The Salem County complex operated by Public Service Gas and Electric, where three nuclear reactors are located, also was identified by French Greenpeace as one of nine nuclear plants nationwide that may have imported defective safety components manufactured at the Le-Cruseot-Areva forge in France.
The cancer study, released by the Radiation Public Health Project (RPHP) and written by epidemiologist Joseph Mangano at the request of Unplug Salem, a citizen’s group, indicates rising cancer rates in communities around the facility. Mangano has published 34 medical journal articles on the effects of radiation on public health, including areas around the Oyster Creek nuclear reactor in Lacey that showed elevated pediatric cancer rates and the presence of radioactive strontium 90 in baby teeth. Strontium 90 is a radioactive isotope that can be found only in a nuclear bomb or nuclear plant.
The report states that Salem County had the highest cancer rates of any New Jersey county for 2014, the most recent year statistics were gathered. Prior to 1990, the county cancer death rate was below the state rate. Since then, the county rate has steadily risen. The report indicates the 2014 rate was 40 percent higher than the state rate.
The study does not draw a definite link between radiological releases from the plant and cancer rates, but strongly urges state and federal agencies to do more in-depth analysis.
In light of the revelations of potentially flawed components at Salem and the RPHP report, the NRC must step up its oversight and provide the public with hard-core data proving the public is not at risk.
The NRC has refused to confirm or deny whether there are American nuclear plants using defective French parts, saying it is proprietary information between the plant operator and manufacturer, and that there is not a safety concern at this time.
The proprietary information argument is absurd. The NRC should not have to be reminded that its obligation and mandate is the protection of the American public. If this were a defective automobile part, recall notices would be sent to owners and then advertised in nationwide news outlets.
The French Nuclear Safety Authority reported in April 2016 that analysis showed manufacturing flaws, and since then, regulators in France have shut down 18 reactors to test for potentially defective parts. The parts include crucial cooling components.
We need to do exactly what France is doing.
According to Beyond Nuclear, a national nuclear watchdog group, the parts include reactor pressure vessels and replacement steam generators. In addition to uncovering the defective parts, French regulators also suspected falsification of manufacturing reports.
Beyond Nuclear’s Paul Gunter has filed an emergency petition with the NRC to release the list of nuclear plants that could be using defective French parts.
Congress must join that call and demand proof that those potentially defective parts could not cause a catastrophic accident or meltdown. Until that analysis is conducted and made public, any nuclear plant operating with a potentially defective part must be shut down.
The NRC’s long history of putting nuclear industry profits ahead of public safety, and its abrupt cancellation of a cancer study around nuclear plants, including Oyster Creek, does nothing to quell public unease. International cancer studies in France, Germany and the United Kingdom have found increased childhood leukemia rates in neighborhoods around nuclear plants.
The public is exposed to daily emissions of low-level radiation from nuclear plants. These nuclear isotopes are man-made and not naturally occurring. The National Academies of Science has stated in a report referred to as the Bier VII that no amount of continuous exposure to radiation can be considered safe.
The unfolding events at Salem/Hope Creek, which had three safety problem findings in 2015, including the presence of icicles that contained tritium about 500 times the federal standard, demands immediate state and congressional attention.
A new governor will be in Trenton in 2017, and that individual must get New Jersey on track toward a renewable energy future so that we can leave dangerous nuclear energy and dirty fossil fuels in the past. It’s time to embrace 21st century technology and become a shining example for other states. Las Vegas is now entirely powered by renewables. If Las Vegas can do it, so can New Jersey. It just takes political will, determination and a hefty dose of foresight for the well-being of the planet and future generations.
Janet Tauro is New Jersey board chair of Clean Water Action.
French watchdog deepens probes into Areva nuclear parts Concerns about quality and documentation could have knock-on effect on Hinkley Point Rt.com JANUARY 4, 2017 by: Michael Stothard in Paris
Investigators are widening probes into potentially faulty nuclear reactor components made at a factory operated by Areva, the struggling French manufacturer, after the problems contributed to multiple shutdowns of power plants last year.
Julien Collet, deputy director of the ASN, France’s nuclear regulator, said he wanted to “go much further” with investigations into Areva’s components, including one probe into the falsification of documents that certified the quality of certain parts.
Separately, the ASN is expected to issue a report this year about issues with components made by Areva for a new nuclear power plant at Flamanville in France. The report’s findings could have an impact on the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in the UK, which is due to use the same technology as Flamanville.
The ASN is leading investigations into two scandals relating to Areva’s supply of components for France’s existing nuclear power stations.
First, French investigators said in June that some steel components made at Areva’s Le Creusot factory — notably parts used in steam generators — had excessive carbon levels, which could make them vulnerable to cracking.
Second, Areva announced in May that it had found evidence suggesting employees had doctored quality-assurance documents relating to many different nuclear reactor components made at Le Creusot for up to 40 years.
Both affairs have contributed to French nuclear power plants run by EDF, the utility, being shut down last year………
Overseas regulators are monitoring events in France. David McIntyre of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was concerned by the revelations about doctored documents at Le Creusot, which has supplied some components to US nuclear power plants……..
Beyond Areva’s potentially faulty components in France’s existing nuclear power stations, there is another — potentially even larger — issue looming.
In 2014, the reactor vessel at the planned new nuclear power plant at Flamanville — which was made at Areva’s factory in Chalon/Saint-Marcel — was found to have potentially critical structural weaknesses as a result of excessive carbon levels……….
Any significant problems with the vessel could be catastrophic for EDF, as redoing this important piece of the plant would mean restarting much of the construction work, which is already billions of euros over budget and years late.
“If the reactor vessel is deemed faulty, it would be a disaster,” said Denis Florin, founder of Lavoisier Conseil, a consultancy.
Flamanville is a flagship project for EDF, using European Pressurised Reactor technology that is also earmarked for the Hinkley Point C power plant in the UK.
Any further delays at Flamanville could pose problems for Hinkley. This is partly because the financial support package the UK government has offered for Hinkley is premised on Flamanville being operational by 2020.
If Flamanville’s reactor vessel is found to be flawed, it could push back the completion date — currently scheduled for the end of 2018 — beyond 2020.
EDF has said it does not plan to use the UK financial support package, as it is financing the project from its own balance sheet, but this could still rob the company of room for manoeuvre should Hinkley face problems.
Full Documentary Films – Children of Chernobyl – Discovery Channel Documentaries
It’s Been 30 Years And Chernobyl Is Still Having An Impact – Especially On The Children http://goodstuffbuzz.com/30-years-chernobyl/ [excellent photos] On that fateful day in April of 1986, many already knew what the future would hold. While nuclear power we being sold as the “safe” alternative to our addiction to fossil fuels, we had already dodged a bullet with Three Mile Island. In fact, a meltdown was a more frightening (and possible) prospect than an all out global exchange of bombs with our enemies.
These Are The Faces Of Chernobyl, Both Good
And Not So
Still, when it happened, when Russia finally had to come clean and explain what had happened at Chernobyl, the writing was all over the wall. Nuclear power would become a pariah. An entire industry and science would have to answer for what happened halfway across the planet, and watchful eyes would be set on the city surrounding the power plant. How would this accident affect the population, and what lessons could we learn about the release of so much radiation into the atmosphere?
Many Feel The Russian Government Has Abandoned Them
Part of the answer comes in a terrifying documentary – included here – called The Children of Chernobyl. Both literal and figurative, the film follows the decades since a main reactor went down and sent fatal fallout throughout the countryside. It addresses both the international concerns and the local lies. Even now, in a more open society, Russia is still secret about the consequences of the leak. This movie makes it clear about what really happened.
Especially, The Children
Particularly, The Children
The high levels of radiation had random effects on the people of Chernobyl as well as those in the outlying areas. Animals died. Land became barren. And in one of the most heartbreaking consequences, children were born with various genetic and biological aberrations. These “mutants” became an embarrassment for the government and their treatment will anger you. Thirty years ago, the world got as close to a full blown nuclear meltdown as we are likely to ever see. The aftermath continues to linger, and anger.
A new study has shown that a 2015 NOAA paper finding that the Earth is warming more rapidly than previously thought was correct.
Once again, science is shown to work. The laborious process in which scientists check and recheck their work and subject their ideas to peer review has led to another success. An independent test of global warming data has confirmed a groundbreaking 2015 study that showed warming was faster than prior estimates.
Because of its inconvenient findings, the study’s lead author Thomas Karl was subjected to harassment by Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of the House Science Committee, in an effort to impugn his credibility. But now Karl and his co-authors have been vindicated.
Let’s take a step back and discuss the science. Measuring the temperature of the Earth is hard. There are many locations to measure and many choices to make. Should we measure the temperature of the ground? Of the ocean waters? How deep in the water? If we measure air temperatures, what height should the measurements be taken? How many locations should we make measurements at? What happens if the instruments change over time or if the location changes? What happens if a city grows near a measurement location and the so-called urban heat-island effect grows? How do we estimate the temperatures in areas where no measurements exist?
These and many other questions make measuring global warming challenge. Different groups of scientists make different decisions so that depending on the institution, they will get a slightly different temperature result.
But this diversity is also a good thing. It turns out that it doesn’t matter whose results you use – NASA, NOAA, The Hadley Centre in the UK, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, or the Berkeley Earth group – they all report a warming world. However, the rates are slightly different. So, one persistent question is, which group is most accurate? Whose methods are best?
The new study looks into just this question. The group focused on perhaps the biggest differences among the groups – how they handle ocean temperatures. Specifically, global temperature values typically use a combination of near-surface air temperatures in land regions and sea surface temperatures in ocean regions. Since oceans cover approximately 70% of our planet, the way ocean temperatures are dealt with can separate the warming rates between these groups.
Ocean temperatures can be measured by ship-based temperature sensors, by special floating measuring instruments, or by satellites. Prior to the advent of satellites and floating sensors, ships were the main temperature sensing platforms. Ship sensors, which measure engine intake water, are known to be slightly warmer than the actual water. So using them introduces a warm bias in the measurements.
Also, as ships have gotten larger, the depth of the engine intakes have increased – meaning the tested water was further from the actual ocean surface. Since the temperature results from buoys differs from ship measurements, the various scientific groups have tended to try to perform corrections between the different sensors. The way the correction is done affects the reported warming rate.
The authors recognized that one of the biggest questions is how to stitch together different temperature results from different sensors. Therefore, the broke the temperature data up into groups according to the measurement device (buoys, satellites, ARGO floats, ships, etc.) and they evaluated warming rates separately for each group. The authors also used advanced statistics to handle areas where no data were recorded.
After applying their tests, the authors found that the results promoted by Karl at NOAA are the best, and other groups, in particular the Hadley Centre in the UK and the Japanese agency, are too cold.
So what does this all mean? A few things. First, this study is a nice reminder that the proper way for science to work is for publications to be scrutinized and checked by others. This process leads the entire scientific community to a deeper understanding of the science.
Second, this validates the scientists who were originally attacked by political non-scientists and in some cases by contrarian scientists. For instance, Judith Curry, a well-known critic of mainstream climate science was quoted as saying:
The new NOAA dataset disagrees with a UK dataset, which is generally regarded as the gold standard for global sea surface temperature datasets … The new dataset also disagrees with ARGO buoys and satellite analyses … Color me unconvinced.
I actually study ocean temperatures so I knew this statement by Judith Curry was complete nonsense. It is nice to see a team actually take the time to prove it. Perhaps she and others will finally admit they were wrong. Click here to read the rest
The biggest environmental battles facing the Trump administration Some flashpoints for environmental activists relating to climate change that are likely to erupt in the first few months of Donald Trump’s presidency, Guardian, Mazin Sidahmed, Nicole Puglise and Oliver Milman, 6 Jan 17,Donald Trump is likely to face unprecedented opposition from environmental groups during his presidency as activists prepare to battle the new administration on a number of fronts across the US.
While environmentalists clashed with Barack Obama over the Keystone and Dakota Access oil pipelines, these fights could pale in comparison to the array of grievances Trump will face overwater security, fracking and climate change.
The president-elect has vowed to approve the Keystone pipeline, which Obama blocked, and “very quickly” resolve the Dakota Access project, currently held up by the federal government after months of protests by Native Americans. Trump has pledged to remove “roadblocks” to oil, gas and coal developments and threatened to end all climate and clean energy spending.
Opposition to this agenda has already begun in earnest, following a prediction by former vice-president Al Gore that there will be a “huge upsurge” in environmental activism, stoked by the new administration’s plans to cut science funding, remove the US from the Paris climate deal and appoint Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency – an agency he has sued multiple times as Oklahoma attorney general.
What will be the first actions Trump takes as president?
350.org, an international environmental organization, pledged to make January a month of a resistance against Trump’s cabinet picks. On 9 January, the organization will mobilize its chapters in all 50 states to stage protests at senators’ district offices. It will be the beginning of what they say will be a sustained protest throughout the year.
In New York City in December, the Sierra Club protested Pruitt’s nomination by projecting an image of rising seas and the words “Don’t Trump the planet” on to the side of the Trump Building on Wall Street. It’s the opening salvo of what is likely to be a war of attrition waged by America’s largest environmental group, which has drawn in more monthly donors in the weeks since Trump’s election than it has in the past four years.
“If Trump keeps choosing to drag us backwards to the dirty energy of the past, he will find unfettered opposition every step of the way,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.
Here are some of the flashpoints for environmental activists protesting issues relating to climate change happening around the country now and likely to erupt in the first few months of Trump’s presidency:
Eminent domain in Iowa
South of Standing Rock, the sprawling Dakota Access pipeline faces another dispute. Landowners in Iowa are challenging the government seizure of their land to build the pipeline………
Divestment movement on campus
Campuses across the country have been pushing universities to divest from from the fossil fuel industry over the past few years. Organizers are hoping the environmental threats posed by Trump’s cabinet nominations of energy industry leaders will further galvanize the movement……..
Money is still being funnelled into the industry, but these days it is mostly just for upkeep of idle reactors.
When disaster struck the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan in March 2011, there were 54 nuclear reactors operating in the country and generating about one third of Japan’s power.
But with the triple, reactor-core meltdown at Fukushima came concerns about nuclear power in other areas of Japan. The government of the day ordered an immediate review of the safety aspects of the remaining reactors.
Today, there are just four reactors in operation across Japan (although one is “paused” while a legal challenge is heard).
Eleven are in the process of being decommissioned — six of these are at Fukushima — and decisions are yet to be made about 42 other reactors.
Tom O’Sullivan, an energy sector analyst in Japan, said five or six other reactors should come back online in 2017, but there were localised protests to some of those planned restarts.
“Some of the polling that has been done indicates that 60-70 per cent of the Japanese people actually oppose the restarting of the reactors,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
An operating nuclear reactor was just 120 kilometres from the epicentre of the quake. Roads and bridges were damaged and landslides cut off access to some areas — aggravating the fears of local people about how they would evacuate if another nuclear disaster was to occur.
Future energy needs questioned
In the years to come, the Japanese Government has major decisions to make about the future of the nuclear industry. Nuclear reactors have a natural operating life of 40 years.
“The average age of the Japanese reactors is now close to 30 years, so most of them have only a remaining operating life of 10 years,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
“Once they start hitting the 40-year time limit, they’re going to have to write off some of the residual costs associated with them. Then of course you have the additional, significant issue of having to decommission them and the costs in that regard are very, very significant.”
The Government has had very little to say in recent months about its energy policy.
The most recent utterings of Prime Minister Abe were back in March — when Japan was marking the five-year anniversary of the nuclear disaster. He said his Government was aiming to achieve 20-22 per cent of energy needs met by nuclear by 2030.
Environmental group Greenpeace said that aim would be close to impossible to achieve.
“The reality is, they will never get to that 20 or 22 per cent. I think inside Government, there are factions that basically believe that maybe we can reach that target, but a more realistic assessment says maybe it will be a lot less,” Greenpeace nuclear spokesman Shaun Burnie said.
“I think the Japanese Government will be forced to change its energy policy. This cannot go on indefinitely. Nuclear utilities are unable to operate their reactors.”
2.5 billion people, nukes and missiles. What could go wrong?By Joshua Berlinger, CNN January 5, 2017
Story highlights
India successfully tested a nuclear-capable ICBM that can reach Beijing in December
India’s defense minister has publicly questioned the country’s nuclear doctrine
But the country still isn’t close to deploying the technology, one analyst says
Hong Kong (CNN)It’s a frightening prospect, India and China going to war.
The countries are home to 2.5 billion people, a long and sometimes disputed border — which they’ve fought wars over — and each have nuclear weapons.
And India announced last month it successfully tested the Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which could theoretically deliver a nuke to Beijing.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted the accomplishment “makes every Indian proud.” But some in China see the test as a provocation. And provocations can make the region less stable, which can lead to hostilities, says Victor Gao, the director of the China National Association of International Studies.
“To contemplate a war, especially involving involving nuclear weapons, against each other is completely ludicrous,” Gao told CNN. “And it’s a misallocation of resources.”
Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry, responded to a question about the missile launch by noting UN Security Council regulations regarding nuclear capable ballistic missiles and stressing that the two countries “are not rivals for competition but partners for cooperation.”
An Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman responded by telling CNN that its “strategic capabilities are not targeted against any particular country,” and that the country abides by its international obligations.
But not everyone shares such a sanguine view of the Sino-Indian relationship.
“Everyone should be interested in and concerned about India’s successful ICBM test, inc(luding) China because it’s within range of this new missile and because it especially of the major Asian countries understands the dangers of nationalism and its volatility,” says Yvonne Chiu, a professor of at Hong Kong University.
Precisely ambiguous’
India and China both maintain what’s called a “no first use” policy as part of their nuclear doctrine.
The policy means exactly what it sounds like — in the event of a war, the country won’t use nuclear weapons unless they’re attacked by an enemy using nuclear weapons.
But India’s hawkish defense minister, Manohar Parrikar, publicly mused in November whether India should be bound by the “no first use” policy.
“If a written down policy exists, or you take a stand on a nuclear aspect, I think you are truly giving away your strength in nuclear,” Parrikar said. “Why should I bind myself? I should say I’m a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly.”………
The elephant in the room
Pakistan is the big wild card.
The country, which boasts its own nuclear arsenal, is India’s historic adversary and considered an “all-weather” friend of China.
Those relationships form a double-edged sword, analysts say.
On the one hand, it offers India an excuse for building up its missile systems that doesn’t involve China, so “both sides can continue relations without the sense one of them has suddenly been put under undue pressure,” Chiu says…….
As a U.S. Business, Nuclear Power Stinks http://www.powermag.com/blog/as-a-u-s-business-nuclear-power-stinks/ 01/01/2017 | Kennedy Maize Regardless of one’s views of the social values of nuclear power — compelling cases can be made all around — as a business proposition nuclear stinks.
The latest evidence comes from the giant Japanese conglomerate Toshiba, which saw a third of its market value vanish in two days of trading (20% in one day, a free-fall stopped only by a limit to trading losses imposed by the Japanese stock market). Credit rating agencies promptly downgraded the company’s debt.
Toshiba’s stock crash was a result of billions in reported losses from its Westinghouse Electric subsidiary and Westinghouse’s ruinous investment last year in nuclear engineering and construction behemoth CB&I Stone & Webster, itself the product of an ill-fated merger. Toshiba’s nuclear business has been hemorrhaging money at its U.S. construction projects in Georgia and South Carolina. Westinghouse is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget at its two construction projects: Southern’s Vogtle and Scana Corp.’s Summer units, a total of four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors under construction. Toshiba faces the possibility that its nuclear troubles will lead the company to a negative net worth.
My colleague Aaron Larson describes the gory business details well. The bottom line is that Westinghouse threatens to bring Toshiba to its financial knees, although the firm is too large to fail entirely. It may well require a Japanese government bailout.
Then there is France’s Areva, which has been bleeding red ink for more than a decade and would have expired but for its French government owners, and a recent bailout.
The company is far behind schedule and vastly over budget on construction projects in Finland and France. Late last year, discovery of quality control problems in carbon steel forgings from Areva’s Le Creusot Forge shocked the company. The allegations closed 20 of France’s 58 operating reactors, which also could jeopardize regulatory approval for extended operation at the aging plants.
In late December reports surfaced that Areva employees for decades hid problems in reactor parts it manufactured at Le Creusot Forge. Inspectors from the U.S., France,
China, and the U.K. descended on Areva to examine records and investigate the allegations. “I’m concerned that there keep being more and more problems unveiled,” Kerri Kavanagh, who leads the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s unit inspecting Le Creusot, told the Wall Street Journal.
The business case for existing nukes in the U.S. is also ominous. Just last week, an Ohio newspaper reported that Akron-based FirstEnergy will close or sell its long-troubled, 900-MW Davis-Besse nuclear unit this year or next, without counting on a state bailout. “We have made our decision that over the next 12 to 18 months we’re going to exit competitive generation and become a fully regulated company,” CEO Chuck Jones said. “We are not going to wait on those states to decide what they are going to do there.” This comes on top of multiple closings of U.S. nukes unable to compete in competitive markets in recent years, state subsidies in Illinois and New York to keep uneconomic plants open, and threats of even more shutdowns.
At the same time as the Davis-Besse warning, Environmental Progress, a pro-nuclear group, released an analysis that concluded that a quarter to two-thirds of operating U.S. nuclear plants could face premature closure. If it weren’t for actions by state governments in Illinois and New York, the picture would look worse.
The Environmental Progress analysis counts 35 GW of nuclear capacity as at “triple risk” because “they are in deregulated markets, uneconomical (according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance) and up for relicensing before the end of 2030.” Facing greatest jeopardy for early closure? D.C. Cook in Michigan, Seabrook in New Hampshire, Millstone in Connecticut, and Davis-Besse in Ohio.
Greenland Ice Melt Could Push Atlantic Circulation to Collapse New research gives a glimpse of the potential long-term consequences of anthropogenic warming, Hakai Magazine, byRebecca Boyle January 3, 2017
In the North Atlantic, east of North America and south of Greenland, the ocean’s upper layers are much warmer than one might presume given the extreme latitude. This unexpected warmth is a product of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a vitally important system of ocean currents that moves warm salty water northward from the tropics and cold fresher water south. The AMOC looms large in the Earth’s climate: it is responsible for redistributing nutrients throughout the Atlantic Ocean and is a major driving force controlling the climate on both sides of the pond.
Ocean currents all experience fluctuations, which can dramatically change the distribution of nutrients, heat, and fish. The best known example is probably the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, in which unusually warm water occasionally disrupts the Pacific Ocean’s Humboldt Current that flows north from Chile toward Peru. El Niño events can shift the jet stream south, cause excessive rainfall and devastating floods, and temporarily collapse fish stocks.
Scientists say the global ocean circulation may be more vulnerable to shutdown than we thought, WP, By Chelsea HarveyJanuary 4 2017, Intense future climate change could have a far different impact on the world than current models predict, suggests a thought-provoking new study just out in the journal Science Advances. If atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were to double in the future, it finds, a major ocean current — one that helps regulate climate and weather patterns all over the world — could collapse. And that could paint a very different picture of the future than what we’ve assumed so far.
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or AMOC, is often described asa large oceanic conveyor belt. It’s a system of water currents that transports warm water northward from the Atlantic toward the Arctic, contributing to the mild climate conditions found in places like Western Europe. In the Northern Atlantic, the northward flowing surface water eventually cools and sinks down toward the bottom of the ocean, and another current brings that cooler water back down south again. The whole process is part of a much larger system of overturning currents that circulates all over the world, from pole to pole.
But some scientists have begun to worry that the AMOC isn’t accurately represented in current climate models. They say that many models portray the current as being more stable than real-life observations suggest it actually is. Recent studies have suggested that the AMOC is weakening, although there’s some scientific debate about how much of this has been caused by human activities and how much by natural variations.
Nevertheless, the authors of the new study point out, many climate models assume a fairly stable AMOC — and that could be affecting the predictions they make for how the ocean will change under future climate change. And because overturning circulation patterns have such a significant effect on climate and weather all over the world, this could have big implications for all kinds of other climate-related projections as well.
“This is a very common and well-known issue in climate models,” said the new study’s lead author, Wei Liu, a postdoctoral associate at Yale University, who conducted the work while at the University of California at San Diego. “I wanted to see, if I use a corrected model, how this will affect the future climate change.”
Liu and colleagues from the UC-San Diego and the University of Wisconsin at Madison took a commonly used climate model and corrected for what they considered to bethe AMOC stability bias. Then they ran an experiment to see how the correction would affect the model’s projections under future climate change. They instantaneously doubled the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from present-day levels in both the corrected and uncorrected models, and then they let both models run for hundreds of simulated years.
The differences were striking. In the uncorrected climate model, the AMOC weakens for a while, but eventually recovers. In the corrected model, however, the AMOC continues to weaken and after 300 years, it collapses altogether.
In a commentary also published today in RealClimate, Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceans physics expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, explained how such a collapse could occur when the AMOC gets too weak.
“Freshwater continually flows into the northern Atlantic through precipitation, rivers and ice-melting,” he wrote. “But supply of salty waters from the south, through the Gulf Stream System, balances this. If however the current slows, there is less salt supply, and the surface ocean gets less salty.”
Because freshwater is less dense than salty water, this process can lead to a kind of stratification, in which the lighter freshwater gets stuck on the surface of the ocean and can’t sink to the bottom when it reaches the cooler north. When this happens, the overturning process that drives the current back down south again can’t occur.
“There is a critical point when this becomes an unstoppable vicious circle,” Rahmstorf wrote. “This is one of the classic tipping points in the climate system.”
The resulting climate consequences, compared to the uncorrected model, are also dramatic. Without the usual transport of warm water into the north, the corrected model predicts a marked cooling over the northern Atlantic, including in the United Kingdom, Iceland and northwestern Europe, as well as in the Arctic, where sea ice begins to expand.
Because the AMOC is part of a larger global conveyor system, which ferries warm and cold currents between the equator and both poles, the model predicts disruptions in other parts of the world as well. Without cold water moving back down south again, the corrected model indicates a stronger warming pattern south of the equator than what’s predicted by the uncorrected model, causing a polarization in precipitation patterns over the Americas — more rain for places like northeastern Brazil and less rain for Central America. The model also predicts a greater reduction in sea ice for the Antarctic.
State of The Transition, December 2016: As fossil fuel diehards take over The White House, the evidence of a fast-moving global energy transition has never been clearer Jeremy Leggett, January 3, 2017 As captains of the fossil fuel industries and their lobbyists prepare to take over the White House – appointed by a President elected by a minority, claiming to represent the people on an anti-elite ticket yet possessing by far the highest cumulative wealth of any cabinet ever – they will face evidence breaking out all around them of a fast-moving global energy transition threatening to strand the fossil fuels they seek to boost.
“World energy hits a turning point”, a Bloomberg headline read on 16th December. “Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity,” the article marvelled. Analysis of the average cost of new wind and solar in 58 emerging-market economies – including China, India, and Brazil – showed solar at $1.65 million per megawatt and wind at $1.66.
Google leads the giant corporations eagerly going with this flow. The largest corporate buyer of renewable energy announced on 6th December that it expects to hit its target of 100% renewable power in, wait for it, 2017. Google is a huge consumer of power, and going solar means deep emissions cuts, especially when solar infrastructure is hooked up with all the digital efficiency-enhancement fandangoes that Silicon Valley giants are zeroing in on in the fast emerging era of artificial intelligence in an internet of things.
Google’s emissions reductions will be meaningful even considering full product life cycles. Solar panels made today pay back the energy used to make them in little more than a year, a Belgian research team from the University of Louvain reported in December. “For every doubling of installed photovoltaic capacity”, Atse Louwen and his colleagues write, “energy use decreases by 13 and 12% and greenhouse gas footprints by 17 and 24%, for poly- and monocrystalline based photovoltaic systems, respectively.” This means that solar panels now return more energy than American oil: an average energy-return on energy-invested of around 14 (and rising) versus around 11 (and falling).
This is excellent news not just for rich Californians but for the developing world, where “solar lanterns and rooftop photovoltaics are becoming the energy of choice”, so Bloomberg reported. In India, “the millions not connected to the grid may never connect” now, dooming much coal to be stranded underground in the process. The cumulative market of new Indian households accessing small-scale energy is potentially 200 gigawatts, with only a tiny fraction currently served.
In Myanmar the government needs no further persuasion: it announced plans to bring solar to all as soon as 2030. The technical advances in batteries and electric vehicles also became ever clearer in December. “Diesel faces global crash as electric cars shine”, the Financial Times announced. According to a UBS report, this whole category of oil use will be gone from the global market within ten years.
The positives of EVs synergise with the negatives of air pollution to create a perfect storm for diesel. At the C40 cities summit, Paris, Mexico City, Madrid and Athens all vowed to ban diesel vehicles by 2025. In China, the worst air pollution this year put 24 cities on red alert, with schools shut and flights grounded. Half a billion people were affected by this “airpocalypse”. In Chengdu, protestors took to the streets, putting smog masks on statues in the city centre. A heavy handed response by the police suggested that the government is super-sensitive to this issue.
Which is not to say that the Chinese authorities aren’t trying to abate the problem at source. I have summarised their rapid advances in renewables in earlier monthly reports. This month, a presentation in London by Zhang Gang, Counsellor of the State Council of China, revealed that China’s efforts to use electricity more efficiently, cutting the need for coal, now involve 317 million smart meters in operation across 100% of urban areas and 70% of rural areas. These are hooked up in smart co-ordination, spanning all aspects of grids, at all scales, in a vast project involving 230 million users. Part of this co-ordination involves China’s first expressway fast-charging EV network, stretching for 1,262 km between Beijing and Shanghai.
No other country comes remotely close to this kind of smart-grid deployment. On 12th December, the International Energy Agency issued a report concluding that China’s coal fired power plants “make no economic sense”. Small wonder.
India is on a similar rapid transition path. On 12th December the Central Electricity Authority announced that India does not need more coal-based capacity addition until 2022. The Authority now plans for non-hydro renewables to meet 43% of electricity as soon as 2027. Such an ambition would have been inconceivable until recently. On 20th, Bloomberg analysed the widening gap between projected and actual demand in the world’s third largest emitter, and put their conclusion in an encouraging headline: “India’s energy forecasts are falling short and climate could win.”
What are investors to make of all this? Well, it is rare for a report to hold the potential to change the world. But one published on 14th December did. The Recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) aim to give investors, lenders and insurers visibility of how climate-change risk will affect individual businesses, and a roadmap for reacting to it. The report presents the results of a year of deliberations by 32 representatives of companies with market capitalisation of $1.5 trillion and financial institutions responsible for assets of $20 trillion. Their intention is for the capital markets to behave consistently with the aims of the Paris Agreement on climate change, which is to say progressively retreat from fossil fuels, and increasingly favour clean-energy investments, not least renewables………..
How has Big Energy coped on the transition frontier as 2016 came to a close? Two snapshots. The utility industry continues to be split into companies seeking to defend the fast shrinking status quo, and those now rushing to be part of the new world. One of the latter, Engie (formerly GdF Suez) announced that it sees the oil price falling to $10 as a result of current trends in energy markets, and the wave of clean-energy investments it and other major corporates are making. That would be interesting, should it transpire. For example, on 1st December BP gave the green light to a $9bn investment in a deepwater oilfield, rather appropriately named Mad Dog 2, due onstream (cue laughter, based on the industry’s record of delivering major projects on time) in 2021. Good luck to them in recouping their investment if Engie’s view of the world comes to pass.
My conclusion, as the new year begins, is that the global energy transition is progressing faster than many people think, and is probably irreversible. Trump’s prospects of resurrecting coal, and giving the oil and gas industry the expansionist dream ticket most of it wants, are very low.
There is a caveat, of course: that he doesn’t manage to blunder into a world war. All bets would be off then.
All those terror attacks’: Sweden’s nuclear sites to get armed guards Rt.com 5 Jan, 2017 Sweden has decided to tighten up security around nuclear plants by requiring guards to be armed. The measures will be introduced following recent terrorists attacks across the globe.
“Just look at all the terror attacks, for example in Istanbul recently. We have to keep up and protect our operations as best we can,” Anders Österberg, spokesperson for OKG AB, a Swedish corporation which owns and operates the country’s Oskarshamn Nuclear Power Plant, said, according to Sveriges Radio on Thursday.
Starting from February 4, guards at three Swedish nuclear plants – in Ringhals, Oskarshamn, and Forsmark – will be equipped with guns, Österberg later told TT news agency. Under new regulations, security officers are required to use guard dogs for patrolling nuclear power sites.
Amanda Oglesby , @OglesbyAPPApp.com Jan. 4, 2017 LACEY – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission performed special inspections of Oyster Creek Generating Station after personnel found a box of uranium-containing monitors outside the nuclear power plant’s designated nuclear-containing Material Access Area.
The box of eight local power range monitors was found Oct. 6 under a pallet and other material inside the warehouse, where it mostly likely sat for decades, according to a letter from Exelon Generation to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nothing on the box marked the contents as containing radioactive material, according to the letter.
The monitors, which measure power inside of the nuclear reactor, contained less than a gram of uranium-235, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Uranium-235 is radioactive. If ingested or inhaled, it can cause cancer or serious damage to major organs in the body, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
It is the same isotope of uranium that is used within the plant’s fuel rods, said Dave Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists. With enough of the material, someone could make a dirty bomb or nuclear weapon, he said.
“You want to control this material so it doesn’t get into places it shouldn’t be,” Lochbaum said.
The governor of Japan’s Niigata prefecture reiterated his opposition to the restart of Tokyo Electric Power’s (Tepco) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, adding it may take a few years to review the pre-conditions for restart.
During a meeting on Thursday with Tepco Chairman Fumio Sudo and President Naomi Hirose, Governor Ryuichi Yoneyama, who was elected in October on his anti-nuclear platform, repeated his pledge to keep the plant shut unless a fuller explanation of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster was provided.
He also said that evacuation plans for people in Niigata in case of a nuclear accident and the health impacts that the Fukushima accident have had would need to be reviewed before discussing the nuclear plant’s restart……..http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-tepco-idUSKBN14P0IK
Nuclear workers in strike threat at Wylfa and Trawsfynydd, Daily Post 4 Jan 17Union leaders are to meet to discuss potential action over a pensions row Union leaders representing nuclear workers at Wylfa and Trawsfynydd are to consider strike action over pensions.
The unions said 16,000 workers at 19 sites across the UK face cuts under plans by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to make savings of £660 million.
They include hundreds of Magnox staff at Wylfa on Anglesey, which is currently de-fuelling after ending operations at the end of 2015, and Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd, which is being decommissioned.
The unions said the Government’s expectation is that the final salary pension schemes in place across the NDA estate will be reformed by April 2018.
Justin Bowden, GMB national officer, said: “There is no justification for this attack on the pensions of these nuclear workers and their communities.
nuclear-news 