Need for Prediction of Marine Heatwaves
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Need for Prediction of Marine Heatwaves, By Tasmanian Times July 29, 2020 There is need for the development of systems to predict marine heatwaves, say an international research team. The phenomena are a growing threat to marine ecosystems and industries as the climate changes.
Unlike terrestrial heatwaves and other extreme weather events such as cyclones, knowledge of marine heatwaves and their causes is relatively crude, so we don’t yet have tools to predict when they will occur and what their impact will be In a paper published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, leading ocean and climate scientists from across Australia and around the world outline the need and potential for marine heatwave prediction. Lead author Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) Professor Neil Holbrook said dedicated and coordinated research into marine heatwaves only really began following an extreme event off Western Australia in 2011. Subsequent studies have revealed the range of risks they pose. “Over the past century, the global average number of marine heatwave days per year has increased by more than 50 per cent – a trend expected to accelerate under future climate change,” Professor Holbrook said…….. https://tasmaniantimes.com/2020/07/need-predict-marine-heatwaves/ |
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Examining NuScam’s deceptive claims about Small Nuclear Reactors
Derek Abbott shared a link. Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia, 30 July 20
Karl Grossman on the Ohio Nuclear Scandal 2020
 Ohio Nuclear Scandal 2020, Montgomery County Sentinel, By Karl Grossman Jul 29, The U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI last week charged the speaker of the Ohio House of Representative and four others in a $61 million scheme to use $1 billion in ratepayers money to keep two decrepit nuclear power plants operating.And, said the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, David DeVillers, at a press conference after the arrests on July 21: “This is by no means over. We are going to continue with this investigation.”
Those charged were involved in a “Conspiracy to Participate, Directly or Indirectly” in the scheme “through a Pattern of Racketeering Activity,” declared the “Offense Description” that headed an 81-page federal “Criminal Complaint.” As DeVillers described it at a press conference as the “largest bribery, money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of Ohio.” FirstEnergy Corp., whose former subsidiaries owned the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant 21 miles from Toledo and the Perry nuclear power plant 40 miles from Cleveland, funneled “dark money,” he said, through a social welfare non-profit corporation to help Larry Householder become speaker of the Ohio House and get other legislators elected. Together, they then got a $1 billion bailout passed that places a fee on every electricity bill in the state through 2026 for the plants. Arrested with Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder was former Ohio Republican Chairman Matt Borges, lobbyists Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes and political consultant Jeff Longstreth. Atttorney DeVillers said that those involved in the scheme “were able to line their pockets.” Householder took in “a half a million dollars for his personal benefit.” The “Criminal Complaint” speaks of how in 2016 “Company A Corp.’s [referring to FirstEnergy Corp.] “nuclear generation looked grim.” It and “its affiliates reported a weak energy market, poor forecast demands, and hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.” So, the company “actively sought a ‘legislative solution’ for its two-affiliated nuclear power plants in Ohio.” There are then pages and pages of details about the investigation. The “Criminal Complaint” can be viewed online at https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/f9/43/8327c2984e40adac3d957d226894/ohio-house-complaint.pdf What is described in the “Criminal Complaint” as the “Householder Enterprise” backed 15 candidates in primaries in 2018, including Householder himself, and six additional ones in the general election, with most candidates winning and voting for Householder to become speaker, and most voting for the bailout. The ”Conclusion” of the “Criminal Complaint” states: “The above facts establish probable cause that Householder’s Enterprise is an association-in-fact enterprise affecting interstate commerce, and the Defendants conspired to participate in the conduct of affairs of the enterprise by agreeing that a co-conspirator would commit a pattern of racketeering activity. To summarize, while operating together—and functioning as Householder’s ‘team’—the Defendants enriched themselves and increased Householder’s political power by: engaging in a scheme to defraud the public…involving the receipt of millions of dollars in secret bribe payments through Householder’s 501(c) (4) account in return for Householder taking official action to help pass a legislative bailout for two nuclear power plants; bribing and attempting to bribe individuals working on behalf of the Ballot Campaign in an attempt to receive inside information and defeat the Ballot Campaign; and concealing the scheme, their illegal activity; and the source of the funds transferring the Company A-to-Generation-Now payments through other controlled entities and knowingly engaging in monetary transactions with the proceeds.” Earlier, the Columbus Free Press ran an article by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman headlined “Ohio’s Pro-Nuke Assault Threatens American Democracy with Violence & More.” https://columbusfreepress.com/article/ohios-pro-nuke-assault-threatens-american-democracy-violence-more The November 2019 article began: “The nuclear industry’s violent assault on democracy in Ohio has taken a surreal leap. Ohio’s GOP secretary of state has now asked the Ohio Supreme Court NOT to provide a federal judge with answers about key procedural questions surrounding the state’s referendum process. The short-term issue is about a billion-dollar bailout for two nuke reactors and two coal burners. Long-term it asks whether targeted violence perpetrated by paid thugs will now define our election process. And whether the public referendum will remain a workable part of our democracy.”………… https://www.thesentinel.com/communities/montgomery/news/ohio-nuclear-scandal-2020/article_31d9b01e-d19f-11ea-a7b7-d3a900894306.html Karl Grossman is an author and journalism professor at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury. He attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He hosts the television program Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman |
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Plan for nuclear-weapon free zone is unlikely to impress Israel
Eliminating Israel’s bomb with a nuclear-weapon-free zone? https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/eliminating-israels-bomb-with-a-nuclear-weapon-free-zone/, 29 Jul 2020 Ramesh Thakur Nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs) deepen and extend the scope of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and embed the non-nuclear-weapon status of NPT states parties in additional treaty-based arrangements. This is why several NPT review conferences have repeatedly affirmed support for existing NWFZs and encouraged the development of additional zones.
There are currently five zones: in Latin America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa and Central Asia. At a minimum, all NWFZs prohibit the acquisition, testing, stationing and use of nuclear weapons within the designated territory of the zone. They also include protocols for pledges by nuclear powers not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against members of the zone.
Israel has seemed more interested in implementing a military solution to its security challenges, including the threat of a preventive strike on Iran, than in exploring diplomatic options. But it’s simply not credible that Israel can keep its unacknowledged nuclear arsenal indefinitely, while every other regional state can be stopped from getting the bomb in perpetuity. The alternatives for Israeli security planners are regional denuclearisation or proliferation. The latter would entail the further risks of heightened tension and increased instability. Moreover, a nuclear-weapon capability is of no use to Israel in deterring or managing the threat of terrorism.
Because ‘the logic of using force to secure a nuclear monopoly flies in the face of international norms’, Israel could consider trading its nuclear weapons for a stop to Iran’s development of a nuclear-weapon capability by agreeing to an NWFZ. Conversely, the confidence built among states through an NWFZ process can spill over into other areas of regional interactions. The experience of working together in negotiating a zonal arrangement, and then working together once the zone is operational, generates habits of cooperation and sustains mutual confidence, both of which are necessary conditions for resolving other regional security issues.
Can an NWFZ be used for nuclear disarmament of a non-NPT state?
When the NPT was extended indefinitely in 1995, the package deal included a resolution on the creation of a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction. The resolution required all regional states (including those outside the NPT) to sign, and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards to be applied to all nuclear facilities in the region. The 2010 NPT review conference—the last one that had an agreed final document—reiterated the importance of the 1995 resolution and requested the UN secretary-general and Russia, the UK and the US—co-sponsors of the 1995 resolution—to convene a conference in 2012 to that end.
Finnish diplomat Jaakko Laajava was appointed as the facilitator and Helsinki was named as the venue for the conference scheduled to begin on 17 December 2012. However, on 23 November Victoria Nuland of the US State Department said there would be no conference ‘because of present conditions in the Middle East and the fact that states in the region have not reached agreement on acceptable conditions for a conference’. The failure contributed to the collapse of the 2015 review conference.
Like the Red Queen in Through the looking-glass, the UN has to run very fast just to stay where it is. The adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons might be thought to have made another NWFZ redundant. Yet, by an 88 to 4 vote (75 abstentions), UN General Assembly decision 73/546 of 22 December 2018 called on the secretary-general to convene a conference at UN headquarters in 2019 to elaborate a legally binding treaty for establishing a WMD-free zone in the Middle East. Importantly, however, in paragraph a(iii), the document stipulated that all decisions of the conference ‘shall be taken by consensus by the States of the region’. The conference was held on 18–22 November 2019. Its political declaration affirmed ‘the intent and solemn commitment’ to pursue a treaty-based commitment, just like in 1995.
Not surprisingly, Israel is wary of the proposal’s origins in a document to which it did not subscribe, adopted by a conference to review and extend a treaty that it has not signed, whose core prohibition it has ignored. In a formal letter to the secretary-general (document A/72/340 (Part 1), 16 August 2017), Israel emphasised ‘the need for a direct and sustained dialogue between all regional States to address the broad range of security threats and challenges’. It’s difficult to see how negotiations can begin until all states explicitly accept the existence of Israel. No NWFZ has previously been established among states that refuse to recognise one another and do not engage in diplomatic relations and whose number includes some that are formally at war.
The bleak security and political environment in the conflict-riven Middle East is particularly inauspicious for the creation of an NWFZ. There is no regional organisation to initiate and guide negotiations, nor is there a regional dialogue process that can form the backdrop to negotiations. An NWFZ in regions of high conflict intensity may have to follow rather than cause the end of conflicts. Syria is convulsed in a civil war. Egypt has yet to sign the IAEA Additional Protocol and the Chemical Weapons Convention, or ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention and the African NWFZ. But it does strongly support a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.
Turkey is a NATO member. The possession and deployment of nuclear weapons are integral to NATO doctrine and command structure and US tactical nuclear weapons are based in Turkey. How can this be reconciled with Turkey’s membership of an NWFZ? Alternatively, how meaningful would a Middle Eastern NWFZ be without Turkey?
Most crucially, Israel is already a nuclear-armed state. This immediately raises an obvious but critical question. Is the expectation that Israel will sign a protocol as a nuclear-armed state, or that it must sign the treaty after first eliminating its nuclear weapons? The latter would be without precedent and transform the Middle East NWFZ treaty from a normal non-proliferation treaty into a unique disarmament treaty. An NWFZ is traditionally established as a confidence-building measure among states that have already forsworn the nuclear option. It is unlikely to be established as a disarmament measure, or even to constrain the future potential of states like Iran that retain the nuclear option in their national security calculus.
Ramesh Thakur, a former UN assistant secretary-general, is emeritus professor at the Australian National University and director of its Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.
Czech Republic and CEZ sign nuclear power plant expansion agreement: require EU approval
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Czech Republic and CEZ sign nuclear power plant expansion agreement, Power Technology 29 July 20, The Government of the Czech Republic has signed agreements with state-controlled utility company CEZ for the expansion of the Dukovany nuclear power plant.
Reuters reported that the agreement includes a general framework as well as details of the expansion’s initial phase. It will also include a tender in which CEZ will outline a preferred list of its suppliers by 2022. It would then finalise the contract with a supplier by 2024. CEZ has planned to launch the supplier tender by the end of 2020. It is estimated that the construction of the new unit would cost $7.04bn (€6bn). The nuclear power plant expansion would require approval from the European Commission to ensure the project meets EU state aid rules……. https://www.power-technology.com/news/czech-republic-cez-sign-agreement-dukovany-nuclear-power-plant-expansion/ |
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Local approval still needed, as Japan’s nuclear regulators OK fuel reprocessing plant, despite safety concerns
The regulators said on Wednesday that they had received about 760 opinions, and that many of them were about safety. The risk of radioactive materials leaking out was among the concerns.
The regulators concluded that the operator had measures in place to deal with the concerns, and said the firm’s application had been approved.
Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited wants to complete construction by September 2021, and launch operations in 2022. But the construction work, which began 27 years ago, has been delayed by problems. That has caused the cost to balloon to more than 130 billion dollars.
Plans to use the reprocessed plutonium are not moving forward as initially outlined.
The government and energy firm also still need to obtain local approval. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20200729_20/
Thorium nuclear plan with USA firm – a dubious deal for Indonesia
 Thorcon, Defense Ministry to cooperate on thorium nuclear reactor, Norman Harsono, The Jakarta PostJakarta / Tue, July 28, 2020 United States-based nuclear company Thorcon International Pte Ltd and Indonesia’s Defense Ministry signed a deal on Jul. 22 to study developing a thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR) for either power generation or marine vehicle propulsion.Thorcon said it would provide technical support to the ministry’s research and development (R&D) body to develop “a small-scale TMSR reactor under 50 megawatts (MW)”, the company wrote in a statement on Friday, Jul. 24,
“[This will] strengthen national security in the outermost, frontier and least developed regions,” reads the company’s statement……… “We hope Thorcon may be more open toward providing technical support for the Defense Ministry’s R&D body in making the designs and technical preparations for when we enter the construction phase,” the ministry’s statement reads. At 50 MW, the Defense Ministry’s “small-scale” reactor would become the biggest nuclear reactor in Indonesia. The country’s current largest reactor – a non-commercial facility – is the 30 MW GA Siwabessy reactor in Serpong, Banten. …… Thorium nuclear technology is also unready for commercial application, National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan) director Dandang Purwadi told The Jakarta Post earlier this year. “We have to wait around 10 years for the technology to mature, then it takes 10 years to build the facility”, he said, commenting on Thorcon’s planned commercial plant. Energy experts speaking at a discussion on Jul. 1 pointed out that nuclear plants were losing popularity and were much more costly than renewables, despite improvements in nuclear plant safety, following headline grabbing meltdowns. … “Usage of nuclear power plants is entering a sunset phase,” said Herman Ibrahim, country chairman of the Paris-based International Council on Large Electric Systems (CIGRE). https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/07/28/thorcon-defense-ministry-to-cooperate-on-thorium-nuclear-reactor.html |
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When it comes to nuclear waste dumping, the Australian government sees black people as flora and fauna, not citizens
Barngarla continue fight against plan to dump nuclear waste on Country, SBS News 29 July 20, Barngarla mob say they were not properly consulted by federal government for plans to store radioactive waste on Country at Kimba in SA, and that their concerns continue to be ignored. By Royce Kurmelovs, NITV News 29 July 20
The 50-year-old Barngarla woman is talking about the enduring connection she has to Kimba when she tells how on the day she was born, her parents had been waiting for an ambulance that never came.
Forced to make their own way to the hospital, she says her mum made it as far as the tree outside before giving birth.
“So I’m born on Country,” she says.
Though she may not live there today, Jeanne says a part of her has never left. It is a detail that underscores the significance of the moment she learned Kimba was being considered as a dump for radioactive waste.
“I used to be a carer for my mum. When I first heard [about the facility], I told her. She goes: ‘no, no, no’ and got angry,” Jeanne says. “She said; ‘we don’t want it there’. She said to me: ‘you got to fight for this. You got to fight for it, we can’t have that place there. It’s a special place for us.’”
Most among the Barngarla have a similar story about the shock and confusion at learning their traditional Country was under consideration as part of a proposal to build a nuclear waste storage facility that would take in samples from 100 sites across the continent.
No one, they say, from the federal government contacted them beforehand to talk about the proposal, leaving most to find out through the news media or word of mouth.
Instead it was up to the Barngarla themselves, through the the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation (BDAC) to take the initiative and write to the government in April 2017 to find out what was going on.
‘Wasn’t interested in our views’
That first letter would plunge them into a fight that has so far lasted three years, until it entered a new phase in February when former Industry Minister Matt Canavan announced – a day before he resigned – that he had selected a site just outside of Kimba to situate the nuclear waste facility…….
Over the course of its operating lifetime, the site would house low-to-intermediate level nuclear waste made up of medical waste drawn from 100 sites across the country. This material would include medical waste, but also the more serious TN81 canisters – casks of material once exposed to high levels of radiation that require containment for several hundred years.
If supporters of the proposal celebrated the financial windfall it would bring, critics worried the decision represented the thin end of a wedge that would eventually see the site expand to house higher-level toxic waste.
For the Barngarla people, however, the proposal represented something more significant: yet another decision where they have been overlooked, ignored and overruled in a process they describe as “divide and rule”.
“It’s like the government’s not listening to us,” Jeanne says. “It’s like if the government picks a place where they want to put rubbish like that, they’ll just go and do it and they don’t care what the people think. And that’s wrong. They should be listening to what the people want too.”….
After their early efforts to find out more, the Barngarla say they were stonewalled from the very beginning by both the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, and the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARWA). That stance would become a pattern…….
They basically created hurdles,” Bilney says. “The catchphrase was ‘rateable property’ – that’s white man’s terms ‘rateable property’. We’re the native title holders. That holds more weight than ‘rateable property’, so we should have been included.”
Around the time the Barngarla filed their lawsuit to challenge the vote, the first meeting with the department took place in August 2018 – a moment Bilney recalls with frustration.
He says Mr Canavan spoke for fifteen minutes before he left, taking all the government representatives with him.
“That’s it,” Bilney says. “He wasn’t interested in our views, he just wanted us to hear what he had to say.”
When the poll of Kimba residents was counted, it returned a result that saw 61.6 per cent of 824 participants vote in favour of the proposal.
BDAC responded by organising is own poll, asking its 209 members the same question that was asked of the broader Kimba residents. The result would be a unanimous “No” from the 83 participants – a turnout figure explained by cultural and logistical factors that make it difficult to gather in any one place…….
Aliens in our own country’
What happens now is up to the Senate economics reference committee and a clutch of Labor, Greens and independent senators.
The Barngarla say the recent approach of the federal government – to legislate the precise location of the site – represents a new twist as it departs from the process established by the Gillard government under the National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012.
Worse still, the Barngarla say the provisions of the bill will stymie their rights to seek a judicial review of the minister’s decision in the courts. The Parliamentary joint committee on human rights also raised concerns about the bill in April this year that it says may extinguish Native Title……..
So far it has taken two decades for the Barngarla to have their Native Title claim to a 45,000 square kilometre stretch of the Eyre Peninsula recognised by the courts – a process during which they were once informed that they did not exist as a people.
Neither have they forgotten the horror at Maralinga when the British army tested nuclear weapons after falsely declaring there were no Aboriginal people in the area.
To the Barngarla, the government has only decided to talk after the big decisions have been made.
“We’re still flora and fauna to these people,” Bilney says. “They should have included us from the start. We heard about it on the news. We weren’t included in the vote.
“You know, the Barngarla [native title] claim was basically an unwinnable case, they said. It’s taken us 21 years. Twenty-one years to win Native Title under white man’s law. And yet we’re still classed as second-class citizens? Flora and fauna.
“We’re basically aliens in our own Country.” https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/07/29/barngarla-continue-fight-against-plan-dump-nuclear-waste-country
Nuclear Energy Leadership Act (NELA), sneaked into National Defense Bill: it will go back to U.S. Congress
 US Senate passes Nuclear Energy Leadership Act, WNN, 27 July 2020
The US Senate has passed the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act (NELA) after it was included as an amendment to an act authorising defence appropriations and policies for fiscal 2021. NELA aims to re-establish US leadership in nuclear energy, with a focus on the demonstration of advanced reactors.
NELA (S 903) was introduced as an amendment to the National Defense Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (NDAA, S 4049) by Senators Lisa Murkowski and Cory Booker during a floor debate on 23 July. The NDAA was passed the same day, with 86 senators voting in favour and 14 against. ……. The Department of Defense is a logical first customer for advanced reactors,…… Bills to instate NELA were introduced into the House and Senate last year. The legislation would focus US Department of Energy efforts on the demonstration of advanced reactor concepts, providing fuel for initial advanced nuclear reactors, and developing the nuclear energy workforce…… NELA was not included in the House of Representatives version of the NDAA, which was passed on 21 July. A final version of the legislation on which both House and Senate agree must be drawn up before it can become law. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/US-Senate-passes-Nuclear-Energy-Leadership-Act |
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Coast Guard To Deliver Nuclear Icebreaker Plan to White House
Coast Guard To Deliver Nuclear Icebreaker Plan to White House
The plan will include options to lease new breakers or build new nuclear-powered ships as Russia and China leap ahead of US capabilities in the Arctic. WASHINGTON: The Coast Guard is on track to deliver plans for a new generation of potentially nuclear-powered icebreakers to the White House by August 10, just two months after the Trump administration issued a surprise public directive to do so…….. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/coast-guard-to-deliver-nuclear-icebreaker-plan-to-white-house/
Huge, costly, enormous effort, ITER nuclear fusion far from ready
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France’s global nuclear fusion device a puzzle of huge parts, AP, By ELAINE GANLEY. 29 Jul 20,
“…….. Billed as the world’s largest science project, ITER is gigantic. The circular device, called a tokamak, has a 30-meter circumference, stands 30 meters (100 feet) high, and is made up of more than a million parts constructed in numerous countries. ………Some pieces transported to France weigh several hundred tons. Tools to put the reactor together match that size, with giant lifts that must transfer components over the walls and down into “the pit.” A key component being built by the U.S., the Central Solenoid, is the most powerful of ITER’s numerous magnets. Together, they will be strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier. The project begun in 2006 is far from over. The experimental reactor is to head for another landmark moment in five years, described as a “trial run” when scientists launch what is called “First Plasma” showing that the machine functions, including magnetic fields and other operations……
The project’s estimated cost just for the EU was about 20 billion euros ($23.5 billion), Bigot told reporters. He said a full price tag was difficult to estimate because participating countries make their own contributions. https://apnews.com/c9e1780864431c3edcd1cc2c17568c54
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U.S. Nuclear Agency Workers Say Cost-Cutting Is Hurting Safety
U.S. Nuclear Agency Workers Say Cost-Cutting Is Hurting Safety, Charlie McGee, Bloomberg News, July 30, 2020,
- NRC inspector general survey shows worry among employees
- Shrinking resources, fewer inspections cited in report
Employees of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission fear that cost cutting has reduced that agency’s commitment to safety, according to a survey by a government watchdog.
The NRC’s Inspector General polled more than 2,100 employees at the agency, which is charged with overseeing safety at the nation’s nuclear power plants……. (subscribers only) https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/u-s-nuclear-agency-workers-say-cost-cutting-is-hurting-safety
US-Russia launch talks in Vienna on nuclear arms control
The talks come less than a year before the expiration of New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control deal. The United States and Russia have entered a new phase of talks on nuclear arms control in Vienna, with working groups comprising government experts from both sides starting to meet for the first time.Over the course of three days, starting Tuesday, the groups of experts will deal with military doctrines and potentials, transparency and verification, as well as with security in space, according to the Russian foreign ministry.
The new format was set up in June in negotiations between US arms-control envoy Marshall Billingslea and Russia Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in the Austrian capital.
The talks are taking place less than a year before the expiration of the New START agreement, the last remaining nuclear arms-control deal between the countries, which together possess about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.
The US-Russia Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which had banned nuclear-capable, land-launched missiles with a range between 500km (310 miles) and 5,500km (3,417 miles), ended last year, after the US initiated a pull-out, accusing Moscow of cheating.
Washington also wants China to take part in the arms control negotiations, but Beijing has made it clear that it is not interested.
Without Mercy: Sanctions and Militarism in the Time of Pandemic — Rise Up Times
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for a global ceasefire: The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown….. Put aside mistrust and animosity. Silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes. End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging […]
via Without Mercy: Sanctions and Militarism in the Time of Pandemic — Rise Up Times
Looks as if 20 municipalities in Utah have been NuScammed for those not so small nuclear reactors
readers may wonder how UAMPS convinced some members to sign an “option” contract, which eventually converts to a “hell-or-high-water” contract, meaning that the buyer has no right, under any circumstances, to abandon the contract once construction, the Achilles heel of nuclear projects, is authorized.
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Over 20 municipalities, primarily located in Utah, have signed a contract with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) to purchase entitlement shares for a first-of-a-kind nuclear power plant based on NuScale’s unproven small modular reactor (SMR) design. [and they’re not really small at all]
Ignoring the history of commercial nuclear plant construction, advocates have promoted the SMR project as a cost-effective energy resource without fully addressing the economic, contractual and litigation risks with stakeholders. Between 1953 and 2008, approximately 250 commercial nuclear reactors were ordered in the United States. During this period, ratepayers (and investors) bore the burden for well over $200 billion (in 2009 dollars) in costs for completed and abandoned nuclear plants. For example, one of the largest municipal bond defaults occurred in 1982 when the Washington Public Power Supply System defaulted on $2.25 billion in bonds for two nuclear power plant construction projects. In an effort to reduce their losses, bondholders sued a group of utilities (including several Idaho cities) that entered into contracts to pay for the plants.
Well, what about the UAMPS SMR project, including the $65 dollars per megawatt-hour (price cost of electricity) sales pitch? During a 2018 Los Alamos County Council meeting, held to consider approval of the UAMPS power sales contract, a council member asked a UAMPS lawyer, “There’s been mention of a target of $65 a megawatt-hour. How did we come up with that number?” Another council member, probing into the terms of the contract, expressed additional concern. The councilor stated, “I feel like we’re being sold a bill of goods with $65 a megawatt-hour.” With that said, readers may wonder how UAMPS convinced some members to sign an “option” contract, which eventually converts to a “hell-or-high-water” contract, meaning that the buyer has no right, under any circumstances, to abandon the contract once construction, the Achilles heel of nuclear projects, is authorized. Having a similar concern, especially given the history of nuclear plant construction, a sincere effort was made to address project risks with the UAMPS SMR project chair, including sharing concerns about transparency and proposing possible ways to minimize risks to ratepayers, including contract modifications such as price guarantees and redefining the construction period. Unfortunately, my questions and concerns fell on deaf ears. |
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1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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