Islanders in Latin America face relocation, because of climate change.
Some 2,000 islanders in Guna Yala will become one of the first indigenous
communities in Latin America to relocate because of climate change.
Islander Magdalena Martínez, who has campaigned for new housing on the
mainland, tells the BBC how she feels about leaving the island she grew up
on.
The Panama government estimates all islands of the Guna people could be
under water by 2050, based on forecasts by an independent group of
scientists, although others think the islands may not all be submerged
until the end of the century.
BBC 20th Aug 2022
Why Crimea matters. Russia shoots down Ukrainian drone over Crimea
Russia shoots down Ukrainian drone over Crimea | DW News 21 Aug 22, Russian officials in occupied Crimea say they’ve shot down a drone, headed for a key military base. It was targeting the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. It was the second assault of its kind against the naval command in Crimea in less than a month – and it comes as Russia claims to have shot down drones elsewhere on the peninsula. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. However, the international community still recognizes it as part of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Macron that Ukrainian shelling of Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant risks disaster
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned his French counterpart Emmanuel
Macron that shelling of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power
plant in southern Ukraine, which he blamed on Kyiv, could result in a
large-scale disaster.
Reuters 19th Aug 2022
Expert forum Claverton Energy Group concludes that renewable energy +battery storage can meet UK’s needs – nuclear is not needed.
Open University Professor Bill Nuttall’s updated version of his 2005 ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ book makes a case for nuclear power as low carbon and reliable, although, as the promotional blurb says, it accepts that
‘in recent years it has struggled to play a strong role in global plans for electricity generation in the 21st century’.
The new book also accepts that the much-hyped renaissance didn’t in the event happen- with Fukushima blowing it off course. Do we really want to build new nuclear plants to be ready on standby to provide spinning reserve backup and/or to provide rotational grid stability? Hydro can do that, and wind too to some extent, and virtual inertia can be provided by battery systems fed by PV solar.
Claverton Energy Group (CEG), a UK energy expert forum, has recently summarised some of the key conclusions of current research on energy system mixes and say they show that renewables can supply all our needs, with grid balancing provided in part by battery and heat storage.
Nuclear is not needed. The newly revised and updated 100% renewables global energy scenario produced by Prof Mark Jacobson and his team at Stanford University has come to similar conclusions, with 4 hour battery storage playing major balancing roles. All at competitive costs.
Renew Extra 20th Aug 2022
https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2022/08/nuclear-renaissance-revisited.html
EDITORIAL: TEPCO must be candid on plan to discharge “tainted” water into ocean
Tainted, what an euphemism!
August 17, 2022
Radiation-contaminated water is still being produced in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Progress is being made on the government’s plan to release treated water into the ocean, and local governments have approved the construction of pertinent facilities.
However, local opposition to the project remains fierce, particularly from the fisheries industry.
The central government and TEPCO must spare no effort to thoroughly explain the project to the parties concerned, as well as to the rest of the nation and the world.
At the crippled plant, groundwater is continuing to mix into cooling water for melted nuclear fuel, raising the volume of radiation-contaminated water by about 130 tons a day.
The contaminated water is treated to remove most of its radioactive content and is kept in storage tanks.
But with the existing tanks now nearly full, the government decided in spring last year to dilute the stored water with seawater and discharge it into the sea, fearing that building more storage tanks could affect post-disaster recovery work.
TEPCO is currently proceeding with preparations for the offshore discharge about 1 kilometer from the plant.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority approved the plan last month, saying it saw no safety issues.
NRA Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa told a news conference, “While I recognize opposition to the plan, the offshore discharge (of treated water) cannot be avoided if we are to proceed with the decommissioning of reactors.”
Residual tritium in the treated water is released into the sea by active nuclear power stations in and outside Japan.
The government’s plan is to dilute the tritium content to less than one-40th of the national standard, and keep the annual release volume below the pre-accident level.
The International Atomic Energy Agency noted in its report in April to the effect that the radiological impact on the public was expected to be very low and significantly below the level set by the Japanese regulatory body.
The Fukushima prefectural government and the municipal governments of Okuma and Futaba–which co-host the Fukushima No. 1 plant–approved the construction of discharge facilities in early August.
Two days later, TEPCO advanced the project to the phase of actual construction of an undersea tunnel through which the treated water will be released into the ocean.
But the local fisheries industry and other opponents of the project are not yielding an inch. They claim that even though the radiation level is below the required safety standard, anything that is being discharged from the crippled plant cannot be considered completely safe and can cause damage due to rumors or misinformation.
In fact, when the NRA solicited opinions from the public, all sorts of questions and negative comments were sent in.
In 2015, the government and TEPCO promised the fishing industry that “no treated water will ever be discharged without the understanding of the parties concerned.” This is the kind of promise they must not be allowed to renege on.
TEPCO says that it fully understands the “importance of explaining everything thoroughly” and will provide information on its official website. Of course, the company must be completely open and be willing to answer questions.
But its trustworthiness is suspect, as the utility proceeded with its tunnel construction project as soon as it was approved by the local governments.
If TEPCO genuinely wants the understanding of the parties concerned, it must listen directly to people’s questions and opposing views and strive to keep up the conversation.
As if causing an unprecedented nuclear disaster at Fukushima wasn’t bad enough, the damage compensations that TEPCO made to victims were hardly generous, and the company even kept up wrongful practices at its other nuclear power stations.
Unless TEPCO makes every imaginable effort, we doubt it will ever be able to build a relationship of trust with local communities.
It is time for the utility’s president and top executives to consider holding candid, face-to-face meetings with fisheries industry representatives and local residents.
August 21 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Chipmakers Cut Investments After Subsidies – Shame On You!” • Covid has been awful, leading to inflation, supply chain failures, and global political crises. As if all that hasn’t been bad enough, big chipmakers like Intel and Micron have reduced their manufacturing investments, just as major government subsidies are coming their way. [CleanTechnica] […]
August 21 Energy News — geoharvey
‘Just not economically competitive’: Professor Ian Lowe used to support nuclear power – but he doesn’t any more
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says he is “not afraid to have a discussion on nuclear” but could it really be a viable part of Australia’s energy mix into the future?
Environmental scientist and physicist Professor Ian Lowe AO has been in Perth to launch his new book on the nuclear industry called Long Half Life.
He’s told Nadia Mitsopoulos that 30 years ago, he was advocating to phase out coal and replace it with nuclear, but over the past 10 years, things have changed.
“Solar and wind are now not just a bit cheaper than nuclear, they’re about a quarter of the price. Nuclear power is just not economically competitive.”
We must never forget the risks nuclear stations pose to us all in conflict situations
The Herald, Isobel Lindsay, 19 Aug 22, CURRENTLY there are two different discourses going on in relation to nuclear power with no cross-over (“If Russia turns up the heat, could a nuclear winter follow?”, The Herald, August 17).
There is a cosy consensus among UK politicians and commentators that we should have more nuclear power stations and that this is supposed to be environmentally friendly. This message is, of course, actively promoted by commercial interests. Never mind the huge cost of both the build and the decommissioning, the legacy of radioactive waste we are leaving for future generations, the impact of rising water levels and drought on these plants and the long build time.
But the other discourse playing out is the huge vulnerability of nuclear power plants in conflict situations. Both Russia and Ukraine are playing “dare you” in relation to the Zaporizhzhia power plant. The Russians are using it as a base that is too dangerous to attack and Ukraine has been having a few shots at it to frighten the Russians and the rest of Europe in order to get more help. If the worst happens, it is the wind that will determine who suffers most, not state boundaries.
The threat is not just from war situations. While we have careful security measures, risk is always there. In 2017 a member of a far-right apocalyptic group in the US was arrested with weapons on his way to a nuclear power plant. One of those killed in the January 2021 storming of the US Capitol was an employee of a nuclear plant. In 2014 an insider at a Belgium reactor sabotaged one of the plant’s turbines, leading to months of shut-down. There are plants on earthquake and tsunami vulnerable areas.
We are not short of low-risk methods for the radical reduction in carbon emissions. We need to challenge those who are promoting high-risk choices, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/20672345.letters-must-never-forget-risks-nuclear-stations-pose-us-conflict-situations/
Nuclear waste ravaged their land. The Yakama Nation is on a quest to rescue it
A generation after it was decommissioned, tribal members are still working to clean up the Hanford nuclear site, one of the most contaminated spots in the US
by Hallie Golden in Benton County and Yakama Nation reservation, Washington.
Trina Sherwood gazes out at the Hanford nuclear site as she speeds across the Columbia river in a small motorboat. More than 500 sq miles large and ringed by rocky mountains, the decommissioned nuclear production site is considered one of the most contaminated places in North America.
It also sits on the ancestral lands of the Yakama Nation and other Indigenous peoples in Washington state. Here, precious wildlife, vision quest sites and burial grounds lie side-by-side with signs reading “warning hazardous area” and towering nuclear reactors, some of which date back to the second world war.
There’s Gable Mountain, where young men would fast and pray, explained Sherwood, a cultural specialist for the Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration/Waste Management (ER/WM) program. There’s Locke Island, where an Indigenous village once stood, and the towering White Bluffs, where Native people collected white paint for ceremonies. There are also outcroppings of tules, which were used to make mats for ceremonies and tipis, as well as yarrow root, which was known to treat burns.
The Hanford nuclear site was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, and over the next four decades produced nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the US’s nuclear weapons supply, including the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
During its lifespan, hundreds of billions of gallons of liquid waste were dumped in underground storage tanks or simply straight into the ground. After the site’s nine nuclear reactors were shut down by 1987, about 56m gallons of radioactive waste were left behind in 177 large underground tanks – two of which are currently leaking – alongside a deeply scarred landscape.
In the decades since, the Yakama Nation has been one of four local Indigenous communities dedicated to the cleanup of this historic landscape. For the Yakama Nation, that has meant tireless environmental and cultural oversight, advocacy and outreach with the hope that one day the site will be restored to its natural state, opening the doors to a long-awaited, unencumbered homecoming.
Today, their outreach work has reached a fever pitch. There are few Yakama Nation elders still alive who remember the area before its transformation, and there are likely decades to go before cleanup is complete. So members are racing to pass on the site’s history to the next generation, in the hopes they can one day take over.
Today, their outreach work has reached a fever pitch. There are few Yakama Nation elders still alive who remember the area before its transformation, and there are likely decades to go before cleanup is complete. So members are racing to pass on the site’s history to the next generation, in the hopes they can one day take over.
But in the 1940’s, the situation shifted dramatically when the area was cleared out to make room for the construction of nuclear reactors.
LaRena Sohappy, 83, vice-chairwoman for Yakama Nation General Council, whose father was a well-known medicine man, grew up in Wapato, about 40 miles from Hanford. She said she remembers the strawberry fields that lined the Hanford site, her family gathering Skolkol, a root and daily food, and traveling to the area for ceremonies.
Her cousin’s family who lived close to Hanford were woken in the middle of the night and forced to leave to make way for the nuclear site, she recalled
“They didn’t have time to pack up anything,” said Sohappy. “They just had to leave and they were never told why and how long they were going to be gone.”………………………………………………..
In the past decade, it was also discovered that hundreds of gallons of highly radioactive waste have been leaking from two Hanford tanks, threatening the Columbia River…………………………………….
A ‘push and pull’ effect
Despite the sometimes glacial nature of the federal government’s work, the Yakama Nation have scored some important wins.
Recently, the ER/WM succeeded in amending a cleanup proposal for an area next to the Columbia River containing nuclear reactors, ensuring it will include a review of the impact on local aquatic insects. And in the coming months, Tosch says the tribe will work with the federal government to assess the effectiveness of a polyphosphate injection to sequester uranium found in Hanford’s groundwater; an approach the tribe has questioned.
ER/WM staff have also pushed back against a federal government change in how high-level radioactive waste is classified, which could downgrade some of Hanford’s waste, ultimately preventing it from being removed from the site as expected. The energy department said they don’t plan to move forward with this new interpretation without first meeting with local Indigenous Nations…………………………
‘For our children not yet born’
A fully rehabilitated Hanford site likely won’t happen within the lifetime of Yakama Nation’s elders, or even the generation that follows. So, they’re working diligently to bring in younger tribal members to the effort.
Malaysia’s Mahathir says US seeking to provoke war in Taiwan
By EILEEN NG, 20 Aug 22,
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Friday accused the U.S. of trying to provoke a war in Taiwan, and in a wide-ranging interview also said he expects Malaysia’s graft-tainted ruling party to hold general elections in the coming months.
Mahathir, a two-time prime minister long known as a critic of the West and its geopolitics, warned that the U.S. was antagonizing China through recent visits to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others. China considers the self-ruled island democracy part of its territory and regards such visits as meddling in its affairs.
“China has allowed Taiwan to remain by itself. No problem. They didn’t invade. If they wanted to invade, they could have invaded. They didn’t. But America is provoking (them) so that there can be a war, so that the Chinese will make the mistake of trying to occupy Taiwan,” the 97-year-old Mahathir said.
“Then there is an excuse … for the U.S. to help Taiwan, even fight against China and sell a lot of arms to Taiwan,” he added…………………….. more https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-2022-midterm-elections-biden-taiwan-nato-96f52741ce6e9e6a2cdcfce5fd459ad8—
South Korean unionists protest US-South Korea war games
Saturday, 13 August 2022, Frank Smith, Press TV, Seoul
Thousands of South Korean unionists and their progressive supporters rallied in downtown Seoul to protest against joint US-South Korea war games planned for later this month.
The drills will be the largest in years, and follow the May election of President Yoon Suk-yeol, who has promised to take a hardline with North Korea. Union leaders worry about risks.
While many South Koreans, especially supporters of President Yoon on the right, favor close ties with the U.S., large numbers also argue the US military and the country’s alliance with Washington, prevent the improvement of ties with North Korea – and generate tension…………….. more https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/08/13/687322/South-Korean-unionists-protest-US-South-Korea-war-games
They’ve Bankrupted Themselves’: Europe Gutted Own Security to Funnel Kiev Weapons, Expert Says
Sputnik News 19 Aug 22
Ukraine’s European benefactors made a big show of rushing military aid to Kiev in the early months of Russia’s special military operation, but the torrent has waned to a trickle since then, with no new pledges being made in July. One military expert said Europe is running out of both equipment and willpower to support the “horribly corrupt regime.”
Scott Ritter, a military analyst and former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, told Sputnik on Thursday that NATO’s policy of giving Ukraine billions of dollars in weapons that so quickly get destroyed is “inefficient and counterproductive” from both a political and a national security point of view.
“The more Europe invests its military capacity into Ukraine, the weaker Europe gets,” Ritter said.
Proxy Wars Are Expensive
“I think there’s a couple of things at play here. One, and I think first and foremost, is that Europe has bankrupted its own military capacity by transferring military equipment to Ukraine in an unconstrained manner. It’s becoming clear to all that Ukraine is facing a very difficult time on the battlefield. Weaponry is being provided by Europe, by the United States, by NATO, and this weaponry is not being absorbed in a coherent manner by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Instead, it’s being received and rushed to the front where it is not being used effectively and increasingly it’s being destroyed by the Russians. This is very expensive, very inefficient. It’s detrimental not only to Ukraine’s military capability but also the nations providing the equipment. They’re literally stripping bare their own inventories to support Ukraine in a losing cause,” Ritter explained.
The second part of this equation is, not only is this inefficient and counterproductive from a national security standpoint, but it’s expensive and counterproductive from a political standpoint,” he said. “I think the political cost of supporting Ukraine is about to become very, very high.”
“Many political leaders in Europe now are going to be facing an increasingly hostile constituency, demanding answers as to why their leaders committed: a) economic suicide by joining in on a failed sanctions effort; b) are further bankrupting the nation by stripping bare their own arsenals, requiring them to expend money to restock. This is an expensive proposition. And c), supporting what is increasingly being documented as a very corrupt and, frankly speaking, vile regime in Kiev.”
“Many political leaders in Europe now are going to be facing an increasingly hostile constituency, demanding answers as to why their leaders committed: a) economic suicide by joining in on a failed sanctions effort; b) are further bankrupting the nation by stripping bare their own arsenals, requiring them to expend money to restock. This is an expensive proposition. And c), supporting what is increasingly being documented as a very corrupt and, frankly speaking, vile regime in Kiev.”
…………………………………….Ritter recalled Berlin and Paris were also key guarantors of the Minsk Accords, which were supposed to settle the Donbass conflict in the context of autonomy for the Russian-speaking regions………………………… more https://sputniknews.com/20220818/theyve-bankrupted-themselves-europe-gutted-own-security-to-funnel-kiev-weapons-expert-says-1099744371.html
Victorian court quashes last-ditch legal bid to block contested wind farm — RenewEconomy
Plans to build a 97MW wind farm just outside the Victorian town of Hawkesdale will go ahead, after a fresh legal attempt to block the development was quashed. The post Victorian court quashes last-ditch legal bid to block contested wind farm appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Victorian court quashes last-ditch legal bid to block contested wind farm — RenewEconomy
EVs and solar just the start of becoming renewable superpower, says Cannon-Brookes — RenewEconomy
Mike Cannon-Brookes says decisions and cost savings made at home – on solar, EVs and electrification – key part of turning Australia into renewable superpower. The post EVs and solar just the start of becoming renewable superpower, says Cannon-Brookes appeared first on RenewEconomy.
EVs and solar just the start of becoming renewable superpower, says Cannon-Brookes — RenewEconomy
“This is about freedom of choice:” Bowen moves to break down barriers to EVs — RenewEconomy
Labor moves to break down single biggest barrier to the supply of electric vehicles in Australia – the lack of a fuel efficiency standard. The post “This is about freedom of choice:” Bowen moves to break down barriers to EVs appeared first on RenewEconomy.
“This is about freedom of choice:” Bowen moves to break down barriers to EVs — RenewEconomy
1 This month.
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 