Nuclear diplomacy: Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un back to Square 1
Kim and Trump Back at Square 1: If U.S. Keeps Sanctions, North Will Keep Nuclear Program, NYT, By David E. Sanger, Jan. 1, 2019
Nearly two years into his presidency and more than six months after his historic summit meeting with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, President Trump finds himself essentially back where he was at the beginning in achieving the ambitious goal of getting Mr. Kim to relinquish his nuclear arsenal.
That was the essential message of Mr. Kim’s annual New Year’s televised speech, where he reiterated that international sanctions must be lifted before North Korea will give up a single weapon, dismantle a single missile site or stop producing nuclear material.
The list of recent North Korean demands was a clear indicator of how the summit meeting in Singapore last June altered the optics of the relationship more than the reality. Those demands were very familiar from past confrontations: that all joint military training between the United States and South Korea be stopped, that American nuclear and military capability within easy reach of the North be withdrawn, and that a peace treaty ending the Korean War be completed.
“It’s fair to say that not much has changed, although we now have more clarity regarding North Korea’s bottom line,’’ Evans J.R. Revere, a veteran American diplomat and former president of the Korea Society, wrote in an email.
“Pyongyang refused to accept the United States’ definition of ‘denuclearization’ in Singapore,’’ he wrote. To the United States, that means the North gives up its entire nuclear arsenal; in the North’s view, it includes a reciprocal pullback of any American ability to threaten it with nuclear weapons. “The two competing visions of denuclearization have not changed since then.”
o Mr. Trump and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, who is supposed to turn Mr. Trump’s enthusiasms into diplomatic achievements, dispute such conclusions. They note that the tone of one of the world’s fiercest armed standoffs has improved. It has, and both leaders say they want to meet again.
……….By some measures there has been modest progress. It has been 13 months since the North tested a nuclear weapon or a long-range missile, a change that Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo cite as the first fruits of what some officials now concede will be a long diplomatic push.
Relations between the two Koreas are warming, though there is considerable evidence that Mr. Kim sees his outreach to President Moon Jae-in of South Korea as a way to split the United States from its longtime ally.
But Mr. Trump’s strategic goal, from the moment he vowed to “solve” the North Korea problem rather than repeat the mistakes of past presidents, has been to end the North Korean nuclear and missile threat, not suspend it in place.
Mr. Trump dispatched his first secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, to Seoul in March 2017 to declare that a mere nuclear freeze would not be enough. Back then, Mr. Tillerson declared there would be no negotiations, and certainly no lifting of sanctions, until the North’s dismantling had begun. A nuclear freeze would essentially enshrine “a comprehensive set of capabilities,” he argued.
The decision Mr. Trump must make now is whether to backtrack on the objective of zero North Korean nuclear weapons even if that means accepting the North as a nuclear-armed state, as the United States has done with Pakistan, India and Israel. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/world/asia/kim-trump-nuclear.html
New Zealand’s 2018 – hottest year on record
2018 NZ’s hottest year on record – climate scientist https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12184584 3 Jan, 2019 A veteran climate scientist has called 2018 our hottest year on record.
Niwa isn’t due to release its official summary for the year until early next week, but Professor Jim Salinger has already picked it the warmest on records stretching back to 1867.
His calculations put 2018’s mean annual land surface temperatures at 13.5C – or 0.85C above the 1981-2010 average.
His figure also surpassed the scorching years of 1998 and 2016, which were 0.80C and 0.84C above normal respectively.
Niwa meteorologist Chris Brandolino said people would have to wait until next week to see the climate agency’s final numbers – but added Niwa’s preliminary figures showed 2018 tracking extremely close to 2016’s record.
Last year got off to an unusually warm start with the hottest summer – and the hottest recorded month ever, January – on the books.
“January, March, July and December were all at least 1C above normal, with January being massive 3.2C above average – the hottest month ever,” Salinger said.
The record warmth of 2018 was accompanied by warm seas around the country.
“For all months of the year sea surface temperatures around New Zealand were well above average, with preliminary estimates for 2018 being 0.8C above average.”
Even as 2018 began, it was in the grip of a marine heatwave caused by a freak combination of factors and which turned the Tasman Sea into a warm bath, fired the record summer, and lured swarms of jellyfish to our shores.
“The heat of 2018 was also demonstrated by the record loss of ice on the Southern Alps,” he said.
“We measured a nine per cent drop in just one year. That says it all. We’ve never had anything like that in the glacier record.”
Globally, 2018 was likely to be the fourth-warmest year ever recorded, with an average temperature sitting 0.6C above the 1970-2000 baseline, and only behind the years 2015, 2016 and 2017.
“And more heating is predicted for 2019, by the UK Met Office,” Salinger said.
“Their 2019 forecast indicates that the year 2019 will be close to a record due to global heating and the added effect of the El Niño in the tropical Pacific.”
Salinger said that with six of our warmest years falling in the last two decades, the hand of climate change was unequivocal.
New Zealand’s average temperature had grown 1.3C warmer over 151 years of records.
“It’s roaring away,” he said. He highlighted the UN’s recent report warning that the world had little over a decade to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – and only around two decades to hold the Paris Agreement’s symbolic 2C line.
“We have to get going now and make significant inroads in the next years – there’s now a global movement of youth calling for that.”
Niwa’s latest seasonal outlook, covering summer, predicted temperatures were equally likely to be near or above average until the end of February, with near-normal rainfall likely for most regions.
Bill Gates’ “Travelling Wave” nuclear reactor project with Chinese shuts down
Bill Gates’s Experimental Nuclear Power Plant Halts Construction in China, Gates cites the Trump Administration’s aggressive stance for having to pull out. Popular Mechanics , By David Grossman, Jan 3, 2019 “……..Gates invested in TerraPower in 2011 with the hope of helping to prove the company’s core concept: a so-called traveling-wave reactor (TWR) which would run on depleted uranium, as opposed to the enriched uranium commonly used in nuclear plants……… In 2015, the company signed a deal with the Chinese government to be a small demonstration plant to be constructed by 2022. Since then, it has remained relatively low-profile. ……
In October 2018, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said that the United States “cannot ignore the national security implications of China’s efforts to obtain nuclear technology outside of established processes of U.S.–China civil nuclear cooperation.”
The Department of Energy then announced it would deny any new licenses from U.S. companies wishing to work with the Chinese government, and current licenses would not be given extensions. The department cited the indictment of the Chinese state-owned nuclear corporation in 2017 alongside Taiwanese-American Allen Ho, who was eventually jailed for assisting the Chinese state on nuclear issues.
The Weather may just WAKE THE PUBLIC UP TO urgency of CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION
And yet the weather still has one big advantage over every other argument about the urgency of climate change: We experience the weather. We see it and feel it.
It is not a complex data series in an academic study or government report. It’s not a measurement of sea level or ice depth in a place you’ve never been. It’s right in front of you. And although weather patterns do have a lot of randomness, they are indeed changing. That’s the thing about climate change: it changes the climate.
I wanted to write my last column of 2018 about the climate as a kind of plea: amid everything else going on, don’t lose sight of the most important story of the year.
I know there was a lot of competition for that title, including some more obvious contenders, like President Donald Trump and Robert Mueller. But nothing else measures up to the rising toll and enormous dangers of climate change. I worry that our children and grandchildren will one day ask us, bitterly, why we spent so much time distracted by lesser matters.
The story of climate change in 2018 was complicated — overwhelmingly bad, yet with two reasons for hope. The bad and the good were connected, too: Thanks to the changing weather, more Americans seem to be waking up to the problem.
I’ll start with the alarming parts of the story. The past year is on pace to be the earth’s fourth warmest on record, and the five warmest years have all occurred since 2010. This warming is now starting to cause a lot of damage.
In 2018, heat waves killed people in Montreal, Karachi, Tokyo and elsewhere. Extreme rain battered North Carolina and the Indian state of Kerala. The Horn of Africa suffered from drought. Large swaths of the American West burned.
Amid all of this destruction, US President Donald Trump’s climate agenda consists of making the problem worse. His administration is filled with former corporate lobbyists, and they have been changing federal policy to make it easier for companies to pollute. These officials like to talk about free enterprise and scientific uncertainty, but their real motive is usually money. Sometimes, they don’t even wait to return to industry jobs.
I often want to ask these officials: deep down, do you really believe that future generations of your own family will be immune from climate change’s damage? Or have you chosen not to think very much about them?
As for the two main reasons for hope: the first is that the Trump administration is an outlier. Most major governments are trying to slow climate change.
The second reason for hope is public opinion. No, it isn’t changing nearly as rapidly as I wish. Yet it is changing, and the weather seems to be a factor. The growing number of extreme events — wildfires, storms, floods and so on — are hard to ignore.
Only 40 percent of Americans called the quality of environment “good” or “excellent” in a Gallup Poll this year, the lowest level in almost a decade. And 61 percent said the environment was getting worse. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 66 percent of Americans said they wanted to see action to combat climate change. Some polls even suggest that Republican voters are becoming anxious about the situation.
The politics of climate change remains devilishly hard, especially because so many people around the world feel frustrated about their living standards. France’s “gilet jaune” protests, after all, were sparked by a proposed energy tax. Compared with day-to-day life, the effects of climate change have long felt distant, almost theoretical.
But now those effects are becoming real, and they are terrifying. To anyone who worries about making a case for climate action based on the weather, I would simply ask: do you have a better idea?
North Korea’s Kim Yong Un wants more nuclear summits with South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in
Kim Wants More Summits With Moon to Tackle Nuclear Issue ,Bloomberg, By Sam Kim and Youkyung Lee. December 30, 2018,
Kim intent on resolving nuclear impasse, Blue House says North Korean leader sent personal letter to South Korea’s Moon
Kim Jong Un is intent on resolving the nuclear impasse that has stalled negotiations with the U.S. and wants to hold more meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Moon’s office said.
The North Korean leader sent Moon a personal letter of well wishes on Sunday, expressing a willingness to meet often in 2019 to advance peace talks and achieve “denuclearization on the Korean peninsula,” Moon spokesman Kim Eui-keum said. Moon thanked him for the letter, tweeting that the North Korean leader “again made clear” that he would act on his agreement with the U.S. and South Korea.
The missive came amid increased skepticism over Kim’s willingness to dismantle his arsenal of nuclear weapons, months after a historic summit with President Donald Trump in which the two leaders agreed to work toward denuclearization. Kim’s letter made no mention of Trump or the U.S.
…….Earlier this month, North Korea told the U.S. that sanctions and pressure won’t work to force Pyongyang into action on its nuclear program. North Korean state media said the removal of the U.S.’s nuclear weapons from the region was a condition of its own disarmament, raising the stakes for Trump’s efforts to hold a second summit with Kim………https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-30/kim-wants-more-summits-with-moon-to-tackle-nuclear-issue
Climate change: six positive news stories you probably missed this year.
The Conversation 28th Dec 2018 Renewable energy is being set up faster than ever; Chernobyl fights against
climate change; A new mobilising force for climate action; Global economic
growth may have peaked; Glimmer of hope in emissions reduction; Local
community energy is doing well.
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-six-positive-news-stories-you-probably-missed-this-year-108785
Nuclear power will exacerbate climate change, not solve it
Fairwinds 29th Dec 2018 Relicensing old nuclear power plants and building new nukes will not
resolve any climate change issues. View our well-researched film,
Smokescreen, created with data from university analyses and independent
international economic reports. Also, check out Arnie’s speech at McGill
University where he discusses how building new nuclear power plants will
actually exacerbate climate change as well as his Truthout article
https://www.fairewinds.org/demystify//climate-change-is-real-nuclear-is-not-the-answer
Regulators File Complaint Against Holtec about its nuclear waste casks
Regulators File Complaint Against Maker Of Nuclear Fuel Cask https://www.wamc.org/post/regulators-file-complaint-against-maker-nuclear-fuel-cask By PAT BRADLEY • DEC 29, 2018 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has filed a complaint against the manufacturer of casks used at the closed Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan tells the Brattleboro Reformer that Holtec International adopted a new design for its steel and concrete casks without a written evaluation, violating federal safety regulations. Officials say the company made changes after it discovered a loose bolt at San Onofre nuclear power plant in California.
Holtec said Friday that the NRC has confirmed the safety of the canisters. It says it doesn’t agree with the severity level of the apparent violation.
The casks are used at other nuclear plants to store spent fuel.
Last month, regulators approved the sale of Vermont Yankee to NorthStar. The company plans to start decommissioning the plant no later than 2021.
Spain’s chain of 97 top grand hotels goes solar
Observer 30th Dec 2018 Spain’s state-owned chain of paradores, the grand hotels often housed in ancient castles and monasteries, has announced that all 97 of its establishments will use only electricity from renewable sources from the start of the new year.
The 90-year-old chain said the decision to switch to green electricity had been made for both environmental and symbolic
reasons. “Paradores is a company that supports sustainable tourism in every sense of the word,” said its chair, Óscar López Águeda. “What’s more, as a public company, we also want to set an example when it comes to investments that encourage energy saving and responsible consumption.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/30/spain-paradores-solar-power-pledge
The Story of Sustainability in 2018: “We Have About 12 Years Left”
Harvard Business Review 27th Dec 2018 Andrew Winston, – We have about 12 years left. That’s the clear message from a monumental
study from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
To avoid some of the most devastating impacts of climate change, the world must slash carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, and completely decarbonize by 2050 (while, in the meantime, emissions are still rising).
The IPCC looked at the difference between the world “only” warming two degrees Celsius (3.8°F) — the agreed upon goal at global climate summits in Copenhagen and Paris — or holding warming to just 1.5 degrees. Even the latter, they say, will require a monumental effort “unprecedented in terms of scale.”
We face serious problems either way, but every half degree matters a great deal in human, planetary, and economic losses.
It wasn’t just the IPCC that told a stark story. Thirteen U.S. government agencies issued the U.S. National Climate Assessment, which concluded that climate change could knock at least 10% off of GDP. Other studies tell us that sea
level rise is going to be worse than we thought, Antarctica is melting three times faster than a decade ago, and Greenland is losing ice quickly as well. If both those ice sheets go, sea level rise could reach 200-plus feet, resulting in utter devastation, including the loss of the entire Atlantic seaboard (Boston, New York, D.C., etc.), all of Florida, London,
Stockholm, Denmark, Paraguay, and land now inhabited by more than 1 billion Asians). https://hbr.org/2018/12/the-story-of-sustainability-in-2018-we-have-about-12-years-left
Chinese city residents protest over plans for nuclear research plant
Local suspicions over Changsha plant heightened by failure to officially announce the plans until one day before public consultation process was due to end, SCMP, Mandy Zuo, 28 Dec 18, Dozens of residents in a city in central China have staged a protest over plans to build a nuclear research institute near their homes.
The protesters fear that radioactive materials used at the planned facility in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, will pose a health risk.
The institute behind the project did not officially release their plans on Tuesday – after work had began on the site and one day before the public consultation period was supposed to end.
An environmental impact assessment into the project said No 230 Research Institute, a branch of the China National Nuclear Corporation, had acquired a space of over 20,000 square metres near a densely populated area to expand its offices and laboratories at the site, which will be dedicated to the geological exploration of uranium.
Although the facility is not intended to handle refined uranium, and scientists say that unprocessed material does not emit harmful levels of radiation, residents have expressed concerns about the possible health risks and have called for building work to be halted.
Their concerns were heightened by the failure to carry out an assessment of the radiological hazards and the decision to announce the plans a day before the consultation period was due to end.
Wu Xiaosha, one of the protesters, said people were also angry that the project is already being built without approval.
“The environmental impact assessment report lied about the population in the area – it said there are only 40,000 people in the area, but actually it’s nearly 250,000,” said Wu.
Yang Wenqiang, an official from the Changsha Urban Rural Planning Bureau, refused to comment on the matter, saying the government was holding an emergency meeting and would release a statement later……
Environmental concerns have fuelled a growing number of protests in China in recent years as public awareness of the possible health risks increases.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences reported that half of protests with more than 10,000 participants between 2001 and 2013 were sparked by concerns about pollution. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2179905/chinese-city-residents-protest-over-plans-nuclear-research-plant
We are fools to believe that a change of venue for Lucas Heights nuclear waste will make it safe
Paul Waldon Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA, 28 Dec 18 The “forever” radioactive contamination that has promoted the death of tens of thousands, and nothing short of a 100 thousand more people being diagnosed with cancers and other diseases, while waiting for settlement of what they say is a compensable injury from their time working in the inherently dangerous American nuclear industry. However the documentation rarely includes the numbers of people in the communities whom have suffered the burden to their health from radioactive wastes abandoned in their backyard.
Australia has had its share of nuclear accidents, and we are fools to believe that a change of venue for nuclear wastes would make it safe.
The outlook for the uranium industry is very poor – Cameco as a case in point
How Poor Is the Long-term Outlook for Cameco Corp. (TSX:CCO)? The Motley Fool Matt Smith | December 27, 2018 “………it is becoming increasingly unpopular. This is primarily due to the dangers it poses during times of catastrophic failure, as demonstrated by the Fukushima incident. There are also concerns over the safe processing and storage of the radioactive waste that it produces.
Bullish analysts point to growing demand for the fuel and rising supply constraints as the reason to be optimistic for uranium and Cameco. This makes the demand side dynamics for uranium appear healthy, pointing to higher consumption which will bolster prices.
However, other nations are moving to reduce their dependence on nuclear power in favour of renewable sources of energy which in recent years have become significantly cheaper to install and operate. The inherent risks associated with nuclear power see France intending to reduce the share of its electricity generated by nuclear by 25% by 2025. Whereas Germany has measures in place to decommission all reactors by 2022 and South Korea intends to undergo a similar process.
According to analysis conducted by asset management firm Lazard, utility scale solar and wind generated electricity is significantly cheaper to produce than nuclear as well as coal and natural gas-fired power generation. This explains why a record level of renewable energy was installed during 2017 and most of that new installed capacity was composed of solar and wind. This points to a sharp deterioration in demand for nuclear power over the long term, particularly given that some of the reactors under construction will replace existing reactors that are to be decommissioned.
No analysis is complete without an understanding of the supply-side of the equation. Recent production cutbacks by Cameco and Kazakhstan’s state-owned producer Kazatomprom triggered uranium’s latest rally and those are likely only to be temporary. Both miners will boost output once uranium prices firm sufficiently to make the operations that they have shuttered economic to operate. Then you have nations such as Namibia, the world’s sixth-largest producer, which is aiming to boost production to benefit financially from uranium before it falls into disuse, becomes a stranded asset and loses its value.
The long-term outlook is poor
While the average spot price during the third quarter 2018 was higher than the equivalent period in 2017 Cameco’s revenue of $488 million was flat year over year. This can be attributed to much of the uranium sold by the miner being priced according to long-term contracts. Cameco, however, reported a significant improvement in its bottom line, announcing adjusted net income of $15 million compared to a $50 million loss a year earlier.
The miner has also secured additional uranium deliveries during the fourth quarter 2018, which along with firmer prices, bodes well for Cameco to report stronger earnings. This will give its stock a short-term lift, but it appears that any lasting recovery may never occur. The reasons for this are simple: there is no sign of the bear market for uranium ending anytime soon. A combination of declining demand over the long-term and the potential for supply to grow significantly all points to uranium never attaining its pre-Fukushima prices. https://www.fool.ca/2018/12/27/how-poor-is-the-long-term-outlook-for-cameco-corp-tsxcco/
Remembering heroes who tried to save others in nuclear disasters
However don’t bet the farm that Boris, Natasha, or even Fearless Leader will come to the party when Australia has a severe radioactive accident in any nuclear instillation within or outside of Lucas Heights.
Steve Dale “Are these nuclear workers accidental heroes or did they just try to redeem themselves” – it is never the politicians or the nuclear lobbyists risking their lives when things go wrong. It is the poor innocent workers that have to suffer the insults of nuclear radiation, radiation inhalation/ingestion. To further rub salt into the wound, the nuclear lobbyists/enthusiasts then try to claim that radiation exposure/inhalation/ingestion is not a problem. I pity the workers/responders (and their families/parents) of the next inevitable nuclear catastrophe. https://www.facebook.com/groups/344452605899556/
Did you know that McAfee computer virus protection company is in partnership with nuclear corporation AREVA, (now rebranded as ORANo, and rebranded again as FRAMATOME)
Framatome partners with McAfee to support energy industry cybersecurity 24 May 2018, Framatome signed an agreement with McAfee, the device-to-cloud cybersecurity company, to distribute cybersecurity solutions to energy transmission, distribution and generation facilities worldwide. Together, Framatome and McAfee will work with these facilities to help protect their digital assets and support the reliable production of electricity.
“In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, holistic and robust cybersecurity programs are critical to protecting nuclear energy facilities and electrical power and distribution infrastructure,” said Catherine Cornand, senior executive vice president of Framatome’s Installed Base Business Unit. “This partnership with McAfee will enhance our ability to provide customers with the right combination of cutting-edge technologies and expertise.”…….http://www.framatome.com/EN/businessnews-1331/framatome-partners-with-mcafee-to-support-energy-industry-cybersecurity.html
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
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