carter Administration. We are caught in a temporal 45-year long loop led by people who simply cannot learn.
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Well, Empty Vessel was my first thought.
How ‘bout “Useful Idiot”? That may fit a whole lot better. (Quote from a certain compadre of Stalin…)
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Empty vessel fits Biden. Obviously he is a puppet to his handlers. Useful Idjot might fit Carter. His intentions were good but he was in over his head. Mitt may have been like that too, I think. If they understood what was going on then it is evil.
Make no mistake the ongoing disasters are not unintended consequences caused by bumbling idjots. It is what the advisers and handlers and the power brokers behind the scenes intend.
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The zombie left wins after nearly a century of never giving up.
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That’s half the story. The other half is good men allowed it to happen. As is often the case the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. The addendum to the sad but true story is the fact that there are no good men left; they have all been replaced. They are all now proven to be evil by the very nature of their political agendas and policies.
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Never thought of using the word Soviet that way. The Soviets of today are Western, and it’s becoming more and more like the old Russian Soviet Union that was toppled to be replaced by a democratic Christian nation albeit still somewhat corrupted. Good overall description of the real world we live in today. Funny how the more things change the more they stay the same way.
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My compliments to the author, an excellent article. In the US, conservatives need to grasp that the opposition is not “loyal”. The problem is that at the grassroots, people will refuse to see that they have been conned.
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The likeness of the Biden Administration to the disastrous Carter Administration is much too close to be accidental. The talk of the Carter appointees being green/enviro acolytes that did so much damage, resembles the Biden appointees from the VP down though the Institutions. Look at the top Military and the Afghanistan debacle, the DOJ, and the Obama appointee that never made it to the SC, Merrick Garland, the energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, Transport, Tim Buttiegieg, etc etc.. all absolute lightweights.
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The role of the Soviets in supporting CND and the anti-nuclear movement was, I believe, chronicled in the Mitrokhin Archive.
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Just a few days ago the Channel Nine program “Under Investigation” tried to discuss Australia’s current and future positions on energy. On the anti-nuclear side were those great experts – I’m being sarcastic – Bob Carr and Helen Caldicutt.
Caldicutt trotted out her tired nonsense about the dangers of radiation, which of course wasn’t challenged. Other sources say the safe limit is at least 100 times, maybe 1,000 times what’s currently said to be the safe limit. Many cancers are treated with radiation and there’s little damage to surrounding cells that also get a decent dose.
Compere Liz Hayes seemed to get in a spin about the problems at Fukashima but failed to mention that not one person died of radiation. There was no mention of the superior safety record of nuclear power compared to other forms of generation, nor was there any mention of the improvements in nuclear technology over the years. I bet Carr and Caldicutt aren’t driving or riding in cars that still have 1970’s technology, so why won’t they admit that nuclear technology has advanced too.
It’s the ill-informed opinions of pseudo experts with influence that hold Australia back on a range of issues, unfortunately on of those is nuclear power.
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Yes , I saw that and thought the usual ignorance was on display for all to see, they kept going on about Chernobyl and Fukishima, Fukishima was able to shut down safely, it survived the 9.0 quake, but when backup power was severed by the tsunami, then the problems started, 60’s technology built meters from the ocean in a known quake and tsunami zone, what are the chances.
Chernobyl was DC3 technology run by incompetents doing unauthorised experiments at 3 am, what could possibly go wrong.
No one mentioned how successful the French nuclear program was, the most successful in the world, has anyone ever heard of a problem with them.
How many people have been killed in aircraft crashes since the jet age began, yet we still happily fly, never doubting we will get to our destination ok.
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Helen Caldicott’s husband whom she married in 1982, was a pediatric radiologist, also she got started on nuclear matters after reading the Neville Shute novel ‘On The Beach’, way to go helen.
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Sentiment is definitely changing on nuclear in Australia. The nuclear subs, the early closure of coal powered plants , the realisation that green hydrogen is decades away and batteries are really expensive , useful over short periods and a fire risk with toxic materials, and of course the conflict in Russia and the realisation that energy security and energy independence is important all add up to reasons to remove the ban on nuclear. The major parties and the Greens are just pretending this change is not happening and minor parties including ourselves at the Liberal Democrats are the ones pushing for sensible policies on energy starting with removing the ban on nuclear.
What this post highlights is that narratives are being created all the time that will benefit a small number of special interest groups at the expense of most of the population. These narratives are almost impossible to reverse unless the media and governments want that to happen.
As facts gnaw away at the fallacies of the narrative the tide will turn. Hopefully regarding nuclear the narrative collapses before we are forced to endure price hikes, blackouts, power rationing, and total industry collapse.
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Everything in Life is about Risk Management.
How utterly Odd that Progressive Liberals (Leftists) believe that unstable power generation, solar panel waste, wind turbine waste, energy poverty, physical poverty, food poverty, health care poverty, physics and reality, can all be “managed” but such things as nuclear waste cannot be “managed”.
What cannot be “managed” is fantasy. Fantasy is not connected to Reality and therefore has nothing to be managed.
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Manage fantasy? That’s exactly what both major parties are trying to do and will fail miserably leading to unintended and possibly intended consequences that allow a NWO to be established to manage reality; the reality of an Orwellian world.
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Much good commentary came from Petr Beckman and his Access to Energy and later from Howard Hayden’s Energy Advocate. Terrific commentary.
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We all knew about agenda 21 and we’ve just entered 2022. This is the start of the new world order that the far left progressives have been craving for years and now it’s being rolled out before our eyes. Our young generation have greatly aided the cause, having been through the public school brainwashing camps and then onto university where the final touches of radicalisation get added. These people then violently gather outside parliament house and block major roadways, even super-gluing themselves for greater nuisance effect. The media joins in and the politicians that tried to resist crumble into submission.
Of course the enormous irony is that the protest army are demanding a stop to all our fossil fuel energy and to end our energy intensive industry, but for every ton of CO2 we shifted overseas as part of their transition plan, the developing countries added 10 tons of additional CO2 to the atmosphere. Basically the harder the activists protested, the faster the emissions rose and the faster we moved towards the great reset, which is when the west goes under and the new world order begins.
I still look back at Trump in 2019 as the big turning point. Suddenly the Marxists realise the threat to their dream, with Trump’s MAGA campaign in full swing. Oil and gas production ramping up and his goal to be a big net energy exporter becoming a reality and with US dominance rapidly on the rise. The virus plan must have been put in place much earlier, as a last gasp measure in case Trumpism gained traction. It gets released and the rest is history. All the fake news stories from MSM and big tech controlling the narrative online and the voting system rigged to make sure.
The final chapter of the “end of western democracy” is unraveling, but do the far-left progressives really understand what they have unleashed ?. I’m assuming those at the top of the tree understand exactly what’s going to happen, however I would think at least 90% of the disciples are completely in the dark and are expecting their green nirvana and a perfect life with endless welfare, where work is optional.
What we all need to understand is that we are witnessing the greatest plot in human history. It’s a plan that goes beyond all our levels of comprehension. The CRT and “white supremacy” narratives, along with the damning of western culture and colonialism are critical clues, because white/western culture is the home of the liberal democracy and once the new world order begins, the main threat to the new order will be white people fighting back to re-establish their old order. I’m expecting the new leaders to ramp up the propaganda against white people and create a “white genocide”, just to make sure the old order is stamped out and can never return.
The new world order will most likely be an extension of what we see in China. A social credit system using AI will monitor all our moves and any defined “sin” against the regime will result in harm that extends to your family and friends, because no one wants to harm those they care about the most. Everyone will live in fear except those at the top. As for the mobs of progressive CC activists, these people will be banned from protesting or suffer the consequences. CC will probably be removed from all teachings, but if it does remain it will be used as an excuse to force compliance or justify why there is no food, medicine or shelter, etc.
… and you own nothing, you’ll work like a slave in a job chosen by the regime (or else), and apparently you’ll be happy 🙁
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Several faulty/flakey French fuel rods drew our attention to a
Chinese reactor, months ago.
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Was that the one where they knew there was a ‘problem’ inside the reactor but wouldn’t shut it down.
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oooops: that was intended to flesh out #16.1.
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Our own governments are at war with us, their own people: https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/p/the-real-war
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Rafe,
My employer in the 1970-90 era was Peko, who paid John Grover. Because of my geochemistry work, I drifted in to be maybe the main link between Peko and John. I sometimes helped his research, such as by going to public and school libraries to survey the balance of pro and anti uranium material.
So, if there is any aspect of John Grover that you seek to clarify, maybe I can help.
Both John and many in Peko were unable to solve what motivated the very senior anti-nuc people, like those who spoon fed Pres Carter. There was a dark web that was very hard to penetrate. It exists today. Tax free charities like Rockefeller are almost certainly involved, but the actual people and causes who use their money are harder to suss out especially for people doing such research part time like I was. Geoff S
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[…] Guest Post by Rafe Champion: Soviet Sabotage of our Energy Supply […]
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