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.
Kristin Linnerud*, Torben K. Mideksa** and Gunnar S. Eskeland***
A warmer climate may result in lower thermal efficiency and reduced load—including shutdowns—in thermal power plants. Focusing on nuclear power plants, we use different European datasets and econometric strategies to identify these two supply-side effects. We find that a rise in temperature of 1C reduces the supply of nuclear power by about 0.5% through its effect on thermal efficiency; during droughts and heat waves, the production loss may exceed 2.0% per degree Celsius because power plant cooling systems are constrained by physical laws, regulations and access to cooling water. As climate changes, one must consider measures to protect against and/or to adapt to these impacts.
INTRODUCTION Climate change may affect thermal power plants in two ways. Firstly, increased ambient temperature reduces the efficiency of thermal power plants in turning fuel into electricity (i.e. lowers the ratio of electricity produced to the amount of fuel used in producing it). For example, the difference in sea temperature between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea will play a role in where Turkey builds 10 planned nuclear plants because the efficiency of these plants is negatively related to the temperature of the coolant (Durmayaz and Sogut, 2006).Secondly, at high ambient temperatures, the load of a thermal power plant may be limited by maximum condenser pressure, regulations on maximum allowable temperature for return water or by reduced access to water as a result of droughts. For example, during the 2003 summer heat wave in Europe, more than 30 nuclear power plant units in Europe were forced to shut down or reduce their power production (IAEA 2004; Zebisch et al., 2005; Rebetez et al., 2009; Koch and Vo¨gele, 2009). Our analysis focuses on these two temperature-induced impacts: reduced efficiency and increased frequency of shutdowns.
Although all thermal power plants are exposed to these two impacts, nuclear power plants are especially vulnerable. The average efficiency is lower and the water requirement per electricity output is higher in nuclear power plants compared to most other thermal power plants. More importantly, energy disruptions at nuclear power plants may cause a threat to energy supply security since each nuclear reactor accounts for a considerable amount of power and nuclear reactors are typically located in the same geographical area with access to the same source of cooling water (Vo¨gele, 2010).
……The two climate impacts have been addressed in the climate and energy literature. The 4th Assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007, p. 556) reported that climate change could have a negative impact on thermal power production since the availability of cooling water may be reduced.
……..Cooling water shortages or regulatory limitations on the increase in water temperature put further restrictions on a nuclear power plant’s operations.8 The temperature of the returned cooling water is most often subject to regulations. The allowable return temperature varies depending on the source of the water, ambient conditions and local regulations. As the temperature of river or sea water rises, the water will be able to absorb less heat before exceeding the maximum allowable temperature limit for return water. In such circumstances, the plant must reduce power production until the return temperature is below the limit.
……Droughts may also reduce plants’ access to cooling water, and plants in drought-prone areas are especially vulnerable to climate change.
Expect more heat waves due to climate change, experts warn, Jakarta Post, LIN TAYLOR, REUTERS, London| Fri, July 27, 2018 The effects of climate change mean the world can expect higher temperatures and more frequent heat waves, climate experts have warned, with poor communities likely to be worst affected.
Heat is neglected because it is both an invisible and hard-to-document disaster that claims lives largely behind closed doors, they said, and because hot weather does not strike many people as a serious threat.
The warning comes as hot weather has swept the northern hemisphere. Britain has sweltered in a prolonged heat wave, with temperatures set to test national records, the country’s Meteorological Office said…..
Fires have also caused devastation in Greece, Sweden and the United States. In Greece, rescuers are searching scorched land and the coastline for survivors three days after a wildfire destroyed a village outside Athens killing at least 82 people.
Health risks
The past three years were the hottest on record, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization said in March.
The World Health Organization says heat stress, linked to climate change, is likely to cause 38,000 extra deaths a year worldwide between 2030 and 2050.
Two weeks into Japan’s blistering heat wave, at least 80 people have died and thousands have been rushed to emergency rooms, as officials urged citizens to stay indoors to avoid temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104°F) in some areas.
n a heat wave in May, more than 60 people died in Karachi, Pakistan, when the temperature rose above 40C ( 104F ).
“Heat waves are becoming more frequent, and that is likely due to climate change because the global temperature is rising,” Sven Harmeling, head of climate change and resilience policy at aid group CARE International, said by phone.
He said climate change was altering weather patterns, and “we have to prepare for more of these consequences”.
……..Nearly one in three people around the world are already exposed to deadly heat waves, and that will rise to nearly half of people by 2100 even if the world moves aggressively to cut climate-changing emissions, a University of Hawaii study found in 2017.
Scotsman 26th July 2018, Mary Church: As much of the country suffers under another week of
sweltering temperatures, Westminster’s Environmental Audit Committee has
issued a stark warning: heat-related deaths will treble by 2050 as a result
of a warming climate.
A shocking 7,000 people will die in the UK each year
from the impacts of heat unless government acts on the dangers of climate
change. The committee’s focus on adaptation in its recommendations
reflects the grim reality that global warming is not some distant threat,
but is happening now, and we must prepare to deal with the consequences of
living in a world made warmer by human actions.
News of a rising death toll from climate disasters around the world that have made the headlines all
too often this summer, from prolonged heatwaves in Canada and Japan, to
flash floods in Laos and Cambodia, and raging wildfires in Greece and
Sweden, help this reality to sink in.
While so far we have escaped some of the worst impacts in Scotland, we are not immune; private water supplies
drying up in Moray and the roof of Glasgow’s Science Centre melting as
the mercury hit a record 31.9C are a small taste of what is to come if we
fail to address the cause of warming.
What we are witnessing now is the
impact of a mere 1C of warming. The impacts of 1.5C, 2C or more will be
far, far worse, with widespread disruption to food production, famine, new
diseases, mass species extinction, sea level rise, the destruction of
livelihoods and even entire countries. And, of course, these impacts will
bring increased political instability, violent conflict and a rise in
climate refugees.
Aussies may scoff at Britain’s idea of a heatwave, but this time it’s the real deal and it’s no laughing matter.
Extreme heat has hit locations throughout the Northern Hemisphere, in places as far apart as Montreal, Glasgow, Tokyo and Lapland. In the past few weeks heat records have tumbled in a wide range of places, most notably:
Heat has not been the only problem. Much of northern Europe is experiencing a very persistent drought, with little to no measurable rainfall in months. This has caused the normally lush green fields of England and other European countries to turn brown and even reveal previously hidden archaeological monuments.
There have also been major wildfires in northern England, Sweden and, most recently and devastatingly, Greece. The Greek wildfires came off the back of a very dry winter and spring.
What’s behind the widespread extreme heat?
The jet stream, a high-altitude band of air that pushes weather systems around at lower altitudes, has been weaker than normal. It has also been positioned unusually far to the north, particularly over Europe. This has kept the low-pressure systems that often drive wind and rain over northern Europe at bay.
The jet stream has remained locked in roughly the same position over the Atlantic Ocean and northern Europe for the past couple of months. This has meant that the same weather types have remained over the same locations most of the time.
Weather is typically more transient than it has been recently. Even when we do have blocking high-pressure systems associated with high temperatures in northern Europe, they don’t normally linger as long as this.
Is it driven by climate change?
Although climatologists have made great strides in recent years in the field of event attribution – identifying the human climate fingerprint on particular extreme weather events – it is hard to quantify the role of climate change in an event that is still unfolding.
Until the final numbers are in we won’t be able to tell just how much climate change has altered the likelihood or intensity of these particular heat extremes.
Having said that, we can use past analyses of extreme heat events, together with future climate change projections, to infer whether climate change is playing a role in these events.
For all manner of heat extremes in Europe and elsewhere, including in Japan, a clear and discernible link with climate change has been made.
Research has also shown that heat extremes similar to those witnessed over the past month or two are expected to become more common as global temperatures continue to climb. The world has so far had around 1℃ of global warming above pre-industrial levels, but at the global warming limits proposed in the Paris climate agreement, hot summers like that of 2003 in central Europe would be a common occurrence.
Similarly, we know that heat exposure and heat-induced deaths in Europe will increase with global warming, even if we can limit this warming to the levels agreed in Paris.
But summers have always been hot, haven’t they?
For most parts of the world summers have got warmer, and the hottest summer on record is relatively recent – such as 2003 in parts of central Europe and 2010 in much of eastern Europe. One exception is central England, where the hottest summer remains 1976, although it may be challenged this year.
While extreme hot summers and heatwaves did happen in the past, they were less common. One big difference as far as England is concerned is that its extreme 1976 heatwave was a global outlier, whereas this year’s isn’t.
In 1976 northwestern Europe had higher temperature anomalies than almost anywhere else on the globe. In June 2018 the same region was unusually warm, but so was most of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere.
So while the persistent weather patterns are driving much of the extreme heat we’re seeing across the Northern Hemisphere, we know that human-caused climate change is nudging the temperatures up and increasing the odds of new heat extremes.
S&P 24th July 2018 , France’s EDF expects nuclear-fired power production at its Bugey and
Saint-Alban power stations to be curtailed “due to extreme temperature forecast,” the utility said Tuesday. On grid operator RTE’s website, EDF said environmental issues are limiting “some” nuclear production availability in the country, starting Saturday. EDF did not give details on the exact impact of the output restrictions. The two nuclear power stations have a combined capacity of over 6 GW. Environmental issues have already resulted in weekend outages at EDF’s Bugey-3 reactor on the river Rhone.
Because of the very warm temperatures the Nordic region is currently experiencing, the sea water that is collected to cool the Loviisa reactors is warmer and the water released is also warmer, at 32 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.
Releasing hot water back to the sea after cooling the reactors could be a hazard and if it exceeds 34 degrees Fortum said the reactors must be shut down due to regulations.
“We decreased power by 170 megawatts for a bit less than two hours. The sea water that cools the reactors was at 24 degrees, which is warmer than usual,” Fortum’s chief of operations in the plant, Timo Eurasto, told Reuters.
Such a rare occurrence may happen again in the next days because of the unusually warm temperatures, he said, adding that there was no danger to people, the plant, or the environment.
“High sea water temperature may indeed reduce the efficiency of the cooling systems of the plant. This is compensated by reducing or shutting down the reactor power,” said Nina Lahtinen, nuclear safety section head at Finland’s regulator STUK.
In Germany traders warned last week that higher temperatures in August may create cooling issues for the country’s reactors, with E.ON subsidiary PreussenElektra cutting output slightly from two units.
Sweden’s nuclear energy regulator SSM, told Reuters on Tuesday that power production at the Forsmark nuclear plant has also been reduced “by a few percentage points” due to cooling issues.
Last time Fortum had to reduce power in its reactors due to warmer-than-usual cooling water was seven years ago, said Loviisa plant’s Eurasto.
Unusually warm and dry weather in the Nordics led temperatures to record highs this summer, affecting water levels at the reservoirs that feed Norway and Sweden with hydropower, causing prices to spike as a result.
Leaked video of post-Fukushima flooding risk at American nuclear power plant
Flooding at a Florida Nuclear Plant, UCS, DAVE LOCHBAUM, DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR SAFETY PROJECT | JULY 26, 2018, Role of Regulation in Nuclear Plant Safety #5
St. Lucie Unit 1 began operating in 1976. From the beginning, it was required by federal regulations to be protected against flooding from external hazards. After flooding in 2011 led to the meltdown of three reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi in Japan, the NRC ordered owners to walk down their plants in 2012 to verify conformance with flood protection requirements and remedy all shortcomings. The owner of St. Lucie Unit 1 told the NRC that only one minor deficiency had been identified and it was fixed.
But heavy rainfall in January 2014 flooded the Unit 1 reactor auxiliary building with 50,000 gallons through flood barriers that had been missing since at least 1982. Unit 1 became as wet as the owner’s damp assurances and the NRC’s soggy oversight efforts.
Parade of Flood Protection Promises
Operators achieved the first criticality, or sustained nuclear chain reaction, of the Unit 1 reactor core at the St. Lucie nuclear plant located about miles southeast of Ft. Pierce, Florida at 8:30 am on April 22, 1976. Federal regulations adopted more than five years earlier required the plant to be protected against natural phenomena. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), forerunner to today’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), issued guidance in August 1973 that explicitly informed nuclear plant owners and applicants that the natural phenomena to be protected against included heavy local precipitation.
En route to the AEC issuing an operating license for Unit 1 on March 1, 1976, the owner submitted a Preliminary Safety Analysis Report and later a Final Safety Analysis Report, now called the Updated Final Safety Analysis Report (UFSAR), describing the design features and operational procedures that demonstrated conformance with all applicable regulatory requirements such as flood protection. The design bases external flood was a Probable Maximum Hurricane (PMH) while the design bases internal flood was the postulated rupture of a 14-inch diameter low pressure safety injection system pipe. The analyses summarized in the UFSAR reported the flooding rates, flooding depths needed to submerge and disable safety components, alarms alerting workers to the flooding situation, and response actions and associated times for workers to intervene and successfully mitigate a flooding event.
…………The owner reported to the NRC on December 27, 2012, the results of its evaluation of the missing and degraded conduit seals. The NRC was told that the electrical manholes have 4-inch and 1.5-inch diameter drain lines to the storm water system. In the event of site flooding due to a storm, water could flow through these drain lines into the electrical manholes. When the water filled the manholes to a certain depth, water would flow through the missing and degraded conduit seals into the reactor auxiliary building and disable components needed for safe shutdown of the reactor. The owner reported that the conduit seals had been missing since original construction in the 1970s. This potential hazard no longer existed because the missing and degraded conduit seals had been corrected.
The NRC evaluated the missing and degraded conduit seals reported by the owner via its November 27 and December 27 submittals. On April 25, 2013, the NRC issued its report for its evaluation. The NRC noted:
The licensee’s design basis does not allow for any external leakage into safety-related buildings during a PMH. Unit 1 UFSAR section 3.4.4, states in part, that “All external building penetrations are waterproofed and/or flood protected to preclude the failure of safety related system or component due to external flooding.”
Even though the flood protection deficiency existed for over three decades before being found and fixed, the NRC elected to impose no sanction for violating federal safety regulations.
The NRC reported on July 30, 2013, about additional walkdowns its inspectors made of the Unit 1 and 2 reactor auxiliary buildings. The NRC inspectors also reviewed documents in the owner’s corrective action and work order databases for weather-related problems that could result in site flooding. No problems were found.
Raining on the Promise Parade
On January 9, 2014, it rained on St. Lucie. A culvert in the storm water drain system obstructed by debris caused rain water to pool around the reactor auxiliary building instead of being carried away. Rain water leaked into the reactor auxiliary building via two electrical conduits that lacked the proper flood barriers. A video obtained by UCS via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) shows water pouring from an electrical junction box mounted on the inside wall of the Unit 1 reactor auxiliary building. (We don’t have a video of this location before the flood, but we know that it wasn’t nearly as wet and noisy.)
An estimated 50,000 gallons of water flooded Unit 1. Workers periodically manipulated valves to allow flood water to drain into the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) pump room sumps where it was transferred to an outdoor collection tank. Their efforts successfully prevented any safety components from being disabled and Unit 1 continuing operating through the rainfall.
When the dust dried, workers found four other electrical conduits that lacked proper flood barriers. The six conduits passed through the reactor auxiliary building wall below the design bases flood elevation. Consequently, they should have been equipped with flood barriers, but the required barriers had not been provided. These six conduits were not part of the plant’s original design, but had been installed via modifications implemented in 1978 and 1982.
The NRC issued a White finding, the second least serious among its Green, White, Yellow and Red classification scheme, on November 19, 2014, for two violations of regulatory requirements:
……..the owner violated federal regulations in 1978 and 1982 by not providing flood barriers with the installed conduit and re-violated federal regulations in 2012 by not finding the flood barriers missing when commanded by NRC to do so after Fukushima.
UCS Perspective
In the letter transmitting the White finding to the plant’s owner, NRC noted that the severity of the two violations of federal regulations would normally have also resulted in a $70,000 fine, but explained:
Because your facility has not been the subject of escalated enforcement actions within the last two years, the NRC considered whether credit was warranted for Corrective Action in accordance with the civil penalty assessment process in Section 2.3.4 of the Enforcement Policy. … Therefore, to encourage prompt identification and comprehensive correction of violations, and in recognition of the absence of previous escalated enforcement action, I have been authorized, after consultation with the Director, Office of Enforcement, not to propose a civil penalty in this case.
What?
“Because your facility has not been the subject of escalated enforcement actions within the last two years” is largely because the owner violated federal regulations by not finding, fixing, and reporting the missing flood barriers on the six electrical conduits that factored in the January 9, 2014, flooding event. So, the reason the owner has a clean slate over the past two years is because the owner violated federal regulations two years ago that would otherwise have uncleaned that slate. Who says crime doesn’t pay?
……… Is the White finding without the usual (and entirely appropriate) $70,000 fine a slap on the wrist of this owner?I don’t know. But I do know that it is a slap in the face of the many plant owners who took the NRC’s order seriously by doing a thorough job of walking down their plants for flooding and earthquake vulnerabilities and remedying all deficiencies (not just a token one or two).
By “encouraging” owners who perform badly, the NRC is discouraging owners who perform well. ……..
For over 30 years, St. Lucie operated without flood barriers it was required by federal regulations to have. ………
St. Lucie is adequately protected against flooding—unless a flood happens. That flood might reveal still more deficiencies for the NRC to “encourage” the owner to promptly find and comprehensively fix (assuming the reactor still hasn’t melted down.)
The 2020 Olympics will open in 2 years, and the heat is on, https://apnews.com/0a64bd6df7f349879fb5ff7c3b6cafd7 By JIM ARMSTRONG, 24 July 18 Since being awarded the games, which will be the largest ever with 33 sports and 339 events, Tokyo organizers have had to deal with a series of problems ranging from stadium and construction delays , natural disasters and a scandal involving the official logo.
Potential for scorching summer conditions has always concerned organizers, with temperatures in central Tokyo often exceeding 35 Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) in July and August, made more difficult because of high humidity.
This summer heatwave has resulted in more than 65 deaths and sent tens of thousands to hospitals. The temperature on Monday reached 41.1 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), the highest ever recorded in Japan.
Experts have warned the risk of heatstroke in Tokyo has escalated in recent years, while noting the Olympics are expected to take place in conditions when sports activities should normally be halted.
“We are mindful that we do have to prepare for extreme heat,” John Coates, head of the IOC’s coordination commission for the Tokyo Games, told a recent news conference.
The 1964 Games in Tokyo were held in October to avoid the harshest of the heat. That was before the Olympics schedule was influenced by rights-paying broadcasters and sponsors.
Local organizers are doing what they can to help athletes combat the conditions. The marathon and some other outside events will be held early in the morning to avoid extreme heat.
The federal and the Tokyo metropolitan governments are also planning to lay pavements that emit less surface heat and plant taller roadside trees for shade.
“The spectators as well as the athletes have to be taken care of,” Coates said. “The timing of the marathon and road walks will be as early as possible as they have been in previous games to beat the heat.”
Organizers want the games to help showcase Japan’s recovery from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that took more than 18,000 lives and triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
While reconstruction from the disaster is making steady progress, and work on the new 68,000-seat main stadium in Tokyo is 40 percent complete, more than 70,000 people remain displaced from their communities.
The construction of the main stadium was more than a year behind schedule when it started in December 2016, as earlier plans were scrapped because of spiraling costs and a contentious design.
The Japanese government approved the new 150 billion yen ($1.5 billion) stadium, which is expected to be completed in November of 2019. The previous construction timeline would have allowed the main stadium to host the 2019 Rugby World Cup final on Nov. 2 as a test event, but that idea was scrapped.
Meanwhile, organizers say the other newly-constructed venues are 20 to 40 percent complete.
The torch relay will start March 26, 2020, in Fukushima, an area hit hard by the disaster.
Coates said local organizers are on track with 24 months to go.
“Tokyo 2020 comes a significant step closer to delivering an Olympic Games that will bring Japan and the world together,” he said. “The organizing committee has presented considerable progress … especially as it related to venue and operational readiness.”
