As large parts of the northern hemisphere swelter in record heat, yet another consequence of global warming is becoming apparent. Across Europe, several nuclear reactors and at least one coal-fired plant have had to be temporarily shut down, and others have reduced their output.
1,335 MW St Alban-1, 910 MW Bugey-2 offline until next Saturday
Reduced available capacity at St Alban-2, Bugey-3, Fessenheim-2
Prompt power price rally continues due to supply pressures
London — With France bracing for more hot to very hot weather in the coming week, nuclear power plant operator EDF said Friday it plans to halt production completely at two of its reactors near the river Rhone, water from which is used for cool them, and reduce available capacity at other units next week.
In its latest update on Friday, EDF said production capacity at the 1,335 MW St Alban-1 and 910 MW Bugey-2 reactors would drop to zero until Saturday next week, reducing capacity from Friday afternoon. The 910 MW Bugey-3 will also remain unavailable for power generation from late Friday but with an expected restart on Wednesday.
Out of the 1,335 MW St Alban-2 installed capacity, 950 MW will remain available to the market over the weekend, EDF said, while 600 MW will be available from its 880 MW Fessenheim-2 nuclear reactor over the weekend and until Monday midnight.
EDF, however, warned that the planning and duration of the unavailability due to environmental issues will be reassessed according to the weather forecast. These supply restriction warnings due to hot weather began late July at the onset of the heatwave which is currently covering Europe.
Furthermore, forecasters predict temperatures in France, Germany, Italy and Spain to stay above seasonal averages next week, with forecaster MeteoFrance expecting Portugal temperatures to hit 48 degrees Celsius over this weekend.
The hot weather and the resulting nuclear supply restrictions sent the prompt power prices in the wholesale market to winter levels as countries are ramping up the more expensive fossil fuel power plants, analysis shows.
French day-ahead baseload for Monday delivery was last heard trading at Eur66.50/MWh on the over-the-counter market, reaching a new summer high and the highest in more than five months, data showed.
Environmentalists Fight FPL Plan to Keep Nuclear Plant Open Until 2053, Miami New Times JERRY IANNELLI | AUGUST 2, 2018
Compared to wind farms and solar parks, nuclear power plants are, in general, extremely expensive to operate and terrible for their surrounding environments. Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station in Homestead certainly has not done good things for the local water supply. The power plant’s infamous canal system, a nuclear-fluid cooling setup used nowhere else on Earth, has leaked salt water into Miami’s major drinking-water aquifer and spilled trace amounts of radioactive materials into Biscayne Bay.
So after FPL filed a motion at the beginning of 2018 to renew Turkey Point’s operating license for 20 years, potentially keeping the nuclear plant open until 2053, the environmental nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has filed a legal petition in yet another attempt to finally get rid of the cooling-canal system. The legal filing notes that environmentalists worry about the impact the cooling canals will have in an “increasingly warm climate.”
“We are challenging FPL’s proposal to run Turkey Point for far longer than anticipated because the facility is not being properly managed,” Stephen A. Smith, SACE’s executive director, said today in a media release, which echoed many of the same complaints he’s levied at Turkey Point during the past handful of years. “This open industrial sewer is polluting Biscayne Bay and putting critical drinking water supplies at risk today. This unacceptable status quo cannot continue into the 2050s. Thankfully, there are attainable solutions that can correct this FPL-created mess, and it’s long-past time for FPL to do what’s right, fix these wrongs, and move on.”………
SACE now says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the federal body tasked with renewing Turkey Point’s license, should deny FPL another 20-year extension until the company puts a hard plan in place to get rid of the canal system once and for all. Instead, SACE simply wants FPL to build some normal nuclear cooling towers so the site can at least function like every other nuclear power plant in America.
“FPL should not be allowed another twenty years of operation before analyzing the reasons for the failures of its efforts over the past decades to stem those impacts,” the 34-page legal petition reads. “Nor should FPL be allowed to go forward with a second license renewal term before reckoning with the fact that new measures it proposes for mitigation of the CCS’ impacts in the future are mutually inconsistent and counter-productive. Finally, FPL should be required to address an alternative cooling system, already approved and used by FPL for other plants on the Turkey Point site, which would eliminate the need for the CCS and thereby avoid its adverse environmental impacts: mechanical draft cooling towers.”
In short, SACE’s scientists contend FPL hasn’t done the basic scientific work necessary to ensure the cooling-canal system won’t continue polluting Miami’s waterways. SACE says FPL has underestimated the power plant’s environmental impact on the surrounding environment. The nonprofit also says the cooling canals are leaking chemicals such as tritium, nitrogen, phosphorous, and chlorophyll into Biscayne Bay, as well as wiping out seagrass habitats that are crucial for alligator nests, among other animals.
“FPL claims to have studied the groundwater interface with Biscayne Bay and found that ‘the groundwater pathway is having no discernible influence on Biscayne Bay,'” the legal filing states. “But FPL’s assertion is contradicted by ample evidence that wastewater from the CCS is reaching Biscayne Bay and that it has a significant adverse environmental impact.”
SACE’s latest legal filing merely requests a hearing with the NRC, an agency that tends to rule in favor of major power companies in these kinds of cases. SACE says it expects the NRC to respond to the hearing request sometime this fall.
“Federal environmental law prohibits FPL from continuing to pollute Biscayne Bay and the drinking water supply for another 20 years when a feasible and cost-effective alternative is available to avoid those impacts,” SACE attorney Diane Curran said today in a news release. “SACE intends to use that federal law to push for a solution that will protect public drinking water and the environment.”
Jerry Iannelli is Miami New Times‘ daily-news reporter. He graduated with honors from Temple University. He then earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. He moved to South Florida in 2015.
France’s EDF may halt four nuclear reactors due to heatwave, Reuters Staff, 2 Aug 18 PARIS (Reuters)– French utility EDF on Wednesday said that forecasts of high temperatures in the Rhone River could lead to the shutdown from Aug. 3 of four nuclear reactors which depend on its waters for cooling. EDF said it could be forced to halt electricity production at two reactors at St. Alban with an installed capacity of 2,300 megawatts (MW), and at the 900 MW Bugey 2 and 3 reactors.
EDF’s nuclear plants along the Rhone use the river’s waters to regulate the temperature of their reactors, discharging warm water back into the waterway. Curbs are placed on the volume of water its plants can use as the river’s temperature rises.
OSLO – This year’s unusually warm summer in the Nordic region has increased sea water temperatures and forced some nuclear reactors to curb power output or shut down altogether, with more expected to follow suit.
The summer has been 6-10 degrees Celsius above the seasonal average so far and has depleted the region’s hydropower reservoirs, driving power prices to record highs, boosting energy imports from continental Europe and driving up consumer energy bills.
Nuclear plants in Sweden and Finland are the region’s second largest power source after hydropower dams and have a combined capacity of 11.4 gigawatts (GW).
Reactors need cold sea water for cooling but when the temperature gets too high it can make the water too warm for safe operations, although the threshold varies depending on the reactor type and age.
Unscheduled power output cuts in Swedish and Finnish reactors could push prices even higher, said Vegard Willumsen, section manager at Norway’s energy regulator NVE.
“If nuclear reactors in the Nordics shut down or reduce power due to the heatwave, it could also put pressure on the supply and consequently on the Nordic power prices,” he added.
WHY IS WATER TEMPERATURE AN ISSUE?
The Nordic region’s nuclear plants comprise either pressurised water reactors (PWR) or boiling water reactors (BWR) – and both can be affected by warm sea water.
Typically, power would be reduced at the 12 reactors after a certain temperature threshold has been reached and then fully shut down at a higher threshold.
BWRs can keep operating for longer and would only shut down after a several-degree rise in water temperatures from the moment power reductions are triggered.
However, PWRs require a shorter time to shut down after they start reducing power.
Utility Vattenfall, which operates seven reactors in Sweden, shut a 900-megawatt (MW) PWR unit – one of the four located at its Ringhals plant – this week as water temperatures exceeded 25 degrees Celsius.
The firm’s second plant at Forsmark consists of three BWRs and Vattenfall had to reduce output by 30-40 megawatt per reactor earlier in July as the sea water in the area exceeded 23 degrees Celsius.
Finland’s Fortum reduced power at its Loviisa plant last week when water temperatures reached 32 degrees C, close to a threshold of 34 degrees.
The extent to which water temperature affects nuclear plants also depends on the depth that they receive water from. Colder water is deeper.
It also depends on how warm the water is after being used in the reactors and released back into the sea. If used water exceeds 34 degrees Celsius, it can cause major output reductions or shutdowns for certain plants due to safety regulations.
Sweden’s biggest reactor – 1.4 GW Oskarshamn 3 – should be less vulnerable to very hot summers due to the depth of water, said a spokesperson for operator OKG, a unit of Uniper Energy.
“Water intake (is) at a depth of 18 metres where the water naturally is cooler than on the surface … should it be too hot, we would, of course, reduce the capacity accordingly,” he said.
Oskarshamn 3 will reduce power if sea water reaches 25 degrees but it was below 20 degrees on Tuesday.
Similarly, Teollisuuden Voima’s Olkiluoto plant in Finland has deeper water which is colder than a 27-degree threshold.
TVO has also built an additional safety mechanism – a canal – which it can use under certain conditions to release used warm water on the other side of the Olkiluoto island.
Burnham-on-sea.com 1st Aug 2018, EDF reject fears Hinkley C will be vulnerable to sea level rise. T
The Stop
Hinkley Campaign has written to the Office for Nuclear Regulation to
express concern about recent reports that we could be heading for a
sea-level rise of as much as 6 metres during the lifetime of the Hinkley
Point C site.
Some researchers say sea levels could rise by six metres or
more even if the 2 degree target of the Paris accord is met.
Sustained warming of one to two degrees in the past has been accompanied by
substantial reductions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and sea
level rises of at least six metres – several metres higher than what
current climate models predict could occur by 2100. http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/2018/hinkley-c-rising-sea-levels-01-08-18.php
The heatwave across Europe in late July required some nuclear plants to
reduce electricity after cooling water was affected by high temperatures.
Plants in Finland, Sweden, Germany, France and Switzerland have been
affected.
While air temperatures have been above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32
degrees Celsius) in many parts, water temperatures have reached 75 degrees
Fahrenheit (23.8 degrees Celsius) or more. The Loviisa nuclear plant, which
produced 10% of Finland’s power in 2017, began reducing its output on 25
July, according to chief of operations, Timo Eurasto. He said customers
were not affected, because other power plants were satisfying electricity
demand. Loviisa previously reduced output in 2010 and 2011, due to warm
water, but Eurasto said the current heatwave has been more severe.
Reactorsin Sweden and Germany also reduced production because of cooling problems,Reuters reported. A spokesperson for Sweden’s nuclear energy regulator saidthe Forsmark had cut energy production “by a few percentage points”. http://www.neimagazine.com/news/newseuropes-heatwave-affects-npps-6271432
Water from the Baltic Sea is used to cool several nuclear reactors along Sweden’s coastline, but temperatures are unusually warm following a prolonged period of hot weather.
Vattenfall on Monday posted plans to take Ringhals 2 out of operation after water reached that reactor’s 25 degree Celsius limit
However Vattenfall spokesman Peter Stedt said on Tuesday it had opted to keep capacity at 49 percent after the sea water cooled to 24 degrees, while closely monitoring water temperatures as the warm weather continued.
The 865-megawatt (MW) pressurized water Ringhals 2 reactor is one of four reactors, which produce around 20 percent of Sweden’s electricity. While Ringhals 3 and 4 are still online, Ringhals 1 is shut for annual planned maintenance. (Reporting by Anna Ringstrom Editing by Alexander Smith)
National crises make governments vulnerable to autocracy—a rather obvious assessment, perhaps, but one rarely seen in debates about climate change. Take the Maldives, an atoll nation in the Indian Ocean. Rising seawater is projected to consume most, if not d Nall, of the country this century. In 2008, the Maldives chose its first democratically elected president, Mohameasheed. Almost immediately, he made climate change preparations central to his administration. He announced plansto move 360,000 Maldivian citizens to new homelands in Sri Lanka, India, or Australia, and he promised to make the Maldives the world’s first carbon-neutral country. Nasheed also demonstrated a flair for the dramatic, staging an underwater Cabinet meeting that turned him into a viral climate celebrity. “What we need to do is nothing short of decarbonizing the entire global economy,” he said. “If man can walk on the moon, we can unite to defeat our common carbon enemy.”
In 2012, the military deposed Nasheed, forcing him to flee the country at gunpoint after mass protests over economic stagnation and spikes in commodity prices. His eventual successor, Abdulla Yameen, has since suspended parts of the constitution, giving himself sweeping powers to arrest and detain opponents, including two of the country’s five Supreme Court justices and even his own half-brother. Meanwhile, Yameen has tossed out Nasheed’s climate adaptation plans and rejected renewable energy programs, proposing instead to build new islands and economic free zones attractive to a global elite. “We do not need cabinet meetings underwater,” his environment minister told The Guardian. “We do not need to go anywhere. We need development.”
If any lesson can be drawn from the power struggle in the Maldives, it is that people who feel threatened by an outside force, be it foreign invaders or rising tides, often seek reassurance. That reassurance may come in the form of a strongman leader, someone who tells them all will be well, the economy will soar, the sea walls hold. People must only surrender their elections, or their due process, until the crisis is resolved. This is perhaps the most overlooked threat of climate change: Major shifts in the global climate could give rise to a new generation of authoritarian rulers, not just in poorer countries or those with weak democratic institutions, but in wealthy industrialized nations, too.
Refugee crises, famine, drought—these are materials strongmen can use to build power. Already, strife and civil instability are spreading throughout the global South, with droughts and floods stoking conflict and refugee crises in parts of Africa and the Middle East. According to a 2016 paper in Science, climate change will increase the risk of armed conflict across Africa by 50 percent by 2030. Eastern Africa is particularly vulnerable. The genocidal strife in Darfur is one of the bloodiest examples, but even countries with robust economies and democracies are susceptible. In Kenya, for example, a crippling drought has led to rapid inflation of food prices, doubling the number of food-insecure people since 2014. That, and disputes over who owns land in the Laikipia region, north of Nairobi, has contributed to violent clashes there, threatening the political stability of the country. This has enabled Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta to tighten his grip on power. In October, amid reports that he’d rigged a recent presidential election, Kenyatta declared the drought a national disaster—this, just weeks before the next round of voting. He was reelected and, amid continued chaos, has cracked down on his opponents in the media.
It’s not just developing nations that are at risk of opportunistic climate-fueled authoritarianism. Wealthy countries may possess the resources to insulate themselves from the near-term physical impacts of climate change—they can afford sea walls, emergency services, and air conditioning. But when conflicts over resources break out in the developing world, they are bound to generate crises that spill into wealthier countries.
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015 drew a direct link between the 2007–2010 drought in the greater Fertile Crescent, which “exacerbated existing water and agricultural insecurity and caused massive agricultural failures and livestock mortality,” and Syria’s 2011 civil war, which has forced millions of people to seek refuge in Europe. Their arrival has helped fuel antidemocratic movements throughout the continent. “Even the specter of refugee crises and population movements can impact attitudes toward authoritarianism,” said Jonathan Weiler, co-author of Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics. These fears aren’t going away: According to a 2017 study published in The Lancet, extreme weather could displace up to a billion people around the world by the middle of the twenty-first century—an unprecedented human migration will undoubtedly influence the politics of wealthy countries, pushing them to the right.
The best way to counteract this phenomenon is naturally to halt, or at least slow, the effects of climate change. So far, the Paris agreement is the only tangible result of those efforts, and its fate is far from certain, with the United States threatening to withdraw. But this might change, if the problems caused by climate change—not just stronger hurricanes, droughts, and rising seas, but political rupture—keep washing up on the disappearing shorelines of wealthy governments.
Samuel Miller McDonald studies climate and energy politics at Oxford University. @@sjmmcd
During the recent heat wave, only about 11 percent of articles mentioned global warming, a new report finds EVLONDO COOPER
Almost 90 percent of articles about the recent heat wave in the biggest 50 U.S. newspapers failed to mention hot weather’s connection to climate change, according to a new report published by the nonprofit Public Citizen.
This unfortunate trend extends beyond newspapers. Media Matters has documented how rarely broadcast TV networks cover climate change. Our most recent study looked at how the major broadcast networks covered the links between climate change and extreme heat and found that over a two-week period from late June to early July, only one segment out of 127 about the heat wave mentioned climate change.
Public Citizen looked at coverage of extreme heat in the top 50 U.S. newspapers by circulation over the first half of 2018 and found that less than 18 percent of the articles mentioned climate change:
In the top 50 newspapers, a total of 760 articles mentioned extreme heat, heat waves, record heat, or record temperatures from January 1 to July 8, 2018. One hundred thirty-four of these pieces (17.6 percent) also mentioned climate change or global warming.
During the period June 27 to July 8, only 23 of 204 heat-related articles (11.3 percent) mentioned climate.
During the heat wave, there were 673 articles, with 26 (3.9 percent) mentioning climate.
In late June and early July, when a heat wave was afflicting much of the U.S., the percentage of articles mentioning climate change was even lower:
Public Citizen also looked beyond the top 50 papers to see how extreme heat was covered in papers in 13 states where 10 or more local areas broke heat records from June 27 to July 8. This more localized newspaper coverage was even worse:
While writers and editors may want to exercise caution in attributing any individual event to climate change, the science is clear that our warming climate is making extreme events like heat waves, floods, and fires more intense and more frequent. That’s why environmentaljournalistsandcommunicators have been calling on major news outlets to do a better job of covering climate change and the environmental rollbacks that could make things worse.
Public Citizen’s report did highlight notable exceptions when newspapers did strong reporting to connect extreme heat to climate change — such as a story by Austin American-Statesman reporter Roberto Villalpando that explained how climate change is bringing 100-degree days to Austin earlier in the year. Despite this, the report concluded, “U.S. news outlets continue to tell only half the story. These exceptions need to become the norm if the public is going to wake from its slumber on climate change in time to take the bold action we urgently need to avoid catastrophic harm, and possibly even an existential threat to the U.S., later this century.”
But the recent hot weather is dangerous in more subtle ways, and is an ominous signal of what increasing average temperatures and climate change portend for some of the most vulnerable who must endure the heat to earn a living. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 15 million people in the United States have jobs that require them to be outdoors at some point, and rising temperatures are proving dangerous for them.
In Georgia, Miguel Angel Guzman Chavez, a 24-year-old farmworker, died of heatstroke while working the fieldlast month when the heat index reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Earlier this month, 52-year-old Cruz Urias-Beltran was found dead in a cornfield in Nebraska after temperatures topped 100°F. Postal worker Peggy Frank died in her mail truck near Los Angeles on July 6, when the temperature reached 117°F. She was 63.
For farmworkers, delivery personnel, and construction crews, high temperatures can also mean heat exhaustion and related maladies. Between 1992 and 2016, excessive heat killed 783 US workers and seriously injured 69,374, according to the BLS.
As the climate changes, heat waves are poised to get longer and more intense. That means more workers will face triple-digit temperatures, often for single-digit wages, threatening lives and livelihoods.
While much of the rest of the workforce is in air-conditioned offices and stores, they’re not immune to the economic blows from climate change. By 2028, climate change will cost the US $360 billion per year, about half the expected growth of the economy, according to the Universal Ecological Fund. Much of this is due to health costs.
Researchers are starting to realize just how costly high temperatures are, and workers are now fighting back for cooler conditions.
Extreme heat is costly for workers and the economy as a whole
Rising temperatures have an impact on productivity well before they become dangerous. Economist R. Jisung Park reported that worker productivity declines by 2 percent for every degree Celsius above room temperature. It’s a worldwide phenomenon, with the hottest regions getting hit the hardest. The heat can dehydrate laborers, and higher temperatures demand more frequent breaks.
A 2014 study from the Rhodium Group found that the largest economic losses from climate change in the United States will come in the form of lost labor productivity.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States will lose 1.8 billion labor hours across the workforce in the year 2100 due to extreme temperatures under a business-as-usual climate change scenario. That adds up to $170 billion in lost wages.
But laborers aren’t the only ones vulnerable to heat. Researchers at the London School of Economics found that urban areas also pay a price for high temperatures, even among indoor office workers. They found that in London, a warm year could cost the city’s economy upward of 2.3 billion euros in productivity. Workers make more mistakes and act more slowly as temperatures rise above their optimal range. You can also see this effect in factories.
Worker protections from high temperatures are sorely lacking
However, when we’re talking about climate change, the financial impacts should be secondary to the consequences for human life. And millions of workers remain alarmingly vulnerable to high temperatures. The advocacy group Public Citizen reported that worker fatalities from heat stress show a close link to average annual temperatures in the United States:
States like Minnesota, California, and Washington do have some heat regulations in place. But according to Public Citizen, that still leaves 130 million workers across the country without these legal protections.
They’re asking for provisions including heat stress thresholds, mandatory rest breaks, protective equipment, and heat risk education programs.
For urban environments, the LSE research team had an interesting (and amazing) suggestion to help workers cope with the heat:
Our analysis suggests a change in working hours is a potentially important adaptation measure for the case of London. In particular, working schedules that avoid early afternoon work, such as working from 07:00-11:00 and 17:00-20:00 instead of 09:00-13:00 and 14:00-17:00 – the equivalent to the Spanish “siesta” – could save the London economy over 700 million euros by the end of the century.
So if you’re getting hot at work, stay hydrated, take breaks (or a nap), and avoid the sun. Your paycheck, and your life, may depend on it.
Plants in Finland, Sweden and Germany have been affected by a heat wave that has broken records in Scandinavia and the British Isles and exacerbated deadly wildfires along the Mediterranean.
Air temperatures have stubbornly lingered above 90 degrees in many parts of Sweden, Finland and Germany, and water temperatures are abnormally high — 75 degrees or higher in the usually temperate Baltic Sea.
That’s bad news for nuclear power plants, which rely on seawater to cool reactors.
Finland’s Loviisa power plant, located about 65 miles outside Helsinki, first slightly reduced its output on Wednesday. “The situation does not endanger people, [the] environment or the power plant,” its operator, the energy company Fortum, wrote in a statement.
The seawater has not cooled since then, and the plant continued to reduce its output on both Thursday and Friday, confirmed the plant’s chief of operations, Timo Eurasto. “The weather forecast [means] it can continue at least a week. But hopefully not that long,” he said.
Eurasto says customers have not been affected by the relatively small reduction in output, because other power plants are satisfying electricity demand. The power plant produced about 10 percent of Finland’s electricity last year.
The company also cut production at the Loviisa facility in 2010 and 2011, also due to warm water, but Eurasto said this summer’s heatwave has been more severe than previous ones.
Nuclear power stations in Sweden and Germany have also reduced production because of cooling problems, Reuters reported. A spokesperson for Sweden’s nuclear energy regulator told the wire service on Tuesday that the Forsmark nuclear power plant in Sweden had cut energy production “by a few percentage points.”
Cooling issues at nuclear power plants may get worse in the future. Climate change is causing global ocean temperatures to rise and making heat waves more frequent and severe in many parts of the world. A 2011 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that warmer seas could affect the efficiency of nuclear power plants, noting:
“…during times of extreme heat, nuclear power plants operate less efficiently and are dually under the stress of increased electricity demand from air conditioning use. When cooling systems cannot operate, power plants are forced to shut down or reduce output.”
It’s not just warmer oceans that could spell trouble for nuclear power plants. Climate change is also producing more powerful storms and contributing to drought conditions, threatening facilities on coasts with wave and wind damage, and reducing the amount of water available to plants that cool their reactors with fresh water.
The Mühleberg Nuclear Power Plant in the canton of Bern has announced it is reducing its output due to the rising temperature in the river Aar, which cools the plant’s reactors.
The plant this week announced it has reduced its energy production by more than 10 per cent because of the record temperatures in Switzerland. The hottest summer since 1864 has seen water temperatures in many water bodies rise above 23 degrees Celsius, threatening aquatic fauna, and now energy supplies.
“We have reduced the reactors’ power to 89 per cent,” Tobias Habegger, a spokesman for the BKW Group, the energy company that manages the plant, told Swiss news portal 20 Minutes.
The Mühleberg Nuclear Power Plant is obliged by law to reduce production once temperatures in the Aar river exceed 20.5 degrees Celsius. This is the second reduction – already on July 5th the power plant was ordered to reduce production as a safety precaution, according to the same report.
The nuclear power station in Mühleberg is the first to have had to curtail production because of the current heatwave. The nearby power plant in Beznau is functioning normally. That plant only has to take similar safety precautions once temperatures in the Aar river exceed 32 Celsius.
The Mühleberg Nuclear Power Plant, which has been active since 1972, will be the first in Switzerland to be disconnected as of December 2019, according to a statement by the BKW Group.
This has been a summer of soaring temperatures and catastrophic fires. It has been so hot all over the world that even the Arctic is getting scorched:Temperatures in Deadhorse, Alaska, which is along the Arctic Coast, reached 80 degrees Wednesday—the average high for July is 56 degrees. And Europe saw its second-hottest June on record.
In fact, June had higher than normal temperatures across the globe. The average temperature worldwide was the fifth-hottest on record for the month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The ten warmest Junes on record have occurred since 2005.
Scientists have nodoubts that climate change is driving the searing temperatures. “There’s no question human influence on climate is playing a huge role in this heatwave,” Myles Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, told the Guardian this week.
Here’s a look at the climate-change-fueled natural disasters taking place across the globe.
United States:
It’s the peak of summer tourist season in Yosemite Valley, but the iconic park stands empty as a ghost town. The nearby Ferguson Fire, which has scorched over 43,000 acres since it began in early July, forced the largest evacuations in the park in nearly three decades. Up and down the West Coast, from Alaska to Nevada to Wyoming, firefighters are tackling 88 blazes that are currently burning more than 750,000 acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Only seven of the fires have been contained, and conditions for first responders are expected to remain dangerous in the days ahead—one firefighter was killed while battling the Ferguson Fire when his bulldozer rolled down a steep ravine—with low humidity and high heat.
Greece:
Near Athens, wind-driven fires ripped through the coastline earlier this week, killing 85 people and injuring more than 180 others. Wind speeds reached more than 50 miles per hour, forcing tourists and residents to flee into the sea to escape the fast-moving flames and smoke. Greek authorities said they believe some of the blazes were started intentionally, and the hot and dry conditions from Europe’s heat wave have only made the fires more difficult to control or extinguish.
Sweden:
In the midst of the worst drought in decades, more than 50 wildfires are burning throughout Sweden. Although no injuries or deaths have been reported so far, there appears to be no end in sight. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency warned that the fire risk throughout the country will reach extreme levels as the hot and dry weather persists. Local fire bans are in place, and the agency warned that anyone who causes a fire will be held liable. “At this moment, forest fires must be fought early. A small spark can quickly spread and have serious consequences,” the agency said.
Japan:
For the first time on record, temperatures in Tokyo reached 104 degrees as an unprecedented heat wave swept through Japan. At least 65 people have died in the last week, and more than 22,000 have been hospitalized with heat stroke. Japanese officials have classified the unending heat a natural disaster. The extreme temperatures are expected to drop soon, but the break will come in the form of Typhoon Jongdari, an equivalent of a Category 1 or 2 hurricane currently expected to hit the coast of Honshu.
Germany:
Temperatures have hovered over 86 degrees for much of May and June with little rainfall to combat the drought. As potato, wheat, and barley plants wither in the sun, some German farmers are destroying their crops rather than attempting to harvest them. Potato yields could fall by 25 percent, an industry group said, and a shortage of tubers big enough to be processed into French fries appears likely. A German agricultural group said crop failures this year, combined with last year’s low harvest, could bankrupt many farmers.
Many policy-makers view nuclear power as a mitigation for climate change. Efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change, however, interact with existing and new nuclear power plants, and these installations must contend with dilemmas between adaptation and mitigation. This paper develops five criteria to assess the adaptation–mitigation dilemma on two major points:
(1) the ability of nuclear power to adapt to climate change and
(2) the potential for nuclear power operation to hinder climate change adaptation.
Sea level rise models for nine coastal sites in the United States, a review of US Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents, and reports from France’s nuclear regulatory agency provided insights into issues that have arisen from sea level rise, shoreline erosion, coastal storms, floods, and heat waves. Applying the criteria to inland and coastal nuclear power plants reveals several weaknesses. Safety stands out as the primary concern at coastal locations, while inland locations encounter greater problems with interrupted operation.
Adapting nuclear power to climate change entails either increased expenses for construction and operation or incurs significant costs to the environment and public health and welfare. Mere absence of greenhouse gas emissions is not sufficient to assess nuclear power as a mitigation for climate change.
Research Highlights
►The adaptation-mitigation criteria reveal nuclear power’s vulnerabilities. ►Climate change adaptation could become too costly at many sites. ►Nuclear power operation jeopardizes climate change adaptation. ►Extreme climate events pose a safety challenge.
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