Human error the biggest danger in nuclear technology

In 2007, six nuclear warheads were transported from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, to Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base – by mistake. It’s a pattern of mistakes where there’s zero room for error.

When We’re Our Own Biggest Nuclear Threat Gizmodo Australia, By Brian Barrett November 23, 2010 Last year, two men were handcuffed and detained after a drunken bar incident. Not unremarkable for your average road warrior. Except these two men were federal agents, and their cargo was nuclear weaponry. That’s terrifying. And it’s happened before.

That might be the most egregious of the alcohol-induced incidents that have plagued America’s Office of Secure Transportation the last few years, but it’s far from an isolated incident. In 2007, an agent was arrested for public intoxication during a secure transportation mission, and there have been a full 16 incidents involving those entrusted with transporting our nuclear arsenal from 2007 to 2009 alone………….And that’s just two years of alcohol-specific missteps. In 2008, we sent electrical fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan. In 2007, six nuclear warheads were transported from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, to Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base – by mistake. It’s a pattern of mistakes where there’s zero room for error.

When We’re Our Own Biggest Nuclear Threat | Gizmodo Australia

1.This Month

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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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