Source: Clean Technica

India and the US-based National Space Society have finally announced the launch of a space-based solar power initiative that plans to market the idea of economically (and certainly technically) viable space-based solar power infrastructure to government leaders around the world.

India’s renowned space and missile technology expert, and former Indian President, Dr APJ Adbul Kalam and the NSS started discussions on this out-of-the-world venture in November 2010 just before President Obama’s maiden visit to India.

These discussions were prompted by a study by the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses, an Indian Defense Ministry think tank. The study was conducted by Peter Garretson, a US Air Force lieutenant colonel. Gerrestson urged the Indian and American governments to work together to make space-based solar power generation a commercially viable business by 2025.

Gerrestson was able to propose such an ambitious plan only after the US administration lifted technology sharing restrictions from Indian agencies like the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The study proposed three stages for the implementation of the space-based solar program.

Expanding on the three-stage plan, Garretson says an initial five-year $10-30 million programme will develop contributing technologies and build a competent work force culminating in a roadmap for a demonstration prototype.

A second, $10 billion, 10-year phase will see the formation of an international consortium to construct a sub-scale space solar power system that can directly be scaled up by industry. The final stage will entail India-US leadership to set up an international for-profit consortium along the lines of the INTELSAT model to address energy security and carbon mitigation concerns.

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Read more: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/18/national-space-society-will-pitch-space-based-solar-power-to-g8-nations/

Warning: contains graphic video of animals being skinned alive.

I found another article with the same two estimates:



2.7 / 4.1 = 0.66 = 66%

So instead of having 90% of the costs in a trust fund,
they only have 66% (about 2/3) of the costs in a trust fund,
about $1.4 billion short.

I found another article with the same two estimates:



2.7 / 4.1 = 0.66 = 66%

So instead of having 90% of the costs in a trust fund,
they only have about 2/3 of the costs in a trust fund.

Source: Associated Press


Tens of thousands of Harley owners from around the world descended on Rome for the four-day anniversary of the American manufacturer.

Biker culture came to the Vatican on Sunday as Pope Francis blessed thousands of Harley-Davidsons and their riders celebrating the manufacturer's 110th anniversary with a loud parade and plenty of leather.

Thundering Harley engines nearly drowned out the Latin recitation of the "Our Father" prayer that accompanied Francis as he greeted the crowd before Mass. Standing in his open-top jeep, Francis drove up the main boulevard leading to St. Peter's Square, blessing the thousands of people in what was a giant Harley parking lot.

Once the service got under way, bikers in their trademark leather Harley vests sat in the square alongside nuns and tens of thousands of faithful Catholics taking part in an unrelated, two-day pro-life rally.

Francis addressed them both afterward, giving a blessing to the "numerous participants" of the Harley gathering.

<snip>

Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Pope-blesses-thousands-of-bikers-as-Harley-Davidson-turns-110/articleshow/20624272.cms

Source: Reuters, Times of India

Russian President Vladimir Putin, arriving in Britain ahead of an international summit set to be dominated by disagreement over the US decision to send weapons to Syria's rebels, said the West must not arm fighters who eat human flesh.

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"One does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras," Putin said.

"Are these the people you want to support? Are they the ones you want to supply with weapons? Then this probably has little relation to the humanitarian values preached in Europe for hundreds of years."

The incident Putin referred to was most likely that of a rebel commander filmed last month cutting into the torso of a dead soldier and biting into a piece of one of his organs.

<snip>

Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/West-arming-Syrian-rebels-who-eat-human-fleshVladimir-Putin-says/articleshow/20622563.cms

Source: KPBS

Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff want to void a ruling that played a significant role in Southern California Edison’s decision to shut down the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

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Now, Kendra Ulrich of FOE said NRC staff are preparing to wipe the judges’ ruling from the record. Ulrich said the regulatory agency is too closely allied with the companies they are regulating.

“That’s why they want to vacate this order,” she said. “They want to make sure that this very comfortable relationship that they have established is maintained.“

The NRC did not respond to questions about the motion to vacate the ruling. Voiding the ruling will not change the decision to shut down San Onofre but it could affect communities in other states such as Ohio, which is seeking more transparency from the nuclear industry.

Read more: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/jun/14/nrc-considers-voiding-key-ruling-san-onofre/

Source: KCET

Southern California Edison (SCE) has made it official: the utility informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that it has closed down the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station -- forever.

In a notice sent to NRC on June 12, the Southern California utility told the NRC that it "certifies that it has permanently ceased power operation of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Units 2 and 3 effective June 7 2013." The notice, termed a Certification of Permanent Cessation of Power Operations, makes the closing official.

<snip>

Decommissioning the plant to the point where it can be torn down may well take decades, and some observers are speculating the containment domes could still be there 50 years from now. In the short term, simply mothballing the plant will allow some of the shorter-lived radioactive substances in the plant's two units to decay to the point where they pose less threat to decommissioning workers. Tritium, for instance, is known to exist inside the plant. A radioactive isotope of hydrogen, tritium has a half-life of 12.32 years: it takes that long for half a sample of tritium to decay into non-radioactive form. After 50 years, 94 percent of the tritium on the site will have decayed.

About 3 million pounds of spent fuel is currently on the site, according to the Los Angeles Times, and it will stay there for the foreseeable future as the United States doesn't have a high-level waste repository that can handle it.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/nuclear/its-official-sce-notifies-feds-of-san-onofre-shutdown.html

Source: Orange County Register

Southern California Edison goofed a bit when it told the world that it would cost $3 billion to mothball the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station last week.

Decommissioning costs are actually projected to be $4.1 billion, as we at The Watchdog originally reported.

Edison has $2.7 billion stashed away, it said last week, so the clean-up was 90 percent funded. We did some back-of-the-napkin math (using the $4.1 billion figure) and said it sure ...

Click Here to login and see more!

Read more: http://www.ocregister.com/taxdollars/billion-512655-edison-percent.html

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Unfortunately the rest is behind a paywall.

Source: East Bay Express

Daniel Ellsberg and a panel of legal and political experts warned an overflowing crowd at St. John's Church in Berkeley on Tuesday night that American civil liberties are in jeopardy.

The consensus of the (well-timed) panel — which, in addition to Ellsberg, included legal activist Nadia Kayyali, journalist Norman Solomon, and Icelandic Parliament member Birgitta Jónsdóttir— was that the government's recent collection of American citizens' phone records is unconstitutional. And we should all be concerned.

Ellsberg, who rose to fame in 1971 when he turned over the infamous Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, pulled no punches. He said that Edward Snowden's recent leak — which revealed that the National Security Agency has been collecting Americans' data for years — is the most important in United States history, and that the government's sweeping access to our metadata leaves us “a turnkey away from tyranny.”

“It could become a police state almost overnight,” he said, to nods of agreement among the crowd and fellow panelists. “Our constitutional protections have been waved away by our public figures.”

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Read more: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2013/06/13/daniel-ellsberg-on-prism-were-a-turnkey-away-from-tyranny