David Lowry 1st Jan 2019 In his article on burial of nuclear waste in what he describes as an atomic ‘dungeon’, anenvironment correspondent writes that “To provide an
incentive to hosting the dumping ground, the selected area will be given
between £1million and £2.5million a year for community projects, the
Government said.” Although this financial offer has been dismissed as a
bribe by several campaigners in communities they fear may be chosen, it
would provide a measure of community compensation for the disruption caused
by such a massive infrastructural development.
But what ministers have refused to do is to offer similar risk compensation “danger money” to
communities along transport routes from the current location of the
radioactive waste, to the facility needed for conditioning and packaging,
and then to the community or communities hosting a deep underground
geological disposal facility (GDF).
http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2019/01/mobile-chernobyl-threat-from-nuclear.html
January 5, 2019
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Our best hope may be the weather.For a long time, many people thought that it was a mistake to use the weather as evidence of climate change. Weather patterns contain a lot of randomness. Even as the earth warms and extreme weather becomes more common, some years are colder and calmer than others. If you argue that climate change is causing some weather trend, a climate denier may respond by making grand claims about a recent snowfall.
And yet the weather still has one big advantage over every other argument about the urgency of climate change: We experience the weather. We see it and feel it.
It is not a complex data series in an academic study or government report. It’s not a measurement of sea level or ice depth in a place you’ve never been. It’s right in front of you. And although weather patterns do have a lot of randomness, they are indeed changing. That’s the thing about climate change: it changes the climate.
I wanted to write my last column of 2018 about the climate as a kind of plea: amid everything else going on, don’t lose sight of the most important story of the year.
I know there was a lot of competition for that title, including some more obvious contenders, like President Donald Trump and Robert Mueller. But nothing else measures up to the rising toll and enormous dangers of climate change. I worry that our children and grandchildren will one day ask us, bitterly, why we spent so much time distracted by lesser matters.
The story of climate change in 2018 was complicated — overwhelmingly bad, yet with two reasons for hope. The bad and the good were connected, too: Thanks to the changing weather, more Americans seem to be waking up to the problem.
I’ll start with the alarming parts of the story. The past year is on pace to be the earth’s fourth warmest on record, and the five warmest years have all occurred since 2010. This warming is now starting to cause a lot of damage.
In 2018, heat waves killed people in Montreal, Karachi, Tokyo and elsewhere. Extreme rain battered North Carolina and the Indian state of Kerala. The Horn of Africa suffered from drought. Large swaths of the American West burned.
Amid all of this destruction, US President Donald Trump’s climate agenda consists of making the problem worse. His administration is filled with former corporate lobbyists, and they have been changing federal policy to make it easier for companies to pollute. These officials like to talk about free enterprise and scientific uncertainty, but their real motive is usually money. Sometimes, they don’t even wait to return to industry jobs.
I often want to ask these officials: deep down, do you really believe that future generations of your own family will be immune from climate change’s damage? Or have you chosen not to think very much about them?
As for the two main reasons for hope: the first is that the Trump administration is an outlier. Most major governments are trying to slow climate change.
The second reason for hope is public opinion. No, it isn’t changing nearly as rapidly as I wish. Yet it is changing, and the weather seems to be a factor. The growing number of extreme events — wildfires, storms, floods and so on — are hard to ignore.
Only 40 percent of Americans called the quality of environment “good” or “excellent” in a Gallup Poll this year, the lowest level in almost a decade. And 61 percent said the environment was getting worse. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 66 percent of Americans said they wanted to see action to combat climate change. Some polls even suggest that Republican voters are becoming anxious about the situation.
The politics of climate change remains devilishly hard, especially because so many people around the world feel frustrated about their living standards. France’s “gilet jaune” protests, after all, were sparked by a proposed energy tax. Compared with day-to-day life, the effects of climate change have long felt distant, almost theoretical.
But now those effects are becoming real, and they are terrifying. To anyone who worries about making a case for climate action based on the weather, I would simply ask: do you have a better idea?
January 1, 2019
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Nuclear power practically dead, The Guardian, Phillip Griffin, Dec 29 ……Wind, solar, and storage technologies (thermal storage for heat/cold, electric vehicles, grid batteries, power-to-gas) are plummeting in price. Efficiency and conservation are no-brainers: building envelope improvements, LED lighting, and high-efficiency heat pumps are proven methods. Many ways exist for highly renewable energy systems to be affordable and reliable, says science. Brown et al. (2018) conclude, “the 100 per cent renewable energy scenarios proposed in the literature are not just feasible, but also viable.”
Global data show renewable electricity adds output and saves carbon faster than nuclear power does or ever has. (Lovins et al., 2018).
Nuclear takes forever, 10-19 years from planning-to-operation, or gets abandoned. About half the nuclear reactors ever ordered in the US were canceled. New wind and solar farms take 2-5 years from planning-to-operation.
Nuclear power is practically dead. Look at the Vogtle nuclear plant being constructed in the US. It’s taking forever as always, and the projected cost has spiraled from an original $4.4B to an estimated $25B including financing costs.
We’re out of tomorrows. In Canada, existing hydroelectric reservoirs can act as giant batteries. Wind, solar, and efficiency measures are affordable, as are a myriad of storage solutions. These project costs are falling, they scale rapidly, and consistently come in on time and budget. None of this holds true for nuclear power. https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/letter-to-the-editor/letter-nuclear-power-practically-dead-271713/
January 1, 2019
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Fairwinds 29th Dec 2018 Relicensing old nuclear power plants and building new nukes will not
resolve any climate change issues. View our well-researched film,
Smokescreen, created with data from university analyses and independent
international economic reports. Also, check out Arnie’s speech at McGill
University where he discusses how building new nuclear power plants will
actually exacerbate climate change as well as his Truthout article
https://www.fairewinds.org/demystify//climate-change-is-real-nuclear-is-not-the-answer
December 31, 2018
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2018 in South Carolina: Tragedy, floods, more nuclear money, abc4 News, by JEFFREY COLLINS, Associated Press, 30 Dec 18, COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The year ends in South Carolina with hundreds of people rebuilding homes flooded for the second time in three years and hundreds of thousands of people still paying for nuclear reactors that never generated power.
NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE
It is a top story this year, it was a top story in 2017 and chances are the two nuclear reactors abandoned during construction will continue to make headlines in 2019.
This year closes with state regulators approving reduced electric rates for South Carolina Electric & Gas customers, although they will still pay about $80 a year for the next 20 years for construction costs of the reactors that never generated a watt of power. But instead of parent company SCANA Corp., the checks will likely be written to Virginia’s Dominion Energy after the Public Service Commission approved a merger proposal.
As far as next year’s headlines? A criminal investigation into SCE&G executives and others continues and attention will also turn to Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility that owned 45 percent of the project and is now $8 billion in debt.
HURRICANE FLORENCE
For the third time in four years, South Carolina saw the kind of flooding that should be about a 1 in 1,000 shot in any year. In September 2018, it was Hurricane Florence, which dumped 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 centimeters) of rain, sending rivers to record stages in the northeast part of the state.
The flooding was almost identical to October 2016’s Hurricane Matthew, with floodwaters reaching just a little higher.
Eight people died, including two mental patients locked in a police van while being driven to ordered treatment. Authorities say the two deputies in the van drove around barricades blocking flooded highways and the van overturned in water. They survived. A prosecutor is reviewing whether they should face charges.
One bit of good news: Gov. McMaster originally suggested Florence would be a billion-dollar storm in South Carolina. But by November, damage estimates in the state were down to $607 million…….. https://abcnews4.com/news/local/2018-in-south-carolina-tragedy-floods-more-nuclear-money-12-29-2018
December 31, 2018
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Two nuclear plants win ‘zero carbon’ energy contracts in Connecticut
Mass Live Dec 30, Dec 30 , By Mary C. Serreze, mserreze@gmail.com, The Republican, HARTFORD –– Two nuclear power plants, an offshore wind project, and nine solar farms will help Connecticut utilities provide “zero-carbon” electricity to their retail customers.
Gov. Dannel Malloy on Friday announced the winners of a major clean energy procurement, and the selection of Millstone Power Station in Connecticut and Seabrook Nuclear Power Station in New Hampshire effectively secured the role of atomic power in the state’s climate strategy. ……..
The clean energy procurements, mandated by the state legislature, are equal to 45 percent of Connecticut’s total electric load. More than 80 percent of the new carbon-free energy will be sourced from nuclear power………
Some on Friday criticized the nuclear-heavy choices.
“We’re glad the state will see some new solar and wind come online as a result of this procurement, but are still very concerned that as a whole, these choices don’t put Connecticut on the road to a clean energy economy,” Claire Coleman, attorney at Connecticut Fund for the Environment, told the Connecticut Mirror.
“The future is off-shore wind, solar, geothermal, and smart strategies for efficiency and energy storage – but the small investments in these newer resources compared to the heavy investment in nuclear largely don’t reflect that. Instead the state has doubled down on the energy sources of the past,” Coleman said. ……..https://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/12/nuclear_solar_offshore_wind_wi.html
December 31, 2018
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By Erin Ailworth Dec. 28, 2018
Christine DeSantis is a highly trained mechanical engineer with a high-paying job—and an extremely uncertain future.
The 32-year-old has worked for the last decade at Three Mile Island nuclear plant on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. ……. (subscribers only) https://www.wsj.com/articles/high-paying-jobs-in-nuclear-power-arent-looking-so-safe-anymore-11545993000
December 29, 2018
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Ouest France 19th Dec 2018, A new case is shaking the French nuclear group Orano, formerly known as
Areva. An investigation was opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office for “corrupt foreign public official”, involving one of the providers of Orano, the company Eurotradia International. “We did not notice anything abnormal
and we are now at the disposal of justice,” said the spokesman of Orano, which ensures to have terminated its contracts with Eurotradia.
https://www.ouest-france.fr/economie/entreprises/areva/orano-anciennement-areva-visee-par-une-enquete-judiciaire-pour-corruption-6140465
December 24, 2018
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End of fast reactor project and uranium glut raise doubts over fuel reprocessing
KAZUNARI HANAWA and SHIORI GOSO, Nikkei staff writersDECEMBER 19, 2018 TOKYO — Supplies of uranium, used to fire nuclear power plants, are becoming increasingly plentiful globally, threatening to make redundant Japan’s long-standing policy of recycling spent nuclear fuel…… (subscribers only)
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Japan-s-nuclear-recycling-policy-runs-aground
December 20, 2018
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Daily Mail 18th Dec 2018 : Eerie photos show how the nuclear
disaster exclusion zone lies untouched more than 30 years later. Haunting
images show the nuclear wasteland which stands largely untouched since the
catastrophe in 1986. Communist stars and pictures of Lenin adorn buildings
which were abandoned after the nuclear disaster. An eerie children’s
hospital is still filled with rusted cribs and shops are stacked with
ageing cans of food. Two Scotsmen made the 4,000 mile road-trip to take a
tour of Pripyat on the Ukraine Belarus border.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6507131/Chernobyl-wasteland-frozen-time-Eerie-photos-nuclear-disaster-exclusion-zone-30-years-on.html
December 20, 2018
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Opinion from a concerned reader, 18 Dec 18 I think the nuclear problem is more serious than climate change.
I do not know if anything can be done, to shut down enough reactors in time, in the world, to stem the dangerous massive creation of hi level waste, and prevent more fukushimas. That is, before it goes beyond the point of no return, where there is so much radionuclides poison , in the environment, that life on earth is doomed and cannot come back. It maybe too late already.
Too much radionuclides waste in the environment.
I feel like hot-button issues like nuclear, are used by propagandists as propgens, to insidiously pawn-off their polarizing propaganda memes or just throw-out rightwing propaganda- blurbs going at opportune moments.
As far as ideological memes go, we are constantly presented, with smoke screens and false dichotomies.
There is the soros meme. He is like the evil enemy of the state in Orwells1984.
do not know what he really is. I do not think he is a radical leftist. Are globalists, radical leftists? No they are part of the neoliberal and neoconservative elites.
More rightwing groups, that have elements of the same neoliberal, neoconservative, corporatist elements, with strong racist-authoritarian inclinatibons are not really populist and do little for common people.
They border on fascism, or are fascist.
What is very scary is the fact that the Paris demonstrations are laying the groundwork for another election in France.
The demonstrations are setting up the groundwork for the fascist Marine La Pen to take power. Very topsey-turkey to me.
If the French go with La Pen as Macron loses it, the Frences, and worlds, troubles have only begun. They will be like The USA, Japan, The Ukraine, Brazil, eastern Europe. More appeasement of the rich and corporations.
Hate and racism will grow more pitched.
Superficially, it will look like things are better because they will appease corporations, and make it appear to be cutting taxes for all classes . There maybe some extra low wage jobs created. They will keep reactors open, to appease nuclear workers and privatize the nuclear industry, more. There will be less security for pensioners, not more, as trump has done . There will be more cuts to commons and loss of civil liberties in favor of corporations.
There will be greater risk of nuclear accidents, of war, of civil unrest . Nuclear will again be highly favored in France, like it is in the rash of eastern European authoritarian regimes. More dangerous reactors will be kept open or maybe all of them, with attempts to build new ones. The nationalist scree, will call for greater resource exploitation in their old colonies in Africa. They will probably jump on board with new the new calls from mics and the emboldened neoconservatives in America for new arms race plans.
So crazy
December 18, 2018
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ABC By
Irena Ceranic 14 Dec 18 “….Now Christmas is just around the corner — a time when we overeat, overspend, and produce more waste than any other time of the year.
But the good news is that you can still live a little this festive season without having a big ecological impact.
Key points:
December 15, 2018
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As Others See It: Without a nuclear treaty, then what?https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2018/12/11/As-Others-See-It-Without-nuclear-treaty-Intermediate-Range-Nuclear-Forces-INF-leaves-no-restraints/stories/201812110023
The plan to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty leaves no restraints
AN EDITORIAL FROM THE WASHINGTON POST
The Trump administration has now served notice that, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put it, the United States will no longer “bury our head in the sand”about Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a 1987 pact that eliminated an entire class of nuclear-armed missiles. Mr. Pompeo said the United States won’t adhere to the treaty unless Russia comes into compliance within 60 days. Russia’s violation is real, but walking away from the treaty will only make matters worse. Who is burying their heads in the sand?
The treaty, signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, bans ground-based missiles, both ballistic and cruise, both nuclear and nonnuclear, with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. It marked a turning point in the Cold War, the reversal of a deadly competition that began in the 1970s with the Soviet deployment of SS-20 missiles aimed at Western Europe and followed by the deployment of U.S. Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in 1983. Negotiations eventually led to a treaty with unprecedented, on-site verification measures, perhaps the most important ever negotiated in nuclear arms control.
In the 2000s, Russian President Vladimir Putin began to slice up the treaty instead. Russia covertly began developing a cruise missile, known as the 9M729, that was outlawed by the agreement. The U.S. director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, deserves credit for revealing key details late last month about how the violation happened and how it was discovered during rhe Obama administration. He said Russia’s Novator developed the missile and by 2015 had finished comprehensive flight tests from both fixed and mobile launchers. The tests were cleverly designed, he reported, to disguise their true nature and the missile’s capability.
The treaty permits certain tests of a legal missile from a fixed launcher as long as the weapon would then be deployed on ships or planes, not on the ground. So Russia initially tested the 9M729 from such a fixed launcher but at prohibited ranges greater than 500 kilometers, then from a mobile launcher at a lesser distance. Russia tried to cover its tracks and eventually deployed “multiple battalions” of a weapon banned under the treaty, Mr. Coats said. The missile poses “a direct conventional and nuclear threat against most of Europe and parts of Asia,” he declared. When confronted, Russia steadfastly denied it had violated the treaty and rebuffed attempts to resolve the issue.
The administration is right to confront the issue, not to just walk away. President Donald Trump has not exhausted all the options with Mr. Putin, and U.S. allies in Europe are not sanguine about facing Russian missiles again. Mr. Trump recently tweeted that he would like to do something about “a major and uncontrollable Arms Race.” Abandoning the INF treaty would mean restarting an arms race.
December 13, 2018
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Fallout over nuclear meds sale rumours
COMPANIES / 12 DECEMBER 2018, JOHANNESBURG – Energy Minister Jeff Radebe allegedly intends to sell state-owned producer of nuclear medicine NTP Radioisotopes to US-based Lantheus Medical Imaging (LMI), a global leader in the field of diagnostic imaging, according to a source close to the entity.
The Energy Department yesterday declined to comment on the allegations and referred Business Report to a press statement it released on Friday…….https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/companies/fallout-over-nuclear-meds-sale-rumours-18469380
December 13, 2018
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Nuclear’s long odds. Climate change is here, but nuclear power as a solution faces economical and historical challenges. High Country News, Paul Larmer Dec. 10, 2018 “…….. outside Los Angeles, the Woolsey Fire, fanned by the same late-season winds, raced through chaparral toward the sea, burning the houses of both rich and poor.
Coming on the heels of a deadly hurricane season and a tempestuous election, the blazes delivered an unmistakable message: Climate change is here, no matter how vociferously some deny it, and we have to take notice…….
a global expansion of nuclear power to replace carbon-spewing fossil fuels — is embraced by few in the U.S. To them, the solution is clear: Go nuclear or risk the planet. But, as
Jonathan Thompson writes, nuclear power’s future is more uncertain than ever. Utilities have largely turned to cheaper natural gas and solar and wind, and are considering shuttering existing nuclear plants as they come up for relicensing. Meanwhile, the long-hoped-for (and heavily subsidized) new generation of small, nimble plants — “nukes in a can” — has had trouble gaining traction, even in the conservative Interior West.
It’s not just the economics. After all, we could decide to swallow the costs and go all-in on nuclear to slow what the latest National Climate Assessment report (released, ironically, the day after Thanksgiving) says is already upon us: the accelerated floods, droughts and fires that will cost us tens of billions of dollars annually.
December 11, 2018
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nuclear-news 