NEW EPA boss says carbon dioxide not primary cause of climate change By New Scientist staff and Press Association, SHORT SHARP SCIENCE, 9 March 2017 The new chief of the US Environmental Protection Agency has said he does not believe that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming……..
Pruitt’s view is at odds with mainstream climate science, including NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The two agencies reported in January that Earth’s 2016 temperatures were the warmest ever.
The planet’s average surface temperature has risen by about 2 degrees F since the late 19th century, “a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere”, the agencies said in a joint statement.
Environmental groups seized on Pruitt’s comments as evidence he is unfit for the office he holds.
“The arsonist is now in charge of the fire department, and he seems happy to let the climate crisis burn out of control,” said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune.
Pruitt “is spewing corporate polluter talking points rather than fulfilling the EPA’s mission of protecting our air, our water, and our communities,” Brune said, noting that the EPA has a legal responsibility to address carbon pollution.
Senator Brian Schatz (Democrat, Hawaii) said the comments underscore that Pruitt is a “climate denier” and insisted politicians will stand up to him. “Anyone who denies over a century’s worth of established science and basic facts is unqualified to be the administrator of the EPA,” Schatz said in a statement.
Pruitt previously served as Oklahoma attorney general, where he rose to prominence as a leader in co-ordinated efforts by Republican attorneys general to challenge former president Barack Obama’s regulatory agenda.
He sued or took part in legal actions against the EPA 14 times……The Republican has previously cast doubt on the extensive body of scientific evidence showing that the planet is warming and man-made carbon emissions are to blame. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2124098-epa-boss-says-carbon-dioxide-not-primary-cause-of-climate-change/
March 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, politics, USA |
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Terminal decline? Fukushima anniversary marks nuclear industry’s deepening crisis, Ecologist, Jim Green / Nuclear Monitor 10th March 2017
“……..Nuclear lobbyists debate possible solutions to the nuclear power crisis
Michael Shellenberger from the Breakthrough Institute argues that a lack of standardisation and scaling partly explains the “crisis that threatens the death of nuclear energy in the West”. The constant switching of designs deprives the people who build, operate and regulate nuclear plants of the experience they need to become more efficient.
Shellenberger further argues that there is too much focus on machines, too little on human factors:
“Areva, Toshiba-Westinghouse and others claimed their new designs would be safer and thus, at least eventually, cheaper, but there were always strong reasons to doubt such claims. First, what is proven to make nuclear plants safer is experience, not new designs. …
“In fact, new designs risk depriving managers and workers the experience they need to operate plants more safely, just as it deprives construction companies the experience they need to build plants more rapidly.”
Shellenberger has a three-point rescue plan:
1. ‘Consolidate or Die’: “If nuclear is going to survive in the West, it needs a single, large firm – the equivalent of a Boeing or Airbus – to compete against the Koreans, Chinese and Russians.”
2. ‘Standardize or Die’: He draws attention to the “astonishing” heterogeneity of planned reactors in the UK and says the UK “should scrap all existing plans and start from a blank piece of paper”, that all new plants should be of the same design and “the criteria for choosing the design should emphasize experience in construction and operation, since that is the key factor for lowering costs.”
3. ‘Scale or Die’: Nations “must work together to develop a long-term plan for new nuclear plant construction to achieve economies of scale”, and governments “should invest directly or provide low-cost loans.”
Wrong lessons
Josh Freed and Todd Allen from pro-nuclear lobby group Third Way, and Ted Nordhaus and Jessica Lovering from the Breakthrough Institute, argue that Shellenberger draws the wrong lessons from Toshiba’s recent losses and from nuclear power’s “longer-term struggles” in developed economies.
They argue that “too little innovation, not too much, is the reason that the industry is on life support in the United States and other developed economies”. They state that:
- The Westinghouse AP1000 represents a fairly straightforward evolution in light-water reactor design, not a radical departure as Shellenberger claims.
- Standardisation is important but it is not a panacea. Standardisation and building multiple reactors on the same site has limited cost escalation, not brought costs down.
- Most of the causes of rising cost and construction delays associated with new nuclear builds in the US are attributable to the 30-year hiatus in nuclear construction, not the novelty of the AP1000 design.
- Reasonable regulatory reform will not dramatically reduce the cost of new light-water reactors, as Shellenberger suggests.
They write this obituary for large light-water reactors: “If there is one central lesson to be learned from the delays and cost overruns that have plagued recent builds in the US and Europe, it is that the era of building large fleets of light-water reactors is over in much of the developed world.
“From a climate and clean energy perspective, it is essential that we keep existing reactors online as long as possible. But slow demand growth in developed world markets makes ten billion dollar, sixty-year investments in future electricity demand a poor bet for utilities, investors, and ratepayers.”
A radical break
The four Third Way / Breakthrough Institute authors conclude that “a radical break from the present light-water regime … will be necessary to revive the nuclear industry”. Exactly what that means, the authors said, would be the subject of a follow-up article.
So readers were left hanging – will nuclear power be saved by failed fast-reactor technology, or failed high-temperature gas-cooled reactors including failed pebble-bed reactors, or by thorium pipe-dreams or fusion pipe-dreams or molten salt reactor pipe-dreams or small modular reactor pipe-dreams? Perhaps we’ve been too quick to write off cold fusion?
The answers came in a follow-up article on February 28. The four authors want a thousand flowers to bloom, a bottom-up R&D-led nuclear recovery as opposed to top-down, state-led innovation.
They don’t just want a new reactor type (or types), they have much greater ambitions for innovation in “nuclear technology, business models, and the underlying structure of the sector” and they note that “a radical break from the light water regime that would enable this sort of innovation is not a small undertaking and will require a major reorganization of the nuclear sector.”
To the extent that the four authors want to tear down the existing nuclear industry and replace it with a new one, they share some common ground with nuclear critics who want to tear down the existing nuclear industry and not replace it with a new one.
Shellenberger also shares some common ground with nuclear critics: he thinks the UK should scrap all existing plans for new reactors and “start from a blank piece of paper“. But nuclear critics think the UK should scrap all existing plans for new reactors and not start from a blank piece of paper……….http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988749/terminal_decline_fukushima_anniversary_marks_nuclear_industrys_deepening_crisis.html
March 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, spinbuster, USA |
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Goodall: Why Earth’s most intellectual creature is destroying its only home, The Independent, By Harold Reutter harold.reutter@theindependent.com 10 Mar 17 Jane Goodall, the world’s leading expert on chimpanzees, told a Grand Island audience Thursday night that she is constantly amazed at the intelligence of various species in the animal world, even the lowly bumblebee.
Through her 55-year study of chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, Goodall was the first to discover that chimpanzees could make and use tools. She described how she observed a chimpanzee place stalks of grass into termite holes. When the stalk was removed from the hole, it would be covered with termites, which the chimpanzee would then eat.
She also observed how chimpanzees would bend a twig and strip it of all leaves, effectively making that tool.
Goodall’s observations demolished long-held accepted scientific theory: That humans were the only species on earth that could make and use tools. Goodall said many other animal species have the capacity to learn; even bumblebees can learn how to retrieve nectar simply by observing another bumblebee.
Goodall, though, acknowledged the explosive development of the human brain gives humankind a capacity to do things far beyond the capacity of even the most intelligent animal. She noted only humans have the intelligence to send a spaceship to Mars and then remotely control a motorized vehicle to explore the surface.
“So isn’t it peculiar that this most intellectual creature to ever walk the planet is destroying its only home?” she asked……..
Goodall said it is very hard to deny climate change when people can observe the earth’s ice caps melting, when they can see people forced to leave their island homes because of rising ocean levels and to see sea levels rise on coastal beaches. She said humans cannot colonize Mars: “you’ve seen the pictures, it’s really not an option.”
“You know, this planet is very beautiful,” Goodall said. “There’s still a lot that is beautiful, so why are we consistently as a species harming it so badly?
“It seems to me there is a disconnect between the clever, clever, clever brain and the human heart,” she said.
Goodall said it seems there are too many people who only think about how an action affects them, while not considering how it affects their children and grandchildren. She said “we (the older generation) have not borrowed the future from our children. We have stolen it.”
She said it is now time for the generations to work together for the planet’s benefit.
One of the reasons that she founded Roots and Shoots is to give young people hope for the future. The organization’s message is “every single one of us matters and has some role to play. Every single one of us makes some impact on this planet. Every single day we have a choice about what kind of impact we’re going to make.”
March 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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John McDonnell’s vow to end nuclear power and weapons in first 100 days of a Labour government Laura Hughes, political correspondent Telegraph UK 9 MARCH 2017
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has promised that Labour would bring an end to nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the first 100 days of a Labour government.
In footage uncovered by The Telegraph, Mr McDonnell said that he wanted to build on the early success of Gordon Brown, who mapped his first days in power shortly after becoming prime minister.
The shadow chancellor also said that Labour would introduce a wealth tax and a land tax, renationalise the railways and pull out of Afghanistan.
Speaking at a Labour meeting in July 2012, Mr McDonnell said: “From the Left now […] we should now be mapping out not in manifesto form but in a manual form the first 100 days of a Labour government going into power.
“The issues around energy, you immediately announce no more nuclear power. …….http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/09/john-mcdonnellvows-end-nuclear-power-weapons-first-100-days/
March 11, 2017
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politics, UK |
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This climate lawsuit could change everything. No wonder the Trump administration doesn’t want it going to trial, WP, By Chelsea Harvey March 9 A groundbreaking climate lawsuit, brought against the federal government by 21 children, has been hailed by environmentalists as a bold new strategy to press for climate action in the United States. But the Trump administration, which has pledged to undo Barack Obama’s climate regulations, is doing its best to make sure the case doesn’t get far.
The Trump administration this week filed a motion to overturn a ruling by a federal judge back in November that cleared the lawsuit for trial — and filed a separate motion to delay trial preparation until that appeal is considered.
The lawsuit — the first of its kind — argues the federal government has violated the constitutional right of the 21 plaintiffs to a healthy climate system.
Environmental groups say the case — if it’s successful — could force even a reluctant government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and take other measures to counter warming.
“It would be huge,” said Pat Gallagher, legal director at the Sierra Club, who is not involved in the case. “It would upend climate litigation, climate law, as we know it.”
[Trump’s proposed climate agency cuts would disarm our coasts in the face of rising seas, scientists say]
The landmark lawsuit was originally filed during the Obama administration. The 21 plaintiffs, now between the ages of 9 and 20, claim the federal government has consistently engaged in activity that promotes fossil fuel production and greenhouse gas emissions, thereby worsening climate change. They argue this violates their constitutional right to life, liberty and property, as well the public trust doctrine, while holds that the government is responsible for the preservation of certain vital resources — in this case, a healthy climate system — for public use.
While legal experts are uncertain as to the lawsuit’s likelihood of success, few have disputed its pioneering nature. Similar cases have been brought on the state level, but this is the first against the federal government in the United States. And in November, the case cleared a major early hurdle when U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken denied motions filed by the Obama administration, as well as the fossil fuel industry, to have the lawsuit dismissed, ordering that it should proceed to trial.
The move allowed the case to join the ranks of climate lawsuits filed in other nations, which could upend the way environmental advocacy is conducted around the world. Just last year, a court in the Netherlands ordered the Dutch government to cut carbon emissions by a quarter within five years. Similar climate-related suits have been brought and won in Austria, Pakistan and South Africa.
Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, the plaintiffs submitted a request that the Department of Justice preserve all documents that could be relevant to the lawsuit, including information on climate change, energy and emissions, and cease any destruction of such documents that may otherwise occur during the presidential transition. The request came just days after reports began to surface of climate information disappearing from White House and certain federal agency websites.
“We are concerned with the new administration’s immediate maneuver to remove important climate change information from the public domain and, based on recent media reports, we are concerned about how deep the scrubbing effort will go,”Julia Olson, chief legal counsel for the plaintiffs and executive director of the advocacy group Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement at the time. “Destroying evidence is illegal and we just put these new U.S. Defendants and the Industry Defendants on notice that they are barred from doing so.”…….https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/09/this-climate-lawsuit-could-change-everything-no-wonder-the-trump-administration-doesnt-want-it-going-to-trial/?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.14eb9ea766c0
March 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, Legal, politics, USA |
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China plotting SPACE INVASION as groundbreaking nuclear programme announced, Daily Star UK , 10 Mar 17 CHINA is going to use nuclear power as part of the superpower’s ultimate goal of dominating space. The country is testing and developing nuclear technology that can be used as part of its galaxy exploration plan.
Wang Siren, the vice chairman the China Atomic Energy Authority, confirmed the news yesterday.
He said nuclear power is going to be the most viable source of energy for conducting space projects, such as those planned for Jupiter and Mars…..
The announcement comes amid increasing fears of a potential cosmic conflict as countries battle it out for space dominance…..
Last year, a US official warned that the use of intergalactic weapons could have devastating consequences for people on Earth…..http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/595456/china-space-war-nuclear-power-russia-weapons-us-rockets-missiles
March 11, 2017
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Terminal decline? Fukushima anniversary marks nuclear industry’s deepening crisis, Ecologist, Jim Green / Nuclear Monitor 10th March 2017 “……….The ageing of the global reactor fleet isn’t yet a crisis for the industry, but it is heading that way.
The assessment by the ‘Environmental Progress’ lobby group that 151 GW of worldwide nuclear power capacity could be shut down by 2030 is consistent with figures from the World Nuclear Association (132 reactor shut-downs by 2035), the International Energy Agency (almost 200 shut-downs between 2014 and 2040) and Nuclear Energy Insider (up to 200 shut-downs in the next two decades). It looks increasingly unlikely that new reactors will match shut-downs.
Perhaps the best characterisation of the global nuclear industry is that a new era is approaching – the Era of Nuclear Decommissioning (END). Nuclear power’s END will entail:
- a slow decline in the number of operating reactors (unless growth in China can match the decline elsewhere);
- an increasingly unreliable and accident-prone reactor fleet as ageing sets in;
- countless battles over lifespan extensions for ageing reactors;
- an internationalisation of anti-nuclear opposition as neighbouring countries object to the continued operation of ageing reactors (international opposition to Belgium’s reactors is a case in point);
- a broadening of anti-nuclear opposition as citizens are increasingly supported by local, regional and national governments opposed to reactors in neighbouring countries (again Belgium is a case in point, as is Lithuanian opposition to reactors under construction in Belarus);
- many battles over the nature and timing of decommissioning operations;
- many battles over taxpayer bailouts for companies and utilities that haven’t set aside adequate funding for decommissioning;
- more battles over proposals to impose nuclear waste repositories on unwilling or divided communities; and
- battles over taxpayer bailouts for companies and utilities that haven’t set aside adequate funding for nuclear waste disposal.
As discussed in a previous article in The Ecologist, nuclear power is likely to enjoy a small, short-lived upswing in the next couple of years as reactors ordered in the few years before the Fukushima disaster come online. Beyond that, the Era of Nuclear Decommissioning sets in, characterised by escalating battles – and escalating sticker-shock – over lifespan extensions, decommissioning and nuclear waste management.
In those circumstances, it will become even more difficult than it currently is for the industry to pursue new reactor projects. A positive feedback loop could take hold and then the industry will be well and truly in crisis………http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988749/terminal_decline_fukushima_anniversary_marks_nuclear_industrys_deepening_crisis.html
March 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, business and costs |
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More serious than the inefficiencies in moving so many parts is the vulnerability inherent in placing nuclear bombs on the highways, several experts said.
“Transportation is the Achilles heel of nuclear security and everyone knows that,” said Bruce Blair, a retired Air Force missile officer, Princeton University researcher and founder of Global Zero, a nonprofit group that seeks elimination of nuclear weapons.
The danger is not a traffic accident — even a fiery crash is not supposed to explode a warhead — but a heist.
“In an age of terrorism, you’re taking a big risk any time you decide to move nuclear material into the public space over long distances via ground transport,” Blair said. “Bad things happen.”
The troubled, covert agency responsible for moving the nation’s most lethal cargo , LA Times, 10 Mar 17 Ralph Vartabedian and W.J. HenniganContact Reporters
The unmarked 18-wheelers ply the nation’s interstates and two-lane highways, logging 3 million miles a year hauling the most lethal cargo there is: nuclear bombs.
The covert fleet, which shuttles warheads from missile silos, bomber bases and submarine docks to nuclear weapons labs across the country, is operated by the Office of Secure Transportation, a troubled agency within the U.S. Department of Energy so cloaked in secrecy that few people outside the government know it exists.
The $237-million-a-year agency operates a fleet of 42 tractor-trailers, staffed by highly armed couriers, many of them veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, responsible for making sure nuclear weapons and components pass through foggy mountain passes and urban traffic jams without incident.
The transportation office is about to become more crucial than ever as the U.S. embarks on a $1-trillion upgrade of the nuclear arsenal that will require thousands of additional warhead shipments over the next 15 years.
The increased workload will hit an agency already struggling with problems of forced overtime, high driver turnover, old trucks and poor worker morale — raising questions about its ability to keep nuclear shipments safe from attack in an era of more sophisticated terrorism.
“We are going to be having an increase in the movements of weapons in coming years and we should be worried,” said Robert Alvarez, a former deputy assistant Energy secretary who now focuses on nuclear and energy issues for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. “We always have to assume the worst-case scenario when we are hauling nuclear weapons around the country.”
That worst case would be a terrorist group hijacking a truck and obtaining a multi-kiloton hydrogen bomb.
“The terror threat is significant,” said one high-level Energy Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the program publicly. “If you are in one of the communities along the route, you have something to worry about.”
The Times reviewed government documents dating back two decades and interviewed dozens of government officials, former military officers and arms control advocates to examine the agency. The picture that emerges is an organization hampered by an insular management, a crisis of morale among the rank-and-file and outdated equipment.
Among the findings of the Times investigation:
‘Transportation is the Achilles heel of nuclear security’
The United States has 4,018 nuclear warheads.
About 450 are in underground silos in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota. An additional 1,000 or so are on submarines, which dock at bases in Washington and Georgia. Hundreds more bombs are assigned to the U.S. strategic bomber fleet, which is based in Louisiana, North Dakota and Missouri. And a reserve stockpile sits in bunkers near the transportation office headquarters at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.
Each weapon — a complex physics machine that contains as many as 6,000 parts, including tanks of gas, wheels and gears, batteries, wiring, plastic-type explosives and radioactive materials — requires routine inspection, testing and maintenance.
The workers who perform those services don’t travel to the weapons. The weapons go to them.
They are picked up by the transportation office and driven to the government’s sole plant for working on live nuclear warheads, the Pantex Plant outside Amarillo in the Texas panhandle.
From there, various pieces are parceled out to government plants and laboratories across the country. Uranium assemblies travel to Tennessee, plutonium parts to New Mexico, radioactive gas canisters to South Carolina, non-nuclear classified parts to California and firing mechanisms to Kansas.
Those parts are then returned to Texas so the warheads can be reassembled and trucked back to their silos or military bases.
The system dates back to the 1950s and the rapid buildup of nuclear arms that accompanied the Cold War. Weapons were spread across the nation to ensure that a significant number could not be destroyed in a focused missile strike.
The same went for the facilities that service those weapons. But exactly where they wound up — and where they are today — largely came down to politics, as members of Congress schemed to bring high-paying jobs to their districts.
The result is an unwieldy system that requires some of the most dangerous and vulnerable components of the nation’s defense system to be routinely shipped on long-distance journeys from one end of the country to the other — and the shipments, with the coming modernization effort, are only expected to multiply…….
More serious than the inefficiencies in moving so many parts is the vulnerability inherent in placing nuclear bombs on the highways, several experts said.
“Transportation is the Achilles heel of nuclear security and everyone knows that,” said Bruce Blair, a retired Air Force missile officer, Princeton University researcher and founder of Global Zero, a nonprofit group that seeks elimination of nuclear weapons.
The danger is not a traffic accident — even a fiery crash is not supposed to explode a warhead — but a heist.
“In an age of terrorism, you’re taking a big risk any time you decide to move nuclear material into the public space over long distances via ground transport,” Blair said. “Bad things happen.”
The high-security trailers that carry the weapons present potential intruders with formidable obstacles, including shock-delivering systems, thick walls that ooze immobilizing foam, and axles designed to explode to prevent a trailer from being towed away, according to independent nuclear weapons experts.
“The trucks will kill you,” a scientist involved in the matter said.
The Energy Department recruits ex-soldiers and special operations commandos for its courier jobs, usually veterans of U.S. wars. Incoming agents train for 21 months at Ft. Chafee in Arkansas, focusing on how to counter a roadside attack by terrorists set on stealing a weapon. The couriers must pass yearly psychological and medical assessments……..
‘Ominous symptoms’ of structural problems
The agency has been the target of worker complaints for years………
After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government turned its attention to the nation’s most critical vulnerabilities and concluded that more needed to be done to prevent terrorists from obtaining a nuclear bomb.
In a 2005 letter to Congress, then-Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman called the transportation office a “top priority” and asked Congress for money for more agents, special weapons, tougher armored vehicles and improved tactics.
The goal was to increase staffing from about 290 to 420 couriers by 2008. But the agency never never reached that level, as lawmakers rejected most of the funding request. Today it aims to employ 370 agents but has 322.
The long hours couriers must work — identified as a chronic problem by the inspector general — contribute to poor morale and a tense work environment…….http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nuclear-couriers-20170310-story.html
March 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, USA, weapons and war |
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“Post-truth is pre-fascism”: a Holocaust historian on the Trump era “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.” —Timothy Snyder
Vox, by Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com Mar 9, 2017, A week after Donald Trump’s election, Timothy Snyder, a professor of European history at Yale, posted a
long note on Facebook. “Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism,” he began. “Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.”
The note consisted of “twenty lessons from the twentieth century,” adapted to what Snyder called “the circumstances of today.” Among other things, he admonished Americans to defend democratic institutions, to not repeat the same words and phrases we hear in the media, to think clearly and critically, and to “take responsibility for the face of the world.”
The post went viral. It’s now the basis of Snyder’s new book, On Tyranny. The book is a brisk read packed with lucid prose. If it’s not quite alarmist, it’s certainly bracing. This is a call to action, a reminder that the future isn’t fixed. Being a citizen, Snyder argues, means engaging — with the world, with other people, with the truth.
“You submit to tyranny,” he writes, “when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case.”
If there’s a recurring theme in On Tyranny, it’s that accepting untruth is a precondition of tyranny. “Post-truth is pre-fascism,” he warns, and “to abandon facts is to abandon freedom.”
In this interview, I talk to Snyder about the book, the fragility of America’s liberal democratic system, and what we might learn from Europe’s descent into fascism………http://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/3/9/14838088/donald-trump-fascism-europe-history-totalitarianism-post-truth
March 11, 2017
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Iran and Middle East could adopt fully renewable electricity systems http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/50746 Iran can transition to a fully renewable electricity system and financially benefit from it by 2030. Researchers at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) show that major oil-producing countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region could turn their abundant renewable energy resources into lucrative business opportunities in less than two decades.
According to the study, a fully renewable electricity system (100% RE) is roughly 50-60 percent cheaper than other emission-free energy options for the MENA region. For example, new nuclear power costs around 110 euros per megawatt hour. Fossil-CCS option costs around 120 euros per megawatt hour. But the cost of the fully renewable energy electricity is around 60–40 euros per megawatt hour, based on financial and technical assumptions of the year 2030.
The cost of wind and solar electricity would reduce further to 37-55 euros per megawatt hour if different energy resources were connected with a super grid that allows the transmission of high volumes of electricity across longer distances. For Iran, the price could go as low as 40-45 euros per megawatt hour. Such low cost show that the transition of the current fossil-based electricity system towards a fully renewable electricity system can cover all electricity needs in the decades to come.
“The low cost renewable electricity system is a driver for growing standards of living, continued economic growth, in particular also for energy intensive products, and finally more peace,” emphasizes Professor Christian Breyer.
Read more at Lappeenranta University of Technology
March 11, 2017
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Iraq, MIDDLE EAST, renewable |
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Solar-powered everything, REneweconomy, By Owen Agnew on 9 March 2017 NexusMedia Solar power used to mean large, heavy panels mounted on a roof or spread across a field.
But the sun falls on everyone — and everything — and as materials have gotten lighter, cheaper and more flexible, photovoltaic cells are showing up in the most unlikely of places.
In bustling New York City, you can buy a sandwich at a solar-powered food cart, eat it while sitting at a solar-powered bus stop, all while charging your phone using your solar-powered jacket.
Solar power is becoming more distributed, generating power closer to where it’s needed. That can mean buildings with their own solar arrays, or, on a smaller scale, clothing that features solar panels.
Brooklyn-based solar company Pvilion is leading the charge to put solar everywhere. Their projects range from building covers to small consumer items. “We’re looking at solar as a building material that can be used in a lot of different contexts,” says CEO Colin Touhey.
Touhey and his partners have collaborated with Tommy Hilfiger to make solar-powered jackets, and now they’re working on a line of bags with built-in solar panels. While coats can’t generate nearly as much power as larger arrays, every person with a smartphone is a potential customer.
“It’s really cool to plug in your phone and charge it with the sun,” says Touhey.
Researchers are developing woven solar fabrics that have photoactive dyes coating individual threads, so each fiber is a miniature solar panel. But for now, flexible solar panels must be laminated on top of fabrics.
Pvilion has also designed building facades using heavy-duty solar fabrics. You can see their handiwork in a planned expansion at the Artists for Humanity Epicenter in Boston. The building’s photovoltaic facade will generate power and provide shade, helping to keep the interior cool. This and other energy-smart technologies will make the Epicenter the largest commercial building on the East Coast to produce more power than it consumes, according to Pvilion………http://reneweconomy.com.au/solar-powered-everything-40816/
March 11, 2017
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decentralised, USA |
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Falling costs make offshore turbines increasingly attractive
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Germany may see record low price bid in auction in April
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Water and electric power plants don’t mix well naturally, unless you add some wind.
Water tends to corrode and short out circuits. So what’s happening in the the renewable energy industry, where developers are putting jumbo-jet sized wind turbines into stormy seas, is at the very least an engineering miracle.
What might be even more miraculous to skeptics like those populating Donald Trump’s administration is that these multi-billion-dollar mega projects make increasing economic sense, even compared to new coal and nuclear power.
“If you have a sufficiently large site with the right wind speeds, then I do believe you can build offshore wind at least at the same price as new build coal in many places around the world including the U.S.,” said Henrik Poulsen, chief executive officer of Dong Energy A/S, the Danish utility that has pioneered the technology and has become the world’s biggest installer of windmills at sea.
- Across Europe, the price of building an offshore wind farm has fallen 46 percent in the last five years — 22 percent last year alone. Erecting turbines in the seabed now costs an average $126 for each megawatt-hour of capacity, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That’s below the $155 a megawatt-hour price for new nuclear developments in Europe and closing in on the $88 price tag on new coal plants, the London-based researcher estimates.
- As nuclear power costs spiral, prompting a $6.3 billion writedown at reactor maker Toshiba Corp. and delays at Electricite de France SA’s plant in Flamanville, the investment needed to build offshore wind capacity is plummeting.
In Denmark, where the government shoulders much of the development risk, Vattenfall AB last year agreed to supply power from turbines in the North Sea at 60 euros ($64) a megawatt-hour in 2020. Dutch and German auctions due this year provide “ample opportunity” to beat that record low price, says Gunnar Groebler, the utility’s head of wind.
The industry even is taking hold in the U.S., which for years shunned the technology as too costly for a place that historically enjoys lower power prices than Europe.
A federal auction in December for rights to develop wind farms off the coast of Long Island resulted in a bidding war. Rhode Island has commissioned one plant, and developers are also considering work in Maryland, New Jersey and North Carolina.
Although Trump said offshore wind was “monstrous” when it came into conflict with his golf course in Scotland, the U.S. government’s official goal for now is to install 86 gigawatts of turbines at sea by 2050. That’s six times the 14 gigawatts of capacity now in place worldwide, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.
- The strength of the wind off the coast makes the sea a natural place to anchor turbines. In European waters, breezes average 22 miles per hour about 360 feet (110 meters) off the surface, a good baseline for the scale of many installations, according to The Crown Estate, which leases out areas of U.K. seabed belonging to the Queen to wind farms. That’s almost triple the average wind speed onshore.
While more steady gusts mean each turbine will yield more electricity, fixing the machines to the seabed requires deep concrete footings cast in often turbulent seas.
The North Sea, the crucible of the modern offshore wind industry, suffers punishing storms and strong tides that batter turbines much of the year. Securing structures as tall as the Washington Monument in the ocean requires deep footings, specialized ships and cranes capable of lifting equipment that can weigh tons. Salt water eats away at machinery and fittings. Cables must be rugged enough for the worst weather. And if equipment breaks, it can take weeks before the seas are calm enough for a work vessel.
Oil majors that have spent decades building skills to work in those conditions are turning their attention to offshore wind as petroleum production subsides in the North Sea. Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Statoil ASAare among companies that won contracts to build offshore wind projects last year.
All told, a record $29.9 billion was invested in offshore wind in 2016, up 40 percent from the year before, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. It expects investment to grow to $115 billion by 2020. What’s driving installations is an expected 26 percent drop in the costs, making offshore wind increasingly competitive with land-based turbines and solar and nuclear power — even without subsidy.
In years past, grid managers were reluctant to rely on fickle winds for power that flows only about 45 percent of the year. That’s changing too. Batterycosts have fallen 40 percent since 2014, making them a realistic way to help balance fluctuating flows of renewable energy to the grid.
- Offshore wind projects coming online today are already delivering power at almost half the price of those finished in 2012 thanks to larger turbines and greater competition. That’s emboldening developers to promise supplying power for even less, suggesting the industry will break more records this year starting the a contest in Germany in April, said Deepa Venkateswaran, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd.
Europe’s lingering low-interest environment may add downward pressure on bids in Germany’s offshore auctions, EON SE Chief Executive Officer Johannes Teyssen said on Jan., 25. The utility will join bidders as it seeks to add as much as 1.5 billion euros ($1.58 billion) a year to its clean energy portfolio.
The U.K. remains one of the hottest markets owing to the need to replace ageing power plants. Bids may reach as little as 80 euros a megawatt-hour in the next auction due to start in April, she said. That’s comparable to about 68 pounds a megawatt-hour for the global onshore wind average, and well below the government’s 2020 goal to bring costs below 100 pounds ($125.55) a megawatt-hour.
It’s also much cheaper than EDF’s new nuclear power program at Hinkley Point in Somerset, which last year won a 35-year contract to provide power at a cost of 92.50 pounds a megawatt hour once it begins generating. It’s currently due to come online in 2026, even though EDF originally planned it to be cooking Christmas turkeys for British households in 2017.
“In this auction it is possible that the price achieved could be below 90 pounds,” said Keith Anderson, chief corporate officer of Scottish Power Ltd., a unit of Spain’s Iberdrola SA.
March 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
EUROPE, renewable |
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WikiLeaks posts huge CIA hacking trove | 08 March 2017 | The CIA has suffered what appears to be a massive security breach with WikiLeaks dumping thousands of confidential documents detailing the spy agency’s global hacking abilities. The CIA documents published by WikiLeaks show how the CIA has managed to read popular encrypted apps, signal and telegram by breaking into phones to intercept messages before the encryption is applied. WikiLeaks, headed by Australian Julian Assange, claimed that its leaked data includes hundreds of millions of line of code that includes the CIA’s “entire hacking capability.”
March 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA |
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Democrats renew attack on new nuclear cruise missile, Defense News, By: Aaron Mehta, 8 Mar 17 WASHINGTON — Hours after top Pentagon officials traveled to the Hill to defend the need for a new nuclear-capable cruise missile, a group of nine Democratic Senators has introduced legislation to slow the development of the system, known as the Long Range Standoff Weapon, or LRSO.
The bill, headlined by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and announced Wednesday, would cap funding for the LRSO and its associated warhead at 2017 levels until the Trump administration submits its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to Congress.
“If the United States wants other countries to reduce their nuclear arsenals and restrain their nuclear war plans, we must take the lead,” Markey said in a statement. “Instead of wasting billions of dollars on this dangerous new nuclear weapon that will do nothing to keep our nation safe, we should preserve America’s resources and pursue a global ban on nuclear cruise missiles.”
Capping the LRSO spending at 2017 levels would restrict the Pentagon to spending $95.6 million for the weapon itself, and hold the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to $220.2 million for the life-extension program on the W-80-4 warhead. Such levels likely mean a log-term delay for the development of the weapon, which is in its early stages of design and development.
The LRSO program aims to replace the air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) program with 1,000 to 1,100 cruise missiles that represent the Air Force’s standoff nuclear delivery capability. The ALCM is set to expire around 2030.
The non-proliferation community has pushed against the LRSO, arguing it is an inherently destabilizing weapon, as any nation the U.S. could threaten with conventional cruise missiles could mistake those weapons as nuclear and escalate accordingly. ……
Joining Markey in backing the bill are Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Al Franken, D-Minn.; Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. While Sanders is technically an independent, he caucuses with the Democratic Party and waged a hard-fought war for the Democratic nomination during the last presidential election.
A recent review by the Congressional Budget Office puts the price tag for modernizing the nuclear enterprise at $400 billion over the next decade, with further costs down the road. .
http://www.defensenews.com/articles/democrats-renew-attack-on-new-nuclear-cruise-missile
March 11, 2017
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politics, USA, weapons and war |
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A nuclear weapons ban should first do no harm to the NPT, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Adam Mount Richard Nephew 9 Mar 17 Though substantial progress has been made since the end of the Cold War in the dismantlement of US and Russian-held nuclear weapons, non-nuclear weapon states have become frustrated with the pace of disarmament. Two years ago, several states launched a new process that would delegitimize nuclear weapons by declaring a ban on their possession and use. Despite the objection of the nuclear weapon states and their allies, the UN General Assembly
voted in late 2016 by a wide margin to begin negotiations on the text of a nuclear weapons ban treaty.
Though the movement is the product of laudable motives, the ban treaty is likely to have little influence on the nuclear powers’ strategic force-structure decisions, which are the product of a complex mix of strategic and political considerations. On the other hand, a variety of nonproliferation problems would be unaffected by the ban or even worsened. For example, the creation of an alternative treaty structure governing nuclear weapons could lead to “forum-shopping,” in which a state might hope to dilute international condemnation over its noncompliance with the strict verification requirements
of the existing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by participating in the new nuclear weapons ban treaty.
There is a relatively simple fix: Pro-ban states should insist that the new treaty contain an article reaffirming all participants’ obligations to the NPT. The article should include provisions that automatically rescind standing in the ban treaty should the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) find a signatory to be noncompliant with its NPT obligations.
The ban treaty will remain controversial. It should not be controversial, though, to say that a treaty aspiring to a nuclear-free world should first do no harm to the existing tools we have to prevent the spread of nuclear materials and technology to new states, which are centered around the NPT.
Negotiations on the text. At this early date, with negotiations on the text yet to begin, little is known about the format or content of the nuclear weapons ban treaty. The drafters will have to resolve an underlying tension. A simple and largely rhetorical treaty would maximize the number of signatories, and avoid blowback from states that resist new legal obligations. At the same time, some states will want the treaty to demonstrate substantive progress. This could include any number of steps, ranging from directly strengthening nonproliferation norms and institutions to encouraging the International Court of Justice to reconsider its 1996 decision—which found that nuclear deterrence is legally permissible—on the grounds that the ban movement represents an evolution of international customary law and norms of behavior. The stated aims of the movement and a desire for a greater number of signatures suggest that a simpler text is more likely. In any event, the treaty is unlikely to provide for development of a framework for verifiable disarmament.
Nuclear weapon states have largely declined to participate in the ban process (though the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and Pakistan sent delegations to the ban movement’s final preparatory conference in Vienna in 2014). Concerned that confrontational rhetoric from some ban states signals a desire to achieve a treaty at any cost, the nuclear weapon states have expressed concern that the ban movement “may negatively affect the prospects for consensus at future NPT Review Conferences.” Observers in nuclear weapon states and elsewhere remain concerned that ban treaty negotiations could undermine the authority of NPT obligations, establish conflicting obligations, erode the effectiveness of the existing NPT system to resolve nonproliferation concerns, lead to a destabilizing counterreaction in nuclear weapon states, or distract attention from other critical priorities for nuclear governance and strategic stability.
Forum-shopping under a ban treaty. Treaty proponents have denied that their pursuit of a ban would distract from the broader nonproliferation agenda, noting that many ban states have supported the treaty precisely because they are committed to nonproliferation. However, their good intention is not sufficient to ensure the ban treaty’s complementarity with the existing NPT regime. If negotiators do not include specific provisions in support of the NPT, they could inadvertently do it substantial harm by creating an opportunity for nuclear aspirants to “forum-shop.”……..
The NPT system—and the arsenal of other tools it enables, through the IAEA and other organizations—is irreplaceable. A nuclear weapons ban treaty will have its best chance to promote a world free of nuclear weapons if it strengthens the NPT. http://thebulletin.org/nuclear-weapons-ban-should-first-do-no-harm-npt10599
March 11, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war |
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