The reality of the insurance problem makes nuclear power commercially not viable
several European states signed the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, which is equivalent in spirit and intent to the ‘international tier’ of the Brussels Convention. Once fully ratified, it may provide up to an additional €360 million in the event of disaster.
The problem is that these amounts still fall well short of the total costs of larger disasters. Yet it appears the international community is moving towards a socialization, or internationalization, of disaster losses.
This is also the case, though with a slightly different approach, for the US, where the risk-sharing strategy is implemented through the Price-Anderson Act. Here the operator needs to have an insurance that covers €375 million per nuclear plant that he runs.
The true cost of disaster insurance makes nuclear power uncompetitive, Ecologist Ingmar Schumacher, 6th February 2014 The European Commission is assessing how it should augment its nuclear disaster insurance. Ingmar Schumacher calls for full transparency of insurance costs in the cost-benefit evaluation of the nuclear industry The continuing nuclear disaster at Fukushima has concentrated minds on the risks of nuclear catastrope in Europe – all the more so as estimates of Fukushima’s cost rise towards a giddying US$500 billion.
And so it is that the European Commission is considering whether, and how, it should amend the insurance of nuclear power plants on European territory. In the event of the unthinkable taking ….se claims of low CO2 emissions and cheap electricity, the potential for nuclear disasters cannot be ignored. Even Naomi Hirose, the president of Tepco, operator of Fukushima Daiichi, recently stated that “we have to keep thinking: what if … “….
Within Europe, these expected costs are currently partly covered by a compulsory disaster insurance that the nuclear operator pays. However, this disaster insurance is grossly insufficient to include the expected costs of disasters into the price of nuclear energy.
As a result, governments around the world socialize the damages that are not covered by this insurance. This is precisely the reason for which the European Commission is trying to reform the insurance of nuclear disasters.
And, obviously, since the impacts of nuclear disasters are not limited by national borders, it only makes sense to reform disaster insurance at the European level…..
Current approach to nuclear disaster insurance in Europe
Nuclear insurance within Europe is governed by the Paris Convention and the Brussels Convention. Most European countries have signed and ratified one or other, or indeed both.
The two conventions place full liability on the operator, who must also provide insurance. But they also limit the operator’s maximum liability.
If operators had to be insured for the whole potential damage, then, according to calculations by Versicherungsforen Leipzig GmbH for German nuclear power plants, this would lead to a price increase for nuclear energy of €0.139 to €2.36 per kWh. Calculations for France lead to a price increase of €0.047 per kWh. Continue reading
Use Google Earth to check on temperatures world-wide
World temperature records available via Google Earth
Climate researchers at the University of East Anglia have made the world’s temperature records available via Google Earth. The new Google Earth format allows users to scroll around the world, zoom in on 6,000 weather stations, and view monthly, seasonal and annual temperature data more easily than ever before. The move is part of an ongoing effort to
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2014/February/cru-google-earth
Binding 30% renewable energy target for Europe,by 2030
MEPs send ‘strong 2030 signal’ http://renews.biz/59912/brussels-sends-strong-2030-signal/ 5 Feb 14, A vote in plenary today by MEPs to set a 2030 renewables target of 30% has been hailed as sending a “signal that political will to support renewable energy solutions to the climate issue is strong”. MEPs voted by 341 to 263, with 26 abstentions, to call for a 40% cut in CO2 emissions, a 30% target for renewable energy and a 40% target for energy efficiency under the EU’s new long-term climate-change policy.
These targets should be binding, they said. The MEPs also criticised the European Commission’s proposals, which were released last month and proposed a binding GHG target of 40% and a supposedly binding renewables target of just 27%, as short-sighted and unambitious.
A vote in plenary today by MEPs to set a 2030 renewables target of 30% has been hailed as sending a “signal that political will to support renewable Menergy solutions to the climate issue is strong”.
MEPs voted by 341 to 263, with 26 abstentions, to call for a 40% cut in CO2 emissions, a 30% target for renewable energy and a 40% target for energy efficiency under the EU’s new long-term climate-change policy.
These targets should be binding, they said. The MEPs also criticised the European Commission’s proposals, which were released last month and proposed a binding GHG target of 40% and a supposedly binding renewables target of just 27%, as short-sighted and unambitious.
Identifying radiation as cause of a cancer,by means of DNA testing
DNA Evidence Can Now Prove Link Between Cancers And Fukushima Radiation http://agreenroad.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/dna-evidence-can-now-prove-link-between.html “……….This DNA marker is quite possibly the nuclear industry’s worst nightmare. Any medical professional or lawyer team around the world can now order a DNA test and have the cancer tissue analyzed to see if it was caused by Fukushima or Chernobyl, or Santa Susana, or Three Mile Island radioactive elements, each of which have a unique ‘signature’, just like people have fingerprints.
Obviously, the scientific study above was focused around Chernobyl and thyroid cancers, but the concept is applicable to any nuclear accident, including Fukushima. Quite possibly, the same process could be applied to any tissue sample, from any cancer, in any area of the body. This is definitely on the cutting edge and any lawyer plus DNA expert making a case this way will create history.
Niger is up against the might of France, with its State owned nuclear company AREVA
A nuclear story: Areva and Niger’s uranium fight Express Tribune 5 Feb 14 “…….Mining Minister Tchiana said Areva’s tax breaks cost the government 23 million to 30 million euros a year in potential tax revenue, and any new contracts will have to adhere to the 2006 law. Unions in Niger and transparency campaigners say Areva has also become more aggressive about minimizing its profit – and thus its tax bill – in the country in the past few years…….
“Today Niger is faced with the power of France. Niger is not negotiating with a company,” said Ali Idrissa, head of ROTAB, the local arm of transparency campaigner Publish What You Pay.
Areva is prepared to play hardball. The firm threatened to shut production at Somair in October after Niger failed to find a buyer for its small share of 2013 production. ($1 = 0.7402 euros) ($1 = 485.5160 CFA francs) http://tribune.com.pk/story/667988/a-nuclear-story-areva-and-nigers-uranium-fight/
Protest in Niger against AREVA uranium miner
Hundrds protest against French nuclear giant as talks over uranium mine continue NIAMEY, Niger – Hundreds of people have protested against what they termed slow and opaque contract negotiations between Niger’s government and the French nuclear giant Areva, which operates a uranium mine in the town of Arlit.
Thursday’s march in Niger’s capital, Niamey, was organized by groups accusing Areva of exploiting Niger since it began operations in 1971, leaving the country in poverty even though it is the world’s fourth-largest uranium producer.
A statement issued Thursday by the protesters complained that 90 per cent of Niger’s population lives without electricity while the country “produces enough uranium to light one in every three light bulbs in France.”Niger and Areva are expected to conclude negotiations by the end of this month, with Niger pushing Areva to pay higher taxes in accordance with its 2006 mining code.
Uranium industry remains in deep market trouble
Uranium Industry Remains in Post-Fukushima Funk. WSJ 6 Feb14“…….. Prices of the heavy metal, from which over 13% of the world’s electricity is generated, have been scraping along near eight-year lows. Uranium is priced around 50% below pre-Fukushima levels and 75% off the 2007 all-time high.
The full nuclear power cycle causes high amount of greenhouse gas emissions
Sure, let’s debate nuclear power – just don’t call it “low-emission” , The Conversation , Mark Diesendorf, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Institute of Environmental Studies, UNSW at University of New South Wales 6 Feb 14,Nuclear power is back on Australia’s radar. In its recent issues paper released as a preface to September’s Energy White Paper, the Abbott government reopened the debate thus:
With environmental considerations constraining the further development of hydro-electric sources, nuclear technologies continue to present an option for future reliable energy that can be readily dispatched into the market.
This sentence appears in a passage dealing with the “move to low-emissions energy”, and although nuclear is not explicitly described as a low-emission option, it certainly looks as if the government is prepared to consider embracing nuclear power as part of an alleged move away from fossil fuel
Is nuclear energy really low-emission?
Unfortunately, the notion that nuclear energy is a low-emission technology doesn’t really stack up when the whole nuclear fuel life cycle is considered. In reality, the only CO2-free link in the chain is the reactor’s operation. All of the other steps – mining, milling, fuel fabrication, enrichment, reactor construction, decommissioning and waste management – use fossil fuels and hence emit carbon dioxide.
Several analyses by researchers who are independent of the nuclear industry have found that total CO2 emissions depend sensitively on the grade of uranium ore mined and milled. The lower the grade, the more fossil fuels are used, and so the higher the resulting emissions.
In one such study, the nuclear physicist (and nuclear energy advocate) Manfred Lenzen found that CO2 emissions from the nuclear fuel cycle increase from 80 grams per kilowatt-hour (g/kWh) where uranium ore is high-grade at 0.15%, to 131 g/kWh where the ore grade declines to low-grade at 0.01%.
Other experts, such as nuclear energy critics Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith, using assumptions less favourable to nuclear energy, have reported an increase in emissions from 117 g/kWh for high-grade ore to 437 g/kWh for low-grade ore.
For comparison, the life-cycle emissions from wind power are 10–20 g/kWh, depending upon location, and from gas-fired power stations 500–600 g/kWh. So depending on your choice of analysis, nuclear power can be viewed as almost as emissions-intensive as gas.
Making the grade
The quantity of known global uranium reserves with ore grades richer than the critical level of 0.01% is very limited. With the 2013 contribution by nuclear energy of about 10% of the world’s electricity generation, the high-grade reserves would at best last several decades. It doesn’t make sense to invest vast amounts of money in a technology that will emit more and more CO2 over time.
Are there alternative future pathways for obtaining nuclear fuel that could have lower emissions? Although there are vast quantities of uranium oxide in the Earth’s crust, almost all of such reserves exist at very low concentrations, typically 0.0004%. At this grade, 1000 tonnes of ore would have to be mined to get 4 kilograms of uranium in the form of yellowcake.
In this case the energy needed to extract uranium would be orders of magnitude greater than the energy output of the nuclear power station. There is a limit to how much the uranium industry can be expected to chase diminishing returns. For instance, seawater contains uranium, but at a concentration of about 0.0000002%, meaning that a million tonnes of seawater would have to be processed to extract just 2 kilograms of uranium.http://theconversation.com/sure-lets-debate-nuclear-power-just-dont-call-it-low-emission-21566
China – the elephant in the room of Asia’s nuclear power un-safety
The elephant in the room For Andrews-Speed at the NUS, China is the “elephant in the room” in terms of risks from nuclear energy because of the scale of its plans
The next weak nuclear link? Here’s where to look CNBC Wednesday, 5 Feb 2014 By: Dhara Ranasinghe | Senior Writer Almost three years on from the Fukushima nuclear disaster and safety concerns about the expansion of nuclear power plants, especially in developing economies, run high.
“Sitting here in Singapore, what the government is concerned about is what our neighbors – Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam [and] the Philippines will do on nuclear energy. What if they go for it? Vietnam is,” said Philip Andrews-Speed, principal fellow and head of energy security at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Energy Studies Institute……..
There’s deep skepticism about whether Southeast Asian regulators can be trusted to ensure that exacting maintenance and safety standards are met. They look at the Japanese — who are perceived as thoroughly diligent and obsessive about their work — and ask: if the Japanese can’t prevent what happened in Fukushima, how can we?,” said Shahriman Lockman, a senior analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia……..
Experts add that when it comes to regulation of nuclear plants, the relationship between regulators and plant operators is something to watch whether nuclear plants are in a developed or emerging economy.
For example, in South Korea, Asia’s number four economy, government officials said in October last year that nuclear reactors have been abruptly closed 128 times in the past decade because of faulty parts amid a scandal over forged safety documents.
Others argue that while governments may set a high bar for safety standards, these may be harder to implement at a middle-ranking level.
“If you want to build nuclear plants in places like Vietnam, which do not have the governance, which do not have the infrastructure and also face rising sea levels as well as extreme weather events, against which concentrated power is vulnerable, to sell them that stuff [nuclear power] is morally suspect,” said Andrew DeWit, a professor of policy studies at Rikkyo University in Tokyo.
Thailand said late last year that its new Power Development Plan provides for the construction of new coal-fired and nuclear power plants in the next 20 years……
According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), an agreement for up to $9 billion worth of financing was signed in November 2011 between Vietnam and Russia to fund nuclear power development, and a second agreement for $500 million loan covered the creation of a nuclear science and technology centre…
The elephant in the room
For Andrews-Speed at the NUS, China is the “elephant in the room” in terms of risks from nuclear energy because of the scale of its plans
Aerial view of Nevada’s devastation from nuclear bomb testing
See Nevada’s Hellish Nuclear Moonscape From Abovehttp://gizmodo.com/see-nevadas-hellish-nuclear-moonscape-from-above-1516055510Much has been written about the Nevada Test Site—aka the Nevada Testing Grounds—since the last bomb was detonated in the early 1990s. In fact, it’s probably one of the most storied sites in American science.
But, to me, it’s always been hard to get a sense for exactly how big the testing grounds were, and what kind of impact these tests had on the landscape outside of Las Vegas.
The data visualization team as Esri recently set out to make an interactive that would convey the sheer magnitude of the project—and the incredible scars it left on a 1,360 square mile patch of Nevada desert.
Their new site, America’s Nuclear Moonscape, walks you through the hundreds of detonations in chronological order, showing you where and why the bombs went off:…. it was the tests carried out on this strip of flatlands that spurred the American public to cry out in protest, in the 1990s—eventually leading to the widespread reforms that still protect us today.
The tax breaks and benefits that AREVA, uranium miner, gets from Niger
A nuclear story: Areva and Niger’s uranium fight Express Tribune 5 Feb 14 “………The latest contracts show Areva received a range of tax breaks and benefits in Niger, some of which were standard under Niger’s 1999 mining law. Signed on November 9, 2001 and effective for 10 years from January 1 2004, the contracts state that Areva was:
* Exempt from any export duties on its uranium production.
* Exempt from all entry taxes, customs duties and value-added tax, on materials, equipment, machines, parts and petroleum products used in mining operations, including everything from sulfur and other chemicals used to process ore, vehicles, and even protective clothing.
* Protected by a stability clause so that an increase in royalties tax under a new 2006 mining law did not affect them.
* Protected so that if another uranium miner negotiated better terms, Areva would automatically benefit from the same conditions.
* Guaranteed that any audit of the mines ordered by Niger will remain strictly confidential.
* Granted an exoneration of up to 20 percent of corporate income tax to help fund future prospecting…. http://tribune.com.pk/story/667988/a-nuclear-story-areva-and-nigers-uranium-fight
77% of Britons support renewable energy
Government poll: 77% of Britons support renewable energy Wednesday, February 5th, 2014 By Ilaria Bertini Public support for clean energy has remained strong, according to a government survey that also reveals only 5% of households actively object to renewables.
The latest Public Attitude Tracking Survey, conducted to monitor people’s reaction to energy policies for December 2013, confirms that over three-quarters (77%) of British adults support renewable energy…..http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2014/02/05/government-poll-77-of-britons-support-renewable-energy/
Testing California kelp for radiation
California Kelp to be Tested for Fukushima Radiation in Year-Long Study Nature World News 5 Feb 14 Kelp along the US West Coast will be tested for Fukushima radiation in an upcoming study spearheaded by California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The Kelp Watch 2014 project is led by CSULB biologist Steve Manley, an expert in marine algae and kelp who has studied the environmental effects of the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster triggered by a 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that ravaged Japan’s northeastern coast.
“The California kelp forest is a highly productive and complex ecosystem and a valuable state resource. It is imperative that we monitor this coastal forest for any radioactive contaminants that will be arriving this year in the ocean currents from Fukushima disaster,” Manley said in a news release…..
In looking for traces of Fukushima radiation in kelp, radioisotopes of cesium-134 and cesium-137 will be red flags…..
In some ways, radiation from the Fukushima incident has already reached North America. A previous study by Manley found tiny quantities of radioactive isotope iodine-131 in kelp off the Southern California coast. Manley discovered this less than a month after the Fukushima incident, the martial likely traveled across the ocean by air before getting washed into the sea by a rainstorm, according to the Union-Tribune.
As the year goes by, kelp will be collected along the California coast, dried, crushed into a fine powder and then analyzed for radiation…….http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5875/20140204/california-kelp-tested-fukushima-radiation-year-long-study.htm
An indpendent Scotland will not support nucleaar weapons
Anti-nuclear stance was important driver in rise of SNP By Mure Dickie Ft.com 5 Feb 14 An independent Scotland would take a sharply different view of its defence needs to that of the UK – not least when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Opposition to the stationing of nuclear missile submarines on the Clyde was an important driver of the rise of the Scottish National party in the 1960s and 1970s and it remains implacably opposed to such “immoral and obscene” weapons. After independence, it would seek their “speediest safe removal”……
Nationalist planners say Scotland would be ready to contribute to international peacekeeping and UN-sanctioned operations – but not to take part in what they term “illegal” wars, a stance they say will reduce the likelihood of future attacks……http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dd9a033a-8e86-11e3-98c6-00144feab7de.html#axzz2sYacJAqX
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