The Tar Sands was one of Cheney's favorite past times.

Graham Thomson, Edmonton Journal| Feb 22, 2013 | Last Updated: Feb 23, 2013 - 3:13 UTC

...On Wednesday, (click here) John Kerry used his first speech as the new U.S. secretary of state to say much the same thing: “We need to commit ourselves to doing the smart thing and the right thing and to truly take on this challenge, because if we don’t rise to meet it, then rising temperatures and rising sea levels will surely lead to rising costs down the road.”...


Aug 17, 2005 02:00 AM

by Barrie McKenna

Mr. Cheney (click here) would be the highest-ranking member of the Bush administration to make a pilgrimage to the oil sands -- home to the largest reserves of crude outside Saudi Arabia. US Treasury Secretary John Snow was there in early July at the invitation of Canadian Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, and returned apparently impressed by the scope of existing production and its potential for the future. Officials are also trying to convince US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to come have a look.
The visits mark the culmination of a long and aggressive campaign by Ottawa and Alberta to convince Americans that the oil sands are no longer a costly pipe dream. They're real and they represent one of the emerging sources of crude for a world anxiously wondering where they'll get the increasingly expensive commodity....

List of Tar Sands Companies (click here)
Athabasca Oil Sands Corp
Baytex Energy Trust
Bonavista Energy Trust
BP plc
Bronco Energy Ltd
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd
Canadian Oil Sands Trust
CanWest Petroleum Corp
Cenovus Energy Inc
Chevron Corp
China National Petroleum Corp
Connacher Oil & Gas Ltd
ConocoPhillips
Devon Energy Corp
Enbridge Inc
EnCana Corp
Enerplus Resources Fund
Exxon Mobil Corp
Harvest Energy Trust
Husky Energy Inc
Imperial Oil Ltd
Inter Pipeline Fund
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP
Koch Resources LLC
Korea National Oil Corp
Marathon Oil Corp
MEG Energy Corp
Mocal Energy Ltd
Murphy Oil Corp
Nexen Inc
Nippon Oil Corp
Occidental Petroleum Corp
Oilsands Quest Inc
OPTI Canada Inc
Paramount Resources Ltd
Pembina Pipeline Income Fund
Pengrowth Energy Trust
Penn West Energy Trust
Petrobank Energy & Resources Ltd
Petro-Canada
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Sinopec Group
StatoilHydro ASA
Suncor Energy Inc
Syncrude Canada Ltd
Total SA
TransCanada CorpUTS Energy Cor

CARTER'S SOLAR PANELS: Half of the 32 solar panels that once heated water for the Carter White House still grace the roof of the Unity College cafeteria in Maine.Image: Courtesy of Mark Tardif

One of the 32 solar-thermal panels (click here) that captured energy on the roof of the White House more than 30 years ago landed this week at a science museum in China....

By Andrew Reeves

Oct 20, 2011

Surrey - Roughly 200 protesters arrived in Surrey, B.C. (click here) this morning, many from Occupy Vancouver, to protest the arrival of former U.S. president George W. Bush to speak at the city's economic summit.

Protesters arrived in Surrey, British Columbia this morning in advance of the planned speech by former U.S. president George W. Bush. Despite calls from such groups as Amnesty International that Canada arrest the former president for war crimes, Bush's visit to the Sheraton Guildford hotel for the Surrey Economic Summit appears to have gone smoothly....

The United Nation's Security Council needs to address the gas exploitation venture backed by Cheney.

There can be some interesting approaches.

If I may?

If there is to be development of gas and oil fields in Israel and it involves occupied territories where Palestinians will be further displaced and/or their lives in danger with violence initiated by Hezbollah (rather than lying down to die) there needs to wealth sharing.

Sooner rather than later the United Nation's Security Council has to insist on sovereign borders for Palestine, EVEN IF there continues to be disputes regarding Jerusalem. This hideous problem of moving borders with Israel is going to far. I'll grant Israel the fact that a 9 mile stretch of land is impossible to defend, but, there needs to be an end to the question as to where the lands of Palestine actually exist.

Where this project by Genie Energy crosses the sovereign borders with Israel it will be a clear understanding the natural resources belong to Palestine. No violence, no aggressions, no human rights violations. There needs to be clear, concise lines that are crossed and to that end Palestine has rights to natural resources. 

King Abdullah II of Jordan has been very much involved in talks between Fatah and Hamas. If natural resources came into the picture as a reason to coalesce around sovereignty and a stable state it would promote peace.

Additionally, Palestine should be granted it's own right to negotiate contracts surrounding natural resources. I am not concerned about the petroleum resources within this issue when it comes to the Climate Crisis if it will result in peace and sovereignty for Palestine. The United States is the big greenhouse gas polluter. It's drought is causing problems globally. It's drought is causing problems within it's own borders, so that should speak to the resolve of aggressor political parties in the USA. 

But, that aside. The real problem for the Mideast is stability. The way that stability is achieved is a priority with President Obama and NATO. I can't imagine France not seeking peace in Northern Africa and the Mideast. Europe does not want a war on the other side of the Mediterranean. The European Union wants peace and stability as well. Russia should keep that in mind when it comes to Iranian, Syrian and Gazprom (click here) complaints.

I know the Arab League wants the mischief of Cheney to end. They want stability throughout the region. I know that the Arab Spring seems like the very nightmare the American Neocons need to find a cause to greater war, but, there is some healthy opposition to extremism within it's new governments. Democracy is not easy. It is not a clear path, but, it is a goal that usually  brings about stability with the people. That is important in the Mideast. People have to believe they have control over their very lives and the promise to their children.

Peace brings about economic development when a nation does not have to pour assets into a military posture. So, prosperity and quality of life has to overshadow every aspect of a goal to peace in the Mideast and throughout Africa.

We don't need more armaments in this region of the world, we need far, far less.

"Morning Papers" - It's Origins (click here)

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

Cheney is maniacal. He won't stop seeking power and war. He is the enemy within. Pure evil.

Is there any doubt why Dick Cheney is an adviser for Genie Energy. He is beginning another war, but, this time within Israel. He is inviting confrontation in a country the USA is required to defend. Israel needs to be prepared to carry out it's own national defense it is responsible for confrontation and human atrocities for this project.

Inappropriate placement of the petroleum industry, otherwise called "USA Interests" is the one definitive reason the USA has gone to war under Republican administrations. The more the USA propagates hatred toward itself and Israel is a willing participant; the longer the USA national defense will be escalated out of control in the culture of fear. Cheney will propagate another 911 if it is the last thing he does.

By Daniel J. Graeber | Sun, 24 February 2013 00:00

The Israeli government awarded (click here) a local subsidiary of U.S.-based Genie Energy the rights to explore for oil and natural gas in about 150 square miles of the southern section of the Golan Heights. The United Nations last year extended the mandate for the region's U.N. Disengagement Observer Force mission, one of the oldest peacekeeping missions, for another six months. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said keeping Blue Helmets stationed in the area was essential to peace given the potential for conflict spilling out of the Syrian civil war. Genie Energy said there may be a significant amount of oil and natural gas in the license area. When Israel set its sights on offshore natural gas, Hezbollah warned that Israel shouldn't encroach on Lebanese territory. If recent concerns about Hezbollah's influence are any indication, the Shiite resistance movement may focus its guns onshore amid expanding Israeli energy interests. With former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney serving as an adviser to Genie, however, the implications may go beyond immediate worries over Hezbollah....

The political ambitions within the USA by Cheney are simply too obvious. Isn't it understandable why the extremes in the Republican Party still exists and will persist?

POSTED:   02/25/2013 12:01:00 AM MST
UPDATED:   02/25/2013 03:03:01 AM MST

By Steamboat Pilot and Today

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his eldest daughter, Liz Cheney, (click here) will deliver the keynote address at the Steamboat Institute Freedom Conference in August.

Rick Akin, vice chairman of the Steamboat Institute board of directors, said the group has been working for years to secure an appearance from the 46th vice president of the United States.

Liz Cheney is a political analyst for Fox News and has served as a deputy assistant secretary of state.

"He's been, as we'd say, in the belly of the beast," Akin said. "He has insights you or I wouldn't have. He has insights some of our speakers who are more academic don't have. The idea is to give a real education in that area."

He said, "Liz Cheney will essentially be interviewing her dad. It's going to be a 'torch is passed to a new generation' kind of theme. I think people will find this very interesting — more interesting than just having the vice president by himself."

The speech is set for Aug. 23. The conference will continue through Aug. 24....

So, while Darth Vader invades the Golan Heights, he is seeking to deceive the electorate to find potential candidates and 'smooth movers' that can lace his agenda in the Middle East with a movement to political success in the USA. There is nothing like a Neocon masked as a Progressive.

"...Mr. Thompson (click here) said he was the first comptroller to make city investments in Israeli bonds. He also took part in a panel, at a 2007 conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee headlined by Vice President Dick Cheney, on financial sanctions against “Iran and other state sponsors of terror.”...

There are real reasons Senator Hagel is opposed as Secretary of Defense and it is at the basis of a Neocon agenda. We need to stabilize the nations of Africa and the Mideast facing anarchy and settlements of extremist networks. It needs to be done without declaring war and we need to do it under this administration. Cheney wants his wars.

...But as we reported during the Chuck Hagel confirmation hearing, Blumenthal is a hawk on Israel; he called on Hagel to correct his error of 13 years ago and endorse a letter he had declined to sign in 2000, which was signed by 96 Senators affirming their solidarity with Israel during the Second Intifada. Blumenthal lectured Hagel: 

"And I just want to say about that letter: I wasn’t here when the letter was circulated; I would have signed it. But I would certainly join in urging that you reconsider and commit to the statement of support in the letter for the support of Israel. And if it’s appropriate now and applicable to today’s events, I hope you will consider expressing your support for it."...

Currently, President Obama has 100 personnel in Niger. There needs to be a limit to the purpose of this base. It needs to assist nations of Africa toward stability and better quality of life where the governments don't have their own capacity. At no point in time should there be a military installation, so much as an advisement capacity to the State Department. It needs to be explicit there will be no escalation of purpose to this base, so much as an assistance to the stability of nations. 

I remind France is in Mali. Obama needs to develop a better military model for Africa. There is not that much firepower in Africa. Why should the USA bring heavy artillary and machines of war to a continent where that does not currently exist? The countries in Africa do not have the capacity to cause a significant war, so why offer it the opportunity? I can see the military sales, dictatorships and invasions now. African nations need to pay attention to other nations invaded by The West to know where their fate lies if they accept credit for sales of munitons and escalation of what is necessary to stabilize their nations.

Julie Pace and Robert Burns - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Feb 23, 2013 14:41:25 EST

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama (click here) said Friday that about 100 American troops have been deployed to the African nation of Niger. Two U.S. defense officials said the troops would be setting up a base for unarmed drones to conduct surveillance.

Obama announced the deployment in a letter to Congress, saying that the forces "will provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region."....

A Neocon by any other name. The GOP, according to FOX, needs a new savior. He was completely out of line at the National Prayer Breakfast. He was parlayed to incorporation at FOX immediately afterward as if that wasn't suppose to. Amazing what Neocons will do to find a path to war. Here we go again with, "God is on our side."

By Michael Allen, Sun, February 24, 2013

Dr. Ben Carson, (click here) a pediatric neurosurgeon who used his speaking time at the recent non-partisan National Prayer Breakfast to advocate a ten percent flat tax, told Fox News host Chris Wallace that he was just trying to “please” God.

During the National Prayer Breakfast, Dr. Carson had suggested that Biblical “tithing” of ten percent would be a better system than having the wealthy pay a higher tax rate than the poor....

Aren't we all disgusted by these photos already? Decades of violence in the Mideast? How can a generation of children grow up to know what peace is unless this ends. Israel needs to be a leader to peace.


A Syrian man reacts while standing on the rubble of his house while others look for survivors and bodies in the Tariq al-Bab district of the northern city of Aleppo on February 23, 2013. The Syrian regime is ready to talk with all parties, including armed rebels, who want dialogue to end the conflict, Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said during talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

25 February 2013
Syria regime ready for talks with rebels: Muallem (click here)

AFP - The Syrian regime is ready to talk with all parties, including armed rebels, who want dialogue to end the conflict, Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said on Monday at talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

"We are ready for dialogue with all who want dialogue, including those who are carrying arms," Muallem said at the Moscow talks with Lavrov, in an apparent reference to the rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

"We still believe in a peaceful solution to the Syrian problem," said Muallem, pointing to the creation of a government coalition that would negotiate with both the "external and internal opposition."

Lavrov said alongside Muallem that there was no alternative to a political solution to the two-year conflict agreed through talks....

"Good Night, Moon"

Full Moon

99% illuminated

Skywatching the full moon, Saturn, Spica (click here for Podcast)

Michael and Deborah talk about what to see this week in the night sky. Saturn returns to view!

For decades in the USA there exists a very healthy movement to stop the nuclear mess that has been conducted. 

Whistleblowers.

Contaminated environment.

Leaks.

Earthquakes.

Tsunamis.

Flooding.

And yet. There is no reasonable end in sight to a disaster chronically in the making.

The international proliferation of nuclear capacity since the Axis of Evil speech has escalated.

In the USA, the industry is obviously out of control. Ninty percent of the funding for the NRC comes from the facilities it is suppose to regulate. Is that sincerely a good idea? It seems to me to be as bad as the petroleum industry and the old Minerals and Mining bunch.

Is everyone too afraid to ask? To afraid to know the truth? Or is Eisenhower's propaganda still permeating the nuclear culture?

There is a lot wrong here. A lot. Not just a little bit, but, a lot. Even if it were only a little bit wrong, when it comes to nuclear material does it matter? Isn't a little bit wrong equivalent to a lot wrong anyway?

What is completely astounding to me as we are coming up to March 1, 2013 and all those debt cuts are suppose to start; is that no one planned for the impacts. When the Super-committee met there was little to know forethought about what actually is going to result in the USA. 

If we are going to reduce the national debt and it is going to impact sensitive programs regarding nuclear material, won't it be better to have the ability to SAFELY remove funding?

Anticipated.

Reductions already instituted before the funding cuts?

Is it too much to ask to have the Republicans GOVERN? Is it?

02/09/13 01:01 AM ET EST

PLYMOUTH, Mass. -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (click here) says a power plant in Massachusetts has lost power and shut down during a massive snowstorm.

The NRC says the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth experienced an automatic shutdown at around 9:15 p.m. Friday after losing off-site power. Spokesman Neil Sheehan says the plant has declared an unusual event, which is the lowest level of emergency classification.

Sheehan says that the reactor shut down without any problems and that backup generators are powering plant equipment.

The NRC says there's no threat to public safety.

The shutdown came as a major snowstorm began clobbering the New York-to-Boston corridor, knocking out power to more than 300,000 customers in Massachusetts....

India, Pakistan, Iran are all countries within reach of criminal extremists.

Yet, while these countries, along with North Korea state they are using nuclear fuel for electrical power, where are their repositories? The region these plants are in can't be more sensitive for global security, yet there is more fuss over the production of nuclear fuel than over the storage of the waste or the limiting of any transportation out of these countries. I mean they do export their waste to a permanent nuclear nation, right?

February 23, 2013

Iran says it has found major new uranium deposits and is planning to expand its nuclear power programme. (click here)

It said 16 sites had been identified as suitable for the construction of new power plants over the next 15 years.

Iran said the find - which has not been independently confirmed - would treble the size of known uranium deposits.

Under UN sanctions, Iran is banned from importing nuclear material. It is due to hold talks with Western powers on Tuesday about its nuclear programme.

The US and its allies are widely believed to be planning to offer Iran some relief from sanctions at the talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

France confirmed a "substantial" new offer would be made, French news agency AFP quoted the foreign ministry as saying.

Three rounds of meetings in Moscow ended last June in stalemate.

Iran denies charges that it is secretly developing atomic weapons and insists that as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it is entitled to develop a nuclear power programme....

India has no nuclear weapons. I don't know why it would be so difficult for Pakistan to get rid of it's nukes.

By: Dr Zafar Nawaz Jaspal | February 23, 2013

...Since the very beginning, (click here) Pakistan’s nuclear programme has been facing negligible internal and significant external opposition. In reality, the internal nuclear abolitionists have miserably failed to cultivate their viewpoint in the Pakistani society.

The people of Pakistan have simply rejected their judgment about the demerits or repercussions of nuclear weapons in the strategic environment of South Asia. They have vehemently supported the nuclear programme and defied the malicious propaganda unleashed to hinder Islamabad’s pursuit to acquire indigenous nuclear weapons capability.

Concurrently, the Government of Pakistan had constituted and implemented both short and long term policies to develop the country’s nuclear deterrence capability, particularly after India’s nuclear explosion in Rajasthan on May 18, 1974....

Moreover, it has been intelligently addressing the security challenges to its nuclear infrastructure. Therefore, there has been no recorded incident of sabotage or theft of the Pakistani nuclear material to date....

Idaho, Utah and Colorado have about 100 or less metric tons of nuclear waste in their repositories.

There may have been a reason why Former Governor Huntsman was not at the top of the favorite list during the Republican debates. Do inspections by the NRC actually take place on Native American lands? I am not really clear on that?

High-Level Atomic Waste Dump Targeted at Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah (click here)

Nevadans and Utahans living downwind and downstream from nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining, and radioactive waste dumping have suffered immensely during the Nuclear Age. But even in the "nuclear sacrifice zones" of the desert Southwest, it is Native Americans--from Navajo uranium miners to tribal communities targeted with atomic waste dumps-- who have borne the brunt of both the front and back ends of the nuclear fuel cycle.

The tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation in Utah is targeted for a very big nuclear waste dump. Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a limited liability corporation representing eight powerful nuclear utilities, wants to "temporarily" store 40,000 tons of commercial high-level radioactive waste (nearly the total amount that presently exists in the U.S.) next to the two-dozen tribal members who live on the small reservation....

This is very strange, because the information I was reading dated August 9, 2011 stated Utah had less than 1 metric ton of nuclear waste in it's repository. Odd, isn't it?

Utah to file appeal of nuclear repository ruling (click here)

Critics hail statement of opposition by LDS Church

By Joe Bauman, Deseret News

Published: Tuesday, Sept. 13 2005 12:00 a.m. MDT

...That was the word Monday from Mike Lee, general counsel to Gov. Jon M. Huntsman. Last week, the NRC granted a license allowing construction of the facility by Private Fuel Storage. PFS intends to build it on land owned by the Goshute Indians in Skull Valley and store casks of radioactive nuclear power plant fuel rods....

NIRS is overjoyed to announce (click here) that it has helped defeat the 

environmentally racist Private Fuel Storage (PFS) high-level radioactive waste 

dump targeted at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah.

On Sept. 7, 2006 the U.S. Bureau of Land Management rejected transportation 

plans for shipping 44,000 tons of highly radioactive waste from commercial 

nuclear reactors across the country to PFS. The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs 

likewise rejected the lease agreement between the nuclear utility consortium 

comprising PFS and the pro-dump, disputed Skull Valley Goshute tribal 

chairman Leon Bear.

Although PFS may appeal these rulings, this dump has very likely been 

defeated, once and for all, after a bitter decade-long struggle....

The weapons plant was in Rocky Flats, Colorado. It is closed now, but, that 

hasn't ended the problems though.

By KEITH SCHNEIDER, Special to The New York Times
Published: September 01, 1989

Fulfilling a vow he made in February, Gov. Cecil D. Andrus (click here) has closed Idaho's borders to shipments of radioactive waste from the Government's only plutonium processing plant, a move that could force the plant to halt production early next year.

It is the second time in 10 months that Governor Andrus has banned disposal of radioactive waste produced by the Rocky Flats Plant, 18 miles northwest of Denver, at a temporary dump near Idaho Falls. When the Federal Government agreed in February to clean up the Idaho disposal site, Governor Andrus partially lifted his first ban, which applied to radioactive waste from all nuclear weapons plants, and said the state would accept a limited amount of waste from the Colorado plant until Sept. 1.

Secretary of Energy James D. Watkins has said he will not challenge Governor Andrus's authority to close the border....

This is the picture of Rocky Flats. All these sites have this barren appearance, don't they? Like nothing can live there. Indeed.

February 24, 2012

by Julie M. Rodriquez

16 miles northwest of Denver, CO sits the Rocky Flats site, (click here) formerly home to a plant that produced nuclear weapons from 1952-1989. These operations were shut down for repeated safety violations, which whistleblowers started bringing to the attention of the EPA and FBI in 1987. The extent of the contamination of the site was never revealed publically.

In 1992, Rocky Flats was closed for good following the fall of the Soviet Union. It was added to the EPA’s National Priorities List, and cleanup efforts began. In 2000, Congress proposed that the site be transformed into a wildlife refuge. The cleanup was declared complete in 2005, although the levels of present contamination were not shown to the public.

The site has come under scrutiny again, as efforts are being made to build a new highway along the eastern edge of the refuge. The EPA and Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment insist that the site is safe, and that construction won’t pose a health risk to workers or surrounding communities. Those living in the area aren’t so sure, especially because no new testing was planned in advance of the construction....

Washington, Oregon, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine each have about 1000 metric tons in their nuclear waste repositories.

Aug 30, 2007, 5:06pm EDT

Progress fined for nuke plant violation (click here)

Raleigh's Progress Energy is being fined $65,000 by federal regulators after an investigation turned up evidence that supervisors at Wake County's Shearon Harris nuclear power plant gave three contract security officers answers to a requalification test....

...Eight of the whistleblowers' 19 claims have been substantiated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, though only one of those substantiations, the one dealing with the security officers, led to any regulatory action. The NRC declined to take action against Progress on the other claims after the company promised to clean up its act internally....

I'll be darn. It could be more than a 1000 metric tons. 

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Isn't there any national registry of the nuclear fuel produced, when it is considered spent fuel, when it is off loaded from the reactor, what pool it is in  and when it leave the pool? 

No?

Really?

I think the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has too much interest in the facilities that provide 90% of their funding and not nearly enough about the people actually paying for their electricity. I seems that way to me.

N.C. brims with nuclear waste (click here)
Published: May 25, 2011
By JOHN MURAWSKI — Staff Writer

North Carolina, which relies on nuclear power for nearly half of its electricity, is home to some of the nation's highest concentrations of radioactive waste.

The state ranks fourth in the nation for accumulated nuclear waste, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning advocacy group in Washington....

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/05/25/1223108/nc-brims-with-nuclear-waste.html#storylink=cpy

California, Michigan, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Texas and Arizona all have approximately 5000 metric tons of nuclear waste in their repositories.

I can understand why California has only one remaining nuclear plant. Completely. But, it complicates the Climate Crisis issue and alternatives need far more investment than they are receiving.

As of mid-2012, (click here) California had one operating nuclear power plant: Diablo Canyon (2,160 megawatts), near San Luis Obispo [pictured in a PG&E photo to the right]. The San Onofre plant, about midway between Los Angeles and San Diego, went offline in January 2012 and was ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to stay offline while tubing wear issues were investigated. Nuclear units at both plants use ocean water for cooling.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) owns the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which consists of two units. Unit 1 is a 1,073 megawatt (MW) PWR which began commercial operation in May 1985, while Unit 2 is a 1,087 MW PWR which began commercial operation in March 1986. Diablo Canyon's operation license expires in 2024 and PG&E must apply to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 20 year license extension....

Renewable Energy Programs (click here)

California, with its abundant natural resources, has a long history of support for renewable energy.

In 2009, 11.6 percent of all electricity came from renewable resources such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and small hydroelectric facilities. Large hydro plants generated another 9.2 percent of our electricity.

On April 12, 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation to require one-third of the state's electricity to come from renewable energy by December 31, 2020....

Pennsylvania also has over 10,000 metric tons of nuclear waste in their repositories.

A sign warns of radioactive material at the Parks Township Shallow Land Disposal Area where excavation of nuclear material was halted by the Corps of Engineers.

How many more surprises do the citizens of the USA have coming? Even the Army Corps didn't know about the dumping? And there is going to be cuts to whom's funding exactly? 

I thought the nuclear industry was one of the most regulated industries in the nation. It would appear not. It seems to me the military budget is the least thing the Speaker and his House Republicans need to worry about. But, we know how it is; they just aren't on the same page as the Executive Branch and the Senate these days.

Filibuster this, McConnell. Go ahead. Make this nation into a disaster of monumental proportions. The domestic economy and the safety of it's citizens has to come first. I really don't believe there is any room for debate.

August 13, 2012 11:48 am

By Erich Schwartzel / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (click here) will remain in charge of cleaning up a radioactive nuclear waste site in Parks, Armstrong County, that is home to materials that forced the agency to halt operations and bring in Homeland Security guards earlier this summer.

The decision to keep the Pittsburgh district of the Corps in charge comes after federal officials stopped operations at the site, which spans 44 acres near Apollo and houses nuclear waste left behind from operations conducted by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) and Atlantic Richfield Co.

The Babcock and Wilcox Co. most recently owned the land before closing the plant in 1983.

Officials stopped the clean-up project in May after crews discovered greater quantities of what they called "complex" materials like uranium and plutonium at the site.

Armed guards began patrolling the fenced-in land, and officials began reviewing whether the Army Corps was the best agency to continue the job....

PUBLISHED: JUNE 18, 2012 12:01 AM EST
UPDATED: JUNE 17, 2012 11:32 PM EST

Security upped at former Pa. nuclear waste dump (click here)

VANDERGRIFT -- Guards from the federal Department of Homeland Security are patrolling a former western Pennsylvania nuclear waste dump as officials rethink their cleanup plans after finding what they called more "complex" nuclear material than expected.

Neither the Army Corps of Engineers, which is managing the cleanup, nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would say exactly what material was found at the Armstrong County site, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.

Scott McConnell, spokesman for the National Protection and Programs Directorate, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, said the elevated security measures were put in place at the Corps' request and were not related to any specific threat in the area. He said the measures result from "an abundance of caution."...