Nuclear just can't hack it in the heat

The false claims that nuclear power can address the climate crisis were dealt another blow last week as France faced the possibility of having to shut down its nuclear plants due to extreme heat. Nuclear plants cannot operate safely when their intake water is too hot — or at all if water supplies drop too low and are not sufficiently available to cool the plant.

Both of these conditions will occur with greater frequency in our rapidly warming world. In addition, water resources are becoming scarcer under the climate emergency, meaning that large thermo-electric plants, such as nuclear power plants, are devouring — or are in competition for — water resources needed for drinking and irrigating essential crops.

As the World Resources Institute pointed out last year, “47 percent of the world's thermal power plant capacity—mostly coal, natural gas and nuclear — . . . are located in highly water-stressed areas.” Clearly, nuclear power is a serious liability, detrimental to addressing global warming, and far from “reliable.”

And as US News wrote this week: "In little-noticed but publicly available reports to regulators, nuclear plant owners revealed that unusually hot temperatures last year forced them to reduce the plants' electricity output more than 30 times – most often in the summer, when demand from nuclear plants is at its highest. In 2012, such incidents occurred at least 60 times. At one plant in Connecticut a reactor was taken offline for nearly two weeks when temperatures in the Long Island Sound surged past 75 degrees."

The same article also pointed out that: "it's not just water temperatures that plants have to contend with. Air temperatures can also cause conditions inside the plant to get too hot to operate. So desperate was a power plant in France during last year's heat wave that it began spraying water on the outside of the building to keep the interior from overheating. Plants in the U.S., meanwhile, have regularly slashed their output by anywhere from 3% to 60%." More

Update on uranium mining and the Grand Canyon

Efforts are underway in Congress to push back on the Trump administration's move to classify uranium as a "critical mineral" essential for national security. Here is the statement by Aaron Mintzes, Senior Policy Counsel at Earthwork in response to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources’ hearing on uranium mining and introduction of HR 3405. 

"We strongly support Chairmen Grijalva’s and Lowenthal’s effort to remove uranium from the so-called “critical minerals” list. This bill exposes the Commerce and Interior Departments’ sleight of hand: a misdirection aimed at raising the specter of national security that only thinly veils their desire to give away our most treasured places. Foreign mining companies covet public minerals in areas surrounding the Grand Canyon, Bears Ears, and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments. Our current mining law, dating from the 19th century, allows this public wealth giveaway to an industry that leads the nation in toxic pollution.

"Messrs. Grijalva and Lowenthal also champion HR 2579, the Hardrock Leasing and Reclamation Act, a reform measure that will update the General Mining Law of 1872 by clarifying the people’s power to choose land uses, like National Monuments, over uranium mining. We won the Cold War more than a quarter century ago and our mining law is nearly a century and a half years old. The reform we need is HR 2579 that holds polluters accountable for their messes and protects taxpayers, communities, and our most iconic places."

(Photo: Danny Santiago, WikiCommons)

Building new nuclear is lost opportunity for humankind

Fairewinds has created this two-minute animation to show why building new nuclear power plants is a lost opportunity for humankind with precious time and money wasted on the wrong choice. At least $8.2 Trillion would be needed to build the 1,000 atomic reactors the nuclear industry wants – that’s 1 reactor every 12-days for 35-years. Watch the animation to find out why the nuclear "solution" to climate change is a smokescreen.

What decommissioning looks like: "high taxes, giant casks of dangerous radioactive waste"

A new series on nuclear power on the USA Today newspaper network, includes an indepth story in the Asbury Park Press about the future for the New Jeresey region around the closed but not yet decommissioned Oyster Creek Generating Station.

"With decommissioning, nuclear jobs will dry up. Property taxes are expected to spike," says the article. "And, for the foreseeable future, the town's 30,000 residents will be left with the plant's dangerous legacy — the stored canisters, or casks, containing radioactive waste."

And, as Holtec rushes to decommission the plant, Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter, warns in the article:

“Decommissioning… has been pretty limited to date," said Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear, a group that advocates abandoning nuclear power in favor of other power sources. "It’s not like we have experience in this."

Read the full article.

12 years late, overbudget and delayed again: The Flamanville Fiasco

It was supposed to be the "flagship" new reactor design and a French nuclear feather in EDF's cap. Instead, the EPR -- absurdly dubbed the Evolutionary Power Reactor during its short aspirational tenure in the US -- has proven to be both a dinosaur and a loadstone around the neck of the French utility.

Now, the Flamanville-3 EPR, already "under construction" for 12 years on France's Normandy coast, and wildly over-budget, will have its startup date (if that ever arrives) delayed again due to faulty welds which EDF hoped to get away without repairing. Instead, the ASN -- the French nuclear safety authority -- has ordered EDF to repair 8 of the welds, which traverse the containment vessel and were a clear safey liability. Given the welds are reasonably inaccessible they will be both difficult and expensive to fix, resulting in more delays and further cost over-runs. The costs for the project have now topped $12.4 billion, almost four times the original estimate of $3.3 billion when it began.

More here and here.

Update on July 9, 2019 by admin

Update: The French finance and economy minister has ordered an independent audit of the EPR itself, given the many problems with and delays at EPR construction sites around the world. The audit will look into the stalled EPR project at Jaitapur, India as well as the fiascos at Flamanville and Olkiluoto. "Flamanville has become a national symbol of industrial shame and disaster for France." https://mediaindia.eu/…/french-epr-audit-raises-questions-…/