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Julian Assange: Denied Lawyer Access and Failure of Transpareny Internaional — Rise Up Times

“Julian has not been able to see his lawyers for seventeen weeks. The computer supplied to him after over a year of asking has its keys glued down and the typing function is disabled.” Popular Resistance July 27, 2020 Julian Assange’s Next Hearing On Monday, July 27 By Don’t Extradite Assange. WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson […]

via Julian Assange: Denied Lawyer Access and Failure of Transpareny Internaional — Rise Up Times

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July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The week in pandemic, climate, and nuclear news

It’s hard to know what are the most important news items of the week, or the day.  The Pandemic Really Has Changed The World Forever.  Here’s what we know so far about the long-term symptoms of COVID-19.  Nurses and other healthcare workers open up about ‘terror’ of catching coronavirus.  We underestimate the long term effects of the pandemic.

Climate emergency is ‘a danger to peace’.  In 100 days, the climate emergency may be even more serious.  Latest climate study predicts disaster for oceans, coastlines and life as we know it.

The global sweep of coronavirus and climate news makes nuclear issues seem minor, or at least fade into the background a bit. But nuclear threats are always there.  This week the corruption that is rife in the global nuclear industry has been highlighted in the legal case in Ohio – a huge criminal racketeering conspiracy that orchestrated the bailout of nuclear power stations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBx56QyrUjY&t=3s

 Some bits of good news –     The economy usually recovers quickly once pandemics end.  House Democrats just put out the most detailed climate plan in US political history.

Coronavirus update: US, Brazil and India lead world tally of 16 million COVID-19 cases .  Global surge in Covid-19 infections, over 600.000 deaths.

World must act now to protect wildlife in order to stop future virus crises.  With loss of biodiversity will come new pandemics.

Global heating will mean that many areas become too hot for human activities.    New research: global temperature increase will surpass 2.6 degrees Celsius: the role of clouds.  How Facebook fosters climate denial.  Crucial need to fix air-conditioning: it causes billions of tons of greenhouse gases.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brtog4AABBg

Clear evidence of excess cancer risk from low dose ionizing radiation.  New CT scan method lowers radiation exposure . The global scam: nuclear energy and the industry surrounding it.

In the event of a nuclear bombing, electromagnetic pulse would be the least of our worries.  Space archaeology, space junk and weapons, and long-lasting radioactivity.

Humans are blanketing the Earth with plastic.

Earth’s Human Population Is Not Sustainable.

ARCTIC.  Arctic heatwave:  temperature reach  possible all time high.  Arctic fires and sea ice melt, show need for urgent climate action.     Alaska’s permafrost degrading as summer rainfall increases.

ASIA. Global heating means more rain for Asian monsoon regions.  South Asia floods displace millions and kill 550. Millions of children affected by devastating flooding in South Asia, with many more at risk as COVID-19 brings further challenges.  A critical situation’: Bangladesh in crisis as monsoon floods follow super-cyclone.  Flooding in Assam and Nepal kills hundreds and displaces millions .

MIDDLE EAST  Nuclear power in the Gulf.

GREECE.  Greece wildfires rage out of control .

USA.  US tops 1000 coronavirus deaths four days in a row, as experts urge the country to shut down.  Pacific Islanders in US hospitalised with Covid-19 at up to 10 times the rate of other groups.

Update on wildfires in northeast California.    Number of wildfires has soared in Maine in 2020 .   America’s choice – environmental and climate catastrophe under Trump, or some hope under Democratic rule.

  • Ohio’s tainted House Bill 6 likely to be repealed.    Ohio House Republicans introduce legislation to repeal controversial bailout of nuclear power plants.   Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder arrested in $60 million bribery case. As FBI investigates nuclear bribery, environmentalists call for review of controversial Ohio nuclear bailout bill.  What now for the nuclear power plants? USA’s nuclear woes highlighted by Ohio corruption case.
  • Guilty plea by former SCANA executive – who will be a valuable witness to prosecutors in South Carolina nuclear scandal.  Settlement for ratepayers over failed VC Summer nuclear project.    UK will fund its nuclear power with the same schemes used by bankrupt US nuclear financing practices!   Nuclear power: Still a rip-off after all these years
  • USA wants nuclear power stations on the moon and on Mars.
  • Funding for nuclear weapons tests is blocked in U.S. Congress.   Union of Concerned Scientists, nuclear watchdogs and environmentalists push for elimination of funding for nuclear testing. Opposition to nuclear testing is led by Utah’s present and former Congressmen.
  • Trump administration plans vast expansion of military budget. Trump uses fear of China to drum up hostilities, and diminish arms control.
  • September 3 and 4 – new sentencing dates for Kings Bay PLowshares 7 anti-nuclear-bomb activists.
  • 770-ton nuclear reactor pressure vessel completes trip to Utah.

UK. 

  • Tory MPs angry about China’s involvement in British nuclear power plant. EDF denies that China has increasingly big role in UK’s Hinkley Point nuclear project. China takes a bigger role at Hinkley as nuclear reactor pressure rises.
  • Bradwell B new nuclear project probably doomed, -on fragile shore subject to flooding.  UK public has been misled over plans for nuclear reactors in Essex.
  • A series of accidents and near misses between surface vessels and submarines in the waters round Scotland.  Plan for Scotland to be free of nuclear weapons.

JAPAN. Robot to use brush to retrieve melted fuel at Fukushima plant. Plutonium Particles Scattered 200km From Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Site, Scientists Say. The Fukushima Daiichi Accident Chain, Part 6.

Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago are still claiming lives and causing suffering.  Virtual tours planned at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.  Arms Control Today interviews Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui .

FRANCE. France’s Flamanville new generation nuclear reactor “is a mess” – Energy Minister Barbara Pompili.        Takeover of UraMin – a scam linked to incompetence of leaders in the nuclear industry.

NETHERLANDS. Why the nuclear whistleblower exposing AQ Khan was ignored.

CHINA. Floods.  Will China change its policy on dams? China’s government-run nuclear institutions are experiencing a brain drain.

CANADA. Problems in planned nuclear waste dump at Chalk River.

IRAN.  Does Iran Really Want to Build Nuclear Weapons at Any Cost? Maybe Not. Cause of blast at Iran nuclear site – still shrouded in mystery.

RUSSIA.  Wildfires in Siberia have burned down an area larger than Greece .   Russian navy to get hypersonic nuclear weapons: Putin.

SAUDI ARABIA.  Saudi Arabia could become a pawn in a proxy nuclear war.

NORTH KOREA.  North Korea declares emergency over suspected Covid-19 case.  North Korea continues policy -no denuclearization talks until the US withdraws its “hostile policy”.

AUSTRALIA  New Federal radioactive waste agency flawed from day one  Spinbusting the extraordinarily inept nuclear waste media release from 3 Australian MPs.   Coronavirus cases aren’t coming down despite Victoria’s lockdowns. Experts seek to explain why.

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

World must act now to protect wildlife in order to stop future virus crises

Cost of preventing next pandemic ‘equal to just 2% of Covid-19 economic damage’  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/23/preventing-next-pandemic-fraction-cost-covid-19-economic-fallout   World must act now to protect wildlife in order to stop future virus crises, say scientists, Damian Carrington Environment editor @dpcarrington, Fri 24 Jul 2020 The cost of preventing further pandemics over the next decade by protecting wildlife and forests would equate to just 2% of the estimated financial damage caused by Covid-19, according to a new analysis.Two new viruses a year had spilled from their wildlife hosts into humans over the last century, the researchers said, with the growing destruction of nature meaning the risk today is higher than ever.

It was vital to crack down on the international wildlife trade and the razing of forests, they said. Both bring wildlife into contact with people and their livestock. But such efforts are currently severely underfunded, according to the experts.

Spending of about $260bn (£200bn) over 10 years would substantially reduce the risks of another pandemic on the scale of the coronavirus outbreak, the researchers estimate, which is just 2% of the estimated $11.5tn costs of Covid-19 to the world economy. Furthermore, the spending on wildlife and forest protection would be almost cancelled out by another benefit of the action: cutting the carbon dioxide emissions driving the climate crisis.

The key programmes the scientists are calling for are: much better regulation of the wildlife trade, disease surveillance and control in wild and domestic animals, ending the wild meat trade in China, and cutting deforestation by 40% in key places. There was a clear link between deforestation and virus emergence, they said, with forest bats the likely reservoirs of the Ebola, Sars and Covid-19 viruses, and tropical forest edges a “major launchpad” for new viruses infecting humans.

“It’s naive to think of the Covid-19 pandemic as a once in a century event,” said Prof Andrew Dobson at Princeton University in the US, who led the analysis. “As with anything we’re doing to the environment, they’re coming faster and faster, just like climate change.”

Prof Stuart Pimm at Duke University in the US, part of the research team, said: “Investment in prevention may well be the best insurance policy for human health and the global economy in the future. We could stop future pandemics before they start.”

The UN’s environment chief welcomed the analysis. “The science could not be clearer,” said Inger Andersen. “As we emerge on the recovery side of Covid-19, we cannot afford a piecemeal approach to tackling diseases [from wildlife]. Irrespective of the final bill [for coronavirus], we can say with certainty that action now will save us billions in future costs, and avoid the tremendous suffering that we continue to see around the world.”

The analysis is the latest plea from experts for governments to address the destruction of the natural world and help prevent future pandemics. This month, a UN report said the world was treating the health and economic symptoms of the coronavirus pandemic but not the environmental cause. In June, experts said the pandemic was an “SOS signal for the human enterprise”; while in April, the world’s leading biodiversity experts said more deadly disease outbreaks were likely unless nature was protected.

The analysis, published in the journal Science, was carried out by experts in environment, medicine, economics and conservation. In particular it noted that wildlife enforcement networks are acutely underfunded. The network in south-east Asia has an annual budget of $30,000, while the global wildlife trade body Cites gets $6m a year.

“The wildlife trade is deeply corrupt,” said Dobson. “Some politicians would much rather that it not be stopped in many countries.

The researchers said indigenous peoples who rely on wildlife for food must be protected from any restrictions.

Ending the wild meat trade in China was key, the researchers said, and would require almost $20bn a year. “I was shocked at the number of people employed: it’s several million,” said Dobson. He said there were also very few wildlife veterinarians in China: “The troops in the frontline trenches are missing.”

Akanksha Khatri, head of the World Economic Forum’s nature action agenda, said: “Covid-19 has shown us that human beings and our economic activity depend on the planet’s ecological balance. If we continue to push against this delicate balance, we do so at our peril.”

Stéphane De La Rocque, a veterinary expert at the World Health Orgazisation, said the analysis was much needed and that, after Covid-19, leaders were starting to understand the issue: ““It is the first time that we really have had a discussion about wildlife [and disease] and realised we have no surveillance system for wildlife.”

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, environment | Leave a comment

Nuclear power in the Gulf

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | MIDDLE EAST, politics | Leave a comment

“..clear evidence of excess cancer risk from low dose ionizing radiation…..”              

DCEG 13th July 2020, An international team of experts in the study of cancer risks associated with low-dose ionizing radiation published the monograph, “Epidemiological studies of low-dose ionizing radiation and cancer:  Summary bias assessment and meta-analysis,” in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute on July 13, 2020. It is well established that ionizing radiation causes cancer through direct DNA damage. The general public are exposed to low doses of ionizing radiation from medical exposures like computed tomography (CT) scans, naturally occurring radiation (emitted from bedrock with the earth’s crust and cosmic rays emitted by the sun), and occupational exposures to medical, aircrew and nuclear workers.

A key question for low-dose exposures is how much of the damage can be repaired and whether other mechanisms, including inflammation, also play a role. This critical question has been long debated for radiation protection standards. After combing data from 26 epidemiological studies the authors found clear evidence of excess cancer
risk from low dose ionizing radiation: 17 of 22 studies showed risk for solid cancers and 17 of 20 studies showed risk for leukemia. The summary risk estimates were statistically significant and the magnitude of risk(per unit dose) was consistent with studies of populations exposed to higher doses.  https://dceg.cancer.gov/news-events/news/2020/low-dose-monograph?s=09

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Global heating means more rain for Asian monsoon regions

Wetter than wet: Global warming means more rain for Asian monsoon regions EurekAlert,  Large-scale simulation reveals how Asian monsoons will transform with climate change TOKYO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY  26 Jul 20,  Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University studied how the weather will change with global warming in Asian monsoon regions using a high-resolution climate simulation. The region is home to a large population, and the monsoons are a major driver of global water cycles. They explicitly simulated cloud formation and dissipation, and found significantly increased precipitation over the monsoon “trough,” with tropical disturbances such as typhoons and concentrated water vapor playing key roles.

As the world braces itself for the impact of global warming, it is now more vital than ever to have an accurate, detailed picture of how exactly the climate will change. This applies strongly to the Asian monsoon regions, where vast amounts of annual precipitation make it an important part of global energy and water cycles. As home to a large proportion of the world population, detailed, local predictions for the scale and nature of monsoons and tropical disturbances such as typhoons/cyclones have the potential to inform disaster mitigation strategies and key policymaking. ………. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/tmu-wtw072220.php

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | ASIA, climate change | Leave a comment

Humans are blanketing the Earth with plastic

A Billion More Tons of Plastic Could Blanket Earth by 2040, Wired, 26 July 20, Even with immediate action, 710 million metric tons of plastic will enter the environment in the next two decades, scientists show. Welcome to Plastic Planet.  IMAGINE YOUR FAVORITE stretch of coastline—whitesand beaches, rocky tide pools, the cliffs of Dover, what have you. Now transport yourself ahead two decades, after plastic production and waste have continued to skyrocket. Humanity is now unloading 29 million metric tons of bottles, bags, and microplastics (little bits smaller than 5 millimeters) into the oceans annually. That means for every meter of your favorite coastline, 50 kilograms—that’s 110 pounds—of plastic is entering the sea every year.“Now imagine that’s happening for every meter of coastline around the world,” says Richard Bailey, who studies environmental systems at Oxford University. “That’s the amount we’re looking at—it’s a colossal amount.”

Over the past few years, scientists have been exposing the hazards of microplastics—or ground-up particles that easily blow around the world and work their way into plants and animals. But all the while, macro-plastics like bottles have been accumulating in the environment, shedding microplastics as they degrade. Writing today in the journal Science, Bailey and his colleagues are publishing the alarming findings of their comprehensive review of the cycle of all this plastic. If we as a species don’t collectively take action, they warn, 1.3 billion metric tons of plastic will flow into the sea and tumble across the land between the years 2016 and 2040. Even with immediate and drastic action, that figure could be 710 million metric tons—460 million of them on land and 250 million in the water. Making matters worse, throughout much of the world people burn the plastic they can’t easily recycle, to the tune of perhaps 133 million metric tons of waste by 2040. That spews dangerous toxins and CO2 (plastic is made of oil, after all), further warming the planet.

To model the plastic waste ecosystem, the researchers created eight “geographic archetypes,” instead of picking apart the dynamics of how individual countries handle trash. “We didn’t want it to become a blame game,” says the study’s co-lead author, Winnie Lau, senior manager of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ project on ocean plastic pollution. “What we wanted to do was to understand the problem and how it came about, rather than pointing out specific countries.”…………

Without drastic and immediate measures, the fight against plastic pollution will follow the same path as the fight against climate change: We’ve waited far too long to stop CO2 from accumulating in the atmosphere, and we’re in danger of waiting far too long to turn off the plastic spigot. “What this paper makes clear is, really, any future scenario for a healthy planet is going to require that this kind of year-over-year growth in plastic production has got to stop,” says Leonard. “It began in 1950, and it continues to accelerate. And there’s really no viable solution that doesn’t result in bending that curve.”  https://www.wired.com/story/billion-more-tons-of-plastic-could-blanket-earth/

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, environment | Leave a comment

Ohio’s tainted House Bill 6 likely to be repealed. What now for the nuclear power plants?

Ohio’s nuclear plants face new uncertainty as HB 6 comes under attack, Crains Cleveland Business, DAN SHINGLER  26 Jul 20, So what happens to Ohio and its nuclear plants now?

It’s becoming apparent that 2019’s House Bill 6, the now-tainted law that provides about $150 million a year in subsidies primarily to Ohio’s two nuclear plants, likely will be repealed.

But will it be replaced? And if so, will the plants, which Ohioans were told would close without the subsidies, be saved?

Those are questions now causing angst from Columbus, where state lawmakers are grappling with the issue, to the Toledo area and Lake County, where the affected Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants are respectively located. The companies involved, FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron and its former subsidiary, Energy Harbor, which owns the plants, have yet to say how they might address the matter and have declined interview requests.

Legislators, economic developers and others across the state expressed their disgust with the situation — which already has become one of the largest scandals in Ohio’s history and resulted in the July 21 arrest of House Speaker Larry Householder and  four others for what federal officials say was a $60 million bribery scheme to pass the law…….

Cirino said he would like to see HB 6’s subsidies remain in place, but he’s resigned to the bill likely being repealed. A number of lawmakers have already announced legislation to undo HB 6, and Gov. Mike DeWine, who said he supported keeping the law in place when the scandal broke, had reversed course by July 23 and joined calls for it to be repealed. ………

some GOP lawmakers working to repeal HB 6 are expressing support for renewables.

“Renewable energy in the long run will save the consumer a lot of money, in addition to the job development,” said Rep. Laura Lanese, R-Grove City, who is working on legislation to repeal HB 6. She and other lawmakers, from both parties, are calling for Ohio to start over on a new energy policy.

“We need to start afresh with any new energy legislation going forward,” Lanese said at a July 23 news conference.  …………. https://www.crainscleveland.com/government/ohios-nuclear-plants-face-new-uncertainty-hb-6-comes-under-attack

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

A series of accidents and near misses between surface vessels and submarines in the waters round Scotland.

The National 26th July 2020, IN a crowded field for shocking headlines this past month, readers may not
have noticed news of an alarming near-miss between a Royal Navy nuclear
submarine and a ferry on the Belfast-Cairnryan crossing.

The Maritime Accident Investigation Branch’s recently published analysis of this
incident makes for worrying reading and follows on from a series of
similarly dangerous accidents between surface vessels and submarines in the
waters round Scotland.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/18607663.scots-deserve-free-nuclear-sub-risks/

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, UK | Leave a comment

Takeover of UraMin – a scam linked to incompetence of leaders in the nuclear industry

Le Media 25th July 2020, Son of resistance fighters, Marc Eichinger was a trader for several banks before leading his investigation and security company, APIC, which protects companies in hostile terrain. With the Areva affair he becomes a spy, specializing in financial crime.

Since I opened the Areva file in February 2010, at the request of Admiral d’Arbonneau, I have the feeling that the
takeover of UraMin is not only a scam linked to incompetence or lightness of the leaders of the nuclear group in the treatment of this acquisition. A certain number of clues suggest that it goes beyond …I tend to think that the UraMin file will eventually come to light and become a historical benchmark in the area of international corruption. Yet at no time did we receive the slightest support from an elected politician. In this area, it is obvious that everyone sticks together. There is nothing to expect from politicians: the soup is too good, as they say.

https://www.lemediatv.fr/articles/2020/lex-agent-secret-qui-en-sait-beaucoup-trop-9-connivences-et-procedures-baillons-les-grands-groupes-contre-la-liberte-de-la-presse-L6D5euhaTROqLLqh65ceRg

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Alaska’s permafrost degrading as summer rainfall increases

Alaska is getting wetter. That’s bad news for permafrost and the climate.   UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER   EurekAlert  26 Jul 20, Alaska is getting wetter. A new study spells out what that means for the permafrost that underlies about 85% of the state, and the consequences for Earth’s global climate.

The study, published today in Nature Publishing Group journal Climate and Atmospheric Science, is the first to compare how rainfall is affecting permafrost thaw across time, space, and a variety of ecosystems. It shows that increased summer rainfall is degrading permafrost across the state.

As Siberia remains in the headlines for record-setting heat waves and wildfires, Alaska is experiencing the rainiest five years in its century-long meteorological record. Extreme weather on both ends of the spectrum–hot and dry versus cool and wet–are driven by an aspect of climate change called Arctic amplification. As the earth warms, temperatures in the Arctic rise faster than the global average.
While the physical basis of Arctic amplification is well understood, it is less known how it will affect the permafrost that underlies about a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, including most of Alaska. Permafrost locks about twice the carbon that is currently in the atmosphere into long-term storage and supports Northern infrastructure like roads and buildings; so understanding how a changing climate will affect it is crucial for both people living in the Arctic and those in lower latitudes. ………   https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/uoca-aig072420.php

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Tory MPs angry about China’s involvement in British nuclear power plant

UK China threat: MPs demand answers on Beijing’s role in British nuclear power plant, CHINA’S role in Britain’s Hinkley Point C nuclear facility should be urgently reviewed amid claims its involvement in the plant is much deeper than previously thought, according to MPs.  Express UK, By SIMON OSBORNE, Sun, Jul 26, 2020   Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith claims ministers were misled when they gave the green light for Beijing-controlled China General Nuclear (CGN) to become a stakeholder in the £22.5billion reactor. Sir Iain said Theresa May’s government was assured the energy firm would only be a financial partner when it took a 33.5 percent stake in the Somerset plant with French energy giant EDF in 2016. But insiders claim CGN role goes beyond financial support, with EDF heavily reliant on Chinese technical expertise.

Sir Iain told the Sunday Telegraph: “It was obviously never just going to be a financial partnership.

This information tells you everything you need to know to back the call to have an independent, strategic review into our dependency on China.”

Nick Timothy, Mrs May’s top adviser when the deal was struck four years ago, said he tried to block the Chinese approach.

He said: “Hinkley Point was supposed to involve French expertise and Chinese investment, and even then it was a bad deal on several fronts.”……. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1314458/uk-china-hinkley-point-nuclear-power-plant-iain-duncan-smith

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

USA wants nuclear power stations on the moon and on Mars

U.S. eyes building nuclear power plants for moon and Mars    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-eyes-building-nuclear-nts-fpower-plaor-moon-and-mars  Nation Jul 24, 2020 BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. wants to build nuclear power plants that will work on the moon and Mars, and on Friday put out a request for ideas from the private sector on how to do that.

The U.S. Department of Energy put out the formal request to build what it calls a fission surface power system that could allow humans to live for long periods in harsh space environments.

The Idaho National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility in eastern Idaho, the Energy Department and NASA will evaluate the ideas for developing the reactor.

The lab has been leading the way in the U.S. on advanced reactors, some of them micro reactors and others that can operate without water for cooling. Water-cooled nuclear reactors are the vast majority of reactors on Earth.

“Small nuclear reactors can provide the power capability necessary for space exploration missions of interest to the Federal government,” the Energy Department wrote in the notice published Friday.

The Energy Department, NASA and Battelle Energy Alliance, the U.S. contractor that manages the Idaho National Laboratory, plan to hold a government-industry webcast technical meeting in August concerning expectations for the program.

The plan has two phases. The first is developing a reactor design. The second is building a test reactor, a second reactor be sent to the moon, and developing a flight system and lander that can transport the reactor to the moon. The goal is to have a reactor, flight system and lander ready to go by the end of 2026.

The reactor must be able to generate an uninterrupted electricity output of at least 10 kilowatts. The average U.S. residential home, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, uses about 11,000 kilowatt-hours per year. The Energy Department said it would likely take multiple linked reactors to meet power needs on the moon or Mars.

In addition, the reactor cannot weigh more than 7,700 pounds (3,500 kilograms), be able to operate in space, operate mostly autonomously, and run for at least 10 years.

“This may drive or start an international space race to build and deploy new types of reactors requiring highly enriched uranium.”

– Edwin Lyman, director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists

The Energy Department said the reactor is intended to support exploration in the south polar region of the moon. The agency said a specific region on the Martian surface for exploration has not yet been identified.

Edwin Lyman, director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit, said his organization is concerned the parameters of the design and timeline make the most likely reactors those that use highly enriched uranium, which can be made into weapons. Nations have generally been attempting to reduce the amount of enriched uranium being produced for that reason.

“This may drive or start an international space race to build and deploy new types of reactors requiring highly enriched uranium,” he said.

Earlier this week, the United Arab Emirates launched an orbiter to Mars and China launched an orbiter, lander and rover. The U.S. has already landed rovers on the red planet and is planning to send another next week.

Officials say operating a nuclear reactor on the moon would be a first step to building a modified version to operate in the different conditions found on Mars.

“Idaho National Laboratory has a central role in emphasizing the United States’ global leadership in nuclear innovation, with the anticipated demonstration of advanced reactors on the INL site,” John Wagner, associate laboratory director of INL’s Nuclear Science & Technology Directorate, said in a statement. “The prospect of deploying an advanced reactor to the lunar surface is as exciting as it is challenging.”

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Plan for Scotland to be free of nuclear weapons

The National 26th July 2020, SCOTLAND could see the end of nuclear weapons on the Clyde within three
years of a Yes vote under radical new plans be put to the SNP annual
conference. A resolution is to be submitted to the event this October
setting out the time frame for the first time.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/18607658.snp-debate-three-year-timetable-axe-trident-yes-vote/

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Robot to use brush to retrieve melted fuel at Fukushima plant

Robot to use brush to retrieve melted fuel at Fukushima plant, Asahi Shimbun, By KEITARO FUKUCHI/ Staff Writer, July 27, 2020     FUKUSHIMA--A robotic arm under development in Britain will use a brush and vacuum vessel on its end to collect melted fuel in a step toward retrieving debris at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Details of the device, which will start collecting debris inside the No. 2 reactor on a trial basis next year, were announced on July 2.

The government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. plan to retrieve melted fuel at the No. 2 reactor ahead of two other reactors because radiation levels are relatively low……..

Training is expected to reduce the time required for workers to put debris into the transfer vessel near the fuel.

Other measures to lessen workers’ doses will be taken, such as introducing panels to block radiation.  http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13529394

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

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1.This Month

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February 18th Call for protests against the NATO ‘Security Conference’ in Munich – Negotiating Instead of Shooting – Arms Reduction Instead of an Arms Race. Demonstration on Saturday, 18 February 2023

 
 

 
 
 
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