nuclear-news

This week: nuclear and climate news

Sometimes the news in one country is pivotal to the fortunes of the global nuclear industry. Right now, this country is arguably South Africa. Nuclear corruption has been entrenched in South Africa for a long time. It’s becoming urgently important now, as President Zuma nears the end of his term.  The global nuclear lobby must be watching, with some trepidation, to see whether a whole African nation can be bought,  despite the obstacles. In South Africa, the obstacles are: legal, financial, political, and technical. And that’s before one even talks about public opinion, and health and environmental impacts.

With one eye on South Africa, the nuclear lobby’s other eye is, of course, on the COP23 climate talks in Bonn, Germany, where the nuclear lobby is working hard on the sidelines, to persuade the UN that their industry is “clean” – and therefore deserving of financial support.

Investigative reporting lives!! – Informal Labour, Local Citizens and the Tokyo Electric Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Crisis: Responses to Neoliberal Disaster Management

SA energy minister Tom Koutsantonis slammed the federal government’s proposed National Energy Guarantee as an attack on renewables. More at reneweconomy.com.au

What’s happening in the UN climate talks in Bonn?  USA now the only country opposed to Paris climate accord, as Syria now joins.

Sleeping Ice Giants Stir — East Antarctica’s Totten Glacier Accelerates Toward Southern Ocean

EUROPE. Release of radioactive material to atmosphere – French Institute says probably from Russia or Kazakhstan.   Climate Change Related Drought Bakes the Iberian Peninsula.

NORTH KOREA. NORTH Korea has threatened to destroy the Unites States with a “barrage of concentrated strikes”. Why North Korea wants nuclear weapons – the lesson from Libya. Health, environmental, disaster at North Korea’s nuclear test site.

USA.

• Senate hearing to examine Trump’s ‘authority to use nuclear weapons’  
• Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration wants nuclear safety reports hidden from public.
• $10.6 billion per year:  estimated cost of Rick Perry’s Coal And Nuclear Subsidy.
•  An Arizona Town Council passes resolution against uranium transport.
• Georgia Power knew for years about nuclear contractor’s flaws that doomed S.C. project.
• Costly task to clean up New York’s highly radioactive thorium contaminated site.
• Donald Trump deliberately obstructing satellite research on global warming?
• The South’s legacy of abandoned nuclear reactors.

UK.  Nuclear Safeguards and Brexit.   Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: the last desperate hope of UK’s failing nuclear industry.   Big problems in Britain’s techno-optimism about Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.  Wind power from Denmark to supply UK, by underwater cable

RUSSIA. Russia’s Rosatom touting for nuclear sales to Saudi Arabia.  Russia’s nuclear corporation talking up wind, solar power – (doubts about nuclear future?)

JAPAN. Edward Snowden discusses  Japanese Government surveillance findings. Fukushima Frozen soil wall nearly complete; NRA still doubts effect.

FRANCE. France still aims to reduce nuclear power, but postponing target for this.

SOUTH AFRICA. South Africa’s new Energy Minister rushes into nuclear power development with indecent haste. Coal and nuclear lobbies want to kill off renewable energy, says physics expert

SWITZERLAND. Swiss government worried about obsolescent cooling circuits of nearby French nuclear reactors.

CHINA. Bill Gates and China get together on new nuclear technology.

November 11, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes