nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Petersberg Climate Dialogue to be held virtually this year

Sustainable Recovery**

Livestream recording of “Financing Climate Ambition in the context of
COVID-19”. A sustained green, resilient recovery from COVID-19 requires
significant investments to scale and achieve economy-wide transformation,
particularly in developing and emerging markets. Delivering this
sustainable recovery and creating new opportunities for growth will involve
accelerating the transition towards a low-carbon, resilient future that is
already underway.

Since its inception in 2010, the Petersberg Climate
Dialogue has provided a forum for high-level political discussions,
focusing both on the international climate negotiations and on advancing
climate action on the ground.
This year, the Petersberg Climate Dialogue
will be held virtually for the first time, and will focus on climate
ambition in the context of a green, resilient recovery. See, in particular
Mark Carmey from 41.43 He asks “what can we do to drice climate finance
in support of the transition to a net zero economy?” A related question
is what will be the economics of a post-Covid world? The new economy will
require a massive reallocation of capital. It provides an opportunity to
require companies and sectors to have net zero transition plans. The aim of
his work on Cop-26 is to ensure that every financial decision takes climate
into account. 120 countries have committed to net zero. That means every
company, every sector, every pension fund in those countries should have a
net zero plan which it has disclosed. When countries are designing their
recovery strategies they would do well to use this new financial framework
that is centred around the transition to net zero because that will amplify
the effectiveness. Once the war against Covid in won our ambition should be
to build a planet fit for our grandchildren.

Climate Policy Initiative 29th April 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sLyUMokSvI

Top regulator who steered banks’ revival after last crash has a new crisis
mission: ‘My green energy plan to spark the economy back to life’. With the
oil price at record lows, Lord Turner concedes that fossil fuels ‘are
suddenly going to look cheap’ as travel resumes – potentially making a
switch to cleaner energy less attractive. But he is adamant that investment
in green fuel would create jobs and give Britain’s post-coronavirus economy
a much-needed boost. For instance, a jobs cull in North Sea oil could be
offset by transferring workers with marine engineering skills to building
bases for offshore windfarms, he says. ‘North-west Europe is blessed with
huge amounts of offshore wind potential, and both the UK and the rest of
Europe should be planning for massive offshore wind developments in the
North Sea that can give us green electricity at a low price,’ he says.
‘It’s a huge strategic opportunity.’ When pressed on whether the Government
should bail out struggling companies, rather than letting some firms fail,
it’s the first time his smooth theorising is rattled. ‘I’m not getting into
the specifics of individual companies,’ he says testily. ‘But any company
that receives a bailout should have green targets attached.’

Daily Mail 2nd May 2020

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-8280895/Lord-Turner-green-energy-plan-economy-life.html

May 3, 2020 Posted by | ANTARCTICA, climate change | Leave a comment

Solar heating

Renew Extra 2nd May 2020, Dave Elliott: Solar power prospects are looking good, but for solar heat as
well as solar electricity. It is clear than solar photovoltaic power generation is booming around the world, with over 580 GW of PV solar installed by the end of 2019, and much more expected, but it’s worth noting that there is also a large amount of direct solar heating system capacity in use (470 GW thermal), and that too is also growing.
Most of this capacity is in the form of standard roof-top solar heat collectors, with China in the lead (330 GWth), but large community-scaled solar heating arrays have been developed in Europe and elsewhere, some of them linked to
large inter-seasonal heat stores, allowing summer heat to be used for winter warming via local district heating networks.
Denmark has been a leader in this field, with its flagship 13.5 MW Marstal project and many others. The heat stores typically involve large lined pits with floating insulating covers for heat retention. In most cases, the solar input
augments heat supplied by other means, including from biomass combustion, but new approaches are being adopted which enhance the solar and bioenergy input using large heat pumps. Although (fossil) gas fired heating still often has the edge, solar heating with heat stores can be competitive with other heating sources if district heating networks already exists, as they do in Denmark. And of course the carbon emissions associated with using
fossil gas are then avoided.https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2020/05/solar-heats-up.html

May 3, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, renewable | Leave a comment

The nuclear pandemic — Beyond Nuclear International

 

Celebrating a sustainable Earth means eliminating nuclear power and weapons

via The nuclear pandemic — Beyond Nuclear International

May 3, 2020 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Here’s who I’m cheering for — Beyond Nuclear International

 

Indigenous protectors of the Amazon deserve our applause too

via Here’s who I’m cheering for — Beyond Nuclear International

May 3, 2020 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The pandemic poses a danger that is unique to the nuclear industry

The Hidden Nuclear Risk of the Pandemic The coronavirus crisis highlights the resilience problem of civilian nuclear power plants.   https://thebulwark.com/the-hidden-nuclear-risk-of-the-pandemic/  by VICTOR GILINSKY AND HENRY SOKOLSKI APRIL 27, 2020 

The coronavirus crisis has revealed a significant Achilles’ heel in civilian nuclear power: The plants can’t operate if their relatively few highly skilled operators get sick or become contagious and have to be quarantined, a situation that, according to news reports, some plants are getting close to. That puts a dent in nuclear-industry assertions that its plants provide a level of protection against natural events far beyond that of most other electricity suppliers.

The chief problem is one of public safety. Unlike other types of electric-generating plants, nuclear plants need operators to remain in control even after they are shut down because their radioactive uranium fuel cores, typically about 100 tons, continue to generate large amounts of heat. If the heat is not removed by cooling water, it can melt the core. During the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, over half the inadequately cooled core melted in hours.

In recent weeks, several vital institutions—police forces, food-processing plants, the U.S. Postal Service, not to mention health care providers—have reportedly been strained as personnel have become sick with COVID-19. As the pandemic spreads, it could create a problem for the smooth functioning of nuclear plants, as well. Just operating in safe shutdown state could be challenging. The details differ from plant to plant and are spelled out in technical specifications that are part of each plant’s federal license, but generally it takes a supervisor and several operators to man the control room and some number of maintenance staff. Altogether, counting all shifts, there may be a couple of dozen operators per plant. That doesn’t sound like much, but these are highly skilled personnel who are licensed to operate an individual plant. You can’t just pull in operators from elsewhere. If the licensed operators are unavailable because of disease or medical concerns, you are out of luck.

The operators would surely not abandon their plant so long as they could remain at their posts, but having a skeleton crew of sick and fatigued individuals operating a nuclear plant is, to say the least, not a desirable state of affairs.
A similar concern applies to the government safety regulators. At the Seabrook plant in New Hampshire, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors are doing most of their inspections over the phone from home. As one citizen oversight group remarked, while “understandable, it’s still a bit unsettling, considering we are talking about nuclear power.” A COVID-19-related notice on the NRC website states the commission “will require plants to shut down if they cannot appropriately staff their facilities,” but during a March 20 teleconference the NRC representative assured the industry that the agency was prepared to issue blanket exemptions from license requirements.
Operating a plant at power takes a lot more staff than maintaining it in safe shutdown state. Nuclear plant managements around the world have been forced to consider the consequences of coronavirus infections and the need to quarantine employees who have been in contact with infected people. The conclusions are stark. According to a Reuters report, EDF, the utility that runs all the nuclear plants in France, said its plants “could operate for three months with a 25% reduction in staffing levels and for two to three weeks with 40% fewer staff.” At one plant in the north of France, Flamanville, EDF announced it was reducing the staff at the plant from 800 to 100, keeping only those “in charge of safety and security.” There are reports that U.S. nuclear plants may ask essential staff to live on-site if the pandemic worsens, and plants have stockpiled bedding and ready-to-eat meals.
During this emergency, nuclear plant managers are doing their best to keep the lights on and the public safe. But the pandemic exposes a vulnerability of the nuclear plants that we will have to take account of in future decisions. One thing is clear: The picture painted by the trade association for the nuclear industry, the Nuclear Energy Institute, of the essential invulnerability of nuclear plants is not correct.

The Nuclear Energy Institute also argues that by contributing reliable power to military installations, nuclear energy “supports the nation’s ability to defend itself.” Yet here we have a type of emergency—involving a possible lack of operating staff—in which the nuclear plants could become a serious liability rather than an asset.

Nuclear plants are not without their advantages. But they also come with serious disadvantages, one of which—the safety imperative for constant, highly trained staffing no matter what—has become evident during the current pandemic. They are an inflexible source of energy that carries an enormous overhead in terms of safety and security, when what we need in our energy system for dealing with inevitable emergencies is not rigidity, but resilience.

May 2, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health, safety | Leave a comment

UK ignored warnings about pandemic danger, cut health funding, spent up big on nuclear weapons

May 2, 2020 Posted by | health, safety, UK, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Report warns on the threat of sea level rise to Sizewell nuclear plan

Sea level rise ‘could threaten nuclear power station’ planned for UK, report claims, Independent UK, EDF about to submit planning application for major development at Sizewell on Suffolk coast, Harry Cockburn, 1 May 20

Rising sea levels and coastal erosion could pose a threat to two nuclear reactors planned to be built on the low-lying Suffolk coast, according to local councils and analysis by an independent environmental group.

East Suffolk Council and Suffolk County Council have already lodged various concerns about French company EDF Energy’s plans for the new facilities at Sizewell C, and a new analysis by experts at the Nuclear Consulting Group suggests planned sea defences may be inadequate in future climate change scenarios.

EDF is reportedly about to submit its official planning application for the project, and has been working with Chinese state-owned nuclear company.

The Nuclear Consulting Group’s paper, written by structural engineer, Nick Scarr, suggests the Suffolk coast where the Sizewell development is planned, is inherently “unstable”, and that due to erosion by the sea the site could become an island before the station reaches the end of its active life, thereby risking a serious accident. Mr Scarr told the Climate News Network:

“Any sailor, or lifeboat crew, knows that east coast banks need respect — they have dynamic patterns, and even the latest charts cannot be accurate for long. “I was deeply concerned by EDF’s premise that there is micro-stability at the Sizewell site, which makes it suitable for new-build nuclear. It is true if you restrict analysis to recent historical
data, but it is false if you look at longer-term data and evidence-based climate science predictions…….. (subscribers only) https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/nuclear-power-sea-rise-sizewell-c-edf-suffolk-a9492901.html

May 2, 2020 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

USA’s complicated and contradictory plan to punish Iran

May 2, 2020 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Hole in the ozone layer is now closed

Record Arctic ozone hole now closed: UN  https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/record-arctic-ozone-hole-now-closed-un/news-story/b0d4c72a9befb02c7ebc4ccc2e91a6c1

Reuters

May 2, 2020 Ozone depletion over the Arctic hit a “record level” in March, the biggest since 2011, but the hole has now closed, the UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says.

The springtime phenomenon in the northern hemisphere was driven by ozone-depleting substances still in the atmosphere and a very cold winter in the stratosphere, WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis told a UN briefing in Geneva.

“These two factors combined to give a very high level of depletion which was worse than we saw in 2011. It’s now back to normal again … the ozone hole has closed,” she said on Friday.

Nullis, asked whether less pollution during the pandemic had played a role, said: “It was completely unrelated to COVID.”

May 2, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, environment | Leave a comment

Everyone is needed in bid for a future free of nuclear 

Everyone is needed in bid for a future free of nuclear  https://www.thenational.scot/news/18418402.everyone-needed-bid-future-free-nuclear/

 By Readers of The National   Malcolm Bruce, Edinburgh HOW fitting that you publish a letter on Monday from Tor Justed of Highlands Against Nuclear Transport (HANT) (A reminder why we need nuclear-free campaign, The National, April 27), this week being the anniversary of the explosion and fire at Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Ukraine in 1986.
Radiation spread over the USSR and western Europe and the death toll is believed to be thousands over the following years from the cancers caused. Some areas near the reactors are now uninhabitable.The three nuclear meltdowns and explosions at Fukushima reactor in Japan after the Tsunami of March 2011 were of an equal severity to Chernobyl. A subsequent inquiry found the scenario was foreseeable but had not been prepared for.l

To propose new reactors in the UK and transporting deadly plutonium to fuel them risks disaster.

As well as the risks, we know from numerous examples that nuclear power is enormously expensive.

Hinkley C in Somerset, currently being built, will, if completed and it actually works, produce the most expensive electricity in the world, ever!

Meanwhile cash-strapped EDF lobbies our governments hard to allow the ageing Torness and Hunterston reactors, pictured, to carry on beyond their design lives despite one Hunterston reactor having extensive cracks in its graphite blocks, vital for safety. Anyone with commonsense can see the precautionary principle applies here and that a shut down reactor in this condition should stay shut down. An accident and release of radiation from Hunterston could cause central Scotland to be evacuated – permanently.

And last but not least we have the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in Western Europe based a few miles from Helensburgh. These missile subs could destroy the lives of millions and are, of course, a target themselves. A government report in the late-1950s concluded that a nuclear war would annihilate the country and that civil defence was pointless. With Trump in the White House don’t assume we won’t end up in a nuclear confrontation that could take us all into the abyss. Year round the warheads are driven up and down our roads with all the risks of terrorism and crashes that entails.

Fifty years ago the UK signed up to a nuclear non-proliferation treaty that committed us to negotiating nuclear disarmament in good faith. Nothing has happened in that direction, a conspiracy of silence by the UK political parties and the media.

So, yes, HANT, you’re right, we need everyone to lobby for a nuclear-free future in Scotland and worldwide, and thank you for your campaigning.

May 2, 2020 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

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

May 2, 2020 Posted by | Iran, Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

This is what uranium and radon, do in drinking water

Dr. Hans Frehly  1 May 2020, People who are exposed to relatively high levels of radionuclides in drinking water for long periods may develop serious health problems, such as cancer, anemia, osteoporosis, cataracts, bone growths, kidney disease, liver disease and impaired immune systems.  https://agrilifeextension.tamu.edu/library/water/drinking-water-problems-radionuclides/ 
Just think what cesium 137, tritium, plutonium, cobalt 60, strontium 90 do and all the other man created, super radionuclide poisons do. Even in minute amounts. They are from nuclear bomb making, nuclear ships, nuclear reactors, nuclear waste, oil field imaging, nuclear medicine, nuclear plants, nuclear accidents, nuclear waste. They are everywhere now. Ask yourself how much of the covid pandemic is from omnipresent nuclear pollutants, effecting us from weakened immunity. All radionuclides are the most potent industrial poisons of the immune system and genome. Humans are dumb clucks.

May 1, 2020 Posted by | water | Leave a comment

Hundreds of foreign companies procuring nuclear materials for India and Pakistan

May 1, 2020 Posted by | India, Pakistan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

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

May 1, 2020 Posted by | ARCTIC, climate change | Leave a comment

To store surplus plutonium, USA’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will have to be enlarged

May 1, 2020 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment