American expert Dr Fauci takes coronavirus seriously. Will Trump fire him?
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Trump Will Feed You to COVID-19 to Keep the Money Happy, William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, March 24, 2020
I have developed a strange affinity for Dr. Anthony S. Fauci. Donald Trump made Fauci — the 36-year director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who has advised every president over that span — the hood ornament on this administration’s careening coronavirus Cadillac. Fauci is the face of SCIENCE in this fight, and from the sound of things, SCIENCE is about to get fired. According to a number of sources, Trump has grown irritated at Fauci for the ever-increasing frequency of Fauci’s public corrections of Trump. Trump has been using the daily coronavirus briefings as a stand-in for his raucous, fiction-raddled rallies to spray dangerous, history-obscuring gibberish into the wind. He does not like it when Fauci, his own hand-picked face of SCIENCE, clowns him from the same podium. Because of this, Fauci may soon be gone.
The reasons for Fauci’s sudden cascade into disfavor are enough to stagger the imagination. I wrote on Monday about the capitalists jumping on television to demand the huddled masses get back to work. As it turns out, one of the larger cats in that particular tree — former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein — started yelling about this very thing before I’d written a sentence. That’s not the worst part, however. This is the worst part, as reported by Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair:
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Belarus to swap gas dependence on Moscow for nuclear dependence on Moscow
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Belarus to swap gas dependence on Moscow for nuclear dependence on Moscow https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2020-03-belarus-to-swap-gas-dependence-on-moscow-for-nuclear-dependence-on-moscowA nuclear power plant built to lessen Belarus’s dependence on Moscow for natural gas – but constructed and lavishly financed by Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom – is due to begin operation later this year, officials in the Belarus capital of Minsk have said. March 24, 2020 by Charles Digges
A nuclear power plant built to lessen Belarus’s dependence on Moscow for natural gas – but constructed and lavishly financed by Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom – is due to begin operation later this year, officials in the Belarus capital of Minsk have said. The plant will feature two VVER-1200 reactors – the second of which will come online next year – that will together generate some 2.4 gigawatts of power in the cloistered post-Soviet dictatorship on Russia’s western border. The International Atomic Energy Agency found that the plant largely fulfilled general safety guidelines and issued a number of recommendations for improvement. Others have raised alarm over potential safety issues. GlobalData quoted energy and nuclear policy analyst Mycle Schneider as warning: “Neighboring countries have voiced concern over the lack of review of some serious safety concerns, and Lithuania has transmitted an official note to the European Council.” Since its inception in the early 2000s, the Belarus nuclear power plant, in Ostrovets near the border of Lithuania, has been fraught with difficulties. Environmentalists who oppose the plant are routinely harassed and stifled and in some cases kicked out of the country. Neighboring Lithuania, once seen as a promising potential market when construction began, is now so opposed to the plant that its parliament outlawed purchasing any electricity it produces and has sent envoys to other countries encouraging them to do the same. Poland and the Ukraine have also spoken out against the plant. Each of these groups have called attention to the mishaps that have plagued the plant during its construction, including an incident in 2016 when technicians inadvertently dropped a 330-ton reactor pressure vessel – which houses the core – from a crane. A replacement unit sent to the site was accidentally run into a column at a railway station when it arrived. But the plant also illustrates an energy conundrum facing many European countries. While a number of nations in the old Soviet orbit seek to diversify their energy supplies away from Russian natural gas, Rosatom is more than willing to step into the vacuum left by that shift. By offering huge loans to build and supply nuclear power plants, Rosatom can keep customers financially and technically beholden to Moscow for as long as 50 years. With other kinds of power infrastructure, a contractor builds a facility and leaves it to be operated by the country where it stands. Not so with nuclear power plants, where foreign government customers, like Belarus, remain dependent on Rosatom – and thus the Russian state – for fuel, know-how and eventual decommissioning works. That geopolitical strategy is not lost on Lithuania, whose prime minister recently told the New York Times that: “The [Ostrovets} nuclear plant is an example of Russia’s desire to keep states along its borders in its orbit at all costs – it helps them preserve more influence.” The policy is has broad implications. Rosatom has convinced dozens of countries to sign memorandums of understanding on all manner of nuclear services, from research and training facilities to nuclear power plant construction. As a result, Rosatom says that its portfolio of foreign projects has swelled to more than $200 billion. But that figure invites skepticism. Many of the counties Rosatom counts toward that figure – like Ethiopia, Algeria, Nigeria, Sudan and Rwanda – won’t be ready to support nuclear power on their grids for decades. Others where Rosatom builds are already underway – like India’ Kudankulam, Iran’s Bushehr and China’s Tianwan – are already familiar with Rosatom’s typical cost overruns and delays. Furthermore, a deep dig into Rosatom’s claimed income by the Russian environmental group Ecodefence revealed that business wasn’t going quite as indicated. A report by the group, published last year, detailed a number of cases where the corporation misstated the worth of its overseas reactor construction projects, and inflated their worth by several billion dollars. Still, the corporation is an ambitious and successful presence on the international market. According to one study, cited by the New York Times, Rosatom has sold more nuclear technology abroad since 1999 than the United States, France, China, South Korea and Japan combined. Rosatom’s approach to marketing its reactors is distinct from its western competitors because it offers to finance, build and operate the plants that it builds abroad. These generous terms come thanks to the enormous state subsidies Rosatom receives – and which it can then funnel into loans that boost its profits on paper. The Belarus plant, for instance, comes thanks to a $10 million line of credit from Rosatom. Hungary, a member of the EU, became another customer when it took an $11 billion loan to build its Paks II in 2016. Rosatom also won a $30 billion contract for four reactors in Egypt, and another big nuclear plant deal in Turkey. While it’s tempting to see a strategy afoot in Rosatom’s foreign projects, the Kremlin insists it’s just business. President Vladimir Putin has publicly distanced himself from mixing politics with foreign commerce. |
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Moscow preparing highway though nuclear waste site, despite protests
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Moscow starts work on highway through nuclear waste site https://www.dw.com/en/moscow-starts-work-on-highway-through-nuclear-waste-site/a-52864335Preparation for the construction of a controversial road in the Russian capital has kicked off. Activists say it could send radioactive dust into the air and river. But the authorities are pushing on with the project. Residents film on their mobile phones as an excavator broke ground to prepare the construction site. They film through the shoulders of a row of police officers, pointing out that no one is wearing protective clothing for work on a nuclear waste site. “These comrades are protecting us from the radiation,” says one woman sarcastically about the officers. “Just wonderful.”
Behind the police line is a factory that produces military equipment. The onetime Polymetals factory used to extract thorium and uranium from ore and dump radioactive waste here in the 1950s and 1960s, before this spot became part of the territory of the capital. The site stretches along the sloping banks of the Moskva River, with the popular Kolomenskoe park on one side and residential apartment blocks on the other. Since January, Sergey Vlasov has been one of around 50 local activists standing guard at the site around the clock to prevent construction. “My family has lived here for decades,” he says. “It’s my home and I don’t want to have to move to avoid the threat of nuclear radiation. I don’t want to have to worry about them thoughtlessly digging this all up and radioactive dust being released into the air.” Vlasov is an elected deputy in the municipal council of the Pechatniki district across the river, and he also worries about representing his voters. There have been several protests against the highway, which demonstrators have call the “Road to Death.” Another local resident, Anna, whose windows look out on the nuclear waste dump, says the project is “scary” and complains that the police officers here are essentially “acting as security guards for the bridge building company.” Killing two birds with one stone
According to city authorities, the planned highway and flyover will help with Moscow’s chronic traffic problems by connecting districts and helping free up the city’s main ring road. In an official blog post Moscow’s mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, wrote in January that although the highway is no “panacea,” there are “no logical alternatives” to it. He did, however, admit for the first time that the area is contaminated. Sobyanin insists that construction of the highway will “solve two problems at once” by “radically improving the transportation situation and eliminating a radioactive dump.” On the other hand, the city authorities have repeatedly insisted that the actual highway will not cut through the nuclear waste itself. On its website the city planning department explains that the current work is merely preparation for construction, and that they will only begin work on the flyover after “positive results” confirm that the area is clean. Beneath the surface But the cleanup is difficult. The government agency in charge of it, Radon, has been removing contaminated soil from the site for years to prevent slippages. In an agency publication from 2006, Radon’s chief engineer for Moscow, Alexander Barionov, said that the hilly location of the site would make a full cleanup tough. “One incautious step, and radioactive soil gets into the river.” Rashid Alimov from the Russian branch of Greenpeace thinks authorities should not be digging in the area without having carried out a full ecological evaluation of the site. “We don’t really even know to what extent the company, Radon, understands where exactly the nuclear waste is and how deep it really is in the ground.”
The authorities did check the area ahead of the decision to build. But Greenpeace insists they were too superficial, and the group is taking the city to court to get that evaluation declared invalid. “Our position is that this place should have officially been declared a nuclear waste dump,” Alimov says. Greenpeace carried out its own tests with an external company in October and found that radiation in several samples from the area is “above the permissible norm” and that building work should not be carried out there. Alimov also points out that the government is contradicting itself. He cites a 2017 report from the official Russian consumer watchdog Rospodtrebnadzor on the “sanitary and epidemic” conditions in Moscow, which stated that there were 60,000 tons of nuclear waste by the former Polymetals factory. “That’s a very inconvenient number for Moscow authorities now,” he says. Keeping up the fight But many local residents seem to feel that the work being done ahead of building shows the authorities will most likely go ahead with their plans no matter what. Still, even after the excavators arrived, they were as determined as ever to stand their ground, despite the high police presence at the construction site. Authorities have opened a criminal case against several activists for apparently damaging a radiation monitor on the site. And there were several standoffs between protesters and police last week. On Thursday, over 60 activists were briefly detained. Vlasov says that since the arrests the residents have been regrouping. They may have to call off their shift duty at the construction site, he says. But just like Greenpeace, they are hoping to take authorities to court over the highway plans. “Of course we will keep fighting,” he says. “We plan to take this case to court — even though no one really believes we can win.”
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A weird week of news in nuclear, climate, Covid19
graph above is of world total.
Events happen so quickly. It becomes important to know what news is true, and what is not. It is something of a crisis in journalism, – which analysis, which interpretation is credible? I try to follow articles that make sense, and come from reliable writers and journals. Reported numbers vary a lot – of those infected with Cov19, of the deaths. For one example – USA infection numbers are almost certainly far greater than reported, because of inadequate testing. In interpretation, Donald Trump’s phrase the “Chinese virus” feeds in to xenophobia, an unfortunate theme when global co-operation is needed, to combat a global epidemic. Politicians exploit false conspiracy theory that the coronavirus is a bioweapon.
What action is needed? I found this article, with its excellent graph, a reliable guide. It helped me to conclude that the drastic shutdowns and “social distancing”will have awful results, but that inaction on coronavirus would be worse.
Some bits of good news – 10 Positive Updates on the COVID-19 Outbreaks From Around the World
Coronavirus Covid-19 Testing Per Capita By Country; The US Near The Bottom; India Worse
Tokyo Olympic Games‘ costly chaos: they can’t be held in 2020.
“Balance” a dangerous practice – journalists presenting as equal -Trump’s and scientists’ opinion on coronavirus science.
Coronavirus threatens nuclear power plants with staff shortages, possible shutdowns.
Destruction of habitats, loss of biodiversity, bring pandemics.
Impact of coronavirus is curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
Paul Ehrlich on Coronavirus and the growthmania that drives environmental destruction. Bill McKibben on the Virus and the Climate Movement. Global warming influence on extreme weather events has been frequently underestimated. Coronavirus Halts Street Protests, but Climate Activists Have a Plan.– Ozone-depleting chemicals appearing again in the atmosphere.
Nuclear Power Plants: Tritium is a lot more hazardous than they say. Dr Ian Fairlea on Epidemiological Evidence of Cancer Risks.
“Peaceful” and military nuclear reactors always inextricably linked. Nuclear-powered submarines – fraught with legal and political problems. New research on the global climate impacts of a small nuclear war. The catastrophic danger to nuclear weapons complexes, of climate change’s extreme weather.
A new low-cost solar technology for environmental cooling.
USA.
- “Military Intelligence?” 30,000 U.S. soldiers to Corona-infested Europe for “war games”.
- Democrats may not support Trump’s new W93 nuclear weapons program.
- 6 Ways Trump’s Denial of Science Has Delayed the Response to COVID-19 (and Climate Change). Meet the Climate Science Deniers Who Downplayed COVID-19 Risks. Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, on climate and nuclear power.
- USA nuclear industry exploits coronavirus, seeking tax-payer funds. America’s economic plan for Covid19 directs money to big corporations.
- Navy sailor assigned to US Central Command headquarters tests positive for coronavirus. Coronavirus means staff shortages at North Carolina nuclear power stations. Seabrook Nuclear plant operating with limited staff.
- Military use: that is clearly the reason for developing Small Nuclear Reactors.
- Nuclear waste dumping for the beautiful landscape of the Northwoods?
UK Sellafield nuclear facility cuts back drastically on staff working onsite. Sellafield nuclear waste site to close due to coronavirus. Nuclear waste transport disrupted by measures to stall coronavirus. Hinkley nuclear worker concerned at coronavirus risks at the site. EDF reassures UK that during coronavirus epidemic, nuclear operations will continue. Britain’s Trident nuclear submarine base is in the grip of a Coronavirus scare.
The Sizewell C project would tear through preciously fragile nature preserve. The Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group (BANNG) protests the lack of full information on nuclear plans.
JAPAN.
- Japan Olympics Official Tests Positive For COVID-19 As Training Camps Canceled Across Country.
- Japan’s 3/11 Recovery Stalled by Fukushima Decommissioning Delays.
- Japanese govt moving to transfer renewable energy funds to Fukushima nuclear clean-up. ‘Fukushima’s radioactive water discharge is important to Koreans’. Fukushima cleanup struggle focuses on what to do with contaminated water.
- ‘Fukushima 50 ‘ – a new film about the nuclear meltdown.
- Terrorism fears for Japan’s nuclear reactors – safety measures still not implemented.
- Tokyo High Court slashes damages to Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuees. After ‘miracle recovery’, Fukushima brewers look to the Games to push sake globally.
RUSSIA. Coronavirus in Russia: The Latest News. Big European bank offers to help Russia retrieve 1000s of radioactive junk from the Arctic sea.
FRANCE. French nuclear workers in fear of coronavirus infection. Coronavirus cluster in the area – construction stalled at France’s Flamanville nuclear reactor.
CANADA. Canada pushing Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, but the outlook for uranium/nuclear industry is bleak.
IRAN. Iran, hit by hardship and coronavirus, gets callous sanctions from Trump administration.
BULGARIA. Bulgaria delays deadline for Belene nuclear project bids.
NORTH KOREA. What effect will pandemic have on tensions with North Korea?
AUSTRALIA. Doctors again call on Australian govt about Julian Assange’s precarious health, risk of coronavirus. The Morrison govt’s emergency measures are a massive subsidy to Australia’s largest corporations.
USA nuclear industry exploits coronavirus, seeking tax-payer funds
 Nuclear Industry Effort to Exploit Coronavirus Crisis for Backdoor Bailout Decried as ‘Disaster Capitalism at its Worst’ https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/23/nuclear-industry-effort-exploit-coronavirus-crisis-backdoor-bailout-decried-disaster
“The nuclear industry begged for a bailout last fall and is now using coronavirus to try and brazenly grab more cash,” warned Friends of the Earth. by Andrea Germanos, staff writer, Jon Queally, staff writer According to E&E News, which focuses on the energy industry, the request came in a letter sent to congressional leaders and White House officials on Friday by Nuclear Energy Institute president and CEO Maria Korsnick. In addition to other forms of aid—including sick leave for employees and “prioritized access” to testing and masks—the letter requested taxpayer-funded grants in the form of broad tax credits and waivers for existing regulatory fees. “Our member companies are anticipating—or are already experiencing—severe financial strain as product orders are delayed or canceled, as industrial electricity demand falls, and as workforce availability becomes increasingly constrained,” Krosnick wrote to in a letter sent to lawmakers, Treasury Sectary Steven Mnuchin, and Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council. In reaction, Friends of the Earth senior policy analyst Lukas Ross called the request a bald effort to exploit the current outbreak and economic downturn to obtain the same kind of financial bailout it has repeatedly sought from the U.S. government in recent years. “Demanding a $23 billion gift from taxpayers during an unprecedented public health crisis sets a new low bar,” said Lukas Ross, senior policy analyst with Friends of the Earth. “The nuclear industry begged for a bailout last fall and is now using coronavirus to try and brazenly grab more cash.” The industry proposal, added Ross, “would hurt ratepayers and the climate at a time when immediate need for people must be the first priority. The nuclear lobby should be ashamed. This is disaster capitalism at its worst.” |
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Tokyo Olympic Games’ costly chaos: they can’t be held in 2020
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“It’s important that not only our country but also all the other participating countries can take part in the games fully prepared,” Abe said. The premier’s comments came a day after the IOC said it will study alternative plans for the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled to open on July 24, amid the global outbreak, and make an assessment within the next four weeks. The Japanese government will soon tell the IOC it will accept a postponement if the organization decides on it as a precaution against the coronavirus, a source familiar with the plan said. Tokyo Olympic organizing committee President Yoshiro Mori said he supports the IOC’s decision to review existing plans, adding representatives from Japan and the IOC will hold discussions to examine possible scenarios closely. “Japan is in a critical state, and the situations in the United States and Europe have been abnormal,” Mori said. “We are not so foolish as to say we will do it under our first (plan).” Abe, who has previously said he aims to hold the major sporting event in its “complete form,” told the parliamentary session, “If it is difficult to hold the games in such a way, we have to decide to postpone it, giving top priority to (the health of the) athletes.” “Although the IOC will make the final decision (on the matter), we are of the same view that cancellation is not an option,” Abe said while vowing to work closely with the IOC and the Tokyo metropolitan government. The IOC on Sunday officially admitted the possibility of pushing back the quadrennial event, saying it will examine various scenarios, adding that it will finalize discussions “within the next four weeks.” “These scenarios relate to modifying existing operational plans for the games to go ahead on 24 July 2020, and also for changes to the start date of the games,” the IOC said in a statement. Speaking at a press conference, organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto said reviewing the possibilities, including postponement, is “not easy” and the organizers are open to “all options.” Mori said some of the challenges organizers will face in terms of postponement include handling the costs of delaying and the availability of venues. Meanwhile, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike told reporters, “(The IOC) clearly stated that cancellation will not happen, and I am glad to share that view.” “There are lots of issues, but I would like to discuss possible scenarios over the next four weeks with the IOC and the organizing committee,” she said. “The Tokyo Games now have another goal, to defeat the novel coronavirus.” Mori said local organizers will decide in the coming days whether to go ahead with the opening of the domestic leg of the torch relay in Fukushima Prefecture on Thursday, as developments surrounding the pandemic have been changing rapidly. Mori added that Bach told him that the Japanese organizers have the authority to make decisions about the domestic leg of the torch relay. Members of the organizing committee revealed Monday they may drastically reduce the scale of the torch relay, including canceling the participation of members of the public. Under modified plans, the Olympic flame may be carried by car in the initial stages of the relay. Muto and Olympics minister Seiko Hashimoto each said Monday the relay will proceed as planned for the moment. Mori also revealed that Abe is now reluctant to attend the kick-off ceremony since the Japanese government has been requesting people refrain from holding large events to prevent the spread of the virus. Olympic torchbearers in Japan expressed concerns over the IOC’s new direction. Both runners and spectators of the relay would be half-hearted. I wonder whether they will let us run again if (the sporting event) is postponed,” said 66-year-old Yumiko Nishimoto, who is scheduled to run in Fukushima on Thursday as one of the 10,000 torchbearers in Japan. The 121-day Japanese leg is scheduled to kick off at the J-Village soccer training center, which served as a frontline base of operations to battle the 2011 nuclear crisis caused by the March 11 quake-tsunami disaster that year. A decision on postponement “should be made before the torch relay starts,” Nishimoto said. “I have mixed feelings as I feel that we are being messed around.” The global coronavirus pandemic has cast a cloud over the hosting of the Tokyo Olympics from July 24 to Aug. 9 and the Paralympics from Aug. 25 to Sep. 6. In recent days, national Olympic committees in Brazil, Norway and the Netherlands have called for postponements. Japanese government officials have repeatedly said preparations are under way for the games to go ahead as scheduled, and the flame for the Olympics arrived on Friday in Japan. During a videoconference with other leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized nations earlier in the month, Abe secured support for holding “complete” games, meaning they should be held with spectators and without any downsizing. “I think U.S. President (Donald) Trump and other G-7 leaders will support my decision,” Abe said in the parliamentary session. |
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“Balance” a dangerous practice – journalists presenting as equal -Trump’s and scientists’ opinion on coronavirus science
Presenting Trump and Science as Equals Isn’t Balanced, It’s Dangerous, FAIR, NEIL DEMAUSE, 23 Mar 20, With more than 32,000 COVID-19 infections and 400 deaths in the US to date, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams predicting that “this week, it’s going to get bad,” as hospitals prepare for the eventuality of rationing treatment for patients least likely to survive, the president of the United States hit his caps lock key and typed out a tweet:
Sellafield nuclear facility cuts back drastically on staff working onsite
In Cumbria 22nd March 2020, Sellafield is telling the vast majority of its workers to stay away from its main site and satellite offices and to work from home. Mark Neate,
director of environment, safety and security with Sellafield Ltd, has told
employees: “We will minimise attendance at all of our sites and wherever
possible everyone should continue (or start) working from home.
https://www.in-cumbria.com/news/18325910.sellafield-workforce-told-stay-home/
Coronavirus means staff shortages at North Carolina nuclear power stations
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NC nuclear plants brace to operate during coronavirus pandemic, Carolina Public Press, MARCH 23, 2020, BY JACK IGELMAN Duke Energy is bracing for the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the possibility of staffing shortages in the operation of its six nuclear energy power facilities in the Carolinas. Three locations in North Carolina house five reactors in Brunswick, Mecklenburg and Wake counties…….Among the actions the company has taken to ensure the safe operation of the nuclear plants and the safety of its employees are social distancing, a no-visitor policy, increased cleaning at plants and use of screening measures before employees enter facilities.
Duke has directed employees who are not involved with power generation or other critical functions to work from home. However, areas of a nuclear plant, such as the control room, cannot be operated remotely and are staffed by rotating shifts……. Across the industry, said Korsnick, “there is capacity within the normal operator staffing to address some increase in absenteeism.” .., maintaining qualified personnel could become a critical factor in operating nuclear energy if the coronavirus spread worsens…… On Friday, March 20, the NRC hosted a phone meeting with the nuclear industry to discuss regulatory impacts due to COVID-19. The meeting was open to the public. Among the topics discussed were exemptions and regulatory relief, such as allowing power companies to extend work shifts beyond current regulations, considering exemptions or waivers to licensing, or conducting inspections off-site and deferring some inspection activities. Ho Nieh, director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, said on the public call that having a sufficient number of qualified operators is an important issue……. Kevin Kamps of the organization Beyond Nuclear, a watchdog organization based in Maryland that advocates for abandoning nuclear power, participated in the meeting and told CPP that “most of the content of the call was about waivers from existing regulations.” “But during a crisis, requirements should be strengthened, not weakened,” he said. Additional shift hours, Kamps said, will place additional “stress and strain on workers that need to be fully attentive and alert in sensitive jobs.” A better strategy than permitting regulatory relief, he said, would be to proactively power down reactors until the threat of the coronavirus ends…… https://carolinapublicpress.org/30062/nc-nuclear-plants-brace-to-operate-during-coronavirus-pandemic/ |
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The lingering horror of the nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga, South Australia
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Maralinga is 54 kilometres north-west of Ooldea, in South Australia’s remote Great Victoria Desert. Between 1956 and 1963 the British detonated seven atomic bombs at the site; one was twice the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. There were also the so-called “minor trials” where officials deliberately set fire to or blew up plutonium with TNT — just to see what would happen. One location called “Kuli” is still off-limits today, because it’s been impossible to clean up. I went out to the old bomb sites with a group of Maralinga Tjarutja people, who refer to the land around ground zero as “Mamu Pulka”, Pitjantjatjara for “Big Evil”. “My dad passed away with leukaemia. We don’t know if it was from here, but a lot of the time he worked around here,” says Jeremy Lebois, chairperson of the Maralinga Tjarutja council. Thirty per cent of the British and Australian servicemen exposed to the blasts also died of cancer — though the McClelland royal commission of 1984 was unable to conclude that each case was specifically caused by the tests. It’s not until you stand at ground zero that you fully realise the hideous power of these bombs. Even after more than 60 years, the vegetation is cleared in a perfect circle with a one kilometre radius. “The ground underneath is still sterile, so when the plants get down a certain distance, they die,” explains Robin Matthews, who guided me around the site. The steel and concrete towers used to explode the bombs were instantly vaporised. The red desert sand was melted into green glass that still litters the site. Years ago it would have been dangerous to visit the area, but now the radiation is only three times normal — no more than what you get flying in a plane. The Line of FireAustralia was not the first choice for the British, but they were knocked back by both the US and Canada. Robert Menzies, Australia’s prime minister at the time, said yes to the tests without even taking the decision to cabinet first. David Lowe, chair of contemporary history at Deakin University, thinks Australia was hoping to become a nuclear power itself by sharing British technology, or at least to station British nuclear weapons on Australian soil. “In that period many leaders in the Western world genuinely thought there was a real risk of a third world war, which would be nuclear,” he says. The bombs were tested on the Montebello Islands, at Emu Field and at Maralinga. At Woomera in the South Australian desert, they tested the missiles that could carry them. The Blue Streak rocket was developed and test-fired right across the middle of Australia, from Woomera all the way to the Indian Ocean, just south of Broome. This is known as “The Line of Fire” The Line of Fire from Woomera to Broome is, funnily enough, the same distance from London to Moscow,” Mr Matthews says. Just as the Maralinga Tjarutja people were pushed off their land for the bomb tests, the Yulparitja people were removed from their country in the landing zone south of Broome. Not all the Blue Streak rockets reached the sea. Some crashed into the West Australian desert. The McClelland royal commission showed that the British were cavalier about the weather conditions during the bomb tests and that fallout was carried much further than the 100-mile radius agreed to, reaching Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide. “The cavalier attitude towards Australia’s Indigenous populations was appalling and you’d have to say to some extent that extended towards both British and Australian service people,” Professor Lowe says. There are also questions over whether people at the test sites were deliberately exposed to radiation. “You can’t help but wonder the extent to which there was a deliberate interest in the medical results of radioactive materials entering the body,” Professor Lowe says. “Some of this stuff is still restricted; you can’t get your hands on all materials concerning the testing and it’s quite likely both [British and Australian] governments will try very hard to ensure that never happens.” Project SunshineWe do know that there was a concerted effort to examine the bones of deceased infants to test for levels of Strontium 90 (Sr-90), an isotope that is one of the by-products of nuclear bombs. These tests were part of Project Sunshine, a series of studies initiated in the US in 1953 by the Atomic Energy Commission. They sought to measure how Sr-90 had dispersed around the world by measuring its concentration in the bones of the dead. Young bones were chosen because they were particularly susceptible to accumulating the Sr-90 isotope. Around 1,500 exhumations took place, in both Britain and Australia — often without the knowledge or permission of the parents of the dead. Again, it was hard to prove conclusively that spikes in the levels of Strontium 90 during the test period caused bone cancers around the world. The Maralinga tests occurred during a period that Professor Lowe describes as “atomic utopian thinking”. “Remember at that time Australians were uncovering pretty significant discoveries of uranium and they hoped that this would unleash a vast new capacity for development through the power of the atom,” he says. Some of the schemes were absurdly optimistic. Project Ploughshare grew out of a US program which proposed using atomic explosions for industrial purposes such as canal-building. In 1969 Australia and the US signed a joint feasibility study to create an instant port at Cape Keraudren in the Kimberley using nuclear explosions. The plan was dropped, but it was for economic not environmental or social reasons. The dream (or was it a nightmare?) of sharing nuclear weapons technology with the British was never realised. All Australia got out of the deal was help building the Lucas Heights reactor. The British did two ineffectual clean-ups of Maralinga in the 1960s. The proper clean-up between 1995 and 2000 cost more than $100 million, of which Australia paid $75 million. It has left an artificial mesa in the desert containing 400,000 cubic metres of plutonium contaminated soil. The Maralinga Tjarutja people received only $13 million in compensation for loss of their land, which was finally returned to them in 1984. As we were leaving the radiation zone, the Maralinga Tjarutja people spotted some kangaroos in the distance. Over the years some of the wildlife has started to return. Mr Lebois takes it as a good sign. “Hopefully, hopefully everything will come back,” he says. |
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Bill McKibben on the Virus and the Climate Movement
How the Virus Has Hit the Climate Movement: Bill McKibben
The Tyee talks to the prominent activist and author about fighting on two fronts. Geoff Dembicki 23 Mar 20 | TheTyee.ca
Geoff Dembicki reports for The Tyee. His work also appears in Vice, Foreign Policy and the New York Times. A few weeks ago, this was looking like a big year for Canada’s climate movement.
After years of grassroots opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline in B.C., an eruption of rail blockades across the country in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en natural gas fight and Teck Resources shelving a major new oil sands mine for economic reasons, all the conditions seemed there to push for economy-transforming policies on the scale of the Green New Deal.
Then the coronavirus hit.
At a time when climate leaders in Canada, the U.S. and Europe imagined millions of people on the streets pressuring financial institutions to ditch fossil fuels and forcing political leaders to enact bold legislation, people are now fearful and physically alone, stuck in their homes to prevent a public health catastrophe as outside ecosystems veer towards collapse.
To help Tyee readers make sense of this new reality, we reached out to author and activist Bill McKibben, co-founder of the climate group 350 and a global authority on what must be done to fight the climate emergency. It was McKibben who wrote the book The End of Nature about climate change in 1989 that put the threat firmly on the public radar.
On the impact of coronavirus on the climate movement:
In a conversation that has been edited for length and clarity, he urges Canadians to pressure politicians to keep the climate emergency front and centre as we navigate this crisis, while using these terrifying and inexplicable times as a chance to reflect on the fairer and more sustainable world we must build after the crisis is over.
On the similarities between coronavirus and climate change:
There’s a sense in which something like coronavirus is like climate change except encapsulated in a few months instead of a few decades…The biggest difference is that there’s no enormous industry that gets rich off of coronavirus, so there’s not like a built-in opposition to doing what needs to be done and that’s always been one of the problems with climate change.
On how coronavirus is helping kill off the fossil fuel industry:
One thing that’s happening I think is that last year will mark the peak of fossil fuel demand. I don’t think fossil fuels will be able to recover to the point they were at before. I can’t imagine anyone deciding that what they’re going to invest their money now in is another tar sands mine. I find it hard to imagine that even the Canadian government is going to want to spend $12 billion to build its pipeline out to Burnaby. I think we’re going to be reminded that there are other more important things to spend money on.
It seems to me that probably some of the landscape of oil and gas is getting rewritten even as we watch. That is a direct testament to the power of protest and organization over this last decade and to the incredible work of people, especially Indigenous organizers, pushing this case for a very long time. And it’s gotten through. Earlier this winter, the decision of investors that they weren’t going to throw more money into the Teck Frontier mine was a kind of bell ringing and those echoes will reverberate for a long time.
On the message Canadians should send to businesspeople and politicians:
I do think that the best thing for people to be doing in North America at the moment is to be putting huge pressure on the banks and financial institutions that fund fossil fuels, like JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, Liberty Mutual, RBC, all the Toronto banks, reminding them that it’s not ok to be trying to profit off the end of the world.
Some of these banks are going to need bailouts as the economy tanks and it should be pretty clear that we should not be bailing out them without making sure that they’re not going to contribute to the next even larger crisis facing the planet. https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/03/22/How-The-Virus-Has-Hit-Climate-Movement-McKibben/
America’s economic plan for Covid19 directs money to big corporations
Democrats are balking at the Senate GOP’s version of the bill because it is far too top-heavy with financial assistance to corporations and lacks sufficient assistance for working families.
The Virus of Capitalism Has Infected the COVID-19 Fight, William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, 23 Mar 20, …….. Under vastly different circumstances, perhaps it would have been possible to argue for a different path of action than dramatic physical-distancing measures, following from the idea that to develop a herd immunity to COVID-19, a certain number of people have to contract it and recover (assuming we are even capable of developing an immunity, which is not yet confirmed). To even countenance this idea, however, we would need a robust and fully functional health care system to aid in the recovery process.
Why? Money.
And then there is the currently stalled $1.8 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, which hit the reef in Congress over the weekend. Democrats are balking at the Senate GOP’s version of the bill because it is far too top-heavy with financial assistance to corporations and lacks sufficient assistance for working families.
Natch. These fellows never, ever, ever miss an opportunity to loot the till.
And therein lies the rub. The priority of the people (for the most part) is to stay safe, to get well if they fall ill, and to do what must be done to eventually return to some semblance of a normal life. The priority of the capitalists is to get the money machine going again, to take full advantage of the crisis in the name of profit, and to defend their well-staked financial turf from any reforms that may be proposed in the aftermath.
U.S.-style capitalism is also a virus, and it has infected every aspect of this situation. Worker safety, insurance coverage and costs, medical preparedness, and vital supplies — even the bill intended to rescue the country from some final financial calamity: All have been perverted and disrupted by the profit motive that never, ever, ever sleeps. https://truthout.org/articles/the-virus-of-capitalism-has-infected-the-covid-19-fight/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=e1200502-b139-4a26-8fdd-b7207fc3df68
A new low-cost solar technology for environmental cooling
A new low-cost solar technology for environmental cooling https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/pdt-anl032320.php POLITECNICO DI TORINO Space cooling and heating is a common need in most inhabited areas. In Europe, the energy consumed for air conditioning is rising, and the situation could get worse in the near future due to the temperature increase in different regions worldwide. The increasing cooling need in buildings especially during the summer season is satisfied by the popular air conditioners, which often make use of refrigerants with high environmental impact and also lead to high electricity consumption. So, how can we reduce the energy demand for building cooling?
A new study comes from a research group based at the Politecnico di Torino (SMaLL) and the National Institute of Metrological Research (INRiM), who has proposed a device capable of generating a cooling load without the use of electricity: the research has been published in Science Advances*. Like more traditional cooling devices, this new technology also exploits the evaporation of a liquid. However, the key idea proposed by the Turin researchers is to use simple water and common salt instead of chemicals that are potentially harmful for the environment. The environmental impact of the new device is also reduced because it is based on passive phenomena, i.e. spontaneous processes such as capillarity or evaporation, instead of on pumps and compressors that require energy and maintenance.
“Cooling by water evaporation has always been known. As an example, Nature makes use of sweat evaporation from the skin to cool down our body. However, this strategy is effective as long as air is not saturated with water vapour. Our idea was to come up with a low-cost technology capable to maximize the cooling effect regardless of the external water vapour conditions. Instead of being exposed to air, pure water is in contact with an impermeable membrane that keeps separated from a highly concentrated salty solution. The membrane can be imagined as a porous sieve with pore size in the order of one millionth of a meter. Owing to its water-repellent properties, our membrane liquid water does not pass through the membrane, whereas its vapour does. In this way, the fresh and salt water do not mix, while a constant water vapour flux occurs from one end of the membrane to the other. As a result, pure water gets cooled, with this effect being further amplified thanks to the presence of different evaporation stages. Clearly, the salty water concentration will constantly decrease and the cooling effect will diminish over time; however, the difference in salinity between the two solutions can be continuously – and sustainably – restored using solar energy, as also demonstrated in another recent study from our group**”, explains Matteo Alberghini, PhD student of the Energy Department of the Politecnico di Torino and first author of the research.
The interesting feature of the suggested device consists in its modular design made of cooling units, a few centimetres thick each, that can be stacked in series to increase the cooling effect in series, as happens with common batteries. In this way it is possible to finely tune the cooling power according to individual needs, possibly reaching cooling capacity comparable to those typically necessary for domestic use. Furthermore, water and salt do not need pumps or other auxiliaries to be transported within the device. On the contrary, it “moves” spontaneously thanks to capillary effects of some components which, like in kitchen paper, are capable of absorbing and transporting water also against gravity.
“Other technologies for passive cooling are also being tested in various labs and research centres worldwide, such as those based on infrared heat dissipation into the outer space – also known as radiative passive cooling. Those approaches, although promising and suitable for some applications, also present major limitations: the principle on which they are based may be ineffective in tropical climates and in general on very humid days, when, however, the need for conditioning would still be high; moreover, there is a theoretical limit for the maximum cooling power. Our passive prototype, based instead on evaporative cooling between two aqueous solutions with different salinities, could overcome this limit, creating a useful effect independent of external humidity. Moreover, we could obtain an even higher cooling capacity in the future by increasing the concentration of the saline solution or by resorting to a more sophisticated modular design of the device” commented the researchers.
Also due to the simplicity of the device assembly and the required materials, a rather low production cost can be envisioned, in the order of a few euros for each cooling stage. As such, the device could be ideal for installations in rural areas, where the possible lack of well-trained technicians can make operation and maintenance of traditional cooling systems difficult. Interesting applications can also be envisioned in regions with large availability in water with high saline concentration, such as coastal regions in the vicinity of large desalination plants or nearby salt marshes and salt mines.
As of now, the technology is not yet ready for an immediate commercial exploitation, and further developments (also subject to future funding or industrial partnerships) are necessary. In perspective, this technology could be used in combination with existing and more traditional cooling systems for effectively implementing energy saving strategies.
[*] Matteo Alberghini, Matteo Morciano, Matteo Fasano, Fabio Bertiglia, Vito Fernicola, Pietro Asinari, Eliodoro Chiavazzo. Multistage and passive cooling process driven by salinity difference, SCIENCE ADVANCES (2020), URL: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/11/eaax5015
[**] Eliodoro Chiavazzo, Matteo Morciano, Francesca Viglino, Matteo Fasano, Pietro Asinari, Passive solar high-yield seawater desalination by modular and low-cost distillation, NATURE SUSTAINABILITY (2018), URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0186-x
In the current mood – time for international co-operation and prompt action to stall global heating
Canada pushing Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, but the outlook for uranium/nuclear industry is bleak
Nuclear power, and Canada’s uranium industry, are struggling to find their place in a green energy future, CIM Magazine, 23 Mar , 2020 NuScale Power submitted its small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) design to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for a pre-licensing vendor design review. This came just over a month after the leaders of three Canadian provinces – Ontario premier Doug Ford, New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe – signed a memorandum of understanding to develop SMRs in their respective provinces.
1 This Month.
5 January -Webinar-What is Trump’s Golden Dome?
REGISTER AT Massachusetts Peace Action Education
New book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923372157?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
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