Goes to show what I know. I'd never heard of opponents of nuclear power referred to as "the swarm". Now I have, thanks to some press reports you can read below.
For new nuclear reactors it is planning at Turkey Point, FPL wants to use fresh water reclaimed from the waste stream. Start drinking now: it is going to take millions of urine streams to cool that uranium.
Actually, FPL is talking about building a 72 inch pipe all the way to Turkey Point, filled with your treated shower, bath, dishwater, pee and poo. I'm waiting to hear how whatever evaporates isn't going to pollute the whole southern Florida peninsula.
The Everglades is dying from pollution by phosphorous and nitrogen from sugar fields, measured by greater than 10 parts per billion. Biscayne Bay is even more sensitive.
The wastewater stream, treated to advanced or tertiary standards, will be still loaded with nutrients-- in other words, the stuff we eat that doesn't make it to muscle or fat. 500 parts per billion or more. 90 million gallons per day.
So, how is that going to work? I'll guess you will have to ask "the swarm".
Big Media vs. the Swarm
http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2008/06/big-media-vs-swarm.asp
......Also troubling is the unwillingness of some Big Media reporters
working the Big Energy beat to call a spade a spade.
Take for example a June 11 story on a public hearing about Progress Energy's
plans to build a new reactor at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant near
Raleigh, N.C. News & Observer reporter John Murawski included the
pro-nuclear comments of one Nina Cann-Woode, who he identified as a field
representative of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition.
But Murawski did not identify the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition.
Guess it's a grassroots group like Tsolkas' Palm Beach County Environmental
Coalition?
If so, guess again.
It's actually a public relations campaign for new nuclear reactors funded by
the nuclear industry's trade association and headed by former Bush
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman -- a
fact anyone could learn with a quick visit to the Center for Media and
Democracy's SourceWatch website.
But when the swarmers at the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network
contacted the newspaper to ask for a clarification, they were told to write
a letter.
For the opinion page.
Big Energy vs. the Swarm
http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2008/06/big-energy-vs-swarm.asp
Last week, Florida Power & Light filed papers with the state's Public
Service Commission opposing the request of an activist with the Palm Beach
County Environmental Coalition to intervene in the company's petition to
convert an oil-burning power plant in Riviera Beach into one powered by
natural gas.
The move comes after Panagioti Tsolkas of Lake Worth, Fla. submitted papers
to the commission critical of FPL's conversion plans and accused the company
of "greenwashing." PBCEC points out that gas-fired power plants are a major
source of global warming pollution as well as other toxic emissions that
present a threat to humans and ecosystems.
Tsolkas, the PBCEC co-chair, was arrested last month at a press conference
where he announced a lawsuit seeking to stop construction at another FPL
power plant after someone apparently alerted authorities to an outstanding
trespass warrant against him. He was also among 27 protesters arrested in
February for blockading the construction entrance to the FPL site.
In an interview published last Independence Day by a Fort Lauderdale blog
titled Amuse the Ants, Tsolkas was asked about his most frightening
confrontation with authorities:
Panagioti: This recent fight with FP&L I think. I wouldn't say frightening,
although I think that element could be there because I think its one of the
most massive entities that I've ever been involved in taking on and
challenging, and realizing how well-connected they are, even within the
environmental community. I think their connections go very deep and being
nervous about what sort of impact that's gonna have on peoples live who get
involved in protesting it. I don't think it's any cause to stay away from
the fight but I do think people should keep FP&L in check. We had the civil
disobedience act there at their shareholders meeting and some people were
arrested for blocking the road and the police arrested a young woman with a
bullhorn … Security guards were hiding out in the bushes and just this kind
of air of intimidation – police officers taking pictures of people up in
their faces … They just grabbed the bullhorn and put it in the police car,
and it was sorta like, to me, a little eye-opening that some of these giant
companies actually, I think, have a lot of control over the authorities that
we're kind of under.Indeed, Florida is not the only state where law
enforcement authorities have used intimidating tactics against grassroots
activists protesting Big Energy's polluting plans. In April, two nonviolent
protesters were Tasered after locking themselves to bulldozers at the
construction site for Duke Energy's massive new coal-fired power plant in
western North Carolina, leading clean-air advocates with the Canary
Coalition to call for an investigation of the police officers' actions. And
in Colorado last year, an activist was arrested and jailed for simply
carrying a "No New Coal Plants" sign inside the bar of a hotel that had just
hosted a clean energy conference.
In an article published earlier this year by Orion magazine, writer Ted Nace
described these grassroots activists working to stop the building of
polluting power plants as a "swarm," using as an example the No New Coal
Plants e-mail list founded by Mike Ewall of the Energy Justice Network.
[Disclosure: I'm a member of that list.] Nace contrasted the "swarmers" --
who also like to call themselves "the Twigs" -- with large national
environmental groups sometimes dubbed Big Green, noting that in many cases
the grassroots activists have been more effective:
As fighting forces, swarms both preceded and eventually vanquished the
orthogonal ranks of legionnaires that forged the Roman Empire. In a swarm,
the emphasis is not on discipline, experience, and orderliness but rather on
fighting spirit and individual initiative. Swarms are known for their
tactical flexibility, sometimes using guerrilla-style harassment, as did the
farmers who routed the British at Lexington and Concord; other times
prevailing with overwhelming numbers in the manner of the Arapaho, Lakota,
and Northern Cheyenne fighters who overran the U.S. Seventh Cavalry at the
Little Bighorn.While Tsolkas and his swarm has not yet succeeded in stopping
FPL's plans for new polluting power plants, they have clearly gotten under
the company's skin. In its filing against Tsolkas' intervention, FPL threw
the proverbial book at him, arguing that:
1) he lacks standing because he's not an FPL customer,
2) there's no proof PBCEC members are FPL customers,
3) PBCEC is not registered as a business or nonprofit in Florida, and
4) Tsolkas is neither an attorney nor a "qualified representative."
PBCEC is currently collecting contributions to defray legal costs. To
donate, visit the front page of their website.
(Photo of Panagioti Tsolkas being arrested during a protest against FPL's
expansion plans is by Damon Higgins of the Palm Beach Post and was taken
from the PBCEC Web site)
9 comments:
Well now, if southernstudies.org (really famous for having "examined the southern contribution to culture and social change, from gospel music and the blues to the civil rights movement and community organizing.") says it's so it must be so. LOL!
I'm waiting to hear how whatever evaporates isn't going to pollute the whole southern Florida peninsula.
WTF!!? What does this mean? You're worried that gray water will evaporate into the air and pollute southern Florida? The same gray water that golf course have been using for years?
And you're a member of the "reality-based community"? Figures.
Gimleteye writes:
Maybe I should have been clearer: the southern half of the state is already ringed by pollution: Lake Okeechobee, St. Lucie, Caloosahatchee, Florida Bay. The canals in the Everglades. Plenty of algae booms to go around. Been to Florida Bay lately? Fished there, o drinker of golf course lake water?
Do you get a special handicap if you drink golf course lake water?
I drank golf lake water once. Been hooking my 7-iron ever since.
Coincidence?
Why aren't more people talking about that 72 inch pipe?
My understanding is that it is to run thru Bicayne National Park waters.
Talk about a recipe for disaster...
"Maybe I should have been clearer..."
What you should have done is answer your own question before writing the editorial: "So, how is that going to work?"
G.oD. is right this blog is crawling with knuckleheads.
Gimleteye writes:
"Maybe I should have been clearer... What you should have done is answer your own question before writing the editorial: "So, how is that going to work."
Just a quick comment to the poster: one this particular subject, how FPL can avoid polluting the whole of South Florida with its cooling water for the new nuclear facilities, I don't know how it is going to work until FPL plays all its cards. Right now, it is only playing them one at at time, according to NRC and state licensing requirements for nuclear power.
You might wonder why, on this important issue of coolant water-- 90 million gallons per day-- that the county commission would have required a plan from FPL before surrendering its last permitting threshold at the local level. It did not, putting the burden on citizens to find out what they can and so on.
By the way, The Parks department did a presentation at CC14, saying that the water park at the zoo was going to use the caca water... a purple pipe, I believe he said.
So, who wins that battle? FPL gets the water from the Black Point plant and the zoo gets the water from the new plant at sw 211 and US 1? He was also excited about how clean it would be once the plant treated it 2x and the water park adds the nice chemicals to make it better than tap water.
And the same person, bless his heart, was speaking of the train coming down the tracks to deliver folks to the zoo... and the 12 laning of the Turnpike in the area. I believe Ms. Sweetapple was the traffic engineer.
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