Obama to join China and Australia, in action on global warming

Next year, Guangdong province, which abuts Hong Kong and is itself Australia’s sixth-largest trading partner, will begin a trial Emissions Trading Scheme. China plans to develop a national trading scheme by 2015,

Obama keen to tackle climate, The Age, November 12, 2012, Peter Hannam THE Australian government has wasted little time to sound out the newly re-elected Barack Obama over his administration’s climate change policies and the potential to work more closely together.
An issue excluded from the US presidential debates, the argument over global warming was revived when superstorm Sandy slammed into north-eastern US states a week before polling day, leaving a damage bill some expect to exceed $US50 billion ($A48 billion).
Mr Obama signalled his intention to tackle climate change in his second term during his acceptance speech in Chicago, where he underlined the issue as among his top priorities.
”We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt; that isn’t weakened by inequality; that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet,” he said.

Australia’s Minister for Climate Change, Greg Combet, told the Carbon Expo conference in Melbourne on Friday that he was ”very pleased” with Mr Obama’s victory, and said he held already spoken on the issue with his US counterpart since the elections.
”I think the White House will be looking, over the course of the next four years, to be in a position to try to advance action on climate change in the US,” Continue reading →

November 12, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | 1 Comment

Climate future is dangerous for nuclear power

Nuclear Power and Superstorms Don’t Mix, Time, By Lucy Birmingham Nov. 07, 2012  Superstorm Sandy’s unexpected wrath makes a powerful case for revisiting Fukushima and the dangers to nuclear energy from natural disasters. As Sandy made landfall on Atlantic City, Oyster Creek nuclear power plant nearby was fortunately on a scheduled outage. But Indian Point 3 in Buchanan, N.Y., Nine Mile Point 1 in Scriba, N.Y., and Salem Unit 1 in Hancocks Bridge, N.J., all experienced shutdowns because of high water levels or electrical disruption. Last year, the dangerous Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown was caused by similar conditions after tsunami waves flooded the plant and short-circuited both the regular and back-up electrical systems.

Equally dangerous are drought and record heat conditions the U.S. experienced last summer. In August, one of two reactors at the Millstone nuclear power plant near New London, Conn., not far from where I grew up, was shut down because water in Long Island Sound needed to cool the reactors got too warm. Cool water is necessary to produce electricity.
((MORE: Will We Be Seeing More Superstorms?)

Fukushima has been a worldwide wakeup call, particularly for the United States, the country with the largest number of reactors — 104. The lesson is glaringly obvious: when nature and nuclear energy collide the consequences can be lethal. Unfortunately, Japan is not offering an inspiring example of how to handle this threat. While all but two of the country’s 50 reactors remain offline, government and nuclear industry are proposing plant restarts and construction projects. This muddled move stands against the majority of Japanese citizens who have turned against nuclear power. As we face an increasingly volatile climate, the United States could conceivably lead the way in reducing dependence on nuclear energy.

(MORE: Is Post-Fukushima Japan Safe for Tourists?)
It’s estimated that superstorm Sandy will affect more than one fifth of Americans and cost up to $20 billion in damages. Imagine the addition of a major nuclear accident, potentially more lethal than Three Mile Island. The health, environmental and economic costs would be, simply put, insurmountable. It’s time to face the facts: Mother Nature rules. The best we can do is try to lessen the damage from her wrath. Phasing out nuclear power is the safe answer. : http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/07/nuclear-power-and-superstorms-dont-mix/#ixzz2Bgeqyigt

November 9, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Nine Mile Point nuclear reactor remains shut

TV: Problem during reactor restart process at New York nuclear plant damaged by Sandy http://enenews.com/tv-problem-during-reactor-restart-process-at-ny-nuclear-plant-damaged-by-sandy
  November 6th, 2012
Title: Nuclear industry studies Sandy’s impact on several reactors
Source: YNN (Syracuse)
Author: Candace Hopkins
Date: 11/05/2012 
As Sandy barreled towards the northeast last week, staff at several nuclear plants were on high alert.

[…]

At Nine Mile, workers prepared the plants for high winds or power outages and extra manpower was called in. Monday night, high winds took down a pole, damaging the plant’s electrical grid. Unit two was forced to switch to its backup generator. Unit one was pushed offline altogether. Because of the planning, the staff was ready for the damage.

[…]

Nine Mile Point operators say the plants will be taking extra precautions to prepare equipment for high winds. Meanwhile, three other plants were also impacted by the storm. The NRC says the good news is no major damage was done.

Nine Mile Point One remains shut down after a secondary problem during the reactor restart process. Constellation Energy says it’s likely not related to Sandy. There was no threat to the public.

November 7, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Russian nuclear submarine sheltered in Jacksonville, Florida, during Sandy storm

Russian nuclear sub given shelter near Florida during Sandy http://rt.com/usa/news/russian-nuclear-sub-gertz-097/ : 06 November, 2012, Defense officials say that a nuclear-powered Russian attack submarine sailed to within 200 miles of the United States last week and was granted safe harbor as Superstorm Sandy struck the East Coast.

According to a report published this week by defense commentator Bill Gertz, a Russian Sierra-2 class submarine was spotted recently not too far away from Kings Bay, Georgia, where the United States stations its own ballistic and cruise missiles, including six underwater-capable vessels also powered by nuclear energy. Continue reading →

November 7, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Hurricane Sandy and climate change

What Does Hurricane Sandy Show us about Shoreline Change? http://www.enn.com/climate/article/45168 5 Nov 12  Contrarians argue that Hurricane Sandy isn’t proof of climate change. But local scientists say the recent storm offers more damning evidence that Rhode Island’s weather and landscape are undergoing a long-term transformation — one with a steep cost in dollars and human health.

Perhaps the most significant and indisputable fact is that the Atlantic Ocean is warmer, so much so that a late-October storm didn’t lose steam over what should have been a colder sea. Instead, Sandy gained speed and strength as it headed north and became an enormous force of destruction. Continue reading →

November 5, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | 1 Comment

USA nuclear reactors not prepared for very high storm surges

When the nuclear industry says that it can withstand conditions “beyond that historically reported,” we should want to know a lot more

 United States came in second, behind Japan, as the country with the largest number of inadequately protected nuclear power plants. The 1938 New England hurricane triggered a storm surge as high as 25 to 30 feet, considerably higher than waves generated this week by Sandy. A wave that tall would easily overtake many nuclear plants on the East Coast, which on average lie about 20 feet above sea level, with minimal sea wall protection.

SANDY, FUKUSHIMA, AND THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY New Yorker  by Evan Osnos, November 2, 2012 When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, it forced three nuclear reactors to shut down, including the Indian Point 3 plant along the banks of the Hudson, about twenty-five miles north of New York City. Three more reduced their output as a precaution. At
the nation’s oldest nuclear plant, the Oyster Creek facility, about thirty-three miles north of Atlantic City, operators faced an unusual event: wind, a rising tide, and the storm surge sent more water than normal into the plant’s water-intake system.

At the same time, the plant, which was already down for maintenance, lost its electrical
power from the grid. Operators called an “alert” that escalated the plant a step up from the lowest emergency level, and they turned to backup generators to keep cooling the reactor. Continue reading →

November 3, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

First insurance companies, now even AMERICANS wake up to global warming!

On Oct. 17 the giant German reinsurance company Munich Re issued a prescient report titled Severe Weather in North America. Globally, the rate of extreme weather events is rising, and “nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.” From 1980 through 2011, weather disasters caused losses totaling $1.06 trillion. Munich Re found “a nearly quintupled number of weather-related loss events in North America for the past three decades.”

It’s Global Warming, Stupid Bloomberg Business Week By Paul M. Barrett November 01, 2012   Yes, yes, it’s unsophisticated to blame any given storm on climate change. Men and women in white lab coats tell us—and they’re right—that many factors contribute to each severe weather episode. Climate deniers exploit scientific complexity to avoid any discussion at all.

Clarity, however, is not beyond reach. Hurricane Sandy demands it: At least 40 U.S. deaths. Economic losses expected to climb as high as $50 billion. Eight million homes without power. Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated. More than 15,000 flights grounded. Factories, stores, and hospitals shut. Lower Manhattan dark, silent, and underwater.

An unscientific survey of the social networking literature on Sandy reveals an illuminating tweet (you read that correctly) from Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. On Oct. 29, Foley thumbed thusly: “Would this kind of storm happen without climate change? Yes. Fueled by many factors. Is storm stronger because of climate change? Yes.”

Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund (and former deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek), offers a baseball analogy: “We can’t say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther. Now we have weather on steroids.” Continue reading →

November 2, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

In this climate challenged world, nuclear lobbyists have nothing to crow about

Having a grid that simply survives a category 1 hurricane without a Fukushima-sized nuclear disaster is nothing to crow about.

The astronomical cost of restoring power to millions of consumers is real, as is the potential danger still posed by a number of crippled nuclear power plants.

Oyster Creek Nuclear Alert: As Floodwaters Fall, More Questions Arise TruthOut , 01 November 2012  Gregg Levine, capitoilette | News Analysis“……If you thought all of these problems would cause nuclear industry representatives to lay low for a while, well, you’d be wrong: “Our facilities’ ability to weather the strongest Atlantic tropical storm on record is due to rigorous precautions taken in advance of the storm,” Marvin Fertel, chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based industry group, said yesterday in a statement.

Fertel went on to brag that of the 34 reactors it said were in Sandy’s path, 24 survived the storm without incident.

Or, to look at it another way, during a single day, the heavily populated eastern coast of the Unite States saw multiple nuclear reactors experience problems. And that’s in the estimation of the nuclear industry’s top lobbyist.

Or, should we say, the underestimation? Of the ten reactors not in Fertel’s group of 24, seven were already offline, and the industry is not counting them. So, by Fertel’s math, Oyster Creek does not figure against what he considers success. Power reductions and failed emergency warning systems are also not factored in, it appears. Continue reading →

November 2, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

The KOCHtopus strangles the truth on climate change – profit is their motive

Koch Brothers and Their Amazig Climate Change Denial http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/22/koch-brothers-produce-counterfeit-climate-report-deceive-congress an upcoming junk study from a Koch-funded think tank that has taken on the format and appearance of a truly scientific report from the US Government, but is loaded with lies and misrepresentation of actual climate change science. The false report is a tentacle of the Kochtopus–with oil and industrial billionaires Charles and David Koch at the head. Continue reading →

October 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | Leave a comment