Author Archives: admin

Mali: a French War for Uranium

Google for Mali War in French, and it seems nobody in France is fooled: France is going to war in Mali for oil, gas, gold and… uranium just across the border in Niger. Have you ever heard of a war for sunshine or wind? Let’s get on with solar and wind for energy independence, including from wars for fuels.

Even Le Monde politely asks the question, Pourquoi la France intervient-elle au Mali? Why is France intervening in Mali?

matL : Quels sont les enjeux stratégiques majeurs que présente le Mali, non seulement pour la France mais pour la région entière ? matL : What are the important policy challenges posed by Mali, not only for France but for the entire region?
Les enjeux sur les ressources extractives, à savoir notamment le pétrole et le gaz sur le site de Taoudenni qui se trouve à cheval sur trois pays, Mauritanie, Mali et Algérie. Ensuite, l’uranium puisqu’il en a été découvert dans l’Adar des Iforas. Mais ces trois ressources extractives ne sont pas encore en état d’exploitation. En revanche, le Mali est le troisième producteur d’or sur le continent africain. Ce sont là les enjeux géostragégiques. Issues of extractive resources, notably including oil and gas on the site Taoudenni which straddles three countries, Mauritania, Mali and Algeria. Then, since uranium has been discovered in the Adrar des Iforas. But these three extractive resources are not yet ready to use. However, Mali is the third largest gold producer in Africa. These are the geostratigic issues.
S’il y avait implosion du Mali par la prise du pouvoir central par les groupes armés djihadistes, il y aurait nécessairement des conséquences négatives sur l’ensemble des pays de la sous-région. If there was implosion of Mali by making the central government by armed groups jihadists, there would have negative consequences for all countries in the sub-region.
Visiteur : Bonjour, le gisement d’uranium exploité par Areva se trouve au Niger à quelques centaines de kilomètres à l’est de la zone de combats. Pensez-vous qu’il existe un lien entre l’intervention et la protection éventuelle de cette source d’énergie vitale pour la France ? Caller: Hello, the uranium deposit is operated by Areva in Niger a few hundred kilometers east of the combat zone. Do you think there is a link between the intervention and the possible protection of this vital energy source for France?
En tout cas, l’hypothèse n’est pas du tout à écarter car il y aura des conséquences sur l’ensemble de la sous-région. In any case, the hypothesis is not at all ruled out because there will be an impact on the entire sub-region.

Stéphane Lhomme was more blunt in Le nouvel Observateur yesterday, Guerre au Mali : sécuriser notre approvisionnement en uranium, War in Mali: secure our provisions of uranium,

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Rep. Austin Scott (R GA-08) @ VLCoC 2013-01-10

Ron Borders introduced Congressman Austin Scott (R GA-08) who made some remarks on the front porch at the Chamber of Commerce Thursday 10 January 2013.

Bookended by some formulaic remarks about debt (without mentioning that it’s already mostly solved), the Congressman noted he is on the Committee on Armed Services. He said there is no current BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure Commission), although one has been asked for. He said a BRAC wouldn’t do anything for near-term debt, anyway (but he didn’t say anything about ending the war in Afghanistan or stopping funding for un-needed weapons systems as ways of saving money).

He said he is the chair of a House Agriculture Subcommitee (Horticulture, Research, Biotechnology, and Foreign Agriculture). He said he was for research, for the agricultural extension, and for agricultural exports.

Here’s the WCTV news report, with responses by Gretchen Quarterman, Chair of the Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP).

Here’s a video playlist:

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Videos: new website @ VLCIA 2013-01-15

Both Meghan Duke (PR and Marketing) and Andrea Schruijer (Executive Director) invited comments and additional information for the new website. They were speaking to their board at its meeting last night, but in the Industrial Authority’s new conversational spirit, maybe they’ll take suggestions from the rest of the community, as well. Both Allan Ricketts (Project Manager) and J. Stephen Gupton (Attorney) said the Hahira well site work was going well. They’ve got a new intern, and I reminded them about the need for fast Internet access. It was a long meeting by County Commission standards, yet short for Industrial Authority meeting: about half an hour.

Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos, and a few notes.

-jsq

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Failed concrete: the bane of nuclear reactors

Let’s not forget the failed concrete on which Plant Vogtle’s unprotected stranded reactor vessel is supposed to sit.

A week before the reactor vessel train wreck, news stories said concrete pouring was delayed due to “noncompliant rebar”. Thomas Clements elaborated for the Aiken Leader 14 January 2013, Vogtle AP1000 Nuclear Reactor Vessel Discovered Unprotected, Stranded in Savannah Port since December 15 Shipment Failure,

Due to chronic delays in the pouring of “nuclear concrete” for the basemat of the AP1000 units at Vogtle and VC Summer, it remains unknown when or if any reactor vessels can actually be placed into the excavated holes at the sites. A January 10 meeting of the NRC confirmed that another basemat-related “license amendment request” (LAR) was soon to be filed by SCE&G for its AP1000 project and that the target date for granting of the LAR was March 18. It appears that the Vogtle project has fallen behind the V.C. Summer project and no strategy for the filing of a similar and necessary LAR by Southern Company is known.

Concrete, the long-time bane of Seabrook Station and also what’s keeping Crystal River shut down because nobody wants to pay the billions of dollars it would take to fix it.

 

What say we call the whole thing off, like Dominion Power did with its existing Kewaunee nuke, and TEPCO and NRG did with their plans for new South Texas nukes.

 

Maybe it’s a sign that meanwhile Google has invested a billion dollars in wind and solar and gotten 2 gigawatts of power, almost as much as the 2.2 GW the two new Vogtle nukes were supposed to produce, except Google’s solar and wind projects are online on time, and for less than just the cost overruns at Vogtle.

The Georgia legislature is in session. You can contact your legislator or the PSC today about toppling Southern Company’s three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool and fixing that 1973 Territoriality Law so we can get on with solar and wind in Georgia, for jobs and energy independence, and oh by the way clean air and plenty of clean water.

-jsq

Centralized Nuclear Bad Investment?

A writer for Forbes spells out the question of nuclear investment: how can something that expensive, over-budget, late, and phenomenally risky be a good investment, especially when cheaper and faster energy sources are readily available?

Peter Kelly-Detwiler wrote for Forbes today, New Centralized Nuclear Plants: Still an Investment Worth Making?

Just a few years ago, the US nuclear renaissance seemed at hand. It probably shouldn’t have been. Cost overruns from Finland to France to the US were already becoming manifest, government guarantees were in doubt, and shale gas drillers were beginning to punch holes into the ground with abandon.

Then came Fukushima. The latter proved a somewhat astonishing reminder of forgotten lessons about nuclear power risks, unique to that technology: A failure of one power plant in an isolated location can create a contagion in countries far away, and even where somewhat different variants of that technology are in use. Just as Three Mile Island put the kaibosh on nuclear power in the US for decades, Fukushima appears to have done the same for Japan and Germany, at a minimum. It certainly did not help public opinion, and at a minimum, the effect of Fukushima will likely be to increase permitting and associated regulatory costs.

He goes into detail: they take too long (while gas and solar got cheaper), they’re extremely expensive to build and run, and they’re all-or-nothing investments.

I was going to compile this list of recent nuclear financial failures, but he saves us all the trouble:

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Hospital Authority meets Wednesday @ VLCHA 2013-01-16

Apparently the Hospital Authority is meeting tomorrow morning, although I can’t find any public notice and it’s not listed in the VDT’s calendar. In case you’re curious who these board members are, I’ve looked them up below.

According to its web page:

Hospital Authority

As a public hospital, an eight-member Hospital Authority governs SGMC. Both the City Council of Valdosta and the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners appoints the representatives who serve on the Authority. Each group appoints four representatives who each serve a 5-year term. Authority members are community leaders who serve the hospital voluntarily. It’s a labor-intensive job for which no Authority member receives any monetary compensation.

In terms of governance, the Authority has the ultimate decision-making ability when it comes to the hospital. The Authority is subject to the Hospital Authorities Law of the Code of Georgia.

Notification of Open Meeting of the Hospital Authority

Regularly scheduled meetings of Hospital Authority occur on the third Wednesday of each month at 9:30am in the SGMC Executive Board Room unless otherwise posted.

Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County Members

Here I’ve annotated the list from the Board’s website with pictures and some additional information of the sort that maybe the Authority would like to put on its website so we the taxpayers would know.

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Forestry rebounds economically in Georgia

Figure 4. Year-to-year percentage change in total output, employment, and compensation supported by the forest industry in 2011 dollars. Found via VLCIA’s blog, PR from Office of the Governor 11 January 2013, Forestry industry earns jobs, dollars for Georgia, illustrated here with figures from Economic Benefits of the Forest Industry in Georgia: 2011 by the Georgia Forestry Commission. And let’s not forget that while paper pulp rules the roost in Georgia at the moment, there are far more jobs in reforestation than in nuclear, even more than in wind or solar.

Gov. Nathan Deal today announced that a study by the Georgia Institute of Technology for the Georgia Forestry Commission shows that in 2011, economic activity generated by the forestry industry topped $25 billion in output and provided 118,459 jobs.

“I am proud to see our state retain its position as a national forestry leader,” said Deal. “Our 24 million acres of forests are one of Georgia’s most valuable natural resources, and the dedication of the men and women in the forestry community drive that success. I’m confident our sustainably grown forests will be providing both economic and environmental benefits for generations of Georgians to come.”

Highlights of the “Economic Benefits of the Forest Industry in Georgia: 2011” report include

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Vogtle reactor vessel sitting unprotected at Savannah port

What happened to Plant Vogtle’s new reactor vessel after it was in a train wreck a week ago? It went back to Savannah port and sits there unprotected and unguarded.

Thomas Clements wrote for the Aiken Leader 14 January 2013, Vogtle AP1000 Nuclear Reactor Vessel Discovered Unprotected, Stranded in Savannah Port since December 15 Shipment Failure,


Tom Clements, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

The reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for the chronically delayed Vogtle AP1000 reactor construction project near Waynesboro, Georgia sits stranded and seemingly unprotected in the port of Savannah. The special railroad car carrying the 300-ton vessel had unknown mechanical problems on December 15 on exiting the port. The NRC has said that the vessel only got one-quarter mile before a sound was heard and the car stopped. Plans by Westinghouse and Southern Company to move the vessel are unknown. It is also unknown if the railroad car can be repaired and used or if the railroad company which owns the line is concerned that the rail car might break down again on its line in an in accessible place. Meanwhile, the apparently unguarded reactor might be subject to sabotage and sits in apparent violation of NRC quality assurance and “administrative control” regulations.

The article includes links to several more pictures taken 13 January 2013 by Tom Clements of Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, such as this one with the bridge clearly visible:

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Industrial Authority: new website, same old agenda tonight @ VLCIA 2013-01-15

The Industrial Authority has a spiffy new website under a new domain, buildlowndes.com, and with their new logo, formerly only on their facebook page. Their meeting agenda for tonight, however, is the same old recycled content-free placeholder.

I sure don’t miss the old hexagon menu, the new menu is up top and usable before they waste a bunch of space with stock photos. The Our Team page even links to the Linkedin profiles of Andrea Schruijer and Meghan Duke. While Allan Ricketts does have a Linkedin profile, it’s not very fleshed out and they don’t link to it.

The Recent Investments page is interesting, although it would be more so if Continue reading →

Georgia legislature still trying to suck up Tennessee River water

Because Atlanta can’t get a grip on its water usage, the Georgia legislature is still trying to suck up Tennessee River water. If the legislature is willing to try that, how long before they try sucking up our Floridan Aquifer water for Atlanta?

Prefiled in December to be up early as the Georgia legisture starts meeting today, is a bill to try to move the northern border of Georgia to match an eighteenth century boundary that just happens to include a bit of the Tennessee River in Georgia. HR 4, Georgia and Tennessee; boundary dispute; propose settlement, was filed by Rep. Harry Geisinger, R – Roswell, District 48, and says in part:

WHEREAS, the State of Georgia proposes to the State of Tennessee that the dispute be resolved by the states agreeing that the current boundary between the two states reflecting the flawed 1818 survey be adopted as the legal boundary between the states except for an area described as follows which shall be made a part of the State of Georgia by which Georgia shall be able to exercise its riparian water rights to the Tennessee River at Nickajack:

Georgia is already in a three-decade-long dispute with Alabama and Florida over the Chattahoochee River. Does adding a dispute over the Tennessee River seem like a good idea to you?

And how can we best stop Atlanta from coming for our Floridan Aquifer?

-jsq