Pacific states entitled to claims against Japan for discharge of radioactive nuclear wastewater
As a contracting party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident, and the Convention on Nuclear Safety, Japan has knowingly violated them all by making such a dangerous decision. Without exhausting all safe means of disposal, disclosing all information, or fully consulting with surrounding countries and international organizations, the Japanese government went ahead and unilaterally decided to dump its wastewater into the ocean in a flagrant attempt to pass on the disastrous consequences to other Pacific countries. Those countries have every right to defend their rights and interests through legal means.
Li Weichao http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2023-01/06/content_10210311.htm
“We must remind Japan that if the radioactive nuclear wastewater is safe, just dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris and store it in Washington, but keep our Pacific nuclear-free.” Vanuatu’s famous politician Motarilavoa Hilda Lini spoke for all people living in the Pacific region when making this statement.
The Japanese government announced in April 2021 that it will begin dumping the nuclear wastewater stored at Fukushima into the ocean from the spring of 2023. As that day is approaching, the international community is voicing waves of objection, and people living in the Pacific region have consistently expressed their strong protest. Analysts said if Japan did discharge the wastewater into the Pacific Ocean as planned, the Pacific countries would have the right to claim damages.
Japan decided to just dump the wastewater into the ocean in order to save trouble and money, at the price of transferring nuclear contamination to the whole world, which is extremely irresponsible and selfish. South Pacific countries have suffered enough from nuclear contamination. From 1946 to 1958, the US conducted 67 nuclear weapon tests on the Marshall Islands, the aftermaths of which are still haunting the local residents in the form of radioactive poisoning, contamination of marine species, and leak from radwaste landfill.
The Fukushima nuclear station had the highest-level nuclear accident that produced an enormous amount of nuclear wastewater – more than 1.3 million tons in storage right now. Even though Japanese politicians claimed that the wastewater is safe enough for drinking after being treated with the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), that’s simply not true.
A Japanese NGO recently released an article saying that treated nuclear wastewater still contains 64 kinds of radioactive substances, including tritium, which, once released into the ocean, will contaminate the marine environment and spread through the food chain, till eventually taking a toll on human health and the ecological environment. A report released by Greenpeace, an international environmental protection organization, showed that the technology currently adopted by Japan cannot get rid of the Sr90 and C14 in the wastewater, which are even more damaging than tritium with their half-life of 50 years and 5,730 years respectively.
It’s foreseeable that dumping Fukushima’s more than 1.3 million tons of nuclear wastewater into the ocean is a murderous move for people living along the ocean and will put the marine ecology at stake with irreversible outcomes. A renowned environmental protection organization of Pacific island countries said that such an irresponsible move of transboundary pollution is no different from waging a nuclear war against the people and the islands in the Pacific region.
As a contracting party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident, and the Convention on Nuclear Safety, Japan has knowingly violated them all by making such a dangerous decision. Without exhausting all safe means of disposal, disclosing all information, or fully consulting with surrounding countries and international organizations, the Japanese government went ahead and unilaterally decided to dump its wastewater into the ocean in a flagrant attempt to pass on the disastrous consequences to other Pacific countries. Those countries have every right to defend their rights and interests through legal means.
In fact, there are already precedents for claims of this kind. For instance, the International Arbitration Tribunal ruled in 1938 and 1941 that Canada’s Trail Smelter should compensate America’s State of Washington for the damages caused by the SO2 it emitted. The “Trail Smelter case” is generally considered the basis for holding countries committing transboundary pollution accountable. Countries along the Pacific Ocean can totally refer to it and pursue claims against Japan after scientifically measuring the damages imposed upon them.
The ocean is the common wealth and symbiotic home for humanity. Dumping nuclear wastewater into it is not Japan’s internal affair. Right now the IAEA is still conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the wastewater at Fukushima, and Japan’s pushing for the dumping plan reveals its intention to make it a fait accompli regardless of the concerns of other parties. Japan’s egregious atrocities in history have already caused horrendous miseries to the surrounding countries. Does it plan to add another entry to its infamous track record now?
Editor’s note: Originally published on news.cri.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
The problem with nuclear energy advocates
There is something curiously bewitching about nuclear power that makes its backers disciples rather than advocates. They become nuclear champions first rather than energy champions (which is what everyone should be), and are either unaware of or intentionally ignoring the fact that most of the time, they are putting their efforts into a solution that is looking for a problem.
ROUGH TRADE, By Ben Kritz, January 10, 2023
I WAS asked over the weekend if I planned to respond to a recent letter to the editor (“SMR issues addressed,” published on January 5), which said it was a reaction to my December 29 column about small modular reactor (SMR) technology and the problems that have been encountered in trying to make it commercially practical.
No, I responded, I had not planned to react to the letter because I could not see much in it to actually react to; while polite and thoughtful, it essentially boiled down to the same long-on-enthusiasm and short-on-specifics kind of pitch for SMR technology I see every day.
Maybe that’s exactly the point you need to address, my annoying yet helpful self-appointed consultant suggested.
I realized she’s right; there’s a bigger problem with nuclear energy and its advocates than just the technical and economic details that make it difficult to develop and use. There is something curiously bewitching about nuclear power that makes its backers disciples rather than advocates. They become nuclear champions first rather than energy champions (which is what everyone should be), and are either unaware of or intentionally ignoring the fact that most of the time, they are putting their efforts into a solution that is looking for a problem.
For the record, my December 29 column dealt with two more exotic forms of SMR technology, the traveling wave reactor (TWR) and the Natrium reactor; the basic difference between the two being that the latter uses uranium fuel that is enriched to a concentration that is four or five times what is used in a conventional reactor, and the former is designed to use unenriched or depleted uranium fuel. For a variety of reasons, both of those technologies are at least eight to 10 years from even being functional, and whether or not they can be made economical at all is still an open question.
The discussion about the less extreme and more common form of SMR technology was in the column prior to that, on December 27, and detailed obstacles with the development of commercial-ready SMRs that have been identified through actually trying to build an SMR plant, on the one hand, and a couple of reliable studies by nuclear experts (Stanford University and the Argonne National Laboratory) on the other.
The first obstacle is cost. A plant being constructed in rural Idaho by SMR developer NuScale — which is designed to eventually consist of six 77-megawatt units — has run into massive cost overruns, despite the assumption that SMRs are relatively inexpensive due to being smaller and simpler than conventional nuclear plants. NuScale is hoping to have the first of the six units online by 2029, but the per-megawatt-hour cost of the plant has hit $58, the threshold set by the consortium of six utilities in the western US which are financing the project to decide whether or not to continue.
The reason for this is that at that cost, there are already a variety of conventional and renewable energy generation sources available, so there is nothing to be gained by building the SMR complex, no matter how cutting-edge its technology may be.
The second obstacle is waste management. Again, because SMRs are smaller and less complex than conventional nuclear power plants, it is assumed that they would produce less radioactive waste, both of the more dangerous high-level variety in the form of spent fuel and the low-level variety in the form of wastewater and contaminated discarded equipment and other materials.
This, however, is not the case, according to the Stanford and Argonne studies, both published last year. Both studies found the same result, that SMRs produce about as much waste as conventional light-water reactors, but differed in their subjective interpretation. The Stanford researchers concluded that this contraindicated the use of SMRs since they do not offer any improvement in waste management, while Argonne’s lead scientist suggested that the result was more positive, as it demonstrated using SMRs wouldn’t be any worse than conventional nuclear power.
Contrary to our recent reader-correspondent’s assertions, neither of those issues — the only two I focused on concerning SMRs, because they are not hypothetical, but demonstrated by real-world experience or analysis — are “addressed” at all by what he presented, which is “a unique approach to SMRs” being developed by an unnamed enterprise only identified as being Seattle-based. The design, according to him, uses “widely available, cheap low-enriched uranium” (as I have pointed out more than once, except for reactors running on exotic fuel like the Natrium, fuel is actually the least of the cost issues for a nuclear plant); do not need to be refueled (are they then considered disposable?); and “are safe enough that their ‘plug-and-play’ generators can be placed anywhere with little infrastructure investment and without any special security.”
As for the application of this mysterious miracle technology in the Philippines, the company in question is “confident that they can satisfy all the requirements of the Philippine government regulators, the power companies and the public. They could even achieve the objective of having the current president preside over the ribbon-cutting ceremony before he leaves office.”
First of all, if the developer of this game-changing technology has created something that is ready enough that they are actively seeking a foothold in the Philippine market, one would think that they would be willing, even eager, to be clearly identified. I suspect I know who it is, and if I’m right, I’m going to be very disappointed because then this sly press release in the form of a letter to the editor (and yes, that’s exactly what it is; I get three or four press releases a day from different companies or trade publications that sound exactly like this) doesn’t even begin to answer questions that have already been raised about this specific company’s technology.
Second, even if this is just a standard-design SMR, we already know that a commercial version in its own country of origin will not be operational by the time President Marcos steps down, let alone be available to the Philippines. Local requirements might indeed be satisfied, but before that can even happen, the hoops that both US and Philippine stakeholders will have to jump through in order to secure export authorization from the US government — with the resulting agreement also needing approval from the Philippine Senate, the sort of thing it never acts quickly on — will take a couple of years at a minimum.
The Philippines could use nuclear energy, and it’s rational not to completely discount the future possibility of its doing so, provided a very long list of conditions are satisfactorily met. But it is in no position to serve as a test site for novel ideas that have been clearly demonstrated to be years from being a viable, let alone a practical, best option. Trying to mislead the public into believing that a magical solution is available for the asking — proselytizing for nuclear energy, rather than seeking actual attainable solutions for the country’s rather more immediate energy problems — is going to achieve very little, except to disappoint people and ensure this won’t be a market for whatever you’re selling.
“Coal truck-sized loopholes” loom as Labor floats Safeguard Mechanism reforms — RenewEconomy
Labor unveils proposed suite of reforms to make the Safeguard Mechanism fit for purpose. Greens say, try again. The post “Coal truck-sized loopholes” loom as Labor floats Safeguard Mechanism reforms appeared first on RenewEconomy.
“Coal truck-sized loopholes” loom as Labor floats Safeguard Mechanism reforms — RenewEconomy
Big solar smashes Australian generation record, crunches coal, to close out 2022 — RenewEconomy
Utility-scale solar generation notches up biggest month ever in Australia in December of 2022 and helps send NSW black coal output to new low. The post Big solar smashes Australian generation record, crunches coal, to close out 2022 appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Big solar smashes Australian generation record, crunches coal, to close out 2022 — RenewEconomy
Carbon credit scheme review falls short – and problems will continue to fester — RenewEconomy
An independent review of Australia’s controversial carbon credit system concluded it is largely sound. How the panel reached this conclusion is hard to fathom. The post Carbon credit scheme review falls short – and problems will continue to fester appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Carbon credit scheme review falls short – and problems will continue to fester — RenewEconomy
Greek developer reaches financial close on another 230MW of Australian solar projects — RenewEconomy
Mytilineos has reached financial close on a second portfolio of projects in Australia, two solar farms in Queensland and one in New South Wales. The post Greek developer reaches financial close on another 230MW of Australian solar projects appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Greek developer reaches financial close on another 230MW of Australian solar projects — RenewEconomy
Adam Tooze: Why Nuclear Fusion Is Not the Holy Grail
Of course, the amount of energy necessary to generate the laser beam is multiples larger—in the case of this laser beam, somewhere between 150 times larger than the amount that actually reaches the fuel materials. So this is still a powerfully net negative reaction that we have going on here; it uses more energy than it produces
It’s directly related to the military industrial complex, and so the synergies are there. It’s also very expensive; it requires a lot of capital investment, so the engineering companies like getting in on this.
A recent breakthrough is good news, but renewables are still the better bet.
FP.com By Cameron Abadi, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy. 9 Jan 23
Last month in California, a nuclear reactor produced 3.15 megajoules of energy using only 2.05 megajoules of energy input. That surplus has been treated as a major breakthrough in the future of energy because it was produced through the process of nuclear fusion. Experts have talked for decades about nuclear fusion’s potential as a carbon neutral source of energy without any of nuclear energy’s toxic waste.
What were the economics behind this breakthrough technology? Might it provide a status boost to old-fashioned engineering relative to computer engineering? And what’s the path from laboratory success to industrial use? Those are a few of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with FP economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze. What follows is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity.
For the full conversation, look for Ones and Tooze wherever you get your podcasts.
………………… Adam Tooze: It’s a project that goes back originally to some really far-out thinking in the 1950s about uses that could be made of atomic bombs for the purposes of power generation. And the original idea was literally to organize a continuous stream of atomic explosions underground—you know, find some suitably stable caves, and explode several atomic bombs a day to keep a huge mass of water boiling to generate lots of steam. Anyway, that’s where it started.
But out of all of this, from the late 1960s onward, came more serious programs in fusion energy, which essentially focused on lasers. And that’s what this National Ignition Facility is—it is the ultimate fire lighter, right? Basically it’s a gigantic torch or something—the sort of effect that you generate as a Boy Scout or a Cub Scout or whatever, when you start a fire by concentrating the heat of the sun using a magnifying glass. So that’s essentially what we’re doing. And the stunning success of the current round of experiments announced by the U.S. Department of Energy to the public a few weeks ago now is that now for the first time ever, the amount of energy generated by the fusion reaction is larger than the amount of energy fired at it by the laser.
Of course, the amount of energy necessary to generate the laser beam is multiples larger—in the case of this laser beam, somewhere between 150 times larger than the amount that actually reaches the fuel materials. So this is still a powerfully net negative reaction that we have going on here; it uses more energy than it produces……….
CA: How long are we still from having fusion as a workable source of energy? What is the path generally from basic research to industrial use?
AT: I think the only honest answer to this in general is that we do not know the answer to this. You know, there was somebody talking to the New York Times and it really took me aback because this expert assumed that the answer was half a century away. …. it could easily be many decades.
……….. AT: I think, fundamentally- it’s gee whiz, final frontier, extraordinary stuff. And the physics involved are mind-blowing; the engineering is crazy and so much more exciting than just a solar panel sitting beat up in a field somewhere or on a roof or a windmill slowly turning.
It’s directly related to the military industrial complex, and so the synergies are there. It’s also very expensive; it requires a lot of capital investment, so the engineering companies like getting in on this. You know, as much as this National Ignition Facility is a public project, the $3.5 billion were mainly not spent on scientists. It was mainly spent on extremely complex raw materials and labor necessary to build the facilities, and much of that goes to the private sector. So there was a huge private sector stake in these kinds of projects.
But having said all of that, our experience both at the level of economics and at the level of politics with this particular set of technologies—those to do with nuclear power, fission, and fusion—over the last 50 years has been sobering. And on the whole, they appear at this point to be both massively unpopular technologies and, in some cases, hugely politicized technologies as well as incredibly expensive in terms of capital costs—not in terms of operating them but in terms of capital cost to build them.
…………… it’s pretty difficult to see what the case is for investing in new capacity when the costs are as explosively uneconomic.
So that is why I find it difficult to make the case for either conventional atomic power or fusion power as an immediately practical or relevant answer to the issues facing Western countries in the chase for a solution to the problem of the energy transition and decarbonization. And we are lucky, extraordinarily lucky, that renewable technologies have come on as quickly as they have. We should double down on this. We should invest even more.
CA: Can this kind of breakthrough serve to raise the status of materials engineering relative to computer engineering or even financial engineering? Is the old-fashioned kind of engineering in need of that kind of status boost in our society?
AT ………..I actually looked at the data for the National Science Foundation, and it turns out that among Ph.D.s of all types, it’s the humanities and the social sciences that we need to worry about because the share of doctorates in engineering—and this is distinct from computer science—is in fact on the rise and has been very dramatically over the last 20 years…. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/08/adam-tooze-why-nuclear-fusion-is-not-the-holy-grail/
January 9 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Why Nuclear Fusion Is Not The Holy Grail” • Last month, scientists made a breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy. The reaction produced more energy than it consumed. But the numerous inefficiencies this statement ignores aren’t the only problem. A useful fusion reactor is still a long way off, and we don’t know how […]
January 9 Energy News — geoharvey
1.This month.
Zoom webinar – “Nuclear Winter: The Environmental Consequences of a Nuclear Exchange.”
April 7th at 11:30 am PST / 2:30 pm EST
Nuclear Winter: The Environmental Consequences of a Nuclear Exchange”
Join us for an informative webinar with renowned atmospheric scientist, Professor Brian Toon, as he discusses the environmental risks and global impacts of a nuclear war. Despite the potential damage caused by the blast from even small nuclear weapons, many countries continue to invest in and expand nuclear arsenals. Professor Toon will provide a scientific assessment of civilian fatalities, agricultural failures, climate concerns, and complications with food supply that would follow any international nuclear conflict. We need to plan how to prevent nuclear conflict and avoid catastrophe. Politicians and military planners must be made aware of global climate and agricultural complications that would ensue. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from, and engage in, this vital conversation
The Road to War brings a sharp focus to why it is not in Australia’s best interest to be dragged into a war with China which will almost inevitably go nuclear very quickly. The filmmaker has interviewed some of Australia’s senior foreign policy analysts who have vast experience behind them in analysing what really is going on here as the United States rattles its sabres with China. And sets us up to be its proxy, like the poor Ukranians have been fed into the Meatgrinder. So America can remain the Top Dog. The Road to War reveals how the United States through its spy base at Pine Gap and by stationing six nuclear capable B52 bombers in the Top End (without permission from the traditional owners) is making Australia a prime nuclear target if the current war of words suddenly melts down into full scale war.
The Road to War shows the implicit connection between Carbon emissions (the US military uses a whopping 70% of America’s annual petroleum to move its armies and vast War Machine around the globe to its 800+ military bases..but under a loophole wangled at Kyoto, the US military does not have to report its C02 annual emissions). The Road to War starts screening at selected cities and regional centres in March. See the trailer end for details.
Antinuclear 