Politifact rates Nikki Haley Mostly False on her claim that Congress had no input on Iran nuclear deal
Haley wrongly says Congress had no input on Iran nuclear deal, Politifact, By Allison Colburn Defending President Donald Trump’s decision to decertify the Iran nuclear deal, United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said Congress now has a voice on the issue that it didn’t have in the past.
Trump’s decision allows Congress to potentially kill the agreement or tack on new conditions………
Here, we are fact-checking Haley’s claim that Congress was “never allowed” to debate or discuss the agreement.
Much of the responsibility for U.S. foreign policy falls under the authority of the executive branch. Congress does play a significant role, however, in foreign trade and commerce, immigration, foreign aid, the defense budget and any declarations of war. The Senate authorizes treaties and confirms the president’s cabinet nominees.
To avoid needing Senate approval for an agreement with a foreign power, the president can simply avoid calling the agreement a treaty. The Obama administration said the Iran deal was neither a treaty nor an executive agreement. Instead, the State Department said in a letter that the deal “reflects political commitments” between the seven nations involved.
When the president negotiates a deal that is not deemed a treaty, Congress — if it wants a say on the deal — must convince the president to give the legislative branch the power to approve or block the final deal.
That’s exactly what Congress did when it passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, a bill that had bipartisan support and allowed Congress the right to review any agreement reached in the negotiations. Obama initially threatened to veto the bill but did not.
Senators considered a separate, and ultimately unsuccessful, measure that would have given them the the power to block the agreement through a resolution of disapproval. A procedural vote on the resolution fell short of the 60 votes needed to override a Democratic filibuster.
Despite the resolution’s failure, by passing the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, Congress was able to have some authority and say in the final agreement.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who spearheaded the bill, has touted the legislation for taking “power back from the president” and forcing the executive office to be transparent………
Haley said Congress was never allowed to debate or discuss the Iran nuclear agreement while Obama was in office.
Though Congress had to fight for the right to disapprove of the deal, the passage of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 allowed Congress to not only vote on the deal but to also hold public hearings and debate. The Senate ultimately did not have the votes to block the deal, but the act included a requirement for the president to frequently monitor Iran’s progress in meeting the agreement’s conditions.
So Congress did have input, even if Obama initially tried to avoid it.
We rate this claim Mostly False. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/oct/19/nikki-haley/haley-wrongly-says-congress-had-no-input-iran-nucl/
America’s EPA now deliberately obscuring the truth on ionising radiation and health
The EPA issued a public guidance in September, advising local officials to respond to a possible nuclear emergency by claiming that 5,000-10,000 millirems exposure “usually result[s] in no harmful health effects.” The watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) said past studies funded by the US government declared that level to be highly carcinogenic.
“National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, and EPA itself, have long estimated that 10,000 millirems could be expected to induce excess cancers in every 86th person exposed,” PEER said on Monday.
The non-profit criticized the agency for failing to cite which “radiation safety experts” it used to justify the declaration.
The EPA also didn’t say how long a human should be safe, when exposed to radiation at the 5,000-10,000 millirem range. It did note, however, that 75,000 millirem exposure “in a short amount of time (usually minutes too hours)” can cause acute radiation sickness.
“Although cancer has been associated with high doses of radiation received over short periods of time, the cancers usually do not appear for many years, even decades,” the guidance noted, ominously.
PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said the threshold cited by the agency could lead to a dangerous hands-off approach, should catastrophe strike.
“This signals that in the event of a Fukushima-type accident EPA will allow public consumption of radiation-contaminated drinking water for months,” Ruch said.
“Dr. Strangelove is alive and lurking somewhere in the corridors of EPA,” he added.
PEER noted that it is planning on suing the EPA to challenge the legality of the radiation exposure claims. The group said that the guidance violates the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The agency advice on radiation exposure–a supplement to a “Protective Action Guide”–was crafted, in its own words, “to help emergency planners prepare public communications prior to and during” radiological and nuclear emergencies.
In January, just before President Obama left office, the EPA issued the initial Protective Action Guide. It set the allowable threshold for the general population at 500 millirems, and the threshold for babies, children, and pregnant and nursing women at 100 millirems.
“Some commenters…believe the proposed PAG was too conservative and that EPA should consider establishing the PAG in the 2,000 to 10,000 [millirem] range,” the agency said in January, in the Federal Register.
PEER was critical of these limits, reacting to them by saying they also violated Safe Drinking Water Act rules.
“For decades, EPA had taken the position that ‘There is no known safe amount of radiation,’” the watchdog said on Monday.
USA would consider direct talks with North Korea, eventually – Deputy Secretary of State John J Sullivan
US OFFICIAL SAYS NOT RULING OUT EVENTUAL DIRECT TALKS WITH NORTH KOREA, Eye Witness News, 18 Oct 17,
Tension has soared following a series of weapons tests by North Korea and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. Reuters |
TOKYO/UNITED NATIONS – The United States is not ruling out the eventual possibility of direct talks with North Korea, Deputy Secretary of State John J Sullivan said on Tuesday, hours after Pyongyang warned nuclear war might break out at any moment.
Talks between the adversaries have long been urged by China in particular, but Washington and its ally Japan have been reluctant to sit down at the table while Pyongyang continues to pursue a goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States.
“Eventually, we don’t rule out the possibility of course of direct talks,” Sullivan said in Tokyo after talks with his Japanese counterpart……..http://ewn.co.za/2017/10/17/us-official-says-not-ruling-out-eventual-direct-talks-with-north-korea
Authorities always knew that nuclear fallout shelters would not work
Nuclear Fallout Shelters Were Never Going to Work, History // OCTOBER 16, 2017 “…….[IN 1961] the federal government was devising a way for 50 million Americans to survive a nuclear war by scurrying to the nearest basement. The National Fallout Shelter Survey and Marking Program had begun……….
With North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, pointed west and President Trump’s atomic sabre-rattling, fears of nuclear war have crept slowly back into the public consciousness. If the headlines rekindle some of the old unease about air-raid sirens and mushroom clouds, they’re also an occasion to consider a singular relic of the period that, oddly enough, never left us—the fallout-shelter sign.
Dented and faded now, the Kennedy-era signs still cling to the sides of buildings across the country. “They’re an enduring symbol of the Cold War,” says popular-culture historian Bill Geerhart, who since 1999 has maintained CONELRAD.com, a meticulous chronicling of the duck-and-cover era. “They outlasted everything, including the Berlin Wall. They’re tangible artifacts of that era.” And though their original purpose has vanished, the signs still have much to say. They are the products of an ill-conceived program, designed to appease a population with little faith in that program even working.
Kennedy was privately skeptical about the value of a public shelter program……. While fallout shelters would do nothing to safeguard people from an actual bomb, they would, in the words of JFK’s civil-defense chief Steuart L. Pittman, give “our presently unprotected population some form of protection.”……..
In fact, the untenability of the shelters was public knowledge before they had even opened. A November 1961 story on the front page of The Washington Post bemoaned that most of the designated shelters would be little more than “cold, unpleasant cellar space, with bad ventilation and even worse sanitation.”
Conditions were a serious problem, but location was a bigger one. Two-thirds of the fallout shelters in the U.S. were in “risk areas”—neighborhoods so close to strike targets that they’d likely never survive an attack in the first place. In New York, for example, most of the government shelters could be found in Manhattan and Brooklyn—despite the fact that a 20-megaton hydrogen bomb detonated over Midtown would leave a crater 20 stories deep and drive a firestorm all the way to the center of Long Island. Even out there, Life magazine said, occupants of a fallout shelter “might be barbequed.”……..
Anyone who read the newspapers understood not just that an inbound ICBM would leave them only 15 minutes, if that long, to get to a fallout shelter—but also that few structures in the city would survive a strike anyway. …….
Looking back on the civil-defense program in 1976, The New York Times observed: “the only reminders of fallout shelters [now] are the yellow-and-black signs placed outside buildings.”
That’s where thousands remain to this day—eerie reminders of a tense past that, as recent headlines remind us, feels unwantedly familiar. “They couldn’t have come up with a more ominous symbol,” reflected Eric Green, keeper of the Civil Defense Museum website, whose personal collection of fallout-shelter artifacts includes over 140 signs. “That’s the most ominous looking sign—the black and yellow and those triangles. It looked like exactly what it meant: This is the end.” http://www.history.com/news/nuclear-fallout-shelters-were-never-going-to-work
Trump’s “Relation to Reality” is Dangerous to Us All
Here’s how Trump’s ‘malignant narcissism’ will end his presidency, according to psychiatrists — and it’s going to be wild HTTPS://WWW.RAWSTORY.COM/2017/09/HERES-HOW-TRUMPS-MALIGNANT-NARCISSISM-WILL-END-HIS-PRESIDENCY-ACCORDING-TO-PSYCHIATRISTS-AND-ITS-GOING-TO-BE-WILD/ SARAH K. BURRIS, 12 SEP 2017
Dr. Lance Dodes is one of 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts who came together to give an educated assessment of President Donald Trump for a new book. In an interview with Salon, Dodes explained the consensus among the professors is that “the evidence suggesting that Donald Trump may have serious mental health problems is overwhelming.”
Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on Duty to Warn: Trump’s “Relation to Reality” is Dangerous to Us All
No other medical practitioner is restricted by confidentiality the way psychiatrists are, but Trump is no one’s patient. Many trained in mental health can observe Trump and match his speech and behavior patterns to specific disorders. That’s as far as anyone can go without doing an actual in-person exam of Trump.
Dodes began with a diagnosis of “antisocial personality” and the qualities that people who have that exhibit. Comparing it to Trump, he thinks this is one of Trump’s problems.
“It is people who lie and cheat,” Dodes explained as part of the qualities Trump exhibits. “Everybody lies some of the time, but in this instance we mean people who lie as a way of being in the world, to manage relationships and also to manage your feelings about yourself. People who cheat and steal from others. People who lack empathy … the lack of empathy is a critical aspect of it. People who are narcissistic.”
He went on to say that Trump’s case of “malignant narcissism” is particularly acute because he also seems detached from reality when he is agitated. An example is Trump’s boasting of his crowd size being the largest in history, despite proof to the contrary.
“That is very troublesome because what it means is that he needs to believe it,” Dodes told Salon. “He is able to give up reality in exchange for his wished-for belief. Sometimes we call that a delusion.”
He said that in the past many have refrained from using the word “delusional” to describe Trump because it can be confused with people who think they’re the Queen of England or the second coming of Christ. However, “Trump has a fluid sense of reality, which is a sign of a very sick individual,” Dodes said.
Sociopathy is another sign of a mentally ill person. The intersection of cheating, lying and having an emotional disorder typically converge to sociopathy.
“It is not just bad behavior that people have to lie and cheat the way he does, it is an incapacity to treat other people as full human beings,” Dodes said. “That is why his focus is on humiliating others to aggrandize himself, as he did in the Republican primaries when he was debating and calling people names.”
Trump has done the same with women, LGBT people, immigrants, those with special needs and others. Part of being a human being is seeing the plight of others and feeling something. When Trump fails to see the harm in separating immigrants from children it shows his lack of empathy.
Trump manages to score supporters regardless and Dodes explained this is because many search for strong leaders while others are suspicious of them.
“As children, we all want to believe that our parents are good and strong and great and will protect us forever,” he told Salon. “So if you have someone who comes along say, ‘I am good and strong and great and I will protect you forever,’ a certain number of people will follow that person.” For many, Trump is the strong parent being attacked by media or Democrats and they want to protect him.
People trust that they’ll speak up for him, the problem, according to Dodes, is that Trump is a liar, so it’s “a one-sided bargain.”
“Trump is a very primitive man. He is also a man who has a fundamental, deep psychological defect,” he said. “It is expressed in his inability to empathize with others and his lack of genuine loyalty to anyone. You will notice that Trump wants everyone to be loyal to him, but he is loyal to nobody.”
Being a narcissist doesn’t make someone evil or dangerous, according to Dodes, but Trump’s other questionable qualities are what make it concerning and defines it as “malignant.”
As for how this all ends for Trump, Dodes has two possible scenarios for the presidency. First, if there’s a “Reichstag fire”-type event that Trump can use to attack his opposition, the country will rally around him. Dodes thinks it will be North Korea and he’ll end up dropping bombs on the country and the dominoes will begin to fall in Asia.
The second piece involves the Republican Party and the point at which they abandon Trump to preserve their own political careers. They’ll either invoke the 25th Amendment or impeach him. If that happens, Dodes thinks Trump will “cut bait” and leave a mess for someone else to clean up.
“Trump will resign and say, ‘I am still the best and the only savior, and these evil people and their evil media have forced me out,’” Dodes told Salon. “He will keep his constituency, he’ll leave with honor in his own mind and by the way, keep his businesses.”
America’s nuclear industry wants to ‘self assess’ for safety, efficiency: that’s not a good idea
Why NRC Nuclear Safety Inspections are Necessary: Columbia Generating Station, UCS, DAVE LOCHBAUM, DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR SAFETY PROJECT | OCTOBER 17, 2017 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) adopted its Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) in 2000. The ROP is far superior to the oversight processes previously employed by the NRC. Among its many virtues, the NRC treats the ROP as a work in progress, meaning that agency routinely re-assesses the ROP and makes necessary adjustments.
Earlier this year, the NRC initiated a formal review of its engineering inspections with the goal of making them more efficient and more effective. During a public meeting on October 11, 2017, the NRC working group conducting the review outlined some changes to the engineering inspections that would essentially cover the same ground but with an estimated 8 to 15 percent reduction in person-hours (the engineering inspections and suggested revisions are listed on slide 7 of the NRC’s presentation). Basically, the NRC working group suggested repackaging the inspections so as to be able to examine the same number of items, but in fewer inspection trips.
The nuclear industry sees a different way to accomplish the efficiency and effectiveness gains sought by the NRC’s review effort—they propose to eliminate the NRC’s engineering inspections and replace them with self-assessments. The industry would mail the results from the self-assessments to the NRC for their reading pleasure.
UCS is wary of self-assessments by industry in lieu of NRC inspections. On one hand, statistics might show that self-assessments increase safety just as a community firing all its law enforcement officers would see a statistical decrease in arrests, suggesting a lower crime rate. I have been researching the records publicly available in ADAMS to compare the industry’s track record for finding latent safety problems with the NRC’s track record to see whether replacing NRC’s inspections with industry self-assessments could cause nuclear safety to go off-track.
This commentary is the first in a series that convinces us that the NRC’s engineering inspections are necessary for nuclear safety and that public health and safety will be compromised by replacing them with self-assessments by industry.
Columbia Generating Station: Not so Cool Safety Moves………
UCS Perspective
Under the Atomic Energy Act as amended, the NRC is tasked with establishing and enforcing regulations to protect workers and the public from the inherent hazards from nuclear power reactor operation.
Owners are responsible for conforming with applicable regulatory requirements. In this case, the owner made a series of changes that resulted in the plant not conforming with applicable regulatory requirements for the air temperature within the control room. But there’s no evidence suggesting that the owner knew that the changes were illegal yet made them anyway hoping not to get caught. Nevertheless, ignorance of the law is still not a valid excuse. The public is not adequately protected when safety regulations are not met, regardless of whether the violations are intentional or inadvertent.
This case study illustrates the vital role that NRC’s enforcement efforts plays in nuclear safety. The soundest safety regulation in the world serves little use unless owners abide by it. The NRCs inspection efforts either verify that owners are abiding by safety regulations or identify shortfalls. Self-assessments by owners are more likely to sustain mis-interpretations and misunderstandings than to flush out safety problems.
The NRC’s ROP is the public’s best protection against hazards caused by aging nuclear power reactors, shrinking maintenance budgets, and emerging sabotage threats. Replacing the NRC’s engineering inspections with self-assessments by the owners would lessen the effectiveness of that protective shield.
The NRC must continue to protect the public to the best of its ability. Delegating safety checks to owners is inconsistent with that important mission. http://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochbaum/why-nrc-inspections-are-necessary-columbia
Rumblings in USA’s Republicans in Congress over concern about global warming
The Senate’s top climate advocate explains why Congress is doing nothing about global warming
“Trajectory points on the horizon aren’t part of our battle”: Sheldon Whitehouse on Democrats’ climate strategy. VOX, by Combating climate change couldn’t be further from the Senate’s legislative agenda, but one Democratic senator claims a deal to enact a carbon tax may be closer than many realize.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), widely seen as the Senate’s most active advocate on climate change, says he is in routine communication with “six to 10” Senate Republicans who, he says, privately support his carbon tax bill but are unwilling to publicly back it. Only one Senate Republican, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, is willing to publicly support that idea.
In an interview with Vox, Whitehouse talked excitedly about the former Republican officeholders and George W. Bush officials who have formally voiced their support as well.
“If you want to have a valid Republican Party 10 years from now, you can’t have a generation of people that grows up seeing the Republican Party as climate deniers,” Whitehouse said in an interview, explaining his confidence that Republicans will move to address an issue their party’s president has called a “Chinese hoax.”
The issue is getting new attention as several severe hurricanes have made landfall in the US, causing expensive and lasting damage in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. After the hurricane in Florida, one Republican mayor said: “If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is.”……. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/16/16394818/sheldon-whitehouse-congress-climate
‘Repowering’ wind farms as wind turbine efficiency leaps ahead
New wind turbine efficiency so great utilities ‘repowering’ farms early https://electrek.co/2017/10/16/new-wind-turbine-efficiency-so-great-utilities-repowering-farms-early/ John Fitzgerald Weaver – Oct. 16th 2017 @SolarInMASS
Warren Buffett owned MidAmerican Energy is upgrading wind turbines in Iowa early in their lifetimes in order to take advantage of the newest innovations in gear boxes and blades. Since only small parts of the already developed wind farms need be upgraded – these moves will increase the profitability of the farms. Wind turbines are evolving at a fast enough pace that waiting for standard end of life (30 years) means leaving money on the table.
I estimate an additional $51M/year in revenue from MidAmerican’s repowering.
John Hensley, deputy director for industry data and analysis at the American Wind Energy Association, says 700MW of wind power has been repowered in the USA. MidAmerican stated that they’re upgrading 1,000MW of their 4,000MW of wind (in Iowa). Their project will take through 2020 to complete.
As the article above notes – Wind projects started before 2017 qualified for the full production tax credit of 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour. The credit falls to 80 percent of that for projects started in 2017; 60 percent for those started in 2018; and 40 percent for those started in 2019. Most of the life of these system upgrades will be long after the wind production credit diminishes.
Interestingly –
After refurbishing some of the turbines at the Diablo Winds project in the Altamont Pass in California, researchers found that the fatality rates fell by 54 percent for raptors and 66 percent for all birds.
MidAmerican estimates that repowering the farms would increase output from the turbines by 19-28%. Annually, wind farms lower in output by about 1.7% per year. The lifetime of a wind farm has historically been around 30 years.
Electrek’s Take
With capacity factors around 40% on the newest projects (33% on older projects) – combined with 1,000MW of upgraded hardware – there will be an additional 613 million kWh/year coming from these turbines. The average American home uses about 10,000kWh/year for comparison. If the average price of electricity in Iowa (before taxes) is around .0835¢/kWh, then that’s $51M a year in new revenue. If this 1GW of wind cost $1B to install – that’s an extra 5% return on investment per year after accounting for the cost of upgrades (roughly of course).
This expanding evolution – adding future revenue to projects via strategic plant repowering in an age of fast maturing hardware – changes operations and maintenance in renewable technology giving those building today’s utility-scale power plants an improved tool to lower up front pricing. These towers are being repowered in their 14th to 11th years (plus or minus a few depending on order). There is a spreadsheet inside of MidAmerican which did some calculus to determine when money earning and repowering cost curves intersected – and that intersection was when the new investment was acted on. Thirty years with a constant declining power output will now change to developers signing contracts with large manufacturers at time of original construction to upgrade hardware in 8 to 10 years. These contracts will depend on developers and finance houses trusting that these manufacturers can continue the technological march forward in an aggressive manner.
Repowering is an old concept – but it’s getting more headlines today in renewables because large number of systems are hitting that age and the burning pace of technological innovation.
Idaho National Laboratory – promoter and also umpire for nuclear reactors’ safety
National lab is cheerleader and umpire for reactors’ future Peter Behr, E&E News reporter, SCOVILLE, Idaho — Nuclear power for the grid was born here in 1951, when an experimental reactor’s football-sized core sent current flowing to a quartet of lightbulbs at the isolated government laboratory on Idaho’s southeast desert.
And the nuclear industry’s future may be written here, as well — at least key parts of it — inside the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory testing complex.
INL’s scientists, with colleagues at other DOE labs, are keeping a close watch on the health of the nation’s commercial nuclear reactors, most of them built before the mid-1980s in the flush of excitement about nuclear energy that would be “too cheap to meter,” as an early promoter predicted. How long can the plants keep going before critical steel, concrete and wiring systems are overcome by the aging effects of heat, radiation and mechanical stresses?
And now, with the nuclear industry struggling to compete against low-cost natural gas generation, INL is also stepping up a search for ways to lower reactor operating costs, from research on “accident tolerant” reactor fuels to designing more efficient control rooms and using technology to reduce reactor safety inspection time and costs……..
The NRC has licensed 84 reactors to continue operating beyond the initial 40-year span for an additional 20 years. Nine more relicensing applications are pending, and four reactors are expected to apply, the NRC said……..
The Energy Department’s 2016 report on the reactor longevity campaign notes the potential for damaging surprises. The specialized stainless steel alloys chosen for reactors in the 1960s had many plus factors, DOE said, but concerns, as well. Reactor radiation can add to stress-related corrosion cracking, threatening structural integrity. DOE researchers noted this year that “limited information is known about the long-term performance” of these alloys. Concrete structures have borne thermal shock and radiation, and reactor wiring has lived in harsh environments. Aging issues are “expected to become more severe” as time passes, DOE said.
An essential test process at Idaho and other DOE labs is to bombard sample reactor materials with enormous radiation levels inside test reactors, accelerating stress testing to mimic impacts of operations far beyond 40 years.
“It’s possible plants could run into aging problems that were too expensive to fix, and the operators would decide to shut it down,” Wagner said.
“Nearly all of the fleet will go offline between 2029 and 2055” if plants cannot operate beyond 60 years, Wagner said. “That may seem like a long time away, but it’s really not when you consider replacing that level of assets.”…….https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060063769
Florida: PSC regulators say no to FPL nuclear fees without financial analysis
Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer,Without a required feasibility analysis to show that two new proposed nuclear reactors are a good deal for customers, Florida Power & Light Co. cannot collect costs incurred after 2016, the Florida Public Service Commission decided Tuesday.
PSC commissioners unanimously agreed with a staff recommendation that because FPL failed to submit a required financial analysis, costs incurred for the two reactors from Jan. 1, 2017 going forward cannot be collected through nuclear power-related fees customers pay.
Since 2009 Juno Beach-based FPL has sought an operating license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the proposed 2,200-megawatt Turkey Point 6 and 7 reactors which could cost as much as $21.8 billion. They might never be built, or no sooner than 2031, at the same facility where FPL already has two operating reactors overlooking Biscayne Bay south of Miami.
Still, customers have already paid close to $282 million in costs associated with the two reactors. And FPL wanted permission to continue charging customers with an exemption from having to file a feasibility study.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the Office of Public Counsel, the Florida Retail Federation and the Florida Industrial Power Users Group all urged the commission to deny FPL’s request for an exemption.
The PSC agreed, but the company can collect costs from customers if and when it does provide the required report as long as the report shows the project makes financial sense, the commission said. The utility could also seek to collect the costs some other way, such as through base rates…….
SACE said Tuesday it has other concerns, including that FPL has never committed to a binding price for the reactors or to construct them at all.
“FPL customers have already paid $300 million into the proposed Turkey Point expansion project that will almost certainly never be built. Two nuclear reactors of the same design in South Carolina were recently cancelled after the projected cost soared to over $25 billion dollars,” Smith said.
The Commission approved recovery of the utility’s costs for 2015 and 2016 that included $46,978,739 for the Turkey Point project. Customers will be receiving a credit next year of $7,305,202. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/psc-regulators-say-fpl-nuclear-fees-without-financial-analysis/LucoyuUttLqnHM9JYAFW6N/
Russian bribery plot in advance of USA-Russia nuclear deal
FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before controversial nuclear deal http://nypost.com/2017/10/17/fbi-uncovered-russian-bribery-plot-before-controversial-nuclear-deal/By Bob Fredericks The FBI had evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s energy business in the US before the Obama administration approved a deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, a new report said Tuesday.
The feds used a confidential US witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks, The Hill reported.
“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill.
Russian nuclear officials also sent millions of dollars to the US designed to benefit the Clinton Foundation while then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that smoothed the way for the sale of the US uranium interests.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena SCANA over failed nuclear project
Stock market regulators subpoena SCANA over failed nuclear project, Post and Courier, By John McDermott and Thad Moore jmcdermott@postandcourier.comtmoore@postandcourier.com Oct 17, 2017
The nation’s top stock market regulator is investigating SCANA Corp.’s failed nuclear construction project, piling onto the growing stack of legal challenges and criminal probes now dogging South Carolina’s largest company.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the stock market, has asked SCANA for documents tied to its effort to expand the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station north of Columbia. The company disclosed the investigation to its investors Tuesday.
Cayce-based SCANA, which owns South Carolina Electric & Gas, said the SEC’s subpoena was connected to “an investigation they are conducting relating to the new nuclear project.” The SEC declined to comment on the probe or its focus.
The state-owned power company Santee Cooper, meantime, hasn’t received a subpoena from the SEC, spokeswoman Mollie Gore said. Santee Cooper owned a minority stake in the project, which cost some $9 billion before it was abandoned in July.
The SEC inquiry is one of several investigations into the project, which was once heralded as the beginning of an American nuclear renaissance with a pair of new reactors in Fairfield County.
SCANA and Santee Cooper have already received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in Columbia, and the State Law Enforcement Division has opened a criminal inquiry into potential fraud surrounding the project. The state Legislature has formed two panels looking into what went wrong……..
The plunge has inspired at least three shareholders to sue SCANA, accusing the company and its executives of breaking securities laws by hiding the project’s problems from investors. The allegations have focused in part on the so-called Bechtel report, a highly critical audit that questioned the reactors’ viability in 2016.
And while legal challenges have piled up for SCANA, the SEC has already been involved on the edges of the V.C. Summer project.
Market regulators have been looking into the project’s lead contractor, Westinghouse, and how it recorded the project’s finances before filing for bankruptcy earlier this year, court filings show. The SEC has also been investigating the accounting practices of Westinghouse’s Japanese parent company, Toshiba…..http://www.postandcourier.com/business/stock-market-regulators-subpoena-scana-over-failed-nuclear-project/article_38641046-b33e-11e7-9e1d-cb3032a33e2f.html
2017 – a catastrophic year for the nuclear industry – downturn in China, USA, and globally
More disastrous news for the nuclear power industry. In 2017 alone:
– clear signs of a major nuclear slow-down in China – the last remaining hope for the industry.
– the US nuclear power industry is in the middle of a full-blown crisis
– a seriously anti-nuclear government has been elected in South Korea
– Taiwan has reaffirmed a nuclear phase-out by 2025
– the South African nuclear power program was ruled illegal by the High Court and probably won’t be revived
– Switzerland voted in a referendum to phase out nuclear power (while all of Germany’s reactors will be closed by the end of 2022 and all of Belgium’s will be closed by the end of 2025).
– huge problems in the UK and France
– India’s nuclear power program is going nowhere and the government has implicitly acknowledged that plans for French EPR reactors and US AP1000 reactors will likely be shelved
– Japan’s nuclear power program remains in a miserable state
– Russia’s Rosatom has acknowledged that the pipeline for new reactors is fast drying up
Meanwhile, the growth of renewables has been spectacular and will grow even faster over the coming years. Renewables will be producing 3 times as much electricity as nuclear power by 2022.
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Nuclear power’s deepening crisis, Jim Green, 16 Oct 2017, www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19354&page=0
This year has been catastrophic for nuclear power and just when it seemed the situation couldn’t get any worse for the industry, it did. There are clear signs of a nuclear slow-down in China, the only country with a large nuclear new-build program.
China’s nuclear slow-down is addressed in the latest World Nuclear Industry Status Report and also in an August 2017 article by former World Nuclear Association executive Steve Kidd. China’s nuclear program “has continued to slow sharply”, Kidd writes, with the most striking feature being the paucity of approvals for new reactors over the past 18 months. China Nuclear Engineering Corp., the country’s leading nuclear construction firm, noted earlier this year that the “Chinese nuclear industry has stepped into a declining cycle” because the “State Council approved very few new-build projects in the past years”.
Kidd continues: “Other signs of trouble are the uncertainties about the type of reactor to be utilised in the future, the position of the power market in China, the structure of the industry with its large state owned enterprises (SOEs), the degree of support from top state planners and public opposition to nuclear plans.”
Over-supply has worsened in some regions and there are questions about how many reactors are needed to satisfy power demand. Kidd writes: “[T]he slowing Chinese economy, the switch to less energy-intensive activities, and over-investment in power generation means that generation capacity outweighs grid capacity in some provinces and companies are fighting to export power from their plants.”
Kidd estimates that China’s nuclear capacity will be around 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, well below previous expectations. Forecasts of 200 GW by 2030, “not unusual only a few years ago, now seem very wide of the mark.” And even the 100 GW estimate is stretching credulity ‒nuclear capacity will be around 50 GW in 2020 and a doubling of that capacity by 2030 won’t happen if the current slow-down sets in.
Kidd states that nuclear power in China may become “a last resort, rather as it is throughout most of the world.” The growth of wind and solar “dwarfs” new nuclear, he writes, and the hydro power program “is still enormous.”
Chinese government agencies note that in the first half of 2017, renewables accounted for 70% of new capacity added (a sharp increase from the figure of 52% in calendar 2016), thermal sources (mainly coal) 28% and nuclear just 2%. Earlier this month, Beijing announced plans to stop or delay work on 95 GW of planned and under-construction coal-fired power plants, so the 70% renewables figure is set for a healthy boost.
Crisis in the US
The plan to build two AP1000 reactors in South Carolina ‒ abandoned in July after A$11.5 ‒ 13.3 billion was spent on the partially-built reactors ‒ is now the subject of multiple lawsuits and investigations including criminal probes. Westinghouse, the lead contractor, filed for bankruptcy protection in March. Westinghouse’s parent company Toshiba is selling its most profitable business (memory chips) to stave off bankruptcy.
The cost of the two reactors in South Carolina was estimated at A$12.4 billion in 2008 and the latest estimate ‒ provided after the decision to abandon the project ‒ was A$31.6 billion. Cost increases of that scale are the new norm for nuclear. Cost estimates for two French reactors under construction in France and Finland have tripled.
Pro-nuclear commentator Dan Yurman discussed the implications of the decision to abandon the VC Summer project in South Carolina in a September 11 post:
“It is the failure of one of the largest capital construction projects in the US Every time another newspaper headline appears about what went wrong at the VC Summer project, the dark implications of what it all means for the future of the nuclear energy industry get all the more foreboding. … Now instead of looking forward to a triumph for completion of two massive nuclear reactors generating 2300 MW of CO2 emission free electricity, the nation will get endless political fallout, and lawsuits, which will dominate the complex contractual debris, left behind like storm damage from a hurricane, for years to come.”
The only other nuclear new-build project in the US ‒ two partially-built AP1000 reactors in Georgia ‒ is hanging on by a thread. Georgia’s Public Service Commission is reviewing a proposal to proceed with the reactors despite the bankruptcy filing of the lead contractor (Westinghouse), lengthy delays (5.5 years behind schedule) and a doubling of the cost estimate (the original estimate was A$17.9 billion and the latest estimates range from A$32.5 ‒ 38.4 billion for the two reactors).
No other reactors are under construction in the US and there is no likelihood of any construction starts in the foreseeable future. The US reactor fleet is one of the oldest in the world ‒ 44 out of 99 reactors have been operating for 40 years or more ‒ so decline is certain. Six reactors have been shut down in the US over the past five years and many others are on the chopping block.
Indicative of their desperation, some nuclear advocates in the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) are openly acknowledging the contribution of nuclear power (and the civil nuclear fuel cycle) to the production of nuclear weapons and using that as an argument to sharply increase the massive subsidies the nuclear power industry already receives. That’s a sharp reversal from their usual furious denial of any connections between the ‘peaceful atom’ and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Global downturn
Elsewhere, the nuclear industry is in deep malaise and has suffered any number of set-backs this year. Pro-nuclear lobby groups are warning about nuclear power’s “rapidly accelerating crisis“, a “crisis that threatens the death of nuclear energy in the West“, and noting that “the industry is on life support in the United States and other developed economies“.
The French nuclear industry is in its “worst situation ever” according to former EDF director Gérard Magnin. The only reactor under construction in France is six years behind schedule, the estimated cost has escalated from A$5 billion to A$16 billion, and the regulator recently announced that the pressure vessel head of the reactor will need to be replaced by 2024 following a long-running quality-control scandal. The two French nuclear utilities face crippling debts (A$56.5 billion in the case of EDF) and astronomical costs (up to A$151 billion to upgrade ageing reactors, for example), and survive only because of repeated government bailouts.
In South Africa, a High Court judgement on April 26 ruled that much of the country’s nuclear new-build program is without legal foundation. There is little likelihood that the program will be revived given that it is shrouded in corruption scandals and President Jacob Zuma will leave office in 2019 (if he isn’t ousted earlier).
Public support for South Korea’s nuclear power program has been in free-fall in recent years, in part due to a corruption scandal. Incoming President Moon Jae-in said on June 19 that his government will halt plans to build new nuclear power plants and will not extend the lifespan of existing plants beyond 40 years.
In June, Taiwan’s Cabinet reiterated the government’s resolve to phase out nuclear power by 2025.
In the UK, nuclear industry lobbyist Tim Yeo says the compounding problems facing the industry “add up to something of a crisis for the UK’s nuclear new-build programme.” The estimated cost of the only two reactors under construction was recently increased to A$46.2 billion (A$23.1 billion each) and they are eight years behind schedule.
India’s nuclear industry keeps promising the world and delivering very little ‒ nuclear capacity is 6.2 GW and nuclear power accounted for 3.4% of the country’s electricity generation last year.
In Japan, Fukushima clean-up and compensation cost estimates have doubled and doubled again and now stand at A$245 billion. Only five reactors are operating in Japan, compared to 54 before the March 2011 Fukushima disaster.
In Russia, Rosatom’s deputy general director Vyacheslav Pershukov said in June that the world market for new nuclear power plants is shrinking, and the possibilities for building new large reactors abroad are almost exhausted. He said Rosatom expects to be able to find customers for new reactors until 2020-2025 but “it will be hard to continue.”
In Switzerland, voters supported a May 21 referendum on a package of energy policy measures including a ban on new nuclear power reactors. Thus Switzerland has opted for a gradual nuclear phase-out and all reactors will probably be closed by the early 2030s, if not earlier (while all of Germany’s reactors will be closed by the end of 2022 and all of Belgium’s will be closed by the end of 2025).
Globally, the industry’s biggest problem is the ageing of the current fleet of reactors. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that just to maintain current capacity of 392 GW, about 320 new reactors (320 GW) would have to be built by 2050 to replace retired reactors. That’s 10 new reactors each year. A nuclear ‘renaissance’ has supposedly been underway over the past decade yet on average only five reactors have come online each year.
Comparison with renewables
The IAEA has released the 2017 edition of its International Status and Prospects for Nuclear Power report series. It states that the share of nuclear power in total global electricity generation has decreased for 10 years in a row, to under 11% in 2015, yet “this still corresponds to nearly a third of the world’s low carbon electricity production.” In other words, renewables (24.5%) generate more than twice as much electricity as nuclear power (10.5%) and the gap is growing rapidly.
Five years from now, renewables will likely be generating three times as much electricity as nuclear reactors. The International Energy Agency (IEA ‒ not to be confused with the IAEA) recently released a five-year global forecast for renewables, predicting capacity growth of 43% (920 GW) by 2022. The latest forecast is a “significant upwards revision” from last year’s forecast, the IEA states, largely driven by expected solar power growth in China and India.
The IEA forecasts that the share of renewables in global power generation will reach 30% in 2022, up from 24% in 2016. By 2022, nuclear’s share will be around 10% and renewables will be out-generating nuclear by a factor of three. Non-hydro renewable electricity generation has grown eight-fold over the past decade and will probably surpass nuclear by 2022, or shortly thereafter, then leave nuclear power in its wake as renewables expand and the ageing nuclear fleet atrophies.
For the moment, America is staying in the Iran nuclear agreement
US to stay in Iran deal for now: officials, (Reuters) THE AUSTRALIAN, RICHARD COWAN AND DAVID MORGAN, 16 OCT 17, Senior Trump administration officials say the United States is committed to remaining part of the Iran nuclear accord for now, despite President Donald Trump’s criticisms of the deal and his warnings that he might pull out.
Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the United Nations, says Tehran is complying with the 2015 nuclear accord intended to increase Iran’s accountability in return for the lifting of some economic sanctions.
“I think right now, you’re going to see us stay in the deal,” Haley told NBC’s Meet the Press.
In a speech on Friday, Trump laid out an aggressive approach on Iran and said he would not certify it is complying with the nuclear accord, despite a determination by the UN’s nuclear watchdog that Tehran is meeting its terms.
The Republican president threw the issue to the US Congress, which has 60 days to decide whether to reinstate US sanctions. He warned that if “we are not able to reach a solution working with congress and our allies, then the agreement will be terminated”.
So far, none of the other signatories to the deal – Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, Iran and the European Union – have cited serious concerns, leaving the US isolated…… http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/us-to-stay-in-iran-deal-for-now-officials/news-story/48e6f041c87304d1a8dabd4de8ef27c8
Trump will provoke ‘nuclear arms race’ over North Korea – says Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton: Trump will provoke ‘nuclear arms race’ over North Korea, Guardian, 15 Oct 17,
Former secretary of state refuses to say if successor Tillerson should go, as she decries Trump approach to Iran nuclear deal. Hillary Clinton has denounced Donald Trump’s bellicose language toward North Korea, believing his verbal aggression has rattled American allies and will set off a nuclear arms race in the region.
Clinton, who was secretary of state under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, stressed that she preferred a diplomatic solution; suggested Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric played into Kim Jong-un’s hands; and bemoaned Trump’s public undercutting of his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, regarding his attempts to work with China and establish talks with Pyongyang.
“Diplomacy, preventing war, creating some deterrents is slow, hard-going, difficult work,” said Clinton, who declined to answer when asked if Tillerson should resign. “And you can’t have impulsive people or ideological people who basically say, ‘Well, we’re done with you.”’
On Friday Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate foreign relations committee, continued his war of words with the president when he told the Washington Post Trump had “castrated” Tillerson.
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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