nuclear-news

This week in nuclear news

The undersea volcano near Tonga is bad enough. But one wonders what would be the effect of disrupting nuclear wastes undersea, whether they  be from atomic bomb testing, or from the dumping of nuclear trash.

Coronavirus.  It’s not that I have given up on studying this: it’s just that the news, and changes, come thick and fast, and we all live in uncertainty.

Climate change. It’s all happening. Keep up with the latest at Radio Ecoshock – Arctic Will Change Your Life. Nitrous Oxide, Sea Ice, & Western Fires.

Nuclear. This week,  Ukraine stalemate, and the same old issues drag on – Europe’s struggle to depict nuclear as ”green”, UK’s struggle to finance the nuclear industry, France’s struggle with old, (and some cracking) reactors. And Fukushima’s crisis springs eternal.

Some bits of good news. By the way, – biggest response ever this newsletter has received on any subject –   about the butterfly story last week!   Some wins for the planet in 2021.  Nice stories about animals – including several ”non-extinctions”.   Beavers Saved From Euthanasia Transform and Replenish Rivers in the Utah Desert.

Is US extradition inevitable for Julian Assange? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aw4Yz0Va1c

In 2022, nuclear power’s future looks grimmer than ever.   Nuclear: economically unsustainable, inherently dangerous and absolutely unfeasible as a solution to climate change.      A hopeless pursuit? National efforts to promote small modular nuclear reactors and revive nuclear power. Small modular reactors (SMRs) offer no hope for nuclear energy.

Climate change crisis ranked as the biggest threat facing the global economy ahead of wars and pandemics. The environmental impact of emissions from space launches: a comprehensive review .

The Guardian view on The Green Planet: verdant and necessary

We study ocean temperatures. The Earth just broke a heat increase record.

Global heating linked to early birth and damage to babies’ health, scientists find

Stoltenberg: NATO ready for war in Europe.

Horrors of Hiroshima, a reminder nuclear weapons remain global threat.

ARCTIC. Climate change destroying homes across the Arctic. Fieldwork in the High Arctic found cataclysmic impact of climate change happening 70 years ahead of what the scientific models expected.

UKRAINE. The media downplays Ukraine’s ties to Nazism, as they promote weapons sales, and war against Russia.  This is how I feel about the Ukraine crisis.

UK.

• UK’s Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill passes in House of Commons. UK’s Nuclear Financing Bill – very strange logic – with £40 billion to £60 billion for a new nuclear power station seen as a good thing. ‘Nuclear obsession’: Tory bill to let firms charge customers to build plants. Scotland’s electricity consumers will pay up for UK’s Hinkley nuclear plant, though it’s not even built. Regulated Asset Base – UK’s nuclear tax on electricity consumers – supposed to attract foreign investment. Labour tries to curb cost overruns from Sizewell C development 
• Cracked’ nuclear power station retired.  EDF’s Advanced Gas Cooled (AGRs) reactors should be shut, as they are vulnerable to cracking. 
•  Just the bare 144 years of above-ground storage for UK’s Chapelcross Intermediate Level Nuclear Waste. Factoring in the full cost of the radioactive wastes, the price to pay for nuclear power is astronomic. 
•  You thought Rolls Royce’s Small Nuclear Reactors would be for electricity on Earth? 
•   Scots plan to celebrate anniversary of Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)
• The desperate nuclear industry now looks to get its claws into electric cars.

JAPAN.  Fukushima Takes a Turn for the Worse . Survey at Fukushima No. 1 reactor container halted.   Severely damaged fuel at Fukushima No 1 reactor – survey to find this has been halted.   Robotic failure: “We don’t know the cause, and the outlook is unclear…” High barrier to internal investigation of high radiation dose at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1.     Japan to join with NuScale, Bill Gates’ TerraPower, to develop plutonium fast reactors and small nuclear reactors.

FRANCE. 

•  Ho hum – Flamanville nuclear power project delayed again. France’s new-generation nuclear plant delayed again. 
•  Claim that EDF contract for nuclear emergency generators was rigged. 
• Drop in EDF’s 2022 production target due to nuclear outages because of cracks. 10 out of 56 French nuclear reactors are currently shut down.
•  A fifth French nuclear reactor affected by corrosion in safety system. Greenpeace France calls for a halt to Flamanville EPR nuclear project, to assess viability of EPR reactors. Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity (CRIIRAD) wants transparency on the safety of EPR nuclear reactor design. Cracks on safety-critical pipes in France’s nuclear reactors.
•    President Macron’s plan for electricity price cut could cost EDF €8 billion. Big fall in EDF’s shares. Why Emmanuel Macron is slow to clarify his nuclear promises. France’s nuclear company EDF in trouble, and with election looming.

NORWAY. Norway Activists Protest After Docking Of US Nuclear Submarine In Tromso: Reports.

USA.

• Joe Manchin and Big Coal are destroying the planet Jeff Goodell. 
•   Sydney Poitier film ”The Bedford Incident” was based on true nuclear war near misses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA-rgKBq7Ss
•   Rogue nuclear regulator/former NRC chair Jaczko spills the nuclear beans on Fukushima, reactor “safety,” nuclear politics.  
• The US and China Could Soon Be In Race For Nuclear-Powered Satellites.
• Biden is urged to eliminate land-based nuclear missiles, as US policy is revised.    Biden team weighs killing Trump’s new nuclear weapons. To Avert ‘Global Nuclear Holocaust,’    US Groups Demand Abolition of ICBMs       Can Santa Fe survive as a nuclear weapons suburb?
• Legal case over compensation for workers in ”uniquely dangerous” nuclear sites.   Texas ‘downwinders’ should be eligible for nuclear radiation compensation, advocates say.
•  Claims of strange unidentified craft flying over top secret US Air Force base.

SOUTH KOREA. Why joint US-South Korean research on plutonium separation raises nuclear proliferation danger .

IRAN. Former Israeli premier says notion of destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities mere ‘nonsense’.

EUROPE. The science-based case for excluding nuclear power from the EU taxonomy. EU delays deadline on green investment rules for nuclear and gas. The detail in the European Commission’s draft for ”sustainable nuclear energy” makes nuclear energy unfeasible – even the nuke lobby hates it!  Downright absurd to classify a technology with the potential danger of nuclear power plants as green and sustainable. The European Union will need to invest 500 billion euros ($568 billion) in new generation nuclear power stations! The European Association for Renewable Energie Eurosolar rejects inclusion of nuclear and natural in the EU taxonomy.

RUSSIA. Russia finds worrisome NATO’s wish to lower nuclear threshold — diplomat.

MIDDLE EAST. Nuclear war is a genuine threat, so why have non-proliferation efforts stalled?  

CANADA. What motivates Canadian province Premiers to enthuse about costly, probably useless, Small Nuclear Reactors?

GERMANY. Germany to stick to its guns on phasing out nuclear and coal energy . Germany’s admirable record in promoting renewable energy, as it leaves nuclear behind.

FINLAND. No plans for new nuclear , and Fennovoima project hampered by the Ukraine crisis.

LUXEMBOURG.. Luxembourg’s Energy Minister denounces France’s actions on promoting nuclear to Europe.

SWEDEN. Large drone observed over Forsmark nuclear station . Police hunt for drone seen flying over Forsmark nuclear station.  

AUSTRALIA.  AUKUS an unwelcome guest at the table of nuclear disarmament.  In Western Australia, first Cameco’s Kintyre uranium project was disallowed, now Toro’s uranium project also rejected. 

January 17, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes