The world’s climate future – much depends on America’s presidential election
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As we approach planetary tipping points, it’s vital to understand the two candidates’ plans—or lack thereof (Trump doesn’t have one)—for combatting climate change. Fast Company, 9 Oct 20, BY ADELE PETERS Whether the world succeeds in avoiding the worst impacts of climate change is likely to hinge in part on the results of the upcoming U.S. election. Climate scientist Michael Mann has said that a second Trump term would be “game over” for the climate, making it virtually impossible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Biden, by contrast, is proposing the most ambitious climate policy of any major party nominee in U.S. history. Here’s a closer look at the differences. TRUMP: “IT WILL START GETTING COOLER”
The first major difference: Trump doesn’t accept the science of climate change or even necessarily seem to understand what “climate change” means. On a September visit to California, where heat and drought driven by climate change have helped fuel record-breaking fires, Trump said, “It will start getting cooler.” (He has previously called climate change a “con,” “hoax,” and claimed that it was invented by China.) At the first presidential debate, when asked about climate change, Trump started talking about clean air and water, and then claimed “we have now the lowest carbon.” (In fact, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are now the highest that they have been in 15 million years.)
Through his first term, Trump has actively moved the country in the wrong direction on climate. “Across the board, the Trump administration has rolled or attempted to roll back all of the significant steps that the previous administration took under the Clean Air Act and other laws to reduce the carbon pollution and the other pollutants that are driving dangerous climate change,” says David Doniger, a senior advisor to the NRDC Action Fund, a political affiliate organization of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The administration weakened fuel economy standards, eliminated the Clean Power Plan, and weakened standards for emissions from the oil and gas industry. ……..
Trump’s campaign website says nothing about a plan for climate change. The Republican platform, recycled from 2016, says that climate change is “the triumph of extremism over common sense,” even though military experts have identified climate change as a national security threat and thousands of scientists have warned that we’re facing a climate emergency. To actually tackle climate change, the federal government would need to do far more, and a second Trump term would delay that action as the window of opportunity is closing………..
BIDEN: THE MOST AMBITIOUS CLIMATE POLICY OF ANY MAJOR PARTY NOMINEE
Biden, by contrast, has proposed investing $2 trillion to set us “on an irreversible course to meet the ambitious climate progress that science demands,” with a target of net-zero emissions by 2050. By 2035, he wants to decarbonize the electric grid. “This is more ambitious than the most ambitious states in the country,” says Stokes. (California and Hawaii are aiming for 100% clean electricity by 2045; New York is aiming for 2040.) The work on the electric grid would create millions of jobs. Retrofitting buildings to improve energy efficiency would create another million jobs. Ramping up the electric vehicle industry, and infrastructure like charging stations, would create a million more jobs. The plan also calls for “high-quality, zero-emissions” public transit for every large city, “climate-smart” agriculture, cleaning up pollution from the oil and gas industry, and the construction of 1.5 million sustainable homes and housing units. All of this would be done through the lens of environmental justice, ensuring that communities that have been hardest hit by pollution in the past see the benefits.
Though Biden has said that his plan is different from the Green New Deal, a resolution sponsored by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the core principle is the same—creating jobs and fostering equity while reducing emissions. …..
The scope of the plan has to be massive because the country has waited so long to act; the changes could have been much more gradual if we had started 25 years ago. “We’re in a tough spot now,” Doniger says. “If Biden is elected, there’s a need for very deep reductions very fast.” Still, the vast scope of work means creating millions of jobs at a moment when the country also needs to invest in economic recovery.
If Biden wins—and, crucially, if Democrats also control Congress—it’s possible that the world could still avoid the worst impacts of climate change while addressing the recovery. “We’re going to need a very big recovery package, probably a lot bigger than the one from 2009,” Doniger says. “There’s a huge opportunity to build into that infrastructure spending for the transition to clean energy and low emissions that we need, and to do it in a way that invests in communities that have been underserved and beset by pollution.” https://www.fastcompany.com/90560969/the-2020-presidential-election-will-decide-the-fate-of-the-climate
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Trump’s harsh approach on Iran. Biden firm, but more conciliatory
Trump and Biden propose different paths for taking on Iran and its nuclear ambitions, by Stephen Loiaconi, Saturday, October 10th 2020 WASHINGTON (SBG) — With less than four weeks until Election Day, President Donald Trump is escalating a maximum pressure campaign against Iran that he has claimed will produce swift results if he is reelected, but some experts on the region do not share his confidence.
The White House’s latest actions appear intended to set up a second-term drive to corner the Iranian regime into accepting stiffer restrictions on its nuclear program and other activities or face economic collapse. President Trump’s Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, has promised a more conciliatory approach that harkens back to the diplomatic engagement he fostered during the Obama administration.
“What the U.S. has now done, it has said essentially, if you are dealing with this Iranian bank, you’re going to be sanctioned and you’re going to have to pay fines,” said Hossein Askari, a professor emeritus of international affairs at George Washington University.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared the new sanctions “cruel, terrorist and inhumane,” according to state media. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused the Trump administration of trying to “blow up our remaining channels to pay for food & medicine.”……..
experts are skeptical humanitarian transactions can continue unimpeded with Iran’s banks blacklisted. Askari, who has acted as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia and Iran and Kuwait, said he knows people in Iran who have been unable to get medication because of existing sanctions, and he fears the hardships will only get worse.
“The people that are going to suffer are the average Iranians because of what the United States is doing right now,” he said……..
Many countries have experienced economic strains because of coronavirus lockdowns, but the damage to Iran’s economy has been compounded by severe U.S. sanctions. Constraints on oil and other exports have limited the country’s ability to restart economic activity.
“These sanctions have now been building up ever since the Trump administration came to office This is an economy in really critical trouble and it’s also an economy that faces major military and defense expenditures,” said Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former Department of Defense official……….
David Belt, an expert at National Intelligence University, warned in a post for Modern Diplomacy Friday that U.S. sanctions are pushing Iran into a closer relationship with Russia and China. The two countries have veto power on the U.N. Security Council, allowing them to challenge U.S. attempts to step up international pressure on Tehran.
“Necessity is the mother of all invention, and Iran has been forced to look to China and Russia for every national security need to avoid the impact of sanctions…The main rivals of the U.S. are cautiously weighing the costs of an informal economic and security bloc, in part to mitigate the impact of U.S. sanctions and other economic pressures on them as well,” Belt wrote.
The direction of U.S. policy toward Iran is one of many issues on the ballot in November. Trump and Biden have drastically different approaches, and experts are divided on which is more likely to produce results and avert a military conflict neither country wants. ……..
Biden has made clear his top priority for arms control policy is to return to the nuclear deal if Tehran is willing to fall back into compliance with its commitments. He has called for using “hard-nosed diplomacy” to strengthen and extend the agreement while challenging Iran’s destabilizing activities on other fronts.
“We have lost our standing in the region,” Biden said during a primary debate in January. “We have lost the support of our allies. The next president has to be able to pull those folks back together, re-establish our alliances, and insist that Iran go back into the agreement, which I believe with the pressure applied as we put on before we can get done.”…………… https://mynbc15.com/news/nation-world/trump-and-biden-propose-different-paths-for-taking-on-irans-nuclear-ambitions
New Zoom link for Oct 11 Festival of Hope, Two to be Sentenced Oct 15, Four Others Continued Until Nov 12 & 13
New Zoom link for Oct 11 Festival of Hope, Two to be Sentenced Oct 15, Four Others Continued Until Nov 12 & 13 Bill Ofenloch, October 9, 2020/, Kings Bay Plowshares 7, Father Steve Kelly and Patrick O’Neill are scheduled to be sentenced in Brunswick, GA on October 15 & 16 in the early afternoon. It is expected that the two will be combined on October 15. The remaining four defendants, Carmen Trotta, Martha Hennessy, Mark Colville, and Clare Grady, were granted continuances yesterday by Judge Wood to Nov. 12 & 13 because of COVID-19.The defendants ask, “In the interest of public safety, and out of love for our supporters during this Covid 19 pandemic, the seven Kings Bay Plowshares members request that no one come to Brunswick for the sentencing hearings scheduled for Oct. 15-16. We do, however, encourage you all to join the Oct. 11 pre-sentencing Zoom meeting. Thank you all for your love and support, which sustains us.”
There is expected to be an audio link from the court to listen to the proceedings as was done with Liz McAlister in June. The call-in number and times will be posted on the website when we get them.
A virtual Festival of Hope is planned for Sunday, October 11, at 5pm EDT prior to the sentencing of Fr. Steve Kelly and Patrick O’Neill. It will now be hosted on the Code Pink Zoom channel. It will also be on the Code Pink YouTube channel and on the KBP Facebook page. Patrick and several of the defendants will appear. Fr. Steve Kelly will send a message from jail. Marcia Timmel, Susan Crane and Steve Baggarly, plowshares activists, will speak. There will also be a slideshow and music and a blessing.
The new Zoom link:
Global and European temperature levels for September – hottest on record
 September breaks global and European records for hottest ever https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/07/september-saw-hottest-temperatures-on-record-globally-and-in-europe
Air temperatures hit all-time highs for month and Arctic sea ice level was ‘particularly low’ PA Media Surface air temperatures last month were 0.05C warmer than in September 2019, making it the hottest September on record globally, experts from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said. It was also the hottest September Europe has seen, beating the previous record for the continent, set in 2018, by around 0.2C. Temperatures were also well above average in other parts of the world including in the Middle East, parts of South America and Australia, the scientists said. And temperatures in the Siberian Arctic continued to be warmer than average, continuing the hot spell that has affected parts of the region since early spring. Monitoring by C3S also confirms that the average Arctic sea ice extent was the second lowest recorded for September, the month when sea ice is at its lowest after the summer melt before it refreezes in winter, after 2012. The C3S, which is implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), monitors the global and European climate, producing computer-generated analyses using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world. Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S at ECMWF, said: “In 2020, there was an unusually rapid decline in Arctic sea ice extent during June and July, in the same region where above average temperatures were recorded, preconditioning the sea ice minimum to be particularly low this year. “The combination of record temperatures and low Arctic sea ice in 2020 highlight the importance of improved and more comprehensive monitoring in a region warming faster than anywhere else in the world.” |
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Climate misinformation advertisements on Facebook, seen by millions
Climate denial ads on Facebook seen by millions, report finds
The ads included calling climate change a hoax and were paid for by conservative US groups, Guardian, Damian Carrington 9 Oct 20, Adverts on Facebook denying the reality of the climate crisis or the need for action were viewed at least 8 million times in the US in the first half of 2020, a thinktank has found.The 51 climate disinformation ads identified included ones stating that climate change is a hoax and that fossil fuels are not an existential threat. The ads were paid for by conservative groups whose sources of funding are opaque, according to a report by InfluenceMap.
Last month Facebook said it was “committed to tackling climate misinformation” as it announced a climate science information centre. It said: “Climate change is real. The science is unambiguous and the need to act grows more urgent by the day.”Facebook uses factcheckers and bans false advertising but also says this process “is not meant to interfere with individual expression, opinions and debate”. Some of the ads were still running on 1 October. The ads cost just $42,000 to run and appear to be highly targeted, with men over the age of 55 in rural US states most likely to see them.
Warren and other senators wrote to Facebook in July calling on it to close the loopholes.
Climate future depends on what action humans take
Climate scientists on Earth’s two futures The worst effects of climate change don’t have to happen, scientists say. But humans’ actions in the near future will determine if they do. CBS News 60 Minutes Overtime, 2020 Oct 04, BYBrit McCandless Farmer
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- For more than three decades, climate scientists have accurately forecast how carbon emissions would cause a global rise in temperatures. Now they’re looking ahead at the decades to come.
When it comes to predicting the future, scientists do not see just one possible outcome. Rather, they say the actions humans take in the near-term will have a major effect on how Earth changes for generations beyond.
“We need to change our course in the next few years because it’s still possible, I think, to avoid the worst outcomes,” Former NASA scientist James Hansen told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley…….
California is facing the largest wildfires in its history, the East Coast has already been pummeled by nine powerful storms, and what may be the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth scorched California’s Death Valley.
But as bad as they are, Hansen believes, raging forest fires and destructive hurricanes will not be Earth’s worst crises if humans fail to change their actions. The worst consequences will come from permanent changes — rising sea levels and the potential extermination of species.
“We can get back to the old climate if we haven’t caused irreversible things,” Hansen said. “If we lose our coastal cities, that’s irreversible on any time scale that we would care about. And also, the loss of species. So those are the things that I worry about. But those are … late-in-century effects which our children and grandchildren will feel.”
Stopping climate change before irreversible effects have damaged the planet is possible, some scientists believe. …….
According to the latest models, how much the planet will warm is mostly a function of how much carbon humans have burned up to now. If all carbon emissions were to cease today, Mann said, both plants and the ocean would increase the amount of carbon they take out of the atmosphere. As a result, temperatures would remain fairly flat.
“We are only committed to the warming that has happened already,” Mann said. “If we stop burning carbon now, we stop the warming of the planet. In a sense, that is empowering. It tells us we can have a real impact.”
That does not necessarily mean the damage that has been done is reversible. Future generations may be able to figure it out, Mann said—but only if humans halt the planet’s warming. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-scientists-earth-future-60-minutes-2020-10-04/
Lower Saxony opposes building of nuclear power plants by Netherlands – location all too close
German state of Lower Saxony against nuclear power plant in bordering Netherlands, Nuclear phase-out 08 Oct 2020, Kerstine Appunn,– NWZ Online
The northern German state of Lower Saxony has been rattled by Dutch plans to assess the construction of up to 10 new nuclear power plants, one of which could be located near the German border. “I will do everything in my power to prevent the Netherlands from seeing a new dawn of nuclear power,” Lower Saxony’s environment minister Olaf Lies (SPD) told Stefan Idel at NWZ online. The Netherlands has only one of formerly two nuclear power stations operating but governing party VVD has suggested that reaching the Paris Agreement climate targets would require the construction of new nuclear plants.
Lies said he was surprised by the Dutch announcement, calling it a “a gigantic step backwards into old times” to invest into new nuclear power plants and “irresponsible” to produce more nuclear waste. The minister said he expected strong resistance in the Northwest of the state. Members of the Green Party in Lower Saxony’s parliament announced they would work together with their Dutch sister party “GroenLinks” to stop this “economic and ecologic lunacy”.
While a study for the Dutch government said that nuclear power had a similar price as renewable installations, critics insist that nuclear power is by now much more expensive. Lies said he would focus on promoting joint renewable energy projects. Germany will phase-out its last nuclear power plants by the end of 2022 and is currently in the decade-long process of finding a permanent repository for the nuclear waste generated in the past 60 years. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-state-lower-saxony-against-nuclear-power-plant-bordering-netherlands
Citizens express opposition to dangerous increased plutonium pit production
Citizens’ Hearing Held at New Mexico Capitol about Increased Plutonium Pit Production at LANL, http://nuclearactive.org/
The Pentagon has stated it needs annual production of 80 plutonium pits, the triggers for nuclear weapons. T The DOE has approved its Supplement Analyses for four possible ways to execute thisapproved its Supplement Analyses for four possible ways to execute this.
At LANL, DOE proposes upgrades to both LANL’s Plutonium Facility and the Radiological Laboratory Utility and Office Building which is part of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Project.
Despite a mission that has been re-directed and an expansion involving about $15 billion in upgrades for two major buildings and related infrastructure, DOE has decided not to undertake a new Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for LANL. https://www.energy.gov/nepa/downloads/doeeis-0380-sa-06-final-supplement-analysis and https://www.energy.gov/nepa/downloads/doeeis-0380-amended-record-decision Neither our congressional delegation nor our Governor has voiced disapproval of bypassing the SWEIS.
On Wednesday afternoon, October 7th, a citizens’ hearing was held outside the New Mexico State Capitol Building. Testimony was taken about DOE’s dramatic expansion plans for LANL that involve an installation of the size and importance and with the attendant dangers of the closed nuclear weapons plant at Rocky Flats, Colorado. The event, which provided a place for dozens of citizens to express their opposition to DOE’s plans in Northern New Mexico, was sponsored by the Los Alamos Study Group. http://www.lasg.org/
The DOE proposals are too broad and too expensive to go forward without an SWEIS with public review and comment opportunities.
Every day, new information is released about the increased hazards at LANL. This week the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board issued a new report about the inconsistent and inappropriate consideration of potential energetic chemical reactions, or explosions, involving transuranic waste stored at LANL. The Board conducted an analysis of transuranic, or plutonium-contaminated, wastes stored at the Plutonium Facility, the old Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Facility, the Transuranic Waste Facility, and Area G and the potential for explosions. It found that LANL has not fully analyzed for possible explosions involving transuranic waste stored at these facilities that would result in high exposures to workers and the public. https://www.dnfsb.gov/documents/reports/technical-reports/potential-energetic-chemical-reaction-events-involving
The Board asked DOE to respond within 120 days.
David Attenborough’s call – ‘Curb excess capitalism’ to save nature
Attenborough: ‘Curb excess capitalism’ to save nature, BBC, 8 October 2020
Sir David Attenborough says the excesses of western countries should “be curbed” to restore the natural world and we’ll all be happier for it.
The veteran broadcaster said that the standard of living in wealthy nations is going to have to take a pause.
Nature would flourish once again he believes when “those that have a great deal, perhaps, have a little less”.
Sir David was speaking to Liz Bonnin for BBC Radio 5 Live’s new podcast ‘What Planet Are We On?’.
Speaking personally and frankly, Sir David explained, “We are going to have to live more economically than we do. And we can do that and, I believe we will do it more happily, not less happily. And that the excesses the capitalist system has brought us, have got to be curbed somehow.”
“That doesn’t mean to say that capitalism is dead and I’m not an economist and I don’t know. But I believe the nations of the world, ordinary people worldwide, are beginning to realise that greed does not actually lead to joy.”
Sir David said when we help the natural world, it becomes a better place for everyone and in the past, when we lived closer to nature, the planet was a “working eco-system in which everybody had a share”.
The 10-part podcast is being released on the second anniversary of the publication of a key scientific report on global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change study looked at how the world would cope if temperatures rose by 1.5C by the end of this century.
The IPCC special report, released in October 2018 didn’t “save the planet” but it may yet prove to be the most critical moment in the story of climate change.
The study made two things very clear. The first was that there was a massive difference in keeping the rise in global temperatures this century to 1.5C as opposed to 2C.
Politicians had for years focussed on the higher number – the special report made clear that was a risky strategy, which could see the end of coral reefs and expose millions of people to the threat of floods.
The second key message from the IPCC was that the world could stay under 1.5C if carbon emissions were essentially slashed in half by 2030.
The urgency of the challenge laid out in the report inspired millions of young people to take action. This pressure is filtering up to politicians…….. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54268038
Nuclear and renewables – mutually exclusive: renewables better for climate action
Comparative impact of nuclear and renewables on CO2 emissions, By Philippe Gauthier, Resilience.org October 9, 2020 Countries which are heavily invested in nuclear energy remain higher CO2 emitters, on average, than countries which have invested at the same level in renewable energy. This is the main finding of a study recently published in the journal Nature Energy. The results also tend to confirm the hypothesis that it is difficult to commit both to nuclear and renewables due to a systemic incompatibility between these two approaches.
The work aimed to assess three hypotheses. The first is that the greater a country’s nuclear power generation capabilities, the lower its greenhouse gas emissions are. The second is that the greater a country’s renewable energy generation capabilities, the lower its emissions are. The third is that nuclear and renewables coexist uneasily within a national energy system and that the dominance of either delays or prevents the adoption of the other………….
Explanatory factors
What explains these rather unfavorable results for nuclear power? Data collected by the researchers shows that, on average, the delivery time is 90 months for nuclear projects, compared to 40 months for solar and wind projects. Only hydropower has longer lead times. Nuclear and hydropower projects are more prone to delays and cost overruns than smaller-scale renewable projects, which yield low carbon energy more quickly.
Renewables are also associated with a positive learning curve whereby each completed project decreases the costs and increases the performance of subsequent projects. In comparison, nuclear power exhibits a negative learning curve. The study specifically cites the case of France, where each new generation of reactors has involved increased costs or lower performance. The tightening of safety measures after each major accident (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima) has greatly contributed to these increased costs in every country.
The study concludes that renewables have a demonstrable record of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power has a more mixed record, due to the different nature of the energy systems in which it operates. Finally, the results tend to confirm the hypothesis of mutual exclusion already widely noted in the scientific literature. According to the researchers, countries that think they can obtain emission reductions by investing in nuclear energy may actually be forgoing even greater reductions that could be achieved by renewables.
Source:
Benjamin K. Sovacool et al. Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power, in Nature Energy, October 5, 2020 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3.epdf?
Fishing industry chief opposes releasing Fukushima No. 1 water into sea
Fishing industry chief opposes releasing Fukushima No. 1 water into sea, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/10/09/national/zengyoren-fukushima-water-sea/ 9 Oct 20, The head of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, or Zengyoren, has voiced strong opposition against releasing treated water containing radioactive tritium from the disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant into the sea.
“We are absolutely against ocean release” as a way to dispose of tainted water at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture, Hiroshi Kishi, head of Zengyoren, said Thursday at a government hearing in Tokyo.
Kishi said that fishermen who are operating along the coast of Fukushima have been suffering from problems caused by the radioactive fallout from the 2011 meltdowns at the plant, such as fishing restrictions, as well as malicious rumors about the safety of farm and marine products there.
If the government chooses to release radioactive water into the sea, a leading option to get rid of accumulating low-level radioactive water at the plant, it will trash all efforts fishermen have so far made to sweep away such rumors and consequently “will have a devastating impact on the future of Japan’s fishing industry,” Kishi stressed.
Toshihito Ono, head of the prefecture’s fishery product processors association, who joined the hearing via a video call, warned that Fukushima’s processed marine products, including products that use ingredients from other prefectures, will become targets of harmful rumors.
In a report released in February, a government panel pointed out that a realistic option would be releasing the tainted water into the ocean after dilution or into the air through evaporation.
Many people fear that both methods will add to the reputational damage suffered by Fukushima products. But treated water storage at the power plant is expected to reach full capacity as early as autumn 2022.
After the hearing, state industry minister Kiyoshi Ejima told reporters, “We find it unadvisable to put off a decision on how to dispose of the water because not much room is left at the plant for tanks containing the water.”
This was probably the last hearing on the water issue, people familiar with the matter said.
Utah congressman takes action to stop future nuclear weapons testing in U.S.
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Utah congressman takes action to stop future nuclear weapons testing in U.S. The Daily Universe, By Kaela Cleary, October 9, 2020 With all of the chaos surrounding the U.S. presidential election, word of the Trump administration and Senate Republicans creating legislation to prepare to resume nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site hasn’t received much public attention.
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China’s plan for dramatic switch to climate action and renewable energy
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Ageing community in Hokkaido town – mayor agrees to survey for nuclear waste dump
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Graying Hokkaido town applies for nuclear waste dump survey, Japan Times, 9 Oct 20, A small Hokkaido town struggling with depopulation signed up Friday for preliminary research into its land to gauge its suitability for hosting a disposal site deep underground for high-level radioactive nuclear waste, the first municipality to do so in Japan since 2007.Suttsu Mayor Haruo Kataoka submitted the documents for the survey at the quasi-governmental Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NUMO) in Tokyo. Municipalities that undergo the preliminary research, the first of a three-stage process requiring some 20 years in total to select a permanent disposal site, can receive up to ¥2 billion in state subsidies over two years. Prior to Suttsu, the only municipality to apply for a preliminary survey was Toyo in Kochi Prefecture, which submitted documents in 2007. However, the town later withdrew before the research was ever conducted following strong protests by local residents. ……… Meanwhile, government officials are expected later Friday to request Kamoenai village in Hokkaido, which is about 40 kilometers north of Suttsu, to accept research into its land a day after its assembly adopted a petition to host the survey. Suttsu and Kamoenai, with populations of about 2,900 and 820, respectively, have been struggling financially due to a decline in the fishing industry and the aging of their residents. It remains uncertain whether the process of becoming a final disposal site will go smoothly, as Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi Suzuki and members of the fishing industry in the area are opposed to the idea of hosting such a facility……. During its research, NUMO will examine the area to see if it is suited to the disposal of highly radioactive waste, paying attention to volcanoes and fault lines. High-level radioactive waste, produced as a result of extracting uranium and plutonium from spent fuel, must be stored in concrete structures at least 300 meters underground so as not to impact human lives or the environment. Locations near volcanoes and active faults are deemed unfavorable…….https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/10/09/national/hokkaido-nuclear-waste-dump-survey/ |
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Australia faces costly cleanup of Ranger uranium mine, still struggling with pollution legacy of other uraniu mines
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Over the years many people questioned the decision to allow uranium to be mined inside one of Australia’s most famous and largest national parks – Kakadu. But in 1980 that’s exactly what happened, an open-cut mine surrounded by a park famed for its natural beauty made even more famous by the hugely popular Paul Hogan movie, Crocodile Dundee. Now the uranium is gone, dug out and sent off to nuclear power stations around the world and Australia’s longest continually operated uranium mine is almost done.
Nuclear power is making way for renewable energy. Uranium has been mined at Ranger for more than three decades, producing in excess of 130,000 tonnes of uranium oxide. The mine is being closed, Jabiru – the town built to service to the mine workers, is in the process of being handed over to Traditional Owners and the mining company is being closely watched as it delivers on its promise to clean up the site. Cleaning up uranium mines is not something the Northern Territory does well – there is still a huge environmental mess at Rum Jungle closer to Darwin. That uranium mine is a legacy of the Cold War. Australia’s first large scale uranium mine was dug at Rum Jungle on behalf of our “Allies” in the UK and USA to fuel their nuclear weapon programs in the 1950s. Now water fills that vast open cut, a lake as locals call it, and another attempt is going to have to be made to cap the radioactive tailings left behind, the first attempt, supposed to last a century, failed after 20 years. Energy Resources Australia, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, says it has spent more than $642 million in the past eight years on rehabilitation of the mountains of tailings complicated by a lake created from a vast flooded pit………. This story It’s costing a fortune but the NT’s uranium mine is being cleaned up, gradually first appeared on Katherine Times. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6955634/its-costing-a-fortune-but-the-nts-uranium-mine-is-being-cleaned-up-gradually/?cs=14231 |
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