1.2 million tonnes of contaminated water and nowhere to put it – Fukushima’s continued legacy
Japan grappling with 1.2 million tonnes of contaminated water and nowhere to put it Japan has a crisis on its hands at the site of the country’s worst natural disaster. One challenge it faces has been deemed near-impossible. NZ Herald, Rohan Smith– 11 March 21,
On the site of Japan’s nuclear disaster, 10 years on from the meltdown that changed the world forever, authorities are grappling with impossible choices.
Today marks a decade since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Towns surrounding the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi plant have long since been abandoned but the fallout from the March 11, 2011 event is far from over.
Every single day, 100 tonnes of groundwater seeps into one of the broken reactor basements at the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
That’s a problem because the water is mixing with radioactive debris and needs to be treated and stored. But TEPCO has more than 1.2 million tonnes of contaminated water sitting in storage tanks that are very quickly running out of capacity.
Estimates suggest the tanks will reach overflow point next year. And one of the choices on the table for Japanese authorities is hugely unpopular and potentially devastating: Release more than 1 million tonnes of the treated radioactive water into the sea.
On the site of Japan’s nuclear disaster, 10 years on from the meltdown that changed the world forever, authorities are grappling with impossible choices.
It is not the only problem that needs solving. There is a far more dangerous situation unfolding in several of the plant’s damaged reactors.
The plan is to decommission the plant by 2051.
Pictures from abandoned properties in the original exclusion zone show weeds growing around homes that were vacated in a hurry. …. more https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/japan-grappling-with-12-million-tonnes-of-radioactive-water-and-nowhere-to-put-it/33TKZUD6JM4GHFJSMIBZ3WZKVY/
The long-term problem of “peaceful” plutonium
 The long-term problem of “peaceful” plutonium https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/the-long-term-problem-of-peaceful-plutonium/?fbclid=IwAR1T1BwrLHnDoN3IBw7SxlR8H8-Hzy-auzsmNuYbPy3IZrzSXrWBW4Zfop8
By Robert Alvarez | March 8, 2021 In the early decades of the atomic age, using the enormous energy in plutonium atoms for the peaceful generation of electricity became a multibillion-dollar quest that shaped US energy research and development policies. In 1970, Glenn Seaborg, the discoverer of plutonium and then-chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, declared that “within the lifespan of a single generation this newcomer plutonium born on a humble research budget and cradled in a cigar box will have become the energy giant of the future.” Seaborg and the AEC projected the growth of nuclear-powered electricity would be so great that global supplies of uranium would be exhausted, paving the way for the recovery of plutonium from spent power reactor fuel for the next generation of power plants, which would dot the global landscape. Seaborg estimated by the end of the 20th century, power reactors would cumulatively produce 1,600 metric tons of plutonium with the potential to fuel half the nation’s electrical generation. With this much plutonium flowing through commerce, the possibility that some of it might be diverted for nefarious purposes was not lost on prominent members of the US national security establishment. Losing track of just .0003 percent of the amount estimated by Seaborg would be enough to fuel a Nakasaki-sized nuclear weapon. Opposition by America’s Cold War nuclear policy makers was galvanized following India’s nuclear weapons test in May 1974. India’s bomb was fueled with plutonium produced from “peaceful atom” technology provided by the United States and Canada. Albert Wohlstetter, a prominent American nuclear strategist and cold warrior, concluded that the U.S. pursuit of plutonium fuel could result in “life in an armed nuclear crowd. In response to the Indian test, the Carter administration banned chemical separation of plutonium from irradiated power reactor fuel—the process known as reprocessing—in 1977. The US “plutonium economy” was also dealt a major blow by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which underscored the Carter Administration’s non-proliferation goals by giving priority to the direct geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel, without reprocessing. President Reagan lifted the ban and President George W. Bush attempted to revive reprocessing, but those efforts collapsed in the United States under the weight of the expense, safety problems, and security risks of a widespread reprocessing program. Since the early 1980s, the US Congress has shown little appetite for resuming support of the commercial development of plutonium as a reactor fuel. In response to the Indian test, the Carter administration banned chemical separation of plutonium from irradiated power reactor fuel—the process known as reprocessing—in 1977. The US “plutonium economy” was also dealt a major blow by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which underscored the Carter Administration’s non-proliferation goals by giving priority to the direct geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel, without reprocessing. President Reagan lifted the ban and President George W. Bush attempted to revive reprocessing, but those efforts collapsed in the United States under the weight of the expense, safety problems, and security risks of a widespread reprocessing program. Since the early 1980s, the US Congress has shown little appetite for resuming support of the commercial development of plutonium as a reactor fuel. As of the end of 2018, US spent power reactor fuel contained about 824 metric tons of plutonium—the world’s largest single inventory of that element. The intense radiation of used nuclear fuel assemblies makes them essentially impervious to theft or diversion to weapons use. But after 300 years, a great deal of the radiation barrier protecting them will have decayed. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act lays out a process for geologically directly disposing of spent nuclear power fuel in an underground repository, rather than allowing plutonium to be separated from it. Reprocessing “would incur a substantial cost penalty,” concluded an industry study in 2006 and would be far more costly more expensive than direct spent nuclear fuel disposal. “[Re]processing would have to be accompanied by deployment of fast reactor plants. But demonstration fast reactor plants to-date has mostly proved expensive and unreliable, which aggravates [re]processing’s economic handicap.” But nearly 40 years later, geologic disposal of spent power reactor fuel remains uncertain after President Obama’s cancellation in 2010 of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository site in Nevada. By the mid-21st century, the amount of plutonium in spent power reactor fuel could grow to more than 1,400 metric tons. The 300-year clock measuring off the time until the radiation barrier diminishes to the point that this vast amount of weapons-usable plutonium can be readily obtained is still ticking.
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Ten years on from Fukushima, nuclear power continues to struggle with deeper problems.
Ten years on from Fukushima, nuclear power continues to struggle with deeper problems. Renew Economy,
Ketan Joshi 10 March 2021 ”……….. Why couldn’t the power plant withstand the tsunami? The official Japanese government inquiry found that it was “collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties. They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents”.
The Fukushima accident has been at times framed as a turn-around point – a disaster exploited by cynical Greens. It was exploited at times, but at most it accelerated pre-existing trends.
In some places in the world, it seems important to sweat nuclear plants for as long as possible. In the US, for instance, the boom of cheap fossil fuels and an absence of strong renewable policies mean gaps will be filled by higher-polluting plants. In Europe, the drumbeat of closures is essentially inevitable, and that means deploying replacement clean energy portfolios as quickly as possible to ensure fossil fuels don’t take hold.
The Fukushima disaster simply catalysed a collection of deep, systemic factors that were already in place, and remain in place today. Nuclear will certainly play some role in the world’s future electricity grids, most likely in countries like China and India. But elsewhere, it is wind and solar that have become the most favoured to serve as the workhorses of grids. They too are not immune to public backlash, to poor economics or to industry headwinds, and there must be far more effort put in to ensuring they don’t suffer a similar fate. https://reneweconomy.com.au/ten-years-on-from-fukushima-nuclear-power-continues-to-struggle-with-deeper-problems/
French Nuclear tests: revelations about a cancer epidemic
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Nuclear tests: revelations about a cancer epidemic https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/090321/essais-nucleaires-revelations-sur-une-epidemie-de-cancers MARCH 9, 2021 BY DISCLOSE
In a confidential report, the Polynesian government acknowledges the existence of a “cluster of thyroid cancers” directly linked to French nuclear tests.On July 2, 1966, in the greatest secrecy, France carried out its first nuclear test in the Polynesian sky. That day, at 5:34 am, Aldebaran, the name given to the bomb, was fired from a barge installed on an azure lagoon, near the Mururoa atoll. A few microseconds after the explosion, a fireball appears. This incandescent mass of several thousand degrees rises in the sky and forms, as it cools, a huge cloud of radioactive dust dispersed by the winds. No less than 46 “atmospheric” tests like this one have been carried out in the space of eight years. Each time, the explosion generated fallout contaminating everything in their path. Starting with the inhabitants of the islands. In total, they were exposed 297 times to intense levels of radioactivity. The general staff have always held to the same line of defense. The atmospheric tests, presented as “clean”, would not have had “consequences for the health” of the Polynesians. For years, the associations defending the victims of the trials have been convinced to the contrary. As for the scientific community, it has tried several times to verify this position through in-depth analyzes of official data, without success. Latest illustrations of this failure: the study published by the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) on February 18. At the end of this work commissioned by the Ministry of Defense eight years ago, Inserm considered that the “links between the fallout from atmospheric tests and the occurrence of radiation-induced pathologies” were difficult to establish, due to a lack of data. reliable on the contamination of the archipelagos. Cluster of cancers ” However, a confidential report submitted to the Polynesian government a year earlier, in February 2020, argues the opposite. Disclose has obtained a copy of this never-before-released document. Soberly titled “Health consequences of French nuclear tests in the Pacific”, this eight-page report was written by a French military doctor at the request of the Monitoring Medical Center, an administration created in 2007 by the French and Polynesian governments and responsible for screening radiation-induced diseases. In other words, pathologies linked to repeated exposure to ionizing radiation. According to the author, some 10,000 Polynesians, including 600 children under the age of 15 living in the Gambier Islands, Tureia or even Tahiti have thus received a dose of radioactivity of 5 millisieverts (mSv), that is to say five times more than the minimum threshold (1 mSv) above which exposure is considered dangerous for human health. But the most embarrassing information is on page 5 of the document. For the first time, an official report establishes a direct link between nuclear tests and the extent of the number of cancers in the population. “The presence of a ‘cluster’ of thyroid cancers focused on the islands subjected to fallout during aerial shots, and in particular in the Gambier Islands, leaves little doubt about the role of ionizing radiation, and in particular of thyroid exposure to radioactive iodine, in the occurrence of this excess of cancers, ”says the author. The thyroid, an organ at the base of the neck, is particularly sensitive to ionizing radiation, especially in childhood, when the risk of developing thyroid cancer is greatest. The incidence of thyroid cancer and the link with the atmospheric gunfire campaign were precisely the subject of an Inserm analysis in 2010. According to this study, 153 thyroid cancers were diagnosed between 1985 and 1995 in the population born before 1976 and residing in French Polynesia. As a result, the number of people with thyroid cancer was two to three times higher than in New Zealand and Hawaii. Without being able to establish a direct link with nuclear tests, the college of experts already deplored the lack of available data. Based on data from the time, Disclose and Interprt, in partnership with the Science and Global Security program at Princeton University (United States), reassessed the doses of radioactivity received in the thyroid by the inhabitants of the Gambier, of Tureia and Tahiti during six of the most contaminating nuclear tests. Our estimates show that the doses received would be between two and ten times higher than the estimates established by the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in 2006. How can we explain such a gap between our results and those of the CEA? The answer lies in the details of the calculation options chosen by the scientists at the Atomic Energy Commission. Take the example of Aldebaran, the first test in the open air. The CEA estimated that the population of the Gambier Islands, very exposed to toxic fallout, only drank river water, but no rainwater, which is much more loaded with radioactive particles. Many witnesses met in Polynesia question this assertion. This is the case with Julie Lequesme, 12 years old at the time of the events. “We had only that, rainwater,” says the resident of Taku, a village northeast of Mangareva, the main island of the Gambier archipelago. The same goes for Rikitea, the capital of the island, where “the running water network was not completed until the end of the 1970s”, specifies Jerry Gooding, the former president of the association. , the main organization supporting civilian victims of nuclear tests. Rainwater consumption is also confirmed by at least four official documents we obtained. A study by the Office for Scientific and Technical Research Overseas (Orstom) published in August 1966, one month after the start of the tests, thus notes that some of the islanders only consumed rainwater, in particular in because of their isolation. Same conclusion in a report from the Joint Biological Control Service (SMCB), an army service, dated April 24, 1968. By reintegrating the consumption of rainwater after Aldebaran, our estimates for the exposure of a child aged 1 to 2 at the time are 2.5 times higher than official calculations. Of the six tests we reconstructed, the consumption of rainwater was the main source of exposure to radioactivity for five of them. By choosing not to incorporate this data or by minimizing its importance, the state has therefore knowingly underestimated the extent of the contamination. In the Gambiers, cancer as a legacy According to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, the Gambier Islands have been affected by atmospheric fallout 31 times. In fact, the archipelago was struck by all the tests carried out between 1966 and 1974. Since then, cancer has spread everywhere. From Rikitea to Taku, to the shore of Taravai, the inhabitants are convinced: this plague is directly linked to atomic experiments. By investigating the field and meeting dozens of witnesses, Disclose was able to map the disease in Mangareva, the main Gambier island. Although we have not been able to establish a direct link between the trials and the number of cancers on site, the result is instructive. Yves Salmon developed carcinoma, a radiation-induced cancer of the blood, in 2010. His wife contracted breast cancer. She was recognized as a victim of French nuclear tests. The same goes for his sister. Utinio, Yves Salmon’s neighbor, contracted thyroid cancer in 2001. The man, who still lives near the village of Taku, spent his childhood in the Gambiers. In 2010, the French state finally recognized him as a victim of nuclear tests. Monique, 69, is Utinio’s cousin. She was a thyroid cancer survivor after two years in hospital and received state compensation in August 2011. Monique has six children, four of whom have thyroid cancer. Her two daughters have sought compensation from the Nuclear Test Victims Compensation Committee (Civen) without having received any answers yet. Sylvie (first name has been changed) and her older sister, born in 1972 and 1971, both suffered from breast cancer. “It was when our elders started dying that we really began to wonder,” said the eldest. Their mother died of the same disease in 2009. She was recognized as a victim of nuclear tests, just like Sylvie. This resident of Mangareva now fears for her daughter. Julie Lequesme’s father, an elder from Taku village, died of throat cancer in 1981 after working in Mururoa. “The island doctor told me that based on my father’s X-rays, he was a heavy smoker,” she says. However, my father never touched a cigarette. Her husband, a CEA alumnus, also died of cancer in 2010. In the family of Catherine Serda, a former resident of the small village of Taku, eight people suffered from cancer between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1990s. Their common point: they all lived in Mangareva at the time. tests. If you have any information to give us, you can contact us at enquete@mediapart.fr. If you wish to send documents through a highly secure platform, you can connect to the frenchleaks.fr site |
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110, 000 people in French Polynesia affected by the radioactive fallout from atomic bomb tests
BBC 9th March 2021, Researchers used declassified French military documents, calculations and testimonies to reconstruct the impact of a number of the tests. They
estimated that around 110,000 people in French Polynesia were affected by
the radioactive fallout. The number represented “almost the entire”
population at the time, the researchers found.
Australian uranium fuelled Fukushima
The Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission ‒ established by the Japanese Parliament ‒ concluded in its 2012 report that the accident was “a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented” if not for “a multitude of errors and wilful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11”.
The accident was the result of “collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO”, the commission found.
Mining
But overseas suppliers who turned a blind eye to unacceptable nuclear risks in Japan have largely escaped scrutiny or blame. Australia’s uranium industry is a case in point.
Yuki Tanaka from the Hiroshima Peace Institute noted: “Japan is not the sole nation responsible for the current nuclear disaster. From the manufacture of the reactors by GE to provision of uranium by Canada, Australia and others, many nations are implicated.”
There is no dispute that Australian uranium was used in the Fukushima reactors. The mining companies won’t acknowledge that fact — instead they hide behind claims of “commercial confidentiality” and “security”.
But the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office acknowledged in October 2011 that: “We can confirm that Australian obligated nuclear material was at the Fukushima Daiichi site and in each of the reactors — maybe five out of six, or it could have been all of them”.
BHP and Rio Tinto, two of the world’s largest mining companies, supplied Australian uranium to TEPCO and that uranium was used to fuel Fukushima. Continue reading
This Is How the Biggest Arms Manufacturers Steer Millions to Influence US Policy — Rise Up Times
“Since Biden’s inauguration, the report states, the State Department has approved the sale of $85 million in missiles from Raytheon to Chile, and a $60 million deal between Lockheed Martin and Jordan to provide F-16 Fighting Falcons and services.”
This Is How the Biggest Arms Manufacturers Steer Millions to Influence US Policy — Rise Up Times
Whitewashing of Fukushima meltdown by United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation
Note the careful choice of words – no adverse effects ”have been documented‘‘ ‘‘that could be directly attributed‘‘…….
‘No adverse health effects’ detected despite three nuclear reactors being destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 Radiation caused by the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima a decade ago has not damaged the health of local people, according to a UN report.Gillian Hirth, chairwoman of the UN’s scientific committee on the effects of atomic radiation (Unscear), said that “no adverse health effects among Fukushima residents have been documented that could be directly attributed to radiation exposure from the accident” in March 2011…….
Concern over the potential health effects of the accident rose after reports of a high incidence of thyroid cancer in children living in Fukushima prefecture at the time of the disaster.
Unscear and other experts have attributed the higher rates to the use of highly sensitive ultrasound equipment and the large number of children who have been examined……..
But in a report released to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the triple disaster, Greenpeace Japan warned that large areas near the plant where evacuation orders have been lifted in recent years had still not been properly decontaminated, leaving returning residents exposed to potentially harmful levels of radiation for decades.
Nuclear education of state energy regulators
With the Department of Energy behind this – can it really offer impartial education?
NARUC, DOE strike five-year deal to allow nuclear education of state energy regulators, Daily Energy Insider, March 10, 2021 by Chris Galford A new partnership between the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will provide opportunities for NARUC to educate state public service commissioners and staff on nuclear issues.
This Nuclear Energy Partnership will last for five years to help regulators better understand the barriers to and potential of what is currently the nation’s largest source of zero carbon power.[ [zero carbon? That’s just not true ] It will officially begin this month and be co-chaired by Anthony O’Donnell of the Maryland Public Service Commission and Tim Echols of the Georgia Public Service Commission, chair and vice chair, respectively, of the NARUC Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues — Waste Disposal.
Estimates put nuclear power’s contributions to U.S. electricity at approximately 20 percent of the total last year. However, among the 94 nuclear reactors pumping out that clean power, many are approaching 40 years in service……. https://dailyenergyinsider.com/featured/29440-naruc-doe-strike-five-year-deal-to-allow-nuclear-education-of-state-energy-regulators/
I hate those Fukushima disaster anniversaries!
March 11, 2021
For the last ten years, every year, we have the same circus. For one or two weeks the mainstream media comes out with their anniversary articles, over and over repeating the same old songs, old facts, avoiding the really important issues. Along with this the antinuclear divas once a year prerorate their polished spiels basking in their little moment of glory, releasing their pieces on their dot.orgs. while asking for more donations.
In the meantime not much has changed. The ‘decommissioning’ work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is a neverending story despite all their nice PR technical blablabla, ignoring the fact that the technology necessary to complete the decommissioning has yet to be invented. At 30 Sieverts level of radiation anyone would get fried within 5 minutes, even their costly robots can’t hold their breath very long.
TEPCO is already gradually releasing partially filtered radioactive water, water still containing radioactive material, into our oceans, our environment. Further, it is their intention to dump all the partially contaminated, radioactive water currently stored in over 1,000 tanks into the sea. The only unknown is exactly when they’ll be able to push it thru.
Despite a few court victories, the victims still have not been properly, sufficiently compensated for all their losses and suffering. People on location are still stuck living in an environment with high levels of radiation, levels the government deems acceptable, thresholds higher than the international standards for nuclear plant workers!
The Japanese government and the nuclear lobby are still orchestrating the denial of threats, of facts, the denial of health risks for the population, campaigning for the evacuees to return.
The Fukushima disaster and its tragic consequences are still hurting the local population. Ten years is NOTHING in terms of radioactive contamination. Contamination that is there to stay. Ongoing… every day.
F these anniversaries!
Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
Anniversaries of the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters highlight the challenges of relying on nuclear power to cut net carbon emissions to zero. Nature 10 Mar 21, ……………. With attention focused on nuclear disasters, it’s hard to imagine the enthusiasm with which nuclear energy was once regarded, when it was seen by many as one answer to global energy demand. From the first experimental reactor in 1951, reactors were commissioned at an increasing rate, with 20–30 commissioned almost every year during a peak period between the late 1960s and the end of the 1970s. A fire in 1957 at one of the United Kingdom’s power plants, Windscale — later renamed Sellafield — did not impede the global rate of growth……….
In addition to the deaths and health risks, the cost of the damages caused by Chernobyl is thought to exceed US$200 billion, and the Japan Center for Economic Research estimates the costs of decontaminating the Fukushima site to be between $470 billion and $660 billion. In the wake of the disaster, 12 of Japan’s reactors have been permanently shut; a further 24 remain closed pending ongoing safety reviews, which are adding to the costs.
What all of this means is that, on top of construction costs, any country investing in nuclear power must be prepared to set aside — or must have access to — vast sums that can be released in the event of disasters, whether they occur as a result of human error or natural phenomena.
What all of this means is that, on top of construction costs, any country investing in nuclear power must be prepared to set aside — or must have access to — vast sums that can be released in the event of disasters, whether they occur as a result of human error or natural phenomena.
Considering the barriers to the adoption of nuclear energy, it is not surprising that much of the nuclear energy generated around the world is produced by nuclear-weapons states. Most countries will baulk at the idea of setting up a nuclear power plant if the total bill could run to hundreds of billions of dollars.
By contrast, although renewable-energy technologies are still in their relative infancy, their costs are falling and their regulation is much more straightforward. This is important: the technology used to turn on lights or charge mobile phones shouldn’t need to involve national or international defence apparatus.
Clearly, nuclear energy will be with us for some time. New plants are being built and older ones will take time to decommission. But it is not proving to be the solution it was once seen as for decarbonizing the world’s energy market. Nuclear power has benefits, but its continued low take-up indicates that some countries think these are outweighed by the risks. For others, the development of nuclear energy is unaffordable. If the world is to achieve net zero carbon emissions, the focus must be on renewable energies — and one of their greatest benefits is that their sources are available, freely, to all nations.
Anxieties over Turkey’s new Russian-backed nuclear plants
Turkey’s nuclear power dilemma, Turkey’s first Russia-backed nuclear plant has raised issues around its safety and potential for use in building nuclear weapons. Al Jazeera, By Sinem Koseoglu. 10 Mar 2021
Istanbul, Turkey – Turkish and Russian officials laid the foundation for the third reactor of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant Akkuyu in the southern coastal city of Mersin on Wednesday.
The plant’s first reactor unit is expected to be operational in 2023, the centenary of the Turkish Republic, and the remaining units in 2026.
The co-construction of the Akkuyu plant started in April 2018, eight years after the two countries signed an intergovernmental agreement.
The project is owned by the Russian energy company Rosatom while the Turkish Akkuyu is the license owner and the local operator.
Once completed, the plant is expected to produce 35 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually, about 10 percent of Turkey’s total electricity supply. The service life will last 50 years.
The facility will launch Turkey into the ”league of nuclear energy countries”, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, hailing it as a “symbol of Turkish-Russian cooperation”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who spoke at the event via video-conference from Moscow, called it a “truly flagship project”.
Akkuyu is the only nuclear power facility under construction in Turkey but a second project in the Black Sea province of Sinop is expected to kick off this year, reports suggest, if Ankara can find a new partner after Japan’s Mitsubishi pulled out last year.
The project was agreed on by the Japanese and Turkish governments in 2013. A consortium led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries conducted a feasibility study until March for the construction of a 4,500-megawatt plant in Sinop.
A senior energy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera the Turkish government is also considering a third nuclear plant with four reactors in the country’s northwest. Turkey’s ultimate goal is not building a nuclear weapon but diversity in energy resources, he said.
Russian dependency?
Since the Akkuyu project was signed, proponents of nuclear energy in Turkey have argued it would limit Turkey’s dependency on foreign energy suppliers. They also underline it is clean energy. [clean???]
However, some international experts think differently. Henry D Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, DC, said Akkuyu’s financing model could further Ankara’s dependency on Russia, a major energy provider to Turkey. The project is fully financed by Moscow.
Sokolski said it is an intensive capital investment and questioned why Turkey frontloads such debt while alternative and cheaper energy resources are coming down the pipeline.
Could Akkutu be a target?
Turkey is not the only country seeking nuclear energy in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Jordan are still considering establishing nuclear power plants. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are in on it, while Israel is long believed to have a stockpile of nuclear weapons and Iran has the capacity to develop them.
Sokolski warned Turkey about the regional challenges of entering the fray. “Your neighbourhood is dangerous. People are fighting. Nuclear reactors in a shooting war can be targets.”
He said missiles and drones could knock out critical electrical supply lines to a reactor and destroy emergency generators, nuclear control rooms, reactor containment buildings, and spent reactor fuel buildings.
“These kinds of strikes can make people more anxious and result in radiological releases, like Chernobyl or worse,” said Sokolski.
Turkey has waged a war against the PKK, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party listed as a “terrorist” organisation by the United States, the European Union, and Turkey, for decades in a conflict that has killed an estimated 40,000 people.
News reports have suggested the armed group has camps in northern Iraq where armed drones are being developed.
Turkey is also embroiled in conflicts in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean, while the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen have targetted Saudi and Emirati targets with its missiles and drones. Armed groups such as the Syrian National Defence Forces, which is supportive of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, could mimic such attacks, said Sokolski.
Turkey has waged a war against the PKK, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party listed as a “terrorist” organisation by the United States, the European Union, and Turkey, for decades in a conflict that has killed an estimated 40,000 people.
News reports have suggested the armed group has camps in northern Iraq where armed drones are being developed.
Turkey is also embroiled in conflicts in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean, while the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen have targetted Saudi and Emirati targets with its missiles and drones. Armed groups such as the Syrian National Defence Forces, which is supportive of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, could mimic such attacks, said Sokolski.
Atomic weapon suspicions
Despite Turkey’s claims the plant will only be used to diversify energy resources, some have suggested Ankara may have plans to enrich uranium.
Turkey and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long had military cooperation agreements that were recently intensified, with some news reports suggesting Islamabad may be covertly supporting a nuclear weapons programme.
Military cooperation deals have been signed earlier this year with Kazakhstan, a country providing at least 35 percent of the world’s uranium…….https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/10/turkeys-nuclear-dilemma
USA’s new $100billion nuclear missile – a white elephant?
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‘Cold war-era weapon’: $100bn US plan to build new nuclear missile sparks concern, Guardian, Washington, Wed 10 Mar 2021
Scientists say the GBSD project is outdated and the result of lobbying rather than a clear sense of what it will achieve. The US is building a new $100bn nuclear missile based on a set of flawed and outdated assumptions, a new report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) will say.The report, due to be published next week, will argue the planned ground-based strategic deterrent (GBSD) is being driven by intense industry lobbying and politicians from states that will benefit most from it economically, rather than a clear assessment of the purpose of the new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).“It is becoming increasingly clear that there has not been a serious consideration of what role these cold war-era weapons are supposed to play in a post-cold war security environment,” the FAS report, titled Siloed Thinking, will say. According to the FAS, a non-partisan thinktank, the US Air Force price tag for the new GBSD was deliberately framed in such a way as to appear slightly less than the cost of extending the life of the missile it would be replacing, the Minuteman III. An independent assessment by the Rand corporation at about the same time, suggested the cost of a totally new weapon could cost two to three times more. An effort by Congress to mandate an independent study on the comparative costs was blocked in 2019 with the help of the industry lobby. The current estimate is that the basic acquisition costs of the GBSD will be $100bn, while the total cost of building, operating and maintaining it over its projected lifespan to 2075 is projected as $264bn. The report is being published as the Biden administration is preparing its first defence budget which may reveal its intentions towards the GBSD, which is in its early stages. In September 2020, Northrop Grumman was awarded an uncontested bid for the $13.3bn engineering, manufacturing and development phase of the project, just over a year after its only rival, Boeing, pulled out of the race, complaining of a rigged competition. It said Northrop Grumman’s purchase of one of the two companies in the US making solid fuel rocket motors gave it an unfair advantage. There are currently 400 Minuteman missiles spread over five states: Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming. Many arms control advocates argue that rather than being replaced, they should be phased out entirely on grounds of their vulnerability and consequent instability…… |
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Ohio House passes its version of Bill rescinding nuclear subsidies
House Bill 128 passed 86-7 on Wednesday afternoon. The bill also would revoke “decoupling” language in HB6 that guaranteed revenue for FirstEnergy at 2018 levels, and language that likely would have made it easier for FirstEnergy to pass a state test meant to prevent utilities from making excessive profits.
Of note, a House committee before passing the bill earlier this week changed it to add back in language offering $20 million in annual solar subsides to six large-scale solar projects. Developers behind some of the projects, some of which are have been completed or are close to it, told lawmakers that revoking the funding would economically undermine the deals they had made with companies that had agreed to buy the power they generated.
Other portions of HB6 so far have remained untouched, provisions eliminating energy efficiency programs and renewable energy mandates, and subsidizing two coal plants — one in Indiana, one in Ohio — owned by a consortium of Ohio utility companies.
Ohio House and Senate leaders will have to sort out how they line up the competing versions of the bills. Any law change requires approval by both chambers before heading to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature….. https://www.cleveland.com/open/2021/03/ohio-house-passes-their-version-of-bill-rescinding-nuclear-subsidies.html
Nuclear power not an option for Taiwan,
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Nuclear power not an option: Su https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2021/03/10/2003753555CHANGING TRENDS: A world report showed that in 2019, non-hydro renewables surpassed nuclear power in global electricity generation, environmentalists said, By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter, 10 Mar21,
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said that reviving the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project would be impossible, adding that the government has always believed that the power plant should not be started. Su made the remarks in response to questions by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Yu-ling (呂玉玲) about a campaign by environmentalists to hold a referendum on a government plan to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal off the coast of Datan Borough (大潭) in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) on the grounds that it would damage the algal reefs there. Lu asked if the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) would be a backup plan if the LNG project is scrapped. The premier said the nuclear power plant project was suspended during the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), and that the disposal of nuclear waste from the nation’s first and second nuclear power plants remains a problem, so it would be impossible to restart construction of the fourth plant now. In related news, the Green Citizens’ Action Alliance yesterday said the share of non-hydro renewables in global electricity generation exceeded that of nuclear power for the first time in 2019, implying that nuclear energy is a declining industry, and that Taiwan should push its energy transition policy forward. The environmental group cited data from the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2020, published in September last year, of which it was authorized to release a summary in traditional Chinese. The 361-page report provides an assessment of “the status and trends of the international nuclear industry and analyzes the additional challenges nuclear power is facing in the age of COVID-19,” with contributions by seven interdisciplinary experts from Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Lebanon, the US and the UK, the report’s Web site says. Alliance researcher Chen Shi-ting (陳詩婷) said the contributors included Mycle Schneider, an independent international energy and nuclear analyst and consultant who is also the convening lead author of the report; and Tadahiro Katsuta, an associate professor at Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan. Citing the report, alliance researcher Dennis Wei (魏揚) said the share of nuclear energy in the global electricity generation mix peaked at 17.5 percent in 1996 and dropped to only 10.35 percent in 2019. In 2019, non-hydro renewables, such as solar, wind and biomass, generated 10.39 percent of total global electricity, marking the first time in history that renewable energy sources generated more electricity than nuclear power plants, he said. That year, wind and solar power generation increased by 13 percent and 24 percent respectively, while nuclear energy rose by only 3.7 percent, with China accounting for half of the increase, Wei said. Moreover, the cost of nuclear power has continued to increase, rising by 26 percent from 2009 to 2019, while the cost of natural gas dropped by 33 percent, solar power by 89 percent and wind power by 70 percent, he said. Total investment in renewable energy in 2019 exceeded US$300 billion, while investment in nuclear power was only about US$31 billion, showing that nuclear power is losing competitiveness in the global energy market, and that except for China, building nuclear reactors is not a global trend anymore, Wei said. Additional reporting by CNA |
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