Greenpeace to GE: "Your Business = My Risk"

Jiji Tsushin reports that Greenpeace activists covered the GE building in Brussels with posters that say "Your Business, My Risk", referring to GE's nuclear business.

From Jiji Tsushin (3/7/2013):

東京電力福島第１原発の原子炉製造に携わった米複合企業ゼネラル・エレクトリック（ＧＥ）に抗議しようと、環境保護団体グリーンピースの活動家らが７日、ブリュッセルにあるＧＥの建物に「あなたのビジネスはわれわれのリスクだ」と書いたポスターを張り付けた。

On March 7, in protest against General Electric, the US conglomerate who was involved in the manufacture of the reactors at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, Greenpeace activists put up posters on the GE building in Brussels that said "Your business is our risk".

グリーンピースは同日の声明で「ＧＥは福島原発に主要な設備を提供したが、事故の賠償責任を免れている。日本の多くの人々は妥当な補償を得ていない」と訴え、原発に依存する欧州諸国でも、こうした事態が起きる可能性はあると強調した。

Greenpeace released a statement on the same day that said "GE provided the main facilities for the Fukushima plant, but so far has been exempt from the responsibility for the damages. Many people in Japan haven't received proper compensations." The statement also emphasized that it was possible that an accident like Fukushima could occur in European countries that rely on nuclear power.

There was a rumor for a very brief time right after the nuclear accident that then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan was considering suing GE for product liability. That rumor died very quickly.

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Lithuania to Hold a Referendum on Nuclear Power Plant to Be Build by Hitachi-GE

From Reuters (7/16/2012; emphasis added):

Lithuania to hold a consultative vote on nuclear plant

(Reuters) - Lithuania will hold a non-binding referendum on the centre-right government's planned new nuclear power plant on the same day as a parliamentary election, in a move that could boost support for the opposition and derail the project with a big vote against.

Parliament's decision on Monday to hold the vote puts energy issues at the centre of the election, with the opposition and government split on how to reduce country's energy dependence on its former Soviet master, Russia.

Polls have showed public support for nuclear energy in Lithuania wane following the Fukushima disaster in 2011 in Japan, with opinion now roughly divided.

The government has proposed building the Visaginas plant on the site of the Ignalina plant in eastern Lithuania that was shut in 2009.

But the main opposition party in the current parliament, the Social Democrat Party, said the government should focus on renewable resources and renovating houses to save energy and rather than on a costly nuclear power plant project.

"We should stop dreaming about nuclear power, benefits of which we might see or might not see in only 30 years," Birute Vesaite, deputy chair of the party, told parliament.

Centre-left parties such as the Social Democrats lead the opinion polls before the parliamentary election.

Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, who opposed the referendum, said it was causing doubts about commitments made by his coalition government.

Parliament last month voted, with a narrrow margin, in favor of giving the government a go-ahead to work towards a final construction deal with U.S.-Japanese alliance Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy for the 1,350 MW ABWR reactor.

In 2011, Lithuania imported 65 percent of its electricity, mostly from Russia, making it the European Union member most dependent on power imports.

Lawmakers voted 62-39 to hold the referendum on Oct. 14, the parliament press office said. Eighteen abstained.

(Reporting via Oslo Newsroom; Editing by Alison Williams)

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NRC Transcript from 3/12/2011: 40 GE Engineers at #Fukushima I Nuke Plant, 4 Were Contaminated

Enformable (2/28/2012) has a link to the official transcript of NRC's meeting (audio file) on March 12, 2011. In the transcript, I found a mention of GE engineers who were at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant when the earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11, 2011.

From the official transcript of teleconferences at NRC on March 12, 2011 (pages 162 and 163):

MR. McDERMOTT: There is one other nugget of information, people might know people.

There were 40 individuals from GE that were actually asked, at this facility, taking part in the refueling of the three units. We understand that out of the 40 people, four were contaminated, but the State Department and GE are working to pull them back to Tokyo and to get them whatever assistance they need to get back to the States.

So the person interviewed by PBS the other day was a GE engineer.

There is no mention of how "four were contaminated" or when. This particular conference call seems to have been in the afternoon of March 12, 2011 in Eastern US Time, so it was after the explosion of Reactor 1.

The fuel had been already in the Reactor Pressure Vessels in Reactors 5 and 6 when the earthquake hit. Reactor 4 was still undergoing the core shroud replacement, and all the fuel bundles were in the Spent Fuel Pool.

I am very curious to know how and when they got contaminated, but the information was not in this particular transcript.

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Swiss Court Withdraws Mühleberg Nuclear Plant Licence

The Mühleberg Nuclear Power Plant has one boiling water reactor made by GE, the same type as in Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

From Swissinfo.ch (3/7/2012):

The Mühleberg atomic plant near Bern will lose its operating licence at the end of June 2013 on security grounds, the Federal Administrative Court has ruled.

The court upheld a complaint by local opponents of the plant against the indefinite extension of the plant's licence by the environment ministry, granted at the end of 2009.

The 1972 plant, one of the oldest in Switzerland, is run by BKW Energy. Last September it was restarted after three months of annual checks and safety improvements.

Before the court’s ruling, Mühleberg's licence was open-ended as long as it met national nuclear safety requirements.

All Swiss atomic plants are due to be decommissioned by 2034, in line with the government’s decision to opt out of atomic energy, announced last May.

In the wake of last year’s crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, the Swiss government suspended all applications for the building of new power plants and ordered a review of options for the country’s energy mix in the future.

swissinfo.ch and agencies

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Business as Usual for Nuke Industry as Hitachi-GE Won Negotiating Right with Lithuanian Government for Nuke Plant in the Country

As the cattle farmers despair over radioactive hay and cattle, and more locations found with very high radiation (hot spots and hot areas), the Japanese government plans to shrink the planned evacuation zone as it pushes a nuclear power plant in Lithuania.

The Hitachi-GE joint venture has won the right to negotiate with the Lithuanian government to build a nuclear power plant in the country, beating Toshiba/Westinghouse. Another successful government-industry joint effort to push super-large "infrastructure" projects in developing countries throughout the world.

Nuclear accident? What accident? Have you heard of a nuclear accident recently, which happened on Hitachi-GE reactors? Lithuanians?

Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano commented on the success of Hitachi-GE during the press conference on July 15 as follows (according to J-Cast News, 7/15/2011):

「今回の事故があっても、日本の技術力について他国から評価をいただけているということについてはポジティブに受け止めたい」

"Despite the Fukushima accident, the Japanese technology is still highly valued by other countries. It is very positive."

Asked about PM Kan's remark that the nuclear technology is an "uncontrollable technology", Edano said:

"I don't remember the context of his remark, so I cannot comment."

Edano, Kaieda (Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry) and Hosono (PM's assistant and Minister in charge of the Fukushima accident) have been very close these days as if they were identical triplets (just look at this great shot from NHK the other day; from left, Edano, Kaieda, Hosono), planning for the "stress test" for the nuclear power plants so that they can be re-started ASAP and seemingly going around the prime minister if not avoiding him.

The Mitsubishi-AREVA JV has won the right to negotiate with the Jordanian government for their first nuke plant in the country. Toshiba, who owns 100% of Westinghouse Electric, has been pushing for the Mongolian fuel processing plant.

Business as usual for the world's nuke industry.

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How GE's Mark 1 Reactor Caused #Fukushima I Nuke Plant Accident

(UPDATE) The presentation was created by the Union of Concerned Scientists, and was posted later at Fairewinds Associates. (h/t anon reader)

---------------------------------------

I found this presentation at Arnie Gundersen's Fairewinds Associates website. I do not know who created the presentation, as there is no credit on the slides. I'm assuming it was Fairewinds Associates. The presentation was posted on their site on April 25.

It shows GE's now notorious Mark 1 BWR nuclear reactor with actual photos and diagrams of the reactor, and explains how the accident progressed, given such design.

Fukushima-Tragedy

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Crook Meets Crook: GE's Immelt Meets TEPCO's Katsumata

Immelt met Katsumata, TEPCO's chairman and acting president while the regular one is being hospitalized for high blood pressure, on April 3, 2011 (JST) and promised that GE would assist TEPCO in dealing with Fukushima I Nuke Plant and in meeting the demand for power in the summer months.

Never waste a good crisis; it's a new business opportunity. Never mind that it was GE's Mark I reactor that was used in all of the Fukushima I reactors except Reactor 6. It's the earthquake that caused the problem, not GE's reactors, right? Besides, it's TEPCO's lax safety protocol, right?

So Prez Obama's promise to help the Japanese in any way he could was to send his buddy Immelt to sell GE's "expertise"? Great.

By the way, I've heard from some people in Chile that when the president went down there on the way from his Rio vacation it was partly to sell nuclear plants to Chile. Remember, the visit was after the earthquake/tsunami on March 11.

From Reuters (4/3/2011):

TOKYO (Reuters) - General Electric Co , which helped build the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant damaged by Japan's earthquake and tsunami, will help the plant's operator supply electricity in the coming summer when power demand soars.

GE chief executive Jeff Immelt, on a visit to Japan, met with officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co Ltd <9501.T> about the crippled Fukushima plant, site of the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

"Immelt said GE would cooperate with TEPCO on restarting and strengthening its thermal power generation in anticipation of the rise in power demand for the summer," a TEPCO official told a webcast news briefing.

"As one of the manufacturers (of the reactors), he wanted to say GE wants to provide ideas to help resolve the situation," said the official from Japan's biggest utility.

Here's from williambanzai7 at Zero Hedge. More at the link:

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More on TEPCO's South Texas Nuke Plant Investment

that TEPCO Chairman Katsumata mentioned in the yesterday's press conference.

From Skadden law office announcement in May 2010 [emphasis added]:

Skadden is representing the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc. (TEPCO), which entered into an agreement with Nuclear Innovation North America LLC, a nuclear development company jointly owned by NRG Energy, Inc. and Toshiba Corporation, to acquire a 10 percent interest in the planned expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear plant. TEPCO's investment, announced May 10, marks the first time a Japanese utility has invested in an overseas nuclear power project. This will be the first project in the United States to utilize Advanced Boiling Water Reactor technology.

"Advanced"? After the GE-designed, Toshiba-made boiling water reactor in the Reactor 3 at Fukushima I blew up? I suppose TEPCO and Toshiba have since refined the technology after they installed the Reactor 3 at Fukushima I Nuke Plant in 1974.

Advanced boiling water reactor, according to wiki, is currently offered by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy. Fukushima I Nuke Plant's Reactor No.6 and 7, whose construction was scheduled to start in April 2012, were planned to be ABWR.

And the Texans seem to remain bullish on nuclear energy and believe TEPCO will not pull out.

From Platt's Energy Week (emphasis added; 3/15/2011):

Japan's still-unfolding nuclear crisis has shaken investor confidence in prospects for a US nuclear renaissance, but it remains unclear if the March 12 accident at a Japanese nuclear plant in the aftermath of a 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami will slow or even stop US nuclear projects now in advanced stages of development.

... The plan by Nuclear Innovation North America, an 88/12 joint venture of NRG Energy and Tokyo-based Toshiba, to add two 1,350-MW advanced boiling water reactors at the South Texas nuclear project in Matagorda County, Texas, faces perhaps the most immediate uncertainty.

Toshiba supplied the GE-designed boiling water reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3, whose reactor roof exploded on Monday. And both that unit and Fukushima Daiicchi Unit 1, which suffered a similar fate on Saturday, are owned and operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co., which last May committed to buy up to a 499-MW stake in the South Texas nuclear expansion.

NRG spokesman David Knox said Monday that it is too soon to comment on whether the Japanese nuclear crisis might lead Tepco to shift its attention to rebuilding its crippled nuclear generation fleet at home and withdraw its plan to invest in US nuclear capacity.

"Our focus is on our friends and partners" in Japan, Knox said. "There will be time to assess the impact [of Japan's nuclear crisis] on nuclear development in the US in the days and weeks to come."

Tepco said last May that it will pay NINA $125 million for a 10% share of the joint venture, which owns a 92.375% stake in the South Texas expansion project, once the Department of Energy has issued a conditional commitment to the project's developers for a federal loan guarantee.

Tepco also agreed to pay NINA $30 million for an option to buy an additional 10% stake in NINA about a year later for another $125 million. Tepco's initial 10% stake in NINA will give it a 9.2375% interest in the expansion project, and its second 10% stake will increase that interest to 18.47%, or 499 MW. CPS Energy, the San Antonio municipal utility, owns the other 7.625% stake in the expansion project.

NRG's Knox said that "nothing happens" regarding Tepco's commitment to join the South Texas expansion project until DOE has offered the project a conditional loan guarantee. The proposed loan guarantee is currently being reviewed by the Treasury Department and the White House Office of Management & Budget, he said. It would then go back to the DOE Credit Review Board for approval before being issued.

"Considering everything that's going on I wouldn't want to hazard a guess" on when that conditional loan guarantee might be forthcoming, Knox said.

Leading proponents of "new nuclear" said that they do not believe the Japanese nuclear crisis will delay or kill US projects now under development.

Please read the full article at the link.

After today's Obama's speech, Mr. Knox can rest assured that the federal loan guarantee will be forthcoming shortly.

So the Japanese are not the only delusional people. Good to know.

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GE Engineer Who Worked on #Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactors: "Japan May Have Lost Race"

From UK's Guardian (3/29/2011, emphasis added, complete article at the link):

The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor below, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.

Richard Lahey, who has worked on the plant at Fukushima, told the Guardian officials seemed to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but added that there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

.... At Fukushima, workers have been pumping water into three reactors in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down. But Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at the plant, said his analysis of radiation levels suggested these attempts had failed at reactor two.

He said at least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel and on to the concrete floor below.

"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."

The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it will react with the concrete floor of the drywell, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.

Lahey said: "It won't come out as one big glob; it'll come out like lava, and that is good because it's easier to cool." [I hope he's right about that.]

The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this.

"The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core," Lahey added. "It's not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it's not going to be good news for the environment."

The radiation level at a pool of water in the turbine room of reactor two was measured recently at 1,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level, workers could remain in the area for just 15 minutes, under current exposure guidelines.

A less serious core meltdown happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. During that incident, engineers managed to cool the molten fuel before it penetrated the steel pressure vessel. The task is a race against time, because as the fuel melts it forms a blob that becomes increasingly difficult to cool.

In the light of the Fukushima crisis, Lahey said all countries with nuclear power stations should have "Swat teams" of nuclear reactor safety experts on standby to give swift advice to the authorities in times of emergency, with international groups co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Authority.

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GE's Immelt 2010 Compensation More Than Doubled to $15.2 Million

GE, who designed all 6 reactors at #Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant (reactors No.1-5 are Mark 1, reactor No.6 is Mark 2) and supplied three of them (No.1, 2, 6), generously gave its CEO $15.2 million dollars compensation for .... What did he do, other than being photographed with Obama?

From AP (3/14/2011; emphasis added):

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) -- General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt's 2010 compensation more than doubled to $15.2 million as the company benefited from a recovering economy.

Immelt's $3.3 million salary was unchanged from the previous year, according to an Associated Press analysis of a company filing on Monday. But he got a $4 million bonus in February for his work in 2010, after getting no bonus for two years in a row. And the company gave him stock options valued at $7.4 million.

His 2009 compensation package amounted to about $5.6 million.

GE's directors decided that Immelt "performed very well in 2010" and beat their goals for him in four financial measures, including earnings from continuing operations, cash generated, and profit margins, according to the filing.

Immelt also received $389,809 in other compensation, almost all of it for his personal use of the company plane. GE said that on Nov. 22, the company and Immelt made a deal where he will lease aircraft from GE for his personal use and pay the actual expenses for each specific flight.

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: GE Mark 1 Reactor Design Flaw?

Of 6 reactors at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, at least 2 of them use GE's Mark 1 reactor (reactors No.1, 2). (I haven't found out whether the reactor made by Toshiba (reactors No.3, 5) and Hitachi (reactor No.4) are still based on GE's Mark 1. The reactor No.6 is GE's Mark 2.

From Nuclear Information and Resource Services March 1996 article by Mark Gunther [emphasis added]:

HAZARDS OF BOILING WATER REACTORS IN THE UNITED STATES

....But even basic questions about the the GE containment design remain unanswered and its integrity in serious doubt. For example, eighteen of these BWRs use a smaller GE Mark I pressure suppression containment conceived as a cost-saving alternative to the larger reinforced concrete containments marketed by competitors.

....However, as early as 1972, Dr. Stephen Hanuaer, an Atomic Energy Commission safety official, recommended that the pressure suppression system be discontinued and any further designs not be accepted for construction permits. Shortly thereafter, three General Electric nuclear engineers publicly resigned their prestigious positions citing dangerous shortcomings in the GE design.

....An NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] analysis of the potential failure of the Mark I under accident conditions concluded in a 1985 report that Mark I failure within the first few hours following core melt would appear rather likely."

....In 1986, Harold Denton, then the NRC's top safety official, told an industry trade group that the "Mark I containment, especially being smaller with lower design pressure, in spite of the suppression pool, if you look at the WASH 1400 safety study, you'll find something like a 90% probability of that containment failing."

Read the entire article at the link.

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Obama's In-Your-Face Appointment of GE's Immelt May Have Marked the Stock Market Top

Likes of Kudlow and Cramer and a host of others in MSM financial media have been telling us "See, Obama is pro-business after all!" They also points to the appointment of GE's CEO Jeff Immelt as the head of the newly created (by presidential fiat) Jobs and Competitiveness Board, and scream "See? See? See?"

(It's gotta be a joke of some kind - a sick kind. Immelt is very good at CUTTING JOBS in the US.)

Yes I see it alright. But what I see is not Obama being "pro-business". I see a President giving favors to his buddies and his masters. If that's called "pro-business", sure, it is "pro-large, multinational businesses", aka "crony capitalism".

Take a look at this wonderful picture from the article linked above (first one): Obama, posing as a serious, attentive listener to Immelt, with Valerie "slum lord" Jarret looking on to make sure Barry is striking a right pose for the camera.

I have this feeling that the stock market, however much it has been manipulated by Ben and TBTF friends of his on Wall Street, may have stopped responding to this "economy is great and Obama is pro-business" chorus ever since December 1st. And looking at what has transpired during the Chinese president visit and seeing Immelt appointment, at least the part of the stock market may have thrown in the towel, saying "Ferrrgetit..."

Why do I have this feeling, you ask? The charts. If Obama is pro-business, intent on creating jobs (I'm too tired to even laugh), why are the two particular indices that represent growth and new jobs have been dropping big time?

The top one is Nasdaq, the bottom is Russell 2000. Technology companies and small/medium companies, which would create jobs through growth. They seem to know Obama being "pro-business" simply means he favors his big donors, i.e. large multinational conglomerates who have shipped jobs overseas, mostly to Communist China, and that Obama will bend over backwards to hand his buddies some lucrative contracts (like he just did for GE and Honeywell).

Both Nasdaq and Russell 2000 went down significantly for three days in a row, despite good earnings reports. Note the extremely narrow bollinger band on Russell 2000. Probably the narrowest since March last year. A big move seems to be coming. I don't sense that it is going to be to the upside. How about you?

The indices that represent big caps, Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P500, both went up yet again today. Dow continues to levitate near the upper bollinger band, while S&P bounced off the mid bollinger band.

To give some credit to the viewership of Kudlow's show, 84% of online respondents do not believe Obama is pro-business.

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Missile Shield Call-Off in Exchange for Biz Deals?

President Obama "dismayed America's allies in Europe and angered his political opponents at home today when he formally ditched plans to set up a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic." (Dismay in Europe as Obama ditches missile defence, 9/17/09 Times Online UK)

The administration's move is clearly designed to placate Russia, whose cooperation is sought by the administration "on everything from nuclear weapons cuts to efforts to curb Iranian and North Korean weapons programmes" (9/17/09 Reuters).

What did Messrs Putin and Medvedev give to President Obama in exchange? Agreed to further sanctions on Iran and North Korea? Agreed to stay out of any potential armed conflict? I have a feeling Russia could care less on those.

Whatever the real "quid pro quo" was, what appeared in the news was that Putin will meet U.S. businessmen on Friday (9/17/09 Reuters).

"MOSCOW, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will meet several top U.S. executives on Friday, including General Electric Co and Morgan Stanley, the Russian government said on Thursday.

"Putin's meetings with top Western executives are usually a precursor of major business deals."

Halting the missile shield to give U.S. businesses good deals in Russia? Reuter's article hints as much:

"Talks with the U.S. firms follow a U.S. government decision to halt the deployment of a missile shield defence system in Europe, a move received positively by the Russian government."

Mr. Putin will meet:

• David Bonderman, founding partner of one of the world's largest private equity firms, TPG
• Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric
• John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley who is stepping down in 2010

Washington Examiner is more sarcastic than Reuters:

"General Electric may be the company with the closest ties to the Obama administration (if not, GE is second only to Goldman Sachs), and here we see the company benefiting from an abrupt foreign policy change made by President Obama."

As Examiner's article points out, Immelt is President Obama's economic advisor. GE owns CNBC (the stock market cheerleader/greenshooter) and MSNBC, which Washington Examiner says is "the network famously friendly to Obama".

A free-market version of capitalism is just about dead, but another version of capitalism seems alive and well, as it always has been: crony capitalism.

(Has the House banned the word yet?)

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