Note to Dubie: Lawn Signs Don’t Win Elections

Welcome to the Renewable Energy Vermont Conference

I was at the Renewable Energy Vermont Conference last week. The great event culminated with a debate between the gubenatorial candidates, Peter Shumlin (D) and Brian Dubie (R). In the debate Shumlin showed himself to be much more passionate about his desire to lead our state. He also showed himself to be a better public speaker, as Dubie often fumbled for words and seemed “stiff.”  Shumlin spoke from his heart and I don’t even think he had any notes or cue cards. Dubie was often looking down, reading from notes, and he stumbled in his closing remarks when he couldn’t remember the name of the host of the event. I have some video I’ll be posting later.

But one of the interesting and almost funny things I want to share now is that Dubie brought an entourage of supporters with him to the event, wearing their “Dubie Co-pilot” t-shirts and carrying stacks of lawn signs to give away.  This part didn’t go too well for them.

Signs (especially hypocritically placed ones) don't win elections.

I had to run to my car before the debate began and I was struck by the sea of lawn signs they put up in front of the convention center.  One was even bigger than the “Renewable Energy Vermont Conference” sign letting people know what was going on there. A passer-by would think it was a Dubie convention, not a REV conference.   This was ironic and strange considering that the current administration for which Brian Dubie has served for several years, has not been a good proponent of renewable energy policy.  Why then, would they put up all these signs  in front of the conference entrance?  Do they think we are so shallow to believe that a lawn sign or two (or a few dozen) must mean he supports renewable energy policy? Does he think we’ve all been hiding in a cave the last 6 years?  I had to speak my mind to the people holding the signs and (politely) let them know I thought it was ironic.  One huge sign took several people to hold and I told them, “signs don’t win elections, you know.”

Any takers? C'mon, they're free! They have many uses! When the election is over you can use it as a placemat! This big one won't fit in the garbage can; I guess we can just leave it here.

At the end of the debate, the “co-pilots” (who I’ve been told are actually PAID to stand there like that) stood again at the door and tried to hand out the signs to Dubie supporters.  This didn’t go over too well either.  I watched for several minutes and not a single person took a sign.  One person grabbed a sign, walked a few steps, and dropped it on the ground in the parking lot.  I realize littering is bad, but I have to say it was kind of funny.

Evidently someone changed their mind about taking one of these signs home. I know littering is bad, but I had to chuckle...

I wanted to share a few photos of this interlude.  I’ll have the video of the debate and more from the conference soon.

Vermont lagging in wind projects… why?

I went to a lecture on wind energy. One of the speakers was Kristan Goland from Iberdrola Renewables, who does large scale wind projects. She commented that compared to other states Vermont has the most complicated process to get approval and longest delays. Why? One reason she said… the executive branch of the state govt.

So there’s yet another reason to vote for Peter Shumlin for Governor. He’ll be in a position to bring Vermont back in line with what some of the other states are doing with wind. Now before all you naysayers jump on me, NO ONE wants to put wind generators on Camel’s Hump mountain. There are plenty of places in Vermont with adequate wind potential that we can develop without compromising the beauty of our state.

Shumlin: Renewables will save Vermont’s economy

At EcoFest in Burlington, Vermont Governor candidate Peter Shumlin spoke on the solar stage (powered by the Solar Bus of course). The first few seconds of the speech are cut, but he begins by telling a story where he was asked what is the most important issue facing Vermont. His response is somewhat of a surprise, even to people who know of Shumlin’s longtime support for renewables. (video below)

This video shows the deep contrast between his opponent Brian Dubie, who doesn’t believe climate change is real, thinks renewable energy is not an important issue, and wants to re-license Vermont Yankee, the old, failing nuclear power plant that is leaking radiation and has had numerous safety violations.

The Solar Bus encourages Vermonters to vote for Peter Shumlin and help bring the solar economy to Vermont!

Our apologies for the shaky video and the child’s voice at the end, but this is worth watching for any Vermonter old enough to vote in the coming election.

Video from our trip to the White House

It took a while to edit down the video from the Solar Bus trip to the White House last October.

On 10/24/09, rallies were held all over the world to call for climate change legislation. Organized by Bill McKibben and 350.org, it has been called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history,” with more than 5200 events in 181 countries. In Washington DC, a rally was held in Malcom X park, followed by a march to the Whitehouse. The Solar Bus was invited to transport a bunch of college students to the rally and to lead the march.

Let’s not kid ourselves: Uranium Mining (Nuclear Energy) Kills People.

With the debate on nuclear energy coming to a peak, we hear much talk about the safety (or lack of safety)of a nuclear power plant, and and how we might deal with nuclear waste, but often neglected in the debate is discussion of uranium mining. That’s because there’s not much to debate about it. It’s nasty. While nuclear advocates will tout its safety and say “not a single person has died from nuclear power,” this is ignoring nuclear energy’s dirty little secret: Uranium mining kills people.

Below is a collection of articles, studies, and links to information that documents the deaths and illnesses directly related to uranium mining. Hopefully people will stop ignoring this important issue and it will become part of the debate.

During the 1950s, many Navajos in the U.S. became uranium miners, as many uranium deposits were discovered on Navajo reservations. A statistically significant subset of these early miners later developed small cell carcinoma after exposure to uranium ore. Radon-222, a natural decay product of uranium, has been shown to be the cancer-causing agent.[51] Some American survivors and their descendants received compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990. More….

A French state-owned company mines uranium in northern Niger where mine workers are not informed about health risks, and analysis shows radioactive contamination of air, water and soil. The local organization that represents the mine workers, spoke of “suspicious deaths among the workers, caused by radioactive dust and contaminated groundwater.” More….

Engineers say cleaning up the mill tailings at a single site, the defunct Atlas mill on the banks of the Colorado River just outside of Moab, could cost $300 million… families of those who did not survive the effects of prolonged exposure to radiation are not laughing. The dead and dying include miners and mill workers, innocent children who found mill tailings to be an inviting sand box, mothers who swept and dusted the wind-borne radioactive dust that filtered into their homes. Chip Ward, an environmental activist and author of the book “Canaries on the Rim,” argues the U.S. government officials knowingly and willfully sacrificed rural Utahns’ health and safety in their urgency for nuclear superiority. More….

HEALTH DANGERS OF URANIUM MINING, by The British Columbia Medical Association.
“excess deaths from lung cancer among two groups of European miners had been associated with relatively high concentrations of radon in the mine atmosphere. In that same year … conclusions were drawn that prolonged breathing of air containing a high concentration of radon, may have caused what was estimated at that time to be a 30-fold increase in the incidence of lung cancer” Full Report…

And so we have now discovered yet a third category of documented and scientifically accepted harmful effects of radiation and that is mental retardation in children who were irradiated while still in the womb. . . .

When we extract uranium from the ground, we dig up the rock, we crush it and we leave behind this finely pulverized material — it’s like flour. In Canada we have 200 million tons of this radioactive waste, called uranium tailings. As Marie Curie observed, 85 percent of the radioactivity in the ore remains behind in that crushed rock. How long will it be there? . . . . Well, it turns out that the effective half-life of this radioactivity is 80,000 years. That means in 80,000 years there will be half as much radioactivity in these tailings as there is today.

In addition, as the tailings are sitting there on the surface, they are continually generating radon gas. Radon is about eight times heavier than air, so it stays close to the ground. It’ll travel 1,000 miles in just a few days in a light breeze. And as it drifts along, it deposits on the vegetation below the radon daughters, which are the radioactive byproducts that I told you about, including polonium. So that you actually get radon daughters in animals, fish and plants thousands of miles away from where the uranium mining is done. It’s a mechanism for pumping radioactivity into the environment for millennia to come, and this is one of the hidden dangers.

(from URANIUM: Known Facts and Hidden Dangers; THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992)

And let’s not forget, that uranium mining often takes place in areas where impoverished people are taken advanatage of, and have no legal recourse to prevent it. Native American land and third-world nations are often targeted for uranium mining because no one with power or money wants it happening in their backyard.

I could go on but I invite those who are not yet convinced, to do their own research. A quick Google search will give you many more articles and links like this. Like many, I was not familiar with this problem until I looked into it myself because the media seems to only discuss nuclear waste and nuclear power plant safety.

But let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not just the safety of of the plant, and it’s not just a matter of finding a good way to store the waste. Nuclear energy, in particular uranium mining, kills people.

Vote on Vermont Yankee as early as next week

Finally, it’s happening.

The Associated Press and Burlington Free Press are reporting that Vermont Senate leaders are now calling for a vote on whether or not Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant should be allowed to operate beyond 2012 when its license expires.

The plant was originally designed to last 40 years, and the license expires at this time. There have been numerous safety problems with the plant, including leakage of radioactive materials, fires, and coolant leaks. Recently an inspection of the plant found over 60 problems, most of which have not been addressed. Additionally, representatives from Entergy, the owners of the plant have been condemned for providing false information to government officials and an investigation is underway.

The Vermont Legislature must approve an extension of the license.

Senate leaders have indicated the vote will take place as early as next week. It is time to make sure your Senators are going to vote to shut down this unsafe nuclear power plant. Click here to send a note to your State Senator.

Vermont utility plans to get 9% of their power from new wind project

From Burlington Free Press

For developer Green Mountain Power, the $150 million wind installation would provide up to 9 percent of its energy supply at a predictable cost. The project also would be a powerful response to legislative pressure for more renewable electricity in utilities’ portfolios.

For the town, one of Vermont’s poorest, the Lowell Mountain project would mean a $400,000 to $535,000 yearly payment from GMP. That’s enough to cover most or all of the town budget and reduce the municipal property tax to near zero.

more at Burlington Free Press…

Feinstein blocks solar projects in desert; RFK Jr. and other environmentalists disagree

AMBOY, Calif. — Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation in Congress on Monday to protect a million acres of the Mojave Desert in California by scuttling some 13 big solar plants and wind farms planned for the region.

Her intervention in the Mojave means it will be more difficult for California utilities to achieve a goal, set by the state, of obtaining a third of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020; projects in the monument area could have supplied a substantial portion of that power.

“This is arguably the best solar land in the world, and Senator Feinstein shouldn’t be allowed to take this land off the table without a proper and scientific environmental review,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist and a partner with a venture capital firm that invested in a solar developer called BrightSource Energy. In September, BrightSource canceled a large project in the monument area.

Union officials, power industry executives, regulators and some environmentalists have also expressed concern about the impact of the monument legislation,

More (New York Times)….

AP Study: Climate Emails Show No Wrongdoing

LONDON — E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don’t support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.

The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don’t undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34392959/

Video: Nuclear safety inspector gives chilling testimony about Vermont Yankee

A public forum on the future of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, which will complete its designed lifetime in 2012. The owners of the plant are asking to extend the license a full 20 years past its design, and to operate it at 120% its original design capacity during that time.

In this video, nuclear safety inspector Arnie Gunderson discusses the safety issues with the plant. This video is very scary because it is actually possible that in spite of all these saftey issues, the license of Vermont Yankee could be extended another 20 years.

Note, the fidgety guy next to Arnie is a representive from Entergy, the owners of Vermont Yankee.