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Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer

As world leaders convene at COP27 to discuss the global decarbonization agenda, they should focus on the technologies that can be deployed rapidly and universally to replace fossil fuels.

As consecutive editions of the WNISR have shown, nuclear power is too slow and too expensive to compete with energy-efficiency measures and renewable energy.

Project Syndicate, Nov 14, 2022 ANTONY FROGGATT

As world leaders convene at COP27 to discuss the global decarbonization agenda, they should focus on the technologies that can be deployed rapidly and universally. That means de-emphasizing nuclear power, which was no longer competitive with solar and wind even before this year’s geopolitical turmoil.

PARIS – Just as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted Europe’s dangerous dependence on fossil fuels, increasingly frequent and intense climate-driven weather events are highlighting the death and destruction that fossil-fuel dependence has wrought. Understandably, political and public pressure to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, move away from insecure primary energy supplies, and develop new, reliable, secure, and affordable energy sources is at an all-time high. But rather than rushing ahead, we need to consider carefully which options are most realistic, and how they will be deployed and operate in the real world.

Consider nuclear power. With many countries and companies now giving this option a second (or even a third) look, the 2022 World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) offers valuable insights into how the sector is faring.

While the last 12 months may be remembered as a turning point for the broader energy sector, it won’t be because of the nuclear industry. Nuclear energy’s share of global commercial gross electricity generation in 2021 dropped to 9.8%, which is its first dip below 10% in four decades, barely more than half its peak of 17.5% in 1996. Meanwhile, wind and solar surpassed nuclear for the first time in 2021, accounting for 10.2% of gross power generation.

These diverging trajectories can be seen clearly across every indicator of investment, deployment, and output. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, operating reactors peaked in 2018, both in terms of their number (449) and total capacity (396.5 gigawatts). The IAEA reports that 437 reactors were “in operation” globally at the end of 2021, including 23 reactors that have not generated power for at least nine years, and which may never do so again.

In 2018, when installed nuclear power peaked below 400 GW, solar and wind capacity rose above 1,000 GW, on its way to reaching 1,660 GW by the end of 2021. In just three years, solar and wind added two-thirds more capacity than nuclear at its last peak. Even if nuclear plants usually generate more electricity per unit of installed capacity than wind and solar, the divergence in these numbers is staggering.

In 2021, total investments in non-hydro renewables hit a record $366 billion, adding an unprecedented 257 GW (on net) to electricity grids, whereas operating nuclear capacity decreased by 0.4 GW. Only six new reactors were connected to the grid that year, and half of these were in China. Then, in the first half of 2022, five new reactors went online, two of which were in China. But while China has the most reactors under construction (21, as of mid-2022), it is not building them abroad.

Until recently, that role was taken up by Russia, which is dominating the international market with 20 units under construction, including 17 in seven countries as of mid-2022. Sanctions and potential other geopolitical developments have cast doubt on many of these projects, with a Finnish consortium already canceling construction of a facility based on a Russian design.

Only 33 countries operate nuclear power plants today, and only three – Bangladesh, Egypt, and Turkey – are building reactors for the first time (all in partnership with the Russian nuclear industry). Twenty-six of the 53 construction projects around the world have suffered various delays, with at least 14 reporting increased delays, and two reporting new delays, just in the past year.

For the first time, the WNISR also assesses the risks of nuclear power and war. There has been significant international concern about Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russia forces since March 4, 2022. Owing to repeated shelling in and around the area, the plant has frequently lost external power, prompting warnings from the IAEA that the situation is “untenable.” Operating a nuclear facility requires motivated, rested, skilled staff; but Zaporizhzhia’s Ukrainian personnel are under severe stress.

The key challenge now is to maintain continuous cooling for the reactor core and the pool for spent fuel, even after the reactor is shut down. The failure to evacuate heat from residual decay would lead to a core meltdown within hours, or a spent-fuel fire within days or weeks, with potentially large releases of radioactivity.

As world leaders convene at COP27 to discuss the global decarbonization agenda, they should focus on the technologies that can be deployed rapidly and universally to replace fossil fuels. As consecutive editions of the WNISR have shown, nuclear power is too slow and too expensive to compete with energy-efficiency measures and renewable energy.

November 14, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

The USA’s “climate” envoy at COP27 John Kerry is just another nuclear shill

John Kerry, ostensibly the US Special Climate Envoy, but actually yet another nuclear industry shill, used the occasion of the COP first to hold a special press conference to trumpet a $3 billion US nuclear deal with Romania and then announced a small modular reactor partnership with, incredibly, Ukraine.

“We have a viable alternative in nuclear,” Kerry told reporters. Viable? This was duly lapped up by the press without challenge.

John Kerry uses last-chance climate summit to tout nuclear power, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2022/11/13/the-kerry-copout/

By Linda Pentz Gunter, 14 Nov 22

“Russia’s seizure earlier this year of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy facility is shining a new light on the safety and security risks of the atomic export policies of the United States and other technologically advanced countries,” began a promising November 8 article in Roll Call.

However, that light seems to have blinded those in power to any common sense.

What has the alarm over the vulnerabilities of Ukraine’s reactors caught in a war zone actually taught any of them? Let’s start with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“The problem is not nuclear energy,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told the BBC recently. Nuclear power, Grossi said,“can provide a safe, clean source of energy and this is why many countries in Africa and in other places are turning to nuclear.” It’s just war that’s the trouble, Grossi said.

That’s like the gun lobby claiming it’s bad guys, not guns, that do the killing. Sorry, but no. Bad guys without guns can’t shoot people. Broken solar panels and fallen wind turbines can’t release massive amounts of radioactivity. The problem here very definitely IS nuclear energy. Period.

The IAEA position isn’t disingenuous of course. It’s a necessity borne of the agency’s massive conflict of interest, bound, as it is, to further and expand the use of nuclear power across the world. And then enforce safety at plants that are inherently dangerous.

“You will see that nuclear energy has a really solid, very consistent safety record,” said Grossi as the COP27 climate summit got underway in Egypt.

Except of course when there is a war, a prolonged loss of power, a natural disaster, a major human error or a catastrophic technical failure. Then, all of a sudden, having nuclear power plants is, according to Grossi, “playing with fire.”

Will US elected (or appointed) officials take heed of the obvious obstacles presented by nuclear power plants to achieving lasting peace and safety? Of course not. As we wrote here last week, US vice president, Kamala Harris, crowed about selling three Westinghouse reactors to Poland, tweeting that “We can address the climate crisis, strengthen European energy security, and deepen the US-Poland strategic relationship.”

Only the third part is true and is, of course, the basis for the contract in the first place, given Poland’s shared Eastern borders with Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine.

John Kerry, ostensibly the US Special Climate Envoy, but actually yet another nuclear industry shill, used the occasion of the COP first to hold a special press conference to trumpet a $3 billion US nuclear deal with Romania and then announced a small modular reactor partnership with, incredibly, Ukraine.

“We have a viable alternative in nuclear,” Kerry told reporters. Viable? This was duly lapped up by the press without challenge.

The Romanian debacle-to-be will be funded by the US Export-Import Bank. The Ukraine announcement read:

“Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and Ukraine Minister of Energy German Galushchenko announced a Ukraine Clean Fuels from SMRs Pilot project that will demonstrate production of clean hydrogen and ammonia using secure and safe small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) and cutting-edge electrolysis technologies in Ukraine.”

Then they used the word “clean” again four times in the next paragraph. Which speaks volumes and definitely falls into the “doth protest too much” category.

Meanwhile, some experts in the field are warning against exporting nuclear technology to countries that might become embroiled in a war. Surely that would rule out Ukraine? And most if not all of Grossi’s beloved Africa? And what about Poland and Romania? How can we ever be sure which countries might suddenly find themselves at war? Another world war in Europe seemed unthinkable until February 24, 2022.

“An air raid siren sounded for the first time this morning in the nuclear city of Sosnovy Bor on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic,” wrote Russian activist, Oleg Bodrov, a member of the Public Council of the Southern Coast of the Gulf of Finland (PCSCGF) in a November 8 email. 

“A similar siren would have been heard by 2 million residents of the Leningrad Region,” said Bodrov. “It was a drill in case of war, which was carried out by decision of the authorities of the region.”

The term “nuclear football” is traditionally applied to the black bags containing the “nuclear button” that accompany the US president and vice president at all times. (The third is kept at the White House.) But nuclear power plants are also now proverbial nuclear footballs, being used to deliver a false sense of security but actually putting the countries on whose soil they sit in far greater danger.

Selling US reactors to Eastern European countries clearly has nothing whatever to do with climate or energy needs. “We don’t get to net zero by 2050 without nuclear power in the mix,” Kerry said at his COP press conference. Actually, yes, doing without slow, expensive and dangerous nuclear power is essential if we have any chance whatsoever of achieving net zero (2050 is already too late).

It is ever more apparent that most of our “mediocre politicians,” as Bodrov rightly characterizes them, are not interested in net zero. They are interested in using nuclear power as a nuclear weapons surrogate; in bolstering alliances with Russia’s neighbors in a dangerous move to drive Russia into ever greater political isolation; in propping up failing nuclear corporations like Westinghouse; and in answering their nuclear paymasters in Washington by wasting time and our money on foolish new nuclear plants that are irrelevant to addressing the climate peril we are already in.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.

November 14, 2022 Posted by | climate change, spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear Industry’s big lobbying push pays off at COP27, as politicians spout pro nuclear propaganda

The nuclear-military-industrial-government-complex must be paying up very big bucks for the lobbying effort at the climate conference – selling the lie that nuclear is clean and renewable.

Glowing pro nuclear recommendations from US presidential climate envoy John Kerry, Egypt’s oil minister Tarek el-Molla, French President Emmanuel Macron – it all sounds so good, doesn’t it?

IEA executive director Fatih Birol could hardly control his enthusiasm for nuclear – “nuclear is making a comeback”, with countries like the Netherlands, Poland and developing countries in Asia-Pacific finding a renewed appetite for new nuclear deals.“

And yet, and yet, if you listen carefully, they cover their backs with the recognition that nuclear is really unaffordable, – “budget constraints” – they call it

Cop 27: Nuclear energy in focus,
 https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2389700-cop-27-nuclear-energy-in-focus 10 Nov 22

Finance day at the Cop 27 UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh this week saw more focus put on developing nuclear energy, which has been touted in some quarters as the fuel for a carbon-free system and energy security.

IEA executive director Fatih Birol said on the sidelines of the summit that “nuclear is making a comeback”, with countries like the Netherlands, Poland and developing countries in Asia-Pacific finding a renewed appetite for new nuclear deals. The IEA, which had predicted an atomic comeback in November last year, was no longer alone in “trying to show the world that nuclear has its place when it comes to addressing energy security and climate change”, Birol said.

But he lamented delays in delivery and budget constraints associated with the nuclear industry. He said international financial institutions have “failed” to aid developing countries with clean energy financing, and said: “I wouldn’t give them a passing grade”.

At Cop 27 there have been some signs of progress. The US Export-Import (Exim) Bank said it would provide a $3bn loan to Romania for construction of two units at the country’s 1.4GW Cernavoda nuclear power plant. The bank handed two letters of interest to Romania’s energy minister Virgil Popescu at the summit, outlining an initial $50mn loan to support development of a second phase of the new units, and a subsequent loan of $3bn that will cover the bank’s total contribution to the project.

US presidential climate envoy John Kerry called this financing a “bolster” for energy security and said it will help “expand carbon-free energy” in Romania.

Egypt’s oil minister Tarek el-Molla said at Cop 27 that the country is on track to achieve its goal of increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix, and that nuclear energy should be included in this. Construction at the country’s first nuclear power plant at El-Dabaa, northwest of Cairo, started in July.

Earlier in the week, French President Emmanuel Macron said nuclear energy, alongside renewables, was an important pillar for countries such as South Africa to move away from coal, and said Paris would invest €1bn in helping South Africa achieve that goal.

Countries like Romania, South Africa and Egypt adopting or increasing their nuclear generating capacity are essential if the IEA is to be proven right that there will be a doubling of capacity between 2020-50, as it estimated in its global pathway to net zero emissions by 2050.

“When we look at the world, electricity demand growth comes from emerging countries,” Birol said in Egypt. “And for these emerging countries to build large scale nuclear power plants may be a bit challenging for many reasons, including financial, in the first down payment and the technology.” He stressed the need for small modular reactors to be commercially available before or around 2030, which he said would give a “very good chance” for emerging economies to meet growing power demand.

By Florence Schmit, Nader Itayim and Rithika Krishna

November 11, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Climate change, not China, is Australia’s real security danger

The definitive case against nuclear subs The Saturday Paper, Albert Palazzo -adjunct professor at UNSW Canberra. He was a former director of war studies for the Australian Army. November 12, 2022 “……………………………………………………………. Too many security officials hold to the mistaken belief that China is the most significant threat Australia faces. In fact, climate change deserves the top spot. Climate scientists, United Nations officials and military commanders themselves, including current US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, consider climate change an existential threat to survival. Any threat posed by China is much more limited. At worst, China’s challenge to the US-led world order could result in America’s withdrawal from the Western Pacific. Climate change could lead to the end of the human project and take countless other species down with us.

China represents, at most, a second-order threat, but it is China that draws the obsessive focus of much of the current generation of security thinkers. It does not make sense for Australia to invest so much in a weapon system that has no utility against the nation’s most dangerous threat, yet this is what is happening.

Advocates of nuclear-powered submarines also propose that constructing these vessels in Adelaide will help sustain a sovereign shipbuilding industry. In fact, the opposite is the likely result. Once in service these vessels will actually increase Australia’s dependence on the US and foreign contractors. This is because many of the sub’s critical components, weapons and systems will be made by foreign parties. Australian sailors might even need shadow US sailors to co-staff technical positions until Australia generates enough nuclear-savvy personnel of its own.

The government has announced it will invest between $168 billion and $183 billion in what it has called a national naval shipbuilding enterprise, with the goal of sustaining and growing a domestic shipbuilding capability and securing Australian jobs for the future. Such a capability is a noble goal, but what has been left unexplained is why it should be such a priority compared with foreign-dominated industries that are more critical to the nation’s future wellbeing.

Last summer, for example, Australian transport risked grinding to a halt as a result of the urea crisis, which led to a serious shortage of AdBlue, a vital diesel fuel additive. Without AdBlue, the nation’s fleet of long-haul trucks would have stopped moving, resulting in supermarkets running out of food, farmers not harvesting their crops and the mining industry coming to a halt. Yet there has been no talk of taxpayer-supported AdBlue production in Australia. Similarly, many medicines are imported, as are a host of important everyday items, such as baking powder and matches. Unlike shipbuilding, these industries apparently warrant no support.

If one wanted a truly sovereign defence industry, then the product that might mandate the level of support proposed for the subs is microchips. Virtually all military and civilian technology contains chips, yet Australia is happy to remain fully reliant on overseas suppliers for this most important of components. Establishing a domestic industry would require a huge subsidy, as well as additional investment in tertiary education and precursor manufacturing processes. Without these chips, however, no weapon system is truly sovereign.

So why the nuclear-powered subs, if they make so little sense? The obvious answer is to support the alliance. Instead of aiming for self-reliance, Australia has always preferred to seek the protection of a great power. But there is another reason: like a kid in a lolly shop, Australia has been given permission to buy the biggest treat on display. Nuclear-powered subs are one of America’s most closely guarded technologies. If Australia gets them, it will be a clear sign that, like Britain, we have been admitted to a very exclusive club, the inner sanctum of US security. What is missed, however, is that being in the inner sanctum generates a massive obligation – and some day that bill may fall due. https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2022/11/12/the-definitive-case-against-nuclear-subs

November 11, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, climate change | Leave a comment

A bigger-than-ever pack of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP27.

New research from CEO, Corporate Accountability and Global Witness shows
there were over 100 more fossil fuel lobbyists registered to attend the
COP27 climate talks in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, than last year in Glasgow,
UK. Data analysis of the UN’s provisional list of named attendees
identified at least 636 fossil fuel lobbyists, affiliated with some of the
world’s biggest polluting oil and gas giants such as Shell, Chevron and BP.
This is an increase of over 25% from COP26, showing a rise in the influence
of the fossil fuel industry at the climate talks that are already rife with
accusations of civil society censorship and corporate influence.

 Corporate Europe 10th Nov 2022

https://corporateeurope.org/en/2022/11/cop27-100-more-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-last-year

 There are more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists at the Cop27 climate
conference, a rise of more than 25% from last year and outnumbering any one
frontline community affected by the climate crisis.

 Guardian 10th Nov 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/10/big-rise-in-number-of-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-at-cop27-climate-summit

 Gas producers and their financial backers see Cop27 as an opportunity for
discussions about rebranding natural gas as a transition fuel rather than a
fossil fuel, experts have said. The push is coming from the host Egypt and
its gas-producing allies amid a global energy crisis compounded by
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

 Guardian 11th Nov 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/11/gas-producers-using-cop27-to-rebrand-gas-as-transitional-fuel-experts-warn

November 11, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | 1 Comment

Sea level rise as Greenland ice thaws faster than expected

Sea levels might rise much faster than thought, data from Greenland
suggest. Greenland’s largest ice sheet is thawing at a much higher rate
than expected, a new study has revealed, suggesting it will add six times
more water to the rising sea levels than previously thought. And the trend
may not be limited to Greenland, scientists worry.

 Space.com 10th Nov 2022

https://www.space.com/greenland-ice-melting-satellite-data-climate-change

November 11, 2022 Posted by | ARCTIC, climate change | Leave a comment

TODAY. The Times got it right about 5 reasons for hope on climate action, but very wrong on one

I wonder why journalists do this? Presumably, this Times writer is not ignorant, not stupid. And yet, slipped in amongst some genuine factors about clean energy sources and energy efficiency, – we come to his uncritical admiration for nuclear fusion and small nuclear reactors.

The writer does mention the “prototype nuclear fusion” planned for 2040. A fat lot of good that would be – we need action now – not promises for the nebulous far-off future!

As always – I am stunned at the corporate journalists’ complacency – in trotting out the military-industrial-corporate-government line on matters nuclear.

The connection here is that small nuclear reactors have only one genuine use – to assist and promote the nuclear weapons industry


Six reasons to be cheerful about the climate’s future. Times 9th Nov 2022

Growth in emissions is slowing, clean energy is cheaper and electric cars are denting oil, Adam
Vaughan writes.

Between warnings from the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt
that the world is on a “highway to climate hell” and “the planet has
become a world of suffering”, it can be easy to think that no absolutely
no progress has been made on curbing global warming.

It is certainly true
that the world is falling wildly short of its 1.5C climate goal target. But
it is simultaneously true that great strides are being made in the world of
science, business and technology, as the following six examples show.

(1) Global carbon emissions growth has slowed; The emissions from humanity’s
cars, factories and power stations are still going up, when scientists say
they need to have fallen 45 per cent by the end of this decade if the world
is to rein in warming to 1.5C. The silver lining is there are signs that
emissions are hitting a plateau.

(2) Renewable energy is rapidly getting
cheaper. Most authorities, including the International Energy Agency (IEA)
and leading scientists, think that wind and solar power will be the two key
technologies for decarbonising the world’s electricity supplies. Between
2010 and 2019, the costs for solar energy fell by 85 per cent. Wind energy
fell costs fell by 55 per cent. Investment is pouring into renewable energy
at a record rate, with $226 billion invested in the first half of 2022
according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which tracks clean energy
spending.

Global energy demand growth will now “almost entirely be met by
renewables, the IEA said recently. In the UK, the cost of offshore wind and
solar has fallen by 80 to 90 per cent over the past decade. “Wind and
solar are now the cheapest way to generate electricity in most of the world
and, in the UK, we get as much electricity from renewables as we do from
gas,” said Evans. In July, five new offshore wind farms due online from
2026 won a government auction to deliver power to consumers at £37.35 per
megawatt hour, a fraction of the cost of gas-fired power plants now.

(3) High gas prices have made cutting emissions cheaper. The UK’s Climate
Change Committee, an independent body which advises the government on how
to meet its carbon targets, said in June that soaring gas prices meant that
meeting net zero would flip from a 0.5 per cent cost to GDP by 2035, to a
0.5 per cent saving by 2035.

(4) Technology can be seen as a breath of
fresh air. Energy efficiency improvements have delivered huge gains, with
better appliances and LED bulbs saving the average UK household £290 a year
between 2008 and 2017. Typical household energy bills today would have been
£40 a year lower if David Cameron hadn’t cut insulation programmes in 2013.


(5) Other countries are passing climate laws: President Biden came to Cop26
in Glasgow with a promise of halving his country’s emissions by 2030, but
no domestic plan to deliver the cuts. This time John Kerry, his special
climate envoy, can boast that America recently passed legislation that
commits the country to spending £318 billion on clean energy. The package,
which largely consists of incentives for key technologies such as wind and
solar power, electric cars and hydrogen, is expected to deliver a 40 per
cent emissions cut by 2030, not far off Biden’s target.

(6) Innovative new
technology is gaining traction: Previously far-off ideas are nearing
commercial reality, and the UK is pioneering many of them. The UK is
planning to build the world’s first prototype nuclear fusion power station
by 2040. A new generation of new nuclear power stations backed by
Rolls-Royce, much smaller and hopefully easier to build than conventional
ones, are working their way through the UK’s nuclear regulatory approval
process. Giant electrolysers are being built next to an offshore wind farm
in northeast England to split water and produce a clean supply of hydrogen.
The UK government is even taking seriously the prospect of space-based
solar power, where solar panels in Earth’s orbit beam a steady stream of
electricity back to the planet’s surface.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/six-reasons-to-be-cheerful-about-the-climate-s-future-9s0wgddkq

November 9, 2022 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

At COP27 Climate Summit the International Atomic Energy Agency joins all those paid nuclear lobbyists in pushing the lie that “nuclear solves the climate problem”

At COP27, nuclear power industry vies for bigger role in decarbonizing planet

 https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/cop27-nuclear-power-industry-vies-role-decarbonizing-planet-2022-11-09/ By Richard Valdmanis,  Sarah Mcfarlane and Valerie Volcovici

HARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Nuclear energy supporters including politicians and activists sought to polish the industry’s spotty image on Wednesday, using the COP27 climate summit in Egypt to argue that atomic power offers a safe and cost-efficient way to decarbonize the world.

Rising concerns about the swift pace of climate change and tight power supplies around the globe have softened some policy makers view of nuclear energy, an industry that has struggled for years to draw investment because of worries about safety, radioactive waste, and huge costs for building a reactor.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote nuclear power, opened an exhibit at the U.N. climate gathering of global leaders in Egypt – its first time doing so in 27 years of the annual international climate negotiations. The showcase expounded the technology’s potential in the fight against climate change.

When you talk about nuclear, you’re talking about a confirmed energy producer which is not part of the problem, but rather part of the solution,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told Reuters in an interview.

“You will see that that nuclear energy has a really solid, very consistent safety record,” he added.

U.S. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry, meanwhile, pumped up the industry on Tuesday at a news conference at the summit announcing the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM)’s formal interest in providing $3 billion in financial support for a nuclear plant in Romania.

“We have a viable alternative in nuclear … This is one of the ways in which we can achieve net-zero,” he told reporters, referring to an international target of cutting net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. “We don’t get to net zero by 2050 without nuclear power in the mix.”

The United States has already earmarked billions of dollars toward keeping existing nuclear power plants open as part of a broader strategy to decarbonize the economy and is hoping to encourage new projects.

The nuclear power industry has had trouble raising money in recent years, having taken a huge public relations hit following the 2011 reactor meltdown at the Fukushima power plant in Japan. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further raised concerns about nuclear safety with sporadic fighting and power cuts at the site of the Zaporizhzhia plant.

Oleksii Riabchyn, advisor to the Ukraine government on green energy, told Reuters at the summit that he thought the country’s reactors required a missile shield to protect them.

AEA’s Grossi said the security concerns in Ukraine should not dissuade countries from building nuclear plants: “The big problem is war, is not nuclear energy or any other industrial activity.”

He added he was in the midst of “very complex” negotiations with Russia and Ukraine over a proposed no-combat zone around the plant and hoped for an agreement soon.

Hannah Fenwick, the co-lead of Nuclear for Climate which represents a network of 150 associations advocating for governments to embrace nuclear power, said her organization was lobbying policy-makers at COP27 to consider nuclear energy investments and was getting decent feedback.

“We have been saying that nuclear is a solution for climate for many years and the geopolitical climate has changed and people are now listening,” she said.

Reporting by Richard Valdmanis, Sarah McFarlane and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Katy Daigle, Frank Jack Daniel and Deepa Babington

November 9, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Barbados PM launches blistering attack on rich nations at Cop27 climate talks

Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, has criticised industrialised
nations for failing the developing world on the climate crisis, in a
blistering attack at the Cop27 UN climate talks.

She said the prosperity –
and high carbon emissions – of the rich world had been achieved at the
expense of the poor in times past, and now the poor were being forced to
pay again, as victims of climate breakdown that they did not cause.

“We were the ones whose blood, sweat and tears financed the industrial
revolution,” she said. “Are we now to face double jeopardy by having to
pay the cost as a result of those greenhouse gases from the industrial
revolution? That is fundamentally unfair.”

Guardian 7th Nov 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/07/barbados-pm-mia-mottley-launches-blistering-attack-on-rich-nations-at-cop27-climate-talks

November 9, 2022 Posted by | climate change, OCEANIA | Leave a comment

How likely is progress on climate at Cop27?

Meeting the target of limiting heating to 1.5C: At Cop26 in Glasgow, countries agreed to limit global
heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The pledges on emissions cuts
they came forward with were not enough to meet this goal, however, so they
agreed to return this year with strengthened commitments.

Few have done so
– only 24 submitted new national plans on emissions to the UN in advance of
Cop27. Fulfilling promise of $100bn a year on climate finance: Since 2009,
poor countries have been promised $100bn (£87bn) a year from 2020 to help
them cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of extreme
weather. This target has not been met, and will not be met before next
year.

Guardian 9th Nov 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/09/how-likely-is-progress-on-climate-at-cop27

November 9, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

The world is now deep into the climate crisis

 The past eight years were the eight hottest ever recorded, a new UN report
has found, indicating the world is now deep into the climate crisis. The
internationally agreed 1.5C limit for global heating is now “barely
within reach”, it said.

The report, by the UN’s World Meteorological
Organization (WMO), sets out how record high greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere are driving sea level and ice melting to new highs and
supercharging extreme weather from Pakistan to Puerto Rico.

The stark assessment was published on the opening day of the UN’s Cop27 climate
summit in Egypt and as the UN secretary-general warned that “our planet
is on course to reach tipping points that will make climate chaos
irreversible”. The WMO estimates that the global average temperature in
2022 will be about 1.15C above the pre-industrial average (1850-1900),
meaning every year since 2016 has been one of the warmest on record.

 Guardian 6th Nov 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/06/climate-crisis-past-eight-years-were-the-eight-hottest-ever-says-un

November 7, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Scientists now see the climate crisis as frightening

Why scientists are using the word scary over the climate crisis. The
former BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin has spent his career talking
to scientists. Now they’re telling him they’re scared of what they’re
seeing.

Back in the 1980s, when climate research began to really take off,
scientists were desperate to retain their credibility as they unravelled
the potentially dire consequences of the “new” phenomenon of global
warming. Most journalists tiptoed round this topic because no one wanted to
lose their reputation by scaremongering. But as the science steadily became
overwhelming researchers pushed their conclusions in the face of
policymakers.

More and more scientists are now admitting publicly that they
are scared by the recent climate extremes, such as the floods in Pakistan
and west Africa, the droughts and heatwaves in Europe and east Africa, and
the rampant ice melt at the poles.

 Guardian 7th Nov 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/07/why-scientists-are-using-the-word-scary-over-the-climate-crisis

November 7, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Revealed: US and UK fall billions short of ‘fair share’ of climate funding for developing countries.

 The US, UK, Canada and Australia have fallen billions of dollars short of
their “fair share” of climate funding for developing countries,
analysis shows. The assessment, by Carbon Brief, compares the share of
international climate finance provided by rich countries with their share
of carbon emissions to date, a measure of their responsibility for the
climate crisis.

Rich countries pledged to provide US$100bn a year by 2020,
although this target has been missed. The US share of this, based on its
past emissions, would be $40bn yet it provided only $7.6bn in 2020, the
latest year for which data is available.

Australia and Canada gave only about a third of the funding indicated by the analysis, while the UK
supplied three-quarters but still fell $1.4bn short.

The issue of climate finance will be critical to progress at the Cop27 summit, which began on
Sunday in Egypt. Developing countries did little to cause the climate
emergency, making funding from rich countries vital to create the trust
needed for combined global action.

The rich countries accept vulnerable
countries face a “life or death situation” and need far more than
$100bn but delivery of the money has been contentious and slow. The $100bn
was intended to support the cutting of carbon emissions and work to adapt
communities to the increasingly extreme weather being driven by global
heating. However, a series of reports last week have laid bare how close
the planet is to climate catastrophe, with “no credible pathway [of
carbon cuts] to 1.5C in place”, the internationally agreed temperature
limit to avoid the worst of the climate crisis.

 Guardian 7th Nov 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/nov/07/us-uk-fall-billions-short-climate-funding-cop27

November 7, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

COP27 in Egypt. Will rich nations fulfil their promises to help poor countries to fight global heating?

Tens of thousands of people will be jetting to an Egyptian holiday resort
beside the Red Sea this weekend in an effort to tackle climate change. It
sounds like a joke, but this latest UN climate summit – COP27 – is reckoned
to be the world’s best hope of progress on the climate issue.

Progress is certainly needed. The global effort to cut emissions is “woefully
inadequate” and means the world is on track for “catastrophe”, the UN
warned last week.

But the meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh is shaping up to be a
prickly and confrontational affair. The Egyptian hosts have set themselves
a tough challenge. Last year’s UN climate conference in Glasgow delivered a
host of pledges on emissions cuts, finance, net zero, forest protection and
more. Egypt says their conference will be about implementing these pledges.


What that really means is it will be all about cash, and specifically
getting wealthy nations to come good on their promises of finance to help
the developing world tackle climate change. So expect the main battle lines
to be between the north and south, between rich and poor nations.

BBC 4th Nov 2022

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63502762

November 3, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Carbon-14: Another underestimated danger from nuclear power reactors

   https://beyondnuclear.org/carbon-14-another-underestimated-danger-from-nuclear-power-reactors/ 1 Nov 22,

There are a number of radionuclides released from nuclear energy facilities. This paper highlights carbon-14 for a number of reasons:

  • Carbon-14 is radioactive and is released into air as methane and carbon dioxide.
  • Before 2010, carbon-14 releases from nuclear reactors were virtually ignored in the United States. Today only estimates are required and only under certain restrictive circumstances.
  • There is no good accounting of releases to date, so its impact on our health, our children’s health, and that of our environment remains unknown, yet environmental measurement is possible, but can be challenging under certain conditions.
  • Carbon-14 has a half-life of over 5700 years and the element carbon is a basic building block for life on earth. Therefore, “it constitutes a potential health hazard, whose additional production by anthropogenic sources of today will result in an increased radiation exposure to many future generations.”
  • Like tritium, it can collect in the tissues of the fetus at twice the concentration of the tissues in the mother, pointing to its disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable human lifecycle: the developing child.

November 2, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

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