New law on renewable energy funding passed in Germany, accepted by European Union
German green energy law clears final hurdle http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL6N0PM3KB20140711?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0 FRANKFURT, July 11 (Reuters) – Germany’s upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, approved on Friday revamped legislation on funding renewable energy, clearing the way for the law to come into force on Aug. 1.
The far-reaching law, which seeks to cap support payments for renewables without jeopardising the country’s shift towards a low carbon economy, had hung in the balance, after months of negotiations, due to wrangling with European Union authorities over its compatibility with state aid guidelines.
But Brussels granted its consent this week, providing encouragement to the Bundesrat, which represents Germany’s 16 states, to vote through the reform package to the renewable energy act (EEG) in its Friday session.
“Germany has embarked on a long project to derive the energy supply of an industrial nation from renewable energy sources, which is historically without parallel,” Stefan Wenzel, environment minister of the state of Lower Saxony, told the Bundesrat.
Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, approved the reform package two weeks ago. On Wednesday, European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said Berlin had allayed concerns that German industry might receive unfair advantages through exemptions from obligatory payments towards the cost of funding green energy. He also said Germany had cleared up two other remaining issues – the need to bring foreign renewable power into planned auctions for green energy from 2017 and to change the system of allowing industrial companies, which produce their own power, full discounts on the EEG after that date.
In 2011 Germany embarked on a strategy to accelerate its exit from nuclear energy in light of Japan’s Fukushima crisis, stepping up its renewables expansion and lowering its dependence on power stations that run on gas and coal.
Green energy from sources such as wind or sunshine has already reached a share of 25 percent of Germany’s power mix and is meant to reach 45 percent by 2025 and 60 percent by 2035.
The EEG reform is aimed at lowering the cost of green energy funding for consumers, among a number of other elements that will be introduced in future, including compensation of conventional producers for loss of market share. (Reporting by Markus Wacket and Vera Eckert; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Threat of nuclear strike against Ukraine ?
Russia Threatens Nuclear Strikes Over Crimea http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/russia-threatens-nuclear-strikes-over-crimea/ Russian FM Lavrov warned that Russia could resort to nuclear weapons if Ukraine tried to retake Crimea.By Zachary Keck July 11, 2014 A senior Russian official appeared to issue a nuclear threat against Ukraine over Crimea on Wednesday.
In recent weeks, numerous senior level Ukrainian officials have promised to return Crimea to Ukraine despite Russia’s decision to annex it earlier this year. Following his appointment as Ukraine’s new minister of defense, Colonel General Valeriy Heletey promised the parliament in Kiev he would work to retake Crimea from Russia.
“Believe me, there will be a victory parade — there will be for sure — in Ukraine’s Sevastopol,” Heletey said, referring to the capital city of Crimea. At the same hearing, Heletey pledged he “will work day and night for restoring the military capability of our armed forces.” Similar pledges have been made by Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, who has promised to oversee the “revival of the army,” as well as Ukraine Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.
When asked about these comments at a press conference on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov responded, “If it comes to aggression against Russian territory, which Crimea and Sevastopol are parts of, I would not advise anyone to do this.” He then added, “We have the doctrine of national security, and it very clearly regulates the actions, which will be taken in this case.”
This is a not-so-subtle threat to use nuclear weapons to retain Crimea. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s conventional military capabilities have deteriorated significantly. As a result, it has come to be increasingly reliant on nuclear weapons to protect its national security. This has been reflected in its post-Cold War military doctrines, particularly the ones since 2000. These military doctrines have greatly reduced the threshold that would needed to be crossed before Russia would resort to the use of nuclear weapons.
Most notably, Russia’s military doctrines starting in 2000 introduced the concept of de-escalation, which is “a strategy envisioning the threat of a limited nuclear strike that would force an opponent to accept a return to the status quo ante.” In other words, Russian military doctrines have said that Moscow will use limited nuclear strikes in response to conventional military attacks against it. The most recent military doctrine issued in 2010, for example, states:
“The Russian Federation reserves the right to utilize nuclear weapons in response to the utilization of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and (or) its allies, and also in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation involving the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is under threat.”
It was this military doctrine that Lavrov was referring to at the press conference this week. As quoted above, Lavrov began by emphasizing that Moscow sees Crimea as an integral part of Russian territory. He then stated that Moscow has a military doctrine that “very clearly” outlines how Moscow would respond to threats to its territorial integrity. The military doctrine “very clearly” states that the “Russian Federation reserves the right to utilize nuclear weapons” in these situations. This is not the first time a Russian official has issued a nuclear threat against its neighboring states. For example, as tensions rose between Russian and several former Soviet Union and Warsaw states in 2011, General Staff Chief Gen. Nikolai Makarov warned a Russian legislative body that:
“The possibility of local armed conflicts virtually along the entire perimeter of the border has grown dramatically. I cannot rule out that, in certain circumstances, local and regional armed conflicts could grow into a large-scale war, possibly even with nuclear weapons.”
To enhance the credibility of its threat to use nuclear weapons, Russia’s armed forces have conducted regular military drills since 2000 in which a limited nuclear strike is simulated. These drills have become increasinglycommon since the Ukraine crisis began. In some cases, Vladimir Putin has ordered snap drills simulating nuclear strikes.
Arrests of peace activists blocking nuclear convoy in Scotland
Peace Activists Detained For Blocking Nuclear Convoy, Morning Star Saturday 12 July 14, TH FOUR peace activists were arrested yesterday after blockading a military convoy transporting nuclear weapons through Scottish streets under the cover of darkness. The four were picked up after briefly halting nuclear warhead-laden lorries near Loch Lomond in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Monitoring group NukeWatch said they believed the four converted lorries — part of a convoy of more than 20 military vehicles — were carrying around half a dozen warheads.
The convoy snaked up the M74 through south Glasgow en route to Coulport — part of a Ministry of Defence project to overhaul its nuclear arsenal.
Scottish CND co-ordinator John Ainslie said it was hard for people in Glasgow to imagine the peril they had endured while they slept. …..
an internal report from a 2011 dry run released last June described “major difficulties,” with emergency services at the scene in Glasgow stranded without help from the ministry’s weapons experts for more than five hours.
An MoD spokesman declined to comment on the movement of material “for national security reasons.” http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-271d-Peace-activists-detained-for-blocking-nuclear-convoy#.U8HV5ZRdUnk
Fukushima nuclear workers leaving for clean, safe, better paid jobs in solar industry
Stigmatized nuclear workers quit Japan utility. Bloomberg Business Week, By By Yuri Kageyama July 10, 2014 TOKYO (AP) —”………While TEPCO is out of favor with the public, the skills and experience of its employees that span the gamut of engineers, project managers, maintenance workers and construction and financial professionals, are not.
Energy industry experience is in particular demand as the development of solar and other green energy businesses is pushed along in Japan by generous government subsidies.
Currently the government pays solar plants 32 yen ($0.31) per kilowatt hour of energy. The so-called tariff for solar power varies by states and cities in the U.S., but they are as low as several cents. In Germany, it’s about 15 cents.
Sean Travers, Japan president of EarthStream, a London-based recruitment company that specializes in energy jobs, has been scrambling to woo TEPCO employees as foreign companies do more clean energy business in Japan.
“TEPCO employees are very well trained and have excellent knowledge of how the Japanese energy sector works, making them very attractive,” he said. Two top executives at U.S. solar companies doing business in Japan, First Solar director Karl Brutsaert and SunPower Japan director Takashi Sugihara, said they have interviewed former TEPCO employees for possible posts.
Besides their experience, knowledge of how the utility industry works and their contacts, with both private industry and government bureaucracy, are prized assets.
“It’s about the human network and the TEPCO employees have all the contacts,” said Travers, who says he has recruited about 20 people from TEPCO and is hoping to get more.
Yoshikawa, the former TEPCO maintenance worker, said he has received several offers for green-energy jobs that paid far better than his salary at TEPCO of 3 million yen ($30,000) a year.
Since September 2012, all TEPCO managers have had their salaries slashed by 30 percent, while workers in non-management positions had their pay reduced 20 percent. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-07-10/stigmatized-nuclear-workers-quit-japan-utility
New leak in previously undamaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor
Fukushima Update: Unit 5 Leak http://www.permaculture.co.uk/news/0907145293/fukushima-update-unit-5-leak Permaculture magazine | Wednesday, 9th July 2014 A new leak found at Daiichi Fukushima in Unit 5, originally undamaged by the earthquake in 2011. A new and dangerous leak has been found at Unit 5 of the Daichii Fukushima Plant, originally deemed safe.
The leak is coming from the fifth unit of The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) nuclear power complex which was not part of the original four damaged from the level 9 earthquake in 2011.
According to Cleantechnica.com, “Engineers on the Fukushima site have said that apparently about 1,300 liters of highly radioactive water has leaked from a 3mm-diameter hole near a cooling system flow valve in Unit 5. The leak forced TEPCO workers at around 12pm on Sunday to shut off the cooling water system that was stabilizing the temperature of the spent fuel rod pool.”
Various news sites have explained that the unit is rising in temperature and within nine days it could exceed the dangerous threshold of 65oC. Hotter water increases the possibility of further reactions and radiation leaks.
“TEPCO still remains in crisis at these plants due to leakage from corroded and incompletely sealed tanks, groundwater influx from the nearby hills, planned emergency discharges into the Pacific, and tricky fuel rod removal from the blasted Unit 4 reactor. In addition, the ice wall we reported on in June is not working as well as expected, and the Advanced Liquid Processing System for water purification only went back online several weeks ago after numerous false starts. Also in June, an American company, Kurion Inc., contracted with TEPCO to remove the hazardous strontium that ALPS decontamination cannot address with its own first-of-a-kind, truck-mounted at-tank filtration system. (Cleantechnica.com)
French police foil Islamist plot to blow up nuclear reactor
Islamist plot to blow up Eiffel Tower, Louvre and nuclear power plant foiled, say French police Daily mail By TARA BRADY, 10 July 2014
- Officers stumbled on the plans made up of a series of coded messages
- Made by a 29-year-old Algerian butcher living in the south of France
- They were sent to a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda
- Butcher arrested last June but his lawyer says he had been brainwashed…
Exodus of nuclear workers from TEPCO
Stigmatized nuclear workers quit Japan utility. Bloomberg Business Week, By By Yuri Kageyama July 10, 2014 TOKYO (AP) — Stigma, pay cuts, and risk of radiation exposure are among the reasons why 3,000 employees have left the utility at the center of Japan’s 2011 nuclear disaster. Now there’s an additional factor: better paying jobs in the feel good solar energy industry.
Engineers and other employees at TEPCO, or Tokyo Electric Power Co., were once typical of Japan’s corporate culture that is famous for prizing loyalty to a single company and lifetime employment with it. But the March 2011 tsunami that swamped the coastal Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, sending three reactors into meltdown, changed that.
TEPCO was widely criticized for being inadequately prepared for a tsunami despite Japan’s long history of being hit by giant waves and for its confused response to the disaster. The public turned hostile toward the nuclear industry and TEPCO, or “Toh-den,” as the Japanese say it, became a dirty word.
Only 134 people quit TEPCO the year before the disaster. The departures ballooned to 465 in 2011, another 712 in 2012 and 488 last year. Seventy percent of those leaving were younger than 40. When the company offered voluntary retirement for the first time earlier this year, some 1,151 workers applied for the 1,000 available redundancy packages.
The exodus, which has reduced staff to about 35,700 people, adds to the challenges of the ongoing work at Fukushima Dai-ichi to keep meltdowns under control, remove the fuel cores and safely decommission the reactors, which is expected to take decades……
The factors pushing workers out have piled up. The financial strain of the disaster has led to brutal salary cuts while ongoing problems at Fukushima, such as substantial leaks of irradiated water, have reinforced the image of a bumbling and irresponsible organization…….http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-07-10/stigmatized-nuclear-workers-quit-japan-utility
Judicious use of medical radiation
Radiation risk or timely diagnosis, Kevin MD,com SKEPTICAL SCALPEL, MD | CONDITIONS | JULY 8, 2014 “………..An article in Scientific American puts some of the radiation risk into perspective. It is long, but worth reading as it explains how risk has been calculated, the best guess as to the true level of risk, and what radiologists are doing to lower the radiation exposure associated with CT scanning.
According to that article, “Any one person in the U.S. has a 20 percent chance of dying from cancer [of any type]. Therefore, a single CT scan increases the average patient’s risk of developing a fatal tumor from 20 to 20.05 percent.”
No one ever comments about weighing the potential harms that may have been prevented by a timely CT scan diagnosis against the radiation risk.
CT scans should be ordered judiciously. The area scanned and the amount of radiation should be limited as much as possible.
But if you need a CT scan to help diagnose your problem, go ahead and have it. Bottom line: When it comes to accuracy in diagnosis versus radiation-induced cancer risk, parents overwhelmingly chose the former.
“Skeptical Scalpel” is a surgeon blogs at his self-titled site, Skeptical Scalpel. http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/07/radiation-risk-timely-diagnosis-parents-choose.html
USA Energy Department urged to investigate risks in new plan for uranium processing
Watchdogs Press U.S. on Risks of Uranium-Processing Revamp http://www.nationaljournal.com/global-security-newswire/watchdogs-press-u-s-on-risks-of-uranium-processing-revamp-20140711 By Diane Barnes Activists are urging Washington to study possible risks from a plan for dispersing bomb-uranium activities that previously were to be housed in a single facility.
A coalition of more than 30 watchdog groups on Thursday said the Energy Department’s nuclear-weapons agency is required by law to develop a new “site-wide environmental impact statement” for the proposal, devised this year by an independent “Red Team” as an alternative to the Uranium Processing Facility project in Tennessee.
The “UPF” effort faced years of delays, as design expenses mounted and cost estimates ballooned by billions of dollars. Substantial construction at the Y-12 National Security Complex ultimately never began.
The U.S. atomic agency last month said it plans to follow the “Red Team” guidelines, which advise using current Y-12 infrastructure to help contain costs and move onsite uranium operations out of the facility’s decades-old “9212” structure. The alternative project reportedly is intended to cap costs at $6.5 billion.
The activists, though, implored Klotz to look beyond the independent recommendations devised this year.
“We urge you to take the time to fully investigate the range of possibilities, even beyond the Red Team’s recommendations, to set a course that will best serve the nation, not only by saving money, but by preparing to meet future mission requirements in the most effective and efficient way,” they wrote in the letter, first reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense finally to clean up Dalgety Beach radiation
MoD will clean up radiation at Dalgety Bay beach The Scotsman by DAVID MADDOX 11 July 2014 THE Ministry of Defence is to pay an estimated £10 million to clean up radiation on a Fife beach, following a campaign by local residents concerned about health risks.
Some 3,500 radioactive particles have been found at Dalgety Bay over the past two decades.
The material is thought to date back to when parts of Second World War aircraft, including their radiated instruments, were dumped at the site.
Defence chiefs have now confirmed that work will include removing the particles from the beach, and building a wall and slipway to prevent other radioactive material from reaching the area.
It should start later this year and will continue in phases until 2018.
A report on the work does not specify costs but local MP and former prime minister Gordon Brown believes the clean-up total will be around £10m.
“After three years of intensive campaigning, including four debates in the House of Commons, I welcome the Ministry of Defence agreement to spend what I believe will be £10m to clean up the pollution caused by radiation at Dalgety Bay,” he said.
“The pollution resulted from dumping 800 wartime planes with radiated dials and other hazardous equipment into the sea. Subsequent coastal erosion has brought the pollution to the surface.”………
Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said it was not a “complete solution” but praised the local community for their campaigning.
He said: “Some radioactive waste will be left entombed on site but it should finally put an end to the danger faced by humans and wildlife in what should be one of Scotland’s more attractive seaside spots.
“All credit to the community and to Sepa for their dogged persistence in getting the MoD to finally do the right thing.”
SNP MSP Annabelle Ewing said: “Residents of Dalgety Bay and Fifers from across the Kingdom have been waiting decades for this mess to be cleaned up, so I am glad that some progress has been made on this issue and that the MoD has finally accepted
responsibility.” http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/mod-will-clean-up-radiation-at-dalgety-bay-beach-1-3473378
Dispelling myths about Iran’s nuclear power program
Five myths about Iran’s nuclear program By Ariane Tabatabai Ariane Tabatabai is a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. JULY 10, 2014 TEHRANAS THE July 20 deadline approaches for a final agreement between the West and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program, it is vitally important to understand both sides’ positions. Here are five myths about Iran’s nuclear program.
Myth 1:Iran’s supreme leader will block a favorable deal….deep distrust between Iran and the United States. But it is also informed by the opposition of US hard-liners to any diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. By inviting the hard-liners to tone down their criticism of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, Khamenei is paving the way for Zarif’s team to effectively pursue a deal and receive sanctions relief, while hedging for failure.
Myth 2: The fatwa against nuclear weapons is bogus.
Myth 3: Iran just wants to defy the international community………Tehran signaled its willingness to cooperate with the agency in the context of the technical cooperation program. Iran is not just trying to defy the international community; it has legitimate concerns, which must be addressed, or at least recognized and understood………… http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/07/09/five-myths-about-iran-nuclear-program/kW4pIuwzmnzYlamEgbO4aI/story.html
Czech’s Temelin nuclear power plant ceases supplying electricity to the grid
Czech nuclear plant out of action due to defect July 11, 2014 By Diarmaid Williams PennEnergy International Digital Editor Temelin nuclear power plant has stopped supplying power to the Czech grid as its second unit was disconnected over a pump defect on Thursday evening.
Dirty bomb could be made from stolen Iraqi uranium
Stolen Iraqi uranium could make dirty bomb THE AUSTRALIAN THE TIMES JULY 12, 2014 INTERNATIONAL fears increased yesterday as it was revealed that Islamic State terrorists have seized 40kg of radioactive uranium in Iraq, which some experts say could be used to make a dirty bomb.
The revelation followed reports this week that they may have obtained chemical weapons when they seized a factory in Iraq.
The jihadists from the Islamic State (known formerly as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) seized the uranium after they overran a university complex in the city of Mosul, in their swift offensive across northern Iraq.
The Iraqi government has appealed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for international help to “stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad”……http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/stolen-iraqi-uranium-could-make-dirty-bomb/story-fnb64oi6-1226986185204
Secretive transport of nuclear bombs through centre of Glascow
This is the stuff of nightmares, says CND’s Scottish co-ordinator http://glasgow.stv.tv/articles/282363-nuclear-weapons-driven-through-scotlands-streets-cnd-chief-john-ainslie/?fromstreampost=141179By David Bateman on Friday 11 July 2014 Here John Ainslie, Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) coordinator, blogs about claims of nuclear weapons being driven through Scotland’s streets, and why his group opposes it.
‘In the early hours of this morning I was driving along the M74, through the centre of Glasgow, just behind a convoy of more than 20 military vehicles.
At the heart of the convoy were four special transporters carrying nuclear bombs which had a total explosive power equivalent to 42 of the bombs which destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
Nuclear weapons are kept out of sight as much as possible. They are normally onboard Trident submarines or in an underground bunker at Coulport, overlooking Loch Long. But from time to time they need to be moved.
This means driving them by road across the length of Britain from the nuclear weapons factory at Burghfield in Berkshire to the Clyde. Britain is currently upgrading all the Trident bombs. The latest convoy was probably carrying these upgraded Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The detonation of just one Trident bomb would cause far more destruction than was seen in Japan at the end of the Second World War. There would be virtually no survivors within one mile of the explosion. Lethal radiation would be scattered for hundreds of miles, and eventually around the globe.
This is only the second time that the nuclear convoy has taken this route, along the M74 then across the Erskine Bridge. But the Ministry of Defence will be planning many more convoys in the future and some will be scheduled to travel through the heart of Scotland’s largest city.
This is the stuff of nightmares.
A few drivers who were on the motorway in the earlier hours will have seen the flashing lights, the line of police vans and the armoured cars escorting Trident. But most residents of Glasgow would have been in their beds, oblivious to the nuclear arms travelling through Rutherglen, Kinning Park, Bellahouston and Renfrew as they weaved their way along Glasgow’s newest motorway.
In 2011 the Ministry of Defence held an exercise which simulated a nuclear convoy accident at the Raith interchange on the M74. This envisaged a situation where plutonium was released, but there was no nuclear explosion.
Their post-exercise report showed that emergency services were unable to deal adequately with the scenario and that coordination of the response was disorganised.
The timing of the latest convoy shows that the MOD are not really concerned about public safety. They choose to send these vehicles across England on the one day that firefighters were on strike.
The MOD may try to keep these nuclear lorries out of sight, but they can’t keep them out of the minds of the people of Glasgow, a city which has a long tradition of opposing nuclear weapons.’
A MoD spokesperson said: “We take the safety and security of our nuclear convoys very seriously, and at no point has the security of nuclear materials been put at risk.”
$US1 billion loan for Japanese solar projects, from Deutsche bank and Goldman Sachs
Deutsche Bank lends $US1 billion in Japan’s solar gold rush, SMH, July 9, 2014 Chisaki Watanabe and Finbarr Flynn Deutsche Bank plans to lend about $US1 billion ($1.06 billion) for Japanese solar projects, joining Goldman Sachs in funding cleaner energy as the government struggles to restart nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster.
The bank is ready to provide financing for three to six projects in the next 12 to 18 months, said Hans Van Der Sande, director of Deutsche Bank’s structured products group at its Tokyo branch. The Frankfurt-based lender agreed last month to provide a 11.1 billion yen ($116 million) loan for a solar power project on a former golf course north of Tokyo to be operated by a unit of Spain’s Gestamp Renewables Corp.
Japan may add the most solar power capacity in the world this year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, as a two- year-old incentive program attracted investors including Goldman Sachs…http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/deutsche-bank-lends-us1-billion-in-japans-solar-gold-rush-20140709-zt0uh.html#ixzz378jMBQUy
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