North Korea now making missile-ready nuclear weapons, US analysts say
America’s nuclear boondoggle – $billions wasted, and more costs to come
Billions lost in nuclear power projects, with more bills due, Fox Business, By August 05, 2017 COLUMBIA, S.C. – A decade ago, utilities were persuading politicians around the country to let them spend big to go nuclear…..
The dream that fizzled – USA’s ‘nuclear renaissance”
How The Dream Of America’s ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ Fizzled, WBUR, August 06, 2017, Molly Samuel A decade ago, utility executives and policymakers dreamed of a future powered by a new generation of cheap, safe nuclear reactors. Projects to expand existing nuclear plants in South Carolina and Georgia were supposed to be the start of the “nuclear renaissance.”
Britain’s barmy nuclear fiasco – Hinkley locking the public into high energy costs
FT 4th Aug 2017, Then there is Hinkley Point. Did you know that it’s all going swimmingly?
It’s rated dark green, meaning “Successful delivery of the project on
time, budget and quality appears highly likely.”
This is the nuclear power station that nobody wants and the subject of (another) damning report
from the National Audit Office. Hinkley Point promises financial misery for
the owner, the contractors and finally to every British business and
household through higher costs for electricity.
The owner, EDF of France, is in poor shape financially and struggling to make its home-built
prototype comply with escalating safety regulations. It has just added two
years and £1.5bn to the estimated Hinkley start-up date.
Britain’s nuclear policy dates back to 2008, an age when the oil price was only going
to rise. Nine years on, the world has changed. The combination of abundant
oil and gas and rising regulatory costs have sounded the death knell for
big nuclear fission plants.
The NAO currently estimates the Hinkley Point
subsidy at £60bn, locking Britain into high energy costs at a time of
world abundance, with a devastating impact on competitiveness. The
calculation, on the government’s estimates of fossil fuel prices, that a
three-year delay will actually save consumers money is a demonstration of
how barmy this whole fiasco has become. https://www.ft.com/content/b5840c4a-785e-11e7-a3e8-60495fe6ca71
Children from Chernobyl got to see the sea for the first time
Children from Chernobyl got to see the sea for the first time thanks to Weston-super-Mare Lions Club.
http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/children-of-chernobyl-visit-weston-super-mare-lions-club-1-5136254
U.S. Senate approves Trump’s energy deputy secretary amid talk of Rick Perry leaving
Senate approves Trump’s energy deputy secretary amid talk of Rick Perry leaving, Examiner, by John Siciliano | Aug 3, 2017, The Senate on Thursday confirmed Dan Brouillette to be the Department of Energy’s deputy secretary and second in command to Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
The 79-17 confirmation vote comes a day after reports said President Trump may move Perry from the energy agency to head the Department of Homeland Security…….http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senate-approves-trumps-energy-deputy-secretary-amid-talk-of-rick-perry-leaving/article/2630535
Conservationists and religious folk need to find harmony for a healthy planet
No, God won’t take care of climate change, Conservationists and religious folk need to find harmony for a healthy planet, High Country News, Aug. 3, 2017 “…….Years ago, I asked my dad why he didn’t think climate change was a threat. He replied that the second coming of Jesus Christ would take care of any “problems.” In other words, he believed a wipe-down of our planet would ensue upon Christ’s arrival back on earth. I was alarmed. This seemed to me like a rather large bet to make. But my father added that because he “knew” Christ would come again, it wasn’t a gamble for him and he didn’t need to worry about the future.
Creating harmony between religious beliefs and the conservation of our planet is really quite easy. Even for those who believe that our warming planet poses no real threat, advocating for clean air, water, and protecting Earth’s teeming diversity of plants and wildlife is still something everyone can get behind. Or mostly everyone.
Because I’m thinking that God would love to see his children taking care of their planet, and not totally gutting the place.http://www.hcn.org/articles/opinion-climate-change-no-god-wont-take-care-of-climate-change
What is USA’s policy on North Korea? Trump’s version, or State Scretary Tillerson’s version?
Who speaks for US on N. Korea? Contradictions emerge as Tillerson heads to Asia By Joshua Berlinger, CNN August 2, 2017 Hong Kong US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson heads to Asia later this week for a regional meeting on security issues, which is expected to be attended by ministers from North Korea, China, South Korea and Japan.
Al Gore on the desperate need to act on climate change—and fast.
Al Gore Says Climate’s Best Hope Lies in Cities and Solar Power, In an exclusive interview Gore also maintains that the Trump administration is relinquishing U.S. climate leadership to China and India, Scientific American ,By Annie Sneed on August 3, 2017
In the early 2000s Al Gore emerged from a devastating presidential election defeat with a new quest: to warn the world about global warming. Although some may think his climate work peaked with his 2005 film, An Inconvenient Truth, he has taken his mission far beyond the silver screen. Over the past decade the former vice president has trained thousands of climate leaders who are now spreading awareness about global warming in communities around the planet. He has also worked with government leaders on switching energy economies from fossil fuels to renewables, and has traveled to places such as Greenland and India to witness firsthand the damaging effects of our carbon-addicted world. Now Gore is back in theaters on August 4 with An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power to convince the public we desperately need to act on climate change—and fast.
Scientific American spoke with Gore about his ongoing inspiration to tackle climate change and what actions he sees as the biggest hope for our warming world…….
……Al Gore: ….the solutions are here now. A decade ago they were visible on the horizon, but we had to rely on technology experts to reassure us they were coming. Now the stunning cost reductions for solar electricity, wind electricity, batteries, electric vehicles and hundreds of impressive efficiency improvements are all dramatically improving our ability to reduce emissions and become far more efficient.
We are now in the early stages of a global sustainability revolution, which has the magnitude of the industrial revolution and the speed of the digital revolution. Global emissions have stabilized in the last three years, giving hope that emissions will start reducing significantly very soon, as they have already done in the U.S., Europe and China…….
Both India and China are closing hundreds of coal-burning plants and rapidly expanding their solar and wind facilities. We’re seeing the beginnings of a radical transformation of the world’s energy system, particularly in developing countries.
The political system here in the U.S. is still slow to respond—but the reaction to Trump here in the U.S. is also impressive and encouraging. After Trump’s announcement on Paris, governors, mayors and business leaders stepped up to fill the gap. I have been encouraged at how many cities have announced the goal of 100 percent renewable energy. In the movie the mayor of a very conservative Republican city in Texas has already achieved that goal. Atlanta and Pittsburgh have just announced that they’re going 100 percent renewable. If Atlanta and Pittsburgh can do it, any city can do it.
It has to be noted that even with all of the commitments in Paris put together, it’s still not enough.
many contracts are being signed for electricity from solar energy at less than half the price of electricity from fossil fuels, even on an unsubsidized basis.
So I’m encouraged—but it is a race against time. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/al-gore-says-climates-best-hope-lies-in-cities-and-solar-power/
Blundering into war would be the worst option
What another Korean war might look like
Yet the most serious danger is not that one side will suddenly try to devastate the other. It is that both sides will miscalculate, and that a spiral of escalation will lead to a catastrophe that no one wants. Our briefing this week lays out, step by step, one way that America and North Korea might blunder into a nuclear war (see article). It also lists some of the likely consequences. These include: for North Korea, the destruction of its regime and the death of hundreds of thousands of people. For South Korea, the destruction of Seoul, a city of 10m within easy range of 1,000 of the North’s conventional artillery pieces. For America, the possibility of a nuclear attack on one of its garrisons in East Asia, or even on an American city. And don’t forget the danger of an armed confrontation between America and China, the North’s neighbour and grudging ally. It seems distasteful to mention the economic effects of another Korean war, but they would of course be awful, too.
President Donald Trump has vowed to stop North Korea from perfecting a nuclear warhead that could threaten the American mainland, tweeting that “it won’t happen!” Some pundits suggest shooting down future test missiles on the launchpad or, improbably, in the air. Others suggest using force to overthrow the regime or pre-emptive strikes to destroy Mr Kim’s nuclear arsenal before he has a chance to use it.
Yet it is just this sort of military action that risks a ruinous escalation. Mr Kim’s bombs and missile-launchers are scattered and well hidden. America’s armed forces, for all their might, cannot reliably neutralise the North Korean nuclear threat before Mr Kim has a chance to retaliate. The task would be difficult even if the Pentagon had good intelligence about North Korea; it does not. The only justification for a pre-emptive strike would be to prevent an imminent nuclear attack on America or one of its allies……….
If military action is reckless and diplomacy insufficient, the only remaining option is to deter and contain Mr Kim. Mr Trump should make clear—in a scripted speech, not a tweet or via his secretary of state—that America is not about to start a war, nuclear or conventional. However, he should reaffirm that a nuclear attack by North Korea on America or one of its allies will immediately be matched………
To contain Mr Kim, America and its allies should apply pressure that cannot be misconstrued as a declaration of war……..
Everyone stay calm. All the options for dealing with the North are bad. Although America should not recognise it as a legitimate nuclear power, it must base its policy on the reality that it is already an illegitimate one….. https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21725768-there-are-no-good-options-curb-kim-jong-un-blundering-war-would-be-worst-how
Trump’s new sanctions on Iran are designed to derail nuclear deal
Iran: US sanctions designed to derail nuclear deal, By Euan McKirdy and Nick Paton Walsh, CNN August 3, 2017 Tehran, Iran The United States is undermining the Iran nuclear deal by imposing sanctions on the country, a ranking Iranian official said Thursday on state TV.
Take back the power from nuclear nations
Ashland Daily Tidings By John Marciano, 1 Aug 17
This coming Aug. 6-9, the 32nd Annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki Vigil will be held. The theme is “Stepping Back from Nuclear War: The World’s Call to Peace.” It highlights the international effort to abolish nuclear weapons, building upon the work of 122 UN nations that produced the Nuclear Ban Treaty. For more information on the events, please check the Peace House Calendar: peacehouse.net — or contact Herbert Rothschild at herbrothschild@hotmail.com or 541-531-2848.
“This treaty is an incredible new piece of international law, achieved despite the opposition of the most militarized and powerful countries in the world,” states Ray Acheson, director of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s (WILPF) disarmament effort, Reaching Critical Will. “It marks a turning point in the struggle against these genocidal weapons, in which the vast majority of governments and civil society have united to create law that can change policies and practices of nuclear deterrence and help facilitate nuclear disarmament.”…..http://www.dailytidings.com/news/20170801/guest-opinion-take-back-power-from-nuclear-nations
We’ll never tackle climate change if academics keep the focus on consensus
Guardian, Warren Pearce, 1 Aug 17, Media and political attention is being wasted on boosting the public’s notion of scientific consensus, crowding out more important discussion and action
In a democracy, we hope that science helps to inform the public about its problems. In the case of climate change, believe it or not, the evidence suggests this is going relatively well.
Climate science is a vast, sprawling field of knowledge that has achieved great success in occupying the public consciousness. According to Yale University’s Climate Change in the American Mind project, six in ten Americans are worried about global warming, seven in ten think global warming is happening and eight in ten think humans have the ability to reduce global warming. These figures have fluctuated very little since 2012, suggesting that the US public is relatively well informed about the risk, reality and policy potential of climate change, even in the face of well-documented attacks by climate sceptics.
Despite this evidence that the public knows enough about climate change to regard it as a problem, some climate communication researchers continue to claim that the public remain misinformed. Some have focused their attention on the proportion of the public that know the level of consensus within climate science. In 2013, a group of researchers launched the Consensus Project, publishing a claim that 97.1% of journal articles expressing a position on anthropogenic global warming either explicitly state or imply that humans cause warming. The claim made a huge media splash, became a key part of the Obama administration’s climate change messaging, and even gave birth to a new Guardian blog. The Yale report has found that only one in ten Americans could correctly identify the approximate level of scientific consensus. It is argued that perceptions of the degree of consensus play a “pivotal role” in “acceptance of science” and that awareness of scientific consensus is a “gateway belief” towards increasing public concern about climate change.
The debate around these perceptions and their significance is going on within a relatively small pool of researchers, and the argument over effects is intense. Put this in the context of broader debates in psychology about replication and the usefulness of laboratory studies and we get a picture of a young field of study that is yet to reach a “consensus on consensus”……
Climate activists are clearly pained by the glacial progress being made on climate policy, as am I. However, there is as yet no convincing evidence that consensus quantification plays a significant role in building the public’s understanding of climate change. Attempts by climate communicators to shut down this argument is quite the opposite of “constructive” and smacks of the same cavalier attitude to evidence displayed by many climate sceptics over the years. More importantly, consensus messaging is an attempt to win political arguments with scientific numbers and risks a further politicisation of science that the US can ill-afford. It is less about informing democracy and more about reducing engagement to the level of a trivia quiz.
Warren Pearce is a Research Fellow (iHuman) at the University of Sheffield. https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2017/aug/01/well-never-tackle-climate-change-if-academics-keep-the-focus-on-consensus
USA civil defence work: preparing for a nuclear attack
North Korea prompts US cities to prepare for a nuclear attack, SMH, Ralph Vartabedian and W.J. Hennigan, 29 July 17, Fleets of big black trucks, harbor boats and aircraft, equipped with radiation sensors and operated by specially trained law enforcement teams, are ready to swing into action in Los Angeles for a catastrophe that nobody even wants to think about: a North Korean nuclear attack.
American cities have long prepared for a terrorist attack, even one involving nuclear weapons or a “dirty bomb,” but North Korea’s long-range missile and weapons programs have now heightened concerns along the West Coast over increasing vulnerability to a strike………
The civil defence work done by Ventura County is exceedingly rare, said Alex Wellerstein, a nuclear weapons historian and assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.
There has been little public discourse since the Cold War about the consequences of nuclear threats, he said. As a result, an entire generation has grown up with little awareness of the danger posed by nuclear weapons.
This month, Wellerstein and other researchers launched Reinventing Civil defence, a nonprofit project that over the next two years will examine how best to reeducate the American public on the nuclear threat – one that never went away. It is being funded by a $US500,000 ($626,000) grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York……..
Wright, the nuclear weapons expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said North Korea’s most recent missile test demonstrated a two-stage rocket that could reach Anchorage and Guam. But he expects that within one to two years North Korea will have enough reach to hit Seattle, 7900 km away, and then Los Angeles, 9300 km from its launch sites……
The main responsibility would lie with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which declined to provide an official to discuss the issue and did not answer written questions.
Some arms control experts say it would be a mistake to launch a full-scale civil defence effort in response to North Korea. Wright, the expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said such a response would send the wrong message that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has put a dent in US confidence.
Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, said Kim presents the same threat that existed throughout most of the last century. “He’s ruthless, but he’s not crazy,” Lewis said. “There’s reason to be cautious. But it’s not a reason to start digging bomb shelters.”
But Levin, the Ventura County health director, argues that doing nothing is equally wrong. The key point of the Ventura plan is to ask residents not flee, but to “get inside and stay inside” immediately after a detonation…..http://www.smh.com.au/world/north-korea-prompts-us-cities-to-prepare-for-a-nuclear-attack-20170727-gxkdu2.html
New hope for UK’s energy policy in a fundamental shift in energy systems
This government’s record on energy has been incompetent to the point of
derision or despair, depending on how much you care about it. But suddenly,
a ray of sunshine emerges from Greg Clarke’s Department of Business, Energy
and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Greg wants to unleash the power of the
market on our broken energy system.
But this isn’t just the same old, same old rhetoric exhorting consumers switch from one of the much-maligned big
energy suppliers to another. No, Greg is talking about nothing less than
the coming revolution in energy, one that has become evident to many of us
working in the renewables sector, but has until now been just a little too
far over the horizon for the politicians to ‘get’.
A combination of key technologies – solar, wind, and energy storage coupled with a real-time
energy market driven by information technology are maturing and the impact
will be extraordinary. Solar panels and wind turbines have a complementary
output profile and a combination of both will even out seasonal energy
production in northern climates such as the UK.
Energy will be stored in and released from large batteries – including those in electric vehicles –
to meet shorter term peaks in demand and troughs in supply. Real-time
electricity pricing will allow internet enabled appliances to turn on or
regulate down following pricing signals to smooth out demand to better
match supply.
What we’re looking at is a fundamental shift from an energy
system based on resources to one founded on technology. Our current energy
system has been built on extracting resources (coal, gas, oil) from the
planet’s crust and setting fire to them. The energy system of the near
future will be based on technology that converts the energy derived from
the sun (daylight and wind) into electricity.
The key point is that whereas natural resources get more expensive as you use more of them, technology
becomes ever cheaper and more efficient. The inflexion point is coming and
it’s now no longer a question of whether the oil age will end, but how soon
it will come.
Solar power portal 27th July 2017
https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/blogs/the_uk_government_is_suddenly_showing_signs_that_it_gets_it
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