nuclear-news

Science and Technology:

¶ The American Psychological Association links air pollution to brain disorders and diminished cognitive abilities in a report that links air pollution to increased depression, educational troubles for children, and degenerative problems. “Now, the evidence is mounting that dirty air is bad for your brain as well,” it says. [CleanTechnica]

Neural Connections of the Brain via Flickr CC.

¶ Scientists may underestimate how quickly plants can change location in response to climate change, a study from the University of British Columbia says. The comfort zones of many plants and trees are easing north or into higher elevations, but the speed with which they move is being driven by evolutionary responses. [Windsor Star]

World:

¶ A study suggests that households in Pakistan waste 25% of their electricity due to inefficient appliances, contributing to the energy-crisis in Pakistan. It criticizes the dominant narrative on the…

South Korea has decided that they may want to give someone else their nuclear waste, according to Reuters (July 25, 2016). Well doesn’t almost everyone? Why would anyone give a flying Fukushima about what South Korea wants anyway? Let North Korea have them. Or China. China would still be smaller than Russia.


WIPP: US Underground Repository for Transuranic Nuclear Waste – Plutonium, Americium and all of that long-lived nasty stuff.

At least South Korea was honest enough to say so, however, and people can be on guard, instead of sneaking it out the backdoor like Germany’s trying to do with its high level Pebble Bed radioactive waste, and like Switzerland did with its old Swiss made, useless, plutonium. Swiss plutonium will be “diluted” and buried at WIPP as so-called GAP plutonium (aka foreign plutonium that foreign countries didn’t want). A long list of other countries have dumped their nuclear waste…

Opinion:

¶ “Michael Liebreich Slams Extremely Expensive Hinkley Point C” • The £18 billion Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant would be guaranteed payments equal to twice the current wholesale price of electricity (i.e., what it would get without subsidy) for 35 years! And why? For nonsensical political reasons. [CleanTechnica]

Lazard’s LCOE chart. The guaranteed price of £92.50 ($122.40) per MWh offered to Hinkley Point C is well above costs for solar power.

¶ “Climate change video directed by James Cameron heats up the
DNC” • At the convention, Sigourney Weaver introduced a video directed by James Cameron that contrasts opposing views of on climate change. Titled “Not Reality TV,” the video shows how climate change affects everything from hurricanes to drought. [Inhabitat]

Science and Technology:

¶ Wood buildings sequester carbon, instead of burning it up in production, as steel and concrete do. A video from…