Energy efficiency is the biggest answer to greenhouse gas pollution
Analysts Say Efficiency Key to Clean Energy Future in Australia Voice of America, Phil Mercer March 02, 2012 Sydney International experts meeting in Australia say global carbon emissions can be reduced by more than 50 percent through simple energy saving measures. Attendees at a conference in Australia, which increasingly relies on coal for power, say that reducing power consumption is an affordable way to both cut energy costs and reduce pollution.
While many nations turn to cheap and dirty energy sources, such as coal, to meet their increasing energy needs, analysts in Australia say the best way to meet those needs is to improve energy efficiency
.A range of simple solutions include using energy-efficient homes, household appliances and lighting, and driving electric cars.
Encouraging homeowners and office workers to switch off their televisions and computers at the end of the day is also seen as an effective way to save electricity.
Cutting consumption Grayson Heffner, from the Paris-based International Energy Agency, says curbing consumption could significantly cut global carbon emissions. He calls efficiency strategies the “soft giant” of clean energy.
“We forecast that energy efficiency will deliver something like three-quarters of the greenhouse gas emissions reductions over the
next 20 years. So in the short term energy efficiency is the main way that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions but oftentimes it is no so prominently featured in the discussions,” said Heffner.
Energy conservationists working in China say authorities there are making significant cuts in power usage. ….
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Australian-Analysts-Efficiency-Key-to-Clean-Energy-Future-141165703.html
Sold weapons materials to Iran, USA claims about Australian man
Asked if he will voluntary go to the U.S. to answer the current allegations Mr. Levick said, “would you?”
“If convicted, Mr. Levick faces a potential maximum sentence of five years in prison for the conspiracy count and 20 years in prison for each count of violating IEEPA,” the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement
“The U.S. is now likely to seek his extradition from Australia to the U.S., if they have not done so already,”
U.S. Accuses Australian Man of Selling Arms Parts to Iran By ENDA CURRAN and JAMES GLYNN, WSJ, March 2, 2012,
SYDNEY—An Australian charged in the U.S. with participating in a scheme to export sensitive technology to Iran says he was unaware the equipment was destined for Tehran until he was warned by Australia’s spy agency.
A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia has indicted David Levick, 50 years old and general manager Sydney-based
electronics company ICM Components Inc., for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and both the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, and Arms Export Control Act as well as four counts of illegally exporting the equipment that could be used for a range of military purposes including missiles, drones and torpedoes. Continue reading
Malicious computer worm – “good” or “bad”, depending on who’s using it
According to computer security firm Symantec, Stuxnet may have been specifically designed to disrupt the motors that power gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium
Stuxnet was ‘good idea’: former CIA chief, Google News, (AFP) – 3 Mar 12, WASHINGTON — The Stuxnet computer virus sabotage of Iran’s nuclear program was a “good idea” but it lent legitimacy to the use of malicious software as a weapon, according to a former CIA director.
“We have entered into a new phase of conflict in which we use a cyber weapon to create physical destruction,” retired general Michael Hayden said in an interview with the CBS television show “60 Minutes” to be aired on Sunday. Continue reading
Enormous job opportunities in renewable energy for Africa
Renewable energy projects in Africa can generate jobs, Two-thirds of capacity needed yet to be built Gulf News, By Binsal Abdul Kader , March 2, 2012 Abu Dhabi If Africa adopts renewable energy to meet the growing demand for energy capacity, it can generate several million jobs in the continent, according to the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).
Africa faces a unique opportunity as nearly two-thirds of the additional capacity needed by 2030 has yet to be built. The continent can benefit from the recent global progress and cost reductions in renewable power generation technologies, and move directly to a
renewable-based system, the agency said….. Continue reading
France poorly prepared for a nuclear disaster
Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Update for February 28th – March 1st, 2012, Greenpeace by Christine McCann – March 2, 2012“…..A new study by French safety organization Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire (IRSN) reveals that Europe is poorly-equipped to handle a Fukushima-like nuclear disaster. The IRSN provides advice to the ASN, France’s nuclear regulator. The group’s report said that many European countries lack adequate crisis centers, and coordinated means of communication across country lines have not been established.
In addition, the IRSN criticized Japan for failing to adequately monitor radiation exposure in children, and expressed grave concern about the amount of environmental radiation that spewed from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant. Didier Champion, an IRSN crisis manager, said, “The initial contamination linked to the accident has greatly declined. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be any more, far from it. Today, and for many years to come, we will have a situation of chronic and lasting contamination of the environment.”… http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/fukushima-nuclear-crisis-update-for-february-/blog/39340/
India’s Prime Minister, influenced by the vested interests of the nuclear lobby
the Prime Minister is kept in jails of darkness on nuclear safety by the vested interests in the atomic energy agency, the contractors, politicians and the officials
The Prime Minister may have realised by now that the Fukushima accident has already cost the Japanese tax payer US$ 16 billion and the liability is likely to increase further in the coming months, whereas the Indian Civil Nuclear Liability law that has been enacted at his behest places a ceiling of only Rs.1,500 crores (equivalent to US$ 300 million) on what India can claim from the foreign reactor suppliers, in the event of a similar accident.
Prime Minister is wriggling in the Dungeon of Darkness of Koodankulam Nuclear Safety Dia Nuke.org, 2 March 12, Prof. T. Shivaji Rao, Director, Center for Environmental Studies, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam, “……..Recently the Prime Minister without attempting to know the true facts about the safety of nuclear power and its negligible contribution for the total electrical power production in India is trying to blame the NGO organizations Continue reading
Unarmed nuclear missile launch postponed
On anniversary of catastrophic nuclear test, missile launch postponed, by Joshua J. McElwee on Mar. 01, 2012 , NCR Today Action comes after arrest of 15 activists at earlier testA unarmed nuclear missile test launch scheduled for early this morning (Thursday) has been postponed, the Lompoc Record, the local newspaper in Lompoc, Calif., where the missile was set to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, is reporting.
The Record reports that the Air Force has blamed postponement of the launch, which was to come on the anniversary of the 1954 testing of the largest nuclear device ever detonated by the U.S., on technical problems….
Peace activists have been quick to say that the postponement may have been due to negative reaction regarding the timing of the launch on the anniversary of the 1954 test.
That test, which was known by the code name Castle Bravo and saw the detonation of a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb with a yield of 15 megatons, led to what has been called the largest accidental radioactive fallout of any nuclear test. Although conducted in the Marshall Islands, traces of radiation from the fallout were detected as far away as Australia, India, and Japan. Continue reading
Japanese farmer tells how Fukushima nuclear disaster has affected the poor
Anti-Nuclear Japanese Farmer Visits South Africa, abc News, By DONNA BRYSON Associated Press JOHANNESBURG February 29, 2012 A farmer evacuated from her home near a Japanese nuclear power plant visited Soweto Wednesday to talk to impoverished South Africans about how the poor are worst hit by catastrophes like the one triggered by an earthquake in her homeland.
Anti-nuclear activists from Greenpeace, which is trying to spark a grass-roots anti-nuclear movement here, brought Ayako Oga to South Africa. The country has Africa’s only nuclear energy plant and plans to build more.
Oga said she fled her home some 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Fukushima plant on March 11, ….. Poor people who were evacuated to escape leaking radiation have found it hard to get jobs elsewhere in Japan, Oga said. She added the rich are able to afford food that is
guaranteed not to have been contaminated by radiation, and have better
access to information about how to stay safe.
In an interview before addressing about two dozen people in the auditorium of a community college, Oga said she understood that Soweto, a neighborhood to which blacks were restricted under apartheid, was largely poor and beset by lack of jobs and housing and AIDS and other health issues. She said its residents needed to add nuclear energy to their already long list of concerns, because “they will be the ones that will suffer the most when they face a
catastrophic accident.”..
.. Oga spoke of expecting that it would never be safe to return in her lifetime to her home, and of her longing to farm again. Oga said friends and neighbors have scattered. Across
Japan, she said, children are kept inside for fear playing outside will expose them to radiation, and people constantly monitor radiation levels.
“The use of atomic power always goes hand in hand with the threat of nuclear contamination,” she said, appealing to Sowetans to help “prevent this from happening again, anywhere in the world.”
Greenpeace is calling on South Africa to “abandon its nuclear expansion plans in favor of a strong push to energy efficiency and renewable power.” http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/anti-nuclear-japanese-farmer-visits-south-africa-15816486#.T1B4z4ePX_M
Fukushima radiation will be continuing and a chronic problem
Fukushima contamination is ‘chronic’, IOL News, February 29 2012 By Laurent Banguet, Paris – Radioactive contamination levels from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have fallen sharply since the accident but will be “chronic and lasting” for many years, a French watchdog said on Tuesday.
“The initial contamination linked to the accident has greatly declined,” Didier Champion, crisis manager at the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), told reporters almost a year after the disaster.
“That doesn’t mean that there won’t be any more, far from it. Today, and for many years to come, we will have a situation of chronic and lasting contamination of the environment.”
It was essential for Japan to maintain vigilant monitoring of fruit, milk, mushrooms, game and fish, Champion said.
“There are risks of chronic exposure at low dosage, and without care this can build up over time,” he warned.
Evacuation from a nuclear disaster is a one-way ticket.
Britain is now going down the same route. The debate is complex, but it must not assume the same thing couldn’t happen here. That’s what they said in Japan after Chernobyl.
Japan’s nuclear disaster: a long half-life Life without neighbours, or Fukushima’s traditional livestock and fishing industries, would be a shadow of its former self guardian.co.uk, 28 February 2012 As the people of Pripyat, a once bustling Soviet city built for the workers of Chernobyl, will tell you, evacuation from a nuclear disaster is a one-way ticket. Continue reading
Nuclear “experts” try to allay Indians’ fears on nuclear processing
Anti-Kudankulam stir may be aimed at scuttling nuclear programme, feel experts, THE HINDU, 27 Feb 12, Y. MALLIKARJUN Two of the country’s top nuclear power experts on Monday hinted that the anti-Kudankulam nuclear power plant agitation was aimed at scuttling India’s three-stage nuclear power programme.
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited’s Chairman and Managing Director S.K. Jain and Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Srikumar Banerjee said that even after all the queries on safety, quality, health and other aspects were answered by experts, people were asking questions about reprocessing of fuel Continue reading
Reactions to Malaysian government granting temporary license to rare earths company
I think all Malaysians should know by now that the only thing that we can do to stop the corruption and abuse of power is to kick BN out and put in place a government which will care about the people and their wishes. The government elected must take into consideration the people’s desires and needs, and not just bulldoze their way through everything.
If BN insists on approving the Lynas project, then they should approve it to be built in Putrajaya. Why don’t they do that, since they said it’s safe? We can see that all BN cares about is money. They do not care one bit about the rakyat. We have to kick BN out and then hold Pakatan Rakyat to their promise to send back Lynas to Australia.
Soo Jin Hou: Scientific evidence? Prof Chan Chee Khoon has this to say: Lynas, AELB (Atomic Energy Licensing Board), and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) have insisted that the expected levels of radiation exposure (for plant employees and for the general public) are well within the existing international norms of ‘safe thresholds’.
They have conveniently ignored the recent debates over the adequacy of existing quantitative risk models which are calibrated against external sources of irradiation (e.g. Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts), and over the micro-dosimetry of internal emitters.
In the last 10 years, there has been much debate as to whether the radiation hazards from internal emitters have been underestimated by the existing risk models. A UK expert panel (2004,www.cerrie.org) could not arrive at a consensus, re: health risks of low-level exposure to internal emitters. In asserting that Lamp (Lynas Advanced Materials Plant) is unquestionably safe, Lynas and AELB have recklessly abandoned the precautionary principle and turned the Kuantan community into lab rats.
Gerard Samuel Vijayan: If the Lynas plant is so safe, then Najib should explain what happened in Bukit Merah and the cover-up by the Mahathir regime. Why not form an RCI (royal commission of inquiry) on Bukit Merah and call experts from the IAEA to testify as to what happened?
If it is so safe, why isn’t Lynas building the plant in Australia or any other Western country? Or go to Africa or South America instead. I also suggest that Najib and Rosmah Mansor buy a house next to the plant and live there. Why hide in Pekan or Kuala Lumpur?
It is easy for the Umno-BN elites to talk because when they get cancer they run to the US, UK or Australia for treatment using taxpayers’ money but we the ordinary rakyat must seek treatment in sub-standard government hospitals or just die because we cannot afford the treatment or expensive medication.
Why the unholy haste to have this plant built and operational in Gebeng? Just because money is going to be paid into the coffers of Umno and some royalty in Pahang, the rakyat must put their lives on the line?
Changeagent: If it is really as harmless as Najib puts it, why did the government only issue a temporary operating licence? They might as well issue a permanent one since they are so adamant that the plant does not pose any potential health risk to the local community…. http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/190381
Gregory Jaczko not a toadie to the nuclear industry
For once, a regulator who isn’t a toadie, Boston Globe, Edward T. Russell, FEBRUARY 27, 2012 JOHN E. SUNUNU slams Gregory B. Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for standing up to the nuclear industry. I for one am happy that the NRC chairman is not a nuclear industry toadie. There is a need for balance on a 
commission that has long been a revolving door for industry executives.
Why should Sununu’s column bother Bostonians? Because Plymouth’s Pilgrim nuclear plant is only 40 miles from Boston, and we should remember that the United States recommended that its nationals stay 50 miles away from Fukushima. In the case of a similar disaster at Pilgrim, Bostonians could be in the evacuation zone. I cannot imagine the consequences of that.
Jaczko’s concerns are also germane to Bostonians because Fukushima has the same outmoded plant design as the Pilgrim plant in Plymouth. There are lessons to be learned from the Fukushima disaster, and Jaczko wants to benefit from them before moving forward.
I have attended NRC hearings for almost two decades, and found that they sit there and listen but then go away and do nothing. There has never been a relicensing that they haven’t liked. I’ll get on board when Pilgrim’s waste fuel is safely placed in dry cask storage where
it can’t go awry as it did at Fukushima. In the meantime, I thank Jaczko , chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for standing up to the nuclear industry. http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters/2012/02/27/for-once-regulator-who-isn-toadie/p0tmZxbgYOeQrltZLJfftM/story.html
Oil price rise makes renewable energy more cost competitive
Investors eye renewable energy as oil prices rise Jefferies Clean Tech Conference attendance up; crude tops $107 By Steve Gelsi, NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Biofuel, electric cars and natural gas-powered vehicles drew attention against a backdrop of sharply
higher petroleum prices from investors gathered at the Jefferies Global Clean Technology Conference.
With crude oil topping $108 a barrel and average retail gasoline costing nearly $4 a gallon at the pump, analysts and clean technology company executives said renewable fuel is becoming more cost-competitive…… http://www.marketwatch.com/story/investors-eye-renewable-energy-as-oil-prices-rise-2012-02-27
Analysis of the entrenched interests that control Japan’s nuclear industry
Containing Fukushima: Saving Japan From Itself (Part I) Huffington Post, K.T. Hiraoka Student of Japan working in the public sector 02/25/2012 The disaster at Fukushima last year exposed how entrenched interests among key decision-makers have contaminated Japanese society, endangering the long-term prosperity of Japan. These special interests often do what is right for themselves, as opposed to what is in the best interests of the Japanese people.
In this two-part series, discussion on what has transpired over the past twelve months as a result of decisions made related to the Fukushima disaster (Part I) will lead to a look at decision-making during the crisis in subsequent weeks and months that have passed (Part II). As the current decision-making system in Japan increasingly works to the detriment of Japanese society, what is needed instead is a more transparent, honest, and benevolent decision-making system that listens to the wishes of the people and responds to it…. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kt-hiraoka/fukushima-anniversary_b_1299832.html
Containing Fukushima: Saving Japan From Itself (Part II) Huffington Post, K.T. Hiraoka Student of Japan working in the public sector 02/26/2012 Yesterday, in Part I of this series, we looked at “nakama” decision-making in Japan during the initial days of the Fukushima crisis. In Part II, the discussion continues with more evidence that the current decision-making system in Japan needs reform.
In the weeks and months since the March 2011 disaster, a plethora of examples have come to light confirming that the danger to Japan’s future lies from within. Throughout the peak of the crisis and as a result of the core meltdowns, Japan’s Iron Triangle continued to withhold information about the true nature of the massive radiation exposure in to the air and sea and on to the land throughout Japan. In the months following the huge radiation releases, consistent ‘underestimations’ of both the amount and types of radiation released came to light.
Making matters worse, it was confirmed earlier this year that none of the nuclear task forces in charge of making critical decisions during the crisis bothered to keep either written or verbal records of their meetings, raising questions about true intent. … http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kt-hiraoka/fukushima-anniversary_b_1302306.html
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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