Solar heating
well as solar electricity. It is clear than solar photovoltaic power generation is booming around the world, with over 580 GW of PV solar installed by the end of 2019, and much more expected, but it’s worth noting that there is also a large amount of direct solar heating system capacity in use (470 GW thermal), and that too is also growing.
large inter-seasonal heat stores, allowing summer heat to be used for winter warming via local district heating networks.
augments heat supplied by other means, including from biomass combustion, but new approaches are being adopted which enhance the solar and bioenergy input using large heat pumps. Although (fossil) gas fired heating still often has the edge, solar heating with heat stores can be competitive with other heating sources if district heating networks already exists, as they do in Denmark. And of course the carbon emissions associated with using
fossil gas are then avoided.https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2020/05/solar-heats-up.html
The pandemic poses a danger that is unique to the nuclear industry
The Hidden Nuclear Risk of the Pandemic The coronavirus crisis highlights the resilience problem of civilian nuclear power plants. https://thebulwark.com/the-hidden-nuclear-risk-of-the-pandemic/ by VICTOR GILINSKY AND HENRY SOKOLSKI APRIL 27, 2020
The coronavirus crisis has revealed a significant Achilles’ heel in civilian nuclear power: The plants can’t operate if their relatively few highly skilled operators get sick or become contagious and have to be quarantined, a situation that, according to news reports, some plants are getting close to. That puts a dent in nuclear-industry assertions that its plants provide a level of protection against natural events far beyond that of most other electricity suppliers.
In recent weeks, several vital institutions—police forces, food-processing plants, the U.S. Postal Service, not to mention health care providers—have reportedly been strained as personnel have become sick with COVID-19. As the pandemic spreads, it could create a problem for the smooth functioning of nuclear plants, as well. Just operating in safe shutdown state could be challenging. The details differ from plant to plant and are spelled out in technical specifications that are part of each plant’s federal license, but generally it takes a supervisor and several operators to man the control room and some number of maintenance staff. Altogether, counting all shifts, there may be a couple of dozen operators per plant. That doesn’t sound like much, but these are highly skilled personnel who are licensed to operate an individual plant. You can’t just pull in operators from elsewhere. If the licensed operators are unavailable because of disease or medical concerns, you are out of luck.
The Nuclear Energy Institute also argues that by contributing reliable power to military installations, nuclear energy “supports the nation’s ability to defend itself.” Yet here we have a type of emergency—involving a possible lack of operating staff—in which the nuclear plants could become a serious liability rather than an asset.
Nuclear plants are not without their advantages. But they also come with serious disadvantages, one of which—the safety imperative for constant, highly trained staffing no matter what—has become evident during the current pandemic. They are an inflexible source of energy that carries an enormous overhead in terms of safety and security, when what we need in our energy system for dealing with inevitable emergencies is not rigidity, but resilience.
UK ignored warnings about pandemic danger, cut health funding, spent up big on nuclear weapons
 Pride: why the UK spent billions on nuclear bombs but ignored  pandemic threat https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/pride-why-uk-spent-billions-nuclear-bombs-ignored-pandemic-threat/
A viral outbreak was judged more likely than a nuclear attack – so why was Trident ring-fenced while NHS funding was cut? Richard Norton-Taylor 30 April 2020 We now know that the government was warned last year that a viral pandemic posed the greatest potential threat to the country. In a confidential briefing from the Cabinet Office, which was leaked last week, ministers were told that tens of thousands lives could be at risk if an outbreak occurred. Among the recommendations were stockpiling PPE (personal protective equipment) and establishing plans for a contact tracing system.
It was not the first time that warnings fell on deaf ears. In 2014, the Ministry of Defence advised that “alertness to changing trends” was vital to mitigating the likelihood of a pandemic. Senior civilian and military officials promptly shoved the report into a draw where it was left to gather dust.
To make matters worse, the austerity programme carried out over the last decade, has led to significant cuts to government projects and public services, including the NHS, that would ready us for a pandemic. There has, however, been one notable exception to the cuts – the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Tens of billions continue to be spent on weapons that are of no use against the types of attacks judged a possible threat to the UK in the government’s National Risk Register. The latest register, drawn up in 2017, refers only to the need to protect nuclear power stations and the possibility of chemical, biological and nuclear material attacks by terrorists. But it adds that terrorists’ use of conventional weapons is “far more likely”. Successive governments have described Britain’s nuclear arsenal as an “ultimate insurance” against an attack, or blackmail, by a foreign power. If that is the case, then why did the government not increase its healthcare spending as insurance against what it knew was a far greater threat – an infectious pandemic. Defenders of Britain’s nuclear weapons argue that they are needed for political reasons, to preserve Britain’s status as world power. But arguments about whether nuclear weapons would ever be considered a realistic or effective threat against a potential aggressor are dodged. Continue reading |
Report warns on the threat of sea level rise to Sizewell nuclear plan
Sea level rise ‘could threaten nuclear power 
station’ planned for UK, report claims, Independent UK, EDF about to submit planning application for major development at Sizewell on Suffolk coast, Harry Cockburn, 1 May 20
Rising sea levels and coastal erosion could pose a threat to two nuclear reactors planned to be built on the low-lying Suffolk coast, according to local councils and analysis by an independent environmental group.
East Suffolk Council and Suffolk County Council have already lodged various concerns about French company EDF Energy’s plans for the new facilities at Sizewell C, and a new analysis by experts at the Nuclear Consulting Group suggests planned sea defences may be inadequate in future climate change scenarios.
EDF is reportedly about to submit its official planning application for the project, and has been working with Chinese state-owned nuclear company.
The Nuclear Consulting Group’s paper, written by structural engineer, Nick Scarr, suggests the Suffolk coast where the Sizewell development is planned, is inherently “unstable”, and that due to erosion by the sea the site could become an island before the station reaches the end of its active life, thereby risking a serious accident. Mr Scarr told the Climate News Network:
“Any sailor, or lifeboat crew, knows that east coast banks need respect — they have dynamic patterns, and even the latest charts cannot be accurate for long. “I was deeply concerned by EDF’s premise that there is micro-stability at the Sizewell site, which makes it suitable for new-build nuclear. It is true if you restrict analysis to recent historical
data, but it is false if you look at longer-term data and evidence-based climate science predictions…….. (subscribers only) https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/nuclear-power-sea-rise-sizewell-c-edf-suffolk-a9492901.html
USA’s complicated and contradictory plan to punish Iran
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US pushing to punish Iran by invoking nuclear deal Trump abandonedDiplomats fear drive is an attempt by Washington hawks to destroy nuclear deal and sabotage United Nations Independent UK, Borzou DaragahiInternational Correspondent @borzou 2 May 20
The United States is pushing ahead with a scheme to extend a United Nations arms embargo on Iran that is due to be lifted in October as part of the nuclear deal that Washington abandoned two years ago. To force the extension, Washington will attempt to lobby the Security Council to continue the arms embargo, which bars weapons sales to or from Iran. But it also is making what legal experts and diplomats describe as a convoluted argument that it is still part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it left, and hence able to use one of its provisions to “snapback” the embargo. The administration’s plan is to claim it is still part of the Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal in international law even though Mr Trump trashed the agreement, meant to curtail Tehran’s atomic technology programme, as the “worst deal” in history. The plan was first reported by The New York Times earlier this week……… diplomats and scholars fear that the Trump administration’s latest gambit is a move by hardline Washington fixtures aimed at delivering a lasting blow to any prospects for a future deal with Iran, as well as part and parcel of far-right efforts to damage international multilateral institutions. “The administration is trying to force everyone’s hand by creating yet another crisis that they hope this time would bring down the JCPOA for good,” said Ali Vaez, of the International Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution advocacy organisation. Iran, which has severely downgraded its adherence to provisions of the nuclear deal in response to crippling US sanctions, has vowed that any reimposition of international sanctions would prompt it to leave the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and potentially open the door for it to pursue nuclear weapons……. |
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Hole in the ozone layer is now closed
Record Arctic ozone hole now closed: UN https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/record-arctic-ozone-hole-now-closed-un/news-story/b0d4c72a9befb02c7ebc4ccc2e91a6c1
May 2, 2020 Ozone depletion over the Arctic hit a “record level” in March, the biggest since 2011, but the hole has now closed, the UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says.
The springtime phenomenon in the northern hemisphere was driven by ozone-depleting substances still in the atmosphere and a very cold winter in the stratosphere, WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis told a UN briefing in Geneva.
“These two factors combined to give a very high level of depletion which was worse than we saw in 2011. It’s now back to normal again … the ozone hole has closed,” she said on Friday.
Nullis, asked whether less pollution during the pandemic had played a role, said: “It was completely unrelated to COVID.”
Netanyahu’s deceitful push to try to get USA to attack Iran
 Netanyahu pushed U.S. to attack Iran with fabricated nuclear documents: report, Tehran Times May 1, 2020 – TEHRAN — The Iranian nuclear documents presented by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were an Israeli fabrication designed to trigger U.S. into a war with Iran, according to an investigation.U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, 2018 partly based on Netanyahu’s claim that Iran was determined to build nuclear weapons, the investigation said.
In April 2018, Netanyahu claimed publicly that Israel’s Mossad spy agency had stolen Iran’s entire nuclear archive from Tehran. “You may well know that Iran’s leaders repeatedly deny ever pursuing nuclear weapons…” he declared. “Well, tonight, I’m here to tell you one thing: Iran lied. Big time.” However, an investigation of the supposed Iranian nuclear documents by The Grayzone reveals them to be the product of an Israeli disinformation operation that helped trigger the most serious threat of war since the conflict with Iran began nearly four decades ago. The following is an excerpt of an article published in The Grayzone on Wednesday: This investigation found multiple indications that the story of Mossad’s heist of 50,000 pages of secret nuclear files from Tehran was very likely an elaborate fiction and that the documents were fabricated by the Mossad itself. According to the official Israeli version of events, the Iranians had gathered the nuclear documents from various locations and moved them to what Netanyahu himself described as “a dilapidated warehouse” in southern Tehran. Even assuming that Iran had secret documents demonstrating the development of nuclear weapons, the claim that top secret documents would be held in a nondescript and unguarded warehouse in central Tehran is so unlikely that it should have raised immediate alarm bells about the story’s legitimacy. Even more problematic was the claim by a Mossad official to Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman that Mossad knew not only in what warehouse its commandos would find the documents but precisely which safes to break into with a blowtorch. The official told Bergman the Mossad team had been guided by an intelligence asset to the few safes in the warehouse contained the binders with the most important documents. Netanyahu bragged publicly that “very few” Iranians knew the location of the archive; the Mossad official told Bergman “only a handful of people” knew. No proof of authenticity Netanyahu’s April 30 slide show presented a series of purported Iranian documents containing sensational revelations that he pointed to as proof of his insistence that Iran had lied about its interest in manufacturing nuclear weapons. The visual aides included a file supposedly dating back to early 2000 or before that detailed various ways to achieve a plan to build five nuclear weapons by mid-2003. Another document that generated widespread media interest was an alleged report on a discussion among leading Iranian scientists of a purported mid-2003 decision by Iran’s defense minister to separate an existing secret nuclear weapons program into overt and covert parts. Left out of the media coverage of these “nuclear archive” documents was a simple fact that was highly inconvenient to Netanyahu: nothing about them offered a scintilla of evidence that they were genuine. For example, not one contained the official markings of the relevant Iranian agency…… Withholding access to outside experts In fact, even the most pro-Israeli visitors to Tel Aviv have been denied access to the original documents. David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security and Olli Heinonen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies – both stalwart defenders of the official Israeli line on Iranian nuclear policy – reported in October 2018 that they had been given only a “slide deck” showing reproductions or excerpts of the documents. When a team of six specialists from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs visited Israel in January 2019 for briefings on the archive, they too were offered only a cursory browse of the supposedly original documents. Harvard Professor Matthew Bunn recalled in an interview with this writer that the team had been shown one of the binders containing what were said to be original documents relating to Iran’s relations with the IAEA and had “paged through a bit of it.” But they were shown no documents on Iran nuclear weapons work. As Bunn admitted, “We weren’t attempting to do any forensic analysis of these documents.”………….. The role of the MEK in passing the massive tranche of supposed secret Iranian nuclear documents to the BND and its hand-in-glove relationship with the Mossad leaves little room for doubt that the documents introduced to Western intelligence 2004 were, in fact, created by the Mossad. For the Mossad, the MEK was a convenient unit for outsourcing negative press about Iran which it did not want attributed directly to Israeli intelligence. To enhance the MEK’s credibility in the eyes of foreign media and intelligence agencies, Mossad passed the coordinates of Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility to the MEK in 2002. Later, it provided to the MEK personal information such as the passport number and home telephone number of Iranian physics professor Mohsen Fakhrizadh, whose name appeared in the nuclear documents, according to the co-authors of a best-selling Israeli book on the Mossad’s covert operations. By trotting out the same discredited technical drawing depicting the wrong Iranian missile reentry vehicle – a trick he had previously deployed to create the original case for accusing Iran of covert nuclear weapons development – the Israeli prime minister showed how confident he was in his ability to hoodwink Washington and the Western corporate media. Netanyahu’s multiple levels of deception have been remarkably successful, despite having relied on crude stunts that any diligent news organization should have seen through. Through his manipulation of foreign governments and media, he has been able to maneuver Donald Trump and the United States into a dangerous process of confrontation that has brought the U.S. to the precipice of military conflict with Iran.https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/447377/Netanyahu-pushed-U-S-to-attack-Iran-with-fabricated-nuclear |
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Hundreds of foreign companies procuring nuclear materials for India and Pakistan
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Reuters 30th April 2020, Hundreds of foreign companies are actively procuring components for India and Pakistan’s nuclear programmes, taking advantage of gaps in the global
regulation of the industry, according to a report by a U.S.-based research group.https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-india-pakistan-nuclear-exclusive/exclusive-india-pakistan-nuclear-procurement-networks-larger-than-thought-study-shows-idUKKBN22C2JO?rpc=401& |
An Arctic island is warming SIX times faster than the global average
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Global warming: An Arctic island is warming SIX times faster than the global average, GLOBAL WARMING threatens the planet as a whole but parts of an island in the Arctic are warming six times faster than the global average, scientists have warned. Express UK By SEBASTIAN KETTLEY Apr 30, 2020 Polar researchers stationed in the southwest of the Arctic island of Spitsbergen have found a worrying warming trend in meteorological data spanning 40 years. Temperatures in parts of the island, which is part of the Svalbard archipelago between Norway and the North Pole, have risen six times higher than the global average. Scientists from the Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences (IGF PAN) made the worrying discovery during expeditions to the Polish Polar Station Hornsund. The scientists presented their findings in Earth System Science Data. Professor Marzena Osuch, study co-author and hydrologist, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP): “The average temperature in Hornsund between 1979 and 2018 rose by 1.14C per decade. “The change is more than six times higher than the global change for the same period.”……. https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1276239/Global-warming-Arctic-temperatures-Spitsbergen-warming-faster-climate-change |
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To store surplus plutonium, USA’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will have to be enlarged
 WIPP expansion needed for proposed disposal of surplus plutonium at nuclear waste repository Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus May 1, 2020 Numerous concerns would have to be addressed in the U.S. Department of Energy’s proposed plan to dispose of surplus plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for the program to be successful, per a DOE-commissioned report from the National Academies of Sciences (NAS).The organization was commissioned by the DOE to study its plan to dilute and dispose of the plutonium at WIPP over 30 years at a cost of about $18.2 billion an alternative to the stalled mixed-oxide program that would have seen the nuclear waste converted into fuel.
The Academies convened a committee to study the dilute-and-dispose method in November 2017, releasing an interim report a year later that noted WIPP did not have the storage space to hold about 48 metric tons (MT) the DOE hoped to dispose of. The final report was released on Thursday, and renewed concerns for storage space, along with the method of disposal’s lack of approval under the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA) – a deal struck in 2000 between the U.S. and Russia to each dispose of 34 MT of plutonium through jointly-approve methods. The PMDA does allow for each country to present alternatives, with such approval for the dilute-and-dispose method pending. Robert Dynes, a physics professor and former president of the University of California who chaired the NAS’ committee also pointed to challenges in scaling up the program, as it was proven viable only on a prototype scale. “Gaps do exist in implementation challenges. This is not trivial,” Dynes said. “The implementation challenges that are not addressed would result in even longer implementation times and costs.” He also pointed to the project’s reliance on WIPP as the nation’s only deep geological repository in operation or production that could hold the waste.
“It’s the nation’s only repository,” Dynes said. “Without access to WIPP, the plan cannot be completed. There’s a lot of pressure on WIPP.” Andrew Orrell, a committee member from Idaho National Laboratory said disposing of the plutonium would change the nature of WIPP, although it would be diluted so as to confirm with WIPP’s waste criteria, and the DOE must maintain public transparency and work closely with the State of New Mexico to honor the facility’s “social contract” if the project moved forward. “The committee felt there was a vulnerability in the social contract between the DOE and State of New Mexico,” Orrell said. “The committee made several recommendations encouraging greater transparency on the entire plan to dispose of this plutonium at WIPP.” Orrell also said there was likely to be competition for space at WIPP, as plutonium pit production was recently increased at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This could be a challenge for WIPP’s capacity, Orrell said, as specified in the federal Land Withdrawal Act (LWA). “Meeting or exceeding the Land Withdrawal Act is pretty easy to foresee,” he said. “The remaining space in WIPP is limited and could be oversubscribed.” This could be a challenge for WIPP’s capacity, Orrell said, as specified in the federal Land Withdrawal Act (LWA). “Meeting or exceeding the Land Withdrawal Act is pretty easy to foresee,” he said. “The remaining space in WIPP is limited and could be oversubscribed.”….. https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2020/05/01/wipp-expansion-needed-proposed-nuclear-waste-disposal/3035582001/ |
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Nuclear reactor pressure vessel to be shipped by rail to Utah, from Sanonofre
The reactor pressure vessel for Unit 1, the first of three reactors on site, will get a permanent home in Utah, By TERI SFORZA | tsforza@scng.com | Orange County Register, May 1, 2020 The original plan, nearly 20 years ago, was to plop the retired nuclear reactor pressure vessel on a barge and ship it off — via the Panama Canal or all the way around the tip of South America — to a final resting place in South Carolina.But there were strong objections to transporting the huge metal shell that way. After all, atoms had actually been split inside it. And so the giant, but empty, heart of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station’s Unit 1 was packed away in a huge steel cylinder in 2002. The cylinder was filled with grout for shielding against radiation. It was sealed, and has been stored at the plant ever since.
Now — as serious tear-down work gets under way on Units 2 and 3 — the heart of long-ago-dismantled Unit 1 is finally slated to leave San Onofre forever.
Operator Southern California Edison is preparing to ship Unit 1’s reactor pressure vessel to a licensed disposal facility in Clive, Utah, which is owned by Energy Solutions, one of San Onofre’s decommissioning contractors. It will have company: San Onofre’s retired steam generators were shipped to Clive in 2012.
Though officials can’t get too specific on precisely when or how the vessel will go — for safety reasons — they’ve been preparing a rail spur to haul heavy components off site.
The reactor vessel is considered low-level waste, the least hazardous of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s radioactive waste classifications. Contaminated cleaning supplies, used disposable protective clothing and reactor parts are other examples of low-level waste.
How can the crucible for nuclear reactions be low-level waste? The most radioactive parts within it were removed, cut up, and stored with higher-level waste on site, said John Dobken, a spokesman for Edison. What’s left is Cobalt-60, which has a half-life of about five years.
Unit 1 was retired in 1992, and the reactor vessel has been packaged for 18 years, so it has gone through about five half-lives, reducing its radioactivity, Dobken said.The contact dose rate for the vessel package is less than 0.1 millirem an hour, which is 500 times below the Department of Transportation limit for these types of shipments, Edison said in a primer on the move. For comparison, a chest X-ray provides a dose of 10 millirem.
Since this is low-level waste, it was never part of Edison’s contract with the federal government requiring the U.S. Department of Energy to haul away high-level waste by 1998 in exchange for payments into the Nuclear Waste Fund.
The federal government’s paralysis on finding a permanent home for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste is why 40 years’ worth of it remains stuck on site, generating sharp controversy.
While critics have called on Edison to cease decommissioning work at San Onofre during the lock-down, it proceeds with “pandemic protocols” in place, Dobken said. Everyone on site must wear a mask and practice social distancing.
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By the numbers: The package weighs 770 tons, or more than 1.5 million pounds. Inside is the Unit 1 reactor pressure vessel, pieces of radioactive metal and grout for radiation shielding. It’s a 2-inch-thick carbon steel cylindrical canister with a 3-inch-thick carbon steel liner; top and bottom plates are 3 inches thick. The canister is 38.5 feet long and 15.5 feet in diameter.
Coronavirus a big threat to Russia’s secret nuclear cities, as virus incidence rises
Concern as coronavirus threatens Russia’s closed ‘nuclear 
cities’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/concern-as-coronavirus-threatens-russias-closed-nuclear-cities
Rosatom nuclear chief warns of ‘particularly alarming situation’ in three areas as country reports biggest daily rise in cases, Reuters in Moscow 29 Apr 2020
Alexei Likhachev, Rosatom chief, said the pandemic ‘creates a direct threat’ to Russia’s nuclear cities.
The head of Russia’s state-run nuclear corporation has expressed concern about the spread of the new coronavirus to three “nuclear cities”, including one that houses a top-secret research institute that helped develop the Soviet atomic bomb.
The cities are closely linked to Russia’s nuclear industry, which is managed by the Rosatom corporation. Several are closed to foreigners and Russians require special clearance to enter them as facilities located there are closely guarded secrets.
Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev said special deliveries of ventilators and personal protection equipment (PPE) were being sent to the closed town of Sarov, east of Moscow, and other towns where dozens of cases of the virus have been registered.
“This [pandemic] creates a direct threat to our nuclear towns. The situation in Sarov, Elektrostal [and] Desnogorsk is today particularly alarming,” he said in an online speech to Russia’s nuclear industry workers.
“The situation in Sarov is exacerbated by an outbreak of the illness in the nearby Diveyevo monastery,” he said, without elaborating further.
Likhachev made his remarks on a day when Russia reported its biggest daily rise in new coronavirus cases. Russia now ranks eighth worldwide with 93,558 confirmed cases, though its death toll of 867 is still far below that of many other countries.
Moscow, which accounts for more than half of Russia’s cases, and many other regions have imposed stay-at-home orders to curb the spread of the virus.
Sarov, which was so secret that it did not appear on maps until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, remains an important part of Russia’s nuclear military complex, defence experts say.
It is home to a research institute that gained prominence last year when five of its scientists died in a mysterious accident at a military testing site in the far north.
Rosatom said the incident had occurred during a rocket engine test on a sea platform. Some US experts said they suspected it had been a botched test of a new missile vaunted by the president, Vladimir Putin.
Last week, Rosatom said seven people at Sarov’s All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics had been diagnosed with coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases in the city – which has a population of about 95,000 – to 23.
It said the outbreak in Sarov had begun when a retired couple returned to the city from a Russian holiday resort and that more than 100 people had since been isolated to stop it spreading further.
The pandemic is showing us how our trashed world can heal
Now We Know How Quickly Our Trashed Planet Can Heal
Clean air, wandering goats. The pandemic is teaching us that all is not yet lost. By Margaret Renkl “………. Now a pandemic has turned us all into window gazers. We have been given an unexpected space for wondering. In cities the world over, songbirds seem louder now that they aren’t competing with the sounds of traffic.
I think the birds are enjoying this,” wrote a New York City bookseller in response to an online order I’d placed for a new field guide to songbirds. “In NYC we can hear them better than ever.”
But it’s not just that our ears are tuned, in the new silence, to the sounds of birds that have always shared our world. Coyotes now wander the sidewalks of San Francisco and the streets of Chicago; Great Orme Kashmiri goats forage in the town of Llandudno, Wales; a groundhog snarfs pizza right outside a window in Philadelphia; a mountain lion jaywalks in San Mateo; wild boars root in the medians of Barcelona; a red fox saunters across a driveway in Nashville.
This pandemic has overlapped with the annual spring songbird migration, so it’s possible that people are seeing birds that truly weren’t there before we all went into lockdown. But in general it’s not true that the wild animals we’re seeing from our windows have become more plentiful in our absence. They are simply making themselves more visible to us now that we have become less visible to them.
The pandemic is teaching us that all is not yet lost.
None of these changes will last — the human race cannot stay cooped up indoors forever — but while we have both the time to observe and the window perch to watch from, we can use this cultural moment to rethink our relationship to wildness. We can ponder what it truly means to share the planet. We can resolve to change our lives.…..
And so our first task when we emerge from this isolation will be to remember. To sear into our memories that pure pageantry of wildness, of life in its most insistent persisting. And then to try in every possible way to save it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/opinion/coronavirus-shutdown-environment.html
Offshore wind is General Electric’s great opportunity, not dodgy Small Nuclear Reactors
GE Power Plays: Wind Might Blow Coal, Gas And Nuclear Away, Seeking Alpha, Apr. 29, 2020 Keith WilliamsGE offshore wind: massive offshore turbine Haliade-X 12MW looks like a winner.
GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy may be a receding opportunity.
GE might sell its steam power business and rationalise its fossil fuel interests.
The power and renewables businesses are important in considering investment in GE.
………. Nuclear Small Modular Reactors : GE-Hitachi BWRX-300
There is a lot of talk in the nuclear industry and also in political circles from groups who are opposed to solar PV and wind developments, yet who acknowledge the need for low emissions technologies. The World Nuclear Association (WNA) has an excellent summary of many proposed developments in the area of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs). The list of projects is long but many (most) seem to be struggling. A key point from the WNA report is the following : “Licensing is potentially a challenge for SMRs, as design certification, construction and operation licence costs are not necessarily less than for large reactors.” This is a huge red flag for any SMR project.
A second objection is cost of nuclear power versus solar PV/wind plus storage. There is a lot of information about these relative costs, including well into the future. I am not aware of any studies that suggest that any nuclear technology will be able to compete with renewables and storage on price. A recent study (December 2019) by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and CSIRO concluded that SMR nuclear reactors will generate power costing ~8x that of rooftop or solar PV and wind, with solar and wind costs of power generation being similar.
……. With Small Modular Reactors the poster child of nuclear power supporters, it is clear that there is a lot riding on this potential saviour for the nuclear industry after Fukushima and recent delays and cost blowouts in the European (especially UK, French and Finnish) nuclear industries.
With current focus on emissions reductions and the climate emergency, this is an excellent time for low emissions technologies. However, the need is now and renewables (solar PV and wind) plus storage (pumped hydro and batteries) are making a lot of progress in addressing the needs. My question is whether the cost structure and long lead times mean that nuclear technology is too expensive and late to play a part.
A recent summary of the current state of the nuclear industry as a whole is depressing reading for someone who is enthusiastic about the nuclear industry’s prospects. A lot has to happen in the next decade and SMR technology isn’t ready yet. Is GE investing a lot in a technology that can’t compete with the dramatic advances in solar PV, wind and battery storage?……
GE’s adventures in nuclear developments seem like the kind of speculative play GE could happily fund when it was one of the world’s biggest and most powerful engineering companies. It doesn’t have that status anymore and my take is that it needs to cut its cloth and focus on projects that will have more immediate commercial outcomes. Of course, that is asking for a big rethink about how GE sees itself, but does it really have a choice if it wants to survive?
Offshore wind business
While there is some apprehension in the wind industry, especially in the US and China, as changes in regulations come into force next year, and 2020 has been messed up by COVID-19, there is a long-term future for wind power; offshore wind prospects look huge………
GE Renewable Energy is a major wind turbine supplier, with more than 42,000 of its turbines (mostly onshore) installed. Its role in the wind industry is extensive, from manufacture, digital optimization, operations and maintenance. Its onshore turbines range in size from 1MW to 5MW. GE installed ~50% of onshore turbines in the US last year, a 40% increase compared with the number of onshore turbines it installed in the US in 2018.
The offshore market is still emerging, with turbines substantially bigger than those used onshore. ….. The area that looks to me as if it could become a big winner is in offshore wind turbine developments, ….
A lot of investors have GE in their portfolios and a lot more are probably reflecting on whether GE might once again become a secure safe-haven investment. My biggest issue with GE is that it seems to me it is yet to understand that it is no longer the huge and dominant business that can afford to make big bets that burn a lot of cash. The current SMR nuclear programs in GE seem to be in this category. They have a very low chance of success but require major resources. I’d prefer not to have these distractions in a company I invest in….. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4340805-ge-power-plays-wind-might-blow-coal-gas-and-nuclear-away
Climate change: lakes and rivers will become drier, increasingly infectious and toxic
Climate change: lakes and rivers will become drier, increasingly infectious and toxic, Stuff NZ, Olivia Wannan, Apr 30 2020
By dragging our feet on climate action, we increasingly condemn our beloved lakes and rivers to a future of salmonella contamination, algal blooms, species extinctions and drying out, a new report warns.
Our Freshwater 2020, produced by the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics NZ, is a stark reminder that the already-threatened health of our waterways rests on our ability to urgently shift away from fossil fuels.
Even if emissions stay at historically low levels, temperatures will continue to rise in the coming decades, due to the lag between releasing greenhouse gas and the effects on our atmosphere, seas and waterways.
As the climate warms, rain storms will intensify, snowfall will decrease, glaciers will melt, soils will dry out and the sea level will rise – each affecting our lakes and rivers.
In the east, regions such as Hawke’s Bay will see increasingly low waterways by the end of the century, says Ministry for the Environment departmental science advisor Dr Alison Collins.
In the west – particularly in the South Island – rivers and lake levels are expected to rise, potentially leading to flooding.
After extreme downpours, drinking water and swimming spots are at high risk of being contaminated with infectious tummy bugs such as salmonella and harmful strains of E.coli, she says. Northern and remote eastern communities with less-developed water supply systems are particularly vulnerable.
Toxic algal blooms will become more common, as warmer temperatures reduce the mixing between upper and lower levels of deep lakes, boosting nutrient levels at the surface and algal growth. Without the waters mixing, the lake bottom is also deprived of oxygen, which drives out animals such as crayfish (kōura) and mussels (kākahi).
Combined with pollution and habitat loss, climate change is likely to push some freshwater species – both native and introduced – to extinction, the report says. …… https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/121178883/climate-change-lakes-and-rivers-will-become-drier-increasingly-infectious-and-toxic
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19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
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To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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