Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 12:32:24 -0700 From: Aaron Koleszar <•••@••.•••> Subject: PR Watch: The International Conspiracy to Overheat the Earth hello, The single largest barrier to preventing climate change (and most other environmental problems) is the PR industry. Here is an interesting article from an excellent publication. Subscription information and back issues are found at at www.prwatch.org. Stay strong! Aaron Koleszar <•••@••.•••> ************************************************************** >From PR Watch: A Publication of the Center for Media & Democracy Vol. 4, No. 4 / Fourth Quarter 1997 online at http://www.prwatch.org/97-Q4/warming.html#start Thinking Globally, Acting Vocally: The International Conspiracy to Overheat the Earth by Bob Burton and Sheldon Rampton As corporations, products and issues have internationalized, the PR industry has followed. The recent negotiations over global warming in Kyoto, Japan illustrate just how high the stakes have become and how the PR industry helps broker international coalitions of corporations, think tanks and industry-funded scientists to achieve industry goals. Among scientists, the consensus is nearly unanimous that the world's climate is suffering damage from burning oil, coal and gasoline, a consensus echoed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences as well as the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a working group of 2,500 climate experts sponsored by the United Nations to study the problem. In 1995, the IPCC warned bluntly that the earth has entered a period of climatic instability likely to cause "widespread economic, social and environmental dislocation over the next century," including crop-destroying droughts, a host of new and recurring diseases, devastating hurricanes, and rising sea levels that could inundate island nations and low-lying coastal rims on the continents. To avert a catastrophe, IPCC called for policy measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 20% below 1990 levels. Such changes, of course, would seriously alter the lucrative status quo enjoyed by big polluting industries. In order to prevent IPCC's recommendation from becoming reality, industry groups including fuel companies, automobile makers and other manufacturers have poured millions of dollars into a bewildering array of green-sounding front groups whose mission is to sow confusion about the issue. ICE Melts Down In 1991, a U.S. corporate coalition including the National Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association and Edison Electrical Institute created a PR front group called the "Information Council for the Environment" (ICE) and launched a $500,000 advertising and public relations blitz as the first salvo in a campaign to, in ICE's own words, "reposition global warming as theory (not fact)." The ICE was run by Bracy Williams & Co., a Washington-based P.R. firm. Using opinion polling, it identified "older, less-educated males from larger households who are not typically active information-seekers" and "younger, lower-income women" as "good targets for radio advertisements" that would "directly attack the proponents of global warming . . . through comparison of global warming to historical or mythical instances of gloom and doom." To boost its credibility, ICE created a Scientific Advisory Panel that featured Patrick Michaels from the Department of Environmental Services at the University of Virginia, Robert Balling of Arizona State University and Sherwood Idso of the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory. Michaels has been the leading scientific sceptic of the global warming theory. "It will be interesting to see how the science approach sells," commented an internal memo by the Edison Electric Institute's William Brier. The campaign collapsed, however, after Brier's comments and other internal memoranda were leaked to the press. An embarrassed Michaels hastily disassociated himself from ICE, citing what he called its "blatant dishonesty." Qualms notwithstanding, Michaels continues to benefit heavily from his association with the fossil fuels industry. During an administrative hearing in Minnesota in May 1995, he testified that he had received $165,000 in funding during the previous five years from fuel companies, including $49,000 from the German Coals Association and funding from the Western Fuels company for his publication, World Climate Change. Just Another Voice The collapse of ICE barely dented industry's propaganda campaign, which had already created a bevy of other front groups to pump out the same message. The group currently leading the charge is the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a creation of the Burson-Marsteller PR firm. Since its founding in 1989 until the summer of 1997, GCC operated out of the offices of the National Association of Manufacturers. Its members include Amoco, the American Forest & Paper Association, American Petroleum Institute, Shell Oil, Texaco, Chevron, Chrysler, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Exxon, General Motors, Ford Motor Company and more than 40 other corporations and trade associations. In addition to Burson-Marsteller, GCC is represented by the E. Bruce Harrison Company, a subsidiary of PR giant Ruder Finn. Within the public relations industry, Harrison is an almost legendary figure, who is ironically considered "the founder of green PR" because of his work for the pesticide industry in the 1960s, when he helped lead the attack on author Rachel Carson and her environmental classic, Silent Spring. GCC also employs the Washington, DC-based EOP Group Inc., another well-connected lobby firm whose other clients include the American Petroleum Institute, the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Edison Electric Institute, National Mining Association and the Nuclear Energy Institute. Since 1994 GCC has spent more than $1 million each year to downplay the threat of climate change. Its efforts are coordinated with separate campaigns by many of its members, such as the National Coal Association, which spent more than $700,000 on the global climate issue in 1992 and 1993. In 1993, the American Petroleum Institute paid Burson-Marsteller $1.8 million for a successful computer-driven "grassroots" letter and phone-in campaign to stop a proposed tax on fossil fuels. "For perspective, this is only slightly less than the combined yearly expenditures on global warming of the five major environmental groups that focus on climate issues--about $2.1 million, according to officials of the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the World Wildlife Fund," observes journalist Ross Gelbspan, author of The Heat Is On, the best book written to date on the issue. The Australian Connection The GCC recognized early on that Australia would play a key role in its campaign against global warming reform. Rapid economic growth in the Australasian region has seen Australia emerge as an important regional staging post for the PR industry. Most major US firms--Edelman's, Burson-Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton, Ketchum, Shandwick and others--have established a presence there to work on local issues and the regional implementation of international issues. After the Indonesian military massacred scores of supporters of the independence movement in East Timor, for example, Burson-Marsteller received a $5 million contract from the government of Indonesia to help improve the country's human rights and environmental image. Australia, as East Timor's nearest neighbor, has long played a critical role in discussions on its future following the Indonesian invasion in 1975. Australia also accounts for more than 30 percent of world trade in coal, and has major metal smelting industries which also belch out greenhouse gases. As a result, it has Asia's highest per capita emission of greenhouse gases, even though its population comprises only one percent of the region's 2.5 billion people. In 1988, when Australia held a Greenhouse '88 conference, there was great public interest in the issue. At the time, Australia had one of the "greenest" governments in the world. Since then, however, corporations and their front groups have systematically manipulated public opinion through frequent pronouncements in the media by Michaels and other industry-funded scientists. Part of the campaign has been managed by Noel Bushnell of the PR firm Hannagan and Bushnell, which serves as a consultant to the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, a coalition of industry groups. Hannagan was formerly the public affairs manager for Alcoa, the giant bauxite, alumina and aluminium company which in turn is 40% owned by the Western Mining Corporation, which owns chemical plants and smelters in Australia, Guinea, Suriname, Jamaica, Brazil, Germany, India, Holland, Japan and the United States. Australian think-tanks have also been active. The Australian Institute of Public Affairs, which gets almost one-third of its budget from mining and manufacturing companies, has produced a series of statements challenging the greenhouse consensus. These efforts, combined with intensive mining industry lobbying aimed at Australian Prime Minister John Howard, have successfully transformed the Australian government from a green role model to a green pariah. Rather than agreeing to a call for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, Australia announced plans to increase its emissions by 18 percent by the year 2010. Countdown to Kyoto One of the key people building the trans-Pacific campaign was R.J. Smith, Senior Environmental Scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an industry-funded right-wing think-tank based in Washington, DC. In 1996, Smith said, "right after Tim Wirth of the U.S. State Department announced they were going to call for mandatory controls in Kyoto, we said, 'What do we do? How do we stop this?' " The answer was developed in a strategy meeting held in November 1996 at CEI headquarters. Participants included Ray Evans from Australia's Western Mining Corporation, along with a senior world vice-president for Ford Motors, American Petroleum Institute Executive Director Bill O'Keefe, and Dick Lawson, the executive director of the U.S. National Mining Association. "It was clear that Australia if possible would be a key player in this," Smith said, "so we decided to see if we could plan a series of conferences before Kyoto and had the first one on July 15, 1997 in Washington, DC." The Washington conference, titled "The Costs of Kyoto," offered blanket dismissals of the scientific evidence for climate change and predicted staggering economic costs for any policies aimed at restricting emissions. Speakers included Fran Smith from Consumer Alert, an industry-funded front group; Patrick Michaels and fellow contrarian Wilfred Beckerman from Oxford University; Australian Embassy Chief of Mission Paul O'Sullivan and Brian Fisher from the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE). ABARE is an Australian government-funded economic forecasting agency that has become highly influential in the international debate over the costs of greenhouse gas abatement, with Fisher criss-crossing the globe to tout an ABARE analysis that predicts huge costs in jobs and income if emission reduction targets are met. What Fisher prefers not to discuss, however, are the funding sources behind that research. For a contribution of $50,000, corporations buy a seat on the steering committee overseeing its work. "By becoming a member of the consortium, you will have an influence on the direction of the model development," ABARE states in promotional material to potential sponsors. Contributors to ABARE's global warming modeling work include Rio Tinto, the world's largest mining company; Texaco; Mobil Oil; Exxon; the Australian Coal Association; the Australian Aluminum Council; and Statoil, the Norwegian oil company. All told, ABARE receives $500,000 a year from the fossil fuel industry. ABARE's contribution to the global warming debate has been to advocate "differentiation." Rather than setting a uniform target for all nations to lower their greenhouse emissions by equal proportions, Fisher advocates "differentiated" goals tailored to the economic characteristics of each country--an approach that abandons the agreement reached at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. According to environmentalists, "differentiation" would make negotiations between nations so difficult that it would basically scuttle any hope of effectively capping worldwide emissions. In August 1997, the CEI sponsored another major conference, this time in Australia's capital, Canberra. Australia's position on global warming had made it a target of public humiliation at the recent New York Earth summit, leaving the government wounded domestically and wavering in its diplomatic strategy. According to Smith, the purpose of the Canberra conference was to "try and buck [Prime Minister John Howard] up a little more and let him know that there is support of the American people" for his government's obstructionist stance. "This conference is the first shot across the bow of those who expect to champion the Kyoto Treaty," explained former U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop, who chairs the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, another corporate-funded U.S. think-tank. Other U.S. speakers included the omnipresent Patrick Michaels, along with U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, U.S. Congressman John Dingell, and Richard Lawson, President and Chief Executive Officer of the US National Mining Association. Addressing conference participants, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fisher claimed that tough emission reduction targets could put 90,000 jobs at risk in Australia and cost more than $150 million. U.S. Smoke and Mirrors In the United States, the countdown to Kyoto saw a dizzying array of activity from industry front groups: The Global Climate Information Project (GCIP), launched on September 9, 1997 by some of the nation's most powerful trade associations, spent more than $3 million in newspaper and television advertising, using ads produced by Goddard*Claussen/First Tuesday, a California-based PR firm whose clients include the Chlorine Chemistry Council, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Dupont Merck Pharmaceuticals and the Vinyl Siding Institute. Goddard*Claussen is also notorious for its "Harry and Louise" advertisement that helped derail President Clinton's health reform proposal. Its global warming ads used a similar fear-mongering strategy by claiming that a Kyoto treaty would mean a "50-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax" and higher prices on everything from "heat to food to clothing." The GCIP is represented by Richard Pollock, former director of the Naderite group Critical Mass who now works as a senior vice president for Shandwick Public Affairs, the second largest PR firm in the United States. Shandwick clients include Browning-Ferris Industries, Central Maine Power, Georgia-Pacific Corp., Monsanto Chemical Co., New York State Electric and Gas Co., Ciba-Geigy, Ford Motor Company, Hydro-Quebec, Pfizer, and Proctor & Gamble. The Coalition for Vehicle Choice (CVC), a front group for automobile manufacturers, launched its own advertising campaign, including a three-page ad in the Washington Post which blasted the climate agreement as an assault on the US economy. Sponsors for the ad included hundreds of oil and gas companies, auto dealers, parts stores and other groups, along with a number of far-right anti-environmental organizations such as the American Land Rights Association and Sovereignty International, which claims that international environmental treaties are part of a United Nations conspiracy to establish a "new world order" that will abolish private property and personal freedoms. CVC was originally founded in 1991 to fight higher fuel economy standards. >From the beginning, it has been represented by Ron DeFore, a former vice president of E. Bruce Harrison's PR firm. Its budget in 1993 was $2.2 million, all of which came from the big three automakers--Ford, GM and Chrysler. The National Center for Public Policy Research, an industry-funded think-tank, established the Kyoto Earth Summit Information Center, issued an "Earth Summit Fact Sheet" and fed anti-treaty quotes to the media through a "free interview locator service" that offered "assistance to journalists seeking interviews with leading scientists, economists and public policy experts on global warming." The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) attempted to stimulate anti-treaty email to President Clinton by promising to enter writers' names in a $1,000 sweepstakes drawing. On the eve of the Kyoto Conference, TASSC executive director Steven Milloy announced that more than 500 physicians and scientists have signed an open letter to world leaders opposing any climate change treaty. Asked by PR Watch to provide the signers' names and credentials, Milloy replied that he had not yet had time to "compile" the "hard copy list." Milloy is a self-styled critic of "junk science," actually a lobbyist for the EOP Group, which also helps run the Global Climate Coalition. TASSC's funders include 3M, Amoco, Chevron, Dow Chemical, Exxon, General Motors, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lorillard Tobacco, Louisiana Chemical Association, National Pest Control Association, Occidental Petroleum, Philip Morris Companies, Procter & Gamble, Santa Fe Pacific Gold, and W.R. Grace. The American Policy Center (APC), another far-right, industry-funded "nonprofit organization" based in Washington, DC, worked to mobilize a "Strike for Liberty," calling on truckers to pull over to the side of the road for an hour and for farmers to drive tractors into key cities to "shut down the nation" as a protest against any Kyoto treaty. Signing the treaty, APC warned, would mean that "with a single stroke of the pen, our nation as we built it, as we have known it and as we have loved it will begin to disappear." APC also appealed to anti-abortion activists with the claim that "Al Gore has said abortion should be used to reduce global warming." The Bottom Line Clinton-bashing was a common theme in industry's grassroots appeals, using the usual argument that the global warming issue is another Clinton attempt to replace private property with "socialism," "bureaucracy" and "big government." Ultimately, however, the orchestrated wrath of the right wing's minions was a diversionary tactic which effectively concealed Clinton's complicity in the effort to prevent any effective regulations on global warming. In April 1993, on the eve of Earth Day, Clinton announced his intention to sign a treaty on global warming, but ever since then he has played the game of perpetually watering down the content of any such treaty. In October 1993, Clinton's "Climate Change Action Plan" turned out to be a "voluntary effort" depending entirely on the goodwill of industry for implementation. By early 1996, he was forced to admit that the plan was off track and would not come even close to meeting its goal for greenhouse gas reductions by the year 2000. In 1997, Clinton provided further stunning examples of his legendary ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth. In June, he addressed the United Nations Earth Summit and pledged a sustained U.S. commitment to stop global warming. Painting a near-apocalyptic picture of encroaching seas and killer heat, he acknowledged that America's record over the past five years was "not sufficient. . . . We must do better and we will." In October 1997, however, Clinton announced that realistic targets and timetables for cutting greenhouse gas emissions should be put off for 20 years, prompting the London Guardian to editorialize that "champagne corks are popping in the boardrooms of BP, Shell, Esso, Mobil, Ford, General Motors, and the coal, steel and aluminium corporations of the US, Australia and Europe. . . . In a stunning example of raw backroom power and political manipulation, the 'death-row' industries showed who rules the economic world by effectively killing any hope of combatting global warming at the Kyoto climate conference in December. . . . The new limits are so weak, compared with even the most pessimistic predictions of what the US would offer in the current negotiations, that two years of hard work by 150 countries towards reaching an agreement in December are now irrelevant." The treaty that emerged from Kyoto proposed a reduction of only 7% in global greenhouse emissions by the year 2012, far below the 20% cut proposed by European nations or the 30% reduction demanded by low-lying island nations that fear massive flooding as melting polar ice leads to rising sea levels. The US successfully won a provision that will allow countries to exceed their emission targets by buying right-to-pollute credits from nations that achieve better-than-targeted reductions. Greenpeace called the treaty "a tragedy and a farce." It was condemned as "too extreme" by U.S. industry, declared dead-on-arrival by Senate Republicans, praised by some mainstream environmental groups, and luckily for the presidential aspirations of Al Gore, provided all the wiggle room he and Bill Clinton needed to have their cake and eat it too. Clinton embraced the agreement but simultaneously said he would not submit it to the Senate until impoverished nations agreed to their own cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions. <snip> Part of the information for this story was provided by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR); by Ross Gelbspan, author of The Heat Is On; and by Sharon Beder, author of Global Spin: the Corporate Assault on Environmentalism. ************************************************************ Also in this issue: Flack Attack Wise Guys Down Under: PR's Eco-front Moves on Australia Sometimes the Truth Leaks Out: Failed PR Campaigns "Down Under" Welcome to the Jungle: Shell Invades the Peruvian Amazon Center for Media & Democracy 3318 Gregory Street Madison, WI 53711. phone: (608) 233-3346 fax: 608-238-2236 email: •••@••.••• www.prwatch.org ********************************************************** Aaron Koleszar <•••@••.•••> ___________________________________________________ IN A TIME OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH IS A REVOLUTIONARY ACT - GEORGE ORWELL Prince Edward Island PROPAGANDA JOURNAL look at http://www3.pei.sympatico.ca/brad/ ******************************************************* Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 21:59:50 -0500 From: "Mike Nickerson, Inviting Debate" <•••@••.•••> Subject: US Patent Office letter >Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1999 16:08:27 -0700 >From: Hal Fox <•••@••.•••> >Subject: US Patent Office letter > >Concerning the US Patent office and new energy research patents >involving cold fusion : > > FUSION INFORMATION CENTER, Inc. > 3084 East 3300 So. > SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84109 > Voice: 801-466-8680 Fax: 801-466-8668 > > August 3, 1999 > >To: Special Agent >Office of the Inspector General >Commerce Department >Room 7614 >14th and Constitution, NW >Washington, DC 20230 >Voice 202 482-0909 Fax 202-501-0710 > >Dear Ms. Kimberlee Taylor, > >Dr. Mitchell Swartz has informed me that you are interested in >information regarding cold fusion and low-energy nuclear reactions and >the policy of the Office of Patents and Trademarks with respect to >patent applications. The following information may be of some interest: > >A. BACKGROUND > >As the director of the first research laboratory at the University of >Utah Research Park, I was intensely interested in the March 23, 1989 >announcement called by the University of Utah administration (not called >by Pons and Fleischmann). The announcement of a new source of energy >was most exciting to me. That day I began the plans for trying to be of >some help (systems engineering background, missile system specialist for >several years). By mid April 1989 we had organized the Fusion >Information Center and obtained offices at the University of Utah >Research Park. > >By July 1989, we had decided that information gathering and publishing >such information would be our best role. Our first edition of Fusion >Facts was published in July 1989 and continued as a monthly publication >for several years before being incorporated as a part of the Journal of >New Energy, a peer-reviewed, quarterly, scientific journal (abstracted >from the first issue by Chemical Abstracts -- the world's foremost >scientific abstracting organization). > > >B. THE ATTACKS ON COLD FUSION > >By the fall of 1989 it was apparent that someone had organized and was >carrying out a campaign against the new technology of cold fusion. Here >are the facts, insofar, as we have been able to gather and publish the >facts. Please note that all of this was done in secrecy (except for the >ERAB sub committee). > >A subcommittee of the Energy Research Advisory Board traveled to various >laboratories where successes in cold fusion had been claimed. If the >research was measuring neutrons, they were told that it was background >radiation. If the researcher was getting tritium, they were told that >it was contamination. If excess heat was being produced, they were told >that they didn't have proper calorimetry. Except for one small >paragraph in the ERAB final report, demanded by one of the honest >members of the committee, the report was entirely negative of cold >fusion. > >An arrangement was made for someone in the Office of Patents (any type >of coercion or reward is unknown) to ensure that no cold fusion patent >application was accepted for patenting. Each person, as far as we have >been able to determine, wAS sent the same information: a copy of a >newspaper article from the New York Times saying that cold fusion >doesn't work; a copy of the paper by 16 Ph.D.s from MIT stating that >they could not replicate cold fusion (this is the paper where the >authors removed the data showing that they did get a small amount of >excess heat). > >A person (representing powers-that-be in Washington, D.C.) called many >of the physics and chemistry departments at major universities in the >United States. Here was his message as relayed to me from one such >department: "If you have so much as a graduate student working on cold >fusion, you will get no contracts out of Washington." > >All of the editors of the major scientific journals were contacted and >were instructed not to publish articles on cold fusion. All editors but >one then set up barriers against cold fusion publications. The one >editor who did not accept that type of instruction was Professor George >Miley, editor until this year of Fusion Technology, the international >journal of the American Nuclear Society. > >An amount of $30,000 (or $40,000 - different sources) was given to >Random House to have a "hatchet job" done against cold fusion. The >result was the widely acclaimed (by orchestration) book by Gary Taubes, >Bad Science, The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion c 1993. For >one knowledgeable on the cold fusion development, it is obvious that >this book was a deliberate hatchet job. > >In addition to the above well-orchestrated activities, some appointed, >or self-appointed scientists have been very active in traveling to >conventions, etc. and doing their best to challenge any positive cold >fusion results. Two of these are (were) Dr. Douglas R.O. Morrison >(CERN, Switzerland) and Professor John R. Huizenga of University of >Rochester (chairman of the ERAB sub committee, if my memory is correct). > >One of the most active protagonists has been Robert Parks, with some >association with the American Physical Society. (The current president >of the American Physical Society, in a recent conversation, denies that >Robert Parks speaks for the society.) Parks was instrumental in >preventing a recent conference from being held in a proffered auditorium >in a government facility. Parks has an email list of many people in the >DOE and about once a month or more often sends out statements that >ridicule any cold fusion or low-energy nuclear reaction experiments, >papers, books, etc. > >Please recognize that this was a very-well thought-out and orchestrated >scheme to destroy cold fusion. These were clever and well-done >operations. We have been told that were it not for Fusion Facts and its >rapid exchange of information of successes in various parts of the >world, cold fusion would have been dead. That is more credit than we >deserve. >C. THE COLLECTION OF PROFESSIONAL PAPERS > >The Fusion Information Center, Inc. is believed to have accumulated the >world's largest collection of papers on cold nuclear fusion, >new-hydrogen energy (the Japanese label), low-energy nuclear reactions, >and other enhanced energy papers. We have collected and reviewed over >3,000 papers on cold fusion and low-energy nuclear reactions, read the >papers, written reviews, and published the reviews. Over 600 papers >from over 200 laboratories in 30 countries report some successes in >replicating or extending the original work of Pons and Fleischmann. Dr. >Mitchell Swartz and I have presented papers on this extensive review of >the literature. > >In addition, this office has published New Energy News, for the past six >years. All members of the Institute of New Energy receive this >newsletter. In addition, beginning in January 1996, this office began >publishing the Journal of New Energy, a quarterly, peer-reviewed, >scientific journal. The reason was the lack of professional journals >that would publish some of the new-energy and new-science papers. For >example, we have published six papers about torsion field fluctuations >which report on formerly highly-secret work done by over 25 laboratories >in the former USSR. This journal has published two issues providing the >proceedings of two International Conferences on Low-Energy Nuclear >Reactions. > >All of this published information (Fusion Facts, New Energy News, & >Journal of New Energy), covering a ten-year period, have now been >published on a CD-ROM. If a copy of this CD-ROM would be of interest to >you, we would be pleased to send you a copy. > >D. THE ROLE OF THE DOE > >As is well-known, political appointees to government agencies come and >go but the real work of the agency is accomplished by the network of >civil servants who bear the burden of continuing and exercising the >Congressional mandates for their offices. > >Here is a summary of the current situation in DOE: > >The DOE is required by law to handle the disposition of all high-level >nuclear wastes including weapons-related liquid wastes (such as at the >Hanford Site, Washington state) and the spent-fuel pellets from nuclear >power plants and from nuclear submarines. In about 1993 or 1994 a >contact was given to the National Research Council to prepare a study on >the best methods for separation and/or transmutation of nuclear wastes. >The result was the following large publication printed and distributed >in 1996: > Nuclear Wastes: Technologies for Separations and Transmutation, >Committee on Separations Technology and Transmutation Systems, Board on >Radioactive Waste Management, Commission on Geosciences, Environment, >and Resources, National Research Council, published by National Academy >Press, Washington, D.C. c1996 by the National Academy of Sciences. > >It is not known if the contract was awarded with counsel and advice on >the expected outcome. However, the end result was a statement to the >effect that there is no known method of handling radioactive wastes that >is more cost-effective than geologic storage. That has been and still >is the major objective of the DOE - geologic storage. Any proposals >that claim to have new technology that will stabilize high-level >radioactive wastes are rejected. In one DOE document asking for >proposals, it was explicitly stated that no cold fusion proposals would >be accepted. > >Several laboratories, included our own, has demonstrated that there is >technology that appears to be effective in transmuting radioactive >wastes. None of this work, to our knowledge, is government funded. >Apparently, the network of those opposing cold fusion and other >low-energy nuclear reactions is most effective throughout the DOE as >well as in the appropriate division of the Office of Patents. It is >believed that this opposition group is mainly related to the hot-fusion >community of scholars and lobbyists and that the activities are being >largely supported by federal funds provided to the hot fusion community. > >If you have any questions or would like to have more information, I >would be pleased to help in any way that I can, including my personal >testimony in any hearings. My home phone number is 801-467-3338. > >Best personal regards, > >Hal Fox, President, Fusion Information Center, > Editor, FF, NEN, and JONE > * * * * * * * * * * * * 'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed it's the only thing that ever has.' Margaret Mead * * * * * * * * * * * * http://www.cyberus.ca/choose.sustain Sustainability Project - Inviting Debate P.O. Box 374, Merrickville, Ontario K0G 1N0 (613) 269-3500 e-mail: •••@••.•••
