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As US Seeks To “Contain” Iran Nuclear Plans, Russia & China Expand Theirs
As US Seeks To “Contain” Iran Nuclear Plans, Russia & China Expand Theirs
As The United States continues to ‘deal’ with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Sputnik News reports that “the expansion of cooperation between the Russian Federation and China in the nuclear sphere is being actively discussed.” The source went on note that talks on the construction of the seventh and eighth units of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Station in China are in the final stage following the signing of a major memorandum of understanding between Russian and Chinese officials in March 2014, that laid the groundwork for future energy cooperation between the two countries.
Russia and China are discussing further broadening of bilateral cooperation in the sphere of nuclear development, an anonymous source told journalists on Monday.“The expansion of cooperation between the Russian Federation and China in the nuclear sphere is being actively discussed,” the source said, adding that talks on the construction of the seventh and eighth units of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Station in China are in the final stage.
The Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant, located on the Chinese coast and considered to be the safest in the world by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was constructed using Russian nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly Atomstroyexport. It began operation in 2007.
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Oil Market Knee-Jerk Reaction To Nuclear Deal Unjustified
Oil Market Knee-Jerk Reaction To Nuclear Deal Unjustified
A group of exhausted diplomats did the unthinkable. The P5+1 countries and Iran came to a massive and historic framework agreement over Iran’s nuclear program, paving the way for a final deal to be hashed out before the real deadline in June. Negotiations went past the self-imposed March 31 deadline and despite sinking optimism on April 1, all parties managed to overcome enough of their differences to hammer out the outlines of a deal. Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon will be hampered, and crucially for oil markets, Iran is within reach of receiving relief from western sanctions.
It is unclear how quickly Iran will be able to ratchet up its oil production, however, even if a deal is forged. Reviving some of its battered oil fields will require international investment. To be sure, Iran is an enormous prize for the oil majors, but there will likely be a lag between sanctions relief and actual investment. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has courted foreign oil companies, but even if sanctions are removed, oil companies will think twice before they jump in. That’s because the U.S. insists on a mechanism of having sanctions “snap back” into place if Iran does not live up to its side of the deal. For oil companies thinking about pouring billions of dollars into a country, the possibility that sanctions will snap back presents enormous risk. After only recently having seen what happens when international sanctions are brought down like a hammer – ExxonMobil had to pullout of a major drilling project in Russia last year because of sanctions – the industry will take its time. Consequently, despite the historic agreement – a very important development indeed – the flood of Iranian oil will likely take quite a bit of time before it begins flowing.
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Its A Damn Good Deal That Will Change History—–Unless The GOP War Party Sabotages It
Its A Damn Good Deal That Will Change History—–Unless The GOP War Party Sabotages It
The announcement of a “framework” for an agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear research and development had all the drama of a thriller – theextended negotiations, dragging out over several days and deadlines, the anticipation, the furor surrounding the process, and of course the naysayers carping from the sidelines, all focused the attention of the world like a laser.
President Obama did a masterful job in presenting the basic parameters of the deal in his speech: unlike his critics, he sounded like a true statesman, one who is looking to history, and not the next election or the next day’s headlines.
He stated clearly what are the alternatives to the peaceful resolution of this brewing conflict: war, or walking away from the negotiations – imposing heavier sanctions, blinding ourselves to what is going on in Iran, and following a course that eventually leads us back down the road to war. And he made a very important point, one that is not often brought up these days: we have been here before.
During the cold war we faced the Soviet Union, a far more dangerous adversary. Instead of launching World War III, we negotiated with them – an enemy that had vowed to destroy us, and, unlike Iran, actually had the means to do so – and thus avoided a global conflagration. Citing John F. Kennedy – “We must never negotiate out of fear, but we must never fear to negotiate” – the President conjured cold war ghosts that are today largely forgotten: but those of us who lived through the Cuban missile crisis will never forget.
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Is There Any Hope Left For Nuclear Energy?
Is There Any Hope Left For Nuclear Energy?
Can nuclear help avoid the worst effects of climate change?
The International Energy Agency recently provided a roadmap for nuclear power, detailing how the technology could help keep global temperature increases within a 2-degree scenario. According to the IEA report, between 2015 and 2050 total installed nuclear power capacity around the world would need to more than double from 396 gigawatts (GW) to 930 GW.
To get there, the IEA says that the world will need to see an additional 20 GW of new nuclear capacity each year, a scenario that from today’s vantage point seems highly unlikely. The IEA admits as much, and says several key things must happen in order for the industry to ramp up in such a rapid fashion.
The need to train a skilled workforce, greater standardization, more public acceptance, and a resolution to long-term nuclear waste storage feature among the key objectives. There are good reasons to believe that these problems could theoretically be addressed, albeit with great political difficulty.
Related: China’s Nuclear Power Gamble Is Mind-Boggling
Critically, however, the IEA notes that the nuclear industry is going to need to demonstrate that it can build new power plants on time and within budget. On this objective, the industry is failing miserably. Nuclear power plants have often suffered from cost overruns and delays, one factor (among many) that put the industry into a decades-long lull beginning in the early 1980’s. The so-called “nuclear renaissance” was thought to put an end to these problems with a new generation of designs and modular construction. So far, it hasn’t played out that way.
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Radioactive leak at major Ukrainian nuclear plant – report — RT News
Radioactive leak at major Ukrainian nuclear plant – report — RT News.
A radioactive leak has been detected at Ukraine’s Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in Europe, a media report says, citing the country’s emergency services. The report claims that levels of radiation are 16.8 times the legally permitted norm.
LifeNews published what it claims is a leaked report by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, which denies an earlier assessment by the plant’s authorities that the radiation at the facility is equal to the natural background following an incident on Sunday.
RT is trying to verify the report.
On Sunday, one reactor at the plant was automatically shut down after a glitch, becoming the second halt in operations in recent weeks. The reactor was running at 40 percent of nominal power, the plant’s official website said, adding that radiation at the facility being at the level of 8-12 microroentgens an hour.
READ MORE: Emergency shutdown at Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant
The error was later announced to have been corrected, and the troubled unit – Power Block # 6 – was plugged back into the network.
Ukraine’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant Suffers 2nd Emergency Shutdown In 3 Weeks | Zero Hedge
Ukraine’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant Suffers 2nd Emergency Shutdown In 3 Weeks | Zero Hedge.
Following a reported “minor” accident three weeks ago, Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear power plant,Europe’s largest and the 5th biggest in the world, was shutdown. The ‘glitch’ it appears has reoccurred as RT reports, one of the reactors at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant has automatically shut down. Causes are still being investigated.
- *UKRAINE’S LARGEST NUCLEAR PLANT REPORTS EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN: RT
As RT reports,
One of the reactors at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant has automatically shut down after a glitch. This is the second halt in operations in recent weeks at the plant in Ukraine’s southeast, which covers at least one fifth of the country’s power needs.
Fukushima Children Thyroid Cancer Rate Continues To Rise | Zero Hedge
Fukushima Children Thyroid Cancer Rate Continues To Rise | Zero Hedge.
Fukushima prefecture has been conducting regular checkups of over 360,000 people who were in Fukushima in March 2011 and were age 18 or under when the nuclear crisis struck.As WSJ reported in August, a study by researchers in Fukushima prefecture found 57 minors in the prefecture have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer so far and another 46 are showing symptoms that suggest they may also have the disease. Today, as The Japan Times reports, four more children are suspected of suffering from thyroid cancer in the latest survey bringing the total to 107 out of 385,000 now surveyed. This is dramatically higher than the normal “between 5 to 11 cases per million people,” that Okayama University professor Toshihide Tsuda cites for national statistics between 1975 and 2008.
Four more children are suspected of suffering from thyroid cancer in the latest survey on the possible health impact of the 2011 triple meltdown at Tepco’s wrecked Fukushima No. 1 plant, sources said Tuesday.
The four, who were 6 to 17 years old at the time of the disaster, had been diagnosed as not having the cancer in the first survey that was conducted within three years of the meltdowns, they said.
The first survey covered all 370,000 children in the prefecture who were aged 18 or younger at the time of the disaster. The second survey , which began last April, covers some 385,000 children, adding those born a year after the disaster struck.
India to build nuclear reactors with Russia – Central & South Asia – Al Jazeera English
India to build nuclear reactors with Russia – Central & South Asia – Al Jazeera English.
India is to build at least ten more nuclear reactors with Russia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said after talks with President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi.
“We have outlined an ambitious vision for nuclear energy of at least 10 more reactors,” Modi said at a press briefing on Thursday.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin held talks with India’s new prime minister as sanctions-hit Moscow seeks to strengthen energy, defence and strategic ties in Asia.
Putin on was looking to advance nuclear power, oil and natural gas and even diamond deals with long-standing ally India, on his first visit since Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept to power in May.
The president is seeking new markets for Russia’s natural resources as its economy reels under US and EU sanctions over its backing of an uprising in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.
“He [Putin] wants to show the world that he isn’t isolated and to a certain extent he’s not, he still has the BRICS countries,” Russia expert Nandan Unnikrishnan said, referring to the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
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Russia Signs Deal With Iran To Build 8 Nuclear Power Units | Zero Hedge
Russia Signs Deal With Iran To Build 8 Nuclear Power Units | Zero Hedge.
With this year’s APEC meeting in China having just barely concluded, where the biggest news was not the inability of the US to make any material headway in trans-Pacific trade (who needs trade when you have a printer?) or that China is “willing” to import even more NSA bugs courtesy of Cisco and Qualcomm, but Russia’s second “western” mega gas deal with China, as well as the following photo-op of course…
… and with the WSJ reporting that in the now year-old “nuclear”negotiations between the west and Iran, there has been no progress, it was once again Putin’s turn to turn the screws on the lame duck president following a report moments ago that Russia inked a deal to build eight nuclear power units in Iran, as a new partnership agreement, guaranteed by the IAEA.
First, this how the success of US defines “success” in its ongoing negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear program:
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The Great Change: BooneDoggle
The Great Change: BooneDoggle.
“In the event of the worst case – where successive 75-year-old earthen dams built by the Corps of Engineers under emergency wartime conditions are overtopped or washed away – there is no plan to protect these riverside nuclear reactors.”
Many of our friends have been urgently sending us warnings of an impending nuclear catastrophe unfolding in the mountains of East Tennessee. We have been watching the situation but it is almost more interesting to watch the watchers because their overreaching reaction has many tendrils in pop culture, prepping, panic, and how we get our news in the internet age.
Not so long ago news travelled very slowly. In 1845 it took President Polk six months to get a message to California. Thanks to the Pony Express, details of Lincoln’s inaugural address covered the distance between the end of the telegraph line at Fort Kearny and Sacramento in seven days, 17 hours. Lag time like that made a significant difference in events because it offered more time to ponder risks and consequences. Mail lag even had a role in keeping California out of the War of Northern Aggression.
Today we hear a beep from our phone and glance down to see what a Facebook or Twitter friend on the other side of the planet is laughing about. We can glance at our tablet to see development of a superstorm in the Bering Strait as viewed from a weather satellite. If we want to get the lowdown on something not in our news stream, we google it, fully aware that Google is filtering our results based on our particular confirmation bias.
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5 nuclear scientists assassinated near Damascus – report — RT News
5 nuclear scientists assassinated near Damascus – report — RT News.
Five Syrian nuclear scientists have reportedly been killed by unknown assailants while riding a bus north of Damascus, near the research center where they worked, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports.
“Unidentified attackers murdered five nuclear energy engineers who worked in the scientific research center near the neighborhood of Barzeh, northern Damascus,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The news agency meanwhile reports that four of the atomic engineers were Syrian, while the other one was Iranian.
“Their bus was ambushed while they were on their way to the research centre. Their assailants shot them dead,” Rahman said.
So far no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
8 Countries With Nuclear Power Plants Most At Risk Of Tsunamis
8 Countries With Nuclear Power Plants Most At Risk Of Tsunamis.
The tsunami that destroyed a nuclear reactor at Fukushima, Japan, caused a major re-think of nuclear power, which up to the accident in 2011, had been considered a relatively safe, clean form of electricity generation.
The tsunami that followed shortly after a 9.0 mega-quake off the east coast of Japan was shocking in its magnitude – killing close to 16,000. But it was soon apparent that another disaster was in the making, when the surging waves inundated pumps used to cool down the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex.
The resultant fuel meltdown and leakage of radiation led to the immediate evacuation of the site, and a chain of events that eventually had Japan shutting down all of its nuclear reactors. Germany, a major consumer of nuclear power, permanently closed 8 of its 17 nuclear reactors following Fukushima; other European countries shelved their nuclear plans.
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California Could Suffer a Fukushima-Style Meltdown Washington’s Blog
California Could Suffer a Fukushima-Style Meltdown Washington’s Blog.
U.S. Ignoring Earthquake Risks to Nuclear Plants
Scientists warned that an earthquake could take out Fukushima. The Japanese ignored the warning.
(The Fukushima reactors were damaged by the earthquake before the tsunami hit, because the design of the reactors was defective.)
But that couldn’t happen in the U.S. … right?
Well, the engineers who built the Fukushima reactors also built a nuclear reactor at Shoreham, New York … which is highly vulnerable to an earthquake:
The plant was riddled with problems that, no way on earth, could stand an earthquake. The team of engineers sent in to inspect found that most of these components could“completely and utterly fail” during an earthquake.
AmeriScan: October 29, 2014 | Environment News Service
AmeriScan: October 29, 2014 | Environment News Service.
‘Secret’ Decision to Hide Nuclear Plant Quake Risk Challenged … Concerts Aim to Turn Out Youth Vote for Climate … U.S. Enters the ‘Age of Renewable Energy’ … New California Homes Must Provide EV Charging … EPA Okays Pesticide Mix Hazardous to Butterflies … Keystone XL: TransCanada Tries to Silence Citizens, Tribal Nations
‘Secret’ Decision to Hide Nuclear Plant Quake Risk Challenged
WASHINGTON, DC, October 29, 2014 (ENS) – Friends of the Earth has petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn a “secret decision” by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the group claims “illegally” changes the operating license for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on the coast of Southern California.
The group claims this decision allows the plant’s operator Pacific Gas and Electric, PG&E, to hide the fact that the reactors are vulnerable to earthquakes stronger than they were meant to withstand.
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Japan Reacts to Worsening Fukushima Disaster By … Reopening Nuclear Plant Next to Active Volcano Which Is About to Blow Washington’s Blog
D’oh!
Scientists warned that an earthquake could take out Fukushima. The Japanese ignored the warning … and even tore down the natural seawall which protected Fukushima from tidal waves.
Fukushima is getting worse. And see this and this.
Have the Japanese learned their lesson? Are they decommissioning nuclear plants which are built in dangerous environments?
Of course not!
Instead, they’re re-starting a nuclear plant near a volcano which is about to blow …
A month ago, there was an eruption at Mt. Ontake:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
