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Thawing of Arctic permafrost leads to irreversible climate change

Where even the earth is melting, SMH, November 28, 2012   Ben CubbyENVIRONMENT EDITOR THE world is on the cusp of a “tipping point” into dangerous climate change, according to new data gathered by scientists measuring methane leaking from the Arctic permafrost and a report presented to the United Nations on Tuesday.

“The permafrost carbon feedback is irreversible on human time scales,” says the report, Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost. “Overall, these observations indicate that large-scale thawing of permafrost may already have started.”

While countries the size of Australia tally up their greenhouse emissions in hundreds of millions of tonnes, the Arctic’s stores are measured in tens of billions. Human-induced emissions now appear to have warmed the Arctic enough tounlock this vast carbon bank, with stark implications for international efforts to hold global warming to a safe level. Ancient
forests locked under ice tens of thousands of years ago are beginning to melt and rot, releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the air. Continue reading →

November 28, 2012 Posted by | climate change, OCEANIA, Reference | Leave a comment

Depleted uranium’s radioactive dust – the forgotten pollutant

The problem is, when DU armor piercing projectiles penetrate their targets, they become incendiary spewing radioactive dust

The Toxic Legacy of Depleted Uranium Weapons 11-26-2012, EcoWatch, By Paul E McGinniss “………  how many of us know about the current manufacturing and active use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons? DU (Uranium 238) is a radioactive waste by-product of the uranium enrichment process. It results from making fuel for nuclear reactors and the manufacturing of nuclear weapons.

In a frightening adaptation of the “Cradle to Cradle” philosophy in manufacturing, which seeks to use waste in the manufacturing process to create other “useful” products, militaries around the world have come up with the “brilliant” idea of taking DU and making “conventional” weapons with it.

According to BanDepletedUranium.org, approximately 20 countries are thought to have DU weapons in their arsenals. Nations known to have produced these weapons include UK, U.S., France, Russia, China and Pakistan.
DU is well liked by armed forces Continue reading →

November 28, 2012 Posted by | depleted uranium, Reference, Uranium, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear lunacy: USA’s secret plan to nuclear bomb the moon

Confirmed: US planned to nuke the moon RT.com 26 November, 2012, In a secret project recently discovered, theUnited States planned to blow up the moon with a nuclear bomb in the 1950s as a display of the country’s strength during the Cold War space race.

The secret project, called “A Study of Lunar Research Flights”, as well as “Project A119” was never carried out but initially intended to intimidate the Soviet Union after their launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, which demonstrated their technological power, the Daily Mail reports.
The sight of a magnificent nuclear flash from Earth was meant to terrify the Soviet Union and boost US confidence, physicist Leonard Reiffel, 85, told the Associated Press. The nuclear device would have been launched from a missile from an unknown location. It would have
ignited upon impact with the moon, causing a massive explosion that was visible from Earth.

The detonation would have been the result of an atom bomb, since a hydrogen bomb was too heavy for a missile to carry the 238,000 miles to the moon…… In his interview with AP, which took place in the year 2000, Reiffel said the nuclear detonation could have occurred by
1959, which is when the US Air Force deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles. The project documents were kept secret for nearly 45 years and the US government has never formally confirmed its involvement in the study.

But in the end, the mission was abandoned due to safety concerns about the radioactive material that would contaminate space. The scientists were also worried about the bomb detonating prematurely, thereby endangering the people on Earth.

Rather than blow up the moon, the US continued the space race, sending its first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit on Jan. 31, 1958. The project was officially canceled by the Air Force in Jan. 1959, and the US instead focused on sending a man to the moon.

November 28, 2012 Posted by | history, Reference, USA | 1 Comment

A warning on Mixed-Oxide Fuel (MOX) nuclear fuel plan

MOX stands for “Mixed-Oxide Fuel.” It is a nuclear power reactor fuel made from plutonium mixed with uranium. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) wants to make experimental MOX fuel using plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons.

Use of MOX fuel fails as a means of getting rid of plutonium. Instead, the plutonium just becomes part of the lethal soup of ingredients termed “high-level nuclear waste”

What is MOX? http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/basicmoxinfo.htm The giant French nuclear firm Cogema, Duke Power and Virginia Power have formed a consortium to create and use plutonium MOX fuel in civilian atomic reactors in North and South Carolina and Virginia.

If their effort is successful, plutonium would be trucked from nuclear weapons depots in the west to the Savannah River Plant on the South Carolina/Georgia border, where new plutonium processing plants would be built. This new MOX fuel would then be trucked to commercial reactors in the Southeast, in order to turn this plutonium into high-level radioactive waste.

The MOX program is dangerous and unnecessary. More than 200 environmental and other organizations across the world have signed an International NIX MOX statement and have pledged to work to stop this program in the U.S. and similar programs in Russia, France and England.

What is MOX? Continue reading →

November 27, 2012 Posted by | - plutonium, Reference, technology, USA | Leave a comment

Lucrative business for nuclear companies in the complex cleanup of UK’s Sellafield site

multinationals are aligning themselves into strategic relationships to attract the highly lucrative subcontracts coming on stream. Multi-disciplinary consultant Atkins recently formed a joint venture with French-based nuclear specialist Areva to bid for tier two work on decommissioning and fuel management projects in the UK.

Nuclear Legacy, The Construction Index, 23 Nov 12“…….To speed up the process, Sellafield Ltd, the site licence company owned by PBO Nuclear Management Partners (NMP), has started to implement a series of strategic alliances with a combined value of £9bn.

The first framework agreement – The Design Services Alliance – was awarded in February: a £1.5bn contract to The Progressive Alliance (led by Babcock and URS) and AXIOM (a consortium of Amec, Jacobs, Mott McDonald and Assystem). It is expected to extend to 15 years. Continue reading →

November 23, 2012 Posted by | decommission reactor, Reference, UK | Leave a comment

US Dept of Energy losing enthusiasm for Small Modular Nuclear reactors (SMRs)

ultimately, the decision may have come down to the commercial prospects for the technologies. The fact remains that the economics of all of these designs remains murky.

Based on economies of scale, small reactors will produce more expensive electricity than large reactors, all other factors being equal.

Does DOE’s Funding Announcement Mark the End of its Irrational Exuberance for SMRs? http://allthingsnuclear.org/does-does-funding-announcement-mark-the-end-of-its-irrational-exuberance-for-smrs/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AllThingsNuclear+%28All+Things+Nuclear%29 Ed Lyman, senior scientist
November 21, 2012
 On November 20 DOE finally announced that the Babcock and Wilcox Company (B&W) and its “mPower” reactor were the lucky winners of its Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for a cost-sharing program with industry for the design and licensing of “small modular reactors,” or SMRs.  Although DOE had originally said the announcement would come in July or August, it decided instead to bury it on Thanksgiving week – not usually a time the agency releases news of which it is particularly proud.

And in fact, the real news is not that a grant was awarded to B&W – this was a near-certainty – but that there was only one winner instead of two. Continue reading →

November 22, 2012 Posted by | business and costs, Reference, technology, USA | Leave a comment

The renewable energy revolution to take off, with energy storage

Energy storage systems signal arrival of ‘baseload’ renewables REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson  21 November 2012 It has been widely thought that the arrival of cost-competitive rooftop solar PV systems would be the biggest game changer in the electricity market. But it may be that the emergence of affordable energy storage systems will have an even more profound impact.

There are predictions that the energy storage market is going to boom. One survey suggested that $30 billion will be spent on energy storage in the next decade in Australia alone. In the US, where $1 trillion is expected to be spent on electricity network infrastructure in the next 10 years, at least one fifth of that – or $200 billion – will be spent on energy storage.

The big question is who is going to benefit most from that investment – the customer, or the utility that delivers or sells the electricity. Or maybe even both. Most people are still trying to figure that out. Continue reading →

November 22, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, renewable | Leave a comment

The costly problem Europe now faces – burying dead nuclear reactors

Only a handful of reactors worldwide have been fully dismantled, meaning the process is largely uncharted territory. Tearing apart reactor cores, for instance, creates unknown challenges and potential risks given the level of radiation inside them.

Aging Nuke Plants Add to Europe’s Economic Woes , Washingtpn Examiner, By GARY PEACH Associated Press VISAGINAS, Lithuania November 17, 2012 (AP) The parking lot outside the atomic power plant is weedy and potholed. Bus stops that once teemed with hundreds of workers are eerily empty.

Yet the stillness at Ignalina, a Lithuanian nuclear plant built in the 1980s Soviet era, belies an unsettling fact: There is still nuclear fuel inside one of its two reactors, three years after it was shut due to safety concerns.

A temporary storage facility for spent fuel and radioactive waste is four years behind schedule, creating a money drain at a time when the 27-nation European Union grapples with a crippling economic crisis. States don’t need EU permission to build nuclear plants, but they need to abide by its safety rules and the problems at Ignalina have provoked threats from the EU to cut the funding promised for dismantling it. That raises concerns that the facility will be around for years, possibly decades, longer than planned.

Ignalina is turning out to be a hard lesson for Europe: It’s one thing to kill a nuclear power station; getting rid of the remains is another headache entirely. Continue reading →

November 19, 2012 Posted by | decommission reactor, Reference | Leave a comment

Aging nuclear reactors, like Pilgrim, Plymouth, become more dangerous

Nuclear facilities are licensed to operate for forty years and all have experienced age-related degradation before the termination of their original license. Despite this, the NRC continues to extend licenses to facilities throughout the U.S.

 from 1952-2009 there have been 99 major nuclear power station incidents worldwide.

NUKE MATTERS: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima…Plymouth?
http://www.wickedlocal.com/plymouth/news/opinions/x35738056/NUKE-MATTERS-Three-Mile-Island-Chernobyl-Fukushima-Plymouth#axzz2CQF4Vofv By Karen Vale, Campaign Coordinator, Cape Cod Bay Watch Wicked Local Plymouth, 18 Nov 12, Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986, and most recently Fukushima – these catastrophic nuclear accidents thrust the debate about the safety of nuclear power into the public
spotlight.

Fukushima also triggered a critical examination of nuclear stations with the same type and operational design as the reactors that failed in March 2011. In the U.S., there are 23 reactors with the same design as Fukushima – including Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station
(Pilgrim) on Cape Cod Bay in Plymouth. Continue reading →

November 19, 2012 Posted by | Reference, safety, technology, USA | Leave a comment

No real planning for burying Europe’s aging nuclear reactors

Aging Nuke Plants Add to Europe’s Economic Woes, By GARY PEACH Washington Examiner, Associated Press VISAGINAS, Lithuania November 17, 2012“…….Other EU countries will have to foot the bill for closing their own plants, adding to taxpayers’ woes. In Germany, it will be in addition to energy price increases as the government scrambles to finance an ambitious switch from nuclear to renewables, which should account for 60 percent of total energy consumption by 2030.

Just last month Germany’s main utilities announced that households could see their
electricity bill jump up to 50 percent in order to finance this transition from nuclear power.

Experts say that disassembling atomic plants promises to be far costlier than previously estimated, given the lack of experience worldwide and nuclear operators’ propensity to underestimate decommissioning costs to make new projects look more attractive.

Thomas of Greenwich University said in Britain nuclear operators were supposed to pay for the decommissioning, but over the decades the cost was passed to the government, which will have to come up with €120 billion ($153 billion) over the next century to dismantle the
country’s existing nuclear power plants.

Just abandoning the facilities with radioactivity trapped inside is not an option. But given the enormous expenditures, some governments are opting to drag out the decommissioning over many decades…… http://washingtonexaminer.com/aging-nuke-plants-add-to-europes-economic-woes/article/2513836

November 19, 2012 Posted by | decommission reactor, EUROPE, Reference | Leave a comment

Germany well on track to nuclear free success

The nuclear industry and its supporters pounced on Merkel’s decision. They predicted blackouts on a scale Germany hadn’t experienced since World War II and skyrocketing electricity prices that would wreck the nation’s heavy manufacturing sector, the bedrock of the German economy. They warned that Germany would cease to be an energy exporter and be forced to import electricity from, of all places, French nuclear power plants. Utilities would have to burn more coal to make up for the lost nuclear power, they said, pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The British weekly The Economist branded Merkel’s action “a lunatic gamble.”

More than a year and a half later, however, those dire predictions haven’t materialized.

 ”You have to choose between the old system and the new one. And we have chosen renewables.”

Germany Abandons Nuclear Power and Lives to Talk About It, Bloomberg Business Week  By Osha Gray Davidson  November 16, 2012“……..Like all revolutions, the German Energiewende was set in motion by many factors and its course altered by a multitude of events and actors along the way. A few key moments stand out, however, and the Chernobyl catastrophe is one of them. To fully understand the Energiewende, and to anticipate its future twists and turns, it’s essential to understand the role Chernobyl played in shaping the German public’s view of nuclear power. Continue reading →

November 17, 2012 Posted by | Germany, politics, Reference | Leave a comment

Spiralling costs of UK’s nuclear wastes

Recommend that you go to this link, as the page has many very informative graphics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/16/nuclear-waste-sellafield How much do we spend on nuclear waste? Duncan Clark guardian.co.uk,  16 November 2012 Last week, a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO)highlighted the spiralling costs of running Sellafield, the UK’s huge nuclear
reprocessing and storage site. Duncan Clark reviews the data Continue reading →

November 17, 2012 Posted by | Reference, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Highly radioactive fish in seas near Fukushima

Asahi: Gov’t worried about highly radioactive fish — Why are radiation readings still 100s of times over official safe limits? http://enenews.com/asahi-govt-worried-about-highly-radioactive-fish-why-are-radiation-readings-still-100s-of-times-over-official-safe-limit
 November 13th, 2012
(Subscription Only) Title: Worries over highly radioactive fish prompt study
Source: Asahi
Author: HIROSHI ISHIZUKA
Date: November 13, 2012

Persistently high radioactivity in some fish caught close to the Fukushima nuclear plant has sparked a government investigation into the physiological basis for contamination and why radiation readings in some specimens remain hundreds of times over the official safe limit.

[…] The overall trend has been a decline in detected amounts of radioactive cesium.

However, in August, two greenlings caught 20 kilometers north of the Fukushima plant were found to have cesium levels of 25,800 becquerels per kilogram, the highest level ever measured in fish since the nuclear accident. The government standard for food is 100 becquerels per kilogram.

And in March, tests recorded a level of 18,700 becquerels per kilogram
in freshwater salmon in the Niidagawa river near Iitate […]

[…] cesium in freshwater salmon and char caught since March has not been decreasing, leading to restrictions on the shipment […]

The forthcoming study will analyze cesium levels in the fish’s otolith, a part of the inner ear. The otolith is widely used in such research because it is an organ where trace elements tend to accumulate over the animal’s lifespan, leaving a growth record that can be likened to the rings of a tree. […]

November 15, 2012 Posted by | Japan, oceans, Reference | Leave a comment

Wind and solar energy have the advantage, as water becomes scarcer


Water scarcity could drive push towards wind and solar REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson   14 November 2012 In 2010, more water – 583 billion cubic metres – than is discharged each year by the mighty Ganges River in India was used to meet the world’s growing energy needs.

It’s an interesting statistic, but why should that matter? Well, if the world continues on its merry way, power capacity – particularly with water-hungry energy technologies such as coal and nuclear – and water-dependent extractive techniques such as coal, shale gas and tar sands, are going to grow quickly, and, according to the International Energy Agency, the world’s demand for water will grow at twice the pace, putting pressure on increasingly scarce water resources. Continue reading →

November 15, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, water | Leave a comment

The insidious climate change danger – acidification of sea, land and air

Earth on Acid: The Present & Future of Global Acidification http://www.geosociety.org/news/pr/12-89.htm GSA Annual Meeting & Exposition, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, 4–7 November 2012 Boulder, CO, USA – Climate change and extreme weather events grab the headlines, but there is another, lesser known, global change underway on land, in the seas, and in the air: acidification.

It turns out that combustion of fossil fuels, smelting of ores, mining of coal and metal ores, and application of nitrogen fertilizer to soils are all driving down the pH of the air, water, and the soil at rates far faster than Earth’s natural systems can buffer, posing threats to both land and sea life. Continue reading →

November 7, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, Reference | Leave a comment

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