Request by UN to Britain: Pause Hinkley Nuclear Plant Work for Environmental Assessment
UN Asks U.K. to Pause Hinkley Nuclear Plant Work for Assessment https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-18/un-asks-u-k-to-pause-hinkley-nuclear-plant-work-for-assessment by Grant Smith and Alex Morales March 19, 2017
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UN committee calls for halt to allow environmental studies
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EDF won approval to build 18 billion-pound plant in September
A United Nations committee asked the U.K. to suspend work on the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant pending assessment of the environmental impact.
The UN Economic Commission for Europe requested the pause, it said in a document on its website. Electricite de France SA, the French state-controlled utility, won approval to build an 18 billion-pound ($22.3 billion) nuclear plant on England’s western coast in September. To help shoulder the construction costs, EDF convinced China General Nuclear Power Corp. to take 33.5 percent of the project.
The UN committee recommended the halt until it established whether “a notification under the Espoo Convention” was useful, according to the statement. The Espoo Convention sets out the obligations of countries to “assess the environmental impact of certain activities,” according to the commission’s website.
Bouygues SA and Areva SA have received contracts for work at the plant.
A computer model to simulate how 20 MILLION people would react to nuclear bomb in New York City
Scientists to simulate how 20 MILLION people would react to nuclear bomb in New York City . http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/scientists-simulate-how-20-million-10054846 Experts are building a computer model which will test how people and buildings would respond to a nuclear blast 18 MAR 2017 Scientists are testing how 20 million people would react to a nuclear attack in New York City.
Experts at the Center for Social Complexity in Virginia have been awarded a $450,000 (£363,000) grant to study the aftermath of a blast in the Big Apple.
The model is also expected to show how buildings and the environment would be affected.The simulated bombs will have a strength of up to 10 kilotons – half the amount used in the Hiroshima attack.
Professor William Kennedy predicted survivors would follow instructions and stay in place instead of running wildly on the streets in search of loved ones.
He told the magazine: “We’ve found that people seem to be reasonably well behaved [Ed. oh isn’t that nice?] and do what they’ve been trained to, [Ed. very good. so it’ll all be OK? ] or are asked or told to do by local authorities. Reports from 9/11 show that people walked down many tens of flights of stairs, relatively quietly, sometimes carrying each other, to escape buildings. “We’re finding those kinds of reports from other disasters as well—except after Hurricane Katrina.”
The project is expected to take three years.
But professor Kennedy said he hoped to start experiments in the next six months and report some results from next year.
Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017 introduced into US Congress
Under any circumstances, the prospect of nuclear war is terrifying, the deadly consequences irreversible. Yet with a single order, the president — any president — could effectively declare a nuclear war that would wipe out entire nations, including our own.
More worrying still, our current president has shown an alarming willingness to engage in aggression instead of diplomacy — particularly towards nations like Iran and China, as well as countries whose citizens have now been banned from traveling to the U.S. under an overbroad, dog-whistle executive order.
Trump has almost gleefully exercised his right to threaten nuclear war.
He made boastful remarks about nuclear might throughout his campaign. And just recently, he called for a new push to put America at the “top of the pack” when it comes to nuclear weapons capability (as though we weren’t already).
Going against decades of precedent, not to mention hard-won diplomatic treaties reached with countries like Russia and Iran, Trump has enthusiastically declared that we should expand, not reduce, our nuclear arsenal…………
It’s almost impossible to comprehend millions of people being obliterated from the face of the earth simultaneously, in the blink of an eye. Especially at the whim of just one American who happens to have access to a certain red button.
That’s why Representative Ted Lieu and Senator Ed Markey have introduced legislation prohibiting the sitting president from unilaterally declaring nuclear war without a prior act of Congress. They call it the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017.
“Nuclear war poses the gravest risk to human survival,” Markey warned in a joint statement introducing this legislation. Unfortunately, Trump insists on “maintaining the option of using nuclear weapons first in a conflict.”
“In a crisis with another nuclear-armed country,” the senator went on to explain, “this policy drastically increases the risk of unintended nuclear escalation.” http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/03/19/right-now-trump-can-start-nuclear-war
India’s nuclear watchdog shuts down Kakrapar Nuclear Power Plant due to “smallpox-like spots”
This 21st century atomic potboiler is actually unfolding through the hard work of scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), whose laboratory actually shares a wall with the famous property where Raj Kapoor used to live. Here, they are working overtime to find out the real cause of the leaks at the twin reactors in southern Gujarat.
To avoid panic and further accidents, Indian nuclear watchdog Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has shut down the affected plants till the cause has been found. Nuclear experts say the pipes, made from a rare alloy, have contracted what seems like small pox, and this contagion has spread all over the critical tubes in two Indian Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) at the Kakrapar facility. To make matters worse, more than a year into the investigation, the teams of scientists can’t figure out what has gone wrong.
It was on the morning of March 11, 2016, and as fate would have it, exactly five years after the Fukushima reactors in Japan began exploding, Unit Number 1 of the 220-MW PHWR at Kakrapar developed a heavy water leak in its primary coolant channel and a plant emergency was declared at the site.
The indigenously built nuclear plant had to be shut down, but no worker was exposed and there were no radiation leaks, the Department of Atomic Energy confirmed. Operator Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) said the reactor had shut down safely, and confirmed that safety systems had functioned normally.
The atomic thriller really begins when experts were trying to find out why a leak recognition system failed, when it should have raised an alarm. “There is a leak detection system in place in all PHWRs, but in this case it failed to detect the leak on March 11, 2016,” confirms AERB Chairman SA Bhardwaj. The watchdog body suspects the crack developed so rapidly that the electronic leak detection system just did not have the time to react.
Subsequent investigations revealed that the leak detection system was fully functioning and the operator had not shut it down to cut costs. Nothing in the core of a nuclear reactor can be done in a jiffy, and several weeks after the first leak, the initial probe using a specially designed tool revealed four big cracks in a coolant tube had led to the massive leak.
The mystery unfolds
The discovery of the crack was only the beginning of the mystery. Further efforts to find the cause established that the outside of the tube, the part not exposed to high-temperature heavy water, was corroded due to unknown causes.
This was a stunning discovery, since the outside of the failed tube was exposed only to high-temperature carbon dioxide and there had been no recorded case of a similar corrosion on the outside of any tube. It is also very hard to access this part since the space is tiny in the annulus.
The AERB then ordered that all tubes made of a special zirconium-niobium alloy be checked on the outside. To their surprise, they discovered that the contagion of the nodular corrosion, ‘small pox-like’ in layman’s parlance, was widespread in many of the 306 tubes. Similar tubes from the same batch used at other Indian reactors continued to operate without corrosion.
The needle of suspicion now pointed to carbon dioxide, a gas known to be very stable in high-radiation environments. A further post mortem revealed that Unit-2, which is twin of the affected reactor, had also been affected by a similar leak on July 1, 2015. Investigations into Unit-2’s failure were made but no conclusive result had been found. This back-to-back failure of two fully functional nuclear reactors befuddled engineers.
BARC begins probe
Undaunted, AERB ordered that the entire assembly and not just the affected tube be safely pulled out and brought to BARC, India’s foremost nuclear laboratory, for detailed failure analysis.
In addition, since India operates another 16 similar nuclear plants, a full-fledged investigation was carried out on coolant channels at all atomic power plants. The investigating team found the ‘small pox-like’ corrosion was confined only to the two units at Kakrapar.
While NPCIL heaved a sigh of relief, the finding made it all the more difficult to discern the true cause of the leaks at Kakrapar. Mr. Bhardwaj says investigators are wondering if the carbon dioxide used in Kakrapar may have been contaminated, which caused the nodular corrosion.
The source of the carbon dioxide was traced backwards, and it seems only the Kakrapar plant was sourcing its gas from a Naptha cracking unit, where it was possibly contaminated by hydrocarbons.
US airforce is still quietly cutting nuclear force
While Trump talks tough, U.S. quietly cutting nuclear force, PBS Newshour BY ROBERT BURNS, ASSOCIATED PRESS March 19, 2017 WASHINGTON — The Air Force is quietly shrinking its deployed force of land-based nuclear missiles as part of a holdover Obama administration plan to comply with an arms control treaty with Russia. The reductions are nearing completion despite President Donald Trump’s argument that the treaty gives Moscow an unfair advantage in nuclear firepower.
The reduction to 400 missiles from 450 is the first for the intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, force in a decade – when the arsenal came down from 500 such weapons. The Air Force says the latest cut in Minuteman 3 missiles will be completed in April, leaving the deployed ICBM arsenal at its smallest size since the early 1960s.
In 2014, President Barack Obama’s administration announced the planned ICBM reduction to tailor the overall nuclear force, including bombers and nuclear-armed submarines, to the New START accord that the U.S. and Russia sealed in 2010. Both nations must comply with the treaty’s limits by February 2018.
The shrinking of the ICBM force runs counter, at least rhetorically, to Trump’s belief that the U.S. has fallen behind Russia in nuclear muscle. In December, he tweeted that the U.S. must “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” He has criticized New START as a bad deal.
It’s unclear how Trump intends to conduct a nuclear expansion, which critics call unnecessary and a potential drain on funds needed for non-nuclear forces. A long-term plan to replace and modernize the current nuclear force is already underway and will end up costing hundreds of billions of dollars.
As of March 14, the Air Force had 406 Minuteman missiles in launch-ready silos, Maj. Daniel Dubois, an Air Force spokesman, said Friday. In September the number was 417. Dubois said the number will be down to 400 by April. Also as part of the treaty’s compliance process, the Air Force in January finished converting 41 B-52H bombers to non-nuclear status……..http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trump-talks-tough-u-s-quietly-cutting-nuclear-force/
The Glowing Waters of the Arabian Sea are Killing off Ocean Life
“The fish are migrating. They can’t get enough air here.” — Saleh al-Mashari, captain of a researcher vessel in the Gulf of Oman
*****
They are an ancient, primordial race of tiny organisms called noctiluca scintillans. And for millenia they have lived undisturbed in the deep waters between Oman and India. But as human fossil fuel burning forced the world to warm, this 1.2 billion year old species was dredged up from the deep.
Growing atmospheric and ocean heat fed the great storms that make up India’s southern monsoon. And as these storms intensified, they churned the waters of the Gulf of Oman, drawing the ancient noctiluca scintillans up from below. As these dinoflaggelates reached the surface they encountered more food in the form of plankton even as they gained access to more sunlight.
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FBI Doc on Russian Mafia Mogilevich Org Tied to Tochtachunov, Genovese – All Tied to Trump, At Least Indirectly (Mogilevich Org Planned to Dump Waste at Chernobyl Too)
Trump has ties, at least indirectly, to Mogilevich via Trump Tower Toronto (Shnaider employer and father-in-law, Birshtein) and the alleged mafia protector (Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov) of the gambling ring run, at least in part, out of Trump Tower 5th Ave., and via the Genovese Crime Family (Trump lawyer and friend Roy Cohn represented for them). All of whom are alleged by the FBI as working with Mogilevich, as shown in the document pages (about half) below. Further details of the ties are found below the screen shots. Interesting the mention of vodka, since Trump has or had a vodka brand. Also, trafficking in nuclear materials; the mention of KGB; the mention of fraudulent Israeli passports. Recall that his first wife, mother to Ivanka, is supposed to be from the Czech Republic. Chernobyl mentioned on p. 13. It does not say if it was carried out.
Click to access fbimogilevich.pdf
Genovese
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13 US Senators Still Want FCC Head Ajit Pai to Answer If Agrees with Trump Assertion that Media is the “Enemy of the American People” Plus Other Concerns
“Commerce Dems Demand Answers From Pai
Friday, March 10, 2017
Washington (March 3, 2017) – Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee pressed Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai today to answer pointed questions about his views on the news media and ability to be an independent regulator over the industry.
The letter, led by ranking member Bill Nelson (D-FL) and signed by the panel’s 13 Democrats, comes in the wake of Pai’s refusal to answer questions from Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) during the panel’s FCC oversight hearing on Wednesday. Specifically, he was asked whether he agreed with President Trump’s assertion that the media was the “enemy of the American people.”
Pai’s recent renomination to another 5-year term by the president is now pending before the Commerce Committee. “Media independence is a hallmark of this great nation – which is why it is troubling to…
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March 19 Energy News
Opinion:
¶ “The old, dirty, creaky US electric grid would cost $5 trillion to replace. Where should infrastructure spending go?” • By the author’s analysis, the current (depreciated) value of the US electric grid, comprising power plants, wires, transformers and poles, is roughly $1.5 to $2 trillion. To replace it would cost almost $5 trillion. [Salon]
Power lines (indigoskies / flickr, CC BY-NC-ND)
¶ “Can NYC Reach Its Renewable Energy Storage Goals?” Sustainable CUNY published a roadmap for New York City to reach its energy storage targets, using resilient solar technology. Unlike normal grid-tied solar power, resilient solar can function when the electric grid is down, such as during the period after Hurricane Sandy. [Yahoo Finance]
¶ “Coal isn’t dead, but job prospects dim” • The battered US coal industry is showing flickering signs of life. Yet the prognosis for Big Coal remains dim. With the…
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Climate Change Facts and Figures
Here’s an excellent video/graph showing atmospheric CO2 changes through time.
The next video shows how global CO2 levels change around the world.
March 18 Energy News
Opinion:
¶ “Trump’s budget sabotages America’s best chance to add millions of high-wage jobs” • President Trump’s budget slashes investment in clean energy , the world’s biggest new source of sustainable high-wage jobs. Meanwhile, China’s five-year energy budget invests $360 billion in renewable generation by 2020, creating 13 million jobs. [ThinkProgress]
Please click on the image to enlarge it.
Science and Technology:
¶ Wind and solar can provide power at or below the cost of traditional sources in a growing number of countries, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency. This makes renewables more appealing for countries seeking to meet growing electricity demand while decarbonizing their energy systems. [Energy Live News]
¶ The biofuel industry has had its ups and downs, so the latest news from NASA should warm a few hearts. The US aerospace agency has just released the results of a new…
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Signals of Climate Change Visible as Record Fires Give Way to Massive Floods in Peru
GR: Peru is suffering through a series of global warming weather extremes. It would be interesting to getHumboldt’sresponse to what is happening now, 215 years after he visited Peru.
“We’ve rarely seen this kind of rapid and quick change in climatic conditions.” — Juber Ruiz, Peru’s Civil Defense Institute
“During September through November, wildfires tore across parts of drought-stricken Peru.
“Peru’s Amazon was then experiencing its worst dry period in 20 years. And, at the time, over 100,000 acres of rainforest and farmland was consumed by flash fires. Rainforest species, ill-adapted to fires, were caught unawares. And a tragic tale of charred remains of protected species littering a once-lush, but now smoldering, wood spread in the wake of the odd blazes.
(Last November, wildfires burned through the Amazon rainforest in Peru as a record drought left the region bone-dry. From Drought Now Spans the Globe. Image source:…
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Meet Sherri Goodman, who in two words made the military care about climate change
Gr: The U. S. military takes the “threat multiplier” effect of climate change very seriously. Here’s why.
“The Age of Consequences” Climate Film and Speaking Tour
“The Buzzfeed story lead says it all: “Meet the woman whose two-word catchphrase made the military care about climate” . That woman is Sherri Goodman, and she will be in Australia in early April. And the film about climate change and the military will be on ABC TV’s 4 Corners next Monday night.
“The national security dimension of climate change receives little attention in Australia, but is the subject of intense focus overseas, particularly in the United States. Climate change interacts with other pre-existing problems to become an accelerant to instability in unexpected ways. Scarce resources, growing water scarcity, declining crop yields, rising food prices, extreme weather events and health impacts become catalysts for instability and conflict, especially in Asia. This has profound implications…
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This week’s nuclear and climate news
I scratch around for good news. There is plenty, on the renewable energy scene. And this: CO2 emissions from energy remain flat for third year running. Total number of global nuclear weapons has dropped.
Not so good news. Disaster looms over North Korea: how could this be stopped? US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, rejects negotiation with North Korea, and keeps journalists out. Tillerson considers a pre-emptive strike against North Korea.
Massive amounts of heat being stored in the oceans. G20 will not be mentioning that nasty left-wing phrase “climate change”.
EUROPE. The very serious threat of sea level rise.
USA.
- Trump budget would boost nuclear weapons spending, slash diplomatic and aid programmes. Savage attack on the environment: the Trump budget. Trump’s budget attack on science.
- Ethics Groups Send Letter to US Attorney Preet Bharara Requesting Investigation of Trump; Within Days Preet was Fired Along with 45 Other US Attorneys. Rupert Murdoch to gain by Trump firing attorney Preet Bharara.
- Trump’s divide and conquer tactics produce a toxic White House environment.
- Republican senator slams Trump’s Nevada nuclear waste dump plan.
- Connecticut lawmakers want to call nuclear power “renewable”.
- Grandfather and granddaughter join forces prevent nuclear doom.
- Thorough research to be done on uranium health effects on Navajo Nation.
- Massive economic costs of climate change.
JAPAN.
- Japanese Govt. and TEPCO Found Liable by Court for Fukushima Disaster.
- The illusion of normality at Fukushima. Six years after outbreak of crisis, Fukushima nuclear workers continue to face slander, discrimination: survey. Japanese school children who survived Fukushima meltdown are being subjected to ‘nuclear bullying, Singapore keeping in place Fukushima food import curbs. Olympics being hyped to portray Fukushima nuclear disaster as ‘now OK”
- TEPCO cancels robotic probe of reactor 1. Plan to tunnel under the reactor buildings to remove melted fuel.
- Toshiba might have to pay the buyer, to take failed nuclear unit off its hands.
UK. UK government boycotts UN nuclear disarmament talks. UK plans for small nuclear reactors stalling. Bechtel pulls out. UK’s Moorside nuclear project in more doubt, with Toshiba’s crisis.
RUSSIA. Russia Plans to Fuel Floating Nuclear Reactor(s) in St. Petersburg – Endangering the City of 5 Million, Before Towing It Around Scandinavia. Russia will pay Kenya to buy its nuclear technology.
TAIWAN. Taiwan govt reaffirms aim to phase out nuclear power by 2025. Thousands in Taiwan protest against nuclear power, demand low carbon sustainable energy.
TURKEY. Call for Turkey to get its own nuclear weapons.
FRANCE. Areva factory for nuclear parts gets poor report from regulator.
Disaster looms over North Korea: how could this be stopped?
How to stop a North Korean nuclear trainwreck, The Hill, BY PHILIP W. YUN, – 03/17/17 The assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the older half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, is yet another bizarre episode in a string of reality TV events that is now commonplace in our public discourse.
It’s easy to get sucked into the intrigue, but it distracts from the big picture: The United States is in the middle of a slow-motion trainwreck with North Korea over its nuclear weapons and missile program. North Korea’s missile tests on Monday are just the latest alarm in what could spiral into a full-blown crisis.
We better start listening.
Unless we do something about it now, a “metal on metal” collision could be in the offing, marked by more North Korean tests and calls within Washington for military strikes to stop them.
Kim Jong Nam’s murder and the subsequent media circus obscure more crucial events: China’s decision last month to ban all coal imports from North Korea; the Feb. 11 test launch of a mobile, land-based, solid-fueled missile; and, critically, the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises happening this month, that almost certainly sparked last weekend’s tests………
we have no choice but to swallow a bitter pill. Using what little leverage and pressure we have, we must talk with the North Koreans at sufficiently high levels, something we haven’t done for some time.
But we must make these hard choices now — or they will be made for us.
Philip W. Yun is executive director of Ploughshares Fund, a San Francisco-based peace and security foundation. He previously served as senior adviser to the assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and as a senior adviser to two U.S. coordinators for North Korea Policy: former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and former Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. Yun was a member of a government working group that managed U.S. policy and negotiations with North Korea under President Clinton and was part of the U.S. delegation that traveled to North Korea with then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/defense/324461-how-to-stop-a-north-korean-nuclear-trainwreck
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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