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From: johnsullivan
Date: Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 2:15 PM
Subject: RE: [core] INDIAN POINTERS — COMMENTS NEEDED IN THIS SEGMENT ASAP THIS WEEKEND
Re: The need for gas to replace Indian Point. First, Indian Point was not closed down by the governor nor the environmentalists. It was a business decision by Entergy to not spend the money that would bring them into compliance with environmental protections that had been too long held in abeyance. This is reflected across the industry by the fact that there are over twenty nuclear plants that are scheduled to be closed. It is no longer worth the money to the industry to run these plants in a safe manner. Secondly the decision to invest money in gas plants was made several years before the plant was actually closed. It was a financial decision made out of fear, probably having as much to do with the profits of the nuclear/fossil fuel industry as with any need of the community. Conservation and solar could just have easily met our local needs. Your guest expert has written a book about the fragility of the grid. Yes the grid is fragile. Solar and wind would fit nicely into a smart grid that relies on distributive power and would be more robust. The solution to invest in nuclear is like buying a generator to back up the power company when your power failure is due to the electrical panel in your house. Besides the poisons that it will leave countless future generations nuclear cannot be done quickly enough to avoid the worst of the climate crisis
John Sullivan
Peekskill, New York
Sent from Mail for Windows
From: marilyn elie
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2022 1:39 AM
To: CORE Group of IPSEC
Subject: [core] INDIAN POINTERS — COMMENTS NEEDED IN THIS SEGMENT ASAP THIS WEEKEND
Remember to send me your comments for the website. Marie did an excellent response that others could find useful. Does not have to be long.
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From: David Kraft
Date: Sat, Apr 9, 2022, 5:31 PM
Subject: [decomm_wkg] INDIAN POINTERS — COMMENTS NEEDED IN THIS SEGMENT ASAP THIS WEEKEND
Hi All —
I had to add another 30-mins of work to your already busy schedule, but this is important.
I subscribe to a VERY well respected new progressive web channel called “Breaking Points,” formed by two journalists who split off from “The Hill” because it was getting too MSM. They wanted to do something better and different.
Unfortunately, in today’s segment, Saagar Enjeti started gushing all pro-nuclear and had a pro-nuclear guest on swatting beach balls, slaying straw persons, and sewing red herrings all over the place. Specifically though, she took on Indian Point as her example of how short-sighted us anti-nuke folks are.
I would ask that you please watch this 12-min segment, and leave a comment, and identify yourself as someone from the NY/Indian Point area. Thanks in advance.
I left a lengthy comment, which I paste below.
Thanks in advance. This is an important, progressiv channel; we can’t afford to lose them to the pro-nukers (they actually had Michael Shellenberger on on March 9th!!).
–Dave–
Meredith Angwin DEBUNKS Anti-Nuclear Power Talking Points | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
REBUTTAL TO BREAKING POINTS APRIL 9, 2022 WITH Meredith Angwin
COMMENT:
Sagaar — you’re making me worry. While it’s understandable that you would be intrigued by the gee-whizz promises of the nuclear industry and its advocates after BOTH the recent IPCC report and the Ukraine situation, and the fact that it’s a difficult and complex issue, I have to caution that you are getting seduced far to easily for someone purporting to be a progressive reporter/commentator, and who’s trying to “stick it to the MSM.” Your gush over nuclear is far too MSM at this point.
This is the second piece B/P has aired endorsing nuclear without a counterpoint view, the other being the March 9 Marshall Kosloff piece with pro-nuclear advocate Michael Shellenberger. I submitted a list of potential guests to him who had both far greater credential and the opposite position from Shellenberger (and I would now add Angwin), and Marshall replied saying he’d keep them in mind for the future. I provide that list for you, too below. Hope you will demonstrate that B/P in NOT like MSM, and provide one or more of them as a counter-point to both the biased content and style with which you have presented the pro-nuclear position in this segment.
While I agree with a lot of what Angwin presented, there is just as much of what she said that is both contestable, and in some cases outright incorrect. Worse though, in a 12 minute piece, she and you can only paint in broad brush strokes, which superficially makes nuclear more attractive. It’s when you get down in the trenches and the details where you begin to see how badly nuclear sucks. But aside from dealing only in convenient generalities, there is another very significant area where you really dropped the ball big time:
As a counter-MSM-journalist, I was shocked at 1.) your inability to grasp the difference between what is hard fact and industry-engineered self-fulfilling prophecy (e.g., the discussion about natural gas); and 2.) your total obliviousness to the most important maxim of deep-journalism: “follow the money.” I can cut you slack for not knowing a LOT of these details (you admitted you’re just lately reading and learning about nuclear); but I can assure you after following this industry for 43 years there’s a LOT that rotten in Denmark. Dangerously so when nuclear starts getting so uncritically promoted as a “climate solution,” or even loopier — Europe’s/Ukraine’s energy alternative to Putin and other fossil fuel dictators! Can we not see just how brittle, dangerous, and irrational placing MORE reactors in the path of potential war zones is after witnessing what we’ve seen in Ukraine??
Buying into nuclear this glibly without a more in-depth and counter-pointed dialog is similar to to how adolescents buy their first car: if it’s red, fast, and a convertible, that’s the one! Forget all that talk about safety, cost, insurance, maintenance, etc., right? You really don’t want to go cheap on those things with nuclear power.
To conclude, here’s the list I sent to Marshall. And now we’ll see if my investment in B/P was worth it.
Be well, PLEASE make the effort to learn more; and keep on doing on the other stuff, where I have almost lock-step agreement with you.
POTENTIAL GUEST LIST: Here’s a list of national and internationally respected candidates for such a future segment who can contest much of what was presented today: — physicist and energy analyist, Amory Lovins, current a faculty adjunct at Stanford, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute — energy researcher and author Dr. Mark Jacobson, at Stanford University — former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairperson and physicist Dr. Gregory Jaczko — Former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairperson and geologist Dr. Alison Macfarlane — physicist and energy analyst Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Inst. For Energy and Environmental research (www.ieer.org) — former nuclear power executive, manager and engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education — Peter Bradford, former NRC Commissioner, and former head of the public utility commissions for the states of New York and Maine