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Expert opinion: why nuclear energy should not be included as sustainable in Europe’s green taxonomy financing

BASE comments on the JRC report  https://www.base.bund.de/SharedDocs/Stellungnahmen/BASE/DE/2021/0714_base-fachstellungnahme-jrc-bericht.html   Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (Bundesamt für die Sicherheit der nuklearen Entsorgung)  14 july 21

Expert opinion on the report of the Joint Research Center “Technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect to the‛ do no significant harm ‛criteria of Regulation (EU) 2020/852‛ Taxonomy Regulation ‛”

There are numerous reasons why the use of nuclear power is not ecologically sustainable and why this form of energy generation is therefore not part of the taxonomy regulation of the European Union ( EU ) – this is the conclusion of the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management ( BASE ).

The basis for this is a specialist opinion for the Federal Environment Ministry, in which the Federal Office for Radiation Protection was also involved.

BASE statement is a reaction to the report of the Joint Research Center.

The reason for this statement is the report of the so-called Joint Research Center, an EU directorate-general whose origin was nuclear research. This came to a positive assessment of nuclear power in March 2021:

According to this, the catalog of criteria of the so-called “do no significant harm” principle is met – an assessment that evaluates forms of energy production according to their environmental balance.

If the EU Commission followed this evaluation by the JRC and rated nuclear energy as an ecologically sustainable form of economic activity, it would also appear attractive as a corresponding form of financial investment and would be equated, for example, with renewable energies.

BASE statement is a reaction to the report of the Joint Research Center

The reason for this statement is the report of the so-called Joint Research Center, an EU directorate-general whose origin was nuclear research. This came to a positive assessment of nuclear power in March 2021:

According to this, the catalog of criteria of the so-called “do no significant harm” principle is met – an assessment that evaluates forms of energy production according to their environmental balance.

If the EU Commission followed this evaluation by the JRC and rated nuclear energy as an ecologically sustainable form of economic activity, it would also appear attractive as a corresponding form of financial investment and would be equated, for example, with renewable energies.

Serious nuclear accidents were not adequately assessed in the JRC report

Background: The evaluation of nuclear power is controversial at the European level. A group of technical experts came to the conclusion in 2020 that a decision in favor of the use of nuclear power as part of the taxonomy should not be made. Thereupon the Joint Research Center of the EU was commissioned to evaluate the atomic energy.

In its report, BASE now points out the following points that should be assessed negatively with regard to nuclear power:

  • failure to take into account the risk of major accidents,
  • unresolved repository – or disposal problems and
  • an insufficient consideration of subsequent loads for future generations.

As a result, the report comes to the following assessment:

“The JRC report only incompletely considers the consequences and risks of the use of nuclear energy for people and the environment as well as for subsequent generations or omits them in its assessment. Insofar as it deals with them, the principles of scientific work are sometimes not correctly taken into account. The JRC report thus provides an incomplete contribution with which the sustainability of the use of nuclear energy cannot be comprehensively assessed. “

Expert opinion (German)

Expert Response (English)

July 15, 2021 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

UK government plan – residents on the hook in advance for costly Sizewell nuclear plan that will be useless to combat climate change

A remote area on England’s east coast, halfway between the seaside towns of Felixstowe and Lowestoft, is set to become the centre of debate about Britain’s future energy security. UK ministers are aiming to bring
forward legislation in the autumn to support the financing of a 3.2 gigawatt nuclear power station in Sizewell, East Suffolk….

Ministers have been in formal negotiations with EDF about how to fund the proposed £20bn Sizewell C
plant since December, and the government and the French state-backed utility have had discussions about replacing Britain’s ageing nuclear reactors for years.

However, the question of whether Britain should build more large plants took on added urgency last month, when EDF closed the 1.1GW Dungeness B station in Kent seven years early. It also raised the prospect that other reactors may also be decommissioned ahead of schedule, owing to problems with their graphite cores……….

“If there was [a capacity issue], what good is Sizewell going to do given it won’t come on line until 2034
according to EDF?” asks Stephen Thomas, emeritus professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich. Nuclear sceptics have long argued that money would be better spent on clean energy technologies, such as
offshore wind, and reducing electricity demand through measures including insulation.

Under a RAB model, consumers would pay towards a new plant through their energy bills long before any electricity is generated. Opponents of the model warn that consumers would also be on the hook for
cost overruns.

 FT 14th July 2021

https://www.ft.com/content/3f2bfc76-5b74-437c-8b18-67f9cde991af

July 15, 2021 Posted by | climate change, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Most Hanford nuclear cleanup workers exposed to hazardous materials: Washington state report

Most Hanford cleanup workers exposed to hazardous materials: Washington state report  https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/561893-most-hanford-workers-exposed-to-hazardous-materials-state-report

BY CELINE CASTRONUOVO – 07/07/21 More than half of all current and former workers involved in the Hanford Nuclear Reservation cleanup effort have said they were exposed to hazardous materials, according to a new report from the Washington state government.

The report, the last in a series from the Department of Commerce’s Hanford Healthy Energy Workers Board, found that 57 percent “of all current and former workers reported being in an exposure event,” with 32 percent saying they experienced “long-term exposure to hazardous materials.”

The 106-page document cited “deep concerns” among current and former workers about “compensation system processes and the healthcare system’s ability to meet workers’ needs,” and identified “deficiencies in continued engagement with workers after an initial assessment or diagnosis as a common obstacle for the Hanford workforce.”

The findings cap eight months of research by a state-commissioned board tasked with making recommendations on addressing the health needs of workers at the Hanford nuclear site.

The 560-square-mile area in Washington was used by the federal government from 1944 to 1987 to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons and missile warheads.

However, the state board noted that during this time, “many highly radioactive byproducts and waste chemicals were dumped directly into the ground or stored in subterranean multi-million-gallon underground storage areas known as tank farms.”

The Department of Energy’s mission at the site shifted from production to cleanup beginning in the late 1980s.

The site has come under increased scrutiny in recent years for its affect on health and the environment, with the Energy Department warning in April that it believed an underground tank at the facility was leaking waste produced by plutonium production.

The Hanford area is considered the most contaminated site of radioactive waste in the U.S.

The board’s final report on Wednesday offered a look at some of the long-term impacts of nuclear production and waste at the site, including incurable conditions like chronic beryllium disease, which leads to scarring of lung tissue.

The board said that “information sharing could be key to finding cures” to the disease and other chronic conditions developed from exposure to hazardous materials.

Other recommendations included the creation of a Hanford Healthy Energy Workers Center to “serve as a centralized clearinghouse for Hanford-specific health-related information that includes up-to-date scientific knowledge, research on emergent topics, exposure data analysis, medical surveillance data analysis and coordinated intergovernmental efforts for policy and advocacy.”

The board said greater access should be given to specialty and follow-up care, and urged health officials to improve “the quality of care available to Hanford workers both at the Hanford site and in the Tri-Cities area.”

July 15, 2021 Posted by | employment, health, USA | Leave a comment

Japan’s government acknowledges that solar power will be cheaper than nuclear

Solar power eclipses nuclear energy in terms of costs, Asahi Shimbun, By SATOSHI SHINDEN/ Staff Writer, July 13, 2021   For businesses looking ahead to reduce costs, solar power would definitely seem to be the way to go. Households could possibly benefit as well.

A new estimate by the industry ministry on future costs of power generation found that solar power will eclipse nuclear energy in terms of costs as of 2030.

The finding, released July 12, is expected to have significant implications for the nation’s energy policy.

This is the first time for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to acknowledge that the cost to generate solar power will be lower than that for nuclear power.

The estimates were presented at a meeting of a working group of the Advisory Committee for Natural Resources and Energy the same day.

Estimated costs for nuclear power came to close to the 12 yen level or more per kilowatt-hour as of 2030, about 1 yen higher than the previous estimate in 2015.

Costs for solar power ranged from the lower 8 yen level to close to 12 yen for businesses. The rate for homes was estimated at between the last half of the 9 yen level to the first half of the 14 yen level.

The government and electric utilities have continued to champion nuclear power generation even after the 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, citing cost efficiency over other energy sources.

However, the latest estimates would seem to call the legitimacy of that argument into question and will likely have an impact on the government’s Basic Energy Plan, for which officials are working to revise.

 The Basic Energy Plan is updated almost every three years.

“The industry ministry has finally acknowledged it can no longer maintain the position that nuclear power is the most economical source of energy,” noted Kenichi Oshima, a professor of environmental economics at Ryukoku University who studies the nation’s nuclear policy, referring to the latest findings about costs.

The estimated costs for generating electricity with nuclear energy have risen each time calculations were made.

The ministry was forced to include ballooning costs for decommissioning of nuclear reactors and decontaminating crippled facilities in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster…..

solar energy is getting cheaper.

The latest estimate for solar power was down from the previous calculation in 2015 because the costs of installing solar panels are dropping.

Charges for generating electricity are calculated as follows: the total cost of building a new power facility, operating it for decades and finally dismantling it divided by the overall amount of power produced during the period……  https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14394069

July 15, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics, renewable | Leave a comment

If you thought that space research had nothing to do with weapons – think again!

With all three Gunsmoke-J satellites on orbit, the Army is ready to test space-based targeting  C4ISR NETBy Nathan StroutTue Jul 13 2021, The Army is keen to use the vantage of space to find and target beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) threats. While satellite imagery has traditionally been a product of the intelligence community, the development of relatively affordable yet highly capable small satellites that can operate in low Earth orbit has convinced military leaders that it can play a tactical role on the battlefield.

In a demonstration last fall, the Army was able to show that it could take images from satellites on orbit down to Earth, process them with artificial intelligence to find threats, and deliver targeting data to weapon systems in about 20 seconds. That speed is opening a whole slew of possibilities to commanders, enabling them to “see” further down the battlefield in near real time than ever before.

That demonstration used images from commercial satellite constellations, but now the Army has its own trio of imagery satellites to further develop this capability. The Army’s Gunsmoke-J program has launched three cubesats to use “emerging advanced electronics to allow the use of dedicated intelligence assets to provide tactically actionable targeting data to war fighters on a responsive and persistent timeline,” according to an annual budget proposal. Gunsmoke-J is a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration conducted by the Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Assured Position Navigation and Timing/Space Cross Functional Team………..

“This deployment and same day launch of two separate Gunsmoke-J satellites is a major step toward demonstrating what we believe will be enabling tactical warfighter capability,” ……..
If the Gunsmoke experiments are successful, then this work could lead to future systems, which would enhance long-range precision fires in support of the war fighter.”   https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2021/07/12/with-all-three-gunsmoke-j-satellites-on-orbit-the-army-is-ready-to-test-space-based-targeting/

July 15, 2021 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

British court ruling heightens danger of Assange extradition to the US

British court ruling heightens danger of Assange extradition to the US, WSWS,  Oscar Grenfell,  12 July 21, Last week’s ruling by the British High Court allowing prosecutors to appeal an earlier judgment blocking Julian Assange’s extradition, poses the very real danger that the WikiLeaks publisher will be dispatched to his American persecutors in the not-too-distant future.

The ruling is a microcosm of the Assange case as a whole. As they have for the past decade, the British courts have thrown aside the WikiLeaks founder’s legal and democratic rights. They have granted a US appeal that is both duplicitous and irregular under conditions in which the entire attempt by the American state to prosecute Assange has been exposed as an illegal frame-up.

The US appeal is a damning refutation of those, including among Assange’s own supporters, who have peddled dangerous illusions that the US administration of President Joe Biden may drop the prosecution if a sufficient number of moral pleas are addressed to the new occupant of the White House.

The appeal was first issued in the dying days of the Trump administration but it was continued, honed and argued for by Biden’s Justice Department. Assange remains in London’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison and faces the prospect of lifetime incarceration in the US because Biden is determined to press ahead with the prosecution of a journalist and publisher for exposing American war crimes, human rights violations and illegal spying operations.

That is because the Assange prosecution is viewed as a crucial precedent by the imperialist powers for the suppression of dissent and anti-war opposition amid a ratcheting up of the preparations for military conflict, including the Biden administration’s threats and provocations against China, and the first signs of a resurgence of working-class struggle.

The appeal also confirms the warnings made by the World Socialist Web Site about January’s British District Court decision that barred extradition.

Judge Vanessa Baraitser accepted all the substantive arguments of the US prosecutors, including their right to try a publisher under the Espionage Act. Her ruling, prohibiting extradition, was framed in the narrowest terms. Its purpose was to defuse a groundswell of opposition to the prospect of Assange’s extradition and to provide the US with ample scope for appeal.

Baraitser ruled that extradition would be “oppressive.” Assange’s compromised health and the conditions of his imprisonment in the US would likely result in his suicide.

The deliberate consequence of that judgment was that there was only a legal sliver between Assange and extradition.

The US has exploited this with its appeal claiming that the conditions of imprisonment would not be so oppressive. It has proposed worthless assurances that Assange would not be held under Special Administrative Measures (SAM), regulations that impose almost total isolation on a prisoner, and that he could serve out his sentence in Australia.

The extradition hearing had heard harrowing testimony about the dire psychological consequences of SAMs and conditions at the supermax ADX Florence prison where they are frequently imposed.

The US arguments, accepted as a legitimate basis of appeal by the British court, were demolished by Stella Moris, Assange’s partner and an international human rights lawyer.

In a statement issued on Friday, Moris wrote: “Reports about US undertakings are grossly misleading. On any given day 80,000 prisoners in US prisons are held in solitary confinement. Only a handful are in ADX/under special administrative measures. ADX is just one of dozens of self-described supermax prisons in the United States. The US government also says it may change its mind if the head of the CIA advises it to do so once Julian Assange is held in US custody.

“With regard to the supposed concession of allowing Julian to serve jail time in Australia, it was always his right to request a prisoner transfer to Australia to finish serving his sentence because he is an Australian. It is no concession at all. There are existing agreements between the US and Australian authorities. What is crucial to understand is that prisoner transfers are eligible only after all appeals have been exhausted. For the case to reach the US Supreme Court could easily take a decade, even two.

“What the US is proposing is a formula to keep Julian in prison effectively for the rest of his life. The only assurance that would be acceptable would be for the Biden Administration to drop this shameful case altogether, once and for all. He should not be in prison for a single day, not in the UK, not in the United States, not in Australia—because journalism is not a crime.”

As Moris noted, the US appeal itself reserved the “right” to impose SAMs once Assange is on US soil. Testimony at the extradition hearing, including from a former US prison warden, established that the imposition of SAMs is essentially extra-judicial, often being introduced at the say-so of the intelligence agencies, and with no genuine means of appeal.

“What the US is proposing is a formula to keep Julian in prison effectively for the rest of his life. The only assurance that would be acceptable would be for the Biden Administration to drop this shameful case altogether, once and for all. He should not be in prison for a single day, not in the UK, not in the United States, not in Australia—because journalism is not a crime.”

As Moris noted, the US appeal itself reserved the “right” to impose SAMs once Assange is on US soil. Testimony at the extradition hearing, including from a former US prison warden, established that the imposition of SAMs is essentially extra-judicial, often being introduced at the say-so of the intelligence agencies, and with no genuine means of appeal.

The hearings, moreover, heard evidence of a case in which similar assurances were immediately thrown out the door once extradition was secured……………

Thordarson has now admitted, however, that almost all his testimony consisted of lies proffered in exchange for immunity from US prosecution. The American government thus submitted a false indictment to the British courts……….https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/12/assa-j12.html?pk_campaign=assange-newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws

July 13, 2021 Posted by | Legal, politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, USA | Leave a comment

French nuclear company EDF struggles with increasing debt and poor prospects for its nuclear fleet.

Telegraph 11th July 2021, Macron’s battle to rewire EDF. French President Emmanuel Macron wants to restructure EDF and separate the costly nuclear power arm from the rest of the business. Jean-Bernard Lévy has developed a remarkable level of patience in his role leading utilities giant EDF. The French state-controlled company oversees some of the longest-running infrastructure projects in the world, operating 73 reactors globally.

 But even Lévy is bound to have grown frustrated by the lack of progress in the French government’s effort to improve the company’s prospects. In what has been code-named Project Hercules, France wants to overhaul competition rules and separate EDF’s costly nuclear power arm from other areas of its business.

It is hoped the move could allow EDF to double its growth target in renewable energy to 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and help it manage its debts. Brussels must first give approval for EDF’s reorganisation, but talks appear to have stalled and time is running out before France’s general election in April.

Its expensive nuclear fleet is one reason for its heavy net debt of €42bn. Multi-billion euro investment is needed in coming years to decommission, maintain and build new plants. S&P Global says nuclear projects “represent the highest risk to the group’s credit quality”.

It expects net debt to rise to €50bn-€52bn by the end of 2023. EDF argues it is disadvantaged by rules in France allowing competitors to buy a quarter of the electricity generated by its nuclear fleet at a fixed price of €42 per MwH, to make up for its monopoly in themarket. The price is too low and inflexible, EDF argues.

Meanwhile, EDF’s spending grows. The company is building several large assets without yet getting paid, including the £22bn-23bn nuclear power plant Hinkley Point C Somerset. For its next planned nuclear power station in the UK, Sizewell C in Suffolk, a different funding mechanism is being discussed with the
Government that would allow EDF to recoup costs from household bills during construction, rather than having to wait until the plant is generating.Ministers are believed to be preparing to introduce legislation this
autumn.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/11/macrons-battle-rewire-edf/

July 13, 2021 Posted by | France, politics | Leave a comment

How Right-Wing Extremists Pose A Nuclear Threat

How Right-Wing Extremists Pose A Nuclear Threat. Cincinnati Public Radio By ANN THOMPSON 12 july 21, According to the Harvard Kennedy School’s Matthew Bunn, “For whatever reason, for a certain brand of right-wing extremists in the United States and elsewhere, there’s a real obsession with nuclear.” He says we need to be especially concerned when they work or know somebody who works at a nuclear plant.

These insiders are especially dangerous, he says, because of all the nuclear threats we know about, almost all of them were perpetrated by insiders or with the help of insiders.

Bunn and Scott Sagan recently co-edited a book called Insider Threats. Some of the material covered involves nuclear threats

” ‘The Turner Diaries,’ which is one of the sort of foundational documents for extreme racists, right-wing movements in the United States, envisons them using nuclear weapons against U.S. cities to sort of bring down the government in order to rebuild a whites-only nation,” says Bunn.

One extremist who worked at a nuclear plant was Ashli Babbitt. She was among the crowd storming the Capitol Jan. 6. Police shot and killed her after she tried to get through a barrier. From 2015 to 2017, Babbitt was employed by Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland and as far as anybody knows, didn’t do anything wrong there.

But nuclear plants remain an interest to plenty of extremists. In 2015, a suspect linked to the Paris attacks was found with surveillance footage of a top official at a nuclear facility in Belgium. Authorities were worried the Islamic State may have been plotting to kidnap the official to obtain radioactive material for the terrorist attack, according to The New York Times.

And it doesn’t stop there. “The Japanese terror group called Alum Shinnikyo that launched nine gas attacks in the Tokyo subways in 1995 and Al Quaeda both pursued nuclear weapons fairly actively,” Bunn says. “Recently the Under Secretary General of the United Nations for Counterterrorism reported that the Islamic State has used bitcoin to buy and sell radioactive materials.”……….. https://www.wvxu.org/post/how-right-wing-extremists-pose-nuclear-threat#stream/0

July 13, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, safety | Leave a comment

Reaching net zero without nuclear

Our latest Talking Points makes the case

Not only is it possible, it’s essential   https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2021/07/11/reaching-net-zero-without-nuclear/

The fourth in our series of Talking Points draws on the new report by Jonathon Porritt, New Zero Without Nuclear: The Case Against Nuclear Power. Given the far-off illusory promise of new reactor designs; the enormous costs; the limited capacity for carbon reductions compared to renewables; the unsolved waste problem; and the inflexibility and outdatedness of the “always on” baseload model, nuclear power is in the way of — rather than a contributor to — climate mitigation. You can download the Net Zero Without Nuclear Talking Points here. This is the fourth in our series. You can find all four here.

By Jonathon Porritt 10 July 21

 I first took an interest in Greenpeace back in 1973, before I joined Friends of the Earth, CND and the Green Party (then the Ecology Party) a year later. I’d followed the campaigns against the testing of nuclear weapons in Amchitka (one of the Aleutian islands in Alaska), and then in the French nuclear testing area of Moruroa in the Pacific. I was 23 at the time, with zero in-depth knowledge, but it just seemed wrong, on so many different fronts.

That early history of Greenpeace seems much less relevant now, given all its achievements over the last 50 years in so many other areas of critical environmental concern. But it still matters. Greenpeace has been an ‘anti-nuclear organisation’ through all that time, sometimes fiercely engaged in front-line battles, sometimes maintaining more of a watching brief, and nuclear power plays no part in Greenpeace’s modelling of a rapid transition to a Net Zero carbon world. It’s been very supportive of my new report, ‘Net Zero Without Nuclear’.

I wrote this report partly because the nuclear industry itself is in full-on propaganda mode, and partly because that small caucus of pro-nuclear greens (that’s existed for as long as I can remember) seems to be winning new supporters.

And I can see why. The Net Zero journey we’re now starting out on for real (at long last!) is by far the most daunting challenge that humankind has ever faced. Writing in the Los Angeles Review of Books in June 2019, author and Army veteran Roy Scranton put it like this:

‘Climate change is bigger than the New Deal, bigger than the Marshall Plan, bigger than World War II, bigger than racism, sexism, inequality, slavery, the Holocaust, the end of nature, the Sixth Extinction, famine, war, and plague all put together, because the chaos it’s bringing is going to supercharge every other problem. Successfully meeting this crisis would require an abrupt, traumatic revolution in global human society; failing to meet it will be even worse.’

Not many people see it like that – as yet. But more and more will, as signals of that kind of chaos start to multiply. And we already know that the kind of radical decarbonisation on which our future depends is going to be incredibly hard. So why should we reject a potentially powerful contribution to that decarbonisation challenge?

I became Director of Friends of the Earth in 1984. The same year that my first book, ‘Seeing Green’, was published. Looking back on what I said then, I was indeed fiercely critical of nuclear power, but have to admit that my advocacy of renewables (as the principal alternative) was somewhat muted. Apart from a few visionaries in the early 1980s (including Friends of the Earth’s Amory Lovins and Walt Patterson), no-one really thought that renewables would be capable of substituting for the use of all fossil fuels and all nuclear at any point in the near future. And anyone expressing such a view in official circles was rapidly put back in their box.

Given the scale of the challenge we face, we need to have very strong grounds for keeping nuclear out of today’s low/zero-carbon portfolio. Not least as nuclear power, historically, has already made a huge contribution to low-carbon generation. Since the early 1960s, nuclear power has provided the equivalent of 18,000 reactor years of electricity generation. We’d be in a much worse place today if all that electricity had been generated from burning coal or gas.

Happily, there is no longer any doubt about the viability of that alternative. In 2020, Stanford University issued a collection of 56 peer-reviewed journal articles, from 18 independent research groups, supporting the idea that all the energy required for electricity, transport, heating and cooling, and all industrial purposes, can be supplied reliably with 100% (or near 100%) renewable energy. The solutions involve transitioning ASAP to 100% renewable wind – water – solar (WWS), efficiency and storage.

The transition is already happening. To date, 11 countries have reached or exceeded 100% renewable electricity. And a further 12 countries are intent on reaching that threshold by 2030. In the UK, the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology says we can reach 100% renewable electricity by 2032. Last year, we crossed the 40% threshold.

There is of course a world of difference between electricity and total energy consumption. But at the end of April, Carbon Tracker brought out its latest analysis of the potential for renewables, convincingly explaining why solar and wind alone could meet total world energy demand 100 times over by 2050, and that fears about the huge amount of land this would require are unfounded. The land required for solar panels to provide all global energy would be 450,000 km2, just 0.3% of global land area – significantly less than the current land footprint of fossil fuel infrastructures. As the Report says:

The technical and economic barriers have been crossed and the only impediment to change is political. Sector by sector and country by country the fossil fuel incumbency is being swamped by the rapidly rising tide of new energy technologies. Even countries where the technical potential is below 10 times energy demand. . . have devised innovative approaches to energy generation.

The fossil fuel industry cannot compete with the technology learning curves of renewables, so demand will inevitably fall as wind and solar continue to grow. At the current 15-20% growth rates of solar and wind, fossil fuels will be pushed out of the electricity sector by the mid-2030s and out of total energy supply by 2050.‘

The unlocking of energy reserves 100 times our current demand creates new possibilities for cheaper energy and more local jobs in a more equitable world with far less environmental stress.‘

Poor countries are the greatest beneficiaries. They have the largest ratio of solar and wind potential to energy demand and stand to unlock huge domestic benefits.’

Nuclear plays no part in any of these projections, whether we’re talking big reactors or small reactors, fission or fusion. The simple truth is this: we should see nuclear as another 20th century technology, with an ever-diminishing role through into the 21st century, incapable of overcoming its inherent problems of cost, construction delay, nuclear waste, decommissioning, security (both physical and cyber), let alone the small but still highly material risk of catastrophic accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima. My ‘Net Zero Without Nuclear’ report goes into all these inherent problems in some detail.

So why are the UK’s politicians (in all three major parties) still in thrall to this superannuated technology? It’s here we have to go back to Amchitka! Some environmentalists may still be taken aback to discover that the Government’s principal case for nuclear power in the UK today is driven by the need to maintain the UK’s nuclear weapons capability – to ensure a ‘talent pool’ of nuclear engineers and to support a supply chain of engineering companies capable of providing component parts for the nuclear industry, both civilian and military. The indefatigable work of Andy Stirling and Phil Johnston at Sussex University’s Science Policy Research Unit has established the depth and intensity of these interdependencies, demonstrating how the UK’s military industrial base would become unaffordable in the absence of a nuclear energy programme.

What that means is that today’s pro-nuclear greens are throwing in their lot not just with a bottomless pit of hype and fantasy, but with a world still dangerously at risk from that continuing dependence on nuclear weapons. That’s a weird place to be, 50 years on from the emergence of Greenpeace as a force for good in that world.

July 12, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, politics, Reference, spinbuster | 1 Comment

Fukushima’s ”nuclear recovery Olympics” has gone even more wrong, as spectators banned.

Fukushima to ban Olympic spectators as Covid cases rise, 
U-turn deals blow to Japan’s hopes of using Games to showcase recovery from 2011 tsunami, Guardian, 10 Jul 21, 
, The Fukushima prefecture of Japan will bar spectators from the Olympic events it hosts this summer owing to rising Covid-19 infections, its governor said on Saturday, reversing a position announced two days earlier by organisers.

The decision deals another blow to Japan’s hopes of using the Olympics to showcase its recovery from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the northern coast in 2011, destroying a nuclear power station in Fukushima in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Organisers had said on Thursday there would be no spectators in the host city, Tokyo, as a resurgent coronavirus forced the prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, to declare a state of emergency in the capital that will run throughout the Games, which were already postponed by a year due to the pandemic……..

Fukushima’s move comes a day after the Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, expressed optimism about audiences in Fukushima. Japan take on Australia in a softball game that will be the first competition of the Olympics on 21 July, two days before the opening ceremony.

………. Organisers said there was no change to plans for limited crowds in Miyagi, Shizuoka and Ibaraki prefectures.  https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/10/fukushima-to-ban-olympic-spectators-as-covid-cases-rise

July 12, 2021 Posted by | health, Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Mobile phones/cellphones – the health danger from electromagnetic radiation

Ed. note. We know that ionising radiation from nuclear activities causes cancer and other health ill-effects. But we should also be aware of non-ionising radiation, and its effects on health – electromagnetic radiation as emitted by mobile pnones.

Since then, he said, research has shown significant adverse biologic and health effects — including brain cancer — associated with the use of cellphones and other wireless devices. And now, he said, with the fifth generation of cellular technology, known as 5G, there is an even bigger reason for concern.

Moskowitz: Cellphone radiation is harmful, but few want to believe it. Berkely News,  Anne Brice, Berkeley News| JULY 1, 2021 For more than a decade, Joel Moskowitz, a researcher in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley and director of Berkeley’s Center for Family and Community Health, has been on a quest to prove that radiation from cellphones is unsafe. But, he said, most people don’t want to hear it.

“People are addicted to their smartphones,” said Moskowitz. “We use them for everything now, and, in many ways, we need them to function in our daily lives. I think the idea that they’re potentially harming our health is too much for some people.”

Since cellphones first came onto the market in 1983, they have gone from clunky devices with bad reception to today’s sleek, multifunction smartphones. And although cellphones are now used by nearly all American adults, considerable research suggests that long-term use poses health risks from the radiation they emit, said Moskowitz.

“Cellphones, cell towers and other wireless devices are regulated by most governments,” said Moskowitz. “Our government, however, stopped funding research on the health effects of radiofrequency radiation in the 1990s.”

Since then, he said, research has shown significant adverse biologic and health effects — including brain cancer — associated with the use of cellphones and other wireless devices. And now, he said, with the fifth generation of cellular technology, known as 5G, there is an even bigger reason for concern.

Berkeley News spoke with Moskowitz about the health risks of cellphone radiation, why the topic is so controversial and what we can expect with the rollout of 5G.

Berkeley News: I think we should address upfront is how controversial this research is. Some scientists have said that these findings are without basis and that there isn’t enough evidence that cellphone radiation is harmful to our health. How do you respond to that?

Joel Moskowitz: Well, first of all, few scientists in this country can speak knowledgeably about the health effects of wireless technology. So, I’m not surprised that people are skeptical, but that doesn’t mean the findings aren’t valid.

A big reason there isn’t more research about the health risks of radiofrequency radiation exposure is because the U.S. government stopped funding this research in the 1990s, with the exception of a $30 million rodent study published in 2018 by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ National Toxicology Program, which found “clear evidence” of carcinogenicity from cellphone radiation.

In 1996, the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, adopted exposure guidelines that limited the intensity of exposure to radiofrequency radiation. These guidelines were designed to prevent significant heating of tissue from short-term exposure to radiofrequency radiation, not to protect us from the effects of long-term exposure to low levels of modulated, or pulsed, radiofrequency radiation, which is produced by cellphones, cordless phones and other wireless devices, including Wi-Fi. Yet, the preponderance of research published since 1990 finds adverse biologic and health effects from long-term exposure to radiofrequency radiation, including DNA damage.

More than 250 scientists, who have published over 2,000 papers and letters in professional journals on the biologic and health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields produced by wireless devices, including cellphones, have signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for health warnings and stronger exposure limits. So, there are many scientists who agree that this radiation is harmful to our health.

Our 2009 review, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that heavy cellphone use was associated with increased brain cancer incidence, especially in studies that used higher quality methods and studies that had no telecommunications industry funding.

Last year, we updated our review, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, based on a meta-analysis of 46 case-control studies — twice as many studies as we used for our 2009 review — and obtained similar findings Our main takeaway from the current review is that approximately 1,000 hours of lifetime cellphone use, or about 17 minutes per day over a 10-year period, is associated with a statistically significant 60% increase in brain cancer.

Why did the government stop funding this kind of research?

The telecommunications industry has almost complete control of the FCC, according to Captured Agency, a monograph written by journalist Norm Alster during his 2014-15 fellowship at Harvard University’s Center for Ethics. There’s a revolving door between the membership of the FCC and high-level people within the telecom industry that’s been going on for a couple of decades now.

The industry spends about $100 million a year lobbying Congress. The CTIA, which is the major telecom lobbying group, spends $12.5 million per year on 70 lobbyists. According to one of their spokespersons, lobbyists meet roughly 500 times a year with the FCC to lobby on various issues. The industry as a whole spends $132 million a year on lobbying and provides $18 million in political contributions to members of Congress and others at the federal level.

……… there are strong parallels between what the telecom industry has done and what the tobacco industry has done, in terms of marketing and controlling messaging to the public. ………  For safety tips on how to reduce exposure to wireless radiation from the California Department of Public Health and other organizations, Moskowitz recommends readers visit his website, saferemr.com, Physicians for Safe Technology and the Environmental Health Trust.  https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/01/health-risks-of-cell-phone-radiation/#:~:text=Moskowitz%3A%20Cellphone%20radiation%20is%20harmful%2C%20but%20few%20want%20to%20believe%20it,-By%20Anne%20Brice&text=For%20more%20than%20a%20decade,radiation%20from%20cellphones%20is%20unsafe.

July 12, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation | 1 Comment

EPA Withdraws Disastrous Trump-Era Radioactive Roads Approval

If dispersed, the material would present an unreasonable public health threat stemming from the appreciable quantities of radium-226, uranium, uranium-238, uranium-234, thorium-230, radon-222, lead-210, polonium-210, chromium, arsenic, lead, cadmium, fluoride, zinc, antimony and copper phosphogypsum contains.

EPA Withdraws Disastrous Trump-Era Radioactive Roads Approval

Use of Phosphogypsum in Roads Poses Risk of Cancer, Genetic Damage   https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/epa-withdraws-disastrous-trump-era-radioactive-roads-approval-2021-07-02/

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.— The Biden administration announced it is withdrawing approval given by the Trump administration to use phosphogypsum in construction. The retracted approval had allowed the use of toxic, radioactive waste in constructing roads in parts of the United States prone to sinkholes and erosion.

“Allowing phosphogypsum in roads was a boneheaded, short-sighted favor to the industry,” said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “While the withdrawal cites technical deficiencies in the applicant’s petition, this action is consistent with 30 years of science showing that phosphogypsum poses a substantial risk to humans and the environment.”

In December 2020 environmental, public health and union groups, represented by Earthjustice, sued the Environmental Protection Agency for approving phosphogypsum use in roads. The groups also petitioned the agency to reconsider its approval.

Phosphogypsum is the radioactive waste of fertilizer production. Phosphate ore, mined largely in Florida, is transported to fertilizer plants for processing by chemically digesting the ore in sulfuric acid. For every ton of phosphoric acid produced, the fertilizer industry creates five tons of radioactive phosphogypsum waste.

Since 1989 the EPA has required phosphogypsum to be stored in mountainous piles called “stacks,” and limited the amount of radon gas that can be emitted from the stacks. If dispersed, the material would present an unreasonable public health threat stemming from the appreciable quantities of radium-226, uranium, uranium-238, uranium-234, thorium-230, radon-222, lead-210, polonium-210, chromium, arsenic, lead, cadmium, fluoride, zinc, antimony and copper phosphogypsum contains.

In approving phosphogypsum use in roads, the agency ignored its own expert consultant, who found numerous scenarios that would expose the public — particularly road-construction workers — to a cancer risk the agency considers to be unacceptably dangerous.

The approval would have permitted phosphogypsum to be used in roads within 200 miles of phosphogypsum storage stacks, most of which are in Florida. It would have affected hundreds of protected plants and animals and their critical habitat.

“Phosphate companies should not be allowed to carelessly spread their waste around by mixing it into roads,” said Glenn Compton, chair at ManaSota-88.

“It is the height irresponsibility for any industry to needlessly expose the public and the environment to otherwise avoidable radiation and hazardous waste.”

Florida has 1 billion tons of radioactive phosphogypsum in 25 stacks, including the Piney Point and New Wales gypstacks. The disastrous Piney Point phosphogypsum stack recently discharged more than 200 million gallons of wastewater into Tampa Bay, where there is now a red tide bloom.


The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has drafted a permit approving an expansion of the New Wales stack by 230 acres.

The fertilizer industry adds approximately 30 million tons of phosphogypsum waste each year. The majority of the stacks are in Florida, but they can also be found in Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

“This is great news at a time when we could all use some,” said Brooks Armstrong, president at People for Protecting Peace River. “We will continue in our effort to make known the dangers of phosphogypsum and its continued production.”

This proposal to utilize radioactive materials in roads throughout Gulf communities was just another insult to folks already overburdened with pollution,” said Matt Rota, senior policy director of Healthy Gulf. “We are glad to see this decision to not use radioactive phosphogypsum in local roads and hope that this is a step toward systematically addressing the myriad impacts of phosphate mining and production in the Gulf States.”

“The EPA recognizes that at minimum the prior administration erred in its approval by not following its own rules regarding required information, and that there is no implicit sequencing toward approval based on an applicant’s request,” said Craig Diamond, vice chair of the Sierra Club Florida chapter executive committee. “Further, the EPA affirmed it has authority to pre-approve only select applications of phosphogypsum and road construction is not among those. The Sierra Club is grateful that the federal agency charged with protecting the environment and our health is once again taking the job seriously.”

July 12, 2021 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The danger of Japan’s increasing stockpile of plutonium

Japan’s plutonium stockpile climbs to 46.1 tons in 2020, first rise in 3 years, July 10, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)     TOKYO — Japan was in possession of a total of some 46.1 metric tons of plutonium at home and abroad as of the end of 2020, the Cabinet Office reported to the Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) on July 9. The amount represents an increase of about 0.6 tons from the previous year.

The JAEC had stated that the country would reduce its plutonium stockpile under guidelines revised in July 2018, and the amount in its possession had been on a downward trend since then. The reported increase was the first in three years.

Plutonium is extracted from spent nuclear fuel generated at nuclear plants, for the purpose of recycling. However, the international community has expressed concerns over Japan’s large plutonium stockpile, saying it could be converted into nuclear weapons.

According to the Cabinet Office report, the latest increase in the nation’s plutonium stockpile was due to the addition of roughly 0.6 tons that had been stored in Britain after being extracted from nuclear fuel but which had not been included in the stockpile due to delayed procedures. As the extraction of plutonium in Britain and France has been completed, Japan has no more unrecorded stockpiles, according to the report.

Plutonium is mixed with uranium to produce mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for use at nuclear power plants. However, none of the nuclear plants in Japan used MOX fuel in 2020. As a result, the domestic stockpile remained at the same level as the previous year, at roughly 8.9 tons.

If the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant operated by Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. in the village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, goes into full operation in fiscal 2023, Japan’s plutonium stockpile will increase. However, only 0.6 tons of plutonium is expected to be extracted from spent fuel at the plant in fiscal 2023………….https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210710/p2a/00m/0na/018000c

July 12, 2021 Posted by | - plutonium, Japan | Leave a comment

Green party makes gains in East Suffolk Council by-election – area that includes planned Sizewell nuclear station

The Green Party has taken one of two seats up for grabs in the Aldeburgh and Leiston ward in Thursday’s East Suffolk Council by-election – and came within two votes of winning the other.

Tom Daly is the first Green councillor elected in the area which includes much of the site of the proposed new Sizewell C power station. He will be joined on the council by Conservative Russ Rainger – who was a county councillor for the area before standing down in May.

The second Green candidate, Matt Oakley, came only two votes behind Mr Rainger. Suffolk Coastal Green Party chairman Julian Cusak said on Facebook: “Great result for the Green Party last night.
Aldeburgh and Leiston now has its first Green councillor on East Suffolk Council.

 East Anglian Daily Times 9th July 2021

July 12, 2021 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear injustice in New Mexico must end.

The half-life of plutonium-239 is 24,100 years, but the WIPP safety assessment period is limited to 10,000 years.

Nuclear injustice in NM must end     https://www.abqjournal.com/2408088/nuclear-injustice-in-nm-must-end-ex-proposed-storage-sites-for-snf-could-create-dangers-far-greater-than-those-posed-by-wipp.html BY DENNIS MCQUILLAN    11 July 21,

New Mexico residents have long endured disproportionately high health and environmental risks from nuclear energy and weapons programs. It is time for the federal government to protect citizens of the state with the greatest possible level of safeguards.

Instead of performing critical site-suitability analyses for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and for two proposed spent nuclear fuel (SNF) “storage” sites near WIPP, federal agencies attempted to validate their predetermined conclusions that these sites were safe. The agencies either disregarded or rewrote siting criteria to accommodate their decisions to approve these sites.

WIPP is intended to provide deep geologic isolation of nuclear waste from the biosphere and, indeed, waste is buried 2,150 feet underground in 250-million-year-old salt beds. The following WIPP safety deficiencies, however, need resolution:

The half-life of plutonium-239 is 24,100 years, but the WIPP safety assessment period is limited to 10,000 years.

• For years, the federal government asserted that petroleum resources were minimal to nonexistent below WIPP. But, today, WIPP is surrounded by oil and gas operations in the most prolific oil patch in the United States. The risk that oil drilling may penetrate the repository, or that liquids injected during fracking, advanced recovery and produced water disposal may migrate into WIPP salt beds, must be reevaluated.

 Risks from an artesian brine aquifer, deep-seated salt dissolution and from highly pressurized brine pockets that underlie the WIPP salt beds are not fully assessed.

The geochemical mobility of plutonium and uranium, and possible interactions with carbon dioxide generated by waste decomposition and with geologic brine, needs further analysis.

Additional prevention is needed for such human errors as the 2014 accident where plutonium contaminated nitrate salt packed with organic kitty litter generated heat, burst a waste drum, contaminated 21 workers, and released americium and plutonium into the atmosphere.

WIPP is certified to accept only national defense waste. The federal government, after spending decades and millions of dollars, failed to establish a permanent disposal site for spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors. SNF is highly radioactive and toxic due to fission byproducts created during power generation.\

The federal government now proposes to license two commercial facilities near WIPP, one in New Mexico and one in Texas, for the “storage” of SNF for up to 120 years. Unlike the deep geologic isolation at WIPP, the proposed SNF storage facilities are less than 100 feet deep, in young alluvium, and in a region with shallow groundwater, as well as concerns about ground subsidence and sinkholes. These two sites are geologically unsuitable even for SNF “storage” and it is possible that decades of “storage” could morph into permanent disposal. Excavating SNF that has deteriorated underground for 120 years is a lurid scenario. Or will future engineers build a Chernobyl-style sarcophagus with the hope that it isolates the waste for 24,000 years?

The proposed “storage” sites for SNF could create dangers far greater than those posed by WIPP. Agricultural and petroleum industry organizations expressed concerns that the SNF facilities could damage their livelihoods. Attorney General Balderas sued the federal government to stop these ill-conceived and dangerous proposals to store SNF.

The legacy of nuclear injustice in New Mexico must end. The federal government must:

• Resolve WIPP safety deficiencies

• Disallow the reckless “storage” of spent nuclear fuel

• Establish one or more permanent repositories for SNF that provide geologic isolation

July 12, 2021 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

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