August 23 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Bill Gates Is Throwing Away Money On Ill-Advised Non-Solutions To Global Warming” • Bill Gates is not attending to the reality of the success of renewable energy, the unknowns of solar geoengineering, and the global failure of nuclear energy as a solution to global warming. His solutions funding would be vastly better spent […]
How wind and rooftop solar could meet most of EU electricity needs — RenewEconomy
Two separate research analyses have outlined the ways onshore wind generation and rooftop solar could supply all or much of Europe’s electricity needs. The post How wind and rooftop solar could meet most of EU electricity needs appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via How wind and rooftop solar could meet most of EU electricity needs — RenewEconomy
Dismay at safety risks of restarting Hunterston Nuclear Reactor 4
Largs and Millport Weekly News 19th Aug 2019 A SERIES of safety failure at Hunterston could have had ‘serious
consequences’ if the reactors had been in full operation, it was claimed
this week. The Nuclear Free Local Authorities group, which is made up of
councillors around the UK concerned about nuclear power, described the
incidents as ‘notable’. The incident which prevented cooling gas from being
circulated around a reactor was highlighted by the group as ‘a real
concern’. However the nuclear regulators described the incident as ‘minor’
as both incidents happened when both reactors were offline. n relation to
the incident, a spokesperson for Nuclear Free Local Authorities said:
“Whilst there were no radiological consequence from them, this is largely
due to the reactors not being in operation. “A loss of cooling is of real
concern as the consequences of such an eventuality when the reactors are in
full operation could have been extremely serious.”
https://www.largsandmillportnews.com/news/17833610.anger-series-safety-failures-hunterston/
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) is disappointed with the decision
of the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to permit resumption of
electricity generation at Reactor 4 in the EDF-owned Hunterston site in
North Ayrshire. NFLA believes the age, the amount of keyway root cracks in
both Reactors 3 and 4, and the precautionary principle should have been
considered in the reactors not being reopened for generation.
NFLA 21st Aug 2019
Toxic leak from North Korea’s nuclear programme
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Nuclear warning: Huge leak spotted in North Korea turns rivers black in freak accident https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1169175/north-korea-news-latest-kim-jong-un-donald-trump-US-nuclear-weapons-pollution-Pyongsan
NORTH KOREA’s contentious nuclear programme has allegedly leaked tonnes of toxic waste into rivers used for drinking water.He believes that the leakage has been covered up by the highly secretive insular state, and the true scale of disaster is only now unfolding.
Mr Bogle thinks that North Korea will struggle to keep the claimed leakage under wraps for any longer, as the river eventually leads into the Yellow Sea that North Korea shares with neighbouring South Korea and China. If true, the scale of those affected could grow to nearly 600million people and end up being the world’s worst man-made disaster. The photos shared by Mr Bogle appear to show a pipeline, built to carry toxic water from the facility to a nearby waste reservoir, digressing its intended route and leaking into the river instead.
Mr Bogle said: “I was able to review high-resolution historical satellite imagery for multiple years going back to 2003. “Each of the images shows an ever-growing pile of leaked material on either end of the pipe that takes waste material from the plant to an unlined reservoir. “Some of the images also show fluids being actively spilled directly into the river. “The plant is one of two declared uranium milling facilities in the country. It takes low-quality coal and processes it to create yellowcake, which then contains around 80 per cent uranium.
“The extraction and milling requires multiple chemical processes and leaves behind a very toxic mix of waste materials. “That toxic waste is then sent to the nearby reservoir, leaking and travelling into the Ryesong River in the process.” The Pyongsan facility is the largest in North Korea, and is built next to its largest uranium mine, and has recently undergone a ramped-up level of production of nuclear fuel for electricity generating purposes. Many have pointed out that the Conowingo Dam 16 miles downstream might be sufficient enough to trap and prevent any toxic waste from getting out – although experts told The Sun that the dam is “no longer capable of trapping sediment”.
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Bitcoin Hackers Charged As Nuclear Power Plant Security Compromised
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Bitcoin Hackers Charged As Nuclear Power Plant Security Compromised https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2019/08/23/bitcoin-hackers-charged-as-nuclear-power-plant-security-compromised/#148c22252735
Davey WinderSenior Contributor, 23 Aug 19, Illicit cryptocurrency mining isn’t usually associated with state-level security compromises. Then again, Bitcoin hackers don’t often target nuclear power plants. Yet according to a report on the Ukrainian UNIAN news website, that’s exactly what happened at South Ukraine’s second-largest nuclear power plant, south of Kiev in the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk. What was found during the nuclear power plant raid? Detectives from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) searched the Yuzhnoukrainsk nuclear power plant on July 10. During the raids, two bespoke cryptocurrency mining hardware rigs were seized from office 104 in the plant’s administrative wing, along with fiber-optic and network cables. Coindesk has reported that, on the same day, “a National Guard of Ukraine branch uncovered additional crypto mining equipment at the same nuclear plant. In this search and seizure, 16 GPU video cards, seven hard drives, two solid-state drives and routers were uncovered.” This was at the barracks of the National Guard tasked with protecting the plant. The Russian international television network RT has said that “the people who were supposed to be defending the highly dangerous piece of Ukrainian infrastructure could well have been behind the scheme.” How was the nuclear power plant security compromised?The UNIAN report, via Cointelegraph, stated that the cryptominers “compromised the nuclear facility’s security via their mining setup internet connection,” and “ended up leaking classified information on the plant’s physical protection system.” According to a ZDNet report, the SBU is investigating the incident “as a potential breach of state secrets due to the classification of nuclear power plants as critical infrastructure.” As well as the apparent intent to misappropriate electricity and internet resources to mine cryptocurrency, the SBU is also investigating other lines of inquiry. One of these being whether the mining rigs could have been used to access the network to steal classified security data relating to the nuclear power plant. |
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USA’s nuclear regulators concerned about possibility of an electromagnetic pulse attack
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Feds fear EMP ‘meltdown’ of nuclear power plants, Washington Examiner, by Paul Bedard August 23, 2019 The federal government’s new focus on preventing disaster in a natural or terrorist electromagnetic pulse attack is drawing attention to a lack of testing and preparation at the nation’s nuclear power plants, where a resulting meltdown could cause radiation deaths. |
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USA administration promotes space nuclear power for travel and for weapons
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Administration policies seek to promote use of space nuclear power, Space NewsThe policy, formally issued by President Trump Aug. 20 to coincide with the latest public meeting of the National Space Council, updates guidelines for how both government and commercial spacecraft carrying space nuclear systems are reviewed and approved for launch.
The policy establishes a three-tier system for reviewing payloads carrying nuclear power systems, such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) or fission reactors, based on the amount of radioactive material on board and the probability of certain radiation exposure levels in the event of an accident. Spacecraft that fall in the first two tiers will be approved by their sponsoring agency, although in some cases with a review by a new Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Board that NASA is tasked to establish within 180 days. Those in the third tier require presidential authorization, which can be done through the National Security Council for national security missions or Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for other missions. …. Kelvin Droegemeier, director of OSTP said the policy was just one step in supporting greater use of space nuclear systems. ….. there’s been little commercial interest in space nuclear power, given not just the regulatory challenges but also technical and cost issues. One startup, Denver-based Atomos Space, has proposed developing nuclear-powered space tugs for in-space transportation, although the company plans to start with solar electric systems and hasn’t specified when it will attempt to fly nuclear-powered systems. There’s also been few applications of space nuclear power systems on government missions, at least in the unclassified realm. NASA does use RTGs on some missions, but infrequently due to both the cost and limited supplies of plutonium-238, the isotope used in RTGs. The only upcoming NASA missions formally approved for development that will use RTGs are the Mars 2020 rover mission and the recently selected Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. That could change in the next several years. NASA has been working with the Department of Energy on a small nuclear fission reactor called Kilopower that could be used on future moon and Mars missions. Congress has also increased funding for nuclear thermal propulsion work at NASA, including a provision in the report accompanying the fiscal year 2019 appropriations bill calling for a flight demonstration of a nuclear propulsion system by 2024. During a panel discussion at the council meeting, Rex Geveden, president and chief executive of BWX Technologies and a former NASA associate administrator, backed the development of more ambitious space nuclear power systems, citing his company’s decades of experience with nuclear power systems, including NASA-funded nuclear thermal propulsion work. “America has the nuclear technological capabilities right now to push the boundaries of human exploration at the moon and further on to Mars,” he said. “If we to fulfill the objectives of President Trump’s first space policy directive to establish a long-term presence on the moon and send the first crewed mission to Mars, nuclear power is arguably the most important technology to enable these bold national goals.”…. Geveden told NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine during a brief discussion at the meeting that space nuclear power could also be used in “a variety of national security applications,” such for remote bases or for directed energy weapons. …
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