FT 7th Nov 2017,British ministers are preparing to revive the UK’s faltering effort to
create a new generation of small-scale nuclear power plants in spite of an
official analysis that cast doubt on the economic case for the technology.
Talks have intensified in recent weeks between government officials and
companies including Rolls-Royce, the UK engineering group, over potential
public funding to support development of so-called small modular reactors
(SMRs).
Greg Clark, business secretary, is keen to put the UK at the
forefront of technology seen as a more affordable alternative to
large-scale nuclear reactors such as those under construction at the £20bn
Hinkley Point C plant in south-west England.
Development of SMRs is regarded as crucial to the future of the nuclear industry as it struggles
to remain competitive against the rapidly falling cost of renewable wind
and solar power. The UK faces competition from the US, Canada and China in
its effort to establish a leading position in the technology.
Support for SMRs is expected to be part of a wider commitment to nuclear engineering in
a new industrial strategy to be unveiled by the government this month.
However, the enthusiasm has been complicated by a technology assessment, commissioned by the business department and carried out by EY, the accounting firm, which reached a negative verdict on the cost-effectiveness of SMRs. The findings are expected to be published in the coming weeks and
will confront the government with awkward questions about why public money
should be used to help commercialise the unproven technology. https://www.ft.com/content/bddfda80-c314-11e7-b2bb-322b2cb39656
DOE Plan to Prop Up Coal and Nuclear Gets Little Support, NRDC, November 07, 2017Miles Farmer
The clock is ticking for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the agency in charge of national electricity markets, to make a decision on a rushed proposal from the Trump-run Department of Energy (DOE) to massively subsidize underperforming coal and nuclear power plants, costing consumers billions. Today marks the close of the very short public comment period on the bailout, which has generated an overwhelmingly negative reaction.
Groups across the energy industry are responding to one another’s initial comments submitted two weeks ago in response to DOE’s proposal to FERC, which plans to make its decision by Dec. 11 (our initial comments are discussed here). NRDC is joining with Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and others in these “reply” comments (a link will be posted here after they are filed). As our comments emphasize, while a handful of interested parties linked to the coal and nuclear industries supported the proposal, none successfully countered its fundamental flaw: it orders customers to pay coal and nuclear plants extra money simply because they can keep 90 days’ worth of energy supply onsite (a requirement designed precisely because it benefits coal and nuclear), notbecause they are necessary to provide reliable or “resilient” grid service.
DOE’s proposal is a distraction
As my colleague Jennifer Chen laid out in a separate set of initial comments from NRDC (discussed here), a real process to investigate resilience would entail defining the term in a way that distinguishes it from reliability already accounted for by market rules, establishing metrics to measure it, and allowing resources to compete to deliver it in a technology-neutral manner.
The data indicates that resilience primarily depends on power delivery infrastructure like substations and power lines, so bailing out coal and nuclear units is the wrong approach. ……..
The best next steps? Just say no
Ultimately, DOE’s proposal is nothing more than an illegal plan to advance an expensive and ineffective solution to solve a non-existent crisis. Consumers, grid operators, and major sectors of the energy industry have overwhelmingly rejected the DOE’s blatant attempt to prop up uncompetitive coal and nuclear power. The proposed rule’s few supporters have failed to provide any evidence that FERC should move forward with this ill-considered scheme.
* France drops 2025 target for reducing share of nuclear
* Hulot says new target to be drawn up in coming year
* Aim remains to reduce share of nuclear to 50 pct
* Greenpeace says Hulot giving in to nuclear lobby (Adds Hulot comments, background)
By Geert De Clercq and Michel Rose PARIS, Nov 7 (Reuters) – President Emmanuel Macron’s government on Tuesday postponed a long-held target to reduce the share of nuclear energy in France’s electricity generation.
Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot said it was not realistic to cut nuclear energy’s share in the power mix to 50 percent by 2025 from 75 percent now and said doing so in a hurry would increase France’s CO2 emissions, endanger the security of power supply and put jobs at risk.
He did not set a new deadline, but said that over the next year the government would draw up a “pluri-annual energy programme” to reach the 50 percent target “as soon as possible”.
“It will be difficult to maintain the target of reducing the share of nuclear to 50 percent by 2025,” Hulot told reporters following a cabinet meeting.
Hulot said that while the timing is delayed for now, in a year’s time the government would have a clear programme based on rational criteria to decide which reactors to close and when.
In 2015, the previous government of Socialist Francois Hollande had voted an energy transition law which set a target of reducing the share of nuclear in the power mix to 50 percent by 2025 from the current 75 percent. But Hollande had taken no concrete steps towards closing any reactors.
Centrist Macron, elected in May, had promised to respect this target and Hulot, France’s best-known environmentalist, said in July France might have to close up to 17 of its 58 reactors by 2025 to achieve the target.
Widely seen as the guardian of the Macron government’s green credentials, the popular Hulot – a former television documentary maker turned environmentalist – had in recent months repeatedly said France needed to close several nuclear plants.
But he received little public support from Macron, a strong supporter of nuclear, or Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, a former employee of state-owned reactor builder Areva.
Two weeks before the government was formed in mid-May, a source close to Macron told Reuters he was considering delaying the target for reducing France’s reliance on nuclear.
State-owned utility EDF, the world’s biggest operator of nuclear plants, has long said it made no sense to shut down functioning reactors and instead wanted to extend the lifespan of its nuclear fleet from 40 to at least 50 years.
EDF shares were up 1.2 percent after Hulot’s announcement, outperforming a flat French bourse.
EDF stock had plunged as much as 7 percent on the day Hulot was appointed environment minister on the expectation that he would push for less nuclear and more renewables. nL8N1IJ43S]
Hulot, who had made a failed bid to become the green candidate in the 2012 presidential election, had been courted by both Hollande and his conservative predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy to become environment minister.
Hulot told French daily Le Monde last month that he had given himself a year to see whether he could reform French energy and agricultural policies.
Greenpeace said Hulot had already shown weakness in fighting fossil fuel and was now jeopardising France’s energy transition.
“He should be a bulwark against the oil and nuclear lobbies,” the NGO said in a statement. (Reporting by Geert De Clercq and Michel Rose; Editing by Ingrid Melander and Edmund Blair)
Veterans in Congress speak out against invading North Korea, Jerick Sablan, jpsablan@guampdn.com Pacific Daily News. ChT Nov. 6, 2017 Veterans in Congress are concerned about the possibility of a ground invasion of North Korea, which they said could kill millions of people. They have asked President Trump to tone down his rhetoric.
“It could kill millions of South Koreans and put troops and civilians in Guam and Japan at risk,” they stated Monday.
California Rep. Ted Lieu, D-California, along with 15 fellow veterans from the House and Senate, issued the bipartisan joint statement.
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Del. Gregorio Sablan is one of the congressmen who joined in the statement.
The statement comes after a letter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a report from the Congressional Research Service on the military action against North Korea. …….
Veterans in Congress are concerned about the possibility of a ground invasion of North Korea, which they said could kill millions of people. They have asked President Trump to tone down his rhetoric.
“It could kill millions of South Koreans and put troops and civilians in Guam and Japan at risk,” they stated Monday.
California Rep. Ted Lieu, D-California, along with 15 fellow veterans from the House and Senate, issued the bipartisan joint statement.
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Del. Gregorio Sablan is one of the congressmen who joined in the statement.
Donald Trump accused of obstructing satellite research into climate change https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/05/donald-trump-accused-blocking-satellite-climate-change-research Republican-controlled Congress ordered destruction of vital sea-ice probe, Guardian, Robin McKie, 6 Nov 17, President Trump has been accused of deliberately obstructing research on global warming after it emerged that a critically important technique for investigating sea-ice cover at the poles faces being blocked.
The row has erupted after a key polar satellite broke down a few days ago, leaving the US with only three ageing ones, each operating long past their shelf lives, to measure the Arctic’s dwindling ice cap. Scientists say there is no chance a new one can now be launched until 2023 or later. None of the current satellites will still be in operation then.
The crisis has been worsened because the US Congress this year insisted that a backup sea-ice probe had to be dismantled because it did not want to provide funds to keep it in storage. Congress is currently under the control of Republicans, who are antagonistic to climate science and the study of global warming.
“This is like throwing away the medical records of a sick patient,” said David Gallaher of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. “Our world is ailing and we have apparently decided to undermine, quite deliberately, the effectiveness of the records on which its recovery might be based. It is criminal.”
The threat to the US sea-ice monitoring programme – which supplies data to scientists around the world – will trigger further accusations at this week’s international climate talks in Bonn that the Trump administration is trying to block studies of global warming for ideological reasons.
Earth’s sea ice has shrunk dramatically – particularly in the Arctic – in recent years as rising emissions of greenhouse gases have warmed the planet. Satellites have been vital in assessing this loss, thanks mainly to America’s Defence Meteorological Satellite Programme (DMSP), which has overseen the construction of eight F-series satellites that use microwaves sensors to monitor sea-ice coverage. These probes, which have lifespans of three to five years, have shown that millions of square kilometres of sea ice have disappeared from the Arctic over the past 20 years, allowing less solar energy to be reflected back into space – and so further increasing global temperatures – while also disrupting Inuit life and wildlife in the region.
At present three ageing satellites – DMSP F16, F17 and F18 – remain in operation, though they are all beginning to drift out of their orbits over the poles. The latest satellite in the series, F19, began to suffer sensor malfunctions last year and finally broke down a few weeks ago. It should have been replaced with the F20 probe, which had already been built and was being kept in storage by the US Air Force. However it had to be destroyed, on the orders of the US Congress, on the grounds that its storage was too costly.
Many scientists say this decision was made for purely ideological reasons. They also warn that many other projects for monitoring climate change, including several satellite missions, face similar threats from the Trump administration and Congress.
Such losses have serious consequences, say researchers. “Sea-ice data provided by satellites is essential for initiating climate models and validating them,” said Andrew Fleming of the British Antarctic Survey. “We will be very much the poorer without that information.”
We’ll interdict any nuclear deal – DA Fin 24 Nov 05 2017 Liesl Peyper Cape Town – The Democratic Alliance (DA) says it is ready to interdict any attempt by Energy Minister David Mahlobo to force through a nuclear deal.
The party’s energy spokesperson Gordon Mackay said in a statement the DA will use “every legal and Parliamentary tool at its disposal” to ensure that South Africans won’t be “shackled” to the massive debt that will flow from an unaffordable and unnecessary nuclear deal, estimated at around R1trn.
City Press reported on Sunday that officials at the Energy Department have been forced to work overtime, including weekends, to complete the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) by November 14 – four weeks ahead of schedule.
The IRP, which will determine the energy mix the country needs, was expected to be finalised in February next year, but will now be finished in the next two weeks………
Last week, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba told City Press that nuclear energy was neither affordable for the sluggish economy, nor immediately necessary.
The stance was repeated by National Treasury deputy director general Michael Sachs who told Parliament on Friday that neither South Africa’s budget nor the country can afford nuclear.
Sachs said National Treasury in 2015 already said 9.6GW of nuclear energy would have a negative effect on the total debt burden and the balance of payments.
“It would not be prudent to proceed with that prior to the stabilisation of national debt and that stabilisation has been pushed out. All I can say over medium term we haven’t allocated resources. Our view is that it’s not affordable at present. I can’t give categorical commitments, but we don’t foresee it being affordable over the current medium term expenditure framework.”
Mahlobo, however, who has been in his new job for just more than two weeks after three years as state security minister, has contradicted Gigaba and National Treasury about South Africa’s pursuit of a nuclear build programme……….
Mahlobo was appointed Energy Minister early in October during a surprise Cabinet reshuffle, which some commentators took as a sign that SA wanted to fast-track its nuclear ambitions.
Mahlobo rushes nuclear deal, News 24, Setumo Stone, 5 Nov 17, As Energy Minister David Mahlobo forces his nuclear power plans into action, officials at his department are working weekends to finalise the country’s reviewed integrated energy resource plan – four months ahead of schedule.
The plan to determine the energy mix the country needs was expected to be finalised in February next year, but will now be finished in the next two weeks.
“We would have been talking February, but now we are talking November 14,” said an insider, vouching for the level of hard work the minister was putting into his job.
This would enable Mahlobo to make projections of the country’s future energy demands based on “empirical evidence”.
Last week, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba told City Press that nuclear energy was neither affordable for the sluggish economy, nor immediately necessary. Mahlobo, who has been in his new job for just more than two weeks after three years as state security minister, is now on a collision course with Gigaba and Treasury.
The nuclear energy plan is expected to cost South Africa about R1 trillion, an amount that economists and politicians from across the spectrum – including the ANC – say the country’s struggling economy cannot afford. ……..
The countries with the leading technology are France, Russia, the US, South Korea and China. Companies from these countries as well as their governments have been aggressively wooing South Africa’s decision-makers and working to sway public opinion their way. But many believe that President Jacob Zuma’s cosy relationship with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, as well as Mahlobo’s own close ties to the Kremlin and its security establishment, has already tilted the scales in that country’s favour.
When Mahlobo’s predecessor Mmamoloko Kubayi was moved out of the department in the Cabinet reshuffle last month, there was widespread speculation that it was because she was not moving with haste on the nuclear programme……….
While Eskom waits for its R1.5 billion from Trillian and McKinsey and company, thousands of people who installed solar geysers under the solar geyser home incentive scheme remain out of pocket.
The real number is unknown at this stage and the cessation of the programme – believed to be since January 2016 – speaks directly to Eskom’s appeal to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa to approve its request for a 19.9% price hike.
Eskom has become a victim of its own successful campaign during the rolling blackouts to use as little of its product as possible.
Now, it is producing surplus electricity – 5 600MW at peak in January – and is hell-bent on making as many people as possible pay for electricity to use its product.
It had 162 104 customers connected to the grid between January and October, and it appears the organisation is more focused on turning bucks than in green targets.
Meanwhile, the Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme has said: “South Africa has a high level of renewable energy potential and in line with the national commitment to transition to a low carbon economy, 17 800MW of the 2030 target (according to the IRP 2010) of newly generated power to be developed are expected to be from renewable energy sources, with 5 000MW to be operational by 2019 and a further 2 000MW (i.e. combined 7 000MW) operational by 2020.”
The question is why does Eskom and the department of energy (DE) not make surplus electricity available at a cheaper rate, for economic development.
The answer lies perhaps in an article on The Conversation by University of Johannesburg professor of physics Hartmut Winkler.
Winkler has postulated that two powerful lobbies against renewable energy were at work. “One is pro-coal, the other pro-nuclear. This has made the success of the renewable energy projects a target for attacks from interested parties in both,” said Winkler.
“Disrupting the renewable energy sector would ensure that the coal sector remains dominant. And that, over time, it is gradually displaced by nuclear,” he wrote.
“The lobby groups attached to coal and nuclear appear to have had powerful allies on the state utility’s board. There is mounting evidence that they have been furthering the interests of a group linked to the Gupta family,” Winkler claimed.
All the dithering, corruption and cover-ups have consequences for ordinary folk. Meanwhile, Eskom said the organisation has established the National Solar Water Heating programme on behalf of the DE.
For more than a week, Saturday Citizen has attempted to obtain answers from the DE, but its spokesperson, Johannes Mokobane, kept referring us to the website. – amandaw@citizen.co.za
Commentary on nuclear energy sparks debate over risks, safety Straits Times, NOV 5, 2017, S’pore is not ready, say experts, following ST Opinion contributor’s article advocating it Sue-Ann Tan
Singapore is not ready to tap nuclear energy – this is the stance of the Government and experts in the field whom The Sunday Times spoke to.
Their responses come after a debate in the past two weeks between writers to The Straits Times Forum page and ST Opinion contributor Lim Soon Heng…….
Forum writers argued that nuclear reactors carried the risk of accidents, which would have vast consequences for a small country like Singapore. Letter writer Teoh Woi Khon suggested Singapore should adopt a “wait-and-see approach” instead of rushing into harnessing nuclear energy……
Introduction: Nuclear Energy in Asia, by Mel Gurtov
The Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011 has raised serious questions about nuclear power.
In our work since Fukushima, we have tried to answer two questions: What is the current status of nuclear energy in Asia? Does nuclear power have a future in East Asia? By answering those questions, we hope to contribute to the global debate about nuclear energy. To be sure, questions of such magnitude can rarely be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Decisions on energy are made at the national level, on the basis of both objective factors such as cost-effectiveness and notions of the national interest, and less objective ones, such as influence peddled by power plant operators, corruption, and bureaucratic self-interest. Nevertheless, by closely examining the status and probable future of nuclear power plants in specific countries, the authors of this volume come up with answers, albeit mostly of a negative nature.
At the start of 2017, 450 nuclear power reactors were operating in 30 countries, with 60 more under construction in 15 countries. Thirty-four reactors are under construction in Asia, including 21 in China. The “Fukushima effect” has clearly had an impact in Asia, however. In China, no new construction took place between 2011 and 2014, although since then there has been a slow increase of licenses. Nevertheless, the full story of China’s embrace of nuclear power, as told in this volume by M. V. Ramana and Amy King, is that the onset of a ‘new normal’ in economic growth objectives and structural changes in the economy have led to a declining demand for electricity and the likelihood of far less interest in nuclear power than had once been predicted.
On the other hand, in South Korea, which relies on nuclear power for about 31 per cent of its electricity, Lauren Richardson’s chapter which is presented here, shows that the Fukushima disaster and strong civil society opposition have not deflected official support of nuclear power, not only for electricity but also for export.
Meanwhile, the 10 countries that comprise the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are divided about pursuing the nuclear-energy option, with Vietnam deciding to opt out in 2016, and Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines at various stages of evaluation. Even so, the chapter by Mely Caballero-Anthony and Julius Cesar I. Trajano shows that only about 1 per cent of ASEAN’s electricity will derive from nuclear power in 2035, whereas renewables will account for 22 per cent.
How viable nuclear power is finally judged to be will depend primarily on the decisions of governments, but increasingly also on civil society. ASEAN has established a normative framework that emphasises safety, waste disposal, and non-proliferation; and civil society everywhere is increasingly alert to the dangers and costs, above-board and hidden, of nuclear power plants.
As Doug Koplow’s chapter shows, for example, the nuclear industry, like fossil fuels, benefits from many kinds of government subsidies that distort the energy market against renewable energy sources. Costs are politically as well as environmentally consequential: even if construction begins on a nuclear power plant, it will be cancelled and construction abandoned in 12 per cent of all cases. It is important to note that of the 754 reactors constructed since 1951, 90 have been abandoned and 143 plants permanently shut down.
When construction does proceed, it takes between five to 10 years on average for completion (338 of 609), with some 15 per cent taking more than 10 years. And, in the end, old and abandoned reactors will have to be decommissioned, as Kalman A. Robertson discusses, with costs that may double over the next 15–20 years.
As Robertson points out, the problem of safe disposal of radioactive waste and the health risk posed by radiation released during decommissioning should be factored into the total price that cleanup crews and taxpayers will eventually pay. On top of all that, there isn’t much experience worldwide in decommissioning.
Then there is the issue of trust in those who make decisions. Tatsujiro Suzuki’s chapter shows that in Japan, the chief legacy of Fukushima is public loss of trust in Japanese decision-makers and in the nuclear industry itself. Several years after the accident, costs continue to mount, a fact that pro-nuclear advocates elsewhere in Asia might want to consider. They also need to consider the issue of transparency for, as Suzuki shows, the nuclear industry has consistently dodged the fairly obvious lessons of Fukushima with regard to costs, nuclear energy’s future, and communication with the public. Similarly, in Taiwan, as Gloria Kuang-Jung Hsu’s study shows, transparency about safety issues has been notoriously lacking, and a history of efforts to obfuscate nuclear weapon ambitions means that constant vigilance over nuclear regulators is necessary.
Of course, if public opinion does not count in a country—say, in China and Vietnam—the issue of trust is muted. But we know that, even there, people are uneasy about having a nuclear power plant in their backyard. Issues of hidden cost and public trust are also embedded in the biological and health threat posed by nuclear energy. Tilman A. Ruff, a long-time student of radiation effects on human health, demonstrates how these effects have been underestimated. He offers a detailed explanation of what exposure to different doses of radiation, such as from the Fukushima accident, means for cancer rates and effects on DNA. Timothy A. Mousseau and Anders P. Møller, who have undertaken field research for many years on the genetic effects of the Chernobyl accident, look at how nuclear plant accidents affect the health of humans and other species. Combined, these two chapters offer a potent, often overlooked, argument against the nuclear option.
This introduction by Mel Gurtov and the following article by Lauren Richardson are adapted from Peter Van Ness and Mel Gurtov, eds., Learning From Fukushima. Nuclear Power in East Asia. Australian University Press.
Protesting Policy and Practice in South Korea’s Nuclear Energy Industry , by Lauren Richardson
Japan’s March 2011 (3/11) crisis spurred a revival in anti-nuclear activism around the globe. This was certainly the case in South Korea, Japan’s nearest neighbour, which was subject to some of the nuclear fallout from Fukushima. This chapter examines the puzzle of why the South Korean anti-nuclear movement was apparently powerless in the face of its government’s decision to ratchet up nuclear energy production post-3/11. It argues that its limitations stem from the highly insulated nature of energy policymaking in South Korea; the enmeshing of nuclear power in the government’s ‘Green Growth Strategy’; and certain tactical insufficiencies within the movement itself. Notwithstanding these limitations, the movement has successfully capitalised upon more recent domestic shocks to the nuclear power industry, resulting in a slight, yet significant, curtailing of the South Korean government’s nuclear energy capacity targets.
Introduction….. The evolution of South Korea’s nuclear energy policy…… The bottom-up movement against nuclear energy…….. Phase 1: Pre-Fukushima…….. Phase 2: Post-Fukushima….. Explaining the limited policy change…… The insularity of nuclear power policymaking…… Nuclear power as ‘green’ energy……. Tactical insufficiencies in the anti-nuclear movement……..
New challenges to South Korea’s nuclear energy industry…… Corruption scandals…….. Cyber-attacks on nuclear power plants….
Fin24 29th Oct 2017, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba says drastic steps are needed to help South
Africa’s ailing economy – including freezing senior civil servants’
salaries and selling chunks of state-owned enterprises. In an exclusive
interview with City Press on Friday, Gigaba unveiled the surprise moves,
which include slamming brakes on the country’s estimated R1 trillion
nuclear build programme, saying it is neither affordable nor currently
necessary. https://www.fin24.com/Budget/gigaba-says-no-to-nuclear-20171029-3
By Itai Vardi • Tuesday, October 31, 2017Kathleen Hartnett White, President Trump’s nominee to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), has recently made money from both leases on oil drilling and speaking fees at conferences sponsored by the fossil fuel industry. These new details come from Hartnett White’s financial disclosure, obtained by DeSmog.
If her nomination is confirmed, Hartnett White will be charged with interagency coordination of science, energy, and environmental policy and with overseeing crucial environmental review processes for new energy and infrastructure projects. The CEQ, a division of the Executive Office of the President, was established in 1969 as part of the landmark National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Hartnett White also enjoyed income from an interest in four oil leases — two in Texas and two in Kansas. These rigs were operated by Central Crude, Linn Operating, CHS Operating, and CVR Refining. Hartnett White indicated in her disclosure that she recently gifted these interests to her nephew.
Additionally, she reported royalties from her co-authored book Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy, a text that copiously celebrates fossil fuels as the “lifeblood of the modern world.”
Other sources of reported income include a dog breeding business, co-owned with her husband, Beau Brite White.
Derek Seidman, a research analyst at the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonpartisan watchdog research group focused on corporate and government accountability, says that Hartnett-White’s recent earnings from fossil fuel interests is cause for concern.
“It’s unsettling to learn about the close ties that White has to the very interests and entities that she’s been tasked to oversee at the CEQ,” says Seidman, who has reviewed the financial disclosure. “Her cozy relationship with the oil and gas drilling industry is particularly troubling. These types of conflicts undermine public trust in regulatory institutions and open the door to all kinds of potential problems and abuses.”
Kathleen Hartnett-White did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Texas Public Policy Foundation said that she is not available for interviews.
The climate report, obtained by NPR, notes that the past 115 years are “the warmest in the history of modern civilization.” The global average temperature has increased by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over that period. Greenhouse gases from industry and agriculture are by far the biggest contributor to warming.
The findings contradict statements by PresidentTrump and many of his Cabinet members, who have openly questioned the role humans play in changing the climate.
“I believe that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in an interview earlier this year. “There’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact.”
That is not consistent with the conclusions of the 600-plus-page Climate Science Special Report, which is part of an even larger scientific review known as the fourth National Climate Assessment. The NCA4, as it’s known, is the nation’s most authoritative assessment of climate science. The report’s authors include experts from leading scientific agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the Department of Energy, as well as academic scientists.The report states that the global climate will continue to warm. How much, it says, “will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally.” Without major reductions in emissions, it says, the increase in annual average global temperature could reach 9 degrees Fahrenheit relative to pre-industrial times. Efforts to reduce emissions, it says, would slow the rate of warming.
“This is good, solid climate science,” says Richard Alley, a geoscientist at Penn State University, who says he made minor contributions to the report’s conclusions on sea level rise. “This has been reviewed so many times in so many ways, and it’s taking what we know from … a couple of centuries of climate science and applying it to the U.S.”
The assessments are required by an act of Congress; the last one was published in 2014. Alley says this year’s goes further in attributing changes in weather to the warming climate, especially weather extremes. “More heat waves and fewer cold snaps, this is very clear,” he says. The report also notes that warmer temperatures have contributed to the rise in forest fires in the West and that the incidence of those fires is expected to keep rising.
Some of the clearest effects involve sea level rise. “Coastal flooding, you raise the mean level of the ocean, everything else equal you get more coastal flooding,” Alley says. The report notes that sea level has risen 7 to 8 inches since 1900, and 3 inches of that occurred since 1993. The report says that rate is faster than during any century over the past 2,800 years.
The report also points out that heavy rainfall is increasing in intensity and frequency across the U.S., especially in the Northeast, and that is expected to keep increasing.
Other connections are harder to nail down, Alley says, such as whether a particular hurricane can be attributed to climate change.
“The Climate Science Special Report is like going to a doctor and being given a report on your vital signs,” says environmental scientist Rachel Licker of the Union of Concerned Scientists. She notes that the authors assessed more than 1,500 scientific studies and reports in making their conclusions.
Alley adds that the new report “does a better job of seeing the human fingerprint in what’s happening.” He says that while he hasn’t read all of it yet, he sees no evidence that it has been soft-pedaled or understates the certainty of the science.
Alley notes that “there’s a little rumbling” among climate scientists who are concerned that the Trump administration will ignore this effort. “I think the authors really are interested in seeing [the report] used wisely by policymakers to help the economy as well as the environment.”
The report has been submitted to the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. Trump has yet to choose anyone to run that office; it remains one of the last unfilled senior positions in the White House staff.
The UK’s race to get its own nuclear inspectors BBC News, 3 Nov 17, The government cannot guarantee Britain will have enough nuclear inspectors when it leaves the EU, MPs on the business committee were told.
The Office of Nuclear Regulation has recruited four new safeguards inspectors but says it needs more time to fill the specialised roles.
Nuclear minister Richard Harrington said there was “plenty of time” to recruit the staff needed.
But he stopped short of offering a firm guarantee.
The government has stressed that nuclear safeguards – the processes by which the UK shows its civil nuclear material is not diverted into weapons programmes – are different from nuclear safety – the prevention of nuclear accidents.
Mr Harrington said the UK was committed to leaving Euratom, the agency which has regulated the nuclear industry across Europe since 1957, at the same time as it left the EU in March 2019.
Industry figures have warned about significant disruption to energy production in the UK if there is not a new inspection regime ready to go to, to replace the one currently overseen by Euratom.
The four senior figures who gave evidence to the business committee on Wednesday said there was no benefit to the UK from leaving Euratom………
Mr Harrington was also quizzed by the MPs about feared shortages of less skilled workers needed to build new nuclear plants, such as steel workers and welders.
Ben Russell, of Horizon Nuclear, the Japanese-owned firm planning to build a new nuclear reactor at Wylfa Newydd, on Anglesey, called for a special visa for infrastructure workers post-Brexit so they could continue to be recruited from EU countries.
He said projects like HS2 and the third runway at Heathrow meant the demand for staff would outstrip supply and there was not enough time to train up British workers.
David Wagstaff, the civil servant leading talks for the UK on the withdrawal from Euratom, said it would be up to the British government to decide on a post-Brexit visa regime.
‘No relationship’
There was also concern about the future of the world-leading nuclear fusion laboratory based in Oxfordshire, the Joint European Torus (JET), which is mostly funded by the EU……. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-41836855
House Tax Bill Trims Wind Tax Credit, Extends Nuclear Provision, Bloomberg, By Ari Natter,
GOP measure preserves threatened wind and solar tax credits
Legislation could change is it winds through Congress
Tax credits cherished by the wind and solar industry remain under a rewrite of the tax code revealed by House Republicans, but the measure would trim the wind energy’s production tax credit by more than a third.
The bill, unveiled by House GOP leaders Thursday, also extends an estimated $6 billion tax credit for the nuclear industry, which would benefit Southern Co. Without the extension, the credit may have gone unused before the 2021 deadline. Southern’s Vogtle project in Georgia faces construction delays and is not on track to be completed before the deadline.
The bill also adds tax credits for other energy sources, such as geothermal, small-scale wind and fuel cells that were left out of a 2015 budget and spending deal.
The House tax overhaul cuts the wind industry’s 2.3-cent-per-kilowatt hour tax credit to 1.5 cents. The solar industry’s 30 percent tax credit remains unchanged. Under that 2015 deal the wind credit begins phasing down this year before expiring in 2020 and the solar industry’s credit winds down before expiring in 2022. Those phaseouts continue as planned, but projects would now need to be completed by those dates to qualify…….
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