- Satellite photos show North Korea leader’s train near compound
-
Kim’s two-week absence fuels speculation about his health Speculation about Kim Jong Un’s health intensified over the weekend after tantalizing — yet unverified — reports about a visit by a Chinese medical team and movements of the North Korean leader’s armored train.
China sent a team including doctors and senior diplomats to advise its neighbor and longtime ally, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing three people familiar with the matter. Meanwhile, a train resembling one long used by North Korean rulers was parked last week near a coastal leadership compound in Wonsan, according to an analysis of satellite imagery released Sunday by the website 38 North. A prominent South Korea adviser also rejected the notion that Kim was ailing or dead…….
Any leadership change in North Korea could increase the threat of instability on China’s border and raise questions about control of the country’s expanding nuclear arsenal. Kim has also been central to U.S. President Donald Trump’s so far unsuccessful efforts to get him to reduce his weapons stockpile. …..
International climate ministers meet to discuss green recovery post COVID-19
International climate ministers meet to discuss green recovery post COVID-19 https://www.miragenews.com/international-climate-ministers-meet-to-discuss-green-recovery-post-covid-19/ This week environment ministers from 30 countries will meet in a two-day (27 – 28 April) online conference to discuss how to organise a green economic recovery after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic is over. They will also aim to agree on how to proceed with ambitious carbon reductions despite the postponement of this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP26).
The ‘Petersberg Climate Dialogue’ will be hosted by Svenja Schulze, Germany’s Federal Environment Minister and Alok Sharma, the UK Secretary for Business and Energy and designated President of COP26.
Helen Clarkson, CEO of The Climate Group, an international non-profit with a mission of accelerating climate action said:
“The impact of COVID-19 has been devastating. As the world seeks to address the longer-term impact of this crisis, there is an opportunity for governments to help rebuild society differently. A side effect of the reduced economic activity we are seeing is cleaner air and clearer skies – through positive international cooperation we can begin to understand how we keep those things without compromising on economic growth.
“We have received signals from our partners, including 300 of the world’s largest businesses, that their commitment to climate action overwhelmingly remains in spite of the challenging circumstances. Just last week, nine members of our global electric vehicles initiative EV100, including the likes of Ingka Group, Unilever and LeasePlan, called on the EU to retain 2020 CO2 targets for cars, vans and trucks.
“Electric vehicles and renewable, efficient energy are profitable, long term investments. We need these smart green stimulus policies to not just maintain momentum but rapidly ramp-up investment to another level, and help deliver the halving of emissions we need in this decade.”
Animals in radiation zones are not doing well
above – Chernobyl bird at right has facial tumour
Not thriving, but failing https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/03/11/not-thriving-but-failing/ https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/03/11/not-thriving-but-failing/ Animals in radiation zones are not doing well, By Linda Pentz Gunter
It started with wolves. The packs around the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which exploded on April 26, 1986, were thriving, said reports. Benefitting from the absence of human predators, and seemingly unaffected by the high radiation levels that still persist in the area, the wolves, they claimed, were doing better than ever.
Appearances, however, can be deceptive. Abundant does not necessarily mean healthy. And that is exactly what evolutionary biologist, Dr. Timothy Mousseau and his team began to find out as, over the years, they traveled to and researched in and around the Chernobyl disaster site in the Ukraine. Then, when a similar nuclear disaster hit in Japan — with the triple explosions and meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi on March 11, 2011 — Mousseau’s team added that region to its research itinerary.
Mousseau has now spent more than 17 years looking at the effects on wildlife and the ecosystem of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He and his colleagues have also spent the last half dozen years studying how non-human biota is faring in the wake of Fukushima. Ninety articles later, they are able to conclude definitively that animals and plants around Chernobyl and Fukushima are very far indeed from flourishing.
Mousseau’s findings strongly contradicted earlier work including the 2006 Chernobyl Forum report which claimed the Chernobyl zone “has become a wildlife sanctuary,” and a subsequent article published in Current Biology in 2015 that said wildlife was “thriving”around Chernobyl.
“I suppose everyone loves a Cinderella story,” speculated Mousseau, who is based at the University of South Carolina. “They want that happy ending.” But Mousseau felt sure the moment he read the Forum report, which, he noted, “contained few scientific citations,” that the findings “could not possibly be true.
What Mousseau found was not unexpected given the levels of radiation in these areas and what is already known about the medical effects of such long-term exposures. Birds and rodents had a high frequency of tumors.
“Cancers are the first thing we think about,” Mousseau said. “We looked at birds and mice. In areas of higher radiation, the frequency of tumors is higher.” The research team found mainly liver and bladder tumors in voles and tumors on the head, body and wings of the birds studied.
But Mousseau wanted to look beyond cancers, which is what everyone expects to find and what researchers had looked for, but only in humans. There were few wildlife studies, a fact Mousseau found surprising, given nature’s ability to act as a sentinel for likely impending human health impacts.
Mousseau and his fellow researchers found cataracts in birds and rodents. Male birds had a high rate of sterility. And the brains of birds were smaller. All of these are known outcomes from radiation exposure.
“Cataracts in birds is a problem,” Mousseau said. “A death sentence.”
Mental retardation has been found among children exposed to radiation in utero. Mousseau and colleagues discovered the same pattern in the birds they studied. “Birds already have small brains, so a smaller brain size is a definite disadvantage,” he said.
There were also just fewer animals in general. “There were many fewer mammals, birds and insects in areas of higher radiation,” Mousseau said. And they had their hunch as to why.
He and his colleagues extracted sperm from the male birds they caught and were shocked to find that “up to 40% of male birds in the radiologically hottest areas were sterile.”
The birds’ sperm were either deformed or dead. None would be able to reproduce. The discovery, he said, was “not at all surprising. These are the levels of radiation known to influence reproduction. At the same time, there is no safe level of radiation below which there aren’t detectable effects.”
Fewer birds have already been observed in the contaminated areas around Fukushima, said Mousseau. “Although it’s too early to assess the long term impact on abundance and diversity around Fukushima, there are very few butterflies and many birds have declined in the more contaminated areas. If abundance is compressed, biodiversity will follow.”
The consequences of radiation exposure, says Mousseau, “will have a tremendous impact on the quality of life of these animals, and the length of quality of life. It need not necessarily be cancers,” that cause these damages he said. “There is no doubt that the levels of radiation in Chernobyl and Fukushima generate genetic damage.”
Read more about Dr. Timothy Mousseau’s work.
Ukraine Continues Fighting Fires Near Defunct Chernobyl Nuclear Plant
Ukraine Continues Fighting Fires Near Defunct Chernobyl Nuclear Plant, Radio Free Europe, 27 Apr 20 KYIV — Firefighters in Ukraine continue to battle a series of fires near the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant nearly a month after they broke out.
The State Service for Emergency Situations said on April 27 that brigades were still working to extinguish fires in the Lubyanskiy, Paryshivskiy, Dytyatkivskiy, and Denysovytskiy forest districts in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
“The main efforts are focused on the localization of two fire sites, smoldering stumps, wood segments, and peat-boggy soil,” the service said, adding that radiation in the area does not exceed permissible levels.
The fires began on April 3 in the western part of the uninhabited exclusion zone before spreading to nearby forests.
Ukrainian officials have said they have extinguished the fires several times, but new fires continue appearing in the area…… https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-continues-fighting-fires-near-defunct-chernobyl-nuclear-plant/30579563.html
Buildings around Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in poor condition, unsafe
Fukushima Daiichi buildings pose safety risks, https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20200427_24/ Tokyo Electric Power Company plans to draw up safety measures for workers after finding that some of the buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are in bad condition due to the 2011 accident.TEPCO on Monday reported to the Nuclear Regulation Authority the results of its survey of about 580 buildings in the compound.
The company says the condition of around 10 buildings, including the one that houses the No.4 reactor, have deteriorated due to the tsunami that triggered the accident and subsequent hydrogen explosions.
The NRA argues that the walls or other structures of these buildings could collapse in the event of an earthquake and injure people engaged in decommissioning work.
TEPCO says it will announce by the end of May how and when it will address the problem.
The utility also says it has inspected 340,000 pieces of equipment at the plant, and found that 36,000 of them lack devices that prevent leaks of radioactive materials as well as leak detectors.
Poll shows that Americans favour a no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy
|
Poll: What the American public likes and hates about Trump’s nuclear policies, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jonathon Baron, Stephen Herzog, April 27, 2020 It is difficult to overstate the importance of nuclear policy in determining a US presidential candidate’s fitness to be commander-in-chief. Such priorities are evident in the Bulletin’s recently published special issue dedicated to discussing nuclear weapons policy ahead of the 2020 election. Nuclear issues played a prominent role in the 2016 election, but despite some anomalies, they have hardly factored into the 2020 campaign. This is almost certain to change even as priority is given to the COVID-19 pandemic response. Nevertheless, very few recent polls (with one notable exception) have attempted to identify preferences among the US population for President Donald Trump’s nuclear policies.
To fill this gap, we worked with the firm YouGov in late 2018 after the release of the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review to conduct a nationally representative survey of 1,000 Americans. Previous surveys have illuminated US public attitudes on nuclear energy, extending the New START treaty, and even hypothetical nuclear retaliatory scenarios. It isn’t clear, however, how Americans view the core elements of the Trump administration’s nuclear policy: its Nuclear Posture Review and its overall strategies toward Iran and North Korea. We report our study results publicly for the first time here, offering insights for policymakers and presidential candidates as they weigh their positions on nuclear issues Nuclear Posture Review. The study highlights how the US public as a whole and various demographic groups view Trump’s positions on nuclear weapons. To begin, we asked respondents to indicate whether they supported, opposed, or were unsure about key parts of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. Of course, many elements of the Trump administration’s nuclear posture are continuations of longstanding US policy that have been preserved by Republican and Democratic presidents alike. Our survey questions did not indicate the current US administration’s policy on different parts of the Nuclear Posture Review. So the results convey the respondents’ natural preferences for the policies themselves, not for the current occupant of the White House. Such data should prove useful to politicians staking out campaign stances on nuclear weapons that would have broad public appeal. Our findings reveal that Americans overall express fairly low support for the administration’s nuclear weapons policies, though indecision also runs high among the public. Further, the table of group preferences indicates—with a few surprising exceptions—that males, Republicans, and older Americans are the most likely groups to back President Trump on nuclear issues. Even so, support is relatively modest among Trump’s base, and several elements of the Nuclear Posture Review do not receive majority or even plurality support from Republicans……. Only 34 percent of Americans support the longstanding policy of providing the nuclear umbrella in principle, and that number drops to 27.9 percent for nuclear deployments in Europe. …..men and Republicans remain the most supportive of the nuclear umbrella and forward-deployed B61 nuclear bombs. Women, Democrats, and Independents respond less favorably. Additionally, Americans who came of age during the Cold War are more favorable toward these policies than their Millennial and Generation Z counterparts……. fewer than 20 percent of Americans support possible US first use of nuclear weapons. By contrast, disapproval stands at 63.5 percent……The public is also broadly unsupportive of using nuclear weapons in response to cyberattacks……. a majority of every demographic group of Americans—whether by gender, political party, age, race, education, income, or region of residence—oppose a first-use doctrine. Public opinion may accordingly present opportunities for presidential candidates to favor a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons………. https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/poll-what-the-american-public-likes-and-hates-about-trumps-nuclear-policies/# |
|
|
Under cover of Coronavirus constraints, EDF could speed application for £14 billion Sizewell nuclear reactor build, without pubic consultation
East Anglian Daily Times 27 April 2020 Suffolk MP has joined growing concern that EDF Energy will submit its planning application for the Sizewell C nuclear power station during the coronavirus crisis.
Already 54 town and parish councils, along with campaign groups, have voiced their frustration at the possibility – amid concerns that it would be “intolerable and unfair” to add extra anxiety
to people at this time. Now Central Suffolk and North Ipswich MP, Dr Dan Poulter has written to Government ministers saying the Covid-19 restrictions would inhibit full and proper consideration of the application and it would “not be appropriate” yet.
EDF has already delayed its submission of a Development Consent Order (DCO) for the £14 billion twin reactor for a month but there are worries it could submit the documents in
May. Dr Poulter has been contacted by a large number of residents who have
a number of concerns in regards to the DCO. He is concerned there would be
pressure on council officers dealing with Covid-19 to respond to issues and
questions raised by the submission and opportunities for public
consultation curtailed as public meetings are not permitted.
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/mp-dan-poulter-sizewell-c-letter-to-ministers-1-6624715
North Korea: Expert reveals ‘power struggle’ for ‘control of nuclear weapons and military’
NORTH KOREA’s lack of a formal succession plan for Kim Jong-un could spark a “power struggle” in the region as speculation continues to grow surrounding the supreme leader’s health, according to foreign policy expert Bruce Klingner. Express UK, By SVAR NANAN-SEN, Apr 27, 2020
Bruce Klingner, a senior researcher for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation told Fox News that there could be a power struggle in North Korea regarding who succeeds Kim Jong-un. The Supreme Leader of North Korea has not been seen for over two weeks and his absence has led to speculation over his health and the future of his country.
Mr Klinger said: “As was the case when his father passed away, there is no formal succession plan in the North Korea constitution.
“We don’t know if they have anything planned behind the scenes. So right now, we are all speculating who the next leader might be.
“We are speculating that his sister may be the next leader. In the last couple of years, she has gained power, she has gained authority, we have seen her coming out of the shadows in the last couple of years…….. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1274376/North-Korea-Kim-Jong-Un-death-health-successor-nuclear-weapons-military-latest-news
Taiwan environmentalists mark Chernobyl nuclear disaster anniversary, call for renewables not nuclear
Anniversary of Chernobyl sees anti-nuclear appeals. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2020/04/28/2003735431
Two environmental groups issued online statements over the weekend to mark the 34th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on Sunday and call for the abolition of nuclear power in Taiwan.
The government should bolster safety mechanisms at the nation’s nuclear power plants, safely handle nuclear waste and educate the public on the risks of nuclear energy ahead of a referendum next year on whether to resume work on the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, the National Nuclear Abolition Action Platform wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, which was caused by an explosion at the plant’s No. 4 reactor during maintenance, resulted in several thousand deaths, and the area around the plant would remain uninhabitable long into the future, it said.
The anniversary of the 1986 disaster should highlight the dangers of using nuclear power, it added.
Taiwan’s three operating nuclear power plants have been in operation for nearly 40 years, the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union wrote on Facebook on Sunday.
“Can the plants still safely operate, or should they be decommissioned? Policies on the plants are a major compromise between power needs and hopes for decommissioning,” it said.
Some people are concerned that the plants could be contaminating the air or the water supply, it added.
Radioactive waste from the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan has still not been completely cleaned up, showing that coping with nuclear disasters is beyond human capability, the union said.
The dangers of nuclear power — as evidenced by the atomic bombs used in World War II, and the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters — should not be overlooked in favor of the economy’s demand for power, it said.
The government should focus its efforts on energy transformation and push for the development of renewable energy, it added.
There is a pressing need to combat climate change, but nuclear power is not a viable alternative, the union said.
“There is a cheaper, faster and safer option to reduce carbon emissions, and that is for the government to put all of its effort into energy efficiency and the development of sustainable energy,” it said.
Kim Jong Un Mystery Grows on Reports of Train, Medical Team
Kim Jong Un Mystery Grows on Reports of Train, Medical Team, Bloomberg By Kanga Kong and Ros Krasny, Where is North Korea’s Kim Jong Un?
Kim Jong-un’s death may lead to brutal power struggle and unknown finger on nuke button, https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1273890/Kim-Jong-un-dead-North-Korea-nuclear-weapon-news-latest-death-USKIM JONG-UN’S death could spark a power struggle in nuclear-armed North Korea and even an attack on its neighbour in the South, according to an expert on conflict in the Korean peninsula.By GERRARD KAONGAKim Jong-un’s death could result in multiple worst-case scenarios according to Korean expert and senior research fellow Bruce Klingner of think tank The Heritage Foundation. Chinese and Japanese media outlets have claimed the North Korean dictator has died following complications from heart surgery earlier this month. The North Korean state is yet to confirm whether the nation’s leader has died.
While on Fox News Mr Klingner said if the reports of Kim Jong-un’s death were correct the resulting power vacuum would be a cause for international concern.
Mr Klingner warned the death of the leader could result in power struggles, military faction infighting, and even the nation lashing out at its neighbour in the South.
He insisted this was particularly concerning as he said North Korea was a nation with nuclear weapon capabilities.
Mr Klingner said: “There is always a concern when you have a nuclear weapon state if you don’t know who the next leader is.
“It could be a smooth transition or it could be a power struggle where everyone is trying to grab the ring of power. “Then it is a question of who has control over nuclear weapons and the military.”
Mr Klingner also outlined the worst possible scenarios that could occur if Kim Jong-un is confirmed, by North Korea, to be dead.
He continued: “There are a lot of worst-case scenarios.
“Things like a regime collapse and a struggle for power or unknown actions from military factions warring against each other. “There is a concern that there could be an explosion in the sense of North Korea lashing out against its neighbours.
“Or even an implosion with the regime collapse and instability.”
Mr Klingner closed by insisting nations remain concerned similarly to the last death of a North Korean leader.He said: “We were equally concerned during the two previous successions of the father and the grandfather when they passed away.
“The system worked and there was a maintaining of stability so it is more likely the regime will maintain itself.”
There have been conflicting reports regarding the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Earliest reports of his death came from the vice director of HKSTV Hong Kong Satellite Television Shijan Xingzou who claimed a very solid source told her the North Korean leader had died.
Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Gendai argued the dictator had not yet died but is currently in a vegetative state and will not recover.
Canada on verge of investing in plutonium
Gordon Edwards <ccnr@web.ca>\, 26 Apr 2020, It seems that the two SMNR (Small Modular 
Nuclear Reactor) entrepreneurs in New Brunswick (Canada), along with other nuclear “players” worldwide, are trying to revitalize the “plutonium economy” — a nuclear industry dream from the distant past that many believed had been laid to rest because of the failure of plutonium-based breeder reactors almost everywhere – e.g. USA, France, Britain, Japan …
One of the newly proposed NB SMNR prototypes, the ARC-100 reactor (100 megawatts of electricity) is a liquid sodium-cooled SMNR that is based on the 1964 EBR-2 reactor – Experimental Breeder Reactor #2. (Its predecessor, the EBR-1 breeder reactor, had a partial meltdown in 1955, and the Fermi-1 breeder reactor near Detroit, also modelled on the EBR-2, had a partial meltdown in 1966.) The ACR-100 is designed with the capability and explicit intention of reusing or recycling irradiated CANDU fuel.
The other newly proposed NB SMNR prototype is the Moltex “Stable Salt Reactor” (SSR) — also a “fast reactor”, cooled by molten salt, that is likewise intended to re-use or recycle irradiated CANDU fuel.
The “re-use” (or “recycling”) of “spent nuclear fuel”, also called “used nuclear fuel” or “irradiated nuclear fuel”, is industry code for plutonium extraction. The idea is to transition from uranium to plutonium as a nuclear fuel, because uranium supplies will not outlast dwindling oil supplies. Breeder reactors are designed to use plutonium as a fuel and create (“breed”) even more plutonium while doing so.
The only way you can re-use or recycle existing used nuclear fuel is to somehow access the unused “fissile material” in the used fuel, which means mainly plutonium. This involves a chemical procedure called “reprocessing” which was banned in the late 1970s by the Carter administration in the USA and the first PE Trudeau administration in Canada. South Korea and Taiwan were likewise forbidden (with pressure from the US) to pursue this avenue.
Argonne Laboratories in US, and the South Korean government, have been developing (for over ten years now) a new wrinkle on the reprocessing operation which they call “pyroprocessing” in an effort to overcome the existing prohibitions on reprocessing and restart the “plutonium economy”. That phrase refers to a world whereby plutonium is the primary nuclear fuel in the future rather than natural or slightly enriched uranium. Plutonium, a derivative of uranium that does not exist in nature but is created inside every nuclear reactor fuelled with uranium, would thereby become an article of commerce.
Another wrinkle on this general ambition is the so-called “thorium cycle”. Thorium is a naturally-occurring element that can be converted (inside a nuclear reactor) into a human-made fissile material called uranium-233. This type of uranium is not found in nature. Like plutonium, uranium-233 can be used for nuclear weapons or as nuclear fuel. Although the materials are different, the ambition is the same — instead of the plutonium economy one could imagine an economy based on uranium-233.
The problems associated with both recycling schemes (the plutonium cycle and the thorium cycle) are
(1) the dangerous and polluting necessity of “opening up” the used nuclear fuel in order to extract the desired plutonium or U-233, and (2) the creation of a civilian traffic in highly dangerous materials (plutonium and U-233) that can be used by governments or criminals or terrorists to make powerful nuclear weapons without the need for terribly sophisticated or readily detectable infrastructure.
See: www.ccnr.org/non-prolif.html . More authoritatively, www.ccnr.org/Peaceful_Atom.html .
By the way, in terms of nuclear reactors (whether small or large), whenever you see the phrase “fast reactor” or “advanced reactor” or “breeder reactor” or “thorium reactor”, please be advised that such terminology is industry code for recycling — either plutonium or uranium-233. Also, any “sodium-cooled” reactors are in this same category.
See: www.ccnr.org/non-prolif.html . More authoritatively, www.ccnr.org/Peaceful_Atom.html .
By the way, in terms of nuclear reactors (whether small or large), whenever you see the phrase “fast reactor” or “advanced reactor” or “breeder reactor” or “thorium reactor”, please be advised that such terminology is industry code for recycling — either plutonium or uranium-233. Also, any “sodium-cooled” reactors are in this same category.
UK govt again to try “astronomically expensive” plutonium reprocessing nuclear reactors
Westminster relaunches plutonium reactors despite ‘disastrous’ experience, The National, 26 April, 20 By Rob Edwards This article was brought to you by The Ferret.
THE UK Government is trying to resurrect plutonium-powered reactors despite abandoning a multi-billion bid to make them work in Scotland.
Documents released by the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) under freedom of information law reveal that fast reactors, which can burn and breed plutonium, are among “advanced nuclear technologies” being backed by UK ministers.
Two experimental fast reactors were built and tested at a cost of £4 billion over four decades at Dounreay in Caithness. But the programme was closed in 1994 as uneconomic after a series of accidents and leaks.
Now ONR has been funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in London to boost its capacity to regulate new designs of fast reactors, along with other advanced nuclear technologies.
Campaigners have condemned the moves to rehabilitate plutonium as a nuclear fuel as “astronomically expensive”, “disastrous” and “mind-boggling”. They point out that it can be made into nuclear bombs and is highly toxic – and the UK has 140 tonnes of it…….
ONR released 23 documents about advanced nuclear technologies in response to a freedom of information request by Dr David Lowry, a London-based research fellow at the US Institute for Resource and Security Studies. They include redacted minutes and notes of meetings from 2019 discussing fast reactors, and are being published by The Ferret.
One note of a meeting in November 2019 shows that ONR attempted to access a huge database on fast reactors maintained by the UK Government’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) in Warrington, Cheshire…..
Two companies have so far won funding under this heading to help develop fast reactors that can burn plutonium. The US power company, Westinghouse, is proposing lead-cooled fast reactors, while another US company called Advanced Reactor Concepts wants to build sodium-cooled fast reactors.
In November 2019 BEIS also announced an £18 million grant to a consortium led by reactor manufacturer, Rolls Royce, to develop a “small modular reactor designed and manufactured in the UK capable of producing cost effective electricity”.
According to Dr Lowry, fast reactors would require building a plutonium fuel fabrication plant. Such plants are “astronomically expensive” and have proved “technical and financial disasters” in the past, he said.
“Any such fabrication plant would be an inevitable target for terrorists wanting to create spectacular iconic disruption of such a high profile plutonium plant, with devastating human health and environmental hazards.”
Lowry was originally told by ONR that it held no documents on advanced nuclear technologies. As well as redacting the 23 documents that have now been released, the nuclear safety regulator is withholding a further 13 documents as commercially confidential – a claim that Lowry dismissed as “fatuous nonsense”.
THE veteran nuclear critic and respected author, Walt Patterson, argued that no fast reactor programme in the world had worked since the 1950s. Even if it did, it would take “centuries” to burn the UK’s 140 tonne plutonium stockpile, and create more radioactive waste with nowhere to go, he said.
“Extraordinary – they never learn do they? I remain perpetually gobsmacked at the lobbying power of the nuclear obsessives,” he told The Ferret. “The mind continue to boggle.”
The Edinburgh-based nuclear consultant, Pete Roche, suggested that renewable energy was the cheapest and most sustainable solution to climate change. “The UK Government seems to be planning some kind of low carbon dystopia with nuclear reactors getting smaller, some of which at least will be fuelled by plutonium,” he said.
“The idea of weapons-useable plutonium fuel being transported on our roads should send shivers down the spine of security experts and emergency planners.”
Another nuclear expert and critic, Dr Ian Fairlie, described BEIS’s renewed interest in fast reactors as problematic. “Experience with them over many years in the US, Russia, France and the UK has shown them to be disastrous and a waste of taxpayers’ money,” he said.
This is not the view taken by the UK Nuclear Industry Association, which brings together nuclear companies. It wants to see the UK’s plutonium being used in reactors rather than disposed of as waste……
“The Scottish Government remains opposed to new nuclear power plants in Scotland,” a spokesperson told The Ferret. “The Scottish Government believes our long term energy needs can be met without the need for new nuclear capacity.”
The UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy did not respond to repeated requests to comment. https://www.thenational.scot/news/18405852.westminster-relaunches-plutonium-reactors-despite-disastrous-experience/
Eleven of 12 hottest years have occurred since 2000, new climate report warns
Eleven of 12 hottest years have occurred since 2000, new climate report warns, Independent, Isabelle Gerretsen @izzygerretsen 23 Apr 20
Last year was the hottest year on record for Europe after scorching heatwaves led to record-breaking temperatures in February, June and July
Eleven out of the 12 hottest years to date have all occurred since 2000, according to a new report by the European Union’s climate monitoring service.
Last year was the hottest year on record for Europe after scorching heatwaves led to record-breaking temperatures in February, June and July, scientists from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (CS3) said in the annual European State of the Climate report.
“The number of days with high heat stress levels are increasing in both northern and southern Europe,” they said.
The findings highlight a continuing trend of warming over four decades in Europe which the Copernicus scientists say is being caused by rising greenhouse gases……
An intense heatwave at the end of July led to record melting of Greenland’s ice sheet and all-time records being broken in northern Scandinavia, the Copernicus report noted.
According to recent research, Greenland’s ice sheet and the polar ice caps are melting six times faster than they were in the 1990s. The high melt rate fits with the worst-case scenario outlined by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which states that sea levels will rise 17cm without sweeping reductions in greenhouse gas emissions…..
Concentrations of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere continue to increase. “It is only possible to find concentrations as high as they were in 2019 by going back millions of years in history,” the Copernicus scientists said.
Professor Martin Siegert, co-director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, told The Independent that the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is “unnaturally high”.
He said it should be 280 parts per million (ppm) but is currently 415ppm and could reach 1000ppm by the end of the century if CO2 emissions continue to rise at their current rate…… https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-global-warming-hottest-years-on-record-a9477796.html
