While the U.S. nuclear industry tries blowing sunshine up the skirts of its wary watchers, international members of that beleaguered brotherhood are finding it more and more difficult to make the nuclear argument believable.

Japan has been working overtime, against many experts better judgement, to restart its own nuclear program even while the Fukushima nightmare remains unresolved.  The problem is that the Japanese public are not going to be so easily led into believing it is in their best economic interests when there is so much real time evidence to the contrary.

Enter the oldest trick in the nuclear economics book:  allow operators to deflect some of the insurance obligation they normally would be required to absorb.  

The details have not been shared, but apparently the Japanese Diet will be considering a proposal to join an international pool of nuclear operators to spread the risk of loss from any future nuclear disaster:

Under the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, contributions from member states will cover part of the damage payments in the event of a nuclear disaster. (U.S.Energy Secretary Ernest) Moniz welcomed Tokyo’s plan, saying Japanese ratification would help the pact come into force, Japanese officials said.

The Price-Anderson Act, passed in 1957 and updated several times since, provides just such a scheme for  U.S. nukes.  It allows operators of nuclear plants to compete unfairly in the market to replace fossil fuel, and keeps true renewables (which must cover their own liabilites unassisted) at an economic disadvantage.

Enacted by Congress many years ago, Price-Anderson limits the industry’s liability from any single accident and spreads the cost throughout the entire U.S. industry, who “share” a common insurance coverage by agreement with the entire insurance industry.

It’s business benefitting business in the great capitalistic embrace.  The only problem is that the American taxpayers get to take up the slack should a Fukushima-scale event ever happen on our soil.

Meanwhile, the success of the nuclear industry under this gerrymandered insurance system has meant that development of true renewables has been held back;  probably to the ultimate economic harm of U.S. interests.

It’s what we do.

When Price-Anderson was implemented, the U.S. nuclear reactor “fleet” was still young and sound.  As the International community considers a similar arrangement, they are in a very different situation.  

Saddled with aging and increasingly unprofitable reactors, the spectre of Fukushima and a growing realization that thousands of tons of nuclear waste has no where to go, it is an industry whose cup is half empty.

Of all nations, France is the largest generator of nuclear energy, which provides a whopping 85% of its electrical power.  The country’s nuclear power authority, EDF, estimates that the cost of necessary repairs and safety improvements in the wake of Fukushima will total $71 billion or more by 2025.

If any of those necessary repairs and safety improvements are delayed or neglected due to declining profitability, in a shared insurance model, everyone’s risk could increase intolerably.

Why would anyone want to buy into that?

While Bernie is doing the right thing in DC, the ever pathetic Skip Vallee is trying to grab a little attention by harassing him about his wife’s severance pay from Burlington College.

I think referring to Skip Vallee as Bernie’s “nemesis” is pretty wide of the mark.  He’s more of a persistent oily carbuncle.

Mr. Vallee apparently doesn’t think women count as individuals.  He repeatedly calls on Bernie to return his wife’s severance pay (which would pale by comparison to that of any of Vallee’s own high rolling friends).

It isn’t Bernie’s money to begin with.  If Mr. Vallee had been paying any attention, he would have observed that the two Sanders’ maintain very separate careers (and more than likely) finances.

All Mr. Vallee has succeeded in doing here is demonstrating what a petty and chauvinistic fossil he is.

If Mr. Vallee wants to help Burlington College, why doesn’t he do so himself?  

I read with great satisfaction that Vermont’s Independent Senator Bernie Sanders would vote against arming the so-called “moderate”  Syrian rebels.

Says Sanders,

“This is not just a question of whether young men and women in Vermont and across America should be putting their lives on the line in another Mideast war.  It is not just about whether the taxpayers of our country should once again pay for a war in the Middle East. It is about the reality that, long term, this struggle will never be won by the United States alone.  It must be won with the active participation of the Muslim countries in the region,” Sanders said.

Exactly right.  We can’t keep reprising John Wayne movies in our international relations.  It isn’t working; and it isn’t working worse and worse all the time.

At the root of ISIS’s power to gain recruits is sectarian conflict within the Muslim states. Repeated U.S. efforts at intervention have made us no better than pawns in a deadly game we do not really understand and are fundamentally barred from winning.

The same old arguments are being trotted out concerning the threat to homeland security as seduced us into shadow boxing in Iraq for a decade while a new generation of hate and menace was incubating in the heat from our own fires.

Every time we are drawn back into the web of violence and war on which jihadi extremists feed, the 9/11 bombers succeed once again in undermining the cultural and institutional values that have made us who we were as a nation prior to the attack.  

We are repeating the same strategic errors that countless formerly great nations have made before us.

Churchill said something about how we should fear fear itself.  It is fear (with a little help from defense lobbyists) that has lured us over and over again into a campaign of folly.

Bernie says he agrees with the President’s plan for airstrikes.

Personally, I would like to see the U.S. withhold even airstrikes until a sufficient body of interested regional nations agree to prosecute a ground war against ISIS by themselves under U.S. air support.  The immediate threat is at their doors. This should not be our war.

                                                                                                         

…and there’s ANOTHER meetin’ tonight.

By odd coincidence, both Vermont and neighboring New Hampshire have public meetings scheduled, not for “tonight”  but for Sept. 25, to discuss Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning.

In Vermont, the Citizens Advisory Panel on decommissioning VY is scheduled to meet next Thursday from 6-9 pm, at Brattleboro Union High School.

At exactly the same time, “various New Hampshire agencies” have booked a panel discussion and “informational meeting” at  Hinsdale Middle/High School for its own affected residents.

The panel discussion slated for 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 25 will include officials from the departments of Resources and Economic Development, Environmental Services, and Homeland Security and Emergency Management; the Division of Public Health Services; members of the Southwest Regional Planning Commission and Gov. Maggie Hassan’s Working Group on the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning.

One would think that concerned folks on either side of the state line might wish to attend both meetings.  

I could not help wondering which meeting was consigned to the calendar first.  It would be a shrewd way to ensure that the well-organized effort that opposed Vermont Yankee’s continued operation would not have a full-strength presence in public discussions of decommissioning issues.

Or am I just being cynical?

Another VY head scratcher is who is behind the telephone poll asking Brattleboro residents some leading questions about how supportive they would be of nuclear energy emerging again in Vermont’s future?  

 According to the Recorder,

The 17-question poll, which was conducted on telephone lines based in Fairfax, Va., asked “Generally speaking, how supportive are you of nuclear energy as a reliable source of carbon-free electricity?”

From the poll:

“Because of the hearty winter last year, there is a much greater reliance on burning oil to generate power, which resulted in higher carbon emissions to produce Vermont’s energy,” one question stated. “In the future, as an alternative to oil-fired power plants, would you be more or less supportive of safe nuclear power generation along with wind, solar and other zero-carbon energy sources?”

…And, if a

“new, regionally-based energy generating company with more local management and governance operating Vermont’s power plants like Vermont Yankee?”

Vermont Yankee spokesman Martin Cohn denied any involvement with the poll, as did Green Mountain Power spokesperson, Dorothy Schnure.

Commissioner of the Dept. of Public Service, Chris Recchia first heard about it from a polled resident, but insists the idea of a VY resurrection is next to impossible.

So far, no one appears ready to ‘fess up…but has anyone given Yes Vermont Yankee a buzz?

_______________________________________________________________________

I am very proud to be associated with Fairewinds Energy Education in a non-technical capacity.  As always, the opinions I share on Green Mountain Daily are my own alone and not those of Fairewinds.

If you were lucky enough to witness the fabulous show of aurora borealis night-before-last, I envy you.  It was a no-show for me in St. Albans (too much ambient light.)

Whether or not you caught the “glow,” this seems like a good opportunity to point out that solar events such as the one that produced that spectacular display represent the potential which some future event holds for catastrophic consequences here on earth.

Fairewinds Energy Education (with whom I am proud to be associated) coincidentally just released this compelling new video in which Arne Gundersen interviews Mat Stein, best-selling author of  “When Disaster Strikes” and “When Technology Fails,”  who explains how our complex and overloaded electrical infrastructure leaves us vulnerable to an electro-magnetic impulse big enough to knock-out key components, thereby unleashing a string of systemic failures that might even lead to  the end of life as we now know it.

Such a rare cataclysmic event scenario is known as a “Black Swan.”

It was no more than a heavenly show this time, but massive solar events have impacted the earth’s magnetic field many times in the past; even as recently as in 1921. That was, of course, before our infrastructure had reached the tipping point on which we are now poised.  

This is pretty sobering stuff.  Have a listen!

In 1859, a gigantic coronal mass ejection (solar storm) struck the Earth’s magnetosphere, creating an astonishing light display all over the world, but the only infrastructure disturbance it could cause was to telegraphic communications.  

When a significantly lesser solar storm impacted the Earth in 1921, the potential for disturbance was still relatively minimal. Were we to be, in 2014, struck by a solar event of similar magnitude, the consequences would be catastrophic.

As I listened to Mat Stein describe the cascading disaster that would unfold in the unprepared modern world, should such a “Black Swan” solar event come to pass, the biblical story of the Tower of Babel flashed through my mind.

Strip away religion, and hubris is at the heart of that cautionary tale.

So it is at the core of the governmental/industrial complex which, to serve the gods of unlimited growth, has hurtled the nation and much of the world ahead, full-throttle, with never a look in the rear view mirror to see what consequence may be gaining on us.

In far less than a century, using the building blocks of rapidly advancing technology, we have built our own teetering tower to the riches of heaven.  In doing so we have forgotten the lessons of the cosmos: that  we are small and inconsequential; that millenia are no more than micro-seconds, and nothing is more certain than that all we build will end as dust.

We’ve heard it all before: how the U.S. must “lead” rather than follow; how ISIS poses an existential threat to Iraqi stability and a potential threat to the “homeland”; and how these people are exceptional monsters, worse than any before.

This time, a thinking man is at the helm, and Obama resists the siren song a little longer than his predecessor.  Already his presidency has become far more invested in warfare than he ever imagined as a mere senator.

He knows it will not end well, but he is just a figurehead in the vast corporate political machine that drives public policy; and the Middle East is critical to the interests of that machine.

There are evil men exploiting populations all over the world, but only in the Middle East does our national outrage repeatedly draw us into war.

John McCain sees red, Joe Biden goes all bellicose, and Wolf Blitzer licks his chops.  It’s all so familiar by now.  

The American public is war weary and skeptical this time, but the Pentagon and its suppliers need a raison d’etre.  A complicated international chain of corporate and political interests move the U.S. irresistibly forward into war and there is nothing we the people can do to stop it.

This is the very fuel that fires extremism.  Al Qaeda was supposed to be the devil incarnate; but now that distinction may be claimed by ISIS and Al Quaida is apparently nothing more than a toothless old bear. Squash ISIS and a new iteration will erupt, angrier and more dangerous than the last.

Was anybody really listening when, a few weeks ago, ISIS issued a statement that they want the U.S. to engage in war with them?  To strengthen their appeal and bring up their membership, nothing could be better for business!

I listened to CNN this morning, and a guy from the Brookings Institute was going on about how Obama has to stop stalling and iterate a “plan” now.

Then I turned to the New York Times and there was an article about how supposedly neutral Washington think tanks, including the Brookings Institute, are in the pockets of foreign donors, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.  Think tanks don’t have to reveal their funding streams and go about their business of influencing policy without being identified as lobbyists.

This is what is driving the march to war.

Oil states just love it when the U.S. does their dirty work for them!

And what is the inevitable outcome for the poor oppressed populations who are used to engage U. S. voters in support of these military adventures?

Look at Afghanistan and Iraq.  Not only have those populations been cruelly decimated as collateral casualties of war, but tribalism and oppression arise once again almost immediately after the dust clears; and all we’ve gained is a new generation of recruits for the latest jihadist movement.  They have also gained an arsenal of modern weaponry, thanks to the excesses of the Pentagon.  

If we stayed in those countries, wrangling jihadis, supplying weapons and propping-up acceptable governments, for another one-hundred years we wouldn’t improve the situation.  We’d only deepen the resistance and raise the death toll; because we are occupiers from distant foreign shores.  

As much as some of them may hate the others, they will hate us even more.

One of the things I love about our independent Senator Sanders, is that he marches unafraid into territory that most politicians avoid like the plague.

This week, that march has led him right up to the cooling heels of America’s wealthiest inheritors.

Sanders is boldly proposing a new estate tax, to be levied only on the top .25% wealthiest Americans.  Not 25% (as you will no doubt hear misquoted in right-wing media) but point-two-five-percent.

The new tax would effect only a tiny number of uber-wealthy individuals, but has the potential to provide enormous resources with which to address the economic and social blight produced by growing income inequity in the U.S.

Sanders said the fairest way to reduce wealth inequality, lower the $17 trillion national debt and pay for investments in infrastructure, education and other neglected national priorities would be to enact a progressive estate tax on the wealthiest Americans, the top 0.25 percent.

Under his proposal, 99.75 percent of Americans would not pay a penny more in estate taxes.

The idea has won praise from some top economists, including former U.S. Dept. of Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, who observes that:

America “is creating an aristocracy of wealth populated by heirs who don’t have to work for a living yet have great influence over how the nation’s productive assets are deployed,”.

and calls the proposed estate tax bill:

“a welcome step toward reversing this trend.”

In calling for the new “wealth tax”, Sen. Sanders pointed to the fact that U.S. income inequity is now greater than it was in 1928, on the brink of the market crash and Great Depression.  

The richest 400 Americans have amassed more than $2 trillion in wealth, a sum greater than all of the assets of the bottom 150 million Americans combined.  One family, the Waltons of Wal-Mart fame, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans.

It remains to be seen whether or not today’s baronial class of Americans will recognize that their own best interests will be served if they accept greater responsibility to support the nation that has  allowed their wealth to grow exponentially.

Their forebears cooperated pragmatically a century ago when building a social safety net was undertaken.  If not necessarily cognizant of the economic “big picture,” they nevertheless recognized the peril to civil society that extreme income inequality represented.

Post Citizens United, will the well-oiled machine of outrage and denial be allowed to completely drown out the voice of reason?   If so, it will be at the peril of American democracy itself.

‘Just a little opportunity for a surreal chuckle in the fact that Progressive Doug Hoffer won not only the Progressive and Democratic primaries, but also the Republican primary!

It is worthy of special note, even in Vermont, when a Progressive candidate can be said to have “won” all three primaries.

Yes, I know he holds the seat as a Democrat/Progressive, but his roots are well known, and it really is more fun this way.

What must the red states think of Vermont’s failure to muster?

With the announcement that Dean Corren is the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor, as well as the Progressive candidate, lonely Republican Phil Scott is on notice that he won’t be able to coast to reelection.

This will be strange for Scott, whose biggest challenges in recent years have come from within his own party, which refused to retool its pervasively losing strategies.

Scott will finally have to draw some distinguishing lines in the sand rather than simply rely, GW-style, on being the guy with whom voters would most like to have a beer.

That is going to be awkward for the happy fence sitter.

Some of those lines of distinction have already been drawn by the manner in which the two candidates are funding their campaigns:

The Progressive and Democratic unity candidate challenging the incumbent is publicly financed thanks to raising over 800 small donations from only Vermont voters. He is limited to spending $200,000. Meanwhile, the Republican incumbent is following a path of collecting big donations from PACs, corporations and wealthy supporters. Over 82% of the $162,041 he’s raised comes from these sources.

The Shumlin/Milne matchup looks to be a weary rerun of  Shumlin/Brock.

By contrast, the Governor Lite debates should prove fascinating.

Most interesting will be engagements over environmental issues.  An area of strength for Corren, questions on the environment will force Scott to commit to public positions favored by the Republican minority or risk losing his base.

This is not something he has been eager to do in the past, but is of proven significance to Vermont voters, and therefore cannot be avoided.

Scott would probably much rather talk about the economy and all the Chamber events he has graced as Lt. Governor.

Heads up, Mr. Scott; this year’s election ain’t no Chamber mixer.

Even in this upside down-economy, where 95% of all gains went to those Americans ranked in the top 1% of wealth, and the value of America labor is so low that most families must maintain multiple income streams just to keep a roof over their heads, we still persist in celebrating the first Monday in September as “Labor Day.”

At this point, the somewhat arcane holiday has been appropriated by off-shoring retailers like Lowes, Best Buy and  Home Depot in order to flog merchandise with catch phrases like this one from Walmart:

Celebrate hard work with big savings.  Shop now.

Why not?  Labor unions are practically a thing of the past; Americans are being told that they must learn to work for third-world wages in order to compete for employment; and the social safety net that took a century to build is being systematically picked to shreds by a newly callous Republican party in order to satisfy the meanest perimeter of their fringy base.

We were sold a bill of goods in the ’80’s by so-called “free market capitalists,” and now the factories that built America’s middle class are empty and American labor is pretty much defined by low-wage, low-skill services.

Most of us don’t even have enough money to buy the cheap junk from overseas for which we bartered away our children’s future.

Not much to celebrate here.

We have Memorial Day to remember America’s fallen soldiers and sailors.  

Shouldn’t we just declare the first Monday in September “Labor Memorial Day,”  and remember that the U.S. labor force fights a daily battle of diminishing returns in order to simply survive?