Newsletter XLIV 2022 |
01. to 07. November
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Nuclear Power Accidents
This PDF file contains a list of known incidents from the various areas of the civil and military nuclear industry. Some of this information only came to the public in a roundabout way...
Excerpt for this month:
4 November 2004 (INES ? Class.?) Balakovo, RUS
11 November 1983 (INES 3) nuclear factory Sellafield, GBR
16 November 2001 (INES ? Class.?) High flux reactor, Petten, NLD
19 November 2003 (INES 2) nuclear factory La Hague, FRA
19 November 1975 (INES ? Class.?) Gundremmingen, DEU
20 November 1959 (INES 4) nuclear factory Oak ridge, USA
22 November 2002 (INES 2) Tihange, BEL
29 November 1970 (INES 3 NAMS 2,5) nuclear factory Sellafield, GBR
29 November 1955 (INES 4) Research reactor EBR-I, USA
30 November 1975 (INES 5) Leningrad, USSR
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We are looking for current information. If you can help, please send a message to: nuclear-world@reaktorpleite.de
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07. November
27th UN Climate Change Conference
COP27: Full throttle into climate hell?
If the 27th climate summit is not able to save this world - it will not have been due to insufficiently drastic warnings. The UN chief in particular uses catchy images. And the chancellor? Stay sober.
A mood of alarm prevails at COP27: "We're on a highway to climate hell and we've got our foot on the gas pedal," UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned before the plenary session of the 27th UN Climate Change Conference. And he calls on the dozens of heads of state and government in Sharm el-Sheikh to act: "Humanity has a choice: work together or perish." Either there is a "climate solidarity pact or a collective suicide pact" ...
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Media | Punish | civil disobedience
Last Generation Reporting
Death of a cyclist: debate gone astray
Demand for tougher penalties and warning of the emergence of a "climate RAF" - an interview with CSU politician Alexander Dobrindt is the current highlight of the reporting after the accidental death of a cyclist in Berlin. Reconstruction of a media dynamic.
An accident and the media reports that followed
In the early morning of October 31.10.2022, 100, the German Press Agency (dpa) reported in a first short report of a traffic accident with a truck in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, in which "a cyclist" was critically injured. Almost an hour and a half later, dpa added that emergency services from the Berlin fire brigade had arrived at the scene of the accident "because of protests by climate demonstrators" and relied on "information from a spokesman". A rescue vehicle with special technology was stuck in a traffic jam on the AXNUMX city motorway for a “quite relevant time”, and the rescue was “delayed as a result”.
Accordingly, many media reported, analyzed and commented on the events in the following days: "Helpers because of activists stuck in traffic" ("Welt" on October 31.10), "What is civil disobedience allowed to do?" (Tagesschau on November 1.11), "The mockery of democracy and rule of law” (FAZ on 3.11.). After the cyclist (a 44-year-old woman) succumbed to her injuries in hospital, the debate continues to heat up...
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cracks in the system
In 2022, French nuclear power plants produced the least electricity in 30 years. One reason for this are cracks in safety-relevant lines. A connoisseur of the French nuclear industry criticizes: These cracks are only a symptom of a "degrading" power plant park.
[...]
During October, French reactors produced less than 30 gigawatts instead of just over 40 gigawatts this month, according to market analysis firm Kpler. Improvement is not in sight. At the beginning of November, the energy company EDF revised its previous annual forecast for 2022 downwards...
Part 1 | Part 2
Climate catastrophe | Climate conference | Climate protection
COP27 in Egypt: Is there a way out of global climate failure?
Climate summits are consistently presented by Western media as a step in the right direction while green-washing their own government. But a look behind the scenes reveals a different picture. What are the chances of a climate change? (Part 2)
The 27th climate summit in Egypt started yesterday. In the end we will probably hear again that small steps are better than none at all, that China, India and so on are to blame for the misery, that climate protection simply cannot win elections (and the population must not be overwhelmed) or that economic and energy crises call for different priorities...
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06. November
offshore | Wind power | Extension
Offshore wind target year 2035
Wind farms with 50 gigawatts in the German sea as early as the middle of the next decade
The Federal Ministry of Economics, the northern federal states and the transmission system operators are pursuing a new ocean wind power target for 2035.
After a meeting between Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and representatives of the coastal federal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Bremen, Hamburg and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which is important as a location for the supplier industry, at which the transmission system operators 50 Hertz, Amprion and Tennet were also participants, Habeck announced the new "Offshore Realization Agreement". According to this, of the German offshore wind power capacity, "2035 gigawatts should already be installed in 50" ...
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Punish | activist | Climate policy
Penalties for activists:
And what about the climate?
The Union wants to punish road blockers harder. As an opposition, you should actually denounce the lame climate policy of the traffic light.
The Bild newspaper is already looking forward to it. This week, the CDU/CSU wants to submit a motion to the Bundestag calling for "minimum prison sentences" for road blockers if they obstruct the passage of emergency services. In addition, it should be possible to impose “preventive custody” on repeat offenders. The details are still unclear: How high should the "minimum prison sentence" be? Should it also no longer be possible to suspend the sentence on probation? And how should the Bundestag regulate preventive detention when the federal states are responsible for averting danger? Does the Union want to change the Basic Law right away – or just ignore it?
But that's probably not the point for the protagonists of these ideas. For them, the most important thing is the direction: tougher penalties for climate stickers! We will hear that often. The Union will probably formulate its application in such a way that the traffic light coalition can only reject it. And then every Last Generation blockade is also a "traffic light blockade". In line with the Union slogan of the 1990s that "every asylum seeker is an SPD asylum seeker" unless the right to asylum is abolished...
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Neckarwestheim | shutdown demo
Protest at Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant
Several hundred people at “shutdown demo”
Between 300 and 500 people demonstrated in Neckarwestheim on Sunday against the extension of the lifetime of German nuclear power plants. The participants marched from Kirchheim am Neckar to reactor block 2.
It would almost be a usual protest march against nuclear power. Otherwise, the rallies of the Federal Association of Citizens' Initiatives for Environmental Protection (BBU) will take place around March 11 around the anniversary of the reactor catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan. But this year everything is different. Suddenly the long-fought phase-out of nuclear power, which opponents of nuclear power had hoped for, faltered. Under the auspices of the alliance of Neckarwestheim anti-nuclear power initiatives, a protest march was called from the train station in Kirchheim am Neckar to Neckarwestheim on Sunday.
With a drum roll, whistle, protest posters and flags waving, we marched in single file from the Kirchheim train station along the temporarily closed district road 1625 through the vineyards up to the reactor blocks...
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Poland | Westinghouse | Lubiatowo-Kopalino
Energy transition in the neighboring country:
Poland goes into nuclear energy
The government is planning three nuclear power plants in order to be able to do without coal-fired power. The first reactor is scheduled to go online in 2033.
[...]
In the small village of Lubiatowo (Lübtow) in Eastern Pomerania, around 70 kilometers northwest of Gdansk and located directly on the Baltic Sea, the residents are paralyzed. Already at the end of February they protested loudly against the "favoured location for Poland's first nuclear power plant". The already weathered banner still flutters on a low wooden garden fence: “No to the atom in Lubiatowo”. Most of the almost 150 residents switched years ago from agriculture to "holidays on the farm", riding holidays and gastronomy. They now fear for their existence. After all, who would want to stretch their feet into the fine sand of the Baltic Sea when the cooling water from the reactors is flowing into the Baltic Sea next door? The forest around the village is also to be removed in favor of the nuclear power plant – a total of around 500 hectares.
The rural community of Choczewo (Chottschow), which includes 30 other villages in addition to Lubiatowo, accepted the multi-million dollar funding offer from the public company PGE (Polish Energy Group) as early as 2015. Since then, PGE has promoted infrastructure measures in the locations intended for a nuclear power plant site ...
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Climate catastrophe | Climate conference | Natural gas
Must show decency in the climate catastrophe
In the interview of the week, Fridays for Future co-founder Luisa Neubauer called on the federal government to give up its blocking attitude towards damage claims by poor developing countries at the climate conference in Egypt. The EU and the US must finally make commitments.
The subject of "loss and damage", i.e. not only payments by industrialized countries to poor developing countries to adapt to extreme weather, but also compensation for damages, is officially on the agenda for the first time at the UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. So far, wealthier developed and emerging economies have refused to compensate for damage and losses caused by extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) was asked to "use his voice so that the EU made commitments," said Luisa Neubauer in the interview of the week on Dlf.
Neubauer also spoke out sharply against the German government supporting possible natural gas production in Senegal. The natural gas would not end up in Germany until 2028 at the earliest, when Germany would have to stop using it very quickly, she criticized ...
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Büchel | disarmament | Nuclear bomb
peace movement and nuclear strategy
NATO plans to station new US B61-12 nuclear guided missiles in Europe. This strategy harbors significant dangers. A look at the current situation and the historical disarmament debate.
In a few weeks, the US will begin stationing new types of nuclear guided missiles B61-12 in Europe, including at the Büchel air base near Koblenz. NATO originally planned that these arsenals, known as "System 2", would be available for nuclear war in Büchel, among other places, from 2024.
Thanks to its technical properties, the B61-12 lowers the threshold to nuclear war, thereby increasing NATO's danger of a third and then almost certainly final world war: the explosive force of the "System 2" can be dosed depending on the intended use and they point through a aiming head an increased aiming accuracy; due to its comparatively low explosive power for nuclear warheads, the military refer to the B61-12 as a tactical or general-purpose atomic bomb ...
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05. November
fracking | Natural gas | energy crisis
The fracking ban must remain in place
Against the background of the fossil energy crisis, fracking is also being discussed again in Germany. There are supporters in the FDP and the Union parties. Why that is not only nonsensical in terms of energy policy, but also dangerous.
In Germany and Europe, the discussion about fracking production of natural gas has broken out again. In view of the high natural gas prices, politicians in Germany are also calling for fracking to be permitted or at least to be reviewed again.
In the summer, the Bavarian Prime Minister called for a review of fracking permits in Lower Saxony - of course not at home in Bavaria. The CDU chairman Friedrich Merz also spoke out in favor of fracking.
There is currently a fracking ban in Germany in the Water Resources Act. After long discussions, this fracking ban was enacted by the legislature years ago with good reasons ...
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Climate protection | prosperity | Energy costs | Climate catastrophe
Quaschning explains: loss of prosperity
Many think climate protection works. We have a government that does not comply with the climate protection law, a transport minister who completely rejects climate protection, an opposition that doesn't care about climate protection at all. Do we really want to grill our children's future?
Skyrocketing energy costs threaten our prosperity - and some are still talking about the climate crisis. Why, Germany is doing enough to protect the climate? No!
When the climate catastrophe hits, we have completely different problems than rising energy prices. Mega droughts will cause drinking water shortages and gigantic famines, tens of millions of people will starve, hundreds of millions will flee the consequences.
Rising sea levels, more violent storms, floods and forest fires are triggering ever greater destruction. The conflicts this would cause would almost certainly destroy our civilization...
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awareness | Climate movement | roadblock
"Road blockades get the most attention of all forms of action"
Is there a split in the climate movement? Lina Johnsen from the "Last Generation" about the current protest actions, the red-green double standards, the social question and the privileges of the wealthy
"People are starving! People are freezing! People are dying!" That's what an activist from the climate group "Last Generation" shouted as she taped herself to a painting in a museum a few days ago. The "Last Generation" has been generating a lot of attention and discussions with its actions for months, now also internationally.
While police unionist Rainer Wendt described the group in the daily newspaper Welt as "on the road to terrorism," Fridays for Future defended it, as did Green Party leader Ricarda Lange. From the CDU, the group is brought close to criminal structures...
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Czechia | Temelino | SMR | CSU
The Czech Republic's nuclear power plant plans are causing resentment on the Bavarian side
Prague/Bayreuth (dpa) - Plans by the neighboring country of the Czech Republic to build new small nuclear reactors to generate electricity are causing resentment on the Bavarian side. The district council president of Lower Bavaria, Olaf Heinrich, recently learned about the Czech mini-nuclear plans at a meeting of the partner regions. Nothing is known about the safety of these new reactors, said the CSU politician. "Even if someone advocates nuclear power, they have to think about safety," says Heinrich, who is also the mayor of the border town of Freyung. There must be uniform European standards here...
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Global Warming | Climate conference | CO2 emissions
Expectations of the climate conference
"Have to tear taxes around quickly"
Politicians are reacting too slowly to global warming, says climate researcher Stefan Rahmstorf in an interview with tagesschau.de. With a view to the climate conference in Egypt, he calls for efforts to be redoubled.
tagesschau.de: At the 2015 World Climate Conference, the goal was proclaimed to limit global warming to 1,5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times. Do you think we can still achieve this 1,5 degree target?
Stefan Rahmstorf: That essentially depends on politics. The last report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was published in April, showed again that there is a way to achieve this. And the International Energy Agency, which always publishes the World Energy Outlook before these climate summits, has also said that there is a narrow but still viable way to keep to 1,5 degrees. But now it's really, really narrow. And that means that we have to change course very quickly in order to take this path.
tagesschau.de: When you say turn things around, what exactly do we have to do?
cream peat: We must halve global CO2 emissions by 2030. That's in eight years. That sounds very drastic, but it is because emissions have continued to rise since the Rio summit in 1992, when the world community decided to prevent dangerous climate change. Politicians have continued to delay and listen to the fossil fuel lobby. That's why we now have to slam on the brakes on emissions...
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renewable | solar park | Biodiverse
Biodiversity
The second look at solar parks
Properly planned and built, a solar park can not only generate clean electricity, but also represent a great enrichment for nature on site. The choice of location and the installation of the modules play an important role.
On September 13, 2022, the eco-energy supplier naturstrom, among others, together with other stakeholders in Berlin, signed the self-commitment Good planning of outdoor PV systems of the Federal Association of the New Energy Industry. In it, the participating companies undertake to comply with, among other things, standards for the promotion of biodiversity when planning and building solar parks, which go beyond the minimum requirements. Various measures can help to support biodiversity...
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Peru | Indigenous people | Tourists | awareness
Amazon region in Peru
Indigenous people release tourists again
According to Peru, the tourists who were held by indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon are free again. With the action, the indigenous people wanted to draw attention to an oil leak in the region.
Dozens of tourists held by protesting villagers in the Peruvian Amazon are free. "It has been confirmed to me that the ships can return to the ports from which they left," said Foreign Trade and Tourism Minister Roberto Sánchez.
Oil leak protest
In protest against the government's inaction after an oil leak, the villagers had stopped several ships with a total of around 150 people on board on the Marañón River since Thursday and arrested the passengers. Among them was a ship with around 70 tourists from Germany and abroad, including a German vacationer on board, as a spokeswoman for the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin announced. Tourists from the USA, Spain, France, Great Britain and Switzerland should also be on the ship ...
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04. November
Nuclear power plant in France
Cattenom reactor block 1 must not be restarted for the time being
The French nuclear safety authority has prohibited the restart of reactor block 1 at the Cattenom nuclear power plant.
The French nuclear safety agency ASN rejected an application by the operator EDF to restart the Cattenom 1 reactor on Friday (November 4). "ASN believes that two welds in Reactor 1 of the Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant need to be repaired before restarting," the agency said.
As part of the treatment of the phenomenon of stress corrosion cracking, EDF carried out checks on the piping of the safety injection system of reactor 1 of the Cattenom nuclear power plant. "These checks, carried out near the welds that could be most affected, revealed evidence of stress corrosion cracking," said the French nuclear safety agency. Two of them had significant dimensions with maximum depths of 4,7 and 6,1 millimeters ...
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Peru | Indigenous people | Hostages | Protest | awareness
Protest against environmental damage
Indigenous people in Peru take 70 tourists hostage
In the Peruvian Amazon, indigenous people are holding dozens of tourists, including women and children. They are demanding that their government conduct an on-site investigation into the massive environmental damage caused by a pipeline leak.
Indigenous people have taken about 70 tourists hostage in the Peruvian Amazon. They want to protest against the government's inaction after the oil leak from a pipeline. "We want to get the government's attention with this action," said Watson Trujillo, chief of the municipality of Cuninico, to radio station RPP on Thursday.
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Würgassen | Nuclear waste | Lower Saxony
Höxter district: Lower Saxony state government against plans for nuclear waste storage
In its coalition agreement, the state government of Lower Saxony opposed the planned location of Würgassen in the district of Höxter as a new nuclear waste storage facility.
"We consider the Würgassen location to be unsuitable." This is what it says in the new coalition agreement of the Lower Saxony state government. Above all, Lower Saxony criticizes the transport connection and the associated risk of accidents at the planned transhipment point in the district for radioactive waste. The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia had also criticized this ...
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Greenhouse gas | CO2 emissions | exhaust
aluminum triformate
Does ALF get all the CO2 out of the exhaust gases from coal-fired power plants?
Aluminum triformate, or ALF for short, is easy to produce and relatively inexpensive. According to a study, it could become a "game changer" in power plants by making their emissions completely CO2-free.
How can the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide be removed from the exhaust gases of fossil power plants before it enters the atmosphere? New evidence suggests a promising answer lies in a simple, inexpensive, and potentially reusable material being analyzed at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Scientists from several institutions have discovered why this material works as well as it does.
It's about aluminum triformate (aka ALF for short by the scientists), which belongs to a class of substances called metal-organic frameworks. These have great potential for filtering and separating organic matter. Some of these compounds have shown promise for refining natural gas or separating the octane components of gasoline...
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Bulgaria | cooling system | Kozloduy
Bulgarian nuclear power plant fails for a long time after an accident
Block VI of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant in north-western Bulgaria, one of the country's two nuclear reactors which was forced to shut down after a cooling system accident on October 29, will not be restarted until November 7.
The new start-up date was set for November 7 at 22 p.m., nine days after the accident. Some sources suggest it could take even longer.
Assistant Secretary of Energy Rosen Hristow visited the nuclear power plant on Tuesday and said that "after numerous tests, all analyzes indicate a technical problem that is currently being addressed." ...
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CO2 | Greenhouse gas | Atmosphere
Biomass becomes eco-charcoal: German technology lowers CO2 into the ground
Does technology solve part of our CO2 problem, especially in rural areas? Greenhouse gas can be bound in biochar by carbonization. This also works on a large scale. The system was viewed by the SÜDKURIER.
In an industrial area in Hunsrück, a machine the size of a semi-detached house roars. Its components meander through a dozen containers, through the open side walls you can see pipes, funnels and boilers, conveyor belts and combustion chambers. The machine, known as the P500, works day and night. Every minute it accomplishes a masterpiece that not only climate protectors have dreamed of for a long time: The P500 draws CO2 out of the atmosphere...
Part 1 | Part 2
Climate catastrophe | Climate summit | Climate protection
COP27 in Egypt: Are climate summits a dangerous diversionary tactic?
Greenhouse gases are rising despite climate conferences taking place for almost three decades. The reason for the historical failure: there is blackmail and bribery. How the US and the EU are torpedoing climate diplomacy. (Part 1)
Viewed soberly, the balance sheet is catastrophic. After 26 climate conferences, not only have greenhouse gas emissions not fallen, they have risen by more than 60 percent, while the climate crisis is escalating unabated.
The 27th so-called COP ("Conference of the Parties") is now starting in Egypt. Nobody seriously expects a sudden turnaround from the international climate meeting, although that would be vital for the survival of the human species ...
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Renewable energies | Climate Crisis | Fossil Energy Crisis
Ways out of the fossil energy crisis
With a proposal for an anti-inflation package, Agora Energiewende shows how Germany could structurally overcome the crisis and strengthen climate protection. This could be counter-financed by savings on oil and gas imports.
[...]
The study makes it clear that such a package of measures would be fully self-financing thanks to the savings on fossil energy imports: Because the budgetary funds required would be offset by savings on oil and gas imports of 160 billion euros over a period of 15 years ...
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Small Modular Reactors
What do the small nuclear power plants do and how do they work?
[...]
Smaller Reactors – Less Waste?
Ultimately, in addition to the problems that nuclear power plants can cause during their lifetime, SMRs also generate nuclear waste. A study by Stanford University in 2022 investigated whether the smaller design also leads to less radioactive waste. The result: the opposite is the case. Although the individual reactors produce less nuclear waste, the amount increases many times over in relation to the energy produced.
In addition to the increased mass of fuel consumed compared to a conventional pressurized water reactor, the small power plants also produce significantly more building materials that are radioactively contaminated. These include steel and concrete structures, but also protective shields and reflectors made of graphite. Things are looking particularly bad for the fast breeders. All of the sodium used as a coolant must be disposed of.
Another problem here: The composition of the SMR nuclear waste does not correspond to that of a large nuclear power plant. Instead, the proportion of uranium-235 and plutonium is so high that the radioactive substances in the common casks could reach a critical mass and the reaction flares up again.
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04 November 2004 (INES ?) NPP Balakovo, RUS
AtomkraftwerkePlag
https://atomkraftwerkeplag.fandom.com/de/wiki/Balakovo_(Russland)
In the night from November 3rd to 4th, 2004, an accident occurred due to a malfunction in a turbine, which is why the Balakovo-2 reactor was automatically shut down. No damage is said to have occurred to the reactor. However, contradictory reports caused great concern among the population: "Hundreds of residents fled that day for fear of radioactive contamination in the area. Business owners closed their shops and pharmacies were out of iodine products to prevent health damage from radioactive radiation." The reactor was restarted a few days later.
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03. November
uranium business | Baerbock | G7 countries
Meeting of the G7 foreign ministers:
Protest against Russian uranium
Environmental groups protest against Russian fuel deliveries in Münster. At the same time, the foreign ministers' conference will take place there.
Before the start of the meeting of the G7 foreign ministers in Münster, more than 20 environmental initiatives called on the head of the German foreign office, Annalena Baerbock (Die Grünen), to campaign for an end to Russian deliveries of enriched uranium to the fuel element factory in Lingen, Emsland. Because the supplier of the fuel is the Kremlin-owned Russian state-owned company Rosatom, according to an open letter dated November 1 to the Green Party.
[...]
"The federal government must act and ban these transports," demands Matthias Eickhoff from the Münsterland Action Alliance against Nuclear Plants.
He does not accept objections to risking lawsuits - the Federal Republic is currently in a "strong negotiating position", argues Eickhoff: "I do not believe that French President Emmanuel Macron or EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in view of the war of aggression against Ukraine want to make headlines by demanding that they insist on nuclear deals with Russia.”
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Runtime debate | Lindner | fracking
"That's just decided now"
Lindner wants to put an end to the nuclear power plant debate
The nuclear issue caused a dispute between the Liberals and the Greens for weeks – then the chancellor put his foot down. For FDP leader Lindner, the debate is over. To be on the safe side, he has a “backup solution” ready.
For a long time, the Greens and the FDP could not agree on the continued operation of the remaining nuclear power plants in Germany. In the end, the chancellor pushed through the final decision. For Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner, the topic is off the table. He doesn't want to continue discussing nuclear power plant runtimes in the coalition...
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In the meantime, Christian Lindner has discovered a new topic for himself with "fracking". The man seems to have a penchant for confronting important questions of the future with answers from the day before yesterday.
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Climate protection | Ministry of Transport
Ministry of Transport continues to refuse work
Energy and climate - compact: The Federal Ministry of Economics has presented key points for a climate protection program. Instead of a turnaround, you rely on business as usual. In the transport sector in particular, there is a lack of planning.
[...]
Emissions from the transport sector must be reduced to 2030 million tonnes of CO85 equivalents by 2, compared to 2021 million tonnes in 148. According to the federal government, based on the measures decided by the end of August 2020, there is a gap of 271 million tonnes in the period from 2022 to 2030, for which no savings measures have been decided so far. On July 13, 2022, the Federal Ministry of Transport presented a proposal for an emergency program, but it is anything but sufficient.
The Expert Council for Climate Issues had refused to examine the content of this at all because it would not meet the requirements of an immediate program ...
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Nuclear fusion: Russia supplies magnetic field coil for research project ITER
One of four poloidal field coils for the ITER research project was manufactured in Russia. Now she was shipped to France.
A ship carrying an important component for the nuclear fusion project ITER left the Russian city of St. Petersburg this week. On board is the PF1 coil, one of six poloidal field coils for the magnetic system designed to hold the plasma in the fusion reactor. It has a diameter of 9 meters and weighs 200 tons. It was manufactured by the Efremov Institute for Electrophysical Apparatus (NIIEFA), which belongs to the Russian company Rosatom.
The Russian Federation has been involved in ITER since the beginning of the project, which was conceived back in Soviet times. In addition to the PF1 coil, Russia claims to be contributing 24 other components. The research reactor is currently being built in Cadarache in southern France, with completion expected in 2025 at the earliest...
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Climate Crisis | energy crisis | Democracy | Activist
I get the crisis crisis
The umpteenth report about the climate crisis or the suffering in the Ukraine war make us despair of the world, the bad news demotivates. How can we change that?
Have you ever had the feeling that I don't want to hear all this anymore? I don't want to get messages every morning that are one thing above all: bad. I don't want to listen to the radio, watch TV, scroll through Twitter or any other platform. I want to pull the covers over my head, postpone getting up. The newspaper should yellow in the mailbox. I just want to open the window, enjoy the chirping birds and the warm autumn.
[...]
Which brings me to you – the readers. I can only advise you to keep looking, reading and listening despite all the gloom. Because only if you know the crises can you find good solutions or judge who has a good solution to offer. But then, and this is at least as important, my recommendation would be: Check out what's going on more often. Look for it in the newspapers. On social media. In your neighborhood. Because you not only meet interesting ideas, but also great people. Tell your friends about it. Because in fact - according to the theory of viral effects - this is also contagious. Just like good mood. And research also shows that people who are active and committed to others are often happier in life than others...
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Photovoltaic expansion | potential | Parking
Photovoltaic expansion: The potential of supermarkets
German supermarkets have discovered the potential of their roof areas and cover the flat roofs with photovoltaics. Most of the electricity is used on site.
[...]
The times when electricity from photovoltaics was more expensive than electricity on the market are long gone and the feed-in tariff is significantly lower than the purchase price - photovoltaic systems are particularly worthwhile when self-consumption (during the day) is high. Food retailers with unshaded flat roofs therefore meet all the requirements for photovoltaic expansion. The companies do not have to carry out detailed profitability and amortization calculations: Because the electricity consumption when selling groceries is so high, it is now necessary to cover the flat roofs with modules.
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02. November
Open letter to Minister Annalena Baerbock
End uranium deals with Russia - nuclear power has no future
While Foreign Minister Baerbock and her US colleague Blinken are already flying to Münster this evening, we, together with 27 anti-nuclear and environmental organizations from four countries, have issued an open letter to Baerbock calling for an immediate end to the uranium trade with Russia...
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uranium business | Baerbock | G7 countries
Nuclear power opponents criticize nuclear deals with Russia
Ahead of the meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Munster, several anti-nuclear initiatives have been pushing for an end to all uranium and nuclear deals with Russia. The federal government can and must set a good example here, according to an open letter to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) published on Wednesday.
The Russian state-owned company Rosatom continues to supply around 20 percent of the uranium consumed in the EU, the activists wrote. They are particularly critical of the transactions between Germany, France and Russia: In September, for the first time since the attack on Ukraine began, Russian uranium was delivered to a fuel element factory in Lingen in Emsland, which belongs to the French state-owned Framatome. A spokesman for the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management had referred to approvals from 2021.
Rosatom is also instrumental in the operation of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which is occupied by Russian troops. "Framatome is doing business in Lingen - equipped with permits from German authorities and ministries - with the occupiers of Zaporizhia. We consider that absolutely unacceptable," says the open letter, which also points to further ties between Russia and EU countries nuclear deals is pointed out ...
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uranium business | IPPNW | G7 countries
End uranium deals with Russian state-owned company Rosatom!
G7 Foreign Ministers' Conference: Prevent nuclear war - end uranium deals!
With a view to the meeting between German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, her US colleague Antony Blinken and five other foreign ministers from the other G7 states on November 03rd and 04th, 2022, the Nobel Peace Prize organization IPPNW is calling for a turn to peace in the Ukraine war. Negotiated solutions should have top priority at the meeting in the peace city of Münster. This would require the United States and Russia to abandon nuclear deterrence and refrain from using nuclear weapons for the first time. At the same time, the uranium deals with Russia would have to be ended in order to reduce nuclear weapons production in Russia, but also the income for the war against Ukraine.
The Russian state-owned company Rosatom guarantees the Putin government secure income for the war against Ukraine and Russian nuclear weapons production. 90.000 of Rosatom's 275.000 employees work in nuclear weapons production. Europe's dependence on Rosatom is immense. The two G7 countries Canada and the USA are also dependent on the Russian group. Rosatom thus generates enormous revenues for the Russian state. In 2021, nuclear power plant operators in the EU paid around 210 million euros to import natural uranium from Russia and another 245 million euros to import uranium from Kazakhstan, where Rosatom controls the mining of the raw material...
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Danish Prime Minister
Resignation with the aim of forming a government
She won the parliamentary elections in Denmark. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen submitted her resignation. Because she now wants to put the governing coalition on a broader basis.
Despite her narrow victory in yesterday's parliamentary elections in Denmark, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has submitted the resignation of her government. Danish media footage showed the social democrat arriving with Queen Margrethe II at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen and leaving shortly thereafter. The head of government did not give interviews.
In a round of talks with the leaders of the other parliamentary parties, she then confirmed that she had submitted her application for resignation...
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Shift to the right in Israel
Palestinian PM calls for international protection after Likud election victory
Mohammed Shtayyeh reacted with alarm to the elections in Israel. He thinks the parties there are like “Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola” – and notes an “increase in extremism and racism”.
In Israel, the fifth election in three and a half years has seen a clear victory for the right-wing conservative Likud bloc led by opposition leader and ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After counting 97 percent of the votes on Wednesday morning, according to Israeli media reports, his right-wing religious camp was able to secure a majority of 65 of the 120 seats in parliament, the Knesset ...
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Study: Solar power ten times cheaper than gas
In the medium term, the operation of gas-fired power plants in Europe is likely to be ten times more expensive than the creation of new solar power plants. This is the conclusion of a study from Norway.
According to a Norwegian study, gas-fired power generation, currently still the backbone of European energy supply, will soon be unprofitable. According to Rystad Energy, it would make much more economic sense to focus on the expansion of solar energy instead.
The study cites two key factors as the reason for this: rising gas prices on the one hand and falling costs for creating new photovoltaic capacities on the other. Given the current gas price trend, it is ten times more expensive in the medium term to continue operating the existing gas-fired power plants...
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France | energy crisis | nuclear power plant construction | citizen participation
Fight against energy crisis
France wants to speed up the construction of nuclear power plants
President Emmanuel Macron could lay the foundation stone for a new nuclear power plant during his current term of office: France wants to build new nuclear reactors more quickly with shorter procedures. But there are protests.
While Germany is discussing how the construction of wind turbines can be promoted, France wants to speed up the construction of new nuclear power plants. The cabinet in Paris is discussing a draft law this Wednesday that is intended to simplify procedures and thus save time.
[...]
The government's draft law on the rapid construction of nuclear power plants is causing protests, because the results of a recently launched public participation on the future of nuclear power are not even awaited ...
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energy crisis | Climate Crisis
Germany is busy promoting fossil fuels abroad
Germany uses public funds to finance more fossil energy projects abroad than Saudi Arabia or Russia, NGOs warn. Public funds and guarantees for renewable energies still lagged behind in comparison.
Despite signing the Glasgow Public Finance Statement, Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to support international gas production, criticizes the environmental and human rights organization urgewald and, together with other NGOs, calls on Germany to take decisive action shortly before the European export finance summit in Berlin and a few days before the start of the COP27 climate conference in Egypt .
Between 2019 and 2021, Germany issued an average of 2,8 billion US dollars in public guarantees and loans for fossil fuels abroad - this is shown by a report by Oil Change International (OCI) and Friends of the Earth US together with the Germans, among others Report published by environmental organizations urgewald, Germanwatch and the New Climate Institute. In comparison: In the same period, Germany provided an average of 2,2 billion US dollars per year for clean energy internationally...
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01. November
Plans of the soon-to-be state-owned company:
Uniper is planning nuclear power plants in Sweden
A subsidiary of the soon-to-be German state-owned company announces the construction of a new kiln. The blue-brown government in Stockholm is enthusiastic.
STOCKHOLM taz | Sweden's energy minister, the Christian Democrat Ebba Busch, reacted enthusiastically: It is extremely gratifying that Uniper has responded so quickly to the new Swedish government's "invitation" to the energy companies and is now already planning the construction of a new nuclear power plant in the southern Swedish province of Scania. In an interview with the public service television station SVT, she promised that Stockholm would change the laws that stand in the way of such a new building.
Does the German energy company Uniper, which will soon also be formally state-owned, want to invest in the construction of a new Swedish nuclear reactor? Apparently. Åsa Carlson, Managing Director of the Swedish Uniper subsidiary "Barsebäck Kraft", announced corresponding plans at the weekend ...
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Habeck wants to ban dividends and bonuses for corporations
If a company takes advantage of the energy price brake, it should not pay dividends or bonuses - if the Minister for Economic Affairs has its way. The gas commission's proposals go to the cabinet first.
German industry has to adjust to the restrictions of the planned state energy aid. Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) expressed sympathy on Tuesday for a ban on dividends and bonuses for companies that take advantage of the price brakes. He follows the logic of the budget committee, which decided this, said the Green politician ...
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Wind energy with kites:
Power plants generate twice as much electricity as wind turbines
A German startup is launching a system that can be used to harness wind energy from higher altitudes. The kites generate twice as much electricity as wind turbines - with a minimum of construction work.
A system for generating airborne wind power is currently making a name for itself. Kites drive a generator on the ground.
The German invention has many advantages: It uses the winds at higher altitudes of 200 to 300 meters, which have more and more powerful air currents. This leads to a higher yield...
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billion profits | Oil company | excess profit tax
BP and Saudi Aramco
More oil companies with billions in profits
Because of the high energy prices, the oil companies BP and Saudi Aramco have presented billions in profits. The results are in line with the success stories of the competition and once again call politics onto the scene.
In view of the high oil and gas prices, after Shell, ExxonMobil & Co., BP and Saudi Aramco again made billions in profits in the third quarter, thus fueling the discussion about special taxes again. The British BP was able to more than double its quarterly profit in the months of July to September. Adjusted net income rose to $8,15 billion, BP announced today...
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Slovakia | Mochovce | nuclear oversight
GLOBAL 2000 reports Slovak nuclear regulator over control failure
Mochovce 3 NPP: Leaked photos show tampering with power/control cables and severe rust damage shortly before scheduled start-up
Vienna (OTS) - Nuclear engineers with decades of experience in the construction and operation of nuclear power plants have passed new material from the Mochovce construction site to the environmental protection organization GLOBAL 2000. The documents prove: rusty weld seams on pipelines that are still installed in reactor 3, and the failure of the quality control of the operating company Slovenské elektrárne and the responsible Slovakian nuclear supervisory authority ÚJD. According to the whistleblowers, even weld seams on pipelines rust through, which were made with inferior material with criminal intent for cost reasons. Based on the leaked documents, GLOBAL 2000 revealed the criminal activities and the failure of quality control at the Slovakian criminal police, which has been investigating corruption, fraud and data falsification by top managers in Mochovce for three years.
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Electricity price brake | Renewables | biogas
Does Habeck's electricity price brake slow down renewables?
The federal government wants to skim off so-called excess profits from electricity producers for the electricity price brake. Biogas plant operators in particular are alarmed by the first implementation plans. But they are also not unproblematic for wind power and photovoltaics.
At the EU level, agreement was reached at the end of September: There should be a Europe-wide coordinated electricity price brake. And in order to pay for the discounts for electricity consumers, electricity producers should make a contribution by skimming off so-called excess profits. In the future, your income will be capped at 180 euros per megawatt hour. The exact implementation is left to the member states ...
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traffic policy | Climate targets | Climate protection
Commentary on missed climate targets
An indictment of German transport policy
FDP Transport Minister Volker Wissing does not manage to present a plan on how the transport sector should achieve its climate goals. In the week before the UN climate conference, this is a devastating signal, comments Andreas Niesmann. A simple and quickly implementable instrument is obvious.
[...]
When it comes to climate protection, on the other hand, the House of FDP Minister Volker Wissing is less ambitious. It's not just that the transport sector keeps tweaking its climate targets. The Wissing force is also the only ministry that does not see itself in a position to draw up a binding plan on how the legally prescribed CO₂ reduction is to be achieved by 2030. It is – there is no other way to put it – a sign of the inadequacy of German transport policy...
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Current news+
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Future | Technology | Capitalism
Do not fear progress and technology, fear capitalism
Society Cultural and ideological circumstances shape the perception of progress and development. The fear of the future is really a fear of the capitalist machine.
"Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."
Stephen Hawking
The belief that technological advances will lead us to a better future was once a cornerstone of public debate. Poverty, hunger, disease and later climate change were considered powerless against human curiosity, ingenuity and creativity. After all, technological advances in the western world have enabled a life of unprecedented luxury and abundance (the Global South, exploited and oppressed for centuries, is a different story altogether).
As our lives grew longer, our calorie intake increased, our cities conquered the world and every deserted corner of the planet, leaving no ecosystem untouched; As we conquer numerous diseases and continue to make strides in eliminating others, at some point one has to ask: Where will this all end?
Now why does it feel like technology keeps turning against us? Innovations and advances used to make our lives easier and more comfortable; now they are fueling increasing anxiety and stress, fueling the near-ubiquitous fear of economic and societal collapse. The continued exploitation of our planet, its resources and everything that walks, crawls, flies or swims on it. Is it technological progress itself that has turned against us? Could it be time to stop progress? stopping time?
The Paperclip Maximizer
To illustrate how progress and cultural ideology, specifically capitalism, are inextricably intertwined, let's consider the Paperclip Maximizer thought experiment ("paper clip maximizer"). This was first described by the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2003.
A Paperclip Maximizer is a hypothetical artificial intelligence (AI) programmed to produce as many paperclips as possible. This is their sole purpose. What would be the implications of this behavior? In order to increase the production of paperclips, the AI would constantly improve and optimize its own design and manufacturing process, using ever increasing amounts of resources. In theory, it would become so effective at making paperclips that it would eventually use up all available means of production, including its creators and other creatures (whose bodies contain a lot of usable metal). Our planet would be turned into a gigantic paper clip factory.
Would the AI be cruel in this thought experiment? Would the technology it is based on be evil? The only way for the AI to interact with its environment is to decide whether to produce more paperclips or not. She has no other relation to the world or other (programmed) beliefs and values. It only acts within the framework of its underlying instructions, which it cannot change itself. Maybe their creators, who only wanted to produce more paperclips, didn't think through all the implications of their actions?
Modern large corporations and, to some extent, governments and states act in a similar way. They, too, follow a very specific set of rules dictated by the capitalist system. Profit, shareholder value, stock prices, exploitation and expansion, GDP growth, artificial scarcity, and the elimination of public and freely available resources—these are all beliefs we have imposed on our institutions with almost religious zeal. Every technological achievement and research effort is designed to achieve these goals. Progress is defined according to these key figures. Renowned economist Jason Hickel calls this growthism. Corporations and governments, much like paperclip AI, operate within a narrowly defined frame of reference. They are not inherently evil or bad; they just do what we programmed them to do. They carry out instructions.
We wouldn't expect paperclip AI to care about environmental degradation, climate change, or human lives—why should it? Your only job is to make paperclips and nothing else. To achieve this goal, she would do everything in her (increasingly increasing) power. If left unchecked, she would eventually destroy the planet. So why should companies and states behave differently? Why should they care about ecosystems, climate change, poverty, human suffering and resource depletion?
According to science fiction author Charlie Stross modern companies are so-called "slow AIs". Like Bostrom's Paperclip Maximizer, these AIs - these companies - follow a set of rules that forces them to optimize towards the wrong goals and see human values as obstacles. Helping is not profitable; Exploitation very well ...
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Background knowledge
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reaktorpleite.de
Map of the nuclear world:
Man-made disasters...
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The internal search for
brought the following results, among others:
August 28, 2022 - The arguments used by politicians and industry to slow down climate protection
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December 01, 2021 - How many of our greenhouse gas emissions are we attributing to China?
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March 30, 2021 - NASA researchers find direct evidence of human-caused climate change
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YouTube
Keyword search: greenhouse gas and emission doku
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Treibhausgas und Emission doku
Videos:
Federal Environment Agency - 4:10
UBA explanatory film: Greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect
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climate:neutral - 8:09
Carbon dioxide: What are the biggest climate killers?
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ZDF - 43:35
Germany in climate change / With Harald Lesch
Playlist - radioactivity worldwide ...
This playlist contains over 150 videos on the topic
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Ecosia
This search engine is planting trees!
Keyword search: man-made climate change
https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=menschgemachter%20Klimawandel
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Federal Environment Agency
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report on climate change and land systems
The August 2019 IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land Systems (SRCCL) summarizes the scientific knowledge on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security and greenhouse gas fluxes in land systems.
What does the special report convey?
From the point of view of the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), the report contains important messages:
- Land systems are the basis of human life, but humans are putting enormous pressure on them through the destruction of forests, the degradation of soils and additionally through climate change.
- Depending on the type, scope and intensity of use, land systems are both sources and sinks of greenhouse gases.
- Climate change is exacerbating the already existing pressures on land systems through permafrost degradation, desertification and land degradation as a result of temperature rise, but also through the effects of extreme events. Land degradation itself is also becoming a driver of climate change, for example because significant amounts of greenhouse gases are released in drained peatlands.
- Sustainable development paths with reduced energy demand (e.g. through a low-meat lifestyle) and lower greenhouse gas emissions reduce the risks of climate change.
- A number of land-based options for action offer high greenhouse gas reduction potential and minimize conflicts between different sustainability goals. The options for action include demand-oriented measures such as agroforestry, improved soil carbon management and stopping deforestation and forest degradation.
- Land-based climate protection measures are an important building block for the 1,5°C target of the Paris Climate Agreement. Most include both large-scale afforestation and massive bioenergy expansion (often associated with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)). Such land-based climate protection measures can increase the pressure on land areas and lead to trade-offs with negative effects on land degradation and food security.
- The framework for sustainable land-based climate protection measures (“good governance”; governance) must move in the direction of a multi-level approach at all levels and with all stakeholders, through the legal protection of the land rights of small farmers and indigenous population groups, especially in the Global South, through the pricing of environmental costs and by redirecting investment flows can be redesigned quickly and efficiently.
What is the significance of the special report for international, European and German climate policy?
Against the background of the hitherto insufficient national climate contributions (NDCs) for the implementation of the Paris Agreement, the contracting states of the climate framework convention confirmed at the COP24 in Katowice 2018 that more climate protection measures must be implemented globally. This means that land systems, as an important building block for compliance with the 1,5 °C upper limit, are also coming more into the focus of climate policy ...
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Wikipedia
Jevons paradox
In economics, the Jevons paradox is an observation made by William Stanley Jevons that technological advances that allow more efficient use of a resource ultimately lead to increased use of that resource, rather than decrease it. In a broader sense, today we speak of a rebound effect.
General
In his 1865 book The Coal Question, Jevons observed that England's use of coal increased after the introduction of James Watt's coal-fired steam engine, although it was far more efficient than Thomas Newcomen's earlier variant. Watt's innovations made coal a cheaper source of energy and led to the increasing use of his steam engine in transportation and other industries. This led to the overall increase in coal consumption, although at the same time the specific consumption of each individual application decreased...
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climate change denial
Climate change denial (also sometimes referred to as climate change denial, climate science denial, or man-made global warming denial) is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, denying, contesting, or challenging the scientific consensus of climate research on global warming currently taking place. These include, in particular, trend denial, i.e. denying that the earth is currently warming, denial of causes, i.e. denying that the effect is man-made, and denial of consequences, i.e. denying that warming is causing major social and ecological problems. In addition to these three basic categories, consensus denial is often added, i.e. denying that the core statements in research have long been undisputed. Among other things, climate change skepticism, climate skepticism and climate skepticism are also used as a self-designation.
Despite the scientific consensus that has prevailed since the early 1990s at the latest, which is shared by all scientific academies of all major industrialized countries, parts of the public continue to reject the existence of man-made global warming, especially in some Anglo-Saxon countries. The rejection is particularly pronounced in countries in which, for economic reasons, an influential counter-movement has been created with large financial investments by companies, especially in the areas of extraction and utilization of fossil fuels, the aim of which is to destroy the existence of the scientific consensus through conscious to undermine sowing doubts. A distinction can therefore be made between "naive denial" by laypeople, based on ignorance of the scientific literature, and "motivated denial" by individuals and organizations who have access to the relevant information...
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Back to:
Newsletter XLIII 2022 - October 28th to 31st
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