nuclear-news

COP21:

¶ With COP21 underway in Paris, a conference in Rome on Thursday reflected on Pope Francis’s social encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care For Our Common Home. Hosted by the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, the meeting examined what role free markets can play in helping to protect the environment. [Vatican Radio]

A power-generating wind turbine is seen on the Champs Elysees avenue with the Arc de Triomphe in background as part of COP21. – AP

¶ The total contributions of national carbon reduction plans at COP21 now reaches approximately 90% of what is needed prevent dangerous climate change. This is cause for some cautious optimism. However, the reality of how these reductions will be implemented will probably be a significant challenge over the next two weeks. [CleanTechnica]

¶ The International Chamber of Shipping said that, as a representative of the international…

If anyone needs anymore evidence that the bureaucrats at the US NRC are either stark raving mad or have sub-zero IQs this is it: they are considering how much operational leakage is acceptable at nuclear power stations. Here they apparently do NOT mean the planned legal emissions which poison the environment on a routine basis but rather how much unplanned piping and similar leakage is “acceptable”.

Unless you are young with a brand new everything and are lucky not to have gotten a defective item among your brand-new everything, you know that no leakage is acceptable. This is all the more true for radioactive leakages at nuclear power stations.

There is a reason that some US plumbers make almost as much as President Obama for work weeks of about the same length – leaks are not acceptable. Thus they are well-paid and always working. There is a reason that executives…

From US NRC docket NRC-2011-0088: “the NRC has had a decades-long practice of approving and/or mandating the use of certain parts of editions and addenda of these ASME Codes in 10 CFR 50.55a through the rulemaking process of “incorporation by reference.”

Once again the US NRC outdoes itself for sheer stupidity. A code is a code. Standards are standards. You can’t pick and choose parts and pieces of this or any other code and say that it has anything to do with the code itself. But this is what the chronically asinine NRC wants to do: “Incorporation of American Society of Mechanical Engineers Codes and New and Revised ASME Code Cases Docket ID: NRC-2011-0088
Agency: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) “Summary
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is proposing to amend its regulations to incorporate by reference seven recent editions and addenda to the American Society of Mechanical…

We have a serious global problem. If we continue burning fossil fuels as we are, and if the fossil fuel industry continues to grow along its projected path, the world will see a catastrophic rate of warming between 3 and 7 degrees Celsius above 1880s values by the end of this Century. So much warming would likely mean a very bad end. A bad end for much of global civilization as we know it. A bad end for many of the innocent living creatures who inhabit our world. And a bad end for many of our children — those now being born today who will face the climate troubles we are locking in.

As the Pope succinctly noted in a recent statement seen here in Rueters:

“I am not sure, but I can say to you ‘now or never.’ Every year the problems are getting worse. We are at…