Forget Nuclear: Energy Efficiency is the best answer – theme for July 2019
As the Northern hemisphere swelters, some people may ponder on old-fashioned, ‘boring’ ways of keeping cool.
But most will resort to (or wish they had) air-conditioning, probably powered by fossil fuels. To cut down greenhouse gases, solar-powered air conditioners are a better answer.
But, overall, energy efficiency is the fastest, most effective, and ultimately cheapest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Of course, renewable energy technologies are needed, too.
Energy conservation has little appeal for the corporate consumer world – less things, less devices, less electricity to sell.
The pro nuclear zealouts continue to preach their religion of endless growth, endless energy use. They would have us trash this planet with radioactive wastes, and then send a few suicidal astronauts , propelled by plutonium, supposedly to colonise Mars.
Energy efficiency involves many intelligent efforts, from large-scale design of buildings, transport and machines, to more appropriate use of human energy, such as cycling and walking, and even use of more hand-operated small clockwork devices.
This all does require brainwork, smart design, rather than mindless obedience to consumerism, and to centralised sources of electricity.
Ohio Senate moves to end energy efficiency requirements, in favour of subsidising nuclear reactors
Senate Nuclear Subsidies Plan Ends Energy Efficiency Requirements https://www.statenews.org/post/senate-nuclear-subsidies-plan-ends-energy-efficiency-requirements, By ANDY CHOW • JUL 15, 2019 A new version of the comprehensive energy bill, HB6, was introduced in the Ohio Senate on Monday that would charge residential ratepayers $0.85 a month on their electric bills to bail out the state’s two nuclear power plants.The bill, which has seen many drafts since being introduced, keeps renewable standards around until 2026. The standards require utilities to put a certain amount of renewable energy into their portfolio. The final benchmark would mandate that 8.5% of energy on a utility’s portfolio come from renewable sources, such as wind and solar. Sen. Steve Wilson (R-Maineville) says the efficiency standard will remain at 17.5% by 2020, which means the utilities must achieve 17.5% in saved energy. But Wilson says, “When they reach the 17.5%, then energy efficiency [standard] ceases.”
“Eliminating energy efficiency guarantees that electricity customers in Ohio will pay more on their monthly electric bills,” says Dan Sawmiller, Natural Resources Defense Council’s Ohio Energy Policy Director. “Adding insult to injury, the money that funded the efficiency programs is being diverted to bail out coal plants from the 1950s.”
Sawmiller is referring to a provision in the bill that allows utilities to charge ratepayers up to $1.50 for subsidies towards the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation. OVEC runs two coal plants, Kyger Creek (Gallia County) and Clifty Creek (Madison, IN)
The bill requires the nuclear power plants, which are currently run by FirstEnergy Solutions, to apply for the subsidies through the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority. Through that application process, any trade secrets or proprietary information will be confidential and not subject to public records laws.
America’s original moon plan was to explode a nuclear bomb on the moon
Landing on the Moon was option B.
Option A was to detonate a nuke on it.
In the late 1950s, Washington set in place a secret operation to examine the feasibility of detonating a thermonuclear device on the surface of our closest celestial neighbour.
It was codenamed Project A119.
Had it gone ahead, the expression “shooting for the Moon” would have gained a whole new meaning.
A spectacular scheme born of desperationWhat might now seem unimaginable only makes sense in the context of the Cold War, historian Vince Houghton says……..
The West was given a shock with the launch of Sputnik and very quickly the US Government flew into action and said we need to do something very spectacular,” Dr Houghton says.
“We need to do something so big that the whole world will know that this was just an anomaly, that Sputnik was just a blip, that the United States was still the big kid on the block.”
And with that, Project A119 was born.
One hell of a mushroom
The idea behind the project was ambitious, but simple — to create an explosion and lunar mushroom cloud so awe-inspiring and unavoidable that no matter where you lived on planet Earth, it would be impossible to ignore the extent of America’s military and technological might.
Appointed to lead the project was a physicist named Leonard Reiffel, who later went on to become the deputy director of the Apollo Program at NASA.
Dr Houghton says when delivering the initial findings in June 1959, cost was among the major reasons why the project was scuttled.
But he says there were also concerns about damaging the lunar landscape.
“There were some scientists who said: ‘You know, we might want to walk up there some day. Maybe we don’t want to blow the hell out of it before we do,'” he says.
“But, again, Sputnik was so terrifying that a lot of people were willing to take that chance.
“A lot of people were willing to say: ‘You know what? The Moon’s big enough that we can nuke it and land on it at the same time, so let’s give this a shot.'”
The big bang that fizzed
Dr Reiffel’s secret report into the feasibility of a lunar detonation was eventually declassified in 2000.
It carried a rather innocuous title: A Study of Lunar Research Flights.
It suggested that detonating a nuclear device on the Moon was technically feasible, but it gave no substantive detail as to how it might be done.
The project never proceeded to operational phase.
Interviewed by The Guardian shortly after the report’s declassification, Dr Reiffel expressed his personal relief.
“I am horrified that such a gesture to sway public opinion was ever considered,” he said.
“Had the project been made public there would have been an outcry.
“I made it clear at the time there would be a huge cost to science of destroying a pristine lunar environment, but the US Air Force were mainly concerned about how the nuclear explosion would play on Earth.”
Dr Houghton says it’s important to view Project A119 in its historical context.
He details the operation in a new book called Nuking the Moon, which examines a whole slate of radical intelligence projects that were set in motion during WWII and the Cold War, but which were never carried out……… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-17/moon-us-plans-cold-war-russia-sputnik/11220340
New revelations on the very high radiation in the Marshall Islands
Nuclear isotopes on Marshall Islands up to 1000 times higher than Chernobyl or Fukushima https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/nuclear-isotopes-on-marshall-islands-1000-times-higher-than-chernobyl-or-fukushima/news-story/eaacb5841fec37b39d8a907353dceb50, 17 July 19,Between Australia and Hawaii are islands where locals were banished due to nuclear testing. New research reveals the extent of the problem. Rohan Smith@ro_smith
Never mind Chernobyl and Fukushima.
New research shows a tiny island halfway between Australia and Hawaii has concentrations of nuclear material up to 1000 times higher than at two well-known meltdown locations in Ukraine and Japan.
Research carried out by Columbia University and published this week shows deadly plutonium levels are far higher than previously thought on the Marshall Islands. The group of 29 atolls was subject to 67 US nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, with locals forced to flee as the country dropped bomb after bomb in paradise.
The United States entombed nuclear waste under a dome on the island of Runit that some believe is leaking into the Pacific Ocean. However the real impact of the contamination is only now being realised.
Researchers wrote that two atolls, Bikini and Enewetak, “were used as ground zero” and took the brunt of the impact.
On Enewetak, the first-ever hydrogen bomb was tested. But Bikini was the site of the world’s largest-ever hydrogen bomb test — known as Castle Bravo.
The tests, researchers say, “caused unprecedented environmental contamination and, for the indigenous peoples of the islands, long-term adverse health effects”.
Researchers tested levels of radioactive isotopes in soil and food sources and found “a real concern” on Runit where the huge dome was designed to contain radiation but is not working.
“The presence of radioactive isotopes on the Runit Island is a real concern, and residents should be warned against any use of the island,” researchers said.
“Moreover, wash-off of existing isotopes off the islands into the ocean from weathering and continued sea level rise continues to threaten, further contaminating the lagoon and the ocean at large.”
On Bikini, researchers found concentrations of particular radioactive material “were up to 15-1000 times higher than in samples from areas affected by the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters”.
Though residents were banished from the Marshall Islands during the height of the Cold War, many have returned. The Los Angeles Times reports more than 600 people call Enewetak, Runit and Enjebi home.
Jan Beyea, a retired radiation physicist, told the newspaper: “Implicitly, I think these results might caution efforts to return because of the readings found.”
News.com.au previously reported rising sea levels were degrading the concrete dome at Runit, and the US Department of Energy concluded the “burial site” was leaking highly toxic waste.
Locals refer to it as “the poison” and have already been complaining of birth defects and high cancer rates.
After Castle Bravo, islanders more than 160km away mistook fallout for snow. It “caused skin burns, hair loss, nausea and eventually cancer” in many who were exposed, the Times reports.
The warnings from researchers clash with advice from the US Government, which signed a memorandum of understanding with the Republic of the Marshall Islands agreeing it was safe for those who wished to return home.
In the Marshall Islands, the most common cause of death is diabetes, which is related to a thyroid disorder. The second most common cause of death is cancer.
The population of the Marshall Islands is around 70,000 people, with local Marshallese people allowed to live and work in the US without a visa as part of the reparations for the nuclear testing that took place.
Over a third have already moved to the US. It is said when you leave the Marshall Islands, you buy a one-way ticket.
— Additional reporting by Phoebe Loomes
July to be world’s hottest month on record
July on course to be hottest month ever, say climate scientists
If global trends continue for another fortnight, it will beat previous two-year-old record, Guardian, Jonathan Watts @jonathanwatts17 Jul 2019 Record temperatures across much of the world over the past two weeks could make July the hottest month ever measured on Earth, according to climate scientists.
France’s nuclear reactors impacted by latest heat wave
Latest hot spell set to deepen drought pain in France, Saudi Gazette, July 17, 2019
The hot weather and lack of rainfall throughout the year have led to very low levels of groundwater, which contributes to the volume and flow of rivers, said Violaine Bault, hydrologist at French Geological Survey BRGM.
When groundwater decreases and there is no rainfall, rivers dry up.
The situation was more critical in the Loire, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes and Burgundy regions in central and eastern France. The Rhone River has been severely impacted. There has been very little rainfall in the region over the past three winters, Bault said.
French state-controlled utility EDF said on Tuesday that due to flow forecasts for the Rhone river, electricity generation could be restricted at its Bugey, St-Alban and Tricastin nuclear power plants from Saturday, July 20.
The nuclear plants, with a combined capacity of around 10,800 megawatts, use water from the river as coolant.
EDF’s use of water is regulated by law to protect plant and animal life. It is obliged to reduce output during hot weather when water temperatures rise, or when river levels and the flow rate are low.
The company said two nuclear reactors at the St. Alban plant and one at Bugey could be impacted over the weekend, but production losses are expected to be lower from Monday……… http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/572195
The sorry history and sorry future of nuclear power in South Africa
 Shutting down SA’s nuclear future https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2019-07-16-shutting-down-sas-nuclear-future16 JULY 2019 | STORY DAVID FIG. Located 33 km west of South Africa’s capital city Pretoria, the Pelindaba precinct has been home to South Africa’s official nuclear research corporation since the 1960s. The Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA) hosts the country’s earliest nuclear reactor, originally designed to take weapons-grade uranium. It was also the original site for the development of nuclear weapons under the apartheid government between 1978 and 1990.Over the years the corporation has experimented with reactor development, uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication, and the production of isotopes used in nuclear medicine.
In the years to 1994, it was given relatively free range with budgets and personnel to conduct these experiments. The whims of nuclear scientists were indulged as they were seen to be essential to apartheid’s semi-clandestine weapons, energy and sanctions-busting plans. However, many of these projects – except for the isotopes, which remain lucrative – have been abandoned. In recent years, governance has become dysfunctional. The corporation no longer sustains itself financially, there have been tensions between ministers and the board and the production of medial isotopes ceased for over a year. Long-standing problems Problems in the running of the corporation have been evident for some time. Earlier this year the former energy minister Jeff Radebe dealt with the growing internal problems by suspending and later firing the CEO, Phumzile Tshelane. He also took steps to fire the organisation’s entire board. Radebe acted because he claimed the board had failed in its fiduciary duties. This included oversight of the shut down of the production of isotopes for over a year, rendering NECSA in grave debt. Another reason was the signing of a deal with Russia’s Rosatom to build two “solution reactors” in South Africa. Radebe regarded the co-operation agreement irregular. In December 2018, Radebe appointed former NECSA CEO Rob Adam as the new non-executive chair of the board. In July this year Adam confirmed he had resigned. In seven months the task of restoring NECSA to functionality had become too onerous and time-consuming. Adam’s resignation signals grave difficulties faced by NECSA in its attempts to restructure and improve its balance sheet. Most worrying is that NECSA has spun off its former waste management responsibilities to a recent formation, the National Radioactive Waste Disposal Institute, which has also experienced severe governance problems. The future NECSA was the heir of an earlier Atomic Energy Board, which entered its life at the outset of the apartheid regime on 1 January 1949. At the time there was much debate about where to locate atomic research. Some sections of the scientific establishment argued that it should become part of the government-sponsored Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). However, security and military issues prevailed and atomic research was hived off into its own enterprise. South Africa, in deciding on NECSA’s future, should consider that for the present the country has decided to give up its nuclear ambitions, specifically in the area of energy generation. In 2010 the government wound up South Africa’s attempts at designing a high-temperature small-scale reactor, the Pebble Bed Modular reactor. The project failed to attract foreign investors and customers, and Eskom was reluctant to become a guinea pig. Cost and time overruns became too burdensome. Expensive enrichment technologies had also failed to become cost effective, and when unhooked from bomb production, were terminated. Isotope production is still viable. But the question is whether it requires an entire Pelindaba-sized research establishment to proceed. The reactor is now too elderly to have a bright future, and there’s no money to replace it. South Africa’s plans to build a series of nuclear power stations, championed by former president Jacob Zuma, were halted in 2017. This followed litigation by two environmental NGOs – Earthlife Africa and the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environmental Institute. This decision, as well as the draft contents of the Integrated Resource Plan 2018 underscore that, for the time being, extra nuclear capacity is unviable. What to do with the facility Now that South Africa no longer ascribes to a nuclear energy future, it is legitimate to consider what to do with the Pelindaba facility. The suitably pared-down nuclear research establishment needs to be reconceptualised and relocated. NECSA should be dismantled and its legacy projects, where viable, should be housed inside institutions like the CSIR and the universities. Nuclear scientists could be retired or retrained, while the rest of the workforce could be subjected to a “just transition” along the lines proposed in the carbon-intensive industries. Pelindaba as a precinct could be repurposed. First the nuclear waste from previous activities which is housed in numerous buildings and trenches at Pelindaba would need to be decontaminated and removed, so that future users can avoid any exposure to radioactivity. The site could become a new campus dedicated to innovation in the field of sustainable energy and related sciences. Subsidies once dedicated to nuclear research could be redirected to repositioning South Africa as a leading energy innovator in the global South. The new Pelindaba could also be dedicated to finding Africa-wide solutions to the climate crisis. Part of the site could also be dedicated to promoting nuclear disarmament. After all, the Treaty of Pelindaba declared the African continent a nuclear weapons-free zone. South Africa, the first country to give up its nuclear weapons, has a duty to the rest of the continent to champion nuclear disarmament. Repurposing of Pelindaba would be a just, cost-effective and practical solution to the problem of taxpayers continuing to support an increasingly dysfunctional NECSA, especially since nuclear energy is no longer seen as a viable way forward. David Fig, Honorary Research Associate, University of Cape Town. |
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How Australian Aboriginals stopped a huge uranium mining project
Leave it in the ground: stopping the Jabiluka mine, Red Flag Fleur Taylor, 15 July 2019 “…… The election of John Howard in March 1996 marked the end of 13 years of ALP government…..
North Korea, angered by US military exercises, plans to resume nuclear, missile, testds
Irate Over Military Exercises, North Korea Threatens To Resume Nuclear, Missile Tests https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742129952/irate-over-military-exercises-north-korea-threatens-to-resume-nuclear-missile-te, July 16, 2019, SASHA INGBER
North Korea warned Tuesday that negotiations with the United States could falter and that its nuclear and missile tests might resume if the U.S. and South Korea move forward with planned military exercises.
An unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson accused the U.S. of “unilaterally reneging on its commitments” in a statement released Tuesday by the Korean Central News Agency. The spokesperson said North Korea is “gradually losing our justification to follow through on the commitments we made with the U.S.” and that verbal pledges are not “a legal document inscribed on a paper.”
After President Trump’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year in Singapore, Trump announced that he would call off large military exercises with South Korea as a goodwill gesture to help kickstart negotiations.
North Korea has not tested long-range missiles since 2017.
Tuesday’s letter comes after Trump made a sudden visit to see Kim in June. They sat together in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas as cameras flashed, and Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot into North Korea. He called it “a great honor.”
They agreed to resume talks, but little progress has been made toward denuclearization, and no diplomatic meetings are known to have taken place since that June sit-down.
The U.S.-South Korean combined military exercises, called Dong Maeng, are expected to take place in August.
North Korea has long denounced such military drills, viewing them as a threat to its sovereignty. “It is crystal clear that it is an actual drill and a rehearsal of war aimed at militarily occupying our Republic by surprise attack,” the spokesperson said Tuesday.
Joint military exercises have taken place for decadesbecause the Korean peninsula was still technically in a state of war since the signing of an armistice agreement in 1953.
Although the United States has vowed to “indefinitely suspend” certain drills, smaller exercises are still help for South Korean and U.S. troops.
Pyongyang tested suspected short-range missiles in May. American officials drew a distinction between those tests and the launches of long-range ballistic missiles, which may be capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
Future space travellers will be, in reality, radiation guinea pigs
Space radiation hasn’t contributed to astronaut mortality — yet, study shows
An analysis of all living and dead astronauts and cosmonauts shows that radiation hasn’t contributed meaningfully to their mortality rates. Astronomy, By Korey Haynes , July 5, 2019 “ ………… they found no trend in the deaths suggesting any common cause, meaning radiation didn’t play a major role in the health outcomes of the astronauts and cosmonauts they studied.
Of course, this doesn’t mean humans are in the clear.
“We would expect that at some level of dose there should be adverse health effects,” Reynolds says. “We keep getting the answer ‘no.’ This doesn’t mean radiation isn’t harmful or greater doses wouldn’t be. But so far the doses have been low enough that we don’t see anything.”
That’s probably because the vast majority of space farers so far have spent most or all of their time in Earth orbit, where Earth’s magnetic fields still protect them from the majority of harmful space radiation. Only those 24 astronauts who ventured to the Moon went beyond Earth’s radiation protection, and they stayed for just a few days.
Reynolds says that it’s difficult to draw meaningful results from that tiny sub-sample of people.
By contrast, a Mars mission might last multiple years, and would take place almost entirely beyond Earth’s shielding.
Other researchers are looking at alternative ways of testing the dangers of radiation exposure. But it’s possible that the next round of human space explorers will be guinea pigs, much like the first generation, and only time will tell how radiation has affected them.http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/07/space-radiation-hasnt-contributed-to-astronaut-mortality–yet-study-shows
Moscow’s Polymetals Plant’s slag heap – an intractable radioactive hazard=- could become Moscow’s Chernobyl?
Will a Road Through a Nuclear Dumping Ground Result in ‘Moscow’s Chernobyl’? https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/07/16/will-a-road-through-a-nuclear-dumping-ground-result-in-moscow-chernobyl-a66404
Activists warn that construction will release radioactive dust into the air and the Moscow River. By Evan Gershkovich, July 16, 2019
When Yelena Ageyeva moved to the Moskvorechye-Saburovo neighborhood in southeastern Moscow in 1987, she was aware that there was a radioactive site across the railroad tracks from her apartment building.
“They calmed us down by saying that it was all buried under soil and so we had nothing to worry about,” said the 59-year-old pensioner on a recent evening at the commuter rail station adjacent to the site. “We lived in peace all these years.”
The site, the Moscow Polymetals Plant’s slag heap, contains tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste left over after the extraction of thorium and uranium from ore. The factory ceased production of metals in 1996 for “environmental reasons,” according to its website — it now produces weapons and military equipment — and the dump is now a hill half a kilometer wide sloping down to the banks of the Moscow River.
City officials had been considering a full-scale clean-up for years, but never rubber-stamped a plan due to the risky location of the site near a source of water for Moscow’s southern suburbs.
Now residents of nearby neighborhoods say new plans for an eight-lane highway across the southern band of the city that will pass next to the site have eclipsed environmental and health concerns. They warn that the construction will unleash the buried radioactive materials into the river at the bottom of the hill and the air that the city’s 12 million residents will breathe.
A legacy of a rushed Soviet effort to begin nuclear research as the race to build an atomic bomb gained steam in the 1930s, the hill is one of many contaminated sites across Russia — some of which are smack bang in the middle of the country’s capital and most populated city, where research first began at the Kurchatov Institute.
Just 13 kilometers from the Kremlin and steps from Kolomenskoye Park, a popular spot for Muscovites to ski in winter and picnic in summer, the Moskvorechye-Saburovo hill is the most contaminated of the bunch, according to Radon, a government agency tasked with locating and clearing radioactive waste.
“Operations in such an environment are a serious engineering challenge — one incautious step, and radioactive soil gets into the river,” said Alexander Barinov, Radon’s chief engineer for Moscow, when asked about the site in a 2006 interview.
“Full decontamination by removing all of the radioactive waste is simply impossible,” he added, noting that Radon every year conducts “a kind of therapy” to ensure the site’s safety — in short, dumping dirt on top of the waste to keep it buried after topsoil runoff each spring.
“The alternative is to assign this territory a special status and impose restrictions on its use, but the city authorities keep postponing this decision.”
More than a decade later, the authorities have apparently postponed that decision indefinitely. According to activists and local politicians, city officials are pretending the problem doesn’t exist at all.
“I believe the authorities know full well the risks,” said Pavel Tarasov, a Communist Party municipal deputy representing the Lefortovo neighborhood. “But it’s a lot easier to steal state budget funds allocated to construction than to clean up radioactive waste.”
Officials last fall started to push ahead with plans to build the new highway. In November, they began holding public hearings in neighborhoods through which the road will pass, including those around the radioactive site. Activists say officials didn’t mention that the hill holds radioactive waste during those hearings.
“We’ve been well aware that there was radioactive waste here for a long time,” said Andrei Ozharovsky, a specialist with the radioactive waste safety program of the country-wide Social-Ecological Union non-profit organization, during a recent tour of the site.
Ozharovsky, who in 1989 graduated from the National Research Nuclear University, located within walking distance of the plant, said he studied under a professor who used to be its former director and would mention the waste left there in lectures.
That information was not exclusive to nuclear scientists. In 2011, the popular state-run Rossia 1 television channel toured the site. “The radiation there exceeds the permissible level by tens of times,” a broadcaster said on air.
With the information out in the open, it wasn’t long until activists began to raise concerns on social media after the public hearings began last year. As anxiety swelled, local residents and municipal deputies demanded that the authorities conduct a safety test. In April, specialists from Radon and the Emergency Situations Ministry measured a rate two hundred times higher than the norm.
In the weeks since, officials have attempted to placate concerns by noting that construction won’t actually touch the radioactive parts of the site but just pass nearby — 50 meters away, to be exact. In a statement released Thursday, Radon called the reactions by local public figures “extremely emotional.”
A day earlier, Greenpeace Russia had released a statement demanding that construction be halted.
“Once trucks start driving near the site, the topsoil will slide and the radioactive dust will be released,” said Rashid Alimov, the director of the organization’s energy program, noting that the April examination didn’t dig deep enough to determine the danger level of the waste beneath.
“If radioactive dust gets into people’s lungs, it can increase the likelihood of cancer,” he added.
That worry has hit close to home for Katya Maximova, 32, who lives across the river from the site. When the Chernobyl reactor exploded in 1986, the year before she was born, her aunt lived in Ponyri, a village in Russia’s southern Kursk region about 500 kilometers away. The aunt believes the tragedy killed off almost everyone in the village over the next decade.
“Pretty much everyone got cancer within the next five to 10 years,” Maximova said.
Maximova, who has been a driving force behind the social media campaign to raise awareness about the Polymetals Plant hill, criticized the authorities for withholding information from the public and not attempting to understand the full picture in the first place.
“We’re not specialists so it’s hard to know what’s true,” she said. “We’re not against the authorities or against the construction. What we want is a full-scale examination first.”
A public hearing at the State Duma is scheduled for Wednesday morning, but Maximova said construction of the highway has already started on her side of the river.
“We have a long history of tragedies due to negligence,” she said, noting Chernobyl and last year’s fire at the Winter Cherry Mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo that killed more than 60 people, many of them children. “These are preventable tragedies.”
Maximova has recruited others to help with the social campaign, including her friend Ruslana Lugovaya. Thinking about what could happen frightens Lugovaya, so she is allaying her fears by focusing on the work, with a dab of dark humor.
“Why go visit Chernobyl when we have our own Chernobyl right here in Moscow?” she said.
Japan’s nuclear industry has a doubtful future
Is there a future for nuclear power in Japan?, Japan Times, BY SUMIKO TAKEUCHI, JUL 16, 2019, This is the third in a series of reports on Japan’s energy policy…….
the damage from nuclear accidents can be catastrophic, in addition to the challenges posed by nuclear waste disposal. The Fukushima disaster has led to strong opinions that Japan should denuclearize, and this is still the case.
…. ………The fact is that the economic benefits of nuclear power have been losing their shine. Because of the sharp hike in safety standards imposed by the Nuclear Regulation Authority after the Fukushima disaster, exorbitant safety upgrades nearly equal in cost to building a new reactor are being installed at each site. To get a return on investment, this intensive capital spending will require long-term operation and high utilization rates, but the need to get local consent to operate and to respond to dozens of lawsuits from anti-nuclear residents is making stable operations difficult. Reactor operations are also capped at 60 years. Nuclear power could potentially be a source of cheap electricity, depending on the utilization rate and other conditions, but there’s also a possibility it won’t. ……
The impact of the Fukushima disaster, however, was enough to completely overshadow the benefits. The majority of the public is still against nuclear power. In light of persistent public opinion, Japan’s nuclear power business has been surrounded by three big uncertainties.
The first is political uncertainty. The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, despite its long-term stability, has not provided enough support to the nuclear power business. In addition, the government has entrusted the utilities with the job of gaining local consent.
The safety agreements that stipulate the rules of the industry, such as disclosure of information to the host governments, are not legally binding. But running reactors would be next to impossible without local consent based on such agreements. Whenever there’s an election, the utilities are thrown into confusion, and if a new leader is elected, they will initiate communication from scratch.
The second is policy uncertainty. Japan has fully liberalized the retail power sector. In a liberalized market, reactors for which returns on investment have fully recovered could have high cost competitiveness, but there will likely be no companies that will take up the challenge of building new ones.
Since nuclear plants require huge capital, curbing fundraising costs to a low level would have a big impact on competitiveness, but cheap fundraising is something that cannot be expected in a liberalized market. …….
The third is regulatory uncertainty. It has become quite common for reactor safety reviews to take multiple years because of inadequate communication between utilities and regulators. The U.S. has a presidential executive order that stipulates regulation shall not be undertaken unless the potential benefits to society from regulation outweigh the potential costs of dealing with the regulation.
Though Japan has no such principles, appropriate oversight on regulatory activities is being called for to check whether the public is suffering from any disadvantages from unforeseeable regulatory activities. In the meantime, the finishing blow is the plethora of lawsuits that have been filed demanding the halt of nuclear power plants……..
When utilities are placed in such an uncertain environment, it is a foregone conclusion that the nuclear power business will become unsustainable and there will be no future for it in Japan…..https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/07/16/business/future-nuclear-power-japan/#.XS-PhOszbGg
In 2019, in Germany, renewables are providing more electricity than are coal and nuclear
German renewables deliver more electricity than coal and nuclear power for the first time, DW,17July19
In Germany, sun, wind, water and biomass have so far produced more electricity in 2019 than coal and nuclear power combined. But it’s a snapshot of a special market situation and might not be a long-term trend.
In Lippendorf, Saxony, the energy supplier EnBW is temporarily taking part of a coal-fired power plant offline. Not because someone ordered it — it simply wasn’t paying off. Gas prices are low, CO2 prices are high, and with many hours of sunshine and wind, renewable methods are producing a great deal of electricity. And in the first half of the year there was plenty of sun and wind.
The result was a six-month period in which renewable energy sources produced more electricity than coal and nuclear power plants together. For the first time 47.3% of the electricity consumers used came from renewable sources, while 43.4% came from coal-fired and nuclear power plants.
In addition to solar and wind power, renewable sources also include hydropower and biomass. Gas supplied 9.3% while the remaining 0.4% came from other sources, such as oil, according to figures published by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in July.
A vision of the future
Fabian Hein from the think tank Agora Energiewende stresses that the situation is only a snapshot in time. For example, the first half of 2019 was particularly windy and wind power production rose by around 20% compared to the first half of 2018.
Electricity production from solar panels rose by 6%, natural gas by 10%, while the share of nuclear power in German electricity consumption has remained virtually unchanged.
Coal, on the other hand, declined. Black coal energy production fell by 30% compared to the first half of 2018, lignite fell by 20%. Some coal-fired power plants were even taken off the grid. It is difficult to say whether this was an effect of the current market situation or whether this is simply part of long-term planning, says Hein………
The increase in wind and solar power and the decline in nuclear power have also reduced CO2 emissions. In the first half of 2019, electricity generation emitted around 15% less CO2 than in the same period last year, reported BDEW. However, the association demands that the further expansion of renewable energies should not be hampered. The target of 65% renewable energy can only be achieved if the further expansion of renewable energy sources is accelerated. https://www.dw.com/en/german-renewables-deliver-more-electricity-than-coal-and-nuclear-power-for-the-first-time/a-49606644-0
U.S. Senate committee authorises 40-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) with nuclear power companies
US Senate committee passes bill promoting advanced reactors, WNN, 17 July 2019
Murkowski highlighted a few of the measures on the agenda of yesterday’s meeting, including S. 903, her Nuclear Energy Leadership Act, which “aims to restore US leadership” in the civil nuclear industry by helping to develop “a range of advanced reactors technologies that are clean, safe and reliable”.
A bipartisan group of 15 senators introduced a bill in March to instate NELA, which would offer incentives and set federal goals for advanced nuclear energy. A smaller group of senators originally introduced the bill in September 2018, but the Congressional session ended before the Senate voted on it. NELA aims to boost US nuclear energy innovation by establishing public-private partnerships between federal government, leading research institutions and industry innovators. http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/US-Senate-committee-passes-bill-promoting-advanced
A heightened solar cycle, by chance, reduced the exposure of Apollo astronauts to space radiation
The term “radiation” is used to describe energy that is emitted in the form of electromagnetic waves and/or particles. Humans can perceive some forms of electromagnetic radiation: visible light can be seen and infrared radiation (heat) can be felt.
Meanwhile, other varieties of radiation such as radio waves, X-rays and gamma rays are not visible and require special equipment to be observed. Worryingly, when high energy (ionising) radiation encounters matter, it can cause changes at the atomic level, including in our bodies.
There are a several sources of ionising radiation in space. The sun continuously pours out electromagnetic radiation across all wavelengths – especially as visible, infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Occasionally, enormous explosions on the solar surface known as solar flares release massive amounts of X-rays and gamma rays into space, as well as energetic electrons and protons (which make up the atomic nucleus along with neutrons). These events can pose a hazard to astronauts and their equipment even at distances as far from the sun as Earth, the moon and Mars.
Potentially dangerous radiation in space also originates from outside our solar system. Galactic cosmic rays are high energy, electrically charged atomic fragments that travel at nearly the speed of light and arrive from all directions in space.
On Earth, we are protected from most of this ionising radiation. The Earth’s strong magnetic field forms the magnetosphere, a protective bubble that diverts most dangerous radiation away, while the Earth’s thick atmosphere absorbs the rest.
But above the atmosphere, the magnetosphere traps energetic subatomic particles in two radiation regions. These “Van Allen belts” comprise an inner and outer torus of electrically charged particles.
Lucky escape
So how did NASA solve the problem of crossing the Van Allen belts? The short answer is they didn’t. To get to the moon, a spacecraft needs to be travelling quickly to climb far enough away from the Earth such that it can be captured by the moon’s gravity. The trans-lunar orbit that the Apollo spacecraft followed from the Earth to the moon took them through the inner and outer belts in just a few hours.
Although the aluminium skin of the Apollo spacecraft needed to be thin to be lightweight, it would have offered some protection. Models of the radiation belts developed in the run-up to the Apollo flights indicated that the passage through the radiation belts would not pose a significant threat to astronaut health. And, sure enough, documents from the period show that monitoring badges worn by the crews and analysed after the missions indicated that the astronauts typically received doses roughly less than that received during a standard CT scan of your chest.
But that is not the end of the story. To get to the moon and safely back home, the Apollo astronauts not only had to cross the Van Allen belts, but also the quarter of a million miles between the Earth and the moon – a flight that typically took around three days each way.
They also needed to operate safely while in orbit around the moon and on the lunar surface. During the Apollo missions, the spacecraft were outside the Earth’s protective magnetosphere for most of their flight. As such, they and their crews were vulnerable to unpredictable solar flares and events and the steady flux of galactic cosmic rays.
The crewed Apollo flights actually coincided with the height of a solar cycle, the periodic waxing and waning of activity that occurs every 11 years. Given that solar flares and solar energetic particle events are more common during times of heightened solar activity, this might seem like a cavalier approach to astronaut safety.
There is no doubt that the political imperative in the 1960s to put US astronauts on the moon “in this decade” was the primary driving factor in the mission timing, but there are counterintuitive benefits to spaceflight during solar activity maxima. The increased strength of the sun’s magnetic field that permeates the solar system acts like an umbrella – shielding the Earth, moon and planets from galactic cosmic rays and therefore lessening the impact on astronaut radiation doses. https://theconversation.com/space-radiation-the-apollo-crews-were-extremely-lucky-120339
US nuclear weapon locations in Europe accidentally exposed in NATO committee report,
US nuclear weapon locations in Europe accidentally exposed in NATO committee report, BY OWEN DAUGHERTY – 07/16/19 A report from a NATO committee that has since been deleted reportedly exposed the the secret locations of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe.
The Washington Post reports that the document by a Canadian senator for the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly detailed the future of the organization’s nuclear deterrence policy but accidentally exposed the open secret.
The report stated that U.S. nuclear weapons are being stored in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
While the document titled “A new era for nuclear deterrence? Modernisation, arms control and allied nuclear forces” was originally published in April without making waves, a Belgian newspaper Tuesday published a copy of the document featuring the locations of about 150 U.S. nuclear weapons .
“These bombs are stored at six US and European bases — Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi-Torre in Italy, Volkel in The Netherlands, and Incirlik in Turkey,” a section of the newspaper’s report read, according to the Post.
The Post made note that the original document did not attribute this information to any source.
A final version of the report was reportedly published last week that did not have any specific references to where the weapons are stored…… https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/453426-us-nuclear-weapon-locations-in-europe-accidentally-exposed-in
1.This Month
PETITION
Free Julian Assange, before it’s too late. Sign to STOP the USA Extradition
United Nations: demasking the Torture of Julian Assange. Rico Brouwer and Nils Melzer
Three Mile Island (& Fukushima) Lies & Cover-Ups w/ Gundersen & Wasserman
Energy efficiency – theme for July 2019
Energy efficiency represents the single largest potential contributor to global emissions reduction, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA 2017). It should be a key part of the global energy strategy, for several reasons:
- It could reduce global electric demand by more than 20 per cent, based on current rates in the U.S. power sector, while maintaining high levels of services such as heating and lighting.
- It avoids the need for increased energy, capacity and grid services, making it the least expensive way to decarbonise at scale.
- It can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by billions of tonnes.
A dramatic example of the power of energy efficiency is lighting. In 2017 the United States passed the milestone of 1 billion LED and CFL lights installed, avoiding 142 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions, at a cost of about $7 per ton of avoided carbon dioxide. In contrast, the cumulative installed capacity of rooftop solar reached 8,000 MW in 2017, saving 8 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, at a cost of $360 per ton. Lighting efficiency thus yielded almost 18 times the avoided carbon dioxide, at about 2 per cent the cost per ton of rooftop solar.
Google provides another example of the power of energy efficiency. Its data centers now use 50 per cent less energy than the average data center, according to the company. Google also developed an improved chip, the TPU, which performs 83 times better than standard CPUs. The new chip allowed Google to reduce power consumption at its data centers by a factor of 30—far exceeding the effect on Google’s carbon footprint of all of the company’s renewable energy purchases. ” – John Woolard, Eco Business, 10 June 2019
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