The Arctic countries take major steps to prepare strategies and share information to improve preparedness in case of radiological and nuclear incidents. By Thomas Nilsen, December 11, 2019
Two fatal accidents during the summer of 2019 was a wake-up call for radiation emergency authorities monitoring northern waters.
On July 1st, the nuclear-powered special purpose submarine Losharik catches fire when on mission outside the Kola Peninsula. Six weeks later, a nuclear-powered cruise missile explodes while being recovered from the seabed outside Nenoksa naval weapons testing site in the White Sea.
While Russia has been very reluctant to share information about what happened at the two accidents, the country is a team-player when the Arctic Council now has agreed to establish a dedicated expert group on radiation and nuclear incidents.
The formal decision was taken at the meeting of the Arctic Council’s Working Group on Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response (EPPR) in Reykyavik on December 4th.
All eight Arctic states will appoint experts and observer states are encouraged to participate. To strengthen the group’s role, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is invited to join the meetings.
Inside the Arctic Circle, the number of nuclear-powered vessels has increased sharply over the last decade.
Tensions between Russia and NATO have led to more sailings with reactor-powered submarines, especially in the Norwegian, Barents- and White Seas, but also under the ice in the high Arctic. Northern Norway saw a record number of 12 visiting NATO nuclear-powered submarines in 2018. And while the Arctic Council members met in Reykjavik last week, Russia’s Northern Fleet still had a number of attack submarines sailing the Norwegian Sea. So did at least one American nuclear-powered submarine as reported by the Barents Observer.
Secondly, increased shipping and industrial activities along Russia’s Northern Sea Route are supported by more and larger nuclear-powered icebreakers.
Unfortunate, the history of operating reactors and deploying nuclear weapons to the Arctic has a bad record with radioactivity released to the environment and exposure to people; nuclear weapons testing at Novaya Zemlya, the crash of a U.S. bomber with plutonium warheads at Thule airbase on Greenland, sinking submarines like the Komsomolets, Kursk and K-259. Several other submarines have suffered serious reactor accidents and in the Kara Sea, thousands of containers wit radioactive waste is dumped together with 16 reactors.
The Arctic Council, though, can not engage in anything related to military activities.
The list of potential incidents with possible releases of radioactivity exposing people living or working in the Arctic is long. How to share knowledge and information about each countries’ preparedness capacities will certainly be on the agenda when the new expert group’s first formal meeting, likely to take place next spring on the Faroe Islands.
Chair of the expert group in the starting period, Øyvind Aas-Hansen with the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, tells the Barents Observer that one interesting topic that might be brought to table is defining the risk potential for emergencies due to nuclear and radiological material and activities that pose a threat in the Arctic.
«We aim at protecting Arctic inhabitants and their livelihoods and the Arctic environment,» Øyvind Aas-Hansen explains.
He said it is needed to «identify minimal preparedness and response arrangements and capabilities applicable to the Arctic region.»
Aas-Hansen said it could be special needs for coordinating emergency prevention and response that are «specific to the Arctic region.»
Both the United States and Russia have serious experiences from dealing with nuclear accidents in cold climate, like the US clean-up work after the Thule accident in 1968 and Soviet clean-up work after the leakages from Building No. 5 in Andreeva Bay in the early 1980s.
More reactors at sea
The Barents Observer has recently published an overview (pdf) listing the increasing number of reactors in the Russian Arctic. The paper is part of Barents Observer’s analytical popular science studies on developments in the Euro-Arctic Region.
According to the list there are 39 nuclear-powered vessels or installations in the Russian Arctic today with a total of 62 reactors. This includes 31 submarines, one surface warship, five icebreakers, two onshore and one floating nuclear power plants.
Looking 15 years ahead, the number of ships, including submarines, and installations powered by reactors is estimated to increase to 74 with a total of 94 reactors, maybe as many as 114. Additional to new icebreakers and submarines already under construction, Russia is brushing dust of older Soviet ideas of utilizing nuclear-power for different kind of Arctic shelf industrial developments, like oil- and gas exploration, mining and research. “By 2035, the Russian Arctic will be the most nuclearized waters on the planet,” the paper reads.
Also, existing icebreakers and submarines get life-time prolongation. The average age of the Northern Fleet’s nuclear-powered submarines has never been older than today. Several of the submarines built in the 1980s will continue to sail the Barents Sea and under the Arctic ice-cap until the late 2020s.
In August, Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant, “Akademik Lomonosov”, will be towed from Murmansk to Pevek, a port-town on the northeast coast of Siberia.
Other plans to use nuclear reactors in the Russian Arctic in the years to come include many first-of-a-kind technologies like sea-floor power reactors for gas exploration, civilian submarines for seismic surveys and cargo transportation, small-power reactors on ice-strengthen platforms.
In the military sphere, the Arctic could be used as testing sites for both Russia’s new nuclear-powered cruise-missile and nuclear-powered underwater weapons drone. Both weapons were displayed by President Vladimir Putin when he bragged about new nuclear weapons systems in his annual speech to the Federation Council last year.
An Arctic Council summary report, presented to the Ministerial Meeting in Rovaniemi in May as a deliverable by the Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response (EPPR) Working Group highlight the risks: “The presence of radiological and nuclear material in the Arctic poses a risk for serious incidents or accidents that may affect Arctic inhabitants and their communities, the Arctic environment, and Arctic industries, including traditional livelihoods such as fisheries and local food sources.”
For Norway, Russia and Iceland, a nuclear accident in the Barents Sea could be disastrous for sales of seafood. The three countries export of cod and other spices is worth billions of Euros annually.
nuclear experts have highlighted crucial negatives that cast doubt on the floating nuclear utopia.Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace Netherlands senior expert nuclear energy and energy policy, sees the three main disadvantages of Akademin Lomonosov to be the big human factors risk, its problematic construction, and the pollution of the Arctic region with nuclear waste.
this project is reintroducing a major pollution risk in an area which functions as a climate regulator for the globe – “the Arctic pristine area, which is a very important natural area for the entire balance on the planet,”
Is floating nuclear power a good idea? Power Technology By Yoana Cholteeva, 9 Dec 19, Floating nuclear power promises to provide a steady source of energy at hard-to-reach locations, but at the same time the dangers inherent in nuclear power make some question whether it’s safe enough for areas where help is hard to find. Is floating nuclear power really a good idea? Yoana Cholteeva investigates.
Russian nuclear company Rosatom announced the arrival of the world’s first floating nuclear power plant, Akademik Lomonosov, in September 2019 when the technology was transported to the port of its permanent location in Russia’s Far East. The 144m-long and 30m-wide vessel has now docked at the port in Pevek, off the coast of Chukotka, where it will stay before its commissioning next year.
Akademik Lomonosov will use small modular reactor technology and is equipped with two KLT-40C reactor systems with 35MW capacity each. It has been designed to access hard-to-reach areas where it can operate for three to five years without the need for refuelling. It also has an overall life cycle of 40 years, which may be extended to 50 years Continue reading →
Barents Observer 5th Dec 2019, New ship to handle all nuclear waste from Rosatom’s Arctic operations.
The new special purpose vessel will serve the new icebreakers and the
floating nuclear power plants and possible other reactor installations.
By Sara Chessa | 5 November 2019 Former Icelandic Interior Minister tells Independent Australia how he blocked U.S. interference in 2011 in order to defend WikiLeaks and its publisher Julian Assange. Sara Chessa reports.
Former Icelandic Interior Minister tells Independent Australia how he blocked U.S. interference in 2011 in order to defend WikiLeaks and its publisher Julian Assange. Sara Chessa reports.
A MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR wakes up one summer morning and finds out that a plane full of United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents has landed in his country, aiming to carry out police investigations without proper permission from the authorities.
How many statesmen would have the strength to say, “No, you can’t do this”, to the United States? Former Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson, in fact, did this — and for the sake of investigative journalism. He understood that something wrong with the sudden FBI mission in Reykjavik, and that this had to do with the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks and its publisher Julian Assange. Continue reading →
Next Chernobyl? Frozen nuclear city to ‘seep radiation into environment’ as ice melts
A FROZEN underground city could be threatening to seep radioactive materials into the environment as climate change forces the ice to melt. Express UK By CALLUM HOARE Nov 8, 2019
Camp Century: Pentagon’s secret mobile nuclear base revealed
Project Icework was a top secret United States Army programme of the Cold War, aimed at building a network of mobile nuclear missile launch sites below the Greenland ice sheet due to its strategic location near the Soviet Union. To study the feasibility of working under the ice, a highly publicised “cover” project, known as Camp Century, was launched in 1960, but six years later it was cancelled due to unstable conditions. The nuclear reactor was removed before the site was abandoned, but hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste remain buried beneath the ice.
Now, climate change is threatening to expose it, as the ice melts at an alarming rate.
YouTube channel Seeker spoke to William Colgan, who is currently running The Camp Century Climate Monitoring Programme, in the hope of preventing the radioactive material from reaching the surface.
He said in 2018: “The people working at Camp Century did not have an understanding of climate change. “They didn’t have solid records, global climate models, these big data sets so you can see an overview of what’s happening to Earth’s climate.
The moving ice sheet started to destabilise the underground tunnels, prompting the US Army to abort Project Iceworm.
“When Camp Century was decommissioned, only the nuclear reactor was taken out for destructive testing, and the rest of the camp was left in place, and they closed the doors.
“It was abandoned on the assumption that climate wouldn’t change, and it would continue to snow at Camp Century forever and the perpetual snowfall would entomb all of the base infrastructures and eventually bury it.”
The narrator of the series explained why Dr Colgan is so invested in the project.
He said: “The climate has changed and temperatures have reached record highs in the Arctic and Greenland’s ice sheet is melting at an unprecedented rate, which could turn Camp Century’s abandoned waste into a major environmental risk.
So a team of scientists, including William, went back to the site.”
Dr Colgan explained what his team is doing.
He added: “In 2017, the government of Denmark, at the request of the government of Greenland, started the Camp Century Climate Monitoring Programme.
“We set up a bunch of instruments that are erected on the ice sheet surface and then we drill in and we put probes into the ice sheet.
Climate change has turned permafrost into a carbon emitter, Tundra plants can’t absorb enough carbon in summer to make up for carbon released in winter, CBC, Bob Weber · The Canadian Press Oct 22, 2019 Research has found Arctic soil has warmed to the point where it releases more carbon in winter than northern plants can absorb during the summer.
The finding means the extensive belt of tundra around the globe — a vast reserve of carbon that dwarfs what’s held in the atmosphere — is becoming a source of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change.
“In a given year, more carbon is being lost than what is being taken in. It is happening already.”
The research by scientists in 12 countries and from dozens of institutions is the latest warning that northern natural systems that once reliably kept carbon out of the atmosphere are starting to release it……….
Emissions speeding up
What’s more, the pace of the emissions is likely to increase.
Under a business-as-usual scenario, emissions from northern soil would be likely to release 41 per cent more carbon by the end of the century.
But the Arctic is already warming at three times the pace of the rest of the globe. Even if significant mitigation efforts are made, those emissions will increase by 17 per cent, said the report.
Egan notes the research didn’t measure methane, a greenhouse gas about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide that is also released from soil.
As floating nuclear power plant enters East Siberian Sea, emergency services in Pevek make a last check Final preparations in the remote Arctic town that will host the floating nuclear installation. Barents Observer, By Atle Staalesen, September 06, 2019,
The «Akademik Lomonosov» on the 6th September passed the Sannikov Strait south of the New Siberian Islands and made it into the East Siberian Sea. The floating installation now has only about 3 days left of its extensive voyage across the Northern Sea Route.
According to the Northern Sea Route Administration, the installation and its accompanying vessels are due to arrive in Pevek on the 9th of September.
The «Akademik Lomonosov» on 23rd August set out of the Kola Bay after more than a year of preparations in Murmansk. Towed by icebreaker «Dikson» and accompanied by support ships «Yasnyy» and «Kapitan Martyshkin», the floating power plant had course for the Barents Sea and subsequently made it through the Kara Sea and Laptev Sea.
The voyage from Murmansk to Pevek is about 4,700 km long.
Is Pevek ready?
The formerly desolate town with a population of about 4,200 has been under preparations for years. Visits by federal officials and inspectors have been numerous…….
According to the ministry, a special fire- and rescue department is under construction on site. When completed, the unit can ultimately serve as base for a bigger Arctic rescue center.
On site are also a big number of representatives of nuclear power company Rosatom that be the ones that run the plant…….
Outsourced security
Also law-enforcement authorities are on site preparing to keep an eye on the new strategic object. It is Rosgvardia, the Russian National Guard, that has been commissioned to protect the power plant and its surroundings.
According to the security service, the formation of guarding units were in late August about to be completed and training was ongoing in cooperation with representatives of Rosatom.
Rosgvardia has decided to outsource the protection of the «Akademik Lomonosov» to what it calls «sub-units of non-governmental security.» The decision to outsource the job has been taken by Rosgvardia Director Viktor Zolotov, the security service informs.
Big risks
The «Akademik Lomonosov» has two KLT40S reactors and will provide heat and electricity to Pevek for the next 12 years. After that, it will have to be towed back either to Rosatomflot’s base in Murmansk, or to a shipyard like in Severodvinsk for unloading the spent nuclear fuel and carry out other maintenance work.
Environmentalists have criticized the project and warned against possible major risks.
Environmental organization Greenpeace has described the project as a “nuclear Titanic” or a “Chernobyl on ice”. «We are sure it has been built not to cover the needs of Chukotka, but as a working model for possible foreign customers,» says Rashid Alimov, nuclear campaigner with Greenpeace in Moscow told the Barents Observer.
The fires have forced evacuations worldwide, most recently on Spain’s Canary Islands, where more than 8,000 people have been forced to flee. Smoke from some of the fires is so bad satellites can see it from space, blanketing large portions of South America and the Arctic.
Climate scientists say the fires are partly the result of a world growing warmer, making it easier for flames to spread.
“In these conditions, it is easier for wildfires to grow and to be more long-lived,” said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist in the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
The average global temperature in July was 1.71 degrees F above the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees, making it the hottest July in the 140-year record, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
The previous hottest month on record was July 2016. Nine of the 10 hottest recorded Julys have occurred since 2005; the last five years have ranked as the five hottest. Last month was also the 43rd consecutive July and 415th consecutive month with above-average global temperatures.
Parrington said it’s not possible to draw direct connections between hotter weather and more wildfires, citing human activity. For instance, although there are big fires currently burning in the Amazon, the past 20 years have generally seen a reduction in forest fires there, he said. But now the fires are the worst they’ve been since at least 2010, based on initial data, he said.
Climate experts say there’s always going to be regional variations – the U.S. has had a below-average wildfire year following 2018’s deadly blazes across California – but the overall trend is toward more extreme weather fueled by a hotter climate.
The Arctic’s boreal forests are particularly at risk, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the Fairbanks-based Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy. Like Parrington, he said it’s not a simple connection between hotter weather and more fires, but said the conditions for fires are growing more frequent in the north.
“It’s a reinforcing loop: The more fires you have, the more land you open up, so in future years you’re going to warm that land more because the trees aren’t there to shade it, which will in turn melt permafrost, which will then release carbon and methane, which are greenhouse gases, which contribute to warmer summers and more fires,” Thoman said.
ALASKA: Smoke has once again blanketed Anchorage
Multiple fires are burning near the state’s biggest city, and firefighters have called in assistance from the Lower 48. More than 400,000 acres are currently burning, and one of the biggest concerns is the McKinley Fire, which has destroyed at least 50 structures about 100 miles north of Anchorage. Officials with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough declared a state of emergency, and firefighters hoped that calmer weather predicted for Wednesday could permit evacuees to return.
Experts this spring predicted a long fire season in Alaska because the snow melted several weeks earlier than usual in many parts of the state.
Alaska has had a sweltering summer. July was the state’s hottest month ever, and the long-smoldering Swan Lake Fire roared back up over last weekend, clogging the area with smoke and forcing officials to use pilot cars to lead vehicles through the smoky area on the Kenai Peninsula. Lightning sparked the 138,479-acre fire in June, officials said, and there’s little chance of it being put out until heavy fall rains arrive.
Thoman said Alaskans have become somewhat jaded since this year’s fires have “only” burned 2.5 million acres of land, compared with the 6.6 million acres burned during the worst season on record in 2004. But because this year’s fires burned so close to populated areas, they’ve gotten more attention: “With one-mile visibility in smoke, you can’t get away from it.”
AMAZON: Forest fires are generating smoke that can be seen from space
The sky above São Paulo turned black Monday as wildfires raging more than 1,000 miles away sent smoke pouring over Brazil’s largest city. The smoke resulting from some of these wildfires was also captured in satellite images released by NASA last week.
The Amazon rainforest is burning at a record rate. The fires are no accident, and we need to face it. How does this affect our planet? Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
“The smoke did not come from fires from the state of São Paulo, but from very dense and wide fires that have been going on for several days in Rondônia and Bolivia. The cold front changed the direction of the winds and transported this smoke to São Paulo,” Josélia Pegorim, Climatempo meteorologist, told Globo.
The Twitter hashtag #PrayforAmazonas has been trending as horrified Amazon-watchers share pictures of the devastation.
U.S. scientists say the Amazonian rain forest is typically resistant to fire, but climate changes have left it drier than usual. And while this is the time of year when farmers often set fires in the area to clear off areas for agriculture, Reuters reported the Amazon rain forest has experienced a record number of fires this year, citing new data released by the country’s space agency, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The agency said its satellite data detected more than 72,000 fires since January, an 83% increase over the same period of 2018.
The Amazon rain forest fires can be seen from space, and NASA can see these fires from space. Veuer’s Keri Lumm reports. Buzz60
According to an analysis by Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, the August emissions for the Amazonas area are the highest since 2003, and for the overall Amazonia areas are the highest since 2010.
CANARY ISLANDS: Huge flames force widespread evacuations
A raging wildfire forced large-scale evacuations of residents this week on Gran Canaria, a mountainous volcanic island off northwest Africa. Authorities said the fire burning in forested areas was generating flames up to 160 feet tall in the area of Tamadaba Natural Park, and about 8,000 people had been evacuated. The island is popular with tourists, but officials said the resort areas were so far unaffected, although smoke was widely visible.
Gran Canaria emergency chief Frederico Grillo said recent blazes now are much worse – “nothing like those we used to have” – when families worked in the countryside and forests were kept more orderly, private news agency Europa Press reported.
The Arctic: Areas of normally snow-covered Greenland are burning
The Arctic as a whole has seen unusually high wildfire activity this summer, Parrington said, including areas such as Greenland that typically don’t see fires. One estimate found that the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from fires burning within the Arctic Circle in in June 2019 was greater than all of the CO2 released in the same month from 2010 through to 2018 put together.
While it isn’t uncommon for these areas to see wildfires, there is cause for concern now, Thomas Smith, an assistant professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics, told USA TODAY last month.
“The magnitude is unprecedented in the 16-year satellite record,” Smith said. “The fires appear to be further north than usual, and some appear to have ignited peat soils.” Peat fires can smolder for months.
Russia to launch floating nuclear reactor, Rosatom insists 2-reactor unit is safe as tests are planned in the Arctic, Ft.com, Nastassia Astrasheuskaya in Murmansk 21 Aug 19, On Friday, three tugs will tow the Akademik Lomonosov barge out of Murmansk to begin a 5,000km voyage to a remote port on the other side of Russia’s Arctic coast, and in the process send waves through the nuclear energy sector.
The vessel is a floating nuclear reactor, a portable power plant designed to supply electricity to areas disconnected from the grid, and envisaged by Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom as the future of small-scale nuclear power with an eye on export opportunities in developing countries.
But the two-reactor Lomonosov, which took a decade to design and build, has sparked safety fears and concerns over the environmental impact of any mishap, amid concern over a botched nuclear missile test this month at a military site close to Murmansk that released a radiation spike in a nearby city.
Rosatom insists the unit is safe, and “virtually unsinkable” in case of natural disasters. The plant will also be guarded by the Russian guard, Moscow’s internal military force. “Our unit has other tasks, other requirements in terms of security. It has to correspond with double standards — for a nuclear plant and a vessel,” said Dmitry Alexeenko, deputy head of Rosatom’s department overseeing its construction.
The unit is the first in a programme designed to provide power to remote communities where building a conventional nuclear power plant would be excessive. The Akademik Lomonosov will sail to the Chukotka region, deep in Russia’s far east, where miners are seeking to exploit gold and copper reserves. …
However, environmental groups have raised concerns over the possible repeat of the 1986 Soviet nuclear power plant explosion in Chernobyl, modern-day Ukraine. In 2017, Greenpeace led a protest at St Petersburg’s Baltic shipyard, where the unit was being tested, demanding “No to floating Chernobyl”. The reactor tests were then moved to Murmansk. “A floating nuclear power plant is far more vulnerable to outside threats, such as those from pirates, should they be sold to equatorial countries, and natural disasters, which Fukushima proved even onshore plants are prone to,” said Konstantin Fomin of Greenpeace Russia. The launch comes as energy companies around the world, including in the US and South Korea, have been exploring building smaller scale reactors.
Rosatom says it has been in talks with potential buyers from Latin America, Africa and Asia. It has also held discussions with Sudan to use the plant for power generation and Argentina for water desalination. But the project’s total cost, and confirmation of any foreign contracts, will only be made after the technology is fully tested, the company added. Nuclear energy experts said given the construction timeframe, it is unlikely to be cheap.
Anton Khlopkov, head of Russia’s independent Center for Energy and Security Studies, expects the unit to be significantly cheaper than a conventional land-based nuclear power plant, which normally costs about $5bn-$6bn. But the cost per megawatt would be higher, he said.
“The project economics remain an open question, even taking into account that it is aimed at distant locations where the power costs can be higher for obvious reasons. Even then the project has to prove economic viability,” he said. Rosatom, however, sees the reactor as a strategic project where economic costs are secondary. …….https://www.ft.com/content/2edadf02-b538-11e9-8cb2-799a3a8cf37b
Iceland holds funeral for first glacier lost to climate change
Nation commemorates the once huge Okjokull glacier with plaque that warns action is needed to prevent climate change Guardian Agence France-Presse 19 Aug 2019 ,
Iceland has marked its first-ever loss of a glacier to climate change as scientists warn that hundreds of other ice sheets on the subarctic island risk the same fate.
As the world recently marked the warmest July ever on record, a bronze plaque was mounted on a bare rock in a ceremony on the barren terrain once covered by the Okjökull glacier in western Iceland.
Around 100 people walked up the mountain for the ceremony, including Iceland’s prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, the former UN human rights commissioner Mary Robinson, and local researchers and colleagues from the United States who pioneered the commemoration project.
“I hope this ceremony will be an inspiration not only to us here in Iceland but also for the rest of the world, because what we are seeing here is just one face of the climate crisis,” Katrín said.
The plaque bears the inscription “A letter to the future”, and is intended to raise awareness about the decline of glaciers and the effects of climate change.
Arctic could be iceless in September if temps increase 2 degrees, Science Daily
Date:
August 13, 2019
Source:
University of Cincinnati
Summary:
Arctic sea ice could disappear completely through September each summer if average global temperatures increase by as little as 2 degrees, according to a new study.
Arctic sea ice could disappear completely through September each summer if average global temperatures increase by as little as 2 degrees, according to a new study by the University of Cincinnati.
The study by an international team of researchers was published in Nature Communications.
“The target is the sensitivity of sea ice to temperature,” said Won Chang, a study co-author and UC assistant professor of mathematics.
“What is the minimum global temperature change that eliminates all arctic sea ice in September? What’s the tipping point?”
The study predicted that the Arctic Ocean could be completely ice-free in September with as little as 2 degrees Celsius of temperature change. Limiting warming to 2 degrees is the stated goal of the 2009 Paris Agreement, the international effort to curb carbon emissions to address warming. The Trump Administration withdrew the United States as a participant in 2017……..
The less summer sea ice the Arctic has, the longer it takes for the Arctic Ocean to ice back over for the polar winter. That could spell bad news for Arctic wildlife such as seals and polar bears that rely on sea ice to raise pups and hunt them, respectively.
The researchers applied the new statistical method to climate model projections of the 21st century. Using the climate models, the authors found at least a 6% probability that summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean will disappear with warming of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. At 2 degrees, the likelihood increases to 28%…….https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190813160526.htm
Nuclear fuel carrier “Serebryanka” remains inside closed-off waters near missile explosion site, Barents Observer, By Thomas Nilsen. August 09, 2019 “………Barents Observer report
The Barents Observer has recently published an overview (pdf) listing the increasing number of reactors in the Russian Arctic. The paper is part of Barents Observer’s analytical popular science studies on developments in the Euro-Arctic Region.
According to the list there are 39 nuclear-powered vessels or installations in the Russian Arctic today with a total of 62 reactors. This includes 31 submarines, one surface warship, five icebreakers, two onshore and one floating nuclear power plants.
Looking 15 years ahead, the number of ships, including submarines, and installations powered by reactors is estimated to increase to 74 with a total of 94 reactors, maybe as many as 114. Additional to new icebreakers and submarines already under construction, Russia is brushing dust of older Soviet ideas of utilizing nuclear-power for different kind of Arctic shelf industrial developments, like oil- and gas exploration, mining and research. “By 2035, the Russian Arctic will be the most nuclearized waters on the planet,” the paper reads.
Russian nuclear power plant afloat in Arctic causes anxiety across Bering Strait
By Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media, August 8, 2019 Russia has produced the world’s first floating nuclear power plant. A barge mounted with nuclear reactors is expected to begin traversing the Arctic this month, bound for the Chukotka Peninsula. Across the Bering Strait, Alaskans are worried about radiation, though one Arctic security expert also sees room for optimism.
Russia hasn’t been keeping this project a secret. Reporters have documented the fanfare, at the vessel’s launch in St. Petersburg and its stop in Murmansk where it picked up nuclear fuel, along with a new paint job. It’s now white, red and blue, the colors of the Russia flag. The 472-foot barge is called the Akademik Lomonosov. Environmental groups like Greenpeace call it “Chernobyl on Ice.”
Each of its twin nuclear reactors is capable of powering a city roughly the size of Fairbanks. The government-owned nuclear power company Rosatom says the plan is to dock at the city of Pevek, in northeastern Siberia, and provide heat and power to the mining region.
At the launch event, chief engineer Viktor Yelagin told Russia24 reporters the design combines elements from the transport power units used in nuclear icebreakers, and the designs of stationary nuclear power plants. He said it has a state-of-the-art security system. But many remember that Japan used to promise its Fukushima nuclear power plant was safe, too. Then a tsunami struck in 2011, causing meltdowns and radioactive emissions. Bering Sea villagers learned this spring that radiation was detected in sea water samples they collected.
“It’s small. you know, not dangerous. But traceable to Fukushima,” said Austin Ahmasuk, a marine advocate for Kawarek, the Native non-profit serving the Bering Straits area.
He said the nuclear barge feels like one more source of potential danger to track in a region that’s warming at an alarming rate. He’s especially worried about cumulative effects.“Radiation effects. Environmental effects – we’ve been worried about for quite some time in this era of increased shipping, less sea ice,” Ahmasuk said.
Bering Straits Native Corporation CEO Gail Schubert said the barge is a big worry for her.
“It’s personally really concerning to me,” she said at an Arctic conference in Washington, D.C. last month. “I appreciate that they want to bring power to some of their coastal villages in the Chukotka region. But I think that a lot of folks in my region are not excited about having a floating nuclear power plant brought into the region itself.”Russia’s nuclear track record does not inspire a ton of confidence, said Rebecca Pincus, an Arctic security expert at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island. There was the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, of course, but a quick Google search reveals other worrying incidents, too.‘Mysterious cloud of radioactive particles detected above much of Europe in 2017,’” Pincus said, reading from her computer screen. “‘Dramatic radiation surge. Denials at the time by Russian authorities.’ Right?”……. The Akademik Lomonosov is expected to begin producing power for Chukotka in December. https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/08/08/russian-nuclear-power-plant-afloat-in-arctic-causes-anxiety-across-bering-strait/
Russia has said it will build two new nuclear icebreakers in a bid to make a rapidly melting trade route through the Arctic accessible to shipping traffic on a year round basis. August 7, 2019 by Charles Digges
Russia has said it will build two new nuclear icebreakers in a bid to make a rapidly melting trade route through the Arctic accessible to shipping traffic on a year round basis.
The announcement came on July 10 when Atomflot, which runs Russia’s nuclear icebreaker fleet, posted an official tender for two new nuclear vessels for a total price of $147 billion.
The new orders represent an addition to three nuclear icebreakers that Russia already has under construction, called the Arktika,” the “Sibir” and “Ural,” all of which are expected to enter service by 2022. The two new icebreakers now under tender, which will be an extension of that line, are to launch by 2024 and 2026 respectively.
These vessels of the so-called LK-60Ya type are built to enormous dimensions. Each is up to 173 meters long, and is powered by twin RITM-200 reactors, which deliver a combined 175 megawatts of power – making them the most powerful civilian vessels in the world.
It is widely expected that the Baltic Shipyard in St Petersburg – where the other three icebreakers are being built – will get the massive tender, though two other shipyards, one in Crimea and the other in the Russian Far East, are expected to bid on the project as well.
Atomflot’s new order is part of Moscow’s push to bring the Arctic under its control as climate change thins polar ice, opening a shipping corridor between Europe and Asia. The 6,000-kilometer Arctic passage, called the Northern Sea Route, is thought to lop days off more conventional shipping schedules via the Suez Canal. But icebreaking vessels are still needed to keep trade lanes open for cargo convoys for much of the year – a service for which Moscow charges shippers a hefty toll.
President Vladimir Putin is betting big on the Arctic thaw, last year has ordering his government to boost shipping through the Northern Sea Route to 80 million tons a year by 2024, a fourfold uptick over current levels.
Moscow’s ministries and state corporations have promised to deliver the goods, and already some 10 percent of Russia’s total investments are in Arctic projects.
The Yamal LNG project, which went into production earlier this year, expects to ship 15.5 million tons of natural gas a year. The Yamal LNG II project, expected to open in 2023, will add another 19.8 billion tons.
Yet more traffic through the Northern Sea Route will be accounted for by oil – much of it from pipelines funneled from Central Siberia to Arctic seaports specifically to fulfill Putin’s increased cargo demands.
But it’s not just traffic from fossil fuel industries that Moscow is banking on. Earlier this year, Russian Parliament adopted legislation giving Rosatom a monopoly over managing access to the Northern Sea Route through its icebreakers, which will chaperone foreign traffic.
The Russian government’s claim that shippers need Moscow’s permission to pass through the route has irked some. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called the Kremlin’s intentions to run the Northern Sea Route like a toll road “illegal.”
But others, like China, are keen to play by Moscow’s rules – in exchange for part of the profits. Beijing, which is the largest foreign investor in Russia’s Yamal LNG project, is developing an Arctic trade strategy that has dubbed “The Polar Silk Road.” Shippers in South Korea and Denmark have conducted pilot voyages through the Northern Sea Route as well.
Moscow has meanwhile backed up its claims as the Arctic’s traffic cop with military might. Ten disused Arctic military airfields have been reopened, and 13 more are being built. The bases cover almost the entire coastline and are, if required, ready to protect or disrupt any traffic along the North Sea Route.
All of this is part of a bigger bet Russia is making on climate change. According to data from NASA, Arctic ice has shrunk by 12.8 percent a year on average since 1979. Last year’s ice cover was 42 percent lower than 1980. By some estimates, the entire Polar Region could be largely ice-free by 2050.
While most nations with access to the Arctic have been shy about capitalizing on global warming to commercialize the pristine polar environment, Putin has not. The Kremlin strategy suggests that by the time climate change helps make the Northern Sea Route navigable all year, Russia will have full control of any traffic on the route, and will be actively exploiting it for its own commodity exports, shortening the shipping path to Asia.
How that approach will affect the rest of the world, however, is not in dispute. According to a study published by the science journal Nature, Russia’s current climate policies would push up global temperatures by more than 5 degrees Celsius — at least 3 degrees higher than the limit climate scientists are aiming for.
Russia is currently operating four other nuclear icebreakers: The “Yamal,” the “50 Let Pobedy,” the“Taymyr,” and “Vaygash.”
Telegraph 27th July 2019An unprecedented outbreak of wildfires in the Arctic has sent smoke across Eurasia and released more carbon dioxide in two months than the Czech
Republic or Belgium does in a year.
As 44C heatwaves struck Europe,
scientists observed more than 100 long-lasting, intense fires in the Arctic
in June, the hottest month on record, and are seeing even more in July,
according to Mark Parrington of the European Centre for Medium-Range
Weather Forecasts.
Mostly in Alaska and Russia, the infernos have
collectively released more than 120 million tonnes of CO2, more than the
annual output of most countries. It is the most carbon emitted since
satellite monitoring began in the early 2000s. This will further exacerbate
climate change and has sent smoke pouring toward more populated parts of
the world. Pollutants can persist more than a month in the atmosphere and
spread thousands of kilometres.
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