Tea Party -- and all Americans -- invited to Green Mountain State to help shut down Vermont Yankee

Alluding to the subtitle of Dr. Strangelove (How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb -- see 1964 movie poster, left), the op-ed "Why the Tea Party should stop worrying and learn to love Vermont" in the Brattleboro Reformer invites all freedom loving Americans (especially the Tea Party, given its rhetoric) to come to Vermont on March 21, 2012 and help the people of the Green Mountain State shut down the risky, leaky Vermont Yankee atomic reactor, no matter what the greedy, rogue corporation Entergy Nuclear and the U.S. federal government have to say about it!

Nuclear plummets in polls - below coal

In the wake of new nuclear power plant build rebukes in both Germany and Italy, a new poll conducted by international research company Ipsos for Reuters News finds that global support for nuclear energy has dropped quickly to 38% (down 16 points from 54%) to now become lower than support for coal (48%)—fuelled by a 26% jump in new opponents to nuclear power (above 50% in India, China, Japan and South Korea) who indicate that the recent crisis in Japan caused their decision. Ipsos also released a detailed power point presentation of their findings. The survey of nearly 19,000 people in 24 countries also showed that nearly three-quarters of people think nuclear energy is only a limited and soon obsolete form of energy. Solar energy topped the charts with 97% of respondents strongly favoring it, closely followed by 93% for wind power.

Progress Energy may shut Crystal River reactor for good

The Crystal River reactor in Florida which has been shuttered for more than 18 months may be shut down permanently. Reactor owner, Progress Energy, is pondering whether the cost to fix the plant's multiple problems is worth it. According to the Tampa Tribune, "mounting costs to fix the plant have Progress Energy officials wondering whether to keep pumping more money into the plant or shut it and rebuild a non-nuclear plant in its place." The tab so far? Reports the Tribune: "$150 million through the end of last year. Also, it has cost the company another $290 million to buy electric power to replace the power that the nuclear plant isn't generating. Progress Energy's insurance company has covered $181 million of that cost."

Swiss lower house of parliament votes to phase out nuclear power

In response to the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, Switzerland's National Council, the country's lower house of parliament, has voted 101 to 54 to phase out nuclear power, World Nuclear News reports. This follows a Swiss Cabinet decision to reverse course, and not replace old atomic reactors with new ones -- effectively phasing out nuclear power in Switzerland by 2034. The upper house of parliament, the 46 member Council of States, must still vote on the matter. If it approves the phase out policy, then Switzerland will join the likes of Germany, which plans to phase out its atomic reactors by 2022, as well as Italy, which has just reaffirmed, by popular referendum, it's moratorium on new atomic reactors. Austria also disavowed nuclear power in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe not far from its border with Ukraine.

Japan's nuclear reactor manufacturers look to renewables instead

News reports: "In the three months since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant, the nation's three reactor makers have started to focus more on renewable energy sources, particularly solar, wind and geothermal power.

Toshiba Corp., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd. say they now have higher sales goals in the alternative energy fields, including pursuit of "energy-smart communities" that can save power consumption as a whole city or village by using energy control systems."