There is something about a nuclear plant surrounded by flood waters that is more disturbing that a coal fired plant or any other kind of energy producing facility. What makes it more disturbing is that knowledge in the back of our skull that if things go wrong, the investors aren’t just out an investment, we all will pay a price for such a calamity.
May we live in a world where reason and knowledge are used to make energy decisions.
James Pilant
via Jewish Nerd
I have advocated for the corporate death penalty before. I continue to believe it is a vital idea whose time has come.
Now that corporations have full political rights in terms of money and political advocacy, they are more and more like human beings.
So, killing one for its crimes makes more and more sense. A corporation whose crimes have risen to a certain level is seized by the government, sold off piece by piece until nothing remains. The stockholders lose everything for their failure to oversee their investment.
Justice.
James Pilant
I hope the NRC is serious about that. The willingness here to refer to earlier enforcement efforts I find encouraging.
Since, nuclear power seems to be beyond any effect of public opinion, in fact, immune to all expressions of human intelligence and judgment, the NRC is our major line of defense.
Nuclear plants are built in America because the industry pays out a lot of money in political contributions and has superb lobbyists. No public concerns can carry such weight. All other issues are not worth consideration.
James Pilant
via U.S. NRC Blog
Battle. That’s a very strange word to use in the context of media in conflict but I don’t doubt its importance or relevance.
I believe the battle for the print, broadcast and cable media has been lost. The kind of news that was in the paper and on the television 35 years ago is gone. We now live in an age of “distraction” news, content free news and outright deception. It is a great pity.
A free people cannot defend itself without information, facts and leadership, we have none of that. We have celebrity scandals, fake facts that our sniveling media decline to describe as a lies and a jello spined leadership so beholden to financial interests they contest among themselves for who is the most slavish in their devotion. They throw their offering on the altars of these demigods like the food offerings thrown before the wooden carvings of Odin in Pre Medieval Scandinavia.
Read on and discover nations and cultures where the media is still up for grabs.
James Pilant
via Only Ed
Let us raise a glass to ambition and glory!
James Pilant
It should come as no surprise that I am with the “we should be concerned” group.
However, I went to the web site, “Keating’s Desk,” read the post and almost went on. But I paused and looked at the article before and then I looked at the next one and the one after that. You just don’t want to stop. This is great stuff. A good writer who can think and has important issues in mind when he does.
I’ve added the web site to the favorites and intend to keep up with the writing there.
James Pilant
via Keating's Desk
This is the state of affairs we can expect in every part of the world. The upkeep and safety precautions necessary for the use of nuclear power are expensive, time-consuming and require technical expertise and competence. In a world where corporate profit is the number one concern and where government secrecy is a primary defense against catching wrong doing ahead of time, we can expect these expensive, high maintenance, time bombs to be under protected, under maintained and overly dangerous.
It is likely that nuclear plants can be made safe and that nuclear power can be part of a nation’s energy plan. But can we trust the industry and the government after so many lies, so many deceptions and so many disasters that were not supposed to be possible? Nuclear energy is surrounded not by science but by a shield of lies.
James Pilant
From Radio Netherlands Worldwide –
Russia’s nuclear power plants are dangerously under-prepared for earthquakes and other disasters, said a state review conducted after Japan’s Fukushima accident and obtained Thursday by AFP.
The unusually candid survey was presented to a council chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev on June 9 and initially reported on its website by the Oslo-based Bellona environmental organisation.
Russia has until now steadfastly defended its 10 nuclear power plants and 32 reactors against criticism.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on April 30 pronounced the country’s nuclear safety system “the best in the world”.
But the State Council review revealed more than 30 weaknesses including reduced disaster safety standards and a lack of a clear strategy for securing spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste at many plants.
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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