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World’s Five nuclear weapons-free zones

peace-1Nuclear weapon free zones and banning nuclear weapons http://www.article36.org/nuclear-weapons/nuclear-weapon-free-zones-and-banning-nuclear-weapons/ May 1, 2014  

This publication, issued by Article 36 at the 2014 Preparatory Committee of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, sets out a summary of the prohibitions and other obligations contained in the five Nuclear Weapon Free Zone treaties. It discusses the relationship between these treaties and a proposed new international treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.

There are five Nuclear Weapon Free Zone treaties (NWFZs) covering the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean (the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco), the South Pacific (the 1985 Treaty of Rarotonga), South East Asia (the 1995 Treaty of Bangkok), Africa (the 1996 Treaty of Pelindaba) and Central Asia (the 2006 Treaty of Semipalatinsk). These zones combined comprise 115 states, accounting for 60% of all UN Member States, and cover the entire southern hemisphere. The NWFZ treaties are all structured and drafted slightly differently but they share many key characteristics. They all prohibit nuclear weapons in their respective regions. Globally, they provide important contributions towards the rejection and stigmatization of nuclear weapons and a strong basis for developing an international prohibition on nuclear weapons. Through their preambles these treaties envision a global prohibition on nuclear weapons, alongside all weapons of mass destruction, that provides a framework for their elimination.

This paper argues that NWFZ agreements are important building blocks that should be expanded upon through an international ban treaty. Just as groups of states within these regions worked together to develop regional agreements to prohibit nuclear weapons, so a group of likeminded states can work at the global level to achieve an international ban treaty.

A36_NWFZ_2014

May 2, 2014 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UN conference brings together antinuclear leaders of world’s major religions

Religion-&-nuke-1Anti-Nuclear Weapons Team of Religious Leaders Unite at UN; Catholic Leader Calls Them ‘Useless’ in Fight Against Poverty BY STOYAN ZAIMOV, CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER May 1, 2014 NEW YORK – Members of several of the world’s main religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, warned that the grave prospect of a nuclear weapons catastrophe looms dangerously over the world, and urged leaders to move toward disarmament at a United Nations conference on Wednesday.

Archbishop Francis A. Chullikatt, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, said that although religious leaders are not experts on nuclear weapons, they still have the responsibility to speak out and take the floor on this particular issue.

“We know that we are not experts on disarmament, we do not have technical solutions, but we do have a voice to act,” Chullikatt said, adding that the group of religious leaders have taken on the subject partly so that future generations do not accuse them of not doing anything.

The archbishop noted that the Roman Catholic Church warns that nuclear war is a crime both against God and against man himself. “It is past time for this plan (nuclear disarmament) to be given the serious attention that it deserves. The centerpiece is the negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention or a framework leading directly to a global ban on nuclear weapons,” Chullikatt said.

“Nuclear weapons are useless in addressing current challenges such as poverty, health, climate change, terrorism or national crime. The only way to guarantee that these weapons will not be used again, is through a common, irreversible, and verifiable elimination under international (law). He stated that the use of nuclear weapons will be a great moral crime against humanity, and insisted that now is the time to “renew the moral call for the total elimination of nuclear weapons,” because in the event of a nuclear war, there will be “no victors, only victims.”

The Rev. Tyler Wigg Stevenson, representing the World Evangelical Alliance, noted that evangelicals are “late in coming to the trenches where our brothers and sisters of the Roman Catholic Church and World Council of Churches, including members of other world religions, have labored long and faithfully.”

He shared his hopes, however, that the evangelical “lack of moderation” will “make up for our tardiness.”……….

“In Buddhist ethics, protecting innocent life is a high value. Nuclear weapons offend this value. According to Buddhist understanding, everyone and everything in the world are interconnected and interdependent,” said Ven. Dr. Chung Ohun Lee of Won Buddhism International, to the U.N., adding that people have a responsibility to take care of the world and oppose nuclear weapons out of respect for all human beings.

“Nuclear weapons are immoral. Let us work together to rid the world of all of them,” Dr. Chung Ohun Lee remarked.

Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi of Fiqh Council of North America said that according to the Islamic position, nuclear weapons “pose a grave danger to all of humanity” and called on the international community to work together to remove this danger.

“Islam teaches that God is the creator and master of everything in this world. All human beings are one family. Human beings must honor each other and live in peace,” Dr. Siddiqi continued.

“Nuclear weapons do not come anywhere in the concept of just war. Nuclear weapons are by nature weapons of mass destruction. They make no distinction between combatants or noncombatants.”

Rabbi Peter Knobel of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, who was the final speaker, drew an example from the story of Noah and the Great Flood in the Bible, when God promises to never destroy creation again, and gives people hope symbolized by a rainbow.

“It is not enough to merely stop proliferation, we are compelled to eliminate nuclear weapons, it is our duty to cherish and protect creation, to learn to love and care for one another, it is time to beat our nuclear swords into plowshares, and not stop beating until they are musical instruments.” 

May 2, 2014 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Island goes 100% renewable energy – a world first

This Island Is The First In The World To Be Powered Fully By Wind And Water BY ARI PHILLIPS MAY 1, 2014 THE SMALLEST AND SOUTHERNMOST OF SPAIN’S CANARY ISLANDS IS ABOUT TO MAKE AN OUTSIZED MARK ON THE PATH TOWARD A MORE RENEWABLE ENERGY-POWERED FUTURE. HTTP://THINKPROGRESS.ORG/CLIMATE/2014/05/01/3433002/SPANISH-ISLAND-RENEWABLE-ENERGY/

With the opening of a new wind farm next month, El Hierro, population just over 10,000, will become the first island in the world to be fully energy self-sufficient through combined wind and water power. The five wind turbines will provide 11.5 megawatts of power, enough to meet the demand of the population and the desalination plants on this small crop of land off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean.

When the wind isn’t blowing, hydropower will fill the void. When the wind is blowing, power will be used to pump water into a reservoir in a volcanic crater about 2,300 feet above sea level. Then when power is needed, that water will be released down to a lower reservoir and used to generate electricity on the way. This process is known as pump-storage hydroelectricity, and is used in many other countries across the globe — including the world’s largest outside of Washington, D.C.

“This system guarantees us a supply of electricity,” said the director of the Gorona del Viento wind power plant, Juan Manuel Quintero.

With the $75 million project set to come online, El Hierro will no longer have to rely on costly and dirty diesel generators for electricity — although it will maintain an oil power station just in case. According to Phys.org, the island’s transition to renewable energy will cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20,600 tons per year and save the island from using 40,000 barrels of oil a year.

Other islands are taking advantage of renewable resources to become wind- and solar-powered, but El Hierro is believed to be the first to do so exclusively with wind and hydro power and without having any connection to an outside electricity grid.

May 2, 2014 Posted by | OCEANIA, renewable | Leave a comment

Nuclear news for the past week

Christina Macpherson's websites & blogs

Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs

Our website nuclear-news.net   Some good news from co-editor ‘Arclight’.  He has been experiencing tribulations – which is what happens to  investigative reporters in UK. Moving to Ireland, Arclight was in dire straits.  But he has been helped first by anonymous donors, tiding him over, and then , in his passport status, by Jennifer Schweppe, Head of the School of Law, Limerick University. Arclight might not be ‘out of the woods’ yet, but isn’t it great that some people help out in time of need?

Taiwan. 28,000 anti nuclear demonstrators met with water cannons. But people power brings the government to halt the new nuclear reactor

Ukraine. One result of the political change there is a covert agreement that radioactive trash from European Union will now be stored in Ukraine

Chernobyl. The new 2 $billion sarcophagus slowly going up, will last only 100 years – the radioactive reactor wreck requires cover for many thousands of years.  It’s  a stop-gap measure, but the best that they can come up with.

USA.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn9_8wrDH8M  A challenge to governments ruled by corporate greed. A challenge to the Trans Pacific Partnership, to nuclear power, and militarism.  Ralph Nader’s new book shows that corporate control of politics is opposed by both Left and Right. “Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. ”    Nuclear front groups exposed – Nuclear Matters and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) getting far too much coverage in media.

Dead nuclear reactors – the funerals are getting more expensive. USA, home of nuclear power, is first to realise this. And there are more nuclear power deaths on the way.

Japan  The Tenacious Mari Takenouchi persists in her anti nuclear activism, despite the techniques used against her. This is detailed by Arclight.

Ecological effects of Chernobyl and Fukushima. Timothy Mousseau clarifies this complicated issue. Much publicity has appeared about how birds have adapted to ionising radiation. Mousseau explains how negative pressures on birds have indeed brought about adaptations. – we see these interesting adaptive responses in the birds that are remaining (i.e. those that haven’t perished…).

France.  A new poll finds that the  vast majority of French people prefer renewable energy, would not invest in nuclear power

May 2, 2014 Posted by | Christina's notes | 1 Comment

Dr Helen Caldicott explains the facts on radiation

Caldicott-2013The impact of the nuclear crisis on global health highly-recommendedAustralian Medical Student Journal By Helen Caldicott in Volume 4, Issue 2 2014  “…….Types of ionizing radiation 

  1. X-rays are electromagnetic, and cause mutations the instant they pass through the body.
  2. Similarly, gamma radiation is also electromagnetic, being emitted by radioactive materials generated in nuclear reactors and from some naturally occurring radioactive elements in the soil.
  3. Alpha radiation is particulate and is composed of two protons and two neutrons emitted from uranium atoms and other dangerous elements generated in reactors (such as plutonium, americium, curium, einsteinium, etc – all which are known as alpha emitters and have an atomic weight greater than uranium). Alpha particles travel a very short distance in the human body. They cannot penetrate the layers of dead skin in the epidermis to damage living skin cells. But when these radioactive elements enter the lung, liver, bone or other organs, they transfer a large dose of radiation over a long period of time to a very small volume of cells. Most of these cells are killed; however, some on the edge of the radiation field remain viable to be mutated, and cancer may later develop. Alpha emitters are among the most carcinogenic materials known.
  4. Beta radiation, like alpha radiation, is also particulate. It is a charged electron emitted from radioactive elements such as strontium 90, cesium 137 and iodine 131. The beta particle is light in mass, travels further than an alpha particle and is also mutagenic.
  5. Neutron radiation is released during the fission process in a reactor or a bomb. Reactor 1 at Fukushima has been periodically emitting neutron radiation as sections of the molten core become intermittently critical. Neutrons are large radioactive particles that travel many kilometers, and they pass through everything including concrete and steel. There is no way to hide from them and they are extremely mutagenic.

So, let’s describe just five of the radioactive elements that are continually being released into the air and water at Fukushima. Remember, though, there are over 200 such elements each with its own half-life, biological characteristic and pathway in the food chain and the human body. Most have never had their biological pathways examined. They are invisible, tasteless and odourless. When the cancer manifests it is impossible to determine its aetiology, but there is a large body of literature proving that radiation causes cancer, including the data from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  • Tritium is radioactive hydrogen H3 and there is no way to separate tritium from contaminated water as it combines with oxygen to form H3O. There is no material that can prevent the escape of tritium except gold, so all reactors continuously emit tritium into the air and cooling water as they operate. It concentrates in aquatic organisms, including algae, seaweed, crustaceans and fish, and also in terrestrial food.  Like all radioactive elements, it is tasteless, odorless and invisible, and will therefore inevitably be ingested in food, including seafood, for many decades. It passes unhindered through the skin if a person is immersed in fog containing tritiated water near a reactor, and also enters the body via inhalation and ingestion. It causes brain tumors, birth deformities and cancers of many organs.
  • Cesium 137 is a beta and gamma emitter with a half-life of 30 years. That means in 30 years only half of its radioactive energy has decayed, so it is detectable as a radioactive hazard for over 300 years. Cesium, like all radioactive elements, bio-concentrates at each level of the food chain. The human body stands atop the food chain. As an analogue of potassium, cesium becomes ubiquitous in all cells. It concentrates in the myocardium where it induces cardiac irregularities, and in the endocrine organs where it can cause diabetes, hypothyroidism and thyroid cancer. It can also induce brain cancer, rhabdomyosarcomas, ovarian or testicular cancer and genetic disease.
  • Strontium 90 is a high-energy beta emitter with a half-life of 28 years. As a calcium analogue, it is a bone-seeker. It concentrates in the food chain, specifically milk (including breast milk), and is laid down in bones and teeth in the human body. It can lead to carcinomas of the bone and leukaemia.
  • Radioactive iodine 131 is a beta and gamma emitter. It has a half-life of eight days and is hazardous for ten weeks. It bio-concentrates in the food chain, in vegetables and milk, then in the the human thyroid gland where it is a potent carcinogen, inducing thyroid disease and/or thyroid cancer. It is important to note that of 174,376 children under the age of 18 that have been examined by thyroid ultrasound in the Fukushima Prefecture, 12 have been definitively diagnosed with thyroid cancer and 15 more are suspected to have the disease. Almost 200,000 more children are yet to be examined. Of these 174,367 children, 43.2% have either thyroid cysts and/or nodules.
    In Chernobyl, thyroid cancers were not diagnosed until four years post-accident. This early presentation indicates that these Japanese children almost certainly received a high dose of radioactive iodine. High doses of other radioactive elements released during the meltdowns were received by the exposed population so the rate of cancer is almost certain to rise.
  • Plutonium, one of the most deadly radioactive substances, is an alpha emitter. It is highly toxic, and one millionth of a gram will induce cancer if inhaled into the lung. As an iron analogue, it combines with transferrin. It causes liver cancer, bone cancer, leukemia, or multiple myeloma. It concentrates in the testicles and ovaries where it can induce testicular or ovarian cancer, or genetic diseases in future generations. It also crosses the placenta where it is teratogenic, like thalidomide. There are medical homes near Chernobyl full of grossly deformed children, the deformities of which have never before been seen in the history of medicine.
    The half-life of plutonium is 24,400 years, and thus it is radioactive for 250,000 years. It will induce cancers, congenital deformities, and genetic diseases for virtually the rest of time.
    Plutonium is also fuel for atomic bombs. Five kilos is fuel for a weapon which would vaporize a city. Each reactor makes 250 kg of plutonium a year. It is postulated that less than one kilo of plutonium, if adequately distributed, could induce lung cancer in every person on earth………..http://www.amsj.org/archives/3487

May 2, 2014 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation | 2 Comments

Censorship of science writer on Fox News- mustn’t mention climate change

A 2013 study also found that the more time viewers spend watching conservative media, the more skeptical they become of climate science.

civil liberties USAScience Editor: Fox News Told Me Not To Talk About Climate Change The Huffington Post  | by  Dominique Mosbergen 04/30/2014  This week, a science writer was asked to appear on Fox News to discuss the future of science and technology. However, he says there was one caveat: The issue of climate change would be off-limits.

On Wednesday, Michael Moyer, an editor at Scientific American, described his experience with the news outlet this way:

Michael Moyer @mmoyr

climate-changeFox & Friends producer wanted to talk about future trends. I said #1 will be impacts of climate change. I was told to pick something else.

In a blog post on Scientific American, Moyer explained that he had offered to discuss what he foresees as the “trends for the future” on “Fox & Friends.” In a blog post on Scientific American, Moyer explained that he had offered to discuss what he foresees as the “trends for the future” on “Fox & Friends.”

“About the only interesting thing that the scientific community is sure will happen in the next 50 years is that climate change is going to get worse, and that we’re going to have to deal with the impacts. So I put that as one of my talking points,” he wrote.

But Moyer says a producer of the show soon reached out to him to tell him explicitly to not discuss climate change during the segment. Not wanting to back out of an opportunity to “share cool science with whomever will listen,” Moyer agreed to still appear on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday.

That, however, will likely be the last time Moyer will appear on the show.

“I found the tone and topics of coverage while I was sitting in the green room this morning to be not something that I wanted to be a part of in the future,” he told Talking Points Memo of his “Fox & Friends” experience. “I didn’t realize that the drumbeat of conservative propaganda was so ubiquitous on the show.”……

Moyer, however, insists that the Fox producer wrote this in an email: “[C]an we replace the climate change with something else?”

This wouldn’t be the first time that Fox News’ coverage of climate change has beencalled into question. A recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found the conservative news outlet covers climate change inaccurately 72 percent of the time.

A 2013 study also found that the more time viewers spend watching conservative media, the more skeptical they become of climate science.

“There are some things that in science and scientific discourse are not controversial at all,” Moyer told Talking Points Memo in light of his Fox News experience. “I hope that we can all as a society agree to at least discuss them and come up with good solutions. Just because you don’t want something to be true doesn’t make it not true.”

According to a recent Associated Press-GfK poll, about four in 10 Americans said “they are not too confident or outright disbelieve that the earth is warming, mostly a result of man-made heat-trapping gases,” per the AP. That’s in stark contrast to the97 percent of climate scientists who say global warming in the last 100 years has very likely been caused by human activity. http://linkis.com/zite.to/eoXrO

May 2, 2014 Posted by | civil liberties, climate change, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Brain damage risk to astronauts from radiation

Could deep space cause BRAIN DAMAGE? Radiation could permanently destroy an astronaut’s attention span

  • Rats were exposed to radiation levels similar to that found in deep space
  • Serious lapses in attention occurred in 64% of the sensitive animals
  • Increase in impulsiveness took place in 45% and slower reaction in 27%
  • Difference based on a rat’s specific resilience after exposure to radiation
  • If same proves true in humans, scientists could identify those more susceptible to radiation before the brain becomes permanently damaged

Daily Mail, By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD, 30 April 2014 Researchers came to the conclusion after exposing rats to high-energy particles that simulate the conditions astronauts could experience in deep space.

After exposure, a team at John Hopkins University in Maryland made the rats perform a fitness test similar to the ones astronauts, pilots, and soldiers have to take prior to a mission. …....‘In our radiated rats, we found that 40 to 45 percent had these attention-related deficits, while the rest were seemingly unaffected,’ said study leader Dr Robert Hienz……The radiation-sensitive animals all showed evidence of brain damage that began at 50 to 60 days after exposure…..

radiation-in-space-affects-

Currently, astronauts are not as exposed to the damaging effects of radiation because the International Space Station flies in an orbit low enough that the Earth’s magnetic field continues to provide protection.

But several years ago brain scans of Nasa astronauts who spent more than a month in space revealed damage to their eyeballs and brain tissue.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2616792/Could-deep-space-cause-BRAIN-DAMAGE-Radiation-permanently-destroy-astronauts-attention-span.html#ixzz30Ur2J9NG

May 2, 2014 Posted by | radiation, USA | 2 Comments

Plan to bring Germany’s radioactive trash to South Carolina

Staff Writer Wednesday, April 30, 2014 The federal government has entered into an agreement with Germany to evaluate the possibility of accepting shipments of German highly-radioactive nuclear waste at Savannah River Site.

The U.S. Department of Energy signed a “statement of intent” with German research agencies offering to evaluate accepting, processing and disposing of waste at SRS. No final decision has been made, according to SRS spokesman Jim Giusti.

“All potential work to support DOE’s evaluation would be funded by the German government so the Statement of Intent is an important step forward,” Giusti said in an email this week to SRS stakeholders.

Additional shipments of waste at SRS has drawn opposition from environmentalist Tom Clements, director of watchdog group SRS Watch. SRS already has its own challenges disposing of large amounts of high-level waste existing at the facility, he said.

“The proposal to import highly radioactive spent fuel from Germany to SRS is simply nuclear dumping dressed up as nuclear non-proliferation,” Clements said. “Germany’s challenging dilemma with what to do with its nuclear waste must not become a waste management problem for the Savannah River Site.”

The graphite-based fuel for the German reactor contains U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium. Returning it to the U.S. would remove it from potential use in a nuclear weapon, Giusti said.

The energy department will “prepare appropriate analysis and consult with the public” as part of the National Environmental Policy Act before any decisions on accepting the waste are made, Giusti said.

May 2, 2014 Posted by | USA, wastes | 6 Comments

France’s nuclear dilemma

France caught between nuclear cliff and investment wall BY MICHEL ROSEPARIS Wed Apr 30, 2014 (Reuters) – France must decide in the next few years whether it wants to continue its nuclear-driven energy policy at a cost of up to 300 billion euros (246.8 billion pounds) or if it wants to embark on an equally costly route towards using other fuels.

Most of the country’s 58 nuclear reactors were built during a short period in the 1980s, and about half will reach their designed age limits of 40 in the 2020s, pushing France towards what industry calls “the nuclear cliff.”

Public support in France for nuclear power has traditionally been strong but is looking shakier since the 2011 nuclear reactor meltdown at Japan‘s Fukushima facility following a massive earthquake and tsunami. And French President Francois Hollande has said he wanted to cut the share of atomic energy in France’s electricity mix to 50 percent from 75 percent by 2025, reduce oil and gas consumption and boost renewable energy.

A replacement of the nuclear plants run by state-controled utility EDF (EDF.PA), or a switch towards alternative sources would cost huge amounts of money.

“There’s a problem, which is decision-making. Are we going towards a new nuclear fleet or not? This needs preparation,” Jacques Repussard, the head of state-funded nuclear advising institute IRSN told Reuters in an interview. EDF has advocated an extension of the reactors’ lifespan to 50 or even 60 years, arguing that they were modelled on similar reactors in the United States which have been granted 60-year licences.

But French nuclear watchdog ASN, the only authority allowed to grant this extension, has so far repeated that the utility should not take this extension for granted and would only give a first opinion next year and a final one in 2018-2019………..

On the one hand, EDF wants to cash in on its nuclear know-how through exporting its technology and services, including to Britain’s nuclear investment power programme.

Yet EDF also faces a 55 billion euro upgrade of its existing reactors by 2025 and will have to decide on how to finance their ultimate replacement, at a potential cost of up to 240 billion euros, about six times EDF’s existing debt pile.

“If you close down all nuclear reactors when they reach 30 or 40 however, you will need to build a huge new fleet, that would be a massive challenge not only from a financial point of view but also from a project management point of view,” said Laszlo Lavro, head of the International Energy Agency’s Gas, Coal and Power division.

Within the government, ministers have voiced contradicting views on nuclear energy, even though the departure of the Green party from the government has made the pro-nuclear case stronger.

An energy transition bill now slated for July has been repeatedly delayed, with Paris naming its fourth energy minister in less than two years earlier this month.

 

Newly appointed energy minister Segolene Royal, a powerful voice in the new government, has skirted questions on nuclear policy at a news conference earlier this week……….

Decisions cannot be delayed indefinitely as building new energy infrastructure, especiallynuclear power plants, takes time.

Construction of France’s pilot new generation reactor in Flamanville, which started in 2007, has seen repeated delays and cost overruns and is currently expected to be finished in 2016……http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/30/uk-france-nuclear-analysis-idUKKBN0DG0KC20140430

 

May 2, 2014 Posted by | France, politics | 2 Comments

Renewable energy: GE’s $1 billion investment

GE to invest $1B per year on renewable energy projects http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/ge-to-invest-1b-per-year-on-renewable-energy-projects/story-e6frg90f-1226900070760 TRISTAN EDIS APRIL 29, 2014 According to a report in Bloomberg, General Electric Energy Financial Services division intends to invest more than $1 billion a year on renewable-power projects.

According to the division’s CEO, David Nason, renewable power is its fastest growing market and also a good way of spurring sales of GE wind turbines and solar inverter equipment.

“We see renewable energy providing very significant returns going forward,” Nason told Bloomberg.

As part of this the company is actively involved in a range of solar projects with solar panel manufacturer and project developer First Solar. According to Kevin Walsh, the company’s head of power and renewable energy, “There is a very active dialog with First Solar”.

May 2, 2014 Posted by | business and costs, renewable | Leave a comment

100,000 renewable energy jobs now in Britain

Renewable energy sector now supports over 100,000 UK jobs by ClickGreen staff. Published Wed 30 Apr 2014 The renewable energy industry has attracted nearly £30 billion of private sector investment since 2010, according to a new joint report published by the REA, Innovas and PwC.

The huge investment has enabled the industry to sustain over 100,000 jobs in 2013, generate turnover last year of £14 billion and deliver 4.2% of UK energy. 

The report, REview – Renewable Energy View: 2014, builds on the REA’s 2012 report Renewable Energy: Made in Britain, the first industry-wide analysis of employment in the UK renewable energy industry. 

green-jobs

The 116-page paper is the most complete assessment to date of the UK renewable energy market and will be formally launched this evening by Energy Minister Greg Barker in the House of Commons.

REA Chief Executive Dr Nina Skorupska said the report should provide the Government with a reminder of learning from past mistakes and provide market stability.

She added: “This report highlights the close relationship between clear, stable policies and sustained growth and jobs in the renewable energy industry. The Government’s renewable electricity policies have incentivised nearly £28 billion of private investment since 2010, achieving annual growth rates of over 20%. The world’s first Renewable Heat Incentive is also beginning to spur positive growth in green heating. This is a tremendous success story.

“This positive message also comes with a warning. Drastic Feed-in Tariff cuts in 2011/12 led to widespread job losses in the solar industry, and the continued policy uncertainty for renewable transport has seen employment and investment opportunities in UK refineries go begging.

“Clear, stable policies create the investment, jobs and growth in renewables that the UK needs. We urge the Government to learn the lessons from past experiences, such as solar FITs and biofuels uncertainty, and engage closely with industry to resolve outstanding uncertainties, such as State Aid rules and the details of CfDs.”

Analysis by the REA reveals that:

* Renewable electricity generation has grown steadily, increasing on average by 20.3% year-on-year between 2009 and 2013………
Continue reading →

May 2, 2014 Posted by | employment, renewable, UK | Leave a comment

SunEdison going ahead with large solar energy plants

Flag-USASunEdison Lighting Up California (And Elsewhere) http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4287 SunEdison has announced it has secured construction financing for the 60 MW Regulus solar power plant located in Kern County, California.

  Regulus will consist of around 250,000 solar panels and once operational; SunEdison will provide management and monitoring, field dispatch and reporting services via its Renewable Operation Center (ROC).
   
“Regulus is our largest North America project to date and is evidence of the momentum we are building in the California utility scale solar market,” said Bob Powell, SunEdison president of North America.
   
Announcements concerning SunEdison’s involvement in big ticket solar plants in California have become rather commonplace these days – just in the last couple of 6 weeks; the 24 MW Cascade solar farm and the 20MW Adobe Solar Facilityhave been brought online. 
  
Last Thursday, the company also announced it had secured financing from Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. for two solar power plants to be built in Ontario, Canada. Combined, the solar farms will supply enough clean energy to power 1,300 average households.
   
As well as large-scale flashy solar farms, SunEdison also has interests in helping out those less fortunate with clean energy too. 
 
Last Friday, the company dedicated a solar power system to the Mariposa Center for Girls in the Dominican Republic. The facility assists at-risk schoolgirls in support of the UN’s goals to increase energy access for all. SunEdison donated $10,000 in cash plus an in-kind donation of equipment  – a 9.9 kW solar panel system. 
   
“Electricity facilitates education, the delivery of healthcare services, and economic growth,” said Steve O’Rourke, senior vice president and chief strategy officer for SunEdison. 
   
“We are proud to support the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative in this and future endeavors to ensure all people have access to clean, affordable energy.”

May 2, 2014 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Solar Wind Energy Tower (SWET) – a radical idea for energy

A Skyscraper-Sized Solar-Wind Tower Could Become North America’s Tallest Structure,  , The Atlantic, MAY 1 2014  Can a 2,250-foot-high wind tunnel generate electricity more cheaply than coal?

,The city council of San Luis, Arizona, a town of 15,000 on the Mexico border, last week approved the construction of the tallest structure in North America, a 2,250-foot-high concrete tower that would generate electricity by spraying water on hot desert air at the tower’s top. As the saturated air sinks, the downdraft creates 50 mile-an-hour winds that are forced into tunnels at the base of the tower to drive electricity-generating turbines.

“Our tower makes roughly about half the power of a traditional nuclear power plant,” Ronald Pickett, the chief executive of Solar Wind Energy Tower (SWET), the company behind the $1.5 billion project, told investors during a March conference call. “Enough to power a city of 700,000 to a million people.”

And the price of that carbon-free power would be cheaper than coal-fired electricity, he claimed. ……http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/can-a-2250-foot-high-solar-wind-tower-generate-electricity-cheaper-than-coal/361524/

May 2, 2014 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Central Asia to be a nuclear weapons free zone

Five Powers Agree to Respect Central Asian Nuclear-Free Zone National Journal, 30 April 14, By  The world’s five nuclear powers announced on Tuesday they had agreed to never use their atomic arms against five Central Asian countries.

“They commit not to attack them with nuclear weapons or to threaten them with nuclear weapons and also respect the other [treaty] provisions” banning the deployment or testing of atomic arms in Central Asia, said nonproliferation expert Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, who is attending the Preparatory Committee meeting in New York City where the announcement was made by the five powers.

The Central Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone commits its signatories — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — to refrain from developing, acquiring or possessing nuclear weapons. The treaty entered into force in 2009 without the world’s formally recognized nuclear-armed countries — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — agreeing to abide by its limits.

 Under the forthcoming protocol, the nuclear powers also affirm that they also would keep these weapons out of the covered zone. The five powers previously signed similar protocols promising to respect the strictures of other nuclear weapon-free zones that cover Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and the South Pacific.

It took five years of “intensive consultations” for the five powers to agree to sign a protocol to the Central Asian treaty, according to Mukhatzhanova, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

“It’s certainly one of the bigger news [items] so far” to come out of the Preparatory Committee meeting, Mukhatzhanova said in a Tuesday phone interview. The so-called “PrepCom” gathering is being held in advance of next year’s Review Conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Peter Jones, director of defense and international security at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in astatement to the meeting said the United Kingdom was “delighted” to demonstrate its “commitment to legally binding negative security assurances by signing a protocol” to the treaty.

Moscow in its statement said it wished to sign the protocol “as soon as possible.” Washington similarly expressed its anticipation for inking the text.

Mukhatzhanova said she believed any signing ceremony at the meeting would take place in private, with the five powers submitting the treaty to their respective legislative bodies for ratification at a later date.

An agreement by the five powers to sign the pact had been held up for years, due to problems that London, France and particularly Washington had with some of the accord’s language, she said. The specific point of contention dealt with Article 12, which states that the agreement “does not affect the rights and obligations of the parties under other [pre-existing] international treaties.”…….http://www.nationaljournal.com/global-security-newswire/five-powers-agree-to-respect-central-asian-nuclear-free-zone-20140430

May 2, 2014 Posted by | ASIA, EUROPE, weapons and war | 1 Comment

The Fukushima nuclear crisis is not over, and will have global health implications

The impact of the nuclear crisis on global health Australian Medical Student Journal By Helen Caldicott in Volume 4, Issue 2 2014“……….The Great Eastern earthquake, measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, and the ensuing massive tsunami on the east coast of Japan induced the meltdown of three nuclear reactors within several days. During the quake the external power supply was lost to the reactor complex and the pumps, which circulate up to one million gallons of water per minute to cool each reactor core, ceased to function. Emergency diesel generators situated below the plants kicked in but these were soon swamped by the tsunami. Without cooling, the radioactive cores in units 1, 2 and 3 began to melt within hours. Over the next few days, all three cores (each weighing more than 100 tonnes) melted their way through six inches of steel at the bottom of their reactor vessels and oozed their way onto the concrete floor of the containment buildings. At the same time the zirconium cladding covering thousands of uranium fuel rods reacted with water, creating hydrogen, which initiated hydrogen explosions in units 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Massive quantities of radiation escaped into the air and water – three times more noble gases (argon, xenon and krypton) than were released at Chernobyl, together with huge amounts of other volatile and non-volatile radioactive elements, including cesium, tritium, iodine, strontium, silver, plutonium, americium and rubinium. Eventually sea water was – and is still – utilized to cool the molten reactors.

Fukushima is now described as the greatest industrial accident in history.

The Japanese government was so concerned that they were considering plans to evacuate 35 million people from Tokyo, as other reactors including Fukushima Daiini on the east coast were also at risk. Thousands of people fleeing from the smoldering reactors were not notified where the radioactive plumes were travelling, despite the fact that there was a system in place to track the plumes. As a result, people fled directly into regions with the highest radiation concentrations, where they were exposed to high levels of whole-body external gamma radiation being emitted by the radioactive elements, inhaling radioactive air and swallowing radioactive elements. [2] Unfortunately, inert potassium iodide was not supplied, which would have blocked the uptake of radioactive iodine by their thyroid glands, except in the town of Miharu. Prophylactic iodine was eventually distributed to the staff of Fukushima Medical University in the days after the accident, after extremely high levels of radioactive iodine – 1.9 million becquerels/kg were found in leafy vegetables near the University. [3] Iodine contamination was widespread in leafy vegetables and milk, whilst other isotopic contamination from substances such as caesium is widespread in vegetables, fruit, meat, milk, rice and tea in many areas of Japan. [4]

The Fukushima meltdown disaster is not over and will never end. The radioactive fallout which remains toxic for hundreds to thousands of years covers large swathes of Japan and will never be “cleaned up.” It will contaminate food, humans and animals virtually forever. I predict that the three reactors which experienced total meltdowns will never be dissembled or decommissioned. TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) – says it will take at least 30 to 40 years and the International Atomic Energy Agency predicts at least 40 years before they can make any progress because of the extremely high levels of radiation at these damaged reactors.

This accident is enormous in its medical implications. It will induce an epidemic of cancer as people inhale the radioactive elements, eat radioactive food and drink radioactive beverages. In 1986, a single meltdown and explosion at Chernobyl covered 40% of the European land mass with radioactive elements. Already, according to a 2009 report published by the New York Academy of Sciences, over one million people have already perished as a direct result of this catastrophe. This is just the tip of the iceberg, because large parts of Europe and the food grown there will remain radioactive for hundreds of years……… [5]http://www.amsj.org/archives/3487

May 2, 2014 Posted by | general | 2 Comments

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