Newsletter V 2023

January 29st to February 4th

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Nuclear Power Accidents

This PDF file contains a list of accidents and releases of radioactivity. Some of this information was only made public under the most difficult of circumstances. As new information emerges, this list will be expanded and updated...

Excerpt for this month:

5. February 1958 (Broken Arrow) Tybee Island, USA

6. February 1974 (INES 5) NPP Sosnovy Bor, USSR

13. February 1950 (Broken Arrow) Princess Royal Island, CAN

16. February 2011 (INES 2) NPP Tricastin, FRA

22. February 1977 (INES 4) NPP Jaslovke Bohunice, SVK

February 2010 (INES ? Class.?) NPP Vermont Yankee, USA

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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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4. February

Photovoltaics | electricity demand worldwide | land area

PV can cover global electricity needs on 0,3 percent of the land area

Underestimated so far

An international research group says in an article in the portal Joule (“Solar photovoltaics is ready to power a sustainable future”)that raw materials and the availability of land are not real obstacles to a global energy system based on solar energy. Accordingly, the forecasts for photovoltaic growth should not focus on large-scale power plants, but should also consider vertical systems, agri-photovoltaics and floating solar power plants as a source of future large market volumes. Because solar energy could theoretically cover the world's electricity needs on just 0,3 percent of the land area ...

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France | radioactive | Cattenom

Radiation accident in Cattenom - employee has radioactive particle in the face

An incident occurred at the Cattenom nuclear power plant in which an employee was exposed to radioactive radiation.

Another incident occurred at the Cattenom nuclear power plant. An employee came into contact with radioactive material during maintenance work in the third reactor block on Thursday. This was announced by the operator of the plant, the French energy company EDF. When the employee was examined for radiation as he left the nuclear zone, an external contamination was found on the worker's cheek, it is said...

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Brazil | Aircraft Carrier | toxic waste

Decommissioned aircraft carrier

Brazil sinks toxic waste ship

Despite protests, Brazil has sunk a ramshackle aircraft carrier full of toxic substances in the Atlantic. Environmentalists speak of a "30.000 ton poison package".

Despite protests from environmentalists, Brazil has sunk a highly ramshackle former aircraft carrier in the Atlantic. The Brazilian Navy said the six-decade-old warship was "controlled" sunk about 350 kilometers off the country's coast in the afternoon (local time). At the selected location, the sea depth is around 5000 meters.

Brazil's announcement that it would sink the former warship had led to violent protests. Environmental organizations spoke of an "environmental crime". Robin Wood called the former aircraft carrier a "30.000-ton poison package" ...

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Climate change | Global warming 2 degrees | tipping point

Global warming cracks two degrees already in the middle of the century

According to a new study, the probability that two degrees of global warming will be reached by the middle of the century is 50 percent. The 1,5 degree limit will be broken within the next ten years. The authors used artificial intelligence for the prediction.

Anyone who thinks about climate change almost inevitably has two numbers in their mind's eye: 1,5 degrees and two degrees. These are the two climate thresholds that 195 countries agreed on seven years ago as part of the Paris Agreement.

Global warming should be limited to “well below two degrees” compared to pre-industrial levels, it says. And efforts should be made to ensure that the temperature rise does not exceed 1,5 degrees.

A study published earlier this week now shows that these climate thresholds could be exceeded in just a few years. Noah Diffenbaugh of Stanford University and Elizabeth Barnes of Colorado State University in the US have determined that the 1,5 degree mark will be broken between 2033 and 2035.

The results regarding the two-degree threshold are particularly worrying. According to the study, this will be exceeded by 50 with a 2050 percent probability and by 70 with a 2054 percent probability...

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Plutonium | uranium fission | devil stuff

Plutonium is a real devil's stuff

[...]

Position 94 is like a blank on the periodic table. There isn't a single plutonium mine in the world. It occurs in the lowest femtogram concentration in the earth's crust. No one in the world could own a single gram of plutonium until 1942.

Dangerous potential

And then man discovered how to breed plutonium in nuclear reactors in large quantities by fissioning uranium - so much so far that it is enough to wipe out the earth five times.

Empty space in the periodic table

Now I ask: did God intentionally leave an empty slot 94 on the periodic table, or did he intend for man to usurp its artificial creation and thereby appropriate the potential to wipe out all life on the planet?

Anyone who seriously thinks about it as a true Christian must come to the conclusion that plutonium and the nuclear power that is necessarily associated with it are real devil stuff. And another nice greeting to the parties with the C in their names.

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CIA | Raw materials | Coup | Peru

The open veins of Peru

Great wealth in natural resources: On the background to the fall of President Castillo

[...]

Castillo wanted to dissolve parliament and call new elections in response to the fifth impeachment trial against him. Mauro Valderrama of the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP) suggested in a jW interview in December that Castillo was "manipulated by the armed forces in making this decision." As soon as the dissolution of parliament was announced, his ministers began to resign, and Bobbio turned the army against the president.

After Castillo was arrested and the previous Vice President Dina Boluarte was appointed head of state, Ambassador Kenna – according to press information also an employee of the US Secret Service CIA for nine years – met on January 18 with Óscar Vera Gargurevich, who after the »parliamentary Putsch« was appointed Minister for Energy and Mines on December 10, as well as deputy ministers from various departments. A "high-level institutional dialogue" took place between "Peru and the United States," the Peruvian ministry tweeted on the same day, which "discussed mining development issues"...

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3. February

profit security | Lützerath | violence monopoly

Security without police

Protests against social and climate injustice are increasingly being criminalized, said Lakshmi Thevasagayam after the eviction from Lützerath.

Lützerath may have been destroyed - but the bitter gain for the climate justice movement is that politicians, the "rule of law" and the police, who have the monopoly on the use of force, have revealed their ugly face and their inseparable liaison with greedy mega-corporations like RWE to the entire world.

Despite the unclear facts and the violation of fundamental rights through decades of politics against climate protection in the Rhenish lignite area, the Greens & Co. continue to play the betrayal of humanity loyally alongside RWE. The perversity of this government, which was elected on a 1,5 degree program, personified in the large contingent of police who wanted to use hasty and life-threatening means to set the record for the fastest eviction for a private company. The violence escalated during the large demo with over 35 people, where the majority decided to go in the direction of Lützerath. The violence they encountered was the first shake in the image of the police for many well-off white people. The first time that engineer Felix or kindergarten teacher Sabrina became the target of fists in the face, clubs and pepper spray. What is a potentially deadly reality for racialized and other marginalized people in Germany became clear in Lützerath: the police do not ensure the security of the people, they ensure the security of the state. And the state first and foremost protects the profits of corporations like RWE instead of the rights of every human being...

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Renewables | Agriculture | agrivoltaics

Agri-photovoltaics: Expansion is slowed down

Harvest and electricity from the field: With agri-photovoltaics, food and solar electricity can be produced on agricultural land at the same time. An amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2023) now allows such systems to be subsidised. However, smaller, elevated agro-solar systems below one megawatt in particular are not taken into account, which inhibits private expansion by individual farms. In addition, the approval process is still too complex, criticize researchers.

[...]

An amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2023) this year created the first framework conditions for the expansion of agricultural photovoltaics. In the future, it will be possible to receive financial support for electricity from PV systems on agricultural land, provided that the agricultural use of the area is not significantly restricted by the system. For high-mounted agricultural solar systems, the amendment also provides for an additional premium under certain conditions - with an output of more than one megawatt, for citizen solar systems from six megawatts - which is intended to compensate for the additional costs for the more complex substructure.

However, the scientists of the working group accompanying research in agri-photovoltaics do not consider this to be sufficient. In their view, there is great potential for expansion in smaller systems installed by individual farmers. "However, it seems much more likely that local farms will be able to afford the necessary investments for small systems in the range of a few 100 kilowatts rather than for large systems of one megawatt and more," say the researchers ...

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Moral | Tanks Fighter jets Missiles Nuclear weapons

Moralism: Why Greens are more enthusiastic about war than the CSU

Column Annalena Baerbock sees "us" already at war with Russia. It's not a slip of the tongue when Germany's top diplomat launches something like this. The Greens are driven by moralism and absoluteness. Why this is extremely dangerous

Those who are moral try to align their actions with the classification of good and evil. A moralist is someone who is certain that they are acting well and who does everything they can to ensure that everyone else sees it and acts as they imagine it. But is it good if moralism is booming in our times of war?

Of course, in this war it is not difficult to distinguish between the attacked and the attacker. However, moralism goes beyond moral judgment and evaluates cause, course and goal along the lines of good and evil. Then people are turned into monsters and an insight that is taught to young children is forgotten: Even people who behave like monsters remain people. It is also forgotten that wars are never just about morals, but rather about interests ...

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Climate protection | Autobahn | Wissing

Motorways and climate protection

The Transport Minister's plans: wider motorways for 30 billion euros

An analysis by the environmental organization BUND shows that Volker Wissing's plans would result in massive CO₂ emissions. An important factor is that more lanes will only lead to more traffic. Experts call for transport planning to be geared towards climate protection.

Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) wants to spend at least 30 billion euros over the next few years on widening motorways to six, eight and ten lanes and on expanding junctions. This emerges from an analysis by the environmental organization BUND, which is available to the editorial network Germany (RND).

These are 115 projects to eliminate bottlenecks, which are categorized in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan (BVWP) as "urgent needs" and "fixed projects" - with a route length of around 1300 kilometers. For these, the minister wants to enforce an “overriding public interest” in the federal government. That would bring accelerated approval procedures, which would eliminate the need to weigh up goods and examine nature- and climate-friendly alternatives...

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2. February

nuclear weapons research | LLNL | Nuclear fusion

Nuclear fusion research in the USA also serves military purposes

Questionable ignition

For the first time, more energy is said to have been released than was used in a nuclear fusion experiment. However, this is a question of the basis of calculation, and fusion research also serves military purposes.

"Call it the shot heard around the world." With these words, California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announced the success of an experiment that succeeded on December 5 last year in laser-induced nuclear fusion more releasing energy when the laser beams contained. US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm called the event a "major historic breakthrough" and "one of the most impressive scientific achievements of the 21st century." Now, she added proudly, it looks like the US is taking the lead in nuclear fusion.

The news made it onto the front pages worldwide as a scientific sensation, including the German media, of course. There was talk of a revolution in electricity production, the dawn of a new era and the prospect of one day being able to generate huge amounts of electricity. The Frankfurter Rundschau cheered loudest: »Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!' was her headline on nuclear fusion. "He" is the element symbol of helium, the element that is formed from hydrogen in nuclear fusion. The German Science Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) congratulated the LLNL effusively. It is amazing how similar these eulogies are to those of nuclear fission and conventional nuclear power plants half a century ago - and how little they do justice to the occasion...

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Climate change | Global Warming | climate deniers

Climate - is there something?

A survey of scientists sheds light on what motives people use to deny global warming.

If you feel caught doing something uncomfortable - just deny it. This tried-and-tested technique from childhood sometimes shines through into adult life for a surprisingly long time. For example on the subject of climate change. Why would you argue against the facts that the earth is not heating up? Sooner or later it will be very uncomfortable for everyone, including the deniers.

The news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) now asked experts about the main reasons why they think people deny climate change. "Fossil fuel companies have long funded climate misinformation propagated by conservative think tanks," said Brown University sociologist Robert Brulle. Capitalism and climate protection don't get along very well, of course.

Such as ex-US President Donald Trump's repeatedly tweeted claim that snowfall is proof against global warming. For the US at least, "People who vote conservative are more likely to be climate deniers," said John Cook, a researcher at Melbourne's Monash University and founder of climate-education site Skeptical Science.

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Ukraine war | Nuclear power Ukraine

Nuclear weapons for Kyiv?

Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksiy Makeyev wants a »discussion«. US delivers longer-range missiles

The Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, Oleksiy Makeyev, does not rule out that his country will have to return to its status as a nuclear power. Speaking to Deutsche Welle's Ukraine service on Tuesday, he said the security guarantees the 1994 Budapest Memorandum gave Ukraine in exchange for giving up its share of Soviet nuclear weapons were only on paper. Only having one's own nuclear weapons can provide reliable protection against an "aggressor like Russia." Makeyev avoided directly calling for Ukraine's return to nuclear status. All he said was that the discussion about how Ukraine could get reliable security guarantees had to start...

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France | EDF | Cattenom

After 16.000 maintenance jobs: Block 1 in Cattenom is back on the grid

Three of the four reactors at Cattenom are producing electricity again - while one block continues to replace or repair potentially cracked pipes. The French nuclear regulator recently identified deficiencies in quality management in the manufacture of spare parts.

Production unit one of the Cattenom nuclear power plant is producing electricity again. This emerges from a press release by the operator EDF, which was distributed by the CGDIS rescue corps in Luxembourg on Wednesday (February 1.2).

As a result, the reactor was reconnected to the national power grid during the night of February 1st. The personnel on site are now “continuing the tests and verifications so that the block can reach its maximum performance in the next few days and provide electricity to more than a million French people”, the statement reads...

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1. February

Great Britain | submarine reactor | Royal Navy

Oh, that's okay: nuclear submarine reactor repaired with super glue

A submarine costs a few euros or British pounds. Its operation and maintenance are also anything but cheap. In the case of a nuclear drive, the whole thing is also very sensitive - and repairs should not be carried out with home remedies.

But on board the British Navy's HMS Vanguard, the workers responsible for maintenance probably thought "it's up to you" and "repaired" damage with the simplest of means. As the British newspaper The Sun reports, workers on the nuclear-armed and operated submarine of the Trident class have repaired several broken bolts with an unspecified adhesive. The explosive thing about it: These were located in the reactor chamber of the ship. Specifically, it should have been the cooling pipes.

The matter was discovered during an inspection of the submarine, because one of the bolts came loose and fell to the ground. Subsequently, it was found that this was not the only case of this kind ...

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Australia | Radioactive Capsule | Cesium 137

After days of searching : Australia: Radioactive capsule found again

A radioactive capsule lost in transit in Western Australia has been found. Experts had searched a 1.400-kilometer route for days.

After days of searching, experts in Western Australia have found a radioactive capsule that had fallen from a truck. Response teams found the tiny and potentially very dangerous mining giant Rio Tinto capsule in the morning.

It was discovered about 50 kilometers south of the mining town of Newman. ABC reported on Wednesday, citing the region's government...

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Ukraine | negotiations | Armament

"After the tanks it's far from over"

Fighter jets and Ukraine's NATO membership are now being discussed. But critical voices are getting louder. Chancellor Scholz was rebuffed when he tried to include Brazil in the war front.

"We don't deliver weapons. Brazil is a country of peace." With these clear words, Brazilian President Lula rejected the attempts by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to include the largest country in South America in the front against Russia. That wasn't a surprise, since Lula was not the only one who made it clear during the election campaign that he sees responsibility on both sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Even his right-wing predecessor Bolsonaro remained neutral in the conflict.

[...]

Because it is always forgotten that after the Maidan coup, all parties that were fundamentally opposed to it were banned. In addition, the thoroughly reactionary orthodox church in Ukraine will be subjected to repression if it does not go along with the demanded break with Russia. In addition, many nominally left-wing parties are currently banned as pro-Russian. Only parties that stand on the ground of the Maidan coup are allowed.

In this respect, it could be said that bourgeois democracy is just as restricted in Ukraine as it is in Russia. Should a compromise be reached with Russia, these bans would have to be lifted. That would not mean the end of Ukraine, but a defeat of the Global West. That's why his character masks react so aggressively as soon as there is talk of compromises and negotiations...

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Lingen fuel element factory | Framatome | expansion plans

Fuel elements factory Lingen: nuclear opponents criticize expansion plans

According to regional anti-nuclear groups, the Federal Ministry for the Environment wants to check whether the fuel element factory at the nuclear power plant in Lingen (Emsland district) can be expanded. The opponents of nuclear power from Emsland refer to a letter from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, which is also available to the NDR in Lower Saxony. Accordingly, the owner, the French nuclear company Framatome, has submitted an application to enlarge the plant ...

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Denmark | Renewables | Power-to-X

Superlative energy park in Denmark

A hybrid power plant with a total of 4 gigawatts of generation capacity from photovoltaic and wind power is being built in West Jutland. The electricity is to be fed into a continuous electrolysis process on site with an output of two gigawatts.

Megaton is the name of the huge energy park that is to be built in Ringkøbing-Skjern in Denmark. The goal: to produce one million tons of green fuels annually with renewable energies. The plans and the financing are in place, and the energy park is scheduled to go into operation before 2030. The scale of the project is extraordinary. Denmark is setting a milestone in the Power-to-X industry and hydrogen economy. GreenGo Energy is in charge of realizing the project.

The term Power-to-X summarizes technologies that store excess electricity from renewable energies or use it in other ways, for example to generate hydrogen or gas ...

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31. January

Renewables | Extension | Autobahn

FDP brakes wind power with autobahns: finally ignite the turbo

The federal government must be more research-oriented towards the federal states and demand a faster expansion of renewables. Bavaria and the FDP brake.

Never before has a federal government done so much to expand renewable energies as the red-green-yellow coalition. The new laws and the projects that have been launched are intended to greatly speed up the approval procedures for wind power and solar systems. It's good.

But: It is not clear whether this will really get the turbo boost conjured up by politicians going. The ambitious expansion goals for the renewables of the Green Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck are still nothing more than a promise. What is certain is that wind and solar energy will not go as quickly as the construction of the controversial liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals - if only because the expansion of renewables is much more complex.

[...]

Above all, the federal government must not thwart the intended renewables turbo through its own policies. If the FDP prevails with its demand for the accelerated construction of new motorways, the expansion will be severely slowed down. Because then there will be a lack of skilled workers, material and resources in the authorities that are urgently needed for the energy transition. That would be fatal...

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Lingen fuel element factory | Framatome | Rosatom

Expansion plans for the fuel element factory in Lingen

BMUV plans "federal supervisory examination" - uranium factory is "significantly changed" - secret "preliminary examination" in Hanover

Nuclear infrastructure under Russian influence? - Framatome already licensed by Rosatom?

The Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUV) is planning a "federal supervisory examination" of the application for approval by the French nuclear company Framatome to expand the fuel element factory in Lingen. This test takes place before a decision is made by the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment (NMU). The BMUV informed the action alliance Münsterland against nuclear plants on request. In addition, the BMUV confirmed that the application was submitted by Framatome in accordance with Section 7 (1) of the Atomic Energy Act. This paragraph applies when a nuclear facility or its operations are "substantially modified". It includes mandatory public participation with presentation of the documents and a public hearing.

The BMUV left open whether a new "investment review procedure" at federal level would be necessary in view of the participation of the Kremlin group Rosatom in Framatome's nuclear plans in Lingen...

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Energy transition | Investment | Renewables | fossil

For the first time, the world is investing more in the energy transition than in fossil fuels

But a "nuclear renaissance" is still not in sight.

According to the Bloomberg Energy Finance Report (BNEF) 2022, the world community has invested more in the energy transition towards renewable energies than in fossil-fuel infrastructure, at 1,1 trillion US dollars. Including the necessary infrastructure investments such as e-mobility or electric heating, this means growth of 2021% compared to 31.

Investments in renewable energies such as solar, wind, bioenergy and hydropower make up the lion's share at 495 billion US dollars, followed by 466 billion in the electrification of transport.

[...]

What is significant, however, is that investments in nuclear energy will remain at a very low level in 2022, with virtually no growth. The nuclear lobby's whole incantation of the so-called "nuclear renaissance" thus turns out to be what it really is: helpless pro-nuclear propaganda, devoid of any substance in reality...

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Belgium | Tihange | Cracks | shutdown

Of cracks, protests and human chains:

Today Tihange 2 goes offline

The controversial Belgian nuclear reactor Tihange 2 has been keeping people in the Aachen city region busy for over a decade, but also in the Düren and Heinsberg districts. The most important facts.

In Belgium, the controversial Tihange 2 nuclear reactor will be finally shut down on Tuesday. According to Engie, the process begins at 18.30:2012 p.m., and the kiln should be switched off shortly before midnight. Why the kiln was so controversial: It all starts in 2. At that time it became known that there were hairline cracks in the reactor pressure vessels in the two Belgian nuclear reactors Tihange 3 in Huy and Doel 60 near Antwerp. The explosive thing: The Belgian nuclear power plant Tihange is only about 1 kilometers away from the city limits of Aachen as the crow flies. Initially only opponents of nuclear power took to the streets against Tihange, but as more and more new incidents and studies related to Tihange became known, people's concerns increased and in the end an entire region was affected. On February 31st, or more precisely on January 23.59st at 2 p.m., Tihange XNUMX is now going offline. It's been a long road to get there. An overview ...

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Corrupt | Transparency International | autocracy

Germany target of corrupt autocracies

Transparency International warns of corruption by autocracies and has called on the federal government to fight against it more decisively. Germany slipped down one place in the global ranking.

The anti-corruption organization Transparency International Germany has called on the federal government to make combating bribery and corruption a priority. At the same time, the organization warned against attempts at corruption from abroad.

"Around the world, autocratic states are using corruption as a weapon to assert their interests and undermine political, social and economic stability in democratic countries," warned Alexandra Herzog, Chair of Transparency Germany. The main targets are Europe and Germany, as the so-called "Qatargate" affair recently showed, she said at the presentation of the Corruption Perceptions Index 2022...

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Mine | energy storage | mine shaft

Old mines as energy storage

Sand transport in mine shafts could help store excess electricity

A new kind of pumped storage: Old mines could help to balance out excess electricity and store energy – with the help of sand and gravity, researchers suggest. When sand is lowered down the mine shaft via an elevator system, a connected generator produces electricity that can be fed into the grid. If, on the other hand, there is a surplus of electricity, this can be used to bring the sand deposited in the mine back to the surface. Such mine storage systems would have a capacity of up to 70 terawatt hours worldwide.

There are large daily and seasonal fluctuations in the generation of electricity from the sun and wind. While short-term fluctuations in supply and demand in the power grid can be compensated for by special batteries or chemical storage such as hydrogen, pumped storage in the form of reservoirs has so far mostly been used for larger, longer-term fluctuations. However, they require a lot of space and cannot be implemented everywhere.

That is why scientists have long been looking for ways to install such pumped storage systems that use the latent energy of gravity below the surface - for example in the form of underwater storage tanks on the bottom of lakes or compressed air reservoirs in the seabed. An underground pumped storage power plant in a former colliery in the Ruhr area was also considered, but not implemented due to the high costs.

sand instead of water

Julian Hunt from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria and his colleagues are now proposing another alternative. Their idea: to use sand instead of water as a storage medium for underground pump storage - and mines instead of reservoirs as a storage location. "Mines already have the necessary infrastructure and are connected to the electricity grid, which reduces costs and makes it easier to convert to such pumped storage," explains Hunt ...

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30. January

Switzerland | Nuclear lobby | Blackout

The nuclear lobby finances the popular initiative "Stop Blackout"

The nuclear lobby wants to reverse the phasing out of nuclear energy and has launched a popular initiative under a false name.

Since August 2022, an illustrious committee has been collecting signatures for the popular initiative “Electricity for everyone at any time (stop blackout)”. Behind the committee are exponents of the FDP, the center, the SVP, the lobby organization Energie Club Schweiz, the former director of the Federal Office of Energy Eduard Kiener and the former deputy general director of the International Energy Agency.

The initiative is financed by the "Foundation for a secure power supply", a sub-foundation of the Fondation des fondateurs. Behind it is the family of multi-millionaire Daniel S. Aegerter, major investor and co-founder of "Energy for humanity". This NGO is a lobby organization for the promotion of nuclear energy in Switzerland and worldwide. In Switzerland it was registered as a sub-foundation of the Fondation des Fondateurs from 2016 to 2021. Energy for Humanity was founded in 2014 because the catastrophic consequences of climate change cannot be stopped without nuclear energy.

These financiers of the popular initiative are not disclosed ...

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Australia | radioactive capsule | Cesium 137

Search for radioactive mini-capsule – mining giant Rio Tinto apologizes

The radioactive capsule is smaller than a 10p coin - and it was lost somewhere along a 1400km route in Western Australia. The authorities are feverishly looking for her. And now announced new details.

In Australia, the search for a tiny radioactive capsule is in full swing. The authorities in the state of Western Australia are now also using new radiation detection devices that can be attached to vehicles. Fire and rescue teams had previously searched the busy freight route with portable radiation and metal detectors.

In addition, British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto apologized for the incident. The millimeter-sized capsule had apparently fallen from a truck while being transported from a mine north of the mining town of Newman to a depot near the city of Perth - according to the latest information, sometime after January 12 and somewhere along the 1400-kilometer route. 

The loss of the capsule containing the highly radioactive cesium-137, measuring just six by eight millimetres, had caused great concern among the authorities in Western Australia given the very dangerous material. Anyone who discovers something that looks like a tiny capsule should keep a distance of at least five meters, they said …

IMHO

Since we lack a corresponding sensory organ, we cannot perceive the presence of radioactive substances.

Detecting a 6 x 8 mm object from a distance of 5 meters is practically impossible. So whoever finds this capsule has already received a dose of radioactivity as a finder's reward.

Do not touch, leave it and remove it as quickly as possible!

The careless handling of radioactive material runs through history (The uranium story), since the "Pechblende" was in the way of the miners during silver mining in Joachimsthal from 1516 and was therefore mentioned for the first time. The discovery of radiation by Antoine-Henri Becquerel 380 years later changed little. The fact that Marie Curie had inadvertently exposed herself and her daughter to high levels of radiation got around over time, but by the 1900s nobody really cared outside of the scientific community.

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Energy transition | rare earth | Battery | energy storage

New battery technology: the energy transition has no storage problem

It is often said that there is not enough storage for fluctuating solar and wind power. The resources for this are also scarce and dirty. This is wrong, especially with regard to new storage technologies.

Proponents of nuclear power and internal combustion engines often argue that storage facilities cannot be built sufficiently to compensate for the fluctuations in solar and wind power. They also claim that battery storage would require many rare and problematic materials. The resulting import dependencies would prevent the rapid conversion to 100 percent renewable energies, including e-mobility.

In their supposedly scientific investigations, they extrapolate the material requirements that are currently used in the most common batteries and storage systems. As a result, they often come to the conclusion that the energy transition cannot take place.

The discussions focus on lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earths.

On the one hand, such "studies" are intended to prove that there are too few of these materials and that they can therefore only be obtained with ecological and social dumping. However, these claims are a transparent maneuver by the fossil and nuclear industry lobby to give nuclear, coal or natural gas power plants and oil cars a legitimation...

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29. January

Africa | Electricity price | Renewable energies | Egypt

In Egypt: Construction begins on Africa's largest solar power plant

560 MW solar park Kom Ombo near Abydos: electricity for 2 ct/kWh

AMEA Power, one of the fastest growing renewable energy companies in the Middle East, says it has reached financial close for the delivery of 1 GW of renewable energy projects in Egypt and started construction in early January 2023. The groundbreaking 500MW wind and 560MW solar projects represent a $1,1 billion investment in Egypt's economy, raising the company's clean energy portfolio in the country to 2GW, according to AMEA Power - the Company will develop, own and operate Africa's largest solar power plant, Kom Ombo Abydos, to be built in Egypt's Aswan Governorate...

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Lützerath | Resistance

end legend

What have you not done to bury me, but you forgot that I am a seed

The fight for Lützerath is over, the fight for the exit from the world of fossil energy, for social peace and for democracy goes on. Five years and five days that opened a new chapter in the climate movement - more diverse than ever, united like never before. A Resistance Diary.

It's been five years since RWE demolished the "Immerather Dom" to make more space for the Garzweiler lignite mine. In just two days, the landmark with the twin towers visible from afar was razed to the ground.

Then the many cameras moved on. The dust settled and it became quiet in Keyenberger Land.

In mid-2020, RWE will take road 277 from the villages on the edge of the pit. Again, it only takes two days to reduce the three-kilometer road to rubble.

If the calculation behind the great haste was that dead silence would return after the destruction, the calculation no longer works out ...

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Nuclear power plant Emsland | Activists | Safety

Activists block access to the Emsland nuclear power plant

In protest against continued operation, around 30 climate activists blocked access to the Emsland nuclear power plant on Sunday with a "non-violent sit-in". The police described the action as peaceful. The activists announced "major civil disobedience actions" in the event that a further extension of the term is discussed. The Emsland nuclear power plant should actually have been shut down at the turn of the year. Due to the energy crisis, however, the federal government had decided that the reactor - just like Isar 2 in Bavaria and Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg - should remain online until mid-April.

Initiative: Nuclear power plants no longer meet safety standards

All three nuclear power plants were built in the 80s "old reactors that no longer meet the currently required safety standards," criticized Clara Tempel from the "Shut Down" initiative. The last major safety checks would have taken place in 2009 ...

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Argentina | Energy transition | Lithium

Lithium in Argentina "We cannot sacrifice nature"

Chancellor Scholz's trip to South America is also about raw materials - especially lithium. In Argentina, however, there is resistance to mining - environmentalists fear that nature will be sold out.

Farmer Clemente Flores likes to laugh and talk about his family and his llamas. On one subject, however, he becomes serious, almost angry. It's about the raw material lithium. "We are destroying the region's ecosystem with all its life so that it will be believed elsewhere to be green energy," he says. "But it's not. Green energy is just a business."

[...]

Argentina is also looking for partners, the country has been in an economic crisis for years, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. The country recorded about 95 percent inflation in 2022, a sad record in the last three decades. The export of energy could be a way out of the crisis, says economics expert Esteban Medrano. "After all, Argentina has some advantages that it must try to use for economic productivity." This includes "both the use of traditional energies and the possibility of generating renewable energies."

Population fears sell-off

In Alfarcito, the indigenous people are very critical of this argument. Argentina is in a weak position because it needs money. Flores even fears a sell-off. In his opinion, they live here from and with nature and have not contributed to climate change. But their environment should now be used for the green transition in Germany, without the consequences being really clear.

Together they inscribe a huge balloon: "All together we protect our water", is written on it. With the wind and the warmth of the sun, they let it rise into the sky. According to Flores, it is a small contribution for more visibility, "to show everyone that there is life here".

You can see the detailed report on the subject in Weltspiegel - on Sunday at 18:30 p.m. in the first.

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Current news+

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Lützerath | mud monk | Police | Resistance

Controversy about Lützerath

Je suis mud monk

The "mud monk" pushed a policeman in the fight for Lützerath. But not everyone found it funny. This is absurd in view of the violent action taken by the emergency services, says our columnist.

Everything about Lützerath is just wrong. So everything was wrong. All. It doesn't help either to come to terms with the law and to justify the demolition of a village for the profits of the environmental pig RWE with any decisions of the highest courts and constitutional processes - as the CDU man and Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst, did on Deutschlandfunk has done. Just as it was okay for Green Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck to negotiate climate-damaging lignite deals with the RWE boss.

It doesn't get any more fucked up: act like an edgy climate boy and let yourself be elected with climate rescue on the flags, to then bury the 1,5 degree target with bucket wheel excavator monsters in Garzweiler II with SPD and FDP and get your backbone from corporations to let it bend. The only good thing about Lützerath was that the whole world could watch Germany make a fool of itself. And that this truth had to be spoken by a 20-year-old Greta Thunberg because the government lacks insight into the incompatibility of neoliberalism and climate rescue.

Yeah okay, that was the second good. The best thing about Lützerath, however, was a demonstrator who went viral at the final large demo against the demolition of Lützerath: the "mud monk". No shit. I can't remember the last time I laughed for so long at an internet video, even though the context itself was anything but funny. But this nine-minute masterpiece - also filmed by Oberweirdo Martin Lejeune - had gilded my weekend: police officers in full street fighting gear fight in almost Renaissance-like painting aesthetics with the mud on the huge open field in front of the brown coal crater, stuck stuck, fall over, struggle to help each other up again - only to fall right back into the merciless dirt.

Mud magician brings police to their knees

When I first saw the video, I couldn't believe how good the scenes were, oscillating between Michelangelo, theater of the absurd and the 1920s slapstick flicks from Men without Nerves. Not to mention the woman at the beginning of the video, who was completely upset and a quarter mad in the middle of the mud spectacle, nagging something about "reaching hands" and "democracy".

And then suddenly he came into the picture: a monk. A fucking monk! So a demonstrator dressed as a monk who, in contrast to the mud-covered officers, glides effortlessly over the mud and dances around the heavily armored cops, patting them on the shoulder and holding a sign that reads "Lützi stays" in front of one held captive by the mud police officers in the mud.

Stoi Polipop... hold it mud monk!

When he manages to get up, he angrily pulls the sign out of the ground and demonstratively throws it away - only to be pushed back into the mud by the "mud monk". Slapstick at its finest. The shove scene quickly turned into countless memes and other forms of internet art. It wasn't long before the video made it onto the Reddit homepage and became internationally known: "German riot police defeated and humiliated by some kind of mud wizard".

The mud monk from Lützerath became the "mud wizard" in the US Internet forum - a "mud magician" who brought the police to their knees with magical abilities (his "mud spell"). One can hate the internet for many reasons, but for the fact that only the internet holds such gold, one has to love it. Conventional media couldn't avoid the mud monk either: a few days later, even the features section of "Zeit" published an interview with the "top German Franciscan" to answer the question: "Would a real monk push police officers?" For the "real" monk it is clear: "He", i.e. the mud monk, "acted wrongly when he pushed the police officers into the mud. It may look funny, but he takes advantage of their helplessness". Then the Franciscan tells how he himself, as a member of the order, would have been present at demonstrations of the peace movement in the 1990s and would have dumped piles of sand in front of the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt to prevent the bankers from being able to drive into the underground car park - but resistance to the police: No go!

Mud monk was celebrated and insulted

And that's exactly how the other side saw it in the meme and on social media. Such hypocrites are "the left". Would always preach to stand up for the weak and then pick "the weakest" and "beat" them. Just like at school! The same people who are laughing now would probably always have chosen "the weakest" - and such people want to "woke" to be leftists. Boo-hoo-hoo. As full as the Internet was with "mud wizard" anthems, it was also full on the day of the Lützerath mud fight with highly emotional expressions of sympathy for the poor "friends and helpers" who broke their noses with batons, pepper spray, water cannons, dogs and horses against People used – and were thrown at with mud.

It's really perverse how the police, even in crystal-clear moments of systemic enmity, can always be sure of social backing. Even in settings like Lützerath, where police officers used physical force to defend corporate interests against those who pay for them with their tax money, the friendly, paternalistic narrative of the "friend and helper" from the Weimar Republic holds up. Prussian rule showed what the police were primarily installed for: harassing workers and the poor through sanctions and regulations and protecting the private property of the wealthy. And yet the majority of the population still considers the police to be the most trustworthy institution in the Federal Republic, because they are apparently privileged or adjusted enough not to critically question the police system. And the more the crybabies wail with their guns – i.e. constantly – the stronger the backing in society. A tragedy.

Of course, the police in Lützerath also complained endlessly so as not to gamble away points of pity and to construct reasons for more state funds. After their commitment to the energy company, the police union (GdP) in Saxony-Anhalt announced their sheer horror in a press release that there were actually people who had a problem with their "excellent work": "That colleagues in who have been ridiculed, reviled, attacked and even knocked over in defenseless and helpless situations can no longer be surpassed in terms of inhumanity, contempt and baseness." The state police on site are given “great respect” and colleagues will be given “a comprehensive offer to reflect on the operation when they return”.

As if they came from the war. A war against the unarmed. Where they moved voluntarily and paid to stand around a village that a lignite company has taken over. With the mining of the underlying coal, the 1,5-degree target laughingly mocked. With good reason and a constitutional state that has allowed people to be expropriated so that a billion-dollar company can buy the land of an entire village in order to rake in even more money with state support and to shit on people and the environment. Uff. Everything just wrong. And then the edgy climate minister stands up and discredits the demonstration in front of Lützerath, where no one lives anymore, as a "false symbol". How finished can a young adult novelist be? If you don't become a mud monk in the face of this political farce, you really can't be helped anymore.

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Background knowledge

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Map of the nuclear world:

Each of these almost 1200 points on the map is a reason for resistance...

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The internal search for

Resistance

brought the following results, among others:

January 05, 2023 - We've already won

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November 06, 2022 - Penalties for activists: And what about the climate?

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December 14, 2021 - Nobel Prize winners call for two percent disarmament for the climate

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November 01, 2021 - From now on, without delay

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YouTube

Keyword search: political resistance

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=politischer Widerstand

Videos:

angel asks - hr - 29:32

Breaking laws for the climate?

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climate:neutral - 11:24

War: Fatal for people and the climate!

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phoenix-2017-44:08

Wild West at the Wismut - atomic bombs from the Ore Mountains

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arte - 59:48

The True Story of the 1st Gulf War

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Raw data dump - arte documentation - 01:38:43

Documentary: Why We Fight - America's Wars - The Military-Industrial Complex

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: political resistance

https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=politischer Widerstand

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Wikipedia

resistance (politics)

Resistance is the refusal to obey or active opposition to the authorities or the government.

It is initially of secondary importance whether the rulers against whom resistance is being exercised exercise their rule legally, legitimately or illegally. Evaluations such as "justified resistance", goals and means of resistance, moral and legal concerns require an observer's point of view: it depends on who, where and at what time the evaluation is made. The resister will always evaluate the resistance differently than the one against whom the resistance is directed. The latter, however, is usually the "authority" who at the same time has the power to define law and order. Accordingly, resistance is outside the set order.

background and demarcation

Resistance as a form of social and political debate has been anchored in European political culture since ancient times. In almost all forms of society there was or is a consensus that resistance can be necessary and legitimate in certain cases. In specific cases, opinions sometimes differ.

Resistance must be distinguished from revolution because it is not fundamentally aimed at reforming the social order. In certain circumstances, the restoration of an old law or a legal system that has been repealed can be the central concern. Nevertheless, a movement that started as a resistance can lead to a revolution...

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Newsletter IV 2023 - January 22nd to 28th

Newspaper article 2023

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