To 30 March – nuclear and climate news.
Yes, I know, it’s bad form to be writing about anything but the virus. But here goes, anyway. As to climate change, the current dread of the coronavirus feels awfully like a familiar version of the anxiety that many of us have felt about the climate crisis. There’s a bit of a silver lining, in that global greenhouse has emissions have dropped.
The pandemic, and its consequence – social isolation, have stalled industry, and are expected to wipe out global growth in renewables deployment in 2020.
The nuclear industry has put a bold face on it, claiming that construction of huge new reactor stations are essential, so that workers at UK’s Hinkley Point C build, and USA’s giant Vogtle nuclear build can count as “essential” so the building programmes can stay on track. But, even more remarkable, the USA nuclear industry uses coronavirus to gouge $billions of tax-payer money.
Anyway, what should we do about this truly awful global situation? I can think only of Voltaire’s famous advice – given by his fictional character Candide – “we must go and work our garden.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcTsMirQoG0&t=8s
A bit of good news – Chinese Company Ships Crates of Masks to Italy , Covered in Italian Poetry: We Are ‘Leaves of the Same Tree’
AUSTRALIA
A major scorecard gives the health of Australia’s environment less than 1 out of 10. With the pandemic, and the bushfires, we now must strengthen the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC). Webinar: Yeelirrie – A Case for Environmental Law Reform .
NUCLEAR. Nation Radioactive Waste Management Bill: Submission deadline extended to April 9. Submission re National Waste Dump Bill: Flawed process: the pretense that this National issue is just a Local issue. Nuclear front group Energy Policy Institute joins with NuScam to promote Small Nuclear Reactors to Australia.
CLIMATE. Environment department begins purging website of historical emissions data, projections. NSW approves coal mine expansion under drinking water catchment . Tax-payers funded MP Matt Canavan’s expensive trip to attend coalmine opening
RENEWABLE ENERGY. Australia’s newest and biggest wind farm sets benchmark for lowest price. Victoria council works around Covid-19 restrictions to approve 200MW solar farm. Big new solar farm in NSW begins production, on schedule for a change.
INTERNATIONAL
Action on Covid19 gives a lesson for action on climate change.
Pandemic brings a danger that is unique to the nuclear industry. Nuclear security must not be forgotten, even in times of pandemic.
With all eyes on pandemic, Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty still needs attention.
Nuclear waste disposal: Why the case for deep boreholes is … full of holes.
How will the IAEA spin the mind-boggling costs of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)?
There’s still time to make a submission opposing the nuclear waste dump!
Friendsof the Earth, 30 Mar 20 Please lodge a submission opposing the federal government’s nuclear waste dump plans
Thanks to the 700+ people who have already made a submission! The deadline has now been extended to 9 April 2020.
The National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment Bill amends the National Radioactive Waste Management Act to specifically target South Australia for a national nuclear waste ‘facility’ ‒ a repository for low-level waste and an above-ground ‘interim’ store for long-lived intermediate-level waste including nuclear reactor fuel waste.
The Bill is deeply flawed and should be rejected. Among other problems, the Bill and the existing Act systematically disempower and dispossess Barngarla Traditional Owners who are unanimous in their opposition to the proposed nuclear waste facility.
Please make a submission on or before 9 April to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee which is holding an inquiry to the Bill.
The easiest and quickest way to make a submission is to simply sign our online submission, adding any comments you like.
Click here to use our proforma
Alternatively, you can write your own submission and email it to: economics.sen@aph.gov.au
For information on the inquiry, click here.
For information on the National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment Bill 2020, click here.
Nuclear front group Energy Policy Institute joins with NuScam to promote Small Nuclear Reactors to Australia
A top Trump administration official has urged Australia to join the US in researching and building small “modular” nuclear reactors.Suzanne Jaworowski, chief of staff and senior adviser at the US Department of Energy, said about 45 companies in the US were working on small modular reactors and one could be built in Australia by the mid-2020s
“You could have up to 12 reactor modules each producing 60MW, even more reliably than coal and gas,” she told The Weekend Australian, recommending business and government work with NuScale Power, which is building an SMR in Idaho.
“They are at a point where they could work with a country like Australia,” she said.
Australia’s prohibition on nuclear energy, in force since the late 1990s, was “unfortunate”, she said. The growing push for zero emissions by mid-century could only be achieved with nuclear power, on current technology……
A federal inquiry into nuclear power suggested a partial reversal of the 1998 legislative ban on nuclear energy late last year. In NSW, state One Nation leader Mark Latham and state Nationals leader John Barilaro are pushing to dump a similar state ban.
Ms Jaworowski, who had to cancel a planned trip to Australia this year because of the coronavirus, said nuclear energy faced a “perception problem”. …… Ms Jaworowski said nuclear energy in the US could be supplied from small modular reactors at about $55 a MwH, “which is very competitive with other forms of energy”.
Liddell coal power station in NSW, with 2000MW capacity, is scheduled to close in 2023. The federal government, which has said lifting the nuclear ban would require bipartisan support, is putting together a “technology road map” to ensure large cuts in carbon emissions by 2050.
Ms Jaworowski said nuclear energy in the US could be supplied from small modular reactors at about $55 a MwH, “which is very competitive with other forms of energy”.
The Energy Policy Institute said the US, Russia and China were in a three-way contest to dominate the global nuclear generation market with SMRs. “The nuclear competition will be good for Australia because we need greater energy security than we’ve got at present,” institute executive director Robert Pritchard said. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/us-urges-australia-to-consider-nuclear/news-story/f555996beccc347f6b57bb9d1c126f77
A major scorecard gives the health of Australia’s environment less than 1 out of 10
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A major scorecard gives the health of Australia’s environment less than 1 out of 10, The Conversation, Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University, Luigi Renzullo, Senior Research Fellow, Australian National University, Marta Yebra, Senior lecturer, Australian National University, Shoshana Rapley, Research assistant, Australian National University, March 30, 2020
2019 was the year Australians confronted the fact that a healthy environment is more than just a pretty waterfall in a national park; a nice extra we can do without. We do not survive without air to breathe, water to drink, soil to grow food and weather we can cope with.Every year, we collate a vast number of measurements on the state of our environment: weather, oceans, fire, water, soils, vegetation, population pressure, and biodiversity. The data is collected in many different ways: by satellites, field stations, surveys and so on.
We process this data into several indicators of environmental health at both national and regional levels. The report for 2019, released today, makes for grim reading. It reveals the worst environmental conditions in many decades, perhaps centuries, and confirms the devastating damage global warming and mismanagement are wreaking on our natural resources. Immediate action is needed to put Australia’s environment on a course to recovery. Environment scores in the redFrom the long list of environmental indicators we report on, we use seven to calculate an Environmental Condition Score (ECS) for each region, as well as nationally. These seven indicators – high temperatures, river flows, wetlands, soil health, vegetation condition, growth conditions and tree cover – are chosen because they allow a comparison against previous years. In Australia’s dry environment, they tend to move up and down together, which gives the score more robustness. See the interactive graphic below [on original] to find the score for your region. Nationally, Australia’s environmental condition score fell by 2.3 points in 2019, to a very low 0.8 out of ten. This is the lowest score since at least 2000 – the start of the period for which we have detailed data. Condition scores declined in every state and territory. The worst conditions were seen in the Northern Territory (0.2 points), New South Wales (0.3 points) and Western Australia (0.4 points), with the latter also recording the greatest decline from the previous year (-5.7 points). What is most striking is that almost the entire nation suffered terrible environmental conditions in 2019. In each case, the changes can be traced back to dry, hot conditions. Only parts of Queensland escaped the drought…… Even before the fires, 40 plant and animal species were added to the threatened list in 2019, bringing the total to 1890. Following the fires, more species are likely to be added in 2020. We’re not doomed yetLast year was neither an outlier nor the “new normal” – it will get worse. Greenhouse gas concentrations continued to increase rapidly in 2019, causing the temperature of the atmosphere and oceans to soar. Australia’s population also continued to grow quickly and with it, greenhouse gases emissions and other pollution, and our demand for land to build, mine and farm on. Whether we want to hear it or not, last year represented another step towards an ever-more dismal future, unless we take serious action. https://theconversation.com/a-major-scorecard-gives-the-health-of-australias-environment-less-than-1-out-of-10-133444 |
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USA nuclear industry uses coronavirus to gouge $billions of tax-payer money
 Out of control?, While industry looks for handouts, NRC gives nod to reduced safety oversight, https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72759838/posts/2643325963By Linda Pentz Gunter 29 Mar 20, It was no surprise really, when the first to line up with outstretched palms as Congress debated and formulated its now passed $2 trillion coronavirus-prompted emergency relief bill, were nuclear corporations.The sinking nuclear power industry spotted an economic lifeline and couldn’t wait to make a grab for it. The Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear power industry, rushed off a letter to congressional leaders asking for a 30% tax credit and waivers for existing regulatory fees.
One of NEI’s apparently needy recipients is the financial fiasco known as Vogtle 3 and 4, the new nuclear power plant construction project in Georgia, which is already more than five years behind schedule and is projected to cost $28 billion, double the original predicted price. The two new Georgia reactors aren’t needed, and their continued slow progress is by no means a matter of national security right now — or at all. But the NEI would like to see a nice fat grant go to Georgia Power to continue construction there, even though the company has already received two federal loan guarantees totaling $12 billion. In addition, the company is also gouging ratepayers in advance to cover the costs for the two reactors through the state’s Construction Work in Progress law, with no guarantee that they will ever reach completion. Before long, the nuclear weapons manufacturers got in on the act as well. Wrote the group, Code Pink: “Boeing has the audacity to demand a $60 billion taxpayer bailout for their shareholders and CEO.” Boeing is responsible for the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, to be replaced this year with the misleadingly named Ground Based Strategic Deterrent. Boeing has also already received a $26.7 million contract from the U.S. Navy for Trident II D5 ballistic missile maintenance, rebuilding and technical services. Astonishingly, it was ultra conservative senator, Ted Cruz, who was one of those who pushed back against the corporate bailouts for the likes of Boeing and GE, manufacturer of the ill-fated Fukushima nuclear power plants and similar boiling water reactors in the US that are meltdowns waiting to happen. Cruz tweeted that “some are pushing for a special carve-out just for Boeing & GE. That would be WRONG. Millions are losing jobs; we don’t need bailouts or corporate welfare — those companies should participate in the same liquidity programs as everyone else.” But Boeing apparently got its wish. A $17 billion federal loan package contained in the stimulus bill passed by both the House and Senate and signed by President Trump on March 27, “was crafted largely for the company’s benefit,” according to reporting in the Washington Post. Boeing may also be able to dip its fingers into the “$58 billion the Senate package is providing in loans for cargo and passenger airlines, as well as the $425 billion in loans it is allocating to help firms, states and cities hurt by the current downturn,” wrote the Washington Post, even though, as Code Pink pointed out, alluding to the two 737 MAX disasters, Boeing is responsible for “defective civilian planes that plummet from the sky in mid-flight.” Boeing shares soared more than 24% on the day the Senate bill passed. The US is already spending $35.1 billion a year on its nuclear weapons arsenal. As the timely graph below [on original] from ICAN points out, this money could be redirected to a wealth of essential needs that would help quell the novel coronavirus in the US. … It’s not yet clear what portion of the stimulus money might go to the nuclear power industry, but the renewable energy sector took a hit. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, “the renewable energy industry had asked for — but did not get — extensions of deadlines related to construction or completion of solar and wind projects, without which they could lose access to time-sensitive tax credits. Industry associations were hopeful they’d be included in any later relief package.” There is also a $400 billion slush fund in the present legislation which can be used for loans and loan guarantees for large companies. Watch for the nuclear power industry to line up for a share of that in addition to its earlier pitch for a $23 billion bailout, which Lukas Ross, senior policy analyst with Friends of the Earth, called “a new low bar,,” and an attempt to use the coronavirus crisis “to try and brazenly grab more cash.” Meanwhile, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in its usual fashion, has used the opportunity presented by the corona crisis to relax its already somnific safety oversight even more, and will allow nuclear power plant operators to defer safety maintenance, inspections and fitness for duty requirements during the outbreak. “Regulations to ensure safety should be strengthened at a time like this — not weakened,” Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, told Power Magazine. “It means operating nuclear plants without basic safety inspections.” One measure would be to allow workers to put in longer shifts than safety regulations allow, a measure that would place unnecessary additional “stress and strain on workers that need to be fully attentive and alert in sensitive jobs,” Kamps told the Carolina Public Press. He recommended powering down reactors instead, particularly given the current reduction in demand. But if the coronavirus pandemic causes higher than usual absenteeism among vital nuclear plant personnel, the NRC has a plan for that. Under normal circumstances, operating with too few control room staff is a safety violation. But under the coronavirus conditions, this would be exempted, or forgiven by the NRC, creating an added safety risk. During a recent NRC and industry telephone meeting on the topic, Beyond Nuclear’s director of reactor oversight, Paul Gunter, asked whether the NRC had supplied its reactor site personnel with sufficient protective equipment, masks, and respirators, as per the Centers for Disease Control guidelines. “They blew it off, Gunter said. “They claimed it was a matter for OSHA.” Industry representatives on the call remained silent on the matter. Gunter added that Kamps’s suggestion to power down reactors in regions where the demand was reduced and excess generating capacity was already high, could allow for resting the remaining workforce and keeping them healthy and ready to replace workers at still operating plants where personnel have been hit hardest by reactor operator shortages and extended security shifts. “We should be planning on how to keep stable and safety-compliant electricity going,” Gunter said. “One way would be to create a protected pool of sequestered nuclear utility workers. But that is not happening. The industry is dictating to the regulator what the agenda will be.” So, business as usual. |
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Coronavirus Shows Us What Our Future Could Look Like During Climate Crisis
Coronavirus Shows Us What Our Future Could Look Like During Climate Crisis, BY Sharon Zhang, Truthout, March 29, 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly been absorbed into our collective consciousness, remaking the fabric of our lives. Suddenly, millions are sheltering in place, strangers have started wishing each other well when exiting grocery stores, people have stopped touching their faces and shelves that are normally stocked with bleach and hand sanitizer are barren.
For many, the looming sense of dread is a new sensation….
But for those of us who have lived in acute awareness of the reality of the climate crisis, the current state of pandemic dread feels awfully familiar — just a more imminent version of the dread about the climate that we have been feeling for years.
It’s a psychological phenomenon known informally in the climate community as climate anxiety, climate grief or eco-anxiety…….
Though the pandemic-panic that Mull and others have written on has been ongoing for the past few weeks, climate writers started opening up about their climate grief years ago. …….
But it’s not just psychological trauma that these two crises share — if you take the time to look, the similarities run wide and deep. These are twin worldwide crises that require global cooperation to defeat; they will ravage the way of life as we know it; they will affect, in one way or another, nearly every single person on Earth.
The economy as we know it — rather, as we knew it three months ago — will be a thing of the past if we let the climate crisis continue unmitigated…….
Economists are currently struggling to model all of the short-term effects of the pandemic, so many of those remain unknown. Climate researchers, however, have had much more time to model the future economic impacts of the climate crisis. By 2090, in the U.S. alone and under the same high emissions scenario, NCA researchers predict that costs from mortality due to extreme temperatures will total $141 billion a year, losses of coastal property will total $118 billion a year, and labor losses will cost $155 billion a year. That’s equivalent to a Hurricane Katrina every single year, just from lost labor.
The health care system, too, will be overwhelmed by the climate crisis, just as hospital beds are rapidly being filled by COVID-19 patients. In some places, the climate crisis has already given a preview of this: In 2018, record heat waves caused U.K. hospitals to utilize emergency procedures, when people were being sent to the hospital in such an overwhelming volume that ambulances had to line up outside.
Though COVID-19 is causing hospitals to fill up simultaneously nationwide, “climate-related events will be more limited in their spatial scale, but will be increasingly frequent over time,” says Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. A heat wave in San Francisco won’t set the whole country ablaze, but it could overwhelm the local health care system.
The key difference between illness caused by a pandemic and the climate crisis, Dahl points out, is that it’s much easier to trace the illness caused by the former. “Things like hurricanes and heat waves and wildfires have always occurred,” she says, but, “to some extent, we know that we are amping them up by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.”
This is likely, in part, why the federal government has quickly pivoted to action on COVID-19, while greenhouse gases have remained largely untouched by Congress for decades. While right-wing media and politicians denied the consequences of inaction on the virus just weeks ago, they have quickly had to change their tune as the spread of the virus has become undeniable. Whereas with long-term, gradual change, it’s easy for deniers to blame such things as the severity of the bushfires in Australia on anything but increasingly hot and arid conditions caused by climate change.
The ruling class has also had less motivation to address the climate crisis because the people suffering the most are, disproportionately, already marginalized. Poor, Black and health-compromised people are and will be the hardest hit by both crises — and some are already being affected by both at once. Air pollution is continually one of the most pronounced issues of environmental justice, and physicians have said those with continual exposure to air pollution are likely to be more vulnerable to the effects of coronavirus……..
“Coronavirus has made so clear that global issues can’t be easily categorized as just a health issue or just an environmental issue,” says says Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “They really encompass our broader economy and encompass or entire social systems and ways of life.” ….. https://truthout.org/articles/coronavirus-shows-us-what-our-future-could-look-like-during-climate-crisis/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=5e383daa-77a3-48e3-a6f5-f82b689f50fc
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the “nuclear village” hoped the Olympics would normalize Japan’s radiological aftermath
Abe’s decision to host the Olympics in the first place, and to plan to start the torch relay in Fukushima, as mere pretense that all is well in the prefecture, despite widespread contamination that continues since 2011.
The claim about the necessity of nuclear power makes little sense. Since 2011, the country has been generating only a fraction of the nuclear electricity it used to generate, and yet the lights have not gone off in Japan.
the Abe government seems to be involved in lowering incentives for the development of solar energy, and instead promoting nuclear power.
Efforts by Prime Minister Abe to support the failing and flailing nuclear sector in Japan are indicative of the significant political power wielded by the “nuclear village,” the network of power companies, regulators, bureaucrats and researchers that control nuclear and energy policy. The actions of the nuclear village is one of the factors responsible for the Fukushima accident.
Nuclear flame fizzles in Japan, But leaders still cling to failing nuclear power
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the “nuclear village” hoped the Olympics would normalize Japan’s radiological aftermath. But the Fukushima effect has meant zero nuclear exports, leading the government to shore up the nuclear industry at home at the expense of renewables. Beyond Nuclear, By Cassandra Jeffery and M.V. Ramana 29 Mar 20, Last week, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to delay the 2020 Summer Olympic Games because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they will keep the Olympic flame burning in Fukushima Prefecture. The torch relay route was to have begun there, a poor decision, given the meltdown of multiple reactors in Fukushima nine years ago in March 2011. While radiation levels may have declined since 2011, there are still hotspots in the prefecture, including at the sports complex where the torch relay would have begun and along the relay route.
The persistence of this contamination, and the economic fallout of the reactor accidents, should remind us of the hazardous nature of nuclear power. Simultaneously, changes in the economics of alternative sources of energy in the last decade invite us to reconsider how countries, including Japan, should generate electricity in the future….
opposition is evident in Japan too, where opinion polls show overwhelming lack of support for the government’s plans to restart nuclear plants that have been shut down after the Fukushima accidents. Continue reading
March 29 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Off-The-Radar Renewable Energy Explosion After COVID-19 Dust Settles” • Renewable energy advocates raised the alarm when it became clear that the new $2 trillion stimulus package will not shine so kindly on wind, solar, and other clean tech. But the groundwork for a low carbon revolution was laid by another stimulus bill, passed […]
NSW approves coal mine expansion under drinking water catchment — RenewEconomy
NSW Berejiklian government quietly waves through planning approvals for coal mine expansion under Sydney drinking water catchment, ignoring criticism from environmental groups. The post NSW approves coal mine expansion under drinking water catchment appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via NSW approves coal mine expansion under drinking water catchment — RenewEconomy
Sydney car dealer makes electric cars available on subscription — RenewEconomy
Hyundai’s Kona Electric and Ioniq can now be booked under subscription model from Northern Beaches auto dealer Col Crawford. The post Sydney car dealer makes electric cars available on subscription appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Sydney car dealer makes electric cars available on subscription — RenewEconomy
Covid-19 could stop new Australia wind and solar projects, wipe out global growth — RenewEconomy
The global Covid-19 pandemic is expected to hit planned wind and solar projects in Australia and other countries particularly hard, and wipe out any anticipated growth in renewables deployment in 2020, according to a new study. The Norway-based Rystad Energy says it had expected global solar additions to grow 15% to 140 gigawatts in 2020,……
via Covid-19 could stop new Australia wind and solar projects, wipe out global growth — RenewEconomy
1.This month
For international nuclear news go to https://nuclear-news.ne
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EVENTS
Celebrating the entry into force of the Nuclear Weapons Ban– follow this link to find events in Adelaide, Ballarat,Canberra, Fremantle, Alice Springs, Melbourne, Sydney and more.
NATIONAL EVENTS ONLINE:
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: BANNED
Join the Tom Uren Memorial Fund and Anthony Albanese MP
22nd of January at 6-7pm AEDT via zoom.
Register here.
The 22nd of January 2021 is the day the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons enters into force. From this day onwards, nuclear weapons will be illegal under international law.
Join the Tom Uren Memorial Fund to celebrate this historic day, honour the past and look ahead towards Australia’s ratification of the treaty.
Contact: Gem Romuld, 0421 955 066 / gem@icanw.org.
CELEBRATE A NUCLEAR WEAPONS FREE FUTURE
22nd of January at 9am AEST Brisbane / 10am AEDT Sydney via zoom.
Register here.
One-hour webinar hosted by WILPF, ICAN and others. Featuring former federal Senator for QLD Claire Moore, Ray Acheson (US, WILPF), Aunty Sue Coleman-Haseldine, Dimity Hawkins AM (ICAN co-founder), Bishop Philip Huggins (President of the National Council of Churches in Australia).
Submissions to the Senate Committee Inquiry into National Radioactive Management Amendment Bill. 2020. Go to our summaries of significant submissions, conveniently listed in alphabetical order at Kimba waste dump submissions or see all submissions listed at Read the Submissions
