Gas is not transition energy we were promised, new research suggests
Gas is not transition energy we were promised, new research suggests, SMH, By Nick O’Malley, August 24, 2020 — The good news about natural gas is that when it is burnt it creates between 40 and 50 per cent less carbon dioxide than coal would to create the same amount of energy.This is why it has been embraced by some climate activists and governments as a useful energy source to replace coal and oil while renewable energy technologies catch up with global energy demand.
But the good news ends there, and there is a lot more to the story.
Before it is burnt natural gas is mostly made up of methane, and methane is estimated to be about 28 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.
Over a 20-year period – about the time scientists believe we have to try to prevent the worst impacts of global warming – it is up to 80 times more potent at warming the planet than carbon dioxide.
The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency estimates that for every cubic metre of methane extracted by the US oil and gas industry, 1.4 per cent escapes into the atmosphere as so-called fugitive emissions.
But more recent research suggests this estimate is drastically low, and that, in fact, the industry in the US is leaking 13 million metric tonnes of methane a year, or 2.3 per cent.
It is not yet clear how much fugitive methane is released by the Australian gas industry, but new technologies now allow scientists to accurately measure it and the data is expected to be published in the coming months.
The US Environmental Defence Fund estimated that, in America, if just 3 per cent of methane escapes, gas is no cleaner an energy source than coal……. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/gas-is-not-transition-energy-we-were-promised-new-research-suggests-20200824-p55ovg.html
Scientists conduct first in situ radiation measurements 21 km in the air over Tibetan Plateau
Scientists conduct first in situ radiation measurements 21 km in the air over Tibetan Plateau https://phys.org/news/2020-08-scientists-situ-km-air-tibetan.html by Li Yuan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 24 Aug, 20, Radiation variations over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are crucial for global climate and regional ecological environment. Previous radiation studies over the TP were widely based on ground and satellite measurements of the radiation budget at the surface and at the top of the atmosphere.
In situ vertical radiation measurements from the surface up to the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS), about 10 to 22 km in altitude, are rare over the TP or even over a large territory of China.
Dr. Zhang Jinqiang from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with scientists from the Aerospace Information Research Institute of CAS, developed a balloon-based measurement system to measure stratospheric radiation
This original system, for the first time, provides in situ measurements of multiwavelength radiation profiles from the surface up to the UTLS over the TP. Using this system, scientists can study how and why radiation profiles vary over the TP during the Asian summer monsoon period.
The observation campaigns were conducted three times in the summer of 2018 and 2019, of which the longest flight observation lasted more than 30 hours and achieved a breakthrough of diurnal radiation variation in the UTLS.
According to the team, the stratospheric balloon-based radiation profiles, combined with simultaneous operational radiosondes, ground measurements, satellite retrievals and radiative transfer model simulations, are valuable because the data can be used to study radiation variations and the radiative forcings of clouds and aerosols over the TP during the Asian summer monsoon period. The radiation retrievals from the radiative transfer model simulations and satellite observations are also validated.
“The results of these campaigns can improve our understanding of radiation properties in the UTLS and help us better comprehend the thermal conditions associated with clouds and aerosols over the TP during the Asian summer monsoon period,” said Zhang.
Their findings were published in Environmental Research Letters, Journal of Environmental Sciences and Atmospheric Pollution Research.
Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) tried to become part-owner of Plant Vogtle in 2019
Lawsuit settlement document shows JEA tried to become part-owner of Plant Vogtle in 2019 https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2020/08/24/jea-prepared-1-9-billion-offer-plant-vogtle-nuclear-plant-2019/3402832001/
David Bauerlein, Florida Times-Union Before JEA lost a lawsuit in June that tried to void its contract for purchasing electricity from Plant Vogtle, the utility wanted to settle the suit in 2019 by buying an ownership stake in the Georgia nuclear plant for $1.9 billion, according to a draft document that outlined terms of the utility’s strategy for settlement talks.
The controversial power purchase agreement, which dates back to 2008, weighs heavily on JEA because the contract binds JEA to buy electricity for 20 years at a high cost from two Vogtle nuclear reactors slated to go online in late 2021 and late 2022.
The agreement also was a thorny issue for JEA when it sought offers last year from private companies for a potential sale of the city-owned utility. Converting the power purchase agreement into an ownership interest in Plant Vogtle would have made JEA a more marketable asset.
The settlement talks in April 2019 occurred during the tenure of Aaron Zahn, who was CEO when the JEA board voted in July 2019 to put the utility up for sale. Since then, Zahn along with the rest of the senior leadership team and the board have been replaced.
JEA spokeswoman Gerri Boyce said the turnover means current JEA employees cannot say what the rationale was for any settlement offers in April 2019.
“Anything we could say would be speculation since no one currently at JEA was part of that meeting or proposed settlement,” Boyce said.
When JEA first evaluated privatization in early 2018 — prior to Zahn becoming CEO — an attorney for Holland and Knight sent an email to JEA outlining possible strategies for how JEA could get out of the purchase power agreement.
“Obviously, Plant Vogtle and and the purchase agreement (PPA) greatly affect valuation,” Holland & Knight attorney Allen Maines wrote in the Feb. 4, 2018, email.
Maines wrote that “one underlying assumption to privatization is that prospective purchasers will not be interested unless JEA sheds itself of the PPA.”
Maines wrote one way to get rid of the agreement would be to pay the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, also known as MEAG, to “take back the PPA.”
When JEA and MEAG entered into settlement talks in April 2019, Holland & Knight drafted proposed terms of a settlement in which JEA would pay $1.9 billion to MEAG in order to get JEA released from the power purchase agreement.
In turn, JEA would become part-owner of the Plant Vogtle plant by having a stake equal to 150 megawatts of the two reactors being built. That would be less than the 206 megawatts of electricity in the power purchase agreement.
WJXT-TV reported in April 2019 that JEA and MEAG met in Atlanta for settlement talks. WJXT reported at that time JEA was negotiating to get out of the nuclear power contract.
The station disclosed the talks after a JEA administrative aide mistakenly sent an email to WJXT reporter Jim Piggott that had the draft settlement terms attached to it.
The ownership stake would have given JEA more direct influence over decisions on Plant Vogtle, whose construction is years behind schedule with a cost that has doubled since JEA entered the power purchase agreement in 2008.
The proposed terms also would have enhanced the marketability of the utility in a sale to a private company.
If a private company purchased JEA, the rates charged to customers would have been regulated by the Florida Public Service Commission.
In the commission’s rate-setting structure, an investor-owned utility does not earn a profit from a purchase-power agreement, said Florida Public Counsel J.R. Kelly of the Office of Public Counsel, which represents consumers in rate-setting cases before the Public Service Commission.
A private utility’s cost from a purchase-power agreement is regulated as a break-even expense, meaning it doesn’t lose money or earn a profit from such agreements, Kelly said. The utility just passes the cost through to customers in the overall rate structure.
But if a private utility has ownership of a plant, it can get a profit from owning an asset and have that profit built into the rate structure approved by the state
Kelly said.
“They have a right to a return of and a return on that asset,” Kelly said. “That’s how they make a profit. That’s how utilities earn money.”
The draft settlement terms from April 2019 for Plant Vogtle proposed that after JEA paid $1.9 billion to end the power purchase agreement and become a part-owner of the nuclear plant, JEA no longer would pay any additional money to cover future cost over-runs for the plant’s construction.
The settlement talks failed to reach any agreement with MEAG. When JEA entered into negotiations last year for the potential sale of the utility, JEA proposed to separate the Plant Vogtle purchase power agreement from the sale by having JEA remains as a shell entity that would remain a party to the agreement.
The cost of the power purchase agreement then would have been passed along to customers on their bills. That arrangement would have been a hard sell to City Council members who would have had to agree to the terms of any sale.
U.S. District Judge Mark Cohen ruled June 17 in MEAG’s favor by finding the power purchase agreement is valid and enforceable. JEA and MEAG then agreed to end the lawsuit.
“Blocked due to Security Reasons”
I send out a little newsletter every week. I am not surprised if some people reply with ”Unsubscribe”. That’s OK. It’s OK if people don’t want it because it’s boring, or it’s ”overload of information” or because they just get too many emails, and don’t want any more.
But lately, I’m finding that, for a bunch of recipients, it is ”Blocked for Security Reasons”.
Well, I hope it’s just my paranoia, – but, – is it getting so that if one says nasty things about nuclear power, one is a security risk?
I’m even wondering if this is also the explanation for why just about every journalist makes a point of describing nuclear power as – ”zero carbon” ”carbon free” ”low carbon” ”clean”. Just to make sure that their noses are clean?
I guess, with Biden and U.S. Democrats now backing nuclear power (never mind that it’s only real use now is the weapons connection) – anyway, I guess that to speak rudely of nuclear power is like when it was just not nice to, in company, mention sex or religion.
To 24 August- nuclear, climate, Covid-19 news
the coronavirus scene – it’s pretty much same same. Spain registered more than 8,000 new cases in 24 hours, France also reported a second consecutive day of more than 4,000 new cases. USA leads the world in Covid-19 deaths, and exceeded 70,000 confirmed infections per day in July – recorded 43,000 new cases on Thursday. With no usable vaccine yet available, the most prominent tool governments have at their disposal is to confine their populations or enforce social distancing. Still, the World Health Organisation hopes that the coronavirus crisis can be over in two years. Making everything more difficult, disinformation about vaccines is flourishing.
Climate change: 2020 Is proving another disastrous year for our Earth’s climate. Don’t blame the IPCC – at least they warned us. Once again, the Arctic is the star, in this ongoing global tragedy.
The nuclear lobby keeps toting small nuclear reactors as clean and green, and journalists and politicians keep buying that story. The U.S. Democratic Party now supports the nuclear industry, making it indistinguishable from the Republicans on this issue.
Some bits of good news. The Latest COVID-19 Tests Work Without ‘Tickling Your Brain’. Large Blue Butterflies Were Extinct in England, But Now Those Beauties Are Back After 50 Years. Beautiful Mural in Warsaw Eats Up Smog, purifying the Air, Equal to 720 Trees.
International Lawyers Make Urgent Appeal to British Government- not to extradite Julian Assange.
Artificial Intelligence brings a new worry into nuclear weaponry.
Take the money away from nuclear weapons – spend it on Covid-19 relief. The Prospects of Nuclear Disarmament in the New Nuclear Architecture.
Greta Thunberg on the global inaction on climate change.
Unprecedented rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
28 trillion tonnes of ice have disappeared from the surface of the Earth since 1994.
Global warming is bringing new “fire regime”all too quickly. Experts are calling for international collaboration to combat wildfires.
Book Review- Tempting Fate – Nuclear Politics.
ARCTIC. Heat from the ocean’s interior contributes to loss of Arctic sea ice. Permafrost will thaw faster, as global heating causes more rain in the North. Greenland’s meltdown taking flight.
BIKINI ATOLL. Bikini Atoll – food grown there is radioactive – but, it’s “technically habitable”!
FRANCE. France’s nuclear energy continues to be hit by global heating, drought, water shortage.
USA.
- CLIMATE As climate extreme weather impacts grow, American nuclear reactors are threatened. Climate, weather extremes, threaten nuclear reactors, and costs of preparing for them are increasing. High financial risks in nuclear power – from global heating. Climate change a problem for nuclear waste dumps.
- See this How the climate crisis is already harming America – photo essay. California: 10,849 lightning strikes spark more than 367 fires. California grid melts in record heat. Are renewables to blame?
- NUCLEAR POLITICS Joe Biden will be just as pro nuclear as Trump– maybe worse? .U.S. Democratic Party not really interested in reducing the bloated military spending. U.S. Air Force mulls getting hypersonic nuclear weapons. Supporting the UN Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons. Nuclear power is not compatible with the fundamental tenets of a Green New Deal.
- CLIMATE POLITICS Bill McKibben not sure that Kamala Harris will be strong on addressing climate change. U.S. Senator Harris and Rep Ocasio-Cortez introduce Bill on climate harm.
- Nuclear waste should no longer be exempt from environmental laws.
- Senators Warn Trump Saudi-Chinese Uranium Plant Risks Spread of Nuclear Weapons.
- Biggest bribery and money-laundering bust in Ohio history, but the crooked pro nuclear law still stands! Will Ohio finally be able to use its wind resources, now that the nuclear corruption is being exposed? Unleash the tremendous potential of Ohio wind energy jobs instead of bailing out nuclear plants.
- NuScam’s not so small nuclear reactors need $1.4 billion subsidy, and might not be so safe. Small Modular Nuclear Reactors costs jump by $billions. Logan city abandons NuScam project. City of Logan cuts its losses, withdraws from risky NuScam “small” nuclear reactor project.
- Growing national opposition to Holtec plan for ‘temporary’ storage of nuclear wastes near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Debate rages on for nuclear waste facility proposed near Carlsbad, more hearings scheduled. Ohio school all too close to Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant – nuclear radiation dangers.
- Earthquake prompts inspections at Fermi 2 nuclear power plant; NRC virtual meeting planned.
TAIWAN. USA’s nuclear weapons – not the best way to protect Taiwan.
UK. Is the £20 billion Sizewell C project right for the region and country? A real setback to UK”s Bradwell nuclear project: Colchester Council voted unanimously to reject the proposal. Hitachi waiting for tax-payer funding, to start nuclear projects in UK. Scotland’s Covid-19 recovery and Climate Policy. UK relations with China at a low point; bad news for nuclear power projects.
– Wow! Only the bare 313 years before the Dounreay nuclear power site could be used for anything else!
Installing solar PV can increase house prices by an average of £32,459 across the UK. Huge electricity transformer will land on a Gwynedd beach, headed for nuclear power project.
JAPAN. Japan’s Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing plant delayed, for the 25th time! Resistance to nuclear waste survey in Hokkaido.
RUSSIA. Court actions over delays in delivering Russia’s giant nuclear icebreaker line.
CANADA. Canada communities don’t want the so-called “clean” Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs). Community opposition to South Bruce Nuclear Waste Repository.
EUROPE. Northern Europe: detecting radiation and where it comes from.
IRAN. Iran says sabotage caused explosion at Natanz nuclear site.
PAKISTAN. A Pakistan threat of nuclear war with India.
SPAIN. Cumulative exposure to ionising radiation from diagnostic imaging tests.
CHINA. China feels India’s nuclear weapons programme driven by prestige: US report.
ISRAEL. Report: Israel ‘deeply concerned’ by Saudi Arabia, China alleged nuclear cooperation,
YEMEN. Danger in Houthi Smuggling of Thorium to Iran.
AUSTRALIA. We’ve been electing governments that damage our children’s future.
2020 Is Proving Another Disastrous Year For Our Earth’s Climate
 2020 Is Proving Another Disastrous Year For Our Earth’s ClimateThe year already has been marked by rising global temperatures, Arctic ice melts and intensifying wildfires and storms. Huff Post, 22 Aug 20, By Nina Golgowski Record-breaking heat, melting ice caps, raging wildfires and a particularly grim hurricane forecast may have taken a backseat in news cycles dominated by politics and a health pandemic, but that doesn’t mean these climate phenomena have gone away. The year still has more than four months to go, but 2020 already has proven itself to be another eventful one in terms of natural disasters, rising global temperatures and threatening environmental outlooks.
Here’s a look at just some of the anomalies we’ve faced so far in 2020. Record-Breaking Heat The year is expected to rank among the five warmest on record for the planet, according to a July report by a National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration office, which said a 75% chance exists it ends up being the hottest or second hottest. During the first seven months of the year, the Earth’s global land and ocean surface temperature set its second-highest heat record. The temperature of 58.79 degrees Fahrenheit (14.88 Celsius) was only .007 of a degree less than the record set in 2016. July also saw the global temperature rise 1.66 degrees Fahrenheit (0.92 of a degree Celcius) above the 20th-century average, tying it with 2016 as the second-hottest July on record. It was just .02-degree short of 2019′s record rise in July of 1.71-degree Fahrenheit (0.95 of a degree Celcius).
The Northern Hemisphere, meanwhile, saw the highest ever recorded combined land and ocean surface average temperature in July, with the mercury rising 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit (1.18 degree Celcius) above average. This combined temperature surpassed July 2019 by 0.14 of a degree Fahrenheit (0.08 of a degree Celcius)……… https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/2020-another-disastrous-year-for-our-earth_n_5f3d8b59c5b66346157fd6e2?ri18n=true |
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World battles new cases, but coronavirus could be over, in two years
World Health Organisation hopes coronavirus crisis can be over in two years, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/world-health-organisation-hopes-coronavirus-crisis-can-be-over-in-two-years [Good graphs] 22 Aug 20 The head of the World Health Organisation hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be shorter than the 1918 Spanish flu and last less than two years.
The world should be able to rein in the coronavirus pandemic in less than two years, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said, as European nations battled rising numbers of new cases.
Western Europe has been enduring the kind of infection levels not seen in many months, particularly in Germany, France, Spain and Italy – sparking fears of a full-fledged second wave.
In the Spanish capital Madrid, officials recommended people in the most affected areas stay at home to help curb the spread as the country registered more than 8,000 new cases in 24 hours.
France also reported a second consecutive day of more than 4,000 new cases – numbers not seen since May – with metropolitan areas accounting for most of those infections.
But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sought to draw favourable comparisons with the notorious flu pandemic of 1918.
“We have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness, but an advantage of better technology, so we hope to finish this pandemic before less than two years,” he told reporters.
By “utilising the available tools to the maximum and hoping that we can have additional tools like vaccines, I think we can finish it in a shorter time than the 1918 flu”, he said.
The WHO also recommended children over 12 years old now use masks in the same situations as adults as the use of face coverings increases to stop the virus spread.
With no usable vaccine yet available, the most prominent tool governments have at their disposal is to confine their populations or enforce social distancing.
Lebanon is the latest country to reintroduce severe restrictions, beginning two weeks of measures on Friday including night time curfews to tamp down a rise in infections, which comes as the country is still dealing with the shock from a huge explosion in the capital Beirut that killed dozens earlier this month.
“What now? On top of this disaster, a coronavirus catastrophe?” said 55-year-old Roxane Moukarzel in Beirut.
Officials fear Lebanon’s fragile health system would struggle to cope with a further spike in COVID-19 cases, especially after some hospitals near the port were damaged in the explosion.
‘We lead the world in deaths’
The Americas have borne the brunt of the virus in health terms, accounting for more than half of the world’s fatalities.
“We lead the world in deaths,” said Joe Biden while accepting the Democratic nomination for the US presidential election late on Thursday.
He said he would implement a national plan to fight the pandemic on his first day in office if elected in November.
“We’ll take the muzzle off our experts so the public gets the information they need and deserve – honest, unvarnished truth,” he said.
Still, new daily cases of the coronavirus have been dropping sharply in the United States for weeks – but experts are unsure if Americans will have the discipline to bring the epidemic under control.
After exceeding 70,000 confirmed infections per day in July, the country recorded 43,000 cases on Thursday.
Further south, Latin American countries were counting the wider costs of the pandemic — the region not only suffering the most deaths, but also an expansion of criminal activity and rising poverty.
Without an effective political reaction, “at a regional level we can talk about a regression of up to 10 years in the levels of multidimensional poverty”, Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva of the UN Development Programme told AFP.
But the WHO said the coronavirus pandemic appeared to be stabilising in Brazil – one of the world’s worst hit countries – and any reversal of its rampant spread in the vast country would be “a success for the world”.
Economic fallout
Economies around the globe have been ravaged by the pandemic, which has infected more than 22 million and killed nearly 800,000 since it emerged in China late last year.
New financial figures laid bear the huge cost of the pandemic in Britain, where government debt soared past AUD $3.7 million for the first time in the UK after a massive programme of state borrowing for furlough schemes and other measures designed to prop up the economy.
“Without that support things would have been far worse,” Finance Minister Rishi Sunak said.
Even Germany, famed for its financial prudence, was waking up to a new reality with Finance Minister Olaf Scholz conceding his country would need to continue borrowing at a high level next year to deal with the virus fallout.
Western European politicians are also beginning to ramp up restrictions to tackle infections that are rising to levels not seen for months.
While Spain has responded with confinement measures and Germany with updated travel guidelines, putting Brussels on its list of risk zones, the UK is now watching clusters in northern England and suggesting some towns could soon face lockdown.
“To prevent a second peak and keep Covid-19 under control, we need robust, targeted intervention where we see a spike in cases,” health secretary Matt Hancock said.
Nuclear power is not compatible with the fundamental tenets of a Green New Deal.
Nuclear power in the Green New Deal? https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/08/23/nuclear-in-the-green-new-deal/ August 23, 2020 by beyondnuclearinternational By M.V. Ramana and Schyler Edmunston
Over the last few years, there has been a growing interest in a Green New Deal and there are many versions proposed in different countries. At the same time, there has also been criticism of these proposals on many counts, including the fact that they typically don’t include nuclear energy.
This criticism misses a basic point: a Green New Deal is, by its very definition, much more than an emissions reduction plan. As we argue below, the other attributes that characterize Green New Deals, rule out nuclear energy as an option.
Like the original New Deal of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, all Green New Deal proposals emphasize the creation of new jobs. Canada’s New Democratic Party version, for example, calls for “a New Deal for Climate Action and Good Jobs.”
Nuclear power is not a good job creator. One widely cited study found that for each gigawatt-hour of electricity generated, solar energy leads to six times as many jobs as nuclear power. This is compounded by the fact that solar power plants are far cheaper to build and maintain than nuclear reactors.
Green New Deal proposals also demand rapid emissions reduction; one spokesperson for the Pact for a Green New Deal talked of “a 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.” It takes, on average, a decade to build a nuclear plant and another 10 years before that to do the necessary planning, license procurement, and, most importantly, obtain the billions of dollars needed to finance construction. Therefore, it is impossible to scale up nuclear power fast enough to reduce emissions at the rate required to meet tight climate targets.
Last but not least, Green New Deal proposals emphasize ethics and equity. The Pact for a Green New Deal, for example, wants to ensure that the necessary energy transition “is socially just and doesn’t hurt those at the bottom of the economic ladder; and that it respects Indigenous rights.” It is precisely those groups that have been hurt most by the nuclear fuel chain.
Around the world, the uranium that fuels nuclear plants has predominantly been mined from traditional lands of Indigenous peoples, whether we are talking about Canada, India, the United States, or Australia. There is ample evidence of devastating health consequences from the production of uranium, for example, on the Navajo and the Lakota nations.
The nuclear industry’s plans for the disposal of radioactive waste streams produced by nuclear reactors also disproportionately target areas with high proportions of Indigenous populations, and has rightly been termed nuclear colonialism.
Nuclear waste, by its nature, raises difficult challenges for any effort to base energy policy on justice. The hazardous components of these wastes stay radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, and no method can ensure safety for that long a period of time. There is inherent injustice in forcing future generations to deal with these radioactive products spreading into underground sources of water, when they do not benefit from nuclear electricity in any way.
One set of technologies that is widely seen as being necessary to confront climate change are renewables, especially solar and wind power. Because they are dependent on the sun shining and the wind blowing, some suggest that nuclear energy has to be part of the mix in order to ensure that electricity is available when needed.
This is not true and research has shown that it is possible for even Ontario, the Canadian province most dependent on nuclear energy, to phase out nuclear power and reduce emissions, while meeting electricity needs reliably.
Further, existing nuclear facilities, do not have the necessary flexibility to integrate well with the rapidly variable outputs from wind and solar power. Therefore, they inhibit ambitious climate agendas — a realization that informed the decision in California to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.
In short, nuclear power is not compatible with the fundamental tenets of a Green New Deal.
M.V. Ramana is professor, Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, and director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, the University of British Columbia.
Schyler Edmundson is a recent graduate from the Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs program at the University of British Columbia.
This article first appeared in The Star (Toronto) as part of a pro-con debate on nuclear power’s inclusion in a Green New Deal. The “against” argument here is republished with kind permission of The Star op-ed page editor.
Nuclear lobby rejoices as U.S. Democratic Party caves in to its pressure
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After 48 Years, Democrats Endorse Nuclear Energy In Platform, Forbes, Robert Bryce, 23 Aug 20,
 Energy ” ………. In its recently released party platform, the Democrats say they favor a “technology-neutral” approach that includes “all zero-carbon technologies, including hydroelectric power, geothermal, existing and advanced nuclear, and carbon capture and storage.”That statement marks the first time since 1972 that the Democratic Party has said anything positive in its platform about nuclear energy. ….. The Democrats’ new position means that for the first time since Richard Nixon was in the White House, both the Republican and Democratic parties are officially on record in support of nuclear energy……
partisan divide is apparent in the polling data. A 2019 Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Republicans strongly favored nuclear energy but only 42 percent of Democrats did so. ……….
in 2005, about 300 environmental groups – including Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and Public Citizen – signed a manifesto which said “we flatly reject the argument that increased investment in nuclear capacity is an acceptable or necessary solution….[N]uclear power should not be a part of any solution to address global warming.” (The Sierra Club, the biggest environmental group in America, says it remains “unequivocally opposed to nuclear energy.”)……….
While vying for their party’s nomination, two prominent Democratic presidential hopefuls — Cory Booker and Andrew Yang – both endorsed nuclear energy. In addition, Joe Biden’s energy plan included a shout-out to nuclear. ……… https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2020/08/23/after-48-years-democrats-endorse-nuclear-energy-in-platform/#1856a2e35829
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Canada communities don’t want the so-called “clean” Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)
even with SMRs under 300 megawatts, nuclear waste is a byproduct.
waste generated from SMRs would become a dangerous part of the transportation system “even if they do remove it.”
“It will be big, big transports of highly radioactive stuff, driving down the roads as an easy dirty bomb
the high cost of building infrastructure and then containing nuclear fallout and radiation are all concerns before they can go ahead.
Nuclear giants team up to develop reactors in Sask. and Ontario, Michael Bramadat-Willcock / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer, AUGUST 23, 2020
Canada’s leading nuclear industry players announced an inter-provincial corporate partnership Thursday to support the launch of a research centre that will work on developing small modular reactors (SMRs) for use in Saskatchewan.
Saskatoon-based Cameco is the world’s biggest uranium producer and has long supplied fuel to Bruce Power, Ontario’s largest nuclear power company.SMRs are designed to produce smaller amounts of electricity, between 50 and 300 megawatts,……
The secretariat is mandated to develop and execute a strategic plan for the use of “clean-energy small modular reactors” in the province. ……
No timeframe or SMR sites were included in the announcement, but the government’s plans already have some northern residents raising alarms.
Committee for Future Generations outreach co-ordinator Candyce Paul of La Plonge at the English River First Nation told Canada’s National Observer that they haven’t been consulted on any aspects of the plan, but all signs point to the north as a site for the reactors.
Paul’s group fights nuclear waste storage in Saskatchewan and was instrumental in stopping a proposal that considered Beauval, Pinehouse and Creighton as storage locations in 2011.
“When we informed the communities that they were looking at planning to bury nuclear waste up here in 2011, once they learned what that entailed, everybody said no way. Eighty per cent of the people in the north said no way, absolutely not. It didn’t matter if they worked for Cameco or the other mines. They said if it comes here, we will not support it coming here,” she said.
Paul said she sees small modular nuclear reactors as another threat to the environment and to human safety in the region.
She noted that even with SMRs under 300 megawatts, nuclear waste is a byproduct.
“Even if they’re not burying nuclear waste here, they could be leaving it on site or hauling it through our northern regions and across our waterways,” Paul said.
She said that waste generated from SMRs would become a dangerous part of the transportation system “even if they do remove it.”
“It will be big, big transports of highly radioactive stuff, driving down the roads as an easy dirty bomb. You’d be driving down the road (behind a nuclear waste transport vehicle) and not know you’re following it,” Paul said.
Paul said the intent behind installing SMRs is anything but green and that the real goal is to prop up Saskatchewan’s ailing uranium industry and develop oilsands in the northwest.
Paul said that communities around Canada, and especially in the Far North, have long been pitched as sites for SMR development and have refused.
A 2018 brief from Pangnirtung Hamlet Council in Nunavut concluded “any Arctic-based nuclear power source should be an alternative energy choice of last resort.”
“None of our people are going to get trained for operating these. It supports people from other places. It doesn’t really support us,” Paul said.
SMRs have been pitched in the north as a way to move away from reliance on diesel fuel, which can be costly. Paul said any benefits of that remain to be seen.
She said companies would need to do environmental impact assessments for smaller reactors even though the exclusion zone around SMR sites is smaller.
“Even if the exclusion zone is only a few kilometres, a few kilometres affects a lot in an ecosystem and especially in an ecosystem that is wild,” Paul said.
“I’m not feeling confident in this at all, Canadian nuclear laboratories saying that it would only be a small radius exclusion zone. Well that’s our territory. That’s our land, our waters, our wildlife.
“It’s not their backyard, so they couldn’t care less.”
Brooke Dobni, professor of strategy at the University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business, told Canada’s National Observer that any development of small reactors would take a long time.
“It could be a good thing, but on the other hand, it might have some pitfalls. Those talks take years,” Dobni said.
He said nuclear reactors face bigger challenges because of public concerns about the environment and that the high cost of building infrastructure and then containing nuclear fallout and radiation are all concerns before they can go ahead.
“Anything nuclear is 25 years out if you’re talking about small reactors, those kinds of things to power up the city,” Dobni said.
“That technology is a long ways away and a lot of it’s going to depend on public opinion.
The court for that is the court of public opinion, whether or not people want that in their own backyard, and that’s the whole issue anywhere in the world.” https://www.humboldtjournal.ca/news/nuclear-giants-team-up-to-develop-reactors-in-sask-and-ontario-1.24191077
The climate crisis. Don’t blame the IPCC – at least they warned us
The Observer view on the climate catastrophe facing Earth,
Thirty years ago we were warned. Now is our last chance to listen,
The scientists had been charged by the IPCC, which had been set up two years earlier, with establishing whether climate change was a real prospect and, if it was, to look at the main drivers of that threat. They concluded, in a report released in August 1990, that the menace was real and that coal, gas and oil would be the principal causes of global heating. Unless controls were imposed on their consumption, temperature rises of 0.3C a decade would be occurring in the 21st century, bringing havoc in their wake.
Three decades later, it is clear that we have recklessly ignored that warning. Fossil fuels still supply 80% of the world’s energy, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to rise and global temperatures are still increasing. According to Met Office statistics, there was a 0.14C increase in global temperatures in the decade that followed publication of the first assessment report. This was then followed by a 0.2C increase in each of the following two decades. The world could easily heat by 3C by the end of the century at this rate, warn scientists.
The impact on the world will, by then, be catastrophic. As the Observer reveals this week, our overheating planet has already lost a staggering 28tn tonnes of ice from its ice sheets and glaciers, triggering sea level rises that are now accelerating at a rate that matches the worst-case scenario predictions of the IPCC………..
we should be careful when apportioning blame for the world’s failure to act over climate change. It is the government members of the IPCC who are at fault for ignoring their own scientists’ warnings. They have allowed lobbying by the fossil fuel industry to play havoc with attempts to limit carbon emissions, while nations such as Canada, Saudi Arabia and the United States have blocked all attempts to limit global fossil fuel consumption.
By contrast, the IPCC has at least made the world aware of the impending crisis, a task of considerable complexity. Getting scientific experts from 195 nations to agree anything can be likened to the herding of a similar number of bad-tempered cats.
Thanks to the IPCC, we are at least aware of the problem that now faces our world. We know exactly how much fossil fuel we have left to burn if we want to limit global temperature rises to a relatively safe rise of 1.5C. Individual nations have until next year – at the United Nations climate change conference in November – to announce how they will achieve those reductions in oil, gas and coal burning in order to make that target possible and to halt global heating. It is an achievable aspiration even at this late date. We still have hope, in other words………
Ohio school all too close to Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant – nuclear radiation dangers
Ohio school still shuttered among radiation fears, Akron Beacon Journal, By Beth Burger
The Columbus Dispatch, Aug 22, 2020 PIKETON — Monday would have been Layton Cuckler’s first day at Zahn’s Corner Middle School.
Instead, Layton, 11, and about 300 of his peers will be divided between Jasper Elementary School and Piketon High School in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a fourth grader, he’ll have to stay at the elementary school another year.
He might not be happy about missing out on the rite of passage that his older brother, Gavin, 13, and others have experienced, but his parents, Mike and Teresa Cuckler, are relieved.
The change means Layton won’t risk being exposed to radioactive isotopes downwind from the former U.S. Department of Energy Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The isotopes have been found in the air, soil, water, vegetation and wildlife in the area, according to federal environmental reports……….
A nuclear waste-disposal cell is being built to bury radioactive debris as the 3,000-acre complex is dismantled.
Concerned neighbors Residents have asked for those efforts to be paused because they’re concerned about exposure to radioactive materials. Contamination has been detected there since the work began in 2017, according to the Scioto Valley Local School District.
The DOE waited two years before informing the school district that the air monitor across from the middle school had picked up radioactive elements: americium in 2018 and neptunium-237 in 2019.
The district closed the school last year after traces of uranium were detected in ceiling tiles and air ducts. The district has asked the state to build a new middle school.
History of school
Zahn’s Corner Middle School was built in 1955. One year earlier, before the school was opened, the enrichment plant came online for defense purposes and operated until 2001. The facility then transitioned to enriching uranium for nuclear power plants.
“Why is there a school on the downwind side of a site like this? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” said David C. Ingram, chairman of the physics and astronomy department at Ohio University.
It’s unclear why the DOE chose that site, less than 2 miles from the school, and did not warn the district……..
When Gavin Cuckler was at the middle school, he would sometimes come home with dirt on his clothes from playing outside, Teresa Cuckler said. ……..
The Cucklers and others worry about cancer and other health risks tied to the plant.
“You think about the size of the air monitor [across from the school]. It wasn’t just one or two more elements floating through the air landing in that air monitor. How much was actually released? What’s the data on site show of where they were sampling at different release points?” said Jennifer Chandler, a former DOE employee who worked as an environmental scientist and who is now a Piketon village council member……..
Residents say the emissions are worrisome.
“They know it’s going to Zahn’s Corner because they put an air monitor there. It makes it to our school property. Our kids are out there,” Chandler said. “The danger comes in the toxicity of the inhalation or ingestion of that molecule, which is there. It’s there. So they want to pivot and talk only about radioactivity, which we are concerned about, obviously, but we’re more concerned with the toxicity of having these things in and on our school property.”
Neptunium, plutonium and americium are considered “bone seekers,″ according to the National Library of Medicine. That means that, if ingested, they will lodge in the body, possibly in bones, lungs, muscles and the liver, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It’s going to irradiate from you for the rest of your life. It’s the toxicity of that. And what is the safe level of neptunium? … Zero. There is no such thing. There is no safe level of these elements,” Chandler said. …….. https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20200822/ohio-school-still-shuttered-among-radiation-fears
Staggering loss of ice from Greenland
Independent 22nd Aug 2020, High temperatures saw Greenland lose enough ice to cover the US state of
California in more than four feet of water in 2019 alone, a study which suggests the island lost a million tonnes of ice for every minute of the year has said.
After two years in which the land masses’ summer ice melt had been negligible, satellite measurements have suggested an excessively hot 2019 saw the loss of 586 billion tons of ice melt from the island. The loss represents more than 532 trillion litres of water according to a study published in Communications Earth & Environment – equivalent to 212.8 million olympic-sized swimming pools over the course of 2019, or seven for every second of the year.
Heat from the ocean’s interior contributes to loss of Arctic sea ice
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Arctic ocean moorings shed light on winter sea ice loss https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-08/uoaf-aom082120.php UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANK The eastern Arctic Ocean’s winter ice grew less than half as much as normal during the past decade, due to the growing influence of heat from the ocean’s interior, researchers have found.The finding came from an international study led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Finnish Meteorological Institute. The study, published in the Journal of Climate, used data collected by ocean moorings in the Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean from 2003-2018.
The moorings measured the heat released from the ocean interior to the upper ocean and sea ice during winter. In 2016-2018, the estimated heat flux was about 10 watts per square meter, which is enough to prevent 80-90 centimeters (almost 3 feet) of sea ice from forming each year. Previous heat flux measurements were about half of that much. “In the past, when weighing the contribution of atmosphere and ocean to melting sea ice in the Eurasian Basin, the atmosphere led,” said Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at UAF’s International Arctic Research Center and FMI. “Now for the first time, ocean leads. That’s a big change.” Typically, across much of the Arctic a thick layer of cold fresher water, known as a halocline, isolates the heat associated with the intruding Atlantic water from the sea surface and from sea ice. This new study shows that an abnormal influx of salty warm water from the Atlantic Ocean is weakening and thinning the halocline, allowing more mixing. According to the new study, warm water of Atlantic origin is now moving much closer to the surface. “The normal position of the upper boundary of this water in this region was about 150 meters. Now this water is at 80 meters,” explained Polyakov. A natural winter process increases this mixing. As sea water freezes, the salt is expelled from ice into the water. This brine-enriched water is heavier and sinks. In the absence of a strong halocline, the cold salty water mixes much more efficiently with the shallower, warm Atlantic water. This heat is then transferred upward to the bottom of sea ice, limiting the amount of ice that can form during winter. “These new results show the growing and spreading influence of heat associated with Atlantic water entering the Arctic Ocean,” added Tom Rippeth, a collaborator from Bangor University. “They also suggest a new feedback mechanism is contributing to accelerating sea ice loss.” Polyakov and his team hypothesize that the ocean’s ability to control winter ice growth creates feedback that speeds overall sea ice loss in the Arctic. In this feedback, both declining sea ice and the weakening halocline barrier cause the ocean’s interior to release heat to the surface, resulting in further sea ice loss. The mechanism augments the well-known ice-albedo feedback — which occurs when the atmosphere melts sea ice, causing open water, which in turn absorbs more heat, melting more sea ice. When these two feedback mechanisms combine, they accelerate sea ice decline. The ocean heat feedback limits sea ice growth in winter, while the ice-albedo feedback more easily melts the thinner ice in summer. “As they start working together, the coupling between the atmosphere, ice and ocean becomes very strong, much stronger than it was before,” said Polyakov. “Together they can maintain a very fast rate of ice melt in the Arctic.” Polyakov and Rippeth collaborated on a second, associated study showing how this new coupling between the ocean, ice and atmosphere is responsible for stronger currents in the eastern Arctic Ocean. According to that research, between 2004-2018 the currents in the upper 164 feet of the ocean doubled in strength. Loss of sea ice, making surface waters more susceptible to the effects of wind, appears to be one of the factors contributing to the increase. The stronger currents create more turbulence, which increases the amount of mixing, known as shear, that occurs between surface waters and the deeper ocean. As described earlier, ocean mixing contributes to a feedback mechanism that further accelerates sea ice decline. Accelerated currents have practical implications in the Arctic. Ship captains need accurate maps of currents for navigation. Since currents move sea ice, oil and gas extraction activities also need information about currents. ### This second study was described in a scientific paper published in the Geophysical Research Letters. Additional co-authors for these papers include Ilker Fer, Matthew Alkire, Till Baumann, Eddy Carmack, Randi Ingvaldsen, Vladimir Ivanov, Markus Janout, Sigrid Lind, Laurie Padman, Andrey Pnyushkov and Robert Rember. |
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Experts are calling for international collaboration to combat wildfires
Independent 22nd Aug 2020, Experts are calling for international collaboration to combat wildfires,
which they say are an under-acknowledged component of the climate crisis.
Extreme fire conditions in Siberia this summer, ongoing and devastating
blazes across California and the worst start to the Amazon fire season in a
decade are sparking concern from across the scientific community.
“People globally should start to perceive wild land fires as part of the global
climate crisis, and then, try to find where the solutions require global
participation” says Anton Beneslavsky, from Greenpeace International.
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