Newsletter III 2023 |
January 15th to 21th
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The PDF file "Nuclear Power Accidents" contains a number of other incidents from various areas of the nuclear industry. Some of the incidents were never published through official channels, so this information could only be made available to the public in a roundabout way. The list of incidents in the PDF file is therefore not 100 % identical with "INES and the disturbances in nuclear facilities", but represents an addition...
1 January 1977 (INES 5) Beloyarsk, USSR
2 January 1958 (INES ? Class.?) Nuclear factory Mayak, USSR
3 January 1961 (INES 4 | NAMS 2,9) NRTS Idaho Falls, USA
5 January 1976 (INES ? Class.?) NPP Jaslovke Bohunice, SVK
6 January 1981 (INES 3) Nuclear factory La Hague, FRA
6 January 1986 (INES 4) Nuclear factory Cimarron, USA
6 January 2016 (North Korea's 5th nuclear weapons test) Punggye-ri, PRK
13 January 1977 (INES ? Class.?) NPP Gundremmingen, DEU
17 January 1966 (Broken Arrow) Palomares, USA
18 January 2012 (INES 2) NPP Cattenom, FRA
20 January 1965 (INES 4 | NAMS 3,7) LLNL, Livermore, USA
21 January 1968 (Broken Arrow) Thule Airport, Greenland, USA
21 January 1969 (INES 5 | NAMS 1,6) VAKL Lucens, CHE
21 January 2002 (INES 2) NPP Flamanville, FRA
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We are looking for current information. If you can help, please send a message to: nukleare-welt@reaktorpleite.de
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21. January
France | Electricity price | Cracks | Cooling
German-French friendship: electricity exports higher than ever
France's nuclear power plants are ailing and have to be taken off the grid. Loss of electricity is delivered from Germany. Why that can burden German consumers.
The relationship between Germany and France may be tense in some respects - both countries cooperate excellently when it comes to energy supply. Last year, the Federal Republic exported around 20,5 terawatt hours (TWh) to the neighboring country and has received natural gas in return since October.
The German Economic Institute (IW) said on Saturday that the electricity requirements of almost three million French households were covered by German exports. However, only 5,2 TWh flowed back from France, significantly less than in previous years.
The situation in France makes it clear that nuclear power plants are no guarantee of a secure energy supply. Half of the reactors failed at times last year and produced less electricity than at any time in 30 years ...
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CO2 certificates | Fuel assemblies | Stretch operation
compensation projects
The big scam with the CO₂ certificates
Many companies buy their emissions free with voluntary CO2 certificates. But the majority of these certificates are worthless, as extensive research reveals. Some of the largest companies in the world are affected.
Companies like Netflix, Gucci, Walt Disney or Ben & Jerry's pump billions of dollars into the voluntary CO2 certificate market every year. For the environment, for your own conscience and of course your own brand.
The key word is offsetting. That means something like equalization or compensation. The Italian fashion company Gucci, for example, emits CO2 in the production of clothing, transport, heating of its own buildings and so on. Around a million tons every year.
[...]
The undisputed number one certification organization is Verra. Three out of four projects worldwide are under the oversight of this Washington-based non-profit organization.
The one developed by Verra Verified Carbon Standard is the seal of quality for the offset market worldwide.
90 percent of the CO2 certificates are garbage
In a nine-month research, the two newspapers took The Guardian and Time and patience and the British investigative platform source material the conditions at Verra under the magnifying glass.
The journalists take stock that over 90 percent of all forest conservation projects certified by Verra - the most frequently overseen by the organization - are worthless...
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Emsland nuclear power plant | Fuel assemblies
Lingen: Demonstrators protest against nuclear power plant operation
About 115 people demonstrated in Lingen on Saturday against the operation of the Emsland nuclear power plant. On the same day, the nuclear power plant was shut down as planned - but only temporarily.
Fuel elements in the reactor are to be reconfigured by the beginning of February. In order to ensure the continued operation of the nuclear power plant until mid-April, existing fuel elements are to be moved within the core. As a result, the fuel can be used optimally, it said. New fuel elements would not be used, said power plant manager Wolfgang Kahlert ...
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RWE | Lützerath | eviction | Compensation
After the evacuation of Lützerath:
RWE wants compensation
The group plans to take civil action against participants in the Lützerath protest. An RWE spokesman confirmed that "interferers" would have to reckon with demands for money.
FOOD afp/epd | After the evacuation of the village of Lützerath in the Rhenish lignite mining area, the energy company RWE has announced that it will take civil action against demonstrators. "Of course, all disrupters have to reckon with a claim for damages," said company spokesman Guido Steffen of the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. However, it is not yet possible to quantify how high these demands could be. There is still no final damage assessment for the evacuation.
According to information from the newspaper, RWE recently announced that it would sue a person for 1,4 million euros in damages who had chained himself to the tracks to the Neurath coal-fired power plant in 2021. According to their own statements, RWE therefore had to shut down the power plant...
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21 January 1969 (INES 5 | NAMS 1,6) NPP Lucens, CHE
There were about 2,1 TBq radioactive radiation released.
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Wikipedia
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaktor_Lucens#Der_Unfall_vom_21._Januar_1969
On January 21, 1969, operations resumed after an overhaul. During the increase in reactor power, several fuel assemblies overheated. Fuel element No. 59 heated up so much that it melted and finally caused the penstock to burst. 1100 kg of heavy water, melted radioactive material and radioactive gases were thrown into the reactor cavern...
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AtomkraftwerkePlag
https://atomkraftwerkeplag.fandom.com/de/wiki/Lucens,_Schweiz_1969
The reactor was called "Lucens Experimental Nuclear Power Plant (VAKL)". The owner was the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Nuclear Technology and the operator was Energie de l'Ouest Suisse. In 1966 the reactor went critical, and in 1968 electricity was fed into the grid for the first time.
Explosion after restart
The start-up of the reactor on January 21, 1969 began with a shock: alarms and 38 error signals were triggered.
What happened? During a shutdown period, "external water leaked into the reactor's cooling circuit via a defective fan seal. The magnesium fuel rod cladding tubes corroded. When the reactor was restarted in January 1969, the products of corrosion impeded cooling. The fuel overheated and several fuel rods melted. A whole bundle of fuel rods caught fire and ruptured the moderator tank. Carbon dioxide (coolant) and heavy water (moderator) leaked into the reactor cavern." Large amounts of radioactive substances were released in the reactor as a result of the explosion of the moderator tank, and radioactive gases escaped to the outside. Fortunately, the experimental reactor could be evacuated in time. The cavern with radioactive material was initially sealed. The clean-up work only began years later and lasted until 1973. The rubble was first stored in sealed containers on the site and then transferred to the central interim storage facility in Würenlingen (ZWILAG) in 2003...
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21 January 1968 (Broken Arrow) Thule Airport, Greenland, THANKS
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The nuclear chain
http://www.nuclear-risks.org/de/hibakusha-weltweit/thule.html
Thule, Greenland
Nuclear aircraft crash
The crash of a nuclear-armed US Air Force B-52 bomber over Greenland contaminated large areas of land and surrounding waters with radioactive plutonium. Local residents and rescue and decontamination teams were exposed to high doses of radiation. The incident was dubbed the "Broken Arrow," a US military term for the accident or loss of a nuclear weapon. Under international law, Greenland is part of Denmark, which had officially declared itself a nuclear-weapon-free zone. After large demonstrations by the population, the Danish government finally reacted to the radioactive contamination with a protest note to the USA ...
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20. January
Emsland nuclear power plant | Fuel assemblies | Stretch operation
Dear friends,
the last two weeks around Lützerath have been intense, with a lot of activities and great reporting. Much is now concentrated on the police operation and the issue of violence. The main cause of the conflict is increasingly being ignored.
But the nuclear lobby does not sleep either and continues to make propaganda for tipping the nuclear phase-out. So here is the call for the anti-nuclear and energy transition demo again:
Saturday, January 21, 13 p.m. Nuclear power plant Emsland, Am Hilgenberg 1, Lingen.
How to get there: Who comes by train - at 12 o'clock starts in Lingen at the train station a bike demonstration to the nuclear power plant.
If you arrive by train without a bike: There is a shuttle bus from the train station.
Please contact Bündnis AgiEL as soon as possible: buendnis.agiel@posteo.de
It's about stopping the nuclear power plant runtime extensions. Instead of rushing to relocate the fuel elements in the nuclear power plant, the nuclear power plant should be completely off the grid. And we demand a halt to the uranium deals with Russia and the nuclear eastward expansion of neighboring fuel element manufacturer Framatome. The fuel element factory must finally be shut down together with the Gronau uranium enrichment plant. It's a question of credibility, as the Federal Environment Ministry rightly says - but then does nothing...
January 21.1.2023: Rally at the Lingen nuclear power plant
Shut down nuclear power plants, end nuclear deals!
More than ten years ago, the federal government came to the realization that nuclear power is dangerous and uncontrollable.
Currently, however, the decision to phase out nuclear power on December 31.12.2022, 2023 was overturned. Because of the gas crisis with Russia, the German nuclear power plants should remain in operation in XNUMX. However, without generating more electricity than originally planned. Only longer. According to the will of parts of the government parties and the opposition for years longer. The political pressure to further soften the postponed phase-out of nuclear power will increase again next spring ...
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speed limit | CO₂ emission | road traffic
Effect greater than previously thought
New study: speed limit could avoid millions of tons of CO₂ emissions
The discussion about a speed limit on German autobahns does not stop. A study by the Federal Environment Agency now shows that the speed limit could have a significantly greater effect on climate protection than previously assumed.
[...]
6,7 million tons less pollutants and CO₂
A survey by the Federal Environment Agency shows that a general speed limit could avoid the emission of significantly more CO₂ and other air pollutants than previously assumed. According to this, 120 million tons of CO₂ equivalents could be saved at a maximum speed of 6,7 kilometers per hour. This includes both carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases such as methane. Based on car traffic on motorways alone, this results in a reduction in CO₂ emissions of 10,5 percent, according to the study. Overall, a speed limit would result in 4,2 percent fewer CO₂ emissions and other air pollutants from road traffic in Germany...
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Jülich | Nuclear waste | Interim storage
No shipment of nuclear waste to the US
End of the discussion: The approximately 150 containers with nuclear waste in the interim storage facility in Jülich should not be exported to South Carolina in the USA. This has now been announced by the action alliance "Stop Westcastor". The alliance is referring to a press release by the US initiative Savannah River Side Watch.
And she says: The plans to transport the approximately 300.000 spent fuel elements to the USA will be discontinued. The action alliance "Stop Westcastor" welcomes this. The export would not have solved the problem, they say. Nevertheless, it must now be clarified what happens to the fuel elements. They are currently still in the interim storage facility in Jülich, for which the permit expired 10 years ago. To solve the problem, interim storage in Ahaus or a new construction of the interim storage facility in Jülich are being discussed.
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Fuel elements in the Emsland nuclear power plant have to be regrouped
In order to be able to continue operating the Emsland nuclear power plant in Lingen until mid-April, the fuel elements in the reactor have to be reconfigured. For this purpose, the power plant will be shut down on Saturday, according to the operator RWE and the Ministry of the Environment in Hanover.
"We will not use any new fuel elements in our core," said power plant manager Wolfgang Kahlert. The already existing fuel elements would only be converted for the optimal utilization of the fuel within the core. This procedure also existed in the last revision in May 2022. "As always, we will carry out all work safely, reliably and in compliance with all legal regulations," said Kahlert ...
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20 January 1965 (INES 4 | NAMS 3,7) LLNL, Livermore, CA, USA
Approximately 259 TBq were released from the tritium plant chimney in 1965. This accident was kept secret for years, during this time the population grew and houses were built on polluted soils...
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The largest release in the history of the LLNL took place on January 20, 1965 and amounted to 259 TBq.
The second highest dose resulted from the release of 222 TBq in the year 1970.
USE OF TRITIUM AT LIVERMORE LABORATORY:
Tritium and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Two of the three largest tritium accidents I have ever seen documented occurred here at Livermore Lab's main site. In 1965 and 1970, the Livermore Lab released approximately 650.000 curies (23.700 TBq) of tritium into the air from the stacks of the tritium facility (Building 331).
Note: One curie corresponds to 37 billion radioactive decay processes per second, in becquerels 37 GBq.
After the 1965 accident, not much data is available on wind patterns, precipitation, etc., but after the 1970 accident, Livermore Lab scientists found elevated tritium levels that they linked to the 1970 accident, as far south as Fresno, in southeast about 200 miles away.
Translated with https://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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Wikipedia - de
Unfortunately, there is no information on the accidents from 1965 and 1970 in the German Wikipedia.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Livermore_National_Laboratory
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Wikipedia - en
In the English Wikipedia, too, there is mostly only the usual propaganda copied from advertising brochures; in the past this was probably called court reporting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Livermore_National_Laboratory#Public_protests
Public protests
The Livermore Action Group organized numerous mass protests against the production of nuclear weapons by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1981 to 1984. Peace activists Ken Nightingale and Eldred Schneider were involved. On June 22, 1982, more than 1.300 anti-nuclear weapons protesters were arrested in a non-violent demonstration. More recently, there is an annual protest against nuclear weapons research in Lawrence Livermore. In August 2003, 1.000 people protested at Livermore Labs against "new generation nuclear warheads". During the 2007 protests, 64 people were arrested. In March 2008, more than 80 people were arrested while protesting outside the gates.
Translated with https://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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19. January
CO2 withdrawal | CDR Carbon Dioxide Removal | net zero
Global Carbon Dioxide Removal Study
New type of CO₂ removal from the air is still almost at zero
CO2 removal techniques will need to grow more than a thousandfold to make the world carbon neutral by 2050 and produce climate-impacting negative emissions thereafter. This was the result of the first global report on the status of such methods, which an international research group is presenting today.
By 2050, mid-century, the world must be carbon neutral, the Paris Agreement demands. Neutral means: The global CO2 balance should then be "net zero".
[...]
For the "net zero" these residual emissions have to be compensated, above all by technologies where CO2 is directly or indirectly removed from the atmosphere and then stored in the long term. These methods rank under the abbreviation CDR, Carbon Dioxide Removal – i.e. CO2 removal. Climate experts also speak of negative emissions.
In recent years, another reason that makes CDR more and more interesting has come to the fore: global CO2 emissions are still very high. All scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that comply with the 1,5-degree limit call for emissions to be halved by 2030 and "net zero" for 2050, but they also say: 1,5 degrees will remain for a long time limit is exceeded, the so-called overshoot occurs.
In order to bring the warming back down to 1,5 degrees and - in view of the climate damage that is already being experienced - better still below that, hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 are to be extracted from the air and stored. "It's not about a can, it's a must," said Jan Minx, senior scientist at the Berlin Mercator Research Institute MCC...
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NRW Minister of the Interior about Lützerath:
Almost everything is fine in Lützi?
Interior Minister Reul praises the police operation in Lützerath. There were no serious injuries, but 480 crimes. Protesters see it differently.
DUSSELDORF/BERLIN taz | How violent was the police operation during the evacuation of Lützerath? The interior committee in North Rhine-Westphalia discussed this on Thursday. Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) praised the operation as "good and professional" and that the police leadership acted "extremely prudently". The activists see it differently: they continue to criticize police violence and the high number of injuries.
According to Reul, up to 3.700 police forces were deployed at the peak, from almost all of Germany. 372 activists who had previously occupied the hamlet to prevent it from being excavated by RWE left voluntarily – which Reul praised. 159 squatters were cleared by the police...
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Neckarwestheim | EnBW | Stretch operation
EnBW: Nuclear power plant Neckarwestheim 2 back on the grid for stretching operation
According to EnBW, the nuclear power plant in Neckarwestheim went back online on Thursday and is supplying electricity. A citizens' initiative criticizes.
As the operator Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW) confirmed to SWR, the reactor at the Neckarwestheim 2 nuclear power plant (Heilbronn district) was restarted and is supplying electricity. The association "Bund der Bürgerinitiativen Mittlerer Neckar" criticized this in a statement. The restart of the reactor in Neckarwestheim was originally announced for Saturday, but it was brought forward...
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France | Electricity price | LNG terminal
High electricity prices from France's nuclear power plants
Anke Herold on high electricity and energy costs in Germany
At the beginning of the year, the situation with electricity prices on the exchanges looked surprisingly relaxed. Last August, the electricity price was over 800 euros per megawatt hour. After a brief high in mid-December, the price of electricity on the exchange has been below 22 euros per megawatt hour since December 200nd. The gas storage facilities are also still well filled at almost 90 percent. According to the Federal Network Agency, the feared gas shortage this winter is now unlikely.
Are the measures taken effective? Have many followed the appeals, lowered the heating temperatures and saved a lot of gas? Or were fears of winter exaggerated?
[...]
Germany exported nine terawatt hours more electricity last year than in 2021. Net exports to France in particular were more than twice as high. Due to the failure of many nuclear power plants, France generated 80 terawatt hours or 22 percent less electricity than in the previous year from nuclear power. In comparison: All gas-fired power plants in Germany produced only 2022 terawatt hours of electricity in 46. There has been a major unplanned power outage in Europe since mid-February; from July to September, nuclear power production in France fell to a record low. This is why gas-fired power plants for exporting electricity were running in Germany even when gas prices were extremely high. This situation made a decisive contribution to the high electricity prices in Europe and Germany in the summer ...
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CDU Lower Saxony | Nuclear phase-out
Future Lower Saxony CDU leader is committed to nuclear phase-out
Hanover (German news agency) - The designated CDU leader from Lower Saxony, Sebastian Lechner, wants to lead his party on a clear climate protection course in the coming years. "We are aggressively committed to phasing out nuclear power," he told Die Welt.
The future belongs to renewable energies, especially in Lower Saxony. "We don't just want to become the number one wind power country, but also the number one hydrogen country." Lechner also rejects the exploitation of Lower Saxony's shale gas deposits. “Unconventional fracking is too great a risk in the densely populated regions of Western Europe. In Groningen, the Netherlands, we are currently experiencing the damage that fracking can cause. And that is why we reject unconventional fracking.”
Lechner also spoke out in the "Welt" for a further reduction in the electricity price for industrial companies so that Germany can remain internationally competitive when switching to renewable energies ...
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Fossil Group | Climate change | cause
Climate Change: What Did ExxonMobil Know?
Energy and climate – compact: Climate scientists have examined old documents from the oil company. You have unearthed amazing things. And: what science fiction author Asimov was already demanding in the 1970s.
The discussion about the greenhouse effect and the influence of CO₂ emissions from industrial processes, deforestation and above all the burning of coal, natural gas and petroleum products is nothing new, as we have often made clear and proven on Telepolis - last day before yesterday. The main polluters, the big oil and energy companies, have known about the dangers for a long time.
This is once again confirmed by a study published last week in the journal Science, in which various documents from US oil, coal and electricity companies were analyzed by scientists from the US University of Harvard and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Result: Oil companies have known since the 1950s that humanity is facing a problem, coal companies have known since the 1960s at the latest...
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Fossil | lobbyist | traffic light coalition
A billion here and there for dirty energy
The traffic light government and the Green Ministry of Economic Affairs are quietly promoting fossil energy with billions. This shows that the influence of the lobbyists is still great.
When lobbyists are really good, they don't just change laws in their favor. They also change them in such a way that no one notices. Those who represent rich, old companies are usually particularly good at this. Not only do they have the necessary money, their representatives also have long-standing, trusting relationships in politics. Often enough, it is enough for them to update existing, well-hidden privileges, i.e. to keep a small, hidden paragraph or to gently rewrite it.
In the energy industry, those who have been earning their money from fossil fuels for decades have a particularly strong interest in backroom lobbying. You have to take with you what is still possible - because at some point nothing will work anymore. After all, the clock is ticking for them. Their business model of burning coal, gas and oil is inevitably coming to an end – at least in those countries that take the climate crisis and CO₂ neutrality seriously. So also in traffic light-governed Germany, at least officially. Unofficially things look completely different...
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Greenland | Climate change | Temperature
Climate change: Greenland's heart is also thawing
Temperature and ice melt in the center of the ice sheet reach millennium highs
Last bastion falls: Climate change has reached the high, cold heart of Greenland. In the decade from 2001 to 2011, the Greenland ice sheet was warmer than at any time in the last thousand years, as measurement data now show. Temperatures today are 1,5 degrees higher than in the 20th century. The melting ice in this region, which has long been considered stable, has also reached an all-time high, as researchers report in "Nature".
Greenland is the second largest ice reservoir on our planet after Antarctica - and at the same time it is severely affected by climate change. Above all, the coastal glaciers of the arctic giant island are thawing, and in some cases the melt could even be irreversible. In addition, the rise in sea level caused by the Greenland meltwater has already exceeded all forecasts. In the summer of 2021, rain instead of snow fell on the coldest, highest point of the Greenland ice sheet for the first time.
[...]
While the earlier data did not show a clear trend, this has now changed. Anthropogenic warming is also clearly detectable in the ice of central Greenland. "The warming in the phase between 2001 and 2011 is clearly different from the natural fluctuations of the last 1.000 years," reports Hörhold. "We feared that in view of global warming, but the clarity and conciseness is unexpected." ...
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18. January
Taxonomy | Investment sustainable
Climate compatibility of investments:
Better than EU taxonomy
The greenwashed observatory set up by environmental organizations informs investors about the sustainability of financial investments.
BERLIN taz | In response to the EU taxonomy with the controversial classification of nuclear power and gas as sustainable, the environmental organizations WWF, Ecos, Transport & Environment (T&E) and other associations founded the greenwashed observatory. She operates in Internet a portal, where professional investors from banks, insurers and other institutions can access information about the sustainability of financial investments ...
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Raid | search | Press freedom
Police search because of Link: Criticism of "targeted attempt at intimidation"
The DJV criticized the search at "Radio Dreyeckland" with sharp words. There one speaks of a "disproportionate" approach.
The German Journalists Association (DJV) has the raids on the Freiburg radio station "Radio Dreieckland" was criticized as a "massive violation" of editorial secrecy, which was "completely disproportionate". The union told the dpa and added, "unfortunately, this seems like a targeted attempt to intimidate journalists that you don't like". Meanwhile, the radio station itself says that " several computers, mobile phones and data carriers" were taken away: "They also contain sensitive data protected by editorial secrecy." The police also took away devices belonging to an editor's partner, "who uses her work laptop with sensitive data in the home office." ...
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record growth
Finland will increase wind power output by almost 2022 percent in 75
Helsinki - In Finland, wind power output has already grown rapidly in recent years. 2022 was another record year for the wind industry in Finland. A total of 437 wind turbines with an output of 2.430 MW were newly installed in Finland in the past year. At the end of 2022, the total output reached 5.677 MW (2021: 3.257 MW). That's an increase of 74,3 percent...
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France | Cattenom | Spare Parts
Cracks at the Cattenom nuclear power plant: were inferior spare parts installed?
Cattenom/Luxembourg The cracks in the pipes of the Cattenom nuclear power plant continue to make headlines. Now there is a suspicion that the production of spare parts that are to be used for this could have been sloppy.
[...]
French energy group EDF has commissioned a factory in Podenzano, Italy, to manufacture replacement parts for the corrosion-damaged pipes. During an inspection of the factory by the French nuclear authority ASN in October last year, it was found that there were deficiencies in the quality control of the spare parts. The ASN informed EDF in a ten-page letter, which was also submitted to our editorial team, about the results of the review and asked for an opinion...
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Italy | Atomic power | majority against
Nuclear energy for Italy: majority does not go along with it
Rome – At the end of November, Lega boss Matteo Salvini announced that Italy wanted to return to nuclear power in a few years. According to his plan, the first nuclear power plant is to be built near Milan. Salvini argues that the latest generation of nuclear reactors are safe and cheap and only take seven years to build.
But people in South Tyrol don't seem to be too enthusiastic about such mind games and ideas. According to a spontaneous poll by Südtirol News, 62 percent of the approximately 7.000 participants said they did not want any nuclear power plants in Italy. That's not sustainable...
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Energy transition | Renewables | Electricity price
Wind and solar energy depress the price of electricity
Energy and climate – compact: The expansion of renewable energy sources is slowly picking up speed again. Only at sea it will take a little longer. Why this is also good news for consumers.
This week there is all sorts of bad news, such as the evacuation in Lützerath in the Rhineland, which we wrote about yesterday. Or that energy policy spokeswoman for the CDU parliamentary group in the Brandenburg state parliament, Saskia Ludwig, who called Hans Joachim Schellnhuber an eco-fascist on Twitter on Monday.
Schellnhuber – here is his curriculum vitae – was the founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, also adviser to the Federal Chancellor on climate issues and, among other things, director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in Great Britain and is one of the most internationally renowned climate scientists.
[...]
According to the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, the output of onshore wind turbines had increased by 2,1 gigawatts (GW) by the end of the year. The installed capacity of the solar systems even increased by around six GW.
This means that the expansion of solar energy has finally returned to the level that was reached at the end of the last decade. In 2010, 2011 and 2012 more than seven GW of solar capacity was added. However, at the time this was a thorn in the side of the FDP in particular, after which it was financed by the metal and electrical industry Initiative New Social Market Economy had driven a massive campaign against the expansion of solar energy.
The black and yellow Bundestag majority under Angela Merkel therefore changed the Renewable Energy Sources Act in such a way that the feed-in tariff for new systems was reduced far too quickly. The result: The expansion almost came to a standstill and tens of thousands of jobs in the installing trades and in industry were lost. Significantly more than the 20.000 or so who are still working in lignite today...
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17. January
Raid | search | Press freedom
Raid on Radio Dreyeckland in Freiburg:
A notice as an advertisement
The alternative broadcaster RDL is said to have supported the banned website linksunten.indymedia. Apartments were searched and almost the studio.
Early on Tuesday morning, the police searched two apartments belonging to editors of the Freiburg alternative broadcaster RDL and appeared with around a dozen officers in front of the broadcasting rooms in Freiburg's "Im Grün" district.
The reason was an investigation under Section 85 of the Criminal Code – for supporting a banned association. Specifically, it was about a short article that was already published in July 2022 on the website of Radio Dreieckland has been published. It is about the termination of criminal proceedings against the operators the prohibited website linksunten.indymedia. At the end of the article there is the succinct sentence: “On the Internet you can find linksunten.indymedia.org as an archive page.” The archive page was also linked.
The public prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe, which is responsible for political offenses in Baden, evaluated this reference as "advertising" for the banned website, under the "pretext" of information. The author has thus made himself the "extended arm" and "mouthpiece" of the banned association indymedia linksunten ...
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Energy transition | Raw materials | Recycling
Energy transition is not a raw material killer
According to an analysis, the expansion of solar and wind power plants does not increase the demand for metal any more than the fossil alternatives. Nevertheless, the recycling of renewable systems in Germany and the EU must be greatly improved.
Millions of solar systems, tens of thousands of wind turbines on land and at sea, new power lines and battery storage systems that ensure the stability of the electricity system when supply fluctuates: There is no question that the energy transition requires large quantities of raw materials, including metals such as steel and copper. However, a study published on Tuesday gives the all-clear.
The production of eco-energies did not cause a significantly greater need for metals than that of fossil energy. Nevertheless, even with wind and solar energy, more value must be placed on the economical use of raw materials and recycling ...
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9,5 MW Vestas turbines
Arcadis Ost 1 offshore wind farm produces the first wind power
Sassnitz-Mukran - The expansion of offshore wind energy in Germany is gaining momentum after the thread broke. At the end of 2022, all 38 turbines of the Kaskasi offshore wind farm in the North Sea with a capacity of 342 MW were commissioned. Another offshore wind farm is now being connected to the grid.
The first Vestas wind turbines at the Arcadis Ost 12 offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea north of Rügen have been producing green electricity since January 2023, 1. Arcadis Ost 1 was developed by Belgian developer Parkwind with the participation of PMV and OstseeWindEnergie GmbH...
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Climate change | Brown coal | fossil
More Coal: Shattered Bones and Hopes
Energy and climate - compact: After the police operation against climate protectors in the Rhineland, serious questions arise about the state of this society. A comment.
Can we really be saved? Do we still have our wits about us? We consider ourselves to be the land of ideas and at the same time scrape brown coal out of the ground as if there were no tomorrow, as if we had never heard of the greenhouse effect and climate change. Ironically, lignite, the most problematic of all fossil fuels.
In fact, we are world champions in their consumption and, as the weekend has shown, we forcefully enforce the mining and incineration of those who protest out of concern for the future, despite urgent warnings from the scientific community...
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Radon | lung cancer | Federal Office for Radiation Protection
Risk factor
Radon as a cause of lung cancer
Lung cancer is not only diagnosed for smokers. Among other things, the naturally occurring radioactive gas radon can cause the cells in the lungs to degenerate. In Germany, the radon concentration is distributed differently. What can you do to protect yourself?
It's invisible, can't be smelled or tasted, yet it's dangerous to health if too much is inhaled - radon is one of the top causes of lung cancer after smoking. According to the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) in Germany, about 5 percent of deaths from lung cancer are due to excessive radon exposure in living spaces. That's about 1.900 deaths a year. However, very few people know about radon, as a current study commissioned by the BfS shows. "There is very little knowledge about radon in the population and the risk is underestimated," says Dr. Bernd Hoffmann, Head of the Radon Department at the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, in conversation with the PTA Forum ...
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17 January 1966 (Broken Arrow) Palomares, ESP
USA - January 17, 1966, Palomares, ESP - Crash of a B-52 bomber with 4 hydrogen bombs on board...
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Wikipedia
The Palomares nuclear accident involving nuclear weapons from the US Air Force's Strategic Air Command happened on January 17, 1966 near Palomares, a small town on the Spanish south-east coast between Almería and Cartagena.
During a refueling maneuver in the Saddle Rock Refueling Area over Spain's Mediterranean coast, a B-28G bomber carrying B52RI hydrogen bombs from the 68th Bomb Wing, deployed from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina as part of Operation Chrome Dome, collided in the USA came in a US Air Force KC-135 tanker at 9000 feet.
There was an explosion. The 150.000 liters of fuel on board the KC-135 burst into flames and both planes crashed. All four crew members of the tanker died. Five members of the seven-person bomber crew were able to eject from the aircraft, but one of the parachutes failed to open, so that a total of seven of the eleven soldiers died.
Three of the four hydrogen bombs, each with a 1,45 MT warhead, aboard the B-52 bomber crashed to the ground in the populated area of Palomares, the fourth fell into the sea eight kilometers off the coast. Safety precautions prevented a thermonuclear explosion, but the high-explosive conventional explosive charges in two of the bombs detonated and contaminated approximately 170 hectares of agricultural land with the radioactive components of the warheads ...
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16. January
Finland | Nuclear waste repository
"Wonderful pragmatism"
Finland: The world's first nuclear waste repository will soon be ready - commissioning possible in 2024
After around two decades of excavation work, the Onkalo repository for nuclear waste is actually close to completion. According to reports, the permit for final disposal in the gigantic complex on a peninsula 100 kilometers north of Turku should come into force from 2024.
When the time comes, nuclear waste will no longer be temporarily stored on the site of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in Eurajoki, but transported more than 450 meters underground in the quasi-neighboring repository.
[...]
Are there any concerns? But sure, there are. Corrosion researchers like Peter Szakalos from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden see a certain probability that the copper capsules could leak much more quickly. Possibly within 1.000 years.
On the other hand, the Finnish and Swedish radiation protection authorities say they do not consider such a risk of corrosion to be significant. So it looks like future generations will have to report which of the two sides was right.
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Neckarwestheim | Fuel assemblies | Stretch operation
"Point of no return" reached in Neckarwestheim
AKW: Runtime extension according to EnBW no longer possible
The date is set: In April, the Neckarwestheim 2 nuclear power plant is to be finally taken off the grid. Even power shortages are unlikely to change anything.
The discussions about the Neckarwestheim 2 nuclear power plant (Heilbronn district) do not stop. Now the new boss of the Karlsruhe energy company Energie Baden Württemberg (EnBW), Andreas Schell, has spoken out again against considerations for an extension of the term of the kiln. This is reported by the Reuters agency. The “point of no return has been reached,” said Schell on Monday at the “Handelsblatt Energy Summit 2023” in Berlin. The fuel elements factor is just one aspect...
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Dozens of plants newly connected to the grid
Offshore wind power is picking up momentum again
For a long time there was a lull in the construction of new wind turbines at sea. Dozens of systems are now going online again. The wind turbines are clearly ahead of their predecessors.
After a period of complete standstill, the construction of new offshore wind turbines picked up again last year. A total of 38 new plants with a total output of 342 megawatts (MW) went online last year. This emerges from an analysis by the consulting firm Deutsche Windguard on behalf of several industry associations, which was presented in Berlin.
At the end of the year, 1539 wind turbines with a total capacity of 8,1 gigawatts (GW) were in operation in Germany. A year earlier there were 1501 systems with a capacity of almost 7,8 GW. In 2021, not a single additional system was connected to the grid.
Most German offshore wind energy comes from plants in the North Sea (7 GW). Among the federal states, Lower Saxony is clearly ahead, followed by Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, to which the wind farms in the Baltic Sea with a capacity of 1,1 GW are attributed. Most wind farms are therefore at least 40 kilometers from the coast ...
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Spain | solar power | ownconsumption
Solar power boom in Spain: Residents are increasingly fighting back
There is a lack of clear data on the development in the area of self-consumption, and resistance to uncontrolled growth in the construction of large open-space systems to supply Europe with energy is growing.
The good news for Spain is that the expansion of renewable energies is booming again. But unlike the boom 15 years ago, when "big business" was made with massive subsidies and large solar parks in open spaces were seen as a good investment with state-guaranteed profit, private individuals are finally benefiting from state support.
[...]
More and more people in the country are anything but enthusiastic about the idea that Spain should become the main energy supplier for Europe, because that also means massive destruction of nature and also cultural landscapes are threatened and farmers and other property owners are expropriated. The winners of these plans are again the corporations and large financial investors, who had already earned a golden nose with the first boom ...
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Renewable energy | mine shaft | energy storage
Turn abandoned mines into batteries
A novel process transforms abandoned mines into long-term energy storage solutions, thereby supporting the sustainable energy transition
Renewable energy sources are central to the energy transition towards a more sustainable future. However, since sources such as sunshine and wind are inherently variable and volatile, finding ways to store energy in an accessible and efficient manner is crucial. While there are many effective solutions for everyday energy storage, the most common being batteries, a cost-effective long-term solution is still lacking.
In a new study led by IIASA, an international team of researchers developed a novel method of storing energy by transporting sand into abandoned underground mines. The new technique, dubbed Underground Gravity Energy Storage (UGES), offers an effective solution for long-term energy storage while making use of abandoned mine workings, which there are likely to be millions around the world.
UGES generates electricity when the price is high by lowering sand into an underground mine and converting the sand's potential energy into electricity through regenerative braking, and then using electric motors to lift the sand from the mine into an above-ground reservoir to generate energy to save when electricity is cheap. The main components of UGES are the shaft, motor/generator, upper and lower reservoirs and mining equipment. The deeper and wider the shaft, the more energy can be extracted from the plant, and the larger the mine, the greater the energy storage capacity of the plant...
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Nuclear waste | Repository | Asse mine
Delayed repository search - and the consequences for the aces
According to the Federal Agency for Disposal (BGE), the search for a repository for nuclear waste will be delayed by decades. This has consequences for the storage of nuclear waste in interim storage facilities and for the Asse.
In the worst case, a repository site could not be found until 2068, the BGE announced in October. If construction were then to begin, a repository would not be operational until the late 80s. It is therefore unclear where the nuclear waste from the Asse should be stored, which according to previous plans should have been recovered from the mine twenty years earlier. The SPD member of the Bundestag and environmental politician Jakob Blankenburg from Lüneburg therefore fears that because of this storage gap one could demand that the nuclear barrels remain in the mine for much longer than planned ...
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15. January
Discussion about allegations of violence in Lützerath
After the evacuation of Lützerath for the Rhenish lignite opencast mine, the police and demonstrators accuse each other of excessive violence. Both sides see themselves in the right.
One thing is certain: It will take time to process the events surrounding the evacuation of the town of Lützerath at the Rhenish opencast lignite mine. The eviction ended on Sunday, only two activists are still holding out in a tunnel. The events of the demo on Saturday continue to be hotly debated.
According to the police, around 1.000 mostly masked "disturbers" tried to penetrate the closed-off area of Lützerath. To fend them off, the officers used water cannons, armored vehicles, batons, pepper spray, dogs and horses. Other demonstrators were driven off the edge of the lignite opencast mine. It is undisputed that the stage announced: "Everyone can do what they want. Everyone decides for themselves how far they go."
[...]
At the large demonstration on Saturday, people were stopped "with sheer violence", said Indigo Drau from the "Lützerath Lives" initiative. A spokeswoman for the demonstrators' medical service said officers beat demonstrators "uncontrollably". The police "systematically hit activists in the head".
[...]
According to the Aachen police, more than 70 officers were injured during the operation on Saturday - not only through the action of activists, but for example because they twisted their ankles in the mud...
Here is the incontrovertible proof: A cowardly attack on state power.
Stoi Polipop..., stop the mud monk!
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Climate change | Methane | Permafrost
Thawing permafrost soils:
"A Huge Difference"
In the northern hemisphere, climate change is thawing soils that are actually permanently frozen. Researchers are investigating what the loss means.
[...]
About 15 percent of the land area in the northern hemisphere is permanently frozen. That's over 21 million square kilometers in Alaska, northern Canada, northern Scandinavia and Siberia. The permafrost acts like a huge freezer in which gigantic amounts of dead plant remains are frozen.
But if the ice melts, microbes decompose the plant remains and release greenhouse gases such as methane, nitrous oxide or carbon dioxide. In the upper part of the permafrost alone there is up to 1.600 billion tons of carbon - almost twice as much as is currently in the earth's atmosphere ...
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RWE | Disinformation | Greenhouse gas | man-made climate change
According to experts, RWE operates disinformation – and questions man-made climate change
RWE makes a large part of its profits from the production of energy, which leads to the emission of enormous amounts of greenhouse gases - and actively hides facts.
Essen/Frankfurt – Climate activists have been demonstrating in Lützerath in the Rhineland for weeks against the planned excavation of lignite. The energy company RWE claims that Germany needs lignite to ensure security of supply with energy - and conceals facts that clearly prove the opposite.
[...]
RWE: Questions man-made climate change
The group is hiding the fact that coal-fired power is becoming increasingly unprofitable. “Renewable energies are superior to coal all over the world. The planned investments in coal-fired power plants run the risk of being abandoned and becoming 'stranded assets',” warns Matthew Gray in an analysis by the London think tank Carbon Tracker. "Investors should be wary of relying on continued government support for coal," adds co-author Sriya Sundaresan.
But as if that weren't enough, the company repeatedly doubts man-made climate change. "It has not been scientifically proven whether there will be climate changes, causal connections between the individual human influences on the environment and climate phenomena are open," says a court document from RWE's legal representation from 2006 ...
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Nuclear waste | Repository | Interim storage | highly radioactive
What a super repository looks like
The search for a location for the storage of high-level radioactive waste is ongoing. Rock, depth, facility: What criteria does such a repository have to meet?
It was there from the start, the big question. As early as 1957, when the first German nuclear power plant went into operation, the question was: what to do with the radioactive waste?
The answer was always postponed. There is now an approved repository for low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste in the Konrad mine in Lower Saxony. But a suitable location for highly radioactive waste has not yet been found. The Federal Society for Repository Search (BGE) has been responsible for this since 2016. She has decided not to find just any suitable place, but the best possible one. To do this, she is examining the soil all over Germany, and the location should not be known until 2046 at the earliest.
That's how long the rubbish lies around in one of the 16 interim storage facilities. According to the BGE, a total of 647.000 cubic meters of nuclear waste will be generated, around 5 percent of which will be highly radioactive. The interim storage facilities are usually located in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear power plants so that the transport routes remain short and fewer people are endangered. These camps do not offer a long-term solution, because nuclear waste remains dangerous for thousands of years ...
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Corruption | EU Parliament | Lobby Rules | Disclosure assets
EU Parliament
Repair work after the Kaili scandal
The shock is deep in the EU Parliament - even weeks after the corruption scandal surrounding then-Vice President Kaili became public. What consequences are now being discussed?
More transparency, tougher lobbying rules, stricter access restrictions: the EU Parliament is trying to repair what the corruption scandal destroyed with far-reaching reforms.
[...]
As a consequence, the EU Parliament wants to further tighten its already comparatively strict regulations and introduce a registration obligation for all visitors. And: MPs and their employees should make all meetings with representatives from third countries public in the future.
Anti-corruption organizations such as Transparency International and Lobby Control consider the plans of the President of Parliament to be the right step, which, however, should be followed by others. Green MEP Daniel Freund agrees. For example, parliamentarians should disclose their assets at the beginning and end of the legislature...
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Fossil | RWE | Climate Crisis | Greenhouse gas | Lützerath
Climate crisis and Lützerath
Why RWE deserves every suspicion
Germany needs the coal under Lützerath, claims RWE. That's not true, say many experts and studies. There are good reasons never to trust fossil companies further than you can throw a sack of coal.
The danger assumed by the defendants on the basis of subjective perception is neither concrete nor present. Whether there will be climate changes has not been scientifically proven, causal connections between the individual human influences on the environment and climate phenomena are open.
From a court record of the Cologne Higher Regional Court, text from the legal representation of the brown coal group RWE in 2006
In 2006, the German average temperature was 1,3 degrees higher than in the comparable period from 1961 to 1990, making 2006 the fifth warmest year since 1901, according to the German Weather Service. This continued a trend that has demonstrably begun in the 19th century.
[...]
In 2006, however, RWE was allegedly not yet sure. To this day, the company makes a large part of its profits from the production of energy, which leads to the emission of enormous amounts of greenhouse gases.
Twisting, covering up or completely denying facts is a tradition among manufacturers and sellers of carbon dioxide. This week, a highly interesting specialist article by Geoffrey Supran, the German climate researcher Stefan Rahmstorf and the science historian Naomi Oreskes was published in the top journal »Science«...
| Current news+ | Background knowledge |
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Current news+
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complain | climate fraud | Disinformation | Exxon
Exxon knew everything
Exxon Mobil not only knew about the danger of the climate crisis. His climate forecasts and models were among the best of their time, as an analysis of previously unpublished data shows. Instead of sharing this knowledge, the US oil company launched a targeted climate disinformation campaign.
"All of this evidence together, in my view, makes it very clear that the (anthropogenic) greenhouse effect exists and is changing our climate." With these words closed James hansen, NASA climate researcher, on June 23, 1988, his speech before the US Senate.
A day steeped in history. The fear of global warming was already buzzing around in scientific circles. But it was only through Hansen's speech that the media and politicians took up climate change. It is certainly no coincidence that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in November of the same year.
However, one man knew very well about global warming years before NASA expert Hansen. And not only that. As a new study shows, he also understood man-made global warming better than NASA.
His name was James Black. Unfortunately, Black has not shared his knowledge with the public, only with executives at his employer, then the world's largest oil company, Exxon.
As early as 1977, James Black warned the board of directors of Exxon, now Exxon Mobil: The burning of fossil fuels affects the global climate. A year later, he pointed out that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels would raise the average global temperature by two to three degrees. An assessment that largely coincides with current knowledge.
All of this was shown in 2015 by a month-long extensive research of the online magazine Inside Climate News.
Rather than using this knowledge to educate the public, Exxon Mobil developed a major disinformation campaign. reach today AfD MPs or world journalists Exxon Mobil's fake arguments.
The historian of science Naomi Oreskes examined Exxon's climate change communications between 1977 and 2014. She came to that Result, that 81 percent of the advertorials paid for by Exxon Mobil - editorially designed ads, for example in daily newspapers - expressed doubts about the existence of climate change and the role of fossil fuels.
Exxon predictions better than Nasa
Now shows a new one Studyhow accurate the climate forecasts actually were. Scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Harvard University in the US systematically and quantitatively evaluated the oil company's internal forecasts between 1977 and 2003. This also includes data from previously unpublished company documents.
The researchers calculated the default skill score for the Exxon forecasts. This results from the mean square deviation between a forecast and the observed temperature data and is a measure of the accuracy of the forecast. Exxon's forecasts scored 1982 percent in 82 and 1985 percent in 99.
"An Exxon projection, as early as 1977, correctly predicted that fossil fuel use would cause a 'carbon dioxide-induced superinterglacial,'" stressed Stefan Rahmstorf from PIK, co-author of the study.
They were thus consistent with the predictions of independent models from government research and, in most cases, were even better than them. For example, the predictions that NASA expert James Hansen presented to the US Congress in 1988 only achieved a score of 66 percent.
A pair of interglacial is a warm period that occurs between two ice ages. A "superinterglacial" is an interglacial period that is not only warmer than, but warmer than, anything in the history of human civilization last interglacial period 125.000 years ago.
Even the remaining global carbon budgetto keep warming below two degrees has been realistically estimated by Exxon Mobil scientists. According to the authors of the study, the company's public statements clearly contradicted its own scientific data on this point in particular.
"What Exxon Mobil knew amazingly well and what Exxon Mobil then unfortunately did is in sharp contrast," said Rahmstorf.
Study debunks Exxon's excuses
The authors hope their findings will add weight to the ongoing and upcoming legal and political trials against Exxon Mobil.
These results confirmed that Exxon Mobil accurately foresaw the threat of human-caused global warming in parallel with, but also before, its lobbying and propaganda campaigns, the study authors write.
In 2019, the New York Attorney General's Office sued Exxon Mobil for misrepresenting climate change and deceiving investors. However, the responsible judge did not see sufficient evidence and acquitted the group.
There are a number of other lawsuits against the company. For example, because of climate damage, but also when it comes to deceiving the public, the last word may not have been spoken.
The allegations against other mineral oil companies are similar. Shell knew too long before the general public of the dangers of the climate crisis, as well BP and Total.
The next few years will show whether corporations that made money from the climate crisis and deceived the public will be held accountable.
lead author Geoffrey Supran from Harvard University is certain that the study exposed Exxon's excuses. "This is the nail in the coffin for Exxon Mobil's claims that the company has been wrongly accused of deliberate climate crimes."
| Current news+ | Background knowledge |
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Background knowledge
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Map of the nuclear world:
There are groundbreaking judgments on climate protection ...
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The internal search for
brought the following results, among others:
September 20, 2022 - Environmentalists plan class action against EU taxonomy
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December 21, 2021 - Climate lawsuits for 1,5 degrees
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May 28, 2021 - Shell loses climate case - The Hague judgment and the consequences
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YouTube
Keyword Search: Climate protection lawsuit
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Klimaschutz Klage
Videos:
January 5, 2023 - Handelsblatt - 2:03
Use of fossil fuels thwarts climate targets in Germany
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October 26, 2022 - Planet School
Right to climate protection? - The Supreme Court
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April 29, 2021 - daily news - 3:14
Federal Constitutional Court: Climate protection law unconstitutional in parts
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: climate lawsuits oil companies
https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=Klimaklagen Ölkonzerne
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Wikipedia
Climate change litigation
Climate change litigation deals with legal disputes over laws, acts or omissions related to climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Such legal proceedings are of particular importance in the USA and Australia, where the term climate change litigation or, more briefly, climate litigation, has become established primarily in relation to the Anglo-American legal system (common law), but also beyond that (e.g. in comparative literature).
In German-speaking countries, the term climate lawsuit is also used, mainly in journalistic texts and with an emphasis on the initiation of proceedings (lawsuit). The qualifier climate refers to the connection with climate protection and adaptation; Systematically, climate lawsuits can be assigned to different types of lawsuits and proceedings.
The first successful judgment on emission reductions against a state was finally confirmed by the Supreme Court in the Netherlands in 2019. The decision is also considered groundbreaking because, among other things, he considered the European Convention on Human Rights to be violated, which more than 40 countries have signed ...
Judgments
The German government's climate policy has long been criticized in the legal literature. With a decision of March 24, 2021, the Federal Constitutional Court declared parts of the Federal Climate Protection Act to be unconstitutional because the law irreversibly postpones high emission reduction burdens to periods after 2030; this is at the expense of the younger generation. Limiting anthropogenic global warming would then only be feasible with ever more urgent and short-term measures. Practically all constitutional liberties are potentially affected by this, because almost all areas of human life are still associated with the emission of greenhouse gases and are therefore threatened with drastic restrictions after 2030. The relative weight of the climate protection imperative in the consideration of advancing climate change continues to increase. According to Article 20a of the Basic Law, the natural foundations of life must be treated with care, they must be left to posterity in a condition “that future generations could not only preserve them at the price of radical self-restraint”. The legislature should therefore have taken precautions to mitigate these high burdens. The court obliged the legislator to regulate the reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions for the period after 2022 in more detail by the end of 2030. The reduction targets by 2030, on the other hand, are not objectionable, and complaints directed against them have been rejected. Four constitutional complaints were filed by mainly young people, supported by several environmental organizations, including Germanwatch, the Solar Energy Promotion Association Germany (SFV), the BUND (both of which also acted as plaintiffs themselves), the German Environmental Aid, Fridays for Future and Greenpeace.. .
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