The limits of nuclear power – International Herald Tribune
The limits of nuclear power
Internationmal Herald Tribune Daniel Botkin 20 Oct 08 – “…………………….to what extent can nuclear power really help achieve energy independence?There’s a problem about nuclear energy that gets little attention. At present, fossil fuels provide 87 percent of the world’s total energy while nuclear power plants provide just 4.8 percent. (All nuclear power plants currently generate electricity, accounting for about 15 percent of world electricity generation, while fossil fuels produce almost 67 percent of the electricity.)…………………………
Suppose it were possible to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear power. Suppose that we could use nuclear energy to make liquid and gas fuels to power vehicles, and could do this quickly using conventional nuclear power plants.
We would have to build enough plants to increase energy production by 17.4 times, which means using 1.2 million tons of uranium ore each year. At that rate of use, the reserves of uranium would be used up in less than five years…………….Considering the enormous costs of building the large number of nuclear power plants that are contemplated to replace fossil fuels, the United States would be courting disaster if it chose this route with nothing but blind faith that there may be a lot more uranium out there if we only look for it………………………The bottom line: From what is known about resources of uranium and the present and future state of nuclear power plants, there is no way that nuclear power can play a dominant role in the world’s energy supply.
The limits of nuclear power – International Herald Tribune
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Tons of nuclear waste piling up at power plants | MiamiHerald.com
Tons of nuclear waste piling up at power plants
Miami Herald 21 Oct 08 The unrelenting nuclear headache in the United States is how to dispose of radioactive waste. For 25 years, the federal government has considered putting it at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. That has led to bitter opposition from environmentalists, those close to the proposed dump and even some nuclear experts……………….Until this point, all nuclear plants have had to keep their waste on site, piling up at the rate of 20 tons per reactor per year. ”Basically, nothing has moved,” says Mitchell Singer of the Nuclear Research Institute.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
TheStar.com | Business | Nuclear costs pressure industry
Nuclear costs pressure industry
TheStar.com Tyler Hamilton 20 Oct 08 “………………..Resource, labour and regulatory constraints continue to draw attention to the risks and uncertainties of building new nuclear reactors, and as North American utilities start digging into the details they’re finding expansion of their nuclear fleets are likely to cost much more than originally thought.
And that’s ignoring any impacts the current credit crunch could have on financing these massive projects……………………………..
Over in Finland, energy group Teollisuuden Voima is now saying a next-generation reactor being built by France’s Areva SA could be delayed until 2012, three years behind schedule. Already, the Olkiluoto 3 plant is reportedly $2 billion over budget since construction began in 2005…………………
Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s released a report last Wednesday – “We expect that capital costs for nuclear projects will be significantly higher than what we have seen in the power industry thus far,” said the agency, referring to the unique labour and material costs associated with nuclear development. “The nuclear construction industry will be particularly prone to price spurts from transportation bottlenecks and fuel-price swings because nuclear units require a significantly higher amount of material than do other types of power assets.”
Complicating the risks even more, it said, was a “scanty construction track record for the new technologies and an untested regulatory process.” The nuclear industry knows it. At a World Nuclear Association conference in London last month, executives said costs have jumped so quickly they no longer wanted to publicly commit to estimates.
TheStar.com | Business | Nuclear costs pressure industry
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Central Chronicle–Opinion
123 Agreement – of nuke wastes and other risks
Central Chronicle Oct 21, 2008“……………………………During the protracted debate on the Deal whether in India or abroad nuclear power was touted as a clean source of energy though the West does not seem to reckon it as such any longer. In the US nuclear power plants have not been built for decades. France , too, has reduced the contribution of nuclear energy in its total power output. Yet, curiously, never for once was a mention made of the hazardous radioactive wastes that the nuclear power reactors generate…………………Curiously, this was never touched upon even as the US and others are up against the unsolved problem of permanent interment and isolation of nuclear wastes……………Proliferation generally breeds all round compromise in quality and that may well happen with the proliferating nuclear power industry. Besides, numerousness of atomic power complexes will act like magnates for the disaffected and the hostile elements in the neighbouring countries. If infiltration and exfiltration continue with such ease as at present, the country will never be short of prowling bombers.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
The nuclear sword of Damocles – On Line Opinion – 20/10/2008
The nuclear sword of Damocles
The Forum By Evaggelos Vallianatos, 20/10/2008 – “……………………………..the sword of Damocles, now armed with nuclear bombs, is ever ready to slice through the earth. Since August 6, 1945, the people of the world have had to live in the shadow of death.This new immoral condition is the outcome of the logic of total war and the religion of science, which grew around nuclear physics. That the global nuclear terror has survived for 63 years is partly a testimony to the hubris of the teachers of physics and engineering who, corrupted by the military, accepted bomb making as science.Such transformation of physics from the study of nature to the training of engineers to think and construct bombs and factories of nuclear electricity has had tragic consequences, the extreme example of which is evolving in Pakistan, India, Iran and North Korea possessing or making their own nuclear weapons.
Many Pakistanis and Indians can barely afford one meal a day, yet their countries are armed to the teeth with the ultimate bomb. Iran, governed by Islamic priests, is determined to acquire the bomb. And Communist North Korea is telling the world that now that it has its own atomic or nuclear bomb no one will dare ignore it any more.
To avoid a global nuclear meltdown, we must abolish all that has to do with the smashing of the atom – nuclear weapons and factories of nuclear electricity – or these technologies will abolish us. In large numbers, nuclear bombs are possibly geocidal. But even one is genocidal……………………..We should know the nuclear bomb is neither a battlefield weapon nor an object of worship. Using this technology for electricity is a dangerous delusion. Nuclear power plants never cease poisoning people and nature. The wastes of these factories will be hazardous for hundreds and thousands of years.
The nuclear sword of Damocles – On Line Opinion – 20/10/2008
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Nuclear disarmament push a ‘difficult job’ for Rudd – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Nuclear disarmament push a ‘difficult job’ for Rudd
ABC News Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will have difficulty leading the nuclear disarmament debate because of the nation’s expanding uranium industry, the Greens said.
Mr Rudd’s foreign policy initiative – the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament – will hold its first meeting in Sydney next week.
Mr Rudd last month said the commission has a two-year mandate to reinvigorate the global debate on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and for nuclear disarmament…………………
Greens Senator Scott Ludlum said while the commission was a welcome step, Australia’s role was compromised by its expanding uranium export industry.
“The key thing really is that it’s at risk already of being sabotaged by the nuclear power industry and the uranium mining industry,” he said.
“So the Prime Minister’s got a bit of a difficult job ahead of him walking that line.
“It’s going to be very difficult for Australia as one of the world’s largest uranium suppliers with a very powerful mining lobby to be an honest broker in this case.”…………………..
“This commission’s not going to be successful unless we are able to wind back the civil nuclear power industry because every nuclear power station essentially is just a plutonium factory hooked up to a steam turbine,” he said.
“We can’t have radical expansion of nuclear power capacity without making it dramatically more difficult to prevent weapons from spreading.”
Nuclear disarmament push a ‘difficult job’ for Rudd – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Nuclear nonsense :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Neil Steinberg
Nuclear nonsense
McCain’s vow to build 45 atomic plants has bold glow of deceptionCHICAGO SUN TIMES October 19, 2008
Opening shotThe most recent nuclear power plant to go online in the United States was the Watts Bar station in Tennessee, which started producing power in 1996, a scant 23 years after construction began. Thus John McCain’s debate claim that, as president, he would somehow push through the construction of 45, count ’em, 45 new nuclear plants without worrying about where they’d be placed or what we’d do with the radioactive waste drew quite a response,…………….. pal who works at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and I asked him what he thinks of McCain’s plan.
“No way,” he said. “He’s crazy. We’ll be lucky to build two nuclear plants in the next 10 years, and that’ll cost $18 billion.”
I’m all for boldness. But claiming you’ll solve our energy problems by spending money we don’t have on nuclear plants that won’t be built, well, that isn’t bold, it’s deceptive.
Nuclear nonsense :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Neil Steinberg
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
New Energy Focus – Warm welcome for small-scale renewable energy feed-in tariff
Warm welcome for small-scale renewable energy feed-in tariff
New Energy focus 17-10-08 The renewable energy industry has welcomed energy secretary Ed Miliband’s announcement yesterday that the government will introduce feed-in tariffs to support small-scale green power projects. Mr Miliband revealed in his debut speech to Parliament yesterday that the government will add an amendment to the Energy Bill to introduce feed-in tariffsFeed-in tariffs are effectively long-term contracts that will offer the generators of renewable energy a guaranteed price for their power above the general market rate for electricity.
The government is still backing its Renewable Obligation system for large-scale renewable power projects, particularly since the system will provide more certainty of the UK meeting its renewable energy targets than a feed-in tariff on a large scale.
But the feed-in tariff on a small scale should mean microgenerators and on-site power projects will have a guaranteed premium rate income for their power, providing certainty needed for investment decisions.
New Energy Focus – Warm welcome for small-scale renewable energy feed-in tariff
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Bloomberg.com: Europe
Areva to Settle Finnish Project Loss With Client TVO )By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Areva SA, the world’s largest reactor maker, is negotiating with Teollisuuden Voima Oyj, or TVO, to share losses at a reactor it is building for the Finnish utility………………………………OL3, which has been plagued by component, construction and organization problems since it started in 2005, is more than 25 percent over its 3 billion-euro ($4.1 billion) initial budget and its delivery date has been pushed back two years to mid-2011. Even that target is “challenging,” Jouni Silvennoinen, senior VP at TVO, said today in a presentation on site……………….
The company has never disclosed the exact amount of provisions for the project over the time. Areva’s reactors and services unit had a 258 million-euro operating loss in the first half on additional charges as the company tried to accelerate the work and allocated more resources than planned, it said.
The OL3 contract was the first reactor order negotiated by Areva after the nuclear power industry’s long pause.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Steve Parker: Debate — McCain calls Nuclear Safety Advocates “Extreme Environmentalists”
The Huffington Post
“…………………….McCain accused Obama of taking the position of “extreme environmentalists” because Obama wants to be sure that storing and disposing of used fuel rods from nuclear power plants is done safely.In fact, in Nevada, which borders McCain’s home state of Arizona, there has been a decades-long battle to not allow the disposal of those nuclear rods in that state. With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) among those “extreme environmentalists,”
Steve Parker: Debate — McCain calls Nuclear Safety Advocates “Extreme Environmentalists”
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Colorado Energy/Climate Survey: Most in State Oppose More ‘Subprime’ Investments in Coal, Nuclear Power – MarketWatch
Colorado Energy/Climate Survey: Most in State Oppose More ‘Subprime’ Investments in Coal, Nuclear Power
Market Watch 2008DENVER and WASHINGTON, Oct 16, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — 86 Percent Want Limits on Subsidies for Oil Shale Production, 76 Percent Support Moratorium on New Coal-Fired Power Plants; Strong Back Shift to Clean Wind and Solar Power.
f elected officials in Denver and Washington, D.C. are going to continue investing in energy through subsidies, tax breaks and other incentives, the focus should shift from coal and nuclear power to promoting wind and solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, and highly fuel-efficient vehicles, according to a new survey of 600 Colorado adults conducted for TheCLEAN.org and the Civil Society Institute (CSI) by the leading U.S. survey firm Opinion Research Corporation (ORC). The CLEAN/CSI survey was released today with Western Colorado Congress (WCC)………………….Civil Society Institute President and Founder Pam Solo said: “Colorado residents deserve credit for understanding that more investment by the state and federal governments in coal and nuclear power is essentially the same thing as investing in subprime mortgages. If Colorado taxpayers are going to directly or indirectly underwrite energy development and energy-intensive industries — such as the auto industry — we need to insist that state officials in Denver and the next Congress and President make good, solid investments that make sense for the long-term of our country. The only energy investments that rise above the ‘subprime’ level today are wind, solar and other clean renewable energy in concert with enhanced energy efficiency.”………………….Grant Smith, national project coordinator for TheCLEAN.org, added: “Investments in coal and nuclear power are the Countrywide Financial subprime mortgages of the energy world. What the public is saying in this survey is that we support government making investments in the energy sources of tomorrow, but we have to stop flushing money down the drain by propping up the failing energy sources of yesterday, including oil, coal and nuclear……………………………There is no viable model under which new nuclear power plants can be constructed as anything other than multi-billion-dollar public works boondoggles. After the current financial debacle on Wall Street, it is hard to imagine that Americans are going to allow more dumb investments by Denver and Washington on the wrong energy sources.”
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Consultant: Green power a threat to W.Va. coal – Forbes.com
Associated PressConsultant: Green power a threat to W.Va. coal
Forbes.com By VICKI SMITH 10.16.08, 8:41 AM ET MORGANTOWN, W.Va. –Solar power plants and other renewable energy sources are real, competitive threats that neither the coal industry nor the state’s political and academic leaders should dismiss, a consultant warned Wednesday at the second West Virginia Coal Forum.
While the carbon in coal has many potential applications, its future as a fossil fuel to be burned for electricity is limited, said Allan Tweddle, a member of the West Virginia Public Energy Authority.
In a discussion focused mainly on ways to ensure that West Virginia coal remains a prominent part of the nation’s energy plan, Tweddle was a splash of cold water to the face.
Germany has abandoned the coal-to-liquid fuel technology it pioneered, he said, opting instead to focus on solar power plants. South Africa, which has had the world’s largest continuously operating coal-to-liquids plant, is now planning to shut it down.
Simultaneously, the worldwide solar cell industry is growing 35 percent a year, with China spending $3 billion a year, Tweddle said. And California is looking into on-demand solar plants that he said could produce electricity that is price-competitive with coal-fired power plants.
All that growth is lowering the cost of silicone, a key ingredient that had made solar power more expensive, Tweddle said.
“The state has got to pay attention to these serious trends,” he warned. “I hear too much dismissal of these technologies.”
Consultant: Green power a threat to W.Va. coal – Forbes.com
Tags: renewables, nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
WORLD’S FATE RESTS WITH ARMS CONTROL, DISARMAMENT INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, YET STATE OF AFFAIRS UNSTABLE AT BEST, DISARMAMENT CHIEF TELLS FIRST COMMITTEE – 7thSpace Interactive
WORLD’S FATE RESTS WITH ARMS CONTROL, DISARMAMENT INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, YET STATE OF AFFAIRS UNSTABLE AT BEST, DISARMAMENT CHIEF TELLS FIRST COMMITTEE
7th Space 17 Oct 08 Heads of Atomic Energy Agency, Disarmament Conference, Chemical Weapons, Test-Ban Treaty Organizations, Describe Efforts to Keep Pace with Emerging Threats
The future of the world rested in the fate of arms control and disarmament intergovernmental organizations, yet the current state of affairs in the fields of disarmament and arms control was unstable at best, the United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sergio Duarte, said today.
Addressing the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), Mr. Duarte said that many Member States were confronted with a variety of crises, some of which had been particularly hard on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and had inspired doubts about the Treaty’s effectiveness in achieving its goals of disarmament and non-proliferation. Then too, some of the crises related to the lack of any multilateral legal obligations in certain fields, such as missiles, space weapons and conventional armaments.Today, the heads of some key arms control and disarmament organizations – the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), the Conference on Disarmament, and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — spoke to the Committee about the impasses and breakthroughs they had experienced in an effort to keep pace with, and even ahead of, the indisputably fluid security environment.
With only nine countries remaining to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of CTBTO, Tibor Toth, said his organization was making sure the verification regime was ready from “day one” of the Treaty’s entry into force. The system would comprise 337 facilities in 89 countries, each hosting a range of recording equipment maintained by nearly 500 operators worldwide, around the clock.
With the CTBT verification regime, a new standard of transparency had been achieved, which represented a new democracy in the verification of multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation instruments, he said, urging the Committee to stay focused, at the upcoming 2010 NPT Review Conference, on the gravity of nuclear dangers, and for Member States to contemplate the importance of progress on the test-ban Treaty’s entry into force.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Nuclear agency worries fear will block growth – International Herald Tribune
Nuclear agency worries fear will block growth
International Herald Tribune By James Kanter October 16, 2008“……………………………The eport by the Nuclear EnergyAgency, an organization in Paris that advises industrialized countries on nuclear power, said the technology represented a more secure supply of power than oil or gas. But it said that opposition to nuclear power remained strong enough to curtail such an expansion.
………………………………….The report said that “a significant fraction of public opinion perceives that the risks of nuclear energy outweigh its advantages.” The report noted that people were more “concerned about some aspects surrounding nuclear energy (radioactive waste, terrorism and proliferation) than about the actual operation of nuclear power plants.”………………Skeptics of nuclear power say that expanding the technology would require huge amounts of government subsidies and would be an inefficient use of taxpayers’ money, which could be better spent on developing renewable sources of energy like solar, wind and bio-fuels and on increasing energy efficiency.
Perhaps the most serious concern facing the industry is the question of how to handle nuclear waste.
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Nuclear agency worries fear will block growth – International Herald Tribune
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Rio warning sends resource stocks plummeting | theage.com.au
Rio warning sends resource stocks plummeting
The AgeBarry FitzGerald October 17, 2008 RIO TINTO’S confession that the five-year commodities boom was unravelling has triggered a global sell-off in resource equities and mineral commodities.
The big four of the industry – BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Anglo American – took their biggest one-day share-price hits since the 1987 crash while the slide in metal prices accelerated, in some cases to below marginal costs of production.
Rio let the cat out of the bag on Wednesday in its September quarter production report.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
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25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
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From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
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Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
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