Public versus official views of nuclear incidents: Japan

JAPAN: Nuclear radiation/"accidents" update

N-safety reports inadequate / Gap between public, official views of incidents must be addressed

Tatsuo Nakajima / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Tuesday's release of a study downplaying any danger from the nuclear accident at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station in Niigata Prefecture following the Niigata Prefecture Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake suggests there is a gap between public and official views of the incident.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry report officially categorized the risk as "level 0 minus"--the lowest level on the International Atomic Energy Agency's International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).

I will never forget the TV images of black smoke billowing from an electric transformer situated next to the plant's No. 3 reactor building immediately after the earthquake hit the area on July 16. No matter how long I sat and watched the TV images, it seemed that no one was trying extinguish the fire--something that naturally made me and anybody who saw those images feel anxious.

That afternoon, the power station operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said there had been no release of radioactivity following the earthquake. Later that night, however, TEPCO announced that water containing a small amount of radioactive material had leaked into the sea from spent-fuel storage pools in the No. 6 reactor building.

At midnight, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Akira Amari ordered TEPCO President Tsunehisa Katsumata to explain the situation. The minister also reprimanded Katsumata over the company's failure to swiftly extinguish the fire, as well as its delay in reporting the leakage of radioactive water.

Various media, including The Yomiuri Shimbun, provided detailed reports on the situation at the nuclear power plant over the days that followed.

Despite the leak of radioactive water, the incident was given the lowest ranking on the INES scale. Nearly 3,000 other problems, such as the fire in the electric transformer, are not subject to categorization using the scale, according to the study.

No doubt many people feel uneasy about these results. What should we make of the gap between the official results and the way we feel about the incident?

Haruki Madarame, a professor at Tokyo University and chairman of the agency's INES Evaluation Subcommittee, said:

"The INES scale is solely concerned with nuclear-related incidents, not with disasters caused by things like earthquakes. If there was no release of radioactive material from the nuclear facilities, then the incident will automatically get a low ranking on the INES scale."

Accidents and problems at nuclear power facilities tend to be very technical and complicated, making it hard for ordinary people to understand.

Introduced in 1992 by the IAEA and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, INES aims at providing a simplified indicator to help ordinary people understand the relative seriousness of an accident or a problem. In other words, the scale ranks incidents according to the radiation hazard they pose.

As in the incident following the Niigata Prefecture Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake, therefore, problems that do not involve serious damage to a nuclear reactor are not subject to ranking on the scale, creating a gap between the result and public perception.

There have been other cases in which public feeling about an incident did not correspond to the INES evaluation, including a 2004 accident at Mihama nuclear power station's No. 3 reactor in Mihamacho, Fukui Prefecture, in which five people were killed by a steam pipe blowout, and a sodium leak accident at the Monju fast breeder reactor of the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (Donen) in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, in 1995.

Both were categorized as "level 1" incidents, described as operations constituting an "anomaly beyond the authorized operating regime."

The 1999 death of two employees at JCO Co. due to exposure to a massive dose of radiation at the nuclear fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, was evaluated as "level 4"--officially categorized as an "accident without significant off-site risk."

A fire and explosion at Donen's nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Tokaimura in 1997 was categorized as "level 3," or a "serious incident."

Those two events give the impression that the 2004 Mihama accident and the 1995 Monju case were considered less serious. This is due to the fact that the Mihama and Monju events did not involve any release of radioactivity.

It cannot be said with certainty that the incident at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant on July 16 was a significant nuclear accident. However, it is not surprising that the media made a big fuss over it, given that it involved a nuclear power plant suffering unexpected damage from an earthquake, and about 3,000 subsequent problems.

Even though the incident was given a low INES ranking, never before has any nuclear power plant been hit by such a massive quake. The government and electric power companies should show that they are not overreliant on the INES scale, and get to work on ways to prevent a recurrence of such problems--perhaps to include a reexamination of the scale for reactors in earthquake-prone areas.

(Nov. 16, 2007)

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Shaken to the Core: Japan’s Nuclear Program Battered by Niigata Quake

David McNeill

One of the lesser-known casualties of the deadly July 16 quake that struck Niigata Prefecture was a headstone that toppled in a village a few miles from the epicenter off Kashiwazaki. The grave bore the name of legendary former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei, Japan’s postwar master of pork-barrel politics and the man who helped bring the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant to this deprived area on the Sea of Japan coast.

Tombstones toppled in Niigata by the July 16 quake

Tanaka’s pitch was energy self-sufficiency in a country famously dependent on fuel imports, nearly all of it from the volatile Middle-East. But as its hosts now know, Tanaka’s dream required building the planet’s largest nuclear power complex directly over an active earthquake fault. Today, the plant squats on the outskirts of this town of 93,000, a seven-reactor, 8200-megawatt monster, surrounded by cracked and buckled roads and local people who wonder anew if they are safe living in its shadow.

Comprehensive view of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant

Inside, in the seconds after the 6.8 quake (now officially known as Chuetsu-oki) struck just twelve miles away, pipes burst, drums of nuclear waste toppled and monitors stopped working. A fire in an electrical transformer burned unattended for over two hours and 1,200 liters of contaminated water sloshed into the sea. Ten days later, Tokyo Electric Co. (Tepco), the utility giant that runs the plant, admitted that the damage “extended to the interior of the reactor building” and, at the end of July, that a small amount of radioactive water had also escaped from the No.1 reactor.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant entrance days after the earthquake

When Tepco President Katsumata Tsunehisa, who heads Japan’s largest electric power company and the largest privately owned electric utility in the world, surveyed the site in the aftermath of the quake, he reportedly called it “a mess.”

But the full dimensions of the problem would continue to leak to the public over the coming weeks. Not until July 30 did Tepco acknowledge that the July 16 quake had caused the Power Plant to sway a maximum 2,058 gals. A gal is a unit of acceleration equal to 1 centimeter per 1 second squared.

It was, the utility reported, not only the strongest sway recorded at a nuclear power plant in Japan, but might be the most powerful at any nuclear plant in the world.

In at least one area of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the shaking was 6.8 times larger than the maximum level taken into account when the plant was designed. Following the quake, Tepco had announced that the maximum shaking recorded at the plant was 680 gals on the lowest basement floor of the No. 1 reactor.

Tepco Shinsaiwaibashi Building

The problems at the complex quickly overtook media coverage of the wider and tragic destruction caused by the quake: eleven dead, over a thousand injured and an estimated 1.5 trillion yen in damage. At a time when some governments are rethinking a freeze on nuclear power as an alternative to carbon-based energy, Japan was something of an anomaly: an advanced country that had continued building plants despite the twin nuclear disasters of Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986). The country was now “paying a price” for that commitment, according to the LA Times, one of many foreign news outlets that felt compelled to comment on the disaster.

Such coverage elicited a testy press release from Japan’s Foreign Office on July 27, which blamed foreign news organizations for “inappropriate or inaccurate” reports on the quake. Like Tepco, the Foreign Office insists that the reactors worked as designed, automatically shutting down as the quake struck and releasing an “insignificant” amount of radiation “substantially lower than the standards under law.” The world awaits confirmation of these claims, but they follow a history of dissembling and cover-ups concerning nuclear power that critics say continues in Niigata. On July 23, a delegation of Social Democratic Party members led by Hosaka Nobuhiko was refused entry to several key areas of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex, including reactor buildings 5 and 7, by Tepco managers. A report written afterward by lawyer Ito Yoshinori called the extensive damage around the plant “alarming.”

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s seven reactors are now idle, threatening power shortages throughout the peak energy-demand summer months and forcing Trade Minister Amari Akira to request that business users cut electricity consumption. Kashiwazaki Mayor Aida Hiroshi invoked a little-used emergency order to shut down the reactors because he considered them “a threat to the safety of the public.” According to the Nikkei business newspaper, the plant, which generates enough power to supply 16 million households, is likely to be closed for up to a year.

Locals say that after he read the riot act to Tepco’s managers, Mayor Aida sent cars equipped with loudspeakers around the town to reassure his constituents he had been “tough” with the company. Some said he wasn’t tough enough. “

I wish the plant wasn’t here,” lamented resident Yamada Koji. “But now that it is we have to live with it and hope the government keeps us safe.”

That’s far from a unanimous view: Igarashi Mitsuo who lives in a hamlet right beside the stricken nuclear giant said:

“I don’t like it but as long as it stays safe, I think it is better that we have it.”

Locals have argued about the plant’s merits since it was announced amid a blaze of publicity and national pride in 1969. Later, the central government forcibly bought up the land and surrounding seas, according to local anti-nuclear activist Takemoto Kazuyuki. “The slogan was: ‘Nuclear power is a state policy, so you should be cooperative,’” he wrote in a 2002 petition to have the plant closed. Takemoto first petitioned to close the complex in 1974; demonstrations, petitions and court-cases were a regular feature of life here as the reactors went online between 1985 and 1997.

Since 2001, the site has been constantly monitored by police helicopters and coastguard ships permanently anchored offshore, the same year a public referendum narrowly (53 percent) voted to reject the use of MOX fuel, which combines plutonium and natural uranium oxides, in the reactors. Today, the most common local reaction to questions about the power station is shikata-ga-nai: It can’t be helped.

“Most people who live here keep a wary eye on the plant the way they would a dangerous neighbor,” says Briton Paul Woodcock, who teaches in the town. “They just hope it stays calm.”

Over the years, a total of $2 billion dollars (2,500 oku) in government subsidies has been pumped into Kashiwazaki, estimates Mayor Aida, and hundreds of local people now work at the complex; a quarter of households in Kariwa (a village of 5,000 people) are dependent on its salaries.

“The plant contributes a lot to the area but we only want it here if Tepco can guarantee the safety of the people here,” says Aida in an office on the top of the city’s administration building visibly scared by the quake. “We must be assured of this before it is reopened.”

Privately, the mayor is said to be furious at Tepco. Japan’s biggest power company initially failed to report the leak, then admitted that it was 50 percent bigger than previously announced. According to the Asahi, journalists who visited the reactor building on July 25 found workers mopping up radioactive water with paper towels. Earlier this year Tepco admitted falsifying inspection data 200 times at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa and other reactors going back decades. After the quake, it emerged that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had warned the plant managers two years ago that their fire-prevention measures were inadequate.

Trade Minister Amari warned that such scandals “could make people lose their trust in nuclear power” and ordered the country’s top nuclear power companies to tighten up plant operations. His concern is understandable. Japan has 55 of the world’s 440-odd operating reactors, supplying about one-third of the country’s demand for electricity, and another 11 in construction or planned. The government’s national energy policy aims to bury the “Hiroshima Syndrome” and raise the proportion of nuclear-generated electricity to 40 percent. Japan aims, in the words of Gavan McCormack, author of Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, to become “a nuclear superstate.” [See BELOW!!]

That puts the world’s second-largest economy out of step with much of the developed world. The contribution of nuclear power to global energy demand fell by one percent to 16 percent in the decade to 2003, and the scheduled closing of many older plants in Europe and the US is likely to reduce that level in coming years. While the US, Britain and much of Europe essentially froze their nuclear programs in recent years, resource-poor Japan continued building in the pursuit of energy self-sufficiency. One of the byproducts of this policy is an enormous and growing stock of plutonium – 45 tonnes, or enough to build thousands of the bombs that leveled Nagasaki in 1945. “It is astonishing that even after Chernobyl, Japan has built more than 20 new reactors,” says Murata Mitsuhei, former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland and now an antinuclear campaigner.

Murata says he and his network have collected 900,000 signatures demanding that all Japanese nuclear plants built on active faults be shut down.

Murata and leading seismologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko, who coined the phrase genpaku shinsai (roughly meaning a nuclear disaster triggered by an earthquake), warn that the nuclear technocrats are dangerously delusional about their ability to predict the impact of quakes on Japan’s 55 reactors.

“The people in charge say the faults (under the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant) were unexpected, but they had actually been predicted,”

says Ishibashi, who warns that the ability to forecast where quakes will hit is in any case limited.

“Even in areas with no detected faults, M7-class destructive earthquakes can happen.”

Ishibashi recently resigned from a subcommittee of the Japan Nuclear Safety Commission, set up to revise Japanese nuclear plant seismic standards, because

he “didn’t think the new standards were sufficient.”

Japan’s nuclear plants are designed to withstand M6.5-quakes, but the construction regulations are a quarter of a century old and new rules issued last year recommended an upgrade, widely and erroneously reported as 6.8, according to Ishibashi.

“The new guidelines are vague…and should be reviewed again. If we don’t make fundamental improvements to nuclear plant earthquake design, Japan will suffer a catastrophic genpaku shinsai.”

The most likely venue for such a disaster, he contends, is the aging, five-reactor Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka Prefecture, 190 km southwest of Tokyo. Seismologists suggest an 87-percent probability of a magnitude-8 quake striking under or near the Chubu Electric Power Co. plant in the next 30 years. Doomsday scenarios predict clouds of radioactive dust from the plant descending on the world’s most crowded metropolis within six hours of the quake. “Thirty million people would have to be evacuated from the city,” says Ishibashi. “We could never live there again.”

Despite such chilling warnings, there is little evidence that the Niigata quake has shaken government confidence in its nuclear program and, as the Foreign Office statement suggests, may have even reinforced it. “We believe,” said the statement, that a joint IAEA investigation “will not only confirm the current safety of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant…but also further contribute to the transparency in Japan’s Nuclear Energy, and help promote to share lessons leaned from the earthquake internationally” (sic). Many wonder, however, whether the pursuit of transparency and safety will survive the enormous costs generated. “The logic of nuclear power is that the companies want to reduce the costs of earthquake-resistant design as much as possible,” says Kyoto University’s Imanaka Tetsuji. “That leaves a lot of room for underestimating the risks.” Ban Hideaki, co-director of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, put this more bluntly.

“The target is money rather than safety” he told the Asia Times.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has already ordered an investigation into the Niigata disaster, citing “concern at the delayed reaction to the accident by the operators of the plant.” The result could be a demand that up to half of Japan’s nuclear complexes be refitted. Several plants, including the Onagawa facility in Miyagi Prefecture and the Shika plant in Ishikawa Prefecture have recently been rattled by much stronger quakes than they were built to withstand, and suggest that a quake resistance of at least 7.0 will have to be the new standard, a deceptively small change that could carry a price tag of hundreds of millions of dollars. The new regulations may demand that geologists identify quake faults active up to 130,000 years ago, a reaction to the stunning revelation that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant sat atop an active fault. In the meantime, Takemoto and his anti-nuclear colleagues wait for the results of a lawsuit (now in the Supreme Court) demanding that the government revoke Tepco’s operating license for the plant. “We predicted the earthquake and Tepco did not,” says Takemoto. “The company does not have the right to operate.”

Japan’s nuclear issues are not contained within its borders and indeed the reverberations of the July 16 quake are already being felt around the world: The Niigata plant shutdown is likely to undermine the country’s commitments to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which require a six-percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2012, based on an operational rate for its nuclear plants above 85 percent. Tokyo is planning to offer support and technological assistance to other fast-growing Asian nations that want to develop their own nuclear programs. Murata believes the Niigata quake should be the beginning of the end for Japan’s entire nuclear program. “To me it is a moral and ethical question. How can we keep building these plants when we don’t know how to dispose of the waste they generate or if they will survive an earthquake?”

See also:
http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/2488

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Japan as a Nuclear State

Gavan McCormack

The following text appears as chapter 8 in the just published book Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (New York and London, Verso), and is reproduced here by kind permission of the publishers.

Client State: Japan in the American Embrace

The nuclear question in relation to Japan is commonly understood in the narrow sense of whether Japan might one day opt to produce its own nuclear weapons, but I argue for a much broader construction. Japan is simultaneously unique nuclear victim country and one of the world’s most nuclear committed countries. Protected and privileged within the American embrace, it has evolved into a nuclear-cycle country and plutonium super-power.

The US nuclear embrace of Japan continues to evolve. Since the chapter was written, the implications of the Bush administration’s decision to promote the worldwide expansion of nuclear power generation and reprocessing, under a global-dominating cartel to be known as “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership” (GNEP), thus reversing thirty years of policy, have become gradually apparent. The US’s willing “follower” states (UK, Japan, Australia) have been uniformly enthusiastic, and the civil nuclear industry seems intent on exploiting the sense of global environmental and energy crisis to promote the nuclear option as green and safe, promising a global nuclear renaissance. Under the GNEP, the world would be divided between “our” states, that will be trusted with weapons (Pakistan, India, Israel, etc) and reprocessing technologies (Japan, and if Australian Prime Minister John Howard can have his way, Australia), and those beyond the pale (at present, most prominently, North Korea and Iran). In the most recent study of the implications, the Oxford Group points out that for a global civil nuclear energy program to have a significant impact, by doubling the nuclear contribution to the global energy grid, bringing it to about one-third of the total, a new reactor would have to be built each week from now to 2075. (Frank Barnaby and James Kemp, “Too Hot to Handle: The Future of Civil Nuclear Power,” Briefing Paper, Oxford Research group, July 2007.

The choice of plutonium as the material on which to rest the global economy threatens both the world’s security and its environment, and the fast breeder technology on which the GNEP would rest has yet to be developed.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant hit by the earthquake
in July 2007 was directly on a previously undetected fault line.

On 16 July 2007, following an earthquake that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale, the world’s largest nuclear plant (seven reactors with total generating capacity of 8,000 megawatts), at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in Niigata prefecture, had to be shut down indefinitely. Fifty cases of malfunctioning and other “trouble,” including burst pipes, a fire, radioactive leakages into the atmosphere and into the Sea of Japan, and the toppling of hundreds of drums of low-level radioactive wastes, were reported. The plant’s operators (Tokyo Electric Power Company) admitted that the quake had been more than twice as strong as the design had allowed for, and that it had been built directly atop a fault line that they had not detected. Immediate catastrophe was avoided, but 16 July held an ominous message. The government’s guarantees of the safety of existing plants, and its assurances of the reliability of its nuclear-centred energy policy, rang hollow.

If the country with the world’s most advanced

scientific and engineering skills could make such

disastrous nuclear miscalculations, could the rest of

the world do better?

More posted at the above link!!

See also:
http://www.fccj.or.jp/~fccjyod2/taxonomy/term/1?page=6

http://gyaku.jp/en/index.php?cmd=contentview&pid=000282
Interview with Hiroaki Koide

More on EMF/cellphones and wireless technologies

Cell Phone Radiation, Senility and Brain Cancer

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Bob_Shobi]

Bob Shobi

An entire generation of teenagers may become senile or have brain cancer at the peak of their lives due to cellular phone usage and other wireless technologies. These are the findings of the study published in Environmental Health Perspectives.

The study, based on intensive use of cellular phones, may cause apprehension in Western countries because it reveals new ways in which microwaves can affect our health. Leif Salford, the researcher who led the study that was conducted at Lund University in Sweden, claims that the fact that we voluntarily expose our brain to cell phone radiation is ?the largest biological experiment in the history of the world.?

Professor Salford fears that as the wireless technology becomes more popular people will "drown in a sea of microwaves.?

The study tested the leakage of albumin in the circulation of blood in the brain.

Prior studies of the subject have focused on the possibility that cell phones heat brain tissue thereby causing cancer. But the many studies trying to determine whether cell phones cause cancer have not been conclusive.

Thus, the cell phone industry in the US has managed to minimize findings regarding cellular radiation effects, but now the World Health Organization has taken over the research.

Exposure to cellular radiation affects the cells

"This study proves again that interference with cell activity of the body does not necessarily occur with high exposure to radiation that leads to heating of the area of exposure but can also occur with low exposure"

says Professor Rafi Korenstein, a scientist from the University of Tel-Aviv.

In a study published by Professor Korenstein with a number of other scientists six months ago (Bioelectromagnetics, 2003), it was proven that long-term exposure to cell phone radiation can affect the duplication of hereditary substance creating during the cell-division process, thereby increasing the risk for cancer.

The Head of the Cancer Department at the Israeli Ministry of Health, Dr. Mike Brichna, disagrees: in studies conducted on mice, researchers found changes in brain activity. The problem is to prove that what harms mice brains will cause the same effect in human brains.

Regardless, the doctor has three pieces of advice for people using cell phones:

Always talk with a wide open antenna.
Keep the antenna as far away from your ear as you can.
Use speakers whenever possible.

Some common questions and answers to learn more about this issue:

What is E.M.R.?

Answer: E.M.R. refers to Electromagnetic Radio-frequency Radiation which is the potentially dangerous frequency emitted by cellular or mobile phones.

High frequency ionizing forms of radiation exists as X-rays, Gamma rays and forms of nuclear radiation known to be hazardous . Non-ionizing radiation of lower frequency ionizing forms such as early cell phones were thought to be safe. That view has changed since cell phones and mobile phones have grown in strength from low-level radio waves to high-level microwaves.

No scientific study has proven conclusively that the use of cellular phones is hazardous to human health, yet continued use of higher frequency phones could adversely affect the central nervous system, diminish the effectiveness of the immune system and facilitate the development of cancer according to scientific research.

Perhaps this is why governments and health organizations worldwide are spending millions of dollars towards on-going research to determine the long term effects of exposure to E.M.R from cellular and mobile phones.

What is S.A.R.?

Answer: S.A.R. or Specific Absorption Rate of Radiation is used to measure the amount of radiation that the human body absorbs from any source, including cellular phones.

The F.C.C. (Federal Communications Commission) sets limits as to what they deemed were safe levels of radiation from cell phones. In the beginning when analog phones were 800-900 MHZ of power, most of the cell phones manufactured met these safe guidelines.

However as manufacturers raised the power of their phones up to 1800-2000MHZ and analog was replaced by digital, the majority of the cell phones now exceed the safe levels set by the F.C.C. In fact the manufacturers continue to lobby to have the levels raised, so they may keep increasing the power of the phones. The highest S. A. R. in the body is in the ear, thus the concern about excessive cell phone use and the strength of the signal.

How is S.A.R. measured on a cell phone?

Answer: When a call is made or received there is a band of radiation from the antenna, half of which disappears into space.

The remaining radiation is around the skull, face and ear area of the user and runs through the circuitry of the phone when transmitting the call.

A dummy head is immersed in a gel-like solution similar to body fluid and a cell phone is attached to the ear. Readings are taken from the antenna to determine the S.A.R. strength which will vary from phone to phone and proximity to the closest signal tower.

Bob Shobi is a freelance writer providing information and research the hazards of cellular phones.

To find out more about the dangers, get more

[/www.radiationtalk.com]

cell phone radiation information,

or check out how dangers your phone is with the

[www.radiationtalk.com/sar_chart.html]

common phones SAR chart.

http://EzineArticles.com/?Cell-Phone-Radiation,-Senility-and-Brain-Cancer&id=168235

Posted by ordognadeem

Center for Defense Information on Bent Spear in August

Loose Nukes Right Here At Home

By: Victoria Samson

Thursday, November 15, 2007

A common nightmare scenario for the arms control community is a nuclear weapon gone AWOL. This doesn't require a whole lot of imagination for it to be feasible, either — all you need is the breakdown of nuclear command and control for a brief moment, long enough for a device to go missing.

Of course, the countries typically used as examples of this threat are Russia or Pakistan, not the United States. We have over six decades of well-tested command and control that has multiple redundancies to ensure that no nuclear weapon will be unaccounted for. Right? Right.

And yet it was the United States that suffered an incident known as a “Bent Spear” on Aug. 29-30. As part of an effort by the Air Force to decommission 400 Advanced Cruise Missiles, air crews managed to accidentally load a B-52 bomber leaving Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota with six nuclear-armed cruise missiles, something that procedures should have prevented from occurring. Of course, in this case, “should” is the operative word, as the missiles were not discovered as the plane sat overnight in Minot and then flew to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

While there was not any danger of the missiles going off, this incident is unnerving for several reasons. First and foremost, the whereabouts of six nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal were unknown for a day and a half. That is completely unacceptable. Second, the reason the Air Force stopped flying nuclear weapons over U.S. territory back in the 1960s was that there were too many accidents. We are lucky that nothing untoward happened to the B-52 in question.

On a final note, there is one aspect of this incident that is rarely mentioned. As long as the United States relies upon nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent, other countries will do so as well. And if we can suffer this sort of erosion in the security procedures surrounding our nuclear weapons, they can too.

Next time, it might not be a friendly aircrew from our own country discovering the loose nukes; next time, we could find out the hard way that nuclear weapons are missing.

— Victoria Samson is a research analyst for the Center for Defense Information.

GREED AT ITS WORST, CHINA LAKE

Okay, folks! Take a look. This is WHERE THE MONEY IS GOING in the global financial meltdown, which hopes to redeem itself through uranium mining investment.

To STOP low level (and high level!) radiation, the mining must be stopped.

The price of URANIUM is SOARING.

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A California Energy
Site So Secret,
You Can't Even See it
Without a Top-Level
U.S. Navy Clearance...

But on Nov. 20, 2007 — just a few days from
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The Navy has already collected $194 million from this discovery.

And CNNMoney.com reports that “Investments in [this “secret” energy sector] jumped nearly four-fold over the last two years, to about $100 million last year… Because it’s [still] so small, there’s large growth potential here…”

Dear Friend,

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What could possibly be so secret?

A very rarely talked about and previously untapped new energy resource that's so efficient and abundant, it could — according to our own U.S. Department of Energy — crank out enough power to replace 50,000 times the current usage of all known gas and oil resources... in the world.

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The Navy owns the property where this new resource was discovered and developed. Until now, the Navy has kept it very quiet — top secret, even. But with oil bearing down on $100 per barrel, it can't sit on this any more.

The Navy’s mandate, going all the way back to the United States Constitution, is to provide for the national defense. It’s one of the largest consumers of energy on the planet… that much is true. But it isn’t supposed to make money selling the stuff. That makes this discovery, according to our top former Navy “insider” and energy expert, one of the best undiscovered moneymaking opportunities in the world of energy investing today... for individuals like you.

In fact, he plans to name five penny stocks — on Nov. 20, 2007 — all of which should do especially well as this previously unknown information is revealed to the public.

How well could you do? Just one of these tiny, unknown "secret energy discovery" stocks I'm about to disclose to you has already skyrocketed 263% since the first of the year.

And since you could jump in on the ground floor, the opportunity just gets richer from here.

Here's everything you need to know…

The End of Our Dependence
on Foreign Fuels?

Energy costs are rising. You and I both know that. Heck, in the past few months alone, the cost to heat and power my home has gone up by 27%.

The Navy knows that, too.

That’s why many years back, Carl F. Austin, a well-known geologist with over 40 years of experience, published a report for the Navy that outlined a new energy plan that could power its entire Naval weapons testing base in California.

Back when the report was written, the cost of foreign fuel was low enough that the Navy didn’t have to act on Austin’s energy plan. It planned on using the report as a “worst-case scenario” only.

But now that oil is closing in on $100 per barrel, the worst-case scenario is here. The U.S. government knows that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign fuels. And the Navy is taking the lead…

The Navy took Austin’s work and immediately went to work. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the Navy outlined one simple goal in drilling, testing and extracting its new form of energy:

“[The Navy seeks to] provide an alternative energy source, allowing [it] to reduce overall Navy dependence on fossil fuels, especially imported fuels.”

After decades of testing, they the Navy perfected the energy extraction at its secret Naval air warfare site called China Lake.

China Lake sits just 113 miles northeast of Los Angeles on an area of land known as the Coso Hot Springs.

If you were standing in the center of China Lake, you wouldn’t have a clue what lies beneath. The earth beneath your feet would be rocky and sandy. If you touched the ground, it would feel exactly like the ground outside your house.

But underneath the ground lies an energy form that can provide energy for 1 million Californians. And that’s just from the power stored underneath the Navy’s China Lake base alone…

Across the entire United States, 1.7 million people are already benefiting from the recent extraction of this ancient energy source.

And the Department of Energy claims that another 50,000 times the known energy of all known oil and gas resources in the world still lies untapped underneath the earth

When tapped, the potential of this ancient energy could reduce our dependence on fuel from the Middle East — just as the Navy wanted. It could significantly lower our monthly heating bills… provide as much energy as it would take to power the U.S. for up to 750,000 years… and bring our soldiers home from the fighting in Iraq.

But the Navy couldn’t keep its secret forever… The news has now begun to circulate through the groups of in-the-know energy CEOs.

Several smaller companies are now beginning to get into the business of identifying and extracting the same kind of energy that I call “China Lake Energy.” You probably don’t know this, but they’ve already begun testing the extraction at sites spread across several Western states…

After researching this new energy form for the past four months, my former Navy “insider” has found a total of five ways by which you could grab a piece of the profits. Let me explain…

How to Claim Your Piece of the Next
$194.9 Million Energy Payout

What the Navy discovered was an easy way to harness an energy form so powerful that the U.S. Department of Energy recently conducted a large-scale study on its potential impacts for energy independence in the U.S. The findings surprised everyone…

The Department of Energy found that the known reserves, when tapped, could produce as much energy as it would take to power the U.S. for the next 750,000 years, based on current consumption rates.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted its own study. The result was a massive 3.72-pound document that detailed how this previously unused “[China Lake Energy] could play an important role in our national energy picture as a noncarbon-based energy source.”

The way it works is simple…

The U.S. Navy got lucky. Its China Lake base sits on top of the Coso Hot Springs, one of the hottest land masses in the U.S. It partnered with CalEnergy, a privately held California energy provider, to bring that heat up to the surface. Together, they developed a simple three-stage process for extracting the heat energy out of the ground…

First, they drill a hole deep into the Earth, tapping the area beneath the Earth’s surface that produces heat over 400 degrees. Next, they inject water into the hole. The water instantly boils and begins to produce steam that rises out of the hole. After that, they put a large turbine over the hole that captures the steam and turns it into electricity.

The process itself doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the energy source that comes out is clean, reliable and best of all, renewable — meaning that, unlike oil and natural gas, the energy source never runs out. The Earth has always and will always produce heat…

The entire process releases three times less carbon dioxide than natural gas… five times less than oil… and seven times less than coal.

The best part is that this energy isn’t limited to California. In fact, multiple “hot spots” exist throughout the Western United States.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada has even said, “Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of [China Lake Energy]…”

And the U.S. Department of Energy believes that “China Lake Energy” has the potential to produce 50,000 times the known oil and gas reserves in the world.

The Navy is currently powering its entire China Lake base with this newly tapped source of energy. In fact, it’s already generating more power than it can use…

So much power that it’s recently begun to sell the "extra" power back to California utility companies. And the Navy is making a fortune doing it.

When the United States Government Accountability Office found out about the Navy’s energy extraction, it dug into the accounting books to see what it’s worth. What it found was nothing short of amazing…

According to the Accountability Office’s data analysis, the Navy has already collected energy royalties in the amount of $194.9 million

Now that it’s let the profits out of the bag, public energy companies are scrambling to grab their piece of the payouts.

So what does this mean for you? The public developments are providing a roadmap for people like you and me to follow the energy insiders to our piece of the next $194.9 million payout…

When I first heard about the Navy’s secret energy extraction and the potential that it has, I had to learn more.

So I sent our Harvard trained geologist — a gentleman who, by chance, has very close ties to the Naval War College — to research the situation.

After four months of research and over 36,121 miles traveled, eight high-level meetings and over 217 hours with his nose in books, this geologist and former Navy “insider” has put together all of his findings in a special report, titled The Five “China Lake Energy” Companies That Could Make You $372,340.

Before I give you the exact details on how to download your copy, let me show you how much money you could stand to make by grabbing shares of these penny stocks now…

Make $372,340 or More
By Getting in Now…

I’m sure you’ve heard of nuclear power plants. As I type, 8.4% of the U.S.’s electricity consumption comes from nuclear energy.

Compare that with the small 0.3% that “China Lake Energy” is currently producing, and it’s easy to see that investing in its extraction is a ground-floor opportunity.

Why am I comparing “China Lake Energy” to nuclear? Because MSNBC recently said that [“China Lake Energy”] production could soon equal that of all 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S.

Back when nuclear technology was new, energy insiders flocked to invest in the new form of power. And during the past few years, nuclear companies have been turning out some serious profits for their shareholders.

Take these companies for example:

• Entergy Corp., a nuclear energy producer based out of New Orleans, has run up 385% in the past few years

• Dominion has gone from $37.19 per share all the way up to $84.30 per share… showing investors a hefty 127% gain

• A uranium miner that provides the material needed for nuclear power production, named Cameco Corp, has returned a whopping 721% over the past few years.

If you had bought just 500 shares of each of these three nuclear companies when the technology was on the rise, you would be sitting on $93,904 in pure profits. A larger 1,000 shares in each would have made you $186,170.

And if you took a large 2,000-share stake in each of these three companies, you’d have been able to send all your kids through college, pay off your house and buy a new Corvette on a $372,240 payout.

According to my former Navy “insider,” if you get in on the right companies now, you could potentially see gains even larger than those early nuclear investors saw…

How? Just look at the advantages of this energy form over nuclear…

“China Lake Energy” Secret #1 — Less Land to Build a Plant:
It takes 5–10 acres of land per megawatt to build an operating nuclear power plant, compared with only 1–8 acres per megawatt to build a “new energy” plant. Less required land means the opportunity to build plants in tighter locations…

“China Lake Energy” Secret #2 — More Environmentally Friendly:
Nuclear power produces toxic waste that requires time, energy and money to dispose. Even worse, it hurts the environment. This new energy form is clean and produces no toxic waste. Governments around the world are already begging to mandate that higher percentages of their energy come from environmentally friendly sources. They’re even willing to provide substantial tax incentives to companies providing clean energy…

“China Lake Energy” Secret #3: - Cheaper Than Nuclear:
According to inside energy experts, energy from renewable sources like “China Lake Energy” is cheaper to produce than Nuclear power.

With these advantages in mind, California’s state Senate created Senate Bill 1038, which mandated that as much as 20% of the state’s energy MUST come from “clean energy” sources like “China Lake Energy” by 2017. I expect other states to soon follow California’s lead…

And when they do, companies that have perfected the technology should explode, potentially showing investors even bigger gains that the 721% that nuclear energy showed.

With only 0.3% of the U.S.’s energy production coming from “China Lake Energy,” the time to jump in is now.

And since my former Navy “insider” and Harvard-trained geologist has been in the business for the past 34 years, he knows exactly how to get your hands on the companies that are set to profit.

The “MI Investing Advantage”: Test Extraction
Has Already Begun

After four months of studying all of the Department of Energy reports, visiting the hot spots in person and talking to his friends in the industry, my former Navy “insider” and Harvard-trained geologist has identified five tiny companies that he wants to tell you about…

Before we get to the details, let me assure you, this isn’t the first technology that the U.S. military has discovered. In fact, it’s got a long history of inventing technologies that change everyday life. For example...

In the 1950s and 1960s, the military needed to "one-up" its enemies by being able to see in the dark. So it pioneered the way for thermal imaging, an imaging system that cuts through darkness and smoke to show heat sources. The companies that were involved on the ground floor of helping the military develop thermal imaging — Honeywell and Texas Instruments — have now become household names.

During the Gulf War, the U.S. Army needed a system to quickly communicate information from its global positioning systems to the battlefield, allowing it to make instant decisions on where to position the troops. From this technology, the Internet was born, paving the way for companies like Google to shoot up 605%…

Once again, in order to help track the movement of its troops, the U.S. Navy invented the modern-day Global Positioning System. Now almost every car manufacturer includes a version of the technology as a standard feature. Shares of Garmin, the leading GPS company, has gone from $9.63 per share to over $100 per share — showing investors a 938% gain.

The list goes on and on…The military’s invention of the jet engine paved the way for companies like Boeing to profit… their invention of Radar allowed Raytheon Corp. to shoot up 645%…. And the military’s use of satellites proved profitable for Lockheed Martin…

All of these technologies were developed by the military but went on to build fortunes in the public sector. Seeing these opportunities early enough to get in before the mainstream is what I call the “Military Intelligence Investing Advantage.”

Now the military is ready to do it again. As I pointed out, the Navy has already made $194 million in royalties on this energy. But if the Government Accountability Office has something to say about it… those royalties should be earned in the private sector — not by a branch of the U.S. military.

So the military is going to let this energy loose in the free market. And the following five companies are first in line. They’re going to be the companies to bring this technology to market. They should be the beneficiaries of the “first-mover” advantage in this huge new industry.

And if history of the “MI Investing Advantage” is any guide, they’re going to be the Fortune 500 energy companies of the future.

Let me show you what I mean…

“MI Investing Advantage” Company #1 — Just Signed a 20-year Energy Deal on Sept. 26:
In 2002, this company acquired the rights to a former Department of Energy production field. It immediately began its testing… and the early numbers are just started to come in…

A third-party consulting firm estimated that this company could be sitting on enough energy to eventually power 110,000 Idaho residents, year after year. On Sept. 26, 2007, it signed an exclusive 20-year deal with an Idaho energy provider to sell its energy back to the citizens of Idaho.

Since the beginning of the year, shares of this company would have shown you a 263% gain. Investors have already turned a $5,000 investment into $13,150.

Now it’s in the process of bringing a second location online. The numbers aren’t complete yet, but the company has said that its initial tests “indicate the potential for prolific production…”

“MI Investing Advantage” Company #2 — Currently Sitting at Just $1.35 per Share:
This company just inked an initial 20-year deal with the state of Nevada to provide energy to 24,000 homes. It owns a 100% stake in a known hot spot area in north-central Nevada with heat reserves close enough to the surface for easy extraction.

Even the U.S. Department of Energy is excited about the potential of the land that this company possess — so excited that it’s just awarded a $1.25 million grant to begin extraction.

Investors who owned this stock have seen a 117% gain since Jan. 1. With just a small $5,000 investment at the beginning of the year, you’d be sitting on $5,850 in pure profits. Based on the numbers, I expect it to grow at least that amount in the next 10 months. And best of all, you can still load up on shares of this company for just $1.35 per share…

“MI Investing Advantage” Company #3 — Owns More Than 70,000 Acres of “Hot Spots”:
This company has 4 hot spot projects currently in development and 11 more waiting for test drilling to begin. In total, it has an interest in 70,000 acres of hot spots in California and Nevada.

On Oct. 22, the company announced that drilling had begun at its exploration well known only as “Well 56-4.” It believes that “Well 56-4” alone could have enough heat inside to power 24,000 homes. If all of its other wells produce the same amount, there’s no telling how high this stock can go. Another alternative energy company has shot up over 33% in one day. This one could go up even further when it announces the results of its other heat wells…

To be completely honest, I’m not sure how long these companies will go unnoticed. The major media is just beginning to catch on, and I’m positive that their stock prices will begin to jump any day now…

MarketWatch recently reported that it doesn’t know why “free energy from [“China Lake Energy”] isn’t more widely used”… CNN said, “Just below the Earth’s surface is a virtually limitless supply of energy…”… The Economist calls “China Lake Energy” a “huge, unrealized potential” source of energy.

To help you get in right away, I’ve asked my Harvard-trained geologist to write up all of his findings in his new report called The Five “China Lake Energy” Companies That Could Make You $372,340.

In this report — which I’ll be publishing just a few days from now — he’ll tell you the names of these companies, how to buy shares of each of them and what exactly to tell your broker.

But that’s only three of the five companies he’s found. Let me quickly tell you a little about the other two…

“MI Investing Advantage” Company #4 — Powering 277,000 People in Latin America:
Like the first two companies I’ve told you about, this company has recently agreed to a 20-year deal to sell its power. But instead of selling it to the U.S., it’s providing the power to Latin America.

A recent press release by the company shows that it expect its main energy hot spot to produce enough energy for as many as 277,000 people in Latin America. It wouldn’t surprise me if this $1.10 stock shot up 628%, just as Amen Properties, a similar energy provider, did just a few years back.

“MI Investing Advantage” Company #5 — Up 48% Since Aug. 22:
With 2 major hot spot projects in the works, this company is an industry leader. It has 100% of the rights to a 1,017-acre hot spot located 75 miles north of San Francisco, called the Geysers. The Geysers is the largest active energy-producing field in the entire world. Its second location, located in British Columbia, is estimated to have the potential to supply power to over 80,000 households in western Canada.

News is already getting out on this company. Since Aug. 22, this stock has shot up 48%. With increased drilling and extraction planned, this is my favorite stock to buy right now…

The best part of this new opportunity… the mainstream hasn’t caught on yet… and these companies are all still dirt-cheap. Not one of them costs more than 3 bucks a share. But they all have the “first mover” advantage when it comes to taking this military secret into the private sector. The returns on just one of them could be phenomenal. But with all five? Well, we really like our chances of hitting a home run.

Inside your copy of The Five “China Lake Energy” Companies That Could Make You $372,340, you’ll learn everything you need to know to get in early.

We’re putting the final touches on the report now — and we’re publishing the report at 5 p.m. on Nov. 20. Here's everything you need to know...

How to Receive This Report for FREE

My name is Joe Schriefer — and I’m the youngest financial publisher in the industry. As my first big project on the job, I’ve decided to take on the “China Lake Energy” opportunity. I couldn’t be more excited… I truly believe that it’s the single best moneymaking opportunity out there right now.

Although I’m young, I work for Agora Financial, a publisher that for the past 23 years has provided investment ideas to over 522,000 people. We’ve delivered our subscribers profitable ideas on everything from emerging technology to options investing, from commodity futures to penny stock analysis.

I’m not telling you this to brag, but rather to show you that we’re not some fly-by-night company. If we don’t publish great ideas to our readers, they can cancel their subscriptions and walk away. But almost all of them stick with us…

Why?

Because in the past our subscribers have had the chance to see gains of 365% when we recommended purchasing options on raw sugar. As of November 13th, we currently have open recommendations that are posting gains of 709% in Suncor Energy... 585% in Valero... 506% in American Century Global Gold... and 333% in Tesoro Petroleum...

We’ve even had the honor of publishing the No. 1-ranked financial newsletter in the industry, according to Hulbert Financial Digest, the industry’s leading watchdog.

Each day, I’m lucky enough to work with some of the best financial minds in the world. I hear about dozens of life-changing financial ideas before the mainstream — ideas that could make you rich. And that’s exactly how I first found out about the Navy’s “secret” energy discovery.

Let me explain…

Earlier this year, I started working with a man named Byron King. Byron’s resume was seriously impressive…

He graduated from Harvard with a degree in geology… he holds a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh… he spent a lot of time in the U.S. Navy and the Naval Reserve…and he’s worked in the “enhanced oil recovery” division of Gulf Oil Co.

In his early days, working for Big Oil, he was the man responsible for pioneering techniques to get more oil out of oil fields. In the latter half of his career, he was practicing bankruptcy law for a Pittsburgh law firm.

His knowledge of geology, coupled with financial analysis, made him the perfect recent addition to a monthly natural resource newsletter that I publish, called Outstanding Investments.

And he’s done a fantastic job…

As I write this letter to you, 35 of 39 of his recommendations are up. His average play is an unbelievable 101%. And I’m not the only one who’s excited to work with Byron… He’s been hailed as the “Peak Oil” expert within our own genius editorial team.

I wouldn’t trust just anyone with running Outstanding Investments. The newsletter is our pride and joy. It’s been ranked as the #1 performing newsletter over the past five years. Here’s just some of what Outstanding Investments readers have written us to say over the past few years…

“Booked $18,000 in Pure Profits”
I dumped [shares of your Anderson's recommendation] all at $123, after entering at $105 per your suggestion. I bought 1000 shares…any questions?!

– R. Garrison

“You’re the Best!”
Perhaps a Nobel Prize for Resource Trading should be awarded.

– D. Dunham

“Profits of 560% and 652%…I’m up $45,000!”
Our financial year runs July to June and so far I am up some A$45,000.

On Monday I sold for a profit of 560%. This morning it was my birthday and you gave me the greatest birthday present I have ever had ( financially ) a profit of 652%…

– G. Carlson

“Very Pleased…”
Boy do you guys know how to pick'em. It’s nice to find a buy and hold newsletter that delivers.

– K. Southland

So when Byron first told me about the Navy’s energy discovery and the potential for early investors to make $372,240, like the early nuclear investors made, I couldn’t wait to start writing this letter to you. But, he told me we couldn’t publish the information.

You see, Byron’s Outstanding Investments newsletter has over 42,727 subscribers. And these five companies are too simply small to recommend to that many people. The largest of the five trades for just under $3 a share.

He told me that if he recommended these tiny penny stock companies to his readers, too many people might rush to buy the tiny stocks, and they’d push the prices up too fast. Many readers could get in at artificially inflated highs.

Fact is we are publishing this information for only a small group of readers.

And that’s exactly why we’ve agreed to start Energy & Scarcity Investor — an elite research service comprised of Byron’s most serious readers… And those who are interested in his most sensitive recommendations.

To celebrate the launch of his new service, I’d like to send you a FREE copy of The Five “China Lake Energy” Companies That Could Make You $372,340. All I ask in return is that you agree to a charter subscription of his new service, Energy & Scarcity Investor.

Why do we call it Energy & Scarcity Investor? Let me explain…

The Era of Cheap and Easy Oil Is Over:
New Energy Companies Will Be
the Leaders of Tomorrow

With each day that passes, the world consumes more oil than it produces. The oil left in the ground is getting scarce, harder to find and extract and far more precious than in the past. Simple economics tells us that when supply is reduced, prices will rise.

With oil closing in on $100 per barrel, that’s exactly what we’re seeing right now. The reduction of oil means the opportunity for new energy forms and new technology to power the world.

And that’s exactly what Byron will focus on in his new newsletter, Energy & Scarcity Investor. He’ll tell you not only how to protect yourself during a time of rising energy prices, but how potentially to profit as well.

With a charter subscription to Energy & Scarcity Investor, you’ll receive a free copy of The Five “China Lake Energy” Companies That Could Make You $372,340. Then each month after that, Byron will automatically e-mail you an exclusive opportunity on the best way to make money by investing in companies providing the energy and technology needs for the future.

Remember, his recommendations will be small — most will trade for under $10 per share. Almost all of the companies will be ground-floor opportunities. So the gains you stand to see from these recommendations have the potential to trump what he can provide to his other 42,000 readers.

For example, back in August 2005, Byron came across a company named Core Labs. The company provides engineering services for oil resevoir enhancements... and based on Byron’s analysis was ready to explode. But at the time, the company was too small to recommend to his weekly readers. So he did the next best thing…

Byron delivered news of the company to a set of 258 conference attendees at our Vancouver Investment Symposium. Since his speech that day, the stock has skyrocketed 361%. Over the past two years, the amount of the small, previously unpublishable recommendations has grown to the point that we’ve asked to start a more elite research service, Energy & Scarcity Investor.

Before I give you details on how to sign up, let me tell you about another opportunity that Byron just uncovered…

How “Enhanced Oil Recovery” Could Make
You 704% in the Next Few Years

Did you know that you could extract oil from used tires?

Each 20-pound tire contains approximately 1.2 gallons of oil… and Byron has found the one company set to rise 704% by extracting the oil.

I call the process “enhanced oil recovery” because its technology goes beyond the “standard” recovery into outside-the-box sources — like the 290 million tires that are thrown away each year.

The amount of oil that we currently throw away is shocking…

The 1.2 gallons of oil inside each tire, when recovered, could provide the U.S. with an extra 348 million gallons of oil. With oil prices sitting at $95.12 per barrel, that’s an extra $788 million in thrown-away oil.

The company currently has a worth of just $56 million. If it’s able to extract oil from just one-third of the tires that are thrown away each year and book the oil profits, it would be set to return you 704%.

Time recently named this company one of the Best Inventions of the Year in the environmental category for its technology of recovering previously lost oil

Its oil extraction technology works on a microwave-like frequency that gasifies the “hard to extract” oil, collects it and later turns it back into oil.

The public is just starting to catch on. Within four months of its initial stock offering, the stock shot up 358%. According to my numbers, it’s got a lot further to go…

And it doesn’t just focus on tires. Its microwave extraction is now being used to explore previously “capped” oil wells, the well-known tar sands in Canada and the oil shale deposits that holds the potential to produce 2 trillion barrels of previously untapped oil.

Like Byron’s tiny energy companies, this company trades for under $10 per share, allowing you to load up without having to dip into your retirement savings.

I’ve asked Byron to write up all of his findings in a report, titled This Under $4 Stock Turns Old Tires Back Into Oil . This report is also FREE with your charter subscription to Energy & Scarcity Investor.

Before you decide to join Energy & Scarcity Investor, let me quickly tell you a little more about the service…

Traveling 36,000 Miles to Uncover
Hidden Natural Resource Gains

Byron has more contacts in the natural resource and energy field than I’ve ever seen. Just a few months back, he discussed the topic of Peak Oil with T. Boone Pickens, the famous oil investor that Forbes named as the 131st richest person in America…

Before that, he had lunch with the U.S. Navy’s admiral in charge of nuclear reactors, and they talked about the future of nuclear power. He’s met and talked with the geologist who discovered the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska and spent a few days touring the facility with one of the senior geophysicists for British Petroleum.

He’s even been asked to provide advice on national energy policy by the U.S. Department of Defense

He’s been a part of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists for over 30 years, and he’s a former member of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration. In the past 12 months alone, he’s traveled over 36,000 miles to uncover hidden natural resource opportunities for his readers.

And during his travels, he personally met all five of the principal players in the five "China lake Energy" companies I told you about earlier.

Each month, he’ll use his contacts in the industry to bring you new ways to potentially profit from the natural resource and energy field that you won’t hear about in the mainstream news.

He’ll tell you which companies have the technology to power the future, he’ll tell you who’s discovered the newest oil extraction techniques, and he’ll deliver to you the secrets behind the latest energy discoveries. All of his recommendations will be simple to carry out through one five-minute call with your broker, if you choose to get in.

So how much does it cost to get started? Well, since we need to keep the number of subscribers small, I can tell you that the price isn’t cheap.

But before I tell you the exact amount, let me let give you the details on another opportunity that Byron alerted me about…

The “Keno Hill” Secret to Collecting
Free Silver From the Canadian Government

Chances are, you've probably never heard of George Carmack, Skookum Jim and Dawson Charlie. But for those who have, they’re using their secrets to collect “free” silver from the Canadian government.

And after two and a half months of research, Bryon has found a simple way that you could join the parade of investors who’ve had the chance to make 117% since Aug. 21.

According to one report, the Canadian government is set to “hand out” as much as 20 million ounces of silver before the end of 2007 — and maybe more

I call it the “Keno Hill” secret to collecting free silver. Here’s the story on how to make sure you claim a spot in the “handout” line…

Back in 1896, three men by the names of George Carmack, Skookum Jim and Dawson Charlie discovered gold along the Klondike River in Northwestern Canada. A rush of miners quickly flooded the area and mined $95 million in gold over the next seven years.

But they found much more than just gold… They discovered large deposits of coal, lead and eventually silver. The largest of the silver deposits were found underneath an area called “Keno Hill.”

Over 217 million ounces of silver have been mined at Keno Hill over the years — making the district the second-largest silver producer in Canada. At current silver prices, that amounts to just over $33 billion worth of silver. Now the Canadian government is willing to give away any silver left in the mines… allowing you your chance to get in on a piece of the handouts

How is this possible?

In the 1980s, metal prices fell, forcing the existing Keno Hill mining companies into bankruptcy. They eventually closed the mines in 1989. With silver prices low, it was simply too expensive to get the silver out of the ground. So the mining companies closed up shop and left town.

For years, the property lay abandoned, even though tons of silver might still lie underneath. The mines soon became an environmental hazard and major liability to the Canadian government.

That’s why on April 18, 2006, the Supreme Court of the Yukon Territory of Canada signed a $50 million deal with a small environmental company to clean up the mines. To sweeten the deal, the government agreed to let the company keep all of the silver left in the mines.

The deal was a win-win for both parties. The government got rid of the environmental liability of the mines and the small environmental company generated cash flow through the cleanup process with a 100% upside of collecting the free silver it’s able to mine. The trick to the success is that this tiny environmental company is a cleanup and exploration/mining company combined.

Last year, the CEO said that he was confident that they’ll be able to identify and outline a single source of more than 20 million ounces of silver.

Even if 20 million ounces is all it finds — which I personally doubt, considering the area has already produced 217 million ounces — that could mean a safe 71% rise in its stock price. And that doesn’t count the cash flow that the Canadian government is sending its way to clean up the mines…

Investors who already own a piece of this penny stock company have already seen the stock rise 117% in the past four months as news of its test drilling results hit the press. There’s no telling when it could hit the next major silver vein.

If you’re interested, you can start loading up on shares of this company for just $5.85 per share.

Byron has spent the past two and a half months researching the situation, meeting and talking with company officials and writing up his findings in a special report called The “Keno Hill Penny Stock” Secret to Collecting Free Silver From the Canadian Government.

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Collapsed doctrine leads to nuclear fire ...

The Road from Washington to Karachi to Nuclear Anarchy
Are You With Us… or Against Us?

by Jonathan Schell

The journey to the martial law just imposed on Pakistan by its self-appointed president, the dictator Pervez Musharraf, began in Washington on September 11, 2001. On that day, it so happened, Pakistan’s intelligence chief, Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed, was in town. He was summoned forthwith to meet with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who gave him perhaps the earliest preview of the global Bush doctrine then in its formative stages, telling him, “You are either one hundred percent with us or one hundred percent against us.”

The next day, the administration, dictating to the dictator, presented seven demands that a Pakistan that wished to be “with us” must meet. These concentrated on gaining its cooperation in assailing Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, which had long been nurtured by the Pakistani intelligence services in Afghanistan and had, of course, harbored Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda training camps. Conspicuously missing was any requirement to rein in the activities of Mr. A.Q. Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear arms, who, with the knowledge of Washington, had been clandestinely hawking the country’s nuclear-bomb technology around the Middle East and North Asia for some years.

Musharraf decided to be “with us”; but, as in so many countries, being with the United States in its Global War on Terror turned out to mean not being with one’s own people. Although Musharraf, who came to power in a coup in 1999, was already a dictator, he had now taken the politically fateful additional step of very visibly subordinating his dictatorship to the will of a foreign master. In many countries, people will endure a homegrown dictator but rebel against one who seems to be imposed from without, and Musharraf was now courting this danger.

A public opinion poll in September ranking certain leaders according to their popularity suggests what the results have been. Osama bin Laden, at 46% approval, was more popular than Musharraf, at 38%, who in turn was far better liked than President Bush, at a bottom-scraping 7%. There is every reason to believe that, with the imposition of martial law, Musharraf’s and Bush’s popularity have sunk even further. Wars, whether on terror or anything else, don’t tend to go well when the enemy is more popular than those supposedly on one’s own side.

Are You with Us?

Even before the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq, the immediate decision to bully Musharraf into compliance defined the shape of the policies that the President would adopt toward a far larger peril that had seemed to wane after the Cold War, but now was clearly on the rise: the gathering nuclear danger. President Bush proposed what was, in fact if not in name, an imperial solution to it. In the new dispensation, nuclear weapons were not to be considered good or bad in themselves; that judgment was to be based solely on whether the nation possessing them was itself judged good or bad (with us, that is, or against us). Iraq, obviously, was judged to be “against us” and suffered the consequences. Pakistan, soon honored by the administration with the somehow ridiculous, newly coined status of “major non-NATO ally,” was clearly classified as with us, and so, notwithstanding its nuclear arsenal and abysmal record on proliferation, given the highest rating.

That doctrine constituted a remarkable shift. Previously, the United States had joined with almost the entire world to achieve nonproliferation solely by peaceful, diplomatic means. The great triumph of this effort had been the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, under which 183 nations, dozens quite capable of producing nuclear weapons, eventually agreed to remain without them. In this dispensation, all nuclear weapons were considered bad, and so all proliferation was bad as well. Even existing arsenals, including those of the two superpowers of the Cold War, were supposed to be liquidated over time. Conceptually, at least, one united world had faced one common danger: nuclear arms.

In the new, quickly developing, post-9/11 dispensation, however, the world was to be divided into two camps. The first, led by the United States, consisted of good, democratic countries, many possessing the bomb; the second consisted of bad, repressive countries trying to get the bomb and, of course, their terrorist allies. Nuclear peril, once understood as a problem of supreme importance in its own right, posed by those who already possessed nuclear weapons as well as by potential proliferators, was thus subordinated to the polarizing “war on terror,” of which it became a mere sub-category, albeit the most important one. This peril could be found at “the crossroads of radicalism and technology,” otherwise called the “nexus of terror and weapons of mass destruction,” in the words of the master document of the Bush Doctrine, the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America.

The good camp was assigned the job not of rolling back all nuclear weapons but simply of stopping any members of the bad camp from getting their hands on the bomb. The means would no longer be diplomacy, but “preventive war” (to be waged by the United States). The global Cold War of the late twentieth century was to be replaced by global wars against proliferation — disarmament wars — in the twenty-first. These wars, breaking out wherever in the world proliferation might threaten, would not be cold, but hot indeed, as the invasion of Iraq soon revealed — and as an attack on Iran, now under consideration in Washington, may soon further show.

…Or Against Us?

Vetting and sorting countries into the good and the bad, the with-us and the against-us, proved, however, a far more troublesome business than those in the Bush administration ever imagined. Iraq famously was not as “bad” as alleged, for it turned out to lack the key feature that supposedly warranted attack — weapons of mass destruction. Neither was Pakistan, muscled into the with-us camp so quickly after 9/11, as “good” as alleged. Indeed, these distinctions were entirely artificial, for by any factual and rational reckoning, Pakistan was by far the more dangerous country.

Indeed, the Pakistan of Pervez Musharraf has, by now, become a one-country inventory of all the major forms of the nuclear danger.

*Iraq did not have nuclear weapons; Pakistan did. In 1998, it had conducted a series of five nuclear tests in response to five tests by India, with whom it had fought three conventional wars since its independence in 1947. The danger of interstate nuclear war between the two nations is perhaps higher than anywhere else in the world.

*Both Iraq and Pakistan were dictatorships (though the Iraqi government was incomparably more brutal).

*Iraq did not harbor terrorists; Pakistan did, and does so even more today.

*Iraq, lacking the bomb, could not of course be a nuclear proliferator. Pakistan was, with a vengeance. The arch-proliferator A.Q. Khan, a metallurgist, first purloined nuclear technology from Europe, where he was employed at the uranium enrichment company EURENCO. He then used the fruits of his theft to successfully establish an enrichment program for Pakistan’s bomb. After that, the thief turned salesman. Drawing on a globe-spanning network of producers and middlemen — in Turkey, Dubai, and Malaysia, among other countries — he peddled his nuclear wares to Iran, Iraq (which apparently turned down his offer of help), North Korea, Libya, and perhaps others. Seen from without, he had established a clandestine multinational corporation dedicated to nuclear proliferation for a profit.

Seen from within Pakistan, he had managed to create a sort of independent nuclear city-state — a state within a state — in effect privatizing Pakistan’s nuclear technology. The extent of the government’s connivance in this enterprise is still unknown, but few observers believe Khan’s far-flung operations would have been possible without at least the knowledge of officials at the highest levels of that government. Yet all this activity emanating from the “major non-NATO ally” of the Bush administration was overlooked until late 2003, when American and German intelligence intercepted a shipload of nuclear materials bound for Libya, and forced Musharraf to place Khan, a national hero owing to his work on the Pakistani bomb, under house arrest. (Even today, the Pakistani government refuses to make Khan available for interviews with representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency.)

*Iraqi apparatchiks could not, of course, peddle to terrorists, al-Qaedan or otherwise, technology they did not have, as Bush suggested they would do in seeking to justify his war. The Pakistani apparatchiks, on the other hand, could — and they did. Shortly before September 11, 2001, two leading scientists from Pakistan’s nuclear program, Dr. Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, the former Director General of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, and Chaudry Abdul Majeed, paid a visit to Osama bin Laden around a campfire in Afghanistan to advise him on how to make or acquire nuclear arms. They, too, are under house arrest.

If, however, the beleaguered Pakistani state, already a balkanized enterprise (as the A.Q. Khan story shows) is overthrown, or if the country starts to fall apart, the danger of insider defections from the nuclear establishment will certainly rise. The problem is not so much that the locks on the doors of nuclear installations — Pakistan’s approximately 50 bombs are reportedly spread at sites around the country — will be broken or picked as that those with the keys to the locks will simply switch allegiances and put the materials they guard to new uses. The “nexus” of terrorism and the bomb, the catastrophe the Bush Doctrine was specifically framed to head off, might then be achieved — and in a country that was “for us.”

What has failed in Pakistan, as in smashed Iraq, is not just a regional American policy, but the pillars and crossbeams of the entire global Bush doctrine, as announced in late 2001. In both countries, the bullying has failed; popular passions within each have gained the upper hand; and Washington has lost much of its influence. In its application to Pakistan, the doctrine was framed to stop terrorism, but in that country’s northern provinces, terrorists have, in fact, entrenched themselves to a degree unimaginable even when the Taliban protected Al-Qaeda’s camps before September 11th.

If the Bush Doctrine laid claim to the values of democracy, its man Musharraf now has the distinction, rare even among dictators, of mounting a second military coup to maintain the results of his first one. In a crowning irony, his present crackdown is on democracy activists, not the Taliban, armed Islamic extremists, or al-Qaeda supporters who have established positions in the Swat valley only 150 miles from Islamabad.

Most important, the collapsed doctrine has stoked the nuclear fires it was meant to quench. The dangers of nuclear terrorism, of proliferation, and even of nuclear war (with India, which is dismayed by developments in Pakistan as well as the weak Bush administration response to them) are all on the rise. The imperial solution to these perils has failed. Something new is needed, not just for Pakistan or Iraq, but for the world. Perhaps now someone should try to invent a solution based on imperialism’s opposite, democracy, which is to say respect for other countries and the wills of the people who live in them.

Jonathan Schell is the author of The Fate of the Earth, among other books, and the just-published The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger. He is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at The Nation Institute, and a visiting lecturer at Yale University.

Why are gunmen attacking a nuclear facility in South Africa? WHO ARE THEY?

Gunmen storm high-security nuclear facility in South Africa

Published on Sunday, November 11, 2007.

Pelindaba Nuclear Research Center

Source: WorldNetDaily

An early morning attack by four gunmen who stormed and reached the emergency-response control room of a secured nuclear facility in South Africa has left one of the plant's operational officers hospitalized and officials with the country's nuclear agency threatening a newspaper with charges of violating national security laws for publishing an account of the intrusion.

The attack at the Pelindaba nuclear facility took place early Thursday morning, reported the Pretoria News.

According to Anton Gerber, an emergency services operational officer working for the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa, he was in the control room with his fiancée Ria Meiring, who is also the control room supervisor, when he heard a loud bang and saw the men coming into the facility's eastern block.

Gerber pushed Meiring beneath a desk for safety and attempted to stop the intruders from entering the electronically sealed control room. Two forced their way through the door and ran straight for the control panel.

"I did not know what they were going to do. I just kept on hitting them even when one of them attacked me with a screwdriver," Gerber said from his hospital bed. "I knew that if I stopped they would attack Ria or do something to the panel. I could not let anything like that happen."

Investigators at the Pelindaba plant believe the attackers gained access to the building by using a ladder belonging to the facility's fire department to scale a wall, then forced open a window by pulling out several louvers.

"The facility is meant to be safe. There are security guards, electric fences and security control points. These things are not meant to happen," Gerber said.

During the struggle, Gerber was shot in the chest by one of the attackers, the bullet narrowly missing his heart and spine but hitting his lung and breaking a rib.

A NESCA spokeswoman confirmed the attack but would not say how the intruders gained entry to one of the country's most secure sites or whether anything was taken in the attack. NESCA, she said, was conducting its own internal investigation and would publicize its findings after police finished their work.

Prior to publication, Pretoria News was contacted by a man identifying himself as a legal adviser to NESCA who warned the paper would be violating South Africa's National Keypoints Act and said the agency might obtain a court order to prevent publication.

A police spokesman told Pretoria News there had been no arrests in the attack. Reports make no mention of terrorism as a possible motive.

"A case of armed robbery and attempted murder are being investigated,"

the spokesman said.

The attack came a day after authorities arrested two men in connection with the murder of the general manager of NESCA during a carjacking earlier this year.

See also:
http://www.necsa.co.za/

Bent Spear generates new man with finger on button

Former BAFB figure new 5th Wing head at Minot Air Force Base

Col. Joel S. Westa replaces Bruce Emig after nuclear weapons mixup.

RELATED LINKS

Col. Joel Westa official biography: www.minot.af.mil/library/biographies/bio.asp?id=10549
Minot Air Force Base: www.minot.af.mil
Barksdale Air Force Base: www.barksdale.af.mil
Andersen Air Force Base: www.andersen.af.mil

By John Andrew Prime
jprime@gannett.com


A former Barksdale Air Force Base B-52 strategist is the new commander of the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D.

Col. Joel S. Westa, who divided time between Barksdale and Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., over a five-year span in the 1990s and earlier this decade commanded the 340th Weapons Squadron here, replaces Col. Bruce Emig.


Emig was fired in the wake of an August incident where six nuclear weapons were inadvertently flown from Minot to Barksdale on a 2nd Wing bomber.

Other officers fired after a six-week investigation included the 5th Maintenance Group commander at Minot, and at Barksdale the commander and vice commander of the 2nd Operations Group and the commander of the 96th Bomb Squadron.

The 5th Munitions Squadron commander at Minot was relieved of command soon after news of the incident first was reported by Gannett's Military Times in early September.

At the time of the incident, Westa was vice commander of the 36th Wing at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

In his first stint at Barksdale, from August 1992 to June 1997, Westa was an instructor, flight commander and then chief of curriculum for the

B-52 division at the U.S. Air Force Weapons School at Ellsworth and Barksdale, according to his official biography.

He was commander of the 340th Weapons Squadron at Barksdale, the B-52 squadron of the U.S. Air Force Weapons School, from July 2001 through June 2003.

Past assignments include work as deputy chief of the 12th Air Force Commander's Action Group, Chief of Strategy for the 12th Air Force Air and Space Operations Center and operations officer for the 612th Combat Plans Squadron, all at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

Westa is a master navigator with 2,845 flight hours in the B-52 bomber, with limited time in the

F-15, F-16 and S-3 aircraft.