Poznam « nuclear-news

Growing problem of Korea’s nuclear wastes

Radioactive Waste Becomes Growing Problem Spent Nuclear Fuel to Surpass 30,000 Tons in 2032

THE KOREA TIMES By Kim Tong-hyung 1 Oct 09
“……………..experts warn that the growing amount of spent nuclear fuel could provide a massive headache in the future.

A report by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has revealed that the country’s amassed radioactive spent fuel passed the 10,000-ton mark for the first time at around 10,101 tons. Continue reading →

October 2, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | South Korea, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, Poznam, radioactive, uranium, wastes | Leave a comment

iafrica.com | technology | news | science Climate change heats up

Climate change heats up iafrica.com By: Marlowe Hood 1 Dec 08 “………………………..

Arctic meltdown……………..When the reflective ice surface retreats, the Sun’s radiation — heat — is absorbed by open water rather than bounced back into the atmosphere, creating a vicious circle of heating.

“We had always known that the Arctic was going to respond first,” said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. “What has us puzzled is that the changes are even faster than we would have thought possible,” he said by phone………………………

Rising oceans New data on the rate at which oceans might rise has also caused consternation.

“The most recent IPCC report was prior to … the measurements of increasing mass loss from Greenland and Antarctica, which are disintegrating much faster than IPCC estimates,” said climatologist James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

Unlike the Arctic ice cap, which floats on water, the world’s two major ice sheets — up to three kilometres thick — sit on land.

Runaway sea level rises, Hansen said, would put huge coastal cities and agricultural deltas in Bangladesh, Egypt and southern China under water, and create hundreds of millions of refugees.

The IPCC’s most recent assessment “did not take into account the potential melting of Greenland, which I think was a mistake,” said Watson, the former IPCC chairman.

Were Greenland’s entire ice block to melt, it would lift the world’s sea levels by almost seven metres, while western Antarctica’s ice sheet holds enough water to add six metres…………………………Atmospheric issues The accelerating concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and signs of the planet’s dwindling ability to absorb them, are also causing some scientists to lose sleep…………………..

One potential source of both gases is frozen tundra in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, where temperatures have risen faster than anywhere else on Earth.

“The amount of carbon that is locked up in permafrost that could be released into the atmosphere is just about on a par with the atmospheric load the world has right now,” said Serreze.

These higher concentrations of greenhouse gases come at a time when Earth’s two major “carbon sinks” — forests and especially oceans — are showing signs of saturation.