Nagasaki urges world ban on nuclear weapons 75 years after US atomic bomb blast
Nagasaki urges world ban on nuclear weapons 75 years after US atomic bomb blast https://www.sbs.com.au/news/nagasaki-urges-world-ban-on-nuclear-weapons-75-years-after-us-atomic-bomb-blast 9 Aug 20, Survivors of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki have urged world leaders to do more for a nuclear weapons ban on the 75th anniversary of the US attack.
The Japanese city of Nagasaki has marked its 75th anniversary of the US atomic bombing, with the mayor and dwindling survivors urging world leaders including their own to do more for a nuclear weapons ban.
At 11.02am, the moment the B-29 bomber Bockscar dropped a 4.5-ton plutonium bomb dubbed “Fat Man”, Nagasaki survivors and other participants stood in a minute of silence to honour more than 70,000 dead.
The 9 August 1945 bombing came three days after the United States dropped its first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the world’s first ever nuclear attack that killed 140,000.
Nuclear bomb devastation killed ove 90% of the doctors and nurses in Hiroshima
The horrific impact of the bomb was exacerbated by the fact that more than 90 percent of Hiroshima’s doctors and nurses were killed or injured by the bomb, while the blast left 42 out of 45 of the city’s civilian hospitals and two large army hospitals non-functional, according to the The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
This meant it was nearly impossible for the scores of injured to access aid, and most died without any care to ease their suffering from severe burns and radiation poisoning.
Before the attack Hiroshima had around 200 doctors, but the vast majority perished leaving only about 30 physicians who were able to perform their normal duties, according to a report created by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey.
Furthermore, more than 1,600 nurses out of nearly 1,800 were also killed, while medical stocks and supplies were also mostly destroyed.
Any hospitals within around 3,000 feet of ground zero were completely destroyed with almost everyone in them dying.
Two other large hospitals made from reinforced concrete that were located nearly 5,000 feet from the blast’s epicenter remained standing. However, the interiors suffered severe damage and around 90 percent of the occupants died, with many killed due to falling plaster, flying glass and fire.
Several medical centers that were located more than 7,000 feet away from ground zero also remained standing, although many were so badly damaged that they were not able to function.
The lack of medical facilities and staff only served to exacerbate the situation, as one eyewitness to the aftermath, Father Siemes, a German-born Jesuit professor who was in Hiroshima when the bomb fell, described, recounting the scene at an improvised first aid station.
“Iodine is applied to the wounds but they are left uncleansed. Neither ointment nor therapeutic agents are available. Those that have been brought in are laid on the floor and no one can give them any further care. What could one do when all means are lacking? Among the passersby, there are many who are uninjured,” he wrote.
“In the official aid stations and hospitals, a good third or half of those that had been brought in died. Everything was lacking, doctors, assistants, dressings, drugs, etcetera.”
Medical help had to be sent into the city from the outside, however, this took some time to arrive and several individuals who came to assist also ended up dying due to the high levels of lingering radiation.
On the 75th anniversary of the bombing, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the only international medical organization dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons, told Newsweek that there can be “no useful medical response” to even a single nuclear attack on one city in their view.
“The infrastructure necessary would be destroyed and the personnel needed would be killed or badly wounded,” Chuck Johnson, IPPNW Director of Nuclear Programs, said. “Even a relatively small nuclear war would have atmospheric effects beyond the immediate blast, fire, and radiation, which could threaten billions of people with starvation due to crop failure. An all out nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia would end civilization and threaten to extinguish all human life.”
“We agree with President Reagan’s statement that ‘nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought,’ and are greatly concerned by the growing development of a new nuclear arms race among the nine nuclear weapons states.”
However, Johnson said the organization was “greatly encouraged” on the 75th anniversary of the first nuclear weapons attack on a human population, that three more nations—Nigeria, Ireland, and Niue—have become states parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This leaves only seven more states to submit ratification papers for the nuclear ban treaty to enter into force.”
“We look forward to the day when the UN declares that rogue nations which persist in developing and possessing nuclear weapons must listen to the world community and cease their activities which threaten all of us.”
Opening the floodgates at Fukushima
- Ken O. Buesseler
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Vol. 369, Issue 6504, pp. 621-622
DOI: 10.1126/science.abc1507
Summary
Summary
In the time since Japan’s triple earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in 2011, much has improved in the ocean offshore from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP). Concentrations of cesium isotopes, some of the most abundant and long-lived contaminants released, are hundreds of thousands of times lower than at their peak in April 2011. Since mid-2015, none of the fish caught nearby exceed Japan’s strict limit for cesium of 100 Bq/kg (1, 2). Yet, enormous challenges remain in decommissioning the reactors and clean-up on land. Small, and sometimes unexpected, sources of contaminants still continue to enter the ocean to this day (3). Two of the biggest unresolved issues are what to do with the more than 1000 tanks at the site that contain contaminated water and the impact of releasing more than 1 million tons of this water into the ocean.
http://www.sciencemag.org/about/science-licenses-journal-article-reuse
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Bangladesh flooding – a victim of global heating, though not a contributer to it
A Quarter of Bangladesh Is Flooded. Millions Have Lost Everything.
The country’s latest calamity illustrates a striking inequity of our time: The people least responsible for climate change are among those most hurt by its consequences. NYT, By Somini Sengupta and Julfikar Ali Manik 30 July 20,
Torrential rains have submerged at least a quarter of Bangladesh, washing away the few things that count as assets for some of the world’s poorest people — their goats and chickens, houses of mud and tin, sacks of rice stored for the lean season.
It is the latest calamity to strike the delta nation of 165 million people. Only two months ago, a cyclone pummeled the country’s southwest. Along the coast, a rising sea has swallowed entire villages. And while it’s too soon to ascertain what role climate change has played in these latest floods, Bangladesh is already witnessing a pattern of more severe and more frequent river flooding than in the past along the mighty Brahmaputra River, scientists say, and that is projected to worsen in the years ahead as climate change intensifies the rains.
“The suffering will go up,” said Sajedul Hasan, the humanitarian director of BRAC, an international development organization based in Bangladesh that is distributing food, cash and liquid soap to displaced people.
This is one of the most striking inequities of the modern era. Those who are least responsible for polluting Earth’s atmosphere are among those most hurt by its consequences. The average American is responsible for 33 times more planet-warming carbon dioxide than the average Bangladeshi.
This chasm has bedeviled diplomacy for a generation, and it is once again in stark relief as the coronavirus pandemic upends the global economy and threatens to push the world’s most vulnerable people deeper into ruin.
An estimated 24 to 37 percent of the country’s landmass is submerged, according to government estimates and satellite data By Tuesday, according to the most recent figures available, nearly a million homes were inundated and 4.7 million people were affected. At least 54 have died, most of them children. ……. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/climate/bangladesh-floods.html
Rokkasho plant should be shut down in energy policy shift
Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s Rokkasho nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, in 2018
July 31, 2020
Japan’s nuclear watchdog has effectively endorsed the safety of a controversial nuclear reprocessing plant being built in a village along the Pacific coast in northern Japan.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority on July 29 approved an outline of safety measures for the trouble-plagued nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. is building in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture.
The NRA said the outline meets the new safety standards introduced after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The NRA’s decision marks a major step forward in constructing the plant for recovering plutonium from spent nuclear reactor fuel, the core facility for the government’s program to establish a nuclear fuel recycling system.
NRA Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa, however, stressed that the body’s decision does not mean an endorsement of the nuclear fuel recycling policy per se, saying in a news conference that it is a “policy issue” whether there is enough of a rationale for pursuing the policy.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration should confront the reality that the catastrophic accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has completely changed the environment surrounding nuclear power generation and make a fundamental review of the government’s nuclear energy policy.
Nuclear fuel recycling involves recovering plutonium from spent nuclear fuel to be reused in reactors. The government has been promoting recycling separated plutonium back into the fuel of reactors since the 1950s under the rationale that Japan, a nation poor in natural resources, needs to make more efficient use of nuclear fuel.
More than half a century on, the share of nuclear power generation in Japan’s overall electricity production is now very small as most of the reactors that were shut down in the wake of the Fukushima meltdowns have yet to be restarted.
It is also nearly impossible to find a site for building a new nuclear plant. As aged reactors will be decommissioned one after another in the coming years, the importance of nuclear power generation for Japan’s energy supply will steadily diminish.
Over the long term, Japan needs to phase out nuclear power generation to remove public anxiety about a large-scale accident.
Nuclear fuel recycling can have no great significance in this new era when Japan has to start shifting away from atomic energy. Many industrial nations have long given up nuclear reprocessing as economically unviable.
Another big problem with reprocessing the spent fuel is that it produces plutonium, a material that can also be used to make nuclear weapons.
Japan has a stockpile of some 46 tons of plutonium, stored both at home and abroad, an amount enough to make 6,000 atomic bombs. It is fueling fears and drawing criticism internationally.
Japan Nuclear Fuel’s plant in Rokkasho is designed to have the capacity of reprocessing 800 tons of spent nuclear fuel annually to recover 7 tons of plutonium.
But the plan to develop a fast neutron reactor that can “consume” plutonium by transforming it into other forms of nuclear waste, the key technology for plutonium consumption, has gone awry with the decision to decommission Japan’s “Monju” prototype sodium-cooled fast-breeder reactor.
There are clearly also limitations to the plan to burn so-called MOX (mixed oxide) fuel, which is usually plutonium blended with natural uranium, in existing nuclear reactors.
The government has promised the international community to reduce the nation’s surplus plutonium. That means the reprocessing operation at the Rokkasho plant will have to be restricted so that the amount of plutonium recovered will not exceed consumption.
It simply does not make sense to spend as much as 14 trillion yen ($134.33 billion) on building the plant to recover a small amount of plutonium.
Given that this huge cost will be passed onto consumers through higher electricity bills, it is impossible to win broad public support for the project.
If the government decides to pull the plug on the fuel recycling program, it will have to face tough policy challenges it has long avoided tackling, such as how to dispose of spent fuel. But the nation cannot make the inevitable leap into the new age of energy if it continues spending huge amounts on nuclear power generation, which is beset by so many problems.
There is a growing global trend toward renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. This is the time for the government to make a radical shift in its energy policy.
Hiroshima court recognizes Hiroshima ‘black rain’ victims outside designated area as hibakusha after 75 years
How long will it take for the Fukushima victims outside the evacuation zone to be finally all recognized?
In this October 2019 file photo, the cenotaph for the 1945 atomic bombing victims is seen at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The Atomic Bomb Dome is seen in the background.
Japan court recognizes Hiroshima ‘black rain’ victims outside designated area as hibakusha
July 29, 2020
HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) — A Japanese court ruled Wednesday that state health care benefits should be extended to people who were exposed to radioactive “black rain” after the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima outside a zone currently recognized by the government.
The Hiroshima District Court ruled in favor of a suit filed by 84 plaintiffs in their 70s to 90s. It said they should receive the same health care benefits as provided for atomic bomb survivors who were in the zone where the state has recognized black rain fell.
It is the first court decision regarding the boundary of the area affected by radioactive rain and subsequent health problems among survivors.
Presiding Judge Yoshiyuki Takashima said, “It is possible black rain fell outside the designated zone and reasonable to conclude that they were affected by radiation if they were exposed (to such rain.)”
The court then determined that the plaintiffs developed diseases specific to atomic bomb survivors due to the effect of black rain.
Following the ruling, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in a press conference the government has not decided whether to appeal the ruling.
The designated area lies northwest of the hypocenter of the atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945 and measures about 19 kilometers in length and 11 km in width.
People who were recognized as being in the affected area at the time of the bombing are eligible to receive periodic health checkups free of charge. Among them, those who developed illnesses believed to be caused by radiation effects can receive free health care services in principle.
The 84 plaintiffs including deceased individuals represented by family members developed such illnesses as cancer and cataracts after they were exposed to black rain containing radioactive materials outside the designated area and consumed contaminated food and water.
They had applied to the city and prefectural governments of Hiroshima for health care benefits for atomic bomb survivors between 2015 and 2018, but their applications for atomic bomb survivors’ certificates were turned down.
The plaintiffs sued the Hiroshima city and prefectural governments from 2015, seeking the nullification of their decisions.
The local governments insisted there was no scientific evidence that radioactive rain fell on areas outside the designated zone and the plaintiffs’ health problems were caused by their exposure to radiation.
The ruling was also welcomed by people in Nagasaki Prefecture, where an atomic bomb was also dropped three days after Hiroshima and there are survivors who claim to have been exposed to radioactive rain but have not been eligible for the state’s healthcare aid.
“(The ruling) departed from the unscientific ways of judging whether plaintiffs are ‘hibakusha’ (A-bomb survivors) simply based on distances (from the hypocenter) and administrative jurisdictions,” said Koichi Kawano, an 80-year-old resident of the town of Nagayo in Nagasaki, who survived the bombing.
Japan’s law on supporting atomic bomb survivors defines victims eligible for state aid in the following four categories.
They are those who were directly exposed to the bombing, people who entered within 2 km from the hypocenters of Hiroshima or Nagasaki in the period of two weeks from the attacks, those who were affected by radiation while rescuing survivors or other reasons and fetuses exposed to radiation in the womb.
The plaintiffs claimed they fit into the third category.
Hiroshima court recognizes atomic bomb ‘black rain’ victims
July 29, 2020
TOKYO — A Japanese court on Wednesday for the first time recognized people exposed to radioactive “black rain” that fell after the 1945 U.S. atomic attack on Hiroshima as atomic bomb survivors, ordering the city and the prefecture to provide the same government medical benefits as given to other survivors.
The Hiroshima District Court said all 84 plaintiffs who were outside of a zone previously set by the government as where radioactive rain fell also developed radiation-induced illnesses and should be certified as atomic bomb victims. All of the plaintiffs are older than their late 70s, with some in their 90s.
The landmark ruling comes a week before the city marks the 75th anniversary of the U.S. bombing.
The U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killing 140,000 people and almost destroying the entire city. The plaintiffs were in areas northwest of the ground zero where radioactive black rain fell hours after the bomb was dropped.
The plaintiffs have developed illnesses such as cancer and cataracts linked to radiation after they were exposed to black rain, not only that which fell but also by taking water and food in the area contaminated with radiation.
They filed the lawsuit after Hiroshima city and prefectural officials rejected their request to expand the zone to cover their areas where black rain also fell.
In Wednesday’s ruling, the court said the plaintiffs’ argument about their black rain exposure was reasonable and that their medical records showed they have health problems linked to radiation exposure.
One of the plaintiffs, Minoru Honke, who was exposed to black rain at age 4, said more than a dozen people died during the trial. “I want to tell them that we won,” he said.
Osamu Saito, a doctor who has examined atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima, welcomed the ruling for considering the survivors’ welfare based on an assumption that anyone who was in these areas and hit by the rain could have been affected by radiation.
Earlier in the day, dozens of plaintiffs walked into the Hiroshima court in the rain, showing a banner saying “Certificates to all ‘black rain’ victims.” As soon as the ruling was issued, lawyers for the plaintiffs ran out of the court, showing a banner saying “Full victory,” and their supporters applauded and cheered.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the government will closely examine the ruling and respond after consulting with related government agencies and Hiroshima officials.
Japan’s trouble-plagued nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Rokkasho should be shut down
Rokkasho plant should be shut down in energy policy shift, Asahi Shimbun, July 31, 2020 “…….. The Nuclear Regulation Authority on July 29 approved an outline of safety measures for the trouble-plagued nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. is building in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture…..
The Nuclear Regulation Authority on July 29 approved an outline of safety measures for the trouble-plagued nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. is building in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture
It is also nearly impossible to find a site for building a new nuclear plant. As aged reactors will be decommissioned one after another in the coming years, the importance of nuclear power generation for Japan’s energy supply will steadily diminish.
Over the long term, Japan needs to phase out nuclear power generation to remove public anxiety about a large-scale accident.
Nuclear fuel recycling can have no great significance in this new era when Japan has to start shifting away from atomic energy. Many industrial nations have long given up nuclear reprocessing as economically unviable.
Another big problem with reprocessing the spent fuel is that it produces plutonium, a material that can also be used to make nuclear weapons.
Japan has a stockpile of some 46 tons of plutonium, stored both at home and abroad, an amount enough to make 6,000 atomic bombs. It is fueling fears and drawing criticism internationally.
Japan Nuclear Fuel’s plant in Rokkasho is designed to have the capacity of reprocessing 800 tons of spent nuclear fuel annually to recover 7 tons of plutonium.
But the plan to develop a fast neutron reactor that can “consume” plutonium by transforming it into other forms of nuclear waste, the key technology for plutonium consumption, has gone awry with the decision to decommission Japan’s “Monju” prototype sodium-cooled fast-breeder reactor.
There are clearly also limitations to the plan to burn so-called MOX (mixed oxide) fuel, which is usually plutonium blended with natural uranium, in existing nuclear reactors.
The government has promised the international community to reduce the nation’s surplus plutonium. That means the reprocessing operation at the Rokkasho plant will have to be restricted so that the amount of plutonium recovered will not exceed consumption.
It simply does not make sense to spend as much as 14 trillion yen ($134.33 billion) on building the plant to recover a small amount of plutonium.
Given that this huge cost will be passed onto consumers through higher electricity bills, it is impossible to win broad public support for the project.
If the government decides to pull the plug on the fuel recycling program, it will have to face tough policy challenges it has long avoided tackling, such as how to dispose of spent fuel. But the nation cannot make the inevitable leap into the new age of energy if it continues spending huge amounts on nuclear power generation, which is beset by so many problems.
There is a growing global trend toward renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. This is the time for the government to make a radical shift in its energy policy. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13594167
India’s nuclear power industry – unsafe and shrouded in secrecy
The alarming safety record of India’s nuclear power plants https://tribune.com.pk/article/97109/the-alarming-safety-record-of-indias-nuclear-power-plants In 2016, an emergency was declared when the nuclear plant at Kakrapar was shut down after a major water leak, Syed Zain Jaffery, July 28, 2020
The Indian nuclear power industry is still veiled in confidentiality and opacity while refusing to reveal its safety details. Prominent environmental watchdogs have already voiced apprehensions about safety standards adopted by the nuclear establishment, where technical negligence or poor maintenance is commonplace, and regulatory bodies in India habitually sweep major nuclear accidents under the carpet. The production of nuclear energy is regulated in secrecy by a government body known as the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL).
It is no mystery as to why India is reluctant to establish a completely autonomous and politically neutral nuclear oversight authority to discretely operate from the industry it oversees. The nuclear disaster in Fukushima demonstrated the significance of independent nuclear oversight. India’s persistent refusal to create an independent regulatory body shows a lack of confidence in maintaining standards which are internationally recognised.
The former chairman and managing director of Nuclear Power Corporation, S.K. Jain, was of the view that,
This entire episode shows the lack of awareness in India regarding upholding proper safety procedures through a timely tackling of any evolving threats.
Alarmingly, Indian nuclear engineers failed to investigate the exact reason for the leakage. The central government unpublicised the incident and did not even allow ordinary citizens to use geiger-counters to measure radiation. Shockingly, New Delhi has prohibited the use of geiger-counters, which is a global norm, under the vague excuse of national security. An on-site emergency at Kakrapar nuclear power plant and the circumstance that led to the major leakage raises many questions regarding Indian nuclear expertise.
Syed Zain Jaffery The author holds a Masters degree from NUST, Islamabad and writes about current affairs and politics.
Local approval still needed, as Japan’s nuclear regulators OK fuel reprocessing plant, despite safety concerns
The regulators said on Wednesday that they had received about 760 opinions, and that many of them were about safety. The risk of radioactive materials leaking out was among the concerns.
The regulators concluded that the operator had measures in place to deal with the concerns, and said the firm’s application had been approved.
Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited wants to complete construction by September 2021, and launch operations in 2022. But the construction work, which began 27 years ago, has been delayed by problems. That has caused the cost to balloon to more than 130 billion dollars.
Plans to use the reprocessed plutonium are not moving forward as initially outlined.
The government and energy firm also still need to obtain local approval. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20200729_20/
Thorium nuclear plan with USA firm – a dubious deal for Indonesia
 Thorcon, Defense Ministry to cooperate on thorium nuclear reactor, Norman Harsono, The Jakarta PostJakarta / Tue, July 28, 2020 United States-based nuclear company Thorcon International Pte Ltd and Indonesia’s Defense Ministry signed a deal on Jul. 22 to study developing a thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR) for either power generation or marine vehicle propulsion.Thorcon said it would provide technical support to the ministry’s research and development (R&D) body to develop “a small-scale TMSR reactor under 50 megawatts (MW)”, the company wrote in a statement on Friday, Jul. 24,
“[This will] strengthen national security in the outermost, frontier and least developed regions,” reads the company’s statement……… “We hope Thorcon may be more open toward providing technical support for the Defense Ministry’s R&D body in making the designs and technical preparations for when we enter the construction phase,” the ministry’s statement reads. At 50 MW, the Defense Ministry’s “small-scale” reactor would become the biggest nuclear reactor in Indonesia. The country’s current largest reactor – a non-commercial facility – is the 30 MW GA Siwabessy reactor in Serpong, Banten. …… Thorium nuclear technology is also unready for commercial application, National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan) director Dandang Purwadi told The Jakarta Post earlier this year. “We have to wait around 10 years for the technology to mature, then it takes 10 years to build the facility”, he said, commenting on Thorcon’s planned commercial plant. Energy experts speaking at a discussion on Jul. 1 pointed out that nuclear plants were losing popularity and were much more costly than renewables, despite improvements in nuclear plant safety, following headline grabbing meltdowns. … “Usage of nuclear power plants is entering a sunset phase,” said Herman Ibrahim, country chairman of the Paris-based International Council on Large Electric Systems (CIGRE). https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/07/28/thorcon-defense-ministry-to-cooperate-on-thorium-nuclear-reactor.html |
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Kim Jong Un says that North Korea’s nuclear weapons guarantee its freedom from attack, and war
North Korea’s Kim Says No More War Thanks to Nuclear Weapons, VOA, By Reuters July 27, 2020 SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said there will be no more war as the country’s nuclear weapons guarantee its safety and future despite unabated outside pressure and military threats, state media said Tuesday.
Kim made the remarks as he celebrated the 67th anniversary of the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, which fell on July 27, with a reception for veterans, the official KCNA news agency said.
The country developed nuclear weapons to win “absolute strength” to stave off another armed conflict, Kim said in a speech carried by KCNA, emphasizing the defensive nature of the programs. ………
The speech came amid stalled talks aimed at dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs in exchange for sanctions relief from Washington. ……https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/north-koreas-kim-says-no-more-war-thanks-nuclear-weapon
Global heating means more rain for Asian monsoon regions
Wetter than wet: Global warming means more rain for Asian monsoon regions EurekAlert, Large-scale simulation reveals how Asian monsoons will transform with climate change TOKYO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY 26 Jul 20, Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University studied how the weather will change with global warming in Asian monsoon regions using a high-resolution climate simulation. The region is home to a large population, and the monsoons are a major driver of global water cycles. They explicitly simulated cloud formation and dissipation, and found significantly increased precipitation over the monsoon “trough,” with tropical disturbances such as typhoons and concentrated water vapor playing key roles.
As the world braces itself for the impact of global warming, it is now more vital than ever to have an accurate, detailed picture of how exactly the climate will change. This applies strongly to the Asian monsoon regions, where vast amounts of annual precipitation make it an important part of global energy and water cycles. As home to a large proportion of the world population, detailed, local predictions for the scale and nature of monsoons and tropical disturbances such as typhoons/cyclones have the potential to inform disaster mitigation strategies and key policymaking. ………. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/tmu-wtw072220.php
Robot to use brush to retrieve melted fuel at Fukushima plant
Robot to use brush to retrieve melted fuel at Fukushima plant, Asahi Shimbun, By KEITARO FUKUCHI/ Staff Writer, July 27, 2020 FUKUSHIMA--A robotic arm under development in Britain will use a brush and vacuum vessel on its end to collect melted fuel in a step toward retrieving debris at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Details of the device, which will start collecting debris inside the No. 2 reactor on a trial basis next year, were announced on July 2.
The government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. plan to retrieve melted fuel at the No. 2 reactor ahead of two other reactors because radiation levels are relatively low……..
Training is expected to reduce the time required for workers to put debris into the transfer vessel near the fuel.
Other measures to lessen workers’ doses will be taken, such as introducing panels to block radiation. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13529394
EDF denies that China has increasingly big role in UK’s Hinkley Point nuclear project
EDF Denies Rising Chinese Influence at U.K. Nuclear Site, Bloomberg, By Corinne Gretler, July 26, 2020,
- Chinese partner’s role bigger than disclosed, Telegraph said
- EDF said allegations are ‘untrue,’ CGN’s role not increasing
Electricite de France SA denied a media report that China General Nuclear Power Corp.’s role at a U.K. nuclear site is increasing, underlining the growing tensions about China’s involvement in critical infrastructure.
The company understated the number of Chinese personnel on site and leaned heavily on CGN’s expertise in planning and construction, the Sunday Telegraph reported, citing company documents and unidentified sources. The newspaper also said Chinese engineers proposed a way to lift a concrete dome onto the reactor at Hinkley Point C that would’ve involved dangling the heavy structure above workers, before it was deemed too dangerous…………
EDF owns about two-thirds of the Hinkley Point program while CGN holds the rest. The project was approved in 2016. The Tories have demanded a review of the plant, the Telegraph said, citing former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith saying ministers were misled when they approved China’s role as just a financial partner in the project. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-26/dalio-warns-of-u-s-china-capital-war-that-would-hit-dollar
1 This Month
10 June – Assessing Canada’s Investments in Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – https://zoom.us/meeting/register/IiqHA5feRhaEBycOLNTJlA#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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