The week in nuclear and climate news
Can’t keep up with the Covid-19 news. Crazy world? Disney reopens Florida theme parks as state smashes US record for new coronavirus cases. Big global problems now more obviously intertwining – From Covid-19 to climate: what’s next after the global oil and gas industry crash?
Extreme weather, exacerbated by global heating just keeps on happening. The new normal for Northern Siberia – thawing permafrost,forests on fire. Millions in southern China face floods caused by heavy rains. Floods and landslides lash Nepal, scores dead. Deadly Flooding in Japan. Record heat possible from California to Florida on Sunday.
While the world is preoccupied with Covid-19, and with national responses, and economic effects, climate change should not be forgotten, as it moves on inexorably. Climate change’s big problem – there’s no quick fix. Climate change is seriously hitting women, right now.
July 16 will be the 75 years’ anniversary of the first nuclear bomb detonation. Why do we hear so little about this other sword of Damocles hanging over our collective heads. ? Globally taxpayers $billions go to nuclear weapons, with the ever increasing risk of nuclear war and nuclear winter, resulting from accident, human error, misunderstanding, or “limited” or unlimited nuclear attack.
A bit of (qualified) good news. – Why New Zealand decided to go for full elimination of the coronavirus. Coronavirus: No new cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation in New Zealand. Covid-19 coronavirus: Ashley Bloomfield’s warning as NZ records lowest testing day since March.
AUSTRALIA
CLIMATE. Australia a big world player in producing greenhouse gas emissions. Australia now the biggest exporter of global heating– the Saudi Arabia of coal and gas. In contradiction to Angus Taylor, Australia’s Minister On Behalf of Polluting Industries, the States are leading on clean energy. Revealed: How the big energy lobby tried to use Covid-19 to derail energy market reforms. Pressure on new member for Eden Monaro Kristy McBain to live up to climate credentials. Court action in India against Adani – allegations of ‘coercion, fraud and undue influence’.
NUCLEAR.
Keep Australia’s nuclear prohibition laws: it appears that nuclear is no part of climate action, not necessary.
Kimba “interim” nuclear waste site – bad news, uncannily like the misguided New Mexico waste plan.
RENEWABLE ENERGY . NSW sets itself for biggest and quickest transition from coal to renewables. Dubbo’s new renewables zone shows the path away from fossil fuels. West Australia ready to seize ‘once-in-a-generation’ battery storage opportunity. Queensland Energy Minister Lynham keen on renewable energy zones, warns LNP will bring renewables to a halt. “Five times size of Snowy 2.0” – V2G trial to tap potential of EVs as mass mobile storage . Uni Newcastle’s printable solar cell innovation gets real-world test. Foreign nuclear waste headed to Australia.
INTERNATIONAL
Paul Ehrlich warns that overpopulation and overconsumption are driving us over the edge .
Warning of serious brain disorders in people with mild coronavirus symptoms.
American-Israeli strategy developing for clandestine not-quite-war strikes on Iran?
Lower-latitude oceans drive complex changes in the Arctic Ocean. Faith in Climate Action — The Church’s Response to Hothouse Earth. Facebook allows climate denial propaganda, and restricts climate scientists.
Radiation-related health hazards to uranium miners.
Uni Newcastle’s printable solar cell innovation gets real-world test — RenewEconomy
Flexible and printable solar panels developed by the University of Newcastle get first real-world test in new community shade structures in Sydney. The post Uni Newcastle’s printable solar cell innovation gets real-world test appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Uni Newcastle’s printable solar cell innovation gets real-world test — RenewEconomy
Dangerous nuclear waste casks should stay off roads and rails
Radioactive rail wreck, Dangerous nuclear waste casks should stay off roads and rails , rails https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/07/12/radioactive-rail-wreck/, Beyond Nuclear By Laura Watchempino 12 July 20,
If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) conclusion that it’s safe to move spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants across the country to a proposed storage facility in Lea County sounds vanilla-coated, it’s because the draft environmental impact statement for a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility submitted by Holtec International did not address how the casks containing the spent fuel would be transported to New Mexico.
It’s likely the casks would be transported primarily by rail using aging infrastructure in need of constant repair. But our rail systems were not built to support the great weight of these transport casks containing thin-wall fuel storage canisters.
Nor was the potential for cracked or corroded canisters to leak radiation studied because an earlier NRC Generic EIS for the Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel assumed damaged fuel storage canisters would be detected during an intermediary dry transfer system or a pool.
But Holtec’s proposal only addresses a new destination for the high-level nuclear waste – not the removal and transport of the fuel storage canisters from nuclear power plants to New Mexico.
Even transport casks with canisters that are not damaged will release radiation as they are transported from nuclear power plants to the storage facility, exposing populations along the transport routes in a majority of states and tribal communities in New Mexico to repeated doses of radiation.
Other issues not considered in the draft EIS were the design life of the thin-wall canisters encasing the nuclear fuel rods and faulty installation at reactor sites like San Onofre, or the self-interest of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance in using the land it acquired for a consolidated interim storage site.
Thin-wall canisters cannot be inspected for cracks and the fuel rods inside are not retrievable for inspection or monitoring without destroying the canister. NRC does not require continuous monitoring of the storage canisters for pressure changes or radiation leaks. The fuel rods inside the canisters could go critical, or result in an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction, if water enters the canisters through cracks, admits both Holtec and the NRC. None of us are safe if any canister goes critical.
Yet a site-specific storage application like Holtec’s should have addressed NRC license requirements for leak testing and monitoring, as well as the quantity and type of material that will be stored at the site, such as low burnup nuclear fuel and high burnup fuel.
Irradiated nuclear fuel is safer (but not safe) stored at the reactor site rather than transported thousands of miles to New Mexico. (Image: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
With so many deficiencies in the draft EIS, a reasonable alternative is to leave this dangerous radioactive nuclear waste at the nuclear plants that produced it in dry cask storage rather than multiply the risk by transporting thousands of containers that could be damaged across many thousands of miles and decades to southeastern New Mexico, then again to a permanent repository.
Interim storage of spent nuclear fuel at existing nuclear plant sites is already happening – there are 65 sites with operating reactors in the United States and dry cask storage is licensed at 35 of these sites in 24 states. But since the thin-wall canisters storing the fuel rods are at risk for major radioactive releases, they should be replaced with thick-walled containers that can be monitored and maintained. The storage containers should be stored away from coastal waters and flood plains in hardened buildings.
Attempting to remove this stabilized nuclear waste from where it is securely stored across hundreds or thousands of miles through our homelands and backyards to a private storage facility also raises some thorny liability issues, since the United States will then be relieved of overseeing the spent nuclear fuel in perpetuity.
The states and nuclear plants that want to send us their long-lived radioactive waste will also be off the hook, leaving New Mexico holding a dangerously toxic bag without any resources to address the gradual deterioration of man-made materials or worse, a catastrophic event. It’s a win/win, however, for Holtec International and the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance.
Ironically, just a few years ago, the US Environmental Protection Agency had expressed opposition to mass transportation of another kind of radioactive waste. In a classic example of environmental injustice, the EPA balked at removing uranium mine waste on the Navajo Nation, because, it said, “Off-site disposal, because of the amount of waste in and around these areas, means possibly multiple years of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trucks going in and out of the community and driving for miles”.
The agency told the affected communities, during discussion about digging up the uranium mine waste and transporting it to a licensed repository in different states outside the Navajo Nation, that this option, also the Nation’s preference, was the most expensive. But now New Mexico is the destination for precisely the reverse, with hundreds and thousands of transports from different states coming to deposit the country’s nuclear waste site radioactive debris on Native soil.
Laura Watchempino is with the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment/Pueblo of Acoma. A version of this article first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal and is republished with kind permission of the author.
Northern Siberia’s new normal – forests on fire
The Moscow Times reports economic losses from thawing permafrost alone is expected to cost Russia’s economy up to $2.3 billion US per year. Last year’s fires likely cost rural communities in the region almost $250 million US. In March, Russia announced 29 measures it would be taking to try to deal with climate change over its vast landmass but critics complained the efforts have been more focused on exploiting natural resources in the Arctic than mitigating the impacts of a warming climate.
“They are actively going after every mineral and oil and gas deposit that they can,”
As permafrost thaws under intense heat, Russia’s Siberia burns — again, https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/siberia-burning-climate-change-russia-1.5645428
Russia’s northern landscape is being transformed by heat and fire, Chris Brown · CBC News : Jul 12, Right around now, University of British Columbia climatologist and tundra researcher Greg Henry would usually be up at Alexandra Fiord on the central-east coast of Canada’s Ellesmere Island experiencing the Arctic’s warming climate up close.
Instead, the pandemic has kept his research team grounded in Vancouver — and his focus has shifted to observing the dramatic events unfolding across the Arctic ocean in northern Siberia.
“It’s remarkable — it’s scary,” said Henry of the incredible run of high temperatures in Russia’s far north that have been breaking records for the past month.
This week, a European Union climate monitoring project reported temperatures in June were up to 10 degrees higher than usual in some parts of Russia’s Arctic, with an overall rise of five degrees.
The heat and dry tundra conditions have also triggered vast forest fires. Currently, 1.77 million hectares of land are burning with expectations that the total fire area could eventually surpass the 17 million hectares that burned in 2019.
Equally striking is where the fires are burning.
“Now we are seeing these fires within 15 kilometres of the Arctic Ocean,” said Henry. “Usually there’s not much fuel to burn there, because it’s kept cold by the ocean so you don’t get ignition of fires that far north.”
This year though, he said the heat has dried the ground out enough to change the dynamics.
“It’s a harbinger of what we are in for because the Arctic has been warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet.”
Environmental disaster Continue reading
Movement in Japan to suspend Olympic Games
Increasing voices in Japan for the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/2663585/posts/2804625668
On 7th June Mr Yukio Hatoyama, former Prime Minister of Japan, addressed me a message, expressing his views on the Tokyo Olympics : ”I always thought that instead of spending money on the Tokyo Olympics, the state should use these funds for the decontamination of the affected areas and to compensate the Fukushima nuclear disaster victims.“
He has expressed deep sympathy for the athletes placed in unbearable uncertainties preparing for the postponed Olympics. He urges that the sooner the decision the better for the athletes, since we all know that the Corona pandemic will oblige the Tokyo Olympic Games to be cancelled.
This message has given rise to reactions both in Japan and abroad.As an example,I am sharing with you a mail sent to me by a Japanese living in Germany.
In addition to the Covid-19 crisis, Japan is being cruelly assailed by natural disasters, unprecedented rainfalls and subsequent floods and landslides among others.
Japan faces a national crisis.
With warmest and highest regards,
Mitsuhei Murata
(Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland)
——– Forwarded Message ——–Dear Dr Alex Dear Dr Jörg Schmid;
cc: Mr Mitsuhei Murata, Mr Etsuji Watanabe
Recently I have acquired interesting information from Mr Mitsuhei Murata, former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland, and Mr Etsuji Watanabe, a member of the ACSIR (Association for Citizens and Scientists Concerned about Internal Radiation Exposures), who are two of the leading lights in the anti-nuclear movements in Japan, that there is increasing support within the Japanese society for the complete cancellation, rather than postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games.
On 7th June Mr Yukio Hatoyama, former Prime Minister of Japan, wrote to Mr Mitsuhei Murata, expressing his views on the Tokyo Olympics : ”I always thought that instead of spending money on the Tokyo Olympics, the state should use these funds for the decontamination of the affected areas and to compensate the Fukushima nuclear disaster victims.“
Subsequently Mr Murata wrote to Mr Thomas Bach, President of the IOC in order to convey this important message :
Dear President Thomas Bach,
Please allow me to inform you of a message a sent to me yesterday from former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
He has expressed deep sympathy for the athletes placed in unbearable uncertainties preparing for the postponed Olympics. He urges that the sooner the decision the better for the athletes, since we all know that the Corona pandemic will oblige the Tokyo Olympic Games to be cancelled.
In a press interview article published in January 2016,he made public his plea to consecrate maximum efforts to bringing Fukushima under control.
He has proven himself to be far-sighted. His vision for the future is in conformity with the dawning new world.
With highest and warmest regards,
Mitsuhei Murata
(Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland)
Mr Etsuji Watanabe told me that an overwhelming number of anti-nuclear activists are calling for the immediate cancellation of the Olympics. There will be demonstrations on 24th July, on which the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games were to commence, in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo. They will be demanding to stop the Olympic Games.
Best regards,
Rie
July 12 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “Shockingly Simple: How Farmland Could Absorb An Extra 2 Billion Tonnes Of CO₂ From The Atmosphere Each Year” • Adding crushed rock dust to farmland could draw down up to two billion tonnes of CO₂ from the air per year and help meet key global climate targets, according to a major […]
Antinuclear 