China’s quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy
By Derek Woolner and David Glynne Jones, Apr 6, 2024 https://johnmenadue.com/chinas-quiet-energy-revolution-the-switch-from-nuclear-to-renewable-energy/
There is now a policy dispute about the roles of nuclear and renewable energy in future Australian low emission energy systems. The experience of China over more than a decade provides compelling evidence on how this debate will be resolved. In December 2011 China’s National Energy Administration announced that China would make nuclear energy the foundation of its electricity generation system in the next “10 to 20 years”. Just over a decade later China has wound back those ambitious targets and reoriented its low emission energy strategy around the rapid deployment of renewable solar and wind energy at unprecedented rates.
Australia has seen a campaign against the use of renewable energy technologies and for the benefits of nuclear energy in developing Australia’s future low emission energy systems. The Federal Opposition has now adopted this position as their policy. The recent experience of China provides a compelling commentary on this decision.
In December 2011 China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) announced that China would make nuclear energy the foundation of its electricity generation system in the next “10 to 20 years”, adding as much as 300 gigawatts (GWe) of nuclear capacity over that period.
This was followed by a period of delay as China undertook a comprehensive review of nuclear safety in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Subsequently, moderated nuclear energy targets were established, aiming for a nuclear energy contribution of 15% of China’s total electricity generation by 2035, 20-25% by 2050 and 45% in the second half of the century.
However by 2023 it was becoming clear that China’s nuclear construction program was well behind schedule. The target for 2020 had not been achieved, and targets for subsequent 5-year plans were unlikely to be achieved.
In September 2023 the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) reported that China was now aiming to achieve a nuclear energy contribution of 10% by 2035, increasing to around 18% by 2060.
The CNEA also indicated that ‘greenlighting’ of new construction would now be at the rate of 6-8 large nuclear power reactors per year – not the 10 per year previously targeted for 2020-2035 and beyond. This will result in new nuclear generation increasing by 60-80 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually.
Meanwhile the deployment of renewable energy (primarily solar and wind energy) was dramatically accelerated in 2023, with the installation of 217GWe of new solar capacity and 70GWe of new wind capacity.
This represents an increase of around 400TWh in annual low emission generation – the quantitative equivalent of 40 large nuclear power reactors, or four times the average annual output of the Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric system (the world’s largest power station).
In 2023 energy analysts started reporting that China was now expected to achieve or exceed its 2030 target of 1200GWe for the total installed capacity of solar and wind energy by 2025, and was now planning to triple the 2030 objective, to reach 3900GWe.
Previously China expected that its energy emissions would peak in 2030, but revised forecasts are now indicating that this could happen as early as 2024, 5-6 years ahead of target.
By the end of 2023 it was clear that nuclear energy was no longer going to be the foundation of China’s future electricity generation system, and that this task had shifted to renewable energy.
So what has happened? There’s no single answer, but two key factors appear to be at play.
The first is the emergence of renewable energy technologies at competitive scale and cost since 2011.
Between 2011 and 2022, the cost of solar PV modules declined by 85%, wind energy costs by 60-70%, and battery costs by 90%.
China now dominates the global production of solar PV panels, wind turbines and batteries, with costs expected to continue to decline significantly for the foreseeable future while performance improves.
The consequence is that renewable energy generation can now be deployed economically at rates five to eight times faster than nuclear energy, which is constrained by logistical and regulatory capability, safety, site availability and other factors.
The second is the slow delivery of new nuclear generation which contributed to continued ‘greenlighting’ of new coal-fired generation to underwrite energy security, as it became clear that deployment rates for new low emission electricity generation were insufficient to blunt demand from provincial governments for new coal-fired generators, even though many existing plants are operating at uneconomically low capacity factors
By 2035, under the original plan, combined nuclear, solar and wind generation would have been comparable to current coal generation but insufficient to meet significantly increased new electricity demand.
Under the new plans, combined solar, wind and nuclear generation is likely to match current coal generation and meet new demand, with solar and wind energy contributing around 85% of this low emission generation.
By 2030 another factor will come into play, with China’s battery giant CATL developing long duration utility battery systems that will provide dispatchable electricity from renewable sources at competitive or lower costs than either coal or nuclear generated electricity.
The central message here is that even in China – the world’s largest industrial economy and preeminent builder of advanced civil infrastructure in the 21st century – nuclear energy cannot compete with renewable energy to deliver low emission electricity generation at the deployment rates needed to meet mid-century emission targets.
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Killing Aid Workers: Australia’s Muddled Policy on Israel
Australian anger at the government level must therefore be severely qualified. Support roles, thereby rendering Australian companies complicit in Israeli’s military efforts, and in ancillary fashion the Australian government, continue to be an important feature. The F-35, a mainstay US-made fighter for the Israeli Air Force, is not manufactured or built in Australia, but is sustained through the supply of spare parts stored in a number of allied countries. According to the Australian Department of Defence, “more than 70 Australian companies have directly shared more than $4.13 billion in global F-35 production and sustainment contracts.”
April 5, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/killing-aid-workers-australias-muddled-policy-on-israel/
The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, was distraught and testy. It seemed that, on this occasion, Israel had gone too far. Not too far in killing over 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza, a staggering percentage of them being children. Not too far in terms of using starvation as a weapon of war. Not too far in bringing attention to the International Court of Justice that its actions are potentially genocidal.
Israel had overstepped in doing something it has done previously to other nationals: kill humanitarian workers in targeted strikes. The difference for Albanese on this occasion was that one of the individuals among the seven World Central Kitchen charity workers killed during the midnight between April 1 and 2 was Australian national Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom.
Frankcom and her colleagues had unloaded humanitarian food supplies from Cyprus that had been sent via a maritime route before leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse. The convoy, despite driving in a designated “deconflicted” zone, was subsequently attacked by three missiles fired from a Hermes 450 drone. All vehicles had the WCK logo prominently displayed. WCK had been closely coordinating the movements of their personnel with the IDF.
In a press conference on April 3, Albanese described the actions as “completely unacceptable.” He noted that the Israeli government had accepted responsibility for the strikes, while Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu had conveyed his condolences to Frankcom’s family, with assurances that he would be “committed to full transparency”.
The next day, the Australian PM called the slaying of Frankcom a “catastrophic event”, reiterating Netanyahu’s promises from the previous day that he was “committed to a full and proper investigation.” Albanese also wished that these findings be made public, and that accountability be shown for Israel’s actions, including for those directly responsible. “What we know is that there have been too many innocent lives lost in Gaza.”
Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, restated the need for “full accountability and transparency” and Australian cooperation with Israel “on the detail of this investigation.” She further acknowledged the deaths of over 30,000 civilians, with some “half a million Palestinians” starving.
Beyond an investigation, mounted and therefore controlled by the Israeli forces themselves, nothing much else can be hoped for. The Albanese approach has been one of copybook warnings and concerns to an ally it clearly fears affronting. What would a ground invasion of Rafah do to the civilian population? What of the continuing hardships in Gaza? Push for a humanitarian ceasefire, but what else?
Australian anger at the government level must therefore be severely qualified. Support roles, thereby rendering Australian companies complicit in Israeli’s military efforts, and in ancillary fashion the Australian government, continue to be an important feature. The F-35, a mainstay US-made fighter for the Israeli Air Force, is not manufactured or built in Australia, but is sustained through the supply of spare parts stored in a number of allied countries. According to the Australian Department of Defence, “more than 70 Australian companies have directly shared more than $4.13 billion in global F-35 production and sustainment contracts.”
The Australian government has previously stated that all export permit decisions “must assess any relevant human rights risks and Australia’s compliance with its international obligations.” The refusal of a permit would be assured in cases where an exported product “might be used to facilitate human rights abuses.” On paper, this seems solidly reasoned and consistent with international humanitarian law. But Canberra has been a glutton for the Israeli military industry, approving 322 defence exports over the past six years. In 2022, it approved 49 export permits of a military nature bound for Israel; in the first three months of 2023, the number was 23.
The drone used in the strike that killed Frankcom is the pride and joy of Elbit Systems, which boasts a far from negligible presence in Australia. In February, Elbit Systems received a A$917 million contract from the Australian Defence Department, despite previous national security concerns among Australian military personnel regarding its Battle Management System (BMS).
When confronted with the suggestion advanced by the Australian Greens that Australia end arms sales to Israel, given the presence of Australian spare parts in weaponry used by the IDF, Wong displayed her true plumage. The Australian Greens, she sneered, were “trying to make this a partisan political issue.” With weasel-minded persistence, Wong again quibbled that “we are not exporting arms to Israel” and claiming Australian complicity in Israeli actions was “detrimental to the fabric of Australian society.”
The Australian position on supplying Israel remains much like that of the United States, with one fundamental exception. The White House, the Pentagon and the US Congress, despite increasing concerns about the arrangement, continue to bankroll and supply the Israeli war machine even as issue is taken about how that machine works. That much is admitted. The Australian line on this is even weaker.
The feeble argument made by such watery types as Foreign Minister Wong focus on matters of degree and semantics. Israel is not being furnished with weapons; they are merely being furnished with weapon components.
Aside from ending arms sales, there is precedent for Australia taking the bull by the horns and charging into the mist of legal accountability regarding the killing of civilians in war. It proved an enthusiastic participant in the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), charged with combing through the events leading to the downing of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014 by a Buk missile, killing all 298 on board.
Any such equivalent investigation into the IDF personnel responsible for the killing of Frankcom and her colleagues is unlikely. When the IDF talks of comprehensive reviews, we know exactly how comprehensively slanted they will be.
Nuclear Power Plants: NRC Should Take Actions to Fully Consider the Potential Effects of Climate Change
GAO-24-106326 Apr 02, 2024
Climate change is likely to exacerbate natural hazards—such as floods and drought. The risks to nuclear power plants from such hazards include damage to systems and equipment that ensure safe operation.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s oversight process includes addressing safety risks at these plants. However, NRC doesn’t fully consider potential increases in risk from climate change. For example, NRC mostly uses historical data to identify and assess safety risks, rather than data from future climate projections.
We recommended that NRC fully address climate risks to nuclear power plants.
What GAO Found
Climate change is expected to exacerbate natural hazards—including heat, drought, wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, and sea level rise. In addition, climate change may affect extreme cold weather events. Risks to nuclear power plants from these hazards include loss of offsite power, damage to systems and equipment, and diminished cooling capacity, potentially resulting in reduced operations or plant shutdowns.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) addresses risks to the safety of nuclear power plants, including risks from natural hazards, in its licensing and oversight processes. Following the tsunami that led to the 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, NRC took additional actions to address risks from natural hazards. These include requiring safety margins in reactor designs, measures to prevent radioactive releases should a natural hazard event exceed what a plant was designed to withstand, and maintenance of backup equipment related to safety functions.
However, NRC’s actions to address risks from natural hazards do not fully consider potential climate change effects. For example, NRC primarily uses historical data in its licensing and oversight processes rather than climate projections data. NRC officials GAO interviewed said they believe their current processes provide an adequate margin of safety to address climate risks. However, NRC has not conducted an assessment to demonstrate that this is the case. Assessing its processes to determine whether they adequately address the potential for increased risks from climate change would help ensure NRC fully considers risks to existing and proposed plants. Specifically, identifying any gaps in its processes and developing a plan to address them, including by using climate projections data, would help ensure that NRC adopts a more comprehensive approach for assessing risks and is better able to fulfill its mission to protect public health and safety.
Why GAO Did This Study
NRC licenses and regulates the use of nuclear energy to provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety, to promote the common defense and security, and to protect the environment. Like all energy infrastructure, nuclear power plants can be affected by disruptions from natural hazards, some of which are likely to be exacerbated by climate change. Most commercial nuclear plants in the United States were built in the 1960s and 1970s, and weather patterns and climate-related risks to these plants have changed since their construction.
GAO was asked to review the climate resilience of energy infrastructure. This report examines (1) how climate change is expected to affect nuclear power plants and (2) NRC actions to address risks to nuclear power plants from climate change. GAO analyzed available federal data and reviewed regulations, agency documents, and relevant literature. GAO interviewed officials from federal agencies, including NRC, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and knowledgeable stakeholders from industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations. GAO also conducted site visits to two plants.
Recommendations
GAO is making three recommendations, including that NRC assess whether its existing processes adequately address climate risks and develop and implement a plan to address any gaps identified. NRC said the recommendations are consistent with actions that are either underway or under development.
Recommendations for Executive Action
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Ukrainian military leaders know they can’t win on battlefield – Guardian
https://www.rt.com/russia/595341-ukraine-gur-attacks-guardian/ 5 Apr 24
Their army’s weakness has prompted Kiev’s strikes on Russian infrastructure, senior officers have allegedly told the London newspaper.
Ukraine has no other option but to launch attacks inside Russia, including on its oil infrastructure, because its army faces continued setbacks on the battlefield, The Guardian has reported, citing the leadership of the country’s military intelligence service, the GUR.
Officers who allegedly spoke to the British newspaper were candid about Kiev’s desperate military situation. GUR Brigadier-General Dmitry Timkov said his country was like a patient on life support.
”We are attached to a drip. We have enough drugs to stay alive. But, if the West wants us to win, we need the full treatment,” he admitted, referring to the dwindling quantities of military aid coming from Kiev’s western backers.
Major General Vadim Skibitsky, the deputy head of the GUR, admitted that a Ukrainian victory, widely promised by Kiev, is impossible at the moment. Facing multiple setbacks, the agency had “no choice” but to launch strikes deep inside Russia. He described this as a “NATO-standard procedure, known as center of gravity, or COG.”
The concept was first developed by Carl von Clausewitz, the famous Prussian general and military theorist, and essentially refers to targets that have the most value for the enemy, physically or morally.
GUR officials that spoke to the Guardian claimed credit for a recent string of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. This contradicts public statements by the head of SBU, the Ukrainian civilian security agency, Vasily Maliuk who said it was his agents who were responsible for the operations.
Both branches have been overhauled in the years since the 2014 armed coup in Kiev, with the CIA’s help, according to Western media reports. Both were allegedly involved in targeted assassinations of people deemed enemies of Ukraine, since before the conflict with Russia began in 2022.
The newspaper said GUR intends to launch a new major attack on the Crimean Bridge – and to disable it – “in the first half of 2024.” Ukraine has previously targeted the structure, twice in 2022 and 2023.
READ MORE: West helping Ukraine attack deep inside Russia – CNN
The first plot involved a powerful bomb hidden in a truck, which killed the vehicle’s driver and four other civilians in nearby cars. Moscow said GUR masterminded this attack. The second strike involved naval kamikaze drones that SBU said were deployed by its agents. That bombing killed two civilians.
Moscow has accused Kiev of engaging in terrorism as a method of war. The regime in Kiev has adopted the tactics, Russian officials are claiming, because it is unable to score victories on the battlefield.
TODAY. NATO/USA – dancing macabrely to World War 3?
The Danse Macabre consists of the dead, or a personification of death, summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, The effect is both frivolous and terrifying, beseeching its audience to react emotionally. – Wikipedia
I wonder did those lovely well-paid NATO representatives have a nice social time, too, in the Brussels Summit April 3 -4, surely a dinner, perhaps a dance? Well, they did, in a way, do a danse macabre, as they fell in like ninepins to the aims of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, and of my favourite sweetly spoken war-monger, Antony Blinken. ( All except Hungary, but they don’t count, as they’re on speaking terms with Russia.)
The danse macabre idea derived from the Middle Ages – when mass deaths happened from famine and plague – it was perhaps some kind of coping mechanism – and a way to face up to the fears of what was coming.
NATO representatives dutifully discussed $107b Ukraine military aid package, a multi-year financial commitment for Ukraine, dutifully agreeing that everyone must do more to ensure a Ukrainian victory against Russia, and “rock solid” that Ukraine will join NATO. “Our purpose at the summit is to help build a bridge to that membership,” – Antony Blinken.
NATO/USA aims to draw in “Indo-Pacific partners” – Australia, NZ. South Korea ,Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan. NATO/USA sees a Ukrainian victory as a necessity for global peace and freedom. And I guess that a Taiwanese victory over China will be visualised in the same way.
Did anyone raise matters like the situation of Ukrainian casualties, the crippling of Ukraine’s environment, economy, and social structure, the Russian success on the ground, the perils of Ukraine striking sites far inside Russia? Apart from Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó , did anyone suggest a negotiated end to the Ukrainian bloodbath?
The Ukrainian people are overwhelmed with the sufferings of fighting Russia on behalf of NATO/USA. But to NATO/USA – is it some sort of game of Russian roulette – how far can they push Russia? And is it preparatory to another game of Taiwan fighting China? And is it fun to toy with the chance of World War 3 ?
Matt Kean admonished by federal Opposition for criticising nuclear direction
NSW Shadow Health Minister Matt Kean has been admonished by Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor after he expressed concern over the Coalition’s direction away from renewables and towards nuclear power, reports NSW Political Reporter Julia Bradley.
The comments follow former NSW treasurer and energy minister Matt Kean’s public resignation from an organisation called Coalition for Conservation, which works with the Liberal Party on issues to do with climate change.
The Shadow Health Minister for NSW says he became “increasingly concerned with the direction of the Coalition for Conservation” after he claimed the institution became “increasingly focused” on nuclear power rather than renewable energy, Ms Bradley explained.
Mr Kean posted the resignation letter to his X social media page on Friday morning, claiming there is “no feasible pathway” for nuclear energy “to play any material role in helping Australia replace our coal-fired power stations in line with climate science.”
Shadow Treasurer and former energy minister Angus Taylor responded to the story with a statement expressing his disappointment a Coalition MP could not understand “Labor’s renewable only madness will fail”.
States reject Dutton’s push for nuclear power
Parker McKenzie, Apr 05, 2024
State politicians from across the political spectrum have rejected the federal Liberal Party’s push for nuclear power, citing cost, speed and technology as reasons to bet on renewables.
Despite being “open to the debate”, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said nuclear power wasn’t fit for Australia’s energy needs.
“Every single objective, independent analysis that has looked at this has said nuclear power would make power more expensive in Australia rather than cheaper,” he told ABC News.
“Why we would impose that burden on power consumers in our country is completely beyond me. Maybe one day in a hundred years time nuclear technology might evolve.”
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has previously praised Malinauskas for being “honest” about nuclear energy.
Labor premiers have unanimously rejected the nuclear energy push from Dutton, while influential Liberal state politicians have rejected Dutton’s energy policy.
Liberal dissent
Matt Kean, a former energy minister and treasurer in Dominic Perrottet’s NSW government, has resigned from a Liberal and National Party member-run renewable energy advocacy group because it supported nuclear energy over wind and solar.
“The reality is there is no feasible pathway [for nuclear energy] to play any material role in helping Australia replace our coal-fired power stations in line with the climate science,” Kean said.
“Large-scale nuclear reactors have proven costly and slow to deliver and [I] would refer you to the UK experience with the Hinkley Point C power station, and the fact that small modular nuclear reactors are not currently commercial anywhere in the world.”
“No feasible pathway:” Liberal MP Matt Kean quits Coalition-based charity because of its obsession with nuclear
Giles Parkinson, Apr 4, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/no-feasible-pathway-kean-quits-coalition-based-charity-because-of-its-obsession-with-nuclear/
Former NSW Liberal government energy minister Matt Kean has quit his role as ambassador of an environmental charity dominated by state and federal Liberal and National Party MPs, saying it had become obsessed with promoting nuclear power and is seeking to delay the rollout of renewables.
Kean says he is quitting the Coalition for Conservation (c4C) because of concerns about the direction of the charity, which has undergone a major shift in focus in the past year, coinciding – according to the AFR – with the growing involvement of patrol Trevor St Baker, the former coal baron and now nuclear investor and proponent.
“When the network was formed, I was an enthusiastic supporter, because I believe that it is the Coalition that should be the best custodians for our environment,” Kean wrote in a letter to the organisation’s chair, former federal Coalition minister Larry Anthony.
“It has become clear in recent times that the Coalition for conservation has increasingly focussed on nuclear power in the electricity system.
“In particular I was concerned to read an article in the Canberra times advocating nuclear power stations as an alternative to building new large scale transmission lines.
“While I recognise that one cannot rule out nuclear playing a constructive role in the Australian electricity system in the distant future, the reality is that there is no feasible pathway to play any material role in helping Australia replace our coal fired power stations in line with the climate science.”
The C4C appears to have undergone a rapid rethink on emissions reductions, dumping its previous support for renewable as the cheapest path to net zero in favour of nuclear.
It is a major major shift which has coincided – according to the AFR’s Rear Window column – with the growing involvement of one of the C4C two patrons, the billionaire Trevor St Baker, the former coal baron and now nuclear investor and proponent.
Kean is the architect of the plan to replace Australia’s biggest fleet of coal generators with wind, solar and storage, and whose work now forms the basis of the Federal Labor government’s Capacity Investment Scheme that will lead its own ambitious renewable energy targets.
His decision to quit the group highlights the growing divide between moderates in the Coalition, and the hard right, which has become obsessed with nuclear and is supported by a growing number of so-called “think tanks”, Murdoch media, and charities such as C4C.
The group’s recent activity on X and its own website have been focused entirely on nuclear, and it has joined the chorus of conservatives, including Coalition leader Peter Dutton and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, in attacking institutions such as the CSIRO and AEMO for their GenCost reports and renewable energy roadmaps.
Kean wrote in his letter that large scale nuclear reactors have proven costly and slow to deliver, particularly in the UK with the massive delays and cost overruns at the Hinkley point C nuclear power project.
He also noted that small modular nuclear reactors promoted by the charity as a solution to Australia’s energy challenges are not currently commercial anywhere in the world, and early stage demonstration projects have been cancelled or delayed into the 2030’s.
“Even if (nuclear energy in Australia) were possible, it would be extremely expensive and far more expensive than the alternative as set out in AEMO’s integrated system plan,” he wrote.
“I not only regard advocacy for nuclear power as against the public interest on environmental, engineering and economic grounds, I also see it as an attempt to delay and defer responsible and decisive action or climate change in a way that seems to drive up power prices in NSW by delaying renewables.”
Ukraine aid will bankrupt future US generations – congressman
https://www.rt.com/news/595344-ukraine-aid-bankrupt-us/ 5 Apr 24
America risks getting bogged down in “yet another forever war,” Republican Eli Crane has warned.
The US should end its financial support for Ukraine and instead focus on how Kiev can settle the conflict, Republican congressman Eli Crane has said. His comments come as House Speaker Mike Johnson said the chamber is likely to vote soon on providing Kiev with new funding.
Several months ago, US President Joe Biden proposed a supplemental security package that would earmark around $60 billion in assistance to Ukraine, but it has since remained stalled in Congress as Republicans demand more focus on security at the Mexican border.
On Sunday, however, Johnson signaled that the package could come up for a vote soon, with “some important innovations.” Among these, he said, is a possibility of extending a loan to Ukraine – an idea favored by GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump – as well as seizing Russian sovereign assets frozen in the US and transferring the proceeds to Kiev.
Since the start of the Ukraine conflict, the West has frozen around $300 billion in Russian assets, most of which are under European control. While numerous Western officials have proposed seizing the funds to finance Ukraine, many have pointed out that there is no legal basis for doing so. Moscow, for its part, has called the blocking “theft,” warning of retaliation if its funds were to be confiscated.
Some GOP members, however, have argued against aiding Kiev. In this vein, Eli Crane told Fox News on Tuesday that Washington is “funding what appears to be yet another forever war.” This effort, the Arizona congressman suggested, “will bankrupt future generations – all while disregarding our own security as our southern border remains open.”
“It’s absurd that overnighting more tax dollars to Ukraine is even a consideration. It should be totally off the table and replaced with a push for peace talks,” he added.
This sentiment was also shared by Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who suggested on Tuesday that any talk of loaning money to Ukraine sounds “absolutely ridiculous.”
“It’s… laughable to even try to tell the American people that Ukraine will ever pay us back!.. Why isn’t our government brokering peace in Ukraine?” she said.
The US has provided Ukraine with $113 billion in various forms of assistance since the start of hostilities. Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly condemned Western arms shipments to Ukraine, saying these will only prolong the conflict, while making the West a direct participant in the hostilities.
US Secretary of State Blinken says Ukraine will be NATO member
Ukraine, if/when it enters NATO, will have “unresolved” territorial issues. Crime and the Donbass are in Russian hands and will remain in Russian hands. If Ukraine enters NATO with that being the case, border conflicts over that territory could spark war, which would then drag in NATO through Article V. Such a war would be extremely bloody and potentially escalate to nuclear armageddon.
Reuters, Thu, 04 Apr 2024 https://www.sott.net/article/490373-US-Secretary-of-State-Blinken-says-Ukraine-WILL-be-NATO-member
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that Ukraine will eventually join NATO as support for the country remains “rock solid” among member states.
“Ukraine will become a member of NATO. Our purpose at the summit is to help build a bridge to that membership,” Blinken told reporters in Brussels.
Comment: For now, this appears to primarily be belligerent rhetoric, because at least some analysts say that Ukraine can’t join whilst involved in a conflict and with ongoing border disputes.
However, Russia has discussed creating a demilitarised zone, and so it is possible that this will compel it to neutralise Ukrainian regions even further West than they would have otherwise. Furthermore, this speaks more to the desperation of the West, and to Russia’s upper hand, which it could maintain so long as it doesn’t, precipitously, escalate the situation. And, amidst all this, the West ruins itself, its position on the global stage, and its ability to provoke the rising multipolar world.
Footage, and relevant snippet from the X post, below:
Will Tanner:
Secretary of State Blinken says that Ukraine will be joining NATO This is insane. This is insane. This is intentionally starting WWIII to help Hunter Biden’s paymasters level of insane 1) Ukraine, if/when it enters NATO, will have “unresolved” territorial issues.
1) Ukraine, if/when it enters NATO, will have “unresolved” territorial issues. Crime and the Donbass are in Russian hands and will remain in Russian hands. If Ukraine enters NATO with that being the case, border conflicts over that territory could spark war, which would then drag in NATO through Article V. Such a war would be extremely bloody and potentially escalate to nuclear armageddon.
2) This is Putin’s red line. In the 90s, when the USSR fell, America promised the Russians that NATO wouldn’t expand to the East. Then, in Russia’s weakness (created in large part by Goldman Sachs helping the oligarchs loot the country through privatization), it expanded to the East, doing just what it promised it wouldn’t, much to Russia’s chagrin. But Putin, while upset, has made it clear that Ukrainian membership in NATO is his red line that would mean war, potentially nuclear. It is utterly unacceptable and would have been like Ireland or Canada joining the Warsaw Pact. That’s why he launched the war; by “demilitarizing” Ukraine by shelling its army into oblivion and by creating a constant conflict, he wants to keep Ukraine out of NATO without going to war with NATO. He thought we wouldn’t be so dumb as to bring it into the alliance if it is fighting a war with Russia.
More NATO involvement in Ukraine doesn’t bode well, as the following highlights:
NATO chief, Jens Stoltenberg, admitting that the war did start in 2014. And from that same year, 2014, NATO has been busy training and arming the Ukraine armed forces
Peter Dutton’s nuclear push is a “suicide note” playing mostly to right wing echo chambers
Unbiased polls find that support for nuclear power in Australia falls short of a majority; that Australians support renewables to a far greater extent than nuclear power; that a majority do not want nuclear reactors built near where they live; and that most Australians are concerned about nuclear accidents and nuclear waste.
Jim Green, Apr 3, 2024 REnewEconomy
A February 26 page-one article in The Australian newspaper ran under the headline ‘Powerful majority supports nuclear option for energy security’.
“Labor is now at risk of ending up on the wrong side of history in its fanatical opposition to nuclear power,” political editor Simon Benson wrote, adding that Labor “ignores this community sentiment potentially at its peril”.
The Murdoch papers ran hard with the story, as did Sky News. The Murdoch-Sky media frenzy was based on the results of a Newspoll survey which found 55 percent support for replacing coal-fired power plants with (non-existent) small modular nuclear reactors.
But the 55 percent majority was slim, not ‘powerful’, and the Newspoll survey was a crude example of push-polling as discussed by polling experts Kevin Bonham and Murray Goot and economist Prof. John Quiggin.
To note just one example of the bias, if NuScale Power’s 77-megawatt reactors were chosen to replace coal plants, 277 nuclear reactors would be required, not ‘several’ as the Newspoll survey question stated. And if we use NuScale’s latest construction cost estimate, the cost would be A$656 billion.
Tony Barry, a former deputy state director and strategist for the Victorian Liberal Party, describes the Coalition’s decision to make nuclear power the centrepiece of its energy and climate policy as “the longest suicide note in Australian political history”.
Barry is now a director at the research consultancy RedBridge. On the strength of a detailed RedBridge analysis of Australians’ attitudes to nuclear power, he says that just 35 percent of Australians support nuclear power and that only coal is less popular. If the Coalition is to have any chance of winning the next election it will not be with nuclear power, he states.
Peter Dutton’s positioning of the Coalition is all wrong, Barry says, and the party continues to play to “internal audiences” — in particular the right-wing echo-chamber typified by Murdoch’s ‘Sky after dark’.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appears unconcerned by Murdoch push-polling purporting to show majority support for nuclear power. Speaking in parliament, he compared Peter Dutton to a nuclear reactor: “One is risky, expensive, divisive and toxic; the other is a nuclear reactor. The bad news for the Liberal Party is that you can put both on a corflute, and we certainly intend to do so.”
Stark raving mad’
The Murdoch-Coalition echo-chamber is drinking its own bathwater by taking pro-nuclear push-polling seriously.
The pro-nuclear bias of the Murdoch media is plain for all to see, and has been confirmed by a recent academic analysis. A note of dissent recently came from James Campbell, a political editor for Murdoch newspapers and websites across Australia. He says the Coalition’s nuclear policy is “stark raving mad” and he quotes an unnamed Coalition MP saying the policy is “madness on steroids”.
Campbell writes:
“You’d have thought that a mob that so easily unpicked the lead of the Yes case at the Voice referendum would understand that support for anything radical in Australia shrinks the moment it hits any sort of concerted opposition.
“And support for this is weak to start with – 35 per cent in favour versus 32 per cent opposed according to a recent RedBridge poll. …
“If we accept the next election is going to be all about the current cost-of-living crisis then nuclear power isn’t going to be much of a help to the Coalition, given it is at least 10 to 15 years away.
“Worse, not only will nuclear energy not be much help as a cost-of-living policy, its salience will make sure that no one gets to hear about whatever policies the Coalition does offer. …
“Then there’s the unity problem. Do you really think Liberal candidates in “tealy” places are going to face the front on this? …
“And that’s even before you get to the state Liberal leaders! How many of them do you reckon are going to be lining up to sing this policy’s praises? …
“Madness. It’s total madness.”
Unbiased nuclear polls
Unbiased polls find that support for nuclear power in Australia falls short of a majority; that Australians support renewables to a far greater extent than nuclear power; that a majority do not want nuclear reactors built near where they live; and that most Australians are concerned about nuclear accidents and nuclear waste.
Here are the results from some polls in Australia over the past five years, with a decent sample size and questions that weren’t designed to push respondents in one direction or another:
* 2024 Resolve Political Monitor survey commissioned by the Nine newspapers: 36 percent support nuclear power, 23 percent opposed, 15 percent undecided, 27 percent “do not have a strong view, and would like to see the government investigate its use”.* 2023 Freshwater Strategy Poll: 35 percent support nuclear power, 35 percent opposed, 18 percent neutral, 12 percent unsure. Thirty-seven percent agree that ‘Australia does not need to generate any energy from nuclear power’, 36 percent disagree, 27 percent neutral. Forty-four percent agree that Australia should remove the legal ban on nuclear power development, 29 percent disagree, 25 percent neutral.
* 2023 Essential poll: 50 percent support Australia developing nuclear power plants for the generation of electricity, 33 percent opposed, 18 percent unsure.
* 2023 Savanta study commissioned by the pro-nuclear Radiant Energy Group: 40 percent strongly support or tend to support using nuclear energy to generate electricity in Australia, 36 percent strongly oppose or tend to oppose, 17 percent neutral, 7 percent don’t know. The study found that those who are most climate-concerned are least likely to support the use of nuclear power. (Perhaps they are better educated on the issues and the options.)* 2019 Essential poll: 44 percent support nuclear power, 40 percent opposed.
* 2019 Roy Morgan Poll: 45 percent support nuclear power, 40 percent opposed.
The Coalition (and other supporters) can take comfort that support for nuclear power exceeds opposition in most of those polls. But support doesn’t reach a majority in any of them.
Dr. Rebecca Huntley, director of research at 89 Degrees East, told the Nine newspapers that participants in focus groups were bringing up nuclear power more often than before the last federal election, but support usually dissolved once the discussion turned to timelines, logistics and the issue of how to store nuclear waste.
RedBridge pollster Kos Samaras told the Nine newspapers that the question of social licence would be impossible to overcome because soft support for nuclear power would evaporate and bump up against hard opposition which he puts as high as 32 percent.
Murray Goot says that “majority support” was being conflated with “strong support” in the Murdoch newspapers, adding: “A metre wide doesn’t necessarily mean a metre thick.” Moreover, he notes that the February Newspoll survey only achieved majority support by manipulating both the question and the response options.
A gender divide is clearly evident: the Savanta study found that men are more supportive of nuclear power than women in all 20 countries surveyed, including Australia.
Sticker shock
Some polls indicate that Australians need educating on this issue. A 2019 Essential poll found that 51 percent of respondents believed that nuclear power would help lower power prices, while 26 percent disagreed. The 2023 Savanta study found that 35 percent of respondents in Australia think that nuclear power would make their energy bills cheaper while 28 percent think it would make them more expensive.
In a 2023 Essential poll, 38 percent of respondents ranked renewables as the “most expensive” option, 34 percent ranked nuclear the most expensive option, and 28 percent ranked fossil fuels the most expensive option. But Essential also found that 60 percent of respondents agreed with the proposition that ‘Australia needs to rapidly develop renewables because it will provide a cheaper and stable energy source, and create jobs’, while only 17 percent disagreed.
Simon Benson wrote in the Australian that “any Coalition energy policy must be framed in a cost-of-living context that can demonstrate how nuclear power will deliver cheaper and more reliable power into the future.”
But nuclear power would increase both power bills and taxes and the only way that the Coalition can get around that problem is by lying and continuing to attack CSIRO’s detailed costings. The latest CSIRO GenCost report gives these 2030 cost estimates: small modular reactors A$212-353 per megawatt-hour, 90% wind and solar with integration costs (energy storage and transmission) A$69-101 per megawatt-hour.
Nuclear power could also involve the curtailment of rooftop solar to allow reactors to run smoothly and profitably. Put that in the electoral pipe and smoke it.
Teal independents…………………………………………
Opposition to locally-built nuclear reactors
Opposition to locally-built nuclear power reactors has been clear and consistent for 20 years or more. Here are some recent poll results:…………………………………………….
Nuclear waste and accidents are major concerns
The September 2023 Freshwater Strategy Poll found that a majority of respondents (55 percent) agreed with the proposition ‘I am concerned that nuclear plants are unsafe and people will be harmed’ while 27 percent disagreed and 17 percent were neutral.
The 2023 Savanta poll found that 77 percent of respondents were concerned about nuclear waste management compared to 18 percent not concerned; and 77 percent were concerned about “health & safety (i.e. nuclear meltdowns, impact on people living nearby)” compared to 21 percent not concerned.
A November 2012 Essential poll found that 63 percent of respondents agreed that nuclear power isn’t worth it because of the need to manage radioactive waste, and 62 percent agreed that nuclear power is too risky because of the potential for serious accidents.
Younger voters
The Murdoch-Coalition echo-chamber was especially excited about younger poll respondents in the February Newspoll survey (65 percent support, 32 percent opposition). But the poll was biased and as Goot notes, other polls reach different conclusions:
“But eighteen- to thirty-four-year-olds as the age group most favourably disposed to nuclear power is not what Essential shows, not what Savanta shows, and not what RedBridge shows. “In October’s Essential poll, no more than 46 per cent of respondents aged eighteen to thirty-four supported “nuclear power plants” — the same proportion as those aged thirty-six to fifty-four but a smaller proportion than those aged fifty-five-plus (56 per cent); the proportion of “strong” supporters was actually lower among those aged eighteen to thirty-four than in either of the other age-groups.
“In the Savanta survey, those aged eighteen to thirty-four were the least likely to favour nuclear energy; only about 36 per cent were in favour, strongly or otherwise, not much more than half the number that Newspoll reported.
“And according to a report of the polling conducted in February by RedBridge, sourced to Tony Barry, a partner and former deputy state director of the Victorian Liberal Party, “[w]here there is support” for nuclear power “it is among only those who already vote Liberal or who are older than 65”.”
Renewables are far more popular than nuclear
Opinion polls clearly show that renewables are far more popular than nuclear power:…………………………………………….
Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group. https://reneweconomy.com.au/peter-duttons-nuclear-push-is-a-suicide-note-playing-mostly-to-right-wing-echo-chambers/
Spent nuclear fuel mismanagement poses a major threat to the United States. Here’s how.
Restricting its analyses to a severe earthquake scenario allowed the NRC to help allay public fears over the dangers of spent fuel pool accidents. There is good reason to question whether severe earthquakes pose the greatest threat to spent fuel pools.
Solar storms, physical attacks, and cyberattacks have the potential to cause a nightmare scenario …….
Bulletin, By Mark Leyse | April 2, 2024
Irradiated fuel assemblies—essentially bundles of fuel rods with zirconium alloy cladding sheathing uranium dioxide fuel pellets—that have been removed from a nuclear reactor (spent fuel) generate a great deal of heat from the radioactive decay of the nuclear fuel’s unstable fission products. This heat source is termed decay heat. Spent fuel is so thermally hot and radioactive that it must be submerged in circulating water and cooled in a storage pool (spent fuel pool) for several years before it can be moved to dry storage.
The dangers of reactor meltdowns are well known. But spent fuel can also overheat and burn in a storage pool if its coolant water is lost, thereby potentially releasing large amounts of radioactive material into the air. This type of accident is known as a spent fuel pool fire or zirconium fire, named after the fuel cladding. All commercial nuclear power plants in the United States—and nearly all in the world—have at least one spent fuel pool on site. A fire at an overloaded pool (which exist at many US nuclear power plants) could release radiation that dwarfs what the Chernobyl nuclear accident emitted.
Many analysts see very rare, severe earthquakes as the greatest threat to spent fuel pools; however, another far more likely event could threaten US nuclear sites: a widespread collapse of the power grid system. Such a collapse could be triggered by a variety of events, including solar storms, physical attacks, and cyberattacks—all of which are known, documented possibilities. Safety experts have warned for decades about the dangers of overloading spent fuel pools, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Congress have refused to act.
The threat of overloaded spent fuel pools. Spent fuel pools at US nuclear plants are almost as densely packed with nuclear fuel as operating reactors—a hazard that has existed for decades and vastly increases the odds of having a major accident.
Spent fuel assemblies could ignite—starting a zirconium fire—if an overloaded pool were to lose a sizable portion or all of its coolant water. In a scenario in which coolant water boils off, uncovered zirconium cladding of fuel assemblies may overheat and chemically react with steam, generating explosive hydrogen gas. A substantial amount of hydrogen would almost certainly detonate, destroying the building that houses the spent fuel pool. (Only a small quantity of energy is required to ignite hydrogen gas, including electric sparks from equipment. It is speculated a ringing telephone initiated a hydrogen explosion that occurred during the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.)
A zirconium fire in an exposed spent fuel pool would have the potential to emit far more radioactive cesium 137 than the Chernobyl accident released. (The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has conducted analyses that found a zirconium fire at a densely packed pool could release as much as 24 megacuries of cesium 137; the Chernobyl accident is estimated to have released 2.3 megacuries of cesium 137.) Such a disaster could contaminate thousands of square miles of land in urban and rural areas, potentially exposing millions of people to large doses of ionizing radiation, many of whom could die from early or latent cancer.
In contrast, if a thinly packed pool were deprived of coolant water, its spent fuel assemblies would likely release about 1 percent of the radioactive material predicted to be released by a zirconium fire at a densely packed pool. A thinly packed pool has a much smaller inventory of radioactive material than a densely packed pool; it also contains much less zirconium. If such a limited amount of zirconium were to react with steam, most likely too little hydrogen would be generated to threaten the integrity of the spent fuel pool building.
After being cooled under water for a minimum of three years, spent fuel assemblies can be transferred from pools to giant, hermetically sealed canisters of reinforced steel and concrete that shield plant workers and the public from ionizing radiation. This liquid-free method of storage, which cools the spent fuel assemblies by passive air convection, is called “dry cask storage.”
A typical US storage pool for a 1,000-megawatt-electric reactor contains from 400 to 500 metric tons of spent fuel assemblies. (Dry casks can store 10 to 15 tons of spent fuel assemblies, so each cask contains a far lower amount of radioactive material than a storage pool.) Reducing the total inventories of spent fuel assemblies stored in US spent fuel pools by roughly 70 to 80 percent reduces their amount of radioactive cesium by about 50 percent. And the heat load in each pool drops by about 25 to 30 percent. With low-density storage, a pool’s spent fuel assemblies are separated from each other to an extent that greatly improves their ability to be cooled by air convection in the event that the pool loses its coolant water. Moreover, a dry cask storage area, which has passive cooling, is less vulnerable to either accidents or sabotage than a spent fuel pool.
In the aftermath of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan, in which there was a risk of spent fuel assemblies igniting, the NRC considered forcing US utilities to expedite the transfer of all sufficiently-cooled spent fuel assemblies stored in overloaded pools to dry cask storage. The NRC decided against implementing such a safety measure.
To help justify its decision, the NRC chose to analyze only one scenario that might lead to a zirconium fire: a severe earthquake. In 2014, the NRC claimed that a severe earthquake with a magnitude “expected to occur once in 60,000 years” is the prototypical initiating event that would lead to a zirconium fire in a boiling water reactor’s spent fuel pool.
The NRC’s 2014 study concluded that the type of earthquake it selected for its analyses would cause a zirconium fire and a large radiological release to occur at a densely packed spent fuel pool once every nine million years (or even less frequently). Restricting its analyses to a severe earthquake scenario allowed the NRC to help allay public fears over the dangers of spent fuel pool accidents. (At the time of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the New York Times and other news outlets warned that a zirconium fire could break out in the plant’s Unit 4 spent fuel pool, causing global public concern.)
There is good reason to question whether severe earthquakes pose the greatest threat to spent fuel pools. A widespread collapse of the US power grid system that would last for a period of months to years—estimated to occur once in a century—may be far more likely to lead to a zirconium fire than a severe earthquake. The prospect that a widespread, long-term blackout will occur within the next 100 years should prompt US utilities to expedite the transfer of spent fuel from pools to dry cask storage. Utilities in other nations, including in Japan, that have overloaded pools should follow suit.
Solar storms, physical attacks, and cyberattacks have the potential to cause a nightmare scenario in which the US power grid collapses, along with other vital infrastructures—leading to reactor meltdowns and spent fuel pool fires, whose radioactive emissions would aggravate the disaster.
Vulnerability to solar storms……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Vulnerability to physical attacks.……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Vulnerability to cyberattacks. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Insufficient public safety.…………………………………………………………………………………….
Overloading spent fuel pools should be outlawed. Safety analysts have warned about the dangers of overloading spent fuel pools since the 1970s. For decades, experts and organizations have argued that in order to improve safety, sufficiently cooled spent fuel assemblies should be removed from high-density spent fuel pools and transferred to passively cooled dry cask storage. Sadly, the NRC has not heeded their advice.
In the face of the NRC’s inaction, Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts introduced The Dry Cask Storage Act in 2014, calling for the thinning out of spent fuel pools. The act, which Senator Markey has reintroduced in subsequent congressional sessions, has not passed into law.
The relatively high probability of a nationwide grid collapse, which would lead to multiple nuclear disasters, emphasizes the need to expedite the transfer of spent fuel to dry cask storage. According to Frank von Hippel, a professor of public and international affairs emeritus at Princeton University, the impact of a single accident at an overstocked spent fuel pool has the potential to be two orders of magnitude more devastating in terms of radiological releases than the three Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns combined. If the US grid collapses for a lengthy period of time, society would likely descend into chaos, as uncooled nuclear fuel burned at multiple sites and spewed radioactive plumes into the environment.
The value of preventing the destruction of US society and untold human suffering is incalculable. So, on the issue of protecting people and the environment from spent fuel pool fires, it is surprising when one learns that promptly transferring the nationwide inventories of spent fuel assemblies that have been cooled for at least five years from US pools to dry cask storage would be “relatively inexpensive”—less than (in 2012 dollars) a total of $4 billion ($5.4 billion in today’s dollars). That is far, far less than the monetary toll of losing vast tracts of urban and rural land for generations to come because of radioactive contamination.
One should also consider that plant owners are required, as part of the decommissioning process, to transfer spent fuel assemblies from storage pools to dry cask storage after nuclear plants are permanently shut down. So, in accordance with industry protocols, all spent fuel assemblies at plant sites are intended to eventually be placed in dry cask storage (before ultimately being transported to a long-term surface storage site or a permanent geologic repository). https://thebulletin.org/2024/04/spent-nuclear-fuel-mismanagement-poses-a-major-threat-to-the-united-states-heres-how/
Nuclear regulators should weigh climate change risk to power plants, report says
A GAO report found the Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs to factor more risk from the impact of more extreme natural events in how it licenses the safety of power plants.
CARTEN CORDELL, Managing Editor, Government Executive, APRIL 2, 2024, https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/04/nuclear-regulators-should-weigh-climate-change-risk-power-plants-report-says/395412/
With the possibility of climate change driving more extreme weather events in areas where nuclear power plants operate, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs to incorporate those events into the safety planning of the facilities, a new report has found.
The Government Accountability Office said in an audit Tuesday that 75 operational and shuttered nuclear power plants in the U.S. reside in areas expected to be further impacted by climate change-driven weather events like drought, extreme heat and floods.
The NRC is tasked with developing the safety regulations and for licensing those power plants, with the agency mandating that nuclear facilities are designed to withstand earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and floods without harm to the public, largely by ensuring that their reactors remain cooled through a series of redundancies.
The report noted that while the NRC issued new safety requirements following the 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant — where an earthquake-triggered tsunami caused the meltdown of three reactor cores —the agency does not factor climate projections data in its safety risk assessments, instead leaning on historical data to predict potential future risk.
“In such a case, NRC expects the event to occur only once in 10,000 to 10 million years, depending on the hazard,” the report said. “NRC officials we interviewed told us that they review regional climate projections information for some hazards but do not incorporate site-specific climate projections data, which include hazard assessments, design bases or determining the adequate safety margin for plants.”
The agency also doesn’t reevaluate natural hazard or climate-related events in its license renewal process, beyond a power plant’s initial 40-year licensing period, instead focusing on its aging impacts and retaining its original natural disaster risk-informed design.
The report noted that as of January, the NRC “had issued license renewals to 49 of the 54 operating nuclear power plants, meaning most plants are operating on the basis of assessments of natural hazard risk that are over 40 years old.”
The NRC inspection process also doesn’t factor in the climate projections, but agency officials told the GAO that other criteria such as the historical record of severe natural phenomena at a power plant site — known as conservatism — safety margins and multiple independent and redundant layers of defense “provide an adequate margin of safety to address climate risks to the safety of nuclear power plants.” However, GAO officials said that the NRC has done no assessment to affirm that assertion.
“According to NRC officials, using site-specific climate projections data for extreme hazard levels in nuclear power plant design and safety reviews is challenging because of the uncertainty associated with applying these data to specific sites” the report said. “However, NRC regulations do not preclude NRC from using climate projections data, and new sources of reliable projected climate data are available to NRC.”
The report also notes that since 2017, the agency uses an information system dubbed Process for the Ongoing Assessment of Natural Hazard Information to log and document historical hazard data and assess potential risk, including events driven by climate change.
But GAO officials said that the NRC has not developed new regulations as a result of the system, hasn’t used it to assess potential changes to all natural hazards and hasn’t comprehensively reviewed natural hazards on a regular basis.
“NRC conducts POANHI assessments for one hazard at a time, and the agency does not have a schedule for reviewing natural hazards beyond the assessment of seismic hazards currently underway,” the report said. “As such, POANHI is used to react to new hazard information or events when NRC staff become aware of them.”
GAO officials offered three recommendations, including assessing whether licensing and oversight processes address increased risk from climate change, that the NRC develop a plan to address gaps in its assessment process and that the agency finalize guidance incorporating climate projections data into its processes.
NRC officials said the recommendations were “consistent with actions that are either underway or under development,” but asserted that its conservatism and defense-in-depth processes provided reasonable assurance to natural hazards and potential climate change.
GAO officials said the agency “cannot fully consider potential climate change effects on plants without using the best available information—including climate projections data—in its licensing and oversight processes.”
Companies serious about climate change should boycott CoP 29
Jonathon Porritt, 3 Apr 24, https://www.jonathonporritt.com/companies-serious-about-climate-change-should-boycott-cop-29/—
At some point over the next couple of months, Chief Sustainability Officers will be making decisions and recommendations about this year’s CoP in Azerbaijan at the end of the year.
My advice to them: spare yourselves the hassle. Just don’t send anyone. And then tell the world why your company has decided to call time on the corrupt, preposterous pantomime that the entire CoP process has become.
Some considerations you might like to take into account:
Learn from experience. CoP 28 in Dubai was a disaster. Nothing substantive was agreed (and, please, never confuse verbiage with substance), and the deeply malign influence of the oil and oil and gas industry was fully “out” for all to see.Baku will be worse than Dubai – as the capital of an even more corrupt, even more misogynistic, and more autocratic petrostate than the UEA.Think about it carefully: just by being there, your company will be conferring credibility on a process that has comprehensively squandered whatever credibility it might once have had. “By your presence/absence shall your company be judged” – as it were!The notional benefits of being there for your own company will be marginal at best, and zero at worst, with a lot of performative blather masking the hydrocarbon horror story that lies behind.The “networking opportunities” that you’re no doubt factoring into your thoughts about this are just so many ephemeral blips on the road to climate meltdown.
So, do yourself (and your CEO and other Execs lining up for a bit of superficial CoP cred) a favour. You know that the gap between what the science tells us and the policy response to that science is getting wider, not narrower. You know CoP 29 will see that gap widen even further.
Be true to your privileged knowledge. Not many people understand how things really are as well as you do. Give the lie, once and for all, to the absurd proposition that any individual company – even one as “progressive ” and “responsible” as yours surely is – can make a blind bit of difference at this level as the politicians drive us ever closer to the abyss.
Looking forward to a lively debate with all you CSOs out there!
TODAY. Why I am really a CONSERVATIVE, and you should be, too.
Years ago, when I was a member of the Australian Labor Party, I was shocked when someone accused me of being really a conservative at heart. Sacrilege! to a Leftie, to be given such an accusation!
Now I know that it is true.
Conservative – “holding traditional values.”
Conservation – “seeking the proper use of nature, a careful preservation and protection of natural resources to prevent exploitation, pollution, destruction, or neglect.”
It is fashionable, and of course, attention-grabbing in the media – to condemn things that are “old” and claim that “youth opinion” and “feelings” (rather than facts) are what matter , to downgrade our institutions of justice, and representative democracy that have served us well over time.
How is it that now there is worldwide acceptance of the idea that Donald Trump, and indeed the USA Republican Party, the Tories in Britain, and the Australian Liberal-National Coalition are CONSERVATIVES?
They are not conservative at all. They are out to wreck the natural environment, in the interests of a few rich corporations. They are out to wreck the social environment in spurning domestic courts and other legal institutions, like the International Court of Justice. They have attitudes of unfairness to non-white people, indigenous people, refugees, at times of suppression of women’s rights, especially, over their own bodies. This is not conservative. This is RADICAL – uprooting Christian values, and the natural world.
Admittedly, there was a time when the Western world held cruel “Christian” values, – like divine right of kings, slavery, racism, severe suppression of women’s rights, of religious and political rights…. Hanging on to those ideas was then conservatism.
But that’s a while back. In Western countries, values like Christian ideas of equal human rights, compassion and fairness, and also proper care of land, water, and animals – have been around for a long time now.
And that’s why we need to be conservatives There’s really no point in being left-wing or right-wing. No point in slavishly supporting your political party. A genuine conservativism is in looking beyond all the guff, and using those common sense traditional values. The political parties seem to get ever closer together, in the radical new doctrine of ever-increasing profit as the main purpose in life.
1 This month.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
30 July – WEBINAR (Free) – Is Nuclear Power the Solution to Climate Change? https://my.acaw.org.au/event/acaw-is-nuclear-power-the-solution-to-climate-change
18:30 – 19:45 ACST
19:00 – 20:15 AEST
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 