Our take on Ohio (so far)

More shoes will drop and more arrests will likely come in Ohio as we watch the biggest criminal racketeering conspiracy in Ohio history continue to unfold. But to date, we are seeing the desperation of the bankrupt nuclear industry in full flow -- ready to spend "limitless" amounts of money, as Ohio's FirstEnergySolutions was, to elect friendly politicians, pass a bill to subsidize its failing Davis-Besse and Perry reactors, then fund a campaign to defend the bill against repeal by ballot initiative. Read our story on Beyond Nuclear International.

Ohio Nuclear Power Scandal

Karl GrossmanInvestigative journalist Karl Grossman (photo, left), a Beyond Nuclear board member, has published an article in Counterpunch that begins:

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI this week charged the speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives and four others in a $61 million scheme to use $1 billion in ratepayers' money to keep two decrepit nuclear power plants operating.

And, said the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, David DeVillers, at a press conference after the arrests Tuesday: “This is by no means over. We are going to continue with this investigation.”

To learn more about the scandal, including widespread media coverage across Ohio and nationally, as well as press statements from environmental and anti-nuclear groups, click this link.

Noose tightens again around criminal activities and nuclear power

Just two days after arrests were made in Ohio related to criminal racketeering that ensured the owners of two failing nuclear plants got massive state subsidies, an arrest has been made in South Carolina over another nuclear-related conspiracy.

As The State reports: Stephen Byrne, a top executive of the now-defunct SCANA electric utility, pleaded guilty Thursday to criminal conspiracy fraud charges in federal court in Columbia.

Byrne’s guilty plea showed that SCANA’s downfall — triggered by a failed $9 billion effort to build two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County — was the result of not just mismanagement or incompetence, but criminal conduct at the company’s highest levels. 

SCANA, a Fortune 500 publicly traded company whose business lineage traced back to 1846, was one of the crown jewels of South Carolina’s economy. But the failure of its effort to build two nuclear reactors at its plant in Jenkinsville led to multiple lawsuits and mounting financial troubles. Eventually the company was absorbed by Dominion Energy. SCANA’s downfall is perhaps the most costly business failure in state history."

Tom Clements, a longtime anti-nuclear campaigner involved closely in this fight to see restitution made to South Carolina's defrauded ratepayers, was present at the announcement of the arrest, which he welcomed. But he warned that Dominion Energy, which took over SCANA, "will file a rate-hike request next month and the cost to ratepayers for the nuclear construction debacle will go up." Read more.

ZIGGY KLEINAU, PRESENTE! Dec. 1, 1929 to July 4, 2020

Siegfried (Ziggy) Kleinau, wearing his CFRE tee shirt, on his WWOOF.Beyond Nuclear is saddened to share the news that our pro-renewable and anti-nuclear ally in Ontario, Canada has passed on at age 91. Long serving coordinator of Citizens for Renewable Energy, Ziggy focused on watch-dogging the Lake Huron shore Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (with eight reactors, the single largest on Earth), near his solar-powered WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms -- see photo, left) home base. But he also worked closely with, and generously supported, allies like us throughout the Great Lakes Basin, over many decades. Way ahead of the curve, he was a very early advocate for IRENA (the UN's International Renewable Energy Agency), as well as FITs (Feed-in tariffs), both of which originated in his native Germany. Shortly before he passed on, he learned the news that Ontario Power Generation had officially abandoned its plans for a proposed Deep Geologic Repository for dumping radioactive wastes, targeted at the Saugeen Ojibwe Nation, a very hard won environmental justice victory, after two decades of widespread resistance, for which he shares credit.

RIP, Ziggy -- Rest in Peace, and Rest in RENEWABLE Power!

See Ziggy's obituary, here.

See tributes and remembrances posted by his friends and colleagues on Ziggy's Facebook page, here.

Update on September 17, 2020 by admin

Friends of Ziggy have put together a set of reflections on Ziggy's life, work and influence. It is entitled 

LOCAL AND PROVINCIAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHAMPION DIES: HIS LEGACY REMAINS

See the 16-page PDF, here.

As Angela Bischoff of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance has written:

"Beautiful piece about a beautiful man! He’d be so thrilled about all the opposition brewing in South Bruce [Ontario] to the DGR [Deep Geologic Repository, Canada's proposed national dump for high-level radioactive waste, near the Lake Huron shore]."

The PDF includes a number of photos of Ziggy throughout the years. On page 6 of 16 on the PDF counter, there is a photo of Ziggy, holding high a "CLEAN ENERGY NOW!" placard. It was taken at Van Buren State Park in southwest Michigan, in August 2000. Behind Ziggy is the long-troubled, high-risk Palisades atomic reactor. Ziggy's tee shirt, not legible in the photo, reads: Sustainable Energy NOW! Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp, August 2000, Van Buren Youth Camp, Bloomingdale, Michigan.

There are additional photos from the August 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp in Michigan viewable here:

https://www.nirs.org/corbin-harney/

The five photos show Western Shoshone spiritual leader Corbin Harney (who passed on in 2007) leading sacred ceremonies during the August 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp at Cook nuclear power plant in southwest Michigan (30 miles south of Palisades) on the Lake Michigan shoreline. In the third photo down, Ziggy is visible behind Corbin, standing in the sacred circle. Helping Corbin conduct the sacred ceremony that day were Michelle Xenos of Corbin's Shundahai Network in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Kelly Kiyoshk of Walpole Island, Ontario.

And posted at this web page, are additional photos from the same day and action as Ziggy's photo on page 6 of 16 of the PDF counter, above.

Ohio State House of Representatives Speaker Larry Householder, et al., accused of $61 million bribery/money laundering scheme related to Ohio's 2019 $1.5 billion nuclear & coal bailout House Bill 6

As reported by Ian Cross at News5Cleveland:

Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four of his associates have been arrested on charges in relation to “what is likely the largest bribery, money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio," one that allegedly involved at least $61 million passed through a 501c4 organization controlled by Householder and other entities for the purpose of passing HB6 in 2019, a law that provided a $1.5 billion [rate]payer bailout to FirstEnergy.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio David DeVillers spoke with reporters about the 81-page indictment of Householder and his associates on Tuesday afternoon.

Around 90%, or more, of the Ohio ratepayer-funded bailout went to FirstEnergy's (now Energy Harbor) two age-degraded atomic reactors on northern Ohio's Lake Erie shoreline, Davis-Besse near Toledo, and Perry near Cleveland. Another portion of the bailout went to FirstEnergy-owned dirty old coal burners.

See the U.S. Department of Justice press advisory, here.

See the U.S. Department of Justice press release, here.

See the recording of the press conference with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, David M. DeVillers, and the FBI Special Agent in Charge, Chris Hoffman, here.

See the 82-page long criminal complaint, and accompanying FBI affidavit, here.

MORE, including environmental group press releases, state-wide and national media coverage, etc.