South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa halts nuclear power plans – a welcome change for this nation
Civil group Earthlife Africa hails Ramaphosa’s nuclear pause, Fin 24, Sibongile Khumalo
Nuclear power is “ridiculously expensive” utterly “uncompetitive” – former IEA executive director,
Asahi Shimbun 24th July 2018 , Nuclear power is “ridiculously expensive” compared with solar power and
cannot compete from a financial standpoint, said the former head of the
International Energy Agency.
During a lecture at a symposium in Tokyo on
July 23, Nobuo Tanaka, former IEA executive director, said nuclear power is
utterly “uncompetitive” with solar power generation in terms of costs for
building or expanding nuclear plants….
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201807240045.html
Why Vietnam dumped its plans for commercial nuclear power
Beyond Nuclear 23rd July 2018 , A convincing list of arguments persuaded Vietnam to change its mind.
Vietnam had been planning to build 14 nuclear reactors, with the first
provided by Russia. But on November 22, 2016 the country abruptly canceled
its nuclear energy plans.
This occurred shortly after an international
delegation visited officials and presented them with the “road map”
below. Originally titled, Nuclear Power in Vietnam: challenges and
alternatives, this article was based on scientific information, experiences
from Germany, Japan and South Africa, and two workshops on “Nuclear power
development in Vietnam and worldwide”, organized in Hanoi in early
October 2016.
This is a deterrence road map that every country considering
a nuclear power program should read. The full list of authors can be found
at the end of the article. Although Vietnam has now signed a “framework
agreement” with India that includes nuclear energy, this appears to be
for a “research reactor.” Commercial nuclear power for electricity
remains unlikely.
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/07/23/international-delegation-convinces-vietnam-to-reject-nuclear/
In Britain, Nuclear power is now recognised as not economically viable
Ecologist 18th July 2018 Nuclear power is now recognised as not economically viable. This confirms
that renewable energy really does deserve its place in the sun, argues Bruce Davis, the managing director of Abundance Investment.
The UK has long been a welcoming habitat for a number of white elephants. Normally, these
rare and massive beasts roam freely, grazing on political expediency. However, now and again their existence is threatened by outbreaks of political honesty and economic necessity.
This week saw calls for the humane culling of one species of white elephant in particular, namely our
political obsession with nuclear energy. This is an obsession that continues despite the industry’s inability to reduce the risks of construction, costs of production and – most importantly – find a sustainable and morally acceptable way to deal with long-term storage of radioactive waste.
https://theecologist.org/2018/jul/18/white-nuclear-elephants-move-endangered-list
Britain could lead the world by signing up to UN nuclear weapons ban
UK must take lead on nuclear weapons, Guardian The tide towards annihilation can be turned if the political will is there, writes CND general secretary Kate Hudson, 17 July 18 “… the use of a nuclear weapons is now more likely than at any time since the cold war. Billions are being spent on modernising superpower nuclear arsenals. The old “deterrence” myth – that they will never be used – is still being deployed, but at the same time Trump is unveiling plans for new “usable” nuclear weapons, and outlining more scenarios in which to use them.
With Trump’s tearing up of the Iran nuclear deal, the dangers of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East are increasing. The possibility of denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula hangs on a thread – a return to threat and counter-threat is an ever-present danger, with potentially catastrophic consequences. But this tide towards annihilation can be turned if the political will is there. Maybe we can’t expect that from the trigger-happy US president, but we should demand it from our own government.
It’s a year since the UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly to support a treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. The UK government has poured scorn on it, but this is a very real global initiative that presents a way out of the accelerating nuclear crisis.
There is much talk of Britain’s standing in the world. This is a way in which Britain could genuinely lead: by supporting the treaty and helping to end the impasse between nuclear weapons states. We ask this of our government, because without such an initiative, the threat of destruction will only grow. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/17/uk-must-take-lead-on-nuclear-weapons
Beatrice Fihn explains why nuclear weapons are a scam
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. By Elisabeth Eaves, July 5, 2018 A year ago, a majority of the world’s countries—122 of them—voted to enact a treaty with the highly ambitious goal of abolishing nuclear weapons entirely. To the treaty’s critics, it wasn’t so much ambitious as foolish, counterproductive, or irrelevant. But proponents and critics alike can at least agree that it was unprecedented. While the community of nations had banned other weapons designed to mass-murder civilians with little controversy—with the Biological Weapons Convention in 1975 and the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997—until 2017, would-be nuke-launchers were free of such inconveniences. Yes, Russia and the United States had downsized their stockpiles under bilateral deals, and there existed an agreement that supposedly committed nuclear and non-nuclear states alike to work toward disarmament, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970. But by last year, Moscow and Washington were expensively updating their atomic arsenals, and no one seemed to be treating that disarmament clause very seriously.
The global movement for an outright ban on nuclear weapons coalesced around 2010 with rumblings from parties typically voiceless in nuclear negotiations: Survivors of nuclear weapons and testing, plus civilians from all over who observed that any nuclear conflagration would kill and injure millions of people who had nothing to do with whatever sparked it. Which struck them as unfair, and worth fixing. But these rumblings might not have fused into the powerful movement they became without the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the consortium of organizations that led the drive to create the new ban treaty. And ICAN wouldn’t be the same without Beatrice Fihn, the 35-year-old Swede who has led the organization since 2013, and accepted last year’s Nobel Peace Prize on its behalf. Fihn played an important role in rallying those 122 countries, even as the United States, Britain, and other nuclear-armed governments pressured allies and small nations to vote “no.”
On a recent Monday night, Fihn spoke to the Bulletin by telephone from Geneva after putting her children to bed. It had been a period of whiplash for anyone following nuclear affairs. The United States had just pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal under, even though Iran was complying with its terms. And after trading nuclear threats, the leaders of the United States and North Korea were about to meet for a summit in Singapore. Not that things were exactly boring before that, what with North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests and other countries’ nuclear-weapons modernization programs. “It’s been crazy the last two years,” Fihn said.
She is the first to acknowledge that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the TPNW, or simply the “ban treaty”) has now entered a more plodding phase. After all the high-profile excitement of UN negotiations, the diplomats went home and national governments set about signing and ratifying the treaty. It cannot enter into force until 50 nations have ratified; so far 59 have signed and only 10 have ratified. She is not discouraged—“parliaments don’t work that fast,” she says—and fully expects entry into force by September, 2019.
In this interview, Fihn shares her thoughts on why the United States really pulled out of the Iran deal, how Trump and Kim have shifted global attitudes to nuclear weapons, the responsibilities of “umbrella states” who accept Washington’s nuclear protection, and the ultimate impact she expects the new ban treaty to have. We need to solve the nuclear weapon problem, she believes, because we have even “bigger things” coming up: fully autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence. ……..https://thebulletin.org/2018/07/beatrice-fihn-explains-why-nuclear-weapons-are-a-scam/?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=Bulletin%20newsletter&utm_campaign=July6
Hungarian nuclear plant spent 7.2 million euros on advertising itself in two years.
Atlatszo 5th July 2018
£19.6bn Hinkley Point project’s main purpose is to subsidise Trident nuclear submarines.
Guardian 5th July 2018 , Alicia Hull: If tidal energy cannot be allowed without the
possibility and costs of storage being certain, how is it that nuclear has
been allowed when the costs and feasibility of storing the used fuel for
countless lifetimes is equally unknown and likely to be much higher?
He describes tidal energy as intermittent, when it is regular and very
suitable as a base power source. In contrast, he describes nuclear power as
consistent when this is far from the truth.
Quite apart from their hopeless record on delivery dates, rising costs and concern that they will work,
they’re also offline from time to time. The station at Sizewell is offline
for maintenance for five to six weeks every 18 months. By November last
year there had been 16 planned outages.
But there had also been unplanned
outages when dangerous faults have been identified. The most likely, it
seems the only, motivation for using nuclear power is its link to Trident.
Electricity customers will be subsiding its cost. Prof Andy Stirling and Dr
Phil Johnstone from the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University
write that the £19.6bn Hinkley Point project will “maintain a largescale
national base of nuclear-specific skills” without which there is concern
“that the costs of UK nuclear submarine capabilities could be
insupportable”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/05/tidal-power-to-the-people
Members of U.S. Congress to tour Yucca Mountain nuclear site
Reno Gazette Journal LAS VEGAS — Members of Congress are set to tour next week the site of a dormant nuclear waste dump at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as they aim to restart a licensing process and eventually store nuclear waste there.
July 17 Public meeting on Oyster Creek nuclear plant decommissioning
Public meeting on Oyster Creek nuclear plant decommissioning https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/public-meeting-on-oyster-creek-nuclear-plant-decommissioning/article_e5c06b4b-7a88-59c1-8847-a40532e51939.html, MICHELLE BRUNETTI POST Staff Writer
In America, Fascism is Here to Stay – opinion contributor
Ken, opinion contributor 30 June 18 There is little, if nothing, to stop the madness in America now. Fascism is here to stay. The courts are captured, the legislature. Nuclear waste shipments course through america on interstates. At least 60 or 70 reactors are to the point, where any one of them could fail. Trumps reaction, is to extend them, make them less safe, subsidize them, and cut-back, oversight on them. That is fascism. That is america.
There are nuclear catastrophes going on at the St Louis Dump. In Lake Mead. At Hanford. At several reactors and waste sites. In our households, from the highly radioactive water we drink.
There are 20 yo, 30yo, 40 and 50 yo reactors, that are leaking like a sieve, that are on the verge of melt downs, all over the United States. Fuel pools that could loose coolant and burn the most radioactive aubstances into to air for thousands of miles dispersal. Huge radioactive waste containers, blowing up in Idaho.
Trumps answer is to not watch them at all. Allow the owners to monitor their safety. Even when people manifest acute radiation sickness, the fascists will lie.
Will americans do anythhing about the grotesque nuclear hell both america and japan are in now. The despicable fascist govts that have taken over in this depressionary economy where 50% are impoverished and things are and will get worse under the current blatantly, fascist regime?
Look at china: A totalitarian country where Every truckdriver in red china went on strike last week! The totalitarian government, in China did not crackdon on the truck drivers. The Chinese Government did the exact opposite. They sat down with the truckers.Their demands are being met,
efficently and pretty thuroughly because, the Chinese have a dynamic economy. They have hope.
Things are so ugly, amoral and brutal in america now. A man like trump would be likely to call out the troops and call for a crackdown if there were a general truckers strike, in America now. His ugly supporters would cheer it on
Americans are consumed by smart phones, computers, the internet, twitter. They in the stranglehold of the bogus tech crapo social platforms. Completely distracted by gaslighting mind-warped self indulgence and twitter trolls. Even as everything around us is falling apart. Our livlihoods, our futures, our children’s future, our health, our environment.
Things do not look well. This country, is held under a very tight vice grip of banality, poverty, insecurity and insanity right now. Most people are too stupid and pretzle brainwashed to get it. There are multiple prongs to a few multifaceted propaganda machines , controled by EVER fewer puppetmasters.
There is emerging, the very serious and real threat of a machine of terror. People are not stirring to the bloody realities and horrors of this threat, in any real ways.
I do not hold any illusions about the motives of the fascists , after what happened this week. I could see it coming, when many were deluded into thinking trump, was anything other than a totalitarian psychopath.
Concentration camps for children. Extremists calling for rightwing death squads to kill jornalists. Rightwing fascists, jingoists and nazis, calling for rallys and death squads to kill young people. To kill people on a much grander scale than charlottesville. If that happened it might be an ignition point.
Rightwing deathsquads, massacering people in homeless camps, may not do much to start demonstrations. It is because, so many americans, have become amoral . They have become desensitized, to most of the brutal cruelty that is emerging in America. Uncaring, about the mass murder and bombing, carried out by our military, for some time in other parts of the empire and, the world.
Only the more humanistic elements of this society seem to care, at this point. They are actively engaging others about it. They seem to be getting support in a plurality, outside of what is left of mainstream white society.
Perhaps some grotequely, racially motivated atrocity could mobilize that group to the streets and, young people would follow.
During the sixties there were leaders like martin luther king to provide a template for protest and chenge. The young white people, had a very strong impetus to lay down in the cogs of the machine . To try and stop it, or slow it down. That is because of the depredations of the senseless imperial war in Vietnam.
Although america is mostly controlled by whites now, the fascists are actively and brutally repressing and suppressing a very large, and diverse part of the population.
The fascists have to play the ugliest race and bigotry cards possible. That is because, this is a depressionary economy where 40% or more, whites included, are in serious poverty.
The fascists are very good at manipulating the internet. Their blue dog coconspirators are very good at gaslighting the more employed and comfortable in this society, with the mass media and celebrity. This may account for the amorality and desensitization of whites and and others, that are not rightly the ruling class.
The fake celebrity, the three card monty games, the blue dog media and republican play on them, takes the spotlight, off the open brutality and corrupt evil that has now overtaken us.
Many able bodied people, who could take to the streets are in a fish bowl, where they think nothing will happen to them and the system will right itself
At the same time, trump and the Republican wrecking crew, are actively destroying everything most americans have cherished and held close to their hearts, for years. By killing off the last of endengered bison, bears, cats, wolverines here and in Alaska. By destroying all commons, public education, national parks, what is left of the middle class.
They are gutting their access to healthcare. Gutting social security. Gutting medicare. Gutting access to affordable housing to their children and the elderly. The elderly who are becoming homeless, are bowled over by the christofascist bullshit. When people do become homeless, they are neutralized.
The fascists gave trillions of tax cuts, to the billionaires and corporations. They are subsidizing, the absolute poisoning and polluting of our country. Doing so with chemicals, coal plants , nuclear plants, trillions on crackpot spacewars farces and further massive military intrigues.
This is a highly effective fascist machine rolling over america.
Many able bodied young people are very concerned about health care. Especially if they have children. Maybe they will act soon. In protest.
Many Americans that are not doing so well, keeping their heads above water. These folks are so very brainwashed and, amoral at this point. They do not care about Yemen. They do not care about the nuclear buildup. Do not care about losing their medicare and social security. They do not care about the masses of homelessness in the streets. Many could care less, about the the evil of child concentration camps at the border. Even if right wing death squads do start murdering journalists.
UK: Plaid-Cymru needs to revisit its untenable position on nuclear power
Nation Cymru 28th June 2018 ,Robat Idris: I’ve just returned from Japan as part of a joint Friends of
the Earth Japan/PAWB (People Against Wylfa B) campaign against nuclear.
I saw the ongoing nightmare that is Fukushima – deserted towns, farmland
laid to waste, human tragedies. A similar disaster at Wylfa would be the
end of any hope of a viable Wales – but politicians here discount any
such possibility.
PAWB will host a visit from Fukushima evacuees in July
– so people here can learn what damage nuclear can do. So as an opponent
of Wylfa B who happens to be a Leanne Wood supporter, I welcome her
unambiguous anti-nuclear statement. The untenable position of Plaid on
nuclear is to be revisited. After the Westminster announcement that
“austerity” and privatisation apparently doesn’t apply to nuclear
power at Wylfa, Plaid’s ignoring of the subject in the hope that it would
go away is no longer acceptable.
https://nation.cymru/opinion/ive-been-to-fukushima-plaid-cymru-needs-to-revisit-its-untenable-position-on-nuclear-power/
British govt clings to the old dream of ‘cheap’ nuclear power: UK environmentalists are not buying it!
Business Green 28th June 2018 Green groups expressed scepticism at the industry’s ability to drive down
costs and challenge increasingly cost-competitive renewables. “Promises
that costs of nuclear power will come down have historically been proved
false over the past 50 years,” said Greenpeace UK’s policy director Doug
Parr.
“Fortunately for the nuclear industry, the repeated broken promises
have been met by a stream of new or impressionable UK politicians coming
into power and offering to spend taxpayers’ money on bad investments.
Unfortunately for the nuclear industry, most other developed nations have
realised that nuclear power is being outcompeted by cheap renewables, and
have given nuclear either no role at all, or only a bit part, in their
future energy plans.
Only the UK government is left clinging on to the old
fashioned dream of ‘cheap’ nuclear power, unwilling to admit that more
affordable and reliable power is coming from renewables and smart
technology, and without the risks and liabilities that extortionate new
nuclear builds create.”
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3034991/nuclear-sector-deal-government-promises-gbp200m-push-to-drive-down-nuclear-costs
Public sessions in North Wales on plans for Wylfa nuclear power station
North Wales Chronicle 28th June 2018 , PEOPLE are being asked for their views on Horizon Nuclear Power Wylfa
Ltd’s permit applications by Natural Resources Wales. The applications
are for three environmental permits and a marine licence, required to build
and operate the proposed nuclear power station on Anglesey. The
consultation period has opened and runs until September 6, 2018. NRW is
holding three public drop-in sessions as part of the process and these are
on: Monday. July 16, 1pm-6.30pm at Storiel, Bangor, LL57 1DT.
http://www.northwaleschronicle.co.uk/news/16320628.Consultation_opens_today_on_Wylfa_Newydd_permit_applications/
Climate change: ‘Next generation will bear the cost’
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-44642147/climate-change-next-generation-will-bear-the-cost Climate change: ‘Next generation will bear the cost’
The chair of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Deben, has warned that the next generation will have to bear the cost of lowering carbon emissions.
He told Today that due to the Industrial Revolution, Britain is “rich because of that pollution” and the government isn’t doing enough to tackle climate change.
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