2017 July 21 « nuclear-news

Gas may have ruptured bag at Japan’s nuclear facility

Gas may have ruptured bag at nuclear facility https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170721_01/NHK has learned the operator of a nuclear research facility northeast of Tokyo believes a bag containing nuclear fuel materials ruptured last month due to a buildup of gas in it.

The rupture occurred on June 6th at the facility run by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency in Ibaraki Prefecture. Five workers were exposed to plutonium and other radioactive materials.

In the bag was a plastic container that stored nuclear fuel materials. The materials were held together by an adhesive agent to make it easier to use in experiments.

A report compiled by the agency says gas is believed to have been generated when radioactive rays disintegrated the adhesive agent, the polyethylene container, and the molecules of water in the bag.

The agency plans to submit a report to the Nuclear Regulation Authority as early as Friday. It will also conduct further analyses to determine the amount of the adhesive agent and the condition of the nuclear fuel materials when they were inside the container.

July 21, 2017 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, Japan | Leave a comment

$530 trillion costs for the future, if no effective action on climate change

Inaction on climate change risks leaving future generations $530 trillion in debt, The Conversation., July 19, 2017 By continuing to delay significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we risk handing young people alive today a bill of up to US$535 trillion. This would be the cost of the “negative emissions” technologies required to remove CO₂ from the air in order to avoid dangerous climate change.

These are the main findings of new research published in Earth System Dynamics, conducted by an international team led by US climate scientist James Hansen, previously the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The Paris Agreement in 2015 saw the international community agree to limit warming to within 2°C. The Hansen team argue that the much safer approach is to reduce atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ from the current annual average of more than 400ppm (parts per million) back to 1980s levels of 350ppm. This is a moderately more ambitious goal than the aspiration announced in Paris to further attempt to limit warming to no more than 1.5°C. Many climate scientists and policymakers believe that either the 2°C or 1.5°C limits will only be possible with negative emissions because the international community will be unable to make the required reductions in time…….https://theconversation.com/inaction-on-climate-change-risks-leaving-future-generations-530-trillion-in-debt-81134

July 21, 2017 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs, climate change | Leave a comment