Hotter Antarctic summers posing increasing threat to stability of world’s largest ice sheet
Hotter Antarctic summers posing increasing threat to stability of
world’s largest ice sheet, satellite observations show. The East
Antarctic ice sheet is the biggest land-based piece of frozen water on the
planet. It holds about 80 per cent of all ice in the world, stretching up
to 4,800 metres in thickness in some places, and containing enough water to
raise global sea levels by 52 metres. Humans are generally keen for it to
stay in place. But new research shows that warmer summers due to the
worsening climate crisis are seriously threatening the floating ice shelves
which fringe the ice sheet, helping hold it in place.
Independent 31st March 2022
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/antarctic-heat-ice-sheet-threat-b2048301.html
How would a nuclear winter impact food production?
How would a nuclear winter impact food production? Phys Org by Jeff Mulhollem, Pennsylvania State Univers 30 Mar 22, ” ………………………………………………………………. The research acknowledges what has been widely agreed upon for decades: In higher latitude countries—such as nuclear powers the U.S. and Russia—there would be no agricultural production and little food gathering possible in a nuclear winter after an all-out conflagration. If warring countries unleashed large portions of their nuclear arsenals, the resulting global, sun-blocking cloud would turn the ground to permafrost.
” ………………………………………………………………. The research acknowledges what has been widely agreed upon for decades: In higher latitude countries—such as nuclear powers the U.S. and Russia—there would be no agricultural production and little food gathering possible in a nuclear winter after an all-out conflagration. If warring countries unleashed large portions of their nuclear arsenals, the resulting global, sun-blocking cloud would turn the ground to permafrost.
A nuclear war would cause global blockage of the sun for several years due to injections of black carbon soot into the upper atmosphere, covering most of the planet with black clouds, the researchers said. Computer models predict that a large nuclear war, primarily between Russia and the U.S., could inject upwards of 165 million tons of soot into the upper atmosphere from more than 4,000 nuclear bomb explosions and ensuing wildfires.
Such a nuclear war could result in less than 40% of normal light levels near the equator and less than 5% normal light levels near the poles, with freezing temperatures in most temperate regions and severe precipitation reductions—just half of the worldwide average—according to the study. Post-catastrophe conditions, which could last 15 years in some wet tropical forests such as those in the Congo and Amazon basins, could cause a 90% reduction in precipitation for several years after such an event.
But tropical forests would offer an opportunity for limited food production and gathering by local inhabitants because, despite the dense soot clouds, the region would be warmer. In the study, researchers classified wild, edible plants into seven main categories, augmented by forest insects: fruits, leafy vegetables, seeds/nuts, roots, spices, sweets and protein.
In a nuclear winter, the study shows, the following foods would be available in varying degrees in tropical forests: konjac, cassava, wild oyster mushroom, safou, wild spinaches, vegetable amaranths, palms, mopane worm, dilo, tamarind, baobab, enset, acacias, yam and palm weevil.
The researchers chose 33 wild, edible plants from a list of 247 and considered their potential for cultivation in tropical forests in post-nuclear war conditions. Their selections were complicated by the fact that in the tropics there are relatively few food-bearing plants that are both drought tolerant and shade or low-light tolerant.
Post-catastrophe conditions would be unlivable for humans in many areas around the world, and agriculture may not be possible, the researchers concluded. This study shows how just a few of the many tropical wild, edible plants and insects could be used for short-term emergency food cultivation and foraging after an atmospheric soot injection from a catastrophic event such as a nuclear war……………… https://phys.org/news/2022-03-nuclear-winter-impact-food-production.html
Very low Arctic sea ice
Arctic sea ice has reached its maximum extent for the year, peaking at
14.88m square kilometres (km2) on 25 February. It is the 10th smallest
winter peak in the 44-year satellite record. The provisional data from the
National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) shows that this year’s Arctic
maximum extent was recorded on 25 February – marking the third earliest
maximum in the satellite record. While the past six months have been fairly
uneventful in the Arctic in general, the Earth’s other pole has seen a
record-breaking melt season.
For the first time since the satellite record
began, the Antarctic extent fell below 2m km2 this year. Unusually, the
Arctic winter peak and the Antarctic summer minimum occurred on exactly the
same day.
Carbon Brief 22nd March 2022
Water supply problems for planned £20billion twin reactor on the Suffolk coast
Sizewell C developer EDF is being asked by government whether a temporary
desalination plant could last for the lifetime of the new nuclear power
plant if it is built. The public examination of the plans for the
£20billion twin reactor on the Suffolk coast was told a permanent water
supply for the proposed development had not yet been secured. However, a
temporary desalination plant would run during the construction of the
project.
Kwasi Kwarteng, secretary of state at the Department of Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy, is now asking EDF what progress has been
made on securing a permanent water supply solution. But he also says: “The
applicant should confirm if it would be possible for the proposed temporary
desalination plant to permanently meet the full water supply demand for the
lifetime of the proposed development should no alternative water supply
solution be identified.”
East Anglian Daily Times 20th March 2022
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/business/water-supply-sizewellc-questioned-by-government-8768432
”Save the Severn Estuary” fights to stop EDF dumping Hinkley Point’s nuclear mud into this Marine Protected Area.

oinPlans by energy firm EDF to dump hundreds of thousands of tons of sediment
from the Hinkley Point nuclear power station in the Severn Estuary are
facing a backlash. A campaign group called Save the Severn Estuary,
supported by a Welsh pop star, has launched a crowdfunding site to finance
a legal challenge.
The estuary is a designated Marine Protected Area and
campaigners, including Cian Ciaran of rock band Super Furry Animals, fear
the dumped waste, including chemical and radioactive materials, will spread
on the strong tidal currents all around the Estuary, depositing on its mud
banks and beaches. EDF, with its UK base in Gloucester, is planning to
start its second phase of sediment dumping at Portishead, near Bristol.
Punchline Gloucester 8th March 2022
Plans by energy firm EDF to dump hundreds of thousands of tons of sediment
from the Hinkley Point nuclear power station in the Severn Estuary are
facing a backlash. A campaign group called Save the Severn Estuary,
supported by a Welsh pop star, has launched a crowdfunding site to finance
a legal challenge.
The estuary is a designated Marine Protected Area and
campaigners, including Cian Ciaran of rock band Super Furry Animals, fear
the dumped waste, including chemical and radioactive materials, will spread
on the strong tidal currents all around the Estuary, depositing on its mud
banks and beaches. EDF, with its UK base in Gloucester, is planning to
start its second phase of sediment dumping at Portishead, near Bristol.
Punchline Gloucester 8th March 2022
Increased radiation levels around Chernobyl probably due to military’s disturbance of soil around exclusion zone
Chernobyl radiation levels increase 20-fold after heavy fighting around the facility, Live Science, By Ben Turner 25 Feb 22,
Gamma radiation has increased to 20 times its usual levels in the area. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant and its surrounding area are showing increased radiation levels after heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops in the region, Ukrainian officials said Friday (Feb. 25).
Online data from the Chernobyl exclusion zone’s automated radiation-monitoring system shows that gamma radiation has increased twenty times above usual levels at multiple observation points, which officials from the Ukrainian nuclear agency attributed to radioactive dust thrown up by the movement of heavy military equipment in the area.
The defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been under occupation by attacking Russian soldiers since Thursday (Feb. 24) after Russian president Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the early hours of the morning. Workers at the facility, stationed there to monitor and maintain radiation levels within safe bounds, have been taken hostage by Russian troops, according to Anna Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military expert.
“The station staff is being held hostage. This threatens the security of not only Ukraine but also a significant part of Europe,” Kovalenko wrote on Facebook.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a news briefing on Thursday (Feb. 24) that the Biden administration was “outraged” by reports of Russian troops holding Chernobyl plant staff against their will and demanded their release. She warned that the action “could upend the routine civil service efforts required to maintain and protect the nuclear waste facilities.”
As one of the most radioactive places in the world, large parts of the Chernobyl exclusion zone have been closed off since the disastrous meltdown of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. In that year, two enormous explosions inside the plant’s reactor flipped its 2,000-ton (1,800 metric tons) lid like a coin, blanketing the surrounding 1,000-square-mile (2,600 square kilometers) with radioactive dust and reactor chunks. Following evacuation and the dousing of the nuclear fire — which cost many firefighters their lives — the reactor was sealed off and the area deemed uninhabitable by humans for the next 24,000 years.
Heavy fighting around the plant on Thursday (Feb. 24) led to concerns that stray munitions could accidentally pierce the exploded reactor’s two layers of protection — consisting of a new, outer safe-confinement structure and an inner concrete sarcophagus — and release the deadly radioactive fallout trapped inside.
In a contradictory statement, Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said that radiation around the plant was within normal levels and that Russian forces were working with the facilities’ staff to ensure the area’s safety……..
The site, which is just 60 miles (97 km) north of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, lies on a direct invasion route between Kyiv and the Russian forces’ northern entry point to Ukraine at the Belarusian border.
Claire Corkhill, a professor of nuclear material degradation at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., wrote on Twitter that the gamma radiation around the Chernoybl plant “looks to have increased by around 20 times compared with a few days ago.” However, caution should be taken “not to over-interpret at this stage,” she said.
“This appears to be based on a single data point,” Corkhill added in a separate tweet. “What is intriguing is that the level of radiation has increased mostly around the main routes in and out of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, as well as the reactor. This would tend to suggest that increased movement of people or vehicles may have disturbed radioactive dust.”
The highly radioactive fuel inside the Chernobyl reactor is buried deep beneath the defunct plant and is unlikely to be released unless the reactor is directly targeted, Corkhill said……. https://www.livescience.com/chernobyl-radiation-levels-rise-after-fighting
Abandoned mines and old Yunkom nuclear test site in Donbas region of Ukraine pose ”singular threat” of radiation contamination
Abandoned mines in eastern Ukraine are filling up with water at
“alarming” rates, according to new research that has triggered fears of
a radioactive disaster. Satellite images show high levels of swelling in
the ground in the former coal mining region of Donbas, much of which is now
controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
The images have raised concerns
about water contaminated with heavy metals or radioactive material spilling
into rivers and the wider environment. Of particular concern is the high
swelling at the Yunkom mine, which was the site of a small Soviet
underground nuclear test in 1979.
The Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe, the intergovernmental organisation, warned in 2017
that the mine posed a “singular threat”. “Any present destabilisation
of the mine via flooding could release up to 500 cubic metres of
radiation-contaminated mine waters into the ground-water table,” it said.
Telegraph 24th Feb 2022
New USA Federal Report Warns of Accelerating Impacts From Sea Level Rise.
New Federal Report Warns of Accelerating Impacts From Sea Level Rise. The
global average sea level is rising 2 inches per decade and speeding up, but
in some regions, the rate is more than twice that fast. Many residents of
coastal Southern Mexico don’t know that the sea around them is likely to
rise another 15 to 20 inches in just the next 30 years.
Those projections
were confirmed Tuesday by an updated report from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and NASA using new satellite data and climate
models along with improved evaluations of historic data from tide gauges
dating back more than 100 years.
“What we’re reporting today is
historic,” said NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad, who told Americans that,
on average, sea level at their coasts will climb 10 to 12 inches in the
next 30 years and 2 feet by the end of the century.
Inside Climate News 16th Feb 2022
The case for Saving the Severn Estuary from the dumping of radioactive wastes
A grave threat to the oceans and the wellbeing of our communities could be
averted with your support for the Save The Severn Estuary Judicial Review
Case Fund – how? Just by quickly copying, pasting and sharing the
information below amongst your networks so that as many people are aware of
the impending danger as possible and have the opportunity to put their
opposition into practice.
Energy giants EDF dumped contaminated mud in the
Severn near Cardiff in 2018; now, rebuffed in Wales, they were given a
licence to dump at Portishead. The legal action is to stop them resuming
dumping in April. This should be stage-1 in the battle to end EDF’s licence
for mass slaughter of fish sucked in the river of seawater for cooling
purposes.
Save The Severn is a science-led independent coalition who have
assembled a case and engaged leading environmental lawyers to challenge
MMO’s licence. We obtained Court permission to proceed in December and have
a hearing scheduled for 8-10 March in the High Court. EDF are supporting
MMO while we have some assistance from the Conservation and Fisheries
authority.
The Severn Estuary has the highest conservation status, recently
becoming a Marine Protection Area where damaging operations are ended. The
Welsh Marine Plan accepts this but not England’s Marine Management
Organisation (MMO. Some of the Hinkley mud dumped at Cardiff and Portishead
smothered the seabed ecology, while most dispersed around the Estuary.
Increased radioactivity was detected up the coast and not only near Cardiff
following the 2018 dumping. EDF are choosing not to protect marine life for
their own profits, and they need to be stopped. We have three weeks to save
the Severn Estuary, with the Court Case hearing on 8 March 2022. Save The
Severn fundraising page here:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-the-severn-estuary/
Save the Severn (accessed) 18th Feb 2022
UN to review Japan’s plan to release Fukushima water into Pacific

UN to review Japan’s plan to release Fukushima water into Pacific
Taskforce will ‘listen to local people’s concerns’, as government plans to release more than 1m tonnes, Guardian, Justin McCurry in TokyoFri 18 Feb 2022
A UN nuclear taskforce has promised to prioritise safety as it launches a review of controversial plans by Japan to release more than 1m tonnes of contaminated water into the ocean from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Japan’s government announced last April that it had decided to release the water over several decades into the Pacific Ocean, despite strong opposition from local fishers and neighbouring China and South Korea……………
The Tokyo Electric Power company (Tepco) says its treatment technology can remove all radioactive materials from water except tritium, which is harmless in small amounts. It said the gradual release of the water, diluted with seawater, would not pose a threat to human health or the marine environment. In 2020, however, Greenpeace said the water still contained contaminants beside tritium and would have to be treated again.
The wastewater is being stored in about 1,000 tanks that officials say need to be removed so the plant can be decommissioned, an operation expected to take several decades. The tanks are expected to reach their capacity of 1.37m tonnes this summer.
The liquid includes water used to cool the damaged reactors, as well as rain and groundwater that seeps into the area.
Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist for Greenpeace East Asia, said he did not believe the IAEA would fully investigate and address safety and environmental concerns in its report.
Noting that the agency had welcomed the discharge option when it was announced last year, Burnie said: “The IAEA is not an independent agency in nuclear affairs – under statute its mission is to promote nuclear power. It has sought to justify radioactive marine pollution as having no impact and safe. But the IAEA is incapable of protecting the environment, human health or human rights from radiation risks – that’s not its job.
“The IAEA taskforce should be investigating the root cause of the contaminated water crisis and exploring the option of long-term storage and the best available processing technology as an alternative to the deliberate contamination of the Pacific.”
The IAEA team, which includes experts from South Korea and China, will report its findings at the end of April.
South Korea, which has yet to lift an import ban on Fukushima seafood introduced in 2013, has said that discharging the water would pose a “grave threat” to the marine environment. Pacific peoples have challenged Japan to prove the water is safe by dumping it in Tokyo.
Local fishers also oppose the water’s release, saying it would undo a decade’s work to rebuild their industry and reassure nervous consumers their seafood is safe………https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/18/un-to-review-japans-plan-to-release-fukushima-water-into-pacific
Opposition to Holtec dumping nuclear waste into Cape Cod Bay
Preventing nuclear wastewater dumping, MV Times, By Eunki Seonwoo, February 16, 2022 The Aquinnah select board was in favor of Mara Duncan’s request for a non-binding ballot question. Duncan’s ballot question was for Holtec International, owner of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, decommissioned in 2019, not to discharge nuclear waste into Cape Cod Bay.
Federal leaders from Massachusetts — Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, as well as U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton and Bill Keating — have expressed opposition to Holtec dumping nuclear wastewater into the bay in a letter they wrote in January.
When evaluating the proper method of disposal, Holtec must consider the public’s concerns surrounding and perception of the release of irradiated material into Cape Cod, especially when viable alternatives are available,” the letter reads.
Duncan told the board a number of groups, such as Physicians for Social Responsibility and the fishing industry, are against the dumping. Holtec has other disposal methods. “It is their cheapest option, obviously. It is very easy to open up just open the [lid] and let it spill,” Duncan said. …………….. https://www.mvtimes.com/2022/02/16/preventing-nuclear-wastewater-dumping/
Legal challenge to license for EDF to dump radioactive mud in the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary
Campaigners are calling on the government to prohibit energy giant EDF
from dumping contaminated mud in the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary.
They say mud from the new Hinkley power station development is ‘a risk to
human health, threatens protected marine habitats and damages a treasure of
Britain’s natural world’.
EDF says all waste from the site is controlled
and regulated to ‘ensure the environment and public are protected’.
But Save the Severn, organised by a collaborative group of scientists and
environmental activists, is urging people to get behind its campaign to
halt further waste – including chemical and radioactive contaminants –
getting dumped in an international marine protected area near Portishead.
Campaigners will also challenge the legality of a license granted by the
Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to EDF for dumping waste in March,
when they will present a legal challenge against the company at a judicial
review.
Weston Mercury 15th Feb 2022
https://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/campaign-group-wants-to-save-the-severn-8692070
Severn Estuary – internationally significant fish nursery – threatened by Hinkley radioactive mud
Four Weeks to Save-the-Severn estuary!
Energy giant, EDF, has been dumping millions of tonnes of mud and sediment contaminated by the decades of discharges from the Hinkley nuclear power stations. Dumping is convenient and cheaper than using the sediments on their construction site. They are dredging these sediments to build a giant seawater extraction system for cooling water, which will be short-lived as its slaughter of millions of fish a year has to end. This Estuary is an internationally important fish nursery and Marine Protection Area.
Despite fierce opposition, dumping of Hinkley mud and sediment went ahead off Cardiff in 2018 and it’s too late to change what happened. Since that time, increased radioactivity has been detected in coastal mud. It could have been different. Now they have a licence to dump off Portishead, Bristol – but we have Court permission to challenge that licence and stop EDF resuming dumping in April.
Save The Severn, an independent, science-led campaign group, have won a day in court to challenge further dumping. Without the effort and expense of delaying EDF through legal means, the bosses of the company would be able to simply do as they please. Can you help to ensure the legal case is heard?
The court case is heard on Tue 8 March 2022. We have four weeks to save the Severn Estuary and many donations from £1 upwards will reach our target. It’s easy to do, please visit the Save The Severn fundraising page here:
The radioactive ‘Cumbrian mud patch’ would be shaken up by a coal mine at theSellafield site

A tsunami of radioactive wastes now largely inert (apart from tidal processes) would be resuspended in the water column – returning to the shores and to the rest of the world. It takes only 4 years for Sellafield’s seaborne waste to reach the Arctic. The coal mine would cause subsidence and resulting resuspension of nuclear wastes.
| *Sellafield** A great article by Paul Brown below – there is however a big elephant in the room regarding this story. The elephant in the room is the Cumbrian Mud Patch – the radioactive silts on the Irish Sea bed resulting from decades of reprocessing. The coal mine due to be decided upon soon by Government (after Planning Inspector Stephen Normington makes his recommendation) would churn up this nuclear crapola on the seabed. A tsunami of radioactive wastes now largely inert (apart from tidal processes) would be resuspended in the water column – returning to the shores and to the rest of the world. It takes only 4 years for Sellafield’s seaborne waste to reach the Arctic. The coal mine would cause subsidence and resulting resuspension of nuclear wastes. The coal mine would cause earthquakes. Both these outcomes are not “likely” they are certain. The coal mine CEO is also employed by government as advisor on the plans for a deep (and not so deep) nuclear dump for heat generating nuclear wastes – you couldn’t make it up. Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole 12th Feb 2022https://keepcumbriancoalinthehole.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/decades-of-sellafields-reprocessing-waste-on-irish-sea-bed-could-be-churned-up-by-coal-mine-subsidence/ |
Environmental Working Group (EWG) urges Biden to reject ‘outrageous’ call for more nuclear power subsidies in clean energy agenda

“Nuclear power is truly an example of privatizing profits and socializing risks.”
EWG urges Biden to reject electric utility executives’ call for more nuclear power subsidies in clean energy agenda. https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2022/02/ewg-urges-biden-reject-electric-utility-executives-call-more WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is meeting today with top executives from several investor-owned electric utilities who want Congress to approve vital clean energy tax credits as part of Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. But they are also seeking new federal subsidies for existing nuclear power plants that the Environmental Working Group is urging the president to oppose.“Nuclear power is truly an example of privatizing profits and socializing risks.”
The Build Back Better plan is a broad infrastructure proposal and includes some important tax credits that the utilities support. They would help expand utility-scale solar projects and boost sales of electric vehicles, crucial steps in fighting the climate emergency.
But the call for wasting more federal tax dollars propping up uneconomic and dangerous nuclear power plants too is an outrageous request, noted EWG.
“Nuclear power is a relic of the electricity sector, and a dangerous and extremely expensive one that has cost taxpayers billions of dollars,” said EWG President Ken Cook. “The federal government must stop throwing away money propping up the nuclear industry and instead make critical investments to expand safe, clean renewable energy.”
“President Biden and congressional leaders can and should unravel the federal government’s long history of pouring scarce resources into this failed industry and its legacy of radioactive waste and the enormous threat it poses to the public,” said Cook.
Nuclear power has never been financially viable and never will be, so new subsidies make no sense. It has the distinction of a permanent negative learning curve – costs always rise and never decline – despite 60 years of taxpayer-funded research and development, construction risks dumped onto ratepayers to lure private financing, a series of bailouts worth tens of billions to the industry, and billions wasted on upgrades to keep aging power plants running that could have been much more wisely spent replacing them.
“It is time to systematically replace nuclear power with modern clean energy technology and to stop burdening ratepayers and taxpayers with this financial albatross,” said Cook. “Nuclear power is truly an example of privatizing profits and socializing risks.”
In its 2021“None of the Above” series calling out dirty and dangerous power sources that should quickly be replaced by clean, safe and renewable energy, such as solar and wind, EWG likened nuclear power to “nothing more than a public works project with no prospects for the future that has failed financially while generating huge amounts of radioactive waste, with no viable method of disposal, that will linger for thousands of years.”
The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action. Visit www.ewg.org for more information.
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