nuclear-news

This week’s nuclear and climate news

Well, ya can’t get away from it. It’s always the pandemic! This week, the news moves on to considering the future.  Biodiversity scientists warn that future pandemics are on the horizon, if we don’t stop our rapid destruction of nature. With increasing human population, encroaching on wild habitats, there’s increased risk of pathogens transferring between animals and humans. 

But also, the pandemic is showing us how our trashed world can heal.

Amidst the continuing propaganda for the (still non existent) new “cheap ” small nuclear reactors, comes the sobering fact that the nuclear industry is in trouble, in this time of pandemic.  It’s not just nuclear’s unique  safety problem, but now the business problem. As wind and solar power thrive , nuclear power is going down the drain, with low prices and slumping demand.

A bit of good news –  Hole in the ozone layer is now closed.

The nuclear pandemic.  Nuclear Issues and Epidemiology.    Low Oil Prices May Kill Off The Next Nuclear Boom Before It Begins.

New START is the only U.S.-Russian nuclear treaty still in effect. Time to renew it.

Petersberg Climate Dialogue to be held virtually this year.  Climate change: lakes and rivers will become drier, increasingly infectious and toxic.

Solar and Wind Cheapest Sources of Power in Most of the World   Solar heating.

ARCTIC. An Arctic island is warming SIX times faster than the global average.

JAPAN.  16 Japanese Financial institutions won’t invest in companies involved in nuclear weapons. Half of highly radioactive exhaust stack dismantled at Fukushima Nuclear Reactor 1,

RUSSIA. Coronavirus a big threat to Russia’s secret nuclear cities, as virus incidence rises. Russia warns US against using low-yield nuclear weapons, threatening all-out retaliation.   With international finance help, Russia is dismantling its most radioactive ship.

USA.

• USA’s complicated and contradictory plan to punish Iran.  Could President Trump launch a nuclear attack via Twitter?    “Mrs America”- Phyllis Schlafly determined fan of nuclear weapons, like today’s pro nuclear women in public life.
• Federal appeals court dismisses case against GE over Fukushima nuclear disaster.
• To store surplus plutonium, USA’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will have to be enlarged.    Beyond Nuclear and other groups challenge Holtec’s nuclear waste plan for New Mexico. Beyond Nuclear opposes Holtec nuclear waste plan: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not above the law. The Southwest Research and Information Center says that rules are ignored in nuclear waste construction in New Mexico. Comment Period For Proposed Nuclear Waste Dump In New Mexico extended by 60 days.
• Nuclear reactor pressure vessel to be shipped by rail to Utah, from Sanonofre.    Indian Point nuclear power station‘s first step to closure, as one reactor shuts down.
• Do-it-yourself radiation monitoring.
•  Offshore wind is General Electric’s great opportunity, not dodgy Small Nuclear Reactors.  Michael Moore’s sham attack on renewable energy has had rigorous debunking

UK. UK ignored warnings about pandemic danger, cut health funding, spent up big on nuclear weapons.  Report warns on the threat of sea level rise to Sizewell nuclear plan.  Everyone is needed in bid for a future free of nuclear .

NORTH KOREA. Time to support humanitarian initiatives for North Korea.

ISRAEL. Netanyahu’s deceitful push to try to get USA to attack Iran.

INDIA. Hundreds of foreign companies procuring nuclear materials for India and Pakistan.

FRANCE.  France’s unfairly heavy monitoring of anti-nuclear activists, treating them as violent criminals.

AUSTRALIA. Flinders Local Action Group want a new process for disposal of Australia’s nuclear waste.  South Australian group calls –  ” No to radioactive waste on agricultural land in Kimba or South Australia.”  Dr Helen Caldicott explains the (virtually eternal) problem of toxic nuclear waste.

May 4, 2020 - Posted by Christina MacPherson | Christina's notes