Dirty, dangerous, and expensive versus clean, safe, and affordable

Wind turbine in downtown Cleveland. Ohio's Lake Erie shoreline has some of the best wind power potential in the U.S.As Dick Munson of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has blogged, a new report shows how Ohio can "net more than 20,000 jobs and $25 billion in investment...while enhancing productivity and lowering costs."

The report, by Synapse Energy Economics, is entitled Powering Ohio: A Vision for Growth and Innovative Energy Investment, and highlights five areas for growth: (1) Attracting investment from corporate clean energy leaders; (2.) Electrifying transportation, with a focus on electric vehicles; (3.) Building new clean electricity generation, like wind and solar power; (4.) Boosting Ohio's energy productivity through energy efficiency; and (5.) Investing in a 21st century electric grid. (As the photo above from downtown Cleveland shows, Ohio's Lake Erie shore has some of the best wind power potential in North America.)

Such visions are an antidote to FirstEnergy's desperate appeal to President Trump and Energy Secretary Perry for $8 billion in public bailouts, per year, to prop up 80 coal and nuclear plants in the PJM grid across 13 states and Washington, D.C., including its own dangerously old Davis-Besse and Perry atomic reactors in Ohio, and Beaver Valley Units 1 and 2 in Pennsylvania. More.

Fukushima mothers visit France and the UN to demand their human rights

A group of Japanese mothers and their children recently participated in a speaking tour in France and one mother, Akiko Morimatsu, (pictured above with her son) testified before the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. The mothers urged Japan to comply with UN recommendations to reduce "allowable" radiation exposure levels from 20 milisieverts a year back down to 1 milisievert, the rate before the Fukushima nuclear accident.

In France, the mothers also visited the CRIIRAD laboratory where a soil sample from a children's playground in Japan revealed alarmingly high levels of radioactive contamination.

Read the story of their visit and Mrs. Morimatsu's UN testimony.

Ocean groups are calling for no nuclear dumping into seas

Ocean groups around the world have long protested pollution. Now they are turning their sights to the renewed dumping of radioactive waste. 

More than a dozen environmental and ocean protection groups, coordinated by the Turtle Island Restoration Network, wrote a letter of protest about the proposal by Japanese nuclear egulatory authority and Tepco to dump 770,000 tons of radioactively contaminated water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear reactors into the Pacific ocean. 

Then, when ocean protection groups learned that British authorities were planning to permit the dredging of radioactive mud at the Hinkley nuclear power plant site to be dumped in Welsh waters just off the Cardiff coast, they wrote to the Welsh Assembly, challenging the scientific validity of the proposal.

Read our story about marine groups stepping once more into the fight to stop radioactive waste discharges into the ocean, new at Beyond Nuclear International.

Ed Markey, Congressional ally for anti-nuclear groups for 42+ years

Massachusetts Senator, Democrat Ed Markey, is a long-time ally of the anti-nuclear movement. On May 22 he received an award from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. During remarks at the event, he reminded a packed audience just how dire the nuclear peril has become under President Trump.

“President Trump, who has threatened other countries with ‘fire and fury,’ wants new, more usable nuclear weapons,” said Markey. “He wants so-called low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Low-yield nuclear weapons. That’s like an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp or Salt Lake City nightlife. It doesn’t exist. Low-yield nuclear weapons is a contradiction in terms. What are they talking about?”

Read our full profile of Ed Markey at Beyond Nuclear International.

U.S. Senate confirms pro-nuclear commissioners to NRC

On May 24, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Annie Caputo (pictured) and David Wright as commissioners to serve five-year terms on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Beyond Nuclear had advocated against seating the two Republicans. As documented by Beyond Nuclear’s Paul Gunter, Caputo worked as the congressional affairs executive manager for Exelon Corporation, now the largest nuclear power corporation in the U.S., from 1998 to 2005. She has also served as Senior Policy Advisor for leading nuclear power proponent, Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe from 2009 to 2012 (Inhofe is also the Senate's most notorious climate denier). 

David Wright, is a former commissioner and chairman of the South Carolina Public Service Commission (SC PSC, 2004-2013), and another leading advocate for nuclear power/radioactive waste generation, and for getting the proposed but still canceled Yucca Mountain high-level waste dump back on the table.

Commissioner Kristine Svinicki, the third Republican on the Commission, is also an advocate of the Yucca Mountain, Nevada radioactive waste dump and promoted it while working at the U.S. Department of Energy. The remaining Commissioners are Jeff Baran, a Democrat whose term was renewed, and Stephen Burns, an independent. The nuclear industry can now count on a majority vote in its favor every time, with three of its own occupying Commission seats.