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Stopping coal and nuclear retirements is a priority for President Trump

NRDC 1st June 2018 The Trump Administration has made no secret of its desire to prop up coal
and nuclear plants for political purposes and today the White House made it abundantly clear. At the same time, a leaked draft memo unveiled last night repackages a previously rejected idea to bail out coal and nuclear plants, this time arguing that they are needed to protect national security.

The memo proposes that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issue an order requiring electricity grid operators to purchase, for two years, electricity from expensive and uncompetitive coal and nuclear facilities that would otherwise retire. Neither the White House nor DOE have owned up to the memo or its contents.

But White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated today that stopping coal and nuclear retirements remains a priority for President Trump, and that he has directed DOE Secretary Rick Perry “to prepare immediate steps to stop the loss of these resources, and looks forward to his recommendations.”
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/john-moore/coal-and-nuclear-bailout-memo-recycled-idea-new-hat

June 4, 2018 Posted by | climate change, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Taxpayer bankrolls £15bn nuclear plant at Wylfa in Wales 

John Collingridge The Sunday Times 
Ministers will this week reverse decades of opposition to investing taxpayer money in nuclear energy by agreeing to bankroll a £15bn-plus power station in Wales.

The government will commit to taking a direct stake in the Wylfa plant on Anglesey, planned by the Japanese industrial giant Hitachi, after more than two years of negotiations.

It is understood the government will also provide the vast bulk of the £9bn debt. State equity will slash the cost of borrowing, but leave the taxpayer exposed if costs balloon or the project overruns.

It has, though, helped ministers to negotiate a strike price — a guaranteed payment for the plant’s electricity — of about £77.50 per megawatt hour. The government was determined to achieve a cheaper price than the £92.50 agreed…… (subscribers only) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/taxpayer-bankrolls-15bn-nuclear-plant-at-wylfa-in-wales-0p7dnxfhq

June 4, 2018 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Japan still at a loss in how to deal with Fukushima’s radioactive water

NZ Herald, 20 May, 2018 

The number of storage tanks for contaminated water and other materials has continuously increased at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Japan, and space for still more tanks is approaching the limit.

It is seven years since an eathquake and tsunami overwhelmed Fukushima and a way to get rid of treated water, or tritium water, has not been decided yet.

The Government and Tokyo Electric Power Company will have to make a tough decision on disposal of tritium water down the road.

At the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, groundwater and other water enters the reactor buildings that suffered meltdowns, where the water becomes contaminated.

This produces about 160 tons of contaminated water per day. Purification devices remove many of the radioactive materials, but tritium – a radioactive isotope of hydrogen – cannot be removed for technical reasons. Thus, treated water that includes only tritium continues to increase.

Currently, the storage tanks have a capacity of about 1.13 million tons. About 1.07 million tons of that capacity is now in use, of which about 80 per cent is for such treated water.

Space for tanks, which has been made by razing forests and other means, amounts to about 230,000 sq m – equivalent to almost 32 football fields. There is almost no more available vacant space.

Efforts have been made to increase storage capacity by constructing bigger tanks when the time comes for replacing the current ones. But a senior official of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry said, “Operation of tanks is close to its capacity.”

TEPCO plans to secure 1.37 million tons of storage capacity by the end of 2020, but it has not yet decided on a plan for after 2021. Akira Ono, chief decommissioning officer of TEPCO, said, “It is impossible to continue to store [treated water] forever.” https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12055127

June 4, 2018 Posted by | general | 1 Comment

An “Almighty” good read — Beyond Nuclear International

Dan Zak’s book on nuclear weapons is a lyrical history rich with personalities

via An “Almighty” good read — Beyond Nuclear International

June 4, 2018 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Cracking Letter in the Westmorland Gazette …still no word from Mainstream Environmental Journos! —

Originally posted on Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole: Another Cracking Letter from Anita in the Westmorland Gazette. In a long running exchange this is a reply to Kent Brook’s letter about the “need” for coking coal to provide steel for WMD etc. Whether or not you want nuclear WMD …there are other ways to…

via Cracking Letter in the Westmorland Gazette …still no word from Mainstream Environmental Journos! —

June 4, 2018 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Solar start-ups are plugging Africa’s energy gap — Beyond Nuclear International

600 million in Africa still live without electricity

via Solar start-ups are plugging Africa’s energy gap — Beyond Nuclear International

June 4, 2018 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The (nearly) 90-year old man who climbed out the window and got a nuclear weapons ban — Beyond Nuclear International

ICAN founder sprints to the finish line

via The (nearly) 90-year old man who climbed out the window and got a nuclear weapons ban — Beyond Nuclear International

June 4, 2018 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fallout from Fukushima exaggerated? But Still….

What was the fallout from Fukushima? Guardian,   Fred Pearce 3 June 18 When a tsunami hit the nuclear plant, thousands fled. Many never returned – but has the radiation risk been exaggerated?

“……..Seven years on, many people in Japan say they will never listen to nuclear experts again, including radiation doctors. Some of those experts call this “radiophobia”, but that is to blame the victims when the real problems lie elsewhere. So what harm was done?

In most nuclear accidents, the biggest concern is the risk of getting thyroid cancer from the release of radioactive iodine-131. Iodine-131 is nasty. It has a half-life of only eight days, so it doesn’t stick around. But if breathed in or ingested, for instance, in milk from cows grazing on contaminated pastures, it concentrates in thyroid glands and can cause thyroid cancer that emerges within a few years. Children are especially at risk. The only prophylactic is to give exposed people tablets of non-radioactive iodine to flood their thyroid glands and prevent uptake of the radioactive version.

There was an epidemic of thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Radioactive iodine was also released during the Fukushima accident, though only about a tenth as much as at Chernobyl. Doctors I spoke to all agreed that the actual uptake by people near the plant was tiny. This is because most of the fallout initially headed out to sea, because the authorities quickly removed potentially contaminated foodstuffs from sale and because iodine tablets were issued………..

A quarter of young girls surveyed feel they might not be able to have a baby because of the accident. Many parents fear their children will get thyroid cancer. Masaharu Maeda, the head of disaster psychiatry at the FMU, calls it “the Godzilla effect”, after the film about a mutant monster created by atomic tests.

Some call this “radiophobia”, suggesting that this absolves the nuclear industry of responsibility. But these are real psychological and social consequences of the accident – and are surely just as much the responsibility of the operators of the plant as any radiological consequences. And they mean that the prospects for repopulating the region, including four ghost towns where 150,000 people once lived, remain small.

The stricken reactors still contain terrifying amounts of radiation. Cleaning up the mess will take decades and tens of billions of dollars. But outside, away from a few hotspot zones in the mountains, most of the radioactive isotopes that fell in the evacuated zone have now decayed away and huge amounts of contaminated soil and vegetation have been bagged up and removed. ……https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/03/was-fallout-from-fukushima-exaggerated

June 4, 2018 Posted by | general | 2 Comments

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