Record Hot Arctic: NOAA’s 2015 Report Card Shows Signs of Failing Climates
Overall warming of the Arctic is at a much more rapid pace than the rest of the world. This accelerated pace of warming is due, in large part, to loss of snow and sea ice reflectivity during the Spring and Summer months. As a result, more heat is absorbed into dark land and ocean surfaces — a heat that is retained throughout the Arctic over longer and longer periods. And, though NOAA doesn’t report it in the above video, overall higher concentrations of greenhouse gasses like methane and CO2 in or near the Arctic region also contribute to a higher rate of warming (see NOAA’s ESRL figures). In a world that is now rapidly proceeding beyond the 400 ppm CO2 and 485 ppm CO2e threshold, this is exactly the kind of Northern Hemisphere polar amplification we would expect to see.
From: robertscribbler.com
December 21 Energy News
Opinion:
¶ Boom Times Ahead For US Clean Power, Thanks To Oil Lobby • The Intertubes have been buzzing with news of the new US federal budget deal, which basically gave away the store to the clean power industry by including a 5-year extension of key tax credits for wind and solar power. [CleanTechnica]
Photo via US Department of Energy.
¶ UK’s Poor 2015 Made Worse By Paris Agreement Expectations • The UK had a big year in 2014 with lots of records set, but after six months of baffling policy decisions and a lackluster attendance in Paris, the UK has a long way to go if it is to accomplish its role in tackling climate change. [CleanTechnica]
Science and Technology:
¶ A new solid-state sodium battery development project being researched at Iowa State University was awarded $3 million in new funding via ARPA-E’s 2015 OPEN…
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The nuclear charlatans’ last refuge – their myth about climate change
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition: Nuclear power and climate progress in the 21st century http://thebulletin.org/commentary/praise-lord-and-pass-ammunition-nuclear-power-and-climate-progress-21st-century 17 DECEMBER 2015 Peter A. Bradford adjunct professor, Vermont Law School and former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member
In the 15th year of the era formerly known as “the nuclear renaissance,” not a single molecule of carbon dioxide emission has been avoided by a renaissance reactor built in the United States or in Europe. Unless the 40-year-old Watts Bar 2 reactor scheduled to operate in Tennessee early in 2016 is called “renaissance,” this situation will not change for several more years.
Climate change, so urgent and so seemingly intractable, has become the last refuge of nuclear charlatans throughout the Western world. From well-meaning ideologues and editorial writers claiming that the unknowable is theirs to state with certainty, to paid advocates more skilled in pleasing and persuading government officials than furthering consumer and environmental well-being, prophetic arguments have swollen from a stream to a river and now merge with the Seine in Paris, threatening to submerge the world under a layer of nonsense rising as inexorably as the seas themselves.
We are told that:
- Energy efficiency and renewables cannot save us because they are too costly, too small and too variable, despite their falling costs, rapidly rising deployment, and particular success in the world’s fourth largest economy in Germany.
- The power markets that that have functioned reliably and efficiently for 20 years and that repeatedly reject nuclear as too expensive are “flawed” because they don’t reward nuclear for its benefits as to fuel diversity and reliability, and—in a valid criticism not fixable by uniquely nuclear subsidies—do not reflect the lack of carbon pricing in most of the United States.
- Nuclear power’s problems of cost, delay, and inflexibility will soon be solved by new designs, if only misguided regulators and environmentalists will get out of the way, never mind that regulators and environmentalists have had no hand in the cancellation of some 25 renaissance reactors.
James Hansen, perhaps the most visible of the climate scientists who advocate heavy reliance on breeder or other innovative reactor designs without paying any attention to their track record of long and costly failure, has become ever more reminiscent of Groucho Marx leaping from a paramour’s bed to confront a disbelieving husband with: “Who are you going to believe, me or your eyes?”
Our eyes tell us that the breeder reactor technology has been abandoned in the United States, in France, in Germany, and in Britain. In Japan, the Monju breeder has operated one year out of the last 20. (See von Hippel et al, “Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status”). Of course success in technology often builds from many failures, but there are no signs of success on this horizon, and delay—as Hansen among others often tells us—allows ever more CO2 to concentrate in the skies to accelerate warming for decades regardless of the technologies deployed 20 years from now.
The op-ed that Hansen and three other scientists signed from Paris says that by building 115 reactors per year from now until 2050, we could eliminate fossil fuels from the electric sector. What these four nuclear horsemen don’t mention is that, using the cost of Britain’s proposed Hinkley station as a proxy (even though breeders and their attendant reprocessing facilities would surely cost more), this commitment would cost some $2 trillion per year, or $70 trillion altogether.
Making assumptions about renewables and efficiency plus electrical storage capacity that are more plausible than Hansen’s assumptions about an immediate reversal in the fortunes of breeder reactors, equivalent carbon reductions can be achieved at much lower cost and in less time, leaving money over for continuing research and development, even nuclear R&D.
Another group of scientists (including one of Hansen’s cosigners), also writing from Paris, said, “Our nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) has grown since 2007 without increases in energy consumption due in large part to major advances in fuel economy in vehicles and energy efficiency in buildings. Solar power comprised 32 percent of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S. last year—a twelvefold increase in the amount of solar photovoltaic installations since just five years ago. Wind power now generates about five percent of our nation’s electricity, and in some regions already costs less than natural gas and coal-fired generation. Texas alone nearly doubled its wind energy generation between 2009 and 2014. Propelled by remarkable gains such as these, states and cities across our nation are setting ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions.”
Our real challenge is to develop market rules and regulatory processes that allow low-carbon technologies to reap the rewards of their relative cleanliness while competing vigorously with each other to meet the needs of developing and developed nations. The economists who succeed in this urgent task are a much better bet than scientists who claim the gift of prophesy.
The Hansen letter contains these remarkably unself-aware sentences:
“To solve the climate problem, policy must be based on facts and not on prejudice.”
“The climate issue is too important for us to delude ourselves with wishful thinking.”
“The future of our planet and our descendants depends on basing decisions on facts, and letting go of long held biases when it comes to nuclear power.”
Amen, brother.
The nuclear snake oil salesmen now pitching Small Reactors as “green”
The Sierra Club says it has all the makings of a snake-oil sale. The organization would prefer the Obama administration abandon the extremely costly pursuit of advanced nuclear power in favor of greater investment in renewable energy such as solar and wind power.
Small-scale nuclear plants being pitched as new green, Albuquerque Journal, December 20th, 2015“……….State leaders aren’t necessarily rushing to embrace the vision in a place where all but one nuclear plant have been mothballed and where old-guard nuclear safety advocates warn that so-called advanced nuclear technologies are an attempt to put shiny earrings on the same old pig.
But the investors and nuclear scientists opening startup labs in the office parks of California’s technology hubs and within the research centers of universities see a more influential ally in the White House.
‘All of the above’ strategy Nuclear power is at the nub of the Obama administration’s “all of the above” strategy for reinventing the energy industry in an era of climate change, and its faith in the fraught power source has captured the imagination of some notable and deep-pocketed West Coast thinkers.
Investors, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, have poured about $2 billion into a few dozen small outfits, many of which are concentrated in the West. …….
Nuclear déjà vu That may all be possible someday, say the nuclear experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists, but that day is probably several decades and many tens of billions of dollars away. The sudden excitement around nuclear makes them nervous. They say they have seen this before. Continue reading
Paris climate agreement – countries see that their national interest is served by the common good
In Paris, the United Nations showed its ability to deliver hope and healing to the 
world, The Age, December 20, 2015 Ban Ki-moon
Governments have ushered in a new era of global co-operation on climate change – one of the most complex issues ever to confront humanity. In doing so, they have significantly advanced efforts to uphold our charter mandate to “save succeeding generations”.
The Paris agreement is a triumph for people, the environment, and for multilateralism. It is a health insurance policy for the planet. For the first time, every country in the world has pledged to curb their emissions, strengthen resilience and act internationally and domestically to tackle climate change.
Together, countries have agreed that, in minimising risks of climate change, the national interest is best served by pursuing the common good. It is an example we could gainfully follow across the political agenda……
The Paris agreement delivered on all the key points I called for. Markets now have the clear signal they need to scale up investments that will generate low-emissions, climate-resilient development.
All countries have agreed to work to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees and, given the grave risks, to strive for 1.5 degrees. This is especially important for the nations of Africa, small island developing states and least developed countries.
In Paris, countries agreed on a long-term goal to cap global greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible in the second half of the century. One hundred and eighty-eight countries have now submitted their intended nationally determined contributions, which show what they are prepared to do to reduce emissions and build climate resilience.
These national targets have already significantly bent the emissions curve downwards. But, collectively, they still leave us with an unacceptably dangerous 3 degrees temperature rise. That is why countries in Paris pledged that they will review their national climate plans every five years, beginning in 2018. This will allow them to increase ambition in line with what science demands.
The Paris agreement also ensures sufficient, balanced adaptation and mitigation support for developing countries, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. And it will help to scale up global efforts to minimise loss and damage from climate change.
Governments have agreed to binding, robust, transparent rules of the road to ensure that all countries do what they have said they would do. Developed countries have agreed to lead in mobilising finance and to scale up technology support and capacity building. And developing countries have assumed increasing responsibility to address climate change in line with their capabilities……
Now, with the Paris agreement in place, our thoughts must immediately turn to implementation. By addressing climate change we are advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Paris agreement has positive implications for all the sustainable development goals. We are poised to enter a new era of opportunity.
As governments, business and civil society begin the mammoth project of tackling climate change and realising the sustainable development goals, the UN will assist member states and society at large at every stage. As a first step in implementing the Paris agreement, I will convene a high-level signing ceremony in New York, on April 22 next year.
I will invite world leaders to come to help keep and increase momentum. By working together, we can achieve our shared objective to end poverty, strengthen peace, and ensure a life of dignity and opportunity for all.
Ban Ki-moon is Secretary-General of the United Nations. http://www.theage.com.au/comment/united-nations-has-proven-its-ability-to-deliver-hope-and-healing-to-the-world-20151220-glrslx.html#ixzz3uvsOVMH3
South Carolina nuclear workers made sick, and dying, by radiation
Editorial: Nuclear workers show America’s darker side http://www.islandpacket.com/opinion/editorials/article50722150.html ISLANDPACKET newsroom@islandpacket.com The numbers are sobering. The problem is immense.
In a special report presented over the past week, our fellow McClatchy journalists put faces on the heavy and often hidden cost of America’s atomic weaponry.
A total of 107,394 workers have been diagnosed with cancers and other diseases after building the nation’s nuclear stockpile over the last seven decades. At least 33,480 former nuclear workers are dead after helping the U.S. win World War II and the Cold War before getting sick enough to qualify for government compensation.
Taxpayers have spent $12 billion so far treating and compensating more than 53,000 sick nuclear workers.
But fewer than half the workers who sought help had their claims approved. More than 54,000 workers have been denied government help. Some say the government’s tactic is to “Delay, deny, until you die.”
South Carolina, home to the Savannah River Site outside Aiken, has certainly paid a toll to the silent killer.The site that turned 65 this year was established by President Truman to produce the basic materials used in the fabrication of nuclear weapons.
Nearly 40 million gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste remains at SRS — 90 miles up the Savannah River from where much of Beaufort County’s drinking water is withdrawn. The waste is stored in aging tanks.
And the federal government’s poor record for helping its workers is matched or exceeded by its miserable record of dealing with the nuclear waste that will threaten workers and communities ad infinitum.
Earlier, McClatchy reported that the United States already has generated more than 80,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste, and the toxic materials are stored at some 80 sites in 35 states…….
What we see is a nation in denial. We see a nation willing to consider workers in its hodgepodge of nuclear sites to be collateral damage. We see a nation that has grossly underestimated the cost to the workers.
And we see a nation that for pure politics will endanger entire communities and states by failing to confront its sick legacy of the atomic age.
We see a nation that should do much better by its own people.http://www.islandpacket.com/opinion/editorials/article50722150.html
Another Look at the Recent Low Dose Radiation Exposure Study (INWORKS)
The most important thing to retain from the recent three country study of nuclear workers is that it supports the no safe dose-linear no threshold model (LNT) for ionizing radiation. Increased radiation exposure is increased risk. It shows association between protracted very low dose exposure to ionising radiation and cancer. Although high dose rate exposures were presumed by many “to be more dangerous than low dose rate exposures, the risk per unit of radiation dose for cancer among radiation workers was similar to estimates derived from studies of Japanese atomic bomb survivors.” (Richardson et. al., BMJ, Oct 2015).
The radiation exposures over an entire career, in this INWORKS study, are generally very low cumulative doses, even compared to what is considered “acceptable” radiation exposures for the general public from nuclear facilities and nuclear waste. However, the researchers appear to false the results by choosing to use the arithmetic…
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December 20 Energy News
Opinion:
¶ Government U-turn on renewables shows gas, oil and nuclear are still favorites. • Costs have fallen; the latest ground-mounted solar and onshore wind are cheaper than new nuclear, and offshore wind is not far behind, but despite this the government favors nuclear and oil. [The Guardian]
The sun sets at Hinkley Point nuclear power station. Photograph: iVistaphotography / Barcroft
Science and Technology:
¶ With the big animals gone forever, climate change could get worse, according to a study. University of East Anglia research says a decline in fruit-eating animals such as large primates, tapirs and toucans could have a knock-on effect for tree species because they disperse seeds. [Financial Express]
World:
¶ A wind farm in Dumfries and Galloway, sufficient to power more than 37,000 homes, has secured almost £83 million in financing. The UK Green Investment Bank, which is headquartered in Edinburgh, is…
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Serious concerns about the clear pro nuclear bias of South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission
Royal Commission vs Community Permission:Environment groups assess performance of SA nuclear Royal Commission
National and state environment groups have today released an assessment of the state Royal Commission into the nuclear industry in SA. The report – commissioned by Conservation SA, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of the Earth Australia – looks at the Commission’s progress since its surprise unveiling by Premier Jay Weatherill ten months ago.
The report raises serious concerns about the Royal Commission, from the unrepresentative and unbalanced composition of the Expert Advisory Committee, conflicts of interest, the Royal Commission’s unwillingness to correct factual errors, to a repeated pattern of pro-nuclear claims being uncritically accepted and promoted.
“The nuclear industry embodies unique, complex and long lasting safety, security, environmental and public health challenges,” said Conservation SA Chief Executive Craig Wilkins. “The sector lacks a secure social license and it is imperative that any consideration of an…
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December 19 Energy News
Science and Technology:
¶ The United States and Europe are among the world’s largest emitters of nitrogen dioxide, but both have also shown the most dramatic reductions in these emissions between 2005 and 2014, according to new global NASA satellite maps. Nitrogen dioxide is a major respiratory pollutant in urban smog. [CNN]
This map shows the average concentration of nitrogen dioxide in the lowest parts of the atmosphere in 2014. NASA image.
World:
¶ Australian households and businesses added another 60 MW of rooftop solar in November, taking the overall figure for the year to date to 654 MW. Businesses added 143 MW of rooftop solar capacity. About 510 MW of rooftop solar capacity has been added at households in the year to date. [CleanTechnica]
¶ Cars were forced off the road and factories closed in Beijing on Saturday after the city was again blanketed by…
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Nuclear news this week
Investigative journalism lives! In this media climate of the 24 hr news cycle, and of journalists losing their jobs – it can still happen! This week:
McClatchy News Service’s Washington Bureau’s Rob Hotakainen, Lindsay Wise, Frank Matt and Samantha Ehlinger spent a year, over 100 interviews across USA, and analysing over 70 million records in a federal database obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, for this story:
At least 33,480 American nuclear workers dead from radiation-caused illness
The Center For Public Integrity’s India’s nuclear industry pours its wastes into a river of death and disease, and also India’s repression of activists who protest about its poor safety record.
The mind boggles – in reading about America’s sick nuclear workers – to think what the situation might be in Russia, or China, where no investigative journalist would get a chance to study and publicise it!
Study: Environmental Exposures Account for Vast Majority of Cancers.
Global trend towards bankruptcy for the nuclear industry.
CLIMATE. The Paris Agreement on climate — a good start, but… SO FAR, nuclear lobbyists have not managed to hijack climate action funding. Nuclear lobby in frantic mode at Paris Climate Summit. The new climate denialism – that renewable energy “doesn’t work”. Sea level rise threatens nuclear stations and nuclear waste dumps. Corporate Astroturf “Nuclear for Climate” is really a lobby group of 140 pro nuclear societies. USA govt’s Mission Innovation should not send tax-payer money to Bill Gates’ nuclear dream.
GERMANY abandoning nuclear fission, but has developed research nuclear fusion reactor. Belgium’s nuclear restart causes anxiety in adjacent North Rhine-Westphalia.
USA. Former Clinton Defense Secretary offers dire warning on nuclear war risk. Donald Trump shows abysmal ignorance about USA’s nuclear weapons. Endless delays – that’s the system for Hanford nuclear waste clean-up. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: obfuscation when it comes to Freedom of Information. Gloomy prediction for USA’s nuclear industry. Strong wind power takes over New York’s electricity as nuclear station shut down. New York Governor Cuomoorders investigation of Indian Point Nuclear Station. Dangers of USNRC Approval of Broken Nuclear Spent Fuel Rod Storage
Kansas’ nuclear workers with cancer from exposure to radiation. Idaho nuclear workers: 360 killed by by exposure to radiation. Texas nuclear workers sick and dying from exposure to radiation. Mississipi nuclear workers victims of radiation Huge increase in medical insurance claims by nuclear workers.
INDIA‘s secret nuclear weapons building city. Japan-India nuclear deal sounds good, but not likely in practice.
JAPAN. Declassified report shows Fukushima nuclear situation much worse than we were told. Enormous increase inradiation levels in Fukushima underground ducts. High level nuclear waste into the ocean: Japanese govt’s latest idea. Cover-up of radiation effects makes Fukushima victims’ lives even worse.
UKRAINE troubles continue with the toxic Chernobyl site
UK Tax-payer funding to go to Britain’s small nuclear reactor companies! Toshiba’s financial travails threaten UK’s nuclear power plans. Britain’s heavy burden – its Trident nuclear programme.
IRAN IAEA concludes its probe in Iran’s history of nuclear weapons research
RUSSIA Missing highly enriched uranium canisters probably came from Mayak nuclear facility
CHINA Concerns about China’s nuclear technology: is it safe?
Anxieties about terrorism prompt Japan to increase nuclear security measures
Japan Is Trying to Terror-Proof Its Recently Reopened Nuclear Reactors http://gizmodo.com/japan-is-trying-to-terror-proof-its-recently-reopened-n-1748754635 Bryan Lufkin In August, Japan reopened its first nuclear reactors after an almost two-year hiatus that followed the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Now, months later, Kyushu Electric Power Co. is preparing to guard the controversial energy source against terrorist attacks, too.
Asahi Shimbun reports that Kyushu Electric Power Co. will build off-site terror response centers near the two rebooted reactors at Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture on Japan’s southern tip. That’s on the opposite side of the country from where the Fukushima quake, tsunami, and resultant nuclear disaster at the Daiichi power plant unfolded—but the government had issued a nationwide nuclear shutdown following the crisis.
The $775 million emergency centers aren’t a direct response to recent terrorist attacks across the globe. Their installation is part of nuclear safety guidelines that were rolled out in 2013. They will be installed in Kagoshima first, and will then be built elsewhere in Japan.
Among other safeguards, there’ll be a control room from which staff can remotely cool reactors in case an aircraft crashes into them. The company hopes to have installation finished by 2020, the same year nearly a million foreigners will be in the country for Tokyo’s Summer Olympic Games.
Japan—one of the most quake-prone nations on Earth—has seen a lot of public opposition in the face of the government’s return to nuclear energy after the Fukushima tragedy. Problem is, the island country is largely mountainous and fairly small, so it lacks a lot of natural resources, and importing energy like natural gas is expensive. (Japan is the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas.)
Meanwhile, with the heightened global presence of Islamic State supporters, the Japanese government has been more concerned about facing possible terror threats in the future. Earlier this year, ISIS kidnapped and executed two Japanese journalists in Syria.
While there’s no way to truly terror-proof something, at least these steps are barriers to catastrophe.
Germany abandoning nuclear fission, but has developed research nuclear fusion reactor
Germany Tests Fusion Reactor, But Will Abandon Nuclear By 2022 The Daily Caller ANDREW FOLLETT , 18 Dec 15 Germany tested an experimental fusion reactor last week, but the country is set to abandon conventional nuclear fission power entirely by 2022 in favor of solar and wind.
German engineers from the Max Planck Institute have successfully activated an experimental nuclear fusion reactor and successfully managed to suspend plasma for the first time. The reactor took 19 years and €1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to build, and contains over 470 tons of superconducting magnets, all of which need to be cooled to absolute zero.The reactor passed the major technical milestone of generating its first plasma, which had a duration of one-tenth of a second and achieved a temperature of around one million degrees Celsius. If the reactor fulfills the research team’s expectations, it could demonstrate the first stable artificial nuclear fusion reaction within the next year.
World’s largest nuclear fusion reactor launched by Germany
Germany launches world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor The rocky road to nuclear fusion power, DW, 18 Dec 15 Innovative designs using modern superconductors are supposed to bring us nuclear fusion power plants soon – some optimists say. Fusion experts predict, however, that a practical application will take many more decades. Nuclear fusion is considered a potential energy source of the future. It’s clean nuclear energy. But what is it, exactly and why is it so difficult to generate? Let’s start with the difference between classical nuclear fission and nuclear fusion.
Nuclear fission means that radioactive isotopes, like uranium or plutonium are being split up and turned into other highly radioactive isotopes that then have to be deposited or reprocessed.
Nuclear fusion means that two isotopes of hydrogen – called deuterium and tritium – merge together – they “fuse.” And that leaves behind only non-poisonous helium and one single neutron, but no nuclear waste.
Huge amounts of energy caught in a plasma
Nuclear fusion takes place in the sun for example – or in a hydrogen bomb – and that’s the big challenge for engineers – how do you control the high energy fusion process in a power plant?
That’s what scientists have been working on since the 1960s. One model-fusion-reactor called Wendelstein 7-X has just started operating in the northern German town of Greifswald. It is not designed to generate a nuclear fusion reaction yet – so far it’s just a specific reactor design that’s being tested.
What all fusion reactors have in common is a ring-shaped form. The idea behind it is to take powerful electromagnets and create a strong electromagnetic field, which is shaped somewhat like an inflated bicycle tube.
That electromagnetic field must be so dense that when it is being heated by a microwave oven to about one million degrees centigrade, a plasma will emerge in the very center of the ring. And that plasma can then be ignited to start the nuclear fusion process.
Research reactors show what’s possible
In Europe, two prominent fusion experiments are under way. One is Wendelstein 7-X, which just generated its first helium plasma last week – albeit without actually going into nuclear fusion. The other one is ITER – a huge experimental project in southern France, which is still under construction and won’t be ready to run before 2023.
ITER is supposed to do real nuclear fusion – but only for short periods of time, certainly not for any longer than 60 minutes. And ITER is just one of many steps towards turning the idea of nuclear fusion into a practical application.
Are smaller, alternative designs feasible?………
Hot, hot, hot
The heat is also problematic. In the core of the nuclear-fusion plasma, the temperature would be around 150 million centigrade. This extreme heat stays put – right there in the center of the plasma. But even around it, it still gets seriously hot – 500 to 700 degrees at the breeding blanket – which is the inner layer of the metal tube that contains the plasma and which will serve to “breed” the tritium that is needed for the fusion reaction.
Even more problematic is the so called “power-exhaust.” That is the part of the system, where the used-up fuel from the fusion process is being extracted – mostly helium. The first metal components hit by hot gases are called the “diverter.” It can get hotter than 2,000 degrees centigrade.
The engineers are trying to use the metal tungsten, used in old-fashioned light bulbs – to withstand such temperatures. They have a melting point of around 3,000 degrees. But there are limits.
“In the case of ITER we can do it, because the heat is not there constantly. Only one to three percent of the time, ITER will eventually be running.” Hesch says. “But that is not an option for a power plant, which has to run 24/7. And if someone pretends to build a smaller reactor with the same power as ITER, I can definitely say – there is no solution for that diverter-problem.”
Several decades to build a real power plant
Nonetheless Hesch is optimistic that the development of nuclear fusion power reactors will go ahead – but not quite as fast as some of the industry optimists predict.
“With ITER we want to show that fusion can actually deliver more energy than we have to put into it to heat the plasma. The next step would be to build an entirely new fusion demonstrator power plant, which will actually generate electricity.”
The engineers are already working on the designs now. They will have to learn lessons from ITER, which is scheduled to start operating in 2023. Taking the necessary time for design, planning and construction into account, it looks very unlikely the first nuclear-fusion power plant will be up and running much before the middle of the century. http://www.dw.com/en/the-rocky-road-to-nuclear-fusion-power/a-18927630
safety problems with Britain’s Trident ballistic missile submarine program
Britain’s nuclear arsenal is a ticking time bomb, The Week, Tom Barlow Brown, 18 Dec 15 the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent, the Trident ballistic missile submarine program, worth keeping?
For the British Parliament and much of the media, the problem is mainly the vast amounts of money spent to keep it going. According to the U.K. Ministry of Defense, the program’s total cost is £15-20 billion. Anti-nuclear campaigners give a figure of around £100 billion, give or take. At least, that’s how much it should rack up in costs over its 40 year lifespan.
However, what is less talked about is how both the submarines and the bases that maintain them have suffered from a series of glaring safety mishaps.
There are four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines currently in service with the Royal Navy. These 149.5-meter long, nuclear-powered vessels are relatively new — all of them having launched in the 1990s — but are aging fast. Each Vanguard-class submarine can carry up to 16 Trident II missiles, each one packing 12 independently-targetable nuclear warheads, meaning the nukes split off from the missile and explode in multiple locations. The actual number of deployed missiles and warheads, however, is a closely guarded secret.
Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Clyde in Scotland — otherwise known as Faslane — is the main base for the Royal Navy’s Trident subs, and has been exceedingly prone to accidents. The latest details come from a Royal Navy sailor-turned-whistleblower William McNeilly who published an 18-page report before going on the run.
McNeilly, writing under the pseudonym William Lewis, attacked the “military spin doctors” that he claimed distort the public’s knowledge of safety lapses. He detailed 30 accidents which range from the chilling to the ridiculous.
Among these were a fire in a missile compartment caused by a toilet rolls set too close to a cable, a range of problems with hydraulic systems and a general failure to follow safety procedures. The document also makes it clear that a number of safety issues were due to heavy cutbacks, resulting in a lack of qualified personnel…….
There are other concerns about safety at a different naval base in the United Kingdom — the Devonport dockyard, which is the largest naval base in Western Europe.
The most frightening of these accidents was the loss of power to the “nuclear ring” reactor cooling system of one submarine for 90 minutes. Had power not been restored, such an incident could have had potentially catastrophic consequences resulting in a major nuclear incident.
The dockyard is within walking distance of the city of Plymouth, home to around 250,000 people. Most of these residents would be in danger in the event of a reactor meltdown.
In 2011, a previously classified document authored by the base’s ex-safety regulator Commodore Andrew McFarlane warned that the reactors powering nuclear submarines based at Devonport were possibly unsafe……..
A House of Commons vote to renew Trident is expected in 2016.
After that, a fleet of replacement submarines will enter service in the early 2030s… if everything goes to plan. However, that is still a long way off, and the current class of Vanguard submarines will needs increasing amounts of maintenance to keep them running through the next decade.
The issue of Trident is back in the political limelight again with the current Labour Party and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn looking to put scrapping the program on his party’s political agenda. In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether the Ministry of Defense will take any action on the program’s safety.
If they don’t, the consequences could be deadly serious.http://www.theweek.com/articles/594745/britains-nuclear-arsenal-ticking-time-bomb
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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