Wave of resurgent nuclear power also hits Mexico: CFE projects two new nuclear plants

Nuclear power is making a comeback, and Mexico is no exception: The CFE, the state-owned federal electricity company, announced plans to build two more nuclear plants in Laguna Verde, in Veracruz state, home to Mexico's sole electric power-generating nuclear plant, in operation since 1990, as part of President Felipe Calderón's clean power energy. Long-term plans of new plants in Sonora were also announced.

It's going to cost, though: So far, $4.5 billion is an estimate. Yet if the alternative is fossil-powered fuel plants, when it comes to pollution it's hard to argue against nuclear plant on environmental grounds.

Atomic energy - it ain't going away anytime soon.

Martín Esparza (SME) in the House, "Economist of the Year" and accusations of illicit enrichment

Martín Esparza went to the Chamber of Deputies to demand the creation of a new company to replace the now-extinct Luz y Fuerza, a state company whose business has been taken over by another state company, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). Esparza's union has in the past months achieved notoriety by attacking and destroying CFE installations, as well as physically and verbally harassing the state workers of CFE.

In the Chamber, however, Esparza faced direct accusations of "scandalous and offensive" illicit enrichment, in the words of PAN national deputy Ivideliza Reyes who responded to Esparza's intervention:

"We should give Martin Esparza the award of Economist of theYEar, as on a payroll salary of 335.26 pesos per day, or 10057 each month or 122,370 per year, he has a ranch, called Los Encinas, of 37.5 hecaters, located in Juandhó, Hidalgo, that features a charro, stables, horses from Europe, breeding place for roosters, and facilities for parties...

"Martin, how dare you ask your union members to vote for you, how dare you to ask them to re-elect you every time, and how dare you come to this Chamber to demand that they create a new company for you? Why do you continue to enrich yourselff? Why do you keep stealing from Mexico?" 

Ouch. Reyes also claimed Esparza owns two more properties in the exclusive Quinta San Francisco neighborhood.Dirty, baseless accusations or an accurate description of Esparza's patrimonio? Esparza didn't respond directly but alluded to a lawsuit against Reyes. We'll see.

And what exactly does SME achieve with this?

I just don't get it. Just a few weeks ago, Martín Esparza received the toma de nota from the federal government as secretary general of the SME, recovering its legal status as union. So why keep on vandalizing?

Yesterday, members of the union, which controlled the now-defunct Luz y Fuerza state company that held a near-monopoly on electricity services in Mexico City, attacked the offices of the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), which is, mind you, not a private but yet another state company that took over the Luz y Fuerza service in Mexico. The SME members threw around paint and sprayed slogan all over the building, and destroyed two automatic teller machines used by regular Mexico City residents to pay their electricity bills conveniently. Now, because of the idiots in the SME, not only will regular citizens be inconvenienced, but given that CFE is a state-owned company as well, their tax payer money will have to be used to replace the machines destroyed by the SME. What purpose does SME leader Esparza possibly think this serves?

This is worthy of the worst charrismo of the PRI unions, not of a union claiming non-PRI left affiliations. Thugs.