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Clear and Present Danger

Never before has the unbreakable connection between nuclear energy, weapons and waste been so blatantly obvious to the public eye…yet, with so little notice.

Although President Trump has threatened to obliterate North Korea and its 25 million people ‘with fire and fury the like of which the world has never seen,’ the NYT is reporting that America’s Asian allies doubt Washington’s ‘resolve’ to defend them with nuclear weapons and they want their own – an idea recently also floated by Trump himself.

In a new twist on the last century’s discredited ‘Atoms for Peace’ meme, the new nuclear delusion seems to be that the more countries that have nuclear weapons (Iran and North Korea excepted), the more ‘secure’ the world will become.

Speaking recently at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, Trump’s VP Mike Pence, a self-declared devout Christian who ‘gave my life to Jesus,’ declared “… there’s no greater force for peace in the world than the United States nuclear arsenal.”

Implication: every country should feel safer if they have a nuclear arsenal of their own. That seems precisely Kim Jong-Un’s own calculus, given his country’s previous horrific carpet-bombing experience with the US – “we… eventually burned down every town in North Korea,” Gen. Curtis LeMay told Congress – not to mention the recent history of Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Nuclear Circular Firing Squad

As agitation reportedly builds in South Korea and Japan for building their own nuclear arsenals, the Times reveals that, as a result of the radioactive waste output of their already existing nuclear energy reactor fleets, each of these tiny countries has accumulated enough weapons-grade plutonium to produce – respectively – 4,600 and 6,000 nuclear bombs.

How about that? Nations without their own ‘commercial power’ nukes must certainly take note.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The myth of a nuclear-free Austria

October 25, 2017

The myth of a nuclear-free Austria

Since Austria passed a law banning the importation of nuclear electricity in 2015 it has claimed to be 100% nuclear-free. But 25% of the electricity Austria imports and over 8% of the electricity it consumes is still of indisputably nuclear origin. Austria’s claim to be 100% nuclear-free is either deliberate misrepresentation or an implicit admission that the Austrian government has no idea how Europe’s electricity grid works. (Inset: Austria’s Zwentendorf nuclear plant. Completed in 1978. Never put into operation. Now a museum.)

In the recent Apple, Google, and how not to go 100% renewable post I described how Apple and Google were gaming the system to claim that they are powered by 100% renewables when in reality they are nowhere close. But gaming the system isn’t confined to business corporations (or the Dutch Railways). Austria does it too, but with a twist. Instead of purchasing “Guarantees of Origin” (GOs) to pretend that it’s bringing renewable energy in, Austria purchases them to pretend that it’s keeping nuclear energy out.

First a little history. In December 1978 the Austrian Parliament voted in favor of a ban on nuclear fission until March 1998, in July 1997 it unanimously passed legislation to remain a nuclear-free country, and since then it has embarked on a crusade to make the rest of Europe nuclear-free too. In 2011 it threatened to file suit to shut down nuclear plants in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and in the same year it did file suit to shut down Slovakia’s Mochovce plant. In 2014 Austria threatened to use “all political and legal means” to stop construction of a nuclear waste dump in the Czech Republic. In 2015 it sued the UK in an attempt to stop Hinkley Point, and just recently it filed another suit to stop the expansion of the Paks nuclear plant in Hungary. Why is Austria suing everybody? Why can’t it mind its own business?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nuclear Fallacies: the Problems With James Hansen’s Promotion of Generation IV Reactors

October 5, 2017

Nuclear Fallacies: the Problems With James Hansen’s Promotion of Generation IV Reactors

Photo by Lennart Tange | CC BY 2.0

Dr James Hansen is rightly admired for his scientific and political work drawing attention to climate change. His advocacy of nuclear power ‒ and in particular novel Generation IV nuclear concepts ‒ deserves serious scrutiny.

In a nutshell, Dr Hansen (among others) claims that some Generation IV reactors are a triple threat: they can convert weapons-usable (fissile) material and long-lived nuclear waste into low-carbon electricity. Let’s take the weapons and waste issues in turn.

The risks

Dr Hansen says Generation IV reactors can be made “more resistant to weapons proliferation than today’s reactors” and he claims that “modern nuclear technology can reduce proliferation risks”.

But are new reactors being made more resistant to weapons proliferation and are they reducing proliferation risks? In a word: No.

Fast neutron reactors have been used for weapons production in the past (e.g. by France) and will likely be used for weapons production in future (e.g. by India).

India plans to produce weapons-grade plutonium in fast breeder reactors for use as driver fuel in thorium reactors. Compared to conventional uranium reactors, India’s plan is far worse on both proliferation and security grounds. To make matters worse, India refuses to place its fast breeder / thorium program under IAEA safeguards.

Dr Hansen claims that thorium-based fuel cycles are “inherently proliferation-resistant”. But in fact, thorium has been used to produce fissile material (uranium-233) for nuclear weapons tests. Again, India’s plans provide a striking real-world refutation of Hansen’s claims.

Dr Hansen claims that integral fast reactors (IFR) ‒ a non-existent variant of fast neutron reactors ‒ “could be inherently free from the risk of proliferation”. Unfortunately, that isn’t true. Dr George Stanford, who worked on an IFR R&D program in the US, notes that proliferators “could do [with IFRs] what they could do with any other reactor − operate it on a special cycle to produce good quality weapons material.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

When did you discover that there is something badly wrong with democracy?

October 1, 2016

When did you discover that there is something badly wrong with democracy?

For me, it was in 2009. I had been invited to speak at a meeting called “The Festival of Energy;” a thinly disguised public relation stunt for the fossil fuel lobby, designed to show that renewable energy is a cute thing and that, surely, someday in a remote future, it might be really used.

At the meeting, I found myself sitting in the audience in a debate about nuclear energy. The year before, Silvio Berlusconi’s party, “the people of freedom,” had won the national elections. Almost immediately afterward, the new government had announced that Italy was going to return to nuclear energy after a moratorium that had started in 1987, and that four new nuclear plants would be built. So, the debate was supposed to be about that.

The experts on the panel were divided between those who were enthusiastically favorable to nuclear energy and those who were mildly favorable. The audience listened in silence, somewhat awed. Then, there came the time for questions and answers. Someone rose up and expressed the opinion that the government should have promoted a national debate before taking a decision on nuclear energy.

The answer came from a functionary of the newly elected government and it provided for me a new understanding of the concept of “glee.” Wearing an elegant double-breasted suit, this man addressed the person in the audience more or less as a Medieval lord would address one of the peasants of his feud.

“My good man,” the functionary said, “there will be no national debate on nuclear energy. We have been elected by the people on a program that said that we would have Italy return to nuclear energy and that gives us the authority to do just that. So, we decided to start building the new plants and that’s what we will do.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Age and Future Size of the Global Nuclear Fleet

September 17, 2016

The Age and Future Size of the Global Nuclear Fleet

This is the last in my mini-series on global nuclear power. There are 441 reactors operational world wide today with an average age of 29.3 years. The current fleet is ageing. The oldest reactors in service today are 47 years old. By assuming that reactors will close aged 50 and by making simple assumptions about the commissioning of reactors under construction and those planned I estimate that come 2036 the fleet will comprise 424 units. The number is slightly down on today but the increase in mean power rating suggests that installed capacity will increase by about 25%.

Let me begin by thanking Russian commenter Syndroma for extracting the reactor data for me from the World Nuclear Association web site.

A good starting point is to look at the age distribution of the current fleet of 441 operational reactors* (Figure 1). With a mode of 31-35 years and a life expectancy of 50 years the fleet is getting rather long in the tooth. With only 12 reactors in the 6 to 10 year category it did look as though the global nuclear industry was going to die. But there has been a renaisance in recent years, especially in countries like China, India and Russia. But is this going to be sufficient to turn nuclear fortunes around?

[* note by using the term reactor I mean a nuclear power station that may contain more than one reactor. For example, in the UK today, most nuclear power stations have two reactors.]

Figure 1 The current age distribution of the global nuclear fleet.

Table 1 The current distribution of global reactors by design type.

Table 1 shows that the current fleet is dominated by pressurised and boiling water reactors. The majority of these are Generation II reactors though some Generation III boiling water reactors were operational in Japan.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Politicians push nuclear ‘poison pill’

March 21, 2016

Politicians push nuclear ‘poison pill’

Construction of a new nuclear reactor in Flamanville, France, is already six years behind schedule. Image: schoella via Wikimedia Commons

The economics of nuclear power in Europe are in meltdown, leaving taxpayers facing a heavy burden as the industry clings to pledges of huge public cash injections.

LONDON, 21 March, 2016 – The deeply troubled European nuclear industry, dominated by the huge French state-owned company EDF, home is now surviving only because of massive public subsidies from the French, British and Chinese governments.

The depth of the financial problems that EDF is facing was underlined last week by the resignation of its finance director, Thomas Piquemal.

He believes that building the world’s most expensive nuclear power plant – at Hinkley Point in southwest England – could threaten the viability of the group, whose finances are already stretched to breaking point, and so he decided he would leave.

Within days, both the UK prime minister, David Cameron, and the French president, François Hollande, pledged to support the building of the £18 billion plant, despite the fact that the economies of the project look disastrous.

Massive injection

They did so in response to a letter from EDF chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy, which said the project could not go ahead without a massive injection of new capital by the French government.

Immediately, Emmanuel Macron, the French economy minister, made it clear that EDF would be bailed out. He dismissed concerns in both countries about the high cost of the project and signalled the French government’s willingness to prop up EDF to enable it to complete the job, whatever it took.

“If we need to recapitalise, we will do it,” he said. “If we need to renounce dividend payments again, we will do it.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Belgian nuclear plant’s reactor shuts down days after reboot

January 3, 2016

Belgian nuclear plant’s reactor shuts down days after reboot

Belgium’s Doel nuclear reactor went offline on Saturday, after it was restarted just three days ago, the plant’s spokesperson said. Meanwhile, Germany has stepped up criticism on operational safety of its neighbor’s aging nuclear facilities.

Doel 1 nuclear reactor, located in northern Belgium, was taken offline automatically, RTL broadcaster quoted the communications manager Els De Clercq as saying.

At this point there is no safety risk, AFP reported, citing power utility company Electrabel, which operates the plant.

“Doel 1 automatically shut down at 6:00 pm,” AFP reported a spokeswoman for Electrabel as saying. “Everything went according to procedure. There was no impact on safety, and no impact on staff, local residents and the environment.”

Electrabel added that the reactor went offline due to “normal safety mechanism,” so it can restart safely.

The Doel 1 reactor was rebooted Wednesday, after getting shut down in February, as the country tried to cut its reliance on nuclear power.

Belgium decided to extend the lives of the aging Doel 1 and Doel 2 reactors until 2025, both of which are 40 years old. Widespread power blackouts was one of the main reason behind the extension.

Meanwhile, Germany, which is also eliminating the use of nuclear power, has been raising red flags over possible environmental consequences, arguing that it is too dangerous to keep the Doel reactors going.

The German government said it is preparing “critical questions” to the Belgian authorities on operational safety at the nation’s two active nuclear power plants. German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks has demanded Brussels scrap its nuclear energy program altogether.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

France shuts down Flamanville nuclear reactor over transformer failure

December 24, 2015

France shuts down Flamanville nuclear reactor over transformer failure

General view of the operating power plant in Flamanville. © Benoit Tessier

One of the reactors at France’s Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant has been shut down due to technical failure. No radiation leak has been reported, with the plant operator saying that the incident has had no impact on the environment or safety.

Employees of the nuclear power plant in Flamanville discovered a technical problem at the reactor number two on Tuesday at around 6:15pm. The pressurized water reactor was switched from the faulty main transformer to a backup, but on Wednesday the Electricite de France S.A. (EDF) decided to fully stop work of the reactor.

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Incident à Flamanville: un des réacteurs à l’arrêt http://www.bfmtv.com/planete/incident-a-flamanville-un-des-reacteurs-a-l-arret-939202.html …

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A preliminary diagnosis will be carried before proceeding to do maintenance work on the unit. No restart date has been announced, as the electric company is still examining the fault.

“This event has no impact on plant safety, or the environment”, EDF emphasized.

Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant is located at Flamanville, Manche houses two pressurized water reactors (PWRs) that produce 1.3 GWe each. The reactors, amounting to some 4 percent of France’s total nuclear generation, went into service in 1986 and 1987. A third, a €10.5 billion ($11.48bn) Areva European Pressurized Reactor, with a capacity of 1,650 MWe is currently being constructed on site.

France has 58 nuclear reactors operated by EDF with total capacity of 63.2 GWe. The country derives two thirds of its electricity from nuclear generation.

Magical mathematics

December 12, 2015

Magical mathematics

Recently I got into a spot of bother on Twitter (it’s easily done) after I wrote an essay criticising an astonishingly bad newspaper article by one Leigh Phillips. The thing is, I hadn’t read his book and, silly me, I didn’t realise that you’re not supposed to criticise people’s newspaper articles until you’ve read their books. Well, now I have, and, er…it was astonishingly bad.

I know that some readers of this blog get bored by my engagements with the ecomodernists, whereas others find them interesting. So I’m going to try to keep everyone happy. I feel the need to recoup the wasted weekend I spent reading Phillips’ book by writing a few things about it, but I’m mostly going to do that elsewhere. The interesting task that Phillips sets himself, but makes a dreadful fist of tackling, is a socialist critique of left-green ‘small-is-beautiful’ relocalisation thinking. So I’m hoping to have an article about that on resilience.org soon. He also makes quite a mess of trying to critique the local food movement, a subject dear to this blog’s heart, and to be honest he’s not the only one to get in a tangle over this so I plan to write a little post about that on here soon. I’ve written a wider critique of some of the magical mathematics associated with ecomodernist thinking, including Phillips’s, which has just been published on the Statistics Views website. This post is essentially a brief summary of parts of that article, plus a foray into Mr Phillips’ enchanted world of geophagy, which I hope might be of wider interest even to people who don’t much care to follow all the twists and turns of ecomodernist tomfoolery. It falls into three parts.

Part 1: The future’s orange

…or at least it is if you believe this graph:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Does China’s Nuclear Boom Threaten a Global Catastrophe?

October 30, 2015

Does China’s Nuclear Boom Threaten a Global Catastrophe?

12-3-china-nuclear-power

“China shows the way to build nuclear reactors fast and cheap.” That was the bullish headline in a Forbes magazine article last week.

It went on to praise the scale of the planned nuclear investment in China’s new Five-Year Plan that runs from 2016 to 2020. Under the plan the government is to invest over US$100 billion to build seven new reactors a year until 2030.

“By 2050”, James Conca wrote for Forbes, “nuclear power should exceed 350 GW in that country, include about 400 new nuclear reactors, and have resulted in over a trillion dollars in nuclear investment.”

Now Conca is pretty enthusiastic about this. But the reality is a potential nuclear nightmare in the making. Experience to date shows that we should, on average, expect a major nuclear accident to take place for every 3,000 to 4,000 years of reactor operation. And with over 400 reactors running at once, it doesn’t take long to clock up those 3,000 years.

In fact, you could reasonably expect a major Chernobyl or Fukushima level accident every seven to ten years – in China alone, if it pursues nuclear build on that scale.

Just how safe is China anyway

Now if China had a fantastic record of safety in its construction and other industries, maybe the odds should be made a bit longer. Swiss-style reactors might come in at only one big foulup every 10,000 years, for example.

But that’s not China. This August past we had the massive fire and multiple explosions at the Port of Tianjin, that killed almost 200 people and devastated several square kilometres of the industrial zone.

It later transpired that over 7,000 tonnes of hazardous chemicals were stored there, among them sodium cyanide, calcium carbide and ammonium and potassium nitrate, many of them kept in breach of regulations. The owners had links to the highest echelons of the Chinese state – something that may have ensured very light touch regulation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nuclear Lies About Renewable Energy

September 24, 2015

Nuclear Lies About Renewable Energy

London.

There’s no doubt about it. The British Government is spreading untruths about the price of renewable energy.

Is it deliberate? One can only assume so owing to the consistency of the pattern and the equally consistent refusal to explain or correct its misleading statements.

The context is also significant: it’s always in the context of supporting nuclear power over renewable energy sources.

One example came a few weeks ago when the Chancellor told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee in their ‘annual evidence session’ that the agreed ‘strike price’ of £92.50 per MWh (in 2012 money, RPI indexed) is “substantially cheaper than other low-carbon technology like offshore wind or onshore wind.”

This statement is palpably untrue. After RPI indexation £92.50 is actually £96.24 today’s money. Onshore wind and ground-based solar projects have bid for ‘contracts for difference’ (the main current support mechanism) and been awarded them at a price of around £80 per MWh.

Hello?? Is anyone at home?

Pressed on the justification for the claim the Treasury issued a statement: “Nuclear energy is an important part of the UK’s energy mix as we move towards a low carbon future. It is also the cheapest low carbon technology that can reliably generate electricity at such a large scale.”

Nuclear Power Kills: the Real Reason the NRC Canceled It’s Nuclear Site Cancer Study

September 22, 2015

Nuclear Power Kills: the Real Reason the NRC Canceled It’s Nuclear Site Cancer Study

Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.

After spending some $1.5 million and more than five years on developing strategies to answer the question of increases of cancer near nuclear facilities, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week reported that they would not continue with the process. They would knock it on the head [1].

This poisoned chalice has been passed between the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the NRC since 2009 when public and political pressure was brought to bear on the USNRC to update a 1990 study of the issue, a study which was widely seen by the public to be a whitewash.

The NCR quickly passed the unwelcome task up to the NAS. It requested that the NAS provide an assessment of cancer risks in populations living ‘near’ the NRC-licenced nuclear facilities that utilize and process Uranium. This included 104 operating nuclear reactors in 31 States and 13 fuel cycle facilities in operation in 10 States.

The NRC request was to be carried out by NAS in two phases. Phase 1 was a scoping study to inform design of the study to be begun in Phase 2 and to recommend the best organisation to carry out the work.

The Phase 1 report was finished in May 2012. The best ‘state of the art’ methods were listed and the job of carrying out the actual study, a pilot study, was sent to: Guess who? The NRC. The poisoned chalice was back home. The NRC was now in a corner: what could they do?

If you don’t like the truth … suppress it

The committee sat for three years thinking about this during which time more and more evidence emerged that if it actually carried out the pilot study, it would find something bad. It had to escape. It did. It cancelled it. The reason given was that it would cost $8 million just to do the pilot study of cancer near the seven sites NAS had selected in its 600 page Phase 1 report. [2]

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Germany Struggles With Too Much Renewable Energy

August 18, 2015

Germany Struggles With Too Much Renewable Energy

Since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany has been one of the few countries that have successfully moved away from nuclear energy. Germany has so far successfully shut down its nine units that had the capacity of generating enough power for at least 20 million homes in Europe. In fact, the contribution of nuclear power in Germany’s electricity generation has now fallen to just 16 percent and renewables are now the preferred source of electricity generation in the country.

Image Source: GreenTechMedia

However, Germany and its neighbors are now facing an unusual problem. With the dramatic increase in green energy usage, Germany is generating so much electricity from renewables that it is finding it hard to handle it. The excess electricity that is generated is being spilled over to its neighboring countries, thereby increasing the threat of a power blackout should there be a sudden supply disruption.

How much should Germany invest to solve this problem?

Although Germany has increased its renewable energy generation by almost five times in the last decade, it has failed to invest in building the necessary infrastructure to carry this energy. The excess electricity that is being generated by Germany is spilling over to Poland and Czech Republic, two countries that are investing close to $180 million to shore up their grids from Germany’s power spillage.

“A huge accumulation of overflow increases the threat of a blackout. The root of the situation is allowing a huge amount of electricity to be generated regardless of the capacity of the grid,” said Zbynek Boldis of Czech grid CEPS AS. It is quite obvious that Germany needs to upgrade its network to accommodate the excess power. In fact, grid companies in Germany are set to invest close to $24 billion for upgrading their network and modify its existing high voltage power lines.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Transformer Explosion At The Indian Point Nuclear Facility Near New York Is ‘Contained’

May 10, 2015

Transformer Explosion At The Indian Point Nuclear Facility Near New York Is ‘Contained’

The words “explosion”, “New York”, “black smoke”, and “nuclear” strike fear into the heart of most people but according to Entergy – who runs Indian Point, “the nuclear facility has been safely shutdown following a transformer failure.”Reports of a loud blast at the nuclear facility just 38 miles north of New York, with dense black smoke rising from Unit 3 are no concern and represent “no danger to public health and safety.” The plant, which dates back to 1962 (although the currently used reactors were installed later in the 70s) had just been brought back online on Friday, after being shut down for a steam leak repair.

Indian is just 38 miles north of New York City, and as RT reports, produces some 25 percent of New York City’s and Westchester’s electricity. The combined power generated by the two units amounts to over 2000 megawatts. The facility employs some 1,600 people.

The plant has been a subject of controversy due to its proximity to NYC. Several environmental groups have been calling for Indian Point’s permanent shutdown for years. It also has a history of transformer accidents and various leaks, including a 2012 explosion in the main transformer that spilled oil into the river and caused Entergy to pay a fine of a $1.2 million.

Witnesses posted alarming images of smoke billowing from the plant on social media, saying it followed a large blast and fire. “It was a huge black ball of smoke and alarms went off immediately,” tweeted Gustavus Gricius, a witness near the scene.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

50 Reasons We Should Fear the Worst from Fukushima

April 27, 2015

50 Reasons We Should Fear the Worst from Fukushima

Fukushima’s missing melted cores and radioactive gushers continue to fester in secret.

Japan’s harsh dictatorial censorship has been matched by a global corporate media blackout aimed—successfully—at keeping Fukushima out of the public eye.

But that doesn’t keep the actual radiation out of our ecosystem, our markets … or our bodies.

Speculation on the ultimate impact ranges from the utterly harmless to the intensely apocalyptic.

But the basic reality is simple: for seven decades, government Bomb factories and privately-owned reactors have spewed massive quantities of unmonitored radiation into the biosphere.

The impacts of these emissions on human and ecological health are unknown primarily because the nuclear industry has resolutely refused to study them.

Indeed, the official presumption has always been that showing proof of damage from nuclear Bomb tests and commercial reactors falls to the victims, not the perpetrators.

And that in any case, the industry will be held virtually harmless.

This “see no evil, pay no damages” mindset dates from the Bombing of Hiroshima to Fukushima to the disaster coming next … which could be happening as you read this.

Here are 50 preliminary reasons why this radioactive legacy demands we prepare for the worst for our oceans, our planet, our economy … ourselves.

1. At Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945), the U.S. military initially denied that there was any radioactive fallout, or that it could do any damage. Despite an absence of meaningful data, the victims (including a group of U.S. prisoners of war) and their supporters were officially “discredited” and scorned.

2. Likewise, when Nobel-winners Linus Pauling and Andre Sakharov correctly warned of a massive global death toll from atmospheric Bomb testing, they were dismissed with official contempt … until they won in the court of public opinion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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