nuclear-news

Renewable energy headlines Sept 30th

September 30, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

Chernobyl nuclear station nearly 3 decades on

Experiencing the Chernobyl nuclear power plant nearly 30 years after the disaster. Enformable, Lucas W Hixson, 28 Sep 15 “………Though the new confinement structure may not be the biggest project ever constructed, it is incredibly massive, large enough to allow enormous cranes and gantries to move freely under its steel roof.  The cover is being built on a large concrete pad, which is designed not only to carry the weight of the building, but also the supplies, hydraulics, and heavy industrial equipment moving in and out of it every day.  From under the new confinement structure we had our first up-close introduction with the Unit 4 sarcophagus.

September 30, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

UK Labour avoids nuclear arms debate

Corbyn strikes moderate stance as Labour avoids nuclear arms debate, Reuters, 27 Sept 15 BRIGHTON, ENGLAND | BY KYLIE MACLELLA “…….In a move that will spare Labour a potentially divisive debate, delegates voted not to include Trident on the list of topics for discussion at the party conference in the southern English city of Brighton.

“Is it so disastrous that politics has two opinions?” Corbyn asked his interviewer when probed on the difference of opinion within the party over Trident…..”http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/09/27/uk-britain-politics-corbyn-idUKKCN0RR0HG20150927

September 28, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

The nuclear dream is looking pretty tarnished

The 20 Percenters: Nuclear Energy Faces Reality – and Its Likely Decline, US News  Once the promise of clean, near limitless energy, nuclear is now in its waning years. By Alan Neuhauser Sept. 28, 2015 LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – On construction sites in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, workers are building what may become the final five major nuclear power plants built in the United States.

Nuclear energy, once a symbol of American ingenuity, the fulfillment of the futuristic promise of near-limitless electricity and near-zero emissions, may soon face an economic meltdown.

Cheap natural gas, together with plummeting prices for wind and solar, has upended the energy sector – not only making nuclear plants’ huge upfront costs, endless regulatory approvals and yearslong construction especially prohibitive, but undercutting the very idea of a centralized power system. Industry and regulators, meanwhile, still have not devised a long-term solution for dispensing of nuclear waste. And despite the best marketing efforts by industry, ever-present safety concerns have little abated since the most recent nuclear incident: the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan following a tsunami in 2011.

“The nuclear dream looks pretty tarnished these days: that you would have an inexpensive, reliable and manageable source of energy,” says James Doyle, a former political scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “What has been shown repeatedly over the decades is that it’s not inexpensive and the question of how to handle nuclear waste has remained problematic, and it appears it will remain so for decades to come.”……

construction drive in China and elsewhere may ultimately represent the last hurrah of the nuclear construction industry – especially once utility-scale energy storage systems, widely seen as the linchpin for making solar and wind viable over the long term, become more efficient and economical and as global warming continues to worsen…..

September 28, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

Should Entergy’s profitability be our primary concern? Or might it be our grandchildren’s health?

Cape Codders care not for Pilgrim’s profitability http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20150927/OPINION/150929636  Paul Rifkin Sep. 27, 2015   Your paper covers the issue of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth several times a week. The same names keep appearing in your stories.

Spokesmen for Entergy, the owner of the Pilgrim facility, such as Lauren Burm, speak of the cost of making improvements to the plant exceeding the value of the plant. David Noyes, Pilgrim’s director of regulatory and performance improvement, says that Entergy “will work out the business models in terms of profitability.”
Value, profitability … is that what Cape Cod residents should be concerned about?

If there is an accident at Pilgrim, radioactive poison blowing in our direction … the bridges close … we are trapped … .
Should Entergy’s profitability be our primary concern? Or might it be our grandchildren’s health, our glorious loss of living on Cape Cod in perpetuity? As frequently quoted activist Diane Turco suggests, “Public safety should have no price tag.”
Turco’s voice is the voice of reason and sanity here. Let’s shutter Pilgrim before the sirens of toxicity sound and we come to realize that Turco was right. She and other anti-Pilgrim activists speak for us. Pay attention to that voice of sanity and reason. The possible consequences of honoring Entergy’s bottom line might be catastrophic.

September 28, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

South Africa’s Treasury exposed on nuclear financing – annual report

Annual report exposes Treasury on nuclear says DA, Times Live, Fin24 | 27 September, 2015 A National Treasury official received training in nuclear finance, sponsored by South Korea, at an estimated cost of R500 000 in the 2014/15 financial year. This information listed among others in the National Treasury’s 2014/15 annual report contradicts claims by Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson that the Treasury had only recently been invited into the decision-making process on the financing of the nuclear build programme, the DA said on Sunday.

September 28, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

Even nuclear supporters say that the UK govt should kill the Hinkley C Project

Even Nuclear Supporters Think Hinkley C Needs To Be Canceled, Clean Technica September 27th, 2015 by James Ayre 

Even many of the supporters of nuclear energy in the “environmentalist” camp — such as George Monbiot, Mark Lynas, and Chris Goodall — are now advocating for the cancellation of the Hinkley C project in the UK, as evidenced by an article recently published by the three mentioned above.

When even supporters of the broader cause begin to question a specific project, it’s probably worth taking note. Is the Hinkley C project really such a boondoggle that even support from otherwise erstwhile supporters is nearing its end?

In the recent article from the above authors, the argument is made that the project possesses “all the distinguishing features of a white elephant: (it’s) overpriced, overcomplicated and overdue” — and also that the most recent delay should be used to sound the death knell for the project.

The exact words used in the article are pretty blunt: “The government should kill the project.”

The authors’ article in the Guardian provides more:……….http://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/27/even-nuclear-supporters-think-hinkley-c-needs-canceled/

September 28, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

The health toll of ionising radiation at all stages of the nuclear fuel chain

Cancer, Coverups and Contamination: The Real Cost of Nuclear Energy 27th September 2015

Andreas Toupadakis Ph.D Contributing Writer for Wake Up World   “……Uranium mining has also cost many lives and great suffering, not just on the workers but on all the communities around these mines. These problems, and the lack of a solution or accountability from the nuclear industry, is described in detail in the ECRR report:

“In response to a challenge to the ethical foundation of civilian nuclear power and the cancers caused by licensed emissions, nuclear industry apologists have offered comparisons between the number of miners killed as part of the lifecycle of energy production in coal-fired power stations with the number of citizens killed by cancers consequent on nuclear releases. However, this is an ethically flawed position. The miners are well informed about the risky nature of their employment and accept it in return for direct pecuniary gain. Their situation is not the same as that of the adult or child who breathes in radioactive particles released from Sellafield without knowing they are in the air, or without benefiting directly from their production. Such people are in effect bystanders and thus have a morally distinct status from those who are engaged in producing the pollutants…

“If the nuclear industry and the military are to continue within a sound ethical framework serious questions need to be addressed and those who will suffer its health consequences need to be informed and consulted to a far greater extent than they ever have been… while children will inevitably die from leukemia as a result of radioactive discharges, causality will be denied and… [their numbers deemed] not worthy of consideration. The moral bankruptcy of such a justification is intuitively apparent…

“The Committee concludes that releases of radioactivity without consent can not be justified ethically since [even] the smallest dose has a finite, if small, probability of fatal harm.”

And how about many other locations, beside power plants, where radiation pollution exists? How about the hundreds of thousands of people that have died and suffered from the whole nuclear cycle? How about future generations who will similarly suffer from long-term contamination?

Nuclear power plants are just one point of the nuclear waste cycle. To this day, the disposal and storage of high-level nuclear waste remains a major unresolved issue. Now 15 years later, only 70 years into a million-year long waste cycle, we are no closer to solving the problem of mounting nuclear waste generated by these continuing programs. The populations in regions where radioactive waste is stored, such as Savannah River and Yucca Mountain (at which millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste is stored in 49 leaking tanks), are equally as susceptible to disease as those communities near active power plants.

Furthermore, in 2000, the National Academy of Sciences released a report commissioned by the Department of Energy that states that most of the sites where the US federal government built nuclear bombs will never be cleaned up enough to allow public access to the land. The report also noted that the plan for guarding sites that are permanently contaminated is inadequate:

“Nearly 150 sites around the country are contaminated, a nagging reminder of the nuclear arms race. DOE has concluded that even after planned remediation activities are completed — or found to be infeasible — at these so-called “legacy” waste sites, 109 of them will never be clean enough for unrestricted use… [These sites] are located in 27 states, Puerto Rico, and territorial islands in the Pacific…

“There is no convincing evidence that institutional controls — such as surveillance of radioactive and other hazardous wastes left at sites, security fences, and deeds restricting land use — will prove reliable over the long run…

“Because the long-term behavior of contaminants in the environment is unpredictable and physical barriers may break down at some point, the committee urged DOE to develop its stewardship plans under the assumption that contaminant isolation eventually will fail… Today’s scientific knowledge and institutional capabilities do not provide much confidence that containment of sites with residual risks will function as expected indefinitely.”

And how about the places where nuclear material is processed into forms of nuclear fuel? From “nuclear rocks” into nuclear fuel, thousands of people die in agonizing death, families are destroyed, deformed children are born, and many others are born dead. These are very well established facts around the world, in every place that nuclear material is present in one form or another. In fact a 2003 review by the ECRR, headed by an adviser to the British Government, examined research results and concluded that that pollution from nuclear energy and weapons programs will account for as many as 65 million deaths, also asserting that previously accepted figures massively underestimated the nuclear industry’s impact on human life……….http://wakeup-world.com/2015/09/27/cancer-coverups-and-contamination-the-real-cost-of-nuclear-energy/

September 28, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

Climate News 26 Sept 15

China to announce 2017 launch of carbon market – US officials
Barack Obama welcomes China’s Xi Jinping to the White House ahead of joint presidential statement meant to boost prospects for a global climate change pact.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-25/china-to-announce-2017-launch-of-carbon-market-us-officials-say/6804344

September 26, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

Nuclear power – no good for South Africa – or anywhere

 Nuclear is polluting http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/letters/2015/09/25/letter-nuclear-is-polluting Judith Taylor EarthLife Africa Joburg SEPTEMBER 25 2015, IT IS a long-standing misconception that nuclear provides base-load power and is reliable.

Nuclear power does not create the easily observed health effects of coal-fired power stations, but the process of mining uranium and producing the fuel rods is highly polluting and has appalling health effects on the mine workers, their families and the receiving environment.

Nuclear is becoming extremely expensive, while sustainable power solutions are falling in price rapidly.

The decommissioning of nuclear power plants has never been done successfully anywhere in the world.

The ability of the nuclear industry to contain sites where accidents have occurred has been proven not to exist. This has exposed, and is exposing, entire communities to radiation and radiation-related diseases.

September 26, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

Japan’s former Atomic Energy Commission vice-chairman Dr Tatsujiro Suzuki annoys South African govt

Nuclear advice angers ANC, IOL,  September 23 2015  
By Marianne Merten Cape Town – Japan’s former Atomic Energy Commission vice-chairman Dr Tatsujiro Suzuki was caught up in South Africa’s controversial nuclear build programme when an ANC MP and domestic nuclear regulator chief tackled him for not outlining the positives of nuclear power.

After Tuesday’s public lecture, Suzuki admitted being somewhat “surprised”, but emphasised that while he did not want to get involved in local matters, it was important to share Japan’s experience following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident……….

Speaking at the University of the Western Cape, Suzuki recounted the loss of public trust, not only in nuclear energy, but also government over the Fukushima disaster. “Even after four years, in Japan public trust has not been recovered,” he said, adding that as a nuclear engineer the incident showcased the importance of socio-political issues beyond technical matters. “The social, political and economic risks are so large. Protection of human life is not good enough.”………… http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/nuclear-advice-angers-anc-1.1920124#.VgRwyNKqpHw

September 25, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

Climate news items today

Brazil and Germany take lead in tackling climate change.
Brazil and Germany, the two largest national economies within their respective continents, are taking the lead in tackling climate change through outstanding policies and bilateral relations, according to experts.
http://www.dailyclimate.org/t/1883833204302301644

Study shows new forests cannot take in as much carbon as predicted
As carbon emissions continue to rise, scientists project forests will grow faster and larger, due to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, which fuels photosynthesis.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-09/uoia-ssn092415.php

Purdue study – climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists
A Purdue University-led survey of nearly 700 scientists from non-climate disciplines shows that more than 90 percent believe that average global temperatures are higher than pre-1800s levels and that human activity has significantly contributed to the rise.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-09/pu-psc092415.php

September 25, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

Renewable news items today

September 25, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

UK’s absurdly uneconomic Hinkley C nuclear deal

If the Hinkley C nuclear deal looks astonishing, that’s because it is    https://theconversation.com/if-the-hinkley-c-nuclear-deal-looks-astonishing-thats-because-it-is-47947 September 22, 2015 I was rather perplexed to wake up to hear the news that George Osborne was pledging £2bn in loan guarantees for the ill-fated Hinkley C nuclear power project in England. Hadn’t he already pledged £10bn in loan guarantees more than two years ago?

Hinkley C, all 3.2 gigawatts of it, was according to earlier proud boasts supposed to be up and running in 2018, but will now be lucky to be started by 2025. As recently as 2008, the total cost of such a plant was estimated by the UK department of energy at £5.6bn. Now it could easily be five times higher.

Has Osborne decided to cut the support he is offering French group EDF and the Chinese state nuclear companies to build the plant from £10bn to £2bn? No, it seems he is offering an “initial” £2bn. Has George made his current trip to Beijing with £2bn in £50 notes in a secure luggage arrangement? No, of course not. So what does this mean? Well, absolutely nothing apart from, no doubt, some PR consultant coming up with a bright idea to distract attention from the sheer awfulness that is the British nuclear programme.

Although some may feel that how this (awfulness) is all an aberration and that somewhere else nuclear power is being done much better, in my studies I can’t find much evidence of this, certainly not in the US and Europe. Both of the two “generation III” reactors being developed, EPR(Finland, France, China) and AP1000 (China, US, Bulgaria), are taking ages to build and costing mountains more money than originally anticipated. Hitachi’s ABWR, another reactor tipped to be built in the UK, has a very chequered reliability record that would make it a no-go zone for investors.

Even in China the much-vaunted nuclear construction programme is, as much as you hear about these things from Chinese authorities, a lot less vaunted than one would think. And we need to understand that this is before we even know whether any of these upcoming generation III reactors work well or not.

Nuclear numbers

Really this is not much of a change compared with what went on in previous decades. The marvellous hype from the nuclear people suckered an eager-to-be-suckered UK body politic that there really is a magical nuclear answer to our problems. So why do we find this out now? Continue reading →

September 23, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment

Pope Francis to spell it out in USA on need to abandon nuclear weapons

The Pope Is Lining Up to Ban Nuclear Weapons, Defense One SEPTEMBER 21, 2015 BY JOE CIRINCIONE TOM COLLINA Pope Francis is making a key shift in church doctrine on nuclear weapons, and some people are not going to like it. The Catholic Church has long held that nuclear weapons must be eliminated from the face of the Earth.

Pope John XXIII, now a saint, wrote in 1963, “Nuclear weapons must be banned. A general agreement must be reached on a suitable disarmament program.” The church and the U.S.Conference of Catholic Bishops have worked actively in support of arms control and disarmament agreements, including the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the 2010 New START treaty between the United States and Russia and the 1996 nuclear test ban treaty.

When the pontiff speaks in Washington and New York this week, he will likely take the church position a step further. He may declare that any possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. No one should have them, at any time, for any reason.

Up to now, the church has abhorred the inhumanity of these weapons that indiscriminately target innocent civilians and would kill them in massive numbers. But—until now—it has recognized a need for states to have nuclear weapons to deter other countries from launching a nuclear attack on them.

September 23, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | Leave a comment