On Mar 18, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Katherine Roberts wrote:
RE: Obama, Chu, nuclear power, weapons, and waste, http:// www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/opinion/18cooke.html Strange, or disingenuous, of that New York Times guest editorialist, to suggest that Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, former head of Lawrence Livermore Labs, wants to "avoid getting dragged down by the nuclear undertow," since Chu has openly advocated a nuclear renaissance. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates, formerly Bush's, has often pitched for continuing to develop the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead. Chu was the head of Lawrence Livermore Labs awhile it was the lead contractor/developer of the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead; Los Alamos was working on it as well, but Livermore won the lead spot. Congress defunded further development of the RRW, after ghastly amounts of money had already been spent, but the London Guardian reported recently that development had simply moved over to Britain's Aldermaston nuke bomb factory, It's almost inconceivable that this could be going on without Chu's knowledge, because he's the Secretary of Energy, which is to say, the Department of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons. If he didn't know it was going on, which is, again, barely even conceivable, he most certainly knows since this 02/09/2009 Guardian article. Has he done anything to stop the covert continuation of the RRW nuclear bomb design defunded by Congress, in Britain? No sign of any such move that I've heard or found on the Web. Chu's official statement says that, "Under this budget, development work on the Reliable Replacement Warhead will cease," but that sounds like a convenient way of taking claim for Congress's vote to defund the RRW's development, without acknowledging that he's continuing it, covertly, in cooperation with Britain, at Aldermaston. How many people, including Congresspeople, are gonna notice this Guardian report? Or care? Besides us? Here's a nuclear industry publication that was excited about Obama's choice of Stephen Chu, because they see him as pro-nuclear power, http:// cleanidahoenergy.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/obama-signals-pro-nuke- stance-in-steven-chu-pick/ Whoever wrote this New York Times op-ed was either too lazy to do the most cursory research, or trying to deceive us about how Obama and Chu's nuclear ambitions. Or, he might have seen both a renewables and nuclear voices on Obama's team, and thus tried to persuade both Obama and Chu to "escape from the nuclear undertow," at the Department of Energy, with flattery, but he's right that Energy is so essentially nuclear that that would mean recreating the Department, which is and always has been, first and foremost, the Department of Nuclear Power and Weapons, and thus, of course, Nuclear Waste. There are more nuclear and coal-fired power plants in Barack Obama's Illinois than in any other state in the union; and Chicago- based Exelon, the largest nuclear power corp in the U.S., made over $200,000 in bundled contributions to Obama's campaign. However, Obama did, very shortly after taking office, finally end the plan to make Native American sacred site Yucca Mountain a big high radiation nuclear waste dump..
"Let's have a moment of silence for all those Americans who are stuck in traffic on their way to the gym to ride the stationary bicycle." - Earl Blumenauer
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