Hermann Scheer tells the truth about the nuclear industry. He says that the nuclear energy lobby comes from the many pro-nuclear institutions that were set up in the 1950s and 1960s and still exist. This helps perpetuate the myth that renewable energy cannot fully replace fossil or atomic energy.
Dr. Hermann Scheer is a member of the German Parliament, President of EUROSOLAR, the European Association for Renewable Energy, and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy. He will speak at UC Berkeley in 290 HMMB at 11:00 a.m.
Description: “Energy Autonomy: The Economic, Social and Technological Case for Renewable Energy”by Dr. Hermann Scheer, member of the German Parliament
11:00 a.m. in 290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building, UC Berkeley campus. Co-sponsored by the Energy and Resources Group.
Abstract:
For 200 years, industrial civilization has relied on the combustion of abundant and cheap carbon fuels. But continued reliance has had perilous consequences. On the one hand there is the insecurity of relying on the world’s most unstable region ‘ the Middle East ‘ compounded by the imminence of peak oil, growing scarcity and mounting prices. On the other, the potentially cataclysmic consequences of continuing to burn fossil fuels, as the evidence of accelerating climate change shows.
Yet, there is a solution: to make the transition to renewable sources of energy and distributed, decentralized energy generation. It is a model that has been proven, technologically, commercially and politically, as Hermann Scheer comprehensively demonstrates. The alternative of a return to nuclear power ‘ again being widely advocated ‘ he shows to be compromised and illusory.
The advantages of renewable energy are so clear and so overwhelming that resistance to them needs diagnosis ‘ which Scheer also provides, showing why and how entrenched interests oppose the transition and what must be done to overcome these obstacles.
Biography:
Dr. Hermann Scheer is a member of the German Parliament, President of EUROSOLAR, the European Association for Renewable Energy, and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy. He devoted the greatest part of his political and scientific life to the replacement of nuclear and fossil fuels with environmentally sound energy sources. In the German Parliament, the German Renewable Energy Feed-in-Tariff-Law, the new Federal Building Law (prioritising Renewable Energies) and the Tax-Free-Law for Biofuels are based on his initiatives. These laws became the most successful Renewable Energy industrial promotion and application worldwide.
Dr. Scheer has received numerous awards including the World Wind Energy Award, the World Prize on Bio-Energy and the World Solar Prize as well as the Alternative Nobel Prize. In 2002 Time Magazine recognized him as one of five ‘Heroes for the Green Century’.
His previous books include The Solar Economy (2002) and A Solar Manifesto (1994).
The highly dangerous and unprecedented removal of the highly radioactive nuclear fuel rods in Fukushima Unit 4 will begin on Monday, November 18.
The Unit 4 fuel rod removal is like to trying to pull cigarettes from a crushed pack.The Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) had previously said the process would begin in mid-November but kept the exact date secret ‘for security reasons.’ TEPCO has now confirmed that the operation will begin Monday.
The NRA said that it will provide ‘enhanced oversight’ to TEPCO as the company begins the hugely delicate process of removing 1,331 spent fuel assemblies and 202 unused assemblies. The fuel rods are brittle, potentially damaged, and still located high above the ground in a badly damaged building that has buckled and tilted and could collapse if another quake strikes.
The fuel assemblies are in a 32 x 40 feet concrete pool, the base of which is on the fourth story of the damaged reactor building. The assemblies – which contain plutonium, one of the most toxic substances known – are under 23 feet of water.
If the fuel rods – there are 50-70 in each of the assemblies, which weigh around 661 pounds and are 15 feet long – are exposed to air or if they break, catastrophic amounts of radioactive gases could be released into the atmosphere.
France’s feisty objection to elements of the proposed Iran nuclear agreement may have merit, but Eric Edelman and Ray Takeyh are way off base writing that “France has an honorable history” in shielding the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and underlying norms.
France has had a tradition of helping countries with suspect nuclear ambitions. Before the treaty, Paris provided Israel with the Dimona reactor that it knew would be used for weapons development. After the NPT went into force in 1970, France provided Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with the Osirak reactor. When questions arose, France refused to modify Osirak’s weapons-grade fuel. Paris also provided Iraq with equipment for laboratory work on nuclear enrichment.
In the early 1970s, France provided Pakistan with plutonium extraction technology. Only strong U.S. pressure in 1978 forced Paris to abandon the export of a large reprocessing plant, but this did not stop French companies from supplying other equipment that Islamabad used in the weapons program.
An early partner in India’s “peaceful” nuclear program, France also continued to assist New Delhi after it exploded its first nuclear weapon in 1974.
France has a lot of nonproliferation catching up to do if it is to be taken seriously.
Bennett Ramberg
Los Angeles
The writer served in the State Department‘s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the George H.W. Bush administration.
Give People of Fukushima a Voice -Threshold: Whispers of Fukushima Hello! I’m Toko, a photographer/documentary filmmaker/ visual artist/musician. On March 11, 2011, I was shocked by news of multiple disasters occurring in my native country of Japan. Since then, I’ve been trying to find ways to be supportive of the children who survived the disasters. I’ve been hearing many kids who live close to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster area say something like, “There is much radiation in Fukushima. But we are NOT the radiation, and not contagious. Please don’t discriminate against us. Please know much about us in Fukushima!” Their voices inspired me to make a documentary about the many fascinating people who still live there! So my artist friends and I started this project together! ☆日本語字幕入のプロモーションビデオはこちらです ☆『日本の皆様へ』メッセージへのリンクです ☆日本語の寄付して下さった方への特典の説明へのリンクです
To complete this film, we need to make 2 more trips to Japan (The end of November 2013 and April / May 2014), and need financial support to continue. We received a fiscal sponsorship from a non-profit organization called From the Heart Productions. With their support, I decided to do this campaign.
The donations are all tax deductible. Thanks to our sponsor! We actually need more than $20,000 to complete this film, but we decided to set our goal at a more humble amount – $10,000. Help dispel ignorance about the situation in Fukushima that has made kids suffer discrimination — I’m hearing about many mental difficulties among kids in Fukushima, resulting from bullying (and cyber-bullying). This is sad and irrational, but ignorance and fear are powerful motivators. I think that knowing more about the actual people in Fukushima might awaken healthy thoughts, truth, and empathy inside each one of us, and help to connect people. Perhaps it might also encourage us to ask ourselves some fundamental questions about our own humanity. Help make a better change for the future, for people in Fukushima and also for all of us on this planet — Their stories have made me re-think the situation in Fukushima, its people, and life happiness. They want you to know their stories and think about them for yourself – what we can do to nurture a healthier future? You can help make this change together! For more info: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/give-people-of-fukushima-a-voice-threshold-whispers-of-fukushima–2
Rao said the scientific community had done much more than the money it was given over the decades. “The best money the government gave scientists was only enough for 20 percent of their requirement.
Ians/Bangalore : India will become a leader in nuclear energy with new technology which is being used for the first time to build a fast breeder reactor to generate 500MW at Kalpakkam near Chennai, a top scientist said on Sunday. “We are building a fast breeder reactor, the first of its kind to generate 500MW through a process which is different from the usual nuclear reactor,” Prime Minister’s scientific advisory council chairman C.N.R. Rao said.
Rao said if the new technology succeeded, the reactor would be commissioned by April 2014 at the Kalpakkam atomic power plant, about 80km from Chennai in Tamil Nadu. “If this succeeds, we will become a leader in nuclear energy with completely new technology, which we have mastered,” Rao said.Claiming that Indian scientists had performed well despite marginal investment in science infrastructure, Rao said the scientific community had done much more than the money it was given over the decades. “The best money the government gave scientists was only enough for 20 percent of their requirement.
We have never made full investment in anything. Ask the government and politicians why they have given so little for us. If I have to get $1,000, I get only $10, which is 10 percent and comes late,” Rao said at his home-office of the premier Indian Institute of Science (IISc).He further said that India must invest more in science as its future is linked with it, and the country would change for the better if the government and the private sector increased spending on science education. “More investments will enable the youth to look at science as an important area of work for a great future. Only countries which advanced scientifically made progress, while those who neglected it are not known,” Rao told reporters.
Noting that China was already doing peta-computing and hexa-computing, Rao said he was fighting with the government to invest in supercomputing so that at least a great institute like IISc would have a centre, which was proposed a decade ago. Regretting that the quantity of scientific papers published in India remained flat, the eminent scientist said China had increased its scientific publications and was going to be number one in the world in the area next year.He also said that basic science research is getting its due now. “I spoke to the prime minister and thanked him for the honour. I feel basic science is getting its due now,” Rao told reporters.
Hoping that more students would earnestly take up science research, Rao said the country’s foremost nuclear scientist Homi Bhabha should also be awarded with the (Bharat Ratna) honour. Rao’s wife Indumathi said her husband had always been her ‘Bharat Ratna’. “Scientists work very hard but rarely get recognition while it is easy for others like sports persons to get an award,” she added.
South Korea could become the next nation to take a stake in the British nuclear industry as the financing deal with France and China for a new reactor at Hinkley Point in Somerset creates a wave of wider interest.
The move could trigger controversy because the Korean atomic industry has been hit by a scandal over fake safety certificates but the UK and South Korea have vowed to help restore credibility and build closer links in this sector.
Lloyd’s Register, which provides risk management services, has been hired by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Company to help give the country’s reactors a clean bill of health.
But senior executives for the London-based Lloyd’s say the relationship is a two-way process with the Koreans also looking at the best route to enter the British market in the aftermath of the Chinese investment in Hinkley Point.
“Discussions are ongoing and I would not be surprised to see, in a year or so’s time, the Koreans taking an equity investment in the UK market,” said Richard Clegg, a managing director at Lloyd’s Register and a former chief scientist at the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment.
David Cameron met the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, in London two weeks ago with the media headlines taken up with joint agreements on how to tackle the threat of nuclear weapons in North Korea.
But the two leaders also promised to increase commercial ties in everything from nuclear power to financial services. The Lloyd’s deal, which was signed on the sidelines, will help over a two-year period with the safety certificate problem that has forced some of the 23 South Korean reactors offline.
Clegg said the Hinkley Point financing agreement between Britain, EDF of France, China General Nuclear Corporation and China National Nuclear Corporation had attracted a lot of attention among other potential atomic investors.
Ministers have agreed to guarantee a generous price of up to £92.50 per megawatt-hour of electricity for 35 years, more than twice the current market rate.
Clegg believes that Toshiba and Hitachi of Japan, which have their own different consortiums for building potential new plants in Britain, can be expected to press ahead with firm investment plans too.
“We have been here before, of course. Sizewell [the last new nuclear plant constructed in Britain] was meant to be the first every year for a decade but with all the macro-pressures there are now around energy security my personal judgment is that we will see more than one and we could see six,” he said.
The next site after Hinkley in Somerset is likely to be Sizewell, where EDF and the Chinese have rights to build, and Clegg believes that the Far East partners will want to be playing an even bigger role than just taking an equity stake.
“I think we can expect to see the Chinese pushing for their one equipment and supply chain to be used with a longer term aim of being able to sell nuclear technology into emerging markets such as the Middle East, Africa and south-east Asia.”
Acronym TV with Dennis Trainor Jr. covers the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan, as well as the delivery of letters and petitions signed by over 150,000 individuals and organizations from around the world.
“Energy Autonomy: The Economic, Social and Technological Case for Renewable Energy”
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