Vermont Notes: Films, Fukushima, Statehouse Flaps

Blog posts, podcasts, and letters about Vermont and Vermont Yankee.

An Anti-Nuclear Film, and a Pro-Nuclear Person on the Panel Discussion

Howard Shaffer and I work closely together on Vermont Yankee advocacy. He is head of the Vermont Pilot Project of the American Nuclear Institute.

A film about nuclear power was developed at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics of the University of Vermont. As we expected, this film was anti-nuclear. You can see a trailer for it here. Last week, at University of Vermont, Howard Shaffer and Arnie Gundersen were on a panel discussing the film. Today Shaffer has a blog post at ANS Nuclear Cafe: Transparent Radiation--A Film.

In his post, Howard Shaffer describes the film, the audience questions, and the panel members answers. This film and panel was a Vermont event, but the film will be entered in many film festivals. How it is received will be relevant beyond Vermont.

Fukushima Podcast

People who lived near the Fukushima Power Plants want to go home. What should be the criteria for ending the evacuation? Rod Adams has a podcast: Let Fukushima Residents Go Home. Participants are Rod Adams, me, and Cal Abel. Adams is the blogger at Atomic Insights (and an ex-submarine officer). Abel is an ex-submarine officer and current grad student at George Tech. The conversation includes

• Why are the local Fukushima cattle dying? (because nobody is feeding them),
• Is the Linear Non Threshold Theory reasonable?
• How come people drive cars, smoke, and have dental fillings? Driving, smoking and mercury can be considered "Linear Non-Threshold" activities or substances.

Warning. There are sound quality issues with the podcast. I talk too softly and Rod breathes too loudly.

High Jinks and High Rollers in the Vermont State House

High Jinks: John McClaughry posts in Vermont Tiger: It Takes One to Know One. Tony Klein is chairman of the Vermont Natural Resources Committee in the Vermont House of Representatives. Klein is upset about proposed anti-wind legislation. Klein is a fierce opponent of Vermont Yankee. I was in a committee room when Klein said that the existence of Vermont Yankee on Vermont soil could ruin the Vermont Brand.

Klein is also a proponent of wind turbines, and he is very upset that the proposed legislation could "pocket veto" wind without a vote. McClaughry points out that the Vermont House illegally "pocket vetoed" Vermont Yankee by not voting. (The famous vote was only in the Vermont Senate.) As McClaughry says: It Takes One to Know One.

Full Disclosure: The Energy Education Project that I direct is part of the Ethan Allen Institute that was founded by John McClaughry.

High Rollers: In the Bennington Banner (unfortunately behind a paywall) L.A. Leonard of Rutland wrote a letter to the editor. An excerpt is below:

Vermont recently lost a federal lawsuit trying to prevent companies from selling patient information to pharmaceutical companies. The Supreme Court rejected the law saying it violated free speech of companies and the law lacked coherence. We now learn taxpayers will be responsible for $1. 8 million not counting $600,000 for fighting the court case. This could be just the tip of the iceberg as experts believe there are still more plaintiffs to come.

Leonard then compares this case to the Vermont Yankee case. He predicts similar losses to the taxpayers from that lawsuit, and ends his letter as follows:

The legal fights could go on for years. May one suggest the governor, Attorney General Bill Sorrell and other state officials start picking up the tab rather than continue to burden taxpayers with no end in sight.

An excellent suggestion, which will be ignored. When it comes to Vermont Yankee, our legislators are addicted to Other People's Money.

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I decided to illustrate the Leopold letter with a picture of the Vermont Statehouse Dome, captured from Wikipedia. Note that that the dome is covered in gold.

Nuclear Advocacy and Nuclear Blogger 80th Carnival

Radiation Film and Panel

On November 30, the film Transparent Radiation will be shown at the Gund Institute of the University of Vermont. The film is about nuclear energy, but the trailers also show nuclear bombs. The trailers also include people talking about how depleted uranium will be radioactive for billions of years. As will granite, of course!

Howard Shaffer learned that there would be a panel discussion of the film, and asked to be on the panel. Actually, Howard asked if he and Dr. Ed Maher, recent past-president of the Health Physics Society, could be on the panel. They are now on the panel, along with Arnie Gundersen and others. Arnie Gundersen's wife, Maggie Gundersen, endorses the film very strongly.

I am happy that Howard and Ed will be on the panel. However, considering both the venue and the film, I thought it would be good to tell pro-nuclear people about this event, in the hopes that some of us could come and support them. I wrote an email to my email list about it. Rod Adams is on the email list, and Rod posted my email on the Atomic Insights blog today: Nuclear Advocacy Opportunity in Vermont--November 30.

I hope some of you can come. The film and panel begin at 4 p.m Wednesday November 30 on the UVM campus. The event is being held in the administration building, which has a visitor's parking lot. Details at Rod Adams blog. Thank you, Rod!

Update: A press release at Vermont Digger.

80th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Posted at Next Big Future

Neither rain nor snow nor Thanksgiving weekend stops the Nuclear Bloggers from their work. Today, the 80th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers is hosted at Next Big Future. Okay. I admit it. It's a smaller Carnival this time. That just means you can read it more quickly!

The Carnival includes a fascinating blog post by Will Davis of Atomic Power Review on the history of PRA (Probablistic Risk Assessment). If you ever wondered what that was, but had your eyes glaze over as it was explained, this is a must-read post.

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat describes the concrete cracking problems (solvable) that are delaying restart at two reactors.

Rod Adams at Atomic Insights describes attending a meeting of a student chapter of the ANS. The students want to know how the industry is going to counter the barrage of advertising from the fossil fuel industry, especially "clean" natural gas. (I want to know, too.)

Gail Marcus of Nuke Power Talk has two posts, one about Japan's hundred-year energy plan, and one about polls about nuclear power which show support--even in Japan.

Brian Wang of Next Big Future looks at anti-nuclear Chris Busby, who is selling "anti-radiation pills" in Japan (really!). Wang and environmentalist George Monbiot suggest that nuclear opponents run as fast as they can to distance themselves from this guy! Wang notes that the Fukushima reactors are nearing cold shutdown. Wang also includes two radiation surveys of Japan. One, of Fukushima workers, shows no contamination. The other, of the soils in Japan, shows contamination in some areas which must be addressed before these areas can go back to food production. Most of the radiation in one area was emitted on March 15, and in the other area, radiation came March 21. This is not cheery reading. On the other hand, the "on-going spewing from the crippled reactors" scare-mongers are just wrong. Bad things happened in March. We all noticed, and now it is time to clean up.

Nagasaki bomb image from Wikipedia. Bomb imagery is included in some of the film trailers.