nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Both UK and European Commission want nuclear energy excluded from clean energy investments -”otherwise clean energy finances would not be credible”.

Nuclear energy has been excluded from the UK government’s Green Financing Framework, while several EU Member States have written to the European Commission to oppose nuclear’s inclusion in the bloc’s green taxonomy.

Nuclear energy faces hurdles to be included in clean energy investments, Word Nuclear News, 02 July 2021,

The UK’s Green Financing Framework describes how the government plans to finance expenditures through the issuance of green gilts and the retail Green Savings Bonds that it says will be critical in tackling climate change and other environmental challenges. The framework, which was produced and published yesterday by the Treasury, sets out the basis for identification, selection, verification and reporting of the green projects that are eligible for such financing.

Under ‘exclusions’, the document says: “Recognising that many sustainable investors have exclusionary criteria in place around nuclear energy, the UK government will not finance any nuclear energy-related expenditures under the Framework.”…………

The letter – signed by the environment or energy ministers of Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain – points to “shortcomings” in the JRC report, which was published in April.

The ministers said the JRC’s conclusion was “a misconception” and based on “two grave methodological shortcomings”.

The JRC “neglects to address the residual nuclear risk, assessing only the normal operation of nuclear power plants” and “disregards the life-cycle approach”, according to the ministers.

“We recognise the sovereign right of Member States to decide for or against nuclear power as part of their national energy systems. However, we are concerned that including nuclear power in the Taxonomy would permanently damage its integrity, credibility and therefore its usefulness,” they wrote………….. https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK-excludes-nuclear-from-green-taxonomy

July 8, 2021 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

The all-American story of the twin horrors climate change and nuclear weapons

An All-American Horror Story

SCHEERPOST, BY MODERATOR July 5, 2021, An All-American Horror StoryThree-quarters of a century of nuclear follies — and that’s just for starters. By Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch. Yes, once upon a time I regularly absorbed science fiction and imagined futures of wonder, but mainly of horror.  What else could you think, if you read H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds under the covers by flashlight while your parents thought you were asleep?  Of course, that novel was a futuristic fantasy, involving as it did Martians arriving in London to take out humanity. Sixty-odd years after secretly reading that book and wondering about the future that would someday be mine, I’m living, it seems, in that very future, however Martian-less it might be.  Still, just in case you hadn’t noticed, our present moment could easily be imagined as straight out of a science-fiction novel that, even at my age, I’d prefer not to read by flashlight in the dark of night. 

I mean, I was barely one when Hiroshima was obliterated by a single atomic bomb. In the splintering of a moment and the mushroom cloud that followed, a genuinely apocalyptic power that had once rested only in the hands of the gods (and perhaps science-fiction authors) became an everyday part of our all-too-human world.  From that day on, it was possible to imagine that we — not the Martians or the gods — could end it all. It became possible to imagine that we ourselves were the apocalypse. And give us credit. If we haven’t actually done so yet, neither have we done a bad job when it comes to preparing the way for just such a conclusion to human history. 

Let’s put this in perspective. In the pandemic year 2020, 76 years after two American atomic bombs left the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in ashes, the world’s nuclear powers actually increased spending on nuclear weapons by $1.4 billion more than they had put out the previous year.  And that increase was only a small percentage of the ongoing investment of those nine — yes, nine — countries in their growing nuclear arsenals. Worse yet, if you happen to be an American, more than half of the total 2020 “investment” in weaponry appropriate for world-ending scenarios, $37.4 billion to be exact, was plunked down by our own country. (A staggering $13.3 billion was given to weapons maker Northrop Grumman alone to begin the development of a new intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, the one thing our thoroughly troubled world obviously needs.) In all, those nine nuclear powers spent an estimated $137,000 a minute in 2020 to “improve” their arsenals — the ones that, if ever used, could end history as we know it. 

In the Dust of the History of Death

Imagine for a second if all that money had instead been devoted to creating and disseminating vaccines for most of the world’s population, which has yet to receive such shots and so be rescued from the ravages of Covid-19, itself a death-dealing, sci-fi-style nightmare of the first order. But how could I even think such a thing when, in the decades since this country dropped that first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, it’s learned its atomic lessons all too well?  Otherwise, why would its leaders now be planning to devote at least $1.7 trillion over the next three decades to “modernizing” what’s already the most modern nuclear arsenal on the planet?…………

Consider it an irony of the first order, then, that U.S. leaders have spent years focused on trying to keep the Iranians from making a single nuclear weapon, but not for a day, not for an hour, not for a second on keeping this country from producing ever more of them and the delivery systems that would distribute them anywhere on this planet.  In that light, just consider, for instance, that, in 2021, the U.S. is preparing to invest more than $100 billion in producing a totally new ICBM, whose total cost over its “lifespan” (though perhaps the correct word would be “deathspan”) is already projected at $264 billion — and that’s before the cost overruns even begin. All of this for a future that… well, your guess is as good as mine.  

Or consider that, only recently, the American and Russian heads of state, the two countries with by far the biggest nuclear arsenals, met in Geneva, Switzerland, and talked for hours, especially about cyberwar, while spending little appreciable time considering how to rein in their most devastating weaponry and head the planet toward a denuclearized future.

And keep in mind that all of this is happening on a planet where it’s now commonplace scientific knowledge that even a nuclear war between two regional powers, India and Pakistan, could throw so many particulates into the atmosphere as to create a nuclear winter on this planet, one likely to starve to death billions of us.  In other words, just one regional nuclear conflict could leave the chaos and horror of the Covid-19 pandemic in the unimpressive dust of the history of death………….

While it’s seldom thought of that way, climate change should really be reimagined as the equivalent of a slow-motion nuclear holocaust……….

there was no mushroom cloud, but rather a “cloud” of greenhouse gases forming over endless years beyond human vision.  Still, let’s face it, on this planet of ours, not in 2031 or 2051 or 2101 but right at this very moment, we’re beginning to experience the equivalent of a slow-motion nuclear war.

In a sense, we’re already living through a modern slo-mo version of Hiroshima, no matter where we are or where we’ve traveled.  At this moment, with an increasingly fierce megadrought gripping the West and Southwest, the likes of which hasn’t been experienced in at least 1,200 years, among the top candidates for an American Hiroshima would be Phoenix (118 degrees), Las Vegas (114 degrees), the aptly named Death Valley (128 degrees), Palm Springs (123 degrees), and Salt Lake City (107), all record temperatures for this season.  A recent report suggests that temperatures in famed Yellowstone National Park are now as high or higher than at any time in the past 20,000 years (and possibly in the last 800,000 years). And temperatures in Oregon and Washington are already soaring in record fashion with more to come, even as the fire season across the West arrives earlier and more fiercely each year.  As I write this, for instance, California’s Big Sur region is ablaze in a striking fashion, among growing numbers of western fires.  Under the circumstances, ironically enough, one of the only reasons some temperature records might not be set is that sun-blocking smoke from those fires might suppress the heat somewhat.  ………

In this desperately elongated version of nuclear war, everything being experienced in this country (and in a similar fashion around the world, from Australia’s brutally historic wildfires to a recent heat wave in the Persian Gulf, where temperatures topped 125 degrees) will only grow ever more extreme, even if, by some miracle, those nuclear weapons are kept under wraps.  After all, according to a new NASA study, the planet has been trapping far more heat than imagined in this century so far. In addition, a recently revealed draft of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report suggests that our over-heating future will only grow worse in ways that hadn’t previously been imagined. Tipping points may be reached — from the melting of polar ice sheets and Arctic permafrost (releasing vast amounts of methane into the atmosphere) to the possible transformation of much of the Amazon rain forest into savannah — that could affect the lives of our children and grandchildren disastrously for decades to come. And that would be the case even if greenhouse-gas releases are brought under control relatively quickly.  

Once upon a time, who could have imagined that humanity would inherit the kinds of apocalyptic powers previously left to the gods or that, when we finally noticed them, we would prove eerily unable to respond? Even if another nuclear weapon is never used, we stand capable, in slow-motion fashion, of making significant parts of our world uninhabitable — or, for that matter, if we were to act soon, keeping it at least reasonably habitable into the distant future.   

Imagine, just as a modest start, a planet on which every dollar earmarked for nuclear weapons would be invested in a green set of solutions to a world growing by the year ever warmer, ever redder, ever less inhabitable.  https://scheerpost.com/2021/07/05/an-all-american-horror-story/

July 6, 2021 Posted by | climate change, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Several European States urge that nuclear energy be excluded from the EU’s green finance taxonomy.

EU anti-nuclear states urge excluding nuclear from green taxonomy, Nuclear Engineering, 5 July 2021  A group of five EU member states led by Germany have sent a letter to the European Commission (EC) asking for nuclear energy to be kept out of the EU’s green finance taxonomy.

“Many savers and investors would lose faith in financial products marketed as ‘sustainable’ if they had to fear that by buying these products they would be financing activities in the area of nuclear power.”

the JRC report also “disregards the life-cycle approach” to environmental risk assessment when it comes to geological storage of nuclear waste. ”

The letter, which was signed by the environment or energy ministers from Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, and Spain, notes “shortcomings” in a report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC).

Although the letter is undated, Euractiv said it understands it was sent to the EC on 30 June. Signatories include: Svenja Schulze (Germany), Leonore Gewessler (Austria), Dan Jørgensen and Simon Kollerup (Denmark), Carole Dieschbourg (Luxembourg), Teresa Ribera Rodríguez and Nadia Calviño Santamaría (Spain).

“Nuclear power is incompatible with the Taxonomy Regulation’s ‘do no significant harm’ principle,” the ministers wrote, urging the Commission to keep nuclear out of the EU’s green finance rules. “We are concerned that including nuclear power in the Taxonomy would permanently damage its integrity, credibility and therefore its usefulness,” they warned.

The letter says the EC’s assessment of the safety of nuclear power installations is flawed. “We were disconcerted to learn that in the opinion of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), there were no indications that the high-risk technology that is nuclear power is more damaging to human health and to the environment than other forms of energy generation, such as wind and solar energy.” The ministers add: “Nuclear power, however, is a high-risk technology – wind energy is not. This essential difference must be taken into account.” They say the JRC report deliberately ignored the possibility of a serious incident.

The Ministers argue: “Many savers and investors would lose faith in financial products marketed as ‘sustainable’ if they had to fear that by buying these products they would be financing activities in the area of nuclear power.” They allege that the JRC report also “disregards the life-cycle approach” to environmental risk assessment when it comes to geological storage of nuclear waste.,,,,,,,,,,,

The letter says the EC’s assessment of the safety of nuclear power installations is flawed. “We were disconcerted to learn that in the opinion of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), there were no indications that the high-risk technology that is nuclear power is more damaging to human health and to the environment than other forms of energy generation, such as wind and solar energy.” The ministers add: “Nuclear power, however, is a high-risk technology – wind energy is not. This essential difference must be taken into account.” They say the JRC report deliberately ignored the possibility of a serious incident.

The Ministers argue: “Many savers and investors would lose faith in financial products marketed as ‘sustainable’ if they had to fear that by buying these products they would be financing activities in the area of nuclear power.” They allege that the JRC report also “disregards the life-cycle approach” to environmental risk assessment when it comes to geological storage of nuclear waste.https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newseu-anti-nuclear-states-urge-excluding-nuclear-from-green-taxonomy-8869307

July 6, 2021 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Global heating: “unprecedented” heatwave temperatures will become routine.

 

With the global climate warming, such “unprecedented” heatwave temperatures will start to become routine. Some parts of the world may simply become too hot for human habitation. Not only will heatwaves become more common, but hotter, drier conditions will lead to more wildfires.

Times 4th July 2021, Canada experienced its highest recorded temperature last week as the mercury surged to 49.6C in British Columbia on Tuesday. This is not onlythe highest temperature for Canada, but the hottest ever recorded above the 45th parallel north, roughly the latitude of Bordeaux and Bologna. In the US, the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho also broke records.

The Pacific northwest is roasting. Hundreds have died. In Pakistan, the city of Jacobabad can reach 52C. As temperatures hit nearly 50C there last week, ts scorching streets were deserted as people tried to shelter at home, most without air-conditioning. The hospitals were flooded with heatstroke victims.

With the global climate warming, such “unprecedented” heatwave temperatures will start to become routine. Some parts of the world may simply become too hot for human habitation. Not only will heatwaves become more common, but hotter, drier conditions will lead to more wildfires.

In January last year, before Covid-19 dominated the news, Australia was aflame with massive areas of bushfire. Hurricanes and typhoons will also become more intense. Tropical diseases will spread. We’ll find it harder to feed
ourselves. And the problems won’t be shared evenly. Some regions will receive less rainfall and lose crops to drought, others will receive more and lose crops to flooding. There will be a global reconfiguration of where food can reliably be grown, and where people can safely live.

The climate refugees of today are only the first trickle of what could become a mass migration of people into parts of the world still offering habitable conditions – a movement of humanity unlike anything seen before in history. It is unlikely that this large-scale population disruption, combined with dwindling resources such as fresh water, will come without conflict.

The next wars could well be climate wars. It was human ingenuity and resourcefulness that got us into this mess, and I am hopeful that our same capabilities will find the way out again too.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-to-live-in-a-climate-emergency-t6rfz7ckv

July 5, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

In extreme heat wave, forest fire threatens Sakatchewan uranium mine – another example of global heating hitting nuclear activities.

Forest fire burns uncontained near Cigar Lake uranium mine in northern Sask., CBC, 2 July 21, All non-essential personnel have been evacuated due to the fire, Cameco said in a statement.

The Cameco Corporation has reported a forest fire in the vicinity of its Cigar Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan.

In a statement Thursday morning, the company said it has evacuated about 230 workers from the mine and roughly 80 people remain on site to keep the facility in a safe state. 

Cameco said, should the wildfire threat continue to grow, there is a plan to keep the workers there safe and a number of precautions have been implemented. It said it’s working closely with the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency on site. 

Cameco said the fire is complicated by extremely warm, dry weather resulting from the heat dome currently over Western Canada. 

Production at the Cigar Lake mine has been temporarily suspended. …….

…… As of early Thursday afternoon, the provincial government’s website listed 19 active fires across Saskatchewan. Five are not contained, including the Briggs fire near the Cigar Lake mine. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/forest-fire-cigar-lake-mine-1.6087459

July 3, 2021 Posted by | Canada, climate change, incidents | Leave a comment

5 European nations warn the European Commission that nuclear energy must be excluded from the EU’s green finance taxonomy.

A group of five EU member states led by Germany have sent a letter to the European Commission asking for nuclear energy to be kept out of the EU’s green finance taxonomy. The letter – signed by the environment or energy ministers of Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, and Spain – points to “shortcomings” in a report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre published on 2 April, which concluded that nuclear energy is safe.

“Nuclear power is incompatible with the Taxonomy Regulation’s ‘do no significant harm’ principle,” the ministers wrote, urging the Commission to keep nuclear out of the EU’s green finance rules. “We are concerned that including nuclear power in the Taxonomy would permanently damage its integrity, credibility and therefore its usefulness,” they warned.

 Euractiv 2nd July 2021

Germany leads call to keep nuclear out of EU green finance taxonomy

July 3, 2021 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Canada is a warning: more and more of the world will soon be too hot for humans

Canada is a warning: more and more of the world will soon be too hot for humans  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/30/canada-temperatures-limits-human-climate-emergency-earth# Simon Lewis How did a small town in Canada become one of the hottest places on Earth?

 Without an immediate global effort to combat the climate emergency, the Earth’s uninhabitable areas will keep growing

The climate crisis means that summer is a time of increasingly dangerous heat. This week in the Pacific north-west, temperature records are not just being broken, they are being obliterated. Temperatures reached a shocking 47.9C in British Columbia, Canada. Amid temperatures more typically found in the Sahara desert, dozens have died of heat stress, with “roads buckling and power cables melting”.

Another heatwave earlier in June saw five Middle East countries top 50°C. The extreme heat reached Pakistan, where 20 children in one class were reported to have fallen unconscious and needed hospital treatment for heat stress. Thankfully, they all survived.

Additional warming from greenhouse gas emissions means that such extreme heatwaves are more likely and scientists can now calculate the increase in their probability. For example, the 2019 European heatwave that killed 2,500 people was five times more likely than it would have been without global warming.

In most places, extreme heatwaves outside the usual range for a region will cause problems, from disrupting the economy to widespread mortality, particularly among the young and old. Yet in places in the Middle East and Asia something truly terrifying is emerging: the creation of unliveable heat.

While humans can survive temperatures of well over 50C when humidity is low, when both temperatures and humidity are high, neither sweating nor soaking ourselves can cool us. What matters is the “wet-bulb” temperature – given by a thermometer covered in a wet cloth – which shows the temperature at which evaporative cooling from sweat or water occurs. Humans cannot survive prolonged exposure to a wet-bulb temperature beyond 35C because there is no way to cool our bodies. Not even in the shade, and not even with unlimited water.

In most places, extreme heatwaves outside the usual range for a region will cause problems, from disrupting the economy to widespread mortality, particularly among the young and old. Yet in places in the Middle East and Asia something truly terrifying is emerging: the creation of unliveable heat.

While humans can survive temperatures of well over 50C when humidity is low, when both temperatures and humidity are high, neither sweating nor soaking ourselves can cool us. What matters is the “wet-bulb” temperature – given by a thermometer covered in a wet cloth – which shows the temperature at which evaporative cooling from sweat or water occurs. Humans cannot survive prolonged exposure to a wet-bulb temperature beyond 35C because there is no way to cool our bodies. Not even in the shade, and not even with unlimited water.

Second, prepare for the inevitable heatwaves of the future. Emergency public health planning is the initial priority: getting essential information to people and moving vulnerable people into air-conditioned locations. Heatwave forecasts should include wet-bulb temperatures so that people can learn to understand the dangers.

Plans should account for the fact that heatwaves intensify structural inequalities. Poorer neighbourhoods typically have fewer green spaces and so heat up more, while outdoor workers, often poorly paid, are especially vulnerable. The rich also buy up cooling equipment at high prices once a heatwave is underway and have many more options to flee, underscoring the importance of public health planning.

Beyond crisis management, governments need to invest in making countries function in the new climate we are creating, including the extremes. In climate policy terms this is known as “adaptation”.

Of paramount importance is energy supplies being resilient to heatwaves, as people will be relying on electricity for cooling from air-conditioning units, fans and freezers, which are all life-savers in a heatwave. Similarly, internet communications and data centres need to be future-proofed, as these are essential services that can struggle in the heat.

Beyond this, new regulations are needed to allow buildings to keep cool and for transport systems, from roads to trains, to be able to operate under much higher temperature extremes.

Many of these changes can meet other challenges. Retro-fitting homes to be energy-efficient is also the perfect opportunity to modify them to also keep us cool. For example, installing electric heat pumps to warm houses in the winter means that in the summer they can also be switched to run in reverse to work as a cooling system. Cities can be kept cooler with green roofs and more green spaces, which also make them better places to live.

The final task is future-proofing agriculture and the wider ecosystems we all ultimately rely on. Heat can cause havoc with crop production. In Bangladesh, just two days of hot air in April this year destroyed 68,000 hectares of rice, affecting over 300,000 farmers with losses of US$39m (£28m). New heat-tolerant varieties of crops need developing and deploying. The alternative is higher food costs and food price spikes with the increased poverty and civil unrest that typically accompanies them.

Given these immense challenges how are governments doing on climate adaptation? Very poorly. The Paris agreement on climate change obliged countries to submit their adaptation plans, but only 13 countries have done so. One of those is the UK, but government plans were judged by its own independent advisors to have “failed to keep pace with the worsening reality of climate risk”.

The Glasgow Cop26 climate talks will need to put the spotlight on adaptation planning and funding for vulnerable countries. To curtail the impacts of ever more ferocious heatwaves, reducing emissions will need to go hand in hand with adapting to the swelteringly hot world we are creating. Stabilising the climate by 2050 is well within the timeframe of one working lifetime, as is adapting to allow us all to prosper in this new world. There is no time to lose.

  • Simon Lewis is professor of global change science at University College London and University of Leeds

July 1, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Hundreds dead as record-breaking heat wave hits Canada and United States

Key Points

Record highs of 4.5 degrees Centrigrade are attributed to climate change.

233 deaths have been reported beteen Friday and Monday in British Columbia

Schools and Covid-19 vaccination centres have been forced to close

Hundreds dead as record-breaking heat wave hits Canada and United States,  ABC, Scores of deaths in Canada’s Vancouver area and large wildfires are likely linked to a gruelling heat wave, authorities said Tuesday, as the country recorded its highest-ever temperature amid scorching conditions that extended to the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.

At least 134 people have died suddenly since Friday in the Vancouver area, according to figures released by the region’s city police department and the Royal Canadian Mounted police.

The Vancouver Police Department alone said it had responded to more than 65 sudden deaths since Friday, with the vast majority “related to the heat.”

The chief coroner for the province of British Columbia, which includes Vancouver, said that it had “experienced a significant increase in deaths reported where it is suspected that extreme heat has been contributory.”

The service said in a statement it recorded 233 deaths in the wider British Columbia area between Friday and Monday, compared with 130 on average.

The deaths came as Canada set a new all-time high temperature record for a third day in a row Tuesday, reaching 49.5 degrees Celsius in Lytton, British Columbia, about 250 kilometres east of Vancouver, the country’s weather service, Environment Canada, reported.

Vancouver has never experienced heat like this, and sadly dozens of people are dying because of it,” police sergeant Steve Addison said.

Climate change is causing record-setting temperatures to become more frequent.

Globally, the decade to 2019 was the hottest recorded, and the five hottest years have all occurred within the last five years.

The scorching heat stretching from the US state of Oregon to Canada’s Arctic territories has been blamed on a high-pressure ridge trapping warm air in the region.

Temperatures in the US Pacific Northwest cities of Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington reached levels not seen since record-keeping began in the 1940s.

Homes are being evacuated due to wildfires…………… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-30/heatwave-kills-dozens-in-canada-us/100255480

July 1, 2021 Posted by | climate change, NORTH AMERICA | 2 Comments

Rising sea levels might mean the end for many nuclear power stations.

Perspective: Will Rising Seas Be Nuclear’s Achilles’ Heel? https://www.energyintel.com/pages/eig_article.aspx?DocId=1109371&NLID=104 27 June21,

Nuclear energy’s unique selling proposition (USP) of lower-carbon electricity production sits in the context of a much larger picture — that coastal nuclear will be one of the first, and most significant, casualties to ramping climate impact, argues Paul Dorfman, of the UCL Energy Institute, University College London. Because of this, Dorfman, who authored a report on the issue released this week, posits that nuclear, far from helping with our shared climate problem, may well add to it.

As the world heats, sea levels are rising at an accelerated rate — now estimated at 3 to 4 millimeters a year — as ice stored at the poles and in glaciers melts. A recent NASA study based on 25 years of satellite data found that the Arctic is melting so rapidly that it’s now 20% thinner than a decade ago, weakening a major source of the planet’s cooling.

The polar ice caps are melting six times faster than they were in the 1990s, with the high melt rate corresponding to the worst-case scenario for global heating set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This means that the planet will see a very significant rise in sea level, resulting in ramping annual coastal and inland flooding.

The melting Arctic ice cap is currently the biggest single contributor to sea-level rise, and already imperils coasts and coastal populations. In other words, a significant part of the Greenland Ice Sheet — which lost a record amount of ice in 2019 — is on the brink of a tipping point, after which accelerated melting would become inevitable.

And the Antarctic (where more than half of Earth’s freshwater resources are held, representing by far the largest potential source for global sea-level rise under future warming conditions) is also threatened — with the likelihood that its long-term sea-level contribution will dramatically exceed that of other sources. Put simply, current fundamental scientific knowledge of climate sensitivity and polar ice melt concludes that sea-level rise is significantly faster than previously believed and likely to exceed up to 2.5 meters well within the 21st century.

And the Antarctic (where more than half of Earth’s freshwater resources are held, representing by far the largest potential source for global sea-level rise under future warming conditions) is also threatened — with the likelihood that its long-term sea-level contribution will dramatically exceed that of other sources. Put simply, current fundamental scientific knowledge of climate sensitivity and polar ice melt concludes that sea-level rise is significantly faster than previously believed and likely to exceed up to 2.5 meters well within the 21st century.

Unfortunately for coastal infrastructure, the effect of rising mean sea levels will be felt most profoundly during extreme storm conditions as strong winds and low atmospheric pressure bring about a temporary and localized increase in sea level known as a “storm surge.”

Recent published peer-reviewed scientific data point to much quicker and greater sea-level rise, faster, harder, more destructive storms, storm surges, and inland flooding. Yet the overwhelming majority of installed nuclear capacity began operation well before global heating was considered in design or construction.

Given ramping predictions for sea-level rise and climatic disturbance, nuclear will prove an important risk. This is because 41% of all nuclear power plants worldwide operate on the sea coast, making them vulnerable to increasing sea-level rise, storm intensity and storm surge-induced flooding. Inland nuclear installations may fare no better, as they face increasingly severe wildfire, with episodic flooding alternating with low river flow and raised water temperatures — the latter significantly impacting reactor cooling capacity and, hence, viability.

Since climate change will impact nuclear plant earlier and harder than industry, government or regulatory bodies may expect, necessary mitigation efforts imply significantly increased expense for nuclear construction, operation and decommissioning. Spent fuel management facilities will also be increasingly vulnerable to unanticipated climate-driven environmental events, involving significant risk to onsite high-, medium- and low-level nuclear waste stockpiles.

A key associated problem is that 516 million people worldwide live within a 50 mile (80 kilometer) radius of at least one operating nuclear power plant, and 20 million live within a 10 mile (16 km) radius — and so face health and safety risks from climate change-induced radiation contamination release events. Since at least 100 nuclear power stations are just a few meters above sea level and will be increasingly threatened by serious flooding caused by accelerating sea-level rise and more frequent storm surge, there’s no question that nuclear stations are, quite literally, on the front line of climate change risk — and not in a good way.

A key associated problem is that 516 million people worldwide live within a 50 mile (80 kilometer) radius of at least one operating nuclear power plant, and 20 million live within a 10 mile (16 km) radius — and so face health and safety risks from climate change-induced radiation contamination release events. Since at least 100 nuclear power stations are just a few meters above sea level and will be increasingly threatened by serious flooding caused by accelerating sea-level rise and more frequent storm surge, there’s no question that nuclear stations are, quite literally, on the front line of climate change risk — and not in a good way.

For example, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission concludes that the vast majority of US nuclear sites have already experienced flooding hazard beyond their design basis, and a recent US Army War College report states that nuclear power facilities are at “high risk” of temporary or permanent closure due to climate threats — with 60% of US nuclear capacity vulnerable to major risks including sea-level rise, severe storms, and cooling water shortages.

Recent climate impact data suggests the need for a substantive reassessment of nuclear’s role in net zero. In other words, nuclear’s lower-carbon electricity USP sits alongside the probability that coastal nuclear plants will be one of the first, and most significant, casualties of rising seas; with inland nuclear plants increasingly subject to intermittent flooding, loss of reactor cooling, and wildfire risk.

This unfortunate reality means that evolutionary modeled predictions of climate change impact on nuclear infrastructure must be accounted for, including the potential for rapidly changing extreme events, abrupt interactions and problematic feedbacks. Further comprehensive nuclear industry and regulatory risk assessments based on “all case” scenarios must be published and regularly updated as fundamental scientific climate impact evidence evolves. Such an approach must include costings for any necessary mitigation measures and a range of contingency plans for the swift onset of climate-driven severe weather.

June 28, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | 1 Comment

Increasing carbon emissions from uranium mining

 Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen 27th June 2021, The energy source of nuclear power is a mineral from the earth’s crust: uranium. An intricate system of industrial processes is required to convert the potential energy in this mineral into useful energy, and to manage the inevitable radioactive material wastes. During operation each nuclear power plant generates each year an amount of human-made radioactivty equivalent to about 1200 exploded Hiroshima atomic bombs. Without the process chain nuclear power would be impossible, and without nuclear power these processes would not exist.

The CO2 emission of these processes together form the specific CO2 emission inextricably coupled to nuclear power. The thermodynamic quality of the available uranium resources declines with time, because the highest quality resources are always mined first, for these offer the highest return on investments for the mining companies…


Declining thermodynamic quality of the resources results in an exponential rise of the specific energy and the coupled CO2 emission required to extract 1 kg of uranium from rock. At a given point the required extraction energy will equal the amount of useful energy that can be produced from 1 kg of uranium. Within the lifetime of new nuclear build uranium resources cannot be considered energy resources anymore, if the world uranium consumption remains at the present level. Meanwhile the coupled specific CO2 emission will grow as large as fossil-fuelled power.

 https://www.stormsmith.nl/reports.html

June 28, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, Uranium | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is in the front line of climate change – and NOT in a good way

In the last year, climate models have run hot. As knowledge of enhanced climate sensitivity and polar ice melt-rate evolves, it has become clear that sea-level rise is significantly faster than previously thought, resulting in more frequent and destructive storm, storm surge, severe precipitation, and flooding.

 With rare extreme events today becoming the norm in the future, existing risk mitigation measures become increasingly obsolete. The corollary to this analysis is that present and planned UK coastal nuclear installations will be at significant risk.

In other words, nuclear’s lower-carbon electricity USP sits in the context of the much larger picture – that UK coastal nuclear will be one of the first, and most significant, casualties to ramping climate impact. Put simply, UK nuclear is quite literally on the front-line of climate change – and not in a good way.

 Nuclear Consultation Group 24th June 2021

Click to access Climate-Change-UK-Nuclear-June-2021.pdf

June 26, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Earth is now trapping an ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat, NASA says

Climate and Environment New research shows that the amount of heat the planet traps has roughly doubled since 2005, contributing to more rapidly warming oceans, air and land The International Space Station orbits over the Atlantic Ocean southwest of South Africa. (NASA) By  Tik Root June 16, 2021 at 3:00 p.m. CDT 893 The amount […]

Earth is now trapping an ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat, NASA says — limitless life

June 19, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Climate and weather hazards to France’s nuclear reactors in summer 2021

 Weather conditions can have a significant impact on the production of
French nuclear power plants: over the past six years, heat waves and
droughts have caused nearly 360 shutdowns or reductions in production on
the French nuclear fleet, causing up to 6.2GW unavailability.

Since itscreation in 2019, Callendar has acquired expertise in the short-term
forecasting of these downtimes and the modeling of the long-term effects of
climate change on nuclear production. For the first time, we are proposing
an assessment of the risk of unavailability due to medium-term
meteorological causes for the summer of 2021.

 Callendar (accessed) 15th June 2021

http://callendar.climint.com/fr/disponibilite-nucleaire-canicule-secheresse-ete-2021/

June 17, 2021 Posted by | climate change, France | Leave a comment

We don’t need nuclear power to tackle climate change .

(I had great difficulty trying to get this excellent article. Below are just a few extracts from it – C.M. )

I’ve always kept an open mind about nuclear power, but after four decades working on this issue, I’m still waiting for someone to prove me wrong. Jonathon Porritt, Greenpeace, 1 June 2021

I’ve been ‘anti-nuclear’ since 1974, and my basic position hasn’t changed much during that time. Not because I decided back then that nuclear power was an inherently ‘wicked’ technology that must be avoided at all costs. I’ve simply concluded that it’s the wrong technology at the wrong time for sorting out all the challenges that we face. I can genuinely claim that I’ve been waiting more than 45 years for someone to prove me wrong.

……..  the alternatives to nuclear power have performed better than almost anyone expected.

……. there is no longer any doubt about the viability of the renewables alternative. In 2020, Stanford University issued a collection of 56 peer-reviewed journal articles, from 18 independent research groups, supporting the idea that all the energy required for electricity, transport, heating and cooling, and all industrial purposes, can be supplied reliably with 100% (or near 100%) renewable energy. The solutions involve transitioning ASAP to 100% renewable wind – water – solar (WWS), energy efficiency and energy storage

The transition is already happening. To date, 11 countries have reached or exceeded 100% renewable electricity. And a further 12 countries are intent on reaching that threshold by 2030. In the UK, the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology says we can reach 100% renewable electricity by 2032. Last year, we crossed the 40% threshold.“The only impediment to change is political. At the current 15% to 20% growth rates for solar and wind, fossil fuels will be pushed out of the electricity sector by the mid-2030s, and out of total energy supply by 2050. Poor countries will be greatest beneficiaries. They have the largest ratio of solar and wind potential to energy demand, and stand to unlock huge domestic benefits.”

Nuclear plays no part in any of these projections, whether we’re talking big reactors or small reactors, fission or fusion. The simple truth is this: we should see nuclear as another 20th century technology, with an ever-diminishing role through into the 21st century.

The work of Andy Stirling and Phil Johnston at Sussex University has shown the strength of these connections, demonstrating how the UK’s military industrial base would become unaffordable in the absence of a nuclear energy programme.

June 10, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Nuclear energy – The solution to climate change?

Nuclear energy – The solution to climate change?

Science Direct, NikolausMuellnerNikolausArnoldKlausGuflerWolfgangKrompWolfgangRennebergWolfgangLiebertI Institute of Safety- and Risk Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria

Received 24 August 2020, Revised 7 April 2021, Accepted 4 May 2021, Available online 16 May 2021. 

Abstract

With increased awareness of climate change in recent years nuclear energy has received renewed attention. Positions that attribute nuclear energy an important role in climate change mitigation emerge.

We estimate an upper bound of the CO2 saving potential of various nuclear energy growth scenarios, starting from our projection of nuclear generating capacity based on current national energy plans to scenarios that introduce nuclear energy as substantial instrument for climate protection. We then look at needed uranium resources.

The most important result of the present work is that the contribution of nuclear power to mitigate climate change is, and will be, very limited. At present nuclear power avoids annually 2–3% of total global GHG emissions. Looking at announced plans for new nuclear builds and lifetime extensions this value would decrease even further until 2040. Furthermore, a substantial expansion of nuclear power will not be possible because of technical obstacles and limited resources. Limited uranium-235 supply inhibits substantial expansion scenarios with the current nuclear technology. New nuclear technologies, making use of uranium-238, will not be available in time. Even if such expansion scenarios were possible, their climate change mitigation potential would not be sufficient as single action.

1. Introduction……………

1.2. CO2 emissions from nuclear power plants

The direct CO2 emissions from nuclear power plants during operation are low. However, looking at indirect emissions as well and considering the whole life cycle of nuclear power (uranium mining, milling, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, construction and dismantling of the nuclear power plant, spent fuel processing and storage), nuclear power is certainly not emission-free…………..

6. Conclusions and policy implications

Anthropogenic climate change requires a rapid shift towards a CO2 neutral economy, if the global average temperature increase is to be kept below 2∘C, or, preferably, below 1.5∘C compared to pre-industrial levels. By 2050 the economy should be CO2 neutral, therefore climate change mitigation measures are needed in the near term to medium term future. Such a shift would strongly influence the energy (and electricity) supply system, which is currently based to a larger part on fossil fuels.

The most important result of the present work is that the contribution of nuclear power to mitigate climate change is, and will be, very limited.   According to current planning nuclear power would avoid at most4 annually 2–3% of total global GHG emissions in the years 2020–2040. Moreover, nuclear power cannot be expanded to be the main source of future electricity generation. Expansion scenarios require an increase in uranium mining, which is met by two limitations: uranium production could hardly keep up during the expansion phase, and the overall amount of available uranium is limited. Such scenarios would leave new nuclear power plants without fuel during their planned life time. Fast breeder reactors promise a solution to the problem of limited uranium-235 resources, but will not be available for commercial deployment before 2040–2050. And given the considerable research effort and research times up to now, it is even doubtful if a commercially deployable fast breeder reactor will be available then. But even assuming such a scenario were feasile, even % of projected global GHG emissions from other sectors in 2040 and would still require drastic actions to reduce all emissions to zero. However, current nuclear reactors, no matter how safe they may be, always carry a residual risk for severe, catastrophic accidents (Sehgal, 2012) and large releases of radioactive materials (Seibert et al., 2012). New reactors attempt to reduce the residual risk, but even with the future technologies currently envisaged a nuclear catastrophe cannot be fully excluded. The main contribution to current nuclear electricity generation stems from reactors built 1970–1990, which were designed 1960–1980. New reactor technologies promise that the risk for severe accidents is reduced by a factor of ten. However, according to current plans, the major part of future nuclear generating capacity stems from lifetime extensions of existing plants and only a limited part will come from new builds (in 2040 ~30% new builds, ~70% current operating reactors life time extended and/or in long term operation according to ISR-projection).

Given the modest contribution of nuclear power to climate change mitigation another option is feasible, which is the phase-out of nuclear power. This finding is in agreement with substantial evidence of a comprehensive global energy study of the International Institute of Applied System Analysis (IIASA, 2012). In this study a normative approach was adopted, a scenario that by 2050 society is on a climate pathway to fulfilling the 2∘C target while still providing access to modern energy services to all humans. Starting from the goal of a sustainable, CO2 neutral economy, IIASA (2012) calculates back and investigates which energy pathways lead to such a future. One of the important results of the analysis shows that none of the evaluated boundary conditions make it necessary to use nuclear power. Even high energy demand assumptions without substantial change in the transport system allow other energy sources to substitute nuclear energy.

The current contribution of nuclear energy to climate change mitigation is small and, according to current planning, will stay at this level in the near-to mid term future. Nuclear expansion strategies are not feasible due to resource limitations. New nuclear technologies without those limitations will not be ready in the critical time frame 2020 to 2050 due to the long research, licensing, planning and construction times of the nuclear industry. Current plans would keep the nuclear capacity roughly at its current level mainly by life time extensions of existing reactors. But given the limited contribution to climate mitigation, complete phase out is a feasible option as well. Society must decide, given the drawbacks of the use of nuclear energy (risk of catastrophic accidents, proliferation, radioactive waste), whether the nuclear option should be pursued, or whether other climate change mitigation technologies should substitute the nuclear contribution……..https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421521002330?via%3Dihub

June 10, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »