We mustn’t kick the radioactive nuclear waste can down the road any longer. It’s time to tackle the problem head-on.
The current reality, as stated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is that a repository might never materialize, saddling nuclear plants with storing spent fuel onsite indefinitely.
Creating more U.S. nuclear plants and deadly waste is insane when we can’t guarantee the safety of either existing aging plants or the 80,000-pluss metric tons of spent fuel already generated. The argument that nuclear is needed to address global warming reflects the same foolhardy mindset — ignoring adverse long-term impacts for short-term gains — that created the climate crisis in the first place.
We mustn’t kick the radioactive nuclear waste can down the road any longer. It’s time to tackle the problem head-on.
Opinion: Investing in More Nuclear Power Can’t Be Our Solution to Climate Change https://timesofsandiego.com/opinion/2021/09/03/investing-in-more-nuclear-power-cant-be-a-solution-to-the-climate-crisis/ by Sarah Mosko, Two days agoIf you live in Orange or San Diego County, hopefully you’re aware that San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has been turned into a nuclear waste dump for the foreseeable future. If you live on planet earth, you’re wise to be tracking domestic and foreign moves to increase reliance on nuclear energy.
The United States ushered in the atomic age in 1945 by dropping a uranium bomb on Hiroshima and a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. We now have 3.6 million pounds of these and other lethal radioactive elements sitting on the beach at San Onofre in temporary canisters, scheduled to remain there indefinitely.
No one has figured out how to safely dispose of deadly nuclear waste. Yet, to combat the climate crisis, the United States and the world propose to create more of it by extending the life of existing nuclear power plants and building new ones. Has the world learned nothing from the catastrophes of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima?
Since San Onofre closed down in 2013, controversy has swirled around the dry waste storage systems selected by the plant’s operator, Southern California Edison.
As is true of all U.S.’s nuclear plants, San Onofre wasn’t designed for nuclear waste storage after decommissioning. The Nuclear Waste Act of 1982 mandated construction of a deep geological repository to store the nation’s spent fuel for the hundreds of thousands of years it remains deadly. However, as hopes for a repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain collapsed out of concern about groundwater contamination, talk turned to creating “interim” storage sites in Texas and New Mexico, though those states are balking at the prospect too.
The current reality, as stated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is that a repository might never materialize, saddling nuclear plants with storing spent fuel onsite indefinitely.
As of last August, all of San Onofre’s spent fuel was transferred into 123 dry storage canisters, each with the potential to release as much highly radioactive Cesium-137 as was released during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
San Onofre’s canisters are thin-walled (5/8 inch) stainless steel and susceptible to “stress corrosion cracking” in a marine environment. They weren’t designed for safe maintenance, inspection, storage or transport.
The potential consequences of cracks are far worse than small radiation releases into the atmosphere: Canisters are filled with helium expressly to limit corrosion and prevent explosions triggered by air or water getting inside.
Contrast this with thick-walled (10-19 inches) casks used in most countries which aren’t susceptible to stress corrosion cracking and are designed for maintenance, inspection, storage and transport.
Continue readingGlobal Cooperation, Not Endless War Should Be Future of US Foreign Policy
Biden was right to pull out of Afghanistan, yet wrong on the larger picture.
America’s mortal enemies are not China, Iran, and Russia. Our real enemies are the common scourges facing humanity today. Global problems cannot be solved by individual nations alone.
It is uncertain whether America will change its relentless aggressive foreign policy for our own good, and the world’s. Our nation has been at war for centuries. Our repeated failures have led the political right to double down, calling with increasing fervor for more weapons, and further escalation with China, Iran, Russia, and other alleged foes. Yes, we have pulled out of Afghanistan—42 years too late—and that is good. But will the United States adopt a new foreign policy based on peace and problem-solving? That’s the real question.
Global Cooperation, Not Endless War Should Be Future of US Foreign Policy
Ours have been wars of hatred, not logic, and doomed to fail—at a mind-boggling human and financial cost. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/09/03/global-cooperation-not-endless-war-should-be-future-us-foreign-policy, JEFFREY D. SACHS September 3, 2021 by the Boston Globe During the past 60 years, the United States has suffered a series of failed wars in Indochina, Central America, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Each of these wars produced mayhem and suffering, followed by an American retreat. While the American right wing has always argued that success needed just one more surge or bombing spree, the truth has been simpler and sadder. Ours have been wars of hatred, not logic, and doomed to fail—at a mind-boggling human and financial cost.
America has never cared to help those we have pretended to “save” by these wars. For that reason alone, America has never had the broad support of local populations that would have been essential for any kind of success in these misguided wars.
Americans didn’t want to save the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians, who were despised in US popular culture; America wanted to stop communism and the supposed “falling dominoes” across Southeast Asia. America didn’t want to save Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, and others in poverty-stricken Central America; it wanted to stop leftist radicals who threatened American investments in the region. America didn’t want to save the Iraqis, Libyans, and Syrians; it wanted to topple regimes and replace them with US-backed regimes.
And America cared not a whit about Afghanistan, a point confirmed repeatedly by President Biden in recent days. Biden has noted, approvingly, that the United States went to Afghanistan for one reason and one reason only: to get Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda after 9/11, not to help the people of Afghanistan.
Tellingly, Biden has not been truthful about the real origin of US intervention in Afghanistan, following a pattern set by his predecessors. America’s intervention in Afghanistan goes back to 1979, more than 20 years before 9/11, when the CIA secretly trained, armed, and funded Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. The US-created fighting force morphed into Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but no president, including Biden, has honestly explained the basic facts to the American people.
America’s right-wing culture has often been hostile toward the non-European world—the “shithole countries” in Donald Trump’s disgusting yet telling phrase. For the past 60 years, the United States has waged war after war for America’s narrow interests alone, and has created havoc, destruction, and death in its wake.
I have worked for decades in countries that all too many Americans find contemptible due to their poverty, religion, skin color, desire to migrate from hunger and violence, and insolence for trying to claim control over their own oil, uranium, and other minerals that America craves. Begrudging development assistance to these countries is a congressional pastime. People in those countries know all too well about American power, and its destructive potential. They try their best to stay out of harm’s way.
In pulling the United States out of Afghanistan, Biden showed scant sympathy for the Afghan people. He mocked the idea of “nation-building,” an American phrase of scorn that seems to mean being naïve enough to try to help another country. Is it any surprise that the regime in Afghanistan propped up by American power crumbled so rapidly just as America departed?
Lest any American mistakenly think that much of the roughly $1 trillion the US spent in Afghanistan for war and reconstruction went towards nation-building, it did not. Perhaps 2 percent of the total US spending went for purposes such as health, education, and civilian infrastructure. Almost all the money went for military and security purposes—troops, armaments, Afghan security forces, and the like. After 20 years, we left behind a country where 38 percent of the children are stunted due to chronic undernutrition.
In explaining America’s exit, Biden played the typical American foreign policy tune, that the world is very dangerous place filled with foes of America. The job of the president, Biden emphasized, is to protect America from those enemies, just no longer in Afghanistan. Here is how Biden summarized the global scene:
“This is a new world. The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan. We face threats from Al Shabab in Somalia; Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria in and the Arabian Peninsula; and ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, and establishing affiliates across Africa and Asia … And here’s a critical thing to understand: The world is changing. We’re engaged in a serious competition with China. We’re dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia. We’re confronted with cyberattacks and nuclear proliferation. We have to shore up America’s competitive[ness] to meet these new challenges in the competition for the 21st century.”
Here is what he should have said instead: All countries—including the United States, members of the European Union, Russia, China, Iran, and, yes, Afghanistan—are destabilized by the COVID-19 pandemic; the effects of the climate crisis (floods, droughts, hurricanes, forest fires, heatwaves); widening income inequality further dividing the haves and have nots; the upheavals of digital technologies; and the dangerous political influence of plutocrats. All of these are shared problems across the globe, and all require intensive global cooperation rather than confrontation.
Biden was right to pull out of Afghanistan, yet wrong on the larger picture.
America’s mortal enemies are not China, Iran, and Russia. Our real enemies are the common scourges facing humanity today. Global problems cannot be solved by individual nations alone.
It is uncertain whether America will change its relentless aggressive foreign policy for our own good, and the world’s. Our nation has been at war for centuries. Our repeated failures have led the political right to double down, calling with increasing fervor for more weapons, and further escalation with China, Iran, Russia, and other alleged foes. Yes, we have pulled out of Afghanistan—42 years too late—and that is good. But will the United States adopt a new foreign policy based on peace and problem-solving? That’s the real question.
Nuclear New Orleans: Another Fukushima? Post-Ida Dangers at Waterford Nuclear
Nuclear New Orleans: Another Fukushima? Post-Ida Dangers at Waterford Nuclear – Arnie Gundersen, Maggie Gundersen, Nancy Foust – NH #532 Nuclear New Orleans: Another Fukushima? Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education spells out the dangers. http://nuclearhotseat.com/2021/09/01/nuclear-new-orleans-another-fukushima-post-ida-dangers-waterford-nuclear/?fbclid=IwAR2CB7VmbPY8NQORzjf8qxIIcSba1qFlwiwqjUOCQ6rFlLDJGRfYxbxhY4M
This Week’s SPECIAL Interviews:
Following the devastation to New Orleans by Hurricane Ida, mainstream media has failed to cover the situation at the Waterford nuclear facility only 25 miles west of the city. The facility is shut down, without grid power, and currently cooling the reactor with emergency back-up generators.
But is this enough? Will the fuel last long enough? Does this emergency system have enough “juice” to do its job until grid power is restored? And what is the exact nature of the other problems this nuclear reactor is facing in the days, weeks, even months ahead?
We talked with three of our most reliable sources to learn the extent of what we might be facing:
- Arnie Gundersen is a nuclear engineer and expert witness who serves as the chief engineer for Fairewinds Associates, Inc, a paralegal services and expert testimony firm, as well as a member of Fairewinds Energy Education’s Board of Directors.
- Maggie Gundersen is a journalist, paralegal, and former atomic power industry spokesperson who founded Fairewinds in 2008. She is the president of Fairewinds Energy Education as well as a member of the Board of Directors.
- Nancy Foust is Communications Manager & Research Team Member SimplyInfo.org, a not-for-profit research collective that holds and manages the world’s largest public archive of data on the Fukushima disaster. She has been following Hurricane Ida’s progress and damages from the first, and here provides a clear overview of the current situation as of the time of our talk, noon Pacific time on Monday, August 30.
In China, wind and solar energy are the clear winners over nuclear.
A Decade Of Wind, Solar, & Nuclear In China Shows Clear Scalability Winners
China’s natural experiment in deploying low-carbon energy generation shows that wind and solar are the clear winners. https://cleantechnica.com/2021/09/05/a-decade-of-wind-solar-nuclear-in-china-shows-clear-scalability-winners/ By Michael Barnard, 6 Sept 21,
My 2014 thesis continues to be supported by the natural experiment being played out in China. In my recent published assessment of small modular nuclear reactors (tl’dr: bad idea, not going to work), it became clear to me that China has fallen into one of the many failure conditions of rapid deployment of nuclear, which is to say an expanding set of technologies instead of a standardized single technology, something that is one of the many reasons why SMRs won’t be deployed in any great numbers.
Wind and solar are going to be the primary providers of low-carbon energy for the coming century, and as we electrify everything, the electrons will be coming mostly from the wind and sun, in an efficient, effective and low-cost energy model that doesn’t pollute or cause global warming. Good news indeed that these technologies are so clearly delivering on their promise to help us deal with the climate crisis.
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In 2014, I made the strong assertion that China’s track record on wind and nuclear generation deployments showed clearly that wind energy was more scalable. In 2019, I returned to the subject, and assessed wind, solar and nuclear total TWh of generation, asserting that wind and solar were outperforming nuclear substantially in total annual generation, and projected that the two renewable forms of generation would be producing 4 times the total TWh of nuclear by 2030 each year between them. Mea culpa: in the 2019 assessment, I overstated the experienced capacity factor for wind generation in China, which still lags US experiences, but has improved substantially in the past few years.
My thesis on scalability of deployment has remained unchanged: the massive numerical economies of scale for manufacturing and distributing wind and solar components, combined with the massive parallelization of construction that is possible with those technologies, will always make them faster and easier to scale in capacity and generation than the megaprojects of GW-scale nuclear plants. This was obvious in 2014, it was obviously true in 2019, and it remains clearly demonstrable today. Further, my point was that China was the perfect natural experiment for this assessment, as it was treating both deployments as national strategies (an absolute condition of success for nuclear) and had the ability and will to override local regulations and any NIMBYism. No other country could be used to easily assess which technologies could be deployed more quickly.
In March of this year I was giving the WWEA USA+Canada wind energy update as part of WWEA’s regular round-the-world presentation by industry analysts in the different geographies. My report was unsurprising. In 2020’s update, the focus had been on what the impact of COVID-19 would be on wind deployments around the world. My update focused on the much greater focus on the force majeure portions of wind construction contracts, and I expected that Canada and the USA would miss expectations substantially. The story was much the same in other geographies. And that was true for Canada, the USA and most of the rest of the geographies.
But China surprised the world in 2020, deploying not only 72 GW of wind energy, vastly more than expected, but also 48 GW of solar capacity. The wind deployment was a Chinese and global record for a single country, and the solar deployment was over 50% more than the previous year. Meanwhile, exactly zero nuclear reactors were commissioned in 2020.
And so, I return to my analysis of Chinese low-carbon energy deployment, looking at installed capacity and annual added extra generation.
Murdoch’s news media hasn’t seen the light on climate – they’re just updating their tactics —
Is News Corp really seeing the light on climate? More likely it’s pivoting to a modern style of greenwashing and delay, just like Morrison. .
What might reasonably seem like a surprising change of heart in News Corp’s stance on climate is actually a long-term tactical shift that has been occurring for at least a few years. Whatever policies they failed to destroy through their earlier campaigns, they will try and reframe through racist, nationalistic, technocratic and pro-business frames.
Whatever policies they can delay or destroy, they’ll simply keep running scare campaigns about, insisting that ‘the balance isn’t right’, and that the threat of climate action is greater than climate change, as they always have (in Australia, News Corp’s partnerships with Google and Facebook mean these campaigns to destabilise climate action are growing more powerful and more harmful every day). When the next federal election comes around, the “COSTS OF NET ZERO” scare campaigns will ramp up in Australia as they are in the UK, and News Corp will be at the forefront, pleading that acting too fast will cause catastrophe. Absolutely mark my damn words: this is what will happen.
Net zero by 2050 isn’t enough. We’ll know that the denialism has truly ended when organisations like News Corp treat the IPCC’s latest report like it’s real.
Delay is the main game
There are many substantial recent examples of this. A good one was the severe blackouts that spread across Texas in February this year, which were immediately blamed on wind power failures, alongside easily debunked claims that snows and ice were blocking solar panels and freezing up wind turbines in Texas and around the world.
This isn’t climate change denial: it’s “mitigation denial“. That is, a move away from denying the problem exists and towards decrying its solutions as utterly unacceptable. An important part of this performance is pretending to have a moment of having seen the light, but then continuing to commit the same acts of delay as before.
News Corp hasn’t seen the light on climate – they’re just updating their tactics, https://reneweconomy.com.au/news-corp-hasnt-seen-the-light-on-climate-theyre-just-updating-their-tactics/, 5 Sept 21, Have you heard the good news? One of the key institutions holding back climate action in Australia – Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation – is suddenly on Team Climate Action! Today, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that the company’s Australian outlets are set to launch a campaign urging “the world’s leading economies” to embrace a target of net zero emissions by 2050; to be fronted by columnist Joe Hildebrand. The details aren’t out yet, but I contend that we can comfortably predict what it will look like.
It will be a centrist, pro-business approach to climate action. It will make a show of dismissing the “hysterics” of climate activists, while urging governments, including Australia’s, to set distant, meaningless and non-binding climate targets. It won’t allow any room for emissions reductions in line with the 1.5C goals or the Paris agreement; no short-term meaningful targets or actions such as those highlighted in the IEA’s recent ‘net zero’ report. It won’t argue for a coal phase-out by 2030, or the end of all new coal, gas and oil mines in Australia, or a ban on combustion engine sales by 2030-2035; all vital actions if Australia is to align with any net zero target.
It’ll champion controversial technologies like CCS and fossil hydrogen. It’ll highlight personal responsibility: tree planting, recycling and electric vehicle purchases. It will not propose or argue in favour of any new policies; at least none that might reduce the burning of fossil fuels.
How can we know all this before we’ve seen the actual campaign? It’s easy – let me explain.
Done with denial
Here’s a remarkable statistic for you. In the month of August this year, global media coverage of climate saw its highest volume since the December 2009 Copenhagen climate meetings. That’s partly down to the release of the IPCC’s AR6 Working Group one report into climate change, six years in the making.
That report reiterated something extremely important: every single tonne of carbon dioxide does damage. Actions must be immediate and aggressive to align with the most ambitious pathways. Delay is deadly.
No media coverage records for Australia: coverage of climate change has dropped almost entirely off the radar relative to the high volumes of late 2019 and early 2020 (partly driven by the Black Summer bushfires).
During the Black summer bushfires of 2019-20, I did a few interviews about Australia with baffled and perplexed international reporters. “What is going on over there? Why did the people elect such a climate laggard?”. A key part of my response was to pin blame on Australia’s media industry. Mostly on News Corp, which dominates the country’s uniquely concentrated media landscape, and which is notorious for its heavily politicised climate views. In fact, a recent study quantified this in historical terms, analysing media coverage within Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia for its climate science accuracy.
By a comfortable margin, News Corp’s Daily Telegraph and the Courier Mail scored the second and fourth worst among every media outlet analysed between 2005 and 2019 (The Australian wasn’t included in the analysis). Australia has, in general, seen the least accurate climate science coverage from 2013 onwards, despite a general rising trend in scientific accuracy over the past decade. For a decade and a half, News Corp lied about climate science with the blatant aim of protecting the revenue streams of the fossil fuel industry, and protecting its political allies.
This is important as a historical study, but today, it’s increasingly irrelevant. As the study points out, the accuracy of climate science has essentially plateaued in media coverage, with outright denial consigned to the dustbin.
The authors highlights that “the terrain of climate debates has shifted in recent years away from strict denial of the scientific consensus on human causes of climate change toward ‘discourses of delay’ that focus on undermining support for specific policies meant to address climate change”. The fundamental goal is the same – staving off action – but the way it manifests is very different.
Delay is the main game
There are many substantial recent examples of this. A good one was the severe blackouts that spread across Texas in February this year, which were immediately blamed on wind power failures, alongside easily debunked claims that snows and ice were blocking solar panels and freezing up wind turbines in Texas and around the world.
This isn’t climate change denial: it’s “mitigation denial“. That is, a move away from denying the problem exists and towards decrying its solutions as utterly unacceptable. An important part of this performance is pretending to have a moment of having seen the light, but then continuing to commit the same acts of delay as before.
Murdoch’s The Sun, in the UK, did precisely this. In October 2020, The Sun launched a ‘Green Team‘ campaign that focused on ‘individual responsibility’ in the lead-up to COP26, to be held in Glasgow at the end of this year. It wasn’t long until they were celebrating their own victory in freezing fossil fuel taxes.
how it started how it’s going pic.twitter.com/p1ZVOnOKmX— Zach Boren (@zdboren) March 3, 2021
The UK’s Daily Express, another hyper-conservative outlet that ‘saw the light’, continues to publish articles attacking climate activism and, more significantly, framing climate action in an explicitly “eco nationalist” way, as UK writer Sam Knights highlights in this article in Novara media. He says,
“Make no mistake: these newspapers are not your friends. They are not your allies. Their politics are not in any way ecological. They are deeply racist, reactionary, right-wing publications. Their sudden interest in climate change is not to be celebrated – it is a terrifying indication of things to come:”
Last week, @GreenpeaceUK, @WWF, @nationaltrust, and @friends_earth signed up to the “green crusade” of the Daily Express. Just ten days later, the rightwing newspaper has already run two articles attacking Greta Thunberg… Surely these charities will now withdraw their support? pic.twitter.com/Xz5NcjLu8N
— Sam Knights (@samjknights) February 18, 2021
It’s notable that these examples seem to manifest in the UK, and less so in similar anglophone countries like Canada or the US or New Zealand. Those are led by centre-left parties and politicians, but the UK’s conservative embrace of climate action is surely a model that Australia’s PM Scott Morrison pines to replicate. Sure, the UK certainly is miles ahead of Australia in terms of climate action – but there remains a very significant gap between Boris Johnson’s climate policies and where the country actually needs to be to align with the carbon budget that its independent climate advisor body has laid out.
A technocratic, rich white country with a government more concerned with optics than doing what needs to be done to protect people from being hurt by fossil fuels. Morrison’s obviously inspired by the UK, but Australia’s conservative media outlets are increasingly inspired, too.
Net zero by sometime after I retire, please
This is all coming to a head at COP26. George Brandis, Australia’s attorney general, who once declared that “coal is very good for humanity indeed”, is now High Commissioner for Australia to the UK, and has significantly ramped up the broader greenwashing exercise that the government has been enacting over the latter half of last year and most of this one. As I wrote in RenewEconomy, that means creative accounting, dodgy charts and deceptive framing, all designed to paper over Australia’s significant failure to reign in emissions.
Morrison will almost certainly set a net zero by 2050 target before COP26, but it’ll be packaged with a collection of loop holes that allow for rising emissions in the short term. It is dawning on the government just as it is dawning on News Corp: the best way to protect the fossil fuel industry today is not to deny the science, but to pretend to accept it. This is not the end of climate denial. It’s evolution from a common ancestor.
That this effort will be lead by Joe Hildebrand is telling enough. His previous work on climate change does exactly what a centre-right campaign like this would be best at – decrying both sides as ‘hysterical’ while failing to propose anything meaningful or substantial.
This @Joe_Hildebrand piece is a near-perfect example of what I mean when I say that this is more about reassurance and excuses than it is about persuasion.
This is about figuring how to be internally okay with their own antagonism towards climate action.https://t.co/TLiiIVY2ih pic.twitter.com/k1HIoxUFIR
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) October 6, 2019
We can also see hints of what a conservative climate message looks like in a previous editorial from the more progressive News Corp outlet, NT News, which – of course – continues to host syndicated climate denial from the Sky News Australia channel. Ditto for News dot com.
This is News Corp’s northern territory outlet.
Note the ‘affordable’ – a reference to the conservative meme that decarbonisation is bad because it’s too expensive.
Even in accepting the need for action, they need to throw in messaging from previous fossil fuel advocacy. https://t.co/HifYmyX2R3
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) January 15, 2020
What might reasonably seem like a surprising change of heart in News Corp’s stance on climate is actually a long-term tactical shift that has been occurring for at least a few years. Whatever policies they failed to destroy through their earlier campaigns, they will try and reframe through racist, nationalistic, technocratic and pro-business frames.
Whatever policies they can delay or destroy, they’ll simply keep running scare campaigns about, insisting that ‘the balance isn’t right’, and that the threat of climate action is greater than the threat of climate change, as they always have (in Australia, News Corp’s partnerships with Google and Facebook mean these campaigns to destabilise climate action are growing more powerful and more harmful every day). When the next federal election comes around, the “COSTS OF NET ZERO” scare campaigns will ramp up in Australia as they are in the UK, and News Corp will be at the forefront, pleading that acting too fast will cause catastrophe. Absolutely mark my damn words: this is what will happen.
Net zero by 2050 isn’t enough. We’ll know that the denialism has truly ended when organisations like News Corp treat the IPCC’s latest report like it’s real. That is, when they acknowledge that every additional unit of greenhouse gases causes harm to life on Earth, and that actions to stop their release must be as fast as possible. That climate change is an emergency that requires rapid action to wind down the fossil fuel industry in a just and equitable way, and that its replacement must be grown to full size with just as much passion and urgency.
This campaign won’t look anything like that. We know what it will look like – and it won’t be anything surprising at all.
The Faslane Peace Camp inspired the BBC drama Vigil
Meanwhile the series recalls the real drama
Sitting on Scotland’s strikingly beautiful west coast, the world’s longest-running anti-nuclear peace camp has been uniting protesters for 39 years. But after dropping out of the headlines as its numbers dwindled from 400 to just three, Faslane Peace Camp has the nation’s attention once more – as the inspiration for gripping BBC drama Vigil.
Mirror 4th Sept 2021
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/inside-worlds-longest-running-anti-24909945
Taiwan says 19 Chinese aircraft including nuclear-capable bombers have invaded its airspace
Taiwan says 19 Chinese aircraft including nuclear-capable bombers have invaded its airspace, Independent, 6 Sept 21,
Taiwan dispatched combat aircraft to warn the Chinese planes and deployed the missile defence system to monitor themNamita Singh Taiwan has accused China of a huge military incursion in its air defence identification zone (ADIZ), saying that at least 19 chinese military aircraft, including fighters and nuclear-capable bombers were detected on Sunday.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said they issued radio warnings to the crews after they tracked the 19 planes including ten J-16 and four Su-30 fighters,……. (Subscribers only) https://rinj.press/2021-fpmag/march/are-distancing-and-lockdown-mandates-a-violation-of-civil-liberties/
Study: Mars Missions Should Be Limited to 4 Years to Protect from Radiation
Study: Mars Missions Should Be Limited to 4 Years to Protect from Radiation, VOA Learning English, 5 Sep 21, A new study has found that future missions to Mars should be limited to four years to protect astronauts from harmful radiation.
The study also says that missions should be carried out during specific times to reduce the level of exposure to dangerous particles.
The U.S. space agency NASA currently has plans to send astronauts back to the moon. It also plans to one day send astronauts to Mars. Those plans include missions that would keep astronauts in space for long periods.
China has also announced plans to send astronauts to Mars by 2033. Such missions present great risks to humans because of the high level of radiation in space.
Radiation exposure can cause a series of health issues, including skin burns, heart problems and cancer. NASA has spent many years studying ways to protect human space travelers from radiation.
On Earth, we also experience exposure to radiation from the sun. But our planet’s magnetic field protects us from dangerously high levels.
Two main kinds of radiation can affect humans and equipment in space. One is produced by particles released from the sun. The other comes from high energy particles created by cosmic rays from outside our solar system. NASA says the second kind can be more dangerous to humans and more destructive to equipment.
In the new study, researchers used modeling methods to predict levels of radiation exposure during future space missions. They combined geophysical models of particle radiation with models for how radiation would affect human passengers and spacecraft……………………. https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/study-mars-missions-should-be-limited-to-four-years-to-protect-from-radiation/6202556.html
International Uranium Film Festival free online screenings September 13 – 19
34 YEARS RADIOACTIVE ACCIDENT OF GOIÂNIA FREE ONLINE SCREENING SEPT. 13-19(LINK IS EXTERNAL)
The International Uranium Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro remembers „Brazil’s Chernobyl“, the worst radiological accident in Latin America that took place in September 1987 in the city of Goiânia in central Brazil. From September 13th to 19th, 2021, the festival will show online and free of charge eight documentaries and movies about this accident caused by the release of highly radioactive Cesium-137. An online meeting with one of the surviving victims, Odesson Alves Ferreira, three filmmakers from Goiânia and producer Laura Pires from Bahia marks the opening of this virtual film event that is supported by the Cinematheque of Rio’s Modern Art Museum (MAM Rio).
34 years ago, on September 13, 1987, two young men in search of junk entered the unsecured ruins of the Goiano Radiation Therapy Institute, a former cancer treatment clinic, in the city of Goiânia. They found an abandoned radiation therapy unit with a heavy lead capsule that contained 19 grams of cesium-137. Without knowing the risks of radioactivity or even the name “radioactive”, they took the capsule, dragged it home in a wheelbarrow and sold it to a scrap dealer six days later. The curious scrap dealer breaks open the capsule and discovers the white crystal powder that glows bluish in the dark, cesium-137 chloride – the death glow! It was not until September 29, when dozens of sick people with strange symptoms were already filling the hospitals in Goiânia, that the nuclear authorities became aware of the radioactive accident. At that time the cesium-137-crystals were already spread unknowingly widely over the quarter, hundreds of people became contaminated and thousands were unknowingly exposed to gamma rays. The authorities recognized officially only four deaths caused by radiation. But surveys by unions and surviver associations indicate at least 66 deaths and around 1,400 contaminated victims.
Just 19 grams of cesium-137 not only caused endless suffering to the victims, but also generated in Goiânia more than 6,000 tons of radioactive waste that is dangerous for over 200 years and is stored today in the radioactive waste repository of Abadia de Goiás, a suburb just a few miles outside of the City. Cesium-137 is a highly radioactive and unnatural nuclide with a half-life of 30 years. It is a fission product of uranium-235 and is created by the explosion of atomic bombs or in nuclear power plants as radioactive waste. Instead of storing it, cesium-137 was sold for decades around the globe to irradiate cancer cells. The radiation source of the Goiânia accident was thought to have been made in the U.S. at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Top photo: Street 57, Number 60 was in September 1987 one of the two most radioactive places in Goiânia city.)
PROGRAM
September 13th, Monday, 4pm / Opening Live: To not forget An online meeting with one of the victims of cesium-137, former long-standing president of the Association of Cesium Victims of Goiânia (AVCésio) Odesson Alves Ferreira (photo), the filmmakers Angelo Lima, Benedito Ferreira and Michael Valim from Goiânia and Bahian producer Laura Pires. Moderation: Márcia Gomes de Oliveira. (Live in Portuguese on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WysMZbmfkzw(link is external)
September 13 -19 / 7 Days 24 Fours Free Online Screening AMARELINHA (HOPSCOTCH)…………………. https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/to-not-forget
More issues at Bruce power station raise concerns about aging nuclear infrastructure
More issues at Bruce power station raise concerns about aging nuclear infrastructure, MATTHEW MCCLEARN, The Globe and Mail, 5 Sept 21,
Unexpectedly high levels of hydrogen in pressure tubes at a nuclear power plant in Ontario have renewed questions about how long Canada’s aging CANDU reactors can continue to operate safely.
At a meeting before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) on Friday, officials confirmed more pressure tubes at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on the eastern shore of Lake Huron were found to contain hydrogen concentrations in excess of regulatory limits, and above what the industry expected. Bruce Power disclosed in July that it had discovered two tubes that exceeded regulatory limits.
The cause has not been determined, nor is it clear how many other pressure tubes in Canadian reactors might also be affected. Bruce Power did not answer questions from The Globe late Friday on how many additional tubes were found to violate the station’s licensing requirements.
Pressure tubes are six-metre rods that contain fuel bundles of uranium, and are considered the major life-limiting component in CANDUs, the reactors in all of Canada’s nuclear power plants. Tubes containing high hydrogen concentrations are more vulnerable to fracturing if they have pre-existing cracks. If one ruptures, coolant could be lost, which could trigger a range of scenarios from a relatively minor incident contained by the plant’s safety systems to a catastrophe in which fuel overheats.
The issue is particularly a concern when the reactor is below normal operating temperatures, such as during shutdown or startup…………
The Bruce station has eight reactors, each containing 480 pressure tubes; the offending tubes were found in Units 3 and 6, neither of which is operating. One tube in Unit 6 exhibited readings of 211 parts per million, approaching double the regulatory limit, and far above Bruce Power’s prediction of 100 ppm. Bruce Power officials said all of the elevated readings were discovered in the same region, close to one end of the tube………
Frank Greening, a retired Ontario Power Generation chemist who worked in the company’s pressure tube group for the last decade of his career, warned that it’s possible the rate of hydrogen pickup may have accelerated in older tubes in the past few years.
“And if that’s true, then the rate at which it’s going in is scary,” he said.
He added: “There is something happening that’s quite serious. And they’re saying ‘We don’t know how or why it’s happening.’ It’s pathetic. I can’t accept that.”
A CNSC commissioner, Marcel Lacroix, said during the meeting that industry officials had not satisfactorily explained what might be causing the problem……….. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-more-issues-at-bruce-power-station-raise-concerns-about-aging-nuclear/
Cosmic radiation will probably prevent growing crops on Mars
Greenhouses Probably Won’t Work for Growing Crops on Mars Because of Cosmic Radiation https://scitechdaily.com/greenhouses-probably-wont-work-for-growing-crops-on-mars-because-of-cosmic-radiation/
By ANDY TOMASWICK, UNIVERSE TODAY SEPTEMBER 4, 2021 MARS is a lifeless wasteland for more than one reason. Not only are the temperatures and lack of water difficult for life to deal with, the lack of a magnetic field means radiation constantly pummels the surface. If humans ever plan to spend prolonged periods of time on the red planet, they’ll need to support an additional type of life – crops. However, it appears that even greenhouses on the surface won’t do enough to protect their plants from the deadly radiation of the Martian surface, at least according to a new paper published by researchers at Wageningen University and the Delft University of Technology.
Ideally, agriculture on the Maritan surface would consist of greenhouse domes and allow what limited sunlight hits the planet to make it through to the crops they house directly. However, current technology greenhouse glass is incapable of blocking the deadly gamma radiation that constantly irradiates Mars. Those gamma radiation levels, which are about 17 times higher on Mars than on Earth, are enough to affect crops grown in greenhouses on the surface significantly.
The researchers ran an experiment where they planted garden cress and rye and measured the crop output of a group irradiated with Martian levels of gamma radiation with those grown in a “normal” environment with only Earth-level radiation. The crops in the irradiated group ended up as dwarves, with brown leaves, and resulted in a significantly decreased harvest after 28 days of growth.
To mimic the gamma radiation environment, Nyncke Tack, an undergraduate researcher who performed much of the work for the project, used 5 separate cobalt-60 radiation sources. These were scattered evenly overhead of the test crops to create a “radiation plane” similar to the ever-present radiation field on Mars.
Other confounding factors, including adding beta and alpha radiation, could also contribute to crop deterioration, though solid objects more easily stop those types of radiation. The research team, who was not surprised by their findings, suggests building underground farms where the planet’s regolith blocks most if not all of that radiation. This would have the obvious disadvantage of losing access to sunlight, but would have the added benefit of being a much more controllable environment, with LEDs and temperature control filling in for environmental conditions on the surface.
To prove their theory, the team is next commandeering a Cold War-era bunker in the Netherlands to see if their same irradiation experiments affect crops grown inside if the irradiation is coming from outside. While not a direct analog for Martian regolith, it’s a novel approach to understanding how humans might eventually farm the sky.
Chinon nuclear site again leaks coolants that turn into powerful greenhouse gases.
The Chinon nuclear site (Center – Val de Loire) declared in August 2021 to have exceeded the annual authorized limit for coolant leaks. 100 kilos in 1 year is the quantity of refrigerants that each EDF nuclear power plant has
the right to allow to evaporate in nature. Because at normal pressure, these liquids turn into powerful greenhouse gases.
This is equivalent to several thousand kilos of CO2 released into the atmosphere each year by EDF nuclear facilities, which have very high cooling needs. The manufacturer does not brag about it, but this limit is regularly exceeded.
Sortir du nucleaire 31st Aug 2021
Highway safety concerns as DOE plans expanding nuclear waste transports to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)
More nuclear waste may be heading to WIPP on US 285 Albuquerque Journal , BY ISABELLA ALVES / JOURNAL NORTH, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH, 2021
Spanning the length of the state, U.S. Highway 285 is a major thoroughfare for truck transports and other traffic. This busy highway, nicknamed “Death Highway” due to the number of fatal accidents on it, may get busier.
Concerned citizens in Santa Fe County recently called out the U.S. Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for expanding its mission in a permit renewal application to include more nuclear waste being shipped along the 285 corridor.
Part of Highway 285 goes along the southern edge of the city of Santa Fe, and local activists are calling on local and federal leaders to halt this increase in nuclear waste transportation.
The permit application is requesting to add two nuclear waste storage panels to WIPP that would increase the waste volume in these areas. The permit renewal was filed July 30 and, if granted, wouldn’t increase the volume capacity of nuclear waste set by Congress in the Land Withdrawal Act for the plant.
“NMED is in litigation with the DOE for its failure to clean up legacy waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory. A successful resolution of the lawsuit is increased shipments of legacy waste from Los Alamos to WIPP,” James Kennedy, state Environment Department Cabinet secretary, said via email.
“The DOE and Nuclear Waste Partnership continuing to accept out-of-state waste streams or any new waste streams in lieu of cleaning up and shipping legacy waste from Los Alamos to WIPP is completely unacceptable,” he added.
At a recent Santa Fe County Town Hall, activist Cindy Weehler of 285 ALL said the U.S. Department of Energy made it clear that it’s going to expand its nuclear waste program, she said. She said she’s concerned about the new type of radioactive waste that would be traveling through the county, which would be diluted plutonium, instead of contaminated items.
This is consistent with a notice of intent published by the department in December 2020.
The Department of Energy’s (DOE) goal is to complete its missions safely and efficiently, including the continued reduction in the amount of transuranic waste at LANL and creating a safer environment for the surrounding communities,” a U.S. Department of Energy spokesperson said via email. “DOE notifies state authorities weeks in advance of all shipments to WIPP, which are done in strict accordance with federal rules and regulations and state law.”
On average, there are about seven waste shipments a week that travel to WIPP through Santa Fe County from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Idaho National Laboratory. In the coming months, pending any pandemic impacts, this number is expected to increase to 10 to 12 shipments per week.
“They have chosen a very unsafe way to deal with the surplus plutonium problem,” Weehler said. “It’s unsafe to our neighborhoods and I think, if people are going to be put at risk, like we are with this new mission, they deserve to know about it.”
Don Hancock, nuclear waste program director at the Southwest Research and Information Center, said the original type of waste being disposed of at WIPP were plutonium-contaminated items, such as gloves and other equipment that came into contact with the radioactive material.
Now, the plant is expected to dispose of the diluted plutonium, which is much more potent than contaminated material — and poses a greater safety risk. Hancock said they expect “a lot” of shipments to the plant and it’s hard to drill down an exact number.
This expansion is going to affect more than just Santa Fe County, it will impact people statewide, Weehler said. She said safety issues, such as preparing emergency responses for a nuclear waste spill if there’s an accident along the highway, will be left up to the local municipalities.
For Santa Fe County, this emergency response falls to its emergency management director who, Communications Coordinator Carmelina Hart said, has a background in these types of responses.
In the event of an emergency, the County’s role would be the initial evaluation, perimeter control and activation of all our state and federal partners who specialize in these responses,” Hart said in an email. “The County maintains relationships with the other agencies in the realm of emergency management. We have participated in full-scale exercises with the Department of Energy and local public safety teams.”
She said the county is reimbursed $15,000 annually by the Department of Energy’s WIPP program for emergency response preparations the county must maintain. The county also is working to identify additional training and equipment needs should nuclear waste transportation changes occur.
Santa Fe County Commissioner Hank Hughes said he has lived in Santa Fe before there was a WIPP project and has shared citizens’ concerns about nuclear waste transportation for many years. He said expanding WIPP’s mission might mean more nuclear waste traveling through Santa Fe County.
He said the county is as equipped as it can be to handle an accident. Since the transportation is considered classified information, local governments aren’t notified when nuclear waste is headed their way.
I think the concern is, while it’s very unlikely that there would be any leak of radioactive material — even if there was an accident — just increasing the number of trucks going through Santa Fe County raises that possibility,” Hughes said.
Since nuclear waste is handled on a federal level, it’s mostly out of the commission’s hands, he said. All the county can really do is make sure it’s prepared for an accident, and help its constituents express their concerns to the federal delegation.
And these worries haven’t gone unnoticed.
Maria Hurtado, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M., said the office has received a handful of constituent calls regarding the nuclear waste transportation…………. https://www.abqjournal.com/2426206/more-nuclear-waste-may-be-heading-to-wipp-on-us-285.htmladvertisement
Over 200kg uranium theft in India poses threats of nuclear terrorism.
Over 200kg uranium theft in India poses threats of nuclear terrorism, The News, 5 Sept 21, I SLAMABAD: The theft of over 200 kilograms of nuclear material during last two decades in India poses serious threats of nuclear terrorism, necessitating the global powers’ role to raise safety standards in the country.
The countries in the region including China and Pakistan have repeatedly called for strengthening regulations following repeated incidents of theft of nuclear material in India. Such incidents raised concerns about India emerged as a potential hotspot in illegal trade of nuclear technology and materials vital for a malicious nuclear supply chain for state and non-state actors.
According a timeline issued by The South Asia Strategic Stability Institute (SASSI), 18 nuclear material’s theft and lost incidents were reported in India from 1994 to 2021 involving over 200kg nuclear material.
The Indian authorities recovered 2.5kg uranium in 1994; 111kg in 1998, also involving an opposition leader; 59.1kg in 2000; 200 grams in 2001; 225 grams in 2003; 4kg in 2008; 5kg in 2009; 9kg in 2016; 1kg in 2018 and 13.75kg in 2021 in multiple incidents.
According to a research paper jointly issued by SASSI President Dr Maria Sultan and now Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mazari, the reports of Indian involvement in the theft of nuclear fissile material dates back to the early 1970s, the magnitude of the threat increased manifold in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the late 1980s, the CIA had concluded that India was trying to develop a sophisticated Hydrogen bomb. In 1994, on a tip-off, a shipment of beryllium was caught in Vilnius, worth $24 million. “The material could fall into the hands of extremists and terrorists in India with disastrous consequences. The out-of-control material could also be a cause of concern due to the proliferation reasons. It is also the responsibility of global organisations and India’s partners to raise the standard of nuclear safety and security in the country and investigate shortcomings for maintaining tight controls on nuclear and radioactive materials,” said Sarman Ali, an Islamabad-based defence analyst.
Pakistan had repeatedly called for thorough investigation of such incidents and measures for strengthening the security of nuclear materials to prevent their diversion.
Foreign Office spokesperson said in a recent statement that such incidents were a matter of deep concern as they point to lax controls, poor regulatory and enforcement mechanisms, as well as possible existence of a black market for nuclear materials inside India………….. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/888297-over-200kg-uranium-theft-in-india-poses-threats-of-nuclear-terrorism
Downwinders Look to Renew and Expand Radiation Exposure Compensation Act
Downwinders Look to Renew and Expand Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, Sierra Nevada Ally, By Brian Bahouth -September 4, 2021
Audio: a conversation with downwinder Mary Dickson Between 1951 and 1992, U.S. scientists and engineers conducted 928 nuclear blasts at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), a roughly 1,400 square-mile federal reservation located 65 miles north of Las Vegas. Eight hundred and twenty eight were underground tests and 100 atmospheric tests in which the atomic weapons were exploded at or above ground level, which releases highly radioactive material high into the atmosphere.
In total, at various locations around the globe, the Atomic Energy Commission and later the Department of Energy, conducted 1,054 atomic weapons tests.
Fallout from these many bombs circled the planet. If a person is in close proximity to a nuclear blast, the symptoms of acute radiation sickness are obvious, but outside the blast area, human senses do not apprehend radioactivity that can lodge in the fat of milk or meat and can linger for decades in the environment.
The health effects of nuclear testing on those directly downwind of the events in eastern Nevada, Utah and Arizona became evident with cancer clusters and and other related illnesses. Many ranchers lost livestock.
After years of lawsuits and wrangling, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) became law in 1990 and provides one-time benefit payments to “persons who may have developed cancer or other specified diseases after being exposed to radiation from atomic weapons testing or uranium mining, milling, or transporting.”
The U.S. Department of Justice administers RECA and has distributed over $2.4 billion in benefits to more than 37,000 claimants since its inception in 1990, but the RECA program is scheduled to sunset in 2022.
Geographically, RECA covers people living in a total of 22 counties with some in eastern Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. But research shows that parts of Idaho and Montana saw radioactivity impacts on par with Nevada, Utah and Arizona. Many places in North America realized toxic levels of radiation. Fallout from the tests travelled around the globe.
U.S. Senator from Idaho, Mike Crapo has been a long-time advocate for downwinders. In a recent newsletter to constituents, he said he’s working on bi-partisan legislation that would renew and expand the dimensions of RECA to include many more states.
Work is in progress with stakeholders to determine the best path forward to reintroduce the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments, which expands coverage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to include victims in Idaho among states impacted by exposure to fallout from nuclear weapons testing.”………….
“The more I started researching and the more I started following that story, the more I thought, ‘my government did this to me,’” Mary Dickson said. “I’m a casualty of the Cold War.
“My sister, at the time, was ill with an autoimmune disease, and she and I started making a list of all the people in our childhood neighborhood who had cancer or tumors. It didn’t take long before, in a four or five block area, we had about 54 people on that list …
“And we just thought, ‘OK, yeah, something happened to us. Something happened to us, something happened …”……… https://www.sierranevadaally.org/2021/09/04/downwinders-look-to-renew-and-expand-radiation-exposure-compensation-act/
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