Stories by J.A. Savage
The vice president would have you believe nuclear power is clean and safe. Here's everything you need to know about just how unclean and dangerous it really is.
Posted on Jul 1, 2006
An energy summit of Western governors unearths some new policies on promoting renewable power. Among the 'clean' options: coal and nuclear.
Posted on Apr 16, 2004
PG&E's bankruptcy fight should serve as a lesson to the country: In federal bankruptcy court only creditors matter; forget the environment, forget the impact on consumers.
Posted on Mar 12, 2004
With all its hidden costs, and risks, California considers closing one of its largest nuclear plants -- but not if lobbyists have anything to do with it.
Posted on Feb 24, 2004
The Bush administration's attempt to turn publicly owned national forest tracks into lumber is inciting Greenpeace to get back into the hearts and guts of environmentalists.
Posted on Jul 2, 2003
The Bush administration backs massive logging in the cause of fire hazard reduction. Environmentalists say that it's a sop to the timber industry.
Posted on Jun 23, 2003
AlterNet exclusive: A former company man charges that casks designed to hold buried nuclear waste don't meet federal safety standards and could leak.
Posted on Jun 6, 2003
'Stealth act' hands prime forests, including ancient trees, to the timber industry and could decimate public lands.
Posted on May 19, 2003
Environmentalists charge that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission isn't doing enough to keep nuclear power plants from becoming weapons of massive radioactive destruction.
Posted on Apr 15, 2003
The government is collecting a mountain of information, but they don't know what to do with it...yet.
Posted on Dec 17, 2002
When a Canadian court upheld a lawsuit by the agribiz giant against Percy Schmeiser, it essentially gave Monsanto control of the entire canola crop of Western Canada. Now Schmeiser is fighting back to regain control of his land.
Posted on Nov 25, 2002
Tree-sitting eco-militants have added a new tactic to their arsenal: hunger strikes.
Posted on Oct 22, 2002
As talks break down between the country's most politically progressive union and shipper's representatives, the federal government steps in, invoking the specter of the union-busting Taft-Hartley Act.
Posted on Oct 7, 2002
A recent court ruling sets a precedent for bankrupt companies to ignore environmental laws when paying off their debts.
Posted on Sep 12, 2002
Long before Kenneth Lay and Bernie Ebbers, Charles Hurwitz and his company Maxxam were raising the hackles of environmentalists and workers in the redwood forests of California.
Posted on Aug 8, 2002
The Fourth of July is an attractive target date for terrorist attacks. Are the nation's 103 operating commercial nuclear reactors safe? Does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission even care?
Posted on Jun 26, 2002
With the Senate voting soon, will the town of Skull Valley, Nevada, become a temporary holding site for radioactive waste bound for Yucca Mountain? Its residents are getting nervous.
Posted on May 20, 2002
To protect against anthrax, the USPS has invested in irradiation devices that can blast mail with the equivalent of 825 million chest X-rays. Will the radiation do more harm than good?
Posted on Nov 5, 2001
National green organizations fear being tainted as un-American for continuing to oppose Bush's anti-environmental policies, and are significantly shifting their strategies.
Posted on Oct 5, 2001
Unless you like radioactive fallout, the upcoming anniversary of Three Mile Island's meltdown is cause to get up off the couch and raise some hell.
Posted on Mar 20, 2001
Greed, plain and simple, is the underlying cause of California's energy crisis.
Posted on Jan 22, 2001
As the drug war pushes marijuana growers indoors, they are sucking countless precious kilowatts of electricity from an already overtaxed power grid.
Posted on Nov 30, 2000
Brownouts and blackouts in California are getting as common as visits from your relatives. Rather than encouraging energy conservation, the state is building more polluting power power plants.
Posted on Aug 9, 2000
In the next six months, California's Diablo Canyon nuclear plant will be shut down, if economics finally have anything to do with it. Despite decades of Pacific Gas & Electric's ability to side-step reality, it's corporate accountants are finally admitting that Diablo isn't profitable. And on on account of hydroelectric dams.
Posted on Apr 26, 2000
Despite its profitability, PG&E doesn't want to be in the hydro business anymore. The utility has a plan to transfer all its dams to a sister company -- a move that could raise and lower water levels in lakes, take drinking water out of state regulation, manipulate the price of electricity and put watersheds in the hands of timber companies. And it's not just in California; another PG&E affiliate is buying up dams in New England too. If the plan goes through, the two PG&E affiliates would be the largest owners of electric generation in the nation.
Posted on Apr 26, 2000
Big corporations anxiously anticipated telephone deregulation to lower the cost of talking to clients in faraway places. Business flyers couldn't wait for airline deregulation to lower the cost of jetting to all those important meetings. Now, businesses that consume lots of energy can't wait for electric industry deregulation. But, just like the other industries where vacationers pay more than Citibank executives heading for Hong Kong and phoning your mom costs more than phoning clients for IBM, individual electric ratepayers will be on the hook to subsidize businesses that will benefit from upcoming electric deregulation.
Posted on Apr 26, 2000
