To March 24 – this week’s nuclear news

Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs

Well, it’s been quite a week, with all the Cambridge Analytica stuff showing the power and influence of corporations and political parties in manipulating social media– We should not be so surprised, except for the speed and effectiveness of the Cambridge Analytica’s opinion-influencing campaigns.

Manipulation of public opinion has a long and dishonourable history. Following the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, America launched a successful pro nuclear power propaganda campaign, resulting in the growth of the ‘peaceful’ nuclear industry, especially in Japan.

Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Games to ‘sell’ Nazi Germany as a fine culture. Currently, Putin is being accused of using the FIFA World Cup as a glorification of his Russian regime.

We can look forward now to two years of global hype over the 2020 Olympics in Japan as a glowing (though lying) recommendation of a now healthy Fukushima.

All this in the desperate effort to save the reputation of the global nuclear industry. However not everyone, even conservatives, are buying this, as the situation in Britain shows, with renewables gaining popularity.

Climate: social science research also shows the way in which conservatives are being won over to accept climate change as a reality, and the need to work actively to slow its progress. Polar Anomaly Flip in an Abnormally Warm World: Arctic to Cool as Antarctica Heats Up.

USA.

Saudi prince admission of possible nuclear weapons development has upset USA lawmakers. Trump to sell over $1 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Crown Prince boasted that Jared Kushner was “in his pocket”.
Trump’s budget: big cuts to energy efficiency and renewable energy, boost to nuclear weapons. American military and South Carolina politicians want more “plutonium pits”for nuclear warheads.
NASA will allow plutonium powered spacecraft – reversing previous policy prohibiting this dangerous system.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirm Russian hackers targeting U.S. nuclear plants.
Over 15 miles of piping at former uranium enrichment facility to be monitored by robots.

NORTH KOREA. North Korea significantly slows down tunneling in nuclear weapons test site.

FRANCE. Theft of confidential information about Cattenom, Flamanville and Paluel nuclear power plants. India has not signed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Macron keen to sell EPR reactors to India anyway.

JAPAN. Proposed storage of spent nuclear fuel sparks resistance in Aomori Pref. City. Hakodate court rejects plea for injunction to halt construction of Oma MOX plant in Aomori.

Fukushima.

Fukushima Accident is Becoming More Severe, Residents Continue to Struggle: Ruiko Muto on 7 Years of the Nuclear Disaster.
TEPCO in the dark about conditions inside shattered Fukushima nuclear reactors: they will now try aerial drones.
45 Lawsuits in Fukushima District Courts. Americans seek $1 bil. in damages over Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Only trickle of former residents returning home to Fukushima. Is Fukushima doomed to become a dumping ground for toxic waste? Fukushima governor ‘pushes safety of prefecture’s food’ on Europe tour. The “forbidden life” of those caring for abandoned animals in Fukushima.
Sanitising the Fukushima nuclear waste situation: Japanese newspaper succumbs to pressure.

CANADA. Radioactive Cesium 134 from Fukushima nuclear disaster – found in British Columbia.

RUSSIA. The very dangerous prospect of nuclear-powered cruise missiles. Concern over Russia’s nuclear activities in the Arctic – potential for a radiological disaster.

EUROPE. 1960 Paris Convention part of undemocratic government support for nuclear industry. Plan for pan-European alliance against the promotion of nuclear energy– Austria and Luxembourg to start it.

UK. British nuclear submarine joins American naval exercises under Arctic ice. UK Conservatives – inconsistent, incoherent, policy – agreeing to Russia’s involvement in UK’s nuclear power development. UK: renewable energy becoming cheaper than nuclear power.

FINLAND. Finland’s nuclear power plant’s price tag – at least $11 billion.

1.This Month

PETITION

Free Julian Assange, before it’s too late. Sign to STOP the USA Extradition

United Nations: demasking the Torture of Julian Assange. Rico Brouwer and Nils Melzer

Three Mile Island (& Fukushima) Lies & Cover-Ups w/ Gundersen & Wasserman

Energy efficiency – theme for July 2019

Energy efficiency represents the single largest potential contributor to global emissions reduction, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA 2017). It should be a key part of the global energy strategy, for several reasons:

It could reduce global electric demand by more than 20 per cent, based on current rates in the U.S. power sector, while maintaining high levels of services such as heating and lighting.
It avoids the need for increased energy, capacity and grid services, making it the least expensive way to decarbonise at scale.
It can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by billions of tonnes.

A dramatic example of the power of energy efficiency is lighting. In 2017 the United States passed the milestone of 1 billion LED and CFL lights installed, avoiding 142 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions, at a cost of about $7 per ton of avoided carbon dioxide. In contrast, the cumulative installed capacity of rooftop solar reached 8,000 MW in 2017, saving 8 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, at a cost of $360 per ton. Lighting efficiency thus yielded almost 18 times the avoided carbon dioxide, at about 2 per cent the cost per ton of rooftop solar.

Google provides another example of the power of energy efficiency. Its data centers now use 50 per cent less energy than the average data center, according to the company. Google also developed an improved chip, the TPU, which performs 83 times better than standard CPUs. The new chip allowed Google to reduce power consumption at its data centers by a factor of 30—far exceeding the effect on Google’s carbon footprint of all of the company’s renewable energy purchases. ” – John Woolard, Eco Business, 10 June 2019

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